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+Project Gutenberg's The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Rossiter Johnson, Charles Horne And John Rudd
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2005 [EBook #16352]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Jared Ryan Buck and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+BY
+
+FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
+THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
+IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
+
+NON-SECTARIAN            NON-PARTISAN            NON-SECTIONAL
+
+ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
+DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
+INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
+NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
+BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING
+
+
+EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
+
+ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+
+ASSOCIATE EDITORS
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+_With a staff of specialists_
+
+
+_VOLUME 1_
+
+
+
+The National Alumni
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1905,
+
+By THE NATIONAL ALUMNI
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+
+_General Introduction_
+
+
+_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_
+  CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+_Dawn of Civilization_ (_B.C. 5867_)
+  G.C.C. MASPERO
+
+_Compilation of the Earliest Code_ (_B.C. 2250_)
+  HAMMURABI
+
+_Theseus Founds Athens_ (_B.C. 1235_)
+  PLUTARCH
+
+_The Formation of the Castes in India_ (_B.C. 1200_)
+  GUSTAVE LE BON
+  W.W. HUNTER
+
+_Fall of Troy_ (_B.C. 1184_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Accession of Solomon_
+_Building of the Temple at Jerusalem_ (_B.C. 1017_)
+  HENRY HART MILMAN
+
+_Rise and Fall of Assyria_
+_Destruction of Nineveh_ (_B.C. 789_)
+  F. LENORMANT AND E. CHEVALLIER
+
+_The Foundation of Rome_ (_B.C. 753_)
+  BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR
+
+_Prince Jimmu Founds Japan's Capital_ (_B.C. 660_)
+  SIR EDWARD REED
+  THE "NEHONGI"
+
+_The Foundation of Buddhism_ (_B.C. 623_)
+  THOMAS W. RHYS-DAVIDS
+
+_Pythian Games at Delphi_ (_B.C. 585_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Solon's Early Greek Legislation_ (_B.C. 594_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Conquests of Cyrus the Great_ (_B.C. 550_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Rise of Confucius, the Chinese Sage_ (_B.C. 550_)
+  R.K. DOUGLAS
+
+_Rome Established as a Republic_
+_Institution of Tribunes_ (_B.C. 510-494_)
+  HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL
+
+_The Battle of Marathon_ (_B.C. 490_)
+  SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
+
+_Invasion of Greece by Persians under Xerxes_
+_Defence of Thermopylæ_ (_B.C. 480_)
+  HERODOTUS
+
+_Universal Chronology_ (_B.C. 5867-451_)
+  JOHN RUDD
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+
+_Sphinx, with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh_ (_page 12_)
+Frontispiece From an original photograph.
+
+_The Rosetta Stone, and Description_
+Facsimile of original in the British Museum.
+
+_The Sabine Women_--_now mothers_--_suing for peace between the
+combatants_ (_their Roman husbands and their Sabine relatives_)
+Painting by Jacques L. David.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+BY
+
+FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+General Introduction
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS is the answer to a problem which
+has long been agitating the learned world. How shall real history, the
+ablest and profoundest work of the greatest historians, be rescued from
+its present oblivion on the dusty shelves of scholars, and made welcome
+to the homes of the people?
+
+THE NATIONAL ALUMNI, an association of college men, having given this
+question long and earnest discussion among themselves, sought finally
+the views of a carefully elaborated list of authorities throughout
+America and Europe. They consulted the foremost living historians and
+professors of history, successful writers in other fields, statesmen,
+university and college presidents, and prominent business men. From this
+widely gathered consensus of opinions, after much comparison and sifting
+of ideas, was evolved the following practical, and it would seem
+incontrovertible, series of plain facts. And these all pointed toward
+"THE GREAT EVENTS."
+
+In the first place, the entire American public, from top to bottom of
+the social ladder, are at this moment anxious to read history. Its
+predominant importance among the varied forms of literature is fully
+recognized. To understand the past is to understand the future. The
+successful men in every line of life are those who look ahead, whose
+keen foresight enables them to probe into the future, not by magic, but
+by patiently acquired knowledge. To see clearly what the world has done,
+and why, is to see at least vaguely what the world will do, and when.
+
+Moreover, no man can understand himself unless he understands others;
+and he cannot do that without some idea of the past, which has produced
+both him and them. To know his neighbors, he must know something of the
+country from which they came, the conditions under which they formerly
+lived. He cannot do his own simple duty by his own country if he does
+not know through what tribulations that country has passed. He cannot be
+a good citizen, he cannot even vote honestly, much less intelligently,
+unless he has read history. Fortunately the point needs little urging.
+It is almost an impertinence to refer to it. We are all anxious, more
+than anxious to learn--_if only the path of study be made easy_.
+
+Can this be accomplished? Can the vanishing pictures of the past be made
+as simply obvious as mathematics, as fascinating as a breezy novel of
+adventure? Genius has already answered, yes. Hand to a mere boy
+Macaulay's sketch of Warren Hastings in India, and the lad will see as
+easily as if laid out upon a map the host of interwoven and elaborate
+problems that perplexed the great administrator. Offer to the youngest
+lass the tale told by Guizot of King Robert of France and his struggle
+to retain his beloved wife Bertha. Its vivid reality will draw from the
+girl's heart far deeper and truer tears than the most pathetic romance.
+
+We begin to realize that in very truth History has been one vast
+stupendous drama, world-embracing in its splendor, majestic, awful,
+irresistible in the insistence of its pointing finger of fate. It has
+indeed its comic interludes, a Prussian king befuddling ambassadors in
+his "Tobacco Parliament"; its pauses of intense and cumulative suspense,
+Queen Louise pleading to Napoleon for her country's life; but it has
+also its magnificent pageants, its gorgeous culminating spectacles of
+wonder. Kings and emperors are but the supernumeraries upon its boards;
+its hero is the common man, its plot his triumph over ignorance, his
+struggle upward out of the slime of earth.
+
+_Yet the great historians are not being widely read_. The ablest and
+most convincing stories of his own development seem closed against the
+ordinary man. Why? In the first place, the works of the masters are too
+voluminous. Grote's unrivalled history of Greece fills ten large and
+forbidding volumes. Guizot takes thirty-one to tell a portion of the
+story of France. Freeman won credit in the professorial world by
+devoting five to the detailing of a single episode, the Norman Conquest.
+Surely no busy man can gather a general historic knowledge, if he must
+read such works as these! We are told that the great library of Paris
+contains over four hundred thousand volumes and pamphlets on French
+history alone. The output of historic works in all languages approaches
+ten thousand volumes every year. No scholar, even, can peruse more than
+the smallest fraction of this enormously increasing mass. Herodotus is
+forgotten, Livy remains to most of us but a recollection of our
+school-days, and Thucydides has become an exercise in Greek.
+
+There is yet another difficulty. Even the honest man who tries, who
+takes down his Grote or Freeman, heroically resolved to struggle through
+it at all speed, fails often in his purpose. He discovers that the
+greatest masters nod. Sometimes in their slow advance they come upon a
+point that rouses their enthusiasm; they become vigorous, passionate,
+sarcastic, fascinating, they are masters indeed. But the fire soon dies,
+the inspiration flags, "no man can be always on the heights," and the
+unhappy reader drowses in the company of his guide.
+
+This leads us then to one clear point. From these justly famous works a
+selection should be made. Their length should be avoided, their prosy
+passages eliminated; the one picture, or perhaps the many pictures,
+which each master has painted better than any rival before or since,
+that and that alone should be preserved.
+
+Read in this way, history may be sought with genuine pleasure. It is
+only pedantry has made it dreary, only blindness has left it dull. The
+story of man is the most wonderful ever conceived. It can be made the
+most fascinating ever written.
+
+With this idea firmly established in mind, we seek another line of
+thought. The world grows smaller every day. Russia fights huge battles
+five thousand miles from her capital. England governs India. Spain and
+the United States contend for empire in the antipodes. Our rapidly
+improving means of communication, electric trains, and, it may be,
+flying machines, cables, and wireless telegraphy, link lands so close
+together that no man lives to-day the subject of an isolated state.
+Rather, indeed, do all the kingdoms seem to shrink, to become but
+districts in one world-including commonwealth.
+
+To tell the story of one nation by itself is thus no longer possible.
+Great movements of the human race do not stop for imaginary boundary
+lines thrown across a map. It was not the German students, nor the
+Parisian mob, nor the Italian peasants who rebelled in 1848; it was the
+"people of Europe" who arose against their oppressors. To read the
+history of one's own country only is to get distorted views, to
+exaggerate our own importance, to remain often in densest ignorance of
+the real meaning of what we read. The ideas American school-boys get of
+the Revolution are in many cases simply absurd, until they have been
+modified by wider reading.
+
+From this it becomes very evident that a good history now must be, not a
+local, but a world history. The idea of such a work is not new. Diodorus
+penned one two hundred years before Christ. But even then the tale took
+forty books; and we have been making history rather rapidly since
+Diodorus' time. Of the many who have more recently attempted his task,
+few have improved upon his methods; and the best of these works only
+shows upon a larger scale the same dreariness that we have found in
+other masters.
+
+Let us then be frank and admit that no one man can make a thoroughly
+good world history. No one man could be possessed of the almost infinite
+learning required; none could have the infinite enthusiasm to delight
+equally in each separate event, to dwell on all impartially and yet
+ecstatically. So once more we are forced back upon the same conclusion.
+We will take what we already have. We will appeal to each master for the
+event in which he did delight, the one in which we find him at his best.
+
+This also has been attempted before, but perhaps in a manner too
+lengthy, too exact, too pedantic to be popular. The aim has been to get
+in everything. Everything great or small has been narrated, and so the
+real points of value have been lost in the multiplicity of lesser facts,
+about which no ordinary reader cares or needs to care. After all, what
+we want to know and remember are the Great Events, the ones which have
+really changed and influenced humanity. How many of us do really know
+about them? or even know what they are? or one-twentieth part of them?
+And until we know, is it not a waste of time to pore over the lesser
+happenings between?
+
+Yet the connection between these events must somehow be shown. They must
+not stand as separate, unrelated fragments. If the story of the world is
+indeed one, it must be shown as one, not even broken by arbitrary
+division into countries, those temporary political constructions, often
+separating a single race, lines of imaginary demarcation, varying with
+the centuries, invisible in earth's yesterday, sure to change if not to
+perish in her to-morrow. Moreover, such a system of division
+necessitates endless repetition. Each really important occurrence
+influences many countries, and so is told of again and again with
+monotonous iteration and extravagant waste of space.
+
+It may, however, be fairly urged that the story should vary according to
+the country for which it is designed. To our individual lives the events
+happening nearest prove most important. Great though others be, their
+influence diminishes with their increasing distance in space and time.
+For the people of North America the story of the world should have the
+part taken by America written large across the pages.
+
+From all these lines of reasoning arose the present work, which the
+National Alumni believe has solved the problem. It tells the story of
+the world, tells it in the most famous words of the most famous writers,
+makes of it a single, continued story, giving the results of the most
+recent research. Yet all dry detail has been deliberately eliminated;
+the tale runs rapidly and brightly. Whatever else may happen, the reader
+shall not yawn. Only important points are dwelt on, and their relative
+value is made clear.
+
+Each volume of THE GREAT EVENTS opens with a brief survey of the period
+with which it deals. The broad world movements of the time are pointed
+out, their importance is emphasized, their mutual relationship made
+clear. If the reader finds his interest specially roused in one of these
+events, and he would learn more of it, he is aided by a directing note,
+which, in each case, tells him where in the body of the volume the
+subject is further treated. Turning thither he may plunge at once into
+the fuller account which he desires, sure that it will be both vivid and
+authoritative; in short, the best-known treatment of the subject.
+
+Meanwhile the general survey, being thus relieved from the necessity of
+constant explanation, expansion, and digression, is enabled to flow
+straight onward with its story, rapidly, simply, entertainingly. Indeed,
+these opening sketches, written especially for this series, and in a
+popular style, may be read on from volume to volume, forming a book in
+themselves, presenting a bird's-eye view of the whole course of earth,
+an ideal world history which leaves the details to be filled in by the
+reader at his pleasure. It is thus, we believe, and thus only, that
+world history can be made plain and popular. The great lessons of
+history can thus be clearly grasped. And by their light all life takes
+on a deeper meaning.
+
+The body of each volume, then, contains the Great Events of the period,
+ranged in chronological order. Of each event there are given one,
+perhaps two, or even three complete accounts, not chosen hap-hazard, but
+selected after conference with many scholars, accounts the most accurate
+and most celebrated in existence, gathered from all languages and all
+times. Where the event itself is under dispute, the editors do not
+presume to judge for the reader; they present the authorities upon both
+sides. The Reformation is thus portrayed from the Catholic as well as
+the Protestant standpoint. The American Revolution is shown in part as
+England saw it; and in the American Civil War, and the causes which
+produced it, the North and the South speak for themselves in the words
+of their best historians.
+
+To each of these accounts is prefixed a brief introduction, prepared for
+this work by a specialist in the field of history of which it treats.
+This introduction serves a double purpose. In the first place, it
+explains whatever is necessary for the understanding and appreciation
+of the story that follows. Unfortunately, many a striking bit of
+historic writing has become antiquated in the present day. Scholars have
+discovered that it blunders here and there, perhaps is prejudiced,
+perhaps extravagant. Newer writers, therefore, base a new book upon the
+old one, not changing much, but paraphrasing it into deadly dullness by
+their efforts after accuracy. Thanks to our introduction we can revive
+the more spirited account, and, while pointing out its value to the
+reader, can warn him of its errors. Thus he secures in briefest form the
+results of the most recent research.
+
+Another purpose of the introduction is to link each event with the
+preceding ones in whatever countries it affects. Thus if one chooses he
+may read by countries after all, and get a completed story of a single
+nation. That is, he may peruse the account of the battle of Hastings and
+then turn onward to the making of the _Domesday Book_, where he will
+find a few brief lines to cover the intervening space in England's
+history. From the struggles of Stephen and Matilda he is led to the
+quarrel of her son, King Henry, with Thomas Becket, and so onward step
+by step.
+
+Starting with this ground plan of the design in mind, the reader will
+see that its compilation was a work of enormous labor. This has been
+undertaken seriously, patiently, and with earnest purpose. The first
+problem to be confronted was, What were the Great Events that should be
+told? Almost every writer and teacher of history, every well-known
+authority, was appealed to; many lists of events were compiled, revised,
+collated, and compared; and so at last our final list was evolved,
+fitted to bear the brunt of every criticism.
+
+Then came the heavier problem of what authorities to quote for each
+event. And here also the editors owe much to the capable aid of many
+generous, unremunerated advisers. Thus, for instance, they sought and
+obtained from the Hon. Joseph Chamberlain his advice as to the
+authorities to be used for the Jameson raid and the Boer war. The
+account presented may therefore be fairly regarded as England's own
+authoritative presentment of those events. Several little known and
+wholly unused Russian sources were pointed out by Professor Rambaud,
+the French Academician. But this is mentioned only to illustrate the
+impartiality with which the editors have endeavored to cover all fields.
+If, under the plea of expressing gratitude to all those who have lent us
+courteous assistance, we were to spread across these pages the long roll
+of their distinguished names, it would sound too much like boasting of
+their condescension.
+
+The work of selecting the accounts has been one of time and careful
+thought. Many thousands of books have been read and read again. The
+cardinal points of consideration in the choice have been: (1) Interest,
+that is, vividness of narration; (2) simplicity, for we aim to reach the
+people, to make a book fit even for a child; (3) the fame of the author,
+for everyone is pleased to be thus easily introduced to some
+long-heard-of celebrity, distantly revered, but dreaded; and (4)
+accuracy, a point set last because its defects could be so easily
+remedied by the specialist's introduction to each event.
+
+These considerations have led occasionally to the selection of very
+ancient documents, the original "sources" of history themselves, as, for
+instance, Columbus' own story of his voyage, rather than any later
+account built up on this; Pliny's picture of the destruction of Pompeii,
+for Pliny was there and saw the heavens rain down fire, and told of it
+as no man has done since. So, too, we give a literal translation of the
+earliest known code of laws, antedating those of Moses by more than a
+thousand years, rather than some modern commentary on them. At other
+times the same principles have led to the other extreme, and on modern
+events, where there seemed no wholly satisfactory or standard accounts,
+we have had them written for us by the specialists best acquainted with
+the field.
+
+As the work thus grew in hand, it became manifest that it would be, in
+truth, far more than a mere story of events. With each event was
+connected the man who embodied it. Often his life was handled quite as
+fully as the event, and so we had biography. Lands had to be
+described--geography. Peoples and customs--sociology. Laws and the
+arguments concerning them--political economy. In short, our history
+proved a universal cyclopædia as well.
+
+To give it its full value, therefore, an index became obviously
+necessary--and no ordinary index. Its aim must be to anticipate every
+possible question with which a reader might approach the past, and
+direct him to the answer. Even, it might be, he would want details more
+elaborate than we give. If so, we must direct him where to find them.
+
+Professional index-makers were therefore summoned to our help, a
+complete and readable chronology was appended to each volume, and the
+final volume of the series was turned over to the indexers entirely. We
+believe their work will prove not the least valuable feature of the
+whole. Briefly, the Index Volume contains:
+
+1. A complete list of the Great Events of the world's history. Opposite
+each event are given the date, the name of the author and standard work
+from which our account is selected, and a number of references to other
+works and to a short discussion of these in our Bibliography. Thus the
+reader may pursue an extended course of study on each particular event.
+
+2. A bibliography of the best general histories of ancient, mediæval,
+and modern times, and of important political, religious, and educational
+movements; also a bibliography of the best historical works dealing with
+each nation, and arranged under the following subdivisions: (_a_) The
+general history of the nation; (_b_) special periods in its career;
+(_c_) the descriptions of the people, their civilization and
+institutions. On each work thus mentioned there is a critical comment
+with suggestions to readers. This bibliography is designed chiefly for
+those who desire to pursue more extended courses of reading, and it
+offers them the experience and guidance of those who have preceded them
+on their special field.
+
+3. A classified index of famous historic characters. The names are
+grouped under such headings as "Rulers, Statesmen, and Patriots,"
+"Famous Women," "Military and Naval Commanders," "Philosophers and
+Teachers," "Religious Leaders," etc. Under each person's name is given a
+biographical chronology of his career, showing every important event in
+which he played a part, together with the date of the event, and the
+volume and page of this series where a full account of it may be found.
+This plan provides a new and very valuable means of reading the
+biography of any noted personage, one of the great advantages being that
+the accounts of the various events in his life are not all in the
+language of the same author, not written by a man anxious to bring out
+the importance of his special hero. The writers are mainly interested in
+the event, and show the hero only in his true and unexaggerated relation
+to it. Under each name will also be found references to such further
+authorities on the biography of the personage as may be consulted with
+profit by those students and scholars who wish to pursue an exhaustive
+study of his career.
+
+4. A biographical index of the authors represented in the series. This
+consists of brief sketches of the many writers whose work has been drawn
+upon for the narratives of Great Events. It is intended for ready
+reference, and gives only the essential facts. This index serves a
+double purpose. Suppose, for instance, that a reader is familiar with
+the name of John Lothrop Motley, but happens not to know whether he is
+still living, whether he had other occupation than writing, or what
+offices he held. This index will answer these questions. On the other
+hand, an admirer of Thomas Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt may wish to
+know whether we have taken anything--and, if so, what--from their
+writings. This index will answer at once.
+
+5. A general index covering every reference in the series to dates,
+events, persons, and places of historic importance. These are made
+easily accessible by a careful and elaborate system of cross-references.
+
+6. A separate and complete chronology of each nation of ancient,
+mediæval, and modern times, with references to the volume and page where
+each item is treated, either as an entire article or as part of one; so
+that the history of any one nation may be read in its logical order and
+in the language of its best historians.
+
+Such, as the National Alumni regard it, are the general character, wide
+scope, and earnest purpose of THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS. Let
+us end by saying, in the friendly fashion of the old days when
+bookmakers and their readers were more intimate than now: "Kind reader,
+if this our performance doth in aught fall short of promise, blame not
+our good intent, but our unperfect wit."
+
+THE NATIONAL ALUMNI.
+
+
+
+
+
+AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
+
+TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE, ITS ADVANCE IN
+KNOWLEDGE AND CIVILIZATION, AND THE BROAD WORLD MOVEMENTS WHICH HAVE
+SHAPED ITS DESTINY
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
+
+CONTINUED THROUGH THE SUCCESSIVE VOLUMES AND COVERING THE SUCCESSIVE
+PERIODS OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+
+
+
+
+AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
+
+TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+(FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIANS)
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+
+History, if we define it as the mere transcription of the written
+records of former generations, can go no farther back than the time such
+records were first made, no farther than the art of writing. But now
+that we have come to recognize the great earth itself as a story-book,
+as a keeper of records buried one beneath the other, confused and half
+obliterated, yet not wholly beyond our comprehension, now the historian
+may fairly be allowed to speak of a far earlier day.
+
+For unmeasured and immeasurable centuries man lived on earth a creature
+so little removed from "the beasts that die," so little superior to
+them, that he has left no clearer record than they of his presence here.
+From the dry bones of an extinct mammoth or a plesiosaur, Cuvier
+reconstructed the entire animal and described its habits and its home.
+So, too, looking on an ancient, strange, scarce human skull, dug from
+the deeper strata beneath our feet, anatomists tell us that the owner
+was a man indeed, but one little better than an ape. A few æons later
+this creature leaves among his bones chipped flints that narrow to a
+point; and the archæologist, taking up the tale, explains that man has
+become tool-using, he has become intelligent beyond all the other
+animals of earth. Physically he is but a mite amid the beast monsters
+that surround him, but by value of his brain he conquers them. He has
+begun his career of mastery.
+
+If we delve amid more recent strata, we find the flint weapons have
+become bronze. Their owner has learned to handle a ductile metal, to
+draw it from the rocks and fuse it in the fire. Later still he has
+discovered how to melt the harder and more useful iron. We say roughly,
+therefore, that man passed through a stone age, a bronze age, and then
+an iron age.
+
+Somewhere, perhaps in the earliest of these, he began to build rude
+houses. In the next, he drew pictures. During the latest, his pictures
+grew into an alphabet of signs, his structures developed into vast and
+enduring piles of brick or stone. Buildings and inscriptions became his
+relics, more like to our own, more fully understandable, giving us a
+sense of closer kinship with his race.
+
+
+SOURCES OF EARLY KNOWLEDGE
+
+There are three different lines along which we have succeeded in
+securing some knowledge of these our distant ancestors, three telephones
+from the past, over which they send to us confused and feeble
+murmurings, whose fascination makes only more maddening the vagueness of
+their speech.
+
+First, we have the picture-writings, whether of Central America, of
+Egypt, of Babylonia, or of other lands. These when translatable bring us
+nearest of all to the heart of the great past. It is the mind, the
+thought, the spoken word, of man that is most intimately he; not his
+face, nor his figure, nor his clothes. Unfortunately, the translation of
+these writings is no easy task. Those of Central America are still an
+unsolved riddle. Those of Babylon have been slowly pieced together like
+a puzzle, a puzzle to which the learned world has given its most able
+thought. Yet they are not fully understood. In Egypt we have had the
+luck to stumble on a clew, the Rosetta Stone, which makes the ancient
+writing fairly clear.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See page 1 for an engraving and account of this famous
+stone. It was found over a century ago and its value was instantly
+recognized, but many years passed before its secrets were deciphered. It
+contains an inscription repeated in three forms of writing: the early
+Egyptian of the hieroglyphics, a later Egyptian (the demotic), and
+Greek.]
+
+Where this mode of communication fails, we turn to another which carries
+us even farther into the past. The records which have been less
+intentionally preserved, not only the buildings themselves, but their
+decorations, the personal ornaments of men, idols, coins, every
+imaginable fragment, chance escaped from the maw of time, has its own
+story for our reading. In Egypt we have found deep-hidden, secret tombs,
+and, intruding on their many centuries of silence, have reaped rich
+harvests of knowledge from the garnered wealth. In Babylonia the rank
+vegetation had covered whole cities underneath green hillocks, and
+preserved them till our modern curiosity delved them out. To-day, he who
+wills, may walk amid the halls of Sennacherib, may tread the streets
+whence Abraham fled, ay, he may gaze upon the handiwork of men who lived
+perhaps as far before Abraham as we ourselves do after him.
+
+Nor are our means of penetrating the past even thus exhausted. A third
+chain yet more subtle and more marvellous has been found to link us to
+an ancestry immeasurably remote. This unbroken chain consists of the
+words from our own mouths. We speak as our fathers spoke; and they did
+but follow the generations before. Occasional pronunciations have
+altered, new words have been added, and old ones forgotten; but some
+basal sounds of names, some root-thoughts of the heart, have proved as
+immutable as the superficial elegancies are changeful. "Father" and
+"mother" mean what they have meant for uncounted ages.
+
+Comparative philology, the science which compares one language with
+another to note the points of similarity between them, has discovered
+that many of these root-sounds are alike in almost all the varied
+tongues of Europe. The resemblance is too common to be the result of
+coincidence, too deep-seated to be accounted for by mere communication
+between the nations. We have gotten far beyond the possibility of such
+explanations; and science says now with positive confidence that there
+must have been a time when all these nations were but one, that their
+languages are all but variations of the tongue their distant ancestors
+once held in common.
+
+Study has progressed beyond this point, can tell us far more intricate
+and fainter facts. It argues that one by one the various tribes left
+their common home and became completely separated; and that each
+root-sound still used by all the nations represents an idea, an object,
+they already possessed before their dispersal. Thus we can vaguely
+reconstruct that ancient, aboriginal civilization. We can even guess
+which tribes first broke away, and where again these wanderers
+subdivided, and at what stage of progress. Surely a fascinating science
+this! And in its infancy! If its later development shall justify present
+promise, it has still strange tales to tell us in the future.
+
+
+THE RACES OF MAN
+
+Turn now from this tracing of our means of knowledge, to speak of the
+facts they tell us. When our humankind first become clearly visible they
+are already divided into races, which for convenience we speak of as
+white, yellow, and black. Of these the whites had apparently advanced
+farthest on the road to civilization; and the white race itself had
+become divided into at least three varieties, so clearly marked as to
+have persisted through all the modern centuries of communication and
+intermarriage. Science is not even able to say positively that these
+varieties or families had a common origin. She inclines to think so; but
+when all these later ages have failed to obliterate the marks of
+difference, what far longer period of separation must have been required
+to establish them!
+
+These three clearly outlined families of the whites are the Hamites, of
+whom the Egyptians are the best-known type; the Semites, as represented
+by ancient Babylonians and modern Jews and Arabs; and the great Aryan or
+Indo-European family, once called the Japhites, and including Hindus,
+Persians, Greeks, Latins, the modern Celtic and Germanic races, and even
+the Slavs or Russians.
+
+The Egyptians, when we first see them, are already well advanced toward
+civilization.[2] To say that they were the first people to emerge from
+barbarism is going much further than we dare. Their records are the most
+ancient that have come clearly down to us; but there may easily have
+been other social organisms, other races, to whom the chances of time
+and nature have been less gentle. Cataclysms may have engulfed more than
+one Atlantis; and few climates are so fitted for the preservation of
+man's buildings as is the rainless valley of the Nile.
+
+[Footnote 2: See the _Dawn of Civilization_, page 1.]
+
+Moreover, the Egyptians may not have been the earliest inhabitants even
+of their own rich valley. We find hints that they were wanderers,
+invaders, coming from the East, and that with the land they appropriated
+also the ideas, the inventions, of an earlier negroid race. But whatever
+they took they added to, they improved on. The idea of futurity, of
+man's existence beyond the grave, became prominent among them; and in
+the absence of clearer knowledge we may well take this idea as the
+groundwork, the starting-point, of all man's later and more striking
+progress.
+
+Since the Egyptians believed in a future life they strove to preserve
+the body for it, and built ever stronger and more gigantic tombs. They
+strove to fit the mind for it, and cultivated virtues, not wholly animal
+such as physical strength, nor wholly commercial such as cunning. They
+even carved around the sepulchre of the departed a record of his doings,
+lest they--and perhaps he too in that next life--forget. There were
+elements of intellectual growth in all this, conditions to stimulate the
+mind beyond the body.
+
+And the Egyptians did develop. If one reads the tales, the romances,
+that have survived from their remoter periods, he finds few emotions
+higher than childish curiosity or mere animal rage and fear. Amid their
+latest stories, on the contrary, we encounter touches of sentiment, of
+pity and self-sacrifice, such as would even now be not unworthy of
+praise. But, alas! the improvement seems most marked where it was most
+distant. Perhaps the material prosperity of the land was too great, the
+conditions of life too easy; there was no stimulus to effort, to
+endeavor. By about the year 2200 B.C. we find Egypt fallen into the grip
+of a cold and lifeless formalism. Everything was fixed by law; even
+pictures must be drawn in a certain way, thoughts must be expressed by
+stated and unvariable symbols. Advance became well-nigh impossible.
+Everything lay in the hands of a priestly caste the completeness of
+whose dominion has perhaps never been matched in history. The leaders
+lived lives of luxurious pleasure enlightened by scientific study; but
+the people scarce existed except as automatons. The race was dead; its
+true life, the vigor of its masses, was exhausted, and the land soon
+fell an easy prey to every spirited invader.
+
+Meanwhile a rougher, stronger civilization was growing in the river
+valleys eastward from the Nile. The Semitic tribes, who seem to have had
+their early seat and centre of dispersion somewhere in this region, were
+coalescing into nations, Babylonians along the lower Tigris and
+Euphrates, Assyrians later along the upper rivers, Hebrews under David
+and Solomon[3] by the Jordan, Phoenicians on the Mediterranean coast.
+
+[Footnote 3: See _Accession of Solomon_, page 92.]
+
+The early Babylonian civilization may antedate even the Egyptian; but
+its monuments were less permanent, its rulers less anxious for the
+future. The "appeal to posterity," the desire for a posthumous fame,
+seems with them to have been slower of conception. True, the first
+Babylonian monarchs of whom we have any record, in an era perhaps over
+five thousand years before Christianity, stamped the royal signet on
+every brick of their walls and temples. But common-sense suggests that
+this was less to preserve their fame than to preserve their bricks.
+Theft is no modern innovation.
+
+They were a mathematical race, these Babylonians. In fact, Semite and
+mathematician are names that have been closely allied through all the
+course of history, and one cannot help but wish our Aryan race had
+somewhere lived through an experience which would produce in them the
+exactitude in balance and measurement of facts that has distinguished
+the Arabs and the Jews. The Babylonians founded astronomy and
+chronology; they recorded the movements of the stars, and divided their
+year according to the sun and moon. They built a vast and intricate
+network of canals to fertilize their land; and they arranged the
+earliest system of legal government, the earliest code of laws, that has
+come down to us.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Compilation of the Earliest Code_, page 14.]
+
+
+The sciences, then, arise more truly here than with the Egyptians. Man
+here began to take notice, to record and to classify the facts of
+nature. We may count this the second visible step in his great progress.
+Never again shall we find him in a childish attitude of idle wonder.
+Always is his brain alert, striving to understand, self-conscious of its
+own power over nature.
+
+It may have been wealth and luxury that enfeebled the Babylonians as,
+it did the Egyptians. At any rate, their empire was overturned by a
+border colony of their own, the Assyrians, a rough and hardy folk who
+had maintained themselves for centuries battling against tribes from the
+surrounding mountains. It was like a return to barbarism when about B.C.
+880 the Assyrians swept over the various Semite lands. Loud were the
+laments of the Hebrews; terrible the tales of cruelty; deep the scorn
+with which the Babylonians submitted to the rude conquerors. We approach
+here a clearer historic period; we can trace with plainness the
+devastating track of war;[5] we can read the boastful triumph of the
+Assyrian chiefs, can watch them step by step as they adopt the culture
+and the vices of their new subjects, growing ever more graceful and more
+enfeebled, until they too are overthrown by a new and hardier race, the
+Persians, an Aryan folk.
+
+[Footnote 5: See _Rise and Fall of Assyria_, page 105.]
+
+Before turning to this last and most prominent family of humankind, let
+us look for a moment at the other, darker races, seen vaguely as they
+come in contact with the whites. The negroes, set sharply by themselves
+in Africa, never seem to have created any progressive civilization of
+their own, never seem to have advanced further than we find the wild
+tribes in the interior of the country to-day. But the yellow or Turanian
+races, the Chinese and Japanese, the Turks and the Tartars, did not
+linger so helplessly behind. The Chinese, at least, established a social
+world of their own, widely different from that of the whites, in some
+respects perhaps superior to it. But the fatal weakness of the yellow
+civilization was that it was not ennobling like the Egyptian, not
+scientific like the Babylonian, not adventurous and progressive as we
+shall find the Aryan.
+
+This, of course, is speaking in general terms. Something somewhat
+ennobling there may be in the contemplations of Confucius;[6] but no man
+can favorably compare the Chinese character to-day with the European,
+whether we regard either intensity of feeling, or variety, range,
+subtlety, and beauty of emotion. So, also, the Chinese made scientific
+discoveries--but knew not how to apply them or improve them. So also
+they made conquests--and abandoned them; toiled--and sank back into
+inertia.
+
+[Footnote 6: See _Rise of Confucius_, page 270.]
+
+The Japanese present a separate problem, as yet little understood in its
+earlier stages.[7] As to the Tartars, wild and hardy horsemen roaming
+over Northern Asia, they kept for ages their independent animal strength
+and fierceness. They appear and disappear like flashes. They seem to
+seek no civilization of their own; they threaten again and again to
+destroy that of all the other races of the globe. Fitly, indeed, was
+their leader Attila once termed "the Scourge of God."
+
+
+[Footnote 7: See _Prince Jimmu_, page 140.]
+
+
+THE ARYANS
+
+Of our own progressive Aryan race, we have no monuments nor inscriptions
+so old as those of the Hamites and the Semites. What comparative
+philology tells is this: An early, if not the original, home of the
+Aryans was in Asia, to the eastward of the Semites, probably in the
+mountain district back of modern Persia. That is, they were not, like
+the other whites, a people of the marsh lands and river valleys. They
+lived in a higher, hardier, and more bracing atmosphere. Perhaps it was
+here that their minds took a freer bent, their spirits caught a bolder
+tone. Wherever they moved they came as conquerors among other races.
+
+In their primeval home and probably before the year B.C. 3000, they had
+already acquired a fair degree of civilization. They built houses,
+ploughed the land, and ground grain into flour for their baking. The
+family relations were established among them; they had some social
+organization and simple form of government; they had learned to worship
+a god, and to see in him a counterpart of their tribal ruler.
+
+From their upland farms they must have looked eastward upon yet higher
+mountains, rising impenetrable above the snowline; but to north and
+south and west they might turn to lower regions; and by degrees, perhaps
+as they grew too numerous for comfort, a few families wandered off along
+the more inviting routes. Whichever way they started, their adventurous
+spirit led them on. We find no trace of a single case where hearts
+failed or strength grew weary and the movement became retrograde, back
+toward the ancient home. Spreading out, radiating in all directions, it
+is they who have explored the earth, who have measured it and marked its
+bounds and penetrated almost to its every corner. It is they who still
+pant to complete the work so long ago begun.
+
+Before B.C. 2000 one of these exuded swarms had penetrated India,
+probably by way of the Indus River. In the course of a thousand years or
+so, the intruders expanded and fought their way slowly from the Indus to
+the Ganges. The earlier and duskier inhabitants gave way before them or
+became incorporated in the stronger race. A mighty Aryan or Hindu empire
+was formed in India and endured there until well within historic times.
+
+Yet its power faded. Life in the hot and languid tropics tends to
+weaken, not invigorate, the sinews of a race. Then, too, a formal
+religion, a system of castes[8] as arbitrary as among the Egyptians,
+laid its paralyzing grip upon the land. About B.C. 600 Buddhism, a new
+and beautiful religion, sought to revive the despairing people; but they
+were beyond its help.[9] Their slothful languor had become too deep.
+From having been perhaps the first and foremost and most civilized of
+the Aryan tribes, the Hindus sank to be degenerate members of the race.
+We shall turn to look on them again in a later period; but they will be
+seen in no favorable light.
+
+[Footnote 8: See _The Formation of the Castes_, page 52.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See _The Foundation of Buddhism_, page 160.]
+
+Meanwhile other wanderers from the Aryan home appear to the north and
+west. Perhaps even the fierce Tartars are an Aryan race, much altered
+from long dwelling among the yellow peoples. One tribe, the Persians,
+moved directly west, and became neighbors of the already noted Semitic
+group. After long wars backward and forward, bringing us well within the
+range of history, the Persians proved too powerful for the whole Semite
+group. They helped destroy Assyria,[10] they overthrew the second
+Babylonian empire which Nebuchadnezzar had built up, and then, pressing
+on to the conquest of Egypt, they swept the Hamites too from their place
+of sovereignty.[11]
+
+[Footnote 10: See _Destruction of Nineveh_, page 105.]
+
+[Footnote 11: See _Conquests of Cyrus_, page 250.]
+
+How surely do those tropic lands avenge themselves on each new savage
+horde of invaders from the hardy North. It is not done in a generation,
+not in a century, perhaps. But drop by drop the vigorous, tingling,
+Arctic blood is sapped away. Year after year the lazy comfort, the loose
+pleasure, of the south land fastens its curse upon the mighty warriors.
+As we watch the Persians, we see their kings go mad, or become
+effeminate tyrants sending underlings to do their fighting for them. We
+see the whole race visibly degenerate, until one questions if
+Marathon[12] were after all so marvellous a victory, and suspects that
+at whatever point the Persians had begun their advance on Europe they
+would have been easily hurled back.
+
+[Footnote 12: See _The Battle of Marathon_, page 322.]
+
+It was in Europe only that the Aryan wanderers found a temperate
+climate, a region similar to that in which they had been bred. Recent
+speculation has even suggested that Europe was their primeval home, from
+which they had strayed toward Asia, and to which they now returned.
+Certainly it is in Europe that the race has continued to develop.
+Earliest of these Aryan waves to take possession of their modern
+heritage, were the Celts, who must have journeyed over the European
+continent at some dim period too remote even for a guess. Then came the
+Greeks and Latins, closely allied tribes, representing possibly a single
+migration, that spread westward along the islands and peninsulas of the
+Mediterranean. The Teutons may have left Asia before B.C. 1000, for they
+seem to have reached their German forests by three centuries beyond that
+time, and these vast migratory movements were very slow. The latest
+Aryan wave, that of the Slavs, came well within historic times. We
+almost fancy we can see its movement. Russian statesmen, indeed, have
+hopes that this is not yet completed. They dream that they, the youngest
+of the peoples, are yet to dominate the whole.
+
+
+THE GREEKS AND LATINS
+
+Of these European Aryans the only branches that come within the limits
+of our present period, that become noteworthy before B.C. 480, are the
+Greeks and Latins.
+
+Their languages tell us that they formed but a single tribe long after
+they became separated from the other peoples of their race. Finally,
+however, the Latins, journeying onward, lost sight of their friends, and
+it must have taken many centuries of separation for the two tongues to
+grow so different as they were when Greeks and Romans, each risen to a
+mighty nation, met again.
+
+The Greeks, or Hellenes as they called themselves, seem to have been
+only one of a number of kindred tribes who occupied not only the shores
+of the Ægean, but Thrace, Macedonia, a considerable part of Asia Minor,
+and other neighboring regions. The Greeks developed in intellect more
+rapidly than their neighbors, outdistanced them in the race for
+civilization, forgot these poor relations, and grouped them with the
+rest of outside mankind under the scornful name "barbarians."
+
+Why it was that the Greeks were thus specially stimulated beyond their
+brethren we do not know. It has long been one of the commonplaces of
+history to declare them the result of their environment. It is pointed
+out that in Greece they lived amid precipitous mountains, where, as
+hunters, they became strong and venturesome, independent and
+self-reliant. A sea of islands lay all around; and while an open ocean
+might only have awed and intimidated them, this ever-luring prospect of
+shore beyond shore rising in turn on the horizon made them sailors, made
+them friendly traffickers among themselves. Always meeting new faces,
+driving new bargains, they became alert, quick-witted, progressive, the
+foremost race of all the ancient world.
+
+They do not seem to have been a creative folk. They only adapted and
+carried to a higher point what they learned from the older nations with
+whom they now came in contact. Phoenicia supplied them with an alphabet,
+and they began the writing of books. Egypt showed them her records, and,
+improving on her idea, they became historians. So far as we know, the
+earliest real "histories" were written in Greece; that is, the earliest
+accounts of a whole people, an entire series of events, as opposed to
+the merely individual statements on the Egyptian monuments, the
+personal, boastful clamor of some king.
+
+Before we reach this period of written history we know that the Greeks
+had long been civilized. Their own legends scarce reach back farther
+than the first founding of Athens,[13] which they place about B.C. 1500.
+Yet recent excavations in Crete have revealed the remains of a
+civilization which must have antedated that by several centuries.
+
+[Footnote 13: See _Theseus Founds Athens_, page 45.]
+
+But we grope in darkness! The most ancient Greek book that has come down
+to us is the _Iliad_, with its tale of the great war against Troy.[14]
+Critics will not permit us to call the _Iliad_ a history, because it was
+not composed, or at least not written down, until some centuries after
+the events of which it tells. Moreover, it poetizes its theme, doubtless
+enlarges its pictures, brings gods and goddesses before our eyes,
+instead of severely excluding everything except what the blind bard
+perchance could personally vouch for.
+
+[Footnote 14: See _Fall of Troy_, page 70.]
+
+Still both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ are good enough history for
+most of us, in that they give a full, outline of Grecian life and
+society as Homer knew it. We see the little, petty states, with their
+chiefs all-powerful, and the people quite ignored. We see the heroes
+driving to battle in their chariots, guarded by shield and helmet,
+flourishing sword and spear. We learn what Ulysses did not know of
+foreign lands.. We hear Achilles' famed lament amid the dead, and note
+the vague glimmering idea of a future life, which the Greeks had caught
+perhaps from the Egyptians, perhaps from the suggestive land of dreams.
+
+With the year B.C. 776 we come in contact with a clear marked
+chronology. The Greeks themselves reckoned from that date by means of
+olympiads or intervals between the Olympic games. The story becomes
+clear. The autocratic little city kings, governing almost as they
+pleased, have everywhere been displaced by oligarchies. The few leading
+nobles may name one of themselves to bear rule, but the real power lies
+divided among the class. Then, with the growing prominence of the
+Pythian games[15] we come upon a new stage of national development. The
+various cities begin to form alliances, to recognize the fact that they
+may be made safer and happier by a larger national life. The sense of
+brotherhood begins to extend beyond the circle of personal acquaintance.
+
+[Footnote 15: See _Pythian Games at Delphi_, page 181.]
+
+This period was one of lawmaking, of experimenting. The traditions, the
+simple customs of the old kingly days, were no longer sufficient for the
+guidance of the larger cities, the more complicated circles of society,
+which were growing up. It was no longer possible for a man who did not
+like his tribe to abandon it and wander elsewhere with his family and
+herds. The land was too fully peopled for that. The dissatisfied could
+only endure and grumble and rebel. One system of law after another was
+tried and thrown aside. The class on whom in practice a rule bore most
+hard, would refuse longer assent to it. There were uprisings, tumults,
+bloody frays.
+
+Sparta, at this time the most prominent of the Greek cities, evolved a
+code which made her in some ways the wonder of ancient days. The state
+was made all-powerful; it took entire possession of the citizen, with
+the purpose of making him a fighter, a strong defender of himself and of
+his country. His home life was almost obliterated, or, if you like, the
+whole city was made one huge family. All men ate in common; youth was
+severely restrained; its training was all for physical hardihood. Modern
+socialism, communism, have seldom ventured further in theory than the
+Spartans went in practice. The result seems to have been the production
+of a race possessed of tremendous bodily power and courage, but of
+stunted intellectual growth. The great individual minds of Greece, the
+thinkers, the creators, did not come from Sparta.
+
+In Athens a different _régime_ was meanwhile developing Hellenes of
+another type. A realization of how superior the Greeks were to earlier
+races, of what vast strides man was making in intelligence and social
+organization, can in no way be better gained than by comparing the law
+code of the Babylonian Hammurabi with that of Solon in Athens.[16] A
+period of perhaps sixteen hundred years separates the two, but the
+difference in their mental power is wider still.
+
+[Footnote 16: See _Solon's Legislation_, page 203, and _Compilation of
+the Earliest Code_, page 14.]
+
+While the Greeks were thus forging rapidly ahead, their ancient kindred,
+the Latins, were also progressing, though at a rate less dazzling. The
+true date of Rome's founding we do not know. Her own legends give B.C.
+753.[17] But recent excavations on the Palatine hill show that it was
+already fortified at a much earlier period. Rome, we believe, was
+originally a frontier fortress erected by the Latins to protect them
+from the attacks of the non-Aryan races among whom they had intruded.
+This stronghold became ever more numerously peopled, until it grew into
+an individual state separate from the other Latin cities.
+
+[Footnote 17: See _The Foundation of Rome_, page 116.]
+
+The Romans passed through the vicissitudes which we have already noted
+in Greece as characteristic of the Aryan development. The early war
+leader became an absolute king, his power tended to become hereditary,
+but its abuse roused the more powerful citizens to rebellion, and the
+kingdom vanished in an oligarchy.[18] This last change occurred in Rome
+about B.C. 510, and it was attended by such disasters that the city sank
+back into a condition that was almost barbarous when compared with her
+opulence under the Tarquin kings.
+
+[Footnote 18: See _Rome Established as a Republic_, page 300.]
+
+It was soon after this that the Persians, ignorant of their own
+decadence, and dreaming still of world power, resolved to conquer the
+remaining little states lying scarce known along the boundaries of their
+empire. They attacked the Greeks, and at Marathon (B.C. 490) and Salamis
+(B.C. 480) were hurled back and their power broken.[19]
+
+[Footnote 19: See _Battle of Marathon_, page 322, and _Invasion of
+Greece_, page 354.]
+
+This was a world event, one of the great turning points, a decision that
+could not have been otherwise if man was really to progress. The
+degenerate, enfeebled, half-Semitized Aryans of Asia were not permitted
+to crush the higher type which was developing in Europe. The more
+vigorous bodies and far abler brains of the Greeks enabled them to
+triumph over all the hordes of their opponents. The few conquered the
+many; and the following era became one of European progress, not of
+Asiatic stagnation.
+
+
+
+(FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME II.)
+
+
+
+
+
+DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
+
+B.C. 5867[20]
+
+G.C.C. MASPERO
+
+
+     It is a far cry to hark back to 11,000 years before Christ, yet
+     borings in the valley of the Nile, whence comes the first recorded
+     history of the human race, have unveiled to the light pottery and
+     other relics of civilization that, at the rate of deposits of the
+     Nile, must have taken at least that number of years to cover.
+
+     [Footnote 20: Champollion.]
+
+     Nature takes countless thousands of years to form and build up her
+     limestone hills, but buried deep in these we find evidences of a
+     stone age wherein man devised and made himself edged tools and
+     weapons of rudely chipped stone. These shaped, edged implements, we
+     have learned, were made by white-heating a suitable flint or stone
+     and tracing thereon with cold water the pattern desired, just as
+     practised by the Indians of the American continent, and in our day
+     by the manufacturers of ancient (_sic_) arrow-, spear-, and
+     axe-heads. This shows a civilization that has learned the method of
+     artificially producing fire, and its uses.
+
+     Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are the
+     monumental people of history. The first human monarch to reign over
+     all Egypt was Menes, the founder of Memphis. As the gate of Africa,
+     Egypt has always held an important position in world-politics. Its
+     ancient wealth and power were enormous. Inclusive of the Soudan,
+     its population is now more than eight millions. Its present
+     importance is indicated by its relations to England. Historians
+     vary in their compilations of Egyptian chronology. The epoch of
+     Menes is fixed by Bunsen at B.C. 3643, by Lepsius at B.C. 3892, and
+     by Poole at B.C. 2717. Before Menes Egypt was divided into
+     independent kingdoms. It has always been a country of mysteries,
+     with the mighty Nile, and its inundations, so little understood by
+     the ancients; its trackless desert; its camels and caravans; its
+     tombs and temples; its obelisks and pyramids, its groups of gods:
+     Ra, Osiris, Isis, Apis, Horus, Hathor--the very names breathe
+     suggestions of mystery, cruelty, pomp, and power. In the sciences
+     and in the industrial arts the ancient Egyptians were highly
+     cultivated. Much Egyptian literature has come down to us, but it is
+     unsystematic and entirely devoid of style, being without lofty
+     ideas or charms. In art, however, Egypt may be placed next to
+     Greece, particularly in architecture.
+
+     The age of the Pyramid-builders was a brilliant one. They prove the
+     magnificence of the kings and the vast amount of human labor at
+     their disposal. The regal power at that time was very strong. The
+     reign of Khufu or Cheops is marked by the building of the great
+     pyramid. The pyramids were the tombs of kings, built in the
+     necropolis of Memphis, ten miles above the modern Cairo. Security
+     was the object as well as splendor.
+
+     As remarked by a great Egyptologist, the whole life of the Egyptian
+     was spent in the contemplation of death; thus the tomb became the
+     concrete thought. The belief of the ancient Egyptian was that so
+     long as his body remained intact so was his immortality; whence
+     arose the embalming of the great, and hence the immense structures
+     of stone to secure the inviolability of the entombed monarch.
+
+
+The monuments have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended
+to unite Egypt under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that the
+feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two groups,
+each of which formed a separate kingdom. Heliopolis became the chief
+focus in the north, from which civilization radiated over the wet plain
+and the marshes of the Delta.
+
+Its colleges of priests had collected, condensed, and arranged the
+principal myths of the local regions; the Ennead to which it gave
+conception would never have obtained the popularity which we must
+acknowledge it had, if its princes had not exercised, for at least some
+period, an actual suzerainty over the neighboring plains. It was around
+Heliopolis that the kingdom of Lower Egypt was organized; everything
+there bore traces of Heliopolitan theories--the protocol of the kings,
+their supposed descent from Ra, and the enthusiastic worship which they
+offered to the sun.
+
+The Delta, owing to its compact and restricted area, was aptly suited
+for government from one centre; the Nile valley proper, narrow,
+tortuous, and stretching like a thin strip on either bank of the river,
+did not lend itself to so complete a unity. It, too, represented a
+single kingdom, having the reed and the lotus for its emblems; but its
+component parts were more loosely united, its religion was less
+systematized, and it lacked a well-placed city to serve as a political
+and sacerdotal centre. Hermopolis contained schools of theologians who
+certainly played an important part in the development of myths and
+dogmas; but the influence of its rulers was never widely felt.
+
+In the south, Siut disputed their supremacy, and Heracleopolis stopped
+their road to the north. These three cities thwarted and neutralized one
+another, and not one of them ever succeeded in obtaining a lasting
+authority over Upper Egypt. Each of the two kingdoms had its own natural
+advantages and its system of government, which gave to it a peculiar
+character, and stamped it, as it were, with a distinct personality down
+to its latest days. The kingdom of Upper Egypt was more powerful,
+richer, better populated, and was governed apparently by more active and
+enterprising rulers. It is to one of the latter, Mini or Menes of
+Thinis, that tradition ascribes the honor of having fused the two Egypts
+into a single empire, and of having inaugurated the reign of the human
+dynasties.
+
+Thinis figured in the historic period as one of the least of Egyptian
+cities. It barely maintained an existence on the left bank of the Nile,
+if not on the exact spot now occupied by Girgeh, at least only a short
+distance from it. The principality of the Osirian Reliquary, of which it
+was the metropolis, occupied the valley from one mountain to the other,
+and gradually extended across the desert as far as the Great Theban
+Oasis. Its inhabitants worshipped a sky-god, Anhuri, or rather two twin
+gods, Anhuri-shu, who were speedily amalgamated with the solar deities
+and became a warlike personification of Ra.
+
+Anhuri-shu, like all other solar manifestations, came to be associated
+with a goddess having the form or head of a lioness--a Sokhit, who took
+for the occasion the epithet of Mihit, the northern one. Some of the
+dead from this city are buried on the other side of the Nile, near the
+modern village of Mesheikh, at the foot of the Arabian chain, whose deep
+cliffs here approach somewhat near the river: the principal necropolis
+was at some distance to the east, near the sacred town of Abydos. It
+would appear that, at the outset, Abydos was the capital of the country,
+for the entire nome bore the same name as the city, and had adopted for
+its symbol the representation of the reliquary in which the god reposed.
+
+In very early times Abydos fell into decay, and resigned its political
+rank to Thinis, but its religious importance remained unimpaired. The
+city occupied a long and narrow strip between the canal and the first
+slopes of the Libyan mountains. A brick fortress defended it from the
+incursions of the Bedouin, and beside it the temple of the god of the
+dead reared its naked walls. Here Anhuri, having passed from life to
+death, was worshipped under the name of Khontamentit, the chief of that
+western region whither souls repair on quitting this earth.
+
+It is impossible to say by what blending of doctrines or by what
+political combinations this Sun of the Night came to be identified with
+Osiris of Mendes, since the fusion dates back to a very remote
+antiquity; it had become an established fact long before the most
+ancient sacred books were compiled. Osiris Khontamentit grew rapidly in
+popular favor, and his temple attracted annually an increasing number of
+pilgrims. The Great Oasis had been considered at first as a sort of
+mysterious paradise, whither the dead went in search of peace and
+happiness. It was called Uit, the Sepulchre; this name clung to it after
+it had become an actual Egyptian province, and the remembrance of its
+ancient purpose survived in the minds of the people, so that the
+"cleft," the gorge in the mountain through which the doubles journeyed
+toward it, never ceased to be regarded as one of the gates of the other
+world.
+
+At the time of the New Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all
+parts of the valley; they there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in
+order to embark with him and enter safely the dominions of Khontamentit.
+Abydos, even before the historic period, was the only town, and its god
+the only god, whose worship, practised by all Egyptians, inspired them
+all with an equal devotion.
+
+Did this sort of moral conquest give rise, later on, to a belief in a
+material conquest by the princes of Thinis and Abydos, or is there an
+historical foundation for the tradition which ascribes to them the
+establishment of a single monarchy? It is the Thinite Menes, whom the
+Theban annalists point out as the ancestor of the glorious Pharaohs of
+the XVIII dynasty: it is he also who is inscribed in the Memphite
+chronicles, followed by Manetho, at the head of their lists of human
+kings, and all Egypt for centuries acknowledged him as its first mortal
+ruler.
+
+It is true that a chief of Thinis may well have borne such a name, and
+may have accomplished feats which rendered him famous; but on closer
+examination his pretensions to reality disappear, and his personality is
+reduced to a cipher.
+
+"This Menes, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis with dikes.
+For the river formerly followed the sand-hills for some distance on the
+Libyan side. Menes, having dammed up the reach about a hundred stadia to
+the south of Memphis, caused the old bed to dry up, and conveyed the
+river through an artificial channel dug midway between the two mountain
+ranges.
+
+"Then Menes, the first who was king, having enclosed a space of ground
+with dikes, founded that town which is still called Memphis: he then
+made a lake around it to the north and west, fed by the river; the city
+he bounded on the east by the Nile." The history of Memphis, such as it
+can be gathered from the monuments, differs considerably from the
+tradition current in Egypt at the time of Herodotus.
+
+It appears, indeed, that at the outset the site on which it subsequently
+arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbu-hazu--the white wall--which
+was dependent on Heliopolis and in which Phtah possessed a sanctuary.
+After the "white wall" was separated from the Heliopolitan principality
+to form a nome by itself it assumed a certain importance, and furnished,
+so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded the Thinite. Its
+prosperity dates only, however, from the time when the sovereigns of the
+V and VI dynasties fixed on it for their residence; one of them, Papi I,
+there founded for himself and for his "double" after him, a new town,
+which he called Minnofiru, from his tomb. Minnofiru, which is the
+correct pronunciation and the origin of Memphis, probably signified "the
+good refuge," the haven of the good, the burying-place where the blessed
+dead came to rest beside Osiris.
+
+The people soon forgot the true interpretation, or probably it did not
+fall in with their taste for romantic tales. They rather despised, as a
+rule, to discover in the beginnings of history individuals from whom the
+countries or cities with which they were familiar took their names: if
+no tradition supplied them with this, they did not experience any
+scruples in inventing one. The Egyptians of the time of the Ptolemies,
+who were guided in their philological speculations by the pronunciation
+in vogue around them, attributed the patronship of their city to a
+Princess Memphis, a daughter of its founder, the fabulous Uchoreus;
+those of preceding ages before the name had become altered thought to
+find in Minnofiru or "Mini Nofir," or "Menes the Good," the reputed
+founder of the capital of the Delta. Menes the Good, divested of his
+epithet, is none other than Menes, the first king of all Egypt, and he
+owes his existence to a popular attempt at etymology.
+
+The legend which identifies the establishment of the kingdom with the
+construction of the city, must have originated at a time when Memphis
+was still the residence of the kings and the seat of government, at
+latest about the end of the Memphite period. It must have been an old
+tradition at the time of the Theban dynasties, since they admitted
+unhesitatingly the authenticity of the statements which ascribed to the
+northern city so marked a superiority over their own country. When the
+hero was once created and firmly established in his position, there was
+little difficulty in inventing a story about him which would portray him
+as a paragon and an ideal sovereign.
+
+He was represented in turn as architect, warrior, and statesman; he had
+founded Memphis, he had begun the temple of Phtah, written laws and
+regulated the worship of the gods, particularly that of Hapis, and he
+had conducted expeditions against the Libyans. When he lost his only son
+in the flower of his age, the people improvised a hymn of mourning to
+console him--the "Maneros"--both the words and the tune of which were
+handed down from generation to generation.
+
+He did not, moreover, disdain the luxuries of the table, for he invented
+the art of serving a dinner, and the mode of eating it in a reclining
+posture. One day, while hunting, his dogs, excited by something or
+other, fell upon him to devour him. He escaped with difficulty and,
+pursued by them, fled to the shore of Lake Moeris, and was there
+brought to bay; he was on the point of succumbing to them, when a
+crocodile took him on his back and carried him across to the other side.
+In gratitude he built a new town, which he called Crocodilopolis, and
+assigned to it for its god the crocodile which had saved him; he then
+erected close to it the famous labyrinth and a pyramid for his tomb.
+
+Other traditions show him in a less favorable light. They accuse him of
+having, by horrible crimes, excited against him the anger of the gods,
+and allege that after a reign of sixty-two years he was killed by a
+hippopotamus which came forth from the Nile. They also relate that the
+Saite Tafnakhti, returning from an expedition against the Arabs, during
+which he had been obliged to renounce the pomp and luxuries of life, had
+solemnly cursed him, and had caused his imprecations to be inscribed
+upon a "stele"[21] set up in the temple of Amon at Thebes. Nevertheless,
+in the memory that Egypt preserved of its first Pharaoh, the good
+outweighed the evil. He was worshipped in Memphis, side by side with
+Phtah and Ramses II.; his name figured at the head of the royal lists,
+and his cult continued till the time of the Ptolemies.
+
+[Footnote 21: The burned tile showing the impression of the stylus, made
+on the clay while plastic.--ED.]
+
+His immediate successors have only a semblance of reality, such as he
+had. The lists give the order of succession, it is true, with the years
+of their reigns almost to a day, sometimes the length of their lives,
+but we may well ask whence the chroniclers procured so much precise
+information. They were in the same position as ourselves with regard to
+these ancient kings: they knew them by a tradition of a later age, by a
+fragment papyrus fortuitously preserved in a temple, by accidentally
+coming across some monument bearing their name, and were reduced, as it
+were, to put together the few facts which they possessed, or to supply
+such as were wanting by conjectures, often in a very improbable manner.
+It is quite possible that they were unable to gather from the memory of
+the past the names of those individuals of which they made up the first
+two dynasties. The forms of these names are curt and rugged, and
+indicative of a rude and savage state, harmonizing with the
+semi-barbaric period to which they are relegated: Ati the Wrestler, Teti
+the Runner, Qeunqoni the Crusher, are suitable rulers for a people the
+first duty of whose chief was to lead his followers into battle, and to
+strike harder than any other man in the thickest of the fight.
+
+The inscriptions supply us with proofs that some of these princes lived
+and reigned:--Sondi, who is classed in the II dynasty, received a
+continuous worship toward the end of the III dynasty. But did all those
+who preceded him, and those who followed him, exist as he did? And if
+they existed, do the order and relation agree with actual truth? The
+different lists do not contain the same names in the same position;
+certain Pharaohs are added or suppressed without appreciable reason.
+Where Manetho inscribes Kenkenes and Ouenephes, the tables of the time
+of Seti I give us Ati and Ata; Manetho reckons nine kings to the II
+dynasty, while they register only five. The monuments, indeed, show us
+that Egypt in the past obeyed princes whom her annalists were unable to
+classify: for instance, they associated with Sondi a Pirsenu, who is not
+mentioned in the annals. We must, therefore, take the record of all this
+opening period of history for what it is--namely, a system invented at a
+much later date, by means of various artifices and combinations--to be
+partially accepted in default of a better, but without, according to it,
+that excessive confidence which it has hitherto received. The two
+Thinite dynasties, in direct descent from the fabulous Menes, furnish,
+like this hero himself, only a tissue of romantic tales and miraculous
+legends in the place of history. A double-headed stork, which had
+appeared in the first year of Teti, son of Menes, had foreshadowed to
+Egypt a long prosperity, but a famine under Ouenephes, and a terrible
+plague under Semempses, had depopulated the country; the laws had been
+relaxed, great crimes had been committed, and revolts had broken out.
+
+During the reign of the Boethos a gulf had opened near Bubastis, and
+swallowed up many people, then the Nile had flowed with honey for
+fifteen days in the time of Nephercheres, and Sesochris was supposed to
+have been a giant in stature. A few details about royal edifices were
+mixed up with these prodigies. Teti had laid the foundation of the great
+palace of Memphis, Ouenephes had built the pyramids of Ko-kome near
+Saqqara. Several of the ancient Pharaohs had published books on
+theology, or had written treatises on anatomy and medicine; several had
+made laws called Kakôû, the male of males, or the bull of bulls. They
+explained his name by the statement that he had concerned himself about
+the sacred animals; he had proclaimed as gods, Hapis of Memphis, Mnevis
+of Heliopolis, and the goat of Mendes.
+
+After him, Binothris had conferred the right of succession upon all
+women of the blood-royal. The accession of the III dynasty, a Memphite
+one according to Manetho, did not at first change the miraculous
+character of this history. The Libyans had revolted against Necherophes,
+and the two armies were encamped before each other, when one night the
+disk of the moon became immeasurably enlarged, to the great alarm of the
+rebels, who recognized in this phenomenon a sign of the anger of heaven,
+and yielded without fighting. Tosorthros, the successor of Necherophes,
+brought the hieroglyphs and the art of stone-cutting to perfection. He
+composed, as Teti did, books of medicine, a fact which caused him to be
+identified with the healing god Imhotpu. The priests related these
+things seriously, and the Greek writers took them down from their lips
+with the respect which they offered to everything emanating from the
+wise men of Egypt.
+
+What they related of the human kings was not more detailed, as we see,
+than their accounts of the gods. Whether the legends dealt with deities
+or kings, all that we know took its origin, not in popular imagination,
+but in sacerdotal dogma: they were invented long after the times they
+dealt with, in the recesses of the temples, with an intention and a
+method of which we are enabled to detect flagrant instances on the
+monuments.
+
+Toward the middle of the third century before our era the Greek troops
+stationed on the southern frontier, in the forts at the first cataract,
+developed a particular veneration for Isis of Philæ. Their devotion
+spread to the superior officers who came to inspect them, then to the
+whole population of the Thebaid, and finally reached the court of the
+Macedonian kings. The latter, carried away by force of example, gave
+every encouragement to a movement which attracted worshippers to a
+common sanctuary, and united in one cult two races over which they
+ruled. They pulled down the meagre building of the Saite period, which
+had hitherto sufficed for the worship of Isis, constructed at great cost
+the temple which still remains almost intact, and assigned to it
+considerable possessions in Nubia, which, in addition to gifts from
+private individuals, made the goddess the richest land-owner in Southern
+Egypt. Knumu and his two wives, Anukit and Satit, who, before Isis, had
+been the undisputed suzerains of the cataract, perceived with jealousy
+their neighbor's prosperity: the civil wars and invasions of the
+centuries immediately preceding had ruined their temples, and their
+poverty contrasted painfully with the riches of the new-comer.
+
+The priests resolved to lay this sad state of affairs before King
+Ptolemy, to represent to him the services which they had rendered and
+still continued to render to Egypt, and above all to remind him of the
+generosity of the ancient Pharaohs, whose example, owing to the poverty
+of the times, the recent Pharaohs had been unable to follow. Doubtless
+authentic documents were wanting in their archives to support their
+pretensions: they therefore inscribed upon a rock, in the island of
+Sehel, a long inscription which they attributed to Zosiri of the III
+dynasty. This sovereign had left behind him a vague reputation for
+greatness. As early as the XII dynasty Usirtasen III had claimed him as
+"his father"--his ancestor--and had erected a statue to him; the priests
+knew that, by invoking him, they had a chance of obtaining a hearing.
+
+The inscription which they fabricated set forth that in the eighteenth
+year of Zosiri's reign he had sent to Madir, lord of Elephantine, a
+message couched in these terms: "I am overcome with sorrow for the
+throne, and for those who reside in the palace, and my heart is
+afflicted and suffers greatly because the Nile has not risen in my time,
+for the space of eight years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack of
+herbage, and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his
+neighbors for help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the
+young man is uneasy, the hearts of the old men are in despair, their
+limbs are bent, they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the
+courtiers have no further resources; the shops formerly furnished with
+rich wares are now filled only with air, all that was within them has
+disappeared. My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks
+to call upon the savior who was here where I am, during the centuries of
+the gods, upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpu, son of
+Phtah of Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is
+the god or goddess concealed there? What is his likeness?"
+
+The lord of Elephantine brought his reply in person. He described to
+the king, who was evidently ignorant of it, the situation of the island
+and the rocks of the cataract, the phenomena of the inundation, the gods
+who presided over it, and who alone could relieve Egypt from her
+disastrous plight.
+
+Zosiri repaired to the temple of the principality and offered the
+prescribed sacrifices; the god arose, opened his eyes, panted, and cried
+aloud, "I am Khnumu who created thee!" and promised him a speedy return
+of a high Nile and the cessation of the famine.
+
+Pharaoh was touched by the benevolence which his divine father had shown
+him; he forthwith made a decree by which he ceded to the temple all his
+rights of suzerainty over the neighboring nomes within a radius of
+twenty miles.
+
+Henceforward the entire population, tillers and vinedressers, fishermen
+and hunters, had to yield the tithe of their income to the priests; the
+quarries could not be worked without the consent of Khnumu, and the
+payment of a suitable indemnity into his coffers; finally, metals and
+precious woods, shipped thence for Egypt, had to submit to a toll on
+behalf of the temple.
+
+Did the Ptolemies admit the claims which the local priests attempted to
+deduce from this romantic tale? and did the god regain possession of the
+domains and dues which they declared had been his right? The stele shows
+us with what ease the scribes could forge official documents when the
+exigencies of daily life forced the necessity upon them; it teaches us
+at the same time how that fabulous chronicle was elaborated, whose
+remains have been preserved for us by classical writers. Every prodigy,
+every fact related by Manetho, was taken from some document analogous to
+the supposed inscription of Zosiri.
+
+The real history of the early centuries, therefore, eludes our
+researches, and no contemporary record traces for us those vicissitudes
+which Egypt passed through before being consolidated into a single
+kingdom, under the rule of one man. Many names, apparently of powerful
+and illustrious princes, had survived in the memory of the people; these
+were collected, classified, and grouped in a regular manner into
+dynasties, but the people were ignorant of any exact facts connected
+with the names, and the historians, on their own account, were reduced
+to collect apocryphal traditions for their sacred archives.
+
+The monuments of these remote ages, however, cannot have entirely
+disappeared: they existed in places where we have not as yet thought of
+applying the pick, and chance excavations will some day most certainly
+bring them to light. The few which we do possess barely go back beyond
+the III dynasty: namely, the hypogeum of Shiri, priest of Sondi and
+Pirsenu; possibly the tomb of Khuithotpu at Saqqara; the Great Sphinx of
+Gizeh; a short inscription on the rocks of Wady Maghara, which
+represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of Khnumu in the
+Greek period made a precedent) working the turquoise or copper mines of
+Sinai; and finally the step pyramid where this Pharaoh rests. It forms a
+rectangular mass, incorrectly oriented, with a variation from the true
+north of 4° 35', 393 ft., 8 in. long from east to west, and 352 ft.
+deep, with a height of 159 ft. 9 in. It is composed of six cubes, with
+sloping sides, each being about 13 ft. less in width than the one below
+it; that nearest to the ground measures 37 ft. 8 in. in height, and the
+uppermost one 29 ft. 2 in.
+
+It was entirely constructed of limestone from neighboring mountains. The
+blocks are small and badly cut, the stone courses being concave, to
+offer a better resistance to downward thrust and to shocks of
+earthquake. When breaches in the masonry are examined, it can be seen
+that the external surface of the steps has, as it were, a double stone
+facing, each facing being carefully dressed. The body of the pyramid is
+solid, the chambers being cut in the rock beneath. These chambers have
+often been enlarged, restored, and reworked in the course of centuries,
+and the passages which connect them form a perfect labyrinth into which
+it is dangerous to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the
+galleries and halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom
+of which the architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt,
+to contain the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until
+the beginning of this century the vault had preserved its original
+lining of glazed pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface was covered
+with green tiles, oblong and lightly convex on the outer side, but flat
+on the inner: a square projection pierced with a hole served to fix them
+at the back in a horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods. Three
+bands which frame one of the doors are inscribed with the titles of the
+Pharaoh. The hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red, green, or
+yellow, on a fawn-colored ground.
+
+The towns, palaces, temples, all the buildings which princes and kings
+had constructed to be witnesses of their power or piety to future
+generations, have disappeared in the course of ages, under the feet and
+before the triumphal blasts of many invading hosts: the pyramid alone
+has survived, and the most ancient of the historic monuments of Egypt is
+a tomb.
+
+
+
+
+
+COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE
+
+B.C. 2250
+
+HAMMURABI
+
+
+     The foundation of all law-making in Babylonia from about the middle
+     of the twenty-third century B.C. to the fall of the empire was the
+     code of Hammurabi, the first king of all Babylonia. He expelled
+     invaders from his dominions, cemented the union of north and south
+     Babylonia, made Babylon the capital, and thus consolidated an
+     empire which endured for almost twenty centuries. The code which he
+     compiled is the oldest known in history, older by nearly a thousand
+     years than the Mosaic, and of earlier date than the so-called Laws
+     of Manu. It is one of the most important historical landmarks in
+     existence, a document which gives us knowledge not otherwise
+     furnished of the country and people, the civilization and life of a
+     great centre of human action hitherto almost hidden in obscurity.
+     Hammurabi, who is supposed to be identical with Amraphel, a
+     contemporary of Abraham, is regarded as having certainly
+     contributed through his laws to the Hebrew traditions. The
+     discovery of this code has, therefore, a special value in relation
+     to biblical studies, upon which so many other important side-lights
+     have recently been thrown.
+
+     The discovery was made at Susa, Persia, in December and January,
+     1901-2, by M. de Morgan's French excavating expedition. The
+     monument on which the laws are inscribed, a stele of black diorite
+     nearly eight feet high, has been fully described by Assyriologists,
+     and the inscription transcribed. It has been completely translated
+     by Dr. Hugo Winckler, whose translation (in _Die Gesetze
+     Hammurabis_, Band IV, Heft 4, of _Der Alte Orient_) furnishes the
+     basis of the version herewith presented. Following an
+     autobiographic preface, the text of the code contains two hundred
+     and eighty edicts and an epilogue. To readers of the code who are
+     familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures many biblical parallels will
+     occur.
+
+
+When Anu the Sublime, king of the Anunaki, and Bel [god of the earth],
+the Lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned
+to Marduk [or Merodach, the great god of Babylon] the over-ruling son of
+Ea [god of the waters], God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man,
+and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his
+illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting
+kingdom in it [Babylon], whose foundations are laid so solidly as those
+of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the
+exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness
+in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the
+strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the
+black-headed people like Shamash [the sun-god], and enlighten the land,
+to further the well-being of mankind.
+
+Hammurabi, the prince, called of Bel am I, making riches and increase,
+enriching Nippur and Dur-ilu beyond compare, sublime patron of E-kur
+[temple of Bel in Nippur, the seat of Bel's worship]; who reëstablished
+Eridu and purified the worship of E-apsu [temple of Ea, at Eridu, the
+chief seat of Ea's worship]; who conquered the four quarters of the
+world, made great the name of Babylon, rejoiced the heart of Marduk, his
+lord who daily pays his devotions in Saggil [Marduk's temple in
+Babylon]; the royal scion whom Sin made; who enriched Ur [Abraham's
+birthplace, the seat of the worship of Sin, the moon-god]; the humble,
+the reverent, who brings wealth to Gish-shir-gal; the white king, heard
+of Shamash, the mighty, who again laid the foundations of Sippana [seat
+of worship of Shamash and his wife, Malkat]; who clothed the gravestones
+of Malkat with green [symbolizing the resurrection of nature]; who made
+E-babbar [temple of the sun in Sippara] great, which is like the
+heavens; the warrior who guarded Larsa and renewed E-babbar [temple of
+the sun in Larsa, biblical Elassar, in Southern Babylonia], with Shamash
+as his helper; the lord who granted new life to Uruk [biblical Erech],
+who brought plenteous water to its inhabitants, raised the head of
+E-anna [temple of Ishtar-Nana at Uruk], and perfected the beauty of Anu
+and Nana; shield of the land, who reunited the scattered inhabitants of
+Isin; who richly endowed E-gal-mach [temple of Isin]; the protecting
+king of the city, brother of the god Zamama [god of Kish]; who firmly
+founded the farms of Kish, crowned E-me-te-ursag [sister city of Kish]
+with glory, redoubled the great holy treasures of Nana, managed the
+temple of Harsag-kalama [temple of Nergal at Cuthah]; the grave of the
+enemy, whose help brought about the victory; who increased the power of
+Cuthah; made all glorious in E-shidlam [a temple], the black steer
+[title of Marduk] who gored the enemy; beloved of the god Nebo, who
+rejoiced the inhabitants of Borsippa, the Sublime; who is indefatigable
+for E-zida [temple of Nebo in Babylon]; the divine king of the city; the
+White, Wise; who broadened the fields of Dilbat, who heaped up the
+harvests for Urash; the Mighty, the lord to whom come sceptre and crown,
+with which he clothes himself; the Elect of Ma-ma; who fixed the temple
+bounds of Kesh, who made rich the holy feasts of Nin-tu [goddess of
+Kesh]; the provident, solicitous, who provided food and drink for Lagash
+and Girsu, who provided large sacrificial offerings for the temple of
+Ningirsu [at Lagash]; who captured the enemy, the Elect of the oracle
+who fulfilled the prediction of Hallab, who rejoiced the heart of Anunit
+[whose oracle had predicted victory]; the pure prince, whose prayer is
+accepted by Adad [god of Hallab, with goddess Anunit]; who satisfied the
+heart of Adad, the warrior, in Karkar, who restored the vessels for
+worship in E-ud-gal-gal; the king who granted life to the city of Adab;
+the guide of E-mach; the princely king of the city, the irresistible
+warrior, who granted life to the inhabitants of Mashkanshabri, and
+brought abundance to the temple of Shid-lam; the White, Potent, who
+penetrated the secret cave of the bandits, saved the inhabitants of
+Malka from misfortune, and fixed their home fast in wealth; who
+established pure sacrificial gifts for Ea and Dam-gal-nun-na, who made
+his kingdom everlastingly great; the princely king of the city, who
+subjected the districts on the Ud-kib-nun-na Canal [Euphrates?] to the
+sway of Dagon, his Creator; who spared the inhabitants of Mera and
+Tutul; the sublime prince, who makes the face of Ninni shine; who
+presents holy meals to the divinity of Nin-a-zu, who cared for its
+inhabitants in their need, provided a portion for them in Babylon in
+peace; the shepherd of the oppressed and of the slaves; whose deeds find
+favor before Anunit, who provided for Anunit in the temple of Dumash in
+the suburb of Agade; who recognizes the right, who rules by law; who
+gave back to the city of Assur its protecting god; who let the name of
+Istar of Nineveh remain in E-mish-mish; the Sublime, who humbles himself
+before the great gods; successor of Sumula-il; the mighty son of
+Sin-muballit; the royal scion of Eternity; the mighty monarch, the sun
+of Babylon, whose rays shed light over the land of Sumer and Akkad; the
+king, obeyed by the four quarters of the world; Beloved of Ninni, am I.
+
+When Marduk sent me to rule over men, to give the protection of right to
+the land, I did right and righteousness in..., and brought about the
+well-being of the oppressed.
+
+
+CODE OF LAWS
+
+1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he cannot
+prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.
+
+2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to
+the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser
+shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the
+accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the
+accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river
+shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
+
+3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and
+does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offence
+charged, be put to death.
+
+4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall
+receive the fine that the action produces.
+
+5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision and present his judgment in
+writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through
+his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the
+case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never
+again shall he sit there to render judgment.
+
+6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall
+be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him
+shall be put to death.
+
+7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without
+witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox
+or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is
+considered a thief and shall be put to death.
+
+8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if
+it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold
+therefor; if they belonged to a freed man [of the king] he shall pay
+tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to
+death.
+
+9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another:
+if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant
+sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the
+thing say "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the
+purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses
+before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can
+identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of
+the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who
+identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proven to be a
+thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives
+his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the
+estate of the merchant.
+
+10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses
+before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who
+identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and
+the owner receives the lost article.
+
+11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he
+is an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.
+
+12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit,
+at the expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared
+within the six months, he is an evil-doer, and shall bear the fine of
+the pending case.
+
+14. If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.
+
+15. If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or
+female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to
+death.
+
+16. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of
+the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public
+proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to
+death.
+
+17. If any one find a runaway male or female slave in the open country
+and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him
+two shekels of silver.
+
+18. If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall
+bring him to the palace; a further investigation must follow and the
+slave shall be returned to his master.
+
+19. If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he
+shall be put to death.
+
+20. If the slave that he caught run away from him, then shall he swear
+to the owners of the slave, and he is free of all blame.
+
+21. If any one break a hole into a house [break in to steal], he shall
+be put to death before that hole and be buried.
+
+22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be
+put to death.
+
+23. If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim
+under oath the amount of his loss; then shall the community, and ... on
+whose ground and territory and in whose domain it was compensate him for
+the goods stolen.
+
+24. If persons are stolen, then shall the community and ... pay one mina
+of silver to their relatives.
+
+25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out,
+cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the
+property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that
+self-same fire.
+
+26. If a chieftain or a man [common soldier], who has been ordered to go
+upon the king's highway [for war] does not go, but hires a mercenary, if
+he withholds the compensation, then shall this officer or man be put to
+death, and he who represented him shall take possession of his house.
+
+27. If a chieftain or man be caught in the misfortune of the king
+[captured in battle], and if his fields and garden be given to another
+and he take possession, if he return and reaches his place, his field
+and garden shall be returned to him, he shall take it over again.
+
+28. If a chieftain or a man be caught in the misfortune of a king, if
+his son is able to enter into possession, then the field and garden
+shall be given to him, he shall take over the fee of his father.
+
+29. If his son is still young, and cannot take possession, a third of
+the field and garden shall be given to his mother, and she shall bring
+him up.
+
+30. If a chieftain or a man leave his house, garden and field and hires
+it out, and some one else takes possession of his house, garden and
+field and uses it for three years: if the first owner return and claims
+his house, garden and field, it shall not be given to him, but he who
+has taken possession of it and used it shall continue to use it.
+
+31. If he hire it out for one year and then return, the house, garden
+and field shall be given back to him, and he shall take it over again.
+
+32. If a chieftain or a man is captured on the "Way of the King" [in
+war], and a merchant buy him free, and bring him back to his place; if
+he have the means in his house to buy his freedom, he shall buy himself
+free: if he have nothing in his house with which to buy himself free, he
+shall be bought free by the temple of his community; if there be nothing
+in the temple with which to buy him free, the court shall buy his
+freedom. His field, garden and house shall not be given for the purchase
+of his freedom.
+
+33. If a ... or a ... [from the connection, some man higher in rank than
+a chieftain] enter himself as withdrawn from the "Way of the King," and
+send a mercenary as substitute, but withdraw him, then the ... or ...
+shall be put to death.
+
+34. If a ... [same as in 33] or a ... harm the property of a captain,
+injure the captain, or take away from the captain a gift presented to
+him by the king then the ... or ... shall be put to death.
+
+35. If any one buy the cattle or sheep which the king has given to
+chieftains from him he loses his money.
+
+35. The field, garden and house of a chieftain, of a man, or of one
+subject to quit-rent, cannot be sold.
+
+37. If any one buy the field, garden and house of a chieftain, man or
+one subject to quit-rent, his contract tablet of sale shall be broken
+[declared invalid] and he loses his money. The field, garden and house
+return to their owners.
+
+38. A chieftain, man or one subject to quit-rent cannot assign his
+tenure of field, house and garden to his wife or daughter, nor can he
+assign it for a debt.
+
+39. He may, however, assign a field, garden or house which he has
+bought, and holds as property, to his wife or daughter or give it for
+debt.
+
+40. He may sell field, garden and house to a merchant [royal agents] or
+to any other public official, the buyer holding field, house and garden
+for its usufruct.
+
+41. If any one fence in the field, garden and house of a chieftain, man
+or one subject to quit-rent, furnishing the palings therefor; if the
+chieftain, man or one subject to quit-rent return to field, garden and
+house, the palings which were given to him become his property.
+
+42. If any one take over a field to till it, and obtain no harvest
+therefrom, it must be proved that he did no work on the field, and he
+must deliver grain, just as his neighbor raised, to the owner of the
+field.
+
+43. If he do not till the field, but let it lie fallow, he shall give
+grain like his neighbor's to the owner of the field, and the field which
+he let lie fallow he must plow and sow and return to its owner.
+
+44. If any one take over a waste-lying field to make it arable, but is
+lazy, and does not make it arable, he shall plow the fallow field in the
+fourth year, harrow it and till it, and give it back to its owner and
+for each ten _gan_ [a measure of area] ten _gur_ [dry measure] of grain
+shall be paid.
+
+45. If a man rent his field for tillage for a fixed rental, and receive
+the rent of his field, but bad weather come and destroy the harvest, the
+injury falls upon the tiller of the soil.
+
+46. If he do not receive a fixed rental for his field, but lets it on
+half or third shares of the harvest, the grain on the field shall be
+divided proportionately between the tiller and the owner.
+
+47. If the tiller, because he did not succeed in the first year, has had
+the soil tilled by others, the owner may raise no objection; the field
+has been cultivated and he receives the harvest according to agreement.
+
+48. If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain,
+or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in
+that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his
+debt-tablet in water [a symbolic action indicating the inability to pay]
+and pays no rent for this year.
+
+49. If any one take money from a merchant, and give the merchant a field
+tillable for corn or sesame and order him to plant corn or sesame in the
+field, and to harvest the crop; if the cultivator plant corn or sesame
+in the field, at the harvest the corn or sesame that is in the field
+shall belong to the owner of the field and he shall pay corn as rent,
+for the money he received from the merchant, and the livelihood of the
+cultivator shall he give to the merchant.
+
+50. If he give a cultivated corn-field or a cultivated sesame-field, the
+corn or sesame in the field shall belong to the owner of the field, and
+he shall return the money to the merchant as rent.
+
+51. If he have no money to repay, then he shall pay in corn or sesame in
+place of the money as rent for what he received from the merchant,
+according to the royal tariff.
+
+52. If the cultivator do not plant corn or sesame in the field, the
+debtor's contract is not weakened.
+
+53. If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does
+not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded,
+then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the
+money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.
+
+54. If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions
+shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.
+
+55. If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and
+the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his
+neighbor corn for his loss.
+
+56. If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of
+his neighbor, he shall pay ten _gur_ of corn for every ten _gan_ of
+land.
+
+57. If a shepherd, without the permission of the owner of the field, and
+without the knowledge of the owner of the sheep, lets the sheep into a
+field to graze, then the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, and
+the shepherd, who had pastured his flock there without permission of
+the owner of the field, shall pay to the owner twenty _gur_ of corn for
+every ten _gan_.
+
+58. If after the flocks have left the pasture and been shut up in the
+common fold at the city gate, any shepherd let them into a field and
+they graze there, this shepherd shall take possession of the field which
+he has allowed to be grazed on, and at the harvest he must pay sixty
+_gur_ of corn for every ten _gan_.
+
+59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a
+tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.
+
+60. If any one give over a field to a gardener, for him to plant it as a
+garden, if he work at it, and care for it for four years, in the fifth
+year the owner and the gardener shall divide it, the owner taking his
+part in charge.
+
+61. If the gardener has not completed the planting of the field, leaving
+one part unused, this shall be assigned to him as his.
+
+62. If he do not plant the field that was given over to him as a garden,
+if it be arable land [for corn or sesame] the gardener shall pay the
+owner the produce of the field for the years that he let it lie fallow,
+according to the product of neighboring fields, put the field in arable
+condition and return it to its owner.
+
+
+63. If he transform waste land into arable fields and return it to its
+owner, the latter shall pay him for one year ten _gur_ for ten _gan_.
+
+64. If any one hand over his garden to a gardener to work, the gardener
+shall pay to its owner two-thirds of the produce of the garden, for so
+long as he has it in possession, and the other third shall he keep.
+
+65. If the gardener do not work in the garden and the product fall off,
+the gardener shall pay in proportion to other neighboring gardens.
+
+[Here a portion of the text is missing, apparently comprising
+thirty-five paragraphs.]
+
+100. ... interest for the money, as much as he has received, he shall
+give a note therefor, and on the day, when they settle, pay to the
+merchant.
+
+101. If there are no mercantile arrangements in the place whither he
+went, he shall leave the entire amount of money which he received with
+the broker to give to the merchant.
+
+102. If a merchant intrust money to an agent [broker] for some
+investment, and the broker suffer a loss in the place to which he goes,
+he shall make good the capital to the merchant.
+
+103. If, while on the journey, an enemy take away from him anything that
+he had, the broker shall swear by God [take an oath] and be free of
+obligation.
+
+104. If a merchant give an agent corn, wool, oil or any other goods to
+transport, the agent shall give a receipt for the amount, and compensate
+the merchant therefor. Then he shall obtain a receipt from the merchant
+for the money that he gives the merchant.
+
+105. If the agent is careless, and does not take a receipt for the money
+which he gave the merchant, he cannot consider the unreceipted money as
+his own.
+
+106. If the agent accept money from the merchant, but have a quarrel
+with the merchant [denying the receipt], then shall the merchant swear
+before God and witnesses that he has given this money to the agent, and
+the agent shall pay him three times the sum.
+
+107. If the merchant cheat the agent, in that as the latter has returned
+to him all that had been given him, but the merchant denies the receipt
+of what had been returned to him, then shall this agent convict the
+merchant before God and the judges, and if he still deny receiving what
+the agent had given him shall pay six times the sum to the agent.
+
+108. If a tavern-keeper [feminine] does not accept corn according to
+gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the
+drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown
+into the water.
+
+109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these
+conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the
+tavern-keeper shall be put to death.
+
+110. If a "sister of a god" [one devoted to the temple] open a tavern,
+or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.
+
+111. If an inn-keeper furnish sixty _ka_ of _usakani_-drink to ... she
+shall receive fifty _ka_ of corn at the harvest.
+
+112. If anyone be on a journey and intrust silver, gold, precious
+stones, or any movable property to another, and wish to recover it from
+him; if the latter do not bring all of the property to the appointed
+place, but appropriate it to his own use, then shall this man, who did
+not bring the property to hand it over be convicted, and he shall pay
+fivefold for all that had been intrusted to him.
+
+113. If any one have a consignment of corn or money, and he take from
+the granary or box, without the knowledge of the owner, then shall he
+who took corn without the knowledge of the owner out of the granary or
+money out of the box be legally convicted, and repay the corn he has
+taken. And he shall lose whatever commission was paid to him, or due
+him.
+
+114. If a man have no claim on another for corn and money, and try to
+demand it by force, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver in every
+case.
+
+115. If any one have a claim for corn or money upon another and imprison
+him; if the prisoner die in prison a natural death, the case shall go no
+further.
+
+116. If the prisoner die in prison from blows or maltreatment, the
+master of the prisoner shall convict the merchant before the judge. If
+he was a free-born man, the son of the merchant shall be put to death;
+if it was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of gold, and all
+that the master of the prisoner gave he shall forfeit.
+
+117. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his
+wife, his son and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor:
+they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them
+or the proprietor and in the fourth year they shall be set free.
+
+118. If he give a male or female slave away for forced labor, and the
+merchant sublease them, or sell them for money, no objection can be
+raised.
+
+119. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and he sell the maid
+servant who has borne him children, for money, the money which the
+merchant has paid shall be repaid to him by the owner of the slave and
+she shall be freed.
+
+120. If any one store corn for safe keeping in another person's house,
+and any harm happen to the corn in storage, or if the owner of the house
+open the granary and take some of the corn, or if especially he deny
+that the corn was stored in his house: then the owner of the corn shall
+claim his corn before God [on oath], and the owner of the house shall
+pay its owner for all of the corn that he took.
+
+121. If any one store corn in another man's house he shall pay him
+storage at the rate of one _gur_ for every five _ka_ of corn per year.
+
+122. If any one give another silver, gold or anything else to keep, he
+shall show everything to some witness, draw up a contract, and then hand
+it over for safe keeping.
+
+123. If he turn it over for safe keeping without witness or contract,
+and if he to whom it was given deny it, then he has no legitimate claim.
+
+124. If any one deliver silver, gold or anything else to another for
+safe keeping, before a witness, but he deny it, he shall be brought
+before a judge, and all that he has denied he shall pay in full.
+
+125. If any one place his property with another for safe keeping, and
+there, either through thieves or robbers, his property and the property
+of the other man be lost, the owner of the house, through whose neglect
+the loss took place, shall compensate the owner for all that was given
+to him in charge. But the owner of the house shall try to follow up and
+recover his property, and take it away from the thief.
+
+126. If any one who has not lost his goods, state that they have been
+lost, and make false claims: if he claim his goods and amount of injury
+before God, even though he has not lost them, he shall be fully
+compensated for all his loss claimed [_i.e._, the oath is all that is
+needed].
+
+127. If any one point the finger [slander] at a sister of a god or the
+wife of any one, and cannot prove it, this man shall be taken, before
+the judges and his brow shall be marked [by cutting the skin, or perhaps
+hair].
+
+128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her,
+this woman is no wife to him.
+
+129. If a man's wife be surprised with another man, both shall be tied
+and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the
+king his slaves.
+
+130. If a man violate the wife [betrothed or child-wife] of another man,
+who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and
+sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the
+wife is blameless.
+
+131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not
+surprised with another man [_delit flagrant_ is necessary for divorce],
+she must take an oath and then may return to her house.
+
+132. If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but
+she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the
+river for her husband [prove her innocence by this test].
+
+133. If a man is taken prisoner in war, and there is a sustenance in his
+house, but his wife leave house and court, and go to another house:
+because this wife did not keep her court, and went to another house, she
+shall be judicially condemned and thrown into the water.
+
+134. If any one be captured in war and there is no sustenance in his
+house, if then his wife go to another house, this woman shall be held
+blameless.
+
+135. If a man be taken prisoner in war and there be no sustenance in his
+house and his wife go to another house and bear children; and if later
+her husband return and come to his home: then this wife shall return to
+her husband, but the children follow their father.
+
+136. If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to
+another house, if then he return, and wishes to take his wife back:
+because he fled from his home and ran away, the wife of this runaway
+shall not return to her husband.
+
+137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children,
+or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that
+wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden and
+property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her
+children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that
+of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her
+heart.
+
+138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no
+children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money [amount
+formerly paid to the bride's father] and the dowry which she brought
+from her father's house, and let her go.
+
+139. If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold
+as a gift of release.
+
+140. If he be a freed man he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.
+
+141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it,
+plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is
+judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on
+her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband
+does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall
+remain as servant in her husband's house.
+
+142. If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not
+congenial to me," the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If
+she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and
+neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her
+dowry and go back to her father's house.
+
+143. If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her
+house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.
+
+144. If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a
+maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take
+another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a
+second wife.
+
+145. If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend
+to take another wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into
+the house, this second wife shall not be allowed equality with his wife.
+
+146. If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid servant as wife
+and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the
+wife: because she has borne him children her master shall not sell her
+for money, but he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the
+maid-servants.
+
+147. If she have not borne him children, then her mistress may sell her
+for money.
+
+148. If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then
+desire to take a second wife he shall not put away his wife, who has
+been attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he
+has built and support her so long as she lives.
+
+149. If this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, then
+he shall compensate her for the dowry that she brought with her from her
+father's house, and she may go.
+
+150. If a man give his wife a field, garden and house and a deed
+therefor, if then after the death of her husband the sons raise no
+claim, then the mother may bequeath all to one of her sons whom she
+prefers, and need leave nothing to his brothers.
+
+151. If a woman who lived in a man's house, made an agreement with her
+husband, that no creditor can arrest her, and has given a document
+therefor: if that man, before he married that woman, had a debt, the
+creditor cannot hold the woman for it. But if the woman, before she
+entered the man's house, had contracted a debt, her creditor cannot
+arrest her husband therefor.
+
+152. If after the woman had entered the man's house, both contracted a
+debt, both must pay the merchant.
+
+153. If the wife of one man on account of another man has their mates
+[her husband and the other man's wife] murdered, both of them shall be
+impaled.
+
+154. If a man be guilty of incest with his daughter, he shall be driven
+from the place [exiled].
+
+155. If a man betroth a girl to his son, and his son have intercourse
+with her, but he [the father] afterward defile her, and be surprised,
+then he shall be bound and cast into the water [drowned].
+
+156. If a man betroth a girl to his son, but his son has not known her,
+and if then he defile her, he shall pay her half a gold mina, and
+compensate her for all that she brought out of her father's house. She
+may marry the man of her heart.
+
+157. If any one be guilty of incest with his mother after his father,
+both shall be burned.
+
+158. If any one be surprised after his father with his chief wife, who
+has borne children, he shall be driven out of his father's house.
+
+159. If any one, who has brought chattels into his father-in-law's
+house, and has paid the purchase-money, looks for another wife, and says
+to his father-in-law: "I do not want your daughter," the girl's father
+may keep all that he had brought.
+
+160. If a man bring chattels into the house of his father-in-law, and
+pay the "purchase price" [for his wife]: if then the father of the girl
+say: "I will not give you my daughter," he shall give him back all that
+he brought with him.
+
+161. If a man bring chattels into his father-in-law's house and pay the
+"purchase price," if then his friend slander him, and his father-in-law
+say to the young husband: "You shall not marry my daughter," then he
+shall give back to him undiminished all that he had brought with him;
+but his wife shall not be married to the friend.
+
+162. If a man marry a woman, and she bear sons to him; if then this
+woman die, then shall her father have no claim on her dowry; this
+belongs to her sons.
+
+163. If a man marry a woman and she bear him no sons; if then this woman
+die, if the "purchase price" which he had paid into the house of his
+father-in-law is repaid to him, her husband shall have no claim upon the
+dowry of this woman; it belongs to her father's house.
+
+164. If his father-in-law do not pay back to him the amount of the
+"purchase price" he may subtract the amount of the "purchase price" from
+the dowry, and then pay the remainder to her father's house.
+
+165. If a man give to one of his sons whom he prefers, a field, garden
+and house and a deed therefor: if later the father die, and the brothers
+divide [the estate], then they shall first give him the present of his
+father, and he shall accept it; and the rest of the paternal property
+shall they divide.
+
+166. If a man take wives for his sons, but take no wife for his minor
+son, and if then he die: if the sons divide the estate, they shall set
+aside besides his portion the money for the "purchase price" for the
+minor brother who had taken no wife as yet, and secure a wife for him.
+
+167. If a man marry a wife and she bear him children: if this wife die
+and he then take another wife and she bear him children: if then the
+father die, the sons must not partition the estate according to the
+mothers, they shall divide the dowries of their mothers only in this
+way; the paternal estate they shall divide equally with one another.
+
+168. If a man wish to put his son out of his house, and declare before
+the judge: "I want to put my son out," then the judge shall examine into
+his reasons. If the son be guilty of no great fault, for which he can be
+rightfully put out, the father shall not put him out.
+
+169. If he be guilty of a grave fault, which should rightfully deprive
+him of the filial relationship, the father shall forgive him the first
+time; but if he be guilty of a grave fault a second time the father may
+deprive his son of all filial relation.
+
+170. If his wife bear sons to a man, or his maid-servant have borne
+sons, and the father while still living says to the children whom his
+maid-servant has borne: "My sons," and he count them with the sons of
+his wife; if then the father die, then the sons of the wife and of the
+maid-servant shall divide the paternal property in common. The son of
+the wife is to partition and choose.
+
+171. If, however, the father while still living did not say to the sons
+of the maid-servant: "My sons," and then the father dies, then the sons
+of the maid-servant shall not share with the sons of the wife, but the
+freedom of the maid and her sons shall be granted. The sons of the wife
+shall have no right to enslave the sons of the maid; the wife shall take
+her dowry [from her father], and the gift that her husband gave her and
+deeded to her [separate from dowry, or the purchase money paid her
+father], and live in the home of her husband: so long as she lives she
+shall use it, it shall not be sold for money. Whatever she leaves shall
+belong to her children.
+
+172. If her husband made her no gift, she shall be compensated for her
+gift, and she shall receive a portion from the estate of her husband,
+equal to that of one child. If her sons oppress her, to force her out of
+the house, the judge shall examine into the matter, and if the sons are
+at fault the woman shall not leave her husband's house. If the woman
+desire to leave the house, she must leave to her sons the gift which her
+husband gave her, but she may take the dowry of her father's house. Then
+she may marry the man of her heart.
+
+173. If this woman bear sons to her second husband, in the place to
+which she went, and then die, her earlier and later sons shall divide
+the dowry between them.
+
+174. If she bear no sons to her second husband, the sons of her first
+husband shall have the dowry.
+
+175. If a state slave or the slave of a freed man marry the daughter of
+a free man, and children are born, the master of the slave shall have no
+right to enslave the children of the free.
+
+176. If, however, a state slave or the slave of a freed man marry a
+man's daughter, and after he married her she bring a dowry from a
+father's house, if then they both enjoy it and found a household, and
+accumulate means, if then the slave die, then she who was free born may
+take her dowry, and all that her husband and she had earned; she shall
+divide them into two parts, one-half the master for the slave shall
+take, and the other half shall the free-born woman take for her
+children. If the free-born woman had no gift she shall take all that her
+husband and she had earned and divide it into two parts; and the master
+of the slave shall take one-half and she shall take the other for her
+children.
+
+177. If a widow, whose children are not grown, wishes to enter another
+house [remarry], she shall not enter it without the knowledge of the
+judge. If she enter another house the judge shall examine the estate of
+the house of her first husband. Then the house of her first husband
+shall be intrusted to the second husband and the woman herself as
+managers. And a record must be made thereof. She shall keep the house in
+order, bring up the children, and not sell the household utensils. He
+who buys the utensils of the children of a widow shall lose his money,
+and the goods shall return to their owners.
+
+178. If a "devoted woman" or a prostitute [connected with the temple
+neither can marry] to whom her father has given a dowry and a deed
+therefor, but if in this deed it is not stated that she may bequeath it
+as she pleases, and has not explicitly stated that she has the right of
+disposal; if then her father die, then her brothers shall hold her field
+and garden, and give her corn, oil and milk according to her portion,
+and satisfy her. If her brothers do not give her corn, oil and milk
+according to her share, then her field and garden shall be given to a
+farmer whom she chooses and the farmer shall support her. She shall have
+the usufruct of field and garden and all that her father gave her so
+long as she lives, but she cannot sell or assign it to others. Her
+position of inheritance belongs to her brothers.
+
+179. If a "sister of a god" [whose hire went to the revenue of the
+temple, counterpart to the public prostitute], or a prostitute, receive
+a gift from her father, and a deed in which it has been explicitly
+stated that she may dispose of it as she pleases, and give her complete
+disposition thereof: if then her father die, then she may leave her
+property to whomsoever she pleases. Her brothers can raise no claim
+thereto.
+
+180. If a father give a present to his daughter--either marriageable or
+a prostitute [unmarriageable]--and then die, then she is to receive a
+portion as a child from the paternal estate, and enjoy its usufruct so
+long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.
+
+181. If a father devote a temple-maid or temple-virgin to God and give
+her no present: if then the father die, she shall receive the third of a
+child's portion from the inheritance of her father's house, and enjoy
+its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.
+
+182. If a father devote his daughter as a wife of Marduk of Babylon [as
+in 181], and give her no present, nor a deed; if then her father die,
+then shall she receive one-third of her portion as a child of her
+father's house from her brothers, but she shall not have the management
+thereof. A wife of Marduk may leave her estate to whomsoever she wishes.
+
+183. If a man give his daughter by a concubine a dowry, and a husband,
+and a deed; if then her father die, she shall receive no portion from
+the paternal estate.
+
+184. If a man do not give a dowry to his daughter by a concubine, and no
+husband; if then her father die then her brother shall give her a dowry
+according to her father's wealth and secure a husband for her.
+
+185. If a man adopt a child and to his name as son, and rear him, this
+grown son cannot be demanded back again.
+
+186. If a man adopt a son, and if after he has taken him he injure his
+foster father and mother, then this adopted son shall return to his
+father's house.
+
+187. The son of a paramour in the palace service, or of a prostitute,
+cannot be demanded back.
+
+188. If an artisan has undertaken to rear a child and teaches him his
+craft, he cannot be demanded back.
+
+189. If he has not taught him his craft, this adopted son may return to
+his father's house.
+
+190. If a man does not maintain a child that he has adopted as son and
+reared with his other children, then his adopted son may return to his
+father's house.
+
+191. If a man, who had adopted a son and reared him, founded a
+household, and had children, wish to put this adopted son out, then this
+son shall not simply go his way. His adoptive father shall give him of
+his wealth one-third of a child's portion, and then he may go. He shall
+not give him of the field, garden and house.
+
+192. If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father
+or mother: "You are not my father, or my mother," his tongue shall be
+cut off.
+
+193. If the son of a paramour or a prostitute desire his father's house,
+and desert his adoptive father and adoptive mother, and goes to his
+father's house, then shall his eye be put out.
+
+194. If a man give his child to a nurse and the child die in her hands,
+but the nurse unbeknown to the father and mother nurse another child,
+then they shall convict her of having nursed another child without the
+knowledge of the father and mother and her breasts shall be cut off.
+
+195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
+
+196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
+
+197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
+
+198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed
+man, he shall pay one gold mina.
+
+199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a
+man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
+
+200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be
+knocked out.
+
+201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of
+a gold mina.
+
+202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he
+shall receive sixty blows with an ox-hide whip in public.
+
+203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man of
+equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
+
+204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay
+ten shekels in money.
+
+205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear
+shall be cut off.
+
+206. If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he
+shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physician.
+
+207. If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he
+[the deceased] was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.
+
+208. If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
+
+209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn
+child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
+
+210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
+
+211. If a woman of the freed class lose her child by a blow, he shall
+pay five shekels in money.
+
+212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.
+
+213. If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he
+shall pay two shekels in money.
+
+214. If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
+
+215. If a physician make a large incision with a operating knife and
+cure it, or if he open a tumor [over the eye] with an operating knife,
+and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.
+
+216. If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.
+
+217. If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician
+two shekels.
+
+218. If a physician make a large incision with the operating knife, and
+kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye,
+his hands shall be cut off.
+
+219. If a physician make a large incision in the slave of a freed man,
+and kill him, he shall replace the slave with another slave.
+
+220. If he had opened a tumor with the operating knife, and put out his
+eye, he shall pay half his value.
+
+221. If a physician heal the broken bone or diseased soft part of a man,
+the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.
+
+222. If he were a freed man he shall pay three shekels.
+
+223. If he were a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.
+
+224. If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an
+ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel
+as fee.
+
+225. If he perform, a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he
+shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.
+
+226. If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a
+slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut
+off.
+
+227. If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not for sale
+with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried in his
+house. The barber shall swear: "I did not mark him wittingly," and shall
+be guiltless.
+
+228. If a builder build a house for some one and complete it, he shall
+give him a fee of two shekels in money for each _sar_ of surface.
+
+229. If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it
+properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then
+that builder shall be put to death.
+
+230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be
+put to death.
+
+231. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave
+to the owner of the house.
+
+232. If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been
+ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which
+he built and it fell, he shall reërect the house from his own means.
+
+233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not
+yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make
+the walls solid from his own means.
+
+234. If a shipbuilder build a boat of sixty _gur_ for a man, he shall
+pay him a fee of two shekels in money.
+
+235. If a shipbuilder build a boat for some one, and do not make it
+tight, if during that same year that boat is sent away and suffers
+injury, the shipbuilder shall take the boat apart and put it together
+tight at his own expense. The tight boat he shall give to the boat
+owner.
+
+236. If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and
+the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of
+the boat another boat as compensation.
+
+237. If a man hire a sailor and his boat, and provide it with corn,
+clothing, oil and dates, and other things of the kind needed for fitting
+it: if the sailor is careless, the boat is wrecked, and its contents
+ruined, then the sailor shall compensate for the boat which was wrecked
+and all in it that he ruined.
+
+238. If a sailor wreck any one's ship, but saves it, he shall pay the
+half of its value in money.
+
+239. If a man hire a sailor, he shall pay him six _gur_ of corn per
+year.
+
+240. If a merchantman run against a ferryboat, and wreck it, the master
+of the ship that was wrecked shall seek justice before God; the master
+of the merchantman, which wrecked the ferryboat, must compensate the
+owner for the boat and all that he ruined.
+
+241. If any one impresses an ox for forced labor, he shall pay one-third
+of a mina in money.
+
+242. If any one hire oxen for a year, he shall pay four _gur_ of corn
+for plow-oxen.
+
+243. As rent of herd cattle he shall pay three _gur_ of corn to the
+owner.
+
+244. If any one hire an ox or an ass, and a lion kill it in the field,
+the loss is upon its owner.
+
+245. If any one hire oxen, and kill them by bad treatment or blows, he
+shall compensate the owner, oxen for oxen.
+
+246. If a man hire an ox, and he break its leg or cut the ligament of
+its neck, he shall compensate the owner with ox for ox.
+
+247. If any one hire an ox, and put out its eye, he shall pay the owner
+one-half of its value.
+
+248. If any one hire an ox, and break off a horn, or cut off its tail or
+hurt its muzzle, he shall pay one-fourth of its value in money.
+
+249. If any one hire an ox, and God strike it that it die, the man who
+hired it shall swear by God and be considered guiltless.
+
+250. If while an ox is passing on the street [market?] some one push it,
+and kill it, the owner can set up no claim in the suit [against the
+hirer].
+
+251. If an ox be a goring ox, and it is shown that he is a gorer, and he
+do not bind his horns, or fasten the ox up, and the ox gore a free-born
+man and kill him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money.
+
+252. If he kill a man's slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
+
+253. If any one agree with another to tend his field, give him seed,
+intrust a yoke of oxen to him, and bind him to cultivate the field, if
+he steal the corn or plants, and take them for himself, his hands shall
+be hewn off.
+
+254. If he take the seed-corn for himself, and do not use the yoke of
+oxen, he shall compensate him for the amount of the seed-corn.
+
+255. If he sublet the man's yoke of oxen or steal the seed-corn,
+planting nothing in the field, he shall be convicted, and for each one
+hundred _gan_ he shall pay sixty _gur_ of corn.
+
+256. If his community will not pay for him, then he shall be placed in
+that field with the cattle [at work].
+
+257. If any one hire a field laborer, he shall pay him eight _gur_ of
+corn per year.
+
+258. If any one hire an ox-driver, he shall pay him six _gur_ of corn
+per year.
+
+259. If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five
+shekels in money to its owner.
+
+260. If any one steal a _shadduf_ [used to draw water from the river or
+canal] or a plow, he shall pay three shekels in money.
+
+261. If any one hire a herdsman for cattle or sheep, he shall pay him
+eight _gur_ of corn per annum.
+
+262. If any one, a cow or a sheep ... [broken off].
+
+263. If he kill the cattle or sheep that were given to him, he shall
+compensate the owner with cattle for cattle and sheep for sheep.
+
+264. If a herdsman, to whom cattle or sheep have been intrusted for
+watching over, and who has received his wages as agreed upon, and is
+satisfied, diminish the number of the cattle or sheep, or make the
+increase by birth less, he shall make good the increase and profit which
+was lost in the terms of settlement.
+
+265. If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been intrusted,
+be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or
+sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten
+times the loss.
+
+266. If the animal be killed in the stable by God [an accident], or if a
+lion kill it, the herdsman shall declare his innocence before God, and
+the owner bears the accident in the stable.
+
+267. If the herdsman overlook something, and an accident happen in the
+stable, then the herdsman is at fault for the accident which he has
+caused in the stable, and he must compensate the owner for the cattle or
+sheep.
+
+268. If any one hire an ox for threshing, the amount of the hire is
+twenty _ka_ of corn.
+
+269. If he hire an ass for threshing, the hire is twenty _ka_ of corn.
+
+270. If he hire a young animal for threshing, the hire is ten _ka_ of
+corn.
+
+271. If any one hire oxen, cart and driver, he shall pay one hundred and
+eighty _ka_ of corn per day.
+
+272. If any one hire a cart alone, he shall pay forty _ka_ of corn per
+day.
+
+273. If any one hire a day laborer, he shall pay him from the New Year
+until the fifth month [April to August, when days are long and work
+hard] six gerahs in money per day; from the sixth month to the end of
+the year he shall give him five gerahs per day.
+
+274. If any one hire a skilled artisan, he shall pay as wages of the ...
+five gerahs, as wages of the potter five gerahs, of a tailor five gerahs,
+of ... gerahs, ... of ... gerahs ... of ... gerahs, of a carpenter four
+gerahs, of a rope-maker four gerahs, of ... gerahs, of a mason ... gerahs
+per day.
+
+275. If any one hire a ferryboat, he shall pay three gerahs in money per
+day.
+
+276. If he hire a freight-boat, he shall pay two and one-half gerahs per
+day.
+
+277. If any one hire a ship of sixty _gur_ he shall pay one-sixth of a
+shekel in money as its hire per day.
+
+278. If any one buy a male or female slave, and before a month has
+elapsed the _benu_-disease be developed, he shall return the slave to
+the seller, and receive the money which he had paid.
+
+279. If any one buy a male or female slave, and a third party claim it,
+the seller is liable for the claim.
+
+280. If while in a foreign country a man buy a male or female slave
+belonging to another [of his own country]: if when he return home the
+owner of the male or female slave recognize it: if the male or female
+slave be a native of the country, he shall give them back without any
+money.
+
+281. If they are from another country, the buyer shall declare the
+amount of money he paid before God, and the owner shall give the money
+paid therefor to the merchant, and keep the male or female slave.
+
+282. If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they
+convict him his master shall cut off his ear.
+
+
+THE EPILOGUE
+
+Laws of justice which Hammurabi, the wise king, established, A righteous
+law, and pious statute did he teach the land. Hammurabi, the protecting
+king am I. I have not withdrawn myself from the men, whom Bel gave to
+me, the rule over whom Marduk gave to me, I was not negligent, but I
+made them a peaceful abiding place. I expounded all great difficulties,
+I made the light shine upon them. With the mighty weapons which Zamama
+and Ishtar intrusted to me, with the keen vision with which Ea endowed
+me, with the wisdom that Marduk gave me, I have uprooted the enemy above
+and below [in north and south], subdued the earth, brought prosperity to
+the land, guaranteed security to the inhabitants in their homes; a
+disturber was not permitted. The great gods have called me, I am the
+salvation-bearing shepherd [ruler], whose staff [sceptre] is straight
+[just], the good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I
+cherish the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad [Babylonia]; in
+my shelter I have let them repose in peace; in my deep wisdom have I
+inclosed them. That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to
+protect the widows and orphans, I have in Babylon the city where Anu and
+Bel raise high their head, in E-Sagil, the Temple, whose foundations
+stand firm as heaven and earth, in order to bespeak justice in the land,
+to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, set up these my precious
+words, written upon my memorial stone, before the image of me, as king
+of righteousness.
+
+The king who ruleth among the kings of the cities am I. My words are
+well considered; there is no wisdom like unto mine. By the command of
+Shamash [the sun-god], the great judge of heaven and earth, let
+righteousness go forth in the land: by the order of Marduk, my lord, let
+no destruction befall my monument. In E-Sagil, which I love, let my name
+be ever repeated; let the oppressed, who has a case at law, come and
+stand before this my image as king of righteousness; let him read the
+inscription, and understand my precious words: the inscription will
+explain his case to him; he will find out what is just, and his heart
+will be glad [so that he will say]:
+
+"Hammurabi is a ruler, who is as a father to his subjects, who holds the
+words of Marduk in reverence, who has achieved conquest for Marduk over
+the north and south, who rejoices the heart of Marduk, his lord, who has
+bestowed benefits forever and ever on his subjects, and has established
+order in the land."
+
+When he reads the record, let him pray with full heart to Marduk, my
+lord, and Zarpanit, my lady; and then shall the protecting deities and
+the gods, who frequent E-Sagil, graciously grant the desires daily
+presented before Marduk, my lord, and Zarpanit, my lady.
+
+In future time, through all coming generations, let the king, who may be
+in the land, observe the words of righteousness which I have written on
+my monument; let him not alter the law of the land which I have given,
+the edicts which I have enacted; my monument let him not mar. If such a
+ruler have wisdom, and be able to keep his land in order, he shall
+observe the words which I have written in this inscription; the rule,
+statute and law of the land which I have given; the decisions which I
+have made will this inscription show him; let him rule his subjects
+accordingly, speak justice to them, give right decisions, root out the
+miscreants and criminals from his land, and grant prosperity to his
+subjects.
+
+Hammurabi, the king of righteousness, on whom Shamash has conferred
+right [or law] am I. My words are well considered, my deeds are not
+equaled, to bring low those that were high, to humble the proud, to
+expel insolence. If a succeeding ruler considers my words, which I have
+written in this my inscription, if he do not annul my law, nor corrupt
+my words, nor change my monument, then may Shamash lengthen that king's
+reign, as he has that of me, the king of righteousness, that he may
+reign in righteousness over his subjects. If this ruler do not esteem my
+words, which I have written in my inscription, if he despise my curses,
+and fear not the curse of God, if he destroy the law which I have given,
+corrupt my words, change my monument, efface my name, write his name
+there, or on account of the curses commission another so to do, that
+man, whether king or ruler, patesi [priest-viceroy] or commoner, no
+matter what he be, may the great God [Anu], the Father of the gods, who
+has ordered my rule, withdraw from him the glory of royalty, break his
+sceptre, curse his destiny. May Bel, the lord, who fixeth destiny, whose
+command cannot be altered, who has made my kingdom great, order a
+rebellion which his hand cannot control; may he let the wind of the
+overthrow of his habitation blow, may he ordain the years of his rule in
+groaning, years of scarcity, years of famine, darkness without light,
+death with seeing eyes be fated to him; may he [Bel] order with his
+potent mouth the destruction of his city, the dispersion of his
+subjects, the cutting off of his rule, the removal of his name and
+memory from the land. May Belit, the great Mother, whose command is
+potent in E-Kur [the Babylonian Olympus], the Mistress, who hearkens
+graciously to my petitions, in the seat of judgment and decision [where
+Bel fixes destiny], turn his affairs evil before Bel, and put the
+devastation of his land, the destruction of his subjects, the pouring
+out of his life like water into the mouth of King Bel. May Ea, the great
+ruler, whose fated decrees come to pass, the thinker of the gods, the
+omniscient, who maketh long the days of my life, withdraw understanding
+and wisdom from him, lead him to forgetfulness, shut up his rivers at
+their sources, and not allow corn or sustenance for man to grow in his
+land. May Shamash, the great Judge of heaven and earth, who supporteth
+all means of livelihood, Lord of life-courage, shatter his dominion,
+annul his law, destroy his way, make vain the march of his troops, send
+him in his visions forecasts of the uprooting of the foundations of his
+throne and of the destruction of his land. May the condemnation of
+Shamash overtake him forthwith; may he be deprived of water above among
+the living, and his spirit below in the earth. May Sin [the moon-god],
+the Lord of Heaven, the divine father, whose crescent gives light among
+the gods, take away the crown and regal throne from him; may he put upon
+him heavy guilt, great decay, that nothing may be lower than he. May he
+destine him as fated, days, months and years of dominion filled with
+sighing and tears, increase of the burden of dominion, a life that is
+like unto death. May Adad, the lord of fruitfulness, ruler of heaven and
+earth, my helper, withhold from him rain from heaven, and the flood of
+water from the springs, destroying his land by famine and want; may he
+rage mightily over his city, and make his land into flood-hills [heaps
+of ruined cities]. May Zamama, the great warrior, the first born son of
+E-Kur, who goeth at my right hand, shatter his weapons on the field of
+battle, turn day into night for him, and let his foe triumph over him.
+May Ishtar, the goddess of fighting and war, who unfetters my weapons,
+my gracious protecting spirit, who loveth my dominion, curse his kingdom
+in her angry heart; in her great wrath, change his grace into evil, and
+shatter his weapons on the place of fighting and war. May she create
+disorder and sedition for him, strike down his warriors, that the earth
+may drink their blood, and throw down the piles of corpses of his
+warriors on the field; may she not grant him a life of mercy, deliver
+him into the hands of his enemies, and imprison him in the land of his
+enemies. May Nergal, the mighty among the gods, whose contest is
+irresistible, who grants me victory, in his great might burn up his
+subjects like a slender reed-stalk, cut off his limbs with his mighty
+weapons, and shatter him like an earthen image. May Nin-tu, the sublime
+mistress of the lands, the fruitful mother, deny him a son, vouchsafe
+him no name, give him no successor among men. May Nin-karak, the
+daughter of Anu, who adjudges grace to me, cause to come upon his
+members in E-kur, high fever, severe wounds, that cannot be healed,
+whose nature the physician does not understand, which he cannot treat
+with dressing, which, like the bite of death, cannot be removed, until
+they have sapped away his life.
+
+May he lament the loss of his life-power, and may the great gods of
+heaven and earth, the Anunnaki altogether inflict a curse and evil upon
+the confines of the temple, the walls of this E-barra [the Sun temple of
+Sippara], upon his dominion, his land, his warriors, his subjects and
+his troops. May Bel curse him with the potent curses of his mouth that
+cannot be altered, and may they come upon, him forthwith.
+
+
+
+
+
+THESEUS FOUNDS ATHENS
+
+B.C. 1235
+
+PLUTARCH
+
+
+     The founding of the city of Athens, apart from the mythological
+     lore which ascribes its name to Athené, the goddess, is credited by
+     the Greeks to Sais, a native of Egypt. The real founder of Athens,
+     the one who made it a city and kingdom, was Theseus; an
+     unacknowledged illegitimate child. The usual myth surrounds his
+     birth and upbringing.
+
+     King Ægeus, of Attica, his father, had an intrigue with Æthra.
+     Before leaving, Ægeus informed her that he had hidden his sword and
+     sandals beneath a great stone, hollowed out to receive them. She
+     was charged that should a son be born to them and, on growing to
+     man's estate, be able to lift the stone, Æthra must send him to his
+     father, with these things under it, in all secrecy. These
+     happenings were in Troezen, in which place Ægeus had been
+     sojourning.
+
+     All came about as expected. Theseus, the son, lifted the stone,
+     took thence the deposit and departed for Attica, his father's home.
+     On his way Theseus had a number of adventures which proved his
+     prowess, not the least being his encounter with and defeat of
+     Periphetes, the "club-bearer," so called from the weapon he used.
+
+     Theseus had complied with the custom of his country by journeying
+     to Delphi and offering the first-fruits of his hair, then cut for
+     the first time. This first cutting of the hair was always an
+     occasion of solemnity among the Greeks, the hair being dedicated to
+     some god. It will be remembered that Homer speaks of this in the
+     _Iliad_.
+
+     One salient fact must be borne in mind in Grecian history, which is
+     that it was a settled maxim that each city should have an
+     independent sovereignty. "The patriotism of a Greek was confined to
+     his city, and rarely kindled into any general love for the common
+     welfare of Hellas."[22]
+
+     [Footnote 22: Smith.]
+
+     A Greek citizen of Athens was an alien in any other city of the
+     peninsula. This political disunion caused the various cities to
+     turn against each other, and laid them open to conquest by the
+     Macedonians.
+
+
+As he [Theseus] proceeded on his way, and reached the river Cephisus,
+men of the Phytalid race were the first to meet and greet him. He
+demanded to be purified from the guilt of bloodshed, and they purified
+him, made propitiatory offerings, and also entertained him in their
+houses, being the first persons from whom he had received any kindness
+on his journey.
+
+It is said to have been on the eighth day of the month Cronion, which is
+now called Hecatombaion, that he came to his own city. On entering it he
+found public affairs disturbed by factions, and the house of Ægeus in
+great disorder; for Medea, who had been banished from Corinth, was
+living with Ægeus, and had engaged by her drugs to enable Ægeus to have
+children. She was the first to discover who Theseus was, while Ægeus,
+who was an old man, and feared every one because of the disturbed state
+of society, did not recognize him. Consequently she advised Ægeus to
+invite him to a feast, that she might poison him.
+
+Theseus accordingly came to Ægeus's table. He did not wish to be the
+first to tell his name, but, to give his father an opportunity of
+recognizing him, he drew his sword, as if he meant to cut some of the
+meat with it, and showed it to Ægeus. Ægeus at once recognized it,
+overset the cup of poison, looked closely at his son, and embraced him.
+He then called a public meeting and made Theseus known as his son to the
+citizens, with whom he was already very popular because of his bravery,
+It is said that when the cup was overset the poison was spilt in the
+place where now there is the enclosure in the Delphinium, for there
+Ægeus dwelt; and the Hermes to the east of the temple there they call
+the one who is "at the door of Ægeus."
+
+But the sons of Pallas, who had previously to this expected that they
+would inherit the kingdom on the death of Ægeus without issue, now that
+Theseus was declared the heir, were much enraged, first that Ægeus
+should be king, a man who was merely an adopted child of Pandion, and
+had no blood relationship to Erechtheus, and next that Theseus, a
+stranger and a foreigner, should inherit the kingdom. They consequently
+declared war.
+
+Dividing themselves into two bodies, the one proceeded to march openly
+upon the city from Sphettus, under the command of Pallas their father,
+while the other lay in ambush at Gargettus, in order that they might
+fall upon their opponents on two sides at once. But there was a herald
+among them named Leos, of the township of Agnus, who betrayed the plans
+of the sons of Pallas to Theseus. He suddenly attacked those who were
+in ambush, and killed them all, hearing which the other body under
+Pallas dispersed. From this time forth they say that the township of
+Pallene has never intermarried with that of Agnus, and that it is not
+customary amongst them for heralds to begin a proclamation with the
+words "Acouete Leo," (Oyez) for they hate the name of Leo because of the
+treachery of that man.
+
+Shortly after this the ship from Crete arrived for the third time to
+collect the customary tribute. Most writers agree that the origin of
+this was, that on the death of Androgeus, in Attica, which was ascribed
+to treachery, his father Minos went to war, and wrought much evil to the
+country, which at the same time was afflicted by scourges from heaven
+(for the land did not bear fruit, and there was a great pestilence, and
+the rivers sank into the earth).
+
+So that as the oracle told the Athenians that, if they propitiated Minos
+and came to terms with him, the anger of heaven would cease and they
+should have a respite from their sufferings, they sent an embassy to
+Minos and prevailed on him to make peace, on the condition that every
+nine years they should send him a tribute of seven youths and seven
+maidens. The most tragic of the legends states these poor children when
+they reached Crete were thrown into the Labyrinth, and there either were
+devoured by the Minotaur or else perished with hunger, being unable to
+find the way out. The Minotaur, as Euripides tells us, was:
+
+    "A form commingled, and a monstrous birth,
+    Half man, half bull, in twofold shape combined."
+
+So when the time of the third payment of the tribute arrived, and those
+fathers who had sons not yet grown up had to submit to draw lots, the
+unhappy people began to revile Ægeus, complaining that he, although the
+author of this calamity, yet took no share in their affliction, but
+endured to see them left childless, robbed of their own legitimate
+offspring, while he made a foreigner and a bastard the heir to his
+kingdom.
+
+This vexed Theseus, and determining not to hold aloof, but to share the
+fortunes of the people, he came forward and offered himself without
+being drawn by lot. The people all admired his courage and patriotism,
+and Ægeus finding that his prayers and entreaties had no effect on his
+unalterable resolution, proceeded to choose the rest by lot. Hellanicus
+says that the city did not select the youths and maidens by lot, but
+that Minos himself came thither and chose them, and that he picked out
+Theseus first of all, upon the usual conditions, which were that the
+Athenians should furnish a ship, and that the youths should embark in it
+and sail with him, not carrying with them any weapon of war; and that
+when the Minotaur was slain, the tribute should cease.
+
+Formerly, no one had any hope of safety; so they used to send out the
+ship with a black sail, as if it were going to a certain doom; but now
+Theseus so encouraged his father, and boasted that he would overcome the
+Minotaur, that he gave a second sail, a white one, to the steersman, and
+charged him on his return, if Theseus were safe, to hoist the white one,
+if not, the black one as a sign of mourning. But Simonides says that it
+was not a white sail which was given by Ægeus, but "a scarlet sail
+embrued in holm oak's juice," and that this was agreed on by him as the
+signal of safety. The ship was steered by Phereclus, the son of
+Amarsyas, according to Simonides.
+
+When they reached Crete, according to most historians and poets, Ariadne
+fell in love with Theseus, and from her he received the clew of string,
+and was taught how to thread the mazes of the Labyrinth. He slew the
+Minotaur, and, taking with him Ariadne and the youths, sailed away.
+Pherecydes also says that Theseus also knocked out the bottoms of the
+Cretan ships, to prevent pursuit. But Demon says that Taurus, Minos'
+general, was slain in a sea-fight in the harbor, when Theseus sailed
+away.
+
+But according to Philochorus, when Minos instituted his games, Taurus
+was expected to win every prize, and was grudged this honor; for his
+great influence and his unpopular manners made him disliked, and scandal
+said that he was too intimate with Pasiphaë. On this account, when
+Theseus offered to contend with him, Minos agreed. And, as it was the
+custom in Crete for women as well as men to be spectators of the games,
+Ariadne was present, and was struck with the appearance of Theseus, and
+his strength, as he conquered all competitors. Minos was especially
+pleased, in the wrestling match, at Taurus's defeat and shame, and,
+restoring the children to Theseus, remitted the tribute for the future.
+
+As he approached Attica, on his return, both he and his steersman in
+their delight forgot to hoist the sail which was to be a signal of their
+safety to Ægeus; and he in his despair flung himself down the cliffs and
+perished. Theseus, as soon as he reached the harbor, performed at
+Phalerum the sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods if he returned
+safe, and sent off a herald to the city with the news of his safe
+return.
+
+This man met with many who were lamenting the death of the king, and, as
+was natural, with others who were delighted at the news of their safety,
+and who congratulated him and wished to crown him with garlands. These
+he received, but placed them on his herald's staff, and when he came
+back to the seashore, finding that Theseus had not completed his
+libation, he waited outside the temple, not wishing to disturb the
+sacrifice. When the libation was finished he announced the death of
+Ægeus, and then they all hurried up to the city with loud lamentations:
+wherefore to this day, at the Oschophoria, they say that it is not the
+herald that is crowned, but his staff, and that at the libations the
+bystanders cry out, "Eleleu, Iou, Iou!" of which cries the first is used
+by men in haste, or raising the pæan for battle, while the second is
+used by persons in surprise and trouble.
+
+Theseus, after burying his father, paid his vow to Apollo, on the
+seventh day of the month Pyanepsion; for on this day it was that the
+rescued youths went up into the city. The boiling of pulse, which is
+customary on this anniversary, is said to be done because the rescued
+youths put what remained of their pulse together into one pot, boiled it
+all, and merrily feasted on it together. And on this day also the
+Athenians carry about the Eiresione, a bough of the olive tree garlanded
+with wool, just as Theseus had before carried the suppliants' bough, and
+covered with first-fruits of all sorts of produce, because the
+barrenness of the land ceased on that day; and they sing,
+
+    "Eiresione, bring us figs,
+      And wheaten loaves, and oil,
+    And wine to quaff, that we may all
+      Rest merrily from toil."
+
+However, some say that these ceremonies are performed in memory of the
+Heracleidæ, who were thus entertained by the Athenians; but most writers
+tell the tale as I have told it.
+
+After the death of Ægeus, Theseus conceived a great and important
+design. He gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica and made them
+citizens of one city, whereas before they had lived dispersed, so as to
+be hard to assemble together for the common weal, and at times even
+fighting with one another.
+
+He visited all the villages and tribes, and won their consent, the poor
+and lower classes gladly accepting his proposals, while he gained over
+the more powerful by promising that the new constitution should not
+include a king, but that it should be a pure commonwealth, with himself
+merely acting as general of its army and guardian of its laws, while in
+other respects it would allow perfect freedom and equality to every one.
+By these arguments he convinced some of them, and the rest knowing his
+power and courage chose rather to be persuaded than forced into
+compliance.
+
+He therefore destroyed the prytanea, the senate house, and the
+magistracy of each individual township, built one common prytaneum and
+senate house for them all on the site of the present acropolis, called
+the city Athens, and instituted the Panathenaic festival common to all
+of them. He also instituted a festival for the resident aliens, on the
+sixteenth of the month, Hecatombaion, which is still kept up. And
+having, according to his promise, laid down his sovereign power, he
+arranged the new constitution under the auspices of the gods; for he
+made inquiry at Delphi as to how he should deal with the city, and
+received the following answer:
+
+    "Thou son of Ægeus and of Pittheus' maid,
+    My father hath within thy city laid
+    The bounds of many cities; weigh not down
+    Thy soul with thought; the bladder cannot drown."
+
+The same thing they say was afterward prophesied by the Sibyl concerning
+the city, in these words:
+
+    "The bladder may be dipped, but cannot drown."
+
+Wishing still further to increase the number of his citizens, he invited
+all strangers to come and share equal privileges, and they say that the
+words now used, "Come hither all ye peoples," was the proclamation then
+used by Theseus, establishing as it were a commonwealth of all nations.
+But he did not permit his state to fall into the disorder which this
+influx of all kinds of people would probably have produced, but divided
+the people into three classes, of Eupatridæ or nobles, Geomori or
+farmers, Demiurgi or artisans.
+
+To the Eupatridæ he assigned the care of religious rites, the supply of
+magistrates for the city, and the interpretation of the laws and customs
+sacred or profane; yet he placed them on an equality with the other
+citizens, thinking that the nobles would always excel in dignity, the
+farmers in usefulness, and the artisans in numbers. Aristotle tells us
+that he was the first who inclined to democracy, and gave up the title
+of king; and Homer seems to confirm this view by speaking of the people
+of the Athenians alone of all the states mentioned in his catalogue of
+ships.
+
+Theseus also struck money with the figure of a bull, either alluding to
+the bull of Marathon, or Taurus, Minos' general, or else to encourage
+farming among the citizens. Hence, they say, came the words, "worth
+ten," or "worth a hundred oxen." He permanently annexed Megara to
+Attica, and set up the famous pillar on the Isthmus, on which he wrote
+the distinction between the countries in two trimeter lines, of which
+the one looking east says,
+
+    "This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia,
+
+and the one looking west says,
+
+    "This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia."
+
+And also he instituted games there, in emulation of Heracles; that, just
+as Heracles had ordained that the Greeks should celebrate the Olympic
+games in honor of Zeus, so by Theseus' appointment they should celebrate
+the Isthmian games in honor of Poseidon.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA
+
+B.C. 1200
+
+GUSTAVE LE BON[23] W.W. HUNTER
+
+
+     The institution of caste was not peculiar to India. In Rome there
+     was a long struggle over the connubium. Among the Greeks the right
+     of commensality, or eating together, was restricted. In fact, the
+     phenomena of caste are world-wide in their extent. In India the
+     priests and nobles contended for the first place. India had
+     progressed along the line of ethnic evolution from a loose
+     confederacy of tribes into several nations, ruled by kings and
+     priests, and the iron fetters of caste were becoming more rigidly
+     welded. At first the father of the family was the priest. Then the
+     chiefs and sages took the office of spiritual guide, and conducted
+     the sacrifices. As writing was unknown, the liturgies were learned
+     by heart, and handed down in families. The exclusive knowledge of
+     the ancient hymns became hereditary, as it were. The ministrants
+     increased in number, and thus sprang up the powerful priestly
+     caste.
+
+     [Footnote 23: Translated from the French by Chauncey C.
+     Starkweather.]
+
+     Then the warrior class arose and grew strong in numbers and power,
+     becoming differentiated from the agriculturists, and forming the
+     military caste. The husbandmen drifted into another caste, and the
+     three orders were rigidly separated by a cessation of
+     intermarriage.
+
+     At the bottom came the Sudras, or slave bands, the servile dregs of
+     the population. In course of time, from various influences, the
+     third class became almost eliminated in many provinces. From the
+     cradle to the grave these cruel barriers still intervene between
+     the strata of the people, relentless as fate and insurmountable as
+     death.
+
+
+GUSTAVE LE BON
+
+In ancient times the power of kings [in India] was only nominal. In the
+Aryan village, forming a little republic, the chief, bearing the name of
+rajah, was secure in his fortress, exercising full sway. Such was the
+political system prevailing in India through all the ages, and which has
+always been respected by the conquerors, whoever they might be. So, for
+so many centuries back we see arise the first elements of an
+organization which still endures.
+
+We find here also the beginnings of that system of castes, which, at
+first indistinct and floating, when the classes sought only to be
+distinguished from each other, was to become so rigid, when it was
+constituted under the influence of ethnological reasons, as to dig
+fathomless abysses between the races.
+
+In the Vedas may be traced the progression of the distance between the
+priests and the warriors, at first slight, and then increasing more and
+more. The division of functions did not stop there. While the
+sacrificing priest was consecrating himself more exclusively day by day
+to the accomplishment of the sacred rites and to the composition of
+hymns; while the warrior passed his days in adventurous expeditions or
+daring feats, what would have become of the land and what would it have
+produced if others had not applied themselves without ceasing, to
+cultivate it? A third class became distinct, the agriculturists.
+
+In one of the last hymns of Rig Veda these three classes appear,
+absolutely separated and already designated by the three words Brahmans,
+Kchatryas, Vaisyas.
+
+The fourth class, that of the Sudras, was to arise later and to include
+the mass of conquered peoples when the latter joined the circle of Aryan
+civilization. The classes, hitherto mingling, now became rigidly
+separated castes.
+
+The most important of these divisions, and that which was first formed,
+was the one between the priests and the warriors. The Brahmans,
+intermediaries between men and the gods, soon became more and more
+exacting, and finally considered themselves as entirely superior beings
+and were accepted as such.
+
+The distinction between the warriors and the agriculturists also soon
+became marked, arising doubtless rather from a difference in fortune
+than in functions.
+
+The war chief, who returned laden with booty, covered himself with rings
+of gold, rich vestments, and gleaming arms. He became "rajah," that is
+to say "shining," for such was the meaning of the word at the Vedic
+epoch.
+
+Still no absolute barrier between the classes had arisen. They mingled
+to offer sacrifices, and sometimes ate in common.
+
+Heredity of office and profession began to be established. The sacred
+songs were handed down in families, as were also the functions of the
+sacrificers. And here among the Vedic Aryans are seen in process of
+elaboration the germs of the institution which later gained so much
+power in India and which dominates it still with apparent immutability.
+
+The system of castes has been the corner-stone of all the institutions
+of India for two thousand years. Such is its importance, and so
+generally is it misunderstood, that it will be well briefly to explain
+its origins, sources, and consequences. A system, the result of which is
+to permit a handful of Europeans to hold sway over two hundred and fifty
+millions of men deserves the attention of the observer.
+
+The system of castes has existed for more than twenty centuries in
+India. It doubtless had its origin in the recognition of the inevitable
+laws of heredity. When the white-skinned conquerors, whom we call
+Aryans, penetrated India, they found, in addition to other invaders of
+Turanian origin, black, half-savage populations whom they subjugated.
+The conquerors were half-pastoral, half-stationary tribes, under chiefs
+whose authority was counterbalanced by the all-powerful influence of the
+priests whose duty it was to secure the protection of the gods. Their
+occupations were divided into classes, that of Brahmans or priests,
+Kchatryas or warriors, and Vaisyas, laborers or artisans. The last class
+was perhaps formed by the invaders anterior to the Aryans, whom we have
+just mentioned.
+
+These divisions corresponded, as is evident, to our three ancient
+castes, the clergy, the nobility, and the third estate. Beneath these
+classes was the aboriginal population, the Sudras, forming three
+quarters of the whole population.
+
+Experience soon revealed the inconveniences which might rise from the
+mixture of the superior race with the inferior ones, and all the
+proscriptions of religion tended thereafter to prevent it. "Every
+country which gives birth to men of mixed races," said the ancient
+law-giver of the Hindus, the sage Manu, "is soon destroyed together with
+those who inhabit it." The decree is harsh, but it is impossible not to
+recognize its truth. Every superior race which has mingled with another
+too inferior has speedily been degraded or absorbed by it.
+
+The Spaniards in America, the Portuguese in India, are proofs of the
+sad results produced by such mixtures. The descendants of the brave
+Portuguese adventurers, who in other days conquered part of India, fill
+to-day the employments of servants, and the name of their race has
+become a term of contempt.
+
+Imbued with the importance of this anthropological truth, the Code of
+Manu, which has been the law of India for so many centuries, and which,
+like all codes, is the result of long anterior experiences, neglects
+nothing to preserve the purity of blood.
+
+It pronounces severe penalties against all intermingling of the superior
+castes between themselves, and especially with the caste of the Sudras.
+There are no frightful threats which it does not employ to keep the
+latter apart.
+
+But in the course of the centuries nature triumphed over these
+formidable prohibitions. Woman always has her charms, no matter how
+inferior she may be in caste. In spite of Manu, crossings of caste were
+numerous, and one need not travel India throughout to perceive that,
+to-day, the populations of all the races are mixed to a large extent.
+The number of individuals white enough to prove that their blood is
+quite pure is very restricted. The word caste, taken in its primitive
+sense, is no longer a synonym of color, as it used to be in Sanscrit,
+and, if caste had had only formerly prevailing ethnological reasons to
+invoke, it would have had no reason for continuing. In fact, the
+primitive divisions of caste have long since disappeared. They were
+replaced by new divisions, the origin of which is other than the
+difference of races, except in the case of the Brahmans, who still form
+the less mixed portion of the population.
+
+Among the causes which have perpetuated the system of castes, the law of
+heredity has furthermore continued to play a fundamental part. Aptness
+is inevitably hereditary among the Hindus, and, also inevitably, the son
+follows the profession of the father. The principle of heredity of the
+professions being universally admitted, there has resulted the formation
+of castes as numerous as the professions themselves, and to-day in India
+castes are numbered by the thousand. Each new profession has for an
+immediate consequence the formation of a new caste.
+
+The European who comes to India to live soon perceives to what an
+extent the castes have multiplied in observing the number of different
+persons whom he is obliged to hire to wait on him. To the two preceding
+causes of the formations of castes, the ethnological cause, now very
+weak, and the professional, which is still very strong, are added
+political office, and the heterogeneity of religious beliefs.
+
+The castes springing from political office might, strictly speaking, be
+placed in the category of professional castes, but those produced by
+diversity of religious beliefs should be attached to none of the
+preceding causes. In theory, that is, only judged by the reading of
+books, all India would be divided into two or three great religions
+only. But practically these religions are very numerous. New gods,
+considered as simple incarnations of ancient ones, are born and die
+every day, and their votaries soon form a new caste as rigid in its
+exclusions as the others.
+
+Two fundamental signs mark the conformity of castes, and separate from
+all the others the persons belonging to them. The first is that the
+individuals of the same caste cannot eat except among themselves. The
+second is that they can only marry among themselves.
+
+These two proscriptions are quite fundamental, and the first not less
+than the second. You may meet by the hundreds in India Brahmans who are
+employed by the government in the post-office and railway service, or
+even Brahmans who are beggars. But the humble functionary or wretched
+mendicant would rather die than sit at table with the viceroy of India.
+
+The quality of Brahmans is hereditary, like a title of nobility in
+Europe. It is not a synonym of priest, as is generally believed, because
+it is from this caste that priests are recruited. This caste was
+formerly so exalted that the rank of royalty was not sufficient to
+enable one to aspire to the hand of a Brahman's daughter.
+
+The Hindu would rather die than violate the laws of his caste. Nothing
+is more terrible than for him to lose it. Such loss may be compared to
+excommunication in the middle ages, or to a condemnation for an infamous
+crime in modern Europe. To lose his caste is to lose everything at one
+blow, parents, relations, and fortune. Every one turns his back upon
+the culprit and refuses to have any dealings with him. He must enter the
+casteless category, which is employed only for the most abject
+functions.
+
+As to the social and political consequences of such a system, the only
+social bond among the Hindus is caste. Outside of caste the world does
+not exist for him. He is separated from persons of another caste by an
+abyss much deeper than that which separates Europeans of the most
+different nationalities. The latter may intermarry, but persons of
+different castes cannot. The result is that every village possesses as
+many groups as there are castes represented.
+
+With such a system union against a master is impossible. This system of
+caste explains the phenomenon of two hundred and fifty millions of men
+obeying, without a murmur, sixty or seventy thousand strangers[24] whom
+they detest. The only fatherland of the Hindu is his caste. He has never
+had another. His country is not a fatherland to him, and he has never
+dreamed of its unity.
+
+[Footnote 24: English.]
+
+
+W.W. HUNTER
+
+At a very early period we catch sight of a nobler race from the
+northwest, forcing its way in among the primitive peoples of India. This
+race belonged to the splendid Aryan or Indo-Germanic stock from which
+the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Englishman alike descend. Its earliest
+home seems to have been in Western Asia. From that common camping-ground
+certain branches of the race started for the east, others for the
+farther west. One of the western offshoots built Athens and Sparta, and
+became the Greek nation; another went on to Italy, and reared the city
+on the Seven Hills, which grew into Imperial Rome. A distant colony of
+the same race excavated the silver ores of prehistoric Spain; and when
+we first catch a sight of ancient England, we see an Aryan settlement
+fishing in wattle canoes, and working the tin mines of Cornwall.
+Meanwhile other branches of the Aryan stock had gone forth from the
+primitive Asiatic home to the east. Powerful bands found their way
+through the passes of the Himalayas into the Punjab, and spread
+themselves, chiefly as Brahmans and Rajputs, over India.
+
+The Aryan offshoots, alike to the east and to the west, asserted their
+superiority over the earlier peoples whom they found in possession of
+the soil. The history of ancient Europe is the story of the Aryan
+settlements around the shores of the Mediterranean; and that wide term,
+modern civilization, merely means the civilization of the western
+branches of the same race. The history of India consists in like manner
+of the history of the eastern offshoots of the Aryan stock who settled
+in that land.
+
+We know little regarding these noble Aryan tribes in their early
+camping-ground in Western Asia. From words preserved in the languages of
+their long-separated descendants in Europe and India, scholars infer
+that they roamed over the grassy steppes with their cattle, making long
+halts to raise crops of grain. They had tamed most of the domestic
+animals; were acquainted with iron; understood the arts of weaving and
+sewing; wore clothes, and ate cooked food. They lived the hardy life of
+the comparatively temperate zone; and the feeling of cold seems to be
+one of the earliest common remembrances of the eastern and the western
+branches of the race.
+
+The forefathers of the Greek and the Roman, of the English and the
+Hindu, dwelt together in Western Asia, spoke the same tongue, worshipped
+the same gods. The languages of Europe and India, although at first
+sight they seem wide apart, are merely different growths from the
+original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the common words of
+family life. The names for _father, mother, brother, sister_, and
+_widow_ are the same in most of the Aryan languages, whether spoken on
+the banks of the Ganges, of the Tiber, or of the Thames. Thus the word
+_daughter_, which occurs in nearly all of them, has been derived from
+the Aryan root _dugh_, which in Sanscrit has the form of _duh_, to milk;
+and perhaps preserves the memory of the time when the daughter was the
+little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household.
+
+The ancient religions of Europe and India had a common origin. They were
+to some extent made up of the sacred stories or myths which our joint
+ancestors had learned while dwelling together in Asia. Several of the
+Vedic gods were also the gods of Greece and Rome; and to this day the
+Divinity is adored by names derived from the same old Aryan word
+(_deva_, the Shining One), by Brahmans in Calcutta, by the Protestant
+clergy of England, and by Roman Catholic priests in Peru.
+
+The Vedic hymns exhibit the Indian branch of the Aryans on their march
+to the southeast, and in their new homes. The earliest songs disclose
+the race still to the north of the Khaibar pass, in Kabul; the later
+ones bring them as far as the Ganges. Their victorious advance eastward
+through the intermediate tract can be traced in the Vedic writings
+almost step by step. The steady supply of water among the five rivers of
+the Punjab led the Aryans to settle down from their old state of
+wandering half-pastoral tribes into regular communities of husbandmen.
+The Vedic poets praised the rivers which enabled them to make this great
+change--perhaps the most important step in the progress of a race. "May
+the Indus," they sang, "the far-famed giver of wealth, hear us;
+[fertilizing our] broad fields with water." The Himalayas, through whose
+southwestern passes they had reached India, and at whose southern base
+they long dwelt, made a lasting impression on their memory. The Vedic
+singer praised "Him whose greatness the snowy ranges, and the sea, and
+the aerial river declare." The Aryan race in India never forgot its
+northern home. There dwelt its gods and holy singers; and there
+eloquence descended from heaven among men; while high amid the Himalayan
+mountains lay the paradise of deities and heroes, where the kind and the
+brave forever repose.
+
+The Rig-Veda forms the great literary memorial of the early Aryan
+settlements in the Punjab. The age of this venerable hymnal is unknown.
+Orthodox Hindus believe, without evidence, that it existed "from before
+all time," or at least from 3001 years B.C. European scholars have
+inferred from astronomical data that its composition was going on about
+1400 B.C. But the evidence might have been calculated backward, and
+inserted later in the Veda. We only know that the Vedic religion had
+been at work long before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C.
+The Rig-Veda is a very old collection of 1017 short poems, chiefly
+addressed to the gods, and containing 10,580 verses. Its hymns show us
+the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes,
+sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the
+"black-skinned" aborigines. Caste, in its later sense, is unknown. Each
+father of a family is the priest of his own household. The chieftain
+acts as father and priest to the tribe; but at the greater festivals he
+chooses some one specially learned in holy offerings to conduct the
+sacrifice in the name of the people. The king himself seems to have been
+elected; and his title of Vis-pat, literally "Lord of the Settlers,"
+survives in the old Persian Vis-paiti, and as the Lithuanian Wiez-patis
+in east-central Europe at this day. Women enjoyed a high position; and
+some of the most beautiful hymns were composed by ladies and queens.
+Marriage was held sacred. Husband and wife were both "rulers of the
+house" (_dampati_); and drew near to the gods together in prayer. The
+burning of widows on their husbands' funeral pile was unknown; and the
+verses in the Veda which the Brahmans afterwards distorted into a
+sanction for the practice, have the very opposite meaning. "Rise,
+woman," says the Vedic text to the mourner; "come to the world of life.
+Come to us, Thou hast fulfilled thy duties as a wife to thy husband."
+
+The Aryan tribes in the Veda have blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and
+goldsmiths among them, besides carpenters, barbers, and other artisans.
+They fight from chariots, and freely use the horse, although not yet the
+elephant, in war. They have settled down as husbandmen, till their
+fields with the plough, and live in villages or towns. But they also
+cling to their old wandering life, with their herds and "cattle-pens."
+Cattle, indeed, still form their chief wealth--the coin in which payment
+of fines is made--reminding us of the Latin word for money, _pecunia_,
+from _pecus_, a herd. One of the Vedic words for war literally means "a
+desire for cows." Unlike the modern Hindus, the Aryans of the Veda ate
+beef; used a fermented liquor or beer, made from the _soma_ plant; and
+offered the same strong meat and drink to their gods. Thus the stout
+Aryans spread eastward through Northern India, pushed on from behind by
+later arrivals of their own stock, and driving before them, or reducing
+to bondage, the earlier "black-skinned" races. They marched in whole
+communities from one river valley to another; each house-father a
+warrior, husbandman, and priest; with his wife, and his little ones, and
+his cattle.
+
+These free-hearted tribes had a great trust in themselves and their
+gods. Like other conquering races, they believed that both themselves
+and their deities were altogether superior to the people of the land,
+and to their poor, rude objects of worship. Indeed, this noble
+self-confidence is a great aid to the success of a nation. Their
+divinities--_devas_, literally "the shining ones," from the Sanscrit
+root _div_, "to shine"--were the great powers of nature. They adored the
+Father-heaven,--_Dyaush-pitar_ in Sanscrit, the _Dies piter_ or
+_Jupiter_ of Rome, the _Zeus_ of Greece; and the Encompassing
+Sky--_Varuna_ in Sanscrit, _Uranus_ in Latin, _Ouranos_ in Greek.
+_Indra_, or the Aqueous Vapor, that brings the precious rain on which
+plenty or famine still depends each autumn, received the largest number
+of hymns. By degrees, as the settlers realized more and more keenly the
+importance of the periodical rains to their new life as husbandmen, he
+became the chief of the Vedic gods. "The gods do not reach unto thee, O
+Indra, nor men; thou overcomest all creatures in strength." Agni, the
+God of Fire (Latin _ignis_), ranks perhaps next to Indra in the number
+of hymns addressed to him. He is "the Youngest of the Gods," "the Lord
+and Giver of Wealth." The Maruts are the Storm Gods, "who make the rock
+to tremble, who tear in pieces the forest." Ushas, "the High-born Dawn"
+(Greek _Eos_), "shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living
+being to go forth to his work." The Asvins, the "Horsemen" or fleet
+outriders of the dawn, are the first rays of sunrise, "Lords of Lustre."
+The Solar Orb himself (Surya), the Wind (Vayu), the Sunshine or Friendly
+Day (Mitra), the intoxicating fermented juice of the Sacrificial Plant
+(Soma), and many other deities are invoked in the Veda--in all, about
+thirty-three gods, "who are eleven in heaven, eleven on earth, and
+eleven dwelling in glory in mid-air."
+
+The Aryan settler lived on excellent terms with his bright gods. He
+asked for protection, with an assured conviction that it would be
+granted. At the same time, he was deeply stirred by the glory and
+mystery of the earth and the heavens. Indeed, the majesty of nature so
+filled his mind, that when he praises any one of his Shining Gods, he
+can think of none other for the time being, and adores him as the
+supreme ruler. Verses may be quoted declaring each of the greater
+deities to be the One Supreme: "Neither gods nor men reach unto thee, O
+Indra!" Another hymn speaks of Soma as "king of heaven and earth, the
+conqueror of all." To Varuna also it is said, "Thou art lord of all, of
+heaven and earth; thou art king of all those who are gods, and of all
+those who are men." The more spiritual of the Vedic singers, therefore,
+may be said to have worshipped One God, though not One alone.
+
+"In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. He was the one born lord
+of all that is. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the God to
+whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
+
+"He who gives life, he who gives strength; whose command all the Bright
+Gods revere; whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death. Who is
+the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
+
+"He who, through his power, is the one king of the breathing and
+awakening world. He who governs all, man and beast. Who is the God to
+whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
+
+"He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm; he through whom
+the heaven was established, nay, the highest heaven; he who measured out
+the light and the air. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
+sacrifice?
+
+"He who by his might looked even over the water-clouds; he who alone is
+God above all gods. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
+sacrifice?"
+
+While the aboriginal races buried their dead in the earth or under rude
+stone monuments, the Aryan--alike in India, in Greece, and in
+Italy--made use of the funeral-pile. Several exquisite Sanscrit hymns
+bid farewell to the dead:--"Depart thou, depart thou by the ancient
+paths to the place whither our fathers have departed. Meet with the
+Ancient Ones; meet with the Lord of Death. Throwing off thine
+imperfections, go to thy home. Become united with a body; clothe thyself
+in a shining form." "Let him depart to those for whom flow the rivers of
+nectar. Let him depart to those who, through meditation, have obtained
+the victory; who, by fixing their thoughts on the unseen, have gone to
+heaven. Let him depart to the mighty in battle, to the heroes who have
+laid down their lives for others, to those who have bestowed their goods
+on the poor." The doctrine of transmigration was at first unknown. The
+circle round the funeral-pile sang with a firm assurance that their
+friend went direct to a state of blessedness and reunion with the loved
+ones who had gone before. "Do thou conduct us to heaven," says a hymn of
+the later Atharva-Veda; "let us be with our wives and children." "In
+heaven, where our friends dwell in bliss--having left behind the
+infirmities of the body, free from lameness, free from crookedness of
+limb--there let us behold our parents and our children." "May the
+water-shedding Spirits bear thee upward, cooling thee with their swift
+motion through the air, and sprinkling thee with dew." "Bear him, carry
+him; let him, with all his faculties complete, go to the world of the
+righteous. Crossing the dark valley which spreadeth boundless around
+him, let the unborn soul ascend to heaven. Wash the feet of him who is
+stained with sin; let him go upward with cleansed feet. Crossing the
+gloom, gazing with wonder in many directions, let the unborn soul go up
+to heaven."
+
+By degrees the old collection of hymns, or the Rig-Veda, no longer
+sufficed. Three other collections or service-books were therefore added,
+making the Four Vedas. The word Veda is from the same root as the Latin
+_vid-ere_, to see: the early Greek _feid-enai_, infinitive of _oida_, I
+know: and the English _wisdom_, or I _wit_. The Brahmans taught that the
+Veda was divinely inspired, and that it was literally "the _wisdom_ of
+God." There was, first, the Rig-Veda, or the hymns in their simplest
+form. Second, the Sama-Veda, made up of hymns of the Rig-Veda to be used
+at the Soma sacrifice. Third, the Yajur-Veda, consisting not only of
+Rig-Vedic hymns, but also of prose sentences, to be used at the great
+sacrifices; and divided into two editions, the Black and White Yajur.
+The fourth, or Atharva-Veda, was compiled from the least ancient hymns
+at the end of the Rig-Veda, very old religious spells, and later
+sources. Some of its spells have a similarity to the ancient German and
+Lithuanian charms, and appear to have come down from the most primitive
+times, before the Indian and European branches of the Aryan race struck
+out from their common home.
+
+To each of the four Vedas were attached prose works, called Brahmanas,
+in order to explain the sacrifices and the duties of the priests. Like
+the Four Vedas, the Brahmanas were held to be the very word of God. The
+Vedas and the Brahmanas form the revealed Scriptures of the Hindus--the
+_sruti_, literally "Things _heard_ from God." The Vedas supplied their
+divinely-inspired psalms, and the Brahmanas their divinely-inspired
+theology or body of doctrine. To them were afterward added the Sutras,
+literally "_Strings_ of pithy sentences" regarding laws and ceremonies.
+Still later the Upanishads were composed, treating of God and the soul;
+the Aranyakas, or "Tracts for the forest recluse;" and, after a very
+long interval, the Puranas, or "Traditions from of old." All these
+ranked, however, not as divinely-inspired knowledge, or things "heard
+from God" (_sruti_), like the Vedas and Brahmanas, but only as sacred
+traditions--_smriti_, literally "The things _remembered_."
+
+Meanwhile the Four Castes had been formed. In the old Aryan colonies
+among the Five Rivers of the Punjab, each house-father was a husbandman,
+warrior, and priest. But by degrees certain gifted families, who
+composed the Vedic hymns or learned them off by heart, were always
+chosen by the king to perform the great sacrifices. In this way probably
+the priestly caste sprang up. As the Aryans conquered more territory,
+fortunate soldiers received a larger share of the lands than others, and
+cultivated it not with their own hands, but by means of the vanquished
+non-Aryan tribes. In this way the Four Castes arose. First, the priests
+or Brahmans. Second, the warriors or fighting companions of the king,
+called Rajputs or Kchatryas, literally "of the _royal_ stock." Third,
+the Aryan agricultural settlers, who kept the old name of Vaisyas, from
+the root _vis_, which in the primitive Vedic period had included the
+whole Aryan people. Fourth, the Sudras, or conquered non-Aryan tribes,
+who became serfs. The three first castes were of Aryan descent, and were
+honored by the name of the Twice-born Castes. They could all be present
+at the sacrifices, and they worshipped the same Bright Gods. The Sudras
+were "the slave-bands of black descent" of the Veda. They were
+distinguished from their "Twice-born" Aryan conquerors as being only
+"Once-born," and by many contemptuous epithets. They were not allowed to
+be present at the great national sacrifices, or at the feasts which
+followed them. They could never rise out of their servile condition; and
+to them was assigned the severest toil in the fields, and all the hard
+and dirty work of the village community.
+
+The Brahmans or priests claimed the highest rank. But they seemed to
+have had a long struggle with the Kchatryas, or warrior caste, before
+they won their proud position at the head of the Indian people. They
+afterward secured themselves in that position by teaching that it had
+been given to them by God. At the beginning of the world, they said, the
+Brahman proceeded from the mouth of the Creator, the Kchatryas or Rajput
+from his arms, the Vaisya from his thighs or belly, and the Sudra from
+his feet. This legend is true so far that the Brahmans were really the
+brain power of the Indian people, the Kchatryas its armed hands, the
+Vaisyas the food-growers, and the Sudras the down-trodden serfs. When
+the Brahmans had established their power, they made a wise use of it.
+From the ancient Vedic times they recognized that if they were to
+exercise spiritual supremacy, they must renounce earthly pomp. In
+arrogating the priestly function, they gave up all claim to the royal
+office. They were divinely appointed to be the guides of nations and the
+counsellors of kings, but they could not be kings themselves. As the
+duty of the Sudra was to serve, of the Vaisya to till the ground and
+follow middle-class trades or crafts; so the business of the Kchatryas
+was to fight the public enemy, and of the Brahman to propitiate the
+national gods.
+
+Each day brought to the Brahmans its routine of ceremonies, studies, and
+duties. Their whole life was mapped out into four clearly defined stages
+of discipline. For their existence, in its full religious significance,
+commenced not at birth, but on being invested at the close of childhood
+with the sacred thread of the Twice-born. Their youth and early manhood
+were to be entirely spent in learning the Veda by heart from an older
+Brahman, tending the sacred fire, and serving their preceptor. Having
+completed his long studies, the young Brahman entered on the second
+stage of his life, as a householder. He married, and commenced a course
+of family duties. When he had reared a family, and gained a practical
+knowledge of the world, he retired into the forest as a recluse, for the
+third period of his life; feeding on roots or fruits, practising his
+religious duties with increased devotion. The fourth stage was that of
+the ascetic or religious mendicant, wholly withdrawn from earthly
+affairs, and striving to attain a condition of mind which, heedless of
+the joys, or pains, or wants of the body, is intent only on its final
+absorption into the deity. The Brahman, in this fourth stage of his
+life, ate nothing but what was given to him unasked, and abode not more
+than one day in any village, lest the vanities of the world should find
+entrance into his heart. This was the ideal life prescribed for a
+Brahman, and ancient Indian literature shows that it was to a large
+extent practically carried out. Throughout his whole existence the true
+Brahman practised a strict temperance; drinking no wine, using a simple
+diet, curbing the desires; shut off from the tumults of war, as his
+business was to pray, not to fight, and having his thoughts ever fixed
+on study and contemplation. "What is this world?" says a Brahman sage.
+"It is even as the bough of a tree, on which a bird rests for a night,
+and in the morning flies away."
+
+The Brahmans, therefore, were a body of men who, in an early stage of
+this world's history, bound themselves by a rule of life the essential
+precepts of which were self-culture and self-restraint. The Brahmans of
+the present India are the result of 3000 years of hereditary education
+and temperance; and they have evolved a type of mankind quite distinct
+from the surrounding population. Even the passing traveller in India
+marks them out, alike from the bronze-cheeked, large-limbed,
+leisure-loving Rajput or Kchatryas, the warrior caste of Aryan descent;
+and from the dark-skinned, flat-nosed, thick-lipped low castes of
+non-Aryan origin, with their short bodies and bullet heads. The Brahman
+stands apart from both, tall and slim, with finely-modelled lips and
+nose, fair complexion, high forehead, and slightly cocoanut shaped
+skull--the man of self-centred refinement. He is an example of a class
+becoming the ruling power in a country, not by force of arms, but by
+the vigor of hereditary culture and temperance. One race has swept
+across India after another, dynasties have risen and fallen, religions
+have spread themselves over the land and disappeared. But since the dawn
+of history the Brahman has calmly ruled; swaying the minds and receiving
+the homage of the people, and accepted by foreign nations as the highest
+type of Indian mankind. The position which the Brahmans won resulted in
+no small measure from the benefits which they bestowed. For their own
+Aryan countrymen they developed a noble language and literature. The
+Brahmans were not only the priests and philosophers, but also the
+lawgivers, the men of science and the poets of their race. Their
+influence on the aboriginal peoples, the hill and forest races of India,
+was even more important. To these rude remnants of the flint and stone
+ages they brought in ancient times a knowledge of the metals and the
+gods.
+
+As a social league, Hinduism arranged the people into the old division
+of the "Twice-born" Aryan castes, namely, the Brahmans, Kchatryas,
+Vaisyas; and the "Once-born" castes, consisting of the non-Aryan Sudras
+and the classes of mixed descent. This arrangement of the Indian races
+remains to the present day. The "Twice-born" castes still wear the
+sacred thread, and claim a joint, although an unequal, inheritance in
+the holy books of the Veda. The "Once-born" castes are still denied the
+sacred thread; and they were not allowed to study the holy books, until
+the English set up schools in India for all classes of the people. But
+while caste is thus founded on the distinctions of race, it has been
+influenced by two other systems of division, namely, the employments of
+the people, and the localities in which they live. Even in the oldest
+times, the castes had separate occupations assigned to them. They could
+be divided either into Brahmans, Kchatryas, Vaisyas, and Sudras; or into
+priests, warriors, husbandmen, and serfs. They are also divided
+according to the parts of India in which they live. Even the Brahmans
+have among themselves ten distinct classes, or rather nations. Five of
+these classes or Brahman nations live to the north of the Vindhya
+mountains; five of them live to the south. Each of the ten feels itself
+to be quite apart from the rest; and they have among themselves no
+fewer than 1886 subdivisions or separate Brahmanical tribes. In like
+manner, the Kchatryas or Rajputs number 590 separate tribes in different
+parts of India.
+
+While, therefore, Indian caste seems at first a very simple arrangement
+of the people into four classes, it is in reality a very complex one.
+For it rests upon three distinct systems of division: namely, upon race,
+occupation, and geographical position. It is very difficult even to
+guess at the number of the Indian castes. But there are not fewer than
+3,000 of them which have separate names, and which regard themselves as
+separate classes. The different castes cannot intermarry with each
+other, and most of them cannot eat together. The ordinary rule is that
+no Hindu of good caste can touch food cooked by a man of inferior caste.
+By rights, too, each caste should keep to its own occupation. Indeed,
+there has been a tendency to erect every separate kind of employment or
+handicraft in each separate province into a distinct caste. But, as a
+matter of practice, the castes often change their occupation, and the
+lower ones sometimes raise themselves in the social scale. Thus the
+Vaisya caste were in ancient times the tillers of the soil. They have in
+most provinces given up this toilsome occupation, and the Vaisyas are
+now the great merchants and bankers of India. Their fair skins,
+intelligent faces, and polite bearing must have altered since the days
+when their forefathers ploughed, sowed, and reaped under the hot sun.
+Such changes of employment still occur on a smaller scale throughout
+India.
+
+The system of caste exercises a great influence upon the industries of
+the people. Each caste is, in the first place, a trade-guild. It insures
+the proper training of the youth of its own special craft; it makes
+rules for the conduct of the caste-trade; it promotes good feeling by
+feasts or social gatherings. The famous manufactures of mediæval India,
+its muslins, silks, cloth of gold, inlaid weapons, and exquisite work in
+precious stones--were brought to perfection under the care of the castes
+or trade-guilds. Such guilds may still be found in full work in many
+parts of India, Thus, in the northwestern districts of Bombay all heads
+of artisan families are ranged under their proper trade-guild. The
+trade-guild or caste prevents undue competition among the members, and
+upholds the interest of its own body in any dispute arising with other
+craftsmen.
+
+In 1873, for example, a number of the bricklayers in Ahmadabad could not
+find work. Men of this class sometimes added to their daily wages by
+rising very early in the morning, and working overtime. But when several
+families complained that they could not get employment, the bricklayers'
+guild met, and decided that as there was not enough work for all, no
+member should be allowed to work in extra hours. In the same city, the
+cloth dealers in 1872 tried to cut down the wages of the sizers or men
+who dress the cotton cloth. The sizers' guild refused to work at lower
+rates, and remained six weeks on strike. At length they arranged their
+dispute, and both the trade-guilds signed a stamped agreement fixing the
+rates for the future. Each of the higher castes or trade-guilds in
+Ahmadabad receives a fee from young men on entering their business. The
+revenue derived from these fees, and from fines upon members who break
+caste rules, is spent in feasts to the brethren of the guild, and in
+helping the poorer craftsmen or their orphans. A favorite plan of
+raising money in Surat is for the members of the trade to keep a certain
+day as a holiday, and to shut up all their shops except one. The right
+to keep open this one shop is put up to auction, and the amount bid is
+expended on a feast. The trade-guild or caste allows none of its members
+to starve. It thus acts as a mutual assurance society and takes the
+place of a poor-law in India. The severest social penalty which can be
+inflicted upon a Hindu is to be put out of his caste.
+
+Hinduism is, however, not only a social league resting upon caste--it is
+also a religious alliance based upon worship. As the various race
+elements of the Indian people have been welded into caste, so the simple
+old beliefs of the Veda, the mild doctrines of Buddha, and the fierce
+rites of the non-Aryan tribes, have been thrown into the melting-pot,
+and poured out thence as a mixture of precious metal and dross, to be
+worked up into the complex worship of the Hindu gods.
+
+
+
+
+
+FALL OF TROY
+
+B.C. 1184
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     The siege of Troy is an event not to be reckoned as history,
+     although Herodotus, the "Father of History," speaks of it as such,
+     and it would be quite impossible to understand the history and
+     character of the Greek people without a study of the _Iliad_ and
+     _Odyssey_ poems attributed to "a blind bard of Scio's
+     isle"--immortal Homer. The campaign of the Greek heroes in Asia is
+     to be referred to a hazy point in the past when Europe was just
+     beginning to have an Eastern Question. A vast circle of tales and
+     poems has gathered round this mythical event, and the _Iliad_--Song
+     of Ilium, or Troy--is still a poem of unfailing interest and
+     fascination.
+
+     Ilium, or Troy, was a city of Asia Minor, a little south of the
+     Hellespont. It was the centre of a powerful state, Grecian in race
+     and language; and when Paris, son of King Priam, visited Sparta and
+     carried off the beautiful wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, all the
+     heroes of Greece banded together and invaded Priam's dominions.
+
+     The twelve hundred ships that sailed for Troy transported one
+     hundred thousand warriors to the valley of Simois and Scamander.
+     Among them was Agamemnon, "king of men," brother of Menelaus. He
+     was the leader, and in his train were Achilles, "swift of foot";
+     "god-like, wise" Ulysses, King of Ithaca, the two Ajaxes, and the
+     aged Nestor. The narrative of their adventures is told in the
+     Homeric poems with a power of musical expression, a charm of
+     language, and a vividness of imagery unsurpassed in poetry.
+
+     For ten years the besiegers encircled the city of Priam. After many
+     engagements and single combats on "the windy plain of Troy" the
+     great hero of the Greeks, Achilles of Thessaly, is wronged by
+     Agamemnon, who carries away Briseis, a fair captive girl allotted
+     as the spoils of war to the "Swift-footed." The hero of Thessaly
+     thenceforth refuses to join in the war, and sullenly shuts himself
+     up in his tent. It is only when his dear friend Patroclus has been
+     slain by the valiant Hector, eldest son of Priam, that he sallies
+     forth, meets Hector in single combat, and finally slays him.
+     Achilles then attaches the body of Hector to his chariot and
+     insultingly trails it in the dust as he drives three times around
+     the walls of Troy. The _Iliad_ closes with the funeral rites
+     celebrated over the corpse of Hector.
+
+
+We now arrive at the capital and culminating point of the Grecian
+epic--the two sieges and captures of Troy, with the destinies of the
+dispersed heroes, Trojan as well as Grecian, after the second and most
+celebrated capture and destruction of the city.
+
+It would require a large volume to convey any tolerable idea of the vast
+extent and expansion of this interesting fable, first handled by so many
+poets, epic, lyric, and tragic, with their endless additions,
+transformations, and contradictions,--then purged and recast by
+historical inquirers, who, under color of setting aside the
+exaggerations of the poets, introduced a new vein of prosaic
+invention,--lastly, moralized and allegorized by philosophers. In the
+present brief outline of the general field of Grecian legend, or of that
+which the Greeks believed to be their antiquities, the Trojan war can be
+regarded as only one among a large number of incidents upon which
+Hecatæus and Herodotus looked back as constituting their fore-time.
+Taken as a special legendary event, it is, indeed, of wider and larger
+interest than any other, but it is a mistake to single it out from the
+rest as if it rested upon a different and more trustworthy basis. I
+must, therefore, confine myself to an abridged narrative of the current
+and leading facts; and amid the numerous contradictory statements which
+are to be found respecting every one of them, I know no better ground of
+preference than comparative antiquity, though even the oldest tales
+which we possess--those contained in the _Iliad_--evidently presuppose
+others of prior date.
+
+The primitive ancestor of the Trojan line of kings is Dardanus, son of
+Zeus, founder and eponymus of Dardania: in the account of later authors,
+Dardanus was called the son of Zeus by Electra, daughter of Atlas, and
+was further said to have come from Samothrace, or from Arcadia, or from
+Italy; but of this Homer mentions nothing. The first Dardanian town
+founded by him was in a lofty position on the descent of Mount Ida; for
+he was not yet strong enough to establish himself on the plain. But his
+son Erichthonius, by the favor of Zeus, became the wealthiest of
+mankind. His flocks and herds having multiplied, he had in his pastures
+three thousand mares, the offspring of some of whom, by Boreas, produced
+horses of preternatural swiftness. Tros, the son of Erichthonius, and
+the eponym of the Trojans, had three sons--Ilus, Assaracus, and the
+beautiful Ganymedes, whom Zeus stole away to become his cup-bearer in
+Olympus, giving to his father Tros, as the price of the youth, a team of
+immortal horses.
+
+From Ilus and Assaracus the Trojan and Dardanian lines diverge; the
+former passing from Ilus to Laomedon, Priam, and Hector; the latter from
+Assaracus to Capys, Anchises, and Æneas. Ilus founded in the plain of
+Troy the holy city of Ilium; Assaracus and his descendants remained
+sovereigns of Dardania.
+
+It was under the proud Laomedon, son of Ilus, that Poseidon and Apollo
+underwent, by command of Zeus, a temporary servitude; the former
+building the walls of the town, the latter tending the flocks and herds.
+When their task was completed and the penal period had expired, they
+claimed the stipulated reward; but Laomedon angrily repudiated their
+demand, and even threatened to cut off their ears, to tie them hand and
+foot, and to sell them in some distant island as slaves. He was punished
+for this treachery by a sea-monster, whom Poseidon sent to ravage his
+fields and to destroy his subjects. Laomedon publicly offered the
+immortal horses given by Zeus to his father Tros, as a reward to any one
+who would destroy the monster. But an oracle declared that a virgin of
+noble blood must be surrendered to him, and the lot fell upon Hesione,
+daughter of Laomedon himself. Heracles, arriving at this critical
+moment, killed the monster by the aid of a fort built for him by Athene
+and the Trojans, so as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people;
+but Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal horses in
+place of the matchless animals which had been promised. Thus defrauded
+of his due, Heracles equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy, and
+killed Laomedon, giving Hesione to his friend and auxiliary Telamon, to
+whom she bore the celebrated archer Teucros. A painful sense of this
+expedition was preserved among the inhabitants of the historical town of
+Ilium, who offered no worship to Heracles.
+
+Among all the sons of Laomedon, Priam was the only one who had
+remonstrated against the refusal of the well-earned guerdon of
+Heracles; for which the hero recompensed him by placing him on the
+throne. Many and distinguished were his sons and daughters, as well by
+his wife Hecuba, daughter of Cisseus, as by other women. Among the sons
+were Hector, Paris, Deiphobus, Helenus, Troilus, Polites, Polydorus;
+among the daughters, Laodice, Creusa, Polyxena, and Cassandra.
+
+The birth of Paris was preceded by formidable presage; for Hecuba
+dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand, and Priam, on consulting
+the soothsayers, was informed that the son about to be born would prove
+fatal to him. Accordingly he directed the child to be exposed on Mount
+Ida; but the inauspicious kindness of the gods preserved him; and he
+grew up amid the flocks and herds, active and beautiful, fair of hair
+and symmetrical in person, and the special favorite of Aphrodite.
+
+It was to this youth, in his solitary shepherd's walk on Mount Ida, that
+the three goddesses, Here, Athene, and Aphrodite, were conducted, in
+order that he might determine the dispute respecting their comparative
+beauty, which had arisen at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis,--a
+dispute brought about in pursuance of the arrangement, and in
+accomplishment of the deep-laid designs of Zeus. For Zeus, remarking
+with pain the immoderate numbers of the then existing heroic race,
+pitied the earth for the overwhelming burden which she was compelled to
+bear, and determined to lighten it by exciting a destructive and
+long-continued war. Paris awarded the palm of beauty to Aphrodite, who
+promised him in recompense the possession of Helen, wife of the Spartan
+Menelaus,--the daughter of Zeus and the fairest of living women. At the
+instance of Aphrodite, ships were built for him, and he embarked on the
+enterprise so fraught with eventual disaster to his native city, in
+spite of the menacing prophecies of his brother Helenus, and the always
+neglected warnings of Cassandra.
+
+Paris, on arriving at Sparta, was hospitably entertained by Menelaus as
+well as by Castor and Pollux, and was enabled to present the rich gifts
+which he had brought to Helen. Menelaus then departed to Crete, leaving
+Helen to entertain his Trojan guest--a favorable moment, which was
+employed by Aphrodite to bring about the intrigue and the elopement.
+Paris carried away with him both Helen and a large sum of money
+belonging to Menelaus, made a prosperous voyage to Troy, and arrived
+there safely with his prize on the third day.
+
+Menelaus, informed by Iris in Crete of the perfidious return made by
+Paris for his hospitality, hastened home in grief and indignation to
+consult with his brother Agamemnon, as well as with the venerable
+Nestor, on the means of avenging the outrage. They made known the event
+to the Greek chiefs around them, among whom they found universal
+sympathy; Nestor, Palamedes, and others went round to solicit aid in a
+contemplated attack of Troy, under the command of Agamemnon, to whom
+each chief promised both obedience and unwearied exertion until Helen
+should be recovered. Ten years were spent in equipping the expedition.
+The goddesses Here and Athene, incensed at the preference given by Paris
+to Aphrodite, and animated by steady attachment to Argos, Sparta, and
+Mycenæ, took an active part in the cause, and the horses of Here were
+fatigued with her repeated visits to the different parts of Greece.
+
+By such efforts a force was at length assembled at Aulis in Boeotia,
+consisting of 1,186 ships and more than one hundred thousand men--a
+force outnumbering by more than ten to one anything that the Trojans
+themselves could oppose, and superior to the defenders of Troy even with
+all her allies included. It comprised heroes with their followers from
+the extreme points of Greece--from the northwestern portions of Thessaly
+under Mount Olympus, as well as the western islands of Dulichium and
+Ithaca, and the eastern islands of Crete and Rhodes. Agamemnon himself
+contributed 100 ships manned with the subjects of his kingdom Mycenæ,
+besides furnishing 60 ships to the Arcadians, who possessed none of
+their own. Menelaus brought with him 60 ships, Nestor from Pylus, 90,
+Idomeneus from Crete and Diomedes from Argos, 80 each. Forty ships were
+manned by the Elians, under four different chiefs; the like number under
+Meges from Dulichium and the Echinades, and under Thoas from Calydon and
+the other Ætolian towns. Odysseus from Ithaca, and Ajax from Salamis,
+brought 12 ships each. The Abantes from Euboea, under Elphenor, filled
+40 vessels; the Boeotians, under Peneleos and Leitus, 50; the
+inhabitants of Orchomenus and Aspledon, 30; the light-armed Locrians,
+under Ajax son of Oileus, 40; the Phocians as many. The Athenians, under
+Menestheus, a chief distinguished for his skill in marshalling an army,
+mustered 50 ships; the Myrmidons from Phthia and Hellas, under Achilles,
+assembled in 50 ships; Protesilaus from Phylace and Pyrasus, and
+Eurypylus from Ormenium, each came with 40 ships; Machaon and
+Podaleirius, from Trikka, with 30; Eumelus, from Pheræ and the lake
+Boebeis, with 11; and Philoctetes from Meliboea with 7; the Lapithæ,
+under Polypoetes, son of Peirithous, filled 40 vessels, the Ænianes and
+Perrhæbians, under Guneus, 22; and the Magnetes, under Prothous, 40;
+these last two were from the northernmost parts of Thessaly, near the
+mountains Pelion and Olympus. From Rhodes, under Tlepolemus, son of
+Heracles, appeared 9 ships; from Syme, under the comely but effeminate
+Nireus, 3; from Cos, Crapathus, and the neighboring islands, 30, under
+the orders of Pheidippus and Antiphus, sons of Thessalus and grandsons
+of Heracles.
+
+Among this band of heroes were included the distinguished warriors Ajax
+and Diomedes, and the sagacious Nestor; while Agamemnon himself,
+scarcely inferior to either of them in prowess, brought with him a high
+reputation for prudence in command. But the most marked and conspicuous
+of all were Achilles and Odysseus; the former a beautiful youth born of
+a divine mother, swift in the race, of fierce temper and irresistible
+might; the latter not less efficient as an ally, from his eloquence, his
+untiring endurance, his inexhaustible resources under difficulty, and
+the mixture of daring courage with deep-laid cunning which never
+deserted him: the blood of the arch-deceiver Sisyphus, through an
+illicit connection with his mother Anticleia, was said to flow in his
+veins, and he was especially patronized and protected by the goddess
+Athene. Odysseus, unwilling at first to take part in the expedition, had
+even simulated insanity; but Palamedes, sent to Ithaca to invite him,
+tested the reality of his madness by placing in the furrow where
+Odysseus was ploughing his infant son Telemachus. Thus detected,
+Odysseus could not refuse to join the Achæan host, but the prophet
+Halitherses predicted to him that twenty years would elapse before he
+revisited his native land. To Achilles the gods had promised the full
+effulgence of heroic glory before the walls of Troy; nor could the
+place be taken without both his coöperation and that of his son after
+him. But they had forewarned him that this brilliant career would be
+rapidly brought to a close; and that if he desired a long life, he must
+remain tranquil and inglorious in his native land. In spite of the
+reluctance of his mother Thetis he preferred few years with bright
+renown, and joined the Achæan host. When Nestor and Odysseus came to
+Phthia to invite him, both he and his intimate friend Patroclus eagerly
+obeyed the call.
+
+Agamemnon and his powerful host set sail from Aulis; but being ignorant
+of the locality and the direction, they landed by mistake in Teuthrania,
+a part of Mysia near the river Caicus, and began to ravage the country
+under the persuasion that it was the neighborhood of Troy. Telephus, the
+king of the country, opposed and repelled them, but was ultimately
+defeated and severely wounded by Achilles. The Greeks, now discovering
+their mistake, retired; but their fleet was dispersed by a storm and
+driven back to Greece. Achilles attacked and took Scyrus, and there
+married Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomedes. Telephus, suffering from
+his wounds, was directed by the oracle to come to Greece and present
+himself to Achilles to be healed, by applying the scrapings of the spear
+with which the wound had been given; thus restored, he became the guide
+of the Greeks when they were prepared to renew their expedition.
+
+The armament was again assembled at Aulis, but the goddess Artemis,
+displeased with the boastful language of Agamemnon, prolonged the
+duration of adverse winds, and the offending chief was compelled to
+appease her by the well-known sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia. They
+then proceeded to Tenedos, from whence Odysseus and Menelaus were
+dispatched as envoys to Troy, to redemand Helen and the stolen property.
+In spite of the prudent counsels of Antenor, who received the two
+Grecian chiefs with friendly hospitality, the Trojans rejected the
+demand, and the attack was resolved upon. It was foredoomed by the gods
+that the Greek who first landed should perish: Protesilaus was generous
+enough to put himself upon this forlorn hope, and accordingly fell by
+the hand of Hector.
+
+Meanwhile, the Trojans had assembled a large body of allies from
+various parts of Asia Minor and Thrace: Dardanians under Æneas, Lycians
+under Sarpedon, Mysians, Carians, Mæonians, Alizonians, Phrygians,
+Thracians, and Pæonians. But vain was the attempt to oppose the landing
+of the Greeks: the Trojans were routed, and even the invulnerable
+Cyncus, son of Poseidon, one of the great bulwarks of the defense, was
+slain by Achilles. Having driven the Trojans within their walls,
+Achilles attacked and stormed Lyrnessus, Pedasus, Lesbos, and other
+places in the neighborhood, twelve towns on the sea-coast, and eleven in
+the interior: he drove off the oxen of Æneas and pursued the hero
+himself, who narrowly escaped with his life: he surprised and killed the
+youthful Troilus, son of Priam, and captured several of the other sons,
+whom he sold as prisoners into the islands of the Ægean. He acquired as
+his captive the fair Briseis, while Chryseis was awarded to Agamemnon;
+he was, moreover, eager to see the divine Helen, the prize and stimulus
+of this memorable struggle; and Aphrodite and Thetis contrived to bring
+about an interview between them.
+
+At this period of the war the Grecian army was deprived of Palamedes,
+one of its ablest chiefs. Odysseus had not forgiven the artifice by
+which Palamedes had detected his simulated insanity, nor was he without
+jealousy of a rival clever and cunning in a degree equal, if not
+superior, to himself; one who had enriched the Greeks with the invention
+of letters of dice for amusement of night-watches as well as with other
+useful suggestions. According to the old Cyprian epic, Palamedes was
+drowned while fishing by the hands of Odysseus and Diomedes. Neither in
+the _Iliad_ nor the _Odyssey_ does the name of Palamedes occur; the
+lofty position which Odysseus occupies in both those poems--noticed with
+some degree of displeasure even by Pindar, who described Palamedes as
+the wiser man of the two--is sufficient to explain the omission. But in
+the more advanced period of the Greek mind, when intellectual
+superiority came to acquire a higher place in the public esteem as
+compared with military prowess, the character of Palamedes, combined
+with his unhappy fate, rendered him one of the most interesting
+personages in the Trojan legend. Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides each
+consecrated to him a special tragedy; but the mode of his death as
+described in the old epic was not suitable to Athenian ideas, and
+accordingly he was represented as having been falsely accused of treason
+by Odysseus, who caused gold to be buried in his tent, and persuaded
+Agamemnon and the Grecian chiefs that Palamedes had received it from the
+Trojans. He thus forfeited his life, a victim to the calumny of Odysseus
+and to the delusion of the leading Greeks. The philosopher Socrates, in
+the last speech made to his Athenian judges, alludes with solemnity and
+fellow-feeling to the unjust condemnation of Palamedes as analogous to
+that which he himself was about to suffer; and his companions seem to
+have dwelt with satisfaction on the comparison. Palamedes passed for an
+instance of the slanderous enmity and misfortune which so often wait
+upon superior genius.
+
+In these expeditions the Grecian army consumed nine years, during which
+the subdued Trojans dared not give battle without their walls for fear
+of Achilles. Ten years was the fixed epical duration of the siege of
+Troy, just as five years was the duration of the siege of Camicus by the
+Cretan armament which came to avenge the death of Minos: ten years of
+preparation, ten years of siege, and ten years of wandering for Odysseus
+were periods suited to the rough chronological dashes of the ancient
+epic, and suggesting no doubts nor difficulties with the original
+hearers. But it was otherwise when the same events came to be
+contemplated by the historicizing Greeks, who could not be satisfied
+without either finding or inventing satisfactory bonds of coherence
+between the separate events. Thucydides tells us that the Greeks were
+less numerous than the poets have represented, and that being, moreover,
+very poor, they were unable to procure adequate and constant provisions:
+hence they were compelled to disperse their army, and to employ a part
+of it in cultivating the Chersonese--a part in marauding expeditions
+over the neighborhood. Could the whole army have been employed against
+Troy at once (he says), the siege would have been much more speedily and
+easily concluded. If the great historian could permit himself thus to
+amend the legend in so many points, we might have imagined that a
+simpler course would have been to include the duration of the siege
+among the list of poetical exaggerations and to affirm that the real
+siege had lasted only one year instead of ten. But it seems that the ten
+years' duration was so capital a feature in the ancient tale that no
+critic ventured to meddle with it.
+
+A period of comparative intermission, however, was now at hand for the
+Trojans. The gods brought about the memorable fit of anger of Achilles,
+under the influence of which he refused to put on his armor, and kept
+his Myrmidons in camp. According to the _Cypria_ this was the behest of
+Zeus, who had compassion on the Trojans: according to the _Iliad_,
+Apollo was the originating cause, from anxiety to avenge the injury
+which his priest Chryses had endured from Agamemnon. For a considerable
+time, the combats of the Greeks against Troy were conducted without
+their best warrior, and severe, indeed, was the humiliation which they
+underwent in consequence. How the remaining Grecian chiefs vainly strove
+to make amends for his absence--how Hector and the Trojans defeated and
+drove them to their ships--how the actual blaze of the destroying flame,
+applied by Hector to the ship of Protesilaus, roused up the anxious and
+sympathizing Patroclus, and extorted a reluctant consent from Achilles
+to allow his friend and his followers to go forth and avert the last
+extremity of ruin--how Achilles, when Patroclus had been killed by
+Hector, forgetting his anger in grief for the death of his friend,
+reëntered the fight, drove the Trojans within their walls with immense
+slaughter, and satiated his revenge both upon the living and the dead
+Hector,--all these events have been chronicled, together with those
+divine dispensations on which most of them are made to depend, in the
+immortal verse of the _Iliad_.
+
+Homer breaks off with the burial of Hector, whose body has just been
+ransomed by the disconsolate Priam; while the lost poem of Arctinus,
+entitled the _Æthiopis_, so far as we can judge from the argument still
+remaining of it, handled only the subsequent events of the siege. The
+poem of Quintus Smyrnæus, composed about the fourth century of the
+Christian era, seems in its first books to coincide with _Æthiopis_, in
+the subsequent books partly with the _Ilias Minor_ of Lesches.
+
+The Trojans, dismayed by the death of Hector, were again animated with
+hope by the appearance of the warlike and beautiful queen of the
+Amazons, Penthesilia, daughter of Ares, hitherto invincible in the
+field, who came to their assistance from Thrace at the head of a band of
+her country-women. She again led the besieged without the walls to
+encounter the Greeks in the open field; and under her auspices the
+latter were at first driven back, until she, too, was slain by the
+invincible arm of Achilles. The victor, on taking off the helmet of his
+fair enemy as she lay on the ground, was profoundly affected and
+captivated by her charms, for which he was scornfully taunted by
+Thersites; exasperated by this rash insult, he killed Thersites on the
+spot with a blow of his fist. A violent dispute among the Grecian chiefs
+was the result, for Diomedes, the kinsman of Thersites, warmly resented
+the proceeding; and Achilles was obliged to go to Lesbos, where he was
+purified from the act of homicide by Odysseus.
+
+Next arrived Memnon, son of Tithonus and Eos, the most stately of living
+men, with a powerful band of black Ethiopians, to the assistance of
+Troy. Sallying forth against the Greeks, he made great havoc among them:
+the brave and popular Antilochus perished by his hand, a victim to
+filial devotion in defence of Nestor. Achilles at length attacked him,
+and for a long time the combat was doubtful between them: the prowess of
+Achilles and the supplication of Thetis with Zeus finally prevailed;
+while Eos obtained for her vanquished son the consoling gift of
+immortality. His tomb, however, was shown near the Propontis, within a
+few miles of the mouth of the river Æsopus, and was visited annually by
+the birds called Memnonides, who swept it and bedewed it with water from
+the stream. So the traveller Pausanias was told, even in the second
+century after the Christian era, by the Hellespontine Greeks.
+
+But the fate of Achilles himself was now at hand. After routing the
+Trojans and chasing them into the town, he was slain near the Scæan gate
+by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the unerring
+auspices of Apollo. The greatest efforts were made by the Trojans to
+possess themselves of the body, which was, however, rescued and borne
+off to the Grecian camp by the valor of Ajax and Odysseus. Bitter was
+the grief of Thetis for the loss of her son; she came into the camp with
+the Muses and the Nereids to mourn over him; and when a magnificent
+funeral-pile had been prepared by the Greeks to burn him with every mark
+of honor, she stole away the body and conveyed it to a renewed and
+immortal life in the island of Leuce in the Euxine Sea. According to
+some accounts he was there blest with the nuptials and company of Helen.
+
+Thetis celebrated splendid funeral games in honor of her son, and
+offered the unrivalled panoply which Hephæstus had forged and wrought
+for him as a prize to the most distinguished warrior in the Grecian
+army. Odysseus and Ajax became rivals for the distinction, when Athene,
+together with some Trojan prisoners, who were asked from which of the
+two their country had sustained greatest injury, decided in favor of the
+former. The gallant Ajax lost his senses with grief and humiliation: in
+a fit of frenzy he slew some sheep, mistaking them for the men who had
+wronged him, and then fell upon his own sword.
+
+Odysseus now learned from Helenus, son of Priam, whom he had captured in
+an ambuscade, that Troy could not be taken unless both Philoctetes and
+Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, could be prevailed upon to join the
+besiegers. The former, having been stung in the foot by a serpent, and
+becoming insupportable to the Greeks from the stench of his wound, had
+been left at Lemnos in the commencement of the expedition, and had spent
+ten years in misery on that desolate island; but he still possessed the
+peerless bow and arrows of Heracles, which were said to be essential to
+the capture of Troy. Diomedes fetched Philoctetes from Lemnos to the
+Grecian camp, where he was healed by the skill of Machaon, and took an
+active part against the Trojans--engaging in single combat with Paris,
+and killing him with one of the Heracleian arrows. The Trojans were
+allowed to carry away for burial the body of this prince, the fatal
+cause of all their sufferings; but not until it had been mangled by the
+hand of Menelaus. Odysseus went to the island of Scyros to invite
+Neoptolemus to the army. The untried but impetuous youth, gladly obeying
+the call, received from Odysseus his father's armor; while, on the other
+hand, Eurypylus, son of Telephus, came from Mysia as auxiliary to the
+Trojans and rendered to them valuable service turning the tide of
+fortune for a time against the Greeks, and killing some of their
+bravest chiefs, among whom were numbered Peneleos, and the unrivalled
+leech Machaon. The exploits of Neoptolemus were numerous, worthy of the
+glory of his race and the renown of his father. He encountered and slew
+Eurypylus, together with numbers of the Mysian warriors: he routed the
+Trojans and drove them within their walls, from whence they never again
+emerged to give battle: and he was not less distinguished for good sense
+and persuasive diction than for forward energy in the field.
+
+Troy, however, was still impregnable so long as the Palladium, a statue
+given by Zeus himself to Dardanus, remained in the citadel; and great
+care had been taken by the Trojans not only to conceal this valuable
+present, but to construct other statues so like it as to mislead any
+intruding robber. Nevertheless, the enterprising Odysseus, having
+disguised his person with miserable clothing and self-inflicted
+injuries, found means to penetrate into the city and to convey the
+Palladium by stealth away. Helen alone recognized him; but she was now
+anxious to return to Greece, and even assisted Odysseus in concerting
+means for the capture of the town.
+
+To accomplish this object, one final stratagem was resorted to. By the
+hands of Epeius of Panopeus, and at the suggestion of Athene, a
+capacious hollow wooden horse was constructed, capable of containing one
+hundred men. In the inside of this horse the elite of the Grecian
+heroes, Neoptolemus, Odysseus, Menelaus, and others, concealed
+themselves while the entire Grecian army sailed away to Tenedos, burning
+their tents and pretending to have abandoned the siege. The Trojans,
+overjoyed to find themselves free, issued from the city and contemplated
+with astonishment the fabric which their enemies had left behind. They
+long doubted what should be done with it; and the anxious heroes from
+within heard the surrounding consultations, as well as the voice of
+Helen when she pronounced their names and counterfeited the accents of
+their wives. Many of the Trojans were anxious to dedicate it to the gods
+in the city as a token of gratitude for their deliverance; but the more
+cautious spirits inculcated distrust of an enemy's legacy. Laocoon, the
+priest of Poseidon, manifested his aversion by striking the side of the
+horse with his spear.
+
+The sound revealed that the horse was hollow, but the Trojans heeded
+not this warning of possible fraud. The unfortunate Laocoon, a victim to
+his own sagacity and patriotism, miserably perished before the eyes of
+his countrymen, together with one of his sons: two serpents being sent
+expressly by the gods out of the sea to destroy him. By this terrific
+spectacle, together with the perfidious counsels of Simon--a traitor
+whom the Greeks had left behind for the special purpose of giving false
+information--the Trojans were induced to make a breach in their own
+walls, and to drag the fatal fabric with triumph and exultation into
+their city.
+
+The destruction of Troy, according to the decree of the gods, was now
+irrevocably sealed. While the Trojans indulged in a night of riotous
+festivity, Simon kindled the fire-signal to the Greeks at Tenedos,
+loosening the bolts of the wooden horse, from out of which the enclosed
+heroes descended. The city, assailed both from within and from without,
+was thoroughly sacked and destroyed, with the slaughter or captivity of
+the larger portion of its heroes as well as its people. The venerable
+Priam perished by the hand of Neoptolemus, having in vain sought shelter
+at the domestic altar of Zeus Herceius. But his son Deiphobus, who since
+the death of Paris had become the husband of Helen, defended his house
+desperately against Odysseus and Menelaus, and sold his life dearly.
+After he was slain, his body was fearfully mutilated by the latter.
+
+Thus was Troy utterly destroyed--the city, the altars and temples, and
+the population. Æneas and Antenor were permitted to escape, with their
+families, having been always more favorably regarded by the Greeks than
+the remaining Trojans. According to one version of the story they had
+betrayed the city to the Greeks: a panther's skin had been hung over the
+door of Antenor's house as a signal for the victorious besiegers to
+spare it in general plunder. In the distribution of the principal
+captives, Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, was cast from the top of
+the wall and killed by Odysseus or Neoptolemus: Polyxena, the daughter
+of Priam, was immolated on the tomb of Achilles, in compliance with a
+requisition made by the shade of the deceased hero to his countrymen;
+while her sister Cassandra was presented as a prize to Agamemnon. She
+had sought sanctuary at the altar of Athene, where Ajax, the son of
+Oileus, making a guilty attempt to seize her, had drawn both upon
+himself and upon the army the serious wrath of the goddess, insomuch
+that the Greeks could hardly be restrained from stoning him to death.
+Andromache and Helenus were both given to Neoptolemus, who, according to
+the _Ilias Minor_, carried away also Æneas as his captive.
+
+Helen gladly resumed her union with Menelaus; she accompanied him back
+to Sparta, and lived with him there many years in comfort and dignity,
+passing afterward to a happy immortality in the Elysian fields. She was
+worshipped as a goddess, with her brothers, the Dioscuri, and her
+husband, having her temple, statue, and altar at Therapnæ and elsewhere.
+Various examples of her miraculous intervention were cited among the
+Greeks. The lyric poet Stesichorus had ventured to denounce her,
+conjointly with her sister Clytemnestra, in a tone of rude and
+plain-spoken severity, resembling that of Euripides and Lycophron
+afterward, but strikingly opposite to the delicacy and respect with
+which she is always handled by Homer, who never admits reproaches
+against her except from her own lips. He was smitten with blindness, and
+made sensible of his impiety; but, having repented and composed a
+special poem formally retracting the calumny, was permitted to recover
+his sight. In his poem of recantation (the famous _Palinode_ now
+unfortunately lost) he pointedly contradicted the Homeric narrative,
+affirming that Helen had never been at Troy at all, and that the Trojans
+had carried thither nothing but her image or _eidolon_. It is, probably,
+to the excited religious feelings of Stesichorus that we owe the first
+idea of this glaring deviation from the old legend, which could never
+have been recommended by any considerations of poetical interest.
+
+Other versions were afterward started, forming a sort of compromise
+between Homer and Stesichorus, admitting that Helen had never really
+been at Troy, without altogether denying her elopement. Such is the
+story of her having been detained in Egypt during the whole term of the
+siege. Paris, on his departure from Sparta, had been driven thither by
+storms, and the Egyptian king Proteus, hearing of the grievous wrong
+which he had committed toward Menelaus, had sent him away from the
+country with severe menaces, detaining Helen until her lawful husband
+should come to seek her. When the Greeks reclaimed Helen from Troy, the
+Trojans assured them solemnly that she neither was nor ever had been in
+the town; but the Greeks, treating this allegation as fraudulent,
+prosecuted the siege until their ultimate success confirmed the
+correctness of the statement. Menelaus did not recover Helen until, on
+his return from Troy, he visited Egypt. Such was the story told by the
+Egyptian priests to Herodotus, and it appeared satisfactory to his
+historicizing mind. "For if Helen had really been at Troy," he argues,
+"she would certainly have been given up, even had she been mistress of
+Priam himself instead of Paris: the Trojan king, with all his family and
+all his subjects, would never knowingly have incurred utter and
+irretrievable destruction for the purpose of retaining her: their
+misfortune was that, while they did not possess and therefore could not
+restore her, they yet found it impossible to convince the Greeks that
+such was the fact." Assuming the historical character of the war of
+Troy, the remark of Herodotus admits of no reply; nor can we greatly
+wonder that he acquiesced in the tale of Helen's Egyptian detention, as
+a substitute for the "incredible insanity" which the genuine legend
+imputes to Priam and the Trojans. Pausanias, upon the same ground and by
+the same mode of reasoning, pronounced that the Trojan horse must have
+been, in point of fact, a battering-engine, because to admit the literal
+narrative would be to impute utter childishness to the defenders of the
+city. And Mr. Payne Knight rejects Helen altogether as the real cause of
+the Trojan war, though she may have been the pretext of it; for he
+thinks that neither the Greeks nor the Trojans could have been so mad
+and silly as to endure calamities of such magnitude "for one little
+woman." Mr. Knight suggests various political causes as substitutes;
+these might deserve consideration, either if any evidence could be
+produced to countenance them, or if the subject on which they are
+brought to bear could be shown to belong to the domain of history.
+
+The return of the Grecian chiefs from Troy furnished matter to the
+ancient epic hardly less copious than the siege itself, and the more
+susceptible of indefinite diversity, inasmuch as those who had before
+acted in concert were now dispersed and isolated. Moreover, the stormy
+voyages and compulsory wanderings of the heroes exactly fell in with the
+common aspirations after an heroic founder, and enabled even the most
+remote Hellenic settlers to connect the origin of their town with this
+prominent event of their ante-historical and semi-divine world. And an
+absence of ten years afforded room for the supposition of many domestic
+changes in their native abode, and many family misfortunes and misdeeds
+during the interval. One of these historic "Returns," that of Odysseus,
+has been immortalized by the verse of Homer. The hero, after a series of
+long protracted suffering and expatriation inflicted on him by the anger
+of Poseidon, at last reaches his native island, but finds his wife
+beset, his youthful son insulted, and his substance plundered by a troop
+of insolent suitors; he is forced to appear as a wretched beggar, and to
+endure in his own person their scornful treatment; but finally, by the
+interference of Athene coming in aid of his own courage and stratagem,
+he is enabled to overwhelm his enemies, to resume his family position,
+and to recover his property. The return of several other Grecian chiefs
+was the subject of an epic poem by Hagias which is now lost, but of
+which a brief abstract or argument still remains: there were in
+antiquity various other poems of similar title and analogous matter.
+
+As usual with the ancient epic, the multiplied sufferings of this back
+voyage are traced to divine wrath, justly provoked by the sins of the
+Greeks, who, in the fierce exultation of a victory purchased by so many
+hardships, had neither respected nor even spared the altars of the gods
+in Troy. Athene, who had been their most zealous ally during the siege,
+was so incensed by their final recklessness, more especially by the
+outrage of Ajax, son of Oileus, that she actively harassed and
+embittered their return, in spite of every effort to appease her. The
+chiefs began to quarrel among themselves; their formal assembly became a
+scene of drunkenness; even Agamemnon and Menelaus lost their fraternal
+harmony, and each man acted on his own separate resolution.
+Nevertheless, according to the _Odyssey_, Nestor, Diomedes, Neoptolemus,
+Idomeneus, and Philoctetes reached home speedily and safely; Agamemnon
+also arrived in Peloponnesus, to perish by the hand of a treacherous
+wife; but Menelaus was condemned to long wanderings and to the severest
+privations in Egypt, Cyprus, and elsewhere before he could set foot in
+his native land. The Locrian Ajax perished on the Gyræan rock. Though
+exposed to a terrible storm, he had already reached this place of
+safety, when he indulged in the rash boast of having escaped in defiance
+of the gods. No sooner did Poseidon hear this language than he struck
+with his trident the rock which Ajax was grasping and precipitated both
+into the sea. Calchas, the soothsayer, together with Leonteus and
+Polypoetes, proceeded by land from Troy to Colophon.
+
+In respect, however, to these and other Grecian heroes, tales were told
+different from those in the _Odyssey_, assigning to them a long
+expatriation and a distant home. Nestor went to Italy, where he founded
+Metapontum, Pisa, and Heracleia: Philoctetes also went to Italy, founded
+Petilia and Crimisa, and sent settlers to Egesta in Sicily. Neoptolemus,
+under the advice of Thetis, marched by land across Thrace, met with
+Odysseus, who had come by sea, at Maroneia, and then pursued his journey
+to Epirus, where he became king of the Molossians. Idomeneus came to
+Italy, and founded Uria in the Salentine peninsula. Diomedes, after
+wandering far and wide, went along the Italian coast into the innermost
+Adriatic gulf, and finally settled in Daunia, founding the cities of
+Argyrippa, Beneventum, Atria, and Diomedeia: by the favor of Athene he
+became immortal, and was worshipped as a god in many different places.
+The Locrian followers of Ajax founded the Epizephyrian Locri on the
+southernmost corner of Italy, besides another settlement in Libya.
+
+The previously exiled Teucros, besides founding the city of Salamis in
+Cyprus, is said to have established some settlements in the Iberian
+peninsula. Menestheus, the Athenian, did the like, and also founded both
+Elæa in Mysia and Scylletium in Italy. The Arcadian chief Agapenor
+founded Paphos in Cyprus. Epius, of Panopeus in Phocis, the constructor
+of the Trojan horse with the aid of the goddess Athene, settled at
+Lagaria, near Sybaris, on the coast of Italy; and the very tools which
+he had employed in that remarkable fabric were shown down to a late date
+in the temple of Athene at Metapontum.
+
+Temples, altars, and towns were also pointed out in Asia Minor, in
+Samos, and in Crete, the foundation of Agamemnon or of his followers.
+The inhabitants of the Grecian town of Scione, in the Thracian peninsula
+called Pallene or Pellene, accounted themselves the offspring of the
+Pellenians from Achæa in Peloponnesus, who had served under Agamemnon
+before Troy, and who on their return from the siege had been driven on
+the spot by a storm and there settled. The Pamphylians, on the southern
+coast of Asia Minor, deduced their origin from the wanderings of
+Amphilochus and Calchas after the siege of Troy: the inhabitants of the
+Amphilochian Argos on the Gulf of Ambracia revered the same Amphilochus
+as their founder. The Orchomenians under Iamenus, on quitting the
+conquered city, wandered or were driven to the eastern extremity of the
+Euxine Sea; and the barbarous Achæans under Mount Caucasus were supposed
+to have derived their first establishment from this source. Meriones,
+with his Cretan followers, settled at Engyion in Sicily, along with the
+preceding Cretans who had remained there after the invasion of Minos.
+The Elymians in Sicily also were composed of Trojans and Greeks
+separately driven to the spot, who, forgetting their previous
+differences, united in the joint settlements of Eryx and Egesta. We hear
+of Podalerius both in Italy and on the coast of Caria; of Acamas, son of
+Theseus, at Amphipolus in Thrace, at Soli in Cyprus, and at Synnada in
+Phrygia; of Guneus, Prothous, and Eurypylus, in Crete as well as in
+Libya. The obscure poem of Lycophron enumerates many of these dispersed
+and expatriated heroes, whose conquest of Troy was indeed a "Cadmean"
+victory (according to the proverbial phrase of the Greeks), wherein the
+sufferings of the victor were little inferior to those of the
+vanquished. It was particularly among the Italian Greeks, where they
+were worshipped with very special solemnity, that their presence as
+wanderers from Troy was reported and believed.
+
+I pass over the numerous other tales which circulated among the
+ancients, illustrating the ubiquity of the Grecian and Trojan heroes as
+well as that of the Argonauts--one of the most striking features in the
+Hellenic legendary world. Among them all, the most interesting,
+individually, is Odysseus, whose romantic adventures in fabulous places
+and among fabulous persons have been made familiarly known by Homer.
+The goddesses Calypso and Circe; the semi-divine mariners of Phæacia,
+whose ships are endowed with consciousness and obey without a steersman;
+the one-eyed Cyclopes, the gigantic Læstrygones, and the wind-ruler
+Æolus; the Sirens, who ensnare by their song, as the Lotophagi fascinate
+by their food,--all these pictures formed integral and interesting
+portions of the old epic. Homer leaves Odysseus reëstablished in his
+house and family. But so marked a personage could never be permitted to
+remain in the tameness of domestic life; the epic poem called the
+_Telegonia_ ascribed to him a subsequent series of adventures.
+Telegonus, his son by Circe, coming to Ithaca in search of his father,
+ravaged the island and killed Odysseus without knowing who he was.
+Bitter repentance overtook the son for his undesigned parricide: at his
+prayer and by the intervention of his mother Circe, both Penelope and
+Telemachus were made immortal: Telegonus married Penelope, and
+Telemachus married Circe.
+
+We see by this poem that Odysseus was represented as the mythical
+ancestor of the Thesprotian kings, just as Neoptolemus was of the
+Molossian.
+
+It has already been mentioned that Antenor and Æneas stand distinguished
+from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam and a sympathy
+with the Greeks, which was by Sophocles and others construed as
+treacherous collusion,--a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though
+emphatically repelled, by the Æneas of Vergil. In the old epic of
+Arctinus, next in age to the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, Æneas abandons Troy
+and retires to Mount Ida, in terror at the miraculous death of Laocoon,
+before the entry of the Greeks into the town and the last night battle:
+yet Lesches, in another of the ancient epic poems, represented him as
+having been carried away captive by Neoptolemus. In a remarkable passage
+of the _Iliad_, Poseidon describes the family of Priam as having
+incurred the hatred of Zeus, and predicts that Æneas and his descendants
+shall reign over the Trojans: the race of Dardanus, beloved by Zeus more
+than all his other sons, would thus be preserved, since Æneas belonged
+to it. Accordingly, when Æneas is in imminent peril from the hands of
+Achilles, Poseidon specially interferes to rescue him, and even the
+implacable miso-Trojan goddess Here assents to the proceeding. These
+passages have been construed by various able critics to refer to a
+family of philo-Hellenic or semi-Hellenic Æneadæ, known even in the time
+of the early singers of the _Iliad_ as masters of some territory in or
+near the Troad, and professing to be descended from, as well as
+worshipping, Æneas. In the town of Scepsis, situated in the mountainous
+range of Ida, about thirty miles eastward of Ilium, there existed two
+noble and priestly families who professed to be descended, the one from
+Hector, the other from Æneas. The Scepsian critic Demetrius (in whose
+time both these families were still to be found) informs us that
+Scamandrius, son of Hector, and Ascanius, son of Æneas, were the
+_archegets_ or heroic founders of his native city, which had been
+originally situated on one of the highest ranges of Ida, and was
+subsequently transferred by them to the less lofty spot on which it
+stood in his time. In Arisbe and Gentinus there seem to have been
+families professing the same descent, since the same _archegets_ were
+acknowledged. In Ophrynium, Hector had his consecrated edifice, while in
+Ilium both he and Æneas were worshipped as gods: and it was the
+remarkable statement of the Lesbian Menecrates that Æneas, "having been
+wronged by Paris and stripped of the sacred privileges which belonged to
+him, avenged himself by betraying the city, and then became one of the
+Greeks."
+
+One tale thus among many respecting Æneas, and that, too, the most
+ancient of all, preserved among natives of the Troad, who worshipped him
+as their heroic ancestor, was that after the capture of Troy he
+continued in the country as king of the remaining Trojans, on friendly
+terms with the Greeks. But there were other tales respecting him, alike
+numerous and irreconcilable: the hand of destiny marked him as a
+wanderer (_fato profugus_) and his ubiquity is not exceeded even by that
+of Odysseus. We hear of him at Ænus in Thrace, in Pallene, at Æneia in
+the Thermaic Gulf, in Delos, at Orchomenus and Mantineia in Arcadia, in
+the islands of Cythera and Zacynthus, in Leucas and Ambracia, at
+Buthrotum in Epirus, on the Salentine peninsula and various other places
+in the southern region of Italy; at Drepana and Segesta in Sicily, at
+Carthage, at Cape Palinurus, Cumæ, Misenum, Caieta, and finally in
+Latium, where he lays the first humble foundation of the mighty Rome
+and her empire. And the reason why his wanderings were not continued
+still further was, that the oracles and the pronounced will of the gods
+directed him to settle in Latium. In each of these numerous places his
+visit was commemorated and certified by local monuments or special
+legends, particularly by temples and permanent ceremonies in honor of
+his mother Aphrodite, whose worship accompanied him everywhere: there
+were also many temples and many different tombs of Æneas himself. The
+vast ascendancy acquired by Rome, the ardor with which all the literary
+Romans espoused the idea of a Trojan origin, and the fact that the
+Julian family recognized Æneas as their gentile primary ancestor,--all
+contributed to give to the Roman version of this legend the
+preponderance over every other. The various other places in which
+monuments of Æneas were found came thus to be represented as places
+where he had halted for a time on his way from Troy to Latium. But
+though the legendary pretensions of these places were thus eclipsed in
+the eyes of those who constituted the literary public, the local belief
+was not extinguished; they claimed the hero as their permanent property,
+and his tomb was to them a proof that he had lived and died among them.
+
+Antenor, who shares with Æneas the favorable sympathy of the Greeks, is
+said by Pindar to have gone from Troy along with Menelaus and Helen into
+the region of Cyrene in Libya. But according to the more current
+narrative, he placed himself at the head of a body of Eneti or Veneti
+from Paphlagonia, who had come as allies of Troy, and went by sea into
+the inner part of the Adriatic Gulf, where he conquered the neighboring
+barbarians and founded the town of Patavium (the modern Padua); the
+Veneti in this region were said to owe their origin to his immigration.
+We learn further from Strabo that Opsicellas, one of the companions of
+Antenor, had continued his wanderings even into Iberia, and that he had
+there established a settlement bearing his name. Thus endeth the Trojan
+war, together with its sequel, the dispersion of the heroes, victors as
+well as vanquished.
+
+
+
+
+
+ACCESSION OF SOLOMON
+
+BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM
+
+B.C. 1017
+
+HENRY HART MILMAN
+
+
+     After many weary years of travail and fighting in the wilderness
+     and the land of Canaan, the Jews had at last founded their kingdom,
+     with Jerusalem as the capital. Saul was proclaimed the first king;
+     afterward followed David, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah." During
+     the many wars in which the Israelites had been engaged, the Ark of
+     the Covenant was the one thing in which their faith was bound. No
+     undertaking could fail while they retained possession of it.
+
+     In their wanderings the tabernacle enclosing the precious ark was
+     first erected before the dwellings for the people. It had been
+     captured by the Philistines, then restored to the Hebrews, and
+     became of greater veneration than before. It will be remembered
+     that, among other things, it contained the rod of Aaron which
+     budded and was the cause of his selection as high-priest. It also
+     contained the tables of stone which bore the Ten Commandments.
+
+     David desired to build a fitting shrine, a temple, in which to
+     place the Ark of the Covenant; it should be a place wherein the
+     people could worship; a centre of religion in which the ark should
+     have paid it the distinction due it as the seat of tremendous
+     majesty.
+
+     But David had been a man of war; this temple was a place of peace.
+     Blood must not stain its walls; no shedder of gore could be its
+     architect. Yet David collected stone, timber, and precious metals
+     for its erection; and, not being allowed to erect the temple
+     himself, was permitted to depute that office to his son and
+     successor, "Solomon the Wise."
+
+     At this time all the enemies of Israel had been conquered, the
+     country was at peace; the domain of the Hebrews was greater than at
+     any other time, before or afterward. It was the fitting time for
+     the erection of a great shrine to enclose the sacred ark. Nobly was
+     this done, and no human work of ancient or modern times has so
+     impressed mankind as the building of Solomon's Temple.
+
+
+Solomon succeeded to the Hebrew kingdom at the age of twenty. He was
+environed by designing, bold, and dangerous enemies. The pretensions of
+Adonijah still commanded a powerful party: Abiathar swayed the
+priesthood; Joab the army. The singular connection in public opinion
+between the title to the crown and the possession of the deceased
+monarch's harem is well understood.[25] Adonijah, in making request for
+Abishag, a youthful concubine taken by David in his old age, was
+considered as insidiously renewing his claims to the sovereignty.
+Solomon saw at once the wisdom of his father's dying admonition: he
+seized the opportunity of crushing all future opposition and all danger
+of a civil war. He caused Adonijah to be put to death; suspended
+Abiathar from his office, and banished him from Jerusalem: and though
+Joab fled to the altar, he commanded him to be slain for the two murders
+of which he had been guilty, those of Abner and Amasa. Shimei, another
+dangerous man, was commanded to reside in Jerusalem, on pain of death if
+he should quit the city. Three years afterward he was detected in a
+suspicious journey to Gath, on the Philistine border; and having
+violated the compact, he suffered the penalty.
+
+[Footnote 25: I Kings, i.]
+
+Thus secured by the policy of his father from internal enemies, by the
+terror of his victories from foreign invasion, Solomon commenced his
+peaceful reign, during which Judah and Israel dwelt safely, _Every man
+under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba_. This
+peace was broken only by a revolt of the Edomites. Hadad, of the royal
+race, after the exterminating war waged by David and by Joab, had fled
+to Egypt, where he married the sister of the king's wife. No sooner had
+he heard of the death of David and of Joab than he returned, and seems
+to have kept up a kind of predatory warfare during the reign of Solomon.
+Another adventurer, Rezon, a subject of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, seized
+on Damascus, and maintained a great part of Syria in hostility to
+Solomon.
+
+Solomon's conquest of Hamath Zobah in a later part of his reign, after
+which he built Tadmor in the wilderness and raised a line of fortresses
+along his frontier to the Euphrates, is probably connected with these
+hostilities.[26] The justice of Solomon was proverbial. Among his first
+acts after his accession, it is related that when he had offered a
+costly sacrifice at Gibeon, the place where the Tabernacle remained, God
+had appeared to him in a dream, and offered him whatever gift he chose:
+the wise king requested an understanding heart to judge the people. God
+not merely assented to his prayer, but added the gift of honor and
+riches. His judicial wisdom was displayed in the memorable history of
+the two women who contested the right to a child. Solomon, in the wild
+spirit of Oriental justice, commanded the infant to be divided before
+their faces: the heart of the real mother was struck with terror and
+abhorrence, while the false one consented to the horrible partition, and
+by this appeal to nature the cause was instantaneously decided.
+
+[Footnote 26: I Kings, xi., 23; I Chron., viii., 3.]
+
+The internal government of his extensive dominions next demanded the
+attention of Solomon. Besides the local and municipal governors, he
+divided the kingdom into twelve districts: over each of these he
+appointed a purveyor for the collection of the royal tribute, which was
+received in kind; and thus the growing capital and the immense
+establishments of Solomon were abundantly furnished with provisions.
+Each purveyor supplied the court for a month. The daily consumption of
+his household was three hundred bushels of finer flour, six hundred of a
+coarser sort; ten fatted, twenty other oxen; one hundred sheep; besides
+poultry, and various kinds of venison. Provender was furnished for forty
+thousand horses, and a great number of dromedaries. Yet the population
+of the country did not, at first at least, feel these burdens: _Judah
+and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude,
+eating and drinking, and making merry_.
+
+The foreign treaties of Solomon were as wisely directed to secure the
+profound peace of his dominions. He entered into a matrimonial alliance
+with the royal family of Egypt, whose daughter he received with great
+magnificence; and he renewed the important alliance with the king of
+Tyre.[27] The friendship of this monarch was of the highest value in
+contributing to the great royal and national work, the building of the
+Temple. The cedar timber could only be obtained from the forests of
+Lebanon: the Sidonian artisans, celebrated in the Homeric poems, were
+the most skilful workmen in every kind of manufacture, particularly in
+the precious metals.
+
+[Footnote 27: After inserting the correspondence between King Solomon
+and King Hiram of Tyre, according to I Kings, v., Josephus asserts that
+copies of these letters were not only preserved by his countrymen, but
+also in the archives of Tyre. I presume that Josephus adverts to the
+statement of Tyrian historians, not to an actual inspection of the
+archives, which he seems to assert as existing and accessible.]
+
+Solomon entered into a regular treaty, by which he bound himself to
+supply the Tyrians with large quantities of corn; receiving in return
+their timber, which was floated down to Joppa, and a large body of
+artificers. The timber was cut by his own subjects, of whom he raised a
+body of thirty thousand; ten thousand employed at a time, and relieving
+each other every month; so that to one month of labor they had two of
+rest. He raised two other corps, one of seventy thousand porters of
+burdens, the other of eighty thousand hewers of stone, who were employed
+in the quarries among the mountains. All these labors were thrown, not
+on the Israelites, but on the strangers who, chiefly of Canaanitish
+descent, had been permitted to inhabit the country.
+
+These preparations, in addition to those of King David, being completed,
+the work began. The eminence of Moriah, the Mount of Vision, _i.e._, the
+height seen afar from the adjacent country, which tradition pointed out
+as the spot where Abraham had offered his son (where recently the plague
+had been stayed, by the altar built in the threshing-floor of Ornan or
+Araunah, the Jebusite), rose on the east side of the city. Its rugged
+top was levelled with immense labor; its sides, which to the east and
+south were precipitous, were faced with a wall of stone, built up
+perpendicular from the bottom of the valley, so as to appear to those
+who looked down of most terrific height; a work of prodigious skill and
+labor, as the immense stones were strongly mortised together and wedged
+into the rock. Around the whole area or esplanade, an irregular
+quadrangle, was a solid wall of considerable height and strength: within
+this was an open court, into which the Gentiles were either from the
+first, or subsequently, admitted. A second wall encompassed another
+quadrangle, called the court of the Israelites. Along this wall, on the
+inside, ran a portico or cloister, over which were chambers for
+different sacred purposes. Within this again another, probably a lower,
+wall separated the court of the priests from that of the Israelites. To
+each court the ascent was by steps, so that the platform of the inner
+court was on a higher level than that of the outer.
+
+The Temple itself was rather a monument of the wealth than the
+architectural skill and science of the people. It was a wonder of the
+world from the splendor of its materials, more than the grace, boldness,
+or majesty of its height and dimensions. It had neither the colossal
+magnitude of the Egyptian, the simple dignity and perfect proportional
+harmony of the Grecian, nor perhaps the fantastic grace and lightness of
+later Oriental architecture. Some writers, calling to their assistance
+the visionary temple of Ezekiel, have erected a most superb edifice; to
+which there is this fatal objection, that if the dimensions of the
+prophet are taken as they stand in the text, the area of the Temple and
+its courts would not only have covered the whole of Mount Moriah, but
+almost all Jerusalem. In fact our accounts of the Temple of Solomon are
+altogether unsatisfactory. The details, as they now stand in the books
+of Kings and Chronicles, the only safe authorities, are unscientific,
+and, what is worse, contradictory.
+
+Josephus has evidently blended together the three temples, and
+attributed to the earlier all the subsequent additions and alterations.
+The Temple, on the whole, was an enlargement of the tabernacle, built of
+more costly and durable materials. Like its model, it retained the
+ground-plan and disposition of the Egyptian, or rather of almost all the
+sacred edifices of antiquity: even its measurements are singularly in
+unison with some of the most ancient temples in Upper Egypt. It
+consisted of a propylæon, a temple, and a sanctuary; called respectively
+the Porch, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Yet in some respects,
+if the measurements are correct, the Temple must rather have resembled
+the form of a simple Gothic church.
+
+In the front to the east stood the porch, a tall tower, rising to the
+height of 210 feet. Either within, or, like the Egyptian obelisks,
+before the porch, stood two pillars of brass; by one account 27, by
+another above 60 feet high, the latter statement probably including
+their capitals and bases. These were called Jachin and Boaz (Durability
+and Strength).[28] The capitals of these were of the richest
+workmanship, with net-work, chain-work, and pomegranates. The porch was
+the same width with the Temple, 35 feet; its depth 17-1/2. The length of
+the main building, including the Holy Place, 70 feet, and the Holy of
+Holies, 35, was in the whole 105 feet; the height 52-1/2 feet.[29]
+
+[Footnote 28: Ewald, following, he says, the Septuagint, makes these
+pillars not standing alone like obelisks before the porch, but as
+forming the front of the porch, with the capitals connected together,
+and supporting a kind of balcony, with ornamental work above it. The
+pillars measured 12 cubits (22 feet) round.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Mr. Fergusson, estimating the cubit rather lower than in
+the text, makes the porch 30 by 15; the pronaos, or Holy Place, 60 by
+30; the Holy of Holies, 30; the height 45 feet. Mr. Fergusson, following
+Josephus, supposes that the whole Temple had an upper story of wood, a
+talar, as appears in other Eastern edifices. I doubt the authority of
+Josephus as to the older Temple, though, as Mr. Fergusson observes, the
+discrepancies between the measurements in Kings and in Chronicles may be
+partially reconciled on this supposition. Mr. Fergusson makes the height
+of the eastern tower only 90 feet. The text followed 2 Chron., iii., 4,
+reckoning the cubit at 1 foot 9 inches.]
+
+Josephus carries the whole building up to the height of the porch; but
+this is out of all credible proportion, making the height twice the
+length and six times the width. Along each side, and perhaps at the back
+of the main building, ran an aisle, divided into three stories of small
+chambers: the wall of the Temple being thicker at the bottom, left a
+rest to support the beams of these chambers, which were not let into the
+wall. These aisles, the chambers of which were appropriated as
+vestiaries, treasuries, and for other sacred purposes, seem to have
+reached about half way up the main wall of what we may call the nave and
+choir: the windows into the latter were probably above them; these were
+narrow, but widened inward.
+
+If the dimensions of the Temple appear by no means imposing, it must be
+remembered that but a small part of the religious ceremonies took place
+within the walls. The Holy of Holies was entered only once a year, and
+that by the High-priest alone. It was the secret and unapproachable
+shrine of the Divinity. The Holy Place, the body of the Temple, admitted
+only the officiating priests. The courts, called in popular language the
+Temple, or rather the inner quadrangle, were in fact the great place of
+divine worship. Here, under the open air, were celebrated the great
+public and national rites, the processions, the offerings, the
+sacrifices; here stood the great tank for ablution, and the high altar
+for burnt-offerings.
+
+But the costliness of the materials, the richness and variety of the
+details, amply compensated for the moderate dimensions of the building.
+It was such a sacred edifice as a traveller might have expected to find
+in El Dorado. The walls were of hewn stone, faced within with cedar
+which was richly carved with knosps and flowers; the ceiling was of
+fir-tree. But in every part gold was lavished with the utmost profusion;
+within and without, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in short, the
+whole house is described as overlaid with gold. The finest and
+purest--that of Parvaim, by some supposed to be Ceylon--was reserved for
+the sanctuary. Here the cherubim, which stood upon the covering of the
+Ark, with their wings touching each wall, were entirely covered with
+gold.
+
+The sumptuous veil, of the richest materials and brightest colors, which
+divided the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place was suspended on chains
+of gold. Cherubim, palm-trees, and flowers, the favorite ornaments,
+everywhere covered with gilding, were wrought in almost all parts. The
+altar within the Temple and the table of shewbread were likewise covered
+with the same precious metal. All the vessels, the ten candlesticks,
+five hundred basins, and all the rest of the sacrificial and other
+utensils, were of solid gold. Yet the Hebrew writers seem to dwell with
+the greatest astonishment and admiration on the works which were founded
+in brass by Huram, a man of Jewish extraction, who had learned his art
+at Tyre.
+
+Besides the lofty pillars above mentioned, there was a great tank,
+called a sea, of molten brass, supported on twelve oxen, three turned
+each way; this was seventeen and one-half feet in diameter. There was
+also a great altar, and ten large vessels for the purpose of ablution,
+called lavers, standing on bases or pedestals, the rims of which were
+richly ornamented with a border, on which were wrought figures of lions,
+oxen, and cherubim. The bases below were formed of four wheels, like
+those of a chariot. All the works in brass were cast in a place near
+the Jordan, where the soil was of a stiff clay suited to the purpose.
+
+For seven years and a half the fabric arose in silence. All the timbers,
+the stones, even of the most enormous size, measuring seventeen and
+eighteen feet, were hewn and fitted, so as to be put together without
+the sound of any tool whatever; as it has been expressed, with great
+poetical beauty:
+
+    "Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric grew."
+
+At the end of this period, the Temple and its courts being completed,
+the solemn dedication took place, with the greatest magnificence which
+the king and the nation could display. All the chieftains of the
+different tribes, and all of every order who could be brought together,
+assembled.
+
+David had already organized the priesthood and the Levites; and assigned
+to the thirty-eight thousand of the latter tribe each his particular
+office; twenty-four thousand were appointed for the common duties, six
+thousand as officers, four thousand as guards and porters, four thousand
+as singers and musicians. On this great occasion, the Dedication of the
+Temple, all the tribe of Levi, without regard to their courses, the
+whole priestly order of every class, attended. Around the great brazen
+altar, which rose in the court of the priests before the door of the
+Temple, stood in front the sacrificers, all around the whole choir,
+arrayed in white linen. One hundred and twenty of these were trumpeters,
+the rest had cymbals, harps, and psalteries. Solomon himself took his
+place on an elevated scaffold, or raised throne of brass. The whole
+assembled nation crowded the spacious courts beyond. The ceremony began
+with the preparation of burnt-offerings, so numerous that they could not
+be counted.
+
+At an appointed signal commenced the more important part of the scene,
+the removal of the Ark, the installation of the God of Israel in his new
+and appropriate dwelling, to the sound of all the voices and all the
+instruments, chanting some of those splendid odes, the 47th, 97th, 98th,
+and 107th psalms. The Ark advanced, borne by the Levites, to the open
+portals of the Temple. It can scarcely be doubted that the 24th psalm,
+even if composed before, was adopted and used on this occasion.
+
+The singers, as it drew near the gate, broke out in these words:--_Lift
+up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors,
+and the King of Glory shall come in_. It was answered from the other
+part of the choir,--_Who is the King of Glory?_--the whole choir
+responded,--_The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of Glory_.
+
+When the procession arrived at the Holy Place, the gates flew open; when
+it reached the Holy of Holies, the veil was drawn back. The Ark took its
+place under the extended wings of the cherubim, which might seem to fold
+over, and receive it under their protection. At that instant all the
+trumpeters and singers were at once _to make one sound to be heard in
+praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice,
+with the trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of music, and praised
+the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth forever, the
+house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that the
+priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the
+glory of the Lord had filled the house of God_. Thus the Divinity took
+possession of his sacred edifice.
+
+The king then rose upon the brazen scaffold, knelt down, and spreading
+his hands toward heaven, uttered the prayer of consecration. The prayer
+was of unexampled sublimity: while it implored the perpetual presence of
+the Almighty, as the tutelar Deity and Sovereign of the Israelites, it
+recognized his spiritual and illimitable nature. _But will God in very
+deed dwell with men on the earth? behold heaven and the heaven of
+heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have
+built?_ It then recapitulated the principles of the Hebrew theocracy,
+the dependence of the national prosperity and happiness on the national
+conformity to the civil and religious law. As the king concluded in
+these emphatic terms:--_Now, therefore, arise, O Lord God, into thy
+resting-place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord
+God, be clothed with salvation, and thy saints rejoice in goodness. O
+Lord God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies
+of David thy servant,_--cloud which had rested over the Holy of Holies
+grew brighter and more dazzling; fire broke out and consumed all the
+sacrifices; the priests stood without, awe-struck by the insupportable
+splendor; the whole people fell on their faces, and worshipped and
+praised the Lord, _for he is good, for his mercy is forever_.
+
+Which was the greater, the external magnificence, or the moral sublimity
+of this scene? Was it the Temple, situated on its commanding eminence,
+with all its courts, the dazzling splendor of its materials, the
+innumerable multitudes, the priesthood in their gorgeous attire, the
+king, with all the insignia of royalty, on his throne of burnished
+brass, the music, the radiant cloud filling the Temple, the sudden fire
+flashing upon the altar, the whole nation upon their knees? Was it not
+rather the religious grandeur of the hymns and of the prayer: the
+exalted and rational views of the Divine Nature, the union of a whole
+people in the adoration of the one Great, Incomprehensible, Almighty,
+Everlasting Creator?
+
+This extraordinary festival, which took place at the time of that of
+Tabernacles, lasted for two weeks, twice the usual time: during this
+period twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand
+sheep were sacrificed,[30] every individual probably contributing to
+this great propitiatory rite; and the whole people feasting on those
+parts of the sacrifices which were not set apart for holy uses.
+
+[Footnote 30: Gibbon, in one of his malicious notes, observes, "As the
+blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient, Lightfoot,
+the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le Clerc (_ad loc._) is
+bold enough to suspect the fidelity of the numbers." To this I ventured
+to subjoin the following illustration: "According to the historian
+Kotobeddyn, quoted by Burckhardt, _Travels in Arabia_, p. 276, the
+Khalif Moktader sacrificed during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year
+of the Hegira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
+sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
+carcasses given to the poor. Tavernier speaks of one hundred thousand
+victims offered by the king of Tonquin." Gibbon, ch. xxiii., iv., p. 96,
+edit. Milman.]
+
+Though the chief magnificence of Solomon was lavished on the Temple of
+God, yet the sumptuous palaces which he erected for his own residence
+display an opulence and profusion which may vie with the older monarchs
+of Egypt or Assyria. The great palace stood in Jerusalem; it occupied
+thirteen years in building. A causeway bridged the deep ravine, and
+leading directly to the Temple, united the part either of Acra or Sion,
+on which the palace stood, with Mount Moriah.
+
+In this palace was a vast hall for public business, from its cedar
+pillars called the House of the Forest of Lebanon. It was 175 feet long,
+half that measurement in width, above 50 feet high; four rows of cedar
+columns supported a roof made of beams of the same wood; there were
+three rows of windows on each side facing each other. Besides this great
+hall, there were two others, called porches, of smaller dimensions, in
+one of which the throne of justice was placed. The harem, or women's
+apartments, adjoined to these buildings; with other piles of vast extent
+for different purposes, particularly, if we may credit Josephus, a great
+banqueting hall.
+
+The same author informs us that the whole was surrounded with spacious
+and luxuriant gardens, and adds a less credible fact, ornamented with
+sculptures and paintings. Another palace was built in a romantic part of
+the country in the valleys at the foot of Lebanon for his wife, the
+daughter of the king of Egypt; in the luxurious gardens of which we may
+lay the scene of that poetical epithalamium,[31] or collection of Idyls,
+the Song of Solomon.[32] The splendid works of Solomon were not confined
+to royal magnificence and display; they condescended to usefulness. To
+Solomon are traced at least the first channels and courses of the
+natural and artificial water supply which has always enabled Jerusalem
+to maintain its thousands of worshippers at different periods, and to
+endure long and obstinate sieges.[33]
+
+[Footnote 31: I here assume that the Song of Solomon was an
+epithalamium. I enter not into the interminable controversy as to the
+literal or allegorical or spiritual meaning of this poem, nor into that
+of its age. A very particular though succinct account of all these
+theories, ancient and modern, may be found in a work by Dr. Ginsberg. I
+confess that Dr. Ginsberg's theory, which is rather tinged with the
+virtuous sentimentality of the modern novel, seems to me singularly out
+of harmony with the Oriental and ancient character of the poem. It is
+adopted, however, though modified, by M. Rénan.]
+
+[Footnote 32: According to Ewald, the ivory tower in this poem was
+raised in one of these beautiful "pleasances," in the Anti-Libanus,
+looking toward Hamath.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Ewald: _Geschichte_, iii., pp. 62-68; a very remarkable
+and valuable passage.]
+
+The descriptions in the Greek writers of the Persian courts in Susa and
+Ecbatana; the tales of the early travellers in the East about the kings
+of Samarcand or Cathay; and even the imagination of the Oriental
+romancers and poets, have scarcely conceived a more splendid pageant
+than Solomon, seated on his throne of ivory, receiving the homage of
+distant princes who came to admire his magnificence, and put to the test
+his noted wisdom.[34] This throne was of pure ivory, covered with gold;
+six steps led up to the seat, and on each side of the steps stood twelve
+lions.
+
+[Footnote 34: Compare the great Mogul's throne, in Tavernier; that of
+the King of Persia, in Morier.]
+
+All the vessels of his palace were of pure gold, silver was thought too
+mean: his armory was furnished with gold; two hundred targets and three
+hundred shields of beaten gold were suspended in the house of Lebanon.
+Josephus mentions a body of archers who escorted him from the city to
+his country palace, clad in dresses of Tyrian purple, and their hair
+powdered with gold dust. But enormous as this wealth appears, the
+statement of his expenditure on the Temple, and of his annual revenue,
+so passes all credibility, that any attempt at forming a calculation on
+the uncertain data we possess may at once be abandoned as a hopeless
+task. No better proof can be given of the uncertainty of our
+authorities, of our imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew weights of money,
+and, above all, of our total ignorance of the relative value which the
+precious metals bore to the commodities of life, than the estimate, made
+by Dr. Prideaux, of the treasures left by David, amounting to eight
+hundred millions, nearly the capital of our national debt.
+
+Our inquiry into the sources of the vast wealth which Solomon
+undoubtedly possessed may lead to more satisfactory, though still
+imperfect, results. The treasures of David were accumulated rather by
+conquest than by traffic. Some of the nations he subdued, particularly
+the Edomites, were wealthy. All the tribes seem to have worn a great
+deal of gold and silver in their ornaments and their armor; their idols
+were often of gold, and the treasuries of their temples perhaps
+contained considerable wealth. But during the reign of Solomon almost
+the whole commerce of the world passed into his territories. The treaty
+with Tyre was of the utmost importance: nor is there any instance in
+which two neighboring nations so clearly saw, and so steadily pursued,
+without jealousy or mistrust, their mutual and inseparable
+interests.[35]
+
+[Footnote 35: The very learned work of Movers, _Die Phönizier_ (Bonn,
+1841, Berlin, 1849) contains everything which true German industry and
+comprehensiveness can accumulate about this people. Movers, though in
+such an inquiry conjecture is inevitable, is neither so bold, so
+arbitrary, nor so dogmatic in his conjectures as many of his
+contemporaries. See on Hiram, ii. 326 _et seq._ Movers is disposed to
+appreciate as of high value the fragments preserved in Josephus of the
+Phoenician histories of Menander and Dios.
+
+Mr. Kenrick's _Phoenicia_ may also be consulted with advantage.]
+
+On one occasion only, when Solomon presented to Hiram twenty inland
+cities which he had conquered, Hiram expressed great dissatisfaction,
+and called the territory by the opprobrious name of Cabul. The Tyrian
+had perhaps cast a wistful eye on the noble bay and harbor of Acco, or
+Ptolemais, which the prudent Hebrew either would not, or could
+not--since it was part of the promised land--dissever from his
+dominions. So strict was the confederacy, that Tyre may be considered
+the port of Palestine, Palestine the granary of Tyre. Tyre furnished the
+shipbuilders and mariners; the fruitful plains of Palestine victualled
+the fleets, and supplied the manufacturers and merchants of the
+Phoenician league with all the necessaries of life.[36]
+
+[Footnote 36: To a late period Tyre and Sidon were mostly dependent on
+Palestine for their supply of grain. The inhabitants of these cities
+desired peace with Herod (Agrippa) because their country was nourished
+by the king's country (Acts xii., 20).]
+
+
+
+
+
+RISE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA
+
+DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH
+
+B.C. 789
+
+F. LENORMANT AND E. CHEVALLIER
+
+
+     Mesopotamia for many centuries was the field of battle for the
+     opposing hosts of Babylonia and Assyria, each striving for mastery
+     over the other. At first each city had its own prince, but at
+     length one of these petty kingdoms absorbed the rest, and Nineveh
+     became the capital of a united Assyria. Babylonia had her own
+     kings, but they were little more than hereditary satraps receiving
+     investiture from Nineveh.
+
+     From about B.C. 1060 to 1020 Babylon seems to have recovered the
+     upper hand. Her victories put an end to what is known as the First
+     Assyrian Empire. After a few generations a new family ascended the
+     throne and ultimately founded the Second Assyrian Empire.
+
+     The first princes whose figured monuments have come down to us
+     belonged to those days. The oldest of all was Assurnizirpal; the
+     bas-reliefs with which his palace was decorated are now in the
+     British Museum and the Louvre; most of them in the former. His son
+     Shalmaneser III, and later Shalmaneser IV, made many campaigns
+     against the neighboring peoples, and Assyria became rapidly a great
+     and powerful nation. The effeminate Sardanapalus was the last of
+     the dynasty.
+
+     The capital of Assyria was Nineveh, one of the most famous of
+     cities. It was remarkable for extent, wealth, and architectural
+     grandeur. Diodorus Siculus says its walls were sixty miles around
+     and one hundred feet high. Three chariots could be driven abreast
+     around the summit of its walls, which were defended by fifteen
+     hundred bastions, each of them two hundred feet in height. These
+     dimensions may be exaggerated, but the Hebrew scriptures and recent
+     excavations at the ancient site leave no doubt as to the splendor
+     of the Assyrian palaces and the greatness of the city of Nineveh in
+     population, wealth, and power. In historical times it was destroyed
+     by the Medes, under King Cyaxares, and by the Babylonians, under
+     Nebuchadnezzar, about B.C. 607.
+
+     We are indebted to the monuments, tablets, and "books" recently
+     discovered for the history of Assyria and other ancient oriental
+     nations. Layard unearthed the greater portion, on the site of
+     ancient Nineveh, of the Assyrian "books" (for so are named the
+     tablets of clay, sometimes enamelled, at others only sun-dried or
+     burnt). The writing on these "books" is the cuneiform, and was
+     done by impressing the "style" on the clay while in a waxlike
+     condition. Many of the tablets were broken when Layard and
+     Rawlinson gave them over to the British Museum. The reconstruction
+     of these tablets was undertaken by George Smith, an English
+     Assyriologist of the British Museum, who displayed great skill and
+     earnest application in the deciphering of the cuneiform text.
+
+     In each reign the history of the king and his acts was written by a
+     poet or historian detailed to that office. The "books" were
+     collected and kept in great libraries, the largest of these being
+     made by Sardanapalus.
+
+
+The greater part of the expeditions of Shalmaneser IV, succeeding each
+other year after year, were directed, like those of his father,
+sometimes to the north, into Armenia and Pontus; sometimes to the east,
+into Media, never completely subdued; sometimes to the south, into
+Chaldæa, where revolts were of constant occurrence; and finally
+westward, toward Syria and the region of Amanus. In this direction he
+advanced farther than his predecessors, and came into contact with some
+personages mentioned in Bible history. The part of his annals relating
+to the campaigns that brought him into collision with the kings of
+Damascus and Israel possesses peculiar interest for us, much greater
+than that attaching to the narrative of any other wars.
+
+The sixteenth campaign of Shalmaneser IV (B.C. 890) commenced a new
+series of wars; the King crossed the Zab, or Zabat; to make war on the
+mountain people of Upper Media, and afterward on the Scythian tribes
+around the Caspian Sea. He did not, however, abandon the western
+countries, where he soon found himself opposed by the new King whom the
+revolution arising from the influence of Elisha the prophet had placed
+on the throne of Damascus in the room of Benhidai.
+
+"In my eighteenth campaign" (886), we read on the Nimrud obelisk, "I
+crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth time. Hazael, king of Damascus,
+came toward me to give battle. I took from him eleven hundred and
+twenty-one chariots and four hundred and seventy horsemen, with his
+camp.
+
+"In my nineteenth campaign (885) I crossed the Euphrates for the
+eighteenth time. I marched toward Mount Amanus, and there cut beams of
+cedar.
+
+"In my twenty-first campaign (883) I crossed the Euphrates for the
+twenty-second time. I marched to the cities of Hazael of Damascus. I
+received tribute from Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus."
+
+It evidently was at the end of this campaign that Jehu, king of Israel,
+whose territory Hazael had ravaged, appealed to Shalmaneser for help
+against his powerful enemy. The inscription on the obelisk says that the
+Assyrian King received tribute from Jehu, whom it names "son of Omri,"
+for the great renown of the founder of Samaria had made the Assyrians
+consider all the kings of Israel as his descendants. One of the
+bas-reliefs of the same monument represents Jehu prostrating himself
+before Shalmaneser, as if acknowledging himself a vassal.
+
+The annals of Shalmaneser say no more after this, either of the king of
+Damascus or of Israel. They record, as his twenty-seventh campaign, a
+great war in Armenia that brought about the submission of all the
+districts of that country that still resisted the Assyrian monarch. In
+the thirty-first campaign (873), the last mentioned on the obelisk, the
+King sent the general-in-chief of his armies, Tartan, again into
+Armenia, where he gave up to pillage fifty cities, among them Van; and
+during this time he himself went into Media, subjected part of the
+northern districts of that country, which were in a state of rebellion,
+chastised the people in the neighborhood of Mount Elwand, where in
+after-times Ecbatana was built, and finally made war on the Scythians of
+the Caspian Sea.
+
+The official chronology of the Assyrians dates the termination of the
+reign of Shalmaneser IV in 870, the period of his death. But during the
+last two years his power was entirely lost, and he was reduced to the
+possession of two cities, Nineveh and Calah. His second son,
+Asshurdaninpal, in consequence of circumstances unknown to us, raised
+the standard of revolt against his father, assumed the royal title, and
+was supported by twenty-seven of the most important cities in the
+empire. One of the monuments has preserved a list of these cities, and
+among them we find Arrapkha, capital of the province of Arrapachitis,
+Amida (now Diarbekr), Arbela, Ellasar, and all the towns of the banks of
+the Tigris. War broke out between the father and his rebellious son; the
+army embraced the cause of the latter; he was recognized by all the
+provinces, and kept Shalmaneser until his death shut up and closely
+blockaded in his capital.
+
+Shalmaneser died in B.C. 870; his son, Shamash-Bin, continued the
+legitimate line. He succeeded in repressing the revolt of his brother
+Asshurdaninpal and in depriving him of the authority he had usurped. The
+monument recording the exploits of his first years gives no details,
+however, of the civil war; it merely records, after enumerating the
+cities that had joined the revolt of Asshurdaninpal, "With the aid of
+the great gods, my masters, I subjected them to my sceptre."
+
+The usurpation of the second son of Shalmaneser and a civil war of five
+years had introduced many disorders into the empire and shaken the
+fidelity of many provinces. The early years of Shamash-Bin were occupied
+in reducing the whole to order. In the narrative which has been
+preserved, extending only to his fourth year, we find that the King
+overran and chastised with terrible severity Osrhoene or Aramæan
+Mesopotamia, where the people had been in rebellion, and reduced to
+obedience the mountainous districts, where are the sources of the Tigris
+and Euphrates, and finally Armenia proper. In his fourth year he marched
+against Mardukbalatirib, king of Babylon, who had taken advantage of the
+disorders in Assyria to assert his independence, and who was supported
+by the Susianians or Elamites. He completely defeated him and compelled
+him to fly to the desert, killed very many of his army in the battle,
+took two hundred war chariots, and made seven thousand prisoners, of
+whom five thousand were put to death on the field of battle as an
+example. Unfortunately our information ceases at that period and we know
+absolutely nothing of the greater part of the reign of Shamash-Bin, or
+of the expeditions to the west of Asia, Syria, and Palestine, that must
+have been made after the termination of the campaigns by which the royal
+authority was reëstablished in all the ancient provinces of the empire.
+This King remained on the throne until 857. In 859 and 858 he had to
+repress a great revolt in Babylon and Chaldæa.
+
+Binlikhish [or Binnirari] III, the next king, reigned twenty-nine years,
+from 857 to 828. An inscription of his, engraved in the first years of
+his reign, describing the extent of the empire, says that he governed
+on one side "From the land of Siluna, toward the rising sun, the
+countries of Elam, Albania (at the foot of Caucasus), Kharkhar,
+Araziash, Misu, Media, Giratbunda (a portion of Atropatene, frequently
+mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions), the lands of Munna, Parsua
+(Parthia), Allabria (Hyrcania), Abdadana (Hecatompyla), Namri (the
+Caspian Scythians), even to all the tribes of the Andiu (a Turanian or
+Scythian people, whose country is far off), the whole of the mountainous
+country as far as the sea of the rising sun, the Caspian Sea; on the
+other side from the Euphrates, Syria, all Phoenicia, the land of Tyre,
+of Sidon, the land of Omri (Samaria), Edom, the Philistines, as far as
+the sea of the setting sun (the Mediterranean)"; on all these countries
+he says that "he imposed tribute."
+
+"I marched," he says again, "against the land of Syria, and I took
+Marih, king of Syria, in Damascus, the city of his kingdom. The great
+dread of Asshur, my master, persuaded him; he embraced my knees and made
+submission."
+
+Binlikhish III was a warlike prince; every year of his reign was marked
+by an expedition. We have a summary of these in a chronological tablet
+in the British Museum, containing a fragment--from the end of the reign
+of Shamash-Bin to that of Tiglath-pileser II--of a canon of eponymes
+mentioning the principal events year by year. They nearly all occurred
+in Southern Armenia and in the land of Van, where obedience was only
+maintained by incessant military demonstrations, and subsequently in the
+countries to the north of Media as far as the Caspian Sea. Other
+expeditions were also made as far as Parthia, toward Ariana and the
+various countries that, to the Assyrians, were the extreme East. We do
+not, however, know what that region was called by them, as it is always
+designated by a group of ideographic characters of unknown
+pronunciation. By the defeat of Marih, king of Damascus, the submission
+of the western provinces was secured for the remainder of this reign,
+for there is no record of any other campaign there.
+
+The year 849 was marked by a great plague in Assyria; 834 by a religious
+festival, of which unfortunately no particulars are known; and, lastly,
+833 by the solemn inauguration of a new temple to the god Nebo, in the
+capital.
+
+But the most interesting monument of the reign of Binlikhish III is the
+statue of Nebo, one of the great gods of Babylon, discovered by Mr.
+Loftus and now in the British Museum; the inscription on the base of the
+statue mentions the wife of the King, and calls her "the queen
+Sammuramat"; this is the only historical Semiramis, the one mentioned by
+Herodotus. He places her correctly about a century and a half before
+Nitocris, the wife of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon. "Semiramis," says
+the father of history, "raised magnificent embankments to restrain the
+river (Euphrates), which till then used to overflow and flood the whole
+country round Babylon." But why did Herodotus, and the Babylonian
+tradition he has so faithfully reported, attribute these useful works to
+the queen and not to her husband, Binlikhish? It was once supposed, as a
+solution of this problem, that Sammuramat had governed alone for some
+time, as queen regnant, after the death of her husband. But this
+conjecture is absolutely contradicted by the table of eponymes in the
+British Museum, where it can be seen that Sammuramat never reigned
+alone. In our opinion the only possible explanation will be found in
+regarding Binlikhish and Sammuramat as the Ferdinand and Isabella of
+Mesopotamia. The restless desire of Babylonia and Chaldæa to form a
+state separate from Assyria grew more decided as time went on; in the
+time of Binlikhish it had already gained great strength, and the day was
+not far distant when the separation was definitely to take place, and to
+occasion the utter ruin of Nineveh. In this position of affairs it was
+natural for a king of Assyria to seek to strengthen his authority in
+Chaldæa by a marriage with a daughter of the royal line of that country,
+who were his vassals, and thus, in the opinion of the people of Babylon,
+acquire a legitimate right to the possession of the country by means of
+his wife, as well as the advantages to be derived from the attachment of
+the people to their own legitimate sovereign. We shall therefore
+consider Sammuramat as a Babylonian princess married by Binlikhish, and
+as reigning nominally at Babylon while her husband occupied the throne
+at Nineveh, and as being the only sovereign registered by the
+Babylonians in their national annals. In fact, her position must have
+been a peculiar one; she must have been considered the rightful queen
+in one part of the empire, to have been named as queen, and in the same
+rank as the king, in such an official document as the inscription on the
+statue of the god Nebo. She is the only princess mentioned in any of the
+Assyrian texts, as we might naturally suppose; for unless under such
+very exceptional circumstances as we imagine in the case of Sammuramat,
+there can have been no queens, but only favorite concubines, under the
+organization of harem life, such as it was under the Assyrian kings, and
+as it still is in our days.
+
+The exaggerated development of the Assyrian empire was quite unnatural;
+the kings of Nineveh had never succeeded in welding into one nation the
+numerous tribes whom they subdued by force of arms, or in checking in
+them the spirit of independence; they had not even attempted to do so.
+The empire was absolutely without cohesion; the administrative system
+was so imperfect, the bond attaching the various provinces to each
+other, and to the centre of the monarchy, so weak that at the
+commencement of almost every reign a revolt broke out, sometimes at one
+point, sometimes at another.
+
+It was therefore easy to foresee that, so soon as the reins of
+government were no longer in a really strong hand--so soon as the king
+of Assyria should cease to be an active and warlike king, always in the
+field, always at the head of his troops--the great edifice laboriously
+built up by his predecessors of the tenth and ninth centuries would
+collapse, and the immense fabric of empire would vanish like smoke with
+such rapidity as to astonish the world. And this is exactly what
+occurred after the death of Binlikhish III.
+
+The tablet in the British Museum allows us to follow year by year the
+events and the progress of the dissolution of the empire. Under
+Shalmaneser V, who reigned from B.C. 828 to 818, some foreign
+expeditions were still made, as, for instance, to Damascus in B.C. 819;
+but the forces of the empire were especially engaged during many
+following years in attempting to hold countries already subdued, such as
+Armenia, then in a chronic state of revolt; the wars in one and the same
+province were constant, and occupied some six successive campaigns--the
+Armenian war was from B.C. 827 to 822--proving that no decisive results
+were obtained.
+
+Under Asshur-edil-ilani II, who reigned from B.C. 818 to 800, we do not
+see any new conquests; insurrections constantly broke out, and were no
+longer confined to the extremities of the empire; they encroached on the
+heart of the country, and gradually approached nearer to Nineveh. The
+revolutionary spirit increased in the provinces, a great insurrection
+became imminent, and was ready to break out on the slightest excuse. At
+this period, B.C. 804, it is that the British Museum tablet registers,
+as a memorable fact in the column of events, "Peace in the land." Two
+great plagues are also mentioned under this reign, in 811 and 805, and
+on the 13th of June, B.C. 809--30 Sivan in the eponymos of
+Bur-el-salkhi--an almost total eclipse of the sun, visible at Nineveh.
+
+The revolution was not long in coming. Asshurlikhish [Assurbanipal]
+ascended the throne in B.C. 800, and fixed his residence at Nineveh,
+instead of Ellasar, where his predecessor had lived after quitting
+Nineveh; he is the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the ever-famous prototype
+of the voluptuous and effeminate prince. The tablet in the British
+Museum only mentions two expeditions in his reign, both of small
+importance, in 795 and 794; to all the other years the only notice is
+"in the country," proving that nothing was done and that all thought of
+war was abandoned.
+
+Sardanapalus had entirely given himself up to the orgies of his harem,
+and never left his palace walls, entirely renouncing all manly and
+warlike habits of life. He had reigned thus for seven years, and
+discontent continued to increase; the desire for independence was
+spreading in the subject provinces; the bond of their obedience each
+year relaxed still more, and was nearer breaking, when Arbaces, who
+commanded the Median contingent of the army and was himself a Mede,
+chanced to see in the palace at Nineveh the King, in a female dress,
+spindle in hand, hiding in the retirement of the harem his slothful
+cowardice and voluptuous life.
+
+He considered that it would be easy to deal with a prince so degraded,
+who would be unable to renew the valorous traditions of his ancestors.
+The time seemed to him to have come when the provinces, held only by
+force of arms, might finally throw off the weighty Assyrian yoke.
+Arbaces communicated his ideas and projects to the prince then
+intrusted with the government of Babylon, the Chaldæan Phul (Palia?),
+surnamed Balazu (the Terrible), a name the Greeks have made into
+Belesis; he entered into the plot with the willingness to be expected
+from a Babylonian, one of a nation so frequently rising in revolt.
+
+Arbaces and Balazu consulted with other chiefs, who commanded
+contingents of foreign troops, and with the vassal kings of those
+countries that aspired to independence; and they all formed the
+resolution of overthrowing Sardanapalus. Arbaces engaged to raise the
+Medes and Persians, while Balazu set on foot the insurrection in Babylon
+and Chaldæa. At the end of a year the chiefs assembled their soldiers,
+to the number of forty thousand, in Assyria, under the pretext of
+relieving, according to custom, the troops who had served the former
+year.
+
+When once there, the soldiers broke into open rebellion. The tablet in
+the British Museum tells us that the insurrection commenced at Calah in
+B.C. 792. Immediately after this the confusion became so great that from
+this year there was no nomination of an eponyme.
+
+Sardanapalus, rudely interrupted in his debaucheries by a danger he had
+not been able to foresee, showed himself suddenly inspired with activity
+and courage; he put himself at the head of the native Assyrian troops
+who remained faithful to him, met the rebels, and gained three complete
+victories over them.
+
+The confederates already began to despair of success, when Phul, calling
+in the aid of superstition to a cause that seemed lost, declared to them
+that if they would hold together for five days more, the gods, whose
+will he had ascertained by consulting the stars, would undoubtedly give
+them the victory.
+
+In fact, some days afterward a large body of troops, whom the King had
+summoned to his assistance from the provinces near the Caspian Sea, went
+over, on their arrival, to the side of the insurgents and gained them a
+victory. Sardanapalus then shut himself up in Nineveh, and determined to
+defend himself to the last. The siege continued two years, for the walls
+of the city were too strong for the battering machines of the enemy,
+who were compelled to trust to reducing it by famine. Sardanapalus was
+under no apprehension, confiding in an oracle declaring that Nineveh
+should never be taken until the river became its enemy.
+
+But, in the third year, rain fell in such abundance that the waters of
+the Tigris inundated part of the city and overturned one of its walls
+for a distance of twenty _stades_. Then the King, convinced that the
+oracle was accomplished and despairing of any means of escape, to avoid
+falling alive into the enemy's hands constructed in his palace an
+immense funeral pyre, placed on it his gold and silver and his royal
+robes, and then, shutting himself up with his wives and eunuchs in a
+chamber formed in the midst of the pile, disappeared in the flames.
+
+Nineveh opened its gates to the besiegers, but this tardy submission did
+not save the proud city. It was pillaged and burned, and then razed to
+the ground so completely as to evidence the implacable hatred enkindled
+in the minds of subject nations by the fierce and cruel Assyrian
+government. The Medes and Babylonians did not leave one stone upon
+another in the ramparts, palaces, temples, or houses of the city that
+for two centuries had been dominant over all Western Asia.
+
+So complete was the destruction that the excavations of modern explorers
+on the site of Nineveh have not yet found one single wall slab earlier
+than the capture of the city by Arbaces and Balazu. All we possess of
+the first Nineveh is one broken statue. History has no other example of
+so complete a destruction.
+
+The Assyrian empire was, like the capital, overthrown, and the people
+who had taken part in the revolt formed independent states--the Medes
+under Arbaces, the Babylonians under Phul or Balazu, and the Susianians
+under Shutruk-Nakhunta. Assyria, reduced to the enslaved state in which
+she had so long held other countries, remained for some time a
+dependency of Babylon.
+
+This great event occurred in the year B.C. 789.
+
+[When the noble sculptures and vast palaces of Nimrud had been first
+uncovered, it was natural to suppose that they marked the real site of
+ancient Nineveh; a passage of Strabo, and another of Ptolemy, lent
+confirmation to this theory. Shortly afterward a rival claimant started
+up in the region farther to the north.
+
+"After a while an attempt was made to reconcile the rival claims by a
+theory the grandeur of which gained it acceptance, despite its
+improbability. It was suggested that the various ruins, which had
+hitherto disputed the name, were in fact all included within the circuit
+of the ancient Nineveh, which was described as a rectangle, or oblong
+square, eighteen miles long and twelve broad. The remains at Khorsabad,
+Koyunjik, Nimrud, and Keremles marked the four corners of this vast
+quadrangle, which contained an area of two hundred and sixteen square
+miles--about ten times that of London!
+
+"In confirmation of this view was urged, first, the description in
+Diodorus, derived probably from Ctesias, which corresponded (it was
+said) both with the proportions and with the actual distances; and,
+next, the statements contained in the Book of Jonah, which, it was
+argued, implied a city of some such dimensions. The parallel of Babylon,
+according to the description given by Herodotus, might fairly have been
+cited as a further argument; since it might have seemed reasonable to
+suppose that there was no great difference of size between the chief
+cities of the two kindred empires."--_Rawlinson_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATION OF ROME
+
+B.C. 753
+
+BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR
+
+
+     Rome occupies a unique position in the history of the world. The
+     whole Mediterranean basin was at one time merely a Roman lake, and
+     the adjacent countries were Roman in letters, law, religion and the
+     practice of war. Roman roads crossed the continents east and west
+     and penetrated to the depths of Asia and Africa. Roman garrisons
+     were stationed in every important city of the provinces, and when
+     the great city on the banks of the Tiber at last fell before
+     successive irruptions of northeasterly barbarians and Roman power
+     was at its extreme ebb, the spirit of Roman institutions still
+     survived in the civilization of Spain, France, Italy, Britain, even
+     in Greece and Asia. Roman law had become the code of the world.
+     Iberian, Gaul, and Italian had modified in varying degree their
+     native dialects in conformity with the more copious and logical
+     idiom of Latium.
+
+     A group of legends gathers round the birthplace of the Eternal
+     City. It is Æneas who escapes from Troy and brings into the land of
+     Italian Latinus his native gods. His son Ascanius conquers and
+     slays Mezentius in a battle between Latins and Etruscans, and
+     eleven kings of Alba, all surnamed Silvius, succeeded him on the
+     throne. The last king of Alba Longa is Procas, whose usurping son
+     Amulius drives his eldest brother Numitor from the throne.
+     Numitor's daughter, Silvia, becomes the mother of the immortal
+     twins Romulus and Remus, by Mamers, the god of war; the children
+     are exposed by cruel Amulius, suckled by a wolf, and become
+     founders of Rome.
+
+     Such is the outline of the poem, or rather tissue of poetry in
+     which the founding of Rome is embalmed.
+
+     The critical acumen of Niebuhr may have dispelled some of the
+     clouds and contradictions in which early historians and poets have
+     wrapped the record of this great event. But no critic can ever
+     destroy the beauty and charm of the old Latin chronicles or
+     diminish the glory of the day that saw the first walls rise about
+     the seven hills of the most important of ancient European cities.
+
+
+I believe that few persons, when Alba is mentioned, can get rid of the
+idea, to which I too adhered for a long time, that the history of Alba
+is lost to such an extent, that we can speak of it only in reference to
+the Trojan time and the preceding period, as if all the statements made
+concerning it by the Romans were based upon fancy and error; and that
+accordingly it must be effaced from the pages of history altogether. It
+is true that what we read concerning the foundation of Alba by Ascanius,
+and the wonderful signs accompanying it, as well as the whole series of
+the Alban kings, with the years of their reigns, the story of Numitor
+and Amulius and the story of the destruction of the city, do not belong
+to history; but the historical existence of Alba is not at all doubtful
+on that account, nor have the ancients ever doubted it. The _Sacra
+Albana_ and the _Albani tumuli atque luci_, which existed as late as the
+time of Cicero, are proofs of its early existence; ruins indeed no
+longer exist, but the situation of the city in the valley of Grotta
+Ferrata may still be recognized. Between the lake and the long chain of
+hills near the monastery of Palazzuolo one still sees the rock cut steep
+down toward the lake, evidently the work of man, which rendered it
+impossible to attack the city on that side; the summit on the other side
+formed the arx. That the Albans were in possession of the sovereignty of
+Latium is a tradition which we may believe to be founded on good
+authority, as it is traced to Cincius. Afterward the Latins became the
+masters of the district and temple of Jupiter. Further, the statement
+that Alba shared the flesh of the victim on the Alban mount with the
+thirty towns, and that after the fall of Alba the Latins chose their own
+magistrates, are glimpses of real history. The ancient tunnel made for
+discharging the water of the Alban Lake still exists, and through its
+vault a canal was made called _Fossa Cluilia_: this vault, which is
+still visible, is a work of earlier construction than any Roman one. But
+all that can be said of Alba and the Latins at that time is, that Alba
+was the capital, exercising the sovereignty over Latium; that its temple
+of Jupiter was the rallying point of the people who were governed by it;
+and that the gens Silvia was the ruling clan.
+
+It cannot be doubted that the number of Latin towns was actually thirty,
+just that of the Albensian demi; this number afterward occurs again in
+the later thirty Latin towns and in the thirty Roman tribes, and it is
+moreover indicated by the story of the foundation of Lavinium by thirty
+families, in which we may recognize the union of the two tribes. The
+statement that Lavinium was a Trojan colony and was afterward
+abandoned, but restored by Alba, and further that the sanctuary could
+not be transferred from it to Alba, is only an accommodation to the
+Trojan and native tradition, however much it may bear the appearance of
+antiquity. For Lavinium is nothing else than a general name for Latium,
+just as Panionium is for Ionia, _Latinus_, _Lavinus_, and _Lavicus_
+being one and the same name, as is recognized even by Servius. Lavinium
+was the central point of the Prisci Latini, and there is no doubt that
+in the early period before Alba ruled over Lavinium, worship was offered
+mutually at Alba and at Lavinium, as was afterward the case at Rome in
+the temple of Diana on the Aventine, and at the festivals of the Romans
+and Latins on the Alban mount.
+
+The personages of the Trojan legend therefore present themselves to us
+in the following light. Turnus is nothing else but Turinus, in Dionysius
+[Greek: Turrênos]; Lavinia, the fair maiden, is the name of the Latin
+people, which may perhaps be so distinguished that the inhabitants of
+the coast were called Tyrrhenians, and those further inland Latins.
+Since, after the battle of Lake Regillus, the Latins are mentioned in
+the treaty with Rome as forming thirty towns, there can be no doubt that
+the towns, over which Alba had the supremacy in the earliest times, were
+likewise thirty in number; but the confederacy did not at all times
+contain the same towns, as some may afterward have perished and others
+may have been added. In such political developments there is at work an
+instinctive tendency to fill up that which has become vacant; and this
+instinct acts as long as people proceed unconsciously according to the
+ancient forms and not in accordance with actual wants. Such also was the
+case in the twelve Achæan towns and in the seven Frisian maritime
+communities; for as soon as one disappeared, another, dividing itself
+into two, supplied its place. Wherever there is a fixed number, it is
+kept up, even when one part dies away, and it ever continues to be
+renewed. We may add that the state of the Latins lost in the West, but
+gained in the East. We must therefore, I repeat it, conceive on the one
+hand Alba with its thirty _demi_, and on the other the thirty Latin
+towns, the latter at first forming a state allied with Alba, and at a
+later time under its supremacy.
+
+According to an important statement of Cato preserved in Dionysius, the
+ancient towns of the Aborigines were small places scattered over the
+mountains. One town of this kind was situated on the Palatine hill, and
+bore the name of Roma, which is most certainly Greek. Not far from it
+there occur several other places with Greek names, such as Pyrgi and
+Alsium; for the people inhabiting those districts were closely akin to
+the Greeks; and it is by no means an erroneous conjecture, that
+Terracina was formerly called [Greek: Tracheinê] or the "rough place on
+a rock"; Formiæ must be connected with [Greek: hormos] "a roadstead" or
+"place for casting anchor." As certain as Pyrgi signifies "towers," so
+certainly does _Roma_ signify "strength," and I believe that those are
+quite right who consider that the name Roma in this sense is not
+accidental. This Roma is described as a Pelasgian place in which
+Evander, the introducer of scientific culture, resided. According to
+tradition, the first foundation of civilization was laid by Saturn, in
+the golden age of mankind. The tradition in Vergil, who was extremely
+learned in matters of antiquity, that the first men were created out of
+trees, must be taken quite literally; for as in Greece the [Greek:
+myrmêches] were metamorphosed into the Myrmidons, and the stones thrown
+by Deucalion and Pyrrha into men and women, so in Italy trees, by some
+divine power, were changed into human beings. These beings, at first
+only half human, gradually acquired a civilization which they owed to
+Saturn; but the real intellectual culture was traced to Evander, who
+must not be regarded as a person who had come from Arcadia, but as _the
+good man_, as the teacher of the alphabet and of mental culture, which
+man gradually works out for himself.
+
+The Romans clung to the conviction that Romulus, the founder of Rome,
+was the son of a virgin by a god, that his life was marvellously
+preserved, that he was saved from the floods of the river and was reared
+by a she-wolf. That this poetry is very ancient cannot be doubted; but
+did the legend at all times describe Romulus as the son of Rea Silvia or
+Ilia? Perizonius was the first who remarked against Ryccius that Rea
+Ilia never occurs together, and that Rea Silvia was a daughter of
+Numitor, while Ilia is called a daughter of Æneas. He is perfectly
+right: Nævius and Ennius called Romulus a son of Ilia, the daughter of
+Æneas, as is attested by Servius on Vergil and Porphyrio on Horace; but
+it cannot be hence inferred that this was the national opinion of the
+Romans themselves, for the poets who were familiar with the Greeks might
+accommodate their stories to Greek poems. The ancient Romans, on the
+other hand, could not possibly look upon the mother of the founder of
+their city as a daughter of Æneas, who was believed to have lived three
+hundred and thirty-three or three hundred and sixty years earlier.
+Dionysius says that his account, which is that of Fabius, occurred in
+the sacred songs, and it is in itself perfectly consistent. Fabius
+cannot have taken it, as Plutarch asserts, from Diocles, a miserable
+unknown Greek author; the statue of the she-wolf was erected in the year
+A.U. 457, long before Diocles wrote, and at least a hundred years before
+Fabius. This tradition therefore is certainly the more ancient Roman
+one; and it puts Rome in connection with Alba. A monument has lately
+been discovered at Bovillæ: it is an altar which the _Gentiles Julii_
+erected _lege Albana_, and therefore expresses a religious relation of a
+Roman gens to Alba. The connection of the two towns continues down to
+the founder of Rome; and the well-known tradition, with its ancient
+poetical details, many of which Livy and Dionysius omitted from their
+histories lest they should seem to deal too much in the marvellous, runs
+as follows:
+
+Numitor and Amulius were contending for the throne of Alba. Amulius took
+possession of the throne, and made Rea Silvia, the daughter of Numitor,
+a vestal virgin, in order that the Silvian house might become extinct.
+This part of the story was composed without any insight into political
+laws, for a daughter could not have transmitted any gentilician rights.
+The name Rea Silvia is ancient, but Rea is only a surname: _rea femmina_
+often occurs in Boccaccio, and is used to this day in Tuscany to
+designate a woman whose reputation is blighted; a priestess Rea is
+described by Vergil as having been overpowered by Hercules. While Rea
+was fetching water in a grove for a sacrifice the sun became eclipsed,
+and she took refuge from a wolf in a cave, where she was overpowered by
+Mars. When she was delivered, the sun was again eclipsed and the statue
+of Vesta covered its eyes. Livy has here abandoned the marvellous. The
+tyrant threw Rea with her infants into the river Anio: she lost her life
+in the waves, but the god of the river took her soul and changed it into
+an immortal goddess, whom he married. This story has been softened down
+into the tale of her imprisonment, which is unpoetical enough to be a
+later invention. The river Anio carried the cradle, like a boat, into
+the Tiber, and the latter conveyed it to the foot of the Palatine, the
+water having overflowed the country, and the cradle was upset at the
+root of a fig-tree. A she-wolf carried the babies away and suckled them;
+Mars sent a woodpecker which provided the children with food, and the
+bird _parra_ which protected them from insects. These statements are
+gathered from various quarters; for the historians got rid of the
+marvellous as much as possible. Faustulus, the legend continues, found
+the boys feeding on the milk of the huge wild beast; he brought them up
+with his twelve sons, and they became the staunchest of all. Being at
+the head of the shepherds on Mount Palatine, they became involved in a
+quarrel with the shepherds of Numitor on the Aventine--the Palatine and
+the Aventine are always hostile to each other. Remus being taken
+prisoner was led to Alba, but Romulus rescued him, and their descent
+from Numitor being discovered, the latter was restored to the throne,
+and the two young men obtained permission to form a settlement at the
+foot of Mount Palatine where they had been saved.
+
+Out of this beautiful poem the falsifiers endeavored to make some
+credible story: even the unprejudiced and poetical Livy tried to avoid
+the most marvellous points as much as he could, but the falsifiers went
+a step farther. In the days when men had altogether ceased to believe in
+the ancient gods, attempts were made to find something intelligible in
+the old legends, and thus a history was made up, which Plutarch fondly
+embraced and Dionysius did not reject, though he also relates the
+ancient tradition in a mutilated form. He says that many people believe
+in demons, and that such a demon might have been the father of Romulus;
+but he himself is very far from believing it, and rather thinks that
+Amulius himself, in disguise, violated Rea Silvia amid thunder and
+lightning produced by artifice. This he is said to have done in order to
+have a pretext for getting rid of her, but being entreated by his
+daughter not to drown her, he imprisoned her for life. The children were
+saved by the shepherd who was commissioned to expose them, at the
+request of Numitor, and two other boys were put in their place.
+Numitor's grandsons were taken to a friend at Gabii, who caused them to
+be educated according to their rank, and to be instructed in Greek
+literature. Attempts have actually been made to introduce this stupid
+forgery into history, and some portions of it have been adopted in the
+narrative of our historians; for example, that the ancient Alban
+nobility migrated with the two brothers to Rome; but if this had been
+the case there would have been no need of opening an asylum, nor would
+it have been necessary to obtain by force the _connubium_ with other
+nations.
+
+But of more historical importance is the difference of opinion between
+the two brothers respecting the building of the city and its site.
+According to the ancient tradition, both were kings and the equal heads
+of the colony; Romulus is universally said to have wished to build on
+the Palatine, while Remus, according to some, preferred the Aventine;
+according to others, the hill Remuria. Plutarch states that the latter
+is a hill three miles south of Rome, and cannot have been any other than
+the hill nearly opposite St. Paul, which is the more credible, since
+this hill, though situated in an otherwise unhealthy district, has an
+extremely fine air: a very important point in investigations respecting
+the ancient Latin towns, for it may be taken for certain that where the
+air is now healthy it was so in those times also, and that where it is
+now decidedly unhealthy, it was anciently no better. The legend now goes
+on to say that a dispute arose between Romulus and Remus as to which of
+them should give the name to the town, and also as to where it was to be
+built. A town Remuria therefore undoubtedly existed on that hill, though
+subsequently we find the name transferred to the Aventine, as is the
+case so frequently. According to the common tradition, the auguries were
+to decide between the brothers: Romulus took his stand on the Palatine,
+Remus on the Aventine. The latter observed the whole night, but saw
+nothing until about sunrise, when he saw six vultures flying from north
+to south, and sent word of it to Romulus; but at that very time the
+latter, annoyed at not having seen any sign, fraudulently sent a
+messenger to say that he had seen twelve vultures, and at the very
+moment the messenger arrived there did appear twelve vultures, to which
+Romulus appealed. This account is impossible; for the Palatine and
+Aventine are so near each other that, as every Roman well knew, whatever
+a person on one of the two hills saw high in the air, could not escape
+the observation of any one who was watching on the other. This part of
+the story therefore cannot be ancient, and can be saved only by
+substituting the Remuria for the Aventine. As the Palatine was the seat
+of the noblest patrician tribe, and the Aventine the special town of the
+plebeians, there existed between the two a perpetual feud, and thus it
+came to pass that in after times the story relating to the Remuria,
+which was far away from the city, was transferred to the Aventine.
+According to Ennius, Romulus made his observations on the Aventine; in
+this case Remus must certainly have been on the Remuria, and it is said
+that when Romulus obtained the augury he threw his spear toward the
+Palatine. This is the ancient legend which was neglected by the later
+writers. Romulus took possession of the Palatine. The spear taking root
+and becoming a tree, which existed down to the time of Nero, is a symbol
+of the eternity of the new city, and of the protection of the gods. The
+statement that Romulus tried to deceive his brother is a later addition;
+and the beautiful poem of Ennius, quoted by Cicero, knows nothing of
+this circumstance. The conclusion which must be drawn from all this is,
+that in the earliest times there were two towns, Roma and Remuria, the
+latter being far distant from the city and from the Palatine.
+
+Romulus now fixed the boundary of his town, but Remus scornfully leaped
+across the ditch, for which he was slain by Celer, a hint that no one
+should cross the fortifications of Rome with impunity. But Romulus fell
+into a state of melancholy occasioned by the death of Remus; he
+instituted festivals to honor him, and ordered an empty throne to be put
+up by the side of his own. Thus we have a double kingdom, which ends
+with the defeat of Remuria.
+
+The question now is, What were these two towns of Roma and Remuria? They
+were evidently Pelasgian places: the ancient tradition states that
+Sicelus migrated from Rome southward to the Pelasgians, that is, the
+Tyrrhenian Pelasgians were pushed forward to the Morgetes, a kindred
+nation in Lucania and in Sicily. Among the Greeks it was, as Dionysius
+states, a general opinion that Rome was a Pelasgian, that is, a
+Tyrrhenian city, but the authorities from whom he learned this are no
+longer extant. There is, however, a fragment in which it is stated that
+Rome was a sister city of Antium and Ardea; here too we must apply the
+statement from the chronicle of Cumæ, that Evander, who, as an Arcadian,
+was likewise a Pelasgian, had his _palatium_ on the Palatine. To us he
+appears of less importance than in the legend, for in the latter he is
+one of the benefactors of nations, and introduced among the Pelasgians
+in Italy the use of the alphabet and other arts, just as Damaratus did
+among the Tyrrhenians in Etruria. In this sense, therefore, Rome was
+certainly a Latin town, and had not a mixed but a purely
+Tyrrheno-Pelasgian population. The subsequent vicissitudes of this
+settlement may be gathered from the allegories.
+
+Romulus now found the number of his fellow-settlers too small; the
+number of three thousand foot and three hundred horse, which Livy gives
+from the commentaries of the pontiffs, is worth nothing; for it is only
+an outline of the later military arrangement transferred to the earliest
+times. According to the ancient tradition, Romulus's band was too small,
+and he opened an asylum on the Capitoline hill. This asylum, the old
+description states, contained only a very small space, a proof how
+little these things were understood historically. All manner of people,
+thieves, murderers, and vagabonds of every kind, flocked thither. This
+is the simple view taken of the origin of the clients. In the bitterness
+with which the estates subsequently looked upon one another, it was made
+a matter of reproach to the Patricians that their earliest ancestors had
+been vagabonds; though it was a common opinion that the Patricians were
+descended from the free companions of Romulus, and that those who took
+refuge in the asylum placed themselves as clients under the protection
+of the real free citizens. But now they wanted women, and attempts were
+made to obtain the _connubium_ with neighboring towns, especially
+perhaps with Antemnæ, which was only four miles distant from Rome, with
+the Sabines and others. This being refused Romulus had recourse to a
+stratagem, proclaiming that he had discovered the altar of Consus, the
+god of counsels, an allegory of his cunning in general. In the midst of
+the solemnities, the Sabine maidens, thirty in number, were carried off,
+from whom the _curiæ_ received their names: this is the genuine ancient
+legend, and it proves how small ancient Rome was conceived to have been.
+In later times the number was thought too small; it was supposed that
+these thirty had been chosen by lot for the purpose of naming the
+_curiæ_ after them; and Valerius Antias fixed the number of the women
+who had been carried off at five hundred and twenty-seven. The rape is
+placed in the fourth month of the city, because the _consualia_ fall in
+August, and the festival commemorating the foundation of the city in
+April; later writers, as Cn. Gellius, extended this period to four
+years, and Dionysius found this of course far more credible. From this
+rape there arose wars, first with the neighboring towns, which were
+defeated one after another, and at last with the Sabines. The ancient
+legend contains not a trace of this war having been of long continuance;
+but in later times it was necessarily supposed to have lasted for a
+considerable time, since matters were then measured by a different
+standard. Lucumo and Cælius came to the assistance of Romulus, an
+allusion to the expedition of Cæles Vibenna, which however belongs to a
+much later period. The Sabine king, Tatius, was induced by treachery to
+settle on the hill which is called the Tarpeian _arx_. Between the
+Palatine and the Tarpeian rock a battle was fought, in which neither
+party gained a decisive victory, until the Sabine women threw themselves
+between the combatants, who agreed that henceforth the sovereignty
+should be divided between the Romans and the Sabines. According to the
+annals, this happened in the fourth year of Rome.
+
+But this arrangement lasted only a short time; Tatius was slain during a
+sacrifice at Lavinium, and his vacant throne was not filled up. During
+their common reign, each king had a senate of one hundred members, and
+the two senates, after consulting separately, used to meet, and this was
+called _comitium_. Romulus during the remainder of his life ruled alone;
+the ancient legend knows nothing of his having been a tyrant: according
+to Ennius he continued, on the contrary, to be a mild and benevolent
+king, while Tatius was a tyrant. The ancient tradition contained nothing
+beyond the beginning and the end of the reign of Romulus; all that lies
+between these points, the war with the Veientines, Fidenates, and so on,
+is a foolish invention of later annalists. The poem itself is beautiful,
+but this inserted narrative is highly absurd, as for example the
+statement that Romulus slew ten thousand Veientines with his own hand.
+The ancient poem passed on at once to the time when Romulus had
+completed his earthly career, and Jupiter fulfilled his promise to Mars,
+that Romulus was the only man whom he would introduce among the gods.
+According to this ancient legend, the king was reviewing his army near
+the marsh of Capræ, when, as at the moment of his conception, there
+occurred an eclipse of the sun and at the same time a hurricane, during
+which Mars descended in a fiery chariot and took his son up to heaven.
+Out of this beautiful poem the most wretched stories have been
+manufactured: Romulus, it is said, while in the midst of his senators
+was knocked down, cut into pieces, and thus carried away by them under
+their togas. This stupid story was generally adopted, and that a cause
+for so horrible a deed might not be wanting, it was related that in his
+latter years Romulus had become a tyrant, and that the senators took
+revenge by murdering him.
+
+After the death of Romulus, the Romans and the people of Tatius
+quarrelled for a long time with each other, the Sabines wishing that one
+of their nation should be raised to the throne, while the Romans claimed
+that the new king should be chosen from among them. At length they
+agreed, it is said, that the one nation should choose a king from the
+other.
+
+We have now reached the point at which it is necessary to speak of the
+relation between the two nations, such as it actually existed.
+
+All the nations of antiquity lived in fixed forms, and their civil
+relations were always marked by various divisions and subdivisions. When
+cities raise themselves to the rank of nations, we always find a
+division at first into tribes; Herodotus mentions such tribes in the
+colonization of Cyrene, and the same was afterward the case at the
+foundation of Thurii; but when a place existed anywhere as a distinct
+township, its nature was characterized by the fact of its citizens being
+at a certain time divided into _gentes_ [Greek: genê], each of which had
+a common chapel and a common hero. These _gentes_ were united in
+definite numerical proportions into _curiæ_ [Greek: phratrai]. The
+_gentes_ are not families, but free corporations, sometimes close and
+sometimes open; in certain cases the whole body of the state might
+assign to them new associates; the great council at Venice was a close
+body, and no one could be admitted whose ancestors had not been in it,
+and such also was the case in many oligarchical states of antiquity.
+
+All civil communities had a council and an assembly of burghers, that
+is, a small and a great council; the burghers consisted of the guilds or
+_gentes_, and these again were united, as it were, in parishes; all the
+Latin towns had a council of one hundred members, who were divided into
+ten _curiæ_; this division gave rise to the name of _decuriones_, which
+remained in use as a title of civic magistrates down to the latest
+times, and through the _lex Julia_ was transferred to the constitution
+of the Italian _municipia_. That this council consisted of one hundred
+persons has been proved by Savigny, in the first volume of his history
+of the Roman law. This constitution continued to exist till a late
+period of the middle ages, but perished when the institution of guilds
+took the place of municipal constitutions. Giovanni Villani says, that
+previously to the revolution in the twelfth century there were at
+Florence one hundred _buoni nomini_, who had the administration of the
+city. There is nothing in the German cities which answers to this
+constitution. We must not conceive those hundred to have been nobles;
+they were an assembly of burghers and country people, as was the case in
+our small imperial cities, or as in the small cantons of Switzerland.
+Each of them represented a _gens_; and they are those whom Propertius
+calls _patres pelliti_. The _curia_ of Rome, a cottage covered with
+straw, was a faithful memorial of the times when Rome stood buried in
+the night of history, as a small country town surrounded by its little
+domain.
+
+The most ancient occurrence which we can discover from the form of the
+allegory, by a comparison of what happened in other parts of Italy, is
+a result of the great and continued commotion among the nations of
+Italy. It did not terminate when the Oscans had been pressed forward
+from Lake Fucinus to the lake of Alba, but continued much longer. The
+Sabines may have rested for a time, but they advanced far beyond the
+districts about which we have any traditions. These Sabines began as a
+very small tribe, but afterward became one of the greatest nations of
+Italy, for the Marrucinians, Caudines, Vestinians, Marsians, Pelignians,
+and in short all the Samnite tribes, the Lucanians, the Oscan part of
+the Bruttians, the Picentians, and several others were all descended
+from the Sabine stock, and yet there are no traditions about their
+settlements except in a few cases. At the time to which we must refer
+the foundation of Rome, the Sabines were widely diffused. It is said
+that, guided by a bull, they penetrated into Opica, and thus occupied
+the country of the Samnites. It was perhaps at an earlier time that they
+migrated down the Tiber, whence we there find Sabine towns mixed with
+Latin ones; some of their places also existed on the Anio. The country
+afterward inhabited by the Sabines was probably not occupied by them
+till a later period, for Falerii is a Tuscan town, and its population
+was certainly at one time thoroughly Tyrrhenian.
+
+As the Sabines advanced, some Latin towns maintained their independence,
+others were subdued; Fidenæ belonged to the former, but north of it all
+the country was Sabine. Now by the side of the ancient Roma we find a
+Sabine town on the Quirinal and Capitoline close to the Latin town; but
+its existence is all that we know about it. A tradition states that
+there previously existed on the Capitoline a Siculian town of the name
+of Saturnia, which, in this case, must have been conquered by the
+Sabines. But whatever we may think of this, as well as of the existence
+of another ancient town on the Janiculum, it is certain that there were
+a number of small towns in that district. The two towns could exist
+perfectly well side by side, as there was a deep marsh between them.
+
+The town on the Palatine may for a long time have been in a state of
+dependence on the Sabine conqueror whom tradition calls Titus Tatius;
+hence he was slain during the Laurentine sacrifice, and hence also his
+memory was hateful. The existence of a Sabine town on the Quirinal is
+attested by the undoubted occurrence there of a number of Sabine
+chapels, which were known as late as the time of Varro, and from which
+he proved that the Sabine ritual was adopted by the Romans. This Sabine
+element in the worship of the Romans has almost always been overlooked,
+in consequence of the prevailing desire to look upon everything as
+Etruscan; but, I repeat, there is no doubt of the Sabine settlement, and
+that it was the result of a great commotion among the tribes of middle
+Italy.
+
+The tradition that the Sabine women were carried off because there
+existed no _connubium_, and that the rape was followed by a war, is
+undoubtedly a symbolical representation of the relation between the two
+towns, previous to the establishment of the right of intermarriage; the
+Sabines had the ascendancy and refused that right, but the Romans gained
+it by force of arms. There can be no doubt that the Sabines were
+originally the ruling people, but that in some insurrection of the
+Romans various Sabine places, such as Antemnæ, Fidenæ, and others, were
+subdued, and thus these Sabines were separated from their kinsmen. The
+Romans, therefore, reëstablished their independence by a war, the result
+of which may have been such as we read it in the tradition--Romulus
+being, of course, set aside--namely, that both places as two closely
+united towns formed a kind of confederacy, each with a senate of one
+hundred members, a king, an offensive and defensive alliance, and on the
+understanding that in common deliberations the burghers of each should
+meet together in the space between the two towns which was afterward
+called the _comitium_. In this manner they formed a united state in
+regard to foreign nations.
+
+The idea of a double state was not unknown to the ancient writers
+themselves, although the indications of it are preserved only in
+scattered passages, especially in the scholiasts. The head of Janus,
+which in the earliest times was represented on the Roman _as_, is the
+symbol of it, as has been correctly observed by writers on Roman
+antiquities. The vacant throne by the side of the _curule_ chair of
+Romulus points to the time when there was only one king, and represents
+the equal but quiescent right of the other people.
+
+That concord was not of long duration is an historical fact likewise;
+nor can it be doubted that the Roman king assumed the supremacy over the
+Sabines, and that in consequence the two councils were united so as to
+form one senate under one king, it being agreed that the king should be
+alternately a Roman and a Sabine, and that each time he should be chosen
+by the other people: the king, however, if displeasing to the
+non-electing people, was not to be forced upon them, but was to be
+invested with the _imperium_ only on condition of the auguries being
+favorable to him, and of his being sanctioned by the whole nation. The
+non-electing tribe accordingly had the right of either sanctioning or
+rejecting his election. In the case of Numa this is related as a fact,
+but it is only a disguisement of the right derived from the ritual
+books. In this manner the strange double election, which is otherwise so
+mysterious and was formerly completely misunderstood, becomes quite
+intelligible. One portion of the nation elected and the other
+sanctioned; it being intended that, for example, the Romans should not
+elect from among the Sabines a king devoted exclusively to their own
+interests, but one who was at the same time acceptable to the Sabines.
+
+When, perhaps after several generations of a separate existence, the two
+states became united, the towns ceased to be towns, and the collective
+body of the burghers of each became tribes, so that the nation consisted
+of two tribes. The form of addressing the Roman people was from the
+earliest times _Populus Romanus Quirites_, which, when its origin was
+forgotten, was changed into _Populus Romanus Quiritium_, just as _lis
+vindiciæ_ was afterward changed into _lis vindiciaruum_. This change is
+more ancient than Livy; the correct expression still continued to be
+used, but was to a great extent supplanted by the false one. The ancient
+tradition relates that after the union of the two tribes the name
+_Quirites_ was adopted as the common designation for the whole people;
+but this is erroneous, for the name was not used in this sense till a
+very late period. This designation remained in use and was transferred
+to the plebeians at a time when the distinction between Romans and
+Sabines, between these two and the Luceres, nay, when even that between
+patricians and plebeians had almost ceased to be noticed. Thus the two
+towns stood side by side as tribes forming one state, and it is merely a
+recognition of the ancient tradition when we call the Latins _Ramnes_,
+and the Sabines _Tities_; that the derivation of these appellations from
+Romulus and T. Tatius is incorrect is no argument against the view here
+taken.
+
+Dionysius, who had good materials and made use of a great many, must, as
+far as the consular period is concerned, have had more than he gives;
+there is in particular one important change in the constitution,
+concerning which he has only a few words, either because he did not see
+clearly or because he was careless. But as regards the kingly period, he
+was well acquainted with his subject; he says that there was a dispute
+between the two tribes respecting the senates, and that Numa settled it
+by not depriving the Ramnes, as the first tribe, of anything, and by
+conferring honors on the Tities. This is perfectly clear. The senate,
+which had at first consisted of one hundred and now two hundred members,
+was divided into ten _decuries_, each being headed by one, who was its
+leader; these are the _decem primi_, and they were taken from the
+Ramnes. They formed the college, which, when there was no king,
+undertook the government, one after another, each for five days, but in
+such a manner that they always succeeded one another in the same order,
+as we must believe with Livy, for Dionysius here introduces his Greek
+notions of the Attic _prytanes_, and Plutarch misunderstands the matter
+altogether.
+
+After the example of the senate the number of the augurs and pontiffs
+also was doubled, so that each college consisted of four members, two
+being taken from the Ramnes and two from the Tities. Although it is not
+possible to fix these changes chronologically, as Dionysius and Cicero
+do, yet they are as historically certain as if we actually knew the
+kings who introduced them.
+
+Such was Rome in the second stage of its development. This period of
+equalization is one of peace, and is described as the reign of Numa,
+about whom the traditions are simple and brief. It is the picture of a
+peaceful condition with a holy man at the head of affairs, like Nicolas
+von der Flue in Switzerland. Numa was supposed to have been inspired by
+the goddess.
+
+Egeria, to whom he was married in the grove of the Camenæ, and who
+introduced him into the choir of her sisters; she melted away in tears
+at his death, and thus gave her name to the spring which arose out of
+her tears. Such a peace of forty years, during which no nation rose
+against Rome, because Numa's piety was communicated to the surrounding
+nations, is a beautiful idea, but historically impossible in those
+times, and manifestly a poetical fiction.
+
+The death of Numa forms the conclusion of the first _sæculum_, and an
+entirely new period follows, just as in the Theogony of Hesiod the age
+of heroes is followed by the iron age; there is evidently a change, and
+an entirely new order of things is conceived to have arisen. Up to this
+point we have had nothing except poetry, but with Tullus Hostilius a
+kind of history begins, that is, events are related which must be taken
+in general as historical, though in the light in which they are
+presented to us they are not historical. Thus, for example, the
+destruction of Alba is historical, and so in all probability is the
+reception of the Albans at Rome. The conquests of Ancus Martius are
+quite credible; and they appear like an oasis of real history in the
+midst of fables. A similar case occurs once in the chronicle of Cologne.
+In the Abyssinian annals, we find in the thirteenth century a very
+minute account of one particular event, in which we recognize a piece of
+contemporaneous history, though we meet with nothing historical either
+before or after.
+
+The history which then follows is like a picture viewed from the wrong
+side, like phantasmata; the names of the kings are perfectly fictitious;
+no man can tell how long the Roman kings reigned, as we do not know how
+many there were, since it is only for the sake of the number that seven
+were supposed to have ruled, seven being a number which appears in many
+relations, especially in important astronomical ones. Hence the
+chronological statements are utterly worthless. We must conceive as a
+succession of centuries the period from the origin of Rome down to the
+times wherein were constructed the enormous works, such as the great
+drains, the wall of Servius, and others, which were actually executed
+under the kings and rival the great architectural works of the
+Egyptians. Romulus and Numa must be entirely set aside; but a long
+period follows, in which the nations gradually unite and develop
+themselves until the kingly government disappears and makes way for
+republican institutions.
+
+But it is nevertheless necessary to relate the history, such as it has
+been handed down, because much depends upon it. There was not the
+slightest connection between Rome and Alba, nor is it even mentioned by
+the historians, though they suppose that Rome received its first
+inhabitants from Alba; but in the reign of Tullus Hostilius the two
+cities on a sudden appear as enemies: each of the two nations seeks war,
+and tries to allure fortune by representing itself as the injured party,
+each wishing to declare war. Both sent ambassadors to demand reparation
+for robberies which had been committed. The form of procedure was this:
+the ambassadors, that is the Fetiales, related the grievances of their
+city to every person they met, they then proclaimed them in the
+market-place of the other city, and if, after the expiration of thrice
+ten days no reparation was made, they said, "We have done enough and now
+return," whereupon the elders at home held counsel as to how they should
+obtain redress. In this formula accordingly the _res_, that is, the
+surrender of the guilty and the restoration of the stolen property, must
+have been demanded. Now it is related that the two nations sent such
+ambassadors quite simultaneously, but that Tullus Hostilius retained the
+Alban ambassadors, until he was certain that the Romans at Alba had not
+obtained the justice due to them, and had therefore declared war. After
+this he admitted the ambassadors into the senate, and the reply made to
+their complaint was, that they themselves had not satisfied the demands
+of the Romans. Livy then continues: _bellum in trigesimum diem
+dixerant_. But the real formula is, _post trigesimum diem_, and we may
+ask, Why did Livy or the annalist whom he followed make this alteration?
+For an obvious reason: a person may ride from Rome to Alba in a couple
+of hours, so that the detention of the Alban ambassadors at Rome for
+thirty days, without their hearing what was going on in the mean time at
+Alba, was a matter of impossibility. Livy saw this, and therefore
+altered the formula. But the ancient poet was not concerned about such
+things, and without hesitation increased the distance in his
+imagination, and represented Rome and Alba as great states.
+
+The whole description of the circumstances under which the fate of Alba
+was decided is just as manifestly poetical, but we shall dwell upon it
+for a while in order to show how a semblance of history may arise.
+Between Rome and Alba there was a ditch, _Fossa Cluilia_ or _Cloelia_,
+and there must have been a tradition that the Albans had been encamped
+there; Livy and Dionysius mention that Cluilius, a general of the
+Albans, had given the ditch its name, having perished there. It was
+necessary to mention the latter circumstance, in order to explain the
+fact that afterward their general was a different person, Mettius
+Fuffetius, and yet to be able to connect the name of that ditch with the
+Albans. The two states committed the decision of their dispute to
+champions, and Dionysius says that tradition did not agree as to whether
+the name of the Roman champions was Horatii or Curiatii, although he
+himself, as well as Livy, assumes that it was Horatii, probably because
+it was thus stated by the majority of the annalists. Who would suspect
+any uncertainty here if it were not for this passage of Dionysius? The
+contest of the three brothers on each side is a symbolical indication
+that each of the two states was then divided into three tribes. Attempts
+have indeed been made to deny that the three men were brothers of the
+same birth, and thus to remove the improbability; but the legend went
+even further, representing the three brothers on each side as the sons
+of two sisters, and as born on the same day. This contains the
+suggestion of a perfect equality between Rome and Alba. The contest
+ended in the complete submission of Alba; it did not remain faithful,
+however, and in the ensuing struggle with the Etruscans, Mettius
+Fuffetius acted the part of a traitor toward Rome, but not being able to
+carry his design into effect, he afterward fell upon the fugitive
+Etruscans. Tullus ordered him to be torn to pieces and Alba to be razed
+to the ground, the noblest Alban families being transplanted to Rome.
+The death of Tullus is no less poetical. Like Numa he undertook to call
+down lightning from heaven, but he thereby destroyed himself and his
+house.
+
+If we endeavor to discover the historical substance of these legends,
+we at once find ourselves in a period when Rome no longer stood alone,
+but had colonies with Roman settlers, possessing a third of the
+territory and exercising sovereign power over the original inhabitants.
+This was the case in a small number of towns, for the most part of
+ancient Siculian origin. It is an undoubted fact that Alba was
+destroyed, and that after this event the towns of the _Prisci Latini_
+formed an independent and compact confederacy; but whether Alba fell in
+the manner described, whether it was ever compelled to recognize the
+supremacy of Rome, and whether it was destroyed by the Romans and Latins
+conjointly, or by the Romans or Latins alone, are questions which no
+human ingenuity can solve. It is, however, most probable that the
+destruction of Alba was the work of the Latins, who rose against her
+supremacy; whether in this case the Romans received the Albans among
+themselves, and thus became their benefactors instead of destroyers,
+must ever remain a matter of uncertainty. That Alban families were
+transplanted to Rome cannot be doubted, any more than that the _Prisci
+Latini_ from that time constituted a compact state; if we consider that
+Alba was situated in the midst of the Latin districts, that the Alban
+mount was their common sanctuary, and that the grove of Ferentina was
+the place of assembly for all the Latins, it must appear more probable
+that Rome did not destroy Alba, but that it perished in an insurrection
+of the Latin towns, and that the Romans strengthened themselves by
+receiving the Albans into their city.
+
+Whether the Albans were the first that settled on the Cælian hill, or
+whether it was previously occupied, cannot be decided. The account which
+places the foundation of the town on the Cælius in the reign of Romulus
+suggests that a town existed there before the reception of the Albans;
+but what is the authenticity of this account? A third tradition
+represents it as an Etruscan settlement of Cæles Vibenna. This much is
+certain, that the destruction of Alba greatly contributed to increase
+the power of Rome. There can be no doubt that a third town, which seems
+to have been very populous, now existed on the Cælius and on a portion
+of the Esquiliæ: such a settlement close to other towns was made for the
+sake of mutual protection. Between the two more ancient towns there
+continued to be a marsh or swamp, and Rome was protected on the south
+by stagnant water; but between Rome and the third town there was a dry
+plain. Rome also had a considerable suburb toward the Aventine,
+protected by a wall and a ditch, as is implied in the story of Remus. He
+is a personification of the _plebs_, leaping across the ditch from the
+side of the Aventine, though we ought to be very cautious in regard to
+allegory.
+
+The most ancient town on the Palatine was Rome; the Sabine town also
+must have had a name, and I have no doubt that, according to common
+analogy, it was Quirium, the name of its citizens being Quirites. This I
+look upon as certain. I have almost as little doubt that the town on the
+Cælian was called Lucerum, because when it was united with Rome, its
+citizens were called, _Lucertes_ (_Luceres_). The ancients derive this
+name from Lucumo, king of the Tuscans, or from Lucerus, king of Ardea;
+the latter derivation probably meaning that the race was Tyrrheno-Latin,
+because Ardea was the capital of that race. Rome was thus enlarged by a
+third element, which, however, did not stand on a footing of equality
+with the two others, but was in a state of dependence similar to that of
+Ireland relatively to Great Britain down to the year 1782. But although
+the Luceres were obliged to recognize the supremacy of the two older
+tribes, they were considered as an integral part of the whole state,
+that is, as a third tribe with an administration of its own, but
+inferior rights. What throws light upon our way here is a passage of
+Festus, who is a great authority on matters of Roman antiquity, because
+he made his excerpts from Verrius Flaccus; it is only in a few points
+that, in my opinion, either of them was mistaken; all the rest of the
+mistakes in Festus may be accounted for by the imperfection of the
+abridgment, Festus not always understanding Verrius Flaccus. The
+statement of Festus to which I here allude is that Tarquinius Superbus
+increased the number of the Vestals in order that each tribe might have
+two. With this we must connect a passage from the tenth book of Livy,
+where he says that the augurs were to represent the three tribes. The
+numbers in the Roman colleges of priests were always multiples either of
+two or of three; the latter was the case with the Vestal Virgins and the
+great Flamines, and the former with the Augurs, Pontiffs, and Fetiales,
+who represented only the first two tribes. Previously to the passing of
+the Ogulnian law the number of augurs was four, and when subsequently
+five plebeians were added, the basis of this increase was different, it
+is true, but the ancient rule of the number being a multiple of three
+was preserved. The number of pontiffs, which was then four, was
+increased only by four: this might seem to contradict what has just been
+stated, but it has been overlooked that Cicero speaks of _five_ new ones
+having been added, for he included the Pontifex Maximus, which Livy does
+not. In like manner there were twenty Fetiales, ten for each tribe. To
+the Salii on the Palatine Numa added another brotherhood on the
+Quirinal; thus we everywhere see a manifest distinction between the
+first two tribes and the third, the latter being treated as inferior.
+
+The third tribe, then, consisted of free citizens, but they had not the
+same rights as the members of the first two; yet its members considered
+themselves superior to all other people; and their relation to the other
+two tribes was the same as that existing between the Venetian citizens
+of the mainland and the _nobili_. A Venetian nobleman treated those
+citizens with far more condescension than he displayed toward others,
+provided they did not presume to exercise any authority in political
+matters. Whoever belonged to the Luceres called himself a Roman, and if
+the very dictator of Tusculum had come to Rome, a man of the third tribe
+there would have looked upon him as an inferior person, though he
+himself had no influence whatever.
+
+Tullus was succeeded by Ancus. Tullus appears as one of the Ramnes, and
+as descended from Hostus Hostilius, one of the companions of Romulus;
+but Ancus was a Sabine, a grandson of Numa. The accounts about him are
+to some extent historical, and there is no trace of poetry in them. In
+his reign, the development of the state again made a step in advance.
+According to the ancient tradition, Rome was at war with the Latin
+towns, and carried it on successfully. How many of the particular events
+which are recorded may be historical I am unable to say; but that there
+was a war is credible enough. Ancus, it is said, carried away after this
+war many thousands of Latins, and gave them settlements on the Aventine.
+The ancients express various opinions about him; sometimes he is
+described as a _captator auræ popularis_; sometimes he is called _bonus
+Ancus_. Like the first three kings, he is said to have been a
+legislator, a fact which is not mentioned in reference to the later
+kings. He is moreover stated to have established the colony of Ostia,
+and thus his kingdom must have extended as far as the mouth of the
+Tiber.
+
+Ancus and Tullus seem to me to be historical personages; but we can
+scarcely suppose that the latter was succeeded by the former, and that
+the events assigned to their reigns actually occurred in them. These
+events must be conceived in the following manner: Toward the end of the
+fourth reign, when, after a feud which lasted many years, the Romans
+came to an understanding with the Latins about the renewal of the
+long-neglected alliance, Rome gave up its claims to the supremacy which
+it could not maintain, and indemnified itself by extending its dominion
+in another and safer direction. The eastern colonies joined the Latin
+towns which still existed: this is evident, though it is nowhere
+expressly mentioned; and a portion of the Latin country was ceded to
+Rome, with which the rest of the Latins formed a connection of
+friendship, perhaps of isopolity. Rome here acted as wisely as England
+did when she recognized the independence of North America.
+
+In this manner Rome obtained a territory. The many thousand settlers
+whom Ancus is said to have led to the Aventine were the population of
+the Latin towns which became subject to Rome, and they were far more
+numerous than the two ancient tribes, even after the latter had been
+increased by their union with the third tribe. In these country
+districts lay the power of Rome, and from them she raised the armies
+with which she carried on her wars. It would have been natural to admit
+this population as a fourth tribe, but such a measure was not agreeable
+to the Romans: the constitution of the state was completed and was
+looked upon as a sacred trust in which no change ought to be introduced.
+It was with the Greeks and Romans as it was with our own ancestors,
+whose separate tribes clung to their hereditary laws, and differed from
+one another in this respect as much as they did from the Gauls in the
+color of their eyes and hair. They knew well enough that it was in their
+power to alter the laws, but they considered them as something which
+ought not to be altered. Thus when the emperor Otho was doubtful on a
+point of the law of inheritance, he caused the case to be decided by an
+ordeal or judgment of God. In Sicily, one city had Chalcidian, another
+Doric laws, although their populations, as well as their dialects, were
+greatly mixed; but the leaders of those colonies had been Chalcidians in
+the one case and Dorians in the others. The Chalcidians, moreover, were
+divided into four, the Dorians into three tribes, and their differences
+in these respects were manifested even in their weights and measures.
+The division into three tribes was a genuine Latin institution; and
+there are reasons which render it probable that the Sabines had a
+division of their states into four tribes. The transportation of the
+Latins to Rome must be regarded as the origin of the _plebs_.
+
+
+
+
+
+PRINCE JIMMU FOUNDS JAPAN'S CAPITAL
+
+B.C. 660
+
+SIR EDWARD REED THE "NEHONGI"
+
+
+     Prince Jimmu is the founder of the Empire of Japan, according to
+     Japanese tradition. The whole of his history is overlaid with myth
+     and legend. But it points to the immigration of western Asiatics by
+     way of Corea into the Japanese islands of Izumo and Kyushu.
+
+     The historical records of the Japanese relate that Jimmu,
+     accompanied by an elder brother, Prince Itsuse, started from their
+     grandfather's palace on Mount Takaclicho. They marched with a large
+     number of followers, a horde of men, women, and children, as well
+     as a band of armed men. On landing in Japan, after many years
+     wandering by sea and land, they had serious conflicts with the
+     native tribes. They eventually succeeded in overcoming all
+     opposition and in conquering the country, so that Prince Jimmu was
+     enabled to build a palace and set up a capital, Kashiha-bara, in
+     Yamato. This prince is regarded by Japanese historians as the
+     founder of the Japanese Empire. He is said to have reigned
+     seventy-five years after his accession, and to have died at the age
+     of one hundred and twenty-seven years, and his burial place is
+     pointed out on the northern side of Mount Unebi, in the province of
+     Yamato.
+
+     Prince Jimmu, or whoever was the foreign ruler who conquered and
+     founded an empire in Japan, must have been a bold, enterprising,
+     and sagacious man. The islands he subdued were barbarous, and he
+     civilized them; the inhabitants were warlike and cruel, and he kept
+     them in peace. He founded a dynasty which extended its dominion
+     over Nagato, Izumo, and Owari, and still has representatives in
+     rulers whose people are by far the most progressive dwellers in the
+     East.
+
+     That part of the following historical matter, which is translated
+     from the old Japanese chronicle, the _Nehongi_, is marked by local
+     color and by Oriental characteristics, whereby it curiously
+     contrasts with the plain recitals of modern and Western history.
+
+     SIR EDWARD REED
+
+
+There are endless varying legends about this god-period of Japan. All
+that we need now say in the way of reciting the legends of the gods has
+relation to the descent of the mikados of Japan from the deities.
+
+It was the misconduct of Susanoo that drove the sun-goddess into the
+cave and for this misconduct he was banished. Some say that, instead of
+proceeding to his place of banishment, he descended, with his son
+Idakiso no Mikoto, upon Shiraga (in Corea), but not liking the place
+went back by a vessel to the bank of the Hinokawa River, in Idzumo,
+Japan.
+
+At the time of their descent, Idakiso had many plants or seeds of trees
+with him, but he planted none in Shiraga, but took them across with him,
+and scattered them from Kuishiu all over Japan, so that the whole
+country became green with trees. It is said that Idakiso is respected as
+the god of merit, and is worshipped in Kinokuni. His two sisters also
+took care of the plantation. One of the gods who reigned over the
+country in the prehistoric period was Ohonamuchi, who is said by some to
+be the son of Susanoo, and by others to be one of his later descendants;
+"And which is right, it is more than we can say," remarked one of my
+scholarly friends.
+
+However, during his reign he was anxious about the people, and,
+consulting with Sukuna no Mikoto, applied "his whole heart," we are
+told, to their good government, and they all became loyal to him. One
+time he said to his friend just named, "Do you think we are governing
+the people well?" And his friend answered: "In some respects well, and
+in some not," so that they were frank and honest with each other in
+those days.
+
+When Sukunahikona went away, Ohonamuchi said: "It is I who should govern
+this country. Is there any who will assist me?" Then there appeared over
+the sea a divine light, and there came a god floating and floating, and
+said: "You cannot govern the country without me." And this proved to be
+the god Ohomiwa no Kami, who built a palace at Mimuro, in Yamato, and
+dwelt therein. He affords a direct link with the Mikado family, for his
+daughter became the empress of the first historic emperor Jimmu. Her
+name was Humetatara Izudsuhime.
+
+All the descendants of her father are named, like him, Ohomiwa no Kami,
+and it is said that the present empress of Japan is probably a
+descendant of this god. As regards the descent of the Emperor Jimmu
+himself we already know that Ninigi no Mikoto, "the sovran grandchild"
+of the sun-goddess, was sent down with the sacred symbols of empire
+given to him in the sun by the sun-goddess herself before he started for
+the earth. Now Ninigi married (reader, forgive me for quoting the lady's
+name and her father's) Konohaneno-sakuyahime, the daughter of
+Ohoyamazumino-Kami, and the pair had three sons, of whom the last named
+Howori no Mikoto succeeded to the throne. He is sometimes called by the
+following simple--and possibly endearing--name: Amatsuhitakahi
+Kohoho-demi no Mikoto.
+
+He married Toyatama-hime, the daughter of the sea-god, and they had a
+son, Ugaya-fuki-ayedsu no Mikoto, born, it is said, under an unfinished
+roof of cormorants' wings, who succeeded the father, and who married
+Tamayori-hime, also a daughter of the sea-god. This illustrious couple
+had four sons, of whom the last succeeded to the throne in the year B.C.
+660. He was named Kamuyamatoi warehiko no Mikoto, but posterity has
+fortunately simplified his designation to the now familiar Jimmu-Tenno,
+the first historic Emperor of Japan, and the ancestor of the present
+emperor.
+
+The histories of Japan, prepared under the sanction of the present
+Japanese government, date the commencement of the historic period from
+the first year of the reign of the first emperor, Jimmu-Tenno, who
+is said to have ruled for seventy-six years, viz., from B.C. 660
+to 585. Some persons consider that this reign, and a few reigns that
+succeeded it, probably or possibly belong to the legendary period,
+because while, on the one hand, the Emperor Jimmu is described as the
+founder of the present empire and the ancestor of the present emperor,
+on the other, he is described as the fourth son of Ukay Fukiaezu no
+Mikoto, who was fifth in direct descent from the beautiful sun-goddess,
+Tensho-Daijin. But as no such thing as writing existed in Japan in those
+days, or for many centuries afterward, it would not be surprising if a
+real monarch should have a mythical origin assigned to him; and as I
+have quite lately heard the guns firing at Nagasaki an imperial salute
+in honor of his coronation, and have seen the flags waving over the
+capital city, Tokio, in honor of the birthday, the Emperor Jimmu is
+quite historical enough for my present purpose.
+
+The commencement of his reign shall fix for us, as it does for others,
+the Japanese year 1, which was 660 years prior to our year 1, so that
+any date of the Christian era can be converted into one of the Japanese
+era by the addition of 660 years, and _vice-versa._ Some of the emperors
+will be found to have lived very long lives, no doubt; but as I have
+said elsewhere, none of them lived nearly so long as our Adam,
+Methuselah, and others, in whose longevity so many of us profess to
+believe; and besides, it is impossible for me to attempt to correct a
+chronology which Japanese scholars, and Englishmen versed in the
+Japanese language, have thus far left without specific correction.
+Deferring for after consideration the incidents of the successive
+imperial reigns, except in so far as they bear directly upon the descent
+of the crown, let us, then, first glance at the succession of emperors
+and empresses who have ruled in the Morning Land.
+
+After the death of the Emperor Jimmu there appears to have been an
+interregnum for three years--although it is seldom taken account of--the
+second Emperor Suisei, who was the fifth son of the first emperor,
+having ascended the throne B.C. 581 and reigned till 549. The cause of
+the interregnum appears to have been the extreme grief which Suisei felt
+at the death of his father, in consequence of which he committed the
+administration of the empire, for a time, to one of his relatives--an
+unworthy fellow, as he proved, named Tagishi Mimi no Mikoto, who tried
+to assassinate his master and seize the throne for himself, and who was
+put to death by Suisei for his pains. The fifth son of the Emperor Jimmu
+was nominated by him as the successor, and it is probable that older
+sons were living and passed over, and that the throne was inherited in
+part by nomination even in this its first transfer.
+
+Some writers on Japanese history profess to see in the pantheon of
+Japan, pictured in the Kojiki and Nihonki, nothing more than a
+collection of distinguished personages who lived and labored and
+contended in the country before the historic period, thus bringing
+deified men and women down to earth again. Such persons accept the
+records of Jimmu-Tenno's origin as essentially accurate in so far as
+they state what is human and reasonable, rejecting them only when they
+set forth what is supernatural, and, to them, unbelievable.
+
+Others, on the contrary, consider, or profess to consider, the
+supernatural portions of those narratives as perfectly trustworthy, and
+discredit only those statements concerning the first of the sacred
+emperors which would seem in any way to detract from his divinity. I
+should be sorry to have to argue the case with either of these parties,
+but I must take the liberty of accepting as sufficiently accurate as
+much of the recorded lives of Jimmu and his successors as the modern
+prosaic histories in Japan are content to put forth, and no more.
+
+Proceeding upon this basis, there is not much to be said of the reigns
+of the mikados who ruled before the Christian era, beyond what has been
+already stated. As regards the first emperor, his ancestor Ninigi no
+Mikoto--whether a god or not, or whether he came down from the sun by
+means of "the bridge of heaven" or not--appears to have established his
+residence at the ancient Himuka, now Hiuga; there it was that
+Jimmu-Tenno first resided, and thence it was that he started on his
+historic and memorable career. The central parts of Japan were
+militarily occupied by rebels (whose names are preserved), and it was to
+subdue them that he proceeded eastward. He stopped for three years at
+Taka Shima, constructing the necessary vessels for crossing the waters,
+and then, in the course of years, making his way victoriously as far as
+Nanieva, the modern Osaka, encountered his foes at Kawachi, and defeated
+them, the chief general being left dead on the battle-field.
+
+Jimmu was now sole master of Japan, as then known, and in the following
+year he mounted the throne. The eastern and northern parts of the
+country were, however, still, and long afterwards, peopled by the Aino
+race, who were at a later period treated as troublesome savages, and
+conquered by a famous prince, Yamato-Dake, by help of the sacred sword.
+The spot selected by the Emperor Jimmu for his capital was Kashiwabara,
+in the province of Yamato, not far from the present western capital of
+Kioto. He there did honor to the gods, married, built himself a palace,
+and deposited in the throne-room the sacred mirror, sword, and ball, the
+insignia of the imperial power handed down from the sun-goddess. He
+organized two imperial guards, one as a body-guard to protect the
+interior of the palace, and the other to act as sentinels around the
+palace.
+
+
+THE "NEHONGI"
+
+The Emperor Kami Yamato Iharebiko's personal name was Hikohoho-demi. He
+was the fourth child of Hiko-nagisa-take-ugaya-fuki-ahezu no Mikoto. His
+mother's name was Tama-yori-hime, daughter of the sea-god. From his
+birth this emperor was of clear intelligence and resolute will. At the
+age of fifteen he was made heir to the throne. When he grew up he
+married Ahira-tsu-hime, of the district of Ata in the province of Hiuga,
+and made her his consort. By her he had Tagishi-mimi no Mikoto and
+Kisu-mimi no Mikoto.
+
+When he reached the age of forty-five, he addressed his elder brothers
+and his children, saying: "Of old, our heavenly deities Taka-mi-Musubi
+no Mikoto, and Oho-hiru-me no Mikoto, pointing to this land of fair
+rice-ears of the fertile reed-plain, gave it to our heavenly ancestor,
+Hiko-ho no Ninigi no Mikoto. Thereupon Hiko-ho no Ninigi no Mikoto,
+throwing open the barrier of heaven and clearing a cloud-path, urged on
+his superhuman course until he came to rest. At this time the world was
+given over to widespread desolation. It was an age of darkness and
+disorder. In this gloom, therefore, he fostered justice, and so governed
+this western border.
+
+"Our imperial ancestors and imperial parent, like gods, like sages,
+accumulated happiness and amassed glory. Many years elapsed from the
+date when our heavenly ancestor descended until now it is over 1,792,470
+years. But the remote regions do not yet enjoy the blessings of imperial
+rule. Every town has always been allowed to have its lord, and every
+village its chief, who, each one for himself, makes division of
+territory and practises mutual aggression and conflict.
+
+"Now I have heard from the Ancient of the Sea, that in the East there is
+a fair land encircled on all sides by blue mountains. Moreover, there is
+there one who flew down riding in a heavenly rock-boat. I think that
+this land will undoubtedly be suitable for the extension of the heavenly
+task, so that its glory should fill the universe. It is doubtless the
+centre of the world. The person who flew clown was, I believe,
+Nigihaya-hi. Why should we not proceed thither, and make it the
+capital?"
+
+All the imperial princes answered, and said: "The truth of this is
+manifest. This thought is constantly present to our minds also. Let us
+go thither quickly." This was the year Kinoye Tora (51st) of the Great
+Year.
+
+In that year, in winter, on the Kanoto Tori day (the 5th) of the 10th
+month, the new moon of which was on the day Hinoto Mi, the emperor in
+person led the imperial princes and a naval force on an expedition
+against the East. When he arrived at the Haya-suhi gate, there was there
+a fisherman who came riding in a boat. The emperor summoned him and then
+inquired of him, saying: "Who art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy
+servant is a country-god, and his name is Utsuhiko. I angle for fish in
+the bays of ocean. Hearing that the son of the heavenly deity was
+coming, therefore I forthwith came to receive him." Again he inquired of
+him, saying: "Canst thou act as my guide?" He answered and said: "I will
+do so." The emperor ordered the end of a pole of Shihi wood to be given
+to the fisher, and caused him to be taken and pulled into the imperial
+vessel, of which he was made pilot.
+
+A name was especially granted him, and he was called Shihi-ne-tsu-hiko.
+He was the first ancestor of the Yamato no Atahe.
+
+Proceeding on their voyage, they arrived at Usa in the land of Tsukushi.
+At this time there appeared the ancestors of the Kuni-tsu-ko of Usa,
+named Usa-tsu-hiko and Usa-tsu-hime. They built a palace raised on one
+pillar on the banks of the River Usa, and offered them a banquet. Then,
+by imperial command, Usa-tsu-hime was given in marriage to the emperor's
+attendant minister Ama notane no Mikoto. Now, Ama notane no Mikoto was
+the remote ancestor of the Nakatomi Uji.
+
+Eleventh month, 9th day. The emperor arrived at the harbor of Oka in the
+Land of Tsukushi.
+
+Twelfth month, 27th day. He arrived at the province of Aki, where he
+dwelt in the palace of Ye.
+
+The year Kinoto U, Spring, 3rd month, 6th day. Going onward, he entered
+the land of Kibi, and built a temporary palace in which he dwelt. It was
+called the palace of Takashima. Three years passed, during which time he
+set in order the helms of his ships, and prepared a store of provisions.
+It was his desire by a single effort to subdue the empire.
+
+The year Tsuchinoye Muma, Spring, 2d month, 11th day. The imperial
+forces at length proceeded eastward, the prow of one ship touching the
+stern of another. Just when they reached Cape Naniho they encountered a
+current of great swiftness. Whereupon that place was called Nami-haya
+(wave-swift) or Nami-hana (wave-flower). It is now called Naniha, which
+is a corruption of this.
+
+Third month, 10th day. Proceeding upwards against the stream, they went
+straight on, and arrived at the port of Awo-Kumo no Shira-date, in the
+township of Kusaka, in the province of Kafuchi.
+
+Summer, 4th month, 9th day. The imperial forces in martial array marched
+on to Tatsuta. The road was narrow and precipitous, and the men were
+unable to march abreast, so they returned and again endeavored to go
+eastward, crossing over Mount Ikoma. In this way they entered the inner
+country.
+
+Now when Naga-sune-hiko heard this, he said: "The object of the children
+of the heavenly deity in coming hither is assuredly to rob me of my
+country." So he straightway levied all the forces under his dominion,
+and intercepted them at the Hill of Kusaka. A battle was engaged, and
+Itsuse no Mikoto was hit by a random arrow on the elbow. The imperial
+forces were unable to advance against the enemy. The emperor was vexed,
+and revolved in his inmost heart a divine plan, saying: "I am the
+descendant of the sun-goddess, and if I proceed against the sun to
+attack the enemy, I shall act contrary to the way of heaven. Better to
+retreat and make a show of weakness. Then, sacrificing to the gods of
+heaven and earth, and bringing on our backs the might of the sun
+goddess, let us follow her rays and trample them down. If we do so, the
+enemy will assuredly be routed of themselves, and we shall not stain our
+swords with blood."
+
+They all said: "It is good." Thereupon he gave orders to the army,
+saying: "Wait a while and advance no further." So he withdrew his
+forces, and the enemy also did not dare to attack him. He then retired
+to the port of Kusaka, where he set up shields, and made a warlike show.
+Therefore the name of this port was changed to Tatetsu, which is now
+corrupted into Tadetsu.
+
+Before this, at the battle of Kusaka, there was a man who hid in a great
+tree, and by so doing escaped danger. So pointing to this tree, he said:
+"I am grateful to it, as to my mother." Therefore the people of the day
+called that place Omo no ki no Mura.
+
+Fifth month, 8th day. The army arrived at the port of Yamaki in Chinu
+(also called Port Yama no wi). Now Itsuse no Mikoto's arrow wound was
+extremely painful. He grasped his sword, and striking a martial
+attitude, said: "How exasperating it is that a man should die of a wound
+received at the hands of slaves, and should not avenge it!" The people
+of that day therefore called the place Wo no Minoto.
+
+Proceeding onward, they reached Mount Kama in the Land of Kii, where
+Itsuse no Mikoto died in the army, and was therefore buried at Mount
+Kama.
+
+Sixth month, 23d day. The army arrived at the village of Nagusa, where
+they put to death the Tohe of Nagusa. Finally they crossed the moor of
+Sano, and arrived at the village of Kami in Kumano. Here he embarked in
+the rock-boat of heaven, and leading his army, proceeded onward by slow
+degrees. In the midst of the sea, they suddenly met with a violent wind,
+and the imperial vessel was tossed about. Then Ina-ihi no Mikoto
+exclaimed and said: "Alas! my ancestors were heavenly deities, and my
+mother was a goddess of the sea. Why do they harass me by land, and why,
+moreover, do they harass me by sea?" When he had said this, he drew his
+sword and plunged into the sea, where he became changed into the god
+Sabi-Mochi.
+
+Miki In no no Mikoto, also indignant at this, said: "My mother and my
+aunt are both sea-goddesses; why do they raise great billows to
+overwhelm us?" So, treading upon the waves, he went to the Eternal Land.
+The emperor was now alone with the imperial prince, Tagishi-Mimi no
+Mikoto. Leading his army forward, he arrived at Port Arazaka in Kumano
+(also called Nishiki Bay), where he put to death the Tohe of Nishiki.
+At this time the gods belched up a poisonous vapor, from which every one
+suffered. For this reason the imperial army was again unable to exert
+itself. Then there was there a man by name Kumano no Takakuraji, who
+unexpectedly had a dream, in which Ama-terasu no Ohokami spoke to
+Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami, saying: "I still hear a sound of disturbance
+from the central land of reed-plains. Do thou again go and chastise it."
+
+Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami answered and said: "Even if I go not I can send
+down my sword, with which I subdued the land, upon which the country
+will of its own accord become peaceful." To this Ama-terasu no Kami
+assented. Thereupon Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami addressed Taka Kuraji,
+saying: "My sword, which is called Futsu no Mitama, I will now place in
+the storehouse. Do thou take it and present it to the heavenly
+grandchild." Taka Kuraji said, "Yes," and thereupon awoke. The next
+morning, as instructed in his dream, he opened the storehouse, and on
+looking in, there was indeed there a sword which had fallen down (from
+heaven) and was standing upside down on the plank floor of the
+storehouse. So he took it and offered it to the emperor. At this time
+the emperor happened to be asleep. He awoke suddenly, and said: "What a
+long time I have slept."
+
+On inquiry he found that the troops who had been affected by the poison
+had all recovered their senses and were afoot. The emperor then
+endeavored to advance into the interior, but among the mountains it was
+so precipitous that there was no road by which they could travel. And
+they wandered about not knowing whither to direct their march.
+
+Then Ama-terasu no Oho-Kami instructed the emperor in a dream of the
+night saying: "I will now send the Yata-garasu, make it thy guide
+through the land." Then there did indeed appear the Yata-garasu flying
+down from the void.
+
+The emperor said: "The coming of this crow is in due accordance with my
+auspicious dream. How grand! How splendid! My imperial ancestor
+Ama-terasu no Oho-Kami, desires therewith to assist me in creating the
+hereditary institution."
+
+At this time Hi no Omi no Mikoto, ancestor of the Ohotomo House, taking
+with him Oho-kume as commander of the main body, guided by the direction
+taken by the crow, looked up to it and followed after, until at length
+they arrived at the district of Lower Uda. Therefore they named the
+place which they reached the village of Ukechi in Uda. At this time by
+an imperial order he commended Hi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "Thou art
+faithful and brave, and art moreover a successful guide. Therefore will
+I give thee a new name, and will call thee Michi no Omi!"
+
+Autumn, 8th month, 2d day. The emperor sent to summon Ukeshi the elder
+and Ukeshi the younger. These two were chiefs of the district of Uda.
+Now Ukeshi the elder did not come. But Ukeshi the younger came, and
+making obeisance at the gate of the camp, declared as follows: "Thy
+servant's elder brother, Ukeshi the elder, shows signs of resistance.
+Hearing that the descendant of heaven was about to arrive, he forthwith
+raised an army with which to make an attack. But having seen from afar
+the might of the imperial army, he was afraid, and did not dare to
+oppose it. Therefore he has secretly placed his troops in ambush, and
+has built for the occasion a new palace, in the hall of which he has
+prepared engines. It is his intention to invite the emperor to a banquet
+there, and then to do him a mischief. I pray that this treachery be
+noted, and that good care be taken to make preparation against it."
+
+The emperor straightway sent Michi no Omi no Mikoto to observe the signs
+of his opposition. Michi no Omi no Mikoto clearly ascertained his
+hostile intentions, and being greatly enraged, shouted at him in a
+blustering manner: "Wretch! thou shalt thyself dwell in the house which
+thou hast: made." So grasping his sword and drawing his bow, he urged
+him and drove him within it. Ukeshi the elder being guilty before
+heaven, and the matter not admitting of excuse, of his own accord trod
+upon the engine and was crushed to death, His body was then brought out
+and decapitated, and the blood which flowed from it reached above the
+ankle. Therefore that place was called Udan no chi-hara. After this
+Ukeshi the younger prepared a great feast of beef and _sake_, with which
+he entertained the imperial army. The emperor distributed this flesh
+and _sake_ to the common soldiers, upon which they sang the following
+verses:
+
+    "In the high {castle tree} of Uda
+    I set a snare for woodcock,
+    And waited,
+    But no woodcock came to it;
+    A valiant whale came to it."
+
+This is called a Kume song. At the present time, when the department of
+music performs this song, there is still the measurement of great and
+small by the hand, as well as a distinction of coarse and fine in the
+notes of the voice. This is by a rule handed down from antiquity. After
+this the emperor wished to respect the Land of Yoshino, so, taking
+personal command of the light troops, he made a progress round by way of
+Ukechi Mura in Uda. When he came to Yoshino, there was a man who came
+out of a well. He shone and had a tail. The emperor inquired of him,
+saying: "What man art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy servant is a
+local deity, and his name is Wihikari." He it is who was the first
+ancestor of the Yoshino no Obito.
+
+Proceeding a little further, there was another man with a tail, who
+burst open a rock and came forth from it. The emperor inquired of him,
+saying: "What man art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy servant is the
+child of Iha-oshiwake." It is he who was the first ancestor of the Kuzu
+of Yoshino. Then, skirting the river, he proceeded westward, when there
+appeared another man, who had made a fishtrap and was catching fish. On
+the emperor making inquiry of him, he answered and said: "Thy servant is
+the son of Nihe-molsu." He it is who was the first ancestor of the
+U-kahi of Ata.
+
+Ninth month, 5th day. The emperor ascended to the peak of Mount Takakura
+in Uda, whence he had a prospect over all the land. On Kuni-mi Hill
+there were descried eighty bandits.
+
+Moreover at the acclivity of the Me-Zaka there was posted an army of
+women, and at the acclivity of Wo-Zaka there was stationed a force of
+men. At the acclivity of Sumi-Zaka was placed burning charcoal. This
+was the origin of the names Me-Zaka, Wo-Zaka and Sumi-Zaka.
+
+Again there was the army of Ye-Shiki, which covered all the village of
+Ihare. All the places occupied by the enemy were strong positions, and
+therefore the roads were cut off and obstructed, so that there was no
+room for passage. The emperor, indignant at this, made prayer on that
+night in person, and then fell asleep. The heavenly deity appeared to
+him in a dream, and instructed him, saying: "Take earth from within the
+shrine of the heavenly mount Kagu, and of it make eighty heavenly
+platters. Also make sacred jars and therewith sacrifice to the gods of
+heaven and earth. Moreover pronounce a solemn imprecation. If thou doest
+so, the enemy will render submission of their own accord."
+
+The emperor received with reverence the directions given in his dream,
+and proceeded to carry them into execution. Now Ukeshi the younger again
+addressed the emperor, saying: "There are in the province of Yamato, in
+the village of Shiki, eighty Shiki bandits. Moreover in the village of
+Taka-wohari (some say Katsuraki) there are eighty Akagane bandits.
+
+"All these tribes intend to give battle to the emperor, and thy servant
+is anxious in his own mind on his account. It were now good to take clay
+from the heavenly mount Kagu and therewith to make heavenly platters
+with which to sacrifice to the gods of the heavenly shrines and of the
+earthly shrines. If after doing so thou dost attack the enemy, they may
+be easily driven off."
+
+The emperor, who had already taken the words of his dream for a good
+omen, when he now heard the words of Ukeshi the younger, was still more
+pleased in his heart. He caused Shihi netsu-hiko to put on ragged
+garments and a grass hat and to disguise himself as an old man. He also
+caused Ukeshi the younger to cover himself with a winnowing tray, so as
+to assume the appearance of an old woman, and then addressed them,
+saying: "Do ye two proceed to the heavenly mount Kagu, and secretly take
+earth from its summit. Having done so, return hither. By means of you I
+shall then divine whether my undertaking will be successful or not. Do
+your utmost and be watchful." Now the enemy's army filled the road, and
+made all passage impossible. Then Shihi-netsu-hiko prayed, and said: "If
+it will be possible for our emperor to conquer this land, let the road
+by which we must travel become open. But if not, let the brigands surely
+oppose our passage."
+
+Having thus spoken they set forth and went straight onward. Now the
+hostile band, seeing the two men, laughed loudly, and said: "What an
+uncouth old man and old woman!" So with one accord they left the road,
+and allowed the two men to pass and proceed to the mountain, where they
+took the clay and returned with it. Hereupon the emperor was greatly
+pleased, and with this clay he made eighty platters, eighty heavenly
+small jars and sacred jars, with which he went to the upper waters of
+the River Nifu and sacrificed to the gods of heaven and earth.
+Immediately, on the Asahara plain by the river of Uda, it became as it
+were like foam on the water, the result of the curse cleaving to them.
+Moreover the emperor went on to utter a vow, saying: "I will now make
+_Ame_ in the eighty platters without using water. If the _Ame_ is
+formed, then shall I assuredly without effort and without recourse to
+the might of arms reduce the empire to peace." So he made _Ame_, which
+forthwith became formed of itself. Again he made a vow, saying: "I will
+now take the sacred jars and sink them in the River Nifu. If the fishes,
+whether great or small, become every one drunken and are carried down
+the stream, like as it were to floating _maki_ leaves, then shall I
+assuredly succeed in establishing this land. But if this be not so,
+there will never be any results."
+
+Thereupon he sank the jars in the river with their mouths downward.
+After a while the fish all came to the surface gaping, gasping as they
+floated down the stream. Then Shihi-netsu-hiko, seeing this, represented
+it to the emperor, who was greatly rejoiced, and plucking up a
+five-hundred-branched masakaki tree of the upper waters of the River
+Nifu, he did worship therewith to all the gods. It was with this that
+the custom began of selling sacred jars.
+
+At this time he commanded Michi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "We are now in
+person about to celebrate a public festival to Taka-mi-Musubi no Mikoto,
+and I appoint thee ruler of the festival, and I grant thee the title of
+Idzu-hime. The earthen jars which are set up shall be called the Idzube
+or sacred jars, the fire shall be called Idzu no Kagu-tsuchi or
+sacred-fire-elder, the water shall be called Idzu no Midzu-ha no me or
+sacred-water-female, the food shall be called Idzuuka no me, or
+sacred-food-female, the firewood shall be called Idzu no Yama-tsuchi or
+sacred-mountain-elder, and the grass shall be called Idzu no no-tsuchi
+or sacred-moor-elder."
+
+Winter, 10th month, 1st day. The emperor tasted the food of the Idzube,
+and arraying his troops set forth upon his march. He first of all
+attacked the eighty bandits at Mount Kunimi, routed and slew them. It
+was in this campaign that the emperor, fully resolved on victory, made
+these verses, saying:
+
+    "Like the Shitadami
+    Which creep round
+    The great rock
+    Of the Sea of Ise,
+    Where blows the divine wind--
+    Like the Shitadami,
+    My boys! My boys!
+    We will creep around
+    And smite them utterly,
+    And smite them utterly."
+
+In this poem, by the "great rock" is intended the Hill of Kunimi.
+
+After this the band which remained was still numerous, and their
+disposition could not be fathomed. So the emperor privately commanded
+Michi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "Do thou take with thee the Oho Kume,
+and make a great _muro_ at the village of Osaka. Prepare a copious
+banquet, invite the enemy to it, and then capture them." Michi no Omi no
+Mikoto thereupon, in obedience to the emperor's sacred behest, dug a
+_muro_ at Osaka, and having selected his bravest soldiers, stayed
+therein mingled with the enemy. He secretly arranged with them, saying:
+"When they have got tipsy with _sake_, I will strike up a song. Do you
+when you hear the sound of my song, all at the same time stab the
+enemy."
+
+Having made this arrangement they took their seats, and the drinking
+bout proceeded. The enemy, unaware that there was any plot, abandoned
+themselves to their feelings, and promptly became intoxicated. Then
+Michi no Omi no Mikoto struck up the following song:
+
+    "At Osaka
+    In the great Muro-house,
+    Though men in plenty
+    Enter and stay,
+    We the glorious
+    Sons of warriors,
+    Wielding our mallet-heads,
+    Wielding our stone-mallets,
+    Will smite them utterly."
+
+Now when our troops heard this song, they all drew at the same time
+their mallet-headed swords, and simultaneously slew the enemy, so that
+there were no eaters left. The imperial army were greatly delighted;
+they looked up to heaven and laughed. Therefore he made a song saying:
+
+    "Though folk say
+    That one Yemishi
+    Is a match for one hundred men,
+    They do not so much as resist."
+
+The practice according to which, at the present time, the Kume sing this
+and then laugh loud, had this origin. Again he sang, saying:
+
+    "Ho! now is the time!
+    Ho! now is the time!
+    Ha! Ha! Psha!
+    Even now
+    My boys!
+    Even now,
+    My boys!"
+
+All these songs were sung in accordance with the secret behest of the
+emperor. He had not presumed to compose them with his own motion.
+
+Then the emperor said: "It is the part of a good general when victorious
+to avoid arrogance. The chief brigands have now been destroyed, but
+there are ten bands of villains of a similar stamp, who are
+disputatious.
+
+"Their disposition cannot be ascertained. Why should we remain for a
+long time in one place? By so doing we could not have control over
+emergencies!" So he removed his camp to another place.
+
+Eleventh month, 7th day. The imperial army proceeded in great force to
+attack the Hiko of Shiki. First of all the emperor sent a messenger to
+summon Shiki the elder, but he refused to obey. Again the Yata-garasu
+was sent to bring him. When the crow reached his camp it cried to him,
+saying: "The child of the heavenly deity sends for thee. Haste! haste!"
+Shiki the elder was enraged at this and said: "Just when I heard that
+the conquering deity of heaven was coming I was indignant at this; why
+shouldst thou, a bird of the crow tribe, utter such an abominable cry?"
+So he drew his bow and aimed at it. The crow forthwith fled away, and
+next proceeded to the house of Shiki the younger, where it cried,
+saying: "The child of the heavenly deity summons thee. Haste! haste!"
+Then Shiki the younger was afraid, and changing countenance, said: "Thy
+servant, hearing of the approach of the conquering deity of heaven, is
+full of dread morning and evening. Well hast thou cried to me, O crow!"
+
+He straightway made eight leaf-platters, on which he disposed food, and
+entertained the crow. Accordingly, in obedience to the crow, he
+proceeded to the emperor and informed him, saying: "My elder brother,
+Shiki the elder, hearing of the approach of the child of the heavenly
+deity, forthwith assembled eighty bandits and provided arms, with which
+he is about to do battle with thee. It will be well to take measures
+against him without delay." The emperor accordingly assembled his
+generals and inquired of them, saying: "It appears that Shiki the elder
+has now rebellious intentions. I summoned him, but again he will not
+come. What is to be done?" The generals said: "Shiki the elder is a
+crafty knave. It will be well, first of all, to send Shiki the younger
+to make matters clear to him, and at the same time to make explanations
+to Kuraji the elder and Kuraji the younger. If after that they still
+refuse submission, it will not be too late to take warlike measures
+against them."
+
+Shiki the younger was accordingly sent to explain to them their
+interests. But Shiki the elder and the others adhered to their foolish
+design, and would not consent to submit. Then Shiki-netsu-hiko advised
+as follows: "Let us first send out our feebler troops by the Osaka road.
+When the enemy sees them he will assuredly proceed thither with all his
+best troops. We should then straightway urge forward our robust troops,
+and make straight for Sumi-Zaka.
+
+"Then with the water of the River Uda we should sprinkle the burning
+charcoal, and suddenly take them unawares; when they cannot fail to be
+routed." The emperor approved this plan, and sent out the feebler troops
+toward the enemy, who, thinking that a powerful force was approaching,
+awaited them with all their power. Now up to this time, whenever the
+imperial army attacked, they invariably captured, and when they fought
+they were invariably victorious, so that the fighting men were all
+wearied out. Therefore the emperor, to comfort the hearts of his leaders
+and men, struck off this verse:
+
+    "As we fight
+    Going forth and watching
+    From between the trees
+    Of Mount Inasa,
+    We are famished.
+    Ye keepers of cormorants
+    (Birds of the island)
+    Come now to our aid."
+
+In the end he crossed Sumi-Zaka with the stronger troops, and, going
+round by the rear, attacked them from two sides and put them to the
+rout, killing their chieftains, Shiki the elder, and the others.
+
+Third month, 7th day. The emperor made an order, saying: "During the six
+years that our expedition against the East has lasted, owing to my
+reliance on the majesty of Imperial Heaven, the wicked bands have met
+death. It is true that the frontier lands are still unpurified, and that
+a remnant of evil is still refractory. But in the region of the Central
+Land there is no more wind and dust. Truly we should make a vast and
+spacious capital and plan it great and strong.
+
+"At present things are in a crude and obscure condition, and the
+people's minds are unsophisticated. They roost in nests or dwell in
+caves. Their manners are simply what is customary. Now if a great man
+were to establish laws, justice could not fail to flourish. And even if
+some gain should accrue to the people, in what way would this interfere
+with the sage's action? Moreover it will be well to open up and clear
+the mountains and forests, and to construct a palace. Then I may
+reverently assume the precious dignity, and so give peace to my good
+subjects. Above, I should then respond to the kindness of the heavenly
+powers in granting me the kingdom; and below, I should extend the line
+of the imperial descendants and foster rightmindedness. Thereafter the
+capital may be extended so as to embrace all the six cardinal points
+(_sic_), and the eight cords may be covered so as to form a roof. Will
+this not be well? When I observe the Kashiha-bara plain, which lies
+southwest of Mount Unebi, it seems the centre of the land. I must set it
+in order." Accordingly, he, in this month, commanded officers to set
+about the construction of an imperial residence.
+
+Year Kanoye Saru, Autumn, 8th month, 16th day. The emperor, intending to
+appoint a wife, sought afresh children of noble families. Now there was
+a man who made representation to him, saying: "There is a child, who was
+born to Koto-Shiro-Nushi no Kami by his union with Tama-Kushi-hime,
+daughter of Mizo-kuhi-ni no Kami of Mishima. Her name is
+Hime-tatara-i-suzu-hime no Mikoto. She is a woman of remarkable beauty."
+The emperor was rejoiced. And on the 24th day of the 9th month he
+received Hime-tatara-i-suzu-hime no Mikoto and made her his wife.
+
+Year Kanoto Tori, Spring, 1st month, 1st day. The emperor assumed the
+imperial dignity in the palace of Kashiha-bara. This year is reckoned
+the first year of his reign. He honored his wife by making her empress.
+The children born to him by her were Kami-ya-wi-Mimi no Mikoto and
+Kami-Nunagaha-Mimi no Mikoto. Therefore there is an ancient saying in
+praise of this, as follows: "In Kashiha-bara in Unebi, he mightily
+established his palace-pillars on the foundation of the bottom rock, and
+reared aloft the cross roof-timbers to the plain of high heaven. The
+name of the emperor who thus began to rule the empire was Kami Yamato
+Ihare-biko Hohodemi."
+
+Fourth year, Spring, 2d month, 23d day. The emperor issued the
+following decree: "The spirits of our imperial ancestors, reflecting
+their radiance down from heaven, illuminate and assist us. All our
+enemies have now been subdued, and there is peace within the seas. We
+ought to take advantage of this to perform sacrifice to the heavenly
+deities, and therewith develop filial duty."
+
+He accordingly established spirit-terraces among the Tomi hills, which
+were called Kami-tsu-wono no Kaki-hara and Shimo tsu-wono no Kaki-hara.
+There he worshipped his imperial ancestors, the heavenly deities.
+
+Seventy-sixth year, Spring, 3d month, 11th day. The emperor died in the
+palace of Kashiha-bara. His age was then 127. The following year,
+Autumn, the 12th day of the 9th month, he was buried in the Misasigi,
+northeast of Mount Unebi.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM
+
+B.C. 623
+
+THOMAS WILLIAM RHYS-DAVIDS
+
+
+     Not so many years ago, at the time when Buddhism first became known
+     in Europe through philosophic writings of about six centuries after
+     Buddha, then newly translated, it caused amazement that a religion
+     which had brought three hundred millions of people under its sway
+     should acknowledge no god. But the religion of Buddha, during a
+     thousand years of practice by the Hindus, is entirely different
+     from the representations given us in these translations. As shown
+     by the bas-reliefs covering the ancient monuments of India, this
+     religion, changed by modern scientists into a belief in atheism,
+     is, in fact, of all religions the most polytheistic.
+
+     In the first Buddhist monuments, dating back eighteen to twenty
+     centuries, the reformer simply figures as an emblem. The imprint of
+     his feet, the figure of the "Bo tree" under which he entered the
+     state of supreme wisdom, are worshipped; and though he disdained
+     all gods, and only sought to teach a new code of morals, we shortly
+     see Buddha himself depicted as a god. In the early stages he is
+     generally represented as alone, but gradually appears in the
+     company of the Brahman gods. He is finally lost in a crowd of gods,
+     and becomes nothing more than an incarnation of one of the Brahman
+     deities. From that time Buddhism has been practically extinct in
+     India.
+
+     This transformation took a thousand years to bring about. During
+     part of this great interval Buddha was being worshipped as an
+     all-powerful god. Legends are told of his appearance to his
+     disciples, and of favors he granted them.
+
+     It has been said that Buddha tried to set aside the laws of caste.
+     This is an error. Neither did he attempt to break the Brahmanic
+     Pantheon.
+
+     Buddhism, which to-day is the religion of three hundred million
+     people, about one-fifth of the world's inhabitants, toward the
+     seventh or eighth century of our era almost entirely disappeared
+     from its birthplace, India, whence it had spread over the rest of
+     Asia, China, Russian Tartary, Burmah, etc. Only the two extreme
+     frontiers of India, Nepal, in the north, and Ceylon, in the south,
+     now practise the Buddhist cult.
+
+          Gautama Buddha left behind him no written works. The Buddhists
+     believe that he composed works which his immediate disciples
+     learned by heart, and which were committed to writing long
+     afterward. This is not impossible, as the _Vedas_[37] were handed
+     down in this manner for many hundreds of years.
+
+     [Footnote 37: _Vedas_: The sacred books of the Hindus, in Sanscrit;
+     probably written about six or seven centuries before Christ. _Veda_
+     means knowledge. The books comprise hymns, prayers, and liturgical
+     forms.]
+
+     There was certainly an historical basis for the Buddhist legend. In
+     fact, the legends group themselves round a number of very distinct
+     occurrences.
+
+     At the end of the sixth century B.C. those Aryan tribes sprung from
+     the same stem as our own ancestors, who have preserved for us in
+     their Vedic songs so precious a relic of ancient thought and life,
+     had pushed on beyond the five rivers of the Punjab, and were
+     settled far down into the valley of the Ganges. They had given up
+     their nomadic habits, dwelling in villages and towns, their wealth
+     being in land, produce, and cattle.
+
+     From democratic beginnings the whole nation had gradually become
+     bound by an iron system of caste. The country was split up into
+     little sections, each governed by some petty despot, and harassed
+     by internecine feuds. Religion had become a debasing ritualism,
+     with charms and incantations, fear of the influence of the stars,
+     and belief in dreams and omens. The idea of the existence of a soul
+     was supplemented by the doctrine of transmigration.
+
+     The priests were well-meaning, ignorant, and possessed of a sincere
+     belief in their own divinity. The religious use of the _Vedas_ and
+     the right to sacrifice were strictly confined to the Brahmans.
+     There were travelling logicians, anchorites, ascetics, and solitary
+     hermits. Although the ranks of the priesthood were closed against
+     intruders, still a man of lower caste might become a religious
+     teacher and reformer. Such were the conditions which welcomed
+     Gautama Buddha.
+
+
+One hundred miles northeast of Benares, at Kapilavastu, on the banks of
+the river Rohini, the modern Kohana, there lived about five hundred
+years before Christ a tribe called Sakyas. The peaks of the mighty
+Himalayas could be seen in the distance. The Sakyas frequently
+quarrelled with the Koliyans, a neighboring tribe, over their water
+supplies from the river. Just now the two clans were at peace, and two
+daughters of the rajah of the Koliyans were wives of Suddhodana, the
+rajah of the Sakyas. Both were childless. This was deemed a very great
+misfortune among the Aryans, who thought that the star of a man's
+existence after death depended upon ceremonies to be performed by his
+heir. There was great rejoicing, therefore, when, in about the
+forty-fifth year of her age, the elder sister promised her husband a
+son. In due time she started with the intention of being confined at her
+parents' house, but it was on the way, under the shade of some lofty
+satin trees in a pleasant grove called Lumbini, that her son, the future
+Buddha, was unexpectedly born. The mother and child were carried back to
+Suddhodana's house, and there, seven days afterward, the mother died;
+but the boy found a careful nurse in his mother's sister, his father's
+other wife.
+
+Many marvellous stories have been told about the miraculous birth and
+precocious wisdom and power of Gautama. The name Siddhartha is said to
+have been given him as a child, Gautama being the family name. Numerous
+were his later titles, such as Sakyasinha, the lion of the tribe of
+Sakya; Sakya-muni, the Sakya sage; Sugata, the happy one; Sattha, the
+teacher; Jina, the conqueror; Bhagava, the blessed one, and many others.
+
+In his twentieth year he was married to his cousin, Yasodhara, daughter
+of the rajah of Koli. Devoting himself to home pleasures, he was accused
+by his relations of neglecting those manly exercises necessary for one
+who might at any time have to lead his people in war. Gautama heard of
+this, and appointed a day for a general tournament, at which he
+distinguished himself by being easily the first at all the trials of
+skill and prowess, thus winning the good opinions of all the clansmen.
+This is the solitary record of his youth.
+
+Nothing more is heard of him until, in his twenty-ninth year, Gautama
+suddenly abandoned his home to devote himself entirely to the study of
+religion and philosophy. It is said that an angel appeared to him in
+four visions: a man broken down by age, a sick man, a decaying corpse,
+and lastly, a dignified hermit. Each time Channa, his charioteer, told
+him that decay and death were the fate of all living beings. The
+charioteer also explained to him the character and aims of the ascetics,
+exemplified by the hermit.
+
+Thoughts of the calm life of the hermit strongly stirred him. One day,
+the occasion of the last vision, as he was entering his chariot to
+return home, news was brought to him that his wife Yasodhara had given
+birth to a son, his only child, who was called Rahula. This was about
+ten years after his marriage. The idea that this new tie might become
+too strong for him to break seems to have been the immediate cause of
+his flight. He returned home thoughtful and sad.
+
+But the people of Kapilavastu were greatly delighted at the birth of
+the young heir, their rajah's only grandson. Gautama's return became
+an ovation, and he entered the town amid a general celebration of the
+happy event. Amid the singers was a young girl, his cousin, whose song
+contained the words, "Happy the father, happy the mother, happy the
+wife of such a son and husband." In the word "Happy" there was a double
+meaning: it meant also "freed" from the chains of sin and of existence,
+saved. In gratitude to one who at such a time reminded him of his higher
+duties, Gautama took off his necklace of pearls and sent it to her. She
+imagined that she had won the love of young Siddhartha, but he took no
+further notice of her.
+
+That night the dancing girls came, but he paid them no attention, and
+gradually fell into an uneasy slumber. At midnight he awoke, and sent
+Channa for his horse. While waiting for the steed Gautama gently opened
+the door of the room where Yasodhara was sleeping, surrounded by
+flowers, with one hand on the head of her child. After one loving, fond
+glance he tore himself away. Accompanied only by Channa he left his home
+and wealth and power, his wife and only child behind him, to become a
+penniless wanderer. This was the Great Renunciation.
+
+There follows a story of a vision. Mara, the great tempter, the spirit
+of evil, appears in the sky, urging Gautama to stop. He promises him a
+universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up
+his enterprise. The tempter does not prevail, but from that time he
+followed Gautama as a shadow, hoping to seduce him from that right way.
+
+All night Gautama rode, and at the dawn, when beyond the confines of his
+father's domain, dismounts. He cuts off his long hair with his sword,
+and sends back all his ornaments and his horse by the faithful
+charioteer.
+
+Seven days he spends alone beneath the shade of a mango grove, and then
+fares onward to Rajogriha, the capital of Magadha. This town was the
+seat of Bimbasara, one of the most powerful princes in the eastern
+valley of the Ganges. In the hillside caves near at hand were several
+hermits. To one of these Brahman teachers, Alara, Gautama attached
+himself, and later to another named Udraka. From these he learned all
+that Hindu philosophy could teach.
+
+Still unsatisfied, Gautama next retired to the jungle of Uruvela, on the
+most northerly spur of the Viadhya range of mountains, near the present
+temple of Buddha Gaya. Here for six years he gave himself up to the
+severest penance until he was wasted away to a shadow by fasting and
+self-mortification. Such self-control spread his fame "like the sound of
+a great bell hung in the skies." But the more he fasted and denied
+himself, the more he felt himself a prey to a mental torture worse than
+any bodily suffering.
+
+At last one day when walking slowly up and down, lost in thought,
+through extreme weakness he staggered and fell to the ground. His
+disciples thought he was dead, but he recovered. Despairing of further
+profit from such rigorous penance, he began to take regular food and
+gave up his self-mortification. At this his disciples forsook him and
+went away to Benares. In their opinion mental conquest lay only through
+bodily suppression.
+
+There now ensued a second crisis in Gautama's career which culminated in
+his withstanding the renewed attacks of the tempter after violent
+struggles.
+
+Soon after, if not on the very day when his disciples had left him, he
+wandered out toward the banks of the Nairaujara, receiving his morning
+meal from the hands of Sujuta, the daughter of a neighboring villager,
+and sat down to eat it under the shade of a large tree (_ficus
+religiosa_), called from that day the sacred "Bo tree," or tree of
+wisdom. He remained there all day long, pondering what next to do. All
+the attractions of the luxurious home he had abandoned rose up before
+him most alluringly. But as the day ended his lofty spirit had won the
+victory. All doubts had lifted as mists before the morning sun. He had
+become Buddha, that is, enlightened. He had grasped the solution of the
+great mystery of sorrow. He thought, having solved its causes and its
+cure, he had gained the haven of peace, and believed that in the power
+over the human heart of inward culture and of love to others he had
+discovered a foundation which could never be shaken.
+
+From this time Gautama claimed no merit for penances. A feeling of great
+loneliness possessed him as he arrived at his psychological and ethical
+conclusions. He almost despaired of winning his fellow-men to his system
+of salvation, salvation merely by self-control and love, without any of
+the rites, ceremonies, charms, or incantations of the Hindu religion.
+
+The thought of mankind, otherwise, as he imagined, utterly doomed and
+lost, made Gautama resolve, at whatever hazard, to proclaim his doctrine
+to the world. It is certain that he had a most intense belief in himself
+and his mission.
+
+He had intended first to proclaim his new doctrine to his old teachers,
+Alara and Udraka, but finding that they were dead, he proceeded to the
+deer forest near Benares where his former disciples were then living. In
+the cool of the evening he enters the deer-park near the city, but his
+former disciples resolve not to recognize him as a master. He tells them
+that they are still in the way of death, whereas he has found the way of
+salvation and can lead them to it, having become a Buddha. And as they
+reply with objections to his claims, he explains the fundamental truths
+of his system and principles of his new gospel, which the aged Kondanya
+was the first to accept from his master's lips. This exposition is
+preserved in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Sutra of the
+Foundations of the Kingdom of Righteousness.
+
+Gautama Buddha taught that everything corporeal is material and
+therefore impermanent. Man in his bodily existence is liable to sorrow,
+decay, and death. The reign of unholy desires in his heart produces
+unsatisfactory longings, useless weariness, and care. Attempted
+purification by oppressing the body is only wasted effort. It is the
+moral evil of the heart which keeps a man chained down in the degraded
+state of bodily life, which binds him in a union with the material
+world. Virtue and goodness will only insure him for a time, and, in
+another birth, a higher form of material life. From the chains of
+existence only the complete eradication of all evil will set him free.
+
+But these ideas must not be confused with Christian beliefs, for
+Buddhism teaches nothing of any immaterial existence. The foundations of
+its creed have been summed up in the Four Great Truths, which are as
+follows:
+
+1. That misery always accompanies existence;
+
+2. That all modes of existence of men or animals, in death or heaven,
+result from passion or desire (tanha);
+
+3. That there is no escape from existence except by destruction of
+desire;
+
+4. That this may be accomplished by following the fourfold way to
+Nirvana.
+
+The four stages are called the Paths, the first being an awakening of
+the heart. The first enemy which the believer has to fight against is
+sensuality and the last is unkindliness. Above everything is universal
+charity. Till he has gained that the believer is still bound, his mind
+is still dark. True enlightenment, true freedom, are complete only in
+love. The last great reward is "Nirvana," eternal rest or extinction.
+
+For forty-five years Gautama taught in the valley of the Ganges. In the
+twentieth year his cousin Ananda became a mendicant and attended on
+Gautama. Another cousin, however, stirred up some persecution of the
+great teacher, and the oppositions of the Brahmans had to be faced.
+
+There are clear accounts of the last few days of Gautama's life. On a
+journey toward Kusi-nagara he had rested in a grove at Pawa, presented
+to the society by a goldsmith of that place named Chunda. After a midday
+meal of rice and pork, prepared by Chunda, the Master started for
+Kusi-nagara, but stopped to rest at the river Kukusta. Feeling that he
+was dying, he left a message for Chunda, promising him a great reward in
+some future existence. He died at the river Kukusta, near Kusi-nagara,
+teaching to the last.
+
+Gautama's power arose from his practical philanthropy. His philosophy
+and ethics attracted the masses. He did not seek to found a new
+religion, but thought that all men would accept his form of the ancient
+creed. It was his society, the Sangha, or Buddhist order, rather than
+his doctrine, which gave to his religion its practical vitality.
+
+The following lines, filled with the poetic beauty of the Orient, are
+taken from the last spoken words of the great founder of Buddhism and
+the _Book of the Great Decease_. They give a clew to the cult of that
+religion and breathe the spirit of Nirvana in every scintillating
+sentence. As nearly as may be the translation is a literal one, done by
+Rhys-Davids, the world's greatest living authority on this subject:
+
+Now the Blessed One addressed the venerable Ananda, and said: "It may
+be, Ananda, that in some of you the thought may arise, 'The word of the
+Master is ended, we have no teacher more!' But it is not thus, Ananda,
+that you should regard it. The truths and the rules of the order which I
+have set forth and laid down for you all, let them, after I am gone, be
+the Teacher to you.
+
+"Ananda! when I am gone address not one another in the way in which the
+brethren have heretofore addressed each other--with the epithet, that
+is, of 'Avuso' (Friend). A younger brother may be addressed by an elder
+with his name, or his family name, or the title 'Friend,' But an elder
+should be addressed by a younger brother as 'Lord' or as 'Venerable
+Sir.'
+
+"When I am gone, Ananda, let the order, if it should so wish, abolish
+all the lesser and minor precepts.
+
+"When I am gone, Ananda, let the higher penalty be imposed on brother
+Khanna."
+
+"But what, Lord, is the higher penalty?"
+
+"Let Khanna say whatever he may like, Ananda; the brethren should
+neither speak to him, nor exhort him, nor admonish him."
+
+Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "It may be,
+brethren, that there may be doubt or misgiving in the mind of some
+brother as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way.
+Inquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to reproach yourselves afterward
+with the thought, 'Our teacher was face to face with us, and we could
+not bring ourselves to inquire of the Blessed One when we were face to
+face with him.'"
+
+And when he had thus spoken the brethren were silent.
+
+And again the second and the third time the Blessed One addressed the
+brethren, and said: "It may be, brethren, that there may be doubt or
+misgiving in the mind of some brother as to the Buddha, or the truth, or
+the path, or the way. Inquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to reproach
+yourselves afterward with the thought, 'Our teacher was face to face
+with us, and we could not bring ourselves to inquire of the Blessed One
+when we were face to face with him.'"
+
+And even the third time the brethren were silent.
+
+Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "It may be,
+brethren, that you put no questions out of reverence for the teacher.
+Let one friend communicate to another."
+
+And when he had thus spoken the brethren were silent.
+
+And the venerable Ananda said to the Blessed One: "How wonderful a thing
+is it, Lord, and how marvellous! Verily, I believe that in this whole
+assembly of the brethren there is not one brother who has any doubt or
+misgiving as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way!"
+
+"It is out of the fulness of faith that thou hast spoken, Ananda! But,
+Ananda, the Tathagata knows for certain that in this whole assembly of
+the brethren there is not one brother who has any doubt or misgiving as
+to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way! For even the most
+backward, Ananda, of all these five hundred brethren has become
+converted, and is no longer liable to be born in a state of suffering,
+and is assured of final salvation."
+
+Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "Behold now,
+brethren, I exhort you, saying, 'Decay is inherent in all component
+things! Work out your salvation with diligence!'"
+
+This was the last word of the Tathagata!
+
+Then the Blessed One entered into the first stage of deep meditation.
+And rising out of the first stage he passed into the second. And rising
+out of the second he passed into the third. And rising out of the third
+stage he passed into the fourth. And rising out of the fourth stage of
+deep meditation he entered into the state of mind to which the infinity
+of space is alone present. And passing out of the mere consciousness of
+the infinity of space he entered into the state of mind to which nothing
+at all was specially present. And passing out of the consciousness of
+no special object he fell into a state between consciousness and
+unconsciousness. And passing out of the state between consciousness and
+unconsciousness he fell into a state in which the consciousness both of
+sensations and of ideas had wholly passed away.
+
+Then the venerable Ananda said to the venerable Anuruddha: "O my Lord, O
+Anuruddha, the Blessed One is dead!"
+
+"Nay! brother Ananda, the Blessed One is not dead. He has entered into
+that state in which both sensations and ideas have ceased to be!"
+
+Then the Blessed One passing out of the state in which both sensations
+and ideas have ceased to be, entered into the state between
+consciousness and unconsciousness. And passing out of the state between
+consciousness and unconsciousness he entered into the state of mind to
+which nothing at all is specially present. And passing out of the
+consciousness of no special object he entered into the state of mind to
+which the infinity of thought is alone present. And passing out of the
+mere consciousness of the infinity of thought he entered into the state
+of mind to which the infinity of space is alone present. And passing out
+of the mere consciousness of the infinity of space he entered into the
+fourth stage of deep meditation. And passing out of the fourth stage he
+entered into the third. And passing out of the third stage he entered
+into the second. And passing out of the second he entered into the
+first. And passing out of the first stage of deep meditation he entered
+the second. And passing out of the second stage he entered into the
+third. And passing out of the third stage he entered into the fourth
+stage of deep meditation. And passing out of the last stage of deep
+meditation he immediately expired.
+
+When the Blessed One died there arose, at the moment of his passing out
+of existence, a mighty earthquake, terrible and awe-inspiring: and the
+thunders of heaven burst forth.
+
+When the Blessed One died, Brahma Sahampati, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:
+
+    "They all, all beings that have life, shall lay
+    Aside their complex form--that aggregation
+    Of mental and material qualities,
+    That gives them, or in heaven or on earth,
+
+    Their fleeting individuality!
+    E'en as the teacher--being such a one,
+    Unequalled among all the men that are,
+    Successor of the prophets of old time,
+    Mighty by wisdom, and in insight clear--
+            Hath died!"
+
+
+When the Blessed One died, Sakka, the king of the gods, at the
+moment of his passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:
+
+    "They're transient all, each being's parts and powers,
+    Growth is their nature, and decay.
+    They are produced, they are dissolved again,
+    And then is best, when they have sunk to rest!"
+
+When the Blessed One died, the venerable Anuruddha, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered these stanzas:
+
+    "When he who from all craving want was free,
+    Who to Nirvana's tranquil state had reached,
+    When the great sage finished his span of life,
+    No gasping struggle vexed that steadfast heart!
+    All resolute, and with unshaken mind.
+    He calmly triumphed o'er the pain of death.
+    E'en as a bright flame dies away, so was
+    His last deliverance from the bonds of life!"
+
+When the Blessed One died, the venerable Ananda, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:
+
+    "Then was there terror!
+    Then stood the hair on end!
+    When he endowed with every grace--
+    The supreme Buddha--died!"
+
+When the Blessed One died, of those of the brethren who were not free
+from the passions, some stretched out their arms and wept, and some fell
+headlong to the ground, rolling to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+"Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away from existence! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!" But
+those of the brethren who were free from the passions (the Arahats) bore
+their grief collected and composed at the thought: "Impermanent are all
+component things! How is it possible that [they should not be
+dissolved]?"
+
+Then the venerable Anuruddha exhorted the brethren, and said: "Enough,
+my brethren! Weep not, neither lament! Has not the Blessed One formerly
+declared this to us, that it is in the very nature of all things near
+and dear unto us, that we must divide ourselves from them, leave them,
+sever ourselves from them? How, then, brethren, can this be
+possible--that whereas anything whatever born, brought into being, and
+organized, contains within itself the inherent necessity of
+dissolution--how then can this be possible that such a being should not
+be dissolved? No such condition can exist! Even the spirits, brethren,
+will reproach us."
+
+"But of what kind of spirits is the Lord, the venerable Anuruddha,
+thinking?"
+
+"There are spirits, brother Ananda, in the sky, but of worldly mind, who
+dishevel their hair and weep, and stretch forth their arms and weep,
+fall prostrate on the ground, and roll to and fro in anguish at the
+thought: 'Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One
+passed away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!'
+
+"There are spirits, too, Ananda, on the earth, and of worldly mind, who
+tear their hair and weep, and stretch forth their arms and weep, fall
+prostrate on the ground, and roll to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+'Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!'
+
+"But the spirits who are free from passion hear it, calm and
+self-possessed, mindful of the saying which begins, 'Impermanent indeed
+are all component things. How then is it possible [that such a being
+should not be dissolved]?'"
+
+Now the venerable Anuruddha and the venerable Ananda spent the rest of
+that night in religious discourse. Then the venerable Anuruddha said to
+the venerable Ananda: "Go now, brother Ananda, into Kusinara and inform
+the Mallas of Kusinara, saying, 'The Blessed One, O Vasetthas, is dead:
+do, then, whatever seemeth to you fit!'"
+
+"Even so, Lord!" said the venerable Ananda, in assent to the venerable
+Anuruddha. And having robed himself early in the morning, he took his
+bowl, and went into Kusinara with one of the brethren as an attendant.
+
+Now at that time the Mallas of Kusinara were assembled in the council
+hall concerning that very matter.
+
+And the venerable Ananda went to the council hall of the Mallas of
+Kusinara; and when he had arrived there, he informed them, saying, "The
+Blessed One, O Vasetthas, is dead; do, then, whatever seemeth to you
+fit!"
+
+And when they had heard this saying of the venerable Ananda, the Mallas,
+with their young men and their maidens and their wives, were grieved,
+and sad, and afflicted at heart. And some of them wept, dishevelling
+their hair, and some stretched forth their arms and wept, and some fell
+prostrate on the ground, and some reeled to and fro in anguish at the
+thought: "Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One
+passed away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!"
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara gave orders to their attendants, saying,
+"Gather together perfumes and garlands, and all the music in Kusinara!"
+
+And the Mallas of Kusinara took the perfumes and garlands, and all the
+musical instruments, and five hundred suits of apparel, and went to the
+Upavattana, to the Sala Grove of the Mallas, where the body of the
+Blessed One lay. There they passed the day in paying honor, reverence,
+respect, and homage to the remains of the Blessed One with dancing, and
+hymns, and music, and with garlands and perfumes; and in making canopies
+of their garments, and preparing decoration wreaths to hang thereon.
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara thought: "It is much too late to burn the
+body of the Blessed One to-day. Let us now perform the cremation
+to-morrow." And in paying honor, reverence, respect, and homage to the
+remains of the Blessed One with dancing, and hymns, and music, and with
+garlands and perfumes; and in making canopies of their garments, and
+preparing decoration wreaths to hang thereon, they passed the second day
+too, and then the third day, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the
+sixth day also.
+
+Then on the seventh day the Mallas of Kusinara thought:
+
+"Let us carry the body of the Blessed One, by the south and outside, to
+a spot on the south, and outside of the city,--paying it honor, and
+reverence, and respect, and homage, with dance and song and music, with
+garlands and perfumes,--and there, to the south of the city, let us
+perform the cremation ceremony!"
+
+And thereupon eight chieftains among the Mallas bathed their heads, and
+clad themselves in new garments with the intention of bearing the body
+of the Blessed One. But, behold, they could not lift it up!
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the venerable Anuruddha: "What,
+Lord, can be the reason, what can be the cause that eight chieftains of
+the Mallas who have bathed their heads, and clad themselves in new
+garments with the intention of bearing the body of the Blessed One, are
+unable to lift it up?"
+
+"It is because you, O Vasetthas, have one purpose and the spirits have
+another purpose."
+
+"But what, Lord, is the purpose of the spirits?"
+
+"Your purpose, O Vasetthas, is this: 'Let us carry the body of the
+Blessed One, by the south and outside, to a spot on the south, and
+outside of the city,--paying it honor, and reverence, and respect, and
+homage, with dance and song and music, with garlands and perfumes,--and
+there, to the south of the city, let us perform the cremation ceremony.'
+But the purpose of the spirits, Vasetthas, is this: 'Let us carry the
+body of the Blessed One by the north to the north of the city, and
+entering the city by the north gate, let us bring it through the midst
+of the city into the midst thereof. And going out again by the eastern
+gate,--paying honor, and reverence, and respect, and homage to the body
+of the Blessed One, with heavenly dance, and song, and music, and
+garlands, and perfumes,--let us carry it to the shrine of the Mallas
+called Makuta-bandhana, to the east of the city, and there let us
+perform the cremation ceremony.'"
+
+"Even according to the purpose of the spirits, so, Lord, let it be!"
+
+Then immediately all Kusinara down even to the dust-bins and rubbish
+heaps became strewn knee-deep with Mandarava flowers from heaven! and
+while both the spirits from the skies, and the Mallas of Kusinara upon
+earth, paid honor, and reverence, and respect, and homage to the body of
+the Blessed One, with dance and song and music, with garlands and with
+perfumes, they carried the body by the north to the north of the city;
+and entering the city by the north gate they carried it through the
+midst of the city into the midst thereof; and going out again by the
+eastern gate they carried it to the shrine of the Mallas, called
+Makuta-bandhana; and there, to the east of the city, they laid down the
+body of the Blessed One.
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the venerable Ananda: "What should
+be done, Lord, with the remains of the Tathagata?"
+
+"As men treat the remains of a king of kings, so, Vasetthas, should they
+treat the remains of a Tathagata."
+
+"And how, Lord, do they treat the remains of a king of kings?"
+
+"They wrap the body of a king of kings, Vasetthas, in a new cloth. When
+that is done they wrap it in cotton wool. When that is done they wrap it
+in a new cloth,--and so on till they have wrapped the body in five
+hundred successive layers of both kinds. Then they place the body in an
+oil vessel of iron, and cover that close up with another oil vessel of
+iron. They then build a funeral pile of all kinds of perfumes, and burn
+the body of the king of kings. And then at the four cross roads they
+erect a dagaba to the king of kings. This, Vasetthas, is the way in
+which they treat the remains of a king of kings. And as they treat the
+remains of a king of kings, so, Vasetthas, should they treat the remains
+of the Tathagata. At the four cross roads a dagaba should be erected to
+the Tathagata. And whosoever shall there place garlands or perfumes or
+paint, or make salutation there, or become in its presence calm in
+heart--that shall long be to them for a profit and a joy."
+
+Therefore the Mallas gave orders to their attendants, saying, "Gather
+together all the carded cotton wool of the Mallas!"
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara wrapped the body of the Blessed One in a new
+cloth. And when that was done they wrapped it in cotton wool. And when
+that was done, they wrapped it in a new cloth,--and so on till they had
+wrapped the body of the Blessed One in five hundred layers of both
+kinds. And then they placed the body in an oil vessel of iron, and
+covered that close up with another vessel of iron. And then they built a
+funeral pile of all kinds of perfumes, and upon it they placed the body
+of the Blessed One.
+
+Now at that time the venerable Maha Kassapa was journeying along the
+high road from Pava to Kusinara with a great company of the brethren,
+with about five hundred of the brethren. And the venerable Maha Kassapa
+left the high road, and sat himself down at the foot of a certain tree.
+
+Just at that time a certain naked ascetic who had picked up a Mandarava
+flower in Kusinara was coming along the high road to Pava. And the
+venerable Maha Kassapa saw the naked ascetic coming in the distance; and
+when he had seen him he said to the naked ascetic: "O friend! surely
+thou knowest our Master?"
+
+"Yea, friend! I know him. This day the Samana Gautama has been dead a
+week! That is how I obtained this Mandarava flower."
+
+And immediately of those of the brethren who were not yet free from the
+passions, some stretched out their arms and wept, and some fell headlong
+on the ground, and some reeled to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+"Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away from existence! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!"
+
+But those of the brethren who were free from the passions (the Arahats)
+bore their grief collected and composed at the thought: "Impermanent are
+all component things! How is it possible that they should not be
+dissolved?"
+
+Now at that time a brother named Subhadda, who had been received into
+the order in his old age, was seated there in their company. And
+Subhadda the old addressed the brethren and said: "Enough, brethren!
+Weep not, neither lament! We are well rid of the great Samana. We used
+to be annoyed by being told, 'This beseems you, this beseems you not.'
+But now we shall be able to do whatever we like; and what we do not like
+that we shall not have to do!"
+
+But the venerable Maha Kassapa addressed the brethren, and said:
+"Enough, my brethren! Weep not, neither lament! Has not the Blessed One
+formerly declared this to us, that it is in the very nature of all
+things near and dear unto us that we must divide ourselves from them,
+leave them, sever ourselves from them? How then, brethren, can this be
+possible--that whereas anything whatever born, brought into being, and
+organized contains within itself the inherent necessity of
+dissolution--how then can this be possible that such a being should not
+be dissolved? No such condition can exist!"
+
+Now just at that time four chieftains of the Mallas had bathed their
+heads and clad themselves in new garments with the intention of setting
+on fire the funeral pile of the Blessed One. But, behold, they were
+unable to set it alight! Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the
+venerable Anuruddha: "What, Lord, can be the reason, and what the cause,
+that four chieftains of the Mallas who have bathed their heads, and clad
+themselves in new garments, with the intention of setting on fire the
+funeral pile of the Blessed One, are unable to set it on fire?"
+
+"It is because you, O Vasetthas, have one purpose, and the spirits have
+another purpose."
+
+"But what, Lord, is the purpose of the spirits?"
+
+"The purpose of the spirits, O Vasetthas, is this: 'That venerable
+brother Maha Kassapa is now journeying along the high road from Pava to
+Kusinara with a great company of the brethren, with five hundred of the
+brethren. The funeral pile of the Blessed One shall not catch fire,
+until the venerable Maha Kassapa shall have been able reverently to
+salute the sacred feet of the Blessed One.'"
+
+"Even according to the purpose of the spirits, so, Lord, let it be!"
+
+Then the venerable Maha Kassapa went on to Makuta-bandhana of Kusinara,
+to the shrine of the Mallas, to the place where the funeral pile of the
+Blessed One was. And when he had come up to it, he arranged his robe on
+one shoulder; and bowing down with clasped hands he thrice walked
+reverently round the pile; and then, uncovering the feet, he bowed down
+in reverence at the feet of the Blessed One. And those five hundred
+brethren arranged their robes on one shoulder; and bowing down with
+clasped hands, they thrice walked reverently round the pile, and then
+bowed down in reverence at the feet of the Blessed One.
+
+And when the homage of the venerable Maha Kassapa and of those five
+hundred brethren was ended, the funeral pile of the Blessed One caught
+fire of itself. Now as the body of the Blessed One burned itself away,
+from the skin and the integument, and the flesh, and the nerves, and the
+fluid of the joints, neither soot nor ash was seen: and only the bones
+remained behind.
+
+Just as one sees no soot nor ash when glue or oil is burned, so, as the
+body of the Blessed One burned itself away, from the skin and the
+integument, and the flesh, and the nerves, and the fluid of the joints,
+neither soot nor ash was seen: and only the bones remained behind. And
+of those five hundred pieces of raiment the very innermost and outermost
+were both consumed. And when the body of the Blessed One had been burned
+up, there came down streams of water from the sky and extinguished the
+funeral pile of the Blessed One; and there burst forth streams of water
+from the storehouse of the waters (beneath the earth), and extinguished
+the funeral pile of the Blessed One. The Mallas of Kusinara also brought
+water scented with all kinds of perfumes, and extinguished the funeral
+pile of the Blessed One.
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara surrounded the bones of the Blessed One in
+their council hall with a lattice work of spears, and with a rampart of
+bows; and there for seven days they paid honor and reverence and respect
+and homage to them with dance and song and music, and with garlands and
+perfumes.
+
+Now the king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha
+clan, heard the news that the Blessed One had died at Kusinara. Then the
+king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha clan,
+sent a messenger to the Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the
+soldier caste, and I too am of the soldier caste. I am worthy to receive
+a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the
+Blessed One will I put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will I
+celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Likkhavis of Vesali heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Likkhavis of Vesali sent a messenger to the
+Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we
+too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the
+relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we
+put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Sakiyas of Kapila-vatthu heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Sakiyas of Kapila-vatthu sent a messenger to
+the Mallas, saying "The Blessed One was the pride of our race. We are
+worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the
+remains of the Blessed One will we put up a sacred cairn, and in honor
+thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Bulis of Allakappa heard the news that the Blessed One had died
+at Kusinara. And the Bulis of Allakappa sent a messenger to the Mallas,
+saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are
+of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics
+of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a
+sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Brahman of Vethadipa heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Brahman of Vethadipa sent a messenger to the
+Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and I am
+a Brahman. I am worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed
+One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will I put up a sacred cairn,
+and in honor thereof will I celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Mallas of Pava heard the news that the Blessed One had died at
+Kusinara. Then the Mallas of Pava sent a messenger to the Mallas,
+saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are
+of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics
+of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a
+sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+When they heard these things the Mallas of Kusinara spoke to the
+assembled brethren, saying, "The Blessed One died in our village domain,
+We will not give away any part of the remains of the Blessed One!" When
+they had thus spoken, Dona the Brahman addressed the assembled
+brethren, and said:
+
+    "Hear, reverend sir, one single word from me.
+    Forbearance was our Buddha wont to teach.
+    Unseemly is it that over the division
+    Of the remains of him who was the best of beings
+    Strife should arise, and wounds, and war!
+    Let us all, sirs, with one accord unite
+    In friendly harmony to make eight portions.
+    Wide spread let Thupas rise in every land
+    That in the Enlightened One mankind may trust!"
+
+"Do thou then, O Brahman, thyself divide the remains of the Blessed One
+equally into eight parts with fair division."
+
+"Be it so, sir!" said Dona, in assent, to the assembled brethren. And he
+divided the remains of the Blessed One equally into eight parts, with
+fair division. And he said to them: "Give me, sirs, this vessel, and I
+will set up over it a sacred cairn, and in its honor will I establish a
+feast." And they gave the vessel to Dona the Brahman.
+
+And the Moriyas of Pipphalivana heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. Then the Moriyas of Pipphalivana sent a messenger to
+the Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and
+we too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of
+the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will
+we put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a
+feast!" And when they heard the answer, saying, "There is no portion of
+the remains of the Blessed One left over. The remains of the Blessed One
+are all distributed," then they took away the embers.
+
+Then the king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha
+clan, made a mound in Ragagaha over the remains of the Blessed One, and
+held a feast. And the Likkhavis of Vesali made a mound in Vesali over
+the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And the Bulis of
+Allakappa made a mound in Allakappa over the remains of the Blessed One,
+and held a feast. And the Koliyas of Ramagama made a mound in Ramagama
+over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And Vethadipaka
+the Brahman made a mound in Vethadipa over the remains of the Blessed
+One, and held a feast. And the Mallas of Pava made a mound in Pava over
+the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And the Mallas of
+Kusinara made a mound in Kusinara over the remains of the Blessed One,
+and held a feast. And Dona the Brahman made a mound over the vessel in
+which the body had been burned, and held a feast. And the Moriyas of
+Pipphalivana made a mound over the embers, and held a feast.
+
+Thus were there eight mounds [Thupas] for the remains, and one for the
+vessel, and one for the embers. This was how it used to be. Eight
+measures of relics there were of him of the far-seeing eye, of the best
+of the best of men. In India seven are worshipped, and one measure in
+Ramagama, by the kings of the serpent race. One tooth, too, is honored
+in heaven, and one in Gandhara's city, one in the Kalinga realm, and one
+more by the Naga race. Through their glory the bountiful earth is made
+bright with offerings painless, for with such are the Great Teacher's
+relics best honored by those who are honored, by gods and by Nagas and
+kings, yea, thus by the noblest of monarchs--bow down with clasped
+hands! Hard, hard is a Buddha to meet with through hundreds of ages!
+
+End of the _Book of the Great Decease_
+
+
+
+
+
+PYTHIAN GAMES AT DELPHI
+
+B.C. 585
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     Among the leading features of Greek life, especially those
+     belonging to its religious customs and observances none are more
+     characteristic, and none possess a more attractive interest for the
+     modern reader and student than the peculiar festivals which it was
+     their practice to hold. The four great national festivals or games
+     were: The Olympic, held every four years, in honor of Zeus, on the
+     banks of the Alpheus, in Elis; the Pythian, celebrated once in four
+     years, in honor of Apollo, at Delphi; the Isthmian, held every two
+     years, at the isthmian sanctuary in the Isthmus of Corinth, in
+     honor of Poseidon (Neptune); and the Nemean, celebrated at Nemea,
+     in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, in honor of the
+     Nemean Juno.
+
+     With regard to the influence of these games or festivals upon the
+     political and social life of Greece, much has been written by
+     historians and special students of the Grecian states. While the
+     celebrations do not appear to have accomplished much for the
+     political union of Greece, they are to be credited with marked
+     beneficial effects in the promotion of a pan-Hellenic spirit which,
+     if it failed to produce such a union of the Greek race,
+     nevertheless quickened and strengthened the common feeling of
+     family relationship. Thus a sense of their identical origin and
+     racial traits was kept alive, and the tendencies of Greek
+     development and culture preserved their essential character and
+     distinction. By means of these periodical gatherings, representing
+     all parts of the Greek world, not only was friendly competition in
+     every field of talent and performance secured, but even trade and
+     commerce found through them new channels of activity. So in various
+     ways the national games proved a source of fresh energy and broader
+     enterprise among the various branches of the Grecian people. The
+     particular character and significance of the Pythian games at
+     Delphi, and their relation to the other national festivals, form an
+     interesting subject for study in connection with the general
+     history of Greece.
+
+
+What are called the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games (the
+four most conspicuous amid many others analogous) were in reality great
+religious festivals--for the gods then gave their special sanction,
+name, and presence to recreative meetings--the closest association then
+prevailed between the feelings of common worship and the sympathy in
+common amusement. Though this association is now no longer recognized,
+it is nevertheless essential that we should keep it fully before us if
+we desire to understand the life and proceedings of the Greek. To
+Herodotus and his contemporaries these great festivals, then frequented
+by crowds from every part of Greece, were of overwhelming importance and
+interest; yet they had once been purely local, attracting no visitors
+except from a very narrow neighborhood. In the Homeric poems much is
+said about the common gods, and about special places consecrated to and
+occupied by several of them; the chiefs celebrate funeral games in honor
+of a deceased father, which are visited by competitors from different
+parts of Greece, but nothing appears to manifest public or town
+festivals open to Grecian visitors generally. And though the rocky Pytho
+with its temple stands out in the _Iliad_ as a place both venerated and
+rich--the Pythian games, under the superintendence of the Amphictyons,
+with continuous enrollment of victors and a pan-Hellenic reputation, do
+not begin until after the Sacred War, in the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 586.
+
+The Olympic games, more conspicuous than the Pythian as well as
+considerably older, are also remarkable on another ground, inasmuch as
+they supplied historical computers with the oldest backward record of
+continuous time. It was in the year B.C. 776 that the Eleans inscribed
+the name of their countryman Coroebus as victor in the competition of
+runners, and that they began the practice of inscribing in like manner,
+in each Olympic or fifth recurring year, the name of the runner who won
+the prize. Even for a long time after this, however, the Olympic games
+seem to have remained a local festival; the prize being uniformly
+carried off, at the first twelve Olympiads, by some competitor either of
+Elis or its immediate neighborhood. The Nemean and Isthmian games did
+not become notorious or frequented until later even than the Pythian.
+Solon in his legislation proclaimed the large reward of 500 drams for
+every Athenian who gained an Olympic prize, and the lower sum of 100
+drams for an Isthmiac prize. He counts the former as pan-Hellenic rank
+and renown, an ornament even to the city of which the victor was a
+member--the latter as partial and confined to the neighborhood.
+
+Of the beginnings of these great solemnities we cannot presume to speak,
+except in mythical language; we know them only in their comparative
+maturity. But the habit of common sacrifice, on a small scale and
+between near neighbors, is a part of the earliest habits of Greece. The
+sentiment of fraternity, between two tribes or villages, first
+manifested itself by sending a sacred legation or Theoria to offer
+sacrifices to each other's festivals and to partake in the recreations
+which followed; thus establishing a truce with solemn guarantee, and
+bringing themselves into direct connexion each with the god of the other
+under his appropriate local surname. The pacific communion so fostered,
+and the increased assurance of intercourse, as Greece gradually emerged
+from the turbulence and pugnacity of the heroic age, operated especially
+in extending the range of this ancient habit: the village festivals
+became town festivals, largely frequented by the citizens of other
+towns, and sometimes with special invitations sent round to attract
+Theors from every Hellenic community--and thus these once humble
+assemblages gradually swelled into the pomp and immense confluence of
+the Olympic and Pythian games. The city administering such holy
+ceremonies enjoyed inviolability of territory during the month of their
+occurrence, being itself under obligation at that time to refrain from
+all aggression, as well as to notify by heralds the commencement of the
+truce to all other cities not in avowed hostility with it. Elis imposed
+heavy fines upon other towns--even on the powerful Lacedæmon--for
+violation of the Olympic truce, on pain of exclusion from the festival
+in case of non-payment.
+
+Sometimes this tendency to religious fraternity took a form called an
+_Amphictyony_, different from the common festival. A certain number of
+towns entered into an exclusive religious partnership for the
+celebration of sacrifices periodically to the god of a particular
+temple, which was supposed to be the common property and under the
+common protection of all, though one of the number was often named as
+permanent administrator; while all other Greeks were excluded. That
+there were many religious partnerships of this sort, which have never
+acquired a place in history, among the early Grecian villages, we may
+perhaps gather from the etymology of the word _Amphictyons_--designating
+residents around, or neighbors, considered in the point of view of
+fellow-religionists--as well as from the indications preserved to us in
+reference to various parts of the country. Thus there was an Amphictyony
+of seven cities at the holy island of Caluria, close to the harbor of
+Troezen. Hermione, Epidaurus, Ægina, Athens, Prasiæ, Nauplia, and
+Orchomenus, jointly maintained the temple and sanctuary of Poseidon in
+that island--with which it would seem that the city of Troezen, though
+close at hand, had no connection--meeting there at stated periods, to
+offer formal sacrifices. These seven cities indeed were not immediate
+neighbors, but the speciality and exclusiveness of their interest in the
+temple is seen from the fact that when the Argians took Nauplia, they
+adopted and fulfilled these religious obligations on behalf of the prior
+inhabitants: so also did the Lacedæmonians when they had captured
+Prasiæ. Again, in Triphylia, situated between the Pisatid and Messenia
+in the western part of Peloponnesus, there was a similar religious
+meeting and partnership of the Triphylians on Cape Samicon, at the
+temple of the Samian Poseidon. Here the inhabitants of Maciston were
+intrusted with the details of superintendence, as well as with the duty
+of notifying beforehand the exact time of meeting (a precaution
+essential amidst the diversities and irregularities of the Greek
+calendar) and also of proclaiming what was called the Samian truce--a
+temporary abstinence from hostilities which bound all Triphylians during
+the holy period. This latter custom discloses the salutary influence of
+such institutions in presenting to men's minds a common object of
+reverence, common duties, and common enjoyments; thus generating
+sympathies and feelings of mutual obligation amid petty communities not
+less fierce than suspicious. So, too, the twelve chief Ionic cities in
+and near Asia Minor had their pan-Ionic Amphictyony peculiar to
+themselves: the six Doric cities, in and near the southern corner of
+that peninsula, combined for the like purpose at the temple of the
+Triopian Apollo, and the feeling of special partnership is here
+particularly illustrated by the fact that Halicarnassus, one of the
+six, was formally extruded by the remaining five in consequence of a
+violation of the rules. There was also an Amphictyonic union at
+Onchestus in Boeotia, in the venerated grove and temple at Poseidon: of
+whom it consisted we are not informed. There are some specimens of the
+sort of special religious conventions and assemblies which seem to have
+been frequent throughout Greece. Nor ought we to omit those religious
+meetings and sacrifices which were common to all the members of one
+Hellenic subdivision, such as the pan-Boeotia to all the Boeotians,
+celebrated at the temple of the Ionian Athene near Coroneia; the common
+observances, rendered to the temple of Apollo Pythæus at Argos, by all
+those neighboring towns which had once been attached by this religious
+thread to the Argian; the similar periodical ceremonies, frequented by
+all who bore the Achæan or Ætolian name; and the splendid and
+exhilarating festivals, so favorable to the diffusion of the early
+Grecian poetry, which brought all Ionians at stated intervals to the
+sacred island of Delos. This later class of festivals agreed with the
+Amphictyony in being of a special and exclusive character, not open to
+all Greeks.
+
+But there was one among these many Amphictyonies, which, though starting
+from the smallest beginnings, gradually expanded into so comprehensive a
+character, had acquired so marked a predominance over the rest, as to be
+called the "Amphictyonic assembly," and even to have been mistaken by
+some authors for a sort of federal Hellenic diet. Twelve sub-races, out
+of the number which made up entire Hellas, belonged to this ancient
+Amphictyony, the meetings of which were held twice in every year: in
+spring at the temple of Apollo at Delphi; in autumn at Thermopylæ, in
+the sacred precinct of Demeter Amphictyonis. Sacred deputies, including
+a chief called the _Hieromnemon_ and subordinates called the _Pylagoræ_,
+attended at these meetings from each of the twelve races: a crowd of
+volunteers seem to have accompanied them, for purposes of sacrifice,
+trade, or enjoyment. Their special, and most important, function
+consisted in watching over the Delphian temple, in which all the twelve
+sub-races had a joint interest, and it was the immense wealth and
+national ascendency of this temple which enhanced to so great a pitch
+the dignity of its acknowledged administrators.
+
+The twelve constituent members were as follows: Thessalians, Boeotians,
+Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Locrians, Oetæans, Achæans,
+Phocians, Dolopes, and Malians. All are counted as _races_ (if we treat
+the Hellenes as a race, we must call these _sub-races_), no mention
+being made of cities: all count equally in respect to voting, two votes
+being given by the deputies from each of the twelve: moreover, we are
+told that in determining the deputies to be sent or the manner in which
+the votes of each race should be given, the powerful Athens, Sparta, and
+Thebes had no more influence than the humblest Ionian, Dorian, or
+Boeotian city. This latter fact is distinctly stated by Æschines,
+himself a Pylagore sent to Delphi by Athens. And so, doubtless, the
+theory of the case stood: the votes of the Ionic races counted for
+neither more nor less than two, whether given by deputies from Athens,
+or from the small towns of Erythræ and Priene; and in like manner the
+Dorian votes were as good in the division, when given by deputies from
+Boeon and Cytinion in the little territory of Doris, as if the men
+delivering them had been Spartans. But there can be as little question
+that in practice the little Ionic cities and the little Doric cities
+pretended to no share in the Amphictyonic deliberations. As the Ionic
+vote came to be substantially the vote of Athens, so, if Sparta was ever
+obstructed in the management of the Doric vote, it must have been by
+powerful Doric cities like Argos or Corinth, not by the insignificant
+towns of Doris. But the theory of Amphictyonic suffrage as laid down by
+Æschines, however little realized in practice during his day, is
+important inasmuch as it shows in full evidence the primitive and
+original constitution. The first establishment of the Amphictyonic
+convocation dates from a time when all the twelve members were on a
+footing of equal independence, and when there were no overwhelming
+cities--such as Sparta and Athens--to cast in the shade the humbler
+members; when Sparta was only one Doric city, and Athens only one Ionic
+city, among various others of consideration not much inferior.
+
+There are also other proofs which show the high antiquity of this
+Amphictyonic convocation. Æschines gives us an extract from the oath
+which had been taken by the sacred deputies who attended on behalf of
+their respective races, ever since its first establishment, and which
+still apparently continued to be taken in his day. The antique
+simplicity of this oath, and of the conditions to which the members bind
+themselves, betrays the early age in which it originated, as well as the
+humble resources of those towns to which it was applied. "We will not
+destroy any Amphictyonic town--we will not cut off any Amphictyonic town
+from running water"--such are the two prominent obligations which
+Æschines specifies out of the old oath. The second of the two carries us
+back to the simplest state of society, and to towns of the smallest
+size, when the maidens went out with their basins to fetch water from
+the spring, like the daughters of Celeos at Eleusis, or those of Athens
+from the fountain Callirrhoe. We may even conceive that the special
+mention of this detail, in the covenant between the twelve races, is
+borrowed literally from agreements still earlier, among the villages or
+little towns in which the members of each race were distributed. At any
+rate, it proves satisfactorily the very ancient date to which the
+commencement of the Amphictyonic convocations must be referred. The
+belief of Æschines (perhaps also the belief general in his time) was,
+that it commenced simultaneously with the first foundation of the
+Delphian temple--an event of which we have no historical knowledge; but
+there seems reason to suppose that its original establishment is
+connected with Thermopylæ and Demeter Amphictyonia, rather than with
+Delphi and Apollo. The special surname by which Demeter and her temple
+at Thermopylæ was known--the temple of the hero Amphictyon which stood
+at its side--the word _Pyloea_, which obtained footing in the language
+to designate the half-yearly meeting of the deputies both at Thermopylæ
+and at Delphi--these indications point to Thermopylæ (the real central
+point for all the twelve) as the primary place of meeting, and to the
+Delphian half-year as something secondary and superadded. On such a
+matter, however, we cannot go beyond a conjecture.
+
+The hero Amphictyon, whose temple stood at Thermopylæ, passed in
+mythical genealogy for the brother of Hellen. And it may be affirmed,
+with truth, that the habit of forming Amphictyonic unions, and of
+frequenting each other's religious festivals, was the great means of
+creating and fostering the primitive feeling of brotherhood among the
+children of Hellen, in those early times when rudeness, insecurity, and
+pugnacity did so much to isolate them. A certain number of salutary
+habits and sentiments, such as that which the Amphictyonic oath
+embodies, in regard to abstinence from injury as well as to mutual
+protection, gradually found their way into men's minds: the obligations
+thus brought into play acquired a substantive efficacy of their own, and
+the religious feeling which always remained connected with them, came
+afterward to be only one out of many complex agencies by which the later
+historical Greek was moved. Athens and Sparta in the days of their
+might, and the inferior cities in relation to them, played each their
+own political game, in which religious considerations will be found to
+bear only a subordinate part.
+
+The special function of the Amphictyonic council, so far as we know it,
+consisted in watching over the safety, the interests, and the treasures
+of the Delphian temple. "If any one shall plunder the property of the
+god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall take treacherous counsel
+against the things in the temple, we will punish him with foot, and
+hand, and voice, and by every means in our power." So ran the old
+Amphictyonic oath, with an energetic imprecation attached to it. And
+there are some examples in which the council constitutes its functions
+so largely as to receive and adjudicate upon complaints against entire
+cities, for offences against the religious and patriotic sentiment of
+the Greeks generally. But for the most part its interference relates
+directly to the Delphian temple. The earliest case in which it is
+brought to our view is the Sacred War against Cirrha, in the 46th
+Olympiad or B.C. 595, conducted by Eurolychus the Thessalian, and
+Clisthenes of Sicyon, and proposed by Solon of Athens: we find the
+Amphictyons also about half a century afterward undertaking the duty of
+collecting subscriptions throughout the Hellenic world, and making the
+contract with the Alcmæonids for rebuilding the temple after a
+conflagration. But the influence of this council is essentially of a
+fluctuating and intermittent character. Sometimes it appears forward to
+decide, and its decisions command respect; but such occasions are rare,
+taking the general course of known Grecian history; while there are
+other occasions, and those too especially affecting the Delphian temple,
+on which we are surprised to find nothing said about it. In the long and
+perturbed period which Thucydides describes, he never once mentions the
+Amphictyons, though the temple and the safety of its treasures form the
+repeated subject as well of dispute as of express stipulation between
+Athens and Sparta. Moreover, among the twelve constituent members of the
+council, we find three--the Perrhæbians, the Magnetes, and the Achæans
+of Phthia--who were not even independent, but subject to the
+Thessalians; so that its meetings, when they were not matters of mere
+form, probably expressed only the feelings of the three or four leading
+members. When one or more of these great powers had a party purpose to
+accomplish against others--when Philip of Macedon wished to extrude one
+of the members in order to procure admission for himself--it became
+convenient to turn this ancient form into a serious reality; and we
+shall see the Athenian Æschines providing a pretext for Philip to meddle
+in favor of the minor Boeotian cities against Thebes, by alleging that
+these cities were under the protection of the old Amphictyonic oath.
+
+It is thus that we have to consider the council as an element in Grecian
+affairs--an ancient institution, one among many instances of the
+primitive habit of religious fraternization, but wider and more
+comprehensive than the rest; at first purely religious, then religious
+and political at once, lastly more the latter than the former; highly
+valuable in the infancy, but unsuited to the maturity of Greece, and
+called into real working only on rare occasions, when its efficiency
+happened to fall in with the views of Athens, Thebes, or the king of
+Macedon. In such special moments it shines with a transient light which
+affords a partial pretense for the imposing title bestowed on it by
+Cicero--_commune Græciæ concilium;_ but we should completely
+misinterpret Grecian history if we regarded it as a federal council
+habitually directed or habitually obeyed. Had there existed any such
+"commune concilium" of tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the
+tendencies of the Hellenic mind been capable of adapting themselves to
+it, the whole course of later Grecian history would probably have been
+altered; the Macedonian kings would have remained only as respectable
+neighbors, borrowing civilization from Greece and expending their
+military energies upon Thracians and Illyrians; while united Hellas
+might even have maintained her own territory against the conquering
+legions of Rome.
+
+The twelve constituent Amphictyonic races remained unchanged until the
+Sacred War against the Phocians (B.C. 355), after which, though the
+number twelve was continued, the Phocians were disfranchised, and their
+votes transferred to Philip of Macedon. It has been already mentioned
+that these twelve did not exhaust the whole of Hellas. Arcadians,
+Eleans, Pisans, Minyæ, Dryopes, Ætolians, all genuine Hellenes, are not
+comprehended in it; but all of them had a right to make use of the
+temple of Delphi, and to contend in the Pythian and Olympic games. The
+Pythian games, celebrated near Delphi, were under the superintendence of
+the Amphictyons, or of some acting magistrate chosen by and presumed to
+represent them. Like the Olympic games, they came round every four years
+(the interval between one celebration and another being four complete
+years, which the Greeks called a _Pentæteris_): the Isthmian and Nemean
+games recurred every two years. In its first humble form a competition
+among bards to sing a hymn in praise of Apollo, this festival was
+doubtless of immemorial antiquity; but the first extension of it into
+pan-Hellenic notoriety (as I have already remarked), the first
+multiplication of the subjects of competition, and the first
+introduction of a continuous record of the conquerors, date only from
+the time when it came under the presidency of the Amphictyon, at the
+close of the Sacred War against Cirrha, What is called the first Pythian
+contest coincides with the third year of the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 585.
+From that period forward the games become crowded and celebrated: but
+the date just named, nearly two centuries after the first Olympiad, is a
+proof that the habit of periodical frequentation of festivals, by
+numbers and from distant parts, grew up but slowly in the Grecian world.
+
+The foundation of the temple of Delphi itself reaches far beyond all
+historical knowledge, forming one of the aboriginal institutions of
+Hellas. It is a sanctified and wealthy place even in the _Iliad_; the
+legislation of Lycurgus at Sparta is introduced under its auspices, and
+the earliest Grecian colonies, those of Sicily and Italy in the eighth
+century B.C., are established in consonance with its mandate. Delphi and
+Dodona appear, in the most ancient circumstances of Greece, as
+universally venerated oracles and sanctuaries: and Delphi not only
+receives honors and donations, but also answers questions from Lydians,
+Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, etc.: it is not exclusively Hellenic. One
+of the valuable services which a Greek looked for from this and other
+great religious establishments was, that it should resolve his doubts in
+cases of perplexity; that it should advise him whether to begin a new,
+or to persist in an old project; that it should foretell what would be
+his fate under given circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under
+distress, on what conditions the gods would grant him relief.
+
+The three priestesses of Dodona with their venerable oak, and the
+priestess of Delphi sitting on her tripod under the influence of a
+certain gas or vapor exhaling from the rock, were alike competent to
+determine these difficult points: and we shall have constant occasion to
+notice in this history with what complete faith both the question was
+put and the answer treasured up--what serious influence it often
+exercised both upon public and private proceeding. The hexameter verses
+in which the Pythian priestess delivered herself were indeed often so
+equivocal or unintelligible, that the most serious believer, with all
+anxiety to interpret and obey them, often found himself ruined by the
+result. Yet the general faith in the oracle was no way shaken by such
+painful experience. For as the unfortunate issue always admitted of
+being explained upon two hypotheses--either that the god had spoken
+falsely, or that his meaning had not been correctly understood--no man
+of genuine piety ever hesitated to adopt the latter. There were many
+other oracles throughout Greece besides Delphi and Dodona; Apollo was
+open to the inquiries of the faithful at Ptoon in Boeotia, at Abæ in
+Phocis, at Branchidæ near Miletus, at Patara in Lycia, and other places:
+in like manner, Zeus gave answers at Olympia, Poseidon at Tænarus,
+Amphiaraus at Thebes, Amphilochus at Mallus, etc. And this habit of
+consulting the oracle formed part of the still more general tendency of
+the Greek mind to undertake no enterprise without having first
+ascertained how the gods viewed it, and what measures they were likely
+to take. Sacrifices were offered, and the interior of the victim
+carefully examined, with the same intent: omens, prodigies, unlooked-for
+coincidences, casual expressions, etc., were all construed as
+significant of the divine will. To sacrifice with a view to this or that
+undertaking, or to consult the oracle with the same view, are familiar
+expressions embodied in the language. Nor could any man set about a
+scheme with comfort until he had satisfied himself in some manner or
+other that the gods were favorable to it.
+
+The disposition here adverted to is one of these mental analogies
+pervading the whole Hellenic nation, which Herodotus indicates. And the
+common habit among all Greeks of respectfully listening to the oracle of
+Delphi will be found on many occasions useful in maintaining unanimity
+among men not accustomed to obey the same political superior. In the
+numerous colonies especially, founded by mixed multitudes from distant
+parts of Greece, the minds of the emigrants were greatly determined
+toward cordial coöperation by their knowledge that the expedition had
+been directed, the oecist indicated, and the spot either chosen or
+approved by Apollo of Delphi. Such in most cases was the fact: that god,
+according to the conception of the Greeks, "takes delight always in the
+foundation of new cities, and himself in person lays the first stone."
+
+These are the elements of union with which the historical Hellenes take
+their start: community of blood, language, religious point of view,
+legends, sacrifices, festivals, and also (with certain allowances) of
+manners and character. The analogy of manners and character between the
+rude inhabitants of the Arcadian Cynætha and the polite Athens, was,
+indeed, accompanied with wide differences; yet if we compare the two
+with foreign contemporaries, we shall find certain negative
+characteristics of much importance common to both. In no city of
+historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices or
+deliberate mutilation, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet,
+etc.; or castration; or selling of children into slavery; or polygamy;
+or the feeling of unlimited obedience toward one man: all customs which
+might be pointed out as existing among the contemporary Carthaginians,
+Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, etc. The habit of running, wrestling,
+boxing, etc., in gymnastic contests, with the body perfectly naked, was
+common to all Greeks, having been first adopted as a Lacedæmonian
+fashion in the fourteenth Olympiad: Thucydides and Herodotus remark that
+it was not only not practised, but even regarded as unseemly, among
+non-Hellenes. Of such customs, indeed, at once common to all the Greeks,
+and peculiar to them as distinguished from others, we cannot specify a
+great number, but we may see enough to convince ourselves that there did
+really exist, in spite of local differences, a general Hellenic
+sentiment and character, which counted among the cementing causes of a
+union apparently so little assured.
+
+During the two centuries succeeding B.C. 776, the festival of the
+Olympic Zeus in the Pisatid gradually passed from a local to a national
+character, and acquired an attractive force capable of bringing together
+into temporary union the dispersed fragments of Hellas, from Marseilles
+to Trebizond. In this important function it did not long stand alone.
+During the sixth century B.C., three other festivals, at first local,
+became successively nationalized--the Pythia near Delphi, the Isthmia
+near Corinth, the Nemea near Cleone, between Sicyon and Argos.
+
+In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the
+particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution and
+enlargement were brought about--a notice the more interesting inasmuch
+as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation of something like
+pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost alone in an age which presents
+little else in operation except distinct city interests. At the time
+when the Homeric Hymn to the Delphinian Apollo was composed (probably in
+the seventh century B.C.), the Pythian festival had as yet acquired
+little eminence. The rich and holy temple of Apollo was then purely
+oracular, established for the purpose of communicating to pious
+inquirers "the counsels of the Immortals." Multitudes of visitors came
+to consult it, as well as to sacrifice victims and to deposit costly
+offerings; but while the god delighted in the sound of the harp as an
+accompaniment to the singing of pæans, he was by no means anxious to
+encourage horse-races and chariot-races in the neighborhood. Nay, this
+psalmist considers that the noise of horses would be "a nuisance", the
+drinking of mules a desecration to the sacred fountains, and the
+ostentation of fine-built chariots objectionable, as tending to divert
+the attention of spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.
+From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary
+"in the rocky Pytho"--a rugged and uneven recess, of no great
+dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about
+two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost
+Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The
+situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the
+congregation of any considerable number of spectators; altogether
+impracticable for chariot-races; and only rendered practicable by later
+art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium. Such a site
+furnished little means of subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents
+of visitors enabled the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,
+and gathered together by degrees a village around it.
+
+Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude, was situated
+the ancient Phocian town of Crissa, on a projecting spur of
+Parnassus--overhung above by the line of rocky precipice called the
+Phædriades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine through which
+flows the river Peistus. On the other side of this river rises the steep
+mountain Cirphis, which projects southward into the Corinthian gulf--the
+river reaching that gulf through the broad Crissoean plain, which
+stretches westward nearly to the Locrian town of Amphissa; a plain for
+the most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern
+part immediately under the Cirphis, where the seaport Cirrha was placed.
+The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong to the very
+earliest periods of Grecian antiquity. But the octennial solemnity in
+honor of the god included at first no other competition except that of
+bards, who sang each a pæan with the harp. The Amphictyonic assembly
+held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of Pytho, the other
+at Thermopylæ.
+
+In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed, the
+town of Crissa appears to have been great and powerful, possessing all
+the broad plain between Parnassus, Cirphis, and the gulf, to which
+latter it gave its name--and possessing also, what was a property not
+less valuable, the adjoining sanctuary of Pytho itself, which the Hymn
+identifies with Crissa, not indicating Delphi as a separate place. The
+Crissæans doubtless derived great profits from the number of visitors
+who came to visit Delphi, both by land and by sea, and Cirrha was
+originally only the name for their seaport. Gradually, however, the port
+appears to have grown in importance at the expense of the town, just as
+Apollonia and Ptolemais came to equal Cyrene and Barca, and as Plymouth
+Dock has swelled into Devonport; while at the same time the sanctuary of
+Pytho with its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and came
+to claim an independent existence of its own. The original relations
+between Crissa, Cirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner at length
+subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising. The Crissæans
+found themselves dispossessed of the management of the temple, which
+passed to the Delphians; as well as of the profits arising from the
+visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich the inhabitants of Cirrha.
+Crissa was a primitive city of the Phocian name, and could boast of a
+place as such in the Homeric Catalogue, so that her loss of importance
+was not likely to be quietly endured. Moreover, in addition to the above
+facts, already sufficient in themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told
+that the Cirrhæans abused their position as masters of the avenue to the
+temple by sea, and levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who landed
+there--a number constantly increasing from the multiplication of the
+transmarine colonies, and from the prosperity of those in Italy and
+Sicily. Besides such offence against the general Grecian public, they
+had also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors by outrages upon
+women, Phocian as well as Argian, who were returning from the temple.
+
+Thus stood the case, apparently, about B.C. 595, when the Amphictyonic
+meeting interfered--either prompted by the Phocians, or perhaps on their
+own spontaneous impulse, out of regard to the temple--to punish the
+Cirrhæans. After a war of ten years, the first sacred war in Greece,
+this object was completely accomplished by a joint force of Thessalians
+under Eurolychus, Sicyonians under Clisthenes, and Athenians under
+Alemæon; the Athenian Solon being the person who originated and enforced
+in the Amphictyonic council the proposition of interference. Cirrha
+appears to have made a strenuous resistance until its supplies from the
+sea were intercepted by the naval force of the Sicyonian Clisthenes.
+Even after the town was taken, its inhabitants defended themselves for
+some time on the heights of Cirphis. At length, however, they were
+thoroughly subdued. Their town was destroyed or left to subsist merely
+us a landing-place; while the whole adjoining plain was consecrated to
+the Delphian god, whose domains thus touched the sea. Under this
+sentence, pronounced by the religious fooling of Greece, and sanctified
+by a solemn oath publicly sworn and inscribed at Delphi, the land was
+condemned to remain untilled and implanted, without any species of human
+care, and serving only for the pasturage of cattle. The latter
+circumstance was convenient to the temple, inasmuch as it furnished
+abundance of victims for the pilgrims who landed and came to
+sacrifice--for without preliminary sacrifice no man could consult the
+oracle; while the entire prohibition of tillage was the only means of
+obviating the growth of another troublesome neighbor on the seaboard.
+The ruin of Cirrha in this war is certain: though the necessity of a
+harbor for visitors arriving by sea, led to the gradual revival of the
+town upon a humbler scale of pretension. But the fate of Crissa is not
+so clear, nor do we know whether it was destroyed, or left subsisting in
+a position of inferiority with regard to Delphi. From this time forward,
+however, the Delphian community appear as substantive and autonomous,
+exercising in their own right the management of the temple; though we
+shall find, on more than one occasion, that the Phocians contest this
+right, and lay claim to the management of it for themselves--a remnant
+of that early period when the oracle stood in the domain of the Phocian
+Crissa. There seems, moreover, to have been a standing antipathy
+between the Delphians and the Phocians.
+
+The Sacred War emanating from a solemn Amphictyonic decree, carried on
+jointly by troops of different states whom we do not know to have ever
+before coöperated, and directed exclusively toward an object of common
+interest--is in itself a fact of high importance, as manifesting a
+decided growth of pan-Hellenic feeling. Sparta is not named as
+interfering--a circumstance which seems remarkable when we consider both
+her power, even as it then stood, and her intimate connection with the
+Delphian oracle--while the Athenians appear as the chief movers, through
+the greatest and best of their citizens. The credit of a large-minded
+patriotism rests prominently upon them.
+
+But if this sacred war itself is a proof that the pan-Hellenic spirit
+was growing stronger, the positive result in which it ended reinforced
+that spirit still farther. The spoils of Cirrha were employed by the
+victorious allies in founding the Pythian games. The octennial festival
+hitherto celebrated at Delphi in honor of the god, including no other
+competition except in the harp and the pæan, was expanded into
+comprehensive games on the model of the Olympic, with matches not only
+of music, but also of gymnastics and chariots--celebrated, not at Delphi
+itself, but on the maritime plain near the ruined Cirrha--and under the
+direct superintendence of the Amphictyons themselves. I have already
+mentioned that Solon provided large rewards for such Athenians as gained
+victories in the Olympic and Isthmian games, thereby indicating his
+sense of the great value of the national games as a means of promoting
+Hellenic intercommunion. It was the same feeling which instigated the
+foundation of the new games on the Cirrhæan plain, in commemoration of
+the vindicated honor of Apollo, and in the territory newly made over to
+him. They were celebrated in the autumn, or first half of every third
+Olympic year; the Amphictyons being the ostensible _Agonothets_ or
+administrators, and appointing persons to discharge the duty in their
+names. At the first Pythian ceremony (in B.C. 586), valuable rewards
+were given to the different victors; at the second (B.C. 582), nothing
+was conferred but wreaths of laurel--the rapidly attained celebrity of
+the games being such as to render any further recompense superfluous.
+The Sicyonian despot, Clisthenes himself, once the leader in the
+conquest of Cirrha, gained the prize at the chariot-race of the second
+Pythia. We find other great personages in Greece frequently mentioned as
+competitors, and the games long maintained a dignity second only to the
+Olympic, over which indeed they had some advantages; first, that they
+were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and
+antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were
+perverted by the Eleans on more than one occasion; next, that they
+comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From the
+circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games deserved,
+even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by
+Demosthenes--"the common _Agon_ of the Greeks."
+
+The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated
+solemnities in Greece. Yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a celebrity
+not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all.
+Both the Nemea and Isthmia were distinguished from the other two
+festivals by occurring not once in four years, but once in two years;
+the former in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter
+in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek
+custom, an origin connected with the interesting persons and
+circumstances of legendary antiquity; but our historical knowledge of
+both begins with the sixth century B.C. The first historical Nemead is
+presented as belonging to Olympiad B.C. 52 or 53 (572-568), a few years
+subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the
+Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the
+valley of Nemea between Philus and Cleonæ. The Cleonæans themselves were
+originally its presidents, until, some period after B.C. 460, the
+Argians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of
+administration to themselves. The Nemean games had their Hellanodicæ to
+superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the
+Olympic.
+
+Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a
+little earlier, for it has already been stated that Solon conferred a
+premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival
+as well as at the Olympian--in or after B.C. 594. It was celebrated by
+the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidon, and if we may
+draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is
+ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified
+it with the antiquities of their own state.
+
+We thus perceive that the interval between B.C. 600-560, exhibits the
+first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea--the
+first expansion of all the three from local into pan-Hellenic festivals.
+To the Olympic games, for some time the only great centre of union among
+all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now added three other sacred
+_Agones_ of the like public, open, national character; constituting
+visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds, of collective Hellenism, and
+insuring to every Greek who went to compete in the matches, a safe and
+inviolate transit even through hostile Hellenic states. These four, all
+in or near Peloponnesus, and one of which occurred in each year, formed
+the period or cycle of sacred games, and those who had gained prizes at
+all the four received the enviable designation of Periodonices. The
+honors paid to Olympic victors, on their return to their native city,
+were prodigious even in the sixth century B.C., and became even more
+extravagant afterward. We may remark that in the Olympic games alone,
+the oldest as well as the most illustrious of the four, the musical and
+intellectual element was wanting. All the three more recent _Agones_
+included crowns for exercises of music and poetry, along with
+gymnastics, chariots, and horses.
+
+It was not only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon these
+four great festivals, that the gradual increase of Hellenic family
+feeling exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest period of
+Grecian history. Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious festivals
+in all the considerable towns gradually became more and more open and
+accessible, attracting guests as well as competitors from beyond the
+border. The comparative dignity of the city, as well as the honor
+rendered to the presiding god, were measured by the numbers, admiration,
+and envy, of the frequenting visitors. There is no positive evidence
+indeed of such expansion in the Attic festivals earlier than the reign
+of Pisistratus, who first added the quadrennial or greater Panathenæ
+to the ancient annual or lesser Panathenæa. Nor can we trace the steps
+of progress in regard to Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Megara, Sicyon,
+Pellene, Ægina, Argos, etc., but we find full reason for believing that
+such was the general reality. Of the Olympic or Isthmian victors whom
+Pindar and Simonides celebrated, many derived a portion of their
+renown from previous victories acquired at several of these local
+contests--victories sometimes so numerous as to prove how widespread
+the habit of reciprocal frequentation had become: though we find, even
+in the third century B.C., treaties of alliance between different cities
+in which it is thought necessary to confer such mutual right by express
+stipulation. Temptation was offered, to the distinguished gymnastic or
+musical competitors, by prizes of great value. Timæus even asserted,
+as a proof of the overweening pride of Croton and Sybaris, that these
+cities tried to supplant the preëminence of the Olympic games by
+instituting games of their own with the richest prizes to be celebrated
+at the same time--a statement in itself not worthy of credit, yet
+nevertheless illustrating the animated rivalry known to prevail among
+the Grecian cities in procuring for themselves splendid and crowded
+games. At the time when the Homeric hymn to Demeter was composed, the
+worship of that goddess seems to have been purely local at Eleusis. But
+before the Persian war, the festival celebrated by the Athenians every
+year, in honor of the Eleusinian Demeter, admitted Greeks of all cities
+to be initiated, and was attended by vast crowds of them.
+
+It was thus that the simplicity and strict local application of the
+primitive religious festival among the greater states in Greece
+gradually expanded, on certain great occasions periodically recurring,
+into an elaborate and regulated series of exhibitions not merely
+admitting, but soliciting, the fraternal presence of all Hellenic
+spectators. In this respect Sparta seems to have formed an exception to
+the remaining states. Her festivals were for herself alone, and her
+general rudeness toward other Greeks was not materially softened even at
+the Carneia and Hyacinthia, or Gymnopædiæ. On the other hand, the Attic
+Dionysia were gradually exalted, from their original rude spontaneous
+outburst of village feeling in thankfulness to the god, followed by
+song, dance and revelry of various kinds, into costly and diversified
+performances, first by a trained chorus, next by actors superadded to
+it.
+
+And the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied the
+perfection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated to invite a
+pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment of Hellenic unity.
+The dramatic literature of Athens however belongs properly to a later
+period. Previous to the year B.C. 560, we see only those commencements
+of innovation which drew upon Thespis the rebuke of Solon; who however
+himself contributed to impart to the Panathenaic festival a more solemn
+and attractive character by checking the license of the rhapsodes and
+insuring to those present a full orderly recital of the _Iliad_.
+
+The sacred games and festivals took hold of the Greek mind by so great a
+variety of feelings as to counterbalance in a high degree the political
+disseverance, and to keep alive among their widespread cities, in the
+midst of constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of
+brotherhood and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died
+away. The Theors, or sacred envoys who came to Olympia or Delphi from so
+many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same
+altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives to
+enrich or adorn one respective scene. Moreover the festival afforded
+opportunity for a sort of fair, including much traffic amid so large a
+mass of spectators; and besides the exhibitions of the games themselves,
+there were recitations and lectures in a spacious council-room for those
+who chose to listen to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers and
+historians--among which last the history of Herodotus is said to have
+been publicly read by its author. Of the wealthy and great men in the
+various cities, many contended simply for the chariot-victories and
+horse-victories. But there were others whose ambition was of a character
+more strictly personal, and who stripped naked as runners, wrestlers,
+boxers, or pancratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of a
+complete previous training. Cylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp
+the scepter at Athens has been recounted, had gained the prize in the
+Olympic stadium; Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of Macedon, had
+run for it; the great family of the Diagoridæ at Rhodes, who furnished
+magistrates and generals to their native city, supplied a still greater
+number of successful boxers and pancratiasts at Olympia, while other
+instances also occur of generals named by various cities from the list
+of successful Olympic gymnasts; and the odes of Pindar, always dearly
+purchased, attest how many of the great and wealthy were found in that
+list. The perfect popularity and equality of persons at these great
+games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to
+predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense crowd
+to a handful of servants armed with sticks, who executed the orders of
+the Elean Hellanodice. The ground upon which the ceremony took place,
+and even the territory of the administering state, was protected by a
+"Truce of God" during the month of the festival, the commencement of
+which was formally announced by heralds sent round to the different
+states. Treaties of peace between different cities were often formally
+commemorated by pillars there erected, and the general impression of the
+scene suggested nothing but ideas of peace and brotherhood among Greeks.
+And I may remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all
+Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the
+interval between B.C. 600-300 than it came to be afterward. For the
+Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting
+Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and
+manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners who were incapable of
+the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later
+times the games continued undiminished both in attraction and in number
+of visitors, the spirit of pan-Hellenic communion which had once
+animated the scene was gone forever.
+
+
+
+
+
+SOLON'S EARLY GREEK LEGISLATION
+
+B.C. 594
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     Lycurgus, the reputed Spartan lawgiver, is credited with the
+     construction, about B.C. 800, of the earliest Grecian commonwealth
+     founded upon a specific code of laws. These laws had mainly a
+     military basis, and through obedience to them the Spartans became a
+     people of great hardiness, accustomed to self-discipline, famous
+     for their prowess and endurance in war, and for sternness of
+     individual and social virtues.
+
+     In Athens there were no written laws until the time of Draco, B.C.
+     621, the government before that period having been long in the
+     hands of an oligarchy. In the year above named Draco was archon,
+     and to him was intrusted the work of framing a legal code,
+     conditions under the oligarchic rule having become intolerable to
+     the people at large. The chief features of Draco's legislation had
+     reference to the punishment of crime, and so extreme were the
+     severities of the system and so cruel the penalties it prescribed
+     that in later times it was declared to have been written in blood.
+
+     The Draconian laws remained in force until superseded by the great
+     system of Solon, whose advent as the new lawgiver was brought about
+     mainly through the conspiracy of Cylon, twelve years after the
+     legislation of Draco. Affairs in Athens were in a deplorable state
+     of confusion and violence, the revolt of the poor against the power
+     and privilege of the rich leading to dangerous dissensions and
+     collisions. Solon, who enjoyed a universal reputation for wisdom
+     and uprightness, was called upon by the oligarchy, which again held
+     rule, to assume what was, in fact, almost absolute power. The
+     character of his legislation and its influence upon the course of
+     Greek history have been set forth by many authors, and the
+     following account is perhaps the best that has appeared in modern
+     literature.
+
+
+Solon, son of Execestides, was a Eupatrid of middling fortune, but of
+the purest heroic blood, belonging to the _gens_ or family of the
+Codrids and Neleids, and tracing his origin to the god Poseidon. His
+father is said to have diminished his substance by prodigality, which
+compelled Solon in his earlier years to have recourse to trade, and in
+this pursuit he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. He was thus
+enabled to enlarge the sphere of his observation, and to provide
+material for thought as well as for composition. His poetical talents
+displayed themselves at a very early age, first on light, afterward on
+serious subjects. It will be recollected that there was at that time no
+Greek prose writing, and that the acquisitions as well as the effusions
+of an intellectual man, even in their simplest form, adjusted themselves
+not to the limitations of the period and the semicolon, but to those of
+the hexameter and pentameter. Nor, in point of fact, do the verses of
+Solon aspire to any higher effect than we are accustomed to associate
+with an earnest, touching, and admonitory prose composition. The advice
+and appeals which he frequently addressed to his countrymen were
+delivered in this easy metre, doubtless far less difficult than the
+elaborate prose of subsequent writers or speakers, such as Thucydides,
+Isocrates, or Demosthenes. His poetry and his reputation became known
+throughout many parts of Greece, so that he was classed along with
+Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene, Periander of
+Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, Cheilon of Lacedæmon--altogether forming
+the constellation afterward renowned as the seven wise men.
+
+The first particular event in respect to which Solon appears as an
+active politician, is the possession of the island of Salamis, then
+disputed between Megara and Athens. Megara was at that time able to
+contest with Athens, and for some time to contest with success, the
+occupation of this important island--a remarkable fact, which perhaps
+may be explained by supposing that the inhabitants of Athens and its
+neighborhood carried on the struggle with only partial aid from the rest
+of Attica. However this may be, it appears that the Megarians had
+actually established themselves in Salamis, at the time when Solon began
+his political career, and that the Athenians had experienced so much
+loss in the struggle as to have formally prohibited any citizen from
+ever submitting a proposition for its reconquest. Stung with this
+dishonorable abnegation, Solon counterfeited a state of ecstatic
+excitement, rushed into the agora, and there on the stone usually
+occupied by the official herald, pronounced to the surrounding crowd a
+short elegiac poem which he had previously composed on the subject of
+Salamis. Enforcing upon them the disgrace of abandoning the island, he
+wrought so powerfully upon their feelings that they rescinded the
+prohibitory law. "Rather (he exclaimed) would I forfeit my native city
+and become a citizen of Pholegandrus, than be still named an Athenian,
+branded with the shame of surrendered Salamis!" The Athenians again
+entered into the war, and conferred upon him the command of it--partly,
+as we are told, at the instigation of Pisistratus, though the latter
+must have been at this time (B.C. 600-594) a very young man, or rather a
+boy.
+
+The stories in Plutarch, as to the way in which Salamis was recovered,
+are contradictory as well as apocryphal, ascribing to Solon various
+stratagems to deceive the Megarian occupiers. Unfortunately no authority
+is given for any of them. According to that which seems the most
+plausible, he was directed by the Delphian god first to propitiate the
+local heroes of the island; and he accordingly crossed over to it by
+night, for the purpose of sacrificing to the heroes Periphemus and
+Cychreus on the Salaminian shore. Five hundred Athenian volunteers were
+then levied for the attack of the island, under the stipulation that if
+they were victorious they should hold it in property and citizenship.
+They were safely landed on an outlying promontory, while Solon, having
+been fortunate enough to seize a ship which the Megarians had sent to
+watch the proceedings, manned it with Athenians and sailed straight
+toward the city of Salamis, to which the Athenians who had landed also
+directed their march. The Megarians marched out from the city to repel
+the latter, and during the heat of the engagement Solon, with his
+Megarian ship and Athenian crew, sailed directly to the city. The
+Megarians, interpreting this as the return of their own crew, permitted
+the ship to approach without resistance, and the city was thus taken by
+surprise. Permission having been given to the Megarians to quit the
+island, Solon took possession of it for the Athenians, erecting a temple
+to Enyalius, the god of war, on Cape Sciradium, near the city of
+Salamis.
+
+The citizens of Megara, however, made various efforts for the recovery
+of so valuable a possession, so that a war ensued long as well as
+disastrous to both parties. At last it was agreed between them to refer
+the dispute to the arbitration of Sparta, and five Spartans were
+appointed to decide it--Critolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsechidas,
+Anaxilas, and Cleomenes. The verdict in favor of Athens was founded on
+evidence which it is somewhat curious to trace. Both parties attempted
+to show that the dead bodies buried in the island conformed to their own
+peculiar mode of interment, and both parties are said to have cited
+verses from the catalogue of the _Iliad_--each accusing the other of
+error or interpolation. But the Athenians had the advantage on two
+points: first, there were oracles from Delphi, wherein Salamis was
+mentioned with the epithet Ionian; next Philæus and Eurysaces, sons of
+the Telamonian Ajax, the great hero of the island, had accepted the
+citizenship of Athens, made over Salamis to the Athenians, and
+transferred their own residences to Brauron and Melite in Attica, where
+the _deme_, or _gens_, Philaidæ still worshipped Philæus as its
+eponymous ancestor. Such a title was held sufficient, and Salamis was
+adjudged by the five Spartans to Attica, with which it ever afterward
+remained incorporated until the days of Macedonian supremacy. Two
+centuries and a half later, when the orator Æschines argued the Athenian
+right to Amphipolis against Philip of Macedon, the legendary elements of
+the title were indeed put forward, but more in the way of preface or
+introduction to the substantial political grounds. But in the year 600
+B.C. the authority of the legend was more deep-seated and operative, and
+adequate by itself to determine a favorable verdict.
+
+In addition to the conquest of Salamis, Solon increased his reputation
+by espousing the cause of the Delphian temple against the extortionate
+proceedings of the inhabitants of Cirrha, and the favor of the oracle
+was probably not without its effect in procuring for him that
+encouraging prophecy with which his legislative career opened.
+
+It is on the occasion of Solon's legislation that we obtain our first
+glimpse--unfortunately but a glimpse--of the actual state of Attica and
+its inhabitants. It is a sad and repulsive picture, presenting to us
+political discord and private suffering combined.
+
+Violent dissensions prevailed among the inhabitants of Attica, who were
+separated into three factions--the Pedieis, or men of the plain,
+comprising Athens, Eleusis, and the neighboring territory, among whom
+the greatest number of rich families were included; the mountaineers in
+the east and north of Attica, called Diacrii, who were, on the whole,
+the poorest party; and the Paralii in the southern portion of Attica
+from sea to sea, whose means and social position were intermediate
+between the two. Upon what particular points these intestine disputes
+turned we are not distinctly informed. They were not, however, peculiar
+to the period immediately preceding the archonship of Solon. They had
+prevailed before, and they reappear afterward prior to the despotism of
+Pisistratus; the latter standing forward as the leader of the Diacrii,
+and as champion, real or pretended, of the poorer population.
+
+But in the time of Solon these intestine quarrels were aggravated by
+something much more difficult to deal with--a general mutiny of the
+poorer population against the rich, resulting from misery combined with
+oppression. The Thetes, whose condition we have already contemplated in
+the poems of Homer and Hesiod, are now presented to us as forming the
+bulk of the population of Attica--the cultivating tenants, metayers, and
+small proprietors of the country. They are exhibited as weighed down by
+debts and dependence, and driven in large numbers out of a state of
+freedom into slavery--the whole mass of them (we are told) being in debt
+to the rich, who were proprietors of the greater part of the soil. They
+had either borrowed money for their own necessities, or they tilled the
+lands of the rich as dependent tenants, paying a stipulated portion of
+the produce, and in this capacity they were largely in arrear.
+
+All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor
+and creditor--once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion
+of the world--combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate
+status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of
+another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract was
+liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor, until he could find
+means either of paying it or working it out; and not only he himself,
+but his minor sons and unmarried daughters and sisters also, whom the
+law gave him the power of selling. The poor man thus borrowed upon the
+security of his body (to translate literally the Greek phrase) and upon
+that of the persons in his family. So severely had these oppressive
+contracts been enforced, that many debtors had been reduced from freedom
+to slavery in Attica itself, many others had been sold for exportation,
+and some had only hitherto preserved their own freedom by selling their
+children. Moreover, a great number of the smaller properties in Attica
+were under mortgage, signified--according to the formality usual in the
+Attic law, and continued down throughout the historical times--by a
+stone pillar erected on the land, inscribed with the name of the lender
+and the amount of the loan. The proprietors of these mortgaged lands, in
+case of an unfavorable turn of events, had no other prospect except that
+of irremediable slavery for themselves and their families, either in
+their own native country robbed of all its delights, or in some
+barbarian region where the Attic accent would never meet their ears.
+Some had fled the country to escape legal adjudication of their persons,
+and earned a miserable subsistence in foreign parts by degrading
+occupations. Upon several, too, this deplorable lot had fallen by unjust
+condemnation and corrupt judges; the conduct of the rich, in regard to
+money sacred and profane, in regard to matters public as well as
+private, being thoroughly unprincipled and rapacious.
+
+The manifold and long-continued suffering of the poor under this system,
+plunged into a state of debasement not more tolerable than that of the
+Gallic _plebs_--and the injustices of the rich, in whom all political
+power was then vested--are facts well attested by the poems of Solon
+himself, even in the short fragments preserved to us. It appears that
+immediately preceding the time of his archonship the evils had ripened
+to such a point, and the determination of the mass of sufferers to
+extort for themselves some mode of relief had become so pronounced, that
+the existing laws could no longer be enforced. According to the profound
+remark of Aristotle--that seditions are generated by great causes but
+out of small incidents--we may conceive that some recent events had
+occurred as immediate stimulants to the outbreak of the debtors, like
+those which lent so striking an interest to the early Roman annals, as
+the inflaming sparks of violent popular movements for which the train
+had long before been laid. Condemnations by the archons of insolvent
+debtors may have been unusually numerous; or the maltreatment of some
+particular debtor, once a respected freeman, in his condition of
+slavery, may have been brought to act vividly upon the public
+sympathies; like the case of the old plebeian centurion at Rome--first
+impoverished by the plunder of the enemy, then reduced to borrow, and
+lastly adjudged to his creditor as an insolvent--who claimed the
+protection of the people in the forum, rousing their feelings to the
+highest pitch by the marks of the slave-whip visible on his person. Some
+such incidents had probably happened, though we have no historians to
+recount them. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to imagine that that
+public mental affliction which the purifier Epimenides had been invoked
+to appease, as it sprung in part from pestilence, so it had its cause
+partly in years of sterility, which must of course have aggravated the
+distress of the small cultivators. However this may be, such was the
+condition of things in B.C. 594 through mutiny of the poor freemen and
+_Thetes_, and uneasiness of the middling citizens, that the governing
+oligarchy, unable either to enforce their private debts or to maintain
+their political power, were obliged to invoke the well-known wisdom and
+integrity of Solon. Though his vigorous protest--which doubtless
+rendered him acceptable to the mass of the people--against the iniquity
+of the existing system had already been proclaimed in his poems, they
+still hoped that he would serve as an auxiliary to help them over their
+difficulties. They therefore chose him, nominally as archon along with
+Philombrotus, but with power in substance dictatorial.
+
+It had happened in several Grecian states that the governing
+oligarchies, either by quarrels among their own members or by the
+general bad condition of the people under their government, were
+deprived of that hold upon the public mind which was essential to their
+power. Sometimes--as in the case of Pittacus of Mitylene anterior to the
+archonship of Solon, and often in the factions of the Italian republics
+in the middle ages--the collision of opposing forces had rendered
+society intolerable, and driven all parties to acquiesce in the choice
+of some reforming dictator. Usually, however, in the early Greek
+oligarchies, this ultimate crisis was anticipated by some ambitious
+individual, who availed himself of the public discontent to overthrow
+the oligarchy and usurp the powers of a despot. And so probably it
+might have happened in Athens, had not the recent failure of Cylon, with
+all its miserable consequences, operated as a deterring motive. It is
+curious to read, in the words of Solon himself, the temper in which his
+appointment was construed by a large portion of the community, but more
+especially by his own friends: bearing in mind that at this early day,
+so far as our knowledge goes, democratical government was a thing
+unknown in Greece--all Grecian governments were either oligarchical or
+despotic--the mass of the freemen having not yet tasted of
+constitutional privilege. His own friends and supporters were the first
+to urge him, while redressing the prevalent discontents, to multiply
+partisans for himself personally, and seize the supreme power. They even
+"chid him as a mad-man, for declining to haul up the net when the fish
+were already enmeshed." The mass of the people, in despair with their
+lot, would gladly have seconded him in such an attempt; while many even
+among the oligarchy might have acquiesced in his personal government,
+from the mere apprehension of something worse if they resisted it. That
+Solon might easily have made himself despot admits of little doubt. And
+though the position of a Greek despot was always perilous, he would have
+had greater facility for maintaining himself in it than Pisistratus
+possessed after him; so that nothing but the combination of prudence and
+virtue, which marks his lofty character, restricted him within the trust
+specially confided to him. To the surprise of every one--to the
+dissatisfaction of his own friends--under the complaints alike (as he
+says) of various extreme and dissentient parties, who required him to
+adopt measures fatal to the peace of society--he set himself honestly to
+solve the very difficult and critical problem submitted to him.
+
+Of all grievances, the most urgent was the condition of the poorer class
+of debtors. To their relief Solon's first measure, the memorable
+_Seisachtheia_, or shaking off of burdens, was directed. The relief
+which it afforded was complete and immediate. It cancelled at once all
+those contracts in which the debtor had borrowed on the security either
+of his person or of his land: it forbade all future loans or contracts
+in which the person of the debtor was pledged as security; it deprived
+the creditor in future of all power to imprison, or enslave, or extort
+work, from his debtor, and confined him to an effective judgment at law
+authorizing the seizure of the property of the latter. It swept off all
+the numerous mortgage pillars from the landed properties in Attica,
+leaving the land free from all past claims. It liberated and restored to
+their full rights all debtors actually in slavery under previous legal
+adjudication; and it even provided the means (we do not know how) of
+repurchasing in foreign lands, and bringing back to a renewed life of
+liberty in Attica, many insolvents who had been sold for exportation.
+And while Solon forbade every Athenian to pledge or sell his own person
+into slavery, he took a step farther in the same direction by forbidding
+him to pledge or sell his son, his daughter, or an unmarried sister
+under his tutelage--excepting only the case in which either of the
+latter might be detected in unchastity. Whether this last ordinance was
+contemporaneous with the Seisachtheia, or followed as one of his
+subsequent reforms, seems doubtful.
+
+By this extensive measure the poor debtors--the Thetes, small tenants,
+and proprietors--together with their families, were rescued from
+suffering and peril. But these were not the only debtors in the state:
+the creditors and landlords of the exonerated Thetes were doubtless in
+their turn debtors to others, and were less able to discharge their
+obligations in consequence of the loss inflicted upon them by the
+Seisachtheia. It was to assist these wealthier debtors, whose bodies
+were in no danger--yet without exonerating them entirely--that Solon
+resorted to the additional expedient of debasing the money standard. He
+lowered the standard of the drachma in a proportion of something more
+than 25 per cent., so that 100 drachmas of the new standard contained no
+more silver than 73 of the old, or 100 of the old were equivalent to 138
+of the new. By this change the creditors of these more substantial
+debtors were obliged to submit to a loss, while the debtors acquired an
+exemption to the extent of about 27 per cent.
+
+Lastly, Solon decreed that all those who had been condemned by the
+archons to _atimy_ (civil disfranchisement) should be restored to their
+full privileges of citizens--excepting, however, from this indulgence
+those who had been condemned by the Ephetæ, or by the Areopagus, or by
+the Phylo-Basileis (the four kings of the tribes), after trial in the
+Prytaneum, on charges either of murder or treason. So wholesale a
+measure of amnesty affords strong grounds for believing that the
+previous judgments of the archons had been intolerably harsh; and it is
+to be recollected that the Draconian ordinances were then in force.
+
+Such were the measures of relief with which Solon met the dangerous
+discontent then prevalent. That the wealthy men and leaders of the
+people--whose insolence and iniquity he has himself severely denounced
+in his poems, and whose views in nominating him he had greatly
+disappointed--should have detested propositions which robbed them
+without compensation of many legal rights, it is easy to imagine. But
+the statement of Plutarch that the poor emancipated debtors were also
+dissatisfied, from having expected that Solon would not only remit their
+debts, but also redivide the soil of Attica, seems utterly incredible;
+nor is it confirmed by any passage now remaining of the Solonian poems.
+Plutarch conceives the poor debtors as having in their minds the
+comparison with Lycurgus and the equality of property at Sparta, which,
+in my opinion, is clearly a matter of fiction; and even had it been true
+as a matter of history long past and antiquated, would not have been
+likely to work upon the minds of the multitude of Attica in the forcible
+way that the biographer supposes. The Seisachtheia must have exasperated
+the feelings and diminished the fortunes of many persons; but it gave to
+the large body of Thetes and small proprietors all that they could
+possibly have hoped. We are told that after a short interval it became
+eminently acceptable in the general public mind, and procured for Solon
+a great increase of popularity--all ranks concurring in a common
+sacrifice of thanksgiving and harmony. One incident there was which
+occasioned an outcry of indignation. Three rich friends of Solon, all
+men of great family in the state, and bearing names which appear in
+history as borne by their descendants--namely: Conon, Cleinias, and
+Hipponicus--having obtained from Solon some previous hint of his
+designs, profited by it, first to borrow money, and next to make
+purchases of lands; and this selfish breach of confidence would have
+disgraced Solon himself, had it not been found that he was personally a
+great loser, having lent money to the extent of five talents.
+
+In regard to the whole measure of the Seisachtheia, indeed, though the
+poems of Solon were open to every one, ancient authors gave different
+statements both of its purport and of its extent. Most of them construed
+it as having cancelled indiscriminately all money contracts; while
+Androtion and others thought that it did nothing more than lower the
+rate of interest and depreciate the currency to the extent of 27 per
+cent., leaving the letter of the contracts unchanged. How Androtion came
+to maintain such an opinion we cannot easily understand. For the
+fragments now remaining from Solon seem distinctly to refute it, though,
+on the other hand, they do not go so far as to substantiate the full
+extent of the opposite view entertained by many writers--that all money
+contracts indiscriminately were rescinded--against which there is also a
+further reason, that if the fact had been so, Solon could have had no
+motive to debase the money standard. Such debasement supposes that there
+must have been _some_ debtors at least whose contracts remained valid,
+and whom nevertheless he desired partially to assist. His poems
+distinctly mention three things: 1. The removal of the mortgage-pillars.
+2. The enfranchisement of the land. 3. The protection, liberation, and
+restoration of the persons of endangered or enslaved debtors. All these
+expressions point distinctly to the Thetes and small proprietors, whose
+sufferings and peril were the most urgent, and whose case required a
+remedy immediate as well as complete. We find that his repudiation of
+debts was carried far enough to exonerate them, but no farther.
+
+It seems to have been the respect entertained for the character of Solon
+which partly occasioned these various misconceptions of his ordinances
+for the relief of debtors. Androtion in ancient, and some eminent
+critics in modern times are anxious to make out that he gave relief
+without loss or injustice to any one. But this opinion seems
+inadmissible. The loss to creditors by the wholesale abrogation of
+numerous preëxisting contracts, and by the partial depreciation of the
+coin, is a fact not to be disguised. The Seisachtheia of Solon, unjust
+so far as it rescinded previous agreements, but highly salutary in its
+consequences, is to be vindicated by showing that in no other way could
+the bonds of government have been held together, or the misery of the
+multitude alleviated. We are to consider, first, the great personal
+cruelty of these preëxisting contracts, which condemned the body of the
+free debtor and his family to slavery; next, the profound detestation
+created by such a system in the large mass of the poor, against both the
+judges and the creditors by whom it had been enforced, which rendered
+their feelings unmanageable so soon as they came together under the
+sentiment of a common danger and with the determination to insure to
+each other mutual protection. Moreover, the law which vests a creditor
+with power over the person of his debtor so as to convert him into a
+slave, is likely to give rise to a class of loans which inspire nothing
+but abhorrence--money lent with the foreknowledge that the borrower will
+be unable to repay it, but also in the conviction that the value of his
+person as a slave will make good the loss; thus reducing him to a
+condition of extreme misery, for the purpose sometimes of aggrandizing,
+sometimes of enriching, the lender. Now the foundation on which the
+respect for contracts rests, under a good law of debtor and creditor, is
+the very reverse of this. It rests on the firm conviction that such
+contracts are advantageous to both parties as a class, and that to break
+up the confidence essential to their existence would produce extensive
+mischief throughout all society. The man whose reverence for the
+obligation of a contract is now the most profound, would have
+entertained a very different sentiment if he had witnessed the dealings
+of lender and borrower at Athens under the old ante-Solonian law. The
+oligarchy had tried their best to enforce this law of debtor and
+creditor with its disastrous series of contracts, and the only reason
+why they consented to invoke the aid of Solon was because they had lost
+the power of enforcing it any longer, in consequence of the newly
+awakened courage and combination of the people. That which they could
+not do for themselves, Solon could not have done for them, even had he
+been willing. Nor had he in his position the means either of exempting
+or compensating those creditors who, separately taken, were open to no
+reproach; indeed, in following his proceedings, we see plainly that he
+thought compensation due, not to the creditors, but to the past
+sufferings of the enslaved debtor, since he redeemed several of them
+from foreign captivity, and brought them back to their homes. It is
+certain that no measure simply and exclusively prospective would have
+sufficed for the emergency. There was an absolute necessity for
+overruling all that class of preëxisting rights which had produced so
+violent a social fever. While, therefore, to this extent, the
+Seisachtheia cannot be acquitted of injustice, we may confidently affirm
+that the injustice inflicted was an indispensable price paid for the
+maintenance of the peace of society, and for the final abrogation of a
+disastrous system as regarded insolvents. And the feeling as well as the
+legislation universal in the modern European world, by interdicting
+beforehand all contracts for selling a man's person or that of his
+children into slavery, goes far to sanction practically the Solonian
+repudiation.
+
+One thing is never to be forgotten in regard to this measure, combined
+with the concurrent amendments introduced by Solon in the law--it
+settled finally the question to which it referred. Never again do we
+hear of the law of debtor and creditor as disturbing Athenian
+tranquillity. The general sentiment which grew up at Athens, under the
+Solonian money-law and under the democratical government, was one of
+high respect for the sanctity of contracts. Not only was there never any
+demand in the Athenian democracy for new tables or a depreciation of the
+money standard, but a formal abnegation of any such projects was
+inserted in the solemn oath taken annually by the numerous Dicasts, who
+formed the popular judicial body called Heliæa or the Heliastic jurors:
+the same oath which pledged them to uphold the democratical
+constitution, also bound them to repudiate all proposals either for an
+abrogation of debts or for a redivision of the lands. There can be
+little doubt that under the Solonian law, which enabled the creditor to
+seize the property of his debtor, but gave him no power over the person,
+the system of money-lending assumed a more beneficial character. The old
+noxious contracts, mere snares for the liberty of a poor freeman and his
+children, disappeared, and loans of money took their place, founded on
+the property and prospective earnings of the debtor, which were in the
+main useful to both parties, and therefore maintained their place in the
+moral sentiment of the public. And though Solon had found himself
+compelled to rescind all the mortgages on land subsisting in his time,
+we see money freely lent upon this same security throughout the
+historical times of Athens, and the evidentiary mortgage-pillars
+remaining ever after undisturbed.
+
+In the sentiment of an early society, as in the old Roman law, a
+distinction is commonly made between the principal and the interest of a
+loan, though the creditors have sought to blend them indissolubly
+together. If the borrower cannot fulfil his promise to repay the
+principal, the public will regard him as having committed a wrong which
+he must make good by his person. But there is not the same unanimity as
+to his promise to pay interest: on the contrary, the very exaction of
+interest will be regarded by many in the same light in which the English
+law considers usurious interest, as tainting the whole transaction. But
+in the modern mind, principal, and interest within a limited rate, have
+so grown together, that we hardly understand how it can ever have been
+pronounced unworthy of an honorable citizen to lend money on interest.
+Yet such is the declared opinion of Aristotle and other superior men of
+antiquity; while at Rome, Cato the censor went so far as to denounce the
+practice as a heinous crime. It was comprehended by them among the worst
+of the tricks of trade--and they held that all trade, or profit derived
+from interchange, was unnatural, as being made by one man at the expense
+of another; such pursuits therefore could not be commended, though they
+might be tolerated to a certain extent as a matter of necessity, but
+they belonged essentially to an inferior order of citizens. What is
+remarkable in Greece is, that the antipathy of a very early state of
+society against traders and money-lenders lasted longer among the
+philosophers than among the mass of the people--it harmonized more with
+the social _idéal_ of the former, than with the practical instincts of
+the latter.
+
+In a rude condition such as that of the ancient Germans described by
+Tacitus, loans on interest are unknown. Habitually careless of the
+future, the Germans were gratified both in giving and receiving
+presents, but without any idea that they thereby either imposed or
+contracted an obligation. To a people in this state of feeling, a loan
+on interest presents the repulsive idea of making profit out of the
+distress of the borrower. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that the
+first borrowers must have been for the most part men driven to this
+necessity by the pressure of want, and contracting debt as a desperate
+resource, without any fair prospect of ability to repay: debt and famine
+run together in the mind of the poet Hesiod. The borrower is, in this
+unhappy state, rather a distressed man soliciting aid than a solvent man
+capable of making and fulfilling a contract. If he cannot find a friend
+to make him a free gift in the former character, he will not, under the
+latter character, obtain a loan from a stranger, except by the promise
+of exorbitant interest, and by the fullest eventual power over his
+person which he is in a condition to grant. In process of time a new
+class of borrowers arise who demand money for temporary convenience or
+profit, but with full prospect of repayment--a relation of lender and
+borrower quite different from that of the earlier period, when it
+presented itself in the repulsive form of misery on the one side, set
+against the prospect of very large profit on the other. If the Germans
+of the time of Tacitus looked to the condition of the poor debtors in
+Gaul, reduced to servitude under a rich creditor, and swelling by
+hundreds the crowd of his attendants, they would not be disposed to
+regret their own ignorance of the practice of money-lending. How much
+the interest of money was then regarded as an undue profit extorted from
+distress is powerfully illustrated by the old Jewish law; the Jew being
+permitted to take interest from foreigners--whom the lawgiver did not
+think himself obliged to protect--but not from his own countrymen. The
+_Koran_ follows out this point of view consistently, and prohibits the
+taking of interest altogether. In most other nations laws have been made
+to limit the rate of interest, and at Rome especially the legal rate was
+successively lowered--though it seems, as might have been expected, that
+the restrictive ordinances were constantly eluded. All such restrictions
+have been intended for the protection of debtors; an effect which large
+experience proves them never to produce, unless it be called protection
+to render the obtaining of money on loan impracticable for the most
+distressed borrowers. But there was another effect which they _did_
+tend to produce--they softened down the primitive antipathy against the
+practice generally, and confined the odious name of usury to loans lent
+above the fixed legal rate.
+
+In this way alone could they operate beneficially, and their tendency to
+counterwork the previous feeling was at that time not unimportant,
+coinciding as it did with other tendencies arising out of the industrial
+progress of society, which gradually exhibited the relation of lender
+and borrower in a light more reciprocal, beneficial, and less repugnant
+to the sympathies of the bystander.
+
+At Athens the more favorable point of view prevailed throughout all the
+historical times. The march of industry and commerce, under the
+mitigated law which prevailed subsequently to Solon, had been sufficient
+to bring it about at a very early period and to suppress all public
+antipathy against lenders at interest. We may remark, too, that this
+more equitable tone of opinion grew up spontaneously, without any legal
+restriction on the rate of interest--no such restriction having ever
+been imposed and the rate being expressly declared free by a law
+ascribed to Solon himself. The same may probably be said of the
+communities of Greece generally--at least there is no information to
+make us suppose the contrary. But the feeling against lending money at
+interest remained in the bosoms of the philosophical men long after it
+had ceased to form a part of the practical morality of the citizens, and
+long after it had ceased to be justified by the appearances of the case
+as at first it really had been. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Plutarch,
+treat the practice as a branch of the commercial and money-getting
+spirit which they are anxious to discourage; and one consequence of this
+was that they were, less disposed to contend strenuously for the
+inviolability of existing money-contracts. The conservative feeling on
+this point was stronger among the mass than among the philosophers.
+Plato even complains of it as inconveniently preponderant, and as
+arresting the legislator in all comprehensive projects of reform. For
+the most part, indeed, schemes of cancelling debts and redividing lands
+were never thought of except by men of desperate and selfish ambition,
+who made them stepping-stones to despotic power. Such men were
+denounced alike by the practical sense of the community and by the
+speculative thinkers: but when we turn to the case of the Spartan king,
+Agis III, who proposed a complete extinction of debts and an equal
+redivision of the landed property of the state, not with any selfish or
+personal views, but upon pure ideas of patriotism, well or ill
+understood, and for the purpose of renovating the lost ascendancy of
+Sparta--we find Plutarch expressing the most unqualified admiration of
+this young king and his projects, and treating the opposition made to
+him as originating in no better feelings than meanness and cupidity. The
+philosophical thinkers on politics conceived--and to a great degree
+justly, as I shall show hereafter--that the conditions of security, in
+the ancient world, imposed upon the citizens generally the absolute
+necessity of keeping up a military spirit and willingness to brave at
+all times personal hardship and discomfort: so that increase of wealth,
+on account of the habits of self-indulgence which it commonly
+introduces, was regarded by them with more or less of disfavor. If in
+their estimation any Grecian community had become corrupt, they were
+willing to sanction great interference with preëxisting rights for the
+purpose of bringing it back nearer to their ideal standard. And the real
+security for the maintenance of these rights lay in the conservative
+feelings of the citizens generally, much more than in the opinions which
+superior minds imbibed from the philosophers.
+
+Such conservative feelings were in the subsequent Athenian democracy
+peculiarly deep-rooted. The mass of the Athenian people identified
+inseparably the maintenance of property in all its various shapes with
+that of their laws and constitution. And it is a remarkable fact, that
+though the admiration entertained at Athens for Solon was universal, the
+principle of his Seisachtheia and of his money-depreciation was not only
+never imitated, but found the strongest tacit reprobation; whereas at
+Rome, as well as in most of the kingdoms of modern Europe, we know that
+one debasement of the coin succeeded another. The temptation of thus
+partially eluding the pressure of financial embarrassments proved, after
+one successful trial, too strong to be resisted, and brought down the
+coin by successive depreciations from the full pound of twelve ounces to
+the standard of one half ounce. It is of some importance to take notice
+of this fact, when we reflect how much "Grecian faith" has been degraded
+by the Roman writers into a byword for duplicity in pecuniary dealings.
+The democracy of Athens--and indeed the cities of Greece generally, both
+oligarchies and democracies--stands far above the senate of Rome, and
+far above the modern kingdoms of France and England until comparatively
+recent times, in respect of honest dealing with the coinage. Moreover,
+while there occurred at Rome several political changes which brought
+about new tables, or at least a partial depreciation of contracts, no
+phenomenon of the same kind ever happened at Athens, during the three
+centuries between Solon and the end of the free working of the
+democracy, Doubtless there were fraudulent debtors at Athens; while the
+administration of private law, though not in any way conniving at their
+proceedings, was far too imperfect to repress them as effectually as
+might have been wished. But the public sentiment on the point was just
+and decided. It may be asserted with confidence that a loan of money at
+Athens was quite as secure as it ever was at any time or place of the
+ancient world--in spite of the great and important superiority of Rome
+with respect to the accumulation of a body of authoritative legal
+precedent, the source of what was ultimately shaped into the Roman
+jurisprudence. Among the various causes of sedition or mischief in the
+Grecian communities, we hear little of the pressure of private debt.
+
+By the measures of relief above described, Solon had accomplished
+results surpassing his own best hopes. He had healed the prevailing
+discontents; and such was the confidence and gratitude which he had
+inspired, that he was now called upon to draw up a constitution and laws
+for the better working of the government in future. His constitutional
+changes were great and valuable: respecting his laws, what we hear is
+rather curious than important.
+
+It has been already stated that, down to the time of Solon, the
+classification received in Attica was that of the four Ionic tribes,
+comprising in one scale the Phratries and Gentes, and in another scale
+the three Trittyes and forty-eight Naucraries--while the Eupatridæ,
+seemingly a few specially respected gentes, and perhaps a few
+distinguished families in all the gentes, had in their hands all the
+powers of government. Solon introduced a new principle of
+classification--called in Greek the "timocratic principle." He
+distributed all the citizens of the tribes, without any reference to
+their gentes or phratries, into four classes, according to the amount of
+their property, which he caused to be assessed and entered in a public
+schedule. Those whose annual income was equal to five hundred medimni of
+corn (about seven hundred imperial bushels) and upward--one medimnus
+being considered equivalent to one drachma in money--he placed in the
+highest class; those who received between three hundred and five hundred
+medimni or drachmas formed the second class; and those between two
+hundred and three hundred, the third. The fourth and most numerous class
+comprised all those who did not possess land yielding a produce equal to
+two hundred medimni. The first class, called Pentacosiomedimni, were
+alone eligible to the archonship and to all commands: the second were
+called the knights or horsemen of the state, as possessing enough to
+enable them to keep a horse and perform military service in that
+capacity: the third class, called the [Greek: Zeugitæ], formed the
+heavy-armed infantry, and were bound to serve, each with his full
+panoply. Each of these three classes was entered in the public schedule
+as possessed of a taxable capital calculated with a certain reference to
+his annual income, but in a proportion diminishing according to the
+scale of that income--and a man paid taxes to the state according to the
+sum for which he stood rated in the schedule; so that this direct
+taxation acted really like a graduated income-tax. The ratable property
+of the citizen belonging to the richest class (the Pentacosiomedimnus)
+was calculated and entered on the state schedule at a sum of capital
+equal to twelve times his annual income; that of the Hippeus, horseman
+or knight, at a sum equal to ten times his annual income: that of the
+Zeugite, at a sum equal to five times his annual income. Thus a
+Pentacosiomedimnus, whose income was exactly 500 drachmas (the minimum
+qualification of his class), stood rated in the schedule for a taxable
+property of 6,000 drachmas or one talent, being twelve times his
+income--if his annual income were 1,000 drachmas, he would stand rated
+for 12,000 drachmas or two talents, being the same proportion of income
+to ratable capital. But when we pass to the second class, horsemen or
+knights, the proportion of the two is changed. The horseman possessing
+an income of just 300 drachmas (or 300 medimni) would stand rated for
+3,000 drachmas, or ten times his real income, and so in the same
+proportion for any income above 300 and below 500. Again, in the third
+class, or below 300, the proportion is a second time altered--the
+Zeugite possessing exactly 200 drachmas of income was rated upon a still
+lower calculation, at 1,000 drachmas, or a sum equal to five times his
+income; and all incomes of this class (between 200 and 300 drachmas)
+would in like manner be multiplied by five in order to obtain the amount
+of ratable capital. Upon these respective sums of schedule capital all
+direct taxation was levied. If the state required 1 percent of direct
+tax, the poorest Pentacosiomedimnus would pay (upon 6,000 drachmas) 60
+drachmas; the poorest Hippeus would pay (upon 3,000 drachmas) 30; the
+poorest Zeugite would pay (upon 1,000 drachmas) 10 drachmas. And thus
+this mode of assessment would operate like a _graduated_ income-tax,
+looking at it in reference to the three different classes--but as an
+_equal_ income-tax, looking at it in reference to the different
+individuals comprised in one and the same class.
+
+All persons in the state whose annual income amounted to less than two
+hundred medimni or drachmas were placed in the fourth class, and they
+must have constituted the large majority of the community. They were not
+liable to any direct taxation, and perhaps were not at first even
+entered upon the taxable schedule, more especially as we do not know
+that any taxes were actually levied upon this schedule during the
+Solonian times. It is said that they were all called Thetes, but this
+appellation is not well sustained, and cannot be admitted: the fourth
+compartment in the descending scale was indeed termed the Thetic census,
+because it contained all the Thetes, and because most of its members
+were of that humble description; but it is not conceivable that a
+proprietor whose land yielded to him a clear annual return of 100, 120,
+140, or 180 drachmas, could ever have been designated by that name.
+
+Such were the divisions in the political scale established by Solon,
+called by Aristotle a _timocracy_, in which the rights, honors,
+functions, and liabilities of the citizens were measured out according
+to the assessed property of each. The highest honors of the state--that
+is, the places of the nine archons annually chosen, as well as those in
+the senate of Areopagus, into which the past archons always entered
+(perhaps also the posts of Prytanes of the Naukrari) were reserved for
+the first class: the poor Eupatrids became ineligible, while rich men,
+not Eupatrids, were admitted. Other posts of inferior distinction were
+filled by the second and third classes, who were, moreover, bound to
+military service--the one on horseback, the other as heavy-armed
+soldiers on foot. Moreover, the _liturgies_ of the state, as they were
+called--unpaid functions such as the trierarchy, choregy, gymnasiarchy,
+etc., which entailed expense and trouble on the holder of them--were
+distributed in some way or other between the members of the three
+classes, though we do not know how the distribution was made in these
+early times. On the other hand, the members of the fourth or lowest
+class were disqualified from holding any individual office of dignity.
+They performed no liturgies, served in case of war only as light-armed
+or with a panoply provided by the state, and paid nothing to the direct
+property-tax or Eisphora. It would be incorrect to say that they paid
+_no_ taxes, for indirect taxes, such as duties on imports, fell upon
+them in common with the rest; and we must recollect that these latter
+were, throughout a long period of Athenian history, in steady operation,
+while the direct taxes were only levied on rare occasions.
+
+But though this fourth class, constituting the great numerical majority
+of the free people, were shut out from individual office, their
+collective importance was in another way greatly increased. They were
+invested with the right of choosing the annual archons, out of the class
+of Pentacosiomedimni; and what was of more importance still, the archons
+and the magistrates generally, after their year of office, instead of
+being accountable to the senate of Areopagus, were made formally
+accountable to the public assembly sitting in judgment upon their past
+conduct. They might be impeached and called upon to defend themselves,
+punished in case of misbehavior, and debarred from the usual honor of a
+seat in the senate of Areopagus.
+
+Had the public assembly been called upon to act alone without aid or
+guidance, this accountability would have proved only nominal. But Solon
+converted it into a reality by another new institution, which will
+hereafter be found of great moment in the working out of the Athenian
+democracy. He created the pro-bouleutic, or pre-considering senate, with
+intimate and especial reference to the public assembly--to prepare
+matters for its discussion, to convoke and superintend its meetings, and
+to insure the execution of its decrees. The senate, as first constituted
+by Solon, comprised four hundred members, taken in equal proportions
+from the four tribes; not chosen by lot, as they will be found to be in
+the more advanced stage of the democracy, but elected by the people, in
+the same way as the archons then were--persons of the fourth, or poorest
+class of the census, though contributing to elect, not being themselves
+eligible.
+
+But while Solon thus created the new pre-considering senate, identified
+with and subsidiary to the popular assembly, he manifested no jealousy
+of the preëxisting Areopagitic senate. On the contrary, he enlarged its
+powers, gave to it an ample supervision over the execution of the laws
+generally, and imposed upon it the censorial duty of inspecting the
+lives and occupation of the citizens, as well as of punishing men of
+idle and dissolute habits. He was himself, as past archon, a member of
+this ancient senate, and he is said to have contemplated that by means
+of the two senates the state would be held fast, as it were with a
+double anchor, against all shocks and storms.
+
+Such are the only new political institutions (apart from the laws to be
+noticed presently) which there are grounds for ascribing to Solon, when
+we take proper care to discriminate what really belongs to Solon and his
+age from the Athenian constitution as afterward remodelled. It has been
+a practice common with many able expositors of Grecian affairs, and
+followed partly even by Dr. Thirlwall, to connect the name of Solon with
+the whole political and judicial state of Athens as it stood between the
+age of Pericles and that of Demosthenes--the regulations of the senate
+of five hundred, the numerous public dicasts or jurors taken by lot from
+the people--as well as the body annually selected for law-revision, and
+called _nomothets_--and the open prosecution (called the _graphe
+paranomon_) to be instituted against the proposer of any measure
+illegal, unconstitutional, or dangerous. There is indeed some
+countenance for this confusion between Solonian and post-Solonian
+Athens, in the usage of the orators themselves. For Demosthenes and
+Æschines employ the name of Solon in a very loose manner, and treat him
+as the author of institutions belonging evidently to a later age--for
+example: the striking and characteristic oath of the Heliastic jurors,
+which Demosthenes ascribes to Solon, proclaims itself in many ways as
+belonging to the age after Clisthenes, especially by the mention of the
+senate of five hundred, and not of four hundred. Among the citizens who
+served as jurors or dicasts, Solon was venerated generally as the author
+of the Athenian laws. An orator, therefore, might well employ his name
+for the purpose of emphasis, without provoking any critical inquiry
+whether the particular institution, which he happened to be then
+impressing upon his audience, belonged really to Solon himself or to the
+subsequent periods. Many of those institutions, which Dr. Thirlwall
+mentions in conjunction with the name of Solon, are among the last
+refinements and elaborations of the democratical mind of
+Athens--gradually prepared, doubtless, during the interval between
+Clisthenes and Pericles, but not brought into full operation until the
+period of the latter (B.C. 460-429). For it is hardly possible to
+conceive these numerous dicasteries and assemblies in regular, frequent,
+and long-standing operation, without an assured payment to the dicasts
+who composed them. Now such payment first began to be made about the
+time of Pericles, if not by his actual proposition; and Demosthenes had
+good reason for contending that if it were suspended, the judicial as
+well as the administrative system of Athens would at once fall to
+pieces. It would be a marvel, such as nothing short of strong direct
+evidence would justify us in believing, that in an age when even partial
+democracy was yet untried, Solon should conceive the idea of such
+institutions; it would be a marvel still greater, that the
+half-emancipated Thetes and small proprietors, for whom he
+legislated--yet trembling under the rod of the Eupatrid archons, and
+utterly inexperienced in collective business--should have been found
+suddenly competent to fulfil these ascendant functions, such as the
+citizens of conquering Athens in the days of Pericles, full of the
+sentiment of force and actively identifying themselves with the dignity
+of their community, became gradually competent, and not more than
+competent, to exercise with effect. To suppose that Solon contemplated
+and provided for the periodical revision of his laws by establishing a
+nomothetic jury or dicastery, such as that which we find in operation
+during the time of Demosthenes, would be at variance (in my judgment)
+with any reasonable estimate either of the man or of the age. Herodotus
+says that Solon, having exacted from the Athenians solemn oaths that
+_they_ would not rescind any of his laws for ten years, quitted Athens
+for that period, in order that he might not be compelled to rescind them
+himself. Plutarch informs us that he gave to his laws force for a
+century. Solon himself, and Draco before him, had been lawgivers evoked
+and empowered by the special emergency of the times: the idea of a
+frequent revision of laws, by a body of lot-selected dicasts, belongs to
+a far more advanced age, and could not well have been present to the
+minds of either. The wooden rollers of Solon, like the tables of the
+Roman decemvìrs, were doubtless intended as a permanent "_fons omnis
+publici privatique juris_".
+
+If we examine the facts of the case, we shall see that nothing more than
+the bare foundation of the democracy of Athens as it stood in the time
+of Pericles can reasonably be ascribed to Solon. "I gave to the people
+(Solon says in one of his short remaining fragments) as much strength as
+sufficed for their needs, without either enlarging or diminishing their
+dignity: for those too, who possessed power and were noted for wealth, I
+took care that no unworthy treatment should be reserved. I stood with
+the strong shield cast over both parties so as not to allow an unjust
+triumph to either." Again, Aristotle tells us that Solon bestowed upon
+the people as much power as was indispensable, but no more: the power to
+elect their magistrates and hold them to accountability: if the people
+had had less than this, they could not have been expected to remain
+tranquil--they would have been in slavery and hostile to the
+constitution. Not less distinctly does Herodotus speak, when he
+describes the revolution subsequently operated by Clisthenes--the
+latter (he tells us) found "the Athenian people excluded from
+everything." These passages seem positively to contradict the
+supposition, in itself sufficiently improbable, that Solon is the author
+of the peculiar democratical institutions of Athens, such as the
+constant and numerous dicasts for judicial trials and revision of laws.
+The genuine and forward democratical movement of Athens begins only with
+Clisthenes, from the moment when that distinguished Alcmæonid, either
+spontaneously, or from finding himself worsted in his party strife with
+Isagoras, purchased by large popular concessions the hearty coöperation
+of the multitude under very dangerous circumstances. While Solon, in his
+own statement as well as in that of Aristotle, gave to the people as
+much power as was strictly needful--but no more--Clisthenes (to use the
+significant phrase of Herodotus), "being vanquished in the party contest
+with his rival, _took the people into partnership_." It was, thus, to
+the interests of the weaker section, in a strife of contending nobles,
+that the Athenian people owed their first admission to political
+ascendancy--in part, at least, to this cause, though the proceedings of
+Clisthenes indicate a hearty and spontaneous popular sentiment. But such
+constitutional admission of the people would not have been so
+astonishingly fruitful in positive results, if the course of public
+events for the half century after Clisthenes had not been such as to
+stimulate most powerfully their energy, their self-reliance, their
+mutual sympathies, and their ambition. I shall recount in a future
+chapter these historical causes, which, acting upon the Athenian
+character, gave such efficiency and expansion to the great democratical
+impulse communicated by Clisthenes: at present it is enough to remark
+that that impulse commences properly with Clisthenes, and not with
+Solon.
+
+But the Solonian constitution, though only the foundation, was yet the
+indispensable foundation, of the subsequent democracy. And if the
+discontents of the miserable Athenian population, instead of
+experiencing his disinterested and healing management, had fallen at
+once into the hands of selfish power-seekers like Cylon or
+Pisistratus--the memorable expansion of the Athenian mind during the
+ensuing century would never have taken place, and the whole subsequent
+history of Greece would probably have taken a different course. Solon
+left the essential powers of the state still in the hands of the
+oligarchy. The party combats between Pisistratus, Lycurgus, and
+Megacles, thirty years after his legislation, which ended in the
+despotism of Pisistratus, will appear to be of the same purely
+oligarchical character as they had been before Solon was appointed
+archon. But the oligarchy which he established was very different from
+the unmitigated oligarchy which he found, so teeming with oppression and
+so destitute of redress, as his own poems testify.
+
+It was he who first gave both to the citizens of middling property and
+to the general mass a _locus standi_ against the Eupatrids. He enabled
+the people partially to protect themselves, and familiarized them with
+the idea of protecting themselves, by the peaceful exercise of a
+constitutional franchise. The new force, through which this protection
+was carried into effect, was the public assembly called _Heliæa_,
+regularized and armed with enlarged prerogatives and further
+strengthened by its indispensable ally--the pro-bouleutic, or
+pre-considering, senate. Under the Solonian constitution, this force was
+merely secondary and defensive, but after the renovation of Clisthenes
+it became paramount and sovereign. It branched out gradually into those
+numerous popular dicasteries which so powerfully modified both public
+and private Athenian life, drew to itself the undivided reverence and
+submission of the people, and by degrees rendered the single
+magistracies essentially subordinate functions. The popular assembly, as
+constituted by Solon, appearing in modified efficiency and trained to
+the office of reviewing and judging the general conduct of a past
+magistrate--forms the intermediate stage between the passive Homeric
+agora and those omnipotent assemblies and dicasteries which listened to
+Pericles or Demosthenes. Compared with these last, it has in it but a
+faint streak of democracy--and so it naturally appeared to Aristotle,
+who wrote with a practical experience of Athens in the time of the
+orators; but compared with the first, or with the ante-Solonian
+constitution of Attica, it must doubtless have appeared a concession
+eminently democratical. To impose upon the Eupatrid archon the necessity
+of being elected, or put upon his trial of after-accountability, by the
+_rabble_ of freemen (such would be the phrase in Eupatrid society),
+would be a bitter humiliation to those among whom it was first
+introduced; for we must recollect that this was the most extensive
+scheme of constitutional reform yet propounded in Greece, and that
+despots and oligarchies shared between them at that time the whole
+Grecian world. As it appears that Solon, while constituting the popular
+assembly with its pro-bouleutic senate, had no jealousy of the senate of
+Areopagus, and indeed, even enlarged its powers, we may infer that his
+grand object was, not to weaken the oligarchy generally, but to improve
+the administration and to repress the misconduct and irregularities of
+the individual archons; and that, too, not by diminishing their powers,
+but by making some degree of popularity the condition both of their
+entry into office, and of their safety or honor after it.
+
+It is, in my judgment, a mistake to suppose that Solon transferred the
+judicial power of the archons to a popular dicastery. These magistrates
+still continued self-acting judges, deciding and condemning without
+appeal--not mere presidents of an assembled jury, as they afterward came
+to be during the next century. For the general exercise of such power
+they were accountable after their year of office. Such accountability
+was the security against abuse--a very insufficient security, yet not
+wholly inoperative. It will be seen, however, presently that these
+archons, though strong to coerce, and perhaps to oppress, small and poor
+men, had no means of keeping down rebellious nobles of their own rank,
+such as Pisistratus, Lycurgus, and Megacles, each with his armed
+followers. When we compare the drawn swords of these ambitious
+competitors, ending in the despotism of one of them, with the vehement
+parliamentary strife between Themistocles and Aristides afterward,
+peaceably decided by the vote of the sovereign people and never
+disturbing the public tranquillity--we shall see that the democracy of
+the ensuing century fulfilled the conditions of order, as well as of
+progress, better than the Solonian constitution.
+
+To distinguish this Solonian constitution from the democracy which
+followed it, is essential to a due comprehension of the progress of the
+Greek mind, and especially of Athenian affairs. That democracy was
+achieved by gradual steps. Demosthenes and Æschines lived under it as a
+system consummated and in full activity, when the stages of its
+previous growth were no longer matter of exact memory; and the dicasts
+then assembled in judgment were pleased to hear their constitution
+associated with the names either of Solon or of Theseus. Their
+inquisitive contemporary Aristotle was not thus misled: but even
+commonplace Athenians of the century preceding would have escaped the
+same delusion. For during the whole course of the democratical movement,
+from the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war, and especially
+during the changes proposed by Pericles and Ephialtes, there was always
+a strenuous party of resistance, who would not suffer the people to
+forget that they had already forsaken, and were on the point of
+forsaking still more, the orbit marked out by Solon. The illustrious
+Pericles underwent innumerable attacks both from the orators in the
+assembly and from the comic writers in the theatre. And among these
+sarcasms on the political tendencies of the day we are probably to
+number the complaint, breathed by the poet Cratinus, of the desuetude
+into which both Solon and Draco had fallen--"I swear (said he in a
+fragment of one of his comedies) by Solon and Draco, whose wooden
+tablets (of laws) are now employed by people to roast their barley." The
+laws of Solon respecting penal offences, respecting inheritance and
+adoption, respecting the private relations generally, etc., remained for
+the most part in force: his quadripartite census also continued, at
+least for financial purposes, until the archonship of Nausinicus in B.C.
+377--so that Cicero and others might be warranted in affirming that his
+laws still prevailed at Athens: but his political and judicial
+arrangements had undergone a revolution not less complete and memorable
+than the character and spirit of the Athenian people generally. The
+choice, by way of lot, of archons and other magistrates--and the
+distribution by lot of the general body of dicasts or jurors into panels
+for judicial business--may be decidedly considered as not belonging to
+Solon, but adopted after the revolution of Clisthenes; probably the
+choice of senators by lot also. The lot was a symptom of pronounced
+democratical spirit, such as we must not seek in the Solonian
+institutions.
+
+It is not easy to make out distinctly what was the political position of
+the ancient gentes and phratries, as Solon left them. The four tribes
+consisted altogether of gentes and phratries, insomuch that no one could
+be included in any one of the tribes who was not also a member of some
+gens and phratry. Now the new pro-bouleutic, or pre-considering, senate
+consisted of four hundred members,--one hundred from each of the tribes:
+persons not included in any gens or phratry could therefore have had no
+access to it. The conditions of eligibility were similar, according to
+ancient custom, for the nine archons--of course, also, for the senate of
+Areopagus. So that there remained only the public assembly, in which an
+Athenian not a member of these tribes could take part: yet he was a
+citizen, since he could give his vote for archons and senators, and
+could take part in the annual decision of their accountability, besides
+being entitled to claim redress for wrong from the archons in his own
+person--while the alien could only do so through the intervention of an
+avouching citizen or Prostates. It seems, therefore, that all persons
+not included in the four tribes, whatever their grade of fortune might
+be, were on the same level in respect to political privilege as the
+fourth and poorest class of the Solonian census. It has already been
+remarked, that even before the time of Solon the number of Athenians not
+included in the gentes or phratries was probably considerable: it tended
+to become greater and greater, since these bodies were close and
+unexpansive, while the policy of the new lawgiver tended to invite
+industrious settlers from other parts of Greece and Athens. Such great
+and increasing inequality of political privilege helps to explain the
+weakness of the government in repelling the aggressions of Pisistratus,
+and exhibits the importance of the revolution afterward wrought by
+Clisthenes, when he abolished (for all political purposes) the four old
+tribes, and created ten new comprehensive tribes in place of them.
+
+In regard to the regulations of the senate and the assembly of the
+people, as constituted by Solon, we are altogether without information:
+nor is it safe to transfer to the Solonian constitution the information,
+comparatively ample, which we possess respecting these bodies under the
+later democracy.
+
+The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden rollers and triangular
+tablets, in the species of writing called _Boustrophedon_ (lines
+alternating first from left to right, and next from right to left, like
+the course of the ploughman)--and preserved first in the Acropolis,
+subsequently in the Prytaneum. On the tablets, called _Cyrbis_, were
+chiefly commemorated the laws respecting sacred rites and sacrifices; on
+the pillars or rollers, of which there were at least sixteen, were
+placed the regulations respecting matters profane. So small are the
+fragments which have come down to us, and so much has been ascribed to
+Solon by the orators which belongs really to the subsequent times, that
+it is hardly possible to form any critical judgment respecting the
+legislation as a whole, or to discover by what general principles or
+purposes he was guided.
+
+He left unchanged all the previous laws and practices respecting the
+crime of homicide, connected as they were intimately with the religious
+feelings of the people. The laws of Draco on this subject, therefore,
+remained, but on other subjects, according to Plutarch, they were
+altogether abrogated: there is, however, room for supposing that the
+repeal cannot have been so sweeping as this biographer represents.
+
+The Solonian laws seem to have borne more or less upon all the great
+departments of human interest and duty. We find regulations political
+and religious, public and private, civil and criminal, commercial,
+agricultural, sumptuary, and disciplinarian. Solon provides punishment
+for crimes, restricts the profession and status of the citizen,
+prescribes detailed rules for marriage as well as for burial, for the
+common use of springs and wells, and for the mutual interest of
+conterminous farmers in planting or hedging their properties. As far as
+we can judge from the imperfect manner in which his laws come before us,
+there does not seem to have been any attempt at a systematic order or
+classification. Some of them are mere general and vague directions,
+while others again run into the extreme of specialty.
+
+By far the most important of all was the amendment of the law of debtor
+and creditor which has already been adverted to, and the abolition of
+the power of fathers and brothers to sell their daughters and sisters
+into slavery. The prohibition of all contracts on the security of the
+body was itself sufficient to produce a vast improvement in the
+character and condition of the poorer population,--a result which seems
+to have been so sensibly obtained from the legislation of Solon, that
+Boeckh and some other eminent authors suppose him to have abolished
+villeinage and conferred upon the poor tenants a property in their
+lands, annulling the seigniorial rights of the landlord. But this
+opinion rests upon no positive evidence, nor are we warranted in
+ascribing to him any stronger measure in reference to the land than the
+annulment of the previous mortgages.
+
+The first pillar of his laws contained a regulation respecting
+exportable produce. He forbade the exportation of all produce of the
+Attic soil, except olive oil alone. And the sanction employed to enforce
+observance of this law deserves notice, as an illustration of the ideas
+of the time: the archon was bound, on pain of forfeiting one hundred
+drachmas, to pronounce solemn curses against every offender. We are
+probably to take this prohibition in conjunction with other objects said
+to have been contemplated by Solon, especially the encouragement of
+artisans and manufacturers at Athens. Observing (we are told) that many
+new immigrants were just then flocking into Attica to seek an
+establishment, in consequence of its greater security, he was anxious to
+turn them rather to manufacturing industry than to the cultivation of a
+soil naturally poor. He forbade the granting of citizenship to any
+immigrants, except to such as had quitted irrevocably their former
+abodes and come to Athens for the purpose of carrying on some industrial
+profession; and in order to prevent idleness, he directed the senate of
+Areopagus to keep watch over the lives of the citizens generally, and
+punish every one who had no course of regular labor to support him. If a
+father had not taught his son some art or profession, Solon relieved the
+son from all obligation to maintain him in his old age. And it was to
+encourage the multiplication of these artisans that he insured, or
+sought to insure, to the residents in Attica, the exclusive right of
+buying and consuming all its landed produce except olive oil, which was
+raised in abundance, more than sufficient for their wants. It was his
+wish that the trade with foreigners should be carried on by exporting
+the produce of artisan labor, instead of the produce of land.
+
+This commercial prohibition is founded on principles substantially
+similar to those which were acted upon in the early history of England,
+with reference both to corn and to wool, and in other European
+countries also. In so far as it was at all operative it tended to lessen
+the total quantity of produce raised upon the soil of Attica, and thus
+to keep the price of it from rising. But the law of Solon must have been
+altogether inoperative, in reference to the great articles of human
+subsistence; for Attica imported, both largely and constantly, grain and
+salt provisions, probably also wool and flax for the spinning and
+weaving of the women, and certainly timber for building. Whether the law
+was ever enforced with reference to figs and honey may well be doubted;
+at least these productions of Attica were in after times trafficked in,
+and generally consumed throughout Greece. Probably also in the time of
+Solon the silver mines of Laurium had hardly begun to be worked: these
+afterward became highly productive, and furnished to Athens a commodity
+for foreign payments no less convenient than lucrative.
+
+It is interesting to notice the anxiety, both of Solon and of Draco, to
+enforce among their fellow-citizens industrious and self-maintaining
+habits; and we shall find the same sentiment proclaimed by Pericles, at
+the time when Athenian power was at its maximum. Nor ought we to pass
+over this early manifestation in Attica of an opinion equitable and
+tolerant toward sedentary industry, which in most other parts of Greece
+was regarded as comparatively dishonorable. The general tone of Grecian
+sentiment recognized no occupations as perfectly worthy of a free
+citizen except arms, agriculture, and athletic and musical exercises;
+and the proceedings of the Spartans, who kept aloof even from
+agriculture and left it to their helots, were admired, though they could
+not be copied, throughout most of the Hellenic world. Even minds like
+Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon concurred to a considerable extent in
+this feeling, which they justified on the ground that the sedentary life
+and unceasing house-work of the artisan were inconsistent with military
+aptitude. The town-occupations are usually described by a word which
+carries with it contemptuous ideas, and though recognized as
+indispensable to the existence of the city, are held suitable only for
+an inferior and semi-privileged order of citizens. This, the received
+sentiment among Greeks, as well as foreigners, found a strong and
+growing opposition at Athens, as I have already said--corroborated also
+by a similar feeling at Corinth. The trade of Corinth, as well as of
+Chalcis in Euboea, was extensive, at a time when that of Athens had
+scarce any existence. But while the despotism of Periander can hardly
+have failed to operate as a discouragement to industry at Corinth, the
+contemporaneous legislation of Solon provided for traders and artisans a
+new home at Athens, giving the first encouragement to that numerous
+town-population both in the city and in the Piræus, which we find
+actually residing there in the succeeding century. The multiplication of
+such town residents, both citizens and _metics_ (_i.e.,_ resident persons,
+not citizens, but enjoying an assured position and civil rights), was a
+capital fact in the onward march of Athens, since it determined not
+merely the extension of her trade, but also the preëminence of her naval
+forces--and thus, as a further consequence, lent extraordinary vigor to
+her democratical government. It seems, moreover, to have been a
+departure from the primitive temper of Atticism, which tended both to
+cantonal residence and rural occupation. We have, therefore, the greater
+interest in noting the first mention of it as a consequence of the
+Solonian legislation.
+
+To Solon is first owing the admission of a power of testamentary bequest
+at Athens in all cases in which a man had no legitimate children.
+According to the preëxisting custom, we may rather presume that if a
+deceased person left neither children nor blood relations, his property
+descended (as at Rome) to his gens and phratry. Throughout most rude
+states of society the power of willing is unknown, as among the ancient
+Germans--among the Romans prior to the twelve tables--in the old laws of
+the Hindus, etc. Society limits a man's interest or power of enjoyment
+to his life, and considers his relatives as having joint reversionary
+claims to his property, which take effect, in certain determinate
+proportions, after his death. Such a law was the more likely to prevail
+at Athens, since the perpetuity of the family sacred rites, in which the
+children and near relatives partook of right, was considered by the
+Athenians as a matter of public as well as of private concern. Solon
+gave permission to every man dying without children to bequeath his
+property by will as he should think fit; and the testament was
+maintained unless it could be shown to have been procured by some
+compulsion or improper seduction. Speaking generally, this continued to
+be the law throughout the historical times of Athens. Sons, wherever
+there were sons, succeeded to the property of their father in equal
+shares, with the obligation of giving out their sisters in marriage
+along with a certain dowry. If there were no sons, then the daughters
+succeeded, though the father might by will, within certain limits,
+determine the person to whom they should be married, with their rights
+of succession attached to them; or might, with the consent of his
+daughters, make by will certain other arrangements about his property. A
+person who had no children or direct lineal descendants might bequeath
+his property at pleasure: if he died without a will, first his father,
+then his brother or brother's children, next his sister or sister's
+children succeeded: if none such existed, then the cousins by the
+father's side, next the cousins by the mother's side,--the male line of
+descent having preference over the female.
+
+Such was the principle of the Solonian laws of succession, though the
+particulars are in several ways obscure and doubtful. Solon, it appears,
+was the first who gave power of superseding by testament the rights of
+agnates and gentiles to succession,--a proceeding in consonance with his
+plan of encouraging both industrious occupation and the consequent
+multiplication of individual acquisitions.
+
+It has been already mentioned that Solon forbade the sale of daughters
+or sisters into slavery by fathers or brothers; a prohibition which
+shows how much females had before been looked upon as articles of
+property. And it would seem that before his time the violation of a free
+woman must have been punished at the discretion of the magistrates; for
+we are told that he was the first who enacted a penalty of one hundred
+drachmas against the offender, and twenty drachmas against the seducer
+of a free woman. Moreover, it is said that he forbade a bride when given
+in marriage to carry with her any personal ornaments and appurtenances,
+except to the extent of three robes and certain matters of furniture not
+very valuable. Solon further imposed upon women several restraints in
+regard to proceeding at the obsequies of deceased relatives. He forbade
+profuse demonstrations of sorrow, singing of composed dirges, and
+costly sacrifices and contributions. He limited strictly the quantity of
+meat and drink admissible for the funeral banquet, and prohibited
+nocturnal exit, except in a car and with a light. It appears that both
+in Greece and Rome, the feelings of duty and affection on the part of
+surviving relatives prompted them to ruinous expense in a funeral, as
+well as to unmeasured effusions both of grief and conviviality; and the
+general necessity experienced for legal restriction is attested by the
+remark of Plutarch, that similar prohibitions to those enacted by Solon
+were likewise in force at his native town of Chæronea.
+
+Other penal enactments of Solon are yet to be mentioned. He forbade
+absolutely evil speaking with respect to the dead. He forbade it
+likewise with respect to the living, either in a temple or before judges
+or archons, or at any public festival--on pain of a forfeit of three
+drachmas to the person aggrieved, and two more to the public treasury.
+How mild the general character of his punishments was, may be judged by
+this law against foul language, not less than by the law before
+mentioned against rape. Both the one and the other of these offences
+were much more severely dealt with under the subsequent law of
+democratical Athens. The peremptory edict against speaking ill of a
+deceased person, though doubtless springing in a great degree from
+disinterested repugnance, is traceable also in part to that fear of the
+wrath of the departed which strongly possessed the early Greek mind.
+
+It seems generally that Solon determined by law the outlay for the
+public sacrifices, though we do not know what were his particular
+directions. We are told that he reckoned a sheep and a medimnus (of
+wheat or barley?) as equivalent, either of them, to a drachma, and that
+he also prescribed the prices to be paid for first-rate oxen intended
+for solemn occasions. But it astonishes us to see the large recompense
+which he awarded out of the public treasury to a victor at the Olympic
+or Isthmian games: to the former, five hundred drachmas, equal to one
+year's income of the highest of the four classes on the census; to the
+latter one hundred drachmas. The magnitude of these rewards strikes us
+the more when we compare them with the fines on rape and evil speaking.
+We cannot be surprised that the philosopher Xenophanes noticed, with
+some degree of severity, the extravagant estimate of this species of
+excellence, current among the Grecian cities. At the same time, we must
+remember both that these Pan-Hellenic games presented the chief visible
+evidence of peace and sympathy among the numerous communities of Greece,
+and that in the time of Solon, factitious reward was still needful to
+encourage them. In respect to land and agriculture Solon proclaimed a
+public reward of five drachmas for every wolf brought in, and one
+drachma for every wolf's cub; the extent of wild land has at all times
+been considerable in Attica. He also provided rules respecting the use
+of wells between neighbors, and respecting the planting in conterminous
+olive grounds. Whether any of these regulations continued in operation
+during the better-known period of Athenian history cannot be safely
+affirmed.
+
+In respect to theft, we find it stated that Solon repealed the
+punishment of death which Draco had annexed to that crime, and enacted,
+as a penalty, compensation to an amount double the value of the property
+stolen. The simplicity of this law perhaps affords ground for presuming
+that it really does belong to Solon. But the law which prevailed during
+the time of the orators respecting theft must have been introduced at
+some later period, since it enters into distinctions and mentions both
+places and forms of procedure, which we cannot reasonably refer to the
+forty-sixth Olympiad. The public dinners at the Prytaneum, of which the
+archons and a select few partook in common, were also either first
+established, or perhaps only more strictly regulated, by Solon. He
+ordered barley cakes for their ordinary meals, and wheaten loaves for
+festival days, prescribing how often each person should dine at the
+table. The honor of dining at the table of the Prytaneum was maintained
+throughout as a valuable reward at the disposal of the government.
+
+Among the various laws of Solon, there are few which have attracted more
+notice than that which pronounces the man who in a sedition stood aloof,
+and took part with neither side, to be dishonored and disfranchised.
+Strictly speaking, this seems more in the nature of an emphatic moral
+denunciation, or a religious curse, than a legal sanction capable of
+being formally applied in an individual case and after judicial
+trial,--though the sentence of _atimy_, under the more elaborated Attic
+procedure, was both definite in its penal consequences and also
+judicially delivered. We may, however, follow the course of ideas under
+which Solon was induced to write this sentence on his tables, and we may
+trace the influence of similar ideas in later Attic institutions. It is
+obvious that his denunciation is confined to that special case in which
+a sedition has already broken out: we must suppose that Cylon has seized
+the Acropolis, or that Pisistratus, Megacles, and Lycurgus are in arms
+at the head of their partisans. Assuming these leaders to be wealthy and
+powerful men, which would in all probability be the fact, the
+constituted authority--such as Solon saw before him in Attica, even
+after his own organic amendments--was not strong enough to maintain the
+peace; it became, in fact, itself one of the contending parties. Under
+such given circumstances, the sooner every citizen publicly declared his
+adherence to some of them, the earlier this suspension of legal
+authority was likely to terminate. Nothing was so mischievous as the
+indifference of the mass, or their disposition to let the combatants
+fight out the matter among themselves, and then to submit to the victor.
+Nothing was more likely to encourage aggression on the part of an
+ambitious malcontent, than the conviction that if he could once
+overpower the small amount of physical force which surrounded the
+archons, and exhibit himself in armed possession of the Prytaneum or the
+Acropolis, he might immediately count upon passive submission on the
+part of all the freemen without. Under the state of feeling which Solon
+inculcates, the insurgent leader would have to calculate that every man
+who was not actively in his favor would be actively against him, and
+this would render his enterprise much more dangerous. Indeed, he could
+then never hope to succeed, except on the double supposition of
+extraordinary popularity in his own person and widespread detestation of
+the existing government. He would thus be placed under the influence of
+powerful deterring motives; so that ambition would be less likely to
+seduce him into a course which threatened nothing but ruin, unless under
+such encouragements from the preëxisting public opinion as to make his
+success a result desirable for the community. Among the small political
+societies of Greece--especially in the age of Solon, when the number of
+despots in other parts of Greece seems to have been at its
+maximum--every government, whatever might be its form, was sufficiently
+weak to make its overthrow a matter of comparative facility. Unless upon
+the supposition of a band of foreign mercenaries--which would render the
+government a system of naked force, and which the Athenian lawgiver
+would of course never contemplate--there was no other stay for it except
+a positive and pronounced feeling of attachment on the part of the mass
+of citizens. Indifference on their part would render them a prey to
+every daring man of wealth who chose to become a conspirator. That they
+should be ready to come forward, not only with voice but with arms--and
+that they should be known beforehand to be so--was essential to the
+maintenance of every good Grecian government. It was salutary in
+preventing mere personal attempts at revolution; and pacific in its
+tendency, even where the revolution had actually broken out, because in
+the greater number of cases the proportion of partisans would probably
+be very unequal, and the inferior party would be compelled to renounce
+their hopes.
+
+It will be observed that, in this enactment of Solon, the existing
+government is ranked merely as one of the contending parties. The
+virtuous citizen is enjoined, not to come forward in its support, but to
+come forward at all events, either for it or against it. Positive and
+early action is all which is prescribed to him as matter of duty. In the
+age of Solon there was no political idea or system yet current which
+could be assumed as an unquestionable datum--no conspicuous standard to
+which the citizens could be pledged under all circumstances to attach
+themselves. The option lay only between a mitigated oligarchy in
+possession, and a despot in possibility; a contest wherein the
+affections of the people could rarely be counted upon in favor of the
+established government. But this neutrality in respect to the
+constitution was at an end after the revolution of Clisthenes, when the
+idea of the sovereign people and the democratical institutions became
+both familiar and precious to every individual citizen. We shall
+hereafter find the Athenians binding themselves by the most sincere and
+solemn oaths to uphold their democracy against all attempts to subvert
+it; we shall discover in them a sentiment not less positive and
+uncompromising in its direction, than energetic in its inspirations. But
+while we notice this very important change in their character, we shall
+at the same time perceive that the wise precautionary recommendation of
+Solon, to obviate sedition by an early declaration of the impartial
+public between two contending leaders, was not lost upon them. Such, in
+point of fact, was the purpose of that salutary and protective
+institution which is called the _Ostracism_. When two party leaders, in
+the early stages of the Athenian democracy, each powerful in adherents
+and influence, had become passionately embarked in bitter and prolonged
+opposition to each other, such opposition was likely to conduct one or
+other to violent measures. Over and above the hopes of party triumph,
+each might well fear that, if he himself continued within the bounds of
+legality, he might fall a victim to aggressive proceedings on the part
+of his antagonists. To ward off this formidable danger, a public vote
+was called for, to determine which of the two should go into temporary
+banishment, retaining his property and unvisited by any disgrace. A
+number of citizens, not less than six thousand, voting secretly, and
+therefore independently, were required to take part, pronouncing upon
+one or other of these eminent rivals a sentence of exile for ten years.
+The one who remained became, of course, more powerful, yet less in a
+situation to be driven into anti-constitutional courses than he was
+before. Tragedy and comedy were now beginning to be grafted on the lyric
+and choric song. First, one actor was provided to relieve the chorus;
+next, two actors were introduced to sustain fictitious characters and
+carry on a dialogue in such manner that the songs of the chorus and the
+interlocution of the actors formed a continuous piece. Solon, after
+having heard Thespis acting (as all the early composers did, both tragic
+and comic) in his own comedy, asked him afterward if he was not ashamed
+to pronounce such falsehoods before so large an audience. And when
+Thespis answered that there was no harm in saying and doing such things
+merely for amusement, Solon indignantly exclaimed, striking the ground
+with his stick, "If once we come to praise and esteem such amusement as
+this, we shall quickly find the effects of it in our daily
+transactions." For the authenticity of this anecdote it would be rash to
+vouch, but we may at least treat it as the protest of some early
+philosopher against the deceptions of the drama: and it is interesting
+as marking the incipient struggles of that literature in which Athens
+afterward attained such unrivaled excellence.
+
+It would appear that all the laws of Solon were proclaimed, inscribed,
+and accepted without either discussion or resistance. He is said to have
+described them, not as the best laws which he could himself have
+imagined, but as the best which he could have induced the people to
+accept. He gave them validity for the space of ten years, during which
+period both the senate collectively and the archons individually swore
+to observe them with fidelity; under penalty, in case of non-observance,
+of a golden statue as large as life to be erected at Delphi. But though
+the acceptance of the laws was accomplished without difficulty, it was
+not found so easy either for the people to understand and obey, or for
+the framer to explain them. Every day persons came to Solon either with
+praise, or criticism, or suggestions of various improvements, or
+questions as to the construction of particular enactments; until at last
+he became tired of this endless process of reply and vindication, which
+was seldom successful either in removing obscurity or in satisfying
+complainants. Foreseeing that if he remained he would be compelled to
+make changes, he obtained leave of absence from his countrymen for ten
+years, trusting that before the expiration of that period they would
+have become accustomed to his laws. He quitted his native city in the
+full certainty that his laws would remain unrepealed until his return;
+for (says Herodotus) "the Athenians _could not_ repeal them, since they
+were bound by solemn oaths to observe them for ten years." The
+unqualified manner in which the historian here speaks of an oath, as if
+it created a sort of physical necessity and shut out all possibility of
+a contrary result, deserves notice as illustrating Grecian sentiment.
+
+On departing from Athens, Solon first visited Egypt, where he
+communicated largely with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais,
+Egyptian priests who had much to tell respecting their ancient history,
+and from whom he learned matters, real or pretended, far transcending in
+alleged antiquity the oldest Grecian genealogies--especially the history
+of the vast submerged island of Atlantis, and the war which the
+ancestors of the Athenians had successfully carried on against it, nine
+thousand years before. Solon is said to have commenced an epic poem upon
+this subject, but he did not live to finish it, and nothing of it now
+remains. From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he visited the small town
+of Æpia, said to have been originally founded by Demophon, son of
+Theseus, and ruled at this period by the prince Philocyprus--each town
+in Cyprus having its own petty prince. It was situated near the river
+Clarius in a position precipitous and secure, but inconvenient and
+ill-supplied, Solon persuaded Philocyprus to quit the old site and
+establish a new town down in the fertile plain beneath. He himself
+stayed and became _æcist_ of the new establishment, making all the
+regulations requisite for its safe and prosperous march, which was
+indeed so decisively manifested that many new settlers flocked into the
+new plantation, called by Philocyprus _Soli_, in honor of Solon. To our
+deep regret, we are not permitted to know what these regulations were;
+but the general fact is attested by the poems of Solon himself, and the
+lines in which he bade farewell to Philocyprus on quitting the island
+are yet before us. On the dispositions of this prince his poem bestowed
+unqualified commendation.
+
+Besides his visit to Egypt and Cyprus, a story was also current of his
+having conversed with the Lydian king Croesus at Sardis. The
+communication said to have taken place between them has been woven by
+Herodotus into a sort of moral tale which forms one of the most
+beautiful episodes in his whole history. Though this tale has been told
+and retold as if it were genuine history, yet as it now stands it is
+irreconcilable with chronology--although very possibly Solon may at some
+time or other have visited Sardis, and seen Croesus as hereditary
+prince.
+
+But even if no chronological objections existed, the moral purpose of
+the tale is so prominent, and pervades it so systematically from
+beginning to end, that these internal grounds are of themselves
+sufficiently strong to impeach its credibility as a matter of fact,
+unless such doubts happen to be out-weighed--which in this case they are
+not--by good contemporary testimony. The narrative of Solon and Croesus
+can be taken for nothing else but an illustrative fiction, borrowed by
+Herodotus from some philosopher, and clothed in his own peculiar beauty
+of expression, which on this occasion is more decidedly poetical than is
+habitual with him. I cannot transcribe, and I hardly dare to abridge it.
+The vainglorious Croesus, at the summit of his conquests and his riches,
+endeavors to win from his visitor Solon an opinion that he is the
+happiest of mankind. The latter, after having twice preferred to him
+modest and meritorious Grecian citizens, at length reminds him that his
+vast wealth and power are of a tenure too precarious to serve as an
+evidence of happiness; that the gods are jealous and meddlesome, and
+often make the show of happiness a mere prelude to extreme disaster; and
+that no man's life can be called happy until the whole of it has been
+played out, so that it may be seen to be out of the reach of reverses.
+Croesus treats this opinion as absurd, but "a great judgment from God
+fell upon him, after Solon was departed--probably (observes Herodotus)
+because he fancied himself the happiest of all men." First he lost his
+favorite son Atys, a brave and intelligent youth (his only other son
+being dumb). For the Mysians of Olympus being ruined by a destructive
+and formidable wild boar, which they were unable to subdue, applied for
+aid to Croesus, who sent to the spot a chosen hunting force, and
+permitted--though with great reluctance, in consequence of an alarming
+dream--that his favorite son should accompany them. The young prince was
+unintentionally slain by the Phrygian exile Adrastus, whom Croesus had
+sheltered and protected, Hardly had the latter recovered from the
+anguish of this misfortune, when the rapid growth of Cyrus and the
+Persian power induced him to go to war with them, against the advice of
+his wisest counsellors. After a struggle of about three years he was
+completely defeated, his capital Sardis taken by storm, and himself made
+prisoner. Cyrus ordered a large pile to be prepared, and placed upon it
+Croesus in fetters, together with fourteen young Lydians, in the
+intention of burning them alive either as a religious offering, or in
+fulfilment of a vow, "or perhaps (says Herodotus) to see whether some of
+the gods would not interfere to rescue a man so preëmiently pious as the
+king of Lydia." In this sad extremity, Croesus bethought him of the
+warning which he had before despised, and thrice pronounced, with a deep
+groan, the name of Solon. Cyrus desired the interpreters to inquire whom
+he was invoking, and learnt in reply the anecdote of the Athenian
+lawgiver, together with the solemn memento which he had offered to
+Croesus during more prosperous days, attesting the frail tenure of all
+human greatness. The remark sunk deep into the Persian monarch as a
+token of what might happen to himself: he repented of his purpose, and
+directed that the pile, which had already been kindled, should be
+immediately extinguished. But the orders came too late. In spite of the
+most zealous efforts of the bystanders, the flame was found
+unquenchable, and Croesus would still have been burned, had he not
+implored with prayers and tears the succor of Apollo, to whose Delphian
+and Theban temples he had given such munificent presents. His prayers
+were heard, the fair sky was immediately overcast and a profuse rain
+descended, sufficient to extinguish the flames. The life of Croesus was
+thus saved, and he became afterward the confidential friend and adviser
+of his conqueror.
+
+Such is the brief outline of a narrative which Herodotus has given with
+full development and with impressive effect. It would have served as a
+show-lecture to the youth of Athens not less admirably than the
+well-known fable of the Choice of Heracles, which the philosopher
+Prodicus, a junior contemporary of Herodotus, delivered with so much
+popularity. It illustrates forcibly the religious and ethical ideas of
+antiquity; the deep sense of the jealousy of the gods, who would not
+endure pride in any one except themselves; the impossibility, for any
+man, of realizing to himself more than a very moderate share of
+happiness; the danger from a reactionary Nemesis, if at anytime he had
+overpassed such limit; and the necessity of calculations taking in the
+whole of life, as a basis for rational comparison of different
+individuals. And it embodies, as a practical consequence from these
+feelings, the often-repeated protest of moralists against vehement
+impulses and unrestrained aspirations. The more valuable this narrative
+appears, in its illustrative character, the less can we presume to treat
+it as a history.
+
+It is much to be regretted that we have no information respecting events
+in Attica immediately after the Solonian laws and constitution, which
+were promulgated in B.C. 594, so as to understand better the practical
+effect of these changes. What we next hear respecting Solon in Attica
+refers to a period immediately preceding the first usurpation of
+Pisistratus in B.C. 560, and after the return of Solon from his long
+absence. We are here again introduced to the same oligarchical
+dissensions as are reported to have prevailed before the Solonian
+legislation: the Pediis, or opulent proprietors of the plain round
+Athens, under Lycurgus; the Parali of the south of Attica, under
+Megacles; and the Diacrii or mountaineers of the eastern cantons, the
+poorest of the three classes, under Pisistratus, are in a state of
+violent intestine dispute. The account of Plutarch represents Solon as
+returning to Athens during the height of this sedition. He was treated
+with respect by all parties, but his recommendations were no longer
+obeyed, and he was disqualified by age from acting with effect in
+public. He employed his best efforts to mitigate party animosities, and
+applied himself particularly to restrain the ambition of Pisistratus,
+whose ulterior projects he quickly detected.
+
+The future greatness of Pisistratus is said to have been first portended
+by a miracle which happened, even before his birth, to his father
+Hippocrates at the Olympic games. It was realized, partly by his bravery
+and conduct, which had been displayed in the capture of Nisæa from the
+Megarians--partly by his popularity of speech and manners, his
+championship of the poor, and his ostentatious disavowal of all selfish
+pretensions--partly by an artful mixture of stratagem and force. Solon,
+after having addressed fruitless remonstrances to Pisistratus himself,
+publicly denounced his designs in verses addressed to the people. The
+deception, whereby Pisistratus finally accomplished his design, is
+memorable in Grecian tradition. He appeared one day in the agora of
+Athens in his chariot with a pair of mules: he had intentionally wounded
+both his person and the mules, and in this condition he threw himself
+upon the compassion and defence of the people, pretending that his
+political enemies had violently attacked him. He implored the people to
+grant him a guard, and at the moment when their sympathies were freshly
+aroused both in his favor and against his supposed assassins, Aristo
+proposed formally to the ecclesia (the pro-bouleutic senate, being
+composed of friends of Pisistratus, had previously authorized the
+proposition) that a company of fifty club-men should be assigned as a
+permanent body-guard for the defence of Pisistratus. To this motion
+Solon opposed a strenuous resistance, but found himself overborne, and
+even treated as if he had lost his senses. The poor were earnest in
+favor of it, while the rich were afraid to express their dissent; and he
+could only comfort himself after the fatal vote had been passed, by
+exclaiming that he was wiser than the former and more determined than
+the latter. Such was one of the first known instances in which this
+memorable stratagem was played off against the liberty of a Grecian
+community.
+
+The unbounded popular favor which had procured the passing of this grant
+was still further manifested by the absence of all precautions to
+prevent the limits of the grant from being exceeded. The number of the
+body-guard was not long confined to fifty, and probably their clubs were
+soon exchanged for sharper weapons. Pisistratus thus found himself
+strong enough to throw off the mask and seize the Acropolis. His leading
+opponents, Megacles and the Alcinæonids, immediately fled the city, and
+it was left to the venerable age and undaunted patriotism of Solon to
+stand forward almost alone in a vain attempt to resist the usurpation.
+He publicly presented himself in the market-place, employing
+encouragement, remonstrance and reproach, in order to rouse the spirit
+of the people. To prevent this despotism from coming (he told them)
+would have been easy; to shake it off now was more difficult, yet at the
+same time more glorious. But he spoke in vain, for all who were not
+actually favorable to Pisistratus listened only to their fears, and
+remained passive; nor did any one join Solon, when, as a last appeal, he
+put on his armor and planted himself in military posture before the door
+of his house. "I have done my duty (he exclaimed at length); I have
+sustained to the best of my power my country and the laws"; and he then
+renounced all further hope of opposition--though resisting the instances
+of his friends that he should flee, and returning for answer, when they
+asked him on what he relied for protection, "On my old age." Nor did he
+even think it necessary to repress the inspirations of his Muse. Some
+verses yet remain, composed seemingly at a moment when the strong hand
+of the new despot had begun to make itself sorely felt, in which he
+tells his countrymen--"If ye have endured sorrow from your own baseness
+of soul, impute not the fault of this to the gods. Ye have yourselves
+put force and dominion into the hands of these men, and have thus drawn
+upon yourselves wretched slavery."
+
+It is gratifying to learn that Pisistratus, whose conduct throughout his
+despotism was comparatively mild, left Solon untouched. How long this
+distinguished man survived the practical subversion of his own
+constitution, we cannot certainly determine; but according to the most
+probable statement he died during the very next year, at the advanced
+age of eighty.
+
+We have only to regret that we are deprived of the means of following
+more in detail his noble and exemplary character. He represents the best
+tendencies of his age, combined with much that is personally excellent:
+the improved ethical sensibility; the thirst for enlarged knowledge and
+observation, not less potent in old age than in youth; the conception of
+regularized popular institutions, departing sensibly from the type and
+spirit of the governments around him, and calculated to found a new
+character in the Athenian people; a genuine and reflecting sympathy with
+the mass of the poor, anxious not merely to rescue them from the
+oppressions of the rich, but also to create in them habits of
+self-relying industry; lastly, during his temporary possession of a
+power altogether arbitrary, not merely an absence of all selfish
+ambition, but a rare discretion in seizing the mean between conflicting
+exigencies. In reading his poems we must always recollect that what now
+appears commonplace was once new, so that to his comparatively
+unlettered age the social pictures which he draws were still fresh, and
+his exhortations calculated to live in the memory. The poems composed
+on moral subjects generally inculcate a spirit of gentleness toward
+others and moderation in personal objects. They represent the gods as
+irresistible, retributive, favoring the good and punishing the bad,
+though sometimes very tardily. But his compositions on special and
+present occasions are usually conceived in a more vigorous spirit;
+denouncing the oppressions of the rich at one time, and the timid
+submission to Pisistratus at another--and expressing in emphatic
+language his own proud consciousness of having stood forward as champion
+of the mass of the people. Of his early poems hardly anything is
+preserved. The few lines remaining seem to manifest a jovial temperament
+which we may well conceive to have been overlaid by such political
+difficulties as he had to encounter--difficulties arising successively
+out of the Megarian war, the Cylonian sacrilege, the public despondency
+healed by Epimenides, and the task of arbiter between a rapacious
+oligarchy and a suffering people. In one of his elegies addressed to
+Mimnermus, he marked out the sixtieth year as the longest desirable
+period of life, in preference to the eightieth year, which that poet had
+expressed a wish to attain. But his own life, as far as we can judge,
+seems to have reached the longer of the two periods; and not the least
+honorable part of it (the resistance to Pisistratus) occurs immediately
+before his death.
+
+There prevailed a story that his ashes were collected and scattered
+around the island of Salamis, which Plutarch treats as absurd--though he
+tells us at the same time that it was believed both by Aristotle and by
+many other considerable men. It is at least as ancient as the poet
+Cratinus, who alluded to it in one of his comedies, and I do not feel
+inclined to reject it. The inscription on the statue of Solon at Athens
+described him as a Salaminian; he had been the great means of acquiring
+the island for his country, and it seems highly probable that among the
+new Athenian citizens, who went to settle there, he may have received a
+lot of land and become enrolled among the Salaminian _demots_. The
+dispersion of his ashes connecting him with the island as its _oecist_,
+may be construed, if not as the expression of a public vote, at least as
+a piece of affectionate vanity on the part of his surviving friends.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT
+
+B.C. 538
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     On the destruction of Nineveh three great Powers still stood on
+     the stage of history, being bound together by the strong ties of a
+     mutually supporting alliance. These were Media, Lydia, and Babylon.
+     The capital of Lydia was Sardis. According to Herodotus, the first
+     king of Lydia was Manes. In the semi-mythic period of Lydian
+     history rose the great dynasty of the [Greek: Heraclidæ], which
+     reigned for 505 years, numbering twenty-two kings--B.C. 1229 to
+     B.C. 745. The Lydians are said by Herodotus to have colonized
+     Tyrrhenia, in the Italic peninsula, and to have extended their
+     conquests into Syria, where they founded Ascalon in the territory
+     later known as Palestine.
+
+     In the reign of Gyges, B.C. 724, they began to attack the Greek
+     cities of Asia Minor: Miletus, Smyrna, and Priene. The glory of the
+     Lydian Empire culminated in the reign of [Greek: Croesus], the
+     fifth and last historic king, B.C. 568. The well-known story of
+     Solon's warning to [Greek: Croesus] was full of ominous import with
+     regard to the ultimate downfall of the Lydian Empire: "For thyself,
+     O Croesus," said the Greek sage in answer to the question, "Who is
+     the happiest man?" I see that thou art wonderfully rich, and art
+     the lord of many nations; but in respect to that whereon thou
+     questionest me, I have no answer to give until I hear that thou
+     hast closed thy life happily."
+
+     The Median Empire occupied a territory indefinitely extending over
+     a region south of the Caspian, between the Kurdish Mountains and
+     the modern Khorassan. The Median monarchy, according to Herodotus,
+     commenced B.C. 708. The Medes, which were racially akin to the
+     Persians, had been for fifty years subject to the Assyrian monarchy
+     when they revolted, setting up an independent empire. Putting aside
+     the dates given by the Greek historians, we shall perhaps be
+     correct in considering that the great Median kingdom was
+     established by Cyaxares, B.C. 633; and that in B.C. 610 a great
+     struggle of six years between Media and Lydia was amicably ended,
+     under the terror occasioned by an eclipse, by the establishment of
+     a treaty and alliance between the contending powers. With the death
+     of Cyaxares, B.C. 597, the glory of the great Median Empire passed
+     away, for under his son, Astyages, the country was conquered by
+     Cyrus.
+
+     The rise of the Babylonian Empire seems to have originated B.C.
+     2234, when the Cushite inhabitants of southern Babylonia raised a
+     native dynasty to the throne, liberated themselves from the yoke
+     of the Zoroastrian Medes, and instituted an empire with several
+     large capitals, where they built mighty temples and introduced the
+     worship of the heavenly bodies in contradistinction to the
+     elemental worship of the Magian Medes. The record of Babylonian
+     kings is full of obscurity, even in the light of recent
+     archæological discoveries. We can trace, however, a gradual
+     expansion of Babylonian dominion, even to the borders of Egypt.
+     Nabo Polassar, B.C. 625 to B.C. 604, was a great warrior, and at
+     Carchemish defeated even the almost invincible Egyptians, B.C. 604.
+
+     His successor, Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 604, immediately set about the
+     fortification of his capital. A space of more than 130 square miles
+     was enclosed within walls 80 feet in breadth and 300 or 400 in
+     height, if we may believe the record. Meanwhile, with the
+     assistance of Cyaxares, King of Media, he captured Tyre, in
+     Phoenicia, and Jerusalem, in Syria; but fifteen years after Croesus
+     had been taken prisoner and the Persian Empire extended to the
+     shores of the Ægean, the Empire of Babylon fell before the
+     conquering armies of Cyrus, the Persian.
+
+
+The Ionic and Æolic Greeks on the Asiatic coast had been conquered and
+made tributary by the Lydian king Croesus: "Down to that time (says
+Herodotus) all Greeks had been free." Their conqueror, Croesus, who
+ascended the throne in 560 B.C., appeared to be at the summit of human
+prosperity and power in his unassailable capital, and with his countless
+treasures at Sardis. His dominions comprised nearly the whole of Asia
+Minor, as far as the river Halys to the east; on the other side of that
+river began the Median monarchy under his brother-in-law Astyages,
+extending eastward to some boundary which we cannot define, but
+comprising, in a south-eastern direction, Persis proper or Farsistan,
+and separated from the Kissians and Assyrians on the east by the line of
+Mount Zagros (the present boundary-line between Persia and Turkey).
+Babylonia, with its wondrous city, between the Uphrates and the Tigris,
+was occupied by the Assyrians or Chaldæans, under their king Labynetus:
+a territory populous and fertile, partly by nature, partly by prodigies
+of labor, to a degree which makes us mistrust even an honest eye-witness
+who describes it afterward in its decline--but which was then in its
+most flourishing condition. The Chaldean dominion under Labynetus
+reached to the borders of Egypt, including as dependent territories both
+Judæa and Phenicia. In Egypt reigned the native king Amasis, powerful
+and affluent, sustained in his throne by a large body of Grecian
+mercenaries and himself favorably disposed to Grecian commerce and
+settlement. Both with Labynetus and with Amasis, Croesus was on terms of
+alliance; and as Astyages was his brother-in-law, the four kings might
+well be deemed out of the reach of calamity. Yet within the space of
+thirty years, or a little more, the whole of their territories had
+become embodied in one vast empire, under the son of an adventurer as
+yet not known even by name.
+
+The rise and fall of oriental dynasties have been in all times
+distinguished by the same general features. A brave and adventurous
+prince, at the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and greedy,
+acquires dominion; while his successors, abandoning themselves to
+sensuality and sloth, probably also to oppressive and irascible
+dispositions, become in process of time victims to those same qualities
+in a stranger which had enabled their own father to seize the throne.
+Cyrus, the great founder of the Persian empire, first the subject and
+afterward the dethroner of the Median Astyages, corresponds to their
+general description, as far, at least, as we can pretend to know his
+history. For in truth even the conquests of Cyrus, after he became ruler
+of Media, are very imperfectly known, while the facts which preceded his
+rise up to that sovereignty cannot be said to be known at all: we have
+to choose between different accounts at variance with each other, and of
+which the most complete and detailed is stamped with all the character
+of romance. The Cyropædia of Xenophon is memorable and interesting,
+considered with reference to the Greek mind, and as a philosophical
+novel. That it should have been quoted so largely as authority on
+matters of history, is only one proof among many how easily authors have
+been satisfied as to the essentials of historical evidence. The
+narrative given by Herodotus of the relations between Cyrus and
+Astyages, agreeing with Xenophon in little more than the fact that it
+makes Cyrus son of Cambyses and Mandane and grandson of Astyages, goes
+even beyond the story of Romulus and Remus in respect to tragical
+incident and contrast. Astyages, alarmed by a dream, condemns the
+newborn infant of his daughter Mandane to be exposed: Harpagus, to whom
+the order is given, delivers the child to one of the royal herdsmen,
+who exposes it in the mountains, where it is miraculously suckled by a
+bitch. Thus preserved, and afterward brought up as the herdsman's child,
+Cyrus manifests great superiority, both physical and mental; is chosen
+king in play by the boys of the village, and in this capacity severely
+chastises the son of one of the courtiers; for which offense he is
+carried before Astyages, who recognizes him for his grandson, but is
+assured by the Magi that the dream is out and that he has no further
+danger to apprehend from the boy--and therefore permits him to live.
+With Harpagus, however, Astyages is extremely incensed, for not having
+executed his orders: he causes the son of Harpagus to be slain, and
+served up to be eaten by his unconscious father at a regal banquet. The
+father, apprised afterward of the fact, dissembles his feelings, but
+meditates a deadly vengeance against Astyages for this Thyestean meal.
+He persuades Cyrus, who has been sent back to his father and mother in
+Persia, to head a revolt of the Persians against the Medes; whilst
+Astyages--to fill up the Grecian conception of madness as a precursor to
+ruin--sends an army against the revolters, commanded by Harpagus
+himself. Of course the army is defeated--Astyages, after a vain
+resistance, is dethroned--Cyrus becomes king in his place--and Harpagus
+repays the outrage which he has undergone by the bitterest insults.
+
+Such are the heads of a beautiful narrative which is given at some
+length in Herodotus. It will probably appear to the reader sufficiently
+romantic; though the historian intimates that he had heard three other
+narratives different from it, and that all were more full of marvels, as
+well as in wider circulation, than his own, which he had borrowed from
+some unusually sober-minded Persian informants. In what points the other
+three stories departed from it we do not hear.
+
+To the historian of Halicarnassus we have to oppose Ctesias--the
+physician of the neighboring town of Cnidus--who contradicted Herodotus,
+not without strong terms of censure, on many points, and especially upon
+that which is the very foundation of the early narrative respecting
+Cyrus; for he affirmed that Cyrus was no way related to Astyages.
+However indignant we may be with Ctesias for the disparaging epithets
+which he presumed to apply to an historian whose work is to us
+inestimable--we must nevertheless admit that, as surgeon in actual
+attendance on king Artaxerxes Mnemon, and healer of the wound inflicted
+on that prince at Cunaxa by his brother Cyrus the younger, he had better
+opportunities even than Herodotus of conversing with sober-minded
+Persians, and that the discrepancies between the two statements are to
+be taken as a proof of the prevalence of discordant, yet equally
+accredited, stories. Herodotus himself was in fact compelled to choose
+one out of four. So rare and late a plant is historical authenticity.
+
+That Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror, and that the space which he
+overran covered no less than fifty degrees of longitude, from the coast
+of Asia Minor to the Oxus and the Indus, are facts quite indisputable;
+but of the steps by which this was achieved, we know very little. The
+native Persians, whom he conducted to an empire so immense, were an
+aggregate of seven agricultural, and four nomadic tribes--all of them
+rude, hardy, and brave--dwelling in a mountainous region, clothed in
+skins, ignorant of wine, or fruit, or any of the commonest luxuries of
+life, and despising the very idea of purchase or sale. Their tribes were
+very unequal in point of dignity, probably also in respect to numbers
+and powers, among one another. First in estimation among them stood the
+Pasargadæ; and the first phratry or clan among the Pasargadæ were the
+Achæmenidæ, to whom Cyrus himself belonged. Whether his relationship to
+the Median king whom he dethroned was a matter of fact, or a politic
+fiction, we cannot well determine. But Xenophon, in noticing the
+spacious deserted cities, Larissa and Mespila, which he saw in his march
+with the ten thousand Greeks on the eastern side of the Tigris, gives us
+to understand that the conquest of Media by the Persians was reported to
+him as having been an obstinate and protracted struggle. However this
+may be, the preponderance of the Persians was at last complete: though
+the Medes always continued to be the second nation in the empire, after
+the Persians, properly so called; and by early Greek writers the great
+enemy in the East is often called "the Mede" as well as "the Persian."
+The Median Ekbatana too remained as one of the capital cities, and the
+usual summer residence, of the kings of Persia; Susa on the Choaspes, on
+the Kissian plain farther southward, and east of the Tigris, being their
+winter abode.
+
+The vast space of country comprised between the Indus on the east, the
+Oxus and Caspian Sea to the north, the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean to
+the south, and the line of Mount Zagros to the west, appears to have
+been occupied in these times by a great variety of different tribes and
+people, yet all or most of them belonging to the religion of Zoroaster,
+and speaking dialects of the Zend language. It was known amongst its
+inhabitants by the common name of Iran or Aria: it is, in its central
+parts at least, a high, cold plateau, totally destitute of wood, and
+scantily supplied with water; much of it indeed is a salt and sandy
+desert, unsusceptible of culture. Parts of it are eminently fertile,
+where water can be procured and irrigation applied. Scattered masses of
+tolerably dense population thus grew up; but continuity of cultivation
+is not practicable, and in ancient times, as at present, a large
+proportion of the population of Iran seems to have consisted of
+wandering or nomadic tribes with their tents and cattle. The rich
+pastures, and the freshness of the summer climate, in the region of
+mountain and valley near Ekbatana, are extolled by modern travellers,
+just as they attracted the Great King in ancient times during the hot
+months. The more southerly province called Persis proper (Faristan)
+consists also in part of mountain land interspersed with valley and
+plain, abundantly watered, and ample in pasture, sloping gradually down
+to low grounds on the sea-coast which are hot and dry: the care bestowed
+both by Medes and Persians on the breeding of their horses was
+remarkable. There were doubtless material differences between different
+parts of the population of this vast plateau of Iran. Yet it seems that,
+along with their common language and religion, they had also something
+of a common character, which contrasted with the Indian population east
+of the Indus, the Assyrians west of Mount Zagros, and the Massagetæ and
+other Nomads of the Caspian and the Sea of Aral--less brutish, restless
+and blood-thirsty than the latter--more fierce, contemptuous and
+extortionate, and less capable of sustained industry, than the two
+former. There can be little doubt, at the time of which we are now
+speaking, when the wealth and cultivation of Assyria were at their
+maximum, that Iran also was far better peopled than ever it has been
+since European observers have been able to survey it--especially the
+north-eastern portion, Bactria and Sogdiana--so that the invasions of
+the Nomads from Turkestan and Tartary, which have been so destructive at
+various intervals since the Mohammedan conquest, were before that period
+successfully kept back.
+
+The general analogy among the population of Iran probably enabled the
+Persian conqueror with comparative ease to extend his empire to the
+east, after the conquest of Ekbatana, and to become the full heir of the
+Median kings. If we may believe Ctesias, even the distant province of
+Bactria had been before subject to those kings. At first it resisted
+Cyrus, but finding that he had become son-in-law of Astyages, as well as
+master of his person, it speedily acknowledged his authority.
+
+According to the representation of Herodotus, the war between Cyrus and
+Croesus of Lydia began shortly after the capture of Astyages, and before
+the conquest of Bactria. Croesus was the assailant, wishing to avenge
+his brother-in-law, to arrest the growth of the Persian conqueror, and
+to increase his own dominions. His more prudent counsellors in vain
+represented to him that he had little to gain, and much to lose, by war
+with a nation alike hardy and poor. He is represented as just at that
+time recovering from the affliction arising out of the death of his son.
+
+To ask advice of the oracle, before he took any final decision, was a
+step which no pious king would omit. But in the present perilous
+question, Croesus did more--he took a precaution so extreme, that if his
+piety had not been placed beyond all doubt by his extraordinary
+munificence to the temples, he might have drawn upon himself the
+suspicion of a guilty scepticism. Before he would send to ask advice
+respecting the project itself, he resolved to test the credit of some of
+the chief surrounding oracles--Delphi, Dodona, Branchidæ near Miletus,
+Amphiaraus at Thebes, Trophonius at Labadeia, and Ammon in Libya. His
+envoys started from Sardis on the same day, and were all directed on the
+hundredth day afterward to ask at the respective oracles how Croesus was
+at that precise moment employed. This was a severe trial: of the manner
+in which it was met by four out of the six oracles consulted we have no
+information, and it rather appears that their answers were
+unsatisfactory. But Amphiaraus maintained his credit undiminished, while
+Apollo at Delphi, more omniscient than Apollo at Branchidæ, solved the
+question with such unerring precision, as to afford a strong additional
+argument against persons who might be disposed to scoff at divination.
+No sooner had the envoys put the question to the Delphian priestess, on
+the day named, "What is Croesus now doing?" than she exclaimed in the
+accustomed hexameter verse, "I know the number of grains of sand, and
+the measures of the sea: I understand the dumb, and I hear the man who
+speaks not. The smell reaches me of a hard-skinned tortoise boiled in a
+copper with lamb's flesh--copper above and copper below." Croesus was
+awe-struck on receiving this reply. It described with the utmost detail
+that which he had been really doing, so that he accounted the Delphian
+oracle and that of Amphiaraus the only trustworthy oracles on
+earth--following up these feelings with a holocaust of the most
+munificent character, in order to win the favor of the Delphian god.
+Three thousand cattle were offered up, and upon a vast sacrificial pile
+were placed the most splendid purple robes and tunics, together with
+couches and censers of gold and silver; besides which he sent to Delphi
+itself the richest presents in gold and silver--statues, bowls, jugs,
+etc., the size and weight of which we read with astonishment; the more
+so as Herodotus himself saw them a century afterwards at Delphi. Nor was
+Croesus altogether unmindful of Amphiaraus, whose answer had been
+creditable, though less triumphant than that of the Pythian priestess.
+He sent to Amphiaraus a spear and shield of pure gold, which were
+afterward seen at Thebes by Herodotus: this large donative may help the
+reader to conceive the immensity of those which he sent to Delphi.
+
+The envoys who conveyed these gifts were instructed to ask at the same
+time, whether Croesus should undertake an expedition against the
+Persians--and if so, whether he should solicit any allies to assist him.
+In regard to the second question, the answer both of Apollo and of
+Amphiaraus was deci sive, recommending him to invite the alliance of
+the most powerful Greeks. In regard to the first and most momentous
+question, their answer was as remarkable for circumspection as it had
+been before for detective sagacity: they told Croesus that if he invaded
+the Persians, he would subvert a mighty monarchy. The blindness of
+Croesus interpreted this declaration into an unqualified promise of
+success: he sent further presents to the oracle, and again inquired
+whether his kingdom would be durable. "When a mule shall become king of
+the Medes (replied the priestess) then must thou run away--be not
+ashamed."
+
+More assured than ever by such an answer, Croesus sent to Sparta, under
+the kings Anaxandrides and Aristo, to tender presents and solicit their
+alliance. His propositions were favorably entertained--the more so, as
+he had before gratuitously furnished some gold to the Lacedæmonians for
+a statue to Apollo. The alliance now formed was altogether general--no
+express effort being as yet demanded from them, though it soon came to
+be. But the incident is to be noted, as marking the first plunge of the
+leading Grecian state into Asiatic politics; and that too without any of
+the generous Hellenic sympathy which afterward induced Athens to send
+her citizens across the Ægean. At this time Croesus was the master and
+tribute-exactor of the Asiatic Greeks, whose contingents seem to have
+formed part of his army for the expedition now contemplated; an army
+consisting principally, not of native Lydians, but of foreigners.
+
+The river Halys formed the boundary at this time between the Median and
+Lydian empires: and Croesus, marching across that river into the
+territory of the Syrians or Assyrians of Cappadocia, took the city of
+Pteria, with many of its surrounding dependencies, inflicting damage and
+destruction upon these distant subjects of Ekbatana. Cyrus lost no time
+in bringing an army to their defence considerably larger than that of
+Croesus; trying at the same time, though unsuccessfully, to prevail on
+the Ionians to revolt from him. A bloody battle took place between the
+two armies, but with indecisive result: after which Croesus, seeing that
+he could not hope to accomplish more with his forces as they stood,
+thought it wise to return to his capital, and collect a larger army for
+the next campaign. Immediately on reaching Sardis he despatched envoys
+to Labynetus king of Babylon; to Amasis, king of Egypt; to the
+Lacedæmonians, and to other allies; calling upon all of them to send
+auxiliaries to Sardis during the course of the fifth month. In the mean
+time he dismissed all the foreign troops who had followed him into
+Cappadocia.
+
+Had these allies appeared, the war might perhaps have been prosecuted
+with success. And on the part of the Lacedæmonians, at least, there was
+no tardiness; for their ships were ready and their troops almost on
+board, when the unexpected news reached them that Croesus was already
+ruined. Cyrus had forseen and forestalled the defensive plan of his
+enemy. Pushing on with his army to Sardis without delay, he obliged the
+Lydian prince to give battle with his own unassisted subjects. The open
+and spacious plain before that town was highly favorable to Lydian
+cavalry, which at that time (Herodotus tells us) was superior to the
+Persian. But Cyrus, employing a strategem whereby this cavalry was
+rendered unavailable, placed in front of his line the baggage camels,
+which the Lydian horses could not endure either to smell or to behold.
+The horsemen of Croesus were thus obliged to dismount; nevertheless they
+fought bravely on foot, and were not driven into the town till after a
+sanguinary combat.
+
+Though confined within the walls of his capital, Croesus had still good
+reason for hoping to hold out until the arrival of his allies, to whom
+he sent pressing envoys of acceleration. For Sardis was considered
+impregnable--and one assault had already been repulsed, and the Persians
+would have been reduced to the slow process of blockade. But on the
+fourteenth day of the siege, accident did for the besiegers that which
+they could not have accomplished either by skill or force. Sardis was
+situated on an outlying peak of the northern side of Tmolus; it was well
+fortified everywhere except toward the mountain; and on that side the
+rock was so precipitous and inaccessible, that fortifications were
+thought unnecessary, nor did the inhabitants believe assault to be
+possible in that quarter. But Hyroeades, a Persian soldier, having
+accidentally seen one of the garrison descending this precipi tous rock
+to pick up his helmet which had rolled down, watched his opportunity,
+tried to climb up, and found it not impracticable; others followed his
+example, the stronghold was thus seized first, and the whole city
+speedily taken by storm.
+
+Cyrus had given especial orders to spare the life of Croesus, who was
+accordingly made prisoner. But preparations were made for a solemn and
+terrible spectacle; the captive king was destined to be burned in
+chains, together with fourteen Lydian youths, on a vast pile of wood. We
+are even told that the pile was already kindled and the victim beyond
+the reach of human aid, when Apollo sent a miraculous rain to preserve
+him. As to the general fact of supernatural interposition, in one way or
+another, Herodotus and Ctesias both agree, though they described
+differently the particular miracles wrought. It is certain that Croesus,
+after some time, was released and well treated by his conqueror, and
+lived to become the confidential adviser of the latter as well as of his
+son Cambyses: Ctesias also acquaints us that a considerable town and
+territory near Ekbatana, called Barene, was assigned to him, according
+to a practice which we shall find not infrequent with the Persian kings.
+
+The prudent counsel and remarks as to the relations between Persians and
+Lydians, whereby Croesus is said by Herodotus to have first earned this
+favorable treatment, are hardly worth repeating; but the indignant
+remonstrance sent by Croesus to the Delphian god is too characteristic
+to be passed over. He obtained permission from Cyrus to lay upon the
+holy pavement of the Delphian temple the chains with which he had at
+first been bound. The Lydian envoys were instructed, after exhibiting to
+the god these humiliating memorials, to ask whether it was his custom to
+deceive his benefactors, and whether he was not ashamed to have
+encouraged the king of Lydia in an enterprise so disastrous? The god,
+condescending to justify himself by the lips of the priestess, replied:
+"Not even a god can escape his destiny. Croesus has suffered for the sin
+of his fifth ancestor (Gyges), who, conspiring with a woman, slew his
+master and wrongfully seized the sceptre. Apollo employed all his
+influence with the Moeræ (Fates) to obtain that this sin might be
+expiated by the children of Croesus, and not by Croesus himself; but
+the Moeræ would grant nothing more than a postponement of the judgment
+for three years. Let Croesus know that Apollo has thus procured for him
+a reign three years longer than his original destiny, after having tried
+in vain to rescue him altogether. Moreover he sent that rain which at
+the critical moment extinguished the burning pile. Nor has Croesus any
+right to complain of the prophecy by which he was encouraged to enter on
+the war; for when the god told him that he would subvert _a great
+empire_, it was his duty to have again inquired which empire the god
+meant; and if he neither understood the meaning, nor chose to ask for
+information, he has himself to blame for the result. Besides, Croesus
+neglected the warning given to him about the acquisition of the Median
+kingdom by a mule: Cyrus was that mule--son of a Median mother of royal
+breed, by a Persian father at once of different race and of lower
+position."
+
+This triumphant justification extorted even from Croesus himself a full
+confession that the sin lay with him, and not with the god. It certainly
+illustrates in a remarkable manner the theological ideas of the time. It
+shows us how much, in the mind of Herodotus, the facts of the centuries
+preceding his own, unrecorded as they were by any contemporary
+authority, tended to cast themselves into a sort of religious drama; the
+threads of the historical web being in part put together, in part
+originally spun, for the purpose of setting forth the religious
+sentiment and doctrine woven in as a pattern. The Pythian priestess
+predicts to Gyges that the crime which he had committed in assassinating
+his master would be expiated by his fifth descendant, though, as
+Herodotus tells us, no one took any notice of this prophecy until it was
+at last fulfilled: we see thus the history of the first Mermnad king is
+made up after the catastrophe of the last. There was something in the
+main facts of the history of Croesus profoundly striking to the Greek
+mind, a king at the summit of wealth and power--pious in the extreme and
+munificent toward the gods--the first destroyer of Hellenic liberty in
+Asia--then precipitated, at once and on a sudden, into the abyss of
+ruin. The sin of the first parent helped much toward the solution of
+this perplexing problem, as well as to exalt the credit of the oracle,
+when made to assume the shape of an unnoticed prophecy. In the
+affecting story of Solon and Croesus, the Lydian king is punished with
+an acute domestic affliction because he thought himself the happiest of
+mankind--the gods not suffering any one to be arrogant except
+themselves; and the warning of Solon is made to recur to Croesus after
+he has become the prisoner of Cyrus, in the narrative of Herodotus. To
+the same vein of thought belongs the story, just recounted, of the
+relations of Croesus with the Delphian oracle. An account is provided,
+satisfactory to the religious feelings of the Greeks, how and why he was
+ruined--but nothing less than the overruling and omnipotent Moeræ
+could be invoked to explain so stupendous a result. It is rarely that
+these supreme goddesses--or hyper-goddesses, since the gods themselves
+must submit to them--are brought into such distinct light and action.
+Usually they are kept in the dark, or are left to be understood as the
+unseen stumbling block in cases of extreme incomprehensibility; and it
+is difficult clearly to determine (as in the case of some complicated
+political constitutions) where the Greeks conceived sovereign power to
+reside, in respect to the government of the world. But here the
+sovereignity of the Moeræ, and the subordinate agency of the gods, are
+unequivocally set forth. The gods are still extremely powerful, because
+the Moeræ comply with their requests up to a certain point, not
+thinking it proper to be wholly inexorable; but their compliance is
+carried no farther than they themselves choose; nor would they, even in
+deference to Apollo, alter the original sentence of punishment for the
+sin of Gyges in the person of his fifth descendant--sentence, moreover,
+which Apollo himself had formerly prophesied shortly after the sin was
+committed, so that, if the Moeræ had listened to his intercession on
+behalf of Croesus, his own prophetic credit would have been
+endangered. Their unalterable resolution has predetermined the ruin of
+Croesus, and the grandeur of the event is manifested by the
+circumstance that even Apollo himself cannot prevail upon them to alter
+it, or to grant more than a three years' respite. The religious element
+must here be viewed as giving the form, the historical element as giving
+the matter only, and not the whole matter, of the story. These two
+elements will be found conjoined more or less throughout most of the
+history of Herodotus, though as we descend to later times, we shall find
+the latter element in constantly increasing proportion. His conception
+of history is extremely different from that of Thucydides, who lays down
+to himself the true scheme and purpose of the historian, common to him
+with the philosopher--to recount and interpret the past, as a rational
+aid toward pre-vision of the future.
+
+In the short abstract which we now possess of the lost work of Ctesias,
+no mention appears of the important conquest of Babylon. His narrative,
+indeed, as far as the abstract enables us to follow it, diverges
+materially from that of Herodotus, and must have been founded on data
+altogether different.
+
+"I shall mention (says Herodotus) these conquests which gave Cyrus most
+trouble, and are most memorable: after he had subdued all the rest of
+the continent, he attacked the Assyrians." Those who recollect the
+description of Babylon and its surrounding territory, will not be
+surprised to learn that the capture of it gave the Persian aggressor
+much trouble. Their only surprise will be, how it could ever have been
+taken at all--or indeed how a hostile army could have even reached it.
+Herodotus informs us that the Babylonian queen Nitocris (mother of that
+very Labynetus who was king when Cyrus attacked the place) apprehensive
+of invasion from the Medes after their capture of Nineveh, had executed
+many laborious works near the Euphrates for the purpose of obstructing
+their approach. Moreover there existed what was called the wall of Media
+(probably built by her, but certainly built prior to the Persian
+conquest), one hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, across the
+entire space of seventy-five miles which joined the Tigris with one of
+the canals of the Euphrates: while the canals themselves, as we may see
+by the march of the ten thousand Greeks after the battle of Cunaxa,
+presented means of defence altogether insuperable by a rude army such as
+that of the Persians. On the east, the territory of Babylonia was
+defended by the Tigris, which cannot be forded lower than the ancient
+Nineveh or the modern Mosul. In addition to these ramparts, natural as
+well as artificial, to protect the territory--populous, cultivated,
+productive, and offering every motive to its inhabitants to resist even
+the entrance of an enemy--we are told that the Babylonians were so
+thoroughly prepared for the inroad of Cyrus that they had accumulated
+within their walls a store of provisions for many years. Strange as it
+may seem, we must suppose that the king of Babylon, after all the cost
+and labor spent in providing defences for the territory, voluntarily
+neglected to avail himself of them, suffered the invader to tread down
+the fertile Babylonia without resistance, and merely drew out the
+citizens to oppose him when he arrived under the walls of the city--if
+the statement of Herodotus is correct. And we may illustrate this
+unaccountable omission by that which we know to have happened in the
+march of the younger Cyrus to Cunuxa against his brother Artaxerxes
+Mnemon. The latter had caused to be dug, expressly in preparation for
+this invasion, a broad and deep ditch (thirty feet wide and eight feet
+deep) from the wall of Media to the river Euphrates, a distance of
+twelve parasangs or forty-five English miles, leaving only a passage of
+twenty feet broad close alongside of the river. Yet when the invading
+army arrived at this important pass, they found not a man there to
+defend it, and all of them marched without resistance through the narrow
+inlet. Cyrus the younger, who had up to that moment felt assured that
+his brother would fight, now supposed that he had given up the idea of
+defending Babylon: instead of which, two days afterward, Artaxerxes
+attacked him on an open plain of ground where there was no advantage of
+position on either side; though the invaders were taken rather unawares
+in consequence of their extreme confidence arising from recent unopposed
+entrance within the artificial ditch. This anecdote is the more valuable
+as an illustration, because all its circumstances are transmitted to us
+by a discerning eye-witness. And both the two incidents here brought
+into comparison demonstrate the recklessness, changefulness, and
+incapacity of calculation belonging to the Asiatic mind of that day--as
+well as the great command of hands possessed by these kings, and their
+prodigal waste of human labor. Vast walls and deep ditches are an
+inestimable aid to a brave and well-commanded garrison; but they cannot
+be made entirely to supply the want of bravery and intelligence.
+
+In whatever manner the difficulties of approaching Babylon may have
+been overcome, the fact that they were overcome by Cyrus is certain. On
+first setting out for this conquest, he was about to cross the river
+Gyndes (one of the affluents from the east which joins the Tigris near
+the modern Bagdad, and along which lay the high road crossing the pass
+of Mount Zagros from Babylon to Ekbatana) when one of the sacred white
+horses, which accompanied him, entered the river in pure wantonness and
+tried to cross it by himself. The Gyndes resented this insult and the
+horse was drowned: upon which Cyrus swore in his wrath that he would so
+break the strength of the river as that women in future should pass it
+without wetting their knees. Accordingly he employed his entire army,
+during the whole summer season, in digging three hundred and sixty
+artificial channels to disseminate the unit of the stream. Such,
+according to Herodotus, was the incident which postponed for one year
+the fall of the great Babylon. But in the next spring Cyrus and his army
+were before the walls, after having defeated and driven in the
+population who came out to fight. These walls were artificial mountains
+(three hundred feet high, seventy-five feet thick, and forming a square
+of fifteen miles to each side), within which the besieged defied attack,
+and even blockade, having previously stored up several years' provision.
+Through the midst of the town, however, flowed the Euphrates. That river
+which had been so laboriously trained to serve for protection, trade and
+sustenance to the Babylonians, was now made the avenue of their ruin.
+Having left a detachment of his army at the two points where the
+Euphrates enters and quits the city, Cyrus retired with the remainder to
+the higher part of its course, where an ancient Babylonian queen had
+prepared one of the great lateral reservoirs for carrying off in case of
+need the superfluity of its water. Near this point Cyrus caused another
+reservoir and another canal of communication to be dug, by means of
+which he drew off the water of the Euphrates to such a degree it became
+not above the height of a man's thigh. The period chosen was that of a
+great Babylonian festival, when the whole population were engaged in
+amusement and revelry. The Persian troops left near the town, watching
+their opportunity, entered from both sides along the bed of the river,
+and took it by surprise with scarcely any resistance. At no other time,
+except during a festival, could they have done this (says Herodotus) had
+the river been ever so low, for both banks throughout the whole length
+of the town were provided with quays, with continuous walls, and with
+gates at the end of every street which led down to the river at right
+angles so that if the population had not been disqualified by the
+influences of the moment, they would have caught the assailants in the
+bed of the river "as in a trap," and overwhelmed them from the walls
+alongside. Within a square of fifteen miles to each side, we are not
+surprised to hear that both the extremities were already in the power of
+the besiegers before the central population heard of it, and while they
+were yet absorbed in unconscious festivity.
+
+Such is the account given by Herodotus of the circumstances which placed
+Babylon--the greatest city of Western Asia--in the power of the
+Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was
+incorrect or exaggerated, we cannot now decide. The way in which the
+city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition cannot
+have cost the conqueror either much time or much loss. Cyrus comes into
+the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with their whole
+territory become tributary to the Persians, forming the richest satrapy
+in the empire; but we do not hear that the people were otherwise
+ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and gates were left
+untouched. This was very different from the way in which the Medes had
+treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined and for a long time
+absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a reduced scale under the
+Parthian empire; and very different also from the way in which Babylon
+itself was treated twenty years afterward by Darius, when reconquered
+after a revolt.
+
+The importance of Babylon, marking as it does one of the peculiar forms
+of civilization belonging to the ancient world in a state of full
+development, gives an interest even to the half-authenticated stories
+respecting its capture. The other exploits ascribed to Cyrus--his
+invasion of India, across the desert of Arachosia--and his attack upon
+the Massagetæ, Nomads ruled by Queen Tomyris and greatly resembling the
+Scythians, across the mysterious river which Herodotus calls
+Araxes--are too little known to be at all dwelt upon. In the latter he
+is said to have perished, his army being defeated in a bloody battle. He
+was buried at Pasargadæ, in his native province of Persis proper, where
+his tomb was honored and watched until the breaking up of the empire,
+while his memory was held in profound veneration among the Persians. Of
+his real exploits we know little or nothing, but in what we read
+respecting him there seems, though amid constant fighting, very little
+cruelty. Xenophon has selected his life as the subject of a moral
+romance which for a long time was cited as authentic history, and which
+even now serves as an authority, express or implied, for disputable and
+even incorrect conclusions. His extraordinary activity and conquests
+admit of no doubt. He left the Persian empire extending from Sogdiana
+and the rivers Jaxartes and Indus eastward, to the Hellespont and the
+Syrian coast westward, and his successors made no permanent addition to
+it except that of Egypt. Phenicia and Judæa were dependencies of
+Babylon, at the time when he conquered it, with their princes and
+grandees in Babylonian captivity. As they seem to have yielded to him,
+and became his tributaries without difficulty; so the restoration of
+their captives was conceded to them. It was from Cyrus that the habits
+of the Persian kings took commencement, to dwell at Susa in the winter,
+and Ekbatana during the summer; the primitive territory of Persis, with
+its two towns of Persepolis and Pasargadæ, being reserved for the
+burial-place of the kings and the religious sanctuary of the empire. How
+or when the conquest of Susiana was made, we are not informed. It lay
+eastward of the Tigris, between Babylonia and Persis proper, and its
+people, the Kissians, as far as we can discern, were of Assyrian and not
+of Aryan race. The river Choaspes near Susa was supposed to furnish the
+only water fit for the palate of the great king, and it is said to have
+been carried about with him wherever he went.
+
+While the conquests of Cyrus contributed to assimilate the distinct
+types of civilization in Western Asia--not by elevating the worse,
+but by degrading the better--upon the native Persians themselves
+they operated as an extraordinary stimulus, provoking alike their
+pride, ambition, cupidity, and warlike propensities. Not only did the
+territory of Persis proper pay no tribute to Susa or Ekbatana--being
+the only district so exempted between the Jaxartes and the
+Mediterranean--but the vast tributes received from the remaining empire
+were distributed to a great degree among its inhabitants. Empire to them
+meant--for the great men, lucrative satrapies or pachalics, with powers
+altogether unlimited, pomp inferior only to that of the great king, and
+standing armies which they employed at their own discretion sometimes
+against each other--for the common soldiers, drawn from their fields or
+flocks, constant plunder, abundant maintenance, and an unrestrained
+license, either in the suite of one of the satraps, or in the large
+permanent troops which moved from Susa to Ekbatana with the Great King.
+And if the entire population of Persis proper did not migrate from their
+abodes to occupy some of those more inviting spots which the immensity
+of the imperial dominion furnished--a dominion extending (to use the
+language of Cyrus the younger before the battle of Cunaxa) from the
+region of insupportable heat to that of insupportable cold--this was
+only because the early kings discouraged such a movement, in order that
+the nation might maintain its military hardihood and be in a situation
+to furnish undiminished supplies of soldiers. The self-esteem and
+arrogance of the Persians were no less remarkable than their avidity for
+sensual enjoyment. They were fond of wine to excess; their wives and
+their concubines were both numerous; and they adopted eagerly from
+foreign nations new fashions of luxury as well as of ornament. Even to
+novelties in religion, they were not strongly averse. For though
+disciples of Zoroaster, with Magi as their priests and as indispensable
+companions of their sacrifices, worshipping sun, moon, earth, fire,
+etc., and recognizing neither image, temple, nor altar--yet they had
+adopted the voluptuous worship of the goddess Mylitta from the Assyrians
+and Arabians. A numerous male offspring was the Persian's boast. His
+warlike character and consciousness of force were displayed in the
+education of these youths, who were taught, from five years old to
+twenty, only three things--to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak
+the truth. To owe money, or even to buy and sell, was accounted among
+the Persians disgraceful--a sentiment which they defended by saying
+that both the one and the other imposed the necessity of telling
+falsehood. To exact tribute from subjects, to receive pay or presents
+from the king, and to give away without forethought whatever was not
+immediately wanted, was their mode of dealing with money. Industrial
+pursuits were left to the conquered, who were fortunate if by paying a
+fixed contribution and sending a military contingent when required, they
+could purchase undisturbed immunity for their remaining concerns. They
+could not thus purchase safety for the family hearth, since we find
+instances of noble Grecian maidens torn from their parents for the harem
+of the satrap.
+
+To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political
+society went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a conqueror
+like Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement and enthusiasm
+of which they were capable. He had found them slaves, and made them
+masters: he was the first and greatest of national benefactors, as well
+as the most forward of leaders in the field: they followed him from
+one conquest to another, during the thirty years of his reign, their
+love of empire growing with the empire itself. And this impulse of
+aggrandizement continued unabated during the reigns of his three next
+successors--Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes--until it was at length
+violently stifled by the humiliating defeats of Platæa and Salamis;
+after which the Persians became content with defending themselves at
+home and playing a secondary game.
+
+
+
+
+
+RISE OF CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE SAGE
+
+B.C. 550
+
+R.K. DOUGLAS
+
+
+     Confucius is the Latinized name of Kung Futusze, or "Master Kung,"
+     whose work in China did much to educate the people in social and
+     civic virtues. He began as a political reformer at a time when the
+     empire was cut up into a number of petty and discordant
+     principalities. As a practical statesman and administrator, he
+     urged the necessity of reform upon the princes whom one after
+     another he served. His advice was invariably disregarded, and as he
+     said "no intelligent ruler arose in his time." His great maxims of
+     submission to the emperor or supreme head of the state he based on
+     the analogous duty of filial obedience in a household, and his very
+     spirit of piety prevented him from taking independent measures for
+     redressing the evils and oppressions of his distracted country.
+
+     His moral teachings are not based on any specific religious
+     foundation, but they have become the settled code of Chinese life,
+     of which submissiveness to authority, industry, frugality, and fair
+     dealing as prescribed by Confucian ethics are general
+     characteristics. The political doctrines of this great reformer
+     were eventually adopted, and his teaching and example brought about
+     a peaceful and gradual, but complete revolution, in the Chinese
+     Empire, whose consolidation into a simple kingdom was the practical
+     result of this sage's influence.
+
+
+At the time of which we write the Chinese were still clinging to the
+banks of the Yellow River, along which they had first entered the
+country, and formed, within the limits of China proper, a few states on
+either shore lying between the 33d and 38th parallels of latitude, and
+the 106th and 119th of longitude. The royal state of Chow occupied part
+of the modern province of Honan. To the north of this was the powerful
+state of Tsin, embracing the modern province of Shanse and part of
+Chili; to the south was the barbarous state of Ts'oo, which stretched as
+far as the Yang-tsze-kiang; to the east, reaching to the coast, were a
+number of smaller states, among which those of Ts'e, Loo, Wei, Sung, and
+Ching were the chief and to the west of the Yellow River was the state
+of Ts'in, which was destined eventually to gain the mastery over the
+contending principalities.
+
+On the establishment of the Chow dynasty, King Woo had apportioned these
+fiefships among members of his family, his adherents, and the
+descendants of some of the ancient virtuous kings. Each prince was
+empowered to administer his government as he pleased so long as he
+followed the general lines indicated by history; and in the event of any
+act of aggression on the part of one state against another, the matter
+was to be reported to the king of the sovereign state, who was bound to
+punish the offender. It is plain that in such a system the elements of
+disorder must lie near the surface; and no sooner was the authority of
+the central state lessened by the want of ability shown by the
+successors of kings Woo, Ching, and K'ang, than constant strife broke
+out between the several chiefs. The hand of every man was against his
+neighbor, and the smaller states suffered the usual fate, under like
+circumstances, of being encroached upon and absorbed, notwithstanding
+their appeals for help to their common sovereign. The House of Chow
+having been thus found wanting, the device was resorted to of appointing
+one of the most powerful princes as a presiding chief, who should
+exercise royal functions, leaving the king only the title and
+paraphernalia of sovereignity. In fact, the China of this period was
+governed and administered very much as Japan was up till about twenty
+years ago. For Mikado, Shogun, and ruling Daimios, read king, presiding
+chief, and princes, and the parallel is as nearly as possible complete.
+The result of the system, however, in the two countries was different,
+for apart from the support received by the Mikado from the belief in his
+heavenly origin, the insular position of Japan prevented the possibility
+of the advent of elements of disorder from without, whereas the
+principalities of China were surrounded by semi-barbarous states, the
+chiefs of which were engaged in constant warfare with them.
+
+Confucius' deep spirit of loyalty to the House of Chow forbade his
+following in the Book of History the careers of the sovereigns who
+reigned between the death of Muh in B.C. 946 and the accession of P'ing
+in 770. One after another these kings rose, reigned, and died, leaving
+each to his successor an ever-increasing heritage of woe. During the
+reign of Seuen (827-781) a gleam of light seems to have shot through the
+pervading darkness. Though falling far short of the excellencies of the
+founders of the dynasty, he yet strove to follow, though at a long
+interval, the examples they had set him; and according to the Chinese
+belief, as an acknowledgment from Heaven of his efforts in the direction
+of virtue, it was given him to sit upon the throne for nearly half a
+century.
+
+His successor, Yew, "the Dark," appears to even less advantage. No
+redeeming acts relieve the general disorder of his reign, and at the
+instigation of a favorite concubine he is said to have committed acts
+which place him on a level with Kee and Show. Earthquakes, storms, and
+astrological portents appeared as in the dark days at the close of the
+Hea and Shang dynasties. His capital was surrounded by the barbarian
+allies of the Prince of Shin, the father of his wife, whom he had
+dismissed at the request of his favorite, and in an attempt to escape he
+fell a victim to their weapons.
+
+With this event the Western Chow dynasty was brought to a close.
+
+Here, also, the Book of History comes to an end, and the Spring and
+Autumn Annals by Confucius takes up the tale of iniquity and disorder
+which overspread the land. No more dreadful record of a nation's
+struggles can be imagined than that contained in Confucius's history.
+The country was torn by discord and desolated by wars. Husbandry was
+neglected, the peace of households was destroyed, and plunder and rapine
+were the watchwords of the time.
+
+Such was the state of China at the time of the birth of Confucius (B.C.
+551). Of the parents of the Sage we know but little, except that his
+father, Shuh-leang Heih, was a military officer, eminent for his
+commanding stature, his great bravery, and immense strength, and that
+his mother's name was Yen Ching-tsai The marriage of this couple took
+place when Heih was seventy years old, and the prospect, therefore, of
+his having an heir having been but slight, unusual rejoicings
+commemorated the birth of the son, who was destined to achieve such
+everlasting fame.
+
+Report says that the child was born in a cave on Mount Ne, whither
+Ching-tsai went in obedience to a vision to be confined. But this is but
+one of the many legends with which Chinese historians love to surround
+the birth of Confucius. With the same desire to glorify the Sage, and in
+perfect good faith, they narrate how the event was heralded by strange
+portents and miraculous appearances, how genii announced to Ching-tsai
+the honor that was in store for her, and how fairies attended at his
+nativity.
+
+Of the early years of Confucius we have but scanty record. It would seem
+that from his childhood he showed ritualistic tendencies, and we are
+told that as a boy he delighted to play at the arrangement of vessels
+and postures of ceremony. As he advanced in years he became an earnest
+student of history, and looked back with love and reverence to the time
+when the great and good Yaou and Shun reigned in:
+
+    "A golden age, fruitful of golden deeds."
+
+At the age of fifteen "he bent his mind to learning," and when he was
+nineteen years old he married a lady from the state of Sung. As has
+befallen many other great men, Confucius' married life was not a happy
+one, and he finally divorced his wife, not, however, before she had
+borne him a son.
+
+Soon after his marriage, at the instigation of poverty, Confucius
+accepted the office of keeper of the stores of grain, and in the
+following year he was promoted to be guardian of the public fields and
+lands. It was while holding this latter office that his son was born,
+and so well known and highly esteemed had he already become that the
+reigning duke, on hearing of the event, sent him a present of a carp,
+from which circumstance the infant derived his name, Le ("a carp"). The
+name of this son seldom occurs in the life of his illustrious father,
+and the few references we have to him are enough to show that a small
+share of paternal affection fell to his lot. "Have you heard any lessons
+from your father different from what we have all heard?" asked an
+inquisitive disciple of him. "No," replied Le, "he was standing alone
+once when I was passing through the court below with hasty steps, and
+said to me, 'Have you read the Odes?' On my replying, 'Not yet,' he
+added, 'If you do not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to converse
+with.' Another day, in the same place and the same way, he said to me,
+'Have you read the rules of Propriety?' On my replying, 'Not yet,' he
+added, 'If you do not learn the rules of Propriety, your character
+cannot be established.'" "I asked one thing," said the enthusiastic
+disciple, "and I have learned three things. I have learned about the
+Odes; I have learned about the rules of Propriety; and I have learned
+that the superior man maintains a distant reserve toward his son."
+
+At the age of twenty-two we find Confucius released from the toils of
+office, and devoting his time to the more congenial task of imparting
+instruction to a band of admiring and earnest students. With idle or
+stupid scholars he would have nothing to do. "I do not open the truth,"
+he said, "to one who is not eager after knowledge, nor do I help any one
+who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner
+of a subject, and the listener cannot from it learn the other three, I
+do not repeat my lesson."
+
+When twenty-eight years old Confucius studied archery, and in the
+following years took lessons in music from the celebrated master, Seang.
+At thirty he tells us "he stood firm," and about this time his fame
+mightily increased, many noble youths enrolled themselves among his
+disciples; and on his expressing a desire to visit the imperial court of
+Chow to confer on the subject of ancient ceremonies with Laou Tan, the
+founder of the Taouist sect, the reigning duke placed a carriage and
+horses at his disposal for the journey.
+
+The extreme veneration which Confucius entertained for the founders of
+the Chow dynasty made the visit to Lo, the capital, one of intense
+interest to him. With eager delight he wandered through the temple and
+audience-chambers, the place of sacrifices and the palace, and having
+completed his inspection of the position and shape of the various
+sacrificial and ceremonial vessels, he turned to his disciples and said,
+"Now I understand the wisdom of the duke of Chow, and how his house
+attained to imperial sway." But the principal object of his visit to
+Chow was to confer with Laou-tsze; and of the interview between these
+two very dissimilar men we have various accounts. The Confucian writers
+as a rule merely mention the fact of their having met, but the admirers
+of Laou-tsze affirm that Confucius was very roughly handled by his more
+ascetic contemporary, who looked down from his somewhat higher
+standpoint with contempt on the great apostle of antiquity. It was only
+natural that Laou-tsze, who preached that stillness and self-emptiness
+were the highest attainable objects, should be ready to assail a man
+whose whole being was wrapt up in ceremonial observances and conscious
+well-doing. The very measured tones and considered movements of
+Confucius, coupled with a certain admixture of that pride which apes
+humility, must have been very irritating to the metaphysically-minded
+treasurer. And it was eminently characteristic of Confucius, that
+notwithstanding the great provocation given him on this occasion, he
+abstained from any rejoinder. We nowhere read of his engaging in a
+dispute. When an opponent arose, it was in keeping with the doctrine of
+Confucius to retire before him. "A sage," he said, "will not enter a
+tottering state nor dwell in a disorganized one. When right principles
+of government prevail he shows himself, but when they are prostrated he
+remains concealed." And carrying out the same principle in private life,
+he invariably refused to wrangle.
+
+It was possibly in connection with this incident that Confucius drew the
+attention of his disciples to the metal statue of a man with a triple
+clasp upon his mouth, which stood in the ancestral temple at Lo. On the
+back of the statue were inscribed these words: "The ancients were
+guarded in their speech, and like them we should avoid loquacity. Many
+words invite many defeats. Avoid also engaging in many businesses, for
+many businesses create many difficulties."
+
+"Observe this, my children," said he, pointing to the inscription.
+"These words are true, and commend themselves to our reason."
+
+Having gained all the information he desired in Chow, he returned to
+Loo, where pupils flocked to him until, we are told, he was surrounded
+by an admiring company of three thousand disciples. His stay in Loo was,
+however, of short duration, for the three principal clans of the state,
+those of Ke, Shuh, and Mang, after frequent contests between themselves,
+engaged in a war with the reigning duke, and overthrew his armies. Upon
+this the duke took refuge in the state of T'se, whither Confucius
+followed him. As he passed along the road he saw a woman weeping at a
+tomb, and having compassion on her, he sent his disciple Tsze-loo to ask
+her the cause of her grief. "You weep as if you had experienced sorrow
+upon sorrow," said Tsze-loo. "I have," said the woman, "my father-in-law
+was killed here by a tiger, and my husband also; and now my son has met
+the same fate." "Why, then, do you not remove from the place?" asked
+Confucius. "Because here there is no oppressive government," replied the
+woman. On hearing this answer, Confucius remarked to his disciples, "My
+children remember this, oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger."
+
+Possibly Confucius was attracted to T'se by a knowledge that the music
+of the emperor Shun was still preserved at the court. At all events, we
+are told that having heard a strain of the much-desired music on his way
+to the capital, he hurried on, and was so ravished with the airs he
+heard that for three months he never tasted flesh. "I did not think,"
+said he, "that music could reach such a pitch of excellence."
+
+Hearing of the arrival of the Sage, the duke of T'se--King, by
+name--sent for him, and after some conversation, being minded to act the
+part of a patron to so distinguished a visitor, offered to make him a
+present of the city of Lin-k'ew with its revenues. But this Confucius
+declined, remarking to his disciples, "A superior man will not receive
+rewards except for services done. I have given advice to the duke King,
+but he has not followed it as yet, and now he would endow me with this
+place. Very far is he from understanding me." He still, however,
+discussed politics with the duke, and taught him that "There is good
+government when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when
+the father is father, and the son is son." "Good," said the duke; "if,
+indeed, the prince be not prince, the minister not minister, and the son
+not son, although I have my revenue, can I enjoy it?"
+
+Though Duke King was by no means a satisfactory pupil, many of his
+instincts were good, and he once again expressed a desire to pension
+Confucius, that he might keep him at hand; but Gan Ying, the Prime
+Minister, dissuaded him from his purpose. "These scholars," said the
+minister, "are impracticable, and cannot be imitated. They are haughty
+and conceited of their own views, so that they will not rest satisfied
+in inferior positions. They set a high value on all funeral ceremonies,
+give way to their grief, and will waste their property on great
+funerals, so that they would only be injurious to the common manners.
+This Kung Footsze has a thousand peculiarities. It would take ages to
+exhaust all he knows about the ceremonies of going up and going down.
+This is not the time to examine into his rules of propriety. If you wish
+to employ him to change the customs of T'se, you will not be making the
+people your primary consideration." This reasoning had full weight with
+the duke, who the next time he was urged to follow the advice of
+Confucius, cut short the discussion by the remark, "I am too old to
+adopt his doctrines."
+
+Under these circumstances Confucius once more returned to Loo, only
+however to find that the condition of the state was still unchanged;
+disorder was rife; and the reins of government were in the hands of the
+head of the strongest party for the time being. This was no time for
+Confucius to take office, and he devoted the leisure thus forced upon
+him to the compilation of the "Book of Odes" and the "Book of History."
+
+But in process of time order was once more restored, and he then felt
+himself free to accept the post of magistrate of the town of Chung-too,
+which was offered him by the duke King.
+
+He now had an opportunity of putting his principles of government to
+the test, and the result partly justified his expectations. He framed
+rules for the support of the living, and for the observation of rites
+for the dead; he arranged appropriate food for the old and the young;
+and he provided for the proper separation of men and women. And the
+results were, we are told, that, as in the time of King Alfred, a
+thing dropped on the road was not picked up; there was no fraudulent
+carving of vessels; coffins were made of the ordained thickness; graves
+were unmarked by mounds raised over them; and no two prices were charged
+in the markets. The duke, surprised at what he saw, asked the sage
+whether his rule of government could be applied to the whole state.
+"Certainly," replied Confucius, "and not only to the state of Loo,
+but to the whole empire." Forthwith, therefore, the duke made him
+Assistant-Superintendent of Works, and shortly afterwards appointed him
+Minister of Crime. Here, again, his success was complete. From the day
+of his appointment crime is said to have disappeared, and the penal laws
+remained a dead letter.
+
+Courage was recognized by Confucius as being one of the great virtues,
+and about this period we have related two instances in which he showed
+that he possessed both moral and physical courage to a high degree. The
+chief of the Ke family, being virtual possessor of the state, when the
+body of the exiled Duke Chaou was brought from T'se for interment,
+directed that it should be buried apart from the graves of his
+ancestors. On Confucius becoming aware of his decision, he ordered a
+trench to be dug round the burying-ground which should enclose the new
+tomb. "Thus to censure a prince and signalize his faults is not
+according to etiquette," said he to Ke. "I have caused the grave to be
+included in the cemetery, and I have done so to hide your disloyalty."
+And his action was allowed to pass unchallenged.
+
+The other instance referred to was on the occasion, a few years later,
+of an interview between the dukes of Loo and T'se, at which Confucius
+was present as master of ceremonies. At his instigation, an altar was
+raised at the place of meeting, which was mounted by three steps, and on
+this the dukes ascended, and having pledged one another proceeded to
+discuss a treaty of alliance. But treachery was intended on the part of
+the duke of T'se, and at a given signal a band of savages advanced with
+beat of drum to carry off the duke of Loo. Some such stratagem had been
+considered probable by Confucius, and the instant the danger became
+imminent he rushed to the altar and led away the duke. After much
+disorder, in which Confucius took a firm and prominent part, a treaty
+was concluded, and even some land on the south of the river Wan, which
+had been taken by T'se, was by the exertions of the Sage restored to
+Loo. On this recovered territory the people of Loo, in memory of the
+circumstance, built a city and called it, "The City of Confession."
+
+But to return to Confucius as the Minister of Crime.
+
+Though eminently successful, the results obtained under his system were
+not quite such as his followers have represented them to have been. No
+doubt crime diminished under his rule, but it was by no means abolished.
+In fact, his biographers mention a case which must have been peculiarly
+shocking to him. A father brought an accusation against his son, in the
+expectation, probably, of gaining his suit with ease before a judge who
+laid such stress on the virtues of filial piety. But to his surprise,
+and that of the on-lookers, Confucius cast both father and son into
+prison, and to the remonstrances of the head of the Ke clan answered,
+"Am I to punish for a breach of filial piety one who has never been
+taught to be filially minded? Is not he who neglects to teach his son
+his duties, equally guilty with the son who fails in them? Crime is not
+inherent in human nature, and therefore the father in the family, and
+the government in the state, are responsible for the crimes committed
+against filial piety and the public laws. If a king is careless about
+publishing laws, and then peremptorily punishes in accordance with the
+strict letter of them, he acts the part of a swindler; if he collect the
+taxes arbitrarily without giving warning, he is guilty of oppression;
+and if he puts the people to death without having instructed them, he
+commits a cruelty."
+
+On all these points Confucius frequently insisted, and strove both by
+precept and example to impart the spirit they reflected on all around
+him. In the presence of his prince we are told that his manner, though
+self-possessed, displayed respectful uneasiness. When he entered the
+palace, or when he passed the vacant throne, his countenance changed,
+his legs bent under him, and he spoke as though he had scarcely breath
+to utter a word. When it fell to his lot to carry the royal sceptre, he
+stooped his body as though he were not able to bear its weight. If the
+prince came to visit him when he was ill, he had himself placed with his
+head to the east, and lay dressed in his court clothes with his girdle
+across them. When the prince sent him a present of cooked meat, he
+carefully adjusted his mat and just tasted the dishes; if the meat were
+uncooked, he offered it to the spirits of his ancestors, and any animal
+which was thus sent him he kept alive.
+
+At the village festivals he never preceded, but always followed after
+the elders. To all about him he assumed an appearance of simplicity and
+sincerity. To the court officials of the lower grade he spoke freely,
+and to superior officers his manner was bland but precise. Even at the
+wild gatherings which accompanied the annual ceremony of driving away
+pestilential influences, he paid honor to the original meaning of the
+rite, by standing in court robes on the eastern steps of his house, and
+received the riotous exorcists as though they were favored guests. When
+sent for by the prince to assist in receiving a royal visitor, his
+countenance appeared to change. He inclined himself to the officers
+among whom he stood, and when sent to meet the visitor at the gate, "he
+hastened forward with his arms spread out like the wings of a bird."
+Recognizing in the wind and the storm the voice of Heaven, he changed
+countenance at the sound of a sudden clap of thunder or a violent gust
+of wind.
+
+The principles which underlie all these details relieve them from the
+sense of affected formality which they would otherwise suggest. Like the
+sages of old, Confucius had an overweening faith in the effect of
+example. "What do you say," asked the chief of the Ke clan on one
+occasion, "to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?"
+"Sir," replied Confucius, "in carrying on your government why should you
+employ capital punishment at all? Let your evinced desires be for what
+is good and the people will be good." And then quoting the words of King
+Ching, he added, "The relation between superiors and inferiors is like
+that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind
+blows across it." Thus in every act of his life, whether at home or
+abroad, whether at table or in bed, whether at study or in moments of
+relaxation, he did all with the avowed object of being seen of men and
+of influencing them by his conduct. And to a certain extent he gained
+his end. He succeeded in demolishing a number of fortified cities which
+had formed the hotbeds of sedition and tumult; and thus added greatly to
+the power of the reigning duke. He inspired the men with a spirit of
+loyalty and good faith, and taught the women to be chaste and docile. On
+the report of the tranquillity prevailing in Loo, strangers flocked
+into the state, and thus was fulfilled the old criterion of good
+government which was afterward repeated by Confucius, "the people were
+happy, and strangers were attracted from afar."
+
+But even Confucius found it impossible to carry all his theories into
+practice, and his experience as Minister of Crime taught him that
+something more than mere example was necessary to lead the people into
+the paths of virtue. Before he had been many months in office, he signed
+the death-warrant of a well-known citizen named Shaou for disturbing the
+public peace. This departure from the principle he had so lately laid
+down astonished his followers, and Tsze-kung--the Simon Peter as he has
+been called among his disciples--took him to task for executing so
+notable a man. But Confucius held to it that the step was necessary.
+"There are five great evils in the world," said he: "a man with a
+rebellious heart who becomes dangerous; a man who joins to vicious deeds
+a fierce temper; a man whose words are knowingly false; a man who
+treasures in his memory noxious deeds and disseminates them; a man who
+follows evil and fertilizes it. All these evil qualities were combined
+in Shaou. His house was a rendezvous for the disaffected; his words were
+specious enough to dazzle any one; and his opposition was violent enough
+to overthrow any independent man."
+
+But notwithstanding such departures from the lines he had laid down for
+himself, the people gloried in his rule and sang at their work songs in
+which he was described as their savior from oppression and wrong.
+
+Confucius was an enthusiast, and his want of success in his attempt
+completely to reform the age in which he lived never seemed to suggest a
+doubt to his mind of the complete wisdom of his creed. According to his
+theory, his official administration should have effected the reform not
+only of his sovereign and the people, but of those of the neighboring
+states. But what was the practical result? The contentment which reigned
+among the people of Loo, instead of instigating the duke of T'se to
+institute a similar system, only served to rouse his jealousy. "With
+Confucius at the head of its government," said he, "Loo will become
+supreme among the states, and T'se, which is nearest to it, will be
+swallowed up. Let us propitiate it by a surrender of territory." But a
+more provident statesman suggested that they should first try to bring
+about the disgrace of the Sage.
+
+With this object he sent eighty beautiful girls, well skilled in the
+arts of music and dancing, and a hundred and twenty of the finest horses
+which could be procured, as a present to the duke King. The result fully
+realized the anticipation of the minister. The girls were taken into the
+duke's harem, the horses were removed to the ducal stables, and
+Confucius was left to meditate on the folly of men who preferred
+listening to the songs of the maidens of T'se to the wisdom of Yaou and
+Shun. Day after day passed and the duke showed no signs of returning to
+his proper mind. The affairs of state were neglected, and for three days
+the duke refused to receive his ministers in audience.
+
+"Master," said Tsze-loo, "it is time you went." But Confucius, who had
+more at stake than his disciple, was disinclined to give up the
+experiment on which his heart was set. Besides, the time was approaching
+when the great sacrifice to Heaven at the solstice, about which he had
+had so many conversations with the duke, should be offered up, and he
+hoped that the recollection of his weighty words would recall the duke
+to a sense of his duties. But his gay rivals in the affections of the
+duke still held their sway, and the recurrence of the great festival
+failed to awaken his conscience even for the moment. Reluctantly
+therefore Confucius resigned his post and left the capital.
+
+But though thus disappointed of the hopes he entertained of the duke of
+Loo, Confucius was by no means disposed to resign his role as the
+reformer of the age. "If any one among the princes would employ me,"
+said he, "I would effect something considerable in the course of twelve
+months, and in three years the government would be perfected." But the
+tendencies of the times were unfavorable to the Sage. The struggle for
+supremacy which had been going on for centuries between the princes of
+the various states was then at its height, and though there might be a
+question whether it would finally result in the victory of Tsin, or of
+Ts'oo, or of Ts'in, there could be no doubt that the sceptre had
+already passed from the hands of the ruler of Chow. To men therefore who
+were fighting over the possessions of a state which had ceased to live,
+the idea of employing a minister whose principal object would have been
+to breathe life into the dead bones of Chow, was ridiculous. This soon
+became apparent to his disciples, who being even more concerned than
+their master at his loss of office, and not taking so exalted a view as
+he did of what he considered to be a heaven-sent mission, were inclined
+to urge him to make concessions in harmony with the times. "Your
+principles," said Tsze-kung to him, "are excellent, but they are
+unacceptable in the empire, would it not be well therefore to bate them
+a little?" "A good husbandman," replied the Sage, "can sow, but he
+cannot secure a harvest. An artisan may excel in handicraft, but he
+cannot provide a market for his goods. And in the same way a superior
+man can cultivate his principles, but he cannot make them acceptable."
+
+But Confucius was at least determined that no efforts on his part should
+be wanting to discover the opening for which he longed, and on leaving
+Loo he betook himself to the state of Wei. On arriving at the capital,
+the reigning duke received him with distinction, but showed no desire to
+employ him. Probably expecting, however, to gain some advantage from the
+counsels of the Sage in the art of governing, he determined to attach
+him to his court by the grant of an annual stipend of sixty thousand
+measures of grain--that having been the value of the post he had just
+resigned in Loo. Had the experiences of his public life come up to the
+sanguine hopes he had entertained at its beginning, Confucius would
+probably have declined this offer as he did that of the Duke of T'se
+some years before, but poverty unconsciously impelled him to act up to
+the advice of Tsze-kung and to bate his principles of conduct somewhat.
+His stay, however, in Wei was of short duration. The officials at the
+court, jealous probably of the influence they feared he might gain over
+the duke, intrigued against him, and Confucius thought it best to bow
+before the coming storm. After living on the duke's hospitality for ten
+months, he left the capital, intending to visit the state of Ch'in.
+
+It chanced, however, that the way thither led him through the town of
+Kwang, which had suffered much from the filibustering expeditions of a
+notorious disturber of the public peace, named Yang-Hoo. To this man of
+ill-fame Confucius bore a striking resemblance, so much so that the
+townspeople, fancying that they now had their old enemy in their power,
+surrounded the house in which he lodged for five days, intending to
+attack him. The situation was certainly disquieting, and the disciples
+were much alarmed. But Confucius's belief in the heaven-sent nature of
+his mission raised him above fear. "After the death of King Wan," said
+he, "was not the cause of truth lodged in me? If Heaven had wished to
+let this sacred cause perish, I should not have been put into such a
+relation to it. Heaven will not let the cause of truth perish, and what
+therefore can the people of Kwang do to me?" Saying which he tuned his
+lyre, and sang probably some of those songs from his recently compiled
+Book of Odes which breathed the wisdom of the ancient emperors.
+
+From some unexplained cause, but more probably from the people of Kwang
+discovering their mistake than from any effect produced by Confucius'
+ditties, the attacking force suddenly withdrew, leaving the Sage free to
+go wherever he listed. This misadventure was sufficient to deter him
+from wandering farther a-field, and, after a short stay at Poo, he
+returned to Wei. Again the duke welcomed him to the capital, though it
+does not appear that he renewed his stipend, and even his consort
+Nan-tsze forgot for a while her intrigues and debaucheries at the news
+of his arrival. With a complimentary message she begged an interview
+with the Sage, which he at first refused; but on her urging her request,
+he was fain obliged to yield the point. On being introduced into her
+presence, he found her concealed behind a screen, in strict accordance
+with the prescribed etiquette, and after the usual formalities they
+entered freely into conversation.
+
+Tsze-loo was much disturbed at this want of discretion, as he considered
+it, on the part of Confucius, and the vehemence of his master's answer
+showed that there was a doubt in his own mind whether he had not
+overstepped the limits of sage-like propriety. "Wherein I have done
+improperly," said he, "may Heaven reject me! may Heaven reject me!"
+This incident did not, however, prevent him from maintaining friendly
+relations with the court, and it was not until the duke by a public act
+showed his inability to understand the dignity of the role which
+Confucius desired to assume, that he lost all hope of finding employment
+in the state of his former patron. On this occasion the duke drove
+through the streets of his capital seated in a carriage with Nan-tsze,
+and desired Confucius to follow in a carriage behind. As the procession
+passed through the market-place, the people perceiving more clearly than
+the duke the incongruity of the proceeding, laughed and jeered at the
+idea of making virtue follow in the wake of lust. This completed the
+shame which Confucius felt at being in so false a position.
+
+"I have not seen one," said he, "who loves virtue as he loves beauty."
+To stay any longer under the protection of a court which could inflict
+such an indignity upon him was more than he could do, and he therefore
+once again struck southward toward Ch'in.
+
+After his retirement from office it is probable that Confucius devoted
+himself afresh to imparting to his followers those doctrines and
+opinions which we shall consider later on. Even on the road to Ch'in we
+are told that he practised ceremonies with his disciples beneath the
+shadow of a tree by the wayside in Sung. In the spirit of Laou-tsze,
+Hwuy T'uy, an officer in the neighborhood, was angered at his reported
+"proud air and many desires, his insinuating habit and wild will," and
+attempted to prevent him entering the state. In this endeavor, however,
+he was unsuccessful, as were some more determined opponents, who two
+years later attacked him at Poo, when he was on his way to Wei. On this
+occasion he was seized, and though it is said that his followers
+struggled manfully with his captors, their efforts did not save him from
+having to give an oath that he would not continue his journey to Wei.
+But in spite of his oath, and in spite of the public slight which had
+previously been put upon him by the duke of Wei, an irresistible
+attraction drew him toward that state, and he had no sooner escaped from
+the clutches of his captors than he continued his journey.
+
+This deliberate forfeiture of his word in one who had commanded them to
+"hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles," surprised his
+disciples; and Tsze-kung, who was generally the spokesman on such
+occasions, asked him whether it was right to violate the oath he had
+taken. But Confucius, who had learned expediency in adversity, replied,
+"It was an oath extracted by force. The spirits do not hear such."
+
+But to return to Confucius flying from his enemies in Sung. Finding his
+way barred by the action of Hwan T'uy, he proceeded westward and arrived
+at Ch'ing, the capital of the state of the same name. Thither it would
+appear his disciples had preceded him, and he arrived unattended at the
+eastern gate of the city. But his appearance was so striking that his
+followers were soon made aware of his presence. "There is a man," said a
+townsman to Tsze-kung, "standing at the east gate with a forehead like
+Yaou, a neck like Kaou Yaou, his shoulders on a level with those of
+Tsze-ch'an, but wanting below the waist three inches of the height of
+Yu, and altogether having the forsaken appearance of a stray dog."
+Recognizing his master in this description, Tsze-kung hastened to meet
+him, and repeated to him the words of his informant. Confucius was much
+amused, and said: "The personal appearance is a small matter; but to say
+I was like a stray dog--capital! capital!"
+
+The ruling powers in Ch'ing, however, showed no disposition to employ
+even a man possessing such marked characteristics, and before long he
+removed to Ch'in, where he remained a year. From Ch'in he once more
+turned his face toward Wei, and it was while he was on this journey that
+he was detained at Poo, as mentioned above. Between Confucius and the
+duke of Wei there evidently existed a personal liking, if not
+friendship. The duke was always glad to see him and ready to converse
+with him; but Confucius's unbounded admiration for those whose bones, as
+Laou-tsze said, were mouldered to dust, and especially for the founders
+of the Chow dynasty, made it impossible for the duke to place him in any
+position of importance. At the same time Confucius seems always to have
+hoped that he would be able to gain the duke over to his views; and thus
+it came about that the Sage was constantly attracted to the court of
+Duke Ling, and as often compelled to exile himself from it.
+
+On this particular occasion, as at all other times, the duke received
+him gladly, but their conversations, which had principally turned on the
+act of peaceful government, were now directed to warlike affairs. The
+duke was contemplating an attack on Poo, the inhabitants of which, under
+the leadership of Hwan T'uy, who had arrested Confucius, had rebelled
+against him. At first Confucius was quite disposed to support the duke
+in his intended hostilities; but a representation from the duke that the
+probable support of other states would make the expedition one of
+considerable danger, converted Confucius to the opinion evidently
+entertained by the duke, that it would be best to leave Hwan T'uy in
+possession of his ill-gotten territory. Confucius's latest advice was
+then to this effect, and the duke acted upon it.
+
+The duke was now becoming an old man, and with advancing age came a
+disposition to leave the task of governing to others, and to weary of
+Confucius' high-flown lectures. He ceased "to use" Confucius, as the
+Chinese historians say, and the Sage was therefore indignant, and ready
+to accept any offer which might come from any quarter. While in this
+humor he received an invitation from Pih Hih, an officer of the state of
+Tsin who was holding the town of Chung-mow against his chief, to visit
+him, and he was inclined to go. It is impossible to study this portion
+of Confucius' career without feeling that a great change had come over
+his conduct. There was no longer that lofty love of truth and of virtue
+which had distinguished the commencement of his official life.
+Adversity, instead of stiffening his back, had made him pliable. He who
+had formerly refused to receive money he had not earned, was now willing
+to take pay in return for no other services than the presentation of
+courtier-like advice on occasions when Duke Ling desired to have his
+opinion in support of his own; and in defiance of his oft-repeated
+denunciation of rebels, he was now ready to go over to the court of a
+rebel chief, in the hope possibly of being able through his means "to
+establish," as he said on another occasion, "an Eastern Chow."
+
+Again Tsze-loo interfered, and expostulated with him on his
+inconsistency. "Master," said he, "I have heard you say that when a man
+is guilty of personal wrong-doing, a superior man will not associate
+with him. If you accept the invitation of this Pih Hih, who is in open
+rebellion against his chief, what will people say?" But Confucius, with
+a dexterity which had now become common with him, replied: "It is true I
+have said so. But is it not also true that if a thing be really hard, it
+may be ground without being made thin; and if it be really white, it may
+be steeped in a black fluid without becoming black? Am I a bitter gourd?
+Am I to be hung up out of the way of being eaten?" But nevertheless
+Tsze-loo's remonstrances prevailed, and he did not go.
+
+His relations with the duke did not improve, and so dissatisfied was he
+with his patron that he retired from the court. As at this time
+Confucius was not in the receipt of any official income, it is probable
+that he again provided for his wants by imparting to his disciples some
+of the treasures out of the rich stores of learning which he had
+collected by means of diligent study and of a wide experience. Every
+word and action of Confucius were full of such meaning to his admiring
+followers that they have enabled us to trace him into the retirement of
+private life. In his dress, we are told, he was careful to wear only the
+"correct" colors, viz., azure, yellow, carnation, white and black, and
+he scrupulously avoided red as being the color usually affected by women
+and girls. At the table he was moderate in his appetite but particular
+as to the nature of his food and the manner in which it was set before
+him. Nothing would induce him to touch any meat that was "high" or rice
+that was musty, nor would he eat anything that was not properly cut up
+or accompanied with the proper sauce. He allowed himself only a certain
+quantity of meat and rice, and though no such limit was fixed to the
+amount of wine with which he accompanied his frugal fare, we are assured
+that he never allowed himself to be confused by it. When out driving, he
+never turned his head quite round, and in his actions as well as in his
+words he avoided all appearance of haste.
+
+Such details are interesting in the case of a man like Confucius, who
+has exercised so powerful an influence over so large a proportion of the
+world's inhabitants, and whose instructions, far from being confined to
+the courts of kings, found their loudest utterances in intimate
+communings with his disciples, and in the example he set by the exact
+performance of his daily duties.
+
+The only accomplishment which Confucius possessed was a love of music,
+and this he studied less as an accomplishment than as a necessary part
+of education. "It is by the odes that the mind is aroused," said he. "It
+is by the rules of propriety that the character is established. And it
+is music which completes the edifice."
+
+But having tasted the sweets of official life, Confucius was not
+inclined to resign all hope of future employment, and the duke of Wei
+still remaining deaf to his advice, he determined to visit the state of
+Tsin, in the hope of finding in Chaou Keen-tsze, one of the three
+chieftains who virtually governed that state, a more hopeful pupil. With
+this intention he started westward, but had got no farther than the
+Yellow River when the news reached him of the execution of Tuh Ming and
+Tuh Shun-hwa, two men of note in Tsin. The disorder which this indicated
+put a stop to his journey; for had not he himself said "that a superior
+man will not enter a tottering state." His disappointment and grief were
+great, and looking at the yellow waters as they flowed at his feet, he
+sighed and muttered to himself: "Oh how beautiful were they; this river
+is not more majestic than they were! and I was not there to avert their
+fate!"
+
+So saying he returned to Wei, only to find the duke as little inclined
+to listen to his lectures, as he was deeply engaged in warlike
+preparations. When Confucius presented himself at court, the duke
+refused to talk on any other subject but military tactics, and
+forgetting, possibly on purpose, that Confucius was essentially a man of
+peace, pressed him for information on the art of manoeuvreing an army.
+"If you should wish to know how to arrange sacrificial vessels," said
+the Sage, "I will answer you, but about warfare I know nothing."
+
+Confucius was now sixty years old, and the condition of the states
+composing the empire was even more unfavorable for the reception of his
+doctrines than ever. But though depressed by fortune, he never lost that
+steady confidence in himself and his mission, which was a leading
+characteristic of his career, and when he found the duke of Wei deaf to
+his advice, he removed to Ch'in, in the hope of there finding a ruler
+who would appreciate his wisdom.
+
+In the following year he left Ch'in with his disciples for Ts'ae, a
+small dependency of the state of Ts'oo. In those days the empire was
+subjected to constant changes. One day a new state carved out of an old
+one would appear, and again it would disappear, or increase in size, as
+the fortunes of war might determine. Thus while Confucius was in Ts'ae,
+a part of Ts'oo declared itself independent, under the name of Ye, and
+the ruler usurped the title of duke. In earlier days such rebellion
+would have called forth a rebuke from Confucius; but it was otherwise
+now, and, instead of denouncing the usurper as a rebel, he sought him as
+a patron. The duke did not know how to receive his visitor, and asked
+Tsze-loo about him. But Tsze-loo, possibly because he considered the
+duke to be no better than Pih Hih, returned him no answer. For this
+reticence Confucius found fault with him, and said, "Why did you not say
+to him, 'He is simply a man who, in his eager pursuit of knowledge,
+forgets his food; who, in the joy of its attainments, forgets his
+sorrows; and who does not perceive that old age is coming on?'"
+
+But whatever may have been the opinion of Tsze-loo, Confucius was quite
+ready to be on friendly terms with the duke, who seems to have had no
+keener relish for Confucius' ethics than the other rulers to whom he had
+offered his services. We are only told of one conversation which took
+place between the duke and the Sage, and on that occasion the duke
+questioned him on the subject of government. Confucius' reply was
+eminently characteristic of the man. Most of his definitions of good
+government would have sounded unpleasantly in the ears of a man who had
+just thrown off his master's yoke and headed a successful rebellion, so
+he cast about for one which might offer some excuse for the new duke by
+attributing the fact of his disloyalty to the bad government of his late
+ruler. Quoting the words of an earlier sage, he replied, "Good
+government obtains when those who are near are made happy, and those who
+are far off are attracted."
+
+Returning from Ye to Ts'ae, he came to a river which, being unbridged,
+left him no resource but to ford it. Seeing two men whom he recognized
+as political recluses ploughing in a neighboring field, he sent the
+ever-present Tsze-loo to inquire of them where best he could effect a
+crossing. "Who is that holding the reins in the carriage yonder?" asked
+the first addressed, in answer to Tsze-loo's inquiry. "Kung Kew,"
+replied the disciple, "Kung Kew, of Loo?" asked the ploughman. "Yes,"
+was the reply. "_He_ knows the ford," was the enigmatic answer of the
+man as he turned to his work; but whether this reply was suggested by
+the general belief that Confucius was omniscient, or by wry of a parable
+to signify that Confucius possessed the knowledge by which the river of
+disorder, which was barring the progress of liberty and freedom, might
+be crossed, we are only left to conjecture. Nor from the second recluse
+could Tsze-loo gain any practical information. "Who are you, sir?" was
+the somewhat peremptory question which his inquiry met with. Upon his
+answering that he was a disciple of Confucius, the man, who might have
+gathered his estimate of Confucius from the mouth of Laou-tsze, replied:
+"Disorder, like a swelling flood, spreads over the whole empire, and who
+is he who will change it for you? Rather than follow one who merely
+withdraws from this court to that court, had you not better follow those
+who (like ourselves) withdraw from the world altogether?" These words
+Tsze-loo, as was his wont, repeated to Confucius, who thus justified his
+career: "It is impossible to associate with birds and beasts as if they
+were the same as ourselves. If I associate not with people, with
+mankind, with whom shall I associate? If right principles prevailed
+throughout the empire, there would be no necessity for me to change its
+state."
+
+Altogether Confucius remained three years in Ts'ae,--three years of
+strife and war, during which his counsels were completely neglected.
+Toward their close, the state of Woo made an attack on Ch'in, which
+found support from the powerful state of Ts'oo on the south. While thus
+helping his ally, the Duke of Ts'oo heard that Confucius was in Ts'ae,
+and determined to invite him to his court. With this object he sent
+messengers bearing presents to the Sage, and charged them with a
+message begging him to come to Ts'oo. Confucius readily accepted the
+invitation, and prepared to start. But the news of the transaction
+alarmed the ministers of Ts'ae and Ch'in. "Ts'oo," said they, "is
+already a powerful state, and Confucius is a man of wisdom. Experience
+has proved that those who have despised him have invariably suffered for
+it, and, should he succeed in guiding the affairs of Ts'oo, we should
+certainly be ruined. At all hazards we must stop his going." When,
+therefore, Confucius had started on his journey, these men despatched a
+force which hemmed him in a wild bit of desert country. Here, we are
+told, they kept him a prisoner for seven days, during which time he
+suffered severe privations, and, as was always the case in moments of
+difficulty, the disciples loudly bewailed their lot and that of their
+master.
+
+"Has the superior man," said Tsze-loo, "indeed, to endure in this way?"
+"The superior man may indeed have to suffer want," replied Confucius,
+"but it is only the mean man who, when he is in straits, gives way to
+unbridled license." In this emergency he had recourse to a solace which
+had soothed him on many occasions when fortune frowned: he played, on
+his lute and sang.
+
+At length he succeeded in sending word to the duke of Ts'oo of the
+position he was in. At once the duke sent ambassadors to liberate him,
+and he himself went out of his capital to meet him. But though he
+welcomed him cordially, and seems to have availed himself of his advice
+on occasions, he did not appoint him to any office, and the intention he
+at one time entertained of granting him a slice of territory was
+thwarted by his ministers, from motives of expediency. "Has your
+majesty," said this officer, "any servant who could discharge the duties
+of ambassador like Tsze-kung? or any so well qualified for a premier as
+Yen Hwuy? or any one to compare as a general with Tsze-loo? Did not
+kings Wan and Woo, from their small states of Fung and Kaou, rise to the
+sovereignty of the empire? And if Kung Kew once acquired territory, with
+such disciples to be his ministers, it will not be to the prosperity of
+Ts'oo."
+
+This remonstrance not only had the immediate effect which was intended,
+but appears to have influenced the manner of the duke toward the Sage,
+for in the interval between this and the duke's death, in the autumn of
+the same year, we hear of no counsel being either asked or given. In the
+successor to the throne Confucius evidently despaired of finding a
+patron, and he once again returned to Wei.
+
+Confucius was now sixty-three, and on arriving at Wei he found a
+grandson of his former friend, the duke Ling, holding the throne against
+his own father, who had been driven into exile for attempting the life
+of his mother, the notorious Nan-tsze. This chief, who called himself
+the duke Chuh, being conscious how much his cause would be strengthened
+by the support of Confucius, sent Tsze-loo to him, saying, "The Prince
+of Wei has been waiting to secure your services in the administration of
+the state, and wishes to know what you consider is the first thing to be
+done." "It is first of all necessary," replied Confucius, "to rectify
+names." "Indeed," said Tzse-loo, "you are wide of the mark. Why need
+there be such rectification?" "How uncultivated you are, Yew," answered
+Confucius; "a superior man shows a cautious reserve in regard to what he
+does not know. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance
+with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the
+truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on successfully. When affairs
+cannot be carried on successfully, proprieties and music will not
+flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will
+not properly be awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the
+people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore the superior man
+considers it necessary that names should be used appropriately, and that
+his directions should be carried out appropriately. A superior man
+requires that his words should be correct."
+
+The position of things in Wei was naturally such as Confucius could not
+sanction, and, as the duke showed no disposition to amend his ways, the
+Sage left his court, and lived the remainder of the five or six years,
+during which he sojourned in the state, in close retirement.
+
+He had now been absent from his native state of Loo for fourteen years,
+and the time had come when he was to return to it. But, by the irony of
+fate, the accomplishment of his long-felt desire was due, not to his
+reputation for political or ethical wisdom, but to his knowledge of
+military tactics, which he heartily despised. It happened that at this
+time Yen Yew, a disciple of the Sage, being in the service of Ke K'ang,
+conducted a campaign against T'se with much success. On his triumphal
+return, Ke K'ang asked him how he had acquired his military skill. "From
+Confucius," replied the general. "And what kind of man is he?" asked Ke
+K'ang. "Were you to employ him," answered Yen Yew, "your fame would
+spread abroad; your people might face demons and gods, and would have
+nothing to fear or to ask of them. And if you accepted his principles,
+were you to collect a thousand altars of the spirits of the land it
+would profit you nothing." Attracted by such a prospect, Ke K'ang
+proposed to invite the Sage to his court, "If you do," said Yen Yew,
+"mind you do not allow mean men to come between you and him."
+
+But before Ke K'ang's invitation reached Confucius an incident occurred
+which made the arrival of the messengers from Loo still more welcome to
+him. K'ung Wan, an officer of Wei, came to consult him as to the best
+means of attacking the force of another officer with whom he was engaged
+in a feud. Confucius, disgusted at being consulted on such a subject,
+professed ignorance, and prepared to leave the state, saying as he went
+away: "The bird chooses its tree; the tree does not choose the bird." At
+this juncture Ke K'ang's envoys arrived, and without hesitation he
+accepted the invitation they brought. On arriving at Loo, he presented
+himself at court, and in reply to a question of the duke Gae on the
+subject of government, threw out a strong hint that the duke might do
+well to offer him an appointment. "Government," he said, "consists in
+the right choice of ministers." To the same question put by Ke K'ang he
+replied, "Employ the upright and put aside the crooked, and thus will
+the crooked be made upright."
+
+At this time Ke K'ang was perplexed how to deal with the prevailing
+brigandage. "If you, sir, were not avaricious, though you might offer
+rewards to induce people to steal, they would not." This answer
+sufficiently indicates the estimate formed by Confucius of Ke K'ang
+and therefore of the duke Gae, for so entirely were the two of one mind
+that the acts of Ke K'ang appear to have been invariably indorsed by the
+duke. It was plainly impossible that Confucius could serve under such a
+regime, and instead, therefore, of seeking employment, he retired to his
+study and devoted himself to the completion of his literary undertaking.
+
+He was now sixty-nine years of age, and if a man is to be considered
+successful only when he succeeds in realizing the dream of his life, he
+must be deemed to have been unfortunate. Endowed by nature with a large
+share of reverence, a cold rather than a fervid disposition, and a
+studious mind, and reared in the traditions of the ancient kings, whose
+virtuous achievements obtained an undue prominence by the obliteration
+of all their faults and failures, he believed himself capable of
+effecting far more than it was possible for him or any other man to
+accomplish. In the earlier part of his career, he had in Loo an
+opportunity given him for carrying his theories of government into
+practice, and we have seen how they failed to do more than produce a
+temporary improvement in the condition of the people under his immediate
+rule. But he had a lofty and steady confidence in himself and in the
+principles which he professed, which prevented his accepting the only
+legitimate inference which could be drawn from his want of success. The
+lessons of his own experience were entirely lost upon him, and he went
+down to his grave at the age of seventy-two firmly convinced as of yore
+that if he were placed in a position of authority "in three years the
+government would be perfected."
+
+Finding it impossible to associate himself with the rulers of Loo, he
+appears to have resigned himself to exclusion from office. His
+wanderings were over:
+
+    "And as a hare, when hounds and horns pursue,
+    Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,"
+
+he had lately been possessed with an absorbing desire to return once
+more to Loo. This had at last been brought about, and he made up his
+mind to spend the remainder of his days in his native state. He had now
+leisure to finish editing the _Shoo King_, or _Book of History_, to
+which he wrote a preface; he also "carefully digested the rites and
+ceremonies determined by the wisdom of the more ancient sages and
+kings; collected and arranged the ancient poetry; and undertook the
+reform of music." He made a diligent study of the _Book of Changes_, and
+added a commentary to it, which is sufficient to show that the original
+meaning of the work was as much a mystery to him as it has been to
+others. His idea of what would probably be the value of the kernel
+encased in this unusually hard shell, if it were once rightly
+understood, is illustrated by his remark, "that if some years could be
+added to his life, he would give fifty of them to the study of the _Book
+of Changes_ and that then he expected to be without great faults."
+
+In the year B.C. 482 his son Le died, and in the following year he lost
+by death his faithful disciple Yen Hwuy. When the news of this last
+misfortune reached him, he exclaimed, "Alas! Heaven is destroying me!" A
+year later a servant of Ke K'ang caught a strange one-horned animal
+while on a hunting excursion, and as no one present, could tell what
+animal it was, Confucius was sent for. At once he declared it to be a
+K'e-lin, and legend says that its identity with the one which appeared
+before his birth was proved by its having the piece of ribbon on its
+horn which Ching-tsae tied to the weird animal which presented itself to
+her in a dream on Mount Ne. This second apparition could only have one
+meaning, and Confucius was profoundly affected at the portent. "For whom
+have you come?" he cried, "for whom have you come?" and then, bursting
+into tears, he added, "The course of my doctrine is run, and I am
+unknown."
+
+"How do you mean that you are unknown?" asked Tsze-kung. "I don't
+complain of Providence," answered the Sage, "nor find fault with men
+that learning is neglected and success is worshipped. Heaven knows me.
+Never does a superior man pass away without leaving a name behind him.
+But my principles make no progress, and I, how shall I be viewed in
+future ages?"
+
+At this time, notwithstanding his declining strength and his many
+employments, he wrote the _Ch'un ts'ew,_ or _Spring and Autumn Annals_,
+in which he followed the history of his native state of Loo, from the
+time of the duke Yin to the fourteenth year of the duke Gae, that is, to
+the time when the appearance of the K'e-lin warned him to consider his
+life at an end.
+
+This is the only work of which Confucius was the author, and of this
+every word is his own. His biographers say that "what was written, he
+wrote, and what was erased, was erased by him." Not an expression was
+either inserted or altered by any one but himself. When he had completed
+the work, he handed the manuscript to his disciples, saying, "By the
+_Spring and Autumn Annals_ I shall be known, and by the _Spring and
+Autumn Annals_ I shall be condemned." This only furnishes another of the
+many instances in which authors have entirely misjudged the value of
+their own works.
+
+In the estimation of his countrymen even, whose reverence for his every
+word would incline them to accept his opinion on this as on every
+subject, the _Spring and Autumn Annals_ holds a very secondary place,
+his utterances recorded in the _Lun yu_, or _Confucian Analects_, being
+esteemed of far higher value, as they undoubtedly are. And indeed the
+two works he compiled, the _Shoo king_ and the _She king_, hold a very
+much higher place in the public regard than the book on which he so
+prided himself. To foreigners, whose judgments are unhampered by his
+recorded opinion, his character as an original historian sinks into
+insignificance, and he is known only as a philosopher and statesman.
+
+Once again only do we hear of Confucius presenting himself at the court
+of the duke after this. And this was on the occasion of the murder of
+the duke of T'se by one of his officers. We must suppose that the crime
+was one of a gross nature, for it raised Confucius' fiercest anger, and
+he who never wearied of singing the praises of those virtuous men who
+overthrew the thrones of licentious and tyrannous kings, would have had
+no room for blame if the murdered duke had been like unto Kee or Show.
+But the outrage was one which Confucius felt should be avenged, and he
+therefore bathed and presented himself at court.
+
+"Sir," said he, addressing the duke, "Ch'in Hang has slain his
+sovereign; I beg that you will undertake to punish him." But the duke
+was indisposed to move in the matter, and pleaded the comparative
+strength of T'se. Confucius, however, was not to be so silenced.
+"One-half of the people of Tse," said he, "are not consenting to the
+deed. If you add to the people of Loo one-half of the people of Tse, you
+will be sure to overcome." This numerical argument no more affected the
+duke than the statement of the fact, and wearying with Confucius'
+importunity, he told him to lay the matter before the chiefs of the
+three principal families of the state. Before this court of appeal,
+whither he went with reluctance, his cause fared no better, and the
+murder remained unavenged.
+
+At a period when every prince held his throne by the strength of his
+right arm, revolutions lost half their crime, and must have been looked
+upon rather as trials of strength than as disloyal villanies. The
+frequency of their occurrence, also, made them less the subjects of
+surprise and horror. At the time of which we write, the states in the
+neighborhood of Loo appear to have been in a very disturbed condition.
+Immediately following on the murder of the duke of T'se, news was
+brought to Confucius that a revolution had broken out in Wei. This was
+an occurrence which particularly interested him, for when he returned
+from Wei to Loo he left Tsze-loo and Tsze-kaou, two of his disciples,
+engaged in the official service of the state. "Tsze-kaou will return,"
+was Confucius' remark, when he was told of the outbreak, "but Tsze-loo
+will die." The prediction was verified. For when Tsze-kaou saw that
+matters were desperate he made his escape; but Tsze-loo remained to
+defend his chief, and fell fighting in the cause of his master. Though
+Confucius had looked forward to the event as probable, he was none the
+less grieved when he heard that it had come about, and he mourned for
+his friend, whom he was so soon to follow to the grave.
+
+One morning, in the spring of the year B.C. 478, he walked in front of
+his door, mumbling as he went:
+
+    "The great mountain must crumble;
+    The strong beam must break;
+    And the wise man withers away like a plant."
+
+These words came as a presage of evil to the faithful Tsze-kung. "If the
+great mountain crumble," said he, "to what shall I look up? If the
+strong beam break, and the wise man wither away, on whom shall I lean?
+The master, I fear, is going to be ill." So saying, he hastened after
+Confucius into the house. "What makes you so late?" said Confucius, when
+the disciple presented himself before him; and then he added, "According
+to the statutes of Hea, the corpse was dressed and coffined at the top
+of the eastern steps, treating the dead as if he were still the host.
+Under the Yin, the ceremony was performed between the two pillars, as if
+the dead were both host and guest. The rule of Chow is to perform it at
+the top of the western steps, treating the dead as if he were a guest. I
+am a man of Yin, and last night I dreamed that I was sitting, with
+offerings before me, between the two pillars. No intelligent monarch
+arises; there is not one in the empire who will make me his master. My
+time is come to die." It is eminently characteristic of Confucius that
+in his last recorded speech and dream, his thoughts should so have dwelt
+on the ceremonies of bygone ages. But the dream had its fulfilment. That
+same day he took to his bed, and after a week's illness he expired.
+
+On the banks of the river Sze, to the north of the capital city of Loo,
+his disciples buried him, and for three years they mourned at his grave.
+Even such marked respect as this fell short of the homage which
+Tsze-kung, his most faithful disciple, felt was due to him, and for
+three additional years that loving follower testified by his grief his
+reverence for his master. "I have all my life had the heaven above my
+head," said he, "but I do not know its height; and the earth under my
+feet, but I know not its thickness. In serving Confucius, I am like a
+thirsty man, who goes with his pitcher to the river and there drinks his
+fill, without knowing the river's depth."
+
+
+
+
+
+ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC
+
+INSTITUTION OF TRIBUNES
+
+B.C. 510-494
+
+HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL
+
+
+     The republic of Rome was the outcome of a sudden revolution caused
+     by the crimes of the House of Tarquin, an Etruscan family who had
+     reached the highest power at Rome. The indignation raised by the
+     rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius, and the suicide of the
+     outraged lady at Collatia, moved her father, in conjunction with
+     Lucius Junius Brutus and Publius Valerius, to start a rebellion.
+     The people were assembled by curiæ, or wards, and voted that
+     Tarquinius Superbus should be stripped of the kingly power, and
+     that he and all his family should be banished from Rome.
+
+     This was accordingly done; and, instead of kings, consuls were
+     appointed to wield the supreme power. These consuls were elected
+     annually at the _comitia centuriata_ and they had sovereign power
+     granted them by a vote of the _comitia curiata_. The first consuls
+     chosen were Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus.
+
+     What is known as the Secession to the Sacred Hill took place when
+     the plebeians of Rome, in the early days of the Republic, indignant
+     at the oppression and cruelty of the patricians, left the city en
+     masse and gathered with hostile manifestations at a hill, Mons
+     Sacer, some distance from Rome. It was here Menenius Agrippa
+     conciliated them by reciting the famous fable of "The Belly and the
+     Members." After this the people were induced to come to terms with
+     the patricians and to return to the city.
+
+     The people had, however, gained a great advantage by their bold
+     defiance of the consular and patrician class, who had practically
+     been supreme in the state, had been oppressive money-lenders, and
+     had controlled the decisions of the law courts. It was not in vain
+     that the people now demanded that as the two consuls were
+     practically elected to further the interests of the upper class, so
+     they, the plebeians, should have the election of two tribunes to
+     protect them from wrong and oppression. These new officers were
+     duly appointed, and eventually their number was increased to ten.
+     Their power was almost absolute, but it never seems to have been
+     abused, and this fact is a proof of the native moderation of the
+     ancient Romans. There have been many constitutional struggles in
+     the history of modern times, but nothing like the plebeian
+     tribunate has ever appeared, and it is a question if the
+     institution could have existed for a month, in any country of
+     modern times, with the salutary influences which it exercised in
+     early Rome.
+
+
+Tarquin had made himself king by the aid of the patricians, and chiefly
+by means of the third or Lucerian tribe, to which his family belonged.
+The burgesses of the Gentes were indignant at the curtailment of their
+privileges by the popular reforms of Servius, and were glad to lend
+themselves to any overthrow of his power. But Tarquin soon kicked away
+the ladder by which he had risen. He abrogated, it is true, the hated
+Assembly of the Centuries; but neither did he pay any heed to the
+Curiate Assembly, nor did he allow any new members to be chosen into the
+senate in place of those who were removed by death or other causes; so
+that even those who had helped him to the throne repented them of their
+deed. The name of Superbus, or the Proud, testifies to the general
+feeling against the despotic rule of the second Tarquin.
+
+It was by foreign alliances that he calculated on supporting his
+despotism at home. The Etruscans of Tarquinii, and all its associate
+cities, were his friends; and among the Latins also he sought to raise a
+power which might counterbalance the senate and people of Rome.
+
+The wisdom of Tarquinius Priscus and Servius had united all the Latin
+name to Rome, so that Rome had become the sovereign city of Latium. The
+last Tarquin drew those ties still closer. He gave his daughter in
+marriage to Octavius Mamilius, chief of Tusculum, and favored the Latins
+in all things. But at a general assembly of the Latins at the Ferentine
+Grove, beneath the Alban Mount, where they had been accustomed to meet
+of olden time to settle their national affairs, Turnus Herdonius of
+Aricia rose and spoke against him. Then Tarquinius accused him of high
+treason, and brought false witnesses against him; and so powerful with
+the Latins was the king that they condemned their countryman to be
+drowned in the Ferentine water, and obeyed Tarquinius in all things.
+
+With them he made war upon the Volscians and took the city of Suessa,
+wherein was a great booty. This booty he applied to the execution of
+great works in the city, in emulation of his father and King Servius.
+The elder Tarquin had built up the side of the Tarpeian rock and
+levelled the summit, to be the foundation of a temple of Jupiter, but he
+had not completed the work. Tarquinius Superbus now removed all the
+temples and shrines of the old Sabine gods which had been there since
+the time of Titus Tatius; but the goddess of Youth and the god Terminus
+kept their place, whereby was signified that the Roman people should
+enjoy undecaying vigor, and that the boundaries of their empire should
+never be drawn in. And on the Tarpeian height he built a magnificent
+temple, to be dedicated jointly to the great gods of the Latins and
+Etruscans, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; and this part of the Saturnian
+Hill was ever after called the Capitol or the Chief Place, while the
+upper part was called the Arx or Citadel.
+
+He brought architects from Etruria to plan the temple, but he forced the
+Roman people to work for him without hire.
+
+One day a strange woman appeared before the king and offered him nine
+books to buy; and when he refused them she went away and burned, three
+of the nine books and brought back the remaining six and offered to sell
+them at the same price that she had asked for the nine; and when he
+laughed at her and again refused, she went as before and burned three
+more books, and came back and asked still the same price for the three
+that were left. Then the king was struck by her pertinacity, and he
+consulted his augurs what this might be; and they bade him by all means
+buy the three, and said he had done wrong not to buy the nine, for these
+were the books of the Sibyl and contained great secrets. So the books
+were kept underground in the Capitol in a stone chest, and two men
+(_duumviri_) were appointed to take charge of them, and consult them
+when the state was in danger.
+
+The only Latin town that defied Tarquin's power was Gabii; and Sextus,
+the king's youngest son, promised to win this place also for his father.
+So he fled from Rome and presented himself at Gabii; and there he made
+complaints of his father's tyranny and prayed for protection. The
+Gabians believed him, and took him into their city, and they trusted
+him, so that in time he was made commander of their army. Now his
+father suffered him to conquer in many small battles, and the Gabians
+trusted him more and more. Then he sent privately to his father, and
+asked what he should do to make the Gabians submit. Then King Tarquin
+gave no answer to the messenger, but, as he walked up and down his
+garden, he kept cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies with his
+staff. At last the messenger was tired, and went back to Sextus and told
+him what had passed. But Sextus understood what his father meant, and he
+began to accuse falsely all the chief men, and some of them he put to
+death and some he banished. So at last the city of Gabii was left
+defenceless, and Sextus delivered it up to his father.
+
+While Tarquin was building his temple on the Capitol, a strange portent
+offered itself; for a snake came forth and devoured the sacrifices on
+the altar. The king, not content with the interpretation of his Etruscan
+soothsayers, sent persons to consult the famous oracle of the Greeks at
+Delphi, and the persons he sent were his own sons Titus and Aruns, and
+his sister's son, L. Junius, a young man who, to avoid his uncle's
+jealousy, feigned to be without common sense, wherefore he was called
+Brutus or the Dullard. The answer given by the oracle was that the chief
+power of Rome should belong to him of the three who should first kiss
+his mother; and the two sons of King Tarquin agreed to draw lots which
+of them should do this as soon as they returned home. But Brutus
+perceived that the oracle had another sense; so as soon as they landed
+in Italy he fell down on the ground as if he had stumbled, and kissed
+the earth, for she (he thought) was the true mother of all mortal
+things.
+
+When the sons of Tarquin returned with their cousin, L. Junius Brutus,
+they found the king at war with the Rutulians of Ardea. Being unable to
+take the place by storm, he was forced to blockade it; and while the
+Roman army was encamped before the town the young men used to amuse
+themselves at night with wine and wassail. One night there was a feast,
+at which Sextus, the king's third son, was present, as also Collatinus,
+the son of Egerius, the king's uncle, who had been made governor of
+Collatia. So they soon began to dispute about the worthiness of their
+wives; and when each maintained that his own wife was worthiest, "Come,
+gentlemen," said Collatinus, "let us take horse and see what our wives
+are doing; they expect us not, and so we shall know the truth." All
+agreed, and they galloped to Rome, and there they found the wives of all
+the others feasting and revelling: but when they came to Collatia they
+found Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, not making merry like the rest,
+but sitting in the midst of her handmaids carding wool and spinning; so
+they all allowed that Lucretia was the worthiest.
+
+Now Lucretia was the daughter of a noble Roman, Spurius Lucretius, who
+was at this time prefect of the city; for it was the custom, when the
+kings went out to war, that they left a chief man at home to administer
+all things in the king's name, and he was called prefect of the city.
+
+But it chanced that Sextus, the king's son, when he saw the fair
+Lucretia, was smitten with lustful passion; and a few days after he came
+again to Collatia, and Lucretia entertained him hospitably as her
+husband's cousin and friend. But at midnight he arose and came with
+stealthy steps to her bedside: and holding a sword in his right hand,
+and laying his left hand upon her breast, he bade her yield to his
+wicked desires; for if not, he would slay her and lay one of her slaves
+beside her, and would declare that he had taken them in adultery. So for
+shame she consented to that which no fear would have wrung from her: and
+Sextus, having wrought this deed of shame, returned to the camp.
+
+Then Lucretia sent to Rome for her father, and to the camp at Ardea for
+her husband. They came in haste. Lucretius brought with him P. Valerius,
+and Collatinus brought L. Junius Brutus, his cousin, And they came in
+and asked if all was well Then she told them what was done: "but," she
+said, "my body only has suffered the shame, for my will consented not to
+the deed. Therefore," she cried, "avenge me on the wretch Sextus. As for
+me, though my heart has not sinned, I can live no longer. No one shall
+say that Lucretia set an example of living in unchastity." So she drew
+forth a knife and stabbed herself to the heart.
+
+When they saw that, her father and her husband cried aloud; but Brutus
+drew the knife from the wound, and holding it up, spoke thus: "By this
+pure blood I swear before the gods that I will pursue L. Tarquinius the
+Proud and all his bloody house with fire, sword, or in whatsoever way I
+may, and that neither they nor any other shall hereafter be king in
+Rome." Then he gave the knife to Collatinus and Lucretius and Valerius,
+and they all swore likewise, much marvelling to hear such words from L.
+Junius the Dullard. And they took up the body of Lucretia, and carried
+it into the Forum, and called on the men of Collatia to rise against the
+tyrant. So they set a guard at the gates of the town, to prevent any
+news of the matter being carried to King Tarquin: and they themselves,
+followed by the youth of Collatia, went to Rome. Here Brutus, who was
+chief captain of the knights, called the people together, and he told
+them what had been done, and called on them by the deed of shame wrought
+against Lucretius and Collatinus--by all that they had suffered from the
+tyrants--by the abominable murder of good King Servius--to assist them
+in taking vengeance on the Tarquins. So it was hastily agreed to banish
+Tarquinius and his family. The youth declared themselves ready to follow
+Brutus against the king's army, and the seniors put themselves under the
+rule of Lucretius, the prefect of the city. In this tumult, the wicked
+Tullia fled from her house, pursued by the curses of all men, who prayed
+that the avengers of her father's blood might be upon her.
+
+When the king heard what had passed, he set off in all haste for the
+city. Brutus also set off for the camp at Ardea; and he turned aside
+that he might not meet his uncle the king. So he came to the camp at
+Ardea, and the king came to Rome. And all the Romans at Ardea welcomed
+Brutus, and joined their arms to his, and thrust out all the king's sons
+from the camp. But the people of Rome shut the gates against the king,
+so that he could not enter. And King Tarquin, with his sons Titus and
+Aruns, went into exile and lived at Cære in Etruria. But Sextus fled to
+Gabii, where he had before held rule, and the people of Gabii slew him
+in memory of his former cruelty.
+
+So L. Tarquinius Superbus was expelled from Rome, after he had been king
+five-and-twenty years. And in memory of this event was instituted a
+festival called the "Regifugium" or "Fugalia," which was celebrated
+every year on the 24th day of February.
+
+To gratify the plebeians, the patricians consented to restore, in some
+measure at least, the popular institutions of King Servius; and it was
+resolved to follow his supposed intention with regard to the supreme
+government--that is, to have two magistrates elected every year, who
+were to have the same power as the king during the time of their rule.
+These were in after days known by the name of Consuls; but in ancient
+times they were called "Prætors" or Judges. They were elected at the
+great Assembly of Centuries; and they had sovereign power conferred upon
+them by the assembly of the Curies. They wore a robe edged with violet
+color, sat in their chairs of state called curule chairs, and were
+attended by twelve lictors each. These lictors carried fasces, or
+bundles of rods, out of which arose an axe, in token of the power of
+life and death possessed by the consuls as successors of the kings. But
+only one of them at a time had a right to this power; and, in token
+thereof, his colleague's fasces had no axes in them. Each retained this
+mark of sovereign power (_Imperium_) for a month at a time.
+
+The first consuls were L. Junius Brutus and L. Tarquinius Collatinus.
+
+The new consuls filled up the senate to the proper number of three
+hundred; and the new senators were called "Conscripti," while the old
+members retained their old name of "Patres." So after this the whole
+senate was addressed by speakers as "Patres, Conscripti." But in later
+times it was forgotten that these names belonged to different sorts of
+persons, and the whole senate was addressed as by one name, "Patres
+Conscripti."
+
+The name of king was hateful. But certain sacrifices had always been
+performed by the king in person; and therefore, to keep up form, a
+person was still chosen, with the title of "Rex Sacrorum" or "Rex
+Sacrificulus," to perform these offerings. But even he was placed under
+the authority of the chief pontifex.
+
+After his expulsion, King Tarquin sent messengers to Rome to ask that
+his property should be given up to him, and the senate decreed that his
+prayer should be granted. But the king's ambassadors, while they were in
+Rome, stirred up the minds of the young men and others who had been
+favored by Tarquin, so that a plot was made to bring him back. Among
+those who plotted were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of the Consul
+Brutus; and they gave letters to the messengers of the king. But it
+chanced that a certain slave hid himself in the place where they met,
+and overheard them plotting; and he came and told the thing to the
+consuls, who seized the messengers of the king with the letters upon
+their persons, authenticated by the seals of the young men. The culprits
+were immediately arrested; but the ambassadors were let go, because
+their persons were regarded as sacred. And the goods of King Tarquin
+were given up for plunder to the people.
+
+Then the traitors were brought up before the consuls, and the sight was
+such as to move all beholders to pity; for among them were the sons of
+L. Junius Brutus himself, the first consul, the liberator of the Roman
+people. And now all men saw how Brutus loved his country; for he bade
+the lictors put all the traitors to death, and his own sons first; and
+men could mark in his face the struggle between his duty as a chief
+magistrate of Rome and his feelings as a father. And while they praised
+and admired him, they pitied him yet more.
+
+Then a decree of the senate was made that no one of the blood of the
+Tarquins should remain in Rome. And since Collatinus, the consul, was by
+descent a Tarquin, even he was obliged to give up his office and return
+to Collatia. In his room, P. Valerius was chosen consul by the people.
+
+This was the first attempt to restore Tarquin the Proud.
+
+When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, he prevailed on the
+people of Tarquinii and Veii to make war with him against the Romans.
+But the consuls came out against them; Valerius commanding the main
+army, and Brutus the cavalry. And it chanced that Aruns, the king's son,
+led the cavalry of the enemy. When he saw Brutus he spurred his horse
+against him, and Brutus declined not the combat. So they rode straight
+at each other with levelled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that
+they pierced each other through from breast to back, and both fell dead.
+
+Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was neither won nor lost.
+But in the night a voice was heard by the Etruscans, saying that the
+Romans were the conquerors. So the enemy fled by night; and when the
+Romans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose them. Then they
+took up the body of Brutus, and departed home, and buried him in public
+with great pomp, and the matrons of Rome mourned him for a whole year,
+because he had avenged the injury of Lucretia.
+
+And thus the second attempt to restore King Tarquin was frustrated.
+
+After the death of Brutus, Publius Valerius ruled the people for a while
+by himself, and he began to build himself a house upon the ridge called
+Velia, which looks down upon the Forum. So the people thought that he
+was going to make himself king; but when he heard this, he called an
+assembly of the people, and appeared before them with his fasces
+lowered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom remained ever
+after, that no consular lictors wore axes within the city, and no consul
+had power of life and death except when he was in command of his legions
+abroad. And he pulled down the beginning of his house upon the Velia,
+and built it below that hill. Also he passed laws that every Roman
+citizen might appeal to the people against the judgment of the chief
+magistrates. Wherefore he was greatly honored among the people, and was
+called "Poplicola," or "Friend of the People."
+
+After this Valerius called together the great Assembly of the Centuries,
+and they chose Sp. Lucretius, father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus.
+But he was an old man, and in not many days he died. So M. Horatius was
+chosen in his stead.
+
+The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin began had never yet been
+consecrated. Then Valerius and Horatius drew lots which should be the
+consecrator, and the lot fell on Horatius. But the friends of Valerius
+murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius from having the honor; so
+when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon
+the doorpost of the temple, there came a messenger, who told him that
+his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly
+consecrate the temple. But Horatius kept his hand upon the doorpost,
+and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rites of
+consecration. Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son.
+
+In the next year Valerius was again made consul, with T. Lucretius; and
+Tarquinius, despairing now of aid from his friends at Veii and
+Tarquinii, went to Lars Porsenna of Clusium, a city on the river Clanis,
+which falls into the Tiber. Porsenna was at this time acknowledged as
+chief of the twelve Etruscan cities; and he assembled a powerful army
+and came to Rome. He came so quickly that he reached the Tiber and was
+near the Sublician Bridge before there was time to destroy it; and if he
+had crossed it the city would have been lost. Then a noble Roman, called
+Horatius Codes, of the Lucerian tribe, with two friends--Sp. Lartius, a
+Ramnian, and T. Herminius, a Titian--posted themselves at the far end of
+the bridge, and defended the passage against all the Etruscan host,
+while the Romans were cutting it off behind them. When it was all but
+destroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and Horatius was
+left alone to bear the whole attack of the enemy. Well he kept his
+ground, standing unmoved amid the darts which were showered upon his
+shield, till the last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river.
+Then he prayed, saying, "Father Tiber, receive me and bear me up, I pray
+thee." So he plunged in, and reached the other side safely; and the
+Romans honored him greatly: they put up his statue in the Comitium, and
+gave him as much land as he could plough round in a day, and every man
+at Rome subscribed the cost of one day's food to reward him.
+
+Then Porsenna, disappointed in his attempt to surprise the city,
+occupied the Hill Janiculum, and besieged the city, so that the people
+were greatly distressed by hunger. But C. Mucius, a noble youth,
+resolved to deliver his country by the death of the king. So he armed
+himself with a dagger, and went to the place where the king was used to
+sit in judgment. It chanced that the soldiers were receiving their pay
+from the king's secretary, who sat at his right hand splendidly
+apparelled; and as this man seemed to be chief in authority, Mucius
+thought that this must be the king; so he stabbed him to the heart. Then
+the guards seized him and dragged him before the king, who was greatly
+enraged, and ordered them to burn him alive if he would not confess the
+whole affair. Then Mucius stood before the king and said: "See how
+little thy tortures can avail to make a brave man tell the secrets
+committed to him"; and so saying, he thrust his right hand into the fire
+of the altar, and held it in the flame with unmoved countenance. Then
+the king marvelled at his courage, and ordered him to be spared, and
+sent away in safety: "for," said he, "thou art a brave man, and hast
+done more harm to thyself than to me." Then Mucius replied: "Thy
+generosity, O king, prevails more with me than thy threats. Know that
+three hundred Roman youths have sworn thy death: my lot came first. But
+all the rest remain, prepared to do and suffer like myself." So he was
+let go, and returned home, and was called "Scævola," or "The
+Left-handed," because his right hand had been burnt off.
+
+King Porsenna was greatly moved by the danger he had escaped, and
+perceiving the obstinate determination of the Romans, he offered to make
+peace. The Romans gladly gave ear to his words, for they were hard
+pressed, and they consented to give back all the land which they had won
+from the Etruscans beyond the Tiber. And they gave hostages to the king
+in pledge that they would obey him as they had promised, ten youths and
+ten maidens. But one of the maidens, named Cloelia, had a man's heart,
+and she persuaded all her fellows to escape from the king's camp and
+swim across the Tiber. At first King Porsenna was wroth; but then he was
+much amazed, even more than at the deeds of Horatius and Mucius. So when
+the Romans sent back Cloelia and her fellow-maidens--for they would not
+break faith with the king--he bade her return home again, and told her
+she might take whom she pleased of the youths who were hostages; and she
+chose those who were yet boys, and restored them to their parents.
+
+So the Roman people gave certain lands to young Mucius, and they set up
+an equestrian statue to the bold Cloelia at the top of the Sacred Way.
+And King Porsenna returned home; and thus the third and most formidable
+attempt to bring back Tarquin failed.
+
+When Tarquin now found that he had no hopes of further assistance from
+Porsenna and his Etruscan friends, he went and dwelt at Tusculum, where
+Mamilius Octavius, his son-in-law, was still chief. Then the thirty
+Latin cities combined together and made this Octavius their dictator,
+and bound themselves to restore their old friend and ally, King Tarquin,
+to the sovereignty of Rome.
+
+P. Valerius, who was called "Poplicola," was now dead, and the Romans
+looked about for some chief worthy to lead them against the army of the
+Latins. Poplicola had been made consul four times, and his compeers
+acknowledged him as their chief, and all men submitted to him as to a
+king. But now the two consuls were jealous of each other; nor had they
+power of life and death within the city, for Valerius (as we saw) had
+taken away the axes from the fasces. Now this was one of the reasons why
+Brutus and the rest made two consuls instead of one king: for they said
+that neither one would allow the other to become tyrant; and since they
+only held office for one year at a time, they might be called on to give
+account of their government when their year was at an end.
+
+Yet though this was a safeguard of liberty in times of peace, it was
+hurtful in time of war, for the consuls chosen by the people in their
+great assemblies were not always skilful generals; or if they were so,
+they were obliged to lay down their command at the year's end.
+
+So the senate determined, in cases of great danger, to call upon one of
+the consuls to appoint a single chief, who should be called "dictator,"
+or master of the people. He had sovereign power (_Imperium_) both in the
+city and out of the city, and the fasces were always carried before him
+with the axes in them, as they had been before the king. He could only
+be appointed for six months, but at the end of the time he had to give
+no account. So that he was free to act according to his own judgment,
+having no colleague to interfere with him at the present, and no
+accusations to fear at a future time. The dictator was general-in-chief,
+and he appointed a chief officer to command the knights under him, who
+was called "master of the horse."
+
+And now it appeared to be a fit time to appoint such a chief, to take
+the command of the army against the Latins. So the first dictator was T.
+Lartius, and he made Spurius Cassius his master of the horse. This was
+in the year B.C. 499, eight years after the expulsion of Tarquin.
+
+But the Latins did not declare war for two years after. Then the senate
+again ordered the consul to name a master of the people, or dictator;
+and he named Aul. Postumius, who appointed T. Æbutius (one of the
+consuls of that year) to be his master of the horse. So they led out the
+Roman army against the Latins, and they met at the Lake Regillus, in the
+land of the Tusculans. King Tarquin and all his family were in the host
+of the Latins; and that day it was to be determined whether Rome should
+be again subject to the tyrant and whether or not she was to be chief of
+the Latin cities.
+
+King Tarquin himself, old as he was, rode in front of the Latins in full
+armor; and when he descried the Roman dictator marshalling his men, he
+rode at him; but Postumius wounded him in the side, and he was rescued
+by the Latins. Then also Æbutius, the master of the horse, and Oct.
+Mamilius, the dictator of the Latins, charged one another, and Æbutius
+was pierced through the arm, and Mamilius wounded in the breast. But the
+Latin chief, nothing daunted, returned to battle, followed by Titus, the
+king's son, with his band of exiles. These charged the Romans furiously,
+so that they gave way; but when M. Valerius, brother of the great
+Poplicola, saw this, he spurred his horse against Titus, and rode at him
+with spear in rest; and when Titus turned away and fled, Valerius rode
+furiously after him into the midst of the Latin host, and a certain
+Latin smote him in the side as he was riding past, so that he fell dead,
+and his horse galloped on without a rider. So the band of exiles pressed
+still more fiercely upon the Romans, and they began to flee.
+
+Then Postumius the dictator lifted up his voice and vowed a temple to
+Castor and Pollux, the great twin heroes of the Greeks, if they would
+aid him; and behold there appeared on his right two horsemen, taller and
+fairer than the sons of men, and their horses were as white as snow. And
+they led the dictator and his guard against the exiles and the Latins,
+and the Romans prevailed against them; and T. Herminius the Titian, the
+friend of Horatius Cocles, ran Mamilius, the dictator of the Latins,
+through the body, so that he died; but when he was stripping the arms
+from his foe, another ran him through, and he was carried back to the
+camp, and he also died. Then also Titus, the king's son, was slain, and
+the Latins fled, and the Romans pursued them with great slaughter, and
+took their camp and all that was in it. Now Postumius had promised great
+rewards to those who first broke into the camp of the Latins, and the
+first who broke in were the two horsemen on white horses; but after the
+battle they were nowhere to be seen or found, nor was there any sign of
+them left, save on the hard rock there was the mark of a horse's hoof,
+which men said was made by the horse of one of those horsemen.
+
+But at this very time two youths on white horses rode into the Forum at
+Rome. They were covered with dust and sweat and blood, like men who had
+fought long and hard, and their horses also were bathed in sweat and
+foam: and they alighted near the Temple of Vesta, and washed themselves
+in a spring that gushes out hard by, and told all the people in the
+Forum how the battle by the Lake Regillus had been fought and won. Then
+they mounted their horses and rode away, and were seen no more.
+
+But Postumius, when he heard it, knew that these were Castor and Pollux,
+the great twin brethren of the Greeks, and that it was they who fought
+so well for Rome at the Lake Regillus. So he built them a temple,
+according to his vow, over the place where they had alighted in the
+Forum. And their effigies were displayed on Roman coins to the latest
+ages of the city.
+
+This was the fourth and last attempt to restore King Tarquin. After the
+great defeat of Lake Regillus, the Latin cities made peace with Rome,
+and agreed to refuse harborage to the old king. He had lost all his
+sons, and, accompanied by a few faithful friends, who shared his exile,
+he sought a last asylum at the Greek city of Cumæ in the Bay of Naples,
+at the court of the tyrant Aristodemus. Here he died in the course of a
+year, fourteen years after his expulsion.
+
+We shall now record, not only the slow steps by which the Romans
+recovered dominion over their neighbors, but also the long-continued
+struggle by which the plebeians raised themselves to a level with the
+patricians, who had again become the dominant caste at Rome. Mixed up
+with legendary tales as the history still is, enough is nevertheless
+preserved to excite the admiration of all who love to look upon a brave
+people pursuing a worthy object with patient but earnest resolution,
+never flinching, yet seldom injuring their good cause by reckless
+violence. To an Englishman this history ought to be especially dear, for
+more than any other in the annals of the world does it resemble the
+long-enduring constancy and sturdy determination, the temperate will and
+noble self-control, with which the Commons of his own country secured
+their rights. It was by a struggle of this nature, pursued through a
+century and a half, that the character of the Roman people was molded
+into that form of strength and energy, which threw back Hannibal to the
+coasts of Africa, and in half a century more made them masters of the
+Mediterranean shore.
+
+There can be no doubt that the wars that followed the expulsion of the
+Tarquins, with the loss of territory that accompanied them, must have
+reduced all orders of men at Rome to great distress. But those who most
+suffered were the plebeians. The plebeians at that time consisted
+entirely of landholders, great and small, and husbandmen, for in those
+times the practice of trades and mechanical arts was considered unworthy
+of a freeborn man. Some of the plebeian families were as wealthy as any
+among the patricians; but the mass of them were petty yeoman, who lived
+on the produce of their small farm, and were solely dependent for a
+living on their own limbs, their own thrift and industry. Most of them
+lived in the villages and small towns, which in those times were thickly
+sprinkled over the slopes of the Campagna.
+
+The patricians, on the other hand, resided chiefly within the city. If
+slaves were few as yet, they had the labor of their clients available to
+till their farms; and through their clients also they were enabled to
+derive a profit from the practice of trading and crafts, which
+personally neither they nor the plebeians would stoop to pursue. Besides
+these sources of profit, they had at this time the exclusive use of the
+public land, a subject on which we shall have to speak more at length
+hereafter. At present, it will be sufficient to say, that the public
+land now spoken of had been the crown land or regal domain, which on
+the expulsion of the kings had been forfeited to the state. The
+patricians being in possession of all actual power, engrossed possession
+of it, and seem to have paid a very small quit-rent to the treasury for
+this great advantage.
+
+Besides this, the necessity of service in the army, or militia--as it
+might more justly be called--acted very differently on the rich
+landholder and the small yeoman. The latter, being called out with sword
+and spear for the summer's campaign, as his turn came round, was obliged
+to leave his farm uncared for, and his crop could only be reaped by the
+kind aid of neighbors; whereas the rich proprietor, by his clients or
+his hired laborers, could render the required military service without
+robbing his land of his own labor. Moreover, the territory of Rome was
+so narrow, and the enemy's borders so close at hand, that any night the
+stout yeoman might find himself reduced to beggary, by seeing his crops
+destroyed, his cattle driven away, and his homestead burnt in a sudden
+foray. The patricians and rich plebeians were, it is true, exposed to
+the same contingencies. But wealth will always provide some defence; and
+it is reasonable to think that the larger proprietors provided places of
+refuge, into which they could drive their cattle and secure much of
+their property, such as the peel-towers common in our own border
+counties. Thus the patricians and their clients might escape the storm
+which destroyed the isolated yeoman.
+
+To this must be added that the public land seems to have been mostly in
+pasturage, and therefore the property of the patricians must have
+chiefly consisted in cattle, which was more easily saved from
+depredation than the crops of the plebeian. Lastly, the profit derived
+from the trades and business of their clients, being secured by the
+walls of the city, gave to the patricians the command of all the capital
+that could exist in a state of society so simple and crude, and afforded
+at once a means of repairing their own losses, and also of obtaining a
+dominion over the poor yeoman.
+
+For some time after the expulsion of the Tarquins it was necessary for
+the patricians to treat the plebeians with liberality. The institutions
+of "the Commons' King," King Servius, suspended by Tarquin, were,
+partially at least, restored: it is said even that one of the first
+consuls was a plebeian, and that he chose several of the leading
+plebeians into the senate. But after the death of Porsenna, and when the
+fear of the Tarquins ceased, all these flattering signs disappeared. The
+consuls seem still to have been elected by the Centuriate Assembly, but
+the Curiate Assembly retained in their own hands the right of conferring
+the _Imperium_, which amounted to a positive veto on the election by the
+larger body. All the names of the early consuls, except in the first
+year of the Republic, are patrician. But if by chance a consul displayed
+popular tendencies, it was in the power of the senate and patricians to
+suspend his power by the appointment of a dictator. Thus, practically,
+the patrician burgesses again became the _Populus_, or body politic of
+Rome.
+
+It must not here be forgotten that this dominant body was an exclusive
+caste; that is, it consisted of a limited number of noble families, who
+allowed none of their members to marry with persons born out of the pale
+of their own order. The child of a patrician and a plebeian, or of a
+patrician and a client, was not considered as born in lawful wedlock;
+and however proud the blood which it derived from one parent, the child
+sank to the condition of the parent of lower rank. This was expressed in
+Roman language by saying, that there was no "Right of Connubium" between
+patricians and any inferior classes of men. Nothing can be more
+impolitic than such restrictions; nothing more hurtful even to those who
+count it their privilege. In all exclusive or oligarchical,_pales_,
+families become extinct, and the breed decays both in bodily strength
+and mental vigor. Happily for Rome, the patricians were unable long to
+maintain themselves as a separate caste.
+
+Yet the plebeians might long have submitted to this state of social and
+political inferiority, had not their personal distress and the severe
+laws of Rome driven them to seek relief by claiming to be recognized as
+members of the body politic.
+
+The severe laws of which we speak were those of debtor and creditor. If
+a Roman borrowed money, he was expected to enter into a contract with
+his creditor to pay the debt by a certain day; and if on that day he was
+unable to discharge his obligation, he was summoned before the patrician
+judge, who was authorized by the law to assign the defaulter as a bonds
+man to his creditor--that is, the debtor was obliged to pay by his own
+labor the debt which he was unable to pay in money. Or if a man incurred
+a debt without such formal contract, the rule was still more imperious,
+for in that case the law itself fixed the day of payment; and if after a
+lapse of thirty days from that date the debt was not discharged, the
+creditor was empowered to arrest the person of his debtor, to load him
+with chains, and feed him on bread and water for another thirty days;
+and then, if the money still remained unpaid, he might put him to death,
+or sell him as a slave to the highest bidder; or, if there were several
+creditors, they might hew his body in pieces and divide it. And in this
+last case the law provided with scrupulous providence against the
+evasion by which the Merchant of Venice escaped the cruelty of the Jew;
+for the Roman law said that "whether a man cut more or less [than his
+due], he should incur no penalty." These atrocious provisions, however,
+defeated their own object, for there was no more unprofitable way in
+which the body of a debtor could be disposed of.
+
+Such being the law of debtor and creditor, it remains to say that the
+creditors were chiefly of the patrician caste, and the debtors almost
+exclusively of the poorer sort among the plebeians. The patricians were
+the creditors, because from their occupancy of the public land, and from
+their engrossing the profits to be derived from trade and crafts, they
+alone had spare capital to lend. The plebeian yeomen were the debtors,
+because their independent position made them, at that time, helpless.
+Vassals, clients, serfs, or by whatever name dependents are called, do
+not suffer from the ravages of a predatory war like free landholders,
+because the loss falls on their lords or patrons. But when the
+independent yeoman's crops are destroyed, his cattle "lifted," and his
+homestead in ashes, he must himself repair the loss. This was, as we
+have said, the condition of many Roman plebeians. To rebuild their
+houses and restock their farms they borrowed; the patricians were their
+creditors; and the law, instead of protecting the small holders, like
+the law of the Hebrews, delivered them over into serfdom or slavery.
+
+Thus the free plebeian population might have been reduced to a state of
+mere dependency, and the history of Rome might have presented a
+repetition of monotonous severity, like that of Sparta or of Venice.[38]
+But it was ordained otherwise. The distress and oppression of the
+plebeians led them to demand and to obtain political protectors, by
+whose means they were slowly but surely raised to equality of rights and
+privileges with their rulers and oppressors. These protectors were the
+famous Tribunes of the Plebs. We will now repeat the no less famous
+legends by which their first creation was accounted for.
+
+[Footnote 38: A well-known German historian calls the Spartans by the
+name of "stunted Romans." There is much resemblance to be traced.]
+
+It was, by the common reckoning, fifteen years after the expulsion of
+the Tarquins (B.C. 494), that the plebeians were roused to take the
+first step in the assertion of their rights. After the battle of Lake
+Regillus, the plebeians had reason to expect some relaxation of the law
+of debt, in consideration of the great services they had rendered in the
+war. But none was granted. The patrician creditors began to avail
+themselves of the severity of the law against their plebeian debtors.
+The discontent that followed was great, and the consuls prepared to meet
+the storm. These were Appius Claudius, the proud Sabine nobleman who had
+lately become a Roman, and who now led the high patrician party with all
+the unbending energy of a chieftain whose will had never been disputed
+by his obedient clansmen; and P. Servilius, who represented the milder
+and more liberal party of the Fathers.
+
+It chanced that an aged man rushed into the Forum on a market-day,
+loaded with chains, clothed with a few scanty rags, his hair and beard
+long and squalid; his whole appearance ghastly, as of one oppressed by
+long want of food and air. He was recognized as a brave soldier, the old
+comrade of many who thronged the Forum. He told his story, how that in
+the late wars the enemy had burned his house and plundered his little
+farm; that to replace his losses he had borrowed money of a patrician,
+that his cruel creditor (in default of payment) had thrown him into
+prison,[39] and tormented him with chains and scourges. At this sad
+tale, the passions of the people rose high.
+
+[Footnote 39: Such prisons were called _ergastula_, and afterward became
+the places for keeping slaves in.]
+
+Appius was obliged to conceal himself, while Servilius undertook to
+plead the cause of the plebeians with the senate.
+
+Meantime news came to the city that the Roman territory was invaded by
+the Volscian foe. The consuls proclaimed a levy; but the stout yeomen,
+one and all, refused to give in their names and take the military oath.
+Servilius now came forward and proclaimed by edict that no citizen
+should be imprisoned for debt so long as the war lasted, and that at the
+close of the war he would propose an alteration of the law. The
+plebeians trusted him, and the enemy was driven back. But when the
+popular consul returned with his victorious soldiers, he was denied a
+triumph, and the senate, led by Appius, refused to make any concession
+in favor of the debtors.
+
+The anger of the plebeians rose higher and higher, when again news came
+that the enemy was ravaging the lands of Rome. The senate, well knowing
+that the power of the consuls would avail nothing, since Appius was
+regarded as a tyrant, and Servilius would not choose again to become an
+instrument for deceiving the people, appointed a dictator to lead the
+citizens into the field. But to make the act as popular as might be,
+they named M. Valerius, a descendant of the great Poplicola. The same
+scene was repeated over again. Valerius protected the plebeians against
+their creditors while they were at war, and promised them relief when
+war was over. But when the danger was gone by, Appius again prevailed;
+the senate refused to listen to Valerius, and the dictator laid down his
+office, calling gods and men to witness that he was not responsible for
+his breach of faith.
+
+The plebeians whom Valerius had led forth were still under arms, still
+bound by their military oath, and Appius, with the violent patricians,
+refused to disband them. The army, therefore, having lost Valerius,
+their proper general chose two of themselves, L. Junius Brutus and L.
+Sicinius Bellutus by name, and under their command they marched
+northward and occupied the hill which commands the junction of the Tiber
+and the Anio. Here, at a distance of about two miles from Rome, they
+determined to settle and form a new city, leaving Rome to the patricians
+and their clients. But the latter were not willing to lose the best of
+their soldiery, the cultivators of the greater part of the Roman
+territory, and they sent repeated embassies to persuade the seceders to
+return. They, however, turned a deaf ear to all promises, for they had
+too often been deceived. Appius now urged the senate and patricians to
+leave the plebeians to themselves. The nobles and their clients, he
+said, could well maintain themselves in the city without such base aid.
+
+But wiser sentiments prevailed. T. Lartius, and M. Valerius, both of whom
+had been dictators, with Menenius Agrippa, an old patrician of popular
+character, were empowered to treat with the people. Still their leaders
+were unwilling to listen, till old Menenius addressed them in the famous
+fable of the "Belly and the Members":
+
+"In times of old," said he, "when every member of the body could think
+for itself, and each had a separate will of its own, they all, with one
+consent, resolved to revolt against the belly. They knew no reason, they
+said, why they should toil from morning till night in its service, while
+the belly lay at its ease in the midst of all, and indolently grew fat
+upon their labors. Accordingly they agreed to support it no more. The
+feet vowed they would carry it no longer; the hands that they would do
+no more work; the teeth that they would not chew a morsel of meat, even
+were it placed between them. Thus resolved, the members for a time
+showed their spirit and kept their resolution; but soon they found that
+instead of mortifying the belly they only undid themselves: they
+languished for a while, and perceived too late that it was owing to the
+belly that they had strength to work and courage to mutiny."
+
+The moral of this fable was plain. The people readily applied it to the
+patricians and themselves, and their leaders proposed terms of agreement
+to the patrician messengers. They required that the debtors who could
+not pay should have their debts cancelled, and that those who had been
+given up into slavery should be restored to freedom. This for the past.
+And as a security for the future, they demanded that two of themselves
+should be appointed for the sole purpose of protecting the plebeians
+against the patrician magistrates, if they acted cruelly or unjustly
+toward the debtors. The two officers thus to be appointed were called
+"Tribunes of the Plebs." Their persons were to be sacred and inviolable
+during their year of office, whence their office is called _sacrosancta
+Potestas_. They were never to leave the city during that time, and their
+houses were to be open day and night, that all who needed their aid
+might demand it without delay.
+
+This concession, apparently great, was much modified by the fact that
+the patricians insisted on the election of the tribunes being made at
+the Comitia of the Centuries, in which they themselves and their wealthy
+clients could usually command a majority. In later times, the number of
+the tribunes was increased to five, and afterward to ten. They were
+elected at the Comitia of the tribes. They had the privilege of
+attending all sittings of the senate, though they were not considered
+members of that famous body. Above all, they acquired the great and
+perilous power of the veto, by which any one of their number might stop
+any law, or annul any decree of the senate without cause or reason
+assigned. This right of veto was called the "Right of Intercession."
+
+On the spot where this treaty was made, an altar was built to Jupiter,
+the causer and banisher of fear, for the plebeians had gone thither in
+fear and returned from it in safety. The place was called Mons Sacer, or
+the Sacred Hill, forever after, and the laws by which the sanctity of
+the tribunitian office was secured were called the _Leges Sacratæ_.
+
+The tribunes were not properly magistrates or officers, for they had no
+express functions or official duties to discharge. They were simply
+representatives and protectors of the plebs. At the same time, however,
+with the institution of these protective officers, the plebeians were
+allowed the right of having two ædiles chosen from their own body, whose
+business it was to preserve order and decency in the streets, to provide
+for the repair of all buildings and roads there, with other functions
+partly belonging to police officers, and partly to commissioners of
+public works.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF MARATHON
+
+B.C. 490
+
+SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
+
+
+     Marathon! A name to conjure up such visions of glory as few
+     battlefields have ever shown. Heroism and determination on the part
+     of the Athenians, supported by the small but ever noble band of
+     Platæans who came to their aid; who can read the repulse of the
+     Persians on this ever memorable plain without experiencing a thrill
+     of admiration and delight at the achievement? The whole world since
+     that battle has looked upon it as a victory of the under dog. Many
+     of the great engagements of modern times have been likened unto it.
+     For long it has been the synonym of brave despair; the conquering
+     of an enemy many times superior in numbers to its opponent.
+
+     This attempt of the Persians on the Greeks was not the first
+     against them, That took place B.C. 493 under Mardonius. This
+     commander had reduced Ionia, dethroned the despots, and established
+     democracy throughout the land. After this he turned his attention
+     to Eretria and Athens, taking his army across the straits in
+     vessels. But the ships of war and transports were wrecked by a
+     mighty headwind as they rounded Mount Athos. Many were driven
+     ashore, about three hundred of them were totally lost, and some
+     twenty thousand men perished in the catastrophe.
+
+     All the trouble between the Persians and Greeks arose over the
+     capture of Sardis by the Ionians, B.C. 500. The city was burned,
+     and then the Ionians retreated. It was to avenge this that Persia
+     determined on a punitive expedition against the Greeks. The Ionians
+     and Milesian men were mostly slain by the Persians, the women and
+     children led into captivity, and the temples in the cities burned
+     and razed to the ground.[40]
+
+     [Footnote 40: The year following the fall of the Ionic city of
+     Miletus the poet Phrynichus made it the subject of a tragedy. On
+     bringing it on the stage he was fined one thousand drachmae for
+     having recalled to them their own misfortunes.--SMITH.]
+
+     In the battle of Marathon, which succeeded these events, we have a
+     vivid picture presented to us in Creasy's glowing words:
+
+
+Two thousand three hundred and forty years ago a council of Athenian
+officers was summoned on the slope of one of the mountains that look
+over the plain of Marathon, on the eastern coast of Attica. The
+immediate subject of their meeting was to consider whether they should
+give battle to an enemy that lay encamped on the shore beneath them; but
+on the result of their deliberations depended, not merely the fate of
+two armies, but the whole future progress of human civilization.
+
+There were eleven members of that council of war. Ten were the generals
+who were then annually elected at Athens, one for each of the local
+tribes into which the Athenians were divided. Each general led the men
+of his own tribe, and each was invested with equal military authority.
+But one of the archons was also associated with them in the general
+command of the army. This magistrate was termed the "Polemarch" or
+War-ruler, He had the privilege of leading the right wing of the army in
+battle, and his vote in a council of war was equal to that of any of the
+generals. A noble Athenian named Callimachus was the war-ruler of this
+year, and, as such, stood listening to the earnest discussion of the ten
+generals. They had, indeed, deep matter for anxiety, though little aware
+how momentous to mankind were the votes they were about to give, or how
+the generations to come would read with interest the record of their
+discussions. They saw before them the invading forces of a mighty
+empire, which had in the last fifty years shattered and enslaved nearly
+all the kingdoms and principal cities of the then known world. They knew
+that all the resources of their own country were comprised in the little
+army intrusted to their guidance. They saw before them a chosen host of
+the great king, sent to wreak his special wrath on that country and on
+the other insolent little Greek community which had dared to aid his
+rebels and burn the capital of one of his provinces. That victorious
+host had already fulfilled half its mission of vengeance.
+
+Eretria, the confederate of Athens in the bold march against Sardis nine
+years before, had fallen in the last few days; and the Athenian generals
+could discern from the heights the island of Ægilia, in which the
+Persians had deposited their Eretrian prisoners, whom they had reserved
+to be led away captives into Upper Asia, there to hear their doom from
+the lips of King Darius himself. Moreover, the men of Athens knew that
+in the camp before them was their own banished tyrant, who was seeking
+to be reinstated by foreign cimeters in despotic sway over any remnant
+of his countrymen that might survive the sack of their town, and might
+be left behind as too worthless for leading away into Median bondage.
+
+The numerical disparity between the force which the Athenian commanders
+had under them, and that which they were called on to encounter, was
+hopelessly apparent to some of the council. The historians who wrote
+nearest to the time of the battle do not pretend to give any detailed
+statements of the numbers engaged, but there are sufficient data for our
+making a general estimate. Every free Greek was trained to military
+duty; and, from the incessant border wars between the different states,
+few Greeks reached the age of manhood without having seen some service.
+But the muster-roll of free Athenian citizens of an age fit for military
+duty never exceeded thirty thousand, and at this, epoch probably did not
+amount to two-thirds of that number. Moreover, the poorer portion of
+these were unprovided with the equipments, and untrained to the
+operations of the regular infantry. Some detachments of the best-armed
+troops would be required to garrison the city itself and man the various
+fortified posts in the territory, so that it is impossible to reckon the
+fully equipped force that marched from Athens to Marathon, when the news
+of the Persian landing arrived, at higher than ten thousand men.[41]
+
+[Footnote 41: The historians, who lived long after the time of the
+battle, such as Justin, Plutarch, and others, give ten thousand as the
+number of the Athenian army. Not much reliance could be placed on their
+authority if unsupported by other evidence; but a calculation made for
+the number of the Athenian free population remarkably confirms it.]
+
+With one exception, the other Greeks held back from aiding them. Sparta
+had promised assistance, but the Persians had landed on the sixth day of
+the moon, and a religious scruple delayed the march of Spartan troops
+till the moon should have reached its full. From one quarter only, and
+that from a most unexpected one, did Athens receive aid at the moment of
+her great peril.
+
+Some years before this time the little state of Platæa in Boeotia, being
+hard pressed by her powerful neighbor, Thebes, had asked the protection
+of Athens, and had owed to an Athe man army the rescue of her
+independence. Now when it was noised over Greece that the Mede had come
+from the uttermost parts of the earth to destroy Athens, the brave
+Platæans, unsolicited, marched with their whole force to assist the
+defence, and to share the fortunes of their benefactors.
+
+The general levy of the Platæans amounted only to a thousand men; and
+this little column, marching from their city along the southern ridge of
+Mount Cithæron, and thence across the Attic territory, joined the
+Athenian forces above Marathon almost immediately before the battle. The
+reënforcement was numerically small, but the gallant spirit of the men
+who composed it must have made it of tenfold value to the Athenians, and
+its presence must have gone far to dispel the cheerless feeling of being
+deserted and friendless, which the delay of the Spartan succors was
+calculated to create among the Athenian ranks.[42]
+
+[Footnote 42: Mr. Grote observes that "this volunteer march of the whole
+Platæan force to Marathon is one of the most affecting incidents of all
+Grecian history." In truth, the whole career of Platæa, and the
+friendship, strong, even unto death, between her and Athens form one of
+the most affecting episodes in the history of antiquity. In the
+Peloponnesian war the Platæans again were true to the Athenians against
+all risks, and all calculation of self-interest: and the destruction of
+Platæa was the consequence. There are few nobler passages in the
+classics than the speech in which the Platæan prisoners of war, after
+the memorable siege of their city, justify before their Spartan
+executioners their loyal adherence to Athens.]
+
+This generous daring of their weak but true-hearted ally was never
+forgotten at Athens. The Platæans were made the civil fellow-countrymen
+of the Athenians, except the right of exercising certain political
+functions; and from that time forth in the solemn sacrifices at Athens,
+the public prayers were offered up for a joint blessing from Heaven upon
+the Athenians, and the Platæans also.
+
+After the junction of the column from Platæa, the Athenian commanders
+must have had under them about eleven thousand fully armed and
+disciplined infantry, and probably a large number of irregular
+light-armed troops; as, besides the poorer citizens who went to the
+field armed with javelins, cutlasses, and targets, each regular
+heavy-armed soldier was attended in the camp by one or more slaves, who
+were armed like the inferior freemen. Cavalry or archers the Athenians
+(on this occasion) had none, and the use in the field of military
+engines was not at that period introduced into ancient warfare.
+
+Contrasted with their own scanty forces, the Greek commanders saw
+stretched before them, along the shores of the winding bay, the tents
+and shipping of the varied nations who marched to do the bidding of the
+king of the Eastern world. The difficulty of finding transports and of
+securing provisions would form the only limit to the numbers of a
+Persian army. Nor is there any reason to suppose the estimate of Justin
+exaggerated, who rates at a hundred thousand the force which on this
+occasion had sailed, under the satraps Datis and Artaphernes, from the
+Cilician shores against the devoted coasts of Euboea and Attica. And
+after largely deducting from this total, so as to allow for mere
+mariners and camp followers, there must still have remained fearful odds
+against the national levies of the Athenians.
+
+Nor could Greek generals then feel that confidence in the superior
+quality of their troops, which ever since the battle of Marathon has
+animated Europeans in conflicts with Asiatics, as, for instance, in the
+after struggles between Greece and Persia, or when the Roman legions
+encountered the myriads of Mithradates and Tigranes, or as is the case
+in the Indian campaigns of our own regiments. On the contrary, up to the
+day of Marathon the Medes and Persians were reputed invincible. They had
+more than once met Greek troops in Asia Minor, in Cyprus, in Egypt, and
+had invariably beaten them.
+
+Nothing can be stronger than the expressions used by the early Greek
+writers respecting the terror which the name of the Medes inspired, and
+the prostration of men's spirits before the apparently resistless career
+of the Persian arms. It is, therefore, little to be wondered at that
+five of the ten Athenian generals shrank from the prospect of fighting a
+pitched battle against an enemy so superior in numbers and so formidable
+in military renown. Their own position on the heights was strong and
+offered great advantages to a small defending force against assailing
+masses. They deemed it mere foolhardiness to descend into the plain to
+be trampled down by the Asiatic horse, overwhelmed with the archery, or
+cut to pieces by the invincible veterans of Cambyses and Cyrus.
+
+Moreover, Sparta, the great war state of Greece, had been applied to,
+and had promised succor to Athens, though the religious observance which
+the Dorians paid to certain times and seasons had for the present
+delayed their march. Was it not wise, at any rate, to wait till the
+Spartans came up, and to have the help of the best troops in Greece,
+before they exposed themselves to the shock of the dreaded Medes?
+
+Specious as these reasons might appear, the other five generals were for
+speedier and bolder operations. And, fortunately for Athens and for the
+world, one of them was a man, not only of the highest military genius,
+but also of that energetic character which impresses its own type and
+ideas upon spirits feebler in conception.
+
+Miltiades was the head of one of the noblest houses at Athens. He ranked
+the Æacidæ among his ancestry, and the blood of Achilles flowed in the
+veins of the hero of Marathon. One of his immediate ancestors had
+acquired the dominion of the Thracian Chersonese, and thus the family
+became at the same time Athenian citizens and Thracian princes. This
+occurred at the time when Pisistratus was tyrant of Athens. Two of the
+relatives of Miltiades--an uncle of the same name, and a brother named
+Stesagoras--had ruled the Chersonese before Miltiades became its prince.
+He had been brought up at Athens in the house of his father, Cimon,[43]
+who was renowned throughout Greece for his victories in the Olympic
+chariot-races, and who must have been possessed of great wealth.
+
+[Footnote 43: Herodotus.]
+
+The sons of Pisistratus, who succeeded their father in the tyranny at
+Athens, caused Cimon to be assassinated; but they treated the young
+Miltiades with favor and kindness and when his brother Stesagoras died
+in the Chersonese, they sent him out there as lord of the principality.
+This was about twenty-eight years before the battle of Marathon, and it
+is with his arrival in the Chersonese that our first knowledge of the
+career and character of Miltiades commences. We find, in the first act
+recorded of him, the proof of the same resolute and unscrupulous spirit
+that marked his mature age. His brother's authority in the principality
+had been shaken by war and revolt: Miltiades determined to rule more
+securely. On his arrival he kept close within his house, as if he was
+mourning for his brother. The principal men of the Chersonese, hearing
+of this, assembled from all the towns and districts, and went together
+to the house of Miltiades, on a visit of condolence. As soon as he had
+thus got them in his power, he made them all prisoners. He then asserted
+and maintained his own absolute authority in the peninsula, taking into
+his pay a body of five hundred regular troops, and strengthening his
+interest by marrying the daughter of the king of the neighboring
+Thracians.
+
+When the Persian power was extended to the Hellespont and its
+neighborhood, Miltiades, as prince of the Chersonese, submitted to King
+Darius; and he was one of the numerous tributary rulers who led their
+contingents of men to serve in the Persian army, in the expedition
+against Scythia. Miltiades and the vassal Greeks of Asia Minor were left
+by the Persian king in charge of the bridge across the Danube, when the
+invading army crossed that river, and plunged into the wilds of the
+country that now is Russia, in vain pursuit of the ancestors of the
+modern Cossacks. On learning the reverses that Darius met with in the
+Scythian wilderness, Miltiades proposed to his companions that they
+should break the bridge down and leave the Persian king and his army to
+perish by famine and the Scythian arrows. The rulers of the Asiatic
+Greek cities, whom Miltiades addressed, shrank from this bold but
+ruthless stroke against the Persian power, and Darius returned in
+safety.
+
+But it was known what advice Miltiades had given, and the vengeance of
+Darius was thenceforth specially directed against the man who had
+counselled such a deadly blow against his empire and his person. The
+occupation of the Persian arms in other quarters left Miltiades for some
+years after this in possession of the Chersonese; but it was precarious
+and interrupted. He, however, availed himself of the opportunity which
+his position gave him of conciliating the good-will of his
+fellow-countrymen at Athens, by conquering and placing under the
+Athenian authority the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, to which Athens
+had ancient claims, but which she had never previously been able to
+bring into complete subjection.
+
+At length, in B.C. 494, the complete suppression of the Ionian revolt by
+the Persians left their armies and fleets at liberty to act against the
+enemies of the Great King to the west of the Hellespont. A strong
+squadron of Phoenician galleys was sent against the Chersonese.
+Miltiades knew that resistance was hopeless, and while the Phoenicians
+were at Tenedos, he loaded five galleys with all the treasure that he
+could collect, and sailed away for Athens. The Phoenicians fell in with
+him, and chased him hard along the north of the Ægean. One of his
+galleys, on board of which was his eldest son Metiochus, was actually
+captured. But Miltiades, with the other four, succeeded in reaching the
+friendly coast of Imbros in safety. Thence he afterward proceeded to
+Athens, and resumed his station as a free citizen of the Athenian
+commonwealth.
+
+The Athenians, at this time, had recently expelled Hippias the son of
+Pisistratus, the last of their tyrants. They were in the full glow of
+their newly recovered liberty and equality; and the constitutional
+changes of Clisthenes had inflamed their republican zeal to the utmost.
+Miltiades had enemies at Athens; and these, availing themselves of the
+state of popular feeling, brought him to trial for his life for having
+been tyrant of the Chersonese. The charge did not necessarily import any
+acts of cruelty or wrong to individuals: it was founded on no specific
+law; but it was based on the horror with which the Greeks of that age
+regarded every man who made himself arbitrary master of his fellow-men,
+and exercised irresponsible dominion over them.
+
+The fact of Miltiades having so ruled in the Chersonese was undeniable;
+but the question which the Athenians assembled in judgment must have
+tried, was whether Miltiades, although tyrant of the Chersonese,
+deserved punishment as an Athenian citizen. The eminent service that he
+had done the state in conquering Lemnos and Imbros for it, pleaded
+strongly in his favor. The people refused to convict him. He stood high
+in public opinion. And when the coming invasion of the Persians was
+known, the people wisely elected him one of their generals for the year.
+
+Two other men of high eminence in history, though their renown was
+achieved at a later period than that of Miltiades, were also among the
+ten Athenian generals at Marathon. One was Themistocles, the future
+founder of the Athenian navy, and the destined victor of Salamis. The
+other was Aristides, who afterward led the Athenian troops at Platæa,
+and whose integrity and just popularity acquired for his country, when
+the Persians had finally been repulsed, the advantageous preëminence of
+being acknowledged by half of the Greeks as their imperial leader and
+protector. It is not recorded what part either Themistocles or Aristides
+took in the debate of the council of war at Marathon. But, from the
+character of Themistocles, his boldness, and his intuitive genius for
+extemporizing the best measures in every emergency--a quality which the
+greatest of historians ascribes to him beyond all his contemporaries--we
+may well believe that the vote of Themistocles was for prompt and
+decisive action. On the vote of Aristides it may be more difficult to
+speculate. His predilection for the Spartans may have made him wish to
+wait till they came up; but, though circumspect, he was neither timid as
+a soldier nor as a politician, and the bold advice of Miltiades may
+probably have found in Aristides a willing, most assuredly it found in
+him a candid, hearer.
+
+Miltiades felt no hesitation, as to the course which the Athenian army
+ought to pursue; and earnestly did he press his opinion on his brother
+generals. Practically acquainted with the organization of the Persian
+armies, Miltiades felt convinced of the superiority of the Greek troops,
+if properly handled; he saw with the military eye of a great general the
+advantage which the position of the forces gave him for a sudden attack,
+and as a profound politician he felt the perils of remaining inactive,
+and of giving treachery time to ruin the Athenian cause.
+
+One officer in the council of war had not yet voted. This was
+Callimachus, the War-ruler. The votes of the generals were five and
+five, so that the voice of Callimachus would be decisive.
+
+On that vote, in all human probability, the destiny of all the nations
+of the world depended. Miltiades turned to him, and in simple soldierly
+eloquence--the substance of which we may read faithfully reported in
+Herodotus, who had conversed with the veterans of Marathon--the great
+Athenian thus adjured his countrymen to vote for giving battle:
+
+"It now rests with you, Callimachus, either to enslave Athens, or, by
+assuring her freedom, to win yourself an immortality of fame, such as
+not even Harmodius and Aristogiton have acquired; for never, since the
+Athenians were a people, were they in such danger as they are in at this
+moment. If they bow the knee to these Medes, they are to be given up to
+Hippias, and you know what they then will have to suffer. But if Athens
+comes victorious out of this contest, she has it in her to become the
+first city of Greece. Your vote is to decide whether we are to join
+battle or not. If we do not bring on a battle presently, some factious
+intrigue will disunite the Athenians, and the city will be betrayed to
+the Medes. But if we fight, before there is anything rotten in the state
+of Athens, I believe that, provided the gods will give fair play and no
+favor, we are able to get the best of it in an engagement."
+
+The vote of the brave War-ruler was gained, the council determined to
+give battle; and such was the ascendancy and acknowledged military
+eminence of Miltiades, that his brother generals one and all gave up
+their days of command to him, and cheerfully acted under his orders.
+Fearful, however, of creating any jealousy, and of so failing to obtain
+the vigorous coöperation of all parts of his small army, Miltiades
+waited till the day when the chief command would have come round to him
+in regular rotation before he led the troops against the enemy.
+
+The inaction of the Asiatic commanders during this interval appears
+strange at first sight; but Hippias was with them, and they and he were
+aware of their chance of a bloodless conquest through the machinations
+of his partisans among the Athenians. The nature of the ground also
+explains in many points the tactics of the opposite generals before the
+battle, as well as the operations of the troops during the engagement.
+
+The plain of Marathon, which is about twenty-two miles distant from
+Athens, lies along the bay of the same name on the north-eastern coast of
+Attica. The plain is nearly in the form of a crescent, and about six
+miles in length. It is about two miles broad in the centre, where the
+space between the mountains and the sea is greatest, but it narrows
+toward either extremity, the mountains coming close clown to the water
+at the horns of the bay. There is a valley trending inward from the
+middle of the plain, and a ravine comes down to it to the southward.
+Elsewhere it is closely girt round on the land side by rugged limestone
+mountains, which are thickly studded with pines, olive-trees and cedars,
+and overgrown with the myrtle, arbutus, and the other low odoriferous
+shrubs that everywhere perfume the Attic air.
+
+The level of the ground is now varied by the mound raised over those who
+fell in the battle, but it was an unbroken plain when the Persians
+encamped on it. There are marshes at each end, which are dry in spring
+and summer and then offer no obstruction to the horseman, but are
+commonly flooded with rain and so rendered impracticable for cavalry in
+the autumn, the time of year at which the action took place.
+
+The Greeks, lying encamped on the mountains, could watch every movement
+of the Persians on the plain below, while they were enabled completely
+to mask their own. Miltiades also had, from, his position, the power of
+giving battle whenever he pleased, or of delaying it at his discretion,
+unless Datis were to attempt the perilous operation of storming the
+heights.
+
+If we turn to the map of the Old World, to test the comparative
+territorial resources of the two states whose armies were now about to
+come into conflict, the immense preponderance of the material power of
+the Persian king over that of the Athenian republic is more striking
+than any similar contrast which history can supply. It has been truly
+remarked that, in estimating mere areas Attica, containing on its whole
+surface only seven hundred square miles, shrinks into insignificance if
+compared with many a baronial fief of the Middle Ages, or many a
+colonial allotment of modern times. Its antagonist, the Persian, empire,
+comprised the whole of modern Asiatic and much of modern European
+Turkey, the modern kingdom of Persia and the countries of modern
+Georgia, Armenia, Balkh, the Punjaub, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, Egypt
+and Tripoli.
+
+Nor could a European, in the beginning of the fifth century before our
+era, look upon this huge accumulation of power beneath the sceptre of a
+single Asiatic ruler with the indifference with which we now observe on
+the map the extensive dominions of modern Oriental sovereigns; for, as
+has been already remarked, before Marathon was fought, the prestige of
+success and of supposed superiority of race was on the side of the
+Asiatic against the European. Asia was the original seat of human
+societies, and long before any trace can be found of the inhabitants of
+the rest of the world having emerged from the rudest barbarism, we can
+perceive that mighty and brilliant empires flourished in the Asiatic
+continent. They appear before us through the twilight of primeval
+history, dim and indistinct, but massive and majestic, like mountains in
+the early dawn.
+
+Instead, however, of the infinite variety and restless change which has
+characterized the institutions and fortunes of European states ever
+since the commencement of the civilization of our continent, a
+monotonous uniformity pervades the histories of nearly all Oriental
+empires, from the most ancient down to the most recent times. They are
+characterized by the rapidity of their early conquests, by the immense
+extent of the dominions comprised in them, by the establishment of a
+satrap or pashaw system of governing the provinces, by an invariable and
+speedy degeneracy in the princes of the royal house, the effeminate
+nurslings of the seraglio succeeding to the warrior sovereigns reared in
+the camp, and by the internal anarchy and insurrections which indicate
+and accelerate the decline and fall of these unwieldy and ill-organized
+fabrics of power.
+
+It is also a striking fact that the governments of all the great Asiatic
+empires have in all ages been absolute despotisms. And Heeren is right
+in connecting this with another great fact, which is important from its
+influence both on the political and the social life of Asiatics. "Among
+all the considerable nations of Inner Asia, the paternal government of
+every household was corrupted by polygamy: where that custom exists, a
+good political constitution is impossible. Fathers, being converted into
+domestic despots, are ready to pay the same abject obedience to their
+sovereign which they exact from their family and dependents in their
+domestic economy."
+
+We should bear in mind, also, the inseparable connection between the
+state religion and all legislation which has always prevailed in the
+East, and the constant existence of a powerful sacerdotal body,
+exercising some check, though precarious and irregular, over the throne
+itself, grasping at all civil administration, claiming the supreme
+control of education, stereotyping the lines in which literature and
+science must move, and limiting the extent to which it shall be lawful
+for the human mind to prosecute its inquiries.
+
+With these general characteristics rightly felt and understood it
+becomes a comparatively easy task to investigate and appreciate the
+origin, progress and principles of Oriental empires in general, as well
+as of the Persian monarchy in particular. And we are thus better enabled
+to appreciate the repulse which Greece gave to the arms of the East, and
+to judge of the probable consequences to human civilization, if the
+Persians had succeeded in bringing Europe under their yoke, as they had
+already subjugated the fairest portions of the rest of the then known
+world.
+
+The Greeks, from their geographical position, formed the natural
+van-guard of European liberty against Persian ambition; and they
+preëminently displayed the salient points of distinctive national
+character which have rendered European civilization so far superior to
+Asiatic. The nations that dwelt in ancient times around and near the
+northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea were the first in our continent
+to receive from the East the rudiments of art and literature, and the
+germs of social and political organizations. Of these nations the
+Greeks, through their vicinity to Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt, were
+among the very foremost in acquiring the principles and habits of
+civilized life; and they also at once imparted a new and wholly original
+stamp on all which they received. Thus, in their religion, they received
+from foreign settlers the names of all their deities and many of their
+rites, but they discarded the loathsome monstrosities of the Nile, the
+Orontes, and the Ganges; they nationalized their creed, and their own
+poets created their beautiful mythology. No sacerdotal caste ever
+existed in Greece.
+
+So, in their governments, they lived long under hereditary kings, but
+never endured the permanent establishment of absolute monarchy. Their
+early kings were constitutional rulers, governing with defined
+prerogatives. And long before the Persian invasion, the kingly form of
+government had given way in almost all the Greek states to republican
+institutions, presenting infinite varieties of the blending or the
+alternate predominance of the oligarchical and democratical principles.
+In literature and science the Greek intellect followed no beaten track,
+and acknowledged no limitary rules. The Greeks thought their subjects
+boldly out; and the novelty of a speculation invested it in their minds
+with interest, and not with criminality.
+
+Versatile, restless, enterprising, and self-confident, the Greeks
+presented the most striking contrast to the habitual quietude and
+submissiveness of the Orientals; and, of all the Greeks, the Athenians
+exhibited these national characteristics in the strongest degree. This
+spirit of activity and daring, joined to a generous sympathy for the
+fate of their fellow-Greeks in Asia, had led them to join in the last
+Ionian war, and now mingling with their abhorrence of the usurping
+family of their own citizens, which for a period had forcibly seized on
+and exercised despotic power at Athens, nerved them to defy the wrath of
+King Darius, and to refuse to receive back at his bidding the tyrant
+whom they had some years before driven out.
+
+The enterprise and genius of an Englishman have lately confirmed by
+fresh evidence, and invested with fresh interest, the might of the
+Persian monarch who sent his troops to combat at Marathon. Inscriptions
+in a character termed the Arrow-headed, or Cuneiform, had long been
+known to exist on the marble monuments at Persepolis, near the site of
+the ancient Susa, and on the faces of rocks in other places formerly
+ruled over by the early Persian kings. But for thousands of years they
+had been mere unintelligible enigmas to the curious but baffled
+beholder; and they were often referred to as instances of the folly of
+human pride, which could indeed write its own praises in the solid rock,
+but only for the rock to outlive the language as well as the memory of
+the vainglorious inscribers.
+
+The elder Niebuhr, Grotefend, and Lassen, had made some guesses at the
+meaning of the cuneiform letters; but Major Rawlinson of the East India
+Company's service, after years of labor, has at last accomplished the
+glorious achievement of fully revealing the alphabet and the grammar of
+this long unknown tongue. He has, in particular, fully deciphered and
+expounded the inscription on the sacred rock of Behistun, on the western
+frontiers of Media. These records of the Achæmenidæ have at length found
+their interpreter; and Darius himself speaks to us from the consecrated
+mountain, and tells us the names of the nations that obeyed him, the
+revolts that he suppressed, his victories, his piety, and his glory.
+
+Kings who thus seek the admiration of posterity are little likely to dim
+the record of their successes by the mention of their occasional
+defeats; and it throws no suspicion on the narrative of the Greek
+historians that we find these inscriptions silent respecting the
+overthrow of Datis and Artaphernes, as well as respecting the reverses
+which Darius sustained in person during his Scythian campaigns. But
+these indisputable monuments of Persian fame confirm, and even increase
+the opinion with which Herodotus inspires us of the vast power which
+Cyrus founded and Cambyses increased; which Darius augmented by Indian
+and Arabian conquests, and seemed likely, when he directed his arms
+against Europe, to make the predominant monarchy of the world.
+
+With the exception of the Chinese empire, in which, throughout all ages
+down to the last few years, one-third of the human race has dwelt almost
+unconnected with the other portions, all the great kingdoms, which we
+know to have existed in ancient Asia, were, in Darius' time, blended
+into the Persian. The northern Indians, the Assyrians, the Syrians, the
+Babylonians, the Chaldees, the Phoenicians, the nations of Palestine,
+the Armenians, the Bactrians, the Lydians, the Phrygians, the Parthians,
+and the Medes, all obeyed the sceptre of the Great King: the Medes
+standing next to the native Persians in honor, and the empire being
+frequently spoken of as that of the Medes, or as that of the Medes and
+Persians. Egypt and Cyrene were Persian provinces; the Greek colonists
+in Asia Minor and the islands of the Ægean were Darius' subjects; and
+their gallant but unsuccessful attempts to throw off the Persian yoke
+had only served to rivet it more strongly, and to increase the general
+belief that the Greeks could not stand before the Persians in a field
+of battle. Darius' Scythian war, though unsuccessful in its immediate
+object, had brought about the subjugation of Thrace and the submission
+of Macedonia. From the Indus to the Peneus, all was his.
+
+We may imagine the wrath with which the lord of so many nations must
+have heard, nine years before the battle of Marathon, that a strange
+nation toward the setting sun, called the Athenians, had dared to help
+his rebels in Ionia against him, and that they had plundered and burned
+the capital of one of his provinces. Before the burning of Sardis,
+Darius seems never to have heard of the existence of Athens; but his
+satraps in Asia Minor had for some time seen Athenian refugees at their
+provincial courts imploring assistance against their fellow-countrymen.
+
+When Hippias was driven away from Athens, and the tyrannic dynasty of
+the Pisistratidæ finally overthrown in B.C. 510, the banished tyrant and
+his adherents, after vainly seeking to be restored by Spartan
+intervention, had betaken themselves to Sardis, the capital city of the
+satrapy of Artaphernes. There Hippias--in the expressive words of
+Herodotus--began every kind of agitation, slandering the Athenians
+before Artaphernes, and doing all he could to induce the satrap to place
+Athens in subjection to him, as the tributary vassal of King Darius.
+When the Athenians heard of his practices, they sent envoys to Sardis to
+remonstrate with the Persians against taking up the quarrel of the
+Athenian refugees.
+
+But Artaphernes gave them in reply a menacing command to receive Hippias
+back again if they looked for safety. The Athenians were resolved not to
+purchase safety at such a price, and after rejecting the satrap's terms,
+they considered that they and the Persians were declared enemies. At
+this very crisis the Ionian Greeks implored the assistance of their
+European brethren, to enable them to recover their independence from
+Persia. Athens, and the city of Eretria in Euboea, alone consented.
+Twenty Athenian galleys, and five Eretrian, crossed the Ægean Sea, and
+by a bold and sudden march upon Sardis, the Athenians and their allies
+succeeded in capturing the capital city of the haughty satrap who had
+recently menaced them with servitude or destruction. They were pursued,
+and defeated on their return to the coast, and Athens took no further
+part in the Ionian war; but the insult that she had put upon the Persian
+power was speedily made known throughout that empire, and was never to
+be forgiven or forgotten.
+
+In the emphatic simplicity of the narrative of Herodotus, the wrath of
+the Great King is thus described: "Now when it was told to King Darius
+that Sardis had been taken and burned by the Athenians and Ionians, he
+took small heed of the Ionians, well knowing who they were, and that
+their revolt would soon be put down; but he asked who, and what manner
+of men, the Athenians were. And when he had been told, he called for his
+bow; and, having taken it, and placed an arrow on the string, he let the
+arrow fly toward heaven; and as he shot it into the air, he said, 'Oh!
+supreme God, grant me that I may avenge myself on the Athenians,' And
+when he had said this, he appointed one of his servants to say to him
+every day as he sat at meat, 'Sire, remember the Athenians.'"
+
+Some years were occupied in the complete reduction of Ionia. But when
+this was effected, Darius ordered his victorious forces to proceed to
+punish Athens and Eretria, and to conquer European Greece, The first
+armament sent for this purpose was shattered by shipwreck, and nearly
+destroyed off Mount Athos. But the purpose of King Darius was not easily
+shaken, A larger army was ordered to be collected in Cilicia, and
+requisitions were sent to all the maritime cities of the Persian empire
+for ships of war, and for transports of sufficient size for carrying
+cavalry as well as infantry across the Ægean. While these preparations
+were being made, Darius sent heralds round to the Grecian cities
+demanding their submission to Persia. It was proclaimed in the
+market-place of each little Hellenic state--some with territories not
+larger than the Isle of Wight--that King Darius, the lord of all men,
+from the rising to the setting sun,[44] required earth and water to be
+delivered to his heralds, as a symbolical acknowledgment that he was
+head and master of the country. Terror-stricken at the power of Persia
+and at the severe punishment that had recently been inflicted on the
+refractory Ionians, many of the continental Greeks and nearly all the
+islanders submitted, and gave the required tokens of vassalage. At
+Sparta and Athens an indignant refusal was returned--a refusal which was
+disgraced by outrage and violence against the persons of the Asiatic
+heralds.
+
+[Footnote 44: Æschines.]
+
+Fresh fuel was thus added to the anger of Darius against Athens, and the
+Persian preparations went on with renewed vigor. In the summer of B.C.
+490, the army destined for the invasion was assembled in the Aleian
+plain of Cilicia, near the sea. A fleet of six hundred galleys and
+numerous transports was collected on the coast for the embarkation of
+troops, horse as well as foot. A Median general named Datis, and
+Artaphernes, the son of the satrap of Sardis, and who was also nephew of
+Darius, were placed in titular joint-command of the expedition. The real
+supreme authority was probably given to Datis alone, from the way in
+which the Greek writers speak of him.
+
+We know no details of the previous career of this officer; but there is
+every reason to believe that his abilities and bravery had been proved
+by experience, or his Median birth would have prevented his being placed
+in high command by Darius. He appears to have been the first Mede who
+was thus trusted by the Persian kings after the overthrow of the
+conspiracy of the Median magi against the Persians immediately before
+Darius obtained the throne. Datis received instructions to complete the
+subjugation of Greece, and especial orders were given him with regard to
+Eretria and Athens. He was to take these two cities, and he was to lead
+the inhabitants away captive, and bring them as slaves into the presence
+of the Great King.
+
+Datis embarked his forces in the fleet that awaited them, and coasting
+along the shores of Asia Minor till he was off Samos, he thence sailed
+due westward through the Ægean Sea for Greece, taking the islands in his
+way. The Naxians had, ten years before, successfully stood a siege
+against a Persian armament, but they now were too terrified to offer any
+resistance, and fled to the mountain tops, while the enemy burned their
+town and laid waste their lands. Thence Datis, compelling the Greek
+islanders to join him with their ships and men, sailed onward to the
+coast of Euboea. The little town of Carystus essayed resistance, but
+was quickly overpowered.
+
+He next attacked Eretria. The Athenians sent four thousand men to its
+aid; but treachery was at work among the Eretrians; and the Athenian
+force received timely warning from one of the leading men of the city to
+retire to aid in saving their own country, instead of remaining to share
+in the inevitable destruction of Eretria. Left to themselves, the
+Eretrians repulsed the assaults of the Persians against their walls for
+six days; on the seventh they were betrayed by two of their chiefs, and
+the Persians occupied the city. The temples were burned in revenge for
+the firing of Sardis, and the inhabitants were bound, and placed as
+prisoners in the neighboring islet of Ægilia, to wait there till Datis
+should bring the Athenians to join them in captivity, when both
+populations were to be led into Upper Asia, there to learn their doom
+from the lips of King Darius himself.
+
+Flushed with success, and with half his mission thus accomplished, Datis
+reëmbarked his troops, and, crossing the little channel that separates
+Euboea from the mainland, he encamped his troops on the Attic coast at
+Marathon, drawing up his galleys on the shelving beach, as was the
+custom with the navies of antiquity. The conquered islands behind him
+served as places of deposit for his provisions and military stores. His
+position at Marathon seemed to him in every respect advantageous, and
+the level nature of the ground on which he camped was favorable for the
+employment of his cavalry, if the Athenians should venture to engage
+him. Hippias, who accompanied him, and acted as the guide of the
+invaders, had pointed out Marathon as the best place for a landing, for
+this very reason. Probably Hippias was also influenced by the
+recollection that forty-seven years previously, he, with his father
+Pisistratus, had crossed with an army from Eretria to Marathon, and had
+won an easy victory over their Athenian enemies on that very plain,
+which had restored them to tyrannic power. The omen seemed cheering. The
+place was the same, but Hippias soon learned to his cost how great a
+change had come over the spirit of the Athenians.
+
+But though "the fierce democracy" of Athens was zealous and true
+against foreign invader and domestic tyrant, a faction existed in
+Athens, as at Eretria, who were willing to purchase a party triumph over
+their fellow-citizens at the price of their country's ruin.
+Communications were opened between these men and the Persian camp, which
+would have led to a catastrophe like that of Eretria, if Miltiades had
+not resolved and persuaded his colleagues to resolve on fighting at all
+hazards.
+
+When Miltiades arrayed his men for action, he staked on the arbitrament
+of one battle not only the fate of Athens, but that of all Greece; for
+if Athens had fallen, no other Greek state, except Lacedæmon, would have
+had the courage to resist; and the Lacedæmonians, though they would
+probably have died in their ranks to the last man, never could have
+successfully resisted the victorious Persians and the numerous Greek
+troops which would have soon marched under the Persian satraps, had they
+prevailed over Athens.
+
+Nor was there any power to the westward of Greece that could have
+offered an effectual opposition to Persia, had she once conquered
+Greece, and made that country a basis for future military operations.
+Rome was at this time in her season of utmost weakness. Her dynasty of
+powerful Etruscan kings had been driven out; and her infant commonwealth
+was reeling under the attacks of the Etruscans and Volscians from
+without, and the fierce dissensions between the patricians and plebeians
+within. Etruria, with her _lucumos_ and serfs, was no match for Persia.
+Samnium had not grown into the might which she afterward put forth; nor
+could the Greek colonies in South Italy and Sicily hope to conquer when
+their parent states had perished. Carthage had escaped the Persian yoke
+in the time of Cambyses, through the reluctance of the Phoenician
+mariners to serve against their kinsmen.
+
+But such forbearance could not long have been relied on, and the future
+rival of Rome would have become as submissive a minister of the Persian
+power as were the Phoenician cities themselves. If we turn to Spain; or
+if we pass the great mountain chain, which, prolonged through the
+Pyrenees, the Cevennes, the Alps, and the Balkan, divides Northern from
+Southern Europe, we shall find nothing at that period but mere savage
+Finns, Celts, Slavs, and Teutons. Had Persia beaten Athens at Marathon,
+she could have found no obstacle to prevent Darius, the chosen servant
+of Ormuzd, from advancing his sway over all the known Western races of
+mankind. The infant energies of Europe would have been trodden out
+beneath universal conquest, and the history of the world, like the
+history of Asia, have become a mere record of the rise and fall of
+despotic dynasties, of the incursions of barbarous hordes, and of the
+mental and political prostration of millions beneath the diadem, the
+tiara, and the sword.
+
+Great as the preponderance of the Persian over the Athenian power at
+that crisis seems to have been, it would be unjust to impute wild
+rashness to the policy of Miltiades and those who voted with him in the
+Athenian council of war, or to look on the after-current of events as
+the mere fortunate result of successful folly. As before has been
+remarked, Miltiades, while prince of the Chersonese, had seen service in
+the Persian armies; and he knew by personal observation how many
+elements of weakness lurked beneath their imposing aspect of strength.
+He knew that the bulk of their troops no longer consisted of the hardy
+shepherds and mountaineers from Persia proper and Kurdistan, who won
+Cyrus's battles; but that unwilling contingents from conquered nations
+now filled up the Persian muster-rolls, fighting more from compulsion
+than from any zeal in the cause of their masters. He had also the
+sagacity and the spirit to appreciate the superiority of the Greek armor
+and organization over the Asiatic, notwithstanding former reverses.
+Above all, he felt and worthily trusted the enthusiasm of those whom he
+led.
+
+The Athenians whom he led had proved by their newborn valor in recent
+wars against the neighboring states that "liberty and equality of civic
+rights are brave spirit-stirring things, and they, who, while under the
+yoke of a despot, had been no better men of war than any of their
+neighbors, as soon as they were free, became the foremost men of all;
+for each felt that in fighting for a free commonwealth, he fought for
+himself, and whatever he took in hand, he was zealous to do the work
+thoroughly," So the nearly contemporaneous historian describes the
+change of spirit that was seen in the Athenians after their tyrants were
+expelled; and Miltiades knew that in leading them against the invading
+army, where they had Hippias, the foe they most hated, before them, he
+was bringing into battle no ordinary men, and could calculate on no
+ordinary heroism.
+
+As for traitors, he was sure that, whatever treachery might lurk among
+some of the higher born and wealthier Athenians, the rank and file whom
+he commanded were ready to do their utmost in his and their own cause.
+With regard to future attacks from Asia, he might reasonably hope that
+one victory would inspirit all Greece to combine against the common foe;
+and that the latent seeds of revolt and disunion in the Persian empire
+would soon burst forth and paralyze its energies, so as to leave Greek
+independence secure.
+
+With these hopes and risks, Miltiades, on the afternoon of a September
+day, B.C. 490, gave the word for the Athenian army to prepare for
+battle. There were many local associations connected with those mountain
+heights which were calculated powerfully to excite the spirits of the
+men, and of which the commanders well knew how to avail themselves in
+their exhortations to their troops before the encounter. Marathon itself
+was a region sacred to Hercules. Close to them was the fountain of
+Macaria, who had in days of yore devoted herself to death for the
+liberty of her people. The very plain on which they were to fight was
+the scene of the exploits of their national hero, Theseus; and there,
+too, as old legends told, the Athenians and the Heraclidæ had routed the
+invader, Eurystheus.
+
+These traditions were not mere cloudy myths or idle fictions, but
+matters of implicit earnest faith to the men of that day, and many a
+fervent prayer arose from the Athenian ranks to the heroic spirits who,
+while on earth, had striven and suffered on that very spot, and who were
+believed to be now heavenly powers, looking down with interest on their
+still beloved country, and capable of interposing with superhuman aid in
+its behalf.
+
+According to old national custom, the warriors of each tribe were
+arrayed together; neighbor thus fighting by the side of neighbor, friend
+by friend, and the spirit of emulation and the consciousness of
+responsibility excited to the very utmost. The War-ruler, Callimachus,
+had the leading of the right wing; the Platæans formed the extreme left;
+and Themistocles and Aristides commanded the centre. The line consisted
+of the heavy-armed spearmen only; for the Greeks--until the time of
+Iphicrates--took little or no account of light-armed soldiers in a
+pitched battle, using them only in skirmishes, or for the pursuit of a
+defeated enemy. The panoply of the regular infantry consisted of a long
+spear, of a shield, helmet, breastplate, greaves, and short sword.
+
+Thus equipped, they usually advanced slowly and steadily into action in
+a uniform phalanx of about eight spears deep. But the military genius of
+Miltiades led him to deviate on this occasion from the commonplace
+tactics of his countrymen. It was essential for him to extend his line
+so as to cover all the practicable ground, and to secure himself from
+being outflanked and charged in the rear by the Persian horse. This
+extension involved the weakening of his line. Instead of a uniform
+reduction of its strength, he determined on detaching principally from
+his centre, which, from the nature of the ground, would have the best
+opportunities for rallying, if broken; and on strengthening his wings so
+as to insure advantage at those points; and he trusted to his own skill
+and to his soldiers' discipline for the improvement of that advantage
+into decisive victory.[45]
+
+[Footnote 45: It is remarkable that there is no other instance of a
+Greek general deviating from the ordinary mode of bringing a phalanx of
+spearmen into action until the battles of Leuctra and Mantinea, more
+than a century after Marathon, when Epaminondas introduced the tactics
+which Alexander the Great in ancient times, and Frederick the Great in
+modern times, made so famous, of concentrating an overpowering force to
+bear on some decisive point of the enemy's line, while he kept back, or,
+in military phrase, refused the weaker part of his own.]
+
+In this order, and availing himself probably of the inequalities of the
+ground, so as to conceal his preparations from the enemy till the last
+possible moment, Miltiades drew up the eleven thousand infantry whose
+spears were to decide this crisis in the struggle between the European
+and the Asiatic worlds. The sacrifices by which the favor of heaven was
+sought, and its will consulted, were announced to show propitious omens.
+The trumpet sounded for action, and, chanting the hymn of battle, the
+little army bore down upon the host of the foe. Then, too, along the
+mountain slopes of Marathon must have resounded the mutual exhortation
+which Æschylus, who fought in both battles, tells us was afterward heard
+over the waves of Salamis: "On, sons of the Greeks! Strike for the
+freedom of your country! strike for the freedom of your children and of
+your wives--for the shrines of your fathers' gods, and for the
+sepulchres of your sires. All--all are now staked upon the strife."
+
+Instead of advancing at the usual slow pace of the phalanx, Miltiades
+brought his men on at a run. They were all trained in the exercise of
+the _palæstra_, so that there was no fear of their ending the charge in
+breathless exhaustion; and it was of the deepest importance for him to
+traverse as rapidly as possible the mile or so of level ground that lay
+between the mountain foot and the Persian outposts, and so to get his
+troops into close action before the Asiatic cavalry could mount, form,
+and manoeuvre against him, or their archers keep him long under fire,
+and before the enemy's generals could fairly deploy their masses.
+
+"When the Persians," says Herodotus, "saw the Athenians running down on
+them, without horse or bowmen, and scanty in numbers, they thought them
+a set of madmen rushing upon certain destruction." They began, however,
+to prepare to receive them, and the Eastern chiefs arrayed, as quickly
+as time and place allowed, the varied races who served in their motley
+ranks. Mountaineers from Hyrcania and Afghanistan, wild horsemen from
+the steppes of Khorassan, the black archers of Ethiopia, swordsmen from
+the banks of the Indus, the Oxus, the Euphrates and the Nile, made ready
+against the enemies of the Great King.
+
+But no national cause inspired them except the division of native
+Persians; and in the large host there was no uniformity of language,
+creed, race or military system. Still, among them there were many
+gallant men, under a veteran general; they were familiarized with
+victory, and in contemptuous confidence their infantry, which alone had
+time to form, awaited the Athenian charge. On came the Greeks, with one
+unwavering line of leveled spears, against which the light targets, the
+short lances and cimeters of the Orientals offered weak defence. The
+front rank of the Asiatics must have gone down to a man at the first
+shock. Still they recoiled not, but strove by individual gallantry and
+by the weight of numbers to make up for the disadvantages of weapons and
+tactics, and to bear back the shallow line of the Europeans. In the
+centre, where the native Persians and the Sacæ fought, they succeeded in
+breaking through the weakened part of the Athenian phalanx; and the
+tribes led by Aristides and Themistocles were, after a brave resistance,
+driven back over the plain, and chased by the Persians up the valley
+toward the inner country. There the nature of the ground gave the
+opportunity of rallying and renewing the struggle.
+
+Meanwhile, the Greek wings, where Miltiades had concentrated his chief
+strength, had routed the Asiatics opposed to them; and the Athenian and
+Platæan officers, instead of pursuing the fugitives, kept their troops
+well in hand, and, wheeling round, they formed the two wings together.
+Miltiades instantly led them against the Persian centre, which had
+hitherto been triumphant, but which now fell back, and prepared to
+encounter these new and unexpected assailants. Aristides and
+Themistocles renewed the fight with their reorganized troops, and the
+full force of the Greeks was brought into close action with the Persian
+and Sacean divisions of the enemy. Datis' veterans strove hard to keep
+their ground, and evening was approaching before the stern encounter was
+decided.
+
+But the Persians, with their slight wicker shields, destitute of body
+armor, and never taught by training to keep the even front and act with
+the regular movement of the Greek infantry, fought at heavy disadvantage
+with their shorter and feebler weapons against the compact array of
+well-armed Athenian and Platæan spearmen, all perfectly drilled to
+perform each necessary evolution in concert, and to preserve a uniform
+and unwavering line in battle. In personal courage and in bodily
+activity the Persians were not inferior to their adversaries. Their
+spirits were not yet cowed by the recollection of former defeats; and
+they lavished their lives freely, rather than forfeit the fame which
+they had won by so many victories. While their rear ranks poured an
+incessant shower of arrows over the heads of their comrades, the
+foremost Persians kept rushing forward, sometimes singly, sometimes in
+desperate groups of ten or twelve, upon the projecting spears of the
+Greeks, striving to force a lane into the phalanx, and to bring their
+cimeters and daggers into play. But the Greeks felt their superiority,
+and though the fatigue of the long-continued action told heavily on
+their inferior numbers, the sight of the carnage that they dealt upon
+their assailants nerved them to fight still more fiercely on.
+
+At last the previously unvanquished lords of Asia turned their backs and
+fled, and the Greeks followed, striking them down, to the water's
+edge,[46] where the invaders were now hastily launching their galleys,
+and seeking to embark and fly. Flushed with success, the Athenians
+attacked and strove to fire the fleet. But here the Asiatics resisted
+desperately, and the principal loss sustained by the Greeks was in the
+assault on the ships. Here fell the brave War-ruler Callimachus, the
+general Stesilaus, and other Athenians of note. Seven galleys were
+fired; but the Persians succeeded in saving the rest. They pushed off
+from the fatal shore; but even here the skill of Datis did not desert
+him, and he sailed round to the western coast of Attica, in hopes to
+find the city unprotected, and to gain possession of it from some of the
+partisans of Hippias.
+
+[Footnote 46:
+
+    The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
+    The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
+    Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below,
+    Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!
+    Such was the scene.--Byron.]
+
+Miltiades, however, saw and counteracted his manoeuvre. Leaving
+Aristides, and the troops of his tribe, to guard the spoil and the
+slain, the Athenian commander led his conquering army by a rapid
+night-march back across the country to Athens. And when the Persian
+fleet had doubled the Cape of Sunium and sailed up to the Athenian
+harbor in the morning, Datis saw arrayed on the heights above the city
+the troops before whom his men had fled on the preceding evening. All
+hope of further conquest in Europe for the time was abandoned, and the
+baffled armada returned to the Asiatic coasts.
+
+After the battle had been fought, but while the dead bodies were yet on
+the ground, the promised reënforcement from Sparta arrived. Two thousand
+Lacedæmonian spearmen, starting immediately after the full moon, had
+marched the hundred and fifty miles between Athens and Sparta in the
+wonderfully short time of three days. Though too late to share in the
+glory of the action, they requested to be allowed to march to the
+battle-field to behold the Medes. They proceeded thither, gazed on the
+dead bodies of the invaders, and then praising the Athenians and what
+they had done, they returned to Lacedæmon.
+
+The number of the Persian dead was sixty-four hundred; of the Athenians,
+one hundred and ninety-two. The number of the Platæans who fell is not
+mentioned; but, as they fought in the part of the army which was not
+broken, it cannot have been large.
+
+The apparent disproportion between the losses of the two armies is not
+surprising when we remember the armor of the Greek spearmen, and the
+impossibility of heavy slaughter being inflicted by sword or lance on
+troops so armed, as long as they kept firm in their ranks.[47]
+
+[Footnote 47: Mitford well refers to Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt as
+instances of similar disparity of loss between the conquerors and the
+conquered.]
+
+The Athenian slain were buried on the field of battle. This was contrary
+to the usual custom, according to which the bones of all who fell
+fighting for their country in each year were deposited in a public
+sepulchre in the suburb of Athens called the "Ceramicus." But it was
+felt that a distinction ought to be made in the funeral honors paid to
+the men of Marathon, even as their merit had been distinguished over
+that of all other Athenians. A lofty mound was raised on the plain of
+Marathon, beneath which the remains of the men of Athens who fell in the
+battle were deposited. Ten columns were erected on the spot, one for
+each of the Athenian tribes; and on the monumental column of each tribe
+were graven the names of those of its members whose glory it was to have
+fallen in the great battle of liberation. The antiquarian Pausanias read
+those names there six hundred years after the time when they were first
+graven.[48] The columns have long perished, but the mound still marks
+the spot where the noblest heroes of antiquity repose.
+
+[Footnote 48: Pausanias stales, with implicit belief, that the
+battle-field was haunted at night by supernatural beings, and that the
+noise of combatants and the snorting of horses were heard to resound on
+it. The superstition has survived the change of creeds, and the
+shepherds of the neighborhood still believe that spectral warriors
+contend on the plain at midnight, and they say that they have heard the
+shouts of the combatants and the neighing of the steeds.]
+
+A separate tumulus was raised over the bodies of the slain Platæans, and
+another over the light-armed slaves who had taken part and had fallen in
+the battle.[49] There was also a separate funeral monument to the
+general to whose genius the victory was mainly due. Miltiades did not
+live long after his achievement at Marathon, but he lived long enough to
+experience a lamentable reverse of his popularity and success. As soon
+as the Persians had quitted the western coasts of the Ægean, he proposed
+to an assembly of the Athenian people that they should fit out seventy
+galleys, with a proportionate force of soldiers and military stores, and
+place it at his disposal; not telling them whither he meant to lead it,
+but promising them that if they would equip the force he asked for, and
+give him discretionary powers, he would lead it to a land where there
+was gold in abundance to be won with ease.
+
+[Footnote 49: It is probable that the Greek light-armed irregulars were
+active in the attack on the Persian ships, and it was in this attack
+that the Greeks suffered their principal loss.]
+
+The Greeks of that time believed in the existence of eastern realms
+teeming with gold, as firmly as the Europeans of the sixteenth century
+believed in El Dorado of the West. The Athenians probably thought that
+the recent victor of Marathon, and former officer of Darius, was about
+to lead them on a secret expedition against some wealthy and unprotected
+cities of treasure in the Persian dominions. The armament was voted and
+equipped, and sailed eastward from Attica, no one but Miltiades knowing
+its destination until the Greek isle of paros was reached, when his true
+object appeared. In former years, while connected with the Persians as
+prince of the Chersonese, Miltiades had been involved in a quarrel with
+one of the leading men among the Parians, who had injured his credit
+and caused some slights to be put upon him at the court of the Persian
+satrap Hydarnes. The feud had ever since rankled in the heart of the
+Athenian chief, and he now attacked Paros for the sake of avenging
+himself on his ancient enemy.
+
+His pretext, as general of the Athenians, was, that the Parians had
+aided the armament, of Datis with a war-galley. The Parians pretended to
+treat about terms of surrender, but used the time which they thus gained
+in repairing the defective parts of the fortifications of their city,
+and they then set the Athenians at defiance. So far, says Herodotus, the
+accounts of all the Greeks agree. But the Parians in after years told
+also a wild legend, how a captive priestess of a Parian temple of the
+Deities of the Earth promised Miltiades to give him the means of
+capturing Paros; how, at her bidding, the Athenian general went alone at
+night and forced his way into a holy shrine, near the city gate, but
+with what purpose it was not known; how a supernatural awe came over
+him, and in his flight he fell and fractured his leg; how an oracle
+afterward forbade the Parians to punish the sacrilegious and traitorous
+priestess, "because it was fated that Miltiades should come to an ill
+end, and she was only the instrument to lead, him to evil." Such was the
+tale that Herodotus heard at Paros. Certain it was that Miltiades either
+dislocated or broke his leg during an unsuccessful siege of the city,
+and returned home in evil plight with his baffled and defeated forces.
+
+The indignation of the Athenians was proportionate to the hope and
+excitement which his promises had raised. Xanthippas, the head of one of
+the first families in Athens, indicted him before the supreme popular
+tribunal for the capital offence of having deceived the people. His
+guilt was undeniable, and the Athenians passed their verdict
+accordingly. But the recollections of Lemnos and Marathon, and the sight
+of the fallen general, who lay stretched on a couch before them, pleaded
+successfully in mitigation of punishment, and the sentence was commuted
+from death to a fine of fifty talents. This was paid by his son, the
+afterward illustrious Cimon, Miltiades dying, soon after the trial, of
+the injury which he had received at Paros.
+
+The melancholy end of Miltiades, after his elevation to such a height
+of power and glory, must often have been recalled to the minds of the
+ancient Greeks by the sight of one in particular of the memorials of the
+great battle which he won. This was the remarkable statue--minutely
+described by Pausanias--which the Athenians, in the time of Pericles,
+caused to be hewn out of a huge block of marble, which, it was believed,
+had been provided by Datis, to form a trophy of the anticipated victory
+of the Persians. Phidias fashioned out of this a colossal image of the
+goddess Nemesis, the deity whose peculiar function was to visit the
+exuberant prosperity both of nations and individuals with sudden and
+awful reverses. This statue was placed in a temple of the goddess at
+Rhamnus, about eight miles from Marathon. Athens itself contained
+numerous memorials of her primary great victory. Panenus, the cousin of
+Phidias, represented it in fresco on the walls of the painted porch;
+and, centuries afterward, the figures of Miltiades and Callimachus at
+the head of the Athenians were conspicuous in the fresco. The tutelary
+deities were exhibited taking part in the fray. In the background were
+seen the Phoenician galleys, and, nearer to the spectator, the Athenians
+and the Platæans--distinguished by their leather helmets--were chasing
+routed Asiatics into the marshes and the sea. The battle was sculptured
+also on the Temple of Victory in the Acropolis, and even now there may
+be traced on the frieze the figures of the Persian combatants with their
+lunar shields, their bows and quivers, their curved cimeters, their
+loose trousers, and Phrygian tiaras.
+
+These and other memorials of Marathon were the produce of the meridian
+age of Athenian intellectual splendor, of the age of Phidias and
+Pericles; for it was not merely by the generation whom the battle
+liberated from Hippias and the Medes that the transcendent importance of
+their victory was gratefully recognized. Through the whole epoch of her
+prosperity, through the long Olympiads of her decay, through centuries
+after her fall, Athens looked back on the day of Marathon as the
+brightest of her national existence.
+
+By a natural blending of patriotic pride with grateful piety, the very
+spirits of the Athenians who fell at Marathon were deified by their
+countrymen. The inhabitants of the district of Marathon paid religious
+rites to them, and orators solemnly invoked them in their most
+impassioned adjurations before the assembled men of Athens. "Nothing was
+omitted that could keep alive the remembrance of a deed which had first
+taught the Athenian people to know its own strength, by measuring it
+with the power which had subdued the greater part of the known world.
+The consciousness thus awakened fixed its character, its station, and
+its destiny; it was the spring of its later great actions and ambitious
+enterprises."
+
+It was not indeed by one defeat, however signal, that the pride of
+Persia could be broken, and her dreams of universal empire dispelled.
+Ten years afterward she renewed her attempts upon Europe on a grander
+scale of enterprise, and was repulsed by Greece with greater and
+reiterated loss. Larger forces and heavier slaughter than had been seen
+at Marathon signalized the conflicts of Greeks and Persians at
+Artemisium, Salamis, Platæa, and the Eurymedon. But, mighty and
+momentous as these battles were, they rank not with Marathon in
+importance. They originated no new impulse. They turned back no current
+of fate. They were merely confirmatory of the already existing bias
+which Marathon had created. The day of Marathon is the critical epoch in
+the history of the two nations. It broke forever the spell of Persian
+invincibility, which had previously paralyzed men's minds. It generated
+among the Greeks the spirit which beat back Xerxes, and afterward led on
+Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alexander, in terrible retaliation through
+their Asiatic campaigns. It secured for mankind the intellectual
+treasures of Athens, the growth of free institutions, the liberal
+enlightenment of the Western world, and the gradual ascendency for many
+ages of the great principles of European civilization.
+
+
+EXPLANATORY REMARKS ON SOME OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BATTLE OF
+MARATHON
+
+Nothing is said by Herodotus of the Persian cavalry taking any part in
+the battle, although he mentions that Hippias recommended the Persians
+to land at Marathon, because the plain was favorable for cavalry
+evolutions. In the life of Miltiades which is usually cited as the
+production of Cornelius Nepos, but which I believe to be of no authority
+whatever, it is said that Miltiades protected his flanks from the
+enemy's horse by an abatis of felled trees. While he was on the high
+ground he would not have required this defence, and it is not likely
+that the Persians would have allowed him to erect it on the plain.
+
+But, in truth, whatever amount of cavalry we suppose Datis to have had
+with him on the day of Marathon, their inaction in the battle is
+intelligible, if we believe the attack of the Athenian spearmen to have
+been as sudden as it was rapid. The Persian horse-soldier, on an alarm
+being given, had to take the shackles off his horse, to strap the saddle
+on, and bridle him, besides equipping himself (Xenophon), and when each
+individual horseman was ready, the line had to be formed; and the time
+that it takes to form the Oriental cavalry in line for a charge has, in
+all ages, been observed by Europeans.
+
+The wet state of the marshes at each end of the plain, in the time of
+year when the battle was fought, has been adverted to by Wordsworth,[50]
+and this would hinder the Persian general from arranging and employing
+his horsemen on his extreme wings, while it also enabled the Greeks, as
+they came forward, to occupy the whole breadth of the practicable ground
+with an unbroken line of leveled spears, against which, if any Persian
+horse advanced, they would be driven back in confusion upon their own
+foot.
+
+[Footnote 50: _Greece_.]
+
+Even numerous and fully arrayed bodies of cavalry have been repeatedly
+broken, both in ancient and modern warfare, by resolute charges of
+infantry. For instance, it was by an attack of some picked cohorts that
+Cæsar routed the Pompeian cavalry--which had previously defeated his
+own--and won the battle of Pharsalia.
+
+
+
+
+
+INVASION OF GREECE BY PERSIANS UNDER XERXES
+
+DEFENCE OF THERMOPYLÆ
+
+B.C. 480
+
+HERODOTUS
+
+
+     The invasion of Greece by Xerxes is the subject of the great
+     history written in nine books by Herodotus. His object is to show
+     the preëminence of Greece, whose fleets and armies defeated the
+     forces of the Persians after these latter had triumphed over the
+     most powerful nations of the earth. Xerxes collected a vast army
+     from all parts of the empire. The Phoenicians furnished him with an
+     enormous fleet, and he made a bridge of a double line of boats
+     across the Hellespont and cut a canal through the peninsula of
+     Mount Athos. He reached Sardis in the autumn of B.C. 481, and the
+     next year his army crossed the bridge of boats, taking seven days
+     and seven nights for the transit. The number of his fighting men
+     was over two millions and a half. His ships of war were twelve
+     hundred and seven in number, and he had three thousand smaller
+     vessels for carrying his land forces and supplies. At the narrow
+     pass of Thermopylæ, in the northeast of Greece, this immense army
+     was checked for a while by the heroic Leonidas and his three
+     hundred Spartans, who, however, perished in their attempt to
+     prevent the Persian's attack on Athens, which city was almost
+     entirely destroyed by the invaders. The sea-fight of Salamis was
+     won by the Greeks against enormous odds; and in the battle of
+     Platæa, B.C. 479, the defeat of the Persians by the Greek land
+     forces was made more complete by the death of Mardonius, the most
+     renowned general of Xerxes.
+
+
+The Greeks, when they arrived at the Isthmus, consulted on the message
+they had received from Alexander, in what way and in what places they
+should prosecute the war. The opinion which prevailed was that they
+should defend the pass at Thermopylæ; for it appeared to be narrower
+than that into Thessaly, and at the same time nearer to their own
+territories; for the path by which the Greeks who were taken at
+Thermopylæ were afterward surprised, they knew nothing of, till, on
+their arrival at Thermopylæ, they were informed of it by the
+Trachinians. They accordingly resolved to guard this pass, and not
+suffer the barbarian to enter Greece; and that the naval force should
+sail to Artemisium, in the territory of Histiæotis, for these places are
+near one another, so that they could hear what happened to each other.
+These spots are thus situated.
+
+In the first place, Artemisium is contracted from a wide space of the
+Thracian sea into a narrow frith, which lies between the island of
+Sciathus and the continent of Magnesia. From the narrow frith begins the
+coast of Euboea, called Artemisium, and in it is a temple of Diana. But
+the entrance into Greece through Trachis, in the narrowest part, is no
+more than a half _plethrum_ in width: however, the narrowest part of the
+country is not in this spot, but before and behind Thermopylæ; for near
+Alpeni, which is behind, there is only a single carriage-road, and
+before, by the river Phoenix, near the city of Anthela, is another
+single carriage-road. On the western side of Thermopylæ is an
+inaccessible and precipitous mountain, stretching to Mount Oeta, and on
+the eastern side of the way is the sea and a morass. In this passage
+there are hot baths, which the inhabitants call "Chytri," and above
+these is an altar to Hercules. A wall had been built in this pass, and
+formerly there were gates in it. The Phocians built it through fear,
+when the Thessalians came from Thesprotia to settle in the Æolian
+territory which they now possess: apprehending that the Thessalians
+would attempt to subdue them, the Phocians took this precaution; at the
+same time, they diverted the hot water into the entrance, that the place
+might be broken into clefts, having recourse to every contrivance to
+prevent the Thessalians from making inroads into their country. Now this
+old wall had been built a long time, and the greater part of it had
+already fallen through age; but they determined to rebuild it, and in
+that place to repel the barbarian from Greece. Very near this road there
+is a village called Alpeni; from this the Greeks expected to obtain
+provisions.
+
+Accordingly, these situations appeared suitable for the Greeks; for
+they, having weighed everything beforehand, and considered that the
+barbarians would neither be able to use their numbers nor their
+cavalry, there resolved to await the invader of Greece. As soon as they
+were informed that the Persian was in Pieria, breaking up from the
+Isthmus some of them proceeded by land to Thermopylæ, and others by sea
+to Artemisium.
+
+The Greeks, therefore, being appointed in two divisions, hastened to
+meet the enemy; but, at the same time, the Delphians, alarmed for
+themselves and for Greece, consulted the oracle, and the answer given
+them was, "that they should pray to the winds, for that they would be
+powerful allies to Greece."
+
+The Delphians, having received the oracle, first of all communicated the
+answer to those Greeks who were zealous to be free; and as they very
+much dreaded the barbarians, by giving that message they acquired a
+claim to everlasting gratitude. After that, the Delphians erected an
+altar to the winds at Thyia, where there is an inclosure consecrated to
+Thyia, daughter of Cephisus, from whom this district derives its name,
+and conciliated them with sacrifices; and the Delphians, in obedience to
+that oracle, to this day propitiate the winds.
+
+The naval force of Xerxes, setting out from the city of Therma, advanced
+with ten of the fastest sailing ships straight to Scyathus, where were
+three Grecian ships keeping a look-out: a Troezenian, an Æginetan, and
+an Athenian, These, seeing the ships of the barbarians at a distance,
+betook themselves to flight.
+
+The Troezenian ship, which Praxinus commanded, the barbarians pursued
+and soon captured; and then, having led the handsomest of the marines to
+the prow of the ship, they slew him, deeming it a good omen that the
+first Greek they had taken was also very handsome. The name of the man
+that was slain was Leon, and perhaps he in some measure reaped the
+fruits of his name.
+
+The Æginetan ship, which Asonides commanded, gave them some trouble;
+Pytheas, son of Ischenous, being a marine on board, a man who on this
+day displayed the most consummate valor; who, when the ship was taken,
+continued fighting until he was entirely cut to pieces. But when, having
+fallen (he was not dead, but still breathed), the Persians who served on
+board the ships were very anxious to save him alive, on account of his
+valor, healing his wounds with myrrh, and binding them with bandages of
+flaxen cloth; and when they returned to their own camp, they showed him
+with admiration to the whole army, and treated him well; but the others,
+whom they took in this ship, they treated as slaves.
+
+Thus, then, two of the ships were taken; but the other, which Phormus,
+an Athenian, commanded, in its flight ran ashore at the mouth of the
+Peneus, and the barbarians got possession of the ship, but not of the
+men; for as soon as the Athenians had run the ship aground, they leaped
+out, and, proceeding through Thessaly, reached Athens. The Greeks who
+were stationed at Artemisium were informed of this event by signal-fires
+from Sciathus; and being informed of it, and very much alarmed, they
+retired from Artemisium to Chalcis, intending to defend the Euripus, and
+leaving scouts on the heights of Euboea. Of the ten barbarian ships,
+three approached the sunken rock called Myrmex, between Sciathus and
+Magnesia. Then the barbarians, when they had erected on the rock a stone
+column, which they had brought with them, set out from Therma, now that
+every obstacle had been removed, and sailed forward with all their
+ships, having waited eleven days after the king's departure from Therma.
+Pammon, a Scyrian, pointed out to them this hidden rock, which was
+almost directly in their course. The barbarians, sailing all day,
+reached Sepias in Magnesia, and the shore that lies between the city of
+Casthanæa and the coast of Sepias.
+
+As far as this place and Thermopylæ, the army had suffered no loss, and
+the numbers were at that time, as I find by calculations, of the
+following amount: of those in ships from Asia, amounting to one thousand
+two hundred and seven, originally the whole number of the several
+nations was two hundred forty-one thousand four hundred men, allowing
+two hundred to each ship; and on these ships thirty Persians, Medes, and
+Sacæ served as marines, in addition to the native crews of each; this
+farther number amounts to thirty-six thousand two hundred and ten. To
+this and the former number I add those that were on the
+_penteconters[51]_ supposing eighty men on the average to be on board of
+each. Three thousand of these vessels were assembled; therefore the men
+on board them must have been two hundred and forty thousand. This, then,
+was the naval force from Asia, the total being five hundred and
+seventeen thousand six hundred and ten. Of infantry there were seventeen
+hundred thousand, and of cavalry eighty thousand; to these I add the
+Arabians who drove camels, and the Libyans who drove chariots, reckoning
+the number at twenty thousand men. Accordingly, the numbers on board the
+ships and on the land, added together, make up two millions three
+hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and ten. This, then, is the
+force which, as has been mentioned, was assembled from Asia itself,
+exclusive of the servants that followed, and the provision ships, and
+the men that were on board them.
+
+[Footnote 51: Fifty-oared ships.]
+
+But the force brought from Europe must still be added to this whole
+number that has been summed up; but it is necessary to speak by guess.
+Now the Grecians from Thrace, and the islands contiguous to Thrace,
+furnished one hundred and twenty ships; these ships give an amount of
+twenty-four thousand men. Of land-forces, which were furnished by
+Thracians, Pæonians, the Eordi, the Bottiæans, the Chalcidian race,
+Brygi, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrhæbi, Ænianes, Dolopians, Magnesians,
+and Achæans, together with those who inhabit the maritime parts of
+Thrace--of these nations I suppose that there were three hundred
+thousand men, so that these _myriads_, added to those from Asia, make a
+total of two millions six hundred and forty one thousand six hundred and
+ten fighting men!
+
+I think that the servants who followed them, and with those on board the
+provision ships and other vessels that sailed with the fleet, were not
+fewer than the fighting men, but more numerous; but supposing them to be
+equal in number to the fighting men, they make up the former number of
+_myriads_.[52] Thus Xerxes, son of Darius, led five millions two hundred
+and eighty-three thousand two hundred and twenty men to Sepias and
+Thermopylæ!
+
+[Footnote 52: In Greek numeration, ten thousand.]
+
+This, then, was the number of the whole force of Xerxes. But of women
+who made bread, and concubines, and eunuchs, no one could mention the
+number with accuracy; nor of draught-cattle and other beasts of burden;
+nor of Indian dogs that followed could any one mention the number, they
+were so many; therefore I am not astonished that the streams of some
+rivers failed, but rather it is a wonder to me how provisions held out
+for so many _myriads_; for I find by calculation, if each man had a
+_choenix_ of wheat daily, and no more, one hundred and ten thousand
+three hundred and forty _medimni_ must have been consumed every day; and
+I have not reckoned the food for the women, eunuchs, beasts of burden,
+and dogs. But of these _myriads_ of men, not one of them, for beauty and
+stature, was more entitled than Xerxes himself to possess the supreme
+command.
+
+When the fleet, having set out, sailed and reached the shore of Magnesia
+that lies between the city of Casthanæa and the coast of Sepias, the
+foremost of the ships took up their station close to land, others behind
+rode at anchor--the beach not being extensive enough--with their prows
+toward the sea, and eight deep. Thus they passed the night; but at
+daybreak, after serene and tranquil weather, the sea began to swell, and
+a heavy storm with a violent gale from the east--which those who inhabit
+these parts call a "Hellespontine"--burst upon them; as many of them
+then as perceived the gale increasing, and who were able to do so from
+their position, anticipated the storm by hauling their ships on shore,
+and both they and their ships escaped. But such of the ships as the
+storm caught at sea it carried away, some to the parts called Ipni, near
+Pelion, others to the beach; some were dashed on Cape Sepias itself;
+some were wrecked at Meliboea, and others at Casthanæa. The storm was
+indeed irresistible.
+
+The barbarians, when the wind had lulled and the waves had subsided,
+having hauled down their ships, sailed along the continent; and having
+doubled the promontory of Magnesia, stood directly into the bay leading
+to Pagasæ. There is a spot in this bay of Magnesia where it is said
+Hercules was abandoned by Jason and his companions when he had been sent
+from the Argo for water, as they were sailing to Colchis, in Asia, for
+the golden fleece; and from there they purposed to put out to sea after
+they had taken in water. From this circumstance, the name of "Aphetæ"
+was given to the place. In this place, then, the fleet of Xerxes was
+moored.
+
+Fifteen of these ships happened to be driven out to sea some time after
+the rest, and somehow saw the ships of the Greeks at Artemisium. The
+barbarians thought that they were their own, and sailing on, fell among
+their enemies. They were commanded by Sandoces, son of Thaumasius,
+governor of Cyme, of Æolia. He, being one of the royal judges, had been
+formerly condemned by King Darius (who had detected him in the following
+offence), to be crucified. Sandoces gave an unjust sentence, for a
+bribe; but while he was actually hanging on the cross, Darius,
+considering within himself, found that the services he had rendered to
+the royal family were greater than his faults. Darius, therefore, having
+discovered this, and perceiving that he, himself, had acted with more
+expedition than wisdom, released him. Having thus escaped being put to
+death by Darius, he survived; but now, sailing down among the Grecians,
+he was not to escape a second time; for when the Greeks saw them sailing
+toward them, perceiving the mistake they had committed, they bore down
+upon them and easily took them.
+
+King Xerxes encamped in the Trachinian territory of Malis, and the
+Greeks in the pass. This spot is called by most of the Greeks,
+"Thermopylæ," but by the inhabitants and neighbors, "Pylæ," Both
+parties, then, encamped in these places. The one was in possession of
+all the parts toward the north as far as Trachis, and the others, of the
+parts which stretch toward the south and meridian of this continent.
+
+The following were the Greeks who awaited the Persians in this position.
+Of Spartans, three hundred heavy-armed men; of Tegeans and Mantineans,
+one thousand (half of each); from Orchomenus in Arcadia, one hundred and
+twenty; and from the rest of Arcadia, one thousand (there were so many
+Arcadians); from Corinth, four hundred; from Phlius, two hundred men;
+and from Mycenæ, eighty. These came from Peloponnesus. From Boeotia, of
+Thespians seven hundred; and of Thebans, four hundred.
+
+In addition to these, the Opuntian Locrians, being invited, came with
+all their forces, and a thousand Phocians; for the Greeks themselves
+had invited them, representing by their embassadors that "they had
+arrived as forerunners of the others, and that the rest of the allies
+might be daily expected; that the sea was protected by them, being
+guarded by the Athenians, the Æginetæ, and others, who were appointed to
+the naval service; and that they had nothing to fear, for that it was
+not a god who invaded Greece, but a man; and that there never was, and
+never would be, any mortal who had not evil mixed with _his prosperity_
+from his very birth, and to the greatest of them the greatest _reverses
+happen_; that it must therefore needs be that he who is marching against
+us, being a mortal, will be disappointed in his expectation." They,
+having heard this, marched with assistance to Trachis.
+
+These nations had separate generals for their several cities, but the
+one most admired, and who commanded the whole army, was a Lacedæmonian,
+Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, son of Eurycratides, son of
+Anaxander, son of Eurycates, son of Polydorus, son of Alcamenes, son of
+Teleclus, son of Archelaus, son of Agesilaus, son of Doryssus, son of
+Leobotes, son of Echestratus, son of Agis, son of Eurysthenes, son of
+Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of Cleodæus, son of Hyllus, son of
+Hercules, who had unexpectedly succeeded to the throne of Sparta.
+
+For, as he had two elder brothers, Cleomenes and Dorieus, he was far
+from any thought of the kingdom. However, Cleomenes having died without
+male issue, and Dorieus being no longer alive--having ended his days in
+Sicily--the kingdom thus devolved upon Leonidas; both because he was
+older than Cleombrotus--for he was the youngest son of Anaxandrides--and
+also because he had married the daughter of Cleomenes. He then marched
+to Thermopylæ, having chosen the three hundred men allowed by law, and
+such as had children. On his march he took with him the Thebans, whose
+numbers I have already reckoned, and whom Leontiades, son of Eurymachus,
+commanded. For this reason Leonidas was anxious to take with him the
+Thebans alone of all the Greeks, because they were strongly accused of
+favoring the Medes: he therefore summoned them to the war, wishing to
+know whether they would send their forces with him, or would openly
+renounce the alliance of the Grecians; but they, though otherwise
+minded, sent assistance.
+
+The Spartans sent these troops first with Leonidas, in order that the
+rest of the allies, seeing them, might take the field, and might not go
+over to the Medes if they heard that they were delaying; but
+afterward--for the Carnean festival was then an obstacle to them--they
+purposed, when they had kept the feast, to leave a garrison in Sparta
+and to march immediately with their whole strength. The rest of the
+confederates likewise intended to act in the same manner; for the
+Olympic games occurred at the same period as these events. As they did
+not, therefore, suppose that the engagement at Thermopylæ would so soon
+be decided, they despatched an advance-guard.
+
+The Greeks at Thermopylæ, when the Persians came near the pass, being
+alarmed, consulted about a retreat; accordingly, it seemed best to the
+other Peloponnesians to retire to Peloponnesus, and guard the Isthmus;
+but Leonidas, perceiving the Phocians and Locrians were very indignant
+at this proposition, determined to stay there, and to despatch
+messengers to the cities, desiring them to come to their assistance,
+they being too few to repel the army of the Medes.
+
+While they were deliberating on these matters, Xerxes sent a scout on
+horseback, to see how many they were and what they were doing; for while
+he was still in Thessaly, he had heard that a small army had been
+assembled at that spot, and as to their leaders, that they were
+Lacedæmonians, and Leonidas, who was of the race of Hercules. When the
+horseman rode up to the camp, he reconnoitred, and saw not indeed the
+whole camp, for it was not possible that they should be seen who were
+posted within the wall, which having rebuilt they were now guarding; but
+he had a clear view of those on the outside, whose arms were piled in
+front of the wall. At this time the Lacedæmonians happened to be posted
+outside; and some of the men he saw performing gymnastic exercises, and
+others combing their hair. On beholding this he was astonished, and
+ascertained their number, and having informed himself of everything
+accurately, he rode back at his leisure, for no one pursued him and he
+met with general contempt. On his return he gave an account to Xerxes
+of all that he had seen.
+
+When Xerxes heard this, he could not comprehend the truth that the
+Grecians were preparing to be slain and to slay to the utmost of their
+power; but, as they appeared to behave in a ridiculous manner, he sent
+for Demaratus, son of Ariston, who was then in the camp, and when he was
+come into his presence Xerxes questioned him as to each particular,
+wishing to understand what the Lacedæmonians were doing. Demaratus said:
+"You before heard me when we were setting out against Greece, speak of
+these men, and when you heard, you treated me with ridicule though I
+told you in what way I foresaw these matters would issue; for it is my
+chief aim, O king, to adhere to the truth in your presence; hear it,
+therefore, once more. These men have to fight with us for the pass and
+are now preparing themselves to do so; for such is their custom when
+they are going to hazard their lives, then they dress their heads; but
+be assured if you conquer these men and those that remain in Sparta,
+there is no other nation in the world that will dare to raise its hand
+against you, O king! for you are now to engage with the noblest kingdom
+and city of all among the Greeks and with the most valiant men." What
+was said seemed incredible to Xerxes and he asked again, "how, being so
+few in number, they could contend with his army." He answered: "O king,
+deal with me as with a liar if these things do not turn out as I say!"
+
+By saying this he did not convince Xerxes. He therefore let four days
+pass, constantly expecting that they would be taking themselves to
+flight; but on the fifth day, as they had not retreated, but appeared to
+him to stay through arrogance and rashness, he, being enraged, sent the
+Medes and Cissians against them, with orders to take them alive, and
+bring them into his presence. When the Medes bore down impetuously upon
+the Greeks, many of them fell; others followed to the charge, and were
+not repulsed, though they suffered greatly; but they made it evident to
+every one, and not least of all to the king himself, that they were
+indeed many men, but few soldiers. The engagement lasted through the
+day.
+
+When the Medes were roughly handled, they thereupon retired, and the
+Persians whom the king called "Immortal," and whom Hydarnes commanded,
+taking their place advanced to the attack thinking that they indeed
+would easily settle the business. But when they engaged with the
+Grecians they succeeded no better than the Medic troops, but just the
+same; as they fought in a narrow space and used shorter spears than the
+Greeks, they were unable to avail themselves of their numbers. The
+Lacedæmonians fought memorably in other respects, showing that they knew
+how to fight with men who knew not, and whenever they turned their backs
+they retreated in close order, but the barbarians, seeing them retreat,
+followed with a shout and clamor; then they, being overtaken, wheeled
+round so as to front the barbarians, and having faced about, overthrew
+an inconceivable number of the Persians, and then some few of the
+Spartans themselves fell, so that when the Persians were unable to gain
+anything in their attempt on the pass by attacking in troops and in
+every possible manner, they retired.
+
+It is said that during these onsets of the battle, the king, who
+witnessed them, thrice sprang from his throne, being alarmed for his
+army. Thus they strove at that time. On the following day the barbarians
+fought with no better success; for considering that the Greeks were few
+in number, and expecting that they were covered with wounds and would
+not be able to raise their heads against them any more, they renewed the
+contest. But the Greeks were marshalled in companies and according to
+their several nations, and each fought in turn, except only the
+Phocians; they were stationed at the mountain to guard the pathway.
+When, therefore, the Persians found nothing different from what they had
+seen on the preceding day, they retired.
+
+While the king was in doubt what course to take in the present state of
+affairs, Ephialtes, son of Eurydemus, a Malian, obtained an audience of
+him (expecting that he should receive a great reward from the king), and
+informed him of the path which leads over the mountain to Thermopylæ,
+and by that means caused the destruction of those Greeks who were
+stationed there; but afterward, fearing the Lacedæmonians, he fled to
+Thessaly, and when he had fled, a price was set on his head by the
+Pylagori when the Amphictyons were assembled at Pylæ; but some time
+after, he went down to Anticyra and was killed by Athenades, a
+Trachinian.
+
+Another account is given, that Onetes, son of Phanagoras, a Carystian,
+and Corydallus of Anticyra, were the persons who gave this information
+to the king and conducted the Persians round the mountains; but to me,
+this is by no means credible; for, in the first place, we may draw the
+inference from this circumstance, that the Pylagori of the Grecians set
+a price on the head, not of Onetes and Corydallus, but of Ephialtes the
+Trachinian, having surely ascertained the exact truth; and, in the next
+place, we know that Ephialtes fled on that account. Onetes, indeed,
+though he was not a Malian, might be acquainted with this path if he had
+been conversant with the country; but it was Ephialtes who conducted
+them round the mountain by the path, and I charge him as the guilty
+person.
+
+Xerxes, since he was pleased with what Ephialtes promised to perform,
+being exceedingly delighted, immediately despatched Hydarnes and the
+troops that Hydarnes commanded, and he started from the camp about the
+hour of lamp-lighting. The native Malians discovered this pathway, and
+having discovered it, conducted the Thessalians by it against the
+Phocians at the time when the Phocians, having fortified the pass by a
+wall, were under shelter from an attack. From that time it appeared to
+have been of no service to the Malians.
+
+This path is situated as follows: it begins from the river Asopus, which
+flows through the cleft; the same name is given both to the mountain and
+to the path, "Anopæa," and this Anopæa extends along the ridge of the
+mountain and ends near Alpenus, which is the first city of the Locrians
+toward the Malians, and by the rock called "Melampygus," and by the
+seats of the Cercopes, and there the path is the narrowest.
+
+Along this path, thus situate, the Persians, having crossed the Asopus,
+marched all night, having on their right the mountains of the Oetæans,
+and on their left those of the Trachinians; morning appeared, and they
+were on the summit of the mountain. At this part of the mountain, as I
+have already mentioned, a thousand heavy-armed Phocians kept guard, to
+defend their own country and to secure the pathway--for the lower pass
+was guarded by those before mentioned--and the Phocians had voluntarily
+promised Leonidas to guard the path across the mountain.
+
+The Phocians discovered them after they had ascended, in the following
+manner; for the Persian ascended without being observed, as the whole
+mountain was covered with oaks; there was a perfect calm, and, as was
+likely, a considerable rustling taking place from the leaves strewn
+under foot, the Phocians sprang up and put on their arms, and
+immediately the barbarians made their appearance. But when they saw men
+clad in armor they were astonished, for, expecting to find nothing to
+oppose them, they fell in with an army; thereupon Hydarnes, fearing lest
+the Phocians might be Lacedæmonians, asked Ephialtes of what nation the
+troops were, and being accurately informed, he drew up the Persians for
+battle. The Phocians, when they were hit by many and thick-falling
+arrows, fled to the summit of the mountain, supposing that they had come
+expressly to attack them, and prepared to perish. Such was their
+determination. But the Persians, with Ephialtes and Hydarnes, took no
+notice of the Phocians but marched down the mountain with all speed.
+
+To those of the Greeks who were at Thermopylæ, the augur Megistias,
+having inspected the sacrifices, first made known the death that would
+befall them in the morning; certain deserters afterward came and brought
+intelligence of the circuit the Persians were taking. These brought the
+news while it was yet night; and, thirdly, the scouts running down from
+the heights as soon as day dawned, _brought the same intelligence_. Upon
+this the Greeks held a consultation, and their opinions were divided;
+some would not hear of abandoning their post, and others opposed that
+view. After this, when the assembly broke up, some of them departed, and
+being dispersed, betook themselves to their several cities; but others
+of them prepared to remain there with Leonidas.
+
+It is said that Leonidas himself sent them away, being anxious that they
+should not perish, but that he and the Spartans who were there could not
+honorably desert the post which they originally came to defend. For my
+own part, I am rather inclined to think that Leonidas, when he perceived
+that the allies were averse and unwilling to share the danger with him,
+bade them withdraw, but that he considered it dishonorable for himself
+to depart; on the other hand, by remaining there, great renown would be
+left for him and the prosperity of Sparta would not be obliterated, for
+it had been announced to the Spartans by the Pythian, when they
+consulted the oracle concerning this war as soon as it commenced, "that
+either Lacedæmon must be overthrown by the barbarians, or their king
+perish." This answer she gave in hexameter verses, to this effect: "To
+you, O inhabitants of spacious Lacedæmon! either your vast glorious city
+shall be destroyed by men sprung from Perseus, or, if not so, the
+confines of Lacedæmon shall mourn a king deceased, of the race of
+Hercules. For neither shall the strength of bulls nor of lions withstand
+him with force opposed to force, for he has the strength of Jove, and I
+say he shall not be restrained before he has certainly obtained one of
+these for his share." I think, therefore, that Leonidas, considering
+these things and being desirous to acquire glory for the Spartans alone,
+sent away the allies, rather than that those who went away differed in
+opinion, and went away in such an unbecoming manner.
+
+The following in no small degree strengthens my conviction on this
+point; for not only _did he send away_ the others, but it is certain
+that Leonidas also sent away the augur who followed the army, Megistias
+the Acarnanian, who was said to have been originally descended from
+Melampus, the same who announced, from an inspection of the victims,
+what was about to befall them, in order that he might not perish with
+them. He however, though dismissed, did not himself depart but sent away
+his son who served with him in the expedition, being his only child.
+
+The allies that were dismissed, accordingly departed, and obeyed
+Leonidas, but only the Thespians and the Thebans remained with the
+Lacedæmonians; the Thebans, indeed, remained unwillingly and against
+their inclination, for Leonidas detained them, treating them as
+hostages; but the Thespians willingly, for they refused to go away and
+abandon Leonidas and those with him, but remained and died with them.
+Demophilus, son of Diadromas, commanded them.
+
+Xerxes, after he had poured out libations at sunrise, having waited a
+short time, began his attack about the time of full market, for he had
+been so instructed by Ephialtes; for the descent from the mountain is
+more direct and the distance much shorter than the circuit and ascent.
+The barbarians, therefore, with Xerxes, advanced, and the Greeks with
+Leonidas, marching out as if for certain death, now advanced much
+farther than before into the wide part of the defile, for the
+fortification of the wall had protected them, and they on the preceding
+days, having taken up their position in the narrow part, fought there;
+but now engaging outside the narrows, great numbers of the barbarians
+fell; for the officers of the companies from behind, having scourges,
+flogged every man, constantly urging them forward; in consequence, many
+of them, falling into the sea, perished, and many more were trampled
+alive under foot by one another and no regard was paid to any that
+perished, for the Greeks, knowing that death awaited them at the hands
+of those who were going round the mountain, being desperate and
+regardless of their own lives, displayed the utmost possible valor
+against the barbarians.
+
+Already were most of their javelins broken and they had begun to
+despatch the Persians with their swords. In this part of the struggle
+fell Leonidas, fighting valiantly, and with him other eminent Spartans,
+whose names, seeing they were deserving men, I have ascertained; indeed,
+I have ascertained the names of the whole three hundred. On the side of
+the Persians also, many other eminent men fell on this occasion, and
+among them two sons of Darius, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, born to Darius
+of Phrataguna, daughter of Artanes; but Artanes was brother to king
+Darius, and son of Hystaspes, son of Arsames. He, when he gave his
+daughter to Darius, gave him also all his property, as she was his only
+child.
+
+Accordingly, two brothers of Xerxes fell at this spot fighting for the
+body of Leonidas, and there was a violent struggle between the Persians
+and Lacedæmonians, until at last the Greeks rescued it by their valor
+and four times repulsed the enemy. Thus the contest continued until
+those with Ephialtes came up. When the Greeks heard that they were
+approaching, from this time the battle was altered; for they retreated
+to the narrow part of the way, and passing beyond the wall came and took
+up their position on the rising ground all in a compact body with the
+exception of the Thebans. The rising ground is at the entrance where the
+stone lion now stands to the memory of Leonidas. On this spot, while
+they defended themselves with swords--such as had them still
+remaining--and with hands and teeth, the barbarians overwhelmed them
+with missiles, some of them attacking them in front, having thrown down
+the wall, and others surrounding and attacking them on every side.
+
+Though the Lacedæmonians and Thespians behaved in this manner, yet
+Dieneces, a Spartan, is said to have been the bravest man. They relate
+that he made the following remark before they engaged with the Medes,
+having heard a Trachinian say that when the barbarians let fly their
+arrows they would obscure the sun by the multitude of their shafts, so
+great was their number; but he, not at all alarmed at this, said,
+holding in contempt the numbers of the Medes, that "their Trachinian
+friend told them everything to their advantage, since if the Medes
+obscure the sun, they would then have to fight in the shade and not in
+the sun." This, and other sayings of the same kind, they relate that
+Dieneces the Lacedæmonian left as memorials.
+
+Next to him, two Lacedæmonian brothers, Alpheus and Maron, sons of
+Orisiphantus, are said to have distinguished themselves most; and of the
+Thespians, he obtained the greatest glory whose name was Dithyrambus,
+son of Harmatides.
+
+In honor of the slain, who were buried on the spot where they fell, and
+of those who died before they who were dismissed by Leonidas went away,
+the following inscription has been engraved over them: "Four thousand
+from Peloponnesus once fought on this spot with three hundred
+_myriads_![53]" This inscription was made for all; and for the Spartans
+in particular: "Stranger, go tell the Lacedæmonians that we lie here,
+obedient to their commands!" This was for the Lacedæmonians; and for
+the prophet, the following: "This is the monument of the illustrious
+Megistias, whom once the Medes, having passed the river Sperchius, slew;
+a prophet who, at the time well knowing the impending fate, would not
+abandon the leaders of Sparta!"
+
+[Footnote 53: Three millions.]
+
+The Amphictyons are the persons who honored them with these inscriptions
+and columns, with the exception of the inscription to the prophet; that
+of the prophet Megistias, Simonides, son of Leoprepes, caused to be
+engraved, from personal friendship.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+B.C. 5867--B.C. 451
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+B.C. 5867--B.C. 451
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+
+Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
+following give volume and page.
+
+Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
+famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page
+references showing where the several events are fully treated.
+
+All dates are approximate up to B.C. 776, the beginning of the
+Olympiads.
+
+B.C.
+
+=5867.= Menes, the first human ruler recorded in history, unites the two
+kingdoms of Egypt under one crown; introduces the cult of Apis; founds
+the city of Memphis; rears the great temple of Ptah. See "DAWN OF
+CIVILIZATION," i, 1.
+
+=5000.= Babylonia is invaded by a race of Semites; they conquer the land
+and become the Babylonians of history.
+
+=4500 (before)=. A patesi (priest-ruler), by name En-shag-kush-anna, is
+King of Kengi, Southern Babylonia; Sungir, which later gave the name
+Sumer to the whole district, is his capital.
+
+=4400.= Shirpurla, Mesopotamia, subjugated by Mesilim, King of Kish.
+
+=4200.= The hero of Shirpurla, E-anna-tum, throws off the Kish yoke and
+takes the title of king. He is successful in conflicts with Erech, Ur,
+and Larsa. Walls are erected and canals dug by him.
+
+=3700.= The great Pyramid of Gizeh erected. This was during the IV or
+Pyramid dynasty; so called because its chief monarchs built the three
+great pyramids.
+
+Beautiful Queen Nitocris, of the VI dynasty, reigned about this time.
+She is said to have avenged the killing of her brother, King of Egypt,
+by inviting his murderers to a banquet held in a subterranean chamber.
+Into this the river was turned, and they all miserably perished.
+
+=3000.= Nineveh, colonized from Babylonia, ruled by subject princes of
+that country.
+
+=2800.= Probable date of the foundation of the Chinese empire.
+
+=2500.= Rise of the kingdom of Elam. Asshurbanipal (Sardanapalus), King
+of Nineveh, records an invasion of Chaldæa, or Babylonia, by the
+Elamites, B.C. 2300. The records of clay recently unearthed show that
+Cyrus was originally king of Elam. See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT,"
+i, 250.
+
+=2458=. Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) founds the religion known by his name.
+Ancient tradition has it that he was a Median king who conquered Babylon
+about B.C. 2458. M. Haug assigns the date as not later than B.C. 2300.
+Be the time when he lived what it may, it is certain that, as the
+Persian national religion, it dates little further back than B.C. 559
+and up to A.D. 641. The four elements--fire, air, earth, and water,
+especially the first--were recognized as the only proper objects of
+human reverence.
+
+=2300.= A chart of the heavens in China.
+
+=2250.= Commencement of the reign of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia: the
+earliest compilation of a code of laws was made in this reign. See
+"COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE," i, 14.
+
+=2200-1700.= Dominion of the Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, in Egypt. It is
+not improbable that Abraham made his well-known journey to Egypt during
+the early reign of these kings. Joseph's visit occurred near the close
+of their power.
+
+=2200.= Hereditary monarchy founded in China.
+
+=1700-1250.= The new empire of Egypt attains the period of its greatest
+splendor and power. Meneptah, about 1320 (1322), has been generally
+accepted as the Pharaoh of the Exodus.
+
+=1500.= Independence of Assyria as the rising of a kingdom apart from
+Babylonia; the rise of Nineveh.
+
+=1450-1300.= The Hittite realm in Syria attains its greatest power. The
+Egyptians knew the Hittites as the Khita or Khatta. Recent discoveries
+indicate that they formed a civilized and powerful nation. Many
+inscriptions and rock sculptures in Asia Minor, formerly inexplicable,
+are now attributed to the Hittites of the Bible.
+
+=1330.= Rameses II of Egypt; the Sesostris of the Greeks.
+
+=1300.= Shalmaneser I reigns in Assyria.
+
+=1250.= The Phoenicians, closely allied in language to the Hebrews, begin
+their colonizing career.
+
+=1235.= Probable date of the consolidation of Athens, See "THESEUS FOUNDS
+ATHENS," i, 45.
+
+=1200.= Exodus of Israel from Egypt.
+
+"FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA," See i, 52.
+
+=1184.= "FALL OF TROY." See i, 70.
+
+=1122.= Wou Wang becomes emperor of China.
+
+=1120.= Beginning of the reign of Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria.
+
+=1100.= Dorian migration into the Peloponnesus.
+
+=1095 (1055; 1080 common chronology).= Hebrews establish the monarchy.
+Saul the first king.
+
+=1058 (1033).= At Gilboa, Saul is defeated by the Philistines. David
+becomes king in Judah.
+
+=1017 (998).= Accession of Solomon as king of the Hebrews. The Temple at
+Jerusalem is built in this reign. See "ACCESSION OF SOLOMON," i, 92.
+
+=1015.= Smyrna founded.
+
+=977 (953).= Israel and Judah become separate kingdoms, following the
+revolt of the Ten Tribes under Jeroboam.
+
+=973 (949).= Jerusalem captured by Sheshonk, King of Egypt.
+
+=958 (929).= Asa ascends the throne of Judah.
+
+=931 (899).= Omri's accession in Israel.
+
+=917 (873).= Jehoshaphat begins his reign in Judah.
+
+=900 (853).= The Syrians defeat and slay Ahab, King of Israel, at
+Ramoth-Gilead.
+
+Divambar conquers Armenia, Persia, Syria, and adjacent lands.
+
+=887 (843).= The throne of Israel usurped by Jehu.
+
+=850.= The Tyrians colonize Carthage.
+
+=811 (792).= Uzziah succeeds to the throne of Judah.
+
+=800.= The canal and tunnel of Negoub constructed to convey the waters of
+the Zab River to Nineveh.
+
+=800 (850).= Sparta: Probable date of the legislation of Lycurgus.
+
+=790 (825).= Jeroboam II becomes King of Israel.
+
+=789.= First destruction of Nineveh: death of Sardanapalus. See "FIRST
+DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH," i, 105.
+
+=776.= Beginning of the Olympiads. Olympiad in ancient Greece meant the
+space of four years between one celebration of the Olympic games and
+another. In this year it began as a system of chronology.
+
+=772. [A](748)=. End of Jehu's dynasty in Israel.
+
+=753 (common chronology).= "FOUNDATION OF ROME." See i, 116.
+
+=750.= [A] The Corinthians found Syracuse.
+
+=743-724.= First great war between Sparta and Messenia: the latter is
+subjugated.
+
+=734.= [A] Syria becomes subject to Tiglath-Pileser II of Assyria.
+
+=731.= [A] Tiglath-Pileser II subjects Chaldea.
+
+=727. [A] (728)=. Hezekiah ascends the throne of Judah.
+
+=722.= [A] King Sargon of Assyria conquers Samaria; he puts an end to the
+kingdom of Israel. Captivity of the Ten Tribes.
+
+=701.= Siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib; he encounters the Egyptian and
+Ethiopian forces; his expedition into Syria fails.
+
+=697.= Accession of Manasseh to the throne of Judah.
+
+=685-668.= The second war between Sparta and Messenia.
+
+=660.= [A] Prince Jimmu establishes Yamato as the capital of Japan. See
+"PRINCE JIMMU FOUNDS JAPAN'S CAPITAL," i, 140.
+
+=650.=[A] The whole of Egypt united under Psammetichus I, founder of the
+XXVI dynasty. He frees Egypt from Assyrian rule and opens the country to
+the Greeks.
+
+=645-628.= The Messenians make an unsuccessful attempt to throw off the
+yoke of Sparta.
+
+[A] Date uncertain
+
+=640.= Birth of Thales, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. He taught
+the spherical form of the earth and the true causes of lunar eclipses;
+discovered the electricity of amber. The Seven Sages, or Wise Men, are
+commonly made up of Thales, Solon, Bias, Chilo, Cleobulus, Periander,
+and Pittacus.
+
+Media becomes independent of Assyria; she appears as a single united
+kingdom.
+
+=625.= Media, Assyria, and Syria have a great irruption of Scythians in
+their borders.
+
+=623.= "FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM," See i, 160.
+
+=621.= [B](624). Date of the legislation of Draco, at Athens.
+
+=612.= Conspiracy of Cylon at Athens.
+
+=609.= [B] Josiah is slain at Megiddo, when Necho, the Egyptian King,
+crushes the power of Judah.
+
+=607.= [B] Nineveh taken by the Medes and Babylonians, who overthrow the
+Assyrian monarchy.
+
+=605.= [B] Nebuchadnezzar defeats Necho at Carchemish. Necho maintained a
+powerful fleet; the Phoenician ships under his order rounded the Cape of
+Good Hope. Herodotus says that twice during this voyage the crews,
+fearing a lack of food, after landing, drew their ships on shore, sowed
+grain and waited for a harvest. It will be noticed that this was over
+two thousand years before Vasco da Gama, to whom is usually given the
+credit of first circumnavigating Africa.
+
+=597.= [B] Jerusalem captured by Nebuchadnezzar, who carries away the
+principal inhabitants.
+
+=595.= The Delphic Games in Greece. See "PYTHIAN GAMES AT DELPHI," i, 181.
+
+=594.= Adoption of the Constitution of Solon at Athens, See "SOLON'S EARLY
+GREEK LEGISLATION," i, 203.
+
+=586.= [B] Nebuchadnezzar captures and destroys Jerusalem; puts an end to
+the kingdom of Judah. The Babylonish captivity.
+
+=570.= [B] Egypt attacked by Nebuchadnezzar, who dethrones Hophra (Apries);
+he places Amasis on the throne.
+
+=560.= Tyranny of Pisistratus at Athens. The Grecian poor were still
+getting poorer, notwithstanding Solon's legislation; they clamored for
+relief, placed Pisistratus at their head, and passed a decree allowing
+him to have a body-guard of fifty men armed with clubs. Pisistratus then
+threw off all disguise and established himself in the Acropolis as
+tyrant of Athens.
+
+=550.= [B] Cyrus, at the head of the Persians, destroys the Median
+monarchy. See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT," i, 250.
+
+=550.= [B] "RISE OF CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE SAGE," See i, 270.
+
+=546.= Croesus, King of Lydia, overthrown by Cyrus. See "CONQUESTS OF
+CYRUS THE GREAT," i, 250.
+
+=540.= [B] Calimachus invents the Corinthian order of architecture.
+
+[B] Date uncertain.
+
+=538.= Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT,"
+i, 250.
+
+=529.= Death of Cyrus; Cambyses succeeds him on the throne of Persia.
+
+=527.= Hippias and Hipparchus succeed their father, Pisistratus, at
+Athens, in the government of that city.
+
+=525 (527).= Conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, King of Persia. He completely
+subdued it, and, after an attempted rising, crushed Egypt with merciless
+severity. Cambyses treated the Egyptian deities, priests, and temples
+with insult and contempt.
+
+Æschylus, Greek tragic poet, born.
+
+=522.= Pseudo-Smerdis usurps the Persian throne. Cambyses had slain his
+brother Bardes, whom Herodotus calls Smerdis. A Magian, Gaumata by name,
+resembling Bardes in appearance, impersonated the murdered prince. A
+revolution ensued and, owing to the death of Cambyses by his own hand,
+Pseudo-Smerdis became master of the empire.
+
+=521.= Darius I, by defeating Pseudo-Smerdis, who had reigned eight
+months, ascends the Persian throne.
+
+=521-516.= The Temple at Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the
+Babylonians, rebuilt.
+
+=520.= [C] Birth of Pindar, the chief lyric poet of Greece. He was in the
+prime of life when Salamis and Thermopylæ were fought. His poems have as
+groundwork the legends which form the Grecian religious literature.
+
+=516.= [C] Invasion of Scythia by Darius, King of Persia, who seems to have
+acted according to an oriental idea of right, in that he claimed to
+punish the Scythians for an invasion of Media at some previous time.
+
+=514.= Hipparchus, of Athens, assassinated by Harmodius and Aristogiton.
+
+=514.= [C] Birth of Themistocles, a famous Athenian commander and
+statesman. He was largely instrumental in increasing the navy; induced
+the Athenians to leave Athens for Salamis and the fleet, and brought
+about the victory of Salamis.
+
+=510.= Hippias expelled from Athens. The democratic party is headed by
+Clisthenes, the master-spirit of the revolution inaugurated for the
+overthrow of the despotic and hated sons of Pisistratus. The Athenian
+democracy was reorganized by Clisthenes.
+
+=510.= The Crotonians destroy Sybaris. Croton and Sybaris were two ancient
+Greek cities situated on the Gulf of Tarentum, Southern Italy. Little is
+known of them except their luxury, fantastic self-indulgence, and
+extravagant indolence, for which qualities their names remain a
+synonyme.
+
+=510.= Expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. Founding of the Republic;
+consulship instituted. See "ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.
+
+=506.= [C] The Persians subject Macedonia, and extend their dominion over
+Thrace. The Thracians occupied the region between the rivers Strymon and
+Danube. They were more Asiatic than European in character and religion.
+
+[C] Date uncertain.
+
+=500 [D] (501, 502).= Rising of the Greek colonies in Ionia against the
+Persians. Harpagus, who had saved Cyrus in his infancy from his
+grandfather, while governor of Lydia reduced the cities of the coast.
+Town after town submitted. The Tieans abandoned theirs, retiring to
+Abdera in Thrace; the Phocians, after settling in Corsica, whence they
+were driven by the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, went to Italy and
+later founded Massalia (Marseilles) on the coast of Gaul. Thus the Greek
+colonies became a portion of the Persian empire. The insurrection of the
+Ionians continued for six years, the fate of the revolt turning at last
+on the siege of Miletus.
+
+=499 [D] (500)=. Ionian expedition against Sardis. The city was taken and
+during the pillage was accidentally burned. The Ionian forces were
+utterly inadequate to hold Sardis; and their return was not effected
+without a serious defeat by the pursuing army of Persians.
+
+=497.57= [D] The Latins are defeated by the Romans at Lake Regillus.
+
+=495.= Birth of Sophocles.
+
+=494.= The naval battle of Lade, in which the Persians defeat the Asiatic
+Greeks. Fall of Miletus.
+
+=494 (492).= First secession of the plebeians from Rome. Creation of the
+tribunes of the people. See "ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.
+
+=493 (491).= The Latins are compelled by the Romans to enter into a league
+with Rome, which is threatened by the Etruscans, Volscians, and the
+Æquians. The Latins obtained the name of Roman citizens; the title
+disguised a real subjection, since the men who bore it had the
+obligation of citizens without the rights.
+
+=492.= [D] Mardonius heads the first Persian expedition against Greece.
+
+=490.= Battle of Marathon, in which Darius' Persian host is overwhelmingly
+defeated by Miltiades, See "THE BATTLE OF MARATHON," i, 322.
+
+=489.= Condemnation and death of Miltiades. See "THE BATTLE OF MARATHON,"
+i, 322.
+
+=486.= Darius Hystaspes, of Persia, is succeeded on the throne by his son
+Xerxes.
+
+League of Rome with the Hernici.
+
+=484.= [D] Birth of Herodotus, the "Father of History,"
+
+=483.= Aristides, one of the ten leaders of the Greeks at Marathon,
+ostracized through the jealousy of Themistocles.
+
+=480.= Second Persian invasion of Greece, this time by Xerxes. Defence of
+Thermopylæ by Leonidas. See "DEFENCE OF THERMOPYLÆ," i, 354. Naval
+battle of Artemisium. Athens burned. The Persian fleet vanquished by
+Themistocles and Eurybiades at Salamis. Retreat of Xerxes.
+
+[D] Date uncertain.
+
+The Carthaginians attempt the conquest of the Greek cities of Sicily.
+Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, defeats their army at Himera.
+
+Birth of Euripides, the celebrated Greek tragic poet.[E]
+
+=479.= The Greeks, under the command of Pausanias, at the battle of
+Platæa, crush the Persian army under the lead of Mardonius. Leotychides
+and Nanthippus gain a simultaneous victory over the Persian fleet at
+Mycale. End of the Persian invasion of Greece.
+
+=478.= The tyranny of Hieron, brother of Gelon, begins at Syracuse. He was
+noted as a patron of literature.
+
+=477.= The predominance in Greece passes from Sparta to Athens, by the
+formation of the Confederacy of Delos.
+
+=474.= Hieron, of Syracuse, defeats the Etruscans near Cumæ.
+
+=471.= Themistocles exiled from Athens, the Spartan faction having plotted
+his ruin, alleging his complicity with the enemy.
+
+Birth of Thucydides.[E]
+
+=470 (471).= The Publilian law passed in Rome; the plebeians accorded the
+right of initiating legislation in their assemblies. See "ROME
+ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.
+
+=469.= [E] Birth of Socrates.
+
+=468.= [E] Democracy triumphs in the cities of Sicily.
+
+=466.= Naval victory of the Greeks, under Cimon, over the Persians at
+Eurymedon. B.C. 470 Cimon had reduced Eion, after a gallant defence by
+Boges, the Persian governor, who, rather than surrender, cast all his
+gold and silver into the river Strymon, raised a huge pile of wood, and
+on it placed the bodies of his wives, children, and slaves--all of whom
+he had slain--then, having set fire thereto, he flung himself into the
+flames and perished.
+
+The Revolt of Naxos crushed by Cimon during the expedition against the
+Persians.
+
+Fall of the tyrants at Syracuse.
+
+=465.= Murder of Xerxes I, by Artabanus, captain of his guard; accession
+of Artaxerxes I to the Persian throne.
+
+=464.= Sparta destroyed by an earthquake which shook the whole of Laconia,
+opened great chasms in the ground, rolled down huge masses from the
+peaks of Taygetus, and threw Sparta into a heap of ruins. Not more than
+five houses are said to have remained standing. Twenty thousand persons
+lost their lives by the shock. The flower of the Spartan youth was slain
+by the overthrow of the building in which they were exercising.
+
+=464-455.= The Messenian helots rise against the Spartans, taking
+advantage of the confusion caused by the earthquake. This was the
+beginning of the third Messenian war.
+
+=463.= Mycenæ is reduced by the Argives, who enslave or drive away its
+inhabitants.
+
+=460.= Birth of Hippocrates, in the island of Cos, who became known as the
+"Father of Medicine."
+
+=458.= [E] Jews return from Babylonia to Jerusalem, under Ezra.
+
+Esther, the Jewess, pleases King Ahasuerus and is made queen in place of
+Vashti. This was the origin of the Jewish festival of Purim, celebrated
+on the 14th and 15th of the month Adar (March).
+
+Beginning of the Long Walls of Athens; built to protect the
+communication of the city with its port. One, four miles long, ran to
+the harbor of Phalerum, and others, four and one-half miles long, to the
+Piræus.
+
+=457.= Beginning of war of Corinth, Sparta, and Ægina with Athens: Battle
+of Tanagra, in which the Athenians were defeated.
+
+=456.= Athenian victory at OEnophyta; the Boeotians defeated by Myronides,
+who also secures the submission of Phocis and Locris.
+
+=455.= End of the third Messenian war.
+
+=451.= Ion of Chios, historian and tragedian, exhibits his first drama.
+
+[E] Date uncertain.
+
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOLUME I
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: The Sabine women--now mothers--suing for peace between
+the combatants (their Roman husbands and their Sabine relations).
+
+Painting by Jacques L. David]
+
+[Illustration: Sphinx with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh
+
+From an original photograph.]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: THE TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION OF THE ROSETTA STONE. IN
+HIEROGLYPHIC, DEMOTIC, AND GREEK CHARACTERS. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON.
+
+(FOR DESCRIPTION OF THIS CUT, SEE OTHER SIDE.)]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSETTA STONE
+
+
+Almost as interesting as the Rosetta Stone itself is the story of its
+discovery. During the French occupation of Egypt soldiers were digging
+out the foundations of a fort, and in the trench the famous tablet was
+found. At the peace of Alexandra the Rosetta Stone passed to the
+English, who (1801) housed it in the British Museum, where it remains.
+The text when translated showed that the inscription is a "decree of the
+priests of Memphis, conferring divine honors on Ptolemy V, Epiphanes,
+King of Egypt, B.C. 195," on the occasion of his coronation. Further it
+commands that the decree be inscribed in the sacred letters
+(hieroglyphics); the alphabet of the people (enuchorial or demotic); and
+Greek.
+
+It was recognized by the trustees of the British Museum that the problem
+of the Rosetta Stone was one which would test the ingenuity of the
+scientists of the world to unfathom, and they promptly published a
+carefully prepared copy of the entire inscription. Scholars of every
+nation exhausted their learning to unravel the riddle, but beyond a few
+shrewd guesses (afterward proved to be quite incorrect) nothing was
+accomplished for a dozen years. The key was there, but its application
+required the inspired insight of genius.
+
+Dr. Thomas Young, the demonstrator of the vibratory nature of light, who
+had perhaps the most versatile profundity of knowledge and the keenest
+scientific imagination of his generation, undertook the task.
+
+Accident had called Young's attention to the Rosetta Stone, and his
+rapacity for knowledge led him to speculate as to the possible aid this
+trilingual inscription might offer in the solution of Egyptian problems.
+Having an amazing faculty for the acquisition of languages, he, in one
+short year, had mastered Coptic, after having assured himself that it
+was the nearest existing approach to the ancient Egyptian language, and
+had even made a tentative attempt at the translation of the Egyptian
+scroll. This was the very beginning of our knowledge of the meaning of
+hieroglyphics.
+
+The specific discoveries that Dr. Young made were: 1, That some of the
+pictures of the hieroglyphics stand for the names of the objects
+delineated; 2, that other pictures are at times only symbolic; 3, that
+plural numbers are represented by repetition; 4, that numerals are
+represented by dashes; 5, that hieroglyphics may read either from the
+right or from the left, but always from the direction in which the
+animals and human figures face; 6, that a graven oval ring surrounds
+proper names, making a cartouche; 7, that the cartouches of the Rosetta
+Stone stand for the name of Ptolemy alone; 8, that the presence of a
+female figure after such cartouches always denotes the female sex; 9,
+that within the cartouches the hieroglyphic symbols have an actual
+phonetic value, either alphabetic or syllabic; and 10, that several
+dissimilar characters may have the same phonetic value.
+
+K A L A RE SA W SA RE M HA HER RE M T
+
+[Illustration:
+
+=_Kaharesapusaremkaherremt_=.
+
+AN EGYPTIAN PROPER NAME SPELLED OUT IN FULL BY MEANS OF ALPHABETICAL AND
+SYLLABIC SIGNS.]
+
+Dr. Young was certainly on the right track, and very near the complete
+discovery; unfortunately he failed to take the next step, which was to
+learn that the use of an alphabet was not confined to proper names. This
+grand secret Young missed; his French successor, Champollion, ferreted
+it out from the foundation he had laid. The "Enigma of the Sphinx" was
+practically solved, and the secrets held by the monuments of Egypt for
+so many centuries were disclosed to the world. Champollion proved that
+the Egyptians had developed an alphabet--neglecting the vowels, as did
+also the early Semitic alphabet--centuries before the Phoenicians were
+heard of in history. Some of these pictures are purely alphabetical in
+character, some are otherwise symbolic. Some characters represent
+syllables, others again stand as representatives of sounds, and once
+again, as representatives of things; hence the difficulties and
+complications it presented.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Vol. 1, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS ***
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+
+Project Gutenberg's The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Rossiter Johnson, Charles Horne And John Rudd
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2005 [EBook #16352]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Jared Ryan Buck and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
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+
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+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></p>
+<h1>THE GREAT EVENTS</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS HISTORIANS</h2>
+
+<h3>A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
+THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
+IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS</h3>
+
+<h4>
+NON-SECTARIAN            NON-PARTISAN            NON-SECTIONAL
+</h4>
+
+<h3>ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
+DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
+INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
+NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
+BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING</h3>
+
+
+<h4>EDITOR-IN-CHIEF</h4>
+
+<h3>ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>ASSOCIATE EDITORS</h4>
+
+<h3>CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.</h3>
+
+<h4><i>With a staff of specialists</i></h4>
+
+
+<h2><i>VOLUME 1</i></h2>
+
+
+
+<h1>The National Alumni</h1>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>COPYRIGHT, 1905,</h2>
+
+<h3>By THE NATIONAL ALUMNI</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<a name="Sphinx_image" id="Sphinx_image"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<table width="200" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" border="0" summary="for layout">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="images/fronta.jpg"><img src="images/fronta-tn.jpg" alt="Cover Illustration, Globe" title="Sphinx, with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh, from an original photograph." border="0"  width="300" /></a></td>
+<td><a href="images/frontb.jpg"><img src="images/frontb_tn.jpg" alt="Cover Illustration, Globe" title="Illustration" border="0" height="194" /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+</div>
+<br/>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<h3>VOLUME I</h3>
+
+
+<p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<a href="#GENERAL_INTRODUCTION"><i>General Introduction</i></a><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a href="#THE_GREAT_EVENTS"><i>An Outline Narrative of the Great Events</i></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CHARLES F. HORNE</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#DAWN_OF_CIVILIZATION"><i>Dawn of Civilization</i> (<i>B.C. 5867</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">G.C.C. MASPERO</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#COMPILATION_OF_THE_EARLIEST_CODE"><i>Compilation of the Earliest Code</i> (<i>B.C. 2250</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HAMMURABI</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#THESEUS_FOUNDS_ATHENS"><i>Theseus Founds Athens</i> (<i>B.C. 1235</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">PLUTARCH</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#THE_FORMATION_OF_THE_CASTES_IN_INDIA"><i>The Formation of the Castes in India</i> (<i>B.C. 1200</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GUSTAVE LE BON</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">W.W. HUNTER</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#FALL_OF_TROY"><i>Fall of Troy</i> (<i>B.C. 1184</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GEORGE GROTE</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#ACCESSION_OF_SOLOMON"><i>Accession of Solomon</i></a><br />
+<a href="#ACCESSION_OF_SOLOMON"><i>Building of the Temple at Jerusalem</i> (<i>B.C. 1017</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HENRY HART MILMAN</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#RISE_AND_FALL_OF_ASSYRIA"><i>Rise and Fall of Assyria</i></a><br />
+<a href="#RISE_AND_FALL_OF_ASSYRIA"><i>Destruction of Nineveh</i> (<i>B.C. 789</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">F. LENORMANT AND E. CHEVALLIER</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#THE_FOUNDATION_OF_ROME"><i>The Foundation of Rome</i> (<i>B.C. 753</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#PRINCE_JIMMU_FOUNDS_JAPANS_CAPITAL"><i>Prince Jimmu Founds Japan's Capital</i> (<i>B.C. 660</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">SIR EDWARD REED</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">THE "NEHONGI"</span><br /><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>
+<br />
+<a href="#THE_FOUNDATION_OF_BUDDHISM"><i>The Foundation of Buddhism</i> (<i>B.C. 623</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">THOMAS W. RHYS-DAVIDS</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#PYTHIAN_GAMES_AT_DELPHI"><i>Pythian Games at Delphi</i> (<i>B.C. 585</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GEORGE GROTE</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#SOLONS_EARLY_GREEK_LEGISLATION"><i>Solon's Early Greek Legislation</i> (<i>B.C. 594</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GEORGE GROTE</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#CONQUESTS_OF_CYRUS_THE_GREAT"><i>Conquests of Cyrus the Great</i> (<i>B.C. 550</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GEORGE GROTE</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#RISE_OF_CONFUCIUS_THE_CHINESE_SAGE"><i>Rise of Confucius, the Chinese Sage</i> (<i>B.C. 550</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">R.K. DOUGLAS</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#ROME_ESTABLISHED_AS_A_REPUBLIC"><i>Rome Established as a Republic</i></a><br />
+<a href="#ROME_ESTABLISHED_AS_A_REPUBLIC"><i>Institution of Tribunes</i> (<i>B.C. 510-494</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#THE_BATTLE_OF_MARATHON"><i>The Battle of Marathon</i> (<i>B.C. 490</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#INVASION_OF_GREECE_BY_PERSIANS_UNDER_XERXES"><i>Invasion of Greece by Persians under Xerxes</i></a><br />
+<a href="#INVASION_OF_GREECE_BY_PERSIANS_UNDER_XERXES"><i>Defence of Thermopyl&aelig;</i> (<i>B.C. 480</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HERODOTUS</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#CHRONOLOGY_OF_UNIVERSAL_HISTORY"><i>Universal Chronology</i> (<i>B.C. 5867-451</i>)</a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">JOHN RUDD</span><br />
+<br />
+<a href="#THE_ROSETTA_STONE"><i>The Rosetta Stone</i></a><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<h3>VOLUME I</h3>
+
+
+
+<p><a href="#Sphinx_image"><i>Sphinx, with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh</i> (<i>page 12</i>)</a></p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Sphinx_image">From an original photograph.</a></span>
+
+<p><a href="#Rosetta_image"><i>The Rosetta Stone, and Description</i></a></p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Rosetta_image">Facsimile of original in the British Museum.</a></span>
+
+<p><a href="#Sabine_image"><i>The Sabine Women</i>&mdash;<i>now mothers</i>&mdash;<i>suing for peace between the
+combatants</i> (<i>their Roman husbands and their Sabine relatives</i>)</a></p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a href="#Sabine_image">Painting by Jacques L. David.</a></span>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></p><p><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></p>
+<h2>THE GREAT EVENTS</h2>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h3>FAMOUS HISTORIANS</h3>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2><a name="GENERAL_INTRODUCTION" id="GENERAL_INTRODUCTION"></a>General Introduction</h2>
+
+
+<p>THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS is the answer to a problem which
+has long been agitating the learned world. How shall real history, the
+ablest and profoundest work of the greatest historians, be rescued from
+its present oblivion on the dusty shelves of scholars, and made welcome
+to the homes of the people?</p>
+
+<p>THE NATIONAL ALUMNI, an association of college men, having given this
+question long and earnest discussion among themselves, sought finally
+the views of a carefully elaborated list of authorities throughout
+America and Europe. They consulted the foremost living historians and
+professors of history, successful writers in other fields, statesmen,
+university and college presidents, and prominent business men. From this
+widely gathered consensus of opinions, after much comparison and sifting
+of ideas, was evolved the following practical, and it would seem
+incontrovertible, series of plain facts. And these all pointed toward
+"THE GREAT EVENTS."</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the entire American public, from top to bottom of
+the social ladder, are at this moment anxious to read history. Its
+predominant importance among the varied forms of literature is fully
+recognized. To understand the past is to understand the future. The
+successful men in every line of life are those who look ahead, whose
+keen foresight enables <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>them to probe into the future, not by magic, but
+by patiently acquired knowledge. To see clearly what the world has done,
+and why, is to see at least vaguely what the world will do, and when.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, no man can understand himself unless he understands others;
+and he cannot do that without some idea of the past, which has produced
+both him and them. To know his neighbors, he must know something of the
+country from which they came, the conditions under which they formerly
+lived. He cannot do his own simple duty by his own country if he does
+not know through what tribulations that country has passed. He cannot be
+a good citizen, he cannot even vote honestly, much less intelligently,
+unless he has read history. Fortunately the point needs little urging.
+It is almost an impertinence to refer to it. We are all anxious, more
+than anxious to learn&mdash;<i>if only the path of study be made easy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Can this be accomplished? Can the vanishing pictures of the past be made
+as simply obvious as mathematics, as fascinating as a breezy novel of
+adventure? Genius has already answered, yes. Hand to a mere boy
+Macaulay's sketch of Warren Hastings in India, and the lad will see as
+easily as if laid out upon a map the host of interwoven and elaborate
+problems that perplexed the great administrator. Offer to the youngest
+lass the tale told by Guizot of King Robert of France and his struggle
+to retain his beloved wife Bertha. Its vivid reality will draw from the
+girl's heart far deeper and truer tears than the most pathetic romance.</p>
+
+<p>We begin to realize that in very truth History has been one vast
+stupendous drama, world-embracing in its splendor, majestic, awful,
+irresistible in the insistence of its pointing finger of fate. It has
+indeed its comic interludes, a Prussian king befuddling ambassadors in
+his "Tobacco Parliament"; its pauses of intense and cumulative suspense,
+Queen Louise pleading to Napoleon for her country's life; but it has
+also its magnificent pageants, its gorgeous culminating spectacles of
+wonder. Kings and emperors are but the supernumeraries upon its boards;
+its hero is the common man, its plot his triumph over ignorance, his
+struggle upward out of the slime of earth.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a><i>Yet the great historians are not being widely read</i>. The ablest and
+most convincing stories of his own development seem closed against the
+ordinary man. Why? In the first place, the works of the masters are too
+voluminous. Grote's unrivalled history of Greece fills ten large and
+forbidding volumes. Guizot takes thirty-one to tell a portion of the
+story of France. Freeman won credit in the professorial world by
+devoting five to the detailing of a single episode, the Norman Conquest.
+Surely no busy man can gather a general historic knowledge, if he must
+read such works as these! We are told that the great library of Paris
+contains over four hundred thousand volumes and pamphlets on French
+history alone. The output of historic works in all languages approaches
+ten thousand volumes every year. No scholar, even, can peruse more than
+the smallest fraction of this enormously increasing mass. Herodotus is
+forgotten, Livy remains to most of us but a recollection of our
+school-days, and Thucydides has become an exercise in Greek.</p>
+
+<p>There is yet another difficulty. Even the honest man who tries, who
+takes down his Grote or Freeman, heroically resolved to struggle through
+it at all speed, fails often in his purpose. He discovers that the
+greatest masters nod. Sometimes in their slow advance they come upon a
+point that rouses their enthusiasm; they become vigorous, passionate,
+sarcastic, fascinating, they are masters indeed. But the fire soon dies,
+the inspiration flags, "no man can be always on the heights," and the
+unhappy reader drowses in the company of his guide.</p>
+
+<p>This leads us then to one clear point. From these justly famous works a
+selection should be made. Their length should be avoided, their prosy
+passages eliminated; the one picture, or perhaps the many pictures,
+which each master has painted better than any rival before or since,
+that and that alone should be preserved.</p>
+
+<p>Read in this way, history may be sought with genuine pleasure. It is
+only pedantry has made it dreary, only blindness has left it dull. The
+story of man is the most wonderful ever conceived. It can be made the
+most fascinating ever written.</p>
+
+<p>With this idea firmly established in mind, we seek another line of
+thought. The world grows smaller every day. Russia <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>fights huge battles
+five thousand miles from her capital. England governs India. Spain and
+the United States contend for empire in the antipodes. Our rapidly
+improving means of communication, electric trains, and, it may be,
+flying machines, cables, and wireless telegraphy, link lands so close
+together that no man lives to-day the subject of an isolated state.
+Rather, indeed, do all the kingdoms seem to shrink, to become but
+districts in one world-including commonwealth.</p>
+
+<p>To tell the story of one nation by itself is thus no longer possible.
+Great movements of the human race do not stop for imaginary boundary
+lines thrown across a map. It was not the German students, nor the
+Parisian mob, nor the Italian peasants who rebelled in 1848; it was the
+"people of Europe" who arose against their oppressors. To read the
+history of one's own country only is to get distorted views, to
+exaggerate our own importance, to remain often in densest ignorance of
+the real meaning of what we read. The ideas American school-boys get of
+the Revolution are in many cases simply absurd, until they have been
+modified by wider reading.</p>
+
+<p>From this it becomes very evident that a good history now must be, not a
+local, but a world history. The idea of such a work is not new. Diodorus
+penned one two hundred years before Christ. But even then the tale took
+forty books; and we have been making history rather rapidly since
+Diodorus' time. Of the many who have more recently attempted his task,
+few have improved upon his methods; and the best of these works only
+shows upon a larger scale the same dreariness that we have found in
+other masters.</p>
+
+<p>Let us then be frank and admit that no one man can make a thoroughly
+good world history. No one man could be possessed of the almost infinite
+learning required; none could have the infinite enthusiasm to delight
+equally in each separate event, to dwell on all impartially and yet
+ecstatically. So once more we are forced back upon the same conclusion.
+We will take what we already have. We will appeal to each master for the
+event in which he did delight, the one in which we find him at his best.</p>
+
+<p>This also has been attempted before, but perhaps in a manner too
+lengthy, too exact, too pedantic to be popular. The <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>aim has been to get
+in everything. Everything great or small has been narrated, and so the
+real points of value have been lost in the multiplicity of lesser facts,
+about which no ordinary reader cares or needs to care. After all, what
+we want to know and remember are the Great Events, the ones which have
+really changed and influenced humanity. How many of us do really know
+about them? or even know what they are? or one-twentieth part of them?
+And until we know, is it not a waste of time to pore over the lesser
+happenings between?</p>
+
+<p>Yet the connection between these events must somehow be shown. They must
+not stand as separate, unrelated fragments. If the story of the world is
+indeed one, it must be shown as one, not even broken by arbitrary
+division into countries, those temporary political constructions, often
+separating a single race, lines of imaginary demarcation, varying with
+the centuries, invisible in earth's yesterday, sure to change if not to
+perish in her to-morrow. Moreover, such a system of division
+necessitates endless repetition. Each really important occurrence
+influences many countries, and so is told of again and again with
+monotonous iteration and extravagant waste of space.</p>
+
+<p>It may, however, be fairly urged that the story should vary according to
+the country for which it is designed. To our individual lives the events
+happening nearest prove most important. Great though others be, their
+influence diminishes with their increasing distance in space and time.
+For the people of North America the story of the world should have the
+part taken by America written large across the pages.</p>
+
+<p>From all these lines of reasoning arose the present work, which the
+National Alumni believe has solved the problem. It tells the story of
+the world, tells it in the most famous words of the most famous writers,
+makes of it a single, continued story, giving the results of the most
+recent research. Yet all dry detail has been deliberately eliminated;
+the tale runs rapidly and brightly. Whatever else may happen, the reader
+shall not yawn. Only important points are dwelt on, and their relative
+value is made clear.</p>
+
+<p>Each volume of THE GREAT EVENTS opens with a brief survey of the period
+with which it deals. The broad world <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>movements of the time are pointed
+out, their importance is emphasized, their mutual relationship made
+clear. If the reader finds his interest specially roused in one of these
+events, and he would learn more of it, he is aided by a directing note,
+which, in each case, tells him where in the body of the volume the
+subject is further treated. Turning thither he may plunge at once into
+the fuller account which he desires, sure that it will be both vivid and
+authoritative; in short, the best-known treatment of the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the general survey, being thus relieved from the necessity of
+constant explanation, expansion, and digression, is enabled to flow
+straight onward with its story, rapidly, simply, entertainingly. Indeed,
+these opening sketches, written especially for this series, and in a
+popular style, may be read on from volume to volume, forming a book in
+themselves, presenting a bird's-eye view of the whole course of earth,
+an ideal world history which leaves the details to be filled in by the
+reader at his pleasure. It is thus, we believe, and thus only, that
+world history can be made plain and popular. The great lessons of
+history can thus be clearly grasped. And by their light all life takes
+on a deeper meaning.</p>
+
+<p>The body of each volume, then, contains the Great Events of the period,
+ranged in chronological order. Of each event there are given one,
+perhaps two, or even three complete accounts, not chosen hap-hazard, but
+selected after conference with many scholars, accounts the most accurate
+and most celebrated in existence, gathered from all languages and all
+times. Where the event itself is under dispute, the editors do not
+presume to judge for the reader; they present the authorities upon both
+sides. The Reformation is thus portrayed from the Catholic as well as
+the Protestant standpoint. The American Revolution is shown in part as
+England saw it; and in the American Civil War, and the causes which
+produced it, the North and the South speak for themselves in the words
+of their best historians.</p>
+
+<p>To each of these accounts is prefixed a brief introduction, prepared for
+this work by a specialist in the field of history of which it treats.
+This introduction serves a double purpose. In the first place, it
+explains whatever is necessary for the un<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>derstanding and appreciation
+of the story that follows. Unfortunately, many a striking bit of
+historic writing has become antiquated in the present day. Scholars have
+discovered that it blunders here and there, perhaps is prejudiced,
+perhaps extravagant. Newer writers, therefore, base a new book upon the
+old one, not changing much, but paraphrasing it into deadly dullness by
+their efforts after accuracy. Thanks to our introduction we can revive
+the more spirited account, and, while pointing out its value to the
+reader, can warn him of its errors. Thus he secures in briefest form the
+results of the most recent research.</p>
+
+<p>Another purpose of the introduction is to link each event with the
+preceding ones in whatever countries it affects. Thus if one chooses he
+may read by countries after all, and get a completed story of a single
+nation. That is, he may peruse the account of the battle of Hastings and
+then turn onward to the making of the <i>Domesday Book</i>, where he will
+find a few brief lines to cover the intervening space in England's
+history. From the struggles of Stephen and Matilda he is led to the
+quarrel of her son, King Henry, with Thomas Becket, and so onward step
+by step.</p>
+
+<p>Starting with this ground plan of the design in mind, the reader will
+see that its compilation was a work of enormous labor. This has been
+undertaken seriously, patiently, and with earnest purpose. The first
+problem to be confronted was, What were the Great Events that should be
+told? Almost every writer and teacher of history, every well-known
+authority, was appealed to; many lists of events were compiled, revised,
+collated, and compared; and so at last our final list was evolved,
+fitted to bear the brunt of every criticism.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the heavier problem of what authorities to quote for each
+event. And here also the editors owe much to the capable aid of many
+generous, unremunerated advisers. Thus, for instance, they sought and
+obtained from the Hon. Joseph Chamberlain his advice as to the
+authorities to be used for the Jameson raid and the Boer war. The
+account presented may therefore be fairly regarded as England's own
+authoritative presentment of those events. Several little known and
+wholly unused Russian sources were pointed out by Professor Ram<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>baud,
+the French Academician. But this is mentioned only to illustrate the
+impartiality with which the editors have endeavored to cover all fields.
+If, under the plea of expressing gratitude to all those who have lent us
+courteous assistance, we were to spread across these pages the long roll
+of their distinguished names, it would sound too much like boasting of
+their condescension.</p>
+
+<p>The work of selecting the accounts has been one of time and careful
+thought. Many thousands of books have been read and read again. The
+cardinal points of consideration in the choice have been: (1) Interest,
+that is, vividness of narration; (2) simplicity, for we aim to reach the
+people, to make a book fit even for a child; (3) the fame of the author,
+for everyone is pleased to be thus easily introduced to some
+long-heard-of celebrity, distantly revered, but dreaded; and (4)
+accuracy, a point set last because its defects could be so easily
+remedied by the specialist's introduction to each event.</p>
+
+<p>These considerations have led occasionally to the selection of very
+ancient documents, the original "sources" of history themselves, as, for
+instance, Columbus' own story of his voyage, rather than any later
+account built up on this; Pliny's picture of the destruction of Pompeii,
+for Pliny was there and saw the heavens rain down fire, and told of it
+as no man has done since. So, too, we give a literal translation of the
+earliest known code of laws, antedating those of Moses by more than a
+thousand years, rather than some modern commentary on them. At other
+times the same principles have led to the other extreme, and on modern
+events, where there seemed no wholly satisfactory or standard accounts,
+we have had them written for us by the specialists best acquainted with
+the field.</p>
+
+<p>As the work thus grew in hand, it became manifest that it would be, in
+truth, far more than a mere story of events. With each event was
+connected the man who embodied it. Often his life was handled quite as
+fully as the event, and so we had biography. Lands had to be
+described&mdash;geography. Peoples and customs&mdash;sociology. Laws and the
+arguments concerning them&mdash;political economy. In short, our history
+proved a universal cyclop&aelig;dia as well.</p>
+
+<p>To give it its full value, therefore, an index became obvi<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>ously
+necessary&mdash;and no ordinary index. Its aim must be to anticipate every
+possible question with which a reader might approach the past, and
+direct him to the answer. Even, it might be, he would want details more
+elaborate than we give. If so, we must direct him where to find them.</p>
+
+<p>Professional index-makers were therefore summoned to our help, a
+complete and readable chronology was appended to each volume, and the
+final volume of the series was turned over to the indexers entirely. We
+believe their work will prove not the least valuable feature of the
+whole. Briefly, the Index Volume contains:</p>
+
+<p>1. A complete list of the Great Events of the world's history. Opposite
+each event are given the date, the name of the author and standard work
+from which our account is selected, and a number of references to other
+works and to a short discussion of these in our Bibliography. Thus the
+reader may pursue an extended course of study on each particular event.</p>
+
+<p>2. A bibliography of the best general histories of ancient, medi&aelig;val,
+and modern times, and of important political, religious, and educational
+movements; also a bibliography of the best historical works dealing with
+each nation, and arranged under the following subdivisions: (<i>a</i>) The
+general history of the nation; (<i>b</i>) special periods in its career;
+(<i>c</i>) the descriptions of the people, their civilization and
+institutions. On each work thus mentioned there is a critical comment
+with suggestions to readers. This bibliography is designed chiefly for
+those who desire to pursue more extended courses of reading, and it
+offers them the experience and guidance of those who have preceded them
+on their special field.</p>
+
+<p>3. A classified index of famous historic characters. The names are
+grouped under such headings as "Rulers, Statesmen, and Patriots,"
+"Famous Women," "Military and Naval Commanders," "Philosophers and
+Teachers," "Religious Leaders," etc. Under each person's name is given a
+biographical chronology of his career, showing every important event in
+which he played a part, together with the date of the event, and the
+volume and page of this series where a full account of it may be found.
+This plan provides a new and very valuable <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>means of reading the
+biography of any noted personage, one of the great advantages being that
+the accounts of the various events in his life are not all in the
+language of the same author, not written by a man anxious to bring out
+the importance of his special hero. The writers are mainly interested in
+the event, and show the hero only in his true and unexaggerated relation
+to it. Under each name will also be found references to such further
+authorities on the biography of the personage as may be consulted with
+profit by those students and scholars who wish to pursue an exhaustive
+study of his career.</p>
+
+<p>4. A biographical index of the authors represented in the series. This
+consists of brief sketches of the many writers whose work has been drawn
+upon for the narratives of Great Events. It is intended for ready
+reference, and gives only the essential facts. This index serves a
+double purpose. Suppose, for instance, that a reader is familiar with
+the name of John Lothrop Motley, but happens not to know whether he is
+still living, whether he had other occupation than writing, or what
+offices he held. This index will answer these questions. On the other
+hand, an admirer of Thomas Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt may wish to
+know whether we have taken anything&mdash;and, if so, what&mdash;from their
+writings. This index will answer at once.</p>
+
+<p>5. A general index covering every reference in the series to dates,
+events, persons, and places of historic importance. These are made
+easily accessible by a careful and elaborate system of cross-references.</p>
+
+<p>6. A separate and complete chronology of each nation of ancient,
+medi&aelig;val, and modern times, with references to the volume and page where
+each item is treated, either as an entire article or as part of one; so
+that the history of any one nation may be read in its logical order and
+in the language of its best historians.</p>
+
+<p>Such, as the National Alumni regard it, are the general character, wide
+scope, and earnest purpose of THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS. Let
+us end by saying, in the friendly fashion of the old days when
+bookmakers and their readers were more intimate than now: "Kind reader,
+if this our performance doth in aught fall short of promise, blame not
+our good intent, but our unperfect wit."</p>
+
+<p>
+THE NATIONAL ALUMNI.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="AN_OUTLINE_NARRATIVE" id="AN_OUTLINE_NARRATIVE"></a>AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE</h2>
+
+<h3>TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF</h3>
+
+<h1>THE GREAT EVENTS</h1>
+
+<h3>A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE, ITS ADVANCE IN
+KNOWLEDGE AND CIVILIZATION, AND THE BROAD WORLD MOVEMENTS WHICH HAVE
+SHAPED ITS DESTINY</h3>
+
+<h2>CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.</h2>
+
+<h3>CONTINUED THROUGH THE SUCCESSIVE VOLUMES AND COVERING THE SUCCESSIVE
+PERIODS OF</h3>
+
+<h2>THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a></p><p><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_GREAT_EVENTS" id="THE_GREAT_EVENTS"></a>AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE</h2>
+
+<h3>TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF</h3>
+
+<h1>THE GREAT EVENTS</h1>
+
+<h3>(FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIANS)</h3>
+
+<h3><i>CHARLES F. HORNE</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>History, if we define it as the mere transcription of the written
+records of former generations, can go no farther back than the time such
+records were first made, no farther than the art of writing. But now
+that we have come to recognize the great earth itself as a story-book,
+as a keeper of records buried one beneath the other, confused and half
+obliterated, yet not wholly beyond our comprehension, now the historian
+may fairly be allowed to speak of a far earlier day.</p>
+
+<p>For unmeasured and immeasurable centuries man lived on earth a creature
+so little removed from "the beasts that die," so little superior to
+them, that he has left no clearer record than they of his presence here.
+From the dry bones of an extinct mammoth or a plesiosaur, Cuvier
+reconstructed the entire animal and described its habits and its home.
+So, too, looking on an ancient, strange, scarce human skull, dug from
+the deeper strata beneath our feet, anatomists tell us that the owner
+was a man indeed, but one little better than an ape. A few &aelig;ons later
+this creature leaves among his bones chipped flints that narrow to a
+point; and the arch&aelig;ologist, taking up the tale, explains that man has
+become tool-using, he has become intelligent beyond all the other
+animals of earth. Physically he is but a mite amid the beast monsters
+that surround him, but by value of his brain he conquers them. He has
+begun his career of mastery.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>If we delve amid more recent strata, we find the flint weapons have
+become bronze. Their owner has learned to handle a ductile metal, to
+draw it from the rocks and fuse it in the fire. Later still he has
+discovered how to melt the harder and more useful iron. We say roughly,
+therefore, that man passed through a stone age, a bronze age, and then
+an iron age.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere, perhaps in the earliest of these, he began to build rude
+houses. In the next, he drew pictures. During the latest, his pictures
+grew into an alphabet of signs, his structures developed into vast and
+enduring piles of brick or stone. Buildings and inscriptions became his
+relics, more like to our own, more fully understandable, giving us a
+sense of closer kinship with his race.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>SOURCES OF EARLY KNOWLEDGE</b></p>
+
+<p>There are three different lines along which we have succeeded in
+securing some knowledge of these our distant ancestors, three telephones
+from the past, over which they send to us confused and feeble
+murmurings, whose fascination makes only more maddening the vagueness of
+their speech.</p>
+
+<p>First, we have the picture-writings, whether of Central America, of
+Egypt, of Babylonia, or of other lands. These when translatable bring us
+nearest of all to the heart of the great past. It is the mind, the
+thought, the spoken word, of man that is most intimately he; not his
+face, nor his figure, nor his clothes. Unfortunately, the translation of
+these writings is no easy task. Those of Central America are still an
+unsolved riddle. Those of Babylon have been slowly pieced together like
+a puzzle, a puzzle to which the learned world has given its most able
+thought. Yet they are not fully understood. In Egypt we have had the
+luck to stumble on a clew, the Rosetta Stone, which makes the ancient
+writing fairly clear.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Where this mode of communication fails, we turn to another which carries
+us even farther into the past. The records which <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>have been less
+intentionally preserved, not only the buildings themselves, but their
+decorations, the personal ornaments of men, idols, coins, every
+imaginable fragment, chance escaped from the maw of time, has its own
+story for our reading. In Egypt we have found deep-hidden, secret tombs,
+and, intruding on their many centuries of silence, have reaped rich
+harvests of knowledge from the garnered wealth. In Babylonia the rank
+vegetation had covered whole cities underneath green hillocks, and
+preserved them till our modern curiosity delved them out. To-day, he who
+wills, may walk amid the halls of Sennacherib, may tread the streets
+whence Abraham fled, ay, he may gaze upon the handiwork of men who lived
+perhaps as far before Abraham as we ourselves do after him.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are our means of penetrating the past even thus exhausted. A third
+chain yet more subtle and more marvellous has been found to link us to
+an ancestry immeasurably remote. This unbroken chain consists of the
+words from our own mouths. We speak as our fathers spoke; and they did
+but follow the generations before. Occasional pronunciations have
+altered, new words have been added, and old ones forgotten; but some
+basal sounds of names, some root-thoughts of the heart, have proved as
+immutable as the superficial elegancies are changeful. "Father" and
+"mother" mean what they have meant for uncounted ages.</p>
+
+<p>Comparative philology, the science which compares one language with
+another to note the points of similarity between them, has discovered
+that many of these root-sounds are alike in almost all the varied
+tongues of Europe. The resemblance is too common to be the result of
+coincidence, too deep-seated to be accounted for by mere communication
+between the nations. We have gotten far beyond the possibility of such
+explanations; and science says now with positive confidence that there
+must have been a time when all these nations were but one, that their
+languages are all but variations of the tongue their distant ancestors
+once held in common.</p>
+
+<p>Study has progressed beyond this point, can tell us far more intricate
+and fainter facts. It argues that one by one the various tribes left
+their common home and became completely separated; and that each
+root-sound still used by all the na<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>tions represents an idea, an object,
+they already possessed before their dispersal. Thus we can vaguely
+reconstruct that ancient, aboriginal civilization. We can even guess
+which tribes first broke away, and where again these wanderers
+subdivided, and at what stage of progress. Surely a fascinating science
+this! And in its infancy! If its later development shall justify present
+promise, it has still strange tales to tell us in the future.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See page 1 for an engraving and account of this famous
+stone. It was found over a century ago and its value was instantly
+recognized, but many years passed before its secrets were deciphered. It
+contains an inscription repeated in three forms of writing: the early
+Egyptian of the hieroglyphics, a later Egyptian (the demotic), and
+Greek.</p></div>
+
+
+<p><b>THE RACES OF MAN</b></p>
+
+<p>Turn now from this tracing of our means of knowledge, to speak of the
+facts they tell us. When our humankind first become clearly visible they
+are already divided into races, which for convenience we speak of as
+white, yellow, and black. Of these the whites had apparently advanced
+farthest on the road to civilization; and the white race itself had
+become divided into at least three varieties, so clearly marked as to
+have persisted through all the modern centuries of communication and
+intermarriage. Science is not even able to say positively that these
+varieties or families had a common origin. She inclines to think so; but
+when all these later ages have failed to obliterate the marks of
+difference, what far longer period of separation must have been required
+to establish them!</p>
+
+<p>These three clearly outlined families of the whites are the Hamites, of
+whom the Egyptians are the best-known type; the Semites, as represented
+by ancient Babylonians and modern Jews and Arabs; and the great Aryan or
+Indo-European family, once called the Japhites, and including Hindus,
+Persians, Greeks, Latins, the modern Celtic and Germanic races, and even
+the Slavs or Russians.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptians, when we first see them, are already well advanced toward
+civilization.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> To say that they were the first people to emerge from
+barbarism is going much further than we dare. Their records are the most
+ancient that have come clearly down to us; but there may easily have
+been other social organisms, other races, to whom the chances of time
+and nature have been less gentle. Cataclysms may have engulfed more than
+one Atlantis; and few climates are so fitted for the preservation of
+man's buildings as is the rainless valley of the Nile.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>Moreover, the Egyptians may not have been the earliest inhabitants even
+of their own rich valley. We find hints that they were wanderers,
+invaders, coming from the East, and that with the land they appropriated
+also the ideas, the inventions, of an earlier negroid race. But whatever
+they took they added to, they improved on. The idea of futurity, of
+man's existence beyond the grave, became prominent among them; and in
+the absence of clearer knowledge we may well take this idea as the
+groundwork, the starting-point, of all man's later and more striking
+progress.</p>
+
+<p>Since the Egyptians believed in a future life they strove to preserve
+the body for it, and built ever stronger and more gigantic tombs. They
+strove to fit the mind for it, and cultivated virtues, not wholly animal
+such as physical strength, nor wholly commercial such as cunning. They
+even carved around the sepulchre of the departed a record of his doings,
+lest they&mdash;and perhaps he too in that next life&mdash;forget. There were
+elements of intellectual growth in all this, conditions to stimulate the
+mind beyond the body.</p>
+
+<p>And the Egyptians did develop. If one reads the tales, the romances,
+that have survived from their remoter periods, he finds few emotions
+higher than childish curiosity or mere animal rage and fear. Amid their
+latest stories, on the contrary, we encounter touches of sentiment, of
+pity and self-sacrifice, such as would even now be not unworthy of
+praise. But, alas! the improvement seems most marked where it was most
+distant. Perhaps the material prosperity of the land was too great, the
+conditions of life too easy; there was no stimulus to effort, to
+endeavor. By about the year 2200 B.C. we find Egypt fallen into the grip
+of a cold and lifeless formalism. Everything was fixed by law; even
+pictures must be drawn in a certain way, thoughts must be expressed by
+stated and unvariable symbols. Advance became well-nigh impossible.
+Everything lay in the hands of a priestly caste the completeness of
+whose dominion has perhaps never been matched in history. The leaders
+lived lives of luxurious pleasure enlightened by scientific study; but
+the people scarce existed except as automatons. The race was dead; its
+true life, the vigor of its masses, was exhausted, and the land soon
+fell an easy prey to every spirited invader.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>Meanwhile a rougher, stronger civilization was growing in the river
+valleys eastward from the Nile. The Semitic tribes, who seem to have had
+their early seat and centre of dispersion somewhere in this region, were
+coalescing into nations, Babylonians along the lower Tigris and
+Euphrates, Assyrians later along the upper rivers, Hebrews under David
+and Solomon<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> by the Jordan, Phoenicians on the Mediterranean coast.</p>
+
+<p>The early Babylonian civilization may antedate even the Egyptian; but
+its monuments were less permanent, its rulers less anxious for the
+future. The "appeal to posterity," the desire for a posthumous fame,
+seems with them to have been slower of conception. True, the first
+Babylonian monarchs of whom we have any record, in an era perhaps over
+five thousand years before Christianity, stamped the royal signet on
+every brick of their walls and temples. But common-sense suggests that
+this was less to preserve their fame than to preserve their bricks.
+Theft is no modern innovation.</p>
+
+<p>They were a mathematical race, these Babylonians. In fact, Semite and
+mathematician are names that have been closely allied through all the
+course of history, and one cannot help but wish our Aryan race had
+somewhere lived through an experience which would produce in them the
+exactitude in balance and measurement of facts that has distinguished
+the Arabs and the Jews. The Babylonians founded astronomy and
+chronology; they recorded the movements of the stars, and divided their
+year according to the sun and moon. They built a vast and intricate
+network of canals to fertilize their land; and they arranged the
+earliest system of legal government, the earliest code of laws, that has
+come down to us.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>The sciences, then, arise more truly here than with the Egyptians. Man
+here began to take notice, to record and to classify the facts of
+nature. We may count this the second visible step in his great progress.
+Never again shall we find him in a childish attitude of idle wonder.
+Always is his brain alert, striving to understand, self-conscious of its
+own power over nature.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been wealth and luxury that enfeebled the Bab<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>ylonians as,
+it did the Egyptians. At any rate, their empire was overturned by a
+border colony of their own, the Assyrians, a rough and hardy folk who
+had maintained themselves for centuries battling against tribes from the
+surrounding mountains. It was like a return to barbarism when about B.C.
+880 the Assyrians swept over the various Semite lands. Loud were the
+laments of the Hebrews; terrible the tales of cruelty; deep the scorn
+with which the Babylonians submitted to the rude conquerors. We approach
+here a clearer historic period; we can trace with plainness the
+devastating track of war;<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> we can read the boastful triumph of the
+Assyrian chiefs, can watch them step by step as they adopt the culture
+and the vices of their new subjects, growing ever more graceful and more
+enfeebled, until they too are overthrown by a new and hardier race, the
+Persians, an Aryan folk.</p>
+
+<p>Before turning to this last and most prominent family of humankind, let
+us look for a moment at the other, darker races, seen vaguely as they
+come in contact with the whites. The negroes, set sharply by themselves
+in Africa, never seem to have created any progressive civilization of
+their own, never seem to have advanced further than we find the wild
+tribes in the interior of the country to-day. But the yellow or Turanian
+races, the Chinese and Japanese, the Turks and the Tartars, did not
+linger so helplessly behind. The Chinese, at least, established a social
+world of their own, widely different from that of the whites, in some
+respects perhaps superior to it. But the fatal weakness of the yellow
+civilization was that it was not ennobling like the Egyptian, not
+scientific like the Babylonian, not adventurous and progressive as we
+shall find the Aryan.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, is speaking in general terms. Something somewhat
+ennobling there may be in the contemplations of Confucius;<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> but no man
+can favorably compare the Chinese character to-day with the European,
+whether we regard either intensity of feeling, or variety, range,
+subtlety, and beauty of emotion. So, also, the Chinese made scientific
+discoveries&mdash;but knew not how to apply them or improve them. So also
+<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>they made conquests&mdash;and abandoned them; toiled&mdash;and sank back into
+inertia.</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese present a separate problem, as yet little understood in its
+earlier stages.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> As to the Tartars, wild and hardy horsemen roaming
+over Northern Asia, they kept for ages their independent animal strength
+and fierceness. They appear and disappear like flashes. They seem to
+seek no civilization of their own; they threaten again and again to
+destroy that of all the other races of the globe. Fitly, indeed, was
+their leader Attila once termed "the Scourge of God."</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See the <i>Dawn of Civilization</i>, page 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See <i>Accession of Solomon</i>, page 92.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Compilation of the Earliest Code</i>, page 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See <i>Rise and Fall of Assyria</i>, page 105.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See <i>Rise of Confucius</i>, page 270.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See <i>Prince Jimmu</i>, page 140.</p></div>
+
+
+<p><b>THE ARYANS</b></p>
+
+<p>Of our own progressive Aryan race, we have no monuments nor inscriptions
+so old as those of the Hamites and the Semites. What comparative
+philology tells is this: An early, if not the original, home of the
+Aryans was in Asia, to the eastward of the Semites, probably in the
+mountain district back of modern Persia. That is, they were not, like
+the other whites, a people of the marsh lands and river valleys. They
+lived in a higher, hardier, and more bracing atmosphere. Perhaps it was
+here that their minds took a freer bent, their spirits caught a bolder
+tone. Wherever they moved they came as conquerors among other races.</p>
+
+<p>In their primeval home and probably before the year B.C. 3000, they had
+already acquired a fair degree of civilization. They built houses,
+ploughed the land, and ground grain into flour for their baking. The
+family relations were established among them; they had some social
+organization and simple form of government; they had learned to worship
+a god, and to see in him a counterpart of their tribal ruler.</p>
+
+<p>From their upland farms they must have looked eastward upon yet higher
+mountains, rising impenetrable above the snowline; but to north and
+south and west they might turn to lower regions; and by degrees, perhaps
+as they grew too numerous for comfort, a few families wandered off along
+the more inviting routes. Whichever way they started, their adventurous
+spirit led them on. We find no trace of a single case where hearts
+failed or strength grew weary and the movement <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>became retrograde, back
+toward the ancient home. Spreading out, radiating in all directions, it
+is they who have explored the earth, who have measured it and marked its
+bounds and penetrated almost to its every corner. It is they who still
+pant to complete the work so long ago begun.</p>
+
+<p>Before B.C. 2000 one of these exuded swarms had penetrated India,
+probably by way of the Indus River. In the course of a thousand years or
+so, the intruders expanded and fought their way slowly from the Indus to
+the Ganges. The earlier and duskier inhabitants gave way before them or
+became incorporated in the stronger race. A mighty Aryan or Hindu empire
+was formed in India and endured there until well within historic times.</p>
+
+<p>Yet its power faded. Life in the hot and languid tropics tends to
+weaken, not invigorate, the sinews of a race. Then, too, a formal
+religion, a system of castes<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> as arbitrary as among the Egyptians,
+laid its paralyzing grip upon the land. About B.C. 600 Buddhism, a new
+and beautiful religion, sought to revive the despairing people; but they
+were beyond its help.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Their slothful languor had become too deep.
+From having been perhaps the first and foremost and most civilized of
+the Aryan tribes, the Hindus sank to be degenerate members of the race.
+We shall turn to look on them again in a later period; but they will be
+seen in no favorable light.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile other wanderers from the Aryan home appear to the north and
+west. Perhaps even the fierce Tartars are an Aryan race, much altered
+from long dwelling among the yellow peoples. One tribe, the Persians,
+moved directly west, and became neighbors of the already noted Semitic
+group. After long wars backward and forward, bringing us well within the
+range of history, the Persians proved too powerful for the whole Semite
+group. They helped destroy Assyria,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> they overthrew the second
+Babylonian empire which Nebuchadnezzar had built up, and then, pressing
+on to the conquest of Egypt, they swept the Hamites too from their place
+of sovereignty.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>How surely do those tropic lands avenge themselves on each new savage
+horde of invaders from the hardy North. It is not done in a generation,
+not in a century, perhaps. But drop by drop the vigorous, tingling,
+Arctic blood is sapped away. Year after year the lazy comfort, the loose
+pleasure, of the south land fastens its curse upon the mighty warriors.
+As we watch the Persians, we see their kings go mad, or become
+effeminate tyrants sending underlings to do their fighting for them. We
+see the whole race visibly degenerate, until one questions if
+Marathon<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> were after all so marvellous a victory, and suspects that
+at whatever point the Persians had begun their advance on Europe they
+would have been easily hurled back.</p>
+
+<p>It was in Europe only that the Aryan wanderers found a temperate
+climate, a region similar to that in which they had been bred. Recent
+speculation has even suggested that Europe was their primeval home, from
+which they had strayed toward Asia, and to which they now returned.
+Certainly it is in Europe that the race has continued to develop.
+Earliest of these Aryan waves to take possession of their modern
+heritage, were the Celts, who must have journeyed over the European
+continent at some dim period too remote even for a guess. Then came the
+Greeks and Latins, closely allied tribes, representing possibly a single
+migration, that spread westward along the islands and peninsulas of the
+Mediterranean. The Teutons may have left Asia before B.C. 1000, for they
+seem to have reached their German forests by three centuries beyond that
+time, and these vast migratory movements were very slow. The latest
+Aryan wave, that of the Slavs, came well within historic times. We
+almost fancy we can see its movement. Russian statesmen, indeed, have
+hopes that this is not yet completed. They dream that they, the youngest
+of the peoples, are yet to dominate the whole.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See <i>The Formation of the Castes</i>, page 52.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See <i>The Foundation of Buddhism</i>, page 160.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See <i>Destruction of Nineveh</i>, page 105.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See <i>Conquests of Cyrus</i>, page 250.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See <i>The Battle of Marathon</i>, page 322.</p></div>
+
+
+<p><b>THE GREEKS AND LATINS</b></p>
+
+<p>Of these European Aryans the only branches that come within the limits
+of our present period, that become noteworthy before B.C. 480, are the
+Greeks and Latins.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>Their languages tell us that they formed but a single tribe long after
+they became separated from the other peoples of their race. Finally,
+however, the Latins, journeying onward, lost sight of their friends, and
+it must have taken many centuries of separation for the two tongues to
+grow so different as they were when Greeks and Romans, each risen to a
+mighty nation, met again.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks, or Hellenes as they called themselves, seem to have been
+only one of a number of kindred tribes who occupied not only the shores
+of the &AElig;gean, but Thrace, Macedonia, a considerable part of Asia Minor,
+and other neighboring regions. The Greeks developed in intellect more
+rapidly than their neighbors, outdistanced them in the race for
+civilization, forgot these poor relations, and grouped them with the
+rest of outside mankind under the scornful name "barbarians."</p>
+
+<p>Why it was that the Greeks were thus specially stimulated beyond their
+brethren we do not know. It has long been one of the commonplaces of
+history to declare them the result of their environment. It is pointed
+out that in Greece they lived amid precipitous mountains, where, as
+hunters, they became strong and venturesome, independent and
+self-reliant. A sea of islands lay all around; and while an open ocean
+might only have awed and intimidated them, this ever-luring prospect of
+shore beyond shore rising in turn on the horizon made them sailors, made
+them friendly traffickers among themselves. Always meeting new faces,
+driving new bargains, they became alert, quick-witted, progressive, the
+foremost race of all the ancient world.</p>
+
+<p>They do not seem to have been a creative folk. They only adapted and
+carried to a higher point what they learned from the older nations with
+whom they now came in contact. Phoenicia supplied them with an alphabet,
+and they began the writing of books. Egypt showed them her records, and,
+improving on her idea, they became historians. So far as we know, the
+earliest real "histories" were written in Greece; that is, the earliest
+accounts of a whole people, an entire series of events, as opposed to
+the merely individual statements on the Egyptian monuments, the
+personal, boastful clamor of some king.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>Before we reach this period of written history we know that the Greeks
+had long been civilized. Their own legends scarce reach back farther
+than the first founding of Athens,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> which they place about B.C. 1500.
+Yet recent excavations in Crete have revealed the remains of a
+civilization which must have antedated that by several centuries.</p>
+
+<p>But we grope in darkness! The most ancient Greek book that has come down
+to us is the <i>Iliad</i>, with its tale of the great war against Troy.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+Critics will not permit us to call the <i>Iliad</i> a history, because it was
+not composed, or at least not written down, until some centuries after
+the events of which it tells. Moreover, it poetizes its theme, doubtless
+enlarges its pictures, brings gods and goddesses before our eyes,
+instead of severely excluding everything except what the blind bard
+perchance could personally vouch for.</p>
+
+<p>Still both the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i> are good enough history for
+most of us, in that they give a full, outline of Grecian life and
+society as Homer knew it. We see the little, petty states, with their
+chiefs all-powerful, and the people quite ignored. We see the heroes
+driving to battle in their chariots, guarded by shield and helmet,
+flourishing sword and spear. We learn what Ulysses did not know of
+foreign lands.. We hear Achilles' famed lament amid the dead, and note
+the vague glimmering idea of a future life, which the Greeks had caught
+perhaps from the Egyptians, perhaps from the suggestive land of dreams.</p>
+
+<p>With the year B.C. 776 we come in contact with a clear marked
+chronology. The Greeks themselves reckoned from that date by means of
+olympiads or intervals between the Olympic games. The story becomes
+clear. The autocratic little city kings, governing almost as they
+pleased, have everywhere been displaced by oligarchies. The few leading
+nobles may name one of themselves to bear rule, but the real power lies
+divided among the class. Then, with the growing prominence of the
+Pythian games<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> we come upon a new stage of national development. The
+various cities begin to form alliances, to recognize the fact that they
+may be made safer and happier <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>by a larger national life. The sense of
+brotherhood begins to extend beyond the circle of personal acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>This period was one of lawmaking, of experimenting. The traditions, the
+simple customs of the old kingly days, were no longer sufficient for the
+guidance of the larger cities, the more complicated circles of society,
+which were growing up. It was no longer possible for a man who did not
+like his tribe to abandon it and wander elsewhere with his family and
+herds. The land was too fully peopled for that. The dissatisfied could
+only endure and grumble and rebel. One system of law after another was
+tried and thrown aside. The class on whom in practice a rule bore most
+hard, would refuse longer assent to it. There were uprisings, tumults,
+bloody frays.</p>
+
+<p>Sparta, at this time the most prominent of the Greek cities, evolved a
+code which made her in some ways the wonder of ancient days. The state
+was made all-powerful; it took entire possession of the citizen, with
+the purpose of making him a fighter, a strong defender of himself and of
+his country. His home life was almost obliterated, or, if you like, the
+whole city was made one huge family. All men ate in common; youth was
+severely restrained; its training was all for physical hardihood. Modern
+socialism, communism, have seldom ventured further in theory than the
+Spartans went in practice. The result seems to have been the production
+of a race possessed of tremendous bodily power and courage, but of
+stunted intellectual growth. The great individual minds of Greece, the
+thinkers, the creators, did not come from Sparta.</p>
+
+<p>In Athens a different <i>r&eacute;gime</i> was meanwhile developing Hellenes of
+another type. A realization of how superior the Greeks were to earlier
+races, of what vast strides man was making in intelligence and social
+organization, can in no way be better gained than by comparing the law
+code of the Babylonian Hammurabi with that of Solon in Athens.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> A
+period of perhaps sixteen hundred years separates the two, but the
+difference in their mental power is wider still.</p>
+
+<p>While the Greeks were thus forging rapidly ahead, their ancient kindred,
+the Latins, were also progressing, though at a <a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>rate less dazzling. The
+true date of Rome's founding we do not know. Her own legends give B.C.
+753.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> But recent excavations on the Palatine hill show that it was
+already fortified at a much earlier period. Rome, we believe, was
+originally a frontier fortress erected by the Latins to protect them
+from the attacks of the non-Aryan races among whom they had intruded.
+This stronghold became ever more numerously peopled, until it grew into
+an individual state separate from the other Latin cities.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans passed through the vicissitudes which we have already noted
+in Greece as characteristic of the Aryan development. The early war
+leader became an absolute king, his power tended to become hereditary,
+but its abuse roused the more powerful citizens to rebellion, and the
+kingdom vanished in an oligarchy.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> This last change occurred in Rome
+about B.C. 510, and it was attended by such disasters that the city sank
+back into a condition that was almost barbarous when compared with her
+opulence under the Tarquin kings.</p>
+
+<p>It was soon after this that the Persians, ignorant of their own
+decadence, and dreaming still of world power, resolved to conquer the
+remaining little states lying scarce known along the boundaries of their
+empire. They attacked the Greeks, and at Marathon (B.C. 490) and Salamis
+(B.C. 480) were hurled back and their power broken.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>This was a world event, one of the great turning points, a decision that
+could not have been otherwise if man was really to progress. The
+degenerate, enfeebled, half-Semitized Aryans of Asia were not permitted
+to crush the higher type which was developing in Europe. The more
+vigorous bodies and far abler brains of the Greeks enabled them to
+triumph over all the hordes of their opponents. The few conquered the
+many; and the following era became one of European progress, not of
+Asiatic stagnation.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> See <i>Theseus Founds Athens</i>, page 45.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> See <i>Fall of Troy</i>, page 70.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See <i>Pythian Games at Delphi</i>, page 181.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See <i>Solon's Legislation</i>, page 203, and <i>Compilation of
+the Earliest Code</i>, page 14.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> See <i>The Foundation of Rome</i>, page 116.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See <i>Rome Established as a Republic</i>, page 300.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See <i>Battle of Marathon</i>, page 322, and <i>Invasion of
+Greece</i>, page 354.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>(<b>FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME II.</b>)</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="DAWN_OF_CIVILIZATION" id="DAWN_OF_CIVILIZATION"></a>DAWN OF CIVILIZATION</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 5867<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></h3>
+
+<h3><i>G.C.C. MASPERO</i></h3>
+
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It is a far cry to hark back to 11,000 years before Christ, yet
+borings in the valley of the Nile, whence comes the first recorded
+history of the human race, have unveiled to the light pottery and
+other relics of civilization that, at the rate of deposits of the
+Nile, must have taken at least that number of years to cover.</p>
+
+<p>Nature takes countless thousands of years to form and build up her
+limestone hills, but buried deep in these we find evidences of a
+stone age wherein man devised and made himself edged tools and
+weapons of rudely chipped stone. These shaped, edged implements, we
+have learned, were made by white-heating a suitable flint or stone
+and tracing thereon with cold water the pattern desired, just as
+practised by the Indians of the American continent, and in our day
+by the manufacturers of ancient (<i>sic</i>) arrow-, spear-, and
+axe-heads. This shows a civilization that has learned the method of
+artificially producing fire, and its uses.</p>
+
+<p>Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are the
+monumental people of history. The first human monarch to reign over
+all Egypt was Menes, the founder of Memphis. As the gate of Africa,
+Egypt has always held an important position in world-politics. Its
+ancient wealth and power were enormous. Inclusive of the Soudan,
+its population is now more than eight millions. Its present
+importance is indicated by its relations to England. Historians
+vary in their compilations of Egyptian chronology. The epoch of
+Menes is fixed by Bunsen at B.C. 3643, by Lepsius at B.C. 3892, and
+by Poole at B.C. 2717. Before Menes Egypt was divided into
+independent kingdoms. It has always been a country of mysteries,
+with the mighty Nile, and its inundations, so little understood by
+the ancients; its trackless desert; its camels and caravans; its
+tombs and temples; its obelisks and pyramids, its groups of gods:
+Ra, Osiris, Isis, Apis, Horus, Hathor&mdash;the very names breathe
+suggestions of mystery, cruelty, pomp, and power. In the sciences
+and in the industrial arts the ancient Egyptians were highly
+cultivated. Much Egyptian literature has come down to us, but it is
+unsystematic and entirely devoid of style, being without lofty
+ideas or charms. In art, however, Egypt may be placed next to
+Greece, particularly in architecture.</p>
+
+<p>The age of the Pyramid-builders was a brilliant one. They prove the
+magnificence of the kings and the vast amount of human labor at
+their disposal. The regal power at that time was very strong. The
+reign of Khufu or Cheops is marked by the building of the great
+pyramid. The pyramids were the tombs of kings, built in the
+necropolis of Memphis, ten miles above the modern Cairo. Security
+was the object as well as splendor.</p><p><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a></p>
+
+<p>As remarked by a great Egyptologist, the whole life of the Egyptian
+was spent in the contemplation of death; thus the tomb became the
+concrete thought. The belief of the ancient Egyptian was that so
+long as his body remained intact so was his immortality; whence
+arose the embalming of the great, and hence the immense structures
+of stone to secure the inviolability of the entombed monarch.</p></div>
+
+<p>The monuments have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended
+to unite Egypt under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that the
+feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two groups,
+each of which formed a separate kingdom. Heliopolis became the chief
+focus in the north, from which civilization radiated over the wet plain
+and the marshes of the Delta.</p>
+
+<p>Its colleges of priests had collected, condensed, and arranged the
+principal myths of the local regions; the Ennead to which it gave
+conception would never have obtained the popularity which we must
+acknowledge it had, if its princes had not exercised, for at least some
+period, an actual suzerainty over the neighboring plains. It was around
+Heliopolis that the kingdom of Lower Egypt was organized; everything
+there bore traces of Heliopolitan theories&mdash;the protocol of the kings,
+their supposed descent from Ra, and the enthusiastic worship which they
+offered to the sun.</p>
+
+<p>The Delta, owing to its compact and restricted area, was aptly suited
+for government from one centre; the Nile valley proper, narrow,
+tortuous, and stretching like a thin strip on either bank of the river,
+did not lend itself to so complete a unity. It, too, represented a
+single kingdom, having the reed and the lotus for its emblems; but its
+component parts were more loosely united, its religion was less
+systematized, and it lacked a well-placed city to serve as a political
+and sacerdotal centre. Hermopolis contained schools of theologians who
+certainly played an important part in the development of myths and
+dogmas; but the influence of its rulers was never widely felt.</p>
+
+<p>In the south, Siut disputed their supremacy, and Heracle<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>opolis stopped
+their road to the north. These three cities thwarted and neutralized one
+another, and not one of them ever succeeded in obtaining a lasting
+authority over Upper Egypt. Each of the two kingdoms had its own natural
+advantages and its system of government, which gave to it a peculiar
+character, and stamped it, as it were, with a distinct personality down
+to its latest days. The kingdom of Upper Egypt was more powerful,
+richer, better populated, and was governed apparently by more active and
+enterprising rulers. It is to one of the latter, Mini or Menes of
+Thinis, that tradition ascribes the honor of having fused the two Egypts
+into a single empire, and of having inaugurated the reign of the human
+dynasties.</p>
+
+<p>Thinis figured in the historic period as one of the least of Egyptian
+cities. It barely maintained an existence on the left bank of the Nile,
+if not on the exact spot now occupied by Girgeh, at least only a short
+distance from it. The principality of the Osirian Reliquary, of which it
+was the metropolis, occupied the valley from one mountain to the other,
+and gradually extended across the desert as far as the Great Theban
+Oasis. Its inhabitants worshipped a sky-god, Anhuri, or rather two twin
+gods, Anhuri-shu, who were speedily amalgamated with the solar deities
+and became a warlike personification of Ra.</p>
+
+<p>Anhuri-shu, like all other solar manifestations, came to be associated
+with a goddess having the form or head of a lioness&mdash;a Sokhit, who took
+for the occasion the epithet of Mihit, the northern one. Some of the
+dead from this city are buried on the other side of the Nile, near the
+modern village of Mesheikh, at the foot of the Arabian chain, whose deep
+cliffs here approach somewhat near the river: the principal necropolis
+was at some distance to the east, near the sacred town of Abydos. It
+would appear that, at the outset, Abydos was the capital of the country,
+for the entire nome bore the same name as the city, and had adopted for
+its symbol the representation of the reliquary in which the god reposed.</p>
+
+<p>In very early times Abydos fell into decay, and resigned its political
+rank to Thinis, but its religious importance remained unimpaired. The
+city occupied a long and narrow strip between the canal and the first
+slopes of the Libyan mountains. A brick fortress defended it from the
+incursions of the Bedouin, <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>and beside it the temple of the god of the
+dead reared its naked walls. Here Anhuri, having passed from life to
+death, was worshipped under the name of Khontamentit, the chief of that
+western region whither souls repair on quitting this earth.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to say by what blending of doctrines or by what
+political combinations this Sun of the Night came to be identified with
+Osiris of Mendes, since the fusion dates back to a very remote
+antiquity; it had become an established fact long before the most
+ancient sacred books were compiled. Osiris Khontamentit grew rapidly in
+popular favor, and his temple attracted annually an increasing number of
+pilgrims. The Great Oasis had been considered at first as a sort of
+mysterious paradise, whither the dead went in search of peace and
+happiness. It was called Uit, the Sepulchre; this name clung to it after
+it had become an actual Egyptian province, and the remembrance of its
+ancient purpose survived in the minds of the people, so that the
+"cleft," the gorge in the mountain through which the doubles journeyed
+toward it, never ceased to be regarded as one of the gates of the other
+world.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of the New Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all
+parts of the valley; they there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in
+order to embark with him and enter safely the dominions of Khontamentit.
+Abydos, even before the historic period, was the only town, and its god
+the only god, whose worship, practised by all Egyptians, inspired them
+all with an equal devotion.</p>
+
+<p>Did this sort of moral conquest give rise, later on, to a belief in a
+material conquest by the princes of Thinis and Abydos, or is there an
+historical foundation for the tradition which ascribes to them the
+establishment of a single monarchy? It is the Thinite Menes, whom the
+Theban annalists point out as the ancestor of the glorious Pharaohs of
+the XVIII dynasty: it is he also who is inscribed in the Memphite
+chronicles, followed by Manetho, at the head of their lists of human
+kings, and all Egypt for centuries acknowledged him as its first mortal
+ruler.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that a chief of Thinis may well have borne such a name, and
+may have accomplished feats which rendered him famous; but on closer
+examination his pretensions to reality disappear, and his personality is
+reduced to a cipher.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>"This Menes, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis with dikes.
+For the river formerly followed the sand-hills for some distance on the
+Libyan side. Menes, having dammed up the reach about a hundred stadia to
+the south of Memphis, caused the old bed to dry up, and conveyed the
+river through an artificial channel dug midway between the two mountain
+ranges.</p>
+
+<p>"Then Menes, the first who was king, having enclosed a space of ground
+with dikes, founded that town which is still called Memphis: he then
+made a lake around it to the north and west, fed by the river; the city
+he bounded on the east by the Nile." The history of Memphis, such as it
+can be gathered from the monuments, differs considerably from the
+tradition current in Egypt at the time of Herodotus.</p>
+
+<p>It appears, indeed, that at the outset the site on which it subsequently
+arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbu-hazu&mdash;the white wall&mdash;which
+was dependent on Heliopolis and in which Phtah possessed a sanctuary.
+After the "white wall" was separated from the Heliopolitan principality
+to form a nome by itself it assumed a certain importance, and furnished,
+so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded the Thinite. Its
+prosperity dates only, however, from the time when the sovereigns of the
+V and VI dynasties fixed on it for their residence; one of them, Papi I,
+there founded for himself and for his "double" after him, a new town,
+which he called Minnofiru, from his tomb. Minnofiru, which is the
+correct pronunciation and the origin of Memphis, probably signified "the
+good refuge," the haven of the good, the burying-place where the blessed
+dead came to rest beside Osiris.</p>
+
+<p>The people soon forgot the true interpretation, or probably it did not
+fall in with their taste for romantic tales. They rather despised, as a
+rule, to discover in the beginnings of history individuals from whom the
+countries or cities with which they were familiar took their names: if
+no tradition supplied them with this, they did not experience any
+scruples in inventing one. The Egyptians of the time of the Ptolemies,
+who were guided in their philological speculations by the pronunciation
+in vogue around them, attributed the patronship of their city to a
+Princess Memphis, a daughter of its founder, the fabu<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>lous Uchoreus;
+those of preceding ages before the name had become altered thought to
+find in Minnofiru or "Mini Nofir," or "Menes the Good," the reputed
+founder of the capital of the Delta. Menes the Good, divested of his
+epithet, is none other than Menes, the first king of all Egypt, and he
+owes his existence to a popular attempt at etymology.</p>
+
+<p>The legend which identifies the establishment of the kingdom with the
+construction of the city, must have originated at a time when Memphis
+was still the residence of the kings and the seat of government, at
+latest about the end of the Memphite period. It must have been an old
+tradition at the time of the Theban dynasties, since they admitted
+unhesitatingly the authenticity of the statements which ascribed to the
+northern city so marked a superiority over their own country. When the
+hero was once created and firmly established in his position, there was
+little difficulty in inventing a story about him which would portray him
+as a paragon and an ideal sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>He was represented in turn as architect, warrior, and statesman; he had
+founded Memphis, he had begun the temple of Phtah, written laws and
+regulated the worship of the gods, particularly that of Hapis, and he
+had conducted expeditions against the Libyans. When he lost his only son
+in the flower of his age, the people improvised a hymn of mourning to
+console him&mdash;the "Maneros"&mdash;both the words and the tune of which were
+handed down from generation to generation.</p>
+
+<p>He did not, moreover, disdain the luxuries of the table, for he invented
+the art of serving a dinner, and the mode of eating it in a reclining
+posture. One day, while hunting, his dogs, excited by something or
+other, fell upon him to devour him. He escaped with difficulty and,
+pursued by them, fled to the shore of Lake M&oelig;ris, and was there
+brought to bay; he was on the point of succumbing to them, when a
+crocodile took him on his back and carried him across to the other side.
+In gratitude he built a new town, which he called Crocodilopolis, and
+assigned to it for its god the crocodile which had saved him; he then
+erected close to it the famous labyrinth and a pyramid for his tomb.</p>
+
+<p>Other traditions show him in a less favorable light. They accuse him of
+having, by horrible crimes, excited against him <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>the anger of the gods,
+and allege that after a reign of sixty-two years he was killed by a
+hippopotamus which came forth from the Nile. They also relate that the
+Saite Tafnakhti, returning from an expedition against the Arabs, during
+which he had been obliged to renounce the pomp and luxuries of life, had
+solemnly cursed him, and had caused his imprecations to be inscribed
+upon a "stele"<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> set up in the temple of Amon at Thebes. Nevertheless,
+in the memory that Egypt preserved of its first Pharaoh, the good
+outweighed the evil. He was worshipped in Memphis, side by side with
+Phtah and Ramses II.; his name figured at the head of the royal lists,
+and his cult continued till the time of the Ptolemies.</p>
+
+<p>His immediate successors have only a semblance of reality, such as he
+had. The lists give the order of succession, it is true, with the years
+of their reigns almost to a day, sometimes the length of their lives,
+but we may well ask whence the chroniclers procured so much precise
+information. They were in the same position as ourselves with regard to
+these ancient kings: they knew them by a tradition of a later age, by a
+fragment papyrus fortuitously preserved in a temple, by accidentally
+coming across some monument bearing their name, and were reduced, as it
+were, to put together the few facts which they possessed, or to supply
+such as were wanting by conjectures, often in a very improbable manner.
+It is quite possible that they were unable to gather from the memory of
+the past the names of those individuals of which they made up the first
+two dynasties. The forms of these names are curt and rugged, and
+indicative of a rude and savage state, harmonizing with the
+semi-barbaric period to which they are relegated: Ati the Wrestler, Teti
+the Runner, Qeunqoni the Crusher, are suitable rulers for a people the
+first duty of whose chief was to lead his followers into battle, and to
+strike harder than any other man in the thickest of the fight.</p>
+
+<p>The inscriptions supply us with proofs that some of these princes lived
+and reigned:&mdash;Sondi, who is classed in the II dynasty, received a
+continuous worship toward the end of the III dynasty. But did all those
+who preceded him, and those <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>who followed him, exist as he did? And if
+they existed, do the order and relation agree with actual truth? The
+different lists do not contain the same names in the same position;
+certain Pharaohs are added or suppressed without appreciable reason.
+Where Manetho inscribes Kenkenes and Ouenephes, the tables of the time
+of Seti I give us Ati and Ata; Manetho reckons nine kings to the II
+dynasty, while they register only five. The monuments, indeed, show us
+that Egypt in the past obeyed princes whom her annalists were unable to
+classify: for instance, they associated with Sondi a Pirsenu, who is not
+mentioned in the annals. We must, therefore, take the record of all this
+opening period of history for what it is&mdash;namely, a system invented at a
+much later date, by means of various artifices and combinations&mdash;to be
+partially accepted in default of a better, but without, according to it,
+that excessive confidence which it has hitherto received. The two
+Thinite dynasties, in direct descent from the fabulous Menes, furnish,
+like this hero himself, only a tissue of romantic tales and miraculous
+legends in the place of history. A double-headed stork, which had
+appeared in the first year of Teti, son of Menes, had foreshadowed to
+Egypt a long prosperity, but a famine under Ouenephes, and a terrible
+plague under Semempses, had depopulated the country; the laws had been
+relaxed, great crimes had been committed, and revolts had broken out.</p>
+
+<p>During the reign of the Boethos a gulf had opened near Bubastis, and
+swallowed up many people, then the Nile had flowed with honey for
+fifteen days in the time of Nephercheres, and Sesochris was supposed to
+have been a giant in stature. A few details about royal edifices were
+mixed up with these prodigies. Teti had laid the foundation of the great
+palace of Memphis, Ouenephes had built the pyramids of Ko-kome near
+Saqqara. Several of the ancient Pharaohs had published books on
+theology, or had written treatises on anatomy and medicine; several had
+made laws called Kak&ocirc;&ucirc;, the male of males, or the bull of bulls. They
+explained his name by the statement that he had concerned himself about
+the sacred animals; he had proclaimed as gods, Hapis of Memphis, Mnevis
+of Heliopolis, and the goat of Mendes.</p>
+
+<p>After him, Binothris had conferred the right of succession <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>upon all
+women of the blood-royal. The accession of the III dynasty, a Memphite
+one according to Manetho, did not at first change the miraculous
+character of this history. The Libyans had revolted against Necherophes,
+and the two armies were encamped before each other, when one night the
+disk of the moon became immeasurably enlarged, to the great alarm of the
+rebels, who recognized in this phenomenon a sign of the anger of heaven,
+and yielded without fighting. Tosorthros, the successor of Necherophes,
+brought the hieroglyphs and the art of stone-cutting to perfection. He
+composed, as Teti did, books of medicine, a fact which caused him to be
+identified with the healing god Imhotpu. The priests related these
+things seriously, and the Greek writers took them down from their lips
+with the respect which they offered to everything emanating from the
+wise men of Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>What they related of the human kings was not more detailed, as we see,
+than their accounts of the gods. Whether the legends dealt with deities
+or kings, all that we know took its origin, not in popular imagination,
+but in sacerdotal dogma: they were invented long after the times they
+dealt with, in the recesses of the temples, with an intention and a
+method of which we are enabled to detect flagrant instances on the
+monuments.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the middle of the third century before our era the Greek troops
+stationed on the southern frontier, in the forts at the first cataract,
+developed a particular veneration for Isis of Phil&aelig;. Their devotion
+spread to the superior officers who came to inspect them, then to the
+whole population of the Thebaid, and finally reached the court of the
+Macedonian kings. The latter, carried away by force of example, gave
+every encouragement to a movement which attracted worshippers to a
+common sanctuary, and united in one cult two races over which they
+ruled. They pulled down the meagre building of the Saite period, which
+had hitherto sufficed for the worship of Isis, constructed at great cost
+the temple which still remains almost intact, and assigned to it
+considerable possessions in Nubia, which, in addition to gifts from
+private individuals, made the goddess the richest land-owner in Southern
+Egypt. Knumu and his two wives, Anukit and Satit, who, before Isis, had
+been <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>the undisputed suzerains of the cataract, perceived with jealousy
+their neighbor's prosperity: the civil wars and invasions of the
+centuries immediately preceding had ruined their temples, and their
+poverty contrasted painfully with the riches of the new-comer.</p>
+
+<p>The priests resolved to lay this sad state of affairs before King
+Ptolemy, to represent to him the services which they had rendered and
+still continued to render to Egypt, and above all to remind him of the
+generosity of the ancient Pharaohs, whose example, owing to the poverty
+of the times, the recent Pharaohs had been unable to follow. Doubtless
+authentic documents were wanting in their archives to support their
+pretensions: they therefore inscribed upon a rock, in the island of
+Sehel, a long inscription which they attributed to Zosiri of the III
+dynasty. This sovereign had left behind him a vague reputation for
+greatness. As early as the XII dynasty Usirtasen III had claimed him as
+"his father"&mdash;his ancestor&mdash;and had erected a statue to him; the priests
+knew that, by invoking him, they had a chance of obtaining a hearing.</p>
+
+<p>The inscription which they fabricated set forth that in the eighteenth
+year of Zosiri's reign he had sent to Madir, lord of Elephantine, a
+message couched in these terms: "I am overcome with sorrow for the
+throne, and for those who reside in the palace, and my heart is
+afflicted and suffers greatly because the Nile has not risen in my time,
+for the space of eight years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack of
+herbage, and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his
+neighbors for help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the
+young man is uneasy, the hearts of the old men are in despair, their
+limbs are bent, they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the
+courtiers have no further resources; the shops formerly furnished with
+rich wares are now filled only with air, all that was within them has
+disappeared. My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks
+to call upon the savior who was here where I am, during the centuries of
+the gods, upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpu, son of
+Phtah of Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is
+the god or goddess concealed there? What is his likeness?"</p>
+
+<p>The lord of Elephantine brought his reply in person. He <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>described to
+the king, who was evidently ignorant of it, the situation of the island
+and the rocks of the cataract, the phenomena of the inundation, the gods
+who presided over it, and who alone could relieve Egypt from her
+disastrous plight.</p>
+
+<p>Zosiri repaired to the temple of the principality and offered the
+prescribed sacrifices; the god arose, opened his eyes, panted, and cried
+aloud, "I am Khnumu who created thee!" and promised him a speedy return
+of a high Nile and the cessation of the famine.</p>
+
+<p>Pharaoh was touched by the benevolence which his divine father had shown
+him; he forthwith made a decree by which he ceded to the temple all his
+rights of suzerainty over the neighboring nomes within a radius of
+twenty miles.</p>
+
+<p>Henceforward the entire population, tillers and vinedressers, fishermen
+and hunters, had to yield the tithe of their income to the priests; the
+quarries could not be worked without the consent of Khnumu, and the
+payment of a suitable indemnity into his coffers; finally, metals and
+precious woods, shipped thence for Egypt, had to submit to a toll on
+behalf of the temple.</p>
+
+<p>Did the Ptolemies admit the claims which the local priests attempted to
+deduce from this romantic tale? and did the god regain possession of the
+domains and dues which they declared had been his right? The stele shows
+us with what ease the scribes could forge official documents when the
+exigencies of daily life forced the necessity upon them; it teaches us
+at the same time how that fabulous chronicle was elaborated, whose
+remains have been preserved for us by classical writers. Every prodigy,
+every fact related by Manetho, was taken from some document analogous to
+the supposed inscription of Zosiri.</p>
+
+<p>The real history of the early centuries, therefore, eludes our
+researches, and no contemporary record traces for us those vicissitudes
+which Egypt passed through before being consolidated into a single
+kingdom, under the rule of one man. Many names, apparently of powerful
+and illustrious princes, had survived in the memory of the people; these
+were collected, classified, and grouped in a regular manner into
+dynasties, but the people were ignorant of any exact facts connected
+with the names, and the historians, on their own account, were reduced
+to collect apocryphal traditions for their sacred archives.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>The monuments of these remote ages, however, cannot have entirely
+disappeared: they existed in places where we have not as yet thought of
+applying the pick, and chance excavations will some day most certainly
+bring them to light. The few which we do possess barely go back beyond
+the III dynasty: namely, the hypogeum of Shiri, priest of Sondi and
+Pirsenu; possibly the tomb of Khuithotpu at Saqqara; the Great Sphinx of
+Gizeh; a short inscription on the rocks of Wady Maghara, which
+represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of Khnumu in the
+Greek period made a precedent) working the turquoise or copper mines of
+Sinai; and finally the step pyramid where this Pharaoh rests. It forms a
+rectangular mass, incorrectly oriented, with a variation from the true
+north of 4&deg; 35', 393 ft., 8 in. long from east to west, and 352 ft.
+deep, with a height of 159 ft. 9 in. It is composed of six cubes, with
+sloping sides, each being about 13 ft. less in width than the one below
+it; that nearest to the ground measures 37 ft. 8 in. in height, and the
+uppermost one 29 ft. 2 in.</p>
+
+<p>It was entirely constructed of limestone from neighboring mountains. The
+blocks are small and badly cut, the stone courses being concave, to
+offer a better resistance to downward thrust and to shocks of
+earthquake. When breaches in the masonry are examined, it can be seen
+that the external surface of the steps has, as it were, a double stone
+facing, each facing being carefully dressed. The body of the pyramid is
+solid, the chambers being cut in the rock beneath. These chambers have
+often been enlarged, restored, and reworked in the course of centuries,
+and the passages which connect them form a perfect labyrinth into which
+it is dangerous to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the
+galleries and halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom
+of which the architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt,
+to contain the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until
+the beginning of this century the vault had preserved its original
+lining of glazed pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface was covered
+with green tiles, oblong and lightly convex on the outer side, but flat
+on the inner: a square projection pierced with a hole served to fix them
+at the back in a horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods. Three
+bands which frame one <a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>of the doors are inscribed with the titles of the
+Pharaoh. The hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red, green, or
+yellow, on a fawn-colored ground.</p>
+
+<p>The towns, palaces, temples, all the buildings which princes and kings
+had constructed to be witnesses of their power or piety to future
+generations, have disappeared in the course of ages, under the feet and
+before the triumphal blasts of many invading hosts: the pyramid alone
+has survived, and the most ancient of the historic monuments of Egypt is
+a tomb.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Champollion.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The burned tile showing the impression of the stylus, made
+on the clay while plastic.&mdash;ED.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="COMPILATION_OF_THE_EARLIEST_CODE" id="COMPILATION_OF_THE_EARLIEST_CODE"></a>COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 2250</h3>
+
+<h3><i>HAMMURABI</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The foundation of all law-making in Babylonia from about the middle
+of the twenty-third century B.C. to the fall of the empire was the
+code of Hammurabi, the first king of all Babylonia. He expelled
+invaders from his dominions, cemented the union of north and south
+Babylonia, made Babylon the capital, and thus consolidated an
+empire which endured for almost twenty centuries. The code which he
+compiled is the oldest known in history, older by nearly a thousand
+years than the Mosaic, and of earlier date than the so-called Laws
+of Manu. It is one of the most important historical landmarks in
+existence, a document which gives us knowledge not otherwise
+furnished of the country and people, the civilization and life of a
+great centre of human action hitherto almost hidden in obscurity.
+Hammurabi, who is supposed to be identical with Amraphel, a
+contemporary of Abraham, is regarded as having certainly
+contributed through his laws to the Hebrew traditions. The
+discovery of this code has, therefore, a special value in relation
+to biblical studies, upon which so many other important side-lights
+have recently been thrown.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery was made at Susa, Persia, in December and January,
+1901-2, by M. de Morgan's French excavating expedition. The
+monument on which the laws are inscribed, a stele of black diorite
+nearly eight feet high, has been fully described by Assyriologists,
+and the inscription transcribed. It has been completely translated
+by Dr. Hugo Winckler, whose translation (in <i>Die Gesetze
+Hammurabis</i>, Band IV, Heft 4, of <i>Der Alte Orient</i>) furnishes the
+basis of the version herewith presented. Following an
+autobiographic preface, the text of the code contains two hundred
+and eighty edicts and an epilogue. To readers of the code who are
+familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures many biblical parallels will
+occur.</p></div>
+
+<p>When Anu the Sublime, king of the Anunaki, and Bel [god of the earth],
+the Lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned
+to Marduk [or Merodach, the great god of Babylon] the over-ruling son of
+Ea [god of the waters], God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man,
+and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his
+<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting
+kingdom in it [Babylon], whose foundations are laid so solidly as those
+of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the
+exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness
+in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the
+strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the
+black-headed people like Shamash [the sun-god], and enlighten the land,
+to further the well-being of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Hammurabi, the prince, called of Bel am I, making riches and increase,
+enriching Nippur and Dur-ilu beyond compare, sublime patron of E-kur
+[temple of Bel in Nippur, the seat of Bel's worship]; who re&euml;stablished
+Eridu and purified the worship of E-apsu [temple of Ea, at Eridu, the
+chief seat of Ea's worship]; who conquered the four quarters of the
+world, made great the name of Babylon, rejoiced the heart of Marduk, his
+lord who daily pays his devotions in Saggil [Marduk's temple in
+Babylon]; the royal scion whom Sin made; who enriched Ur [Abraham's
+birthplace, the seat of the worship of Sin, the moon-god]; the humble,
+the reverent, who brings wealth to Gish-shir-gal; the white king, heard
+of Shamash, the mighty, who again laid the foundations of Sippana [seat
+of worship of Shamash and his wife, Malkat]; who clothed the gravestones
+of Malkat with green [symbolizing the resurrection of nature]; who made
+E-babbar [temple of the sun in Sippara] great, which is like the
+heavens; the warrior who guarded Larsa and renewed E-babbar [temple of
+the sun in Larsa, biblical Elassar, in Southern Babylonia], with Shamash
+as his helper; the lord who granted new life to Uruk [biblical Erech],
+who brought plenteous water to its inhabitants, raised the head of
+E-anna [temple of Ishtar-Nana at Uruk], and perfected the beauty of Anu
+and Nana; shield of the land, who reunited the scattered inhabitants of
+Isin; who richly endowed E-gal-mach [temple of Isin]; the protecting
+king of the city, brother of the god Zamama [god of Kish]; who firmly
+founded the farms of Kish, crowned E-me-te-ursag [sister city of Kish]
+with glory, redoubled the great holy treasures of Nana, managed the
+temple of Harsag-kalama [temple of Nergal at Cuthah]; the grave of the
+enemy, whose help brought about the victory; who in<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>creased the power of
+Cuthah; made all glorious in E-shidlam [a temple], the black steer
+[title of Marduk] who gored the enemy; beloved of the god Nebo, who
+rejoiced the inhabitants of Borsippa, the Sublime; who is indefatigable
+for E-zida [temple of Nebo in Babylon]; the divine king of the city; the
+White, Wise; who broadened the fields of Dilbat, who heaped up the
+harvests for Urash; the Mighty, the lord to whom come sceptre and crown,
+with which he clothes himself; the Elect of Ma-ma; who fixed the temple
+bounds of Kesh, who made rich the holy feasts of Nin-tu [goddess of
+Kesh]; the provident, solicitous, who provided food and drink for Lagash
+and Girsu, who provided large sacrificial offerings for the temple of
+Ningirsu [at Lagash]; who captured the enemy, the Elect of the oracle
+who fulfilled the prediction of Hallab, who rejoiced the heart of Anunit
+[whose oracle had predicted victory]; the pure prince, whose prayer is
+accepted by Adad [god of Hallab, with goddess Anunit]; who satisfied the
+heart of Adad, the warrior, in Karkar, who restored the vessels for
+worship in E-ud-gal-gal; the king who granted life to the city of Adab;
+the guide of E-mach; the princely king of the city, the irresistible
+warrior, who granted life to the inhabitants of Mashkanshabri, and
+brought abundance to the temple of Shid-lam; the White, Potent, who
+penetrated the secret cave of the bandits, saved the inhabitants of
+Malka from misfortune, and fixed their home fast in wealth; who
+established pure sacrificial gifts for Ea and Dam-gal-nun-na, who made
+his kingdom everlastingly great; the princely king of the city, who
+subjected the districts on the Ud-kib-nun-na Canal [Euphrates?] to the
+sway of Dagon, his Creator; who spared the inhabitants of Mera and
+Tutul; the sublime prince, who makes the face of Ninni shine; who
+presents holy meals to the divinity of Nin-a-zu, who cared for its
+inhabitants in their need, provided a portion for them in Babylon in
+peace; the shepherd of the oppressed and of the slaves; whose deeds find
+favor before Anunit, who provided for Anunit in the temple of Dumash in
+the suburb of Agade; who recognizes the right, who rules by law; who
+gave back to the city of Assur its protecting god; who let the name of
+Istar of Nineveh remain in E-mish-mish; the Sublime, who humbles himself
+before the great gods; suc<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>cessor of Sumula-il; the mighty son of
+Sin-muballit; the royal scion of Eternity; the mighty monarch, the sun
+of Babylon, whose rays shed light over the land of Sumer and Akkad; the
+king, obeyed by the four quarters of the world; Beloved of Ninni, am I.</p>
+
+<p>When Marduk sent me to rule over men, to give the protection of right to
+the land, I did right and righteousness in..., and brought about the
+well-being of the oppressed.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>CODE OF LAWS</b></p>
+
+<p>1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he cannot
+prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to
+the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser
+shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the
+accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the
+accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river
+shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.</p>
+
+<p>3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and
+does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offence
+charged, be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall
+receive the fine that the action produces.</p>
+
+<p>5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision and present his judgment in
+writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through
+his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the
+case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never
+again shall he sit there to render judgment.</p>
+
+<p>6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall
+be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him
+shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without
+witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox
+or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is
+considered a thief and shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if
+it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold
+therefor; if they belonged to a freed man [of the king] he shall pay
+tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to
+death.</p>
+
+<p>9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another:
+if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant
+sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the
+thing say "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the
+purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses
+before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can
+identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony&mdash;both of
+the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who
+identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proven to be a
+thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives
+his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the
+estate of the merchant.</p>
+
+<p>10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses
+before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who
+identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and
+the owner receives the lost article.</p>
+
+<p>11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he
+is an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit,
+at the expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared
+within the six months, he is an evil-doer, and shall bear the fine of
+the pending case.</p>
+
+<p>14. If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>15. If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or
+female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to
+death.</p>
+
+<p>16. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of
+the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public
+proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to
+death.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>17. If any one find a runaway male or female slave in the open country
+and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him
+two shekels of silver.</p>
+
+<p>18. If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall
+bring him to the palace; a further investigation must follow and the
+slave shall be returned to his master.</p>
+
+<p>19. If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he
+shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>20. If the slave that he caught run away from him, then shall he swear
+to the owners of the slave, and he is free of all blame.</p>
+
+<p>21. If any one break a hole into a house [break in to steal], he shall
+be put to death before that hole and be buried.</p>
+
+<p>22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be
+put to death.</p>
+
+<p>23. If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim
+under oath the amount of his loss; then shall the community, and ... on
+whose ground and territory and in whose domain it was compensate him for
+the goods stolen.</p>
+
+<p>24. If persons are stolen, then shall the community and ... pay one mina
+of silver to their relatives.</p>
+
+<p>25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out,
+cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the
+property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that
+self-same fire.</p>
+
+<p>26. If a chieftain or a man [common soldier], who has been ordered to go
+upon the king's highway [for war] does not go, but hires a mercenary, if
+he withholds the compensation, then shall this officer or man be put to
+death, and he who represented him shall take possession of his house.</p>
+
+<p>27. If a chieftain or man be caught in the misfortune of the king
+[captured in battle], and if his fields and garden be given to another
+and he take possession, if he return and reaches his place, his field
+and garden shall be returned to him, he shall take it over again.</p>
+
+<p>28. If a chieftain or a man be caught in the misfortune of a king, if
+his son is able to enter into possession, then the field and garden
+shall be given to him, he shall take over the fee of his father.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>29. If his son is still young, and cannot take possession, a third of
+the field and garden shall be given to his mother, and she shall bring
+him up.</p>
+
+<p>30. If a chieftain or a man leave his house, garden and field and hires
+it out, and some one else takes possession of his house, garden and
+field and uses it for three years: if the first owner return and claims
+his house, garden and field, it shall not be given to him, but he who
+has taken possession of it and used it shall continue to use it.</p>
+
+<p>31. If he hire it out for one year and then return, the house, garden
+and field shall be given back to him, and he shall take it over again.</p>
+
+<p>32. If a chieftain or a man is captured on the "Way of the King" [in
+war], and a merchant buy him free, and bring him back to his place; if
+he have the means in his house to buy his freedom, he shall buy himself
+free: if he have nothing in his house with which to buy himself free, he
+shall be bought free by the temple of his community; if there be nothing
+in the temple with which to buy him free, the court shall buy his
+freedom. His field, garden and house shall not be given for the purchase
+of his freedom.</p>
+
+<p>33. If a ... or a ... [from the connection, some man higher in rank than
+a chieftain] enter himself as withdrawn from the "Way of the King," and
+send a mercenary as substitute, but withdraw him, then the ... or ...
+shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>34. If a ... [same as in 33] or a ... harm the property of a captain,
+injure the captain, or take away from the captain a gift presented to
+him by the king then the ... or ... shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>35. If any one buy the cattle or sheep which the king has given to
+chieftains from him he loses his money.</p>
+
+<p>35. The field, garden and house of a chieftain, of a man, or of one
+subject to quit-rent, cannot be sold.</p>
+
+<p>37. If any one buy the field, garden and house of a chieftain, man or
+one subject to quit-rent, his contract tablet of sale shall be broken
+[declared invalid] and he loses his money. The field, garden and house
+return to their owners.</p>
+
+<p>38. A chieftain, man or one subject to quit-rent cannot as<a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>sign his
+tenure of field, house and garden to his wife or daughter, nor can he
+assign it for a debt.</p>
+
+<p>39. He may, however, assign a field, garden or house which he has
+bought, and holds as property, to his wife or daughter or give it for
+debt.</p>
+
+<p>40. He may sell field, garden and house to a merchant [royal agents] or
+to any other public official, the buyer holding field, house and garden
+for its usufruct.</p>
+
+<p>41. If any one fence in the field, garden and house of a chieftain, man
+or one subject to quit-rent, furnishing the palings therefor; if the
+chieftain, man or one subject to quit-rent return to field, garden and
+house, the palings which were given to him become his property.</p>
+
+<p>42. If any one take over a field to till it, and obtain no harvest
+therefrom, it must be proved that he did no work on the field, and he
+must deliver grain, just as his neighbor raised, to the owner of the
+field.</p>
+
+<p>43. If he do not till the field, but let it lie fallow, he shall give
+grain like his neighbor's to the owner of the field, and the field which
+he let lie fallow he must plow and sow and return to its owner.</p>
+
+<p>44. If any one take over a waste-lying field to make it arable, but is
+lazy, and does not make it arable, he shall plow the fallow field in the
+fourth year, harrow it and till it, and give it back to its owner and
+for each ten <i>gan</i> [a measure of area] ten <i>gur</i> [dry measure] of grain
+shall be paid.</p>
+
+<p>45. If a man rent his field for tillage for a fixed rental, and receive
+the rent of his field, but bad weather come and destroy the harvest, the
+injury falls upon the tiller of the soil.</p>
+
+<p>46. If he do not receive a fixed rental for his field, but lets it on
+half or third shares of the harvest, the grain on the field shall be
+divided proportionately between the tiller and the owner.</p>
+
+<p>47. If the tiller, because he did not succeed in the first year, has had
+the soil tilled by others, the owner may raise no objection; the field
+has been cultivated and he receives the harvest according to agreement.</p>
+
+<p>48. If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain,
+or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>lack of water; in
+that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his
+debt-tablet in water [a symbolic action indicating the inability to pay]
+and pays no rent for this year.</p>
+
+<p>49. If any one take money from a merchant, and give the merchant a field
+tillable for corn or sesame and order him to plant corn or sesame in the
+field, and to harvest the crop; if the cultivator plant corn or sesame
+in the field, at the harvest the corn or sesame that is in the field
+shall belong to the owner of the field and he shall pay corn as rent,
+for the money he received from the merchant, and the livelihood of the
+cultivator shall he give to the merchant.</p>
+
+<p>50. If he give a cultivated corn-field or a cultivated sesame-field, the
+corn or sesame in the field shall belong to the owner of the field, and
+he shall return the money to the merchant as rent.</p>
+
+<p>51. If he have no money to repay, then he shall pay in corn or sesame in
+place of the money as rent for what he received from the merchant,
+according to the royal tariff.</p>
+
+<p>52. If the cultivator do not plant corn or sesame in the field, the
+debtor's contract is not weakened.</p>
+
+<p>53. If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does
+not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded,
+then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the
+money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.</p>
+
+<p>54. If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions
+shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.</p>
+
+<p>55. If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and
+the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his
+neighbor corn for his loss.</p>
+
+<p>56. If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of
+his neighbor, he shall pay ten <i>gur</i> of corn for every ten <i>gan</i> of
+land.</p>
+
+<p>57. If a shepherd, without the permission of the owner of the field, and
+without the knowledge of the owner of the sheep, lets the sheep into a
+field to graze, then the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, and
+the shepherd, who had pastured his <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>flock there without permission of
+the owner of the field, shall pay to the owner twenty <i>gur</i> of corn for
+every ten <i>gan</i>.</p>
+
+<p>58. If after the flocks have left the pasture and been shut up in the
+common fold at the city gate, any shepherd let them into a field and
+they graze there, this shepherd shall take possession of the field which
+he has allowed to be grazed on, and at the harvest he must pay sixty
+<i>gur</i> of corn for every ten <i>gan</i>.</p>
+
+<p>59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a
+tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.</p>
+
+<p>60. If any one give over a field to a gardener, for him to plant it as a
+garden, if he work at it, and care for it for four years, in the fifth
+year the owner and the gardener shall divide it, the owner taking his
+part in charge.</p>
+
+<p>61. If the gardener has not completed the planting of the field, leaving
+one part unused, this shall be assigned to him as his.</p>
+
+<p>62. If he do not plant the field that was given over to him as a garden,
+if it be arable land [for corn or sesame] the gardener shall pay the
+owner the produce of the field for the years that he let it lie fallow,
+according to the product of neighboring fields, put the field in arable
+condition and return it to its owner.</p>
+
+
+<p>63. If he transform waste land into arable fields and return it to its
+owner, the latter shall pay him for one year ten <i>gur</i> for ten <i>gan</i>.</p>
+
+<p>64. If any one hand over his garden to a gardener to work, the gardener
+shall pay to its owner two-thirds of the produce of the garden, for so
+long as he has it in possession, and the other third shall he keep.</p>
+
+<p>65. If the gardener do not work in the garden and the product fall off,
+the gardener shall pay in proportion to other neighboring gardens.</p>
+
+<p>[Here a portion of the text is missing, apparently comprising
+thirty-five paragraphs.]</p>
+
+<p>100. ... interest for the money, as much as he has received, he shall
+give a note therefor, and on the day, when they settle, pay to the
+merchant.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>101. If there are no mercantile arrangements in the place whither he
+went, he shall leave the entire amount of money which he received with
+the broker to give to the merchant.</p>
+
+<p>102. If a merchant intrust money to an agent [broker] for some
+investment, and the broker suffer a loss in the place to which he goes,
+he shall make good the capital to the merchant.</p>
+
+<p>103. If, while on the journey, an enemy take away from him anything that
+he had, the broker shall swear by God [take an oath] and be free of
+obligation.</p>
+
+<p>104. If a merchant give an agent corn, wool, oil or any other goods to
+transport, the agent shall give a receipt for the amount, and compensate
+the merchant therefor. Then he shall obtain a receipt from the merchant
+for the money that he gives the merchant.</p>
+
+<p>105. If the agent is careless, and does not take a receipt for the money
+which he gave the merchant, he cannot consider the unreceipted money as
+his own.</p>
+
+<p>106. If the agent accept money from the merchant, but have a quarrel
+with the merchant [denying the receipt], then shall the merchant swear
+before God and witnesses that he has given this money to the agent, and
+the agent shall pay him three times the sum.</p>
+
+<p>107. If the merchant cheat the agent, in that as the latter has returned
+to him all that had been given him, but the merchant denies the receipt
+of what had been returned to him, then shall this agent convict the
+merchant before God and the judges, and if he still deny receiving what
+the agent had given him shall pay six times the sum to the agent.</p>
+
+<p>108. If a tavern-keeper [feminine] does not accept corn according to
+gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the
+drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown
+into the water.</p>
+
+<p>109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these
+conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the
+tavern-keeper shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>110. If a "sister of a god" [one devoted to the temple] open a tavern,
+or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>111. If an inn-keeper furnish sixty <i>ka</i> of <i>usakani</i>-drink to ... she
+shall receive fifty <i>ka</i> of corn at the harvest.</p>
+
+<p>112. If anyone be on a journey and intrust silver, gold, precious
+stones, or any movable property to another, and wish to recover it from
+him; if the latter do not bring all of the property to the appointed
+place, but appropriate it to his own use, then shall this man, who did
+not bring the property to hand it over be convicted, and he shall pay
+fivefold for all that had been intrusted to him.</p>
+
+<p>113. If any one have a consignment of corn or money, and he take from
+the granary or box, without the knowledge of the owner, then shall he
+who took corn without the knowledge of the owner out of the granary or
+money out of the box be legally convicted, and repay the corn he has
+taken. And he shall lose whatever commission was paid to him, or due
+him.</p>
+
+<p>114. If a man have no claim on another for corn and money, and try to
+demand it by force, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver in every
+case.</p>
+
+<p>115. If any one have a claim for corn or money upon another and imprison
+him; if the prisoner die in prison a natural death, the case shall go no
+further.</p>
+
+<p>116. If the prisoner die in prison from blows or maltreatment, the
+master of the prisoner shall convict the merchant before the judge. If
+he was a free-born man, the son of the merchant shall be put to death;
+if it was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of gold, and all
+that the master of the prisoner gave he shall forfeit.</p>
+
+<p>117. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his
+wife, his son and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor:
+they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them
+or the proprietor and in the fourth year they shall be set free.</p>
+
+<p>118. If he give a male or female slave away for forced labor, and the
+merchant sublease them, or sell them for money, no objection can be
+raised.</p>
+
+<p>119. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and he sell the maid
+servant who has borne him children, for money, the money which the
+merchant has paid shall be repaid to him by the owner of the slave and
+she shall be freed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>120. If any one store corn for safe keeping in another person's house,
+and any harm happen to the corn in storage, or if the owner of the house
+open the granary and take some of the corn, or if especially he deny
+that the corn was stored in his house: then the owner of the corn shall
+claim his corn before God [on oath], and the owner of the house shall
+pay its owner for all of the corn that he took.</p>
+
+<p>121. If any one store corn in another man's house he shall pay him
+storage at the rate of one <i>gur</i> for every five <i>ka</i> of corn per year.</p>
+
+<p>122. If any one give another silver, gold or anything else to keep, he
+shall show everything to some witness, draw up a contract, and then hand
+it over for safe keeping.</p>
+
+<p>123. If he turn it over for safe keeping without witness or contract,
+and if he to whom it was given deny it, then he has no legitimate claim.</p>
+
+<p>124. If any one deliver silver, gold or anything else to another for
+safe keeping, before a witness, but he deny it, he shall be brought
+before a judge, and all that he has denied he shall pay in full.</p>
+
+<p>125. If any one place his property with another for safe keeping, and
+there, either through thieves or robbers, his property and the property
+of the other man be lost, the owner of the house, through whose neglect
+the loss took place, shall compensate the owner for all that was given
+to him in charge. But the owner of the house shall try to follow up and
+recover his property, and take it away from the thief.</p>
+
+<p>126. If any one who has not lost his goods, state that they have been
+lost, and make false claims: if he claim his goods and amount of injury
+before God, even though he has not lost them, he shall be fully
+compensated for all his loss claimed [<i>i.e.</i>, the oath is all that is
+needed].</p>
+
+<p>127. If any one point the finger [slander] at a sister of a god or the
+wife of any one, and cannot prove it, this man shall be taken, before
+the judges and his brow shall be marked [by cutting the skin, or perhaps
+hair].</p>
+
+<p>128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her,
+this woman is no wife to him.</p>
+
+<p>129. If a man's wife be surprised with another man, both <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>shall be tied
+and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the
+king his slaves.</p>
+
+<p>130. If a man violate the wife [betrothed or child-wife] of another man,
+who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and
+sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the
+wife is blameless.</p>
+
+<p>131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not
+surprised with another man [<i>delit flagrant</i> is necessary for divorce],
+she must take an oath and then may return to her house.</p>
+
+<p>132. If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but
+she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the
+river for her husband [prove her innocence by this test].</p>
+
+<p>133. If a man is taken prisoner in war, and there is a sustenance in his
+house, but his wife leave house and court, and go to another house:
+because this wife did not keep her court, and went to another house, she
+shall be judicially condemned and thrown into the water.</p>
+
+<p>134. If any one be captured in war and there is no sustenance in his
+house, if then his wife go to another house, this woman shall be held
+blameless.</p>
+
+<p>135. If a man be taken prisoner in war and there be no sustenance in his
+house and his wife go to another house and bear children; and if later
+her husband return and come to his home: then this wife shall return to
+her husband, but the children follow their father.</p>
+
+<p>136. If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to
+another house, if then he return, and wishes to take his wife back:
+because he fled from his home and ran away, the wife of this runaway
+shall not return to her husband.</p>
+
+<p>137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children,
+or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that
+wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden and
+property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her
+children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that
+of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>borne him no
+children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money [amount
+formerly paid to the bride's father] and the dowry which she brought
+from her father's house, and let her go.</p>
+
+<p>139. If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold
+as a gift of release.</p>
+
+<p>140. If he be a freed man he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.</p>
+
+<p>141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it,
+plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is
+judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on
+her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband
+does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall
+remain as servant in her husband's house.</p>
+
+<p>142. If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not
+congenial to me," the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If
+she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and
+neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her
+dowry and go back to her father's house.</p>
+
+<p>143. If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her
+house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.</p>
+
+<p>144. If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a
+maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take
+another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a
+second wife.</p>
+
+<p>145. If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend
+to take another wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into
+the house, this second wife shall not be allowed equality with his wife.</p>
+
+<p>146. If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid servant as wife
+and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the
+wife: because she has borne him children her master shall not sell her
+for money, but he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the
+maid-servants.</p>
+
+<p>147. If she have not borne him children, then her mistress may sell her
+for money.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>148. If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then
+desire to take a second wife he shall not put away his wife, who has
+been attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he
+has built and support her so long as she lives.</p>
+
+<p>149. If this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, then
+he shall compensate her for the dowry that she brought with her from her
+father's house, and she may go.</p>
+
+<p>150. If a man give his wife a field, garden and house and a deed
+therefor, if then after the death of her husband the sons raise no
+claim, then the mother may bequeath all to one of her sons whom she
+prefers, and need leave nothing to his brothers.</p>
+
+<p>151. If a woman who lived in a man's house, made an agreement with her
+husband, that no creditor can arrest her, and has given a document
+therefor: if that man, before he married that woman, had a debt, the
+creditor cannot hold the woman for it. But if the woman, before she
+entered the man's house, had contracted a debt, her creditor cannot
+arrest her husband therefor.</p>
+
+<p>152. If after the woman had entered the man's house, both contracted a
+debt, both must pay the merchant.</p>
+
+<p>153. If the wife of one man on account of another man has their mates
+[her husband and the other man's wife] murdered, both of them shall be
+impaled.</p>
+
+<p>154. If a man be guilty of incest with his daughter, he shall be driven
+from the place [exiled].</p>
+
+<p>155. If a man betroth a girl to his son, and his son have intercourse
+with her, but he [the father] afterward defile her, and be surprised,
+then he shall be bound and cast into the water [drowned].</p>
+
+<p>156. If a man betroth a girl to his son, but his son has not known her,
+and if then he defile her, he shall pay her half a gold mina, and
+compensate her for all that she brought out of her father's house. She
+may marry the man of her heart.</p>
+
+<p>157. If any one be guilty of incest with his mother after his father,
+both shall be burned.</p>
+
+<p>158. If any one be surprised after his father with his chief wife, who
+has borne children, he shall be driven out of his father's house.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>159. If any one, who has brought chattels into his father-in-law's
+house, and has paid the purchase-money, looks for another wife, and says
+to his father-in-law: "I do not want your daughter," the girl's father
+may keep all that he had brought.</p>
+
+<p>160. If a man bring chattels into the house of his father-in-law, and
+pay the "purchase price" [for his wife]: if then the father of the girl
+say: "I will not give you my daughter," he shall give him back all that
+he brought with him.</p>
+
+<p>161. If a man bring chattels into his father-in-law's house and pay the
+"purchase price," if then his friend slander him, and his father-in-law
+say to the young husband: "You shall not marry my daughter," then he
+shall give back to him undiminished all that he had brought with him;
+but his wife shall not be married to the friend.</p>
+
+<p>162. If a man marry a woman, and she bear sons to him; if then this
+woman die, then shall her father have no claim on her dowry; this
+belongs to her sons.</p>
+
+<p>163. If a man marry a woman and she bear him no sons; if then this woman
+die, if the "purchase price" which he had paid into the house of his
+father-in-law is repaid to him, her husband shall have no claim upon the
+dowry of this woman; it belongs to her father's house.</p>
+
+<p>164. If his father-in-law do not pay back to him the amount of the
+"purchase price" he may subtract the amount of the "purchase price" from
+the dowry, and then pay the remainder to her father's house.</p>
+
+<p>165. If a man give to one of his sons whom he prefers, a field, garden
+and house and a deed therefor: if later the father die, and the brothers
+divide [the estate], then they shall first give him the present of his
+father, and he shall accept it; and the rest of the paternal property
+shall they divide.</p>
+
+<p>166. If a man take wives for his sons, but take no wife for his minor
+son, and if then he die: if the sons divide the estate, they shall set
+aside besides his portion the money for the "purchase price" for the
+minor brother who had taken no wife as yet, and secure a wife for him.</p>
+
+<p>167. If a man marry a wife and she bear him children: if this wife die
+and he then take another wife and she bear him children: if then the
+father die, the sons must not partition <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>the estate according to the
+mothers, they shall divide the dowries of their mothers only in this
+way; the paternal estate they shall divide equally with one another.</p>
+
+<p>168. If a man wish to put his son out of his house, and declare before
+the judge: "I want to put my son out," then the judge shall examine into
+his reasons. If the son be guilty of no great fault, for which he can be
+rightfully put out, the father shall not put him out.</p>
+
+<p>169. If he be guilty of a grave fault, which should rightfully deprive
+him of the filial relationship, the father shall forgive him the first
+time; but if he be guilty of a grave fault a second time the father may
+deprive his son of all filial relation.</p>
+
+<p>170. If his wife bear sons to a man, or his maid-servant have borne
+sons, and the father while still living says to the children whom his
+maid-servant has borne: "My sons," and he count them with the sons of
+his wife; if then the father die, then the sons of the wife and of the
+maid-servant shall divide the paternal property in common. The son of
+the wife is to partition and choose.</p>
+
+<p>171. If, however, the father while still living did not say to the sons
+of the maid-servant: "My sons," and then the father dies, then the sons
+of the maid-servant shall not share with the sons of the wife, but the
+freedom of the maid and her sons shall be granted. The sons of the wife
+shall have no right to enslave the sons of the maid; the wife shall take
+her dowry [from her father], and the gift that her husband gave her and
+deeded to her [separate from dowry, or the purchase money paid her
+father], and live in the home of her husband: so long as she lives she
+shall use it, it shall not be sold for money. Whatever she leaves shall
+belong to her children.</p>
+
+<p>172. If her husband made her no gift, she shall be compensated for her
+gift, and she shall receive a portion from the estate of her husband,
+equal to that of one child. If her sons oppress her, to force her out of
+the house, the judge shall examine into the matter, and if the sons are
+at fault the woman shall not leave her husband's house. If the woman
+desire to leave the house, she must leave to her sons the gift which her
+husband gave her, but she may take the dowry of her father's house. Then
+she may marry the man of her heart.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>173. If this woman bear sons to her second husband, in the place to
+which she went, and then die, her earlier and later sons shall divide
+the dowry between them.</p>
+
+<p>174. If she bear no sons to her second husband, the sons of her first
+husband shall have the dowry.</p>
+
+<p>175. If a state slave or the slave of a freed man marry the daughter of
+a free man, and children are born, the master of the slave shall have no
+right to enslave the children of the free.</p>
+
+<p>176. If, however, a state slave or the slave of a freed man marry a
+man's daughter, and after he married her she bring a dowry from a
+father's house, if then they both enjoy it and found a household, and
+accumulate means, if then the slave die, then she who was free born may
+take her dowry, and all that her husband and she had earned; she shall
+divide them into two parts, one-half the master for the slave shall
+take, and the other half shall the free-born woman take for her
+children. If the free-born woman had no gift she shall take all that her
+husband and she had earned and divide it into two parts; and the master
+of the slave shall take one-half and she shall take the other for her
+children.</p>
+
+<p>177. If a widow, whose children are not grown, wishes to enter another
+house [remarry], she shall not enter it without the knowledge of the
+judge. If she enter another house the judge shall examine the estate of
+the house of her first husband. Then the house of her first husband
+shall be intrusted to the second husband and the woman herself as
+managers. And a record must be made thereof. She shall keep the house in
+order, bring up the children, and not sell the household utensils. He
+who buys the utensils of the children of a widow shall lose his money,
+and the goods shall return to their owners.</p>
+
+<p>178. If a "devoted woman" or a prostitute [connected with the temple
+neither can marry] to whom her father has given a dowry and a deed
+therefor, but if in this deed it is not stated that she may bequeath it
+as she pleases, and has not explicitly stated that she has the right of
+disposal; if then her father die, then her brothers shall hold her field
+and garden, and give her corn, oil and milk according to her portion,
+and <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>satisfy her. If her brothers do not give her corn, oil and milk
+according to her share, then her field and garden shall be given to a
+farmer whom she chooses and the farmer shall support her. She shall have
+the usufruct of field and garden and all that her father gave her so
+long as she lives, but she cannot sell or assign it to others. Her
+position of inheritance belongs to her brothers.</p>
+
+<p>179. If a "sister of a god" [whose hire went to the revenue of the
+temple, counterpart to the public prostitute], or a prostitute, receive
+a gift from her father, and a deed in which it has been explicitly
+stated that she may dispose of it as she pleases, and give her complete
+disposition thereof: if then her father die, then she may leave her
+property to whomsoever she pleases. Her brothers can raise no claim
+thereto.</p>
+
+<p>180. If a father give a present to his daughter&mdash;either marriageable or
+a prostitute [unmarriageable]&mdash;and then die, then she is to receive a
+portion as a child from the paternal estate, and enjoy its usufruct so
+long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.</p>
+
+<p>181. If a father devote a temple-maid or temple-virgin to God and give
+her no present: if then the father die, she shall receive the third of a
+child's portion from the inheritance of her father's house, and enjoy
+its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.</p>
+
+<p>182. If a father devote his daughter as a wife of Marduk of Babylon [as
+in 181], and give her no present, nor a deed; if then her father die,
+then shall she receive one-third of her portion as a child of her
+father's house from her brothers, but she shall not have the management
+thereof. A wife of Marduk may leave her estate to whomsoever she wishes.</p>
+
+<p>183. If a man give his daughter by a concubine a dowry, and a husband,
+and a deed; if then her father die, she shall receive no portion from
+the paternal estate.</p>
+
+<p>184. If a man do not give a dowry to his daughter by a concubine, and no
+husband; if then her father die then her brother shall give her a dowry
+according to her father's wealth and secure a husband for her.</p>
+
+<p>185. If a man adopt a child and to his name as son, and rear him, this
+grown son cannot be demanded back again.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>186. If a man adopt a son, and if after he has taken him he injure his
+foster father and mother, then this adopted son shall return to his
+father's house.</p>
+
+<p>187. The son of a paramour in the palace service, or of a prostitute,
+cannot be demanded back.</p>
+
+<p>188. If an artisan has undertaken to rear a child and teaches him his
+craft, he cannot be demanded back.</p>
+
+<p>189. If he has not taught him his craft, this adopted son may return to
+his father's house.</p>
+
+<p>190. If a man does not maintain a child that he has adopted as son and
+reared with his other children, then his adopted son may return to his
+father's house.</p>
+
+<p>191. If a man, who had adopted a son and reared him, founded a
+household, and had children, wish to put this adopted son out, then this
+son shall not simply go his way. His adoptive father shall give him of
+his wealth one-third of a child's portion, and then he may go. He shall
+not give him of the field, garden and house.</p>
+
+<p>192. If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father
+or mother: "You are not my father, or my mother," his tongue shall be
+cut off.</p>
+
+<p>193. If the son of a paramour or a prostitute desire his father's house,
+and desert his adoptive father and adoptive mother, and goes to his
+father's house, then shall his eye be put out.</p>
+
+<p>194. If a man give his child to a nurse and the child die in her hands,
+but the nurse unbeknown to the father and mother nurse another child,
+then they shall convict her of having nursed another child without the
+knowledge of the father and mother and her breasts shall be cut off.</p>
+
+<p>195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.</p>
+
+<p>196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.</p>
+
+<p>197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.</p>
+
+<p>198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed
+man, he shall pay one gold mina.</p>
+
+<p>199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a
+man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be
+knocked out.</p>
+
+<p>201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of
+a gold mina.</p>
+
+<p>202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he
+shall receive sixty blows with an ox-hide whip in public.</p>
+
+<p>203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man of
+equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.</p>
+
+<p>204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay
+ten shekels in money.</p>
+
+<p>205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear
+shall be cut off.</p>
+
+<p>206. If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he
+shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physician.</p>
+
+<p>207. If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he
+[the deceased] was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.</p>
+
+<p>208. If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.</p>
+
+<p>209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn
+child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.</p>
+
+<p>210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>211. If a woman of the freed class lose her child by a blow, he shall
+pay five shekels in money.</p>
+
+<p>212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.</p>
+
+<p>213. If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he
+shall pay two shekels in money.</p>
+
+<p>214. If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.</p>
+
+<p>215. If a physician make a large incision with a operating knife and
+cure it, or if he open a tumor [over the eye] with an operating knife,
+and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.</p>
+
+<p>216. If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.</p>
+
+<p>217. If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician
+two shekels.</p>
+
+<p>218. If a physician make a large incision with the operat<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>ing knife, and
+kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye,
+his hands shall be cut off.</p>
+
+<p>219. If a physician make a large incision in the slave of a freed man,
+and kill him, he shall replace the slave with another slave.</p>
+
+<p>220. If he had opened a tumor with the operating knife, and put out his
+eye, he shall pay half his value.</p>
+
+<p>221. If a physician heal the broken bone or diseased soft part of a man,
+the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.</p>
+
+<p>222. If he were a freed man he shall pay three shekels.</p>
+
+<p>223. If he were a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.</p>
+
+<p>224. If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an
+ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel
+as fee.</p>
+
+<p>225. If he perform, a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he
+shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.</p>
+
+<p>226. If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a
+slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut
+off.</p>
+
+<p>227. If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not for sale
+with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried in his
+house. The barber shall swear: "I did not mark him wittingly," and shall
+be guiltless.</p>
+
+<p>228. If a builder build a house for some one and complete it, he shall
+give him a fee of two shekels in money for each <i>sar</i> of surface.</p>
+
+<p>229. If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it
+properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then
+that builder shall be put to death.</p>
+
+<p>230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be
+put to death.</p>
+
+<p>231. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave
+to the owner of the house.</p>
+
+<p>232. If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been
+ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which
+he built and it fell, he shall re&euml;rect the house from his own means.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not
+yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make
+the walls solid from his own means.</p>
+
+<p>234. If a shipbuilder build a boat of sixty <i>gur</i> for a man, he shall
+pay him a fee of two shekels in money.</p>
+
+<p>235. If a shipbuilder build a boat for some one, and do not make it
+tight, if during that same year that boat is sent away and suffers
+injury, the shipbuilder shall take the boat apart and put it together
+tight at his own expense. The tight boat he shall give to the boat
+owner.</p>
+
+<p>236. If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and
+the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of
+the boat another boat as compensation.</p>
+
+<p>237. If a man hire a sailor and his boat, and provide it with corn,
+clothing, oil and dates, and other things of the kind needed for fitting
+it: if the sailor is careless, the boat is wrecked, and its contents
+ruined, then the sailor shall compensate for the boat which was wrecked
+and all in it that he ruined.</p>
+
+<p>238. If a sailor wreck any one's ship, but saves it, he shall pay the
+half of its value in money.</p>
+
+<p>239. If a man hire a sailor, he shall pay him six <i>gur</i> of corn per
+year.</p>
+
+<p>240. If a merchantman run against a ferryboat, and wreck it, the master
+of the ship that was wrecked shall seek justice before God; the master
+of the merchantman, which wrecked the ferryboat, must compensate the
+owner for the boat and all that he ruined.</p>
+
+<p>241. If any one impresses an ox for forced labor, he shall pay one-third
+of a mina in money.</p>
+
+<p>242. If any one hire oxen for a year, he shall pay four <i>gur</i> of corn
+for plow-oxen.</p>
+
+<p>243. As rent of herd cattle he shall pay three <i>gur</i> of corn to the
+owner.</p>
+
+<p>244. If any one hire an ox or an ass, and a lion kill it in the field,
+the loss is upon its owner.</p>
+
+<p>245. If any one hire oxen, and kill them by bad treatment or blows, he
+shall compensate the owner, oxen for oxen.</p>
+
+<p>246. If a man hire an ox, and he break its leg or cut the <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>ligament of
+its neck, he shall compensate the owner with ox for ox.</p>
+
+<p>247. If any one hire an ox, and put out its eye, he shall pay the owner
+one-half of its value.</p>
+
+<p>248. If any one hire an ox, and break off a horn, or cut off its tail or
+hurt its muzzle, he shall pay one-fourth of its value in money.</p>
+
+<p>249. If any one hire an ox, and God strike it that it die, the man who
+hired it shall swear by God and be considered guiltless.</p>
+
+<p>250. If while an ox is passing on the street [market?] some one push it,
+and kill it, the owner can set up no claim in the suit [against the
+hirer].</p>
+
+<p>251. If an ox be a goring ox, and it is shown that he is a gorer, and he
+do not bind his horns, or fasten the ox up, and the ox gore a free-born
+man and kill him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money.</p>
+
+<p>252. If he kill a man's slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.</p>
+
+<p>253. If any one agree with another to tend his field, give him seed,
+intrust a yoke of oxen to him, and bind him to cultivate the field, if
+he steal the corn or plants, and take them for himself, his hands shall
+be hewn off.</p>
+
+<p>254. If he take the seed-corn for himself, and do not use the yoke of
+oxen, he shall compensate him for the amount of the seed-corn.</p>
+
+<p>255. If he sublet the man's yoke of oxen or steal the seed-corn,
+planting nothing in the field, he shall be convicted, and for each one
+hundred <i>gan</i> he shall pay sixty <i>gur</i> of corn.</p>
+
+<p>256. If his community will not pay for him, then he shall be placed in
+that field with the cattle [at work].</p>
+
+<p>257. If any one hire a field laborer, he shall pay him eight <i>gur</i> of
+corn per year.</p>
+
+<p>258. If any one hire an ox-driver, he shall pay him six <i>gur</i> of corn
+per year.</p>
+
+<p>259. If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five
+shekels in money to its owner.</p>
+
+<p>260. If any one steal a <i>shadduf</i> [used to draw water from the river or
+canal] or a plow, he shall pay three shekels in money.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>261. If any one hire a herdsman for cattle or sheep, he shall pay him
+eight <i>gur</i> of corn per annum.</p>
+
+<p>262. If any one, a cow or a sheep ... [broken off].</p>
+
+<p>263. If he kill the cattle or sheep that were given to him, he shall
+compensate the owner with cattle for cattle and sheep for sheep.</p>
+
+<p>264. If a herdsman, to whom cattle or sheep have been intrusted for
+watching over, and who has received his wages as agreed upon, and is
+satisfied, diminish the number of the cattle or sheep, or make the
+increase by birth less, he shall make good the increase and profit which
+was lost in the terms of settlement.</p>
+
+<p>265. If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been intrusted,
+be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or
+sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten
+times the loss.</p>
+
+<p>266. If the animal be killed in the stable by God [an accident], or if a
+lion kill it, the herdsman shall declare his innocence before God, and
+the owner bears the accident in the stable.</p>
+
+<p>267. If the herdsman overlook something, and an accident happen in the
+stable, then the herdsman is at fault for the accident which he has
+caused in the stable, and he must compensate the owner for the cattle or
+sheep.</p>
+
+<p>268. If any one hire an ox for threshing, the amount of the hire is
+twenty <i>ka</i> of corn.</p>
+
+<p>269. If he hire an ass for threshing, the hire is twenty <i>ka</i> of corn.</p>
+
+<p>270. If he hire a young animal for threshing, the hire is ten <i>ka</i> of
+corn.</p>
+
+<p>271. If any one hire oxen, cart and driver, he shall pay one hundred and
+eighty <i>ka</i> of corn per day.</p>
+
+<p>272. If any one hire a cart alone, he shall pay forty <i>ka</i> of corn per
+day.</p>
+
+<p>273. If any one hire a day laborer, he shall pay him from the New Year
+until the fifth month [April to August, when days are long and work
+hard] six gerahs in money per day; from the sixth month to the end of
+the year he shall give him five gerahs per day.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>274. If any one hire a skilled artisan, he shall pay as wages of the
+... five gerahs, as wages of the potter five gerahs, of a tailor five
+gerahs, of ... gerahs, ... of ... gerahs ... of ... gerahs, of a
+carpenter four gerahs, of a rope-maker four gerahs, of ... gerahs, of a
+mason ... gerahs per day.</p>
+
+<p>275. If any one hire a ferryboat, he shall pay three gerahs in money per
+day</p>
+
+<p>276. If he hire a freight-boat, he shall pay two and one-half gerahs per
+day.</p>
+
+<p>277. If any one hire a ship of sixty <i>gur</i> he shall pay one-sixth of a
+shekel in money as its hire per day.</p>
+
+<p>278. If any one buy a male or female slave, and before a month has
+elapsed the <i>benu</i>-disease be developed, he shall return the slave to
+the seller, and receive the money which he had paid.</p>
+
+<p>279. If any one buy a male or female slave, and a third party claim it,
+the seller is liable for the claim.</p>
+
+<p>280. If while in a foreign country a man buy a male or female slave
+belonging to another [of his own country]: if when he return home the
+owner of the male or female slave recognize it: if the male or female
+slave be a native of the country, he shall give them back without any
+money.</p>
+
+<p>281. If they are from another country, the buyer shall declare the
+amount of money he paid before God, and the owner shall give the money
+paid therefor to the merchant, and keep the male or female slave.</p>
+
+<p>282. If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they
+convict him his master shall cut off his ear.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>THE EPILOGUE</b></p>
+
+<p>Laws of justice which Hammurabi, the wise king, established, A righteous
+law, and pious statute did he teach the land. Hammurabi, the protecting
+king am I. I have not withdrawn myself from the men, whom Bel gave to
+me, the rule over whom Marduk gave to me, I was not negligent, but I
+made them a peaceful abiding place. I expounded all great difficulties,
+I made the light shine upon them. With the <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>mighty weapons which Zamama
+and Ishtar intrusted to me, with the keen vision with which Ea endowed
+me, with the wisdom that Marduk gave me, I have uprooted the enemy above
+and below [in north and south], subdued the earth, brought prosperity to
+the land, guaranteed security to the inhabitants in their homes; a
+disturber was not permitted. The great gods have called me, I am the
+salvation-bearing shepherd [ruler], whose staff [sceptre] is straight
+[just], the good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I
+cherish the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad [Babylonia]; in
+my shelter I have let them repose in peace; in my deep wisdom have I
+inclosed them. That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to
+protect the widows and orphans, I have in Babylon the city where Anu and
+Bel raise high their head, in E-Sagil, the Temple, whose foundations
+stand firm as heaven and earth, in order to bespeak justice in the land,
+to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, set up these my precious
+words, written upon my memorial stone, before the image of me, as king
+of righteousness.</p>
+
+<p>The king who ruleth among the kings of the cities am I. My words are
+well considered; there is no wisdom like unto mine. By the command of
+Shamash [the sun-god], the great judge of heaven and earth, let
+righteousness go forth in the land: by the order of Marduk, my lord, let
+no destruction befall my monument. In E-Sagil, which I love, let my name
+be ever repeated; let the oppressed, who has a case at law, come and
+stand before this my image as king of righteousness; let him read the
+inscription, and understand my precious words: the inscription will
+explain his case to him; he will find out what is just, and his heart
+will be glad [so that he will say]:</p>
+
+<p>"Hammurabi is a ruler, who is as a father to his subjects, who holds the
+words of Marduk in reverence, who has achieved conquest for Marduk over
+the north and south, who rejoices the heart of Marduk, his lord, who has
+bestowed benefits forever and ever on his subjects, and has established
+order in the land."</p>
+
+<p>When he reads the record, let him pray with full heart to Marduk, my
+lord, and Zarpanit, my lady; and then shall the protecting deities and
+the gods, who frequent E-Sagil, gra<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>ciously grant the desires daily
+presented before Marduk, my lord, and Zarpanit, my lady.</p>
+
+<p>In future time, through all coming generations, let the king, who may be
+in the land, observe the words of righteousness which I have written on
+my monument; let him not alter the law of the land which I have given,
+the edicts which I have enacted; my monument let him not mar. If such a
+ruler have wisdom, and be able to keep his land in order, he shall
+observe the words which I have written in this inscription; the rule,
+statute and law of the land which I have given; the decisions which I
+have made will this inscription show him; let him rule his subjects
+accordingly, speak justice to them, give right decisions, root out the
+miscreants and criminals from his land, and grant prosperity to his
+subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Hammurabi, the king of righteousness, on whom Shamash has conferred
+right [or law] am I. My words are well considered, my deeds are not
+equaled, to bring low those that were high, to humble the proud, to
+expel insolence. If a succeeding ruler considers my words, which I have
+written in this my inscription, if he do not annul my law, nor corrupt
+my words, nor change my monument, then may Shamash lengthen that king's
+reign, as he has that of me, the king of righteousness, that he may
+reign in righteousness over his subjects. If this ruler do not esteem my
+words, which I have written in my inscription, if he despise my curses,
+and fear not the curse of God, if he destroy the law which I have given,
+corrupt my words, change my monument, efface my name, write his name
+there, or on account of the curses commission another so to do, that
+man, whether king or ruler, patesi [priest-viceroy] or commoner, no
+matter what he be, may the great God [Anu], the Father of the gods, who
+has ordered my rule, withdraw from him the glory of royalty, break his
+sceptre, curse his destiny. May Bel, the lord, who fixeth destiny, whose
+command cannot be altered, who has made my kingdom great, order a
+rebellion which his hand cannot control; may he let the wind of the
+overthrow of his habitation blow, may he ordain the years of his rule in
+groaning, years of scarcity, years of famine, darkness without light,
+death with seeing eyes be fated to him; may he [Bel] order with his
+potent mouth the destruction of <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>his city, the dispersion of his
+subjects, the cutting off of his rule, the removal of his name and
+memory from the land. May Belit, the great Mother, whose command is
+potent in E-Kur [the Babylonian Olympus], the Mistress, who hearkens
+graciously to my petitions, in the seat of judgment and decision [where
+Bel fixes destiny], turn his affairs evil before Bel, and put the
+devastation of his land, the destruction of his subjects, the pouring
+out of his life like water into the mouth of King Bel. May Ea, the great
+ruler, whose fated decrees come to pass, the thinker of the gods, the
+omniscient, who maketh long the days of my life, withdraw understanding
+and wisdom from him, lead him to forgetfulness, shut up his rivers at
+their sources, and not allow corn or sustenance for man to grow in his
+land. May Shamash, the great Judge of heaven and earth, who supporteth
+all means of livelihood, Lord of life-courage, shatter his dominion,
+annul his law, destroy his way, make vain the march of his troops, send
+him in his visions forecasts of the uprooting of the foundations of his
+throne and of the destruction of his land. May the condemnation of
+Shamash overtake him forthwith; may he be deprived of water above among
+the living, and his spirit below in the earth. May Sin [the moon-god],
+the Lord of Heaven, the divine father, whose crescent gives light among
+the gods, take away the crown and regal throne from him; may he put upon
+him heavy guilt, great decay, that nothing may be lower than he. May he
+destine him as fated, days, months and years of dominion filled with
+sighing and tears, increase of the burden of dominion, a life that is
+like unto death. May Adad, the lord of fruitfulness, ruler of heaven and
+earth, my helper, withhold from him rain from heaven, and the flood of
+water from the springs, destroying his land by famine and want; may he
+rage mightily over his city, and make his land into flood-hills [heaps
+of ruined cities]. May Zamama, the great warrior, the first born son of
+E-Kur, who goeth at my right hand, shatter his weapons on the field of
+battle, turn day into night for him, and let his foe triumph over him.
+May Ishtar, the goddess of fighting and war, who unfetters my weapons,
+my gracious protecting spirit, who loveth my dominion, curse his kingdom
+in her angry heart; in her great wrath, change his grace into evil, and
+shatter his <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>weapons on the place of fighting and war. May she create
+disorder and sedition for him, strike down his warriors, that the earth
+may drink their blood, and throw down the piles of corpses of his
+warriors on the field; may she not grant him a life of mercy, deliver
+him into the hands of his enemies, and imprison him in the land of his
+enemies. May Nergal, the mighty among the gods, whose contest is
+irresistible, who grants me victory, in his great might burn up his
+subjects like a slender reed-stalk, cut off his limbs with his mighty
+weapons, and shatter him like an earthen image. May Nin-tu, the sublime
+mistress of the lands, the fruitful mother, deny him a son, vouchsafe
+him no name, give him no successor among men. May Nin-karak, the
+daughter of Anu, who adjudges grace to me, cause to come upon his
+members in E-kur, high fever, severe wounds, that cannot be healed,
+whose nature the physician does not understand, which he cannot treat
+with dressing, which, like the bite of death, cannot be removed, until
+they have sapped away his life.</p>
+
+<p>May he lament the loss of his life-power, and may the great gods of
+heaven and earth, the Anunnaki altogether inflict a curse and evil upon
+the confines of the temple, the walls of this E-barra [the Sun temple of
+Sippara], upon his dominion, his land, his warriors, his subjects and
+his troops. May Bel curse him with the potent curses of his mouth that
+cannot be altered, and may they come upon, him forthwith.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THESEUS_FOUNDS_ATHENS" id="THESEUS_FOUNDS_ATHENS"></a>THESEUS FOUNDS ATHENS</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 1235</h3>
+
+<h3><i>PLUTARCH</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The founding of the city of Athens, apart from the mythological
+lore which ascribes its name to Athen&eacute;, the goddess, is credited by
+the Greeks to Sais, a native of Egypt. The real founder of Athens,
+the one who made it a city and kingdom, was Theseus; an
+unacknowledged illegitimate child. The usual myth surrounds his
+birth and upbringing.</p>
+
+<p>King &AElig;geus, of Attica, his father, had an intrigue with &AElig;thra.
+Before leaving, &AElig;geus informed her that he had hidden his sword and
+sandals beneath a great stone, hollowed out to receive them. She
+was charged that should a son be born to them and, on growing to
+man's estate, be able to lift the stone, &AElig;thra must send him to his
+father, with these things under it, in all secrecy. These
+happenings were in Troezen, in which place &AElig;geus had been
+sojourning.</p>
+
+<p>All came about as expected. Theseus, the son, lifted the stone,
+took thence the deposit and departed for Attica, his father's home.
+On his way Theseus had a number of adventures which proved his
+prowess, not the least being his encounter with and defeat of
+Periphetes, the "club-bearer," so called from the weapon he used.</p>
+
+<p>Theseus had complied with the custom of his country by journeying
+to Delphi and offering the first-fruits of his hair, then cut for
+the first time. This first cutting of the hair was always an
+occasion of solemnity among the Greeks, the hair being dedicated to
+some god. It will be remembered that Homer speaks of this in the
+<i>Iliad</i>.</p>
+
+<p>One salient fact must be borne in mind in Grecian history, which is
+that it was a settled maxim that each city should have an
+independent sovereignty. "The patriotism of a Greek was confined to
+his city, and rarely kindled into any general love for the common
+welfare of Hellas."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>A Greek citizen of Athens was an alien in any other city of the
+peninsula. This political disunion caused the various cities to
+turn against each other, and laid them open to conquest by the
+Macedonians.</p></div>
+
+<p>As he [Theseus] proceeded on his way, and reached the river Cephisus,
+men of the Phytalid race were the first to meet and greet him. He
+demanded to be purified from the guilt of bloodshed, and they purified
+him, made propitiatory offerings, <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>and also entertained him in their
+houses, being the first persons from whom he had received any kindness
+on his journey.</p>
+
+<p>It is said to have been on the eighth day of the month Cronion, which is
+now called Hecatombaion, that he came to his own city. On entering it he
+found public affairs disturbed by factions, and the house of &AElig;geus in
+great disorder; for Medea, who had been banished from Corinth, was
+living with &AElig;geus, and had engaged by her drugs to enable &AElig;geus to have
+children. She was the first to discover who Theseus was, while &AElig;geus,
+who was an old man, and feared every one because of the disturbed state
+of society, did not recognize him. Consequently she advised &AElig;geus to
+invite him to a feast, that she might poison him.</p>
+
+<p>Theseus accordingly came to &AElig;geus's table. He did not wish to be the
+first to tell his name, but, to give his father an opportunity of
+recognizing him, he drew his sword, as if he meant to cut some of the
+meat with it, and showed it to &AElig;geus. &AElig;geus at once recognized it,
+overset the cup of poison, looked closely at his son, and embraced him.
+He then called a public meeting and made Theseus known as his son to the
+citizens, with whom he was already very popular because of his bravery,
+It is said that when the cup was overset the poison was spilt in the
+place where now there is the enclosure in the Delphinium, for there
+&AElig;geus dwelt; and the Hermes to the east of the temple there they call
+the one who is "at the door of &AElig;geus."</p>
+
+<p>But the sons of Pallas, who had previously to this expected that they
+would inherit the kingdom on the death of &AElig;geus without issue, now that
+Theseus was declared the heir, were much enraged, first that &AElig;geus
+should be king, a man who was merely an adopted child of Pandion, and
+had no blood relationship to Erechtheus, and next that Theseus, a
+stranger and a foreigner, should inherit the kingdom. They consequently
+declared war.</p>
+
+<p>Dividing themselves into two bodies, the one proceeded to march openly
+upon the city from Sphettus, under the command of Pallas their father,
+while the other lay in ambush at Gargettus, in order that they might
+fall upon their opponents on two sides at once. But there was a herald
+among them named Leos, of the township of Agnus, who betrayed the plans
+of the <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>sons of Pallas to Theseus. He suddenly attacked those who were
+in ambush, and killed them all, hearing which the other body under
+Pallas dispersed. From this time forth they say that the township of
+Pallene has never intermarried with that of Agnus, and that it is not
+customary amongst them for heralds to begin a proclamation with the
+words "Acouete Leo," (Oyez) for they hate the name of Leo because of the
+treachery of that man.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this the ship from Crete arrived for the third time to
+collect the customary tribute. Most writers agree that the origin of
+this was, that on the death of Androgeus, in Attica, which was ascribed
+to treachery, his father Minos went to war, and wrought much evil to the
+country, which at the same time was afflicted by scourges from heaven
+(for the land did not bear fruit, and there was a great pestilence, and
+the rivers sank into the earth).</p>
+
+<p>So that as the oracle told the Athenians that, if they propitiated Minos
+and came to terms with him, the anger of heaven would cease and they
+should have a respite from their sufferings, they sent an embassy to
+Minos and prevailed on him to make peace, on the condition that every
+nine years they should send him a tribute of seven youths and seven
+maidens. The most tragic of the legends states these poor children when
+they reached Crete were thrown into the Labyrinth, and there either were
+devoured by the Minotaur or else perished with hunger, being unable to
+find the way out. The Minotaur, as Euripides tells us, was</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A form commingled, and a monstrous birth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Half man, half bull, in twofold shape combined."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So when the time of the third payment of the tribute arrived, and those
+fathers who had sons not yet grown up had to submit to draw lots, the
+unhappy people began to revile &AElig;geus, complaining that he, although the
+author of this calamity, yet took no share in their affliction, but
+endured to see them left childless, robbed of their own legitimate
+offspring, while he made a foreigner and a bastard the heir to his
+kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>This vexed Theseus, and determining not to hold aloof, but to share the
+fortunes of the people, he came forward and offered <a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>himself without
+being drawn by lot. The people all admired his courage and patriotism,
+and &AElig;geus finding that his prayers and entreaties had no effect on his
+unalterable resolution, proceeded to choose the rest by lot. Hellanicus
+says that the city did not select the youths and maidens by lot, but
+that Minos himself came thither and chose them, and that he picked out
+Theseus first of all, upon the usual conditions, which were that the
+Athenians should furnish a ship, and that the youths should embark in it
+and sail with him, not carrying with them any weapon of war; and that
+when the Minotaur was slain, the tribute should cease.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly, no one had any hope of safety; so they used to send out the
+ship with a black sail, as if it were going to a certain doom; but now
+Theseus so encouraged his father, and boasted that he would overcome the
+Minotaur, that he gave a second sail, a white one, to the steersman, and
+charged him on his return, if Theseus were safe, to hoist the white one,
+if not, the black one as a sign of mourning. But Simonides says that it
+was not a white sail which was given by &AElig;geus, but "a scarlet sail
+embrued in holm oak's juice," and that this was agreed on by him as the
+signal of safety. The ship was steered by Phereclus, the son of
+Amarsyas, according to Simonides.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached Crete, according to most historians and poets, Ariadne
+fell in love with Theseus, and from her he received the clew of string,
+and was taught how to thread the mazes of the Labyrinth. He slew the
+Minotaur, and, taking with him Ariadne and the youths, sailed away.
+Pherecydes also says that Theseus also knocked out the bottoms of the
+Cretan ships, to prevent pursuit. But Demon says that Taurus, Minos'
+general, was slain in a sea-fight in the harbor, when Theseus sailed
+away.</p>
+
+<p>But according to Philochorus, when Minos instituted his games, Taurus
+was expected to win every prize, and was grudged this honor; for his
+great influence and his unpopular manners made him disliked, and scandal
+said that he was too intimate with Pasipha&euml;. On this account, when
+Theseus offered to contend with him, Minos agreed. And, as it was the
+custom in Crete for women as well as men to be spectators of the <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>games,
+Ariadne was present, and was struck with the appearance of Theseus, and
+his strength, as he conquered all competitors. Minos was especially
+pleased, in the wrestling match, at Taurus's defeat and shame, and,
+restoring the children to Theseus, remitted the tribute for the future.</p>
+
+<p>As he approached Attica, on his return, both he and his steersman in
+their delight forgot to hoist the sail which was to be a signal of their
+safety to &AElig;geus; and he in his despair flung himself down the cliffs and
+perished. Theseus, as soon as he reached the harbor, performed at
+Phalerum the sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods if he returned
+safe, and sent off a herald to the city with the news of his safe
+return.</p>
+
+<p>This man met with many who were lamenting the death of the king, and, as
+was natural, with others who were delighted at the news of their safety,
+and who congratulated him and wished to crown him with garlands. These
+he received, but placed them on his herald's staff, and when he came
+back to the seashore, finding that Theseus had not completed his
+libation, he waited outside the temple, not wishing to disturb the
+sacrifice. When the libation was finished he announced the death of
+&AElig;geus, and then they all hurried up to the city with loud lamentations:
+wherefore to this day, at the Oschophoria, they say that it is not the
+herald that is crowned, but his staff, and that at the libations the
+bystanders cry out, "Eleleu, Iou, Iou!" of which cries the first is used
+by men in haste, or raising the p&aelig;an for battle, while the second is
+used by persons in surprise and trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Theseus, after burying his father, paid his vow to Apollo, on the
+seventh day of the month Pyanepsion; for on this day it was that the
+rescued youths went up into the city. The boiling of pulse, which is
+customary on this anniversary, is said to be done because the rescued
+youths put what remained of their pulse together into one pot, boiled it
+all, and merrily feasted on it together. And on this day also the
+Athenians carry about the Eiresione, a bough of the olive tree garlanded
+with wool, just as Theseus had before carried the suppliants' bough, and
+covered with first-fruits of all sorts of produce, because the
+barrenness of the land ceased on that day; and they sing,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a></p>
+<span class="i0">"Eiresione, bring us figs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And wheaten loaves, and oil,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And wine to quaff, that we may all<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Rest merrily from toil."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>However, some say that these ceremonies are performed in memory of the
+Heracleid&aelig;, who were thus entertained by the Athenians; but most writers
+tell the tale as I have told it.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of &AElig;geus, Theseus conceived a great and important
+design. He gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica and made them
+citizens of one city, whereas before they had lived dispersed, so as to
+be hard to assemble together for the common weal, and at times even
+fighting with one another.</p>
+
+<p>He visited all the villages and tribes, and won their consent, the poor
+and lower classes gladly accepting his proposals, while he gained over
+the more powerful by promising that the new constitution should not
+include a king, but that it should be a pure commonwealth, with himself
+merely acting as general of its army and guardian of its laws, while in
+other respects it would allow perfect freedom and equality to every one.
+By these arguments he convinced some of them, and the rest knowing his
+power and courage chose rather to be persuaded than forced into
+compliance.</p>
+
+<p>He therefore destroyed the prytanea, the senate house, and the
+magistracy of each individual township, built one common prytaneum and
+senate house for them all on the site of the present acropolis, called
+the city Athens, and instituted the Panathenaic festival common to all
+of them. He also instituted a festival for the resident aliens, on the
+sixteenth of the month, Hecatombaion, which is still kept up. And
+having, according to his promise, laid down his sovereign power, he
+arranged the new constitution under the auspices of the gods; for he
+made inquiry at Delphi as to how he should deal with the city, and
+received the following answer:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thou son of &AElig;geus and of Pittheus' maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My father hath within thy city laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bounds of many cities; weigh not down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy soul with thought; the bladder cannot drown."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The same thing they say was afterward prophesied by the Sibyl concerning
+the city, in these words:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a></p>
+<span class="i0">"The bladder may be dipped, but cannot drown."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Wishing still further to increase the number of his citizens, he invited
+all strangers to come and share equal privileges, and they say that the
+words now used, "Come hither all ye peoples," was the proclamation then
+used by Theseus, establishing as it were a commonwealth of all nations.
+But he did not permit his state to fall into the disorder which this
+influx of all kinds of people would probably have produced, but divided
+the people into three classes, of Eupatrid&aelig; or nobles, Geomori or
+farmers, Demiurgi or artisans.</p>
+
+<p>To the Eupatrid&aelig; he assigned the care of religious rites, the supply of
+magistrates for the city, and the interpretation of the laws and customs
+sacred or profane; yet he placed them on an equality with the other
+citizens, thinking that the nobles would always excel in dignity, the
+farmers in usefulness, and the artisans in numbers. Aristotle tells us
+that he was the first who inclined to democracy, and gave up the title
+of king; and Homer seems to confirm this view by speaking of the people
+of the Athenians alone of all the states mentioned in his catalogue of
+ships.</p>
+
+<p>Theseus also struck money with the figure of a bull, either alluding to
+the bull of Marathon, or Taurus, Minos' general, or else to encourage
+farming among the citizens. Hence, they say, came the words, "worth
+ten," or "worth a hundred oxen." He permanently annexed Megara to
+Attica, and set up the famous pillar on the Isthmus, on which he wrote
+the distinction between the countries in two trimeter lines, of which
+the one looking east says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and the one looking west says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And also he instituted games there, in emulation of Heracles; that, just
+as Heracles had ordained that the Greeks should celebrate the Olympic
+games in honor of Zeus, so by Theseus' appointment they should celebrate
+the Isthmian games in honor of Poseidon.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Smith.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_FORMATION_OF_THE_CASTES_IN_INDIA" id="THE_FORMATION_OF_THE_CASTES_IN_INDIA"></a>THE FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 1200</h3>
+
+<h3><i>GUSTAVE LE BON<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> W.W. HUNTER</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The institution of caste was not peculiar to India. In Rome there
+was a long struggle over the connubium. Among the Greeks the right
+of commensality, or eating together, was restricted. In fact, the
+phenomena of caste are world-wide in their extent. In India the
+priests and nobles contended for the first place. India had
+progressed along the line of ethnic evolution from a loose
+confederacy of tribes into several nations, ruled by kings and
+priests, and the iron fetters of caste were becoming more rigidly
+welded. At first the father of the family was the priest. Then the
+chiefs and sages took the office of spiritual guide, and conducted
+the sacrifices. As writing was unknown, the liturgies were learned
+by heart, and handed down in families. The exclusive knowledge of
+the ancient hymns became hereditary, as it were. The ministrants
+increased in number, and thus sprang up the powerful priestly
+caste.</p>
+
+<p>Then the warrior class arose and grew strong in numbers and power,
+becoming differentiated from the agriculturists, and forming the
+military caste. The husbandmen drifted into another caste, and the
+three orders were rigidly separated by a cessation of
+intermarriage.</p>
+
+<p>At the bottom came the Sudras, or slave bands, the servile dregs of
+the population. In course of time, from various influences, the
+third class became almost eliminated in many provinces. From the
+cradle to the grave these cruel barriers still intervene between
+the strata of the people, relentless as fate and insurmountable as
+death.</p></div>
+
+<p><b>GUSTAVE LE BON</b></p>
+
+<p>In ancient times the power of kings [in India] was only nominal. In the
+Aryan village, forming a little republic, the chief, bearing the name of
+rajah, was secure in his fortress, exercising full sway. Such was the
+political system prevailing in India through all the ages, and which has
+always been respected by the conquerors, whoever they might be. So, for
+so <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>many centuries back we see arise the first elements of an
+organization which still endures.</p>
+
+<p>We find here also the beginnings of that system of castes, which, at
+first indistinct and floating, when the classes sought only to be
+distinguished from each other, was to become so rigid, when it was
+constituted under the influence of ethnological reasons, as to dig
+fathomless abysses between the races.</p>
+
+<p>In the Vedas may be traced the progression of the distance between the
+priests and the warriors, at first slight, and then increasing more and
+more. The division of functions did not stop there. While the
+sacrificing priest was consecrating himself more exclusively day by day
+to the accomplishment of the sacred rites and to the composition of
+hymns; while the warrior passed his days in adventurous expeditions or
+daring feats, what would have become of the land and what would it have
+produced if others had not applied themselves without ceasing, to
+cultivate it? A third class became distinct, the agriculturists.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the last hymns of Rig Veda these three classes appear,
+absolutely separated and already designated by the three words Brahmans,
+Kchatryas, Vaisyas.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth class, that of the Sudras, was to arise later and to include
+the mass of conquered peoples when the latter joined the circle of Aryan
+civilization. The classes, hitherto mingling, now became rigidly
+separated castes.</p>
+
+<p>The most important of these divisions, and that which was first formed,
+was the one between the priests and the warriors. The Brahmans,
+intermediaries between men and the gods, soon became more and more
+exacting, and finally considered themselves as entirely superior beings
+and were accepted as such.</p>
+
+<p>The distinction between the warriors and the agriculturists also soon
+became marked, arising doubtless rather from a difference in fortune
+than in functions.</p>
+
+<p>The war chief, who returned laden with booty, covered himself with rings
+of gold, rich vestments, and gleaming arms. He became "rajah," that is
+to say "shining," for such was the meaning of the word at the Vedic
+epoch.</p>
+
+<p>Still no absolute barrier between the classes had arisen. They mingled
+to offer sacrifices, and sometimes ate in common.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>Heredity of office and profession began to be established. The sacred
+songs were handed down in families, as were also the functions of the
+sacrificers. And here among the Vedic Aryans are seen in process of
+elaboration the germs of the institution which later gained so much
+power in India and which dominates it still with apparent immutability.</p>
+
+<p>The system of castes has been the corner-stone of all the institutions
+of India for two thousand years. Such is its importance, and so
+generally is it misunderstood, that it will be well briefly to explain
+its origins, sources, and consequences. A system, the result of which is
+to permit a handful of Europeans to hold sway over two hundred and fifty
+millions of men deserves the attention of the observer.</p>
+
+<p>The system of castes has existed for more than twenty centuries in
+India. It doubtless had its origin in the recognition of the inevitable
+laws of heredity. When the white-skinned conquerors, whom we call
+Aryans, penetrated India, they found, in addition to other invaders of
+Turanian origin, black, half-savage populations whom they subjugated.
+The conquerors were half-pastoral, half-stationary tribes, under chiefs
+whose authority was counterbalanced by the all-powerful influence of the
+priests whose duty it was to secure the protection of the gods. Their
+occupations were divided into classes, that of Brahmans or priests,
+Kchatryas or warriors, and Vaisyas, laborers or artisans. The last class
+was perhaps formed by the invaders anterior to the Aryans, whom we have
+just mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>These divisions corresponded, as is evident, to our three ancient
+castes, the clergy, the nobility, and the third estate. Beneath these
+classes was the aboriginal population, the Sudras, forming three
+quarters of the whole population.</p>
+
+<p>Experience soon revealed the inconveniences which might rise from the
+mixture of the superior race with the inferior ones, and all the
+proscriptions of religion tended thereafter to prevent it. "Every
+country which gives birth to men of mixed races," said the ancient
+law-giver of the Hindus, the sage Manu, "is soon destroyed together with
+those who inhabit it." The decree is harsh, but it is impossible not to
+recognize its truth. Every superior race which has mingled with another
+too inferior has speedily been degraded or absorbed by it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>The Spaniards in America, the Portuguese in India, are proofs of the
+sad results produced by such mixtures. The descendants of the brave
+Portuguese adventurers, who in other days conquered part of India, fill
+to-day the employments of servants, and the name of their race has
+become a term of contempt.</p>
+
+<p>Imbued with the importance of this anthropological truth, the Code of
+Manu, which has been the law of India for so many centuries, and which,
+like all codes, is the result of long anterior experiences, neglects
+nothing to preserve the purity of blood.</p>
+
+<p>It pronounces severe penalties against all intermingling of the superior
+castes between themselves, and especially with the caste of the Sudras.
+There are no frightful threats which it does not employ to keep the
+latter apart.</p>
+
+<p>But in the course of the centuries nature triumphed over these
+formidable prohibitions. Woman always has her charms, no matter how
+inferior she may be in caste. In spite of Manu, crossings of caste were
+numerous, and one need not travel India throughout to perceive that,
+to-day, the populations of all the races are mixed to a large extent.
+The number of individuals white enough to prove that their blood is
+quite pure is very restricted. The word caste, taken in its primitive
+sense, is no longer a synonym of color, as it used to be in Sanscrit,
+and, if caste had had only formerly prevailing ethnological reasons to
+invoke, it would have had no reason for continuing. In fact, the
+primitive divisions of caste have long since disappeared. They were
+replaced by new divisions, the origin of which is other than the
+difference of races, except in the case of the Brahmans, who still form
+the less mixed portion of the population.</p>
+
+<p>Among the causes which have perpetuated the system of castes, the law of
+heredity has furthermore continued to play a fundamental part. Aptness
+is inevitably hereditary among the Hindus, and, also inevitably, the son
+follows the profession of the father. The principle of heredity of the
+professions being universally admitted, there has resulted the formation
+of castes as numerous as the professions themselves, and to-day in India
+castes are numbered by the thousand. Each new profession has for an
+immediate consequence the formation of a new caste.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>The European who comes to India to live soon perceives to what an
+extent the castes have multiplied in observing the number of different
+persons whom he is obliged to hire to wait on him. To the two preceding
+causes of the formations of castes, the ethnological cause, now very
+weak, and the professional, which is still very strong, are added
+political office, and the heterogeneity of religious beliefs.</p>
+
+<p>The castes springing from political office might, strictly speaking, be
+placed in the category of professional castes, but those produced by
+diversity of religious beliefs should be attached to none of the
+preceding causes. In theory, that is, only judged by the reading of
+books, all India would be divided into two or three great religions
+only. But practically these religions are very numerous. New gods,
+considered as simple incarnations of ancient ones, are born and die
+every day, and their votaries soon form a new caste as rigid in its
+exclusions as the others.</p>
+
+<p>Two fundamental signs mark the conformity of castes, and separate from
+all the others the persons belonging to them. The first is that the
+individuals of the same caste cannot eat except among themselves. The
+second is that they can only marry among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>These two proscriptions are quite fundamental, and the first not less
+than the second. You may meet by the hundreds in India Brahmans who are
+employed by the government in the post-office and railway service, or
+even Brahmans who are beggars. But the humble functionary or wretched
+mendicant would rather die than sit at table with the viceroy of India.</p>
+
+<p>The quality of Brahmans is hereditary, like a title of nobility in
+Europe. It is not a synonym of priest, as is generally believed, because
+it is from this caste that priests are recruited. This caste was
+formerly so exalted that the rank of royalty was not sufficient to
+enable one to aspire to the hand of a Brahman's daughter.</p>
+
+<p>The Hindu would rather die than violate the laws of his caste. Nothing
+is more terrible than for him to lose it. Such loss may be compared to
+excommunication in the middle ages, or to a condemnation for an infamous
+crime in modern Europe. To lose his caste is to lose everything at one
+blow, parents, re<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>lations, and fortune. Every one turns his back upon
+the culprit and refuses to have any dealings with him. He must enter the
+casteless category, which is employed only for the most abject
+functions.</p>
+
+<p>As to the social and political consequences of such a system, the only
+social bond among the Hindus is caste. Outside of caste the world does
+not exist for him. He is separated from persons of another caste by an
+abyss much deeper than that which separates Europeans of the most
+different nationalities. The latter may intermarry, but persons of
+different castes cannot. The result is that every village possesses as
+many groups as there are castes represented.</p>
+
+<p>With such a system union against a master is impossible. This system of
+caste explains the phenomenon of two hundred and fifty millions of men
+obeying, without a murmur, sixty or seventy thousand strangers<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> whom
+they detest. The only fatherland of the Hindu is his caste. He has never
+had another. His country is not a fatherland to him, and he has never
+dreamed of its unity.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>W.W. HUNTER</b></p>
+
+<p>At a very early period we catch sight of a nobler race from the
+northwest, forcing its way in among the primitive peoples of India. This
+race belonged to the splendid Aryan or Indo-Germanic stock from which
+the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Englishman alike descend. Its earliest
+home seems to have been in Western Asia. From that common camping-ground
+certain branches of the race started for the east, others for the
+farther west. One of the western offshoots built Athens and Sparta, and
+became the Greek nation; another went on to Italy, and reared the city
+on the Seven Hills, which grew into Imperial Rome. A distant colony of
+the same race excavated the silver ores of prehistoric Spain; and when
+we first catch a sight of ancient England, we see an Aryan settlement
+fishing in wattle canoes, and working the tin mines of Cornwall.
+Meanwhile other branches of the Aryan stock had gone forth from the
+primitive Asiatic home to the east. Powerful bands found <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>their way
+through the passes of the Himalayas into the Punjab, and spread
+themselves, chiefly as Brahmans and Rajputs, over India.</p>
+
+<p>The Aryan offshoots, alike to the east and to the west, asserted their
+superiority over the earlier peoples whom they found in possession of
+the soil. The history of ancient Europe is the story of the Aryan
+settlements around the shores of the Mediterranean; and that wide term,
+modern civilization, merely means the civilization of the western
+branches of the same race. The history of India consists in like manner
+of the history of the eastern offshoots of the Aryan stock who settled
+in that land.</p>
+
+<p>We know little regarding these noble Aryan tribes in their early
+camping-ground in Western Asia. From words preserved in the languages of
+their long-separated descendants in Europe and India, scholars infer
+that they roamed over the grassy steppes with their cattle, making long
+halts to raise crops of grain. They had tamed most of the domestic
+animals; were acquainted with iron; understood the arts of weaving and
+sewing; wore clothes, and ate cooked food. They lived the hardy life of
+the comparatively temperate zone; and the feeling of cold seems to be
+one of the earliest common remembrances of the eastern and the western
+branches of the race.</p>
+
+<p>The forefathers of the Greek and the Roman, of the English and the
+Hindu, dwelt together in Western Asia, spoke the same tongue, worshipped
+the same gods. The languages of Europe and India, although at first
+sight they seem wide apart, are merely different growths from the
+original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the common words of
+family life. The names for <i>father, mother, brother, sister</i>, and
+<i>widow</i> are the same in most of the Aryan languages, whether spoken on
+the banks of the Ganges, of the Tiber, or of the Thames. Thus the word
+<i>daughter</i>, which occurs in nearly all of them, has been derived from
+the Aryan root <i>dugh</i>, which in Sanscrit has the form of <i>duh</i>, to milk;
+and perhaps preserves the memory of the time when the daughter was the
+little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient religions of Europe and India had a common origin. They were
+to some extent made up of the sacred <a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>stories or myths which our joint
+ancestors had learned while dwelling together in Asia. Several of the
+Vedic gods were also the gods of Greece and Rome; and to this day the
+Divinity is adored by names derived from the same old Aryan word
+<i>(deva,</i> the Shining One), by Brahmans in Calcutta, by the Protestant
+clergy of England, and by Roman Catholic priests in Peru.</p>
+
+<p>The Vedic hymns exhibit the Indian branch of the Aryans on their march
+to the southeast, and in their new homes. The earliest songs disclose
+the race still to the north of the Khaibar pass, in Kabul; the later
+ones bring them as far as the Ganges. Their victorious advance eastward
+through the intermediate tract can be traced in the Vedic writings
+almost step by step. The steady supply of water among the five rivers of
+the Punjab led the Aryans to settle down from their old state of
+wandering half-pastoral tribes into regular communities of husbandmen.
+The Vedic poets praised the rivers which enabled them to make this great
+change&mdash;perhaps the most important step in the progress of a race. "May
+the Indus," they sang, "the far-famed giver of wealth, hear us;
+[fertilizing our] broad fields with water." The Himalayas, through whose
+southwestern passes they had reached India, and at whose southern base
+they long dwelt, made a lasting impression on their memory. The Vedic
+singer praised "Him whose greatness the snowy ranges, and the sea, and
+the aerial river declare." The Aryan race in India never forgot its
+northern home. There dwelt its gods and holy singers; and there
+eloquence descended from heaven among men; while high amid the Himalayan
+mountains lay the paradise of deities and heroes, where the kind and the
+brave forever repose.</p>
+
+<p>The Rig-Veda forms the great literary memorial of the early Aryan
+settlements in the Punjab. The age of this venerable hymnal is unknown.
+Orthodox Hindus believe, without evidence, that it existed "from before
+all time," or at least from 3001 years B.C. European scholars have
+inferred from astronomical data that its composition was going on about
+1400 B.C. But the evidence might have been calculated backward, and
+inserted later in the Veda. We only know that the Vedic religion had
+been at work long before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C.
+The Rig-Veda is a very old collection of 1017 <a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>short poems, chiefly
+addressed to the gods, and containing 10,580 verses. Its hymns show us
+the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes,
+sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the
+"black-skinned" aborigines. Caste, in its later sense, is unknown. Each
+father of a family is the priest of his own household. The chieftain
+acts as father and priest to the tribe; but at the greater festivals he
+chooses some one specially learned in holy offerings to conduct the
+sacrifice in the name of the people. The king himself seems to have been
+elected; and his title of Vis-pat, literally "Lord of the Settlers,"
+survives in the old Persian Vis-paiti, and as the Lithuanian Wiez-patis
+in east-central Europe at this day. Women enjoyed a high position; and
+some of the most beautiful hymns were composed by ladies and queens.
+Marriage was held sacred. Husband and wife were both "rulers of the
+house" <i>(dampati)</i>; and drew near to the gods together in prayer. The
+burning of widows on their husbands' funeral pile was unknown; and the
+verses in the Veda which the Brahmans afterwards distorted into a
+sanction for the practice, have the very opposite meaning. "Rise,
+woman," says the Vedic text to the mourner; "come to the world of life.
+Come to us, Thou hast fulfilled thy duties as a wife to thy husband."</p>
+
+<p>The Aryan tribes in the Veda have blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and
+goldsmiths among them, besides carpenters, barbers, and other artisans.
+They fight from chariots, and freely use the horse, although not yet the
+elephant, in war. They have settled down as husbandmen, till their
+fields with the plough, and live in villages or towns. But they also
+cling to their old wandering life, with their herds and "cattle-pens."
+Cattle, indeed, still form their chief wealth&mdash;the coin in which payment
+of fines is made&mdash;reminding us of the Latin word for money, <i>pecunia</i>,
+from <i>pecus</i>, a herd. One of the Vedic words for war literally means "a
+desire for cows." Unlike the modern Hindus, the Aryans of the Veda ate
+beef; used a fermented liquor or beer, made from the <i>soma</i> plant; and
+offered the same strong meat and drink to their gods. Thus the stout
+Aryans spread eastward through Northern India, pushed on from behind by
+later arrivals of their own stock, and driving before <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>them, or reducing
+to bondage, the earlier "black-skinned" races. They marched in whole
+communities from one river valley to another; each house-father a
+warrior, husbandman, and priest; with his wife, and his little ones, and
+his cattle.</p>
+
+<p>These free-hearted tribes had a great trust in themselves and their
+gods. Like other conquering races, they believed that both themselves
+and their deities were altogether superior to the people of the land,
+and to their poor, rude objects of worship. Indeed, this noble
+self-confidence is a great aid to the success of a nation. Their
+divinities&mdash;<i>devas</i>, literally "the shining ones," from the Sanscrit
+root <i>div</i>, "to shine"&mdash;were the great powers of nature. They adored the
+Father-heaven,&mdash;<i>Dyaush-pitar</i> in Sanscrit, the <i>Dies piter</i> or
+<i>Jupiter</i> of Rome, the <i>Zeus</i> of Greece; and the Encompassing
+Sky&mdash;<i>Varuna</i> in Sanscrit, <i>Uranus</i> in Latin, <i>Ouranos</i> in Greek.
+<i>Indra</i>, or the Aqueous Vapor, that brings the precious rain on which
+plenty or famine still depends each autumn, received the largest number
+of hymns. By degrees, as the settlers realized more and more keenly the
+importance of the periodical rains to their new life as husbandmen, he
+became the chief of the Vedic gods. "The gods do not reach unto thee, O
+Indra, nor men; thou overcomest all creatures in strength." Agni, the
+God of Fire (Latin <i>ignis</i>), ranks perhaps next to Indra in the number
+of hymns addressed to him. He is "the Youngest of the Gods," "the Lord
+and Giver of Wealth." The Maruts are the Storm Gods, "who make the rock
+to tremble, who tear in pieces the forest." Ushas, "the High-born Dawn"
+(Greek <i>Eos</i>), "shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living
+being to go forth to his work." The Asvins, the "Horsemen" or fleet
+outriders of the dawn, are the first rays of sunrise, "Lords of Lustre."
+The Solar Orb himself (Surya), the Wind (Vayu), the Sunshine or Friendly
+Day (Mitra), the intoxicating fermented juice of the Sacrificial Plant
+(Soma), and many other deities are invoked in the Veda&mdash;in all, about
+thirty-three gods, "who are eleven in heaven, eleven on earth, and
+eleven dwelling in glory in mid-air."</p>
+
+<p>The Aryan settler lived on excellent terms with his bright gods. He
+asked for protection, with an assured conviction that it would be
+granted. At the same time, he was deeply stirred <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>by the glory and
+mystery of the earth and the heavens. Indeed, the majesty of nature so
+filled his mind, that when he praises any one of his Shining Gods, he
+can think of none other for the time being, and adores him as the
+supreme ruler. Verses may be quoted declaring each of the greater
+deities to be the One Supreme: "Neither gods nor men reach unto thee, O
+Indra!" Another hymn speaks of Soma as "king of heaven and earth, the
+conqueror of all." To Varuna also it is said, "Thou art lord of all, of
+heaven and earth; thou art king of all those who are gods, and of all
+those who are men." The more spiritual of the Vedic singers, therefore,
+may be said to have worshipped One God, though not One alone.</p>
+
+<p>"In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. He was the one born lord
+of all that is. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the God to
+whom we shall offer our sacrifice?</p>
+
+<p>"He who gives life, he who gives strength; whose command all the Bright
+Gods revere; whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death. Who is
+the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?</p>
+
+<p>"He who, through his power, is the one king of the breathing and
+awakening world. He who governs all, man and beast. Who is the God to
+whom we shall offer our sacrifice?</p>
+
+<p>"He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm; he through whom
+the heaven was established, nay, the highest heaven; he who measured out
+the light and the air. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
+sacrifice?</p>
+
+<p>"He who by his might looked even over the water-clouds; he who alone is
+God above all gods. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
+sacrifice?"</p>
+
+<p>While the aboriginal races buried their dead in the earth or under rude
+stone monuments, the Aryan&mdash;alike in India, in Greece, and in
+Italy&mdash;made use of the funeral-pile. Several exquisite Sanscrit hymns
+bid farewell to the dead:&mdash;"Depart thou, depart thou by the ancient
+paths to the place whither our fathers have departed. Meet with the
+Ancient Ones; meet with the Lord of Death. Throwing off thine
+imperfections, go to thy home. Become united with a body; clothe thyself
+in a shining form." "Let him depart to those for whom flow the rivers of
+nectar. Let him depart to those who, through medi<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>tation, have obtained
+the victory; who, by fixing their thoughts on the unseen, have gone to
+heaven. Let him depart to the mighty in battle, to the heroes who have
+laid down their lives for others, to those who have bestowed their goods
+on the poor." The doctrine of transmigration was at first unknown. The
+circle round the funeral-pile sang with a firm assurance that their
+friend went direct to a state of blessedness and reunion with the loved
+ones who had gone before. "Do thou conduct us to heaven," says a hymn of
+the later Atharva-Veda; "let us be with our wives and children." "In
+heaven, where our friends dwell in bliss&mdash;having left behind the
+infirmities of the body, free from lameness, free from crookedness of
+limb&mdash;there let us behold our parents and our children." "May the
+water-shedding Spirits bear thee upward, cooling thee with their swift
+motion through the air, and sprinkling thee with dew." "Bear him, carry
+him; let him, with all his faculties complete, go to the world of the
+righteous. Crossing the dark valley which spreadeth boundless around
+him, let the unborn soul ascend to heaven. Wash the feet of him who is
+stained with sin; let him go upward with cleansed feet. Crossing the
+gloom, gazing with wonder in many directions, let the unborn soul go up
+to heaven."</p>
+
+<p>By degrees the old collection of hymns, or the Rig-Veda, no longer
+sufficed. Three other collections or service-books were therefore added,
+making the Four Vedas. The word Veda is from the same root as the Latin
+<i>vid-ere</i>, to see: the early Greek <i>feid-enai</i>, infinitive of <i>oida</i>, I
+know: and the English <i>wisdom</i>, or I <i>wit</i>. The Brahmans taught that the
+Veda was divinely inspired, and that it was literally "the <i>wisdom</i> of
+God." There was, first, the Rig-Veda, or the hymns in their simplest
+form. Second, the Sama-Veda, made up of hymns of the Rig-Veda to be used
+at the Soma sacrifice. Third, the Yajur-Veda, consisting not only of
+Rig-Vedic hymns, but also of prose sentences, to be used at the great
+sacrifices; and divided into two editions, the Black and White Yajur.
+The fourth, or Atharva-Veda, was compiled from the least ancient hymns
+at the end of the Rig-Veda, very old religious spells, and later
+sources. Some of its spells have a similarity to the ancient German and
+Lithuanian charms, and appear to have come down <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>from the most primitive
+times, before the Indian and European branches of the Aryan race struck
+out from their common home.</p>
+
+<p>To each of the four Vedas were attached prose works, called Brahmanas,
+in order to explain the sacrifices and the duties of the priests. Like
+the Four Vedas, the Brahmanas were held to be the very word of God. The
+Vedas and the Brahmanas form the revealed Scriptures of the Hindus&mdash;the
+<i>sruti</i>, literally "Things <i>heard</i> from God." The Vedas supplied their
+divinely-inspired psalms, and the Brahmanas their divinely-inspired
+theology or body of doctrine. To them were afterward added the Sutras,
+literally "<i>Strings</i> of pithy sentences" regarding laws and ceremonies.
+Still later the Upanishads were composed, treating of God and the soul;
+the Aranyakas, or "Tracts for the forest recluse;" and, after a very
+long interval, the Puranas, or "Traditions from of old." All these
+ranked, however, not as divinely-inspired knowledge, or things "heard
+from God" (<i>sruti</i>), like the Vedas and Brahmanas, but only as sacred
+traditions&mdash;<i>smriti</i>, literally "The things <i>remembered</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Four Castes had been formed. In the old Aryan colonies
+among the Five Rivers of the Punjab, each house-father was a husbandman,
+warrior, and priest. But by degrees certain gifted families, who
+composed the Vedic hymns or learned them off by heart, were always
+chosen by the king to perform the great sacrifices. In this way probably
+the priestly caste sprang up. As the Aryans conquered more territory,
+fortunate soldiers received a larger share of the lands than others, and
+cultivated it not with their own hands, but by means of the vanquished
+non-Aryan tribes. In this way the Four Castes arose. First, the priests
+or Brahmans. Second, the warriors or fighting companions of the king,
+called Rajputs or Kchatryas, literally "of the <i>royal</i> stock." Third,
+the Aryan agricultural settlers, who kept the old name of Vaisyas, from
+the root <i>vis</i>, which in the primitive Vedic period had included the
+whole Aryan people. Fourth, the Sudras, or conquered non-Aryan tribes,
+who became serfs. The three first castes were of Aryan descent, and were
+honored by the name of the Twice-born Castes. They could all be present
+at the sacrifices, and they worshipped the same Bright Gods. The Sudras
+were <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>"the slave-bands of black descent" of the Veda. They were
+distinguished from their "Twice-born" Aryan conquerors as being only
+"Once-born," and by many contemptuous epithets. They were not allowed to
+be present at the great national sacrifices, or at the feasts which
+followed them. They could never rise out of their servile condition; and
+to them was assigned the severest toil in the fields, and all the hard
+and dirty work of the village community.</p>
+
+<p>The Brahmans or priests claimed the highest rank. But they seemed to
+have had a long struggle with the Kchatryas, or warrior caste, before
+they won their proud position at the head of the Indian people. They
+afterward secured themselves in that position by teaching that it had
+been given to them by God. At the beginning of the world, they said, the
+Brahman proceeded from the mouth of the Creator, the Kchatryas or Rajput
+from his arms, the Vaisya from his thighs or belly, and the Sudra from
+his feet. This legend is true so far that the Brahmans were really the
+brain power of the Indian people, the Kchatryas its armed hands, the
+Vaisyas the food-growers, and the Sudras the down-trodden serfs. When
+the Brahmans had established their power, they made a wise use of it.
+From the ancient Vedic times they recognized that if they were to
+exercise spiritual supremacy, they must renounce earthly pomp. In
+arrogating the priestly function, they gave up all claim to the royal
+office. They were divinely appointed to be the guides of nations and the
+counsellors of kings, but they could not be kings themselves. As the
+duty of the Sudra was to serve, of the Vaisya to till the ground and
+follow middle-class trades or crafts; so the business of the Kchatryas
+was to fight the public enemy, and of the Brahman to propitiate the
+national gods.</p>
+
+<p>Each day brought to the Brahmans its routine of ceremonies, studies, and
+duties. Their whole life was mapped out into four clearly defined stages
+of discipline. For their existence, in its full religious significance,
+commenced not at birth, but on being invested at the close of childhood
+with the sacred thread of the Twice-born. Their youth and early manhood
+were to be entirely spent in learning the Veda by heart from an older
+Brahman, tending the sacred fire, and serving their <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>preceptor. Having
+completed his long studies, the young Brahman entered on the second
+stage of his life, as a householder. He married, and commenced a course
+of family duties. When he had reared a family, and gained a practical
+knowledge of the world, he retired into the forest as a recluse, for the
+third period of his life; feeding on roots or fruits, practising his
+religious duties with increased devotion. The fourth stage was that of
+the ascetic or religious mendicant, wholly withdrawn from earthly
+affairs, and striving to attain a condition of mind which, heedless of
+the joys, or pains, or wants of the body, is intent only on its final
+absorption into the deity. The Brahman, in this fourth stage of his
+life, ate nothing but what was given to him unasked, and abode not more
+than one day in any village, lest the vanities of the world should find
+entrance into his heart. This was the ideal life prescribed for a
+Brahman, and ancient Indian literature shows that it was to a large
+extent practically carried out. Throughout his whole existence the true
+Brahman practised a strict temperance; drinking no wine, using a simple
+diet, curbing the desires; shut off from the tumults of war, as his
+business was to pray, not to fight, and having his thoughts ever fixed
+on study and contemplation. "What is this world?" says a Brahman sage.
+"It is even as the bough of a tree, on which a bird rests for a night,
+and in the morning flies away."</p>
+
+<p>The Brahmans, therefore, were a body of men who, in an early stage of
+this world's history, bound themselves by a rule of life the essential
+precepts of which were self-culture and self-restraint. The Brahmans of
+the present India are the result of 3000 years of hereditary education
+and temperance; and they have evolved a type of mankind quite distinct
+from the surrounding population. Even the passing traveller in India
+marks them out, alike from the bronze-cheeked, large-limbed,
+leisure-loving Rajput or Kchatryas, the warrior caste of Aryan descent;
+and from the dark-skinned, flat-nosed, thick-lipped low castes of
+non-Aryan origin, with their short bodies and bullet heads. The Brahman
+stands apart from both, tall and slim, with finely-modelled lips and
+nose, fair complexion, high forehead, and slightly cocoanut shaped
+skull&mdash;the man of self-centred refinement. He is an example of a class
+becoming the <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>ruling power in a country, not by force of arms, but by
+the vigor of hereditary culture and temperance. One race has swept
+across India after another, dynasties have risen and fallen, religions
+have spread themselves over the land and disappeared. But since the dawn
+of history the Brahman has calmly ruled; swaying the minds and receiving
+the homage of the people, and accepted by foreign nations as the highest
+type of Indian mankind. The position which the Brahmans won resulted in
+no small measure from the benefits which they bestowed. For their own
+Aryan countrymen they developed a noble language and literature. The
+Brahmans were not only the priests and philosophers, but also the
+lawgivers, the men of science and the poets of their race. Their
+influence on the aboriginal peoples, the hill and forest races of India,
+was even more important. To these rude remnants of the flint and stone
+ages they brought in ancient times a knowledge of the metals and the
+gods.</p>
+
+<p>As a social league, Hinduism arranged the people into the old division
+of the "Twice-born" Aryan castes, namely, the Brahmans, Kchatryas,
+Vaisyas; and the "Once-born" castes, consisting of the non-Aryan Sudras
+and the classes of mixed descent. This arrangement of the Indian races
+remains to the present day. The "Twice-born" castes still wear the
+sacred thread, and claim a joint, although an unequal, inheritance in
+the holy books of the Veda. The "Once-born" castes are still denied the
+sacred thread; and they were not allowed to study the holy books, until
+the English set up schools in India for all classes of the people. But
+while caste is thus founded on the distinctions of race, it has been
+influenced by two other systems of division, namely, the employments of
+the people, and the localities in which they live. Even in the oldest
+times, the castes had separate occupations assigned to them. They could
+be divided either into Brahmans, Kchatryas, Vaisyas, and Sudras; or into
+priests, warriors, husbandmen, and serfs. They are also divided
+according to the parts of India in which they live. Even the Brahmans
+have among themselves ten distinct classes, or rather nations. Five of
+these classes or Brahman nations live to the north of the Vindhya
+mountains; five of them live to the south. Each of the ten feels itself
+to be quite apart <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>from the rest; and they have among themselves no
+fewer than 1886 subdivisions or separate Brahmanical tribes. In like
+manner, the Kchatryas or Rajputs number 590 separate tribes in different
+parts of India.</p>
+
+<p>While, therefore, Indian caste seems at first a very simple arrangement
+of the people into four classes, it is in reality a very complex one.
+For it rests upon three distinct systems of division: namely, upon race,
+occupation, and geographical position. It is very difficult even to
+guess at the number of the Indian castes. But there are not fewer than
+3,000 of them which have separate names, and which regard themselves as
+separate classes. The different castes cannot intermarry with each
+other, and most of them cannot eat together. The ordinary rule is that
+no Hindu of good caste can touch food cooked by a man of inferior caste.
+By rights, too, each caste should keep to its own occupation. Indeed,
+there has been a tendency to erect every separate kind of employment or
+handicraft in each separate province into a distinct caste. But, as a
+matter of practice, the castes often change their occupation, and the
+lower ones sometimes raise themselves in the social scale. Thus the
+Vaisya caste were in ancient times the tillers of the soil. They have in
+most provinces given up this toilsome occupation, and the Vaisyas are
+now the great merchants and bankers of India. Their fair skins,
+intelligent faces, and polite bearing must have altered since the days
+when their forefathers ploughed, sowed, and reaped under the hot sun.
+Such changes of employment still occur on a smaller scale throughout
+India.</p>
+
+<p>The system of caste exercises a great influence upon the industries of
+the people. Each caste is, in the first place, a trade-guild. It insures
+the proper training of the youth of its own special craft; it makes
+rules for the conduct of the caste-trade; it promotes good feeling by
+feasts or social gatherings. The famous manufactures of medi&aelig;val India,
+its muslins, silks, cloth of gold, inlaid weapons, and exquisite work in
+precious stones&mdash;were brought to perfection under the care of the castes
+or trade-guilds. Such guilds may still be found in full work in many
+parts of India, Thus, in the northwestern districts of Bombay all heads
+of artisan families are ranged under their proper trade-guild. The
+trade-guild or caste prevents undue <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>competition among the members, and
+upholds the interest of its own body in any dispute arising with other
+craftsmen.</p>
+
+<p>In 1873, for example, a number of the bricklayers in Ahmadabad could not
+find work. Men of this class sometimes added to their daily wages by
+rising very early in the morning, and working overtime. But when several
+families complained that they could not get employment, the bricklayers'
+guild met, and decided that as there was not enough work for all, no
+member should be allowed to work in extra hours. In the same city, the
+cloth dealers in 1872 tried to cut down the wages of the sizers or men
+who dress the cotton cloth. The sizers' guild refused to work at lower
+rates, and remained six weeks on strike. At length they arranged their
+dispute, and both the trade-guilds signed a stamped agreement fixing the
+rates for the future. Each of the higher castes or trade-guilds in
+Ahmadabad receives a fee from young men on entering their business. The
+revenue derived from these fees, and from fines upon members who break
+caste rules, is spent in feasts to the brethren of the guild, and in
+helping the poorer craftsmen or their orphans. A favorite plan of
+raising money in Surat is for the members of the trade to keep a certain
+day as a holiday, and to shut up all their shops except one. The right
+to keep open this one shop is put up to auction, and the amount bid is
+expended on a feast. The trade-guild or caste allows none of its members
+to starve. It thus acts as a mutual assurance society and takes the
+place of a poor-law in India. The severest social penalty which can be
+inflicted upon a Hindu is to be put out of his caste.</p>
+
+<p>Hinduism is, however, not only a social league resting upon caste&mdash;it is
+also a religious alliance based upon worship. As the various race
+elements of the Indian people have been welded into caste, so the simple
+old beliefs of the Veda, the mild doctrines of Buddha, and the fierce
+rites of the non-Aryan tribes, have been thrown into the melting-pot,
+and poured out thence as a mixture of precious metal and dross, to be
+worked up into the complex worship of the Hindu gods.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Translated from the French by Chauncey C.
+Starkweather.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> English.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="FALL_OF_TROY" id="FALL_OF_TROY"></a>FALL OF TROY</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 1184</h3>
+
+<h3><i>GEORGE GROTE</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The siege of Troy is an event not to be reckoned as history,
+although Herodotus, the "Father of History," speaks of it as such,
+and it would be quite impossible to understand the history and
+character of the Greek people without a study of the <i>Iliad</i> and
+<i>Odyssey</i> poems attributed to "a blind bard of Scio's
+isle"&mdash;immortal Homer. The campaign of the Greek heroes in Asia is
+to be referred to a hazy point in the past when Europe was just
+beginning to have an Eastern Question. A vast circle of tales and
+poems has gathered round this mythical event, and the <i>Iliad</i>&mdash;Song
+of Ilium, or Troy&mdash;is still a poem of unfailing interest and
+fascination.</p>
+
+<p>Ilium, or Troy, was a city of Asia Minor, a little south of the
+Hellespont. It was the centre of a powerful state, Grecian in race
+and language; and when Paris, son of King Priam, visited Sparta and
+carried off the beautiful wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, all the
+heroes of Greece banded together and invaded Priam's dominions.</p>
+
+<p>The twelve hundred ships that sailed for Troy transported one
+hundred thousand warriors to the valley of Simois and Scamander.
+Among them was Agamemnon, "king of men," brother of Menelaus. He
+was the leader, and in his train were Achilles, "swift of foot";
+"god-like, wise" Ulysses, King of Ithaca, the two Ajaxes, and the
+aged Nestor. The narrative of their adventures is told in the
+Homeric poems with a power of musical expression, a charm of
+language, and a vividness of imagery unsurpassed in poetry.</p>
+
+<p>For ten years the besiegers encircled the city of Priam. After many
+engagements and single combats on "the windy plain of Troy" the
+great hero of the Greeks, Achilles of Thessaly, is wronged by
+Agamemnon, who carries away Briseis, a fair captive girl allotted
+as the spoils of war to the "Swift-footed." The hero of Thessaly
+thenceforth refuses to join in the war, and sullenly shuts himself
+up in his tent. It is only when his dear friend Patroclus has been
+slain by the valiant Hector, eldest son of Priam, that he sallies
+forth, meets Hector in single combat, and finally slays him.
+Achilles then attaches the body of Hector to his chariot and
+insultingly trails it in the dust as he drives three times around
+the walls of Troy. The <i>Iliad</i> closes with the funeral rites
+celebrated over the corpse of Hector.</p></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>We now arrive at the capital and culminating point of the Grecian
+epic&mdash;the two sieges and captures of Troy, with the destinies of the
+dispersed heroes, Trojan as well as Grecian, after the second and most
+celebrated capture and destruction of the city.</p>
+
+<p>It would require a large volume to convey any tolerable idea of the vast
+extent and expansion of this interesting fable, first handled by so many
+poets, epic, lyric, and tragic, with their endless additions,
+transformations, and contradictions,&mdash;then purged and recast by
+historical inquirers, who, under color of setting aside the
+exaggerations of the poets, introduced a new vein of prosaic
+invention,&mdash;lastly, moralized and allegorized by philosophers. In the
+present brief outline of the general field of Grecian legend, or of that
+which the Greeks believed to be their antiquities, the Trojan war can be
+regarded as only one among a large number of incidents upon which
+Hecat&aelig;us and Herodotus looked back as constituting their fore-time.
+Taken as a special legendary event, it is, indeed, of wider and larger
+interest than any other, but it is a mistake to single it out from the
+rest as if it rested upon a different and more trustworthy basis. I
+must, therefore, confine myself to an abridged narrative of the current
+and leading facts; and amid the numerous contradictory statements which
+are to be found respecting every one of them, I know no better ground of
+preference than comparative antiquity, though even the oldest tales
+which we possess&mdash;those contained in the <i>Iliad</i>&mdash;evidently presuppose
+others of prior date.</p>
+
+<p>The primitive ancestor of the Trojan line of kings is Dardanus, son of
+Zeus, founder and eponymus of Dardania: in the account of later authors,
+Dardanus was called the son of Zeus by Electra, daughter of Atlas, and
+was further said to have come from Samothrace, or from Arcadia, or from
+Italy; but of this Homer mentions nothing. The first Dardanian town
+founded by him was in a lofty position on the descent of Mount Ida; for
+he was not yet strong enough to establish himself on the plain. But his
+son Erichthonius, by the favor of Zeus, became the wealthiest of
+mankind. His flocks and herds having multiplied, he had in his pastures
+three thousand mares, the offspring of some of whom, by Boreas, produced
+horses of pre<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>ternatural swiftness. Tros, the son of Erichthonius, and
+the eponym of the Trojans, had three sons&mdash;Ilus, Assaracus, and the
+beautiful Ganymedes, whom Zeus stole away to become his cup-bearer in
+Olympus, giving to his father Tros, as the price of the youth, a team of
+immortal horses.</p>
+
+<p>From Ilus and Assaracus the Trojan and Dardanian lines diverge; the
+former passing from Ilus to Laomedon, Priam, and Hector; the latter from
+Assaracus to Capys, Anchises, and &AElig;neas. Ilus founded in the plain of
+Troy the holy city of Ilium; Assaracus and his descendants remained
+sovereigns of Dardania.</p>
+
+<p>It was under the proud Laomedon, son of Ilus, that Poseidon and Apollo
+underwent, by command of Zeus, a temporary servitude; the former
+building the walls of the town, the latter tending the flocks and herds.
+When their task was completed and the penal period had expired, they
+claimed the stipulated reward; but Laomedon angrily repudiated their
+demand, and even threatened to cut off their ears, to tie them hand and
+foot, and to sell them in some distant island as slaves. He was punished
+for this treachery by a sea-monster, whom Poseidon sent to ravage his
+fields and to destroy his subjects. Laomedon publicly offered the
+immortal horses given by Zeus to his father Tros, as a reward to any one
+who would destroy the monster. But an oracle declared that a virgin of
+noble blood must be surrendered to him, and the lot fell upon Hesione,
+daughter of Laomedon himself. Heracles, arriving at this critical
+moment, killed the monster by the aid of a fort built for him by Athene
+and the Trojans, so as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people;
+but Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal horses in
+place of the matchless animals which had been promised. Thus defrauded
+of his due, Heracles equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy, and
+killed Laomedon, giving Hesione to his friend and auxiliary Telamon, to
+whom she bore the celebrated archer Teucros. A painful sense of this
+expedition was preserved among the inhabitants of the historical town of
+Ilium, who offered no worship to Heracles.</p>
+
+<p>Among all the sons of Laomedon, Priam was the only one who had
+remonstrated against the refusal of the well-earned <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>guerdon of
+Heracles; for which the hero recompensed him by placing him on the
+throne. Many and distinguished were his sons and daughters, as well by
+his wife Hecuba, daughter of Cisseus, as by other women. Among the sons
+were Hector, Paris, Deiphobus, Helenus, Troilus, Polites, Polydorus;
+among the daughters, Laodice, Creusa, Polyxena, and Cassandra.</p>
+
+<p>The birth of Paris was preceded by formidable presage; for Hecuba
+dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand, and Priam, on consulting
+the soothsayers, was informed that the son about to be born would prove
+fatal to him. Accordingly he directed the child to be exposed on Mount
+Ida; but the inauspicious kindness of the gods preserved him; and he
+grew up amid the flocks and herds, active and beautiful, fair of hair
+and symmetrical in person, and the special favorite of Aphrodite.</p>
+
+<p>It was to this youth, in his solitary shepherd's walk on Mount Ida, that
+the three goddesses, Here, Athene, and Aphrodite, were conducted, in
+order that he might determine the dispute respecting their comparative
+beauty, which had arisen at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis,&mdash;a
+dispute brought about in pursuance of the arrangement, and in
+accomplishment of the deep-laid designs of Zeus. For Zeus, remarking
+with pain the immoderate numbers of the then existing heroic race,
+pitied the earth for the overwhelming burden which she was compelled to
+bear, and determined to lighten it by exciting a destructive and
+long-continued war. Paris awarded the palm of beauty to Aphrodite, who
+promised him in recompense the possession of Helen, wife of the Spartan
+Menelaus,&mdash;the daughter of Zeus and the fairest of living women. At the
+instance of Aphrodite, ships were built for him, and he embarked on the
+enterprise so fraught with eventual disaster to his native city, in
+spite of the menacing prophecies of his brother Helenus, and the always
+neglected warnings of Cassandra.</p>
+
+<p>Paris, on arriving at Sparta, was hospitably entertained by Menelaus as
+well as by Castor and Pollux, and was enabled to present the rich gifts
+which he had brought to Helen. Menelaus then departed to Crete, leaving
+Helen to entertain his Trojan guest&mdash;a favorable moment, which was
+employed by Aphrodite to bring about the intrigue and the elopement.
+Paris carried away with him both Helen and a large sum of money
+be<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>longing to Menelaus, made a prosperous voyage to Troy, and arrived
+there safely with his prize on the third day.</p>
+
+<p>Menelaus, informed by Iris in Crete of the perfidious return made by
+Paris for his hospitality, hastened home in grief and indignation to
+consult with his brother Agamemnon, as well as with the venerable
+Nestor, on the means of avenging the outrage. They made known the event
+to the Greek chiefs around them, among whom they found universal
+sympathy; Nestor, Palamedes, and others went round to solicit aid in a
+contemplated attack of Troy, under the command of Agamemnon, to whom
+each chief promised both obedience and unwearied exertion until Helen
+should be recovered. Ten years were spent in equipping the expedition.
+The goddesses Here and Athene, incensed at the preference given by Paris
+to Aphrodite, and animated by steady attachment to Argos, Sparta, and
+Mycen&aelig;, took an active part in the cause, and the horses of Here were
+fatigued with her repeated visits to the different parts of Greece.</p>
+
+<p>By such efforts a force was at length assembled at Aulis in Boeotia,
+consisting of 1,186 ships and more than one hundred thousand men&mdash;a
+force outnumbering by more than ten to one anything that the Trojans
+themselves could oppose, and superior to the defenders of Troy even with
+all her allies included. It comprised heroes with their followers from
+the extreme points of Greece&mdash;from the northwestern portions of Thessaly
+under Mount Olympus, as well as the western islands of Dulichium and
+Ithaca, and the eastern islands of Crete and Rhodes. Agamemnon himself
+contributed 100 ships manned with the subjects of his kingdom Mycen&aelig;,
+besides furnishing 60 ships to the Arcadians, who possessed none of
+their own. Menelaus brought with him 60 ships, Nestor from Pylus, 90,
+Idomeneus from Crete and Diomedes from Argos, 80 each. Forty ships were
+manned by the Elians, under four different chiefs; the like number under
+Meges from Dulichium and the Echinades, and under Thoas from Calydon and
+the other &AElig;tolian towns. Odysseus from Ithaca, and Ajax from Salamis,
+brought 12 ships each. The Abantes from Euboea, under Elphenor, filled
+40 vessels; the Boeotians, under Peneleos and Leitus, 50; the
+inhabitants of Orchomenus and Aspledon, 30; the light-armed <a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>Locrians,
+under Ajax son of Oileus, 40; the Phocians as many. The Athenians, under
+Menestheus, a chief distinguished for his skill in marshalling an army,
+mustered 50 ships; the Myrmidons from Phthia and Hellas, under Achilles,
+assembled in 50 ships; Protesilaus from Phylace and Pyrasus, and
+Eurypylus from Ormenium, each came with 40 ships; Machaon and
+Podaleirius, from Trikka, with 30; Eumelus, from Pher&aelig; and the lake
+Boebeis, with 11; and Philoctetes from Meliboea with 7; the Lapith&aelig;,
+under Polypoetes, son of Peirithous, filled 40 vessels, the &AElig;nianes and
+Perrh&aelig;bians, under Guneus, 22; and the Magnetes, under Prothous, 40;
+these last two were from the northernmost parts of Thessaly, near the
+mountains Pelion and Olympus. From Rhodes, under Tlepolemus, son of
+Heracles, appeared 9 ships; from Syme, under the comely but effeminate
+Nireus, 3; from Cos, Crapathus, and the neighboring islands, 30, under
+the orders of Pheidippus and Antiphus, sons of Thessalus and grandsons
+of Heracles.</p>
+
+<p>Among this band of heroes were included the distinguished warriors Ajax
+and Diomedes, and the sagacious Nestor; while Agamemnon himself,
+scarcely inferior to either of them in prowess, brought with him a high
+reputation for prudence in command. But the most marked and conspicuous
+of all were Achilles and Odysseus; the former a beautiful youth born of
+a divine mother, swift in the race, of fierce temper and irresistible
+might; the latter not less efficient as an ally, from his eloquence, his
+untiring endurance, his inexhaustible resources under difficulty, and
+the mixture of daring courage with deep-laid cunning which never
+deserted him: the blood of the arch-deceiver Sisyphus, through an
+illicit connection with his mother Anticleia, was said to flow in his
+veins, and he was especially patronized and protected by the goddess
+Athene. Odysseus, unwilling at first to take part in the expedition, had
+even simulated insanity; but Palamedes, sent to Ithaca to invite him,
+tested the reality of his madness by placing in the furrow where
+Odysseus was ploughing his infant son Telemachus. Thus detected,
+Odysseus could not refuse to join the Ach&aelig;an host, but the prophet
+Halitherses predicted to him that twenty years would elapse before he
+revisited his native land. To Achilles the gods had promised the full
+effulgence of heroic <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>glory before the walls of Troy; nor could the
+place be taken without both his co&ouml;peration and that of his son after
+him. But they had forewarned him that this brilliant career would be
+rapidly brought to a close; and that if he desired a long life, he must
+remain tranquil and inglorious in his native land. In spite of the
+reluctance of his mother Thetis he preferred few years with bright
+renown, and joined the Ach&aelig;an host. When Nestor and Odysseus came to
+Phthia to invite him, both he and his intimate friend Patroclus eagerly
+obeyed the call.</p>
+
+<p>Agamemnon and his powerful host set sail from Aulis; but being ignorant
+of the locality and the direction, they landed by mistake in Teuthrania,
+a part of Mysia near the river Caicus, and began to ravage the country
+under the persuasion that it was the neighborhood of Troy. Telephus, the
+king of the country, opposed and repelled them, but was ultimately
+defeated and severely wounded by Achilles. The Greeks, now discovering
+their mistake, retired; but their fleet was dispersed by a storm and
+driven back to Greece. Achilles attacked and took Scyrus, and there
+married Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomedes. Telephus, suffering from
+his wounds, was directed by the oracle to come to Greece and present
+himself to Achilles to be healed, by applying the scrapings of the spear
+with which the wound had been given; thus restored, he became the guide
+of the Greeks when they were prepared to renew their expedition.</p>
+
+<p>The armament was again assembled at Aulis, but the goddess Artemis,
+displeased with the boastful language of Agamemnon, prolonged the
+duration of adverse winds, and the offending chief was compelled to
+appease her by the well-known sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia. They
+then proceeded to Tenedos, from whence Odysseus and Menelaus were
+dispatched as envoys to Troy, to redemand Helen and the stolen property.
+In spite of the prudent counsels of Antenor, who received the two
+Grecian chiefs with friendly hospitality, the Trojans rejected the
+demand, and the attack was resolved upon. It was foredoomed by the gods
+that the Greek who first landed should perish: Protesilaus was generous
+enough to put himself upon this forlorn hope, and accordingly fell by
+the hand of Hector.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the Trojans had assembled a large body of <a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>allies from
+various parts of Asia Minor and Thrace: Dardanians under &AElig;neas, Lycians
+under Sarpedon, Mysians, Carians, M&aelig;onians, Alizonians, Phrygians,
+Thracians, and P&aelig;onians. But vain was the attempt to oppose the landing
+of the Greeks: the Trojans were routed, and even the invulnerable
+Cyncus, son of Poseidon, one of the great bulwarks of the defense, was
+slain by Achilles. Having driven the Trojans within their walls,
+Achilles attacked and stormed Lyrnessus, Pedasus, Lesbos, and other
+places in the neighborhood, twelve towns on the sea-coast, and eleven in
+the interior: he drove off the oxen of &AElig;neas and pursued the hero
+himself, who narrowly escaped with his life: he surprised and killed the
+youthful Troilus, son of Priam, and captured several of the other sons,
+whom he sold as prisoners into the islands of the &AElig;gean. He acquired as
+his captive the fair Briseis, while Chryseis was awarded to Agamemnon;
+he was, moreover, eager to see the divine Helen, the prize and stimulus
+of this memorable struggle; and Aphrodite and Thetis contrived to bring
+about an interview between them.</p>
+
+<p>At this period of the war the Grecian army was deprived of Palamedes,
+one of its ablest chiefs. Odysseus had not forgiven the artifice by
+which Palamedes had detected his simulated insanity, nor was he without
+jealousy of a rival clever and cunning in a degree equal, if not
+superior, to himself; one who had enriched the Greeks with the invention
+of letters of dice for amusement of night-watches as well as with other
+useful suggestions. According to the old Cyprian epic, Palamedes was
+drowned while fishing by the hands of Odysseus and Diomedes. Neither in
+the <i>Iliad</i> nor the <i>Odyssey</i> does the name of Palamedes occur; the
+lofty position which Odysseus occupies in both those poems&mdash;noticed with
+some degree of displeasure even by Pindar, who described Palamedes as
+the wiser man of the two&mdash;is sufficient to explain the omission. But in
+the more advanced period of the Greek mind, when intellectual
+superiority came to acquire a higher place in the public esteem as
+compared with military prowess, the character of Palamedes, combined
+with his unhappy fate, rendered him one of the most interesting
+personages in the Trojan legend. &AElig;schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides each
+consecrated to him a special tragedy; but the mode <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>of his death as
+described in the old epic was not suitable to Athenian ideas, and
+accordingly he was represented as having been falsely accused of treason
+by Odysseus, who caused gold to be buried in his tent, and persuaded
+Agamemnon and the Grecian chiefs that Palamedes had received it from the
+Trojans. He thus forfeited his life, a victim to the calumny of Odysseus
+and to the delusion of the leading Greeks. The philosopher Socrates, in
+the last speech made to his Athenian judges, alludes with solemnity and
+fellow-feeling to the unjust condemnation of Palamedes as analogous to
+that which he himself was about to suffer; and his companions seem to
+have dwelt with satisfaction on the comparison. Palamedes passed for an
+instance of the slanderous enmity and misfortune which so often wait
+upon superior genius.</p>
+
+<p>In these expeditions the Grecian army consumed nine years, during which
+the subdued Trojans dared not give battle without their walls for fear
+of Achilles. Ten years was the fixed epical duration of the siege of
+Troy, just as five years was the duration of the siege of Camicus by the
+Cretan armament which came to avenge the death of Minos: ten years of
+preparation, ten years of siege, and ten years of wandering for Odysseus
+were periods suited to the rough chronological dashes of the ancient
+epic, and suggesting no doubts nor difficulties with the original
+hearers. But it was otherwise when the same events came to be
+contemplated by the historicizing Greeks, who could not be satisfied
+without either finding or inventing satisfactory bonds of coherence
+between the separate events. Thucydides tells us that the Greeks were
+less numerous than the poets have represented, and that being, moreover,
+very poor, they were unable to procure adequate and constant provisions:
+hence they were compelled to disperse their army, and to employ a part
+of it in cultivating the Chersonese&mdash;a part in marauding expeditions
+over the neighborhood. Could the whole army have been employed against
+Troy at once (he says), the siege would have been much more speedily and
+easily concluded. If the great historian could permit himself thus to
+amend the legend in so many points, we might have imagined that a
+simpler course would have been to include the duration of the siege
+among the list of poetical exaggerations <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>and to affirm that the real
+siege had lasted only one year instead of ten. But it seems that the ten
+years' duration was so capital a feature in the ancient tale that no
+critic ventured to meddle with it.</p>
+
+<p>A period of comparative intermission, however, was now at hand for the
+Trojans. The gods brought about the memorable fit of anger of Achilles,
+under the influence of which he refused to put on his armor, and kept
+his Myrmidons in camp. According to the <i>Cypria</i> this was the behest of
+Zeus, who had compassion on the Trojans: according to the <i>Iliad</i>,
+Apollo was the originating cause, from anxiety to avenge the injury
+which his priest Chryses had endured from Agamemnon. For a considerable
+time, the combats of the Greeks against Troy were conducted without
+their best warrior, and severe, indeed, was the humiliation which they
+underwent in consequence. How the remaining Grecian chiefs vainly strove
+to make amends for his absence&mdash;how Hector and the Trojans defeated and
+drove them to their ships&mdash;how the actual blaze of the destroying flame,
+applied by Hector to the ship of Protesilaus, roused up the anxious and
+sympathizing Patroclus, and extorted a reluctant consent from Achilles
+to allow his friend and his followers to go forth and avert the last
+extremity of ruin&mdash;how Achilles, when Patroclus had been killed by
+Hector, forgetting his anger in grief for the death of his friend,
+re&euml;ntered the fight, drove the Trojans within their walls with immense
+slaughter, and satiated his revenge both upon the living and the dead
+Hector,&mdash;all these events have been chronicled, together with those
+divine dispensations on which most of them are made to depend, in the
+immortal verse of the <i>Iliad</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Homer breaks off with the burial of Hector, whose body has just been
+ransomed by the disconsolate Priam; while the lost poem of Arctinus,
+entitled the <i>&AElig;thiopis</i>, so far as we can judge from the argument still
+remaining of it, handled only the subsequent events of the siege. The
+poem of Quintus Smyrn&aelig;us, composed about the fourth century of the
+Christian era, seems in its first books to coincide with <i>&AElig;thiopis</i>, in
+the subsequent books partly with the <i>Ilias Minor</i> of Lesches.</p>
+
+<p>The Trojans, dismayed by the death of Hector, were again animated with
+hope by the appearance of the warlike and beau<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>tiful queen of the
+Amazons, Penthesilia, daughter of Ares, hitherto invincible in the
+field, who came to their assistance from Thrace at the head of a band of
+her country-women. She again led the besieged without the walls to
+encounter the Greeks in the open field; and under her auspices the
+latter were at first driven back, until she, too, was slain by the
+invincible arm of Achilles. The victor, on taking off the helmet of his
+fair enemy as she lay on the ground, was profoundly affected and
+captivated by her charms, for which he was scornfully taunted by
+Thersites; exasperated by this rash insult, he killed Thersites on the
+spot with a blow of his fist. A violent dispute among the Grecian chiefs
+was the result, for Diomedes, the kinsman of Thersites, warmly resented
+the proceeding; and Achilles was obliged to go to Lesbos, where he was
+purified from the act of homicide by Odysseus.</p>
+
+<p>Next arrived Memnon, son of Tithonus and Eos, the most stately of living
+men, with a powerful band of black Ethiopians, to the assistance of
+Troy. Sallying forth against the Greeks, he made great havoc among them:
+the brave and popular Antilochus perished by his hand, a victim to
+filial devotion in defence of Nestor. Achilles at length attacked him,
+and for a long time the combat was doubtful between them: the prowess of
+Achilles and the supplication of Thetis with Zeus finally prevailed;
+while Eos obtained for her vanquished son the consoling gift of
+immortality. His tomb, however, was shown near the Propontis, within a
+few miles of the mouth of the river &AElig;sopus, and was visited annually by
+the birds called Memnonides, who swept it and bedewed it with water from
+the stream. So the traveller Pausanias was told, even in the second
+century after the Christian era, by the Hellespontine Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>But the fate of Achilles himself was now at hand. After routing the
+Trojans and chasing them into the town, he was slain near the Sc&aelig;an gate
+by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the unerring
+auspices of Apollo. The greatest efforts were made by the Trojans to
+possess themselves of the body, which was, however, rescued and borne
+off to the Grecian camp by the valor of Ajax and Odysseus. Bitter was
+the grief of Thetis for the loss of her son; she came into the camp with
+the Muses and the Nereids to mourn over him; and when a <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>magnificent
+funeral-pile had been prepared by the Greeks to burn him with every mark
+of honor, she stole away the body and conveyed it to a renewed and
+immortal life in the island of Leuce in the Euxine Sea. According to
+some accounts he was there blest with the nuptials and company of Helen.</p>
+
+<p>Thetis celebrated splendid funeral games in honor of her son, and
+offered the unrivalled panoply which Heph&aelig;stus had forged and wrought
+for him as a prize to the most distinguished warrior in the Grecian
+army. Odysseus and Ajax became rivals for the distinction, when Athene,
+together with some Trojan prisoners, who were asked from which of the
+two their country had sustained greatest injury, decided in favor of the
+former. The gallant Ajax lost his senses with grief and humiliation: in
+a fit of frenzy he slew some sheep, mistaking them for the men who had
+wronged him, and then fell upon his own sword.</p>
+
+<p>Odysseus now learned from Helenus, son of Priam, whom he had captured in
+an ambuscade, that Troy could not be taken unless both Philoctetes and
+Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, could be prevailed upon to join the
+besiegers. The former, having been stung in the foot by a serpent, and
+becoming insupportable to the Greeks from the stench of his wound, had
+been left at Lemnos in the commencement of the expedition, and had spent
+ten years in misery on that desolate island; but he still possessed the
+peerless bow and arrows of Heracles, which were said to be essential to
+the capture of Troy. Diomedes fetched Philoctetes from Lemnos to the
+Grecian camp, where he was healed by the skill of Machaon, and took an
+active part against the Trojans&mdash;engaging in single combat with Paris,
+and killing him with one of the Heracleian arrows. The Trojans were
+allowed to carry away for burial the body of this prince, the fatal
+cause of all their sufferings; but not until it had been mangled by the
+hand of Menelaus. Odysseus went to the island of Scyros to invite
+Neoptolemus to the army. The untried but impetuous youth, gladly obeying
+the call, received from Odysseus his father's armor; while, on the other
+hand, Eurypylus, son of Telephus, came from Mysia as auxiliary to the
+Trojans and rendered to them valuable service turning the tide of
+fortune for a time against the Greeks, and <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>killing some of their
+bravest chiefs, among whom were numbered Peneleos, and the unrivalled
+leech Machaon. The exploits of Neoptolemus were numerous, worthy of the
+glory of his race and the renown of his father. He encountered and slew
+Eurypylus, together with numbers of the Mysian warriors: he routed the
+Trojans and drove them within their walls, from whence they never again
+emerged to give battle: and he was not less distinguished for good sense
+and persuasive diction than for forward energy in the field.</p>
+
+<p>Troy, however, was still impregnable so long as the Palladium, a statue
+given by Zeus himself to Dardanus, remained in the citadel; and great
+care had been taken by the Trojans not only to conceal this valuable
+present, but to construct other statues so like it as to mislead any
+intruding robber. Nevertheless, the enterprising Odysseus, having
+disguised his person with miserable clothing and self-inflicted
+injuries, found means to penetrate into the city and to convey the
+Palladium by stealth away. Helen alone recognized him; but she was now
+anxious to return to Greece, and even assisted Odysseus in concerting
+means for the capture of the town.</p>
+
+<p>To accomplish this object, one final stratagem was resorted to. By the
+hands of Epeius of Panopeus, and at the suggestion of Athene, a
+capacious hollow wooden horse was constructed, capable of containing one
+hundred men. In the inside of this horse the elite of the Grecian
+heroes, Neoptolemus, Odysseus, Menelaus, and others, concealed
+themselves while the entire Grecian army sailed away to Tenedos, burning
+their tents and pretending to have abandoned the siege. The Trojans,
+overjoyed to find themselves free, issued from the city and contemplated
+with astonishment the fabric which their enemies had left behind. They
+long doubted what should be done with it; and the anxious heroes from
+within heard the surrounding consultations, as well as the voice of
+Helen when she pronounced their names and counterfeited the accents of
+their wives. Many of the Trojans were anxious to dedicate it to the gods
+in the city as a token of gratitude for their deliverance; but the more
+cautious spirits inculcated distrust of an enemy's legacy. Laocoon, the
+priest of Poseidon, manifested his aversion by striking the side of the
+horse with his spear.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>The sound revealed that the horse was hollow, but the Trojans heeded
+not this warning of possible fraud. The unfortunate Laocoon, a victim to
+his own sagacity and patriotism, miserably perished before the eyes of
+his countrymen, together with one of his sons: two serpents being sent
+expressly by the gods out of the sea to destroy him. By this terrific
+spectacle, together with the perfidious counsels of Simon&mdash;a traitor
+whom the Greeks had left behind for the special purpose of giving false
+information&mdash;the Trojans were induced to make a breach in their own
+walls, and to drag the fatal fabric with triumph and exultation into
+their city.</p>
+
+<p>The destruction of Troy, according to the decree of the gods, was now
+irrevocably sealed. While the Trojans indulged in a night of riotous
+festivity, Simon kindled the fire-signal to the Greeks at Tenedos,
+loosening the bolts of the wooden horse, from out of which the enclosed
+heroes descended. The city, assailed both from within and from without,
+was thoroughly sacked and destroyed, with the slaughter or captivity of
+the larger portion of its heroes as well as its people. The venerable
+Priam perished by the hand of Neoptolemus, having in vain sought shelter
+at the domestic altar of Zeus Herceius. But his son Deiphobus, who since
+the death of Paris had become the husband of Helen, defended his house
+desperately against Odysseus and Menelaus, and sold his life dearly.
+After he was slain, his body was fearfully mutilated by the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was Troy utterly destroyed&mdash;the city, the altars and temples, and
+the population. &AElig;neas and Antenor were permitted to escape, with their
+families, having been always more favorably regarded by the Greeks than
+the remaining Trojans. According to one version of the story they had
+betrayed the city to the Greeks: a panther's skin had been hung over the
+door of Antenor's house as a signal for the victorious besiegers to
+spare it in general plunder. In the distribution of the principal
+captives, Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, was cast from the top of
+the wall and killed by Odysseus or Neoptolemus: Polyxena, the daughter
+of Priam, was immolated on the tomb of Achilles, in compliance with a
+requisition made by the shade of the deceased hero to his countrymen;
+while her sister Cassandra was presented as a prize to Agamemnon. She
+had <a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>sought sanctuary at the altar of Athene, where Ajax, the son of
+Oileus, making a guilty attempt to seize her, had drawn both upon
+himself and upon the army the serious wrath of the goddess, insomuch
+that the Greeks could hardly be restrained from stoning him to death.
+Andromache and Helenus were both given to Neoptolemus, who, according to
+the <i>Ilias Minor</i>, carried away also &AElig;neas as his captive.</p>
+
+<p>Helen gladly resumed her union with Menelaus; she accompanied him back
+to Sparta, and lived with him there many years in comfort and dignity,
+passing afterward to a happy immortality in the Elysian fields. She was
+worshipped as a goddess, with her brothers, the Dioscuri, and her
+husband, having her temple, statue, and altar at Therapn&aelig; and elsewhere.
+Various examples of her miraculous intervention were cited among the
+Greeks. The lyric poet Stesichorus had ventured to denounce her,
+conjointly with her sister Clytemnestra, in a tone of rude and
+plain-spoken severity, resembling that of Euripides and Lycophron
+afterward, but strikingly opposite to the delicacy and respect with
+which she is always handled by Homer, who never admits reproaches
+against her except from her own lips. He was smitten with blindness, and
+made sensible of his impiety; but, having repented and composed a
+special poem formally retracting the calumny, was permitted to recover
+his sight. In his poem of recantation (the famous <i>Palinode</i> now
+unfortunately lost) he pointedly contradicted the Homeric narrative,
+affirming that Helen had never been at Troy at all, and that the Trojans
+had carried thither nothing but her image or <i>eidolon</i>. It is, probably,
+to the excited religious feelings of Stesichorus that we owe the first
+idea of this glaring deviation from the old legend, which could never
+have been recommended by any considerations of poetical interest.</p>
+
+<p>Other versions were afterward started, forming a sort of compromise
+between Homer and Stesichorus, admitting that Helen had never really
+been at Troy, without altogether denying her elopement. Such is the
+story of her having been detained in Egypt during the whole term of the
+siege. Paris, on his departure from Sparta, had been driven thither by
+storms, and the Egyptian king Proteus, hearing of the grievous wrong
+which he had committed toward Menelaus, had sent him away <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>from the
+country with severe menaces, detaining Helen until her lawful husband
+should come to seek her. When the Greeks reclaimed Helen from Troy, the
+Trojans assured them solemnly that she neither was nor ever had been in
+the town; but the Greeks, treating this allegation as fraudulent,
+prosecuted the siege until their ultimate success confirmed the
+correctness of the statement. Menelaus did not recover Helen until, on
+his return from Troy, he visited Egypt. Such was the story told by the
+Egyptian priests to Herodotus, and it appeared satisfactory to his
+historicizing mind. "For if Helen had really been at Troy," he argues,
+"she would certainly have been given up, even had she been mistress of
+Priam himself instead of Paris: the Trojan king, with all his family and
+all his subjects, would never knowingly have incurred utter and
+irretrievable destruction for the purpose of retaining her: their
+misfortune was that, while they did not possess and therefore could not
+restore her, they yet found it impossible to convince the Greeks that
+such was the fact." Assuming the historical character of the war of
+Troy, the remark of Herodotus admits of no reply; nor can we greatly
+wonder that he acquiesced in the tale of Helen's Egyptian detention, as
+a substitute for the "incredible insanity" which the genuine legend
+imputes to Priam and the Trojans. Pausanias, upon the same ground and by
+the same mode of reasoning, pronounced that the Trojan horse must have
+been, in point of fact, a battering-engine, because to admit the literal
+narrative would be to impute utter childishness to the defenders of the
+city. And Mr. Payne Knight rejects Helen altogether as the real cause of
+the Trojan war, though she may have been the pretext of it; for he
+thinks that neither the Greeks nor the Trojans could have been so mad
+and silly as to endure calamities of such magnitude "for one little
+woman." Mr. Knight suggests various political causes as substitutes;
+these might deserve consideration, either if any evidence could be
+produced to countenance them, or if the subject on which they are
+brought to bear could be shown to belong to the domain of history.</p>
+
+<p>The return of the Grecian chiefs from Troy furnished matter to the
+ancient epic hardly less copious than the siege itself, and the more
+susceptible of indefinite diversity, inasmuch as <a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>those who had before
+acted in concert were now dispersed and isolated. Moreover, the stormy
+voyages and compulsory wanderings of the heroes exactly fell in with the
+common aspirations after an heroic founder, and enabled even the most
+remote Hellenic settlers to connect the origin of their town with this
+prominent event of their ante-historical and semi-divine world. And an
+absence of ten years afforded room for the supposition of many domestic
+changes in their native abode, and many family misfortunes and misdeeds
+during the interval. One of these historic "Returns," that of Odysseus,
+has been immortalized by the verse of Homer. The hero, after a series of
+long protracted suffering and expatriation inflicted on him by the anger
+of Poseidon, at last reaches his native island, but finds his wife
+beset, his youthful son insulted, and his substance plundered by a troop
+of insolent suitors; he is forced to appear as a wretched beggar, and to
+endure in his own person their scornful treatment; but finally, by the
+interference of Athene coming in aid of his own courage and stratagem,
+he is enabled to overwhelm his enemies, to resume his family position,
+and to recover his property. The return of several other Grecian chiefs
+was the subject of an epic poem by Hagias which is now lost, but of
+which a brief abstract or argument still remains: there were in
+antiquity various other poems of similar title and analogous matter.</p>
+
+<p>As usual with the ancient epic, the multiplied sufferings of this back
+voyage are traced to divine wrath, justly provoked by the sins of the
+Greeks, who, in the fierce exultation of a victory purchased by so many
+hardships, had neither respected nor even spared the altars of the gods
+in Troy. Athene, who had been their most zealous ally during the siege,
+was so incensed by their final recklessness, more especially by the
+outrage of Ajax, son of Oileus, that she actively harassed and
+embittered their return, in spite of every effort to appease her. The
+chiefs began to quarrel among themselves; their formal assembly became a
+scene of drunkenness; even Agamemnon and Menelaus lost their fraternal
+harmony, and each man acted on his own separate resolution.
+Nevertheless, according to the <i>Odyssey</i>, Nestor, Diomedes, Neoptolemus,
+Idomeneus, and Philoctetes reached home speedily and safely; Agamemnon
+also arrived in <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>Peloponnesus, to perish by the hand of a treacherous
+wife; but Menelaus was condemned to long wanderings and to the severest
+privations in Egypt, Cyprus, and elsewhere before he could set foot in
+his native land. The Locrian Ajax perished on the Gyr&aelig;an rock. Though
+exposed to a terrible storm, he had already reached this place of
+safety, when he indulged in the rash boast of having escaped in defiance
+of the gods. No sooner did Poseidon hear this language than he struck
+with his trident the rock which Ajax was grasping and precipitated both
+into the sea. Calchas, the soothsayer, together with Leonteus and
+Polypoetes, proceeded by land from Troy to Colophon.</p>
+
+<p>In respect, however, to these and other Grecian heroes, tales were told
+different from those in the <i>Odyssey</i>, assigning to them a long
+expatriation and a distant home. Nestor went to Italy, where he founded
+Metapontum, Pisa, and Heracleia: Philoctetes also went to Italy, founded
+Petilia and Crimisa, and sent settlers to Egesta in Sicily. Neoptolemus,
+under the advice of Thetis, marched by land across Thrace, met with
+Odysseus, who had come by sea, at Maroneia, and then pursued his journey
+to Epirus, where he became king of the Molossians. Idomeneus came to
+Italy, and founded Uria in the Salentine peninsula. Diomedes, after
+wandering far and wide, went along the Italian coast into the innermost
+Adriatic gulf, and finally settled in Daunia, founding the cities of
+Argyrippa, Beneventum, Atria, and Diomedeia: by the favor of Athene he
+became immortal, and was worshipped as a god in many different places.
+The Locrian followers of Ajax founded the Epizephyrian Locri on the
+southernmost corner of Italy, besides another settlement in Libya.</p>
+
+<p>The previously exiled Teucros, besides founding the city of Salamis in
+Cyprus, is said to have established some settlements in the Iberian
+peninsula. Menestheus, the Athenian, did the like, and also founded both
+El&aelig;a in Mysia and Scylletium in Italy. The Arcadian chief Agapenor
+founded Paphos in Cyprus. Epius, of Panopeus in Phocis, the constructor
+of the Trojan horse with the aid of the goddess Athene, settled at
+Lagaria, near Sybaris, on the coast of Italy; and the very tools which
+he had employed in that remarkable fabric were shown down to a late date
+in the temple of Athene at Metapontum.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>Temples, altars, and towns were also pointed out in Asia Minor, in
+Samos, and in Crete, the foundation of Agamemnon or of his followers.
+The inhabitants of the Grecian town of Scione, in the Thracian peninsula
+called Pallene or Pellene, accounted themselves the offspring of the
+Pellenians from Ach&aelig;a in Peloponnesus, who had served under Agamemnon
+before Troy, and who on their return from the siege had been driven on
+the spot by a storm and there settled. The Pamphylians, on the southern
+coast of Asia Minor, deduced their origin from the wanderings of
+Amphilochus and Calchas after the siege of Troy: the inhabitants of the
+Amphilochian Argos on the Gulf of Ambracia revered the same Amphilochus
+as their founder. The Orchomenians under Iamenus, on quitting the
+conquered city, wandered or were driven to the eastern extremity of the
+Euxine Sea; and the barbarous Ach&aelig;ans under Mount Caucasus were supposed
+to have derived their first establishment from this source. Meriones,
+with his Cretan followers, settled at Engyion in Sicily, along with the
+preceding Cretans who had remained there after the invasion of Minos.
+The Elymians in Sicily also were composed of Trojans and Greeks
+separately driven to the spot, who, forgetting their previous
+differences, united in the joint settlements of Eryx and Egesta. We hear
+of Podalerius both in Italy and on the coast of Caria; of Acamas, son of
+Theseus, at Amphipolus in Thrace, at Soli in Cyprus, and at Synnada in
+Phrygia; of Guneus, Prothous, and Eurypylus, in Crete as well as in
+Libya. The obscure poem of Lycophron enumerates many of these dispersed
+and expatriated heroes, whose conquest of Troy was indeed a "Cadmean"
+victory (according to the proverbial phrase of the Greeks), wherein the
+sufferings of the victor were little inferior to those of the
+vanquished. It was particularly among the Italian Greeks, where they
+were worshipped with very special solemnity, that their presence as
+wanderers from Troy was reported and believed.</p>
+
+<p>I pass over the numerous other tales which circulated among the
+ancients, illustrating the ubiquity of the Grecian and Trojan heroes as
+well as that of the Argonauts&mdash;one of the most striking features in the
+Hellenic legendary world. Among them all, the most interesting,
+individually, is Odysseus, whose romantic adventures in fabulous places
+and among fabulous <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>persons have been made familiarly known by Homer.
+The goddesses Calypso and Circe; the semi-divine mariners of Ph&aelig;acia,
+whose ships are endowed with consciousness and obey without a steersman;
+the one-eyed Cyclopes, the gigantic L&aelig;strygones, and the wind-ruler
+&AElig;olus; the Sirens, who ensnare by their song, as the Lotophagi fascinate
+by their food,&mdash;all these pictures formed integral and interesting
+portions of the old epic. Homer leaves Odysseus re&euml;stablished in his
+house and family. But so marked a personage could never be permitted to
+remain in the tameness of domestic life; the epic poem called the
+<i>Telegonia</i> ascribed to him a subsequent series of adventures.
+Telegonus, his son by Circe, coming to Ithaca in search of his father,
+ravaged the island and killed Odysseus without knowing who he was.
+Bitter repentance overtook the son for his undesigned parricide: at his
+prayer and by the intervention of his mother Circe, both Penelope and
+Telemachus were made immortal: Telegonus married Penelope, and
+Telemachus married Circe.</p>
+
+<p>We see by this poem that Odysseus was represented as the mythical
+ancestor of the Thesprotian kings, just as Neoptolemus was of the
+Molossian.</p>
+
+<p>It has already been mentioned that Antenor and &AElig;neas stand distinguished
+from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam and a sympathy
+with the Greeks, which was by Sophocles and others construed as
+treacherous collusion,&mdash;a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though
+emphatically repelled, by the &AElig;neas of Vergil. In the old epic of
+Arctinus, next in age to the <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i>, &AElig;neas abandons Troy
+and retires to Mount Ida, in terror at the miraculous death of Laocoon,
+before the entry of the Greeks into the town and the last night battle:
+yet Lesches, in another of the ancient epic poems, represented him as
+having been carried away captive by Neoptolemus. In a remarkable passage
+of the <i>Iliad</i>, Poseidon describes the family of Priam as having
+incurred the hatred of Zeus, and predicts that &AElig;neas and his descendants
+shall reign over the Trojans: the race of Dardanus, beloved by Zeus more
+than all his other sons, would thus be preserved, since &AElig;neas belonged
+to it. Accordingly, when &AElig;neas is in imminent peril from the hands of
+Achilles, Poseidon specially interferes to rescue him, <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>and even the
+implacable miso-Trojan goddess Here assents to the proceeding. These
+passages have been construed by various able critics to refer to a
+family of philo-Hellenic or semi-Hellenic &AElig;nead&aelig;, known even in the time
+of the early singers of the <i>Iliad</i> as masters of some territory in or
+near the Troad, and professing to be descended from, as well as
+worshipping, &AElig;neas. In the town of Scepsis, situated in the mountainous
+range of Ida, about thirty miles eastward of Ilium, there existed two
+noble and priestly families who professed to be descended, the one from
+Hector, the other from &AElig;neas. The Scepsian critic Demetrius (in whose
+time both these families were still to be found) informs us that
+Scamandrius, son of Hector, and Ascanius, son of &AElig;neas, were the
+<i>archegets</i> or heroic founders of his native city, which had been
+originally situated on one of the highest ranges of Ida, and was
+subsequently transferred by them to the less lofty spot on which it
+stood in his time. In Arisbe and Gentinus there seem to have been
+families professing the same descent, since the same <i>archegets</i> were
+acknowledged. In Ophrynium, Hector had his consecrated edifice, while in
+Ilium both he and &AElig;neas were worshipped as gods: and it was the
+remarkable statement of the Lesbian Menecrates that &AElig;neas, "having been
+wronged by Paris and stripped of the sacred privileges which belonged to
+him, avenged himself by betraying the city, and then became one of the
+Greeks."</p>
+
+<p>One tale thus among many respecting &AElig;neas, and that, too, the most
+ancient of all, preserved among natives of the Troad, who worshipped him
+as their heroic ancestor, was that after the capture of Troy he
+continued in the country as king of the remaining Trojans, on friendly
+terms with the Greeks. But there were other tales respecting him, alike
+numerous and irreconcilable: the hand of destiny marked him as a
+wanderer (<i>fato profugus</i>) and his ubiquity is not exceeded even by that
+of Odysseus. We hear of him at &AElig;nus in Thrace, in Pallene, at &AElig;neia in
+the Thermaic Gulf, in Delos, at Orchomenus and Mantineia in Arcadia, in
+the islands of Cythera and Zacynthus, in Leucas and Ambracia, at
+Buthrotum in Epirus, on the Salentine peninsula and various other places
+in the southern region of Italy; at Drepana and Segesta in Sicily, at
+Carthage, at Cape Palinurus, Cum&aelig;, Misenum, Caieta, and finally in
+La<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>tium, where he lays the first humble foundation of the mighty Rome
+and her empire. And the reason why his wanderings were not continued
+still further was, that the oracles and the pronounced will of the gods
+directed him to settle in Latium. In each of these numerous places his
+visit was commemorated and certified by local monuments or special
+legends, particularly by temples and permanent ceremonies in honor of
+his mother Aphrodite, whose worship accompanied him everywhere: there
+were also many temples and many different tombs of &AElig;neas himself. The
+vast ascendancy acquired by Rome, the ardor with which all the literary
+Romans espoused the idea of a Trojan origin, and the fact that the
+Julian family recognized &AElig;neas as their gentile primary ancestor,&mdash;all
+contributed to give to the Roman version of this legend the
+preponderance over every other. The various other places in which
+monuments of &AElig;neas were found came thus to be represented as places
+where he had halted for a time on his way from Troy to Latium. But
+though the legendary pretensions of these places were thus eclipsed in
+the eyes of those who constituted the literary public, the local belief
+was not extinguished; they claimed the hero as their permanent property,
+and his tomb was to them a proof that he had lived and died among them.</p>
+
+<p>Antenor, who shares with &AElig;neas the favorable sympathy of the Greeks, is
+said by Pindar to have gone from Troy along with Menelaus and Helen into
+the region of Cyrene in Libya. But according to the more current
+narrative, he placed himself at the head of a body of Eneti or Veneti
+from Paphlagonia, who had come as allies of Troy, and went by sea into
+the inner part of the Adriatic Gulf, where he conquered the neighboring
+barbarians and founded the town of Patavium (the modern Padua); the
+Veneti in this region were said to owe their origin to his immigration.
+We learn further from Strabo that Opsicellas, one of the companions of
+Antenor, had continued his wanderings even into Iberia, and that he had
+there established a settlement bearing his name. Thus endeth the Trojan
+war, together with its sequel, the dispersion of the heroes, victors as
+well as vanquished.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="ACCESSION_OF_SOLOMON" id="ACCESSION_OF_SOLOMON"></a>ACCESSION OF SOLOMON</h2>
+
+<h2>BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 1017</h3>
+
+<h3><i>HENRY HART MILMAN</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>After many weary years of travail and fighting in the wilderness
+and the land of Canaan, the Jews had at last founded their kingdom,
+with Jerusalem as the capital. Saul was proclaimed the first king;
+afterward followed David, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah." During
+the many wars in which the Israelites had been engaged, the Ark of
+the Covenant was the one thing in which their faith was bound. No
+undertaking could fail while they retained possession of it.</p>
+
+<p>In their wanderings the tabernacle enclosing the precious ark was
+first erected before the dwellings for the people. It had been
+captured by the Philistines, then restored to the Hebrews, and
+became of greater veneration than before. It will be remembered
+that, among other things, it contained the rod of Aaron which
+budded and was the cause of his selection as high-priest. It also
+contained the tables of stone which bore the Ten Commandments.</p>
+
+<p>David desired to build a fitting shrine, a temple, in which to
+place the Ark of the Covenant; it should be a place wherein the
+people could worship; a centre of religion in which the ark should
+have paid it the distinction due it as the seat of tremendous
+majesty.</p>
+
+<p>But David had been a man of war; this temple was a place of peace.
+Blood must not stain its walls; no shedder of gore could be its
+architect. Yet David collected stone, timber, and precious metals
+for its erection; and, not being allowed to erect the temple
+himself, was permitted to depute that office to his son and
+successor, "Solomon the Wise."</p>
+
+<p>At this time all the enemies of Israel had been conquered, the
+country was at peace; the domain of the Hebrews was greater than at
+any other time, before or afterward. It was the fitting time for
+the erection of a great shrine to enclose the sacred ark. Nobly was
+this done, and no human work of ancient or modern times has so
+impressed mankind as the building of Solomon's Temple.</p></div>
+
+<p>Solomon succeeded to the Hebrew kingdom at the age of twenty. He was
+environed by designing, bold, and dangerous enemies. The pretensions of
+Adonijah still commanded a powerful party: Abiathar swayed the
+priesthood; Joab the <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>army. The singular connection in public opinion
+between the title to the crown and the possession of the deceased
+monarch's harem is well understood.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Adonijah, in making request for
+Abishag, a youthful concubine taken by David in his old age, was
+considered as insidiously renewing his claims to the sovereignty.
+Solomon saw at once the wisdom of his father's dying admonition: he
+seized the opportunity of crushing all future opposition and all danger
+of a civil war. He caused Adonijah to be put to death; suspended
+Abiathar from his office, and banished him from Jerusalem: and though
+Joab fled to the altar, he commanded him to be slain for the two murders
+of which he had been guilty, those of Abner and Amasa. Shimei, another
+dangerous man, was commanded to reside in Jerusalem, on pain of death if
+he should quit the city. Three years afterward he was detected in a
+suspicious journey to Gath, on the Philistine border; and having
+violated the compact, he suffered the penalty.</p>
+
+<p>Thus secured by the policy of his father from internal enemies, by the
+terror of his victories from foreign invasion, Solomon commenced his
+peaceful reign, during which Judah and Israel dwelt safely, <i>Every man
+under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba</i>. This
+peace was broken only by a revolt of the Edomites. Hadad, of the royal
+race, after the exterminating war waged by David and by Joab, had fled
+to Egypt, where he married the sister of the king's wife. No sooner had
+he heard of the death of David and of Joab than he returned, and seems
+to have kept up a kind of predatory warfare during the reign of Solomon.
+Another adventurer, Rezon, a subject of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, seized
+on Damascus, and maintained a great part of Syria in hostility to
+Solomon.</p>
+
+<p>Solomon's conquest of Hamath Zobah in a later part of his reign, after
+which he built Tadmor in the wilderness and raised a line of fortresses
+along his frontier to the Euphrates, is probably connected with these
+hostilities.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> The justice of Solomon was proverbial. Among his first
+acts after his accession, it is related that when he had offered a
+costly sacrifice at Gibeon, the place where the Tabernacle remained, God
+had appeared <a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>to him in a dream, and offered him whatever gift he chose:
+the wise king requested an understanding heart to judge the people. God
+not merely assented to his prayer, but added the gift of honor and
+riches. His judicial wisdom was displayed in the memorable history of
+the two women who contested the right to a child. Solomon, in the wild
+spirit of Oriental justice, commanded the infant to be divided before
+their faces: the heart of the real mother was struck with terror and
+abhorrence, while the false one consented to the horrible partition, and
+by this appeal to nature the cause was instantaneously decided.</p>
+
+
+<p>The internal government of his extensive dominions next demanded the
+attention of Solomon. Besides the local and municipal governors, he
+divided the kingdom into twelve districts: over each of these he
+appointed a purveyor for the collection of the royal tribute, which was
+received in kind; and thus the growing capital and the immense
+establishments of Solomon were abundantly furnished with provisions.
+Each purveyor supplied the court for a month. The daily consumption of
+his household was three hundred bushels of finer flour, six hundred of a
+coarser sort; ten fatted, twenty other oxen; one hundred sheep; besides
+poultry, and various kinds of venison. Provender was furnished for forty
+thousand horses, and a great number of dromedaries. Yet the population
+of the country did not, at first at least, feel these burdens: <i>Judah
+and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude,
+eating and drinking, and making merry</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The foreign treaties of Solomon were as wisely directed to secure the
+profound peace of his dominions. He entered into a matrimonial alliance
+with the royal family of Egypt, whose daughter he received with great
+magnificence; and he renewed the important alliance with the king of
+Tyre.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> The friendship of this monarch was of the highest value in
+contributing to the <a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>great royal and national work, the building of the
+Temple. The cedar timber could only be obtained from the forests of
+Lebanon: the Sidonian artisans, celebrated in the Homeric poems, were
+the most skilful workmen in every kind of manufacture, particularly in
+the precious metals.</p>
+
+<p>Solomon entered into a regular treaty, by which he bound himself to
+supply the Tyrians with large quantities of corn; receiving in return
+their timber, which was floated down to Joppa, and a large body of
+artificers. The timber was cut by his own subjects, of whom he raised a
+body of thirty thousand; ten thousand employed at a time, and relieving
+each other every month; so that to one month of labor they had two of
+rest. He raised two other corps, one of seventy thousand porters of
+burdens, the other of eighty thousand hewers of stone, who were employed
+in the quarries among the mountains. All these labors were thrown, not
+on the Israelites, but on the strangers who, chiefly of Canaanitish
+descent, had been permitted to inhabit the country.</p>
+
+<p>These preparations, in addition to those of King David, being completed,
+the work began. The eminence of Moriah, the Mount of Vision, <i>i.e.</i>, the
+height seen afar from the adjacent country, which tradition pointed out
+as the spot where Abraham had offered his son (where recently the plague
+had been stayed, by the altar built in the threshing-floor of Ornan or
+Araunah, the Jebusite), rose on the east side of the city. Its rugged
+top was levelled with immense labor; its sides, which to the east and
+south were precipitous, were faced with a wall of stone, built up
+perpendicular from the bottom of the valley, so as to appear to those
+who looked down of most terrific height; a work of prodigious skill and
+labor, as the immense stones were strongly mortised together and wedged
+into the rock. Around the whole area or esplanade, an irregular
+quadrangle, was a solid wall of considerable height and strength: within
+this was an open court, into which the Gentiles were either from the
+first, or subsequently, admitted. A second wall encompassed another
+quadrangle, called the court of the Israelites. Along this wall, on the
+inside, ran a portico or cloister, over which were chambers for
+different sacred purposes. Within this again another, probably a lower,
+wall <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>separated the court of the priests from that of the Israelites. To
+each court the ascent was by steps, so that the platform of the inner
+court was on a higher level than that of the outer.</p>
+
+<p>The Temple itself was rather a monument of the wealth than the
+architectural skill and science of the people. It was a wonder of the
+world from the splendor of its materials, more than the grace, boldness,
+or majesty of its height and dimensions. It had neither the colossal
+magnitude of the Egyptian, the simple dignity and perfect proportional
+harmony of the Grecian, nor perhaps the fantastic grace and lightness of
+later Oriental architecture. Some writers, calling to their assistance
+the visionary temple of Ezekiel, have erected a most superb edifice; to
+which there is this fatal objection, that if the dimensions of the
+prophet are taken as they stand in the text, the area of the Temple and
+its courts would not only have covered the whole of Mount Moriah, but
+almost all Jerusalem. In fact our accounts of the Temple of Solomon are
+altogether unsatisfactory. The details, as they now stand in the books
+of Kings and Chronicles, the only safe authorities, are unscientific,
+and, what is worse, contradictory.</p>
+
+<p>Josephus has evidently blended together the three temples, and
+attributed to the earlier all the subsequent additions and alterations.
+The Temple, on the whole, was an enlargement of the tabernacle, built of
+more costly and durable materials. Like its model, it retained the
+ground-plan and disposition of the Egyptian, or rather of almost all the
+sacred edifices of antiquity: even its measurements are singularly in
+unison with some of the most ancient temples in Upper Egypt. It
+consisted of a propyl&aelig;on, a temple, and a sanctuary; called respectively
+the Porch, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Yet in some respects,
+if the measurements are correct, the Temple must rather have resembled
+the form of a simple Gothic church.</p>
+
+<p>In the front to the east stood the porch, a tall tower, rising to the
+height of 210 feet. Either within, or, like the Egyptian obelisks,
+before the porch, stood two pillars of brass; by one account 27, by
+another above 60 feet high, the latter statement probably including
+their capitals and bases. These were called <a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>Jachin and Boaz (Durability
+and Strength).<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> The capitals of these were of the richest
+workmanship, with net-work, chain-work, and pomegranates. The porch was
+the same width with the Temple, 35 feet; its depth 17-1/2. The length of
+the main building, including the Holy Place, 70 feet, and the Holy of
+Holies, 35, was in the whole 105 feet; the height 52-1/2 feet.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p>Josephus carries the whole building up to the height of the porch; but
+this is out of all credible proportion, making the height twice the
+length and six times the width. Along each side, and perhaps at the back
+of the main building, ran an aisle, divided into three stories of small
+chambers: the wall of the Temple being thicker at the bottom, left a
+rest to support the beams of these chambers, which were not let into the
+wall. These aisles, the chambers of which were appropriated as
+vestiaries, treasuries, and for other sacred purposes, seem to have
+reached about half way up the main wall of what we may call the nave and
+choir: the windows into the latter were probably above them; these were
+narrow, but widened inward.</p>
+
+<p>If the dimensions of the Temple appear by no means imposing, it must be
+remembered that but a small part of the religious ceremonies took place
+within the walls. The Holy of Holies was entered only once a year, and
+that by the High-priest alone. It was the secret and unapproachable
+shrine of the Divinity. The Holy Place, the body of the Temple, admitted
+only the officiating priests. The courts, called in popular language the
+Temple, or rather the inner quadrangle, <a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>were in fact the great place of
+divine worship. Here, under the open air, were celebrated the great
+public and national rites, the processions, the offerings, the
+sacrifices; here stood the great tank for ablution, and the high altar
+for burnt-offerings.</p>
+
+<p>But the costliness of the materials, the richness and variety of the
+details, amply compensated for the moderate dimensions of the building.
+It was such a sacred edifice as a traveller might have expected to find
+in El Dorado. The walls were of hewn stone, faced within with cedar
+which was richly carved with knosps and flowers; the ceiling was of
+fir-tree. But in every part gold was lavished with the utmost profusion;
+within and without, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in short, the
+whole house is described as overlaid with gold. The finest and
+purest&mdash;that of Parvaim, by some supposed to be Ceylon&mdash;was reserved for
+the sanctuary. Here the cherubim, which stood upon the covering of the
+Ark, with their wings touching each wall, were entirely covered with
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>The sumptuous veil, of the richest materials and brightest colors, which
+divided the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place was suspended on chains
+of gold. Cherubim, palm-trees, and flowers, the favorite ornaments,
+everywhere covered with gilding, were wrought in almost all parts. The
+altar within the Temple and the table of shewbread were likewise covered
+with the same precious metal. All the vessels, the ten candlesticks,
+five hundred basins, and all the rest of the sacrificial and other
+utensils, were of solid gold. Yet the Hebrew writers seem to dwell with
+the greatest astonishment and admiration on the works which were founded
+in brass by Huram, a man of Jewish extraction, who had learned his art
+at Tyre.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the lofty pillars above mentioned, there was a great tank,
+called a sea, of molten brass, supported on twelve oxen, three turned
+each way; this was seventeen and one-half feet in diameter. There was
+also a great altar, and ten large vessels for the purpose of ablution,
+called lavers, standing on bases or pedestals, the rims of which were
+richly ornamented with a border, on which were wrought figures of lions,
+oxen, and cherubim. The bases below were formed of four wheels, like
+those of a chariot. All the works in brass were cast in a place <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>near
+the Jordan, where the soil was of a stiff clay suited to the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>For seven years and a half the fabric arose in silence. All the timbers,
+the stones, even of the most enormous size, measuring seventeen and
+eighteen feet, were hewn and fitted, so as to be put together without
+the sound of any tool whatever; as it has been expressed, with great
+poetical beauty:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric grew."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At the end of this period, the Temple and its courts being completed,
+the solemn dedication took place, with the greatest magnificence which
+the king and the nation could display. All the chieftains of the
+different tribes, and all of every order who could be brought together,
+assembled.</p>
+
+<p>David had already organized the priesthood and the Levites; and assigned
+to the thirty-eight thousand of the latter tribe each his particular
+office; twenty-four thousand were appointed for the common duties, six
+thousand as officers, four thousand as guards and porters, four thousand
+as singers and musicians. On this great occasion, the Dedication of the
+Temple, all the tribe of Levi, without regard to their courses, the
+whole priestly order of every class, attended. Around the great brazen
+altar, which rose in the court of the priests before the door of the
+Temple, stood in front the sacrificers, all around the whole choir,
+arrayed in white linen. One hundred and twenty of these were trumpeters,
+the rest had cymbals, harps, and psalteries. Solomon himself took his
+place on an elevated scaffold, or raised throne of brass. The whole
+assembled nation crowded the spacious courts beyond. The ceremony began
+with the preparation of burnt-offerings, so numerous that they could not
+be counted.</p>
+
+<p>At an appointed signal commenced the more important part of the scene,
+the removal of the Ark, the installation of the God of Israel in his new
+and appropriate dwelling, to the sound of all the voices and all the
+instruments, chanting some of those splendid odes, the 47th, 97th, 98th,
+and 107th psalms. The Ark advanced, borne by the Levites, to the open
+portals of the Temple. It can scarcely be doubted that the 24th psalm,
+even if composed before, was adopted and used on this occasion</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>The singers, as it drew near the gate, broke out in these words:&mdash;<i>Lift
+up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors,
+and the King of Glory shall come in</i>. It was answered from the other
+part of the choir,&mdash;<i>Who is the King of Glory?</i>&mdash;the whole choir
+responded,&mdash;<i>The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of Glory</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When the procession arrived at the Holy Place, the gates flew open; when
+it reached the Holy of Holies, the veil was drawn back. The Ark took its
+place under the extended wings of the cherubim, which might seem to fold
+over, and receive it under their protection. At that instant all the
+trumpeters and singers were at once <i>to make one sound to be heard in
+praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice,
+with the trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of music, and praised
+the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth forever, the
+house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that the
+priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the
+glory of the Lord had filled the house of God</i>. Thus the Divinity took
+possession of his sacred edifice.</p>
+
+<p>The king then rose upon the brazen scaffold, knelt down, and spreading
+his hands toward heaven, uttered the prayer of consecration. The prayer
+was of unexampled sublimity: while it implored the perpetual presence of
+the Almighty, as the tutelar Deity and Sovereign of the Israelites, it
+recognized his spiritual and illimitable nature. <i>But will God in very
+deed dwell with men on the earth? behold heaven and the heaven of
+heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have
+built?</i> It then recapitulated the principles of the Hebrew theocracy,
+the dependence of the national prosperity and happiness on the national
+conformity to the civil and religious law. As the king concluded in
+these emphatic terms:&mdash;<i>Now, therefore, arise, O Lord God, into thy
+resting-place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord
+God, be clothed with salvation, and thy saints rejoice in goodness. O
+Lord God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies
+of David thy servant,</i>&mdash;cloud which had rested over the Holy of Holies
+grew brighter and more dazzling; fire broke out and consumed all the
+sacrifices; the priests stood without, awe-struck by the insupportable
+splendor; the whole people fell on <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>their faces, and worshipped and
+praised the Lord, <i>for he is good, for his mercy is forever</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Which was the greater, the external magnificence, or the moral sublimity
+of this scene? Was it the Temple, situated on its commanding eminence,
+with all its courts, the dazzling splendor of its materials, the
+innumerable multitudes, the priesthood in their gorgeous attire, the
+king, with all the insignia of royalty, on his throne of burnished
+brass, the music, the radiant cloud filling the Temple, the sudden fire
+flashing upon the altar, the whole nation upon their knees? Was it not
+rather the religious grandeur of the hymns and of the prayer: the
+exalted and rational views of the Divine Nature, the union of a whole
+people in the adoration of the one Great, Incomprehensible, Almighty,
+Everlasting Creator?</p>
+
+<p>This extraordinary festival, which took place at the time of that of
+Tabernacles, lasted for two weeks, twice the usual time: during this
+period twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand
+sheep were sacrificed,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> every individual probably contributing to
+this great propitiatory rite; and the whole people feasting on those
+parts of the sacrifices which were not set apart for holy uses.</p>
+
+<p>Though the chief magnificence of Solomon was lavished on the Temple of
+God, yet the sumptuous palaces which he erected for his own residence
+display an opulence and profusion which may vie with the older monarchs
+of Egypt or Assyria. The great palace stood in Jerusalem; it occupied
+thirteen years in building. A causeway bridged the deep ravine, and
+leading directly to the Temple, united the part either of Acra or Sion,
+on which the palace stood, with Mount Moriah.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>In this palace was a vast hall for public business, from its cedar
+pillars called the House of the Forest of Lebanon. It was 175 feet long,
+half that measurement in width, above 50 feet high; four rows of cedar
+columns supported a roof made of beams of the same wood; there were
+three rows of windows on each side facing each other. Besides this great
+hall, there were two others, called porches, of smaller dimensions, in
+one of which the throne of justice was placed. The harem, or women's
+apartments, adjoined to these buildings; with other piles of vast extent
+for different purposes, particularly, if we may credit Josephus, a great
+banqueting hall.</p>
+
+<p>The same author informs us that the whole was surrounded with spacious
+and luxuriant gardens, and adds a less credible fact, ornamented with
+sculptures and paintings. Another palace was built in a romantic part of
+the country in the valleys at the foot of Lebanon for his wife, the
+daughter of the king of Egypt; in the luxurious gardens of which we may
+lay the scene of that poetical epithalamium,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> or collection of Idyls,
+the Song of Solomon.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> The splendid works of Solomon were not confined
+to royal magnificence and display; they condescended to usefulness. To
+Solomon are traced at least the first channels and courses of the
+natural and artificial water supply which has always enabled Jerusalem
+to maintain its thousands of worshippers at different periods, and to
+endure long and obstinate sieges.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>The descriptions in the Greek writers of the Persian courts in Susa and
+Ecbatana; the tales of the early travellers in the <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>East about the kings
+of Samarcand or Cathay; and even the imagination of the Oriental
+romancers and poets, have scarcely conceived a more splendid pageant
+than Solomon, seated on his throne of ivory, receiving the homage of
+distant princes who came to admire his magnificence, and put to the test
+his noted wisdom.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> This throne was of pure ivory, covered with gold;
+six steps led up to the seat, and on each side of the steps stood twelve
+lions.</p>
+
+<p>All the vessels of his palace were of pure gold, silver was thought too
+mean: his armory was furnished with gold; two hundred targets and three
+hundred shields of beaten gold were suspended in the house of Lebanon.
+Josephus mentions a body of archers who escorted him from the city to
+his country palace, clad in dresses of Tyrian purple, and their hair
+powdered with gold dust. But enormous as this wealth appears, the
+statement of his expenditure on the Temple, and of his annual revenue,
+so passes all credibility, that any attempt at forming a calculation on
+the uncertain data we possess may at once be abandoned as a hopeless
+task. No better proof can be given of the uncertainty of our
+authorities, of our imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew weights of money,
+and, above all, of our total ignorance of the relative value which the
+precious metals bore to the commodities of life, than the estimate, made
+by Dr. Prideaux, of the treasures left by David, amounting to eight
+hundred millions, nearly the capital of our national debt.</p>
+
+<p>Our inquiry into the sources of the vast wealth which Solomon
+undoubtedly possessed may lead to more satisfactory, though still
+imperfect, results. The treasures of David were accumulated rather by
+conquest than by traffic. Some of the nations he subdued, particularly
+the Edomites, were wealthy. All the tribes seem to have worn a great
+deal of gold and silver in their ornaments and their armor; their idols
+were often of gold, and the treasuries of their temples perhaps
+contained considerable wealth. But during the reign of Solomon almost
+the whole commerce of the world passed into his territories. The treaty
+with Tyre was of the utmost importance: nor is there any instance in
+which two neighboring nations so clearly <a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>saw, and so steadily pursued,
+without jealousy or mistrust, their mutual and inseparable
+interests.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+<p>On one occasion only, when Solomon presented to Hiram twenty inland
+cities which he had conquered, Hiram expressed great dissatisfaction,
+and called the territory by the opprobrious name of Cabul. The Tyrian
+had perhaps cast a wistful eye on the noble bay and harbor of Acco, or
+Ptolemais, which the prudent Hebrew either would not, or could
+not&mdash;since it was part of the promised land&mdash;dissever from his
+dominions. So strict was the confederacy, that Tyre may be considered
+the port of Palestine, Palestine the granary of Tyre. Tyre furnished the
+shipbuilders and mariners; the fruitful plains of Palestine victualled
+the fleets, and supplied the manufacturers and merchants of the
+Phoenician league with all the necessaries of life.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> I Kings, i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> I Kings, xi., 23; I Chron., viii., 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> After inserting the correspondence between King Solomon
+and King Hiram of Tyre, according to I Kings, v., Josephus asserts that
+copies of these letters were not only preserved by his countrymen, but
+also in the archives of Tyre. I presume that Josephus adverts to the
+statement of Tyrian historians, not to an actual inspection of the
+archives, which he seems to assert as existing and accessible.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Ewald, following, he says, the Septuagint, makes these
+pillars not standing alone like obelisks before the porch, but as
+forming the front of the porch, with the capitals connected together,
+and supporting a kind of balcony, with ornamental work above it. The
+pillars measured 12 cubits (22 feet) round.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Mr. Fergusson, estimating the cubit rather lower than in
+the text, makes the porch 30 by 15; the pronaos, or Holy Place, 60 by
+30; the Holy of Holies, 30; the height 45 feet. Mr. Fergusson, following
+Josephus, supposes that the whole Temple had an upper story of wood, a
+talar, as appears in other Eastern edifices. I doubt the authority of
+Josephus as to the older Temple, though, as Mr. Fergusson observes, the
+discrepancies between the measurements in Kings and in Chronicles may be
+partially reconciled on this supposition. Mr. Fergusson makes the height
+of the eastern tower only 90 feet. The text followed 2 Chron., iii., 4,
+reckoning the cubit at 1 foot 9 inches.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Gibbon, in one of his malicious notes, observes, "As the
+blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient, Lightfoot,
+the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le Clerc (<i>ad loc.</i>) is
+bold enough to suspect the fidelity of the numbers." To this I ventured
+to subjoin the following illustration: "According to the historian
+Kotobeddyn, quoted by Burckhardt, <i>Travels in Arabia</i>, p. 276, the
+Khalif Moktader sacrificed during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year
+of the Hegira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
+sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
+carcasses given to the poor. Tavernier speaks of one hundred thousand
+victims offered by the king of Tonquin." Gibbon, ch. xxiii., iv., p. 96,
+edit. Milman.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> I here assume that the Song of Solomon was an
+epithalamium. I enter not into the interminable controversy as to the
+literal or allegorical or spiritual meaning of this poem, nor into that
+of its age. A very particular though succinct account of all these
+theories, ancient and modern, may be found in a work by Dr. Ginsberg. I
+confess that Dr. Ginsberg's theory, which is rather tinged with the
+virtuous sentimentality of the modern novel, seems to me singularly out
+of harmony with the Oriental and ancient character of the poem. It is
+adopted, however, though modified, by M. R&eacute;nan.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> According to Ewald, the ivory tower in this poem was
+raised in one of these beautiful "pleasances," in the Anti-Libanus,
+looking toward Hamath.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Ewald: <i>Geschichte</i>, iii., pp. 62-68; a very remarkable
+and valuable passage.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Compare the great Mogul's throne, in Tavernier; that of
+the King of Persia, in Morier.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The very learned work of Movers, <i>Die Ph&ouml;nizier</i> (Bonn,
+1841, Berlin, 1849) contains everything which true German industry and
+comprehensiveness can accumulate about this people. Movers, though in
+such an inquiry conjecture is inevitable, is neither so bold, so
+arbitrary, nor so dogmatic in his conjectures as many of his
+contemporaries. See on Hiram, ii. 326 <i>et seq.</i> Movers is disposed to
+appreciate as of high value the fragments preserved in Josephus of the
+Phoenician histories of Menander and Dios.
+</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kenrick's <i>Phoenicia</i> may also be consulted with advantage.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> To a late period Tyre and Sidon were mostly dependent on
+Palestine for their supply of grain. The inhabitants of these cities
+desired peace with Herod (Agrippa) because their country was nourished
+by the king's country (Acts xii., 20).</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="RISE_AND_FALL_OF_ASSYRIA" id="RISE_AND_FALL_OF_ASSYRIA"></a>RISE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA</h2>
+
+<h2>DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 789</h3>
+
+<h3><i>F. LENORMANT AND E. CHEVALLIER</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Mesopotamia for many centuries was the field of battle for the
+opposing hosts of Babylonia and Assyria, each striving for mastery
+over the other. At first each city had its own prince, but at
+length one of these petty kingdoms absorbed the rest, and Nineveh
+became the capital of a united Assyria. Babylonia had her own
+kings, but they were little more than hereditary satraps receiving
+investiture from Nineveh.</p>
+
+<p>From about B.C. 1060 to 1020 Babylon seems to have recovered the
+upper hand. Her victories put an end to what is known as the First
+Assyrian Empire. After a few generations a new family ascended the
+throne and ultimately founded the Second Assyrian Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The first princes whose figured monuments have come down to us
+belonged to those days. The oldest of all was Assurnizirpal; the
+bas-reliefs with which his palace was decorated are now in the
+British Museum and the Louvre; most of them in the former. His son
+Shalmaneser III, and later Shalmaneser IV, made many campaigns
+against the neighboring peoples, and Assyria became rapidly a great
+and powerful nation. The effeminate Sardanapalus was the last of
+the dynasty.</p>
+
+<p>The capital of Assyria was Nineveh, one of the most famous of
+cities. It was remarkable for extent, wealth, and architectural
+grandeur. Diodorus Siculus says its walls were sixty miles around
+and one hundred feet high. Three chariots could be driven abreast
+around the summit of its walls, which were defended by fifteen
+hundred bastions, each of them two hundred feet in height. These
+dimensions may be exaggerated, but the Hebrew scriptures and recent
+excavations at the ancient site leave no doubt as to the splendor
+of the Assyrian palaces and the greatness of the city of Nineveh in
+population, wealth, and power. In historical times it was destroyed
+by the Medes, under King Cyaxares, and by the Babylonians, under
+Nebuchadnezzar, about B.C. 607.</p>
+
+<p>We are indebted to the monuments, tablets, and "books" recently
+discovered for the history of Assyria and other ancient oriental
+nations. Layard unearthed the greater portion, on the site of
+ancient Nineveh, of the Assyrian "books" (for so are named the
+tablets of clay, sometimes enamelled, at others only sun-dried or
+burnt). The writing on these <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>"books" is the cuneiform, and was
+done by impressing the "style" on the clay while in a waxlike
+condition. Many of the tablets were broken when Layard and
+Rawlinson gave them over to the British Museum. The reconstruction
+of these tablets was undertaken by George Smith, an English
+Assyriologist of the British Museum, who displayed great skill and
+earnest application in the deciphering of the cuneiform text.</p>
+
+<p>In each reign the history of the king and his acts was written by a
+poet or historian detailed to that office. The "books" were
+collected and kept in great libraries, the largest of these being
+made by Sardanapalus.</p></div>
+
+<p>The greater part of the expeditions of Shalmaneser IV, succeeding each
+other year after year, were directed, like those of his father,
+sometimes to the north, into Armenia and Pontus; sometimes to the east,
+into Media, never completely subdued; sometimes to the south, into
+Chald&aelig;a, where revolts were of constant occurrence; and finally
+westward, toward Syria and the region of Amanus. In this direction he
+advanced farther than his predecessors, and came into contact with some
+personages mentioned in Bible history. The part of his annals relating
+to the campaigns that brought him into collision with the kings of
+Damascus and Israel possesses peculiar interest for us, much greater
+than that attaching to the narrative of any other wars.</p>
+
+<p>The sixteenth campaign of Shalmaneser IV (B.C. 890) commenced a new
+series of wars; the King crossed the Zab, or Zabat; to make war on the
+mountain people of Upper Media, and afterward on the Scythian tribes
+around the Caspian Sea. He did not, however, abandon the western
+countries, where he soon found himself opposed by the new King whom the
+revolution arising from the influence of Elisha the prophet had placed
+on the throne of Damascus in the room of Benhidai.</p>
+
+<p>"In my eighteenth campaign" (886), we read on the Nimrud obelisk, "I
+crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth time. Hazael, king of Damascus,
+came toward me to give battle. I took from him eleven hundred and
+twenty-one chariots and four hundred and seventy horsemen, with his
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>"In my nineteenth campaign (885) I crossed the Euphrates for the
+eighteenth time. I marched toward Mount Amanus, and there cut beams of
+cedar.</p>
+
+<p>"In my twenty-first campaign (883) I crossed the Euphrates for the
+twenty-second time. I marched to the cities of Ha<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>zael of Damascus. I
+received tribute from Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus."</p>
+
+<p>It evidently was at the end of this campaign that Jehu, king of Israel,
+whose territory Hazael had ravaged, appealed to Shalmaneser for help
+against his powerful enemy. The inscription on the obelisk says that the
+Assyrian King received tribute from Jehu, whom it names "son of Omri,"
+for the great renown of the founder of Samaria had made the Assyrians
+consider all the kings of Israel as his descendants. One of the
+bas-reliefs of the same monument represents Jehu prostrating himself
+before Shalmaneser, as if acknowledging himself a vassal.</p>
+
+<p>The annals of Shalmaneser say no more after this, either of the king of
+Damascus or of Israel. They record, as his twenty-seventh campaign, a
+great war in Armenia that brought about the submission of all the
+districts of that country that still resisted the Assyrian monarch. In
+the thirty-first campaign (873), the last mentioned on the obelisk, the
+King sent the general-in-chief of his armies, Tartan, again into
+Armenia, where he gave up to pillage fifty cities, among them Van; and
+during this time he himself went into Media, subjected part of the
+northern districts of that country, which were in a state of rebellion,
+chastised the people in the neighborhood of Mount Elwand, where in
+after-times Ecbatana was built, and finally made war on the Scythians of
+the Caspian Sea.</p>
+
+<p>The official chronology of the Assyrians dates the termination of the
+reign of Shalmaneser IV in 870, the period of his death. But during the
+last two years his power was entirely lost, and he was reduced to the
+possession of two cities, Nineveh and Calah. His second son,
+Asshurdaninpal, in consequence of circumstances unknown to us, raised
+the standard of revolt against his father, assumed the royal title, and
+was supported by twenty-seven of the most important cities in the
+empire. One of the monuments has preserved a list of these cities, and
+among them we find Arrapkha, capital of the province of Arrapachitis,
+Amida (now Diarbekr), Arbela, Ellasar, and all the towns of the banks of
+the Tigris. War broke out between the father and his rebellious son; the
+army embraced the cause of the latter; he was recognized by all the
+provinces, <a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>and kept Shalmaneser until his death shut up and closely
+blockaded in his capital.</p>
+
+<p>Shalmaneser died in B.C. 870; his son, Shamash-Bin, continued the
+legitimate line. He succeeded in repressing the revolt of his brother
+Asshurdaninpal and in depriving him of the authority he had usurped. The
+monument recording the exploits of his first years gives no details,
+however, of the civil war; it merely records, after enumerating the
+cities that had joined the revolt of Asshurdaninpal, "With the aid of
+the great gods, my masters, I subjected them to my sceptre."</p>
+
+<p>The usurpation of the second son of Shalmaneser and a civil war of five
+years had introduced many disorders into the empire and shaken the
+fidelity of many provinces. The early years of Shamash-Bin were occupied
+in reducing the whole to order. In the narrative which has been
+preserved, extending only to his fourth year, we find that the King
+overran and chastised with terrible severity Osrhoene or Aram&aelig;an
+Mesopotamia, where the people had been in rebellion, and reduced to
+obedience the mountainous districts, where are the sources of the Tigris
+and Euphrates, and finally Armenia proper. In his fourth year he marched
+against Mardukbalatirib, king of Babylon, who had taken advantage of the
+disorders in Assyria to assert his independence, and who was supported
+by the Susianians or Elamites. He completely defeated him and compelled
+him to fly to the desert, killed very many of his army in the battle,
+took two hundred war chariots, and made seven thousand prisoners, of
+whom five thousand were put to death on the field of battle as an
+example. Unfortunately our information ceases at that period and we know
+absolutely nothing of the greater part of the reign of Shamash-Bin, or
+of the expeditions to the west of Asia, Syria, and Palestine, that must
+have been made after the termination of the campaigns by which the royal
+authority was re&euml;stablished in all the ancient provinces of the empire.
+This King remained on the throne until 857. In 859 and 858 he had to
+repress a great revolt in Babylon and Chald&aelig;a.</p>
+
+<p>Binlikhish [or Binnirari] III, the next king, reigned twenty-nine years,
+from 857 to 828. An inscription of his, engraved in the first years of
+his reign, describing the extent of the em<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>pire, says that he governed
+on one side "From the land of Siluna, toward the rising sun, the
+countries of Elam, Albania (at the foot of Caucasus), Kharkhar,
+Araziash, Misu, Media, Giratbunda (a portion of Atropatene, frequently
+mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions), the lands of Munna, Parsua
+(Parthia), Allabria (Hyrcania), Abdadana (Hecatompyla), Namri (the
+Caspian Scythians), even to all the tribes of the Andiu (a Turanian or
+Scythian people, whose country is far off), the whole of the mountainous
+country as far as the sea of the rising sun, the Caspian Sea; on the
+other side from the Euphrates, Syria, all Phoenicia, the land of Tyre,
+of Sidon, the land of Omri (Samaria), Edom, the Philistines, as far as
+the sea of the setting sun (the Mediterranean)"; on all these countries
+he says that "he imposed tribute."</p>
+
+<p>"I marched," he says again, "against the land of Syria, and I took
+Marih, king of Syria, in Damascus, the city of his kingdom. The great
+dread of Asshur, my master, persuaded him; he embraced my knees and made
+submission."</p>
+
+<p>Binlikhish III was a warlike prince; every year of his reign was marked
+by an expedition. We have a summary of these in a chronological tablet
+in the British Museum, containing a fragment&mdash;from the end of the reign
+of Shamash-Bin to that of Tiglath-pileser II&mdash;of a canon of eponymes
+mentioning the principal events year by year. They nearly all occurred
+in Southern Armenia and in the land of Van, where obedience was only
+maintained by incessant military demonstrations, and subsequently in the
+countries to the north of Media as far as the Caspian Sea. Other
+expeditions were also made as far as Parthia, toward Ariana and the
+various countries that, to the Assyrians, were the extreme East. We do
+not, however, know what that region was called by them, as it is always
+designated by a group of ideographic characters of unknown
+pronunciation. By the defeat of Marih, king of Damascus, the submission
+of the western provinces was secured for the remainder of this reign,
+for there is no record of any other campaign there.</p>
+
+<p>The year 849 was marked by a great plague in Assyria; 834 by a religious
+festival, of which unfortunately no particulars are known; and, lastly,
+833 by the solemn inauguration of a new temple to the god Nebo, in the
+capital.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>But the most interesting monument of the reign of Binlikhish III is the
+statue of Nebo, one of the great gods of Babylon, discovered by Mr.
+Loftus and now in the British Museum; the inscription on the base of the
+statue mentions the wife of the King, and calls her "the queen
+Sammuramat"; this is the only historical Semiramis, the one mentioned by
+Herodotus. He places her correctly about a century and a half before
+Nitocris, the wife of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon. "Semiramis," says
+the father of history, "raised magnificent embankments to restrain the
+river (Euphrates), which till then used to overflow and flood the whole
+country round Babylon." But why did Herodotus, and the Babylonian
+tradition he has so faithfully reported, attribute these useful works to
+the queen and not to her husband, Binlikhish? It was once supposed, as a
+solution of this problem, that Sammuramat had governed alone for some
+time, as queen regnant, after the death of her husband. But this
+conjecture is absolutely contradicted by the table of eponymes in the
+British Museum, where it can be seen that Sammuramat never reigned
+alone. In our opinion the only possible explanation will be found in
+regarding Binlikhish and Sammuramat as the Ferdinand and Isabella of
+Mesopotamia. The restless desire of Babylonia and Chald&aelig;a to form a
+state separate from Assyria grew more decided as time went on; in the
+time of Binlikhish it had already gained great strength, and the day was
+not far distant when the separation was definitely to take place, and to
+occasion the utter ruin of Nineveh. In this position of affairs it was
+natural for a king of Assyria to seek to strengthen his authority in
+Chald&aelig;a by a marriage with a daughter of the royal line of that country,
+who were his vassals, and thus, in the opinion of the people of Babylon,
+acquire a legitimate right to the possession of the country by means of
+his wife, as well as the advantages to be derived from the attachment of
+the people to their own legitimate sovereign. We shall therefore
+consider Sammuramat as a Babylonian princess married by Binlikhish, and
+as reigning nominally at Babylon while her husband occupied the throne
+at Nineveh, and as being the only sovereign registered by the
+Babylonians in their national annals. In fact, her position must have
+been a peculiar one; she must have been considered <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>the rightful queen
+in one part of the empire, to have been named as queen, and in the same
+rank as the king, in such an official document as the inscription on the
+statue of the god Nebo. She is the only princess mentioned in any of the
+Assyrian texts, as we might naturally suppose; for unless under such
+very exceptional circumstances as we imagine in the case of Sammuramat,
+there can have been no queens, but only favorite concubines, under the
+organization of harem life, such as it was under the Assyrian kings, and
+as it still is in our days.</p>
+
+<p>The exaggerated development of the Assyrian empire was quite unnatural;
+the kings of Nineveh had never succeeded in welding into one nation the
+numerous tribes whom they subdued by force of arms, or in checking in
+them the spirit of independence; they had not even attempted to do so.
+The empire was absolutely without cohesion; the administrative system
+was so imperfect, the bond attaching the various provinces to each
+other, and to the centre of the monarchy, so weak that at the
+commencement of almost every reign a revolt broke out, sometimes at one
+point, sometimes at another.</p>
+
+<p>It was therefore easy to foresee that, so soon as the reins of
+government were no longer in a really strong hand&mdash;so soon as the king
+of Assyria should cease to be an active and warlike king, always in the
+field, always at the head of his troops&mdash;the great edifice laboriously
+built up by his predecessors of the tenth and ninth centuries would
+collapse, and the immense fabric of empire would vanish like smoke with
+such rapidity as to astonish the world. And this is exactly what
+occurred after the death of Binlikhish III.</p>
+
+<p>The tablet in the British Museum allows us to follow year by year the
+events and the progress of the dissolution of the empire. Under
+Shalmaneser V, who reigned from B.C. 828 to 818, some foreign
+expeditions were still made, as, for instance, to Damascus in B.C. 819;
+but the forces of the empire were especially engaged during many
+following years in attempting to hold countries already subdued, such as
+Armenia, then in a chronic state of revolt; the wars in one and the same
+province were constant, and occupied some six successive campaigns&mdash;the
+Armenian war was from B.C. 827 to 822&mdash;proving that no decisive results
+were obtained.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>Under Asshur-edil-ilani II, who reigned from B.C. 818 to 800, we do not
+see any new conquests; insurrections constantly broke out, and were no
+longer confined to the extremities of the empire; they encroached on the
+heart of the country, and gradually approached nearer to Nineveh. The
+revolutionary spirit increased in the provinces, a great insurrection
+became imminent, and was ready to break out on the slightest excuse. At
+this period, B.C. 804, it is that the British Museum tablet registers,
+as a memorable fact in the column of events, "Peace in the land." Two
+great plagues are also mentioned under this reign, in 811 and 805, and
+on the 13th of June, B.C. 809&mdash;30 Sivan in the eponymos of
+Bur-el-salkhi&mdash;an almost total eclipse of the sun, visible at Nineveh.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution was not long in coming. Asshurlikhish [Assurbanipal]
+ascended the throne in B.C. 800, and fixed his residence at Nineveh,
+instead of Ellasar, where his predecessor had lived after quitting
+Nineveh; he is the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the ever-famous prototype
+of the voluptuous and effeminate prince. The tablet in the British
+Museum only mentions two expeditions in his reign, both of small
+importance, in 795 and 794; to all the other years the only notice is
+"in the country," proving that nothing was done and that all thought of
+war was abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>Sardanapalus had entirely given himself up to the orgies of his harem,
+and never left his palace walls, entirely renouncing all manly and
+warlike habits of life. He had reigned thus for seven years, and
+discontent continued to increase; the desire for independence was
+spreading in the subject provinces; the bond of their obedience each
+year relaxed still more, and was nearer breaking, when Arbaces, who
+commanded the Median contingent of the army and was himself a Mede,
+chanced to see in the palace at Nineveh the King, in a female dress,
+spindle in hand, hiding in the retirement of the harem his slothful
+cowardice and voluptuous life.</p>
+
+<p>He considered that it would be easy to deal with a prince so degraded,
+who would be unable to renew the valorous traditions of his ancestors.
+The time seemed to him to have come when the provinces, held only by
+force of arms, might finally throw off the weighty Assyrian yoke.
+Arbaces communicated <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>his ideas and projects to the prince then
+intrusted with the government of Babylon, the Chald&aelig;an Phul (Palia?),
+surnamed Balazu (the Terrible), a name the Greeks have made into
+Belesis; he entered into the plot with the willingness to be expected
+from a Babylonian, one of a nation so frequently rising in revolt.</p>
+
+<p>Arbaces and Balazu consulted with other chiefs, who commanded
+contingents of foreign troops, and with the vassal kings of those
+countries that aspired to independence; and they all formed the
+resolution of overthrowing Sardanapalus. Arbaces engaged to raise the
+Medes and Persians, while Balazu set on foot the insurrection in Babylon
+and Chald&aelig;a. At the end of a year the chiefs assembled their soldiers,
+to the number of forty thousand, in Assyria, under the pretext of
+relieving, according to custom, the troops who had served the former
+year.</p>
+
+<p>When once there, the soldiers broke into open rebellion. The tablet in
+the British Museum tells us that the insurrection commenced at Calah in
+B.C. 792. Immediately after this the confusion became so great that from
+this year there was no nomination of an eponyme.</p>
+
+<p>Sardanapalus, rudely interrupted in his debaucheries by a danger he had
+not been able to foresee, showed himself suddenly inspired with activity
+and courage; he put himself at the head of the native Assyrian troops
+who remained faithful to him, met the rebels, and gained three complete
+victories over them.</p>
+
+<p>The confederates already began to despair of success, when Phul, calling
+in the aid of superstition to a cause that seemed lost, declared to them
+that if they would hold together for five days more, the gods, whose
+will he had ascertained by consulting the stars, would undoubtedly give
+them the victory.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, some days afterward a large body of troops, whom the King had
+summoned to his assistance from the provinces near the Caspian Sea, went
+over, on their arrival, to the side of the insurgents and gained them a
+victory. Sardanapalus then shut himself up in Nineveh, and determined to
+defend himself to the last. The siege continued two years, for the walls
+of the city were too strong for the battering machines of <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>the enemy,
+who were compelled to trust to reducing it by famine. Sardanapalus was
+under no apprehension, confiding in an oracle declaring that Nineveh
+should never be taken until the river became its enemy.</p>
+
+<p>But, in the third year, rain fell in such abundance that the waters of
+the Tigris inundated part of the city and overturned one of its walls
+for a distance of twenty <i>stades</i>. Then the King, convinced that the
+oracle was accomplished and despairing of any means of escape, to avoid
+falling alive into the enemy's hands constructed in his palace an
+immense funeral pyre, placed on it his gold and silver and his royal
+robes, and then, shutting himself up with his wives and eunuchs in a
+chamber formed in the midst of the pile, disappeared in the flames.</p>
+
+<p>Nineveh opened its gates to the besiegers, but this tardy submission did
+not save the proud city. It was pillaged and burned, and then razed to
+the ground so completely as to evidence the implacable hatred enkindled
+in the minds of subject nations by the fierce and cruel Assyrian
+government. The Medes and Babylonians did not leave one stone upon
+another in the ramparts, palaces, temples, or houses of the city that
+for two centuries had been dominant over all Western Asia.</p>
+
+<p>So complete was the destruction that the excavations of modern explorers
+on the site of Nineveh have not yet found one single wall slab earlier
+than the capture of the city by Arbaces and Balazu. All we possess of
+the first Nineveh is one broken statue. History has no other example of
+so complete a destruction.</p>
+
+<p>The Assyrian empire was, like the capital, overthrown, and the people
+who had taken part in the revolt formed independent states&mdash;the Medes
+under Arbaces, the Babylonians under Phul or Balazu, and the Susianians
+under Shutruk-Nakhunta. Assyria, reduced to the enslaved state in which
+she had so long held other countries, remained for some time a
+dependency of Babylon.</p>
+
+<p>This great event occurred in the year B.C. 789.</p>
+
+<p>[When the noble sculptures and vast palaces of Nimrud had been first
+uncovered, it was natural to suppose that they marked the real site of
+ancient Nineveh; a passage of Strabo, and another of Ptolemy, lent
+confirmation to this theory. Shortly <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>afterward a rival claimant started
+up in the region farther to the north.</p>
+
+<p>"After a while an attempt was made to reconcile the rival claims by a
+theory the grandeur of which gained it acceptance, despite its
+improbability. It was suggested that the various ruins, which had
+hitherto disputed the name, were in fact all included within the circuit
+of the ancient Nineveh, which was described as a rectangle, or oblong
+square, eighteen miles long and twelve broad. The remains at Khorsabad,
+Koyunjik, Nimrud, and Keremles marked the four corners of this vast
+quadrangle, which contained an area of two hundred and sixteen square
+miles&mdash;about ten times that of London!</p>
+
+<p>"In confirmation of this view was urged, first, the description in
+Diodorus, derived probably from Ctesias, which corresponded (it was
+said) both with the proportions and with the actual distances; and,
+next, the statements contained in the Book of Jonah, which, it was
+argued, implied a city of some such dimensions. The parallel of Babylon,
+according to the description given by Herodotus, might fairly have been
+cited as a further argument; since it might have seemed reasonable to
+suppose that there was no great difference of size between the chief
+cities of the two kindred empires."&mdash;<i>Rawlinson</i>.]</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_FOUNDATION_OF_ROME" id="THE_FOUNDATION_OF_ROME"></a>THE FOUNDATION OF ROME</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 753</h3>
+
+<h3><i>BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Rome occupies a unique position in the history of the world. The
+whole Mediterranean basin was at one time merely a Roman lake, and
+the adjacent countries were Roman in letters, law, religion and the
+practice of war. Roman roads crossed the continents east and west
+and penetrated to the depths of Asia and Africa. Roman garrisons
+were stationed in every important city of the provinces, and when
+the great city on the banks of the Tiber at last fell before
+successive irruptions of northeasterly barbarians and Roman power
+was at its extreme ebb, the spirit of Roman institutions still
+survived in the civilization of Spain, France, Italy, Britain, even
+in Greece and Asia. Roman law had become the code of the world.
+Iberian, Gaul, and Italian had modified in varying degree their
+native dialects in conformity with the more copious and logical
+idiom of Latium.</p>
+
+<p>A group of legends gathers round the birthplace of the Eternal
+City. It is &AElig;neas who escapes from Troy and brings into the land of
+Italian Latinus his native gods. His son Ascanius conquers and
+slays Mezentius in a battle between Latins and Etruscans, and
+eleven kings of Alba, all surnamed Silvius, succeeded him on the
+throne. The last king of Alba Longa is Procas, whose usurping son
+Amulius drives his eldest brother Numitor from the throne.
+Numitor's daughter, Silvia, becomes the mother of the immortal
+twins Romulus and Remus, by Mamers, the god of war; the children
+are exposed by cruel Amulius, suckled by a wolf, and become
+founders of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the outline of the poem, or rather tissue of poetry in
+which the founding of Rome is embalmed.</p>
+
+<p>The critical acumen of Niebuhr may have dispelled some of the
+clouds and contradictions in which early historians and poets have
+wrapped the record of this great event. But no critic can ever
+destroy the beauty and charm of the old Latin chronicles or
+diminish the glory of the day that saw the first walls rise about
+the seven hills of the most important of ancient European cities.</p></div>
+
+<p>I believe that few persons, when Alba is mentioned, can get rid of the
+idea, to which I too adhered for a long time, that the history of Alba
+is lost to such an extent, that we can speak of it only in reference to
+the Trojan time and the pre<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>ceding period, as if all the statements made
+concerning it by the Romans were based upon fancy and error; and that
+accordingly it must be effaced from the pages of history altogether. It
+is true that what we read concerning the foundation of Alba by Ascanius,
+and the wonderful signs accompanying it, as well as the whole series of
+the Alban kings, with the years of their reigns, the story of Numitor
+and Amulius and the story of the destruction of the city, do not belong
+to history; but the historical existence of Alba is not at all doubtful
+on that account, nor have the ancients ever doubted it. The <i>Sacra
+Albana</i> and the <i>Albani tumuli atque luci</i>, which existed as late as the
+time of Cicero, are proofs of its early existence; ruins indeed no
+longer exist, but the situation of the city in the valley of Grotta
+Ferrata may still be recognized. Between the lake and the long chain of
+hills near the monastery of Palazzuolo one still sees the rock cut steep
+down toward the lake, evidently the work of man, which rendered it
+impossible to attack the city on that side; the summit on the other side
+formed the arx. That the Albans were in possession of the sovereignty of
+Latium is a tradition which we may believe to be founded on good
+authority, as it is traced to Cincius. Afterward the Latins became the
+masters of the district and temple of Jupiter. Further, the statement
+that Alba shared the flesh of the victim on the Alban mount with the
+thirty towns, and that after the fall of Alba the Latins chose their own
+magistrates, are glimpses of real history. The ancient tunnel made for
+discharging the water of the Alban Lake still exists, and through its
+vault a canal was made called <i>Fossa Cluilia</i>: this vault, which is
+still visible, is a work of earlier construction than any Roman one. But
+all that can be said of Alba and the Latins at that time is, that Alba
+was the capital, exercising the sovereignty over Latium; that its temple
+of Jupiter was the rallying point of the people who were governed by it;
+and that the gens Silvia was the ruling clan.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be doubted that the number of Latin towns was actually thirty,
+just that of the Albensian demi; this number afterward occurs again in
+the later thirty Latin towns and in the thirty Roman tribes, and it is
+moreover indicated by the story of the foundation of Lavinium by thirty
+families, in which we may recognize the union of the two tribes. The
+statement <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>that Lavinium was a Trojan colony and was afterward
+abandoned, but restored by Alba, and further that the sanctuary could
+not be transferred from it to Alba, is only an accommodation to the
+Trojan and native tradition, however much it may bear the appearance of
+antiquity. For Lavinium is nothing else than a general name for Latium,
+just as Panionium is for Ionia, <i>Latinus</i>, <i>Lavinus</i>, and <i>Lavicus</i>
+being one and the same name, as is recognized even by Servius. Lavinium
+was the central point of the Prisci Latini, and there is no doubt that
+in the early period before Alba ruled over Lavinium, worship was offered
+mutually at Alba and at Lavinium, as was afterward the case at Rome in
+the temple of Diana on the Aventine, and at the festivals of the Romans
+and Latins on the Alban mount.</p>
+
+<p>The personages of the Trojan legend therefore present themselves to us
+in the following light. Turnus is nothing else but Turinus, in Dionysius
+[Greek: Turr&ecirc;nos]; Lavinia, the fair maiden, is the name of the Latin
+people, which may perhaps be so distinguished that the inhabitants of
+the coast were called Tyrrhenians, and those further inland Latins.
+Since, after the battle of Lake Regillus, the Latins are mentioned in
+the treaty with Rome as forming thirty towns, there can be no doubt that
+the towns, over which Alba had the supremacy in the earliest times, were
+likewise thirty in number; but the confederacy did not at all times
+contain the same towns, as some may afterward have perished and others
+may have been added. In such political developments there is at work an
+instinctive tendency to fill up that which has become vacant; and this
+instinct acts as long as people proceed unconsciously according to the
+ancient forms and not in accordance with actual wants. Such also was the
+case in the twelve Ach&aelig;an towns and in the seven Frisian maritime
+communities; for as soon as one disappeared, another, dividing itself
+into two, supplied its place. Wherever there is a fixed number, it is
+kept up, even when one part dies away, and it ever continues to be
+renewed. We may add that the state of the Latins lost in the West, but
+gained in the East. We must therefore, I repeat it, conceive on the one
+hand Alba with its thirty <i>demi</i>, and on the other the thirty Latin
+towns, the latter at first forming a state allied with Alba, and at a
+later time under its supremacy.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>According to an important statement of Cato preserved in Dionysius, the
+ancient towns of the Aborigines were small places scattered over the
+mountains. One town of this kind was situated on the Palatine hill, and
+bore the name of Roma, which is most certainly Greek. Not far from it
+there occur several other places with Greek names, such as Pyrgi and
+Alsium; for the people inhabiting those districts were closely akin to
+the Greeks; and it is by no means an erroneous conjecture, that
+Terracina was formerly called [Greek: Trachein&ecirc;] or the "rough place on
+a rock"; Formi&aelig; must be connected with [Greek: hormos] "a roadstead" or
+"place for casting anchor." As certain as Pyrgi signifies "towers," so
+certainly does <i>Roma</i> signify "strength," and I believe that those are
+quite right who consider that the name Roma in this sense is not
+accidental. This Roma is described as a Pelasgian place in which
+Evander, the introducer of scientific culture, resided. According to
+tradition, the first foundation of civilization was laid by Saturn, in
+the golden age of mankind. The tradition in Vergil, who was extremely
+learned in matters of antiquity, that the first men were created out of
+trees, must be taken quite literally; for as in Greece the [Greek:
+myrm&ecirc;ches] were metamorphosed into the Myrmidons, and the stones thrown
+by Deucalion and Pyrrha into men and women, so in Italy trees, by some
+divine power, were changed into human beings. These beings, at first
+only half human, gradually acquired a civilization which they owed to
+Saturn; but the real intellectual culture was traced to Evander, who
+must not be regarded as a person who had come from Arcadia, but as <i>the
+good man</i>, as the teacher of the alphabet and of mental culture, which
+man gradually works out for himself.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans clung to the conviction that Romulus, the founder of Rome,
+was the son of a virgin by a god, that his life was marvellously
+preserved, that he was saved from the floods of the river and was reared
+by a she-wolf. That this poetry is very ancient cannot be doubted; but
+did the legend at all times describe Romulus as the son of Rea Silvia or
+Ilia? Perizonius was the first who remarked against Ryccius that Rea
+Ilia never occurs together, and that Rea Silvia was a daughter of
+Numitor, while Ilia is called a daughter of &AElig;neas. He is perfectly
+right: N&aelig;vius and Ennius called Romulus a son of Ilia, the <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>daughter of
+&AElig;neas, as is attested by Servius on Vergil and Porphyrio on Horace; but
+it cannot be hence inferred that this was the national opinion of the
+Romans themselves, for the poets who were familiar with the Greeks might
+accommodate their stories to Greek poems. The ancient Romans, on the
+other hand, could not possibly look upon the mother of the founder of
+their city as a daughter of &AElig;neas, who was believed to have lived three
+hundred and thirty-three or three hundred and sixty years earlier.
+Dionysius says that his account, which is that of Fabius, occurred in
+the sacred songs, and it is in itself perfectly consistent. Fabius
+cannot have taken it, as Plutarch asserts, from Diocles, a miserable
+unknown Greek author; the statue of the she-wolf was erected in the year
+A.U. 457, long before Diocles wrote, and at least a hundred years before
+Fabius. This tradition therefore is certainly the more ancient Roman
+one; and it puts Rome in connection with Alba. A monument has lately
+been discovered at Bovill&aelig;: it is an altar which the <i>Gentiles Julii</i>
+erected <i>lege Albana</i>, and therefore expresses a religious relation of a
+Roman gens to Alba. The connection of the two towns continues down to
+the founder of Rome; and the well-known tradition, with its ancient
+poetical details, many of which Livy and Dionysius omitted from their
+histories lest they should seem to deal too much in the marvellous, runs
+as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Numitor and Amulius were contending for the throne of Alba. Amulius took
+possession of the throne, and made Rea Silvia, the daughter of Numitor,
+a vestal virgin, in order that the Silvian house might become extinct.
+This part of the story was composed without any insight into political
+laws, for a daughter could not have transmitted any gentilician rights.
+The name Rea Silvia is ancient, but Rea is only a surname: <i>rea femmina</i>
+often occurs in Boccaccio, and is used to this day in Tuscany to
+designate a woman whose reputation is blighted; a priestess Rea is
+described by Vergil as having been overpowered by Hercules. While Rea
+was fetching water in a grove for a sacrifice the sun became eclipsed,
+and she took refuge from a wolf in a cave, where she was overpowered by
+Mars. When she was delivered, the sun was again eclipsed and the statue
+of Vesta covered its eyes. Livy has here abandoned <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>the marvellous. The
+tyrant threw Rea with her infants into the river Anio: she lost her life
+in the waves, but the god of the river took her soul and changed it into
+an immortal goddess, whom he married. This story has been softened down
+into the tale of her imprisonment, which is unpoetical enough to be a
+later invention. The river Anio carried the cradle, like a boat, into
+the Tiber, and the latter conveyed it to the foot of the Palatine, the
+water having overflowed the country, and the cradle was upset at the
+root of a fig-tree. A she-wolf carried the babies away and suckled them;
+Mars sent a woodpecker which provided the children with food, and the
+bird <i>parra</i> which protected them from insects. These statements are
+gathered from various quarters; for the historians got rid of the
+marvellous as much as possible. Faustulus, the legend continues, found
+the boys feeding on the milk of the huge wild beast; he brought them up
+with his twelve sons, and they became the staunchest of all. Being at
+the head of the shepherds on Mount Palatine, they became involved in a
+quarrel with the shepherds of Numitor on the Aventine&mdash;the Palatine and
+the Aventine are always hostile to each other. Remus being taken
+prisoner was led to Alba, but Romulus rescued him, and their descent
+from Numitor being discovered, the latter was restored to the throne,
+and the two young men obtained permission to form a settlement at the
+foot of Mount Palatine where they had been saved.</p>
+
+<p>Out of this beautiful poem the falsifiers endeavored to make some
+credible story: even the unprejudiced and poetical Livy tried to avoid
+the most marvellous points as much as he could, but the falsifiers went
+a step farther. In the days when men had altogether ceased to believe in
+the ancient gods, attempts were made to find something intelligible in
+the old legends, and thus a history was made up, which Plutarch fondly
+embraced and Dionysius did not reject, though he also relates the
+ancient tradition in a mutilated form. He says that many people believe
+in demons, and that such a demon might have been the father of Romulus;
+but he himself is very far from believing it, and rather thinks that
+Amulius himself, in disguise, violated Rea Silvia amid thunder and
+lightning produced by artifice. This he is said to have done in order to
+have a pretext for get<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>ting rid of her, but being entreated by his
+daughter not to drown her, he imprisoned her for life. The children were
+saved by the shepherd who was commissioned to expose them, at the
+request of Numitor, and two other boys were put in their place.
+Numitor's grandsons were taken to a friend at Gabii, who caused them to
+be educated according to their rank, and to be instructed in Greek
+literature. Attempts have actually been made to introduce this stupid
+forgery into history, and some portions of it have been adopted in the
+narrative of our historians; for example, that the ancient Alban
+nobility migrated with the two brothers to Rome; but if this had been
+the case there would have been no need of opening an asylum, nor would
+it have been necessary to obtain by force the <i>connubium</i> with other
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>But of more historical importance is the difference of opinion between
+the two brothers respecting the building of the city and its site.
+According to the ancient tradition, both were kings and the equal heads
+of the colony; Romulus is universally said to have wished to build on
+the Palatine, while Remus, according to some, preferred the Aventine;
+according to others, the hill Remuria. Plutarch states that the latter
+is a hill three miles south of Rome, and cannot have been any other than
+the hill nearly opposite St. Paul, which is the more credible, since
+this hill, though situated in an otherwise unhealthy district, has an
+extremely fine air: a very important point in investigations respecting
+the ancient Latin towns, for it may be taken for certain that where the
+air is now healthy it was so in those times also, and that where it is
+now decidedly unhealthy, it was anciently no better. The legend now goes
+on to say that a dispute arose between Romulus and Remus as to which of
+them should give the name to the town, and also as to where it was to be
+built. A town Remuria therefore undoubtedly existed on that hill, though
+subsequently we find the name transferred to the Aventine, as is the
+case so frequently. According to the common tradition, the auguries were
+to decide between the brothers: Romulus took his stand on the Palatine,
+Remus on the Aventine. The latter observed the whole night, but saw
+nothing until about sunrise, when he saw six vultures flying from north
+to south, and sent word of it to Romulus; but at <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>that very time the
+latter, annoyed at not having seen any sign, fraudulently sent a
+messenger to say that he had seen twelve vultures, and at the very
+moment the messenger arrived there did appear twelve vultures, to which
+Romulus appealed. This account is impossible; for the Palatine and
+Aventine are so near each other that, as every Roman well knew, whatever
+a person on one of the two hills saw high in the air, could not escape
+the observation of any one who was watching on the other. This part of
+the story therefore cannot be ancient, and can be saved only by
+substituting the Remuria for the Aventine. As the Palatine was the seat
+of the noblest patrician tribe, and the Aventine the special town of the
+plebeians, there existed between the two a perpetual feud, and thus it
+came to pass that in after times the story relating to the Remuria,
+which was far away from the city, was transferred to the Aventine.
+According to Ennius, Romulus made his observations on the Aventine; in
+this case Remus must certainly have been on the Remuria, and it is said
+that when Romulus obtained the augury he threw his spear toward the
+Palatine. This is the ancient legend which was neglected by the later
+writers. Romulus took possession of the Palatine. The spear taking root
+and becoming a tree, which existed down to the time of Nero, is a symbol
+of the eternity of the new city, and of the protection of the gods. The
+statement that Romulus tried to deceive his brother is a later addition;
+and the beautiful poem of Ennius, quoted by Cicero, knows nothing of
+this circumstance. The conclusion which must be drawn from all this is,
+that in the earliest times there were two towns, Roma and Remuria, the
+latter being far distant from the city and from the Palatine.</p>
+
+<p>Romulus now fixed the boundary of his town, but Remus scornfully leaped
+across the ditch, for which he was slain by Celer, a hint that no one
+should cross the fortifications of Rome with impunity. But Romulus fell
+into a state of melancholy occasioned by the death of Remus; he
+instituted festivals to honor him, and ordered an empty throne to be put
+up by the side of his own. Thus we have a double kingdom, which ends
+with the defeat of Remuria.</p>
+
+<p>The question now is, What were these two towns of Roma and Remuria? They
+were evidently Pelasgian places: the <a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>ancient tradition states that
+Sicelus migrated from Rome southward to the Pelasgians, that is, the
+Tyrrhenian Pelasgians were pushed forward to the Morgetes, a kindred
+nation in Lucania and in Sicily. Among the Greeks it was, as Dionysius
+states, a general opinion that Rome was a Pelasgian, that is, a
+Tyrrhenian city, but the authorities from whom he learned this are no
+longer extant. There is, however, a fragment in which it is stated that
+Rome was a sister city of Antium and Ardea; here too we must apply the
+statement from the chronicle of Cum&aelig;, that Evander, who, as an Arcadian,
+was likewise a Pelasgian, had his <i>palatium</i> on the Palatine. To us he
+appears of less importance than in the legend, for in the latter he is
+one of the benefactors of nations, and introduced among the Pelasgians
+in Italy the use of the alphabet and other arts, just as Damaratus did
+among the Tyrrhenians in Etruria. In this sense, therefore, Rome was
+certainly a Latin town, and had not a mixed but a purely
+Tyrrheno-Pelasgian population. The subsequent vicissitudes of this
+settlement may be gathered from the allegories.</p>
+
+<p>Romulus now found the number of his fellow-settlers too small; the
+number of three thousand foot and three hundred horse, which Livy gives
+from the commentaries of the pontiffs, is worth nothing; for it is only
+an outline of the later military arrangement transferred to the earliest
+times. According to the ancient tradition, Romulus's band was too small,
+and he opened an asylum on the Capitoline hill. This asylum, the old
+description states, contained only a very small space, a proof how
+little these things were understood historically. All manner of people,
+thieves, murderers, and vagabonds of every kind, flocked thither. This
+is the simple view taken of the origin of the clients. In the bitterness
+with which the estates subsequently looked upon one another, it was made
+a matter of reproach to the Patricians that their earliest ancestors had
+been vagabonds; though it was a common opinion that the Patricians were
+descended from the free companions of Romulus, and that those who took
+refuge in the asylum placed themselves as clients under the protection
+of the real free citizens. But now they wanted women, and attempts were
+made to obtain the <i>connubium</i> with neighboring towns, especially
+perhaps <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>with Antemn&aelig;, which was only four miles distant from Rome, with
+the Sabines and others. This being refused Romulus had recourse to a
+stratagem, proclaiming that he had discovered the altar of Consus, the
+god of counsels, an allegory of his cunning in general. In the midst of
+the solemnities, the Sabine maidens, thirty in number, were carried off,
+from whom the <i>curi&aelig;</i> received their names: this is the genuine ancient
+legend, and it proves how small ancient Rome was conceived to have been.
+In later times the number was thought too small; it was supposed that
+these thirty had been chosen by lot for the purpose of naming the
+<i>curi&aelig;</i> after them; and Valerius Antias fixed the number of the women
+who had been carried off at five hundred and twenty-seven. The rape is
+placed in the fourth month of the city, because the <i>consualia</i> fall in
+August, and the festival commemorating the foundation of the city in
+April; later writers, as Cn. Gellius, extended this period to four
+years, and Dionysius found this of course far more credible. From this
+rape there arose wars, first with the neighboring towns, which were
+defeated one after another, and at last with the Sabines. The ancient
+legend contains not a trace of this war having been of long continuance;
+but in later times it was necessarily supposed to have lasted for a
+considerable time, since matters were then measured by a different
+standard. Lucumo and C&aelig;lius came to the assistance of Romulus, an
+allusion to the expedition of C&aelig;les Vibenna, which however belongs to a
+much later period. The Sabine king, Tatius, was induced by treachery to
+settle on the hill which is called the Tarpeian <i>arx</i>. Between the
+Palatine and the Tarpeian rock a battle was fought, in which neither
+party gained a decisive victory, until the Sabine women threw themselves
+between the combatants, who agreed that henceforth the sovereignty
+should be divided between the Romans and the Sabines. According to the
+annals, this happened in the fourth year of Rome.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="Sabine_image" id="Sabine_image"></a>
+<table width="200" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" border="0" summary="for layout">
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="images/p124a.jpg"><img src="images/p124a_tn.jpg" alt="Cover Illustration, Globe" title="The Sabine Women, Painting by Jacques L. David" border="0"  width="300" /></a></td>
+<td><a href="images/p124b.jpg"><img src="images/p124b_tn.jpg" alt="Cover Illustration, Globe" title="Illustration" border="0" height="194" /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+</div>
+<br/>
+
+<p>But this arrangement lasted only a short time; Tatius was slain during a
+sacrifice at Lavinium, and his vacant throne was not filled up. During
+their common reign, each king had a senate of one hundred members, and
+the two senates, after consulting separately, used to meet, and this was
+called <i>comitium</i>. Romulus during the remainder of his life ruled alone;
+the <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>ancient legend knows nothing of his having been a tyrant: according
+to Ennius he continued, on the contrary, to be a mild and benevolent
+king, while Tatius was a tyrant. The ancient tradition contained nothing
+beyond the beginning and the end of the reign of Romulus; all that lies
+between these points, the war with the Veientines, Fidenates, and so on,
+is a foolish invention of later annalists. The poem itself is beautiful,
+but this inserted narrative is highly absurd, as for example the
+statement that Romulus slew ten thousand Veientines with his own hand.
+The ancient poem passed on at once to the time when Romulus had
+completed his earthly career, and Jupiter fulfilled his promise to Mars,
+that Romulus was the only man whom he would introduce among the gods.
+According to this ancient legend, the king was reviewing his army near
+the marsh of Capr&aelig;, when, as at the moment of his conception, there
+occurred an eclipse of the sun and at the same time a hurricane, during
+which Mars descended in a fiery chariot and took his son up to heaven.
+Out of this beautiful poem the most wretched stories have been
+manufactured: Romulus, it is said, while in the midst of his senators
+was knocked down, cut into pieces, and thus carried away by them under
+their togas. This stupid story was generally adopted, and that a cause
+for so horrible a deed might not be wanting, it was related that in his
+latter years Romulus had become a tyrant, and that the senators took
+revenge by murdering him.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Romulus, the Romans and the people of Tatius
+quarrelled for a long time with each other, the Sabines wishing that one
+of their nation should be raised to the throne, while the Romans claimed
+that the new king should be chosen from among them. At length they
+agreed, it is said, that the one nation should choose a king from the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>We have now reached the point at which it is necessary to speak of the
+relation between the two nations, such as it actually existed.</p>
+
+<p>All the nations of antiquity lived in fixed forms, and their civil
+relations were always marked by various divisions and subdivisions. When
+cities raise themselves to the rank of nations, we always find a
+division at first into tribes; Herodotus mentions such tribes in the
+colonization of Cyrene, and the <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>same was afterward the case at the
+foundation of Thurii; but when a place existed anywhere as a distinct
+township, its nature was characterized by the fact of its citizens being
+at a certain time divided into <i>gentes</i> [Greek: gen&ecirc;], each of which had
+a common chapel and a common hero. These <i>gentes</i> were united in
+definite numerical proportions into <i>curi&aelig;</i> [Greek: phratrai]. The
+<i>gentes</i> are not families, but free corporations, sometimes close and
+sometimes open; in certain cases the whole body of the state might
+assign to them new associates; the great council at Venice was a close
+body, and no one could be admitted whose ancestors had not been in it,
+and such also was the case in many oligarchical states of antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>All civil communities had a council and an assembly of burghers, that
+is, a small and a great council; the burghers consisted of the guilds or
+<i>gentes</i>, and these again were united, as it were, in parishes; all the
+Latin towns had a council of one hundred members, who were divided into
+ten <i>curi&aelig;</i>; this division gave rise to the name of <i>decuriones</i>, which
+remained in use as a title of civic magistrates down to the latest
+times, and through the <i>lex Julia</i> was transferred to the constitution
+of the Italian <i>municipia</i>. That this council consisted of one hundred
+persons has been proved by Savigny, in the first volume of his history
+of the Roman law. This constitution continued to exist till a late
+period of the middle ages, but perished when the institution of guilds
+took the place of municipal constitutions. Giovanni Villani says, that
+previously to the revolution in the twelfth century there were at
+Florence one hundred <i>buoni nomini</i>, who had the administration of the
+city. There is nothing in the German cities which answers to this
+constitution. We must not conceive those hundred to have been nobles;
+they were an assembly of burghers and country people, as was the case in
+our small imperial cities, or as in the small cantons of Switzerland.
+Each of them represented a <i>gens</i>; and they are those whom Propertius
+calls <i>patres pelliti</i>. The <i>curia</i> of Rome, a cottage covered with
+straw, was a faithful memorial of the times when Rome stood buried in
+the night of history, as a small country town surrounded by its little
+domain.</p>
+
+<p>The most ancient occurrence which we can discover from the form of the
+allegory, by a comparison of what happened in <a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>other parts of Italy, is
+a result of the great and continued commotion among the nations of
+Italy. It did not terminate when the Oscans had been pressed forward
+from Lake Fucinus to the lake of Alba, but continued much longer. The
+Sabines may have rested for a time, but they advanced far beyond the
+districts about which we have any traditions. These Sabines began as a
+very small tribe, but afterward became one of the greatest nations of
+Italy, for the Marrucinians, Caudines, Vestinians, Marsians, Pelignians,
+and in short all the Samnite tribes, the Lucanians, the Oscan part of
+the Bruttians, the Picentians, and several others were all descended
+from the Sabine stock, and yet there are no traditions about their
+settlements except in a few cases. At the time to which we must refer
+the foundation of Rome, the Sabines were widely diffused. It is said
+that, guided by a bull, they penetrated into Opica, and thus occupied
+the country of the Samnites. It was perhaps at an earlier time that they
+migrated down the Tiber, whence we there find Sabine towns mixed with
+Latin ones; some of their places also existed on the Anio. The country
+afterward inhabited by the Sabines was probably not occupied by them
+till a later period, for Falerii is a Tuscan town, and its population
+was certainly at one time thoroughly Tyrrhenian.</p>
+
+<p>As the Sabines advanced, some Latin towns maintained their independence,
+others were subdued; Fiden&aelig; belonged to the former, but north of it all
+the country was Sabine. Now by the side of the ancient Roma we find a
+Sabine town on the Quirinal and Capitoline close to the Latin town; but
+its existence is all that we know about it. A tradition states that
+there previously existed on the Capitoline a Siculian town of the name
+of Saturnia, which, in this case, must have been conquered by the
+Sabines. But whatever we may think of this, as well as of the existence
+of another ancient town on the Janiculum, it is certain that there were
+a number of small towns in that district. The two towns could exist
+perfectly well side by side, as there was a deep marsh between them.</p>
+
+<p>The town on the Palatine may for a long time have been in a state of
+dependence on the Sabine conqueror whom tradition calls Titus Tatius;
+hence he was slain during the Laurentine sacrifice, and hence also his
+memory was hateful. The exist<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>ence of a Sabine town on the Quirinal is
+attested by the undoubted occurrence there of a number of Sabine
+chapels, which were known as late as the time of Varro, and from which
+he proved that the Sabine ritual was adopted by the Romans. This Sabine
+element in the worship of the Romans has almost always been overlooked,
+in consequence of the prevailing desire to look upon everything as
+Etruscan; but, I repeat, there is no doubt of the Sabine settlement, and
+that it was the result of a great commotion among the tribes of middle
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The tradition that the Sabine women were carried off because there
+existed no <i>connubium</i>, and that the rape was followed by a war, is
+undoubtedly a symbolical representation of the relation between the two
+towns, previous to the establishment of the right of intermarriage; the
+Sabines had the ascendancy and refused that right, but the Romans gained
+it by force of arms. There can be no doubt that the Sabines were
+originally the ruling people, but that in some insurrection of the
+Romans various Sabine places, such as Antemn&aelig;, Fiden&aelig;, and others, were
+subdued, and thus these Sabines were separated from their kinsmen. The
+Romans, therefore, re&euml;stablished their independence by a war, the result
+of which may have been such as we read it in the tradition&mdash;Romulus
+being, of course, set aside&mdash;namely, that both places as two closely
+united towns formed a kind of confederacy, each with a senate of one
+hundred members, a king, an offensive and defensive alliance, and on the
+understanding that in common deliberations the burghers of each should
+meet together in the space between the two towns which was afterward
+called the <i>comitium</i>. In this manner they formed a united state in
+regard to foreign nations.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of a double state was not unknown to the ancient writers
+themselves, although the indications of it are preserved only in
+scattered passages, especially in the scholiasts. The head of Janus,
+which in the earliest times was represented on the Roman <i>as</i>, is the
+symbol of it, as has been correctly observed by writers on Roman
+antiquities. The vacant throne by the side of the <i>curule</i> chair of
+Romulus points to the time when there was only one king, and represents
+the equal but quiescent right of the other people.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>That concord was not of long duration is an historical fact likewise;
+nor can it be doubted that the Roman king assumed the supremacy over the
+Sabines, and that in consequence the two councils were united so as to
+form one senate under one king, it being agreed that the king should be
+alternately a Roman and a Sabine, and that each time he should be chosen
+by the other people: the king, however, if displeasing to the
+non-electing people, was not to be forced upon them, but was to be
+invested with the <i>imperium</i> only on condition of the auguries being
+favorable to him, and of his being sanctioned by the whole nation. The
+non-electing tribe accordingly had the right of either sanctioning or
+rejecting his election. In the case of Numa this is related as a fact,
+but it is only a disguisement of the right derived from the ritual
+books. In this manner the strange double election, which is otherwise so
+mysterious and was formerly completely misunderstood, becomes quite
+intelligible. One portion of the nation elected and the other
+sanctioned; it being intended that, for example, the Romans should not
+elect from among the Sabines a king devoted exclusively to their own
+interests, but one who was at the same time acceptable to the Sabines.</p>
+
+<p>When, perhaps after several generations of a separate existence, the two
+states became united, the towns ceased to be towns, and the collective
+body of the burghers of each became tribes, so that the nation consisted
+of two tribes. The form of addressing the Roman people was from the
+earliest times <i>Populus Romanus Quirites</i>, which, when its origin was
+forgotten, was changed into <i>Populus Romanus Quiritium</i>, just as <i>lis
+vindici&aelig;</i> was afterward changed into <i>lis vindiciaruum</i>. This change is
+more ancient than Livy; the correct expression still continued to be
+used, but was to a great extent supplanted by the false one. The ancient
+tradition relates that after the union of the two tribes the name
+<i>Quirites</i> was adopted as the common designation for the whole people;
+but this is erroneous, for the name was not used in this sense till a
+very late period. This designation remained in use and was transferred
+to the plebeians at a time when the distinction between Romans and
+Sabines, between these two and the Luceres, nay, when even that between
+patricians and plebeians had almost ceased <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>to be noticed. Thus the two
+towns stood side by side as tribes forming one state, and it is merely a
+recognition of the ancient tradition when we call the Latins <i>Ramnes</i>,
+and the Sabines <i>Tities</i>; that the derivation of these appellations from
+Romulus and T. Tatius is incorrect is no argument against the view here
+taken.</p>
+
+<p>Dionysius, who had good materials and made use of a great many, must, as
+far as the consular period is concerned, have had more than he gives;
+there is in particular one important change in the constitution,
+concerning which he has only a few words, either because he did not see
+clearly or because he was careless. But as regards the kingly period, he
+was well acquainted with his subject; he says that there was a dispute
+between the two tribes respecting the senates, and that Numa settled it
+by not depriving the Ramnes, as the first tribe, of anything, and by
+conferring honors on the Tities. This is perfectly clear. The senate,
+which had at first consisted of one hundred and now two hundred members,
+was divided into ten <i>decuries</i>, each being headed by one, who was its
+leader; these are the <i>decem primi</i>, and they were taken from the
+Ramnes. They formed the college, which, when there was no king,
+undertook the government, one after another, each for five days, but in
+such a manner that they always succeeded one another in the same order,
+as we must believe with Livy, for Dionysius here introduces his Greek
+notions of the Attic <i>prytanes</i>, and Plutarch misunderstands the matter
+altogether.</p>
+
+<p>After the example of the senate the number of the augurs and pontiffs
+also was doubled, so that each college consisted of four members, two
+being taken from the Ramnes and two from the Tities. Although it is not
+possible to fix these changes chronologically, as Dionysius and Cicero
+do, yet they are as historically certain as if we actually knew the
+kings who introduced them.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Rome in the second stage of its development. This period of
+equalization is one of peace, and is described as the reign of Numa,
+about whom the traditions are simple and brief. It is the picture of a
+peaceful condition with a holy man at the head of affairs, like Nicolas
+von der Flue in Switzerland. Numa was supposed to have been inspired by
+the goddess</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>Egeria, to whom he was married in the grove of the Camen&aelig;, and who
+introduced him into the choir of her sisters; she melted away in tears
+at his death, and thus gave her name to the spring which arose out of
+her tears. Such a peace of forty years, during which no nation rose
+against Rome, because Numa's piety was communicated to the surrounding
+nations, is a beautiful idea, but historically impossible in those
+times, and manifestly a poetical fiction.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Numa forms the conclusion of the first <i>s&aelig;culum</i>, and an
+entirely new period follows, just as in the Theogony of Hesiod the age
+of heroes is followed by the iron age; there is evidently a change, and
+an entirely new order of things is conceived to have arisen. Up to this
+point we have had nothing except poetry, but with Tullus Hostilius a
+kind of history begins, that is, events are related which must be taken
+in general as historical, though in the light in which they are
+presented to us they are not historical. Thus, for example, the
+destruction of Alba is historical, and so in all probability is the
+reception of the Albans at Rome. The conquests of Ancus Martius are
+quite credible; and they appear like an oasis of real history in the
+midst of fables. A similar case occurs once in the chronicle of Cologne.
+In the Abyssinian annals, we find in the thirteenth century a very
+minute account of one particular event, in which we recognize a piece of
+contemporaneous history, though we meet with nothing historical either
+before or after.</p>
+
+<p>The history which then follows is like a picture viewed from the wrong
+side, like phantasmata; the names of the kings are perfectly fictitious;
+no man can tell how long the Roman kings reigned, as we do not know how
+many there were, since it is only for the sake of the number that seven
+were supposed to have ruled, seven being a number which appears in many
+relations, especially in important astronomical ones. Hence the
+chronological statements are utterly worthless. We must conceive as a
+succession of centuries the period from the origin of Rome down to the
+times wherein were constructed the enormous works, such as the great
+drains, the wall of Servius, and others, which were actually executed
+under the kings and rival the great architectural works of the
+Egyptians. Romulus and <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>Numa must be entirely set aside; but a long
+period follows, in which the nations gradually unite and develop
+themselves until the kingly government disappears and makes way for
+republican institutions.</p>
+
+<p>But it is nevertheless necessary to relate the history, such as it has
+been handed down, because much depends upon it. There was not the
+slightest connection between Rome and Alba, nor is it even mentioned by
+the historians, though they suppose that Rome received its first
+inhabitants from Alba; but in the reign of Tullus Hostilius the two
+cities on a sudden appear as enemies: each of the two nations seeks war,
+and tries to allure fortune by representing itself as the injured party,
+each wishing to declare war. Both sent ambassadors to demand reparation
+for robberies which had been committed. The form of procedure was this:
+the ambassadors, that is the Fetiales, related the grievances of their
+city to every person they met, they then proclaimed them in the
+market-place of the other city, and if, after the expiration of thrice
+ten days no reparation was made, they said, "We have done enough and now
+return," whereupon the elders at home held counsel as to how they should
+obtain redress. In this formula accordingly the <i>res</i>, that is, the
+surrender of the guilty and the restoration of the stolen property, must
+have been demanded. Now it is related that the two nations sent such
+ambassadors quite simultaneously, but that Tullus Hostilius retained the
+Alban ambassadors, until he was certain that the Romans at Alba had not
+obtained the justice due to them, and had therefore declared war. After
+this he admitted the ambassadors into the senate, and the reply made to
+their complaint was, that they themselves had not satisfied the demands
+of the Romans. Livy then continues: <i>bellum in trigesimum diem
+dixerant</i>. But the real formula is, <i>post trigesimum diem</i>, and we may
+ask, Why did Livy or the annalist whom he followed make this alteration?
+For an obvious reason: a person may ride from Rome to Alba in a couple
+of hours, so that the detention of the Alban ambassadors at Rome for
+thirty days, without their hearing what was going on in the mean time at
+Alba, was a matter of impossibility. Livy saw this, and therefore
+altered the formula. But the ancient poet was not concerned about such
+things, and without hesita<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>tion increased the distance in his
+imagination, and represented Rome and Alba as great states.</p>
+
+<p>The whole description of the circumstances under which the fate of Alba
+was decided is just as manifestly poetical, but we shall dwell upon it
+for a while in order to show how a semblance of history may arise.
+Between Rome and Alba there was a ditch, <i>Fossa Cluilia</i> or <i>Cloelia</i>,
+and there must have been a tradition that the Albans had been encamped
+there; Livy and Dionysius mention that Cluilius, a general of the
+Albans, had given the ditch its name, having perished there. It was
+necessary to mention the latter circumstance, in order to explain the
+fact that afterward their general was a different person, Mettius
+Fuffetius, and yet to be able to connect the name of that ditch with the
+Albans. The two states committed the decision of their dispute to
+champions, and Dionysius says that tradition did not agree as to whether
+the name of the Roman champions was Horatii or Curiatii, although he
+himself, as well as Livy, assumes that it was Horatii, probably because
+it was thus stated by the majority of the annalists. Who would suspect
+any uncertainty here if it were not for this passage of Dionysius? The
+contest of the three brothers on each side is a symbolical indication
+that each of the two states was then divided into three tribes. Attempts
+have indeed been made to deny that the three men were brothers of the
+same birth, and thus to remove the improbability; but the legend went
+even further, representing the three brothers on each side as the sons
+of two sisters, and as born on the same day. This contains the
+suggestion of a perfect equality between Rome and Alba. The contest
+ended in the complete submission of Alba; it did not remain faithful,
+however, and in the ensuing struggle with the Etruscans, Mettius
+Fuffetius acted the part of a traitor toward Rome, but not being able to
+carry his design into effect, he afterward fell upon the fugitive
+Etruscans. Tullus ordered him to be torn to pieces and Alba to be razed
+to the ground, the noblest Alban families being transplanted to Rome.
+The death of Tullus is no less poetical. Like Numa he undertook to call
+down lightning from heaven, but he thereby destroyed himself and his
+house.</p>
+
+<p>If we endeavor to discover the historical substance of these <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>legends,
+we at once find ourselves in a period when Rome no longer stood alone,
+but had colonies with Roman settlers, possessing a third of the
+territory and exercising sovereign power over the original inhabitants.
+This was the case in a small number of towns, for the most part of
+ancient Siculian origin. It is an undoubted fact that Alba was
+destroyed, and that after this event the towns of the <i>Prisci Latini</i>
+formed an independent and compact confederacy; but whether Alba fell in
+the manner described, whether it was ever compelled to recognize the
+supremacy of Rome, and whether it was destroyed by the Romans and Latins
+conjointly, or by the Romans or Latins alone, are questions which no
+human ingenuity can solve. It is, however, most probable that the
+destruction of Alba was the work of the Latins, who rose against her
+supremacy; whether in this case the Romans received the Albans among
+themselves, and thus became their benefactors instead of destroyers,
+must ever remain a matter of uncertainty. That Alban families were
+transplanted to Rome cannot be doubted, any more than that the <i>Prisci
+Latini</i> from that time constituted a compact state; if we consider that
+Alba was situated in the midst of the Latin districts, that the Alban
+mount was their common sanctuary, and that the grove of Ferentina was
+the place of assembly for all the Latins, it must appear more probable
+that Rome did not destroy Alba, but that it perished in an insurrection
+of the Latin towns, and that the Romans strengthened themselves by
+receiving the Albans into their city.</p>
+
+<p>Whether the Albans were the first that settled on the C&aelig;lian hill, or
+whether it was previously occupied, cannot be decided. The account which
+places the foundation of the town on the C&aelig;lius in the reign of Romulus
+suggests that a town existed there before the reception of the Albans;
+but what is the authenticity of this account? A third tradition
+represents it as an Etruscan settlement of C&aelig;les Vibenna. This much is
+certain, that the destruction of Alba greatly contributed to increase
+the power of Rome. There can be no doubt that a third town, which seems
+to have been very populous, now existed on the C&aelig;lius and on a portion
+of the Esquili&aelig;: such a settlement close to other towns was made for the
+sake of mutual protection. Between the two more ancient towns there
+<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>continued to be a marsh or swamp, and Rome was protected on the south
+by stagnant water; but between Rome and the third town there was a dry
+plain. Rome also had a considerable suburb toward the Aventine,
+protected by a wall and a ditch, as is implied in the story of Remus. He
+is a personification of the <i>plebs</i>, leaping across the ditch from the
+side of the Aventine, though we ought to be very cautious in regard to
+allegory.</p>
+
+<p>The most ancient town on the Palatine was Rome; the Sabine town also
+must have had a name, and I have no doubt that, according to common
+analogy, it was Quirium, the name of its citizens being Quirites. This I
+look upon as certain. I have almost as little doubt that the town on the
+C&aelig;lian was called Lucerum, because when it was united with Rome, its
+citizens were called, <i>Lucertes</i> (<i>Luceres</i>). The ancients derive this
+name from Lucumo, king of the Tuscans, or from Lucerus, king of Ardea;
+the latter derivation probably meaning that the race was Tyrrheno-Latin,
+because Ardea was the capital of that race. Rome was thus enlarged by a
+third element, which, however, did not stand on a footing of equality
+with the two others, but was in a state of dependence similar to that of
+Ireland relatively to Great Britain down to the year 1782. But although
+the Luceres were obliged to recognize the supremacy of the two older
+tribes, they were considered as an integral part of the whole state,
+that is, as a third tribe with an administration of its own, but
+inferior rights. What throws light upon our way here is a passage of
+Festus, who is a great authority on matters of Roman antiquity, because
+he made his excerpts from Verrius Flaccus; it is only in a few points
+that, in my opinion, either of them was mistaken; all the rest of the
+mistakes in Festus may be accounted for by the imperfection of the
+abridgment, Festus not always understanding Verrius Flaccus. The
+statement of Festus to which I here allude is that Tarquinius Superbus
+increased the number of the Vestals in order that each tribe might have
+two. With this we must connect a passage from the tenth book of Livy,
+where he says that the augurs were to represent the three tribes. The
+numbers in the Roman colleges of priests were always multiples either of
+two or of three; the latter was the case with the Vestal Virgins and the
+great Flamines, and the former with the Augurs, Pontiffs, and <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>Fetiales,
+who represented only the first two tribes. Previously to the passing of
+the Ogulnian law the number of augurs was four, and when subsequently
+five plebeians were added, the basis of this increase was different, it
+is true, but the ancient rule of the number being a multiple of three
+was preserved. The number of pontiffs, which was then four, was
+increased only by four: this might seem to contradict what has just been
+stated, but it has been overlooked that Cicero speaks of <i>five</i> new ones
+having been added, for he included the Pontifex Maximus, which Livy does
+not. In like manner there were twenty Fetiales, ten for each tribe. To
+the Salii on the Palatine Numa added another brotherhood on the
+Quirinal; thus we everywhere see a manifest distinction between the
+first two tribes and the third, the latter being treated as inferior.</p>
+
+<p>The third tribe, then, consisted of free citizens, but they had not the
+same rights as the members of the first two; yet its members considered
+themselves superior to all other people; and their relation to the other
+two tribes was the same as that existing between the Venetian citizens
+of the mainland and the <i>nobili</i>. A Venetian nobleman treated those
+citizens with far more condescension than he displayed toward others,
+provided they did not presume to exercise any authority in political
+matters. Whoever belonged to the Luceres called himself a Roman, and if
+the very dictator of Tusculum had come to Rome, a man of the third tribe
+there would have looked upon him as an inferior person, though he
+himself had no influence whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Tullus was succeeded by Ancus. Tullus appears as one of the Ramnes, and
+as descended from Hostus Hostilius, one of the companions of Romulus;
+but Ancus was a Sabine, a grandson of Numa. The accounts about him are
+to some extent historical, and there is no trace of poetry in them. In
+his reign, the development of the state again made a step in advance.
+According to the ancient tradition, Rome was at war with the Latin
+towns, and carried it on successfully. How many of the particular events
+which are recorded may be historical I am unable to say; but that there
+was a war is credible enough. Ancus, it is said, carried away after this
+war many thousands of Latins, and gave them settlements on the Aventine.
+The ancients express various opinions about him; sometimes he is
+<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>described as a <i>captator aur&aelig; popularis</i>; sometimes he is called <i>bonus
+Ancus</i>. Like the first three kings, he is said to have been a
+legislator, a fact which is not mentioned in reference to the later
+kings. He is moreover stated to have established the colony of Ostia,
+and thus his kingdom must have extended as far as the mouth of the
+Tiber.</p>
+
+<p>Ancus and Tullus seem to me to be historical personages; but we can
+scarcely suppose that the latter was succeeded by the former, and that
+the events assigned to their reigns actually occurred in them. These
+events must be conceived in the following manner: Toward the end of the
+fourth reign, when, after a feud which lasted many years, the Romans
+came to an understanding with the Latins about the renewal of the
+long-neglected alliance, Rome gave up its claims to the supremacy which
+it could not maintain, and indemnified itself by extending its dominion
+in another and safer direction. The eastern colonies joined the Latin
+towns which still existed: this is evident, though it is nowhere
+expressly mentioned; and a portion of the Latin country was ceded to
+Rome, with which the rest of the Latins formed a connection of
+friendship, perhaps of isopolity. Rome here acted as wisely as England
+did when she recognized the independence of North America.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner Rome obtained a territory. The many thousand settlers
+whom Ancus is said to have led to the Aventine were the population of
+the Latin towns which became subject to Rome, and they were far more
+numerous than the two ancient tribes, even after the latter had been
+increased by their union with the third tribe. In these country
+districts lay the power of Rome, and from them she raised the armies
+with which she carried on her wars. It would have been natural to admit
+this population as a fourth tribe, but such a measure was not agreeable
+to the Romans: the constitution of the state was completed and was
+looked upon as a sacred trust in which no change ought to be introduced.
+It was with the Greeks and Romans as it was with our own ancestors,
+whose separate tribes clung to their hereditary laws, and differed from
+one another in this respect as much as they did from the Gauls in the
+color of their eyes and hair. They knew well enough that it was in their
+power to alter the laws, but they considered them as something <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>which
+ought not to be altered. Thus when the emperor Otho was doubtful on a
+point of the law of inheritance, he caused the case to be decided by an
+ordeal or judgment of God. In Sicily, one city had Chalcidian, another
+Doric laws, although their populations, as well as their dialects, were
+greatly mixed; but the leaders of those colonies had been Chalcidians in
+the one case and Dorians in the others. The Chalcidians, moreover, were
+divided into four, the Dorians into three tribes, and their differences
+in these respects were manifested even in their weights and measures.
+The division into three tribes was a genuine Latin institution; and
+there are reasons which render it probable that the Sabines had a
+division of their states into four tribes. The transportation of the
+Latins to Rome must be regarded as the origin of the <i>plebs</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="PRINCE_JIMMU_FOUNDS_JAPANS_CAPITAL" id="PRINCE_JIMMU_FOUNDS_JAPANS_CAPITAL"></a>PRINCE JIMMU FOUNDS JAPAN'S CAPITAL</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 660</h3>
+
+<h3><i>SIR EDWARD REED THE "NEHONGI"</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Prince Jimmu is the founder of the Empire of Japan, according to
+Japanese tradition. The whole of his history is overlaid with myth
+and legend. But it points to the immigration of western Asiatics by
+way of Corea into the Japanese islands of Izumo and Kyushu.</p>
+
+<p>The historical records of the Japanese relate that Jimmu,
+accompanied by an elder brother, Prince Itsuse, started from their
+grandfather's palace on Mount Takaclicho. They marched with a large
+number of followers, a horde of men, women, and children, as well
+as a band of armed men. On landing in Japan, after many years
+wandering by sea and land, they had serious conflicts with the
+native tribes. They eventually succeeded in overcoming all
+opposition and in conquering the country, so that Prince Jimmu was
+enabled to build a palace and set up a capital, Kashiha-bara, in
+Yamato. This prince is regarded by Japanese historians as the
+founder of the Japanese Empire. He is said to have reigned
+seventy-five years after his accession, and to have died at the age
+of one hundred and twenty-seven years, and his burial place is
+pointed out on the northern side of Mount Unebi, in the province of
+Yamato.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Jimmu, or whoever was the foreign ruler who conquered and
+founded an empire in Japan, must have been a bold, enterprising,
+and sagacious man. The islands he subdued were barbarous, and he
+civilized them; the inhabitants were warlike and cruel, and he kept
+them in peace. He founded a dynasty which extended its dominion
+over Nagato, Izumo, and Owari, and still has representatives in
+rulers whose people are by far the most progressive dwellers in the
+East.</p>
+
+<p>That part of the following historical matter, which is translated
+from the old Japanese chronicle, the <i>Nehongi</i>, is marked by local
+color and by Oriental characteristics, whereby it curiously
+contrasts with the plain recitals of modern and Western history.</p>
+
+<p><b>SIR EDWARD REED</b></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>There are endless varying legends about this god-period of Japan. All
+that we need now say in the way of reciting the legends of the gods has
+relation to the descent of the mikados of Japan from the deities.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>It was the misconduct of Susanoo that drove the sun-goddess into the
+cave and for this misconduct he was banished. Some say that, instead of
+proceeding to his place of banishment, he descended, with his son
+Idakiso no Mikoto, upon Shiraga (in Corea), but not liking the place
+went back by a vessel to the bank of the Hinokawa River, in Idzumo,
+Japan.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of their descent, Idakiso had many plants or seeds of trees
+with him, but he planted none in Shiraga, but took them across with him,
+and scattered them from Kuishiu all over Japan, so that the whole
+country became green with trees. It is said that Idakiso is respected as
+the god of merit, and is worshipped in Kinokuni. His two sisters also
+took care of the plantation. One of the gods who reigned over the
+country in the prehistoric period was Ohonamuchi, who is said by some to
+be the son of Susanoo, and by others to be one of his later descendants;
+"And which is right, it is more than we can say," remarked one of my
+scholarly friends.</p>
+
+<p>However, during his reign he was anxious about the people, and,
+consulting with Sukuna no Mikoto, applied "his whole heart," we are
+told, to their good government, and they all became loyal to him. One
+time he said to his friend just named, "Do you think we are governing
+the people well?" And his friend answered: "In some respects well, and
+in some not," so that they were frank and honest with each other in
+those days.</p>
+
+<p>When Sukunahikona went away, Ohonamuchi said: "It is I who should govern
+this country. Is there any who will assist me?" Then there appeared over
+the sea a divine light, and there came a god floating and floating, and
+said: "You cannot govern the country without me." And this proved to be
+the god Ohomiwa no Kami, who built a palace at Mimuro, in Yamato, and
+dwelt therein. He affords a direct link with the Mikado family, for his
+daughter became the empress of the first historic emperor Jimmu. Her
+name was Humetatara Izudsuhime.</p>
+
+<p>All the descendants of her father are named, like him, Ohomiwa no Kami,
+and it is said that the present empress of Japan is probably a
+descendant of this god. As regards the descent of the Emperor Jimmu
+himself we already know that <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>Ninigi no Mikoto, "the sovran grandchild"
+of the sun-goddess, was sent down with the sacred symbols of empire
+given to him in the sun by the sun-goddess herself before he started for
+the earth. Now Ninigi married (reader, forgive me for quoting the lady's
+name and her father's) Konohaneno-sakuyahime, the daughter of
+Ohoyamazumino-Kami, and the pair had three sons, of whom the last named
+Howori no Mikoto succeeded to the throne. He is sometimes called by the
+following simple&mdash;and possibly endearing&mdash;name: Amatsuhitakahi
+Kohoho-demi no Mikoto.</p>
+
+<p>He married Toyatama-hime, the daughter of the sea-god, and they had a
+son, Ugaya-fuki-ayedsu no Mikoto, born, it is said, under an unfinished
+roof of cormorants' wings, who succeeded the father, and who married
+Tamayori-hime, also a daughter of the sea-god. This illustrious couple
+had four sons, of whom the last succeeded to the throne in the year
+<span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 660. He was named Kamuyamatoi warehiko no Mikoto, but
+posterity has fortunately simplified his designation to the now familiar
+Jimmu-Tenno, the first historic Emperor of Japan, and the ancestor of
+the present emperor.</p>
+
+<p>The histories of Japan, prepared under the sanction of the present
+Japanese government, date the commencement of the historic period from
+the first year of the reign of the first emperor, Jimmu-Tenno, who is
+said to have ruled for seventy-six years, viz., from <span class="smcap">B.C.</span> 660
+to 585. Some persons consider that this reign, and a few reigns that
+succeeded it, probably or possibly belong to the legendary period,
+because while, on the one hand, the Emperor Jimmu is described as the
+founder of the present empire and the ancestor of the present emperor,
+on the other, he is described as the fourth son of Ukay Fukiaezu no
+Mikoto, who was fifth in direct descent from the beautiful sun-goddess,
+Tensho-Daijin. But as no such thing as writing existed in Japan in those
+days, or for many centuries afterward, it would not be surprising if a
+real monarch should have a mythical origin assigned to him; and as I
+have quite lately heard the guns firing at Nagasaki an imperial salute
+in honor of his coronation, and have seen the flags waving over the
+capital city, Tokio, in honor of the birthday, the Emperor Jimmu is
+quite historical enough for my present purpose.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>The commencement of his reign shall fix for us, as it does for others,
+the Japanese year 1, which was 660 years prior to our year 1, so that
+any date of the Christian era can be converted into one of the Japanese
+era by the addition of 660 years, and <i>vice-versa.</i> Some of the emperors
+will be found to have lived very long lives, no doubt; but as I have
+said elsewhere, none of them lived nearly so long as our Adam,
+Methuselah, and others, in whose longevity so many of us profess to
+believe; and besides, it is impossible for me to attempt to correct a
+chronology which Japanese scholars, and Englishmen versed in the
+Japanese language, have thus far left without specific correction.
+Deferring for after consideration the incidents of the successive
+imperial reigns, except in so far as they bear directly upon the descent
+of the crown, let us, then, first glance at the succession of emperors
+and empresses who have ruled in the Morning Land.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of the Emperor Jimmu there appears to have been an
+interregnum for three years&mdash;although it is seldom taken account of&mdash;the
+second Emperor Suisei, who was the fifth son of the first emperor,
+having ascended the throne B.C. 581 and reigned till 549. The cause of
+the interregnum appears to have been the extreme grief which Suisei felt
+at the death of his father, in consequence of which he committed the
+administration of the empire, for a time, to one of his relatives&mdash;an
+unworthy fellow, as he proved, named Tagishi Mimi no Mikoto, who tried
+to assassinate his master and seize the throne for himself, and who was
+put to death by Suisei for his pains. The fifth son of the Emperor Jimmu
+was nominated by him as the successor, and it is probable that older
+sons were living and passed over, and that the throne was inherited in
+part by nomination even in this its first transfer.</p>
+
+<p>Some writers on Japanese history profess to see in the pantheon of
+Japan, pictured in the Kojiki and Nihonki, nothing more than a
+collection of distinguished personages who lived and labored and
+contended in the country before the historic period, thus bringing
+deified men and women down to earth again. Such persons accept the
+records of Jimmu-Tenno's origin as essentially accurate in so far as
+they state what is <a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>human and reasonable, rejecting them only when they
+set forth what is supernatural, and, to them, unbelievable.</p>
+
+<p>Others, on the contrary, consider, or profess to consider, the
+supernatural portions of those narratives as perfectly trustworthy, and
+discredit only those statements concerning the first of the sacred
+emperors which would seem in any way to detract from his divinity. I
+should be sorry to have to argue the case with either of these parties,
+but I must take the liberty of accepting as sufficiently accurate as
+much of the recorded lives of Jimmu and his successors as the modern
+prosaic histories in Japan are content to put forth, and no more.</p>
+
+<p>Proceeding upon this basis, there is not much to be said of the reigns
+of the mikados who ruled before the Christian era, beyond what has been
+already stated. As regards the first emperor, his ancestor Ninigi no
+Mikoto&mdash;whether a god or not, or whether he came down from the sun by
+means of "the bridge of heaven" or not&mdash;appears to have established his
+residence at the ancient Himuka, now Hiuga; there it was that
+Jimmu-Tenno first resided, and thence it was that he started on his
+historic and memorable career. The central parts of Japan were
+militarily occupied by rebels (whose names are preserved), and it was to
+subdue them that he proceeded eastward. He stopped for three years at
+Taka Shima, constructing the necessary vessels for crossing the waters,
+and then, in the course of years, making his way victoriously as far as
+Nanieva, the modern Osaka, encountered his foes at Kawachi, and defeated
+them, the chief general being left dead on the battle-field.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmu was now sole master of Japan, as then known, and in the following
+year he mounted the throne. The eastern and northern parts of the
+country were, however, still, and long afterwards, peopled by the Aino
+race, who were at a later period treated as troublesome savages, and
+conquered by a famous prince, Yamato-Dake, by help of the sacred sword.
+The spot selected by the Emperor Jimmu for his capital was Kashiwabara,
+in the province of Yamato, not far from the present western capital of
+Kioto. He there did honor to the gods, married, built himself a palace,
+and deposited in the throne-room the sacred mirror, sword, and ball, the
+insignia of <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>the imperial power handed down from the sun-goddess. He
+organized two imperial guards, one as a body-guard to protect the
+interior of the palace, and the other to act as sentinels around the
+palace.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>THE "NEHONGI"</b></p>
+
+<p>The Emperor Kami Yamato Iharebiko's personal name was Hikohoho-demi. He
+was the fourth child of Hiko-nagisa-take-ugaya-fuki-ahezu no Mikoto. His
+mother's name was Tama-yori-hime, daughter of the sea-god. From his
+birth this emperor was of clear intelligence and resolute will. At the
+age of fifteen he was made heir to the throne. When he grew up he
+married Ahira-tsu-hime, of the district of Ata in the province of Hiuga,
+and made her his consort. By her he had Tagishi-mimi no Mikoto and
+Kisu-mimi no Mikoto.</p>
+
+<p>When he reached the age of forty-five, he addressed his elder brothers
+and his children, saying: "Of old, our heavenly deities Taka-mi-Musubi
+no Mikoto, and Oho-hiru-me no Mikoto, pointing to this land of fair
+rice-ears of the fertile reed-plain, gave it to our heavenly ancestor,
+Hiko-ho no Ninigi no Mikoto. Thereupon Hiko-ho no Ninigi no Mikoto,
+throwing open the barrier of heaven and clearing a cloud-path, urged on
+his superhuman course until he came to rest. At this time the world was
+given over to widespread desolation. It was an age of darkness and
+disorder. In this gloom, therefore, he fostered justice, and so governed
+this western border.</p>
+
+<p>"Our imperial ancestors and imperial parent, like gods, like sages,
+accumulated happiness and amassed glory. Many years elapsed from the
+date when our heavenly ancestor descended until now it is over 1,792,470
+years. But the remote regions do not yet enjoy the blessings of imperial
+rule. Every town has always been allowed to have its lord, and every
+village its chief, who, each one for himself, makes division of
+territory and practises mutual aggression and conflict.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I have heard from the Ancient of the Sea, that in the East there is
+a fair land encircled on all sides by blue mountains. Moreover, there is
+there one who flew down riding in a heavenly rock-boat. I think that
+this land will undoubtedly be suitable for the extension of the heavenly
+task, so that its <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>glory should fill the universe. It is doubtless the
+centre of the world. The person who flew clown was, I believe,
+Nigihaya-hi. Why should we not proceed thither, and make it the
+capital?"</p>
+
+<p>All the imperial princes answered, and said: "The truth of this is
+manifest. This thought is constantly present to our minds also. Let us
+go thither quickly." This was the year Kinoye Tora (51st) of the Great
+Year.</p>
+
+<p>In that year, in winter, on the Kanoto Tori day (the 5th) of the 10th
+month, the new moon of which was on the day Hinoto Mi, the emperor in
+person led the imperial princes and a naval force on an expedition
+against the East. When he arrived at the Haya-suhi gate, there was there
+a fisherman who came riding in a boat. The emperor summoned him and then
+inquired of him, saying: "Who art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy
+servant is a country-god, and his name is Utsuhiko. I angle for fish in
+the bays of ocean. Hearing that the son of the heavenly deity was
+coming, therefore I forthwith came to receive him." Again he inquired of
+him, saying: "Canst thou act as my guide?" He answered and said: "I will
+do so." The emperor ordered the end of a pole of Shihi wood to be given
+to the fisher, and caused him to be taken and pulled into the imperial
+vessel, of which he was made pilot.</p>
+
+<p>A name was especially granted him, and he was called Shihi-ne-tsu-hiko.
+He was the first ancestor of the Yamato no Atahe.</p>
+
+<p>Proceeding on their voyage, they arrived at Usa in the land of Tsukushi.
+At this time there appeared the ancestors of the Kuni-tsu-ko of Usa,
+named Usa-tsu-hiko and Usa-tsu-hime. They built a palace raised on one
+pillar on the banks of the River Usa, and offered them a banquet. Then,
+by imperial command, Usa-tsu-hime was given in marriage to the emperor's
+attendant minister Ama notane no Mikoto. Now, Ama notane no Mikoto was
+the remote ancestor of the Nakatomi Uji.</p>
+
+<p>Eleventh month, 9th day. The emperor arrived at the harbor of Oka in the
+Land of Tsukushi.</p>
+
+<p>Twelfth month, 27th day. He arrived at the province of Aki, where he
+dwelt in the palace of Ye.</p>
+
+<p>The year Kinoto U, Spring, 3rd month, 6th day. Going <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>onward, he entered
+the land of Kibi, and built a temporary palace in which he dwelt. It was
+called the palace of Takashima. Three years passed, during which time he
+set in order the helms of his ships, and prepared a store of provisions.
+It was his desire by a single effort to subdue the empire.</p>
+
+<p>The year Tsuchinoye Muma, Spring, 2d month, 11th day. The imperial
+forces at length proceeded eastward, the prow of one ship touching the
+stern of another. Just when they reached Cape Naniho they encountered a
+current of great swiftness. Whereupon that place was called Nami-haya
+(wave-swift) or Nami-hana (wave-flower). It is now called Naniha, which
+is a corruption of this.</p>
+
+<p>Third month, 10th day. Proceeding upwards against the stream, they went
+straight on, and arrived at the port of Awo-Kumo no Shira-date, in the
+township of Kusaka, in the province of Kafuchi.</p>
+
+<p>Summer, 4th month, 9th day. The imperial forces in martial array marched
+on to Tatsuta. The road was narrow and precipitous, and the men were
+unable to march abreast, so they returned and again endeavored to go
+eastward, crossing over Mount Ikoma. In this way they entered the inner
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Now when Naga-sune-hiko heard this, he said: "The object of the children
+of the heavenly deity in coming hither is assuredly to rob me of my
+country." So he straightway levied all the forces under his dominion,
+and intercepted them at the Hill of Kusaka. A battle was engaged, and
+Itsuse no Mikoto was hit by a random arrow on the elbow. The imperial
+forces were unable to advance against the enemy. The emperor was vexed,
+and revolved in his inmost heart a divine plan, saying: "I am the
+descendant of the sun-goddess, and if I proceed against the sun to
+attack the enemy, I shall act contrary to the way of heaven. Better to
+retreat and make a show of weakness. Then, sacrificing to the gods of
+heaven and earth, and bringing on our backs the might of the sun
+goddess, let us follow her rays and trample them down. If we do so, the
+enemy will assuredly be routed of themselves, and we shall not stain our
+swords with blood."</p>
+
+<p>They all said: "It is good." Thereupon he gave orders to the army,
+saying: "Wait a while and advance no further." <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>So he withdrew his
+forces, and the enemy also did not dare to attack him. He then retired
+to the port of Kusaka, where he set up shields, and made a warlike show.
+Therefore the name of this port was changed to Tatetsu, which is now
+corrupted into Tadetsu.</p>
+
+<p>Before this, at the battle of Kusaka, there was a man who hid in a great
+tree, and by so doing escaped danger. So pointing to this tree, he said:
+"I am grateful to it, as to my mother." Therefore the people of the day
+called that place Omo no ki no Mura.</p>
+
+<p>Fifth month, 8th day. The army arrived at the port of Yamaki in Chinu
+(also called Port Yama no wi). Now Itsuse no Mikoto's arrow wound was
+extremely painful. He grasped his sword, and striking a martial
+attitude, said: "How exasperating it is that a man should die of a wound
+received at the hands of slaves, and should not avenge it!" The people
+of that day therefore called the place Wo no Minoto.</p>
+
+<p>Proceeding onward, they reached Mount Kama in the Land of Kii, where
+Itsuse no Mikoto died in the army, and was therefore buried at Mount
+Kama.</p>
+
+<p>Sixth month, 23d day. The army arrived at the village of Nagusa, where
+they put to death the Tohe of Nagusa. Finally they crossed the moor of
+Sano, and arrived at the village of Kami in Kumano. Here he embarked in
+the rock-boat of heaven, and leading his army, proceeded onward by slow
+degrees. In the midst of the sea, they suddenly met with a violent wind,
+and the imperial vessel was tossed about. Then Ina-ihi no Mikoto
+exclaimed and said: "Alas! my ancestors were heavenly deities, and my
+mother was a goddess of the sea. Why do they harass me by land, and why,
+moreover, do they harass me by sea?" When he had said this, he drew his
+sword and plunged into the sea, where he became changed into the god
+Sabi-Mochi.</p>
+
+<p>Miki In no no Mikoto, also indignant at this, said: "My mother and my
+aunt are both sea-goddesses; why do they raise great billows to
+overwhelm us?" So, treading upon the waves, he went to the Eternal Land.
+The emperor was now alone with the imperial prince, Tagishi-Mimi no
+Mikoto. Leading his army forward, he arrived at Port Arazaka in Kumano
+<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>(also called Nishiki Bay), where he put to death the Tohe of Nishiki.
+At this time the gods belched up a poisonous vapor, from which every one
+suffered. For this reason the imperial army was again unable to exert
+itself. Then there was there a man by name Kumano no Takakuraji, who
+unexpectedly had a dream, in which Ama-terasu no Ohokami spoke to
+Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami, saying: "I still hear a sound of disturbance
+from the central land of reed-plains. Do thou again go and chastise it."</p>
+
+<p>Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami answered and said: "Even if I go not I can send
+down my sword, with which I subdued the land, upon which the country
+will of its own accord become peaceful." To this Ama-terasu no Kami
+assented. Thereupon Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami addressed Taka Kuraji,
+saying: "My sword, which is called Futsu no Mitama, I will now place in
+the storehouse. Do thou take it and present it to the heavenly
+grandchild." Taka Kuraji said, "Yes," and thereupon awoke. The next
+morning, as instructed in his dream, he opened the storehouse, and on
+looking in, there was indeed there a sword which had fallen down (from
+heaven) and was standing upside down on the plank floor of the
+storehouse. So he took it and offered it to the emperor. At this time
+the emperor happened to be asleep. He awoke suddenly, and said: "What a
+long time I have slept."</p>
+
+<p>On inquiry he found that the troops who had been affected by the poison
+had all recovered their senses and were afoot. The emperor then
+endeavored to advance into the interior, but among the mountains it was
+so precipitous that there was no road by which they could travel. And
+they wandered about not knowing whither to direct their march.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ama-terasu no Oho-Kami instructed the emperor in a dream of the
+night saying: "I will now send the Yata-garasu, make it thy guide
+through the land." Then there did indeed appear the Yata-garasu flying
+down from the void.</p>
+
+<p>The emperor said: "The coming of this crow is in due accordance with my
+auspicious dream. How grand! How splendid! My imperial ancestor
+Ama-terasu no Oho-Kami, desires therewith to assist me in creating the
+hereditary institution."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>At this time Hi no Omi no Mikoto, ancestor of the Ohotomo House, taking
+with him Oho-kume as commander of the main body, guided by the direction
+taken by the crow, looked up to it and followed after, until at length
+they arrived at the district of Lower Uda. Therefore they named the
+place which they reached the village of Ukechi in Uda. At this time by
+an imperial order he commended Hi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "Thou art
+faithful and brave, and art moreover a successful guide. Therefore will
+I give thee a new name, and will call thee Michi no Omi!"</p>
+
+<p>Autumn, 8th month, 2d day. The emperor sent to summon Ukeshi the elder
+and Ukeshi the younger. These two were chiefs of the district of Uda.
+Now Ukeshi the elder did not come. But Ukeshi the younger came, and
+making obeisance at the gate of the camp, declared as follows: "Thy
+servant's elder brother, Ukeshi the elder, shows signs of resistance.
+Hearing that the descendant of heaven was about to arrive, he forthwith
+raised an army with which to make an attack. But having seen from afar
+the might of the imperial army, he was afraid, and did not dare to
+oppose it. Therefore he has secretly placed his troops in ambush, and
+has built for the occasion a new palace, in the hall of which he has
+prepared engines. It is his intention to invite the emperor to a banquet
+there, and then to do him a mischief. I pray that this treachery be
+noted, and that good care be taken to make preparation against it."</p>
+
+<p>The emperor straightway sent Michi no Omi no Mikoto to observe the signs
+of his opposition. Michi no Omi no Mikoto clearly ascertained his
+hostile intentions, and being greatly enraged, shouted at him in a
+blustering manner: "Wretch! thou shalt thyself dwell in the house which
+thou hast: made." So grasping his sword and drawing his bow, he urged
+him and drove him within it. Ukeshi the elder being guilty before
+heaven, and the matter not admitting of excuse, of his own accord trod
+upon the engine and was crushed to death, His body was then brought out
+and decapitated, and the blood which flowed from it reached above the
+ankle. Therefore that place was called Udan no chi-hara. After this
+Ukeshi the younger prepared a great feast of beef and <i>sake</i>, with which
+he entertained the imperial army. The emperor distributed this <a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>flesh
+and <i>sake</i> to the common soldiers, upon which they sang the following
+verses:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"In the high {castle tree} of Uda<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I set a snare for woodcock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And waited,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But no woodcock came to it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A valiant whale came to it."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is called a Kume song. At the present time, when the department of
+music performs this song, there is still the measurement of great and
+small by the hand, as well as a distinction of coarse and fine in the
+notes of the voice. This is by a rule handed down from antiquity. After
+this the emperor wished to respect the Land of Yoshino, so, taking
+personal command of the light troops, he made a progress round by way of
+Ukechi Mura in Uda. When he came to Yoshino, there was a man who came
+out of a well. He shone and had a tail. The emperor inquired of him,
+saying: "What man art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy servant is a
+local deity, and his name is Wihikari." He it is who was the first
+ancestor of the Yoshino no Obito.</p>
+
+<p>Proceeding a little further, there was another man with a tail, who
+burst open a rock and came forth from it. The emperor inquired of him,
+saying: "What man art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy servant is the
+child of Iha-oshiwake." It is he who was the first ancestor of the Kuzu
+of Yoshino. Then, skirting the river, he proceeded westward, when there
+appeared another man, who had made a fishtrap and was catching fish. On
+the emperor making inquiry of him, he answered and said: "Thy servant is
+the son of Nihe-molsu." He it is who was the first ancestor of the
+U-kahi of Ata.</p>
+
+<p>Ninth month, 5th day. The emperor ascended to the peak of Mount Takakura
+in Uda, whence he had a prospect over all the land. On Kuni-mi Hill
+there were descried eighty bandits.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover at the acclivity of the Me-Zaka there was posted an army of
+women, and at the acclivity of Wo-Zaka there was stationed a force of
+men. At the acclivity of Sumi-Zaka was <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>placed burning charcoal. This
+was the origin of the names Me-Zaka, Wo-Zaka and Sumi-Zaka.</p>
+
+<p>Again there was the army of Ye-Shiki, which covered all the village of
+Ihare. All the places occupied by the enemy were strong positions, and
+therefore the roads were cut off and obstructed, so that there was no
+room for passage. The emperor, indignant at this, made prayer on that
+night in person, and then fell asleep. The heavenly deity appeared to
+him in a dream, and instructed him, saying: "Take earth from within the
+shrine of the heavenly mount Kagu, and of it make eighty heavenly
+platters. Also make sacred jars and therewith sacrifice to the gods of
+heaven and earth. Moreover pronounce a solemn imprecation. If thou doest
+so, the enemy will render submission of their own accord."</p>
+
+<p>The emperor received with reverence the directions given in his dream,
+and proceeded to carry them into execution. Now Ukeshi the younger again
+addressed the emperor, saying: "There are in the province of Yamato, in
+the village of Shiki, eighty Shiki bandits. Moreover in the village of
+Taka-wohari (some say Katsuraki) there are eighty Akagane bandits.</p>
+
+<p>"All these tribes intend to give battle to the emperor, and thy servant
+is anxious in his own mind on his account. It were now good to take clay
+from the heavenly mount Kagu and therewith to make heavenly platters
+with which to sacrifice to the gods of the heavenly shrines and of the
+earthly shrines. If after doing so thou dost attack the enemy, they may
+be easily driven off."</p>
+
+<p>The emperor, who had already taken the words of his dream for a good
+omen, when he now heard the words of Ukeshi the younger, was still more
+pleased in his heart. He caused Shihi netsu-hiko to put on ragged
+garments and a grass hat and to disguise himself as an old man. He also
+caused Ukeshi the younger to cover himself with a winnowing tray, so as
+to assume the appearance of an old woman, and then addressed them,
+saying: "Do ye two proceed to the heavenly mount Kagu, and secretly take
+earth from its summit. Having done so, return hither. By means of you I
+shall then divine whether my undertaking will be successful or not. Do
+your utmost and be watchful." Now the enemy's army filled the road, <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>and
+made all passage impossible. Then Shihi-netsu-hiko prayed, and said: "If
+it will be possible for our emperor to conquer this land, let the road
+by which we must travel become open. But if not, let the brigands surely
+oppose our passage."</p>
+
+<p>Having thus spoken they set forth and went straight onward. Now the
+hostile band, seeing the two men, laughed loudly, and said: "What an
+uncouth old man and old woman!" So with one accord they left the road,
+and allowed the two men to pass and proceed to the mountain, where they
+took the clay and returned with it. Hereupon the emperor was greatly
+pleased, and with this clay he made eighty platters, eighty heavenly
+small jars and sacred jars, with which he went to the upper waters of
+the River Nifu and sacrificed to the gods of heaven and earth.
+Immediately, on the Asahara plain by the river of Uda, it became as it
+were like foam on the water, the result of the curse cleaving to them.
+Moreover the emperor went on to utter a vow, saying: "I will now make
+<i>Ame</i> in the eighty platters without using water. If the <i>Ame</i> is
+formed, then shall I assuredly without effort and without recourse to
+the might of arms reduce the empire to peace." So he made <i>Ame</i>, which
+forthwith became formed of itself. Again he made a vow, saying: "I will
+now take the sacred jars and sink them in the River Nifu. If the fishes,
+whether great or small, become every one drunken and are carried down
+the stream, like as it were to floating <i>maki</i> leaves, then shall I
+assuredly succeed in establishing this land. But if this be not so,
+there will never be any results."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he sank the jars in the river with their mouths downward.
+After a while the fish all came to the surface gaping, gasping as they
+floated down the stream. Then Shihi-netsu-hiko, seeing this, represented
+it to the emperor, who was greatly rejoiced, and plucking up a
+five-hundred-branched masakaki tree of the upper waters of the River
+Nifu, he did worship therewith to all the gods. It was with this that
+the custom began of selling sacred jars.</p>
+
+<p>At this time he commanded Michi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "We are now in
+person about to celebrate a public festival to Taka-mi-Musubi no Mikoto,
+and I appoint thee ruler of the festival, and I grant thee the title of
+Idzu-hime. The <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>earthen jars which are set up shall be called the Idzube
+or sacred jars, the fire shall be called Idzu no Kagu-tsuchi or
+sacred-fire-elder, the water shall be called Idzu no Midzu-ha no me or
+sacred-water-female, the food shall be called Idzuuka no me, or
+sacred-food-female, the firewood shall be called Idzu no Yama-tsuchi or
+sacred-mountain-elder, and the grass shall be called Idzu no no-tsuchi
+or sacred-moor-elder."</p>
+
+<p>Winter, 10th month, 1st day. The emperor tasted the food of the Idzube,
+and arraying his troops set forth upon his march. He first of all
+attacked the eighty bandits at Mount Kunimi, routed and slew them. It
+was in this campaign that the emperor, fully resolved on victory, made
+these verses, saying:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Like the Shitadami<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which creep round<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The great rock<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the Sea of Ise,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where blows the divine wind&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like the Shitadami,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My boys! My boys!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We will creep around<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smite them utterly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smite them utterly."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In this poem, by the "great rock" is intended the Hill of Kunimi.</p>
+
+<p>After this the band which remained was still numerous, and their
+disposition could not be fathomed. So the emperor privately commanded
+Michi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "Do thou take with thee the Oho Kume,
+and make a great <i>muro</i> at the village of Osaka. Prepare a copious
+banquet, invite the enemy to it, and then capture them." Michi no Omi no
+Mikoto thereupon, in obedience to the emperor's sacred behest, dug a
+<i>muro</i> at Osaka, and having selected his bravest soldiers, stayed
+therein mingled with the enemy. He secretly arranged with them, saying:
+"When they have got tipsy with <i>sake</i>, I will strike up a song. Do you
+when you hear the sound of my song, all at the same time stab the
+enemy."</p>
+
+<p>Having made this arrangement they took their seats, and the drinking
+bout proceeded. The enemy, unaware that there was any plot, abandoned
+themselves to their feelings, and <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>promptly became intoxicated. Then
+Michi no Omi no Mikoto struck up the following song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"At Osaka<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the great Muro-house,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though men in plenty<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enter and stay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We the glorious<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sons of warriors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wielding our mallet-heads,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wielding our stone-mallets,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Will smite them utterly."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Now when our troops heard this song, they all drew at the same time
+their mallet-headed swords, and simultaneously slew the enemy, so that
+there were no eaters left. The imperial army were greatly delighted;
+they looked up to heaven and laughed. Therefore he made a song saying:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Though folk say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That one Yemishi<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is a match for one hundred men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They do not so much as resist."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The practice according to which, at the present time, the Kume sing this
+and then laugh loud, had this origin. Again he sang, saying:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ho! now is the time!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ho! now is the time!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ha! Ha! Psha!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My boys!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even now,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My boys!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>All these songs were sung in accordance with the secret behest of the
+emperor. He had not presumed to compose them with his own motion.</p>
+
+<p>Then the emperor said: "It is the part of a good general when victorious
+to avoid arrogance. The chief brigands have now been destroyed, but
+there are ten bands of villains of a similar stamp, who are
+disputatious.</p>
+
+<p>"Their disposition cannot be ascertained. Why should we <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>remain for a
+long time in one place? By so doing we could not have control over
+emergencies!" So he removed his camp to another place.</p>
+
+<p>Eleventh month, 7th day. The imperial army proceeded in great force to
+attack the Hiko of Shiki. First of all the emperor sent a messenger to
+summon Shiki the elder, but he refused to obey. Again the Yata-garasu
+was sent to bring him. When the crow reached his camp it cried to him,
+saying: "The child of the heavenly deity sends for thee. Haste! haste!"
+Shiki the elder was enraged at this and said: "Just when I heard that
+the conquering deity of heaven was coming I was indignant at this; why
+shouldst thou, a bird of the crow tribe, utter such an abominable cry?"
+So he drew his bow and aimed at it. The crow forthwith fled away, and
+next proceeded to the house of Shiki the younger, where it cried,
+saying: "The child of the heavenly deity summons thee. Haste! haste!"
+Then Shiki the younger was afraid, and changing countenance, said: "Thy
+servant, hearing of the approach of the conquering deity of heaven, is
+full of dread morning and evening. Well hast thou cried to me, O crow!"</p>
+
+<p>He straightway made eight leaf-platters, on which he disposed food, and
+entertained the crow. Accordingly, in obedience to the crow, he
+proceeded to the emperor and informed him, saying: "My elder brother,
+Shiki the elder, hearing of the approach of the child of the heavenly
+deity, forthwith assembled eighty bandits and provided arms, with which
+he is about to do battle with thee. It will be well to take measures
+against him without delay." The emperor accordingly assembled his
+generals and inquired of them, saying: "It appears that Shiki the elder
+has now rebellious intentions. I summoned him, but again he will not
+come. What is to be done?" The generals said: "Shiki the elder is a
+crafty knave. It will be well, first of all, to send Shiki the younger
+to make matters clear to him, and at the same time to make explanations
+to Kuraji the elder and Kuraji the younger. If after that they still
+refuse submission, it will not be too late to take warlike measures
+against them."</p>
+
+<p>Shiki the younger was accordingly sent to explain to them their
+interests. But Shiki the elder and the others adhered <a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>to their foolish
+design, and would not consent to submit. Then Shiki-netsu-hiko advised
+as follows: "Let us first send out our feebler troops by the Osaka road.
+When the enemy sees them he will assuredly proceed thither with all his
+best troops. We should then straightway urge forward our robust troops,
+and make straight for Sumi-Zaka.</p>
+
+<p>"Then with the water of the River Uda we should sprinkle the burning
+charcoal, and suddenly take them unawares; when they cannot fail to be
+routed." The emperor approved this plan, and sent out the feebler troops
+toward the enemy, who, thinking that a powerful force was approaching,
+awaited them with all their power. Now up to this time, whenever the
+imperial army attacked, they invariably captured, and when they fought
+they were invariably victorious, so that the fighting men were all
+wearied out. Therefore the emperor, to comfort the hearts of his leaders
+and men, struck off this verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As we fight<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going forth and watching<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From between the trees<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Mount Inasa,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We are famished.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye keepers of cormorants<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Birds of the island)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come now to our aid."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In the end he crossed Sumi-Zaka with the stronger troops, and, going
+round by the rear, attacked them from two sides and put them to the
+rout, killing their chieftains, Shiki the elder, and the others.</p>
+
+<p>Third month, 7th day. The emperor made an order, saying: "During the six
+years that our expedition against the East has lasted, owing to my
+reliance on the majesty of Imperial Heaven, the wicked bands have met
+death. It is true that the frontier lands are still unpurified, and that
+a remnant of evil is still refractory. But in the region of the Central
+Land there is no more wind and dust. Truly we should make a vast and
+spacious capital and plan it great and strong.</p>
+
+<p>"At present things are in a crude and obscure condition, and the
+people's minds are unsophisticated. They roost in nests or dwell in
+caves. Their manners are simply what is custom<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>ary. Now if a great man
+were to establish laws, justice could not fail to flourish. And even if
+some gain should accrue to the people, in what way would this interfere
+with the sage's action? Moreover it will be well to open up and clear
+the mountains and forests, and to construct a palace. Then I may
+reverently assume the precious dignity, and so give peace to my good
+subjects. Above, I should then respond to the kindness of the heavenly
+powers in granting me the kingdom; and below, I should extend the line
+of the imperial descendants and foster rightmindedness. Thereafter the
+capital may be extended so as to embrace all the six cardinal points
+<i>(sic)</i>, and the eight cords may be covered so as to form a roof. Will
+this not be well? When I observe the Kashiha-bara plain, which lies
+southwest of Mount Unebi, it seems the centre of the land. I must set it
+in order." Accordingly, he, in this month, commanded officers to set
+about the construction of an imperial residence.</p>
+
+<p>Year Kanoye Saru, Autumn, 8th month, 16th day. The emperor, intending to
+appoint a wife, sought afresh children of noble families. Now there was
+a man who made representation to him, saying: "There is a child, who was
+born to Koto-Shiro-Nushi no Kami by his union with Tama-Kushi-hime,
+daughter of Mizo-kuhi-ni no Kami of Mishima. Her name is
+Hime-tatara-i-suzu-hime no Mikoto. She is a woman of remarkable beauty."
+The emperor was rejoiced. And on the 24th day of the 9th month he
+received Hime-tatara-i-suzu-hime no Mikoto and made her his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Year Kanoto Tori, Spring, 1st month, 1st day. The emperor assumed the
+imperial dignity in the palace of Kashiha-bara. This year is reckoned
+the first year of his reign. He honored his wife by making her empress.
+The children born to him by her were Kami-ya-wi-Mimi no Mikoto and
+Kami-Nunagaha-Mimi no Mikoto. Therefore there is an ancient saying in
+praise of this, as follows: "In Kashiha-bara in Unebi, he mightily
+established his palace-pillars on the foundation of the bottom rock, and
+reared aloft the cross roof-timbers to the plain of high heaven. The
+name of the emperor who thus began to rule the empire was Kami Yamato
+Ihare-biko Hohodemi."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>Fourth year, Spring, 2d month, 23d day. The emperor issued the
+following decree: "The spirits of our imperial ancestors, reflecting
+their radiance down from heaven, illuminate and assist us. All our
+enemies have now been subdued, and there is peace within the seas. We
+ought to take advantage of this to perform sacrifice to the heavenly
+deities, and therewith develop filial duty."</p>
+
+<p>He accordingly established spirit-terraces among the Tomi hills, which
+were called Kami-tsu-wono no Kaki-hara and Shimo tsu-wono no Kaki-hara.
+There he worshipped his imperial ancestors, the heavenly deities.</p>
+
+<p>Seventy-sixth year, Spring, 3d month, 11th day. The emperor died in the
+palace of Kashiha-bara. His age was then 127. The following year,
+Autumn, the 12th day of the 9th month, he was buried in the Misasigi,
+northeast of Mount Unebi.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_FOUNDATION_OF_BUDDHISM" id="THE_FOUNDATION_OF_BUDDHISM"></a>THE FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 623</h3>
+
+<h3><i>THOMAS WILLIAM RHYS-DAVIDS</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Not so many years ago, at the time when Buddhism first became known
+in Europe through philosophic writings of about six centuries after
+Buddha, then newly translated, it caused amazement that a religion
+which had brought three hundred millions of people under its sway
+should acknowledge no god. But the religion of Buddha, during a
+thousand years of practice by the Hindus, is entirely different
+from the representations given us in these translations. As shown
+by the bas-reliefs covering the ancient monuments of India, this
+religion, changed by modern scientists into a belief in atheism,
+is, in fact, of all religions the most polytheistic.</p>
+
+<p>In the first Buddhist monuments, dating back eighteen to twenty
+centuries, the reformer simply figures as an emblem. The imprint of
+his feet, the figure of the "Bo tree" under which he entered the
+state of supreme wisdom, are worshipped; and though he disdained
+all gods, and only sought to teach a new code of morals, we shortly
+see Buddha himself depicted as a god. In the early stages he is
+generally represented as alone, but gradually appears in the
+company of the Brahman gods. He is finally lost in a crowd of gods,
+and becomes nothing more than an incarnation of one of the Brahman
+deities. From that time Buddhism has been practically extinct in
+India.</p>
+
+<p>This transformation took a thousand years to bring about. During
+part of this great interval Buddha was being worshipped as an
+all-powerful god. Legends are told of his appearance to his
+disciples, and of favors he granted them.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that Buddha tried to set aside the laws of caste.
+This is an error. Neither did he attempt to break the Brahmanic
+Pantheon.</p>
+
+<p>Buddhism, which to-day is the religion of three hundred million
+people, about one-fifth of the world's inhabitants, toward the
+seventh or eighth century of our era almost entirely disappeared
+from its birthplace, India, whence it had spread over the rest of
+Asia, China, Russian Tartary, Burmah, etc. Only the two extreme
+frontiers of India, Nepal, in the north, and Ceylon, in the south,
+now practise the Buddhist cult.</p>
+
+<p>Gautama Buddha left behind him no written works. The Buddhists
+believe that he composed works which his immediate disciples
+learned <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>by heart, and which were committed to writing long
+afterward. This is not impossible, as the <i>Vedas</i><a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> were handed
+down in this manner for many hundreds of years.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>There was certainly an historical basis for the Buddhist legend. In
+fact, the legends group themselves round a number of very distinct
+occurrences.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the sixth century B.C. those Aryan tribes sprung from
+the same stem as our own ancestors, who have preserved for us in
+their Vedic songs so precious a relic of ancient thought and life,
+had pushed on beyond the five rivers of the Punjab, and were
+settled far down into the valley of the Ganges. They had given up
+their nomadic habits, dwelling in villages and towns, their wealth
+being in land, produce, and cattle.</p>
+
+<p>From democratic beginnings the whole nation had gradually become
+bound by an iron system of caste. The country was split up into
+little sections, each governed by some petty despot, and harassed
+by internecine feuds. Religion had become a debasing ritualism,
+with charms and incantations, fear of the influence of the stars,
+and belief in dreams and omens. The idea of the existence of a soul
+was supplemented by the doctrine of transmigration.</p>
+
+<p>The priests were well-meaning, ignorant, and possessed of a sincere
+belief in their own divinity. The religious use of the <i>Vedas</i> and
+the right to sacrifice were strictly confined to the Brahmans.
+There were travelling logicians, anchorites, ascetics, and solitary
+hermits. Although the ranks of the priesthood were closed against
+intruders, still a man of lower caste might become a religious
+teacher and reformer. Such were the conditions which welcomed
+Gautama Buddha.
+</p></div>
+
+<p>One hundred miles northeast of Benares, at Kapilavastu, on the banks of
+the river Rohini, the modern Kohana, there lived about five hundred
+years before Christ a tribe called Sakyas. The peaks of the mighty
+Himalayas could be seen in the distance. The Sakyas frequently
+quarrelled with the Koliyans, a neighboring tribe, over their water
+supplies from the river. Just now the two clans were at peace, and two
+daughters of the rajah of the Koliyans were wives of Suddhodana, the
+rajah of the Sakyas. Both were childless. This was deemed a very great
+misfortune among the Aryans, who thought that the star of a man's
+existence after death depended upon ceremonies to be performed by his
+heir. There <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>was great rejoicing, therefore, when, in about the
+forty-fifth year of her age, the elder sister promised her husband a
+son. In due time she started with the intention of being confined at her
+parents' house, but it was on the way, under the shade of some lofty
+satin trees in a pleasant grove called Lumbini, that her son, the future
+Buddha, was unexpectedly born. The mother and child were carried back to
+Suddhodana's house, and there, seven days afterward, the mother died;
+but the boy found a careful nurse in his mother's sister, his father's
+other wife.</p>
+
+<p>Many marvellous stories have been told about the miraculous birth and
+precocious wisdom and power of Gautama. The name Siddhartha is said to
+have been given him as a child, Gautama being the family name. Numerous
+were his later titles, such as Sakyasinha, the lion of the tribe of
+Sakya; Sakya-muni, the Sakya sage; Sugata, the happy one; Sattha, the
+teacher; Jina, the conqueror; Bhagava, the blessed one, and many others.</p>
+
+<p>In his twentieth year he was married to his cousin, Yasodhara, daughter
+of the rajah of Koli. Devoting himself to home pleasures, he was accused
+by his relations of neglecting those manly exercises necessary for one
+who might at any time have to lead his people in war. Gautama heard of
+this, and appointed a day for a general tournament, at which he
+distinguished himself by being easily the first at all the trials of
+skill and prowess, thus winning the good opinions of all the clansmen.
+This is the solitary record of his youth.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more is heard of him until, in his twenty-ninth year, Gautama
+suddenly abandoned his home to devote himself entirely to the study of
+religion and philosophy. It is said that an angel appeared to him in
+four visions: a man broken down by age, a sick man, a decaying corpse,
+and lastly, a dignified hermit. Each time Channa, his charioteer, told
+him that decay and death were the fate of all living beings. The
+charioteer also explained to him the character and aims of the ascetics,
+exemplified by the hermit.</p>
+
+<p>Thoughts of the calm life of the hermit strongly stirred him. One day,
+the occasion of the last vision, as he was entering his chariot to
+return home, news was brought to him that his wife <a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>Yasodhara had given
+birth to a son, his only child, who was called Rahula. This was about
+ten years after his marriage. The idea that this new tie might become
+too strong for him to break seems to have been the immediate cause of
+his flight. He returned home thoughtful and sad.</p>
+
+<p>But the people of Kapilavastu were greatly delighted at the birth of the
+young heir, their rajah's only grandson. Gautama's return became an
+ovation, and he entered the town amid a general celebration of the happy
+event. Amid the singers was a young girl, his cousin, whose song
+contained the words, "Happy the father, happy the mother, happy the wife
+of such a son and husband." In the word "Happy" there was a double
+meaning: it meant also "freed" from the chains of sin and of
+existence, saved. In gratitude to one who at such a time reminded him of
+his higher duties, Gautama took off his necklace of pearls and sent it
+to her. She imagined that she had won the love of young Siddhartha, but
+he took no further notice of her.</p>
+
+<p>That night the dancing girls came, but he paid them no attention, and
+gradually fell into an uneasy slumber. At midnight he awoke, and sent
+Channa for his horse. While waiting for the steed Gautama gently opened
+the door of the room where Yasodhara was sleeping, surrounded by
+flowers, with one hand on the head of her child. After one loving, fond
+glance he tore himself away. Accompanied only by Channa he left his home
+and wealth and power, his wife and only child behind him, to become a
+penniless wanderer. This was the Great Renunciation.</p>
+
+<p>There follows a story of a vision. Mara, the great tempter, the spirit
+of evil, appears in the sky, urging Gautama to stop. He promises him a
+universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up
+his enterprise. The tempter does not prevail, but from that time he
+followed Gautama as a shadow, hoping to seduce him from that right way.</p>
+
+<p>All night Gautama rode, and at the dawn, when beyond the confines of his
+father's domain, dismounts. He cuts off his long hair with his sword,
+and sends back all his ornaments and his horse by the faithful
+charioteer.</p>
+
+<p>Seven days he spends alone beneath the shade of a mango <a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>grove, and then
+fares onward to Rajogriha, the capital of Magadha. This town was the
+seat of Bimbasara, one of the most powerful princes in the eastern
+valley of the Ganges. In the hillside caves near at hand were several
+hermits. To one of these Brahman teachers, Alara, Gautama attached
+himself, and later to another named Udraka. From these he learned all
+that Hindu philosophy could teach.</p>
+
+<p>Still unsatisfied, Gautama next retired to the jungle of Uruvela, on the
+most northerly spur of the Viadhya range of mountains, near the present
+temple of Buddha Gaya. Here for six years he gave himself up to the
+severest penance until he was wasted away to a shadow by fasting and
+self-mortification. Such self-control spread his fame "like the sound of
+a great bell hung in the skies." But the more he fasted and denied
+himself, the more he felt himself a prey to a mental torture worse than
+any bodily suffering.</p>
+
+<p>At last one day when walking slowly up and down, lost in thought,
+through extreme weakness he staggered and fell to the ground. His
+disciples thought he was dead, but he recovered. Despairing of further
+profit from such rigorous penance, he began to take regular food and
+gave up his self-mortification. At this his disciples forsook him and
+went away to Benares. In their opinion mental conquest lay only through
+bodily suppression.</p>
+
+<p>There now ensued a second crisis in Gautama's career which culminated in
+his withstanding the renewed attacks of the tempter after violent
+struggles.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after, if not on the very day when his disciples had left him, he
+wandered out toward the banks of the Nairaujara, receiving his morning
+meal from the hands of Sujuta, the daughter of a neighboring villager,
+and sat down to eat it under the shade of a large tree (<i>ficus
+religiosa</i>), called from that day the sacred "Bo tree," or tree of
+wisdom. He remained there all day long, pondering what next to do. All
+the attractions of the luxurious home he had abandoned rose up before
+him most alluringly. But as the day ended his lofty spirit had won the
+victory. All doubts had lifted as mists before the morning sun. He had
+become Buddha, that is, enlightened. He had grasped the solution of the
+great mystery of sorrow. He <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>thought, having solved its causes and its
+cure, he had gained the haven of peace, and believed that in the power
+over the human heart of inward culture and of love to others he had
+discovered a foundation which could never be shaken.</p>
+
+<p>From this time Gautama claimed no merit for penances. A feeling of great
+loneliness possessed him as he arrived at his psychological and ethical
+conclusions. He almost despaired of winning his fellow-men to his system
+of salvation, salvation merely by self-control and love, without any of
+the rites, ceremonies, charms, or incantations of the Hindu religion.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of mankind, otherwise, as he imagined, utterly doomed and
+lost, made Gautama resolve, at whatever hazard, to proclaim his doctrine
+to the world. It is certain that he had a most intense belief in himself
+and his mission.</p>
+
+<p>He had intended first to proclaim his new doctrine to his old teachers,
+Alara and Udraka, but finding that they were dead, he proceeded to the
+deer forest near Benares where his former disciples were then living. In
+the cool of the evening he enters the deer-park near the city, but his
+former disciples resolve not to recognize him as a master. He tells them
+that they are still in the way of death, whereas he has found the way of
+salvation and can lead them to it, having become a Buddha. And as they
+reply with objections to his claims, he explains the fundamental truths
+of his system and principles of his new gospel, which the aged Kondanya
+was the first to accept from his master's lips. This exposition is
+preserved in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Sutra of the
+Foundations of the Kingdom of Righteousness.</p>
+
+<p>Gautama Buddha taught that everything corporeal is material and
+therefore impermanent. Man in his bodily existence is liable to sorrow,
+decay, and death. The reign of unholy desires in his heart produces
+unsatisfactory longings, useless weariness, and care. Attempted
+purification by oppressing the body is only wasted effort. It is the
+moral evil of the heart which keeps a man chained down in the degraded
+state of bodily life, which binds him in a union with the material
+world. Virtue and goodness will only insure him for a time, and, in
+another birth, a higher form of material life. From the chains of
+existence only the complete eradication of all evil will set him free.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>But these ideas must not be confused with Christian beliefs, for
+Buddhism teaches nothing of any immaterial existence. The foundations of
+its creed have been summed up in the Four Great Truths, which are as
+follows:</p>
+
+<p>1. That misery always accompanies existence;</p>
+
+<p>2. That all modes of existence of men or animals, in death or heaven,
+result from passion or desire (tanha);</p>
+
+<p>3. That there is no escape from existence except by destruction of
+desire;</p>
+
+<p>4. That this may be accomplished by following the fourfold way to
+Nirvana.</p>
+
+<p>The four stages are called the Paths, the first being an awakening of
+the heart. The first enemy which the believer has to fight against is
+sensuality and the last is unkindliness. Above everything is universal
+charity. Till he has gained that the believer is still bound, his mind
+is still dark. True enlightenment, true freedom, are complete only in
+love. The last great reward is "Nirvana," eternal rest or extinction.</p>
+
+<p>For forty-five years Gautama taught in the valley of the Ganges. In the
+twentieth year his cousin Ananda became a mendicant and attended on
+Gautama. Another cousin, however, stirred up some persecution of the
+great teacher, and the oppositions of the Brahmans had to be faced.</p>
+
+<p>There are clear accounts of the last few days of Gautama's life. On a
+journey toward Kusi-nagara he had rested in a grove at Pawa, presented
+to the society by a goldsmith of that place named Chunda. After a midday
+meal of rice and pork, prepared by Chunda, the Master started for
+Kusi-nagara, but stopped to rest at the river Kukusta. Feeling that he
+was dying, he left a message for Chunda, promising him a great reward in
+some future existence. He died at the river Kukusta, near Kusi-nagara,
+teaching to the last.</p>
+
+<p>Gautama's power arose from his practical philanthropy. His philosophy
+and ethics attracted the masses. He did not seek to found a new
+religion, but thought that all men would accept his form of the ancient
+creed. It was his society, the Sangha, or Buddhist order, rather than
+his doctrine, which gave to his religion its practical vitality.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>The following lines, filled with the poetic beauty of the Orient, are
+taken from the last spoken words of the great founder of Buddhism and
+the <i>Book of the Great Decease</i>. They give a clew to the cult of that
+religion and breathe the spirit of Nirvana in every scintillating
+sentence. As nearly as may be the translation is a literal one, done by
+Rhys-Davids, the world's greatest living authority on this subject:</p>
+
+<p>Now the Blessed One addressed the venerable Ananda, and said: "It may
+be, Ananda, that in some of you the thought may arise, 'The word of the
+Master is ended, we have no teacher more!' But it is not thus, Ananda,
+that you should regard it. The truths and the rules of the order which I
+have set forth and laid down for you all, let them, after I am gone, be
+the Teacher to you.</p>
+
+<p>"Ananda! when I am gone address not one another in the way in which the
+brethren have heretofore addressed each other&mdash;with the epithet, that
+is, of 'Avuso' (Friend). A younger brother may be addressed by an elder
+with his name, or his family name, or the title 'Friend,' But an elder
+should be addressed by a younger brother as 'Lord' or as 'Venerable
+Sir.'</p>
+
+<p>"When I am gone, Ananda, let the order, if it should so wish, abolish
+all the lesser and minor precepts.</p>
+
+<p>"When I am gone, Ananda, let the higher penalty be imposed on brother
+Khanna."</p>
+
+<p>"But what, Lord, is the higher penalty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let Khanna say whatever he may like, Ananda; the brethren should
+neither speak to him, nor exhort him, nor admonish him."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "It may be,
+brethren, that there may be doubt or misgiving in the mind of some
+brother as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way.
+Inquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to reproach yourselves afterward
+with the thought, 'Our teacher was face to face with us, and we could
+not bring ourselves to inquire of the Blessed One when we were face to
+face with him.'"</p>
+
+<p>And when he had thus spoken the brethren were silent.</p>
+
+<p>And again the second and the third time the Blessed One <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>addressed the
+brethren, and said: "It may be, brethren, that there may be doubt or
+misgiving in the mind of some brother as to the Buddha, or the truth, or
+the path, or the way. Inquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to reproach
+yourselves afterward with the thought, 'Our teacher was face to face
+with us, and we could not bring ourselves to inquire of the Blessed One
+when we were face to face with him.'"</p>
+
+<p>And even the third time the brethren were silent.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "It may be,
+brethren, that you put no questions out of reverence for the teacher.
+Let one friend communicate to another."</p>
+
+<p>And when he had thus spoken the brethren were silent.</p>
+
+<p>And the venerable Ananda said to the Blessed One: "How wonderful a thing
+is it, Lord, and how marvellous! Verily, I believe that in this whole
+assembly of the brethren there is not one brother who has any doubt or
+misgiving as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is out of the fulness of faith that thou hast spoken, Ananda! But,
+Ananda, the Tathagata knows for certain that in this whole assembly of
+the brethren there is not one brother who has any doubt or misgiving as
+to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way! For even the most
+backward, Ananda, of all these five hundred brethren has become
+converted, and is no longer liable to be born in a state of suffering,
+and is assured of final salvation."</p>
+
+<p>Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "Behold now,
+brethren, I exhort you, saying, 'Decay is inherent in all component
+things! Work out your salvation with diligence!'"</p>
+
+<p>This was the last word of the Tathagata!</p>
+
+<p>Then the Blessed One entered into the first stage of deep meditation.
+And rising out of the first stage he passed into the second. And rising
+out of the second he passed into the third. And rising out of the third
+stage he passed into the fourth. And rising out of the fourth stage of
+deep meditation he entered into the state of mind to which the infinity
+of space is alone present. And passing out of the mere consciousness of
+the infinity of space he entered into the state of mind to which nothing
+at all was specially present. And passing out <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>of the consciousness of
+no special object he fell into a state between consciousness and
+unconsciousness. And passing out of the state between consciousness and
+unconsciousness he fell into a state in which the consciousness both of
+sensations and of ideas had wholly passed away.</p>
+
+<p>Then the venerable Ananda said to the venerable Anuruddha: "O my Lord, O
+Anuruddha, the Blessed One is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay! brother Ananda, the Blessed One is not dead. He has entered into
+that state in which both sensations and ideas have ceased to be!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the Blessed One passing out of the state in which both sensations
+and ideas have ceased to be, entered into the state between
+consciousness and unconsciousness. And passing out of the state between
+consciousness and unconsciousness he entered into the state of mind to
+which nothing at all is specially present. And passing out of the
+consciousness of no special object he entered into the state of mind to
+which the infinity of thought is alone present. And passing out of the
+mere consciousness of the infinity of thought he entered into the state
+of mind to which the infinity of space is alone present. And passing out
+of the mere consciousness of the infinity of space he entered into the
+fourth stage of deep meditation. And passing out of the fourth stage he
+entered into the third. And passing out of the third stage he entered
+into the second. And passing out of the second he entered into the
+first. And passing out of the first stage of deep meditation he entered
+the second. And passing out of the second stage he entered into the
+third. And passing out of the third stage he entered into the fourth
+stage of deep meditation. And passing out of the last stage of deep
+meditation he immediately expired.</p>
+
+<p>When the Blessed One died there arose, at the moment of his passing out
+of existence, a mighty earthquake, terrible and awe-inspiring: and the
+thunders of heaven burst forth.</p>
+
+<p>When the Blessed One died, Brahma Sahampati, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"They all, all beings that have life, shall lay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aside their complex form&mdash;that aggregation<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of mental and material qualities,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That gives them, or in heaven or on earth,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>
+<span class="i0">Their fleeting individuality!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E'en as the teacher&mdash;being such a one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unequalled among all the men that are,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Successor of the prophets of old time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mighty by wisdom, and in insight clear&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Hath died!"</span><br />
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>When the Blessed One died, Sakka, the king of the gods, at the
+moment of his passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"They're transient all, each being's parts and powers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Growth is their nature, and decay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are produced, they are dissolved again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then is best, when they have sunk to rest!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When the Blessed One died, the venerable Anuruddha, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered these stanzas:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When he who from all craving want was free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who to Nirvana's tranquil state had reached,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When the great sage finished his span of life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No gasping struggle vexed that steadfast heart!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All resolute, and with unshaken mind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He calmly triumphed o'er the pain of death.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E'en as a bright flame dies away, so was<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His last deliverance from the bonds of life!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When the Blessed One died, the venerable Ananda, at the moment of
+his passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Then was there terror!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then stood the hair on end!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When he endowed with every grace&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The supreme Buddha&mdash;died!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When the Blessed One died, of those of the brethren who were not free
+from the passions, some stretched out their arms and wept, and some fell
+headlong to the ground, rolling to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+"Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away from existence! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!" But
+those of the brethren who were free from the passions (the Arahats) bore
+their grief collected and composed at the <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>thought: "Impermanent are all
+component things! How is it possible that [they should not be
+dissolved]?"</p>
+
+<p>Then the venerable Anuruddha exhorted the brethren, and said: "Enough,
+my brethren! Weep not, neither lament! Has not the Blessed One formerly
+declared this to us, that it is in the very nature of all things near
+and dear unto us, that we must divide ourselves from them, leave them,
+sever ourselves from them? How, then, brethren, can this be
+possible&mdash;that whereas anything whatever born, brought into being, and
+organized, contains within itself the inherent necessity of
+dissolution&mdash;how then can this be possible that such a being should not
+be dissolved? No such condition can exist! Even the spirits, brethren,
+will reproach us."</p>
+
+<p>"But of what kind of spirits is the Lord, the venerable Anuruddha,
+thinking?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are spirits, brother Ananda, in the sky, but of worldly mind, who
+dishevel their hair and weep, and stretch forth their arms and weep,
+fall prostrate on the ground, and roll to and fro in anguish at the
+thought: 'Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One
+passed away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!'</p>
+
+<p>"There are spirits, too, Ananda, on the earth, and of worldly mind, who
+tear their hair and weep, and stretch forth their arms and weep, fall
+prostrate on the ground, and roll to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+'Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!'</p>
+
+<p>"But the spirits who are free from passion hear it, calm and
+self-possessed, mindful of the saying which begins, 'Impermanent indeed
+are all component things. How then is it possible [that such a being
+should not be dissolved]?'"</p>
+
+<p>Now the venerable Anuruddha and the venerable Ananda spent the rest of
+that night in religious discourse. Then the venerable Anuruddha said to
+the venerable Ananda: "Go now, brother Ananda, into Kusinara and inform
+the Mallas of Kusinara, saying, 'The Blessed One, O Vasetthas, is dead:
+do, then, whatever seemeth to you fit!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Even so, Lord!" said the venerable Ananda, in assent to the venerable
+Anuruddha. And having robed himself early in <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>the morning, he took his
+bowl, and went into Kusinara with one of the brethren as an attendant.</p>
+
+<p>Now at that time the Mallas of Kusinara were assembled in the council
+hall concerning that very matter.</p>
+
+<p>And the venerable Ananda went to the council hall of the Mallas of
+Kusinara; and when he had arrived there, he informed them, saying, "The
+Blessed One, O Vasetthas, is dead; do, then, whatever seemeth to you
+fit!"</p>
+
+<p>And when they had heard this saying of the venerable Ananda, the Mallas,
+with their young men and their maidens and their wives, were grieved,
+and sad, and afflicted at heart. And some of them wept, dishevelling
+their hair, and some stretched forth their arms and wept, and some fell
+prostrate on the ground, and some reeled to and fro in anguish at the
+thought: "Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One
+passed away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the Mallas of Kusinara gave orders to their attendants, saying,
+"Gather together perfumes and garlands, and all the music in Kusinara!"</p>
+
+<p>And the Mallas of Kusinara took the perfumes and garlands, and all the
+musical instruments, and five hundred suits of apparel, and went to the
+Upavattana, to the Sala Grove of the Mallas, where the body of the
+Blessed One lay. There they passed the day in paying honor, reverence,
+respect, and homage to the remains of the Blessed One with dancing, and
+hymns, and music, and with garlands and perfumes; and in making canopies
+of their garments, and preparing decoration wreaths to hang thereon.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Mallas of Kusinara thought: "It is much too late to burn the
+body of the Blessed One to-day. Let us now perform the cremation
+to-morrow." And in paying honor, reverence, respect, and homage to the
+remains of the Blessed One with dancing, and hymns, and music, and with
+garlands and perfumes; and in making canopies of their garments, and
+preparing decoration wreaths to hang thereon, they passed the second day
+too, and then the third day, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the
+sixth day also.</p>
+
+<p>Then on the seventh day the Mallas of Kusinara thought:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>"Let us carry the body of the Blessed One, by the south and outside, to
+a spot on the south, and outside of the city,&mdash;paying it honor, and
+reverence, and respect, and homage, with dance and song and music, with
+garlands and perfumes,&mdash;and there, to the south of the city, let us
+perform the cremation ceremony!"</p>
+
+<p>And thereupon eight chieftains among the Mallas bathed their heads, and
+clad themselves in new garments with the intention of bearing the body
+of the Blessed One. But, behold, they could not lift it up!</p>
+
+<p>Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the venerable Anuruddha: "What,
+Lord, can be the reason, what can be the cause that eight chieftains of
+the Mallas who have bathed their heads, and clad themselves in new
+garments with the intention of bearing the body of the Blessed One, are
+unable to lift it up?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is because you, O Vasetthas, have one purpose and the spirits have
+another purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"But what, Lord, is the purpose of the spirits?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your purpose, O Vasetthas, is this: 'Let us carry the body of the
+Blessed One, by the south and outside, to a spot on the south, and
+outside of the city,&mdash;paying it honor, and reverence, and respect, and
+homage, with dance and song and music, with garlands and perfumes,&mdash;and
+there, to the south of the city, let us perform the cremation ceremony.'
+But the purpose of the spirits, Vasetthas, is this: 'Let us carry the
+body of the Blessed One by the north to the north of the city, and
+entering the city by the north gate, let us bring it through the midst
+of the city into the midst thereof. And going out again by the eastern
+gate,&mdash;paying honor, and reverence, and respect, and homage to the body
+of the Blessed One, with heavenly dance, and song, and music, and
+garlands, and perfumes,&mdash;let us carry it to the shrine of the Mallas
+called Makuta-bandhana, to the east of the city, and there let us
+perform the cremation ceremony.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Even according to the purpose of the spirits, so, Lord, let it be!"</p>
+
+<p>Then immediately all Kusinara down even to the dust-bins and rubbish
+heaps became strewn knee-deep with Mandarava <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>flowers from heaven! and
+while both the spirits from the skies, and the Mallas of Kusinara upon
+earth, paid honor, and reverence, and respect, and homage to the body of
+the Blessed One, with dance and song and music, with garlands and with
+perfumes, they carried the body by the north to the north of the city;
+and entering the city by the north gate they carried it through the
+midst of the city into the midst thereof; and going out again by the
+eastern gate they carried it to the shrine of the Mallas, called
+Makuta-bandhana; and there, to the east of the city, they laid down the
+body of the Blessed One.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the venerable Ananda: "What should
+be done, Lord, with the remains of the Tathagata?"</p>
+
+<p>"As men treat the remains of a king of kings, so, Vasetthas, should they
+treat the remains of a Tathagata."</p>
+
+<p>"And how, Lord, do they treat the remains of a king of kings?"</p>
+
+<p>"They wrap the body of a king of kings, Vasetthas, in a new cloth. When
+that is done they wrap it in cotton wool. When that is done they wrap it
+in a new cloth,&mdash;and so on till they have wrapped the body in five
+hundred successive layers of both kinds. Then they place the body in an
+oil vessel of iron, and cover that close up with another oil vessel of
+iron. They then build a funeral pile of all kinds of perfumes, and burn
+the body of the king of kings. And then at the four cross roads they
+erect a dagaba to the king of kings. This, Vasetthas, is the way in
+which they treat the remains of a king of kings. And as they treat the
+remains of a king of kings, so, Vasetthas, should they treat the remains
+of the Tathagata. At the four cross roads a dagaba should be erected to
+the Tathagata. And whosoever shall there place garlands or perfumes or
+paint, or make salutation there, or become in its presence calm in
+heart&mdash;that shall long be to them for a profit and a joy."</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the Mallas gave orders to their attendants, saying, "Gather
+together all the carded cotton wool of the Mallas!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the Mallas of Kusinara wrapped the body of the Blessed One in a new
+cloth. And when that was done they wrapped it in cotton wool. And when
+that was done, they wrapped it in a new cloth,&mdash;and so on till they had
+wrapped <a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>the body of the Blessed One in five hundred layers of both
+kinds. And then they placed the body in an oil vessel of iron, and
+covered that close up with another vessel of iron. And then they built a
+funeral pile of all kinds of perfumes, and upon it they placed the body
+of the Blessed One.</p>
+
+<p>Now at that time the venerable Maha Kassapa was journeying along the
+high road from Pava to Kusinara with a great company of the brethren,
+with about five hundred of the brethren. And the venerable Maha Kassapa
+left the high road, and sat himself down at the foot of a certain tree.</p>
+
+<p>Just at that time a certain naked ascetic who had picked up a Mandarava
+flower in Kusinara was coming along the high road to Pava. And the
+venerable Maha Kassapa saw the naked ascetic coming in the distance; and
+when he had seen him he said to the naked ascetic: "O friend! surely
+thou knowest our Master?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yea, friend! I know him. This day the Samana Gautama has been dead a
+week! That is how I obtained this Mandarava flower."</p>
+
+<p>And immediately of those of the brethren who were not yet free from the
+passions, some stretched out their arms and wept, and some fell headlong
+on the ground, and some reeled to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+"Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away from existence! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>But those of the brethren who were free from the passions (the Arahats)
+bore their grief collected and composed at the thought: "Impermanent are
+all component things! How is it possible that they should not be
+dissolved?"</p>
+
+<p>Now at that time a brother named Subhadda, who had been received into
+the order in his old age, was seated there in their company. And
+Subhadda the old addressed the brethren and said: "Enough, brethren!
+Weep not, neither lament! We are well rid of the great Samana. We used
+to be annoyed by being told, 'This beseems you, this beseems you not.'
+But now we shall be able to do whatever we like; and what we do not like
+that we shall not have to do!"</p>
+
+<p>But the venerable Maha Kassapa addressed the brethren, <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>and said:
+"Enough, my brethren! Weep not, neither lament! Has not the Blessed One
+formerly declared this to us, that it is in the very nature of all
+things near and dear unto us that we must divide ourselves from them,
+leave them, sever ourselves from them? How then, brethren, can this be
+possible&mdash;that whereas anything whatever born, brought into being, and
+organized contains within itself the inherent necessity of
+dissolution&mdash;how then can this be possible that such a being should not
+be dissolved? No such condition can exist!"</p>
+
+<p>Now just at that time four chieftains of the Mallas had bathed their
+heads and clad themselves in new garments with the intention of setting
+on fire the funeral pile of the Blessed One. But, behold, they were
+unable to set it alight! Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the
+venerable Anuruddha: "What, Lord, can be the reason, and what the cause,
+that four chieftains of the Mallas who have bathed their heads, and clad
+themselves in new garments, with the intention of setting on fire the
+funeral pile of the Blessed One, are unable to set it on fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is because you, O Vasetthas, have one purpose, and the spirits have
+another purpose."</p>
+
+<p>"But what, Lord, is the purpose of the spirits?"</p>
+
+<p>"The purpose of the spirits, O Vasetthas, is this: 'That venerable
+brother Maha Kassapa is now journeying along the high road from Pava to
+Kusinara with a great company of the brethren, with five hundred of the
+brethren. The funeral pile of the Blessed One shall not catch fire,
+until the venerable Maha Kassapa shall have been able reverently to
+salute the sacred feet of the Blessed One.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Even according to the purpose of the spirits, so, Lord, let it be!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the venerable Maha Kassapa went on to Makuta-bandhana of Kusinara,
+to the shrine of the Mallas, to the place where the funeral pile of the
+Blessed One was. And when he had come up to it, he arranged his robe on
+one shoulder; and bowing down with clasped hands he thrice walked
+reverently round the pile; and then, uncovering the feet, he bowed down
+in reverence at the feet of the Blessed One. And those five hundred
+brethren arranged their robes on one shoulder; and <a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>bowing down with
+clasped hands, they thrice walked reverently round the pile, and then
+bowed down in reverence at the feet of the Blessed One.</p>
+
+<p>And when the homage of the venerable Maha Kassapa and of those five
+hundred brethren was ended, the funeral pile of the Blessed One caught
+fire of itself. Now as the body of the Blessed One burned itself away,
+from the skin and the integument, and the flesh, and the nerves, and the
+fluid of the joints, neither soot nor ash was seen: and only the bones
+remained behind.</p>
+
+<p>Just as one sees no soot nor ash when glue or oil is burned, so, as the
+body of the Blessed One burned itself away, from the skin and the
+integument, and the flesh, and the nerves, and the fluid of the joints,
+neither soot nor ash was seen: and only the bones remained behind. And
+of those five hundred pieces of raiment the very innermost and outermost
+were both consumed. And when the body of the Blessed One had been burned
+up, there came down streams of water from the sky and extinguished the
+funeral pile of the Blessed One; and there burst forth streams of water
+from the storehouse of the waters (beneath the earth), and extinguished
+the funeral pile of the Blessed One. The Mallas of Kusinara also brought
+water scented with all kinds of perfumes, and extinguished the funeral
+pile of the Blessed One.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Mallas of Kusinara surrounded the bones of the Blessed One in
+their council hall with a lattice work of spears, and with a rampart of
+bows; and there for seven days they paid honor and reverence and respect
+and homage to them with dance and song and music, and with garlands and
+perfumes.</p>
+
+<p>Now the king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha
+clan, heard the news that the Blessed One had died at Kusinara. Then the
+king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha clan,
+sent a messenger to the Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the
+soldier caste, and I too am of the soldier caste. I am worthy to receive
+a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the
+Blessed One will I put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will I
+celebrate a feast!"</p>
+
+<p>And the Likkhavis of Vesali heard the news that the <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Likkhavis of Vesali sent a messenger to the
+Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we
+too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the
+relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we
+put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"</p>
+
+<p>And the Sakiyas of Kapila-vatthu heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Sakiyas of Kapila-vatthu sent a messenger to
+the Mallas, saying "The Blessed One was the pride of our race. We are
+worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the
+remains of the Blessed One will we put up a sacred cairn, and in honor
+thereof will we celebrate a feast!"</p>
+
+<p>And the Bulis of Allakappa heard the news that the Blessed One had died
+at Kusinara. And the Bulis of Allakappa sent a messenger to the Mallas,
+saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are
+of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics
+of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a
+sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"</p>
+
+<p>And the Brahman of Vethadipa heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Brahman of Vethadipa sent a messenger to the
+Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and I am
+a Brahman. I am worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed
+One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will I put up a sacred cairn,
+and in honor thereof will I celebrate a feast!"</p>
+
+<p>And the Mallas of Pava heard the news that the Blessed One had died at
+Kusinara. Then the Mallas of Pava sent a messenger to the Mallas,
+saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are
+of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics
+of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a
+sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"</p>
+
+<p>When they heard these things the Mallas of Kusinara spoke to the
+assembled brethren, saying, "The Blessed One died in our village domain,
+We will not give away any part of the remains of the Blessed One!" When
+they had thus spoken, <a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>Dona the Brahman addressed the assembled
+brethren, and said:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hear, reverend sir, one single word from me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forbearance was our Buddha wont to teach.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unseemly is it that over the division<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of the remains of him who was the best of beings<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strife should arise, and wounds, and war!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let us all, sirs, with one accord unite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In friendly harmony to make eight portions.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wide spread let Thupas rise in every land<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That in the Enlightened One mankind may trust!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Do thou then, O Brahman, thyself divide the remains of the Blessed One
+equally into eight parts with fair division."</p>
+
+<p>"Be it so, sir!" said Dona, in assent, to the assembled brethren. And he
+divided the remains of the Blessed One equally into eight parts, with
+fair division. And he said to them: "Give me, sirs, this vessel, and I
+will set up over it a sacred cairn, and in its honor will I establish a
+feast." And they gave the vessel to Dona the Brahman.</p>
+
+<p>And the Moriyas of Pipphalivana heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. Then the Moriyas of Pipphalivana sent a messenger to
+the Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and
+we too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of
+the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will
+we put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a
+feast!" And when they heard the answer, saying, "There is no portion of
+the remains of the Blessed One left over. The remains of the Blessed One
+are all distributed," then they took away the embers.</p>
+
+<p>Then the king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha
+clan, made a mound in Ragagaha over the remains of the Blessed One, and
+held a feast. And the Likkhavis of Vesali made a mound in Vesali over
+the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And the Bulis of
+Allakappa made a mound in Allakappa over the remains of the Blessed One,
+and held a feast. And the Koliyas of Ramagama made a mound in Ramagama
+over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And Vethadipaka
+the Brahman made <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>a mound in Vethadipa over the remains of the Blessed
+One, and held a feast. And the Mallas of Pava made a mound in Pava over
+the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And the Mallas of
+Kusinara made a mound in Kusinara over the remains of the Blessed One,
+and held a feast. And Dona the Brahman made a mound over the vessel in
+which the body had been burned, and held a feast. And the Moriyas of
+Pipphalivana made a mound over the embers, and held a feast.</p>
+
+<p>Thus were there eight mounds [Thupas] for the remains, and one for the
+vessel, and one for the embers. This was how it used to be. Eight
+measures of relics there were of him of the far-seeing eye, of the best
+of the best of men. In India seven are worshipped, and one measure in
+Ramagama, by the kings of the serpent race. One tooth, too, is honored
+in heaven, and one in Gandhara's city, one in the Kalinga realm, and one
+more by the Naga race. Through their glory the bountiful earth is made
+bright with offerings painless, for with such are the Great Teacher's
+relics best honored by those who are honored, by gods and by Nagas and
+kings, yea, thus by the noblest of monarchs&mdash;bow down with clasped
+hands! Hard, hard is a Buddha to meet with through hundreds of ages!</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Vedas</i>: The sacred books of the Hindus, in Sanscrit;
+probably written about six or seven centuries before Christ. <i>Veda</i>
+means knowledge. The books comprise hymns, prayers, and liturgical
+forms.</p></div>
+
+
+<p><b>End of the <i>Book of the Great Decease</i></b></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="PYTHIAN_GAMES_AT_DELPHI" id="PYTHIAN_GAMES_AT_DELPHI"></a>PYTHIAN GAMES AT DELPHI</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 585</h3>
+
+<h3><i>GEORGE GROTE</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Among the leading features of Greek life, especially those
+belonging to its religious customs and observances none are more
+characteristic, and none possess a more attractive interest for the
+modern reader and student than the peculiar festivals which it was
+their practice to hold. The four great national festivals or games
+were: The Olympic, held every four years, in honor of Zeus, on the
+banks of the Alpheus, in Elis; the Pythian, celebrated once in four
+years, in honor of Apollo, at Delphi; the Isthmian, held every two
+years, at the isthmian sanctuary in the Isthmus of Corinth, in
+honor of Poseidon (Neptune); and the Nemean, celebrated at Nemea,
+in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, in honor of the
+Nemean Juno.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the influence of these games or festivals upon the
+political and social life of Greece, much has been written by
+historians and special students of the Grecian states. While the
+celebrations do not appear to have accomplished much for the
+political union of Greece, they are to be credited with marked
+beneficial effects in the promotion of a pan-Hellenic spirit which,
+if it failed to produce such a union of the Greek race,
+nevertheless quickened and strengthened the common feeling of
+family relationship. Thus a sense of their identical origin and
+racial traits was kept alive, and the tendencies of Greek
+development and culture preserved their essential character and
+distinction. By means of these periodical gatherings, representing
+all parts of the Greek world, not only was friendly competition in
+every field of talent and performance secured, but even trade and
+commerce found through them new channels of activity. So in various
+ways the national games proved a source of fresh energy and broader
+enterprise among the various branches of the Grecian people. The
+particular character and significance of the Pythian games at
+Delphi, and their relation to the other national festivals, form an
+interesting subject for study in connection with the general
+history of Greece.</p></div>
+
+<p>What are called the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games (the
+four most conspicuous amid many others analogous) were in reality great
+religious festivals&mdash;for the gods then gave their special sanction,
+name, and presence to <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>recreative meetings&mdash;the closest association then
+prevailed between the feelings of common worship and the sympathy in
+common amusement. Though this association is now no longer recognized,
+it is nevertheless essential that we should keep it fully before us if
+we desire to understand the life and proceedings of the Greek. To
+Herodotus and his contemporaries these great festivals, then frequented
+by crowds from every part of Greece, were of overwhelming importance and
+interest; yet they had once been purely local, attracting no visitors
+except from a very narrow neighborhood. In the Homeric poems much is
+said about the common gods, and about special places consecrated to and
+occupied by several of them; the chiefs celebrate funeral games in honor
+of a deceased father, which are visited by competitors from different
+parts of Greece, but nothing appears to manifest public or town
+festivals open to Grecian visitors generally. And though the rocky Pytho
+with its temple stands out in the <i>Iliad</i> as a place both venerated and
+rich&mdash;the Pythian games, under the superintendence of the Amphictyons,
+with continuous enrollment of victors and a pan-Hellenic reputation, do
+not begin until after the Sacred War, in the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 586.</p>
+
+<p>The Olympic games, more conspicuous than the Pythian as well as
+considerably older, are also remarkable on another ground, inasmuch as
+they supplied historical computers with the oldest backward record of
+continuous time. It was in the year B.C. 776 that the Eleans inscribed
+the name of their countryman Coroebus as victor in the competition of
+runners, and that they began the practice of inscribing in like manner,
+in each Olympic or fifth recurring year, the name of the runner who won
+the prize. Even for a long time after this, however, the Olympic games
+seem to have remained a local festival; the prize being uniformly
+carried off, at the first twelve Olympiads, by some competitor either of
+Elis or its immediate neighborhood. The Nemean and Isthmian games did
+not become notorious or frequented until later even than the Pythian.
+Solon in his legislation proclaimed the large reward of 500 drams for
+every Athenian who gained an Olympic prize, and the lower sum of 100
+drams for an Isthmiac prize. He counts the former <a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>as pan-Hellenic rank
+and renown, an ornament even to the city of which the victor was a
+member&mdash;the latter as partial and confined to the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Of the beginnings of these great solemnities we cannot presume to speak,
+except in mythical language; we know them only in their comparative
+maturity. But the habit of common sacrifice, on a small scale and
+between near neighbors, is a part of the earliest habits of Greece. The
+sentiment of fraternity, between two tribes or villages, first
+manifested itself by sending a sacred legation or Theoria to offer
+sacrifices to each other's festivals and to partake in the recreations
+which followed; thus establishing a truce with solemn guarantee, and
+bringing themselves into direct connexion each with the god of the other
+under his appropriate local surname. The pacific communion so fostered,
+and the increased assurance of intercourse, as Greece gradually emerged
+from the turbulence and pugnacity of the heroic age, operated especially
+in extending the range of this ancient habit: the village festivals
+became town festivals, largely frequented by the citizens of other
+towns, and sometimes with special invitations sent round to attract
+Theors from every Hellenic community&mdash;and thus these once humble
+assemblages gradually swelled into the pomp and immense confluence of
+the Olympic and Pythian games. The city administering such holy
+ceremonies enjoyed inviolability of territory during the month of their
+occurrence, being itself under obligation at that time to refrain from
+all aggression, as well as to notify by heralds the commencement of the
+truce to all other cities not in avowed hostility with it. Elis imposed
+heavy fines upon other towns&mdash;even on the powerful Laced&aelig;mon&mdash;for
+violation of the Olympic truce, on pain of exclusion from the festival
+in case of non-payment.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes this tendency to religious fraternity took a form called an
+<i>Amphictyony</i>, different from the common festival. A certain number of
+towns entered into an exclusive religious partnership for the
+celebration of sacrifices periodically to the god of a particular
+temple, which was supposed to be the common property and under the
+common protection of all, though one of the number was often named as
+permanent administrator; while all other Greeks were excluded. That
+there were <a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>many religious partnerships of this sort, which have never
+acquired a place in history, among the early Grecian villages, we may
+perhaps gather from the etymology of the word <i>Amphictyons</i>&mdash;designating
+residents around, or neighbors, considered in the point of view of
+fellow-religionists&mdash;as well as from the indications preserved to us in
+reference to various parts of the country. Thus there was an Amphictyony
+of seven cities at the holy island of Caluria, close to the harbor of
+Troezen. Hermione, Epidaurus, &AElig;gina, Athens, Prasi&aelig;, Nauplia, and
+Orchomenus, jointly maintained the temple and sanctuary of Poseidon in
+that island&mdash;with which it would seem that the city of Troezen, though
+close at hand, had no connection&mdash;meeting there at stated periods, to
+offer formal sacrifices. These seven cities indeed were not immediate
+neighbors, but the speciality and exclusiveness of their interest in the
+temple is seen from the fact that when the Argians took Nauplia, they
+adopted and fulfilled these religious obligations on behalf of the prior
+inhabitants: so also did the Laced&aelig;monians when they had captured
+Prasi&aelig;. Again, in Triphylia, situated between the Pisatid and Messenia
+in the western part of Peloponnesus, there was a similar religious
+meeting and partnership of the Triphylians on Cape Samicon, at the
+temple of the Samian Poseidon. Here the inhabitants of Maciston were
+intrusted with the details of superintendence, as well as with the duty
+of notifying beforehand the exact time of meeting (a precaution
+essential amidst the diversities and irregularities of the Greek
+calendar) and also of proclaiming what was called the Samian truce&mdash;a
+temporary abstinence from hostilities which bound all Triphylians during
+the holy period. This latter custom discloses the salutary influence of
+such institutions in presenting to men's minds a common object of
+reverence, common duties, and common enjoyments; thus generating
+sympathies and feelings of mutual obligation amid petty communities not
+less fierce than suspicious. So, too, the twelve chief Ionic cities in
+and near Asia Minor had their pan-Ionic Amphictyony peculiar to
+themselves: the six Doric cities, in and near the southern corner of
+that peninsula, combined for the like purpose at the temple of the
+Triopian Apollo, and the feeling of special partnership is here
+particularly illustrated by <a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>the fact that Halicarnassus, one of the
+six, was formally extruded by the remaining five in consequence of a
+violation of the rules. There was also an Amphictyonic union at
+Onchestus in Boeotia, in the venerated grove and temple at Poseidon: of
+whom it consisted we are not informed. There are some specimens of the
+sort of special religious conventions and assemblies which seem to have
+been frequent throughout Greece. Nor ought we to omit those religious
+meetings and sacrifices which were common to all the members of one
+Hellenic subdivision, such as the pan-Boeotia to all the Boeotians,
+celebrated at the temple of the Ionian Athene near Coroneia; the common
+observances, rendered to the temple of Apollo Pyth&aelig;us at Argos, by all
+those neighboring towns which had once been attached by this religious
+thread to the Argian; the similar periodical ceremonies, frequented by
+all who bore the Ach&aelig;an or &AElig;tolian name; and the splendid and
+exhilarating festivals, so favorable to the diffusion of the early
+Grecian poetry, which brought all Ionians at stated intervals to the
+sacred island of Delos. This later class of festivals agreed with the
+Amphictyony in being of a special and exclusive character, not open to
+all Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one among these many Amphictyonies, which, though starting
+from the smallest beginnings, gradually expanded into so comprehensive a
+character, had acquired so marked a predominance over the rest, as to be
+called the "Amphictyonic assembly," and even to have been mistaken by
+some authors for a sort of federal Hellenic diet. Twelve sub-races, out
+of the number which made up entire Hellas, belonged to this ancient
+Amphictyony, the meetings of which were held twice in every year: in
+spring at the temple of Apollo at Delphi; in autumn at Thermopyl&aelig;, in
+the sacred precinct of Demeter Amphictyonis. Sacred deputies, including
+a chief called the <i>Hieromnemon</i> and subordinates called the <i>Pylagor&aelig;</i>,
+attended at these meetings from each of the twelve races: a crowd of
+volunteers seem to have accompanied them, for purposes of sacrifice,
+trade, or enjoyment. Their special, and most important, function
+consisted in watching over the Delphian temple, in which all the twelve
+sub-races had a joint interest, and it was the immense wealth and
+national ascendency <a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>of this temple which enhanced to so great a pitch
+the dignity of its acknowledged administrators.</p>
+
+<p>The twelve constituent members were as follows: Thessalians, Boeotians,
+Dorians, Ionians, Perrh&aelig;bians, Magnetes, Locrians, Oet&aelig;ans, Ach&aelig;ans,
+Phocians, Dolopes, and Malians. All are counted as <i>races</i> (if we treat
+the Hellenes as a race, we must call these <i>sub-races</i>), no mention
+being made of cities: all count equally in respect to voting, two votes
+being given by the deputies from each of the twelve: moreover, we are
+told that in determining the deputies to be sent or the manner in which
+the votes of each race should be given, the powerful Athens, Sparta, and
+Thebes had no more influence than the humblest Ionian, Dorian, or
+Boeotian city. This latter fact is distinctly stated by &AElig;schines,
+himself a Pylagore sent to Delphi by Athens. And so, doubtless, the
+theory of the case stood: the votes of the Ionic races counted for
+neither more nor less than two, whether given by deputies from Athens,
+or from the small towns of Erythr&aelig; and Priene; and in like manner the
+Dorian votes were as good in the division, when given by deputies from
+Boeon and Cytinion in the little territory of Doris, as if the men
+delivering them had been Spartans. But there can be as little question
+that in practice the little Ionic cities and the little Doric cities
+pretended to no share in the Amphictyonic deliberations. As the Ionic
+vote came to be substantially the vote of Athens, so, if Sparta was ever
+obstructed in the management of the Doric vote, it must have been by
+powerful Doric cities like Argos or Corinth, not by the insignificant
+towns of Doris. But the theory of Amphictyonic suffrage as laid down by
+&AElig;schines, however little realized in practice during his day, is
+important inasmuch as it shows in full evidence the primitive and
+original constitution. The first establishment of the Amphictyonic
+convocation dates from a time when all the twelve members were on a
+footing of equal independence, and when there were no overwhelming
+cities&mdash;such as Sparta and Athens&mdash;to cast in the shade the humbler
+members; when Sparta was only one Doric city, and Athens only one Ionic
+city, among various others of consideration not much inferior.</p>
+
+<p>There are also other proofs which show the high antiquity <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>of this
+Amphictyonic convocation. &AElig;schines gives us an extract from the oath
+which had been taken by the sacred deputies who attended on behalf of
+their respective races, ever since its first establishment, and which
+still apparently continued to be taken in his day. The antique
+simplicity of this oath, and of the conditions to which the members bind
+themselves, betrays the early age in which it originated, as well as the
+humble resources of those towns to which it was applied. "We will not
+destroy any Amphictyonic town&mdash;we will not cut off any Amphictyonic town
+from running water"&mdash;such are the two prominent obligations which
+&AElig;schines specifies out of the old oath. The second of the two carries us
+back to the simplest state of society, and to towns of the smallest
+size, when the maidens went out with their basins to fetch water from
+the spring, like the daughters of Celeos at Eleusis, or those of Athens
+from the fountain Callirrhoe. We may even conceive that the special
+mention of this detail, in the covenant between the twelve races, is
+borrowed literally from agreements still earlier, among the villages or
+little towns in which the members of each race were distributed. At any
+rate, it proves satisfactorily the very ancient date to which the
+commencement of the Amphictyonic convocations must be referred. The
+belief of &AElig;schines (perhaps also the belief general in his time) was,
+that it commenced simultaneously with the first foundation of the
+Delphian temple&mdash;an event of which we have no historical knowledge; but
+there seems reason to suppose that its original establishment is
+connected with Thermopyl&aelig; and Demeter Amphictyonia, rather than with
+Delphi and Apollo. The special surname by which Demeter and her temple
+at Thermopyl&aelig; was known&mdash;the temple of the hero Amphictyon which stood
+at its side&mdash;the word <i>Pyl&oelig;a</i>, which obtained footing in the language
+to designate the half-yearly meeting of the deputies both at Thermopyl&aelig;
+and at Delphi&mdash;these indications point to Thermopyl&aelig; (the real central
+point for all the twelve) as the primary place of meeting, and to the
+Delphian half-year as something secondary and superadded. On such a
+matter, however, we cannot go beyond a conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>The hero Amphictyon, whose temple stood at Thermopyl&aelig;, passed in
+mythical genealogy for the brother of Hellen. And <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>it may be affirmed,
+with truth, that the habit of forming Amphictyonic unions, and of
+frequenting each other's religious festivals, was the great means of
+creating and fostering the primitive feeling of brotherhood among the
+children of Hellen, in those early times when rudeness, insecurity, and
+pugnacity did so much to isolate them. A certain number of salutary
+habits and sentiments, such as that which the Amphictyonic oath
+embodies, in regard to abstinence from injury as well as to mutual
+protection, gradually found their way into men's minds: the obligations
+thus brought into play acquired a substantive efficacy of their own, and
+the religious feeling which always remained connected with them, came
+afterward to be only one out of many complex agencies by which the later
+historical Greek was moved. Athens and Sparta in the days of their
+might, and the inferior cities in relation to them, played each their
+own political game, in which religious considerations will be found to
+bear only a subordinate part.</p>
+
+<p>The special function of the Amphictyonic council, so far as we know it,
+consisted in watching over the safety, the interests, and the treasures
+of the Delphian temple. "If any one shall plunder the property of the
+god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall take treacherous counsel
+against the things in the temple, we will punish him with foot, and
+hand, and voice, and by every means in our power." So ran the old
+Amphictyonic oath, with an energetic imprecation attached to it. And
+there are some examples in which the council constitutes its functions
+so largely as to receive and adjudicate upon complaints against entire
+cities, for offences against the religious and patriotic sentiment of
+the Greeks generally. But for the most part its interference relates
+directly to the Delphian temple. The earliest case in which it is
+brought to our view is the Sacred War against Cirrha, in the 46th
+Olympiad or B.C. 595, conducted by Eurolychus the Thessalian, and
+Clisthenes of Sicyon, and proposed by Solon of Athens: we find the
+Amphictyons also about half a century afterward undertaking the duty of
+collecting subscriptions throughout the Hellenic world, and making the
+contract with the Alcm&aelig;onids for rebuilding the temple after a
+conflagration. But the influence of this council is essentially of a
+fluctuating and intermittent charac<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>ter. Sometimes it appears forward to
+decide, and its decisions command respect; but such occasions are rare,
+taking the general course of known Grecian history; while there are
+other occasions, and those too especially affecting the Delphian temple,
+on which we are surprised to find nothing said about it. In the long and
+perturbed period which Thucydides describes, he never once mentions the
+Amphictyons, though the temple and the safety of its treasures form the
+repeated subject as well of dispute as of express stipulation between
+Athens and Sparta. Moreover, among the twelve constituent members of the
+council, we find three&mdash;the Perrh&aelig;bians, the Magnetes, and the Ach&aelig;ans
+of Phthia&mdash;who were not even independent, but subject to the
+Thessalians; so that its meetings, when they were not matters of mere
+form, probably expressed only the feelings of the three or four leading
+members. When one or more of these great powers had a party purpose to
+accomplish against others&mdash;when Philip of Macedon wished to extrude one
+of the members in order to procure admission for himself&mdash;it became
+convenient to turn this ancient form into a serious reality; and we
+shall see the Athenian &AElig;schines providing a pretext for Philip to meddle
+in favor of the minor Boeotian cities against Thebes, by alleging that
+these cities were under the protection of the old Amphictyonic oath.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus that we have to consider the council as an element in Grecian
+affairs&mdash;an ancient institution, one among many instances of the
+primitive habit of religious fraternization, but wider and more
+comprehensive than the rest; at first purely religious, then religious
+and political at once, lastly more the latter than the former; highly
+valuable in the infancy, but unsuited to the maturity of Greece, and
+called into real working only on rare occasions, when its efficiency
+happened to fall in with the views of Athens, Thebes, or the king of
+Macedon. In such special moments it shines with a transient light which
+affords a partial pretense for the imposing title bestowed on it by
+Cicero&mdash;<i>commune Gr&aelig;ci&aelig; concilium;</i> but we should completely
+misinterpret Grecian history if we regarded it as a federal council
+habitually directed or habitually obeyed. Had there existed any such
+"commune concilium" of tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the
+tendencies of the Hellenic <a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>mind been capable of adapting themselves to
+it, the whole course of later Grecian history would probably have been
+altered; the Macedonian kings would have remained only as respectable
+neighbors, borrowing civilization from Greece and expending their
+military energies upon Thracians and Illyrians; while united Hellas
+might even have maintained her own territory against the conquering
+legions of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The twelve constituent Amphictyonic races remained unchanged until the
+Sacred War against the Phocians (B.C. 355), after which, though the
+number twelve was continued, the Phocians were disfranchised, and their
+votes transferred to Philip of Macedon. It has been already mentioned
+that these twelve did not exhaust the whole of Hellas. Arcadians,
+Eleans, Pisans, Miny&aelig;, Dryopes, &AElig;tolians, all genuine Hellenes, are not
+comprehended in it; but all of them had a right to make use of the
+temple of Delphi, and to contend in the Pythian and Olympic games. The
+Pythian games, celebrated near Delphi, were under the superintendence of
+the Amphictyons, or of some acting magistrate chosen by and presumed to
+represent them. Like the Olympic games, they came round every four years
+(the interval between one celebration and another being four complete
+years, which the Greeks called a <i>Pent&aelig;teris</i>): the Isthmian and Nemean
+games recurred every two years. In its first humble form a competition
+among bards to sing a hymn in praise of Apollo, this festival was
+doubtless of immemorial antiquity; but the first extension of it into
+pan-Hellenic notoriety (as I have already remarked), the first
+multiplication of the subjects of competition, and the first
+introduction of a continuous record of the conquerors, date only from
+the time when it came under the presidency of the Amphictyon, at the
+close of the Sacred War against Cirrha, What is called the first Pythian
+contest coincides with the third year of the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 585.
+From that period forward the games become crowded and celebrated: but
+the date just named, nearly two centuries after the first Olympiad, is a
+proof that the habit of periodical frequentation of festivals, by
+numbers and from distant parts, grew up but slowly in the Grecian world.</p>
+
+<p>The foundation of the temple of Delphi itself reaches far <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>beyond all
+historical knowledge, forming one of the aboriginal institutions of
+Hellas. It is a sanctified and wealthy place even in the <i>Iliad</i>; the
+legislation of Lycurgus at Sparta is introduced under its auspices, and
+the earliest Grecian colonies, those of Sicily and Italy in the eighth
+century B.C., are established in consonance with its mandate. Delphi and
+Dodona appear, in the most ancient circumstances of Greece, as
+universally venerated oracles and sanctuaries: and Delphi not only
+receives honors and donations, but also answers questions from Lydians,
+Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, etc.: it is not exclusively Hellenic. One
+of the valuable services which a Greek looked for from this and other
+great religious establishments was, that it should resolve his doubts in
+cases of perplexity; that it should advise him whether to begin a new,
+or to persist in an old project; that it should foretell what would be
+his fate under given circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under
+distress, on what conditions the gods would grant him relief.</p>
+
+<p>The three priestesses of Dodona with their venerable oak, and the
+priestess of Delphi sitting on her tripod under the influence of a
+certain gas or vapor exhaling from the rock, were alike competent to
+determine these difficult points: and we shall have constant occasion to
+notice in this history with what complete faith both the question was
+put and the answer treasured up&mdash;what serious influence it often
+exercised both upon public and private proceeding. The hexameter verses
+in which the Pythian priestess delivered herself were indeed often so
+equivocal or unintelligible, that the most serious believer, with all
+anxiety to interpret and obey them, often found himself ruined by the
+result. Yet the general faith in the oracle was no way shaken by such
+painful experience. For as the unfortunate issue always admitted of
+being explained upon two hypotheses&mdash;either that the god had spoken
+falsely, or that his meaning had not been correctly understood&mdash;no man
+of genuine piety ever hesitated to adopt the latter. There were many
+other oracles throughout Greece besides Delphi and Dodona; Apollo was
+open to the inquiries of the faithful at Ptoon in Boeotia, at Ab&aelig; in
+Phocis, at Branchid&aelig; near Miletus, at Patara in Lycia, and other places:
+in like manner, Zeus gave <a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>answers at Olympia, Poseidon at T&aelig;narus,
+Amphiaraus at Thebes, Amphilochus at Mallus, etc. And this habit of
+consulting the oracle formed part of the still more general tendency of
+the Greek mind to undertake no enterprise without having first
+ascertained how the gods viewed it, and what measures they were likely
+to take. Sacrifices were offered, and the interior of the victim
+carefully examined, with the same intent: omens, prodigies, unlooked-for
+coincidences, casual expressions, etc., were all construed as
+significant of the divine will. To sacrifice with a view to this or that
+undertaking, or to consult the oracle with the same view, are familiar
+expressions embodied in the language. Nor could any man set about a
+scheme with comfort until he had satisfied himself in some manner or
+other that the gods were favorable to it.</p>
+
+<p>The disposition here adverted to is one of these mental analogies
+pervading the whole Hellenic nation, which Herodotus indicates. And the
+common habit among all Greeks of respectfully listening to the oracle of
+Delphi will be found on many occasions useful in maintaining unanimity
+among men not accustomed to obey the same political superior. In the
+numerous colonies especially, founded by mixed multitudes from distant
+parts of Greece, the minds of the emigrants were greatly determined
+toward cordial co&ouml;peration by their knowledge that the expedition had
+been directed, the oecist indicated, and the spot either chosen or
+approved by Apollo of Delphi. Such in most cases was the fact: that god,
+according to the conception of the Greeks, "takes delight always in the
+foundation of new cities, and himself in person lays the first stone."</p>
+
+<p>These are the elements of union with which the historical Hellenes take
+their start: community of blood, language, religious point of view,
+legends, sacrifices, festivals, and also (with certain allowances) of
+manners and character. The analogy of manners and character between the
+rude inhabitants of the Arcadian Cyn&aelig;tha and the polite Athens, was,
+indeed, accompanied with wide differences; yet if we compare the two
+with foreign contemporaries, we shall find certain negative
+characteristics of much importance common to both. In no city of
+historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices or
+<a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>deliberate mutilation, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet,
+etc.; or castration; or selling of children into slavery; or polygamy;
+or the feeling of unlimited obedience toward one man: all customs which
+might be pointed out as existing among the contemporary Carthaginians,
+Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, etc. The habit of running, wrestling,
+boxing, etc., in gymnastic contests, with the body perfectly naked, was
+common to all Greeks, having been first adopted as a Laced&aelig;monian
+fashion in the fourteenth Olympiad: Thucydides and Herodotus remark that
+it was not only not practised, but even regarded as unseemly, among
+non-Hellenes. Of such customs, indeed, at once common to all the Greeks,
+and peculiar to them as distinguished from others, we cannot specify a
+great number, but we may see enough to convince ourselves that there did
+really exist, in spite of local differences, a general Hellenic
+sentiment and character, which counted among the cementing causes of a
+union apparently so little assured.</p>
+
+<p>During the two centuries succeeding B.C. 776, the festival of the
+Olympic Zeus in the Pisatid gradually passed from a local to a national
+character, and acquired an attractive force capable of bringing together
+into temporary union the dispersed fragments of Hellas, from Marseilles
+to Trebizond. In this important function it did not long stand alone.
+During the sixth century B.C., three other festivals, at first local,
+became successively nationalized&mdash;the Pythia near Delphi, the Isthmia
+near Corinth, the Nemea near Cleone, between Sicyon and Argos.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the
+particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution and
+enlargement were brought about&mdash;a notice the more interesting inasmuch
+as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation of something like
+pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost alone in an age which presents
+little else in operation except distinct city interests. At the time
+when the Homeric Hymn to the Delphinian Apollo was composed (probably in
+the seventh century B.C.), the Pythian festival had as yet acquired
+little eminence. The rich and holy temple of Apollo was then purely
+oracular, established for the purpose of com<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>municating to pious
+inquirers "the counsels of the Immortals." Multitudes of visitors came
+to consult it, as well as to sacrifice victims and to deposit costly
+offerings; but while the god delighted in the sound of the harp as an
+accompaniment to the singing of p&aelig;ans, he was by no means anxious to
+encourage horse-races and chariot-races in the neighborhood. Nay, this
+psalmist considers that the noise of horses would be "a nuisance", the
+drinking of mules a desecration to the sacred fountains, and the
+ostentation of fine-built chariots objectionable, as tending to divert
+the attention of spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.
+From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary
+"in the rocky Pytho"&mdash;a rugged and uneven recess, of no great
+dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about
+two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost
+Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The
+situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the
+congregation of any considerable number of spectators; altogether
+impracticable for chariot-races; and only rendered practicable by later
+art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium. Such a site
+furnished little means of subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents
+of visitors enabled the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,
+and gathered together by degrees a village around it.</p>
+
+<p>Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude, was situated
+the ancient Phocian town of Crissa, on a projecting spur of
+Parnassus&mdash;overhung above by the line of rocky precipice called the
+Ph&aelig;driades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine through which
+flows the river Peistus. On the other side of this river rises the steep
+mountain Cirphis, which projects southward into the Corinthian gulf&mdash;the
+river reaching that gulf through the broad Crissoean plain, which
+stretches westward nearly to the Locrian town of Amphissa; a plain for
+the most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern
+part immediately under the Cirphis, where the seaport Cirrha was placed.
+The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong to the very
+earliest periods of Grecian antiquity. But the octennial solemnity in
+honor of the god included at first no other competition except that of
+bards, who sang each <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>a p&aelig;an with the harp. The Amphictyonic assembly
+held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of Pytho, the other
+at Thermopyl&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed, the
+town of Crissa appears to have been great and powerful, possessing all
+the broad plain between Parnassus, Cirphis, and the gulf, to which
+latter it gave its name&mdash;and possessing also, what was a property not
+less valuable, the adjoining sanctuary of Pytho itself, which the Hymn
+identifies with Crissa, not indicating Delphi as a separate place. The
+Criss&aelig;ans doubtless derived great profits from the number of visitors
+who came to visit Delphi, both by land and by sea, and Cirrha was
+originally only the name for their seaport. Gradually, however, the port
+appears to have grown in importance at the expense of the town, just as
+Apollonia and Ptolemais came to equal Cyrene and Barca, and as Plymouth
+Dock has swelled into Devonport; while at the same time the sanctuary of
+Pytho with its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and came
+to claim an independent existence of its own. The original relations
+between Crissa, Cirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner at length
+subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising. The Criss&aelig;ans
+found themselves dispossessed of the management of the temple, which
+passed to the Delphians; as well as of the profits arising from the
+visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich the inhabitants of Cirrha.
+Crissa was a primitive city of the Phocian name, and could boast of a
+place as such in the Homeric Catalogue, so that her loss of importance
+was not likely to be quietly endured. Moreover, in addition to the above
+facts, already sufficient in themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told
+that the Cirrh&aelig;ans abused their position as masters of the avenue to the
+temple by sea, and levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who landed
+there&mdash;a number constantly increasing from the multiplication of the
+transmarine colonies, and from the prosperity of those in Italy and
+Sicily. Besides such offence against the general Grecian public, they
+had also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors by outrages upon
+women, Phocian as well as Argian, who were returning from the temple.</p>
+
+<p>Thus stood the case, apparently, about B.C. 595, when the <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>Amphictyonic
+meeting interfered&mdash;either prompted by the Phocians, or perhaps on their
+own spontaneous impulse, out of regard to the temple&mdash;to punish the
+Cirrh&aelig;ans. After a war of ten years, the first sacred war in Greece,
+this object was completely accomplished by a joint force of Thessalians
+under Eurolychus, Sicyonians under Clisthenes, and Athenians under
+Alem&aelig;on; the Athenian Solon being the person who originated and enforced
+in the Amphictyonic council the proposition of interference. Cirrha
+appears to have made a strenuous resistance until its supplies from the
+sea were intercepted by the naval force of the Sicyonian Clisthenes.
+Even after the town was taken, its inhabitants defended themselves for
+some time on the heights of Cirphis. At length, however, they were
+thoroughly subdued. Their town was destroyed or left to subsist merely
+us a landing-place; while the whole adjoining plain was consecrated to
+the Delphian god, whose domains thus touched the sea. Under this
+sentence, pronounced by the religious fooling of Greece, and sanctified
+by a solemn oath publicly sworn and inscribed at Delphi, the land was
+condemned to remain untilled and implanted, without any species of human
+care, and serving only for the pasturage of cattle. The latter
+circumstance was convenient to the temple, inasmuch as it furnished
+abundance of victims for the pilgrims who landed and came to
+sacrifice&mdash;for without preliminary sacrifice no man could consult the
+oracle; while the entire prohibition of tillage was the only means of
+obviating the growth of another troublesome neighbor on the seaboard.
+The ruin of Cirrha in this war is certain: though the necessity of a
+harbor for visitors arriving by sea, led to the gradual revival of the
+town upon a humbler scale of pretension. But the fate of Crissa is not
+so clear, nor do we know whether it was destroyed, or left subsisting in
+a position of inferiority with regard to Delphi. From this time forward,
+however, the Delphian community appear as substantive and autonomous,
+exercising in their own right the management of the temple; though we
+shall find, on more than one occasion, that the Phocians contest this
+right, and lay claim to the management of it for themselves&mdash;a remnant
+of that early period when the oracle stood in the domain of the Phocian
+Crissa. There seems, moreover, to have <a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>been a standing antipathy
+between the Delphians and the Phocians.</p>
+
+<p>The Sacred War emanating from a solemn Amphictyonic decree, carried on
+jointly by troops of different states whom we do not know to have ever
+before co&ouml;perated, and directed exclusively toward an object of common
+interest&mdash;is in itself a fact of high importance, as manifesting a
+decided growth of pan-Hellenic feeling. Sparta is not named as
+interfering&mdash;a circumstance which seems remarkable when we consider both
+her power, even as it then stood, and her intimate connection with the
+Delphian oracle&mdash;while the Athenians appear as the chief movers, through
+the greatest and best of their citizens. The credit of a large-minded
+patriotism rests prominently upon them.</p>
+
+<p>But if this sacred war itself is a proof that the pan-Hellenic spirit
+was growing stronger, the positive result in which it ended reinforced
+that spirit still farther. The spoils of Cirrha were employed by the
+victorious allies in founding the Pythian games. The octennial festival
+hitherto celebrated at Delphi in honor of the god, including no other
+competition except in the harp and the p&aelig;an, was expanded into
+comprehensive games on the model of the Olympic, with matches not only
+of music, but also of gymnastics and chariots&mdash;celebrated, not at Delphi
+itself, but on the maritime plain near the ruined Cirrha&mdash;and under the
+direct superintendence of the Amphictyons themselves. I have already
+mentioned that Solon provided large rewards for such Athenians as gained
+victories in the Olympic and Isthmian games, thereby indicating his
+sense of the great value of the national games as a means of promoting
+Hellenic intercommunion. It was the same feeling which instigated the
+foundation of the new games on the Cirrh&aelig;an plain, in commemoration of
+the vindicated honor of Apollo, and in the territory newly made over to
+him. They were celebrated in the autumn, or first half of every third
+Olympic year; the Amphictyons being the ostensible <i>Agonothets</i> or
+administrators, and appointing persons to discharge the duty in their
+names. At the first Pythian ceremony (in B.C. 586), valuable rewards
+were given to the different victors; at the second (B.C. 582), nothing
+was conferred but wreaths of laurel&mdash;the rapidly at<a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>tained celebrity of
+the games being such as to render any further recompense superfluous.
+The Sicyonian despot, Clisthenes himself, once the leader in the
+conquest of Cirrha, gained the prize at the chariot-race of the second
+Pythia. We find other great personages in Greece frequently mentioned as
+competitors, and the games long maintained a dignity second only to the
+Olympic, over which indeed they had some advantages; first, that they
+were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and
+antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were
+perverted by the Eleans on more than one occasion; next, that they
+comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From the
+circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games deserved,
+even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by
+Demosthenes&mdash;"the common <i>Agon</i> of the Greeks."</p>
+
+<p>The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated
+solemnities in Greece. Yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a celebrity
+not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all.
+Both the Nemea and Isthmia were distinguished from the other two
+festivals by occurring not once in four years, but once in two years;
+the former in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter
+in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek
+custom, an origin connected with the interesting persons and
+circumstances of legendary antiquity; but our historical knowledge of
+both begins with the sixth century B.C. The first historical Nemead is
+presented as belonging to Olympiad B.C. 52 or 53 (572-568), a few years
+subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the
+Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the
+valley of Nemea between Philus and Cleon&aelig;. The Cleon&aelig;ans themselves were
+originally its presidents, until, some period after B.C. 460, the
+Argians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of
+administration to themselves. The Nemean games had their Hellanodic&aelig; to
+superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the
+Olympic.</p>
+
+<p>Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a
+little earlier, for it has already been stated that <a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>Solon conferred a
+premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival
+as well as at the Olympian&mdash;in or after B.C. 594. It was celebrated by
+the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidon, and if we may
+draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is
+ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified
+it with the antiquities of their own state.</p>
+
+<p>We thus perceive that the interval between B.C. 600-560, exhibits the
+first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea&mdash;the
+first expansion of all the three from local into pan-Hellenic festivals.
+To the Olympic games, for some time the only great centre of union among
+all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now added three other sacred
+<i>Agones</i> of the like public, open, national character; constituting
+visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds, of collective Hellenism, and
+insuring to every Greek who went to compete in the matches, a safe and
+inviolate transit even through hostile Hellenic states. These four, all
+in or near Peloponnesus, and one of which occurred in each year, formed
+the period or cycle of sacred games, and those who had gained prizes at
+all the four received the enviable designation of Periodonices. The
+honors paid to Olympic victors, on their return to their native city,
+were prodigious even in the sixth century B.C., and became even more
+extravagant afterward. We may remark that in the Olympic games alone,
+the oldest as well as the most illustrious of the four, the musical and
+intellectual element was wanting. All the three more recent <i>Agones</i>
+included crowns for exercises of music and poetry, along with
+gymnastics, chariots, and horses.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon these four
+great festivals, that the gradual increase of Hellenic family feeling
+exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest period of Grecian
+history. Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious festivals in all the
+considerable towns gradually became more and more open and accessible,
+attracting guests as well as competitors from beyond the border. The
+comparative dignity of the city, as well as the honor rendered to the
+presiding god, were measured by the numbers, admiration, and envy, of
+the frequenting visitors. There is no <a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>positive evidence indeed of such
+expansion in the Attic festivals earlier than the reign of Pisistratus,
+who first added the quadrennial or greater Panathen&aelig; to the ancient
+annual or lesser Panathen&aelig;a. Nor can we trace the steps of progress in
+regard to Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespi&aelig;, Megara, Sicyon, Pellene, &AElig;gina,
+Argos, etc., but we find full reason for believing that such was the
+general reality. Of the Olympic or Isthmian victors whom Pindar and
+Simonides celebrated, many derived a portion of their renown from
+previous victories acquired at several of these local
+contests&mdash;victories sometimes so numerous as to prove how widespread
+the habit of reciprocal frequentation had become: though we find, even
+in the third century B.C., treaties of alliance between different cities
+in which it is thought necessary to confer such mutual right by express
+stipulation. Temptation was offered, to the distinguished gymnastic or
+musical competitors, by prizes of great value. Tim&aelig;us even asserted, as
+a proof of the overweening pride of Croton and Sybaris, that these
+cities tried to supplant the pre&euml;minence of the Olympic games by
+instituting games of their own with the richest prizes to be celebrated
+at the same time&mdash;a statement in itself not worthy of credit, yet
+nevertheless illustrating the animated rivalry known to prevail among
+the Grecian cities in procuring for themselves splendid and crowded
+games. At the time when the Homeric hymn to Demeter was composed, the
+worship of that goddess seems to have been purely local at Eleusis. But
+before the Persian war, the festival celebrated by the Athenians every
+year, in honor of the Eleusinian Demeter, admitted Greeks of all cities
+to be initiated, and was attended by vast crowds of them.</p>
+
+<p>It was thus that the simplicity and strict local application of the
+primitive religious festival among the greater states in Greece
+gradually expanded, on certain great occasions periodically recurring,
+into an elaborate and regulated series of exhibitions not merely
+admitting, but soliciting, the fraternal presence of all Hellenic
+spectators. In this respect Sparta seems to have formed an exception to
+the remaining states. Her festivals were for herself alone, and her
+general rudeness toward other Greeks was not materially softened even at
+the Carneia and Hyacinthia, or Gymnop&aelig;di&aelig;. On the other <a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>hand, the Attic
+Dionysia were gradually exalted, from their original rude spontaneous
+outburst of village feeling in thankfulness to the god, followed by
+song, dance and revelry of various kinds, into costly and diversified
+performances, first by a trained chorus, next by actors superadded to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>And the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied the
+perfection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated to invite a
+pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment of Hellenic unity.
+The dramatic literature of Athens however belongs properly to a later
+period. Previous to the year B.C. 560, we see only those commencements
+of innovation which drew upon Thespis the rebuke of Solon; who however
+himself contributed to impart to the Panathenaic festival a more solemn
+and attractive character by checking the license of the rhapsodes and
+insuring to those present a full orderly recital of the <i>Iliad</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The sacred games and festivals took hold of the Greek mind by so great a
+variety of feelings as to counterbalance in a high degree the political
+disseverance, and to keep alive among their widespread cities, in the
+midst of constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of
+brotherhood and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died
+away. The Theors, or sacred envoys who came to Olympia or Delphi from so
+many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same
+altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives to
+enrich or adorn one respective scene. Moreover the festival afforded
+opportunity for a sort of fair, including much traffic amid so large a
+mass of spectators; and besides the exhibitions of the games themselves,
+there were recitations and lectures in a spacious council-room for those
+who chose to listen to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers and
+historians&mdash;among which last the history of Herodotus is said to have
+been publicly read by its author. Of the wealthy and great men in the
+various cities, many contended simply for the chariot-victories and
+horse-victories. But there were others whose ambition was of a character
+more strictly personal, and who stripped naked as runners, wrestlers,
+boxers, or pancratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of a
+complete previous training. Cylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp
+the <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>scepter at Athens has been recounted, had gained the prize in the
+Olympic stadium; Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of Macedon, had
+run for it; the great family of the Diagorid&aelig; at Rhodes, who furnished
+magistrates and generals to their native city, supplied a still greater
+number of successful boxers and pancratiasts at Olympia, while other
+instances also occur of generals named by various cities from the list
+of successful Olympic gymnasts; and the odes of Pindar, always dearly
+purchased, attest how many of the great and wealthy were found in that
+list. The perfect popularity and equality of persons at these great
+games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to
+predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense crowd
+to a handful of servants armed with sticks, who executed the orders of
+the Elean Hellanodice. The ground upon which the ceremony took place,
+and even the territory of the administering state, was protected by a
+"Truce of God" during the month of the festival, the commencement of
+which was formally announced by heralds sent round to the different
+states. Treaties of peace between different cities were often formally
+commemorated by pillars there erected, and the general impression of the
+scene suggested nothing but ideas of peace and brotherhood among Greeks.
+And I may remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all
+Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the
+interval between B.C. 600-300 than it came to be afterward. For the
+Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting
+Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and
+manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners who were incapable of
+the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later
+times the games continued undiminished both in attraction and in number
+of visitors, the spirit of pan-Hellenic communion which had once
+animated the scene was gone forever.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="SOLONS_EARLY_GREEK_LEGISLATION" id="SOLONS_EARLY_GREEK_LEGISLATION"></a>SOLON'S EARLY GREEK LEGISLATION</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 594</h3>
+
+<h3><i>GEORGE GROTE</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Lycurgus, the reputed Spartan lawgiver, is credited with the
+construction, about B.C. 800, of the earliest Grecian commonwealth
+founded upon a specific code of laws. These laws had mainly a
+military basis, and through obedience to them the Spartans became a
+people of great hardiness, accustomed to self-discipline, famous
+for their prowess and endurance in war, and for sternness of
+individual and social virtues.</p>
+
+<p>In Athens there were no written laws until the time of Draco, B.C.
+621, the government before that period having been long in the
+hands of an oligarchy. In the year above named Draco was archon,
+and to him was intrusted the work of framing a legal code,
+conditions under the oligarchic rule having become intolerable to
+the people at large. The chief features of Draco's legislation had
+reference to the punishment of crime, and so extreme were the
+severities of the system and so cruel the penalties it prescribed
+that in later times it was declared to have been written in blood.</p>
+
+<p>The Draconian laws remained in force until superseded by the great
+system of Solon, whose advent as the new lawgiver was brought about
+mainly through the conspiracy of Cylon, twelve years after the
+legislation of Draco. Affairs in Athens were in a deplorable state
+of confusion and violence, the revolt of the poor against the power
+and privilege of the rich leading to dangerous dissensions and
+collisions. Solon, who enjoyed a universal reputation for wisdom
+and uprightness, was called upon by the oligarchy, which again held
+rule, to assume what was, in fact, almost absolute power. The
+character of his legislation and its influence upon the course of
+Greek history have been set forth by many authors, and the
+following account is perhaps the best that has appeared in modern
+literature.</p></div>
+
+<p>Solon, son of Execestides, was a Eupatrid of middling fortune, but of
+the purest heroic blood, belonging to the <i>gens</i> or family of the
+Codrids and Neleids, and tracing his origin to the god Poseidon. His
+father is said to have diminished his substance by prodigality, which
+compelled Solon in his earlier years to have recourse to trade, and in
+this pursuit he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. He was thus
+enabled to en<a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>large the sphere of his observation, and to provide
+material for thought as well as for composition. His poetical talents
+displayed themselves at a very early age, first on light, afterward on
+serious subjects. It will be recollected that there was at that time no
+Greek prose writing, and that the acquisitions as well as the effusions
+of an intellectual man, even in their simplest form, adjusted themselves
+not to the limitations of the period and the semicolon, but to those of
+the hexameter and pentameter. Nor, in point of fact, do the verses of
+Solon aspire to any higher effect than we are accustomed to associate
+with an earnest, touching, and admonitory prose composition. The advice
+and appeals which he frequently addressed to his countrymen were
+delivered in this easy metre, doubtless far less difficult than the
+elaborate prose of subsequent writers or speakers, such as Thucydides,
+Isocrates, or Demosthenes. His poetry and his reputation became known
+throughout many parts of Greece, so that he was classed along with
+Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene, Periander of
+Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, Cheilon of Laced&aelig;mon&mdash;altogether forming
+the constellation afterward renowned as the seven wise men.</p>
+
+<p>The first particular event in respect to which Solon appears as an
+active politician, is the possession of the island of Salamis, then
+disputed between Megara and Athens. Megara was at that time able to
+contest with Athens, and for some time to contest with success, the
+occupation of this important island&mdash;a remarkable fact, which perhaps
+may be explained by supposing that the inhabitants of Athens and its
+neighborhood carried on the struggle with only partial aid from the rest
+of Attica. However this may be, it appears that the Megarians had
+actually established themselves in Salamis, at the time when Solon began
+his political career, and that the Athenians had experienced so much
+loss in the struggle as to have formally prohibited any citizen from
+ever submitting a proposition for its reconquest. Stung with this
+dishonorable abnegation, Solon counterfeited a state of ecstatic
+excitement, rushed into the agora, and there on the stone usually
+occupied by the official herald, pronounced to the surrounding crowd a
+short elegiac poem which he had previously composed on the subject of
+<a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>Salamis. Enforcing upon them the disgrace of abandoning the island, he
+wrought so powerfully upon their feelings that they rescinded the
+prohibitory law. "Rather (he exclaimed) would I forfeit my native city
+and become a citizen of Pholegandrus, than be still named an Athenian,
+branded with the shame of surrendered Salamis!" The Athenians again
+entered into the war, and conferred upon him the command of it&mdash;partly,
+as we are told, at the instigation of Pisistratus, though the latter
+must have been at this time (B.C. 600-594) a very young man, or rather a
+boy.</p>
+
+<p>The stories in Plutarch, as to the way in which Salamis was recovered,
+are contradictory as well as apocryphal, ascribing to Solon various
+stratagems to deceive the Megarian occupiers. Unfortunately no authority
+is given for any of them. According to that which seems the most
+plausible, he was directed by the Delphian god first to propitiate the
+local heroes of the island; and he accordingly crossed over to it by
+night, for the purpose of sacrificing to the heroes Periphemus and
+Cychreus on the Salaminian shore. Five hundred Athenian volunteers were
+then levied for the attack of the island, under the stipulation that if
+they were victorious they should hold it in property and citizenship.
+They were safely landed on an outlying promontory, while Solon, having
+been fortunate enough to seize a ship which the Megarians had sent to
+watch the proceedings, manned it with Athenians and sailed straight
+toward the city of Salamis, to which the Athenians who had landed also
+directed their march. The Megarians marched out from the city to repel
+the latter, and during the heat of the engagement Solon, with his
+Megarian ship and Athenian crew, sailed directly to the city. The
+Megarians, interpreting this as the return of their own crew, permitted
+the ship to approach without resistance, and the city was thus taken by
+surprise. Permission having been given to the Megarians to quit the
+island, Solon took possession of it for the Athenians, erecting a temple
+to Enyalius, the god of war, on Cape Sciradium, near the city of
+Salamis.</p>
+
+<p>The citizens of Megara, however, made various efforts for the recovery
+of so valuable a possession, so that a war ensued long as well as
+disastrous to both parties. At last it was agreed <a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>between them to refer
+the dispute to the arbitration of Sparta, and five Spartans were
+appointed to decide it&mdash;Critolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsechidas,
+Anaxilas, and Cleomenes. The verdict in favor of Athens was founded on
+evidence which it is somewhat curious to trace. Both parties attempted
+to show that the dead bodies buried in the island conformed to their own
+peculiar mode of interment, and both parties are said to have cited
+verses from the catalogue of the <i>Iliad</i>&mdash;each accusing the other of
+error or interpolation. But the Athenians had the advantage on two
+points: first, there were oracles from Delphi, wherein Salamis was
+mentioned with the epithet Ionian; next Phil&aelig;us and Eurysaces, sons of
+the Telamonian Ajax, the great hero of the island, had accepted the
+citizenship of Athens, made over Salamis to the Athenians, and
+transferred their own residences to Brauron and Melite in Attica, where
+the <i>deme</i>, or <i>gens</i>, Philaid&aelig; still worshipped Phil&aelig;us as its
+eponymous ancestor. Such a title was held sufficient, and Salamis was
+adjudged by the five Spartans to Attica, with which it ever afterward
+remained incorporated until the days of Macedonian supremacy. Two
+centuries and a half later, when the orator &AElig;schines argued the Athenian
+right to Amphipolis against Philip of Macedon, the legendary elements of
+the title were indeed put forward, but more in the way of preface or
+introduction to the substantial political grounds. But in the year 600
+B.C. the authority of the legend was more deep-seated and operative, and
+adequate by itself to determine a favorable verdict.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the conquest of Salamis, Solon increased his reputation
+by espousing the cause of the Delphian temple against the extortionate
+proceedings of the inhabitants of Cirrha, and the favor of the oracle
+was probably not without its effect in procuring for him that
+encouraging prophecy with which his legislative career opened.</p>
+
+<p>It is on the occasion of Solon's legislation that we obtain our first
+glimpse&mdash;unfortunately but a glimpse&mdash;of the actual state of Attica and
+its inhabitants. It is a sad and repulsive picture, presenting to us
+political discord and private suffering combined.</p>
+
+<p>Violent dissensions prevailed among the inhabitants of Attica, who were
+separated into three factions&mdash;the Pedieis, or <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>men of the plain,
+comprising Athens, Eleusis, and the neighboring territory, among whom
+the greatest number of rich families were included; the mountaineers in
+the east and north of Attica, called Diacrii, who were, on the whole,
+the poorest party; and the Paralii in the southern portion of Attica
+from sea to sea, whose means and social position were intermediate
+between the two. Upon what particular points these intestine disputes
+turned we are not distinctly informed. They were not, however, peculiar
+to the period immediately preceding the archonship of Solon. They had
+prevailed before, and they reappear afterward prior to the despotism of
+Pisistratus; the latter standing forward as the leader of the Diacrii,
+and as champion, real or pretended, of the poorer population.</p>
+
+<p>But in the time of Solon these intestine quarrels were aggravated by
+something much more difficult to deal with&mdash;a general mutiny of the
+poorer population against the rich, resulting from misery combined with
+oppression. The Thetes, whose condition we have already contemplated in
+the poems of Homer and Hesiod, are now presented to us as forming the
+bulk of the population of Attica&mdash;the cultivating tenants, metayers, and
+small proprietors of the country. They are exhibited as weighed down by
+debts and dependence, and driven in large numbers out of a state of
+freedom into slavery&mdash;the whole mass of them (we are told) being in debt
+to the rich, who were proprietors of the greater part of the soil. They
+had either borrowed money for their own necessities, or they tilled the
+lands of the rich as dependent tenants, paying a stipulated portion of
+the produce, and in this capacity they were largely in arrear.</p>
+
+<p>All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor
+and creditor&mdash;once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion
+of the world&mdash;combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate
+status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of
+another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract was
+liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor, until he could find
+means either of paying it or working it out; and not only he himself,
+but his minor sons and unmarried daughters and sisters also, whom the
+law gave him the power of selling. The poor man thus borrowed upon the
+security of his body (to translate <a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>literally the Greek phrase) and upon
+that of the persons in his family. So severely had these oppressive
+contracts been enforced, that many debtors had been reduced from freedom
+to slavery in Attica itself, many others had been sold for exportation,
+and some had only hitherto preserved their own freedom by selling their
+children. Moreover, a great number of the smaller properties in Attica
+were under mortgage, signified&mdash;according to the formality usual in the
+Attic law, and continued down throughout the historical times&mdash;by a
+stone pillar erected on the land, inscribed with the name of the lender
+and the amount of the loan. The proprietors of these mortgaged lands, in
+case of an unfavorable turn of events, had no other prospect except that
+of irremediable slavery for themselves and their families, either in
+their own native country robbed of all its delights, or in some
+barbarian region where the Attic accent would never meet their ears.
+Some had fled the country to escape legal adjudication of their persons,
+and earned a miserable subsistence in foreign parts by degrading
+occupations. Upon several, too, this deplorable lot had fallen by unjust
+condemnation and corrupt judges; the conduct of the rich, in regard to
+money sacred and profane, in regard to matters public as well as
+private, being thoroughly unprincipled and rapacious.</p>
+
+<p>The manifold and long-continued suffering of the poor under this system,
+plunged into a state of debasement not more tolerable than that of the
+Gallic <i>plebs</i>&mdash;and the injustices of the rich, in whom all political
+power was then vested&mdash;are facts well attested by the poems of Solon
+himself, even in the short fragments preserved to us. It appears that
+immediately preceding the time of his archonship the evils had ripened
+to such a point, and the determination of the mass of sufferers to
+extort for themselves some mode of relief had become so pronounced, that
+the existing laws could no longer be enforced. According to the profound
+remark of Aristotle&mdash;that seditions are generated by great causes but
+out of small incidents&mdash;we may conceive that some recent events had
+occurred as immediate stimulants to the outbreak of the debtors, like
+those which lent so striking an interest to the early Roman annals, as
+the inflaming sparks of violent popular movements for which the train
+had long before been laid. Condemnations by the archons of in<a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>solvent
+debtors may have been unusually numerous; or the maltreatment of some
+particular debtor, once a respected freeman, in his condition of
+slavery, may have been brought to act vividly upon the public
+sympathies; like the case of the old plebeian centurion at Rome&mdash;first
+impoverished by the plunder of the enemy, then reduced to borrow, and
+lastly adjudged to his creditor as an insolvent&mdash;who claimed the
+protection of the people in the forum, rousing their feelings to the
+highest pitch by the marks of the slave-whip visible on his person. Some
+such incidents had probably happened, though we have no historians to
+recount them. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to imagine that that
+public mental affliction which the purifier Epimenides had been invoked
+to appease, as it sprung in part from pestilence, so it had its cause
+partly in years of sterility, which must of course have aggravated the
+distress of the small cultivators. However this may be, such was the
+condition of things in B.C. 594 through mutiny of the poor freemen and
+<i>Thetes</i>, and uneasiness of the middling citizens, that the governing
+oligarchy, unable either to enforce their private debts or to maintain
+their political power, were obliged to invoke the well-known wisdom and
+integrity of Solon. Though his vigorous protest&mdash;which doubtless
+rendered him acceptable to the mass of the people&mdash;against the iniquity
+of the existing system had already been proclaimed in his poems, they
+still hoped that he would serve as an auxiliary to help them over their
+difficulties. They therefore chose him, nominally as archon along with
+Philombrotus, but with power in substance dictatorial.</p>
+
+<p>It had happened in several Grecian states that the governing
+oligarchies, either by quarrels among their own members or by the
+general bad condition of the people under their government, were
+deprived of that hold upon the public mind which was essential to their
+power. Sometimes&mdash;as in the case of Pittacus of Mitylene anterior to the
+archonship of Solon, and often in the factions of the Italian republics
+in the middle ages&mdash;the collision of opposing forces had rendered
+society intolerable, and driven all parties to acquiesce in the choice
+of some reforming dictator. Usually, however, in the early Greek
+oligarchies, this ultimate crisis was anticipated by some ambitious
+individual, who availed himself of the public discontent to overthrow
+the <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>oligarchy and usurp the powers of a despot. And so probably it
+might have happened in Athens, had not the recent failure of Cylon, with
+all its miserable consequences, operated as a deterring motive. It is
+curious to read, in the words of Solon himself, the temper in which his
+appointment was construed by a large portion of the community, but more
+especially by his own friends: bearing in mind that at this early day,
+so far as our knowledge goes, democratical government was a thing
+unknown in Greece&mdash;all Grecian governments were either oligarchical or
+despotic&mdash;the mass of the freemen having not yet tasted of
+constitutional privilege. His own friends and supporters were the first
+to urge him, while redressing the prevalent discontents, to multiply
+partisans for himself personally, and seize the supreme power. They even
+"chid him as a mad-man, for declining to haul up the net when the fish
+were already enmeshed." The mass of the people, in despair with their
+lot, would gladly have seconded him in such an attempt; while many even
+among the oligarchy might have acquiesced in his personal government,
+from the mere apprehension of something worse if they resisted it. That
+Solon might easily have made himself despot admits of little doubt. And
+though the position of a Greek despot was always perilous, he would have
+had greater facility for maintaining himself in it than Pisistratus
+possessed after him; so that nothing but the combination of prudence and
+virtue, which marks his lofty character, restricted him within the trust
+specially confided to him. To the surprise of every one&mdash;to the
+dissatisfaction of his own friends&mdash;under the complaints alike (as he
+says) of various extreme and dissentient parties, who required him to
+adopt measures fatal to the peace of society&mdash;he set himself honestly to
+solve the very difficult and critical problem submitted to him.</p>
+
+<p>Of all grievances, the most urgent was the condition of the poorer class
+of debtors. To their relief Solon's first measure, the memorable
+<i>Seisachtheia</i>, or shaking off of burdens, was directed. The relief
+which it afforded was complete and immediate. It cancelled at once all
+those contracts in which the debtor had borrowed on the security either
+of his person or of his land: it forbade all future loans or contracts
+in which the person of the debtor was pledged as security; it deprived
+the <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>creditor in future of all power to imprison, or enslave, or extort
+work, from his debtor, and confined him to an effective judgment at law
+authorizing the seizure of the property of the latter. It swept off all
+the numerous mortgage pillars from the landed properties in Attica,
+leaving the land free from all past claims. It liberated and restored to
+their full rights all debtors actually in slavery under previous legal
+adjudication; and it even provided the means (we do not know how) of
+repurchasing in foreign lands, and bringing back to a renewed life of
+liberty in Attica, many insolvents who had been sold for exportation.
+And while Solon forbade every Athenian to pledge or sell his own person
+into slavery, he took a step farther in the same direction by forbidding
+him to pledge or sell his son, his daughter, or an unmarried sister
+under his tutelage&mdash;excepting only the case in which either of the
+latter might be detected in unchastity. Whether this last ordinance was
+contemporaneous with the Seisachtheia, or followed as one of his
+subsequent reforms, seems doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>By this extensive measure the poor debtors&mdash;the Thetes, small tenants,
+and proprietors&mdash;together with their families, were rescued from
+suffering and peril. But these were not the only debtors in the state:
+the creditors and landlords of the exonerated Thetes were doubtless in
+their turn debtors to others, and were less able to discharge their
+obligations in consequence of the loss inflicted upon them by the
+Seisachtheia. It was to assist these wealthier debtors, whose bodies
+were in no danger&mdash;yet without exonerating them entirely&mdash;that Solon
+resorted to the additional expedient of debasing the money standard. He
+lowered the standard of the drachma in a proportion of something more
+than 25 per cent., so that 100 drachmas of the new standard contained no
+more silver than 73 of the old, or 100 of the old were equivalent to 138
+of the new. By this change the creditors of these more substantial
+debtors were obliged to submit to a loss, while the debtors acquired an
+exemption to the extent of about 27 per cent.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, Solon decreed that all those who had been condemned by the
+archons to <i>atimy</i> (civil disfranchisement) should be restored to their
+full privileges of citizens&mdash;excepting, however, from this indulgence
+those who had been condemned by <a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>the Ephet&aelig;, or by the Areopagus, or by
+the Phylo-Basileis (the four kings of the tribes), after trial in the
+Prytaneum, on charges either of murder or treason. So wholesale a
+measure of amnesty affords strong grounds for believing that the
+previous judgments of the archons had been intolerably harsh; and it is
+to be recollected that the Draconian ordinances were then in force.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the measures of relief with which Solon met the dangerous
+discontent then prevalent. That the wealthy men and leaders of the
+people&mdash;whose insolence and iniquity he has himself severely denounced
+in his poems, and whose views in nominating him he had greatly
+disappointed&mdash;should have detested propositions which robbed them
+without compensation of many legal rights, it is easy to imagine. But
+the statement of Plutarch that the poor emancipated debtors were also
+dissatisfied, from having expected that Solon would not only remit their
+debts, but also redivide the soil of Attica, seems utterly incredible;
+nor is it confirmed by any passage now remaining of the Solonian poems.
+Plutarch conceives the poor debtors as having in their minds the
+comparison with Lycurgus and the equality of property at Sparta, which,
+in my opinion, is clearly a matter of fiction; and even had it been true
+as a matter of history long past and antiquated, would not have been
+likely to work upon the minds of the multitude of Attica in the forcible
+way that the biographer supposes. The Seisachtheia must have exasperated
+the feelings and diminished the fortunes of many persons; but it gave to
+the large body of Thetes and small proprietors all that they could
+possibly have hoped. We are told that after a short interval it became
+eminently acceptable in the general public mind, and procured for Solon
+a great increase of popularity&mdash;all ranks concurring in a common
+sacrifice of thanksgiving and harmony. One incident there was which
+occasioned an outcry of indignation. Three rich friends of Solon, all
+men of great family in the state, and bearing names which appear in
+history as borne by their descendants&mdash;namely: Conon, Cleinias, and
+Hipponicus&mdash;having obtained from Solon some previous hint of his
+designs, profited by it, first to borrow money, and next to make
+purchases of lands; and this selfish breach of confidence would have
+dis<a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>graced Solon himself, had it not been found that he was personally a
+great loser, having lent money to the extent of five talents.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the whole measure of the Seisachtheia, indeed, though the
+poems of Solon were open to every one, ancient authors gave different
+statements both of its purport and of its extent. Most of them construed
+it as having cancelled indiscriminately all money contracts; while
+Androtion and others thought that it did nothing more than lower the
+rate of interest and depreciate the currency to the extent of 27 per
+cent., leaving the letter of the contracts unchanged. How Androtion came
+to maintain such an opinion we cannot easily understand. For the
+fragments now remaining from Solon seem distinctly to refute it, though,
+on the other hand, they do not go so far as to substantiate the full
+extent of the opposite view entertained by many writers&mdash;that all money
+contracts indiscriminately were rescinded&mdash;against which there is also a
+further reason, that if the fact had been so, Solon could have had no
+motive to debase the money standard. Such debasement supposes that there
+must have been <i>some</i> debtors at least whose contracts remained valid,
+and whom nevertheless he desired partially to assist. His poems
+distinctly mention three things: 1. The removal of the mortgage-pillars.
+2. The enfranchisement of the land. 3. The protection, liberation, and
+restoration of the persons of endangered or enslaved debtors. All these
+expressions point distinctly to the Thetes and small proprietors, whose
+sufferings and peril were the most urgent, and whose case required a
+remedy immediate as well as complete. We find that his repudiation of
+debts was carried far enough to exonerate them, but no farther.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to have been the respect entertained for the character of Solon
+which partly occasioned these various misconceptions of his ordinances
+for the relief of debtors. Androtion in ancient, and some eminent
+critics in modern times are anxious to make out that he gave relief
+without loss or injustice to any one. But this opinion seems
+inadmissible. The loss to creditors by the wholesale abrogation of
+numerous pre&euml;xisting contracts, and by the partial depreciation of the
+coin, is a fact not to be disguised. The Seisachtheia of Solon, unjust
+so far <a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>as it rescinded previous agreements, but highly salutary in its
+consequences, is to be vindicated by showing that in no other way could
+the bonds of government have been held together, or the misery of the
+multitude alleviated. We are to consider, first, the great personal
+cruelty of these pre&euml;xisting contracts, which condemned the body of the
+free debtor and his family to slavery; next, the profound detestation
+created by such a system in the large mass of the poor, against both the
+judges and the creditors by whom it had been enforced, which rendered
+their feelings unmanageable so soon as they came together under the
+sentiment of a common danger and with the determination to insure to
+each other mutual protection. Moreover, the law which vests a creditor
+with power over the person of his debtor so as to convert him into a
+slave, is likely to give rise to a class of loans which inspire nothing
+but abhorrence&mdash;money lent with the foreknowledge that the borrower will
+be unable to repay it, but also in the conviction that the value of his
+person as a slave will make good the loss; thus reducing him to a
+condition of extreme misery, for the purpose sometimes of aggrandizing,
+sometimes of enriching, the lender. Now the foundation on which the
+respect for contracts rests, under a good law of debtor and creditor, is
+the very reverse of this. It rests on the firm conviction that such
+contracts are advantageous to both parties as a class, and that to break
+up the confidence essential to their existence would produce extensive
+mischief throughout all society. The man whose reverence for the
+obligation of a contract is now the most profound, would have
+entertained a very different sentiment if he had witnessed the dealings
+of lender and borrower at Athens under the old ante-Solonian law. The
+oligarchy had tried their best to enforce this law of debtor and
+creditor with its disastrous series of contracts, and the only reason
+why they consented to invoke the aid of Solon was because they had lost
+the power of enforcing it any longer, in consequence of the newly
+awakened courage and combination of the people. That which they could
+not do for themselves, Solon could not have done for them, even had he
+been willing. Nor had he in his position the means either of exempting
+or compensating those creditors who, separately taken, were open to no
+reproach; indeed, in <a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>following his proceedings, we see plainly that he
+thought compensation due, not to the creditors, but to the past
+sufferings of the enslaved debtor, since he redeemed several of them
+from foreign captivity, and brought them back to their homes. It is
+certain that no measure simply and exclusively prospective would have
+sufficed for the emergency. There was an absolute necessity for
+overruling all that class of pre&euml;xisting rights which had produced so
+violent a social fever. While, therefore, to this extent, the
+Seisachtheia cannot be acquitted of injustice, we may confidently affirm
+that the injustice inflicted was an indispensable price paid for the
+maintenance of the peace of society, and for the final abrogation of a
+disastrous system as regarded insolvents. And the feeling as well as the
+legislation universal in the modern European world, by interdicting
+beforehand all contracts for selling a man's person or that of his
+children into slavery, goes far to sanction practically the Solonian
+repudiation.</p>
+
+<p>One thing is never to be forgotten in regard to this measure, combined
+with the concurrent amendments introduced by Solon in the law&mdash;it
+settled finally the question to which it referred. Never again do we
+hear of the law of debtor and creditor as disturbing Athenian
+tranquillity. The general sentiment which grew up at Athens, under the
+Solonian money-law and under the democratical government, was one of
+high respect for the sanctity of contracts. Not only was there never any
+demand in the Athenian democracy for new tables or a depreciation of the
+money standard, but a formal abnegation of any such projects was
+inserted in the solemn oath taken annually by the numerous Dicasts, who
+formed the popular judicial body called Heli&aelig;a or the Heliastic jurors:
+the same oath which pledged them to uphold the democratical
+constitution, also bound them to repudiate all proposals either for an
+abrogation of debts or for a redivision of the lands. There can be
+little doubt that under the Solonian law, which enabled the creditor to
+seize the property of his debtor, but gave him no power over the person,
+the system of money-lending assumed a more beneficial character. The old
+noxious contracts, mere snares for the liberty of a poor freeman and his
+children, disappeared, and loans of money took their place, founded on
+the property and <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>prospective earnings of the debtor, which were in the
+main useful to both parties, and therefore maintained their place in the
+moral sentiment of the public. And though Solon had found himself
+compelled to rescind all the mortgages on land subsisting in his time,
+we see money freely lent upon this same security throughout the
+historical times of Athens, and the evidentiary mortgage-pillars
+remaining ever after undisturbed.</p>
+
+<p>In the sentiment of an early society, as in the old Roman law, a
+distinction is commonly made between the principal and the interest of a
+loan, though the creditors have sought to blend them indissolubly
+together. If the borrower cannot fulfil his promise to repay the
+principal, the public will regard him as having committed a wrong which
+he must make good by his person. But there is not the same unanimity as
+to his promise to pay interest: on the contrary, the very exaction of
+interest will be regarded by many in the same light in which the English
+law considers usurious interest, as tainting the whole transaction. But
+in the modern mind, principal, and interest within a limited rate, have
+so grown together, that we hardly understand how it can ever have been
+pronounced unworthy of an honorable citizen to lend money on interest.
+Yet such is the declared opinion of Aristotle and other superior men of
+antiquity; while at Rome, Cato the censor went so far as to denounce the
+practice as a heinous crime. It was comprehended by them among the worst
+of the tricks of trade&mdash;and they held that all trade, or profit derived
+from interchange, was unnatural, as being made by one man at the expense
+of another; such pursuits therefore could not be commended, though they
+might be tolerated to a certain extent as a matter of necessity, but
+they belonged essentially to an inferior order of citizens. What is
+remarkable in Greece is, that the antipathy of a very early state of
+society against traders and money-lenders lasted longer among the
+philosophers than among the mass of the people&mdash;it harmonized more with
+the social <i>id&eacute;al</i> of the former, than with the practical instincts of
+the latter.</p>
+
+<p>In a rude condition such as that of the ancient Germans described by
+Tacitus, loans on interest are unknown. Habitually careless of the
+future, the Germans were gratified both in giving and receiving
+presents, but without any idea that they <a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>thereby either imposed or
+contracted an obligation. To a people in this state of feeling, a loan
+on interest presents the repulsive idea of making profit out of the
+distress of the borrower. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that the
+first borrowers must have been for the most part men driven to this
+necessity by the pressure of want, and contracting debt as a desperate
+resource, without any fair prospect of ability to repay: debt and famine
+run together in the mind of the poet Hesiod. The borrower is, in this
+unhappy state, rather a distressed man soliciting aid than a solvent man
+capable of making and fulfilling a contract. If he cannot find a friend
+to make him a free gift in the former character, he will not, under the
+latter character, obtain a loan from a stranger, except by the promise
+of exorbitant interest, and by the fullest eventual power over his
+person which he is in a condition to grant. In process of time a new
+class of borrowers arise who demand money for temporary convenience or
+profit, but with full prospect of repayment&mdash;a relation of lender and
+borrower quite different from that of the earlier period, when it
+presented itself in the repulsive form of misery on the one side, set
+against the prospect of very large profit on the other. If the Germans
+of the time of Tacitus looked to the condition of the poor debtors in
+Gaul, reduced to servitude under a rich creditor, and swelling by
+hundreds the crowd of his attendants, they would not be disposed to
+regret their own ignorance of the practice of money-lending. How much
+the interest of money was then regarded as an undue profit extorted from
+distress is powerfully illustrated by the old Jewish law; the Jew being
+permitted to take interest from foreigners&mdash;whom the lawgiver did not
+think himself obliged to protect&mdash;but not from his own countrymen. The
+<i>Koran</i> follows out this point of view consistently, and prohibits the
+taking of interest altogether. In most other nations laws have been made
+to limit the rate of interest, and at Rome especially the legal rate was
+successively lowered&mdash;though it seems, as might have been expected, that
+the restrictive ordinances were constantly eluded. All such restrictions
+have been intended for the protection of debtors; an effect which large
+experience proves them never to produce, unless it be called protection
+to render the obtaining of money on loan impracticable for the most
+distressed borrow<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>ers. But there was another effect which they <i>did</i>
+tend to produce&mdash;they softened down the primitive antipathy against the
+practice generally, and confined the odious name of usury to loans lent
+above the fixed legal rate.</p>
+
+<p>In this way alone could they operate beneficially, and their tendency to
+counterwork the previous feeling was at that time not unimportant,
+coinciding as it did with other tendencies arising out of the industrial
+progress of society, which gradually exhibited the relation of lender
+and borrower in a light more reciprocal, beneficial, and less repugnant
+to the sympathies of the bystander.</p>
+
+<p>At Athens the more favorable point of view prevailed throughout all the
+historical times. The march of industry and commerce, under the
+mitigated law which prevailed subsequently to Solon, had been sufficient
+to bring it about at a very early period and to suppress all public
+antipathy against lenders at interest. We may remark, too, that this
+more equitable tone of opinion grew up spontaneously, without any legal
+restriction on the rate of interest&mdash;no such restriction having ever
+been imposed and the rate being expressly declared free by a law
+ascribed to Solon himself. The same may probably be said of the
+communities of Greece generally&mdash;at least there is no information to
+make us suppose the contrary. But the feeling against lending money at
+interest remained in the bosoms of the philosophical men long after it
+had ceased to form a part of the practical morality of the citizens, and
+long after it had ceased to be justified by the appearances of the case
+as at first it really had been. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Plutarch,
+treat the practice as a branch of the commercial and money-getting
+spirit which they are anxious to discourage; and one consequence of this
+was that they were, less disposed to contend strenuously for the
+inviolability of existing money-contracts. The conservative feeling on
+this point was stronger among the mass than among the philosophers.
+Plato even complains of it as inconveniently preponderant, and as
+arresting the legislator in all comprehensive projects of reform. For
+the most part, indeed, schemes of cancelling debts and redividing lands
+were never thought of except by men of desperate and selfish ambition,
+who made them stepping-stones to despotic power. Such <a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>men were
+denounced alike by the practical sense of the community and by the
+speculative thinkers: but when we turn to the case of the Spartan king,
+Agis III, who proposed a complete extinction of debts and an equal
+redivision of the landed property of the state, not with any selfish or
+personal views, but upon pure ideas of patriotism, well or ill
+understood, and for the purpose of renovating the lost ascendancy of
+Sparta&mdash;we find Plutarch expressing the most unqualified admiration of
+this young king and his projects, and treating the opposition made to
+him as originating in no better feelings than meanness and cupidity. The
+philosophical thinkers on politics conceived&mdash;and to a great degree
+justly, as I shall show hereafter&mdash;that the conditions of security, in
+the ancient world, imposed upon the citizens generally the absolute
+necessity of keeping up a military spirit and willingness to brave at
+all times personal hardship and discomfort: so that increase of wealth,
+on account of the habits of self-indulgence which it commonly
+introduces, was regarded by them with more or less of disfavor. If in
+their estimation any Grecian community had become corrupt, they were
+willing to sanction great interference with pre&euml;xisting rights for the
+purpose of bringing it back nearer to their ideal standard. And the real
+security for the maintenance of these rights lay in the conservative
+feelings of the citizens generally, much more than in the opinions which
+superior minds imbibed from the philosophers.</p>
+
+<p>Such conservative feelings were in the subsequent Athenian democracy
+peculiarly deep-rooted. The mass of the Athenian people identified
+inseparably the maintenance of property in all its various shapes with
+that of their laws and constitution. And it is a remarkable fact, that
+though the admiration entertained at Athens for Solon was universal, the
+principle of his Seisachtheia and of his money-depreciation was not only
+never imitated, but found the strongest tacit reprobation; whereas at
+Rome, as well as in most of the kingdoms of modern Europe, we know that
+one debasement of the coin succeeded another. The temptation of thus
+partially eluding the pressure of financial embarrassments proved, after
+one successful trial, too strong to be resisted, and brought down the
+coin by successive depreciations from the full pound of twelve ounces to
+the <a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>standard of one half ounce. It is of some importance to take notice
+of this fact, when we reflect how much "Grecian faith" has been degraded
+by the Roman writers into a byword for duplicity in pecuniary dealings.
+The democracy of Athens&mdash;and indeed the cities of Greece generally, both
+oligarchies and democracies&mdash;stands far above the senate of Rome, and
+far above the modern kingdoms of France and England until comparatively
+recent times, in respect of honest dealing with the coinage. Moreover,
+while there occurred at Rome several political changes which brought
+about new tables, or at least a partial depreciation of contracts, no
+phenomenon of the same kind ever happened at Athens, during the three
+centuries between Solon and the end of the free working of the
+democracy, Doubtless there were fraudulent debtors at Athens; while the
+administration of private law, though not in any way conniving at their
+proceedings, was far too imperfect to repress them as effectually as
+might have been wished. But the public sentiment on the point was just
+and decided. It may be asserted with confidence that a loan of money at
+Athens was quite as secure as it ever was at any time or place of the
+ancient world&mdash;in spite of the great and important superiority of Rome
+with respect to the accumulation of a body of authoritative legal
+precedent, the source of what was ultimately shaped into the Roman
+jurisprudence. Among the various causes of sedition or mischief in the
+Grecian communities, we hear little of the pressure of private debt.</p>
+
+<p>By the measures of relief above described, Solon had accomplished
+results surpassing his own best hopes. He had healed the prevailing
+discontents; and such was the confidence and gratitude which he had
+inspired, that he was now called upon to draw up a constitution and laws
+for the better working of the government in future. His constitutional
+changes were great and valuable: respecting his laws, what we hear is
+rather curious than important.</p>
+
+<p>It has been already stated that, down to the time of Solon, the
+classification received in Attica was that of the four Ionic tribes,
+comprising in one scale the Phratries and Gentes, and in another scale
+the three Trittyes and forty-eight Naucraries&mdash;while the Eupatrid&aelig;,
+seemingly a few specially respected <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>gentes, and perhaps a few
+distinguished families in all the gentes, had in their hands all the
+powers of government. Solon introduced a new principle of
+classification&mdash;called in Greek the "timocratic principle." He
+distributed all the citizens of the tribes, without any reference to
+their gentes or phratries, into four classes, according to the amount of
+their property, which he caused to be assessed and entered in a public
+schedule. Those whose annual income was equal to five hundred medimni of
+corn (about seven hundred imperial bushels) and upward&mdash;one medimnus
+being considered equivalent to one drachma in money&mdash;he placed in the
+highest class; those who received between three hundred and five hundred
+medimni or drachmas formed the second class; and those between two
+hundred and three hundred, the third. The fourth and most numerous class
+comprised all those who did not possess land yielding a produce equal to
+two hundred medimni. The first class, called Pentacosiomedimni, were
+alone eligible to the archonship and to all commands: the second were
+called the knights or horsemen of the state, as possessing enough to
+enable them to keep a horse and perform military service in that
+capacity: the third class, called the [Greek: Zeugit&aelig;], formed the
+heavy-armed infantry, and were bound to serve, each with his full
+panoply. Each of these three classes was entered in the public schedule
+as possessed of a taxable capital calculated with a certain reference to
+his annual income, but in a proportion diminishing according to the
+scale of that income&mdash;and a man paid taxes to the state according to the
+sum for which he stood rated in the schedule; so that this direct
+taxation acted really like a graduated income-tax. The ratable property
+of the citizen belonging to the richest class (the Pentacosiomedimnus)
+was calculated and entered on the state schedule at a sum of capital
+equal to twelve times his annual income; that of the Hippeus, horseman
+or knight, at a sum equal to ten times his annual income: that of the
+Zeugite, at a sum equal to five times his annual income. Thus a
+Pentacosiomedimnus, whose income was exactly 500 drachmas (the minimum
+qualification of his class), stood rated in the schedule for a taxable
+property of 6,000 drachmas or one talent, being twelve times his
+income&mdash;if his annual income were 1,000 drachmas, he would stand <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>rated
+for 12,000 drachmas or two talents, being the same proportion of income
+to ratable capital. But when we pass to the second class, horsemen or
+knights, the proportion of the two is changed. The horseman possessing
+an income of just 300 drachmas (or 300 medimni) would stand rated for
+3,000 drachmas, or ten times his real income, and so in the same
+proportion for any income above 300 and below 500. Again, in the third
+class, or below 300, the proportion is a second time altered&mdash;the
+Zeugite possessing exactly 200 drachmas of income was rated upon a still
+lower calculation, at 1,000 drachmas, or a sum equal to five times his
+income; and all incomes of this class (between 200 and 300 drachmas)
+would in like manner be multiplied by five in order to obtain the amount
+of ratable capital. Upon these respective sums of schedule capital all
+direct taxation was levied. If the state required 1 percent of direct
+tax, the poorest Pentacosiomedimnus would pay (upon 6,000 drachmas) 60
+drachmas; the poorest Hippeus would pay (upon 3,000 drachmas) 30; the
+poorest Zeugite would pay (upon 1,000 drachmas) 10 drachmas. And thus
+this mode of assessment would operate like a <i>graduated</i> income-tax,
+looking at it in reference to the three different classes&mdash;but as an
+<i>equal</i> income-tax, looking at it in reference to the different
+individuals comprised in one and the same class.</p>
+
+<p>All persons in the state whose annual income amounted to less than two
+hundred medimni or drachmas were placed in the fourth class, and they
+must have constituted the large majority of the community. They were not
+liable to any direct taxation, and perhaps were not at first even
+entered upon the taxable schedule, more especially as we do not know
+that any taxes were actually levied upon this schedule during the
+Solonian times. It is said that they were all called Thetes, but this
+appellation is not well sustained, and cannot be admitted: the fourth
+compartment in the descending scale was indeed termed the Thetic census,
+because it contained all the Thetes, and because most of its members
+were of that humble description; but it is not conceivable that a
+proprietor whose land yielded to him a clear annual return of 100, 120,
+140, or 180 drachmas, could ever have been designated by that name.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the divisions in the political scale established by <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>Solon,
+called by Aristotle a <i>timocracy</i>, in which the rights, honors,
+functions, and liabilities of the citizens were measured out according
+to the assessed property of each. The highest honors of the state&mdash;that
+is, the places of the nine archons annually chosen, as well as those in
+the senate of Areopagus, into which the past archons always entered
+(perhaps also the posts of Prytanes of the Naukrari) were reserved for
+the first class: the poor Eupatrids became ineligible, while rich men,
+not Eupatrids, were admitted. Other posts of inferior distinction were
+filled by the second and third classes, who were, moreover, bound to
+military service&mdash;the one on horseback, the other as heavy-armed
+soldiers on foot. Moreover, the <i>liturgies</i> of the state, as they were
+called&mdash;unpaid functions such as the trierarchy, choregy, gymnasiarchy,
+etc., which entailed expense and trouble on the holder of them&mdash;were
+distributed in some way or other between the members of the three
+classes, though we do not know how the distribution was made in these
+early times. On the other hand, the members of the fourth or lowest
+class were disqualified from holding any individual office of dignity.
+They performed no liturgies, served in case of war only as light-armed
+or with a panoply provided by the state, and paid nothing to the direct
+property-tax or Eisphora. It would be incorrect to say that they paid
+<i>no</i> taxes, for indirect taxes, such as duties on imports, fell upon
+them in common with the rest; and we must recollect that these latter
+were, throughout a long period of Athenian history, in steady operation,
+while the direct taxes were only levied on rare occasions.</p>
+
+<p>But though this fourth class, constituting the great numerical majority
+of the free people, were shut out from individual office, their
+collective importance was in another way greatly increased. They were
+invested with the right of choosing the annual archons, out of the class
+of Pentacosiomedimni; and what was of more importance still, the archons
+and the magistrates generally, after their year of office, instead of
+being accountable to the senate of Areopagus, were made formally
+accountable to the public assembly sitting in judgment upon their past
+conduct. They might be impeached and called upon to defend themselves,
+punished in case of misbehavior, and debarred from the usual honor of a
+seat in the senate of Areopagus.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>Had the public assembly been called upon to act alone without aid or
+guidance, this accountability would have proved only nominal. But Solon
+converted it into a reality by another new institution, which will
+hereafter be found of great moment in the working out of the Athenian
+democracy. He created the pro-bouleutic, or pre-considering senate, with
+intimate and especial reference to the public assembly&mdash;to prepare
+matters for its discussion, to convoke and superintend its meetings, and
+to insure the execution of its decrees. The senate, as first constituted
+by Solon, comprised four hundred members, taken in equal proportions
+from the four tribes; not chosen by lot, as they will be found to be in
+the more advanced stage of the democracy, but elected by the people, in
+the same way as the archons then were&mdash;persons of the fourth, or poorest
+class of the census, though contributing to elect, not being themselves
+eligible.</p>
+
+<p>But while Solon thus created the new pre-considering senate, identified
+with and subsidiary to the popular assembly, he manifested no jealousy
+of the pre&euml;xisting Areopagitic senate. On the contrary, he enlarged its
+powers, gave to it an ample supervision over the execution of the laws
+generally, and imposed upon it the censorial duty of inspecting the
+lives and occupation of the citizens, as well as of punishing men of
+idle and dissolute habits. He was himself, as past archon, a member of
+this ancient senate, and he is said to have contemplated that by means
+of the two senates the state would be held fast, as it were with a
+double anchor, against all shocks and storms.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the only new political institutions (apart from the laws to be
+noticed presently) which there are grounds for ascribing to Solon, when
+we take proper care to discriminate what really belongs to Solon and his
+age from the Athenian constitution as afterward remodelled. It has been
+a practice common with many able expositors of Grecian affairs, and
+followed partly even by Dr. Thirlwall, to connect the name of Solon with
+the whole political and judicial state of Athens as it stood between the
+age of Pericles and that of Demosthenes&mdash;the regulations of the senate
+of five hundred, the numerous public dicasts or jurors taken by lot from
+the people&mdash;as well as the body annually selected for law-revision, and
+called <i>nomothets</i>&mdash;and the <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>open prosecution (called the <i>graphe
+paranomon</i>) to be instituted against the proposer of any measure
+illegal, unconstitutional, or dangerous. There is indeed some
+countenance for this confusion between Solonian and post-Solonian
+Athens, in the usage of the orators themselves. For Demosthenes and
+&AElig;schines employ the name of Solon in a very loose manner, and treat him
+as the author of institutions belonging evidently to a later age&mdash;for
+example: the striking and characteristic oath of the Heliastic jurors,
+which Demosthenes ascribes to Solon, proclaims itself in many ways as
+belonging to the age after Clisthenes, especially by the mention of the
+senate of five hundred, and not of four hundred. Among the citizens who
+served as jurors or dicasts, Solon was venerated generally as the author
+of the Athenian laws. An orator, therefore, might well employ his name
+for the purpose of emphasis, without provoking any critical inquiry
+whether the particular institution, which he happened to be then
+impressing upon his audience, belonged really to Solon himself or to the
+subsequent periods. Many of those institutions, which Dr. Thirlwall
+mentions in conjunction with the name of Solon, are among the last
+refinements and elaborations of the democratical mind of
+Athens&mdash;gradually prepared, doubtless, during the interval between
+Clisthenes and Pericles, but not brought into full operation until the
+period of the latter (B.C. 460-429). For it is hardly possible to
+conceive these numerous dicasteries and assemblies in regular, frequent,
+and long-standing operation, without an assured payment to the dicasts
+who composed them. Now such payment first began to be made about the
+time of Pericles, if not by his actual proposition; and Demosthenes had
+good reason for contending that if it were suspended, the judicial as
+well as the administrative system of Athens would at once fall to
+pieces. It would be a marvel, such as nothing short of strong direct
+evidence would justify us in believing, that in an age when even partial
+democracy was yet untried, Solon should conceive the idea of such
+institutions; it would be a marvel still greater, that the
+half-emancipated Thetes and small proprietors, for whom he
+legislated&mdash;yet trembling under the rod of the Eupatrid archons, and
+utterly inexperienced in collective business&mdash;should have been found
+suddenly competent to fulfil these <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>ascendant functions, such as the
+citizens of conquering Athens in the days of Pericles, full of the
+sentiment of force and actively identifying themselves with the dignity
+of their community, became gradually competent, and not more than
+competent, to exercise with effect. To suppose that Solon contemplated
+and provided for the periodical revision of his laws by establishing a
+nomothetic jury or dicastery, such as that which we find in operation
+during the time of Demosthenes, would be at variance (in my judgment)
+with any reasonable estimate either of the man or of the age. Herodotus
+says that Solon, having exacted from the Athenians solemn oaths that
+<i>they</i> would not rescind any of his laws for ten years, quitted Athens
+for that period, in order that he might not be compelled to rescind them
+himself. Plutarch informs us that he gave to his laws force for a
+century. Solon himself, and Draco before him, had been lawgivers evoked
+and empowered by the special emergency of the times: the idea of a
+frequent revision of laws, by a body of lot-selected dicasts, belongs to
+a far more advanced age, and could not well have been present to the
+minds of either. The wooden rollers of Solon, like the tables of the
+Roman decemv&igrave;rs, were doubtless intended as a permanent "<i>fons omnis
+publici privatique juris</i>"</p>
+
+<p>If we examine the facts of the case, we shall see that nothing more than
+the bare foundation of the democracy of Athens as it stood in the time
+of Pericles can reasonably be ascribed to Solon. "I gave to the people
+(Solon says in one of his short remaining fragments) as much strength as
+sufficed for their needs, without either enlarging or diminishing their
+dignity: for those too, who possessed power and were noted for wealth, I
+took care that no unworthy treatment should be reserved. I stood with
+the strong shield cast over both parties so as not to allow an unjust
+triumph to either." Again, Aristotle tells us that Solon bestowed upon
+the people as much power as was indispensable, but no more: the power to
+elect their magistrates and hold them to accountability: if the people
+had had less than this, they could not have been expected to remain
+tranquil&mdash;they would have been in slavery and hostile to the
+constitution. Not less distinctly does Herodotus speak, when he
+describes the revolution subsequently operated <a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>by Clisthenes&mdash;the
+latter (he tells us) found "the Athenian people excluded from
+everything." These passages seem positively to contradict the
+supposition, in itself sufficiently improbable, that Solon is the author
+of the peculiar democratical institutions of Athens, such as the
+constant and numerous dicasts for judicial trials and revision of laws.
+The genuine and forward democratical movement of Athens begins only with
+Clisthenes, from the moment when that distinguished Alcm&aelig;onid, either
+spontaneously, or from finding himself worsted in his party strife with
+Isagoras, purchased by large popular concessions the hearty co&ouml;peration
+of the multitude under very dangerous circumstances. While Solon, in his
+own statement as well as in that of Aristotle, gave to the people as
+much power as was strictly needful&mdash;but no more&mdash;Clisthenes (to use the
+significant phrase of Herodotus), "being vanquished in the party contest
+with his rival, <i>took the people into partnership</i>." It was, thus, to
+the interests of the weaker section, in a strife of contending nobles,
+that the Athenian people owed their first admission to political
+ascendancy&mdash;in part, at least, to this cause, though the proceedings of
+Clisthenes indicate a hearty and spontaneous popular sentiment. But such
+constitutional admission of the people would not have been so
+astonishingly fruitful in positive results, if the course of public
+events for the half century after Clisthenes had not been such as to
+stimulate most powerfully their energy, their self-reliance, their
+mutual sympathies, and their ambition. I shall recount in a future
+chapter these historical causes, which, acting upon the Athenian
+character, gave such efficiency and expansion to the great democratical
+impulse communicated by Clisthenes: at present it is enough to remark
+that that impulse commences properly with Clisthenes, and not with
+Solon.</p>
+
+<p>But the Solonian constitution, though only the foundation, was yet the
+indispensable foundation, of the subsequent democracy. And if the
+discontents of the miserable Athenian population, instead of
+experiencing his disinterested and healing management, had fallen at
+once into the hands of selfish power-seekers like Cylon or
+Pisistratus&mdash;the memorable expansion of the Athenian mind during the
+ensuing century would never have taken place, and the whole subsequent
+history of Greece <a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>would probably have taken a different course. Solon
+left the essential powers of the state still in the hands of the
+oligarchy. The party combats between Pisistratus, Lycurgus, and
+Megacles, thirty years after his legislation, which ended in the
+despotism of Pisistratus, will appear to be of the same purely
+oligarchical character as they had been before Solon was appointed
+archon. But the oligarchy which he established was very different from
+the unmitigated oligarchy which he found, so teeming with oppression and
+so destitute of redress, as his own poems testify.</p>
+
+<p>It was he who first gave both to the citizens of middling property and
+to the general mass a <i>locus standi</i> against the Eupatrids. He enabled
+the people partially to protect themselves, and familiarized them with
+the idea of protecting themselves, by the peaceful exercise of a
+constitutional franchise. The new force, through which this protection
+was carried into effect, was the public assembly called <i>Heli&aelig;a</i>,
+regularized and armed with enlarged prerogatives and further
+strengthened by its indispensable ally&mdash;the pro-bouleutic, or
+pre-considering, senate. Under the Solonian constitution, this force was
+merely secondary and defensive, but after the renovation of Clisthenes
+it became paramount and sovereign. It branched out gradually into those
+numerous popular dicasteries which so powerfully modified both public
+and private Athenian life, drew to itself the undivided reverence and
+submission of the people, and by degrees rendered the single
+magistracies essentially subordinate functions. The popular assembly, as
+constituted by Solon, appearing in modified efficiency and trained to
+the office of reviewing and judging the general conduct of a past
+magistrate&mdash;forms the intermediate stage between the passive Homeric
+agora and those omnipotent assemblies and dicasteries which listened to
+Pericles or Demosthenes. Compared with these last, it has in it but a
+faint streak of democracy&mdash;and so it naturally appeared to Aristotle,
+who wrote with a practical experience of Athens in the time of the
+orators; but compared with the first, or with the ante-Solonian
+constitution of Attica, it must doubtless have appeared a concession
+eminently democratical. To impose upon the Eupatrid archon the necessity
+of being elected, or put upon his trial of after-accountability, by the
+<i>rabble</i> of freemen (such would be the phrase in Eupatrid society),
+would be a <a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>bitter humiliation to those among whom it was first
+introduced; for we must recollect that this was the most extensive
+scheme of constitutional reform yet propounded in Greece, and that
+despots and oligarchies shared between them at that time the whole
+Grecian world. As it appears that Solon, while constituting the popular
+assembly with its pro-bouleutic senate, had no jealousy of the senate of
+Areopagus, and indeed, even enlarged its powers, we may infer that his
+grand object was, not to weaken the oligarchy generally, but to improve
+the administration and to repress the misconduct and irregularities of
+the individual archons; and that, too, not by diminishing their powers,
+but by making some degree of popularity the condition both of their
+entry into office, and of their safety or honor after it.</p>
+
+<p>It is, in my judgment, a mistake to suppose that Solon transferred the
+judicial power of the archons to a popular dicastery. These magistrates
+still continued self-acting judges, deciding and condemning without
+appeal&mdash;not mere presidents of an assembled jury, as they afterward came
+to be during the next century. For the general exercise of such power
+they were accountable after their year of office. Such accountability
+was the security against abuse&mdash;a very insufficient security, yet not
+wholly inoperative. It will be seen, however, presently that these
+archons, though strong to coerce, and perhaps to oppress, small and poor
+men, had no means of keeping down rebellious nobles of their own rank,
+such as Pisistratus, Lycurgus, and Megacles, each with his armed
+followers. When we compare the drawn swords of these ambitious
+competitors, ending in the despotism of one of them, with the vehement
+parliamentary strife between Themistocles and Aristides afterward,
+peaceably decided by the vote of the sovereign people and never
+disturbing the public tranquillity&mdash;we shall see that the democracy of
+the ensuing century fulfilled the conditions of order, as well as of
+progress, better than the Solonian constitution.</p>
+
+<p>To distinguish this Solonian constitution from the democracy which
+followed it, is essential to a due comprehension of the progress of the
+Greek mind, and especially of Athenian affairs. That democracy was
+achieved by gradual steps. Demosthenes and &AElig;schines lived under it as a
+system consummated <a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>and in full activity, when the stages of its
+previous growth were no longer matter of exact memory; and the dicasts
+then assembled in judgment were pleased to hear their constitution
+associated with the names either of Solon or of Theseus. Their
+inquisitive contemporary Aristotle was not thus misled: but even
+commonplace Athenians of the century preceding would have escaped the
+same delusion. For during the whole course of the democratical movement,
+from the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war, and especially
+during the changes proposed by Pericles and Ephialtes, there was always
+a strenuous party of resistance, who would not suffer the people to
+forget that they had already forsaken, and were on the point of
+forsaking still more, the orbit marked out by Solon. The illustrious
+Pericles underwent innumerable attacks both from the orators in the
+assembly and from the comic writers in the theatre. And among these
+sarcasms on the political tendencies of the day we are probably to
+number the complaint, breathed by the poet Cratinus, of the desuetude
+into which both Solon and Draco had fallen&mdash;"I swear (said he in a
+fragment of one of his comedies) by Solon and Draco, whose wooden
+tablets (of laws) are now employed by people to roast their barley." The
+laws of Solon respecting penal offences, respecting inheritance and
+adoption, respecting the private relations generally, etc., remained for
+the most part in force: his quadripartite census also continued, at
+least for financial purposes, until the archonship of Nausinicus in B.C.
+377&mdash;so that Cicero and others might be warranted in affirming that his
+laws still prevailed at Athens: but his political and judicial
+arrangements had undergone a revolution not less complete and memorable
+than the character and spirit of the Athenian people generally. The
+choice, by way of lot, of archons and other magistrates&mdash;and the
+distribution by lot of the general body of dicasts or jurors into panels
+for judicial business&mdash;may be decidedly considered as not belonging to
+Solon, but adopted after the revolution of Clisthenes; probably the
+choice of senators by lot also. The lot was a symptom of pronounced
+democratical spirit, such as we must not seek in the Solonian
+institutions.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to make out distinctly what was the political position of
+the ancient gentes and phratries, as Solon left them. <a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>The four tribes
+consisted altogether of gentes and phratries, insomuch that no one could
+be included in any one of the tribes who was not also a member of some
+gens and phratry. Now the new pro-bouleutic, or pre-considering, senate
+consisted of four hundred members,&mdash;one hundred from each of the tribes:
+persons not included in any gens or phratry could therefore have had no
+access to it. The conditions of eligibility were similar, according to
+ancient custom, for the nine archons&mdash;of course, also, for the senate of
+Areopagus. So that there remained only the public assembly, in which an
+Athenian not a member of these tribes could take part: yet he was a
+citizen, since he could give his vote for archons and senators, and
+could take part in the annual decision of their accountability, besides
+being entitled to claim redress for wrong from the archons in his own
+person&mdash;while the alien could only do so through the intervention of an
+avouching citizen or Prostates. It seems, therefore, that all persons
+not included in the four tribes, whatever their grade of fortune might
+be, were on the same level in respect to political privilege as the
+fourth and poorest class of the Solonian census. It has already been
+remarked, that even before the time of Solon the number of Athenians not
+included in the gentes or phratries was probably considerable: it tended
+to become greater and greater, since these bodies were close and
+unexpansive, while the policy of the new lawgiver tended to invite
+industrious settlers from other parts of Greece and Athens. Such great
+and increasing inequality of political privilege helps to explain the
+weakness of the government in repelling the aggressions of Pisistratus,
+and exhibits the importance of the revolution afterward wrought by
+Clisthenes, when he abolished (for all political purposes) the four old
+tribes, and created ten new comprehensive tribes in place of them.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the regulations of the senate and the assembly of the
+people, as constituted by Solon, we are altogether without information:
+nor is it safe to transfer to the Solonian constitution the information,
+comparatively ample, which we possess respecting these bodies under the
+later democracy.</p>
+
+<p>The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden rollers and triangular
+tablets, in the species of writing called <i>Boustrophedon</i> (lines
+alternating first from left to right, and next from <a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>right to left, like
+the course of the ploughman)&mdash;and preserved first in the Acropolis,
+subsequently in the Prytaneum. On the tablets, called <i>Cyrbis</i>, were
+chiefly commemorated the laws respecting sacred rites and sacrifices; on
+the pillars or rollers, of which there were at least sixteen, were
+placed the regulations respecting matters profane. So small are the
+fragments which have come down to us, and so much has been ascribed to
+Solon by the orators which belongs really to the subsequent times, that
+it is hardly possible to form any critical judgment respecting the
+legislation as a whole, or to discover by what general principles or
+purposes he was guided.</p>
+
+<p>He left unchanged all the previous laws and practices respecting the
+crime of homicide, connected as they were intimately with the religious
+feelings of the people. The laws of Draco on this subject, therefore,
+remained, but on other subjects, according to Plutarch, they were
+altogether abrogated: there is, however, room for supposing that the
+repeal cannot have been so sweeping as this biographer represents.</p>
+
+<p>The Solonian laws seem to have borne more or less upon all the great
+departments of human interest and duty. We find regulations political
+and religious, public and private, civil and criminal, commercial,
+agricultural, sumptuary, and disciplinarian. Solon provides punishment
+for crimes, restricts the profession and status of the citizen,
+prescribes detailed rules for marriage as well as for burial, for the
+common use of springs and wells, and for the mutual interest of
+conterminous farmers in planting or hedging their properties. As far as
+we can judge from the imperfect manner in which his laws come before us,
+there does not seem to have been any attempt at a systematic order or
+classification. Some of them are mere general and vague directions,
+while others again run into the extreme of specialty.</p>
+
+<p>By far the most important of all was the amendment of the law of debtor
+and creditor which has already been adverted to, and the abolition of
+the power of fathers and brothers to sell their daughters and sisters
+into slavery. The prohibition of all contracts on the security of the
+body was itself sufficient to produce a vast improvement in the
+character and condition of the poorer population,&mdash;a result which seems
+to have been so <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>sensibly obtained from the legislation of Solon, that
+Boeckh and some other eminent authors suppose him to have abolished
+villeinage and conferred upon the poor tenants a property in their
+lands, annulling the seigniorial rights of the landlord. But this
+opinion rests upon no positive evidence, nor are we warranted in
+ascribing to him any stronger measure in reference to the land than the
+annulment of the previous mortgages.</p>
+
+<p>The first pillar of his laws contained a regulation respecting
+exportable produce. He forbade the exportation of all produce of the
+Attic soil, except olive oil alone. And the sanction employed to enforce
+observance of this law deserves notice, as an illustration of the ideas
+of the time: the archon was bound, on pain of forfeiting one hundred
+drachmas, to pronounce solemn curses against every offender. We are
+probably to take this prohibition in conjunction with other objects said
+to have been contemplated by Solon, especially the encouragement of
+artisans and manufacturers at Athens. Observing (we are told) that many
+new immigrants were just then flocking into Attica to seek an
+establishment, in consequence of its greater security, he was anxious to
+turn them rather to manufacturing industry than to the cultivation of a
+soil naturally poor. He forbade the granting of citizenship to any
+immigrants, except to such as had quitted irrevocably their former
+abodes and come to Athens for the purpose of carrying on some industrial
+profession; and in order to prevent idleness, he directed the senate of
+Areopagus to keep watch over the lives of the citizens generally, and
+punish every one who had no course of regular labor to support him. If a
+father had not taught his son some art or profession, Solon relieved the
+son from all obligation to maintain him in his old age. And it was to
+encourage the multiplication of these artisans that he insured, or
+sought to insure, to the residents in Attica, the exclusive right of
+buying and consuming all its landed produce except olive oil, which was
+raised in abundance, more than sufficient for their wants. It was his
+wish that the trade with foreigners should be carried on by exporting
+the produce of artisan labor, instead of the produce of land.</p>
+
+<p>This commercial prohibition is founded on principles substantially
+similar to those which were acted upon in the early history of England,
+with reference both to corn and to wool, and <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>in other European
+countries also. In so far as it was at all operative it tended to lessen
+the total quantity of produce raised upon the soil of Attica, and thus
+to keep the price of it from rising. But the law of Solon must have been
+altogether inoperative, in reference to the great articles of human
+subsistence; for Attica imported, both largely and constantly, grain and
+salt provisions, probably also wool and flax for the spinning and
+weaving of the women, and certainly timber for building. Whether the law
+was ever enforced with reference to figs and honey may well be doubted;
+at least these productions of Attica were in after times trafficked in,
+and generally consumed throughout Greece. Probably also in the time of
+Solon the silver mines of Laurium had hardly begun to be worked: these
+afterward became highly productive, and furnished to Athens a commodity
+for foreign payments no less convenient than lucrative.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to notice the anxiety, both of Solon and of Draco, to
+enforce among their fellow-citizens industrious and self-maintaining
+habits; and we shall find the same sentiment proclaimed by Pericles, at
+the time when Athenian power was at its maximum. Nor ought we to pass
+over this early manifestation in Attica of an opinion equitable and
+tolerant toward sedentary industry, which in most other parts of Greece
+was regarded as comparatively dishonorable. The general tone of Grecian
+sentiment recognized no occupations as perfectly worthy of a free
+citizen except arms, agriculture, and athletic and musical exercises;
+and the proceedings of the Spartans, who kept aloof even from
+agriculture and left it to their helots, were admired, though they could
+not be copied, throughout most of the Hellenic world. Even minds like
+Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon concurred to a considerable extent in
+this feeling, which they justified on the ground that the sedentary life
+and unceasing house-work of the artisan were inconsistent with military
+aptitude. The town-occupations are usually described by a word which
+carries with it contemptuous ideas, and though recognized as
+indispensable to the existence of the city, are held suitable only for
+an inferior and semi-privileged order of citizens. This, the received
+sentiment among Greeks, as well as foreigners, found a strong and
+growing opposition at Athens, as I have already said&mdash;corroborated also
+by a similar <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>feeling at Corinth. The trade of Corinth, as well as of
+Chalcis in Euboea, was extensive, at a time when that of Athens had
+scarce any existence. But while the despotism of Periander can hardly
+have failed to operate as a discouragement to industry at Corinth, the
+contemporaneous legislation of Solon provided for traders and artisans a
+new home at Athens, giving the first encouragement to that numerous
+town-population both in the city and in the Pir&aelig;us, which we find
+actually residing there in the succeeding century. The multiplication of
+such town residents, both citizens and <i>metics</i> (<i>i.e.</i>, resident persons,
+not citizens, but enjoying an assured position and civil rights), was a
+capital fact in the onward march of Athens, since it determined not
+merely the extension of her trade, but also the pre&euml;minence of her naval
+forces&mdash;and thus, as a further consequence, lent extraordinary vigor to
+her democratical government. It seems, moreover, to have been a
+departure from the primitive temper of Atticism, which tended both to
+cantonal residence and rural occupation. We have, therefore, the greater
+interest in noting the first mention of it as a consequence of the
+Solonian legislation.</p>
+
+<p>To Solon is first owing the admission of a power of testamentary bequest
+at Athens in all cases in which a man had no legitimate children.
+According to the pre&euml;xisting custom, we may rather presume that if a
+deceased person left neither children nor blood relations, his property
+descended (as at Rome) to his gens and phratry. Throughout most rude
+states of society the power of willing is unknown, as among the ancient
+Germans&mdash;among the Romans prior to the twelve tables&mdash;in the old laws of
+the Hindus, etc. Society limits a man's interest or power of enjoyment
+to his life, and considers his relatives as having joint reversionary
+claims to his property, which take effect, in certain determinate
+proportions, after his death. Such a law was the more likely to prevail
+at Athens, since the perpetuity of the family sacred rites, in which the
+children and near relatives partook of right, was considered by the
+Athenians as a matter of public as well as of private concern. Solon
+gave permission to every man dying without children to bequeath his
+property by will as he should think fit; and the testament was
+maintained unless it could be shown to have been <a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>procured by some
+compulsion or improper seduction. Speaking generally, this continued to
+be the law throughout the historical times of Athens. Sons, wherever
+there were sons, succeeded to the property of their father in equal
+shares, with the obligation of giving out their sisters in marriage
+along with a certain dowry. If there were no sons, then the daughters
+succeeded, though the father might by will, within certain limits,
+determine the person to whom they should be married, with their rights
+of succession attached to them; or might, with the consent of his
+daughters, make by will certain other arrangements about his property. A
+person who had no children or direct lineal descendants might bequeath
+his property at pleasure: if he died without a will, first his father,
+then his brother or brother's children, next his sister or sister's
+children succeeded: if none such existed, then the cousins by the
+father's side, next the cousins by the mother's side,&mdash;the male line of
+descent having preference over the female.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the principle of the Solonian laws of succession, though the
+particulars are in several ways obscure and doubtful. Solon, it appears,
+was the first who gave power of superseding by testament the rights of
+agnates and gentiles to succession,&mdash;a proceeding in consonance with his
+plan of encouraging both industrious occupation and the consequent
+multiplication of individual acquisitions.</p>
+
+<p>It has been already mentioned that Solon forbade the sale of daughters
+or sisters into slavery by fathers or brothers; a prohibition which
+shows how much females had before been looked upon as articles of
+property. And it would seem that before his time the violation of a free
+woman must have been punished at the discretion of the magistrates; for
+we are told that he was the first who enacted a penalty of one hundred
+drachmas against the offender, and twenty drachmas against the seducer
+of a free woman. Moreover, it is said that he forbade a bride when given
+in marriage to carry with her any personal ornaments and appurtenances,
+except to the extent of three robes and certain matters of furniture not
+very valuable. Solon further imposed upon women several restraints in
+regard to proceeding at the obsequies of deceased relatives. He forbade
+profuse demonstrations of sorrow, singing of composed <a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>dirges, and
+costly sacrifices and contributions. He limited strictly the quantity of
+meat and drink admissible for the funeral banquet, and prohibited
+nocturnal exit, except in a car and with a light. It appears that both
+in Greece and Rome, the feelings of duty and affection on the part of
+surviving relatives prompted them to ruinous expense in a funeral, as
+well as to unmeasured effusions both of grief and conviviality; and the
+general necessity experienced for legal restriction is attested by the
+remark of Plutarch, that similar prohibitions to those enacted by Solon
+were likewise in force at his native town of Ch&aelig;ronea.</p>
+
+<p>Other penal enactments of Solon are yet to be mentioned. He forbade
+absolutely evil speaking with respect to the dead. He forbade it
+likewise with respect to the living, either in a temple or before judges
+or archons, or at any public festival&mdash;on pain of a forfeit of three
+drachmas to the person aggrieved, and two more to the public treasury.
+How mild the general character of his punishments was, may be judged by
+this law against foul language, not less than by the law before
+mentioned against rape. Both the one and the other of these offences
+were much more severely dealt with under the subsequent law of
+democratical Athens. The peremptory edict against speaking ill of a
+deceased person, though doubtless springing in a great degree from
+disinterested repugnance, is traceable also in part to that fear of the
+wrath of the departed which strongly possessed the early Greek mind.</p>
+
+<p>It seems generally that Solon determined by law the outlay for the
+public sacrifices, though we do not know what were his particular
+directions. We are told that he reckoned a sheep and a medimnus (of
+wheat or barley?) as equivalent, either of them, to a drachma, and that
+he also prescribed the prices to be paid for first-rate oxen intended
+for solemn occasions. But it astonishes us to see the large recompense
+which he awarded out of the public treasury to a victor at the Olympic
+or Isthmian games: to the former, five hundred drachmas, equal to one
+year's income of the highest of the four classes on the census; to the
+latter one hundred drachmas. The magnitude of these rewards strikes us
+the more when we compare them with the fines on rape and evil speaking.
+We cannot be surprised <a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>that the philosopher Xenophanes noticed, with
+some degree of severity, the extravagant estimate of this species of
+excellence, current among the Grecian cities. At the same time, we must
+remember both that these Pan-Hellenic games presented the chief visible
+evidence of peace and sympathy among the numerous communities of Greece,
+and that in the time of Solon, factitious reward was still needful to
+encourage them. In respect to land and agriculture Solon proclaimed a
+public reward of five drachmas for every wolf brought in, and one
+drachma for every wolf's cub; the extent of wild land has at all times
+been considerable in Attica. He also provided rules respecting the use
+of wells between neighbors, and respecting the planting in conterminous
+olive grounds. Whether any of these regulations continued in operation
+during the better-known period of Athenian history cannot be safely
+affirmed.</p>
+
+<p>In respect to theft, we find it stated that Solon repealed the
+punishment of death which Draco had annexed to that crime, and enacted,
+as a penalty, compensation to an amount double the value of the property
+stolen. The simplicity of this law perhaps affords ground for presuming
+that it really does belong to Solon. But the law which prevailed during
+the time of the orators respecting theft must have been introduced at
+some later period, since it enters into distinctions and mentions both
+places and forms of procedure, which we cannot reasonably refer to the
+forty-sixth Olympiad. The public dinners at the Prytaneum, of which the
+archons and a select few partook in common, were also either first
+established, or perhaps only more strictly regulated, by Solon. He
+ordered barley cakes for their ordinary meals, and wheaten loaves for
+festival days, prescribing how often each person should dine at the
+table. The honor of dining at the table of the Prytaneum was maintained
+throughout as a valuable reward at the disposal of the government.</p>
+
+<p>Among the various laws of Solon, there are few which have attracted more
+notice than that which pronounces the man who in a sedition stood aloof,
+and took part with neither side, to be dishonored and disfranchised.
+Strictly speaking, this seems more in the nature of an emphatic moral
+denunciation, or a religious curse, than a legal sanction capable of
+being for<a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>mally applied in an individual case and after judicial
+trial,&mdash;though the sentence of <i>atimy</i>, under the more elaborated Attic
+procedure, was both definite in its penal consequences and also
+judicially delivered. We may, however, follow the course of ideas under
+which Solon was induced to write this sentence on his tables, and we may
+trace the influence of similar ideas in later Attic institutions. It is
+obvious that his denunciation is confined to that special case in which
+a sedition has already broken out: we must suppose that Cylon has seized
+the Acropolis, or that Pisistratus, Megacles, and Lycurgus are in arms
+at the head of their partisans. Assuming these leaders to be wealthy and
+powerful men, which would in all probability be the fact, the
+constituted authority&mdash;such as Solon saw before him in Attica, even
+after his own organic amendments&mdash;was not strong enough to maintain the
+peace; it became, in fact, itself one of the contending parties. Under
+such given circumstances, the sooner every citizen publicly declared his
+adherence to some of them, the earlier this suspension of legal
+authority was likely to terminate. Nothing was so mischievous as the
+indifference of the mass, or their disposition to let the combatants
+fight out the matter among themselves, and then to submit to the victor.
+Nothing was more likely to encourage aggression on the part of an
+ambitious malcontent, than the conviction that if he could once
+overpower the small amount of physical force which surrounded the
+archons, and exhibit himself in armed possession of the Prytaneum or the
+Acropolis, he might immediately count upon passive submission on the
+part of all the freemen without. Under the state of feeling which Solon
+inculcates, the insurgent leader would have to calculate that every man
+who was not actively in his favor would be actively against him, and
+this would render his enterprise much more dangerous. Indeed, he could
+then never hope to succeed, except on the double supposition of
+extraordinary popularity in his own person and widespread detestation of
+the existing government. He would thus be placed under the influence of
+powerful deterring motives; so that ambition would be less likely to
+seduce him into a course which threatened nothing but ruin, unless under
+such encouragements from the pre&euml;xisting public opinion as to make his
+suc<a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>cess a result desirable for the community. Among the small political
+societies of Greece&mdash;especially in the age of Solon, when the number of
+despots in other parts of Greece seems to have been at its
+maximum&mdash;every government, whatever might be its form, was sufficiently
+weak to make its overthrow a matter of comparative facility. Unless upon
+the supposition of a band of foreign mercenaries&mdash;which would render the
+government a system of naked force, and which the Athenian lawgiver
+would of course never contemplate&mdash;there was no other stay for it except
+a positive and pronounced feeling of attachment on the part of the mass
+of citizens. Indifference on their part would render them a prey to
+every daring man of wealth who chose to become a conspirator. That they
+should be ready to come forward, not only with voice but with arms&mdash;and
+that they should be known beforehand to be so&mdash;was essential to the
+maintenance of every good Grecian government. It was salutary in
+preventing mere personal attempts at revolution; and pacific in its
+tendency, even where the revolution had actually broken out, because in
+the greater number of cases the proportion of partisans would probably
+be very unequal, and the inferior party would be compelled to renounce
+their hopes.</p>
+
+<p>It will be observed that, in this enactment of Solon, the existing
+government is ranked merely as one of the contending parties. The
+virtuous citizen is enjoined, not to come forward in its support, but to
+come forward at all events, either for it or against it. Positive and
+early action is all which is prescribed to him as matter of duty. In the
+age of Solon there was no political idea or system yet current which
+could be assumed as an unquestionable datum&mdash;no conspicuous standard to
+which the citizens could be pledged under all circumstances to attach
+themselves. The option lay only between a mitigated oligarchy in
+possession, and a despot in possibility; a contest wherein the
+affections of the people could rarely be counted upon in favor of the
+established government. But this neutrality in respect to the
+constitution was at an end after the revolution of Clisthenes, when the
+idea of the sovereign people and the democratical institutions became
+both familiar and precious to every individual citizen. We shall
+<a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>hereafter find the Athenians binding themselves by the most sincere and
+solemn oaths to uphold their democracy against all attempts to subvert
+it; we shall discover in them a sentiment not less positive and
+uncompromising in its direction, than energetic in its inspirations. But
+while we notice this very important change in their character, we shall
+at the same time perceive that the wise precautionary recommendation of
+Solon, to obviate sedition by an early declaration of the impartial
+public between two contending leaders, was not lost upon them. Such, in
+point of fact, was the purpose of that salutary and protective
+institution which is called the <i>Ostracism</i>. When two party leaders, in
+the early stages of the Athenian democracy, each powerful in adherents
+and influence, had become passionately embarked in bitter and prolonged
+opposition to each other, such opposition was likely to conduct one or
+other to violent measures. Over and above the hopes of party triumph,
+each might well fear that, if he himself continued within the bounds of
+legality, he might fall a victim to aggressive proceedings on the part
+of his antagonists. To ward off this formidable danger, a public vote
+was called for, to determine which of the two should go into temporary
+banishment, retaining his property and unvisited by any disgrace. A
+number of citizens, not less than six thousand, voting secretly, and
+therefore independently, were required to take part, pronouncing upon
+one or other of these eminent rivals a sentence of exile for ten years.
+The one who remained became, of course, more powerful, yet less in a
+situation to be driven into anti-constitutional courses than he was
+before. Tragedy and comedy were now beginning to be grafted on the lyric
+and choric song. First, one actor was provided to relieve the chorus;
+next, two actors were introduced to sustain fictitious characters and
+carry on a dialogue in such manner that the songs of the chorus and the
+interlocution of the actors formed a continuous piece. Solon, after
+having heard Thespis acting (as all the early composers did, both tragic
+and comic) in his own comedy, asked him afterward if he was not ashamed
+to pronounce such falsehoods before so large an audience. And when
+Thespis answered that there was no harm in saying and doing such things
+merely for amusement, Solon indignantly <a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>exclaimed, striking the ground
+with his stick, "If once we come to praise and esteem such amusement as
+this, we shall quickly find the effects of it in our daily
+transactions." For the authenticity of this anecdote it would be rash to
+vouch, but we may at least treat it as the protest of some early
+philosopher against the deceptions of the drama: and it is interesting
+as marking the incipient struggles of that literature in which Athens
+afterward attained such unrivaled excellence.</p>
+
+<p>It would appear that all the laws of Solon were proclaimed, inscribed,
+and accepted without either discussion or resistance. He is said to have
+described them, not as the best laws which he could himself have
+imagined, but as the best which he could have induced the people to
+accept. He gave them validity for the space of ten years, during which
+period both the senate collectively and the archons individually swore
+to observe them with fidelity; under penalty, in case of non-observance,
+of a golden statue as large as life to be erected at Delphi. But though
+the acceptance of the laws was accomplished without difficulty, it was
+not found so easy either for the people to understand and obey, or for
+the framer to explain them. Every day persons came to Solon either with
+praise, or criticism, or suggestions of various improvements, or
+questions as to the construction of particular enactments; until at last
+he became tired of this endless process of reply and vindication, which
+was seldom successful either in removing obscurity or in satisfying
+complainants. Foreseeing that if he remained he would be compelled to
+make changes, he obtained leave of absence from his countrymen for ten
+years, trusting that before the expiration of that period they would
+have become accustomed to his laws. He quitted his native city in the
+full certainty that his laws would remain unrepealed until his return;
+for (says Herodotus) "the Athenians <i>could not</i> repeal them, since they
+were bound by solemn oaths to observe them for ten years." The
+unqualified manner in which the historian here speaks of an oath, as if
+it created a sort of physical necessity and shut out all possibility of
+a contrary result, deserves notice as illustrating Grecian sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>On departing from Athens, Solon first visited Egypt, where he
+communicated largely with Psenophis of Heliopolis <a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>and Sonchis of Sais,
+Egyptian priests who had much to tell respecting their ancient history,
+and from whom he learned matters, real or pretended, far transcending in
+alleged antiquity the oldest Grecian genealogies&mdash;especially the history
+of the vast submerged island of Atlantis, and the war which the
+ancestors of the Athenians had successfully carried on against it, nine
+thousand years before. Solon is said to have commenced an epic poem upon
+this subject, but he did not live to finish it, and nothing of it now
+remains. From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he visited the small town
+of &AElig;pia, said to have been originally founded by Demophon, son of
+Theseus, and ruled at this period by the prince Philocyprus&mdash;each town
+in Cyprus having its own petty prince. It was situated near the river
+Clarius in a position precipitous and secure, but inconvenient and
+ill-supplied, Solon persuaded Philocyprus to quit the old site and
+establish a new town down in the fertile plain beneath. He himself
+stayed and became <i>&aelig;cist</i> of the new establishment, making all the
+regulations requisite for its safe and prosperous march, which was
+indeed so decisively manifested that many new settlers flocked into the
+new plantation, called by Philocyprus <i>Soli</i>, in honor of Solon. To our
+deep regret, we are not permitted to know what these regulations were;
+but the general fact is attested by the poems of Solon himself, and the
+lines in which he bade farewell to Philocyprus on quitting the island
+are yet before us. On the dispositions of this prince his poem bestowed
+unqualified commendation.</p>
+
+<p>Besides his visit to Egypt and Cyprus, a story was also current of his
+having conversed with the Lydian king Croesus at Sardis. The
+communication said to have taken place between them has been woven by
+Herodotus into a sort of moral tale which forms one of the most
+beautiful episodes in his whole history. Though this tale has been told
+and retold as if it were genuine history, yet as it now stands it is
+irreconcilable with chronology&mdash;although very possibly Solon may at some
+time or other have visited Sardis, and seen Croesus as hereditary
+prince.</p>
+
+<p>But even if no chronological objections existed, the moral purpose of
+the tale is so prominent, and pervades it so system<a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>atically from
+beginning to end, that these internal grounds are of themselves
+sufficiently strong to impeach its credibility as a matter of fact,
+unless such doubts happen to be out-weighed&mdash;which in this case they are
+not&mdash;by good contemporary testimony. The narrative of Solon and Croesus
+can be taken for nothing else but an illustrative fiction, borrowed by
+Herodotus from some philosopher, and clothed in his own peculiar beauty
+of expression, which on this occasion is more decidedly poetical than is
+habitual with him. I cannot transcribe, and I hardly dare to abridge it.
+The vainglorious Croesus, at the summit of his conquests and his riches,
+endeavors to win from his visitor Solon an opinion that he is the
+happiest of mankind. The latter, after having twice preferred to him
+modest and meritorious Grecian citizens, at length reminds him that his
+vast wealth and power are of a tenure too precarious to serve as an
+evidence of happiness; that the gods are jealous and meddlesome, and
+often make the show of happiness a mere prelude to extreme disaster; and
+that no man's life can be called happy until the whole of it has been
+played out, so that it may be seen to be out of the reach of reverses.
+Croesus treats this opinion as absurd, but "a great judgment from God
+fell upon him, after Solon was departed&mdash;probably (observes Herodotus)
+because he fancied himself the happiest of all men." First he lost his
+favorite son Atys, a brave and intelligent youth (his only other son
+being dumb). For the Mysians of Olympus being ruined by a destructive
+and formidable wild boar, which they were unable to subdue, applied for
+aid to Croesus, who sent to the spot a chosen hunting force, and
+permitted&mdash;though with great reluctance, in consequence of an alarming
+dream&mdash;that his favorite son should accompany them. The young prince was
+unintentionally slain by the Phrygian exile Adrastus, whom Croesus had
+sheltered and protected, Hardly had the latter recovered from the
+anguish of this misfortune, when the rapid growth of Cyrus and the
+Persian power induced him to go to war with them, against the advice of
+his wisest counsellors. After a struggle of about three years he was
+completely defeated, his capital Sardis taken by storm, and himself made
+prisoner. Cyrus ordered a large pile to be prepared, and placed upon it
+Croesus in fetters, together with <a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>fourteen young Lydians, in the
+intention of burning them alive either as a religious offering, or in
+fulfilment of a vow, "or perhaps (says Herodotus) to see whether some of
+the gods would not interfere to rescue a man so pre&euml;miently pious as the
+king of Lydia." In this sad extremity, Croesus bethought him of the
+warning which he had before despised, and thrice pronounced, with a deep
+groan, the name of Solon. Cyrus desired the interpreters to inquire whom
+he was invoking, and learnt in reply the anecdote of the Athenian
+lawgiver, together with the solemn memento which he had offered to
+Croesus during more prosperous days, attesting the frail tenure of all
+human greatness. The remark sunk deep into the Persian monarch as a
+token of what might happen to himself: he repented of his purpose, and
+directed that the pile, which had already been kindled, should be
+immediately extinguished. But the orders came too late. In spite of the
+most zealous efforts of the bystanders, the flame was found
+unquenchable, and Croesus would still have been burned, had he not
+implored with prayers and tears the succor of Apollo, to whose Delphian
+and Theban temples he had given such munificent presents. His prayers
+were heard, the fair sky was immediately overcast and a profuse rain
+descended, sufficient to extinguish the flames. The life of Croesus was
+thus saved, and he became afterward the confidential friend and adviser
+of his conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the brief outline of a narrative which Herodotus has given with
+full development and with impressive effect. It would have served as a
+show-lecture to the youth of Athens not less admirably than the
+well-known fable of the Choice of Heracles, which the philosopher
+Prodicus, a junior contemporary of Herodotus, delivered with so much
+popularity. It illustrates forcibly the religious and ethical ideas of
+antiquity; the deep sense of the jealousy of the gods, who would not
+endure pride in any one except themselves; the impossibility, for any
+man, of realizing to himself more than a very moderate share of
+happiness; the danger from a reactionary Nemesis, if at anytime he had
+overpassed such limit; and the necessity of calculations taking in the
+whole of life, as a basis for rational comparison of different
+individuals. And it embodies, as a practical consequence from these
+feelings, the often-repeated <a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a>protest of moralists against vehement
+impulses and unrestrained aspirations. The more valuable this narrative
+appears, in its illustrative character, the less can we presume to treat
+it as a history.</p>
+
+<p>It is much to be regretted that we have no information respecting events
+in Attica immediately after the Solonian laws and constitution, which
+were promulgated in B.C. 594, so as to understand better the practical
+effect of these changes. What we next hear respecting Solon in Attica
+refers to a period immediately preceding the first usurpation of
+Pisistratus in B.C. 560, and after the return of Solon from his long
+absence. We are here again introduced to the same oligarchical
+dissensions as are reported to have prevailed before the Solonian
+legislation: the Pediis, or opulent proprietors of the plain round
+Athens, under Lycurgus; the Parali of the south of Attica, under
+Megacles; and the Diacrii or mountaineers of the eastern cantons, the
+poorest of the three classes, under Pisistratus, are in a state of
+violent intestine dispute. The account of Plutarch represents Solon as
+returning to Athens during the height of this sedition. He was treated
+with respect by all parties, but his recommendations were no longer
+obeyed, and he was disqualified by age from acting with effect in
+public. He employed his best efforts to mitigate party animosities, and
+applied himself particularly to restrain the ambition of Pisistratus,
+whose ulterior projects he quickly detected.</p>
+
+<p>The future greatness of Pisistratus is said to have been first portended
+by a miracle which happened, even before his birth, to his father
+Hippocrates at the Olympic games. It was realized, partly by his bravery
+and conduct, which had been displayed in the capture of Nis&aelig;a from the
+Megarians&mdash;partly by his popularity of speech and manners, his
+championship of the poor, and his ostentatious disavowal of all selfish
+pretensions&mdash;partly by an artful mixture of stratagem and force. Solon,
+after having addressed fruitless remonstrances to Pisistratus himself,
+publicly denounced his designs in verses addressed to the people. The
+deception, whereby Pisistratus finally accomplished his design, is
+memorable in Grecian tradition. He appeared one day in the agora of
+Athens in his chariot with a pair of mules: he had intentionally wounded
+both his <a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a>person and the mules, and in this condition he threw himself
+upon the compassion and defence of the people, pretending that his
+political enemies had violently attacked him. He implored the people to
+grant him a guard, and at the moment when their sympathies were freshly
+aroused both in his favor and against his supposed assassins, Aristo
+proposed formally to the ecclesia (the pro-bouleutic senate, being
+composed of friends of Pisistratus, had previously authorized the
+proposition) that a company of fifty club-men should be assigned as a
+permanent body-guard for the defence of Pisistratus. To this motion
+Solon opposed a strenuous resistance, but found himself overborne, and
+even treated as if he had lost his senses. The poor were earnest in
+favor of it, while the rich were afraid to express their dissent; and he
+could only comfort himself after the fatal vote had been passed, by
+exclaiming that he was wiser than the former and more determined than
+the latter. Such was one of the first known instances in which this
+memorable stratagem was played off against the liberty of a Grecian
+community.</p>
+
+<p>The unbounded popular favor which had procured the passing of this grant
+was still further manifested by the absence of all precautions to
+prevent the limits of the grant from being exceeded. The number of the
+body-guard was not long confined to fifty, and probably their clubs were
+soon exchanged for sharper weapons. Pisistratus thus found himself
+strong enough to throw off the mask and seize the Acropolis. His leading
+opponents, Megacles and the Alcin&aelig;onids, immediately fled the city, and
+it was left to the venerable age and undaunted patriotism of Solon to
+stand forward almost alone in a vain attempt to resist the usurpation.
+He publicly presented himself in the market-place, employing
+encouragement, remonstrance and reproach, in order to rouse the spirit
+of the people. To prevent this despotism from coming (he told them)
+would have been easy; to shake it off now was more difficult, yet at the
+same time more glorious. But he spoke in vain, for all who were not
+actually favorable to Pisistratus listened only to their fears, and
+remained passive; nor did any one join Solon, when, as a last appeal, he
+put on his armor and planted himself in military posture before the door
+of his house. "I have done <a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>my duty (he exclaimed at length); I have
+sustained to the best of my power my country and the laws"; and he then
+renounced all further hope of opposition&mdash;though resisting the instances
+of his friends that he should flee, and returning for answer, when they
+asked him on what he relied for protection, "On my old age." Nor did he
+even think it necessary to repress the inspirations of his Muse. Some
+verses yet remain, composed seemingly at a moment when the strong hand
+of the new despot had begun to make itself sorely felt, in which he
+tells his countrymen&mdash;"If ye have endured sorrow from your own baseness
+of soul, impute not the fault of this to the gods. Ye have yourselves
+put force and dominion into the hands of these men, and have thus drawn
+upon yourselves wretched slavery."</p>
+
+<p>It is gratifying to learn that Pisistratus, whose conduct throughout his
+despotism was comparatively mild, left Solon untouched. How long this
+distinguished man survived the practical subversion of his own
+constitution, we cannot certainly determine; but according to the most
+probable statement he died during the very next year, at the advanced
+age of eighty.</p>
+
+<p>We have only to regret that we are deprived of the means of following
+more in detail his noble and exemplary character. He represents the best
+tendencies of his age, combined with much that is personally excellent:
+the improved ethical sensibility; the thirst for enlarged knowledge and
+observation, not less potent in old age than in youth; the conception of
+regularized popular institutions, departing sensibly from the type and
+spirit of the governments around him, and calculated to found a new
+character in the Athenian people; a genuine and reflecting sympathy with
+the mass of the poor, anxious not merely to rescue them from the
+oppressions of the rich, but also to create in them habits of
+self-relying industry; lastly, during his temporary possession of a
+power altogether arbitrary, not merely an absence of all selfish
+ambition, but a rare discretion in seizing the mean between conflicting
+exigencies. In reading his poems we must always recollect that what now
+appears commonplace was once new, so that to his comparatively
+unlettered age the social pictures which he draws were still fresh, and
+his exhortations calculated to live in the memory. The <a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>poems composed
+on moral subjects generally inculcate a spirit of gentleness toward
+others and moderation in personal objects. They represent the gods as
+irresistible, retributive, favoring the good and punishing the bad,
+though sometimes very tardily. But his compositions on special and
+present occasions are usually conceived in a more vigorous spirit;
+denouncing the oppressions of the rich at one time, and the timid
+submission to Pisistratus at another&mdash;and expressing in emphatic
+language his own proud consciousness of having stood forward as champion
+of the mass of the people. Of his early poems hardly anything is
+preserved. The few lines remaining seem to manifest a jovial temperament
+which we may well conceive to have been overlaid by such political
+difficulties as he had to encounter&mdash;difficulties arising successively
+out of the Megarian war, the Cylonian sacrilege, the public despondency
+healed by Epimenides, and the task of arbiter between a rapacious
+oligarchy and a suffering people. In one of his elegies addressed to
+Mimnermus, he marked out the sixtieth year as the longest desirable
+period of life, in preference to the eightieth year, which that poet had
+expressed a wish to attain. But his own life, as far as we can judge,
+seems to have reached the longer of the two periods; and not the least
+honorable part of it (the resistance to Pisistratus) occurs immediately
+before his death.</p>
+
+<p>There prevailed a story that his ashes were collected and scattered
+around the island of Salamis, which Plutarch treats as absurd&mdash;though he
+tells us at the same time that it was believed both by Aristotle and by
+many other considerable men. It is at least as ancient as the poet
+Cratinus, who alluded to it in one of his comedies, and I do not feel
+inclined to reject it. The inscription on the statue of Solon at Athens
+described him as a Salaminian; he had been the great means of acquiring
+the island for his country, and it seems highly probable that among the
+new Athenian citizens, who went to settle there, he may have received a
+lot of land and become enrolled among the Salaminian <i>demots</i>. The
+dispersion of his ashes connecting him with the island as its <i>oecist</i>,
+may be construed, if not as the expression of a public vote, at least as
+a piece of affectionate vanity on the part of his surviving friends.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CONQUESTS_OF_CYRUS_THE_GREAT" id="CONQUESTS_OF_CYRUS_THE_GREAT"></a>CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 538</h3>
+
+<h3><i>GEORGE GROTE</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>On the destruction of Nineveh three great Powers still stood on
+the stage of history, being bound together by the strong ties of a
+mutually supporting alliance. These were Media, Lydia, and Babylon.
+The capital of Lydia was Sardis. According to Herodotus, the first
+king of Lydia was Manes. In the semi-mythic period of Lydian
+history rose the great dynasty of the [Greek: Heraclid&aelig;], which
+reigned for 505 years, numbering twenty-two kings&mdash;B.C. 1229 to
+B.C. 745. The Lydians are said by Herodotus to have colonized
+Tyrrhenia, in the Italic peninsula, and to have extended their
+conquests into Syria, where they founded Ascalon in the territory
+later known as Palestine.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Gyges, B.C. 724, they began to attack the Greek
+cities of Asia Minor: Miletus, Smyrna, and Priene. The glory of the
+Lydian Empire culminated in the reign of [Greek: Croesus], the
+fifth and last historic king, B.C. 568. The well-known story of
+Solon's warning to [Greek:Cr&oelig;sus] was full of ominous import with
+regard to the ultimate downfall of the Lydian Empire: "For thyself,
+O Cr&oelig;sus," said the Greek sage in answer to the question, Who is
+the happiest man?" I see that thou art wonderfully rich, and art
+the lord of many nations; but in respect to that whereon thou
+questionest me, I have no answer to give until I hear that thou
+hast closed thy life happily."</p>
+
+<p>The Median Empire occupied a territory indefinitely extending over
+a region south of the Caspian, between the Kurdish Mountains and
+the modern Khorassan. The Median monarchy, according to Herodotus,
+commenced B.C. 708. The Medes, which were racially akin to the
+Persians, had been for fifty years subject to the Assyrian monarchy
+when they revolted, setting up an independent empire. Putting aside
+the dates given by the Greek historians, we shall perhaps be
+correct in considering that the great Median kingdom was
+established by Cyaxares, B.C. 633; and that in B.C. 610 a great
+struggle of six years between Media and Lydia was amicably ended,
+under the terror occasioned by an eclipse, by the establishment of
+a treaty and alliance between the contending powers. With the death
+of Cyaxares, B.C. 597, the glory of the great Median Empire passed
+away, for under his son, Astyages, the country was conquered by
+Cyrus.</p>
+
+<p>The rise of the Babylonian Empire seems to have originated B.C.
+2234, when the Cushite inhabitants of southern Babylonia raised a
+native <a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>dynasty to the throne, liberated themselves from the yoke
+of the Zoroastrian Medes, and instituted an empire with several
+large capitals, where they built mighty temples and introduced the
+worship of the heavenly bodies in contradistinction to the
+elemental worship of the Magian Medes. The record of Babylonian
+kings is full of obscurity, even in the light of recent
+arch&aelig;ological discoveries. We can trace, however, a gradual
+expansion of Babylonian dominion, even to the borders of Egypt.
+Nabo Polassar, B.C. 625 to B.C. 604, was a great warrior, and at
+Carchemish defeated even the almost invincible Egyptians, B.C. 604.</p>
+
+<p>His successor, Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 604, immediately set about the
+fortification of his capital. A space of more than 130 square miles
+was enclosed within walls 80 feet in breadth and 300 or 400 in
+height, if we may believe the record. Meanwhile, with the
+assistance of Cyaxares, King of Media, he captured Tyre, in
+Phoenicia, and Jerusalem, in Syria; but fifteen years after Croesus
+had been taken prisoner and the Persian Empire extended to the
+shores of the &AElig;gean, the Empire of Babylon fell before the
+conquering armies of Cyrus, the Persian.</p></div>
+
+<p>The Ionic and &AElig;olic Greeks on the Asiatic coast had been conquered and
+made tributary by the Lydian king Croesus: "Down to that time (says
+Herodotus) all Greeks had been free." Their conqueror, Croesus, who
+ascended the throne in 560 B.C., appeared to be at the summit of human
+prosperity and power in his unassailable capital, and with his countless
+treasures at Sardis. His dominions comprised nearly the whole of Asia
+Minor, as far as the river Halys to the east; on the other side of that
+river began the Median monarchy under his brother-in-law Astyages,
+extending eastward to some boundary which we cannot define, but
+comprising, in a south-eastern direction, Persis proper or Farsistan,
+and separated from the Kissians and Assyrians on the east by the line of
+Mount Zagros (the present boundary-line between Persia and Turkey).
+Babylonia, with its wondrous city, between the Uphrates and the Tigris,
+was occupied by the Assyrians or Chald&aelig;ans, under their king Labynetus:
+a territory populous and fertile, partly by nature, partly by prodigies
+of labor, to a degree which makes us mistrust even an honest eye-witness
+who describes it afterward in its decline&mdash;but which was then in its
+most flourishing condition. The Chaldean dominion under Labynetus
+reached to the borders of Egypt, including as dependent territories both
+Jud&aelig;a and Phenicia. In Egypt reigned the native king Amasis, powerful
+and affluent, sustained in his throne by a <a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a>large body of Grecian
+mercenaries and himself favorably disposed to Grecian commerce and
+settlement. Both with Labynetus and with Amasis, Croesus was on terms of
+alliance; and as Astyages was his brother-in-law, the four kings might
+well be deemed out of the reach of calamity. Yet within the space of
+thirty years, or a little more, the whole of their territories had
+become embodied in one vast empire, under the son of an adventurer as
+yet not known even by name.</p>
+
+<p>The rise and fall of oriental dynasties have been in all times
+distinguished by the same general features. A brave and adventurous
+prince, at the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and greedy,
+acquires dominion; while his successors, abandoning themselves to
+sensuality and sloth, probably also to oppressive and irascible
+dispositions, become in process of time victims to those same qualities
+in a stranger which had enabled their own father to seize the throne.
+Cyrus, the great founder of the Persian empire, first the subject and
+afterward the dethroner of the Median Astyages, corresponds to their
+general description, as far, at least, as we can pretend to know his
+history. For in truth even the conquests of Cyrus, after he became ruler
+of Media, are very imperfectly known, while the facts which preceded his
+rise up to that sovereignty cannot be said to be known at all: we have
+to choose between different accounts at variance with each other, and of
+which the most complete and detailed is stamped with all the character
+of romance. The Cyrop&aelig;dia of Xenophon is memorable and interesting,
+considered with reference to the Greek mind, and as a philosophical
+novel. That it should have been quoted so largely as authority on
+matters of history, is only one proof among many how easily authors have
+been satisfied as to the essentials of historical evidence. The
+narrative given by Herodotus of the relations between Cyrus and
+Astyages, agreeing with Xenophon in little more than the fact that it
+makes Cyrus son of Cambyses and Mandane and grandson of Astyages, goes
+even beyond the story of Romulus and Remus in respect to tragical
+incident and contrast. Astyages, alarmed by a dream, condemns the
+newborn infant of his daughter Mandane to be exposed: Harpagus, to whom
+the order is given, delivers the child to one of the royal herdsmen,
+<a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>who exposes it in the mountains, where it is miraculously suckled by a
+bitch. Thus preserved, and afterward brought up as the herdsman's child,
+Cyrus manifests great superiority, both physical and mental; is chosen
+king in play by the boys of the village, and in this capacity severely
+chastises the son of one of the courtiers; for which offense he is
+carried before Astyages, who recognizes him for his grandson, but is
+assured by the Magi that the dream is out and that he has no further
+danger to apprehend from the boy&mdash;and therefore permits him to live.
+With Harpagus, however, Astyages is extremely incensed, for not having
+executed his orders: he causes the son of Harpagus to be slain, and
+served up to be eaten by his unconscious father at a regal banquet. The
+father, apprised afterward of the fact, dissembles his feelings, but
+meditates a deadly vengeance against Astyages for this Thyestean meal.
+He persuades Cyrus, who has been sent back to his father and mother in
+Persia, to head a revolt of the Persians against the Medes; whilst
+Astyages&mdash;to fill up the Grecian conception of madness as a precursor to
+ruin&mdash;sends an army against the revolters, commanded by Harpagus
+himself. Of course the army is defeated&mdash;Astyages, after a vain
+resistance, is dethroned&mdash;Cyrus becomes king in his place&mdash;and Harpagus
+repays the outrage which he has undergone by the bitterest insults.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the heads of a beautiful narrative which is given at some
+length in Herodotus. It will probably appear to the reader sufficiently
+romantic; though the historian intimates that he had heard three other
+narratives different from it, and that all were more full of marvels, as
+well as in wider circulation, than his own, which he had borrowed from
+some unusually sober-minded Persian informants. In what points the other
+three stories departed from it we do not hear.</p>
+
+<p>To the historian of Halicarnassus we have to oppose Ctesias&mdash;the
+physician of the neighboring town of Cnidus&mdash;who contradicted Herodotus,
+not without strong terms of censure, on many points, and especially upon
+that which is the very foundation of the early narrative respecting
+Cyrus; for he affirmed that Cyrus was no way related to Astyages.
+However indignant we may be with Ctesias for the disparaging epithets
+<a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a>which he presumed to apply to an historian whose work is to us
+inestimable&mdash;we must nevertheless admit that, as surgeon in actual
+attendance on king Artaxerxes Mnemon, and healer of the wound inflicted
+on that prince at Cunaxa by his brother Cyrus the younger, he had better
+opportunities even than Herodotus of conversing with sober-minded
+Persians, and that the discrepancies between the two statements are to
+be taken as a proof of the prevalence of discordant, yet equally
+accredited, stories. Herodotus himself was in fact compelled to choose
+one out of four. So rare and late a plant is historical authenticity.</p>
+
+<p>That Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror, and that the space which he
+overran covered no less than fifty degrees of longitude, from the coast
+of Asia Minor to the Oxus and the Indus, are facts quite indisputable;
+but of the steps by which this was achieved, we know very little. The
+native Persians, whom he conducted to an empire so immense, were an
+aggregate of seven agricultural, and four nomadic tribes&mdash;all of them
+rude, hardy, and brave&mdash;dwelling in a mountainous region, clothed in
+skins, ignorant of wine, or fruit, or any of the commonest luxuries of
+life, and despising the very idea of purchase or sale. Their tribes were
+very unequal in point of dignity, probably also in respect to numbers
+and powers, among one another. First in estimation among them stood the
+Pasargad&aelig;; and the first phratry or clan among the Pasargad&aelig; were the
+Ach&aelig;menid&aelig;, to whom Cyrus himself belonged. Whether his relationship to
+the Median king whom he dethroned was a matter of fact, or a politic
+fiction, we cannot well determine. But Xenophon, in noticing the
+spacious deserted cities, Larissa and Mespila, which he saw in his march
+with the ten thousand Greeks on the eastern side of the Tigris, gives us
+to understand that the conquest of Media by the Persians was reported to
+him as having been an obstinate and protracted struggle. However this
+may be, the preponderance of the Persians was at last complete: though
+the Medes always continued to be the second nation in the empire, after
+the Persians, properly so called; and by early Greek writers the great
+enemy in the East is often called "the Mede" as well as "the Persian."
+The Median Ekbatana too remained as one of the <a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a>capital cities, and the
+usual summer residence, of the kings of Persia; Susa on the Choaspes, on
+the Kissian plain farther southward, and east of the Tigris, being their
+winter abode.</p>
+
+<p>The vast space of country comprised between the Indus on the east, the
+Oxus and Caspian Sea to the north, the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean to
+the south, and the line of Mount Zagros to the west, appears to have
+been occupied in these times by a great variety of different tribes and
+people, yet all or most of them belonging to the religion of Zoroaster,
+and speaking dialects of the Zend language. It was known amongst its
+inhabitants by the common name of Iran or Aria: it is, in its central
+parts at least, a high, cold plateau, totally destitute of wood, and
+scantily supplied with water; much of it indeed is a salt and sandy
+desert, unsusceptible of culture. Parts of it are eminently fertile,
+where water can be procured and irrigation applied. Scattered masses of
+tolerably dense population thus grew up; but continuity of cultivation
+is not practicable, and in ancient times, as at present, a large
+proportion of the population of Iran seems to have consisted of
+wandering or nomadic tribes with their tents and cattle. The rich
+pastures, and the freshness of the summer climate, in the region of
+mountain and valley near Ekbatana, are extolled by modern travellers,
+just as they attracted the Great King in ancient times during the hot
+months. The more southerly province called Persis proper (Faristan)
+consists also in part of mountain land interspersed with valley and
+plain, abundantly watered, and ample in pasture, sloping gradually down
+to low grounds on the sea-coast which are hot and dry: the care bestowed
+both by Medes and Persians on the breeding of their horses was
+remarkable. There were doubtless material differences between different
+parts of the population of this vast plateau of Iran. Yet it seems that,
+along with their common language and religion, they had also something
+of a common character, which contrasted with the Indian population east
+of the Indus, the Assyrians west of Mount Zagros, and the Massaget&aelig; and
+other Nomads of the Caspian and the Sea of Aral&mdash;less brutish, restless
+and blood-thirsty than the latter&mdash;more fierce, contemptuous and
+extortionate, and less capable of sustained industry, than the two
+former. There can be little <a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>doubt, at the time of which we are now
+speaking, when the wealth and cultivation of Assyria were at their
+maximum, that Iran also was far better peopled than ever it has been
+since European observers have been able to survey it&mdash;especially the
+north-eastern portion, Bactria and Sogdiana&mdash;so that the invasions of
+the Nomads from Turkestan and Tartary, which have been so destructive at
+various intervals since the Mohammedan conquest, were before that period
+successfully kept back.</p>
+
+<p>The general analogy among the population of Iran probably enabled the
+Persian conqueror with comparative ease to extend his empire to the
+east, after the conquest of Ekbatana, and to become the full heir of the
+Median kings. If we may believe Ctesias, even the distant province of
+Bactria had been before subject to those kings. At first it resisted
+Cyrus, but finding that he had become son-in-law of Astyages, as well as
+master of his person, it speedily acknowledged his authority.</p>
+
+<p>According to the representation of Herodotus, the war between Cyrus and
+Croesus of Lydia began shortly after the capture of Astyages, and before
+the conquest of Bactria. Croesus was the assailant, wishing to avenge
+his brother-in-law, to arrest the growth of the Persian conqueror, and
+to increase his own dominions. His more prudent counsellors in vain
+represented to him that he had little to gain, and much to lose, by war
+with a nation alike hardy and poor. He is represented as just at that
+time recovering from the affliction arising out of the death of his son.</p>
+
+<p>To ask advice of the oracle, before he took any final decision, was a
+step which no pious king would omit. But in the present perilous
+question, Croesus did more&mdash;he took a precaution so extreme, that if his
+piety had not been placed beyond all doubt by his extraordinary
+munificence to the temples, he might have drawn upon himself the
+suspicion of a guilty scepticism. Before he would send to ask advice
+respecting the project itself, he resolved to test the credit of some of
+the chief surrounding oracles&mdash;Delphi, Dodona, Branchid&aelig; near Miletus,
+Amphiaraus at Thebes, Trophonius at Labadeia, and Ammon in Libya. His
+envoys started from Sardis on the same day, and were all directed on the
+hundredth day afterward to ask at the respective oracles how Croesus was
+at that <a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a>precise moment employed. This was a severe trial: of the manner
+in which it was met by four out of the six oracles consulted we have no
+information, and it rather appears that their answers were
+unsatisfactory. But Amphiaraus maintained his credit undiminished, while
+Apollo at Delphi, more omniscient than Apollo at Branchid&aelig;, solved the
+question with such unerring precision, as to afford a strong additional
+argument against persons who might be disposed to scoff at divination.
+No sooner had the envoys put the question to the Delphian priestess, on
+the day named, "What is Cr&oelig;sus now doing?" than she exclaimed in the
+accustomed hexameter verse, "I know the number of grains of sand, and
+the measures of the sea: I understand the dumb, and I hear the man who
+speaks not. The smell reaches me of a hard-skinned tortoise boiled in a
+copper with lamb's flesh&mdash;copper above and copper below." Croesus was
+awe-struck on receiving this reply. It described with the utmost detail
+that which he had been really doing, so that he accounted the Delphian
+oracle and that of Amphiaraus the only trustworthy oracles on
+earth&mdash;following up these feelings with a holocaust of the most
+munificent character, in order to win the favor of the Delphian god.
+Three thousand cattle were offered up, and upon a vast sacrificial pile
+were placed the most splendid purple robes and tunics, together with
+couches and censers of gold and silver; besides which he sent to Delphi
+itself the richest presents in gold and silver&mdash;statues, bowls, jugs,
+etc., the size and weight of which we read with astonishment; the more
+so as Herodotus himself saw them a century afterwards at Delphi. Nor was
+Croesus altogether unmindful of Amphiaraus, whose answer had been
+creditable, though less triumphant than that of the Pythian priestess.
+He sent to Amphiaraus a spear and shield of pure gold, which were
+afterward seen at Thebes by Herodotus: this large donative may help the
+reader to conceive the immensity of those which he sent to Delphi.</p>
+
+<p>The envoys who conveyed these gifts were instructed to ask at the same
+time, whether Croesus should undertake an expedition against the
+Persians&mdash;and if so, whether he should solicit any allies to assist him.
+In regard to the second question, the answer both of Apollo and of
+Amphiaraus was deci <a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a>sive, recommending him to invite the alliance of
+the most powerful Greeks. In regard to the first and most momentous
+question, their answer was as remarkable for circumspection as it had
+been before for detective sagacity: they told Croesus that if he invaded
+the Persians, he would subvert a mighty monarchy. The blindness of
+Croesus interpreted this declaration into an unqualified promise of
+success: he sent further presents to the oracle, and again inquired
+whether his kingdom would be durable. "When a mule shall become king of
+the Medes (replied the priestess) then must thou run away&mdash;be not
+ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>More assured than ever by such an answer, Croesus sent to Sparta, under
+the kings Anaxandrides and Aristo, to tender presents and solicit their
+alliance. His propositions were favorably entertained&mdash;the more so, as
+he had before gratuitously furnished some gold to the Laced&aelig;monians for
+a statue to Apollo. The alliance now formed was altogether general&mdash;no
+express effort being as yet demanded from them, though it soon came to
+be. But the incident is to be noted, as marking the first plunge of the
+leading Grecian state into Asiatic politics; and that too without any of
+the generous Hellenic sympathy which afterward induced Athens to send
+her citizens across the &AElig;gean. At this time Croesus was the master and
+tribute-exactor of the Asiatic Greeks, whose contingents seem to have
+formed part of his army for the expedition now contemplated; an army
+consisting principally, not of native Lydians, but of foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>The river Halys formed the boundary at this time between the Median and
+Lydian empires: and Croesus, marching across that river into the
+territory of the Syrians or Assyrians of Cappadocia, took the city of
+Pteria, with many of its surrounding dependencies, inflicting damage and
+destruction upon these distant subjects of Ekbatana. Cyrus lost no time
+in bringing an army to their defence considerably larger than that of
+Croesus; trying at the same time, though unsuccessfully, to prevail on
+the Ionians to revolt from him. A bloody battle took place between the
+two armies, but with indecisive result: after which Croesus, seeing that
+he could not hope to accomplish more with his forces as they stood,
+thought it wise <a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a>to return to his capital, and collect a larger army for
+the next campaign. Immediately on reaching Sardis he despatched envoys
+to Labynetus king of Babylon; to Amasis, king of Egypt; to the
+Laced&aelig;monians, and to other allies; calling upon all of them to send
+auxiliaries to Sardis during the course of the fifth month. In the mean
+time he dismissed all the foreign troops who had followed him into
+Cappadocia.</p>
+
+<p>Had these allies appeared, the war might perhaps have been prosecuted
+with success. And on the part of the Laced&aelig;monians, at least, there was
+no tardiness; for their ships were ready and their troops almost on
+board, when the unexpected news reached them that Croesus was already
+ruined. Cyrus had forseen and forestalled the defensive plan of his
+enemy. Pushing on with his army to Sardis without delay, he obliged the
+Lydian prince to give battle with his own unassisted subjects. The open
+and spacious plain before that town was highly favorable to Lydian
+cavalry, which at that time (Herodotus tells us) was superior to the
+Persian. But Cyrus, employing a strategem whereby this cavalry was
+rendered unavailable, placed in front of his line the baggage camels,
+which the Lydian horses could not endure either to smell or to behold.
+The horsemen of Croesus were thus obliged to dismount; nevertheless they
+fought bravely on foot, and were not driven into the town till after a
+sanguinary combat.</p>
+
+<p>Though confined within the walls of his capital, Croesus had still good
+reason for hoping to hold out until the arrival of his allies, to whom
+he sent pressing envoys of acceleration. For Sardis was considered
+impregnable&mdash;and one assault had already been repulsed, and the Persians
+would have been reduced to the slow process of blockade. But on the
+fourteenth day of the siege, accident did for the besiegers that which
+they could not have accomplished either by skill or force. Sardis was
+situated on an outlying peak of the northern side of Tmolus; it was well
+fortified everywhere except toward the mountain; and on that side the
+rock was so precipitous and inaccessible, that fortifications were
+thought unnecessary, nor did the inhabitants believe assault to be
+possible in that quarter. But Hyroeades, a Persian soldier, having
+accidentally seen one of the garrison descending this precipi <a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a>tous rock
+to pick up his helmet which had rolled down, watched his opportunity,
+tried to climb up, and found it not impracticable; others followed his
+example, the stronghold was thus seized first, and the whole city
+speedily taken by storm.</p>
+
+<p>Cyrus had given especial orders to spare the life of Croesus, who was
+accordingly made prisoner. But preparations were made for a solemn and
+terrible spectacle; the captive king was destined to be burned in
+chains, together with fourteen Lydian youths, on a vast pile of wood. We
+are even told that the pile was already kindled and the victim beyond
+the reach of human aid, when Apollo sent a miraculous rain to preserve
+him. As to the general fact of supernatural interposition, in one way or
+another, Herodotus and Ctesias both agree, though they described
+differently the particular miracles wrought. It is certain that Croesus,
+after some time, was released and well treated by his conqueror, and
+lived to become the confidential adviser of the latter as well as of his
+son Cambyses: Ctesias also acquaints us that a considerable town and
+territory near Ekbatana, called Barene, was assigned to him, according
+to a practice which we shall find not infrequent with the Persian kings.</p>
+
+<p>The prudent counsel and remarks as to the relations between Persians and
+Lydians, whereby Croesus is said by Herodotus to have first earned this
+favorable treatment, are hardly worth repeating; but the indignant
+remonstrance sent by Croesus to the Delphian god is too characteristic
+to be passed over. He obtained permission from Cyrus to lay upon the
+holy pavement of the Delphian temple the chains with which he had at
+first been bound. The Lydian envoys were instructed, after exhibiting to
+the god these humiliating memorials, to ask whether it was his custom to
+deceive his benefactors, and whether he was not ashamed to have
+encouraged the king of Lydia in an enterprise so disastrous? The god,
+condescending to justify himself by the lips of the priestess, replied:
+"Not even a god can escape his destiny. Croesus has suffered for the sin
+of his fifth ancestor (Gyges), who, conspiring with a woman, slew his
+master and wrongfully seized the sceptre. Apollo employed all his
+influence with the Moer&aelig; (Fates) to obtain that this sin might be
+expiated by the children of Croe<a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a>sus, and not by Croesus himself; but
+the Moer&aelig; would grant nothing more than a postponement of the judgment
+for three years. Let Croesus know that Apollo has thus procured for him
+a reign three years longer than his original destiny, after having tried
+in vain to rescue him altogether. Moreover he sent that rain which at
+the critical moment extinguished the burning pile. Nor has Croesus any
+right to complain of the prophecy by which he was encouraged to enter on
+the war; for when the god told him that he would subvert <i>a great
+empire</i>, it was his duty to have again inquired which empire the god
+meant; and if he neither understood the meaning, nor chose to ask for
+information, he has himself to blame for the result. Besides, Croesus
+neglected the warning given to him about the acquisition of the Median
+kingdom by a mule: Cyrus was that mule&mdash;son of a Median mother of royal
+breed, by a Persian father at once of different race and of lower
+position."</p>
+
+<p>This triumphant justification extorted even from Croesus himself a full
+confession that the sin lay with him, and not with the god. It certainly
+illustrates in a remarkable manner the theological ideas of the time. It
+shows us how much, in the mind of Herodotus, the facts of the centuries
+preceding his own, unrecorded as they were by any contemporary
+authority, tended to cast themselves into a sort of religious drama; the
+threads of the historical web being in part put together, in part
+originally spun, for the purpose of setting forth the religious
+sentiment and doctrine woven in as a pattern. The Pythian priestess
+predicts to Gyges that the crime which he had committed in assassinating
+his master would be expiated by his fifth descendant, though, as
+Herodotus tells us, no one took any notice of this prophecy until it was
+at last fulfilled: we see thus the history of the first Mermnad king is
+made up after the catastrophe of the last. There was something in the
+main facts of the history of Croesus profoundly striking to the Greek
+mind, a king at the summit of wealth and power&mdash;pious in the extreme and
+munificent toward the gods&mdash;the first destroyer of Hellenic liberty in
+Asia&mdash;then precipitated, at once and on a sudden, into the abyss of
+ruin. The sin of the first parent helped much toward the solution of
+this perplexing problem, as well as to exalt the credit of the oracle,
+when made <a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>to assume the shape of an unnoticed prophecy. In the
+affecting story of Solon and Cr&oelig;sus, the Lydian king is punished with
+an acute domestic affliction because he thought himself the happiest of
+mankind&mdash;the gods not suffering any one to be arrogant except
+themselves; and the warning of Solon is made to recur to Cr&oelig;sus after
+he has become the prisoner of Cyrus, in the narrative of Herodotus. To
+the same vein of thought belongs the story, just recounted, of the
+relations of Cr&oelig;sus with the Delphian oracle. An account is provided,
+satisfactory to the religious feelings of the Greeks, how and why he was
+ruined&mdash;but nothing less than the overruling and omnipotent M&oelig;r&aelig;
+could be invoked to explain so stupendous a result. It is rarely that
+these supreme goddesses&mdash;or hyper-goddesses, since the gods themselves
+must submit to them&mdash;are brought into such distinct light and action.
+Usually they are kept in the dark, or are left to be understood as the
+unseen stumbling block in cases of extreme incomprehensibility; and it
+is difficult clearly to determine (as in the case of some complicated
+political constitutions) where the Greeks conceived sovereign power to
+reside, in respect to the government of the world. But here the
+sovereignity of the M&oelig;r&aelig;, and the subordinate agency of the gods, are
+unequivocally set forth. The gods are still extremely powerful, because
+the M&oelig;r&aelig; comply with their requests up to a certain point, not
+thinking it proper to be wholly inexorable; but their compliance is
+carried no farther than they themselves choose; nor would they, even in
+deference to Apollo, alter the original sentence of punishment for the
+sin of Gyges in the person of his fifth descendant&mdash;sentence, moreover,
+which Apollo himself had formerly prophesied shortly after the sin was
+committed, so that, if the M&oelig;r&aelig; had listened to his intercession on
+behalf of Cr&oelig;sus, his own prophetic credit would have been
+endangered. Their unalterable resolution has predetermined the ruin of
+Cr&oelig;sus, and the grandeur of the event is manifested by the
+circumstance that even Apollo himself cannot prevail upon them to alter
+it, or to grant more than a three years' respite. The religious element
+must here be viewed as giving the form, the historical element as giving
+the matter only, and not the whole matter, of the story. These two
+elements will be found <a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>conjoined more or less throughout most of the
+history of Herodotus, though as we descend to later times, we shall find
+the latter element in constantly increasing proportion. His conception
+of history is extremely different from that of Thucydides, who lays down
+to himself the true scheme and purpose of the historian, common to him
+with the philosopher&mdash;to recount and interpret the past, as a rational
+aid toward pre-vision of the future.</p>
+
+<p>In the short abstract which we now possess of the lost work of Ctesias,
+no mention appears of the important conquest of Babylon. His narrative,
+indeed, as far as the abstract enables us to follow it, diverges
+materially from that of Herodotus, and must have been founded on data
+altogether different.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall mention (says Herodotus) these conquests which gave Cyrus most
+trouble, and are most memorable: after he had subdued all the rest of
+the continent, he attacked the Assyrians." Those who recollect the
+description of Babylon and its surrounding territory, will not be
+surprised to learn that the capture of it gave the Persian aggressor
+much trouble. Their only surprise will be, how it could ever have been
+taken at all&mdash;or indeed how a hostile army could have even reached it.
+Herodotus informs us that the Babylonian queen Nitocris (mother of that
+very Labynetus who was king when Cyrus attacked the place) apprehensive
+of invasion from the Medes after their capture of Nineveh, had executed
+many laborious works near the Euphrates for the purpose of obstructing
+their approach. Moreover there existed what was called the wall of Media
+(probably built by her, but certainly built prior to the Persian
+conquest), one hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, across the
+entire space of seventy-five miles which joined the Tigris with one of
+the canals of the Euphrates: while the canals themselves, as we may see
+by the march of the ten thousand Greeks after the battle of Cunaxa,
+presented means of defence altogether insuperable by a rude army such as
+that of the Persians. On the east, the territory of Babylonia was
+defended by the Tigris, which cannot be forded lower than the ancient
+Nineveh or the modern Mosul. In addition to these ramparts, natural as
+well as artificial, to protect the territory&mdash;populous, cultivated,
+productive, and offering every motive to <a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a>its inhabitants to resist even
+the entrance of an enemy&mdash;we are told that the Babylonians were so
+thoroughly prepared for the inroad of Cyrus that they had accumulated
+within their walls a store of provisions for many years. Strange as it
+may seem, we must suppose that the king of Babylon, after all the cost
+and labor spent in providing defences for the territory, voluntarily
+neglected to avail himself of them, suffered the invader to tread down
+the fertile Babylonia without resistance, and merely drew out the
+citizens to oppose him when he arrived under the walls of the city&mdash;if
+the statement of Herodotus is correct. And we may illustrate this
+unaccountable omission by that which we know to have happened in the
+march of the younger Cyrus to Cunuxa against his brother Artaxerxes
+Mnemon. The latter had caused to be dug, expressly in preparation for
+this invasion, a broad and deep ditch (thirty feet wide and eight feet
+deep) from the wall of Media to the river Euphrates, a distance of
+twelve parasangs or forty-five English miles, leaving only a passage of
+twenty feet broad close alongside of the river. Yet when the invading
+army arrived at this important pass, they found not a man there to
+defend it, and all of them marched without resistance through the narrow
+inlet. Cyrus the younger, who had up to that moment felt assured that
+his brother would fight, now supposed that he had given up the idea of
+defending Babylon: instead of which, two days afterward, Artaxerxes
+attacked him on an open plain of ground where there was no advantage of
+position on either side; though the invaders were taken rather unawares
+in consequence of their extreme confidence arising from recent unopposed
+entrance within the artificial ditch. This anecdote is the more valuable
+as an illustration, because all its circumstances are transmitted to us
+by a discerning eye-witness. And both the two incidents here brought
+into comparison demonstrate the recklessness, changefulness, and
+incapacity of calculation belonging to the Asiatic mind of that day&mdash;as
+well as the great command of hands possessed by these kings, and their
+prodigal waste of human labor. Vast walls and deep ditches are an
+inestimable aid to a brave and well-commanded garrison; but they cannot
+be made entirely to supply the want of bravery and intelligence.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>In whatever manner the difficulties of approaching Babylon may have
+been overcome, the fact that they were overcome by Cyrus is certain. On
+first setting out for this conquest, he was about to cross the river
+Gyndes (one of the affluents from the east which joins the Tigris near
+the modern Bagdad, and along which lay the high road crossing the pass
+of Mount Zagros from Babylon to Ekbatana) when one of the sacred white
+horses, which accompanied him, entered the river in pure wantonness and
+tried to cross it by himself. The Gyndes resented this insult and the
+horse was drowned: upon which Cyrus swore in his wrath that he would so
+break the strength of the river as that women in future should pass it
+without wetting their knees. Accordingly he employed his entire army,
+during the whole summer season, in digging three hundred and sixty
+artificial channels to disseminate the unit of the stream. Such,
+according to Herodotus, was the incident which postponed for one year
+the fall of the great Babylon. But in the next spring Cyrus and his army
+were before the walls, after having defeated and driven in the
+population who came out to fight. These walls were artificial mountains
+(three hundred feet high, seventy-five feet thick, and forming a square
+of fifteen miles to each side), within which the besieged defied attack,
+and even blockade, having previously stored up several years' provision.
+Through the midst of the town, however, flowed the Euphrates. That river
+which had been so laboriously trained to serve for protection, trade and
+sustenance to the Babylonians, was now made the avenue of their ruin.
+Having left a detachment of his army at the two points where the
+Euphrates enters and quits the city, Cyrus retired with the remainder to
+the higher part of its course, where an ancient Babylonian queen had
+prepared one of the great lateral reservoirs for carrying off in case of
+need the superfluity of its water. Near this point Cyrus caused another
+reservoir and another canal of communication to be dug, by means of
+which he drew off the water of the Euphrates to such a degree it became
+not above the height of a man's thigh. The period chosen was that of a
+great Babylonian festival, when the whole population were engaged in
+amusement and revelry. The Persian troops left near the town, watching
+their opportunity, entered from both <a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>sides along the bed of the river,
+and took it by surprise with scarcely any resistance. At no other time,
+except during a festival, could they have done this (says Herodotus) had
+the river been ever so low, for both banks throughout the whole length
+of the town were provided with quays, with continuous walls, and with
+gates at the end of every street which led down to the river at right
+angles so that if the population had not been disqualified by the
+influences of the moment, they would have caught the assailants in the
+bed of the river "as in a trap," and overwhelmed them from the walls
+alongside. Within a square of fifteen miles to each side, we are not
+surprised to hear that both the extremities were already in the power of
+the besiegers before the central population heard of it, and while they
+were yet absorbed in unconscious festivity.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the account given by Herodotus of the circumstances which placed
+Babylon&mdash;the greatest city of Western Asia&mdash;in the power of the
+Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was
+incorrect or exaggerated, we cannot now decide. The way in which the
+city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition cannot
+have cost the conqueror either much time or much loss. Cyrus comes into
+the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with their whole
+territory become tributary to the Persians, forming the richest satrapy
+in the empire; but we do not hear that the people were otherwise
+ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and gates were left
+untouched. This was very different from the way in which the Medes had
+treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined and for a long time
+absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a reduced scale under the
+Parthian empire; and very different also from the way in which Babylon
+itself was treated twenty years afterward by Darius, when reconquered
+after a revolt.</p>
+
+<p>The importance of Babylon, marking as it does one of the peculiar forms
+of civilization belonging to the ancient world in a state of full
+development, gives an interest even to the half-authenticated stories
+respecting its capture. The other exploits ascribed to Cyrus&mdash;his
+invasion of India, across the desert of Arachosia&mdash;and his attack upon
+the Massaget&aelig;, Nomads ruled by Queen Tomyris and greatly resembling the
+Scythians, across <a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>the mysterious river which Herodotus calls
+Araxes&mdash;are too little known to be at all dwelt upon. In the latter he
+is said to have perished, his army being defeated in a bloody battle. He
+was buried at Pasargad&aelig;, in his native province of Persis proper, where
+his tomb was honored and watched until the breaking up of the empire,
+while his memory was held in profound veneration among the Persians. Of
+his real exploits we know little or nothing, but in what we read
+respecting him there seems, though amid constant fighting, very little
+cruelty. Xenophon has selected his life as the subject of a moral
+romance which for a long time was cited as authentic history, and which
+even now serves as an authority, express or implied, for disputable and
+even incorrect conclusions. His extraordinary activity and conquests
+admit of no doubt. He left the Persian empire extending from Sogdiana
+and the rivers Jaxartes and Indus eastward, to the Hellespont and the
+Syrian coast westward, and his successors made no permanent addition to
+it except that of Egypt. Phenicia and Jud&aelig;a were dependencies of
+Babylon, at the time when he conquered it, with their princes and
+grandees in Babylonian captivity. As they seem to have yielded to him,
+and became his tributaries without difficulty; so the restoration of
+their captives was conceded to them. It was from Cyrus that the habits
+of the Persian kings took commencement, to dwell at Susa in the winter,
+and Ekbatana during the summer; the primitive territory of Persis, with
+its two towns of Persepolis and Pasargad&aelig;, being reserved for the
+burial-place of the kings and the religious sanctuary of the empire. How
+or when the conquest of Susiana was made, we are not informed. It lay
+eastward of the Tigris, between Babylonia and Persis proper, and its
+people, the Kissians, as far as we can discern, were of Assyrian and not
+of Aryan race. The river Choaspes near Susa was supposed to furnish the
+only water fit for the palate of the great king, and it is said to have
+been carried about with him wherever he went.</p>
+
+<p>While the conquests of Cyrus contributed to assimilate the distinct
+types of civilization in Western Asia&mdash;not by elevating the worse, but
+by degrading the better&mdash;upon the native Persians themselves they
+operated as an extraordinary stimulus, provoking alike their pride,
+ambition, cupidity, and warlike <a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a>propensities. Not only did the
+territory of Persis proper pay no tribute to Susa or Ekbatana&mdash;being the
+only district so exempted between the Jaxartes and the
+Mediterranean&mdash;but the vast tributes received from the remaining empire
+were distributed to a great degree among its inhabitants. Empire to them
+meant&mdash;for the great men, lucrative satrapies or pachalics, with powers
+altogether unlimited, pomp inferior only to that of the great king, and
+standing armies which they employed at their own discretion sometimes
+against each other&mdash;for the common soldiers, drawn from their fields or
+flocks, constant plunder, abundant maintenance, and an unrestrained
+license, either in the suite of one of the satraps, or in the large
+permanent troops which moved from Susa to Ekbatana with the Great King.
+And if the entire population of Persis proper did not migrate from their
+abodes to occupy some of those more inviting spots which the immensity
+of the imperial dominion furnished&mdash;a dominion extending (to use the
+language of Cyrus the younger before the battle of Cunaxa) from the
+region of insupportable heat to that of insupportable cold&mdash;this was
+only because the early kings discouraged such a movement, in order that
+the nation might maintain its military hardihood and be in a situation
+to furnish undiminished supplies of soldiers. The self-esteem and
+arrogance of the Persians were no less remarkable than their avidity for
+sensual enjoyment. They were fond of wine to excess; their wives and
+their concubines were both numerous; and they adopted eagerly from
+foreign nations new fashions of luxury as well as of ornament. Even to
+novelties in religion, they were not strongly averse. For though
+disciples of Zoroaster, with Magi as their priests and as indispensable
+companions of their sacrifices, worshipping sun, moon, earth, fire,
+etc., and recognizing neither image, temple, nor altar&mdash;yet they had
+adopted the voluptuous worship of the goddess Mylitta from the Assyrians
+and Arabians. A numerous male offspring was the Persian's boast. His
+warlike character and consciousness of force were displayed in the
+education of these youths, who were taught, from five years old to
+twenty, only three things&mdash;to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak
+the truth. To owe money, or even to buy and sell, was accounted among
+the Persians disgraceful&mdash;a sentiment which <a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a>they defended by saying
+that both the one and the other imposed the necessity of telling
+falsehood. To exact tribute from subjects, to receive pay or presents
+from the king, and to give away without forethought whatever was not
+immediately wanted, was their mode of dealing with money. Industrial
+pursuits were left to the conquered, who were fortunate if by paying a
+fixed contribution and sending a military contingent when required, they
+could purchase undisturbed immunity for their remaining concerns. They
+could not thus purchase safety for the family hearth, since we find
+instances of noble Grecian maidens torn from their parents for the harem
+of the satrap.</p>
+
+<p>To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political society
+went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a conqueror like
+Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement and enthusiasm of which
+they were capable. He had found them slaves, and made them masters: he
+was the first and greatest of national benefactors, as well as the most
+forward of leaders in the field: they followed him from one conquest to
+another, during the thirty years of his reign, their love of empire
+growing with the empire itself. And this impulse of aggrandizement
+continued unabated during the reigns of his three next
+successors&mdash;Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes&mdash;until it was at length
+violently stifled by the humiliating defeats of Plat&aelig;a and Salamis;
+after which the Persians became content with defending themselves at
+home and playing a secondary game.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="RISE_OF_CONFUCIUS_THE_CHINESE_SAGE" id="RISE_OF_CONFUCIUS_THE_CHINESE_SAGE"></a>RISE OF CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE SAGE</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 550</h3>
+
+<h3><i>R.K. DOUGLAS</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Confucius is the Latinized name of Kung Futusze, or "Master Kung,"
+whose work in China did much to educate the people in social and
+civic virtues. He began as a political reformer at a time when the
+empire was cut up into a number of petty and discordant
+principalities. As a practical statesman and administrator, he
+urged the necessity of reform upon the princes whom one after
+another he served. His advice was invariably disregarded, and as he
+said "no intelligent ruler arose in his time." His great maxims of
+submission to the emperor or supreme head of the state he based on
+the analogous duty of filial obedience in a household, and his very
+spirit of piety prevented him from taking independent measures for
+redressing the evils and oppressions of his distracted country.</p>
+
+<p>His moral teachings are not based on any specific religious
+foundation, but they have become the settled code of Chinese life,
+of which submissiveness to authority, industry, frugality, and fair
+dealing as prescribed by Confucian ethics are general
+characteristics. The political doctrines of this great reformer
+were eventually adopted, and his teaching and example brought about
+a peaceful and gradual, but complete revolution, in the Chinese
+Empire, whose consolidation into a simple kingdom was the practical
+result of this sage's influence.</p></div>
+
+<p>At the time of which we write the Chinese were still clinging to the
+banks of the Yellow River, along which they had first entered the
+country, and formed, within the limits of China proper, a few states on
+either shore lying between the 33d and 38th parallels of latitude, and
+the 106th and 119th of longitude. The royal state of Chow occupied part
+of the modern province of Honan. To the north of this was the powerful
+state of Tsin, embracing the modern province of Shanse and part of
+Chili; to the south was the barbarous state of Ts'oo, which stretched as
+far as the Yang-tsze-kiang; to the east, reaching to the coast, were a
+number of smaller states, among which those of Ts'e, Loo, Wei, Sung, and
+Ching were the chief <a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a>and to the west of the Yellow River was the state
+of Ts'in, which was destined eventually to gain the mastery over the
+contending principalities.</p>
+
+<p>On the establishment of the Chow dynasty, King Woo had apportioned these
+fiefships among members of his family, his adherents, and the
+descendants of some of the ancient virtuous kings. Each prince was
+empowered to administer his government as he pleased so long as he
+followed the general lines indicated by history; and in the event of any
+act of aggression on the part of one state against another, the matter
+was to be reported to the king of the sovereign state, who was bound to
+punish the offender. It is plain that in such a system the elements of
+disorder must lie near the surface; and no sooner was the authority of
+the central state lessened by the want of ability shown by the
+successors of kings Woo, Ching, and K'ang, than constant strife broke
+out between the several chiefs. The hand of every man was against his
+neighbor, and the smaller states suffered the usual fate, under like
+circumstances, of being encroached upon and absorbed, notwithstanding
+their appeals for help to their common sovereign. The House of Chow
+having been thus found wanting, the device was resorted to of appointing
+one of the most powerful princes as a presiding chief, who should
+exercise royal functions, leaving the king only the title and
+paraphernalia of sovereignity. In fact, the China of this period was
+governed and administered very much as Japan was up till about twenty
+years ago. For Mikado, Shogun, and ruling Daimios, read king, presiding
+chief, and princes, and the parallel is as nearly as possible complete.
+The result of the system, however, in the two countries was different,
+for apart from the support received by the Mikado from the belief in his
+heavenly origin, the insular position of Japan prevented the possibility
+of the advent of elements of disorder from without, whereas the
+principalities of China were surrounded by semi-barbarous states, the
+chiefs of which were engaged in constant warfare with them.</p>
+
+<p>Confucius' deep spirit of loyalty to the House of Chow forbade his
+following in the Book of History the careers of the sovereigns who
+reigned between the death of Muh in B.C. 946 and the accession of P'ing
+in 770. One after another these <a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>kings rose, reigned, and died, leaving
+each to his successor an ever-increasing heritage of woe. During the
+reign of Seuen (827-781) a gleam of light seems to have shot through the
+pervading darkness. Though falling far short of the excellencies of the
+founders of the dynasty, he yet strove to follow, though at a long
+interval, the examples they had set him; and according to the Chinese
+belief, as an acknowledgment from Heaven of his efforts in the direction
+of virtue, it was given him to sit upon the throne for nearly half a
+century.</p>
+
+<p>His successor, Yew, "the Dark," appears to even less advantage. No
+redeeming acts relieve the general disorder of his reign, and at the
+instigation of a favorite concubine he is said to have committed acts
+which place him on a level with Kee and Show. Earthquakes, storms, and
+astrological portents appeared as in the dark days at the close of the
+Hea and Shang dynasties. His capital was surrounded by the barbarian
+allies of the Prince of Shin, the father of his wife, whom he had
+dismissed at the request of his favorite, and in an attempt to escape he
+fell a victim to their weapons.</p>
+
+<p>With this event the Western Chow dynasty was brought to a close.</p>
+
+<p>Here, also, the Book of History comes to an end, and the Spring and
+Autumn Annals by Confucius takes up the tale of iniquity and disorder
+which overspread the land. No more dreadful record of a nation's
+struggles can be imagined than that contained in Confucius's history.
+The country was torn by discord and desolated by wars. Husbandry was
+neglected, the peace of households was destroyed, and plunder and rapine
+were the watchwords of the time.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of China at the time of the birth of Confucius (B.C.
+551). Of the parents of the Sage we know but little, except that his
+father, Shuh-leang Heih, was a military officer, eminent for his
+commanding stature, his great bravery, and immense strength, and that
+his mother's name was Yen Ching-tsai The marriage of this couple took
+place when Heih was seventy years old, and the prospect, therefore, of
+his having an heir having been but slight, unusual rejoicings
+commemorated the birth of the son, who was destined to achieve such
+everlasting fame.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a>Report says that the child was born in a cave on Mount Ne, whither
+Ching-tsai went in obedience to a vision to be confined. But this is but
+one of the many legends with which Chinese historians love to surround
+the birth of Confucius. With the same desire to glorify the Sage, and in
+perfect good faith, they narrate how the event was heralded by strange
+portents and miraculous appearances, how genii announced to Ching-tsai
+the honor that was in store for her, and how fairies attended at his
+nativity.</p>
+
+<p>Of the early years of Confucius we have but scanty record. It would seem
+that from his childhood he showed ritualistic tendencies, and we are
+told that as a boy he delighted to play at the arrangement of vessels
+and postures of ceremony. As he advanced in years he became an earnest
+student of history, and looked back with love and reverence to the time
+when the great and good Yaou and Shun reigned in</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A golden age, fruitful of golden deeds."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At the age of fifteen "he bent his mind to learning," and when he was
+nineteen years old he married a lady from the state of Sung. As has
+befallen many other great men, Confucius' married life was not a happy
+one, and he finally divorced his wife, not, however, before she had
+borne him a son.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after his marriage, at the instigation of poverty, Confucius
+accepted the office of keeper of the stores of grain, and in the
+following year he was promoted to be guardian of the public fields and
+lands. It was while holding this latter office that his son was born,
+and so well known and highly esteemed had he already become that the
+reigning duke, on hearing of the event, sent him a present of a carp,
+from which circumstance the infant derived his name, Le ("a carp"). The
+name of this son seldom occurs in the life of his illustrious father,
+and the few references we have to him are enough to show that a small
+share of paternal affection fell to his lot. "Have you heard any lessons
+from your father different from what we have all heard?" asked an
+inquisitive disciple of him. "No," replied Le, "he was standing alone
+once when I was passing through the court below with hasty steps, and
+said to me, 'Have you read the Odes?' On my replying, 'Not yet,' he
+<a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a>added, 'If you do not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to converse
+with.' Another day, in the same place and the same way, he said to me,
+'Have you read the rules of Propriety?' On my replying, 'Not yet,' he
+added, 'If you do not learn the rules of Propriety, your character
+cannot be established.'" "I asked one thing," said the enthusiastic
+disciple, "and I have learned three things. I have learned about the
+Odes; I have learned about the rules of Propriety; and I have learned
+that the superior man maintains a distant reserve toward his son."</p>
+
+<p>At the age of twenty-two we find Confucius released from the toils of
+office, and devoting his time to the more congenial task of imparting
+instruction to a band of admiring and earnest students. With idle or
+stupid scholars he would have nothing to do. "I do not open the truth,"
+he said, "to one who is not eager after knowledge, nor do I help any one
+who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner
+of a subject, and the listener cannot from it learn the other three, I
+do not repeat my lesson."</p>
+
+<p>When twenty-eight years old Confucius studied archery, and in the
+following years took lessons in music from the celebrated master, Seang.
+At thirty he tells us "he stood firm," and about this time his fame
+mightily increased, many noble youths enrolled themselves among his
+disciples; and on his expressing a desire to visit the imperial court of
+Chow to confer on the subject of ancient ceremonies with Laou Tan, the
+founder of the Taouist sect, the reigning duke placed a carriage and
+horses at his disposal for the journey.</p>
+
+<p>The extreme veneration which Confucius entertained for the founders of
+the Chow dynasty made the visit to Lo, the capital, one of intense
+interest to him. With eager delight he wandered through the temple and
+audience-chambers, the place of sacrifices and the palace, and having
+completed his inspection of the position and shape of the various
+sacrificial and ceremonial vessels, he turned to his disciples and said,
+"Now I understand the wisdom of the duke of Chow, and how his house
+attained to imperial sway." But the principal object of his visit to
+Chow was to confer with Laou-tsze; and of the interview between these
+two very dissimilar men we have various accounts. The Confucian writers
+as a rule merely mention <a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"></a>the fact of their having met, but the admirers
+of Laou-tsze affirm that Confucius was very roughly handled by his more
+ascetic contemporary, who looked down from his somewhat higher
+standpoint with contempt on the great apostle of antiquity. It was only
+natural that Laou-tsze, who preached that stillness and self-emptiness
+were the highest attainable objects, should be ready to assail a man
+whose whole being was wrapt up in ceremonial observances and conscious
+well-doing. The very measured tones and considered movements of
+Confucius, coupled with a certain admixture of that pride which apes
+humility, must have been very irritating to the metaphysically-minded
+treasurer. And it was eminently characteristic of Confucius, that
+notwithstanding the great provocation given him on this occasion, he
+abstained from any rejoinder. We nowhere read of his engaging in a
+dispute. When an opponent arose, it was in keeping with the doctrine of
+Confucius to retire before him. "A sage," he said, "will not enter a
+tottering state nor dwell in a disorganized one. When right principles
+of government prevail he shows himself, but when they are prostrated he
+remains concealed." And carrying out the same principle in private life,
+he invariably refused to wrangle.</p>
+
+<p>It was possibly in connection with this incident that Confucius drew the
+attention of his disciples to the metal statue of a man with a triple
+clasp upon his mouth, which stood in the ancestral temple at Lo. On the
+back of the statue were inscribed these words: "The ancients were
+guarded in their speech, and like them we should avoid loquacity. Many
+words invite many defeats. Avoid also engaging in many businesses, for
+many businesses create many difficulties."</p>
+
+<p>"Observe this, my children," said he, pointing to the inscription.
+"These words are true, and commend themselves to our reason."</p>
+
+<p>Having gained all the information he desired in Chow, he returned to
+Loo, where pupils flocked to him until, we are told, he was surrounded
+by an admiring company of three thousand disciples. His stay in Loo was,
+however, of short duration, for the three principal clans of the state,
+those of Ke, Shuh, and Mang, after frequent contests between themselves,
+en<a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>gaged in a war with the reigning duke, and overthrew his armies. Upon
+this the duke took refuge in the state of T'se, whither Confucius
+followed him. As he passed along the road he saw a woman weeping at a
+tomb, and having compassion on her, he sent his disciple Tsze-loo to ask
+her the cause of her grief. "You weep as if you had experienced sorrow
+upon sorrow," said Tsze-loo. "I have," said the woman, "my father-in-law
+was killed here by a tiger, and my husband also; and now my son has met
+the same fate." "Why, then, do you not remove from the place?" asked
+Confucius. "Because here there is no oppressive government," replied the
+woman. On hearing this answer, Confucius remarked to his disciples, "My
+children remember this, oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger."</p>
+
+<p>Possibly Confucius was attracted to T'se by a knowledge that the music
+of the emperor Shun was still preserved at the court. At all events, we
+are told that having heard a strain of the much-desired music on his way
+to the capital, he hurried on, and was so ravished with the airs he
+heard that for three months he never tasted flesh. "I did not think,"
+said he, "that music could reach such a pitch of excellence."</p>
+
+<p>Hearing of the arrival of the Sage, the duke of T'se&mdash;King, by
+name&mdash;sent for him, and after some conversation, being minded to act the
+part of a patron to so distinguished a visitor, offered to make him a
+present of the city of Lin-k'ew with its revenues. But this Confucius
+declined, remarking to his disciples, "A superior man will not receive
+rewards except for services done. I have given advice to the duke King,
+but he has not followed it as yet, and now he would endow me with this
+place. Very far is he from understanding me." He still, however,
+discussed politics with the duke, and taught him that "There is good
+government when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when
+the father is father, and the son is son." "Good," said the duke; "if,
+indeed, the prince be not prince, the minister not minister, and the son
+not son, although I have my revenue, can I enjoy it?"</p>
+
+<p>Though Duke King was by no means a satisfactory pupil, many of his
+instincts were good, and he once again expressed a desire to pension
+Confucius, that he might keep him at hand; <a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>but Gan Ying, the Prime
+Minister, dissuaded him from his purpose. "These scholars," said the
+minister, "are impracticable, and cannot be imitated. They are haughty
+and conceited of their own views, so that they will not rest satisfied
+in inferior positions. They set a high value on all funeral ceremonies,
+give way to their grief, and will waste their property on great
+funerals, so that they would only be injurious to the common manners.
+This Kung Footsze has a thousand peculiarities. It would take ages to
+exhaust all he knows about the ceremonies of going up and going down.
+This is not the time to examine into his rules of propriety. If you wish
+to employ him to change the customs of T'se, you will not be making the
+people your primary consideration." This reasoning had full weight with
+the duke, who the next time he was urged to follow the advice of
+Confucius, cut short the discussion by the remark, "I am too old to
+adopt his doctrines."</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances Confucius once more returned to Loo, only
+however to find that the condition of the state was still unchanged;
+disorder was rife; and the reins of government were in the hands of the
+head of the strongest party for the time being. This was no time for
+Confucius to take office, and he devoted the leisure thus forced upon
+him to the compilation of the "Book of Odes" and the "Book of History."</p>
+
+<p>But in process of time order was once more restored, and he then felt
+himself free to accept the post of magistrate of the town of Chung-too,
+which was offered him by the duke King.</p>
+
+<p>He now had an opportunity of putting his principles of government to the
+test, and the result partly justified his expectations. He framed rules
+for the support of the living, and for the observation of rites for the
+dead; he arranged appropriate food for the old and the young; and he
+provided for the proper separation of men and women. And the results
+were, we are told, that, as in the time of King Alfred, a thing dropped
+on the road was not picked up; there was no fraudulent carving of
+vessels; coffins were made of the ordained thickness; graves were
+unmarked by mounds raised over them; and no two prices were charged in
+the markets. The duke, surprised at what he saw, asked the sage whether
+his rule of government could be applied to the whole state. "Certainly,"
+replied Con<a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>fucius, "and not only to the state of Loo, but to the whole
+empire." Forthwith, therefore, the duke made him
+Assistant-Superintendent of Works, and shortly afterwards appointed him
+Minister of Crime. Here, again, his success was complete. From the day
+of his appointment crime is said to have disappeared, and the penal laws
+remained a dead letter.</p>
+
+<p>Courage was recognized by Confucius as being one of the great virtues,
+and about this period we have related two instances in which he showed
+that he possessed both moral and physical courage to a high degree. The
+chief of the Ke family, being virtual possessor of the state, when the
+body of the exiled Duke Chaou was brought from T'se for interment,
+directed that it should be buried apart from the graves of his
+ancestors. On Confucius becoming aware of his decision, he ordered a
+trench to be dug round the burying-ground which should enclose the new
+tomb. "Thus to censure a prince and signalize his faults is not
+according to etiquette," said he to Ke. "I have caused the grave to be
+included in the cemetery, and I have done so to hide your disloyalty."
+And his action was allowed to pass unchallenged.</p>
+
+<p>The other instance referred to was on the occasion, a few years later,
+of an interview between the dukes of Loo and T'se, at which Confucius
+was present as master of ceremonies. At his instigation, an altar was
+raised at the place of meeting, which was mounted by three steps, and on
+this the dukes ascended, and having pledged one another proceeded to
+discuss a treaty of alliance. But treachery was intended on the part of
+the duke of T'se, and at a given signal a band of savages advanced with
+beat of drum to carry off the duke of Loo. Some such stratagem had been
+considered probable by Confucius, and the instant the danger became
+imminent he rushed to the altar and led away the duke. After much
+disorder, in which Confucius took a firm and prominent part, a treaty
+was concluded, and even some land on the south of the river Wan, which
+had been taken by T'se, was by the exertions of the Sage restored to
+Loo. On this recovered territory the people of Loo, in memory of the
+circumstance, built a city and called it, "The City of Confession."</p>
+
+<p>But to return to Confucius as the Minister of Crime.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>Though eminently successful, the results obtained under his system were
+not quite such as his followers have represented them to have been. No
+doubt crime diminished under his rule, but it was by no means abolished.
+In fact, his biographers mention a case which must have been peculiarly
+shocking to him. A father brought an accusation against his son, in the
+expectation, probably, of gaining his suit with ease before a judge who
+laid such stress on the virtues of filial piety. But to his surprise,
+and that of the on-lookers, Confucius cast both father and son into
+prison, and to the remonstrances of the head of the Ke clan answered,
+"Am I to punish for a breach of filial piety one who has never been
+taught to be filially minded? Is not he who neglects to teach his son
+his duties, equally guilty with the son who fails in them? Crime is not
+inherent in human nature, and therefore the father in the family, and
+the government in the state, are responsible for the crimes committed
+against filial piety and the public laws. If a king is careless about
+publishing laws, and then peremptorily punishes in accordance with the
+strict letter of them, he acts the part of a swindler; if he collect the
+taxes arbitrarily without giving warning, he is guilty of oppression;
+and if he puts the people to death without having instructed them, he
+commits a cruelty."</p>
+
+<p>On all these points Confucius frequently insisted, and strove both by
+precept and example to impart the spirit they reflected on all around
+him. In the presence of his prince we are told that his manner, though
+self-possessed, displayed respectful uneasiness. When he entered the
+palace, or when he passed the vacant throne, his countenance changed,
+his legs bent under him, and he spoke as though he had scarcely breath
+to utter a word. When it fell to his lot to carry the royal sceptre, he
+stooped his body as though he were not able to bear its weight. If the
+prince came to visit him when he was ill, he had himself placed with his
+head to the east, and lay dressed in his court clothes with his girdle
+across them. When the prince sent him a present of cooked meat, he
+carefully adjusted his mat and just tasted the dishes; if the meat were
+uncooked, he offered it to the spirits of his ancestors, and any animal
+which was thus sent him he kept alive.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"></a>At the village festivals he never preceded, but always followed after
+the elders. To all about him he assumed an appearance of simplicity and
+sincerity. To the court officials of the lower grade he spoke freely,
+and to superior officers his manner was bland but precise. Even at the
+wild gatherings which accompanied the annual ceremony of driving away
+pestilential influences, he paid honor to the original meaning of the
+rite, by standing in court robes on the eastern steps of his house, and
+received the riotous exorcists as though they were favored guests. When
+sent for by the prince to assist in receiving a royal visitor, his
+countenance appeared to change. He inclined himself to the officers
+among whom he stood, and when sent to meet the visitor at the gate, "he
+hastened forward with his arms spread out like the wings of a bird."
+Recognizing in the wind and the storm the voice of Heaven, he changed
+countenance at the sound of a sudden clap of thunder or a violent gust
+of wind.</p>
+
+<p>The principles which underlie all these details relieve them from the
+sense of affected formality which they would otherwise suggest. Like the
+sages of old, Confucius had an overweening faith in the effect of
+example. "What do you say," asked the chief of the Ke clan on one
+occasion, "to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?"
+"Sir," replied Confucius, "in carrying on your government why should you
+employ capital punishment at all? Let your evinced desires be for what
+is good and the people will be good." And then quoting the words of King
+Ching, he added, "The relation between superiors and inferiors is like
+that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind
+blows across it." Thus in every act of his life, whether at home or
+abroad, whether at table or in bed, whether at study or in moments of
+relaxation, he did all with the avowed object of being seen of men and
+of influencing them by his conduct. And to a certain extent he gained
+his end. He succeeded in demolishing a number of fortified cities which
+had formed the hotbeds of sedition and tumult; and thus added greatly to
+the power of the reigning duke. He inspired the men with a spirit of
+loyalty and good faith, and taught the women to be chaste and docile. On
+the report of the tranquillity prevailing in Loo, <a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"></a>strangers flocked
+into the state, and thus was fulfilled the old criterion of good
+government which was afterward repeated by Confucius, "the people were
+happy, and strangers were attracted from afar."</p>
+
+<p>But even Confucius found it impossible to carry all his theories into
+practice, and his experience as Minister of Crime taught him that
+something more than mere example was necessary to lead the people into
+the paths of virtue. Before he had been many months in office, he signed
+the death-warrant of a well-known citizen named Shaou for disturbing the
+public peace. This departure from the principle he had so lately laid
+down astonished his followers, and Tsze-kung&mdash;the Simon Peter as he has
+been called among his disciples&mdash;took him to task for executing so
+notable a man. But Confucius held to it that the step was necessary.
+"There are five great evils in the world," said he: "a man with a
+rebellious heart who becomes dangerous; a man who joins to vicious deeds
+a fierce temper; a man whose words are knowingly false; a man who
+treasures in his memory noxious deeds and disseminates them; a man who
+follows evil and fertilizes it. All these evil qualities were combined
+in Shaou. His house was a rendezvous for the disaffected; his words were
+specious enough to dazzle any one; and his opposition was violent enough
+to overthrow any independent man."</p>
+
+<p>But notwithstanding such departures from the lines he had laid down for
+himself, the people gloried in his rule and sang at their work songs in
+which he was described as their savior from oppression and wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Confucius was an enthusiast, and his want of success in his attempt
+completely to reform the age in which he lived never seemed to suggest a
+doubt to his mind of the complete wisdom of his creed. According to his
+theory, his official administration should have effected the reform not
+only of his sovereign and the people, but of those of the neighboring
+states. But what was the practical result? The contentment which reigned
+among the people of Loo, instead of instigating the duke of T'se to
+institute a similar system, only served to rouse his jealousy. "With
+Confucius at the head of its government," said he, "Loo will become
+supreme among the states, <a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>and T'se, which is nearest to it, will be
+swallowed up. Let us propitiate it by a surrender of territory." But a
+more provident statesman suggested that they should first try to bring
+about the disgrace of the Sage.</p>
+
+<p>With this object he sent eighty beautiful girls, well skilled in the
+arts of music and dancing, and a hundred and twenty of the finest horses
+which could be procured, as a present to the duke King. The result fully
+realized the anticipation of the minister. The girls were taken into the
+duke's harem, the horses were removed to the ducal stables, and
+Confucius was left to meditate on the folly of men who preferred
+listening to the songs of the maidens of T'se to the wisdom of Yaou and
+Shun. Day after day passed and the duke showed no signs of returning to
+his proper mind. The affairs of state were neglected, and for three days
+the duke refused to receive his ministers in audience.</p>
+
+<p>"Master," said Tsze-loo, "it is time you went." But Confucius, who had
+more at stake than his disciple, was disinclined to give up the
+experiment on which his heart was set. Besides, the time was approaching
+when the great sacrifice to Heaven at the solstice, about which he had
+had so many conversations with the duke, should be offered up, and he
+hoped that the recollection of his weighty words would recall the duke
+to a sense of his duties. But his gay rivals in the affections of the
+duke still held their sway, and the recurrence of the great festival
+failed to awaken his conscience even for the moment. Reluctantly
+therefore Confucius resigned his post and left the capital.</p>
+
+<p>But though thus disappointed of the hopes he entertained of the duke of
+Loo, Confucius was by no means disposed to resign his role as the
+reformer of the age. "If any one among the princes would employ me,"
+said he, "I would effect something considerable in the course of twelve
+months, and in three years the government would be perfected." But the
+tendencies of the times were unfavorable to the Sage. The struggle for
+supremacy which had been going on for centuries between the princes of
+the various states was then at its height, and though there might be a
+question whether it would finally result in the victory of Tsin, or of
+Ts'oo, or of Ts'in, there <a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"></a>could be no doubt that the sceptre had
+already passed from the hands of the ruler of Chow. To men therefore who
+were fighting over the possessions of a state which had ceased to live,
+the idea of employing a minister whose principal object would have been
+to breathe life into the dead bones of Chow, was ridiculous. This soon
+became apparent to his disciples, who being even more concerned than
+their master at his loss of office, and not taking so exalted a view as
+he did of what he considered to be a heaven-sent mission, were inclined
+to urge him to make concessions in harmony with the times. "Your
+principles," said Tsze-kung to him, "are excellent, but they are
+unacceptable in the empire, would it not be well therefore to bate them
+a little?" "A good husbandman," replied the Sage, "can sow, but he
+cannot secure a harvest. An artisan may excel in handicraft, but he
+cannot provide a market for his goods. And in the same way a superior
+man can cultivate his principles, but he cannot make them acceptable."</p>
+
+<p>But Confucius was at least determined that no efforts on his part should
+be wanting to discover the opening for which he longed, and on leaving
+Loo he betook himself to the state of Wei. On arriving at the capital,
+the reigning duke received him with distinction, but showed no desire to
+employ him. Probably expecting, however, to gain some advantage from the
+counsels of the Sage in the art of governing, he determined to attach
+him to his court by the grant of an annual stipend of sixty thousand
+measures of grain&mdash;that having been the value of the post he had just
+resigned in Loo. Had the experiences of his public life come up to the
+sanguine hopes he had entertained at its beginning, Confucius would
+probably have declined this offer as he did that of the Duke of T'se
+some years before, but poverty unconsciously impelled him to act up to
+the advice of Tsze-kung and to bate his principles of conduct somewhat.
+His stay, however, in Wei was of short duration. The officials at the
+court, jealous probably of the influence they feared he might gain over
+the duke, intrigued against him, and Confucius thought it best to bow
+before the coming storm. After living on the duke's hospitality for ten
+months, he left the capital, intending to visit the state of Ch'in.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a>It chanced, however, that the way thither led him through the town of
+Kwang, which had suffered much from the filibustering expeditions of a
+notorious disturber of the public peace, named Yang-Hoo. To this man of
+ill-fame Confucius bore a striking resemblance, so much so that the
+townspeople, fancying that they now had their old enemy in their power,
+surrounded the house in which he lodged for five days, intending to
+attack him. The situation was certainly disquieting, and the disciples
+were much alarmed. But Confucius's belief in the heaven-sent nature of
+his mission raised him above fear. "After the death of King Wan," said
+he, "was not the cause of truth lodged in me? If Heaven had wished to
+let this sacred cause perish, I should not have been put into such a
+relation to it. Heaven will not let the cause of truth perish, and what
+therefore can the people of Kwang do to me?" Saying which he tuned his
+lyre, and sang probably some of those songs from his recently compiled
+Book of Odes which breathed the wisdom of the ancient emperors.</p>
+
+<p>From some unexplained cause, but more probably from the people of Kwang
+discovering their mistake than from any effect produced by Confucius'
+ditties, the attacking force suddenly withdrew, leaving the Sage free to
+go wherever he listed. This misadventure was sufficient to deter him
+from wandering farther a-field, and, after a short stay at Poo, he
+returned to Wei. Again the duke welcomed him to the capital, though it
+does not appear that he renewed his stipend, and even his consort
+Nan-tsze forgot for a while her intrigues and debaucheries at the news
+of his arrival. With a complimentary message she begged an interview
+with the Sage, which he at first refused; but on her urging her request,
+he was fain obliged to yield the point. On being introduced into her
+presence, he found her concealed behind a screen, in strict accordance
+with the prescribed etiquette, and after the usual formalities they
+entered freely into conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Tsze-loo was much disturbed at this want of discretion, as he considered
+it, on the part of Confucius, and the vehemence of his master's answer
+showed that there was a doubt in his own mind whether he had not
+overstepped the limits of sage-like propriety. "Wherein I have done
+improperly," said he, <a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>"may Heaven reject me! may Heaven reject me!"
+This incident did not, however, prevent him from maintaining friendly
+relations with the court, and it was not until the duke by a public act
+showed his inability to understand the dignity of the role which
+Confucius desired to assume, that he lost all hope of finding employment
+in the state of his former patron. On this occasion the duke drove
+through the streets of his capital seated in a carriage with Nan-tsze,
+and desired Confucius to follow in a carriage behind. As the procession
+passed through the market-place, the people perceiving more clearly than
+the duke the incongruity of the proceeding, laughed and jeered at the
+idea of making virtue follow in the wake of lust. This completed the
+shame which Confucius felt at being in so false a position.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not seen one," said he, "who loves virtue as he loves beauty."
+To stay any longer under the protection of a court which could inflict
+such an indignity upon him was more than he could do, and he therefore
+once again struck southward toward Ch'in.</p>
+
+<p>After his retirement from office it is probable that Confucius devoted
+himself afresh to imparting to his followers those doctrines and
+opinions which we shall consider later on. Even on the road to Ch'in we
+are told that he practised ceremonies with his disciples beneath the
+shadow of a tree by the wayside in Sung. In the spirit of Laou-tsze,
+Hwuy T'uy, an officer in the neighborhood, was angered at his reported
+"proud air and many desires, his insinuating habit and wild will," and
+attempted to prevent him entering the state. In this endeavor, however,
+he was unsuccessful, as were some more determined opponents, who two
+years later attacked him at Poo, when he was on his way to Wei. On this
+occasion he was seized, and though it is said that his followers
+struggled manfully with his captors, their efforts did not save him from
+having to give an oath that he would not continue his journey to Wei.
+But in spite of his oath, and in spite of the public slight which had
+previously been put upon him by the duke of Wei, an irresistible
+attraction drew him toward that state, and he had no sooner escaped from
+the clutches of his captors than he continued his journey.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>This deliberate forfeiture of his word in one who had commanded them to
+"hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles," surprised his
+disciples; and Tsze-kung, who was generally the spokesman on such
+occasions, asked him whether it was right to violate the oath he had
+taken. But Confucius, who had learned expediency in adversity, replied,
+"It was an oath extracted by force. The spirits do not hear such."</p>
+
+<p>But to return to Confucius flying from his enemies in Sung. Finding his
+way barred by the action of Hwan T'uy, he proceeded westward and arrived
+at Ch'ing, the capital of the state of the same name. Thither it would
+appear his disciples had preceded him, and he arrived unattended at the
+eastern gate of the city. But his appearance was so striking that his
+followers were soon made aware of his presence. "There is a man," said a
+townsman to Tsze-kung, "standing at the east gate with a forehead like
+Yaou, a neck like Kaou Yaou, his shoulders on a level with those of
+Tsze-ch'an, but wanting below the waist three inches of the height of
+Yu, and altogether having the forsaken appearance of a stray dog."
+Recognizing his master in this description, Tsze-kung hastened to meet
+him, and repeated to him the words of his informant. Confucius was much
+amused, and said: "The personal appearance is a small matter; but to say
+I was like a stray dog&mdash;capital! capital!"</p>
+
+<p>The ruling powers in Ch'ing, however, showed no disposition to employ
+even a man possessing such marked characteristics, and before long he
+removed to Ch'in, where he remained a year. From Ch'in he once more
+turned his face toward Wei, and it was while he was on this journey that
+he was detained at Poo, as mentioned above. Between Confucius and the
+duke of Wei there evidently existed a personal liking, if not
+friendship. The duke was always glad to see him and ready to converse
+with him; but Confucius's unbounded admiration for those whose bones, as
+Laou-tsze said, were mouldered to dust, and especially for the founders
+of the Chow dynasty, made it impossible for the duke to place him in any
+position of importance. At the same time Confucius seems always to have
+hoped that he would be able to gain the duke over to his views; and thus
+it came about that the Sage was constantly attracted <a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a>to the court of
+Duke Ling, and as often compelled to exile himself from it.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular occasion, as at all other times, the duke received
+him gladly, but their conversations, which had principally turned on the
+act of peaceful government, were now directed to warlike affairs. The
+duke was contemplating an attack on Poo, the inhabitants of which, under
+the leadership of Hwan T'uy, who had arrested Confucius, had rebelled
+against him. At first Confucius was quite disposed to support the duke
+in his intended hostilities; but a representation from the duke that the
+probable support of other states would make the expedition one of
+considerable danger, converted Confucius to the opinion evidently
+entertained by the duke, that it would be best to leave Hwan T'uy in
+possession of his ill-gotten territory. Confucius's latest advice was
+then to this effect, and the duke acted upon it.</p>
+
+<p>The duke was now becoming an old man, and with advancing age came a
+disposition to leave the task of governing to others, and to weary of
+Confucius' high-flown lectures. He ceased "to use" Confucius, as the
+Chinese historians say, and the Sage was therefore indignant, and ready
+to accept any offer which might come from any quarter. While in this
+humor he received an invitation from Pih Hih, an officer of the state of
+Tsin who was holding the town of Chung-mow against his chief, to visit
+him, and he was inclined to go. It is impossible to study this portion
+of Confucius' career without feeling that a great change had come over
+his conduct. There was no longer that lofty love of truth and of virtue
+which had distinguished the commencement of his official life.
+Adversity, instead of stiffening his back, had made him pliable. He who
+had formerly refused to receive money he had not earned, was now willing
+to take pay in return for no other services than the presentation of
+courtier-like advice on occasions when Duke Ling desired to have his
+opinion in support of his own; and in defiance of his oft-repeated
+denunciation of rebels, he was now ready to go over to the court of a
+rebel chief, in the hope possibly of being able through his means "to
+establish," as he said on another occasion, "an Eastern Chow."</p>
+
+<p>Again Tsze-loo interfered, and expostulated with him on <a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a>his
+inconsistency. "Master," said he, "I have heard you say that when a man
+is guilty of personal wrong-doing, a superior man will not associate
+with him. If you accept the invitation of this Pih Hih, who is in open
+rebellion against his chief, what will people say?" But Confucius, with
+a dexterity which had now become common with him, replied: "It is true I
+have said so. But is it not also true that if a thing be really hard, it
+may be ground without being made thin; and if it be really white, it may
+be steeped in a black fluid without becoming black? Am I a bitter gourd?
+Am I to be hung up out of the way of being eaten?" But nevertheless
+Tsze-loo's remonstrances prevailed, and he did not go.</p>
+
+<p>His relations with the duke did not improve, and so dissatisfied was he
+with his patron that he retired from the court. As at this time
+Confucius was not in the receipt of any official income, it is probable
+that he again provided for his wants by imparting to his disciples some
+of the treasures out of the rich stores of learning which he had
+collected by means of diligent study and of a wide experience. Every
+word and action of Confucius were full of such meaning to his admiring
+followers that they have enabled us to trace him into the retirement of
+private life. In his dress, we are told, he was careful to wear only the
+"correct" colors, viz., azure, yellow, carnation, white and black, and
+he scrupulously avoided red as being the color usually affected by women
+and girls. At the table he was moderate in his appetite but particular
+as to the nature of his food and the manner in which it was set before
+him. Nothing would induce him to touch any meat that was "high" or rice
+that was musty, nor would he eat anything that was not properly cut up
+or accompanied with the proper sauce. He allowed himself only a certain
+quantity of meat and rice, and though no such limit was fixed to the
+amount of wine with which he accompanied his frugal fare, we are assured
+that he never allowed himself to be confused by it. When out driving, he
+never turned his head quite round, and in his actions as well as in his
+words he avoided all appearance of haste.</p>
+
+<p>Such details are interesting in the case of a man like Confucius, who
+has exercised so powerful an influence over so large a proportion of the
+world's inhabitants, and whose instructions, <a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"></a>far from being confined to
+the courts of kings, found their loudest utterances in intimate
+communings with his disciples, and in the example he set by the exact
+performance of his daily duties.</p>
+
+<p>The only accomplishment which Confucius possessed was a love of music,
+and this he studied less as an accomplishment than as a necessary part
+of education. "It is by the odes that the mind is aroused," said he. "It
+is by the rules of propriety that the character is established. And it
+is music which completes the edifice."</p>
+
+<p>But having tasted the sweets of official life, Confucius was not
+inclined to resign all hope of future employment, and the duke of Wei
+still remaining deaf to his advice, he determined to visit the state of
+Tsin, in the hope of finding in Chaou Keen-tsze, one of the three
+chieftains who virtually governed that state, a more hopeful pupil. With
+this intention he started westward, but had got no farther than the
+Yellow River when the news reached him of the execution of Tuh Ming and
+Tuh Shun-hwa, two men of note in Tsin. The disorder which this indicated
+put a stop to his journey; for had not he himself said "that a superior
+man will not enter a tottering state." His disappointment and grief were
+great, and looking at the yellow waters as they flowed at his feet, he
+sighed and muttered to himself: "Oh how beautiful were they; this river
+is not more majestic than they were! and I was not there to avert their
+fate!"</p>
+
+<p>So saying he returned to Wei, only to find the duke as little inclined
+to listen to his lectures, as he was deeply engaged in warlike
+preparations. When Confucius presented himself at court, the duke
+refused to talk on any other subject but military tactics, and
+forgetting, possibly on purpose, that Confucius was essentially a man of
+peace, pressed him for information on the art of manoeuvreing an army.
+"If you should wish to know how to arrange sacrificial vessels," said
+the Sage, "I will answer you, but about warfare I know nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Confucius was now sixty years old, and the condition of the states
+composing the empire was even more unfavorable for the reception of his
+doctrines than ever. But though depressed by fortune, he never lost that
+steady confidence in himself <a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"></a>and his mission, which was a leading
+characteristic of his career, and when he found the duke of Wei deaf to
+his advice, he removed to Ch'in, in the hope of there finding a ruler
+who would appreciate his wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>In the following year he left Ch'in with his disciples for Ts'ae, a
+small dependency of the state of Ts'oo. In those days the empire was
+subjected to constant changes. One day a new state carved out of an old
+one would appear, and again it would disappear, or increase in size, as
+the fortunes of war might determine. Thus while Confucius was in Ts'ae,
+a part of Ts'oo declared itself independent, under the name of Ye, and
+the ruler usurped the title of duke. In earlier days such rebellion
+would have called forth a rebuke from Confucius; but it was otherwise
+now, and, instead of denouncing the usurper as a rebel, he sought him as
+a patron. The duke did not know how to receive his visitor, and asked
+Tsze-loo about him. But Tsze-loo, possibly because he considered the
+duke to be no better than Pih Hih, returned him no answer. For this
+reticence Confucius found fault with him, and said, "Why did you not say
+to him, 'He is simply a man who, in his eager pursuit of knowledge,
+forgets his food; who, in the joy of its attainments, forgets his
+sorrows; and who does not perceive that old age is coming on?'"</p>
+
+<p>But whatever may have been the opinion of Tsze-loo, Confucius was quite
+ready to be on friendly terms with the duke, who seems to have had no
+keener relish for Confucius' ethics than the other rulers to whom he had
+offered his services. We are only told of one conversation which took
+place between the duke and the Sage, and on that occasion the duke
+questioned him on the subject of government. Confucius' reply was
+eminently characteristic of the man. Most of his definitions of good
+government would have sounded unpleasantly in the ears of a man who had
+just thrown off his master's yoke and headed a successful rebellion, so
+he cast about for one which might offer some excuse for the new duke by
+attributing the fact of his disloyalty to the bad government of his late
+ruler. Quoting the words of an earlier sage, he replied, "Good
+government obtains when those who are near are made happy, and those who
+are far off are attracted."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323"></a>Returning from Ye to Ts'ae, he came to a river which, being unbridged,
+left him no resource but to ford it. Seeing two men whom he recognized
+as political recluses ploughing in a neighboring field, he sent the
+ever-present Tsze-loo to inquire of them where best he could effect a
+crossing. "Who is that holding the reins in the carriage yonder?" asked
+the first addressed, in answer to Tsze-loo's inquiry. "Kung Kew,"
+replied the disciple, "Kung Kew, of Loo?" asked the ploughman. "Yes,"
+was the reply. "<i>He</i> knows the ford," was the enigmatic answer of the
+man as he turned to his work; but whether this reply was suggested by
+the general belief that Confucius was omniscient, or by wry of a parable
+to signify that Confucius possessed the knowledge by which the river of
+disorder, which was barring the progress of liberty and freedom, might
+be crossed, we are only left to conjecture. Nor from the second recluse
+could Tsze-loo gain any practical information. "Who are you, sir?" was
+the somewhat peremptory question which his inquiry met with. Upon his
+answering that he was a disciple of Confucius, the man, who might have
+gathered his estimate of Confucius from the mouth of Laou-tsze, replied:
+"Disorder, like a swelling flood, spreads over the whole empire, and who
+is he who will change it for you? Rather than follow one who merely
+withdraws from this court to that court, had you not better follow those
+who (like ourselves) withdraw from the world altogether?" These words
+Tsze-loo, as was his wont, repeated to Confucius, who thus justified his
+career: "It is impossible to associate with birds and beasts as if they
+were the same as ourselves. If I associate not with people, with
+mankind, with whom shall I associate? If right principles prevailed
+throughout the empire, there would be no necessity for me to change its
+state."</p>
+
+<p>Altogether Confucius remained three years in Ts'ae,&mdash;three years of
+strife and war, during which his counsels were completely neglected.
+Toward their close, the state of Woo made an attack on Ch'in, which
+found support from the powerful state of Ts'oo on the south. While thus
+helping his ally, the Duke of Ts'oo heard that Confucius was in Ts'ae,
+and determined to invite him to his court. With this object he sent
+messengers bearing presents to the Sage, and charged them <a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"></a>with a
+message begging him to come to Ts'oo. Confucius readily accepted the
+invitation, and prepared to start. But the news of the transaction
+alarmed the ministers of Ts'ae and Ch'in. "Ts'oo," said they, "is
+already a powerful state, and Confucius is a man of wisdom. Experience
+has proved that those who have despised him have invariably suffered for
+it, and, should he succeed in guiding the affairs of Ts'oo, we should
+certainly be ruined. At all hazards we must stop his going." When,
+therefore, Confucius had started on his journey, these men despatched a
+force which hemmed him in a wild bit of desert country. Here, we are
+told, they kept him a prisoner for seven days, during which time he
+suffered severe privations, and, as was always the case in moments of
+difficulty, the disciples loudly bewailed their lot and that of their
+master.</p>
+
+<p>"Has the superior man," said Tsze-loo, "indeed, to endure in this way?"
+"The superior man may indeed have to suffer want," replied Confucius,
+"but it is only the mean man who, when he is in straits, gives way to
+unbridled license." In this emergency he had recourse to a solace which
+had soothed him on many occasions when fortune frowned: he played, on
+his lute and sang.</p>
+
+<p>At length he succeeded in sending word to the duke of Ts'oo of the
+position he was in. At once the duke sent ambassadors to liberate him,
+and he himself went out of his capital to meet him. But though he
+welcomed him cordially, and seems to have availed himself of his advice
+on occasions, he did not appoint him to any office, and the intention he
+at one time entertained of granting him a slice of territory was
+thwarted by his ministers, from motives of expediency. "Has your
+majesty," said this officer, "any servant who could discharge the duties
+of ambassador like Tsze-kung? or any so well qualified for a premier as
+Yen Hwuy? or any one to compare as a general with Tsze-loo? Did not
+kings Wan and Woo, from their small states of Fung and Kaou, rise to the
+sovereignty of the empire? And if Kung Kew once acquired territory, with
+such disciples to be his ministers, it will not be to the prosperity of
+Ts'oo."</p>
+
+<p>This remonstrance not only had the immediate effect which <a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"></a>was intended,
+but appears to have influenced the manner of the duke toward the Sage,
+for in the interval between this and the duke's death, in the autumn of
+the same year, we hear of no counsel being either asked or given. In the
+successor to the throne Confucius evidently despaired of finding a
+patron, and he once again returned to Wei.</p>
+
+<p>Confucius was now sixty-three, and on arriving at Wei he found a
+grandson of his former friend, the duke Ling, holding the throne against
+his own father, who had been driven into exile for attempting the life
+of his mother, the notorious Nan-tsze. This chief, who called himself
+the duke Chuh, being conscious how much his cause would be strengthened
+by the support of Confucius, sent Tsze-loo to him, saying, "The Prince
+of Wei has been waiting to secure your services in the administration of
+the state, and wishes to know what you consider is the first thing to be
+done." "It is first of all necessary," replied Confucius, "to rectify
+names." "Indeed," said Tzse-loo, "you are wide of the mark. Why need
+there be such rectification?" "How uncultivated you are, Yew," answered
+Confucius; "a superior man shows a cautious reserve in regard to what he
+does not know. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance
+with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the
+truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on successfully. When affairs
+cannot be carried on successfully, proprieties and music will not
+flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will
+not properly be awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the
+people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore the superior man
+considers it necessary that names should be used appropriately, and that
+his directions should be carried out appropriately. A superior man
+requires that his words should be correct."</p>
+
+<p>The position of things in Wei was naturally such as Confucius could not
+sanction, and, as the duke showed no disposition to amend his ways, the
+Sage left his court, and lived the remainder of the five or six years,
+during which he sojourned in the state, in close retirement.</p>
+
+<p>He had now been absent from his native state of Loo for fourteen years,
+and the time had come when he was to return <a name="Page_326" id="Page_326"></a>to it. But, by the irony of
+fate, the accomplishment of his long-felt desire was due, not to his
+reputation for political or ethical wisdom, but to his knowledge of
+military tactics, which he heartily despised. It happened that at this
+time Yen Yew, a disciple of the Sage, being in the service of Ke K'ang,
+conducted a campaign against T'se with much success. On his triumphal
+return, Ke K'ang asked him how he had acquired his military skill. "From
+Confucius," replied the general. "And what kind of man is he?" asked Ke
+K'ang. "Were you to employ him," answered Yen Yew, "your fame would
+spread abroad; your people might face demons and gods, and would have
+nothing to fear or to ask of them. And if you accepted his principles,
+were you to collect a thousand altars of the spirits of the land it
+would profit you nothing." Attracted by such a prospect, Ke K'ang
+proposed to invite the Sage to his court, "If you do," said Yen Yew,
+"mind you do not allow mean men to come between you and him."</p>
+
+<p>But before Ke K'ang's invitation reached Confucius an incident occurred
+which made the arrival of the messengers from Loo still more welcome to
+him. K'ung Wan, an officer of Wei, came to consult him as to the best
+means of attacking the force of another officer with whom he was engaged
+in a feud. Confucius, disgusted at being consulted on such a subject,
+professed ignorance, and prepared to leave the state, saying as he went
+away: "The bird chooses its tree; the tree does not choose the bird." At
+this juncture Ke K'ang's envoys arrived, and without hesitation he
+accepted the invitation they brought. On arriving at Loo, he presented
+himself at court, and in reply to a question of the duke Gae on the
+subject of government, threw out a strong hint that the duke might do
+well to offer him an appointment. "Government," he said, "consists in
+the right choice of ministers." To the same question put by Ke K'ang he
+replied, "Employ the upright and put aside the crooked, and thus will
+the crooked be made upright."</p>
+
+<p>At this time Ke K'ang was perplexed how to deal with the prevailing
+brigandage. "If you, sir, were not avaricious, though you might offer
+rewards to induce people to steal, they would not." This answer
+sufficiently indicates the esti<a name="Page_327" id="Page_327"></a>mate formed by Confucius of Ke K'ang
+and therefore of the duke Gae, for so entirely were the two of one mind
+that the acts of Ke K'ang appear to have been invariably indorsed by the
+duke. It was plainly impossible that Confucius could serve under such a
+regime, and instead, therefore, of seeking employment, he retired to his
+study and devoted himself to the completion of his literary undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>He was now sixty-nine years of age, and if a man is to be considered
+successful only when he succeeds in realizing the dream of his life, he
+must be deemed to have been unfortunate. Endowed by nature with a large
+share of reverence, a cold rather than a fervid disposition, and a
+studious mind, and reared in the traditions of the ancient kings, whose
+virtuous achievements obtained an undue prominence by the obliteration
+of all their faults and failures, he believed himself capable of
+effecting far more than it was possible for him or any other man to
+accomplish. In the earlier part of his career, he had in Loo an
+opportunity given him for carrying his theories of government into
+practice, and we have seen how they failed to do more than produce a
+temporary improvement in the condition of the people under his immediate
+rule. But he had a lofty and steady confidence in himself and in the
+principles which he professed, which prevented his accepting the only
+legitimate inference which could be drawn from his want of success. The
+lessons of his own experience were entirely lost upon him, and he went
+down to his grave at the age of seventy-two firmly convinced as of yore
+that if he were placed in a position of authority "in three years the
+government would be perfected."</p>
+
+<p>Finding it impossible to associate himself with the rulers of Loo, he
+appears to have resigned himself to exclusion from office. His
+wanderings were over:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And as a hare, when hounds and horns pursue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>he had lately been possessed with an absorbing desire to return once
+more to Loo. This had at last been brought about, and he made up his
+mind to spend the remainder of his days in his native state. He had now
+leisure to finish editing the <i>Shoo King</i>, or <i>Book of History</i>, to
+which he wrote a preface; he also "carefully digested the rites and
+ceremonies determined <a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"></a>by the wisdom of the more ancient sages and
+kings; collected and arranged the ancient poetry; and undertook the
+reform of music." He made a diligent study of the <i>Book of Changes</i>, and
+added a commentary to it, which is sufficient to show that the original
+meaning of the work was as much a mystery to him as it has been to
+others. His idea of what would probably be the value of the kernel
+encased in this unusually hard shell, if it were once rightly
+understood, is illustrated by his remark, "that if some years could be
+added to his life, he would give fifty of them to the study of the <i>Book
+of Changes</i> and that then he expected to be without great faults."</p>
+
+<p>In the year B.C. 482 his son Le died, and in the following year he lost
+by death his faithful disciple Yen Hwuy. When the news of this last
+misfortune reached him, he exclaimed, "Alas! Heaven is destroying me!" A
+year later a servant of Ke K'ang caught a strange one-horned animal
+while on a hunting excursion, and as no one present, could tell what
+animal it was, Confucius was sent for. At once he declared it to be a
+K'e-lin, and legend says that its identity with the one which appeared
+before his birth was proved by its having the piece of ribbon on its
+horn which Ching-tsae tied to the weird animal which presented itself to
+her in a dream on Mount Ne. This second apparition could only have one
+meaning, and Confucius was profoundly affected at the portent. "For whom
+have you come?" he cried, "for whom have you come?" and then, bursting
+into tears, he added, "The course of my doctrine is run, and I am
+unknown."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean that you are unknown?" asked Tsze-kung. "I don't
+complain of Providence," answered the Sage, "nor find fault with men
+that learning is neglected and success is worshipped. Heaven knows me.
+Never does a superior man pass away without leaving a name behind him.
+But my principles make no progress, and I, how shall I be viewed in
+future ages?"</p>
+
+<p>At this time, notwithstanding his declining strength and his many
+employments, he wrote the <i>Ch'un ts'ew,</i> or <i>Spring and Autumn Annals</i>,
+in which he followed the history of his native state of Loo, from the
+time of the duke Yin to the fourteenth year of the duke Gae, that is, to
+the time when the <a name="Page_329" id="Page_329"></a>appearance of the K'e-lin warned him to consider his
+life at an end.</p>
+
+<p>This is the only work of which Confucius was the author, and of this
+every word is his own. His biographers say that "what was written, he
+wrote, and what was erased, was erased by him." Not an expression was
+either inserted or altered by any one but himself. When he had completed
+the work, he handed the manuscript to his disciples, saying, "By the
+<i>Spring and Autumn Annals</i> I shall be known, and by the <i>Spring and
+Autumn Annals</i> I shall be condemned." This only furnishes another of the
+many instances in which authors have entirely misjudged the value of
+their own works.</p>
+
+<p>In the estimation of his countrymen even, whose reverence for his every
+word would incline them to accept his opinion on this as on every
+subject, the <i>Spring and Autumn Annals</i> holds a very secondary place,
+his utterances recorded in the <i>Lun yu</i>, or <i>Confucian Analects</i>, being
+esteemed of far higher value, as they undoubtedly are. And indeed the
+two works he compiled, the <i>Shoo king</i> and the <i>She king</i>, hold a very
+much higher place in the public regard than the book on which he so
+prided himself. To foreigners, whose judgments are unhampered by his
+recorded opinion, his character as an original historian sinks into
+insignificance, and he is known only as a philosopher and statesman.</p>
+
+<p>Once again only do we hear of Confucius presenting himself at the court
+of the duke after this. And this was on the occasion of the murder of
+the duke of T'se by one of his officers. We must suppose that the crime
+was one of a gross nature, for it raised Confucius' fiercest anger, and
+he who never wearied of singing the praises of those virtuous men who
+overthrew the thrones of licentious and tyrannous kings, would have had
+no room for blame if the murdered duke had been like unto Kee or Show.
+But the outrage was one which Confucius felt should be avenged, and he
+therefore bathed and presented himself at court.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," said he, addressing the duke, "Ch'in Hang has slain his
+sovereign; I beg that you will undertake to punish him." But the duke
+was indisposed to move in the matter, and pleaded the comparative
+strength of T'se. Confucius, how<a name="Page_330" id="Page_330"></a>ever, was not to be so silenced.
+"One-half of the people of Tse," said he, "are not consenting to the
+deed. If you add to the people of Loo one-half of the people of Tse, you
+will be sure to overcome." This numerical argument no more affected the
+duke than the statement of the fact, and wearying with Confucius'
+importunity, he told him to lay the matter before the chiefs of the
+three principal families of the state. Before this court of appeal,
+whither he went with reluctance, his cause fared no better, and the
+murder remained unavenged.</p>
+
+<p>At a period when every prince held his throne by the strength of his
+right arm, revolutions lost half their crime, and must have been looked
+upon rather as trials of strength than as disloyal villanies. The
+frequency of their occurrence, also, made them less the subjects of
+surprise and horror. At the time of which we write, the states in the
+neighborhood of Loo appear to have been in a very disturbed condition.
+Immediately following on the murder of the duke of T'se, news was
+brought to Confucius that a revolution had broken out in Wei. This was
+an occurrence which particularly interested him, for when he returned
+from Wei to Loo he left Tsze-loo and Tsze-kaou, two of his disciples,
+engaged in the official service of the state. "Tsze-kaou will return,"
+was Confucius' remark, when he was told of the outbreak, "but Tsze-loo
+will die." The prediction was verified. For when Tsze-kaou saw that
+matters were desperate he made his escape; but Tsze-loo remained to
+defend his chief, and fell fighting in the cause of his master. Though
+Confucius had looked forward to the event as probable, he was none the
+less grieved when he heard that it had come about, and he mourned for
+his friend, whom he was so soon to follow to the grave.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, in the spring of the year B.C. 478, he walked in front of
+his door, mumbling as he went:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The great mountain must crumble;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The strong beam must break;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wise man withers away like a plant."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>These words came as a presage of evil to the faithful Tsze-kung. "If the
+great mountain crumble," said he, "to what shall I look up? If the
+strong beam break, and the wise man wither away, on whom shall I lean?
+The master, I fear, is <a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"></a>going to be ill." So saying, he hastened after
+Confucius into the house. "What makes you so late?" said Confucius, when
+the disciple presented himself before him; and then he added, "According
+to the statutes of Hea, the corpse was dressed and coffined at the top
+of the eastern steps, treating the dead as if he were still the host.
+Under the Yin, the ceremony was performed between the two pillars, as if
+the dead were both host and guest. The rule of Chow is to perform it at
+the top of the western steps, treating the dead as if he were a guest. I
+am a man of Yin, and last night I dreamed that I was sitting, with
+offerings before me, between the two pillars. No intelligent monarch
+arises; there is not one in the empire who will make me his master. My
+time is come to die." It is eminently characteristic of Confucius that
+in his last recorded speech and dream, his thoughts should so have dwelt
+on the ceremonies of bygone ages. But the dream had its fulfilment. That
+same day he took to his bed, and after a week's illness he expired.</p>
+
+<p>On the banks of the river Sze, to the north of the capital city of Loo,
+his disciples buried him, and for three years they mourned at his grave.
+Even such marked respect as this fell short of the homage which
+Tsze-kung, his most faithful disciple, felt was due to him, and for
+three additional years that loving follower testified by his grief his
+reverence for his master. "I have all my life had the heaven above my
+head," said he, "but I do not know its height; and the earth under my
+feet, but I know not its thickness. In serving Confucius, I am like a
+thirsty man, who goes with his pitcher to the river and there drinks his
+fill, without knowing the river's depth."</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="ROME_ESTABLISHED_AS_A_REPUBLIC" id="ROME_ESTABLISHED_AS_A_REPUBLIC"></a>ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC</h2>
+
+<h2>INSTITUTION OF TRIBUNES</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 510-494</h3>
+
+<h3><i>HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The republic of Rome was the outcome of a sudden revolution caused
+by the crimes of the House of Tarquin, an Etruscan family who had
+reached the highest power at Rome. The indignation raised by the
+rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius, and the suicide of the
+outraged lady at Collatia, moved her father, in conjunction with
+Lucius Junius Brutus and Publius Valerius, to start a rebellion.
+The people were assembled by curi&aelig;, or wards, and voted that
+Tarquinius Superbus should be stripped of the kingly power, and
+that he and all his family should be banished from Rome.</p>
+
+<p>This was accordingly done; and, instead of kings, consuls were
+appointed to wield the supreme power. These consuls were elected
+annually at the <i>comitia centuriata</i> and they had sovereign power
+granted them by a vote of the <i>comitia curiata</i>. The first consuls
+chosen were Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus.</p>
+
+<p>What is known as the Secession to the Sacred Hill took place when
+the plebeians of Rome, in the early days of the Republic, indignant
+at the oppression and cruelty of the patricians, left the city en
+masse and gathered with hostile manifestations at a hill, Mons
+Sacer, some distance from Rome. It was here Menenius Agrippa
+conciliated them by reciting the famous fable of "The Belly and the
+Members." After this the people were induced to come to terms with
+the patricians and to return to the city.</p>
+
+<p>The people had, however, gained a great advantage by their bold
+defiance of the consular and patrician class, who had practically
+been supreme in the state, had been oppressive money-lenders, and
+had controlled the decisions of the law courts. It was not in vain
+that the people now demanded that as the two consuls were
+practically elected to further the interests of the upper class, so
+they, the plebeians, should have the election of two tribunes to
+protect them from wrong and oppression. These new officers were
+duly appointed, and eventually their number was increased to ten.
+Their power was almost absolute, but it never seems to have been
+abused, and this fact is a proof of the native moderation of the
+ancient Romans. There have been many constitutional strug<a name="Page_333" id="Page_333"></a>gles in
+the history of modern times, but nothing like the plebeian
+tribunate has ever appeared, and it is a question if the
+institution could have existed for a month, in any country of
+modern times, with the salutary influences which it exercised in
+early Rome.</p></div>
+
+<p>Tarquin had made himself king by the aid of the patricians, and chiefly
+by means of the third or Lucerian tribe, to which his family belonged.
+The burgesses of the Gentes were indignant at the curtailment of their
+privileges by the popular reforms of Servius, and were glad to lend
+themselves to any overthrow of his power. But Tarquin soon kicked away
+the ladder by which he had risen. He abrogated, it is true, the hated
+Assembly of the Centuries; but neither did he pay any heed to the
+Curiate Assembly, nor did he allow any new members to be chosen into the
+senate in place of those who were removed by death or other causes; so
+that even those who had helped him to the throne repented them of their
+deed. The name of Superbus, or the Proud, testifies to the general
+feeling against the despotic rule of the second Tarquin.</p>
+
+<p>It was by foreign alliances that he calculated on supporting his
+despotism at home. The Etruscans of Tarquinii, and all its associate
+cities, were his friends; and among the Latins also he sought to raise a
+power which might counterbalance the senate and people of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>The wisdom of Tarquinius Priscus and Servius had united all the Latin
+name to Rome, so that Rome had become the sovereign city of Latium. The
+last Tarquin drew those ties still closer. He gave his daughter in
+marriage to Octavius Mamilius, chief of Tusculum, and favored the Latins
+in all things. But at a general assembly of the Latins at the Ferentine
+Grove, beneath the Alban Mount, where they had been accustomed to meet
+of olden time to settle their national affairs, Turnus Herdonius of
+Aricia rose and spoke against him. Then Tarquinius accused him of high
+treason, and brought false witnesses against him; and so powerful with
+the Latins was the king that they condemned their countryman to be
+drowned in the Ferentine water, and obeyed Tarquinius in all things.</p>
+
+<p>With them he made war upon the Volscians and took the <a name="Page_334" id="Page_334"></a>city of Suessa,
+wherein was a great booty. This booty he applied to the execution of
+great works in the city, in emulation of his father and King Servius.
+The elder Tarquin had built up the side of the Tarpeian rock and
+levelled the summit, to be the foundation of a temple of Jupiter, but he
+had not completed the work. Tarquinius Superbus now removed all the
+temples and shrines of the old Sabine gods which had been there since
+the time of Titus Tatius; but the goddess of Youth and the god Terminus
+kept their place, whereby was signified that the Roman people should
+enjoy undecaying vigor, and that the boundaries of their empire should
+never be drawn in. And on the Tarpeian height he built a magnificent
+temple, to be dedicated jointly to the great gods of the Latins and
+Etruscans, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; and this part of the Saturnian
+Hill was ever after called the Capitol or the Chief Place, while the
+upper part was called the Arx or Citadel.</p>
+
+<p>He brought architects from Etruria to plan the temple, but he forced the
+Roman people to work for him without hire.</p>
+
+<p>One day a strange woman appeared before the king and offered him nine
+books to buy; and when he refused them she went away and burned, three
+of the nine books and brought back the remaining six and offered to sell
+them at the same price that she had asked for the nine; and when he
+laughed at her and again refused, she went as before and burned three
+more books, and came back and asked still the same price for the three
+that were left. Then the king was struck by her pertinacity, and he
+consulted his augurs what this might be; and they bade him by all means
+buy the three, and said he had done wrong not to buy the nine, for these
+were the books of the Sibyl and contained great secrets. So the books
+were kept underground in the Capitol in a stone chest, and two men
+<i>(duumviri)</i> were appointed to take charge of them, and consult them
+when the state was in danger.</p>
+
+<p>The only Latin town that defied Tarquin's power was Gabii; and Sextus,
+the king's youngest son, promised to win this place also for his father.
+So he fled from Rome and presented himself at Gabii; and there he made
+complaints of his father's tyranny and prayed for protection. The
+Gabians believed him, and took him into their city, and they trusted
+<a name="Page_335" id="Page_335"></a>him, so that in time he was made commander of their army. Now his
+father suffered him to conquer in many small battles, and the Gabians
+trusted him more and more. Then he sent privately to his father, and
+asked what he should do to make the Gabians submit. Then King Tarquin
+gave no answer to the messenger, but, as he walked up and down his
+garden, he kept cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies with his
+staff. At last the messenger was tired, and went back to Sextus and told
+him what had passed. But Sextus understood what his father meant, and he
+began to accuse falsely all the chief men, and some of them he put to
+death and some he banished. So at last the city of Gabii was left
+defenceless, and Sextus delivered it up to his father.</p>
+
+<p>While Tarquin was building his temple on the Capitol, a strange portent
+offered itself; for a snake came forth and devoured the sacrifices on
+the altar. The king, not content with the interpretation of his Etruscan
+soothsayers, sent persons to consult the famous oracle of the Greeks at
+Delphi, and the persons he sent were his own sons Titus and Aruns, and
+his sister's son, L. Junius, a young man who, to avoid his uncle's
+jealousy, feigned to be without common sense, wherefore he was called
+Brutus or the Dullard. The answer given by the oracle was that the chief
+power of Rome should belong to him of the three who should first kiss
+his mother; and the two sons of King Tarquin agreed to draw lots which
+of them should do this as soon as they returned home. But Brutus
+perceived that the oracle had another sense; so as soon as they landed
+in Italy he fell down on the ground as if he had stumbled, and kissed
+the earth, for she (he thought) was the true mother of all mortal
+things.</p>
+
+<p>When the sons of Tarquin returned with their cousin, L. Junius Brutus,
+they found the king at war with the Rutulians of Ardea. Being unable to
+take the place by storm, he was forced to blockade it; and while the
+Roman army was encamped before the town the young men used to amuse
+themselves at night with wine and wassail. One night there was a feast,
+at which Sextus, the king's third son, was present, as also Collatinus,
+the son of Egerius, the king's uncle, who had been made governor of
+Collatia. So they soon began to dis<a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"></a>pute about the worthiness of their
+wives; and when each maintained that his own wife was worthiest, "Come,
+gentlemen," said Collatinus, "let us take horse and see what our wives
+are doing; they expect us not, and so we shall know the truth." All
+agreed, and they galloped to Rome, and there they found the wives of all
+the others feasting and revelling: but when they came to Collatia they
+found Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, not making merry like the rest,
+but sitting in the midst of her handmaids carding wool and spinning; so
+they all allowed that Lucretia was the worthiest.</p>
+
+<p>Now Lucretia was the daughter of a noble Roman, Spurius Lucretius, who
+was at this time prefect of the city; for it was the custom, when the
+kings went out to war, that they left a chief man at home to administer
+all things in the king's name, and he was called prefect of the city.</p>
+
+<p>But it chanced that Sextus, the king's son, when he saw the fair
+Lucretia, was smitten with lustful passion; and a few days after he came
+again to Collatia, and Lucretia entertained him hospitably as her
+husband's cousin and friend. But at midnight he arose and came with
+stealthy steps to her bedside: and holding a sword in his right hand,
+and laying his left hand upon her breast, he bade her yield to his
+wicked desires; for if not, he would slay her and lay one of her slaves
+beside her, and would declare that he had taken them in adultery. So for
+shame she consented to that which no fear would have wrung from her: and
+Sextus, having wrought this deed of shame, returned to the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Then Lucretia sent to Rome for her father, and to the camp at Ardea for
+her husband. They came in haste. Lucretius brought with him P. Valerius,
+and Collatinus brought L. Junius Brutus, his cousin, And they came in
+and asked if all was well Then she told them what was done: "but," she
+said, "my body only has suffered the shame, for my will consented not to
+the deed. Therefore," she cried, "avenge me on the wretch Sextus. As for
+me, though my heart has not sinned, I can live no longer. No one shall
+say that Lucretia set an example of living in unchastity." So she drew
+forth a knife and stabbed herself to the heart.</p>
+
+<p>When they saw that, her father and her husband cried <a name="Page_337" id="Page_337"></a>aloud; but Brutus
+drew the knife from the wound, and holding it up, spoke thus: "By this
+pure blood I swear before the gods that I will pursue L. Tarquinius the
+Proud and all his bloody house with fire, sword, or in whatsoever way I
+may, and that neither they nor any other shall hereafter be king in
+Rome." Then he gave the knife to Collatinus and Lucretius and Valerius,
+and they all swore likewise, much marvelling to hear such words from L.
+Junius the Dullard. And they took up the body of Lucretia, and carried
+it into the Forum, and called on the men of Collatia to rise against the
+tyrant. So they set a guard at the gates of the town, to prevent any
+news of the matter being carried to King Tarquin: and they themselves,
+followed by the youth of Collatia, went to Rome. Here Brutus, who was
+chief captain of the knights, called the people together, and he told
+them what had been done, and called on them by the deed of shame wrought
+against Lucretius and Collatinus&mdash;by all that they had suffered from the
+tyrants&mdash;by the abominable murder of good King Servius&mdash;to assist them
+in taking vengeance on the Tarquins. So it was hastily agreed to banish
+Tarquinius and his family. The youth declared themselves ready to follow
+Brutus against the king's army, and the seniors put themselves under the
+rule of Lucretius, the prefect of the city. In this tumult, the wicked
+Tullia fled from her house, pursued by the curses of all men, who prayed
+that the avengers of her father's blood might be upon her.</p>
+
+<p>When the king heard what had passed, he set off in all haste for the
+city. Brutus also set off for the camp at Ardea; and he turned aside
+that he might not meet his uncle the king. So he came to the camp at
+Ardea, and the king came to Rome. And all the Romans at Ardea welcomed
+Brutus, and joined their arms to his, and thrust out all the king's sons
+from the camp. But the people of Rome shut the gates against the king,
+so that he could not enter. And King Tarquin, with his sons Titus and
+Aruns, went into exile and lived at C&aelig;re in Etruria. But Sextus fled to
+Gabii, where he had before held rule, and the people of Gabii slew him
+in memory of his former cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>So L. Tarquinius Superbus was expelled from Rome, after he had been king
+five-and-twenty years. And in memory of <a name="Page_338" id="Page_338"></a>this event was instituted a
+festival called the "Regifugium" or "Fugalia," which was celebrated
+every year on the 24th day of February.</p>
+
+<p>To gratify the plebeians, the patricians consented to restore, in some
+measure at least, the popular institutions of King Servius; and it was
+resolved to follow his supposed intention with regard to the supreme
+government&mdash;that is, to have two magistrates elected every year, who
+were to have the same power as the king during the time of their rule.
+These were in after days known by the name of Consuls; but in ancient
+times they were called "Pr&aelig;tors" or Judges. They were elected at the
+great Assembly of Centuries; and they had sovereign power conferred upon
+them by the assembly of the Curies. They wore a robe edged with violet
+color, sat in their chairs of state called curule chairs, and were
+attended by twelve lictors each. These lictors carried fasces, or
+bundles of rods, out of which arose an axe, in token of the power of
+life and death possessed by the consuls as successors of the kings. But
+only one of them at a time had a right to this power; and, in token
+thereof, his colleague's fasces had no axes in them. Each retained this
+mark of sovereign power (<i>Imperium</i>) for a month at a time.</p>
+
+<p>The first consuls were L. Junius Brutus and L. Tarquinius Collatinus.</p>
+
+<p>The new consuls filled up the senate to the proper number of three
+hundred; and the new senators were called "Conscripti," while the old
+members retained their old name of "Patres." So after this the whole
+senate was addressed by speakers as "Patres, Conscripti." But in later
+times it was forgotten that these names belonged to different sorts of
+persons, and the whole senate was addressed as by one name, "Patres
+Conscripti."</p>
+
+<p>The name of king was hateful. But certain sacrifices had always been
+performed by the king in person; and therefore, to keep up form, a
+person was still chosen, with the title of "Rex Sacrorum" or "Rex
+Sacrificulus," to perform these offerings. But even he was placed under
+the authority of the chief pontifex.</p>
+
+<p>After his expulsion, King Tarquin sent messengers to Rome to ask that
+his property should be given up to him, and <a name="Page_339" id="Page_339"></a>the senate decreed that his
+prayer should be granted. But the king's ambassadors, while they were in
+Rome, stirred up the minds of the young men and others who had been
+favored by Tarquin, so that a plot was made to bring him back. Among
+those who plotted were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of the Consul
+Brutus; and they gave letters to the messengers of the king. But it
+chanced that a certain slave hid himself in the place where they met,
+and overheard them plotting; and he came and told the thing to the
+consuls, who seized the messengers of the king with the letters upon
+their persons, authenticated by the seals of the young men. The culprits
+were immediately arrested; but the ambassadors were let go, because
+their persons were regarded as sacred. And the goods of King Tarquin
+were given up for plunder to the people.</p>
+
+<p>Then the traitors were brought up before the consuls, and the sight was
+such as to move all beholders to pity; for among them were the sons of
+L. Junius Brutus himself, the first consul, the liberator of the Roman
+people. And now all men saw how Brutus loved his country; for he bade
+the lictors put all the traitors to death, and his own sons first; and
+men could mark in his face the struggle between his duty as a chief
+magistrate of Rome and his feelings as a father. And while they praised
+and admired him, they pitied him yet more.</p>
+
+<p>Then a decree of the senate was made that no one of the blood of the
+Tarquins should remain in Rome. And since Collatinus, the consul, was by
+descent a Tarquin, even he was obliged to give up his office and return
+to Collatia. In his room, P. Valerius was chosen consul by the people.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first attempt to restore Tarquin the Proud.</p>
+
+<p>When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, he prevailed on the
+people of Tarquinii and Veii to make war with him against the Romans.
+But the consuls came out against them; Valerius commanding the main
+army, and Brutus the cavalry. And it chanced that Aruns, the king's son,
+led the cavalry of the enemy. When he saw Brutus he spurred his horse
+against him, and Brutus declined not the combat. So they rode straight
+at each other with levelled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that
+they pierced each other through from breast to back, and both fell dead.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340"></a>Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was neither won nor lost.
+But in the night a voice was heard by the Etruscans, saying that the
+Romans were the conquerors. So the enemy fled by night; and when the
+Romans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose them. Then they
+took up the body of Brutus, and departed home, and buried him in public
+with great pomp, and the matrons of Rome mourned him for a whole year,
+because he had avenged the injury of Lucretia.</p>
+
+<p>And thus the second attempt to restore King Tarquin was frustrated.</p>
+
+<p>After the death of Brutus, Publius Valerius ruled the people for a while
+by himself, and he began to build himself a house upon the ridge called
+Velia, which looks down upon the Forum. So the people thought that he
+was going to make himself king; but when he heard this, he called an
+assembly of the people, and appeared before them with his fasces
+lowered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom remained ever
+after, that no consular lictors wore axes within the city, and no consul
+had power of life and death except when he was in command of his legions
+abroad. And he pulled down the beginning of his house upon the Velia,
+and built it below that hill. Also he passed laws that every Roman
+citizen might appeal to the people against the judgment of the chief
+magistrates. Wherefore he was greatly honored among the people, and was
+called "Poplicola," or "Friend of the People."</p>
+
+<p>After this Valerius called together the great Assembly of the Centuries,
+and they chose Sp. Lucretius, father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus.
+But he was an old man, and in not many days he died. So M. Horatius was
+chosen in his stead.</p>
+
+<p>The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin began had never yet been
+consecrated. Then Valerius and Horatius drew lots which should be the
+consecrator, and the lot fell on Horatius. But the friends of Valerius
+murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius from having the honor; so
+when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon
+the doorpost of the temple, there came a messenger, who told him that
+his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly
+consecrate the temple. But Horatius kept <a name="Page_341" id="Page_341"></a>his hand upon the doorpost,
+and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rites of
+consecration. Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son.</p>
+
+<p>In the next year Valerius was again made consul, with T. Lucretius; and
+Tarquinius, despairing now of aid from his friends at Veii and
+Tarquinii, went to Lars Porsenna of Clusium, a city on the river Clanis,
+which falls into the Tiber. Porsenna was at this time acknowledged as
+chief of the twelve Etruscan cities; and he assembled a powerful army
+and came to Rome. He came so quickly that he reached the Tiber and was
+near the Sublician Bridge before there was time to destroy it; and if he
+had crossed it the city would have been lost. Then a noble Roman, called
+Horatius Codes, of the Lucerian tribe, with two friends&mdash;Sp. Lartius, a
+Ramnian, and T. Herminius, a Titian&mdash;posted themselves at the far end of
+the bridge, and defended the passage against all the Etruscan host,
+while the Romans were cutting it off behind them. When it was all but
+destroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and Horatius was
+left alone to bear the whole attack of the enemy. Well he kept his
+ground, standing unmoved amid the darts which were showered upon his
+shield, till the last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river.
+Then he prayed, saying, "Father Tiber, receive me and bear me up, I pray
+thee." So he plunged in, and reached the other side safely; and the
+Romans honored him greatly: they put up his statue in the Comitium, and
+gave him as much land as he could plough round in a day, and every man
+at Rome subscribed the cost of one day's food to reward him.</p>
+
+<p>Then Porsenna, disappointed in his attempt to surprise the city,
+occupied the Hill Janiculum, and besieged the city, so that the people
+were greatly distressed by hunger. But C. Mucius, a noble youth,
+resolved to deliver his country by the death of the king. So he armed
+himself with a dagger, and went to the place where the king was used to
+sit in judgment. It chanced that the soldiers were receiving their pay
+from the king's secretary, who sat at his right hand splendidly
+apparelled; and as this man seemed to be chief in authority, Mucius
+thought that this must be the king; so he stabbed him to the heart. Then
+the guards seized him and dragged him <a name="Page_342" id="Page_342"></a>before the king, who was greatly
+enraged, and ordered them to burn him alive if he would not confess the
+whole affair. Then Mucius stood before the king and said: "See how
+little thy tortures can avail to make a brave man tell the secrets
+committed to him"; and so saying, he thrust his right hand into the fire
+of the altar, and held it in the flame with unmoved countenance. Then
+the king marvelled at his courage, and ordered him to be spared, and
+sent away in safety: "for," said he, "thou art a brave man, and hast
+done more harm to thyself than to me." Then Mucius replied: "Thy
+generosity, O king, prevails more with me than thy threats. Know that
+three hundred Roman youths have sworn thy death: my lot came first. But
+all the rest remain, prepared to do and suffer like myself." So he was
+let go, and returned home, and was called "Sc&aelig;vola," or "The
+Left-handed," because his right hand had been burnt off.</p>
+
+<p>King Porsenna was greatly moved by the danger he had escaped, and
+perceiving the obstinate determination of the Romans, he offered to make
+peace. The Romans gladly gave ear to his words, for they were hard
+pressed, and they consented to give back all the land which they had won
+from the Etruscans beyond the Tiber. And they gave hostages to the king
+in pledge that they would obey him as they had promised, ten youths and
+ten maidens. But one of the maidens, named Cloelia, had a man's heart,
+and she persuaded all her fellows to escape from the king's camp and
+swim across the Tiber. At first King Porsenna was wroth; but then he was
+much amazed, even more than at the deeds of Horatius and Mucius. So when
+the Romans sent back Cloelia and her fellow-maidens&mdash;for they would not
+break faith with the king&mdash;he bade her return home again, and told her
+she might take whom she pleased of the youths who were hostages; and she
+chose those who were yet boys, and restored them to their parents.</p>
+
+<p>So the Roman people gave certain lands to young Mucius, and they set up
+an equestrian statue to the bold Cloelia at the top of the Sacred Way.
+And King Porsenna returned home; and thus the third and most formidable
+attempt to bring back Tarquin failed.</p>
+
+<p>When Tarquin now found that he had no hopes of further <a name="Page_343" id="Page_343"></a>assistance from
+Porsenna and his Etruscan friends, he went and dwelt at Tusculum, where
+Mamilius Octavius, his son-in-law, was still chief. Then the thirty
+Latin cities combined together and made this Octavius their dictator,
+and bound themselves to restore their old friend and ally, King Tarquin,
+to the sovereignty of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>P. Valerius, who was called "Poplicola," was now dead, and the Romans
+looked about for some chief worthy to lead them against the army of the
+Latins. Poplicola had been made consul four times, and his compeers
+acknowledged him as their chief, and all men submitted to him as to a
+king. But now the two consuls were jealous of each other; nor had they
+power of life and death within the city, for Valerius (as we saw) had
+taken away the axes from the fasces. Now this was one of the reasons why
+Brutus and the rest made two consuls instead of one king: for they said
+that neither one would allow the other to become tyrant; and since they
+only held office for one year at a time, they might be called on to give
+account of their government when their year was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>Yet though this was a safeguard of liberty in times of peace, it was
+hurtful in time of war, for the consuls chosen by the people in their
+great assemblies were not always skilful generals; or if they were so,
+they were obliged to lay down their command at the year's end.</p>
+
+<p>So the senate determined, in cases of great danger, to call upon one of
+the consuls to appoint a single chief, who should be called "dictator,"
+or master of the people. He had sovereign power (<i>Imperium</i>) both in the
+city and out of the city, and the fasces were always carried before him
+with the axes in them, as they had been before the king. He could only
+be appointed for six months, but at the end of the time he had to give
+no account. So that he was free to act according to his own judgment,
+having no colleague to interfere with him at the present, and no
+accusations to fear at a future time. The dictator was general-in-chief,
+and he appointed a chief officer to command the knights under him, who
+was called "master of the horse."</p>
+
+<p>And now it appeared to be a fit time to appoint such a chief, to take
+the command of the army against the Latins. So the first dictator was T.
+Lartius, and he made Spurius Cassius his <a name="Page_344" id="Page_344"></a>master of the horse. This was
+in the year B.C. 499, eight years after the expulsion of Tarquin.</p>
+
+<p>But the Latins did not declare war for two years after. Then the senate
+again ordered the consul to name a master of the people, or dictator;
+and he named Aul. Postumius, who appointed T. &AElig;butius (one of the
+consuls of that year) to be his master of the horse. So they led out the
+Roman army against the Latins, and they met at the Lake Regillus, in the
+land of the Tusculans. King Tarquin and all his family were in the host
+of the Latins; and that day it was to be determined whether Rome should
+be again subject to the tyrant and whether or not she was to be chief of
+the Latin cities.</p>
+
+<p>King Tarquin himself, old as he was, rode in front of the Latins in full
+armor; and when he descried the Roman dictator marshalling his men, he
+rode at him; but Postumius wounded him in the side, and he was rescued
+by the Latins. Then also &AElig;butius, the master of the horse, and Oct.
+Mamilius, the dictator of the Latins, charged one another, and &AElig;butius
+was pierced through the arm, and Mamilius wounded in the breast. But the
+Latin chief, nothing daunted, returned to battle, followed by Titus, the
+king's son, with his band of exiles. These charged the Romans furiously,
+so that they gave way; but when M. Valerius, brother of the great
+Poplicola, saw this, he spurred his horse against Titus, and rode at him
+with spear in rest; and when Titus turned away and fled, Valerius rode
+furiously after him into the midst of the Latin host, and a certain
+Latin smote him in the side as he was riding past, so that he fell dead,
+and his horse galloped on without a rider. So the band of exiles pressed
+still more fiercely upon the Romans, and they began to flee.</p>
+
+<p>Then Postumius the dictator lifted up his voice and vowed a temple to
+Castor and Pollux, the great twin heroes of the Greeks, if they would
+aid him; and behold there appeared on his right two horsemen, taller and
+fairer than the sons of men, and their horses were as white as snow. And
+they led the dictator and his guard against the exiles and the Latins,
+and the Romans prevailed against them; and T. Herminius the Titian, the
+friend of Horatius Cocles, ran Mamilius, the dictator of the Latins,
+through the body, so that he died; but <a name="Page_345" id="Page_345"></a>when he was stripping the arms
+from his foe, another ran him through, and he was carried back to the
+camp, and he also died. Then also Titus, the king's son, was slain, and
+the Latins fled, and the Romans pursued them with great slaughter, and
+took their camp and all that was in it. Now Postumius had promised great
+rewards to those who first broke into the camp of the Latins, and the
+first who broke in were the two horsemen on white horses; but after the
+battle they were nowhere to be seen or found, nor was there any sign of
+them left, save on the hard rock there was the mark of a horse's hoof,
+which men said was made by the horse of one of those horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>But at this very time two youths on white horses rode into the Forum at
+Rome. They were covered with dust and sweat and blood, like men who had
+fought long and hard, and their horses also were bathed in sweat and
+foam: and they alighted near the Temple of Vesta, and washed themselves
+in a spring that gushes out hard by, and told all the people in the
+Forum how the battle by the Lake Regillus had been fought and won. Then
+they mounted their horses and rode away, and were seen no more.</p>
+
+<p>But Postumius, when he heard it, knew that these were Castor and Pollux,
+the great twin brethren of the Greeks, and that it was they who fought
+so well for Rome at the Lake Regillus. So he built them a temple,
+according to his vow, over the place where they had alighted in the
+Forum. And their effigies were displayed on Roman coins to the latest
+ages of the city.</p>
+
+<p>This was the fourth and last attempt to restore King Tarquin. After the
+great defeat of Lake Regillus, the Latin cities made peace with Rome,
+and agreed to refuse harborage to the old king. He had lost all his
+sons, and, accompanied by a few faithful friends, who shared his exile,
+he sought a last asylum at the Greek city of Cum&aelig; in the Bay of Naples,
+at the court of the tyrant Aristodemus. Here he died in the course of a
+year, fourteen years after his expulsion.</p>
+
+<p>We shall now record, not only the slow steps by which the Romans
+recovered dominion over their neighbors, but also the long-continued
+struggle by which the plebeians raised themselves to a level with the
+patricians, who had again become the <a name="Page_346" id="Page_346"></a>dominant caste at Rome. Mixed up
+with legendary tales as the history still is, enough is nevertheless
+preserved to excite the admiration of all who love to look upon a brave
+people pursuing a worthy object with patient but earnest resolution,
+never flinching, yet seldom injuring their good cause by reckless
+violence. To an Englishman this history ought to be especially dear, for
+more than any other in the annals of the world does it resemble the
+long-enduring constancy and sturdy determination, the temperate will and
+noble self-control, with which the Commons of his own country secured
+their rights. It was by a struggle of this nature, pursued through a
+century and a half, that the character of the Roman people was molded
+into that form of strength and energy, which threw back Hannibal to the
+coasts of Africa, and in half a century more made them masters of the
+Mediterranean shore.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt that the wars that followed the expulsion of the
+Tarquins, with the loss of territory that accompanied them, must have
+reduced all orders of men at Rome to great distress. But those who most
+suffered were the plebeians. The plebeians at that time consisted
+entirely of landholders, great and small, and husbandmen, for in those
+times the practice of trades and mechanical arts was considered unworthy
+of a freeborn man. Some of the plebeian families were as wealthy as any
+among the patricians; but the mass of them were petty yeoman, who lived
+on the produce of their small farm, and were solely dependent for a
+living on their own limbs, their own thrift and industry. Most of them
+lived in the villages and small towns, which in those times were thickly
+sprinkled over the slopes of the Campagna.</p>
+
+<p>The patricians, on the other hand, resided chiefly within the city. If
+slaves were few as yet, they had the labor of their clients available to
+till their farms; and through their clients also they were enabled to
+derive a profit from the practice of trading and crafts, which
+personally neither they nor the plebeians would stoop to pursue. Besides
+these sources of profit, they had at this time the exclusive use of the
+public land, a subject on which we shall have to speak more at length
+hereafter. At present, it will be sufficient to say, that the public
+land now spoken of had been the crown land or regal domain, <a name="Page_347" id="Page_347"></a>which on
+the expulsion of the kings had been forfeited to the state. The
+patricians being in possession of all actual power, engrossed possession
+of it, and seem to have paid a very small quit-rent to the treasury for
+this great advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, the necessity of service in the army, or militia&mdash;as it
+might more justly be called&mdash;acted very differently on the rich
+landholder and the small yeoman. The latter, being called out with sword
+and spear for the summer's campaign, as his turn came round, was obliged
+to leave his farm uncared for, and his crop could only be reaped by the
+kind aid of neighbors; whereas the rich proprietor, by his clients or
+his hired laborers, could render the required military service without
+robbing his land of his own labor. Moreover, the territory of Rome was
+so narrow, and the enemy's borders so close at hand, that any night the
+stout yeoman might find himself reduced to beggary, by seeing his crops
+destroyed, his cattle driven away, and his homestead burnt in a sudden
+foray. The patricians and rich plebeians were, it is true, exposed to
+the same contingencies. But wealth will always provide some defence; and
+it is reasonable to think that the larger proprietors provided places of
+refuge, into which they could drive their cattle and secure much of
+their property, such as the peel-towers common in our own border
+counties. Thus the patricians and their clients might escape the storm
+which destroyed the isolated yeoman.</p>
+
+<p>To this must be added that the public land seems to have been mostly in
+pasturage, and therefore the property of the patricians must have
+chiefly consisted in cattle, which was more easily saved from
+depredation than the crops of the plebeian. Lastly, the profit derived
+from the trades and business of their clients, being secured by the
+walls of the city, gave to the patricians the command of all the capital
+that could exist in a state of society so simple and crude, and afforded
+at once a means of repairing their own losses, and also of obtaining a
+dominion over the poor yeoman.</p>
+
+<p>For some time after the expulsion of the Tarquins it was necessary for
+the patricians to treat the plebeians with liberality. The institutions
+of "the Commons' King," King Servius, suspended by Tarquin, were,
+partially at least, restored: it is said even that one of the first
+consuls was a plebeian, and <a name="Page_348" id="Page_348"></a>that he chose several of the leading
+plebeians into the senate. But after the death of Porsenna, and when the
+fear of the Tarquins ceased, all these flattering signs disappeared. The
+consuls seem still to have been elected by the Centuriate Assembly, but
+the Curiate Assembly retained in their own hands the right of conferring
+the <i>Imperium</i>, which amounted to a positive veto on the election by the
+larger body. All the names of the early consuls, except in the first
+year of the Republic, are patrician. But if by chance a consul displayed
+popular tendencies, it was in the power of the senate and patricians to
+suspend his power by the appointment of a dictator. Thus, practically,
+the patrician burgesses again became the <i>Populus</i>, or body politic of
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>It must not here be forgotten that this dominant body was an exclusive
+caste; that is, it consisted of a limited number of noble families, who
+allowed none of their members to marry with persons born out of the pale
+of their own order. The child of a patrician and a plebeian, or of a
+patrician and a client, was not considered as born in lawful wedlock;
+and however proud the blood which it derived from one parent, the child
+sank to the condition of the parent of lower rank. This was expressed in
+Roman language by saying, that there was no "Right of Connubium" between
+patricians and any inferior classes of men. Nothing can be more
+impolitic than such restrictions; nothing more hurtful even to those who
+count it their privilege. In all exclusive or oligarchical,<i>pales</i>,
+families become extinct, and the breed decays both in bodily strength
+and mental vigor. Happily for Rome, the patricians were unable long to
+maintain themselves as a separate caste.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the plebeians might long have submitted to this state of social and
+political inferiority, had not their personal distress and the severe
+laws of Rome driven them to seek relief by claiming to be recognized as
+members of the body politic.</p>
+
+<p>The severe laws of which we speak were those of debtor and creditor. If
+a Roman borrowed money, he was expected to enter into a contract with
+his creditor to pay the debt by a certain day; and if on that day he was
+unable to discharge his obligation, he was summoned before the patrician
+judge, who was authorized by the law to assign the defaulter as a bonds
+<a name="Page_349" id="Page_349"></a>man to his creditor&mdash;that is, the debtor was obliged to pay by his own
+labor the debt which he was unable to pay in money. Or if a man incurred
+a debt without such formal contract, the rule was still more imperious,
+for in that case the law itself fixed the day of payment; and if after a
+lapse of thirty days from that date the debt was not discharged, the
+creditor was empowered to arrest the person of his debtor, to load him
+with chains, and feed him on bread and water for another thirty days;
+and then, if the money still remained unpaid, he might put him to death,
+or sell him as a slave to the highest bidder; or, if there were several
+creditors, they might hew his body in pieces and divide it. And in this
+last case the law provided with scrupulous providence against the
+evasion by which the Merchant of Venice escaped the cruelty of the Jew;
+for the Roman law said that "whether a man cut more or less [than his
+due], he should incur no penalty." These atrocious provisions, however,
+defeated their own object, for there was no more unprofitable way in
+which the body of a debtor could be disposed of.</p>
+
+<p>Such being the law of debtor and creditor, it remains to say that the
+creditors were chiefly of the patrician caste, and the debtors almost
+exclusively of the poorer sort among the plebeians. The patricians were
+the creditors, because from their occupancy of the public land, and from
+their engrossing the profits to be derived from trade and crafts, they
+alone had spare capital to lend. The plebeian yeomen were the debtors,
+because their independent position made them, at that time, helpless.
+Vassals, clients, serfs, or by whatever name dependents are called, do
+not suffer from the ravages of a predatory war like free landholders,
+because the loss falls on their lords or patrons. But when the
+independent yeoman's crops are destroyed, his cattle "lifted," and his
+homestead in ashes, he must himself repair the loss. This was, as we
+have said, the condition of many Roman plebeians. To rebuild their
+houses and restock their farms they borrowed; the patricians were their
+creditors; and the law, instead of protecting the small holders, like
+the law of the Hebrews, delivered them over into serfdom or slavery.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the free plebeian population might have been reduced <a name="Page_350" id="Page_350"></a>to a state of
+mere dependency, and the history of Rome might have presented a
+repetition of monotonous severity, like that of Sparta or of Venice.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>
+But it was ordained otherwise. The distress and oppression of the
+plebeians led them to demand and to obtain political protectors, by
+whose means they were slowly but surely raised to equality of rights and
+privileges with their rulers and oppressors. These protectors were the
+famous Tribunes of the Plebs. We will now repeat the no less famous
+legends by which their first creation was accounted for.</p>
+
+<p>It was, by the common reckoning, fifteen years after the expulsion of
+the Tarquins (B.C. 494), that the plebeians were roused to take the
+first step in the assertion of their rights. After the battle of Lake
+Regillus, the plebeians had reason to expect some relaxation of the law
+of debt, in consideration of the great services they had rendered in the
+war. But none was granted. The patrician creditors began to avail
+themselves of the severity of the law against their plebeian debtors.
+The discontent that followed was great, and the consuls prepared to meet
+the storm. These were Appius Claudius, the proud Sabine nobleman who had
+lately become a Roman, and who now led the high patrician party with all
+the unbending energy of a chieftain whose will had never been disputed
+by his obedient clansmen; and P. Servilius, who represented the milder
+and more liberal party of the Fathers.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that an aged man rushed into the Forum on a market-day,
+loaded with chains, clothed with a few scanty rags, his hair and beard
+long and squalid; his whole appearance ghastly, as of one oppressed by
+long want of food and air. He was recognized as a brave soldier, the old
+comrade of many who thronged the Forum. He told his story, how that in
+the late wars the enemy had burned his house and plundered his little
+farm; that to replace his losses he had borrowed money of a patrician,
+that his cruel creditor (in default of payment) had thrown him into
+prison,<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> and tormented him with chains and scourges. At this sad
+tale, the passions of the people rose high.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351"></a>Appius was obliged to conceal himself, while Servilius undertook to
+plead the cause of the plebeians with the senate.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime news came to the city that the Roman territory was invaded by
+the Volscian foe. The consuls proclaimed a levy; but the stout yeomen,
+one and all, refused to give in their names and take the military oath.
+Servilius now came forward and proclaimed by edict that no citizen
+should be imprisoned for debt so long as the war lasted, and that at the
+close of the war he would propose an alteration of the law. The
+plebeians trusted him, and the enemy was driven back. But when the
+popular consul returned with his victorious soldiers, he was denied a
+triumph, and the senate, led by Appius, refused to make any concession
+in favor of the debtors.</p>
+
+<p>The anger of the plebeians rose higher and higher, when again news came
+that the enemy was ravaging the lands of Rome. The senate, well knowing
+that the power of the consuls would avail nothing, since Appius was
+regarded as a tyrant, and Servilius would not choose again to become an
+instrument for deceiving the people, appointed a dictator to lead the
+citizens into the field. But to make the act as popular as might be,
+they named M. Valerius, a descendant of the great Poplicola. The same
+scene was repeated over again. Valerius protected the plebeians against
+their creditors while they were at war, and promised them relief when
+war was over. But when the danger was gone by, Appius again prevailed;
+the senate refused to listen to Valerius, and the dictator laid down his
+office, calling gods and men to witness that he was not responsible for
+his breach of faith.</p>
+
+<p>The plebeians whom Valerius had led forth were still under arms, still
+bound by their military oath, and Appius, with the violent patricians,
+refused to disband them. The army, therefore, having lost Valerius,
+their proper general chose two of themselves, L. Junius Brutus and L.
+Sicinius Bellutus by name, and under their command they marched
+northward and occupied the hill which commands the junction of the Tiber
+and the Anio. Here, at a distance of about two miles from Rome, they
+determined to settle and form a new city, leaving Rome to the patricians
+and their clients. But the latter were not willing to lose the best of
+their soldiery, the cultivators of <a name="Page_352" id="Page_352"></a>the greater part of the Roman
+territory, and they sent repeated embassies to persuade the seceders to
+return. They, however, turned a deaf ear to all promises, for they had
+too often been deceived. Appius now urged the senate and patricians to
+leave the plebeians to themselves. The nobles and their clients, he
+said, could well maintain themselves in the city without such base aid.</p>
+
+<p>But wiser sentiments prevailed. T. Lartius, and M. Valerius, both of whom
+had been dictators, with Menenius Agrippa, an old patrician of popular
+character, were empowered to treat with the people. Still their leaders
+were unwilling to listen, till old Menenius addressed them in the famous
+fable of the "Belly and the Members":</p>
+
+<p>"In times of old," said he, "when every member of the body could think
+for itself, and each had a separate will of its own, they all, with one
+consent, resolved to revolt against the belly. They knew no reason, they
+said, why they should toil from morning till night in its service, while
+the belly lay at its ease in the midst of all, and indolently grew fat
+upon their labors. Accordingly they agreed to support it no more. The
+feet vowed they would carry it no longer; the hands that they would do
+no more work; the teeth that they would not chew a morsel of meat, even
+were it placed between them. Thus resolved, the members for a time
+showed their spirit and kept their resolution; but soon they found that
+instead of mortifying the belly they only undid themselves: they
+languished for a while, and perceived too late that it was owing to the
+belly that they had strength to work and courage to mutiny."</p>
+
+<p>The moral of this fable was plain. The people readily applied it to the
+patricians and themselves, and their leaders proposed terms of agreement
+to the patrician messengers. They required that the debtors who could
+not pay should have their debts cancelled, and that those who had been
+given up into slavery should be restored to freedom. This for the past.
+And as a security for the future, they demanded that two of themselves
+should be appointed for the sole purpose of protecting the plebeians
+against the patrician magistrates, if they acted cruelly or unjustly
+toward the debtors. The two officers thus to be appointed were called
+"Tribunes of the Plebs." Their per<a name="Page_353" id="Page_353"></a>sons were to be sacred and inviolable
+during their year of office, whence their office is called <i>sacrosancta
+Potestas</i>. They were never to leave the city during that time, and their
+houses were to be open day and night, that all who needed their aid
+might demand it without delay.</p>
+
+<p>This concession, apparently great, was much modified by the fact that
+the patricians insisted on the election of the tribunes being made at
+the Comitia of the Centuries, in which they themselves and their wealthy
+clients could usually command a majority. In later times, the number of
+the tribunes was increased to five, and afterward to ten. They were
+elected at the Comitia of the tribes. They had the privilege of
+attending all sittings of the senate, though they were not considered
+members of that famous body. Above all, they acquired the great and
+perilous power of the veto, by which any one of their number might stop
+any law, or annul any decree of the senate without cause or reason
+assigned. This right of veto was called the "Right of Intercession."</p>
+
+<p>On the spot where this treaty was made, an altar was built to Jupiter,
+the causer and banisher of fear, for the plebeians had gone thither in
+fear and returned from it in safety. The place was called Mons Sacer, or
+the Sacred Hill, forever after, and the laws by which the sanctity of
+the tribunitian office was secured were called the <i>Leges Sacrat&aelig;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The tribunes were not properly magistrates or officers, for they had no
+express functions or official duties to discharge. They were simply
+representatives and protectors of the plebs. At the same time, however,
+with the institution of these protective officers, the plebeians were
+allowed the right of having two &aelig;diles chosen from their own body, whose
+business it was to preserve order and decency in the streets, to provide
+for the repair of all buildings and roads there, with other functions
+partly belonging to police officers, and partly to commissioners of
+public works.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> A well-known German historian calls the Spartans by the
+name of "stunted Romans." There is much resemblance to be traced.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Such prisons were called <i>ergastula</i>, and afterward became
+the places for keeping slaves in.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_BATTLE_OF_MARATHON" id="THE_BATTLE_OF_MARATHON"></a>THE BATTLE OF MARATHON</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 490</h3>
+
+<h3><i>SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Marathon! A name to conjure up such visions of glory as few
+battlefields have ever shown. Heroism and determination on the part
+of the Athenians, supported by the small but ever noble band of
+Plat&aelig;ans who came to their aid; who can read the repulse of the
+Persians on this ever memorable plain without experiencing a thrill
+of admiration and delight at the achievement? The whole world since
+that battle has looked upon it as a victory of the under dog. Many
+of the great engagements of modern times have been likened unto it.
+For long it has been the synonym of brave despair; the conquering
+of an enemy many times superior in numbers to its opponent.</p>
+
+<p>This attempt of the Persians on the Greeks was not the first
+against them, That took place B.C. 493 under Mardonius. This
+commander had reduced Ionia, dethroned the despots, and established
+democracy throughout the land. After this he turned his attention
+to Eretria and Athens, taking his army across the straits in
+vessels. But the ships of war and transports were wrecked by a
+mighty headwind as they rounded Mount Athos. Many were driven
+ashore, about three hundred of them were totally lost, and some
+twenty thousand men perished in the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>All the trouble between the Persians and Greeks arose over the
+capture of Sardis by the Ionians, B.C. 500. The city was burned,
+and then the Ionians retreated. It was to avenge this that Persia
+determined on a punitive expedition against the Greeks. The Ionians
+and Milesian men were mostly slain by the Persians, the women and
+children led into captivity, and the temples in the cities burned
+and razed to the ground.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p>
+
+<p>In the battle of Marathon, which succeeded these events, we have a
+vivid picture presented to us in Creasy's glowing words:</p></div>
+
+<p>Two thousand three hundred and forty years ago a council of Athenian
+officers was summoned on the slope of one of the mountains that look
+over the plain of Marathon, on the eastern coast of Attica. The
+immediate subject of their meet<a name="Page_355" id="Page_355"></a>ing was to consider whether they should
+give battle to an enemy that lay encamped on the shore beneath them; but
+on the result of their deliberations depended, not merely the fate of
+two armies, but the whole future progress of human civilization</p>
+
+<p>There were eleven members of that council of war. Ten were the generals
+who were then annually elected at Athens, one for each of the local
+tribes into which the Athenians were divided. Each general led the men
+of his own tribe, and each was invested with equal military authority.
+But one of the archons was also associated with them in the general
+command of the army. This magistrate was termed the "Polemarch" or
+War-ruler, He had the privilege of leading the right wing of the army in
+battle, and his vote in a council of war was equal to that of any of the
+generals. A noble Athenian named Callimachus was the war-ruler of this
+year, and, as such, stood listening to the earnest discussion of the ten
+generals. They had, indeed, deep matter for anxiety, though little aware
+how momentous to mankind were the votes they were about to give, or how
+the generations to come would read with interest the record of their
+discussions. They saw before them the invading forces of a mighty
+empire, which had in the last fifty years shattered and enslaved nearly
+all the kingdoms and principal cities of the then known world. They knew
+that all the resources of their own country were comprised in the little
+army intrusted to their guidance. They saw before them a chosen host of
+the great king, sent to wreak his special wrath on that country and on
+the other insolent little Greek community which had dared to aid his
+rebels and burn the capital of one of his provinces. That victorious
+host had already fulfilled half its mission of vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>Eretria, the confederate of Athens in the bold march against Sardis nine
+years before, had fallen in the last few days; and the Athenian generals
+could discern from the heights the island of &AElig;gilia, in which the
+Persians had deposited their Eretrian prisoners, whom they had reserved
+to be led away captives into Upper Asia, there to hear their doom from
+the lips of King Darius himself. Moreover, the men of Athens knew that
+in the camp before them was their own banished tyrant, who was <a name="Page_356" id="Page_356"></a>seeking
+to be reinstated by foreign cimeters in despotic sway over any remnant
+of his countrymen that might survive the sack of their town, and might
+be left behind as too worthless for leading away into Median bondage.</p>
+
+<p>The numerical disparity between the force which the Athenian commanders
+had under them, and that which they were called on to encounter, was
+hopelessly apparent to some of the council. The historians who wrote
+nearest to the time of the battle do not pretend to give any detailed
+statements of the numbers engaged, but there are sufficient data for our
+making a general estimate. Every free Greek was trained to military
+duty; and, from the incessant border wars between the different states,
+few Greeks reached the age of manhood without having seen some service.
+But the muster-roll of free Athenian citizens of an age fit for military
+duty never exceeded thirty thousand, and at this, epoch probably did not
+amount to two-thirds of that number. Moreover, the poorer portion of
+these were unprovided with the equipments, and untrained to the
+operations of the regular infantry. Some detachments of the best-armed
+troops would be required to garrison the city itself and man the various
+fortified posts in the territory, so that it is impossible to reckon the
+fully equipped force that marched from Athens to Marathon, when the news
+of the Persian landing arrived, at higher than ten thousand men.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p>
+
+<p>With one exception, the other Greeks held back from aiding them. Sparta
+had promised assistance, but the Persians had landed on the sixth day of
+the moon, and a religious scruple delayed the march of Spartan troops
+till the moon should have reached its full. From one quarter only, and
+that from a most unexpected one, did Athens receive aid at the moment of
+her great peril.</p>
+
+<p>Some years before this time the little state of Plat&aelig;a in Boeotia, being
+hard pressed by her powerful neighbor, Thebes, had asked the protection
+of Athens, and had owed to an Athe <a name="Page_357" id="Page_357"></a>man army the rescue of her
+independence. Now when it was noised over Greece that the Mede had come
+from the uttermost parts of the earth to destroy Athens, the brave
+Plat&aelig;ans, unsolicited, marched with their whole force to assist the
+defence, and to share the fortunes of their benefactors.</p>
+
+<p>The general levy of the Plat&aelig;ans amounted only to a thousand men; and
+this little column, marching from their city along the southern ridge of
+Mount Cith&aelig;ron, and thence across the Attic territory, joined the
+Athenian forces above Marathon almost immediately before the battle. The
+re&euml;nforcement was numerically small, but the gallant spirit of the men
+who composed it must have made it of tenfold value to the Athenians, and
+its presence must have gone far to dispel the cheerless feeling of being
+deserted and friendless, which the delay of the Spartan succors was
+calculated to create among the Athenian ranks.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p>This generous daring of their weak but true-hearted ally was never
+forgotten at Athens. The Plat&aelig;ans were made the civil fellow-countrymen
+of the Athenians, except the right of exercising certain political
+functions; and from that time forth in the solemn sacrifices at Athens,
+the public prayers were offered up for a joint blessing from Heaven upon
+the Athenians, and the Plat&aelig;ans also.</p>
+
+<p>After the junction of the column from Plat&aelig;a, the Athenian commanders
+must have had under them about eleven thousand fully armed and
+disciplined infantry, and probably a large number of irregular
+light-armed troops; as, besides the poorer citizens who went to the
+field armed with javelins, cutlasses, and targets, each regular
+heavy-armed soldier was attended in the <a name="Page_358" id="Page_358"></a>camp by one or more slaves, who
+were armed like the inferior freemen. Cavalry or archers the Athenians
+(on this occasion) had none, and the use in the field of military
+engines was not at that period introduced into ancient warfare.</p>
+
+<p>Contrasted with their own scanty forces, the Greek commanders saw
+stretched before them, along the shores of the winding bay, the tents
+and shipping of the varied nations who marched to do the bidding of the
+king of the Eastern world. The difficulty of finding transports and of
+securing provisions would form the only limit to the numbers of a
+Persian army. Nor is there any reason to suppose the estimate of Justin
+exaggerated, who rates at a hundred thousand the force which on this
+occasion had sailed, under the satraps Datis and Artaphernes, from the
+Cilician shores against the devoted coasts of Euboea and Attica. And
+after largely deducting from this total, so as to allow for mere
+mariners and camp followers, there must still have remained fearful odds
+against the national levies of the Athenians.</p>
+
+<p>Nor could Greek generals then feel that confidence in the superior
+quality of their troops, which ever since the battle of Marathon has
+animated Europeans in conflicts with Asiatics, as, for instance, in the
+after struggles between Greece and Persia, or when the Roman legions
+encountered the myriads of Mithradates and Tigranes, or as is the case
+in the Indian campaigns of our own regiments. On the contrary, up to the
+day of Marathon the Medes and Persians were reputed invincible. They had
+more than once met Greek troops in Asia Minor, in Cyprus, in Egypt, and
+had invariably beaten them.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can be stronger than the expressions used by the early Greek
+writers respecting the terror which the name of the Medes inspired, and
+the prostration of men's spirits before the apparently resistless career
+of the Persian arms. It is, therefore, little to be wondered at that
+five of the ten Athenian generals shrank from the prospect of fighting a
+pitched battle against an enemy so superior in numbers and so formidable
+in military renown. Their own position on the heights was strong and
+offered great advantages to a small defending force against assailing
+masses. They deemed it mere foolhardiness to descend into the plain to
+be trampled down by the Asiatic horse, <a name="Page_359" id="Page_359"></a>overwhelmed with the archery, or
+cut to pieces by the invincible veterans of Cambyses and Cyrus.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Sparta, the great war state of Greece, had been applied to,
+and had promised succor to Athens, though the religious observance which
+the Dorians paid to certain times and seasons had for the present
+delayed their march. Was it not wise, at any rate, to wait till the
+Spartans came up, and to have the help of the best troops in Greece,
+before they exposed themselves to the shock of the dreaded Medes?</p>
+
+<p>Specious as these reasons might appear, the other five generals were for
+speedier and bolder operations. And, fortunately for Athens and for the
+world, one of them was a man, not only of the highest military genius,
+but also of that energetic character which impresses its own type and
+ideas upon spirits feebler in conception.</p>
+
+<p>Miltiades was the head of one of the noblest houses at Athens. He ranked
+the &AElig;acid&aelig; among his ancestry, and the blood of Achilles flowed in the
+veins of the hero of Marathon. One of his immediate ancestors had
+acquired the dominion of the Thracian Chersonese, and thus the family
+became at the same time Athenian citizens and Thracian princes. This
+occurred at the time when Pisistratus was tyrant of Athens. Two of the
+relatives of Miltiades&mdash;an uncle of the same name, and a brother named
+Stesagoras&mdash;had ruled the Chersonese before Miltiades became its prince.
+He had been brought up at Athens in the house of his father, Cimon,<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a>
+who was renowned throughout Greece for his victories in the Olympic
+chariot-races, and who must have been possessed of great wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The sons of Pisistratus, who succeeded their father in the tyranny at
+Athens, caused Cimon to be assassinated; but they treated the young
+Miltiades with favor and kindness and when his brother Stesagoras died
+in the Chersonese, they sent him out there as lord of the principality.
+This was about twenty-eight years before the battle of Marathon, and it
+is with his arrival in the Chersonese that our first knowledge of the
+career and character of Miltiades commences. We find, in the first act
+recorded of him, the proof of the same resolute and unscrupulous spirit
+that marked his mature age. His brother's <a name="Page_360" id="Page_360"></a>authority in the principality
+had been shaken by war and revolt: Miltiades determined to rule more
+securely. On his arrival he kept close within his house, as if he was
+mourning for his brother. The principal men of the Chersonese, hearing
+of this, assembled from all the towns and districts, and went together
+to the house of Miltiades, on a visit of condolence. As soon as he had
+thus got them in his power, he made them all prisoners. He then asserted
+and maintained his own absolute authority in the peninsula, taking into
+his pay a body of five hundred regular troops, and strengthening his
+interest by marrying the daughter of the king of the neighboring
+Thracians.</p>
+
+<p>When the Persian power was extended to the Hellespont and its
+neighborhood, Miltiades, as prince of the Chersonese, submitted to King
+Darius; and he was one of the numerous tributary rulers who led their
+contingents of men to serve in the Persian army, in the expedition
+against Scythia. Miltiades and the vassal Greeks of Asia Minor were left
+by the Persian king in charge of the bridge across the Danube, when the
+invading army crossed that river, and plunged into the wilds of the
+country that now is Russia, in vain pursuit of the ancestors of the
+modern Cossacks. On learning the reverses that Darius met with in the
+Scythian wilderness, Miltiades proposed to his companions that they
+should break the bridge down and leave the Persian king and his army to
+perish by famine and the Scythian arrows. The rulers of the Asiatic
+Greek cities, whom Miltiades addressed, shrank from this bold but
+ruthless stroke against the Persian power, and Darius returned in
+safety.</p>
+
+<p>But it was known what advice Miltiades had given, and the vengeance of
+Darius was thenceforth specially directed against the man who had
+counselled such a deadly blow against his empire and his person. The
+occupation of the Persian arms in other quarters left Miltiades for some
+years after this in possession of the Chersonese; but it was precarious
+and interrupted. He, however, availed himself of the opportunity which
+his position gave him of conciliating the good-will of his
+fellow-countrymen at Athens, by conquering and placing under the
+Athenian authority the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, to <a name="Page_361" id="Page_361"></a>which Athens
+had ancient claims, but which she had never previously been able to
+bring into complete subjection.</p>
+
+<p>At length, in B.C. 494, the complete suppression of the Ionian revolt by
+the Persians left their armies and fleets at liberty to act against the
+enemies of the Great King to the west of the Hellespont. A strong
+squadron of Phoenician galleys was sent against the Chersonese.
+Miltiades knew that resistance was hopeless, and while the Phoenicians
+were at Tenedos, he loaded five galleys with all the treasure that he
+could collect, and sailed away for Athens. The Phoenicians fell in with
+him, and chased him hard along the north of the &AElig;gean. One of his
+galleys, on board of which was his eldest son Metiochus, was actually
+captured. But Miltiades, with the other four, succeeded in reaching the
+friendly coast of Imbros in safety. Thence he afterward proceeded to
+Athens, and resumed his station as a free citizen of the Athenian
+commonwealth.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenians, at this time, had recently expelled Hippias the son of
+Pisistratus, the last of their tyrants. They were in the full glow of
+their newly recovered liberty and equality; and the constitutional
+changes of Clisthenes had inflamed their republican zeal to the utmost.
+Miltiades had enemies at Athens; and these, availing themselves of the
+state of popular feeling, brought him to trial for his life for having
+been tyrant of the Chersonese. The charge did not necessarily import any
+acts of cruelty or wrong to individuals: it was founded on no specific
+law; but it was based on the horror with which the Greeks of that age
+regarded every man who made himself arbitrary master of his fellow-men,
+and exercised irresponsible dominion over them.</p>
+
+<p>The fact of Miltiades having so ruled in the Chersonese was undeniable;
+but the question which the Athenians assembled in judgment must have
+tried, was whether Miltiades, although tyrant of the Chersonese,
+deserved punishment as an Athenian citizen. The eminent service that he
+had done the state in conquering Lemnos and Imbros for it, pleaded
+strongly in his favor. The people refused to convict him. He stood high
+in public opinion. And when the coming invasion of the Persians was
+known, the people wisely elected him one of their generals for the year.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362"></a>Two other men of high eminence in history, though their renown was
+achieved at a later period than that of Miltiades, were also among the
+ten Athenian generals at Marathon. One was Themistocles, the future
+founder of the Athenian navy, and the destined victor of Salamis. The
+other was Aristides, who afterward led the Athenian troops at Plat&aelig;a,
+and whose integrity and just popularity acquired for his country, when
+the Persians had finally been repulsed, the advantageous pre&euml;minence of
+being acknowledged by half of the Greeks as their imperial leader and
+protector. It is not recorded what part either Themistocles or Aristides
+took in the debate of the council of war at Marathon. But, from the
+character of Themistocles, his boldness, and his intuitive genius for
+extemporizing the best measures in every emergency&mdash;a quality which the
+greatest of historians ascribes to him beyond all his contemporaries&mdash;we
+may well believe that the vote of Themistocles was for prompt and
+decisive action. On the vote of Aristides it may be more difficult to
+speculate. His predilection for the Spartans may have made him wish to
+wait till they came up; but, though circumspect, he was neither timid as
+a soldier nor as a politician, and the bold advice of Miltiades may
+probably have found in Aristides a willing, most assuredly it found in
+him a candid, hearer.</p>
+
+<p>Miltiades felt no hesitation, as to the course which the Athenian army
+ought to pursue; and earnestly did he press his opinion on his brother
+generals. Practically acquainted with the organization of the Persian
+armies, Miltiades felt convinced of the superiority of the Greek troops,
+if properly handled; he saw with the military eye of a great general the
+advantage which the position of the forces gave him for a sudden attack,
+and as a profound politician he felt the perils of remaining inactive,
+and of giving treachery time to ruin the Athenian cause.</p>
+
+<p>One officer in the council of war had not yet voted. This was
+Callimachus, the War-ruler. The votes of the generals were five and
+five, so that the voice of Callimachus would be decisive.</p>
+
+<p>On that vote, in all human probability, the destiny of all the nations
+of the world depended. Miltiades turned to him, and in simple soldierly
+eloquence&mdash;the substance of which we <a name="Page_363" id="Page_363"></a>may read faithfully reported in
+Herodotus, who had conversed with the veterans of Marathon&mdash;the great
+Athenian thus adjured his countrymen to vote for giving battle:</p>
+
+<p>"It now rests with you, Callimachus, either to enslave Athens, or, by
+assuring her freedom, to win yourself an immortality of fame, such as
+not even Harmodius and Aristogiton have acquired; for never, since the
+Athenians were a people, were they in such danger as they are in at this
+moment. If they bow the knee to these Medes, they are to be given up to
+Hippias, and you know what they then will have to suffer. But if Athens
+comes victorious out of this contest, she has it in her to become the
+first city of Greece. Your vote is to decide whether we are to join
+battle or not. If we do not bring on a battle presently, some factious
+intrigue will disunite the Athenians, and the city will be betrayed to
+the Medes. But if we fight, before there is anything rotten in the state
+of Athens, I believe that, provided the gods will give fair play and no
+favor, we are able to get the best of it in an engagement."</p>
+
+<p>The vote of the brave War-ruler was gained, the council determined to
+give battle; and such was the ascendancy and acknowledged military
+eminence of Miltiades, that his brother generals one and all gave up
+their days of command to him, and cheerfully acted under his orders.
+Fearful, however, of creating any jealousy, and of so failing to obtain
+the vigorous co&ouml;peration of all parts of his small army, Miltiades
+waited till the day when the chief command would have come round to him
+in regular rotation before he led the troops against the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The inaction of the Asiatic commanders during this interval appears
+strange at first sight; but Hippias was with them, and they and he were
+aware of their chance of a bloodless conquest through the machinations
+of his partisans among the Athenians. The nature of the ground also
+explains in many points the tactics of the opposite generals before the
+battle, as well as the operations of the troops during the engagement.</p>
+
+<p>The plain of Marathon, which is about twenty-two miles distant from
+Athens, lies along the bay of the same name on the north-eastern coast of
+Attica. The plain is nearly in the form of a crescent, and about six
+miles in length. It is about <a name="Page_364" id="Page_364"></a>two miles broad in the centre, where the
+space between the mountains and the sea is greatest, but it narrows
+toward either extremity, the mountains coming close clown to the water
+at the horns of the bay. There is a valley trending inward from the
+middle of the plain, and a ravine comes down to it to the southward.
+Elsewhere it is closely girt round on the land side by rugged limestone
+mountains, which are thickly studded with pines, olive-trees and cedars,
+and overgrown with the myrtle, arbutus, and the other low odoriferous
+shrubs that everywhere perfume the Attic air.</p>
+
+<p>The level of the ground is now varied by the mound raised over those who
+fell in the battle, but it was an unbroken plain when the Persians
+encamped on it. There are marshes at each end, which are dry in spring
+and summer and then offer no obstruction to the horseman, but are
+commonly flooded with rain and so rendered impracticable for cavalry in
+the autumn, the time of year at which the action took place.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks, lying encamped on the mountains, could watch every movement
+of the Persians on the plain below, while they were enabled completely
+to mask their own. Miltiades also had, from, his position, the power of
+giving battle whenever he pleased, or of delaying it at his discretion,
+unless Datis were to attempt the perilous operation of storming the
+heights.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn to the map of the Old World, to test the comparative
+territorial resources of the two states whose armies were now about to
+come into conflict, the immense preponderance of the material power of
+the Persian king over that of the Athenian republic is more striking
+than any similar contrast which history can supply. It has been truly
+remarked that, in estimating mere areas Attica, containing on its whole
+surface only seven hundred square miles, shrinks into insignificance if
+compared with many a baronial fief of the Middle Ages, or many a
+colonial allotment of modern times. Its antagonist, the Persian, empire,
+comprised the whole of modern Asiatic and much of modern European
+Turkey, the modern kingdom of Persia and the countries of modern
+Georgia, Armenia, Balkh, the Punjaub, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, Egypt
+and Tripoli.</p>
+
+<p>Nor could a European, in the beginning of the fifth century before our
+era, look upon this huge accumulation of power be<a name="Page_365" id="Page_365"></a>neath the sceptre of a
+single Asiatic ruler with the indifference with which we now observe on
+the map the extensive dominions of modern Oriental sovereigns; for, as
+has been already remarked, before Marathon was fought, the prestige of
+success and of supposed superiority of race was on the side of the
+Asiatic against the European. Asia was the original seat of human
+societies, and long before any trace can be found of the inhabitants of
+the rest of the world having emerged from the rudest barbarism, we can
+perceive that mighty and brilliant empires flourished in the Asiatic
+continent. They appear before us through the twilight of primeval
+history, dim and indistinct, but massive and majestic, like mountains in
+the early dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, however, of the infinite variety and restless change which has
+characterized the institutions and fortunes of European states ever
+since the commencement of the civilization of our continent, a
+monotonous uniformity pervades the histories of nearly all Oriental
+empires, from the most ancient down to the most recent times. They are
+characterized by the rapidity of their early conquests, by the immense
+extent of the dominions comprised in them, by the establishment of a
+satrap or pashaw system of governing the provinces, by an invariable and
+speedy degeneracy in the princes of the royal house, the effeminate
+nurslings of the seraglio succeeding to the warrior sovereigns reared in
+the camp, and by the internal anarchy and insurrections which indicate
+and accelerate the decline and fall of these unwieldy and ill-organized
+fabrics of power.</p>
+
+<p>It is also a striking fact that the governments of all the great Asiatic
+empires have in all ages been absolute despotisms. And Heeren is right
+in connecting this with another great fact, which is important from its
+influence both on the political and the social life of Asiatics. "Among
+all the considerable nations of Inner Asia, the paternal government of
+every household was corrupted by polygamy: where that custom exists, a
+good political constitution is impossible. Fathers, being converted into
+domestic despots, are ready to pay the same abject obedience to their
+sovereign which they exact from their family and dependents in their
+domestic economy."</p>
+
+<p>We should bear in mind, also, the inseparable connection <a name="Page_366" id="Page_366"></a>between the
+state religion and all legislation which has always prevailed in the
+East, and the constant existence of a powerful sacerdotal body,
+exercising some check, though precarious and irregular, over the throne
+itself, grasping at all civil administration, claiming the supreme
+control of education, stereotyping the lines in which literature and
+science must move, and limiting the extent to which it shall be lawful
+for the human mind to prosecute its inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>With these general characteristics rightly felt and understood it
+becomes a comparatively easy task to investigate and appreciate the
+origin, progress and principles of Oriental empires in general, as well
+as of the Persian monarchy in particular. And we are thus better enabled
+to appreciate the repulse which Greece gave to the arms of the East, and
+to judge of the probable consequences to human civilization, if the
+Persians had succeeded in bringing Europe under their yoke, as they had
+already subjugated the fairest portions of the rest of the then known
+world.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks, from their geographical position, formed the natural
+van-guard of European liberty against Persian ambition; and they
+pre&euml;minently displayed the salient points of distinctive national
+character which have rendered European civilization so far superior to
+Asiatic. The nations that dwelt in ancient times around and near the
+northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea were the first in our continent
+to receive from the East the rudiments of art and literature, and the
+germs of social and political organizations. Of these nations the
+Greeks, through their vicinity to Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt, were
+among the very foremost in acquiring the principles and habits of
+civilized life; and they also at once imparted a new and wholly original
+stamp on all which they received. Thus, in their religion, they received
+from foreign settlers the names of all their deities and many of their
+rites, but they discarded the loathsome monstrosities of the Nile, the
+Orontes, and the Ganges; they nationalized their creed, and their own
+poets created their beautiful mythology. No sacerdotal caste ever
+existed in Greece.</p>
+
+<p>So, in their governments, they lived long under hereditary kings, but
+never endured the permanent establishment of abso<a name="Page_367" id="Page_367"></a>lute monarchy. Their
+early kings were constitutional rulers, governing with defined
+prerogatives. And long before the Persian invasion, the kingly form of
+government had given way in almost all the Greek states to republican
+institutions, presenting infinite varieties of the blending or the
+alternate predominance of the oligarchical and democratical principles.
+In literature and science the Greek intellect followed no beaten track,
+and acknowledged no limitary rules. The Greeks thought their subjects
+boldly out; and the novelty of a speculation invested it in their minds
+with interest, and not with criminality.</p>
+
+<p>Versatile, restless, enterprising, and self-confident, the Greeks
+presented the most striking contrast to the habitual quietude and
+submissiveness of the Orientals; and, of all the Greeks, the Athenians
+exhibited these national characteristics in the strongest degree. This
+spirit of activity and daring, joined to a generous sympathy for the
+fate of their fellow-Greeks in Asia, had led them to join in the last
+Ionian war, and now mingling with their abhorrence of the usurping
+family of their own citizens, which for a period had forcibly seized on
+and exercised despotic power at Athens, nerved them to defy the wrath of
+King Darius, and to refuse to receive back at his bidding the tyrant
+whom they had some years before driven out.</p>
+
+<p>The enterprise and genius of an Englishman have lately confirmed by
+fresh evidence, and invested with fresh interest, the might of the
+Persian monarch who sent his troops to combat at Marathon. Inscriptions
+in a character termed the Arrow-headed, or Cuneiform, had long been
+known to exist on the marble monuments at Persepolis, near the site of
+the ancient Susa, and on the faces of rocks in other places formerly
+ruled over by the early Persian kings. But for thousands of years they
+had been mere unintelligible enigmas to the curious but baffled
+beholder; and they were often referred to as instances of the folly of
+human pride, which could indeed write its own praises in the solid rock,
+but only for the rock to outlive the language as well as the memory of
+the vainglorious inscribers.</p>
+
+<p>The elder Niebuhr, Grotefend, and Lassen, had made some guesses at the
+meaning of the cuneiform letters; but Major Rawlinson of the East India
+Company's service, after years of <a name="Page_368" id="Page_368"></a>labor, has at last accomplished the
+glorious achievement of fully revealing the alphabet and the grammar of
+this long unknown tongue. He has, in particular, fully deciphered and
+expounded the inscription on the sacred rock of Behistun, on the western
+frontiers of Media. These records of the Ach&aelig;menid&aelig; have at length found
+their interpreter; and Darius himself speaks to us from the consecrated
+mountain, and tells us the names of the nations that obeyed him, the
+revolts that he suppressed, his victories, his piety, and his glory.</p>
+
+<p>Kings who thus seek the admiration of posterity are little likely to dim
+the record of their successes by the mention of their occasional
+defeats; and it throws no suspicion on the narrative of the Greek
+historians that we find these inscriptions silent respecting the
+overthrow of Datis and Artaphernes, as well as respecting the reverses
+which Darius sustained in person during his Scythian campaigns. But
+these indisputable monuments of Persian fame confirm, and even increase
+the opinion with which Herodotus inspires us of the vast power which
+Cyrus founded and Cambyses increased; which Darius augmented by Indian
+and Arabian conquests, and seemed likely, when he directed his arms
+against Europe, to make the predominant monarchy of the world.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of the Chinese empire, in which, throughout all ages
+down to the last few years, one-third of the human race has dwelt almost
+unconnected with the other portions, all the great kingdoms, which we
+know to have existed in ancient Asia, were, in Darius' time, blended
+into the Persian. The northern Indians, the Assyrians, the Syrians, the
+Babylonians, the Chaldees, the Phoenicians, the nations of Palestine,
+the Armenians, the Bactrians, the Lydians, the Phrygians, the Parthians,
+and the Medes, all obeyed the sceptre of the Great King: the Medes
+standing next to the native Persians in honor, and the empire being
+frequently spoken of as that of the Medes, or as that of the Medes and
+Persians. Egypt and Cyrene were Persian provinces; the Greek colonists
+in Asia Minor and the islands of the &AElig;gean were Darius' subjects; and
+their gallant but unsuccessful attempts to throw off the Persian yoke
+had only served to rivet it more strongly, and to increase the general
+belief that the Greeks could not stand <a name="Page_369" id="Page_369"></a>before the Persians in a field
+of battle. Darius' Scythian war, though unsuccessful in its immediate
+object, had brought about the subjugation of Thrace and the submission
+of Macedonia. From the Indus to the Peneus, all was his.</p>
+
+<p>We may imagine the wrath with which the lord of so many nations must
+have heard, nine years before the battle of Marathon, that a strange
+nation toward the setting sun, called the Athenians, had dared to help
+his rebels in Ionia against him, and that they had plundered and burned
+the capital of one of his provinces. Before the burning of Sardis,
+Darius seems never to have heard of the existence of Athens; but his
+satraps in Asia Minor had for some time seen Athenian refugees at their
+provincial courts imploring assistance against their fellow-countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>When Hippias was driven away from Athens, and the tyrannic dynasty of
+the Pisistratid&aelig; finally overthrown in B.C. 510, the banished tyrant and
+his adherents, after vainly seeking to be restored by Spartan
+intervention, had betaken themselves to Sardis, the capital city of the
+satrapy of Artaphernes. There Hippias&mdash;in the expressive words of
+Herodotus&mdash;began every kind of agitation, slandering the Athenians
+before Artaphernes, and doing all he could to induce the satrap to place
+Athens in subjection to him, as the tributary vassal of King Darius.
+When the Athenians heard of his practices, they sent envoys to Sardis to
+remonstrate with the Persians against taking up the quarrel of the
+Athenian refugees.</p>
+
+<p>But Artaphernes gave them in reply a menacing command to receive Hippias
+back again if they looked for safety. The Athenians were resolved not to
+purchase safety at such a price, and after rejecting the satrap's terms,
+they considered that they and the Persians were declared enemies. At
+this very crisis the Ionian Greeks implored the assistance of their
+European brethren, to enable them to recover their independence from
+Persia. Athens, and the city of Eretria in Euboea, alone consented.
+Twenty Athenian galleys, and five Eretrian, crossed the &AElig;gean Sea, and
+by a bold and sudden march upon Sardis, the Athenians and their allies
+succeeded in capturing the capital city of the haughty satrap who had
+recently menaced them with servitude or destruction. They were pursued,
+and de<a name="Page_370" id="Page_370"></a>feated on their return to the coast, and Athens took no further
+part in the Ionian war; but the insult that she had put upon the Persian
+power was speedily made known throughout that empire, and was never to
+be forgiven or forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>In the emphatic simplicity of the narrative of Herodotus, the wrath of
+the Great King is thus described: "Now when it was told to King Darius
+that Sardis had been taken and burned by the Athenians and Ionians, he
+took small heed of the Ionians, well knowing who they were, and that
+their revolt would soon be put down; but he asked who, and what manner
+of men, the Athenians were. And when he had been told, he called for his
+bow; and, having taken it, and placed an arrow on the string, he let the
+arrow fly toward heaven; and as he shot it into the air, he said, 'Oh!
+supreme God, grant me that I may avenge myself on the Athenians,' And
+when he had said this, he appointed one of his servants to say to him
+every day as he sat at meat, 'Sire, remember the Athenians.'"</p>
+
+<p>Some years were occupied in the complete reduction of Ionia. But when
+this was effected, Darius ordered his victorious forces to proceed to
+punish Athens and Eretria, and to conquer European Greece, The first
+armament sent for this purpose was shattered by shipwreck, and nearly
+destroyed off Mount Athos. But the purpose of King Darius was not easily
+shaken, A larger army was ordered to be collected in Cilicia, and
+requisitions were sent to all the maritime cities of the Persian empire
+for ships of war, and for transports of sufficient size for carrying
+cavalry as well as infantry across the &AElig;gean. While these preparations
+were being made, Darius sent heralds round to the Grecian cities
+demanding their submission to Persia. It was proclaimed in the
+market-place of each little Hellenic state&mdash;some with territories not
+larger than the Isle of Wight&mdash;that King Darius, the lord of all men,
+from the rising to the setting sun,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> required earth and water to be
+delivered to his heralds, as a symbolical acknowledgment that he was
+head and master of the country. Terror-stricken at the power of Persia
+and at the severe punishment that had recently been inflicted on the
+refractory Ionians, many of the continental Greeks and nearly all the
+islanders submitted, and <a name="Page_371" id="Page_371"></a>gave the required tokens of vassalage. At
+Sparta and Athens an indignant refusal was returned&mdash;a refusal which was
+disgraced by outrage and violence against the persons of the Asiatic
+heralds.</p>
+
+<p>Fresh fuel was thus added to the anger of Darius against Athens, and the
+Persian preparations went on with renewed vigor. In the summer of B.C.
+490, the army destined for the invasion was assembled in the Aleian
+plain of Cilicia, near the sea. A fleet of six hundred galleys and
+numerous transports was collected on the coast for the embarkation of
+troops, horse as well as foot. A Median general named Datis, and
+Artaphernes, the son of the satrap of Sardis, and who was also nephew of
+Darius, were placed in titular joint-command of the expedition. The real
+supreme authority was probably given to Datis alone, from the way in
+which the Greek writers speak of him.</p>
+
+<p>We know no details of the previous career of this officer; but there is
+every reason to believe that his abilities and bravery had been proved
+by experience, or his Median birth would have prevented his being placed
+in high command by Darius. He appears to have been the first Mede who
+was thus trusted by the Persian kings after the overthrow of the
+conspiracy of the Median magi against the Persians immediately before
+Darius obtained the throne. Datis received instructions to complete the
+subjugation of Greece, and especial orders were given him with regard to
+Eretria and Athens. He was to take these two cities, and he was to lead
+the inhabitants away captive, and bring them as slaves into the presence
+of the Great King.</p>
+
+<p>Datis embarked his forces in the fleet that awaited them, and coasting
+along the shores of Asia Minor till he was off Samos, he thence sailed
+due westward through the &AElig;gean Sea for Greece, taking the islands in his
+way. The Naxians had, ten years before, successfully stood a siege
+against a Persian armament, but they now were too terrified to offer any
+resistance, and fled to the mountain tops, while the enemy burned their
+town and laid waste their lands. Thence Datis, compelling the Greek
+islanders to join him with their ships and men, sailed onward to the
+coast of Eub&oelig;a. The little <a name="Page_372" id="Page_372"></a>town of Carystus essayed resistance, but
+was quickly overpowered.</p>
+
+<p>He next attacked Eretria. The Athenians sent four thousand men to its
+aid; but treachery was at work among the Eretrians; and the Athenian
+force received timely warning from one of the leading men of the city to
+retire to aid in saving their own country, instead of remaining to share
+in the inevitable destruction of Eretria. Left to themselves, the
+Eretrians repulsed the assaults of the Persians against their walls for
+six days; on the seventh they were betrayed by two of their chiefs, and
+the Persians occupied the city. The temples were burned in revenge for
+the firing of Sardis, and the inhabitants were bound, and placed as
+prisoners in the neighboring islet of &AElig;gilia, to wait there till Datis
+should bring the Athenians to join them in captivity, when both
+populations were to be led into Upper Asia, there to learn their doom
+from the lips of King Darius himself.</p>
+
+<p>Flushed with success, and with half his mission thus accomplished, Datis
+re&euml;mbarked his troops, and, crossing the little channel that separates
+Eub&oelig;a from the mainland, he encamped his troops on the Attic coast at
+Marathon, drawing up his galleys on the shelving beach, as was the
+custom with the navies of antiquity. The conquered islands behind him
+served as places of deposit for his provisions and military stores. His
+position at Marathon seemed to him in every respect advantageous, and
+the level nature of the ground on which he camped was favorable for the
+employment of his cavalry, if the Athenians should venture to engage
+him. Hippias, who accompanied him, and acted as the guide of the
+invaders, had pointed out Marathon as the best place for a landing, for
+this very reason. Probably Hippias was also influenced by the
+recollection that forty-seven years previously, he, with his father
+Pisistratus, had crossed with an army from Eretria to Marathon, and had
+won an easy victory over their Athenian enemies on that very plain,
+which had restored them to tyrannic power. The omen seemed cheering. The
+place was the same, but Hippias soon learned to his cost how great a
+change had come over the spirit of the Athenians.</p>
+
+<p>But though "the fierce democracy" of Athens was zealous <a name="Page_373" id="Page_373"></a>and true
+against foreign invader and domestic tyrant, a faction existed in
+Athens, as at Eretria, who were willing to purchase a party triumph over
+their fellow-citizens at the price of their country's ruin.
+Communications were opened between these men and the Persian camp, which
+would have led to a catastrophe like that of Eretria, if Miltiades had
+not resolved and persuaded his colleagues to resolve on fighting at all
+hazards.</p>
+
+<p>When Miltiades arrayed his men for action, he staked on the arbitrament
+of one battle not only the fate of Athens, but that of all Greece; for
+if Athens had fallen, no other Greek state, except Laced&aelig;mon, would have
+had the courage to resist; and the Laced&aelig;monians, though they would
+probably have died in their ranks to the last man, never could have
+successfully resisted the victorious Persians and the numerous Greek
+troops which would have soon marched under the Persian satraps, had they
+prevailed over Athens.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was there any power to the westward of Greece that could have
+offered an effectual opposition to Persia, had she once conquered
+Greece, and made that country a basis for future military operations.
+Rome was at this time in her season of utmost weakness. Her dynasty of
+powerful Etruscan kings had been driven out; and her infant commonwealth
+was reeling under the attacks of the Etruscans and Volscians from
+without, and the fierce dissensions between the patricians and plebeians
+within. Etruria, with her <i>lucumos</i> and serfs, was no match for Persia.
+Samnium had not grown into the might which she afterward put forth; nor
+could the Greek colonies in South Italy and Sicily hope to conquer when
+their parent states had perished. Carthage had escaped the Persian yoke
+in the time of Cambyses, through the reluctance of the Phoenician
+mariners to serve against their kinsmen.</p>
+
+<p>But such forbearance could not long have been relied on, and the future
+rival of Rome would have become as submissive a minister of the Persian
+power as were the Phoenician cities themselves. If we turn to Spain; or
+if we pass the great mountain chain, which, prolonged through the
+Pyrenees, the Cevennes, the Alps, and the Balkan, divides Northern from
+Southern Europe, we shall find nothing at that period but mere savage
+Finns, Celts, Slavs, and Teutons. Had Persia <a name="Page_374" id="Page_374"></a>beaten Athens at Marathon,
+she could have found no obstacle to prevent Darius, the chosen servant
+of Ormuzd, from advancing his sway over all the known Western races of
+mankind. The infant energies of Europe would have been trodden out
+beneath universal conquest, and the history of the world, like the
+history of Asia, have become a mere record of the rise and fall of
+despotic dynasties, of the incursions of barbarous hordes, and of the
+mental and political prostration of millions beneath the diadem, the
+tiara, and the sword.</p>
+
+<p>Great as the preponderance of the Persian over the Athenian power at
+that crisis seems to have been, it would be unjust to impute wild
+rashness to the policy of Miltiades and those who voted with him in the
+Athenian council of war, or to look on the after-current of events as
+the mere fortunate result of successful folly. As before has been
+remarked, Miltiades, while prince of the Chersonese, had seen service in
+the Persian armies; and he knew by personal observation how many
+elements of weakness lurked beneath their imposing aspect of strength.
+He knew that the bulk of their troops no longer consisted of the hardy
+shepherds and mountaineers from Persia proper and Kurdistan, who won
+Cyrus's battles; but that unwilling contingents from conquered nations
+now filled up the Persian muster-rolls, fighting more from compulsion
+than from any zeal in the cause of their masters. He had also the
+sagacity and the spirit to appreciate the superiority of the Greek armor
+and organization over the Asiatic, notwithstanding former reverses.
+Above all, he felt and worthily trusted the enthusiasm of those whom he
+led.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenians whom he led had proved by their newborn valor in recent
+wars against the neighboring states that "liberty and equality of civic
+rights are brave spirit-stirring things, and they, who, while under the
+yoke of a despot, had been no better men of war than any of their
+neighbors, as soon as they were free, became the foremost men of all;
+for each felt that in fighting for a free commonwealth, he fought for
+himself, and whatever he took in hand, he was zealous to do the work
+thoroughly," So the nearly contemporaneous historian describes the
+change of spirit that was seen in the Athenians after their tyrants were
+expelled; and Miltiades knew <a name="Page_375" id="Page_375"></a>that in leading them against the invading
+army, where they had Hippias, the foe they most hated, before them, he
+was bringing into battle no ordinary men, and could calculate on no
+ordinary heroism.</p>
+
+<p>As for traitors, he was sure that, whatever treachery might lurk among
+some of the higher born and wealthier Athenians, the rank and file whom
+he commanded were ready to do their utmost in his and their own cause.
+With regard to future attacks from Asia, he might reasonably hope that
+one victory would inspirit all Greece to combine against the common foe;
+and that the latent seeds of revolt and disunion in the Persian empire
+would soon burst forth and paralyze its energies, so as to leave Greek
+independence secure.</p>
+
+<p>With these hopes and risks, Miltiades, on the afternoon of a September
+day, B.C. 490, gave the word for the Athenian army to prepare for
+battle. There were many local associations connected with those mountain
+heights which were calculated powerfully to excite the spirits of the
+men, and of which the commanders well knew how to avail themselves in
+their exhortations to their troops before the encounter. Marathon itself
+was a region sacred to Hercules. Close to them was the fountain of
+Macaria, who had in days of yore devoted herself to death for the
+liberty of her people. The very plain on which they were to fight was
+the scene of the exploits of their national hero, Theseus; and there,
+too, as old legends told, the Athenians and the Heraclid&aelig; had routed the
+invader, Eurystheus.</p>
+
+<p>These traditions were not mere cloudy myths or idle fictions, but
+matters of implicit earnest faith to the men of that day, and many a
+fervent prayer arose from the Athenian ranks to the heroic spirits who,
+while on earth, had striven and suffered on that very spot, and who were
+believed to be now heavenly powers, looking down with interest on their
+still beloved country, and capable of interposing with superhuman aid in
+its behalf.</p>
+
+<p>According to old national custom, the warriors of each tribe were
+arrayed together; neighbor thus fighting by the side of neighbor, friend
+by friend, and the spirit of emulation and the consciousness of
+responsibility excited to the very utmost. <a name="Page_376" id="Page_376"></a>The War-ruler, Callimachus,
+had the leading of the right wing; the Plat&aelig;ans formed the extreme left;
+and Themistocles and Aristides commanded the centre. The line consisted
+of the heavy-armed spearmen only; for the Greeks&mdash;until the time of
+Iphicrates&mdash;took little or no account of light-armed soldiers in a
+pitched battle, using them only in skirmishes, or for the pursuit of a
+defeated enemy. The panoply of the regular infantry consisted of a long
+spear, of a shield, helmet, breastplate, greaves, and short sword.</p>
+
+<p>Thus equipped, they usually advanced slowly and steadily into action in
+a uniform phalanx of about eight spears deep. But the military genius of
+Miltiades led him to deviate on this occasion from the commonplace
+tactics of his countrymen. It was essential for him to extend his line
+so as to cover all the practicable ground, and to secure himself from
+being outflanked and charged in the rear by the Persian horse. This
+extension involved the weakening of his line. Instead of a uniform
+reduction of its strength, he determined on detaching principally from
+his centre, which, from the nature of the ground, would have the best
+opportunities for rallying, if broken; and on strengthening his wings so
+as to insure advantage at those points; and he trusted to his own skill
+and to his soldiers' discipline for the improvement of that advantage
+into decisive victory.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p>
+
+<p>In this order, and availing himself probably of the inequalities of the
+ground, so as to conceal his preparations from the enemy till the last
+possible moment, Miltiades drew up the eleven thousand infantry whose
+spears were to decide this crisis in the struggle between the European
+and the Asiatic worlds. The sacrifices by which the favor of heaven was
+sought, and its will consulted, were announced to show propitious omens.
+The trumpet sounded for action, and, chanting the hymn of <a name="Page_377" id="Page_377"></a>battle, the
+little army bore down upon the host of the foe. Then, too, along the
+mountain slopes of Marathon must have resounded the mutual exhortation
+which &AElig;schylus, who fought in both battles, tells us was afterward heard
+over the waves of Salamis: "On, sons of the Greeks! Strike for the
+freedom of your country! strike for the freedom of your children and of
+your wives&mdash;for the shrines of your fathers' gods, and for the
+sepulchres of your sires. All&mdash;all are now staked upon the strife."</p>
+
+<p>Instead of advancing at the usual slow pace of the phalanx, Miltiades
+brought his men on at a run. They were all trained in the exercise of
+the <i>pal&aelig;stra</i>, so that there was no fear of their ending the charge in
+breathless exhaustion; and it was of the deepest importance for him to
+traverse as rapidly as possible the mile or so of level ground that lay
+between the mountain foot and the Persian outposts, and so to get his
+troops into close action before the Asiatic cavalry could mount, form,
+and manoeuvre against him, or their archers keep him long under fire,
+and before the enemy's generals could fairly deploy their masses.</p>
+
+<p>"When the Persians," says Herodotus, "saw the Athenians running down on
+them, without horse or bowmen, and scanty in numbers, they thought them
+a set of madmen rushing upon certain destruction." They began, however,
+to prepare to receive them, and the Eastern chiefs arrayed, as quickly
+as time and place allowed, the varied races who served in their motley
+ranks. Mountaineers from Hyrcania and Afghanistan, wild horsemen from
+the steppes of Khorassan, the black archers of Ethiopia, swordsmen from
+the banks of the Indus, the Oxus, the Euphrates and the Nile, made ready
+against the enemies of the Great King.</p>
+
+<p>But no national cause inspired them except the division of native
+Persians; and in the large host there was no uniformity of language,
+creed, race or military system. Still, among them there were many
+gallant men, under a veteran general; they were familiarized with
+victory, and in contemptuous confidence their infantry, which alone had
+time to form, awaited the Athenian charge. On came the Greeks, with one
+unwavering line of leveled spears, against which the light targets, <a name="Page_378" id="Page_378"></a>the
+short lances and cimeters of the Orientals offered weak defence. The
+front rank of the Asiatics must have gone down to a man at the first
+shock. Still they recoiled not, but strove by individual gallantry and
+by the weight of numbers to make up for the disadvantages of weapons and
+tactics, and to bear back the shallow line of the Europeans. In the
+centre, where the native Persians and the Sac&aelig; fought, they succeeded in
+breaking through the weakened part of the Athenian phalanx; and the
+tribes led by Aristides and Themistocles were, after a brave resistance,
+driven back over the plain, and chased by the Persians up the valley
+toward the inner country. There the nature of the ground gave the
+opportunity of rallying and renewing the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the Greek wings, where Miltiades had concentrated his chief
+strength, had routed the Asiatics opposed to them; and the Athenian and
+Plat&aelig;an officers, instead of pursuing the fugitives, kept their troops
+well in hand, and, wheeling round, they formed the two wings together.
+Miltiades instantly led them against the Persian centre, which had
+hitherto been triumphant, but which now fell back, and prepared to
+encounter these new and unexpected assailants. Aristides and
+Themistocles renewed the fight with their reorganized troops, and the
+full force of the Greeks was brought into close action with the Persian
+and Sacean divisions of the enemy. Datis' veterans strove hard to keep
+their ground, and evening was approaching before the stern encounter was
+decided.</p>
+
+<p>But the Persians, with their slight wicker shields, destitute of body
+armor, and never taught by training to keep the even front and act with
+the regular movement of the Greek infantry, fought at heavy disadvantage
+with their shorter and feebler weapons against the compact array of
+well-armed Athenian and Plat&aelig;an spearmen, all perfectly drilled to
+perform each necessary evolution in concert, and to preserve a uniform
+and unwavering line in battle. In personal courage and in bodily
+activity the Persians were not inferior to their adversaries. Their
+spirits were not yet cowed by the recollection of former defeats; and
+they lavished their lives freely, rather than forfeit the fame which
+they had won by so many victories. While their rear ranks poured an
+incessant shower of <a name="Page_379" id="Page_379"></a>arrows over the heads of their comrades, the
+foremost Persians kept rushing forward, sometimes singly, sometimes in
+desperate groups of ten or twelve, upon the projecting spears of the
+Greeks, striving to force a lane into the phalanx, and to bring their
+cimeters and daggers into play. But the Greeks felt their superiority,
+and though the fatigue of the long-continued action told heavily on
+their inferior numbers, the sight of the carnage that they dealt upon
+their assailants nerved them to fight still more fiercely on.</p>
+
+<p>At last the previously unvanquished lords of Asia turned their backs and
+fled, and the Greeks followed, striking them down, to the water's
+edge,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> where the invaders were now hastily launching their galleys,
+and seeking to embark and fly. Flushed with success, the Athenians
+attacked and strove to fire the fleet. But here the Asiatics resisted
+desperately, and the principal loss sustained by the Greeks was in the
+assault on the ships. Here fell the brave War-ruler Callimachus, the
+general Stesilaus, and other Athenians of note. Seven galleys were
+fired; but the Persians succeeded in saving the rest. They pushed off
+from the fatal shore; but even here the skill of Datis did not desert
+him, and he sailed round to the western coast of Attica, in hopes to
+find the city unprotected, and to gain possession of it from some of the
+partisans of Hippias.</p>
+
+<p>Miltiades, however, saw and counteracted his manoeuvre. Leaving
+Aristides, and the troops of his tribe, to guard the spoil and the
+slain, the Athenian commander led his conquering army by a rapid
+night-march back across the country to Athens. And when the Persian
+fleet had doubled the Cape of Sunium and sailed up to the Athenian
+harbor in the morning, Datis saw arrayed on the heights above the city
+the troops before whom his men had fled on the preceding evening. All
+hope of further conquest in Europe for the time was abandoned, and the
+baffled armada returned to the Asiatic coasts.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380"></a>After the battle had been fought, but while the dead bodies were yet on
+the ground, the promised re&euml;nforcement from Sparta arrived. Two thousand
+Laced&aelig;monian spearmen, starting immediately after the full moon, had
+marched the hundred and fifty miles between Athens and Sparta in the
+wonderfully short time of three days. Though too late to share in the
+glory of the action, they requested to be allowed to march to the
+battle-field to behold the Medes. They proceeded thither, gazed on the
+dead bodies of the invaders, and then praising the Athenians and what
+they had done, they returned to Laced&aelig;mon.</p>
+
+<p>The number of the Persian dead was sixty-four hundred; of the Athenians,
+one hundred and ninety-two. The number of the Plat&aelig;ans who fell is not
+mentioned; but, as they fought in the part of the army which was not
+broken, it cannot have been large.</p>
+
+<p>The apparent disproportion between the losses of the two armies is not
+surprising when we remember the armor of the Greek spearmen, and the
+impossibility of heavy slaughter being inflicted by sword or lance on
+troops so armed, as long as they kept firm in their ranks.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>
+
+<p>The Athenian slain were buried on the field of battle. This was contrary
+to the usual custom, according to which the bones of all who fell
+fighting for their country in each year were deposited in a public
+sepulchre in the suburb of Athens called the "Ceramicus." But it was
+felt that a distinction ought to be made in the funeral honors paid to
+the men of Marathon, even as their merit had been distinguished over
+that of all other Athenians. A lofty mound was raised on the plain of
+Marathon, beneath which the remains of the men of Athens who fell in the
+battle were deposited. Ten columns were erected on the spot, one for
+each of the Athenian tribes; and on the monumental column of each tribe
+were graven the names of those of its members whose glory it was to have
+fallen in the great battle of liberation. The antiquarian Pausanias read
+those names there six hundred years after the <a name="Page_381" id="Page_381"></a>time when they were first
+graven.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> The columns have long perished, but the mound still marks
+the spot where the noblest heroes of antiquity repose.</p>
+
+<p>A separate tumulus was raised over the bodies of the slain Plat&aelig;ans, and
+another over the light-armed slaves who had taken part and had fallen in
+the battle.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> There was also a separate funeral monument to the
+general to whose genius the victory was mainly due. Miltiades did not
+live long after his achievement at Marathon, but he lived long enough to
+experience a lamentable reverse of his popularity and success. As soon
+as the Persians had quitted the western coasts of the &AElig;gean, he proposed
+to an assembly of the Athenian people that they should fit out seventy
+galleys, with a proportionate force of soldiers and military stores, and
+place it at his disposal; not telling them whither he meant to lead it,
+but promising them that if they would equip the force he asked for, and
+give him discretionary powers, he would lead it to a land where there
+was gold in abundance to be won with ease.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks of that time believed in the existence of eastern realms
+teeming with gold, as firmly as the Europeans of the sixteenth century
+believed in El Dorado of the West. The Athenians probably thought that
+the recent victor of Marathon, and former officer of Darius, was about
+to lead them on a secret expedition against some wealthy and unprotected
+cities of treasure in the Persian dominions. The armament was voted and
+equipped, and sailed eastward from Attica, no one but Miltiades knowing
+its destination until the Greek isle of paros was reached, when his true
+object appeared. In former years, while connected with the Persians as
+prince of the Chersonese, Miltiades had been involved in a quarrel with
+<a name="Page_382" id="Page_382"></a>one of the leading men among the Parians, who had injured his credit
+and caused some slights to be put upon him at the court of the Persian
+satrap Hydarnes. The feud had ever since rankled in the heart of the
+Athenian chief, and he now attacked Paros for the sake of avenging
+himself on his ancient enemy.</p>
+
+<p>His pretext, as general of the Athenians, was, that the Parians had
+aided the armament, of Datis with a war-galley. The Parians pretended to
+treat about terms of surrender, but used the time which they thus gained
+in repairing the defective parts of the fortifications of their city,
+and they then set the Athenians at defiance. So far, says Herodotus, the
+accounts of all the Greeks agree. But the Parians in after years told
+also a wild legend, how a captive priestess of a Parian temple of the
+Deities of the Earth promised Miltiades to give him the means of
+capturing Paros; how, at her bidding, the Athenian general went alone at
+night and forced his way into a holy shrine, near the city gate, but
+with what purpose it was not known; how a supernatural awe came over
+him, and in his flight he fell and fractured his leg; how an oracle
+afterward forbade the Parians to punish the sacrilegious and traitorous
+priestess, "because it was fated that Miltiades should come to an ill
+end, and she was only the instrument to lead, him to evil." Such was the
+tale that Herodotus heard at Paros. Certain it was that Miltiades either
+dislocated or broke his leg during an unsuccessful siege of the city,
+and returned home in evil plight with his baffled and defeated forces.</p>
+
+<p>The indignation of the Athenians was proportionate to the hope and
+excitement which his promises had raised. Xanthippas, the head of one of
+the first families in Athens, indicted him before the supreme popular
+tribunal for the capital offence of having deceived the people. His
+guilt was undeniable, and the Athenians passed their verdict
+accordingly. But the recollections of Lemnos and Marathon, and the sight
+of the fallen general, who lay stretched on a couch before them, pleaded
+successfully in mitigation of punishment, and the sentence was commuted
+from death to a fine of fifty talents. This was paid by his son, the
+afterward illustrious Cimon, Miltiades dying, soon after the trial, of
+the injury which he had received at Paros.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383"></a>The melancholy end of Miltiades, after his elevation to such a height
+of power and glory, must often have been recalled to the minds of the
+ancient Greeks by the sight of one in particular of the memorials of the
+great battle which he won. This was the remarkable statue&mdash;minutely
+described by Pausanias&mdash;which the Athenians, in the time of Pericles,
+caused to be hewn out of a huge block of marble, which, it was believed,
+had been provided by Datis, to form a trophy of the anticipated victory
+of the Persians. Phidias fashioned out of this a colossal image of the
+goddess Nemesis, the deity whose peculiar function was to visit the
+exuberant prosperity both of nations and individuals with sudden and
+awful reverses. This statue was placed in a temple of the goddess at
+Rhamnus, about eight miles from Marathon. Athens itself contained
+numerous memorials of her primary great victory. Panenus, the cousin of
+Phidias, represented it in fresco on the walls of the painted porch;
+and, centuries afterward, the figures of Miltiades and Callimachus at
+the head of the Athenians were conspicuous in the fresco. The tutelary
+deities were exhibited taking part in the fray. In the background were
+seen the Phoenician galleys, and, nearer to the spectator, the Athenians
+and the Plat&aelig;ans&mdash;distinguished by their leather helmets&mdash;were chasing
+routed Asiatics into the marshes and the sea. The battle was sculptured
+also on the Temple of Victory in the Acropolis, and even now there may
+be traced on the frieze the figures of the Persian combatants with their
+lunar shields, their bows and quivers, their curved cimeters, their
+loose trousers, and Phrygian tiaras.</p>
+
+<p>These and other memorials of Marathon were the produce of the meridian
+age of Athenian intellectual splendor, of the age of Phidias and
+Pericles; for it was not merely by the generation whom the battle
+liberated from Hippias and the Medes that the transcendent importance of
+their victory was gratefully recognized. Through the whole epoch of her
+prosperity, through the long Olympiads of her decay, through centuries
+after her fall, Athens looked back on the day of Marathon as the
+brightest of her national existence.</p>
+
+<p>By a natural blending of patriotic pride with grateful piety, the very
+spirits of the Athenians who fell at Marathon were <a name="Page_384" id="Page_384"></a>deified by their
+countrymen. The inhabitants of the district of Marathon paid religious
+rites to them, and orators solemnly invoked them in their most
+impassioned adjurations before the assembled men of Athens. "Nothing was
+omitted that could keep alive the remembrance of a deed which had first
+taught the Athenian people to know its own strength, by measuring it
+with the power which had subdued the greater part of the known world.
+The consciousness thus awakened fixed its character, its station, and
+its destiny; it was the spring of its later great actions and ambitious
+enterprises."</p>
+
+<p>It was not indeed by one defeat, however signal, that the pride of
+Persia could be broken, and her dreams of universal empire dispelled.
+Ten years afterward she renewed her attempts upon Europe on a grander
+scale of enterprise, and was repulsed by Greece with greater and
+reiterated loss. Larger forces and heavier slaughter than had been seen
+at Marathon signalized the conflicts of Greeks and Persians at
+Artemisium, Salamis, Plat&aelig;a, and the Eurymedon. But, mighty and
+momentous as these battles were, they rank not with Marathon in
+importance. They originated no new impulse. They turned back no current
+of fate. They were merely confirmatory of the already existing bias
+which Marathon had created. The day of Marathon is the critical epoch in
+the history of the two nations. It broke forever the spell of Persian
+invincibility, which had previously paralyzed men's minds. It generated
+among the Greeks the spirit which beat back Xerxes, and afterward led on
+Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alexander, in terrible retaliation through
+their Asiatic campaigns. It secured for mankind the intellectual
+treasures of Athens, the growth of free institutions, the liberal
+enlightenment of the Western world, and the gradual ascendency for many
+ages of the great principles of European civilization.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>EXPLANATORY REMARKS ON SOME OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BATTLE OF
+MARATHON</b></p>
+
+<p>Nothing is said by Herodotus of the Persian cavalry taking any part in
+the battle, although he mentions that Hippias recommended the Persians
+to land at Marathon, because the <a name="Page_385" id="Page_385"></a>plain was favorable for cavalry
+evolutions. In the life of Miltiades which is usually cited as the
+production of Cornelius Nepos, but which I believe to be of no authority
+whatever, it is said that Miltiades protected his flanks from the
+enemy's horse by an abatis of felled trees. While he was on the high
+ground he would not have required this defence, and it is not likely
+that the Persians would have allowed him to erect it on the plain.</p>
+
+<p>But, in truth, whatever amount of cavalry we suppose Datis to have had
+with him on the day of Marathon, their inaction in the battle is
+intelligible, if we believe the attack of the Athenian spearmen to have
+been as sudden as it was rapid. The Persian horse-soldier, on an alarm
+being given, had to take the shackles off his horse, to strap the saddle
+on, and bridle him, besides equipping himself (Xenophon), and when each
+individual horseman was ready, the line had to be formed; and the time
+that it takes to form the Oriental cavalry in line for a charge has, in
+all ages, been observed by Europeans.</p>
+
+<p>The wet state of the marshes at each end of the plain, in the time of
+year when the battle was fought, has been adverted to by Wordsworth,<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>
+and this would hinder the Persian general from arranging and employing
+his horsemen on his extreme wings, while it also enabled the Greeks, as
+they came forward, to occupy the whole breadth of the practicable ground
+with an unbroken line of leveled spears, against which, if any Persian
+horse advanced, they would be driven back in confusion upon their own
+foot.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> The year following the fall of the Ionic city of
+Miletus the poet Phrynichus made it the subject of a tragedy. On
+bringing it on the stage he was fined one thousand drachmae for
+having recalled to them their own misfortunes.&mdash;SMITH.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> The historians, who lived long after the time of the
+battle, such as Justin, Plutarch, and others, give ten thousand as the
+number of the Athenian army. Not much reliance could be placed on their
+authority if unsupported by other evidence; but a calculation made for
+the number of the Athenian free population remarkably confirms it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Mr. Grote observes that "this volunteer march of the whole
+Plat&aelig;an force to Marathon is one of the most affecting incidents of all
+Grecian history." In truth, the whole career of Plat&aelig;a, and the
+friendship, strong, even unto death, between her and Athens form one of
+the most affecting episodes in the history of antiquity. In the
+Peloponnesian war the Plat&aelig;ans again were true to the Athenians against
+all risks, and all calculation of self-interest: and the destruction of
+Plat&aelig;a was the consequence. There are few nobler passages in the
+classics than the speech in which the Plat&aelig;an prisoners of war, after
+the memorable siege of their city, justify before their Spartan
+executioners their loyal adherence to Athens.</p></div>
+
+<p>Even numerous and fully arrayed bodies of cavalry have been repeatedly
+broken, both in ancient and modern warfare, by resolute charges of
+infantry. For instance, it was by an attack of some picked cohorts that
+C&aelig;sar routed the Pompeian cavalry&mdash;which had previously defeated his
+own&mdash;and won the battle of Pharsalia.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Herodotus.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> &AElig;schines.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> It is remarkable that there is no other instance of a
+Greek general deviating from the ordinary mode of bringing a phalanx of
+spearmen into action until the battles of Leuctra and Mantinea, more
+than a century after Marathon, when Epaminondas introduced the tactics
+which Alexander the Great in ancient times, and Frederick the Great in
+modern times, made so famous, of concentrating an overpowering force to
+bear on some decisive point of the enemy's line, while he kept back, or,
+in military phrase, refused the weaker part of his own.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such was the scene.&mdash;Byron.<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Mitford well refers to Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt as
+instances of similar disparity of loss between the conquerors and the
+conquered.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Pausanias stales, with implicit belief, that the
+battle-field was haunted at night by supernatural beings, and that the
+noise of combatants and the snorting of horses were heard to resound on
+it. The superstition has survived the change of creeds, and the
+shepherds of the neighborhood still believe that spectral warriors
+contend on the plain at midnight, and they say that they have heard the
+shouts of the combatants and the neighing of the steeds.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> It is probable that the Greek light-armed irregulars were
+active in the attack on the Persian ships, and it was in this attack
+that the Greeks suffered their principal loss.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>Greece</i>.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="INVASION_OF_GREECE_BY_PERSIANS_UNDER_XERXES" id="INVASION_OF_GREECE_BY_PERSIANS_UNDER_XERXES"></a>INVASION OF GREECE BY PERSIANS UNDER XERXES</h2>
+
+<h2>DEFENCE OF THERMOPYL&AElig;</h2>
+
+<h3>B.C. 480</h3>
+
+<h3><i>HERODOTUS</i></h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The invasion of Greece by Xerxes is the subject of the great
+history written in nine books by Herodotus. His object is to show
+the pre&euml;minence of Greece, whose fleets and armies defeated the
+forces of the Persians after these latter had triumphed over the
+most powerful nations of the earth. Xerxes collected a vast army
+from all parts of the empire. The Phoenicians furnished him with an
+enormous fleet, and he made a bridge of a double line of boats
+across the Hellespont and cut a canal through the peninsula of
+Mount Athos. He reached Sardis in the autumn of B.C. 481, and the
+next year his army crossed the bridge of boats, taking seven days
+and seven nights for the transit. The number of his fighting men
+was over two millions and a half. His ships of war were twelve
+hundred and seven in number, and he had three thousand smaller
+vessels for carrying his land forces and supplies. At the narrow
+pass of Thermopyl&aelig;, in the northeast of Greece, this immense army
+was checked for a while by the heroic Leonidas and his three
+hundred Spartans, who, however, perished in their attempt to
+prevent the Persian's attack on Athens, which city was almost
+entirely destroyed by the invaders. The sea-fight of Salamis was
+won by the Greeks against enormous odds; and in the battle of
+Plat&aelig;a, B.C. 479, the defeat of the Persians by the Greek land
+forces was made more complete by the death of Mardonius, the most
+renowned general of Xerxes.</p></div>
+
+<p>The Greeks, when they arrived at the Isthmus, consulted on the message
+they had received from Alexander, in what way and in what places they
+should prosecute the war. The opinion which prevailed was that they
+should defend the pass at Thermopyl&aelig;; for it appeared to be narrower
+than that into Thessaly, and at the same time nearer to their own
+territories; for the path by which the Greeks who were taken at
+Thermopyl&aelig; were afterward surprised, they knew nothing of, <a name="Page_387" id="Page_387"></a>till, on
+their arrival at Thermopyl&aelig;, they were informed of it by the
+Trachinians. They accordingly resolved to guard this pass, and not
+suffer the barbarian to enter Greece; and that the naval force should
+sail to Artemisium, in the territory of Histi&aelig;otis, for these places are
+near one another, so that they could hear what happened to each other.
+These spots are thus situated.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, Artemisium is contracted from a wide space of the
+Thracian sea into a narrow frith, which lies between the island of
+Sciathus and the continent of Magnesia. From the narrow frith begins the
+coast of Euboea, called Artemisium, and in it is a temple of Diana. But
+the entrance into Greece through Trachis, in the narrowest part, is no
+more than a half <i>plethrum</i> in width: however, the narrowest part of the
+country is not in this spot, but before and behind Thermopyl&aelig;; for near
+Alpeni, which is behind, there is only a single carriage-road, and
+before, by the river Phoenix, near the city of Anthela, is another
+single carriage-road. On the western side of Thermopyl&aelig; is an
+inaccessible and precipitous mountain, stretching to Mount Oeta, and on
+the eastern side of the way is the sea and a morass. In this passage
+there are hot baths, which the inhabitants call "Chytri," and above
+these is an altar to Hercules. A wall had been built in this pass, and
+formerly there were gates in it. The Phocians built it through fear,
+when the Thessalians came from Thesprotia to settle in the &AElig;olian
+territory which they now possess: apprehending that the Thessalians
+would attempt to subdue them, the Phocians took this precaution; at the
+same time, they diverted the hot water into the entrance, that the place
+might be broken into clefts, having recourse to every contrivance to
+prevent the Thessalians from making inroads into their country. Now this
+old wall had been built a long time, and the greater part of it had
+already fallen through age; but they determined to rebuild it, and in
+that place to repel the barbarian from Greece. Very near this road there
+is a village called Alpeni; from this the Greeks expected to obtain
+provisions.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, these situations appeared suitable for the Greeks; for
+they, having weighed everything beforehand, and considered that the
+barbarians would neither be able to use <a name="Page_388" id="Page_388"></a>their numbers nor their
+cavalry, there resolved to await the invader of Greece. As soon as they
+were informed that the Persian was in Pieria, breaking up from the
+Isthmus some of them proceeded by land to Thermopyl&aelig;, and others by sea
+to Artemisium.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks, therefore, being appointed in two divisions, hastened to
+meet the enemy; but, at the same time, the Delphians, alarmed for
+themselves and for Greece, consulted the oracle, and the answer given
+them was, "that they should pray to the winds, for that they would be
+powerful allies to Greece."</p>
+
+<p>The Delphians, having received the oracle, first of all communicated the
+answer to those Greeks who were zealous to be free; and as they very
+much dreaded the barbarians, by giving that message they acquired a
+claim to everlasting gratitude. After that, the Delphians erected an
+altar to the winds at Thyia, where there is an inclosure consecrated to
+Thyia, daughter of Cephisus, from whom this district derives its name,
+and conciliated them with sacrifices; and the Delphians, in obedience to
+that oracle, to this day propitiate the winds.</p>
+
+<p>The naval force of Xerxes, setting out from the city of Therma, advanced
+with ten of the fastest sailing ships straight to Scyathus, where were
+three Grecian ships keeping a look-out: a Troezenian, an &AElig;ginetan, and
+an Athenian, These, seeing the ships of the barbarians at a distance,
+betook themselves to flight.</p>
+
+<p>The Troezenian ship, which Praxinus commanded, the barbarians pursued
+and soon captured; and then, having led the handsomest of the marines to
+the prow of the ship, they slew him, deeming it a good omen that the
+first Greek they had taken was also very handsome. The name of the man
+that was slain was Leon, and perhaps he in some measure reaped the
+fruits of his name.</p>
+
+<p>The &AElig;ginetan ship, which Asonides commanded, gave them some trouble;
+Pytheas, son of Ischenous, being a marine on board, a man who on this
+day displayed the most consummate valor; who, when the ship was taken,
+continued fighting until he was entirely cut to pieces. But when, having
+fallen (he was not dead, but still breathed), the Persians who served on
+board the ships were very anxious to save him alive, on <a name="Page_389" id="Page_389"></a>account of his
+valor, healing his wounds with myrrh, and binding them with bandages of
+flaxen cloth; and when they returned to their own camp, they showed him
+with admiration to the whole army, and treated him well; but the others,
+whom they took in this ship, they treated as slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, then, two of the ships were taken; but the other, which Phormus,
+an Athenian, commanded, in its flight ran ashore at the mouth of the
+Peneus, and the barbarians got possession of the ship, but not of the
+men; for as soon as the Athenians had run the ship aground, they leaped
+out, and, proceeding through Thessaly, reached Athens. The Greeks who
+were stationed at Artemisium were informed of this event by signal-fires
+from Sciathus; and being informed of it, and very much alarmed, they
+retired from Artemisium to Chalcis, intending to defend the Euripus, and
+leaving scouts on the heights of Euboea. Of the ten barbarian ships,
+three approached the sunken rock called Myrmex, between Sciathus and
+Magnesia. Then the barbarians, when they had erected on the rock a stone
+column, which they had brought with them, set out from Therma, now that
+every obstacle had been removed, and sailed forward with all their
+ships, having waited eleven days after the king's departure from Therma.
+Pammon, a Scyrian, pointed out to them this hidden rock, which was
+almost directly in their course. The barbarians, sailing all day,
+reached Sepias in Magnesia, and the shore that lies between the city of
+Casthan&aelig;a and the coast of Sepias.</p>
+
+<p>As far as this place and Thermopyl&aelig;, the army had suffered no loss, and
+the numbers were at that time, as I find by calculations, of the
+following amount: of those in ships from Asia, amounting to one thousand
+two hundred and seven, originally the whole number of the several
+nations was two hundred forty-one thousand four hundred men, allowing
+two hundred to each ship; and on these ships thirty Persians, Medes, and
+Sac&aelig; served as marines, in addition to the native crews of each; this
+farther number amounts to thirty-six thousand two hundred and ten. To
+this and the former number I add those that were on the
+<i>penteconters<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></i> supposing eighty men on the average to be on board of
+each. Three thousand <a name="Page_390" id="Page_390"></a>of these vessels were assembled; therefore the men
+on board them must have been two hundred and forty thousand. This, then,
+was the naval force from Asia, the total being five hundred and
+seventeen thousand six hundred and ten. Of infantry there were seventeen
+hundred thousand, and of cavalry eighty thousand; to these I add the
+Arabians who drove camels, and the Libyans who drove chariots, reckoning
+the number at twenty thousand men. Accordingly, the numbers on board the
+ships and on the land, added together, make up two millions three
+hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and ten. This, then, is the
+force which, as has been mentioned, was assembled from Asia itself,
+exclusive of the servants that followed, and the provision ships, and
+the men that were on board them.</p>
+
+<p>But the force brought from Europe must still be added to this whole
+number that has been summed up; but it is necessary to speak by guess.
+Now the Grecians from Thrace, and the islands contiguous to Thrace,
+furnished one hundred and twenty ships; these ships give an amount of
+twenty-four thousand men. Of land-forces, which were furnished by
+Thracians, P&aelig;onians, the Eordi, the Botti&aelig;ans, the Chalcidian race,
+Brygi, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrh&aelig;bi, &AElig;nianes, Dolopians, Magnesians,
+and Ach&aelig;ans, together with those who inhabit the maritime parts of
+Thrace&mdash;of these nations I suppose that there were three hundred
+thousand men, so that these <i>myriads</i>, added to those from Asia, make a
+total of two millions six hundred and forty one thousand six hundred and
+ten fighting men!</p>
+
+<p>I think that the servants who followed them, and with those on board the
+provision ships and other vessels that sailed with the fleet, were not
+fewer than the fighting men, but more numerous; but supposing them to be
+equal in number to the fighting men, they make up the former number of
+<i>myriads</i>.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Thus Xerxes, son of Darius, led five millions two hundred
+and eighty-three thousand two hundred and twenty men to Sepias and
+Thermopyl&aelig;!</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was the number of the whole force of Xerxes. But of women
+who made bread, and concubines, and eunuchs, <a name="Page_391" id="Page_391"></a>no one could mention the
+number with accuracy; nor of draught-cattle and other beasts of burden;
+nor of Indian dogs that followed could any one mention the number, they
+were so many; therefore I am not astonished that the streams of some
+rivers failed, but rather it is a wonder to me how provisions held out
+for so many <i>myriads</i>; for I find by calculation, if each man had a
+<i>choenix</i> of wheat daily, and no more, one hundred and ten thousand
+three hundred and forty <i>medimni</i> must have been consumed every day; and
+I have not reckoned the food for the women, eunuchs, beasts of burden,
+and dogs. But of these <i>myriads</i> of men, not one of them, for beauty and
+stature, was more entitled than Xerxes himself to possess the supreme
+command.</p>
+
+<p>When the fleet, having set out, sailed and reached the shore of Magnesia
+that lies between the city of Casthan&aelig;a and the coast of Sepias, the
+foremost of the ships took up their station close to land, others behind
+rode at anchor&mdash;the beach not being extensive enough&mdash;with their prows
+toward the sea, and eight deep. Thus they passed the night; but at
+daybreak, after serene and tranquil weather, the sea began to swell, and
+a heavy storm with a violent gale from the east&mdash;which those who inhabit
+these parts call a "Hellespontine"&mdash;burst upon them; as many of them
+then as perceived the gale increasing, and who were able to do so from
+their position, anticipated the storm by hauling their ships on shore,
+and both they and their ships escaped. But such of the ships as the
+storm caught at sea it carried away, some to the parts called Ipni, near
+Pelion, others to the beach; some were dashed on Cape Sepias itself;
+some were wrecked at Meliboea, and others at Casthan&aelig;a. The storm was
+indeed irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>The barbarians, when the wind had lulled and the waves had subsided,
+having hauled down their ships, sailed along the continent; and having
+doubled the promontory of Magnesia, stood directly into the bay leading
+to Pagas&aelig;. There is a spot in this bay of Magnesia where it is said
+Hercules was abandoned by Jason and his companions when he had been sent
+from the Argo for water, as they were sailing to Colchis, in Asia, for
+the golden fleece; and from there they purposed to put out to sea after
+they had taken in water. From this cir<a name="Page_392" id="Page_392"></a>cumstance, the name of "Aphet&aelig;"
+was given to the place. In this place, then, the fleet of Xerxes was
+moored.</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen of these ships happened to be driven out to sea some time after
+the rest, and somehow saw the ships of the Greeks at Artemisium. The
+barbarians thought that they were their own, and sailing on, fell among
+their enemies. They were commanded by Sandoces, son of Thaumasius,
+governor of Cyme, of &AElig;olia. He, being one of the royal judges, had been
+formerly condemned by King Darius (who had detected him in the following
+offence), to be crucified. Sandoces gave an unjust sentence, for a
+bribe; but while he was actually hanging on the cross, Darius,
+considering within himself, found that the services he had rendered to
+the royal family were greater than his faults. Darius, therefore, having
+discovered this, and perceiving that he, himself, had acted with more
+expedition than wisdom, released him. Having thus escaped being put to
+death by Darius, he survived; but now, sailing down among the Grecians,
+he was not to escape a second time; for when the Greeks saw them sailing
+toward them, perceiving the mistake they had committed, they bore down
+upon them and easily took them.</p>
+
+<p>King Xerxes encamped in the Trachinian territory of Malis, and the
+Greeks in the pass. This spot is called by most of the Greeks,
+"Thermopyl&aelig;," but by the inhabitants and neighbors, "Pyl&aelig;," Both
+parties, then, encamped in these places. The one was in possession of
+all the parts toward the north as far as Trachis, and the others, of the
+parts which stretch toward the south and meridian of this continent.</p>
+
+<p>The following were the Greeks who awaited the Persians in this position.
+Of Spartans, three hundred heavy-armed men; of Tegeans and Mantineans,
+one thousand (half of each); from Orchomenus in Arcadia, one hundred and
+twenty; and from the rest of Arcadia, one thousand (there were so many
+Arcadians); from Corinth, four hundred; from Phlius, two hundred men;
+and from Mycen&aelig;, eighty. These came from Peloponnesus. From Boeotia, of
+Thespians seven hundred; and of Thebans, four hundred.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to these, the Opuntian Locrians, being invited, came with
+all their forces, and a thousand Phocians; for the <a name="Page_393" id="Page_393"></a>Greeks themselves
+had invited them, representing by their embassadors that "they had
+arrived as forerunners of the others, and that the rest of the allies
+might be daily expected; that the sea was protected by them, being
+guarded by the Athenians, the &AElig;ginet&aelig;, and others, who were appointed to
+the naval service; and that they had nothing to fear, for that it was
+not a god who invaded Greece, but a man; and that there never was, and
+never would be, any mortal who had not evil mixed with <i>his prosperity</i>
+from his very birth, and to the greatest of them the greatest <i>reverses
+happen</i>; that it must therefore needs be that he who is marching against
+us, being a mortal, will be disappointed in his expectation." They,
+having heard this, marched with assistance to Trachis.</p>
+
+<p>These nations had separate generals for their several cities, but the
+one most admired, and who commanded the whole army, was a Laced&aelig;monian,
+Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, son of Eurycratides, son of
+Anaxander, son of Eurycates, son of Polydorus, son of Alcamenes, son of
+Teleclus, son of Archelaus, son of Agesilaus, son of Doryssus, son of
+Leobotes, son of Echestratus, son of Agis, son of Eurysthenes, son of
+Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of Cleod&aelig;us, son of Hyllus, son of
+Hercules, who had unexpectedly succeeded to the throne of Sparta.</p>
+
+<p>For, as he had two elder brothers, Cleomenes and Dorieus, he was far
+from any thought of the kingdom. However, Cleomenes having died without
+male issue, and Dorieus being no longer alive&mdash;having ended his days in
+Sicily&mdash;the kingdom thus devolved upon Leonidas; both because he was
+older than Cleombrotus&mdash;for he was the youngest son of Anaxandrides&mdash;and
+also because he had married the daughter of Cleomenes. He then marched
+to Thermopyl&aelig;, having chosen the three hundred men allowed by law, and
+such as had children. On his march he took with him the Thebans, whose
+numbers I have already reckoned, and whom Leontiades, son of Eurymachus,
+commanded. For this reason Leonidas was anxious to take with him the
+Thebans alone of all the Greeks, because they were strongly accused of
+favoring the Medes: he therefore summoned them to the war, wishing to
+know whether they would send their forces with him, or would openly
+<a name="Page_394" id="Page_394"></a>renounce the alliance of the Grecians; but they, though otherwise
+minded, sent assistance.</p>
+
+<p>The Spartans sent these troops first with Leonidas, in order that the
+rest of the allies, seeing them, might take the field, and might not go
+over to the Medes if they heard that they were delaying; but
+afterward&mdash;for the Carnean festival was then an obstacle to them&mdash;they
+purposed, when they had kept the feast, to leave a garrison in Sparta
+and to march immediately with their whole strength. The rest of the
+confederates likewise intended to act in the same manner; for the
+Olympic games occurred at the same period as these events. As they did
+not, therefore, suppose that the engagement at Thermopyl&aelig; would so soon
+be decided, they despatched an advance-guard.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks at Thermopyl&aelig;, when the Persians came near the pass, being
+alarmed, consulted about a retreat; accordingly, it seemed best to the
+other Peloponnesians to retire to Peloponnesus, and guard the Isthmus;
+but Leonidas, perceiving the Phocians and Locrians were very indignant
+at this proposition, determined to stay there, and to despatch
+messengers to the cities, desiring them to come to their assistance,
+they being too few to repel the army of the Medes.</p>
+
+<p>While they were deliberating on these matters, Xerxes sent a scout on
+horseback, to see how many they were and what they were doing; for while
+he was still in Thessaly, he had heard that a small army had been
+assembled at that spot, and as to their leaders, that they were
+Laced&aelig;monians, and Leonidas, who was of the race of Hercules. When the
+horseman rode up to the camp, he reconnoitred, and saw not indeed the
+whole camp, for it was not possible that they should be seen who were
+posted within the wall, which having rebuilt they were now guarding; but
+he had a clear view of those on the outside, whose arms were piled in
+front of the wall. At this time the Laced&aelig;monians happened to be posted
+outside; and some of the men he saw performing gymnastic exercises, and
+others combing their hair. On beholding this he was astonished, and
+ascertained their number, and having informed himself of everything
+accurately, he rode back at his leisure, for no one pursued him and he
+met with general con<a name="Page_395" id="Page_395"></a>tempt. On his return he gave an account to Xerxes
+of all that he had seen.</p>
+
+<p>When Xerxes heard this, he could not comprehend the truth that the
+Grecians were preparing to be slain and to slay to the utmost of their
+power; but, as they appeared to behave in a ridiculous manner, he sent
+for Demaratus, son of Ariston, who was then in the camp, and when he was
+come into his presence Xerxes questioned him as to each particular,
+wishing to understand what the Laced&aelig;monians were doing. Demaratus said:
+"You before heard me when we were setting out against Greece, speak of
+these men, and when you heard, you treated me with ridicule though I
+told you in what way I foresaw these matters would issue; for it is my
+chief aim, O king, to adhere to the truth in your presence; hear it,
+therefore, once more. These men have to fight with us for the pass and
+are now preparing themselves to do so; for such is their custom when
+they are going to hazard their lives, then they dress their heads; but
+be assured if you conquer these men and those that remain in Sparta,
+there is no other nation in the world that will dare to raise its hand
+against you, O king! for you are now to engage with the noblest kingdom
+and city of all among the Greeks and with the most valiant men." What
+was said seemed incredible to Xerxes and he asked again, "how, being so
+few in number, they could contend with his army." He answered: "O king,
+deal with me as with a liar if these things do not turn out as I say!"</p>
+
+<p>By saying this he did not convince Xerxes. He therefore let four days
+pass, constantly expecting that they would be taking themselves to
+flight; but on the fifth day, as they had not retreated, but appeared to
+him to stay through arrogance and rashness, he, being enraged, sent the
+Medes and Cissians against them, with orders to take them alive, and
+bring them into his presence. When the Medes bore down impetuously upon
+the Greeks, many of them fell; others followed to the charge, and were
+not repulsed, though they suffered greatly; but they made it evident to
+every one, and not least of all to the king himself, that they were
+indeed many men, but few soldiers. The engagement lasted through the
+day.</p>
+
+<p>When the Medes were roughly handled, they thereupon <a name="Page_396" id="Page_396"></a>retired, and the
+Persians whom the king called "Immortal," and whom Hydarnes commanded,
+taking their place advanced to the attack thinking that they indeed
+would easily settle the business. But when they engaged with the
+Grecians they succeeded no better than the Medic troops, but just the
+same; as they fought in a narrow space and used shorter spears than the
+Greeks, they were unable to avail themselves of their numbers. The
+Laced&aelig;monians fought memorably in other respects, showing that they knew
+how to fight with men who knew not, and whenever they turned their backs
+they retreated in close order, but the barbarians, seeing them retreat,
+followed with a shout and clamor; then they, being overtaken, wheeled
+round so as to front the barbarians, and having faced about, overthrew
+an inconceivable number of the Persians, and then some few of the
+Spartans themselves fell, so that when the Persians were unable to gain
+anything in their attempt on the pass by attacking in troops and in
+every possible manner, they retired.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that during these onsets of the battle, the king, who
+witnessed them, thrice sprang from his throne, being alarmed for his
+army. Thus they strove at that time. On the following day the barbarians
+fought with no better success; for considering that the Greeks were few
+in number, and expecting that they were covered with wounds and would
+not be able to raise their heads against them any more, they renewed the
+contest. But the Greeks were marshalled in companies and according to
+their several nations, and each fought in turn, except only the
+Phocians; they were stationed at the mountain to guard the pathway.
+When, therefore, the Persians found nothing different from what they had
+seen on the preceding day, they retired.</p>
+
+<p>While the king was in doubt what course to take in the present state of
+affairs, Ephialtes, son of Eurydemus, a Malian, obtained an audience of
+him (expecting that he should receive a great reward from the king), and
+informed him of the path which leads over the mountain to Thermopyl&aelig;,
+and by that means caused the destruction of those Greeks who were
+stationed there; but afterward, fearing the Laced&aelig;monians, he fled to
+Thessaly, and when he had fled, a price was set on his <a name="Page_397" id="Page_397"></a>head by the
+Pylagori when the Amphictyons were assembled at Pyl&aelig;; but some time
+after, he went down to Anticyra and was killed by Athenades, a
+Trachinian.</p>
+
+<p>Another account is given, that Onetes, son of Phanagoras, a Carystian,
+and Corydallus of Anticyra, were the persons who gave this information
+to the king and conducted the Persians round the mountains; but to me,
+this is by no means credible; for, in the first place, we may draw the
+inference from this circumstance, that the Pylagori of the Grecians set
+a price on the head, not of Onetes and Corydallus, but of Ephialtes the
+Trachinian, having surely ascertained the exact truth; and, in the next
+place, we know that Ephialtes fled on that account. Onetes, indeed,
+though he was not a Malian, might be acquainted with this path if he had
+been conversant with the country; but it was Ephialtes who conducted
+them round the mountain by the path, and I charge him as the guilty
+person.</p>
+
+<p>Xerxes, since he was pleased with what Ephialtes promised to perform,
+being exceedingly delighted, immediately despatched Hydarnes and the
+troops that Hydarnes commanded, and he started from the camp about the
+hour of lamp-lighting. The native Malians discovered this pathway, and
+having discovered it, conducted the Thessalians by it against the
+Phocians at the time when the Phocians, having fortified the pass by a
+wall, were under shelter from an attack. From that time it appeared to
+have been of no service to the Malians.</p>
+
+<p>This path is situated as follows: it begins from the river Asopus, which
+flows through the cleft; the same name is given both to the mountain and
+to the path, "Anop&aelig;a," and this Anop&aelig;a extends along the ridge of the
+mountain and ends near Alpenus, which is the first city of the Locrians
+toward the Malians, and by the rock called "Melampygus," and by the
+seats of the Cercopes, and there the path is the narrowest.</p>
+
+<p>Along this path, thus situate, the Persians, having crossed the Asopus,
+marched all night, having on their right the mountains of the Oet&aelig;ans,
+and on their left those of the Trachinians; morning appeared, and they
+were on the summit of the mountain. At this part of the mountain, as I
+have <a name="Page_398" id="Page_398"></a>already mentioned, a thousand heavy-armed Phocians kept guard, to
+defend their own country and to secure the pathway&mdash;for the lower pass
+was guarded by those before mentioned&mdash;and the Phocians had voluntarily
+promised Leonidas to guard the path across the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>The Phocians discovered them after they had ascended, in the following
+manner; for the Persian ascended without being observed, as the whole
+mountain was covered with oaks; there was a perfect calm, and, as was
+likely, a considerable rustling taking place from the leaves strewn
+under foot, the Phocians sprang up and put on their arms, and
+immediately the barbarians made their appearance. But when they saw men
+clad in armor they were astonished, for, expecting to find nothing to
+oppose them, they fell in with an army; thereupon Hydarnes, fearing lest
+the Phocians might be Laced&aelig;monians, asked Ephialtes of what nation the
+troops were, and being accurately informed, he drew up the Persians for
+battle. The Phocians, when they were hit by many and thick-falling
+arrows, fled to the summit of the mountain, supposing that they had come
+expressly to attack them, and prepared to perish. Such was their
+determination. But the Persians, with Ephialtes and Hydarnes, took no
+notice of the Phocians but marched down the mountain with all speed.</p>
+
+<p>To those of the Greeks who were at Thermopyl&aelig;, the augur Megistias,
+having inspected the sacrifices, first made known the death that would
+befall them in the morning; certain deserters afterward came and brought
+intelligence of the circuit the Persians were taking. These brought the
+news while it was yet night; and, thirdly, the scouts running down from
+the heights as soon as day dawned, <i>brought the same intelligence</i>. Upon
+this the Greeks held a consultation, and their opinions were divided;
+some would not hear of abandoning their post, and others opposed that
+view. After this, when the assembly broke up, some of them departed, and
+being dispersed, betook themselves to their several cities; but others
+of them prepared to remain there with Leonidas.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that Leonidas himself sent them away, being anxious that they
+should not perish, but that he and the Spartans who were there could not
+honorably desert the post which <a name="Page_399" id="Page_399"></a>they originally came to defend. For my
+own part, I am rather inclined to think that Leonidas, when he perceived
+that the allies were averse and unwilling to share the danger with him,
+bade them withdraw, but that he considered it dishonorable for himself
+to depart; on the other hand, by remaining there, great renown would be
+left for him and the prosperity of Sparta would not be obliterated, for
+it had been announced to the Spartans by the Pythian, when they
+consulted the oracle concerning this war as soon as it commenced, "that
+either Laced&aelig;mon must be overthrown by the barbarians, or their king
+perish." This answer she gave in hexameter verses, to this effect: "To
+you, O inhabitants of spacious Laced&aelig;mon! either your vast glorious city
+shall be destroyed by men sprung from Perseus, or, if not so, the
+confines of Laced&aelig;mon shall mourn a king deceased, of the race of
+Hercules. For neither shall the strength of bulls nor of lions withstand
+him with force opposed to force, for he has the strength of Jove, and I
+say he shall not be restrained before he has certainly obtained one of
+these for his share." I think, therefore, that Leonidas, considering
+these things and being desirous to acquire glory for the Spartans alone,
+sent away the allies, rather than that those who went away differed in
+opinion, and went away in such an unbecoming manner.</p>
+
+<p>The following in no small degree strengthens my conviction on this
+point; for not only <i>did he send away</i> the others, but it is certain
+that Leonidas also sent away the augur who followed the army, Megistias
+the Acarnanian, who was said to have been originally descended from
+Melampus, the same who announced, from an inspection of the victims,
+what was about to befall them, in order that he might not perish with
+them. He however, though dismissed, did not himself depart but sent away
+his son who served with him in the expedition, being his only child.</p>
+
+<p>The allies that were dismissed, accordingly departed, and obeyed
+Leonidas, but only the Thespians and the Thebans remained with the
+Laced&aelig;monians; the Thebans, indeed, remained unwillingly and against
+their inclination, for Leonidas detained them, treating them as
+hostages; but the Thespians willingly, for they refused to go away and
+abandon Leonidas <a name="Page_400" id="Page_400"></a>and those with him, but remained and died with them.
+Demophilus, son of Diadromas, commanded them.</p>
+
+<p>Xerxes, after he had poured out libations at sunrise, having waited a
+short time, began his attack about the time of full market, for he had
+been so instructed by Ephialtes; for the descent from the mountain is
+more direct and the distance much shorter than the circuit and ascent.
+The barbarians, therefore, with Xerxes, advanced, and the Greeks with
+Leonidas, marching out as if for certain death, now advanced much
+farther than before into the wide part of the defile, for the
+fortification of the wall had protected them, and they on the preceding
+days, having taken up their position in the narrow part, fought there;
+but now engaging outside the narrows, great numbers of the barbarians
+fell; for the officers of the companies from behind, having scourges,
+flogged every man, constantly urging them forward; in consequence, many
+of them, falling into the sea, perished, and many more were trampled
+alive under foot by one another and no regard was paid to any that
+perished, for the Greeks, knowing that death awaited them at the hands
+of those who were going round the mountain, being desperate and
+regardless of their own lives, displayed the utmost possible valor
+against the barbarians.</p>
+
+<p>Already were most of their javelins broken and they had begun to
+despatch the Persians with their swords. In this part of the struggle
+fell Leonidas, fighting valiantly, and with him other eminent Spartans,
+whose names, seeing they were deserving men, I have ascertained; indeed,
+I have ascertained the names of the whole three hundred. On the side of
+the Persians also, many other eminent men fell on this occasion, and
+among them two sons of Darius, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, born to Darius
+of Phrataguna, daughter of Artanes; but Artanes was brother to king
+Darius, and son of Hystaspes, son of Arsames. He, when he gave his
+daughter to Darius, gave him also all his property, as she was his only
+child.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, two brothers of Xerxes fell at this spot fighting for the
+body of Leonidas, and there was a violent struggle between the Persians
+and Laced&aelig;monians, until at last the Greeks rescued it by their valor
+and four times repulsed the <a name="Page_401" id="Page_401"></a>enemy. Thus the contest continued until
+those with Ephialtes came up. When the Greeks heard that they were
+approaching, from this time the battle was altered; for they retreated
+to the narrow part of the way, and passing beyond the wall came and took
+up their position on the rising ground all in a compact body with the
+exception of the Thebans. The rising ground is at the entrance where the
+stone lion now stands to the memory of Leonidas. On this spot, while
+they defended themselves with swords&mdash;such as had them still
+remaining&mdash;and with hands and teeth, the barbarians overwhelmed them
+with missiles, some of them attacking them in front, having thrown down
+the wall, and others surrounding and attacking them on every side.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Laced&aelig;monians and Thespians behaved in this manner, yet
+Dieneces, a Spartan, is said to have been the bravest man. They relate
+that he made the following remark before they engaged with the Medes,
+having heard a Trachinian say that when the barbarians let fly their
+arrows they would obscure the sun by the multitude of their shafts, so
+great was their number; but he, not at all alarmed at this, said,
+holding in contempt the numbers of the Medes, that "their Trachinian
+friend told them everything to their advantage, since if the Medes
+obscure the sun, they would then have to fight in the shade and not in
+the sun." This, and other sayings of the same kind, they relate that
+Dieneces the Laced&aelig;monian left as memorials.</p>
+
+<p>Next to him, two Laced&aelig;monian brothers, Alpheus and Maron, sons of
+Orisiphantus, are said to have distinguished themselves most; and of the
+Thespians, he obtained the greatest glory whose name was Dithyrambus,
+son of Harmatides.</p>
+
+<p>In honor of the slain, who were buried on the spot where they fell, and
+of those who died before they who were dismissed by Leonidas went away,
+the following inscription has been engraved over them: "Four thousand
+from Peloponnesus once fought on this spot with three hundred
+<i>myriads</i>!<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>" This inscription was made for all; and for the Spartans
+in particular: "Stranger, go tell the Laced&aelig;monians that we lie here,
+<a name="Page_402" id="Page_402"></a>obedient to their commands!" This was for the Laced&aelig;monians; and for
+the prophet, the following: "This is the monument of the illustrious
+Megistias, whom once the Medes, having passed the river Sperchius, slew;
+a prophet who, at the time well knowing the impending fate, would not
+abandon the leaders of Sparta!"</p>
+
+<p>The Amphictyons are the persons who honored them with these inscriptions
+and columns, with the exception of the inscription to the prophet; that
+of the prophet Megistias, Simonides, son of Leoprepes, caused to be
+engraved, from personal friendship.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Fifty-oared ships.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> In Greek numeration, ten thousand.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Three millions.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="CHRONOLOGY_OF_UNIVERSAL_HISTORY" id="CHRONOLOGY_OF_UNIVERSAL_HISTORY"></a>CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY</h2>
+
+<h3>EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME</h3>
+
+<h2>B.C. 5867&mdash;B.C. 451</h2>
+
+<h2>JOHN RUDD, LL.D.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404"></a><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405"></a>CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY</h2>
+
+<h3>EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME</h3>
+
+<h3>B.C. 5867&mdash;B.C. 451</h3>
+
+<h2><i>JOHN RUDD, LL.D.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
+following give volume and page.</p>
+
+<p>Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
+famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page
+references showing where the several events are fully treated.</p>
+
+<p>All dates are approximate up to B.C. 776, the beginning of the
+Olympiads.</p>
+
+<p>B.C.</p>
+
+<p><b>5867.</b> Menes, the first human ruler recorded in history, unites the two
+kingdoms of Egypt under one crown; introduces the cult of Apis; founds
+the city of Memphis; rears the great temple of Ptah. <a href="#Page_33">See "DAWN OF
+CIVILIZATION," i, 1.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>5000.</b> Babylonia is invaded by a race of Semites; they conquer the land
+and become the Babylonians of history.</p>
+
+<p><b>4500</b> (before). A patesi (priest-ruler), by name En-shag-kush-anna, is
+King of Kengi, Southern Babylonia; Sungir, which later gave the name
+Sumer to the whole district, is his capital.</p>
+
+<p><b>4400.</b> Shirpurla, Mesopotamia, subjugated by Mesilim, King of Kish.</p>
+
+<p><b>4200.</b> The hero of Shirpurla, E-anna-tum, throws off the Kish yoke and
+takes the title of king. He is successful in conflicts with Erech, Ur,
+and Larsa. Walls are erected and canals dug by him.</p>
+
+<p><b>3700.</b> The great Pyramid of Gizeh erected. This was during the IV or
+Pyramid dynasty; so called because its chief monarchs built the three
+great pyramids.</p>
+
+<p>Beautiful Queen Nitocris, of the VI dynasty, reigned about this time.
+She is said to have avenged the killing of her brother, King of Egypt,
+by inviting his murderers to a banquet held in a subterranean chamber.
+Into this the river was turned, and they all miserably perished.</p>
+
+<p><b>3000.</b> Nineveh, colonized from Babylonia, ruled by subject princes of
+that country.</p>
+
+<p><b>2800.</b> Probable date of the foundation of the Chinese empire.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406"></a><b>2500.</b> Rise of the kingdom of Elam. Asshurbanipal (Sardanapalus), King
+of Nineveh, records an invasion of Chald&aelig;a, or Babylonia, by the
+Elamites, B.C. 2300. The records of clay recently unearthed show that
+Cyrus was originally king of Elam. <a href="#Page_282">See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT,"
+i, 250.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>2458.</b> Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) founds the religion known by his name.
+Ancient tradition has it that he was a Median king who conquered Babylon
+about B.C. 2458. M. Haug assigns the date as not later than B.C. 2300.
+Be the time when he lived what it may, it is certain that, as the
+Persian national religion, it dates little further back than B.C. 559
+and up to A.D. 641. The four elements&mdash;fire, air, earth, and water,
+especially the first&mdash;were recognized as the only proper objects of
+human reverence.</p>
+
+<p><b>2300.</b> A chart of the heavens in China.</p>
+
+<p><b>2250.</b> Commencement of the reign of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia: the
+earliest compilation of a code of laws was made in this reign. <a href="#Page_46">See
+"COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE," i, 14.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>2200-1700.</b> Dominion of the Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, in Egypt. It is
+not improbable that Abraham made his well-known journey to Egypt during
+the early reign of these kings. Joseph's visit occurred near the close
+of their power.</p>
+
+<p><b>2200.</b> Hereditary monarchy founded in China.</p>
+
+<p><b>1700-1250.</b> The new empire of Egypt attains the period of its greatest
+splendor and power. Meneptah, about 1320 (1322), has been generally
+accepted as the Pharaoh of the Exodus.</p>
+
+<p><b>1500.</b> Independence of Assyria as the rising of a kingdom apart from
+Babylonia; the rise of Nineveh.</p>
+
+<p><b>1450-1300.</b> The Hittite realm in Syria attains its greatest power. The
+Egyptians knew the Hittites as the Khita or Khatta. Recent discoveries
+indicate that they formed a civilized and powerful nation. Many
+inscriptions and rock sculptures in Asia Minor, formerly inexplicable,
+are now attributed to the Hittites of the Bible.</p>
+
+<p><b>1330.</b> Rameses II of Egypt; the Sesostris of the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p><b>1300.</b> Shalmaneser I reigns in Assyria.</p>
+
+<p><b>1250.</b> The Phoenicians, closely allied in language to the Hebrews, begin
+their colonizing career.</p>
+
+<p><b>1235.</b> Probable date of the consolidation of Athens, <a href="#Page_77">See "THESEUS FOUNDS
+ATHENS," i, 45.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>1200.</b> Exodus of Israel from Egypt.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_84">FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA," See i, 52.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>1184.</b> <a href="#Page_102">FALL OF TROY." See i, 70.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>1122.</b> Wou Wang becomes emperor of China.</p>
+
+<p><b>1120.</b> Beginning of the reign of Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria.</p>
+
+<p><b>1100.</b> Dorian migration into the Peloponnesus.</p>
+
+<p><b>1095 (1055; 1080 common chronology).</b> Hebrews establish the monarchy.
+Saul the first king.</p>
+
+<p><b>1058 (1033).</b> At Gilboa, Saul is defeated by the Philistines. David
+becomes king in Judah.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407"></a><b>1017 (998).</b> Accession of Solomon as king of the Hebrews. The Temple at
+Jerusalem is built in this reign. <a href="#Page_124">See "ACCESSION OF SOLOMON," i, 92.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>1015.</b> Smyrna founded.</p>
+
+<p><b>977 (953).</b> Israel and Judah become separate kingdoms, following the
+revolt of the Ten Tribes under Jeroboam.</p>
+
+<p><b>973 (949).</b> Jerusalem captured by Sheshonk, King of Egypt.</p>
+
+<p><b>958 (929).</b> Asa ascends the throne of Judah.</p>
+
+<p><b>931 (899)</b>. Omri's accession in Israel.</p>
+
+<p><b>917 (873)</b>. Jehoshaphat begins his reign in Judah.</p>
+
+<p><b>900 (853).</b> The Syrians defeat and slay Ahab, King of Israel, at
+Ramoth-Gilead.</p>
+
+<p>Divambar conquers Armenia, Persia, Syria, and adjacent lands.</p>
+
+<p><b>887 (843).</b> The throne of Israel usurped by Jehu.</p>
+
+<p><b>850.</b> The Tyrians colonize Carthage.</p>
+
+<p><b>811 (792).</b> Uzziah succeeds to the throne of Judah.</p>
+
+<p><b>800.</b> The canal and tunnel of Negoub constructed to convey the waters of
+the Zab River to Nineveh.</p>
+
+<p><b>800 (850).</b> Sparta: Probable date of the legislation of Lycurgus.</p>
+
+<p><b>790 (825).</b> Jeroboam II becomes King of Israel.</p>
+
+<p><b>789.</b> First destruction of Nineveh: death of Sardanapalus. <a href="#Page_137">See "FIRST
+DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH," i, 105.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>776.</b> Beginning of the Olympiads. Olympiad in ancient Greece meant the
+space of four years between one celebration of the Olympic games and
+another. In this year it began as a system of chronology.</p>
+
+<p><b>772.</b> <a name="FNanchor_A1" id="FNanchor_A1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a><b>(748).</b> End of Jehu's dynasty in Israel.</p>
+
+<p><b>753 (common chronology).</b> <a href="#Page_148">"FOUNDATION OF ROME." See i, 116.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>750.</b> <a name="FNanchor_A2" id="FNanchor_A2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> The Corinthians found Syracuse.</p>
+
+<p><b>743-724.</b> First great war between Sparta and Messenia: the latter is
+subjugated.</p>
+
+<p><b>734.</b> <a name="FNanchor_A3" id="FNanchor_A3"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> Syria becomes subject to Tiglath-Pileser II of Assyria.</p>
+
+<p><b>731.</b> <a name="FNanchor_A4" id="FNanchor_A4"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> Tiglath-Pileser II subjects Chaldea.</p>
+
+<p><b>727.</b> <a name="FNanchor_A5" id="FNanchor_A5"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> <b>(728).</b> Hezekiah ascends the throne of Judah.</p>
+
+<p><b>722.</b> <a name="FNanchor_A6" id="FNanchor_A6"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> King Sargon of Assyria conquers Samaria; he puts an end to the
+kingdom of Israel. Captivity of the Ten Tribes.</p>
+
+<p><b>701.</b> Siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib; he encounters the Egyptian and
+Ethiopian forces; his expedition into Syria fails.</p>
+
+<p><b>697.</b> Accession of Manasseh to the throne of Judah.</p>
+
+<p><b>685-668.</b> The second war between Sparta and Messenia.</p>
+
+<p><b>660.</b> <a name="FNanchor_A7" id="FNanchor_A7"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> Prince Jimmu establishes Yamato as the capital of Japan. <a href="#Page_172">See
+"PRINCE JIMMU FOUNDS JAPAN'S CAPITAL," i, 140.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>650.</b><a name="FNanchor_A8" id="FNanchor_A8"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> The whole of Egypt united under Psammetichus I, founder of the
+XXVI dynasty. He frees Egypt from Assyrian rule and opens the country to
+the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p><b>645-628.</b> The Messenians make an unsuccessful attempt to throw off the
+yoke of Sparta.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A" id="Footnote_A"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Date uncertain.</p></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408"></a><b>640.</b> Birth of Thales, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. He taught
+the spherical form of the earth and the true causes of lunar eclipses;
+discovered the electricity of amber. The Seven Sages, or Wise Men, are
+commonly made up of Thales, Solon, Bias, Chilo, Cleobulus, Periander,
+and Pittacus.</p>
+
+<p>Media becomes independent of Assyria; she appears as a single united
+kingdom.</p>
+
+<p><b>625.</b> Media, Assyria, and Syria have a great irruption of Scythians in
+their borders.</p>
+
+<p><b>623.</b> <a href="#Page_192">FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM," See i, 160.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>621.</b> <a name="FNanchor_B1" id="FNanchor_B1"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a><b>(624).</b> Date of the legislation of Draco, at Athens.</p>
+
+<p><b>612.</b> Conspiracy of Cylon at Athens.</p>
+
+<p><b>609.</b><a name="FNanchor_B2" id="FNanchor_B2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Josiah is slain at Megiddo, when Necho, the Egyptian King,
+crushes the power of Judah.</p>
+
+<p><b>607.</b><a name="FNanchor_B3" id="FNanchor_B3"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Nineveh taken by the Medes and Babylonians, who overthrow the
+Assyrian monarchy.</p>
+
+<p><b>605.</b><a name="FNanchor_B4" id="FNanchor_B4"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Nebuchadnezzar defeats Necho at Carchemish. Necho maintained a
+powerful fleet; the Phoenician ships under his order rounded the Cape of
+Good Hope. Herodotus says that twice during this voyage the crews,
+fearing a lack of food, after landing, drew their ships on shore, sowed
+grain and waited for a harvest. It will be noticed that this was over
+two thousand years before Vasco da Gama, to whom is usually given the
+credit of first circumnavigating Africa.</p>
+
+<p><b>597.</b><a name="FNanchor_B5" id="FNanchor_B5"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Jerusalem captured by Nebuchadnezzar, who carries away the
+principal inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p><b>595.</b> The Delphic Games in Greece. <a href="#Page_213">See "PYTHIAN GAMES AT DELPHI," i, 181.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>594.</b> Adoption of the Constitution of Solon at Athens. <a href="#Page_235">See "SOLON'S EARLY
+GREEK LEGISLATION," i, 203.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>586.</b><a name="FNanchor_B6" id="FNanchor_B6"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Nebuchadnezzar captures and destroys Jerusalem; puts an end to
+the kingdom of Judah. The Babylonish captivity.</p>
+
+<p><b>570.</b><a name="FNanchor_B7" id="FNanchor_B7"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Egypt attacked by Nebuchadnezzar, who dethrones Hophra (Apries);
+he places Amasis on the throne.</p>
+
+<p><b>560.</b> Tyranny of Pisistratus at Athens. The Grecian poor were still
+getting poorer, notwithstanding Solon's legislation; they clamored for
+relief, placed Pisistratus at their head, and passed a decree allowing
+him to have a body-guard of fifty men armed with clubs. Pisistratus then
+threw off all disguise and established himself in the Acropolis as
+tyrant of Athens.</p>
+
+<p><b>550.</b><a name="FNanchor_B8" id="FNanchor_B8"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Cyrus, at the head of the Persians, destroys the Median
+monarchy. <a href="#Page_282">See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT," i, 250.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>550.</b><a name="FNanchor_B9" id="FNanchor_B9"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> "RISE OF CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE SAGE," See i, 270.</p>
+
+<p><b>546.</b> Croesus, King of Lydia, overthrown by Cyrus. <a href="#Page_282">See "CONQUESTS OF
+CYRUS THE GREAT," i, 250.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>540.</b><a name="FNanchor_B10" id="FNanchor_B10"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Calimachus invents the Corinthian order of architecture.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B" id="Footnote_B"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B1"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Date uncertain.</p></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409"></a>538. Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. <a href="#Page_282">See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT,"
+i, 250.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>529.</b> Death of Cyrus; Cambyses succeeds him on the throne of Persia.</p>
+
+<p><b>527.</b> Hippias and Hipparchus succeed their father, Pisistratus, at
+Athens, in the government of that city.</p>
+
+<p><b>525 (527).</b> Conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, King of Persia. He completely
+subdued it, and, after an attempted rising, crushed Egypt with merciless
+severity. Cambyses treated the Egyptian deities, priests, and temples
+with insult and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>&AElig;schylus, Greek tragic poet, born.</p>
+
+<p><b>522.</b> Pseudo-Smerdis usurps the Persian throne. Cambyses had slain his
+brother Bardes, whom Herodotus calls Smerdis. A Magian, Gaumata by name,
+resembling Bardes in appearance, impersonated the murdered prince. A
+revolution ensued and, owing to the death of Cambyses by his own hand,
+Pseudo-Smerdis became master of the empire.</p>
+
+<p><b>521.</b> Darius I, by defeating Pseudo-Smerdis, who had reigned eight
+months, ascends the Persian throne.</p>
+
+<p><b>521-516.</b> The Temple at Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the
+Babylonians, rebuilt.</p>
+
+<p><b>520.</b><a name="FNanchor_C1" id="FNanchor_C1"></a><a href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> Birth of Pindar, the chief lyric poet of Greece. He was in the
+prime of life when Salamis and Thermopyl&aelig; were fought. His poems have as
+groundwork the legends which form the Grecian religious literature.</p>
+
+<p><b>516.</b><a name="FNanchor_C2" id="FNanchor_C2"></a><a href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> Invasion of Scythia by Darius, King of Persia, who seems to have
+acted according to an oriental idea of right, in that he claimed to
+punish the Scythians for an invasion of Media at some previous time.</p>
+
+<p><b>514.</b> Hipparchus, of Athens, assassinated by Harmodius and Aristogiton.</p>
+
+<p><b>514.</b><a name="FNanchor_C3" id="FNanchor_C3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> Birth of Themistocles, a famous Athenian commander and
+statesman. He was largely instrumental in increasing the navy; induced
+the Athenians to leave Athens for Salamis and the fleet, and brought
+about the victory of Salamis.</p>
+
+<p><b>510.</b> Hippias expelled from Athens. The democratic party is headed by
+Clisthenes, the master-spirit of the revolution inaugurated for the
+overthrow of the despotic and hated sons of Pisistratus. The Athenian
+democracy was reorganized by Clisthenes.</p>
+
+<p><b>510.</b> The Crotonians destroy Sybaris. Croton and Sybaris were two ancient
+Greek cities situated on the Gulf of Tarentum, Southern Italy. Little is
+known of them except their luxury, fantastic self-indulgence, and
+extravagant indolence, for which qualities their names remain a
+synonyme.</p>
+
+<p><b>510.</b> Expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. Founding of the Republic;
+consulship instituted. <a href="#Page_332">See "ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>506.</b><a name="FNanchor_C4" id="FNanchor_C4"></a><a href="#Footnote_C" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> The Persians subject Macedonia, and extend their dominion <a name="Page_410" id="Page_410"></a>over
+Thrace. The Thracians occupied the region between the rivers Strymon and
+Danube. They were more Asiatic than European in character and religion.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C" id="Footnote_C"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C1"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> Date uncertain.</p></div>
+
+<p><b>500</b><a name="FNanchor_D1" id="FNanchor_D1"></a><a href="#Footnote_D" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> <b>(501, 502).</b> Rising of the Greek colonies in Ionia against the
+Persians. Harpagus, who had saved Cyrus in his infancy from his
+grandfather, while governor of Lydia reduced the cities of the coast.
+Town after town submitted. The Tieans abandoned theirs, retiring to
+Abdera in Thrace; the Phocians, after settling in Corsica, whence they
+were driven by the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, went to Italy and
+later founded Massalia (Marseilles) on the coast of Gaul. Thus the Greek
+colonies became a portion of the Persian empire. The insurrection of the
+Ionians continued for six years, the fate of the revolt turning at last
+on the siege of Miletus.</p>
+
+<p><b>499</b><a name="FNanchor_D2" id="FNanchor_D2"></a><a href="#Footnote_D" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> <b>(500).</b> Ionian expedition against Sardis. The city was taken and
+during the pillage was accidentally burned. The Ionian forces were
+utterly inadequate to hold Sardis; and their return was not effected
+without a serious defeat by the pursuing army of Persians.</p>
+
+<p><b>497.</b> <a name="FNanchor_D3" id="FNanchor_D3"></a><a href="#Footnote_D" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> The Latins are defeated by the Romans at Lake Regillus.</p>
+
+<p><b>495.</b> Birth of Sophocles.</p>
+
+<p><b>494.</b> The naval battle of Lade, in which the Persians defeat the Asiatic
+Greeks. Fall of Miletus.</p>
+
+<p><b>494 (492).</b> First secession of the plebeians from Rome. Creation of the
+tribunes of the people. <a href="#Page_332">See "ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>493 (491).</b> The Latins are compelled by the Romans to enter into a league
+with Rome, which is threatened by the Etruscans, Volscians, and the
+&AElig;quians. The Latins obtained the name of Roman citizens; the title
+disguised a real subjection, since the men who bore it had the
+obligation of citizens without the rights.</p>
+
+<p><b>492.</b><a name="FNanchor_D4" id="FNanchor_D4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> Mardonius heads the first Persian expedition against Greece.</p>
+
+<p><b>490.</b> Battle of Marathon, in which Darius' Persian host is overwhelmingly
+defeated by Miltiades, <a href="#Page_354">See "THE BATTLE OF MARATHON," i, 322.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>489.</b> Condemnation and death of Miltiades. <a href="#Page_354">See "THE BATTLE OF MARATHON,"
+i, 322.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>486.</b> Darius Hystaspes, of Persia, is succeeded on the throne by his son
+Xerxes.</p>
+
+<p>League of Rome with the Hernici.</p>
+
+<p>484.<a name="FNanchor_D5" id="FNanchor_D5"></a><a href="#Footnote_D" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> Birth of Herodotus, the "Father of History,"</p>
+
+<p><b>483.</b> Aristides, one of the ten leaders of the Greeks at Marathon,
+ostracized through the jealousy of Themistocles.</p>
+
+<p><b>480.</b> Second Persian invasion of Greece, this time by Xerxes. Defence of
+Thermopyl&aelig; by Leonidas. <a href="#Page_386">See "DEFENCE OF THERMOPYL&AElig;," i, 354.</a> Naval
+battle of Artemisium. Athens burned. The Persian fleet vanquished by
+Themistocles and Eurybiades at Salamis. Retreat of Xerxes.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D" id="Footnote_D"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D1"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Date uncertain.</p></div>
+
+<p><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411"></a>The Carthaginians attempt the conquest of the Greek cities of Sicily.
+Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, defeats their army at Himera.</p>
+
+<p>Birth of Euripides, the celebrated Greek tragic poet.<a name="FNanchor_E0" id="FNanchor_E0"></a><a href="#Footnote_E" class="fnanchor">[E]</a></p>
+
+<p><b>479.</b> The Greeks, under the command of Pausanias, at the battle of
+Plat&aelig;a, crush the Persian army under the lead of Mardonius. Leotychides
+and Nanthippus gain a simultaneous victory over the Persian fleet at
+Mycale. End of the Persian invasion of Greece.</p>
+
+<p><b>478.</b> The tyranny of Hieron, brother of Gelon, begins at Syracuse. He was
+noted as a patron of literature.</p>
+
+<p><b>477.</b> The predominance in Greece passes from Sparta to Athens, by the
+formation of the Confederacy of Delos.</p>
+
+<p><b>474.</b> Hieron, of Syracuse, defeats the Etruscans near Cum&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p><b>471.</b> Themistocles exiled from Athens, the Spartan faction having plotted
+his ruin, alleging his complicity with the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Birth of Thucydides.<a name="FNanchor_E1" id="FNanchor_E1"></a><a href="#Footnote_E" class="fnanchor">[E]</a></p>
+
+<p><b>470 (471)</b>. The Publilian law passed in Rome; the plebeians accorded the
+right of initiating legislation in their assemblies. <a href="#Page_332">See "ROME
+ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.</a></p>
+
+<p><b>469.</b><a name="FNanchor_E2" id="FNanchor_E2"></a><a href="#Footnote_E" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> Birth of Socrates.</p>
+
+<p><b>468.</b><a name="FNanchor_E3" id="FNanchor_E3"></a><a href="#Footnote_E" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> Democracy triumphs in the cities of Sicily.</p>
+
+<p><b>466.</b> Naval victory of the Greeks, under Cimon, over the Persians at
+Eurymedon. B.C. 470 Cimon had reduced Eion, after a gallant defence by
+Boges, the Persian governor, who, rather than surrender, cast all his
+gold and silver into the river Strymon, raised a huge pile of wood, and
+on it placed the bodies of his wives, children, and slaves&mdash;all of whom
+he had slain&mdash;then, having set fire thereto, he flung himself into the
+flames and perished.</p>
+
+<p>The Revolt of Naxos crushed by Cimon during the expedition against the
+Persians.</p>
+
+<p>Fall of the tyrants at Syracuse.</p>
+
+<p><b>465.</b> Murder of Xerxes I, by Artabanus, captain of his guard; accession
+of Artaxerxes I to the Persian throne.</p>
+
+<p><b>464.</b> Sparta destroyed by an earthquake which shook the whole of Laconia,
+opened great chasms in the ground, rolled down huge masses from the
+peaks of Taygetus, and threw Sparta into a heap of ruins. Not more than
+five houses are said to have remained standing. Twenty thousand persons
+lost their lives by the shock. The flower of the Spartan youth was slain
+by the overthrow of the building in which they were exercising.</p>
+
+<p><b>464-455.</b> The Messenian helots rise against the Spartans, taking
+advantage of the confusion caused by the earthquake. This was the
+beginning of the third Messenian war.</p>
+
+<p><b>463.</b> Mycen&aelig; is reduced by the Argives, who enslave or drive away its
+inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p><b>460.</b> Birth of Hippocrates, in the island of Cos, who became known as the
+"Father of Medicine."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412"></a><b>458.</b><a name="FNanchor_E5" id="FNanchor_E5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> Jews return from Babylonia to Jerusalem, under Ezra.</p>
+
+<p>Esther, the Jewess, pleases King Ahasuerus and is made queen in place of
+Vashti. This was the origin of the Jewish festival of Purim, celebrated
+on the 14th and 15th of the month Adar (March).</p>
+
+<p>Beginning of the Long Walls of Athens; built to protect the
+communication of the city with its port. One, four miles long, ran to
+the harbor of Phalerum, and others, four and one-half miles long, to the
+Pir&aelig;us.</p>
+
+<p><b>457</b>. Beginning of war of Corinth, Sparta, and &AElig;gina with Athens: Battle
+of Tanagra, in which the Athenians were defeated.</p>
+
+<p><b>456.</b> Athenian victory at OEnophyta; the Boeotians defeated by Myronides,
+who also secures the submission of Phocis and Locris.</p>
+
+<p><b>455.</b>End of the third Messenian war.</p>
+
+<p><b>451.</b> Ion of Chios, historian and tragedian, exhibits his first drama.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E" id="Footnote_E"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E1"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> Date uncertain.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="END_OF_VOLUME_I" id="END_OF_VOLUME_I"></a>END OF VOLUME I</h2>
+
+<a name="Page_413" id="Page_413"></a>
+
+<a name="Page_414" id="Page_414"></a>
+
+<a name="Page_415" id="Page_415"></a>
+
+<a name="Page_416" id="Page_416"></a>
+
+<a name="Page_417" id="Page_417"></a>
+
+<a name="Page_419" id="Page_419"></a>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420"></a></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_ROSETTA_STONE" id="THE_ROSETTA_STONE"></a>THE ROSETTA STONE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter"><a name="Rosetta_image" id="Rosetta_image"></a>
+<a href="images/p1.jpg"><img src="images/p1_tn.jpg" width="300" height="391" border="0" alt="[Illustration: THE TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION OF THE ROSETTA STONE. IN
+HIEROGLYPHIC, DEMOTIC, AND GREEK CHARACTERS. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON. (FOR DESCRIPTION OF THIS CUT, SEE OTHER SIDE.)"></img></a></div>
+
+<p>Almost as interesting as the Rosetta Stone itself is the story of its
+discovery. During the French occupation of Egypt soldiers were digging
+out the foundations of a fort, and in the trench the famous tablet was
+found. At the peace of Alexandra the Rosetta Stone passed to the
+English, who (1801) housed it in the British Museum, where it remains.
+The text when translated showed that the inscription is a "decree of the
+priests of Memphis, conferring divine honors on Ptolemy V, Epiphanes,
+King of Egypt, B.C. 195," on the occasion of his coronation. Further it
+commands that the decree be inscribed in the sacred letters
+(hieroglyphics); the alphabet of the people (enuchorial or demotic); and
+Greek.</p>
+
+<p>It was recognized by the trustees of the British Museum that the problem
+of the Rosetta Stone was one which would test the ingenuity of the
+scientists of the world to unfathom, and they promptly published a
+carefully prepared copy of the entire inscription. Scholars of every
+nation exhausted their learning to unravel the riddle, but beyond a few
+shrewd guesses (afterward proved to be quite incorrect) nothing was
+accomplished for a dozen years. The key was there, but its application
+required the inspired insight of genius.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Thomas Young, the demonstrator of the vibratory nature of light, who
+had perhaps the most versatile profundity of knowledge and the keenest
+scientific imagination of his generation, undertook the task.</p>
+
+<p>Accident had called Young's attention to the Rosetta Stone, and his
+rapacity for knowledge led him to speculate as to the possible aid this
+trilingual inscription might offer in the solution of Egyptian problems.
+Having an amazing faculty for the acquisition of languages, he, in one
+short year, had mastered Coptic, after having assured himself that it
+was the nearest existing approach to the ancient Egyptian language, and
+had even made a tentative attempt at the translation of the Egyptian
+scroll. This was the very beginning of our knowledge of the meaning of
+hieroglyphics.</p>
+
+<p>The specific discoveries that Dr. Young made were: 1, That some of the
+pictures of the hieroglyphics stand for the names of the objects
+delineated; 2, that other pictures are at times only symbolic; 3, that
+plural numbers are represented by repetition; 4, that numerals are
+represented by dashes; 5, that hieroglyphics may read either from the
+right or from the left, but always from the direction in which the
+animals and human figures face; 6, that a graven oval ring surrounds
+proper names, making a cartouche; 7, that the cartouches of the Rosetta
+Stone stand for the name of Ptolemy alone; 8, that the presence of a
+female figure after such cartouches always denotes the female sex; 9,
+that within the cartouches the hieroglyphic symbols have an actual
+phonetic value, either alphabetic or syllabic; and 10, that several
+dissimilar characters may have the same phonetic value.</p>
+
+<div align="center"><img src="images/420image.png" width="451" height="63" border="0" alt="[K A L A RE SA W SA RE M HA HER RE M T]"></img>
+<br />
+<b><i>Kaharesapusaremkaherremt</i></b><br />
+<span style="font-family: sans-serif !important; font-size: 80%;">
+AN EGYPTIAN PROPER NAME SPELLED OUT IN FULL BY MEANS OF ALPHABETICAL AND SYLLABIC SIGNS.
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dr. Young was certainly on the right track, and very near the complete
+discovery; unfortunately he failed to take the next step, which was to
+learn that the use of an alphabet was not confined to proper names. This
+grand secret Young missed; his French successor, Champollion, ferreted
+it out from the foundation he had laid. The "Enigma of the Sphinx" was
+practically solved, and the secrets held by the monuments of Egypt for
+so many centuries were disclosed to the world. Champollion proved that
+the Egyptians had developed an alphabet&mdash;neglecting the vowels, as did
+also the early Semitic alphabet&mdash;centuries before the Phoenicians were
+heard of in history. Some of these pictures are purely alphabetical in
+character, some are otherwise symbolic. Some characters represent
+syllables, others again stand as representatives of sounds, and once
+again, as representatives of things; hence the difficulties and
+complications it presented.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Vol. 1, by Various
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+Project Gutenberg's The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Rossiter Johnson, Charles Horne And John Rudd
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2005 [EBook #16352]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Jared Ryan Buck and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+BY
+
+FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
+THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
+IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS
+
+NON-SECTARIAN            NON-PARTISAN            NON-SECTIONAL
+
+ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
+DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
+INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
+NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
+BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING
+
+
+EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
+
+ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.
+
+
+ASSOCIATE EDITORS
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+_With a staff of specialists_
+
+
+_VOLUME 1_
+
+
+
+The National Alumni
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1905,
+
+By THE NATIONAL ALUMNI
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+
+_General Introduction_
+
+
+_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_
+  CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+_Dawn of Civilization_ (_B.C. 5867_)
+  G.C.C. MASPERO
+
+_Compilation of the Earliest Code_ (_B.C. 2250_)
+  HAMMURABI
+
+_Theseus Founds Athens_ (_B.C. 1235_)
+  PLUTARCH
+
+_The Formation of the Castes in India_ (_B.C. 1200_)
+  GUSTAVE LE BON
+  W.W. HUNTER
+
+_Fall of Troy_ (_B.C. 1184_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Accession of Solomon_
+_Building of the Temple at Jerusalem_ (_B.C. 1017_)
+  HENRY HART MILMAN
+
+_Rise and Fall of Assyria_
+_Destruction of Nineveh_ (_B.C. 789_)
+  F. LENORMANT AND E. CHEVALLIER
+
+_The Foundation of Rome_ (_B.C. 753_)
+  BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR
+
+_Prince Jimmu Founds Japan's Capital_ (_B.C. 660_)
+  SIR EDWARD REED
+  THE "NEHONGI"
+
+_The Foundation of Buddhism_ (_B.C. 623_)
+  THOMAS W. RHYS-DAVIDS
+
+_Pythian Games at Delphi_ (_B.C. 585_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Solon's Early Greek Legislation_ (_B.C. 594_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Conquests of Cyrus the Great_ (_B.C. 550_)
+  GEORGE GROTE
+
+_Rise of Confucius, the Chinese Sage_ (_B.C. 550_)
+  R.K. DOUGLAS
+
+_Rome Established as a Republic_
+_Institution of Tribunes_ (_B.C. 510-494_)
+  HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL
+
+_The Battle of Marathon_ (_B.C. 490_)
+  SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
+
+_Invasion of Greece by Persians under Xerxes_
+_Defence of Thermopylae_ (_B.C. 480_)
+  HERODOTUS
+
+_Universal Chronology_ (_B.C. 5867-451_)
+  JOHN RUDD
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+
+_Sphinx, with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh_ (_page 12_)
+Frontispiece From an original photograph.
+
+_The Rosetta Stone, and Description_
+Facsimile of original in the British Museum.
+
+_The Sabine Women_--_now mothers_--_suing for peace between the
+combatants_ (_their Roman husbands and their Sabine relatives_)
+Painting by Jacques L. David.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+BY
+
+FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+General Introduction
+
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS is the answer to a problem which
+has long been agitating the learned world. How shall real history, the
+ablest and profoundest work of the greatest historians, be rescued from
+its present oblivion on the dusty shelves of scholars, and made welcome
+to the homes of the people?
+
+THE NATIONAL ALUMNI, an association of college men, having given this
+question long and earnest discussion among themselves, sought finally
+the views of a carefully elaborated list of authorities throughout
+America and Europe. They consulted the foremost living historians and
+professors of history, successful writers in other fields, statesmen,
+university and college presidents, and prominent business men. From this
+widely gathered consensus of opinions, after much comparison and sifting
+of ideas, was evolved the following practical, and it would seem
+incontrovertible, series of plain facts. And these all pointed toward
+"THE GREAT EVENTS."
+
+In the first place, the entire American public, from top to bottom of
+the social ladder, are at this moment anxious to read history. Its
+predominant importance among the varied forms of literature is fully
+recognized. To understand the past is to understand the future. The
+successful men in every line of life are those who look ahead, whose
+keen foresight enables them to probe into the future, not by magic, but
+by patiently acquired knowledge. To see clearly what the world has done,
+and why, is to see at least vaguely what the world will do, and when.
+
+Moreover, no man can understand himself unless he understands others;
+and he cannot do that without some idea of the past, which has produced
+both him and them. To know his neighbors, he must know something of the
+country from which they came, the conditions under which they formerly
+lived. He cannot do his own simple duty by his own country if he does
+not know through what tribulations that country has passed. He cannot be
+a good citizen, he cannot even vote honestly, much less intelligently,
+unless he has read history. Fortunately the point needs little urging.
+It is almost an impertinence to refer to it. We are all anxious, more
+than anxious to learn--_if only the path of study be made easy_.
+
+Can this be accomplished? Can the vanishing pictures of the past be made
+as simply obvious as mathematics, as fascinating as a breezy novel of
+adventure? Genius has already answered, yes. Hand to a mere boy
+Macaulay's sketch of Warren Hastings in India, and the lad will see as
+easily as if laid out upon a map the host of interwoven and elaborate
+problems that perplexed the great administrator. Offer to the youngest
+lass the tale told by Guizot of King Robert of France and his struggle
+to retain his beloved wife Bertha. Its vivid reality will draw from the
+girl's heart far deeper and truer tears than the most pathetic romance.
+
+We begin to realize that in very truth History has been one vast
+stupendous drama, world-embracing in its splendor, majestic, awful,
+irresistible in the insistence of its pointing finger of fate. It has
+indeed its comic interludes, a Prussian king befuddling ambassadors in
+his "Tobacco Parliament"; its pauses of intense and cumulative suspense,
+Queen Louise pleading to Napoleon for her country's life; but it has
+also its magnificent pageants, its gorgeous culminating spectacles of
+wonder. Kings and emperors are but the supernumeraries upon its boards;
+its hero is the common man, its plot his triumph over ignorance, his
+struggle upward out of the slime of earth.
+
+_Yet the great historians are not being widely read_. The ablest and
+most convincing stories of his own development seem closed against the
+ordinary man. Why? In the first place, the works of the masters are too
+voluminous. Grote's unrivalled history of Greece fills ten large and
+forbidding volumes. Guizot takes thirty-one to tell a portion of the
+story of France. Freeman won credit in the professorial world by
+devoting five to the detailing of a single episode, the Norman Conquest.
+Surely no busy man can gather a general historic knowledge, if he must
+read such works as these! We are told that the great library of Paris
+contains over four hundred thousand volumes and pamphlets on French
+history alone. The output of historic works in all languages approaches
+ten thousand volumes every year. No scholar, even, can peruse more than
+the smallest fraction of this enormously increasing mass. Herodotus is
+forgotten, Livy remains to most of us but a recollection of our
+school-days, and Thucydides has become an exercise in Greek.
+
+There is yet another difficulty. Even the honest man who tries, who
+takes down his Grote or Freeman, heroically resolved to struggle through
+it at all speed, fails often in his purpose. He discovers that the
+greatest masters nod. Sometimes in their slow advance they come upon a
+point that rouses their enthusiasm; they become vigorous, passionate,
+sarcastic, fascinating, they are masters indeed. But the fire soon dies,
+the inspiration flags, "no man can be always on the heights," and the
+unhappy reader drowses in the company of his guide.
+
+This leads us then to one clear point. From these justly famous works a
+selection should be made. Their length should be avoided, their prosy
+passages eliminated; the one picture, or perhaps the many pictures,
+which each master has painted better than any rival before or since,
+that and that alone should be preserved.
+
+Read in this way, history may be sought with genuine pleasure. It is
+only pedantry has made it dreary, only blindness has left it dull. The
+story of man is the most wonderful ever conceived. It can be made the
+most fascinating ever written.
+
+With this idea firmly established in mind, we seek another line of
+thought. The world grows smaller every day. Russia fights huge battles
+five thousand miles from her capital. England governs India. Spain and
+the United States contend for empire in the antipodes. Our rapidly
+improving means of communication, electric trains, and, it may be,
+flying machines, cables, and wireless telegraphy, link lands so close
+together that no man lives to-day the subject of an isolated state.
+Rather, indeed, do all the kingdoms seem to shrink, to become but
+districts in one world-including commonwealth.
+
+To tell the story of one nation by itself is thus no longer possible.
+Great movements of the human race do not stop for imaginary boundary
+lines thrown across a map. It was not the German students, nor the
+Parisian mob, nor the Italian peasants who rebelled in 1848; it was the
+"people of Europe" who arose against their oppressors. To read the
+history of one's own country only is to get distorted views, to
+exaggerate our own importance, to remain often in densest ignorance of
+the real meaning of what we read. The ideas American school-boys get of
+the Revolution are in many cases simply absurd, until they have been
+modified by wider reading.
+
+From this it becomes very evident that a good history now must be, not a
+local, but a world history. The idea of such a work is not new. Diodorus
+penned one two hundred years before Christ. But even then the tale took
+forty books; and we have been making history rather rapidly since
+Diodorus' time. Of the many who have more recently attempted his task,
+few have improved upon his methods; and the best of these works only
+shows upon a larger scale the same dreariness that we have found in
+other masters.
+
+Let us then be frank and admit that no one man can make a thoroughly
+good world history. No one man could be possessed of the almost infinite
+learning required; none could have the infinite enthusiasm to delight
+equally in each separate event, to dwell on all impartially and yet
+ecstatically. So once more we are forced back upon the same conclusion.
+We will take what we already have. We will appeal to each master for the
+event in which he did delight, the one in which we find him at his best.
+
+This also has been attempted before, but perhaps in a manner too
+lengthy, too exact, too pedantic to be popular. The aim has been to get
+in everything. Everything great or small has been narrated, and so the
+real points of value have been lost in the multiplicity of lesser facts,
+about which no ordinary reader cares or needs to care. After all, what
+we want to know and remember are the Great Events, the ones which have
+really changed and influenced humanity. How many of us do really know
+about them? or even know what they are? or one-twentieth part of them?
+And until we know, is it not a waste of time to pore over the lesser
+happenings between?
+
+Yet the connection between these events must somehow be shown. They must
+not stand as separate, unrelated fragments. If the story of the world is
+indeed one, it must be shown as one, not even broken by arbitrary
+division into countries, those temporary political constructions, often
+separating a single race, lines of imaginary demarcation, varying with
+the centuries, invisible in earth's yesterday, sure to change if not to
+perish in her to-morrow. Moreover, such a system of division
+necessitates endless repetition. Each really important occurrence
+influences many countries, and so is told of again and again with
+monotonous iteration and extravagant waste of space.
+
+It may, however, be fairly urged that the story should vary according to
+the country for which it is designed. To our individual lives the events
+happening nearest prove most important. Great though others be, their
+influence diminishes with their increasing distance in space and time.
+For the people of North America the story of the world should have the
+part taken by America written large across the pages.
+
+From all these lines of reasoning arose the present work, which the
+National Alumni believe has solved the problem. It tells the story of
+the world, tells it in the most famous words of the most famous writers,
+makes of it a single, continued story, giving the results of the most
+recent research. Yet all dry detail has been deliberately eliminated;
+the tale runs rapidly and brightly. Whatever else may happen, the reader
+shall not yawn. Only important points are dwelt on, and their relative
+value is made clear.
+
+Each volume of THE GREAT EVENTS opens with a brief survey of the period
+with which it deals. The broad world movements of the time are pointed
+out, their importance is emphasized, their mutual relationship made
+clear. If the reader finds his interest specially roused in one of these
+events, and he would learn more of it, he is aided by a directing note,
+which, in each case, tells him where in the body of the volume the
+subject is further treated. Turning thither he may plunge at once into
+the fuller account which he desires, sure that it will be both vivid and
+authoritative; in short, the best-known treatment of the subject.
+
+Meanwhile the general survey, being thus relieved from the necessity of
+constant explanation, expansion, and digression, is enabled to flow
+straight onward with its story, rapidly, simply, entertainingly. Indeed,
+these opening sketches, written especially for this series, and in a
+popular style, may be read on from volume to volume, forming a book in
+themselves, presenting a bird's-eye view of the whole course of earth,
+an ideal world history which leaves the details to be filled in by the
+reader at his pleasure. It is thus, we believe, and thus only, that
+world history can be made plain and popular. The great lessons of
+history can thus be clearly grasped. And by their light all life takes
+on a deeper meaning.
+
+The body of each volume, then, contains the Great Events of the period,
+ranged in chronological order. Of each event there are given one,
+perhaps two, or even three complete accounts, not chosen hap-hazard, but
+selected after conference with many scholars, accounts the most accurate
+and most celebrated in existence, gathered from all languages and all
+times. Where the event itself is under dispute, the editors do not
+presume to judge for the reader; they present the authorities upon both
+sides. The Reformation is thus portrayed from the Catholic as well as
+the Protestant standpoint. The American Revolution is shown in part as
+England saw it; and in the American Civil War, and the causes which
+produced it, the North and the South speak for themselves in the words
+of their best historians.
+
+To each of these accounts is prefixed a brief introduction, prepared for
+this work by a specialist in the field of history of which it treats.
+This introduction serves a double purpose. In the first place, it
+explains whatever is necessary for the understanding and appreciation
+of the story that follows. Unfortunately, many a striking bit of
+historic writing has become antiquated in the present day. Scholars have
+discovered that it blunders here and there, perhaps is prejudiced,
+perhaps extravagant. Newer writers, therefore, base a new book upon the
+old one, not changing much, but paraphrasing it into deadly dullness by
+their efforts after accuracy. Thanks to our introduction we can revive
+the more spirited account, and, while pointing out its value to the
+reader, can warn him of its errors. Thus he secures in briefest form the
+results of the most recent research.
+
+Another purpose of the introduction is to link each event with the
+preceding ones in whatever countries it affects. Thus if one chooses he
+may read by countries after all, and get a completed story of a single
+nation. That is, he may peruse the account of the battle of Hastings and
+then turn onward to the making of the _Domesday Book_, where he will
+find a few brief lines to cover the intervening space in England's
+history. From the struggles of Stephen and Matilda he is led to the
+quarrel of her son, King Henry, with Thomas Becket, and so onward step
+by step.
+
+Starting with this ground plan of the design in mind, the reader will
+see that its compilation was a work of enormous labor. This has been
+undertaken seriously, patiently, and with earnest purpose. The first
+problem to be confronted was, What were the Great Events that should be
+told? Almost every writer and teacher of history, every well-known
+authority, was appealed to; many lists of events were compiled, revised,
+collated, and compared; and so at last our final list was evolved,
+fitted to bear the brunt of every criticism.
+
+Then came the heavier problem of what authorities to quote for each
+event. And here also the editors owe much to the capable aid of many
+generous, unremunerated advisers. Thus, for instance, they sought and
+obtained from the Hon. Joseph Chamberlain his advice as to the
+authorities to be used for the Jameson raid and the Boer war. The
+account presented may therefore be fairly regarded as England's own
+authoritative presentment of those events. Several little known and
+wholly unused Russian sources were pointed out by Professor Rambaud,
+the French Academician. But this is mentioned only to illustrate the
+impartiality with which the editors have endeavored to cover all fields.
+If, under the plea of expressing gratitude to all those who have lent us
+courteous assistance, we were to spread across these pages the long roll
+of their distinguished names, it would sound too much like boasting of
+their condescension.
+
+The work of selecting the accounts has been one of time and careful
+thought. Many thousands of books have been read and read again. The
+cardinal points of consideration in the choice have been: (1) Interest,
+that is, vividness of narration; (2) simplicity, for we aim to reach the
+people, to make a book fit even for a child; (3) the fame of the author,
+for everyone is pleased to be thus easily introduced to some
+long-heard-of celebrity, distantly revered, but dreaded; and (4)
+accuracy, a point set last because its defects could be so easily
+remedied by the specialist's introduction to each event.
+
+These considerations have led occasionally to the selection of very
+ancient documents, the original "sources" of history themselves, as, for
+instance, Columbus' own story of his voyage, rather than any later
+account built up on this; Pliny's picture of the destruction of Pompeii,
+for Pliny was there and saw the heavens rain down fire, and told of it
+as no man has done since. So, too, we give a literal translation of the
+earliest known code of laws, antedating those of Moses by more than a
+thousand years, rather than some modern commentary on them. At other
+times the same principles have led to the other extreme, and on modern
+events, where there seemed no wholly satisfactory or standard accounts,
+we have had them written for us by the specialists best acquainted with
+the field.
+
+As the work thus grew in hand, it became manifest that it would be, in
+truth, far more than a mere story of events. With each event was
+connected the man who embodied it. Often his life was handled quite as
+fully as the event, and so we had biography. Lands had to be
+described--geography. Peoples and customs--sociology. Laws and the
+arguments concerning them--political economy. In short, our history
+proved a universal cyclopaedia as well.
+
+To give it its full value, therefore, an index became obviously
+necessary--and no ordinary index. Its aim must be to anticipate every
+possible question with which a reader might approach the past, and
+direct him to the answer. Even, it might be, he would want details more
+elaborate than we give. If so, we must direct him where to find them.
+
+Professional index-makers were therefore summoned to our help, a
+complete and readable chronology was appended to each volume, and the
+final volume of the series was turned over to the indexers entirely. We
+believe their work will prove not the least valuable feature of the
+whole. Briefly, the Index Volume contains:
+
+1. A complete list of the Great Events of the world's history. Opposite
+each event are given the date, the name of the author and standard work
+from which our account is selected, and a number of references to other
+works and to a short discussion of these in our Bibliography. Thus the
+reader may pursue an extended course of study on each particular event.
+
+2. A bibliography of the best general histories of ancient, mediaeval,
+and modern times, and of important political, religious, and educational
+movements; also a bibliography of the best historical works dealing with
+each nation, and arranged under the following subdivisions: (_a_) The
+general history of the nation; (_b_) special periods in its career;
+(_c_) the descriptions of the people, their civilization and
+institutions. On each work thus mentioned there is a critical comment
+with suggestions to readers. This bibliography is designed chiefly for
+those who desire to pursue more extended courses of reading, and it
+offers them the experience and guidance of those who have preceded them
+on their special field.
+
+3. A classified index of famous historic characters. The names are
+grouped under such headings as "Rulers, Statesmen, and Patriots,"
+"Famous Women," "Military and Naval Commanders," "Philosophers and
+Teachers," "Religious Leaders," etc. Under each person's name is given a
+biographical chronology of his career, showing every important event in
+which he played a part, together with the date of the event, and the
+volume and page of this series where a full account of it may be found.
+This plan provides a new and very valuable means of reading the
+biography of any noted personage, one of the great advantages being that
+the accounts of the various events in his life are not all in the
+language of the same author, not written by a man anxious to bring out
+the importance of his special hero. The writers are mainly interested in
+the event, and show the hero only in his true and unexaggerated relation
+to it. Under each name will also be found references to such further
+authorities on the biography of the personage as may be consulted with
+profit by those students and scholars who wish to pursue an exhaustive
+study of his career.
+
+4. A biographical index of the authors represented in the series. This
+consists of brief sketches of the many writers whose work has been drawn
+upon for the narratives of Great Events. It is intended for ready
+reference, and gives only the essential facts. This index serves a
+double purpose. Suppose, for instance, that a reader is familiar with
+the name of John Lothrop Motley, but happens not to know whether he is
+still living, whether he had other occupation than writing, or what
+offices he held. This index will answer these questions. On the other
+hand, an admirer of Thomas Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt may wish to
+know whether we have taken anything--and, if so, what--from their
+writings. This index will answer at once.
+
+5. A general index covering every reference in the series to dates,
+events, persons, and places of historic importance. These are made
+easily accessible by a careful and elaborate system of cross-references.
+
+6. A separate and complete chronology of each nation of ancient,
+mediaeval, and modern times, with references to the volume and page where
+each item is treated, either as an entire article or as part of one; so
+that the history of any one nation may be read in its logical order and
+in the language of its best historians.
+
+Such, as the National Alumni regard it, are the general character, wide
+scope, and earnest purpose of THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS. Let
+us end by saying, in the friendly fashion of the old days when
+bookmakers and their readers were more intimate than now: "Kind reader,
+if this our performance doth in aught fall short of promise, blame not
+our good intent, but our unperfect wit."
+
+THE NATIONAL ALUMNI.
+
+
+
+
+
+AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
+
+TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE, ITS ADVANCE IN
+KNOWLEDGE AND CIVILIZATION, AND THE BROAD WORLD MOVEMENTS WHICH HAVE
+SHAPED ITS DESTINY
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
+
+CONTINUED THROUGH THE SUCCESSIVE VOLUMES AND COVERING THE SUCCESSIVE
+PERIODS OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS
+
+
+
+
+
+AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE
+
+TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF
+
+THE GREAT EVENTS
+
+(FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIANS)
+
+CHARLES F. HORNE
+
+
+History, if we define it as the mere transcription of the written
+records of former generations, can go no farther back than the time such
+records were first made, no farther than the art of writing. But now
+that we have come to recognize the great earth itself as a story-book,
+as a keeper of records buried one beneath the other, confused and half
+obliterated, yet not wholly beyond our comprehension, now the historian
+may fairly be allowed to speak of a far earlier day.
+
+For unmeasured and immeasurable centuries man lived on earth a creature
+so little removed from "the beasts that die," so little superior to
+them, that he has left no clearer record than they of his presence here.
+From the dry bones of an extinct mammoth or a plesiosaur, Cuvier
+reconstructed the entire animal and described its habits and its home.
+So, too, looking on an ancient, strange, scarce human skull, dug from
+the deeper strata beneath our feet, anatomists tell us that the owner
+was a man indeed, but one little better than an ape. A few aeons later
+this creature leaves among his bones chipped flints that narrow to a
+point; and the archaeologist, taking up the tale, explains that man has
+become tool-using, he has become intelligent beyond all the other
+animals of earth. Physically he is but a mite amid the beast monsters
+that surround him, but by value of his brain he conquers them. He has
+begun his career of mastery.
+
+If we delve amid more recent strata, we find the flint weapons have
+become bronze. Their owner has learned to handle a ductile metal, to
+draw it from the rocks and fuse it in the fire. Later still he has
+discovered how to melt the harder and more useful iron. We say roughly,
+therefore, that man passed through a stone age, a bronze age, and then
+an iron age.
+
+Somewhere, perhaps in the earliest of these, he began to build rude
+houses. In the next, he drew pictures. During the latest, his pictures
+grew into an alphabet of signs, his structures developed into vast and
+enduring piles of brick or stone. Buildings and inscriptions became his
+relics, more like to our own, more fully understandable, giving us a
+sense of closer kinship with his race.
+
+
+SOURCES OF EARLY KNOWLEDGE
+
+There are three different lines along which we have succeeded in
+securing some knowledge of these our distant ancestors, three telephones
+from the past, over which they send to us confused and feeble
+murmurings, whose fascination makes only more maddening the vagueness of
+their speech.
+
+First, we have the picture-writings, whether of Central America, of
+Egypt, of Babylonia, or of other lands. These when translatable bring us
+nearest of all to the heart of the great past. It is the mind, the
+thought, the spoken word, of man that is most intimately he; not his
+face, nor his figure, nor his clothes. Unfortunately, the translation of
+these writings is no easy task. Those of Central America are still an
+unsolved riddle. Those of Babylon have been slowly pieced together like
+a puzzle, a puzzle to which the learned world has given its most able
+thought. Yet they are not fully understood. In Egypt we have had the
+luck to stumble on a clew, the Rosetta Stone, which makes the ancient
+writing fairly clear.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See page 1 for an engraving and account of this famous
+stone. It was found over a century ago and its value was instantly
+recognized, but many years passed before its secrets were deciphered. It
+contains an inscription repeated in three forms of writing: the early
+Egyptian of the hieroglyphics, a later Egyptian (the demotic), and
+Greek.]
+
+Where this mode of communication fails, we turn to another which carries
+us even farther into the past. The records which have been less
+intentionally preserved, not only the buildings themselves, but their
+decorations, the personal ornaments of men, idols, coins, every
+imaginable fragment, chance escaped from the maw of time, has its own
+story for our reading. In Egypt we have found deep-hidden, secret tombs,
+and, intruding on their many centuries of silence, have reaped rich
+harvests of knowledge from the garnered wealth. In Babylonia the rank
+vegetation had covered whole cities underneath green hillocks, and
+preserved them till our modern curiosity delved them out. To-day, he who
+wills, may walk amid the halls of Sennacherib, may tread the streets
+whence Abraham fled, ay, he may gaze upon the handiwork of men who lived
+perhaps as far before Abraham as we ourselves do after him.
+
+Nor are our means of penetrating the past even thus exhausted. A third
+chain yet more subtle and more marvellous has been found to link us to
+an ancestry immeasurably remote. This unbroken chain consists of the
+words from our own mouths. We speak as our fathers spoke; and they did
+but follow the generations before. Occasional pronunciations have
+altered, new words have been added, and old ones forgotten; but some
+basal sounds of names, some root-thoughts of the heart, have proved as
+immutable as the superficial elegancies are changeful. "Father" and
+"mother" mean what they have meant for uncounted ages.
+
+Comparative philology, the science which compares one language with
+another to note the points of similarity between them, has discovered
+that many of these root-sounds are alike in almost all the varied
+tongues of Europe. The resemblance is too common to be the result of
+coincidence, too deep-seated to be accounted for by mere communication
+between the nations. We have gotten far beyond the possibility of such
+explanations; and science says now with positive confidence that there
+must have been a time when all these nations were but one, that their
+languages are all but variations of the tongue their distant ancestors
+once held in common.
+
+Study has progressed beyond this point, can tell us far more intricate
+and fainter facts. It argues that one by one the various tribes left
+their common home and became completely separated; and that each
+root-sound still used by all the nations represents an idea, an object,
+they already possessed before their dispersal. Thus we can vaguely
+reconstruct that ancient, aboriginal civilization. We can even guess
+which tribes first broke away, and where again these wanderers
+subdivided, and at what stage of progress. Surely a fascinating science
+this! And in its infancy! If its later development shall justify present
+promise, it has still strange tales to tell us in the future.
+
+
+THE RACES OF MAN
+
+Turn now from this tracing of our means of knowledge, to speak of the
+facts they tell us. When our humankind first become clearly visible they
+are already divided into races, which for convenience we speak of as
+white, yellow, and black. Of these the whites had apparently advanced
+farthest on the road to civilization; and the white race itself had
+become divided into at least three varieties, so clearly marked as to
+have persisted through all the modern centuries of communication and
+intermarriage. Science is not even able to say positively that these
+varieties or families had a common origin. She inclines to think so; but
+when all these later ages have failed to obliterate the marks of
+difference, what far longer period of separation must have been required
+to establish them!
+
+These three clearly outlined families of the whites are the Hamites, of
+whom the Egyptians are the best-known type; the Semites, as represented
+by ancient Babylonians and modern Jews and Arabs; and the great Aryan or
+Indo-European family, once called the Japhites, and including Hindus,
+Persians, Greeks, Latins, the modern Celtic and Germanic races, and even
+the Slavs or Russians.
+
+The Egyptians, when we first see them, are already well advanced toward
+civilization.[2] To say that they were the first people to emerge from
+barbarism is going much further than we dare. Their records are the most
+ancient that have come clearly down to us; but there may easily have
+been other social organisms, other races, to whom the chances of time
+and nature have been less gentle. Cataclysms may have engulfed more than
+one Atlantis; and few climates are so fitted for the preservation of
+man's buildings as is the rainless valley of the Nile.
+
+[Footnote 2: See the _Dawn of Civilization_, page 1.]
+
+Moreover, the Egyptians may not have been the earliest inhabitants even
+of their own rich valley. We find hints that they were wanderers,
+invaders, coming from the East, and that with the land they appropriated
+also the ideas, the inventions, of an earlier negroid race. But whatever
+they took they added to, they improved on. The idea of futurity, of
+man's existence beyond the grave, became prominent among them; and in
+the absence of clearer knowledge we may well take this idea as the
+groundwork, the starting-point, of all man's later and more striking
+progress.
+
+Since the Egyptians believed in a future life they strove to preserve
+the body for it, and built ever stronger and more gigantic tombs. They
+strove to fit the mind for it, and cultivated virtues, not wholly animal
+such as physical strength, nor wholly commercial such as cunning. They
+even carved around the sepulchre of the departed a record of his doings,
+lest they--and perhaps he too in that next life--forget. There were
+elements of intellectual growth in all this, conditions to stimulate the
+mind beyond the body.
+
+And the Egyptians did develop. If one reads the tales, the romances,
+that have survived from their remoter periods, he finds few emotions
+higher than childish curiosity or mere animal rage and fear. Amid their
+latest stories, on the contrary, we encounter touches of sentiment, of
+pity and self-sacrifice, such as would even now be not unworthy of
+praise. But, alas! the improvement seems most marked where it was most
+distant. Perhaps the material prosperity of the land was too great, the
+conditions of life too easy; there was no stimulus to effort, to
+endeavor. By about the year 2200 B.C. we find Egypt fallen into the grip
+of a cold and lifeless formalism. Everything was fixed by law; even
+pictures must be drawn in a certain way, thoughts must be expressed by
+stated and unvariable symbols. Advance became well-nigh impossible.
+Everything lay in the hands of a priestly caste the completeness of
+whose dominion has perhaps never been matched in history. The leaders
+lived lives of luxurious pleasure enlightened by scientific study; but
+the people scarce existed except as automatons. The race was dead; its
+true life, the vigor of its masses, was exhausted, and the land soon
+fell an easy prey to every spirited invader.
+
+Meanwhile a rougher, stronger civilization was growing in the river
+valleys eastward from the Nile. The Semitic tribes, who seem to have had
+their early seat and centre of dispersion somewhere in this region, were
+coalescing into nations, Babylonians along the lower Tigris and
+Euphrates, Assyrians later along the upper rivers, Hebrews under David
+and Solomon[3] by the Jordan, Phoenicians on the Mediterranean coast.
+
+[Footnote 3: See _Accession of Solomon_, page 92.]
+
+The early Babylonian civilization may antedate even the Egyptian; but
+its monuments were less permanent, its rulers less anxious for the
+future. The "appeal to posterity," the desire for a posthumous fame,
+seems with them to have been slower of conception. True, the first
+Babylonian monarchs of whom we have any record, in an era perhaps over
+five thousand years before Christianity, stamped the royal signet on
+every brick of their walls and temples. But common-sense suggests that
+this was less to preserve their fame than to preserve their bricks.
+Theft is no modern innovation.
+
+They were a mathematical race, these Babylonians. In fact, Semite and
+mathematician are names that have been closely allied through all the
+course of history, and one cannot help but wish our Aryan race had
+somewhere lived through an experience which would produce in them the
+exactitude in balance and measurement of facts that has distinguished
+the Arabs and the Jews. The Babylonians founded astronomy and
+chronology; they recorded the movements of the stars, and divided their
+year according to the sun and moon. They built a vast and intricate
+network of canals to fertilize their land; and they arranged the
+earliest system of legal government, the earliest code of laws, that has
+come down to us.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Compilation of the Earliest Code_, page 14.]
+
+
+The sciences, then, arise more truly here than with the Egyptians. Man
+here began to take notice, to record and to classify the facts of
+nature. We may count this the second visible step in his great progress.
+Never again shall we find him in a childish attitude of idle wonder.
+Always is his brain alert, striving to understand, self-conscious of its
+own power over nature.
+
+It may have been wealth and luxury that enfeebled the Babylonians as,
+it did the Egyptians. At any rate, their empire was overturned by a
+border colony of their own, the Assyrians, a rough and hardy folk who
+had maintained themselves for centuries battling against tribes from the
+surrounding mountains. It was like a return to barbarism when about B.C.
+880 the Assyrians swept over the various Semite lands. Loud were the
+laments of the Hebrews; terrible the tales of cruelty; deep the scorn
+with which the Babylonians submitted to the rude conquerors. We approach
+here a clearer historic period; we can trace with plainness the
+devastating track of war;[5] we can read the boastful triumph of the
+Assyrian chiefs, can watch them step by step as they adopt the culture
+and the vices of their new subjects, growing ever more graceful and more
+enfeebled, until they too are overthrown by a new and hardier race, the
+Persians, an Aryan folk.
+
+[Footnote 5: See _Rise and Fall of Assyria_, page 105.]
+
+Before turning to this last and most prominent family of humankind, let
+us look for a moment at the other, darker races, seen vaguely as they
+come in contact with the whites. The negroes, set sharply by themselves
+in Africa, never seem to have created any progressive civilization of
+their own, never seem to have advanced further than we find the wild
+tribes in the interior of the country to-day. But the yellow or Turanian
+races, the Chinese and Japanese, the Turks and the Tartars, did not
+linger so helplessly behind. The Chinese, at least, established a social
+world of their own, widely different from that of the whites, in some
+respects perhaps superior to it. But the fatal weakness of the yellow
+civilization was that it was not ennobling like the Egyptian, not
+scientific like the Babylonian, not adventurous and progressive as we
+shall find the Aryan.
+
+This, of course, is speaking in general terms. Something somewhat
+ennobling there may be in the contemplations of Confucius;[6] but no man
+can favorably compare the Chinese character to-day with the European,
+whether we regard either intensity of feeling, or variety, range,
+subtlety, and beauty of emotion. So, also, the Chinese made scientific
+discoveries--but knew not how to apply them or improve them. So also
+they made conquests--and abandoned them; toiled--and sank back into
+inertia.
+
+[Footnote 6: See _Rise of Confucius_, page 270.]
+
+The Japanese present a separate problem, as yet little understood in its
+earlier stages.[7] As to the Tartars, wild and hardy horsemen roaming
+over Northern Asia, they kept for ages their independent animal strength
+and fierceness. They appear and disappear like flashes. They seem to
+seek no civilization of their own; they threaten again and again to
+destroy that of all the other races of the globe. Fitly, indeed, was
+their leader Attila once termed "the Scourge of God."
+
+
+[Footnote 7: See _Prince Jimmu_, page 140.]
+
+
+THE ARYANS
+
+Of our own progressive Aryan race, we have no monuments nor inscriptions
+so old as those of the Hamites and the Semites. What comparative
+philology tells is this: An early, if not the original, home of the
+Aryans was in Asia, to the eastward of the Semites, probably in the
+mountain district back of modern Persia. That is, they were not, like
+the other whites, a people of the marsh lands and river valleys. They
+lived in a higher, hardier, and more bracing atmosphere. Perhaps it was
+here that their minds took a freer bent, their spirits caught a bolder
+tone. Wherever they moved they came as conquerors among other races.
+
+In their primeval home and probably before the year B.C. 3000, they had
+already acquired a fair degree of civilization. They built houses,
+ploughed the land, and ground grain into flour for their baking. The
+family relations were established among them; they had some social
+organization and simple form of government; they had learned to worship
+a god, and to see in him a counterpart of their tribal ruler.
+
+From their upland farms they must have looked eastward upon yet higher
+mountains, rising impenetrable above the snowline; but to north and
+south and west they might turn to lower regions; and by degrees, perhaps
+as they grew too numerous for comfort, a few families wandered off along
+the more inviting routes. Whichever way they started, their adventurous
+spirit led them on. We find no trace of a single case where hearts
+failed or strength grew weary and the movement became retrograde, back
+toward the ancient home. Spreading out, radiating in all directions, it
+is they who have explored the earth, who have measured it and marked its
+bounds and penetrated almost to its every corner. It is they who still
+pant to complete the work so long ago begun.
+
+Before B.C. 2000 one of these exuded swarms had penetrated India,
+probably by way of the Indus River. In the course of a thousand years or
+so, the intruders expanded and fought their way slowly from the Indus to
+the Ganges. The earlier and duskier inhabitants gave way before them or
+became incorporated in the stronger race. A mighty Aryan or Hindu empire
+was formed in India and endured there until well within historic times.
+
+Yet its power faded. Life in the hot and languid tropics tends to
+weaken, not invigorate, the sinews of a race. Then, too, a formal
+religion, a system of castes[8] as arbitrary as among the Egyptians,
+laid its paralyzing grip upon the land. About B.C. 600 Buddhism, a new
+and beautiful religion, sought to revive the despairing people; but they
+were beyond its help.[9] Their slothful languor had become too deep.
+From having been perhaps the first and foremost and most civilized of
+the Aryan tribes, the Hindus sank to be degenerate members of the race.
+We shall turn to look on them again in a later period; but they will be
+seen in no favorable light.
+
+[Footnote 8: See _The Formation of the Castes_, page 52.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See _The Foundation of Buddhism_, page 160.]
+
+Meanwhile other wanderers from the Aryan home appear to the north and
+west. Perhaps even the fierce Tartars are an Aryan race, much altered
+from long dwelling among the yellow peoples. One tribe, the Persians,
+moved directly west, and became neighbors of the already noted Semitic
+group. After long wars backward and forward, bringing us well within the
+range of history, the Persians proved too powerful for the whole Semite
+group. They helped destroy Assyria,[10] they overthrew the second
+Babylonian empire which Nebuchadnezzar had built up, and then, pressing
+on to the conquest of Egypt, they swept the Hamites too from their place
+of sovereignty.[11]
+
+[Footnote 10: See _Destruction of Nineveh_, page 105.]
+
+[Footnote 11: See _Conquests of Cyrus_, page 250.]
+
+How surely do those tropic lands avenge themselves on each new savage
+horde of invaders from the hardy North. It is not done in a generation,
+not in a century, perhaps. But drop by drop the vigorous, tingling,
+Arctic blood is sapped away. Year after year the lazy comfort, the loose
+pleasure, of the south land fastens its curse upon the mighty warriors.
+As we watch the Persians, we see their kings go mad, or become
+effeminate tyrants sending underlings to do their fighting for them. We
+see the whole race visibly degenerate, until one questions if
+Marathon[12] were after all so marvellous a victory, and suspects that
+at whatever point the Persians had begun their advance on Europe they
+would have been easily hurled back.
+
+[Footnote 12: See _The Battle of Marathon_, page 322.]
+
+It was in Europe only that the Aryan wanderers found a temperate
+climate, a region similar to that in which they had been bred. Recent
+speculation has even suggested that Europe was their primeval home, from
+which they had strayed toward Asia, and to which they now returned.
+Certainly it is in Europe that the race has continued to develop.
+Earliest of these Aryan waves to take possession of their modern
+heritage, were the Celts, who must have journeyed over the European
+continent at some dim period too remote even for a guess. Then came the
+Greeks and Latins, closely allied tribes, representing possibly a single
+migration, that spread westward along the islands and peninsulas of the
+Mediterranean. The Teutons may have left Asia before B.C. 1000, for they
+seem to have reached their German forests by three centuries beyond that
+time, and these vast migratory movements were very slow. The latest
+Aryan wave, that of the Slavs, came well within historic times. We
+almost fancy we can see its movement. Russian statesmen, indeed, have
+hopes that this is not yet completed. They dream that they, the youngest
+of the peoples, are yet to dominate the whole.
+
+
+THE GREEKS AND LATINS
+
+Of these European Aryans the only branches that come within the limits
+of our present period, that become noteworthy before B.C. 480, are the
+Greeks and Latins.
+
+Their languages tell us that they formed but a single tribe long after
+they became separated from the other peoples of their race. Finally,
+however, the Latins, journeying onward, lost sight of their friends, and
+it must have taken many centuries of separation for the two tongues to
+grow so different as they were when Greeks and Romans, each risen to a
+mighty nation, met again.
+
+The Greeks, or Hellenes as they called themselves, seem to have been
+only one of a number of kindred tribes who occupied not only the shores
+of the AEgean, but Thrace, Macedonia, a considerable part of Asia Minor,
+and other neighboring regions. The Greeks developed in intellect more
+rapidly than their neighbors, outdistanced them in the race for
+civilization, forgot these poor relations, and grouped them with the
+rest of outside mankind under the scornful name "barbarians."
+
+Why it was that the Greeks were thus specially stimulated beyond their
+brethren we do not know. It has long been one of the commonplaces of
+history to declare them the result of their environment. It is pointed
+out that in Greece they lived amid precipitous mountains, where, as
+hunters, they became strong and venturesome, independent and
+self-reliant. A sea of islands lay all around; and while an open ocean
+might only have awed and intimidated them, this ever-luring prospect of
+shore beyond shore rising in turn on the horizon made them sailors, made
+them friendly traffickers among themselves. Always meeting new faces,
+driving new bargains, they became alert, quick-witted, progressive, the
+foremost race of all the ancient world.
+
+They do not seem to have been a creative folk. They only adapted and
+carried to a higher point what they learned from the older nations with
+whom they now came in contact. Phoenicia supplied them with an alphabet,
+and they began the writing of books. Egypt showed them her records, and,
+improving on her idea, they became historians. So far as we know, the
+earliest real "histories" were written in Greece; that is, the earliest
+accounts of a whole people, an entire series of events, as opposed to
+the merely individual statements on the Egyptian monuments, the
+personal, boastful clamor of some king.
+
+Before we reach this period of written history we know that the Greeks
+had long been civilized. Their own legends scarce reach back farther
+than the first founding of Athens,[13] which they place about B.C. 1500.
+Yet recent excavations in Crete have revealed the remains of a
+civilization which must have antedated that by several centuries.
+
+[Footnote 13: See _Theseus Founds Athens_, page 45.]
+
+But we grope in darkness! The most ancient Greek book that has come down
+to us is the _Iliad_, with its tale of the great war against Troy.[14]
+Critics will not permit us to call the _Iliad_ a history, because it was
+not composed, or at least not written down, until some centuries after
+the events of which it tells. Moreover, it poetizes its theme, doubtless
+enlarges its pictures, brings gods and goddesses before our eyes,
+instead of severely excluding everything except what the blind bard
+perchance could personally vouch for.
+
+[Footnote 14: See _Fall of Troy_, page 70.]
+
+Still both the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ are good enough history for
+most of us, in that they give a full, outline of Grecian life and
+society as Homer knew it. We see the little, petty states, with their
+chiefs all-powerful, and the people quite ignored. We see the heroes
+driving to battle in their chariots, guarded by shield and helmet,
+flourishing sword and spear. We learn what Ulysses did not know of
+foreign lands.. We hear Achilles' famed lament amid the dead, and note
+the vague glimmering idea of a future life, which the Greeks had caught
+perhaps from the Egyptians, perhaps from the suggestive land of dreams.
+
+With the year B.C. 776 we come in contact with a clear marked
+chronology. The Greeks themselves reckoned from that date by means of
+olympiads or intervals between the Olympic games. The story becomes
+clear. The autocratic little city kings, governing almost as they
+pleased, have everywhere been displaced by oligarchies. The few leading
+nobles may name one of themselves to bear rule, but the real power lies
+divided among the class. Then, with the growing prominence of the
+Pythian games[15] we come upon a new stage of national development. The
+various cities begin to form alliances, to recognize the fact that they
+may be made safer and happier by a larger national life. The sense of
+brotherhood begins to extend beyond the circle of personal acquaintance.
+
+[Footnote 15: See _Pythian Games at Delphi_, page 181.]
+
+This period was one of lawmaking, of experimenting. The traditions, the
+simple customs of the old kingly days, were no longer sufficient for the
+guidance of the larger cities, the more complicated circles of society,
+which were growing up. It was no longer possible for a man who did not
+like his tribe to abandon it and wander elsewhere with his family and
+herds. The land was too fully peopled for that. The dissatisfied could
+only endure and grumble and rebel. One system of law after another was
+tried and thrown aside. The class on whom in practice a rule bore most
+hard, would refuse longer assent to it. There were uprisings, tumults,
+bloody frays.
+
+Sparta, at this time the most prominent of the Greek cities, evolved a
+code which made her in some ways the wonder of ancient days. The state
+was made all-powerful; it took entire possession of the citizen, with
+the purpose of making him a fighter, a strong defender of himself and of
+his country. His home life was almost obliterated, or, if you like, the
+whole city was made one huge family. All men ate in common; youth was
+severely restrained; its training was all for physical hardihood. Modern
+socialism, communism, have seldom ventured further in theory than the
+Spartans went in practice. The result seems to have been the production
+of a race possessed of tremendous bodily power and courage, but of
+stunted intellectual growth. The great individual minds of Greece, the
+thinkers, the creators, did not come from Sparta.
+
+In Athens a different _regime_ was meanwhile developing Hellenes of
+another type. A realization of how superior the Greeks were to earlier
+races, of what vast strides man was making in intelligence and social
+organization, can in no way be better gained than by comparing the law
+code of the Babylonian Hammurabi with that of Solon in Athens.[16] A
+period of perhaps sixteen hundred years separates the two, but the
+difference in their mental power is wider still.
+
+[Footnote 16: See _Solon's Legislation_, page 203, and _Compilation of
+the Earliest Code_, page 14.]
+
+While the Greeks were thus forging rapidly ahead, their ancient kindred,
+the Latins, were also progressing, though at a rate less dazzling. The
+true date of Rome's founding we do not know. Her own legends give B.C.
+753.[17] But recent excavations on the Palatine hill show that it was
+already fortified at a much earlier period. Rome, we believe, was
+originally a frontier fortress erected by the Latins to protect them
+from the attacks of the non-Aryan races among whom they had intruded.
+This stronghold became ever more numerously peopled, until it grew into
+an individual state separate from the other Latin cities.
+
+[Footnote 17: See _The Foundation of Rome_, page 116.]
+
+The Romans passed through the vicissitudes which we have already noted
+in Greece as characteristic of the Aryan development. The early war
+leader became an absolute king, his power tended to become hereditary,
+but its abuse roused the more powerful citizens to rebellion, and the
+kingdom vanished in an oligarchy.[18] This last change occurred in Rome
+about B.C. 510, and it was attended by such disasters that the city sank
+back into a condition that was almost barbarous when compared with her
+opulence under the Tarquin kings.
+
+[Footnote 18: See _Rome Established as a Republic_, page 300.]
+
+It was soon after this that the Persians, ignorant of their own
+decadence, and dreaming still of world power, resolved to conquer the
+remaining little states lying scarce known along the boundaries of their
+empire. They attacked the Greeks, and at Marathon (B.C. 490) and Salamis
+(B.C. 480) were hurled back and their power broken.[19]
+
+[Footnote 19: See _Battle of Marathon_, page 322, and _Invasion of
+Greece_, page 354.]
+
+This was a world event, one of the great turning points, a decision that
+could not have been otherwise if man was really to progress. The
+degenerate, enfeebled, half-Semitized Aryans of Asia were not permitted
+to crush the higher type which was developing in Europe. The more
+vigorous bodies and far abler brains of the Greeks enabled them to
+triumph over all the hordes of their opponents. The few conquered the
+many; and the following era became one of European progress, not of
+Asiatic stagnation.
+
+
+
+(FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME II.)
+
+
+
+
+
+DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
+
+B.C. 5867[20]
+
+G.C.C. MASPERO
+
+
+     It is a far cry to hark back to 11,000 years before Christ, yet
+     borings in the valley of the Nile, whence comes the first recorded
+     history of the human race, have unveiled to the light pottery and
+     other relics of civilization that, at the rate of deposits of the
+     Nile, must have taken at least that number of years to cover.
+
+     [Footnote 20: Champollion.]
+
+     Nature takes countless thousands of years to form and build up her
+     limestone hills, but buried deep in these we find evidences of a
+     stone age wherein man devised and made himself edged tools and
+     weapons of rudely chipped stone. These shaped, edged implements, we
+     have learned, were made by white-heating a suitable flint or stone
+     and tracing thereon with cold water the pattern desired, just as
+     practised by the Indians of the American continent, and in our day
+     by the manufacturers of ancient (_sic_) arrow-, spear-, and
+     axe-heads. This shows a civilization that has learned the method of
+     artificially producing fire, and its uses.
+
+     Egypt is the monumental land of the earth, as the Egyptians are the
+     monumental people of history. The first human monarch to reign over
+     all Egypt was Menes, the founder of Memphis. As the gate of Africa,
+     Egypt has always held an important position in world-politics. Its
+     ancient wealth and power were enormous. Inclusive of the Soudan,
+     its population is now more than eight millions. Its present
+     importance is indicated by its relations to England. Historians
+     vary in their compilations of Egyptian chronology. The epoch of
+     Menes is fixed by Bunsen at B.C. 3643, by Lepsius at B.C. 3892, and
+     by Poole at B.C. 2717. Before Menes Egypt was divided into
+     independent kingdoms. It has always been a country of mysteries,
+     with the mighty Nile, and its inundations, so little understood by
+     the ancients; its trackless desert; its camels and caravans; its
+     tombs and temples; its obelisks and pyramids, its groups of gods:
+     Ra, Osiris, Isis, Apis, Horus, Hathor--the very names breathe
+     suggestions of mystery, cruelty, pomp, and power. In the sciences
+     and in the industrial arts the ancient Egyptians were highly
+     cultivated. Much Egyptian literature has come down to us, but it is
+     unsystematic and entirely devoid of style, being without lofty
+     ideas or charms. In art, however, Egypt may be placed next to
+     Greece, particularly in architecture.
+
+     The age of the Pyramid-builders was a brilliant one. They prove the
+     magnificence of the kings and the vast amount of human labor at
+     their disposal. The regal power at that time was very strong. The
+     reign of Khufu or Cheops is marked by the building of the great
+     pyramid. The pyramids were the tombs of kings, built in the
+     necropolis of Memphis, ten miles above the modern Cairo. Security
+     was the object as well as splendor.
+
+     As remarked by a great Egyptologist, the whole life of the Egyptian
+     was spent in the contemplation of death; thus the tomb became the
+     concrete thought. The belief of the ancient Egyptian was that so
+     long as his body remained intact so was his immortality; whence
+     arose the embalming of the great, and hence the immense structures
+     of stone to secure the inviolability of the entombed monarch.
+
+
+The monuments have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended
+to unite Egypt under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that the
+feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two groups,
+each of which formed a separate kingdom. Heliopolis became the chief
+focus in the north, from which civilization radiated over the wet plain
+and the marshes of the Delta.
+
+Its colleges of priests had collected, condensed, and arranged the
+principal myths of the local regions; the Ennead to which it gave
+conception would never have obtained the popularity which we must
+acknowledge it had, if its princes had not exercised, for at least some
+period, an actual suzerainty over the neighboring plains. It was around
+Heliopolis that the kingdom of Lower Egypt was organized; everything
+there bore traces of Heliopolitan theories--the protocol of the kings,
+their supposed descent from Ra, and the enthusiastic worship which they
+offered to the sun.
+
+The Delta, owing to its compact and restricted area, was aptly suited
+for government from one centre; the Nile valley proper, narrow,
+tortuous, and stretching like a thin strip on either bank of the river,
+did not lend itself to so complete a unity. It, too, represented a
+single kingdom, having the reed and the lotus for its emblems; but its
+component parts were more loosely united, its religion was less
+systematized, and it lacked a well-placed city to serve as a political
+and sacerdotal centre. Hermopolis contained schools of theologians who
+certainly played an important part in the development of myths and
+dogmas; but the influence of its rulers was never widely felt.
+
+In the south, Siut disputed their supremacy, and Heracleopolis stopped
+their road to the north. These three cities thwarted and neutralized one
+another, and not one of them ever succeeded in obtaining a lasting
+authority over Upper Egypt. Each of the two kingdoms had its own natural
+advantages and its system of government, which gave to it a peculiar
+character, and stamped it, as it were, with a distinct personality down
+to its latest days. The kingdom of Upper Egypt was more powerful,
+richer, better populated, and was governed apparently by more active and
+enterprising rulers. It is to one of the latter, Mini or Menes of
+Thinis, that tradition ascribes the honor of having fused the two Egypts
+into a single empire, and of having inaugurated the reign of the human
+dynasties.
+
+Thinis figured in the historic period as one of the least of Egyptian
+cities. It barely maintained an existence on the left bank of the Nile,
+if not on the exact spot now occupied by Girgeh, at least only a short
+distance from it. The principality of the Osirian Reliquary, of which it
+was the metropolis, occupied the valley from one mountain to the other,
+and gradually extended across the desert as far as the Great Theban
+Oasis. Its inhabitants worshipped a sky-god, Anhuri, or rather two twin
+gods, Anhuri-shu, who were speedily amalgamated with the solar deities
+and became a warlike personification of Ra.
+
+Anhuri-shu, like all other solar manifestations, came to be associated
+with a goddess having the form or head of a lioness--a Sokhit, who took
+for the occasion the epithet of Mihit, the northern one. Some of the
+dead from this city are buried on the other side of the Nile, near the
+modern village of Mesheikh, at the foot of the Arabian chain, whose deep
+cliffs here approach somewhat near the river: the principal necropolis
+was at some distance to the east, near the sacred town of Abydos. It
+would appear that, at the outset, Abydos was the capital of the country,
+for the entire nome bore the same name as the city, and had adopted for
+its symbol the representation of the reliquary in which the god reposed.
+
+In very early times Abydos fell into decay, and resigned its political
+rank to Thinis, but its religious importance remained unimpaired. The
+city occupied a long and narrow strip between the canal and the first
+slopes of the Libyan mountains. A brick fortress defended it from the
+incursions of the Bedouin, and beside it the temple of the god of the
+dead reared its naked walls. Here Anhuri, having passed from life to
+death, was worshipped under the name of Khontamentit, the chief of that
+western region whither souls repair on quitting this earth.
+
+It is impossible to say by what blending of doctrines or by what
+political combinations this Sun of the Night came to be identified with
+Osiris of Mendes, since the fusion dates back to a very remote
+antiquity; it had become an established fact long before the most
+ancient sacred books were compiled. Osiris Khontamentit grew rapidly in
+popular favor, and his temple attracted annually an increasing number of
+pilgrims. The Great Oasis had been considered at first as a sort of
+mysterious paradise, whither the dead went in search of peace and
+happiness. It was called Uit, the Sepulchre; this name clung to it after
+it had become an actual Egyptian province, and the remembrance of its
+ancient purpose survived in the minds of the people, so that the
+"cleft," the gorge in the mountain through which the doubles journeyed
+toward it, never ceased to be regarded as one of the gates of the other
+world.
+
+At the time of the New Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all
+parts of the valley; they there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in
+order to embark with him and enter safely the dominions of Khontamentit.
+Abydos, even before the historic period, was the only town, and its god
+the only god, whose worship, practised by all Egyptians, inspired them
+all with an equal devotion.
+
+Did this sort of moral conquest give rise, later on, to a belief in a
+material conquest by the princes of Thinis and Abydos, or is there an
+historical foundation for the tradition which ascribes to them the
+establishment of a single monarchy? It is the Thinite Menes, whom the
+Theban annalists point out as the ancestor of the glorious Pharaohs of
+the XVIII dynasty: it is he also who is inscribed in the Memphite
+chronicles, followed by Manetho, at the head of their lists of human
+kings, and all Egypt for centuries acknowledged him as its first mortal
+ruler.
+
+It is true that a chief of Thinis may well have borne such a name, and
+may have accomplished feats which rendered him famous; but on closer
+examination his pretensions to reality disappear, and his personality is
+reduced to a cipher.
+
+"This Menes, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis with dikes.
+For the river formerly followed the sand-hills for some distance on the
+Libyan side. Menes, having dammed up the reach about a hundred stadia to
+the south of Memphis, caused the old bed to dry up, and conveyed the
+river through an artificial channel dug midway between the two mountain
+ranges.
+
+"Then Menes, the first who was king, having enclosed a space of ground
+with dikes, founded that town which is still called Memphis: he then
+made a lake around it to the north and west, fed by the river; the city
+he bounded on the east by the Nile." The history of Memphis, such as it
+can be gathered from the monuments, differs considerably from the
+tradition current in Egypt at the time of Herodotus.
+
+It appears, indeed, that at the outset the site on which it subsequently
+arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbu-hazu--the white wall--which
+was dependent on Heliopolis and in which Phtah possessed a sanctuary.
+After the "white wall" was separated from the Heliopolitan principality
+to form a nome by itself it assumed a certain importance, and furnished,
+so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded the Thinite. Its
+prosperity dates only, however, from the time when the sovereigns of the
+V and VI dynasties fixed on it for their residence; one of them, Papi I,
+there founded for himself and for his "double" after him, a new town,
+which he called Minnofiru, from his tomb. Minnofiru, which is the
+correct pronunciation and the origin of Memphis, probably signified "the
+good refuge," the haven of the good, the burying-place where the blessed
+dead came to rest beside Osiris.
+
+The people soon forgot the true interpretation, or probably it did not
+fall in with their taste for romantic tales. They rather despised, as a
+rule, to discover in the beginnings of history individuals from whom the
+countries or cities with which they were familiar took their names: if
+no tradition supplied them with this, they did not experience any
+scruples in inventing one. The Egyptians of the time of the Ptolemies,
+who were guided in their philological speculations by the pronunciation
+in vogue around them, attributed the patronship of their city to a
+Princess Memphis, a daughter of its founder, the fabulous Uchoreus;
+those of preceding ages before the name had become altered thought to
+find in Minnofiru or "Mini Nofir," or "Menes the Good," the reputed
+founder of the capital of the Delta. Menes the Good, divested of his
+epithet, is none other than Menes, the first king of all Egypt, and he
+owes his existence to a popular attempt at etymology.
+
+The legend which identifies the establishment of the kingdom with the
+construction of the city, must have originated at a time when Memphis
+was still the residence of the kings and the seat of government, at
+latest about the end of the Memphite period. It must have been an old
+tradition at the time of the Theban dynasties, since they admitted
+unhesitatingly the authenticity of the statements which ascribed to the
+northern city so marked a superiority over their own country. When the
+hero was once created and firmly established in his position, there was
+little difficulty in inventing a story about him which would portray him
+as a paragon and an ideal sovereign.
+
+He was represented in turn as architect, warrior, and statesman; he had
+founded Memphis, he had begun the temple of Phtah, written laws and
+regulated the worship of the gods, particularly that of Hapis, and he
+had conducted expeditions against the Libyans. When he lost his only son
+in the flower of his age, the people improvised a hymn of mourning to
+console him--the "Maneros"--both the words and the tune of which were
+handed down from generation to generation.
+
+He did not, moreover, disdain the luxuries of the table, for he invented
+the art of serving a dinner, and the mode of eating it in a reclining
+posture. One day, while hunting, his dogs, excited by something or
+other, fell upon him to devour him. He escaped with difficulty and,
+pursued by them, fled to the shore of Lake Moeris, and was there
+brought to bay; he was on the point of succumbing to them, when a
+crocodile took him on his back and carried him across to the other side.
+In gratitude he built a new town, which he called Crocodilopolis, and
+assigned to it for its god the crocodile which had saved him; he then
+erected close to it the famous labyrinth and a pyramid for his tomb.
+
+Other traditions show him in a less favorable light. They accuse him of
+having, by horrible crimes, excited against him the anger of the gods,
+and allege that after a reign of sixty-two years he was killed by a
+hippopotamus which came forth from the Nile. They also relate that the
+Saite Tafnakhti, returning from an expedition against the Arabs, during
+which he had been obliged to renounce the pomp and luxuries of life, had
+solemnly cursed him, and had caused his imprecations to be inscribed
+upon a "stele"[21] set up in the temple of Amon at Thebes. Nevertheless,
+in the memory that Egypt preserved of its first Pharaoh, the good
+outweighed the evil. He was worshipped in Memphis, side by side with
+Phtah and Ramses II.; his name figured at the head of the royal lists,
+and his cult continued till the time of the Ptolemies.
+
+[Footnote 21: The burned tile showing the impression of the stylus, made
+on the clay while plastic.--ED.]
+
+His immediate successors have only a semblance of reality, such as he
+had. The lists give the order of succession, it is true, with the years
+of their reigns almost to a day, sometimes the length of their lives,
+but we may well ask whence the chroniclers procured so much precise
+information. They were in the same position as ourselves with regard to
+these ancient kings: they knew them by a tradition of a later age, by a
+fragment papyrus fortuitously preserved in a temple, by accidentally
+coming across some monument bearing their name, and were reduced, as it
+were, to put together the few facts which they possessed, or to supply
+such as were wanting by conjectures, often in a very improbable manner.
+It is quite possible that they were unable to gather from the memory of
+the past the names of those individuals of which they made up the first
+two dynasties. The forms of these names are curt and rugged, and
+indicative of a rude and savage state, harmonizing with the
+semi-barbaric period to which they are relegated: Ati the Wrestler, Teti
+the Runner, Qeunqoni the Crusher, are suitable rulers for a people the
+first duty of whose chief was to lead his followers into battle, and to
+strike harder than any other man in the thickest of the fight.
+
+The inscriptions supply us with proofs that some of these princes lived
+and reigned:--Sondi, who is classed in the II dynasty, received a
+continuous worship toward the end of the III dynasty. But did all those
+who preceded him, and those who followed him, exist as he did? And if
+they existed, do the order and relation agree with actual truth? The
+different lists do not contain the same names in the same position;
+certain Pharaohs are added or suppressed without appreciable reason.
+Where Manetho inscribes Kenkenes and Ouenephes, the tables of the time
+of Seti I give us Ati and Ata; Manetho reckons nine kings to the II
+dynasty, while they register only five. The monuments, indeed, show us
+that Egypt in the past obeyed princes whom her annalists were unable to
+classify: for instance, they associated with Sondi a Pirsenu, who is not
+mentioned in the annals. We must, therefore, take the record of all this
+opening period of history for what it is--namely, a system invented at a
+much later date, by means of various artifices and combinations--to be
+partially accepted in default of a better, but without, according to it,
+that excessive confidence which it has hitherto received. The two
+Thinite dynasties, in direct descent from the fabulous Menes, furnish,
+like this hero himself, only a tissue of romantic tales and miraculous
+legends in the place of history. A double-headed stork, which had
+appeared in the first year of Teti, son of Menes, had foreshadowed to
+Egypt a long prosperity, but a famine under Ouenephes, and a terrible
+plague under Semempses, had depopulated the country; the laws had been
+relaxed, great crimes had been committed, and revolts had broken out.
+
+During the reign of the Boethos a gulf had opened near Bubastis, and
+swallowed up many people, then the Nile had flowed with honey for
+fifteen days in the time of Nephercheres, and Sesochris was supposed to
+have been a giant in stature. A few details about royal edifices were
+mixed up with these prodigies. Teti had laid the foundation of the great
+palace of Memphis, Ouenephes had built the pyramids of Ko-kome near
+Saqqara. Several of the ancient Pharaohs had published books on
+theology, or had written treatises on anatomy and medicine; several had
+made laws called Kakou, the male of males, or the bull of bulls. They
+explained his name by the statement that he had concerned himself about
+the sacred animals; he had proclaimed as gods, Hapis of Memphis, Mnevis
+of Heliopolis, and the goat of Mendes.
+
+After him, Binothris had conferred the right of succession upon all
+women of the blood-royal. The accession of the III dynasty, a Memphite
+one according to Manetho, did not at first change the miraculous
+character of this history. The Libyans had revolted against Necherophes,
+and the two armies were encamped before each other, when one night the
+disk of the moon became immeasurably enlarged, to the great alarm of the
+rebels, who recognized in this phenomenon a sign of the anger of heaven,
+and yielded without fighting. Tosorthros, the successor of Necherophes,
+brought the hieroglyphs and the art of stone-cutting to perfection. He
+composed, as Teti did, books of medicine, a fact which caused him to be
+identified with the healing god Imhotpu. The priests related these
+things seriously, and the Greek writers took them down from their lips
+with the respect which they offered to everything emanating from the
+wise men of Egypt.
+
+What they related of the human kings was not more detailed, as we see,
+than their accounts of the gods. Whether the legends dealt with deities
+or kings, all that we know took its origin, not in popular imagination,
+but in sacerdotal dogma: they were invented long after the times they
+dealt with, in the recesses of the temples, with an intention and a
+method of which we are enabled to detect flagrant instances on the
+monuments.
+
+Toward the middle of the third century before our era the Greek troops
+stationed on the southern frontier, in the forts at the first cataract,
+developed a particular veneration for Isis of Philae. Their devotion
+spread to the superior officers who came to inspect them, then to the
+whole population of the Thebaid, and finally reached the court of the
+Macedonian kings. The latter, carried away by force of example, gave
+every encouragement to a movement which attracted worshippers to a
+common sanctuary, and united in one cult two races over which they
+ruled. They pulled down the meagre building of the Saite period, which
+had hitherto sufficed for the worship of Isis, constructed at great cost
+the temple which still remains almost intact, and assigned to it
+considerable possessions in Nubia, which, in addition to gifts from
+private individuals, made the goddess the richest land-owner in Southern
+Egypt. Knumu and his two wives, Anukit and Satit, who, before Isis, had
+been the undisputed suzerains of the cataract, perceived with jealousy
+their neighbor's prosperity: the civil wars and invasions of the
+centuries immediately preceding had ruined their temples, and their
+poverty contrasted painfully with the riches of the new-comer.
+
+The priests resolved to lay this sad state of affairs before King
+Ptolemy, to represent to him the services which they had rendered and
+still continued to render to Egypt, and above all to remind him of the
+generosity of the ancient Pharaohs, whose example, owing to the poverty
+of the times, the recent Pharaohs had been unable to follow. Doubtless
+authentic documents were wanting in their archives to support their
+pretensions: they therefore inscribed upon a rock, in the island of
+Sehel, a long inscription which they attributed to Zosiri of the III
+dynasty. This sovereign had left behind him a vague reputation for
+greatness. As early as the XII dynasty Usirtasen III had claimed him as
+"his father"--his ancestor--and had erected a statue to him; the priests
+knew that, by invoking him, they had a chance of obtaining a hearing.
+
+The inscription which they fabricated set forth that in the eighteenth
+year of Zosiri's reign he had sent to Madir, lord of Elephantine, a
+message couched in these terms: "I am overcome with sorrow for the
+throne, and for those who reside in the palace, and my heart is
+afflicted and suffers greatly because the Nile has not risen in my time,
+for the space of eight years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack of
+herbage, and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his
+neighbors for help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the
+young man is uneasy, the hearts of the old men are in despair, their
+limbs are bent, they crouch on the earth, they fold their hands; the
+courtiers have no further resources; the shops formerly furnished with
+rich wares are now filled only with air, all that was within them has
+disappeared. My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks
+to call upon the savior who was here where I am, during the centuries of
+the gods, upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpu, son of
+Phtah of Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is
+the god or goddess concealed there? What is his likeness?"
+
+The lord of Elephantine brought his reply in person. He described to
+the king, who was evidently ignorant of it, the situation of the island
+and the rocks of the cataract, the phenomena of the inundation, the gods
+who presided over it, and who alone could relieve Egypt from her
+disastrous plight.
+
+Zosiri repaired to the temple of the principality and offered the
+prescribed sacrifices; the god arose, opened his eyes, panted, and cried
+aloud, "I am Khnumu who created thee!" and promised him a speedy return
+of a high Nile and the cessation of the famine.
+
+Pharaoh was touched by the benevolence which his divine father had shown
+him; he forthwith made a decree by which he ceded to the temple all his
+rights of suzerainty over the neighboring nomes within a radius of
+twenty miles.
+
+Henceforward the entire population, tillers and vinedressers, fishermen
+and hunters, had to yield the tithe of their income to the priests; the
+quarries could not be worked without the consent of Khnumu, and the
+payment of a suitable indemnity into his coffers; finally, metals and
+precious woods, shipped thence for Egypt, had to submit to a toll on
+behalf of the temple.
+
+Did the Ptolemies admit the claims which the local priests attempted to
+deduce from this romantic tale? and did the god regain possession of the
+domains and dues which they declared had been his right? The stele shows
+us with what ease the scribes could forge official documents when the
+exigencies of daily life forced the necessity upon them; it teaches us
+at the same time how that fabulous chronicle was elaborated, whose
+remains have been preserved for us by classical writers. Every prodigy,
+every fact related by Manetho, was taken from some document analogous to
+the supposed inscription of Zosiri.
+
+The real history of the early centuries, therefore, eludes our
+researches, and no contemporary record traces for us those vicissitudes
+which Egypt passed through before being consolidated into a single
+kingdom, under the rule of one man. Many names, apparently of powerful
+and illustrious princes, had survived in the memory of the people; these
+were collected, classified, and grouped in a regular manner into
+dynasties, but the people were ignorant of any exact facts connected
+with the names, and the historians, on their own account, were reduced
+to collect apocryphal traditions for their sacred archives.
+
+The monuments of these remote ages, however, cannot have entirely
+disappeared: they existed in places where we have not as yet thought of
+applying the pick, and chance excavations will some day most certainly
+bring them to light. The few which we do possess barely go back beyond
+the III dynasty: namely, the hypogeum of Shiri, priest of Sondi and
+Pirsenu; possibly the tomb of Khuithotpu at Saqqara; the Great Sphinx of
+Gizeh; a short inscription on the rocks of Wady Maghara, which
+represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of Khnumu in the
+Greek period made a precedent) working the turquoise or copper mines of
+Sinai; and finally the step pyramid where this Pharaoh rests. It forms a
+rectangular mass, incorrectly oriented, with a variation from the true
+north of 4 deg. 35', 393 ft., 8 in. long from east to west, and 352 ft.
+deep, with a height of 159 ft. 9 in. It is composed of six cubes, with
+sloping sides, each being about 13 ft. less in width than the one below
+it; that nearest to the ground measures 37 ft. 8 in. in height, and the
+uppermost one 29 ft. 2 in.
+
+It was entirely constructed of limestone from neighboring mountains. The
+blocks are small and badly cut, the stone courses being concave, to
+offer a better resistance to downward thrust and to shocks of
+earthquake. When breaches in the masonry are examined, it can be seen
+that the external surface of the steps has, as it were, a double stone
+facing, each facing being carefully dressed. The body of the pyramid is
+solid, the chambers being cut in the rock beneath. These chambers have
+often been enlarged, restored, and reworked in the course of centuries,
+and the passages which connect them form a perfect labyrinth into which
+it is dangerous to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the
+galleries and halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom
+of which the architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt,
+to contain the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until
+the beginning of this century the vault had preserved its original
+lining of glazed pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface was covered
+with green tiles, oblong and lightly convex on the outer side, but flat
+on the inner: a square projection pierced with a hole served to fix them
+at the back in a horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods. Three
+bands which frame one of the doors are inscribed with the titles of the
+Pharaoh. The hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red, green, or
+yellow, on a fawn-colored ground.
+
+The towns, palaces, temples, all the buildings which princes and kings
+had constructed to be witnesses of their power or piety to future
+generations, have disappeared in the course of ages, under the feet and
+before the triumphal blasts of many invading hosts: the pyramid alone
+has survived, and the most ancient of the historic monuments of Egypt is
+a tomb.
+
+
+
+
+
+COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE
+
+B.C. 2250
+
+HAMMURABI
+
+
+     The foundation of all law-making in Babylonia from about the middle
+     of the twenty-third century B.C. to the fall of the empire was the
+     code of Hammurabi, the first king of all Babylonia. He expelled
+     invaders from his dominions, cemented the union of north and south
+     Babylonia, made Babylon the capital, and thus consolidated an
+     empire which endured for almost twenty centuries. The code which he
+     compiled is the oldest known in history, older by nearly a thousand
+     years than the Mosaic, and of earlier date than the so-called Laws
+     of Manu. It is one of the most important historical landmarks in
+     existence, a document which gives us knowledge not otherwise
+     furnished of the country and people, the civilization and life of a
+     great centre of human action hitherto almost hidden in obscurity.
+     Hammurabi, who is supposed to be identical with Amraphel, a
+     contemporary of Abraham, is regarded as having certainly
+     contributed through his laws to the Hebrew traditions. The
+     discovery of this code has, therefore, a special value in relation
+     to biblical studies, upon which so many other important side-lights
+     have recently been thrown.
+
+     The discovery was made at Susa, Persia, in December and January,
+     1901-2, by M. de Morgan's French excavating expedition. The
+     monument on which the laws are inscribed, a stele of black diorite
+     nearly eight feet high, has been fully described by Assyriologists,
+     and the inscription transcribed. It has been completely translated
+     by Dr. Hugo Winckler, whose translation (in _Die Gesetze
+     Hammurabis_, Band IV, Heft 4, of _Der Alte Orient_) furnishes the
+     basis of the version herewith presented. Following an
+     autobiographic preface, the text of the code contains two hundred
+     and eighty edicts and an epilogue. To readers of the code who are
+     familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures many biblical parallels will
+     occur.
+
+
+When Anu the Sublime, king of the Anunaki, and Bel [god of the earth],
+the Lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned
+to Marduk [or Merodach, the great god of Babylon] the over-ruling son of
+Ea [god of the waters], God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man,
+and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his
+illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting
+kingdom in it [Babylon], whose foundations are laid so solidly as those
+of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the
+exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness
+in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the
+strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the
+black-headed people like Shamash [the sun-god], and enlighten the land,
+to further the well-being of mankind.
+
+Hammurabi, the prince, called of Bel am I, making riches and increase,
+enriching Nippur and Dur-ilu beyond compare, sublime patron of E-kur
+[temple of Bel in Nippur, the seat of Bel's worship]; who reestablished
+Eridu and purified the worship of E-apsu [temple of Ea, at Eridu, the
+chief seat of Ea's worship]; who conquered the four quarters of the
+world, made great the name of Babylon, rejoiced the heart of Marduk, his
+lord who daily pays his devotions in Saggil [Marduk's temple in
+Babylon]; the royal scion whom Sin made; who enriched Ur [Abraham's
+birthplace, the seat of the worship of Sin, the moon-god]; the humble,
+the reverent, who brings wealth to Gish-shir-gal; the white king, heard
+of Shamash, the mighty, who again laid the foundations of Sippana [seat
+of worship of Shamash and his wife, Malkat]; who clothed the gravestones
+of Malkat with green [symbolizing the resurrection of nature]; who made
+E-babbar [temple of the sun in Sippara] great, which is like the
+heavens; the warrior who guarded Larsa and renewed E-babbar [temple of
+the sun in Larsa, biblical Elassar, in Southern Babylonia], with Shamash
+as his helper; the lord who granted new life to Uruk [biblical Erech],
+who brought plenteous water to its inhabitants, raised the head of
+E-anna [temple of Ishtar-Nana at Uruk], and perfected the beauty of Anu
+and Nana; shield of the land, who reunited the scattered inhabitants of
+Isin; who richly endowed E-gal-mach [temple of Isin]; the protecting
+king of the city, brother of the god Zamama [god of Kish]; who firmly
+founded the farms of Kish, crowned E-me-te-ursag [sister city of Kish]
+with glory, redoubled the great holy treasures of Nana, managed the
+temple of Harsag-kalama [temple of Nergal at Cuthah]; the grave of the
+enemy, whose help brought about the victory; who increased the power of
+Cuthah; made all glorious in E-shidlam [a temple], the black steer
+[title of Marduk] who gored the enemy; beloved of the god Nebo, who
+rejoiced the inhabitants of Borsippa, the Sublime; who is indefatigable
+for E-zida [temple of Nebo in Babylon]; the divine king of the city; the
+White, Wise; who broadened the fields of Dilbat, who heaped up the
+harvests for Urash; the Mighty, the lord to whom come sceptre and crown,
+with which he clothes himself; the Elect of Ma-ma; who fixed the temple
+bounds of Kesh, who made rich the holy feasts of Nin-tu [goddess of
+Kesh]; the provident, solicitous, who provided food and drink for Lagash
+and Girsu, who provided large sacrificial offerings for the temple of
+Ningirsu [at Lagash]; who captured the enemy, the Elect of the oracle
+who fulfilled the prediction of Hallab, who rejoiced the heart of Anunit
+[whose oracle had predicted victory]; the pure prince, whose prayer is
+accepted by Adad [god of Hallab, with goddess Anunit]; who satisfied the
+heart of Adad, the warrior, in Karkar, who restored the vessels for
+worship in E-ud-gal-gal; the king who granted life to the city of Adab;
+the guide of E-mach; the princely king of the city, the irresistible
+warrior, who granted life to the inhabitants of Mashkanshabri, and
+brought abundance to the temple of Shid-lam; the White, Potent, who
+penetrated the secret cave of the bandits, saved the inhabitants of
+Malka from misfortune, and fixed their home fast in wealth; who
+established pure sacrificial gifts for Ea and Dam-gal-nun-na, who made
+his kingdom everlastingly great; the princely king of the city, who
+subjected the districts on the Ud-kib-nun-na Canal [Euphrates?] to the
+sway of Dagon, his Creator; who spared the inhabitants of Mera and
+Tutul; the sublime prince, who makes the face of Ninni shine; who
+presents holy meals to the divinity of Nin-a-zu, who cared for its
+inhabitants in their need, provided a portion for them in Babylon in
+peace; the shepherd of the oppressed and of the slaves; whose deeds find
+favor before Anunit, who provided for Anunit in the temple of Dumash in
+the suburb of Agade; who recognizes the right, who rules by law; who
+gave back to the city of Assur its protecting god; who let the name of
+Istar of Nineveh remain in E-mish-mish; the Sublime, who humbles himself
+before the great gods; successor of Sumula-il; the mighty son of
+Sin-muballit; the royal scion of Eternity; the mighty monarch, the sun
+of Babylon, whose rays shed light over the land of Sumer and Akkad; the
+king, obeyed by the four quarters of the world; Beloved of Ninni, am I.
+
+When Marduk sent me to rule over men, to give the protection of right to
+the land, I did right and righteousness in..., and brought about the
+well-being of the oppressed.
+
+
+CODE OF LAWS
+
+1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he cannot
+prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.
+
+2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to
+the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser
+shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the
+accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the
+accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river
+shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.
+
+3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and
+does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offence
+charged, be put to death.
+
+4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall
+receive the fine that the action produces.
+
+5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision and present his judgment in
+writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through
+his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the
+case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never
+again shall he sit there to render judgment.
+
+6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall
+be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him
+shall be put to death.
+
+7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without
+witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox
+or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is
+considered a thief and shall be put to death.
+
+8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if
+it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold
+therefor; if they belonged to a freed man [of the king] he shall pay
+tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to
+death.
+
+9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another:
+if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant
+sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the
+thing say "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the
+purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses
+before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can
+identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of
+the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who
+identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proven to be a
+thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives
+his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the
+estate of the merchant.
+
+10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses
+before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who
+identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and
+the owner receives the lost article.
+
+11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he
+is an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.
+
+12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit,
+at the expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared
+within the six months, he is an evil-doer, and shall bear the fine of
+the pending case.
+
+14. If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.
+
+15. If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or
+female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to
+death.
+
+16. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of
+the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public
+proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to
+death.
+
+17. If any one find a runaway male or female slave in the open country
+and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him
+two shekels of silver.
+
+18. If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall
+bring him to the palace; a further investigation must follow and the
+slave shall be returned to his master.
+
+19. If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he
+shall be put to death.
+
+20. If the slave that he caught run away from him, then shall he swear
+to the owners of the slave, and he is free of all blame.
+
+21. If any one break a hole into a house [break in to steal], he shall
+be put to death before that hole and be buried.
+
+22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be
+put to death.
+
+23. If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim
+under oath the amount of his loss; then shall the community, and ... on
+whose ground and territory and in whose domain it was compensate him for
+the goods stolen.
+
+24. If persons are stolen, then shall the community and ... pay one mina
+of silver to their relatives.
+
+25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out,
+cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the
+property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that
+self-same fire.
+
+26. If a chieftain or a man [common soldier], who has been ordered to go
+upon the king's highway [for war] does not go, but hires a mercenary, if
+he withholds the compensation, then shall this officer or man be put to
+death, and he who represented him shall take possession of his house.
+
+27. If a chieftain or man be caught in the misfortune of the king
+[captured in battle], and if his fields and garden be given to another
+and he take possession, if he return and reaches his place, his field
+and garden shall be returned to him, he shall take it over again.
+
+28. If a chieftain or a man be caught in the misfortune of a king, if
+his son is able to enter into possession, then the field and garden
+shall be given to him, he shall take over the fee of his father.
+
+29. If his son is still young, and cannot take possession, a third of
+the field and garden shall be given to his mother, and she shall bring
+him up.
+
+30. If a chieftain or a man leave his house, garden and field and hires
+it out, and some one else takes possession of his house, garden and
+field and uses it for three years: if the first owner return and claims
+his house, garden and field, it shall not be given to him, but he who
+has taken possession of it and used it shall continue to use it.
+
+31. If he hire it out for one year and then return, the house, garden
+and field shall be given back to him, and he shall take it over again.
+
+32. If a chieftain or a man is captured on the "Way of the King" [in
+war], and a merchant buy him free, and bring him back to his place; if
+he have the means in his house to buy his freedom, he shall buy himself
+free: if he have nothing in his house with which to buy himself free, he
+shall be bought free by the temple of his community; if there be nothing
+in the temple with which to buy him free, the court shall buy his
+freedom. His field, garden and house shall not be given for the purchase
+of his freedom.
+
+33. If a ... or a ... [from the connection, some man higher in rank than
+a chieftain] enter himself as withdrawn from the "Way of the King," and
+send a mercenary as substitute, but withdraw him, then the ... or ...
+shall be put to death.
+
+34. If a ... [same as in 33] or a ... harm the property of a captain,
+injure the captain, or take away from the captain a gift presented to
+him by the king then the ... or ... shall be put to death.
+
+35. If any one buy the cattle or sheep which the king has given to
+chieftains from him he loses his money.
+
+35. The field, garden and house of a chieftain, of a man, or of one
+subject to quit-rent, cannot be sold.
+
+37. If any one buy the field, garden and house of a chieftain, man or
+one subject to quit-rent, his contract tablet of sale shall be broken
+[declared invalid] and he loses his money. The field, garden and house
+return to their owners.
+
+38. A chieftain, man or one subject to quit-rent cannot assign his
+tenure of field, house and garden to his wife or daughter, nor can he
+assign it for a debt.
+
+39. He may, however, assign a field, garden or house which he has
+bought, and holds as property, to his wife or daughter or give it for
+debt.
+
+40. He may sell field, garden and house to a merchant [royal agents] or
+to any other public official, the buyer holding field, house and garden
+for its usufruct.
+
+41. If any one fence in the field, garden and house of a chieftain, man
+or one subject to quit-rent, furnishing the palings therefor; if the
+chieftain, man or one subject to quit-rent return to field, garden and
+house, the palings which were given to him become his property.
+
+42. If any one take over a field to till it, and obtain no harvest
+therefrom, it must be proved that he did no work on the field, and he
+must deliver grain, just as his neighbor raised, to the owner of the
+field.
+
+43. If he do not till the field, but let it lie fallow, he shall give
+grain like his neighbor's to the owner of the field, and the field which
+he let lie fallow he must plow and sow and return to its owner.
+
+44. If any one take over a waste-lying field to make it arable, but is
+lazy, and does not make it arable, he shall plow the fallow field in the
+fourth year, harrow it and till it, and give it back to its owner and
+for each ten _gan_ [a measure of area] ten _gur_ [dry measure] of grain
+shall be paid.
+
+45. If a man rent his field for tillage for a fixed rental, and receive
+the rent of his field, but bad weather come and destroy the harvest, the
+injury falls upon the tiller of the soil.
+
+46. If he do not receive a fixed rental for his field, but lets it on
+half or third shares of the harvest, the grain on the field shall be
+divided proportionately between the tiller and the owner.
+
+47. If the tiller, because he did not succeed in the first year, has had
+the soil tilled by others, the owner may raise no objection; the field
+has been cultivated and he receives the harvest according to agreement.
+
+48. If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain,
+or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in
+that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his
+debt-tablet in water [a symbolic action indicating the inability to pay]
+and pays no rent for this year.
+
+49. If any one take money from a merchant, and give the merchant a field
+tillable for corn or sesame and order him to plant corn or sesame in the
+field, and to harvest the crop; if the cultivator plant corn or sesame
+in the field, at the harvest the corn or sesame that is in the field
+shall belong to the owner of the field and he shall pay corn as rent,
+for the money he received from the merchant, and the livelihood of the
+cultivator shall he give to the merchant.
+
+50. If he give a cultivated corn-field or a cultivated sesame-field, the
+corn or sesame in the field shall belong to the owner of the field, and
+he shall return the money to the merchant as rent.
+
+51. If he have no money to repay, then he shall pay in corn or sesame in
+place of the money as rent for what he received from the merchant,
+according to the royal tariff.
+
+52. If the cultivator do not plant corn or sesame in the field, the
+debtor's contract is not weakened.
+
+53. If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does
+not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded,
+then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the
+money shall replace the corn which he has caused to be ruined.
+
+54. If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions
+shall be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.
+
+55. If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and
+the water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his
+neighbor corn for his loss.
+
+56. If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of
+his neighbor, he shall pay ten _gur_ of corn for every ten _gan_ of
+land.
+
+57. If a shepherd, without the permission of the owner of the field, and
+without the knowledge of the owner of the sheep, lets the sheep into a
+field to graze, then the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, and
+the shepherd, who had pastured his flock there without permission of
+the owner of the field, shall pay to the owner twenty _gur_ of corn for
+every ten _gan_.
+
+58. If after the flocks have left the pasture and been shut up in the
+common fold at the city gate, any shepherd let them into a field and
+they graze there, this shepherd shall take possession of the field which
+he has allowed to be grazed on, and at the harvest he must pay sixty
+_gur_ of corn for every ten _gan_.
+
+59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a
+tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.
+
+60. If any one give over a field to a gardener, for him to plant it as a
+garden, if he work at it, and care for it for four years, in the fifth
+year the owner and the gardener shall divide it, the owner taking his
+part in charge.
+
+61. If the gardener has not completed the planting of the field, leaving
+one part unused, this shall be assigned to him as his.
+
+62. If he do not plant the field that was given over to him as a garden,
+if it be arable land [for corn or sesame] the gardener shall pay the
+owner the produce of the field for the years that he let it lie fallow,
+according to the product of neighboring fields, put the field in arable
+condition and return it to its owner.
+
+
+63. If he transform waste land into arable fields and return it to its
+owner, the latter shall pay him for one year ten _gur_ for ten _gan_.
+
+64. If any one hand over his garden to a gardener to work, the gardener
+shall pay to its owner two-thirds of the produce of the garden, for so
+long as he has it in possession, and the other third shall he keep.
+
+65. If the gardener do not work in the garden and the product fall off,
+the gardener shall pay in proportion to other neighboring gardens.
+
+[Here a portion of the text is missing, apparently comprising
+thirty-five paragraphs.]
+
+100. ... interest for the money, as much as he has received, he shall
+give a note therefor, and on the day, when they settle, pay to the
+merchant.
+
+101. If there are no mercantile arrangements in the place whither he
+went, he shall leave the entire amount of money which he received with
+the broker to give to the merchant.
+
+102. If a merchant intrust money to an agent [broker] for some
+investment, and the broker suffer a loss in the place to which he goes,
+he shall make good the capital to the merchant.
+
+103. If, while on the journey, an enemy take away from him anything that
+he had, the broker shall swear by God [take an oath] and be free of
+obligation.
+
+104. If a merchant give an agent corn, wool, oil or any other goods to
+transport, the agent shall give a receipt for the amount, and compensate
+the merchant therefor. Then he shall obtain a receipt from the merchant
+for the money that he gives the merchant.
+
+105. If the agent is careless, and does not take a receipt for the money
+which he gave the merchant, he cannot consider the unreceipted money as
+his own.
+
+106. If the agent accept money from the merchant, but have a quarrel
+with the merchant [denying the receipt], then shall the merchant swear
+before God and witnesses that he has given this money to the agent, and
+the agent shall pay him three times the sum.
+
+107. If the merchant cheat the agent, in that as the latter has returned
+to him all that had been given him, but the merchant denies the receipt
+of what had been returned to him, then shall this agent convict the
+merchant before God and the judges, and if he still deny receiving what
+the agent had given him shall pay six times the sum to the agent.
+
+108. If a tavern-keeper [feminine] does not accept corn according to
+gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the
+drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown
+into the water.
+
+109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these
+conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the
+tavern-keeper shall be put to death.
+
+110. If a "sister of a god" [one devoted to the temple] open a tavern,
+or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.
+
+111. If an inn-keeper furnish sixty _ka_ of _usakani_-drink to ... she
+shall receive fifty _ka_ of corn at the harvest.
+
+112. If anyone be on a journey and intrust silver, gold, precious
+stones, or any movable property to another, and wish to recover it from
+him; if the latter do not bring all of the property to the appointed
+place, but appropriate it to his own use, then shall this man, who did
+not bring the property to hand it over be convicted, and he shall pay
+fivefold for all that had been intrusted to him.
+
+113. If any one have a consignment of corn or money, and he take from
+the granary or box, without the knowledge of the owner, then shall he
+who took corn without the knowledge of the owner out of the granary or
+money out of the box be legally convicted, and repay the corn he has
+taken. And he shall lose whatever commission was paid to him, or due
+him.
+
+114. If a man have no claim on another for corn and money, and try to
+demand it by force, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver in every
+case.
+
+115. If any one have a claim for corn or money upon another and imprison
+him; if the prisoner die in prison a natural death, the case shall go no
+further.
+
+116. If the prisoner die in prison from blows or maltreatment, the
+master of the prisoner shall convict the merchant before the judge. If
+he was a free-born man, the son of the merchant shall be put to death;
+if it was a slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina of gold, and all
+that the master of the prisoner gave he shall forfeit.
+
+117. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his
+wife, his son and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor:
+they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them
+or the proprietor and in the fourth year they shall be set free.
+
+118. If he give a male or female slave away for forced labor, and the
+merchant sublease them, or sell them for money, no objection can be
+raised.
+
+119. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and he sell the maid
+servant who has borne him children, for money, the money which the
+merchant has paid shall be repaid to him by the owner of the slave and
+she shall be freed.
+
+120. If any one store corn for safe keeping in another person's house,
+and any harm happen to the corn in storage, or if the owner of the house
+open the granary and take some of the corn, or if especially he deny
+that the corn was stored in his house: then the owner of the corn shall
+claim his corn before God [on oath], and the owner of the house shall
+pay its owner for all of the corn that he took.
+
+121. If any one store corn in another man's house he shall pay him
+storage at the rate of one _gur_ for every five _ka_ of corn per year.
+
+122. If any one give another silver, gold or anything else to keep, he
+shall show everything to some witness, draw up a contract, and then hand
+it over for safe keeping.
+
+123. If he turn it over for safe keeping without witness or contract,
+and if he to whom it was given deny it, then he has no legitimate claim.
+
+124. If any one deliver silver, gold or anything else to another for
+safe keeping, before a witness, but he deny it, he shall be brought
+before a judge, and all that he has denied he shall pay in full.
+
+125. If any one place his property with another for safe keeping, and
+there, either through thieves or robbers, his property and the property
+of the other man be lost, the owner of the house, through whose neglect
+the loss took place, shall compensate the owner for all that was given
+to him in charge. But the owner of the house shall try to follow up and
+recover his property, and take it away from the thief.
+
+126. If any one who has not lost his goods, state that they have been
+lost, and make false claims: if he claim his goods and amount of injury
+before God, even though he has not lost them, he shall be fully
+compensated for all his loss claimed [_i.e._, the oath is all that is
+needed].
+
+127. If any one point the finger [slander] at a sister of a god or the
+wife of any one, and cannot prove it, this man shall be taken, before
+the judges and his brow shall be marked [by cutting the skin, or perhaps
+hair].
+
+128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her,
+this woman is no wife to him.
+
+129. If a man's wife be surprised with another man, both shall be tied
+and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the
+king his slaves.
+
+130. If a man violate the wife [betrothed or child-wife] of another man,
+who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and
+sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the
+wife is blameless.
+
+131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not
+surprised with another man [_delit flagrant_ is necessary for divorce],
+she must take an oath and then may return to her house.
+
+132. If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but
+she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the
+river for her husband [prove her innocence by this test].
+
+133. If a man is taken prisoner in war, and there is a sustenance in his
+house, but his wife leave house and court, and go to another house:
+because this wife did not keep her court, and went to another house, she
+shall be judicially condemned and thrown into the water.
+
+134. If any one be captured in war and there is no sustenance in his
+house, if then his wife go to another house, this woman shall be held
+blameless.
+
+135. If a man be taken prisoner in war and there be no sustenance in his
+house and his wife go to another house and bear children; and if later
+her husband return and come to his home: then this wife shall return to
+her husband, but the children follow their father.
+
+136. If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to
+another house, if then he return, and wishes to take his wife back:
+because he fled from his home and ran away, the wife of this runaway
+shall not return to her husband.
+
+137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children,
+or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that
+wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden and
+property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her
+children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that
+of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her
+heart.
+
+138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no
+children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money [amount
+formerly paid to the bride's father] and the dowry which she brought
+from her father's house, and let her go.
+
+139. If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold
+as a gift of release.
+
+140. If he be a freed man he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.
+
+141. If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it,
+plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is
+judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on
+her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband
+does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall
+remain as servant in her husband's house.
+
+142. If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not
+congenial to me," the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If
+she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and
+neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her
+dowry and go back to her father's house.
+
+143. If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her
+house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.
+
+144. If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a
+maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take
+another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a
+second wife.
+
+145. If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend
+to take another wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into
+the house, this second wife shall not be allowed equality with his wife.
+
+146. If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid servant as wife
+and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the
+wife: because she has borne him children her master shall not sell her
+for money, but he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the
+maid-servants.
+
+147. If she have not borne him children, then her mistress may sell her
+for money.
+
+148. If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then
+desire to take a second wife he shall not put away his wife, who has
+been attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he
+has built and support her so long as she lives.
+
+149. If this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, then
+he shall compensate her for the dowry that she brought with her from her
+father's house, and she may go.
+
+150. If a man give his wife a field, garden and house and a deed
+therefor, if then after the death of her husband the sons raise no
+claim, then the mother may bequeath all to one of her sons whom she
+prefers, and need leave nothing to his brothers.
+
+151. If a woman who lived in a man's house, made an agreement with her
+husband, that no creditor can arrest her, and has given a document
+therefor: if that man, before he married that woman, had a debt, the
+creditor cannot hold the woman for it. But if the woman, before she
+entered the man's house, had contracted a debt, her creditor cannot
+arrest her husband therefor.
+
+152. If after the woman had entered the man's house, both contracted a
+debt, both must pay the merchant.
+
+153. If the wife of one man on account of another man has their mates
+[her husband and the other man's wife] murdered, both of them shall be
+impaled.
+
+154. If a man be guilty of incest with his daughter, he shall be driven
+from the place [exiled].
+
+155. If a man betroth a girl to his son, and his son have intercourse
+with her, but he [the father] afterward defile her, and be surprised,
+then he shall be bound and cast into the water [drowned].
+
+156. If a man betroth a girl to his son, but his son has not known her,
+and if then he defile her, he shall pay her half a gold mina, and
+compensate her for all that she brought out of her father's house. She
+may marry the man of her heart.
+
+157. If any one be guilty of incest with his mother after his father,
+both shall be burned.
+
+158. If any one be surprised after his father with his chief wife, who
+has borne children, he shall be driven out of his father's house.
+
+159. If any one, who has brought chattels into his father-in-law's
+house, and has paid the purchase-money, looks for another wife, and says
+to his father-in-law: "I do not want your daughter," the girl's father
+may keep all that he had brought.
+
+160. If a man bring chattels into the house of his father-in-law, and
+pay the "purchase price" [for his wife]: if then the father of the girl
+say: "I will not give you my daughter," he shall give him back all that
+he brought with him.
+
+161. If a man bring chattels into his father-in-law's house and pay the
+"purchase price," if then his friend slander him, and his father-in-law
+say to the young husband: "You shall not marry my daughter," then he
+shall give back to him undiminished all that he had brought with him;
+but his wife shall not be married to the friend.
+
+162. If a man marry a woman, and she bear sons to him; if then this
+woman die, then shall her father have no claim on her dowry; this
+belongs to her sons.
+
+163. If a man marry a woman and she bear him no sons; if then this woman
+die, if the "purchase price" which he had paid into the house of his
+father-in-law is repaid to him, her husband shall have no claim upon the
+dowry of this woman; it belongs to her father's house.
+
+164. If his father-in-law do not pay back to him the amount of the
+"purchase price" he may subtract the amount of the "purchase price" from
+the dowry, and then pay the remainder to her father's house.
+
+165. If a man give to one of his sons whom he prefers, a field, garden
+and house and a deed therefor: if later the father die, and the brothers
+divide [the estate], then they shall first give him the present of his
+father, and he shall accept it; and the rest of the paternal property
+shall they divide.
+
+166. If a man take wives for his sons, but take no wife for his minor
+son, and if then he die: if the sons divide the estate, they shall set
+aside besides his portion the money for the "purchase price" for the
+minor brother who had taken no wife as yet, and secure a wife for him.
+
+167. If a man marry a wife and she bear him children: if this wife die
+and he then take another wife and she bear him children: if then the
+father die, the sons must not partition the estate according to the
+mothers, they shall divide the dowries of their mothers only in this
+way; the paternal estate they shall divide equally with one another.
+
+168. If a man wish to put his son out of his house, and declare before
+the judge: "I want to put my son out," then the judge shall examine into
+his reasons. If the son be guilty of no great fault, for which he can be
+rightfully put out, the father shall not put him out.
+
+169. If he be guilty of a grave fault, which should rightfully deprive
+him of the filial relationship, the father shall forgive him the first
+time; but if he be guilty of a grave fault a second time the father may
+deprive his son of all filial relation.
+
+170. If his wife bear sons to a man, or his maid-servant have borne
+sons, and the father while still living says to the children whom his
+maid-servant has borne: "My sons," and he count them with the sons of
+his wife; if then the father die, then the sons of the wife and of the
+maid-servant shall divide the paternal property in common. The son of
+the wife is to partition and choose.
+
+171. If, however, the father while still living did not say to the sons
+of the maid-servant: "My sons," and then the father dies, then the sons
+of the maid-servant shall not share with the sons of the wife, but the
+freedom of the maid and her sons shall be granted. The sons of the wife
+shall have no right to enslave the sons of the maid; the wife shall take
+her dowry [from her father], and the gift that her husband gave her and
+deeded to her [separate from dowry, or the purchase money paid her
+father], and live in the home of her husband: so long as she lives she
+shall use it, it shall not be sold for money. Whatever she leaves shall
+belong to her children.
+
+172. If her husband made her no gift, she shall be compensated for her
+gift, and she shall receive a portion from the estate of her husband,
+equal to that of one child. If her sons oppress her, to force her out of
+the house, the judge shall examine into the matter, and if the sons are
+at fault the woman shall not leave her husband's house. If the woman
+desire to leave the house, she must leave to her sons the gift which her
+husband gave her, but she may take the dowry of her father's house. Then
+she may marry the man of her heart.
+
+173. If this woman bear sons to her second husband, in the place to
+which she went, and then die, her earlier and later sons shall divide
+the dowry between them.
+
+174. If she bear no sons to her second husband, the sons of her first
+husband shall have the dowry.
+
+175. If a state slave or the slave of a freed man marry the daughter of
+a free man, and children are born, the master of the slave shall have no
+right to enslave the children of the free.
+
+176. If, however, a state slave or the slave of a freed man marry a
+man's daughter, and after he married her she bring a dowry from a
+father's house, if then they both enjoy it and found a household, and
+accumulate means, if then the slave die, then she who was free born may
+take her dowry, and all that her husband and she had earned; she shall
+divide them into two parts, one-half the master for the slave shall
+take, and the other half shall the free-born woman take for her
+children. If the free-born woman had no gift she shall take all that her
+husband and she had earned and divide it into two parts; and the master
+of the slave shall take one-half and she shall take the other for her
+children.
+
+177. If a widow, whose children are not grown, wishes to enter another
+house [remarry], she shall not enter it without the knowledge of the
+judge. If she enter another house the judge shall examine the estate of
+the house of her first husband. Then the house of her first husband
+shall be intrusted to the second husband and the woman herself as
+managers. And a record must be made thereof. She shall keep the house in
+order, bring up the children, and not sell the household utensils. He
+who buys the utensils of the children of a widow shall lose his money,
+and the goods shall return to their owners.
+
+178. If a "devoted woman" or a prostitute [connected with the temple
+neither can marry] to whom her father has given a dowry and a deed
+therefor, but if in this deed it is not stated that she may bequeath it
+as she pleases, and has not explicitly stated that she has the right of
+disposal; if then her father die, then her brothers shall hold her field
+and garden, and give her corn, oil and milk according to her portion,
+and satisfy her. If her brothers do not give her corn, oil and milk
+according to her share, then her field and garden shall be given to a
+farmer whom she chooses and the farmer shall support her. She shall have
+the usufruct of field and garden and all that her father gave her so
+long as she lives, but she cannot sell or assign it to others. Her
+position of inheritance belongs to her brothers.
+
+179. If a "sister of a god" [whose hire went to the revenue of the
+temple, counterpart to the public prostitute], or a prostitute, receive
+a gift from her father, and a deed in which it has been explicitly
+stated that she may dispose of it as she pleases, and give her complete
+disposition thereof: if then her father die, then she may leave her
+property to whomsoever she pleases. Her brothers can raise no claim
+thereto.
+
+180. If a father give a present to his daughter--either marriageable or
+a prostitute [unmarriageable]--and then die, then she is to receive a
+portion as a child from the paternal estate, and enjoy its usufruct so
+long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.
+
+181. If a father devote a temple-maid or temple-virgin to God and give
+her no present: if then the father die, she shall receive the third of a
+child's portion from the inheritance of her father's house, and enjoy
+its usufruct so long as she lives. Her estate belongs to her brothers.
+
+182. If a father devote his daughter as a wife of Marduk of Babylon [as
+in 181], and give her no present, nor a deed; if then her father die,
+then shall she receive one-third of her portion as a child of her
+father's house from her brothers, but she shall not have the management
+thereof. A wife of Marduk may leave her estate to whomsoever she wishes.
+
+183. If a man give his daughter by a concubine a dowry, and a husband,
+and a deed; if then her father die, she shall receive no portion from
+the paternal estate.
+
+184. If a man do not give a dowry to his daughter by a concubine, and no
+husband; if then her father die then her brother shall give her a dowry
+according to her father's wealth and secure a husband for her.
+
+185. If a man adopt a child and to his name as son, and rear him, this
+grown son cannot be demanded back again.
+
+186. If a man adopt a son, and if after he has taken him he injure his
+foster father and mother, then this adopted son shall return to his
+father's house.
+
+187. The son of a paramour in the palace service, or of a prostitute,
+cannot be demanded back.
+
+188. If an artisan has undertaken to rear a child and teaches him his
+craft, he cannot be demanded back.
+
+189. If he has not taught him his craft, this adopted son may return to
+his father's house.
+
+190. If a man does not maintain a child that he has adopted as son and
+reared with his other children, then his adopted son may return to his
+father's house.
+
+191. If a man, who had adopted a son and reared him, founded a
+household, and had children, wish to put this adopted son out, then this
+son shall not simply go his way. His adoptive father shall give him of
+his wealth one-third of a child's portion, and then he may go. He shall
+not give him of the field, garden and house.
+
+192. If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father
+or mother: "You are not my father, or my mother," his tongue shall be
+cut off.
+
+193. If the son of a paramour or a prostitute desire his father's house,
+and desert his adoptive father and adoptive mother, and goes to his
+father's house, then shall his eye be put out.
+
+194. If a man give his child to a nurse and the child die in her hands,
+but the nurse unbeknown to the father and mother nurse another child,
+then they shall convict her of having nursed another child without the
+knowledge of the father and mother and her breasts shall be cut off.
+
+195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
+
+196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
+
+197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
+
+198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed
+man, he shall pay one gold mina.
+
+199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a
+man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
+
+200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be
+knocked out.
+
+201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of
+a gold mina.
+
+202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he
+shall receive sixty blows with an ox-hide whip in public.
+
+203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man of
+equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
+
+204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay
+ten shekels in money.
+
+205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear
+shall be cut off.
+
+206. If during a quarrel one man strike another and wound him, then he
+shall swear, "I did not injure him wittingly," and pay the physician.
+
+207. If the man die of his wound, he shall swear similarly, and if he
+[the deceased] was a free-born man, he shall pay half a mina in money.
+
+208. If he was a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
+
+209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn
+child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
+
+210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
+
+211. If a woman of the freed class lose her child by a blow, he shall
+pay five shekels in money.
+
+212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.
+
+213. If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he
+shall pay two shekels in money.
+
+214. If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
+
+215. If a physician make a large incision with a operating knife and
+cure it, or if he open a tumor [over the eye] with an operating knife,
+and saves the eye, he shall receive ten shekels in money.
+
+216. If the patient be a freed man, he receives five shekels.
+
+217. If he be the slave of some one, his owner shall give the physician
+two shekels.
+
+218. If a physician make a large incision with the operating knife, and
+kill him, or open a tumor with the operating knife, and cut out the eye,
+his hands shall be cut off.
+
+219. If a physician make a large incision in the slave of a freed man,
+and kill him, he shall replace the slave with another slave.
+
+220. If he had opened a tumor with the operating knife, and put out his
+eye, he shall pay half his value.
+
+221. If a physician heal the broken bone or diseased soft part of a man,
+the patient shall pay the physician five shekels in money.
+
+222. If he were a freed man he shall pay three shekels.
+
+223. If he were a slave his owner shall pay the physician two shekels.
+
+224. If a veterinary surgeon perform a serious operation on an ass or an
+ox, and cure it, the owner shall pay the surgeon one-sixth of a shekel
+as fee.
+
+225. If he perform, a serious operation on an ass or ox, and kill it, he
+shall pay the owner one-fourth of its value.
+
+226. If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a
+slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut
+off.
+
+227. If any one deceive a barber, and have him mark a slave not for sale
+with the sign of a slave, he shall be put to death, and buried in his
+house. The barber shall swear: "I did not mark him wittingly," and shall
+be guiltless.
+
+228. If a builder build a house for some one and complete it, he shall
+give him a fee of two shekels in money for each _sar_ of surface.
+
+229. If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it
+properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then
+that builder shall be put to death.
+
+230. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be
+put to death.
+
+231. If it kill a slave of the owner, then he shall pay slave for slave
+to the owner of the house.
+
+232. If it ruin goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been
+ruined, and inasmuch as he did not construct properly this house which
+he built and it fell, he shall reerect the house from his own means.
+
+233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not
+yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make
+the walls solid from his own means.
+
+234. If a shipbuilder build a boat of sixty _gur_ for a man, he shall
+pay him a fee of two shekels in money.
+
+235. If a shipbuilder build a boat for some one, and do not make it
+tight, if during that same year that boat is sent away and suffers
+injury, the shipbuilder shall take the boat apart and put it together
+tight at his own expense. The tight boat he shall give to the boat
+owner.
+
+236. If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and
+the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of
+the boat another boat as compensation.
+
+237. If a man hire a sailor and his boat, and provide it with corn,
+clothing, oil and dates, and other things of the kind needed for fitting
+it: if the sailor is careless, the boat is wrecked, and its contents
+ruined, then the sailor shall compensate for the boat which was wrecked
+and all in it that he ruined.
+
+238. If a sailor wreck any one's ship, but saves it, he shall pay the
+half of its value in money.
+
+239. If a man hire a sailor, he shall pay him six _gur_ of corn per
+year.
+
+240. If a merchantman run against a ferryboat, and wreck it, the master
+of the ship that was wrecked shall seek justice before God; the master
+of the merchantman, which wrecked the ferryboat, must compensate the
+owner for the boat and all that he ruined.
+
+241. If any one impresses an ox for forced labor, he shall pay one-third
+of a mina in money.
+
+242. If any one hire oxen for a year, he shall pay four _gur_ of corn
+for plow-oxen.
+
+243. As rent of herd cattle he shall pay three _gur_ of corn to the
+owner.
+
+244. If any one hire an ox or an ass, and a lion kill it in the field,
+the loss is upon its owner.
+
+245. If any one hire oxen, and kill them by bad treatment or blows, he
+shall compensate the owner, oxen for oxen.
+
+246. If a man hire an ox, and he break its leg or cut the ligament of
+its neck, he shall compensate the owner with ox for ox.
+
+247. If any one hire an ox, and put out its eye, he shall pay the owner
+one-half of its value.
+
+248. If any one hire an ox, and break off a horn, or cut off its tail or
+hurt its muzzle, he shall pay one-fourth of its value in money.
+
+249. If any one hire an ox, and God strike it that it die, the man who
+hired it shall swear by God and be considered guiltless.
+
+250. If while an ox is passing on the street [market?] some one push it,
+and kill it, the owner can set up no claim in the suit [against the
+hirer].
+
+251. If an ox be a goring ox, and it is shown that he is a gorer, and he
+do not bind his horns, or fasten the ox up, and the ox gore a free-born
+man and kill him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money.
+
+252. If he kill a man's slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
+
+253. If any one agree with another to tend his field, give him seed,
+intrust a yoke of oxen to him, and bind him to cultivate the field, if
+he steal the corn or plants, and take them for himself, his hands shall
+be hewn off.
+
+254. If he take the seed-corn for himself, and do not use the yoke of
+oxen, he shall compensate him for the amount of the seed-corn.
+
+255. If he sublet the man's yoke of oxen or steal the seed-corn,
+planting nothing in the field, he shall be convicted, and for each one
+hundred _gan_ he shall pay sixty _gur_ of corn.
+
+256. If his community will not pay for him, then he shall be placed in
+that field with the cattle [at work].
+
+257. If any one hire a field laborer, he shall pay him eight _gur_ of
+corn per year.
+
+258. If any one hire an ox-driver, he shall pay him six _gur_ of corn
+per year.
+
+259. If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five
+shekels in money to its owner.
+
+260. If any one steal a _shadduf_ [used to draw water from the river or
+canal] or a plow, he shall pay three shekels in money.
+
+261. If any one hire a herdsman for cattle or sheep, he shall pay him
+eight _gur_ of corn per annum.
+
+262. If any one, a cow or a sheep ... [broken off].
+
+263. If he kill the cattle or sheep that were given to him, he shall
+compensate the owner with cattle for cattle and sheep for sheep.
+
+264. If a herdsman, to whom cattle or sheep have been intrusted for
+watching over, and who has received his wages as agreed upon, and is
+satisfied, diminish the number of the cattle or sheep, or make the
+increase by birth less, he shall make good the increase and profit which
+was lost in the terms of settlement.
+
+265. If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been intrusted,
+be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or
+sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten
+times the loss.
+
+266. If the animal be killed in the stable by God [an accident], or if a
+lion kill it, the herdsman shall declare his innocence before God, and
+the owner bears the accident in the stable.
+
+267. If the herdsman overlook something, and an accident happen in the
+stable, then the herdsman is at fault for the accident which he has
+caused in the stable, and he must compensate the owner for the cattle or
+sheep.
+
+268. If any one hire an ox for threshing, the amount of the hire is
+twenty _ka_ of corn.
+
+269. If he hire an ass for threshing, the hire is twenty _ka_ of corn.
+
+270. If he hire a young animal for threshing, the hire is ten _ka_ of
+corn.
+
+271. If any one hire oxen, cart and driver, he shall pay one hundred and
+eighty _ka_ of corn per day.
+
+272. If any one hire a cart alone, he shall pay forty _ka_ of corn per
+day.
+
+273. If any one hire a day laborer, he shall pay him from the New Year
+until the fifth month [April to August, when days are long and work
+hard] six gerahs in money per day; from the sixth month to the end of
+the year he shall give him five gerahs per day.
+
+274. If any one hire a skilled artisan, he shall pay as wages of the ...
+five gerahs, as wages of the potter five gerahs, of a tailor five gerahs,
+of ... gerahs, ... of ... gerahs ... of ... gerahs, of a carpenter four
+gerahs, of a rope-maker four gerahs, of ... gerahs, of a mason ... gerahs
+per day.
+
+275. If any one hire a ferryboat, he shall pay three gerahs in money per
+day.
+
+276. If he hire a freight-boat, he shall pay two and one-half gerahs per
+day.
+
+277. If any one hire a ship of sixty _gur_ he shall pay one-sixth of a
+shekel in money as its hire per day.
+
+278. If any one buy a male or female slave, and before a month has
+elapsed the _benu_-disease be developed, he shall return the slave to
+the seller, and receive the money which he had paid.
+
+279. If any one buy a male or female slave, and a third party claim it,
+the seller is liable for the claim.
+
+280. If while in a foreign country a man buy a male or female slave
+belonging to another [of his own country]: if when he return home the
+owner of the male or female slave recognize it: if the male or female
+slave be a native of the country, he shall give them back without any
+money.
+
+281. If they are from another country, the buyer shall declare the
+amount of money he paid before God, and the owner shall give the money
+paid therefor to the merchant, and keep the male or female slave.
+
+282. If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they
+convict him his master shall cut off his ear.
+
+
+THE EPILOGUE
+
+Laws of justice which Hammurabi, the wise king, established, A righteous
+law, and pious statute did he teach the land. Hammurabi, the protecting
+king am I. I have not withdrawn myself from the men, whom Bel gave to
+me, the rule over whom Marduk gave to me, I was not negligent, but I
+made them a peaceful abiding place. I expounded all great difficulties,
+I made the light shine upon them. With the mighty weapons which Zamama
+and Ishtar intrusted to me, with the keen vision with which Ea endowed
+me, with the wisdom that Marduk gave me, I have uprooted the enemy above
+and below [in north and south], subdued the earth, brought prosperity to
+the land, guaranteed security to the inhabitants in their homes; a
+disturber was not permitted. The great gods have called me, I am the
+salvation-bearing shepherd [ruler], whose staff [sceptre] is straight
+[just], the good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I
+cherish the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad [Babylonia]; in
+my shelter I have let them repose in peace; in my deep wisdom have I
+inclosed them. That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to
+protect the widows and orphans, I have in Babylon the city where Anu and
+Bel raise high their head, in E-Sagil, the Temple, whose foundations
+stand firm as heaven and earth, in order to bespeak justice in the land,
+to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, set up these my precious
+words, written upon my memorial stone, before the image of me, as king
+of righteousness.
+
+The king who ruleth among the kings of the cities am I. My words are
+well considered; there is no wisdom like unto mine. By the command of
+Shamash [the sun-god], the great judge of heaven and earth, let
+righteousness go forth in the land: by the order of Marduk, my lord, let
+no destruction befall my monument. In E-Sagil, which I love, let my name
+be ever repeated; let the oppressed, who has a case at law, come and
+stand before this my image as king of righteousness; let him read the
+inscription, and understand my precious words: the inscription will
+explain his case to him; he will find out what is just, and his heart
+will be glad [so that he will say]:
+
+"Hammurabi is a ruler, who is as a father to his subjects, who holds the
+words of Marduk in reverence, who has achieved conquest for Marduk over
+the north and south, who rejoices the heart of Marduk, his lord, who has
+bestowed benefits forever and ever on his subjects, and has established
+order in the land."
+
+When he reads the record, let him pray with full heart to Marduk, my
+lord, and Zarpanit, my lady; and then shall the protecting deities and
+the gods, who frequent E-Sagil, graciously grant the desires daily
+presented before Marduk, my lord, and Zarpanit, my lady.
+
+In future time, through all coming generations, let the king, who may be
+in the land, observe the words of righteousness which I have written on
+my monument; let him not alter the law of the land which I have given,
+the edicts which I have enacted; my monument let him not mar. If such a
+ruler have wisdom, and be able to keep his land in order, he shall
+observe the words which I have written in this inscription; the rule,
+statute and law of the land which I have given; the decisions which I
+have made will this inscription show him; let him rule his subjects
+accordingly, speak justice to them, give right decisions, root out the
+miscreants and criminals from his land, and grant prosperity to his
+subjects.
+
+Hammurabi, the king of righteousness, on whom Shamash has conferred
+right [or law] am I. My words are well considered, my deeds are not
+equaled, to bring low those that were high, to humble the proud, to
+expel insolence. If a succeeding ruler considers my words, which I have
+written in this my inscription, if he do not annul my law, nor corrupt
+my words, nor change my monument, then may Shamash lengthen that king's
+reign, as he has that of me, the king of righteousness, that he may
+reign in righteousness over his subjects. If this ruler do not esteem my
+words, which I have written in my inscription, if he despise my curses,
+and fear not the curse of God, if he destroy the law which I have given,
+corrupt my words, change my monument, efface my name, write his name
+there, or on account of the curses commission another so to do, that
+man, whether king or ruler, patesi [priest-viceroy] or commoner, no
+matter what he be, may the great God [Anu], the Father of the gods, who
+has ordered my rule, withdraw from him the glory of royalty, break his
+sceptre, curse his destiny. May Bel, the lord, who fixeth destiny, whose
+command cannot be altered, who has made my kingdom great, order a
+rebellion which his hand cannot control; may he let the wind of the
+overthrow of his habitation blow, may he ordain the years of his rule in
+groaning, years of scarcity, years of famine, darkness without light,
+death with seeing eyes be fated to him; may he [Bel] order with his
+potent mouth the destruction of his city, the dispersion of his
+subjects, the cutting off of his rule, the removal of his name and
+memory from the land. May Belit, the great Mother, whose command is
+potent in E-Kur [the Babylonian Olympus], the Mistress, who hearkens
+graciously to my petitions, in the seat of judgment and decision [where
+Bel fixes destiny], turn his affairs evil before Bel, and put the
+devastation of his land, the destruction of his subjects, the pouring
+out of his life like water into the mouth of King Bel. May Ea, the great
+ruler, whose fated decrees come to pass, the thinker of the gods, the
+omniscient, who maketh long the days of my life, withdraw understanding
+and wisdom from him, lead him to forgetfulness, shut up his rivers at
+their sources, and not allow corn or sustenance for man to grow in his
+land. May Shamash, the great Judge of heaven and earth, who supporteth
+all means of livelihood, Lord of life-courage, shatter his dominion,
+annul his law, destroy his way, make vain the march of his troops, send
+him in his visions forecasts of the uprooting of the foundations of his
+throne and of the destruction of his land. May the condemnation of
+Shamash overtake him forthwith; may he be deprived of water above among
+the living, and his spirit below in the earth. May Sin [the moon-god],
+the Lord of Heaven, the divine father, whose crescent gives light among
+the gods, take away the crown and regal throne from him; may he put upon
+him heavy guilt, great decay, that nothing may be lower than he. May he
+destine him as fated, days, months and years of dominion filled with
+sighing and tears, increase of the burden of dominion, a life that is
+like unto death. May Adad, the lord of fruitfulness, ruler of heaven and
+earth, my helper, withhold from him rain from heaven, and the flood of
+water from the springs, destroying his land by famine and want; may he
+rage mightily over his city, and make his land into flood-hills [heaps
+of ruined cities]. May Zamama, the great warrior, the first born son of
+E-Kur, who goeth at my right hand, shatter his weapons on the field of
+battle, turn day into night for him, and let his foe triumph over him.
+May Ishtar, the goddess of fighting and war, who unfetters my weapons,
+my gracious protecting spirit, who loveth my dominion, curse his kingdom
+in her angry heart; in her great wrath, change his grace into evil, and
+shatter his weapons on the place of fighting and war. May she create
+disorder and sedition for him, strike down his warriors, that the earth
+may drink their blood, and throw down the piles of corpses of his
+warriors on the field; may she not grant him a life of mercy, deliver
+him into the hands of his enemies, and imprison him in the land of his
+enemies. May Nergal, the mighty among the gods, whose contest is
+irresistible, who grants me victory, in his great might burn up his
+subjects like a slender reed-stalk, cut off his limbs with his mighty
+weapons, and shatter him like an earthen image. May Nin-tu, the sublime
+mistress of the lands, the fruitful mother, deny him a son, vouchsafe
+him no name, give him no successor among men. May Nin-karak, the
+daughter of Anu, who adjudges grace to me, cause to come upon his
+members in E-kur, high fever, severe wounds, that cannot be healed,
+whose nature the physician does not understand, which he cannot treat
+with dressing, which, like the bite of death, cannot be removed, until
+they have sapped away his life.
+
+May he lament the loss of his life-power, and may the great gods of
+heaven and earth, the Anunnaki altogether inflict a curse and evil upon
+the confines of the temple, the walls of this E-barra [the Sun temple of
+Sippara], upon his dominion, his land, his warriors, his subjects and
+his troops. May Bel curse him with the potent curses of his mouth that
+cannot be altered, and may they come upon, him forthwith.
+
+
+
+
+
+THESEUS FOUNDS ATHENS
+
+B.C. 1235
+
+PLUTARCH
+
+
+     The founding of the city of Athens, apart from the mythological
+     lore which ascribes its name to Athene, the goddess, is credited by
+     the Greeks to Sais, a native of Egypt. The real founder of Athens,
+     the one who made it a city and kingdom, was Theseus; an
+     unacknowledged illegitimate child. The usual myth surrounds his
+     birth and upbringing.
+
+     King AEgeus, of Attica, his father, had an intrigue with AEthra.
+     Before leaving, AEgeus informed her that he had hidden his sword and
+     sandals beneath a great stone, hollowed out to receive them. She
+     was charged that should a son be born to them and, on growing to
+     man's estate, be able to lift the stone, AEthra must send him to his
+     father, with these things under it, in all secrecy. These
+     happenings were in Troezen, in which place AEgeus had been
+     sojourning.
+
+     All came about as expected. Theseus, the son, lifted the stone,
+     took thence the deposit and departed for Attica, his father's home.
+     On his way Theseus had a number of adventures which proved his
+     prowess, not the least being his encounter with and defeat of
+     Periphetes, the "club-bearer," so called from the weapon he used.
+
+     Theseus had complied with the custom of his country by journeying
+     to Delphi and offering the first-fruits of his hair, then cut for
+     the first time. This first cutting of the hair was always an
+     occasion of solemnity among the Greeks, the hair being dedicated to
+     some god. It will be remembered that Homer speaks of this in the
+     _Iliad_.
+
+     One salient fact must be borne in mind in Grecian history, which is
+     that it was a settled maxim that each city should have an
+     independent sovereignty. "The patriotism of a Greek was confined to
+     his city, and rarely kindled into any general love for the common
+     welfare of Hellas."[22]
+
+     [Footnote 22: Smith.]
+
+     A Greek citizen of Athens was an alien in any other city of the
+     peninsula. This political disunion caused the various cities to
+     turn against each other, and laid them open to conquest by the
+     Macedonians.
+
+
+As he [Theseus] proceeded on his way, and reached the river Cephisus,
+men of the Phytalid race were the first to meet and greet him. He
+demanded to be purified from the guilt of bloodshed, and they purified
+him, made propitiatory offerings, and also entertained him in their
+houses, being the first persons from whom he had received any kindness
+on his journey.
+
+It is said to have been on the eighth day of the month Cronion, which is
+now called Hecatombaion, that he came to his own city. On entering it he
+found public affairs disturbed by factions, and the house of AEgeus in
+great disorder; for Medea, who had been banished from Corinth, was
+living with AEgeus, and had engaged by her drugs to enable AEgeus to have
+children. She was the first to discover who Theseus was, while AEgeus,
+who was an old man, and feared every one because of the disturbed state
+of society, did not recognize him. Consequently she advised AEgeus to
+invite him to a feast, that she might poison him.
+
+Theseus accordingly came to AEgeus's table. He did not wish to be the
+first to tell his name, but, to give his father an opportunity of
+recognizing him, he drew his sword, as if he meant to cut some of the
+meat with it, and showed it to AEgeus. AEgeus at once recognized it,
+overset the cup of poison, looked closely at his son, and embraced him.
+He then called a public meeting and made Theseus known as his son to the
+citizens, with whom he was already very popular because of his bravery,
+It is said that when the cup was overset the poison was spilt in the
+place where now there is the enclosure in the Delphinium, for there
+AEgeus dwelt; and the Hermes to the east of the temple there they call
+the one who is "at the door of AEgeus."
+
+But the sons of Pallas, who had previously to this expected that they
+would inherit the kingdom on the death of AEgeus without issue, now that
+Theseus was declared the heir, were much enraged, first that AEgeus
+should be king, a man who was merely an adopted child of Pandion, and
+had no blood relationship to Erechtheus, and next that Theseus, a
+stranger and a foreigner, should inherit the kingdom. They consequently
+declared war.
+
+Dividing themselves into two bodies, the one proceeded to march openly
+upon the city from Sphettus, under the command of Pallas their father,
+while the other lay in ambush at Gargettus, in order that they might
+fall upon their opponents on two sides at once. But there was a herald
+among them named Leos, of the township of Agnus, who betrayed the plans
+of the sons of Pallas to Theseus. He suddenly attacked those who were
+in ambush, and killed them all, hearing which the other body under
+Pallas dispersed. From this time forth they say that the township of
+Pallene has never intermarried with that of Agnus, and that it is not
+customary amongst them for heralds to begin a proclamation with the
+words "Acouete Leo," (Oyez) for they hate the name of Leo because of the
+treachery of that man.
+
+Shortly after this the ship from Crete arrived for the third time to
+collect the customary tribute. Most writers agree that the origin of
+this was, that on the death of Androgeus, in Attica, which was ascribed
+to treachery, his father Minos went to war, and wrought much evil to the
+country, which at the same time was afflicted by scourges from heaven
+(for the land did not bear fruit, and there was a great pestilence, and
+the rivers sank into the earth).
+
+So that as the oracle told the Athenians that, if they propitiated Minos
+and came to terms with him, the anger of heaven would cease and they
+should have a respite from their sufferings, they sent an embassy to
+Minos and prevailed on him to make peace, on the condition that every
+nine years they should send him a tribute of seven youths and seven
+maidens. The most tragic of the legends states these poor children when
+they reached Crete were thrown into the Labyrinth, and there either were
+devoured by the Minotaur or else perished with hunger, being unable to
+find the way out. The Minotaur, as Euripides tells us, was:
+
+    "A form commingled, and a monstrous birth,
+    Half man, half bull, in twofold shape combined."
+
+So when the time of the third payment of the tribute arrived, and those
+fathers who had sons not yet grown up had to submit to draw lots, the
+unhappy people began to revile AEgeus, complaining that he, although the
+author of this calamity, yet took no share in their affliction, but
+endured to see them left childless, robbed of their own legitimate
+offspring, while he made a foreigner and a bastard the heir to his
+kingdom.
+
+This vexed Theseus, and determining not to hold aloof, but to share the
+fortunes of the people, he came forward and offered himself without
+being drawn by lot. The people all admired his courage and patriotism,
+and AEgeus finding that his prayers and entreaties had no effect on his
+unalterable resolution, proceeded to choose the rest by lot. Hellanicus
+says that the city did not select the youths and maidens by lot, but
+that Minos himself came thither and chose them, and that he picked out
+Theseus first of all, upon the usual conditions, which were that the
+Athenians should furnish a ship, and that the youths should embark in it
+and sail with him, not carrying with them any weapon of war; and that
+when the Minotaur was slain, the tribute should cease.
+
+Formerly, no one had any hope of safety; so they used to send out the
+ship with a black sail, as if it were going to a certain doom; but now
+Theseus so encouraged his father, and boasted that he would overcome the
+Minotaur, that he gave a second sail, a white one, to the steersman, and
+charged him on his return, if Theseus were safe, to hoist the white one,
+if not, the black one as a sign of mourning. But Simonides says that it
+was not a white sail which was given by AEgeus, but "a scarlet sail
+embrued in holm oak's juice," and that this was agreed on by him as the
+signal of safety. The ship was steered by Phereclus, the son of
+Amarsyas, according to Simonides.
+
+When they reached Crete, according to most historians and poets, Ariadne
+fell in love with Theseus, and from her he received the clew of string,
+and was taught how to thread the mazes of the Labyrinth. He slew the
+Minotaur, and, taking with him Ariadne and the youths, sailed away.
+Pherecydes also says that Theseus also knocked out the bottoms of the
+Cretan ships, to prevent pursuit. But Demon says that Taurus, Minos'
+general, was slain in a sea-fight in the harbor, when Theseus sailed
+away.
+
+But according to Philochorus, when Minos instituted his games, Taurus
+was expected to win every prize, and was grudged this honor; for his
+great influence and his unpopular manners made him disliked, and scandal
+said that he was too intimate with Pasiphae. On this account, when
+Theseus offered to contend with him, Minos agreed. And, as it was the
+custom in Crete for women as well as men to be spectators of the games,
+Ariadne was present, and was struck with the appearance of Theseus, and
+his strength, as he conquered all competitors. Minos was especially
+pleased, in the wrestling match, at Taurus's defeat and shame, and,
+restoring the children to Theseus, remitted the tribute for the future.
+
+As he approached Attica, on his return, both he and his steersman in
+their delight forgot to hoist the sail which was to be a signal of their
+safety to AEgeus; and he in his despair flung himself down the cliffs and
+perished. Theseus, as soon as he reached the harbor, performed at
+Phalerum the sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods if he returned
+safe, and sent off a herald to the city with the news of his safe
+return.
+
+This man met with many who were lamenting the death of the king, and, as
+was natural, with others who were delighted at the news of their safety,
+and who congratulated him and wished to crown him with garlands. These
+he received, but placed them on his herald's staff, and when he came
+back to the seashore, finding that Theseus had not completed his
+libation, he waited outside the temple, not wishing to disturb the
+sacrifice. When the libation was finished he announced the death of
+AEgeus, and then they all hurried up to the city with loud lamentations:
+wherefore to this day, at the Oschophoria, they say that it is not the
+herald that is crowned, but his staff, and that at the libations the
+bystanders cry out, "Eleleu, Iou, Iou!" of which cries the first is used
+by men in haste, or raising the paean for battle, while the second is
+used by persons in surprise and trouble.
+
+Theseus, after burying his father, paid his vow to Apollo, on the
+seventh day of the month Pyanepsion; for on this day it was that the
+rescued youths went up into the city. The boiling of pulse, which is
+customary on this anniversary, is said to be done because the rescued
+youths put what remained of their pulse together into one pot, boiled it
+all, and merrily feasted on it together. And on this day also the
+Athenians carry about the Eiresione, a bough of the olive tree garlanded
+with wool, just as Theseus had before carried the suppliants' bough, and
+covered with first-fruits of all sorts of produce, because the
+barrenness of the land ceased on that day; and they sing,
+
+    "Eiresione, bring us figs,
+      And wheaten loaves, and oil,
+    And wine to quaff, that we may all
+      Rest merrily from toil."
+
+However, some say that these ceremonies are performed in memory of the
+Heracleidae, who were thus entertained by the Athenians; but most writers
+tell the tale as I have told it.
+
+After the death of AEgeus, Theseus conceived a great and important
+design. He gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica and made them
+citizens of one city, whereas before they had lived dispersed, so as to
+be hard to assemble together for the common weal, and at times even
+fighting with one another.
+
+He visited all the villages and tribes, and won their consent, the poor
+and lower classes gladly accepting his proposals, while he gained over
+the more powerful by promising that the new constitution should not
+include a king, but that it should be a pure commonwealth, with himself
+merely acting as general of its army and guardian of its laws, while in
+other respects it would allow perfect freedom and equality to every one.
+By these arguments he convinced some of them, and the rest knowing his
+power and courage chose rather to be persuaded than forced into
+compliance.
+
+He therefore destroyed the prytanea, the senate house, and the
+magistracy of each individual township, built one common prytaneum and
+senate house for them all on the site of the present acropolis, called
+the city Athens, and instituted the Panathenaic festival common to all
+of them. He also instituted a festival for the resident aliens, on the
+sixteenth of the month, Hecatombaion, which is still kept up. And
+having, according to his promise, laid down his sovereign power, he
+arranged the new constitution under the auspices of the gods; for he
+made inquiry at Delphi as to how he should deal with the city, and
+received the following answer:
+
+    "Thou son of AEgeus and of Pittheus' maid,
+    My father hath within thy city laid
+    The bounds of many cities; weigh not down
+    Thy soul with thought; the bladder cannot drown."
+
+The same thing they say was afterward prophesied by the Sibyl concerning
+the city, in these words:
+
+    "The bladder may be dipped, but cannot drown."
+
+Wishing still further to increase the number of his citizens, he invited
+all strangers to come and share equal privileges, and they say that the
+words now used, "Come hither all ye peoples," was the proclamation then
+used by Theseus, establishing as it were a commonwealth of all nations.
+But he did not permit his state to fall into the disorder which this
+influx of all kinds of people would probably have produced, but divided
+the people into three classes, of Eupatridae or nobles, Geomori or
+farmers, Demiurgi or artisans.
+
+To the Eupatridae he assigned the care of religious rites, the supply of
+magistrates for the city, and the interpretation of the laws and customs
+sacred or profane; yet he placed them on an equality with the other
+citizens, thinking that the nobles would always excel in dignity, the
+farmers in usefulness, and the artisans in numbers. Aristotle tells us
+that he was the first who inclined to democracy, and gave up the title
+of king; and Homer seems to confirm this view by speaking of the people
+of the Athenians alone of all the states mentioned in his catalogue of
+ships.
+
+Theseus also struck money with the figure of a bull, either alluding to
+the bull of Marathon, or Taurus, Minos' general, or else to encourage
+farming among the citizens. Hence, they say, came the words, "worth
+ten," or "worth a hundred oxen." He permanently annexed Megara to
+Attica, and set up the famous pillar on the Isthmus, on which he wrote
+the distinction between the countries in two trimeter lines, of which
+the one looking east says,
+
+    "This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia,
+
+and the one looking west says,
+
+    "This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia."
+
+And also he instituted games there, in emulation of Heracles; that, just
+as Heracles had ordained that the Greeks should celebrate the Olympic
+games in honor of Zeus, so by Theseus' appointment they should celebrate
+the Isthmian games in honor of Poseidon.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA
+
+B.C. 1200
+
+GUSTAVE LE BON[23] W.W. HUNTER
+
+
+     The institution of caste was not peculiar to India. In Rome there
+     was a long struggle over the connubium. Among the Greeks the right
+     of commensality, or eating together, was restricted. In fact, the
+     phenomena of caste are world-wide in their extent. In India the
+     priests and nobles contended for the first place. India had
+     progressed along the line of ethnic evolution from a loose
+     confederacy of tribes into several nations, ruled by kings and
+     priests, and the iron fetters of caste were becoming more rigidly
+     welded. At first the father of the family was the priest. Then the
+     chiefs and sages took the office of spiritual guide, and conducted
+     the sacrifices. As writing was unknown, the liturgies were learned
+     by heart, and handed down in families. The exclusive knowledge of
+     the ancient hymns became hereditary, as it were. The ministrants
+     increased in number, and thus sprang up the powerful priestly
+     caste.
+
+     [Footnote 23: Translated from the French by Chauncey C.
+     Starkweather.]
+
+     Then the warrior class arose and grew strong in numbers and power,
+     becoming differentiated from the agriculturists, and forming the
+     military caste. The husbandmen drifted into another caste, and the
+     three orders were rigidly separated by a cessation of
+     intermarriage.
+
+     At the bottom came the Sudras, or slave bands, the servile dregs of
+     the population. In course of time, from various influences, the
+     third class became almost eliminated in many provinces. From the
+     cradle to the grave these cruel barriers still intervene between
+     the strata of the people, relentless as fate and insurmountable as
+     death.
+
+
+GUSTAVE LE BON
+
+In ancient times the power of kings [in India] was only nominal. In the
+Aryan village, forming a little republic, the chief, bearing the name of
+rajah, was secure in his fortress, exercising full sway. Such was the
+political system prevailing in India through all the ages, and which has
+always been respected by the conquerors, whoever they might be. So, for
+so many centuries back we see arise the first elements of an
+organization which still endures.
+
+We find here also the beginnings of that system of castes, which, at
+first indistinct and floating, when the classes sought only to be
+distinguished from each other, was to become so rigid, when it was
+constituted under the influence of ethnological reasons, as to dig
+fathomless abysses between the races.
+
+In the Vedas may be traced the progression of the distance between the
+priests and the warriors, at first slight, and then increasing more and
+more. The division of functions did not stop there. While the
+sacrificing priest was consecrating himself more exclusively day by day
+to the accomplishment of the sacred rites and to the composition of
+hymns; while the warrior passed his days in adventurous expeditions or
+daring feats, what would have become of the land and what would it have
+produced if others had not applied themselves without ceasing, to
+cultivate it? A third class became distinct, the agriculturists.
+
+In one of the last hymns of Rig Veda these three classes appear,
+absolutely separated and already designated by the three words Brahmans,
+Kchatryas, Vaisyas.
+
+The fourth class, that of the Sudras, was to arise later and to include
+the mass of conquered peoples when the latter joined the circle of Aryan
+civilization. The classes, hitherto mingling, now became rigidly
+separated castes.
+
+The most important of these divisions, and that which was first formed,
+was the one between the priests and the warriors. The Brahmans,
+intermediaries between men and the gods, soon became more and more
+exacting, and finally considered themselves as entirely superior beings
+and were accepted as such.
+
+The distinction between the warriors and the agriculturists also soon
+became marked, arising doubtless rather from a difference in fortune
+than in functions.
+
+The war chief, who returned laden with booty, covered himself with rings
+of gold, rich vestments, and gleaming arms. He became "rajah," that is
+to say "shining," for such was the meaning of the word at the Vedic
+epoch.
+
+Still no absolute barrier between the classes had arisen. They mingled
+to offer sacrifices, and sometimes ate in common.
+
+Heredity of office and profession began to be established. The sacred
+songs were handed down in families, as were also the functions of the
+sacrificers. And here among the Vedic Aryans are seen in process of
+elaboration the germs of the institution which later gained so much
+power in India and which dominates it still with apparent immutability.
+
+The system of castes has been the corner-stone of all the institutions
+of India for two thousand years. Such is its importance, and so
+generally is it misunderstood, that it will be well briefly to explain
+its origins, sources, and consequences. A system, the result of which is
+to permit a handful of Europeans to hold sway over two hundred and fifty
+millions of men deserves the attention of the observer.
+
+The system of castes has existed for more than twenty centuries in
+India. It doubtless had its origin in the recognition of the inevitable
+laws of heredity. When the white-skinned conquerors, whom we call
+Aryans, penetrated India, they found, in addition to other invaders of
+Turanian origin, black, half-savage populations whom they subjugated.
+The conquerors were half-pastoral, half-stationary tribes, under chiefs
+whose authority was counterbalanced by the all-powerful influence of the
+priests whose duty it was to secure the protection of the gods. Their
+occupations were divided into classes, that of Brahmans or priests,
+Kchatryas or warriors, and Vaisyas, laborers or artisans. The last class
+was perhaps formed by the invaders anterior to the Aryans, whom we have
+just mentioned.
+
+These divisions corresponded, as is evident, to our three ancient
+castes, the clergy, the nobility, and the third estate. Beneath these
+classes was the aboriginal population, the Sudras, forming three
+quarters of the whole population.
+
+Experience soon revealed the inconveniences which might rise from the
+mixture of the superior race with the inferior ones, and all the
+proscriptions of religion tended thereafter to prevent it. "Every
+country which gives birth to men of mixed races," said the ancient
+law-giver of the Hindus, the sage Manu, "is soon destroyed together with
+those who inhabit it." The decree is harsh, but it is impossible not to
+recognize its truth. Every superior race which has mingled with another
+too inferior has speedily been degraded or absorbed by it.
+
+The Spaniards in America, the Portuguese in India, are proofs of the
+sad results produced by such mixtures. The descendants of the brave
+Portuguese adventurers, who in other days conquered part of India, fill
+to-day the employments of servants, and the name of their race has
+become a term of contempt.
+
+Imbued with the importance of this anthropological truth, the Code of
+Manu, which has been the law of India for so many centuries, and which,
+like all codes, is the result of long anterior experiences, neglects
+nothing to preserve the purity of blood.
+
+It pronounces severe penalties against all intermingling of the superior
+castes between themselves, and especially with the caste of the Sudras.
+There are no frightful threats which it does not employ to keep the
+latter apart.
+
+But in the course of the centuries nature triumphed over these
+formidable prohibitions. Woman always has her charms, no matter how
+inferior she may be in caste. In spite of Manu, crossings of caste were
+numerous, and one need not travel India throughout to perceive that,
+to-day, the populations of all the races are mixed to a large extent.
+The number of individuals white enough to prove that their blood is
+quite pure is very restricted. The word caste, taken in its primitive
+sense, is no longer a synonym of color, as it used to be in Sanscrit,
+and, if caste had had only formerly prevailing ethnological reasons to
+invoke, it would have had no reason for continuing. In fact, the
+primitive divisions of caste have long since disappeared. They were
+replaced by new divisions, the origin of which is other than the
+difference of races, except in the case of the Brahmans, who still form
+the less mixed portion of the population.
+
+Among the causes which have perpetuated the system of castes, the law of
+heredity has furthermore continued to play a fundamental part. Aptness
+is inevitably hereditary among the Hindus, and, also inevitably, the son
+follows the profession of the father. The principle of heredity of the
+professions being universally admitted, there has resulted the formation
+of castes as numerous as the professions themselves, and to-day in India
+castes are numbered by the thousand. Each new profession has for an
+immediate consequence the formation of a new caste.
+
+The European who comes to India to live soon perceives to what an
+extent the castes have multiplied in observing the number of different
+persons whom he is obliged to hire to wait on him. To the two preceding
+causes of the formations of castes, the ethnological cause, now very
+weak, and the professional, which is still very strong, are added
+political office, and the heterogeneity of religious beliefs.
+
+The castes springing from political office might, strictly speaking, be
+placed in the category of professional castes, but those produced by
+diversity of religious beliefs should be attached to none of the
+preceding causes. In theory, that is, only judged by the reading of
+books, all India would be divided into two or three great religions
+only. But practically these religions are very numerous. New gods,
+considered as simple incarnations of ancient ones, are born and die
+every day, and their votaries soon form a new caste as rigid in its
+exclusions as the others.
+
+Two fundamental signs mark the conformity of castes, and separate from
+all the others the persons belonging to them. The first is that the
+individuals of the same caste cannot eat except among themselves. The
+second is that they can only marry among themselves.
+
+These two proscriptions are quite fundamental, and the first not less
+than the second. You may meet by the hundreds in India Brahmans who are
+employed by the government in the post-office and railway service, or
+even Brahmans who are beggars. But the humble functionary or wretched
+mendicant would rather die than sit at table with the viceroy of India.
+
+The quality of Brahmans is hereditary, like a title of nobility in
+Europe. It is not a synonym of priest, as is generally believed, because
+it is from this caste that priests are recruited. This caste was
+formerly so exalted that the rank of royalty was not sufficient to
+enable one to aspire to the hand of a Brahman's daughter.
+
+The Hindu would rather die than violate the laws of his caste. Nothing
+is more terrible than for him to lose it. Such loss may be compared to
+excommunication in the middle ages, or to a condemnation for an infamous
+crime in modern Europe. To lose his caste is to lose everything at one
+blow, parents, relations, and fortune. Every one turns his back upon
+the culprit and refuses to have any dealings with him. He must enter the
+casteless category, which is employed only for the most abject
+functions.
+
+As to the social and political consequences of such a system, the only
+social bond among the Hindus is caste. Outside of caste the world does
+not exist for him. He is separated from persons of another caste by an
+abyss much deeper than that which separates Europeans of the most
+different nationalities. The latter may intermarry, but persons of
+different castes cannot. The result is that every village possesses as
+many groups as there are castes represented.
+
+With such a system union against a master is impossible. This system of
+caste explains the phenomenon of two hundred and fifty millions of men
+obeying, without a murmur, sixty or seventy thousand strangers[24] whom
+they detest. The only fatherland of the Hindu is his caste. He has never
+had another. His country is not a fatherland to him, and he has never
+dreamed of its unity.
+
+[Footnote 24: English.]
+
+
+W.W. HUNTER
+
+At a very early period we catch sight of a nobler race from the
+northwest, forcing its way in among the primitive peoples of India. This
+race belonged to the splendid Aryan or Indo-Germanic stock from which
+the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Englishman alike descend. Its earliest
+home seems to have been in Western Asia. From that common camping-ground
+certain branches of the race started for the east, others for the
+farther west. One of the western offshoots built Athens and Sparta, and
+became the Greek nation; another went on to Italy, and reared the city
+on the Seven Hills, which grew into Imperial Rome. A distant colony of
+the same race excavated the silver ores of prehistoric Spain; and when
+we first catch a sight of ancient England, we see an Aryan settlement
+fishing in wattle canoes, and working the tin mines of Cornwall.
+Meanwhile other branches of the Aryan stock had gone forth from the
+primitive Asiatic home to the east. Powerful bands found their way
+through the passes of the Himalayas into the Punjab, and spread
+themselves, chiefly as Brahmans and Rajputs, over India.
+
+The Aryan offshoots, alike to the east and to the west, asserted their
+superiority over the earlier peoples whom they found in possession of
+the soil. The history of ancient Europe is the story of the Aryan
+settlements around the shores of the Mediterranean; and that wide term,
+modern civilization, merely means the civilization of the western
+branches of the same race. The history of India consists in like manner
+of the history of the eastern offshoots of the Aryan stock who settled
+in that land.
+
+We know little regarding these noble Aryan tribes in their early
+camping-ground in Western Asia. From words preserved in the languages of
+their long-separated descendants in Europe and India, scholars infer
+that they roamed over the grassy steppes with their cattle, making long
+halts to raise crops of grain. They had tamed most of the domestic
+animals; were acquainted with iron; understood the arts of weaving and
+sewing; wore clothes, and ate cooked food. They lived the hardy life of
+the comparatively temperate zone; and the feeling of cold seems to be
+one of the earliest common remembrances of the eastern and the western
+branches of the race.
+
+The forefathers of the Greek and the Roman, of the English and the
+Hindu, dwelt together in Western Asia, spoke the same tongue, worshipped
+the same gods. The languages of Europe and India, although at first
+sight they seem wide apart, are merely different growths from the
+original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the common words of
+family life. The names for _father, mother, brother, sister_, and
+_widow_ are the same in most of the Aryan languages, whether spoken on
+the banks of the Ganges, of the Tiber, or of the Thames. Thus the word
+_daughter_, which occurs in nearly all of them, has been derived from
+the Aryan root _dugh_, which in Sanscrit has the form of _duh_, to milk;
+and perhaps preserves the memory of the time when the daughter was the
+little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household.
+
+The ancient religions of Europe and India had a common origin. They were
+to some extent made up of the sacred stories or myths which our joint
+ancestors had learned while dwelling together in Asia. Several of the
+Vedic gods were also the gods of Greece and Rome; and to this day the
+Divinity is adored by names derived from the same old Aryan word
+(_deva_, the Shining One), by Brahmans in Calcutta, by the Protestant
+clergy of England, and by Roman Catholic priests in Peru.
+
+The Vedic hymns exhibit the Indian branch of the Aryans on their march
+to the southeast, and in their new homes. The earliest songs disclose
+the race still to the north of the Khaibar pass, in Kabul; the later
+ones bring them as far as the Ganges. Their victorious advance eastward
+through the intermediate tract can be traced in the Vedic writings
+almost step by step. The steady supply of water among the five rivers of
+the Punjab led the Aryans to settle down from their old state of
+wandering half-pastoral tribes into regular communities of husbandmen.
+The Vedic poets praised the rivers which enabled them to make this great
+change--perhaps the most important step in the progress of a race. "May
+the Indus," they sang, "the far-famed giver of wealth, hear us;
+[fertilizing our] broad fields with water." The Himalayas, through whose
+southwestern passes they had reached India, and at whose southern base
+they long dwelt, made a lasting impression on their memory. The Vedic
+singer praised "Him whose greatness the snowy ranges, and the sea, and
+the aerial river declare." The Aryan race in India never forgot its
+northern home. There dwelt its gods and holy singers; and there
+eloquence descended from heaven among men; while high amid the Himalayan
+mountains lay the paradise of deities and heroes, where the kind and the
+brave forever repose.
+
+The Rig-Veda forms the great literary memorial of the early Aryan
+settlements in the Punjab. The age of this venerable hymnal is unknown.
+Orthodox Hindus believe, without evidence, that it existed "from before
+all time," or at least from 3001 years B.C. European scholars have
+inferred from astronomical data that its composition was going on about
+1400 B.C. But the evidence might have been calculated backward, and
+inserted later in the Veda. We only know that the Vedic religion had
+been at work long before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C.
+The Rig-Veda is a very old collection of 1017 short poems, chiefly
+addressed to the gods, and containing 10,580 verses. Its hymns show us
+the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes,
+sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the
+"black-skinned" aborigines. Caste, in its later sense, is unknown. Each
+father of a family is the priest of his own household. The chieftain
+acts as father and priest to the tribe; but at the greater festivals he
+chooses some one specially learned in holy offerings to conduct the
+sacrifice in the name of the people. The king himself seems to have been
+elected; and his title of Vis-pat, literally "Lord of the Settlers,"
+survives in the old Persian Vis-paiti, and as the Lithuanian Wiez-patis
+in east-central Europe at this day. Women enjoyed a high position; and
+some of the most beautiful hymns were composed by ladies and queens.
+Marriage was held sacred. Husband and wife were both "rulers of the
+house" (_dampati_); and drew near to the gods together in prayer. The
+burning of widows on their husbands' funeral pile was unknown; and the
+verses in the Veda which the Brahmans afterwards distorted into a
+sanction for the practice, have the very opposite meaning. "Rise,
+woman," says the Vedic text to the mourner; "come to the world of life.
+Come to us, Thou hast fulfilled thy duties as a wife to thy husband."
+
+The Aryan tribes in the Veda have blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and
+goldsmiths among them, besides carpenters, barbers, and other artisans.
+They fight from chariots, and freely use the horse, although not yet the
+elephant, in war. They have settled down as husbandmen, till their
+fields with the plough, and live in villages or towns. But they also
+cling to their old wandering life, with their herds and "cattle-pens."
+Cattle, indeed, still form their chief wealth--the coin in which payment
+of fines is made--reminding us of the Latin word for money, _pecunia_,
+from _pecus_, a herd. One of the Vedic words for war literally means "a
+desire for cows." Unlike the modern Hindus, the Aryans of the Veda ate
+beef; used a fermented liquor or beer, made from the _soma_ plant; and
+offered the same strong meat and drink to their gods. Thus the stout
+Aryans spread eastward through Northern India, pushed on from behind by
+later arrivals of their own stock, and driving before them, or reducing
+to bondage, the earlier "black-skinned" races. They marched in whole
+communities from one river valley to another; each house-father a
+warrior, husbandman, and priest; with his wife, and his little ones, and
+his cattle.
+
+These free-hearted tribes had a great trust in themselves and their
+gods. Like other conquering races, they believed that both themselves
+and their deities were altogether superior to the people of the land,
+and to their poor, rude objects of worship. Indeed, this noble
+self-confidence is a great aid to the success of a nation. Their
+divinities--_devas_, literally "the shining ones," from the Sanscrit
+root _div_, "to shine"--were the great powers of nature. They adored the
+Father-heaven,--_Dyaush-pitar_ in Sanscrit, the _Dies piter_ or
+_Jupiter_ of Rome, the _Zeus_ of Greece; and the Encompassing
+Sky--_Varuna_ in Sanscrit, _Uranus_ in Latin, _Ouranos_ in Greek.
+_Indra_, or the Aqueous Vapor, that brings the precious rain on which
+plenty or famine still depends each autumn, received the largest number
+of hymns. By degrees, as the settlers realized more and more keenly the
+importance of the periodical rains to their new life as husbandmen, he
+became the chief of the Vedic gods. "The gods do not reach unto thee, O
+Indra, nor men; thou overcomest all creatures in strength." Agni, the
+God of Fire (Latin _ignis_), ranks perhaps next to Indra in the number
+of hymns addressed to him. He is "the Youngest of the Gods," "the Lord
+and Giver of Wealth." The Maruts are the Storm Gods, "who make the rock
+to tremble, who tear in pieces the forest." Ushas, "the High-born Dawn"
+(Greek _Eos_), "shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living
+being to go forth to his work." The Asvins, the "Horsemen" or fleet
+outriders of the dawn, are the first rays of sunrise, "Lords of Lustre."
+The Solar Orb himself (Surya), the Wind (Vayu), the Sunshine or Friendly
+Day (Mitra), the intoxicating fermented juice of the Sacrificial Plant
+(Soma), and many other deities are invoked in the Veda--in all, about
+thirty-three gods, "who are eleven in heaven, eleven on earth, and
+eleven dwelling in glory in mid-air."
+
+The Aryan settler lived on excellent terms with his bright gods. He
+asked for protection, with an assured conviction that it would be
+granted. At the same time, he was deeply stirred by the glory and
+mystery of the earth and the heavens. Indeed, the majesty of nature so
+filled his mind, that when he praises any one of his Shining Gods, he
+can think of none other for the time being, and adores him as the
+supreme ruler. Verses may be quoted declaring each of the greater
+deities to be the One Supreme: "Neither gods nor men reach unto thee, O
+Indra!" Another hymn speaks of Soma as "king of heaven and earth, the
+conqueror of all." To Varuna also it is said, "Thou art lord of all, of
+heaven and earth; thou art king of all those who are gods, and of all
+those who are men." The more spiritual of the Vedic singers, therefore,
+may be said to have worshipped One God, though not One alone.
+
+"In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. He was the one born lord
+of all that is. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the God to
+whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
+
+"He who gives life, he who gives strength; whose command all the Bright
+Gods revere; whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death. Who is
+the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
+
+"He who, through his power, is the one king of the breathing and
+awakening world. He who governs all, man and beast. Who is the God to
+whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
+
+"He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm; he through whom
+the heaven was established, nay, the highest heaven; he who measured out
+the light and the air. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
+sacrifice?
+
+"He who by his might looked even over the water-clouds; he who alone is
+God above all gods. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
+sacrifice?"
+
+While the aboriginal races buried their dead in the earth or under rude
+stone monuments, the Aryan--alike in India, in Greece, and in
+Italy--made use of the funeral-pile. Several exquisite Sanscrit hymns
+bid farewell to the dead:--"Depart thou, depart thou by the ancient
+paths to the place whither our fathers have departed. Meet with the
+Ancient Ones; meet with the Lord of Death. Throwing off thine
+imperfections, go to thy home. Become united with a body; clothe thyself
+in a shining form." "Let him depart to those for whom flow the rivers of
+nectar. Let him depart to those who, through meditation, have obtained
+the victory; who, by fixing their thoughts on the unseen, have gone to
+heaven. Let him depart to the mighty in battle, to the heroes who have
+laid down their lives for others, to those who have bestowed their goods
+on the poor." The doctrine of transmigration was at first unknown. The
+circle round the funeral-pile sang with a firm assurance that their
+friend went direct to a state of blessedness and reunion with the loved
+ones who had gone before. "Do thou conduct us to heaven," says a hymn of
+the later Atharva-Veda; "let us be with our wives and children." "In
+heaven, where our friends dwell in bliss--having left behind the
+infirmities of the body, free from lameness, free from crookedness of
+limb--there let us behold our parents and our children." "May the
+water-shedding Spirits bear thee upward, cooling thee with their swift
+motion through the air, and sprinkling thee with dew." "Bear him, carry
+him; let him, with all his faculties complete, go to the world of the
+righteous. Crossing the dark valley which spreadeth boundless around
+him, let the unborn soul ascend to heaven. Wash the feet of him who is
+stained with sin; let him go upward with cleansed feet. Crossing the
+gloom, gazing with wonder in many directions, let the unborn soul go up
+to heaven."
+
+By degrees the old collection of hymns, or the Rig-Veda, no longer
+sufficed. Three other collections or service-books were therefore added,
+making the Four Vedas. The word Veda is from the same root as the Latin
+_vid-ere_, to see: the early Greek _feid-enai_, infinitive of _oida_, I
+know: and the English _wisdom_, or I _wit_. The Brahmans taught that the
+Veda was divinely inspired, and that it was literally "the _wisdom_ of
+God." There was, first, the Rig-Veda, or the hymns in their simplest
+form. Second, the Sama-Veda, made up of hymns of the Rig-Veda to be used
+at the Soma sacrifice. Third, the Yajur-Veda, consisting not only of
+Rig-Vedic hymns, but also of prose sentences, to be used at the great
+sacrifices; and divided into two editions, the Black and White Yajur.
+The fourth, or Atharva-Veda, was compiled from the least ancient hymns
+at the end of the Rig-Veda, very old religious spells, and later
+sources. Some of its spells have a similarity to the ancient German and
+Lithuanian charms, and appear to have come down from the most primitive
+times, before the Indian and European branches of the Aryan race struck
+out from their common home.
+
+To each of the four Vedas were attached prose works, called Brahmanas,
+in order to explain the sacrifices and the duties of the priests. Like
+the Four Vedas, the Brahmanas were held to be the very word of God. The
+Vedas and the Brahmanas form the revealed Scriptures of the Hindus--the
+_sruti_, literally "Things _heard_ from God." The Vedas supplied their
+divinely-inspired psalms, and the Brahmanas their divinely-inspired
+theology or body of doctrine. To them were afterward added the Sutras,
+literally "_Strings_ of pithy sentences" regarding laws and ceremonies.
+Still later the Upanishads were composed, treating of God and the soul;
+the Aranyakas, or "Tracts for the forest recluse;" and, after a very
+long interval, the Puranas, or "Traditions from of old." All these
+ranked, however, not as divinely-inspired knowledge, or things "heard
+from God" (_sruti_), like the Vedas and Brahmanas, but only as sacred
+traditions--_smriti_, literally "The things _remembered_."
+
+Meanwhile the Four Castes had been formed. In the old Aryan colonies
+among the Five Rivers of the Punjab, each house-father was a husbandman,
+warrior, and priest. But by degrees certain gifted families, who
+composed the Vedic hymns or learned them off by heart, were always
+chosen by the king to perform the great sacrifices. In this way probably
+the priestly caste sprang up. As the Aryans conquered more territory,
+fortunate soldiers received a larger share of the lands than others, and
+cultivated it not with their own hands, but by means of the vanquished
+non-Aryan tribes. In this way the Four Castes arose. First, the priests
+or Brahmans. Second, the warriors or fighting companions of the king,
+called Rajputs or Kchatryas, literally "of the _royal_ stock." Third,
+the Aryan agricultural settlers, who kept the old name of Vaisyas, from
+the root _vis_, which in the primitive Vedic period had included the
+whole Aryan people. Fourth, the Sudras, or conquered non-Aryan tribes,
+who became serfs. The three first castes were of Aryan descent, and were
+honored by the name of the Twice-born Castes. They could all be present
+at the sacrifices, and they worshipped the same Bright Gods. The Sudras
+were "the slave-bands of black descent" of the Veda. They were
+distinguished from their "Twice-born" Aryan conquerors as being only
+"Once-born," and by many contemptuous epithets. They were not allowed to
+be present at the great national sacrifices, or at the feasts which
+followed them. They could never rise out of their servile condition; and
+to them was assigned the severest toil in the fields, and all the hard
+and dirty work of the village community.
+
+The Brahmans or priests claimed the highest rank. But they seemed to
+have had a long struggle with the Kchatryas, or warrior caste, before
+they won their proud position at the head of the Indian people. They
+afterward secured themselves in that position by teaching that it had
+been given to them by God. At the beginning of the world, they said, the
+Brahman proceeded from the mouth of the Creator, the Kchatryas or Rajput
+from his arms, the Vaisya from his thighs or belly, and the Sudra from
+his feet. This legend is true so far that the Brahmans were really the
+brain power of the Indian people, the Kchatryas its armed hands, the
+Vaisyas the food-growers, and the Sudras the down-trodden serfs. When
+the Brahmans had established their power, they made a wise use of it.
+From the ancient Vedic times they recognized that if they were to
+exercise spiritual supremacy, they must renounce earthly pomp. In
+arrogating the priestly function, they gave up all claim to the royal
+office. They were divinely appointed to be the guides of nations and the
+counsellors of kings, but they could not be kings themselves. As the
+duty of the Sudra was to serve, of the Vaisya to till the ground and
+follow middle-class trades or crafts; so the business of the Kchatryas
+was to fight the public enemy, and of the Brahman to propitiate the
+national gods.
+
+Each day brought to the Brahmans its routine of ceremonies, studies, and
+duties. Their whole life was mapped out into four clearly defined stages
+of discipline. For their existence, in its full religious significance,
+commenced not at birth, but on being invested at the close of childhood
+with the sacred thread of the Twice-born. Their youth and early manhood
+were to be entirely spent in learning the Veda by heart from an older
+Brahman, tending the sacred fire, and serving their preceptor. Having
+completed his long studies, the young Brahman entered on the second
+stage of his life, as a householder. He married, and commenced a course
+of family duties. When he had reared a family, and gained a practical
+knowledge of the world, he retired into the forest as a recluse, for the
+third period of his life; feeding on roots or fruits, practising his
+religious duties with increased devotion. The fourth stage was that of
+the ascetic or religious mendicant, wholly withdrawn from earthly
+affairs, and striving to attain a condition of mind which, heedless of
+the joys, or pains, or wants of the body, is intent only on its final
+absorption into the deity. The Brahman, in this fourth stage of his
+life, ate nothing but what was given to him unasked, and abode not more
+than one day in any village, lest the vanities of the world should find
+entrance into his heart. This was the ideal life prescribed for a
+Brahman, and ancient Indian literature shows that it was to a large
+extent practically carried out. Throughout his whole existence the true
+Brahman practised a strict temperance; drinking no wine, using a simple
+diet, curbing the desires; shut off from the tumults of war, as his
+business was to pray, not to fight, and having his thoughts ever fixed
+on study and contemplation. "What is this world?" says a Brahman sage.
+"It is even as the bough of a tree, on which a bird rests for a night,
+and in the morning flies away."
+
+The Brahmans, therefore, were a body of men who, in an early stage of
+this world's history, bound themselves by a rule of life the essential
+precepts of which were self-culture and self-restraint. The Brahmans of
+the present India are the result of 3000 years of hereditary education
+and temperance; and they have evolved a type of mankind quite distinct
+from the surrounding population. Even the passing traveller in India
+marks them out, alike from the bronze-cheeked, large-limbed,
+leisure-loving Rajput or Kchatryas, the warrior caste of Aryan descent;
+and from the dark-skinned, flat-nosed, thick-lipped low castes of
+non-Aryan origin, with their short bodies and bullet heads. The Brahman
+stands apart from both, tall and slim, with finely-modelled lips and
+nose, fair complexion, high forehead, and slightly cocoanut shaped
+skull--the man of self-centred refinement. He is an example of a class
+becoming the ruling power in a country, not by force of arms, but by
+the vigor of hereditary culture and temperance. One race has swept
+across India after another, dynasties have risen and fallen, religions
+have spread themselves over the land and disappeared. But since the dawn
+of history the Brahman has calmly ruled; swaying the minds and receiving
+the homage of the people, and accepted by foreign nations as the highest
+type of Indian mankind. The position which the Brahmans won resulted in
+no small measure from the benefits which they bestowed. For their own
+Aryan countrymen they developed a noble language and literature. The
+Brahmans were not only the priests and philosophers, but also the
+lawgivers, the men of science and the poets of their race. Their
+influence on the aboriginal peoples, the hill and forest races of India,
+was even more important. To these rude remnants of the flint and stone
+ages they brought in ancient times a knowledge of the metals and the
+gods.
+
+As a social league, Hinduism arranged the people into the old division
+of the "Twice-born" Aryan castes, namely, the Brahmans, Kchatryas,
+Vaisyas; and the "Once-born" castes, consisting of the non-Aryan Sudras
+and the classes of mixed descent. This arrangement of the Indian races
+remains to the present day. The "Twice-born" castes still wear the
+sacred thread, and claim a joint, although an unequal, inheritance in
+the holy books of the Veda. The "Once-born" castes are still denied the
+sacred thread; and they were not allowed to study the holy books, until
+the English set up schools in India for all classes of the people. But
+while caste is thus founded on the distinctions of race, it has been
+influenced by two other systems of division, namely, the employments of
+the people, and the localities in which they live. Even in the oldest
+times, the castes had separate occupations assigned to them. They could
+be divided either into Brahmans, Kchatryas, Vaisyas, and Sudras; or into
+priests, warriors, husbandmen, and serfs. They are also divided
+according to the parts of India in which they live. Even the Brahmans
+have among themselves ten distinct classes, or rather nations. Five of
+these classes or Brahman nations live to the north of the Vindhya
+mountains; five of them live to the south. Each of the ten feels itself
+to be quite apart from the rest; and they have among themselves no
+fewer than 1886 subdivisions or separate Brahmanical tribes. In like
+manner, the Kchatryas or Rajputs number 590 separate tribes in different
+parts of India.
+
+While, therefore, Indian caste seems at first a very simple arrangement
+of the people into four classes, it is in reality a very complex one.
+For it rests upon three distinct systems of division: namely, upon race,
+occupation, and geographical position. It is very difficult even to
+guess at the number of the Indian castes. But there are not fewer than
+3,000 of them which have separate names, and which regard themselves as
+separate classes. The different castes cannot intermarry with each
+other, and most of them cannot eat together. The ordinary rule is that
+no Hindu of good caste can touch food cooked by a man of inferior caste.
+By rights, too, each caste should keep to its own occupation. Indeed,
+there has been a tendency to erect every separate kind of employment or
+handicraft in each separate province into a distinct caste. But, as a
+matter of practice, the castes often change their occupation, and the
+lower ones sometimes raise themselves in the social scale. Thus the
+Vaisya caste were in ancient times the tillers of the soil. They have in
+most provinces given up this toilsome occupation, and the Vaisyas are
+now the great merchants and bankers of India. Their fair skins,
+intelligent faces, and polite bearing must have altered since the days
+when their forefathers ploughed, sowed, and reaped under the hot sun.
+Such changes of employment still occur on a smaller scale throughout
+India.
+
+The system of caste exercises a great influence upon the industries of
+the people. Each caste is, in the first place, a trade-guild. It insures
+the proper training of the youth of its own special craft; it makes
+rules for the conduct of the caste-trade; it promotes good feeling by
+feasts or social gatherings. The famous manufactures of mediaeval India,
+its muslins, silks, cloth of gold, inlaid weapons, and exquisite work in
+precious stones--were brought to perfection under the care of the castes
+or trade-guilds. Such guilds may still be found in full work in many
+parts of India, Thus, in the northwestern districts of Bombay all heads
+of artisan families are ranged under their proper trade-guild. The
+trade-guild or caste prevents undue competition among the members, and
+upholds the interest of its own body in any dispute arising with other
+craftsmen.
+
+In 1873, for example, a number of the bricklayers in Ahmadabad could not
+find work. Men of this class sometimes added to their daily wages by
+rising very early in the morning, and working overtime. But when several
+families complained that they could not get employment, the bricklayers'
+guild met, and decided that as there was not enough work for all, no
+member should be allowed to work in extra hours. In the same city, the
+cloth dealers in 1872 tried to cut down the wages of the sizers or men
+who dress the cotton cloth. The sizers' guild refused to work at lower
+rates, and remained six weeks on strike. At length they arranged their
+dispute, and both the trade-guilds signed a stamped agreement fixing the
+rates for the future. Each of the higher castes or trade-guilds in
+Ahmadabad receives a fee from young men on entering their business. The
+revenue derived from these fees, and from fines upon members who break
+caste rules, is spent in feasts to the brethren of the guild, and in
+helping the poorer craftsmen or their orphans. A favorite plan of
+raising money in Surat is for the members of the trade to keep a certain
+day as a holiday, and to shut up all their shops except one. The right
+to keep open this one shop is put up to auction, and the amount bid is
+expended on a feast. The trade-guild or caste allows none of its members
+to starve. It thus acts as a mutual assurance society and takes the
+place of a poor-law in India. The severest social penalty which can be
+inflicted upon a Hindu is to be put out of his caste.
+
+Hinduism is, however, not only a social league resting upon caste--it is
+also a religious alliance based upon worship. As the various race
+elements of the Indian people have been welded into caste, so the simple
+old beliefs of the Veda, the mild doctrines of Buddha, and the fierce
+rites of the non-Aryan tribes, have been thrown into the melting-pot,
+and poured out thence as a mixture of precious metal and dross, to be
+worked up into the complex worship of the Hindu gods.
+
+
+
+
+
+FALL OF TROY
+
+B.C. 1184
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     The siege of Troy is an event not to be reckoned as history,
+     although Herodotus, the "Father of History," speaks of it as such,
+     and it would be quite impossible to understand the history and
+     character of the Greek people without a study of the _Iliad_ and
+     _Odyssey_ poems attributed to "a blind bard of Scio's
+     isle"--immortal Homer. The campaign of the Greek heroes in Asia is
+     to be referred to a hazy point in the past when Europe was just
+     beginning to have an Eastern Question. A vast circle of tales and
+     poems has gathered round this mythical event, and the _Iliad_--Song
+     of Ilium, or Troy--is still a poem of unfailing interest and
+     fascination.
+
+     Ilium, or Troy, was a city of Asia Minor, a little south of the
+     Hellespont. It was the centre of a powerful state, Grecian in race
+     and language; and when Paris, son of King Priam, visited Sparta and
+     carried off the beautiful wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, all the
+     heroes of Greece banded together and invaded Priam's dominions.
+
+     The twelve hundred ships that sailed for Troy transported one
+     hundred thousand warriors to the valley of Simois and Scamander.
+     Among them was Agamemnon, "king of men," brother of Menelaus. He
+     was the leader, and in his train were Achilles, "swift of foot";
+     "god-like, wise" Ulysses, King of Ithaca, the two Ajaxes, and the
+     aged Nestor. The narrative of their adventures is told in the
+     Homeric poems with a power of musical expression, a charm of
+     language, and a vividness of imagery unsurpassed in poetry.
+
+     For ten years the besiegers encircled the city of Priam. After many
+     engagements and single combats on "the windy plain of Troy" the
+     great hero of the Greeks, Achilles of Thessaly, is wronged by
+     Agamemnon, who carries away Briseis, a fair captive girl allotted
+     as the spoils of war to the "Swift-footed." The hero of Thessaly
+     thenceforth refuses to join in the war, and sullenly shuts himself
+     up in his tent. It is only when his dear friend Patroclus has been
+     slain by the valiant Hector, eldest son of Priam, that he sallies
+     forth, meets Hector in single combat, and finally slays him.
+     Achilles then attaches the body of Hector to his chariot and
+     insultingly trails it in the dust as he drives three times around
+     the walls of Troy. The _Iliad_ closes with the funeral rites
+     celebrated over the corpse of Hector.
+
+
+We now arrive at the capital and culminating point of the Grecian
+epic--the two sieges and captures of Troy, with the destinies of the
+dispersed heroes, Trojan as well as Grecian, after the second and most
+celebrated capture and destruction of the city.
+
+It would require a large volume to convey any tolerable idea of the vast
+extent and expansion of this interesting fable, first handled by so many
+poets, epic, lyric, and tragic, with their endless additions,
+transformations, and contradictions,--then purged and recast by
+historical inquirers, who, under color of setting aside the
+exaggerations of the poets, introduced a new vein of prosaic
+invention,--lastly, moralized and allegorized by philosophers. In the
+present brief outline of the general field of Grecian legend, or of that
+which the Greeks believed to be their antiquities, the Trojan war can be
+regarded as only one among a large number of incidents upon which
+Hecataeus and Herodotus looked back as constituting their fore-time.
+Taken as a special legendary event, it is, indeed, of wider and larger
+interest than any other, but it is a mistake to single it out from the
+rest as if it rested upon a different and more trustworthy basis. I
+must, therefore, confine myself to an abridged narrative of the current
+and leading facts; and amid the numerous contradictory statements which
+are to be found respecting every one of them, I know no better ground of
+preference than comparative antiquity, though even the oldest tales
+which we possess--those contained in the _Iliad_--evidently presuppose
+others of prior date.
+
+The primitive ancestor of the Trojan line of kings is Dardanus, son of
+Zeus, founder and eponymus of Dardania: in the account of later authors,
+Dardanus was called the son of Zeus by Electra, daughter of Atlas, and
+was further said to have come from Samothrace, or from Arcadia, or from
+Italy; but of this Homer mentions nothing. The first Dardanian town
+founded by him was in a lofty position on the descent of Mount Ida; for
+he was not yet strong enough to establish himself on the plain. But his
+son Erichthonius, by the favor of Zeus, became the wealthiest of
+mankind. His flocks and herds having multiplied, he had in his pastures
+three thousand mares, the offspring of some of whom, by Boreas, produced
+horses of preternatural swiftness. Tros, the son of Erichthonius, and
+the eponym of the Trojans, had three sons--Ilus, Assaracus, and the
+beautiful Ganymedes, whom Zeus stole away to become his cup-bearer in
+Olympus, giving to his father Tros, as the price of the youth, a team of
+immortal horses.
+
+From Ilus and Assaracus the Trojan and Dardanian lines diverge; the
+former passing from Ilus to Laomedon, Priam, and Hector; the latter from
+Assaracus to Capys, Anchises, and AEneas. Ilus founded in the plain of
+Troy the holy city of Ilium; Assaracus and his descendants remained
+sovereigns of Dardania.
+
+It was under the proud Laomedon, son of Ilus, that Poseidon and Apollo
+underwent, by command of Zeus, a temporary servitude; the former
+building the walls of the town, the latter tending the flocks and herds.
+When their task was completed and the penal period had expired, they
+claimed the stipulated reward; but Laomedon angrily repudiated their
+demand, and even threatened to cut off their ears, to tie them hand and
+foot, and to sell them in some distant island as slaves. He was punished
+for this treachery by a sea-monster, whom Poseidon sent to ravage his
+fields and to destroy his subjects. Laomedon publicly offered the
+immortal horses given by Zeus to his father Tros, as a reward to any one
+who would destroy the monster. But an oracle declared that a virgin of
+noble blood must be surrendered to him, and the lot fell upon Hesione,
+daughter of Laomedon himself. Heracles, arriving at this critical
+moment, killed the monster by the aid of a fort built for him by Athene
+and the Trojans, so as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people;
+but Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal horses in
+place of the matchless animals which had been promised. Thus defrauded
+of his due, Heracles equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy, and
+killed Laomedon, giving Hesione to his friend and auxiliary Telamon, to
+whom she bore the celebrated archer Teucros. A painful sense of this
+expedition was preserved among the inhabitants of the historical town of
+Ilium, who offered no worship to Heracles.
+
+Among all the sons of Laomedon, Priam was the only one who had
+remonstrated against the refusal of the well-earned guerdon of
+Heracles; for which the hero recompensed him by placing him on the
+throne. Many and distinguished were his sons and daughters, as well by
+his wife Hecuba, daughter of Cisseus, as by other women. Among the sons
+were Hector, Paris, Deiphobus, Helenus, Troilus, Polites, Polydorus;
+among the daughters, Laodice, Creusa, Polyxena, and Cassandra.
+
+The birth of Paris was preceded by formidable presage; for Hecuba
+dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand, and Priam, on consulting
+the soothsayers, was informed that the son about to be born would prove
+fatal to him. Accordingly he directed the child to be exposed on Mount
+Ida; but the inauspicious kindness of the gods preserved him; and he
+grew up amid the flocks and herds, active and beautiful, fair of hair
+and symmetrical in person, and the special favorite of Aphrodite.
+
+It was to this youth, in his solitary shepherd's walk on Mount Ida, that
+the three goddesses, Here, Athene, and Aphrodite, were conducted, in
+order that he might determine the dispute respecting their comparative
+beauty, which had arisen at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis,--a
+dispute brought about in pursuance of the arrangement, and in
+accomplishment of the deep-laid designs of Zeus. For Zeus, remarking
+with pain the immoderate numbers of the then existing heroic race,
+pitied the earth for the overwhelming burden which she was compelled to
+bear, and determined to lighten it by exciting a destructive and
+long-continued war. Paris awarded the palm of beauty to Aphrodite, who
+promised him in recompense the possession of Helen, wife of the Spartan
+Menelaus,--the daughter of Zeus and the fairest of living women. At the
+instance of Aphrodite, ships were built for him, and he embarked on the
+enterprise so fraught with eventual disaster to his native city, in
+spite of the menacing prophecies of his brother Helenus, and the always
+neglected warnings of Cassandra.
+
+Paris, on arriving at Sparta, was hospitably entertained by Menelaus as
+well as by Castor and Pollux, and was enabled to present the rich gifts
+which he had brought to Helen. Menelaus then departed to Crete, leaving
+Helen to entertain his Trojan guest--a favorable moment, which was
+employed by Aphrodite to bring about the intrigue and the elopement.
+Paris carried away with him both Helen and a large sum of money
+belonging to Menelaus, made a prosperous voyage to Troy, and arrived
+there safely with his prize on the third day.
+
+Menelaus, informed by Iris in Crete of the perfidious return made by
+Paris for his hospitality, hastened home in grief and indignation to
+consult with his brother Agamemnon, as well as with the venerable
+Nestor, on the means of avenging the outrage. They made known the event
+to the Greek chiefs around them, among whom they found universal
+sympathy; Nestor, Palamedes, and others went round to solicit aid in a
+contemplated attack of Troy, under the command of Agamemnon, to whom
+each chief promised both obedience and unwearied exertion until Helen
+should be recovered. Ten years were spent in equipping the expedition.
+The goddesses Here and Athene, incensed at the preference given by Paris
+to Aphrodite, and animated by steady attachment to Argos, Sparta, and
+Mycenae, took an active part in the cause, and the horses of Here were
+fatigued with her repeated visits to the different parts of Greece.
+
+By such efforts a force was at length assembled at Aulis in Boeotia,
+consisting of 1,186 ships and more than one hundred thousand men--a
+force outnumbering by more than ten to one anything that the Trojans
+themselves could oppose, and superior to the defenders of Troy even with
+all her allies included. It comprised heroes with their followers from
+the extreme points of Greece--from the northwestern portions of Thessaly
+under Mount Olympus, as well as the western islands of Dulichium and
+Ithaca, and the eastern islands of Crete and Rhodes. Agamemnon himself
+contributed 100 ships manned with the subjects of his kingdom Mycenae,
+besides furnishing 60 ships to the Arcadians, who possessed none of
+their own. Menelaus brought with him 60 ships, Nestor from Pylus, 90,
+Idomeneus from Crete and Diomedes from Argos, 80 each. Forty ships were
+manned by the Elians, under four different chiefs; the like number under
+Meges from Dulichium and the Echinades, and under Thoas from Calydon and
+the other AEtolian towns. Odysseus from Ithaca, and Ajax from Salamis,
+brought 12 ships each. The Abantes from Euboea, under Elphenor, filled
+40 vessels; the Boeotians, under Peneleos and Leitus, 50; the
+inhabitants of Orchomenus and Aspledon, 30; the light-armed Locrians,
+under Ajax son of Oileus, 40; the Phocians as many. The Athenians, under
+Menestheus, a chief distinguished for his skill in marshalling an army,
+mustered 50 ships; the Myrmidons from Phthia and Hellas, under Achilles,
+assembled in 50 ships; Protesilaus from Phylace and Pyrasus, and
+Eurypylus from Ormenium, each came with 40 ships; Machaon and
+Podaleirius, from Trikka, with 30; Eumelus, from Pherae and the lake
+Boebeis, with 11; and Philoctetes from Meliboea with 7; the Lapithae,
+under Polypoetes, son of Peirithous, filled 40 vessels, the AEnianes and
+Perrhaebians, under Guneus, 22; and the Magnetes, under Prothous, 40;
+these last two were from the northernmost parts of Thessaly, near the
+mountains Pelion and Olympus. From Rhodes, under Tlepolemus, son of
+Heracles, appeared 9 ships; from Syme, under the comely but effeminate
+Nireus, 3; from Cos, Crapathus, and the neighboring islands, 30, under
+the orders of Pheidippus and Antiphus, sons of Thessalus and grandsons
+of Heracles.
+
+Among this band of heroes were included the distinguished warriors Ajax
+and Diomedes, and the sagacious Nestor; while Agamemnon himself,
+scarcely inferior to either of them in prowess, brought with him a high
+reputation for prudence in command. But the most marked and conspicuous
+of all were Achilles and Odysseus; the former a beautiful youth born of
+a divine mother, swift in the race, of fierce temper and irresistible
+might; the latter not less efficient as an ally, from his eloquence, his
+untiring endurance, his inexhaustible resources under difficulty, and
+the mixture of daring courage with deep-laid cunning which never
+deserted him: the blood of the arch-deceiver Sisyphus, through an
+illicit connection with his mother Anticleia, was said to flow in his
+veins, and he was especially patronized and protected by the goddess
+Athene. Odysseus, unwilling at first to take part in the expedition, had
+even simulated insanity; but Palamedes, sent to Ithaca to invite him,
+tested the reality of his madness by placing in the furrow where
+Odysseus was ploughing his infant son Telemachus. Thus detected,
+Odysseus could not refuse to join the Achaean host, but the prophet
+Halitherses predicted to him that twenty years would elapse before he
+revisited his native land. To Achilles the gods had promised the full
+effulgence of heroic glory before the walls of Troy; nor could the
+place be taken without both his cooeperation and that of his son after
+him. But they had forewarned him that this brilliant career would be
+rapidly brought to a close; and that if he desired a long life, he must
+remain tranquil and inglorious in his native land. In spite of the
+reluctance of his mother Thetis he preferred few years with bright
+renown, and joined the Achaean host. When Nestor and Odysseus came to
+Phthia to invite him, both he and his intimate friend Patroclus eagerly
+obeyed the call.
+
+Agamemnon and his powerful host set sail from Aulis; but being ignorant
+of the locality and the direction, they landed by mistake in Teuthrania,
+a part of Mysia near the river Caicus, and began to ravage the country
+under the persuasion that it was the neighborhood of Troy. Telephus, the
+king of the country, opposed and repelled them, but was ultimately
+defeated and severely wounded by Achilles. The Greeks, now discovering
+their mistake, retired; but their fleet was dispersed by a storm and
+driven back to Greece. Achilles attacked and took Scyrus, and there
+married Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomedes. Telephus, suffering from
+his wounds, was directed by the oracle to come to Greece and present
+himself to Achilles to be healed, by applying the scrapings of the spear
+with which the wound had been given; thus restored, he became the guide
+of the Greeks when they were prepared to renew their expedition.
+
+The armament was again assembled at Aulis, but the goddess Artemis,
+displeased with the boastful language of Agamemnon, prolonged the
+duration of adverse winds, and the offending chief was compelled to
+appease her by the well-known sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia. They
+then proceeded to Tenedos, from whence Odysseus and Menelaus were
+dispatched as envoys to Troy, to redemand Helen and the stolen property.
+In spite of the prudent counsels of Antenor, who received the two
+Grecian chiefs with friendly hospitality, the Trojans rejected the
+demand, and the attack was resolved upon. It was foredoomed by the gods
+that the Greek who first landed should perish: Protesilaus was generous
+enough to put himself upon this forlorn hope, and accordingly fell by
+the hand of Hector.
+
+Meanwhile, the Trojans had assembled a large body of allies from
+various parts of Asia Minor and Thrace: Dardanians under AEneas, Lycians
+under Sarpedon, Mysians, Carians, Maeonians, Alizonians, Phrygians,
+Thracians, and Paeonians. But vain was the attempt to oppose the landing
+of the Greeks: the Trojans were routed, and even the invulnerable
+Cyncus, son of Poseidon, one of the great bulwarks of the defense, was
+slain by Achilles. Having driven the Trojans within their walls,
+Achilles attacked and stormed Lyrnessus, Pedasus, Lesbos, and other
+places in the neighborhood, twelve towns on the sea-coast, and eleven in
+the interior: he drove off the oxen of AEneas and pursued the hero
+himself, who narrowly escaped with his life: he surprised and killed the
+youthful Troilus, son of Priam, and captured several of the other sons,
+whom he sold as prisoners into the islands of the AEgean. He acquired as
+his captive the fair Briseis, while Chryseis was awarded to Agamemnon;
+he was, moreover, eager to see the divine Helen, the prize and stimulus
+of this memorable struggle; and Aphrodite and Thetis contrived to bring
+about an interview between them.
+
+At this period of the war the Grecian army was deprived of Palamedes,
+one of its ablest chiefs. Odysseus had not forgiven the artifice by
+which Palamedes had detected his simulated insanity, nor was he without
+jealousy of a rival clever and cunning in a degree equal, if not
+superior, to himself; one who had enriched the Greeks with the invention
+of letters of dice for amusement of night-watches as well as with other
+useful suggestions. According to the old Cyprian epic, Palamedes was
+drowned while fishing by the hands of Odysseus and Diomedes. Neither in
+the _Iliad_ nor the _Odyssey_ does the name of Palamedes occur; the
+lofty position which Odysseus occupies in both those poems--noticed with
+some degree of displeasure even by Pindar, who described Palamedes as
+the wiser man of the two--is sufficient to explain the omission. But in
+the more advanced period of the Greek mind, when intellectual
+superiority came to acquire a higher place in the public esteem as
+compared with military prowess, the character of Palamedes, combined
+with his unhappy fate, rendered him one of the most interesting
+personages in the Trojan legend. AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides each
+consecrated to him a special tragedy; but the mode of his death as
+described in the old epic was not suitable to Athenian ideas, and
+accordingly he was represented as having been falsely accused of treason
+by Odysseus, who caused gold to be buried in his tent, and persuaded
+Agamemnon and the Grecian chiefs that Palamedes had received it from the
+Trojans. He thus forfeited his life, a victim to the calumny of Odysseus
+and to the delusion of the leading Greeks. The philosopher Socrates, in
+the last speech made to his Athenian judges, alludes with solemnity and
+fellow-feeling to the unjust condemnation of Palamedes as analogous to
+that which he himself was about to suffer; and his companions seem to
+have dwelt with satisfaction on the comparison. Palamedes passed for an
+instance of the slanderous enmity and misfortune which so often wait
+upon superior genius.
+
+In these expeditions the Grecian army consumed nine years, during which
+the subdued Trojans dared not give battle without their walls for fear
+of Achilles. Ten years was the fixed epical duration of the siege of
+Troy, just as five years was the duration of the siege of Camicus by the
+Cretan armament which came to avenge the death of Minos: ten years of
+preparation, ten years of siege, and ten years of wandering for Odysseus
+were periods suited to the rough chronological dashes of the ancient
+epic, and suggesting no doubts nor difficulties with the original
+hearers. But it was otherwise when the same events came to be
+contemplated by the historicizing Greeks, who could not be satisfied
+without either finding or inventing satisfactory bonds of coherence
+between the separate events. Thucydides tells us that the Greeks were
+less numerous than the poets have represented, and that being, moreover,
+very poor, they were unable to procure adequate and constant provisions:
+hence they were compelled to disperse their army, and to employ a part
+of it in cultivating the Chersonese--a part in marauding expeditions
+over the neighborhood. Could the whole army have been employed against
+Troy at once (he says), the siege would have been much more speedily and
+easily concluded. If the great historian could permit himself thus to
+amend the legend in so many points, we might have imagined that a
+simpler course would have been to include the duration of the siege
+among the list of poetical exaggerations and to affirm that the real
+siege had lasted only one year instead of ten. But it seems that the ten
+years' duration was so capital a feature in the ancient tale that no
+critic ventured to meddle with it.
+
+A period of comparative intermission, however, was now at hand for the
+Trojans. The gods brought about the memorable fit of anger of Achilles,
+under the influence of which he refused to put on his armor, and kept
+his Myrmidons in camp. According to the _Cypria_ this was the behest of
+Zeus, who had compassion on the Trojans: according to the _Iliad_,
+Apollo was the originating cause, from anxiety to avenge the injury
+which his priest Chryses had endured from Agamemnon. For a considerable
+time, the combats of the Greeks against Troy were conducted without
+their best warrior, and severe, indeed, was the humiliation which they
+underwent in consequence. How the remaining Grecian chiefs vainly strove
+to make amends for his absence--how Hector and the Trojans defeated and
+drove them to their ships--how the actual blaze of the destroying flame,
+applied by Hector to the ship of Protesilaus, roused up the anxious and
+sympathizing Patroclus, and extorted a reluctant consent from Achilles
+to allow his friend and his followers to go forth and avert the last
+extremity of ruin--how Achilles, when Patroclus had been killed by
+Hector, forgetting his anger in grief for the death of his friend,
+reentered the fight, drove the Trojans within their walls with immense
+slaughter, and satiated his revenge both upon the living and the dead
+Hector,--all these events have been chronicled, together with those
+divine dispensations on which most of them are made to depend, in the
+immortal verse of the _Iliad_.
+
+Homer breaks off with the burial of Hector, whose body has just been
+ransomed by the disconsolate Priam; while the lost poem of Arctinus,
+entitled the _AEthiopis_, so far as we can judge from the argument still
+remaining of it, handled only the subsequent events of the siege. The
+poem of Quintus Smyrnaeus, composed about the fourth century of the
+Christian era, seems in its first books to coincide with _AEthiopis_, in
+the subsequent books partly with the _Ilias Minor_ of Lesches.
+
+The Trojans, dismayed by the death of Hector, were again animated with
+hope by the appearance of the warlike and beautiful queen of the
+Amazons, Penthesilia, daughter of Ares, hitherto invincible in the
+field, who came to their assistance from Thrace at the head of a band of
+her country-women. She again led the besieged without the walls to
+encounter the Greeks in the open field; and under her auspices the
+latter were at first driven back, until she, too, was slain by the
+invincible arm of Achilles. The victor, on taking off the helmet of his
+fair enemy as she lay on the ground, was profoundly affected and
+captivated by her charms, for which he was scornfully taunted by
+Thersites; exasperated by this rash insult, he killed Thersites on the
+spot with a blow of his fist. A violent dispute among the Grecian chiefs
+was the result, for Diomedes, the kinsman of Thersites, warmly resented
+the proceeding; and Achilles was obliged to go to Lesbos, where he was
+purified from the act of homicide by Odysseus.
+
+Next arrived Memnon, son of Tithonus and Eos, the most stately of living
+men, with a powerful band of black Ethiopians, to the assistance of
+Troy. Sallying forth against the Greeks, he made great havoc among them:
+the brave and popular Antilochus perished by his hand, a victim to
+filial devotion in defence of Nestor. Achilles at length attacked him,
+and for a long time the combat was doubtful between them: the prowess of
+Achilles and the supplication of Thetis with Zeus finally prevailed;
+while Eos obtained for her vanquished son the consoling gift of
+immortality. His tomb, however, was shown near the Propontis, within a
+few miles of the mouth of the river AEsopus, and was visited annually by
+the birds called Memnonides, who swept it and bedewed it with water from
+the stream. So the traveller Pausanias was told, even in the second
+century after the Christian era, by the Hellespontine Greeks.
+
+But the fate of Achilles himself was now at hand. After routing the
+Trojans and chasing them into the town, he was slain near the Scaean gate
+by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the unerring
+auspices of Apollo. The greatest efforts were made by the Trojans to
+possess themselves of the body, which was, however, rescued and borne
+off to the Grecian camp by the valor of Ajax and Odysseus. Bitter was
+the grief of Thetis for the loss of her son; she came into the camp with
+the Muses and the Nereids to mourn over him; and when a magnificent
+funeral-pile had been prepared by the Greeks to burn him with every mark
+of honor, she stole away the body and conveyed it to a renewed and
+immortal life in the island of Leuce in the Euxine Sea. According to
+some accounts he was there blest with the nuptials and company of Helen.
+
+Thetis celebrated splendid funeral games in honor of her son, and
+offered the unrivalled panoply which Hephaestus had forged and wrought
+for him as a prize to the most distinguished warrior in the Grecian
+army. Odysseus and Ajax became rivals for the distinction, when Athene,
+together with some Trojan prisoners, who were asked from which of the
+two their country had sustained greatest injury, decided in favor of the
+former. The gallant Ajax lost his senses with grief and humiliation: in
+a fit of frenzy he slew some sheep, mistaking them for the men who had
+wronged him, and then fell upon his own sword.
+
+Odysseus now learned from Helenus, son of Priam, whom he had captured in
+an ambuscade, that Troy could not be taken unless both Philoctetes and
+Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, could be prevailed upon to join the
+besiegers. The former, having been stung in the foot by a serpent, and
+becoming insupportable to the Greeks from the stench of his wound, had
+been left at Lemnos in the commencement of the expedition, and had spent
+ten years in misery on that desolate island; but he still possessed the
+peerless bow and arrows of Heracles, which were said to be essential to
+the capture of Troy. Diomedes fetched Philoctetes from Lemnos to the
+Grecian camp, where he was healed by the skill of Machaon, and took an
+active part against the Trojans--engaging in single combat with Paris,
+and killing him with one of the Heracleian arrows. The Trojans were
+allowed to carry away for burial the body of this prince, the fatal
+cause of all their sufferings; but not until it had been mangled by the
+hand of Menelaus. Odysseus went to the island of Scyros to invite
+Neoptolemus to the army. The untried but impetuous youth, gladly obeying
+the call, received from Odysseus his father's armor; while, on the other
+hand, Eurypylus, son of Telephus, came from Mysia as auxiliary to the
+Trojans and rendered to them valuable service turning the tide of
+fortune for a time against the Greeks, and killing some of their
+bravest chiefs, among whom were numbered Peneleos, and the unrivalled
+leech Machaon. The exploits of Neoptolemus were numerous, worthy of the
+glory of his race and the renown of his father. He encountered and slew
+Eurypylus, together with numbers of the Mysian warriors: he routed the
+Trojans and drove them within their walls, from whence they never again
+emerged to give battle: and he was not less distinguished for good sense
+and persuasive diction than for forward energy in the field.
+
+Troy, however, was still impregnable so long as the Palladium, a statue
+given by Zeus himself to Dardanus, remained in the citadel; and great
+care had been taken by the Trojans not only to conceal this valuable
+present, but to construct other statues so like it as to mislead any
+intruding robber. Nevertheless, the enterprising Odysseus, having
+disguised his person with miserable clothing and self-inflicted
+injuries, found means to penetrate into the city and to convey the
+Palladium by stealth away. Helen alone recognized him; but she was now
+anxious to return to Greece, and even assisted Odysseus in concerting
+means for the capture of the town.
+
+To accomplish this object, one final stratagem was resorted to. By the
+hands of Epeius of Panopeus, and at the suggestion of Athene, a
+capacious hollow wooden horse was constructed, capable of containing one
+hundred men. In the inside of this horse the elite of the Grecian
+heroes, Neoptolemus, Odysseus, Menelaus, and others, concealed
+themselves while the entire Grecian army sailed away to Tenedos, burning
+their tents and pretending to have abandoned the siege. The Trojans,
+overjoyed to find themselves free, issued from the city and contemplated
+with astonishment the fabric which their enemies had left behind. They
+long doubted what should be done with it; and the anxious heroes from
+within heard the surrounding consultations, as well as the voice of
+Helen when she pronounced their names and counterfeited the accents of
+their wives. Many of the Trojans were anxious to dedicate it to the gods
+in the city as a token of gratitude for their deliverance; but the more
+cautious spirits inculcated distrust of an enemy's legacy. Laocoon, the
+priest of Poseidon, manifested his aversion by striking the side of the
+horse with his spear.
+
+The sound revealed that the horse was hollow, but the Trojans heeded
+not this warning of possible fraud. The unfortunate Laocoon, a victim to
+his own sagacity and patriotism, miserably perished before the eyes of
+his countrymen, together with one of his sons: two serpents being sent
+expressly by the gods out of the sea to destroy him. By this terrific
+spectacle, together with the perfidious counsels of Simon--a traitor
+whom the Greeks had left behind for the special purpose of giving false
+information--the Trojans were induced to make a breach in their own
+walls, and to drag the fatal fabric with triumph and exultation into
+their city.
+
+The destruction of Troy, according to the decree of the gods, was now
+irrevocably sealed. While the Trojans indulged in a night of riotous
+festivity, Simon kindled the fire-signal to the Greeks at Tenedos,
+loosening the bolts of the wooden horse, from out of which the enclosed
+heroes descended. The city, assailed both from within and from without,
+was thoroughly sacked and destroyed, with the slaughter or captivity of
+the larger portion of its heroes as well as its people. The venerable
+Priam perished by the hand of Neoptolemus, having in vain sought shelter
+at the domestic altar of Zeus Herceius. But his son Deiphobus, who since
+the death of Paris had become the husband of Helen, defended his house
+desperately against Odysseus and Menelaus, and sold his life dearly.
+After he was slain, his body was fearfully mutilated by the latter.
+
+Thus was Troy utterly destroyed--the city, the altars and temples, and
+the population. AEneas and Antenor were permitted to escape, with their
+families, having been always more favorably regarded by the Greeks than
+the remaining Trojans. According to one version of the story they had
+betrayed the city to the Greeks: a panther's skin had been hung over the
+door of Antenor's house as a signal for the victorious besiegers to
+spare it in general plunder. In the distribution of the principal
+captives, Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, was cast from the top of
+the wall and killed by Odysseus or Neoptolemus: Polyxena, the daughter
+of Priam, was immolated on the tomb of Achilles, in compliance with a
+requisition made by the shade of the deceased hero to his countrymen;
+while her sister Cassandra was presented as a prize to Agamemnon. She
+had sought sanctuary at the altar of Athene, where Ajax, the son of
+Oileus, making a guilty attempt to seize her, had drawn both upon
+himself and upon the army the serious wrath of the goddess, insomuch
+that the Greeks could hardly be restrained from stoning him to death.
+Andromache and Helenus were both given to Neoptolemus, who, according to
+the _Ilias Minor_, carried away also AEneas as his captive.
+
+Helen gladly resumed her union with Menelaus; she accompanied him back
+to Sparta, and lived with him there many years in comfort and dignity,
+passing afterward to a happy immortality in the Elysian fields. She was
+worshipped as a goddess, with her brothers, the Dioscuri, and her
+husband, having her temple, statue, and altar at Therapnae and elsewhere.
+Various examples of her miraculous intervention were cited among the
+Greeks. The lyric poet Stesichorus had ventured to denounce her,
+conjointly with her sister Clytemnestra, in a tone of rude and
+plain-spoken severity, resembling that of Euripides and Lycophron
+afterward, but strikingly opposite to the delicacy and respect with
+which she is always handled by Homer, who never admits reproaches
+against her except from her own lips. He was smitten with blindness, and
+made sensible of his impiety; but, having repented and composed a
+special poem formally retracting the calumny, was permitted to recover
+his sight. In his poem of recantation (the famous _Palinode_ now
+unfortunately lost) he pointedly contradicted the Homeric narrative,
+affirming that Helen had never been at Troy at all, and that the Trojans
+had carried thither nothing but her image or _eidolon_. It is, probably,
+to the excited religious feelings of Stesichorus that we owe the first
+idea of this glaring deviation from the old legend, which could never
+have been recommended by any considerations of poetical interest.
+
+Other versions were afterward started, forming a sort of compromise
+between Homer and Stesichorus, admitting that Helen had never really
+been at Troy, without altogether denying her elopement. Such is the
+story of her having been detained in Egypt during the whole term of the
+siege. Paris, on his departure from Sparta, had been driven thither by
+storms, and the Egyptian king Proteus, hearing of the grievous wrong
+which he had committed toward Menelaus, had sent him away from the
+country with severe menaces, detaining Helen until her lawful husband
+should come to seek her. When the Greeks reclaimed Helen from Troy, the
+Trojans assured them solemnly that she neither was nor ever had been in
+the town; but the Greeks, treating this allegation as fraudulent,
+prosecuted the siege until their ultimate success confirmed the
+correctness of the statement. Menelaus did not recover Helen until, on
+his return from Troy, he visited Egypt. Such was the story told by the
+Egyptian priests to Herodotus, and it appeared satisfactory to his
+historicizing mind. "For if Helen had really been at Troy," he argues,
+"she would certainly have been given up, even had she been mistress of
+Priam himself instead of Paris: the Trojan king, with all his family and
+all his subjects, would never knowingly have incurred utter and
+irretrievable destruction for the purpose of retaining her: their
+misfortune was that, while they did not possess and therefore could not
+restore her, they yet found it impossible to convince the Greeks that
+such was the fact." Assuming the historical character of the war of
+Troy, the remark of Herodotus admits of no reply; nor can we greatly
+wonder that he acquiesced in the tale of Helen's Egyptian detention, as
+a substitute for the "incredible insanity" which the genuine legend
+imputes to Priam and the Trojans. Pausanias, upon the same ground and by
+the same mode of reasoning, pronounced that the Trojan horse must have
+been, in point of fact, a battering-engine, because to admit the literal
+narrative would be to impute utter childishness to the defenders of the
+city. And Mr. Payne Knight rejects Helen altogether as the real cause of
+the Trojan war, though she may have been the pretext of it; for he
+thinks that neither the Greeks nor the Trojans could have been so mad
+and silly as to endure calamities of such magnitude "for one little
+woman." Mr. Knight suggests various political causes as substitutes;
+these might deserve consideration, either if any evidence could be
+produced to countenance them, or if the subject on which they are
+brought to bear could be shown to belong to the domain of history.
+
+The return of the Grecian chiefs from Troy furnished matter to the
+ancient epic hardly less copious than the siege itself, and the more
+susceptible of indefinite diversity, inasmuch as those who had before
+acted in concert were now dispersed and isolated. Moreover, the stormy
+voyages and compulsory wanderings of the heroes exactly fell in with the
+common aspirations after an heroic founder, and enabled even the most
+remote Hellenic settlers to connect the origin of their town with this
+prominent event of their ante-historical and semi-divine world. And an
+absence of ten years afforded room for the supposition of many domestic
+changes in their native abode, and many family misfortunes and misdeeds
+during the interval. One of these historic "Returns," that of Odysseus,
+has been immortalized by the verse of Homer. The hero, after a series of
+long protracted suffering and expatriation inflicted on him by the anger
+of Poseidon, at last reaches his native island, but finds his wife
+beset, his youthful son insulted, and his substance plundered by a troop
+of insolent suitors; he is forced to appear as a wretched beggar, and to
+endure in his own person their scornful treatment; but finally, by the
+interference of Athene coming in aid of his own courage and stratagem,
+he is enabled to overwhelm his enemies, to resume his family position,
+and to recover his property. The return of several other Grecian chiefs
+was the subject of an epic poem by Hagias which is now lost, but of
+which a brief abstract or argument still remains: there were in
+antiquity various other poems of similar title and analogous matter.
+
+As usual with the ancient epic, the multiplied sufferings of this back
+voyage are traced to divine wrath, justly provoked by the sins of the
+Greeks, who, in the fierce exultation of a victory purchased by so many
+hardships, had neither respected nor even spared the altars of the gods
+in Troy. Athene, who had been their most zealous ally during the siege,
+was so incensed by their final recklessness, more especially by the
+outrage of Ajax, son of Oileus, that she actively harassed and
+embittered their return, in spite of every effort to appease her. The
+chiefs began to quarrel among themselves; their formal assembly became a
+scene of drunkenness; even Agamemnon and Menelaus lost their fraternal
+harmony, and each man acted on his own separate resolution.
+Nevertheless, according to the _Odyssey_, Nestor, Diomedes, Neoptolemus,
+Idomeneus, and Philoctetes reached home speedily and safely; Agamemnon
+also arrived in Peloponnesus, to perish by the hand of a treacherous
+wife; but Menelaus was condemned to long wanderings and to the severest
+privations in Egypt, Cyprus, and elsewhere before he could set foot in
+his native land. The Locrian Ajax perished on the Gyraean rock. Though
+exposed to a terrible storm, he had already reached this place of
+safety, when he indulged in the rash boast of having escaped in defiance
+of the gods. No sooner did Poseidon hear this language than he struck
+with his trident the rock which Ajax was grasping and precipitated both
+into the sea. Calchas, the soothsayer, together with Leonteus and
+Polypoetes, proceeded by land from Troy to Colophon.
+
+In respect, however, to these and other Grecian heroes, tales were told
+different from those in the _Odyssey_, assigning to them a long
+expatriation and a distant home. Nestor went to Italy, where he founded
+Metapontum, Pisa, and Heracleia: Philoctetes also went to Italy, founded
+Petilia and Crimisa, and sent settlers to Egesta in Sicily. Neoptolemus,
+under the advice of Thetis, marched by land across Thrace, met with
+Odysseus, who had come by sea, at Maroneia, and then pursued his journey
+to Epirus, where he became king of the Molossians. Idomeneus came to
+Italy, and founded Uria in the Salentine peninsula. Diomedes, after
+wandering far and wide, went along the Italian coast into the innermost
+Adriatic gulf, and finally settled in Daunia, founding the cities of
+Argyrippa, Beneventum, Atria, and Diomedeia: by the favor of Athene he
+became immortal, and was worshipped as a god in many different places.
+The Locrian followers of Ajax founded the Epizephyrian Locri on the
+southernmost corner of Italy, besides another settlement in Libya.
+
+The previously exiled Teucros, besides founding the city of Salamis in
+Cyprus, is said to have established some settlements in the Iberian
+peninsula. Menestheus, the Athenian, did the like, and also founded both
+Elaea in Mysia and Scylletium in Italy. The Arcadian chief Agapenor
+founded Paphos in Cyprus. Epius, of Panopeus in Phocis, the constructor
+of the Trojan horse with the aid of the goddess Athene, settled at
+Lagaria, near Sybaris, on the coast of Italy; and the very tools which
+he had employed in that remarkable fabric were shown down to a late date
+in the temple of Athene at Metapontum.
+
+Temples, altars, and towns were also pointed out in Asia Minor, in
+Samos, and in Crete, the foundation of Agamemnon or of his followers.
+The inhabitants of the Grecian town of Scione, in the Thracian peninsula
+called Pallene or Pellene, accounted themselves the offspring of the
+Pellenians from Achaea in Peloponnesus, who had served under Agamemnon
+before Troy, and who on their return from the siege had been driven on
+the spot by a storm and there settled. The Pamphylians, on the southern
+coast of Asia Minor, deduced their origin from the wanderings of
+Amphilochus and Calchas after the siege of Troy: the inhabitants of the
+Amphilochian Argos on the Gulf of Ambracia revered the same Amphilochus
+as their founder. The Orchomenians under Iamenus, on quitting the
+conquered city, wandered or were driven to the eastern extremity of the
+Euxine Sea; and the barbarous Achaeans under Mount Caucasus were supposed
+to have derived their first establishment from this source. Meriones,
+with his Cretan followers, settled at Engyion in Sicily, along with the
+preceding Cretans who had remained there after the invasion of Minos.
+The Elymians in Sicily also were composed of Trojans and Greeks
+separately driven to the spot, who, forgetting their previous
+differences, united in the joint settlements of Eryx and Egesta. We hear
+of Podalerius both in Italy and on the coast of Caria; of Acamas, son of
+Theseus, at Amphipolus in Thrace, at Soli in Cyprus, and at Synnada in
+Phrygia; of Guneus, Prothous, and Eurypylus, in Crete as well as in
+Libya. The obscure poem of Lycophron enumerates many of these dispersed
+and expatriated heroes, whose conquest of Troy was indeed a "Cadmean"
+victory (according to the proverbial phrase of the Greeks), wherein the
+sufferings of the victor were little inferior to those of the
+vanquished. It was particularly among the Italian Greeks, where they
+were worshipped with very special solemnity, that their presence as
+wanderers from Troy was reported and believed.
+
+I pass over the numerous other tales which circulated among the
+ancients, illustrating the ubiquity of the Grecian and Trojan heroes as
+well as that of the Argonauts--one of the most striking features in the
+Hellenic legendary world. Among them all, the most interesting,
+individually, is Odysseus, whose romantic adventures in fabulous places
+and among fabulous persons have been made familiarly known by Homer.
+The goddesses Calypso and Circe; the semi-divine mariners of Phaeacia,
+whose ships are endowed with consciousness and obey without a steersman;
+the one-eyed Cyclopes, the gigantic Laestrygones, and the wind-ruler
+AEolus; the Sirens, who ensnare by their song, as the Lotophagi fascinate
+by their food,--all these pictures formed integral and interesting
+portions of the old epic. Homer leaves Odysseus reestablished in his
+house and family. But so marked a personage could never be permitted to
+remain in the tameness of domestic life; the epic poem called the
+_Telegonia_ ascribed to him a subsequent series of adventures.
+Telegonus, his son by Circe, coming to Ithaca in search of his father,
+ravaged the island and killed Odysseus without knowing who he was.
+Bitter repentance overtook the son for his undesigned parricide: at his
+prayer and by the intervention of his mother Circe, both Penelope and
+Telemachus were made immortal: Telegonus married Penelope, and
+Telemachus married Circe.
+
+We see by this poem that Odysseus was represented as the mythical
+ancestor of the Thesprotian kings, just as Neoptolemus was of the
+Molossian.
+
+It has already been mentioned that Antenor and AEneas stand distinguished
+from the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam and a sympathy
+with the Greeks, which was by Sophocles and others construed as
+treacherous collusion,--a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though
+emphatically repelled, by the AEneas of Vergil. In the old epic of
+Arctinus, next in age to the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, AEneas abandons Troy
+and retires to Mount Ida, in terror at the miraculous death of Laocoon,
+before the entry of the Greeks into the town and the last night battle:
+yet Lesches, in another of the ancient epic poems, represented him as
+having been carried away captive by Neoptolemus. In a remarkable passage
+of the _Iliad_, Poseidon describes the family of Priam as having
+incurred the hatred of Zeus, and predicts that AEneas and his descendants
+shall reign over the Trojans: the race of Dardanus, beloved by Zeus more
+than all his other sons, would thus be preserved, since AEneas belonged
+to it. Accordingly, when AEneas is in imminent peril from the hands of
+Achilles, Poseidon specially interferes to rescue him, and even the
+implacable miso-Trojan goddess Here assents to the proceeding. These
+passages have been construed by various able critics to refer to a
+family of philo-Hellenic or semi-Hellenic AEneadae, known even in the time
+of the early singers of the _Iliad_ as masters of some territory in or
+near the Troad, and professing to be descended from, as well as
+worshipping, AEneas. In the town of Scepsis, situated in the mountainous
+range of Ida, about thirty miles eastward of Ilium, there existed two
+noble and priestly families who professed to be descended, the one from
+Hector, the other from AEneas. The Scepsian critic Demetrius (in whose
+time both these families were still to be found) informs us that
+Scamandrius, son of Hector, and Ascanius, son of AEneas, were the
+_archegets_ or heroic founders of his native city, which had been
+originally situated on one of the highest ranges of Ida, and was
+subsequently transferred by them to the less lofty spot on which it
+stood in his time. In Arisbe and Gentinus there seem to have been
+families professing the same descent, since the same _archegets_ were
+acknowledged. In Ophrynium, Hector had his consecrated edifice, while in
+Ilium both he and AEneas were worshipped as gods: and it was the
+remarkable statement of the Lesbian Menecrates that AEneas, "having been
+wronged by Paris and stripped of the sacred privileges which belonged to
+him, avenged himself by betraying the city, and then became one of the
+Greeks."
+
+One tale thus among many respecting AEneas, and that, too, the most
+ancient of all, preserved among natives of the Troad, who worshipped him
+as their heroic ancestor, was that after the capture of Troy he
+continued in the country as king of the remaining Trojans, on friendly
+terms with the Greeks. But there were other tales respecting him, alike
+numerous and irreconcilable: the hand of destiny marked him as a
+wanderer (_fato profugus_) and his ubiquity is not exceeded even by that
+of Odysseus. We hear of him at AEnus in Thrace, in Pallene, at AEneia in
+the Thermaic Gulf, in Delos, at Orchomenus and Mantineia in Arcadia, in
+the islands of Cythera and Zacynthus, in Leucas and Ambracia, at
+Buthrotum in Epirus, on the Salentine peninsula and various other places
+in the southern region of Italy; at Drepana and Segesta in Sicily, at
+Carthage, at Cape Palinurus, Cumae, Misenum, Caieta, and finally in
+Latium, where he lays the first humble foundation of the mighty Rome
+and her empire. And the reason why his wanderings were not continued
+still further was, that the oracles and the pronounced will of the gods
+directed him to settle in Latium. In each of these numerous places his
+visit was commemorated and certified by local monuments or special
+legends, particularly by temples and permanent ceremonies in honor of
+his mother Aphrodite, whose worship accompanied him everywhere: there
+were also many temples and many different tombs of AEneas himself. The
+vast ascendancy acquired by Rome, the ardor with which all the literary
+Romans espoused the idea of a Trojan origin, and the fact that the
+Julian family recognized AEneas as their gentile primary ancestor,--all
+contributed to give to the Roman version of this legend the
+preponderance over every other. The various other places in which
+monuments of AEneas were found came thus to be represented as places
+where he had halted for a time on his way from Troy to Latium. But
+though the legendary pretensions of these places were thus eclipsed in
+the eyes of those who constituted the literary public, the local belief
+was not extinguished; they claimed the hero as their permanent property,
+and his tomb was to them a proof that he had lived and died among them.
+
+Antenor, who shares with AEneas the favorable sympathy of the Greeks, is
+said by Pindar to have gone from Troy along with Menelaus and Helen into
+the region of Cyrene in Libya. But according to the more current
+narrative, he placed himself at the head of a body of Eneti or Veneti
+from Paphlagonia, who had come as allies of Troy, and went by sea into
+the inner part of the Adriatic Gulf, where he conquered the neighboring
+barbarians and founded the town of Patavium (the modern Padua); the
+Veneti in this region were said to owe their origin to his immigration.
+We learn further from Strabo that Opsicellas, one of the companions of
+Antenor, had continued his wanderings even into Iberia, and that he had
+there established a settlement bearing his name. Thus endeth the Trojan
+war, together with its sequel, the dispersion of the heroes, victors as
+well as vanquished.
+
+
+
+
+
+ACCESSION OF SOLOMON
+
+BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM
+
+B.C. 1017
+
+HENRY HART MILMAN
+
+
+     After many weary years of travail and fighting in the wilderness
+     and the land of Canaan, the Jews had at last founded their kingdom,
+     with Jerusalem as the capital. Saul was proclaimed the first king;
+     afterward followed David, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah." During
+     the many wars in which the Israelites had been engaged, the Ark of
+     the Covenant was the one thing in which their faith was bound. No
+     undertaking could fail while they retained possession of it.
+
+     In their wanderings the tabernacle enclosing the precious ark was
+     first erected before the dwellings for the people. It had been
+     captured by the Philistines, then restored to the Hebrews, and
+     became of greater veneration than before. It will be remembered
+     that, among other things, it contained the rod of Aaron which
+     budded and was the cause of his selection as high-priest. It also
+     contained the tables of stone which bore the Ten Commandments.
+
+     David desired to build a fitting shrine, a temple, in which to
+     place the Ark of the Covenant; it should be a place wherein the
+     people could worship; a centre of religion in which the ark should
+     have paid it the distinction due it as the seat of tremendous
+     majesty.
+
+     But David had been a man of war; this temple was a place of peace.
+     Blood must not stain its walls; no shedder of gore could be its
+     architect. Yet David collected stone, timber, and precious metals
+     for its erection; and, not being allowed to erect the temple
+     himself, was permitted to depute that office to his son and
+     successor, "Solomon the Wise."
+
+     At this time all the enemies of Israel had been conquered, the
+     country was at peace; the domain of the Hebrews was greater than at
+     any other time, before or afterward. It was the fitting time for
+     the erection of a great shrine to enclose the sacred ark. Nobly was
+     this done, and no human work of ancient or modern times has so
+     impressed mankind as the building of Solomon's Temple.
+
+
+Solomon succeeded to the Hebrew kingdom at the age of twenty. He was
+environed by designing, bold, and dangerous enemies. The pretensions of
+Adonijah still commanded a powerful party: Abiathar swayed the
+priesthood; Joab the army. The singular connection in public opinion
+between the title to the crown and the possession of the deceased
+monarch's harem is well understood.[25] Adonijah, in making request for
+Abishag, a youthful concubine taken by David in his old age, was
+considered as insidiously renewing his claims to the sovereignty.
+Solomon saw at once the wisdom of his father's dying admonition: he
+seized the opportunity of crushing all future opposition and all danger
+of a civil war. He caused Adonijah to be put to death; suspended
+Abiathar from his office, and banished him from Jerusalem: and though
+Joab fled to the altar, he commanded him to be slain for the two murders
+of which he had been guilty, those of Abner and Amasa. Shimei, another
+dangerous man, was commanded to reside in Jerusalem, on pain of death if
+he should quit the city. Three years afterward he was detected in a
+suspicious journey to Gath, on the Philistine border; and having
+violated the compact, he suffered the penalty.
+
+[Footnote 25: I Kings, i.]
+
+Thus secured by the policy of his father from internal enemies, by the
+terror of his victories from foreign invasion, Solomon commenced his
+peaceful reign, during which Judah and Israel dwelt safely, _Every man
+under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan to Beersheba_. This
+peace was broken only by a revolt of the Edomites. Hadad, of the royal
+race, after the exterminating war waged by David and by Joab, had fled
+to Egypt, where he married the sister of the king's wife. No sooner had
+he heard of the death of David and of Joab than he returned, and seems
+to have kept up a kind of predatory warfare during the reign of Solomon.
+Another adventurer, Rezon, a subject of Hadadezer, king of Zobah, seized
+on Damascus, and maintained a great part of Syria in hostility to
+Solomon.
+
+Solomon's conquest of Hamath Zobah in a later part of his reign, after
+which he built Tadmor in the wilderness and raised a line of fortresses
+along his frontier to the Euphrates, is probably connected with these
+hostilities.[26] The justice of Solomon was proverbial. Among his first
+acts after his accession, it is related that when he had offered a
+costly sacrifice at Gibeon, the place where the Tabernacle remained, God
+had appeared to him in a dream, and offered him whatever gift he chose:
+the wise king requested an understanding heart to judge the people. God
+not merely assented to his prayer, but added the gift of honor and
+riches. His judicial wisdom was displayed in the memorable history of
+the two women who contested the right to a child. Solomon, in the wild
+spirit of Oriental justice, commanded the infant to be divided before
+their faces: the heart of the real mother was struck with terror and
+abhorrence, while the false one consented to the horrible partition, and
+by this appeal to nature the cause was instantaneously decided.
+
+[Footnote 26: I Kings, xi., 23; I Chron., viii., 3.]
+
+The internal government of his extensive dominions next demanded the
+attention of Solomon. Besides the local and municipal governors, he
+divided the kingdom into twelve districts: over each of these he
+appointed a purveyor for the collection of the royal tribute, which was
+received in kind; and thus the growing capital and the immense
+establishments of Solomon were abundantly furnished with provisions.
+Each purveyor supplied the court for a month. The daily consumption of
+his household was three hundred bushels of finer flour, six hundred of a
+coarser sort; ten fatted, twenty other oxen; one hundred sheep; besides
+poultry, and various kinds of venison. Provender was furnished for forty
+thousand horses, and a great number of dromedaries. Yet the population
+of the country did not, at first at least, feel these burdens: _Judah
+and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude,
+eating and drinking, and making merry_.
+
+The foreign treaties of Solomon were as wisely directed to secure the
+profound peace of his dominions. He entered into a matrimonial alliance
+with the royal family of Egypt, whose daughter he received with great
+magnificence; and he renewed the important alliance with the king of
+Tyre.[27] The friendship of this monarch was of the highest value in
+contributing to the great royal and national work, the building of the
+Temple. The cedar timber could only be obtained from the forests of
+Lebanon: the Sidonian artisans, celebrated in the Homeric poems, were
+the most skilful workmen in every kind of manufacture, particularly in
+the precious metals.
+
+[Footnote 27: After inserting the correspondence between King Solomon
+and King Hiram of Tyre, according to I Kings, v., Josephus asserts that
+copies of these letters were not only preserved by his countrymen, but
+also in the archives of Tyre. I presume that Josephus adverts to the
+statement of Tyrian historians, not to an actual inspection of the
+archives, which he seems to assert as existing and accessible.]
+
+Solomon entered into a regular treaty, by which he bound himself to
+supply the Tyrians with large quantities of corn; receiving in return
+their timber, which was floated down to Joppa, and a large body of
+artificers. The timber was cut by his own subjects, of whom he raised a
+body of thirty thousand; ten thousand employed at a time, and relieving
+each other every month; so that to one month of labor they had two of
+rest. He raised two other corps, one of seventy thousand porters of
+burdens, the other of eighty thousand hewers of stone, who were employed
+in the quarries among the mountains. All these labors were thrown, not
+on the Israelites, but on the strangers who, chiefly of Canaanitish
+descent, had been permitted to inhabit the country.
+
+These preparations, in addition to those of King David, being completed,
+the work began. The eminence of Moriah, the Mount of Vision, _i.e._, the
+height seen afar from the adjacent country, which tradition pointed out
+as the spot where Abraham had offered his son (where recently the plague
+had been stayed, by the altar built in the threshing-floor of Ornan or
+Araunah, the Jebusite), rose on the east side of the city. Its rugged
+top was levelled with immense labor; its sides, which to the east and
+south were precipitous, were faced with a wall of stone, built up
+perpendicular from the bottom of the valley, so as to appear to those
+who looked down of most terrific height; a work of prodigious skill and
+labor, as the immense stones were strongly mortised together and wedged
+into the rock. Around the whole area or esplanade, an irregular
+quadrangle, was a solid wall of considerable height and strength: within
+this was an open court, into which the Gentiles were either from the
+first, or subsequently, admitted. A second wall encompassed another
+quadrangle, called the court of the Israelites. Along this wall, on the
+inside, ran a portico or cloister, over which were chambers for
+different sacred purposes. Within this again another, probably a lower,
+wall separated the court of the priests from that of the Israelites. To
+each court the ascent was by steps, so that the platform of the inner
+court was on a higher level than that of the outer.
+
+The Temple itself was rather a monument of the wealth than the
+architectural skill and science of the people. It was a wonder of the
+world from the splendor of its materials, more than the grace, boldness,
+or majesty of its height and dimensions. It had neither the colossal
+magnitude of the Egyptian, the simple dignity and perfect proportional
+harmony of the Grecian, nor perhaps the fantastic grace and lightness of
+later Oriental architecture. Some writers, calling to their assistance
+the visionary temple of Ezekiel, have erected a most superb edifice; to
+which there is this fatal objection, that if the dimensions of the
+prophet are taken as they stand in the text, the area of the Temple and
+its courts would not only have covered the whole of Mount Moriah, but
+almost all Jerusalem. In fact our accounts of the Temple of Solomon are
+altogether unsatisfactory. The details, as they now stand in the books
+of Kings and Chronicles, the only safe authorities, are unscientific,
+and, what is worse, contradictory.
+
+Josephus has evidently blended together the three temples, and
+attributed to the earlier all the subsequent additions and alterations.
+The Temple, on the whole, was an enlargement of the tabernacle, built of
+more costly and durable materials. Like its model, it retained the
+ground-plan and disposition of the Egyptian, or rather of almost all the
+sacred edifices of antiquity: even its measurements are singularly in
+unison with some of the most ancient temples in Upper Egypt. It
+consisted of a propylaeon, a temple, and a sanctuary; called respectively
+the Porch, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Yet in some respects,
+if the measurements are correct, the Temple must rather have resembled
+the form of a simple Gothic church.
+
+In the front to the east stood the porch, a tall tower, rising to the
+height of 210 feet. Either within, or, like the Egyptian obelisks,
+before the porch, stood two pillars of brass; by one account 27, by
+another above 60 feet high, the latter statement probably including
+their capitals and bases. These were called Jachin and Boaz (Durability
+and Strength).[28] The capitals of these were of the richest
+workmanship, with net-work, chain-work, and pomegranates. The porch was
+the same width with the Temple, 35 feet; its depth 17-1/2. The length of
+the main building, including the Holy Place, 70 feet, and the Holy of
+Holies, 35, was in the whole 105 feet; the height 52-1/2 feet.[29]
+
+[Footnote 28: Ewald, following, he says, the Septuagint, makes these
+pillars not standing alone like obelisks before the porch, but as
+forming the front of the porch, with the capitals connected together,
+and supporting a kind of balcony, with ornamental work above it. The
+pillars measured 12 cubits (22 feet) round.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Mr. Fergusson, estimating the cubit rather lower than in
+the text, makes the porch 30 by 15; the pronaos, or Holy Place, 60 by
+30; the Holy of Holies, 30; the height 45 feet. Mr. Fergusson, following
+Josephus, supposes that the whole Temple had an upper story of wood, a
+talar, as appears in other Eastern edifices. I doubt the authority of
+Josephus as to the older Temple, though, as Mr. Fergusson observes, the
+discrepancies between the measurements in Kings and in Chronicles may be
+partially reconciled on this supposition. Mr. Fergusson makes the height
+of the eastern tower only 90 feet. The text followed 2 Chron., iii., 4,
+reckoning the cubit at 1 foot 9 inches.]
+
+Josephus carries the whole building up to the height of the porch; but
+this is out of all credible proportion, making the height twice the
+length and six times the width. Along each side, and perhaps at the back
+of the main building, ran an aisle, divided into three stories of small
+chambers: the wall of the Temple being thicker at the bottom, left a
+rest to support the beams of these chambers, which were not let into the
+wall. These aisles, the chambers of which were appropriated as
+vestiaries, treasuries, and for other sacred purposes, seem to have
+reached about half way up the main wall of what we may call the nave and
+choir: the windows into the latter were probably above them; these were
+narrow, but widened inward.
+
+If the dimensions of the Temple appear by no means imposing, it must be
+remembered that but a small part of the religious ceremonies took place
+within the walls. The Holy of Holies was entered only once a year, and
+that by the High-priest alone. It was the secret and unapproachable
+shrine of the Divinity. The Holy Place, the body of the Temple, admitted
+only the officiating priests. The courts, called in popular language the
+Temple, or rather the inner quadrangle, were in fact the great place of
+divine worship. Here, under the open air, were celebrated the great
+public and national rites, the processions, the offerings, the
+sacrifices; here stood the great tank for ablution, and the high altar
+for burnt-offerings.
+
+But the costliness of the materials, the richness and variety of the
+details, amply compensated for the moderate dimensions of the building.
+It was such a sacred edifice as a traveller might have expected to find
+in El Dorado. The walls were of hewn stone, faced within with cedar
+which was richly carved with knosps and flowers; the ceiling was of
+fir-tree. But in every part gold was lavished with the utmost profusion;
+within and without, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, in short, the
+whole house is described as overlaid with gold. The finest and
+purest--that of Parvaim, by some supposed to be Ceylon--was reserved for
+the sanctuary. Here the cherubim, which stood upon the covering of the
+Ark, with their wings touching each wall, were entirely covered with
+gold.
+
+The sumptuous veil, of the richest materials and brightest colors, which
+divided the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place was suspended on chains
+of gold. Cherubim, palm-trees, and flowers, the favorite ornaments,
+everywhere covered with gilding, were wrought in almost all parts. The
+altar within the Temple and the table of shewbread were likewise covered
+with the same precious metal. All the vessels, the ten candlesticks,
+five hundred basins, and all the rest of the sacrificial and other
+utensils, were of solid gold. Yet the Hebrew writers seem to dwell with
+the greatest astonishment and admiration on the works which were founded
+in brass by Huram, a man of Jewish extraction, who had learned his art
+at Tyre.
+
+Besides the lofty pillars above mentioned, there was a great tank,
+called a sea, of molten brass, supported on twelve oxen, three turned
+each way; this was seventeen and one-half feet in diameter. There was
+also a great altar, and ten large vessels for the purpose of ablution,
+called lavers, standing on bases or pedestals, the rims of which were
+richly ornamented with a border, on which were wrought figures of lions,
+oxen, and cherubim. The bases below were formed of four wheels, like
+those of a chariot. All the works in brass were cast in a place near
+the Jordan, where the soil was of a stiff clay suited to the purpose.
+
+For seven years and a half the fabric arose in silence. All the timbers,
+the stones, even of the most enormous size, measuring seventeen and
+eighteen feet, were hewn and fitted, so as to be put together without
+the sound of any tool whatever; as it has been expressed, with great
+poetical beauty:
+
+    "Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric grew."
+
+At the end of this period, the Temple and its courts being completed,
+the solemn dedication took place, with the greatest magnificence which
+the king and the nation could display. All the chieftains of the
+different tribes, and all of every order who could be brought together,
+assembled.
+
+David had already organized the priesthood and the Levites; and assigned
+to the thirty-eight thousand of the latter tribe each his particular
+office; twenty-four thousand were appointed for the common duties, six
+thousand as officers, four thousand as guards and porters, four thousand
+as singers and musicians. On this great occasion, the Dedication of the
+Temple, all the tribe of Levi, without regard to their courses, the
+whole priestly order of every class, attended. Around the great brazen
+altar, which rose in the court of the priests before the door of the
+Temple, stood in front the sacrificers, all around the whole choir,
+arrayed in white linen. One hundred and twenty of these were trumpeters,
+the rest had cymbals, harps, and psalteries. Solomon himself took his
+place on an elevated scaffold, or raised throne of brass. The whole
+assembled nation crowded the spacious courts beyond. The ceremony began
+with the preparation of burnt-offerings, so numerous that they could not
+be counted.
+
+At an appointed signal commenced the more important part of the scene,
+the removal of the Ark, the installation of the God of Israel in his new
+and appropriate dwelling, to the sound of all the voices and all the
+instruments, chanting some of those splendid odes, the 47th, 97th, 98th,
+and 107th psalms. The Ark advanced, borne by the Levites, to the open
+portals of the Temple. It can scarcely be doubted that the 24th psalm,
+even if composed before, was adopted and used on this occasion.
+
+The singers, as it drew near the gate, broke out in these words:--_Lift
+up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors,
+and the King of Glory shall come in_. It was answered from the other
+part of the choir,--_Who is the King of Glory?_--the whole choir
+responded,--_The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of Glory_.
+
+When the procession arrived at the Holy Place, the gates flew open; when
+it reached the Holy of Holies, the veil was drawn back. The Ark took its
+place under the extended wings of the cherubim, which might seem to fold
+over, and receive it under their protection. At that instant all the
+trumpeters and singers were at once _to make one sound to be heard in
+praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice,
+with the trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of music, and praised
+the Lord, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth forever, the
+house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that the
+priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the
+glory of the Lord had filled the house of God_. Thus the Divinity took
+possession of his sacred edifice.
+
+The king then rose upon the brazen scaffold, knelt down, and spreading
+his hands toward heaven, uttered the prayer of consecration. The prayer
+was of unexampled sublimity: while it implored the perpetual presence of
+the Almighty, as the tutelar Deity and Sovereign of the Israelites, it
+recognized his spiritual and illimitable nature. _But will God in very
+deed dwell with men on the earth? behold heaven and the heaven of
+heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house which I have
+built?_ It then recapitulated the principles of the Hebrew theocracy,
+the dependence of the national prosperity and happiness on the national
+conformity to the civil and religious law. As the king concluded in
+these emphatic terms:--_Now, therefore, arise, O Lord God, into thy
+resting-place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord
+God, be clothed with salvation, and thy saints rejoice in goodness. O
+Lord God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies
+of David thy servant,_--cloud which had rested over the Holy of Holies
+grew brighter and more dazzling; fire broke out and consumed all the
+sacrifices; the priests stood without, awe-struck by the insupportable
+splendor; the whole people fell on their faces, and worshipped and
+praised the Lord, _for he is good, for his mercy is forever_.
+
+Which was the greater, the external magnificence, or the moral sublimity
+of this scene? Was it the Temple, situated on its commanding eminence,
+with all its courts, the dazzling splendor of its materials, the
+innumerable multitudes, the priesthood in their gorgeous attire, the
+king, with all the insignia of royalty, on his throne of burnished
+brass, the music, the radiant cloud filling the Temple, the sudden fire
+flashing upon the altar, the whole nation upon their knees? Was it not
+rather the religious grandeur of the hymns and of the prayer: the
+exalted and rational views of the Divine Nature, the union of a whole
+people in the adoration of the one Great, Incomprehensible, Almighty,
+Everlasting Creator?
+
+This extraordinary festival, which took place at the time of that of
+Tabernacles, lasted for two weeks, twice the usual time: during this
+period twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand
+sheep were sacrificed,[30] every individual probably contributing to
+this great propitiatory rite; and the whole people feasting on those
+parts of the sacrifices which were not set apart for holy uses.
+
+[Footnote 30: Gibbon, in one of his malicious notes, observes, "As the
+blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient, Lightfoot,
+the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le Clerc (_ad loc._) is
+bold enough to suspect the fidelity of the numbers." To this I ventured
+to subjoin the following illustration: "According to the historian
+Kotobeddyn, quoted by Burckhardt, _Travels in Arabia_, p. 276, the
+Khalif Moktader sacrificed during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year
+of the Hegira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
+sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
+carcasses given to the poor. Tavernier speaks of one hundred thousand
+victims offered by the king of Tonquin." Gibbon, ch. xxiii., iv., p. 96,
+edit. Milman.]
+
+Though the chief magnificence of Solomon was lavished on the Temple of
+God, yet the sumptuous palaces which he erected for his own residence
+display an opulence and profusion which may vie with the older monarchs
+of Egypt or Assyria. The great palace stood in Jerusalem; it occupied
+thirteen years in building. A causeway bridged the deep ravine, and
+leading directly to the Temple, united the part either of Acra or Sion,
+on which the palace stood, with Mount Moriah.
+
+In this palace was a vast hall for public business, from its cedar
+pillars called the House of the Forest of Lebanon. It was 175 feet long,
+half that measurement in width, above 50 feet high; four rows of cedar
+columns supported a roof made of beams of the same wood; there were
+three rows of windows on each side facing each other. Besides this great
+hall, there were two others, called porches, of smaller dimensions, in
+one of which the throne of justice was placed. The harem, or women's
+apartments, adjoined to these buildings; with other piles of vast extent
+for different purposes, particularly, if we may credit Josephus, a great
+banqueting hall.
+
+The same author informs us that the whole was surrounded with spacious
+and luxuriant gardens, and adds a less credible fact, ornamented with
+sculptures and paintings. Another palace was built in a romantic part of
+the country in the valleys at the foot of Lebanon for his wife, the
+daughter of the king of Egypt; in the luxurious gardens of which we may
+lay the scene of that poetical epithalamium,[31] or collection of Idyls,
+the Song of Solomon.[32] The splendid works of Solomon were not confined
+to royal magnificence and display; they condescended to usefulness. To
+Solomon are traced at least the first channels and courses of the
+natural and artificial water supply which has always enabled Jerusalem
+to maintain its thousands of worshippers at different periods, and to
+endure long and obstinate sieges.[33]
+
+[Footnote 31: I here assume that the Song of Solomon was an
+epithalamium. I enter not into the interminable controversy as to the
+literal or allegorical or spiritual meaning of this poem, nor into that
+of its age. A very particular though succinct account of all these
+theories, ancient and modern, may be found in a work by Dr. Ginsberg. I
+confess that Dr. Ginsberg's theory, which is rather tinged with the
+virtuous sentimentality of the modern novel, seems to me singularly out
+of harmony with the Oriental and ancient character of the poem. It is
+adopted, however, though modified, by M. Renan.]
+
+[Footnote 32: According to Ewald, the ivory tower in this poem was
+raised in one of these beautiful "pleasances," in the Anti-Libanus,
+looking toward Hamath.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Ewald: _Geschichte_, iii., pp. 62-68; a very remarkable
+and valuable passage.]
+
+The descriptions in the Greek writers of the Persian courts in Susa and
+Ecbatana; the tales of the early travellers in the East about the kings
+of Samarcand or Cathay; and even the imagination of the Oriental
+romancers and poets, have scarcely conceived a more splendid pageant
+than Solomon, seated on his throne of ivory, receiving the homage of
+distant princes who came to admire his magnificence, and put to the test
+his noted wisdom.[34] This throne was of pure ivory, covered with gold;
+six steps led up to the seat, and on each side of the steps stood twelve
+lions.
+
+[Footnote 34: Compare the great Mogul's throne, in Tavernier; that of
+the King of Persia, in Morier.]
+
+All the vessels of his palace were of pure gold, silver was thought too
+mean: his armory was furnished with gold; two hundred targets and three
+hundred shields of beaten gold were suspended in the house of Lebanon.
+Josephus mentions a body of archers who escorted him from the city to
+his country palace, clad in dresses of Tyrian purple, and their hair
+powdered with gold dust. But enormous as this wealth appears, the
+statement of his expenditure on the Temple, and of his annual revenue,
+so passes all credibility, that any attempt at forming a calculation on
+the uncertain data we possess may at once be abandoned as a hopeless
+task. No better proof can be given of the uncertainty of our
+authorities, of our imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew weights of money,
+and, above all, of our total ignorance of the relative value which the
+precious metals bore to the commodities of life, than the estimate, made
+by Dr. Prideaux, of the treasures left by David, amounting to eight
+hundred millions, nearly the capital of our national debt.
+
+Our inquiry into the sources of the vast wealth which Solomon
+undoubtedly possessed may lead to more satisfactory, though still
+imperfect, results. The treasures of David were accumulated rather by
+conquest than by traffic. Some of the nations he subdued, particularly
+the Edomites, were wealthy. All the tribes seem to have worn a great
+deal of gold and silver in their ornaments and their armor; their idols
+were often of gold, and the treasuries of their temples perhaps
+contained considerable wealth. But during the reign of Solomon almost
+the whole commerce of the world passed into his territories. The treaty
+with Tyre was of the utmost importance: nor is there any instance in
+which two neighboring nations so clearly saw, and so steadily pursued,
+without jealousy or mistrust, their mutual and inseparable
+interests.[35]
+
+[Footnote 35: The very learned work of Movers, _Die Phoenizier_ (Bonn,
+1841, Berlin, 1849) contains everything which true German industry and
+comprehensiveness can accumulate about this people. Movers, though in
+such an inquiry conjecture is inevitable, is neither so bold, so
+arbitrary, nor so dogmatic in his conjectures as many of his
+contemporaries. See on Hiram, ii. 326 _et seq._ Movers is disposed to
+appreciate as of high value the fragments preserved in Josephus of the
+Phoenician histories of Menander and Dios.
+
+Mr. Kenrick's _Phoenicia_ may also be consulted with advantage.]
+
+On one occasion only, when Solomon presented to Hiram twenty inland
+cities which he had conquered, Hiram expressed great dissatisfaction,
+and called the territory by the opprobrious name of Cabul. The Tyrian
+had perhaps cast a wistful eye on the noble bay and harbor of Acco, or
+Ptolemais, which the prudent Hebrew either would not, or could
+not--since it was part of the promised land--dissever from his
+dominions. So strict was the confederacy, that Tyre may be considered
+the port of Palestine, Palestine the granary of Tyre. Tyre furnished the
+shipbuilders and mariners; the fruitful plains of Palestine victualled
+the fleets, and supplied the manufacturers and merchants of the
+Phoenician league with all the necessaries of life.[36]
+
+[Footnote 36: To a late period Tyre and Sidon were mostly dependent on
+Palestine for their supply of grain. The inhabitants of these cities
+desired peace with Herod (Agrippa) because their country was nourished
+by the king's country (Acts xii., 20).]
+
+
+
+
+
+RISE AND FALL OF ASSYRIA
+
+DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH
+
+B.C. 789
+
+F. LENORMANT AND E. CHEVALLIER
+
+
+     Mesopotamia for many centuries was the field of battle for the
+     opposing hosts of Babylonia and Assyria, each striving for mastery
+     over the other. At first each city had its own prince, but at
+     length one of these petty kingdoms absorbed the rest, and Nineveh
+     became the capital of a united Assyria. Babylonia had her own
+     kings, but they were little more than hereditary satraps receiving
+     investiture from Nineveh.
+
+     From about B.C. 1060 to 1020 Babylon seems to have recovered the
+     upper hand. Her victories put an end to what is known as the First
+     Assyrian Empire. After a few generations a new family ascended the
+     throne and ultimately founded the Second Assyrian Empire.
+
+     The first princes whose figured monuments have come down to us
+     belonged to those days. The oldest of all was Assurnizirpal; the
+     bas-reliefs with which his palace was decorated are now in the
+     British Museum and the Louvre; most of them in the former. His son
+     Shalmaneser III, and later Shalmaneser IV, made many campaigns
+     against the neighboring peoples, and Assyria became rapidly a great
+     and powerful nation. The effeminate Sardanapalus was the last of
+     the dynasty.
+
+     The capital of Assyria was Nineveh, one of the most famous of
+     cities. It was remarkable for extent, wealth, and architectural
+     grandeur. Diodorus Siculus says its walls were sixty miles around
+     and one hundred feet high. Three chariots could be driven abreast
+     around the summit of its walls, which were defended by fifteen
+     hundred bastions, each of them two hundred feet in height. These
+     dimensions may be exaggerated, but the Hebrew scriptures and recent
+     excavations at the ancient site leave no doubt as to the splendor
+     of the Assyrian palaces and the greatness of the city of Nineveh in
+     population, wealth, and power. In historical times it was destroyed
+     by the Medes, under King Cyaxares, and by the Babylonians, under
+     Nebuchadnezzar, about B.C. 607.
+
+     We are indebted to the monuments, tablets, and "books" recently
+     discovered for the history of Assyria and other ancient oriental
+     nations. Layard unearthed the greater portion, on the site of
+     ancient Nineveh, of the Assyrian "books" (for so are named the
+     tablets of clay, sometimes enamelled, at others only sun-dried or
+     burnt). The writing on these "books" is the cuneiform, and was
+     done by impressing the "style" on the clay while in a waxlike
+     condition. Many of the tablets were broken when Layard and
+     Rawlinson gave them over to the British Museum. The reconstruction
+     of these tablets was undertaken by George Smith, an English
+     Assyriologist of the British Museum, who displayed great skill and
+     earnest application in the deciphering of the cuneiform text.
+
+     In each reign the history of the king and his acts was written by a
+     poet or historian detailed to that office. The "books" were
+     collected and kept in great libraries, the largest of these being
+     made by Sardanapalus.
+
+
+The greater part of the expeditions of Shalmaneser IV, succeeding each
+other year after year, were directed, like those of his father,
+sometimes to the north, into Armenia and Pontus; sometimes to the east,
+into Media, never completely subdued; sometimes to the south, into
+Chaldaea, where revolts were of constant occurrence; and finally
+westward, toward Syria and the region of Amanus. In this direction he
+advanced farther than his predecessors, and came into contact with some
+personages mentioned in Bible history. The part of his annals relating
+to the campaigns that brought him into collision with the kings of
+Damascus and Israel possesses peculiar interest for us, much greater
+than that attaching to the narrative of any other wars.
+
+The sixteenth campaign of Shalmaneser IV (B.C. 890) commenced a new
+series of wars; the King crossed the Zab, or Zabat; to make war on the
+mountain people of Upper Media, and afterward on the Scythian tribes
+around the Caspian Sea. He did not, however, abandon the western
+countries, where he soon found himself opposed by the new King whom the
+revolution arising from the influence of Elisha the prophet had placed
+on the throne of Damascus in the room of Benhidai.
+
+"In my eighteenth campaign" (886), we read on the Nimrud obelisk, "I
+crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth time. Hazael, king of Damascus,
+came toward me to give battle. I took from him eleven hundred and
+twenty-one chariots and four hundred and seventy horsemen, with his
+camp.
+
+"In my nineteenth campaign (885) I crossed the Euphrates for the
+eighteenth time. I marched toward Mount Amanus, and there cut beams of
+cedar.
+
+"In my twenty-first campaign (883) I crossed the Euphrates for the
+twenty-second time. I marched to the cities of Hazael of Damascus. I
+received tribute from Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus."
+
+It evidently was at the end of this campaign that Jehu, king of Israel,
+whose territory Hazael had ravaged, appealed to Shalmaneser for help
+against his powerful enemy. The inscription on the obelisk says that the
+Assyrian King received tribute from Jehu, whom it names "son of Omri,"
+for the great renown of the founder of Samaria had made the Assyrians
+consider all the kings of Israel as his descendants. One of the
+bas-reliefs of the same monument represents Jehu prostrating himself
+before Shalmaneser, as if acknowledging himself a vassal.
+
+The annals of Shalmaneser say no more after this, either of the king of
+Damascus or of Israel. They record, as his twenty-seventh campaign, a
+great war in Armenia that brought about the submission of all the
+districts of that country that still resisted the Assyrian monarch. In
+the thirty-first campaign (873), the last mentioned on the obelisk, the
+King sent the general-in-chief of his armies, Tartan, again into
+Armenia, where he gave up to pillage fifty cities, among them Van; and
+during this time he himself went into Media, subjected part of the
+northern districts of that country, which were in a state of rebellion,
+chastised the people in the neighborhood of Mount Elwand, where in
+after-times Ecbatana was built, and finally made war on the Scythians of
+the Caspian Sea.
+
+The official chronology of the Assyrians dates the termination of the
+reign of Shalmaneser IV in 870, the period of his death. But during the
+last two years his power was entirely lost, and he was reduced to the
+possession of two cities, Nineveh and Calah. His second son,
+Asshurdaninpal, in consequence of circumstances unknown to us, raised
+the standard of revolt against his father, assumed the royal title, and
+was supported by twenty-seven of the most important cities in the
+empire. One of the monuments has preserved a list of these cities, and
+among them we find Arrapkha, capital of the province of Arrapachitis,
+Amida (now Diarbekr), Arbela, Ellasar, and all the towns of the banks of
+the Tigris. War broke out between the father and his rebellious son; the
+army embraced the cause of the latter; he was recognized by all the
+provinces, and kept Shalmaneser until his death shut up and closely
+blockaded in his capital.
+
+Shalmaneser died in B.C. 870; his son, Shamash-Bin, continued the
+legitimate line. He succeeded in repressing the revolt of his brother
+Asshurdaninpal and in depriving him of the authority he had usurped. The
+monument recording the exploits of his first years gives no details,
+however, of the civil war; it merely records, after enumerating the
+cities that had joined the revolt of Asshurdaninpal, "With the aid of
+the great gods, my masters, I subjected them to my sceptre."
+
+The usurpation of the second son of Shalmaneser and a civil war of five
+years had introduced many disorders into the empire and shaken the
+fidelity of many provinces. The early years of Shamash-Bin were occupied
+in reducing the whole to order. In the narrative which has been
+preserved, extending only to his fourth year, we find that the King
+overran and chastised with terrible severity Osrhoene or Aramaean
+Mesopotamia, where the people had been in rebellion, and reduced to
+obedience the mountainous districts, where are the sources of the Tigris
+and Euphrates, and finally Armenia proper. In his fourth year he marched
+against Mardukbalatirib, king of Babylon, who had taken advantage of the
+disorders in Assyria to assert his independence, and who was supported
+by the Susianians or Elamites. He completely defeated him and compelled
+him to fly to the desert, killed very many of his army in the battle,
+took two hundred war chariots, and made seven thousand prisoners, of
+whom five thousand were put to death on the field of battle as an
+example. Unfortunately our information ceases at that period and we know
+absolutely nothing of the greater part of the reign of Shamash-Bin, or
+of the expeditions to the west of Asia, Syria, and Palestine, that must
+have been made after the termination of the campaigns by which the royal
+authority was reestablished in all the ancient provinces of the empire.
+This King remained on the throne until 857. In 859 and 858 he had to
+repress a great revolt in Babylon and Chaldaea.
+
+Binlikhish [or Binnirari] III, the next king, reigned twenty-nine years,
+from 857 to 828. An inscription of his, engraved in the first years of
+his reign, describing the extent of the empire, says that he governed
+on one side "From the land of Siluna, toward the rising sun, the
+countries of Elam, Albania (at the foot of Caucasus), Kharkhar,
+Araziash, Misu, Media, Giratbunda (a portion of Atropatene, frequently
+mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions), the lands of Munna, Parsua
+(Parthia), Allabria (Hyrcania), Abdadana (Hecatompyla), Namri (the
+Caspian Scythians), even to all the tribes of the Andiu (a Turanian or
+Scythian people, whose country is far off), the whole of the mountainous
+country as far as the sea of the rising sun, the Caspian Sea; on the
+other side from the Euphrates, Syria, all Phoenicia, the land of Tyre,
+of Sidon, the land of Omri (Samaria), Edom, the Philistines, as far as
+the sea of the setting sun (the Mediterranean)"; on all these countries
+he says that "he imposed tribute."
+
+"I marched," he says again, "against the land of Syria, and I took
+Marih, king of Syria, in Damascus, the city of his kingdom. The great
+dread of Asshur, my master, persuaded him; he embraced my knees and made
+submission."
+
+Binlikhish III was a warlike prince; every year of his reign was marked
+by an expedition. We have a summary of these in a chronological tablet
+in the British Museum, containing a fragment--from the end of the reign
+of Shamash-Bin to that of Tiglath-pileser II--of a canon of eponymes
+mentioning the principal events year by year. They nearly all occurred
+in Southern Armenia and in the land of Van, where obedience was only
+maintained by incessant military demonstrations, and subsequently in the
+countries to the north of Media as far as the Caspian Sea. Other
+expeditions were also made as far as Parthia, toward Ariana and the
+various countries that, to the Assyrians, were the extreme East. We do
+not, however, know what that region was called by them, as it is always
+designated by a group of ideographic characters of unknown
+pronunciation. By the defeat of Marih, king of Damascus, the submission
+of the western provinces was secured for the remainder of this reign,
+for there is no record of any other campaign there.
+
+The year 849 was marked by a great plague in Assyria; 834 by a religious
+festival, of which unfortunately no particulars are known; and, lastly,
+833 by the solemn inauguration of a new temple to the god Nebo, in the
+capital.
+
+But the most interesting monument of the reign of Binlikhish III is the
+statue of Nebo, one of the great gods of Babylon, discovered by Mr.
+Loftus and now in the British Museum; the inscription on the base of the
+statue mentions the wife of the King, and calls her "the queen
+Sammuramat"; this is the only historical Semiramis, the one mentioned by
+Herodotus. He places her correctly about a century and a half before
+Nitocris, the wife of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon. "Semiramis," says
+the father of history, "raised magnificent embankments to restrain the
+river (Euphrates), which till then used to overflow and flood the whole
+country round Babylon." But why did Herodotus, and the Babylonian
+tradition he has so faithfully reported, attribute these useful works to
+the queen and not to her husband, Binlikhish? It was once supposed, as a
+solution of this problem, that Sammuramat had governed alone for some
+time, as queen regnant, after the death of her husband. But this
+conjecture is absolutely contradicted by the table of eponymes in the
+British Museum, where it can be seen that Sammuramat never reigned
+alone. In our opinion the only possible explanation will be found in
+regarding Binlikhish and Sammuramat as the Ferdinand and Isabella of
+Mesopotamia. The restless desire of Babylonia and Chaldaea to form a
+state separate from Assyria grew more decided as time went on; in the
+time of Binlikhish it had already gained great strength, and the day was
+not far distant when the separation was definitely to take place, and to
+occasion the utter ruin of Nineveh. In this position of affairs it was
+natural for a king of Assyria to seek to strengthen his authority in
+Chaldaea by a marriage with a daughter of the royal line of that country,
+who were his vassals, and thus, in the opinion of the people of Babylon,
+acquire a legitimate right to the possession of the country by means of
+his wife, as well as the advantages to be derived from the attachment of
+the people to their own legitimate sovereign. We shall therefore
+consider Sammuramat as a Babylonian princess married by Binlikhish, and
+as reigning nominally at Babylon while her husband occupied the throne
+at Nineveh, and as being the only sovereign registered by the
+Babylonians in their national annals. In fact, her position must have
+been a peculiar one; she must have been considered the rightful queen
+in one part of the empire, to have been named as queen, and in the same
+rank as the king, in such an official document as the inscription on the
+statue of the god Nebo. She is the only princess mentioned in any of the
+Assyrian texts, as we might naturally suppose; for unless under such
+very exceptional circumstances as we imagine in the case of Sammuramat,
+there can have been no queens, but only favorite concubines, under the
+organization of harem life, such as it was under the Assyrian kings, and
+as it still is in our days.
+
+The exaggerated development of the Assyrian empire was quite unnatural;
+the kings of Nineveh had never succeeded in welding into one nation the
+numerous tribes whom they subdued by force of arms, or in checking in
+them the spirit of independence; they had not even attempted to do so.
+The empire was absolutely without cohesion; the administrative system
+was so imperfect, the bond attaching the various provinces to each
+other, and to the centre of the monarchy, so weak that at the
+commencement of almost every reign a revolt broke out, sometimes at one
+point, sometimes at another.
+
+It was therefore easy to foresee that, so soon as the reins of
+government were no longer in a really strong hand--so soon as the king
+of Assyria should cease to be an active and warlike king, always in the
+field, always at the head of his troops--the great edifice laboriously
+built up by his predecessors of the tenth and ninth centuries would
+collapse, and the immense fabric of empire would vanish like smoke with
+such rapidity as to astonish the world. And this is exactly what
+occurred after the death of Binlikhish III.
+
+The tablet in the British Museum allows us to follow year by year the
+events and the progress of the dissolution of the empire. Under
+Shalmaneser V, who reigned from B.C. 828 to 818, some foreign
+expeditions were still made, as, for instance, to Damascus in B.C. 819;
+but the forces of the empire were especially engaged during many
+following years in attempting to hold countries already subdued, such as
+Armenia, then in a chronic state of revolt; the wars in one and the same
+province were constant, and occupied some six successive campaigns--the
+Armenian war was from B.C. 827 to 822--proving that no decisive results
+were obtained.
+
+Under Asshur-edil-ilani II, who reigned from B.C. 818 to 800, we do not
+see any new conquests; insurrections constantly broke out, and were no
+longer confined to the extremities of the empire; they encroached on the
+heart of the country, and gradually approached nearer to Nineveh. The
+revolutionary spirit increased in the provinces, a great insurrection
+became imminent, and was ready to break out on the slightest excuse. At
+this period, B.C. 804, it is that the British Museum tablet registers,
+as a memorable fact in the column of events, "Peace in the land." Two
+great plagues are also mentioned under this reign, in 811 and 805, and
+on the 13th of June, B.C. 809--30 Sivan in the eponymos of
+Bur-el-salkhi--an almost total eclipse of the sun, visible at Nineveh.
+
+The revolution was not long in coming. Asshurlikhish [Assurbanipal]
+ascended the throne in B.C. 800, and fixed his residence at Nineveh,
+instead of Ellasar, where his predecessor had lived after quitting
+Nineveh; he is the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the ever-famous prototype
+of the voluptuous and effeminate prince. The tablet in the British
+Museum only mentions two expeditions in his reign, both of small
+importance, in 795 and 794; to all the other years the only notice is
+"in the country," proving that nothing was done and that all thought of
+war was abandoned.
+
+Sardanapalus had entirely given himself up to the orgies of his harem,
+and never left his palace walls, entirely renouncing all manly and
+warlike habits of life. He had reigned thus for seven years, and
+discontent continued to increase; the desire for independence was
+spreading in the subject provinces; the bond of their obedience each
+year relaxed still more, and was nearer breaking, when Arbaces, who
+commanded the Median contingent of the army and was himself a Mede,
+chanced to see in the palace at Nineveh the King, in a female dress,
+spindle in hand, hiding in the retirement of the harem his slothful
+cowardice and voluptuous life.
+
+He considered that it would be easy to deal with a prince so degraded,
+who would be unable to renew the valorous traditions of his ancestors.
+The time seemed to him to have come when the provinces, held only by
+force of arms, might finally throw off the weighty Assyrian yoke.
+Arbaces communicated his ideas and projects to the prince then
+intrusted with the government of Babylon, the Chaldaean Phul (Palia?),
+surnamed Balazu (the Terrible), a name the Greeks have made into
+Belesis; he entered into the plot with the willingness to be expected
+from a Babylonian, one of a nation so frequently rising in revolt.
+
+Arbaces and Balazu consulted with other chiefs, who commanded
+contingents of foreign troops, and with the vassal kings of those
+countries that aspired to independence; and they all formed the
+resolution of overthrowing Sardanapalus. Arbaces engaged to raise the
+Medes and Persians, while Balazu set on foot the insurrection in Babylon
+and Chaldaea. At the end of a year the chiefs assembled their soldiers,
+to the number of forty thousand, in Assyria, under the pretext of
+relieving, according to custom, the troops who had served the former
+year.
+
+When once there, the soldiers broke into open rebellion. The tablet in
+the British Museum tells us that the insurrection commenced at Calah in
+B.C. 792. Immediately after this the confusion became so great that from
+this year there was no nomination of an eponyme.
+
+Sardanapalus, rudely interrupted in his debaucheries by a danger he had
+not been able to foresee, showed himself suddenly inspired with activity
+and courage; he put himself at the head of the native Assyrian troops
+who remained faithful to him, met the rebels, and gained three complete
+victories over them.
+
+The confederates already began to despair of success, when Phul, calling
+in the aid of superstition to a cause that seemed lost, declared to them
+that if they would hold together for five days more, the gods, whose
+will he had ascertained by consulting the stars, would undoubtedly give
+them the victory.
+
+In fact, some days afterward a large body of troops, whom the King had
+summoned to his assistance from the provinces near the Caspian Sea, went
+over, on their arrival, to the side of the insurgents and gained them a
+victory. Sardanapalus then shut himself up in Nineveh, and determined to
+defend himself to the last. The siege continued two years, for the walls
+of the city were too strong for the battering machines of the enemy,
+who were compelled to trust to reducing it by famine. Sardanapalus was
+under no apprehension, confiding in an oracle declaring that Nineveh
+should never be taken until the river became its enemy.
+
+But, in the third year, rain fell in such abundance that the waters of
+the Tigris inundated part of the city and overturned one of its walls
+for a distance of twenty _stades_. Then the King, convinced that the
+oracle was accomplished and despairing of any means of escape, to avoid
+falling alive into the enemy's hands constructed in his palace an
+immense funeral pyre, placed on it his gold and silver and his royal
+robes, and then, shutting himself up with his wives and eunuchs in a
+chamber formed in the midst of the pile, disappeared in the flames.
+
+Nineveh opened its gates to the besiegers, but this tardy submission did
+not save the proud city. It was pillaged and burned, and then razed to
+the ground so completely as to evidence the implacable hatred enkindled
+in the minds of subject nations by the fierce and cruel Assyrian
+government. The Medes and Babylonians did not leave one stone upon
+another in the ramparts, palaces, temples, or houses of the city that
+for two centuries had been dominant over all Western Asia.
+
+So complete was the destruction that the excavations of modern explorers
+on the site of Nineveh have not yet found one single wall slab earlier
+than the capture of the city by Arbaces and Balazu. All we possess of
+the first Nineveh is one broken statue. History has no other example of
+so complete a destruction.
+
+The Assyrian empire was, like the capital, overthrown, and the people
+who had taken part in the revolt formed independent states--the Medes
+under Arbaces, the Babylonians under Phul or Balazu, and the Susianians
+under Shutruk-Nakhunta. Assyria, reduced to the enslaved state in which
+she had so long held other countries, remained for some time a
+dependency of Babylon.
+
+This great event occurred in the year B.C. 789.
+
+[When the noble sculptures and vast palaces of Nimrud had been first
+uncovered, it was natural to suppose that they marked the real site of
+ancient Nineveh; a passage of Strabo, and another of Ptolemy, lent
+confirmation to this theory. Shortly afterward a rival claimant started
+up in the region farther to the north.
+
+"After a while an attempt was made to reconcile the rival claims by a
+theory the grandeur of which gained it acceptance, despite its
+improbability. It was suggested that the various ruins, which had
+hitherto disputed the name, were in fact all included within the circuit
+of the ancient Nineveh, which was described as a rectangle, or oblong
+square, eighteen miles long and twelve broad. The remains at Khorsabad,
+Koyunjik, Nimrud, and Keremles marked the four corners of this vast
+quadrangle, which contained an area of two hundred and sixteen square
+miles--about ten times that of London!
+
+"In confirmation of this view was urged, first, the description in
+Diodorus, derived probably from Ctesias, which corresponded (it was
+said) both with the proportions and with the actual distances; and,
+next, the statements contained in the Book of Jonah, which, it was
+argued, implied a city of some such dimensions. The parallel of Babylon,
+according to the description given by Herodotus, might fairly have been
+cited as a further argument; since it might have seemed reasonable to
+suppose that there was no great difference of size between the chief
+cities of the two kindred empires."--_Rawlinson_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATION OF ROME
+
+B.C. 753
+
+BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR
+
+
+     Rome occupies a unique position in the history of the world. The
+     whole Mediterranean basin was at one time merely a Roman lake, and
+     the adjacent countries were Roman in letters, law, religion and the
+     practice of war. Roman roads crossed the continents east and west
+     and penetrated to the depths of Asia and Africa. Roman garrisons
+     were stationed in every important city of the provinces, and when
+     the great city on the banks of the Tiber at last fell before
+     successive irruptions of northeasterly barbarians and Roman power
+     was at its extreme ebb, the spirit of Roman institutions still
+     survived in the civilization of Spain, France, Italy, Britain, even
+     in Greece and Asia. Roman law had become the code of the world.
+     Iberian, Gaul, and Italian had modified in varying degree their
+     native dialects in conformity with the more copious and logical
+     idiom of Latium.
+
+     A group of legends gathers round the birthplace of the Eternal
+     City. It is AEneas who escapes from Troy and brings into the land of
+     Italian Latinus his native gods. His son Ascanius conquers and
+     slays Mezentius in a battle between Latins and Etruscans, and
+     eleven kings of Alba, all surnamed Silvius, succeeded him on the
+     throne. The last king of Alba Longa is Procas, whose usurping son
+     Amulius drives his eldest brother Numitor from the throne.
+     Numitor's daughter, Silvia, becomes the mother of the immortal
+     twins Romulus and Remus, by Mamers, the god of war; the children
+     are exposed by cruel Amulius, suckled by a wolf, and become
+     founders of Rome.
+
+     Such is the outline of the poem, or rather tissue of poetry in
+     which the founding of Rome is embalmed.
+
+     The critical acumen of Niebuhr may have dispelled some of the
+     clouds and contradictions in which early historians and poets have
+     wrapped the record of this great event. But no critic can ever
+     destroy the beauty and charm of the old Latin chronicles or
+     diminish the glory of the day that saw the first walls rise about
+     the seven hills of the most important of ancient European cities.
+
+
+I believe that few persons, when Alba is mentioned, can get rid of the
+idea, to which I too adhered for a long time, that the history of Alba
+is lost to such an extent, that we can speak of it only in reference to
+the Trojan time and the preceding period, as if all the statements made
+concerning it by the Romans were based upon fancy and error; and that
+accordingly it must be effaced from the pages of history altogether. It
+is true that what we read concerning the foundation of Alba by Ascanius,
+and the wonderful signs accompanying it, as well as the whole series of
+the Alban kings, with the years of their reigns, the story of Numitor
+and Amulius and the story of the destruction of the city, do not belong
+to history; but the historical existence of Alba is not at all doubtful
+on that account, nor have the ancients ever doubted it. The _Sacra
+Albana_ and the _Albani tumuli atque luci_, which existed as late as the
+time of Cicero, are proofs of its early existence; ruins indeed no
+longer exist, but the situation of the city in the valley of Grotta
+Ferrata may still be recognized. Between the lake and the long chain of
+hills near the monastery of Palazzuolo one still sees the rock cut steep
+down toward the lake, evidently the work of man, which rendered it
+impossible to attack the city on that side; the summit on the other side
+formed the arx. That the Albans were in possession of the sovereignty of
+Latium is a tradition which we may believe to be founded on good
+authority, as it is traced to Cincius. Afterward the Latins became the
+masters of the district and temple of Jupiter. Further, the statement
+that Alba shared the flesh of the victim on the Alban mount with the
+thirty towns, and that after the fall of Alba the Latins chose their own
+magistrates, are glimpses of real history. The ancient tunnel made for
+discharging the water of the Alban Lake still exists, and through its
+vault a canal was made called _Fossa Cluilia_: this vault, which is
+still visible, is a work of earlier construction than any Roman one. But
+all that can be said of Alba and the Latins at that time is, that Alba
+was the capital, exercising the sovereignty over Latium; that its temple
+of Jupiter was the rallying point of the people who were governed by it;
+and that the gens Silvia was the ruling clan.
+
+It cannot be doubted that the number of Latin towns was actually thirty,
+just that of the Albensian demi; this number afterward occurs again in
+the later thirty Latin towns and in the thirty Roman tribes, and it is
+moreover indicated by the story of the foundation of Lavinium by thirty
+families, in which we may recognize the union of the two tribes. The
+statement that Lavinium was a Trojan colony and was afterward
+abandoned, but restored by Alba, and further that the sanctuary could
+not be transferred from it to Alba, is only an accommodation to the
+Trojan and native tradition, however much it may bear the appearance of
+antiquity. For Lavinium is nothing else than a general name for Latium,
+just as Panionium is for Ionia, _Latinus_, _Lavinus_, and _Lavicus_
+being one and the same name, as is recognized even by Servius. Lavinium
+was the central point of the Prisci Latini, and there is no doubt that
+in the early period before Alba ruled over Lavinium, worship was offered
+mutually at Alba and at Lavinium, as was afterward the case at Rome in
+the temple of Diana on the Aventine, and at the festivals of the Romans
+and Latins on the Alban mount.
+
+The personages of the Trojan legend therefore present themselves to us
+in the following light. Turnus is nothing else but Turinus, in Dionysius
+[Greek: Turrenos]; Lavinia, the fair maiden, is the name of the Latin
+people, which may perhaps be so distinguished that the inhabitants of
+the coast were called Tyrrhenians, and those further inland Latins.
+Since, after the battle of Lake Regillus, the Latins are mentioned in
+the treaty with Rome as forming thirty towns, there can be no doubt that
+the towns, over which Alba had the supremacy in the earliest times, were
+likewise thirty in number; but the confederacy did not at all times
+contain the same towns, as some may afterward have perished and others
+may have been added. In such political developments there is at work an
+instinctive tendency to fill up that which has become vacant; and this
+instinct acts as long as people proceed unconsciously according to the
+ancient forms and not in accordance with actual wants. Such also was the
+case in the twelve Achaean towns and in the seven Frisian maritime
+communities; for as soon as one disappeared, another, dividing itself
+into two, supplied its place. Wherever there is a fixed number, it is
+kept up, even when one part dies away, and it ever continues to be
+renewed. We may add that the state of the Latins lost in the West, but
+gained in the East. We must therefore, I repeat it, conceive on the one
+hand Alba with its thirty _demi_, and on the other the thirty Latin
+towns, the latter at first forming a state allied with Alba, and at a
+later time under its supremacy.
+
+According to an important statement of Cato preserved in Dionysius, the
+ancient towns of the Aborigines were small places scattered over the
+mountains. One town of this kind was situated on the Palatine hill, and
+bore the name of Roma, which is most certainly Greek. Not far from it
+there occur several other places with Greek names, such as Pyrgi and
+Alsium; for the people inhabiting those districts were closely akin to
+the Greeks; and it is by no means an erroneous conjecture, that
+Terracina was formerly called [Greek: Tracheine] or the "rough place on
+a rock"; Formiae must be connected with [Greek: hormos] "a roadstead" or
+"place for casting anchor." As certain as Pyrgi signifies "towers," so
+certainly does _Roma_ signify "strength," and I believe that those are
+quite right who consider that the name Roma in this sense is not
+accidental. This Roma is described as a Pelasgian place in which
+Evander, the introducer of scientific culture, resided. According to
+tradition, the first foundation of civilization was laid by Saturn, in
+the golden age of mankind. The tradition in Vergil, who was extremely
+learned in matters of antiquity, that the first men were created out of
+trees, must be taken quite literally; for as in Greece the [Greek:
+myrmeches] were metamorphosed into the Myrmidons, and the stones thrown
+by Deucalion and Pyrrha into men and women, so in Italy trees, by some
+divine power, were changed into human beings. These beings, at first
+only half human, gradually acquired a civilization which they owed to
+Saturn; but the real intellectual culture was traced to Evander, who
+must not be regarded as a person who had come from Arcadia, but as _the
+good man_, as the teacher of the alphabet and of mental culture, which
+man gradually works out for himself.
+
+The Romans clung to the conviction that Romulus, the founder of Rome,
+was the son of a virgin by a god, that his life was marvellously
+preserved, that he was saved from the floods of the river and was reared
+by a she-wolf. That this poetry is very ancient cannot be doubted; but
+did the legend at all times describe Romulus as the son of Rea Silvia or
+Ilia? Perizonius was the first who remarked against Ryccius that Rea
+Ilia never occurs together, and that Rea Silvia was a daughter of
+Numitor, while Ilia is called a daughter of AEneas. He is perfectly
+right: Naevius and Ennius called Romulus a son of Ilia, the daughter of
+AEneas, as is attested by Servius on Vergil and Porphyrio on Horace; but
+it cannot be hence inferred that this was the national opinion of the
+Romans themselves, for the poets who were familiar with the Greeks might
+accommodate their stories to Greek poems. The ancient Romans, on the
+other hand, could not possibly look upon the mother of the founder of
+their city as a daughter of AEneas, who was believed to have lived three
+hundred and thirty-three or three hundred and sixty years earlier.
+Dionysius says that his account, which is that of Fabius, occurred in
+the sacred songs, and it is in itself perfectly consistent. Fabius
+cannot have taken it, as Plutarch asserts, from Diocles, a miserable
+unknown Greek author; the statue of the she-wolf was erected in the year
+A.U. 457, long before Diocles wrote, and at least a hundred years before
+Fabius. This tradition therefore is certainly the more ancient Roman
+one; and it puts Rome in connection with Alba. A monument has lately
+been discovered at Bovillae: it is an altar which the _Gentiles Julii_
+erected _lege Albana_, and therefore expresses a religious relation of a
+Roman gens to Alba. The connection of the two towns continues down to
+the founder of Rome; and the well-known tradition, with its ancient
+poetical details, many of which Livy and Dionysius omitted from their
+histories lest they should seem to deal too much in the marvellous, runs
+as follows:
+
+Numitor and Amulius were contending for the throne of Alba. Amulius took
+possession of the throne, and made Rea Silvia, the daughter of Numitor,
+a vestal virgin, in order that the Silvian house might become extinct.
+This part of the story was composed without any insight into political
+laws, for a daughter could not have transmitted any gentilician rights.
+The name Rea Silvia is ancient, but Rea is only a surname: _rea femmina_
+often occurs in Boccaccio, and is used to this day in Tuscany to
+designate a woman whose reputation is blighted; a priestess Rea is
+described by Vergil as having been overpowered by Hercules. While Rea
+was fetching water in a grove for a sacrifice the sun became eclipsed,
+and she took refuge from a wolf in a cave, where she was overpowered by
+Mars. When she was delivered, the sun was again eclipsed and the statue
+of Vesta covered its eyes. Livy has here abandoned the marvellous. The
+tyrant threw Rea with her infants into the river Anio: she lost her life
+in the waves, but the god of the river took her soul and changed it into
+an immortal goddess, whom he married. This story has been softened down
+into the tale of her imprisonment, which is unpoetical enough to be a
+later invention. The river Anio carried the cradle, like a boat, into
+the Tiber, and the latter conveyed it to the foot of the Palatine, the
+water having overflowed the country, and the cradle was upset at the
+root of a fig-tree. A she-wolf carried the babies away and suckled them;
+Mars sent a woodpecker which provided the children with food, and the
+bird _parra_ which protected them from insects. These statements are
+gathered from various quarters; for the historians got rid of the
+marvellous as much as possible. Faustulus, the legend continues, found
+the boys feeding on the milk of the huge wild beast; he brought them up
+with his twelve sons, and they became the staunchest of all. Being at
+the head of the shepherds on Mount Palatine, they became involved in a
+quarrel with the shepherds of Numitor on the Aventine--the Palatine and
+the Aventine are always hostile to each other. Remus being taken
+prisoner was led to Alba, but Romulus rescued him, and their descent
+from Numitor being discovered, the latter was restored to the throne,
+and the two young men obtained permission to form a settlement at the
+foot of Mount Palatine where they had been saved.
+
+Out of this beautiful poem the falsifiers endeavored to make some
+credible story: even the unprejudiced and poetical Livy tried to avoid
+the most marvellous points as much as he could, but the falsifiers went
+a step farther. In the days when men had altogether ceased to believe in
+the ancient gods, attempts were made to find something intelligible in
+the old legends, and thus a history was made up, which Plutarch fondly
+embraced and Dionysius did not reject, though he also relates the
+ancient tradition in a mutilated form. He says that many people believe
+in demons, and that such a demon might have been the father of Romulus;
+but he himself is very far from believing it, and rather thinks that
+Amulius himself, in disguise, violated Rea Silvia amid thunder and
+lightning produced by artifice. This he is said to have done in order to
+have a pretext for getting rid of her, but being entreated by his
+daughter not to drown her, he imprisoned her for life. The children were
+saved by the shepherd who was commissioned to expose them, at the
+request of Numitor, and two other boys were put in their place.
+Numitor's grandsons were taken to a friend at Gabii, who caused them to
+be educated according to their rank, and to be instructed in Greek
+literature. Attempts have actually been made to introduce this stupid
+forgery into history, and some portions of it have been adopted in the
+narrative of our historians; for example, that the ancient Alban
+nobility migrated with the two brothers to Rome; but if this had been
+the case there would have been no need of opening an asylum, nor would
+it have been necessary to obtain by force the _connubium_ with other
+nations.
+
+But of more historical importance is the difference of opinion between
+the two brothers respecting the building of the city and its site.
+According to the ancient tradition, both were kings and the equal heads
+of the colony; Romulus is universally said to have wished to build on
+the Palatine, while Remus, according to some, preferred the Aventine;
+according to others, the hill Remuria. Plutarch states that the latter
+is a hill three miles south of Rome, and cannot have been any other than
+the hill nearly opposite St. Paul, which is the more credible, since
+this hill, though situated in an otherwise unhealthy district, has an
+extremely fine air: a very important point in investigations respecting
+the ancient Latin towns, for it may be taken for certain that where the
+air is now healthy it was so in those times also, and that where it is
+now decidedly unhealthy, it was anciently no better. The legend now goes
+on to say that a dispute arose between Romulus and Remus as to which of
+them should give the name to the town, and also as to where it was to be
+built. A town Remuria therefore undoubtedly existed on that hill, though
+subsequently we find the name transferred to the Aventine, as is the
+case so frequently. According to the common tradition, the auguries were
+to decide between the brothers: Romulus took his stand on the Palatine,
+Remus on the Aventine. The latter observed the whole night, but saw
+nothing until about sunrise, when he saw six vultures flying from north
+to south, and sent word of it to Romulus; but at that very time the
+latter, annoyed at not having seen any sign, fraudulently sent a
+messenger to say that he had seen twelve vultures, and at the very
+moment the messenger arrived there did appear twelve vultures, to which
+Romulus appealed. This account is impossible; for the Palatine and
+Aventine are so near each other that, as every Roman well knew, whatever
+a person on one of the two hills saw high in the air, could not escape
+the observation of any one who was watching on the other. This part of
+the story therefore cannot be ancient, and can be saved only by
+substituting the Remuria for the Aventine. As the Palatine was the seat
+of the noblest patrician tribe, and the Aventine the special town of the
+plebeians, there existed between the two a perpetual feud, and thus it
+came to pass that in after times the story relating to the Remuria,
+which was far away from the city, was transferred to the Aventine.
+According to Ennius, Romulus made his observations on the Aventine; in
+this case Remus must certainly have been on the Remuria, and it is said
+that when Romulus obtained the augury he threw his spear toward the
+Palatine. This is the ancient legend which was neglected by the later
+writers. Romulus took possession of the Palatine. The spear taking root
+and becoming a tree, which existed down to the time of Nero, is a symbol
+of the eternity of the new city, and of the protection of the gods. The
+statement that Romulus tried to deceive his brother is a later addition;
+and the beautiful poem of Ennius, quoted by Cicero, knows nothing of
+this circumstance. The conclusion which must be drawn from all this is,
+that in the earliest times there were two towns, Roma and Remuria, the
+latter being far distant from the city and from the Palatine.
+
+Romulus now fixed the boundary of his town, but Remus scornfully leaped
+across the ditch, for which he was slain by Celer, a hint that no one
+should cross the fortifications of Rome with impunity. But Romulus fell
+into a state of melancholy occasioned by the death of Remus; he
+instituted festivals to honor him, and ordered an empty throne to be put
+up by the side of his own. Thus we have a double kingdom, which ends
+with the defeat of Remuria.
+
+The question now is, What were these two towns of Roma and Remuria? They
+were evidently Pelasgian places: the ancient tradition states that
+Sicelus migrated from Rome southward to the Pelasgians, that is, the
+Tyrrhenian Pelasgians were pushed forward to the Morgetes, a kindred
+nation in Lucania and in Sicily. Among the Greeks it was, as Dionysius
+states, a general opinion that Rome was a Pelasgian, that is, a
+Tyrrhenian city, but the authorities from whom he learned this are no
+longer extant. There is, however, a fragment in which it is stated that
+Rome was a sister city of Antium and Ardea; here too we must apply the
+statement from the chronicle of Cumae, that Evander, who, as an Arcadian,
+was likewise a Pelasgian, had his _palatium_ on the Palatine. To us he
+appears of less importance than in the legend, for in the latter he is
+one of the benefactors of nations, and introduced among the Pelasgians
+in Italy the use of the alphabet and other arts, just as Damaratus did
+among the Tyrrhenians in Etruria. In this sense, therefore, Rome was
+certainly a Latin town, and had not a mixed but a purely
+Tyrrheno-Pelasgian population. The subsequent vicissitudes of this
+settlement may be gathered from the allegories.
+
+Romulus now found the number of his fellow-settlers too small; the
+number of three thousand foot and three hundred horse, which Livy gives
+from the commentaries of the pontiffs, is worth nothing; for it is only
+an outline of the later military arrangement transferred to the earliest
+times. According to the ancient tradition, Romulus's band was too small,
+and he opened an asylum on the Capitoline hill. This asylum, the old
+description states, contained only a very small space, a proof how
+little these things were understood historically. All manner of people,
+thieves, murderers, and vagabonds of every kind, flocked thither. This
+is the simple view taken of the origin of the clients. In the bitterness
+with which the estates subsequently looked upon one another, it was made
+a matter of reproach to the Patricians that their earliest ancestors had
+been vagabonds; though it was a common opinion that the Patricians were
+descended from the free companions of Romulus, and that those who took
+refuge in the asylum placed themselves as clients under the protection
+of the real free citizens. But now they wanted women, and attempts were
+made to obtain the _connubium_ with neighboring towns, especially
+perhaps with Antemnae, which was only four miles distant from Rome, with
+the Sabines and others. This being refused Romulus had recourse to a
+stratagem, proclaiming that he had discovered the altar of Consus, the
+god of counsels, an allegory of his cunning in general. In the midst of
+the solemnities, the Sabine maidens, thirty in number, were carried off,
+from whom the _curiae_ received their names: this is the genuine ancient
+legend, and it proves how small ancient Rome was conceived to have been.
+In later times the number was thought too small; it was supposed that
+these thirty had been chosen by lot for the purpose of naming the
+_curiae_ after them; and Valerius Antias fixed the number of the women
+who had been carried off at five hundred and twenty-seven. The rape is
+placed in the fourth month of the city, because the _consualia_ fall in
+August, and the festival commemorating the foundation of the city in
+April; later writers, as Cn. Gellius, extended this period to four
+years, and Dionysius found this of course far more credible. From this
+rape there arose wars, first with the neighboring towns, which were
+defeated one after another, and at last with the Sabines. The ancient
+legend contains not a trace of this war having been of long continuance;
+but in later times it was necessarily supposed to have lasted for a
+considerable time, since matters were then measured by a different
+standard. Lucumo and Caelius came to the assistance of Romulus, an
+allusion to the expedition of Caeles Vibenna, which however belongs to a
+much later period. The Sabine king, Tatius, was induced by treachery to
+settle on the hill which is called the Tarpeian _arx_. Between the
+Palatine and the Tarpeian rock a battle was fought, in which neither
+party gained a decisive victory, until the Sabine women threw themselves
+between the combatants, who agreed that henceforth the sovereignty
+should be divided between the Romans and the Sabines. According to the
+annals, this happened in the fourth year of Rome.
+
+But this arrangement lasted only a short time; Tatius was slain during a
+sacrifice at Lavinium, and his vacant throne was not filled up. During
+their common reign, each king had a senate of one hundred members, and
+the two senates, after consulting separately, used to meet, and this was
+called _comitium_. Romulus during the remainder of his life ruled alone;
+the ancient legend knows nothing of his having been a tyrant: according
+to Ennius he continued, on the contrary, to be a mild and benevolent
+king, while Tatius was a tyrant. The ancient tradition contained nothing
+beyond the beginning and the end of the reign of Romulus; all that lies
+between these points, the war with the Veientines, Fidenates, and so on,
+is a foolish invention of later annalists. The poem itself is beautiful,
+but this inserted narrative is highly absurd, as for example the
+statement that Romulus slew ten thousand Veientines with his own hand.
+The ancient poem passed on at once to the time when Romulus had
+completed his earthly career, and Jupiter fulfilled his promise to Mars,
+that Romulus was the only man whom he would introduce among the gods.
+According to this ancient legend, the king was reviewing his army near
+the marsh of Caprae, when, as at the moment of his conception, there
+occurred an eclipse of the sun and at the same time a hurricane, during
+which Mars descended in a fiery chariot and took his son up to heaven.
+Out of this beautiful poem the most wretched stories have been
+manufactured: Romulus, it is said, while in the midst of his senators
+was knocked down, cut into pieces, and thus carried away by them under
+their togas. This stupid story was generally adopted, and that a cause
+for so horrible a deed might not be wanting, it was related that in his
+latter years Romulus had become a tyrant, and that the senators took
+revenge by murdering him.
+
+After the death of Romulus, the Romans and the people of Tatius
+quarrelled for a long time with each other, the Sabines wishing that one
+of their nation should be raised to the throne, while the Romans claimed
+that the new king should be chosen from among them. At length they
+agreed, it is said, that the one nation should choose a king from the
+other.
+
+We have now reached the point at which it is necessary to speak of the
+relation between the two nations, such as it actually existed.
+
+All the nations of antiquity lived in fixed forms, and their civil
+relations were always marked by various divisions and subdivisions. When
+cities raise themselves to the rank of nations, we always find a
+division at first into tribes; Herodotus mentions such tribes in the
+colonization of Cyrene, and the same was afterward the case at the
+foundation of Thurii; but when a place existed anywhere as a distinct
+township, its nature was characterized by the fact of its citizens being
+at a certain time divided into _gentes_ [Greek: gene], each of which had
+a common chapel and a common hero. These _gentes_ were united in
+definite numerical proportions into _curiae_ [Greek: phratrai]. The
+_gentes_ are not families, but free corporations, sometimes close and
+sometimes open; in certain cases the whole body of the state might
+assign to them new associates; the great council at Venice was a close
+body, and no one could be admitted whose ancestors had not been in it,
+and such also was the case in many oligarchical states of antiquity.
+
+All civil communities had a council and an assembly of burghers, that
+is, a small and a great council; the burghers consisted of the guilds or
+_gentes_, and these again were united, as it were, in parishes; all the
+Latin towns had a council of one hundred members, who were divided into
+ten _curiae_; this division gave rise to the name of _decuriones_, which
+remained in use as a title of civic magistrates down to the latest
+times, and through the _lex Julia_ was transferred to the constitution
+of the Italian _municipia_. That this council consisted of one hundred
+persons has been proved by Savigny, in the first volume of his history
+of the Roman law. This constitution continued to exist till a late
+period of the middle ages, but perished when the institution of guilds
+took the place of municipal constitutions. Giovanni Villani says, that
+previously to the revolution in the twelfth century there were at
+Florence one hundred _buoni nomini_, who had the administration of the
+city. There is nothing in the German cities which answers to this
+constitution. We must not conceive those hundred to have been nobles;
+they were an assembly of burghers and country people, as was the case in
+our small imperial cities, or as in the small cantons of Switzerland.
+Each of them represented a _gens_; and they are those whom Propertius
+calls _patres pelliti_. The _curia_ of Rome, a cottage covered with
+straw, was a faithful memorial of the times when Rome stood buried in
+the night of history, as a small country town surrounded by its little
+domain.
+
+The most ancient occurrence which we can discover from the form of the
+allegory, by a comparison of what happened in other parts of Italy, is
+a result of the great and continued commotion among the nations of
+Italy. It did not terminate when the Oscans had been pressed forward
+from Lake Fucinus to the lake of Alba, but continued much longer. The
+Sabines may have rested for a time, but they advanced far beyond the
+districts about which we have any traditions. These Sabines began as a
+very small tribe, but afterward became one of the greatest nations of
+Italy, for the Marrucinians, Caudines, Vestinians, Marsians, Pelignians,
+and in short all the Samnite tribes, the Lucanians, the Oscan part of
+the Bruttians, the Picentians, and several others were all descended
+from the Sabine stock, and yet there are no traditions about their
+settlements except in a few cases. At the time to which we must refer
+the foundation of Rome, the Sabines were widely diffused. It is said
+that, guided by a bull, they penetrated into Opica, and thus occupied
+the country of the Samnites. It was perhaps at an earlier time that they
+migrated down the Tiber, whence we there find Sabine towns mixed with
+Latin ones; some of their places also existed on the Anio. The country
+afterward inhabited by the Sabines was probably not occupied by them
+till a later period, for Falerii is a Tuscan town, and its population
+was certainly at one time thoroughly Tyrrhenian.
+
+As the Sabines advanced, some Latin towns maintained their independence,
+others were subdued; Fidenae belonged to the former, but north of it all
+the country was Sabine. Now by the side of the ancient Roma we find a
+Sabine town on the Quirinal and Capitoline close to the Latin town; but
+its existence is all that we know about it. A tradition states that
+there previously existed on the Capitoline a Siculian town of the name
+of Saturnia, which, in this case, must have been conquered by the
+Sabines. But whatever we may think of this, as well as of the existence
+of another ancient town on the Janiculum, it is certain that there were
+a number of small towns in that district. The two towns could exist
+perfectly well side by side, as there was a deep marsh between them.
+
+The town on the Palatine may for a long time have been in a state of
+dependence on the Sabine conqueror whom tradition calls Titus Tatius;
+hence he was slain during the Laurentine sacrifice, and hence also his
+memory was hateful. The existence of a Sabine town on the Quirinal is
+attested by the undoubted occurrence there of a number of Sabine
+chapels, which were known as late as the time of Varro, and from which
+he proved that the Sabine ritual was adopted by the Romans. This Sabine
+element in the worship of the Romans has almost always been overlooked,
+in consequence of the prevailing desire to look upon everything as
+Etruscan; but, I repeat, there is no doubt of the Sabine settlement, and
+that it was the result of a great commotion among the tribes of middle
+Italy.
+
+The tradition that the Sabine women were carried off because there
+existed no _connubium_, and that the rape was followed by a war, is
+undoubtedly a symbolical representation of the relation between the two
+towns, previous to the establishment of the right of intermarriage; the
+Sabines had the ascendancy and refused that right, but the Romans gained
+it by force of arms. There can be no doubt that the Sabines were
+originally the ruling people, but that in some insurrection of the
+Romans various Sabine places, such as Antemnae, Fidenae, and others, were
+subdued, and thus these Sabines were separated from their kinsmen. The
+Romans, therefore, reestablished their independence by a war, the result
+of which may have been such as we read it in the tradition--Romulus
+being, of course, set aside--namely, that both places as two closely
+united towns formed a kind of confederacy, each with a senate of one
+hundred members, a king, an offensive and defensive alliance, and on the
+understanding that in common deliberations the burghers of each should
+meet together in the space between the two towns which was afterward
+called the _comitium_. In this manner they formed a united state in
+regard to foreign nations.
+
+The idea of a double state was not unknown to the ancient writers
+themselves, although the indications of it are preserved only in
+scattered passages, especially in the scholiasts. The head of Janus,
+which in the earliest times was represented on the Roman _as_, is the
+symbol of it, as has been correctly observed by writers on Roman
+antiquities. The vacant throne by the side of the _curule_ chair of
+Romulus points to the time when there was only one king, and represents
+the equal but quiescent right of the other people.
+
+That concord was not of long duration is an historical fact likewise;
+nor can it be doubted that the Roman king assumed the supremacy over the
+Sabines, and that in consequence the two councils were united so as to
+form one senate under one king, it being agreed that the king should be
+alternately a Roman and a Sabine, and that each time he should be chosen
+by the other people: the king, however, if displeasing to the
+non-electing people, was not to be forced upon them, but was to be
+invested with the _imperium_ only on condition of the auguries being
+favorable to him, and of his being sanctioned by the whole nation. The
+non-electing tribe accordingly had the right of either sanctioning or
+rejecting his election. In the case of Numa this is related as a fact,
+but it is only a disguisement of the right derived from the ritual
+books. In this manner the strange double election, which is otherwise so
+mysterious and was formerly completely misunderstood, becomes quite
+intelligible. One portion of the nation elected and the other
+sanctioned; it being intended that, for example, the Romans should not
+elect from among the Sabines a king devoted exclusively to their own
+interests, but one who was at the same time acceptable to the Sabines.
+
+When, perhaps after several generations of a separate existence, the two
+states became united, the towns ceased to be towns, and the collective
+body of the burghers of each became tribes, so that the nation consisted
+of two tribes. The form of addressing the Roman people was from the
+earliest times _Populus Romanus Quirites_, which, when its origin was
+forgotten, was changed into _Populus Romanus Quiritium_, just as _lis
+vindiciae_ was afterward changed into _lis vindiciaruum_. This change is
+more ancient than Livy; the correct expression still continued to be
+used, but was to a great extent supplanted by the false one. The ancient
+tradition relates that after the union of the two tribes the name
+_Quirites_ was adopted as the common designation for the whole people;
+but this is erroneous, for the name was not used in this sense till a
+very late period. This designation remained in use and was transferred
+to the plebeians at a time when the distinction between Romans and
+Sabines, between these two and the Luceres, nay, when even that between
+patricians and plebeians had almost ceased to be noticed. Thus the two
+towns stood side by side as tribes forming one state, and it is merely a
+recognition of the ancient tradition when we call the Latins _Ramnes_,
+and the Sabines _Tities_; that the derivation of these appellations from
+Romulus and T. Tatius is incorrect is no argument against the view here
+taken.
+
+Dionysius, who had good materials and made use of a great many, must, as
+far as the consular period is concerned, have had more than he gives;
+there is in particular one important change in the constitution,
+concerning which he has only a few words, either because he did not see
+clearly or because he was careless. But as regards the kingly period, he
+was well acquainted with his subject; he says that there was a dispute
+between the two tribes respecting the senates, and that Numa settled it
+by not depriving the Ramnes, as the first tribe, of anything, and by
+conferring honors on the Tities. This is perfectly clear. The senate,
+which had at first consisted of one hundred and now two hundred members,
+was divided into ten _decuries_, each being headed by one, who was its
+leader; these are the _decem primi_, and they were taken from the
+Ramnes. They formed the college, which, when there was no king,
+undertook the government, one after another, each for five days, but in
+such a manner that they always succeeded one another in the same order,
+as we must believe with Livy, for Dionysius here introduces his Greek
+notions of the Attic _prytanes_, and Plutarch misunderstands the matter
+altogether.
+
+After the example of the senate the number of the augurs and pontiffs
+also was doubled, so that each college consisted of four members, two
+being taken from the Ramnes and two from the Tities. Although it is not
+possible to fix these changes chronologically, as Dionysius and Cicero
+do, yet they are as historically certain as if we actually knew the
+kings who introduced them.
+
+Such was Rome in the second stage of its development. This period of
+equalization is one of peace, and is described as the reign of Numa,
+about whom the traditions are simple and brief. It is the picture of a
+peaceful condition with a holy man at the head of affairs, like Nicolas
+von der Flue in Switzerland. Numa was supposed to have been inspired by
+the goddess.
+
+Egeria, to whom he was married in the grove of the Camenae, and who
+introduced him into the choir of her sisters; she melted away in tears
+at his death, and thus gave her name to the spring which arose out of
+her tears. Such a peace of forty years, during which no nation rose
+against Rome, because Numa's piety was communicated to the surrounding
+nations, is a beautiful idea, but historically impossible in those
+times, and manifestly a poetical fiction.
+
+The death of Numa forms the conclusion of the first _saeculum_, and an
+entirely new period follows, just as in the Theogony of Hesiod the age
+of heroes is followed by the iron age; there is evidently a change, and
+an entirely new order of things is conceived to have arisen. Up to this
+point we have had nothing except poetry, but with Tullus Hostilius a
+kind of history begins, that is, events are related which must be taken
+in general as historical, though in the light in which they are
+presented to us they are not historical. Thus, for example, the
+destruction of Alba is historical, and so in all probability is the
+reception of the Albans at Rome. The conquests of Ancus Martius are
+quite credible; and they appear like an oasis of real history in the
+midst of fables. A similar case occurs once in the chronicle of Cologne.
+In the Abyssinian annals, we find in the thirteenth century a very
+minute account of one particular event, in which we recognize a piece of
+contemporaneous history, though we meet with nothing historical either
+before or after.
+
+The history which then follows is like a picture viewed from the wrong
+side, like phantasmata; the names of the kings are perfectly fictitious;
+no man can tell how long the Roman kings reigned, as we do not know how
+many there were, since it is only for the sake of the number that seven
+were supposed to have ruled, seven being a number which appears in many
+relations, especially in important astronomical ones. Hence the
+chronological statements are utterly worthless. We must conceive as a
+succession of centuries the period from the origin of Rome down to the
+times wherein were constructed the enormous works, such as the great
+drains, the wall of Servius, and others, which were actually executed
+under the kings and rival the great architectural works of the
+Egyptians. Romulus and Numa must be entirely set aside; but a long
+period follows, in which the nations gradually unite and develop
+themselves until the kingly government disappears and makes way for
+republican institutions.
+
+But it is nevertheless necessary to relate the history, such as it has
+been handed down, because much depends upon it. There was not the
+slightest connection between Rome and Alba, nor is it even mentioned by
+the historians, though they suppose that Rome received its first
+inhabitants from Alba; but in the reign of Tullus Hostilius the two
+cities on a sudden appear as enemies: each of the two nations seeks war,
+and tries to allure fortune by representing itself as the injured party,
+each wishing to declare war. Both sent ambassadors to demand reparation
+for robberies which had been committed. The form of procedure was this:
+the ambassadors, that is the Fetiales, related the grievances of their
+city to every person they met, they then proclaimed them in the
+market-place of the other city, and if, after the expiration of thrice
+ten days no reparation was made, they said, "We have done enough and now
+return," whereupon the elders at home held counsel as to how they should
+obtain redress. In this formula accordingly the _res_, that is, the
+surrender of the guilty and the restoration of the stolen property, must
+have been demanded. Now it is related that the two nations sent such
+ambassadors quite simultaneously, but that Tullus Hostilius retained the
+Alban ambassadors, until he was certain that the Romans at Alba had not
+obtained the justice due to them, and had therefore declared war. After
+this he admitted the ambassadors into the senate, and the reply made to
+their complaint was, that they themselves had not satisfied the demands
+of the Romans. Livy then continues: _bellum in trigesimum diem
+dixerant_. But the real formula is, _post trigesimum diem_, and we may
+ask, Why did Livy or the annalist whom he followed make this alteration?
+For an obvious reason: a person may ride from Rome to Alba in a couple
+of hours, so that the detention of the Alban ambassadors at Rome for
+thirty days, without their hearing what was going on in the mean time at
+Alba, was a matter of impossibility. Livy saw this, and therefore
+altered the formula. But the ancient poet was not concerned about such
+things, and without hesitation increased the distance in his
+imagination, and represented Rome and Alba as great states.
+
+The whole description of the circumstances under which the fate of Alba
+was decided is just as manifestly poetical, but we shall dwell upon it
+for a while in order to show how a semblance of history may arise.
+Between Rome and Alba there was a ditch, _Fossa Cluilia_ or _Cloelia_,
+and there must have been a tradition that the Albans had been encamped
+there; Livy and Dionysius mention that Cluilius, a general of the
+Albans, had given the ditch its name, having perished there. It was
+necessary to mention the latter circumstance, in order to explain the
+fact that afterward their general was a different person, Mettius
+Fuffetius, and yet to be able to connect the name of that ditch with the
+Albans. The two states committed the decision of their dispute to
+champions, and Dionysius says that tradition did not agree as to whether
+the name of the Roman champions was Horatii or Curiatii, although he
+himself, as well as Livy, assumes that it was Horatii, probably because
+it was thus stated by the majority of the annalists. Who would suspect
+any uncertainty here if it were not for this passage of Dionysius? The
+contest of the three brothers on each side is a symbolical indication
+that each of the two states was then divided into three tribes. Attempts
+have indeed been made to deny that the three men were brothers of the
+same birth, and thus to remove the improbability; but the legend went
+even further, representing the three brothers on each side as the sons
+of two sisters, and as born on the same day. This contains the
+suggestion of a perfect equality between Rome and Alba. The contest
+ended in the complete submission of Alba; it did not remain faithful,
+however, and in the ensuing struggle with the Etruscans, Mettius
+Fuffetius acted the part of a traitor toward Rome, but not being able to
+carry his design into effect, he afterward fell upon the fugitive
+Etruscans. Tullus ordered him to be torn to pieces and Alba to be razed
+to the ground, the noblest Alban families being transplanted to Rome.
+The death of Tullus is no less poetical. Like Numa he undertook to call
+down lightning from heaven, but he thereby destroyed himself and his
+house.
+
+If we endeavor to discover the historical substance of these legends,
+we at once find ourselves in a period when Rome no longer stood alone,
+but had colonies with Roman settlers, possessing a third of the
+territory and exercising sovereign power over the original inhabitants.
+This was the case in a small number of towns, for the most part of
+ancient Siculian origin. It is an undoubted fact that Alba was
+destroyed, and that after this event the towns of the _Prisci Latini_
+formed an independent and compact confederacy; but whether Alba fell in
+the manner described, whether it was ever compelled to recognize the
+supremacy of Rome, and whether it was destroyed by the Romans and Latins
+conjointly, or by the Romans or Latins alone, are questions which no
+human ingenuity can solve. It is, however, most probable that the
+destruction of Alba was the work of the Latins, who rose against her
+supremacy; whether in this case the Romans received the Albans among
+themselves, and thus became their benefactors instead of destroyers,
+must ever remain a matter of uncertainty. That Alban families were
+transplanted to Rome cannot be doubted, any more than that the _Prisci
+Latini_ from that time constituted a compact state; if we consider that
+Alba was situated in the midst of the Latin districts, that the Alban
+mount was their common sanctuary, and that the grove of Ferentina was
+the place of assembly for all the Latins, it must appear more probable
+that Rome did not destroy Alba, but that it perished in an insurrection
+of the Latin towns, and that the Romans strengthened themselves by
+receiving the Albans into their city.
+
+Whether the Albans were the first that settled on the Caelian hill, or
+whether it was previously occupied, cannot be decided. The account which
+places the foundation of the town on the Caelius in the reign of Romulus
+suggests that a town existed there before the reception of the Albans;
+but what is the authenticity of this account? A third tradition
+represents it as an Etruscan settlement of Caeles Vibenna. This much is
+certain, that the destruction of Alba greatly contributed to increase
+the power of Rome. There can be no doubt that a third town, which seems
+to have been very populous, now existed on the Caelius and on a portion
+of the Esquiliae: such a settlement close to other towns was made for the
+sake of mutual protection. Between the two more ancient towns there
+continued to be a marsh or swamp, and Rome was protected on the south
+by stagnant water; but between Rome and the third town there was a dry
+plain. Rome also had a considerable suburb toward the Aventine,
+protected by a wall and a ditch, as is implied in the story of Remus. He
+is a personification of the _plebs_, leaping across the ditch from the
+side of the Aventine, though we ought to be very cautious in regard to
+allegory.
+
+The most ancient town on the Palatine was Rome; the Sabine town also
+must have had a name, and I have no doubt that, according to common
+analogy, it was Quirium, the name of its citizens being Quirites. This I
+look upon as certain. I have almost as little doubt that the town on the
+Caelian was called Lucerum, because when it was united with Rome, its
+citizens were called, _Lucertes_ (_Luceres_). The ancients derive this
+name from Lucumo, king of the Tuscans, or from Lucerus, king of Ardea;
+the latter derivation probably meaning that the race was Tyrrheno-Latin,
+because Ardea was the capital of that race. Rome was thus enlarged by a
+third element, which, however, did not stand on a footing of equality
+with the two others, but was in a state of dependence similar to that of
+Ireland relatively to Great Britain down to the year 1782. But although
+the Luceres were obliged to recognize the supremacy of the two older
+tribes, they were considered as an integral part of the whole state,
+that is, as a third tribe with an administration of its own, but
+inferior rights. What throws light upon our way here is a passage of
+Festus, who is a great authority on matters of Roman antiquity, because
+he made his excerpts from Verrius Flaccus; it is only in a few points
+that, in my opinion, either of them was mistaken; all the rest of the
+mistakes in Festus may be accounted for by the imperfection of the
+abridgment, Festus not always understanding Verrius Flaccus. The
+statement of Festus to which I here allude is that Tarquinius Superbus
+increased the number of the Vestals in order that each tribe might have
+two. With this we must connect a passage from the tenth book of Livy,
+where he says that the augurs were to represent the three tribes. The
+numbers in the Roman colleges of priests were always multiples either of
+two or of three; the latter was the case with the Vestal Virgins and the
+great Flamines, and the former with the Augurs, Pontiffs, and Fetiales,
+who represented only the first two tribes. Previously to the passing of
+the Ogulnian law the number of augurs was four, and when subsequently
+five plebeians were added, the basis of this increase was different, it
+is true, but the ancient rule of the number being a multiple of three
+was preserved. The number of pontiffs, which was then four, was
+increased only by four: this might seem to contradict what has just been
+stated, but it has been overlooked that Cicero speaks of _five_ new ones
+having been added, for he included the Pontifex Maximus, which Livy does
+not. In like manner there were twenty Fetiales, ten for each tribe. To
+the Salii on the Palatine Numa added another brotherhood on the
+Quirinal; thus we everywhere see a manifest distinction between the
+first two tribes and the third, the latter being treated as inferior.
+
+The third tribe, then, consisted of free citizens, but they had not the
+same rights as the members of the first two; yet its members considered
+themselves superior to all other people; and their relation to the other
+two tribes was the same as that existing between the Venetian citizens
+of the mainland and the _nobili_. A Venetian nobleman treated those
+citizens with far more condescension than he displayed toward others,
+provided they did not presume to exercise any authority in political
+matters. Whoever belonged to the Luceres called himself a Roman, and if
+the very dictator of Tusculum had come to Rome, a man of the third tribe
+there would have looked upon him as an inferior person, though he
+himself had no influence whatever.
+
+Tullus was succeeded by Ancus. Tullus appears as one of the Ramnes, and
+as descended from Hostus Hostilius, one of the companions of Romulus;
+but Ancus was a Sabine, a grandson of Numa. The accounts about him are
+to some extent historical, and there is no trace of poetry in them. In
+his reign, the development of the state again made a step in advance.
+According to the ancient tradition, Rome was at war with the Latin
+towns, and carried it on successfully. How many of the particular events
+which are recorded may be historical I am unable to say; but that there
+was a war is credible enough. Ancus, it is said, carried away after this
+war many thousands of Latins, and gave them settlements on the Aventine.
+The ancients express various opinions about him; sometimes he is
+described as a _captator aurae popularis_; sometimes he is called _bonus
+Ancus_. Like the first three kings, he is said to have been a
+legislator, a fact which is not mentioned in reference to the later
+kings. He is moreover stated to have established the colony of Ostia,
+and thus his kingdom must have extended as far as the mouth of the
+Tiber.
+
+Ancus and Tullus seem to me to be historical personages; but we can
+scarcely suppose that the latter was succeeded by the former, and that
+the events assigned to their reigns actually occurred in them. These
+events must be conceived in the following manner: Toward the end of the
+fourth reign, when, after a feud which lasted many years, the Romans
+came to an understanding with the Latins about the renewal of the
+long-neglected alliance, Rome gave up its claims to the supremacy which
+it could not maintain, and indemnified itself by extending its dominion
+in another and safer direction. The eastern colonies joined the Latin
+towns which still existed: this is evident, though it is nowhere
+expressly mentioned; and a portion of the Latin country was ceded to
+Rome, with which the rest of the Latins formed a connection of
+friendship, perhaps of isopolity. Rome here acted as wisely as England
+did when she recognized the independence of North America.
+
+In this manner Rome obtained a territory. The many thousand settlers
+whom Ancus is said to have led to the Aventine were the population of
+the Latin towns which became subject to Rome, and they were far more
+numerous than the two ancient tribes, even after the latter had been
+increased by their union with the third tribe. In these country
+districts lay the power of Rome, and from them she raised the armies
+with which she carried on her wars. It would have been natural to admit
+this population as a fourth tribe, but such a measure was not agreeable
+to the Romans: the constitution of the state was completed and was
+looked upon as a sacred trust in which no change ought to be introduced.
+It was with the Greeks and Romans as it was with our own ancestors,
+whose separate tribes clung to their hereditary laws, and differed from
+one another in this respect as much as they did from the Gauls in the
+color of their eyes and hair. They knew well enough that it was in their
+power to alter the laws, but they considered them as something which
+ought not to be altered. Thus when the emperor Otho was doubtful on a
+point of the law of inheritance, he caused the case to be decided by an
+ordeal or judgment of God. In Sicily, one city had Chalcidian, another
+Doric laws, although their populations, as well as their dialects, were
+greatly mixed; but the leaders of those colonies had been Chalcidians in
+the one case and Dorians in the others. The Chalcidians, moreover, were
+divided into four, the Dorians into three tribes, and their differences
+in these respects were manifested even in their weights and measures.
+The division into three tribes was a genuine Latin institution; and
+there are reasons which render it probable that the Sabines had a
+division of their states into four tribes. The transportation of the
+Latins to Rome must be regarded as the origin of the _plebs_.
+
+
+
+
+
+PRINCE JIMMU FOUNDS JAPAN'S CAPITAL
+
+B.C. 660
+
+SIR EDWARD REED THE "NEHONGI"
+
+
+     Prince Jimmu is the founder of the Empire of Japan, according to
+     Japanese tradition. The whole of his history is overlaid with myth
+     and legend. But it points to the immigration of western Asiatics by
+     way of Corea into the Japanese islands of Izumo and Kyushu.
+
+     The historical records of the Japanese relate that Jimmu,
+     accompanied by an elder brother, Prince Itsuse, started from their
+     grandfather's palace on Mount Takaclicho. They marched with a large
+     number of followers, a horde of men, women, and children, as well
+     as a band of armed men. On landing in Japan, after many years
+     wandering by sea and land, they had serious conflicts with the
+     native tribes. They eventually succeeded in overcoming all
+     opposition and in conquering the country, so that Prince Jimmu was
+     enabled to build a palace and set up a capital, Kashiha-bara, in
+     Yamato. This prince is regarded by Japanese historians as the
+     founder of the Japanese Empire. He is said to have reigned
+     seventy-five years after his accession, and to have died at the age
+     of one hundred and twenty-seven years, and his burial place is
+     pointed out on the northern side of Mount Unebi, in the province of
+     Yamato.
+
+     Prince Jimmu, or whoever was the foreign ruler who conquered and
+     founded an empire in Japan, must have been a bold, enterprising,
+     and sagacious man. The islands he subdued were barbarous, and he
+     civilized them; the inhabitants were warlike and cruel, and he kept
+     them in peace. He founded a dynasty which extended its dominion
+     over Nagato, Izumo, and Owari, and still has representatives in
+     rulers whose people are by far the most progressive dwellers in the
+     East.
+
+     That part of the following historical matter, which is translated
+     from the old Japanese chronicle, the _Nehongi_, is marked by local
+     color and by Oriental characteristics, whereby it curiously
+     contrasts with the plain recitals of modern and Western history.
+
+     SIR EDWARD REED
+
+
+There are endless varying legends about this god-period of Japan. All
+that we need now say in the way of reciting the legends of the gods has
+relation to the descent of the mikados of Japan from the deities.
+
+It was the misconduct of Susanoo that drove the sun-goddess into the
+cave and for this misconduct he was banished. Some say that, instead of
+proceeding to his place of banishment, he descended, with his son
+Idakiso no Mikoto, upon Shiraga (in Corea), but not liking the place
+went back by a vessel to the bank of the Hinokawa River, in Idzumo,
+Japan.
+
+At the time of their descent, Idakiso had many plants or seeds of trees
+with him, but he planted none in Shiraga, but took them across with him,
+and scattered them from Kuishiu all over Japan, so that the whole
+country became green with trees. It is said that Idakiso is respected as
+the god of merit, and is worshipped in Kinokuni. His two sisters also
+took care of the plantation. One of the gods who reigned over the
+country in the prehistoric period was Ohonamuchi, who is said by some to
+be the son of Susanoo, and by others to be one of his later descendants;
+"And which is right, it is more than we can say," remarked one of my
+scholarly friends.
+
+However, during his reign he was anxious about the people, and,
+consulting with Sukuna no Mikoto, applied "his whole heart," we are
+told, to their good government, and they all became loyal to him. One
+time he said to his friend just named, "Do you think we are governing
+the people well?" And his friend answered: "In some respects well, and
+in some not," so that they were frank and honest with each other in
+those days.
+
+When Sukunahikona went away, Ohonamuchi said: "It is I who should govern
+this country. Is there any who will assist me?" Then there appeared over
+the sea a divine light, and there came a god floating and floating, and
+said: "You cannot govern the country without me." And this proved to be
+the god Ohomiwa no Kami, who built a palace at Mimuro, in Yamato, and
+dwelt therein. He affords a direct link with the Mikado family, for his
+daughter became the empress of the first historic emperor Jimmu. Her
+name was Humetatara Izudsuhime.
+
+All the descendants of her father are named, like him, Ohomiwa no Kami,
+and it is said that the present empress of Japan is probably a
+descendant of this god. As regards the descent of the Emperor Jimmu
+himself we already know that Ninigi no Mikoto, "the sovran grandchild"
+of the sun-goddess, was sent down with the sacred symbols of empire
+given to him in the sun by the sun-goddess herself before he started for
+the earth. Now Ninigi married (reader, forgive me for quoting the lady's
+name and her father's) Konohaneno-sakuyahime, the daughter of
+Ohoyamazumino-Kami, and the pair had three sons, of whom the last named
+Howori no Mikoto succeeded to the throne. He is sometimes called by the
+following simple--and possibly endearing--name: Amatsuhitakahi
+Kohoho-demi no Mikoto.
+
+He married Toyatama-hime, the daughter of the sea-god, and they had a
+son, Ugaya-fuki-ayedsu no Mikoto, born, it is said, under an unfinished
+roof of cormorants' wings, who succeeded the father, and who married
+Tamayori-hime, also a daughter of the sea-god. This illustrious couple
+had four sons, of whom the last succeeded to the throne in the year B.C.
+660. He was named Kamuyamatoi warehiko no Mikoto, but posterity has
+fortunately simplified his designation to the now familiar Jimmu-Tenno,
+the first historic Emperor of Japan, and the ancestor of the present
+emperor.
+
+The histories of Japan, prepared under the sanction of the present
+Japanese government, date the commencement of the historic period from
+the first year of the reign of the first emperor, Jimmu-Tenno, who
+is said to have ruled for seventy-six years, viz., from B.C. 660
+to 585. Some persons consider that this reign, and a few reigns that
+succeeded it, probably or possibly belong to the legendary period,
+because while, on the one hand, the Emperor Jimmu is described as the
+founder of the present empire and the ancestor of the present emperor,
+on the other, he is described as the fourth son of Ukay Fukiaezu no
+Mikoto, who was fifth in direct descent from the beautiful sun-goddess,
+Tensho-Daijin. But as no such thing as writing existed in Japan in those
+days, or for many centuries afterward, it would not be surprising if a
+real monarch should have a mythical origin assigned to him; and as I
+have quite lately heard the guns firing at Nagasaki an imperial salute
+in honor of his coronation, and have seen the flags waving over the
+capital city, Tokio, in honor of the birthday, the Emperor Jimmu is
+quite historical enough for my present purpose.
+
+The commencement of his reign shall fix for us, as it does for others,
+the Japanese year 1, which was 660 years prior to our year 1, so that
+any date of the Christian era can be converted into one of the Japanese
+era by the addition of 660 years, and _vice-versa._ Some of the emperors
+will be found to have lived very long lives, no doubt; but as I have
+said elsewhere, none of them lived nearly so long as our Adam,
+Methuselah, and others, in whose longevity so many of us profess to
+believe; and besides, it is impossible for me to attempt to correct a
+chronology which Japanese scholars, and Englishmen versed in the
+Japanese language, have thus far left without specific correction.
+Deferring for after consideration the incidents of the successive
+imperial reigns, except in so far as they bear directly upon the descent
+of the crown, let us, then, first glance at the succession of emperors
+and empresses who have ruled in the Morning Land.
+
+After the death of the Emperor Jimmu there appears to have been an
+interregnum for three years--although it is seldom taken account of--the
+second Emperor Suisei, who was the fifth son of the first emperor,
+having ascended the throne B.C. 581 and reigned till 549. The cause of
+the interregnum appears to have been the extreme grief which Suisei felt
+at the death of his father, in consequence of which he committed the
+administration of the empire, for a time, to one of his relatives--an
+unworthy fellow, as he proved, named Tagishi Mimi no Mikoto, who tried
+to assassinate his master and seize the throne for himself, and who was
+put to death by Suisei for his pains. The fifth son of the Emperor Jimmu
+was nominated by him as the successor, and it is probable that older
+sons were living and passed over, and that the throne was inherited in
+part by nomination even in this its first transfer.
+
+Some writers on Japanese history profess to see in the pantheon of
+Japan, pictured in the Kojiki and Nihonki, nothing more than a
+collection of distinguished personages who lived and labored and
+contended in the country before the historic period, thus bringing
+deified men and women down to earth again. Such persons accept the
+records of Jimmu-Tenno's origin as essentially accurate in so far as
+they state what is human and reasonable, rejecting them only when they
+set forth what is supernatural, and, to them, unbelievable.
+
+Others, on the contrary, consider, or profess to consider, the
+supernatural portions of those narratives as perfectly trustworthy, and
+discredit only those statements concerning the first of the sacred
+emperors which would seem in any way to detract from his divinity. I
+should be sorry to have to argue the case with either of these parties,
+but I must take the liberty of accepting as sufficiently accurate as
+much of the recorded lives of Jimmu and his successors as the modern
+prosaic histories in Japan are content to put forth, and no more.
+
+Proceeding upon this basis, there is not much to be said of the reigns
+of the mikados who ruled before the Christian era, beyond what has been
+already stated. As regards the first emperor, his ancestor Ninigi no
+Mikoto--whether a god or not, or whether he came down from the sun by
+means of "the bridge of heaven" or not--appears to have established his
+residence at the ancient Himuka, now Hiuga; there it was that
+Jimmu-Tenno first resided, and thence it was that he started on his
+historic and memorable career. The central parts of Japan were
+militarily occupied by rebels (whose names are preserved), and it was to
+subdue them that he proceeded eastward. He stopped for three years at
+Taka Shima, constructing the necessary vessels for crossing the waters,
+and then, in the course of years, making his way victoriously as far as
+Nanieva, the modern Osaka, encountered his foes at Kawachi, and defeated
+them, the chief general being left dead on the battle-field.
+
+Jimmu was now sole master of Japan, as then known, and in the following
+year he mounted the throne. The eastern and northern parts of the
+country were, however, still, and long afterwards, peopled by the Aino
+race, who were at a later period treated as troublesome savages, and
+conquered by a famous prince, Yamato-Dake, by help of the sacred sword.
+The spot selected by the Emperor Jimmu for his capital was Kashiwabara,
+in the province of Yamato, not far from the present western capital of
+Kioto. He there did honor to the gods, married, built himself a palace,
+and deposited in the throne-room the sacred mirror, sword, and ball, the
+insignia of the imperial power handed down from the sun-goddess. He
+organized two imperial guards, one as a body-guard to protect the
+interior of the palace, and the other to act as sentinels around the
+palace.
+
+
+THE "NEHONGI"
+
+The Emperor Kami Yamato Iharebiko's personal name was Hikohoho-demi. He
+was the fourth child of Hiko-nagisa-take-ugaya-fuki-ahezu no Mikoto. His
+mother's name was Tama-yori-hime, daughter of the sea-god. From his
+birth this emperor was of clear intelligence and resolute will. At the
+age of fifteen he was made heir to the throne. When he grew up he
+married Ahira-tsu-hime, of the district of Ata in the province of Hiuga,
+and made her his consort. By her he had Tagishi-mimi no Mikoto and
+Kisu-mimi no Mikoto.
+
+When he reached the age of forty-five, he addressed his elder brothers
+and his children, saying: "Of old, our heavenly deities Taka-mi-Musubi
+no Mikoto, and Oho-hiru-me no Mikoto, pointing to this land of fair
+rice-ears of the fertile reed-plain, gave it to our heavenly ancestor,
+Hiko-ho no Ninigi no Mikoto. Thereupon Hiko-ho no Ninigi no Mikoto,
+throwing open the barrier of heaven and clearing a cloud-path, urged on
+his superhuman course until he came to rest. At this time the world was
+given over to widespread desolation. It was an age of darkness and
+disorder. In this gloom, therefore, he fostered justice, and so governed
+this western border.
+
+"Our imperial ancestors and imperial parent, like gods, like sages,
+accumulated happiness and amassed glory. Many years elapsed from the
+date when our heavenly ancestor descended until now it is over 1,792,470
+years. But the remote regions do not yet enjoy the blessings of imperial
+rule. Every town has always been allowed to have its lord, and every
+village its chief, who, each one for himself, makes division of
+territory and practises mutual aggression and conflict.
+
+"Now I have heard from the Ancient of the Sea, that in the East there is
+a fair land encircled on all sides by blue mountains. Moreover, there is
+there one who flew down riding in a heavenly rock-boat. I think that
+this land will undoubtedly be suitable for the extension of the heavenly
+task, so that its glory should fill the universe. It is doubtless the
+centre of the world. The person who flew clown was, I believe,
+Nigihaya-hi. Why should we not proceed thither, and make it the
+capital?"
+
+All the imperial princes answered, and said: "The truth of this is
+manifest. This thought is constantly present to our minds also. Let us
+go thither quickly." This was the year Kinoye Tora (51st) of the Great
+Year.
+
+In that year, in winter, on the Kanoto Tori day (the 5th) of the 10th
+month, the new moon of which was on the day Hinoto Mi, the emperor in
+person led the imperial princes and a naval force on an expedition
+against the East. When he arrived at the Haya-suhi gate, there was there
+a fisherman who came riding in a boat. The emperor summoned him and then
+inquired of him, saying: "Who art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy
+servant is a country-god, and his name is Utsuhiko. I angle for fish in
+the bays of ocean. Hearing that the son of the heavenly deity was
+coming, therefore I forthwith came to receive him." Again he inquired of
+him, saying: "Canst thou act as my guide?" He answered and said: "I will
+do so." The emperor ordered the end of a pole of Shihi wood to be given
+to the fisher, and caused him to be taken and pulled into the imperial
+vessel, of which he was made pilot.
+
+A name was especially granted him, and he was called Shihi-ne-tsu-hiko.
+He was the first ancestor of the Yamato no Atahe.
+
+Proceeding on their voyage, they arrived at Usa in the land of Tsukushi.
+At this time there appeared the ancestors of the Kuni-tsu-ko of Usa,
+named Usa-tsu-hiko and Usa-tsu-hime. They built a palace raised on one
+pillar on the banks of the River Usa, and offered them a banquet. Then,
+by imperial command, Usa-tsu-hime was given in marriage to the emperor's
+attendant minister Ama notane no Mikoto. Now, Ama notane no Mikoto was
+the remote ancestor of the Nakatomi Uji.
+
+Eleventh month, 9th day. The emperor arrived at the harbor of Oka in the
+Land of Tsukushi.
+
+Twelfth month, 27th day. He arrived at the province of Aki, where he
+dwelt in the palace of Ye.
+
+The year Kinoto U, Spring, 3rd month, 6th day. Going onward, he entered
+the land of Kibi, and built a temporary palace in which he dwelt. It was
+called the palace of Takashima. Three years passed, during which time he
+set in order the helms of his ships, and prepared a store of provisions.
+It was his desire by a single effort to subdue the empire.
+
+The year Tsuchinoye Muma, Spring, 2d month, 11th day. The imperial
+forces at length proceeded eastward, the prow of one ship touching the
+stern of another. Just when they reached Cape Naniho they encountered a
+current of great swiftness. Whereupon that place was called Nami-haya
+(wave-swift) or Nami-hana (wave-flower). It is now called Naniha, which
+is a corruption of this.
+
+Third month, 10th day. Proceeding upwards against the stream, they went
+straight on, and arrived at the port of Awo-Kumo no Shira-date, in the
+township of Kusaka, in the province of Kafuchi.
+
+Summer, 4th month, 9th day. The imperial forces in martial array marched
+on to Tatsuta. The road was narrow and precipitous, and the men were
+unable to march abreast, so they returned and again endeavored to go
+eastward, crossing over Mount Ikoma. In this way they entered the inner
+country.
+
+Now when Naga-sune-hiko heard this, he said: "The object of the children
+of the heavenly deity in coming hither is assuredly to rob me of my
+country." So he straightway levied all the forces under his dominion,
+and intercepted them at the Hill of Kusaka. A battle was engaged, and
+Itsuse no Mikoto was hit by a random arrow on the elbow. The imperial
+forces were unable to advance against the enemy. The emperor was vexed,
+and revolved in his inmost heart a divine plan, saying: "I am the
+descendant of the sun-goddess, and if I proceed against the sun to
+attack the enemy, I shall act contrary to the way of heaven. Better to
+retreat and make a show of weakness. Then, sacrificing to the gods of
+heaven and earth, and bringing on our backs the might of the sun
+goddess, let us follow her rays and trample them down. If we do so, the
+enemy will assuredly be routed of themselves, and we shall not stain our
+swords with blood."
+
+They all said: "It is good." Thereupon he gave orders to the army,
+saying: "Wait a while and advance no further." So he withdrew his
+forces, and the enemy also did not dare to attack him. He then retired
+to the port of Kusaka, where he set up shields, and made a warlike show.
+Therefore the name of this port was changed to Tatetsu, which is now
+corrupted into Tadetsu.
+
+Before this, at the battle of Kusaka, there was a man who hid in a great
+tree, and by so doing escaped danger. So pointing to this tree, he said:
+"I am grateful to it, as to my mother." Therefore the people of the day
+called that place Omo no ki no Mura.
+
+Fifth month, 8th day. The army arrived at the port of Yamaki in Chinu
+(also called Port Yama no wi). Now Itsuse no Mikoto's arrow wound was
+extremely painful. He grasped his sword, and striking a martial
+attitude, said: "How exasperating it is that a man should die of a wound
+received at the hands of slaves, and should not avenge it!" The people
+of that day therefore called the place Wo no Minoto.
+
+Proceeding onward, they reached Mount Kama in the Land of Kii, where
+Itsuse no Mikoto died in the army, and was therefore buried at Mount
+Kama.
+
+Sixth month, 23d day. The army arrived at the village of Nagusa, where
+they put to death the Tohe of Nagusa. Finally they crossed the moor of
+Sano, and arrived at the village of Kami in Kumano. Here he embarked in
+the rock-boat of heaven, and leading his army, proceeded onward by slow
+degrees. In the midst of the sea, they suddenly met with a violent wind,
+and the imperial vessel was tossed about. Then Ina-ihi no Mikoto
+exclaimed and said: "Alas! my ancestors were heavenly deities, and my
+mother was a goddess of the sea. Why do they harass me by land, and why,
+moreover, do they harass me by sea?" When he had said this, he drew his
+sword and plunged into the sea, where he became changed into the god
+Sabi-Mochi.
+
+Miki In no no Mikoto, also indignant at this, said: "My mother and my
+aunt are both sea-goddesses; why do they raise great billows to
+overwhelm us?" So, treading upon the waves, he went to the Eternal Land.
+The emperor was now alone with the imperial prince, Tagishi-Mimi no
+Mikoto. Leading his army forward, he arrived at Port Arazaka in Kumano
+(also called Nishiki Bay), where he put to death the Tohe of Nishiki.
+At this time the gods belched up a poisonous vapor, from which every one
+suffered. For this reason the imperial army was again unable to exert
+itself. Then there was there a man by name Kumano no Takakuraji, who
+unexpectedly had a dream, in which Ama-terasu no Ohokami spoke to
+Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami, saying: "I still hear a sound of disturbance
+from the central land of reed-plains. Do thou again go and chastise it."
+
+Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami answered and said: "Even if I go not I can send
+down my sword, with which I subdued the land, upon which the country
+will of its own accord become peaceful." To this Ama-terasu no Kami
+assented. Thereupon Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami addressed Taka Kuraji,
+saying: "My sword, which is called Futsu no Mitama, I will now place in
+the storehouse. Do thou take it and present it to the heavenly
+grandchild." Taka Kuraji said, "Yes," and thereupon awoke. The next
+morning, as instructed in his dream, he opened the storehouse, and on
+looking in, there was indeed there a sword which had fallen down (from
+heaven) and was standing upside down on the plank floor of the
+storehouse. So he took it and offered it to the emperor. At this time
+the emperor happened to be asleep. He awoke suddenly, and said: "What a
+long time I have slept."
+
+On inquiry he found that the troops who had been affected by the poison
+had all recovered their senses and were afoot. The emperor then
+endeavored to advance into the interior, but among the mountains it was
+so precipitous that there was no road by which they could travel. And
+they wandered about not knowing whither to direct their march.
+
+Then Ama-terasu no Oho-Kami instructed the emperor in a dream of the
+night saying: "I will now send the Yata-garasu, make it thy guide
+through the land." Then there did indeed appear the Yata-garasu flying
+down from the void.
+
+The emperor said: "The coming of this crow is in due accordance with my
+auspicious dream. How grand! How splendid! My imperial ancestor
+Ama-terasu no Oho-Kami, desires therewith to assist me in creating the
+hereditary institution."
+
+At this time Hi no Omi no Mikoto, ancestor of the Ohotomo House, taking
+with him Oho-kume as commander of the main body, guided by the direction
+taken by the crow, looked up to it and followed after, until at length
+they arrived at the district of Lower Uda. Therefore they named the
+place which they reached the village of Ukechi in Uda. At this time by
+an imperial order he commended Hi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "Thou art
+faithful and brave, and art moreover a successful guide. Therefore will
+I give thee a new name, and will call thee Michi no Omi!"
+
+Autumn, 8th month, 2d day. The emperor sent to summon Ukeshi the elder
+and Ukeshi the younger. These two were chiefs of the district of Uda.
+Now Ukeshi the elder did not come. But Ukeshi the younger came, and
+making obeisance at the gate of the camp, declared as follows: "Thy
+servant's elder brother, Ukeshi the elder, shows signs of resistance.
+Hearing that the descendant of heaven was about to arrive, he forthwith
+raised an army with which to make an attack. But having seen from afar
+the might of the imperial army, he was afraid, and did not dare to
+oppose it. Therefore he has secretly placed his troops in ambush, and
+has built for the occasion a new palace, in the hall of which he has
+prepared engines. It is his intention to invite the emperor to a banquet
+there, and then to do him a mischief. I pray that this treachery be
+noted, and that good care be taken to make preparation against it."
+
+The emperor straightway sent Michi no Omi no Mikoto to observe the signs
+of his opposition. Michi no Omi no Mikoto clearly ascertained his
+hostile intentions, and being greatly enraged, shouted at him in a
+blustering manner: "Wretch! thou shalt thyself dwell in the house which
+thou hast: made." So grasping his sword and drawing his bow, he urged
+him and drove him within it. Ukeshi the elder being guilty before
+heaven, and the matter not admitting of excuse, of his own accord trod
+upon the engine and was crushed to death, His body was then brought out
+and decapitated, and the blood which flowed from it reached above the
+ankle. Therefore that place was called Udan no chi-hara. After this
+Ukeshi the younger prepared a great feast of beef and _sake_, with which
+he entertained the imperial army. The emperor distributed this flesh
+and _sake_ to the common soldiers, upon which they sang the following
+verses:
+
+    "In the high {castle tree} of Uda
+    I set a snare for woodcock,
+    And waited,
+    But no woodcock came to it;
+    A valiant whale came to it."
+
+This is called a Kume song. At the present time, when the department of
+music performs this song, there is still the measurement of great and
+small by the hand, as well as a distinction of coarse and fine in the
+notes of the voice. This is by a rule handed down from antiquity. After
+this the emperor wished to respect the Land of Yoshino, so, taking
+personal command of the light troops, he made a progress round by way of
+Ukechi Mura in Uda. When he came to Yoshino, there was a man who came
+out of a well. He shone and had a tail. The emperor inquired of him,
+saying: "What man art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy servant is a
+local deity, and his name is Wihikari." He it is who was the first
+ancestor of the Yoshino no Obito.
+
+Proceeding a little further, there was another man with a tail, who
+burst open a rock and came forth from it. The emperor inquired of him,
+saying: "What man art thou?" He answered and said: "Thy servant is the
+child of Iha-oshiwake." It is he who was the first ancestor of the Kuzu
+of Yoshino. Then, skirting the river, he proceeded westward, when there
+appeared another man, who had made a fishtrap and was catching fish. On
+the emperor making inquiry of him, he answered and said: "Thy servant is
+the son of Nihe-molsu." He it is who was the first ancestor of the
+U-kahi of Ata.
+
+Ninth month, 5th day. The emperor ascended to the peak of Mount Takakura
+in Uda, whence he had a prospect over all the land. On Kuni-mi Hill
+there were descried eighty bandits.
+
+Moreover at the acclivity of the Me-Zaka there was posted an army of
+women, and at the acclivity of Wo-Zaka there was stationed a force of
+men. At the acclivity of Sumi-Zaka was placed burning charcoal. This
+was the origin of the names Me-Zaka, Wo-Zaka and Sumi-Zaka.
+
+Again there was the army of Ye-Shiki, which covered all the village of
+Ihare. All the places occupied by the enemy were strong positions, and
+therefore the roads were cut off and obstructed, so that there was no
+room for passage. The emperor, indignant at this, made prayer on that
+night in person, and then fell asleep. The heavenly deity appeared to
+him in a dream, and instructed him, saying: "Take earth from within the
+shrine of the heavenly mount Kagu, and of it make eighty heavenly
+platters. Also make sacred jars and therewith sacrifice to the gods of
+heaven and earth. Moreover pronounce a solemn imprecation. If thou doest
+so, the enemy will render submission of their own accord."
+
+The emperor received with reverence the directions given in his dream,
+and proceeded to carry them into execution. Now Ukeshi the younger again
+addressed the emperor, saying: "There are in the province of Yamato, in
+the village of Shiki, eighty Shiki bandits. Moreover in the village of
+Taka-wohari (some say Katsuraki) there are eighty Akagane bandits.
+
+"All these tribes intend to give battle to the emperor, and thy servant
+is anxious in his own mind on his account. It were now good to take clay
+from the heavenly mount Kagu and therewith to make heavenly platters
+with which to sacrifice to the gods of the heavenly shrines and of the
+earthly shrines. If after doing so thou dost attack the enemy, they may
+be easily driven off."
+
+The emperor, who had already taken the words of his dream for a good
+omen, when he now heard the words of Ukeshi the younger, was still more
+pleased in his heart. He caused Shihi netsu-hiko to put on ragged
+garments and a grass hat and to disguise himself as an old man. He also
+caused Ukeshi the younger to cover himself with a winnowing tray, so as
+to assume the appearance of an old woman, and then addressed them,
+saying: "Do ye two proceed to the heavenly mount Kagu, and secretly take
+earth from its summit. Having done so, return hither. By means of you I
+shall then divine whether my undertaking will be successful or not. Do
+your utmost and be watchful." Now the enemy's army filled the road, and
+made all passage impossible. Then Shihi-netsu-hiko prayed, and said: "If
+it will be possible for our emperor to conquer this land, let the road
+by which we must travel become open. But if not, let the brigands surely
+oppose our passage."
+
+Having thus spoken they set forth and went straight onward. Now the
+hostile band, seeing the two men, laughed loudly, and said: "What an
+uncouth old man and old woman!" So with one accord they left the road,
+and allowed the two men to pass and proceed to the mountain, where they
+took the clay and returned with it. Hereupon the emperor was greatly
+pleased, and with this clay he made eighty platters, eighty heavenly
+small jars and sacred jars, with which he went to the upper waters of
+the River Nifu and sacrificed to the gods of heaven and earth.
+Immediately, on the Asahara plain by the river of Uda, it became as it
+were like foam on the water, the result of the curse cleaving to them.
+Moreover the emperor went on to utter a vow, saying: "I will now make
+_Ame_ in the eighty platters without using water. If the _Ame_ is
+formed, then shall I assuredly without effort and without recourse to
+the might of arms reduce the empire to peace." So he made _Ame_, which
+forthwith became formed of itself. Again he made a vow, saying: "I will
+now take the sacred jars and sink them in the River Nifu. If the fishes,
+whether great or small, become every one drunken and are carried down
+the stream, like as it were to floating _maki_ leaves, then shall I
+assuredly succeed in establishing this land. But if this be not so,
+there will never be any results."
+
+Thereupon he sank the jars in the river with their mouths downward.
+After a while the fish all came to the surface gaping, gasping as they
+floated down the stream. Then Shihi-netsu-hiko, seeing this, represented
+it to the emperor, who was greatly rejoiced, and plucking up a
+five-hundred-branched masakaki tree of the upper waters of the River
+Nifu, he did worship therewith to all the gods. It was with this that
+the custom began of selling sacred jars.
+
+At this time he commanded Michi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "We are now in
+person about to celebrate a public festival to Taka-mi-Musubi no Mikoto,
+and I appoint thee ruler of the festival, and I grant thee the title of
+Idzu-hime. The earthen jars which are set up shall be called the Idzube
+or sacred jars, the fire shall be called Idzu no Kagu-tsuchi or
+sacred-fire-elder, the water shall be called Idzu no Midzu-ha no me or
+sacred-water-female, the food shall be called Idzuuka no me, or
+sacred-food-female, the firewood shall be called Idzu no Yama-tsuchi or
+sacred-mountain-elder, and the grass shall be called Idzu no no-tsuchi
+or sacred-moor-elder."
+
+Winter, 10th month, 1st day. The emperor tasted the food of the Idzube,
+and arraying his troops set forth upon his march. He first of all
+attacked the eighty bandits at Mount Kunimi, routed and slew them. It
+was in this campaign that the emperor, fully resolved on victory, made
+these verses, saying:
+
+    "Like the Shitadami
+    Which creep round
+    The great rock
+    Of the Sea of Ise,
+    Where blows the divine wind--
+    Like the Shitadami,
+    My boys! My boys!
+    We will creep around
+    And smite them utterly,
+    And smite them utterly."
+
+In this poem, by the "great rock" is intended the Hill of Kunimi.
+
+After this the band which remained was still numerous, and their
+disposition could not be fathomed. So the emperor privately commanded
+Michi no Omi no Mikoto, saying: "Do thou take with thee the Oho Kume,
+and make a great _muro_ at the village of Osaka. Prepare a copious
+banquet, invite the enemy to it, and then capture them." Michi no Omi no
+Mikoto thereupon, in obedience to the emperor's sacred behest, dug a
+_muro_ at Osaka, and having selected his bravest soldiers, stayed
+therein mingled with the enemy. He secretly arranged with them, saying:
+"When they have got tipsy with _sake_, I will strike up a song. Do you
+when you hear the sound of my song, all at the same time stab the
+enemy."
+
+Having made this arrangement they took their seats, and the drinking
+bout proceeded. The enemy, unaware that there was any plot, abandoned
+themselves to their feelings, and promptly became intoxicated. Then
+Michi no Omi no Mikoto struck up the following song:
+
+    "At Osaka
+    In the great Muro-house,
+    Though men in plenty
+    Enter and stay,
+    We the glorious
+    Sons of warriors,
+    Wielding our mallet-heads,
+    Wielding our stone-mallets,
+    Will smite them utterly."
+
+Now when our troops heard this song, they all drew at the same time
+their mallet-headed swords, and simultaneously slew the enemy, so that
+there were no eaters left. The imperial army were greatly delighted;
+they looked up to heaven and laughed. Therefore he made a song saying:
+
+    "Though folk say
+    That one Yemishi
+    Is a match for one hundred men,
+    They do not so much as resist."
+
+The practice according to which, at the present time, the Kume sing this
+and then laugh loud, had this origin. Again he sang, saying:
+
+    "Ho! now is the time!
+    Ho! now is the time!
+    Ha! Ha! Psha!
+    Even now
+    My boys!
+    Even now,
+    My boys!"
+
+All these songs were sung in accordance with the secret behest of the
+emperor. He had not presumed to compose them with his own motion.
+
+Then the emperor said: "It is the part of a good general when victorious
+to avoid arrogance. The chief brigands have now been destroyed, but
+there are ten bands of villains of a similar stamp, who are
+disputatious.
+
+"Their disposition cannot be ascertained. Why should we remain for a
+long time in one place? By so doing we could not have control over
+emergencies!" So he removed his camp to another place.
+
+Eleventh month, 7th day. The imperial army proceeded in great force to
+attack the Hiko of Shiki. First of all the emperor sent a messenger to
+summon Shiki the elder, but he refused to obey. Again the Yata-garasu
+was sent to bring him. When the crow reached his camp it cried to him,
+saying: "The child of the heavenly deity sends for thee. Haste! haste!"
+Shiki the elder was enraged at this and said: "Just when I heard that
+the conquering deity of heaven was coming I was indignant at this; why
+shouldst thou, a bird of the crow tribe, utter such an abominable cry?"
+So he drew his bow and aimed at it. The crow forthwith fled away, and
+next proceeded to the house of Shiki the younger, where it cried,
+saying: "The child of the heavenly deity summons thee. Haste! haste!"
+Then Shiki the younger was afraid, and changing countenance, said: "Thy
+servant, hearing of the approach of the conquering deity of heaven, is
+full of dread morning and evening. Well hast thou cried to me, O crow!"
+
+He straightway made eight leaf-platters, on which he disposed food, and
+entertained the crow. Accordingly, in obedience to the crow, he
+proceeded to the emperor and informed him, saying: "My elder brother,
+Shiki the elder, hearing of the approach of the child of the heavenly
+deity, forthwith assembled eighty bandits and provided arms, with which
+he is about to do battle with thee. It will be well to take measures
+against him without delay." The emperor accordingly assembled his
+generals and inquired of them, saying: "It appears that Shiki the elder
+has now rebellious intentions. I summoned him, but again he will not
+come. What is to be done?" The generals said: "Shiki the elder is a
+crafty knave. It will be well, first of all, to send Shiki the younger
+to make matters clear to him, and at the same time to make explanations
+to Kuraji the elder and Kuraji the younger. If after that they still
+refuse submission, it will not be too late to take warlike measures
+against them."
+
+Shiki the younger was accordingly sent to explain to them their
+interests. But Shiki the elder and the others adhered to their foolish
+design, and would not consent to submit. Then Shiki-netsu-hiko advised
+as follows: "Let us first send out our feebler troops by the Osaka road.
+When the enemy sees them he will assuredly proceed thither with all his
+best troops. We should then straightway urge forward our robust troops,
+and make straight for Sumi-Zaka.
+
+"Then with the water of the River Uda we should sprinkle the burning
+charcoal, and suddenly take them unawares; when they cannot fail to be
+routed." The emperor approved this plan, and sent out the feebler troops
+toward the enemy, who, thinking that a powerful force was approaching,
+awaited them with all their power. Now up to this time, whenever the
+imperial army attacked, they invariably captured, and when they fought
+they were invariably victorious, so that the fighting men were all
+wearied out. Therefore the emperor, to comfort the hearts of his leaders
+and men, struck off this verse:
+
+    "As we fight
+    Going forth and watching
+    From between the trees
+    Of Mount Inasa,
+    We are famished.
+    Ye keepers of cormorants
+    (Birds of the island)
+    Come now to our aid."
+
+In the end he crossed Sumi-Zaka with the stronger troops, and, going
+round by the rear, attacked them from two sides and put them to the
+rout, killing their chieftains, Shiki the elder, and the others.
+
+Third month, 7th day. The emperor made an order, saying: "During the six
+years that our expedition against the East has lasted, owing to my
+reliance on the majesty of Imperial Heaven, the wicked bands have met
+death. It is true that the frontier lands are still unpurified, and that
+a remnant of evil is still refractory. But in the region of the Central
+Land there is no more wind and dust. Truly we should make a vast and
+spacious capital and plan it great and strong.
+
+"At present things are in a crude and obscure condition, and the
+people's minds are unsophisticated. They roost in nests or dwell in
+caves. Their manners are simply what is customary. Now if a great man
+were to establish laws, justice could not fail to flourish. And even if
+some gain should accrue to the people, in what way would this interfere
+with the sage's action? Moreover it will be well to open up and clear
+the mountains and forests, and to construct a palace. Then I may
+reverently assume the precious dignity, and so give peace to my good
+subjects. Above, I should then respond to the kindness of the heavenly
+powers in granting me the kingdom; and below, I should extend the line
+of the imperial descendants and foster rightmindedness. Thereafter the
+capital may be extended so as to embrace all the six cardinal points
+(_sic_), and the eight cords may be covered so as to form a roof. Will
+this not be well? When I observe the Kashiha-bara plain, which lies
+southwest of Mount Unebi, it seems the centre of the land. I must set it
+in order." Accordingly, he, in this month, commanded officers to set
+about the construction of an imperial residence.
+
+Year Kanoye Saru, Autumn, 8th month, 16th day. The emperor, intending to
+appoint a wife, sought afresh children of noble families. Now there was
+a man who made representation to him, saying: "There is a child, who was
+born to Koto-Shiro-Nushi no Kami by his union with Tama-Kushi-hime,
+daughter of Mizo-kuhi-ni no Kami of Mishima. Her name is
+Hime-tatara-i-suzu-hime no Mikoto. She is a woman of remarkable beauty."
+The emperor was rejoiced. And on the 24th day of the 9th month he
+received Hime-tatara-i-suzu-hime no Mikoto and made her his wife.
+
+Year Kanoto Tori, Spring, 1st month, 1st day. The emperor assumed the
+imperial dignity in the palace of Kashiha-bara. This year is reckoned
+the first year of his reign. He honored his wife by making her empress.
+The children born to him by her were Kami-ya-wi-Mimi no Mikoto and
+Kami-Nunagaha-Mimi no Mikoto. Therefore there is an ancient saying in
+praise of this, as follows: "In Kashiha-bara in Unebi, he mightily
+established his palace-pillars on the foundation of the bottom rock, and
+reared aloft the cross roof-timbers to the plain of high heaven. The
+name of the emperor who thus began to rule the empire was Kami Yamato
+Ihare-biko Hohodemi."
+
+Fourth year, Spring, 2d month, 23d day. The emperor issued the
+following decree: "The spirits of our imperial ancestors, reflecting
+their radiance down from heaven, illuminate and assist us. All our
+enemies have now been subdued, and there is peace within the seas. We
+ought to take advantage of this to perform sacrifice to the heavenly
+deities, and therewith develop filial duty."
+
+He accordingly established spirit-terraces among the Tomi hills, which
+were called Kami-tsu-wono no Kaki-hara and Shimo tsu-wono no Kaki-hara.
+There he worshipped his imperial ancestors, the heavenly deities.
+
+Seventy-sixth year, Spring, 3d month, 11th day. The emperor died in the
+palace of Kashiha-bara. His age was then 127. The following year,
+Autumn, the 12th day of the 9th month, he was buried in the Misasigi,
+northeast of Mount Unebi.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM
+
+B.C. 623
+
+THOMAS WILLIAM RHYS-DAVIDS
+
+
+     Not so many years ago, at the time when Buddhism first became known
+     in Europe through philosophic writings of about six centuries after
+     Buddha, then newly translated, it caused amazement that a religion
+     which had brought three hundred millions of people under its sway
+     should acknowledge no god. But the religion of Buddha, during a
+     thousand years of practice by the Hindus, is entirely different
+     from the representations given us in these translations. As shown
+     by the bas-reliefs covering the ancient monuments of India, this
+     religion, changed by modern scientists into a belief in atheism,
+     is, in fact, of all religions the most polytheistic.
+
+     In the first Buddhist monuments, dating back eighteen to twenty
+     centuries, the reformer simply figures as an emblem. The imprint of
+     his feet, the figure of the "Bo tree" under which he entered the
+     state of supreme wisdom, are worshipped; and though he disdained
+     all gods, and only sought to teach a new code of morals, we shortly
+     see Buddha himself depicted as a god. In the early stages he is
+     generally represented as alone, but gradually appears in the
+     company of the Brahman gods. He is finally lost in a crowd of gods,
+     and becomes nothing more than an incarnation of one of the Brahman
+     deities. From that time Buddhism has been practically extinct in
+     India.
+
+     This transformation took a thousand years to bring about. During
+     part of this great interval Buddha was being worshipped as an
+     all-powerful god. Legends are told of his appearance to his
+     disciples, and of favors he granted them.
+
+     It has been said that Buddha tried to set aside the laws of caste.
+     This is an error. Neither did he attempt to break the Brahmanic
+     Pantheon.
+
+     Buddhism, which to-day is the religion of three hundred million
+     people, about one-fifth of the world's inhabitants, toward the
+     seventh or eighth century of our era almost entirely disappeared
+     from its birthplace, India, whence it had spread over the rest of
+     Asia, China, Russian Tartary, Burmah, etc. Only the two extreme
+     frontiers of India, Nepal, in the north, and Ceylon, in the south,
+     now practise the Buddhist cult.
+
+          Gautama Buddha left behind him no written works. The Buddhists
+     believe that he composed works which his immediate disciples
+     learned by heart, and which were committed to writing long
+     afterward. This is not impossible, as the _Vedas_[37] were handed
+     down in this manner for many hundreds of years.
+
+     [Footnote 37: _Vedas_: The sacred books of the Hindus, in Sanscrit;
+     probably written about six or seven centuries before Christ. _Veda_
+     means knowledge. The books comprise hymns, prayers, and liturgical
+     forms.]
+
+     There was certainly an historical basis for the Buddhist legend. In
+     fact, the legends group themselves round a number of very distinct
+     occurrences.
+
+     At the end of the sixth century B.C. those Aryan tribes sprung from
+     the same stem as our own ancestors, who have preserved for us in
+     their Vedic songs so precious a relic of ancient thought and life,
+     had pushed on beyond the five rivers of the Punjab, and were
+     settled far down into the valley of the Ganges. They had given up
+     their nomadic habits, dwelling in villages and towns, their wealth
+     being in land, produce, and cattle.
+
+     From democratic beginnings the whole nation had gradually become
+     bound by an iron system of caste. The country was split up into
+     little sections, each governed by some petty despot, and harassed
+     by internecine feuds. Religion had become a debasing ritualism,
+     with charms and incantations, fear of the influence of the stars,
+     and belief in dreams and omens. The idea of the existence of a soul
+     was supplemented by the doctrine of transmigration.
+
+     The priests were well-meaning, ignorant, and possessed of a sincere
+     belief in their own divinity. The religious use of the _Vedas_ and
+     the right to sacrifice were strictly confined to the Brahmans.
+     There were travelling logicians, anchorites, ascetics, and solitary
+     hermits. Although the ranks of the priesthood were closed against
+     intruders, still a man of lower caste might become a religious
+     teacher and reformer. Such were the conditions which welcomed
+     Gautama Buddha.
+
+
+One hundred miles northeast of Benares, at Kapilavastu, on the banks of
+the river Rohini, the modern Kohana, there lived about five hundred
+years before Christ a tribe called Sakyas. The peaks of the mighty
+Himalayas could be seen in the distance. The Sakyas frequently
+quarrelled with the Koliyans, a neighboring tribe, over their water
+supplies from the river. Just now the two clans were at peace, and two
+daughters of the rajah of the Koliyans were wives of Suddhodana, the
+rajah of the Sakyas. Both were childless. This was deemed a very great
+misfortune among the Aryans, who thought that the star of a man's
+existence after death depended upon ceremonies to be performed by his
+heir. There was great rejoicing, therefore, when, in about the
+forty-fifth year of her age, the elder sister promised her husband a
+son. In due time she started with the intention of being confined at her
+parents' house, but it was on the way, under the shade of some lofty
+satin trees in a pleasant grove called Lumbini, that her son, the future
+Buddha, was unexpectedly born. The mother and child were carried back to
+Suddhodana's house, and there, seven days afterward, the mother died;
+but the boy found a careful nurse in his mother's sister, his father's
+other wife.
+
+Many marvellous stories have been told about the miraculous birth and
+precocious wisdom and power of Gautama. The name Siddhartha is said to
+have been given him as a child, Gautama being the family name. Numerous
+were his later titles, such as Sakyasinha, the lion of the tribe of
+Sakya; Sakya-muni, the Sakya sage; Sugata, the happy one; Sattha, the
+teacher; Jina, the conqueror; Bhagava, the blessed one, and many others.
+
+In his twentieth year he was married to his cousin, Yasodhara, daughter
+of the rajah of Koli. Devoting himself to home pleasures, he was accused
+by his relations of neglecting those manly exercises necessary for one
+who might at any time have to lead his people in war. Gautama heard of
+this, and appointed a day for a general tournament, at which he
+distinguished himself by being easily the first at all the trials of
+skill and prowess, thus winning the good opinions of all the clansmen.
+This is the solitary record of his youth.
+
+Nothing more is heard of him until, in his twenty-ninth year, Gautama
+suddenly abandoned his home to devote himself entirely to the study of
+religion and philosophy. It is said that an angel appeared to him in
+four visions: a man broken down by age, a sick man, a decaying corpse,
+and lastly, a dignified hermit. Each time Channa, his charioteer, told
+him that decay and death were the fate of all living beings. The
+charioteer also explained to him the character and aims of the ascetics,
+exemplified by the hermit.
+
+Thoughts of the calm life of the hermit strongly stirred him. One day,
+the occasion of the last vision, as he was entering his chariot to
+return home, news was brought to him that his wife Yasodhara had given
+birth to a son, his only child, who was called Rahula. This was about
+ten years after his marriage. The idea that this new tie might become
+too strong for him to break seems to have been the immediate cause of
+his flight. He returned home thoughtful and sad.
+
+But the people of Kapilavastu were greatly delighted at the birth of
+the young heir, their rajah's only grandson. Gautama's return became
+an ovation, and he entered the town amid a general celebration of the
+happy event. Amid the singers was a young girl, his cousin, whose song
+contained the words, "Happy the father, happy the mother, happy the
+wife of such a son and husband." In the word "Happy" there was a double
+meaning: it meant also "freed" from the chains of sin and of existence,
+saved. In gratitude to one who at such a time reminded him of his higher
+duties, Gautama took off his necklace of pearls and sent it to her. She
+imagined that she had won the love of young Siddhartha, but he took no
+further notice of her.
+
+That night the dancing girls came, but he paid them no attention, and
+gradually fell into an uneasy slumber. At midnight he awoke, and sent
+Channa for his horse. While waiting for the steed Gautama gently opened
+the door of the room where Yasodhara was sleeping, surrounded by
+flowers, with one hand on the head of her child. After one loving, fond
+glance he tore himself away. Accompanied only by Channa he left his home
+and wealth and power, his wife and only child behind him, to become a
+penniless wanderer. This was the Great Renunciation.
+
+There follows a story of a vision. Mara, the great tempter, the spirit
+of evil, appears in the sky, urging Gautama to stop. He promises him a
+universal kingdom over the four great continents if he will but give up
+his enterprise. The tempter does not prevail, but from that time he
+followed Gautama as a shadow, hoping to seduce him from that right way.
+
+All night Gautama rode, and at the dawn, when beyond the confines of his
+father's domain, dismounts. He cuts off his long hair with his sword,
+and sends back all his ornaments and his horse by the faithful
+charioteer.
+
+Seven days he spends alone beneath the shade of a mango grove, and then
+fares onward to Rajogriha, the capital of Magadha. This town was the
+seat of Bimbasara, one of the most powerful princes in the eastern
+valley of the Ganges. In the hillside caves near at hand were several
+hermits. To one of these Brahman teachers, Alara, Gautama attached
+himself, and later to another named Udraka. From these he learned all
+that Hindu philosophy could teach.
+
+Still unsatisfied, Gautama next retired to the jungle of Uruvela, on the
+most northerly spur of the Viadhya range of mountains, near the present
+temple of Buddha Gaya. Here for six years he gave himself up to the
+severest penance until he was wasted away to a shadow by fasting and
+self-mortification. Such self-control spread his fame "like the sound of
+a great bell hung in the skies." But the more he fasted and denied
+himself, the more he felt himself a prey to a mental torture worse than
+any bodily suffering.
+
+At last one day when walking slowly up and down, lost in thought,
+through extreme weakness he staggered and fell to the ground. His
+disciples thought he was dead, but he recovered. Despairing of further
+profit from such rigorous penance, he began to take regular food and
+gave up his self-mortification. At this his disciples forsook him and
+went away to Benares. In their opinion mental conquest lay only through
+bodily suppression.
+
+There now ensued a second crisis in Gautama's career which culminated in
+his withstanding the renewed attacks of the tempter after violent
+struggles.
+
+Soon after, if not on the very day when his disciples had left him, he
+wandered out toward the banks of the Nairaujara, receiving his morning
+meal from the hands of Sujuta, the daughter of a neighboring villager,
+and sat down to eat it under the shade of a large tree (_ficus
+religiosa_), called from that day the sacred "Bo tree," or tree of
+wisdom. He remained there all day long, pondering what next to do. All
+the attractions of the luxurious home he had abandoned rose up before
+him most alluringly. But as the day ended his lofty spirit had won the
+victory. All doubts had lifted as mists before the morning sun. He had
+become Buddha, that is, enlightened. He had grasped the solution of the
+great mystery of sorrow. He thought, having solved its causes and its
+cure, he had gained the haven of peace, and believed that in the power
+over the human heart of inward culture and of love to others he had
+discovered a foundation which could never be shaken.
+
+From this time Gautama claimed no merit for penances. A feeling of great
+loneliness possessed him as he arrived at his psychological and ethical
+conclusions. He almost despaired of winning his fellow-men to his system
+of salvation, salvation merely by self-control and love, without any of
+the rites, ceremonies, charms, or incantations of the Hindu religion.
+
+The thought of mankind, otherwise, as he imagined, utterly doomed and
+lost, made Gautama resolve, at whatever hazard, to proclaim his doctrine
+to the world. It is certain that he had a most intense belief in himself
+and his mission.
+
+He had intended first to proclaim his new doctrine to his old teachers,
+Alara and Udraka, but finding that they were dead, he proceeded to the
+deer forest near Benares where his former disciples were then living. In
+the cool of the evening he enters the deer-park near the city, but his
+former disciples resolve not to recognize him as a master. He tells them
+that they are still in the way of death, whereas he has found the way of
+salvation and can lead them to it, having become a Buddha. And as they
+reply with objections to his claims, he explains the fundamental truths
+of his system and principles of his new gospel, which the aged Kondanya
+was the first to accept from his master's lips. This exposition is
+preserved in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Sutra of the
+Foundations of the Kingdom of Righteousness.
+
+Gautama Buddha taught that everything corporeal is material and
+therefore impermanent. Man in his bodily existence is liable to sorrow,
+decay, and death. The reign of unholy desires in his heart produces
+unsatisfactory longings, useless weariness, and care. Attempted
+purification by oppressing the body is only wasted effort. It is the
+moral evil of the heart which keeps a man chained down in the degraded
+state of bodily life, which binds him in a union with the material
+world. Virtue and goodness will only insure him for a time, and, in
+another birth, a higher form of material life. From the chains of
+existence only the complete eradication of all evil will set him free.
+
+But these ideas must not be confused with Christian beliefs, for
+Buddhism teaches nothing of any immaterial existence. The foundations of
+its creed have been summed up in the Four Great Truths, which are as
+follows:
+
+1. That misery always accompanies existence;
+
+2. That all modes of existence of men or animals, in death or heaven,
+result from passion or desire (tanha);
+
+3. That there is no escape from existence except by destruction of
+desire;
+
+4. That this may be accomplished by following the fourfold way to
+Nirvana.
+
+The four stages are called the Paths, the first being an awakening of
+the heart. The first enemy which the believer has to fight against is
+sensuality and the last is unkindliness. Above everything is universal
+charity. Till he has gained that the believer is still bound, his mind
+is still dark. True enlightenment, true freedom, are complete only in
+love. The last great reward is "Nirvana," eternal rest or extinction.
+
+For forty-five years Gautama taught in the valley of the Ganges. In the
+twentieth year his cousin Ananda became a mendicant and attended on
+Gautama. Another cousin, however, stirred up some persecution of the
+great teacher, and the oppositions of the Brahmans had to be faced.
+
+There are clear accounts of the last few days of Gautama's life. On a
+journey toward Kusi-nagara he had rested in a grove at Pawa, presented
+to the society by a goldsmith of that place named Chunda. After a midday
+meal of rice and pork, prepared by Chunda, the Master started for
+Kusi-nagara, but stopped to rest at the river Kukusta. Feeling that he
+was dying, he left a message for Chunda, promising him a great reward in
+some future existence. He died at the river Kukusta, near Kusi-nagara,
+teaching to the last.
+
+Gautama's power arose from his practical philanthropy. His philosophy
+and ethics attracted the masses. He did not seek to found a new
+religion, but thought that all men would accept his form of the ancient
+creed. It was his society, the Sangha, or Buddhist order, rather than
+his doctrine, which gave to his religion its practical vitality.
+
+The following lines, filled with the poetic beauty of the Orient, are
+taken from the last spoken words of the great founder of Buddhism and
+the _Book of the Great Decease_. They give a clew to the cult of that
+religion and breathe the spirit of Nirvana in every scintillating
+sentence. As nearly as may be the translation is a literal one, done by
+Rhys-Davids, the world's greatest living authority on this subject:
+
+Now the Blessed One addressed the venerable Ananda, and said: "It may
+be, Ananda, that in some of you the thought may arise, 'The word of the
+Master is ended, we have no teacher more!' But it is not thus, Ananda,
+that you should regard it. The truths and the rules of the order which I
+have set forth and laid down for you all, let them, after I am gone, be
+the Teacher to you.
+
+"Ananda! when I am gone address not one another in the way in which the
+brethren have heretofore addressed each other--with the epithet, that
+is, of 'Avuso' (Friend). A younger brother may be addressed by an elder
+with his name, or his family name, or the title 'Friend,' But an elder
+should be addressed by a younger brother as 'Lord' or as 'Venerable
+Sir.'
+
+"When I am gone, Ananda, let the order, if it should so wish, abolish
+all the lesser and minor precepts.
+
+"When I am gone, Ananda, let the higher penalty be imposed on brother
+Khanna."
+
+"But what, Lord, is the higher penalty?"
+
+"Let Khanna say whatever he may like, Ananda; the brethren should
+neither speak to him, nor exhort him, nor admonish him."
+
+Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "It may be,
+brethren, that there may be doubt or misgiving in the mind of some
+brother as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way.
+Inquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to reproach yourselves afterward
+with the thought, 'Our teacher was face to face with us, and we could
+not bring ourselves to inquire of the Blessed One when we were face to
+face with him.'"
+
+And when he had thus spoken the brethren were silent.
+
+And again the second and the third time the Blessed One addressed the
+brethren, and said: "It may be, brethren, that there may be doubt or
+misgiving in the mind of some brother as to the Buddha, or the truth, or
+the path, or the way. Inquire, brethren, freely. Do not have to reproach
+yourselves afterward with the thought, 'Our teacher was face to face
+with us, and we could not bring ourselves to inquire of the Blessed One
+when we were face to face with him.'"
+
+And even the third time the brethren were silent.
+
+Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "It may be,
+brethren, that you put no questions out of reverence for the teacher.
+Let one friend communicate to another."
+
+And when he had thus spoken the brethren were silent.
+
+And the venerable Ananda said to the Blessed One: "How wonderful a thing
+is it, Lord, and how marvellous! Verily, I believe that in this whole
+assembly of the brethren there is not one brother who has any doubt or
+misgiving as to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way!"
+
+"It is out of the fulness of faith that thou hast spoken, Ananda! But,
+Ananda, the Tathagata knows for certain that in this whole assembly of
+the brethren there is not one brother who has any doubt or misgiving as
+to the Buddha, or the truth, or the path, or the way! For even the most
+backward, Ananda, of all these five hundred brethren has become
+converted, and is no longer liable to be born in a state of suffering,
+and is assured of final salvation."
+
+Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "Behold now,
+brethren, I exhort you, saying, 'Decay is inherent in all component
+things! Work out your salvation with diligence!'"
+
+This was the last word of the Tathagata!
+
+Then the Blessed One entered into the first stage of deep meditation.
+And rising out of the first stage he passed into the second. And rising
+out of the second he passed into the third. And rising out of the third
+stage he passed into the fourth. And rising out of the fourth stage of
+deep meditation he entered into the state of mind to which the infinity
+of space is alone present. And passing out of the mere consciousness of
+the infinity of space he entered into the state of mind to which nothing
+at all was specially present. And passing out of the consciousness of
+no special object he fell into a state between consciousness and
+unconsciousness. And passing out of the state between consciousness and
+unconsciousness he fell into a state in which the consciousness both of
+sensations and of ideas had wholly passed away.
+
+Then the venerable Ananda said to the venerable Anuruddha: "O my Lord, O
+Anuruddha, the Blessed One is dead!"
+
+"Nay! brother Ananda, the Blessed One is not dead. He has entered into
+that state in which both sensations and ideas have ceased to be!"
+
+Then the Blessed One passing out of the state in which both sensations
+and ideas have ceased to be, entered into the state between
+consciousness and unconsciousness. And passing out of the state between
+consciousness and unconsciousness he entered into the state of mind to
+which nothing at all is specially present. And passing out of the
+consciousness of no special object he entered into the state of mind to
+which the infinity of thought is alone present. And passing out of the
+mere consciousness of the infinity of thought he entered into the state
+of mind to which the infinity of space is alone present. And passing out
+of the mere consciousness of the infinity of space he entered into the
+fourth stage of deep meditation. And passing out of the fourth stage he
+entered into the third. And passing out of the third stage he entered
+into the second. And passing out of the second he entered into the
+first. And passing out of the first stage of deep meditation he entered
+the second. And passing out of the second stage he entered into the
+third. And passing out of the third stage he entered into the fourth
+stage of deep meditation. And passing out of the last stage of deep
+meditation he immediately expired.
+
+When the Blessed One died there arose, at the moment of his passing out
+of existence, a mighty earthquake, terrible and awe-inspiring: and the
+thunders of heaven burst forth.
+
+When the Blessed One died, Brahma Sahampati, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:
+
+    "They all, all beings that have life, shall lay
+    Aside their complex form--that aggregation
+    Of mental and material qualities,
+    That gives them, or in heaven or on earth,
+
+    Their fleeting individuality!
+    E'en as the teacher--being such a one,
+    Unequalled among all the men that are,
+    Successor of the prophets of old time,
+    Mighty by wisdom, and in insight clear--
+            Hath died!"
+
+
+When the Blessed One died, Sakka, the king of the gods, at the
+moment of his passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:
+
+    "They're transient all, each being's parts and powers,
+    Growth is their nature, and decay.
+    They are produced, they are dissolved again,
+    And then is best, when they have sunk to rest!"
+
+When the Blessed One died, the venerable Anuruddha, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered these stanzas:
+
+    "When he who from all craving want was free,
+    Who to Nirvana's tranquil state had reached,
+    When the great sage finished his span of life,
+    No gasping struggle vexed that steadfast heart!
+    All resolute, and with unshaken mind.
+    He calmly triumphed o'er the pain of death.
+    E'en as a bright flame dies away, so was
+    His last deliverance from the bonds of life!"
+
+When the Blessed One died, the venerable Ananda, at the moment of his
+passing away from existence, uttered this stanza:
+
+    "Then was there terror!
+    Then stood the hair on end!
+    When he endowed with every grace--
+    The supreme Buddha--died!"
+
+When the Blessed One died, of those of the brethren who were not free
+from the passions, some stretched out their arms and wept, and some fell
+headlong to the ground, rolling to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+"Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away from existence! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!" But
+those of the brethren who were free from the passions (the Arahats) bore
+their grief collected and composed at the thought: "Impermanent are all
+component things! How is it possible that [they should not be
+dissolved]?"
+
+Then the venerable Anuruddha exhorted the brethren, and said: "Enough,
+my brethren! Weep not, neither lament! Has not the Blessed One formerly
+declared this to us, that it is in the very nature of all things near
+and dear unto us, that we must divide ourselves from them, leave them,
+sever ourselves from them? How, then, brethren, can this be
+possible--that whereas anything whatever born, brought into being, and
+organized, contains within itself the inherent necessity of
+dissolution--how then can this be possible that such a being should not
+be dissolved? No such condition can exist! Even the spirits, brethren,
+will reproach us."
+
+"But of what kind of spirits is the Lord, the venerable Anuruddha,
+thinking?"
+
+"There are spirits, brother Ananda, in the sky, but of worldly mind, who
+dishevel their hair and weep, and stretch forth their arms and weep,
+fall prostrate on the ground, and roll to and fro in anguish at the
+thought: 'Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One
+passed away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!'
+
+"There are spirits, too, Ananda, on the earth, and of worldly mind, who
+tear their hair and weep, and stretch forth their arms and weep, fall
+prostrate on the ground, and roll to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+'Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!'
+
+"But the spirits who are free from passion hear it, calm and
+self-possessed, mindful of the saying which begins, 'Impermanent indeed
+are all component things. How then is it possible [that such a being
+should not be dissolved]?'"
+
+Now the venerable Anuruddha and the venerable Ananda spent the rest of
+that night in religious discourse. Then the venerable Anuruddha said to
+the venerable Ananda: "Go now, brother Ananda, into Kusinara and inform
+the Mallas of Kusinara, saying, 'The Blessed One, O Vasetthas, is dead:
+do, then, whatever seemeth to you fit!'"
+
+"Even so, Lord!" said the venerable Ananda, in assent to the venerable
+Anuruddha. And having robed himself early in the morning, he took his
+bowl, and went into Kusinara with one of the brethren as an attendant.
+
+Now at that time the Mallas of Kusinara were assembled in the council
+hall concerning that very matter.
+
+And the venerable Ananda went to the council hall of the Mallas of
+Kusinara; and when he had arrived there, he informed them, saying, "The
+Blessed One, O Vasetthas, is dead; do, then, whatever seemeth to you
+fit!"
+
+And when they had heard this saying of the venerable Ananda, the Mallas,
+with their young men and their maidens and their wives, were grieved,
+and sad, and afflicted at heart. And some of them wept, dishevelling
+their hair, and some stretched forth their arms and wept, and some fell
+prostrate on the ground, and some reeled to and fro in anguish at the
+thought: "Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One
+passed away! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!"
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara gave orders to their attendants, saying,
+"Gather together perfumes and garlands, and all the music in Kusinara!"
+
+And the Mallas of Kusinara took the perfumes and garlands, and all the
+musical instruments, and five hundred suits of apparel, and went to the
+Upavattana, to the Sala Grove of the Mallas, where the body of the
+Blessed One lay. There they passed the day in paying honor, reverence,
+respect, and homage to the remains of the Blessed One with dancing, and
+hymns, and music, and with garlands and perfumes; and in making canopies
+of their garments, and preparing decoration wreaths to hang thereon.
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara thought: "It is much too late to burn the
+body of the Blessed One to-day. Let us now perform the cremation
+to-morrow." And in paying honor, reverence, respect, and homage to the
+remains of the Blessed One with dancing, and hymns, and music, and with
+garlands and perfumes; and in making canopies of their garments, and
+preparing decoration wreaths to hang thereon, they passed the second day
+too, and then the third day, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the
+sixth day also.
+
+Then on the seventh day the Mallas of Kusinara thought:
+
+"Let us carry the body of the Blessed One, by the south and outside, to
+a spot on the south, and outside of the city,--paying it honor, and
+reverence, and respect, and homage, with dance and song and music, with
+garlands and perfumes,--and there, to the south of the city, let us
+perform the cremation ceremony!"
+
+And thereupon eight chieftains among the Mallas bathed their heads, and
+clad themselves in new garments with the intention of bearing the body
+of the Blessed One. But, behold, they could not lift it up!
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the venerable Anuruddha: "What,
+Lord, can be the reason, what can be the cause that eight chieftains of
+the Mallas who have bathed their heads, and clad themselves in new
+garments with the intention of bearing the body of the Blessed One, are
+unable to lift it up?"
+
+"It is because you, O Vasetthas, have one purpose and the spirits have
+another purpose."
+
+"But what, Lord, is the purpose of the spirits?"
+
+"Your purpose, O Vasetthas, is this: 'Let us carry the body of the
+Blessed One, by the south and outside, to a spot on the south, and
+outside of the city,--paying it honor, and reverence, and respect, and
+homage, with dance and song and music, with garlands and perfumes,--and
+there, to the south of the city, let us perform the cremation ceremony.'
+But the purpose of the spirits, Vasetthas, is this: 'Let us carry the
+body of the Blessed One by the north to the north of the city, and
+entering the city by the north gate, let us bring it through the midst
+of the city into the midst thereof. And going out again by the eastern
+gate,--paying honor, and reverence, and respect, and homage to the body
+of the Blessed One, with heavenly dance, and song, and music, and
+garlands, and perfumes,--let us carry it to the shrine of the Mallas
+called Makuta-bandhana, to the east of the city, and there let us
+perform the cremation ceremony.'"
+
+"Even according to the purpose of the spirits, so, Lord, let it be!"
+
+Then immediately all Kusinara down even to the dust-bins and rubbish
+heaps became strewn knee-deep with Mandarava flowers from heaven! and
+while both the spirits from the skies, and the Mallas of Kusinara upon
+earth, paid honor, and reverence, and respect, and homage to the body of
+the Blessed One, with dance and song and music, with garlands and with
+perfumes, they carried the body by the north to the north of the city;
+and entering the city by the north gate they carried it through the
+midst of the city into the midst thereof; and going out again by the
+eastern gate they carried it to the shrine of the Mallas, called
+Makuta-bandhana; and there, to the east of the city, they laid down the
+body of the Blessed One.
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the venerable Ananda: "What should
+be done, Lord, with the remains of the Tathagata?"
+
+"As men treat the remains of a king of kings, so, Vasetthas, should they
+treat the remains of a Tathagata."
+
+"And how, Lord, do they treat the remains of a king of kings?"
+
+"They wrap the body of a king of kings, Vasetthas, in a new cloth. When
+that is done they wrap it in cotton wool. When that is done they wrap it
+in a new cloth,--and so on till they have wrapped the body in five
+hundred successive layers of both kinds. Then they place the body in an
+oil vessel of iron, and cover that close up with another oil vessel of
+iron. They then build a funeral pile of all kinds of perfumes, and burn
+the body of the king of kings. And then at the four cross roads they
+erect a dagaba to the king of kings. This, Vasetthas, is the way in
+which they treat the remains of a king of kings. And as they treat the
+remains of a king of kings, so, Vasetthas, should they treat the remains
+of the Tathagata. At the four cross roads a dagaba should be erected to
+the Tathagata. And whosoever shall there place garlands or perfumes or
+paint, or make salutation there, or become in its presence calm in
+heart--that shall long be to them for a profit and a joy."
+
+Therefore the Mallas gave orders to their attendants, saying, "Gather
+together all the carded cotton wool of the Mallas!"
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara wrapped the body of the Blessed One in a new
+cloth. And when that was done they wrapped it in cotton wool. And when
+that was done, they wrapped it in a new cloth,--and so on till they had
+wrapped the body of the Blessed One in five hundred layers of both
+kinds. And then they placed the body in an oil vessel of iron, and
+covered that close up with another vessel of iron. And then they built a
+funeral pile of all kinds of perfumes, and upon it they placed the body
+of the Blessed One.
+
+Now at that time the venerable Maha Kassapa was journeying along the
+high road from Pava to Kusinara with a great company of the brethren,
+with about five hundred of the brethren. And the venerable Maha Kassapa
+left the high road, and sat himself down at the foot of a certain tree.
+
+Just at that time a certain naked ascetic who had picked up a Mandarava
+flower in Kusinara was coming along the high road to Pava. And the
+venerable Maha Kassapa saw the naked ascetic coming in the distance; and
+when he had seen him he said to the naked ascetic: "O friend! surely
+thou knowest our Master?"
+
+"Yea, friend! I know him. This day the Samana Gautama has been dead a
+week! That is how I obtained this Mandarava flower."
+
+And immediately of those of the brethren who were not yet free from the
+passions, some stretched out their arms and wept, and some fell headlong
+on the ground, and some reeled to and fro in anguish at the thought:
+"Too soon has the Blessed One died! Too soon has the Happy One passed
+away from existence! Too soon has the Light gone out in the world!"
+
+But those of the brethren who were free from the passions (the Arahats)
+bore their grief collected and composed at the thought: "Impermanent are
+all component things! How is it possible that they should not be
+dissolved?"
+
+Now at that time a brother named Subhadda, who had been received into
+the order in his old age, was seated there in their company. And
+Subhadda the old addressed the brethren and said: "Enough, brethren!
+Weep not, neither lament! We are well rid of the great Samana. We used
+to be annoyed by being told, 'This beseems you, this beseems you not.'
+But now we shall be able to do whatever we like; and what we do not like
+that we shall not have to do!"
+
+But the venerable Maha Kassapa addressed the brethren, and said:
+"Enough, my brethren! Weep not, neither lament! Has not the Blessed One
+formerly declared this to us, that it is in the very nature of all
+things near and dear unto us that we must divide ourselves from them,
+leave them, sever ourselves from them? How then, brethren, can this be
+possible--that whereas anything whatever born, brought into being, and
+organized contains within itself the inherent necessity of
+dissolution--how then can this be possible that such a being should not
+be dissolved? No such condition can exist!"
+
+Now just at that time four chieftains of the Mallas had bathed their
+heads and clad themselves in new garments with the intention of setting
+on fire the funeral pile of the Blessed One. But, behold, they were
+unable to set it alight! Then the Mallas of Kusinara said to the
+venerable Anuruddha: "What, Lord, can be the reason, and what the cause,
+that four chieftains of the Mallas who have bathed their heads, and clad
+themselves in new garments, with the intention of setting on fire the
+funeral pile of the Blessed One, are unable to set it on fire?"
+
+"It is because you, O Vasetthas, have one purpose, and the spirits have
+another purpose."
+
+"But what, Lord, is the purpose of the spirits?"
+
+"The purpose of the spirits, O Vasetthas, is this: 'That venerable
+brother Maha Kassapa is now journeying along the high road from Pava to
+Kusinara with a great company of the brethren, with five hundred of the
+brethren. The funeral pile of the Blessed One shall not catch fire,
+until the venerable Maha Kassapa shall have been able reverently to
+salute the sacred feet of the Blessed One.'"
+
+"Even according to the purpose of the spirits, so, Lord, let it be!"
+
+Then the venerable Maha Kassapa went on to Makuta-bandhana of Kusinara,
+to the shrine of the Mallas, to the place where the funeral pile of the
+Blessed One was. And when he had come up to it, he arranged his robe on
+one shoulder; and bowing down with clasped hands he thrice walked
+reverently round the pile; and then, uncovering the feet, he bowed down
+in reverence at the feet of the Blessed One. And those five hundred
+brethren arranged their robes on one shoulder; and bowing down with
+clasped hands, they thrice walked reverently round the pile, and then
+bowed down in reverence at the feet of the Blessed One.
+
+And when the homage of the venerable Maha Kassapa and of those five
+hundred brethren was ended, the funeral pile of the Blessed One caught
+fire of itself. Now as the body of the Blessed One burned itself away,
+from the skin and the integument, and the flesh, and the nerves, and the
+fluid of the joints, neither soot nor ash was seen: and only the bones
+remained behind.
+
+Just as one sees no soot nor ash when glue or oil is burned, so, as the
+body of the Blessed One burned itself away, from the skin and the
+integument, and the flesh, and the nerves, and the fluid of the joints,
+neither soot nor ash was seen: and only the bones remained behind. And
+of those five hundred pieces of raiment the very innermost and outermost
+were both consumed. And when the body of the Blessed One had been burned
+up, there came down streams of water from the sky and extinguished the
+funeral pile of the Blessed One; and there burst forth streams of water
+from the storehouse of the waters (beneath the earth), and extinguished
+the funeral pile of the Blessed One. The Mallas of Kusinara also brought
+water scented with all kinds of perfumes, and extinguished the funeral
+pile of the Blessed One.
+
+Then the Mallas of Kusinara surrounded the bones of the Blessed One in
+their council hall with a lattice work of spears, and with a rampart of
+bows; and there for seven days they paid honor and reverence and respect
+and homage to them with dance and song and music, and with garlands and
+perfumes.
+
+Now the king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha
+clan, heard the news that the Blessed One had died at Kusinara. Then the
+king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha clan,
+sent a messenger to the Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the
+soldier caste, and I too am of the soldier caste. I am worthy to receive
+a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the
+Blessed One will I put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will I
+celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Likkhavis of Vesali heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Likkhavis of Vesali sent a messenger to the
+Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we
+too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the
+relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we
+put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Sakiyas of Kapila-vatthu heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Sakiyas of Kapila-vatthu sent a messenger to
+the Mallas, saying "The Blessed One was the pride of our race. We are
+worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the
+remains of the Blessed One will we put up a sacred cairn, and in honor
+thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Bulis of Allakappa heard the news that the Blessed One had died
+at Kusinara. And the Bulis of Allakappa sent a messenger to the Mallas,
+saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are
+of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics
+of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a
+sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Brahman of Vethadipa heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. And the Brahman of Vethadipa sent a messenger to the
+Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and I am
+a Brahman. I am worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed
+One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will I put up a sacred cairn,
+and in honor thereof will I celebrate a feast!"
+
+And the Mallas of Pava heard the news that the Blessed One had died at
+Kusinara. Then the Mallas of Pava sent a messenger to the Mallas,
+saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are
+of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics
+of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a
+sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a feast!"
+
+When they heard these things the Mallas of Kusinara spoke to the
+assembled brethren, saying, "The Blessed One died in our village domain,
+We will not give away any part of the remains of the Blessed One!" When
+they had thus spoken, Dona the Brahman addressed the assembled
+brethren, and said:
+
+    "Hear, reverend sir, one single word from me.
+    Forbearance was our Buddha wont to teach.
+    Unseemly is it that over the division
+    Of the remains of him who was the best of beings
+    Strife should arise, and wounds, and war!
+    Let us all, sirs, with one accord unite
+    In friendly harmony to make eight portions.
+    Wide spread let Thupas rise in every land
+    That in the Enlightened One mankind may trust!"
+
+"Do thou then, O Brahman, thyself divide the remains of the Blessed One
+equally into eight parts with fair division."
+
+"Be it so, sir!" said Dona, in assent, to the assembled brethren. And he
+divided the remains of the Blessed One equally into eight parts, with
+fair division. And he said to them: "Give me, sirs, this vessel, and I
+will set up over it a sacred cairn, and in its honor will I establish a
+feast." And they gave the vessel to Dona the Brahman.
+
+And the Moriyas of Pipphalivana heard the news that the Blessed One had
+died at Kusinara. Then the Moriyas of Pipphalivana sent a messenger to
+the Mallas, saying, "The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and
+we too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of
+the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will
+we put up a sacred cairn, and in honor thereof will we celebrate a
+feast!" And when they heard the answer, saying, "There is no portion of
+the remains of the Blessed One left over. The remains of the Blessed One
+are all distributed," then they took away the embers.
+
+Then the king of Magadha, Agatasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha
+clan, made a mound in Ragagaha over the remains of the Blessed One, and
+held a feast. And the Likkhavis of Vesali made a mound in Vesali over
+the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And the Bulis of
+Allakappa made a mound in Allakappa over the remains of the Blessed One,
+and held a feast. And the Koliyas of Ramagama made a mound in Ramagama
+over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And Vethadipaka
+the Brahman made a mound in Vethadipa over the remains of the Blessed
+One, and held a feast. And the Mallas of Pava made a mound in Pava over
+the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast. And the Mallas of
+Kusinara made a mound in Kusinara over the remains of the Blessed One,
+and held a feast. And Dona the Brahman made a mound over the vessel in
+which the body had been burned, and held a feast. And the Moriyas of
+Pipphalivana made a mound over the embers, and held a feast.
+
+Thus were there eight mounds [Thupas] for the remains, and one for the
+vessel, and one for the embers. This was how it used to be. Eight
+measures of relics there were of him of the far-seeing eye, of the best
+of the best of men. In India seven are worshipped, and one measure in
+Ramagama, by the kings of the serpent race. One tooth, too, is honored
+in heaven, and one in Gandhara's city, one in the Kalinga realm, and one
+more by the Naga race. Through their glory the bountiful earth is made
+bright with offerings painless, for with such are the Great Teacher's
+relics best honored by those who are honored, by gods and by Nagas and
+kings, yea, thus by the noblest of monarchs--bow down with clasped
+hands! Hard, hard is a Buddha to meet with through hundreds of ages!
+
+End of the _Book of the Great Decease_
+
+
+
+
+
+PYTHIAN GAMES AT DELPHI
+
+B.C. 585
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     Among the leading features of Greek life, especially those
+     belonging to its religious customs and observances none are more
+     characteristic, and none possess a more attractive interest for the
+     modern reader and student than the peculiar festivals which it was
+     their practice to hold. The four great national festivals or games
+     were: The Olympic, held every four years, in honor of Zeus, on the
+     banks of the Alpheus, in Elis; the Pythian, celebrated once in four
+     years, in honor of Apollo, at Delphi; the Isthmian, held every two
+     years, at the isthmian sanctuary in the Isthmus of Corinth, in
+     honor of Poseidon (Neptune); and the Nemean, celebrated at Nemea,
+     in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, in honor of the
+     Nemean Juno.
+
+     With regard to the influence of these games or festivals upon the
+     political and social life of Greece, much has been written by
+     historians and special students of the Grecian states. While the
+     celebrations do not appear to have accomplished much for the
+     political union of Greece, they are to be credited with marked
+     beneficial effects in the promotion of a pan-Hellenic spirit which,
+     if it failed to produce such a union of the Greek race,
+     nevertheless quickened and strengthened the common feeling of
+     family relationship. Thus a sense of their identical origin and
+     racial traits was kept alive, and the tendencies of Greek
+     development and culture preserved their essential character and
+     distinction. By means of these periodical gatherings, representing
+     all parts of the Greek world, not only was friendly competition in
+     every field of talent and performance secured, but even trade and
+     commerce found through them new channels of activity. So in various
+     ways the national games proved a source of fresh energy and broader
+     enterprise among the various branches of the Grecian people. The
+     particular character and significance of the Pythian games at
+     Delphi, and their relation to the other national festivals, form an
+     interesting subject for study in connection with the general
+     history of Greece.
+
+
+What are called the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games (the
+four most conspicuous amid many others analogous) were in reality great
+religious festivals--for the gods then gave their special sanction,
+name, and presence to recreative meetings--the closest association then
+prevailed between the feelings of common worship and the sympathy in
+common amusement. Though this association is now no longer recognized,
+it is nevertheless essential that we should keep it fully before us if
+we desire to understand the life and proceedings of the Greek. To
+Herodotus and his contemporaries these great festivals, then frequented
+by crowds from every part of Greece, were of overwhelming importance and
+interest; yet they had once been purely local, attracting no visitors
+except from a very narrow neighborhood. In the Homeric poems much is
+said about the common gods, and about special places consecrated to and
+occupied by several of them; the chiefs celebrate funeral games in honor
+of a deceased father, which are visited by competitors from different
+parts of Greece, but nothing appears to manifest public or town
+festivals open to Grecian visitors generally. And though the rocky Pytho
+with its temple stands out in the _Iliad_ as a place both venerated and
+rich--the Pythian games, under the superintendence of the Amphictyons,
+with continuous enrollment of victors and a pan-Hellenic reputation, do
+not begin until after the Sacred War, in the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 586.
+
+The Olympic games, more conspicuous than the Pythian as well as
+considerably older, are also remarkable on another ground, inasmuch as
+they supplied historical computers with the oldest backward record of
+continuous time. It was in the year B.C. 776 that the Eleans inscribed
+the name of their countryman Coroebus as victor in the competition of
+runners, and that they began the practice of inscribing in like manner,
+in each Olympic or fifth recurring year, the name of the runner who won
+the prize. Even for a long time after this, however, the Olympic games
+seem to have remained a local festival; the prize being uniformly
+carried off, at the first twelve Olympiads, by some competitor either of
+Elis or its immediate neighborhood. The Nemean and Isthmian games did
+not become notorious or frequented until later even than the Pythian.
+Solon in his legislation proclaimed the large reward of 500 drams for
+every Athenian who gained an Olympic prize, and the lower sum of 100
+drams for an Isthmiac prize. He counts the former as pan-Hellenic rank
+and renown, an ornament even to the city of which the victor was a
+member--the latter as partial and confined to the neighborhood.
+
+Of the beginnings of these great solemnities we cannot presume to speak,
+except in mythical language; we know them only in their comparative
+maturity. But the habit of common sacrifice, on a small scale and
+between near neighbors, is a part of the earliest habits of Greece. The
+sentiment of fraternity, between two tribes or villages, first
+manifested itself by sending a sacred legation or Theoria to offer
+sacrifices to each other's festivals and to partake in the recreations
+which followed; thus establishing a truce with solemn guarantee, and
+bringing themselves into direct connexion each with the god of the other
+under his appropriate local surname. The pacific communion so fostered,
+and the increased assurance of intercourse, as Greece gradually emerged
+from the turbulence and pugnacity of the heroic age, operated especially
+in extending the range of this ancient habit: the village festivals
+became town festivals, largely frequented by the citizens of other
+towns, and sometimes with special invitations sent round to attract
+Theors from every Hellenic community--and thus these once humble
+assemblages gradually swelled into the pomp and immense confluence of
+the Olympic and Pythian games. The city administering such holy
+ceremonies enjoyed inviolability of territory during the month of their
+occurrence, being itself under obligation at that time to refrain from
+all aggression, as well as to notify by heralds the commencement of the
+truce to all other cities not in avowed hostility with it. Elis imposed
+heavy fines upon other towns--even on the powerful Lacedaemon--for
+violation of the Olympic truce, on pain of exclusion from the festival
+in case of non-payment.
+
+Sometimes this tendency to religious fraternity took a form called an
+_Amphictyony_, different from the common festival. A certain number of
+towns entered into an exclusive religious partnership for the
+celebration of sacrifices periodically to the god of a particular
+temple, which was supposed to be the common property and under the
+common protection of all, though one of the number was often named as
+permanent administrator; while all other Greeks were excluded. That
+there were many religious partnerships of this sort, which have never
+acquired a place in history, among the early Grecian villages, we may
+perhaps gather from the etymology of the word _Amphictyons_--designating
+residents around, or neighbors, considered in the point of view of
+fellow-religionists--as well as from the indications preserved to us in
+reference to various parts of the country. Thus there was an Amphictyony
+of seven cities at the holy island of Caluria, close to the harbor of
+Troezen. Hermione, Epidaurus, AEgina, Athens, Prasiae, Nauplia, and
+Orchomenus, jointly maintained the temple and sanctuary of Poseidon in
+that island--with which it would seem that the city of Troezen, though
+close at hand, had no connection--meeting there at stated periods, to
+offer formal sacrifices. These seven cities indeed were not immediate
+neighbors, but the speciality and exclusiveness of their interest in the
+temple is seen from the fact that when the Argians took Nauplia, they
+adopted and fulfilled these religious obligations on behalf of the prior
+inhabitants: so also did the Lacedaemonians when they had captured
+Prasiae. Again, in Triphylia, situated between the Pisatid and Messenia
+in the western part of Peloponnesus, there was a similar religious
+meeting and partnership of the Triphylians on Cape Samicon, at the
+temple of the Samian Poseidon. Here the inhabitants of Maciston were
+intrusted with the details of superintendence, as well as with the duty
+of notifying beforehand the exact time of meeting (a precaution
+essential amidst the diversities and irregularities of the Greek
+calendar) and also of proclaiming what was called the Samian truce--a
+temporary abstinence from hostilities which bound all Triphylians during
+the holy period. This latter custom discloses the salutary influence of
+such institutions in presenting to men's minds a common object of
+reverence, common duties, and common enjoyments; thus generating
+sympathies and feelings of mutual obligation amid petty communities not
+less fierce than suspicious. So, too, the twelve chief Ionic cities in
+and near Asia Minor had their pan-Ionic Amphictyony peculiar to
+themselves: the six Doric cities, in and near the southern corner of
+that peninsula, combined for the like purpose at the temple of the
+Triopian Apollo, and the feeling of special partnership is here
+particularly illustrated by the fact that Halicarnassus, one of the
+six, was formally extruded by the remaining five in consequence of a
+violation of the rules. There was also an Amphictyonic union at
+Onchestus in Boeotia, in the venerated grove and temple at Poseidon: of
+whom it consisted we are not informed. There are some specimens of the
+sort of special religious conventions and assemblies which seem to have
+been frequent throughout Greece. Nor ought we to omit those religious
+meetings and sacrifices which were common to all the members of one
+Hellenic subdivision, such as the pan-Boeotia to all the Boeotians,
+celebrated at the temple of the Ionian Athene near Coroneia; the common
+observances, rendered to the temple of Apollo Pythaeus at Argos, by all
+those neighboring towns which had once been attached by this religious
+thread to the Argian; the similar periodical ceremonies, frequented by
+all who bore the Achaean or AEtolian name; and the splendid and
+exhilarating festivals, so favorable to the diffusion of the early
+Grecian poetry, which brought all Ionians at stated intervals to the
+sacred island of Delos. This later class of festivals agreed with the
+Amphictyony in being of a special and exclusive character, not open to
+all Greeks.
+
+But there was one among these many Amphictyonies, which, though starting
+from the smallest beginnings, gradually expanded into so comprehensive a
+character, had acquired so marked a predominance over the rest, as to be
+called the "Amphictyonic assembly," and even to have been mistaken by
+some authors for a sort of federal Hellenic diet. Twelve sub-races, out
+of the number which made up entire Hellas, belonged to this ancient
+Amphictyony, the meetings of which were held twice in every year: in
+spring at the temple of Apollo at Delphi; in autumn at Thermopylae, in
+the sacred precinct of Demeter Amphictyonis. Sacred deputies, including
+a chief called the _Hieromnemon_ and subordinates called the _Pylagorae_,
+attended at these meetings from each of the twelve races: a crowd of
+volunteers seem to have accompanied them, for purposes of sacrifice,
+trade, or enjoyment. Their special, and most important, function
+consisted in watching over the Delphian temple, in which all the twelve
+sub-races had a joint interest, and it was the immense wealth and
+national ascendency of this temple which enhanced to so great a pitch
+the dignity of its acknowledged administrators.
+
+The twelve constituent members were as follows: Thessalians, Boeotians,
+Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaebians, Magnetes, Locrians, Oetaeans, Achaeans,
+Phocians, Dolopes, and Malians. All are counted as _races_ (if we treat
+the Hellenes as a race, we must call these _sub-races_), no mention
+being made of cities: all count equally in respect to voting, two votes
+being given by the deputies from each of the twelve: moreover, we are
+told that in determining the deputies to be sent or the manner in which
+the votes of each race should be given, the powerful Athens, Sparta, and
+Thebes had no more influence than the humblest Ionian, Dorian, or
+Boeotian city. This latter fact is distinctly stated by AEschines,
+himself a Pylagore sent to Delphi by Athens. And so, doubtless, the
+theory of the case stood: the votes of the Ionic races counted for
+neither more nor less than two, whether given by deputies from Athens,
+or from the small towns of Erythrae and Priene; and in like manner the
+Dorian votes were as good in the division, when given by deputies from
+Boeon and Cytinion in the little territory of Doris, as if the men
+delivering them had been Spartans. But there can be as little question
+that in practice the little Ionic cities and the little Doric cities
+pretended to no share in the Amphictyonic deliberations. As the Ionic
+vote came to be substantially the vote of Athens, so, if Sparta was ever
+obstructed in the management of the Doric vote, it must have been by
+powerful Doric cities like Argos or Corinth, not by the insignificant
+towns of Doris. But the theory of Amphictyonic suffrage as laid down by
+AEschines, however little realized in practice during his day, is
+important inasmuch as it shows in full evidence the primitive and
+original constitution. The first establishment of the Amphictyonic
+convocation dates from a time when all the twelve members were on a
+footing of equal independence, and when there were no overwhelming
+cities--such as Sparta and Athens--to cast in the shade the humbler
+members; when Sparta was only one Doric city, and Athens only one Ionic
+city, among various others of consideration not much inferior.
+
+There are also other proofs which show the high antiquity of this
+Amphictyonic convocation. AEschines gives us an extract from the oath
+which had been taken by the sacred deputies who attended on behalf of
+their respective races, ever since its first establishment, and which
+still apparently continued to be taken in his day. The antique
+simplicity of this oath, and of the conditions to which the members bind
+themselves, betrays the early age in which it originated, as well as the
+humble resources of those towns to which it was applied. "We will not
+destroy any Amphictyonic town--we will not cut off any Amphictyonic town
+from running water"--such are the two prominent obligations which
+AEschines specifies out of the old oath. The second of the two carries us
+back to the simplest state of society, and to towns of the smallest
+size, when the maidens went out with their basins to fetch water from
+the spring, like the daughters of Celeos at Eleusis, or those of Athens
+from the fountain Callirrhoe. We may even conceive that the special
+mention of this detail, in the covenant between the twelve races, is
+borrowed literally from agreements still earlier, among the villages or
+little towns in which the members of each race were distributed. At any
+rate, it proves satisfactorily the very ancient date to which the
+commencement of the Amphictyonic convocations must be referred. The
+belief of AEschines (perhaps also the belief general in his time) was,
+that it commenced simultaneously with the first foundation of the
+Delphian temple--an event of which we have no historical knowledge; but
+there seems reason to suppose that its original establishment is
+connected with Thermopylae and Demeter Amphictyonia, rather than with
+Delphi and Apollo. The special surname by which Demeter and her temple
+at Thermopylae was known--the temple of the hero Amphictyon which stood
+at its side--the word _Pyloea_, which obtained footing in the language
+to designate the half-yearly meeting of the deputies both at Thermopylae
+and at Delphi--these indications point to Thermopylae (the real central
+point for all the twelve) as the primary place of meeting, and to the
+Delphian half-year as something secondary and superadded. On such a
+matter, however, we cannot go beyond a conjecture.
+
+The hero Amphictyon, whose temple stood at Thermopylae, passed in
+mythical genealogy for the brother of Hellen. And it may be affirmed,
+with truth, that the habit of forming Amphictyonic unions, and of
+frequenting each other's religious festivals, was the great means of
+creating and fostering the primitive feeling of brotherhood among the
+children of Hellen, in those early times when rudeness, insecurity, and
+pugnacity did so much to isolate them. A certain number of salutary
+habits and sentiments, such as that which the Amphictyonic oath
+embodies, in regard to abstinence from injury as well as to mutual
+protection, gradually found their way into men's minds: the obligations
+thus brought into play acquired a substantive efficacy of their own, and
+the religious feeling which always remained connected with them, came
+afterward to be only one out of many complex agencies by which the later
+historical Greek was moved. Athens and Sparta in the days of their
+might, and the inferior cities in relation to them, played each their
+own political game, in which religious considerations will be found to
+bear only a subordinate part.
+
+The special function of the Amphictyonic council, so far as we know it,
+consisted in watching over the safety, the interests, and the treasures
+of the Delphian temple. "If any one shall plunder the property of the
+god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall take treacherous counsel
+against the things in the temple, we will punish him with foot, and
+hand, and voice, and by every means in our power." So ran the old
+Amphictyonic oath, with an energetic imprecation attached to it. And
+there are some examples in which the council constitutes its functions
+so largely as to receive and adjudicate upon complaints against entire
+cities, for offences against the religious and patriotic sentiment of
+the Greeks generally. But for the most part its interference relates
+directly to the Delphian temple. The earliest case in which it is
+brought to our view is the Sacred War against Cirrha, in the 46th
+Olympiad or B.C. 595, conducted by Eurolychus the Thessalian, and
+Clisthenes of Sicyon, and proposed by Solon of Athens: we find the
+Amphictyons also about half a century afterward undertaking the duty of
+collecting subscriptions throughout the Hellenic world, and making the
+contract with the Alcmaeonids for rebuilding the temple after a
+conflagration. But the influence of this council is essentially of a
+fluctuating and intermittent character. Sometimes it appears forward to
+decide, and its decisions command respect; but such occasions are rare,
+taking the general course of known Grecian history; while there are
+other occasions, and those too especially affecting the Delphian temple,
+on which we are surprised to find nothing said about it. In the long and
+perturbed period which Thucydides describes, he never once mentions the
+Amphictyons, though the temple and the safety of its treasures form the
+repeated subject as well of dispute as of express stipulation between
+Athens and Sparta. Moreover, among the twelve constituent members of the
+council, we find three--the Perrhaebians, the Magnetes, and the Achaeans
+of Phthia--who were not even independent, but subject to the
+Thessalians; so that its meetings, when they were not matters of mere
+form, probably expressed only the feelings of the three or four leading
+members. When one or more of these great powers had a party purpose to
+accomplish against others--when Philip of Macedon wished to extrude one
+of the members in order to procure admission for himself--it became
+convenient to turn this ancient form into a serious reality; and we
+shall see the Athenian AEschines providing a pretext for Philip to meddle
+in favor of the minor Boeotian cities against Thebes, by alleging that
+these cities were under the protection of the old Amphictyonic oath.
+
+It is thus that we have to consider the council as an element in Grecian
+affairs--an ancient institution, one among many instances of the
+primitive habit of religious fraternization, but wider and more
+comprehensive than the rest; at first purely religious, then religious
+and political at once, lastly more the latter than the former; highly
+valuable in the infancy, but unsuited to the maturity of Greece, and
+called into real working only on rare occasions, when its efficiency
+happened to fall in with the views of Athens, Thebes, or the king of
+Macedon. In such special moments it shines with a transient light which
+affords a partial pretense for the imposing title bestowed on it by
+Cicero--_commune Graeciae concilium;_ but we should completely
+misinterpret Grecian history if we regarded it as a federal council
+habitually directed or habitually obeyed. Had there existed any such
+"commune concilium" of tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the
+tendencies of the Hellenic mind been capable of adapting themselves to
+it, the whole course of later Grecian history would probably have been
+altered; the Macedonian kings would have remained only as respectable
+neighbors, borrowing civilization from Greece and expending their
+military energies upon Thracians and Illyrians; while united Hellas
+might even have maintained her own territory against the conquering
+legions of Rome.
+
+The twelve constituent Amphictyonic races remained unchanged until the
+Sacred War against the Phocians (B.C. 355), after which, though the
+number twelve was continued, the Phocians were disfranchised, and their
+votes transferred to Philip of Macedon. It has been already mentioned
+that these twelve did not exhaust the whole of Hellas. Arcadians,
+Eleans, Pisans, Minyae, Dryopes, AEtolians, all genuine Hellenes, are not
+comprehended in it; but all of them had a right to make use of the
+temple of Delphi, and to contend in the Pythian and Olympic games. The
+Pythian games, celebrated near Delphi, were under the superintendence of
+the Amphictyons, or of some acting magistrate chosen by and presumed to
+represent them. Like the Olympic games, they came round every four years
+(the interval between one celebration and another being four complete
+years, which the Greeks called a _Pentaeteris_): the Isthmian and Nemean
+games recurred every two years. In its first humble form a competition
+among bards to sing a hymn in praise of Apollo, this festival was
+doubtless of immemorial antiquity; but the first extension of it into
+pan-Hellenic notoriety (as I have already remarked), the first
+multiplication of the subjects of competition, and the first
+introduction of a continuous record of the conquerors, date only from
+the time when it came under the presidency of the Amphictyon, at the
+close of the Sacred War against Cirrha, What is called the first Pythian
+contest coincides with the third year of the 48th Olympiad, or B.C. 585.
+From that period forward the games become crowded and celebrated: but
+the date just named, nearly two centuries after the first Olympiad, is a
+proof that the habit of periodical frequentation of festivals, by
+numbers and from distant parts, grew up but slowly in the Grecian world.
+
+The foundation of the temple of Delphi itself reaches far beyond all
+historical knowledge, forming one of the aboriginal institutions of
+Hellas. It is a sanctified and wealthy place even in the _Iliad_; the
+legislation of Lycurgus at Sparta is introduced under its auspices, and
+the earliest Grecian colonies, those of Sicily and Italy in the eighth
+century B.C., are established in consonance with its mandate. Delphi and
+Dodona appear, in the most ancient circumstances of Greece, as
+universally venerated oracles and sanctuaries: and Delphi not only
+receives honors and donations, but also answers questions from Lydians,
+Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, etc.: it is not exclusively Hellenic. One
+of the valuable services which a Greek looked for from this and other
+great religious establishments was, that it should resolve his doubts in
+cases of perplexity; that it should advise him whether to begin a new,
+or to persist in an old project; that it should foretell what would be
+his fate under given circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under
+distress, on what conditions the gods would grant him relief.
+
+The three priestesses of Dodona with their venerable oak, and the
+priestess of Delphi sitting on her tripod under the influence of a
+certain gas or vapor exhaling from the rock, were alike competent to
+determine these difficult points: and we shall have constant occasion to
+notice in this history with what complete faith both the question was
+put and the answer treasured up--what serious influence it often
+exercised both upon public and private proceeding. The hexameter verses
+in which the Pythian priestess delivered herself were indeed often so
+equivocal or unintelligible, that the most serious believer, with all
+anxiety to interpret and obey them, often found himself ruined by the
+result. Yet the general faith in the oracle was no way shaken by such
+painful experience. For as the unfortunate issue always admitted of
+being explained upon two hypotheses--either that the god had spoken
+falsely, or that his meaning had not been correctly understood--no man
+of genuine piety ever hesitated to adopt the latter. There were many
+other oracles throughout Greece besides Delphi and Dodona; Apollo was
+open to the inquiries of the faithful at Ptoon in Boeotia, at Abae in
+Phocis, at Branchidae near Miletus, at Patara in Lycia, and other places:
+in like manner, Zeus gave answers at Olympia, Poseidon at Taenarus,
+Amphiaraus at Thebes, Amphilochus at Mallus, etc. And this habit of
+consulting the oracle formed part of the still more general tendency of
+the Greek mind to undertake no enterprise without having first
+ascertained how the gods viewed it, and what measures they were likely
+to take. Sacrifices were offered, and the interior of the victim
+carefully examined, with the same intent: omens, prodigies, unlooked-for
+coincidences, casual expressions, etc., were all construed as
+significant of the divine will. To sacrifice with a view to this or that
+undertaking, or to consult the oracle with the same view, are familiar
+expressions embodied in the language. Nor could any man set about a
+scheme with comfort until he had satisfied himself in some manner or
+other that the gods were favorable to it.
+
+The disposition here adverted to is one of these mental analogies
+pervading the whole Hellenic nation, which Herodotus indicates. And the
+common habit among all Greeks of respectfully listening to the oracle of
+Delphi will be found on many occasions useful in maintaining unanimity
+among men not accustomed to obey the same political superior. In the
+numerous colonies especially, founded by mixed multitudes from distant
+parts of Greece, the minds of the emigrants were greatly determined
+toward cordial cooeperation by their knowledge that the expedition had
+been directed, the oecist indicated, and the spot either chosen or
+approved by Apollo of Delphi. Such in most cases was the fact: that god,
+according to the conception of the Greeks, "takes delight always in the
+foundation of new cities, and himself in person lays the first stone."
+
+These are the elements of union with which the historical Hellenes take
+their start: community of blood, language, religious point of view,
+legends, sacrifices, festivals, and also (with certain allowances) of
+manners and character. The analogy of manners and character between the
+rude inhabitants of the Arcadian Cynaetha and the polite Athens, was,
+indeed, accompanied with wide differences; yet if we compare the two
+with foreign contemporaries, we shall find certain negative
+characteristics of much importance common to both. In no city of
+historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices or
+deliberate mutilation, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet,
+etc.; or castration; or selling of children into slavery; or polygamy;
+or the feeling of unlimited obedience toward one man: all customs which
+might be pointed out as existing among the contemporary Carthaginians,
+Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, etc. The habit of running, wrestling,
+boxing, etc., in gymnastic contests, with the body perfectly naked, was
+common to all Greeks, having been first adopted as a Lacedaemonian
+fashion in the fourteenth Olympiad: Thucydides and Herodotus remark that
+it was not only not practised, but even regarded as unseemly, among
+non-Hellenes. Of such customs, indeed, at once common to all the Greeks,
+and peculiar to them as distinguished from others, we cannot specify a
+great number, but we may see enough to convince ourselves that there did
+really exist, in spite of local differences, a general Hellenic
+sentiment and character, which counted among the cementing causes of a
+union apparently so little assured.
+
+During the two centuries succeeding B.C. 776, the festival of the
+Olympic Zeus in the Pisatid gradually passed from a local to a national
+character, and acquired an attractive force capable of bringing together
+into temporary union the dispersed fragments of Hellas, from Marseilles
+to Trebizond. In this important function it did not long stand alone.
+During the sixth century B.C., three other festivals, at first local,
+became successively nationalized--the Pythia near Delphi, the Isthmia
+near Corinth, the Nemea near Cleone, between Sicyon and Argos.
+
+In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the
+particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution and
+enlargement were brought about--a notice the more interesting inasmuch
+as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation of something like
+pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost alone in an age which presents
+little else in operation except distinct city interests. At the time
+when the Homeric Hymn to the Delphinian Apollo was composed (probably in
+the seventh century B.C.), the Pythian festival had as yet acquired
+little eminence. The rich and holy temple of Apollo was then purely
+oracular, established for the purpose of communicating to pious
+inquirers "the counsels of the Immortals." Multitudes of visitors came
+to consult it, as well as to sacrifice victims and to deposit costly
+offerings; but while the god delighted in the sound of the harp as an
+accompaniment to the singing of paeans, he was by no means anxious to
+encourage horse-races and chariot-races in the neighborhood. Nay, this
+psalmist considers that the noise of horses would be "a nuisance", the
+drinking of mules a desecration to the sacred fountains, and the
+ostentation of fine-built chariots objectionable, as tending to divert
+the attention of spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.
+From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary
+"in the rocky Pytho"--a rugged and uneven recess, of no great
+dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about
+two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost
+Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The
+situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the
+congregation of any considerable number of spectators; altogether
+impracticable for chariot-races; and only rendered practicable by later
+art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium. Such a site
+furnished little means of subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents
+of visitors enabled the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,
+and gathered together by degrees a village around it.
+
+Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude, was situated
+the ancient Phocian town of Crissa, on a projecting spur of
+Parnassus--overhung above by the line of rocky precipice called the
+Phaedriades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine through which
+flows the river Peistus. On the other side of this river rises the steep
+mountain Cirphis, which projects southward into the Corinthian gulf--the
+river reaching that gulf through the broad Crissoean plain, which
+stretches westward nearly to the Locrian town of Amphissa; a plain for
+the most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern
+part immediately under the Cirphis, where the seaport Cirrha was placed.
+The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong to the very
+earliest periods of Grecian antiquity. But the octennial solemnity in
+honor of the god included at first no other competition except that of
+bards, who sang each a paean with the harp. The Amphictyonic assembly
+held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of Pytho, the other
+at Thermopylae.
+
+In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed, the
+town of Crissa appears to have been great and powerful, possessing all
+the broad plain between Parnassus, Cirphis, and the gulf, to which
+latter it gave its name--and possessing also, what was a property not
+less valuable, the adjoining sanctuary of Pytho itself, which the Hymn
+identifies with Crissa, not indicating Delphi as a separate place. The
+Crissaeans doubtless derived great profits from the number of visitors
+who came to visit Delphi, both by land and by sea, and Cirrha was
+originally only the name for their seaport. Gradually, however, the port
+appears to have grown in importance at the expense of the town, just as
+Apollonia and Ptolemais came to equal Cyrene and Barca, and as Plymouth
+Dock has swelled into Devonport; while at the same time the sanctuary of
+Pytho with its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and came
+to claim an independent existence of its own. The original relations
+between Crissa, Cirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner at length
+subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising. The Crissaeans
+found themselves dispossessed of the management of the temple, which
+passed to the Delphians; as well as of the profits arising from the
+visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich the inhabitants of Cirrha.
+Crissa was a primitive city of the Phocian name, and could boast of a
+place as such in the Homeric Catalogue, so that her loss of importance
+was not likely to be quietly endured. Moreover, in addition to the above
+facts, already sufficient in themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told
+that the Cirrhaeans abused their position as masters of the avenue to the
+temple by sea, and levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who landed
+there--a number constantly increasing from the multiplication of the
+transmarine colonies, and from the prosperity of those in Italy and
+Sicily. Besides such offence against the general Grecian public, they
+had also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors by outrages upon
+women, Phocian as well as Argian, who were returning from the temple.
+
+Thus stood the case, apparently, about B.C. 595, when the Amphictyonic
+meeting interfered--either prompted by the Phocians, or perhaps on their
+own spontaneous impulse, out of regard to the temple--to punish the
+Cirrhaeans. After a war of ten years, the first sacred war in Greece,
+this object was completely accomplished by a joint force of Thessalians
+under Eurolychus, Sicyonians under Clisthenes, and Athenians under
+Alemaeon; the Athenian Solon being the person who originated and enforced
+in the Amphictyonic council the proposition of interference. Cirrha
+appears to have made a strenuous resistance until its supplies from the
+sea were intercepted by the naval force of the Sicyonian Clisthenes.
+Even after the town was taken, its inhabitants defended themselves for
+some time on the heights of Cirphis. At length, however, they were
+thoroughly subdued. Their town was destroyed or left to subsist merely
+us a landing-place; while the whole adjoining plain was consecrated to
+the Delphian god, whose domains thus touched the sea. Under this
+sentence, pronounced by the religious fooling of Greece, and sanctified
+by a solemn oath publicly sworn and inscribed at Delphi, the land was
+condemned to remain untilled and implanted, without any species of human
+care, and serving only for the pasturage of cattle. The latter
+circumstance was convenient to the temple, inasmuch as it furnished
+abundance of victims for the pilgrims who landed and came to
+sacrifice--for without preliminary sacrifice no man could consult the
+oracle; while the entire prohibition of tillage was the only means of
+obviating the growth of another troublesome neighbor on the seaboard.
+The ruin of Cirrha in this war is certain: though the necessity of a
+harbor for visitors arriving by sea, led to the gradual revival of the
+town upon a humbler scale of pretension. But the fate of Crissa is not
+so clear, nor do we know whether it was destroyed, or left subsisting in
+a position of inferiority with regard to Delphi. From this time forward,
+however, the Delphian community appear as substantive and autonomous,
+exercising in their own right the management of the temple; though we
+shall find, on more than one occasion, that the Phocians contest this
+right, and lay claim to the management of it for themselves--a remnant
+of that early period when the oracle stood in the domain of the Phocian
+Crissa. There seems, moreover, to have been a standing antipathy
+between the Delphians and the Phocians.
+
+The Sacred War emanating from a solemn Amphictyonic decree, carried on
+jointly by troops of different states whom we do not know to have ever
+before cooeperated, and directed exclusively toward an object of common
+interest--is in itself a fact of high importance, as manifesting a
+decided growth of pan-Hellenic feeling. Sparta is not named as
+interfering--a circumstance which seems remarkable when we consider both
+her power, even as it then stood, and her intimate connection with the
+Delphian oracle--while the Athenians appear as the chief movers, through
+the greatest and best of their citizens. The credit of a large-minded
+patriotism rests prominently upon them.
+
+But if this sacred war itself is a proof that the pan-Hellenic spirit
+was growing stronger, the positive result in which it ended reinforced
+that spirit still farther. The spoils of Cirrha were employed by the
+victorious allies in founding the Pythian games. The octennial festival
+hitherto celebrated at Delphi in honor of the god, including no other
+competition except in the harp and the paean, was expanded into
+comprehensive games on the model of the Olympic, with matches not only
+of music, but also of gymnastics and chariots--celebrated, not at Delphi
+itself, but on the maritime plain near the ruined Cirrha--and under the
+direct superintendence of the Amphictyons themselves. I have already
+mentioned that Solon provided large rewards for such Athenians as gained
+victories in the Olympic and Isthmian games, thereby indicating his
+sense of the great value of the national games as a means of promoting
+Hellenic intercommunion. It was the same feeling which instigated the
+foundation of the new games on the Cirrhaean plain, in commemoration of
+the vindicated honor of Apollo, and in the territory newly made over to
+him. They were celebrated in the autumn, or first half of every third
+Olympic year; the Amphictyons being the ostensible _Agonothets_ or
+administrators, and appointing persons to discharge the duty in their
+names. At the first Pythian ceremony (in B.C. 586), valuable rewards
+were given to the different victors; at the second (B.C. 582), nothing
+was conferred but wreaths of laurel--the rapidly attained celebrity of
+the games being such as to render any further recompense superfluous.
+The Sicyonian despot, Clisthenes himself, once the leader in the
+conquest of Cirrha, gained the prize at the chariot-race of the second
+Pythia. We find other great personages in Greece frequently mentioned as
+competitors, and the games long maintained a dignity second only to the
+Olympic, over which indeed they had some advantages; first, that they
+were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and
+antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were
+perverted by the Eleans on more than one occasion; next, that they
+comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From the
+circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games deserved,
+even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by
+Demosthenes--"the common _Agon_ of the Greeks."
+
+The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated
+solemnities in Greece. Yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a celebrity
+not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for the highest of all.
+Both the Nemea and Isthmia were distinguished from the other two
+festivals by occurring not once in four years, but once in two years;
+the former in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter
+in the first and third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek
+custom, an origin connected with the interesting persons and
+circumstances of legendary antiquity; but our historical knowledge of
+both begins with the sixth century B.C. The first historical Nemead is
+presented as belonging to Olympiad B.C. 52 or 53 (572-568), a few years
+subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the
+Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the
+valley of Nemea between Philus and Cleonae. The Cleonaeans themselves were
+originally its presidents, until, some period after B.C. 460, the
+Argians deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of
+administration to themselves. The Nemean games had their Hellanodicae to
+superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the
+Olympic.
+
+Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical information is a
+little earlier, for it has already been stated that Solon conferred a
+premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a prize at that festival
+as well as at the Olympian--in or after B.C. 594. It was celebrated by
+the Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidon, and if we may
+draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation, which is
+ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to have identified
+it with the antiquities of their own state.
+
+We thus perceive that the interval between B.C. 600-560, exhibits the
+first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea--the
+first expansion of all the three from local into pan-Hellenic festivals.
+To the Olympic games, for some time the only great centre of union among
+all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now added three other sacred
+_Agones_ of the like public, open, national character; constituting
+visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds, of collective Hellenism, and
+insuring to every Greek who went to compete in the matches, a safe and
+inviolate transit even through hostile Hellenic states. These four, all
+in or near Peloponnesus, and one of which occurred in each year, formed
+the period or cycle of sacred games, and those who had gained prizes at
+all the four received the enviable designation of Periodonices. The
+honors paid to Olympic victors, on their return to their native city,
+were prodigious even in the sixth century B.C., and became even more
+extravagant afterward. We may remark that in the Olympic games alone,
+the oldest as well as the most illustrious of the four, the musical and
+intellectual element was wanting. All the three more recent _Agones_
+included crowns for exercises of music and poetry, along with
+gymnastics, chariots, and horses.
+
+It was not only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon these
+four great festivals, that the gradual increase of Hellenic family
+feeling exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest period of
+Grecian history. Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious festivals
+in all the considerable towns gradually became more and more open and
+accessible, attracting guests as well as competitors from beyond the
+border. The comparative dignity of the city, as well as the honor
+rendered to the presiding god, were measured by the numbers, admiration,
+and envy, of the frequenting visitors. There is no positive evidence
+indeed of such expansion in the Attic festivals earlier than the reign
+of Pisistratus, who first added the quadrennial or greater Panathenae
+to the ancient annual or lesser Panathenaea. Nor can we trace the steps
+of progress in regard to Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespiae, Megara, Sicyon,
+Pellene, AEgina, Argos, etc., but we find full reason for believing that
+such was the general reality. Of the Olympic or Isthmian victors whom
+Pindar and Simonides celebrated, many derived a portion of their
+renown from previous victories acquired at several of these local
+contests--victories sometimes so numerous as to prove how widespread
+the habit of reciprocal frequentation had become: though we find, even
+in the third century B.C., treaties of alliance between different cities
+in which it is thought necessary to confer such mutual right by express
+stipulation. Temptation was offered, to the distinguished gymnastic or
+musical competitors, by prizes of great value. Timaeus even asserted,
+as a proof of the overweening pride of Croton and Sybaris, that these
+cities tried to supplant the preeminence of the Olympic games by
+instituting games of their own with the richest prizes to be celebrated
+at the same time--a statement in itself not worthy of credit, yet
+nevertheless illustrating the animated rivalry known to prevail among
+the Grecian cities in procuring for themselves splendid and crowded
+games. At the time when the Homeric hymn to Demeter was composed, the
+worship of that goddess seems to have been purely local at Eleusis. But
+before the Persian war, the festival celebrated by the Athenians every
+year, in honor of the Eleusinian Demeter, admitted Greeks of all cities
+to be initiated, and was attended by vast crowds of them.
+
+It was thus that the simplicity and strict local application of the
+primitive religious festival among the greater states in Greece
+gradually expanded, on certain great occasions periodically recurring,
+into an elaborate and regulated series of exhibitions not merely
+admitting, but soliciting, the fraternal presence of all Hellenic
+spectators. In this respect Sparta seems to have formed an exception to
+the remaining states. Her festivals were for herself alone, and her
+general rudeness toward other Greeks was not materially softened even at
+the Carneia and Hyacinthia, or Gymnopaediae. On the other hand, the Attic
+Dionysia were gradually exalted, from their original rude spontaneous
+outburst of village feeling in thankfulness to the god, followed by
+song, dance and revelry of various kinds, into costly and diversified
+performances, first by a trained chorus, next by actors superadded to
+it.
+
+And the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied the
+perfection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated to invite a
+pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment of Hellenic unity.
+The dramatic literature of Athens however belongs properly to a later
+period. Previous to the year B.C. 560, we see only those commencements
+of innovation which drew upon Thespis the rebuke of Solon; who however
+himself contributed to impart to the Panathenaic festival a more solemn
+and attractive character by checking the license of the rhapsodes and
+insuring to those present a full orderly recital of the _Iliad_.
+
+The sacred games and festivals took hold of the Greek mind by so great a
+variety of feelings as to counterbalance in a high degree the political
+disseverance, and to keep alive among their widespread cities, in the
+midst of constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of
+brotherhood and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died
+away. The Theors, or sacred envoys who came to Olympia or Delphi from so
+many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same
+altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives to
+enrich or adorn one respective scene. Moreover the festival afforded
+opportunity for a sort of fair, including much traffic amid so large a
+mass of spectators; and besides the exhibitions of the games themselves,
+there were recitations and lectures in a spacious council-room for those
+who chose to listen to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers and
+historians--among which last the history of Herodotus is said to have
+been publicly read by its author. Of the wealthy and great men in the
+various cities, many contended simply for the chariot-victories and
+horse-victories. But there were others whose ambition was of a character
+more strictly personal, and who stripped naked as runners, wrestlers,
+boxers, or pancratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of a
+complete previous training. Cylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp
+the scepter at Athens has been recounted, had gained the prize in the
+Olympic stadium; Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of Macedon, had
+run for it; the great family of the Diagoridae at Rhodes, who furnished
+magistrates and generals to their native city, supplied a still greater
+number of successful boxers and pancratiasts at Olympia, while other
+instances also occur of generals named by various cities from the list
+of successful Olympic gymnasts; and the odes of Pindar, always dearly
+purchased, attest how many of the great and wealthy were found in that
+list. The perfect popularity and equality of persons at these great
+games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to
+predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense crowd
+to a handful of servants armed with sticks, who executed the orders of
+the Elean Hellanodice. The ground upon which the ceremony took place,
+and even the territory of the administering state, was protected by a
+"Truce of God" during the month of the festival, the commencement of
+which was formally announced by heralds sent round to the different
+states. Treaties of peace between different cities were often formally
+commemorated by pillars there erected, and the general impression of the
+scene suggested nothing but ideas of peace and brotherhood among Greeks.
+And I may remark that the impression of the games as belonging to all
+Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the
+interval between B.C. 600-300 than it came to be afterward. For the
+Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and corrupting
+Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic tastes and
+manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners who were incapable of
+the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so that although in later
+times the games continued undiminished both in attraction and in number
+of visitors, the spirit of pan-Hellenic communion which had once
+animated the scene was gone forever.
+
+
+
+
+
+SOLON'S EARLY GREEK LEGISLATION
+
+B.C. 594
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     Lycurgus, the reputed Spartan lawgiver, is credited with the
+     construction, about B.C. 800, of the earliest Grecian commonwealth
+     founded upon a specific code of laws. These laws had mainly a
+     military basis, and through obedience to them the Spartans became a
+     people of great hardiness, accustomed to self-discipline, famous
+     for their prowess and endurance in war, and for sternness of
+     individual and social virtues.
+
+     In Athens there were no written laws until the time of Draco, B.C.
+     621, the government before that period having been long in the
+     hands of an oligarchy. In the year above named Draco was archon,
+     and to him was intrusted the work of framing a legal code,
+     conditions under the oligarchic rule having become intolerable to
+     the people at large. The chief features of Draco's legislation had
+     reference to the punishment of crime, and so extreme were the
+     severities of the system and so cruel the penalties it prescribed
+     that in later times it was declared to have been written in blood.
+
+     The Draconian laws remained in force until superseded by the great
+     system of Solon, whose advent as the new lawgiver was brought about
+     mainly through the conspiracy of Cylon, twelve years after the
+     legislation of Draco. Affairs in Athens were in a deplorable state
+     of confusion and violence, the revolt of the poor against the power
+     and privilege of the rich leading to dangerous dissensions and
+     collisions. Solon, who enjoyed a universal reputation for wisdom
+     and uprightness, was called upon by the oligarchy, which again held
+     rule, to assume what was, in fact, almost absolute power. The
+     character of his legislation and its influence upon the course of
+     Greek history have been set forth by many authors, and the
+     following account is perhaps the best that has appeared in modern
+     literature.
+
+
+Solon, son of Execestides, was a Eupatrid of middling fortune, but of
+the purest heroic blood, belonging to the _gens_ or family of the
+Codrids and Neleids, and tracing his origin to the god Poseidon. His
+father is said to have diminished his substance by prodigality, which
+compelled Solon in his earlier years to have recourse to trade, and in
+this pursuit he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. He was thus
+enabled to enlarge the sphere of his observation, and to provide
+material for thought as well as for composition. His poetical talents
+displayed themselves at a very early age, first on light, afterward on
+serious subjects. It will be recollected that there was at that time no
+Greek prose writing, and that the acquisitions as well as the effusions
+of an intellectual man, even in their simplest form, adjusted themselves
+not to the limitations of the period and the semicolon, but to those of
+the hexameter and pentameter. Nor, in point of fact, do the verses of
+Solon aspire to any higher effect than we are accustomed to associate
+with an earnest, touching, and admonitory prose composition. The advice
+and appeals which he frequently addressed to his countrymen were
+delivered in this easy metre, doubtless far less difficult than the
+elaborate prose of subsequent writers or speakers, such as Thucydides,
+Isocrates, or Demosthenes. His poetry and his reputation became known
+throughout many parts of Greece, so that he was classed along with
+Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene, Periander of
+Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, Cheilon of Lacedaemon--altogether forming
+the constellation afterward renowned as the seven wise men.
+
+The first particular event in respect to which Solon appears as an
+active politician, is the possession of the island of Salamis, then
+disputed between Megara and Athens. Megara was at that time able to
+contest with Athens, and for some time to contest with success, the
+occupation of this important island--a remarkable fact, which perhaps
+may be explained by supposing that the inhabitants of Athens and its
+neighborhood carried on the struggle with only partial aid from the rest
+of Attica. However this may be, it appears that the Megarians had
+actually established themselves in Salamis, at the time when Solon began
+his political career, and that the Athenians had experienced so much
+loss in the struggle as to have formally prohibited any citizen from
+ever submitting a proposition for its reconquest. Stung with this
+dishonorable abnegation, Solon counterfeited a state of ecstatic
+excitement, rushed into the agora, and there on the stone usually
+occupied by the official herald, pronounced to the surrounding crowd a
+short elegiac poem which he had previously composed on the subject of
+Salamis. Enforcing upon them the disgrace of abandoning the island, he
+wrought so powerfully upon their feelings that they rescinded the
+prohibitory law. "Rather (he exclaimed) would I forfeit my native city
+and become a citizen of Pholegandrus, than be still named an Athenian,
+branded with the shame of surrendered Salamis!" The Athenians again
+entered into the war, and conferred upon him the command of it--partly,
+as we are told, at the instigation of Pisistratus, though the latter
+must have been at this time (B.C. 600-594) a very young man, or rather a
+boy.
+
+The stories in Plutarch, as to the way in which Salamis was recovered,
+are contradictory as well as apocryphal, ascribing to Solon various
+stratagems to deceive the Megarian occupiers. Unfortunately no authority
+is given for any of them. According to that which seems the most
+plausible, he was directed by the Delphian god first to propitiate the
+local heroes of the island; and he accordingly crossed over to it by
+night, for the purpose of sacrificing to the heroes Periphemus and
+Cychreus on the Salaminian shore. Five hundred Athenian volunteers were
+then levied for the attack of the island, under the stipulation that if
+they were victorious they should hold it in property and citizenship.
+They were safely landed on an outlying promontory, while Solon, having
+been fortunate enough to seize a ship which the Megarians had sent to
+watch the proceedings, manned it with Athenians and sailed straight
+toward the city of Salamis, to which the Athenians who had landed also
+directed their march. The Megarians marched out from the city to repel
+the latter, and during the heat of the engagement Solon, with his
+Megarian ship and Athenian crew, sailed directly to the city. The
+Megarians, interpreting this as the return of their own crew, permitted
+the ship to approach without resistance, and the city was thus taken by
+surprise. Permission having been given to the Megarians to quit the
+island, Solon took possession of it for the Athenians, erecting a temple
+to Enyalius, the god of war, on Cape Sciradium, near the city of
+Salamis.
+
+The citizens of Megara, however, made various efforts for the recovery
+of so valuable a possession, so that a war ensued long as well as
+disastrous to both parties. At last it was agreed between them to refer
+the dispute to the arbitration of Sparta, and five Spartans were
+appointed to decide it--Critolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsechidas,
+Anaxilas, and Cleomenes. The verdict in favor of Athens was founded on
+evidence which it is somewhat curious to trace. Both parties attempted
+to show that the dead bodies buried in the island conformed to their own
+peculiar mode of interment, and both parties are said to have cited
+verses from the catalogue of the _Iliad_--each accusing the other of
+error or interpolation. But the Athenians had the advantage on two
+points: first, there were oracles from Delphi, wherein Salamis was
+mentioned with the epithet Ionian; next Philaeus and Eurysaces, sons of
+the Telamonian Ajax, the great hero of the island, had accepted the
+citizenship of Athens, made over Salamis to the Athenians, and
+transferred their own residences to Brauron and Melite in Attica, where
+the _deme_, or _gens_, Philaidae still worshipped Philaeus as its
+eponymous ancestor. Such a title was held sufficient, and Salamis was
+adjudged by the five Spartans to Attica, with which it ever afterward
+remained incorporated until the days of Macedonian supremacy. Two
+centuries and a half later, when the orator AEschines argued the Athenian
+right to Amphipolis against Philip of Macedon, the legendary elements of
+the title were indeed put forward, but more in the way of preface or
+introduction to the substantial political grounds. But in the year 600
+B.C. the authority of the legend was more deep-seated and operative, and
+adequate by itself to determine a favorable verdict.
+
+In addition to the conquest of Salamis, Solon increased his reputation
+by espousing the cause of the Delphian temple against the extortionate
+proceedings of the inhabitants of Cirrha, and the favor of the oracle
+was probably not without its effect in procuring for him that
+encouraging prophecy with which his legislative career opened.
+
+It is on the occasion of Solon's legislation that we obtain our first
+glimpse--unfortunately but a glimpse--of the actual state of Attica and
+its inhabitants. It is a sad and repulsive picture, presenting to us
+political discord and private suffering combined.
+
+Violent dissensions prevailed among the inhabitants of Attica, who were
+separated into three factions--the Pedieis, or men of the plain,
+comprising Athens, Eleusis, and the neighboring territory, among whom
+the greatest number of rich families were included; the mountaineers in
+the east and north of Attica, called Diacrii, who were, on the whole,
+the poorest party; and the Paralii in the southern portion of Attica
+from sea to sea, whose means and social position were intermediate
+between the two. Upon what particular points these intestine disputes
+turned we are not distinctly informed. They were not, however, peculiar
+to the period immediately preceding the archonship of Solon. They had
+prevailed before, and they reappear afterward prior to the despotism of
+Pisistratus; the latter standing forward as the leader of the Diacrii,
+and as champion, real or pretended, of the poorer population.
+
+But in the time of Solon these intestine quarrels were aggravated by
+something much more difficult to deal with--a general mutiny of the
+poorer population against the rich, resulting from misery combined with
+oppression. The Thetes, whose condition we have already contemplated in
+the poems of Homer and Hesiod, are now presented to us as forming the
+bulk of the population of Attica--the cultivating tenants, metayers, and
+small proprietors of the country. They are exhibited as weighed down by
+debts and dependence, and driven in large numbers out of a state of
+freedom into slavery--the whole mass of them (we are told) being in debt
+to the rich, who were proprietors of the greater part of the soil. They
+had either borrowed money for their own necessities, or they tilled the
+lands of the rich as dependent tenants, paying a stipulated portion of
+the produce, and in this capacity they were largely in arrear.
+
+All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor
+and creditor--once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion
+of the world--combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate
+status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of
+another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract was
+liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor, until he could find
+means either of paying it or working it out; and not only he himself,
+but his minor sons and unmarried daughters and sisters also, whom the
+law gave him the power of selling. The poor man thus borrowed upon the
+security of his body (to translate literally the Greek phrase) and upon
+that of the persons in his family. So severely had these oppressive
+contracts been enforced, that many debtors had been reduced from freedom
+to slavery in Attica itself, many others had been sold for exportation,
+and some had only hitherto preserved their own freedom by selling their
+children. Moreover, a great number of the smaller properties in Attica
+were under mortgage, signified--according to the formality usual in the
+Attic law, and continued down throughout the historical times--by a
+stone pillar erected on the land, inscribed with the name of the lender
+and the amount of the loan. The proprietors of these mortgaged lands, in
+case of an unfavorable turn of events, had no other prospect except that
+of irremediable slavery for themselves and their families, either in
+their own native country robbed of all its delights, or in some
+barbarian region where the Attic accent would never meet their ears.
+Some had fled the country to escape legal adjudication of their persons,
+and earned a miserable subsistence in foreign parts by degrading
+occupations. Upon several, too, this deplorable lot had fallen by unjust
+condemnation and corrupt judges; the conduct of the rich, in regard to
+money sacred and profane, in regard to matters public as well as
+private, being thoroughly unprincipled and rapacious.
+
+The manifold and long-continued suffering of the poor under this system,
+plunged into a state of debasement not more tolerable than that of the
+Gallic _plebs_--and the injustices of the rich, in whom all political
+power was then vested--are facts well attested by the poems of Solon
+himself, even in the short fragments preserved to us. It appears that
+immediately preceding the time of his archonship the evils had ripened
+to such a point, and the determination of the mass of sufferers to
+extort for themselves some mode of relief had become so pronounced, that
+the existing laws could no longer be enforced. According to the profound
+remark of Aristotle--that seditions are generated by great causes but
+out of small incidents--we may conceive that some recent events had
+occurred as immediate stimulants to the outbreak of the debtors, like
+those which lent so striking an interest to the early Roman annals, as
+the inflaming sparks of violent popular movements for which the train
+had long before been laid. Condemnations by the archons of insolvent
+debtors may have been unusually numerous; or the maltreatment of some
+particular debtor, once a respected freeman, in his condition of
+slavery, may have been brought to act vividly upon the public
+sympathies; like the case of the old plebeian centurion at Rome--first
+impoverished by the plunder of the enemy, then reduced to borrow, and
+lastly adjudged to his creditor as an insolvent--who claimed the
+protection of the people in the forum, rousing their feelings to the
+highest pitch by the marks of the slave-whip visible on his person. Some
+such incidents had probably happened, though we have no historians to
+recount them. Moreover, it is not unreasonable to imagine that that
+public mental affliction which the purifier Epimenides had been invoked
+to appease, as it sprung in part from pestilence, so it had its cause
+partly in years of sterility, which must of course have aggravated the
+distress of the small cultivators. However this may be, such was the
+condition of things in B.C. 594 through mutiny of the poor freemen and
+_Thetes_, and uneasiness of the middling citizens, that the governing
+oligarchy, unable either to enforce their private debts or to maintain
+their political power, were obliged to invoke the well-known wisdom and
+integrity of Solon. Though his vigorous protest--which doubtless
+rendered him acceptable to the mass of the people--against the iniquity
+of the existing system had already been proclaimed in his poems, they
+still hoped that he would serve as an auxiliary to help them over their
+difficulties. They therefore chose him, nominally as archon along with
+Philombrotus, but with power in substance dictatorial.
+
+It had happened in several Grecian states that the governing
+oligarchies, either by quarrels among their own members or by the
+general bad condition of the people under their government, were
+deprived of that hold upon the public mind which was essential to their
+power. Sometimes--as in the case of Pittacus of Mitylene anterior to the
+archonship of Solon, and often in the factions of the Italian republics
+in the middle ages--the collision of opposing forces had rendered
+society intolerable, and driven all parties to acquiesce in the choice
+of some reforming dictator. Usually, however, in the early Greek
+oligarchies, this ultimate crisis was anticipated by some ambitious
+individual, who availed himself of the public discontent to overthrow
+the oligarchy and usurp the powers of a despot. And so probably it
+might have happened in Athens, had not the recent failure of Cylon, with
+all its miserable consequences, operated as a deterring motive. It is
+curious to read, in the words of Solon himself, the temper in which his
+appointment was construed by a large portion of the community, but more
+especially by his own friends: bearing in mind that at this early day,
+so far as our knowledge goes, democratical government was a thing
+unknown in Greece--all Grecian governments were either oligarchical or
+despotic--the mass of the freemen having not yet tasted of
+constitutional privilege. His own friends and supporters were the first
+to urge him, while redressing the prevalent discontents, to multiply
+partisans for himself personally, and seize the supreme power. They even
+"chid him as a mad-man, for declining to haul up the net when the fish
+were already enmeshed." The mass of the people, in despair with their
+lot, would gladly have seconded him in such an attempt; while many even
+among the oligarchy might have acquiesced in his personal government,
+from the mere apprehension of something worse if they resisted it. That
+Solon might easily have made himself despot admits of little doubt. And
+though the position of a Greek despot was always perilous, he would have
+had greater facility for maintaining himself in it than Pisistratus
+possessed after him; so that nothing but the combination of prudence and
+virtue, which marks his lofty character, restricted him within the trust
+specially confided to him. To the surprise of every one--to the
+dissatisfaction of his own friends--under the complaints alike (as he
+says) of various extreme and dissentient parties, who required him to
+adopt measures fatal to the peace of society--he set himself honestly to
+solve the very difficult and critical problem submitted to him.
+
+Of all grievances, the most urgent was the condition of the poorer class
+of debtors. To their relief Solon's first measure, the memorable
+_Seisachtheia_, or shaking off of burdens, was directed. The relief
+which it afforded was complete and immediate. It cancelled at once all
+those contracts in which the debtor had borrowed on the security either
+of his person or of his land: it forbade all future loans or contracts
+in which the person of the debtor was pledged as security; it deprived
+the creditor in future of all power to imprison, or enslave, or extort
+work, from his debtor, and confined him to an effective judgment at law
+authorizing the seizure of the property of the latter. It swept off all
+the numerous mortgage pillars from the landed properties in Attica,
+leaving the land free from all past claims. It liberated and restored to
+their full rights all debtors actually in slavery under previous legal
+adjudication; and it even provided the means (we do not know how) of
+repurchasing in foreign lands, and bringing back to a renewed life of
+liberty in Attica, many insolvents who had been sold for exportation.
+And while Solon forbade every Athenian to pledge or sell his own person
+into slavery, he took a step farther in the same direction by forbidding
+him to pledge or sell his son, his daughter, or an unmarried sister
+under his tutelage--excepting only the case in which either of the
+latter might be detected in unchastity. Whether this last ordinance was
+contemporaneous with the Seisachtheia, or followed as one of his
+subsequent reforms, seems doubtful.
+
+By this extensive measure the poor debtors--the Thetes, small tenants,
+and proprietors--together with their families, were rescued from
+suffering and peril. But these were not the only debtors in the state:
+the creditors and landlords of the exonerated Thetes were doubtless in
+their turn debtors to others, and were less able to discharge their
+obligations in consequence of the loss inflicted upon them by the
+Seisachtheia. It was to assist these wealthier debtors, whose bodies
+were in no danger--yet without exonerating them entirely--that Solon
+resorted to the additional expedient of debasing the money standard. He
+lowered the standard of the drachma in a proportion of something more
+than 25 per cent., so that 100 drachmas of the new standard contained no
+more silver than 73 of the old, or 100 of the old were equivalent to 138
+of the new. By this change the creditors of these more substantial
+debtors were obliged to submit to a loss, while the debtors acquired an
+exemption to the extent of about 27 per cent.
+
+Lastly, Solon decreed that all those who had been condemned by the
+archons to _atimy_ (civil disfranchisement) should be restored to their
+full privileges of citizens--excepting, however, from this indulgence
+those who had been condemned by the Ephetae, or by the Areopagus, or by
+the Phylo-Basileis (the four kings of the tribes), after trial in the
+Prytaneum, on charges either of murder or treason. So wholesale a
+measure of amnesty affords strong grounds for believing that the
+previous judgments of the archons had been intolerably harsh; and it is
+to be recollected that the Draconian ordinances were then in force.
+
+Such were the measures of relief with which Solon met the dangerous
+discontent then prevalent. That the wealthy men and leaders of the
+people--whose insolence and iniquity he has himself severely denounced
+in his poems, and whose views in nominating him he had greatly
+disappointed--should have detested propositions which robbed them
+without compensation of many legal rights, it is easy to imagine. But
+the statement of Plutarch that the poor emancipated debtors were also
+dissatisfied, from having expected that Solon would not only remit their
+debts, but also redivide the soil of Attica, seems utterly incredible;
+nor is it confirmed by any passage now remaining of the Solonian poems.
+Plutarch conceives the poor debtors as having in their minds the
+comparison with Lycurgus and the equality of property at Sparta, which,
+in my opinion, is clearly a matter of fiction; and even had it been true
+as a matter of history long past and antiquated, would not have been
+likely to work upon the minds of the multitude of Attica in the forcible
+way that the biographer supposes. The Seisachtheia must have exasperated
+the feelings and diminished the fortunes of many persons; but it gave to
+the large body of Thetes and small proprietors all that they could
+possibly have hoped. We are told that after a short interval it became
+eminently acceptable in the general public mind, and procured for Solon
+a great increase of popularity--all ranks concurring in a common
+sacrifice of thanksgiving and harmony. One incident there was which
+occasioned an outcry of indignation. Three rich friends of Solon, all
+men of great family in the state, and bearing names which appear in
+history as borne by their descendants--namely: Conon, Cleinias, and
+Hipponicus--having obtained from Solon some previous hint of his
+designs, profited by it, first to borrow money, and next to make
+purchases of lands; and this selfish breach of confidence would have
+disgraced Solon himself, had it not been found that he was personally a
+great loser, having lent money to the extent of five talents.
+
+In regard to the whole measure of the Seisachtheia, indeed, though the
+poems of Solon were open to every one, ancient authors gave different
+statements both of its purport and of its extent. Most of them construed
+it as having cancelled indiscriminately all money contracts; while
+Androtion and others thought that it did nothing more than lower the
+rate of interest and depreciate the currency to the extent of 27 per
+cent., leaving the letter of the contracts unchanged. How Androtion came
+to maintain such an opinion we cannot easily understand. For the
+fragments now remaining from Solon seem distinctly to refute it, though,
+on the other hand, they do not go so far as to substantiate the full
+extent of the opposite view entertained by many writers--that all money
+contracts indiscriminately were rescinded--against which there is also a
+further reason, that if the fact had been so, Solon could have had no
+motive to debase the money standard. Such debasement supposes that there
+must have been _some_ debtors at least whose contracts remained valid,
+and whom nevertheless he desired partially to assist. His poems
+distinctly mention three things: 1. The removal of the mortgage-pillars.
+2. The enfranchisement of the land. 3. The protection, liberation, and
+restoration of the persons of endangered or enslaved debtors. All these
+expressions point distinctly to the Thetes and small proprietors, whose
+sufferings and peril were the most urgent, and whose case required a
+remedy immediate as well as complete. We find that his repudiation of
+debts was carried far enough to exonerate them, but no farther.
+
+It seems to have been the respect entertained for the character of Solon
+which partly occasioned these various misconceptions of his ordinances
+for the relief of debtors. Androtion in ancient, and some eminent
+critics in modern times are anxious to make out that he gave relief
+without loss or injustice to any one. But this opinion seems
+inadmissible. The loss to creditors by the wholesale abrogation of
+numerous preexisting contracts, and by the partial depreciation of the
+coin, is a fact not to be disguised. The Seisachtheia of Solon, unjust
+so far as it rescinded previous agreements, but highly salutary in its
+consequences, is to be vindicated by showing that in no other way could
+the bonds of government have been held together, or the misery of the
+multitude alleviated. We are to consider, first, the great personal
+cruelty of these preexisting contracts, which condemned the body of the
+free debtor and his family to slavery; next, the profound detestation
+created by such a system in the large mass of the poor, against both the
+judges and the creditors by whom it had been enforced, which rendered
+their feelings unmanageable so soon as they came together under the
+sentiment of a common danger and with the determination to insure to
+each other mutual protection. Moreover, the law which vests a creditor
+with power over the person of his debtor so as to convert him into a
+slave, is likely to give rise to a class of loans which inspire nothing
+but abhorrence--money lent with the foreknowledge that the borrower will
+be unable to repay it, but also in the conviction that the value of his
+person as a slave will make good the loss; thus reducing him to a
+condition of extreme misery, for the purpose sometimes of aggrandizing,
+sometimes of enriching, the lender. Now the foundation on which the
+respect for contracts rests, under a good law of debtor and creditor, is
+the very reverse of this. It rests on the firm conviction that such
+contracts are advantageous to both parties as a class, and that to break
+up the confidence essential to their existence would produce extensive
+mischief throughout all society. The man whose reverence for the
+obligation of a contract is now the most profound, would have
+entertained a very different sentiment if he had witnessed the dealings
+of lender and borrower at Athens under the old ante-Solonian law. The
+oligarchy had tried their best to enforce this law of debtor and
+creditor with its disastrous series of contracts, and the only reason
+why they consented to invoke the aid of Solon was because they had lost
+the power of enforcing it any longer, in consequence of the newly
+awakened courage and combination of the people. That which they could
+not do for themselves, Solon could not have done for them, even had he
+been willing. Nor had he in his position the means either of exempting
+or compensating those creditors who, separately taken, were open to no
+reproach; indeed, in following his proceedings, we see plainly that he
+thought compensation due, not to the creditors, but to the past
+sufferings of the enslaved debtor, since he redeemed several of them
+from foreign captivity, and brought them back to their homes. It is
+certain that no measure simply and exclusively prospective would have
+sufficed for the emergency. There was an absolute necessity for
+overruling all that class of preexisting rights which had produced so
+violent a social fever. While, therefore, to this extent, the
+Seisachtheia cannot be acquitted of injustice, we may confidently affirm
+that the injustice inflicted was an indispensable price paid for the
+maintenance of the peace of society, and for the final abrogation of a
+disastrous system as regarded insolvents. And the feeling as well as the
+legislation universal in the modern European world, by interdicting
+beforehand all contracts for selling a man's person or that of his
+children into slavery, goes far to sanction practically the Solonian
+repudiation.
+
+One thing is never to be forgotten in regard to this measure, combined
+with the concurrent amendments introduced by Solon in the law--it
+settled finally the question to which it referred. Never again do we
+hear of the law of debtor and creditor as disturbing Athenian
+tranquillity. The general sentiment which grew up at Athens, under the
+Solonian money-law and under the democratical government, was one of
+high respect for the sanctity of contracts. Not only was there never any
+demand in the Athenian democracy for new tables or a depreciation of the
+money standard, but a formal abnegation of any such projects was
+inserted in the solemn oath taken annually by the numerous Dicasts, who
+formed the popular judicial body called Heliaea or the Heliastic jurors:
+the same oath which pledged them to uphold the democratical
+constitution, also bound them to repudiate all proposals either for an
+abrogation of debts or for a redivision of the lands. There can be
+little doubt that under the Solonian law, which enabled the creditor to
+seize the property of his debtor, but gave him no power over the person,
+the system of money-lending assumed a more beneficial character. The old
+noxious contracts, mere snares for the liberty of a poor freeman and his
+children, disappeared, and loans of money took their place, founded on
+the property and prospective earnings of the debtor, which were in the
+main useful to both parties, and therefore maintained their place in the
+moral sentiment of the public. And though Solon had found himself
+compelled to rescind all the mortgages on land subsisting in his time,
+we see money freely lent upon this same security throughout the
+historical times of Athens, and the evidentiary mortgage-pillars
+remaining ever after undisturbed.
+
+In the sentiment of an early society, as in the old Roman law, a
+distinction is commonly made between the principal and the interest of a
+loan, though the creditors have sought to blend them indissolubly
+together. If the borrower cannot fulfil his promise to repay the
+principal, the public will regard him as having committed a wrong which
+he must make good by his person. But there is not the same unanimity as
+to his promise to pay interest: on the contrary, the very exaction of
+interest will be regarded by many in the same light in which the English
+law considers usurious interest, as tainting the whole transaction. But
+in the modern mind, principal, and interest within a limited rate, have
+so grown together, that we hardly understand how it can ever have been
+pronounced unworthy of an honorable citizen to lend money on interest.
+Yet such is the declared opinion of Aristotle and other superior men of
+antiquity; while at Rome, Cato the censor went so far as to denounce the
+practice as a heinous crime. It was comprehended by them among the worst
+of the tricks of trade--and they held that all trade, or profit derived
+from interchange, was unnatural, as being made by one man at the expense
+of another; such pursuits therefore could not be commended, though they
+might be tolerated to a certain extent as a matter of necessity, but
+they belonged essentially to an inferior order of citizens. What is
+remarkable in Greece is, that the antipathy of a very early state of
+society against traders and money-lenders lasted longer among the
+philosophers than among the mass of the people--it harmonized more with
+the social _ideal_ of the former, than with the practical instincts of
+the latter.
+
+In a rude condition such as that of the ancient Germans described by
+Tacitus, loans on interest are unknown. Habitually careless of the
+future, the Germans were gratified both in giving and receiving
+presents, but without any idea that they thereby either imposed or
+contracted an obligation. To a people in this state of feeling, a loan
+on interest presents the repulsive idea of making profit out of the
+distress of the borrower. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that the
+first borrowers must have been for the most part men driven to this
+necessity by the pressure of want, and contracting debt as a desperate
+resource, without any fair prospect of ability to repay: debt and famine
+run together in the mind of the poet Hesiod. The borrower is, in this
+unhappy state, rather a distressed man soliciting aid than a solvent man
+capable of making and fulfilling a contract. If he cannot find a friend
+to make him a free gift in the former character, he will not, under the
+latter character, obtain a loan from a stranger, except by the promise
+of exorbitant interest, and by the fullest eventual power over his
+person which he is in a condition to grant. In process of time a new
+class of borrowers arise who demand money for temporary convenience or
+profit, but with full prospect of repayment--a relation of lender and
+borrower quite different from that of the earlier period, when it
+presented itself in the repulsive form of misery on the one side, set
+against the prospect of very large profit on the other. If the Germans
+of the time of Tacitus looked to the condition of the poor debtors in
+Gaul, reduced to servitude under a rich creditor, and swelling by
+hundreds the crowd of his attendants, they would not be disposed to
+regret their own ignorance of the practice of money-lending. How much
+the interest of money was then regarded as an undue profit extorted from
+distress is powerfully illustrated by the old Jewish law; the Jew being
+permitted to take interest from foreigners--whom the lawgiver did not
+think himself obliged to protect--but not from his own countrymen. The
+_Koran_ follows out this point of view consistently, and prohibits the
+taking of interest altogether. In most other nations laws have been made
+to limit the rate of interest, and at Rome especially the legal rate was
+successively lowered--though it seems, as might have been expected, that
+the restrictive ordinances were constantly eluded. All such restrictions
+have been intended for the protection of debtors; an effect which large
+experience proves them never to produce, unless it be called protection
+to render the obtaining of money on loan impracticable for the most
+distressed borrowers. But there was another effect which they _did_
+tend to produce--they softened down the primitive antipathy against the
+practice generally, and confined the odious name of usury to loans lent
+above the fixed legal rate.
+
+In this way alone could they operate beneficially, and their tendency to
+counterwork the previous feeling was at that time not unimportant,
+coinciding as it did with other tendencies arising out of the industrial
+progress of society, which gradually exhibited the relation of lender
+and borrower in a light more reciprocal, beneficial, and less repugnant
+to the sympathies of the bystander.
+
+At Athens the more favorable point of view prevailed throughout all the
+historical times. The march of industry and commerce, under the
+mitigated law which prevailed subsequently to Solon, had been sufficient
+to bring it about at a very early period and to suppress all public
+antipathy against lenders at interest. We may remark, too, that this
+more equitable tone of opinion grew up spontaneously, without any legal
+restriction on the rate of interest--no such restriction having ever
+been imposed and the rate being expressly declared free by a law
+ascribed to Solon himself. The same may probably be said of the
+communities of Greece generally--at least there is no information to
+make us suppose the contrary. But the feeling against lending money at
+interest remained in the bosoms of the philosophical men long after it
+had ceased to form a part of the practical morality of the citizens, and
+long after it had ceased to be justified by the appearances of the case
+as at first it really had been. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Plutarch,
+treat the practice as a branch of the commercial and money-getting
+spirit which they are anxious to discourage; and one consequence of this
+was that they were, less disposed to contend strenuously for the
+inviolability of existing money-contracts. The conservative feeling on
+this point was stronger among the mass than among the philosophers.
+Plato even complains of it as inconveniently preponderant, and as
+arresting the legislator in all comprehensive projects of reform. For
+the most part, indeed, schemes of cancelling debts and redividing lands
+were never thought of except by men of desperate and selfish ambition,
+who made them stepping-stones to despotic power. Such men were
+denounced alike by the practical sense of the community and by the
+speculative thinkers: but when we turn to the case of the Spartan king,
+Agis III, who proposed a complete extinction of debts and an equal
+redivision of the landed property of the state, not with any selfish or
+personal views, but upon pure ideas of patriotism, well or ill
+understood, and for the purpose of renovating the lost ascendancy of
+Sparta--we find Plutarch expressing the most unqualified admiration of
+this young king and his projects, and treating the opposition made to
+him as originating in no better feelings than meanness and cupidity. The
+philosophical thinkers on politics conceived--and to a great degree
+justly, as I shall show hereafter--that the conditions of security, in
+the ancient world, imposed upon the citizens generally the absolute
+necessity of keeping up a military spirit and willingness to brave at
+all times personal hardship and discomfort: so that increase of wealth,
+on account of the habits of self-indulgence which it commonly
+introduces, was regarded by them with more or less of disfavor. If in
+their estimation any Grecian community had become corrupt, they were
+willing to sanction great interference with preexisting rights for the
+purpose of bringing it back nearer to their ideal standard. And the real
+security for the maintenance of these rights lay in the conservative
+feelings of the citizens generally, much more than in the opinions which
+superior minds imbibed from the philosophers.
+
+Such conservative feelings were in the subsequent Athenian democracy
+peculiarly deep-rooted. The mass of the Athenian people identified
+inseparably the maintenance of property in all its various shapes with
+that of their laws and constitution. And it is a remarkable fact, that
+though the admiration entertained at Athens for Solon was universal, the
+principle of his Seisachtheia and of his money-depreciation was not only
+never imitated, but found the strongest tacit reprobation; whereas at
+Rome, as well as in most of the kingdoms of modern Europe, we know that
+one debasement of the coin succeeded another. The temptation of thus
+partially eluding the pressure of financial embarrassments proved, after
+one successful trial, too strong to be resisted, and brought down the
+coin by successive depreciations from the full pound of twelve ounces to
+the standard of one half ounce. It is of some importance to take notice
+of this fact, when we reflect how much "Grecian faith" has been degraded
+by the Roman writers into a byword for duplicity in pecuniary dealings.
+The democracy of Athens--and indeed the cities of Greece generally, both
+oligarchies and democracies--stands far above the senate of Rome, and
+far above the modern kingdoms of France and England until comparatively
+recent times, in respect of honest dealing with the coinage. Moreover,
+while there occurred at Rome several political changes which brought
+about new tables, or at least a partial depreciation of contracts, no
+phenomenon of the same kind ever happened at Athens, during the three
+centuries between Solon and the end of the free working of the
+democracy, Doubtless there were fraudulent debtors at Athens; while the
+administration of private law, though not in any way conniving at their
+proceedings, was far too imperfect to repress them as effectually as
+might have been wished. But the public sentiment on the point was just
+and decided. It may be asserted with confidence that a loan of money at
+Athens was quite as secure as it ever was at any time or place of the
+ancient world--in spite of the great and important superiority of Rome
+with respect to the accumulation of a body of authoritative legal
+precedent, the source of what was ultimately shaped into the Roman
+jurisprudence. Among the various causes of sedition or mischief in the
+Grecian communities, we hear little of the pressure of private debt.
+
+By the measures of relief above described, Solon had accomplished
+results surpassing his own best hopes. He had healed the prevailing
+discontents; and such was the confidence and gratitude which he had
+inspired, that he was now called upon to draw up a constitution and laws
+for the better working of the government in future. His constitutional
+changes were great and valuable: respecting his laws, what we hear is
+rather curious than important.
+
+It has been already stated that, down to the time of Solon, the
+classification received in Attica was that of the four Ionic tribes,
+comprising in one scale the Phratries and Gentes, and in another scale
+the three Trittyes and forty-eight Naucraries--while the Eupatridae,
+seemingly a few specially respected gentes, and perhaps a few
+distinguished families in all the gentes, had in their hands all the
+powers of government. Solon introduced a new principle of
+classification--called in Greek the "timocratic principle." He
+distributed all the citizens of the tribes, without any reference to
+their gentes or phratries, into four classes, according to the amount of
+their property, which he caused to be assessed and entered in a public
+schedule. Those whose annual income was equal to five hundred medimni of
+corn (about seven hundred imperial bushels) and upward--one medimnus
+being considered equivalent to one drachma in money--he placed in the
+highest class; those who received between three hundred and five hundred
+medimni or drachmas formed the second class; and those between two
+hundred and three hundred, the third. The fourth and most numerous class
+comprised all those who did not possess land yielding a produce equal to
+two hundred medimni. The first class, called Pentacosiomedimni, were
+alone eligible to the archonship and to all commands: the second were
+called the knights or horsemen of the state, as possessing enough to
+enable them to keep a horse and perform military service in that
+capacity: the third class, called the [Greek: Zeugitae], formed the
+heavy-armed infantry, and were bound to serve, each with his full
+panoply. Each of these three classes was entered in the public schedule
+as possessed of a taxable capital calculated with a certain reference to
+his annual income, but in a proportion diminishing according to the
+scale of that income--and a man paid taxes to the state according to the
+sum for which he stood rated in the schedule; so that this direct
+taxation acted really like a graduated income-tax. The ratable property
+of the citizen belonging to the richest class (the Pentacosiomedimnus)
+was calculated and entered on the state schedule at a sum of capital
+equal to twelve times his annual income; that of the Hippeus, horseman
+or knight, at a sum equal to ten times his annual income: that of the
+Zeugite, at a sum equal to five times his annual income. Thus a
+Pentacosiomedimnus, whose income was exactly 500 drachmas (the minimum
+qualification of his class), stood rated in the schedule for a taxable
+property of 6,000 drachmas or one talent, being twelve times his
+income--if his annual income were 1,000 drachmas, he would stand rated
+for 12,000 drachmas or two talents, being the same proportion of income
+to ratable capital. But when we pass to the second class, horsemen or
+knights, the proportion of the two is changed. The horseman possessing
+an income of just 300 drachmas (or 300 medimni) would stand rated for
+3,000 drachmas, or ten times his real income, and so in the same
+proportion for any income above 300 and below 500. Again, in the third
+class, or below 300, the proportion is a second time altered--the
+Zeugite possessing exactly 200 drachmas of income was rated upon a still
+lower calculation, at 1,000 drachmas, or a sum equal to five times his
+income; and all incomes of this class (between 200 and 300 drachmas)
+would in like manner be multiplied by five in order to obtain the amount
+of ratable capital. Upon these respective sums of schedule capital all
+direct taxation was levied. If the state required 1 percent of direct
+tax, the poorest Pentacosiomedimnus would pay (upon 6,000 drachmas) 60
+drachmas; the poorest Hippeus would pay (upon 3,000 drachmas) 30; the
+poorest Zeugite would pay (upon 1,000 drachmas) 10 drachmas. And thus
+this mode of assessment would operate like a _graduated_ income-tax,
+looking at it in reference to the three different classes--but as an
+_equal_ income-tax, looking at it in reference to the different
+individuals comprised in one and the same class.
+
+All persons in the state whose annual income amounted to less than two
+hundred medimni or drachmas were placed in the fourth class, and they
+must have constituted the large majority of the community. They were not
+liable to any direct taxation, and perhaps were not at first even
+entered upon the taxable schedule, more especially as we do not know
+that any taxes were actually levied upon this schedule during the
+Solonian times. It is said that they were all called Thetes, but this
+appellation is not well sustained, and cannot be admitted: the fourth
+compartment in the descending scale was indeed termed the Thetic census,
+because it contained all the Thetes, and because most of its members
+were of that humble description; but it is not conceivable that a
+proprietor whose land yielded to him a clear annual return of 100, 120,
+140, or 180 drachmas, could ever have been designated by that name.
+
+Such were the divisions in the political scale established by Solon,
+called by Aristotle a _timocracy_, in which the rights, honors,
+functions, and liabilities of the citizens were measured out according
+to the assessed property of each. The highest honors of the state--that
+is, the places of the nine archons annually chosen, as well as those in
+the senate of Areopagus, into which the past archons always entered
+(perhaps also the posts of Prytanes of the Naukrari) were reserved for
+the first class: the poor Eupatrids became ineligible, while rich men,
+not Eupatrids, were admitted. Other posts of inferior distinction were
+filled by the second and third classes, who were, moreover, bound to
+military service--the one on horseback, the other as heavy-armed
+soldiers on foot. Moreover, the _liturgies_ of the state, as they were
+called--unpaid functions such as the trierarchy, choregy, gymnasiarchy,
+etc., which entailed expense and trouble on the holder of them--were
+distributed in some way or other between the members of the three
+classes, though we do not know how the distribution was made in these
+early times. On the other hand, the members of the fourth or lowest
+class were disqualified from holding any individual office of dignity.
+They performed no liturgies, served in case of war only as light-armed
+or with a panoply provided by the state, and paid nothing to the direct
+property-tax or Eisphora. It would be incorrect to say that they paid
+_no_ taxes, for indirect taxes, such as duties on imports, fell upon
+them in common with the rest; and we must recollect that these latter
+were, throughout a long period of Athenian history, in steady operation,
+while the direct taxes were only levied on rare occasions.
+
+But though this fourth class, constituting the great numerical majority
+of the free people, were shut out from individual office, their
+collective importance was in another way greatly increased. They were
+invested with the right of choosing the annual archons, out of the class
+of Pentacosiomedimni; and what was of more importance still, the archons
+and the magistrates generally, after their year of office, instead of
+being accountable to the senate of Areopagus, were made formally
+accountable to the public assembly sitting in judgment upon their past
+conduct. They might be impeached and called upon to defend themselves,
+punished in case of misbehavior, and debarred from the usual honor of a
+seat in the senate of Areopagus.
+
+Had the public assembly been called upon to act alone without aid or
+guidance, this accountability would have proved only nominal. But Solon
+converted it into a reality by another new institution, which will
+hereafter be found of great moment in the working out of the Athenian
+democracy. He created the pro-bouleutic, or pre-considering senate, with
+intimate and especial reference to the public assembly--to prepare
+matters for its discussion, to convoke and superintend its meetings, and
+to insure the execution of its decrees. The senate, as first constituted
+by Solon, comprised four hundred members, taken in equal proportions
+from the four tribes; not chosen by lot, as they will be found to be in
+the more advanced stage of the democracy, but elected by the people, in
+the same way as the archons then were--persons of the fourth, or poorest
+class of the census, though contributing to elect, not being themselves
+eligible.
+
+But while Solon thus created the new pre-considering senate, identified
+with and subsidiary to the popular assembly, he manifested no jealousy
+of the preexisting Areopagitic senate. On the contrary, he enlarged its
+powers, gave to it an ample supervision over the execution of the laws
+generally, and imposed upon it the censorial duty of inspecting the
+lives and occupation of the citizens, as well as of punishing men of
+idle and dissolute habits. He was himself, as past archon, a member of
+this ancient senate, and he is said to have contemplated that by means
+of the two senates the state would be held fast, as it were with a
+double anchor, against all shocks and storms.
+
+Such are the only new political institutions (apart from the laws to be
+noticed presently) which there are grounds for ascribing to Solon, when
+we take proper care to discriminate what really belongs to Solon and his
+age from the Athenian constitution as afterward remodelled. It has been
+a practice common with many able expositors of Grecian affairs, and
+followed partly even by Dr. Thirlwall, to connect the name of Solon with
+the whole political and judicial state of Athens as it stood between the
+age of Pericles and that of Demosthenes--the regulations of the senate
+of five hundred, the numerous public dicasts or jurors taken by lot from
+the people--as well as the body annually selected for law-revision, and
+called _nomothets_--and the open prosecution (called the _graphe
+paranomon_) to be instituted against the proposer of any measure
+illegal, unconstitutional, or dangerous. There is indeed some
+countenance for this confusion between Solonian and post-Solonian
+Athens, in the usage of the orators themselves. For Demosthenes and
+AEschines employ the name of Solon in a very loose manner, and treat him
+as the author of institutions belonging evidently to a later age--for
+example: the striking and characteristic oath of the Heliastic jurors,
+which Demosthenes ascribes to Solon, proclaims itself in many ways as
+belonging to the age after Clisthenes, especially by the mention of the
+senate of five hundred, and not of four hundred. Among the citizens who
+served as jurors or dicasts, Solon was venerated generally as the author
+of the Athenian laws. An orator, therefore, might well employ his name
+for the purpose of emphasis, without provoking any critical inquiry
+whether the particular institution, which he happened to be then
+impressing upon his audience, belonged really to Solon himself or to the
+subsequent periods. Many of those institutions, which Dr. Thirlwall
+mentions in conjunction with the name of Solon, are among the last
+refinements and elaborations of the democratical mind of
+Athens--gradually prepared, doubtless, during the interval between
+Clisthenes and Pericles, but not brought into full operation until the
+period of the latter (B.C. 460-429). For it is hardly possible to
+conceive these numerous dicasteries and assemblies in regular, frequent,
+and long-standing operation, without an assured payment to the dicasts
+who composed them. Now such payment first began to be made about the
+time of Pericles, if not by his actual proposition; and Demosthenes had
+good reason for contending that if it were suspended, the judicial as
+well as the administrative system of Athens would at once fall to
+pieces. It would be a marvel, such as nothing short of strong direct
+evidence would justify us in believing, that in an age when even partial
+democracy was yet untried, Solon should conceive the idea of such
+institutions; it would be a marvel still greater, that the
+half-emancipated Thetes and small proprietors, for whom he
+legislated--yet trembling under the rod of the Eupatrid archons, and
+utterly inexperienced in collective business--should have been found
+suddenly competent to fulfil these ascendant functions, such as the
+citizens of conquering Athens in the days of Pericles, full of the
+sentiment of force and actively identifying themselves with the dignity
+of their community, became gradually competent, and not more than
+competent, to exercise with effect. To suppose that Solon contemplated
+and provided for the periodical revision of his laws by establishing a
+nomothetic jury or dicastery, such as that which we find in operation
+during the time of Demosthenes, would be at variance (in my judgment)
+with any reasonable estimate either of the man or of the age. Herodotus
+says that Solon, having exacted from the Athenians solemn oaths that
+_they_ would not rescind any of his laws for ten years, quitted Athens
+for that period, in order that he might not be compelled to rescind them
+himself. Plutarch informs us that he gave to his laws force for a
+century. Solon himself, and Draco before him, had been lawgivers evoked
+and empowered by the special emergency of the times: the idea of a
+frequent revision of laws, by a body of lot-selected dicasts, belongs to
+a far more advanced age, and could not well have been present to the
+minds of either. The wooden rollers of Solon, like the tables of the
+Roman decemvirs, were doubtless intended as a permanent "_fons omnis
+publici privatique juris_".
+
+If we examine the facts of the case, we shall see that nothing more than
+the bare foundation of the democracy of Athens as it stood in the time
+of Pericles can reasonably be ascribed to Solon. "I gave to the people
+(Solon says in one of his short remaining fragments) as much strength as
+sufficed for their needs, without either enlarging or diminishing their
+dignity: for those too, who possessed power and were noted for wealth, I
+took care that no unworthy treatment should be reserved. I stood with
+the strong shield cast over both parties so as not to allow an unjust
+triumph to either." Again, Aristotle tells us that Solon bestowed upon
+the people as much power as was indispensable, but no more: the power to
+elect their magistrates and hold them to accountability: if the people
+had had less than this, they could not have been expected to remain
+tranquil--they would have been in slavery and hostile to the
+constitution. Not less distinctly does Herodotus speak, when he
+describes the revolution subsequently operated by Clisthenes--the
+latter (he tells us) found "the Athenian people excluded from
+everything." These passages seem positively to contradict the
+supposition, in itself sufficiently improbable, that Solon is the author
+of the peculiar democratical institutions of Athens, such as the
+constant and numerous dicasts for judicial trials and revision of laws.
+The genuine and forward democratical movement of Athens begins only with
+Clisthenes, from the moment when that distinguished Alcmaeonid, either
+spontaneously, or from finding himself worsted in his party strife with
+Isagoras, purchased by large popular concessions the hearty cooeperation
+of the multitude under very dangerous circumstances. While Solon, in his
+own statement as well as in that of Aristotle, gave to the people as
+much power as was strictly needful--but no more--Clisthenes (to use the
+significant phrase of Herodotus), "being vanquished in the party contest
+with his rival, _took the people into partnership_." It was, thus, to
+the interests of the weaker section, in a strife of contending nobles,
+that the Athenian people owed their first admission to political
+ascendancy--in part, at least, to this cause, though the proceedings of
+Clisthenes indicate a hearty and spontaneous popular sentiment. But such
+constitutional admission of the people would not have been so
+astonishingly fruitful in positive results, if the course of public
+events for the half century after Clisthenes had not been such as to
+stimulate most powerfully their energy, their self-reliance, their
+mutual sympathies, and their ambition. I shall recount in a future
+chapter these historical causes, which, acting upon the Athenian
+character, gave such efficiency and expansion to the great democratical
+impulse communicated by Clisthenes: at present it is enough to remark
+that that impulse commences properly with Clisthenes, and not with
+Solon.
+
+But the Solonian constitution, though only the foundation, was yet the
+indispensable foundation, of the subsequent democracy. And if the
+discontents of the miserable Athenian population, instead of
+experiencing his disinterested and healing management, had fallen at
+once into the hands of selfish power-seekers like Cylon or
+Pisistratus--the memorable expansion of the Athenian mind during the
+ensuing century would never have taken place, and the whole subsequent
+history of Greece would probably have taken a different course. Solon
+left the essential powers of the state still in the hands of the
+oligarchy. The party combats between Pisistratus, Lycurgus, and
+Megacles, thirty years after his legislation, which ended in the
+despotism of Pisistratus, will appear to be of the same purely
+oligarchical character as they had been before Solon was appointed
+archon. But the oligarchy which he established was very different from
+the unmitigated oligarchy which he found, so teeming with oppression and
+so destitute of redress, as his own poems testify.
+
+It was he who first gave both to the citizens of middling property and
+to the general mass a _locus standi_ against the Eupatrids. He enabled
+the people partially to protect themselves, and familiarized them with
+the idea of protecting themselves, by the peaceful exercise of a
+constitutional franchise. The new force, through which this protection
+was carried into effect, was the public assembly called _Heliaea_,
+regularized and armed with enlarged prerogatives and further
+strengthened by its indispensable ally--the pro-bouleutic, or
+pre-considering, senate. Under the Solonian constitution, this force was
+merely secondary and defensive, but after the renovation of Clisthenes
+it became paramount and sovereign. It branched out gradually into those
+numerous popular dicasteries which so powerfully modified both public
+and private Athenian life, drew to itself the undivided reverence and
+submission of the people, and by degrees rendered the single
+magistracies essentially subordinate functions. The popular assembly, as
+constituted by Solon, appearing in modified efficiency and trained to
+the office of reviewing and judging the general conduct of a past
+magistrate--forms the intermediate stage between the passive Homeric
+agora and those omnipotent assemblies and dicasteries which listened to
+Pericles or Demosthenes. Compared with these last, it has in it but a
+faint streak of democracy--and so it naturally appeared to Aristotle,
+who wrote with a practical experience of Athens in the time of the
+orators; but compared with the first, or with the ante-Solonian
+constitution of Attica, it must doubtless have appeared a concession
+eminently democratical. To impose upon the Eupatrid archon the necessity
+of being elected, or put upon his trial of after-accountability, by the
+_rabble_ of freemen (such would be the phrase in Eupatrid society),
+would be a bitter humiliation to those among whom it was first
+introduced; for we must recollect that this was the most extensive
+scheme of constitutional reform yet propounded in Greece, and that
+despots and oligarchies shared between them at that time the whole
+Grecian world. As it appears that Solon, while constituting the popular
+assembly with its pro-bouleutic senate, had no jealousy of the senate of
+Areopagus, and indeed, even enlarged its powers, we may infer that his
+grand object was, not to weaken the oligarchy generally, but to improve
+the administration and to repress the misconduct and irregularities of
+the individual archons; and that, too, not by diminishing their powers,
+but by making some degree of popularity the condition both of their
+entry into office, and of their safety or honor after it.
+
+It is, in my judgment, a mistake to suppose that Solon transferred the
+judicial power of the archons to a popular dicastery. These magistrates
+still continued self-acting judges, deciding and condemning without
+appeal--not mere presidents of an assembled jury, as they afterward came
+to be during the next century. For the general exercise of such power
+they were accountable after their year of office. Such accountability
+was the security against abuse--a very insufficient security, yet not
+wholly inoperative. It will be seen, however, presently that these
+archons, though strong to coerce, and perhaps to oppress, small and poor
+men, had no means of keeping down rebellious nobles of their own rank,
+such as Pisistratus, Lycurgus, and Megacles, each with his armed
+followers. When we compare the drawn swords of these ambitious
+competitors, ending in the despotism of one of them, with the vehement
+parliamentary strife between Themistocles and Aristides afterward,
+peaceably decided by the vote of the sovereign people and never
+disturbing the public tranquillity--we shall see that the democracy of
+the ensuing century fulfilled the conditions of order, as well as of
+progress, better than the Solonian constitution.
+
+To distinguish this Solonian constitution from the democracy which
+followed it, is essential to a due comprehension of the progress of the
+Greek mind, and especially of Athenian affairs. That democracy was
+achieved by gradual steps. Demosthenes and AEschines lived under it as a
+system consummated and in full activity, when the stages of its
+previous growth were no longer matter of exact memory; and the dicasts
+then assembled in judgment were pleased to hear their constitution
+associated with the names either of Solon or of Theseus. Their
+inquisitive contemporary Aristotle was not thus misled: but even
+commonplace Athenians of the century preceding would have escaped the
+same delusion. For during the whole course of the democratical movement,
+from the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war, and especially
+during the changes proposed by Pericles and Ephialtes, there was always
+a strenuous party of resistance, who would not suffer the people to
+forget that they had already forsaken, and were on the point of
+forsaking still more, the orbit marked out by Solon. The illustrious
+Pericles underwent innumerable attacks both from the orators in the
+assembly and from the comic writers in the theatre. And among these
+sarcasms on the political tendencies of the day we are probably to
+number the complaint, breathed by the poet Cratinus, of the desuetude
+into which both Solon and Draco had fallen--"I swear (said he in a
+fragment of one of his comedies) by Solon and Draco, whose wooden
+tablets (of laws) are now employed by people to roast their barley." The
+laws of Solon respecting penal offences, respecting inheritance and
+adoption, respecting the private relations generally, etc., remained for
+the most part in force: his quadripartite census also continued, at
+least for financial purposes, until the archonship of Nausinicus in B.C.
+377--so that Cicero and others might be warranted in affirming that his
+laws still prevailed at Athens: but his political and judicial
+arrangements had undergone a revolution not less complete and memorable
+than the character and spirit of the Athenian people generally. The
+choice, by way of lot, of archons and other magistrates--and the
+distribution by lot of the general body of dicasts or jurors into panels
+for judicial business--may be decidedly considered as not belonging to
+Solon, but adopted after the revolution of Clisthenes; probably the
+choice of senators by lot also. The lot was a symptom of pronounced
+democratical spirit, such as we must not seek in the Solonian
+institutions.
+
+It is not easy to make out distinctly what was the political position of
+the ancient gentes and phratries, as Solon left them. The four tribes
+consisted altogether of gentes and phratries, insomuch that no one could
+be included in any one of the tribes who was not also a member of some
+gens and phratry. Now the new pro-bouleutic, or pre-considering, senate
+consisted of four hundred members,--one hundred from each of the tribes:
+persons not included in any gens or phratry could therefore have had no
+access to it. The conditions of eligibility were similar, according to
+ancient custom, for the nine archons--of course, also, for the senate of
+Areopagus. So that there remained only the public assembly, in which an
+Athenian not a member of these tribes could take part: yet he was a
+citizen, since he could give his vote for archons and senators, and
+could take part in the annual decision of their accountability, besides
+being entitled to claim redress for wrong from the archons in his own
+person--while the alien could only do so through the intervention of an
+avouching citizen or Prostates. It seems, therefore, that all persons
+not included in the four tribes, whatever their grade of fortune might
+be, were on the same level in respect to political privilege as the
+fourth and poorest class of the Solonian census. It has already been
+remarked, that even before the time of Solon the number of Athenians not
+included in the gentes or phratries was probably considerable: it tended
+to become greater and greater, since these bodies were close and
+unexpansive, while the policy of the new lawgiver tended to invite
+industrious settlers from other parts of Greece and Athens. Such great
+and increasing inequality of political privilege helps to explain the
+weakness of the government in repelling the aggressions of Pisistratus,
+and exhibits the importance of the revolution afterward wrought by
+Clisthenes, when he abolished (for all political purposes) the four old
+tribes, and created ten new comprehensive tribes in place of them.
+
+In regard to the regulations of the senate and the assembly of the
+people, as constituted by Solon, we are altogether without information:
+nor is it safe to transfer to the Solonian constitution the information,
+comparatively ample, which we possess respecting these bodies under the
+later democracy.
+
+The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden rollers and triangular
+tablets, in the species of writing called _Boustrophedon_ (lines
+alternating first from left to right, and next from right to left, like
+the course of the ploughman)--and preserved first in the Acropolis,
+subsequently in the Prytaneum. On the tablets, called _Cyrbis_, were
+chiefly commemorated the laws respecting sacred rites and sacrifices; on
+the pillars or rollers, of which there were at least sixteen, were
+placed the regulations respecting matters profane. So small are the
+fragments which have come down to us, and so much has been ascribed to
+Solon by the orators which belongs really to the subsequent times, that
+it is hardly possible to form any critical judgment respecting the
+legislation as a whole, or to discover by what general principles or
+purposes he was guided.
+
+He left unchanged all the previous laws and practices respecting the
+crime of homicide, connected as they were intimately with the religious
+feelings of the people. The laws of Draco on this subject, therefore,
+remained, but on other subjects, according to Plutarch, they were
+altogether abrogated: there is, however, room for supposing that the
+repeal cannot have been so sweeping as this biographer represents.
+
+The Solonian laws seem to have borne more or less upon all the great
+departments of human interest and duty. We find regulations political
+and religious, public and private, civil and criminal, commercial,
+agricultural, sumptuary, and disciplinarian. Solon provides punishment
+for crimes, restricts the profession and status of the citizen,
+prescribes detailed rules for marriage as well as for burial, for the
+common use of springs and wells, and for the mutual interest of
+conterminous farmers in planting or hedging their properties. As far as
+we can judge from the imperfect manner in which his laws come before us,
+there does not seem to have been any attempt at a systematic order or
+classification. Some of them are mere general and vague directions,
+while others again run into the extreme of specialty.
+
+By far the most important of all was the amendment of the law of debtor
+and creditor which has already been adverted to, and the abolition of
+the power of fathers and brothers to sell their daughters and sisters
+into slavery. The prohibition of all contracts on the security of the
+body was itself sufficient to produce a vast improvement in the
+character and condition of the poorer population,--a result which seems
+to have been so sensibly obtained from the legislation of Solon, that
+Boeckh and some other eminent authors suppose him to have abolished
+villeinage and conferred upon the poor tenants a property in their
+lands, annulling the seigniorial rights of the landlord. But this
+opinion rests upon no positive evidence, nor are we warranted in
+ascribing to him any stronger measure in reference to the land than the
+annulment of the previous mortgages.
+
+The first pillar of his laws contained a regulation respecting
+exportable produce. He forbade the exportation of all produce of the
+Attic soil, except olive oil alone. And the sanction employed to enforce
+observance of this law deserves notice, as an illustration of the ideas
+of the time: the archon was bound, on pain of forfeiting one hundred
+drachmas, to pronounce solemn curses against every offender. We are
+probably to take this prohibition in conjunction with other objects said
+to have been contemplated by Solon, especially the encouragement of
+artisans and manufacturers at Athens. Observing (we are told) that many
+new immigrants were just then flocking into Attica to seek an
+establishment, in consequence of its greater security, he was anxious to
+turn them rather to manufacturing industry than to the cultivation of a
+soil naturally poor. He forbade the granting of citizenship to any
+immigrants, except to such as had quitted irrevocably their former
+abodes and come to Athens for the purpose of carrying on some industrial
+profession; and in order to prevent idleness, he directed the senate of
+Areopagus to keep watch over the lives of the citizens generally, and
+punish every one who had no course of regular labor to support him. If a
+father had not taught his son some art or profession, Solon relieved the
+son from all obligation to maintain him in his old age. And it was to
+encourage the multiplication of these artisans that he insured, or
+sought to insure, to the residents in Attica, the exclusive right of
+buying and consuming all its landed produce except olive oil, which was
+raised in abundance, more than sufficient for their wants. It was his
+wish that the trade with foreigners should be carried on by exporting
+the produce of artisan labor, instead of the produce of land.
+
+This commercial prohibition is founded on principles substantially
+similar to those which were acted upon in the early history of England,
+with reference both to corn and to wool, and in other European
+countries also. In so far as it was at all operative it tended to lessen
+the total quantity of produce raised upon the soil of Attica, and thus
+to keep the price of it from rising. But the law of Solon must have been
+altogether inoperative, in reference to the great articles of human
+subsistence; for Attica imported, both largely and constantly, grain and
+salt provisions, probably also wool and flax for the spinning and
+weaving of the women, and certainly timber for building. Whether the law
+was ever enforced with reference to figs and honey may well be doubted;
+at least these productions of Attica were in after times trafficked in,
+and generally consumed throughout Greece. Probably also in the time of
+Solon the silver mines of Laurium had hardly begun to be worked: these
+afterward became highly productive, and furnished to Athens a commodity
+for foreign payments no less convenient than lucrative.
+
+It is interesting to notice the anxiety, both of Solon and of Draco, to
+enforce among their fellow-citizens industrious and self-maintaining
+habits; and we shall find the same sentiment proclaimed by Pericles, at
+the time when Athenian power was at its maximum. Nor ought we to pass
+over this early manifestation in Attica of an opinion equitable and
+tolerant toward sedentary industry, which in most other parts of Greece
+was regarded as comparatively dishonorable. The general tone of Grecian
+sentiment recognized no occupations as perfectly worthy of a free
+citizen except arms, agriculture, and athletic and musical exercises;
+and the proceedings of the Spartans, who kept aloof even from
+agriculture and left it to their helots, were admired, though they could
+not be copied, throughout most of the Hellenic world. Even minds like
+Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon concurred to a considerable extent in
+this feeling, which they justified on the ground that the sedentary life
+and unceasing house-work of the artisan were inconsistent with military
+aptitude. The town-occupations are usually described by a word which
+carries with it contemptuous ideas, and though recognized as
+indispensable to the existence of the city, are held suitable only for
+an inferior and semi-privileged order of citizens. This, the received
+sentiment among Greeks, as well as foreigners, found a strong and
+growing opposition at Athens, as I have already said--corroborated also
+by a similar feeling at Corinth. The trade of Corinth, as well as of
+Chalcis in Euboea, was extensive, at a time when that of Athens had
+scarce any existence. But while the despotism of Periander can hardly
+have failed to operate as a discouragement to industry at Corinth, the
+contemporaneous legislation of Solon provided for traders and artisans a
+new home at Athens, giving the first encouragement to that numerous
+town-population both in the city and in the Piraeus, which we find
+actually residing there in the succeeding century. The multiplication of
+such town residents, both citizens and _metics_ (_i.e.,_ resident persons,
+not citizens, but enjoying an assured position and civil rights), was a
+capital fact in the onward march of Athens, since it determined not
+merely the extension of her trade, but also the preeminence of her naval
+forces--and thus, as a further consequence, lent extraordinary vigor to
+her democratical government. It seems, moreover, to have been a
+departure from the primitive temper of Atticism, which tended both to
+cantonal residence and rural occupation. We have, therefore, the greater
+interest in noting the first mention of it as a consequence of the
+Solonian legislation.
+
+To Solon is first owing the admission of a power of testamentary bequest
+at Athens in all cases in which a man had no legitimate children.
+According to the preexisting custom, we may rather presume that if a
+deceased person left neither children nor blood relations, his property
+descended (as at Rome) to his gens and phratry. Throughout most rude
+states of society the power of willing is unknown, as among the ancient
+Germans--among the Romans prior to the twelve tables--in the old laws of
+the Hindus, etc. Society limits a man's interest or power of enjoyment
+to his life, and considers his relatives as having joint reversionary
+claims to his property, which take effect, in certain determinate
+proportions, after his death. Such a law was the more likely to prevail
+at Athens, since the perpetuity of the family sacred rites, in which the
+children and near relatives partook of right, was considered by the
+Athenians as a matter of public as well as of private concern. Solon
+gave permission to every man dying without children to bequeath his
+property by will as he should think fit; and the testament was
+maintained unless it could be shown to have been procured by some
+compulsion or improper seduction. Speaking generally, this continued to
+be the law throughout the historical times of Athens. Sons, wherever
+there were sons, succeeded to the property of their father in equal
+shares, with the obligation of giving out their sisters in marriage
+along with a certain dowry. If there were no sons, then the daughters
+succeeded, though the father might by will, within certain limits,
+determine the person to whom they should be married, with their rights
+of succession attached to them; or might, with the consent of his
+daughters, make by will certain other arrangements about his property. A
+person who had no children or direct lineal descendants might bequeath
+his property at pleasure: if he died without a will, first his father,
+then his brother or brother's children, next his sister or sister's
+children succeeded: if none such existed, then the cousins by the
+father's side, next the cousins by the mother's side,--the male line of
+descent having preference over the female.
+
+Such was the principle of the Solonian laws of succession, though the
+particulars are in several ways obscure and doubtful. Solon, it appears,
+was the first who gave power of superseding by testament the rights of
+agnates and gentiles to succession,--a proceeding in consonance with his
+plan of encouraging both industrious occupation and the consequent
+multiplication of individual acquisitions.
+
+It has been already mentioned that Solon forbade the sale of daughters
+or sisters into slavery by fathers or brothers; a prohibition which
+shows how much females had before been looked upon as articles of
+property. And it would seem that before his time the violation of a free
+woman must have been punished at the discretion of the magistrates; for
+we are told that he was the first who enacted a penalty of one hundred
+drachmas against the offender, and twenty drachmas against the seducer
+of a free woman. Moreover, it is said that he forbade a bride when given
+in marriage to carry with her any personal ornaments and appurtenances,
+except to the extent of three robes and certain matters of furniture not
+very valuable. Solon further imposed upon women several restraints in
+regard to proceeding at the obsequies of deceased relatives. He forbade
+profuse demonstrations of sorrow, singing of composed dirges, and
+costly sacrifices and contributions. He limited strictly the quantity of
+meat and drink admissible for the funeral banquet, and prohibited
+nocturnal exit, except in a car and with a light. It appears that both
+in Greece and Rome, the feelings of duty and affection on the part of
+surviving relatives prompted them to ruinous expense in a funeral, as
+well as to unmeasured effusions both of grief and conviviality; and the
+general necessity experienced for legal restriction is attested by the
+remark of Plutarch, that similar prohibitions to those enacted by Solon
+were likewise in force at his native town of Chaeronea.
+
+Other penal enactments of Solon are yet to be mentioned. He forbade
+absolutely evil speaking with respect to the dead. He forbade it
+likewise with respect to the living, either in a temple or before judges
+or archons, or at any public festival--on pain of a forfeit of three
+drachmas to the person aggrieved, and two more to the public treasury.
+How mild the general character of his punishments was, may be judged by
+this law against foul language, not less than by the law before
+mentioned against rape. Both the one and the other of these offences
+were much more severely dealt with under the subsequent law of
+democratical Athens. The peremptory edict against speaking ill of a
+deceased person, though doubtless springing in a great degree from
+disinterested repugnance, is traceable also in part to that fear of the
+wrath of the departed which strongly possessed the early Greek mind.
+
+It seems generally that Solon determined by law the outlay for the
+public sacrifices, though we do not know what were his particular
+directions. We are told that he reckoned a sheep and a medimnus (of
+wheat or barley?) as equivalent, either of them, to a drachma, and that
+he also prescribed the prices to be paid for first-rate oxen intended
+for solemn occasions. But it astonishes us to see the large recompense
+which he awarded out of the public treasury to a victor at the Olympic
+or Isthmian games: to the former, five hundred drachmas, equal to one
+year's income of the highest of the four classes on the census; to the
+latter one hundred drachmas. The magnitude of these rewards strikes us
+the more when we compare them with the fines on rape and evil speaking.
+We cannot be surprised that the philosopher Xenophanes noticed, with
+some degree of severity, the extravagant estimate of this species of
+excellence, current among the Grecian cities. At the same time, we must
+remember both that these Pan-Hellenic games presented the chief visible
+evidence of peace and sympathy among the numerous communities of Greece,
+and that in the time of Solon, factitious reward was still needful to
+encourage them. In respect to land and agriculture Solon proclaimed a
+public reward of five drachmas for every wolf brought in, and one
+drachma for every wolf's cub; the extent of wild land has at all times
+been considerable in Attica. He also provided rules respecting the use
+of wells between neighbors, and respecting the planting in conterminous
+olive grounds. Whether any of these regulations continued in operation
+during the better-known period of Athenian history cannot be safely
+affirmed.
+
+In respect to theft, we find it stated that Solon repealed the
+punishment of death which Draco had annexed to that crime, and enacted,
+as a penalty, compensation to an amount double the value of the property
+stolen. The simplicity of this law perhaps affords ground for presuming
+that it really does belong to Solon. But the law which prevailed during
+the time of the orators respecting theft must have been introduced at
+some later period, since it enters into distinctions and mentions both
+places and forms of procedure, which we cannot reasonably refer to the
+forty-sixth Olympiad. The public dinners at the Prytaneum, of which the
+archons and a select few partook in common, were also either first
+established, or perhaps only more strictly regulated, by Solon. He
+ordered barley cakes for their ordinary meals, and wheaten loaves for
+festival days, prescribing how often each person should dine at the
+table. The honor of dining at the table of the Prytaneum was maintained
+throughout as a valuable reward at the disposal of the government.
+
+Among the various laws of Solon, there are few which have attracted more
+notice than that which pronounces the man who in a sedition stood aloof,
+and took part with neither side, to be dishonored and disfranchised.
+Strictly speaking, this seems more in the nature of an emphatic moral
+denunciation, or a religious curse, than a legal sanction capable of
+being formally applied in an individual case and after judicial
+trial,--though the sentence of _atimy_, under the more elaborated Attic
+procedure, was both definite in its penal consequences and also
+judicially delivered. We may, however, follow the course of ideas under
+which Solon was induced to write this sentence on his tables, and we may
+trace the influence of similar ideas in later Attic institutions. It is
+obvious that his denunciation is confined to that special case in which
+a sedition has already broken out: we must suppose that Cylon has seized
+the Acropolis, or that Pisistratus, Megacles, and Lycurgus are in arms
+at the head of their partisans. Assuming these leaders to be wealthy and
+powerful men, which would in all probability be the fact, the
+constituted authority--such as Solon saw before him in Attica, even
+after his own organic amendments--was not strong enough to maintain the
+peace; it became, in fact, itself one of the contending parties. Under
+such given circumstances, the sooner every citizen publicly declared his
+adherence to some of them, the earlier this suspension of legal
+authority was likely to terminate. Nothing was so mischievous as the
+indifference of the mass, or their disposition to let the combatants
+fight out the matter among themselves, and then to submit to the victor.
+Nothing was more likely to encourage aggression on the part of an
+ambitious malcontent, than the conviction that if he could once
+overpower the small amount of physical force which surrounded the
+archons, and exhibit himself in armed possession of the Prytaneum or the
+Acropolis, he might immediately count upon passive submission on the
+part of all the freemen without. Under the state of feeling which Solon
+inculcates, the insurgent leader would have to calculate that every man
+who was not actively in his favor would be actively against him, and
+this would render his enterprise much more dangerous. Indeed, he could
+then never hope to succeed, except on the double supposition of
+extraordinary popularity in his own person and widespread detestation of
+the existing government. He would thus be placed under the influence of
+powerful deterring motives; so that ambition would be less likely to
+seduce him into a course which threatened nothing but ruin, unless under
+such encouragements from the preexisting public opinion as to make his
+success a result desirable for the community. Among the small political
+societies of Greece--especially in the age of Solon, when the number of
+despots in other parts of Greece seems to have been at its
+maximum--every government, whatever might be its form, was sufficiently
+weak to make its overthrow a matter of comparative facility. Unless upon
+the supposition of a band of foreign mercenaries--which would render the
+government a system of naked force, and which the Athenian lawgiver
+would of course never contemplate--there was no other stay for it except
+a positive and pronounced feeling of attachment on the part of the mass
+of citizens. Indifference on their part would render them a prey to
+every daring man of wealth who chose to become a conspirator. That they
+should be ready to come forward, not only with voice but with arms--and
+that they should be known beforehand to be so--was essential to the
+maintenance of every good Grecian government. It was salutary in
+preventing mere personal attempts at revolution; and pacific in its
+tendency, even where the revolution had actually broken out, because in
+the greater number of cases the proportion of partisans would probably
+be very unequal, and the inferior party would be compelled to renounce
+their hopes.
+
+It will be observed that, in this enactment of Solon, the existing
+government is ranked merely as one of the contending parties. The
+virtuous citizen is enjoined, not to come forward in its support, but to
+come forward at all events, either for it or against it. Positive and
+early action is all which is prescribed to him as matter of duty. In the
+age of Solon there was no political idea or system yet current which
+could be assumed as an unquestionable datum--no conspicuous standard to
+which the citizens could be pledged under all circumstances to attach
+themselves. The option lay only between a mitigated oligarchy in
+possession, and a despot in possibility; a contest wherein the
+affections of the people could rarely be counted upon in favor of the
+established government. But this neutrality in respect to the
+constitution was at an end after the revolution of Clisthenes, when the
+idea of the sovereign people and the democratical institutions became
+both familiar and precious to every individual citizen. We shall
+hereafter find the Athenians binding themselves by the most sincere and
+solemn oaths to uphold their democracy against all attempts to subvert
+it; we shall discover in them a sentiment not less positive and
+uncompromising in its direction, than energetic in its inspirations. But
+while we notice this very important change in their character, we shall
+at the same time perceive that the wise precautionary recommendation of
+Solon, to obviate sedition by an early declaration of the impartial
+public between two contending leaders, was not lost upon them. Such, in
+point of fact, was the purpose of that salutary and protective
+institution which is called the _Ostracism_. When two party leaders, in
+the early stages of the Athenian democracy, each powerful in adherents
+and influence, had become passionately embarked in bitter and prolonged
+opposition to each other, such opposition was likely to conduct one or
+other to violent measures. Over and above the hopes of party triumph,
+each might well fear that, if he himself continued within the bounds of
+legality, he might fall a victim to aggressive proceedings on the part
+of his antagonists. To ward off this formidable danger, a public vote
+was called for, to determine which of the two should go into temporary
+banishment, retaining his property and unvisited by any disgrace. A
+number of citizens, not less than six thousand, voting secretly, and
+therefore independently, were required to take part, pronouncing upon
+one or other of these eminent rivals a sentence of exile for ten years.
+The one who remained became, of course, more powerful, yet less in a
+situation to be driven into anti-constitutional courses than he was
+before. Tragedy and comedy were now beginning to be grafted on the lyric
+and choric song. First, one actor was provided to relieve the chorus;
+next, two actors were introduced to sustain fictitious characters and
+carry on a dialogue in such manner that the songs of the chorus and the
+interlocution of the actors formed a continuous piece. Solon, after
+having heard Thespis acting (as all the early composers did, both tragic
+and comic) in his own comedy, asked him afterward if he was not ashamed
+to pronounce such falsehoods before so large an audience. And when
+Thespis answered that there was no harm in saying and doing such things
+merely for amusement, Solon indignantly exclaimed, striking the ground
+with his stick, "If once we come to praise and esteem such amusement as
+this, we shall quickly find the effects of it in our daily
+transactions." For the authenticity of this anecdote it would be rash to
+vouch, but we may at least treat it as the protest of some early
+philosopher against the deceptions of the drama: and it is interesting
+as marking the incipient struggles of that literature in which Athens
+afterward attained such unrivaled excellence.
+
+It would appear that all the laws of Solon were proclaimed, inscribed,
+and accepted without either discussion or resistance. He is said to have
+described them, not as the best laws which he could himself have
+imagined, but as the best which he could have induced the people to
+accept. He gave them validity for the space of ten years, during which
+period both the senate collectively and the archons individually swore
+to observe them with fidelity; under penalty, in case of non-observance,
+of a golden statue as large as life to be erected at Delphi. But though
+the acceptance of the laws was accomplished without difficulty, it was
+not found so easy either for the people to understand and obey, or for
+the framer to explain them. Every day persons came to Solon either with
+praise, or criticism, or suggestions of various improvements, or
+questions as to the construction of particular enactments; until at last
+he became tired of this endless process of reply and vindication, which
+was seldom successful either in removing obscurity or in satisfying
+complainants. Foreseeing that if he remained he would be compelled to
+make changes, he obtained leave of absence from his countrymen for ten
+years, trusting that before the expiration of that period they would
+have become accustomed to his laws. He quitted his native city in the
+full certainty that his laws would remain unrepealed until his return;
+for (says Herodotus) "the Athenians _could not_ repeal them, since they
+were bound by solemn oaths to observe them for ten years." The
+unqualified manner in which the historian here speaks of an oath, as if
+it created a sort of physical necessity and shut out all possibility of
+a contrary result, deserves notice as illustrating Grecian sentiment.
+
+On departing from Athens, Solon first visited Egypt, where he
+communicated largely with Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais,
+Egyptian priests who had much to tell respecting their ancient history,
+and from whom he learned matters, real or pretended, far transcending in
+alleged antiquity the oldest Grecian genealogies--especially the history
+of the vast submerged island of Atlantis, and the war which the
+ancestors of the Athenians had successfully carried on against it, nine
+thousand years before. Solon is said to have commenced an epic poem upon
+this subject, but he did not live to finish it, and nothing of it now
+remains. From Egypt he went to Cyprus, where he visited the small town
+of AEpia, said to have been originally founded by Demophon, son of
+Theseus, and ruled at this period by the prince Philocyprus--each town
+in Cyprus having its own petty prince. It was situated near the river
+Clarius in a position precipitous and secure, but inconvenient and
+ill-supplied, Solon persuaded Philocyprus to quit the old site and
+establish a new town down in the fertile plain beneath. He himself
+stayed and became _aecist_ of the new establishment, making all the
+regulations requisite for its safe and prosperous march, which was
+indeed so decisively manifested that many new settlers flocked into the
+new plantation, called by Philocyprus _Soli_, in honor of Solon. To our
+deep regret, we are not permitted to know what these regulations were;
+but the general fact is attested by the poems of Solon himself, and the
+lines in which he bade farewell to Philocyprus on quitting the island
+are yet before us. On the dispositions of this prince his poem bestowed
+unqualified commendation.
+
+Besides his visit to Egypt and Cyprus, a story was also current of his
+having conversed with the Lydian king Croesus at Sardis. The
+communication said to have taken place between them has been woven by
+Herodotus into a sort of moral tale which forms one of the most
+beautiful episodes in his whole history. Though this tale has been told
+and retold as if it were genuine history, yet as it now stands it is
+irreconcilable with chronology--although very possibly Solon may at some
+time or other have visited Sardis, and seen Croesus as hereditary
+prince.
+
+But even if no chronological objections existed, the moral purpose of
+the tale is so prominent, and pervades it so systematically from
+beginning to end, that these internal grounds are of themselves
+sufficiently strong to impeach its credibility as a matter of fact,
+unless such doubts happen to be out-weighed--which in this case they are
+not--by good contemporary testimony. The narrative of Solon and Croesus
+can be taken for nothing else but an illustrative fiction, borrowed by
+Herodotus from some philosopher, and clothed in his own peculiar beauty
+of expression, which on this occasion is more decidedly poetical than is
+habitual with him. I cannot transcribe, and I hardly dare to abridge it.
+The vainglorious Croesus, at the summit of his conquests and his riches,
+endeavors to win from his visitor Solon an opinion that he is the
+happiest of mankind. The latter, after having twice preferred to him
+modest and meritorious Grecian citizens, at length reminds him that his
+vast wealth and power are of a tenure too precarious to serve as an
+evidence of happiness; that the gods are jealous and meddlesome, and
+often make the show of happiness a mere prelude to extreme disaster; and
+that no man's life can be called happy until the whole of it has been
+played out, so that it may be seen to be out of the reach of reverses.
+Croesus treats this opinion as absurd, but "a great judgment from God
+fell upon him, after Solon was departed--probably (observes Herodotus)
+because he fancied himself the happiest of all men." First he lost his
+favorite son Atys, a brave and intelligent youth (his only other son
+being dumb). For the Mysians of Olympus being ruined by a destructive
+and formidable wild boar, which they were unable to subdue, applied for
+aid to Croesus, who sent to the spot a chosen hunting force, and
+permitted--though with great reluctance, in consequence of an alarming
+dream--that his favorite son should accompany them. The young prince was
+unintentionally slain by the Phrygian exile Adrastus, whom Croesus had
+sheltered and protected, Hardly had the latter recovered from the
+anguish of this misfortune, when the rapid growth of Cyrus and the
+Persian power induced him to go to war with them, against the advice of
+his wisest counsellors. After a struggle of about three years he was
+completely defeated, his capital Sardis taken by storm, and himself made
+prisoner. Cyrus ordered a large pile to be prepared, and placed upon it
+Croesus in fetters, together with fourteen young Lydians, in the
+intention of burning them alive either as a religious offering, or in
+fulfilment of a vow, "or perhaps (says Herodotus) to see whether some of
+the gods would not interfere to rescue a man so preemiently pious as the
+king of Lydia." In this sad extremity, Croesus bethought him of the
+warning which he had before despised, and thrice pronounced, with a deep
+groan, the name of Solon. Cyrus desired the interpreters to inquire whom
+he was invoking, and learnt in reply the anecdote of the Athenian
+lawgiver, together with the solemn memento which he had offered to
+Croesus during more prosperous days, attesting the frail tenure of all
+human greatness. The remark sunk deep into the Persian monarch as a
+token of what might happen to himself: he repented of his purpose, and
+directed that the pile, which had already been kindled, should be
+immediately extinguished. But the orders came too late. In spite of the
+most zealous efforts of the bystanders, the flame was found
+unquenchable, and Croesus would still have been burned, had he not
+implored with prayers and tears the succor of Apollo, to whose Delphian
+and Theban temples he had given such munificent presents. His prayers
+were heard, the fair sky was immediately overcast and a profuse rain
+descended, sufficient to extinguish the flames. The life of Croesus was
+thus saved, and he became afterward the confidential friend and adviser
+of his conqueror.
+
+Such is the brief outline of a narrative which Herodotus has given with
+full development and with impressive effect. It would have served as a
+show-lecture to the youth of Athens not less admirably than the
+well-known fable of the Choice of Heracles, which the philosopher
+Prodicus, a junior contemporary of Herodotus, delivered with so much
+popularity. It illustrates forcibly the religious and ethical ideas of
+antiquity; the deep sense of the jealousy of the gods, who would not
+endure pride in any one except themselves; the impossibility, for any
+man, of realizing to himself more than a very moderate share of
+happiness; the danger from a reactionary Nemesis, if at anytime he had
+overpassed such limit; and the necessity of calculations taking in the
+whole of life, as a basis for rational comparison of different
+individuals. And it embodies, as a practical consequence from these
+feelings, the often-repeated protest of moralists against vehement
+impulses and unrestrained aspirations. The more valuable this narrative
+appears, in its illustrative character, the less can we presume to treat
+it as a history.
+
+It is much to be regretted that we have no information respecting events
+in Attica immediately after the Solonian laws and constitution, which
+were promulgated in B.C. 594, so as to understand better the practical
+effect of these changes. What we next hear respecting Solon in Attica
+refers to a period immediately preceding the first usurpation of
+Pisistratus in B.C. 560, and after the return of Solon from his long
+absence. We are here again introduced to the same oligarchical
+dissensions as are reported to have prevailed before the Solonian
+legislation: the Pediis, or opulent proprietors of the plain round
+Athens, under Lycurgus; the Parali of the south of Attica, under
+Megacles; and the Diacrii or mountaineers of the eastern cantons, the
+poorest of the three classes, under Pisistratus, are in a state of
+violent intestine dispute. The account of Plutarch represents Solon as
+returning to Athens during the height of this sedition. He was treated
+with respect by all parties, but his recommendations were no longer
+obeyed, and he was disqualified by age from acting with effect in
+public. He employed his best efforts to mitigate party animosities, and
+applied himself particularly to restrain the ambition of Pisistratus,
+whose ulterior projects he quickly detected.
+
+The future greatness of Pisistratus is said to have been first portended
+by a miracle which happened, even before his birth, to his father
+Hippocrates at the Olympic games. It was realized, partly by his bravery
+and conduct, which had been displayed in the capture of Nisaea from the
+Megarians--partly by his popularity of speech and manners, his
+championship of the poor, and his ostentatious disavowal of all selfish
+pretensions--partly by an artful mixture of stratagem and force. Solon,
+after having addressed fruitless remonstrances to Pisistratus himself,
+publicly denounced his designs in verses addressed to the people. The
+deception, whereby Pisistratus finally accomplished his design, is
+memorable in Grecian tradition. He appeared one day in the agora of
+Athens in his chariot with a pair of mules: he had intentionally wounded
+both his person and the mules, and in this condition he threw himself
+upon the compassion and defence of the people, pretending that his
+political enemies had violently attacked him. He implored the people to
+grant him a guard, and at the moment when their sympathies were freshly
+aroused both in his favor and against his supposed assassins, Aristo
+proposed formally to the ecclesia (the pro-bouleutic senate, being
+composed of friends of Pisistratus, had previously authorized the
+proposition) that a company of fifty club-men should be assigned as a
+permanent body-guard for the defence of Pisistratus. To this motion
+Solon opposed a strenuous resistance, but found himself overborne, and
+even treated as if he had lost his senses. The poor were earnest in
+favor of it, while the rich were afraid to express their dissent; and he
+could only comfort himself after the fatal vote had been passed, by
+exclaiming that he was wiser than the former and more determined than
+the latter. Such was one of the first known instances in which this
+memorable stratagem was played off against the liberty of a Grecian
+community.
+
+The unbounded popular favor which had procured the passing of this grant
+was still further manifested by the absence of all precautions to
+prevent the limits of the grant from being exceeded. The number of the
+body-guard was not long confined to fifty, and probably their clubs were
+soon exchanged for sharper weapons. Pisistratus thus found himself
+strong enough to throw off the mask and seize the Acropolis. His leading
+opponents, Megacles and the Alcinaeonids, immediately fled the city, and
+it was left to the venerable age and undaunted patriotism of Solon to
+stand forward almost alone in a vain attempt to resist the usurpation.
+He publicly presented himself in the market-place, employing
+encouragement, remonstrance and reproach, in order to rouse the spirit
+of the people. To prevent this despotism from coming (he told them)
+would have been easy; to shake it off now was more difficult, yet at the
+same time more glorious. But he spoke in vain, for all who were not
+actually favorable to Pisistratus listened only to their fears, and
+remained passive; nor did any one join Solon, when, as a last appeal, he
+put on his armor and planted himself in military posture before the door
+of his house. "I have done my duty (he exclaimed at length); I have
+sustained to the best of my power my country and the laws"; and he then
+renounced all further hope of opposition--though resisting the instances
+of his friends that he should flee, and returning for answer, when they
+asked him on what he relied for protection, "On my old age." Nor did he
+even think it necessary to repress the inspirations of his Muse. Some
+verses yet remain, composed seemingly at a moment when the strong hand
+of the new despot had begun to make itself sorely felt, in which he
+tells his countrymen--"If ye have endured sorrow from your own baseness
+of soul, impute not the fault of this to the gods. Ye have yourselves
+put force and dominion into the hands of these men, and have thus drawn
+upon yourselves wretched slavery."
+
+It is gratifying to learn that Pisistratus, whose conduct throughout his
+despotism was comparatively mild, left Solon untouched. How long this
+distinguished man survived the practical subversion of his own
+constitution, we cannot certainly determine; but according to the most
+probable statement he died during the very next year, at the advanced
+age of eighty.
+
+We have only to regret that we are deprived of the means of following
+more in detail his noble and exemplary character. He represents the best
+tendencies of his age, combined with much that is personally excellent:
+the improved ethical sensibility; the thirst for enlarged knowledge and
+observation, not less potent in old age than in youth; the conception of
+regularized popular institutions, departing sensibly from the type and
+spirit of the governments around him, and calculated to found a new
+character in the Athenian people; a genuine and reflecting sympathy with
+the mass of the poor, anxious not merely to rescue them from the
+oppressions of the rich, but also to create in them habits of
+self-relying industry; lastly, during his temporary possession of a
+power altogether arbitrary, not merely an absence of all selfish
+ambition, but a rare discretion in seizing the mean between conflicting
+exigencies. In reading his poems we must always recollect that what now
+appears commonplace was once new, so that to his comparatively
+unlettered age the social pictures which he draws were still fresh, and
+his exhortations calculated to live in the memory. The poems composed
+on moral subjects generally inculcate a spirit of gentleness toward
+others and moderation in personal objects. They represent the gods as
+irresistible, retributive, favoring the good and punishing the bad,
+though sometimes very tardily. But his compositions on special and
+present occasions are usually conceived in a more vigorous spirit;
+denouncing the oppressions of the rich at one time, and the timid
+submission to Pisistratus at another--and expressing in emphatic
+language his own proud consciousness of having stood forward as champion
+of the mass of the people. Of his early poems hardly anything is
+preserved. The few lines remaining seem to manifest a jovial temperament
+which we may well conceive to have been overlaid by such political
+difficulties as he had to encounter--difficulties arising successively
+out of the Megarian war, the Cylonian sacrilege, the public despondency
+healed by Epimenides, and the task of arbiter between a rapacious
+oligarchy and a suffering people. In one of his elegies addressed to
+Mimnermus, he marked out the sixtieth year as the longest desirable
+period of life, in preference to the eightieth year, which that poet had
+expressed a wish to attain. But his own life, as far as we can judge,
+seems to have reached the longer of the two periods; and not the least
+honorable part of it (the resistance to Pisistratus) occurs immediately
+before his death.
+
+There prevailed a story that his ashes were collected and scattered
+around the island of Salamis, which Plutarch treats as absurd--though he
+tells us at the same time that it was believed both by Aristotle and by
+many other considerable men. It is at least as ancient as the poet
+Cratinus, who alluded to it in one of his comedies, and I do not feel
+inclined to reject it. The inscription on the statue of Solon at Athens
+described him as a Salaminian; he had been the great means of acquiring
+the island for his country, and it seems highly probable that among the
+new Athenian citizens, who went to settle there, he may have received a
+lot of land and become enrolled among the Salaminian _demots_. The
+dispersion of his ashes connecting him with the island as its _oecist_,
+may be construed, if not as the expression of a public vote, at least as
+a piece of affectionate vanity on the part of his surviving friends.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT
+
+B.C. 538
+
+GEORGE GROTE
+
+
+     On the destruction of Nineveh three great Powers still stood on
+     the stage of history, being bound together by the strong ties of a
+     mutually supporting alliance. These were Media, Lydia, and Babylon.
+     The capital of Lydia was Sardis. According to Herodotus, the first
+     king of Lydia was Manes. In the semi-mythic period of Lydian
+     history rose the great dynasty of the [Greek: Heraclidae], which
+     reigned for 505 years, numbering twenty-two kings--B.C. 1229 to
+     B.C. 745. The Lydians are said by Herodotus to have colonized
+     Tyrrhenia, in the Italic peninsula, and to have extended their
+     conquests into Syria, where they founded Ascalon in the territory
+     later known as Palestine.
+
+     In the reign of Gyges, B.C. 724, they began to attack the Greek
+     cities of Asia Minor: Miletus, Smyrna, and Priene. The glory of the
+     Lydian Empire culminated in the reign of [Greek: Croesus], the
+     fifth and last historic king, B.C. 568. The well-known story of
+     Solon's warning to [Greek: Croesus] was full of ominous import with
+     regard to the ultimate downfall of the Lydian Empire: "For thyself,
+     O Croesus," said the Greek sage in answer to the question, "Who is
+     the happiest man?" I see that thou art wonderfully rich, and art
+     the lord of many nations; but in respect to that whereon thou
+     questionest me, I have no answer to give until I hear that thou
+     hast closed thy life happily."
+
+     The Median Empire occupied a territory indefinitely extending over
+     a region south of the Caspian, between the Kurdish Mountains and
+     the modern Khorassan. The Median monarchy, according to Herodotus,
+     commenced B.C. 708. The Medes, which were racially akin to the
+     Persians, had been for fifty years subject to the Assyrian monarchy
+     when they revolted, setting up an independent empire. Putting aside
+     the dates given by the Greek historians, we shall perhaps be
+     correct in considering that the great Median kingdom was
+     established by Cyaxares, B.C. 633; and that in B.C. 610 a great
+     struggle of six years between Media and Lydia was amicably ended,
+     under the terror occasioned by an eclipse, by the establishment of
+     a treaty and alliance between the contending powers. With the death
+     of Cyaxares, B.C. 597, the glory of the great Median Empire passed
+     away, for under his son, Astyages, the country was conquered by
+     Cyrus.
+
+     The rise of the Babylonian Empire seems to have originated B.C.
+     2234, when the Cushite inhabitants of southern Babylonia raised a
+     native dynasty to the throne, liberated themselves from the yoke
+     of the Zoroastrian Medes, and instituted an empire with several
+     large capitals, where they built mighty temples and introduced the
+     worship of the heavenly bodies in contradistinction to the
+     elemental worship of the Magian Medes. The record of Babylonian
+     kings is full of obscurity, even in the light of recent
+     archaeological discoveries. We can trace, however, a gradual
+     expansion of Babylonian dominion, even to the borders of Egypt.
+     Nabo Polassar, B.C. 625 to B.C. 604, was a great warrior, and at
+     Carchemish defeated even the almost invincible Egyptians, B.C. 604.
+
+     His successor, Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 604, immediately set about the
+     fortification of his capital. A space of more than 130 square miles
+     was enclosed within walls 80 feet in breadth and 300 or 400 in
+     height, if we may believe the record. Meanwhile, with the
+     assistance of Cyaxares, King of Media, he captured Tyre, in
+     Phoenicia, and Jerusalem, in Syria; but fifteen years after Croesus
+     had been taken prisoner and the Persian Empire extended to the
+     shores of the AEgean, the Empire of Babylon fell before the
+     conquering armies of Cyrus, the Persian.
+
+
+The Ionic and AEolic Greeks on the Asiatic coast had been conquered and
+made tributary by the Lydian king Croesus: "Down to that time (says
+Herodotus) all Greeks had been free." Their conqueror, Croesus, who
+ascended the throne in 560 B.C., appeared to be at the summit of human
+prosperity and power in his unassailable capital, and with his countless
+treasures at Sardis. His dominions comprised nearly the whole of Asia
+Minor, as far as the river Halys to the east; on the other side of that
+river began the Median monarchy under his brother-in-law Astyages,
+extending eastward to some boundary which we cannot define, but
+comprising, in a south-eastern direction, Persis proper or Farsistan,
+and separated from the Kissians and Assyrians on the east by the line of
+Mount Zagros (the present boundary-line between Persia and Turkey).
+Babylonia, with its wondrous city, between the Uphrates and the Tigris,
+was occupied by the Assyrians or Chaldaeans, under their king Labynetus:
+a territory populous and fertile, partly by nature, partly by prodigies
+of labor, to a degree which makes us mistrust even an honest eye-witness
+who describes it afterward in its decline--but which was then in its
+most flourishing condition. The Chaldean dominion under Labynetus
+reached to the borders of Egypt, including as dependent territories both
+Judaea and Phenicia. In Egypt reigned the native king Amasis, powerful
+and affluent, sustained in his throne by a large body of Grecian
+mercenaries and himself favorably disposed to Grecian commerce and
+settlement. Both with Labynetus and with Amasis, Croesus was on terms of
+alliance; and as Astyages was his brother-in-law, the four kings might
+well be deemed out of the reach of calamity. Yet within the space of
+thirty years, or a little more, the whole of their territories had
+become embodied in one vast empire, under the son of an adventurer as
+yet not known even by name.
+
+The rise and fall of oriental dynasties have been in all times
+distinguished by the same general features. A brave and adventurous
+prince, at the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and greedy,
+acquires dominion; while his successors, abandoning themselves to
+sensuality and sloth, probably also to oppressive and irascible
+dispositions, become in process of time victims to those same qualities
+in a stranger which had enabled their own father to seize the throne.
+Cyrus, the great founder of the Persian empire, first the subject and
+afterward the dethroner of the Median Astyages, corresponds to their
+general description, as far, at least, as we can pretend to know his
+history. For in truth even the conquests of Cyrus, after he became ruler
+of Media, are very imperfectly known, while the facts which preceded his
+rise up to that sovereignty cannot be said to be known at all: we have
+to choose between different accounts at variance with each other, and of
+which the most complete and detailed is stamped with all the character
+of romance. The Cyropaedia of Xenophon is memorable and interesting,
+considered with reference to the Greek mind, and as a philosophical
+novel. That it should have been quoted so largely as authority on
+matters of history, is only one proof among many how easily authors have
+been satisfied as to the essentials of historical evidence. The
+narrative given by Herodotus of the relations between Cyrus and
+Astyages, agreeing with Xenophon in little more than the fact that it
+makes Cyrus son of Cambyses and Mandane and grandson of Astyages, goes
+even beyond the story of Romulus and Remus in respect to tragical
+incident and contrast. Astyages, alarmed by a dream, condemns the
+newborn infant of his daughter Mandane to be exposed: Harpagus, to whom
+the order is given, delivers the child to one of the royal herdsmen,
+who exposes it in the mountains, where it is miraculously suckled by a
+bitch. Thus preserved, and afterward brought up as the herdsman's child,
+Cyrus manifests great superiority, both physical and mental; is chosen
+king in play by the boys of the village, and in this capacity severely
+chastises the son of one of the courtiers; for which offense he is
+carried before Astyages, who recognizes him for his grandson, but is
+assured by the Magi that the dream is out and that he has no further
+danger to apprehend from the boy--and therefore permits him to live.
+With Harpagus, however, Astyages is extremely incensed, for not having
+executed his orders: he causes the son of Harpagus to be slain, and
+served up to be eaten by his unconscious father at a regal banquet. The
+father, apprised afterward of the fact, dissembles his feelings, but
+meditates a deadly vengeance against Astyages for this Thyestean meal.
+He persuades Cyrus, who has been sent back to his father and mother in
+Persia, to head a revolt of the Persians against the Medes; whilst
+Astyages--to fill up the Grecian conception of madness as a precursor to
+ruin--sends an army against the revolters, commanded by Harpagus
+himself. Of course the army is defeated--Astyages, after a vain
+resistance, is dethroned--Cyrus becomes king in his place--and Harpagus
+repays the outrage which he has undergone by the bitterest insults.
+
+Such are the heads of a beautiful narrative which is given at some
+length in Herodotus. It will probably appear to the reader sufficiently
+romantic; though the historian intimates that he had heard three other
+narratives different from it, and that all were more full of marvels, as
+well as in wider circulation, than his own, which he had borrowed from
+some unusually sober-minded Persian informants. In what points the other
+three stories departed from it we do not hear.
+
+To the historian of Halicarnassus we have to oppose Ctesias--the
+physician of the neighboring town of Cnidus--who contradicted Herodotus,
+not without strong terms of censure, on many points, and especially upon
+that which is the very foundation of the early narrative respecting
+Cyrus; for he affirmed that Cyrus was no way related to Astyages.
+However indignant we may be with Ctesias for the disparaging epithets
+which he presumed to apply to an historian whose work is to us
+inestimable--we must nevertheless admit that, as surgeon in actual
+attendance on king Artaxerxes Mnemon, and healer of the wound inflicted
+on that prince at Cunaxa by his brother Cyrus the younger, he had better
+opportunities even than Herodotus of conversing with sober-minded
+Persians, and that the discrepancies between the two statements are to
+be taken as a proof of the prevalence of discordant, yet equally
+accredited, stories. Herodotus himself was in fact compelled to choose
+one out of four. So rare and late a plant is historical authenticity.
+
+That Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror, and that the space which he
+overran covered no less than fifty degrees of longitude, from the coast
+of Asia Minor to the Oxus and the Indus, are facts quite indisputable;
+but of the steps by which this was achieved, we know very little. The
+native Persians, whom he conducted to an empire so immense, were an
+aggregate of seven agricultural, and four nomadic tribes--all of them
+rude, hardy, and brave--dwelling in a mountainous region, clothed in
+skins, ignorant of wine, or fruit, or any of the commonest luxuries of
+life, and despising the very idea of purchase or sale. Their tribes were
+very unequal in point of dignity, probably also in respect to numbers
+and powers, among one another. First in estimation among them stood the
+Pasargadae; and the first phratry or clan among the Pasargadae were the
+Achaemenidae, to whom Cyrus himself belonged. Whether his relationship to
+the Median king whom he dethroned was a matter of fact, or a politic
+fiction, we cannot well determine. But Xenophon, in noticing the
+spacious deserted cities, Larissa and Mespila, which he saw in his march
+with the ten thousand Greeks on the eastern side of the Tigris, gives us
+to understand that the conquest of Media by the Persians was reported to
+him as having been an obstinate and protracted struggle. However this
+may be, the preponderance of the Persians was at last complete: though
+the Medes always continued to be the second nation in the empire, after
+the Persians, properly so called; and by early Greek writers the great
+enemy in the East is often called "the Mede" as well as "the Persian."
+The Median Ekbatana too remained as one of the capital cities, and the
+usual summer residence, of the kings of Persia; Susa on the Choaspes, on
+the Kissian plain farther southward, and east of the Tigris, being their
+winter abode.
+
+The vast space of country comprised between the Indus on the east, the
+Oxus and Caspian Sea to the north, the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean to
+the south, and the line of Mount Zagros to the west, appears to have
+been occupied in these times by a great variety of different tribes and
+people, yet all or most of them belonging to the religion of Zoroaster,
+and speaking dialects of the Zend language. It was known amongst its
+inhabitants by the common name of Iran or Aria: it is, in its central
+parts at least, a high, cold plateau, totally destitute of wood, and
+scantily supplied with water; much of it indeed is a salt and sandy
+desert, unsusceptible of culture. Parts of it are eminently fertile,
+where water can be procured and irrigation applied. Scattered masses of
+tolerably dense population thus grew up; but continuity of cultivation
+is not practicable, and in ancient times, as at present, a large
+proportion of the population of Iran seems to have consisted of
+wandering or nomadic tribes with their tents and cattle. The rich
+pastures, and the freshness of the summer climate, in the region of
+mountain and valley near Ekbatana, are extolled by modern travellers,
+just as they attracted the Great King in ancient times during the hot
+months. The more southerly province called Persis proper (Faristan)
+consists also in part of mountain land interspersed with valley and
+plain, abundantly watered, and ample in pasture, sloping gradually down
+to low grounds on the sea-coast which are hot and dry: the care bestowed
+both by Medes and Persians on the breeding of their horses was
+remarkable. There were doubtless material differences between different
+parts of the population of this vast plateau of Iran. Yet it seems that,
+along with their common language and religion, they had also something
+of a common character, which contrasted with the Indian population east
+of the Indus, the Assyrians west of Mount Zagros, and the Massagetae and
+other Nomads of the Caspian and the Sea of Aral--less brutish, restless
+and blood-thirsty than the latter--more fierce, contemptuous and
+extortionate, and less capable of sustained industry, than the two
+former. There can be little doubt, at the time of which we are now
+speaking, when the wealth and cultivation of Assyria were at their
+maximum, that Iran also was far better peopled than ever it has been
+since European observers have been able to survey it--especially the
+north-eastern portion, Bactria and Sogdiana--so that the invasions of
+the Nomads from Turkestan and Tartary, which have been so destructive at
+various intervals since the Mohammedan conquest, were before that period
+successfully kept back.
+
+The general analogy among the population of Iran probably enabled the
+Persian conqueror with comparative ease to extend his empire to the
+east, after the conquest of Ekbatana, and to become the full heir of the
+Median kings. If we may believe Ctesias, even the distant province of
+Bactria had been before subject to those kings. At first it resisted
+Cyrus, but finding that he had become son-in-law of Astyages, as well as
+master of his person, it speedily acknowledged his authority.
+
+According to the representation of Herodotus, the war between Cyrus and
+Croesus of Lydia began shortly after the capture of Astyages, and before
+the conquest of Bactria. Croesus was the assailant, wishing to avenge
+his brother-in-law, to arrest the growth of the Persian conqueror, and
+to increase his own dominions. His more prudent counsellors in vain
+represented to him that he had little to gain, and much to lose, by war
+with a nation alike hardy and poor. He is represented as just at that
+time recovering from the affliction arising out of the death of his son.
+
+To ask advice of the oracle, before he took any final decision, was a
+step which no pious king would omit. But in the present perilous
+question, Croesus did more--he took a precaution so extreme, that if his
+piety had not been placed beyond all doubt by his extraordinary
+munificence to the temples, he might have drawn upon himself the
+suspicion of a guilty scepticism. Before he would send to ask advice
+respecting the project itself, he resolved to test the credit of some of
+the chief surrounding oracles--Delphi, Dodona, Branchidae near Miletus,
+Amphiaraus at Thebes, Trophonius at Labadeia, and Ammon in Libya. His
+envoys started from Sardis on the same day, and were all directed on the
+hundredth day afterward to ask at the respective oracles how Croesus was
+at that precise moment employed. This was a severe trial: of the manner
+in which it was met by four out of the six oracles consulted we have no
+information, and it rather appears that their answers were
+unsatisfactory. But Amphiaraus maintained his credit undiminished, while
+Apollo at Delphi, more omniscient than Apollo at Branchidae, solved the
+question with such unerring precision, as to afford a strong additional
+argument against persons who might be disposed to scoff at divination.
+No sooner had the envoys put the question to the Delphian priestess, on
+the day named, "What is Croesus now doing?" than she exclaimed in the
+accustomed hexameter verse, "I know the number of grains of sand, and
+the measures of the sea: I understand the dumb, and I hear the man who
+speaks not. The smell reaches me of a hard-skinned tortoise boiled in a
+copper with lamb's flesh--copper above and copper below." Croesus was
+awe-struck on receiving this reply. It described with the utmost detail
+that which he had been really doing, so that he accounted the Delphian
+oracle and that of Amphiaraus the only trustworthy oracles on
+earth--following up these feelings with a holocaust of the most
+munificent character, in order to win the favor of the Delphian god.
+Three thousand cattle were offered up, and upon a vast sacrificial pile
+were placed the most splendid purple robes and tunics, together with
+couches and censers of gold and silver; besides which he sent to Delphi
+itself the richest presents in gold and silver--statues, bowls, jugs,
+etc., the size and weight of which we read with astonishment; the more
+so as Herodotus himself saw them a century afterwards at Delphi. Nor was
+Croesus altogether unmindful of Amphiaraus, whose answer had been
+creditable, though less triumphant than that of the Pythian priestess.
+He sent to Amphiaraus a spear and shield of pure gold, which were
+afterward seen at Thebes by Herodotus: this large donative may help the
+reader to conceive the immensity of those which he sent to Delphi.
+
+The envoys who conveyed these gifts were instructed to ask at the same
+time, whether Croesus should undertake an expedition against the
+Persians--and if so, whether he should solicit any allies to assist him.
+In regard to the second question, the answer both of Apollo and of
+Amphiaraus was deci sive, recommending him to invite the alliance of
+the most powerful Greeks. In regard to the first and most momentous
+question, their answer was as remarkable for circumspection as it had
+been before for detective sagacity: they told Croesus that if he invaded
+the Persians, he would subvert a mighty monarchy. The blindness of
+Croesus interpreted this declaration into an unqualified promise of
+success: he sent further presents to the oracle, and again inquired
+whether his kingdom would be durable. "When a mule shall become king of
+the Medes (replied the priestess) then must thou run away--be not
+ashamed."
+
+More assured than ever by such an answer, Croesus sent to Sparta, under
+the kings Anaxandrides and Aristo, to tender presents and solicit their
+alliance. His propositions were favorably entertained--the more so, as
+he had before gratuitously furnished some gold to the Lacedaemonians for
+a statue to Apollo. The alliance now formed was altogether general--no
+express effort being as yet demanded from them, though it soon came to
+be. But the incident is to be noted, as marking the first plunge of the
+leading Grecian state into Asiatic politics; and that too without any of
+the generous Hellenic sympathy which afterward induced Athens to send
+her citizens across the AEgean. At this time Croesus was the master and
+tribute-exactor of the Asiatic Greeks, whose contingents seem to have
+formed part of his army for the expedition now contemplated; an army
+consisting principally, not of native Lydians, but of foreigners.
+
+The river Halys formed the boundary at this time between the Median and
+Lydian empires: and Croesus, marching across that river into the
+territory of the Syrians or Assyrians of Cappadocia, took the city of
+Pteria, with many of its surrounding dependencies, inflicting damage and
+destruction upon these distant subjects of Ekbatana. Cyrus lost no time
+in bringing an army to their defence considerably larger than that of
+Croesus; trying at the same time, though unsuccessfully, to prevail on
+the Ionians to revolt from him. A bloody battle took place between the
+two armies, but with indecisive result: after which Croesus, seeing that
+he could not hope to accomplish more with his forces as they stood,
+thought it wise to return to his capital, and collect a larger army for
+the next campaign. Immediately on reaching Sardis he despatched envoys
+to Labynetus king of Babylon; to Amasis, king of Egypt; to the
+Lacedaemonians, and to other allies; calling upon all of them to send
+auxiliaries to Sardis during the course of the fifth month. In the mean
+time he dismissed all the foreign troops who had followed him into
+Cappadocia.
+
+Had these allies appeared, the war might perhaps have been prosecuted
+with success. And on the part of the Lacedaemonians, at least, there was
+no tardiness; for their ships were ready and their troops almost on
+board, when the unexpected news reached them that Croesus was already
+ruined. Cyrus had forseen and forestalled the defensive plan of his
+enemy. Pushing on with his army to Sardis without delay, he obliged the
+Lydian prince to give battle with his own unassisted subjects. The open
+and spacious plain before that town was highly favorable to Lydian
+cavalry, which at that time (Herodotus tells us) was superior to the
+Persian. But Cyrus, employing a strategem whereby this cavalry was
+rendered unavailable, placed in front of his line the baggage camels,
+which the Lydian horses could not endure either to smell or to behold.
+The horsemen of Croesus were thus obliged to dismount; nevertheless they
+fought bravely on foot, and were not driven into the town till after a
+sanguinary combat.
+
+Though confined within the walls of his capital, Croesus had still good
+reason for hoping to hold out until the arrival of his allies, to whom
+he sent pressing envoys of acceleration. For Sardis was considered
+impregnable--and one assault had already been repulsed, and the Persians
+would have been reduced to the slow process of blockade. But on the
+fourteenth day of the siege, accident did for the besiegers that which
+they could not have accomplished either by skill or force. Sardis was
+situated on an outlying peak of the northern side of Tmolus; it was well
+fortified everywhere except toward the mountain; and on that side the
+rock was so precipitous and inaccessible, that fortifications were
+thought unnecessary, nor did the inhabitants believe assault to be
+possible in that quarter. But Hyroeades, a Persian soldier, having
+accidentally seen one of the garrison descending this precipi tous rock
+to pick up his helmet which had rolled down, watched his opportunity,
+tried to climb up, and found it not impracticable; others followed his
+example, the stronghold was thus seized first, and the whole city
+speedily taken by storm.
+
+Cyrus had given especial orders to spare the life of Croesus, who was
+accordingly made prisoner. But preparations were made for a solemn and
+terrible spectacle; the captive king was destined to be burned in
+chains, together with fourteen Lydian youths, on a vast pile of wood. We
+are even told that the pile was already kindled and the victim beyond
+the reach of human aid, when Apollo sent a miraculous rain to preserve
+him. As to the general fact of supernatural interposition, in one way or
+another, Herodotus and Ctesias both agree, though they described
+differently the particular miracles wrought. It is certain that Croesus,
+after some time, was released and well treated by his conqueror, and
+lived to become the confidential adviser of the latter as well as of his
+son Cambyses: Ctesias also acquaints us that a considerable town and
+territory near Ekbatana, called Barene, was assigned to him, according
+to a practice which we shall find not infrequent with the Persian kings.
+
+The prudent counsel and remarks as to the relations between Persians and
+Lydians, whereby Croesus is said by Herodotus to have first earned this
+favorable treatment, are hardly worth repeating; but the indignant
+remonstrance sent by Croesus to the Delphian god is too characteristic
+to be passed over. He obtained permission from Cyrus to lay upon the
+holy pavement of the Delphian temple the chains with which he had at
+first been bound. The Lydian envoys were instructed, after exhibiting to
+the god these humiliating memorials, to ask whether it was his custom to
+deceive his benefactors, and whether he was not ashamed to have
+encouraged the king of Lydia in an enterprise so disastrous? The god,
+condescending to justify himself by the lips of the priestess, replied:
+"Not even a god can escape his destiny. Croesus has suffered for the sin
+of his fifth ancestor (Gyges), who, conspiring with a woman, slew his
+master and wrongfully seized the sceptre. Apollo employed all his
+influence with the Moerae (Fates) to obtain that this sin might be
+expiated by the children of Croesus, and not by Croesus himself; but
+the Moerae would grant nothing more than a postponement of the judgment
+for three years. Let Croesus know that Apollo has thus procured for him
+a reign three years longer than his original destiny, after having tried
+in vain to rescue him altogether. Moreover he sent that rain which at
+the critical moment extinguished the burning pile. Nor has Croesus any
+right to complain of the prophecy by which he was encouraged to enter on
+the war; for when the god told him that he would subvert _a great
+empire_, it was his duty to have again inquired which empire the god
+meant; and if he neither understood the meaning, nor chose to ask for
+information, he has himself to blame for the result. Besides, Croesus
+neglected the warning given to him about the acquisition of the Median
+kingdom by a mule: Cyrus was that mule--son of a Median mother of royal
+breed, by a Persian father at once of different race and of lower
+position."
+
+This triumphant justification extorted even from Croesus himself a full
+confession that the sin lay with him, and not with the god. It certainly
+illustrates in a remarkable manner the theological ideas of the time. It
+shows us how much, in the mind of Herodotus, the facts of the centuries
+preceding his own, unrecorded as they were by any contemporary
+authority, tended to cast themselves into a sort of religious drama; the
+threads of the historical web being in part put together, in part
+originally spun, for the purpose of setting forth the religious
+sentiment and doctrine woven in as a pattern. The Pythian priestess
+predicts to Gyges that the crime which he had committed in assassinating
+his master would be expiated by his fifth descendant, though, as
+Herodotus tells us, no one took any notice of this prophecy until it was
+at last fulfilled: we see thus the history of the first Mermnad king is
+made up after the catastrophe of the last. There was something in the
+main facts of the history of Croesus profoundly striking to the Greek
+mind, a king at the summit of wealth and power--pious in the extreme and
+munificent toward the gods--the first destroyer of Hellenic liberty in
+Asia--then precipitated, at once and on a sudden, into the abyss of
+ruin. The sin of the first parent helped much toward the solution of
+this perplexing problem, as well as to exalt the credit of the oracle,
+when made to assume the shape of an unnoticed prophecy. In the
+affecting story of Solon and Croesus, the Lydian king is punished with
+an acute domestic affliction because he thought himself the happiest of
+mankind--the gods not suffering any one to be arrogant except
+themselves; and the warning of Solon is made to recur to Croesus after
+he has become the prisoner of Cyrus, in the narrative of Herodotus. To
+the same vein of thought belongs the story, just recounted, of the
+relations of Croesus with the Delphian oracle. An account is provided,
+satisfactory to the religious feelings of the Greeks, how and why he was
+ruined--but nothing less than the overruling and omnipotent Moerae
+could be invoked to explain so stupendous a result. It is rarely that
+these supreme goddesses--or hyper-goddesses, since the gods themselves
+must submit to them--are brought into such distinct light and action.
+Usually they are kept in the dark, or are left to be understood as the
+unseen stumbling block in cases of extreme incomprehensibility; and it
+is difficult clearly to determine (as in the case of some complicated
+political constitutions) where the Greeks conceived sovereign power to
+reside, in respect to the government of the world. But here the
+sovereignity of the Moerae, and the subordinate agency of the gods, are
+unequivocally set forth. The gods are still extremely powerful, because
+the Moerae comply with their requests up to a certain point, not
+thinking it proper to be wholly inexorable; but their compliance is
+carried no farther than they themselves choose; nor would they, even in
+deference to Apollo, alter the original sentence of punishment for the
+sin of Gyges in the person of his fifth descendant--sentence, moreover,
+which Apollo himself had formerly prophesied shortly after the sin was
+committed, so that, if the Moerae had listened to his intercession on
+behalf of Croesus, his own prophetic credit would have been
+endangered. Their unalterable resolution has predetermined the ruin of
+Croesus, and the grandeur of the event is manifested by the
+circumstance that even Apollo himself cannot prevail upon them to alter
+it, or to grant more than a three years' respite. The religious element
+must here be viewed as giving the form, the historical element as giving
+the matter only, and not the whole matter, of the story. These two
+elements will be found conjoined more or less throughout most of the
+history of Herodotus, though as we descend to later times, we shall find
+the latter element in constantly increasing proportion. His conception
+of history is extremely different from that of Thucydides, who lays down
+to himself the true scheme and purpose of the historian, common to him
+with the philosopher--to recount and interpret the past, as a rational
+aid toward pre-vision of the future.
+
+In the short abstract which we now possess of the lost work of Ctesias,
+no mention appears of the important conquest of Babylon. His narrative,
+indeed, as far as the abstract enables us to follow it, diverges
+materially from that of Herodotus, and must have been founded on data
+altogether different.
+
+"I shall mention (says Herodotus) these conquests which gave Cyrus most
+trouble, and are most memorable: after he had subdued all the rest of
+the continent, he attacked the Assyrians." Those who recollect the
+description of Babylon and its surrounding territory, will not be
+surprised to learn that the capture of it gave the Persian aggressor
+much trouble. Their only surprise will be, how it could ever have been
+taken at all--or indeed how a hostile army could have even reached it.
+Herodotus informs us that the Babylonian queen Nitocris (mother of that
+very Labynetus who was king when Cyrus attacked the place) apprehensive
+of invasion from the Medes after their capture of Nineveh, had executed
+many laborious works near the Euphrates for the purpose of obstructing
+their approach. Moreover there existed what was called the wall of Media
+(probably built by her, but certainly built prior to the Persian
+conquest), one hundred feet high and twenty feet thick, across the
+entire space of seventy-five miles which joined the Tigris with one of
+the canals of the Euphrates: while the canals themselves, as we may see
+by the march of the ten thousand Greeks after the battle of Cunaxa,
+presented means of defence altogether insuperable by a rude army such as
+that of the Persians. On the east, the territory of Babylonia was
+defended by the Tigris, which cannot be forded lower than the ancient
+Nineveh or the modern Mosul. In addition to these ramparts, natural as
+well as artificial, to protect the territory--populous, cultivated,
+productive, and offering every motive to its inhabitants to resist even
+the entrance of an enemy--we are told that the Babylonians were so
+thoroughly prepared for the inroad of Cyrus that they had accumulated
+within their walls a store of provisions for many years. Strange as it
+may seem, we must suppose that the king of Babylon, after all the cost
+and labor spent in providing defences for the territory, voluntarily
+neglected to avail himself of them, suffered the invader to tread down
+the fertile Babylonia without resistance, and merely drew out the
+citizens to oppose him when he arrived under the walls of the city--if
+the statement of Herodotus is correct. And we may illustrate this
+unaccountable omission by that which we know to have happened in the
+march of the younger Cyrus to Cunuxa against his brother Artaxerxes
+Mnemon. The latter had caused to be dug, expressly in preparation for
+this invasion, a broad and deep ditch (thirty feet wide and eight feet
+deep) from the wall of Media to the river Euphrates, a distance of
+twelve parasangs or forty-five English miles, leaving only a passage of
+twenty feet broad close alongside of the river. Yet when the invading
+army arrived at this important pass, they found not a man there to
+defend it, and all of them marched without resistance through the narrow
+inlet. Cyrus the younger, who had up to that moment felt assured that
+his brother would fight, now supposed that he had given up the idea of
+defending Babylon: instead of which, two days afterward, Artaxerxes
+attacked him on an open plain of ground where there was no advantage of
+position on either side; though the invaders were taken rather unawares
+in consequence of their extreme confidence arising from recent unopposed
+entrance within the artificial ditch. This anecdote is the more valuable
+as an illustration, because all its circumstances are transmitted to us
+by a discerning eye-witness. And both the two incidents here brought
+into comparison demonstrate the recklessness, changefulness, and
+incapacity of calculation belonging to the Asiatic mind of that day--as
+well as the great command of hands possessed by these kings, and their
+prodigal waste of human labor. Vast walls and deep ditches are an
+inestimable aid to a brave and well-commanded garrison; but they cannot
+be made entirely to supply the want of bravery and intelligence.
+
+In whatever manner the difficulties of approaching Babylon may have
+been overcome, the fact that they were overcome by Cyrus is certain. On
+first setting out for this conquest, he was about to cross the river
+Gyndes (one of the affluents from the east which joins the Tigris near
+the modern Bagdad, and along which lay the high road crossing the pass
+of Mount Zagros from Babylon to Ekbatana) when one of the sacred white
+horses, which accompanied him, entered the river in pure wantonness and
+tried to cross it by himself. The Gyndes resented this insult and the
+horse was drowned: upon which Cyrus swore in his wrath that he would so
+break the strength of the river as that women in future should pass it
+without wetting their knees. Accordingly he employed his entire army,
+during the whole summer season, in digging three hundred and sixty
+artificial channels to disseminate the unit of the stream. Such,
+according to Herodotus, was the incident which postponed for one year
+the fall of the great Babylon. But in the next spring Cyrus and his army
+were before the walls, after having defeated and driven in the
+population who came out to fight. These walls were artificial mountains
+(three hundred feet high, seventy-five feet thick, and forming a square
+of fifteen miles to each side), within which the besieged defied attack,
+and even blockade, having previously stored up several years' provision.
+Through the midst of the town, however, flowed the Euphrates. That river
+which had been so laboriously trained to serve for protection, trade and
+sustenance to the Babylonians, was now made the avenue of their ruin.
+Having left a detachment of his army at the two points where the
+Euphrates enters and quits the city, Cyrus retired with the remainder to
+the higher part of its course, where an ancient Babylonian queen had
+prepared one of the great lateral reservoirs for carrying off in case of
+need the superfluity of its water. Near this point Cyrus caused another
+reservoir and another canal of communication to be dug, by means of
+which he drew off the water of the Euphrates to such a degree it became
+not above the height of a man's thigh. The period chosen was that of a
+great Babylonian festival, when the whole population were engaged in
+amusement and revelry. The Persian troops left near the town, watching
+their opportunity, entered from both sides along the bed of the river,
+and took it by surprise with scarcely any resistance. At no other time,
+except during a festival, could they have done this (says Herodotus) had
+the river been ever so low, for both banks throughout the whole length
+of the town were provided with quays, with continuous walls, and with
+gates at the end of every street which led down to the river at right
+angles so that if the population had not been disqualified by the
+influences of the moment, they would have caught the assailants in the
+bed of the river "as in a trap," and overwhelmed them from the walls
+alongside. Within a square of fifteen miles to each side, we are not
+surprised to hear that both the extremities were already in the power of
+the besiegers before the central population heard of it, and while they
+were yet absorbed in unconscious festivity.
+
+Such is the account given by Herodotus of the circumstances which placed
+Babylon--the greatest city of Western Asia--in the power of the
+Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was
+incorrect or exaggerated, we cannot now decide. The way in which the
+city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition cannot
+have cost the conqueror either much time or much loss. Cyrus comes into
+the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with their whole
+territory become tributary to the Persians, forming the richest satrapy
+in the empire; but we do not hear that the people were otherwise
+ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and gates were left
+untouched. This was very different from the way in which the Medes had
+treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined and for a long time
+absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a reduced scale under the
+Parthian empire; and very different also from the way in which Babylon
+itself was treated twenty years afterward by Darius, when reconquered
+after a revolt.
+
+The importance of Babylon, marking as it does one of the peculiar forms
+of civilization belonging to the ancient world in a state of full
+development, gives an interest even to the half-authenticated stories
+respecting its capture. The other exploits ascribed to Cyrus--his
+invasion of India, across the desert of Arachosia--and his attack upon
+the Massagetae, Nomads ruled by Queen Tomyris and greatly resembling the
+Scythians, across the mysterious river which Herodotus calls
+Araxes--are too little known to be at all dwelt upon. In the latter he
+is said to have perished, his army being defeated in a bloody battle. He
+was buried at Pasargadae, in his native province of Persis proper, where
+his tomb was honored and watched until the breaking up of the empire,
+while his memory was held in profound veneration among the Persians. Of
+his real exploits we know little or nothing, but in what we read
+respecting him there seems, though amid constant fighting, very little
+cruelty. Xenophon has selected his life as the subject of a moral
+romance which for a long time was cited as authentic history, and which
+even now serves as an authority, express or implied, for disputable and
+even incorrect conclusions. His extraordinary activity and conquests
+admit of no doubt. He left the Persian empire extending from Sogdiana
+and the rivers Jaxartes and Indus eastward, to the Hellespont and the
+Syrian coast westward, and his successors made no permanent addition to
+it except that of Egypt. Phenicia and Judaea were dependencies of
+Babylon, at the time when he conquered it, with their princes and
+grandees in Babylonian captivity. As they seem to have yielded to him,
+and became his tributaries without difficulty; so the restoration of
+their captives was conceded to them. It was from Cyrus that the habits
+of the Persian kings took commencement, to dwell at Susa in the winter,
+and Ekbatana during the summer; the primitive territory of Persis, with
+its two towns of Persepolis and Pasargadae, being reserved for the
+burial-place of the kings and the religious sanctuary of the empire. How
+or when the conquest of Susiana was made, we are not informed. It lay
+eastward of the Tigris, between Babylonia and Persis proper, and its
+people, the Kissians, as far as we can discern, were of Assyrian and not
+of Aryan race. The river Choaspes near Susa was supposed to furnish the
+only water fit for the palate of the great king, and it is said to have
+been carried about with him wherever he went.
+
+While the conquests of Cyrus contributed to assimilate the distinct
+types of civilization in Western Asia--not by elevating the worse,
+but by degrading the better--upon the native Persians themselves
+they operated as an extraordinary stimulus, provoking alike their
+pride, ambition, cupidity, and warlike propensities. Not only did the
+territory of Persis proper pay no tribute to Susa or Ekbatana--being
+the only district so exempted between the Jaxartes and the
+Mediterranean--but the vast tributes received from the remaining empire
+were distributed to a great degree among its inhabitants. Empire to them
+meant--for the great men, lucrative satrapies or pachalics, with powers
+altogether unlimited, pomp inferior only to that of the great king, and
+standing armies which they employed at their own discretion sometimes
+against each other--for the common soldiers, drawn from their fields or
+flocks, constant plunder, abundant maintenance, and an unrestrained
+license, either in the suite of one of the satraps, or in the large
+permanent troops which moved from Susa to Ekbatana with the Great King.
+And if the entire population of Persis proper did not migrate from their
+abodes to occupy some of those more inviting spots which the immensity
+of the imperial dominion furnished--a dominion extending (to use the
+language of Cyrus the younger before the battle of Cunaxa) from the
+region of insupportable heat to that of insupportable cold--this was
+only because the early kings discouraged such a movement, in order that
+the nation might maintain its military hardihood and be in a situation
+to furnish undiminished supplies of soldiers. The self-esteem and
+arrogance of the Persians were no less remarkable than their avidity for
+sensual enjoyment. They were fond of wine to excess; their wives and
+their concubines were both numerous; and they adopted eagerly from
+foreign nations new fashions of luxury as well as of ornament. Even to
+novelties in religion, they were not strongly averse. For though
+disciples of Zoroaster, with Magi as their priests and as indispensable
+companions of their sacrifices, worshipping sun, moon, earth, fire,
+etc., and recognizing neither image, temple, nor altar--yet they had
+adopted the voluptuous worship of the goddess Mylitta from the Assyrians
+and Arabians. A numerous male offspring was the Persian's boast. His
+warlike character and consciousness of force were displayed in the
+education of these youths, who were taught, from five years old to
+twenty, only three things--to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak
+the truth. To owe money, or even to buy and sell, was accounted among
+the Persians disgraceful--a sentiment which they defended by saying
+that both the one and the other imposed the necessity of telling
+falsehood. To exact tribute from subjects, to receive pay or presents
+from the king, and to give away without forethought whatever was not
+immediately wanted, was their mode of dealing with money. Industrial
+pursuits were left to the conquered, who were fortunate if by paying a
+fixed contribution and sending a military contingent when required, they
+could purchase undisturbed immunity for their remaining concerns. They
+could not thus purchase safety for the family hearth, since we find
+instances of noble Grecian maidens torn from their parents for the harem
+of the satrap.
+
+To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political
+society went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a conqueror
+like Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement and enthusiasm
+of which they were capable. He had found them slaves, and made them
+masters: he was the first and greatest of national benefactors, as well
+as the most forward of leaders in the field: they followed him from
+one conquest to another, during the thirty years of his reign, their
+love of empire growing with the empire itself. And this impulse of
+aggrandizement continued unabated during the reigns of his three next
+successors--Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes--until it was at length
+violently stifled by the humiliating defeats of Plataea and Salamis;
+after which the Persians became content with defending themselves at
+home and playing a secondary game.
+
+
+
+
+
+RISE OF CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE SAGE
+
+B.C. 550
+
+R.K. DOUGLAS
+
+
+     Confucius is the Latinized name of Kung Futusze, or "Master Kung,"
+     whose work in China did much to educate the people in social and
+     civic virtues. He began as a political reformer at a time when the
+     empire was cut up into a number of petty and discordant
+     principalities. As a practical statesman and administrator, he
+     urged the necessity of reform upon the princes whom one after
+     another he served. His advice was invariably disregarded, and as he
+     said "no intelligent ruler arose in his time." His great maxims of
+     submission to the emperor or supreme head of the state he based on
+     the analogous duty of filial obedience in a household, and his very
+     spirit of piety prevented him from taking independent measures for
+     redressing the evils and oppressions of his distracted country.
+
+     His moral teachings are not based on any specific religious
+     foundation, but they have become the settled code of Chinese life,
+     of which submissiveness to authority, industry, frugality, and fair
+     dealing as prescribed by Confucian ethics are general
+     characteristics. The political doctrines of this great reformer
+     were eventually adopted, and his teaching and example brought about
+     a peaceful and gradual, but complete revolution, in the Chinese
+     Empire, whose consolidation into a simple kingdom was the practical
+     result of this sage's influence.
+
+
+At the time of which we write the Chinese were still clinging to the
+banks of the Yellow River, along which they had first entered the
+country, and formed, within the limits of China proper, a few states on
+either shore lying between the 33d and 38th parallels of latitude, and
+the 106th and 119th of longitude. The royal state of Chow occupied part
+of the modern province of Honan. To the north of this was the powerful
+state of Tsin, embracing the modern province of Shanse and part of
+Chili; to the south was the barbarous state of Ts'oo, which stretched as
+far as the Yang-tsze-kiang; to the east, reaching to the coast, were a
+number of smaller states, among which those of Ts'e, Loo, Wei, Sung, and
+Ching were the chief and to the west of the Yellow River was the state
+of Ts'in, which was destined eventually to gain the mastery over the
+contending principalities.
+
+On the establishment of the Chow dynasty, King Woo had apportioned these
+fiefships among members of his family, his adherents, and the
+descendants of some of the ancient virtuous kings. Each prince was
+empowered to administer his government as he pleased so long as he
+followed the general lines indicated by history; and in the event of any
+act of aggression on the part of one state against another, the matter
+was to be reported to the king of the sovereign state, who was bound to
+punish the offender. It is plain that in such a system the elements of
+disorder must lie near the surface; and no sooner was the authority of
+the central state lessened by the want of ability shown by the
+successors of kings Woo, Ching, and K'ang, than constant strife broke
+out between the several chiefs. The hand of every man was against his
+neighbor, and the smaller states suffered the usual fate, under like
+circumstances, of being encroached upon and absorbed, notwithstanding
+their appeals for help to their common sovereign. The House of Chow
+having been thus found wanting, the device was resorted to of appointing
+one of the most powerful princes as a presiding chief, who should
+exercise royal functions, leaving the king only the title and
+paraphernalia of sovereignity. In fact, the China of this period was
+governed and administered very much as Japan was up till about twenty
+years ago. For Mikado, Shogun, and ruling Daimios, read king, presiding
+chief, and princes, and the parallel is as nearly as possible complete.
+The result of the system, however, in the two countries was different,
+for apart from the support received by the Mikado from the belief in his
+heavenly origin, the insular position of Japan prevented the possibility
+of the advent of elements of disorder from without, whereas the
+principalities of China were surrounded by semi-barbarous states, the
+chiefs of which were engaged in constant warfare with them.
+
+Confucius' deep spirit of loyalty to the House of Chow forbade his
+following in the Book of History the careers of the sovereigns who
+reigned between the death of Muh in B.C. 946 and the accession of P'ing
+in 770. One after another these kings rose, reigned, and died, leaving
+each to his successor an ever-increasing heritage of woe. During the
+reign of Seuen (827-781) a gleam of light seems to have shot through the
+pervading darkness. Though falling far short of the excellencies of the
+founders of the dynasty, he yet strove to follow, though at a long
+interval, the examples they had set him; and according to the Chinese
+belief, as an acknowledgment from Heaven of his efforts in the direction
+of virtue, it was given him to sit upon the throne for nearly half a
+century.
+
+His successor, Yew, "the Dark," appears to even less advantage. No
+redeeming acts relieve the general disorder of his reign, and at the
+instigation of a favorite concubine he is said to have committed acts
+which place him on a level with Kee and Show. Earthquakes, storms, and
+astrological portents appeared as in the dark days at the close of the
+Hea and Shang dynasties. His capital was surrounded by the barbarian
+allies of the Prince of Shin, the father of his wife, whom he had
+dismissed at the request of his favorite, and in an attempt to escape he
+fell a victim to their weapons.
+
+With this event the Western Chow dynasty was brought to a close.
+
+Here, also, the Book of History comes to an end, and the Spring and
+Autumn Annals by Confucius takes up the tale of iniquity and disorder
+which overspread the land. No more dreadful record of a nation's
+struggles can be imagined than that contained in Confucius's history.
+The country was torn by discord and desolated by wars. Husbandry was
+neglected, the peace of households was destroyed, and plunder and rapine
+were the watchwords of the time.
+
+Such was the state of China at the time of the birth of Confucius (B.C.
+551). Of the parents of the Sage we know but little, except that his
+father, Shuh-leang Heih, was a military officer, eminent for his
+commanding stature, his great bravery, and immense strength, and that
+his mother's name was Yen Ching-tsai The marriage of this couple took
+place when Heih was seventy years old, and the prospect, therefore, of
+his having an heir having been but slight, unusual rejoicings
+commemorated the birth of the son, who was destined to achieve such
+everlasting fame.
+
+Report says that the child was born in a cave on Mount Ne, whither
+Ching-tsai went in obedience to a vision to be confined. But this is but
+one of the many legends with which Chinese historians love to surround
+the birth of Confucius. With the same desire to glorify the Sage, and in
+perfect good faith, they narrate how the event was heralded by strange
+portents and miraculous appearances, how genii announced to Ching-tsai
+the honor that was in store for her, and how fairies attended at his
+nativity.
+
+Of the early years of Confucius we have but scanty record. It would seem
+that from his childhood he showed ritualistic tendencies, and we are
+told that as a boy he delighted to play at the arrangement of vessels
+and postures of ceremony. As he advanced in years he became an earnest
+student of history, and looked back with love and reverence to the time
+when the great and good Yaou and Shun reigned in:
+
+    "A golden age, fruitful of golden deeds."
+
+At the age of fifteen "he bent his mind to learning," and when he was
+nineteen years old he married a lady from the state of Sung. As has
+befallen many other great men, Confucius' married life was not a happy
+one, and he finally divorced his wife, not, however, before she had
+borne him a son.
+
+Soon after his marriage, at the instigation of poverty, Confucius
+accepted the office of keeper of the stores of grain, and in the
+following year he was promoted to be guardian of the public fields and
+lands. It was while holding this latter office that his son was born,
+and so well known and highly esteemed had he already become that the
+reigning duke, on hearing of the event, sent him a present of a carp,
+from which circumstance the infant derived his name, Le ("a carp"). The
+name of this son seldom occurs in the life of his illustrious father,
+and the few references we have to him are enough to show that a small
+share of paternal affection fell to his lot. "Have you heard any lessons
+from your father different from what we have all heard?" asked an
+inquisitive disciple of him. "No," replied Le, "he was standing alone
+once when I was passing through the court below with hasty steps, and
+said to me, 'Have you read the Odes?' On my replying, 'Not yet,' he
+added, 'If you do not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to converse
+with.' Another day, in the same place and the same way, he said to me,
+'Have you read the rules of Propriety?' On my replying, 'Not yet,' he
+added, 'If you do not learn the rules of Propriety, your character
+cannot be established.'" "I asked one thing," said the enthusiastic
+disciple, "and I have learned three things. I have learned about the
+Odes; I have learned about the rules of Propriety; and I have learned
+that the superior man maintains a distant reserve toward his son."
+
+At the age of twenty-two we find Confucius released from the toils of
+office, and devoting his time to the more congenial task of imparting
+instruction to a band of admiring and earnest students. With idle or
+stupid scholars he would have nothing to do. "I do not open the truth,"
+he said, "to one who is not eager after knowledge, nor do I help any one
+who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner
+of a subject, and the listener cannot from it learn the other three, I
+do not repeat my lesson."
+
+When twenty-eight years old Confucius studied archery, and in the
+following years took lessons in music from the celebrated master, Seang.
+At thirty he tells us "he stood firm," and about this time his fame
+mightily increased, many noble youths enrolled themselves among his
+disciples; and on his expressing a desire to visit the imperial court of
+Chow to confer on the subject of ancient ceremonies with Laou Tan, the
+founder of the Taouist sect, the reigning duke placed a carriage and
+horses at his disposal for the journey.
+
+The extreme veneration which Confucius entertained for the founders of
+the Chow dynasty made the visit to Lo, the capital, one of intense
+interest to him. With eager delight he wandered through the temple and
+audience-chambers, the place of sacrifices and the palace, and having
+completed his inspection of the position and shape of the various
+sacrificial and ceremonial vessels, he turned to his disciples and said,
+"Now I understand the wisdom of the duke of Chow, and how his house
+attained to imperial sway." But the principal object of his visit to
+Chow was to confer with Laou-tsze; and of the interview between these
+two very dissimilar men we have various accounts. The Confucian writers
+as a rule merely mention the fact of their having met, but the admirers
+of Laou-tsze affirm that Confucius was very roughly handled by his more
+ascetic contemporary, who looked down from his somewhat higher
+standpoint with contempt on the great apostle of antiquity. It was only
+natural that Laou-tsze, who preached that stillness and self-emptiness
+were the highest attainable objects, should be ready to assail a man
+whose whole being was wrapt up in ceremonial observances and conscious
+well-doing. The very measured tones and considered movements of
+Confucius, coupled with a certain admixture of that pride which apes
+humility, must have been very irritating to the metaphysically-minded
+treasurer. And it was eminently characteristic of Confucius, that
+notwithstanding the great provocation given him on this occasion, he
+abstained from any rejoinder. We nowhere read of his engaging in a
+dispute. When an opponent arose, it was in keeping with the doctrine of
+Confucius to retire before him. "A sage," he said, "will not enter a
+tottering state nor dwell in a disorganized one. When right principles
+of government prevail he shows himself, but when they are prostrated he
+remains concealed." And carrying out the same principle in private life,
+he invariably refused to wrangle.
+
+It was possibly in connection with this incident that Confucius drew the
+attention of his disciples to the metal statue of a man with a triple
+clasp upon his mouth, which stood in the ancestral temple at Lo. On the
+back of the statue were inscribed these words: "The ancients were
+guarded in their speech, and like them we should avoid loquacity. Many
+words invite many defeats. Avoid also engaging in many businesses, for
+many businesses create many difficulties."
+
+"Observe this, my children," said he, pointing to the inscription.
+"These words are true, and commend themselves to our reason."
+
+Having gained all the information he desired in Chow, he returned to
+Loo, where pupils flocked to him until, we are told, he was surrounded
+by an admiring company of three thousand disciples. His stay in Loo was,
+however, of short duration, for the three principal clans of the state,
+those of Ke, Shuh, and Mang, after frequent contests between themselves,
+engaged in a war with the reigning duke, and overthrew his armies. Upon
+this the duke took refuge in the state of T'se, whither Confucius
+followed him. As he passed along the road he saw a woman weeping at a
+tomb, and having compassion on her, he sent his disciple Tsze-loo to ask
+her the cause of her grief. "You weep as if you had experienced sorrow
+upon sorrow," said Tsze-loo. "I have," said the woman, "my father-in-law
+was killed here by a tiger, and my husband also; and now my son has met
+the same fate." "Why, then, do you not remove from the place?" asked
+Confucius. "Because here there is no oppressive government," replied the
+woman. On hearing this answer, Confucius remarked to his disciples, "My
+children remember this, oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger."
+
+Possibly Confucius was attracted to T'se by a knowledge that the music
+of the emperor Shun was still preserved at the court. At all events, we
+are told that having heard a strain of the much-desired music on his way
+to the capital, he hurried on, and was so ravished with the airs he
+heard that for three months he never tasted flesh. "I did not think,"
+said he, "that music could reach such a pitch of excellence."
+
+Hearing of the arrival of the Sage, the duke of T'se--King, by
+name--sent for him, and after some conversation, being minded to act the
+part of a patron to so distinguished a visitor, offered to make him a
+present of the city of Lin-k'ew with its revenues. But this Confucius
+declined, remarking to his disciples, "A superior man will not receive
+rewards except for services done. I have given advice to the duke King,
+but he has not followed it as yet, and now he would endow me with this
+place. Very far is he from understanding me." He still, however,
+discussed politics with the duke, and taught him that "There is good
+government when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when
+the father is father, and the son is son." "Good," said the duke; "if,
+indeed, the prince be not prince, the minister not minister, and the son
+not son, although I have my revenue, can I enjoy it?"
+
+Though Duke King was by no means a satisfactory pupil, many of his
+instincts were good, and he once again expressed a desire to pension
+Confucius, that he might keep him at hand; but Gan Ying, the Prime
+Minister, dissuaded him from his purpose. "These scholars," said the
+minister, "are impracticable, and cannot be imitated. They are haughty
+and conceited of their own views, so that they will not rest satisfied
+in inferior positions. They set a high value on all funeral ceremonies,
+give way to their grief, and will waste their property on great
+funerals, so that they would only be injurious to the common manners.
+This Kung Footsze has a thousand peculiarities. It would take ages to
+exhaust all he knows about the ceremonies of going up and going down.
+This is not the time to examine into his rules of propriety. If you wish
+to employ him to change the customs of T'se, you will not be making the
+people your primary consideration." This reasoning had full weight with
+the duke, who the next time he was urged to follow the advice of
+Confucius, cut short the discussion by the remark, "I am too old to
+adopt his doctrines."
+
+Under these circumstances Confucius once more returned to Loo, only
+however to find that the condition of the state was still unchanged;
+disorder was rife; and the reins of government were in the hands of the
+head of the strongest party for the time being. This was no time for
+Confucius to take office, and he devoted the leisure thus forced upon
+him to the compilation of the "Book of Odes" and the "Book of History."
+
+But in process of time order was once more restored, and he then felt
+himself free to accept the post of magistrate of the town of Chung-too,
+which was offered him by the duke King.
+
+He now had an opportunity of putting his principles of government to
+the test, and the result partly justified his expectations. He framed
+rules for the support of the living, and for the observation of rites
+for the dead; he arranged appropriate food for the old and the young;
+and he provided for the proper separation of men and women. And the
+results were, we are told, that, as in the time of King Alfred, a
+thing dropped on the road was not picked up; there was no fraudulent
+carving of vessels; coffins were made of the ordained thickness; graves
+were unmarked by mounds raised over them; and no two prices were charged
+in the markets. The duke, surprised at what he saw, asked the sage
+whether his rule of government could be applied to the whole state.
+"Certainly," replied Confucius, "and not only to the state of Loo,
+but to the whole empire." Forthwith, therefore, the duke made him
+Assistant-Superintendent of Works, and shortly afterwards appointed him
+Minister of Crime. Here, again, his success was complete. From the day
+of his appointment crime is said to have disappeared, and the penal laws
+remained a dead letter.
+
+Courage was recognized by Confucius as being one of the great virtues,
+and about this period we have related two instances in which he showed
+that he possessed both moral and physical courage to a high degree. The
+chief of the Ke family, being virtual possessor of the state, when the
+body of the exiled Duke Chaou was brought from T'se for interment,
+directed that it should be buried apart from the graves of his
+ancestors. On Confucius becoming aware of his decision, he ordered a
+trench to be dug round the burying-ground which should enclose the new
+tomb. "Thus to censure a prince and signalize his faults is not
+according to etiquette," said he to Ke. "I have caused the grave to be
+included in the cemetery, and I have done so to hide your disloyalty."
+And his action was allowed to pass unchallenged.
+
+The other instance referred to was on the occasion, a few years later,
+of an interview between the dukes of Loo and T'se, at which Confucius
+was present as master of ceremonies. At his instigation, an altar was
+raised at the place of meeting, which was mounted by three steps, and on
+this the dukes ascended, and having pledged one another proceeded to
+discuss a treaty of alliance. But treachery was intended on the part of
+the duke of T'se, and at a given signal a band of savages advanced with
+beat of drum to carry off the duke of Loo. Some such stratagem had been
+considered probable by Confucius, and the instant the danger became
+imminent he rushed to the altar and led away the duke. After much
+disorder, in which Confucius took a firm and prominent part, a treaty
+was concluded, and even some land on the south of the river Wan, which
+had been taken by T'se, was by the exertions of the Sage restored to
+Loo. On this recovered territory the people of Loo, in memory of the
+circumstance, built a city and called it, "The City of Confession."
+
+But to return to Confucius as the Minister of Crime.
+
+Though eminently successful, the results obtained under his system were
+not quite such as his followers have represented them to have been. No
+doubt crime diminished under his rule, but it was by no means abolished.
+In fact, his biographers mention a case which must have been peculiarly
+shocking to him. A father brought an accusation against his son, in the
+expectation, probably, of gaining his suit with ease before a judge who
+laid such stress on the virtues of filial piety. But to his surprise,
+and that of the on-lookers, Confucius cast both father and son into
+prison, and to the remonstrances of the head of the Ke clan answered,
+"Am I to punish for a breach of filial piety one who has never been
+taught to be filially minded? Is not he who neglects to teach his son
+his duties, equally guilty with the son who fails in them? Crime is not
+inherent in human nature, and therefore the father in the family, and
+the government in the state, are responsible for the crimes committed
+against filial piety and the public laws. If a king is careless about
+publishing laws, and then peremptorily punishes in accordance with the
+strict letter of them, he acts the part of a swindler; if he collect the
+taxes arbitrarily without giving warning, he is guilty of oppression;
+and if he puts the people to death without having instructed them, he
+commits a cruelty."
+
+On all these points Confucius frequently insisted, and strove both by
+precept and example to impart the spirit they reflected on all around
+him. In the presence of his prince we are told that his manner, though
+self-possessed, displayed respectful uneasiness. When he entered the
+palace, or when he passed the vacant throne, his countenance changed,
+his legs bent under him, and he spoke as though he had scarcely breath
+to utter a word. When it fell to his lot to carry the royal sceptre, he
+stooped his body as though he were not able to bear its weight. If the
+prince came to visit him when he was ill, he had himself placed with his
+head to the east, and lay dressed in his court clothes with his girdle
+across them. When the prince sent him a present of cooked meat, he
+carefully adjusted his mat and just tasted the dishes; if the meat were
+uncooked, he offered it to the spirits of his ancestors, and any animal
+which was thus sent him he kept alive.
+
+At the village festivals he never preceded, but always followed after
+the elders. To all about him he assumed an appearance of simplicity and
+sincerity. To the court officials of the lower grade he spoke freely,
+and to superior officers his manner was bland but precise. Even at the
+wild gatherings which accompanied the annual ceremony of driving away
+pestilential influences, he paid honor to the original meaning of the
+rite, by standing in court robes on the eastern steps of his house, and
+received the riotous exorcists as though they were favored guests. When
+sent for by the prince to assist in receiving a royal visitor, his
+countenance appeared to change. He inclined himself to the officers
+among whom he stood, and when sent to meet the visitor at the gate, "he
+hastened forward with his arms spread out like the wings of a bird."
+Recognizing in the wind and the storm the voice of Heaven, he changed
+countenance at the sound of a sudden clap of thunder or a violent gust
+of wind.
+
+The principles which underlie all these details relieve them from the
+sense of affected formality which they would otherwise suggest. Like the
+sages of old, Confucius had an overweening faith in the effect of
+example. "What do you say," asked the chief of the Ke clan on one
+occasion, "to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?"
+"Sir," replied Confucius, "in carrying on your government why should you
+employ capital punishment at all? Let your evinced desires be for what
+is good and the people will be good." And then quoting the words of King
+Ching, he added, "The relation between superiors and inferiors is like
+that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind
+blows across it." Thus in every act of his life, whether at home or
+abroad, whether at table or in bed, whether at study or in moments of
+relaxation, he did all with the avowed object of being seen of men and
+of influencing them by his conduct. And to a certain extent he gained
+his end. He succeeded in demolishing a number of fortified cities which
+had formed the hotbeds of sedition and tumult; and thus added greatly to
+the power of the reigning duke. He inspired the men with a spirit of
+loyalty and good faith, and taught the women to be chaste and docile. On
+the report of the tranquillity prevailing in Loo, strangers flocked
+into the state, and thus was fulfilled the old criterion of good
+government which was afterward repeated by Confucius, "the people were
+happy, and strangers were attracted from afar."
+
+But even Confucius found it impossible to carry all his theories into
+practice, and his experience as Minister of Crime taught him that
+something more than mere example was necessary to lead the people into
+the paths of virtue. Before he had been many months in office, he signed
+the death-warrant of a well-known citizen named Shaou for disturbing the
+public peace. This departure from the principle he had so lately laid
+down astonished his followers, and Tsze-kung--the Simon Peter as he has
+been called among his disciples--took him to task for executing so
+notable a man. But Confucius held to it that the step was necessary.
+"There are five great evils in the world," said he: "a man with a
+rebellious heart who becomes dangerous; a man who joins to vicious deeds
+a fierce temper; a man whose words are knowingly false; a man who
+treasures in his memory noxious deeds and disseminates them; a man who
+follows evil and fertilizes it. All these evil qualities were combined
+in Shaou. His house was a rendezvous for the disaffected; his words were
+specious enough to dazzle any one; and his opposition was violent enough
+to overthrow any independent man."
+
+But notwithstanding such departures from the lines he had laid down for
+himself, the people gloried in his rule and sang at their work songs in
+which he was described as their savior from oppression and wrong.
+
+Confucius was an enthusiast, and his want of success in his attempt
+completely to reform the age in which he lived never seemed to suggest a
+doubt to his mind of the complete wisdom of his creed. According to his
+theory, his official administration should have effected the reform not
+only of his sovereign and the people, but of those of the neighboring
+states. But what was the practical result? The contentment which reigned
+among the people of Loo, instead of instigating the duke of T'se to
+institute a similar system, only served to rouse his jealousy. "With
+Confucius at the head of its government," said he, "Loo will become
+supreme among the states, and T'se, which is nearest to it, will be
+swallowed up. Let us propitiate it by a surrender of territory." But a
+more provident statesman suggested that they should first try to bring
+about the disgrace of the Sage.
+
+With this object he sent eighty beautiful girls, well skilled in the
+arts of music and dancing, and a hundred and twenty of the finest horses
+which could be procured, as a present to the duke King. The result fully
+realized the anticipation of the minister. The girls were taken into the
+duke's harem, the horses were removed to the ducal stables, and
+Confucius was left to meditate on the folly of men who preferred
+listening to the songs of the maidens of T'se to the wisdom of Yaou and
+Shun. Day after day passed and the duke showed no signs of returning to
+his proper mind. The affairs of state were neglected, and for three days
+the duke refused to receive his ministers in audience.
+
+"Master," said Tsze-loo, "it is time you went." But Confucius, who had
+more at stake than his disciple, was disinclined to give up the
+experiment on which his heart was set. Besides, the time was approaching
+when the great sacrifice to Heaven at the solstice, about which he had
+had so many conversations with the duke, should be offered up, and he
+hoped that the recollection of his weighty words would recall the duke
+to a sense of his duties. But his gay rivals in the affections of the
+duke still held their sway, and the recurrence of the great festival
+failed to awaken his conscience even for the moment. Reluctantly
+therefore Confucius resigned his post and left the capital.
+
+But though thus disappointed of the hopes he entertained of the duke of
+Loo, Confucius was by no means disposed to resign his role as the
+reformer of the age. "If any one among the princes would employ me,"
+said he, "I would effect something considerable in the course of twelve
+months, and in three years the government would be perfected." But the
+tendencies of the times were unfavorable to the Sage. The struggle for
+supremacy which had been going on for centuries between the princes of
+the various states was then at its height, and though there might be a
+question whether it would finally result in the victory of Tsin, or of
+Ts'oo, or of Ts'in, there could be no doubt that the sceptre had
+already passed from the hands of the ruler of Chow. To men therefore who
+were fighting over the possessions of a state which had ceased to live,
+the idea of employing a minister whose principal object would have been
+to breathe life into the dead bones of Chow, was ridiculous. This soon
+became apparent to his disciples, who being even more concerned than
+their master at his loss of office, and not taking so exalted a view as
+he did of what he considered to be a heaven-sent mission, were inclined
+to urge him to make concessions in harmony with the times. "Your
+principles," said Tsze-kung to him, "are excellent, but they are
+unacceptable in the empire, would it not be well therefore to bate them
+a little?" "A good husbandman," replied the Sage, "can sow, but he
+cannot secure a harvest. An artisan may excel in handicraft, but he
+cannot provide a market for his goods. And in the same way a superior
+man can cultivate his principles, but he cannot make them acceptable."
+
+But Confucius was at least determined that no efforts on his part should
+be wanting to discover the opening for which he longed, and on leaving
+Loo he betook himself to the state of Wei. On arriving at the capital,
+the reigning duke received him with distinction, but showed no desire to
+employ him. Probably expecting, however, to gain some advantage from the
+counsels of the Sage in the art of governing, he determined to attach
+him to his court by the grant of an annual stipend of sixty thousand
+measures of grain--that having been the value of the post he had just
+resigned in Loo. Had the experiences of his public life come up to the
+sanguine hopes he had entertained at its beginning, Confucius would
+probably have declined this offer as he did that of the Duke of T'se
+some years before, but poverty unconsciously impelled him to act up to
+the advice of Tsze-kung and to bate his principles of conduct somewhat.
+His stay, however, in Wei was of short duration. The officials at the
+court, jealous probably of the influence they feared he might gain over
+the duke, intrigued against him, and Confucius thought it best to bow
+before the coming storm. After living on the duke's hospitality for ten
+months, he left the capital, intending to visit the state of Ch'in.
+
+It chanced, however, that the way thither led him through the town of
+Kwang, which had suffered much from the filibustering expeditions of a
+notorious disturber of the public peace, named Yang-Hoo. To this man of
+ill-fame Confucius bore a striking resemblance, so much so that the
+townspeople, fancying that they now had their old enemy in their power,
+surrounded the house in which he lodged for five days, intending to
+attack him. The situation was certainly disquieting, and the disciples
+were much alarmed. But Confucius's belief in the heaven-sent nature of
+his mission raised him above fear. "After the death of King Wan," said
+he, "was not the cause of truth lodged in me? If Heaven had wished to
+let this sacred cause perish, I should not have been put into such a
+relation to it. Heaven will not let the cause of truth perish, and what
+therefore can the people of Kwang do to me?" Saying which he tuned his
+lyre, and sang probably some of those songs from his recently compiled
+Book of Odes which breathed the wisdom of the ancient emperors.
+
+From some unexplained cause, but more probably from the people of Kwang
+discovering their mistake than from any effect produced by Confucius'
+ditties, the attacking force suddenly withdrew, leaving the Sage free to
+go wherever he listed. This misadventure was sufficient to deter him
+from wandering farther a-field, and, after a short stay at Poo, he
+returned to Wei. Again the duke welcomed him to the capital, though it
+does not appear that he renewed his stipend, and even his consort
+Nan-tsze forgot for a while her intrigues and debaucheries at the news
+of his arrival. With a complimentary message she begged an interview
+with the Sage, which he at first refused; but on her urging her request,
+he was fain obliged to yield the point. On being introduced into her
+presence, he found her concealed behind a screen, in strict accordance
+with the prescribed etiquette, and after the usual formalities they
+entered freely into conversation.
+
+Tsze-loo was much disturbed at this want of discretion, as he considered
+it, on the part of Confucius, and the vehemence of his master's answer
+showed that there was a doubt in his own mind whether he had not
+overstepped the limits of sage-like propriety. "Wherein I have done
+improperly," said he, "may Heaven reject me! may Heaven reject me!"
+This incident did not, however, prevent him from maintaining friendly
+relations with the court, and it was not until the duke by a public act
+showed his inability to understand the dignity of the role which
+Confucius desired to assume, that he lost all hope of finding employment
+in the state of his former patron. On this occasion the duke drove
+through the streets of his capital seated in a carriage with Nan-tsze,
+and desired Confucius to follow in a carriage behind. As the procession
+passed through the market-place, the people perceiving more clearly than
+the duke the incongruity of the proceeding, laughed and jeered at the
+idea of making virtue follow in the wake of lust. This completed the
+shame which Confucius felt at being in so false a position.
+
+"I have not seen one," said he, "who loves virtue as he loves beauty."
+To stay any longer under the protection of a court which could inflict
+such an indignity upon him was more than he could do, and he therefore
+once again struck southward toward Ch'in.
+
+After his retirement from office it is probable that Confucius devoted
+himself afresh to imparting to his followers those doctrines and
+opinions which we shall consider later on. Even on the road to Ch'in we
+are told that he practised ceremonies with his disciples beneath the
+shadow of a tree by the wayside in Sung. In the spirit of Laou-tsze,
+Hwuy T'uy, an officer in the neighborhood, was angered at his reported
+"proud air and many desires, his insinuating habit and wild will," and
+attempted to prevent him entering the state. In this endeavor, however,
+he was unsuccessful, as were some more determined opponents, who two
+years later attacked him at Poo, when he was on his way to Wei. On this
+occasion he was seized, and though it is said that his followers
+struggled manfully with his captors, their efforts did not save him from
+having to give an oath that he would not continue his journey to Wei.
+But in spite of his oath, and in spite of the public slight which had
+previously been put upon him by the duke of Wei, an irresistible
+attraction drew him toward that state, and he had no sooner escaped from
+the clutches of his captors than he continued his journey.
+
+This deliberate forfeiture of his word in one who had commanded them to
+"hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles," surprised his
+disciples; and Tsze-kung, who was generally the spokesman on such
+occasions, asked him whether it was right to violate the oath he had
+taken. But Confucius, who had learned expediency in adversity, replied,
+"It was an oath extracted by force. The spirits do not hear such."
+
+But to return to Confucius flying from his enemies in Sung. Finding his
+way barred by the action of Hwan T'uy, he proceeded westward and arrived
+at Ch'ing, the capital of the state of the same name. Thither it would
+appear his disciples had preceded him, and he arrived unattended at the
+eastern gate of the city. But his appearance was so striking that his
+followers were soon made aware of his presence. "There is a man," said a
+townsman to Tsze-kung, "standing at the east gate with a forehead like
+Yaou, a neck like Kaou Yaou, his shoulders on a level with those of
+Tsze-ch'an, but wanting below the waist three inches of the height of
+Yu, and altogether having the forsaken appearance of a stray dog."
+Recognizing his master in this description, Tsze-kung hastened to meet
+him, and repeated to him the words of his informant. Confucius was much
+amused, and said: "The personal appearance is a small matter; but to say
+I was like a stray dog--capital! capital!"
+
+The ruling powers in Ch'ing, however, showed no disposition to employ
+even a man possessing such marked characteristics, and before long he
+removed to Ch'in, where he remained a year. From Ch'in he once more
+turned his face toward Wei, and it was while he was on this journey that
+he was detained at Poo, as mentioned above. Between Confucius and the
+duke of Wei there evidently existed a personal liking, if not
+friendship. The duke was always glad to see him and ready to converse
+with him; but Confucius's unbounded admiration for those whose bones, as
+Laou-tsze said, were mouldered to dust, and especially for the founders
+of the Chow dynasty, made it impossible for the duke to place him in any
+position of importance. At the same time Confucius seems always to have
+hoped that he would be able to gain the duke over to his views; and thus
+it came about that the Sage was constantly attracted to the court of
+Duke Ling, and as often compelled to exile himself from it.
+
+On this particular occasion, as at all other times, the duke received
+him gladly, but their conversations, which had principally turned on the
+act of peaceful government, were now directed to warlike affairs. The
+duke was contemplating an attack on Poo, the inhabitants of which, under
+the leadership of Hwan T'uy, who had arrested Confucius, had rebelled
+against him. At first Confucius was quite disposed to support the duke
+in his intended hostilities; but a representation from the duke that the
+probable support of other states would make the expedition one of
+considerable danger, converted Confucius to the opinion evidently
+entertained by the duke, that it would be best to leave Hwan T'uy in
+possession of his ill-gotten territory. Confucius's latest advice was
+then to this effect, and the duke acted upon it.
+
+The duke was now becoming an old man, and with advancing age came a
+disposition to leave the task of governing to others, and to weary of
+Confucius' high-flown lectures. He ceased "to use" Confucius, as the
+Chinese historians say, and the Sage was therefore indignant, and ready
+to accept any offer which might come from any quarter. While in this
+humor he received an invitation from Pih Hih, an officer of the state of
+Tsin who was holding the town of Chung-mow against his chief, to visit
+him, and he was inclined to go. It is impossible to study this portion
+of Confucius' career without feeling that a great change had come over
+his conduct. There was no longer that lofty love of truth and of virtue
+which had distinguished the commencement of his official life.
+Adversity, instead of stiffening his back, had made him pliable. He who
+had formerly refused to receive money he had not earned, was now willing
+to take pay in return for no other services than the presentation of
+courtier-like advice on occasions when Duke Ling desired to have his
+opinion in support of his own; and in defiance of his oft-repeated
+denunciation of rebels, he was now ready to go over to the court of a
+rebel chief, in the hope possibly of being able through his means "to
+establish," as he said on another occasion, "an Eastern Chow."
+
+Again Tsze-loo interfered, and expostulated with him on his
+inconsistency. "Master," said he, "I have heard you say that when a man
+is guilty of personal wrong-doing, a superior man will not associate
+with him. If you accept the invitation of this Pih Hih, who is in open
+rebellion against his chief, what will people say?" But Confucius, with
+a dexterity which had now become common with him, replied: "It is true I
+have said so. But is it not also true that if a thing be really hard, it
+may be ground without being made thin; and if it be really white, it may
+be steeped in a black fluid without becoming black? Am I a bitter gourd?
+Am I to be hung up out of the way of being eaten?" But nevertheless
+Tsze-loo's remonstrances prevailed, and he did not go.
+
+His relations with the duke did not improve, and so dissatisfied was he
+with his patron that he retired from the court. As at this time
+Confucius was not in the receipt of any official income, it is probable
+that he again provided for his wants by imparting to his disciples some
+of the treasures out of the rich stores of learning which he had
+collected by means of diligent study and of a wide experience. Every
+word and action of Confucius were full of such meaning to his admiring
+followers that they have enabled us to trace him into the retirement of
+private life. In his dress, we are told, he was careful to wear only the
+"correct" colors, viz., azure, yellow, carnation, white and black, and
+he scrupulously avoided red as being the color usually affected by women
+and girls. At the table he was moderate in his appetite but particular
+as to the nature of his food and the manner in which it was set before
+him. Nothing would induce him to touch any meat that was "high" or rice
+that was musty, nor would he eat anything that was not properly cut up
+or accompanied with the proper sauce. He allowed himself only a certain
+quantity of meat and rice, and though no such limit was fixed to the
+amount of wine with which he accompanied his frugal fare, we are assured
+that he never allowed himself to be confused by it. When out driving, he
+never turned his head quite round, and in his actions as well as in his
+words he avoided all appearance of haste.
+
+Such details are interesting in the case of a man like Confucius, who
+has exercised so powerful an influence over so large a proportion of the
+world's inhabitants, and whose instructions, far from being confined to
+the courts of kings, found their loudest utterances in intimate
+communings with his disciples, and in the example he set by the exact
+performance of his daily duties.
+
+The only accomplishment which Confucius possessed was a love of music,
+and this he studied less as an accomplishment than as a necessary part
+of education. "It is by the odes that the mind is aroused," said he. "It
+is by the rules of propriety that the character is established. And it
+is music which completes the edifice."
+
+But having tasted the sweets of official life, Confucius was not
+inclined to resign all hope of future employment, and the duke of Wei
+still remaining deaf to his advice, he determined to visit the state of
+Tsin, in the hope of finding in Chaou Keen-tsze, one of the three
+chieftains who virtually governed that state, a more hopeful pupil. With
+this intention he started westward, but had got no farther than the
+Yellow River when the news reached him of the execution of Tuh Ming and
+Tuh Shun-hwa, two men of note in Tsin. The disorder which this indicated
+put a stop to his journey; for had not he himself said "that a superior
+man will not enter a tottering state." His disappointment and grief were
+great, and looking at the yellow waters as they flowed at his feet, he
+sighed and muttered to himself: "Oh how beautiful were they; this river
+is not more majestic than they were! and I was not there to avert their
+fate!"
+
+So saying he returned to Wei, only to find the duke as little inclined
+to listen to his lectures, as he was deeply engaged in warlike
+preparations. When Confucius presented himself at court, the duke
+refused to talk on any other subject but military tactics, and
+forgetting, possibly on purpose, that Confucius was essentially a man of
+peace, pressed him for information on the art of manoeuvreing an army.
+"If you should wish to know how to arrange sacrificial vessels," said
+the Sage, "I will answer you, but about warfare I know nothing."
+
+Confucius was now sixty years old, and the condition of the states
+composing the empire was even more unfavorable for the reception of his
+doctrines than ever. But though depressed by fortune, he never lost that
+steady confidence in himself and his mission, which was a leading
+characteristic of his career, and when he found the duke of Wei deaf to
+his advice, he removed to Ch'in, in the hope of there finding a ruler
+who would appreciate his wisdom.
+
+In the following year he left Ch'in with his disciples for Ts'ae, a
+small dependency of the state of Ts'oo. In those days the empire was
+subjected to constant changes. One day a new state carved out of an old
+one would appear, and again it would disappear, or increase in size, as
+the fortunes of war might determine. Thus while Confucius was in Ts'ae,
+a part of Ts'oo declared itself independent, under the name of Ye, and
+the ruler usurped the title of duke. In earlier days such rebellion
+would have called forth a rebuke from Confucius; but it was otherwise
+now, and, instead of denouncing the usurper as a rebel, he sought him as
+a patron. The duke did not know how to receive his visitor, and asked
+Tsze-loo about him. But Tsze-loo, possibly because he considered the
+duke to be no better than Pih Hih, returned him no answer. For this
+reticence Confucius found fault with him, and said, "Why did you not say
+to him, 'He is simply a man who, in his eager pursuit of knowledge,
+forgets his food; who, in the joy of its attainments, forgets his
+sorrows; and who does not perceive that old age is coming on?'"
+
+But whatever may have been the opinion of Tsze-loo, Confucius was quite
+ready to be on friendly terms with the duke, who seems to have had no
+keener relish for Confucius' ethics than the other rulers to whom he had
+offered his services. We are only told of one conversation which took
+place between the duke and the Sage, and on that occasion the duke
+questioned him on the subject of government. Confucius' reply was
+eminently characteristic of the man. Most of his definitions of good
+government would have sounded unpleasantly in the ears of a man who had
+just thrown off his master's yoke and headed a successful rebellion, so
+he cast about for one which might offer some excuse for the new duke by
+attributing the fact of his disloyalty to the bad government of his late
+ruler. Quoting the words of an earlier sage, he replied, "Good
+government obtains when those who are near are made happy, and those who
+are far off are attracted."
+
+Returning from Ye to Ts'ae, he came to a river which, being unbridged,
+left him no resource but to ford it. Seeing two men whom he recognized
+as political recluses ploughing in a neighboring field, he sent the
+ever-present Tsze-loo to inquire of them where best he could effect a
+crossing. "Who is that holding the reins in the carriage yonder?" asked
+the first addressed, in answer to Tsze-loo's inquiry. "Kung Kew,"
+replied the disciple, "Kung Kew, of Loo?" asked the ploughman. "Yes,"
+was the reply. "_He_ knows the ford," was the enigmatic answer of the
+man as he turned to his work; but whether this reply was suggested by
+the general belief that Confucius was omniscient, or by wry of a parable
+to signify that Confucius possessed the knowledge by which the river of
+disorder, which was barring the progress of liberty and freedom, might
+be crossed, we are only left to conjecture. Nor from the second recluse
+could Tsze-loo gain any practical information. "Who are you, sir?" was
+the somewhat peremptory question which his inquiry met with. Upon his
+answering that he was a disciple of Confucius, the man, who might have
+gathered his estimate of Confucius from the mouth of Laou-tsze, replied:
+"Disorder, like a swelling flood, spreads over the whole empire, and who
+is he who will change it for you? Rather than follow one who merely
+withdraws from this court to that court, had you not better follow those
+who (like ourselves) withdraw from the world altogether?" These words
+Tsze-loo, as was his wont, repeated to Confucius, who thus justified his
+career: "It is impossible to associate with birds and beasts as if they
+were the same as ourselves. If I associate not with people, with
+mankind, with whom shall I associate? If right principles prevailed
+throughout the empire, there would be no necessity for me to change its
+state."
+
+Altogether Confucius remained three years in Ts'ae,--three years of
+strife and war, during which his counsels were completely neglected.
+Toward their close, the state of Woo made an attack on Ch'in, which
+found support from the powerful state of Ts'oo on the south. While thus
+helping his ally, the Duke of Ts'oo heard that Confucius was in Ts'ae,
+and determined to invite him to his court. With this object he sent
+messengers bearing presents to the Sage, and charged them with a
+message begging him to come to Ts'oo. Confucius readily accepted the
+invitation, and prepared to start. But the news of the transaction
+alarmed the ministers of Ts'ae and Ch'in. "Ts'oo," said they, "is
+already a powerful state, and Confucius is a man of wisdom. Experience
+has proved that those who have despised him have invariably suffered for
+it, and, should he succeed in guiding the affairs of Ts'oo, we should
+certainly be ruined. At all hazards we must stop his going." When,
+therefore, Confucius had started on his journey, these men despatched a
+force which hemmed him in a wild bit of desert country. Here, we are
+told, they kept him a prisoner for seven days, during which time he
+suffered severe privations, and, as was always the case in moments of
+difficulty, the disciples loudly bewailed their lot and that of their
+master.
+
+"Has the superior man," said Tsze-loo, "indeed, to endure in this way?"
+"The superior man may indeed have to suffer want," replied Confucius,
+"but it is only the mean man who, when he is in straits, gives way to
+unbridled license." In this emergency he had recourse to a solace which
+had soothed him on many occasions when fortune frowned: he played, on
+his lute and sang.
+
+At length he succeeded in sending word to the duke of Ts'oo of the
+position he was in. At once the duke sent ambassadors to liberate him,
+and he himself went out of his capital to meet him. But though he
+welcomed him cordially, and seems to have availed himself of his advice
+on occasions, he did not appoint him to any office, and the intention he
+at one time entertained of granting him a slice of territory was
+thwarted by his ministers, from motives of expediency. "Has your
+majesty," said this officer, "any servant who could discharge the duties
+of ambassador like Tsze-kung? or any so well qualified for a premier as
+Yen Hwuy? or any one to compare as a general with Tsze-loo? Did not
+kings Wan and Woo, from their small states of Fung and Kaou, rise to the
+sovereignty of the empire? And if Kung Kew once acquired territory, with
+such disciples to be his ministers, it will not be to the prosperity of
+Ts'oo."
+
+This remonstrance not only had the immediate effect which was intended,
+but appears to have influenced the manner of the duke toward the Sage,
+for in the interval between this and the duke's death, in the autumn of
+the same year, we hear of no counsel being either asked or given. In the
+successor to the throne Confucius evidently despaired of finding a
+patron, and he once again returned to Wei.
+
+Confucius was now sixty-three, and on arriving at Wei he found a
+grandson of his former friend, the duke Ling, holding the throne against
+his own father, who had been driven into exile for attempting the life
+of his mother, the notorious Nan-tsze. This chief, who called himself
+the duke Chuh, being conscious how much his cause would be strengthened
+by the support of Confucius, sent Tsze-loo to him, saying, "The Prince
+of Wei has been waiting to secure your services in the administration of
+the state, and wishes to know what you consider is the first thing to be
+done." "It is first of all necessary," replied Confucius, "to rectify
+names." "Indeed," said Tzse-loo, "you are wide of the mark. Why need
+there be such rectification?" "How uncultivated you are, Yew," answered
+Confucius; "a superior man shows a cautious reserve in regard to what he
+does not know. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance
+with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the
+truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on successfully. When affairs
+cannot be carried on successfully, proprieties and music will not
+flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will
+not properly be awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the
+people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore the superior man
+considers it necessary that names should be used appropriately, and that
+his directions should be carried out appropriately. A superior man
+requires that his words should be correct."
+
+The position of things in Wei was naturally such as Confucius could not
+sanction, and, as the duke showed no disposition to amend his ways, the
+Sage left his court, and lived the remainder of the five or six years,
+during which he sojourned in the state, in close retirement.
+
+He had now been absent from his native state of Loo for fourteen years,
+and the time had come when he was to return to it. But, by the irony of
+fate, the accomplishment of his long-felt desire was due, not to his
+reputation for political or ethical wisdom, but to his knowledge of
+military tactics, which he heartily despised. It happened that at this
+time Yen Yew, a disciple of the Sage, being in the service of Ke K'ang,
+conducted a campaign against T'se with much success. On his triumphal
+return, Ke K'ang asked him how he had acquired his military skill. "From
+Confucius," replied the general. "And what kind of man is he?" asked Ke
+K'ang. "Were you to employ him," answered Yen Yew, "your fame would
+spread abroad; your people might face demons and gods, and would have
+nothing to fear or to ask of them. And if you accepted his principles,
+were you to collect a thousand altars of the spirits of the land it
+would profit you nothing." Attracted by such a prospect, Ke K'ang
+proposed to invite the Sage to his court, "If you do," said Yen Yew,
+"mind you do not allow mean men to come between you and him."
+
+But before Ke K'ang's invitation reached Confucius an incident occurred
+which made the arrival of the messengers from Loo still more welcome to
+him. K'ung Wan, an officer of Wei, came to consult him as to the best
+means of attacking the force of another officer with whom he was engaged
+in a feud. Confucius, disgusted at being consulted on such a subject,
+professed ignorance, and prepared to leave the state, saying as he went
+away: "The bird chooses its tree; the tree does not choose the bird." At
+this juncture Ke K'ang's envoys arrived, and without hesitation he
+accepted the invitation they brought. On arriving at Loo, he presented
+himself at court, and in reply to a question of the duke Gae on the
+subject of government, threw out a strong hint that the duke might do
+well to offer him an appointment. "Government," he said, "consists in
+the right choice of ministers." To the same question put by Ke K'ang he
+replied, "Employ the upright and put aside the crooked, and thus will
+the crooked be made upright."
+
+At this time Ke K'ang was perplexed how to deal with the prevailing
+brigandage. "If you, sir, were not avaricious, though you might offer
+rewards to induce people to steal, they would not." This answer
+sufficiently indicates the estimate formed by Confucius of Ke K'ang
+and therefore of the duke Gae, for so entirely were the two of one mind
+that the acts of Ke K'ang appear to have been invariably indorsed by the
+duke. It was plainly impossible that Confucius could serve under such a
+regime, and instead, therefore, of seeking employment, he retired to his
+study and devoted himself to the completion of his literary undertaking.
+
+He was now sixty-nine years of age, and if a man is to be considered
+successful only when he succeeds in realizing the dream of his life, he
+must be deemed to have been unfortunate. Endowed by nature with a large
+share of reverence, a cold rather than a fervid disposition, and a
+studious mind, and reared in the traditions of the ancient kings, whose
+virtuous achievements obtained an undue prominence by the obliteration
+of all their faults and failures, he believed himself capable of
+effecting far more than it was possible for him or any other man to
+accomplish. In the earlier part of his career, he had in Loo an
+opportunity given him for carrying his theories of government into
+practice, and we have seen how they failed to do more than produce a
+temporary improvement in the condition of the people under his immediate
+rule. But he had a lofty and steady confidence in himself and in the
+principles which he professed, which prevented his accepting the only
+legitimate inference which could be drawn from his want of success. The
+lessons of his own experience were entirely lost upon him, and he went
+down to his grave at the age of seventy-two firmly convinced as of yore
+that if he were placed in a position of authority "in three years the
+government would be perfected."
+
+Finding it impossible to associate himself with the rulers of Loo, he
+appears to have resigned himself to exclusion from office. His
+wanderings were over:
+
+    "And as a hare, when hounds and horns pursue,
+    Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,"
+
+he had lately been possessed with an absorbing desire to return once
+more to Loo. This had at last been brought about, and he made up his
+mind to spend the remainder of his days in his native state. He had now
+leisure to finish editing the _Shoo King_, or _Book of History_, to
+which he wrote a preface; he also "carefully digested the rites and
+ceremonies determined by the wisdom of the more ancient sages and
+kings; collected and arranged the ancient poetry; and undertook the
+reform of music." He made a diligent study of the _Book of Changes_, and
+added a commentary to it, which is sufficient to show that the original
+meaning of the work was as much a mystery to him as it has been to
+others. His idea of what would probably be the value of the kernel
+encased in this unusually hard shell, if it were once rightly
+understood, is illustrated by his remark, "that if some years could be
+added to his life, he would give fifty of them to the study of the _Book
+of Changes_ and that then he expected to be without great faults."
+
+In the year B.C. 482 his son Le died, and in the following year he lost
+by death his faithful disciple Yen Hwuy. When the news of this last
+misfortune reached him, he exclaimed, "Alas! Heaven is destroying me!" A
+year later a servant of Ke K'ang caught a strange one-horned animal
+while on a hunting excursion, and as no one present, could tell what
+animal it was, Confucius was sent for. At once he declared it to be a
+K'e-lin, and legend says that its identity with the one which appeared
+before his birth was proved by its having the piece of ribbon on its
+horn which Ching-tsae tied to the weird animal which presented itself to
+her in a dream on Mount Ne. This second apparition could only have one
+meaning, and Confucius was profoundly affected at the portent. "For whom
+have you come?" he cried, "for whom have you come?" and then, bursting
+into tears, he added, "The course of my doctrine is run, and I am
+unknown."
+
+"How do you mean that you are unknown?" asked Tsze-kung. "I don't
+complain of Providence," answered the Sage, "nor find fault with men
+that learning is neglected and success is worshipped. Heaven knows me.
+Never does a superior man pass away without leaving a name behind him.
+But my principles make no progress, and I, how shall I be viewed in
+future ages?"
+
+At this time, notwithstanding his declining strength and his many
+employments, he wrote the _Ch'un ts'ew,_ or _Spring and Autumn Annals_,
+in which he followed the history of his native state of Loo, from the
+time of the duke Yin to the fourteenth year of the duke Gae, that is, to
+the time when the appearance of the K'e-lin warned him to consider his
+life at an end.
+
+This is the only work of which Confucius was the author, and of this
+every word is his own. His biographers say that "what was written, he
+wrote, and what was erased, was erased by him." Not an expression was
+either inserted or altered by any one but himself. When he had completed
+the work, he handed the manuscript to his disciples, saying, "By the
+_Spring and Autumn Annals_ I shall be known, and by the _Spring and
+Autumn Annals_ I shall be condemned." This only furnishes another of the
+many instances in which authors have entirely misjudged the value of
+their own works.
+
+In the estimation of his countrymen even, whose reverence for his every
+word would incline them to accept his opinion on this as on every
+subject, the _Spring and Autumn Annals_ holds a very secondary place,
+his utterances recorded in the _Lun yu_, or _Confucian Analects_, being
+esteemed of far higher value, as they undoubtedly are. And indeed the
+two works he compiled, the _Shoo king_ and the _She king_, hold a very
+much higher place in the public regard than the book on which he so
+prided himself. To foreigners, whose judgments are unhampered by his
+recorded opinion, his character as an original historian sinks into
+insignificance, and he is known only as a philosopher and statesman.
+
+Once again only do we hear of Confucius presenting himself at the court
+of the duke after this. And this was on the occasion of the murder of
+the duke of T'se by one of his officers. We must suppose that the crime
+was one of a gross nature, for it raised Confucius' fiercest anger, and
+he who never wearied of singing the praises of those virtuous men who
+overthrew the thrones of licentious and tyrannous kings, would have had
+no room for blame if the murdered duke had been like unto Kee or Show.
+But the outrage was one which Confucius felt should be avenged, and he
+therefore bathed and presented himself at court.
+
+"Sir," said he, addressing the duke, "Ch'in Hang has slain his
+sovereign; I beg that you will undertake to punish him." But the duke
+was indisposed to move in the matter, and pleaded the comparative
+strength of T'se. Confucius, however, was not to be so silenced.
+"One-half of the people of Tse," said he, "are not consenting to the
+deed. If you add to the people of Loo one-half of the people of Tse, you
+will be sure to overcome." This numerical argument no more affected the
+duke than the statement of the fact, and wearying with Confucius'
+importunity, he told him to lay the matter before the chiefs of the
+three principal families of the state. Before this court of appeal,
+whither he went with reluctance, his cause fared no better, and the
+murder remained unavenged.
+
+At a period when every prince held his throne by the strength of his
+right arm, revolutions lost half their crime, and must have been looked
+upon rather as trials of strength than as disloyal villanies. The
+frequency of their occurrence, also, made them less the subjects of
+surprise and horror. At the time of which we write, the states in the
+neighborhood of Loo appear to have been in a very disturbed condition.
+Immediately following on the murder of the duke of T'se, news was
+brought to Confucius that a revolution had broken out in Wei. This was
+an occurrence which particularly interested him, for when he returned
+from Wei to Loo he left Tsze-loo and Tsze-kaou, two of his disciples,
+engaged in the official service of the state. "Tsze-kaou will return,"
+was Confucius' remark, when he was told of the outbreak, "but Tsze-loo
+will die." The prediction was verified. For when Tsze-kaou saw that
+matters were desperate he made his escape; but Tsze-loo remained to
+defend his chief, and fell fighting in the cause of his master. Though
+Confucius had looked forward to the event as probable, he was none the
+less grieved when he heard that it had come about, and he mourned for
+his friend, whom he was so soon to follow to the grave.
+
+One morning, in the spring of the year B.C. 478, he walked in front of
+his door, mumbling as he went:
+
+    "The great mountain must crumble;
+    The strong beam must break;
+    And the wise man withers away like a plant."
+
+These words came as a presage of evil to the faithful Tsze-kung. "If the
+great mountain crumble," said he, "to what shall I look up? If the
+strong beam break, and the wise man wither away, on whom shall I lean?
+The master, I fear, is going to be ill." So saying, he hastened after
+Confucius into the house. "What makes you so late?" said Confucius, when
+the disciple presented himself before him; and then he added, "According
+to the statutes of Hea, the corpse was dressed and coffined at the top
+of the eastern steps, treating the dead as if he were still the host.
+Under the Yin, the ceremony was performed between the two pillars, as if
+the dead were both host and guest. The rule of Chow is to perform it at
+the top of the western steps, treating the dead as if he were a guest. I
+am a man of Yin, and last night I dreamed that I was sitting, with
+offerings before me, between the two pillars. No intelligent monarch
+arises; there is not one in the empire who will make me his master. My
+time is come to die." It is eminently characteristic of Confucius that
+in his last recorded speech and dream, his thoughts should so have dwelt
+on the ceremonies of bygone ages. But the dream had its fulfilment. That
+same day he took to his bed, and after a week's illness he expired.
+
+On the banks of the river Sze, to the north of the capital city of Loo,
+his disciples buried him, and for three years they mourned at his grave.
+Even such marked respect as this fell short of the homage which
+Tsze-kung, his most faithful disciple, felt was due to him, and for
+three additional years that loving follower testified by his grief his
+reverence for his master. "I have all my life had the heaven above my
+head," said he, "but I do not know its height; and the earth under my
+feet, but I know not its thickness. In serving Confucius, I am like a
+thirsty man, who goes with his pitcher to the river and there drinks his
+fill, without knowing the river's depth."
+
+
+
+
+
+ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC
+
+INSTITUTION OF TRIBUNES
+
+B.C. 510-494
+
+HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL
+
+
+     The republic of Rome was the outcome of a sudden revolution caused
+     by the crimes of the House of Tarquin, an Etruscan family who had
+     reached the highest power at Rome. The indignation raised by the
+     rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius, and the suicide of the
+     outraged lady at Collatia, moved her father, in conjunction with
+     Lucius Junius Brutus and Publius Valerius, to start a rebellion.
+     The people were assembled by curiae, or wards, and voted that
+     Tarquinius Superbus should be stripped of the kingly power, and
+     that he and all his family should be banished from Rome.
+
+     This was accordingly done; and, instead of kings, consuls were
+     appointed to wield the supreme power. These consuls were elected
+     annually at the _comitia centuriata_ and they had sovereign power
+     granted them by a vote of the _comitia curiata_. The first consuls
+     chosen were Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus.
+
+     What is known as the Secession to the Sacred Hill took place when
+     the plebeians of Rome, in the early days of the Republic, indignant
+     at the oppression and cruelty of the patricians, left the city en
+     masse and gathered with hostile manifestations at a hill, Mons
+     Sacer, some distance from Rome. It was here Menenius Agrippa
+     conciliated them by reciting the famous fable of "The Belly and the
+     Members." After this the people were induced to come to terms with
+     the patricians and to return to the city.
+
+     The people had, however, gained a great advantage by their bold
+     defiance of the consular and patrician class, who had practically
+     been supreme in the state, had been oppressive money-lenders, and
+     had controlled the decisions of the law courts. It was not in vain
+     that the people now demanded that as the two consuls were
+     practically elected to further the interests of the upper class, so
+     they, the plebeians, should have the election of two tribunes to
+     protect them from wrong and oppression. These new officers were
+     duly appointed, and eventually their number was increased to ten.
+     Their power was almost absolute, but it never seems to have been
+     abused, and this fact is a proof of the native moderation of the
+     ancient Romans. There have been many constitutional struggles in
+     the history of modern times, but nothing like the plebeian
+     tribunate has ever appeared, and it is a question if the
+     institution could have existed for a month, in any country of
+     modern times, with the salutary influences which it exercised in
+     early Rome.
+
+
+Tarquin had made himself king by the aid of the patricians, and chiefly
+by means of the third or Lucerian tribe, to which his family belonged.
+The burgesses of the Gentes were indignant at the curtailment of their
+privileges by the popular reforms of Servius, and were glad to lend
+themselves to any overthrow of his power. But Tarquin soon kicked away
+the ladder by which he had risen. He abrogated, it is true, the hated
+Assembly of the Centuries; but neither did he pay any heed to the
+Curiate Assembly, nor did he allow any new members to be chosen into the
+senate in place of those who were removed by death or other causes; so
+that even those who had helped him to the throne repented them of their
+deed. The name of Superbus, or the Proud, testifies to the general
+feeling against the despotic rule of the second Tarquin.
+
+It was by foreign alliances that he calculated on supporting his
+despotism at home. The Etruscans of Tarquinii, and all its associate
+cities, were his friends; and among the Latins also he sought to raise a
+power which might counterbalance the senate and people of Rome.
+
+The wisdom of Tarquinius Priscus and Servius had united all the Latin
+name to Rome, so that Rome had become the sovereign city of Latium. The
+last Tarquin drew those ties still closer. He gave his daughter in
+marriage to Octavius Mamilius, chief of Tusculum, and favored the Latins
+in all things. But at a general assembly of the Latins at the Ferentine
+Grove, beneath the Alban Mount, where they had been accustomed to meet
+of olden time to settle their national affairs, Turnus Herdonius of
+Aricia rose and spoke against him. Then Tarquinius accused him of high
+treason, and brought false witnesses against him; and so powerful with
+the Latins was the king that they condemned their countryman to be
+drowned in the Ferentine water, and obeyed Tarquinius in all things.
+
+With them he made war upon the Volscians and took the city of Suessa,
+wherein was a great booty. This booty he applied to the execution of
+great works in the city, in emulation of his father and King Servius.
+The elder Tarquin had built up the side of the Tarpeian rock and
+levelled the summit, to be the foundation of a temple of Jupiter, but he
+had not completed the work. Tarquinius Superbus now removed all the
+temples and shrines of the old Sabine gods which had been there since
+the time of Titus Tatius; but the goddess of Youth and the god Terminus
+kept their place, whereby was signified that the Roman people should
+enjoy undecaying vigor, and that the boundaries of their empire should
+never be drawn in. And on the Tarpeian height he built a magnificent
+temple, to be dedicated jointly to the great gods of the Latins and
+Etruscans, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; and this part of the Saturnian
+Hill was ever after called the Capitol or the Chief Place, while the
+upper part was called the Arx or Citadel.
+
+He brought architects from Etruria to plan the temple, but he forced the
+Roman people to work for him without hire.
+
+One day a strange woman appeared before the king and offered him nine
+books to buy; and when he refused them she went away and burned, three
+of the nine books and brought back the remaining six and offered to sell
+them at the same price that she had asked for the nine; and when he
+laughed at her and again refused, she went as before and burned three
+more books, and came back and asked still the same price for the three
+that were left. Then the king was struck by her pertinacity, and he
+consulted his augurs what this might be; and they bade him by all means
+buy the three, and said he had done wrong not to buy the nine, for these
+were the books of the Sibyl and contained great secrets. So the books
+were kept underground in the Capitol in a stone chest, and two men
+(_duumviri_) were appointed to take charge of them, and consult them
+when the state was in danger.
+
+The only Latin town that defied Tarquin's power was Gabii; and Sextus,
+the king's youngest son, promised to win this place also for his father.
+So he fled from Rome and presented himself at Gabii; and there he made
+complaints of his father's tyranny and prayed for protection. The
+Gabians believed him, and took him into their city, and they trusted
+him, so that in time he was made commander of their army. Now his
+father suffered him to conquer in many small battles, and the Gabians
+trusted him more and more. Then he sent privately to his father, and
+asked what he should do to make the Gabians submit. Then King Tarquin
+gave no answer to the messenger, but, as he walked up and down his
+garden, he kept cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies with his
+staff. At last the messenger was tired, and went back to Sextus and told
+him what had passed. But Sextus understood what his father meant, and he
+began to accuse falsely all the chief men, and some of them he put to
+death and some he banished. So at last the city of Gabii was left
+defenceless, and Sextus delivered it up to his father.
+
+While Tarquin was building his temple on the Capitol, a strange portent
+offered itself; for a snake came forth and devoured the sacrifices on
+the altar. The king, not content with the interpretation of his Etruscan
+soothsayers, sent persons to consult the famous oracle of the Greeks at
+Delphi, and the persons he sent were his own sons Titus and Aruns, and
+his sister's son, L. Junius, a young man who, to avoid his uncle's
+jealousy, feigned to be without common sense, wherefore he was called
+Brutus or the Dullard. The answer given by the oracle was that the chief
+power of Rome should belong to him of the three who should first kiss
+his mother; and the two sons of King Tarquin agreed to draw lots which
+of them should do this as soon as they returned home. But Brutus
+perceived that the oracle had another sense; so as soon as they landed
+in Italy he fell down on the ground as if he had stumbled, and kissed
+the earth, for she (he thought) was the true mother of all mortal
+things.
+
+When the sons of Tarquin returned with their cousin, L. Junius Brutus,
+they found the king at war with the Rutulians of Ardea. Being unable to
+take the place by storm, he was forced to blockade it; and while the
+Roman army was encamped before the town the young men used to amuse
+themselves at night with wine and wassail. One night there was a feast,
+at which Sextus, the king's third son, was present, as also Collatinus,
+the son of Egerius, the king's uncle, who had been made governor of
+Collatia. So they soon began to dispute about the worthiness of their
+wives; and when each maintained that his own wife was worthiest, "Come,
+gentlemen," said Collatinus, "let us take horse and see what our wives
+are doing; they expect us not, and so we shall know the truth." All
+agreed, and they galloped to Rome, and there they found the wives of all
+the others feasting and revelling: but when they came to Collatia they
+found Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, not making merry like the rest,
+but sitting in the midst of her handmaids carding wool and spinning; so
+they all allowed that Lucretia was the worthiest.
+
+Now Lucretia was the daughter of a noble Roman, Spurius Lucretius, who
+was at this time prefect of the city; for it was the custom, when the
+kings went out to war, that they left a chief man at home to administer
+all things in the king's name, and he was called prefect of the city.
+
+But it chanced that Sextus, the king's son, when he saw the fair
+Lucretia, was smitten with lustful passion; and a few days after he came
+again to Collatia, and Lucretia entertained him hospitably as her
+husband's cousin and friend. But at midnight he arose and came with
+stealthy steps to her bedside: and holding a sword in his right hand,
+and laying his left hand upon her breast, he bade her yield to his
+wicked desires; for if not, he would slay her and lay one of her slaves
+beside her, and would declare that he had taken them in adultery. So for
+shame she consented to that which no fear would have wrung from her: and
+Sextus, having wrought this deed of shame, returned to the camp.
+
+Then Lucretia sent to Rome for her father, and to the camp at Ardea for
+her husband. They came in haste. Lucretius brought with him P. Valerius,
+and Collatinus brought L. Junius Brutus, his cousin, And they came in
+and asked if all was well Then she told them what was done: "but," she
+said, "my body only has suffered the shame, for my will consented not to
+the deed. Therefore," she cried, "avenge me on the wretch Sextus. As for
+me, though my heart has not sinned, I can live no longer. No one shall
+say that Lucretia set an example of living in unchastity." So she drew
+forth a knife and stabbed herself to the heart.
+
+When they saw that, her father and her husband cried aloud; but Brutus
+drew the knife from the wound, and holding it up, spoke thus: "By this
+pure blood I swear before the gods that I will pursue L. Tarquinius the
+Proud and all his bloody house with fire, sword, or in whatsoever way I
+may, and that neither they nor any other shall hereafter be king in
+Rome." Then he gave the knife to Collatinus and Lucretius and Valerius,
+and they all swore likewise, much marvelling to hear such words from L.
+Junius the Dullard. And they took up the body of Lucretia, and carried
+it into the Forum, and called on the men of Collatia to rise against the
+tyrant. So they set a guard at the gates of the town, to prevent any
+news of the matter being carried to King Tarquin: and they themselves,
+followed by the youth of Collatia, went to Rome. Here Brutus, who was
+chief captain of the knights, called the people together, and he told
+them what had been done, and called on them by the deed of shame wrought
+against Lucretius and Collatinus--by all that they had suffered from the
+tyrants--by the abominable murder of good King Servius--to assist them
+in taking vengeance on the Tarquins. So it was hastily agreed to banish
+Tarquinius and his family. The youth declared themselves ready to follow
+Brutus against the king's army, and the seniors put themselves under the
+rule of Lucretius, the prefect of the city. In this tumult, the wicked
+Tullia fled from her house, pursued by the curses of all men, who prayed
+that the avengers of her father's blood might be upon her.
+
+When the king heard what had passed, he set off in all haste for the
+city. Brutus also set off for the camp at Ardea; and he turned aside
+that he might not meet his uncle the king. So he came to the camp at
+Ardea, and the king came to Rome. And all the Romans at Ardea welcomed
+Brutus, and joined their arms to his, and thrust out all the king's sons
+from the camp. But the people of Rome shut the gates against the king,
+so that he could not enter. And King Tarquin, with his sons Titus and
+Aruns, went into exile and lived at Caere in Etruria. But Sextus fled to
+Gabii, where he had before held rule, and the people of Gabii slew him
+in memory of his former cruelty.
+
+So L. Tarquinius Superbus was expelled from Rome, after he had been king
+five-and-twenty years. And in memory of this event was instituted a
+festival called the "Regifugium" or "Fugalia," which was celebrated
+every year on the 24th day of February.
+
+To gratify the plebeians, the patricians consented to restore, in some
+measure at least, the popular institutions of King Servius; and it was
+resolved to follow his supposed intention with regard to the supreme
+government--that is, to have two magistrates elected every year, who
+were to have the same power as the king during the time of their rule.
+These were in after days known by the name of Consuls; but in ancient
+times they were called "Praetors" or Judges. They were elected at the
+great Assembly of Centuries; and they had sovereign power conferred upon
+them by the assembly of the Curies. They wore a robe edged with violet
+color, sat in their chairs of state called curule chairs, and were
+attended by twelve lictors each. These lictors carried fasces, or
+bundles of rods, out of which arose an axe, in token of the power of
+life and death possessed by the consuls as successors of the kings. But
+only one of them at a time had a right to this power; and, in token
+thereof, his colleague's fasces had no axes in them. Each retained this
+mark of sovereign power (_Imperium_) for a month at a time.
+
+The first consuls were L. Junius Brutus and L. Tarquinius Collatinus.
+
+The new consuls filled up the senate to the proper number of three
+hundred; and the new senators were called "Conscripti," while the old
+members retained their old name of "Patres." So after this the whole
+senate was addressed by speakers as "Patres, Conscripti." But in later
+times it was forgotten that these names belonged to different sorts of
+persons, and the whole senate was addressed as by one name, "Patres
+Conscripti."
+
+The name of king was hateful. But certain sacrifices had always been
+performed by the king in person; and therefore, to keep up form, a
+person was still chosen, with the title of "Rex Sacrorum" or "Rex
+Sacrificulus," to perform these offerings. But even he was placed under
+the authority of the chief pontifex.
+
+After his expulsion, King Tarquin sent messengers to Rome to ask that
+his property should be given up to him, and the senate decreed that his
+prayer should be granted. But the king's ambassadors, while they were in
+Rome, stirred up the minds of the young men and others who had been
+favored by Tarquin, so that a plot was made to bring him back. Among
+those who plotted were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of the Consul
+Brutus; and they gave letters to the messengers of the king. But it
+chanced that a certain slave hid himself in the place where they met,
+and overheard them plotting; and he came and told the thing to the
+consuls, who seized the messengers of the king with the letters upon
+their persons, authenticated by the seals of the young men. The culprits
+were immediately arrested; but the ambassadors were let go, because
+their persons were regarded as sacred. And the goods of King Tarquin
+were given up for plunder to the people.
+
+Then the traitors were brought up before the consuls, and the sight was
+such as to move all beholders to pity; for among them were the sons of
+L. Junius Brutus himself, the first consul, the liberator of the Roman
+people. And now all men saw how Brutus loved his country; for he bade
+the lictors put all the traitors to death, and his own sons first; and
+men could mark in his face the struggle between his duty as a chief
+magistrate of Rome and his feelings as a father. And while they praised
+and admired him, they pitied him yet more.
+
+Then a decree of the senate was made that no one of the blood of the
+Tarquins should remain in Rome. And since Collatinus, the consul, was by
+descent a Tarquin, even he was obliged to give up his office and return
+to Collatia. In his room, P. Valerius was chosen consul by the people.
+
+This was the first attempt to restore Tarquin the Proud.
+
+When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, he prevailed on the
+people of Tarquinii and Veii to make war with him against the Romans.
+But the consuls came out against them; Valerius commanding the main
+army, and Brutus the cavalry. And it chanced that Aruns, the king's son,
+led the cavalry of the enemy. When he saw Brutus he spurred his horse
+against him, and Brutus declined not the combat. So they rode straight
+at each other with levelled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that
+they pierced each other through from breast to back, and both fell dead.
+
+Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was neither won nor lost.
+But in the night a voice was heard by the Etruscans, saying that the
+Romans were the conquerors. So the enemy fled by night; and when the
+Romans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose them. Then they
+took up the body of Brutus, and departed home, and buried him in public
+with great pomp, and the matrons of Rome mourned him for a whole year,
+because he had avenged the injury of Lucretia.
+
+And thus the second attempt to restore King Tarquin was frustrated.
+
+After the death of Brutus, Publius Valerius ruled the people for a while
+by himself, and he began to build himself a house upon the ridge called
+Velia, which looks down upon the Forum. So the people thought that he
+was going to make himself king; but when he heard this, he called an
+assembly of the people, and appeared before them with his fasces
+lowered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom remained ever
+after, that no consular lictors wore axes within the city, and no consul
+had power of life and death except when he was in command of his legions
+abroad. And he pulled down the beginning of his house upon the Velia,
+and built it below that hill. Also he passed laws that every Roman
+citizen might appeal to the people against the judgment of the chief
+magistrates. Wherefore he was greatly honored among the people, and was
+called "Poplicola," or "Friend of the People."
+
+After this Valerius called together the great Assembly of the Centuries,
+and they chose Sp. Lucretius, father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus.
+But he was an old man, and in not many days he died. So M. Horatius was
+chosen in his stead.
+
+The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin began had never yet been
+consecrated. Then Valerius and Horatius drew lots which should be the
+consecrator, and the lot fell on Horatius. But the friends of Valerius
+murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius from having the honor; so
+when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon
+the doorpost of the temple, there came a messenger, who told him that
+his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly
+consecrate the temple. But Horatius kept his hand upon the doorpost,
+and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rites of
+consecration. Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son.
+
+In the next year Valerius was again made consul, with T. Lucretius; and
+Tarquinius, despairing now of aid from his friends at Veii and
+Tarquinii, went to Lars Porsenna of Clusium, a city on the river Clanis,
+which falls into the Tiber. Porsenna was at this time acknowledged as
+chief of the twelve Etruscan cities; and he assembled a powerful army
+and came to Rome. He came so quickly that he reached the Tiber and was
+near the Sublician Bridge before there was time to destroy it; and if he
+had crossed it the city would have been lost. Then a noble Roman, called
+Horatius Codes, of the Lucerian tribe, with two friends--Sp. Lartius, a
+Ramnian, and T. Herminius, a Titian--posted themselves at the far end of
+the bridge, and defended the passage against all the Etruscan host,
+while the Romans were cutting it off behind them. When it was all but
+destroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and Horatius was
+left alone to bear the whole attack of the enemy. Well he kept his
+ground, standing unmoved amid the darts which were showered upon his
+shield, till the last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river.
+Then he prayed, saying, "Father Tiber, receive me and bear me up, I pray
+thee." So he plunged in, and reached the other side safely; and the
+Romans honored him greatly: they put up his statue in the Comitium, and
+gave him as much land as he could plough round in a day, and every man
+at Rome subscribed the cost of one day's food to reward him.
+
+Then Porsenna, disappointed in his attempt to surprise the city,
+occupied the Hill Janiculum, and besieged the city, so that the people
+were greatly distressed by hunger. But C. Mucius, a noble youth,
+resolved to deliver his country by the death of the king. So he armed
+himself with a dagger, and went to the place where the king was used to
+sit in judgment. It chanced that the soldiers were receiving their pay
+from the king's secretary, who sat at his right hand splendidly
+apparelled; and as this man seemed to be chief in authority, Mucius
+thought that this must be the king; so he stabbed him to the heart. Then
+the guards seized him and dragged him before the king, who was greatly
+enraged, and ordered them to burn him alive if he would not confess the
+whole affair. Then Mucius stood before the king and said: "See how
+little thy tortures can avail to make a brave man tell the secrets
+committed to him"; and so saying, he thrust his right hand into the fire
+of the altar, and held it in the flame with unmoved countenance. Then
+the king marvelled at his courage, and ordered him to be spared, and
+sent away in safety: "for," said he, "thou art a brave man, and hast
+done more harm to thyself than to me." Then Mucius replied: "Thy
+generosity, O king, prevails more with me than thy threats. Know that
+three hundred Roman youths have sworn thy death: my lot came first. But
+all the rest remain, prepared to do and suffer like myself." So he was
+let go, and returned home, and was called "Scaevola," or "The
+Left-handed," because his right hand had been burnt off.
+
+King Porsenna was greatly moved by the danger he had escaped, and
+perceiving the obstinate determination of the Romans, he offered to make
+peace. The Romans gladly gave ear to his words, for they were hard
+pressed, and they consented to give back all the land which they had won
+from the Etruscans beyond the Tiber. And they gave hostages to the king
+in pledge that they would obey him as they had promised, ten youths and
+ten maidens. But one of the maidens, named Cloelia, had a man's heart,
+and she persuaded all her fellows to escape from the king's camp and
+swim across the Tiber. At first King Porsenna was wroth; but then he was
+much amazed, even more than at the deeds of Horatius and Mucius. So when
+the Romans sent back Cloelia and her fellow-maidens--for they would not
+break faith with the king--he bade her return home again, and told her
+she might take whom she pleased of the youths who were hostages; and she
+chose those who were yet boys, and restored them to their parents.
+
+So the Roman people gave certain lands to young Mucius, and they set up
+an equestrian statue to the bold Cloelia at the top of the Sacred Way.
+And King Porsenna returned home; and thus the third and most formidable
+attempt to bring back Tarquin failed.
+
+When Tarquin now found that he had no hopes of further assistance from
+Porsenna and his Etruscan friends, he went and dwelt at Tusculum, where
+Mamilius Octavius, his son-in-law, was still chief. Then the thirty
+Latin cities combined together and made this Octavius their dictator,
+and bound themselves to restore their old friend and ally, King Tarquin,
+to the sovereignty of Rome.
+
+P. Valerius, who was called "Poplicola," was now dead, and the Romans
+looked about for some chief worthy to lead them against the army of the
+Latins. Poplicola had been made consul four times, and his compeers
+acknowledged him as their chief, and all men submitted to him as to a
+king. But now the two consuls were jealous of each other; nor had they
+power of life and death within the city, for Valerius (as we saw) had
+taken away the axes from the fasces. Now this was one of the reasons why
+Brutus and the rest made two consuls instead of one king: for they said
+that neither one would allow the other to become tyrant; and since they
+only held office for one year at a time, they might be called on to give
+account of their government when their year was at an end.
+
+Yet though this was a safeguard of liberty in times of peace, it was
+hurtful in time of war, for the consuls chosen by the people in their
+great assemblies were not always skilful generals; or if they were so,
+they were obliged to lay down their command at the year's end.
+
+So the senate determined, in cases of great danger, to call upon one of
+the consuls to appoint a single chief, who should be called "dictator,"
+or master of the people. He had sovereign power (_Imperium_) both in the
+city and out of the city, and the fasces were always carried before him
+with the axes in them, as they had been before the king. He could only
+be appointed for six months, but at the end of the time he had to give
+no account. So that he was free to act according to his own judgment,
+having no colleague to interfere with him at the present, and no
+accusations to fear at a future time. The dictator was general-in-chief,
+and he appointed a chief officer to command the knights under him, who
+was called "master of the horse."
+
+And now it appeared to be a fit time to appoint such a chief, to take
+the command of the army against the Latins. So the first dictator was T.
+Lartius, and he made Spurius Cassius his master of the horse. This was
+in the year B.C. 499, eight years after the expulsion of Tarquin.
+
+But the Latins did not declare war for two years after. Then the senate
+again ordered the consul to name a master of the people, or dictator;
+and he named Aul. Postumius, who appointed T. AEbutius (one of the
+consuls of that year) to be his master of the horse. So they led out the
+Roman army against the Latins, and they met at the Lake Regillus, in the
+land of the Tusculans. King Tarquin and all his family were in the host
+of the Latins; and that day it was to be determined whether Rome should
+be again subject to the tyrant and whether or not she was to be chief of
+the Latin cities.
+
+King Tarquin himself, old as he was, rode in front of the Latins in full
+armor; and when he descried the Roman dictator marshalling his men, he
+rode at him; but Postumius wounded him in the side, and he was rescued
+by the Latins. Then also AEbutius, the master of the horse, and Oct.
+Mamilius, the dictator of the Latins, charged one another, and AEbutius
+was pierced through the arm, and Mamilius wounded in the breast. But the
+Latin chief, nothing daunted, returned to battle, followed by Titus, the
+king's son, with his band of exiles. These charged the Romans furiously,
+so that they gave way; but when M. Valerius, brother of the great
+Poplicola, saw this, he spurred his horse against Titus, and rode at him
+with spear in rest; and when Titus turned away and fled, Valerius rode
+furiously after him into the midst of the Latin host, and a certain
+Latin smote him in the side as he was riding past, so that he fell dead,
+and his horse galloped on without a rider. So the band of exiles pressed
+still more fiercely upon the Romans, and they began to flee.
+
+Then Postumius the dictator lifted up his voice and vowed a temple to
+Castor and Pollux, the great twin heroes of the Greeks, if they would
+aid him; and behold there appeared on his right two horsemen, taller and
+fairer than the sons of men, and their horses were as white as snow. And
+they led the dictator and his guard against the exiles and the Latins,
+and the Romans prevailed against them; and T. Herminius the Titian, the
+friend of Horatius Cocles, ran Mamilius, the dictator of the Latins,
+through the body, so that he died; but when he was stripping the arms
+from his foe, another ran him through, and he was carried back to the
+camp, and he also died. Then also Titus, the king's son, was slain, and
+the Latins fled, and the Romans pursued them with great slaughter, and
+took their camp and all that was in it. Now Postumius had promised great
+rewards to those who first broke into the camp of the Latins, and the
+first who broke in were the two horsemen on white horses; but after the
+battle they were nowhere to be seen or found, nor was there any sign of
+them left, save on the hard rock there was the mark of a horse's hoof,
+which men said was made by the horse of one of those horsemen.
+
+But at this very time two youths on white horses rode into the Forum at
+Rome. They were covered with dust and sweat and blood, like men who had
+fought long and hard, and their horses also were bathed in sweat and
+foam: and they alighted near the Temple of Vesta, and washed themselves
+in a spring that gushes out hard by, and told all the people in the
+Forum how the battle by the Lake Regillus had been fought and won. Then
+they mounted their horses and rode away, and were seen no more.
+
+But Postumius, when he heard it, knew that these were Castor and Pollux,
+the great twin brethren of the Greeks, and that it was they who fought
+so well for Rome at the Lake Regillus. So he built them a temple,
+according to his vow, over the place where they had alighted in the
+Forum. And their effigies were displayed on Roman coins to the latest
+ages of the city.
+
+This was the fourth and last attempt to restore King Tarquin. After the
+great defeat of Lake Regillus, the Latin cities made peace with Rome,
+and agreed to refuse harborage to the old king. He had lost all his
+sons, and, accompanied by a few faithful friends, who shared his exile,
+he sought a last asylum at the Greek city of Cumae in the Bay of Naples,
+at the court of the tyrant Aristodemus. Here he died in the course of a
+year, fourteen years after his expulsion.
+
+We shall now record, not only the slow steps by which the Romans
+recovered dominion over their neighbors, but also the long-continued
+struggle by which the plebeians raised themselves to a level with the
+patricians, who had again become the dominant caste at Rome. Mixed up
+with legendary tales as the history still is, enough is nevertheless
+preserved to excite the admiration of all who love to look upon a brave
+people pursuing a worthy object with patient but earnest resolution,
+never flinching, yet seldom injuring their good cause by reckless
+violence. To an Englishman this history ought to be especially dear, for
+more than any other in the annals of the world does it resemble the
+long-enduring constancy and sturdy determination, the temperate will and
+noble self-control, with which the Commons of his own country secured
+their rights. It was by a struggle of this nature, pursued through a
+century and a half, that the character of the Roman people was molded
+into that form of strength and energy, which threw back Hannibal to the
+coasts of Africa, and in half a century more made them masters of the
+Mediterranean shore.
+
+There can be no doubt that the wars that followed the expulsion of the
+Tarquins, with the loss of territory that accompanied them, must have
+reduced all orders of men at Rome to great distress. But those who most
+suffered were the plebeians. The plebeians at that time consisted
+entirely of landholders, great and small, and husbandmen, for in those
+times the practice of trades and mechanical arts was considered unworthy
+of a freeborn man. Some of the plebeian families were as wealthy as any
+among the patricians; but the mass of them were petty yeoman, who lived
+on the produce of their small farm, and were solely dependent for a
+living on their own limbs, their own thrift and industry. Most of them
+lived in the villages and small towns, which in those times were thickly
+sprinkled over the slopes of the Campagna.
+
+The patricians, on the other hand, resided chiefly within the city. If
+slaves were few as yet, they had the labor of their clients available to
+till their farms; and through their clients also they were enabled to
+derive a profit from the practice of trading and crafts, which
+personally neither they nor the plebeians would stoop to pursue. Besides
+these sources of profit, they had at this time the exclusive use of the
+public land, a subject on which we shall have to speak more at length
+hereafter. At present, it will be sufficient to say, that the public
+land now spoken of had been the crown land or regal domain, which on
+the expulsion of the kings had been forfeited to the state. The
+patricians being in possession of all actual power, engrossed possession
+of it, and seem to have paid a very small quit-rent to the treasury for
+this great advantage.
+
+Besides this, the necessity of service in the army, or militia--as it
+might more justly be called--acted very differently on the rich
+landholder and the small yeoman. The latter, being called out with sword
+and spear for the summer's campaign, as his turn came round, was obliged
+to leave his farm uncared for, and his crop could only be reaped by the
+kind aid of neighbors; whereas the rich proprietor, by his clients or
+his hired laborers, could render the required military service without
+robbing his land of his own labor. Moreover, the territory of Rome was
+so narrow, and the enemy's borders so close at hand, that any night the
+stout yeoman might find himself reduced to beggary, by seeing his crops
+destroyed, his cattle driven away, and his homestead burnt in a sudden
+foray. The patricians and rich plebeians were, it is true, exposed to
+the same contingencies. But wealth will always provide some defence; and
+it is reasonable to think that the larger proprietors provided places of
+refuge, into which they could drive their cattle and secure much of
+their property, such as the peel-towers common in our own border
+counties. Thus the patricians and their clients might escape the storm
+which destroyed the isolated yeoman.
+
+To this must be added that the public land seems to have been mostly in
+pasturage, and therefore the property of the patricians must have
+chiefly consisted in cattle, which was more easily saved from
+depredation than the crops of the plebeian. Lastly, the profit derived
+from the trades and business of their clients, being secured by the
+walls of the city, gave to the patricians the command of all the capital
+that could exist in a state of society so simple and crude, and afforded
+at once a means of repairing their own losses, and also of obtaining a
+dominion over the poor yeoman.
+
+For some time after the expulsion of the Tarquins it was necessary for
+the patricians to treat the plebeians with liberality. The institutions
+of "the Commons' King," King Servius, suspended by Tarquin, were,
+partially at least, restored: it is said even that one of the first
+consuls was a plebeian, and that he chose several of the leading
+plebeians into the senate. But after the death of Porsenna, and when the
+fear of the Tarquins ceased, all these flattering signs disappeared. The
+consuls seem still to have been elected by the Centuriate Assembly, but
+the Curiate Assembly retained in their own hands the right of conferring
+the _Imperium_, which amounted to a positive veto on the election by the
+larger body. All the names of the early consuls, except in the first
+year of the Republic, are patrician. But if by chance a consul displayed
+popular tendencies, it was in the power of the senate and patricians to
+suspend his power by the appointment of a dictator. Thus, practically,
+the patrician burgesses again became the _Populus_, or body politic of
+Rome.
+
+It must not here be forgotten that this dominant body was an exclusive
+caste; that is, it consisted of a limited number of noble families, who
+allowed none of their members to marry with persons born out of the pale
+of their own order. The child of a patrician and a plebeian, or of a
+patrician and a client, was not considered as born in lawful wedlock;
+and however proud the blood which it derived from one parent, the child
+sank to the condition of the parent of lower rank. This was expressed in
+Roman language by saying, that there was no "Right of Connubium" between
+patricians and any inferior classes of men. Nothing can be more
+impolitic than such restrictions; nothing more hurtful even to those who
+count it their privilege. In all exclusive or oligarchical,_pales_,
+families become extinct, and the breed decays both in bodily strength
+and mental vigor. Happily for Rome, the patricians were unable long to
+maintain themselves as a separate caste.
+
+Yet the plebeians might long have submitted to this state of social and
+political inferiority, had not their personal distress and the severe
+laws of Rome driven them to seek relief by claiming to be recognized as
+members of the body politic.
+
+The severe laws of which we speak were those of debtor and creditor. If
+a Roman borrowed money, he was expected to enter into a contract with
+his creditor to pay the debt by a certain day; and if on that day he was
+unable to discharge his obligation, he was summoned before the patrician
+judge, who was authorized by the law to assign the defaulter as a bonds
+man to his creditor--that is, the debtor was obliged to pay by his own
+labor the debt which he was unable to pay in money. Or if a man incurred
+a debt without such formal contract, the rule was still more imperious,
+for in that case the law itself fixed the day of payment; and if after a
+lapse of thirty days from that date the debt was not discharged, the
+creditor was empowered to arrest the person of his debtor, to load him
+with chains, and feed him on bread and water for another thirty days;
+and then, if the money still remained unpaid, he might put him to death,
+or sell him as a slave to the highest bidder; or, if there were several
+creditors, they might hew his body in pieces and divide it. And in this
+last case the law provided with scrupulous providence against the
+evasion by which the Merchant of Venice escaped the cruelty of the Jew;
+for the Roman law said that "whether a man cut more or less [than his
+due], he should incur no penalty." These atrocious provisions, however,
+defeated their own object, for there was no more unprofitable way in
+which the body of a debtor could be disposed of.
+
+Such being the law of debtor and creditor, it remains to say that the
+creditors were chiefly of the patrician caste, and the debtors almost
+exclusively of the poorer sort among the plebeians. The patricians were
+the creditors, because from their occupancy of the public land, and from
+their engrossing the profits to be derived from trade and crafts, they
+alone had spare capital to lend. The plebeian yeomen were the debtors,
+because their independent position made them, at that time, helpless.
+Vassals, clients, serfs, or by whatever name dependents are called, do
+not suffer from the ravages of a predatory war like free landholders,
+because the loss falls on their lords or patrons. But when the
+independent yeoman's crops are destroyed, his cattle "lifted," and his
+homestead in ashes, he must himself repair the loss. This was, as we
+have said, the condition of many Roman plebeians. To rebuild their
+houses and restock their farms they borrowed; the patricians were their
+creditors; and the law, instead of protecting the small holders, like
+the law of the Hebrews, delivered them over into serfdom or slavery.
+
+Thus the free plebeian population might have been reduced to a state of
+mere dependency, and the history of Rome might have presented a
+repetition of monotonous severity, like that of Sparta or of Venice.[38]
+But it was ordained otherwise. The distress and oppression of the
+plebeians led them to demand and to obtain political protectors, by
+whose means they were slowly but surely raised to equality of rights and
+privileges with their rulers and oppressors. These protectors were the
+famous Tribunes of the Plebs. We will now repeat the no less famous
+legends by which their first creation was accounted for.
+
+[Footnote 38: A well-known German historian calls the Spartans by the
+name of "stunted Romans." There is much resemblance to be traced.]
+
+It was, by the common reckoning, fifteen years after the expulsion of
+the Tarquins (B.C. 494), that the plebeians were roused to take the
+first step in the assertion of their rights. After the battle of Lake
+Regillus, the plebeians had reason to expect some relaxation of the law
+of debt, in consideration of the great services they had rendered in the
+war. But none was granted. The patrician creditors began to avail
+themselves of the severity of the law against their plebeian debtors.
+The discontent that followed was great, and the consuls prepared to meet
+the storm. These were Appius Claudius, the proud Sabine nobleman who had
+lately become a Roman, and who now led the high patrician party with all
+the unbending energy of a chieftain whose will had never been disputed
+by his obedient clansmen; and P. Servilius, who represented the milder
+and more liberal party of the Fathers.
+
+It chanced that an aged man rushed into the Forum on a market-day,
+loaded with chains, clothed with a few scanty rags, his hair and beard
+long and squalid; his whole appearance ghastly, as of one oppressed by
+long want of food and air. He was recognized as a brave soldier, the old
+comrade of many who thronged the Forum. He told his story, how that in
+the late wars the enemy had burned his house and plundered his little
+farm; that to replace his losses he had borrowed money of a patrician,
+that his cruel creditor (in default of payment) had thrown him into
+prison,[39] and tormented him with chains and scourges. At this sad
+tale, the passions of the people rose high.
+
+[Footnote 39: Such prisons were called _ergastula_, and afterward became
+the places for keeping slaves in.]
+
+Appius was obliged to conceal himself, while Servilius undertook to
+plead the cause of the plebeians with the senate.
+
+Meantime news came to the city that the Roman territory was invaded by
+the Volscian foe. The consuls proclaimed a levy; but the stout yeomen,
+one and all, refused to give in their names and take the military oath.
+Servilius now came forward and proclaimed by edict that no citizen
+should be imprisoned for debt so long as the war lasted, and that at the
+close of the war he would propose an alteration of the law. The
+plebeians trusted him, and the enemy was driven back. But when the
+popular consul returned with his victorious soldiers, he was denied a
+triumph, and the senate, led by Appius, refused to make any concession
+in favor of the debtors.
+
+The anger of the plebeians rose higher and higher, when again news came
+that the enemy was ravaging the lands of Rome. The senate, well knowing
+that the power of the consuls would avail nothing, since Appius was
+regarded as a tyrant, and Servilius would not choose again to become an
+instrument for deceiving the people, appointed a dictator to lead the
+citizens into the field. But to make the act as popular as might be,
+they named M. Valerius, a descendant of the great Poplicola. The same
+scene was repeated over again. Valerius protected the plebeians against
+their creditors while they were at war, and promised them relief when
+war was over. But when the danger was gone by, Appius again prevailed;
+the senate refused to listen to Valerius, and the dictator laid down his
+office, calling gods and men to witness that he was not responsible for
+his breach of faith.
+
+The plebeians whom Valerius had led forth were still under arms, still
+bound by their military oath, and Appius, with the violent patricians,
+refused to disband them. The army, therefore, having lost Valerius,
+their proper general chose two of themselves, L. Junius Brutus and L.
+Sicinius Bellutus by name, and under their command they marched
+northward and occupied the hill which commands the junction of the Tiber
+and the Anio. Here, at a distance of about two miles from Rome, they
+determined to settle and form a new city, leaving Rome to the patricians
+and their clients. But the latter were not willing to lose the best of
+their soldiery, the cultivators of the greater part of the Roman
+territory, and they sent repeated embassies to persuade the seceders to
+return. They, however, turned a deaf ear to all promises, for they had
+too often been deceived. Appius now urged the senate and patricians to
+leave the plebeians to themselves. The nobles and their clients, he
+said, could well maintain themselves in the city without such base aid.
+
+But wiser sentiments prevailed. T. Lartius, and M. Valerius, both of whom
+had been dictators, with Menenius Agrippa, an old patrician of popular
+character, were empowered to treat with the people. Still their leaders
+were unwilling to listen, till old Menenius addressed them in the famous
+fable of the "Belly and the Members":
+
+"In times of old," said he, "when every member of the body could think
+for itself, and each had a separate will of its own, they all, with one
+consent, resolved to revolt against the belly. They knew no reason, they
+said, why they should toil from morning till night in its service, while
+the belly lay at its ease in the midst of all, and indolently grew fat
+upon their labors. Accordingly they agreed to support it no more. The
+feet vowed they would carry it no longer; the hands that they would do
+no more work; the teeth that they would not chew a morsel of meat, even
+were it placed between them. Thus resolved, the members for a time
+showed their spirit and kept their resolution; but soon they found that
+instead of mortifying the belly they only undid themselves: they
+languished for a while, and perceived too late that it was owing to the
+belly that they had strength to work and courage to mutiny."
+
+The moral of this fable was plain. The people readily applied it to the
+patricians and themselves, and their leaders proposed terms of agreement
+to the patrician messengers. They required that the debtors who could
+not pay should have their debts cancelled, and that those who had been
+given up into slavery should be restored to freedom. This for the past.
+And as a security for the future, they demanded that two of themselves
+should be appointed for the sole purpose of protecting the plebeians
+against the patrician magistrates, if they acted cruelly or unjustly
+toward the debtors. The two officers thus to be appointed were called
+"Tribunes of the Plebs." Their persons were to be sacred and inviolable
+during their year of office, whence their office is called _sacrosancta
+Potestas_. They were never to leave the city during that time, and their
+houses were to be open day and night, that all who needed their aid
+might demand it without delay.
+
+This concession, apparently great, was much modified by the fact that
+the patricians insisted on the election of the tribunes being made at
+the Comitia of the Centuries, in which they themselves and their wealthy
+clients could usually command a majority. In later times, the number of
+the tribunes was increased to five, and afterward to ten. They were
+elected at the Comitia of the tribes. They had the privilege of
+attending all sittings of the senate, though they were not considered
+members of that famous body. Above all, they acquired the great and
+perilous power of the veto, by which any one of their number might stop
+any law, or annul any decree of the senate without cause or reason
+assigned. This right of veto was called the "Right of Intercession."
+
+On the spot where this treaty was made, an altar was built to Jupiter,
+the causer and banisher of fear, for the plebeians had gone thither in
+fear and returned from it in safety. The place was called Mons Sacer, or
+the Sacred Hill, forever after, and the laws by which the sanctity of
+the tribunitian office was secured were called the _Leges Sacratae_.
+
+The tribunes were not properly magistrates or officers, for they had no
+express functions or official duties to discharge. They were simply
+representatives and protectors of the plebs. At the same time, however,
+with the institution of these protective officers, the plebeians were
+allowed the right of having two aediles chosen from their own body, whose
+business it was to preserve order and decency in the streets, to provide
+for the repair of all buildings and roads there, with other functions
+partly belonging to police officers, and partly to commissioners of
+public works.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF MARATHON
+
+B.C. 490
+
+SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY
+
+
+     Marathon! A name to conjure up such visions of glory as few
+     battlefields have ever shown. Heroism and determination on the part
+     of the Athenians, supported by the small but ever noble band of
+     Plataeans who came to their aid; who can read the repulse of the
+     Persians on this ever memorable plain without experiencing a thrill
+     of admiration and delight at the achievement? The whole world since
+     that battle has looked upon it as a victory of the under dog. Many
+     of the great engagements of modern times have been likened unto it.
+     For long it has been the synonym of brave despair; the conquering
+     of an enemy many times superior in numbers to its opponent.
+
+     This attempt of the Persians on the Greeks was not the first
+     against them, That took place B.C. 493 under Mardonius. This
+     commander had reduced Ionia, dethroned the despots, and established
+     democracy throughout the land. After this he turned his attention
+     to Eretria and Athens, taking his army across the straits in
+     vessels. But the ships of war and transports were wrecked by a
+     mighty headwind as they rounded Mount Athos. Many were driven
+     ashore, about three hundred of them were totally lost, and some
+     twenty thousand men perished in the catastrophe.
+
+     All the trouble between the Persians and Greeks arose over the
+     capture of Sardis by the Ionians, B.C. 500. The city was burned,
+     and then the Ionians retreated. It was to avenge this that Persia
+     determined on a punitive expedition against the Greeks. The Ionians
+     and Milesian men were mostly slain by the Persians, the women and
+     children led into captivity, and the temples in the cities burned
+     and razed to the ground.[40]
+
+     [Footnote 40: The year following the fall of the Ionic city of
+     Miletus the poet Phrynichus made it the subject of a tragedy. On
+     bringing it on the stage he was fined one thousand drachmae for
+     having recalled to them their own misfortunes.--SMITH.]
+
+     In the battle of Marathon, which succeeded these events, we have a
+     vivid picture presented to us in Creasy's glowing words:
+
+
+Two thousand three hundred and forty years ago a council of Athenian
+officers was summoned on the slope of one of the mountains that look
+over the plain of Marathon, on the eastern coast of Attica. The
+immediate subject of their meeting was to consider whether they should
+give battle to an enemy that lay encamped on the shore beneath them; but
+on the result of their deliberations depended, not merely the fate of
+two armies, but the whole future progress of human civilization.
+
+There were eleven members of that council of war. Ten were the generals
+who were then annually elected at Athens, one for each of the local
+tribes into which the Athenians were divided. Each general led the men
+of his own tribe, and each was invested with equal military authority.
+But one of the archons was also associated with them in the general
+command of the army. This magistrate was termed the "Polemarch" or
+War-ruler, He had the privilege of leading the right wing of the army in
+battle, and his vote in a council of war was equal to that of any of the
+generals. A noble Athenian named Callimachus was the war-ruler of this
+year, and, as such, stood listening to the earnest discussion of the ten
+generals. They had, indeed, deep matter for anxiety, though little aware
+how momentous to mankind were the votes they were about to give, or how
+the generations to come would read with interest the record of their
+discussions. They saw before them the invading forces of a mighty
+empire, which had in the last fifty years shattered and enslaved nearly
+all the kingdoms and principal cities of the then known world. They knew
+that all the resources of their own country were comprised in the little
+army intrusted to their guidance. They saw before them a chosen host of
+the great king, sent to wreak his special wrath on that country and on
+the other insolent little Greek community which had dared to aid his
+rebels and burn the capital of one of his provinces. That victorious
+host had already fulfilled half its mission of vengeance.
+
+Eretria, the confederate of Athens in the bold march against Sardis nine
+years before, had fallen in the last few days; and the Athenian generals
+could discern from the heights the island of AEgilia, in which the
+Persians had deposited their Eretrian prisoners, whom they had reserved
+to be led away captives into Upper Asia, there to hear their doom from
+the lips of King Darius himself. Moreover, the men of Athens knew that
+in the camp before them was their own banished tyrant, who was seeking
+to be reinstated by foreign cimeters in despotic sway over any remnant
+of his countrymen that might survive the sack of their town, and might
+be left behind as too worthless for leading away into Median bondage.
+
+The numerical disparity between the force which the Athenian commanders
+had under them, and that which they were called on to encounter, was
+hopelessly apparent to some of the council. The historians who wrote
+nearest to the time of the battle do not pretend to give any detailed
+statements of the numbers engaged, but there are sufficient data for our
+making a general estimate. Every free Greek was trained to military
+duty; and, from the incessant border wars between the different states,
+few Greeks reached the age of manhood without having seen some service.
+But the muster-roll of free Athenian citizens of an age fit for military
+duty never exceeded thirty thousand, and at this, epoch probably did not
+amount to two-thirds of that number. Moreover, the poorer portion of
+these were unprovided with the equipments, and untrained to the
+operations of the regular infantry. Some detachments of the best-armed
+troops would be required to garrison the city itself and man the various
+fortified posts in the territory, so that it is impossible to reckon the
+fully equipped force that marched from Athens to Marathon, when the news
+of the Persian landing arrived, at higher than ten thousand men.[41]
+
+[Footnote 41: The historians, who lived long after the time of the
+battle, such as Justin, Plutarch, and others, give ten thousand as the
+number of the Athenian army. Not much reliance could be placed on their
+authority if unsupported by other evidence; but a calculation made for
+the number of the Athenian free population remarkably confirms it.]
+
+With one exception, the other Greeks held back from aiding them. Sparta
+had promised assistance, but the Persians had landed on the sixth day of
+the moon, and a religious scruple delayed the march of Spartan troops
+till the moon should have reached its full. From one quarter only, and
+that from a most unexpected one, did Athens receive aid at the moment of
+her great peril.
+
+Some years before this time the little state of Plataea in Boeotia, being
+hard pressed by her powerful neighbor, Thebes, had asked the protection
+of Athens, and had owed to an Athe man army the rescue of her
+independence. Now when it was noised over Greece that the Mede had come
+from the uttermost parts of the earth to destroy Athens, the brave
+Plataeans, unsolicited, marched with their whole force to assist the
+defence, and to share the fortunes of their benefactors.
+
+The general levy of the Plataeans amounted only to a thousand men; and
+this little column, marching from their city along the southern ridge of
+Mount Cithaeron, and thence across the Attic territory, joined the
+Athenian forces above Marathon almost immediately before the battle. The
+reenforcement was numerically small, but the gallant spirit of the men
+who composed it must have made it of tenfold value to the Athenians, and
+its presence must have gone far to dispel the cheerless feeling of being
+deserted and friendless, which the delay of the Spartan succors was
+calculated to create among the Athenian ranks.[42]
+
+[Footnote 42: Mr. Grote observes that "this volunteer march of the whole
+Plataean force to Marathon is one of the most affecting incidents of all
+Grecian history." In truth, the whole career of Plataea, and the
+friendship, strong, even unto death, between her and Athens form one of
+the most affecting episodes in the history of antiquity. In the
+Peloponnesian war the Plataeans again were true to the Athenians against
+all risks, and all calculation of self-interest: and the destruction of
+Plataea was the consequence. There are few nobler passages in the
+classics than the speech in which the Plataean prisoners of war, after
+the memorable siege of their city, justify before their Spartan
+executioners their loyal adherence to Athens.]
+
+This generous daring of their weak but true-hearted ally was never
+forgotten at Athens. The Plataeans were made the civil fellow-countrymen
+of the Athenians, except the right of exercising certain political
+functions; and from that time forth in the solemn sacrifices at Athens,
+the public prayers were offered up for a joint blessing from Heaven upon
+the Athenians, and the Plataeans also.
+
+After the junction of the column from Plataea, the Athenian commanders
+must have had under them about eleven thousand fully armed and
+disciplined infantry, and probably a large number of irregular
+light-armed troops; as, besides the poorer citizens who went to the
+field armed with javelins, cutlasses, and targets, each regular
+heavy-armed soldier was attended in the camp by one or more slaves, who
+were armed like the inferior freemen. Cavalry or archers the Athenians
+(on this occasion) had none, and the use in the field of military
+engines was not at that period introduced into ancient warfare.
+
+Contrasted with their own scanty forces, the Greek commanders saw
+stretched before them, along the shores of the winding bay, the tents
+and shipping of the varied nations who marched to do the bidding of the
+king of the Eastern world. The difficulty of finding transports and of
+securing provisions would form the only limit to the numbers of a
+Persian army. Nor is there any reason to suppose the estimate of Justin
+exaggerated, who rates at a hundred thousand the force which on this
+occasion had sailed, under the satraps Datis and Artaphernes, from the
+Cilician shores against the devoted coasts of Euboea and Attica. And
+after largely deducting from this total, so as to allow for mere
+mariners and camp followers, there must still have remained fearful odds
+against the national levies of the Athenians.
+
+Nor could Greek generals then feel that confidence in the superior
+quality of their troops, which ever since the battle of Marathon has
+animated Europeans in conflicts with Asiatics, as, for instance, in the
+after struggles between Greece and Persia, or when the Roman legions
+encountered the myriads of Mithradates and Tigranes, or as is the case
+in the Indian campaigns of our own regiments. On the contrary, up to the
+day of Marathon the Medes and Persians were reputed invincible. They had
+more than once met Greek troops in Asia Minor, in Cyprus, in Egypt, and
+had invariably beaten them.
+
+Nothing can be stronger than the expressions used by the early Greek
+writers respecting the terror which the name of the Medes inspired, and
+the prostration of men's spirits before the apparently resistless career
+of the Persian arms. It is, therefore, little to be wondered at that
+five of the ten Athenian generals shrank from the prospect of fighting a
+pitched battle against an enemy so superior in numbers and so formidable
+in military renown. Their own position on the heights was strong and
+offered great advantages to a small defending force against assailing
+masses. They deemed it mere foolhardiness to descend into the plain to
+be trampled down by the Asiatic horse, overwhelmed with the archery, or
+cut to pieces by the invincible veterans of Cambyses and Cyrus.
+
+Moreover, Sparta, the great war state of Greece, had been applied to,
+and had promised succor to Athens, though the religious observance which
+the Dorians paid to certain times and seasons had for the present
+delayed their march. Was it not wise, at any rate, to wait till the
+Spartans came up, and to have the help of the best troops in Greece,
+before they exposed themselves to the shock of the dreaded Medes?
+
+Specious as these reasons might appear, the other five generals were for
+speedier and bolder operations. And, fortunately for Athens and for the
+world, one of them was a man, not only of the highest military genius,
+but also of that energetic character which impresses its own type and
+ideas upon spirits feebler in conception.
+
+Miltiades was the head of one of the noblest houses at Athens. He ranked
+the AEacidae among his ancestry, and the blood of Achilles flowed in the
+veins of the hero of Marathon. One of his immediate ancestors had
+acquired the dominion of the Thracian Chersonese, and thus the family
+became at the same time Athenian citizens and Thracian princes. This
+occurred at the time when Pisistratus was tyrant of Athens. Two of the
+relatives of Miltiades--an uncle of the same name, and a brother named
+Stesagoras--had ruled the Chersonese before Miltiades became its prince.
+He had been brought up at Athens in the house of his father, Cimon,[43]
+who was renowned throughout Greece for his victories in the Olympic
+chariot-races, and who must have been possessed of great wealth.
+
+[Footnote 43: Herodotus.]
+
+The sons of Pisistratus, who succeeded their father in the tyranny at
+Athens, caused Cimon to be assassinated; but they treated the young
+Miltiades with favor and kindness and when his brother Stesagoras died
+in the Chersonese, they sent him out there as lord of the principality.
+This was about twenty-eight years before the battle of Marathon, and it
+is with his arrival in the Chersonese that our first knowledge of the
+career and character of Miltiades commences. We find, in the first act
+recorded of him, the proof of the same resolute and unscrupulous spirit
+that marked his mature age. His brother's authority in the principality
+had been shaken by war and revolt: Miltiades determined to rule more
+securely. On his arrival he kept close within his house, as if he was
+mourning for his brother. The principal men of the Chersonese, hearing
+of this, assembled from all the towns and districts, and went together
+to the house of Miltiades, on a visit of condolence. As soon as he had
+thus got them in his power, he made them all prisoners. He then asserted
+and maintained his own absolute authority in the peninsula, taking into
+his pay a body of five hundred regular troops, and strengthening his
+interest by marrying the daughter of the king of the neighboring
+Thracians.
+
+When the Persian power was extended to the Hellespont and its
+neighborhood, Miltiades, as prince of the Chersonese, submitted to King
+Darius; and he was one of the numerous tributary rulers who led their
+contingents of men to serve in the Persian army, in the expedition
+against Scythia. Miltiades and the vassal Greeks of Asia Minor were left
+by the Persian king in charge of the bridge across the Danube, when the
+invading army crossed that river, and plunged into the wilds of the
+country that now is Russia, in vain pursuit of the ancestors of the
+modern Cossacks. On learning the reverses that Darius met with in the
+Scythian wilderness, Miltiades proposed to his companions that they
+should break the bridge down and leave the Persian king and his army to
+perish by famine and the Scythian arrows. The rulers of the Asiatic
+Greek cities, whom Miltiades addressed, shrank from this bold but
+ruthless stroke against the Persian power, and Darius returned in
+safety.
+
+But it was known what advice Miltiades had given, and the vengeance of
+Darius was thenceforth specially directed against the man who had
+counselled such a deadly blow against his empire and his person. The
+occupation of the Persian arms in other quarters left Miltiades for some
+years after this in possession of the Chersonese; but it was precarious
+and interrupted. He, however, availed himself of the opportunity which
+his position gave him of conciliating the good-will of his
+fellow-countrymen at Athens, by conquering and placing under the
+Athenian authority the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, to which Athens
+had ancient claims, but which she had never previously been able to
+bring into complete subjection.
+
+At length, in B.C. 494, the complete suppression of the Ionian revolt by
+the Persians left their armies and fleets at liberty to act against the
+enemies of the Great King to the west of the Hellespont. A strong
+squadron of Phoenician galleys was sent against the Chersonese.
+Miltiades knew that resistance was hopeless, and while the Phoenicians
+were at Tenedos, he loaded five galleys with all the treasure that he
+could collect, and sailed away for Athens. The Phoenicians fell in with
+him, and chased him hard along the north of the AEgean. One of his
+galleys, on board of which was his eldest son Metiochus, was actually
+captured. But Miltiades, with the other four, succeeded in reaching the
+friendly coast of Imbros in safety. Thence he afterward proceeded to
+Athens, and resumed his station as a free citizen of the Athenian
+commonwealth.
+
+The Athenians, at this time, had recently expelled Hippias the son of
+Pisistratus, the last of their tyrants. They were in the full glow of
+their newly recovered liberty and equality; and the constitutional
+changes of Clisthenes had inflamed their republican zeal to the utmost.
+Miltiades had enemies at Athens; and these, availing themselves of the
+state of popular feeling, brought him to trial for his life for having
+been tyrant of the Chersonese. The charge did not necessarily import any
+acts of cruelty or wrong to individuals: it was founded on no specific
+law; but it was based on the horror with which the Greeks of that age
+regarded every man who made himself arbitrary master of his fellow-men,
+and exercised irresponsible dominion over them.
+
+The fact of Miltiades having so ruled in the Chersonese was undeniable;
+but the question which the Athenians assembled in judgment must have
+tried, was whether Miltiades, although tyrant of the Chersonese,
+deserved punishment as an Athenian citizen. The eminent service that he
+had done the state in conquering Lemnos and Imbros for it, pleaded
+strongly in his favor. The people refused to convict him. He stood high
+in public opinion. And when the coming invasion of the Persians was
+known, the people wisely elected him one of their generals for the year.
+
+Two other men of high eminence in history, though their renown was
+achieved at a later period than that of Miltiades, were also among the
+ten Athenian generals at Marathon. One was Themistocles, the future
+founder of the Athenian navy, and the destined victor of Salamis. The
+other was Aristides, who afterward led the Athenian troops at Plataea,
+and whose integrity and just popularity acquired for his country, when
+the Persians had finally been repulsed, the advantageous preeminence of
+being acknowledged by half of the Greeks as their imperial leader and
+protector. It is not recorded what part either Themistocles or Aristides
+took in the debate of the council of war at Marathon. But, from the
+character of Themistocles, his boldness, and his intuitive genius for
+extemporizing the best measures in every emergency--a quality which the
+greatest of historians ascribes to him beyond all his contemporaries--we
+may well believe that the vote of Themistocles was for prompt and
+decisive action. On the vote of Aristides it may be more difficult to
+speculate. His predilection for the Spartans may have made him wish to
+wait till they came up; but, though circumspect, he was neither timid as
+a soldier nor as a politician, and the bold advice of Miltiades may
+probably have found in Aristides a willing, most assuredly it found in
+him a candid, hearer.
+
+Miltiades felt no hesitation, as to the course which the Athenian army
+ought to pursue; and earnestly did he press his opinion on his brother
+generals. Practically acquainted with the organization of the Persian
+armies, Miltiades felt convinced of the superiority of the Greek troops,
+if properly handled; he saw with the military eye of a great general the
+advantage which the position of the forces gave him for a sudden attack,
+and as a profound politician he felt the perils of remaining inactive,
+and of giving treachery time to ruin the Athenian cause.
+
+One officer in the council of war had not yet voted. This was
+Callimachus, the War-ruler. The votes of the generals were five and
+five, so that the voice of Callimachus would be decisive.
+
+On that vote, in all human probability, the destiny of all the nations
+of the world depended. Miltiades turned to him, and in simple soldierly
+eloquence--the substance of which we may read faithfully reported in
+Herodotus, who had conversed with the veterans of Marathon--the great
+Athenian thus adjured his countrymen to vote for giving battle:
+
+"It now rests with you, Callimachus, either to enslave Athens, or, by
+assuring her freedom, to win yourself an immortality of fame, such as
+not even Harmodius and Aristogiton have acquired; for never, since the
+Athenians were a people, were they in such danger as they are in at this
+moment. If they bow the knee to these Medes, they are to be given up to
+Hippias, and you know what they then will have to suffer. But if Athens
+comes victorious out of this contest, she has it in her to become the
+first city of Greece. Your vote is to decide whether we are to join
+battle or not. If we do not bring on a battle presently, some factious
+intrigue will disunite the Athenians, and the city will be betrayed to
+the Medes. But if we fight, before there is anything rotten in the state
+of Athens, I believe that, provided the gods will give fair play and no
+favor, we are able to get the best of it in an engagement."
+
+The vote of the brave War-ruler was gained, the council determined to
+give battle; and such was the ascendancy and acknowledged military
+eminence of Miltiades, that his brother generals one and all gave up
+their days of command to him, and cheerfully acted under his orders.
+Fearful, however, of creating any jealousy, and of so failing to obtain
+the vigorous cooeperation of all parts of his small army, Miltiades
+waited till the day when the chief command would have come round to him
+in regular rotation before he led the troops against the enemy.
+
+The inaction of the Asiatic commanders during this interval appears
+strange at first sight; but Hippias was with them, and they and he were
+aware of their chance of a bloodless conquest through the machinations
+of his partisans among the Athenians. The nature of the ground also
+explains in many points the tactics of the opposite generals before the
+battle, as well as the operations of the troops during the engagement.
+
+The plain of Marathon, which is about twenty-two miles distant from
+Athens, lies along the bay of the same name on the north-eastern coast of
+Attica. The plain is nearly in the form of a crescent, and about six
+miles in length. It is about two miles broad in the centre, where the
+space between the mountains and the sea is greatest, but it narrows
+toward either extremity, the mountains coming close clown to the water
+at the horns of the bay. There is a valley trending inward from the
+middle of the plain, and a ravine comes down to it to the southward.
+Elsewhere it is closely girt round on the land side by rugged limestone
+mountains, which are thickly studded with pines, olive-trees and cedars,
+and overgrown with the myrtle, arbutus, and the other low odoriferous
+shrubs that everywhere perfume the Attic air.
+
+The level of the ground is now varied by the mound raised over those who
+fell in the battle, but it was an unbroken plain when the Persians
+encamped on it. There are marshes at each end, which are dry in spring
+and summer and then offer no obstruction to the horseman, but are
+commonly flooded with rain and so rendered impracticable for cavalry in
+the autumn, the time of year at which the action took place.
+
+The Greeks, lying encamped on the mountains, could watch every movement
+of the Persians on the plain below, while they were enabled completely
+to mask their own. Miltiades also had, from, his position, the power of
+giving battle whenever he pleased, or of delaying it at his discretion,
+unless Datis were to attempt the perilous operation of storming the
+heights.
+
+If we turn to the map of the Old World, to test the comparative
+territorial resources of the two states whose armies were now about to
+come into conflict, the immense preponderance of the material power of
+the Persian king over that of the Athenian republic is more striking
+than any similar contrast which history can supply. It has been truly
+remarked that, in estimating mere areas Attica, containing on its whole
+surface only seven hundred square miles, shrinks into insignificance if
+compared with many a baronial fief of the Middle Ages, or many a
+colonial allotment of modern times. Its antagonist, the Persian, empire,
+comprised the whole of modern Asiatic and much of modern European
+Turkey, the modern kingdom of Persia and the countries of modern
+Georgia, Armenia, Balkh, the Punjaub, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, Egypt
+and Tripoli.
+
+Nor could a European, in the beginning of the fifth century before our
+era, look upon this huge accumulation of power beneath the sceptre of a
+single Asiatic ruler with the indifference with which we now observe on
+the map the extensive dominions of modern Oriental sovereigns; for, as
+has been already remarked, before Marathon was fought, the prestige of
+success and of supposed superiority of race was on the side of the
+Asiatic against the European. Asia was the original seat of human
+societies, and long before any trace can be found of the inhabitants of
+the rest of the world having emerged from the rudest barbarism, we can
+perceive that mighty and brilliant empires flourished in the Asiatic
+continent. They appear before us through the twilight of primeval
+history, dim and indistinct, but massive and majestic, like mountains in
+the early dawn.
+
+Instead, however, of the infinite variety and restless change which has
+characterized the institutions and fortunes of European states ever
+since the commencement of the civilization of our continent, a
+monotonous uniformity pervades the histories of nearly all Oriental
+empires, from the most ancient down to the most recent times. They are
+characterized by the rapidity of their early conquests, by the immense
+extent of the dominions comprised in them, by the establishment of a
+satrap or pashaw system of governing the provinces, by an invariable and
+speedy degeneracy in the princes of the royal house, the effeminate
+nurslings of the seraglio succeeding to the warrior sovereigns reared in
+the camp, and by the internal anarchy and insurrections which indicate
+and accelerate the decline and fall of these unwieldy and ill-organized
+fabrics of power.
+
+It is also a striking fact that the governments of all the great Asiatic
+empires have in all ages been absolute despotisms. And Heeren is right
+in connecting this with another great fact, which is important from its
+influence both on the political and the social life of Asiatics. "Among
+all the considerable nations of Inner Asia, the paternal government of
+every household was corrupted by polygamy: where that custom exists, a
+good political constitution is impossible. Fathers, being converted into
+domestic despots, are ready to pay the same abject obedience to their
+sovereign which they exact from their family and dependents in their
+domestic economy."
+
+We should bear in mind, also, the inseparable connection between the
+state religion and all legislation which has always prevailed in the
+East, and the constant existence of a powerful sacerdotal body,
+exercising some check, though precarious and irregular, over the throne
+itself, grasping at all civil administration, claiming the supreme
+control of education, stereotyping the lines in which literature and
+science must move, and limiting the extent to which it shall be lawful
+for the human mind to prosecute its inquiries.
+
+With these general characteristics rightly felt and understood it
+becomes a comparatively easy task to investigate and appreciate the
+origin, progress and principles of Oriental empires in general, as well
+as of the Persian monarchy in particular. And we are thus better enabled
+to appreciate the repulse which Greece gave to the arms of the East, and
+to judge of the probable consequences to human civilization, if the
+Persians had succeeded in bringing Europe under their yoke, as they had
+already subjugated the fairest portions of the rest of the then known
+world.
+
+The Greeks, from their geographical position, formed the natural
+van-guard of European liberty against Persian ambition; and they
+preeminently displayed the salient points of distinctive national
+character which have rendered European civilization so far superior to
+Asiatic. The nations that dwelt in ancient times around and near the
+northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea were the first in our continent
+to receive from the East the rudiments of art and literature, and the
+germs of social and political organizations. Of these nations the
+Greeks, through their vicinity to Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Egypt, were
+among the very foremost in acquiring the principles and habits of
+civilized life; and they also at once imparted a new and wholly original
+stamp on all which they received. Thus, in their religion, they received
+from foreign settlers the names of all their deities and many of their
+rites, but they discarded the loathsome monstrosities of the Nile, the
+Orontes, and the Ganges; they nationalized their creed, and their own
+poets created their beautiful mythology. No sacerdotal caste ever
+existed in Greece.
+
+So, in their governments, they lived long under hereditary kings, but
+never endured the permanent establishment of absolute monarchy. Their
+early kings were constitutional rulers, governing with defined
+prerogatives. And long before the Persian invasion, the kingly form of
+government had given way in almost all the Greek states to republican
+institutions, presenting infinite varieties of the blending or the
+alternate predominance of the oligarchical and democratical principles.
+In literature and science the Greek intellect followed no beaten track,
+and acknowledged no limitary rules. The Greeks thought their subjects
+boldly out; and the novelty of a speculation invested it in their minds
+with interest, and not with criminality.
+
+Versatile, restless, enterprising, and self-confident, the Greeks
+presented the most striking contrast to the habitual quietude and
+submissiveness of the Orientals; and, of all the Greeks, the Athenians
+exhibited these national characteristics in the strongest degree. This
+spirit of activity and daring, joined to a generous sympathy for the
+fate of their fellow-Greeks in Asia, had led them to join in the last
+Ionian war, and now mingling with their abhorrence of the usurping
+family of their own citizens, which for a period had forcibly seized on
+and exercised despotic power at Athens, nerved them to defy the wrath of
+King Darius, and to refuse to receive back at his bidding the tyrant
+whom they had some years before driven out.
+
+The enterprise and genius of an Englishman have lately confirmed by
+fresh evidence, and invested with fresh interest, the might of the
+Persian monarch who sent his troops to combat at Marathon. Inscriptions
+in a character termed the Arrow-headed, or Cuneiform, had long been
+known to exist on the marble monuments at Persepolis, near the site of
+the ancient Susa, and on the faces of rocks in other places formerly
+ruled over by the early Persian kings. But for thousands of years they
+had been mere unintelligible enigmas to the curious but baffled
+beholder; and they were often referred to as instances of the folly of
+human pride, which could indeed write its own praises in the solid rock,
+but only for the rock to outlive the language as well as the memory of
+the vainglorious inscribers.
+
+The elder Niebuhr, Grotefend, and Lassen, had made some guesses at the
+meaning of the cuneiform letters; but Major Rawlinson of the East India
+Company's service, after years of labor, has at last accomplished the
+glorious achievement of fully revealing the alphabet and the grammar of
+this long unknown tongue. He has, in particular, fully deciphered and
+expounded the inscription on the sacred rock of Behistun, on the western
+frontiers of Media. These records of the Achaemenidae have at length found
+their interpreter; and Darius himself speaks to us from the consecrated
+mountain, and tells us the names of the nations that obeyed him, the
+revolts that he suppressed, his victories, his piety, and his glory.
+
+Kings who thus seek the admiration of posterity are little likely to dim
+the record of their successes by the mention of their occasional
+defeats; and it throws no suspicion on the narrative of the Greek
+historians that we find these inscriptions silent respecting the
+overthrow of Datis and Artaphernes, as well as respecting the reverses
+which Darius sustained in person during his Scythian campaigns. But
+these indisputable monuments of Persian fame confirm, and even increase
+the opinion with which Herodotus inspires us of the vast power which
+Cyrus founded and Cambyses increased; which Darius augmented by Indian
+and Arabian conquests, and seemed likely, when he directed his arms
+against Europe, to make the predominant monarchy of the world.
+
+With the exception of the Chinese empire, in which, throughout all ages
+down to the last few years, one-third of the human race has dwelt almost
+unconnected with the other portions, all the great kingdoms, which we
+know to have existed in ancient Asia, were, in Darius' time, blended
+into the Persian. The northern Indians, the Assyrians, the Syrians, the
+Babylonians, the Chaldees, the Phoenicians, the nations of Palestine,
+the Armenians, the Bactrians, the Lydians, the Phrygians, the Parthians,
+and the Medes, all obeyed the sceptre of the Great King: the Medes
+standing next to the native Persians in honor, and the empire being
+frequently spoken of as that of the Medes, or as that of the Medes and
+Persians. Egypt and Cyrene were Persian provinces; the Greek colonists
+in Asia Minor and the islands of the AEgean were Darius' subjects; and
+their gallant but unsuccessful attempts to throw off the Persian yoke
+had only served to rivet it more strongly, and to increase the general
+belief that the Greeks could not stand before the Persians in a field
+of battle. Darius' Scythian war, though unsuccessful in its immediate
+object, had brought about the subjugation of Thrace and the submission
+of Macedonia. From the Indus to the Peneus, all was his.
+
+We may imagine the wrath with which the lord of so many nations must
+have heard, nine years before the battle of Marathon, that a strange
+nation toward the setting sun, called the Athenians, had dared to help
+his rebels in Ionia against him, and that they had plundered and burned
+the capital of one of his provinces. Before the burning of Sardis,
+Darius seems never to have heard of the existence of Athens; but his
+satraps in Asia Minor had for some time seen Athenian refugees at their
+provincial courts imploring assistance against their fellow-countrymen.
+
+When Hippias was driven away from Athens, and the tyrannic dynasty of
+the Pisistratidae finally overthrown in B.C. 510, the banished tyrant and
+his adherents, after vainly seeking to be restored by Spartan
+intervention, had betaken themselves to Sardis, the capital city of the
+satrapy of Artaphernes. There Hippias--in the expressive words of
+Herodotus--began every kind of agitation, slandering the Athenians
+before Artaphernes, and doing all he could to induce the satrap to place
+Athens in subjection to him, as the tributary vassal of King Darius.
+When the Athenians heard of his practices, they sent envoys to Sardis to
+remonstrate with the Persians against taking up the quarrel of the
+Athenian refugees.
+
+But Artaphernes gave them in reply a menacing command to receive Hippias
+back again if they looked for safety. The Athenians were resolved not to
+purchase safety at such a price, and after rejecting the satrap's terms,
+they considered that they and the Persians were declared enemies. At
+this very crisis the Ionian Greeks implored the assistance of their
+European brethren, to enable them to recover their independence from
+Persia. Athens, and the city of Eretria in Euboea, alone consented.
+Twenty Athenian galleys, and five Eretrian, crossed the AEgean Sea, and
+by a bold and sudden march upon Sardis, the Athenians and their allies
+succeeded in capturing the capital city of the haughty satrap who had
+recently menaced them with servitude or destruction. They were pursued,
+and defeated on their return to the coast, and Athens took no further
+part in the Ionian war; but the insult that she had put upon the Persian
+power was speedily made known throughout that empire, and was never to
+be forgiven or forgotten.
+
+In the emphatic simplicity of the narrative of Herodotus, the wrath of
+the Great King is thus described: "Now when it was told to King Darius
+that Sardis had been taken and burned by the Athenians and Ionians, he
+took small heed of the Ionians, well knowing who they were, and that
+their revolt would soon be put down; but he asked who, and what manner
+of men, the Athenians were. And when he had been told, he called for his
+bow; and, having taken it, and placed an arrow on the string, he let the
+arrow fly toward heaven; and as he shot it into the air, he said, 'Oh!
+supreme God, grant me that I may avenge myself on the Athenians,' And
+when he had said this, he appointed one of his servants to say to him
+every day as he sat at meat, 'Sire, remember the Athenians.'"
+
+Some years were occupied in the complete reduction of Ionia. But when
+this was effected, Darius ordered his victorious forces to proceed to
+punish Athens and Eretria, and to conquer European Greece, The first
+armament sent for this purpose was shattered by shipwreck, and nearly
+destroyed off Mount Athos. But the purpose of King Darius was not easily
+shaken, A larger army was ordered to be collected in Cilicia, and
+requisitions were sent to all the maritime cities of the Persian empire
+for ships of war, and for transports of sufficient size for carrying
+cavalry as well as infantry across the AEgean. While these preparations
+were being made, Darius sent heralds round to the Grecian cities
+demanding their submission to Persia. It was proclaimed in the
+market-place of each little Hellenic state--some with territories not
+larger than the Isle of Wight--that King Darius, the lord of all men,
+from the rising to the setting sun,[44] required earth and water to be
+delivered to his heralds, as a symbolical acknowledgment that he was
+head and master of the country. Terror-stricken at the power of Persia
+and at the severe punishment that had recently been inflicted on the
+refractory Ionians, many of the continental Greeks and nearly all the
+islanders submitted, and gave the required tokens of vassalage. At
+Sparta and Athens an indignant refusal was returned--a refusal which was
+disgraced by outrage and violence against the persons of the Asiatic
+heralds.
+
+[Footnote 44: AEschines.]
+
+Fresh fuel was thus added to the anger of Darius against Athens, and the
+Persian preparations went on with renewed vigor. In the summer of B.C.
+490, the army destined for the invasion was assembled in the Aleian
+plain of Cilicia, near the sea. A fleet of six hundred galleys and
+numerous transports was collected on the coast for the embarkation of
+troops, horse as well as foot. A Median general named Datis, and
+Artaphernes, the son of the satrap of Sardis, and who was also nephew of
+Darius, were placed in titular joint-command of the expedition. The real
+supreme authority was probably given to Datis alone, from the way in
+which the Greek writers speak of him.
+
+We know no details of the previous career of this officer; but there is
+every reason to believe that his abilities and bravery had been proved
+by experience, or his Median birth would have prevented his being placed
+in high command by Darius. He appears to have been the first Mede who
+was thus trusted by the Persian kings after the overthrow of the
+conspiracy of the Median magi against the Persians immediately before
+Darius obtained the throne. Datis received instructions to complete the
+subjugation of Greece, and especial orders were given him with regard to
+Eretria and Athens. He was to take these two cities, and he was to lead
+the inhabitants away captive, and bring them as slaves into the presence
+of the Great King.
+
+Datis embarked his forces in the fleet that awaited them, and coasting
+along the shores of Asia Minor till he was off Samos, he thence sailed
+due westward through the AEgean Sea for Greece, taking the islands in his
+way. The Naxians had, ten years before, successfully stood a siege
+against a Persian armament, but they now were too terrified to offer any
+resistance, and fled to the mountain tops, while the enemy burned their
+town and laid waste their lands. Thence Datis, compelling the Greek
+islanders to join him with their ships and men, sailed onward to the
+coast of Euboea. The little town of Carystus essayed resistance, but
+was quickly overpowered.
+
+He next attacked Eretria. The Athenians sent four thousand men to its
+aid; but treachery was at work among the Eretrians; and the Athenian
+force received timely warning from one of the leading men of the city to
+retire to aid in saving their own country, instead of remaining to share
+in the inevitable destruction of Eretria. Left to themselves, the
+Eretrians repulsed the assaults of the Persians against their walls for
+six days; on the seventh they were betrayed by two of their chiefs, and
+the Persians occupied the city. The temples were burned in revenge for
+the firing of Sardis, and the inhabitants were bound, and placed as
+prisoners in the neighboring islet of AEgilia, to wait there till Datis
+should bring the Athenians to join them in captivity, when both
+populations were to be led into Upper Asia, there to learn their doom
+from the lips of King Darius himself.
+
+Flushed with success, and with half his mission thus accomplished, Datis
+reembarked his troops, and, crossing the little channel that separates
+Euboea from the mainland, he encamped his troops on the Attic coast at
+Marathon, drawing up his galleys on the shelving beach, as was the
+custom with the navies of antiquity. The conquered islands behind him
+served as places of deposit for his provisions and military stores. His
+position at Marathon seemed to him in every respect advantageous, and
+the level nature of the ground on which he camped was favorable for the
+employment of his cavalry, if the Athenians should venture to engage
+him. Hippias, who accompanied him, and acted as the guide of the
+invaders, had pointed out Marathon as the best place for a landing, for
+this very reason. Probably Hippias was also influenced by the
+recollection that forty-seven years previously, he, with his father
+Pisistratus, had crossed with an army from Eretria to Marathon, and had
+won an easy victory over their Athenian enemies on that very plain,
+which had restored them to tyrannic power. The omen seemed cheering. The
+place was the same, but Hippias soon learned to his cost how great a
+change had come over the spirit of the Athenians.
+
+But though "the fierce democracy" of Athens was zealous and true
+against foreign invader and domestic tyrant, a faction existed in
+Athens, as at Eretria, who were willing to purchase a party triumph over
+their fellow-citizens at the price of their country's ruin.
+Communications were opened between these men and the Persian camp, which
+would have led to a catastrophe like that of Eretria, if Miltiades had
+not resolved and persuaded his colleagues to resolve on fighting at all
+hazards.
+
+When Miltiades arrayed his men for action, he staked on the arbitrament
+of one battle not only the fate of Athens, but that of all Greece; for
+if Athens had fallen, no other Greek state, except Lacedaemon, would have
+had the courage to resist; and the Lacedaemonians, though they would
+probably have died in their ranks to the last man, never could have
+successfully resisted the victorious Persians and the numerous Greek
+troops which would have soon marched under the Persian satraps, had they
+prevailed over Athens.
+
+Nor was there any power to the westward of Greece that could have
+offered an effectual opposition to Persia, had she once conquered
+Greece, and made that country a basis for future military operations.
+Rome was at this time in her season of utmost weakness. Her dynasty of
+powerful Etruscan kings had been driven out; and her infant commonwealth
+was reeling under the attacks of the Etruscans and Volscians from
+without, and the fierce dissensions between the patricians and plebeians
+within. Etruria, with her _lucumos_ and serfs, was no match for Persia.
+Samnium had not grown into the might which she afterward put forth; nor
+could the Greek colonies in South Italy and Sicily hope to conquer when
+their parent states had perished. Carthage had escaped the Persian yoke
+in the time of Cambyses, through the reluctance of the Phoenician
+mariners to serve against their kinsmen.
+
+But such forbearance could not long have been relied on, and the future
+rival of Rome would have become as submissive a minister of the Persian
+power as were the Phoenician cities themselves. If we turn to Spain; or
+if we pass the great mountain chain, which, prolonged through the
+Pyrenees, the Cevennes, the Alps, and the Balkan, divides Northern from
+Southern Europe, we shall find nothing at that period but mere savage
+Finns, Celts, Slavs, and Teutons. Had Persia beaten Athens at Marathon,
+she could have found no obstacle to prevent Darius, the chosen servant
+of Ormuzd, from advancing his sway over all the known Western races of
+mankind. The infant energies of Europe would have been trodden out
+beneath universal conquest, and the history of the world, like the
+history of Asia, have become a mere record of the rise and fall of
+despotic dynasties, of the incursions of barbarous hordes, and of the
+mental and political prostration of millions beneath the diadem, the
+tiara, and the sword.
+
+Great as the preponderance of the Persian over the Athenian power at
+that crisis seems to have been, it would be unjust to impute wild
+rashness to the policy of Miltiades and those who voted with him in the
+Athenian council of war, or to look on the after-current of events as
+the mere fortunate result of successful folly. As before has been
+remarked, Miltiades, while prince of the Chersonese, had seen service in
+the Persian armies; and he knew by personal observation how many
+elements of weakness lurked beneath their imposing aspect of strength.
+He knew that the bulk of their troops no longer consisted of the hardy
+shepherds and mountaineers from Persia proper and Kurdistan, who won
+Cyrus's battles; but that unwilling contingents from conquered nations
+now filled up the Persian muster-rolls, fighting more from compulsion
+than from any zeal in the cause of their masters. He had also the
+sagacity and the spirit to appreciate the superiority of the Greek armor
+and organization over the Asiatic, notwithstanding former reverses.
+Above all, he felt and worthily trusted the enthusiasm of those whom he
+led.
+
+The Athenians whom he led had proved by their newborn valor in recent
+wars against the neighboring states that "liberty and equality of civic
+rights are brave spirit-stirring things, and they, who, while under the
+yoke of a despot, had been no better men of war than any of their
+neighbors, as soon as they were free, became the foremost men of all;
+for each felt that in fighting for a free commonwealth, he fought for
+himself, and whatever he took in hand, he was zealous to do the work
+thoroughly," So the nearly contemporaneous historian describes the
+change of spirit that was seen in the Athenians after their tyrants were
+expelled; and Miltiades knew that in leading them against the invading
+army, where they had Hippias, the foe they most hated, before them, he
+was bringing into battle no ordinary men, and could calculate on no
+ordinary heroism.
+
+As for traitors, he was sure that, whatever treachery might lurk among
+some of the higher born and wealthier Athenians, the rank and file whom
+he commanded were ready to do their utmost in his and their own cause.
+With regard to future attacks from Asia, he might reasonably hope that
+one victory would inspirit all Greece to combine against the common foe;
+and that the latent seeds of revolt and disunion in the Persian empire
+would soon burst forth and paralyze its energies, so as to leave Greek
+independence secure.
+
+With these hopes and risks, Miltiades, on the afternoon of a September
+day, B.C. 490, gave the word for the Athenian army to prepare for
+battle. There were many local associations connected with those mountain
+heights which were calculated powerfully to excite the spirits of the
+men, and of which the commanders well knew how to avail themselves in
+their exhortations to their troops before the encounter. Marathon itself
+was a region sacred to Hercules. Close to them was the fountain of
+Macaria, who had in days of yore devoted herself to death for the
+liberty of her people. The very plain on which they were to fight was
+the scene of the exploits of their national hero, Theseus; and there,
+too, as old legends told, the Athenians and the Heraclidae had routed the
+invader, Eurystheus.
+
+These traditions were not mere cloudy myths or idle fictions, but
+matters of implicit earnest faith to the men of that day, and many a
+fervent prayer arose from the Athenian ranks to the heroic spirits who,
+while on earth, had striven and suffered on that very spot, and who were
+believed to be now heavenly powers, looking down with interest on their
+still beloved country, and capable of interposing with superhuman aid in
+its behalf.
+
+According to old national custom, the warriors of each tribe were
+arrayed together; neighbor thus fighting by the side of neighbor, friend
+by friend, and the spirit of emulation and the consciousness of
+responsibility excited to the very utmost. The War-ruler, Callimachus,
+had the leading of the right wing; the Plataeans formed the extreme left;
+and Themistocles and Aristides commanded the centre. The line consisted
+of the heavy-armed spearmen only; for the Greeks--until the time of
+Iphicrates--took little or no account of light-armed soldiers in a
+pitched battle, using them only in skirmishes, or for the pursuit of a
+defeated enemy. The panoply of the regular infantry consisted of a long
+spear, of a shield, helmet, breastplate, greaves, and short sword.
+
+Thus equipped, they usually advanced slowly and steadily into action in
+a uniform phalanx of about eight spears deep. But the military genius of
+Miltiades led him to deviate on this occasion from the commonplace
+tactics of his countrymen. It was essential for him to extend his line
+so as to cover all the practicable ground, and to secure himself from
+being outflanked and charged in the rear by the Persian horse. This
+extension involved the weakening of his line. Instead of a uniform
+reduction of its strength, he determined on detaching principally from
+his centre, which, from the nature of the ground, would have the best
+opportunities for rallying, if broken; and on strengthening his wings so
+as to insure advantage at those points; and he trusted to his own skill
+and to his soldiers' discipline for the improvement of that advantage
+into decisive victory.[45]
+
+[Footnote 45: It is remarkable that there is no other instance of a
+Greek general deviating from the ordinary mode of bringing a phalanx of
+spearmen into action until the battles of Leuctra and Mantinea, more
+than a century after Marathon, when Epaminondas introduced the tactics
+which Alexander the Great in ancient times, and Frederick the Great in
+modern times, made so famous, of concentrating an overpowering force to
+bear on some decisive point of the enemy's line, while he kept back, or,
+in military phrase, refused the weaker part of his own.]
+
+In this order, and availing himself probably of the inequalities of the
+ground, so as to conceal his preparations from the enemy till the last
+possible moment, Miltiades drew up the eleven thousand infantry whose
+spears were to decide this crisis in the struggle between the European
+and the Asiatic worlds. The sacrifices by which the favor of heaven was
+sought, and its will consulted, were announced to show propitious omens.
+The trumpet sounded for action, and, chanting the hymn of battle, the
+little army bore down upon the host of the foe. Then, too, along the
+mountain slopes of Marathon must have resounded the mutual exhortation
+which AEschylus, who fought in both battles, tells us was afterward heard
+over the waves of Salamis: "On, sons of the Greeks! Strike for the
+freedom of your country! strike for the freedom of your children and of
+your wives--for the shrines of your fathers' gods, and for the
+sepulchres of your sires. All--all are now staked upon the strife."
+
+Instead of advancing at the usual slow pace of the phalanx, Miltiades
+brought his men on at a run. They were all trained in the exercise of
+the _palaestra_, so that there was no fear of their ending the charge in
+breathless exhaustion; and it was of the deepest importance for him to
+traverse as rapidly as possible the mile or so of level ground that lay
+between the mountain foot and the Persian outposts, and so to get his
+troops into close action before the Asiatic cavalry could mount, form,
+and manoeuvre against him, or their archers keep him long under fire,
+and before the enemy's generals could fairly deploy their masses.
+
+"When the Persians," says Herodotus, "saw the Athenians running down on
+them, without horse or bowmen, and scanty in numbers, they thought them
+a set of madmen rushing upon certain destruction." They began, however,
+to prepare to receive them, and the Eastern chiefs arrayed, as quickly
+as time and place allowed, the varied races who served in their motley
+ranks. Mountaineers from Hyrcania and Afghanistan, wild horsemen from
+the steppes of Khorassan, the black archers of Ethiopia, swordsmen from
+the banks of the Indus, the Oxus, the Euphrates and the Nile, made ready
+against the enemies of the Great King.
+
+But no national cause inspired them except the division of native
+Persians; and in the large host there was no uniformity of language,
+creed, race or military system. Still, among them there were many
+gallant men, under a veteran general; they were familiarized with
+victory, and in contemptuous confidence their infantry, which alone had
+time to form, awaited the Athenian charge. On came the Greeks, with one
+unwavering line of leveled spears, against which the light targets, the
+short lances and cimeters of the Orientals offered weak defence. The
+front rank of the Asiatics must have gone down to a man at the first
+shock. Still they recoiled not, but strove by individual gallantry and
+by the weight of numbers to make up for the disadvantages of weapons and
+tactics, and to bear back the shallow line of the Europeans. In the
+centre, where the native Persians and the Sacae fought, they succeeded in
+breaking through the weakened part of the Athenian phalanx; and the
+tribes led by Aristides and Themistocles were, after a brave resistance,
+driven back over the plain, and chased by the Persians up the valley
+toward the inner country. There the nature of the ground gave the
+opportunity of rallying and renewing the struggle.
+
+Meanwhile, the Greek wings, where Miltiades had concentrated his chief
+strength, had routed the Asiatics opposed to them; and the Athenian and
+Plataean officers, instead of pursuing the fugitives, kept their troops
+well in hand, and, wheeling round, they formed the two wings together.
+Miltiades instantly led them against the Persian centre, which had
+hitherto been triumphant, but which now fell back, and prepared to
+encounter these new and unexpected assailants. Aristides and
+Themistocles renewed the fight with their reorganized troops, and the
+full force of the Greeks was brought into close action with the Persian
+and Sacean divisions of the enemy. Datis' veterans strove hard to keep
+their ground, and evening was approaching before the stern encounter was
+decided.
+
+But the Persians, with their slight wicker shields, destitute of body
+armor, and never taught by training to keep the even front and act with
+the regular movement of the Greek infantry, fought at heavy disadvantage
+with their shorter and feebler weapons against the compact array of
+well-armed Athenian and Plataean spearmen, all perfectly drilled to
+perform each necessary evolution in concert, and to preserve a uniform
+and unwavering line in battle. In personal courage and in bodily
+activity the Persians were not inferior to their adversaries. Their
+spirits were not yet cowed by the recollection of former defeats; and
+they lavished their lives freely, rather than forfeit the fame which
+they had won by so many victories. While their rear ranks poured an
+incessant shower of arrows over the heads of their comrades, the
+foremost Persians kept rushing forward, sometimes singly, sometimes in
+desperate groups of ten or twelve, upon the projecting spears of the
+Greeks, striving to force a lane into the phalanx, and to bring their
+cimeters and daggers into play. But the Greeks felt their superiority,
+and though the fatigue of the long-continued action told heavily on
+their inferior numbers, the sight of the carnage that they dealt upon
+their assailants nerved them to fight still more fiercely on.
+
+At last the previously unvanquished lords of Asia turned their backs and
+fled, and the Greeks followed, striking them down, to the water's
+edge,[46] where the invaders were now hastily launching their galleys,
+and seeking to embark and fly. Flushed with success, the Athenians
+attacked and strove to fire the fleet. But here the Asiatics resisted
+desperately, and the principal loss sustained by the Greeks was in the
+assault on the ships. Here fell the brave War-ruler Callimachus, the
+general Stesilaus, and other Athenians of note. Seven galleys were
+fired; but the Persians succeeded in saving the rest. They pushed off
+from the fatal shore; but even here the skill of Datis did not desert
+him, and he sailed round to the western coast of Attica, in hopes to
+find the city unprotected, and to gain possession of it from some of the
+partisans of Hippias.
+
+[Footnote 46:
+
+    The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
+    The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
+    Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below,
+    Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!
+    Such was the scene.--Byron.]
+
+Miltiades, however, saw and counteracted his manoeuvre. Leaving
+Aristides, and the troops of his tribe, to guard the spoil and the
+slain, the Athenian commander led his conquering army by a rapid
+night-march back across the country to Athens. And when the Persian
+fleet had doubled the Cape of Sunium and sailed up to the Athenian
+harbor in the morning, Datis saw arrayed on the heights above the city
+the troops before whom his men had fled on the preceding evening. All
+hope of further conquest in Europe for the time was abandoned, and the
+baffled armada returned to the Asiatic coasts.
+
+After the battle had been fought, but while the dead bodies were yet on
+the ground, the promised reenforcement from Sparta arrived. Two thousand
+Lacedaemonian spearmen, starting immediately after the full moon, had
+marched the hundred and fifty miles between Athens and Sparta in the
+wonderfully short time of three days. Though too late to share in the
+glory of the action, they requested to be allowed to march to the
+battle-field to behold the Medes. They proceeded thither, gazed on the
+dead bodies of the invaders, and then praising the Athenians and what
+they had done, they returned to Lacedaemon.
+
+The number of the Persian dead was sixty-four hundred; of the Athenians,
+one hundred and ninety-two. The number of the Plataeans who fell is not
+mentioned; but, as they fought in the part of the army which was not
+broken, it cannot have been large.
+
+The apparent disproportion between the losses of the two armies is not
+surprising when we remember the armor of the Greek spearmen, and the
+impossibility of heavy slaughter being inflicted by sword or lance on
+troops so armed, as long as they kept firm in their ranks.[47]
+
+[Footnote 47: Mitford well refers to Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt as
+instances of similar disparity of loss between the conquerors and the
+conquered.]
+
+The Athenian slain were buried on the field of battle. This was contrary
+to the usual custom, according to which the bones of all who fell
+fighting for their country in each year were deposited in a public
+sepulchre in the suburb of Athens called the "Ceramicus." But it was
+felt that a distinction ought to be made in the funeral honors paid to
+the men of Marathon, even as their merit had been distinguished over
+that of all other Athenians. A lofty mound was raised on the plain of
+Marathon, beneath which the remains of the men of Athens who fell in the
+battle were deposited. Ten columns were erected on the spot, one for
+each of the Athenian tribes; and on the monumental column of each tribe
+were graven the names of those of its members whose glory it was to have
+fallen in the great battle of liberation. The antiquarian Pausanias read
+those names there six hundred years after the time when they were first
+graven.[48] The columns have long perished, but the mound still marks
+the spot where the noblest heroes of antiquity repose.
+
+[Footnote 48: Pausanias stales, with implicit belief, that the
+battle-field was haunted at night by supernatural beings, and that the
+noise of combatants and the snorting of horses were heard to resound on
+it. The superstition has survived the change of creeds, and the
+shepherds of the neighborhood still believe that spectral warriors
+contend on the plain at midnight, and they say that they have heard the
+shouts of the combatants and the neighing of the steeds.]
+
+A separate tumulus was raised over the bodies of the slain Plataeans, and
+another over the light-armed slaves who had taken part and had fallen in
+the battle.[49] There was also a separate funeral monument to the
+general to whose genius the victory was mainly due. Miltiades did not
+live long after his achievement at Marathon, but he lived long enough to
+experience a lamentable reverse of his popularity and success. As soon
+as the Persians had quitted the western coasts of the AEgean, he proposed
+to an assembly of the Athenian people that they should fit out seventy
+galleys, with a proportionate force of soldiers and military stores, and
+place it at his disposal; not telling them whither he meant to lead it,
+but promising them that if they would equip the force he asked for, and
+give him discretionary powers, he would lead it to a land where there
+was gold in abundance to be won with ease.
+
+[Footnote 49: It is probable that the Greek light-armed irregulars were
+active in the attack on the Persian ships, and it was in this attack
+that the Greeks suffered their principal loss.]
+
+The Greeks of that time believed in the existence of eastern realms
+teeming with gold, as firmly as the Europeans of the sixteenth century
+believed in El Dorado of the West. The Athenians probably thought that
+the recent victor of Marathon, and former officer of Darius, was about
+to lead them on a secret expedition against some wealthy and unprotected
+cities of treasure in the Persian dominions. The armament was voted and
+equipped, and sailed eastward from Attica, no one but Miltiades knowing
+its destination until the Greek isle of paros was reached, when his true
+object appeared. In former years, while connected with the Persians as
+prince of the Chersonese, Miltiades had been involved in a quarrel with
+one of the leading men among the Parians, who had injured his credit
+and caused some slights to be put upon him at the court of the Persian
+satrap Hydarnes. The feud had ever since rankled in the heart of the
+Athenian chief, and he now attacked Paros for the sake of avenging
+himself on his ancient enemy.
+
+His pretext, as general of the Athenians, was, that the Parians had
+aided the armament, of Datis with a war-galley. The Parians pretended to
+treat about terms of surrender, but used the time which they thus gained
+in repairing the defective parts of the fortifications of their city,
+and they then set the Athenians at defiance. So far, says Herodotus, the
+accounts of all the Greeks agree. But the Parians in after years told
+also a wild legend, how a captive priestess of a Parian temple of the
+Deities of the Earth promised Miltiades to give him the means of
+capturing Paros; how, at her bidding, the Athenian general went alone at
+night and forced his way into a holy shrine, near the city gate, but
+with what purpose it was not known; how a supernatural awe came over
+him, and in his flight he fell and fractured his leg; how an oracle
+afterward forbade the Parians to punish the sacrilegious and traitorous
+priestess, "because it was fated that Miltiades should come to an ill
+end, and she was only the instrument to lead, him to evil." Such was the
+tale that Herodotus heard at Paros. Certain it was that Miltiades either
+dislocated or broke his leg during an unsuccessful siege of the city,
+and returned home in evil plight with his baffled and defeated forces.
+
+The indignation of the Athenians was proportionate to the hope and
+excitement which his promises had raised. Xanthippas, the head of one of
+the first families in Athens, indicted him before the supreme popular
+tribunal for the capital offence of having deceived the people. His
+guilt was undeniable, and the Athenians passed their verdict
+accordingly. But the recollections of Lemnos and Marathon, and the sight
+of the fallen general, who lay stretched on a couch before them, pleaded
+successfully in mitigation of punishment, and the sentence was commuted
+from death to a fine of fifty talents. This was paid by his son, the
+afterward illustrious Cimon, Miltiades dying, soon after the trial, of
+the injury which he had received at Paros.
+
+The melancholy end of Miltiades, after his elevation to such a height
+of power and glory, must often have been recalled to the minds of the
+ancient Greeks by the sight of one in particular of the memorials of the
+great battle which he won. This was the remarkable statue--minutely
+described by Pausanias--which the Athenians, in the time of Pericles,
+caused to be hewn out of a huge block of marble, which, it was believed,
+had been provided by Datis, to form a trophy of the anticipated victory
+of the Persians. Phidias fashioned out of this a colossal image of the
+goddess Nemesis, the deity whose peculiar function was to visit the
+exuberant prosperity both of nations and individuals with sudden and
+awful reverses. This statue was placed in a temple of the goddess at
+Rhamnus, about eight miles from Marathon. Athens itself contained
+numerous memorials of her primary great victory. Panenus, the cousin of
+Phidias, represented it in fresco on the walls of the painted porch;
+and, centuries afterward, the figures of Miltiades and Callimachus at
+the head of the Athenians were conspicuous in the fresco. The tutelary
+deities were exhibited taking part in the fray. In the background were
+seen the Phoenician galleys, and, nearer to the spectator, the Athenians
+and the Plataeans--distinguished by their leather helmets--were chasing
+routed Asiatics into the marshes and the sea. The battle was sculptured
+also on the Temple of Victory in the Acropolis, and even now there may
+be traced on the frieze the figures of the Persian combatants with their
+lunar shields, their bows and quivers, their curved cimeters, their
+loose trousers, and Phrygian tiaras.
+
+These and other memorials of Marathon were the produce of the meridian
+age of Athenian intellectual splendor, of the age of Phidias and
+Pericles; for it was not merely by the generation whom the battle
+liberated from Hippias and the Medes that the transcendent importance of
+their victory was gratefully recognized. Through the whole epoch of her
+prosperity, through the long Olympiads of her decay, through centuries
+after her fall, Athens looked back on the day of Marathon as the
+brightest of her national existence.
+
+By a natural blending of patriotic pride with grateful piety, the very
+spirits of the Athenians who fell at Marathon were deified by their
+countrymen. The inhabitants of the district of Marathon paid religious
+rites to them, and orators solemnly invoked them in their most
+impassioned adjurations before the assembled men of Athens. "Nothing was
+omitted that could keep alive the remembrance of a deed which had first
+taught the Athenian people to know its own strength, by measuring it
+with the power which had subdued the greater part of the known world.
+The consciousness thus awakened fixed its character, its station, and
+its destiny; it was the spring of its later great actions and ambitious
+enterprises."
+
+It was not indeed by one defeat, however signal, that the pride of
+Persia could be broken, and her dreams of universal empire dispelled.
+Ten years afterward she renewed her attempts upon Europe on a grander
+scale of enterprise, and was repulsed by Greece with greater and
+reiterated loss. Larger forces and heavier slaughter than had been seen
+at Marathon signalized the conflicts of Greeks and Persians at
+Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and the Eurymedon. But, mighty and
+momentous as these battles were, they rank not with Marathon in
+importance. They originated no new impulse. They turned back no current
+of fate. They were merely confirmatory of the already existing bias
+which Marathon had created. The day of Marathon is the critical epoch in
+the history of the two nations. It broke forever the spell of Persian
+invincibility, which had previously paralyzed men's minds. It generated
+among the Greeks the spirit which beat back Xerxes, and afterward led on
+Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alexander, in terrible retaliation through
+their Asiatic campaigns. It secured for mankind the intellectual
+treasures of Athens, the growth of free institutions, the liberal
+enlightenment of the Western world, and the gradual ascendency for many
+ages of the great principles of European civilization.
+
+
+EXPLANATORY REMARKS ON SOME OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BATTLE OF
+MARATHON
+
+Nothing is said by Herodotus of the Persian cavalry taking any part in
+the battle, although he mentions that Hippias recommended the Persians
+to land at Marathon, because the plain was favorable for cavalry
+evolutions. In the life of Miltiades which is usually cited as the
+production of Cornelius Nepos, but which I believe to be of no authority
+whatever, it is said that Miltiades protected his flanks from the
+enemy's horse by an abatis of felled trees. While he was on the high
+ground he would not have required this defence, and it is not likely
+that the Persians would have allowed him to erect it on the plain.
+
+But, in truth, whatever amount of cavalry we suppose Datis to have had
+with him on the day of Marathon, their inaction in the battle is
+intelligible, if we believe the attack of the Athenian spearmen to have
+been as sudden as it was rapid. The Persian horse-soldier, on an alarm
+being given, had to take the shackles off his horse, to strap the saddle
+on, and bridle him, besides equipping himself (Xenophon), and when each
+individual horseman was ready, the line had to be formed; and the time
+that it takes to form the Oriental cavalry in line for a charge has, in
+all ages, been observed by Europeans.
+
+The wet state of the marshes at each end of the plain, in the time of
+year when the battle was fought, has been adverted to by Wordsworth,[50]
+and this would hinder the Persian general from arranging and employing
+his horsemen on his extreme wings, while it also enabled the Greeks, as
+they came forward, to occupy the whole breadth of the practicable ground
+with an unbroken line of leveled spears, against which, if any Persian
+horse advanced, they would be driven back in confusion upon their own
+foot.
+
+[Footnote 50: _Greece_.]
+
+Even numerous and fully arrayed bodies of cavalry have been repeatedly
+broken, both in ancient and modern warfare, by resolute charges of
+infantry. For instance, it was by an attack of some picked cohorts that
+Caesar routed the Pompeian cavalry--which had previously defeated his
+own--and won the battle of Pharsalia.
+
+
+
+
+
+INVASION OF GREECE BY PERSIANS UNDER XERXES
+
+DEFENCE OF THERMOPYLAE
+
+B.C. 480
+
+HERODOTUS
+
+
+     The invasion of Greece by Xerxes is the subject of the great
+     history written in nine books by Herodotus. His object is to show
+     the preeminence of Greece, whose fleets and armies defeated the
+     forces of the Persians after these latter had triumphed over the
+     most powerful nations of the earth. Xerxes collected a vast army
+     from all parts of the empire. The Phoenicians furnished him with an
+     enormous fleet, and he made a bridge of a double line of boats
+     across the Hellespont and cut a canal through the peninsula of
+     Mount Athos. He reached Sardis in the autumn of B.C. 481, and the
+     next year his army crossed the bridge of boats, taking seven days
+     and seven nights for the transit. The number of his fighting men
+     was over two millions and a half. His ships of war were twelve
+     hundred and seven in number, and he had three thousand smaller
+     vessels for carrying his land forces and supplies. At the narrow
+     pass of Thermopylae, in the northeast of Greece, this immense army
+     was checked for a while by the heroic Leonidas and his three
+     hundred Spartans, who, however, perished in their attempt to
+     prevent the Persian's attack on Athens, which city was almost
+     entirely destroyed by the invaders. The sea-fight of Salamis was
+     won by the Greeks against enormous odds; and in the battle of
+     Plataea, B.C. 479, the defeat of the Persians by the Greek land
+     forces was made more complete by the death of Mardonius, the most
+     renowned general of Xerxes.
+
+
+The Greeks, when they arrived at the Isthmus, consulted on the message
+they had received from Alexander, in what way and in what places they
+should prosecute the war. The opinion which prevailed was that they
+should defend the pass at Thermopylae; for it appeared to be narrower
+than that into Thessaly, and at the same time nearer to their own
+territories; for the path by which the Greeks who were taken at
+Thermopylae were afterward surprised, they knew nothing of, till, on
+their arrival at Thermopylae, they were informed of it by the
+Trachinians. They accordingly resolved to guard this pass, and not
+suffer the barbarian to enter Greece; and that the naval force should
+sail to Artemisium, in the territory of Histiaeotis, for these places are
+near one another, so that they could hear what happened to each other.
+These spots are thus situated.
+
+In the first place, Artemisium is contracted from a wide space of the
+Thracian sea into a narrow frith, which lies between the island of
+Sciathus and the continent of Magnesia. From the narrow frith begins the
+coast of Euboea, called Artemisium, and in it is a temple of Diana. But
+the entrance into Greece through Trachis, in the narrowest part, is no
+more than a half _plethrum_ in width: however, the narrowest part of the
+country is not in this spot, but before and behind Thermopylae; for near
+Alpeni, which is behind, there is only a single carriage-road, and
+before, by the river Phoenix, near the city of Anthela, is another
+single carriage-road. On the western side of Thermopylae is an
+inaccessible and precipitous mountain, stretching to Mount Oeta, and on
+the eastern side of the way is the sea and a morass. In this passage
+there are hot baths, which the inhabitants call "Chytri," and above
+these is an altar to Hercules. A wall had been built in this pass, and
+formerly there were gates in it. The Phocians built it through fear,
+when the Thessalians came from Thesprotia to settle in the AEolian
+territory which they now possess: apprehending that the Thessalians
+would attempt to subdue them, the Phocians took this precaution; at the
+same time, they diverted the hot water into the entrance, that the place
+might be broken into clefts, having recourse to every contrivance to
+prevent the Thessalians from making inroads into their country. Now this
+old wall had been built a long time, and the greater part of it had
+already fallen through age; but they determined to rebuild it, and in
+that place to repel the barbarian from Greece. Very near this road there
+is a village called Alpeni; from this the Greeks expected to obtain
+provisions.
+
+Accordingly, these situations appeared suitable for the Greeks; for
+they, having weighed everything beforehand, and considered that the
+barbarians would neither be able to use their numbers nor their
+cavalry, there resolved to await the invader of Greece. As soon as they
+were informed that the Persian was in Pieria, breaking up from the
+Isthmus some of them proceeded by land to Thermopylae, and others by sea
+to Artemisium.
+
+The Greeks, therefore, being appointed in two divisions, hastened to
+meet the enemy; but, at the same time, the Delphians, alarmed for
+themselves and for Greece, consulted the oracle, and the answer given
+them was, "that they should pray to the winds, for that they would be
+powerful allies to Greece."
+
+The Delphians, having received the oracle, first of all communicated the
+answer to those Greeks who were zealous to be free; and as they very
+much dreaded the barbarians, by giving that message they acquired a
+claim to everlasting gratitude. After that, the Delphians erected an
+altar to the winds at Thyia, where there is an inclosure consecrated to
+Thyia, daughter of Cephisus, from whom this district derives its name,
+and conciliated them with sacrifices; and the Delphians, in obedience to
+that oracle, to this day propitiate the winds.
+
+The naval force of Xerxes, setting out from the city of Therma, advanced
+with ten of the fastest sailing ships straight to Scyathus, where were
+three Grecian ships keeping a look-out: a Troezenian, an AEginetan, and
+an Athenian, These, seeing the ships of the barbarians at a distance,
+betook themselves to flight.
+
+The Troezenian ship, which Praxinus commanded, the barbarians pursued
+and soon captured; and then, having led the handsomest of the marines to
+the prow of the ship, they slew him, deeming it a good omen that the
+first Greek they had taken was also very handsome. The name of the man
+that was slain was Leon, and perhaps he in some measure reaped the
+fruits of his name.
+
+The AEginetan ship, which Asonides commanded, gave them some trouble;
+Pytheas, son of Ischenous, being a marine on board, a man who on this
+day displayed the most consummate valor; who, when the ship was taken,
+continued fighting until he was entirely cut to pieces. But when, having
+fallen (he was not dead, but still breathed), the Persians who served on
+board the ships were very anxious to save him alive, on account of his
+valor, healing his wounds with myrrh, and binding them with bandages of
+flaxen cloth; and when they returned to their own camp, they showed him
+with admiration to the whole army, and treated him well; but the others,
+whom they took in this ship, they treated as slaves.
+
+Thus, then, two of the ships were taken; but the other, which Phormus,
+an Athenian, commanded, in its flight ran ashore at the mouth of the
+Peneus, and the barbarians got possession of the ship, but not of the
+men; for as soon as the Athenians had run the ship aground, they leaped
+out, and, proceeding through Thessaly, reached Athens. The Greeks who
+were stationed at Artemisium were informed of this event by signal-fires
+from Sciathus; and being informed of it, and very much alarmed, they
+retired from Artemisium to Chalcis, intending to defend the Euripus, and
+leaving scouts on the heights of Euboea. Of the ten barbarian ships,
+three approached the sunken rock called Myrmex, between Sciathus and
+Magnesia. Then the barbarians, when they had erected on the rock a stone
+column, which they had brought with them, set out from Therma, now that
+every obstacle had been removed, and sailed forward with all their
+ships, having waited eleven days after the king's departure from Therma.
+Pammon, a Scyrian, pointed out to them this hidden rock, which was
+almost directly in their course. The barbarians, sailing all day,
+reached Sepias in Magnesia, and the shore that lies between the city of
+Casthanaea and the coast of Sepias.
+
+As far as this place and Thermopylae, the army had suffered no loss, and
+the numbers were at that time, as I find by calculations, of the
+following amount: of those in ships from Asia, amounting to one thousand
+two hundred and seven, originally the whole number of the several
+nations was two hundred forty-one thousand four hundred men, allowing
+two hundred to each ship; and on these ships thirty Persians, Medes, and
+Sacae served as marines, in addition to the native crews of each; this
+farther number amounts to thirty-six thousand two hundred and ten. To
+this and the former number I add those that were on the
+_penteconters[51]_ supposing eighty men on the average to be on board of
+each. Three thousand of these vessels were assembled; therefore the men
+on board them must have been two hundred and forty thousand. This, then,
+was the naval force from Asia, the total being five hundred and
+seventeen thousand six hundred and ten. Of infantry there were seventeen
+hundred thousand, and of cavalry eighty thousand; to these I add the
+Arabians who drove camels, and the Libyans who drove chariots, reckoning
+the number at twenty thousand men. Accordingly, the numbers on board the
+ships and on the land, added together, make up two millions three
+hundred and seventeen thousand six hundred and ten. This, then, is the
+force which, as has been mentioned, was assembled from Asia itself,
+exclusive of the servants that followed, and the provision ships, and
+the men that were on board them.
+
+[Footnote 51: Fifty-oared ships.]
+
+But the force brought from Europe must still be added to this whole
+number that has been summed up; but it is necessary to speak by guess.
+Now the Grecians from Thrace, and the islands contiguous to Thrace,
+furnished one hundred and twenty ships; these ships give an amount of
+twenty-four thousand men. Of land-forces, which were furnished by
+Thracians, Paeonians, the Eordi, the Bottiaeans, the Chalcidian race,
+Brygi, Pierians, Macedonians, Perrhaebi, AEnianes, Dolopians, Magnesians,
+and Achaeans, together with those who inhabit the maritime parts of
+Thrace--of these nations I suppose that there were three hundred
+thousand men, so that these _myriads_, added to those from Asia, make a
+total of two millions six hundred and forty one thousand six hundred and
+ten fighting men!
+
+I think that the servants who followed them, and with those on board the
+provision ships and other vessels that sailed with the fleet, were not
+fewer than the fighting men, but more numerous; but supposing them to be
+equal in number to the fighting men, they make up the former number of
+_myriads_.[52] Thus Xerxes, son of Darius, led five millions two hundred
+and eighty-three thousand two hundred and twenty men to Sepias and
+Thermopylae!
+
+[Footnote 52: In Greek numeration, ten thousand.]
+
+This, then, was the number of the whole force of Xerxes. But of women
+who made bread, and concubines, and eunuchs, no one could mention the
+number with accuracy; nor of draught-cattle and other beasts of burden;
+nor of Indian dogs that followed could any one mention the number, they
+were so many; therefore I am not astonished that the streams of some
+rivers failed, but rather it is a wonder to me how provisions held out
+for so many _myriads_; for I find by calculation, if each man had a
+_choenix_ of wheat daily, and no more, one hundred and ten thousand
+three hundred and forty _medimni_ must have been consumed every day; and
+I have not reckoned the food for the women, eunuchs, beasts of burden,
+and dogs. But of these _myriads_ of men, not one of them, for beauty and
+stature, was more entitled than Xerxes himself to possess the supreme
+command.
+
+When the fleet, having set out, sailed and reached the shore of Magnesia
+that lies between the city of Casthanaea and the coast of Sepias, the
+foremost of the ships took up their station close to land, others behind
+rode at anchor--the beach not being extensive enough--with their prows
+toward the sea, and eight deep. Thus they passed the night; but at
+daybreak, after serene and tranquil weather, the sea began to swell, and
+a heavy storm with a violent gale from the east--which those who inhabit
+these parts call a "Hellespontine"--burst upon them; as many of them
+then as perceived the gale increasing, and who were able to do so from
+their position, anticipated the storm by hauling their ships on shore,
+and both they and their ships escaped. But such of the ships as the
+storm caught at sea it carried away, some to the parts called Ipni, near
+Pelion, others to the beach; some were dashed on Cape Sepias itself;
+some were wrecked at Meliboea, and others at Casthanaea. The storm was
+indeed irresistible.
+
+The barbarians, when the wind had lulled and the waves had subsided,
+having hauled down their ships, sailed along the continent; and having
+doubled the promontory of Magnesia, stood directly into the bay leading
+to Pagasae. There is a spot in this bay of Magnesia where it is said
+Hercules was abandoned by Jason and his companions when he had been sent
+from the Argo for water, as they were sailing to Colchis, in Asia, for
+the golden fleece; and from there they purposed to put out to sea after
+they had taken in water. From this circumstance, the name of "Aphetae"
+was given to the place. In this place, then, the fleet of Xerxes was
+moored.
+
+Fifteen of these ships happened to be driven out to sea some time after
+the rest, and somehow saw the ships of the Greeks at Artemisium. The
+barbarians thought that they were their own, and sailing on, fell among
+their enemies. They were commanded by Sandoces, son of Thaumasius,
+governor of Cyme, of AEolia. He, being one of the royal judges, had been
+formerly condemned by King Darius (who had detected him in the following
+offence), to be crucified. Sandoces gave an unjust sentence, for a
+bribe; but while he was actually hanging on the cross, Darius,
+considering within himself, found that the services he had rendered to
+the royal family were greater than his faults. Darius, therefore, having
+discovered this, and perceiving that he, himself, had acted with more
+expedition than wisdom, released him. Having thus escaped being put to
+death by Darius, he survived; but now, sailing down among the Grecians,
+he was not to escape a second time; for when the Greeks saw them sailing
+toward them, perceiving the mistake they had committed, they bore down
+upon them and easily took them.
+
+King Xerxes encamped in the Trachinian territory of Malis, and the
+Greeks in the pass. This spot is called by most of the Greeks,
+"Thermopylae," but by the inhabitants and neighbors, "Pylae," Both
+parties, then, encamped in these places. The one was in possession of
+all the parts toward the north as far as Trachis, and the others, of the
+parts which stretch toward the south and meridian of this continent.
+
+The following were the Greeks who awaited the Persians in this position.
+Of Spartans, three hundred heavy-armed men; of Tegeans and Mantineans,
+one thousand (half of each); from Orchomenus in Arcadia, one hundred and
+twenty; and from the rest of Arcadia, one thousand (there were so many
+Arcadians); from Corinth, four hundred; from Phlius, two hundred men;
+and from Mycenae, eighty. These came from Peloponnesus. From Boeotia, of
+Thespians seven hundred; and of Thebans, four hundred.
+
+In addition to these, the Opuntian Locrians, being invited, came with
+all their forces, and a thousand Phocians; for the Greeks themselves
+had invited them, representing by their embassadors that "they had
+arrived as forerunners of the others, and that the rest of the allies
+might be daily expected; that the sea was protected by them, being
+guarded by the Athenians, the AEginetae, and others, who were appointed to
+the naval service; and that they had nothing to fear, for that it was
+not a god who invaded Greece, but a man; and that there never was, and
+never would be, any mortal who had not evil mixed with _his prosperity_
+from his very birth, and to the greatest of them the greatest _reverses
+happen_; that it must therefore needs be that he who is marching against
+us, being a mortal, will be disappointed in his expectation." They,
+having heard this, marched with assistance to Trachis.
+
+These nations had separate generals for their several cities, but the
+one most admired, and who commanded the whole army, was a Lacedaemonian,
+Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, son of Eurycratides, son of
+Anaxander, son of Eurycates, son of Polydorus, son of Alcamenes, son of
+Teleclus, son of Archelaus, son of Agesilaus, son of Doryssus, son of
+Leobotes, son of Echestratus, son of Agis, son of Eurysthenes, son of
+Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus, son of
+Hercules, who had unexpectedly succeeded to the throne of Sparta.
+
+For, as he had two elder brothers, Cleomenes and Dorieus, he was far
+from any thought of the kingdom. However, Cleomenes having died without
+male issue, and Dorieus being no longer alive--having ended his days in
+Sicily--the kingdom thus devolved upon Leonidas; both because he was
+older than Cleombrotus--for he was the youngest son of Anaxandrides--and
+also because he had married the daughter of Cleomenes. He then marched
+to Thermopylae, having chosen the three hundred men allowed by law, and
+such as had children. On his march he took with him the Thebans, whose
+numbers I have already reckoned, and whom Leontiades, son of Eurymachus,
+commanded. For this reason Leonidas was anxious to take with him the
+Thebans alone of all the Greeks, because they were strongly accused of
+favoring the Medes: he therefore summoned them to the war, wishing to
+know whether they would send their forces with him, or would openly
+renounce the alliance of the Grecians; but they, though otherwise
+minded, sent assistance.
+
+The Spartans sent these troops first with Leonidas, in order that the
+rest of the allies, seeing them, might take the field, and might not go
+over to the Medes if they heard that they were delaying; but
+afterward--for the Carnean festival was then an obstacle to them--they
+purposed, when they had kept the feast, to leave a garrison in Sparta
+and to march immediately with their whole strength. The rest of the
+confederates likewise intended to act in the same manner; for the
+Olympic games occurred at the same period as these events. As they did
+not, therefore, suppose that the engagement at Thermopylae would so soon
+be decided, they despatched an advance-guard.
+
+The Greeks at Thermopylae, when the Persians came near the pass, being
+alarmed, consulted about a retreat; accordingly, it seemed best to the
+other Peloponnesians to retire to Peloponnesus, and guard the Isthmus;
+but Leonidas, perceiving the Phocians and Locrians were very indignant
+at this proposition, determined to stay there, and to despatch
+messengers to the cities, desiring them to come to their assistance,
+they being too few to repel the army of the Medes.
+
+While they were deliberating on these matters, Xerxes sent a scout on
+horseback, to see how many they were and what they were doing; for while
+he was still in Thessaly, he had heard that a small army had been
+assembled at that spot, and as to their leaders, that they were
+Lacedaemonians, and Leonidas, who was of the race of Hercules. When the
+horseman rode up to the camp, he reconnoitred, and saw not indeed the
+whole camp, for it was not possible that they should be seen who were
+posted within the wall, which having rebuilt they were now guarding; but
+he had a clear view of those on the outside, whose arms were piled in
+front of the wall. At this time the Lacedaemonians happened to be posted
+outside; and some of the men he saw performing gymnastic exercises, and
+others combing their hair. On beholding this he was astonished, and
+ascertained their number, and having informed himself of everything
+accurately, he rode back at his leisure, for no one pursued him and he
+met with general contempt. On his return he gave an account to Xerxes
+of all that he had seen.
+
+When Xerxes heard this, he could not comprehend the truth that the
+Grecians were preparing to be slain and to slay to the utmost of their
+power; but, as they appeared to behave in a ridiculous manner, he sent
+for Demaratus, son of Ariston, who was then in the camp, and when he was
+come into his presence Xerxes questioned him as to each particular,
+wishing to understand what the Lacedaemonians were doing. Demaratus said:
+"You before heard me when we were setting out against Greece, speak of
+these men, and when you heard, you treated me with ridicule though I
+told you in what way I foresaw these matters would issue; for it is my
+chief aim, O king, to adhere to the truth in your presence; hear it,
+therefore, once more. These men have to fight with us for the pass and
+are now preparing themselves to do so; for such is their custom when
+they are going to hazard their lives, then they dress their heads; but
+be assured if you conquer these men and those that remain in Sparta,
+there is no other nation in the world that will dare to raise its hand
+against you, O king! for you are now to engage with the noblest kingdom
+and city of all among the Greeks and with the most valiant men." What
+was said seemed incredible to Xerxes and he asked again, "how, being so
+few in number, they could contend with his army." He answered: "O king,
+deal with me as with a liar if these things do not turn out as I say!"
+
+By saying this he did not convince Xerxes. He therefore let four days
+pass, constantly expecting that they would be taking themselves to
+flight; but on the fifth day, as they had not retreated, but appeared to
+him to stay through arrogance and rashness, he, being enraged, sent the
+Medes and Cissians against them, with orders to take them alive, and
+bring them into his presence. When the Medes bore down impetuously upon
+the Greeks, many of them fell; others followed to the charge, and were
+not repulsed, though they suffered greatly; but they made it evident to
+every one, and not least of all to the king himself, that they were
+indeed many men, but few soldiers. The engagement lasted through the
+day.
+
+When the Medes were roughly handled, they thereupon retired, and the
+Persians whom the king called "Immortal," and whom Hydarnes commanded,
+taking their place advanced to the attack thinking that they indeed
+would easily settle the business. But when they engaged with the
+Grecians they succeeded no better than the Medic troops, but just the
+same; as they fought in a narrow space and used shorter spears than the
+Greeks, they were unable to avail themselves of their numbers. The
+Lacedaemonians fought memorably in other respects, showing that they knew
+how to fight with men who knew not, and whenever they turned their backs
+they retreated in close order, but the barbarians, seeing them retreat,
+followed with a shout and clamor; then they, being overtaken, wheeled
+round so as to front the barbarians, and having faced about, overthrew
+an inconceivable number of the Persians, and then some few of the
+Spartans themselves fell, so that when the Persians were unable to gain
+anything in their attempt on the pass by attacking in troops and in
+every possible manner, they retired.
+
+It is said that during these onsets of the battle, the king, who
+witnessed them, thrice sprang from his throne, being alarmed for his
+army. Thus they strove at that time. On the following day the barbarians
+fought with no better success; for considering that the Greeks were few
+in number, and expecting that they were covered with wounds and would
+not be able to raise their heads against them any more, they renewed the
+contest. But the Greeks were marshalled in companies and according to
+their several nations, and each fought in turn, except only the
+Phocians; they were stationed at the mountain to guard the pathway.
+When, therefore, the Persians found nothing different from what they had
+seen on the preceding day, they retired.
+
+While the king was in doubt what course to take in the present state of
+affairs, Ephialtes, son of Eurydemus, a Malian, obtained an audience of
+him (expecting that he should receive a great reward from the king), and
+informed him of the path which leads over the mountain to Thermopylae,
+and by that means caused the destruction of those Greeks who were
+stationed there; but afterward, fearing the Lacedaemonians, he fled to
+Thessaly, and when he had fled, a price was set on his head by the
+Pylagori when the Amphictyons were assembled at Pylae; but some time
+after, he went down to Anticyra and was killed by Athenades, a
+Trachinian.
+
+Another account is given, that Onetes, son of Phanagoras, a Carystian,
+and Corydallus of Anticyra, were the persons who gave this information
+to the king and conducted the Persians round the mountains; but to me,
+this is by no means credible; for, in the first place, we may draw the
+inference from this circumstance, that the Pylagori of the Grecians set
+a price on the head, not of Onetes and Corydallus, but of Ephialtes the
+Trachinian, having surely ascertained the exact truth; and, in the next
+place, we know that Ephialtes fled on that account. Onetes, indeed,
+though he was not a Malian, might be acquainted with this path if he had
+been conversant with the country; but it was Ephialtes who conducted
+them round the mountain by the path, and I charge him as the guilty
+person.
+
+Xerxes, since he was pleased with what Ephialtes promised to perform,
+being exceedingly delighted, immediately despatched Hydarnes and the
+troops that Hydarnes commanded, and he started from the camp about the
+hour of lamp-lighting. The native Malians discovered this pathway, and
+having discovered it, conducted the Thessalians by it against the
+Phocians at the time when the Phocians, having fortified the pass by a
+wall, were under shelter from an attack. From that time it appeared to
+have been of no service to the Malians.
+
+This path is situated as follows: it begins from the river Asopus, which
+flows through the cleft; the same name is given both to the mountain and
+to the path, "Anopaea," and this Anopaea extends along the ridge of the
+mountain and ends near Alpenus, which is the first city of the Locrians
+toward the Malians, and by the rock called "Melampygus," and by the
+seats of the Cercopes, and there the path is the narrowest.
+
+Along this path, thus situate, the Persians, having crossed the Asopus,
+marched all night, having on their right the mountains of the Oetaeans,
+and on their left those of the Trachinians; morning appeared, and they
+were on the summit of the mountain. At this part of the mountain, as I
+have already mentioned, a thousand heavy-armed Phocians kept guard, to
+defend their own country and to secure the pathway--for the lower pass
+was guarded by those before mentioned--and the Phocians had voluntarily
+promised Leonidas to guard the path across the mountain.
+
+The Phocians discovered them after they had ascended, in the following
+manner; for the Persian ascended without being observed, as the whole
+mountain was covered with oaks; there was a perfect calm, and, as was
+likely, a considerable rustling taking place from the leaves strewn
+under foot, the Phocians sprang up and put on their arms, and
+immediately the barbarians made their appearance. But when they saw men
+clad in armor they were astonished, for, expecting to find nothing to
+oppose them, they fell in with an army; thereupon Hydarnes, fearing lest
+the Phocians might be Lacedaemonians, asked Ephialtes of what nation the
+troops were, and being accurately informed, he drew up the Persians for
+battle. The Phocians, when they were hit by many and thick-falling
+arrows, fled to the summit of the mountain, supposing that they had come
+expressly to attack them, and prepared to perish. Such was their
+determination. But the Persians, with Ephialtes and Hydarnes, took no
+notice of the Phocians but marched down the mountain with all speed.
+
+To those of the Greeks who were at Thermopylae, the augur Megistias,
+having inspected the sacrifices, first made known the death that would
+befall them in the morning; certain deserters afterward came and brought
+intelligence of the circuit the Persians were taking. These brought the
+news while it was yet night; and, thirdly, the scouts running down from
+the heights as soon as day dawned, _brought the same intelligence_. Upon
+this the Greeks held a consultation, and their opinions were divided;
+some would not hear of abandoning their post, and others opposed that
+view. After this, when the assembly broke up, some of them departed, and
+being dispersed, betook themselves to their several cities; but others
+of them prepared to remain there with Leonidas.
+
+It is said that Leonidas himself sent them away, being anxious that they
+should not perish, but that he and the Spartans who were there could not
+honorably desert the post which they originally came to defend. For my
+own part, I am rather inclined to think that Leonidas, when he perceived
+that the allies were averse and unwilling to share the danger with him,
+bade them withdraw, but that he considered it dishonorable for himself
+to depart; on the other hand, by remaining there, great renown would be
+left for him and the prosperity of Sparta would not be obliterated, for
+it had been announced to the Spartans by the Pythian, when they
+consulted the oracle concerning this war as soon as it commenced, "that
+either Lacedaemon must be overthrown by the barbarians, or their king
+perish." This answer she gave in hexameter verses, to this effect: "To
+you, O inhabitants of spacious Lacedaemon! either your vast glorious city
+shall be destroyed by men sprung from Perseus, or, if not so, the
+confines of Lacedaemon shall mourn a king deceased, of the race of
+Hercules. For neither shall the strength of bulls nor of lions withstand
+him with force opposed to force, for he has the strength of Jove, and I
+say he shall not be restrained before he has certainly obtained one of
+these for his share." I think, therefore, that Leonidas, considering
+these things and being desirous to acquire glory for the Spartans alone,
+sent away the allies, rather than that those who went away differed in
+opinion, and went away in such an unbecoming manner.
+
+The following in no small degree strengthens my conviction on this
+point; for not only _did he send away_ the others, but it is certain
+that Leonidas also sent away the augur who followed the army, Megistias
+the Acarnanian, who was said to have been originally descended from
+Melampus, the same who announced, from an inspection of the victims,
+what was about to befall them, in order that he might not perish with
+them. He however, though dismissed, did not himself depart but sent away
+his son who served with him in the expedition, being his only child.
+
+The allies that were dismissed, accordingly departed, and obeyed
+Leonidas, but only the Thespians and the Thebans remained with the
+Lacedaemonians; the Thebans, indeed, remained unwillingly and against
+their inclination, for Leonidas detained them, treating them as
+hostages; but the Thespians willingly, for they refused to go away and
+abandon Leonidas and those with him, but remained and died with them.
+Demophilus, son of Diadromas, commanded them.
+
+Xerxes, after he had poured out libations at sunrise, having waited a
+short time, began his attack about the time of full market, for he had
+been so instructed by Ephialtes; for the descent from the mountain is
+more direct and the distance much shorter than the circuit and ascent.
+The barbarians, therefore, with Xerxes, advanced, and the Greeks with
+Leonidas, marching out as if for certain death, now advanced much
+farther than before into the wide part of the defile, for the
+fortification of the wall had protected them, and they on the preceding
+days, having taken up their position in the narrow part, fought there;
+but now engaging outside the narrows, great numbers of the barbarians
+fell; for the officers of the companies from behind, having scourges,
+flogged every man, constantly urging them forward; in consequence, many
+of them, falling into the sea, perished, and many more were trampled
+alive under foot by one another and no regard was paid to any that
+perished, for the Greeks, knowing that death awaited them at the hands
+of those who were going round the mountain, being desperate and
+regardless of their own lives, displayed the utmost possible valor
+against the barbarians.
+
+Already were most of their javelins broken and they had begun to
+despatch the Persians with their swords. In this part of the struggle
+fell Leonidas, fighting valiantly, and with him other eminent Spartans,
+whose names, seeing they were deserving men, I have ascertained; indeed,
+I have ascertained the names of the whole three hundred. On the side of
+the Persians also, many other eminent men fell on this occasion, and
+among them two sons of Darius, Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, born to Darius
+of Phrataguna, daughter of Artanes; but Artanes was brother to king
+Darius, and son of Hystaspes, son of Arsames. He, when he gave his
+daughter to Darius, gave him also all his property, as she was his only
+child.
+
+Accordingly, two brothers of Xerxes fell at this spot fighting for the
+body of Leonidas, and there was a violent struggle between the Persians
+and Lacedaemonians, until at last the Greeks rescued it by their valor
+and four times repulsed the enemy. Thus the contest continued until
+those with Ephialtes came up. When the Greeks heard that they were
+approaching, from this time the battle was altered; for they retreated
+to the narrow part of the way, and passing beyond the wall came and took
+up their position on the rising ground all in a compact body with the
+exception of the Thebans. The rising ground is at the entrance where the
+stone lion now stands to the memory of Leonidas. On this spot, while
+they defended themselves with swords--such as had them still
+remaining--and with hands and teeth, the barbarians overwhelmed them
+with missiles, some of them attacking them in front, having thrown down
+the wall, and others surrounding and attacking them on every side.
+
+Though the Lacedaemonians and Thespians behaved in this manner, yet
+Dieneces, a Spartan, is said to have been the bravest man. They relate
+that he made the following remark before they engaged with the Medes,
+having heard a Trachinian say that when the barbarians let fly their
+arrows they would obscure the sun by the multitude of their shafts, so
+great was their number; but he, not at all alarmed at this, said,
+holding in contempt the numbers of the Medes, that "their Trachinian
+friend told them everything to their advantage, since if the Medes
+obscure the sun, they would then have to fight in the shade and not in
+the sun." This, and other sayings of the same kind, they relate that
+Dieneces the Lacedaemonian left as memorials.
+
+Next to him, two Lacedaemonian brothers, Alpheus and Maron, sons of
+Orisiphantus, are said to have distinguished themselves most; and of the
+Thespians, he obtained the greatest glory whose name was Dithyrambus,
+son of Harmatides.
+
+In honor of the slain, who were buried on the spot where they fell, and
+of those who died before they who were dismissed by Leonidas went away,
+the following inscription has been engraved over them: "Four thousand
+from Peloponnesus once fought on this spot with three hundred
+_myriads_![53]" This inscription was made for all; and for the Spartans
+in particular: "Stranger, go tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here,
+obedient to their commands!" This was for the Lacedaemonians; and for
+the prophet, the following: "This is the monument of the illustrious
+Megistias, whom once the Medes, having passed the river Sperchius, slew;
+a prophet who, at the time well knowing the impending fate, would not
+abandon the leaders of Sparta!"
+
+[Footnote 53: Three millions.]
+
+The Amphictyons are the persons who honored them with these inscriptions
+and columns, with the exception of the inscription to the prophet; that
+of the prophet Megistias, Simonides, son of Leoprepes, caused to be
+engraved, from personal friendship.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+B.C. 5867--B.C. 451
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
+
+EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME
+
+B.C. 5867--B.C. 451
+
+JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
+
+
+Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals
+following give volume and page.
+
+Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of
+famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page
+references showing where the several events are fully treated.
+
+All dates are approximate up to B.C. 776, the beginning of the
+Olympiads.
+
+B.C.
+
+=5867.= Menes, the first human ruler recorded in history, unites the two
+kingdoms of Egypt under one crown; introduces the cult of Apis; founds
+the city of Memphis; rears the great temple of Ptah. See "DAWN OF
+CIVILIZATION," i, 1.
+
+=5000.= Babylonia is invaded by a race of Semites; they conquer the land
+and become the Babylonians of history.
+
+=4500 (before)=. A patesi (priest-ruler), by name En-shag-kush-anna, is
+King of Kengi, Southern Babylonia; Sungir, which later gave the name
+Sumer to the whole district, is his capital.
+
+=4400.= Shirpurla, Mesopotamia, subjugated by Mesilim, King of Kish.
+
+=4200.= The hero of Shirpurla, E-anna-tum, throws off the Kish yoke and
+takes the title of king. He is successful in conflicts with Erech, Ur,
+and Larsa. Walls are erected and canals dug by him.
+
+=3700.= The great Pyramid of Gizeh erected. This was during the IV or
+Pyramid dynasty; so called because its chief monarchs built the three
+great pyramids.
+
+Beautiful Queen Nitocris, of the VI dynasty, reigned about this time.
+She is said to have avenged the killing of her brother, King of Egypt,
+by inviting his murderers to a banquet held in a subterranean chamber.
+Into this the river was turned, and they all miserably perished.
+
+=3000.= Nineveh, colonized from Babylonia, ruled by subject princes of
+that country.
+
+=2800.= Probable date of the foundation of the Chinese empire.
+
+=2500.= Rise of the kingdom of Elam. Asshurbanipal (Sardanapalus), King
+of Nineveh, records an invasion of Chaldaea, or Babylonia, by the
+Elamites, B.C. 2300. The records of clay recently unearthed show that
+Cyrus was originally king of Elam. See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT,"
+i, 250.
+
+=2458=. Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) founds the religion known by his name.
+Ancient tradition has it that he was a Median king who conquered Babylon
+about B.C. 2458. M. Haug assigns the date as not later than B.C. 2300.
+Be the time when he lived what it may, it is certain that, as the
+Persian national religion, it dates little further back than B.C. 559
+and up to A.D. 641. The four elements--fire, air, earth, and water,
+especially the first--were recognized as the only proper objects of
+human reverence.
+
+=2300.= A chart of the heavens in China.
+
+=2250.= Commencement of the reign of Hammurabi, King of Babylonia: the
+earliest compilation of a code of laws was made in this reign. See
+"COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE," i, 14.
+
+=2200-1700.= Dominion of the Hyksos, or Shepherd kings, in Egypt. It is
+not improbable that Abraham made his well-known journey to Egypt during
+the early reign of these kings. Joseph's visit occurred near the close
+of their power.
+
+=2200.= Hereditary monarchy founded in China.
+
+=1700-1250.= The new empire of Egypt attains the period of its greatest
+splendor and power. Meneptah, about 1320 (1322), has been generally
+accepted as the Pharaoh of the Exodus.
+
+=1500.= Independence of Assyria as the rising of a kingdom apart from
+Babylonia; the rise of Nineveh.
+
+=1450-1300.= The Hittite realm in Syria attains its greatest power. The
+Egyptians knew the Hittites as the Khita or Khatta. Recent discoveries
+indicate that they formed a civilized and powerful nation. Many
+inscriptions and rock sculptures in Asia Minor, formerly inexplicable,
+are now attributed to the Hittites of the Bible.
+
+=1330.= Rameses II of Egypt; the Sesostris of the Greeks.
+
+=1300.= Shalmaneser I reigns in Assyria.
+
+=1250.= The Phoenicians, closely allied in language to the Hebrews, begin
+their colonizing career.
+
+=1235.= Probable date of the consolidation of Athens, See "THESEUS FOUNDS
+ATHENS," i, 45.
+
+=1200.= Exodus of Israel from Egypt.
+
+"FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA," See i, 52.
+
+=1184.= "FALL OF TROY." See i, 70.
+
+=1122.= Wou Wang becomes emperor of China.
+
+=1120.= Beginning of the reign of Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria.
+
+=1100.= Dorian migration into the Peloponnesus.
+
+=1095 (1055; 1080 common chronology).= Hebrews establish the monarchy.
+Saul the first king.
+
+=1058 (1033).= At Gilboa, Saul is defeated by the Philistines. David
+becomes king in Judah.
+
+=1017 (998).= Accession of Solomon as king of the Hebrews. The Temple at
+Jerusalem is built in this reign. See "ACCESSION OF SOLOMON," i, 92.
+
+=1015.= Smyrna founded.
+
+=977 (953).= Israel and Judah become separate kingdoms, following the
+revolt of the Ten Tribes under Jeroboam.
+
+=973 (949).= Jerusalem captured by Sheshonk, King of Egypt.
+
+=958 (929).= Asa ascends the throne of Judah.
+
+=931 (899).= Omri's accession in Israel.
+
+=917 (873).= Jehoshaphat begins his reign in Judah.
+
+=900 (853).= The Syrians defeat and slay Ahab, King of Israel, at
+Ramoth-Gilead.
+
+Divambar conquers Armenia, Persia, Syria, and adjacent lands.
+
+=887 (843).= The throne of Israel usurped by Jehu.
+
+=850.= The Tyrians colonize Carthage.
+
+=811 (792).= Uzziah succeeds to the throne of Judah.
+
+=800.= The canal and tunnel of Negoub constructed to convey the waters of
+the Zab River to Nineveh.
+
+=800 (850).= Sparta: Probable date of the legislation of Lycurgus.
+
+=790 (825).= Jeroboam II becomes King of Israel.
+
+=789.= First destruction of Nineveh: death of Sardanapalus. See "FIRST
+DESTRUCTION OF NINEVEH," i, 105.
+
+=776.= Beginning of the Olympiads. Olympiad in ancient Greece meant the
+space of four years between one celebration of the Olympic games and
+another. In this year it began as a system of chronology.
+
+=772. [A](748)=. End of Jehu's dynasty in Israel.
+
+=753 (common chronology).= "FOUNDATION OF ROME." See i, 116.
+
+=750.= [A] The Corinthians found Syracuse.
+
+=743-724.= First great war between Sparta and Messenia: the latter is
+subjugated.
+
+=734.= [A] Syria becomes subject to Tiglath-Pileser II of Assyria.
+
+=731.= [A] Tiglath-Pileser II subjects Chaldea.
+
+=727. [A] (728)=. Hezekiah ascends the throne of Judah.
+
+=722.= [A] King Sargon of Assyria conquers Samaria; he puts an end to the
+kingdom of Israel. Captivity of the Ten Tribes.
+
+=701.= Siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib; he encounters the Egyptian and
+Ethiopian forces; his expedition into Syria fails.
+
+=697.= Accession of Manasseh to the throne of Judah.
+
+=685-668.= The second war between Sparta and Messenia.
+
+=660.= [A] Prince Jimmu establishes Yamato as the capital of Japan. See
+"PRINCE JIMMU FOUNDS JAPAN'S CAPITAL," i, 140.
+
+=650.=[A] The whole of Egypt united under Psammetichus I, founder of the
+XXVI dynasty. He frees Egypt from Assyrian rule and opens the country to
+the Greeks.
+
+=645-628.= The Messenians make an unsuccessful attempt to throw off the
+yoke of Sparta.
+
+[A] Date uncertain
+
+=640.= Birth of Thales, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. He taught
+the spherical form of the earth and the true causes of lunar eclipses;
+discovered the electricity of amber. The Seven Sages, or Wise Men, are
+commonly made up of Thales, Solon, Bias, Chilo, Cleobulus, Periander,
+and Pittacus.
+
+Media becomes independent of Assyria; she appears as a single united
+kingdom.
+
+=625.= Media, Assyria, and Syria have a great irruption of Scythians in
+their borders.
+
+=623.= "FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM," See i, 160.
+
+=621.= [B](624). Date of the legislation of Draco, at Athens.
+
+=612.= Conspiracy of Cylon at Athens.
+
+=609.= [B] Josiah is slain at Megiddo, when Necho, the Egyptian King,
+crushes the power of Judah.
+
+=607.= [B] Nineveh taken by the Medes and Babylonians, who overthrow the
+Assyrian monarchy.
+
+=605.= [B] Nebuchadnezzar defeats Necho at Carchemish. Necho maintained a
+powerful fleet; the Phoenician ships under his order rounded the Cape of
+Good Hope. Herodotus says that twice during this voyage the crews,
+fearing a lack of food, after landing, drew their ships on shore, sowed
+grain and waited for a harvest. It will be noticed that this was over
+two thousand years before Vasco da Gama, to whom is usually given the
+credit of first circumnavigating Africa.
+
+=597.= [B] Jerusalem captured by Nebuchadnezzar, who carries away the
+principal inhabitants.
+
+=595.= The Delphic Games in Greece. See "PYTHIAN GAMES AT DELPHI," i, 181.
+
+=594.= Adoption of the Constitution of Solon at Athens, See "SOLON'S EARLY
+GREEK LEGISLATION," i, 203.
+
+=586.= [B] Nebuchadnezzar captures and destroys Jerusalem; puts an end to
+the kingdom of Judah. The Babylonish captivity.
+
+=570.= [B] Egypt attacked by Nebuchadnezzar, who dethrones Hophra (Apries);
+he places Amasis on the throne.
+
+=560.= Tyranny of Pisistratus at Athens. The Grecian poor were still
+getting poorer, notwithstanding Solon's legislation; they clamored for
+relief, placed Pisistratus at their head, and passed a decree allowing
+him to have a body-guard of fifty men armed with clubs. Pisistratus then
+threw off all disguise and established himself in the Acropolis as
+tyrant of Athens.
+
+=550.= [B] Cyrus, at the head of the Persians, destroys the Median
+monarchy. See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT," i, 250.
+
+=550.= [B] "RISE OF CONFUCIUS, THE CHINESE SAGE," See i, 270.
+
+=546.= Croesus, King of Lydia, overthrown by Cyrus. See "CONQUESTS OF
+CYRUS THE GREAT," i, 250.
+
+=540.= [B] Calimachus invents the Corinthian order of architecture.
+
+[B] Date uncertain.
+
+=538.= Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. See "CONQUESTS OF CYRUS THE GREAT,"
+i, 250.
+
+=529.= Death of Cyrus; Cambyses succeeds him on the throne of Persia.
+
+=527.= Hippias and Hipparchus succeed their father, Pisistratus, at
+Athens, in the government of that city.
+
+=525 (527).= Conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, King of Persia. He completely
+subdued it, and, after an attempted rising, crushed Egypt with merciless
+severity. Cambyses treated the Egyptian deities, priests, and temples
+with insult and contempt.
+
+AEschylus, Greek tragic poet, born.
+
+=522.= Pseudo-Smerdis usurps the Persian throne. Cambyses had slain his
+brother Bardes, whom Herodotus calls Smerdis. A Magian, Gaumata by name,
+resembling Bardes in appearance, impersonated the murdered prince. A
+revolution ensued and, owing to the death of Cambyses by his own hand,
+Pseudo-Smerdis became master of the empire.
+
+=521.= Darius I, by defeating Pseudo-Smerdis, who had reigned eight
+months, ascends the Persian throne.
+
+=521-516.= The Temple at Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the
+Babylonians, rebuilt.
+
+=520.= [C] Birth of Pindar, the chief lyric poet of Greece. He was in the
+prime of life when Salamis and Thermopylae were fought. His poems have as
+groundwork the legends which form the Grecian religious literature.
+
+=516.= [C] Invasion of Scythia by Darius, King of Persia, who seems to have
+acted according to an oriental idea of right, in that he claimed to
+punish the Scythians for an invasion of Media at some previous time.
+
+=514.= Hipparchus, of Athens, assassinated by Harmodius and Aristogiton.
+
+=514.= [C] Birth of Themistocles, a famous Athenian commander and
+statesman. He was largely instrumental in increasing the navy; induced
+the Athenians to leave Athens for Salamis and the fleet, and brought
+about the victory of Salamis.
+
+=510.= Hippias expelled from Athens. The democratic party is headed by
+Clisthenes, the master-spirit of the revolution inaugurated for the
+overthrow of the despotic and hated sons of Pisistratus. The Athenian
+democracy was reorganized by Clisthenes.
+
+=510.= The Crotonians destroy Sybaris. Croton and Sybaris were two ancient
+Greek cities situated on the Gulf of Tarentum, Southern Italy. Little is
+known of them except their luxury, fantastic self-indulgence, and
+extravagant indolence, for which qualities their names remain a
+synonyme.
+
+=510.= Expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome. Founding of the Republic;
+consulship instituted. See "ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.
+
+=506.= [C] The Persians subject Macedonia, and extend their dominion over
+Thrace. The Thracians occupied the region between the rivers Strymon and
+Danube. They were more Asiatic than European in character and religion.
+
+[C] Date uncertain.
+
+=500 [D] (501, 502).= Rising of the Greek colonies in Ionia against the
+Persians. Harpagus, who had saved Cyrus in his infancy from his
+grandfather, while governor of Lydia reduced the cities of the coast.
+Town after town submitted. The Tieans abandoned theirs, retiring to
+Abdera in Thrace; the Phocians, after settling in Corsica, whence they
+were driven by the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians, went to Italy and
+later founded Massalia (Marseilles) on the coast of Gaul. Thus the Greek
+colonies became a portion of the Persian empire. The insurrection of the
+Ionians continued for six years, the fate of the revolt turning at last
+on the siege of Miletus.
+
+=499 [D] (500)=. Ionian expedition against Sardis. The city was taken and
+during the pillage was accidentally burned. The Ionian forces were
+utterly inadequate to hold Sardis; and their return was not effected
+without a serious defeat by the pursuing army of Persians.
+
+=497.57= [D] The Latins are defeated by the Romans at Lake Regillus.
+
+=495.= Birth of Sophocles.
+
+=494.= The naval battle of Lade, in which the Persians defeat the Asiatic
+Greeks. Fall of Miletus.
+
+=494 (492).= First secession of the plebeians from Rome. Creation of the
+tribunes of the people. See "ROME ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.
+
+=493 (491).= The Latins are compelled by the Romans to enter into a league
+with Rome, which is threatened by the Etruscans, Volscians, and the
+AEquians. The Latins obtained the name of Roman citizens; the title
+disguised a real subjection, since the men who bore it had the
+obligation of citizens without the rights.
+
+=492.= [D] Mardonius heads the first Persian expedition against Greece.
+
+=490.= Battle of Marathon, in which Darius' Persian host is overwhelmingly
+defeated by Miltiades, See "THE BATTLE OF MARATHON," i, 322.
+
+=489.= Condemnation and death of Miltiades. See "THE BATTLE OF MARATHON,"
+i, 322.
+
+=486.= Darius Hystaspes, of Persia, is succeeded on the throne by his son
+Xerxes.
+
+League of Rome with the Hernici.
+
+=484.= [D] Birth of Herodotus, the "Father of History,"
+
+=483.= Aristides, one of the ten leaders of the Greeks at Marathon,
+ostracized through the jealousy of Themistocles.
+
+=480.= Second Persian invasion of Greece, this time by Xerxes. Defence of
+Thermopylae by Leonidas. See "DEFENCE OF THERMOPYLAE," i, 354. Naval
+battle of Artemisium. Athens burned. The Persian fleet vanquished by
+Themistocles and Eurybiades at Salamis. Retreat of Xerxes.
+
+[D] Date uncertain.
+
+The Carthaginians attempt the conquest of the Greek cities of Sicily.
+Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, defeats their army at Himera.
+
+Birth of Euripides, the celebrated Greek tragic poet.[E]
+
+=479.= The Greeks, under the command of Pausanias, at the battle of
+Plataea, crush the Persian army under the lead of Mardonius. Leotychides
+and Nanthippus gain a simultaneous victory over the Persian fleet at
+Mycale. End of the Persian invasion of Greece.
+
+=478.= The tyranny of Hieron, brother of Gelon, begins at Syracuse. He was
+noted as a patron of literature.
+
+=477.= The predominance in Greece passes from Sparta to Athens, by the
+formation of the Confederacy of Delos.
+
+=474.= Hieron, of Syracuse, defeats the Etruscans near Cumae.
+
+=471.= Themistocles exiled from Athens, the Spartan faction having plotted
+his ruin, alleging his complicity with the enemy.
+
+Birth of Thucydides.[E]
+
+=470 (471).= The Publilian law passed in Rome; the plebeians accorded the
+right of initiating legislation in their assemblies. See "ROME
+ESTABLISHED AS A REPUBLIC," i, 300.
+
+=469.= [E] Birth of Socrates.
+
+=468.= [E] Democracy triumphs in the cities of Sicily.
+
+=466.= Naval victory of the Greeks, under Cimon, over the Persians at
+Eurymedon. B.C. 470 Cimon had reduced Eion, after a gallant defence by
+Boges, the Persian governor, who, rather than surrender, cast all his
+gold and silver into the river Strymon, raised a huge pile of wood, and
+on it placed the bodies of his wives, children, and slaves--all of whom
+he had slain--then, having set fire thereto, he flung himself into the
+flames and perished.
+
+The Revolt of Naxos crushed by Cimon during the expedition against the
+Persians.
+
+Fall of the tyrants at Syracuse.
+
+=465.= Murder of Xerxes I, by Artabanus, captain of his guard; accession
+of Artaxerxes I to the Persian throne.
+
+=464.= Sparta destroyed by an earthquake which shook the whole of Laconia,
+opened great chasms in the ground, rolled down huge masses from the
+peaks of Taygetus, and threw Sparta into a heap of ruins. Not more than
+five houses are said to have remained standing. Twenty thousand persons
+lost their lives by the shock. The flower of the Spartan youth was slain
+by the overthrow of the building in which they were exercising.
+
+=464-455.= The Messenian helots rise against the Spartans, taking
+advantage of the confusion caused by the earthquake. This was the
+beginning of the third Messenian war.
+
+=463.= Mycenae is reduced by the Argives, who enslave or drive away its
+inhabitants.
+
+=460.= Birth of Hippocrates, in the island of Cos, who became known as the
+"Father of Medicine."
+
+=458.= [E] Jews return from Babylonia to Jerusalem, under Ezra.
+
+Esther, the Jewess, pleases King Ahasuerus and is made queen in place of
+Vashti. This was the origin of the Jewish festival of Purim, celebrated
+on the 14th and 15th of the month Adar (March).
+
+Beginning of the Long Walls of Athens; built to protect the
+communication of the city with its port. One, four miles long, ran to
+the harbor of Phalerum, and others, four and one-half miles long, to the
+Piraeus.
+
+=457.= Beginning of war of Corinth, Sparta, and AEgina with Athens: Battle
+of Tanagra, in which the Athenians were defeated.
+
+=456.= Athenian victory at OEnophyta; the Boeotians defeated by Myronides,
+who also secures the submission of Phocis and Locris.
+
+=455.= End of the third Messenian war.
+
+=451.= Ion of Chios, historian and tragedian, exhibits his first drama.
+
+[E] Date uncertain.
+
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOLUME I
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: The Sabine women--now mothers--suing for peace between
+the combatants (their Roman husbands and their Sabine relations).
+
+Painting by Jacques L. David]
+
+[Illustration: Sphinx with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh
+
+From an original photograph.]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: THE TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION OF THE ROSETTA STONE. IN
+HIEROGLYPHIC, DEMOTIC, AND GREEK CHARACTERS. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON.
+
+(FOR DESCRIPTION OF THIS CUT, SEE OTHER SIDE.)]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ROSETTA STONE
+
+
+Almost as interesting as the Rosetta Stone itself is the story of its
+discovery. During the French occupation of Egypt soldiers were digging
+out the foundations of a fort, and in the trench the famous tablet was
+found. At the peace of Alexandra the Rosetta Stone passed to the
+English, who (1801) housed it in the British Museum, where it remains.
+The text when translated showed that the inscription is a "decree of the
+priests of Memphis, conferring divine honors on Ptolemy V, Epiphanes,
+King of Egypt, B.C. 195," on the occasion of his coronation. Further it
+commands that the decree be inscribed in the sacred letters
+(hieroglyphics); the alphabet of the people (enuchorial or demotic); and
+Greek.
+
+It was recognized by the trustees of the British Museum that the problem
+of the Rosetta Stone was one which would test the ingenuity of the
+scientists of the world to unfathom, and they promptly published a
+carefully prepared copy of the entire inscription. Scholars of every
+nation exhausted their learning to unravel the riddle, but beyond a few
+shrewd guesses (afterward proved to be quite incorrect) nothing was
+accomplished for a dozen years. The key was there, but its application
+required the inspired insight of genius.
+
+Dr. Thomas Young, the demonstrator of the vibratory nature of light, who
+had perhaps the most versatile profundity of knowledge and the keenest
+scientific imagination of his generation, undertook the task.
+
+Accident had called Young's attention to the Rosetta Stone, and his
+rapacity for knowledge led him to speculate as to the possible aid this
+trilingual inscription might offer in the solution of Egyptian problems.
+Having an amazing faculty for the acquisition of languages, he, in one
+short year, had mastered Coptic, after having assured himself that it
+was the nearest existing approach to the ancient Egyptian language, and
+had even made a tentative attempt at the translation of the Egyptian
+scroll. This was the very beginning of our knowledge of the meaning of
+hieroglyphics.
+
+The specific discoveries that Dr. Young made were: 1, That some of the
+pictures of the hieroglyphics stand for the names of the objects
+delineated; 2, that other pictures are at times only symbolic; 3, that
+plural numbers are represented by repetition; 4, that numerals are
+represented by dashes; 5, that hieroglyphics may read either from the
+right or from the left, but always from the direction in which the
+animals and human figures face; 6, that a graven oval ring surrounds
+proper names, making a cartouche; 7, that the cartouches of the Rosetta
+Stone stand for the name of Ptolemy alone; 8, that the presence of a
+female figure after such cartouches always denotes the female sex; 9,
+that within the cartouches the hieroglyphic symbols have an actual
+phonetic value, either alphabetic or syllabic; and 10, that several
+dissimilar characters may have the same phonetic value.
+
+K A L A RE SA W SA RE M HA HER RE M T
+
+[Illustration:
+
+=_Kaharesapusaremkaherremt_=.
+
+AN EGYPTIAN PROPER NAME SPELLED OUT IN FULL BY MEANS OF ALPHABETICAL AND
+SYLLABIC SIGNS.]
+
+Dr. Young was certainly on the right track, and very near the complete
+discovery; unfortunately he failed to take the next step, which was to
+learn that the use of an alphabet was not confined to proper names. This
+grand secret Young missed; his French successor, Champollion, ferreted
+it out from the foundation he had laid. The "Enigma of the Sphinx" was
+practically solved, and the secrets held by the monuments of Egypt for
+so many centuries were disclosed to the world. Champollion proved that
+the Egyptians had developed an alphabet--neglecting the vowels, as did
+also the early Semitic alphabet--centuries before the Phoenicians were
+heard of in history. Some of these pictures are purely alphabetical in
+character, some are otherwise symbolic. Some characters represent
+syllables, others again stand as representatives of sounds, and once
+again, as representatives of things; hence the difficulties and
+complications it presented.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians,
+Vol. 1, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EVENTS ***
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