Full text of "The course of empire; outlines of the chief political changes in the history of the world"

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.SouVl. I |>i- St." '
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FAMILIAR ALLUSIONS:

A Handbook of Miscellaneous Information about Celebrated
Statues, Palaces, Churches, Ships, etc. Begun by WILLIAM A.
WHEELER. Completed and Edited by CHARLES G. WHEELER, iztno.
Price #3.00

I. PAINTINGS AND STATUARY.

La Fornarina, Last Judgment, Slave Ship, Beatrice Cenci, Old Te'meraire,
Marguerite, etc. j Antinous, Niobe, Torso Belvedere, Venus of Milo, etc.

II. BUILDINGS.

a. RUINS, etc., as Mouse Tower, Drachenfels. Stonehenge. Forum of Trajan,
Maison Carrie, etc. *. ROYAL PALACES, as Holyrood, Schonbrunn, Doge's
Palace, Trianon, etc. c. MUSEUMS, etc., as Pinakothek, Geyptothek, Uffizi,
etc. d. CATHEDRALS, ABBEYS, etc., as Ara Coeli, Madeleine, Mormon Tem-
ple, Westminster Abbey, Trinita de' Monti, etc. e. THEATRES, HALLS, etc.,
as Exeter Hall, Drury Lane, Haymarket, Trinity House, Wallack's, La Scala,
etc. f. PALACES, CASTLES, etc., as Pitti, Farnesina, Casa Guidi, Stowe, Sun-
nyside, Chatsworth, Arlington, Old Manse, etr. g. PRISONS, etc., as New-
gate, Fleet, Libby, Bastille, Spielberg, Piombi, etc. h. TAVERNS, as The
Tabard, Star and Garter, etc. . SHIPS, as Bounty, Bucentaur, Alabama,
Monitor, Pinta, Constitution, Dreadnaught, Trent, Mayflower, etc.

III. NATURAL CURIOSITIES, &c.

a. NATURAL CURIOSITIES, as Green Grotto, The Notch, Natural Bridge,
Lorelei, Tarpeian Rock, etc. b. STREETS, etc., as the Corso, Prado, Prater,
Chiaja, Strand, Pall Mall, Via Dolorosa, Appian Way, Five Points, Seven Dials,
Toledo, Wapping, Unter den Linden, etc. c. PARKS, etc., as Bois de Bou-
logne, Boboli Gardens, Pere la Chaise, Greenwood, Campo Santo, Fairmount,
Jardin Mabille, etc. tt. CLUBS, etc., as Kit-Cat, Beefsteak, Athenaeum, etc.

IV. MISCELLANEOUS.

As Bambino, Brack Farm, Glastonbury Thorn, Poet's Comer, Coronation
Chair, London Stone, Plains of Abraham, Salisbury Plain, Golden Horn, Bow
Bells, Stone of Scone, Merry Mount, Kohinoor, Herne's Oak, Swamp Angel,
Donnybrook Fair, Warwick Vase, Mora Stone, Pitt Diamond, Veronica, etc.

" An invaluable supplement to gazetteers and encyclopedias." A'. Y. World.

JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston.

THE

COURSE OF EMPIRE

OUTLINES

OF THE

CHIEF POLITICAL CHANGES

IN THE HISTORY OF THE WOULD
(ARRANGED BY CENTURIES)

WITH

VARIORUM ILLUSTRATIONS

CHARLES GARDNER WHEELER

BOSTON
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY

1884

UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.

NOTHING can be farther from my wishes than that the following pages
should be judged according to the critical laws of historical composition.
Tried in such a balance, they would be eminently defective. The limited
extent of this work, compared with the subjects it embraces, as well as its
partaking more of the character of political dissertation than of narrative,
must necessarily preclude that circumstantial delineation of events and of
characters upon which the beauty as well as usefulness of a regular history
so mainly depends. HALLAM. (From Preface to " View of the State of
Europe during the Middle Ages.")

A bright light should be thrown only on the brilliant events, the
momentous changes ; whole generations and centuries of monotonous
events cast into the shade, that is, slightly and rapidly passed over ; and
the most sedulous care taken to classify events into periods. ALISON.

Remark how, by natural tendency alone, and as it were without man's
forethought, a certain fitness of selection, and this even to a high degree,
becomes inevitable. Wholly worthless the selection could not be, were
there no better rule than this to guide it : that men speak permanently
only of what is extant and actively alive beside them. Thus do the things
that have produced fruit, nay whose fruit still grows, turn out to be the
things chosen for record and writing of ; which things alone were great,
and worth recording. CARLYLE.

2064C56

PREFACE.

THIS book aims to present a series of progressive views
of the chief political changes in the world's history, by
means of a map for each century and accompanying
text upon the opposite page. It also aims to furnish a
series of brief statements, with short illustrative citations,
in regard to the most important national movements and
the character and manners of each century.

One may thus readily trace the rise and growth of the
more important states and empires, their revolutions, de-
cline, and fall, and may see at a glance the states that have
been in existence at the beginning of each century. It is
merely intended to show in a general way the situation and
extent of the chief nations at the beginning of each century,
and the principal movements in the " course of empire ; "
therefore no attempt has been made to secure minute accu-
racy in drawing the boundaries of the various countries.
A minuteness of detail in many cases would be very diffi-
cult or practically impossible to obtain, and would be en-
tirely superfluous in a work of this limited character, as
such details can be best found in the various elaborate
historical atlases now in use. It is hoped that these Out-
lines will provide the general reader with a small manual
for easy and quick reference, a hand-book to answer the
every-day questions about the world's political changes,
and also to provide the student of history with a compre-

VI PREFACE.

hensive outline-view of the whole subject, preparatory to
(or in connection with) more extensive study or reading.

The grouping of pertinent passages from various authors
to be found in the Illustrations for each century will be
at the same time much more entertaining and valuable
than the compendium of a compiler, and will give the
reader at one view concise and independent judgments of
competent critics, which it is believed cannot elsewhere
be found, except through an amount of research entirely
beyond the opportunity and inclination of most persons.

This volume is not offered as a substitute for the many
valuable histories and historical atlases now in use, which,
however indispensable to the special student of history, are
oftentimes unavailable to the general reader or ordinary
student, either from their cost or from their complexity,
which renders them inconvenient for ordinary reference.
Companion volumes upon the subjects of literature and art,
arranged upon a similar scheme, are now in preparation.

It is hoped this book will answer many of the questions
daily occurring to the ordinary reader, except where more
minute details in the form of a connected narrative are
sought.

CHARLES GARDNER WHEELER.

BOSTON, 1883.

CO^TEl^TS.

Page

INTRODUCTION 3

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST 11

Persian War 13

Age of Pericles 24

Peloponnesian War 32

Intellectual State of Greece 35

Supremacy of Sparta 37

Retreat of the Ten Thousand 37

Rome 38

FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST 41

Rise of Macedonia 43

Conquests and Empire of Alexander the Great 48

Rome 53

THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST 57

Rome 59

Punic Wars 59

Greece. The Achaean League 69

Alexandria 70

SECOND CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST 73

Third Punic War 75

Greece a Roman Province 79

Rome 82

The Maccabees . 85

Vlll CONTENTS.

Page

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST 87

Rome 89

Csesar Ruler of the Roman World 93

Rome Mistress of the World 100

Augustan Age 108

Birth of Christ 110

Parthia . .114

FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST 117

Roman Empire 119

Conquest of Britain 128

Persecution of the Christians 128

Judsea. Destruction of Jerusalem and Dispersion of the

Jews 132

SECOND CENTURY 137

Roman Empire in the Age of the Autonines 139

THIRD CENTURY 145

Roman Empire 147

Persia 152

Alexandrian School 153

FOURTH CENTURY 155

Roman Empire 157

Persecution of the Christians 157

Constantine the Great. Constantinople the Seat of Empire 160

Division of the Empire 163

Movements of the Northern Nations 164

FIFTH CENTURY 167

Fall of Rome 169

Movements of the Northern Nations 180

MIDDLE AGES. DARK AGES 184

SIXTH CENTURY 191

Eastern Empire 193

Lombards in Italy 195

CONTENTS. ix

Immediate Kesults of the Migration of the Nations . . . 196
Rise of Monachism 197

SEVENTH CENTURY 201

Mahomet and the Saracens 203

Eastern Empire 207

EIGHTH CENTURY 209

The Saracens 211

The Franks. Charlemagne 218

NINTH CENTURY 221

Empire of Charlemagne 223

The Norsemen 231

Beginning of England 231

TENTH CENTURY 237

General Tendencies 239

Saracens in Spain 239

Feudalism 241

Superstition of the Age 246

The Northmen 248

England 249

ELEVENTH CENTURY 251

Norman Conquest of England 253

Growth of the Papal Power. Gregory VII 256

Normans in Sicily and Italy 259

The Crusades 260

TWELFTH CENTURY 271

Chivalry 273

Saladin 278

THIRTEENTH CENTURY 281

Mogul Empire. Genghis Khan 283

Magna Charta 285

Growth of the Towns. Hanseatic League 287

X CONTENTS.

Page

Guelfs and Ghibellines 289

Crusade against the Albigenses 289

Architecture 290

End and Results of the Crusades 291

Scholastic Philosophy 295

Italian Cities 298

FOURTEENTH CENTURY . 305

Hundred Years' War 307

Black Death 308

Tamerlane's Conquests 309

Union of the Swiss Cantons 311

John Wycliffe. Beginning of Religious Dissent . . . .311
Invention and Use of Gunpowder . . . , 312

FIFTEENTH CENTURY 315

Hundred Years' War (continued) 317

Ottoman Turks take Constantinople. Fall of the Eastern

Empire 320

The Renaissance. Revival of Learning 322

Invention of Printing 325

Wars of the Roses 326

Maritime Adventure 328

Discovery of America 330

Spain 334

The Inquisition 336

SIXTEENTH CENTURY 341

Maritime Adventure (continued) 343

The Reformation 344

Spanish Power. Age of Charles V. Philip II 350

Age of Elizabeth 355

Spanish Armada 360

Revolt of the Netherlands. Rise of the Dutch Republic . 364

Religious Wars in France 367

Copernican System. The Telescope 369

Order of Jesuits 369

Age of Leo X 370

Mogul Empire of Baber in India 372

CONTENTS. XI

Page

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 375

Thirty Years' War 377

Union, of England and Scotland 378

Commonwealth in England. Cromwell 379

Revolution of 1688 388

Age of Louis XIV 389

America. European Settlements 394

Intellectual Progress 396

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 399

War of the Spanish Succession 401

Empire of Nadir Shah 402

Greatness of Prussia. Frederick the Great 402

Seven Years' "War 403

Independence of the United States 405

Partition of Poland ......411

French Revolution 413

Russia 420

English Power in India 422

Sweden 422

NINETEENTH CENTURY 425

Napoleonic Wars 427

United States 437

Russia 439

Unification of European States 440

Material Progress of the Century 441

INDEX ... . 443

LIST OF MAPS.

About the Year 500 B. c 9

End of the Fifth Century before Christ (about 400 B. c.) . . . 11

" " Fourth Century before Christ (about 300 B. c.) . . 41

" " Third Century before Christ (about 200 B. c.) . . . 57

" " Second Century before Christ (about 100 B. c.) . . 73

" " First Century before Christ (about A. D. 1) . . . . 87

" " First Century after Christ (about A. D. 100) . . . .117

" " Second Century (about A. D. 200) 137

" " Third Century (about A. D. 300) 145

" " Fourth Century (about A. D. 400) 155

" " Fifth Century (about A. D. 500) 167

" " Sixth Century (about A. D. 600) 191

" " Seventh Century (about A. D. 700) 201

" " Eighth Century (about A. D. 800) 209

" " Ninth Century (about A. D. 900) 221

" " Tenth Century (about A. D. 1000) 237

" " Eleventh Century (about A. D. 1100) 251

" " Twelfth Century (about A. D. 1200) 271

" " Thirteenth Century (about A. D. 1300) 281

" " Fourteenth Century (about A. D. 1400) 305

" " Fifteenth Century (about A. D. 1500) 315

" " Sixteenth Century (about A. D. 1600) 341

" " Seventeenth Century (about A. D. 1700) 375

" " Eighteenth Century (about A. D. 1800) 399

For the Year 1883 , 425

REFERENCE LIST OF HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES,

THE sources of the information used in the preparation of this work are
too numerous to be fully specified here. General acknowledgment
is due to numerous dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and compendiums. All
statements borrowed in great part from a single author have been carefully
collated with information obtained from independent sources, and have
been modified according to circumstances. No hesitation has been felt,
however, in the occasional use of a writer's exact language. The reader
who wishes further information upon the subjects treated in this book is
referred to the following list, which contains many of the historical works
from which citations have been taken, including translations. Some
anonymous translations have been inserted, and some have been made by
the compiler. The wide field of general literature has also been carefully
searched for illustrative citations.

ALISON. History of Europe.

ALLEN, J. H. Hebrew Men and Times.

AMJIIANUS MARCELLIXUS. Roman His-
tory. Yonge's translation.

AMPEBE. Histoire Romaine a Rome.

ANGLO-SAXON Chronicle.

ARNOLD. History of Rome ; Lectures on
Modern History.

BANCROFT. History of the United States.

BAXTER. Life and Times.

BEDK. Ecclesiastical History of England.

BLANC. Histoire de la Revolution Fran-
^aise.

BOECKII. Public Economy of the Athe-
nians.

BOSSUET. Discours sur 1'Histoire Uuiver-
selle.

BRYCE. Holy Roman Empire.

BUCKLE. History of Civilization.

BULHNCH. Age of Chivalry ; Legends of
Charlemagne.

BULWEB. Athens.

BURCKHARDT. Renaissance.

BURKE. Reflections on the Revolution in
France.

BURNET. History of his own Time ; His-
tory of the Reformation.

CAMPBELL. Lives of the Lord Chancellors.
CAPES. Early Empire ; Roman History.
CABLYLE. Frederick the Great; French

Revolution ; Oliver Cromwell.
CHURCH. Beginning of the Middle Ages.
CLABENDON. History of the Rebellion.
COMMIXES (PHILIP DE), The Memoirs of.
COMTE. Positive Philosophy. Martineau's

translation.

CONTBEARE AND HoWSON. Life of St. Paul.

COULANGES. La Cite" antique ; Histoire
des Institutions Politiques de I'aucienne
France.

Cox. Athenian Empire ; Crusades ; Greeks
and the Persians ; History of Greece.

XVI REFERENCE LIST OF HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES.

COXE. House of Austria.
CEEASY. Fifteen Decisive Battles; Otto-
man Turks.
CUETIUS. History of Greece.

D'AUBIGNE. History of the Reformation.

I)E QUINCEY. Historical Essays; The
Coesars.

DE TOCQUEVILLE. Democracy in America.
Reeve and Bowen's translation.

DICKENS. Child's History of England.

DOLLINGER. First Age of Christianity,
Oxcnham's translation ; Die Reformation.

DKOYSEN. Geschichte des Hellenisinus.

DUNCKER. History of Antiquity.

DUNHAM. Denmark, Sweden, and Nor-
way ; Middle Ages ; Poland.

DUEUY. Histoire du Moyen Age.

DYER. History of the City of Rome ; Mod-
ern Europe.

EUTEOPIUS. Epitome of Roman History.

Watson's translation.
EVELYN. Diary.
EWALD. History of Israel.

FAEEAE. Early Days of Christianity.

FELTON. Greece, Ancient and Modern.

FEEGUSSON. History of Architecture.

FINLAY. History of Greece and of the
Byzantine and Greek Empires.

FISHF.E. Reformation.

FLINT. Philosophy of History.

FEEEMAN. Historical Essays; Historical
Geography of Europe ; History and Con-
quest of the Saracens ; History of Federal
Government ; Norman Conquest ; Otto-
man Power in Europe.

FEOISSAUT. Chronicles.

FBOTHINGHAM. Rise of the Republic.

FEOUDE. Caesar; History of England;
Short Studies on Great Subjects.

FULLEB. Church History.

FYFFE. History of Modern Europe.

GAIRDNEE. Houses of Lancaster and York.

GAEDINEE. Thirty Years' War.

GIBBON. Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire.

GIESELEE. Church History.

GEEEN. Making of England ; Short His-
tory of the English People.

GREGOEOVIVJS. Geschichte der Stadt Rom
im Mittelalter.

GROTK. History of Greece.

GUICCIABDINI. History of Italy.

GUIZOT. History of Civilization, Hazlitt's
translation; Popular History of France,
Black's translation.

HALLAM. Constitutional History of Eng-
land ; Middle Ages.

HAUSSEE. Period of the Reformation.

HEEEEN. Historical Treatises.

HEGEL. Philosophy of History, Sibree's
translation.

HEEODOTUS, History of. Rawliuson's Edi-
tion.

HILDEETH. History of the United States.

HOOPEE. Waterloo.

HUME. History of England.

IHNE. History of Rome.
IEVING. The Alhambra ; Columbus ; Con-
quest of Granada ; Mahomet.

JAMESON (Mrs.). Legends of the Monastic

Orders ; Sacred and Legendary Art.
JOMINI. Napoleon. Halleck's translation.
JOSEPHUS. Antiquities ; Jewish War.
JUSTE. Histoire de Belgique.

KNIGHT. Normans in Sicily ; Popular His-
tory of England.

LAMAETINE. History of the Girondists,
Ryde's translation ; Restoration of Mon-
archy in France, Rafter's translation.

LANFEEY. History of Napoleon.

LECKY. History of European Morals.

LENOEMANT AND CHEVALIER. Manual of
the Ancient History of the East.

LINGAED. History of England.

LIVY. History of Rome. Spillan's transla-
tion.

LLOYD. Age of Pericles.

LODGE. Short History of the English
Colonies in America.

LONG. Decline of the Roman Republic.

LUBKE. Outlines of the History of Art'.
Edited by Clarence Cook.

MACAULAY. Essays ; History of England.
MACHIAVELLI. History of Florence.
MAHAFFY. Social Life in Greece.
MAHON (Lord). See STANHOPE.
MALCOLM. Political History of India.
MARTIN. History of France, Booth's

translation ; Age of Louis XIV., Booth's

translation.
MAY. Constitutional History of England;

Democracy in Europe.

REFERENCE LIST OF HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES. XVU

MENZEL. History of Germany.
MEKIVALE. History of the Romans under

the Empire.

MICHACD. History of the Crusades.
MICHELET. History of France, Smith's

translation j Roman Republic, Hazlitt's

translation.

MIGNET. French Revolution.
MILL. History of British India.
MILMAN. History of Christianity ; History

of the Jews ; Latin Christianity.
MITFOED. History of Greece.
MOMMSEN. History of Rome. Dickson's

translation.

MO.NTALEMBEET. Monks of the West.
MONTESQUIEU. Grandeur and Decadence

of the Romans, Baker's translation ;

Spirit of Laws, Nugent' s translation.
MosnEisi. Ecclesiastical History.
MOTLEY. Rise of the Dutch Republic ; His-
tory of the United Netherlands.
MULLER. Ancient Art and its Remains.

NAPIER. History of the War in the Penin-
sula.

NAPOLEON. Life of Csesar.

NEAI.E. History of the Puritans.

NEAXDEB, Christian Life in the Early and
Middle Ages; History of the Christian
Religion and Church.

NEPOS. Lives of the Illustrious Generals.
Watson's translation.

NIEBUHE. Lectures on the History of
Rome. Schmitz's translation.

OCKLEY. History of the Saracens; Mo-
hammed and his Successors.

PALGRAVE. History of Normandy and of

England; History of the Anglo-Saxons.
PEARSON. Early and Middle Ages.
PEPYS. Diary.

PICTORIAL History of England.
PLUTARCH. Parallel Lives. Dryden's

translation. Revised by Clough.
POLYBIUS, General History of. Hampton's

translation.
PKESCOTT. Ferdinand and Isabella ; Philip

the Second.
PRKSSENSE. History of the Early Years of

Christianity. Harwood's translation.
PROCTOR. The Crusades.

QUINET. La Revolution.

RAXKE. History of the Popes. Foster's
translation.

RAWLINSON. Ancient History ; Five Great
Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World ;
Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy ; Seventh
Great Oriental Monarchy ; Herodotus.

REXAN. The Apostles.

ROBERTSON. Charles Y.) Discovery and
Settlement of America ; View of the Pro-
gress of Society in Europe.

ROSCOE. Life of Leo X. ; Lorenzo de'
Medici.

RUSKIN. Stones of Venice.

ST. JOHN, J. A. Ancient Greece.

SALLUST. Watson's translation.

SCHILLER. Revolt of the Netherlands,
Morrison's translation ; Thirty Years'
War.

SCHLEGEL. Lectures on Modern History,
Purcell and Whitelock's translation ;
Philosophy of History, Robertson's
translation.

SCHLOSSEB, Eighteenth Century.

SEEBOHM. Era of the Protestant Revolu-
tion.

SISMOXDI. Fall of the Roman Empire;
Italian Republics.

SMITH. Ancient Atlas ; Ancient History of
the East ; History of Greece ; History of
the World.

SMYTH. Lectures on Modern History.

SPALDING. Protestant Reformation.

SFRUNER-MENKE. Historical Atlas.

STANHOPE (PHILIP HENRY), Earl of. His-
tory of England ; War of the Succession
in Spain.

STANLEY. Lectures on the History of the
Jewish Church.

STEPHEN (SIR JAMES). Lectures on the
History of France ; Essays on Ecclesiasti-
cal Biography.

STRICKLAND. Lives of the Queens of Eng-
land.

STUBBS. Constitutional History of Eng-
land ; Early Plantagenets.

SUETONIUS. Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
Thomson and Forester's translation.

SUMNER. Prophetic Voices concerning
America.

SYBEL. See VON SYBEL.

SYMONDS. Renaissance in Italy.

TACITUS. Annals and History.

TAINE. Ancient Regime, Durand's trans-
lation ; Art in Greece, Durand's transla-
tion ; Art in the Netherlands, Durand's
translation ; Revolution, Durand's trans-
lation ; Essai sur Tite Live.

XV1U REFERENCE LIST OF HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES.

TniEBKY. Histoire des Gaulois ; Historical

Essays ; History of the .Norman Conquest;

Tableau de 1'Empire.
THIEKS. Consulate and Empire; French

Revolution.
TIIUCYDIDES. History of the Feloponnesian

War.
TURSEB. History of the Anglo-Saxons.

ViOLLET-LE-Duc. Discourses on Architec-
ture. Van Brunt's translation.

VOLTAIEE. Charles XII. ; Mahomet.
VON SYBEU French Revolution, Perry's

translation; History and Literature of

the Crusades.

WEBER. Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte.

WHEWELL. History of the Inductive Sci-
ences.

WINCKELMANN. History of Ancient Art.
Lodge's translation.

THE COURSE OF EMPIRE

Westward the course of empire takes Its way.

BISHOP BERKELEY.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ;
An hour may lay it in the dust.

BYKON.

The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.

LONGFELLOW.

INTRODUCTION.

early history of all the older nations is wrapped
-L in impenetrable darkness. Our knowledge of the
most distant periods is confined to a few traditions which
have come down to us for the most part embodied in
the form of myths, and to such conclusions as may be
drawn from the study of language, from ancient remains,
and from the general results of civilization.

Of such times we know nothing, save the broad results as they
are measured from century to century, with here and there some
indestructible pebble, some law, some fragment of remarkable poetry
which has resisted decomposition. FEOUDE.

The word myth (/z0or, fabula, story) in its original meaning sig-
nified simply a statement or current narrative, without any connota-
tive implication of truth or falsehood. Subsequently the meaning of
the word (in Latin and in English, as well as in Greek) changed,
and came to carry with it the idea of an old personal narrative,
always uncertified, sometimes untrue or avowedly fictitious. . . .
The myths were originally produced in an age which had no records,
no philosophy, no criticism, no canon of belief, and scarcely any tinc-
ture either of astronomy or geography, but which, on the other hand,
was full of religious faith, distinguished for quick and susceptible
imagination, seeing personal agents where we look only for objects
and connecting laws. GROTE.

History in the proper sense may be regarded as con-
fined to the Caucasian 1 branch of the human family, and

l The Caiicasian race is distributed by ethnologists into three great divis-
ions : 1st. The Aryan or Indo-European (from Iran, the "land of light," the

4 INTRODUCTION.

does not concern itself much with the peoples of the
greater part of Asia. The stationary and unprogressive
character of much of Oriental society places it outside of
the great current of world progress which it is the office
of the general historian to describe. Only those Eastern
peoples, even of the Caucasian race, which have been
brought into close connection with the Western world,
have much interest to us, and they principally in the
degree of their connection with European civilization.
Among the nations outside of the Caucasian race, the vast
empire of the Chinese stands forth as having attained a
considerable degree of civilization. They, and some other
peoples of the East, were far advanced when Europe was
a wilderness, but their arts and learning have not been
progressive, and were stereotyped ages ago. While bar-
barous tribes have since reached a high civilization, the
Eastern mind has shown few signs of development, and
the old culture of the East is still unchanged. The people
of the East, with whom may be classed the Mexicans and
Peruvians in regard to the stationary character of their
civilization, have thus exercised but little influence on the
general progress of the world.

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. l

TENNYSON.

old name of Persia) ; 2d. The Semitic (from Shem, in Biblical story the son
of Noah) ; 3d. The Hamitic (from Ham, another son of Noah).

The Aryan division includes the following peoples : Hindoos, Persians,
Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Celts, and Slaves.

The Semitic division includes the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Arabs.

The Hamitic division comprises the Egyptians and ChaldsGaus.

The various peoples of Asia not included in either of the above divisions,
such as the Mongols and Turks, are usually classed together under the common
designation of Turanian nations (Turan, i. e. the "land of darkness "). Besides
the great populations of Eastern Asia, a few scattered remnants of older tribes
in Europe, such as the Fins, Laps, and Basques, are also so designated.

1 In the Middle Ages the name " Cathay " was sometimes applied to the
whole country of China.

INTRODUCTION. 5

China and India lie, as it were, still outside the world's history,
as the mere presupposition of elements whose combination must be
waited for to constitute their vital progress. HEGEL.

The genius of the Europeans is different from that of the Asiatics,
who of all nations are the most patient of despotism. ARISTOTLE.

Asia may be called the land of unity, in which everything has been
unfolded in great masses, and in the simplest relations ; Europe is the
land of freedom, that is, of civilization through the antagonism of
manifold individual and isolated energies. SCHLEGEL.

The great mass of events in Oriental history is summed up in one
brief and typical narrative in the Hebrew Scriptures, " The people
who followed Omri were more than the people who followed Tibni.
So Tibni died and Omri reigned." From this it follows that there
are large portions of Oriental history which are alike unprofitable,
and well-nigh impossible, to be remembered by any but those who
make Oriental history the study of their lives. . . . Not a spot, not a
year, of Western history deserves entire neglect ; whole centuries and
empires in the East may be safely passed over by all except professed
Oriental historians. FREEMAN.

Slow conquests, long struggles of race against race, amalgamations,
insensible growth and development of political systems, to which we
are habituated in the records of the West, are unknown to the coun-
tries lying eastward of the Hellespont. In every case a conqueror
rapidly overruns an enormous tract of territory, inhabited by many
and diverse nations, overpowers their resistance or receives their sub-
mission, and imposes on them a system of government, rude and inar-
tificial indeed, but sufficient ordinarily to maintain their subjection, till
the time comes when a fresh irruption and a fresh conqueror repeat
the process, which seems to be the only renovation whereof Oriental
realms are capable. The imposed system itself is, in its general fea-
tures, for the most part, one and the same. The rapid conquest causes
no assimilation. The nations retain their languages, habits, manners,
religions, laws, and sometimes even their native princes. KA.WLINSON.

Jealous China, dire Japan,
With bewildered eyes I scan.
They are but dead seas of man.

Ages in succession find

Forms that change not, stagnant mind,

And they leave the same behind.

MONTGOMERY.

INTRODUCTION.

Although some ancient nations, like the Egyptians,
Chaldeeans, and Assyrians, had, at a very remote period
in the past, reached a stable form of government and a
high degree of civilization, yet the beginnings of history, so
far as the COURSE OF EMPIRE is concerned, may properly
enough be placed in the fifth century before Christ.
There are many authenticated dates and facts previous
to that time, but then, through the wars of Persia with
Greece, the Eastern world was first brought into close and
active connection with the West, and the great historic
movements with which we are concerned originated.

With the Persian Empire we first enter on continuous history.
The Persians are the first historic people ; Persia was the first em-
pire that passed away. While China and India remain stationary,
and perpetuate a natural vegetative existence even to the present
time, this land has been subject to those developments and revolu-
tions which alone manifest a historical condition. HEGEL.

A multiplicity of histories first met and commingled in that of
Persia. The Persian Empire extended itself over the whole of
Western Asia, and into Europe and Africa; it drew together Bactria,
Parthia, Media, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, Asia Minor,
Armenia, Thrace, Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. The voice of the
Great King was law from the Indus on the east to the jEgean Sea
and Syrtian Gulf on the west, from the Danube and the Caucasus on
the north to the Indian Ocean and the deserts of Arabia and Nubia
on the south. ROBERT FLINT.

Of European nations, the one which has the oldest
written history is the Greek. But of this people, also, the
early traditions are poetical and legendary. The narra-
tives of the earlier time were not written till long after the
events described. In the Homeric poems, the " Iliad " and
the " Odyssey," we have the picture of a state of society
which may, in some of its features, have existed ; but the
stories in which these descriptions abound are now gen-

INTRODUCTION. 7

erally regarded as mythical. Subsequent to this first
period there are a few dates, like those of the First Olym-
piad (776) and the legislative reform of Solon (596),
which can be fixed with considerable accuracy ; but it is
not until we reach the time of the Persian Wars, at the
commencement of the fifth century before Christ, that
authentic Greek history can be said to begin. It is with
Greece, also, that the history of individual freedom, as
contrasted with the despotic governments of the Oriental
nations, begins, leading to an expansion of the human
mind, which manifested itself in a most remarkable po-
litical and intellectual development.

Greece lies here, the focus of light in history. HEGEL.

In the vast regions of the East, we have found forms of civilization
which, chiefly affected by the course of mighty rivers, have struck us
as strange from their enduring stability and unchangeableness. The
first step we take in entering the European continent brings us into
a new world full of activity and fresh historic life, in which we at
once are sensible of a home-like feeling. The Greeks are the first to
afford us the picture of personal inner development, and of a national
life unfolding Avith free consciousness. If those Oriental nations in
their narrow, limited civilization only awaken interest in historical
examination, the Greeks, on the other hand, reached an absolute
height of culture, presenting a model worthy of admiration for all ages,
and an inexhaustible fountain-head for all higher effort. Although
thoroughly national, their whole mental life was so elevated, so filled
with universal human significance, that it constitutes the indestruc-
tible basis for the development of all future ages, and in the ever-
lasting struggle of the beautiful and the true with antagonistic
principles, Greece, like an Athene Promachus, has victoriously
preceded all champions of these nobler qualities. LUBKE.

About 50OB.C

500 B. C.

THE relative positions of the nations of Europe and
Western Asia at the year 500 B. c. are shown in a broad
and general way upon the accompanying map.

We shall now try to trace the chief political changes and
national movements from the date of this map (500 B. c.)
down to the year A. D. 1883.

CHRONOLOGY OP THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS PRIOR TO THE
FIFTH CENTURY B. C.

8000 ? Aryan migration into India.

2450? Authentic history of Egypt be-
gins. (Fourth Dynasty.) Pyra-
mids built.

2000? The Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings,
invade Egypt.

1920? Abraham's journey into Egypt

1320 ? Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.

1250 ? Chaldaea absorbed in Assyria.

1100 ? Dorian migration into the Pelopon-
nesus.

1065. David becomes King of Israel.

1050. Tyre a flourishing state.

1015. Solomon King of Israel.
870. Phoenicia conquered by the Assyr-
ians.

850? Carthage founded. Period of Ly-
curgus at Sparta.

776. First Olympiad.

753 ? Rome founded.

719. The Israelites carried into captivity
by the Assyrians.

625. Nineveh taken by the Medes.

596. Constitution of Solon at Athens.

586. The Jews carried into captivity to
Babylon.

560. Pisistratus tyrant of Athens.

558. Cyrus the Great founds the Persian
monarchy.

536. Return of the Jews to Jerusalem.

525. Egypt subdued by Cambyses.

509. Expulsion of the kings, and begin-
ning of the Roman republic.

PROMINENT NAMES IN GREECE PREVIOUS TO THE FIFTH
CENTURY B. C.

(Many of the dates are conjectural. )

Statesmen and Rulers. Lycurgus (fl. 825?), Draco (fl. 621?), Solon (638? -558?),
Pisistratus {612? -527).

Philosophers. Thales (636-546), Anaximander (610-547), Pythagoras (fl. 540-510),
Xenophanes (fl. 540-500).

Poets and Artists. Homer (fl, 962-927), Hesiod (fl. 859-824?), Archilochus (714?-
676), Terpander (fl. 700-650), Tyrtaeus (683-657), Alcaeus (& 611), Sappho (ft. 611 -592),
570?}

About

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.
(500-400.)

THE countries of the greatest historical interest and
importance during this century are PERSIA and GREECE.

PERSIA, although the chief power of the world at this
time, is of general interest only in connection with her
unsuccessful attempt to conquer Greece, known as the
Persian War. (See ILLUSTRATIONS, page 13.) The vast
territory of the Persian Empire suffers no important
change in its extent, except in the loss of Egypt, which
revolts and becomes independent in 413 B. c.

GREECE is involved between 492 B. c. and 479 B. c. in
the famous and decisive struggle with Persia which re-
sults in the defeat of the Persians, who are finally driven
in disgrace wholly out of Europe. (See ILLUSTRATIONS.)
The defeat of the Persians is followed by the wonder-
fully brilliant period the highest point of greatness and
splendor attained by the Greeks commonly known as
the Age of Pericles. (See ILLUSTRATIONS.)

ROME is merely a little settlement in the infancy of her power.
(See ILLUSTRATIONS.)

EGYPT revolts from Persia and becomes independent in 413 B. c.
CARTHAGE presents no movements of interest.

500B.C.-400 B.C.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
(The dates given for this century are more or less conjectural.)

500. The Patricians and Plebeians begin
their civil contests.

500-494. The Ionian War.

494. Secession of Plebeians to Mons Sacer.
Creation of Tribunes.

492. The Persians, under Mardonius, in-
vade Greece.

491. Coriolanus banished from Rome.

490. Second Persian expedition against
Greece. Battle of Marathon (vic-
tory gained by Miltiades).

484. First Agrarian law proposed.

483. Aristides ostracized.

480. Invasion of Greece by Xerxes, King
of Persia. Battles of Thermopylae
(Leonidas), Artetnisium, and Sa-
lamis (Themistocles).

479. Battles of Platsea and Mycale.

477. Athens becomes the chief of the Greek
states. Confederacy of Delos.

471. Publilian law passed. Increase of
privileges of the Plebeians.

466. Battle on the Eurymedon (Cimon).

458. The Hebrew Scriptures collected by
Ezra.

458. Cincinnatus chosen Dictator. Defeats
the JSqui.

451. Appointment of the Decemvirs. Code
of the Twelve Tables.

447. Battle of Coronea.

445. Thirty Years' Truce between Athens
and Sparta.

445. Marriage between Patricians and Ple-
beians.

444. Military Tribunes elected.

443. Office of Censor created.

431-404. The Peloponnesian War.

430. Plague at Athens.

421. Peace of Nicias between Athens and
Sparta (truce for lii'ty years).

418. Battle of Mantinea.

415-413. Athenian expedition against
Sicily (Syracuse).

405. Battle of JSgospotamoO. The Athe-
nians defeated by the Spartans
(Lysander).

404. Athens taken by the Spartans. The
Thirty Tyrants.

403. The Thirty Tyrants expelled and the
Athenian Democracy restored.

401. Battle of Cunaxa.

401-400. Retreat of Xenophon with the
"Teu Thousand."

PROMINENT NAMES OP THE CENTURY.

GKEECE.

Statesmen, Generals, and Orators. Leonidas, Miltiades, Pausanias, Themistocles,
Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Thrasybulus, Critias, Lysander, Xeno-
phon, Gorgias, Isocrates.

Poets and Dramatists. Anacreon, Simonides, JSschylus, Pindar, Euripides, Sopho-
cles, Aristophanes.

Philosophers. Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Zeno (of Elea), Empedocles,
Protagoras, Socrates, Democritus, Plato.

Historians. Herodotus, Thucydides.

Sculptors and Painters. Phidias, Polyeletus, Polygnotus, Alcamenes, Zeuxis, Par-
rhasius, Apollodorus.

PERSIA.

Principal Sovereigns. Darius I. (Hystaspis), Xerxes I., Artaxerxes I. f Longimanus),
Xerxes II., Darius II. (Nothus).

ROME.
General. Coriolanus. Dictator. Cincinnatus.

JUDAEA.

Scribe and Reformer. Ezra. Governor and Writer. Nehemiah. Prophet. Mal-
achi.

OTHER NATIONS.
SYRACUSE : Tyrants. Hiero, Dionysius. CHINA : Philosopher. Confucius.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE PERSIAN" WAR.

That great conflict from which Europe dates its intellectual and
political supremacy. MACAULAY.

PERSIA was the chief power of the known world at
this time, but the main interest of Persian history
centres in her relations with Greece. Some Greek cities
of Ionia, in Asia Minor, subject to Darius, monarch of
Persia, revolted in the year 500 B. c. They received help
from Athens, one of the chief cities of Greece. Darius
quickly put down the revolt, but was much provoked
with the Athenians for their interference, and resolved
to punish them.

He [Darius] treated with great contempt the revolt of the lonians,
well knowing who they were, and that their revolt would soon be
put down ; but he desired to know who, and what manner of men,
the Athenians were. On being told, he called for his bow, and
shooting an arrow into the air he exclaimed, " Suffer me, Jupiter,
to be revenged on these Athenians." He afterwards directed one of
his attendants to repeat to him three times every day, when he sat
down to table, " Sire, remember the Athenians." HERODOTUS.

This revolt brought on the Persian War, in 490 B. c.

The memorable tragedy (to adopt on this occasion an apt allusion
of Plutarch), which ended in the eternal disgrace of the Persian

14 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

name, may "be divided, with propriety, into three principal acts.
The first contains the invasion of Greece by Darius' generals, Datis
and Artaphernes, who were defeated in the battle of Marathon. The
second consists in the expedition, undertaken ten years afterwards by
Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, who fled precipitately from
Greece, after the ruin of his fleet near the isle of Salamis. The
third and concluding act is the destruction of the Persian armies in
the bloody fields of Mycale and Plataea ; events concurring on the
same day, and which happened nearly two years after Xerxes' tri-
umphal entry into Greece. GILLIES.

The first and most important battle of the Persian War,
and one of the most momentous in history, was that
of Marathon. At the plain of Marathon, near
Athens, a small Athenian force of about ten thou-
sand men (with the help of six hundred men from Plataea),
under the famous general Miltiades, routed a Persian army

f i -i~ <? &* *> e ~ -. j~~~-&+-r ,C>Af.,i c^~o RYt-f Uei^es

oi perhaps one hundred and ten thousand, in 490 B. c.
This memorable battle, resulting as it did in the defeat of
the power which had conquered the greater part of the
known world, first taught the Greeks their own strength ;
and the evidence which it afforded them of their ability
to repel the immense forces of Persia was of the great-
est importance to them when considered in reference to
the subsequent contests in which they were destined to
engage.

This was the first of all the victories of the West over the East,
the first battle which showed how skill and discipline can prevail
over mere numbers. As such, it is perhaps the most memorable
battle in the history of the world. FREEMAN.

At Marathon for Greece the Athenians fought ;
And low the Medians' gilded power they brought.

SlMONIDES.

That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain
force upon the plain of Marathon. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 15

If we turn to the map of the Old World [see map for this century]
to test the comparative territorial resources of the two states whose
armies were now about to come into conflict, the immense prepon-
derance 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. 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. Had Persia beaten Athens at Marathon, she could have
found no obstacle to prevent Darius 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, would 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. CREASY.

Hitherto the very name of Medes had struck terror into the
hearts of the Greeks ; and the Athenians were the first to endure the
sight of their armor, and to look them in the face on the field of
battle. HERODOTUS.

Nulla unquam tarn exigua manus tantas opes prostravit.

CORNELIUS NEPOS.

The most remarkable [victory] for the disproportion of the parties
engaged that history has recorded. COLONEL LEAKE.

There fell in this battle of Marathon, on the side of the barbarians,
about six thousand and four hundred men ; on that of the Athenians,
one hundred and ninety-two. HERODOTUS.

The disproportion between the two armies was far less than has
generally been imagined. The Persian combatants were to the
Greek as five to one, or possibly as six to one . . . and victories have
often been gained against equal or greater odds, both in ancient and
modern times. RAWLINSON.

Nor was the number of combatants confined to men then living in
the flesh. The old heroes of the land rose to mingle in the fray ;
and every night from that time forth might be heard the neighing of
phantom horses and the clashing of swords and spears. Thus were
prolonged the echoes of the old, mysterious battle ; and the peasants

16 FIFTH CENTUKY BEFORE CHRIST.

would have it that the man who went to listen from mere motives of
prying curiosity would get no good to himself, while the Daimones
or presiding deities of the place bore no grudge against the wayfarer
who might find himself accidentally belated in the field. G. W. Cox.

Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

The battle-field, where Persia's victim horde
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword,
As on the morn to distant glory dear,
When Marathon became a magic word ;
Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career.

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.

I could believe that under such a sky,

Thus grave, thus streakt with thunderlight of yore,

The small Athenian troop rushed onward, more

As Bacchanals than men about to die.

How weak that massive, motley enemy

Seemed to those hearts, full-fed on that high lore,

Which for their use, in his melodious store,

Old Homer had laid up immortally.

Thus Marathon was Troy, thus here again

They were at issue with the barbarous East,

And favoring Gods spoke out, and walkt the plain ;

And every man was an anointed priest

Of Nemesis, empowered to chastise

The rampant insolence that would not be made wise.

LORD HOUGHTON.

When the traveller pauses on the plains of Marathon, what are the
emotions which most strongly agitate his breast? Not, I imagine,
that Grecian skill and Grecian valor were here most signally dis-
played ; but that Greece herself was here saved. It is because to this
spot, and to the event which has rendered it immortal, he refers all
the succeeding glories of the republic. It is because if that day had
gone otherwise, Greece had perished. It is because he perceives that
her philosophers and orators, her poets and painters, her sculptors

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 17

and architects, her governments and free institutions, point back-
ward to Marathon, and that their future existence seems to have been
suspended on the contingency, whether the Persian or the Greek
banner should wave victorious in the beams of that day's setting
sun. DANIEL WEBSTER.

Miltiades, thy victories

Must every Persian own,
And hallowed by thy prowess lies

The field of Marathon.

(From the Greek. ) Tr. Anon.

The mountains look on Marathon,

And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

BYRON.

Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, invaded Greece
ten years after the battle of Marathon with an immense
force by sea and land (2,500,000 men according to Herodo-
tus). Then was fought the memorable battle
of Thermopylae (gates of the hot springs, from
hot springs situated there), in which the Spartan Leonidas
with a mere handful of men held the whole Persian army
at bay in the narrow pass of Thermopylae ; but, a way
around the pass being shown the Persians by a treacherous
Greek, they were able to attack Leonidas in the rear.
Part of the Greek forces retreated on learning of this move-
ment of the Persians, but Leonidas with three hundred
Spartans and seven hundred Thespians refused to retreat,
and, advancing against the overwhelming numbers of the
enemy, sold their lives as dearly as possible.

This little " remnant of the Greeks, armed only with a
few swords, stood a butt for the arrows, the javelins, and
the stones of the enemy, which at length overwhelmed
them. Where they fell they were afterwards buried ; their

18 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

tomb, as Siinonides sings, was an altar, a sanctuary in which
Greece revered the memory of her second founders."

Even Greece can boast but one Thermopylae.

BYBON.

Suppose the three hundred heroes at Thermopylae had paired off
with three hundred Persians ; would it have been all the same to
Greece, and to history ? EMERSON.

The exact number of the invading army cannot be determined ;
but we may safely conclude from all the circumstances of the case,
that it was the largest ever assembled at any period of history.
W. SMITH.

The Greeks fought with reckless bravery and desperation against
this superior host, until at length their spears were broken, and
they had no weapons left except their swords. It was at this juncture
that Leonidas himself was slain, and around his body the battle
became fiercer than ever. . . . They were thus surrounded, over-
whelmed with missiles, and slain to a man ; not losing courage even
to the last, but defending themselves with their remaining daggers,
with their unarmed hands, and even with their mouths. Thus
perished Leonidas with his heroic comrades, three hundred Spar-
tans and seven hundred Thespians. GUOTE.

Leonidas, and his three hundred companions, devoted their lives
at Thermopylae ; but the education of the infant, the boy, and the
man, had prepared, and almost insured, this memorable sacrifice ;
and each Spartan would approve, rather than admire, an act of duty,
of which himself and eight thousand of his fellow-citizens were
equally capable. GIBBON.

Him, -who reversed the laws great nature gave,
Sailed o'er the continent, and walked the wave,
Three hundred spears from Sparta's iron plain,
Have stopped oh blush, ye mountains, and thou main !

PABJIENIO. Tr. Merivale.

Leonidas recalling,

That chief of ancient song,
Who saved ye once from falling,

The terrible, the strong !
Who made that bold diversion

In old Thermopylae,

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 19

And warring with the Persian

To keep his country free ;
With his three hundred waging

The battle, long he stood,
And, like a lion raging,

Expired in seas of blood.

RHIGAS. (Greek war-song.) Tr. Byron

Upon their tomb was this inscription :

" Here once, from Pelops' sea-girt region brought,
Four thousand men three hostile millions fought."

This was applied to them all collectively. The Spartans were thus
distinguished :

" Go, stranger, and to list'ning Spartans tell,
That here, obedient to their laws, we fell." 1

HERODOTUS.

Of those who at Thermopylae were slain,

Glorious the doom, and beautiful the lot;
Their tomb an altar : men from tears refrain,

To honor them; and praise, but mourn them not.
Such sepulchre nor drear decay

Nor all-destroying time shall waste ; this right have they.
Within their grave the home-bred glory

Of Greece was laid ; this witness gives
Leonidas the Spartan, in whose story

A wreath of famous virtue ever lives.

SIMONTDES. Tr. Sterling.

These, too, defenders of their country fell ;

Their mighty souls to gloomy death betrayed :
Immortal is their fame who, suffering well,

Of Ossa's dust a glorious garment made.

AESCHYLUS. Tr. Merivale.

Greatly to die, if this be glory's height,
For the fair meed we own our fortune kind;

For Greece and Liberty we plunged to-night,
And left a never-dying name behind.

Tr. R. Bland.

1 It is but two lines, and all Greece, for centuries, had them by heart.
She forgot them, and

" Greece was living Greece no more."

CHRISTOPHER NORTH.

20 FIFTH CENTUKY BEFORE CHRIST.

Shout for the mighty men

Who died along this shore,
Who died within this mountain's glen !
For never nobler chieftain's head
Was laid on valor's crimson bed,

Nor ever prouder gore
Sprang forth, than theirs who won the day
Upon thy strand, Thermopylae !

GEORGE CROLY.

Earth ! render back from out thy breast

A remnant of our Spartan dead !
Of the three hundred, grant but three
To make a new Thermopylae !

BYRON.

Xerxes, having taken the pass of Thermopylfe, moved
towards Athens, whence the inhabitants had fled, taking
refuge in their ships, according to their interpre-
tation of a decree of the oracle that they must
seek safety in their " wooden walls." The Persians burned
Athens, and the fate of Greece was then decided by the
naval battle of Salamis (480 B. c.), which resulted in a
complete victory for the Greeks.

So far as numbers are concerned, be well assured that the barba-
rians had the advantage with their ships ; for the whole number of
those of the Greeks amounted to ten squadrons of thirty, and besides
these there were ten of surpassing excellence. AESCHYLUS.

Xerxes, I know, did into battle lead

One thousand ships ; of more than usual speed

Seven and two hundred. So it is agreed.

AESCHYLUS.

A very great part of the Barbarian [Persian] fleet was torn in
pieces at Salamis, principally by the Athenians and the people of
JEgina. The event could not well be otherwise. The Greeks fought
in order, and preserved their ranks ; the Barbarians without either
regularity or judgment. HERODOTUS.

And as the Persians fought in a narrow arm of the sea, and could
bring but part of their fleet to fight, and fell foul of one another, the

FIFTH CENTUEY BEFOEE CHRIST. 21

Greeks thus equalled them in strength, and fought with them till the
evening, forced them back, and obtained, as says Simonides, that noble
and famous victory, than which neither amongst the Greeks nor Bar-
barians was ever known a more glorious exploit on the seas ; by the
joint valor, indeed, and zeal of all who fought, but by the wisdom
and sagacity of Themistocles. PLUTARCH.

And Xerxes shrieked aloud, when he saw the depth of his calam-
ities; for he had a seat that afforded a clear prospect of the whole
armament, a high hill near the ocean brine ; and having rent his
clothes, and uttered a shrill wail, after issuing orders quickly to the
land forces, he dismisses them in disorderly flight. ^ESCHYLUS.

[jEschylus, who was an eyewitness, gives an animated description
of the battle of Salamis in his tragedy of " The Persians " (Persce).']

A king sat on the rocky brow

Winch looks o'er sea-born Salamis ;
And ships by thousands lay below,

And men in nations, all were his !
He counted them at break of day,
And when the sun set, where were they ?

BYRON.

The three great tragic poets of Athens were singularly connected
together by the battle of Salamis. .^Eschylus, in the heroic vigor of
his life, fought there ; Euripides, whose parents had fled from Athena
on the approach of the Persians, was born in Salamis, probably on
the day of the battle ; and Sophocles, a beautiful boy of fifteen or six-
teen, danced to the choral song of Simonides, in which the victory
was celebrated. FELTON.

The battle of Salamis, with the battles of Platsea and
Mycale, in the next year, decided the war, and the
Persians were driven out of Greece forever, and ,

' End of

finally, after several years, were driven wholly thePer-
out of Europe. The arbitrary rule of an ir-
responsible despot was overcome by the spirit of vol-
untary obedience to law, the freedom of Greece was
maintained, and the future civilization of Europe was
secured.

22 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Perhaps there is no event in the history of the world, which has
been so momentous in its consequences, so vital in its effects, as the
repulse of the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes. ALISON.

In gay hostility and barbarous pride,

With half mankind embattled at his side,

Great Xerxes comes to seize the certain prey,

And starves exhausted regions in his way ;

Attendant Flattery counts his myriads o'er,

Till counted myriads soothe his pride no more ;

Fresh praise is tried till madness fires his mind,

The waves he lashes, and enchains the wind ;

New powers are claimed, new powers are still bestowed,

Till rude resistance lops the spreading god ;

The daring Greeks deride the martial show,

And heap their valleys with the gaudy foe ;

The insulted sea with humbler thoughts he gains,

A single skiff to speed his flight remains;

The incumbered oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast

Through purple billows and a floating host.

JOHNSON.

When in the wantonness of kingly pride,

Vain Xerxes spurred his war-horse through the tide,

And bore his fleet o'er mountain-tops, e'en there

The Eternal bade his evil heart despair :

O'er Hellespont and Athos' marble head,

More than a god he came, less than a man he fled.

ALAMANNI. Tr. De Vere.

The conquest of Europe was no longer a vision which could cheat
the fancy of the lord of Asia. The will and energy of Athens,
aided by the rugged discipline of Sparta, had foiled the great enter-
prise through which the Barbarian despot sought to repress in the
deadly bonds of Persian thraldom the intellect and freedom of the
world. G. W. Cox.

The effeminacy of the Persians . . . was not the cause of their
ruin, but the unwieldy, unorganized character of their host, when
opposed to the Greek organization ; i. e., the superior principle sub-
dued the inferior. ... It is easy to perceive how the small but
well-disciplined Greek forces, inspired by the same spirit, and with
unequalled leadership, were able to withstand the vast but disorderly
Persian hosts. HEGEL.

These are world-historical victories ; they were the salvation of

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 23

culture and spiritual vigor, and they rendered the Asiatic prin-
ciple powerless. ... In the case before us, the interest of the
world's history hung trembling in the balance. Oriental despotism
a world united under one lord and sovereign on the one side,
and separate states insignificant in extent and resources, but ani-
mated by free individuality on the other side, stood front to front
in array of battle. Never in history has the superiority of spiritual
power over material bulk and that of no contemptible amount
been made so gloriously manifest. This war, and the subsequent
development of the states which took the lead in it, is the most
brilliant period of Greece. HEGEL.

After the retreat of Xerxes and the fall of Mardonius, national
pride rendered the separation between the Greeks and the Barba-
rians complete. The conquerors considered themselves men of a
superior breed, men who, in their intercourse with the neighboring
nations, were to teach, and not to learn. They looked for nothing
out of themselves. MACAULAT.

When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled back to its eastern
bed, and the world was once more comparatively at rest, the conti-
nent of Greece rose visibly and majestically above the rest of the civ-
ilized earth. Afar in the Latian plains, the infant state of Rome was
silently and obscurely struggling into strength against the neighbor-
ing and petty states in which the old Etrurian civilization was rapidly
passing to decay. The genius of Gaul and Germany, yet unredeemed
from barbarism, lay scarce known, save where colonized by Greeks,
in the gloom of its woods and wastes. The pride of Carthage had
been broken by a signal defeat in Sicily. . . . The ambition of Per-
sia, still the great monarchy of the world, was permanently checked
and crippled ; the strength of generations had been wasted, and the
immense extent of the empire only served yet more to sustain the
general peace, from the exhaustion of its forces. The defeat of Xer-
xes paralyzed the East. Thus Greece was left secure, and at liberty
to enjoy the tranquillity it had acquired, and to direct to the arts
of peace the novel and amazing energies which had been prompted by
the dangers and exalted by the victories of war. BULWER.

24 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

THE AGE OF PERICLES.

Pericles the Olympian lightened, thundered, roused ^lp all
Greece. ARISTOPHANES.

lie became sole master of Athens, he kept the public good in his
eye, and pursued the straight path of honor. PLUTARCH.

DURING the half-century following the Persian War
(480-430 B. c.), Athens, mainly in consequence of the
prominent part she had played in that war, maintained
a supremacy over the other Greek states, and rose to a re-
markable degree of power and prosperity. This period is
often known as the Age of Pericles, from the great states-
man of that name, then the leader at Athens.

All the time that he [Pericles] stood at the head of the state, he
governed it with moderation, and watched over its safety. Under
him it rose to the highest pitch of greatness. The cause of his in-
fluence was that he was powerful in dignity of character and wisdom;
that he proved himself to be pre-eminently the most incorruptible of
men ; and that he restrained the people freely, and led them, instead
of being led by them. THUCYDIDES.

The blossoming forth of Greek genius makes this the
most illustrious era in Grecian history, and one of the
most brilliant in the history of the world. It should be
remembered, however, that both the unsurpassed litera-
ture and the unrivalled art then produced were, " to some
extent, the work of a select few, who stood apart from the
crowd, as they have done in other golden periods."

An age hath been when Earth was proud
Of lustre too intense
To be sustained.

WORDSWORTH.

FIFTH CENTUEY BEFORE CHRIST. 25

With the administration of Athenian democracy by Pericles hia-
tory opens its most resplendent page, the page which should be
most resplendent if the historian were competent to do justice to
what records of its incidents unhappily too scanty have been
preserved and recovered. . . . When we consider the marvellous out-
burst of genius that at this time distinguished Athens, and brought arts
suddenly not alone to a great advance, but in fact to absolute perfec-
tion, perfection at least never since surpassed, we cannot but be
grateful even to this day that the passion and the power should so
have united in Pericles. W. W. LLOYD.

In brief, I may call the city the school of Greece, and the citizen
of Athens is personally best fitted, by variety of talent, for the grace-
ful performance of all the duties of life. PERICLES.

The ideal of a Grecian education, according to Plato, Isocrates, and
Aristotle, combined bodily strength and activity, study, and elo-
quence, the qualities of the athlete, the soldier, the scholar, and the
orator. And these accomplishments were brought into constant
activity by the pursuits and habits of Athenian life. MAY.

Athenes, avec son suffrage universel, n'etait done, apres tout, qu'une
republique aristocratique, ou tous les nobles avaient un droit egal au
gouvernement. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

There has never been another political society in the world, in
which the average of the individual citizen stood so high as it did
under the Athenian democracy in the days of its greatness.
FREEMAN.

Notwithstanding the defects of the social system and moral ideas
of antiquity, the practice of the dicastery and the ecclesia raised the
intellectual standard of an average Athenian citizen far beyond any-
thing of which there is yet an example in any other mass of men,
ancient or modern. MILL.

Nowhere else is to be found a state so small in its origin, and yet
so great in its progress ; so contracted in its territory, and yet so
gigantic in its achievements ; so limited in numbers, and yet so im-
mortal in genius. Its dominions on the continent of Greece did not
exceed an English county; its free inhabitants never amounted to
thirty thousand citizens, and yet these inconsiderable numbers have
filled the world with their renown : poetry, philosophy, architecture,

26 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

sculpture, tragedy, comedy, geometry, physics, history, politics, almost
date their origin from Athenian genius ; and the monuments of art
with which they have overspread the world still form the standard of
taste in every civilized nation on earth. ALISON.

There seems to be, on the contrary, every reason to believe that,
in general intelligence, the Athenian populace far surpassed the
lower orders of any community that has ever existed. It must be
considered, that to be a citizen was to be a legislator, a soldier, a
judge, one upon whose voice might depend the fate of the wealth-
iest tributary state, of the most eminent public man. The lowest
offices, both of agriculture and of trade, were, in common, performed
by slaves. The commonwealth supplied its meanest members with
the support of life, the opportunity of leisure, and the means of
amusement. Books were indeed few, but they were excellent ; and
they were accurately known. Books, however, were the least part of
the education of an Athenian citizen. Let us, for a moment, trans-
port ourselves, in thought, to that glorious city. Let us imagine
that we are entering its gates, in the time of its power and glory.
A crowd is assembled round a portico. All are gazing with delight
at the entablature, for Phidias is putting up the frieze. We turn
into another street ; a rhapsodist is reciting there ; men, women,
children, are thronging round him ; the tears are running down
their cheeks ; their eyes are fixed ; their very breath is still ; for he
is telling how Priam fell at the feet of Achilles, and kissed those
hands the terrible, the murderous which had slain so many
of his sons. We enter the public place ; there is a ring of youths,
all leaning forward, with sparkling eyes, and gestures of expectation.
Socrates is pitted against the famous Atheist, from Ionia, and has
just brought him to a contradiction in terms. But we are inter-
rupted. The herald is crying, " Room for the Prytanes." The
general assembly is to meet. The people are swarming in on every
side. Proclamation is made, " Who wishes to speak ? " There is
a shout, and a clapping of hands, Pericles is mounting the stand.
Then for a play of Sophocles, and away to sup with Aspasia.
I know of no modern university which has so excellent a system of
education. MACAULAY.

If one of us were transported to Periclean Athens, provided he were
a man of high culture, he would find life and manners strangely like
our own, strangely modern, as he might term it. The thoughts and

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 27

feelings of modern life would be there without the appliances, and
the high standard of general culture would more thau counter-
balance sundry wants in material comfort. For these reasons Greek
social life must be far more interesting to general readers than any
other phase of ancient history. ... It was an age of great hurry and
prodigious development, when event after event so came crowding
upon the people, that they were under the perpetual excitement of
some new acquisition or some unexpected danger. ... So they became
a city full of public men, if I may so say, engrossed with state service
and with politics, men of little leisure, and of small curiosity in spec-
ulating upon the reasons of things, iu fact no theorists, but stern men
of action, full of earnestness in their lives and allowing themselves
little relaxation. I am here speaking of the general tone of Peri-
clean society. . . . The age of Pericles, including the whole period
between the battles of Platsea and ^gospotamos, was an age of rapid
political development, possibly also at Athens of literary and cer-
tainly of artistic development ; but at Athens, and perhaps throughout
Greece, one of social and moral stagnation. MAHAFFY.

In strengthening and ornamenting Athens, in developing the full
activity of her citizens, in providing temples, religious offerings,
works of art, solemn festivals, all of surpassing attraction, he [Peri-
cles] intended to exalt her into something greater than an imperial
city with numerous dependent allies. He wished to make her the
centre of Grecian feeling, the stimulus of Grecian intellect, and the
type of strong democratical patriotism combined with full liberty of
individual taste and aspiration. He wished not merely to retain the
adherence of the subject states, but to attract the admiration and
spontaneous deference of independent neighbors, so as to procure for
Athens a moral ascendency much beyond the range of her direct
power. GEOTE.

The freedom which gave birth to great events, political changes,
and jealousy among the Greeks, planted, as it were in the very pro-
duction of these effects, the germ of noble and elevated sentiments.
As the sight of the boundless surface of the sea, and the dashing of
its proud waves upon the rocky shore, expands our views and carries
the soul away from, and above, inferior objects, so it was impossi-
ble to think ignobly in the presence of deeds so great and men so
distinguished. The Greeks, in their palmy days, were a thinking

people. WlNCKELMANN.

28 FIFTH CENTTJKY BEFORE CHKIST.

It would be easy to show that the ancient standard of civilization
never reached the heights of many modern states. The people were
ignorant, vicious, and poor, or degraded to abject slavery, slavery
itself the sum of all injustice and all vice. And even the most illus-
trious characters, whose names still shine from that distant night
with stellar brightness, were little more than splendid barbarians.
Architecture, sculpture, painting, and vases of exquisite perfection,
attested their appreciation of the beauty of form ; but they were
strangers to the useful arts, as well as to the comforts and virtues of
home. Abounding in what to us are luxuries of life, they had not
what to us are its necessaries. CHARLES SUMNER.

With the Athenians, selfishness was the rule of all their actions.
They were haughty and quarrelsome with their neighbors ; they
were cruel to their enemies ; they were unfair and ungenerous to
their allies ; they were unjust to one another. If an oligarchy ruled,
they oppressed the people ; if the democracy was in the ascendant,
they pressed heavily upon the rich : they had no consideration, or
sense of responsibility towards others, while they squandered the
revenues of the state iipon their own amusements. Such faults,
indeed, were not peculiar to the Athenians who were far more
generous and liberal than their Spartan rivals nor to the Greeks.
They were the faults of human nature, unregenerated by a pure
religion or a high standard of morals, and of an age in which violence
and wrong were the law of nations. MAY.

If any competent judge of moral actions will contemplate their
character without prejudice, and unbiassed by their high intellectual
endowments, he will find that their private life was unstable and
devoid of virtue ; that their public life was a tissue of restless in-
trigues and evil passions ; and, what was the worst of all, that
there existed to a far greater degree than in the Christian world, a
want of moral principle, and a harshness and cruelty in the popular
mind. BOECKH.

Athens, the stately-walled, magnificent!

Proem most beauteous for Alcmaeon's race,

Whereon to lay the base

Of sacred song, their steeds' proud ornament !

For what more eminent

Country or home shall I in Grecia name,

Inhabited ?

PINDAR. Tr. Gary.

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 29

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts

And eloquence, native to famous wits,

Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks and shades.

MILTON.

This was the ruler of the land

When Athens was the land of fame ;
This was the light that led the band

When each was like a living flame ;
The centre of earth's noblest ring,
Of more than men the more than king.

He perished, but his wreath was won,

He perished in his height of fame ;
Then sunk the cloud on Athens' sun,

Yet still she conquered in his name.
Filled with his soul, she could not die ;
Her conquest was posterity !

GEORGE CEOLY.

During this period the city was adorned with those
public buildings, temples, and other works of art which
were the glory of the Periclean Age, and which the world
has ever since admired.

With unrivalled skill,
As nicest observation furnished hints
For studious fancy, did his hand bestow
On fluent Operations a fixed Shape ;
Metal or Stone.

WORDSWORTH.

In history, the great moment is when the savage is just ceasing
to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his
opening sense of beauty ; and you have Pericles and Phidias,
not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. EMERSON.

The independence of Greece is to be regarded as the most promi-
nent of the causes, originating in its constitution and government,
of its superiority in art. WINCKELMANN.

Now, we cannot direct art among a people ; we can only create an
atmosphere favorable to its development. It is the greatest and the
imperishable glory of Greece that her civilization admirably under-
stood this principle. ViOLLET-LE-Duc.

30 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

The Greeks knew that an imaginative people must be addressed
in the language of imagination ; that they must be pleased, and
would not be content with the mere satisfaction of material needs.
If their cities still preserve in the midst of their ruins a perfume
of art, it is because art was not among them a mere superfluous
decoration; it ruled each structure, as a master, even from the
laying of the corner-stone ; nay, it presided at the foundation of the

city. VlOLLET-LE-DuC.

That which gave most pleasure and ornament to the city of
Athens, and the greatest admiration and even astonishment to all
strangers, and that which now is Greece's only evidence that the
power she boasts of and her ancient wealth are no romance or idle
story, was his [Pericles'] construction of the public and sacred build-
ings. The materials were stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress-
wood ; and the arts or trades that wrought and fashioned them were
smiths and carpenters, moulders, founders and braziers, stone-cutters,
dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters, embroiderers, turners ;
those again that conveyed them to the town for use, merchants
and mariners and ship-masters, by sea and by land, cartwrights,
cattle-breeders, wagoners, ropemakers, flax-workers, shoemakers and
leather-dressers, roadmakers, miners. Thus, to say all in a word,
the occasions and services of these public works distributed plenty
through every age and condition. As then the works grew up, no
less stately in size than exquisite in form, the workmen striving to
outvie the material and the design with the beauty of their work-
manship, yet the most wonderful thing of all was the rapidity of
their execution. Undertakings, any one of which singly might have
required, they thought, for their completion, several successions and
ages of men, were every one of them accomplished in the height and
prime of one man's political service. Pericles' works are especially
admired, as having been made quickly, to last long. There is a sort
of bloom of newness upon those works of his, preserving them from
the touch of time, as if they had some perennial spirit and undying
vitality mingled in the composition of them. PLUTARCH.

And for the beauty and magnificence of temples and public edifices
with which he adorned his country, it must be confessed, that all the
ornaments and structures of Rome, to the time of the Caesars, had
nothing to compare, either in greatness of design or of expense, with
the lustre of those which Pericles only erected at Athens. PLUTARCH.

FIFTH CENTUEY BEFOEE CHRIST. 31

The miracles of that day resulted from the enthusiasm of a popu-
lation yet young full of the first ardor for the beautiful dedi-
cating to the state, as to a mistress, the trophies honorably won, or
the treasures injuriously extorted, and uniting the resources of a
nation with the energy of an individual, because the toil, the cost,
were borne by those who succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated
the glory. BUIAVER.

The appearance of the Parthenon testifies more loudly than his-
tory itself to the greatness of this people. Pericles will never die !
What a civilization was that which found a great man to decree,
an architect to conceive, a sculptor to adorn, statuaries to execute,
workmen to carve, and a people to pay for and maintain such an
edifice. LAJIARTINE.

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone.

EJIEKSON.

This same period of expanding and stimulating Athe-
nian democracy which produced the marvellous works of
Greek art, called forth a similar creative genius in oratory,
in dramatic poetry, and in philosophical speculation.

A nation in which the fine arts had attained their highest excel-
lence, but in which philosophy was still in its infancy. MACAULAY.

The last half of this century is commonly known in
the history of philosophy as the age of Socrates and
the sophists. From the intellectual stimulus im-
parted by Socrates, sprang all the great leaders of
Greek speculative thought in the age immediately follow-
ing, and those also of later times. The individual influ-
ence of Socrates contributed to a permanent enlargement
of the horizon of thought and an improvement in the
methods of investigation in a degree which has never been
equalled.

Some of them were philosophical teachers of the highest worth
and accomplishments ; while others, degenerate professors of wisdom,

32 FIFTH CENTUEY BEFOEE CHRIST.

sought only to impart the false and glittering craft of tickling the
fancy by a show of knowledge, without real knowledge, and of cor-
rupting the heart by confounding good and evil, or teaching that
pleasure is good and might is right. FELTON.

There were no common doctrines or principles or methods be-
longing to them [the sophists] ; even the name by which they are
known did not belong to them, any more than to Socrates and
others ; they had nothing in common except their profession, as paid
teachers, qualifying young men "to think, speak, and act" these
are the words of Isocrates, and better words it would not be easy to
find with credit to themselves as citizens. GROTE.

He [Socrates] may be called the father of Philosophy. CICERO.

To sage philosophy next lend thine ear,
From heaven descended to the low-roof t house
Of Socrates ; see there his tenement,
Whom well inspired the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men ; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe.

MILTON.

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAS.

THE supremacy over the other states of Greece which
Athens attained after the Persian War, and maintained
during the Age of Pericles, with her constant prosperity
and unparalleled growth, raised up jealousy and hatred
against her, and during that brilliant period were sown the
seeds of a civil warfare which was destined to destroy the
power and splendor of Greece. The other leading state
of Greece was Sparta, and there was a general gravitation
in the different cities to these two centres of Grecian life,
those in which democratic sentiments prevailed looking to

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 33

Athens for leadership, the rest (those in which the aristo-
cratic or oligarchical element prevailed) regarding them-
selves as the natural allies of Sparta. The conflict between
these two opposing principles, democracy and oligarchy,
broke out in 431 B. c., and is known as the Peloponnesian
War. Athens was the stronger by sea, Sparta by land.

How the Greeks themselves destroyed their own national strength
in this grand struggle between Athens and Sparta, between aris-
tocracy and democracy, this, as portrayed by the great historians
of antiquity, is even still one of the most instructive historic pic-
tures. The Greek nation, as a nation, perished utterly through this
mutual destruction of its two mightiest and most distinguished
nations. SCHLEGEL.

It grieves me to behold the commonwealth.

Things were not thus administered of old ;

Then men of sense and virtue, men whose merits

Gave them consideration in the state,

Held the first offices: to such we bowed

As to the gods, and gods indeed they were,

For under their wise counsels we enjoyed

Security and peace. But now, alas !

We have no other guide in our elections

Save chance, blind chance, and on whatever head

It falls, though worst and meanest of mankind,

Up starts he a great man, and is at once

Installed prime Rogue and Minister of State.

EUPOLIS, Altered Condition of Athens, Tr. Peter.

Perhaps the most important and decisive event of the
war was an attack made (415 B. c.) by Athens upon Syra-
cuse in Sicily, when the Spartans helped the Syracusans,
and which resulted in the total failure of the expedition
(413 B. c.), and great damage to the power of Athens. The
Athenians had sent a more powerful armament against
Sicily than had ever before been turned out in the history
of Greece. The consequences of the defeat of this force
were felt all over Greece, the enemies of Athens were

34 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

stimulated to much greater activity, and all thought that
the fate of that city was sealed.

That downfall [of Athens] had one great cause, we may almost
say, one single cause, the Sicilian expedition. GROTE.

The Romans knew not, and could not know, how deeply the
greatness of their own posterity, and the fate of the whole Western
world, were involved in the destruction of the fleet of Athens in the
harbor of Syracuse. Had that great expedition proved victorious,
the energies of Greece during the next eventful century would have
found their field in the West no less than in the East; Greece, and
not Rome, might have conquered Carthage ; Greek instead of Latin
might have been at this day the principal element of the language
of Spain, of France, and of Italy; and the laws of Athens, rather
than of Rome, might be the foundation of the law of the civilized
world. ARNOLD.

After the Syracusan disaster . . . Athens is like Patroclus in the
" Iliad," after Apollo has stunned him by a blow on the back and
loosened his armor. Nothing but the slackness of her enemies
allowed her time for a partial recovery, so as to make increased
heroism a substitute for impaired force, even against doubled and
tripled difficulties. And the years of struggle which she now went
through are among the most glorious events in her history. GROTE.

At last, in 404 B. c., at the battle of ^Egospotamos, the
defeat of the once powerful city of Athens and the demo-
lition of the great fabric of the Athenian Empire was
accomplished by the Spartan confederacy, with much
pecuniary help from the young Persian prince, Cyrus.
Thus passed away the wonderful phenomenon of that great
Athenian supremacy and splendor which Themistocles
had shaped, and which Pericles sought to render impreg-
nable. The glories of Athens had culminated, and were
henceforth destined to decline.

The natural tendency of the Grecian world was towards
the independence and separation of the various states, and

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 35

the rise and continuance of the Athenian Empire has been
characterized as, " a most extraordinary accident."

The brilliant meteor of Athenian greatness disappeared from the
world almost as soon as the bloody phantasmagoria of the French
Revolution. In half a century after they arose, naught remained of
either but the works of genius they had produced, and the deeds
of glory they had done. ALISON.

The one century of Athenian greatness, from the expulsion of the
tyrants to the defeat of -<Egospotamos (508 - 405 B. c.), is worth a
millennium of the life of Egypt or Assyria. FREEMAN.

Ancient of days ! august Athena ! where,
Where are thy men of might ? thy grand in soul ?
Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were:
First in the race that led to glory's goal,
They won, and passed away is this the whole ?
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour ?
The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower,
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.

BYEON.
Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,

Glorious in mien and mind ;
Their bones are mingled with the mould,

Their dust is on the wind;
The forms they hewed from living stone
Survive the waste of years, alone,
And, scattered with their ashes, show
What greatness perished long ago.

BRYANT.

THE INTELLECTUAL STATE OF GREECE.

EVEN the disastrous Peloponnesian War, which lasted
twenty-seven years, did not destroy the impulse given to
the Greek intellect during the preceding age, and literature,
oratory, and philosophy flourished.

36 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Until the dawn of the Christian era, more than four centuries later,
it would not be possible to fix on any epoch more illustrative of
Greek intellect or Greek refinement than precisely that youth of
Plato, which united itself by immediate consecutive succession to the
most brilliant section in the administration of Pericles. It was, in
fact, throughout the course of the Peloponnesian War the one
sole war that divided the whole household of Greece against itself,
giving motive to efforts, and dignity to personal competitions
contemporary with Xenophon and the younger Cyrus, during the
manhood of Alcibiades, and the declining years of Socrates amongst
such coevals and such circumstances of war and revolutionary trace
that Plato passed his fervent youth. The bright sunset of Peri-
cles still burned in the Athenian heavens ; the gorgeous tragedy and
the luxuriant comedy, so recently created, were now in full possession
of the Athenian stage ; the city was yet fresh from the hands of its
creators, Pericles and Phidias ; the fine arts were towering into
their meridian altitude ; and about the period when Plato might be
considered an adult, sui juris, that is, just four hundred and ten
years before the birth of Christ, the Grecian intellect might be said
to culminate in Athens. Any more favorable era for estimating the
Greek character cannot, we presume, be suggested. For, although
personally there might be a brighter constellation gathered about
Pericles, at a date twenty-five years antecedent to this era of Plato's
maturity, still, as regarded the results upon the collective populace
of Athens, that must have become most conspicuous and palpable in
the generation immediately succeeding. DE QUINCEY.

-iEschylus died twenty-four years before the war broke out ; but
Sophocles was at the height of his splendid renown ; Euripides, a
little younger, shared with him the mastery of the tragic stage ;
Aristophanes began his brilliant dramatic career four years after the
war commenced ; and other men, of genius only inferior to theirs, in
tragedy and comedy, appeared annually in competition for the honors
of the dramatic victory and an inscription on a monument in the
Street of the Tripods. Euripides died two years, and Sophocles one,
before the surrender of Athens ; but Aristophanes survived it, and
continued his dramatic labors under the restored democracy. The
most brilliant period of dramatic literature was therefore just in the
midst of the Peloponnesian War. FELTON.

FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 37

THE SUPREMACY OF SPAETA.

SPARTA was now at the head of Greece, and for thirty-
four years (405 -371 B. c.) wielded power over the Greek
states. Her sway was harsh and despotic.

The Lacedaemonians are now the presidents of Greece ; and
even any single private Lacedaemonian can accomplish what he
pleases. XEXOPHON.

"We shall be warranted in affirming that the first years of the
Spartan Empire which followed upon the victory of ^Egospotamos
were years of all-pervading tyranny and multifarious intestine
calamity such as Greece had never before endured. GBOTE.

THE RETEEAT OF THE TEX THOUSAND.

AFTER the Peloponnesian War, some of the Greeks were
hired by Cyrus, the Persian prince, to help him in an
attempt to wrest the Persian throne from his brother
Artaxerxes. The attempt failed, and the memorable re-
treat (400 B. c.) homeward of the Greeks is famous as the
Eetreat of the Ten Thousand.

Xenophon and his Ten Thousand were quite equal to what they
attempted, and did it ; so equal, that it was not suspected to be a
grand and inimitable exploit. Yet there stands that fact unrepeatecl,
a high-water mark in military history. EMERSON.

Who does not see that this is a gang of great boys, with such a code
of honor and such lax discipline as great boys have ? EMERSON.

This incident, lying apart from the main stream of Grecian affairs,
would form an item, strictly speaking, in Persian history rather than
in Grecian. But its effects on the Greek mind, and upon the future

38 FIFTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

course of Grecian affairs, were numerous and important ; while as an
illustration of Hellenic character and competence, measured against
that of the contemporary Asiatics, it stands pre-eminent and full of
instruction. GROTE.

The return to Greece of ten thousand men who had defeated the
hosts of the Great King in the centre of his dominions, and fought
their way back to the sea without suffering more than the common
casualties of war, was an evidence of weakness which could not but
become generally known, and of which all could feel the force. . . .
If in late autumn and midwinter a small Greek army, without
maps or guides, could make its way for a thousand miles through
Asia, and encounter no foe over whom it could not easily triumph,
it was clear that the fabric of Persian power was rotten, and would
collapse on the first serious attack. Still, it will not be necessary
to trace in detail the steps of the retreat. It was the fact of the re-
turn, rather than the mode of its accomplishment, which importantly
affected the subsequent history of Persia. RAWLINSON.

It was the first symptom of the repulsion of the tide of conquest,
which had in former times flowed from east to west, and the har-
binger of those future victorious expeditions into Asia which were to
be conducted by Agesilaus and Alexander the Great. W. SMITH.

ROME.

EOME during this century was merely a little settlement
on the hanks of the Tiber and in the infancy of her power.
Her history at this time is obscure, and often uncertain,
and full confidence cannot be placed in the details of
events.

Rome in its origin was a mere municipality, a corporation. The
Roman government was nothing more than an assemblage of institu-
tions suitable to a population enclosed within the walls of a city ;
that is to say, they were municipal institutions ; this was their
distinctive character. GUIZOT.

FIFTH CENTUEY BEFORE CHRIST. 39

She was chiefly occupied by a straggle for rights and
privileges between the Patricians, " that is, the old citizens,
the descendants of the first settlers," and the Plebeians,
" the descendants of those who caine in afterwards."

As the light begins to brighten about the cradle of the Roman
institutions, we discover distinct traces of the existence within their
pale, not of two classes only, the warriors and their subjects,
but of a third also, occupying a position between the others, sharing
in the name, and, in an inferior degree, in the rights and privileges
of the dominant class. The Patricians and Plebeians of Rome repre-
sent, at this early period, two races of different origin, the former of
which has admitted the other, whether on compulsion or by conces-
sion, after a fruitless resistance or by spontaneous arrangement, to
a certain prescribed share in the privileges of government and the
rights of conquest. MEEIVALE.

The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in
any age or country, between the nobles and the people, is perhaps
that of the Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was established in the
first age of the Roman republic. Wealth and honors, the offices of
the state, and the ceremonies of religion were almost exclusively
possessed by the former, who, preserving the purity of their blood
with the most insulting jealousy, held their clients in a condition of
specious vassalage. GIBBON.

The Plebeians constituted in Rome the principle of extension, con-
quest, and aggregation ; the Patricians, that of exclusion, unity, and
national individuality. Without the Plebeians, Rome could not
have conquered and adopted the world ; without the Patricians, she
would have had no personal character, no original life, she would not
have been Rome. MICHELET.

About300B.C.

FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.
(400-300.)

THE important movement of the century is the rise and
dissolution of the huge Macedonian Empire of Alexander
the Great.

ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Macedonia becomes of impor-
tance under Philip, who causes her to be acknowledged as
a Greek state (that country having become reduced to a
condition of general exhaustion), and then makes her the
chief state of Greece. His son Alexander (the Great)
invades Persia (see the preceding map), conquers the whole
Persian Empire between 334 B. c. and 330 B. c., and dies in
323 B. c., " having made greater conquests than were ever
made hy any European prince before or after him." The
extent of his dominion is shown upon the accompanying
map by a dotted line. After his death the great empire
falls to pieces, and in 301 B. c. becomes divided (as shown
upon the map) into Egypt (under Ptolemy), Macedonia
(including Greece), Thrace, including part of Asia Minor
(under Lysimachus), and Syria and the East (under Se-
leucus).

PERSIA is the chief power during the first part of the century,
but is conquered by Alexander in 334 - 330 B. c. (See above, under
ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE.)

GREECE. (See above, tinder ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE.)

EGYPT becomes subject to Persia in 350 B. c., and, as a part of the
Persian Empire, to Alexander in 332 B. c. (See above, under ALEX-
ANDER'S EMPIRE.)

ROME. About the middle of the century Rome begins a career of
conquest.

CARTHAGE, though an important state, is not of general historical
interest during this century.

40O B. C. - 30O B. C.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

899-394. War of Sparta with Persia.

894. Battle of Coronea. The Spartans de-
feat the Athenians, Thebans, etc.

390. The Gauls, under Brennus.take Home.
Battle of Allia.

387. Peace of Autalcidas (Sparta and Per-
sia).

371. Battle of Leuctra. The Thebans
(Epauiinondas) defeat the Spar-
tans.

366. The Licinian laws.

362. Battle of Mantinea. The Thebans
(Kpamiiiondas) defeat the Spar-
tans.

357-346. Phocian or Sacred War.

343. Beginning of wars with the Sainnites,
which end fifty-three years later.

338. Battle of Chseronea. Philip of Mace-
don defeats the Athenians and
Thebaus.

338. Latium conquered by Rome.

334330. Alexander's campaign. Invasion
and conquest of Persia.

334. Battle of Urauicus. Alexander de-
feats the Persians.

333. Battle of Issus. Alexander defeats
the Persians under iJarius (Jodo-
niauuus.

332. Alexander conquers Tyre and Egyp',
and founds the city of Alexandria

331. Battle of Arbela. Alexander masfcr
of the Persian Empire.

323. Lamian War.

321. The Romans defeated in the valle^ of
Caudium (Caudine Forks).

317-307. Demetrius Phalereus governor of
Athens.

301. Battle of Ipsus and division of Alex-
ander's Empire.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.
PEESIA.

Sovereigns. Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon), Artaxerxes III. (Ochus), Darius III. (Codo-
mannus).

MACEDONIA.

Principal Kings. Philip II. , Alexander III. (the Great), Cassander.
Generals. Parmenio, Perdiccas, Antigonus, Cassauder, Lysimachus, Ptolemy I.
(Soter), Demetrius Poliorcetes, Antipater.

GREECE.

Statesmen, Generals, and Orators. Thrasybulus, Xenophon, Lysander, Gorgias, Pelo-
pidas, Epaminundas, Agesilaus, Timoleon, Isocrates, Demosthenes, Phocion, JEschines,
Demetrius Phalereus.

Poet and Dramatist. Aristophanes.

Philosophers. Socrates, Aristippus, Hippocrates, Democritus, Diogenes, Plato, Aris-
totle.

Sculptors and Painters. Parrhasius, Scopas, Lysippus, Praxiteles, Apelles, Proto-
genes.

Historian. Xenophon.

EGYPT.

Kings. Dynasty of the Ptolemies.

Geometer. Euclid (Greek).

ROME.

Statesmen and Generals. Camillus, Manlius Capitolinus, Manlius Torquatus, Valerius
Corvus, Papirius Cursor, Fabius Maximus.

SYRIA.

King. Seleucus (beginning of the dynasty of the Seleucidae).

EPIBUS.
King. Pyrrhus I.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE RISE OF MACEDONIA.

fTlHE close of the last century left Sparta the head of
-L the Greek states. She held the chief power until
371 B. c. (battle of Leuctra), when, under the two great
leaders Pelopidas and Epaminondas, Thebes rose to be the
leading state of Greece.

This leadership Thebes held till the death of Epami-
nondas, in 362 B. c. (battle of Mantinea), when, for want of
any one to take his place, she also fell from her position
of supremacy.

These various struggles, in which Greece had been so
long engaged, ended in the general weakness and exhaus-
tion of the chief states.

The conflicts recounted [during an interval of forty-four years,
404 - 403 B. c. to 360 - 359 B. c.] have wrought the melancholy
change of leaving Greece more disunited, and more destitute of
presiding Hellenic authority, than she had been at any time since
the Persian invasion. Thebes, Sparta, and Athens had all been
engaged in weakening each other, in which, unhappily, each has
been far more successful than in strengthening herself. The mari-
time power of Athens is now indeed considerable, and may be called
very great, if compared with the state of degradation to which she
had been brought in 403 B. c. But it will presently be seen how
unsubstantial is the foundation of her authority, and how fearfully
she has fallen off from that imperial feeling and energy which

44 FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

ennobled her ancestors under the advice of Pericles. It is under
these circumstances, so untoward for defence, that the aggressor from
Macedonia arises. GROTE.

Macedonia, though doubtless kindred to Greece, had
never been regarded as a Greek state, nor taken any
Time of prominent part in history. She now, under her
Philip. ru ] erj Philip } became of importance. Philip did
not at first attempt to conquer Greece, but by intrigue and
war caused Macedonia to be acknowledged as a Greek
state, and then made her the chief state of Greece, as
Athens, Sparta, and Thebes had been before her. The
plans and ambition of Philip were plainly discerned by
the great Athenian orator, Demosthenes, who warned the
Athenians of their impending fate, and who tried, though
in vain, to excite them to vigorous action against Philip.

Do you ask, What is the news ? What cpuld be greater news than
a Macedonian making war upon the Athenians, and regulating the
affairs of Greece 1 DEMOSTHENES.

The history of Greece is at one time reduced to two persons,
Philip, or the successor of Philip, on one side, and Demosthenes, a
private citizen, on the other. EMERSON.

The course which this King of Macedon held was not so much by
great armies and invasions, though these wanted not when the case
required, but by practice, by sowing of factions in states, and "by
obliging sundry particular persons of greatness. The state of oppo-
sition against his ambitious proceedings was only the state of Athens.
For Lacedsemon and Thebes were both low, and the rest of the states
of Greece were, in power and territories, far inferior. LORD BACON.

The object which he [Demosthenes] chose for himself in the
commonwealth was noble and just, the defence of the Grecians
against Philip, and in this he behaved himself so worthily that he
soon grew famous, and excited attention everywhere for his eloquence
and courage in speaking. He was admired through all Greece, the
King of Persia courted him, and by Philip himself he was more
esteemed than all other orators. PLUTARCH.

FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 45

The chief importance of that able monarch's [Philip's] reign lies in
his having called forth the mighty eloquence of his Athenian antago-
nist. It is not the armies of Macedonia nor the victory of Chseronea
that gives a real significance to the life of Philip ; it is those Philippic
and Olynthiac orations fulmined against him which have made the
heart to throb in forty generations of men since born. FELTON.

The steps by which Athenian oratory approached to its finished
excellence seem to have been almost contemporaneous with those
by which the Athenian character and the Athenian Empire sunk to
degradation. At the time when the little commonwealth achieved
those victories which twenty-five eventful centuries have left un-
equalled, eloquence was in its infancy. . . . And it was when the
moral, the political, the military character of the people was most
utterly degraded ; it was when the viceroy of a Macedonian sov-
ereign gave law to Greece, that the courts of Athens witnessed
the most splendid contest of eloquence that the world has ever
known. MACAULAY.

Looking back on the history of Athens, three majestic figures stand
before us : Solon, the founder of her Constitution ; Pericles, who
stands on the pinnacle of her renown ; Demosthenes, the last and
greatest, who, like the sinking sun, sheds his glory upon her fall ;
the beginning, the middle, and the end of the greatest historical
tragedy ever enacted on the theatre of the world. FELTON.

In 338 B. c. Philip overthrew the Athenians and The-
bans in the battle of Chseronea, and Greece was now prac-
tically a province of Macedonia.

Certainly it became a proverb, that not Philip, but his gold, took

the cities of Greece. PLUTABCH.

That dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,
Killed with report that old man eloquent.

MILTON.

Had they remained contented with their lot, and had not the
Athenians and Lacedaemonians fallen into dissension and strife for
the supremacy in Grecian affairs, foreigners would never have been
masters of Hellas. Zosuius (fifth century).

46 FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

The odds were all against Philip in his early years ; they shifted
and became more and more in his favor, only because his game was
played well, and that of his opponents badly. The superiority of
force was at first so much on the side of Athens, that, if she had been
willing to employ it, she might have made sure of keeping Philip at
least within the limits of Macedonia. GROTE.

This was the most brilliant time of Greek oratory,

which reached its perfection in the contest between JEs-

chines, who advocated the cause of Macedonia,

Intellect-
ual state and Demosthenes, who opposed the designs of

Philip. It was also a period of great mental
activity in the region of scientific inquiry and specula-
tive thought. Plato, whose birth fell in the preceding
century, founded the Academic school, which took its
name from the groves of Academus in the vicinity of
Athens, where the philosopher was accustomed to lec-
ture. Aristotle (called the Stagyrite, from his birthplace,
Stagyra, in Macedonia) was the instructor of Alexander
the Great, and founded, at the Lyceum in Athens, what
is known as the Peripatetic school, from his habit of
walking about while conversing with his disciples. Aris-
totle was the first to formulate the system of ct, priori, or
deductive, reasoning, which held almost absolute sway in
Europe till it was supplanted by the Baconian system of
inductive reasoning.

The centre of the power and outward activity of Greece was to be
found in Macedon, while Athens still remained the well-spring of its
intellectual vigor. ARNOLD.

The philosophical celebrity of Greece is altogether due to Athens.
It is a popular error that Greece, ill the aggregate, was a learned
country. DRAPER.

Socrates and Plato are the double star which the most powerful
instruments will not entirely separate. EMERSON.

FOUKTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 47

He alone [Plato] of all the Greeks reached to the vestibule of
truth, and stood upon its threshold. EUSEBIUS.

See there the olive grove of Academe,

Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;

There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound

Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites

To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whispering stream ; within the walls then view

The schools of ancient sages ; his who bred

Great Alexander to subdue the world,

Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next.

MILTON.

Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democraty,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedou, and Artaxerxes' throne.

MILTON.

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever
been produced in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the
great Athenian orations. . . . The singular excellence to which elo-
quence attained at Athens is to be mainly attributed to the influence
which it exerted there. In turbulent times, under a constitution
purely democratic, among a people educated exactly to that point at
which men are most susceptible of strong and sudden impressions,
acute but not sound reasoners, warm in their feelings, unfixed
in their principles, and passionate admirers of fine composition,
oratory received such encouragement as it has never since ob-
tained. MACAULAY.

Nearer and dearer to the poet's heart,
Than the blue ripple belting Salamis,
Or long grass waving over Marathon,
Fair Academe, most holy Academe,
Thou art, and hast been, and shalt ever be.

EDWIN ARNOLD.

One branch of intellectual energy there was, and one alone, which
continued to flourish, comparatively little impaired, under the pre-
ponderance of the Macedonian sword, the spirit of speculation and
philosophy. GROTE.

48 FOUKTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

THE CONQUESTS AND EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER
THE GREAT.

As when the landed powers of Greece were tasked,
To war beneath the Youth of Macedon.

SCOTT.

'Twos at the royal feast for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son :
Aloft, in awful state,
The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne.
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned).

DRYDEN.

HAVING thus made Greece subject to his power in
338 B. c., Philip planned to unite all the forces of that
country in an aggressive war against the great power of
Persia, but was murdered in 336 B. c.

This stone to Mars must grief to Athens bring,
Telling the might of Macedonia's king:
The deeds of Marathon are now disgraced,
The victories of Salamis effaced,
Before the points of Philip's spears abased.
Invoke the dead, Demosthenes, in vain !
To taunt both quick and dead I here remain.

GEMINUS.

I, Philip, who first raised the Emathian name
By warlike deeds beyond all former fame,
Lie here at JEgx : if you e'er shall see
One greater, from my lineage it must be.

ADDffiUS.

Philip's son and successor, Alexander the Great, one of
the greatest commanders of any age, then invaded Persia
with a small army of about thirty-five thousand. He de-
feated the Persians in the battle of Granicus (334 B. c.),

FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 49

and in 333 B. c. won a great victory at Issus over an im-
mense Persian army under Darius. He then reduced Tyre,
Gaza, and Egypt (where he founded the seaport of Alexan-
dria), and in 331 B. c. encountered Darius near Arbela, in
Assyria, and obtained, with less than fifty thousand men, a
complete victory over that monarch and the full force of
the Persian Empire.

The fatal blow was struck at Arbela ; all the rest was but the long
death-agony. RAWLINSON.

The Persian Empire, which once menaced all the nations of the
earth with subjection, was irreparably crushed when Alexander had
won his crowning victory at Arbela. CBEAST.

At the age of twenty-five Alexander was thus master of
the whole Persian dominion (including Egypt). He then
pushed his explorations and partial conquests still farther
eastward, even beyond the Indus. He planned new under-
takings, which he did not live to carry out. He died at
Babylon in 323 B. c. The impression made upon Asia
and Africa by his conquests was lasting, and long sur-
vived the dismemberment of his empire, which followed
his death.

During the period of Alexander's conquests, no other events
of importance happened in any part of the civilized world, as
if a career so brilliant had claimed the undivided attention of man-
kind. AKNOLD.

High on a throne with trophies charged, I viewed
The youth, that all things but himself subdued ;
His feet on sceptres and tiaras trod,
And his horned head belied the Libyan god.

POPE.

And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west
on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground : and the
goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram

50 FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and
ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close
unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote
the ram, and brake his two horns : and there was no power in the
ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and
stamped upon him: and there wag none that could deliver the ram
out of his hand. Therefore the he-goat waxed very great. . . . The
ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and
Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great
horn that is between his eyes is the first king. DANIEL viii. 5-8,
20, 21.

Alexander was but twenty years old when his father was murdered,
and succeeded to a kingdom beset on all sides with great dangers and
rancorous enemies. For not only the barbarous nations that bordered
on Macedonia were impatient of being governed by any but their own
native princes, but Philip likewise, though he had been victorious
over the Grecians, yet, as the time had not been sufficient for him to
complete his conquest and accustom them to his sway, had simply
left all things in a general disorder and confusion. PLUTARCH.

Les conquetes d'Alexandre opererent une revolution dans les sci-
ences comme chez les peuples. CHATEAUBRIAND.

Asia beheld with astonishment and awe the uninterrupted progress
of a hero, the sweep of whose conquests was as wide and as rapid as
that of her own barbaric kings ; but, far unlike the transient whirl-
winds of Asiatic warfare, the advance of the Macedonian leader was
no less deliberate than rapid : at every step the Greek power took
root, and the language and the civilization of Greece were planted from
the shores of the JEgean to the banks of the Indus, from the Caspian
and the great Hyrcanian plain to the cataracts of the Nile ; to exist
actually for nearly a thousand years, and in their effects to endure
forever. ARNOLD.

The prodigious conquests of Alexander and the fortune which was
always faithful to his arms have eclipsed the glory of Philip, and daz-
zled posterity has refused to assign to the father the considerable
share which belongs to him in the success of the son. It was Philip
who organized the Macedonian army, who disciplined and inured
it. MERIHEE.

FOUKTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 51

Independently of the almost immeasurable extension opened to
the sphere of development by the advance of the Macedonians, their
campaigns acquired a character of profound moral greatness by the
incessant efforts of the conqueror to amalgamate all races, and to
establish, under the noble influence of Hellenism, a unity throughout
the world. HUMBOLDT.

If it can be averred of any conqueror of the ancient world that he
had the power and the will not merely to destroy, but also to build
up and found anew, that he had original, bold, and great ideas,
it may be averred of Alexander ; and in these ideas he was passion-
ately enthusiastic, not coolly calculating, like Caesar. SCHLEGEL.

The kingdom of Persia, which extended from Egypt, inclusive,
unto Bactria, and the borders of the East India; and yet, nevertheless,
was overrun and conquered, in the space of seven years, by a nation
not much bigger than this isle of Britain, and newly grown into name,
having been utterly obscure till the time of Philip, the son of Amyn-
tas. Neither was this effected by any rare or heroical prowess in
the conqueror, as is vulgarly conceived, for that Alexander the Great
goeth now for one of the wonders of the world ; for those that have
made a judgment grounded upon reason of estate do find that conceit
to be merely popular, for so Livy pronounceth of him, " Nihil aliud
quam bene ausus vana contemnere." Wherein he judgeth of vastness
of territory as a vanity that may astonish a weak mind, but no ways
trouble a sound resolution. LORD BACON.

Alexander conquered a part of the world with a handful of men ;
but was this a mere irruption on his part, a kind of deluge ? No,
everything is profoundly planned, boldly executed, wisely conducted.
Alexander shows himself at once a great warrior, a great politician, a
great legislator. Unhappily, when he reaches the zenith of glory and
success, his head becomes turned, or his spirit becomes corrupt. He
had begun with the spirit of Trajan ; he ends with the heart of Nero,
and the behavior of Heliogabalus. NAPOLEON.

I believe that there was in his time no nation of men, no city, nay,
no single individual, with whom Alexander's name had not become a
familiar word. I therefore hold that such a man, who was like no
ordinary mortal, was not born into the world without some special
providence. ARRIAN.

52 FOUETH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

The story of Alisaunder is so comune,
That every wight that hath discrecioun
Hath herd som-what or al of this fortune ;
Thys wyde world as in conclusioun
He wan by strengthe, or for his heigh renoun,
Thay were glad for pees unto him sende.

Comparisoun yit mighte never be niaked
Bitwen him and noon other conquerour;
For al this world for drede of him hath quaked.

CHAUCEB.

Here the vain youth who made the world his prize,
That prosperous robber, Alexander, lies.
When pitying death, at length, had freed mankind,
To sacred rest his bones were here consigned :
His bones, that better had been tossed and hurled,
With just contempt, around the injured world.
To Macedon, a corner of the earth,
The vast ambitious spoiler owed his birth :
There, soon, he scorned his father's humbler reign,
And viewed his vanquished Athens with disdain.
Driven headlong on, by fate's resistless force,
Through Asia's realms he took his dreadful course:
His ruthless sword laid human nature waste,
And desolation followed where he passed.
Red Ganges blushed, and famed Euphrates' flood,
With Persian this, and that with Indian blood.

Nor flame, nor flood, his restless rage withstand,

Nor Syrts unfaithful, nor the Libyan sand :
O'er waves unknown he meditates his way,
And seeks the boundless empire of the sea.
E'en to the utmost west he would have gone,
Where Tethys' lap receives the setting sun ;
Around each pole his circuit would have made,
And drunk from secret Nile's remotest head,
When Nature's hand his wild ambition stayed ;
With him, that power his pride had loved so well,
His monstrous, universal empire, fell :
No heir, no just successor left behind,
Eternal wars he to his friends assigned,
To tear the world and scramble for mankind.

LUCAS. Tr. Rowe.

Macedonian Alexander's tomb, if called on to disclose,
Say that the world's two continents his monument compose.

ADDCEUS.

FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 53

He which, 'twist a lion and a paid,
Through all the world with nimble pinions fared,
And to his greedy whelps his conquered kingdoms shared.

PHPTKAS FLETCHER.

He wept for worlds to conquer ; half the earth
Knows not his name, or but his death and birth.

BTBOH.

Therefore the he-goat waxed very great : and when he was strong,
the great horn was broken ; and for it came up four notable ones
toward the four winds of heaven. DAXIEL viii. 8, 22.

ROME.

So completely had Greece arrived at the season of autumn, while
at Rome it was yet the early spring. ARNOLD.

THE history of Rome now begins to be more trustworthy.
About the middle of the century she began a career of
conquest.

The long period of her infancy was employed in a laborious
struggle against the tribes of Italy, the neighbors and enemies of
the rising city. AMMIAXTS MAKCELLIXCS.

When we see this noble republic devoting three or four centuries
to the solid establishment of its power in a radius of under a hundred
miles, about the same time that Alexander was spreading out his
marvellous empire in the course of a few years, it is not difficult to
foresee the fate of the two empires, though the one usefully prepared
the East for the succession of the other. COMTE.

The main source of wealth among the Romans, and their most
honorable occupation, was agriculture. The greatest generals and
statesmen, after holding for a time the helm of the republic, and
gaining victories and triumphs, did not scruple to return to the
plough and live in rural retirement. SCHMITZ.

54 FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

About the year 390 B. c. the Gauls, under Brennus,

pressed down into Central Italy, and took and destroyed

Rome. Although but a passing inroad with tran-

Invasion A

of the sient results, this invasion is noteworthy as mark-
ing the first appearance of the barbaric hordes,
who in later times were to change the civilization of the
world.

Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates !

COWPER.

The fourth century before the Christian era brought the Gauls for
the first time within the observation of the civilized world. They
then crossed the Apennines, and overran Central and Southern Italy;
they then also broke in upon the Illyrian tribes, established them-
selves between the Danube and Greece, and became known to the
kings of Macedon. ARNOLD.

The victorious attack of Brennus, in the fourth century of her
[Rome's] career, marks the era at which the tide of Gaulish conquest
was at its full. About that period the name of Gauls was more ter-
rible, throughout Europe and Western Asia, than that of any other
conquerors. MERIVALE.

Then Rome was poor; and there you might behold

The palace, thatched with straw, now roofed with gold.

The silver goose before the shining gate

There flew, and by her cackle saved the state;

She told the Gauls' approach : the approaching Gauls,

Obscure in night, ascend, and seize the walls.

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

The Gaulish invasion and conquest of Rome was but the in-
strument of her greater and surer advance to the dominion of
Italy. ARNOLD.

It was at this period that the Plebeians succeeded in
enforcing their claim to hold a share in the high offices
_, , . . of the state. In the year 366 B. c. Lucius Sextius

Patricians *

and Pie- was chosen consul, the first Plebeian who held that
dignity. This event led to a gradual reconcile-
ment of the two orders and to a great increase of mili-
tary vigor and activity.

FOURTH CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 55

It is now acknowledged that the struggle at Home between the
Plebeians and Patricians was a sequel and a prolongation of the
war of conquest, was an effort on the part of the aristocracy of
the cities conquered by Eome to share the rights of the conquering
aristocracy. GUIZOT.

At last the commons attain their object. They acquire an equal
share in the public offices and honors, participate in the same system
of law, in the same rites of religion, and in the common fruits of con-
quest. The two nations coalesce into one. From this era the body
politic appears to be animated with new vigor. The career of victory
is no longer checked by the defection of the bulk of the people at
some important crisis. MERIVALE.

The results of this great change were singularly happy and glorious.
Two centuries of prosperity, harmony, and victory followed the rec-
onciliation of the orders. Men who remembered Eome engaged in
waging petty wars almost within sight of the Capitol lived to see her
the mistress of Italy. MACAULAT.

About 200 B.C

Ttg Co, Boston

THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

(300-200.)

THE nations of the greatest general interest and impor-
tance during this century are KOME, EGYPT, and CARTHAGE.

HOME obtains the mastery over the whole Italian penin-
sula by the year 266 B. c. She then begins a career of
foreign conquest, and adds to her territory Sicily, Sardinia,
and Corsica, obliges Carthage to give up all her possessions
outside of Africa (including possessions in the above three
islands and in Spain), and Carthage herself to become a
dependent ally of Eome. (See PUNIC WARS, page 59.)
Towards the end of the century Eome begins the conquest
of Cisalpine Gaul, and begins to interfere with the affairs
of Macedonia and Greece.

EGYPT, under the first Ptolemy and his son Ptolemy Phila-
delphus, becomes prosperous and powerful. Alexandria be-
comes the seat of learning and commerce. (See page 70.)

CARTHAGE at the middle of the century is at the head of
about three hundred Phoenician cities in Africa, and has
possessions in Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, but by
the end of the century (202 B. c.) she has given up to Rome
all her possessions outside of Africa. (See PUNIC WARS.)

GREECE is hereafter greatly distracted in its affairs, but keeps up a
front of independence against Macedonia. (See ACHAEAN LEAGUE,
page 69.)

SYRIA AND THE EAST. The kingdom of the SELEUCID^E (so called
from Seleucus, see map for the last century), though powerful, is of
but little general interest. The kingdom of Lysimachus (Thrace and
part of Asia Minor) is added in 281 B. c. Syria is invaded from
Egypt in 246 B. c. A permanent loss of territory in the East is
suffered by the revolt of PARTHIA about 256 B. c.

THE KINGDOM OF LYSIMACHUS (THRACE and part of ASIA MINOR)
becomes part of the dominion of the Seleucidse in 281 B. c.

PARTHIA revolts from the kingdom of the Seleucidae about 256 B. C.

EPIRUS now becomes a powerful state under Pyrrhus.

300 B.C. 200 B.C.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

295. Demetrius Poliorcetes master of

Athens.
290. Conquest of the Samnites and the

Sabines by the Romans.
281. Seleucus defeats Lysimachus.
280. The Aehsean and ^Etolian Leagues.
280. Pyrrhus defeats the Romans.
280. The Gauls under Breunus invade and

ravage Greece.
277 (about). The Septuagint Version of

the Bible made by order of Ptol-
emy Philadelphus.
275. Battle of Beneventum. The Romans

defeat Pyrrhus.

266. Italian peninsula subject to Rome.
264. First Punic War, till 241.
260. Naval victory of the Romans (Dui-

lius) over the Carthaginians.
256. Parthian dynasty established.
246. Aratus first appointed general of the

Achaean League.

220. War between the Achaean and the
^itolian Leagues.

218. Second Punic War, till 201. Battle
of the Ticinus. Hannibal defeats
the Romans.

217. Battle at Lake Thrasymene. Hanni-
bal defeats the Romans.

216. Battle of Cannaj. Hannibal defeats
the Romans.

212. The Romans take Syracuse.

208. Philopoemen appointed general of the
Achaean League.

207. Battle of Metaurns. The Romans
defeat Hasdrubal.

206. Conquest by Rome of the Carthagin-
ian possessions in Spain.

202. Battle of Zama. The Romans, under
Scipio Africanus, defeat the Car-
thaginians, under Hannibal.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

ROME.

Statesmen and Generals. Fabricius Luscinus, Manius Curius Dentatus, Duilius,
Regulus, Flaminius, Fabius Maximus (Cunctator), Marcellus, Scipio Alrieauus (Major).
Poets and Dramatists. Livius Andronicus, Ennius, Plautus.
Historian. Cato the Censor.

EGYPT.

Kings. Dynasty of the Ptolemies.
Historian. Manetho.
Geometer. Euclid (Greek).

MACEDONIA.

(See also under GREECE.)
Kings. Cassander, Demetrius Poliorcetes, Pyrrhus, Lysimachus, AntigonusGonatas.

GREECE. 1

Statesmen and Generals. Cleomenes, Aratus, Philopoemen.
Philosophers. Theophrastus, Epicurus, Zeno (Stoic).

p oe t s . Menander, Theocritus (Syracusan), Lycophron, Aratus, Calliinachus (Alex-
andria), Bion, Moschus, Apollonius Rhodius.
Historian. Timeeus.

SYRIA.
Kings. Dynasty of the Seleucidae. Antiochus the Great

CARTHAGE.
Generals. Hamilcar, Hasdrubal, Hannibal.

EPIRUS.
King. Pyrrhus.

SYRACUSE.

(See also under GREECE.)
Tyrant. Agathocles.
King. Hieron II.
Geometer. Archimedes (Greek).

i Including some Greeks in other countries. See also under EGYPT, MACEDONIA, and
SYRACUSE.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

EOME.

In the strength and ardor of youth, she sustained the storms of
war, carried her victorious arms beyond the seas and the moun-
tains, and brought home triumphal laurels from every country
of the globe. AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.

ROME, continuing the career of conquest begun in the
last century, became mistress of all Italy (Samnite
and Latin wars ; war with Pyrrhus) by the year 266 B. c.
She had grown greatly in wealth, power, and dominion,
and was then prepared to begin a vigorous career of con-
quest beyond the limits of the peninsula.

The fifth century from the foundation of the city produced neither
historian, poet, orator, nor philosopher. Still we are, as it were,
working our way to light; the greatness of Rome is beginning to
unfold itself. ARNOLD.

THE PtmC WAES.

A lawful time of war at length will come

( Nor need your haste anticipate the doom),

When Carthage shall contend the world with Rome.

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

EOME and Carthage were at this time the great powers
of the West. Eome was the stronger by land, while Car-

60 THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

thage, at the head of three hundred Phoenician cities in
Africa, and having possessions in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica,
and Spain, was the great naval and commercial power of
the Western Mediterranean, and ruled the sea without a
rival.

Liberty had erected against the tyranny of the Eoman Empire
another empire on the water, a wandering Carthage, which no
one knew where to seize, and which floated from Spain to Asia.
MICHELET.

There was an ancient city, Carthage, held

By Tyrian settlers, facing from afar

Italia, and the distant Tiber's mouth ;

Rich in resources, fierce in war's pursuits ;

And this one city, Juno, it was said,

Far more than every other land esteemed,

Samos itself being less. Here were her arms,

Her chariot here ; e'en then the goddess strives

With earnest hope to found a kingdom here

Of universal sway, should fate permit.

But of a race derived from Trojan blood

She had heard, who would o'erturn the Tyrian towers

One day, and that a people of wide rule,

And proud in war, descended thence, would come

For Libya's doom. So did the Fates decree.

VIRGIL. Tr. Cranch.

degenerate child of a kind, compassionate mother,
That to the might of Rome addest the cunning of Tyre !
But this ruled by her power the earth which her valor had conquered,
That instructed the world which by her prudence she won.
Say, what doth history tell of thee ? She tells, thou didst ever
Win like the Roman by steel, rule like the Tyrian by gold.

SCHILLER. Tr. Merivale.

I stand in Carthage ; Dido's city here

Rose into power, and waved her wand of fear ;

The seaman hailed her lofty towers afar,

Each gilded palace glittering like a star ;

Armies obeyed her nod, a countless host,

And bee-like Commerce hummed along the coast ;

Gems, gold, all wealth within her walls was seen,

And tawny Afric bowed, and owned her queen.

N. MICHELL.

THIRD CENTUKY BEFORE CHRIST. 61

These two great powers, Borne and Carthage, soon came
into conflict, the subject of dispute being possessions in
the island of Sicily, which lay between them. This
brought on the First Punic War.

When Punic arms infested land and main,
When heaven and earth were in confusion hurled
For the debated empire of the world.

LUCRETIUS. Tr. Dryden.

The vigorous republic is now prepared to contest the sovereignty
of the West with the long-settled and deep-rooted power of Car-
thage. MEEIVALE.

When in respect of her claims in Sicily and Spain, her growing
aggrandizement had brought Rome in contact with Carthage, the
powers she had long been gathering together were suddenly devel-
oped to an extent of greatness that amazed the contemporary world,
as it has all succeeding ages. SCHLEGEL.

The result of the First Punic War (which lasted from
264 B. c. to 241 B. c.) was that Carthage gave up her pos-
sessions in Sicily to Borne. After this the Carthaginians,
under Hamilcar, largely increased their dominion in Spain.
The Bomans also extended and strengthened their empire.

As when two black clouds,
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front,
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air,
So frowned the mighty combatants.

MILTON.

In 218 B. c. began the Second Punic War.

Previous to the prostration of Carthage, there were, so to speak,
two separate worlds. In the one the Romans and the Carthaginians
contended for empire ; the other was agitated by the quarrels which
continued from the time of the death of Alexander the Great. The
East gave no thought to what was going on in the West. MON-
TESQUIEU.

62 THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Up to the Second Punic War, Rome had no historian. She was
too much occupied in making history to amuse herself with writing
it. MICHELET.

The Carthaginian general, Hannibal, one of the great-
est generals who ever lived, having resolved upon the
invasion of Italy, performed, in 218s. c., one of the most
remarkable military achievements of antiquity, that of
crossing the Alps with his army and reaching Italy by
land. The bold enterprise was, however, accomplished
despite barbarous nations, rapid streams, and the dangers
of the Pyrenees and Alps. He is said to have lost over
thirty thousand men during the passage.

If it be true, as no one doubts, that the Roman people excelled all
other nations in warlike merit, it is not to be disputed that Hannibal
surpassed other commanders in ability as much as the Romans sur-
passed all other people in valor. CORNELIUS NEPOS.

Beyond the Pyrenean's lofty bound,

Through blackening forests shagged with pine around,

The Carthaginian passed ; and, fierce, explored

The Volcan champaign with his wasting sword,

Then trod the threatening banks with hastening force,

Where Rhone high-swelling rolls its sweeping course.

From Alpine heights and steep rocks capped with snow,

But no rude Alp, no terror of the scene,
Moved Hannibal, undaunted and serene ;

He spoke; nor they delayed: the troops he drew

Up the steep hills, their promised spoil in view :

Transgressed the Herculean road, and first made known

Tracks yet untrodden and a path their own

Where inaccessible the desert rose,

He burst a passage through forbidden snows ;

O'er jagged heights, and icy fragments rude,
Thus climb they, midst the mountain solitude ;
And from the rocky summits, haggard, show
Their half-wild visage, clotted thick with snow.
Continual drizzlings of the drifting air
Scar their rough cheeks, and stiffen in their hair.

THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 63

Now poured from craggy dens, a headlong force,
The Alpine hordes hang threatening on their course;
Track the known thickets, beat the mountain snow,
i Bound o'er the steeps, and hovering hem the foe.

SILIUS ITALICUS. Tr. Elton.

Hannibal ! who not in vain

Swore hate to Rome, and crossed the heaving main,
Climbed with his dauntless bauds yon Alpine height,
And southward poured, an avalanche in his might,
While Rome confessed the terror of his name,
Drooped her bright eye, and hung her head in shame.

N. MlCHELL.
Trampling the snows

The war-horse reared, and the towered elephant
Upturned his trunk into the murky sky,
Then tumbled headlong, swallowed up and lost,
He and his rider.

ROGERS.

Having crossed the Alps,

" Dire Hannibal, the Roman dread " (HORACE),

burst into the plain of Italy, and defeated the Eomans in
four battles, the chief of which was that of Cannae.

The dire African with wasteful ire
Rode o'er the ravaged towns of Italy;
As through the pine-trees flies the raging fire,
Or Eurus o'er the vexed Sicilian sea.

HORACE. Tr. Lord Lyttleton.

The battle of Cannae (216 B. c.), one of the most memo-
rable and decisive in history, resulted in the rout
and almost total destruction of the Eoman army,
although that force was probably much superior to the
Carthaginian in point of numbers.

While Waterloo with Cannae's carnage vies.

BYRON.

In this battle three thousand of the Africans fell, and a great part
of Hannibal's army were wounded. The Romans, however, never
received so severe a blow at any period of the Punic Wars ; for the

64 THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

consul, JSinilius Paulus, was killed; twenty officers of consular and
praetorian rank, thirty senators, and three hundred others of noble
descent were taken or slain, as well as forty thousand foot-soldiers,
and three thousand five hundred horse. During all these calami-
ties, however, not one of the Romans deigned to speak of peace.
EUTROPIUS.

The immediate consequences of this victory were such as both
sides had expected from it. ... In a word, all the neighboring peo-
ple began now to turn their eyes towards the Carthaginians, who on
their part were persuaded that they should take even Rome itself
upon their first approach. The Romans, on the other hand, not only
renounced all hopes of being able any longer to retain the sovereignty
of Italy, but were filled also with the greatest apprehensions with re-
gard even to the safety of themselves and their own proper country,
expecting that the Carthaginians instantly would arrive to finish their
destruction. POLYBIUS.

The number of the slain is computed at forty thousand foot, and
two thousand seven hundred horse. LIVY.

On the day following, as soon as light appeared, his [Hannibal's]
troops applied themselves to the collecting of the spoils, and view-
ing the carnage made, which was such as shocked even enemies, so
many thousand Romans, horsemen and footmen, lay promiscuously
on the field, as chance had thrown them together, either in the battle
or flight. Some whom their wounds, being pinched by the morning
cold, had roused from their posture, were put to death by the enemy,
as they were rising up, all covered with blood, from the midst of the
heaps of carcasses. Some they found lying alive, with their thighs
and hams cut, who, stripping their necks and throats, desired them to
spill what remained of their blood. Some were found, with their
heads buried in the earth, in holes which it appeared they had made
for themselves, and, covering their faces with earth thrown over them,
had been thus suffocated. LIVY.

The lingering war

That of the rings made such illustrious spoils,
As Livy has recorded, who errs not.

DANTE, Infemfy. Tr. Longfellow.

Of these [the gold rings taken from the Romans] there was so
great a heap that, according to some writers, on beipg measured, they

THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 65

filled three pecks and a half ; but the more general account, and like-
wise the more probable, is, that they amounted to no more than one
peck. He also explained to them, in order to show the greater extent
of the slaughter, that none but those of equestrian rank, and of these
only the principal, wore this ornament. LIVY.

After the battle of Cannae, when any other state would have suc-
cumbed to its bad fortune, there was not a movement of weakness
among the Roman people, nor a thought which was not devoted to
the good of the republic. All orders, all ranks, all conditions, ex-
hausted themselves voluntarily. Honor consisted in retaining less,
shame in reserving more. SAINT-EVREMOND.

Hannibal made no important victory after that of
Cannae, but lie remained in Italy for fifteen years (217-
202 B. c.), carrying on an intermittent strife with the Eomans.
At last the Eoman general, Scipio (afterwards called, from
his success in Africa, Scipio Africanus) crossed to Spain
and thence to Africa, and Hannibal had to go home to
defend Carthage.

The final battle of the war was fought at Zama, in
Africa, in 202 B. c., and resulted in the defeat of

^. Zama.

the Carthaginians.

Forced e'en dire Hannibal to yield,

And won the long-disputed world at Zama's fatal field.

HORACE. Tr. Earl of Roscommon.
Scipio's name ennobles much the place,
While fixing here his famous camp, he calls
Fierce Hannibal from Rome's devoted walls.

LUCAN.

The valley fortunate,
Which Scipio the heir of glory made,
When Hannibal turned back with all his hosts.

DANTE, Inferno. Tr. Longfellow.

At last, not at three miles' distance, but by a close siege, he [Scipio]
shook the very gates of Carthage itself. And thus he succeeded in
drawing off Hannibal, when he was still clinging to and brooding
over Italy. There was no more remarkable day, during the whole
course of the Roman Empire, than that on which those two generals

66 THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

the greatest of all that ever lived, whether before or after them ;
the one the conqueror of Italy and the other of Spain drew up
their forces for a close engagement. But previously a conference
was held between them concerning conditions of peace. They stood
motionless awhile in admiration of each other. When they could
not agree on a peace, they gave the signal for battle. It is certain,
from the confession of both, that no troops could have been better drawn
up, and no fight more obstinately maintained. This Hannibal ac-
knowledged concerning the army of Scipio, and Scipio concerning
that of Hannibal. But Hannibal was forced to yield, and Africa
became the prize of the victory, and the whole earth soon followed
the fate of Africa. FLOEUS.

In the mean time preparations were made by both generals for .a
battle, such as scarce ever occurred in any age, since they Avere the
ablest commanders that ever led forces into the field. Scipio came
off victorious, having almost captured Hannibal himself, who escaped
at first with several horse, then with twenty, and at last with only
four. There were found in Hannibal's camp twenty thousand pounds
of silver and eight hundred of gold, with plenty of stores. After
this battle, peace was concluded with the Carthaginians. Scipio
'returned to Rome, and triumphed with the greatest glory, receiving
from that period the appellation of Africanus. Thus the Second
Punic War was brought to an end in the nineteenth year after it
began. EUTROPIUS.

Above fifteen hundred of the Romans fell in the action. But, on
the side of the Carthaginians, more than twenty thousand were killed,
and almost an equal number taken prisoners. Such was the battle
between Hannibal and Scipio, the battle which gave to the Romans
the sovereignty of the world. POLYBIUS.

Produce the \irn that Hannibal contains,

And weigh the mighty dust that yet remains :

And is this all ! Yet this was once the bold,

The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold,

Though stretched in breadth from where the Atlantic roars,

To distant Nilus and his sunburnt shores ;

In length, from Carthage to the burning zone

Where other Moors and elephants are known.

Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds :

Nature opposed her everlasting mounds,

THIRD CENTUEY BEFORE CHRIST. 67

Her Alps and snows ; o'er these with torrent force

He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.

Already at his feet Italia lies ;

Yet thundering on, " Think nothing done," he cries,

"Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls,

And Afric's standards float along her walls ! "

Big words ! but view his figure ! view his face J

for some master hand the lines to trace,

As through the Etrurian swamps, by floods increast,

The one-eyed chief urged his Getulian beast !

But what ensued ? Illusive Glory, say :
Subdued on Zama's memorable day,
He flies in exile to a petty state
With headlong haste ; and at a despot's gate
Sits, mighty suppliant ! of his life in doubt,
Till the Bithynian's morning nap be out.

JU-VENAL. Tr. Giffbrd.

From this bright era, from this prosperous field,

The Roman Glory dates her rising power ;
From hence 't was given her conquering sword to wield,

Raise her fallen gods, and ruined shrines restore.

HORACE. Tr. Lord Lyttleton.

As the result of the Second Punic War Carthage was
obliged to give up all her possessions out of Africa, and to
become a dependent ally of Eome. She was thus wholly
degraded from the position of a powerful commercial state
to that of a defenceless mercantile town. Her maritime
supremacy was gone, and Eome was now the undisputed
mistress of the western part of the Mediterranean. The
Eomans did not, however, interfere with the internal gov-
ernment of Carthage.

The Second Punic "War is so famous that all the world is acquainted
with it. When we consider well the crowd of obstacles which con-
fronted Hannibal, and which that extraordinary man surmounted,
we have before us the finest spectacle that antiquity presents.
MONTESQUIEU.

History can produce no greater statesmen and generals than some
of the members of the Carthaginian aristocracy. But the Car-

68 THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

thaginian people were wholly unfit to contend with the people of
Home. ARNOLD.

It was not the mere destruction of an army, but the final conquest
of the only power that seemed able to combat Rome on equal terms.
In the state of the ancient world, with so few nations really great
and powerful, and so little of a common feeling pervading them,
there was neither the disposition nor the materials for forming a gen-
eral confederacy against the power of Rome. The defeat of Hannibal
insured the empire of the ancient civilized world. ARNOLD.

It is not without reason that so universal and vivid a remembrance
of the Punic Wars has dwelt in the memories of men. They formed
no mere struggle to determine the lot of two cities or two empires ;
but it was a strife, on the event of which depended the fate of two
races of mankind, whether the dominion of the world should belong
to the Indo-Germanic or to the Semitic family of nations. Bear in
mind that the first of these comprises, besides the Indians and the
Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Germans. In the other
are ranked the Jews and Arabs, the Phoenicians, and the Cartha-
ginians. On the one side is the genius of heroism, of art, of
legislation ; on the other is the spirit of industry, of commerce, of
navigation. MICHELET.

Livy opens his narrative of the Second Punic War with the remark
which others had made before him, that it was the greatest and most
memorable that had ever been carried on by the greatest states, and at
the periods of their greatest freshness and vigor : he could say so with
justice ; but after the lapse of more than two thousand years, we can-
not think the same, for in the wars of the French Revolution far greater
energies were called into action; even the seven-years' war, especially
the campaign of 1757, has a greater accumulation of events, and as for
the greatness of the generals engaged in it, it is by no means inferior
to the Second Punic War. In the First Punic War there appears
only one great general; in the Second we have, besides Hannibal,
Scipio, Fabius, Marcellus, and many second-rate ones. We may,
however, truly say that in all ancient history there is no war which
equals that against Hannibal in the greatness of the events. We may
also on the whole assert that there never was a general superior to
Hannibal, and in antiquity there is not one whom we could even
place by his side. NIEBUHR.

THIKD CENTUEY BEFORE CHRIST. 69

Thus ended the Second Punic, or, as the Komans more correctly
called it, the Hannibalic War, after it had devastated the lands and
islands from the Hellespont to the pillars of Hercules for seventeen
years. Before this war the policy of the Romans had no higher aim
than to acquire command of the mainland of the Italian peninsula
within its natural boundaries, and of the Italian islands and seas; and
it is clearly proved by their treatment of Africa on the conclusion of
peace that they terminated the war with the impression, not that
they had laid the foundation of empire over the states of the Mediter-
ranean, or of universal sovereignty, as it is called, but that they
had rendered a dangerous rival innocuous, and had given to Italy
agreeable neighbors. . . . The Romans achieved the sovereignty of
Italy because they strove for it; the hegemony (and the sovereignty
which grew out of it) over the territories of the Mediterranean was,
to a certain extent, thrown into the hands of the Romans by the
force of circumstances, without intentional effort ou their part to
acquire it. MOMMSEN.

GEEECE.

THE ACHJ3AN LEAGUE.

GREECE was from this time greatly distracted in her
affairs.

Greek power, Greek energy, Greek genius, might now be found
indeed anywhere rather than in Greece. ARNOLD.

She, however, made an independent stand against Mace-
donia by means of the Achaean League, the ^Etolian League,
and other smaller leagues. The Achaean League was
formed about 280 B. c.

The first germ of a new confederacy, which existed from this time
forwards till the total extinction of Grecian independence, and in which
there was revived a faint image of the ancient glory of Greece, the
pale martinmas summer of her closing year. ARNOLD.

70 THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

The Achaean League had united the best elements of Greece proper
in a confederacy based on civilization, national spirit, and peaceful
preparation for self-defence. MOMMSEN.

The federal union of Achaia was maintained, with varied fortunes,
for one hundred and forty years, and assured to a large part of Greece
an honorable freedom and a political independence, which could not
have been enjoyed by a number of separate cities. At length, how-
ever, it succumbed, first to the ascendency of Macedon, and at last to
the irresistible dominion of Rome. Its history, if less glorious than
that of the earlier republics of Greece, is yet specially interesting, as
presenting to us one of the earliest and best-contrived examples of a
federal state, and the last home of Grecian liberty.

This league presented an example of pure democracy, in the form
of a federal union. As in Athens the highest type of pure
democracy the sovereign power was vested in the assembly, so
in the Achaean League the like power was exercised by the fed-
eral assembly, in which all citizens of the confederation had equal
rights. MAY.

ALEXANDRIA.

THE Greek or Macedonian colony which was planted
in the city of Alexandria, that had been founded by the
Conqueror, and called after him, lived and flourished, and
Alexandria soon took its place in the front rank of cities.
Here arose a singularly brilliant and unique development
of religious and speculative thought, and the school of
Alexandria became famous throughout the world.

When Alexander the Great founded his stately capital on the
Delta, it was with the political and commercial view of making
it the imperial city of the world. Ptolemy, who in the fourfold
division received this southern portion of his empire, sought fur-
ther to make it " the metropolis of science, the asylum of letters,
and sanctuary of light." Alexandria became " the great Hellenic
city, centre of the commerce of three continents, the common shelter
of letters and the arts," the " crown of all cities." When Physco

THIRD CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 71

passed his decree of exile, says Athenaeus, lie " filled cities and islands
with grammarians, philosophers, geometers, musicians, painters, teach-
ers, doctors, and many other professions." From Alexandria, it was
said, are all teachers among Greeks and Barbarians. Every popula-
tion and every faith was free to share its ample and cosmopolitan
domain. Both Grecian and Egyptian gods had been honored with
temples by its founder. Oriental mysticism and Western culture
met in the equal hospitality of its schools. As the political power
of Greece declined, her intellectual eminence continued undisputed
here. J. H. ALLEN.

Had the empire of Alexander continued to stand, Greek science
and art would have found a state worthy and capable of containing
them. Now, when the nation had fallen to pieces, a learned cosmo-
politanism grew up in it luxuriantly, and was very soon attracted by
the magnet of Alexandria, where scientific appliances and collections
were inexhaustible, where kings composed tragedies, and ministers
wrote commentaries on them, and where pensions and academies
flourished. MOMMSEN.

Meantime, more high

Aspiring, o'er the Western main her towers
The imperial city lifts, the central mart
Of nations, and beneath the calm clear sky,
At distance from the palmy marge, displays
Her clustering columns, whitening to the morn.
Damascus' fleece, Golconda's gems, are there.
Murmurs the haven with one ceaseless hum;
The hurrying camel's bell, the driver's song,
Along the sands resound. Tyre, art thou fallen ?
A prouder city crowns the inland sea,
Raised by his hand who smote thee ; as if thus
His mighty mind were swayed to recompense
The evil of his march through cities stormed,
And regions wet with blood ! and still had flowed
The tide of commerce through the destined track,
Traced by his mind sagacious, who surveyed
The world he conquered with a sage's eye,

As with a soldier's spirit.

W. L. BOWLES.

AboutlOOB.C.

SECOND CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

(200-100.)

THE great movement of the century is the growth of the
power and glory of the Eoman dominion.

ROME completes the conquest of Cisalpine Gaul about
191 B. c. ; conquers Macedonia and Greece, the former
becoming a Eoman province in 168 B. c., and the latter
in 146 B. c., under the name of Achaia. (See page 79.)
Rome destroys Carthage in 146 B. c., and the Carthaginian
territory becomes the Roman province of Africa. (See
PUNIC WARS, page 75.) In the latter part of the century
Rome begins the conquest of Transalpine Gaul, and also
begins to interfere with the affairs of Asia, and forms of
the dominions of Pergarnus the province of Asia in 133.
129 B. c. Nearly all of Spain becomes, after 133 B. c., a
Roman province.

CARTHAGE becomes in 146 B. c. the Roman province of Africa.
(See PUNIC WARS.)

MACEDONIA is overpowered by Rome and becomes a Roman
province in 168 B. C.

GREECE remains nominally independent for a short time after the
subjection of Macedonia by Rome in 168 B. c., but in 146 B. c. is
overcome by Rome, and becomes a Roman province under the name
of Achaia. (See page 79.)

EGYPT continues under the Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies.

JUDAEA throws off the yoke of Syria, and becomes independent in
166 B. c., under Judas Maccabaeus.

STRIA (kingdom of the SELEUCID^E), PARTHIA, and the other
countries of the East, present no movements of general interest.

PERGAMUS. (See above, under ROME.)

200 B.C. -100 B.C.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

197. Battle of Cynocephale ; the Romans
defeat the Macedonians.

190. Antiochus defeated by the Romans
at Magnesia.

170. Jerusalem plundered by Antiochus
Epiphanes, who attempts to abolish
the Jewish religion.

168. Battle of Pydna ; the Romans defeat
the Macedonians and reduce Mace-
donia to a Roman province.

166. The Syrians expelled from Judsea by
Judas Maccabseus. Beginning of
the era of the Maccabees.

149. Third Punic War, till 146 B. c.

146. Destruction, of Carthage by the Ro-

mans. End of the Third Punic

War.
146. Destruction of Corinth by Mummius.

Greece made a Roman province

under the name of Achaia.
133. Spain completely subjugated.
133-129. Pergamus becomes the Roman

province of Asia.
133-121. Agrarian laws of Tiberius and

Caius Gracchus.
113. The Romans defeated by the Teu-

tones and Cimbri.

111. War of the Romans against Jugurtha.
102. The Teutones defeated by Marius at

Aqua; Sextise ; the Cimbri defeated

the following year.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.
ROME.

Public Men. Scipio Africanus, T. Quintius Flaminius, Scipio Asiaticus, Paulus
^Emilius, Cato the Censor, Scipio (2d Africanus), Metellus, Mummius, the Gracchi,
Marius, Sylla.

Poets and Dramatists. Ennius, Plautus, Terence, Pacuvius.

Historian. Cato the Censor.

GREECE. 1

Public Man. Philopoemen.

Philosophers. Apollonius, Eratosthenes, Carneades, Hipparchus.
Poets. Apollonius, Bion (?), Moschus(?), Nicander.
Historians and Orators. Polybius, Apollodorus.

Kings. Dynasty of the Ptolemies.
Kings. Dynasty of the Seleucidae.

EGYPT.

SYRIA.

JUDAEA.
Priests and Patriots. Mattathias, Judas Maccabreus, Jonathan, Simon, J. Hyrcanus.

PEBGAMUS.
King. Eumenes.

King. Mithridates (the Great).

General. Hannibal.

PONTUS.

CARTHAGE.

Including Greeks in other countries.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

ONTINUING her career of conquest, Rome com-
pleted the subjugation of Cisalpine Gaul about
191 B. c., and Macedonia was conquered and became a
Roman province in 168 B. c.

THE THIED PUNIC WAR

THE close of the Second Punic "War (treated in the
preceding century) left Carthage a dependent ally of
Rome, and was followed by an interval of fifty years,
during which active hostilities between the two countries
were suspended; but many at Rome were not satisfied
with the submissive and dependent condition of Carthage,
and were resolved to reduce her to a state of entire
subjection.

The peace with Rome lasted for upwards of fifty years, during
which the Carthaginians did not give the Romans a single reason for
complaint, nor do the Romans themselves mention any. We must
suppose that this interval was a time of prosperity for Carthage, for
after it we find the city very rich and populous. NIEBUHR.

76 SECOND CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

To the later generations who survived the storms of the revolu-
tion, the period after the Hannibalic War appeared the golden age of
Rome, and Cato seemed the model of the Roman statesman. It was
in reality the calm before the storm and an epoch of political medi-
ocrities, an age like that of the government of Walpole in England ;
and no Chatham was found in Rome to infuse fresh energy into the
stagnant life of the nation. Wherever we cast our eyes, chinks and
rents are yawning in the old building ; we see workmen busy some-
times in filling them up, sometimes in enlarging them, but we
nowhere perceive any trace of preparations for thoroughly rebuild-
ing or renewing it, and the question is no longer whether, but simply
when, the structure will fall. During no epoch did the Roman
constitution remain formally as stable as in the period from the
Sicilian to the third Macedonian war, and for a generation beyond it ;
but the stability of the constitution was here, as everywhere, not a
sign of the health of the state, but a token of the incipient sickness
and the harbinger of revolution. MOMMSEN.

Nay, he [Marcus Cato] never after this gave his opinion, but at the
end he would be sure to come out with this sentence : " Also, Carthage,
methinks, ought utterly to be destroyed." But Publius Scipio Nasica
would always declare his opinion to the contrary, in these words :
" It seems requisite to me that Carthage should still stand." For,
seeing his countrymen to be grown wanton and insolent, and the
people ~maUe, by their prosperity, Obstinate and_disobedient_to
the senate, and drawing tEe whole city whither they would after
tEem, he would have had tEeTear of Carthage to serve as a bit to
hold in the contumacy of the multitude ; and he looked upon the
Carthaginians as too weak to overcome the Romans and too great to
be despised by them. On the other hand, it seemed a perilous thing
to Cato, that a city which had been always great, and was now grown
sober and wise by reason of its former calamities, should still lie, as
it were, in wait for the follies and dangerous excesses of the over-
powerful Roman people ; so that he thought it the wisest course to
have all outward dangers removed, when they had so many inward
ones among themselves. PLUTARCH.

In 149 B. c. a Third Punic War broke out, and re-
sulted in the destruction of Carthage, in 146 B. c., by the
Roman general Scipio (the younger). The city was fired

SECOND CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 77

and destroyed, and the Carthaginian territory became the
Eoman province of Africa. "This great city, therefore,
furnishes the most striking example in the annals of the
world of a mighty power which, having long ruled over
subject peoples, taught them the arts of commerce and
civilization, and created for them an imperishable name,
has left behind it little more than a name."

Where low the once victorious Cartilage lay.

LUCAN.

Who can declare

The Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war,
The double bane of Carthage ?

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

And here the praise of either Scipion

Abides in highest place above the best,

To whom the ruined walls of Carthage vowed ;

Trembling, their forces sound their praises lowd.

SPENSER.

Then occurred that which has no parallel in history, an entire
civilization perished at one blow, vanished like a falling star. The
" Periplus " of Hanno, a few coins, a score of lines in Plautus, and,
lo ! all that remains of the Carthaginian world. MICHELET.

A state perished in which Rome lost what could never be restored
to her, a noble rival. SCHMITZ.

The most shameful and fiendish perfidy of which any nation was
ever the victim. IHNE.

The ruins of Carthage have perished ; and the place might be
unknown if some broken arches of an aqueduct did not guide the
footsteps of the inquisitive traveller. GIBBON.

Great Carthage low in ruins cold doth lie,
Her ruins poor the herbs in height can pass ;

So cities fall, so perish kingdoms high,
Their pride and pomp lie hid in sand and grass.

TASSO. Tr. Fairfax.

I stand in Carthage. What ! no humble town,

No village left to speak her old renown ?

Not e'en a tower, a wall ? ruthless years !

To spare not these to pride and pity's tears ;

78 SECOND CENTURY BEFORE' CHRIST.

Well was avenging Scipio's task performed,
The flames announced it, and the towers he stormed;
But yours hath been far better, desert land,
Where scarce a palm-tree crowns the heaps of sand,
Old mouldering cisterns, rude unshapen stones,
For e'en the graves are gone, and leave no bones,
A half-choked stream, amid whose sedge is heard
The mournful cry of Afric's desert bird,
These, Carthage, terror once of earth and sea,
Are all dark time hath left to tell of thee.

N. MlCHELL.

Delenda est Carthago ! let the tear
Still drop, deserted Carthage, on thy bier;
Let mighty nations pause as they survey
The world's great empires crumbled to decay;
And, hushing every vising tone of pride,
Deep in the heart this moral lesson hide,
Which speaks with hollow voice as from the dead,
Of beauty faded and of glory fled,
Delenda est Carthago.

Before the destruction of Carthage, the senate and people managed
the affairs of the republic with mutual moderation and forbearance ;
there were no contests among the citizens for honor or ascendency,
but the dread of an enemy kept the state in order. When that fear,
however, was removed from their minds, licentiousness and pride,
evils which prosperity loves to foster, immediately began to prevail ;
and thus peace, which they had so eagerly desired in adversity, proved,
when they had obtained it, more grievous and fatal than adversity
itself. The Patricians carried their authority, and the people their
liberty, to excess ; every man took, snatched, and seized what he
could. There was a complete division into two factions, and the re-
public was torn in pieces between them. Yet the nobility still main-
tained an ascendency by conspiring together; for the strength of the
people, being disunited and dispersed among a multitude, was less
able to exert itself. Things were accordingly directed, both at home
and in the field, by the will of a small number of men, at whose dis-
posal were the treasury, the provinces, offices, honors, and triumphs,
while the people were oppressed with military service and with pov-
erty, and the generals divided the spoils of war with a few of their
friends. The parents and children of the soldiers, meantime, if they
chanced to dwell near a powerful neighbor, were driven from their

SECOND CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 79

homes. Thus avarice, leagued with power, disturbed, violated, and '
wasted everything, without moderation or restraint, disregarding
alike reason and religion, and rushing headlong, as it were, to its 1
own destruction. SALLUST.

For when their dread of Carthage was at an end, and their rival in
empire was removed, the nation, deserting the cause of virtue, went
over, not gradually, but with precipitation, to that of vice; the old rules
of conduct were renounced, and new introduced; and the people
turned themselves from activity to slumber, from arms to pleasure,
from business to idleness. VELLEIUS PATEECULUS.

GREECE A ROMAN PROVINCE.

IN 146 B. c., the same year in which she destroyed Car-
thage, Rome also destroyed Corinth in Greece, and Greece
became a Roman province under the name of Achaia.

'T is Greece, but living Greece no more !

BYRON.

The Greeks surpass all men till they face the Romans, when Ro-
man character prevails over Greek genius. EMERSON.

As far as intellect is concerned, the Greeks were in a state of com-
plete decay ; at Athens schools indeed still existed, but poetry was
extinct, and even the art of oratory, the last flower of the Hellenic
mind, had disappeared from Greece and established itself among the
Asiatic nations, which had become Hellenized without possessing the
great qualities of the Greek nation. Most towns were only shadows
of what they had been, and there were few which had not been
destroyed several times. Corinth was one of the fortunate ex-
ceptions, and hence had become the most flourishing of all Greek
cities. NIEBUHR.

The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to their engagements,
and strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, at the same time,
ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With the vanquished people were
deposited all the art, the science, and the literature of the Western

80 SECOND CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

world. In poetry, in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in
sculpture, they had no rivals. ^JTheir manners were polished, their
perceptions acute, their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable,
humane. But of courage and sincerity they were almost utterly
"Hestitute. "

For should a man except the achievement at Marathon, the
sea-fight at Salamis, the engagements at Platsea and Thermopylae,
Cimon's exploits at Eurymedon and on the coasts of Cyprus, Greece
fought all her battles against, and to enslave, herself; she erected all
her trophies to her own shame and misery, and was brought to ruin
and desolation almost wholly by the guilt and ambition of her great
men. PLUTAKCH.

In Greece the unity of the social principle led to a development
of wonderful rapidity; no other people ever ran so brilliant a career
in so short a time. But Greece had hardly become glorious, before
she appeared worn out; her decline, if not quite so rapid as her rise,
was strangely sudden. It seems as if the principle which called
Greek civilization into life was exhausted. GUIZOT.

When we reflect on the fame of Thebes and Argos, of Sparta and
Athens, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that so many immortal re-
publics of ancient Greece were lost in a single province of the Roman
Empire, which, from the superior influence of the Achaean League,
was usually denominated the province of Achaia. GIBBON.

It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was her-
self subdued by the arts of Greece. GIBBON.

The interior, or active political history of the Greeks ceases with
the subjugation of their country by Alexander, or at least by the
Romans; but it is from this very point that the history of their exte-
rior influence may be said almost to commence. From this period
we begin to learn how important a part the little corner of Europe,
which gave birth to art and science, to politics and philosophy, was
really destined to play in human affairs. MEIUVALE.

When conquered Greece brought in her captive arts,
She triumphed o'er her savage conquerors' hearts ;
Taught our rough verse its numbers to refine,
And our rude style with elegance to shine.

HORACE. Tr. Francis.

SECOND CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 81

Where are thy splendors, Dorian Corinth ? Where

Thy crested turrets, thy ancestral goods,
The temple of the blest, the dwellings of the fair,

The high-born dames, the myriad multitudes ?
There 's not a trace of thee, sad doomed one, left
By ravening war at once of all bereft.
We, the sad nereids, offspring of the surge,
Alone are spared to chant the halcyon's dirge.

ANTIPATER OF SIDON.

Where is thy grandeur, Corinth ? Shrunk from sight
Thy ancient treasures, and thy ramparts' height,
Thy godlike fanes and palaces ! Oh, where
Thy mighty myriads, and majestic fair ?
Relentless war has poured around thy wall,
And hardly spared the traces of thy fall !

BYRON.
Achaean Acrocorinth, the bright star

Of Hellas, with its narrow Isthmian bound,

Lucius o'ercame ; in one enormous mound
Piling the dead, conspicuous from afar.
Thus, to the Greeks denying funeral fires,

Have great ^Eneas' later progeny

Performed high Jove's retributive decree,
And well avenged the city of their sires.

POLYSTRATUS. Tr. Merivalc.

Ay, Paul denounced, and Mummius wrapped in flame,
The cup was full, the bolt of ruin came,
Mirth spread its wings, the sister Graces fled,
And Corinth bowed in death her beauteous head.

N. MICHELL.

When riseth Lacedaemon's hardihood,
When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,
When Athens' children are with hearts endued,
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,
Then mayst thou be restored ; but not till then.

BTKON.

Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth !
Immortal, though no more ; though fallen, great !

BYRON.

Three most remarkable triumphs, therefore, were celebrated at
Home at the same time, that of Scipio for Africa, before whose
chariot Hasdrubal was led ; that of Metellus for Macedonia, before
whose chariot walked Andriscus (also called Pseudo- Philip) ; and

82 SECOND CENTUKY BEFORE CHEIST.

that of Mummius for Corinth, before whom brazen statues, pictures,
and other ornaments of that celebrated city were carried. Eu-
TROPIUS.

IN the latter part of the century Eome begins the con-
quest of Transalpine Gaul, and also begins to interfere
with the affairs of Asia, and forms of the dominions of
Pergamus the province of Asia in 133 - 129 B. c. Nearly-
all of Spain becomes after 133 B. c. a Roman province.
Eome has risen to the position of the one great power of
the world.

Rome had its heroic age : the Eomans knew that they had such
an age, and we may believe them. Polybius saw the end of it ; he
saw the destruction of Carthage and the savage sack of Corinth, and
the beginning of a worse time. But he has recorded his testimony
that some honesty still remained. LONG.

From Mummius to Augustus the Roman city stands as the living
mistress of a dead world. FREEMAN.

The submission of Macedonia, and the fall of Corinth, Car-
thage, and Numantia, brought the universe to the feet of Rome.
MICHELET.

Rome was between two worlds. The Western was bare, poor, and
barbarous, full of grass and verdure, a vast confusion of dispersed
tribes ; the Eastern, brilliant in arts and civilization, but weak and
corrupted. The latter, in its proud ignorance, thought alone to
occupy the attention and forces of the great nation. MICHELET.

That city [Rome] is for sale, and will soon perish if it finds a
purchaser. SALLUST.

Pro pudore, pro abstinentia, pro virtute, audacia, largitio, avaritia
vigebant. - - SALLUST.

The state was hastening towards its dissolution. No one thought
of the republic being in danger, and the danger was indeed as yet far
distant; but the seeds of dissolution were, nevertheless, sown, and its
symptoms were already beginning to become visible. We hear it

SECOND CENTURY BEFOEE CHRIST. 83

generally said, that, with the victories of the Romans in Asia, luxury
in all the vices which accompany avarice and rapacity, began to break
in upon them. This is, indeed, true enough, but it was only the
symptom of corruption, and not its cause; the latter lay much deeper.
After so many years of destructive and cruel wars, during which the
Romans had been almost uninterruptedly in arms, the whole nation
was in a frightful condition: the poor were utterly impoverished, the
middle class had sunk deeper and deeper, and the wealthy had amassed
immense riches. The same men who had gloriously fought under
Scipio, and then marched into the rich countries of Asia as hungry-
soldiers, now returned with exorbitant and ill-gotten riches, the
treasures extorted from conquered nations. They had no real wants,
and did not know how to use the quickly acquired riches. The Ro-
mans had grown rich, but the immediate consequence was a brutal
use of their riches. NIEBUHK.

It is evident to every one whose observation is not superficial, that
the Roman government during this whole period wished and desired
nothing but the sovereignty of Italy; that they were simply desirous
not to have too powerful neighbors alongside of them; and that, not
out of humanity towards the vanquished, but from the very sound
view that they ought not to suffer the kernel of their empire to be
crushed by the shell, they earnestly opposed the introduction first
of Africa, then of Greece, and lastly of Asia into the pale of the
Roman protectorate, till circumstances in each case compelled, or at
least suggested with irresistible force, the extension of that pale.
MOMMSEN.

In the course of this century the cause of the Plebeians
as against the aristocracy was taken up by the eminent and
popular statesman, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, The
who sought to introduce much needed reforms. Gracchi.
He was violently opposed by the oligarchy, and, with about
three hundred of his supporters, was killed in the year
133 B. c. Ten years later his brother Gains attempted to
renew his work, but he was also murdered by the aristo-
cratic faction.

Who can omit the Gracchi ?

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

84 SECOND CENTUKY BEFORE CHRIST.

His [Tiberius Gracchus'] immediate object was, not the enrich-
ment or elevation of the Plebeians, but simply the restoration of the
needier citizens to a state of honorable independence. MERIVALE.

His [Tiberius Gracchus'] great aim was to enforce the observance
of previous laws, to correct the grave abuses of the system under
which the public lands were held, and to raise up a new class of small
proprietors and cultivators of the soil, who would have constituted an
industrious and stable middle class to stand between the haughty
nobles and the hungry populace. MAY.

There never was a milder law [i. e. the Licinian, which prohibited
any man from occupying more than five hundred acres of public land,
and which law, with some modifications, Gracchus sought to revive]
made against so much injustice and oppression. For they who de-
served to have been punished for their infringement on the rights of
the community were to have a consideration for giving up their
groundless claims. ... In this just and glorious cause Tiberius
exerted an eloquence which might have adorned a worse subject,
and which nothing could resist. PLUTARCH.

The aristocracy were foiled by the courage and patriotism of the
Gracchi, who acted with that thorough faith in the truth and jus-
tice of their cause which affords the surest promise of success. The
agrarian laws were carried, though their authors perished in the
struggle, and these enactments proved thoroughly too intricate and
impracticable to be ever executed. But, imperfectly as they were
administered, their effect was still stringent and salutary. Hence
the extraordinary energy which the republic displayed during the
thirty years that followed. MERIVALE.

The history of Rome from the time of the Gracchi is the history of
a state that was hurried to its ruin by the ignorance of the people and
the vices of their leaders. We now and then meet with an honest
man, but the number is small. LONG.

The defeat of the Teutones by the consul, Cams Marius,
in a great battle near Aquae Sextise, in Gaul, in the year
102 B. c. is one of the chief events in Koman history. It
saved Borne from being overthrown, not by a civilized race,
but by a people who were essentially barbarous. Marius
is justly entitled to rank among the most illustrious men
of Rome.

SECOND CENTUEY BEFORE CHRIST. 85

THE MACCABEES.

IT was during this century that the Jews, under the
leadership of a celebrated family surnamed the Maccabees
(from the Hebrew Makkab, a hammer), obtained a tem-
porary independence. About the year 165 B. c. Judas
Maccabaeus won a great victory over the Syrian King An-
tiochus. This is the heroic period of Jewish history.

[Judas Maccabseus] gat his people great honor, and put on a breast-
plate as a giant, and girt his warlike harness about him, and he made
battles, protecting the host with his sword. In his acts he was like
a lion, and like a lion's whelp roaring for his prey. 1 MACCABEES,
iii. 3.

So did not Maccabseus: he indeed

Retired unto the desert, but with arms ;

And o'er a mighty king so oft prevailed,

That by strong hand his family obtained,

Though priests, the crown, and David's throne usurped,

With Modin and her suburbs once content.

MILTON.

I saw athwart the Cross a splendor drawn
By naming Joshua (even as he did it),
Nor noted J the word before the deed;
And at the name of the great Maccabee
I saw another move itself revolving,
And gladness was the whip unto that top.

DANTE, Paradiso. Tr. Longfellow.

Abo-at -A.D.I

Tmtting Co, Boston

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.
(100-1.)

THE prominent feature of the century is the great do-
minion and power of HOME.

EOME becomes mistress of Asia Minor in 64 B. c., and
under Pompey now humbles Armenia (but without annex-
ing it), makes Syria a Roman province, and Palestine (with
Judaea) a Eoman dependency, extending the Roman
power to the Euphrates. Julius Caesar, the great Ro-
man general, in seven years subdues the whole land of
Gaul. Egypt becomes a Roman province in 30 B. c. The
Roman Empire begins in 27 B. c., with Octavius as em-
peror under the title of Augustus Caesar. Various minor
additions are also made to the Roman territory, and at the
Christian epoch Rome becomes mistress of all the lands
round the Mediterranean.

PARTHIA is a great power, and a formidable rival to
Rome.

SYRIA becomes a Roman province in 64 B. c.

JUDAEA becomes subject to Rome in 64 B. c.

GAUL is reduced by Julius Caesar to a Roman province in 51 B. c.

EGYPT becomes a Roman province in 30 B. c.

1OO B. C. A.D. 1.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

90-88. The Social War.

88. Beginning of the Mithridatic Wars and
of the Civil Wars between Marius
and Sulla.

82. Sulla declared perpetual Dictator ;
publishes his proscription.

73-71. Servile War (Spartacus).

70. Battle of Tigranocerta.

66. Mithridates defeated by Pompey, and
Pontus reduced to a Roman prov-
ince.

64. Syria reduced to a Roman province

by Pompey.
63. Catiline's conspiracy.

60. The First Triumvirate (Julius Caesar,

Pompey, and Crassus).
58-51. Caesar's campaigns iu Gaul.

65. Caesar invades Britain. Beginning of

Roman Conquest.

61. Gaul a Roman province.

49. Civil war begins between Caesar and

Pompey.

48. Battle of Pharsalia. Pompey defeated.
46. Battle of Thapsus.
45. Caesar declared perpetual Dictator;

regulates the Roman calendar.
45. Battle of Munda.
44. Julius Caesar assassinated.
43. The Second Triumvirate (Octavius

Caesar, Marcus Antonius, and Lepi-

dus). Civil war.
42. Battle of Philippi. Brutus and Cas-

sius overthrown.
31. Battle of Aotiuin. End of the Roman

Republic.
30. Egypt reduced to a Roman province.

Temple of Janus closed.
27. Octavius becomes Emperor and as-
sumes the title of Augustus Caesar.
4. Birth of Jesus Christ.

PROMINENT NAMES OP THE CENTURY.

ROME.

Public Men. Marius, Sulla, Sertorius, Lucullus, (Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, the First
Triumvirate,) Cicero, Catiline, Cato (Uticensis), (Octavius, Lepidus, Antony, the Second
Triumvirate), Brutus.

Emperor. Augustus.

Poets and Dramatists. Lucretius, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius,
Grid.

Historians. Varro, Julius C&esar, Sallust, Livy, Nepos.

Philosopher and Orator. Cicero.

Greek Geographer. Strabo.

Under the dynasty of the Seleucidse.

SYRIA.

EGYPT.
Under the dynasty of the Ptolemies (Cleopatra the last sovereign).

King. Herod the Great.
King. Mithridates.

JUDAEA.
PONTCS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

EOME.

npHE period of civil strife begun in the last century
-L continued through a large part of this century.

The simple civil and moral organization of a great agricultural city
had been succeeded by the social antagonisms of a capital of many
nations, and by that demoralization in which the prince and the beg-
gar meet; now everything had come to be on a broader, more abrupt,
and fearfully grand scale. When the social war brought all the
political and social elements fermenting among the citizens into
collision with each other, it laid the foundation for a new revolu-
tion. MOMMSEN.

After a war with Mithridates, King of Pontus, came the
bloody days of the civil wars of Marius and Sulla, when
one hundred and fifty thousand Eoman citizens are said to
have perished.

When betwixt Marius and fierce Sulla tost,
The commonwealth her ancient freedom lost.

LUCAN. Tr. Eowe.

This only was wanting to complete the misfortunes of the Eomans,
that they should raise an unnatural war among themselves, and that,
in the midst of the city and forum, citizens should fight with citizens,
like gladiators in an amphitheatre. I should bear the calamity, how-
ever, with greater patience if Plebeian leaders or contemptible nobles

90 FIRST CENTUEY BEFORE CHRIST.

had been at the head of such atrocity; but even Marius and Sulla
(oh, indignity! such men, such generals !) the grace and glory of their
age, lent their eminent characters to this worst of evils. FLORUS.

I pray that I may be permitted to turn away my eyes from the
horrors of the wars of Marius and Sulla. Their frightful history may
be found in Appian. MONTESQUIEU.

The chief interest in the history of Eoman affairs is
now connected with the disputes and ambitious struggles
of the most famous men of Eome. A period of factions
and strife had succeeded the more harmonious times of the
republic.

"I see," said Catiline to Cicero, "I see in the republic a head
without a body, and a body without a head; I will be this head which
is wanting." This sentence admirably describes Eoman society.
MICHELET.

But Rome itself was in the most dangerous inclination to change,
on account of the unequal distribution of wealth and property, those
of highest rank and greatest spirit having impoverished themselves
by shows, entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous build-
ings, and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands
of mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight
impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every daring
man to overturn a sickly commonwealth. PLUTARCH.

When wealth was once considered an honor, and glory, author-
ity, and power attended on it, virtue lost her influence, poverty was
thought a disgrace, and a life of innocence was regarded as a life
of ill-nature. From the influence of riches, accordingly, luxury,
avarice, and pride prevailed among the youth ; they grew at once
rapacious and prodigal; they undervalued what was their own, and
coveted what was another's ; they set at naught modesty and con-
tinence ; they lost all distinction between sacred and profane, and
threw off all consideration and self-restraint. SALLUST.

The fearful anarchy into which Rome was plunged after the time
of Sulla showed itself more particularly in the assemblies of the peo-
ple; for there the place of the free-born Roman citizen was occupied

FIRST CENTURY BEFOKE CHRIST. 91

by an idle and hungry populace, which had no idea for anything
higher than bread and amusements, and was ever ready to attach
itself to those who had the richest rewards to offer. SCHMITZ.

The beginning of the decay of the Roman commonwealth may
be dated from the time when the soldier began to be distinct from
the citizen. The growth of this distinction was gradual. As the
area of military operations extended, campaigns were more protracted,
and the influence of the central government over the forces in the
field became weaker and weaker. Even if a commander started out
with no ambitious designs against the liberties of his country, he
could not but learn, during years of supreme authority over legions
and over provinces, to love the exercise of absolute power. His men,
too, cut off from home communications and sympathies, were ready
to follow a leader who they knew would reward them. They forgot
that they were in the service of the commonwealth, and listened only
to the chief whom they had been accustomed to obey, and on whose
gratitude they felt that they could rely. H. MANN.

Eome became mistress of Asia Minor in 64 B. c., and
under the famous general, Pompey (the Great), then hum-
bled Armenia (but without annexing it), made Syria a
Eoman province, and Palestine (with Judsea) a Eoman
dependency, extending the Eoman power to the Eu-
phrates.

But that which seemed to be his [Pompey's] greatest glory, being
one which no other Roman ever attained to, was this, that he made
his third triumph over the third division of the world. For others
among the Romans had the honor of triumphing thrice, but his first
triumph was over Africa, his second over Europe, and this last over
Asia ; so that he seemed in these three triumphs to have led the
whole world captive. PLUTARCH.

In 60 B. c. Pompey, with Caesar, a rising man of Eome,
and Crassus, united in a famous political partner- First i^.
ship known as the First Triumvirate. The pur- umvirate -
pose of Caesar and Pompey in this union was to get all the
power that they could into their own hands.

92 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Rome, thyself art cause of all these evils,
Thyself thus shivered out to three men's shares t
Dire league of partners in a kingdom last not.
faintly joined friends, with ambition blind,
Why join you force to share the world betwixt you?

LUCAN. Tr. Marlowe.

The blood of the Koman and the Italian has mingled in one com-
mon current; . . . the contest has ended in raising individual states-
men to a position in which they can array their own private ambition
against the general weal. Each great chieftain finds himself at the
head of a faction whose interests centre in him alone, who are ready
to fight under his banner and for his personal aggrandizement, and
have ceased to invoke the watchwords of party or the principles of
class. The Triumvirs are now leagued together to undermine the old
form of government; by and by they will fly asunder, and challenge
each other to mortal duel. Each will try to strengthen himself by an
appeal to old names and prejudices, and the shadows of a popular and
a Patrician party will again face each other on the field of Pharsalia;
but the real contest will be between a Caesar and a Pompeius, no
longer between the commons and the nobility. MERIVALE.

Cato wisely told those who charged all the calamities of Rome
upon the disagreement betwixt Pompey and Caesar [see page 93],
that they were in error in charging all the crime upon the last
cause ; for it was not their discord and enmity, but their unanimity
and friendship, that gave the first and greatest blow to the common-
wealth. PLUTARCH.

Caesar, in a remarkable campaign of about eight years,
Conquest conquered the whole country of Gaul, which be-
of Gaul. came reduced to a Koman province in 51 B. c.

Conceive the languid and bloodless figure of Gaul, just escaped
from a burning fever ; remark how thin and pale she is ; how she
fears even to move a limb lest she bring on a worse relapse. Liberty
was the sweet, cold draught for which she burned, which was stolen
from her. OKOSIUS (fifth century).

He took more than eight hundred cities by storm ; worsted three
hundred nations, and encountered at different times three millions of
enemies, of whom he slew one million in action, and made prisoners
of an equal number. PLUTARCH.

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 93

(LESAE KULEK OF THE EOMAN WOELD.

DURING Caesar's campaign in Gaul and absence from
Eome, Pompey intrigued against him, and an increasing
rivalry between the two men culminated in the Caesar's
bitterest enmity. In 49 B. c. Coesar rebelled,

crossed the Eubicon, and invaded Italy. Civil war now
began between him and the forces of Eome under Pompey.
The decisive battle took place at Pharsalia, and ended in
the entire overthrow of Pompey.

Until Caesar came, Rome was a minor ; by him she attained her
majority and fulfilled her destiny. DE QUINCEY.

There mighty Caesar waits his vital hour,

Impatient for the -world, and grasps his promised power.

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

Caesar's and Pompey's jarring love soon ended,
T was peace against their wills.

LUCAN. Tr. Marlowe.

Pompey could bide no equal,
Nor Caesar no superior : which of both
Had justest cause, unlawful 'tis to judge:
Each side had great partakers.

LUCAN. Tr. Marlowe.

The madness of Caesar and Pompey plunged the city, Italy, the
provinces, in short the whole Roman dominion, into an inflammatory
disorder, so that it is not rightly called a civil war, nor a social war,
nor yet a foreign war, but rather a certain strange compound of them
all, and more than a war. FLORTTS.

The First Triumvirate of Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus was a certain
presage of the fall of the republic. Crassus, who would not have had
the genius to withstand Csesar, fell in an expedition against the Par-
thians ; and Pompey, who had lost much of his popularity in his
later years, was compelled to fly from Rome after Csesar had passed
the Rubicon. . . . The rest is soon told. Pompey was defeated at
Pharsalia, and murdered in Egypt in 48 B. c., and Caesar became
master of the world. DYER.

94 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Never before had a greater number of Roman forces assembled in
one place, or under better generals, forces which would easily have
subdued the whole world had they been led against barbarians.
EUTROPIUS.

Of woes so great was Pharsalia the cause. Let Cannae yield,
a fatal name, and Allia, long condemned in the Roman annals.
Rome has marked these as occasions of lighter woes, this day she
longs to ignore. LUCAN.

When betwixt Marius and fierce Sulla tost,
The commonwealth her ancient freedom lost,
Some shadow yet was left, some show of power;
Now e'en the name with Pompey is no more :
Senate and people all at once are gone,
Nor need the tyrant Mush to mount the throne.

LUCAN. Tr. Rowe.
Age, thou art shamed:

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods.
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man ?
When could they say, till now, that talked of Rome,
That her wide walls encompassed but one man ?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.

SHAKESPEARE.

Caesar was now the master of the Roman world ; but,
a conspiracy having been formed against him, he was
assassinated in the senate-house, at the foot of the statue
of his rival Pompey, March 5, 44 B. c. 1

In his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.

SHAKESPEARE.

Strange and startling resemblance between the fate of the founder
of the kingdom of this world and of the Founder of the kingdom not
of this world, for which the first was a preparation. Each was de-
nounced for making himself a king. Each was maligned as the friend

1 In deorum numerum relatus est non ore modo decernentium sed et per-
suasione vulgi. SUETONIUS.

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 95

of publicans and sinners ; each was betrayed by those whom he had
loved and cared for; each was put to death ; and Csesar also was
believed to have risen again and ascended into heaven and become
a divine being. FROUDE.

He first the fate of Csesar did foretell,
And pitied Rome, when Rome in Caesar fell.

VIRGIL, Georgia I.

The foremost man of all the world.

SHAKESPEAEE.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell.

SHAKESPEABE.

Caesar, the world's great master and his own ;
Unmoved, superior still in every state,

And scarce detested in his country's fate.

POPE.

"Without Caesar, we affirm a thousand times that there would have
been no perfect Rome; and, but for Rome, there could have been no
such man as Csesar. Both, then, were immortal ; each worthy of
each. DE QUINCET.

We are now contemplating that man who, within the short space
of fourteen years, subdued Gaul, thickly inhabited by warlike na-
tions; twice conquered Spain; entered Germany and Britain; marched
through Italy at the head of a victorious army; destroyed the power
of Pompey the Great; reduced Egypt to obedience; saw and defeated
Pharnaces; overpowered, in Africa, the great name of Cato and the
arms of Juba; fought fifty battles, in which 1,192,000 men fell; was
the greatest orator in the world, next to Cicero; set a pattern to all
historians, which has never been excelled; Avrote learnedly on the
sciences of grammar and augury ; and, falling by a premature death,
left memorials of his great plans for the extension of the empire and
the legislation of the world. MTJLLER.

Much has been said respecting the fortune of Csesar; but that
extraordinary man possessed so many great qualities in perfection,
although he had many vices also, that it is difficult to conceive that
he would not have been conqueror, no matter what army he had com-
manded, or that he would not have governed, no matter in what
republic he had been born. MONTESQUIEU.

That there is a bridge connecting the past glory of Hellas and
Rome with the prouder fabric of modern history; that Western

96 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Europe is Romanic, and Germanic Europe classic ; that the names of
Themistocles and Scipio have to us a very different sound from those
of Asoka and Salmanassar ; that Homer and Sophocles are not
merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa attractive to the literary botan-
ist, but bloom for us in. our own garden, all this is the work of
Caesar; and while the creation of his great predecessor in the East
has been almost wholly reduced to ruin by the tempests of the Mid-
dle Ages, the structure of Caesar has outlasted those thousands of
years which have changed religion and polity for the human race,
and even shifted the centre of civilization itself, and it stands erect,
for what we may term perpetuity. MOMMSEN.

If from the intellectual, we turn to the moral character of Caesar,
the whole range of history can hardly furnish a picture of greater de-
formity. Never did any man occasion so large an amount of human
misery with so little provocation. In his campaigns in Gaul he is
said to have destroyed 1,000,000 of men in battle, and to have made
prisoners 1,000,000 more, many of whom were destined to perish as
gladiators, and all were torn from their country and reduced to slav-
ery. The slaughter which he occasioned in the civil wars cannot be
computed ; nor can we estimate the degree of suffering caused in every
part of the empire by his spoliations and confiscations, and by the
various acts of extortion and oppression which he tolerated in his
followers. When we consider that the sole object of his conquests in
Gaul was to enrich himself and to discipline his army, that he might
be enabled the better to attack his country; and that the sole provoca-
tion on which he commenced the civil war was the resolution of the
senate to recall him from a command which he had already enjoyed
for nine years, after having obtained it in the beginning by tumult
and violence, we may judge what credit ought to be given him for
his clemency in not opening lists of proscription after his sword had
already cut off his principal adversaries, and had levelled their party
with the dust. ARNOLD.

By wisedom, manhod, and by gret labour,
Fro humblehede to royal majeste
Up roos he, Julius the conquerour,
That wan al thoccident by land and see,
By strength of bond or elles of trete,
And unto Rome made hem contributarie.

CHATJCER.

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 97

Great Julius, whom now all the world admires,
The more he grew in years, the more inflamed
With glory, wept that he had lived so long
Inglorious.

MILTON.

And thou, dread statue ! yet existent in
The austerest form of naked majesty,
Thou who beheldest, mid the assassins' din,
At thy bathed base the bloody Caesar lie,
Folding his robe in dying dignity,
An offering to thine altar from the queen
Of gods and men, great Nemesis ! did he die,
And thou, too, perish, Pompey ? have ye been
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene ?

BYRON.

With such vividness, with such transparent clearness, the age
stands before us of Cato and Pompey, of Cicero and Julius Caesar;
the more distinctly because it was an age in so many ways the counter-
part of our own, the blossoming period of the old civilization, when,
the intellect was trained to the highest point which it could reach,
and on the great subjects of human interest, on morals and politics,
on poetry and art, even on religion itself and the speculative problems
of life, men thought as we think, doubted where we doubt, argued aa
we argue, aspired and struggled after the same objects. It was an age
of material progress and material civilization; an age of civil liberty
and intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of salons
and of dinner parties, of senatorial majorities and electoral corruption.
The highest offices of state were open in theory to the meanest citizen;
they were confined, in fact, to those who had the longest purses, or
the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms. FROUDE.

The Roman Patriciate, trained in the conquest and government of
the civilized world, in spite of the tyrannical vices which sprung from
that training, were raised by the greatness of their objects to an eleva-
tion of genius and character unmatched by any other aristocracy, ere
the period when, after preserving their power by a long course of wise
compromise with the people, they were betrayed by the army and the
populace into the hands of a single tyrant of their own order, the
most accomplished of usurpers, and, if humanity and justice could for
a moment be silenced, one of the most illustrious of men. There is
no scene in history so memorable as that in which Csesar mastered a

98 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

nobility of which Lucullus and Hortensius, Sulpicius and Catulus,
Pompey and Cicero, Brutus and Cato, were members. MACKINTOSH.

The death of Csesar was followed by about thirteen years
of confusion. Caesar's nephew, Octavius, formed with An-
Endofthe tony, one of Csesar's generals, and Lepidus, the
republic. g econ( j Triumvirate, and waged war with the
friends of the republic, who were headed by Brutus and
Cassius. The latter were defeated at Philippi in 42 B. c.
This was the end of the Eoman Eepublic.

When Caesar, one of the greatest of men, sank under the alliance
of metaphysical fanaticism with aristocratic rage, this foolish and
odious murder had no other issue than raising to the leadership of
the people against the senate men much less tit for the government
of the world; and none of the changes which ensued ever admitted of
any return, however temporary, to the genuine Eoman organization,
because its existence was inseparably connected with the gradual
extension of conquest. COJITE.

The battle of Philippi, in the estimation of the Roman writers,
was the most memorable conflict in their military annals. ... It
was on that field that the republic perished. MERIVALE.

After expelling her kings and shaking off Etruscan influence,
Rome existed as a republic for five centuries, and during this long
age of barbarism she did nothing to advance science or art. Litera-
ture was almost wholly unknown within her Avails, and not one
monument has come down to our time, even by tradition, worthy
of a city of a tenth part of her power and magnitude. There is prob-
ably no instance in the history of the world of a capital city existing
so long, populous and peaceful at home, prosperous and powerful
abroad, and at the same time so utterly devoid of any monuments or
any magnificence to dignify her existence. FERGTJSSON.

Ancient Rome produced many heroes, but no saints. Its self-
sacrifice was patriotic, not religious. Its religion was neither an
independent teacher nor a source of inspiration, although its rites
mingled with and strengthened some of the best habits of the
people. LECKY.

FIEST CENTURY BEFOKE CHRIST. 99

Rome was to the entire Roman people, for many generations, as
much a religion as Jehovah was to the Jews ; nay, much more, for
they never fell away from their worship, as the Jews did from theirs.
And the Romans, otherwise a selfish people, with no very remark-
able faculties of any kind, except the purely practical, derived never-
theless from this one idea a certain greatness of soul, which manifests
itself in all their history, where that idea is concerned, and nowhere
else, and has earned for them the large share of admiration, in other
respects not at all deserved, which has been felt for them by most
noble-minded persons from that time to this. MILL.

Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus now divided the Eoman
world among themselves. Antony took the East, Octavius
the West, and Lepidus the province of Africa ; but the last
named, being weaker than the others, soon dropped out of
sight. Antony and Octavius now began to quarrel. The
former stayed at Alexandria, where he fell under the influ-
ence of Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, for whom
he divorced his wife Octavia, sister of Octavius. Octavius
then declared war, and defeated Antony and Cleopatra
in a sea-fight at Actium, on the west coast of Greece, in
31 B. c.

The issue of the long struggle of the nations against the all-
conquerintf republic is indeed a momentous event in human annals.
The laws and language, the manners and institutions, of Europe still
bear witness to the catastrophe of Actium. The results it produced
can never recur to our minds without impelling us to reflect upon
the results we may suppose it to have averted. MEKIVALE.

But Egypt knows her dream a cheat

Begot of Mareotic fumes,

When the devouring fire consumes,
Ship after ship, her Actium fleet.

When Caesar, following in her wake,

Like hawk or hunter giving chase

To timorous dove or hare of Thrace,
Urges his crew to overtake

100 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

And load the monster-queen with chains,

She homeward steers, resolved to die,

Preferring death to slavery
Or exile from her old domains.

HORACE. Tr. Hovenden.
Her tresses bound with Actium's crown of bay,
Peace comes ; in all the world, sweet goddess, stay !
Her altar flames, ye priests, with incense feed,
Bid 'neath the axe the snow-white victim bleed!
Pray willing Heaven that Caesar's house may stand,
Long as the peace it gives a wearied land !

OVID. Tr. Church.

EOME MISTRESS OF THE WORLD.

EGYPT soon after (30 B. c.) was made a Eoman province.
Rome thus became mistress of all the lands around the
Mediterranean. With the exception of the conquest of
Britain, in the next century, and some temporary additions
at a later period, the Eoman territory had now reached its
greatest extent, and the Eoman power may be regarded as
having practically spread over all the lands which could
be looked on as forming part of the civilized world.

Rome was th' whole world, and al the world was Rome ;
And if things nam'd their names doo equalize,
When land and sea ye name, then name ye Rome ;
And, naming Rome, ye land and sea comprize :
For th' auncient plot of Rome, displayed plaine,
The map of all the wide world doth containe.

SPENSER.

The subject world shall Rome's dominion own,
And prostrate shall adore the nation of the gown.

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

The self-governing powers that had filled the Old World had
bent, one after another, before the rising power of Eome, and had
vanished. The earth seemed left void of independent nations.
RANKE.

FIEST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 101

Toutes lea nations civilisees et une partie des nations barbares
etant reunies sous le meme sceptre, il n'y eut plus dans 1'ancienne
monde qu'une seule cite, en travail d'un monde nouveau. THIERRY.

Home onely might to Rome compared bee,

And onely Rome could make great Rome to tremble.

SPENSER.

The exultations, pomps, and cares of Rome,
Whence half the breathing world received its doom.

WORDSWORTH.

The Palatine, proud Rome's imperial seat,
(An awful pile!) stands venerably great:
Thither the kingdoms and the nations come,
In supplicating crowds, to learn their doom.

CJLAUDIAJI. Tr. Addison.

When, however, Carthage was conquered and destroyed, when
Greece was overrun and plundered, and Egypt, with her long-
treasured art, had become a dependent province, Rome was no longer
the city of the Aryan Romans, but the sole capital of the civilized
world. Into her lap were poured all the artistic riches of the uni-
verse ; to Rome flocked all who sought a higher distinction or a more
extended field for their ambition than their own provincial capitals
could then afford. She thus became the centre of all the arts and of all
the science then known ; and, so far at least as quantity is concerned,
she amply redeemed her previous neglect of them. It seems an
almost indisputable fact that during the three centuries of the empire
more and larger buildings were erected in Rome and her dependent
cities than ever were erected in a like period in any part of the
world. FERGUSSON.

Rome laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a thousand miles in
breadth, and within that zone she comprehended not only all the
great cities of the ancient world, but so perfectly did she lay the
garden of the world in every climate, and for every mode of natural
wealth, within her own ring-fence, that since that era no land, no
part and parcel of the Roman Empire, has ever risen into strength
and opulence, except where unusual artificial industry has availed
to counteract the tendencies of nature. So entirely had Rome en-
grossed whatsoever was rich by the mere bounty of native endow-
ment. Vast, therefore, unexampled, immeasurable, was the basis of
natural power upon which the Roman throne reposed. DE QUIKCEY.

102 FIKST CENTUEY BEFORE CHRIST.

And what was the case when Rome extended her boundaries ? If
we follow her history we shall tind that she conquered or 1'ounded
a host of cities. It was with cities she fought, it was with cities she
treated, it was into cities she sent colonies. In short, the history of
the conquest of the world by Rome is the history of the conquest
and foundation of a vast number of cities. It is true that in the East
the extension of the Roman dominion bore somewhat of a different
character ; the population was not distributed there in the same way
as iii the Western world ; it was under a social system, partaking
more of the patriarchal form, and was consequently much less
concentrated in cities. GUIZOT.

If the world, which resisted every other power, rather welcomed
than withstood the Roman rule, it was owing to the new spirit of
large and complete aggregation which distinguished it. COMTE.

They [the Romans] vanquished a nation, and contented themselves
with weakening it. They imposed conditions upon it which insen-
sibly undermined its power. If it raised itself up, they humbled it
yet more, and thus it became subject without any one being able to
fix the epoch of its subjugation. Thus Rome was not, properly
speaking, either a republic or a monarchy, but the head of a body
which was made up of all the peoples of the world. MONTESQUIEU.
Tr. Baker.

But that which is chiefly to be noted in the whole continuance of
the Roman government, they were so liberal of their naturalizations
as in effect they made perpetual mixtures. For the manner was to
grant the same, not only to particular persons, but to families and
lineages ; and not only so, but to whole cities and countries. So
as in the end it came to that, that Rome was "communis pa-
tria," as some of the civilians call it. ... So, likewise, the au-
thority of Nicholas Machiavel seemeth not to be contemned ; who,
inquiring the causes of the growth of the Roman Empire, doth give
judgment ; there was not one greater than this, that the state
did so easily compound and incorporate with strangers. LORD
BACON.

All that which ^Egypt whilome did devise ;
All that which Greece their temples to embrave,
After th' lonicke, Atticke, Doricke guise ;
Or Corinth skil'd in curious workes to grave ;

FIKST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 103

All that Lysippus practike arte could forme ;

Apelles wit ; or Phidias his skill ;

Was wont this auncient Citie to adorne,

And the heaven it selfe with her wide wonders fill.

All that which Athens ever brought forth wise;

All that which Afrike ever brought forth strange;

All that which Asie ever had of prise;

Was here to see. mervelous great change!

Rome, living, was the worlds sole ornament ;

And, dead, is now the worlds sole moniment.

SPENSER.

Then where, o'er two bright havens,

The towers of Corinth frown ;
Where the gigantic King of day

On his own Rhodes looks down ;
Where soft Orontes murmurs

Beneath the laurel shades ;
Where Nile reflects the endless length

Of dark-red colonnades ;
Where in the still deep water,

Sheltered from waves and blasts,
Bristles the dusky forest

Of Byrsa's thousand masts;
Where Atlas flings his shadow

Far o'er the Western foam,
Shall be great fear on all who hear

The mighty name of Rome.

MACAULAT.

Thou art in Rome ! the city that so long
Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world;
The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
And trembled ; that from nothing, from the least,
The lowliest village (what but here and there
A reed-roofed cabin by the river-side ?)
Grew into everything ; and, year by year,
Patiently, fearlessly, working her way
O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea,
Through nations numberless in battle-array,
Each behind each, each, when the other fell,
Up and in arms, at length subdued them all.

ROGERS.

They have now subdued
All nations. But where they who led them forth;

104 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Who, when at length released by victory
(Buckler and spear hung up, but not to rust),
Held poverty no evil, no reproach,
Living on little with a cheerful mind,
The Decii, the Fabricii ? Where the spade
And reaping-hook, among their household things
Duly transmitted ? In the hands of men
Made captive; while the master and his guests,
Reclining, quaff in gold, and roses swim,
Summer and winter, through the circling year,
On their Falernian, in the hands of men
Dragged into slavery with how many more
Spared but to die, a public spectacle,
In combat with each other.

ROGERS.

What, then, had Roman society become ? At its head were ambi-
tious and wealthy nobles, commanding vast means of corruption;
beneath them was a wretched populace, without patriotism or virtue,
and open to the most vulgar seductions of self-interest and pleasure.
Their wants were appeased by a profuse distribution of grain from
the provinces, below its cost price; and their amusements ministered
to by the constant multiplication of games and festivals, the cost of
which was defrayed by the sediles, and other elected magistrates.
Who could aspire to such offices unless they were rich and liberal ?
Theatrical entertainments were provided for the people by the sediles.
Wrestling and athletic sports were succeeded by the baiting of wild
beasts from Africa; and these again by the revolting combats of gladi-
ators. The multitude craved for new excitements, and those provided
for them became more and more brutalizing. Such was the demorali-
zation of the time, that even the administration of justice was tainted
with corruption. MAY.

The gross brutality and total absence of every feeling of humanity
in the population of Rome shows itself most strikingly in their pas-
sionate fondness for the bloody scenes of the circus: the sight of
murder, and of men in the agonies of death, was to them a source of
pleasure and delight; and their cries for bread were often mixed with
cries for murderous games. . . . All imaginable instruments and
artifices of sensuality, voluptuousness, and debauchery were carried
from the East into Italy; and the city of Rome, which became a place
of resort for persons of all nations, was at the same time a pool of
corruption for all. SCHMITZ.

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 105

When Fortune made us lords of all, wealth flowed,

And then we grew licentious and rude;

The soldiers' prey and rapine brought in riot ;

Men took delight in jewels, houses, plate,

And scorned old sparing diet, and wore robes

Too light for women ; Poverty, who hatched

Rome's greatest wits, was loathed, and all the world

Ransacked for gold, which breeds the world decay;

And then large limits had their butting lands ;

The ground which Curius and Camillus tilled,

Was stretched unto the fields of hinds unknown.

Again, this people could not brook calm peace;

Them freedom without war might not suffice :

Quarrels were rife ; greedy desire, still poor,

Did vile deeds ; then 'twas worth the price of blood,

And deemed renown, to spoil their native town ;

Force mastered right, the strongest governed all;

Hence came it that the edicts were overruled,

That laws were broke, tribunes with consuls strove,

Sale made of offices, and people's voices

Bought by themselves and sold, and every year

Frauds and corruptions in the Field of Mars ;

Hence interest and devouring usury sprang,

Faith's breach, and hence came war, to most men welcome.

LUCAN. Tr. Marlowe.

The age of our fathers, worse than that of our grandsires, has pro-
duced us, who are yet baser, and who are doomed to give birth to a
still more degraded offspring. HORACE.

The memorable sea-fight, 31 B. c., at Aktion (Actium),
on the west coast of Greece, between Octavius Csesar and
the forces of Antony and Cleopatra, resulting in Beginning
the defeat of the latter, left all power in the hands
of the former, who became practically the master
of the Eoman world, and who assumed the title of Augus-
tus Caesar in 27 B. c. We can now regard the Eoman
Eepublic as changed to a monarchy, with Augustus as
the first emperor.

Then Csesar from the Julian stock shall rise,
Whose empire ocean, and whose fame the skies,

106 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Alone shall bound; whom, fraught with Eastern spoils,

Our heaven, the just reward of human toils,

Securely shall repay with rites divine,

And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine.

Then dire debate and impious war shall cease,

And the stern age be softened into peace.

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

Postquam bellatum apud Actium, atque omnein potestatem ad unuin
couferri pacis interfuit. TACITUS.

Micat inter omnes
Julius sidus, velut inter ignes
Luna minores.

HORACE.

All nations now to Rome obedience pay ;

To Rome's great emperor, whose wide domain

In ample territory, wealth, and power,

Civility of manners, arts, and arms,

And long renown, thou justly mayst prefer

Before the Parthian ; l these two thrones except,

The rest are barbarous, and scarce worth the sight,

Shared among petty kings too far removed.

MILTON.

The battle of Actium was followed by the final conquest of Egypt.
That conquest rounded and integrated the glorious empire; it was now
circular as a shield, orbicular as the disk of a planet: the great
Julian arch was now locked into the cohesion of granite by its last
key-stone. From that day forward, for three hundred years, there
was silence in the world: no muttering was heard; no eye winked
beneath the wing. Winds of hostility might still rave at intervals ;
but it was on the outside of the mighty empire, it was at a dream-
like distance; and, like the storms that beat against some monumental
castle, "and at the doors and windows seem to call," they rather
irritated and vivified the sense of security, than at all disturbed its
luxurious lull. DE QUINCEY.

We have beheld a nation, still full of life, still instinct with energy,
just arrived at the culminating point of its glories in the career most
appropriate to its genius; the conquered world lies prostrate at its
feet, and for a moment it seems to have achieved the second and

1 See page 114.

FIRST CENTURY BEFOEE CHRIST. 107

greater triumph over its own passions. The task now lies before
it of consolidating its acquisitions and imparting civilization to its
subjects. MERIVALE.

A municipal corporation like Rome might be able to conquer the
world, but it was a much more difficult task to govern it, to mould it
into one compact body. Thus, when the work seemed done, when
all the West and a great part of the East had submitted to the
Roman yoke, we find an immense host of cities, of little states formed
for separate existence and independence, breaking their chains, escap-
ing on every side. This was one of the causes which made the estab-
lishment of the empire necessary; which called for a more concentrated
form of government, one better able to hold together elements which
had so few points of cohesion. GUIZOT.

The Romans, having acquired a vast dominion, were met by the
great problem which every first-class power is called upon to solve,
by what means many communities, with different languages, customs,
characters, and traditions, can be retained peaceably under a single
ruler. LECKY.

With respect to the empire, the first question which presents itself
is, Whence that is, from what causes and from what era vre are
to date its decline ? Gibbon, as we all know, dates it from the reign
of Coimnodus [A. D. 180-192], but certainly upon no sufficient, or
even plausible, grounds. Our own opinion we shall state boldly :
the empire itself, x from the very era of its establishment, was one long
decline of the Roman power. A vast monarchy had been created and
consolidated by the all-conquering instincts of a republic, cradled
and nursed in wars, and essentially warlike by means of all its insti-
tutions and by the habits of the people. This monarchy had been of
too slow a growth, too gradual, and too much according to the regu-
lar stages of nature herself in its development, to have any chance
of being other than well cemented ; the cohesion of its parts was
intense ; seven centuries of growth demand one or two at least for
palpable decay. . . . Hence it was and from the prudence of Au-
gustus acting through a very long reign, sustained at no very distant
interval by the personal inspection and revisions of Hadrian that
for some time the Roman power seemed to be stationary. What else
could be expected ] ... If the empire seemed to be stationary for
some time after its establishment by Julius, and its final settlement

108 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

by Augustus, this was through no strength of its own, or inherent in
its own constitution, but through the continued action of that strength
which it had inherited from the republic. In a philosophical sense,
therefore, it may be affirmed that the empire of the Caesars was
always in decline ; ceasing to go forward, it could not do other than
retrograde. DE QUINCEY.

The later portion of the history of the republic, though deeply
disheartening, yet cannot but enlist our sympathies; it is the end of
a life conducted on a certain deliberate plan, and the unavoidable
issue of the events which preceded it. In the history which now
follows, things are different ; for the history of the empire is no
longer the continuation of that which was attractive and pleasing to
us in the earlier history of Rome ; and the people, who formerly
awakened our greatest interest, now form a thoroughly corrupted
mass. Force now decides everything ; and the history itself is con-
fined to an individual, ruling over upwards of a hundred millions
of men, and to the few who, next to him, are the first in the
state. NIEBUHR.

THE AUGUSTAN AGE.

THE reign of Augustus was a time of peace, and, in
many respects, of prosperity. The literature of the Au-
gustan Age is distinguished for genius and refinement.
Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Livy flourished during this reign.
Information in regard to the Augustan Age will also be
found in the succeeding century.

But next behold the youth of form divine,
Caesar himself, exalted in his line,
Augustus, promised oft, and long foretold,
Sent to the realm that Saturn ruled of old ;
Born to restore a better age of gold.

VIRGIL. Tr. Dryden.

While Caesar rules, no civil jar

Nor violence our ease shall mar,

Nor rage, which sword for carnage whets,

And feuds 'twixt hapless towns begets.

JUVENAL.

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 109

Thou Caesar, chief where'er thy voice ordain
To fix midst gods thy yet unchosen reign,
Wilt thou o'er cities fix thy guardian sway,
While earth and all her realms thy nod obey ?
The world's vast orb shall own thy genial power,
Giver of fruits, fair sun, and favoring shower;
Before thy altar grateful nations bow,
And with maternal myrtle wreathe thy brow ;
O'er boundless ocean shall thy power prevail,
Thee her sole lord the world of waters hail,
Rule where the sea remotest Thule laves,
While Tethys dowers thy bride with all her waves.

VIBGIL. Tr. Sotheby.

Your age, Caesar, has both restored plenteous crops to the fields,
and has brought back to our Jupiter the standards torn from the
proud pillars of the Parthians ; and has shut up [the temple] of Janus,
[founded by] Romulus, now free from war ; and has imposed a due
discipline upon headstrong licentiousness, and has extirpated crimes,
and recalled the ancient arts ; by which the Latin name and strength
of Italy have increased, and the fame and majesty of the empire is
extended from the sun's western bed to the east. While Caesar is
guardian of affairs, neither civil rage nor violence shall disturb tran-
quillity ; nor hatred, which forges swords, and sets at variance un-
happy states. HORACE.

Then men from war shall bide in league and ease;
Peace through the world from Janus' fane shall fly,
And bolt the brazen gates with bars of iron.

LUCAN. Tr. Marlowe.

At no period was the Roman state more flourishing. EUTROPIUS.

No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around ;
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;

The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood ;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng ;
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

MILTON.

During the first years of tyranny is reaped the harvest sown during
the last years of liberty. Thus the Augustan Age was rich in great

110 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

minds formed in the generation of Cicero and Caesar. The fruits of
the policy of Augustus were reserved for posterity. MACAULAY.

For centuries before the establishment of the Roman Empire,
progressive development and increasing population, joined to com-
parative peace and security, had accumulated around the shores of
the Mediterranean a mass of people enjoying material prosperity
greater than had ever been known before. All this culminated in
the first centuries of the Christian era. The greatness of the ancient
world was then full, and a more overwhelming and gorgeous spec-
tacle than the Roman Empire then displayed never dazzled the eyes
of mankind. FERGUSSON.

THE BIRTH OF CHEIST.

The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finished course : Saturnian times
Moll round again ; and mighty years, begun
From their first orb in radiant circles run.
The base degenerate iron offspring ends ;
A golden progeny from heaven descends.

VIRGIL, Pastoral IV. Tr. Dryden.

THE birth of Christ took place in Judsea in 4 B. c., that
is, four years before the common era. About three hun-
dred years after his death, December 25 was fixed upon
as his birthday, and two hundred years later still the year
of his birth was guessed at, so that dates could be reck-
oned from it ; but, owing to an erroneous method of com-
puting time, there was a miscalculation of four years and
six days, which error has, however, been allowed to remain,
to avoid introducing confusion into established customs.

However deeply we may sympathize with the fall of so many free
states, we cannot fail to perceive that a new life sprang immediately
from their ruins. With the overthrow of independence fell the bar-
riers of all exclusive nationalities : the nations were conquered, they

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. Ill

were overwhelmed together, but by that very act were they blended
and united ; for, as the limits of the empire were held to comprise
the whole earth, so did its subjects learn to consider themselves as
one people. From this moment the human family began to acquire
the consciousness of its universal brotherhood. It was at this period
of the world's development that Jesus Christ was born. RANKE.

When Rome had united the civilized world under her sway, the
time was come for Monotheism to assume and complete the work
of preparation for a new and higher social life. COMTE.

Les restes de la republique perissent avec Brutus et Cassius.
Antoine et Cesar, apres avoir ruine Lepicle, se tournent 1'un contre
1'autre. Toute la puissance romaine se met sur la mer. Cesar
gagne la bataille Actiaque : les forces de 1'Egypte et de 1'Orient,
qu' Antoine menait avec lui, sont dissipees : tons ses amis 1'aban-
donnent, et meme sa Cleopatre, pour laquelle il s'etait perdu. . . . Tout
cede a la fortune de Cesar. Alexandrie lui ouvre ses portes ; 1'Egypte
devient une province romaine ; Cleopatre, qui desespere de la pouvoir
conserver, se tue elle-meme apres Antoine ; Rome tend les bras &
Cesar, qui demeure, sous le nom d'Auguste et le titre d'empereur,
seul maltre de tout 1'empire. . . . Victorieux par terre et par mer, il
ferme le temple de Janus. Tout 1'univers vit en paix sous sa puis-
sance, et Jesus-Christ vient au monde. BOSSUET.

An ominous restlessness in the minds of men, such as generally
precedes great changes in the history of mankind, was diffused
abroad. NEANDER.

At the same period there arose in various quarters of the world
mysterious voices, of which historians have repeated the echoes,
indicating a general but undefined presentiment that an age of social
or moral unity was approaching. The East was roused to a fervid
anticipation of the advent of some universal conqueror, who should
melt all mankind into a crude, inorganic mass. Accustomed from
its infancy to a succession of monarchical dynasties, it was uneasy
under the republican organization and individual development which
followed upon the Roman conquest. It sighed for the coming of
another Cyrus or Alexander. But these sounds found a responsive
chord in the West also. The sublime vaticinations of the Virgilian
Sibyl, bringing the predictions of the Hebrew prophets home to the
breasts of the Italians, foreshadowed a reign of peace, equality, and

112 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

unity, whether under a political or a moral law. At last, with the
birth of the monarchy, there sprang up the germ of the greatest of
social revolutions, the religion of Christ. MERIVALE.

According to an ancient legend, the Emperor Augustus Caesar re-
paired to the sibyl Tiburtina, to inquire whether he should consent to
allow himself to be worshipped with divine honors, which the Senate
had decreed to him. The sibyl, after some days of meditation, took the
emperor apart, and showed him an altar ; and above the altar, in the
opening heavens, and in a glory of light, he beheld a beautiful Virgin
holding an infant in her arms, and at the same time a voice was
heard saying, " This is the altar of the Son of the living God ; "
whereupon Augustus caused an altar to be erected on the Capitoline
Hill, with this inscription, Ara primogeniti Dei ; and on the same
spot, in later times, was built the church called the Ara-Cceli. . . .
This particular prophecy of the Tiburtine sibyl to Augustus rests
on some very antique traditions, pagan as well as Christian. It is
supposed to have suggested the " Pollio " of Virgil, which suggested
the " Messiah " of Pope. It is mentioned by writers of the third and
fourth centuries, and our own divines have not wholly rejected it,
for Bishop Taylor mentions the sibyl's prophecy among " the great
and glorious accidents happening about the birth of Jesus." MRS.
JAMESON.

The sibylline prophecy is supposed to have occurred a short time
before the Nativity, about the same period when the decree went
forth " that all the world should be taxed."

Historically regarded, Jesus is uplifted on the great wave formed
by the confluence of three main courses of ancient life and thought,
the Hebrew, Oriental, and Greek, all embraced in the imperial
sway of Rome. His life, as the fulfilment of Hebrew Messianic
prophecy, becomes the central and pivotal fact in the annals of
mankind. However it be interpreted, the doctrine of the Church
remains, that in it met all the separate threads of human develop-
ment ; so that, religiously regarded, it becomes the great revelation
of God in human life, and, historically, the isthmus of two great
continents, the connecting link between the ancient and modern
world. J. H. ALLEN.

But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace;

FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 113

She, crowned with olive-green, came softly sliding

Down through the turning sphere,

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing ;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around :
The idle spear and shield were high up hung

The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;"
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

MILTON.

It was the calm and silent night !

Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,

And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars;

Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars

Held undisturbed their ancient reign,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago !

'T was in the calm and silent night !

The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient urged his chariot's flight,

From lordly revel rolling home.
Triumphal arches gleaming swell

His breast with thoughts of boundless sway;
What recked the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago !

ALFRED DOMETT.

ye vain false gods of Hellas,

Ye are silent evermore !
And I dash clown this old chalice,

Whence libations ran of yore.
See ! the wine crawls in the dust
Wormlike as your glories must !
Since Pan is dead.

114 FIRST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST.

Christ hath sent us down the angels;
And the whole earth and the skies
Are illumed by altar-candles
Lit for blessed mysteries :
And a Priest's Hand, through creation,
Waveth calm and consecration
And Pan is dead.i

MRS. BROWNING.

.... Parthos Latio imminentes.

HORACE.
Partkians, ye afflict us more than ye suppose.

LUCAN. Tr. Marlowe.

DURING this century the Eomans first came into contact
with the kingdom of Parthia, one of the new kingdoms
which had arisen out of the dismembered portions of the
Empire of the Seleucidse, and which by continuing good for-
tune had come to include all the lands from the Euphrates
to the Indus and the Oxus.

All these the Parthian (now some ages past,
By great Arsaces led, who founded first
That empire) under his dominion holds,
From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
And just in time thou corn'st to have a view
Of his great power.

see, thoxigh from far,

His thousands, in what martial equipage

They issue forth, steel bows and shafts their arms,

1 Mrs. Browning says her poem of " The Dead Pan " was " excited by
Schiller's 'Gotter Griechenlands,' and partly founded on a well-known tradi-
tion mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch ('De Oraculorum Defectu'), accord-
ing to which, at the hour of the Saviour's agony, a cry of 'Great Pan is dead! '
swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners, and the oracles
ceased."

FIEST CENTURY BEFORE CHRIST. 115

Of equal dread in flight or in pursuit ;

All horsemen, in which fight the most excel:

See how in warlike muster they appear,

In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings.

He looked, and saw what numbers numberless

The city gates outpoured, light-armed troops

In coats of mail and military pride ;

In mail their horses clad, yet fleet and strong,

Prancing their riders bore, the flower and choice

Of many provinces from bound to bound.

MILTON.

Speaking broadly, the position that they [the Parthians] occupied
was somewhat similar to that which the Turks hold in the system of
modern Europe. They had a military strength which caused them
to be feared and respected, a vigor of administration which was felt
to imply many sterling qualities. A certain coarseness and rudeness
attached to them which they found it impossible to shake off ; and
this drawback was exaggerated by their rivals into an indication of
irreclaimable barbarity. Except in respect of their military prowess,
it may be doubtful if justice is clone them by any classical writer.
They were not merely the sole rival which dared to stand up against
Eome in the interval between 65 B. c. and A. D. 226, but they were
a rival falling in many respects very little below the great power
whose glories have thrown them so much into the shade. They
maintained from first to last a freedom unknown to later Rome ;
they excelled the Romans in toleration and in liberal treatment of
foreigners, they equalled them in manufactures and in material pros-
perity, and they fell but little short of them in the extent and pro-
ductiveness of their dominions. They were the second power in the
world for nearly three centuries, and formed a counterpoise to Rome
which greatly checked Roman decline, and, by forcing the empire to
exert itself, prevented stagnation and corruption. It must, however,
be confessed that the tendency of the Parthians was to degenerate.
RAWLINSON.

About AD. WO

itmg Co.Bostan

FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST.
(1 - 100.)

EOME still, as in the preceding century, embraces in its
dominion the most important part of the then known
world. Koine makes Britain (except the northern part
and Ireland) a Eoman province A. D. 47. No other terri-
torial change of importance occurs in this century.

BRITAIN (which was temporarily invaded by Caesar in the last
century) becomes (except the northern part and Ireland) a Roman
province A. D. 47.

JUDAEA, which became subject to Rome in the preceding century,
is reduced to a Roman province A. D. 6, but revolts in 66, and in 70
the Romans under Titus destroy Jerusalem, and the nation becomes
dispersed throughout the world.

PARTHIA is a powerful state, though an unequal rival of Rome.

A.D. 1-A.D. 100.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

17. Cappadocia made a Roman province.

27. Thrace a province.

33. Crucifixion of Christ.

43. Invasion of Britain by Claudius.

64. First persecution of the Christians.

Rome nearly destroyed by a fire

attributed to Nero.

70. Jerusalem taken and destroyed by

Titus.
79. Pompeii and Herculaneum buried by

an eruption of Vesuvius.
84. Final conquest of Britain by Agricola.
95. Second persecution of the Christians

under Domitian.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.
ROME.

Emperors. Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, Domi-
tian, Trajan.

Poets and Dramatists. Ovid, Phsedrus, Persius, Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus,
Juvenal, Martial.

Historians. Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, Quintus Curtius.

Philosophers and Orators. Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Epictetus
(Greek Stoic).

Rhetorician. Quintilian.

Greek Geographer. Strabo.

Greek Biographer and Philosopher. Plutarch.

Writer on Agriculture. Columella.

Writer. Petronius.

Christian Apostles, Fathers, and Martyrs. Clement (Clemens Romanus), Barnabas,
Hermas, Ignatius.

JUDAEA.

King. Herod Agrippa.

Ethnarch. Archelaus.

Roman Governors. Pontius Pilate, Felix, Portius Festus.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

THE close of the last century witnessed the concentra-
tion of all power in the hands of one man, Octavius
Csesar. Though not openly declared emperor, and though
many of the forms of republican government still con-
tinued, yet the Roman Empire may be said to have had its
beginning when in the year 27 B. c. the submissive senate
greeted him with the title of Augustus. The period now
opens when Eome entered upon her career of imperial
power and greatness. See also the preceding century for
the beginning of the Roman Empire and the Augustan
Age.

From Mummius to Augustus the Roman city stands as the living
mistress of a dead world, and from Augustus to Theodosius the mis-
tress becomes as lifeless as her subjects. FREEMAN.

At length, verging towards old age, and sometimes conquering by
the terror only of her name, she sought the blessings of ease and
tranquillity. The venerable city, which had trampled on the necks
of the fiercest nations, and established a system of laws, the perpetual
guardians of justice and freedom, was content, like a wise and wealthy
parent, to devolve on the Caesars, her favorite sons, the care of govern-
ing her ample patrimony. A secure and profound peace, such as had

120 FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST.

been once enjoyed in the reign of Numa, succeeded to the tumults of
a republic; while Home was still adored as the queen of the earth,
and the subject nations still reverenced the name of the people and
the majesty of the senate. But this native splendor is degraded and
sullied by the conduct of some nobles, who, unmindful of their own
dignity and of that of their country, assume an unbounded license of
vice and folly. AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.

" In war, all bolts drawn back, my portals [temple of Janus] stand,

Open for hosts that seek their native land ;

In peace, fast closed, they bar the outward way,

And still shall bar it under Caesar's sway."

He spake : before, behind, his double gaze

All that the world contained at once surveys.

And all was peace ; for now with conquered wave,

The Rhine, Germanicus, thy triumph gave.

Peace and the friends of peace immortal make,

Nor let the lord of earth his work forsake !

OVID. Tr. Church.

The political condition of the world was most melancholy. All
power was concentrated at Home and in the legions. The most
shameful and degrading scenes were daily enacted. The Roman
aristocracy, which had conquered the world, and which alone of
all the peop]e had any voice in public business under the Caesars,
had abandoned itself to a Saturnalia of the most outrageous wicked-
ness the human race ever witnessed. Caesar and Augustus, in estab-
lishing the imperial power, saw perfectly the necessities of the age.
The world was so low in its political relations, that no other form of
government was possible. RENAN.

Augustus established peace in the world, or rather maintained it,
for Csesar had conquered everj^thing; but that peace was, as Tacitus
says, only another name for slavery. He founded the organization of
the empire, that is to say, the disorganization of Roman society, of
which liberty was the life, and the disorganization caused death, as
it always does. Augustus constructed with patient skill a hateful
machine of tyranny, a government of suffocation and servility, in
which there was only one thing to praise; that is, that it carried
in itself, by its excess of despotism, the element of its ruin.
AMPERE.

The character of the government is totally changed ; no traces
were to be found of the spirit of ancient institutions. The system

FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST. 121

by which, every citizen shared in the government being thrown aside,
all men regarded the orders of the prince as the only rule of conduct
and obedience; nor felt they any anxiety for the present, while Augus-
tus, yet in the vigor of life, maintained the credit of himself and house,
and the peace of the state. TACITUS.

Augustus was not of that first class of men who make revolutions;
he was of that secondary class who profit by them, and who with
dexterity put on the finishing touch, for which a stronger hand has
prepared the foundation. CHATEAUBRIAND.

Still we admire the government of Augustus, because Rome en-
joyed under him peace, luxuries, and plenty. Seneca says of him,
" Clementiam non voco lassam crudelitatem." VOLTAIRE.

Toutes ces cruautes,
La perte de nos biens et de nos libertes,
Le ravage des champs, le pillage des villes,
Et les proscriptions, et les guerres civiles,
Sont les degres sanglants dont Auguste a fait choix
Pour monter sur le trone et nous donner des lois.

CORNEILLE.

To resume, in a few words, the system of the imperial government,
as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes
who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be
defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a common-
wealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne
with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly pro-
fessed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose
supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed. GIBBON.

The theory of the Roman Empire was that of a representative des-
potism. The various offices of the republic were not annihilated, but
they were gradually concentrated in a single man. The senate was still
ostensibly the depository of supreme power, but it was made, in fact,
the mere creature of the emperor, whose power was virtually uncon-
trolled. Political spies and private accusers, who in the latter days
of the republic had been encouraged to denounce plots against the
state, began under Augustus to denounce plots against the empire,
and the class being enormously increased under Tiberius, and stimu-
lated by the promise of part of the confiscated property, they menaced
every leading politician and even every wealthy man. The Patricians

122 FIRST CENTUEY AFTER CHRIST.

were gradually depressed, ruined, or driven by the dangers of public
life into orgies of private luxury. The poor were conciliated, not by
any increase of liberty, or even of permanent prosperity, but by gra-
tuitous distributions of corn and by public games, while, in order to
invest themselves with a sacred character, the emperors adopted the
religious device of an apotheosis. LECKY.

Even the time of Augustus is the beginning of an almost com-
plete barrenness in Roman literature, which presents a great contrast
to the abundance of poets belonging to the time of the dictator,
Caesar. Poetry became altogether extinct; and we cannot mention
a single poet who was a young man in the latter part of the reign

of Augustus. NlEBUHB.

He [Augustus] bequeathed, as a valuable legacy to his successors,
the advice of confining the empire within those limits which nature
seemed to have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on
the west, the Atlantic Ocean; the Rhine and Danube, on the north;
the Euphrates, on the east ; and towards the south, the sandy deserts
of Arabia and Africa. GIBBON.

The city, which was not built in a manner suitable to the grandeur
of the empire, and was liable to inundations of the Tiber, as well as
to fires, was so much improved under his administration, that he
boasted, not without reason, that he "found it of brick, but left it of
marble." SUETONIUS.

It is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy successors of
Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the splendid theatre on
which they were acted, have saved them from oblivion. The dark,
unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the
profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman
Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy. During fourscore
years (excepting only the short and doubtful respite of Vespasian's
reign) Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which ex-
terminated the ancient families of the republic, and was fatal to
almost every virtue and every talent that arose in that unhappy
period. GIBBON.

In the eyes of civilized mankind there were in the world two great
empires of very unequal force, the eternal empire of Rome, secure as
nature itself; and the Asiatic Empire of the East, at one time held by
a Parthian, then by Persian dynasties, often troublesome, but never a

FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST. 123

real rival to Rome for the allegiance of the nations around the focus
of civilization, the Mediterranean Sea, India was still wrapt in mys-
tery and fable. Outside the Roman and Persian borders, northwards
and northeastwards, there was a vast, dimly known chaos of number-
less barbarous tongues and savage races, from which, from time to
time, strange rumors reached the great Italian capital of the world,
and unwelcome visitors showed themselves in the distant provinces,
on the Rhine and the Danube. R. W. CHURCH.

The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome, of
citizens, of provincials, and of slaves, cannot now be fixed with such
a degree of accuracy as the importance of the object would deserve.
. . . The total amount of this imperfect calculation would rise to
about one hundred and twenty millions of persons, a degree of popu-
lation which . . . forms the most numerous society that has ever
been united under the same system of government. Domestic peace
and union were the natural consequences of the moderate and compre-
hensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we turn our eyes towards
the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold despotism in the centre and
weakness in the extremities; the collection of the revenue, or the ad-
ministration of justice, enforced by the presence of an army; hostile
barbarians established in the heart of the country; hereditary satraps
usurping the dominion of the provinces; and subjects inclined to
rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the
Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The van-
quished nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay,
even the wish, of resuming their independence, and scarcely con-
sidered their own existence as distinct from the existence of Rome.
... In this state of general security, the leisure, as well as opu-
lence, both of the prince and people, were devoted to improve and
to adorn the Roman Empire. GIBBON.

At this moment the globe contains three at least, if not four, em-
pires, each of which exceeds in size the dominions of Rome at the
period of their greatest extension, and of which one only comprises
a few acres of all the regions over which Augustus held sway. 1
MERIVALE.

1 The Russian, the British, the American, and, if it still exist, the Chinese.
Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Islands are the only fragments of the Augustan
Empire included in any of these vast agglomerations of territory. MERIVALE.

124 FIRST CENTUEY AFTER CHRIST.

The immense and overshadowing importance of the
capital city, Eome, tended rapidly to a great influx of
foreign elements and a great degradation of morals. The
people were amused with games and shows, and beguiled
into forgetfulness of the liberty they had lost.

They make a desert and call it Peace. TACITUS.

Rome is the mistress of the world and the metropolis of the hab-
itable earth, destined by the gods to unite, civilize, and govern the
scattered races of men. PLINY.

The city which thou seest, no other deem
Than great and glorious Rome, queen of the earth
So far renowned, and with the spoils enriched ,
Of nations.

MILTON.

It was artfully contrived by Augustus, that, in the enjoyment of
plenty, the Romans should lose the memory of freedom. GIBBON.

Sseculo premimur gravi
Quo scelera regnant, ssevit impietas furens.

SENECA.

Nona setas agitur pejoraque ssecula ferri
Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa
Nomen, et a nullo posuit natura metallo.

JUVENAL.

More crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint ;
wickedness has prevailed so completely in the breast of all, that
innocence is not rare, but non-existent. SENECA.

Lo ! Liberty, long wearied by our crimes,
Forsakes us for some better, barb'rous climes ;
Beyond the Rhine and Tanais she flies,
To snowy mountains and to frozen skies ;
While Rome, who long pursued that chiefest good
O'er fields of slaughter and through seas of blood,
In slavery her abject state shall mourn,
Nor dare to hope the goddess will return.
Why were we ever free ? Oh, why has Heaven
A short-lived, transitory blessing given ?

LUCAN. Tr. Rowe.

FIEST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST. 125

One reward of this my toil will be that, for a time at all events, I
shall be enabled to forget the desolation which has come upon our na-
tion, our nation that has now reached a pitch of iniquity at which it
can bear neither its vices nor yet the remedies for them. TACITUS.

Posterity will add nothing to our immorality : our descendants
can but do and desire the same crimes as ourselves. JUVENAL.

When its dominion could be extended no further, this vast organ-
ism, having lost its moving principle, fell into dissolution, exhibiting
a moral corruption without parallel in the history of society; for
nowhere else has there existed such a concentration of means, in the
form of power and wealth, in the absence of any end. COMTE.

Two phrases sum up the characteristics of Roman civilization in
the days of the empire, heartless cruelty and unfathomable cor-
ruption. FAERAR.

Among all these evidences of material well-being, there were
ominous signs to catch the watchful eye. The queen of cities had
clothed herself in pomp and splendor, and stately villas, parks, and
pleasure-grounds were spread over the country ; but Italy herself
grew poor in men, in moral energy, and in natural products. The
culture of Greece had made its way over the world ; but her cities of
renown were sadly dwindled, and scanty populations lived among
the ghosts of former glories. The heart of the empire was growing
more feeble, though the extremities were sound. W. W. CAPES.

Looking back to republican Rome, and considering the state of
public morals but fifty years before the emperors, we can with diffi-
culty believe that the descendants of a people so severe in their habits
could thus rapidly degenerate. ... In reality, the citizens of Rome were
at this time a new race, brought together from every quarter of the
world, but especially from Asia. So vast a proportion of the ancient
citizens had been cut off by the sword, and partly to conceal this
waste of population, but much more by way of cheaply requiting
services, or of showing favor, or of acquiring influence, slaves had
been emancipated in such great multitudes, and afterwards invested
with all the rights of citizens, that, in a single generation, Rome
became almost transmuted into a baser metal ; the progeny of those
whom the last generation had purchased from the slave merchants. . . .
Lucan speaks with mere historic gravity when he says,

126 FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST.

" Vivant Galataeque Syrique
Cappadoces, Gallique, extremique orbis Iberi,
Armenii, Cilices : nam post civilia bella
Hie Populus Romanus erit"

Probably in the time of Nero not one man in six was of pure Roman
descent. And the consequences were suitable. DE QUINCEY.

Rome shall perish, write that word

In the blood that she has spilt ;
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,

Deep in ruin as in guilt.

COWPEB.

Never was the propensity to supernatural prodigies, and the eager-
ness to credit them, more vehement than in this very enlightened
age. The priestcraft of Upper Egypt ; the different branches of magic,
divination, and oracles of all kinds, the so-called occult sciences,
which associated mankind with a fabulous world of spirits, and pre-
tended to give them the control over the powers of nature, were
almost universally respected. Persons of all ranks and descriptions
great lords and ladies, statesmen, scholars, the recognized and paid
professors of the Pythagorean, the Platonic, the Stoic, and even the
Aristotelian school thought on these topics exactly as did the
simplest of the people. . . . Men believed everything and noth-
ing. WIELAND.

Every age in its decline has exhibited the spectacle of selfish lux-
ury side by side with abject poverty, of

" Wealth, a monster gorged
Mid starving populations ; "

but nowhere, and at no period, were these contrasts so startling as they
were in Imperial Eome. There a whole population might be trem-
bling lest they should be starved by the delay of an Alexandrian
corn-ship, while the upper classes were squandering a fortune at a
single banquet, drinking out of myrrhine and jewelled vases worth
hundreds of pounds, and feasting on the brains of peacocks and the
tongues of nightingales. ... At the summit of the whole decaying
system necessary, yet detested; elevated indefinitely above the
very highest, yet living in dread of the very lowest; oppressing a pop-
ulation which he terrified, and terrified by the population which he
oppressed was an emperor raised to the divinest pinnacle of au-

FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST. 127

tocracy, yet conscious that his life hung upon a thread, an emperor
who, in the terrible phrase of Gibbon, was at once a priest, an atheist,
and a god. FARRAR.

If you would witness a scene characteristic of the popular life of
old, you must go to the amphitheatre of Rome, mingle with its
eighty thousand spectators, and watch the eager faces of senators and
people ; observe how the masters of the world spend the wealth of
conquest and indulge the pride of power ; see every wild creature
that God has made to dwell from the jungles of India to the moun-
tains of Wales, from the forests of Germany to the deserts of Nubia,
brought hither to be hunted down in artificial groves by thousands
in an hour ; behold the captives of war, noble perhaps and wise in
their own land, turned loose, amid yells of insult more terrible for
their foreign tongue, to contend with brutal gladiators trained to make
death the favorite amusement, and present the most solemn of indi-
vidual realities as a wholesale public sport ; mark the light look
with which the multitude, by uplifted finger, demands that the
wounded combatant be slain before their eyes ; notice the troop of
Christian martyrs awaiting, hand in hand, the leap from the tiger's
den ; and when the day's spectacle is over, and the blood of two
thousand victims stains the ring, follow the giddy crowd as it streams
from the vomitories into the street, trace its lazy course into the
forum, and hear it there scrambling for the bread of private indolence
doled out by the purse of public corruption ; and see how it suns
itself to sleep in the open ways, or crawls into foul dens, till morning
brings the hope of games and merry blood again, and you have
an idea of the imperial people, and their passionate living for the
moment, which the gospel found in occupation of the world.
MARTINEAU.

He pants to stand

In its vast circus, all alive with heads
And quivering arms and floating robes, the air
Thrilled by the roaring fremitus of men,
The sunlit awning heaving overhead,
Swollen and strained against its corded veins,
And flapping out its hem with loud report,
The wild beasts roaring from the pit below,
The wilder crowd responding from above
With one long yell that sends the startled blood
With thrill and sudden flush into the cheeks,

128 FIKST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST.

A hundred trumpets screaming, the dull thump

Of horses galloping across the sand,

The clang of scabbards, the sharp clash of steel,

Live swords, that whirl a circle of gray fire,

Brass helmets flashing 'neath their streaming hair,

A universal tumult, then a hush

Worse than the tumult, all eyes straining down

To the arena's pit, all lips set close,

All muscles strained, and then that sudden yell,

Ilabet ! " That 's Rome," says Lucius. So it is !

That is, 't is his Rome, 't is not yours and mine.

STORY.

THE CONQUEST OF BRITAIN.

THE only addition to the Eoman dominion during this
century was the province of Britain (except the northern
part and Ireland)

This year Claudius, second of the Roman kings, sought the land of
Britain, and brought under his power the greater part of the island.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

" Far to the west, in th' ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old,
Now void it fits thy people; thither bend
Thy course, there shalt thou find a lasting seat,
Where to thy sons another Troy shall rise;
And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded might
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold."

These verses, originally Greek, were put in Latin, saith Virunnius,
by Gildas, a British poet, and him to have lived under Claudius.
MILTON.

PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. TERTULLIAN.

THE first century of the Christian era is that in which
occurred the first persecution of the Christians, who until

FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST. 129

the time of Nero had never been brought into collision
with the imperial government.

Quid Nerone pejus ?

MARTIAL.

He [Nero] likewise inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort
of people who held a new and impious superstition. SUETONIUS.

Nero was the first who raged with the sword of Caesar against thia
sect, which was then specially rising at Borne. TERTULLIAN.

Praestare Neronem
Securum valet haec zetas.

JUVENAL.

Nihil est nobis . . . cum insania circi, cum impudicitia theatri,
cum atrocitate arense, cum vanitate xysti. TERTULLIAN.

The following passage from Tacitus is regarded as the
earliest reference by a profane author to the name of
Christ :

He [Nero] inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men, who,
under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with
deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from one
Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sen-
tence of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. For a while this dire super-
stition was checked; but it again burst forth, and not only spread
itself over Judaea, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even
introduced into Home, the common asylum which receives and pro-
tects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of
those who were seized discovered a great multitude of their accom-
plices, and they were all convicted, not so much for the crime of
setting fire to the city as for their hatred of humankind. They died
in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and derision.
Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild
beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over
with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the
darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the
melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, and
honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the
populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the
Christians deserved, indeed, the most exemplary punishment, but

130 FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST.

the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the
opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to
the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant. TACITUS.

Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind
may observe that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican,
which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have been
rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse of the
persecuted religion. On the same spot a temple, which far surpasses
the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since erected by the Chris-
tian Pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of universal dominion from an
humble fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the throne of the
Caesars, given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Home, and extended
their spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of
the Pacific Ocean. GIBBON.

This persecution was general throughout the whole Eoman Empire;
but it rather increased than diminished the spirit of Christianity. In
the course of it, St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred. JOHN Fox,
Book of Martyrs.

History has few stronger contrasts than when it shows us Paul
preaching Christ under the walls of Nero's palace. Thenceforward
there were but two religions in the Roman world, the worship of
the emperor, and the worship of the Saviour. The old superstitions
had long been worn out; they had lost all hold on educated minds.

CONYBEARE AND HOWSON.

The position of a Christian in the Roman Empire was always one
of peril, and whatever legitimate precautions he might take, it was
still difficult for him to escape his enemies. His very attitude and
his scruples drew down persecution upon him; it was enough for
him to abstain from some of the practices of pagan life to be at once
recognized, and thus he became every hour his own betrayer.
PRESSENSE.

As the martyr [Paul] and his executioners passed on, their way
was crowded with a motley multitude of goers _and comers between
the metropolis and its harbor, merchants hastening to superintend
the unlading of their cargoes; sailors eager to squander the profits
of their last voyage in the dissipations of the capital; oincials of the
government charged with the administration of the provinces or the
command of the legions on the Euphrates or the Rhine; Chaldean

FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST. 131

astrologers; Phrygian eunuchs; dancing-girls from Syria, with their
painted turbans; mendicant priests from Egypt, howling for Osiris;
Greek adventurers, eager to coin their national cunning into Roman
gold, representatives of the avarice and ambition, the fraud and lust,
the superstition and intelligence, of the imperial world. . . . They
were marching, though they knew it not, in a procession more really
triumphal than any they had ever followed, in the train of general or
emperor, along the Sacred Way. CONYBEARE AND HOWSON.

Imagine that awful scene once witnessed by the silent obelisk in the
square before St. Peter's at Rome. Imagine it, that we may realize
how vast is the change which Christianity has wrought in the feelings
of mankind ! There, where the vast dome now rises, were once the
gardens of Nero. They were thronged with gay crowds, among whom
the emperor moved in his frivolous degradation; and on every side
were men dying slowly on their cross of shame. Along the paths of
those gardens on the autumn nights were ghastly torches, blackening
the ground beneath them with streams of sulphurous pitch, and each
of those living torches was a martyr in his shirt of fire. And in the
amphitheatre hard by, in sight of twenty thousand spectators, famished
dogs were tearing to pieces some of the best and purest of men and
women, hideously disguised in the skins of bears or wolves. Thus
did Nero baptize in the blood of martyrs the city which was to be for
ages the, capital of the world. FARRAR.

Imagine we see the people assembling in the theatre of Vespasian;
all Rome gathered to drink the blood of the martyrs; a hundred
thousand spectators, some shaded by the hems of their robes, others
by umbrellas, crowding the seats ; multitudes vomited forth, as it
were, by the porticos, descending and ascending the long stairs, and
taking their places. Railings of gold ward off the senators' box from
the attacks of the ferocious beasts. Ingenious machines scatter a per-
fumed spray throughout the vast space, cooling the air and making it
pleasant. Three thousand statues in bronze, an endless multitude of
pictures, columns of jasper and porphyry, balustrades of crystal, vases
of the richest workmanship, dazzle the eye and lend variety to the
scene. In a canal surrounding the arena swim a hippopotamus
and crocodiles. Five hundred lions, forty elephants, and tigers,
panthers, and bulls, accustomed to the slaughter of human beings,
rage and roar in the caverns of the amphitheatre; while here and
there gladiators not less ferocious wipe their blood-stained arms.
[See also pages 143, 147, 157.] CHATEAUBRIAND.

132 FIRST CENTtfRY AFTER CHRIST.

JUD^A.

DESTRUCTION OP JERUSALEM AND DISPERSION OP THE JEWS.

For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee round, and shall keep thee
in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and
thy children within thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one
stone upon another. Luke xix. 43, 44. (Compare also St.
Mark xiii. 2.)

, which became subject to Eome in the last cen-
tury, was reduced to a Eoman province A. D. 6.

Judaea now, and all the promised land,
Reduced a province under Roman yoke,
Obeys Tiberius; nor is always ruled
With temperate sway.

MILTON.

It revolted in 66, and in 70 the Romans under Titus
destroyed Jerusalem, and the nation of the Jews became
dispersed throughout the world.

Prodigies had occurred, which this nation, prone to superstition,
but hating all religious rites, did not deem it lawful to expiate by
offering and sacrifice. There had been seen hosts joining battles in.
the skies, the fiery gleam of arms, the temple illuminated by a sudden
radiance from the clouds. The doors of the inner shrine were sud-
denly thrown open, and a voice of more than mortal tone was heard
to cry that the gods were departing. At the same instant there was
a mighty stir as of departure. Some few put a fearful meaning on
these events, but in most there was a firm persuasion that in the
ancient records of their priests was contained a prediction of how at
this very time the East was to grow powerful, and rulers coming from
Judaea were to acquire universal empire. These mysterious prophecies
had pointed to Vespasian and Titus; but the common people, with
the usual blindness of ambition, had interpreted these mighty destinies
of themselves, and could not be brought even by disasters to believe

FIKST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST. 133

the truth. I have heard that the total number of the besieged, of
every age and both sexes, amounted to six hundred thousand.
TACITUS.

A firm persuasion had long prevailed through all the East, that
it was fated for the empire of the world, at that time, to devolve on
some one who should go forth from Judaea. This prediction referred
to a Roman emperor, as the event showed ; but the Jews, applying it
to themselves, broke out into rebellion. SUETONIUS.

At length [October, A. D. 70] the walls were broken down, the
strong towers seized or undermined, the streets filled with the
slaughter of the populace, the temple set on fire in the blind fury
of the soldiery. Jerusalem was no more. A ploughshare was passed
over the foundation. The site of city and sanctuary was sown with
salt. Such sacred vessels as escaped the flames were brought to
Rome by Titus, where their mouldering forms still decorate his arch
of triumph. A hundred thousand captives were sent to the slave-
market or amphitheatre ; and for every captive more than fifteen are
said to have perished in the war, upwards of a million in Jerusalem
alone. All Palestine was set to sale by Vespasian. The two shekels
of temple money paid by every Hebrew man must go to rebuild the
shrine of Jupiter of the Capitol ; and no Jew might visit the sacred
ruins on pain of death. J. H. ALLEN.

The fall of Jerusalem was the evident close of a theocracy which,
up to that time, had for ages counted on a divine guarantee, and
which looked forward, without doubt, to ending only in the consum-
mation of a Messianic triumph. It was the apparent extinction of
the visible kingdom of God on earth ; the doom pronounced by the
course of events on claims and hopes which, to those who lived under
them, seemed the most sure of all things. R. W. CHURCH.

Titus. It must be

And yet it moves me, Romans ! It confounds
The counsel of my firm philosophy,
That Ruin's merciless ploughshare must pass o'er,
And barren salt be sown on yon proud city.
As on our olive-crowned hill we stand,
Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters
Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion,
As through a valley sacred to sweet peace,
How boldly doth it front us ! how majestically !

134 FIRST CENTURY AFTER CHRIST.

Like a luxurious vineyard, the hillside

Is hung with marble fabrics, line o'er line,

Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still and nearer

To the blue heavens. There bright and sumptuous palaces,

With cool and verdant gardens interspersed;

There towers of war, that frown in massy strength ;

While over all hangs the rich purple eve,

As conscious of its being her last farewell

Of light and glory to that fated city.

And, as our clouds of battle, dust, and smoke

Are melted into air, behold the temple

In undisturbed and lone serenity,

Finding itself a solemn sanctuary

In the profound of heaven ! It stands before us

A mount of snow, fretted with golden pinnacles.

The very sun, as though he worshipped there,

Lingers upon the gilded cedar roofs,

And down the long and branching porticos,

On every flowery-sculptured capital,

Glitters the homage of his parting beams.

By Hercules ! the sight might almost win

The offended majesty of Rome to mercy.

MlLMAN.

But lo ! o'er western hills that gathering cloud,
Where muttering thunder peals more loud and loud,
And forky lightning glitters down the sky,
'T is the dread flash of Rome's avenging eye !
The Titan stalks, beneath his coming tread
Towns bow in dust, and Syria quakes with dread ;
Where'er he moves, the oldest empires fall,
And Rome, wide-conquering Rome, seems lord of all.
Gihon's long hill presents a ridge of spears,
And filled with bucklers Kedron's vale appears;
While north and south the bristling troops advance,
And bear war's engines on, and shake the lance.
Girt on all sides, doomed Salem sees her grave;
Her cup of woe is full, and naught can save.

direst fruit of crime and hate and rage !
bloodiest leaf in History's warning page !

'T is o'er, a deadlier struggle earth ne'er knew,
E'en fiends might shrink those scenes of blood to view;
'T is o'er, a million hearts lie cold and still,
And Rome's dread eagle soars on Zion's hill.

FIRST CENTUEY AFTER CHRIST. 135

Salem, the home of prophets, helpless lies,
The mean one's jest, the raging heathen's prize.
Fire wraps her towers, her blazing temple falls,
. With all its golden spires and cedared halls.

Yes, that proud fane, as by an earthquake's shock,
Is hurled to dust, and levelled with the rock;
And o'erlts site must pass the Latian plough.

N. MiCHKLL.

I stood beneath the Arch of Titus long;

On Hebrew forms there sculptured long I pored ;

Till fancy, by a distant clarion stung,

Woke ; and methought there moved that arch toward

A Roman triumph. Lance and helm and sword

Glittered, white coursers tramped, and trumpets rung ;

Last came, car-borne amid a captive throng,

The laurelled son of Rome's imperial lord.

As though by wings of unseen eagles fanned,

The Conqueror's cheek, when first that arch he saw,

Burned with the flush he strove in vain to quell.

Titus ! a loftier arch than thine hath spanned

Rome and the world with empery and law ;

Thereof each stone was hewn from Israel.

AUBREY DE VERB.

From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
I beheld thee, Sion ! when rendered to Rome ;
'T was thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flashed back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

BYRON.

Fallen is thy throne, Israel 1

Silence is o'er thy plains ;
Thy dwellings all lie desolate,

Thy children weep in chains.

MOORE.

Since the last dispersion the name of Israel is lost to human
history. A scattered and long-suffering remnant, a people of zealous
and indomitable faith, more tenacious than ever of traditions and
rites that set them apart from all ; the traders and slave-merchants
of barbaric times, outcasts from the Feudal System, first victims of
the Crusades and the Inquisition, clinging still through long centu-
ries to the hope that once and again had plunged them in so deep
disaster, they have lived on, a singular and deathless monument of
the Life that had its home of old in Palestine. J. H. ALLEN.

About AD. ZOO

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SECOND CENTURY.

(100-200.)

EOME remains, as in the last century, the great power
of the world. The Emperor Trajan adds to the Eoman
Empire in 106 the province of Dacia, lying north of the
lower Danube. He also has contests with the Parthians,
and adds the provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and
Assyria, thus extending the boundary of the Eoman Em-
pire to the greatest limit which it ever reached, embracing
the greater part of the world known at the time. This
extension of the Eoman dominion is, however, of but short
duration, as Trajan's conquests in the East are soon sur-
rendered by his successor, Hadrian.

PARTHIA is a powerful state, though an unequal rival of Rome.

A. D. 100. A. D. 800.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

107. Third Persecution of the Christians

under Trajan.
118. Fourth Persecution of the Christians

under Hadrian.

120. The Wall of Hadrian built across the

island of Britain.
137. Hadrian rebuilds Jerusalem, and

names it yKlia Capitolina.
196. Byzantium taken and destroyed.

PROMINENT NAMES OP THE CENTURY.

Emperors. Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, M, Aurelius Antoninus, Septimius
Severus.

Poet. Juvenal.

Epigrammatist. Martial.

Historians. Tacitus, Suetonius, Appian (born at Alexandria), Dion Cassius.

Author and Orator. Pliny the Younger.

Philosophers. M. Aurelius Antoninus, Epictetus (Greek Stoic).

Rhetorician. Quintilian.

Greek Topographer. Pausanias.

Greek Physician and Philosopher. Galen.

Greek Author and Antiquarian. Athenseus (from Egypt).

Greek Biographer and Philosopher. Plutarch.

Greek Historian. Arrian.

Greek Astronomer and Geographer. Ptolemy Claudius.

Christian Fathers, Philosophers, Writers. Tertullian, Polycarp (Martyr), Justin
Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus (Martyr), Athenagoras, Clement (of Alexandria).

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE EOMAN EMPIRE IN THE AGE OF THE

ANTONINES.

period often known as the Age of the Anto-
-- nines, or the reign of the Good Emperors is one
of the most quiet and peaceful in the history of the world.
There was an increasing sentiment in favor of law and
order, and jurisprudence now became a study. The most
eminent writer of the time is the historian Tacitus.

Though the old freedom had been lost, there can be no
question that this age was one of the happiest in the expe-
rience of mankind. It is, however, marked by few events
which call for mention.

The History of the World is not the theatre of happiness. Periods
of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony,
periods when the antithesis is in abeyance. HEGEL.

Which age, for temporal respects, was the most happy and flourish-
ing that ever the Roman Empire (which then was a model of the
world) enjoyed. LORD BACON.

If any one will consider the Roman people >as if it were a man, and
observe its entire course, how it began, how it grew up, how it reached
a certain youthful bloom, and how it has since, as it were, been grow-
ing old, he will find it to have four degrees and stages [quatuor gradus
processusque]. Its first age was under the kings, and lasted nearly
two hundred and fifty years, during which it struggled round its

140 SECOND CENTURY.

mother against its neighbors; this was its infancy. The next ex-
tended from the consulship of Brutus and Collatinus to that of
Appius Claudius and Quintus Fulvius, a period of two hundred and
fifty years, during which it subdued Italy; this was a time entirely
given up to war, and may be called its youth. Thence to the time of
Caesar Augustus was a period of two hundred years, in which it reduced
to subjection the whole world ; this may accordingly be called the
manhood, and, as it were, the robust maturity of the empire. From
Ceesar Augustus to our own age is a period of less than two hundred
years, in which, through the inactivity of the Caesars, the nation has,
as it were, grown old and feeble, except that now under the sway of
Trajan it raises its arms, and, contraiy to the expectation of all, the old
age of the empire, as if youth were restored to it, flourishes with new
vigor. FLORUS.

If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world
during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed
from the death of Domitian [A. D. 96] to the accession of Commodus
[A. D. 180], The vast extent of the Roman Empire was governed
by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The
armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four succes-
sive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involun-
tary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully
preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who
delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with con-
sidering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. . . .
In the second century of the Christian Era, the Empire of Rome
comprehended the fairest part of the earth and the most civilized
portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were
guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but
powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented
the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and
abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free
constitution was preserved with decent reverence. GIBBON.

The two Antonines fix an era in the imperial history, for they
were both eminent models of wise and good rulers; and some would
Bay that they fixed a crisis, for with their successor commenced, in
the popular belief, the decline of the empire. That at least is the

SECOND CENTUKY. 141

doctrine of Gibbon; but perhaps it would not be found altogether
able to sustain itself against a closer and philosophic examination of
the true elements involved in the idea of declension as applied to
political bodies. [See, on this point, page 107.] DE QUINCEY.

During the entire ages of Trajan and the Antonines, a succession
of virtuous and philosophic emperors followed each other; the world
was in peace; the laws were wise and well administered; riches
seemed to increase; each succeeding generation raised palaces more
splendid, monuments and public edifices more sumptuous, than the
preceding; the senatorial families found their revenues increase; the
treasury levied greater imposts. But it is not on the mass of wealth,
it is on its distribution, that the prosperity of states depends: increas-
ing opulence continued to meet the eye, but man became more miser-
able; the rural population, formerly active, robust, and energetic, were
succeeded by a foreign race; while the inhabitants of towns sunk in
vice and idleness, or perished in want, amidst the riches they had
themselves created. SISMONDI.

Nerva [A. D. 32 - 98] est le premier des bons, et Trajan le premier
des grands empereurs remains; apres lui il y en cut deux autres,
les deux Antonins. Trois sur soixante-dix, tel est a Eome le bilan.
des gloires morales de Tempi re. AMPERE.

To our classic associations, Rome was still, under Trajan and the
Antonines, the city of the Caesars, the metropolis of pagan idolatry,
in the pages of her poets and historians we still linger among the
triumphs of the Capitol, the shows of the Coliseum; or if we read
of a Christian being dragged before the tribunal, or exposed to the
beasts, we think of him as one of a scattered community, few in
number, spiritless in action, and politically insignificant. But all
this while there was living beneath the visible an invisible Rome,
a population unheeded, unreckoned, thought of vaguely, vaguely
spoken of, and with the familiarity and indifference that men feel
who live on a volcano, yet a population strong-hearted, of quick
impulses, nerved alike to suffer or to die, and in number, resolution,
and physical force sufficient to have hurled their oppressors from the
throue of the world, had they not deemed it their duty to kiss the rod,
to love their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and to submit,
for their Redeemer's sake, to the " powers that be." Here, in these
" dens and caves of the earth" [the catacombs], they lived; here they

142 SECOND CENTURY.

died, a " spectacle " in their lifetime to "men and angels," and in
their death a " triumph " to mankind. LORD LINDSAY.

In former times our generals tilled their fields with their own
hands: the earth, we may suppose, opened graciously beneath a
plough crowned with laurels and held by triumphal hands, maybe
because those great men gave to tillage the same care that they gave
to war, and that they sowed seed with the same attention with which
they pitched a camp; or maybe, also, because everything fructifies
best in honorable hands, because everything is done with the most
scrupulous exactitude. . . . Nowadays these same fields are given
over to slaves in chains, to malefactors who are condemned to penal
servitude, and on Avhose brow there is a brand. Earth is not deaf to
our prayers; we give her the name of mother; culture is what we
call the pains we bestow on her . . . but can we be surprised if she
render not to slaves the recompense she paid to generals ? PLINY.

The fabric of the empire had many advantages to account for its
long duration. The provinces were conveniently situated for mutual
intercourse and for mutual support ; and there was an easy access
from the seat of dominion to the farthest bounds of the empire. The
inhabitants of the empire in general were corrected of that ferocity or
reduced from that national spirit which renders subjects refractory.
They were addicted to pacific arts, tractable, and easily retained within
the bounds of their duty. Some of the emperors promoted this orderly
and pacific disposition by the confidence which they taught the subject
to have in the security of his person and property. The principle of
law, though in some things perverted to the purposes of despotic power,
was made the object of a select profession, and was studied as a rule
of peace and property. The civil law received from the pleadings
of advocates, the decisions of judges, and the edicts of princes con-
tinual accessions of light and authority, which has rendered it the
great basis of justice to all the modern nations of Europe. The
wisdom of Nerva gave rise to a succession which, in the persons
of Trajan and the Antonines, formed a counterpart to the race of
Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero; and it may be admitted that
if a people could be happy by any other virtue than their own, there
was a period in the history of this empire during which the happiness
of mankind may have been supposed complete. This, however, is but
a fond and mistaken apprehension. Even the virtues of this happy

SECOND CENTUKY. 143

succession could do no more than discontinue for a while the former
abuses of power, administrate justice, restrain the guilty, and protect
the innocent. Many of the evils under which human nature was
laboring still remained without a cure; and the empire, after having
in the highest degree experienced the effects of wisdom and good-
ness, was assailed anew with all the abuses of the opposite ex-
treme. FERGUSON.

In the reign of Hadrian Home had attained its greatest pitch of
architectural splendor ; and although some magnificent structures
were erected after his time, we must, on the whole, date from this
period the decline of the city. DYER.

The Jews, whose capital had been taken and destroyed
in the preceding century, were still, after their dispersion,
unruly and engaged in frequent revolts, which brought
down upon them at last the crushing force of Roman
vengeance.

During this century, also, the Christians suffered perse-
cutions, and it is a fact that they fared worse under the
rule of the Good Emperors, as they are styled, than under
tyrants like Nero. (See, for persecution of the Christians,
pages 128, 147, 157.)

About A.D.3OO

ReJiotypr Printing Co, Boston .

THIRD CENTURY.
(200-300.)

EOME is still the one great power of the world ; but the
borders of the Eoman territory are threatened by the war-
like northern tribes, chiefly the Franks and Goths, who
make many attacks, which result in constant wars upon
the frontiers, yet in general the Eonians hold their own
against these invaders. Dacia is, however, surrendered
to the Goths in 270. The Eoman Empire is divided by
Diocletian, in the last part of the century, into four parts,
under two emperors and two Caesars. Diocletian himself
retains the East, with a Caesar under him, and gives to
his general Maximian the West, also with a sub-ruler or
Csesar. Eome is no longer the head of the empire, the
rulers staying nearer the frontiers.

PERSIA now takes the place of Parthia upon the map, a new
Persian dynasty being founded in 226, in place of the Parthian
dynasty which has lasted since about 256 B. c.

PARTHIA. See above, under PERSIA.

TEUTONIC TRIBES. The warlike northern tribes, which play so
important a part in the history of modern Europe (chiefly the Franks
and the Goths), threaten the borders of the Roman territory. Dacia
is surrendered to the Goths by Rome in 270.

PALMYRA, in Syria, rises to its highest power in this century,
maintains a state of independence for a time, but is subjected by
Rome in 271.

A. D. 200 - A. D. 300.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

202. Persecution of the Christians (Sep-

timius Severus).
226. New Persian Empire of the Sassani-

dae begins.
250. Persecution of the Christians by

Decius.
260 (about). The empire invaded on all

sides by the barbarians.

270. Dacia given up to the Goths.

271. Siege and capture of Palmyra by

Aurelian. Zenobia taken prisoner.
292 (about). The Roman Empire divided
into four parts, under two emper-
ors (Maximian and Diocletian) and
two Caesars (Galerius and Constan-
tius).

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

ROME.

E'l/iperors. Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus, The
Gordians, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian with Maximian.

Historian. Dion Cassius.

Greek Philosophers. Plotinus, Longinus.

Christian Fathers and Writers. Tertullian, Clement (of Alexandria), Origen, Cyprian,
St. Hippolytus.

PERSIA.

New Persian Empire legins under the dynasty of the Sassanidce.
FAT.MYKA.

Queen Zenobia.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

The cankers of a calm world and a long peace.

SHAKESPEARE.

IN the course of this century the distinction between
Koinans and Provincials was wholly obliterated. Some
of the best of the emperors came from the provinces. It
was an age of violence and lawlessness, the imperial dignity
seldom passing from one ruler to another in orderly suc-
cession, but being taken by force, or conferred by gift of
the soldiery, or obtained by purchase. The persecutions
of the Christians which prevailed in the last century con-
tinued also in this, under the emperors Severus, Decius,
and Aurelian.

It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should
discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corrup-
tion. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans,
introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire.
The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the
fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evap-
orated. GIBBON.

Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds and outlaws, for-
tified himself on the hills near the Tiber, ten centuries had already
elapsed. During the four first ages, the Romans, in the laborious

148 THIED CENTUET.

school of poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and government ;
by the vigorous exertion of those virtues, and by the assistance of
fortune, they had obtained, in the course of the three succeeding cen-
turies, an absolute empire over many countries of Europe, Asia, and
Africa. The last three hundred years had been consumed in appar-
ent prosperity and internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magis-
trates, and legislators, who composed the thirty-five tribes of the
Roman people, was dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and
confounded with the millions of servile provincials, who had received
the name, without adopting the spirit, of Romans. A mercenary
army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of the frontier, was
the only order of men who preserved and abused their independence.
By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an Arab was
exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested with despotic power over
the conquests and over the country of the Scipios. The limits of the
Roman Empire still extended from the Western Ocean to the Tigris,
and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the Danube. To the undis-
cerriing eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a monarch no less pow-
erful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly been. The form was
still the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled. . . .
Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the state maintained by
Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it must be confessed,
that of the two comedies, the former was of a much more liberal and
manly character than the latter. It was the aim of the one to dis-
guise, and the object of the other to display, the unbounded power
which the emperors possessed over the Roman world. Ostentation
was the first principle of the new system instituted by Diocletian.
The second was division. He divided the empire, the provinces,
and every branch of the civil as well as military administration.
He multiplied the wheels of the machine of government, and ren-
dered its operations less rapid, but more secure. . . . The political
union of the Roman world was gradually dissolved, and a principle
of division was introduced, which, in the course of a few years,
occasioned the perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western
Empires. GIBBON.

The founding of the kingdoms of modern Europe might have been
anticipated by two hundred years, had the barbarians been bolder, or
had there not arisen in Diocletian a prince active and politic enough
to bind up the fragments before they had lost all cohesion, meeting

THIRD CENTUEY. 149

altered conditions by new remedies. By dividing and localizing au-
thority, he confessed that the weaker heart could no longer make
its pulsations felt to the body's extremities. JAMES BRYCE.

If it should unfortunately happen that the palace of the Vatican,
with its thirteen thousand chambers, were to take fire, for a con-
siderable space of time the fire would be retarded by the mere enor-
mity of extent which it would have to traverse. But there would
come at length a critical moment, at which, the maximum of the
retarding effect having been attained, the bulk and volume of the
flaming mass would thenceforward assist the flames in the rapidity of
their progress. Such was the effect upon the declension of the Roman
Empire from the vast extent of its territory. For a very long period
that very extent, which finally became the overwhelming cause of its
ruin, served to retard and to disguise it. A small encroachment,
made at one point upon the integrity of the empire, was neither
much regarded at Rome, nor perhaps in and for itself much deserved
to be regarded. But a very narrow belt of encroachments, made upon
almost every part of so enormous a circumference, was sufficient of itself
to compose something of an antagonist force. And to these external
dilapidations we must add the far more important dilapidations from
within, affecting all the institutions of the state, and all the forces,
whether moral or political, which had originally raised it or main-
tained it. Causes which had been latent in the public arrangements
ever since the time of Augustus, and had been silently preying upon
its vitals, had now reached a height which would no longer brook
concealment. The fire which had smouldered through generations
had broken out at length into an open conflagration. Uproar and
disorder, and the anarchy of a superannuated empire, strong only
to punish and impotent to defend, were at this time convulsing the
provinces in every point of the compass. Rome herself had been
menaced repeatedly. And a still more awful indication of the coming
storm had been felt far to the south of Rome. One long wave of the
great German deluge had stretched beyond the Pyrenees and the
Pillars of Heracles, to the very soil of ancient Carthage. Victorious
banners were already floating on the margin of the Great Desert,
and they were not the banners of Caesar. Some vigorous hand was
demanded at this moment, or else the funeral knell of Rome was on
the point of sounding. DE QUINCEY.

Rome, in the latter part of the third century, had experienced one

150 THIRD CENTURY.

of those reactions -which, mark her later history, and which alone
enabled her to complete her predestined term of twelve centuries.
Between the years 274 and 282, under Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus,
and Carus, she showed herself once more very decidedly the first
military power in the world, drove back the barbarians on all sides,
and even ventured to indulge in an aggressive policy. RAWLINSOK.

A happy restoration of the empire was brought about by Aurelian,
and the history of his reign is delightful, like that of every period in
which something that was decaying is restored; he was, however, by no
means an ideal character. We are far from being able to form a clear
picture of that time, for the authorities we possess are much inferior
even to those for the Middle Ages, and the history of the empire is far
less known to us than that of the republic, a fact which few persons
seem to be aware of. NIEBUHR.

He [the author of a recovered work of the third century] lived at
the centre of the vast Roman world, and felt all the pulsations and
paroxysms of that mighty heart. He witnessed the ominous decline
of every traditional maxim and national reverence in favor of imported
superstitions and degenerate barbarities. Under Commodus he saw
the ancient Mars superseded by the Grecian Hercules, and Hercules
represented by an emperor who sunk into a prize-fighter, and the ad-
ministration of the empire in the wanton hands of a Phrygian slave
who was only less brutal than his master. In the midst of pestilence
which had become chronic in Italy from the time of M. Antoninus, and
of which a Christian bishop could not but know more than others, the
city was still adding to its semblance of splendor and salubrity, and
the magnificent baths and grounds that were opened to the public
service at the Porta Capena, with the multiplied festivities and dona-
tions, attested how little mere physical attention to the people can
arrest the miseries of a moral degradation. If he was at home when
the excellent Pertinax was murdered, and cared to know what tyrant
was to have the world instead, he was perhaps in the throng that ran
to the Quirinal, and heard the Praetorians shout from their ramparts
that the empire was for sale, and saw the bargain with the foolish
senator below who bought it with his money and paid for it with his
head. ... It would be curious to know how the Christians com-
ported themselves when the Priest of the Sun became monarch of the
world, and seemed intent on dethroning every divinity to enrich the

THIKD CENTURY. 151

homage to his own. The orgies of Heliogabalus were more insulting
to the elder paganism of Home than injurious to the new faith, which
equally detested both ; and the offended moral feeling of the city
reacted, perhaps, in favor of the Christian cause, and prepared the
way for that more public teaching of the religion in buildings avow-
edly dedicated to the purpose, which was first permitted in the suc-
ceeding reign. . . . From their fellow-believers trading with the
Levant, or arriving thence, the pastors of the metropolis would learn
the propitious temper of the young Caesar [Alexander Severus], and
would feel no surprise, when he succeeded to the palace of his cousin,
that he not only swept out the ministers of lust and luxury, but in his
private oratory enshrined, among the busts of pagan benefactors, the
images also of Abraham and of Christ. They could not, however,
but observe how little the morals of the court and the wisdom of the
government could now avail to arrest the progress of decay, and reach
in detail the vices and miseries of a degenerate state. The emperor
who, gazing in his chapel on the features of Christ, recognized a reli-
gion human and universal, was the first under whom a visible badge
was put on the slave and a distinctive servile dress adopted; the slave
markets were still in consecrated spots, the temple of Castor and the
Via Sacra. The commonwealth had never boasted of so many great
jurists; but as the science of law was perfected, the power of law de-
clined, and Alexander Severus, the justest of emperors, was unable
to protect Ulpian, the greatest of civilians, from military assassination
in the palace itself, or to punish the perpetrators of this outrage on
popular feeling as well as public right. JAMES MARTINEAU.

At the close of the third century after Christ, the prospects of
mankind were fearfully dreary. A system of etiquette, as pompously
frivolous as that of the Escurial, had been established. A sovereign
almost invisible; a crowd of dignitaries minutely distinguished by
badges and titles ; rhetoricians who said nothing but what had been
said ten thousand times; schools in which nothing was taught but
what had been known for ages, such was the machinery provided
for the government and instruction of the most enlightened part of
the human race. That great community was then in danger of ex-
periencing a calamity far more terrible than any of the quick, inflam-
matory, destroying maladies to which nations are liable, a tottering,
drivelling, paralytic longevity, the immortality of the Struldbrugs, a
Chinese civilization. MACAULAY.

152 THIRD CENTURY.

In the latter part of this century many pretenders to the
imperial dignity arose, and the empire was quite divided
among rival claimants. At Palmyra, in Syria, one of these,
Odenatus, was proclaimed emperor, and succeeded in estab-
lishing a powerful state. He was followed by his wife,
Zenobia, a remarkable woman, who bore the title of Queen
of the East, but who was defeated, and the kingdom over-
thrown by the Emperor Aurelian.

From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls.

MONTGOMERY.

Aurilian wlian that the governaunce
Of Rome cam into his hondes tway,
He schop him of this queen to do vengeaunce ;
And with his legiouns he took the way
Toward Cenoby ; and schortly to say
He made hir flee, and atte last hir heut,
And feterid hir, and eek hir children tweye,
And wan the lond, and home to Rome he went.

CHAUCER.

And fair Zenobia's star goes down at last.

The Roman comes, his legions file around '

Doomed Tadmor's walls, to deafening trumpets' sound.

Aurelian bids the desert princess yield,

But hark ! her answer clashing sword and shield !

. . . But ceaseless war, and famine's tortures slow,

Wear bravery out, and bring Palmyra low.

N. MICHELL.

PERSIA.

IN 226 the Persian power again rose under the dynasty
of the Sassanidse, in place of the Parthian dynasty, which
had lasted since about 256 B. c.

The greatness of Persia under this dynasty is one of the most
remarkable phenomena in the history of the world. FREEMAN.

Western Asia gained, perhaps, something, but it did not gain
much, from the substitution of the Persians for the Parthians as

THIKD CENTURY. 153

the dominant power. . . . But it is a change, on the whole, for
the better. It is accompanied by a revival of art, by improvements
in architecture; it inaugurates a religious revolution which has ad-
vantages. Above all, it saves the East from stagnation. It is one
among many of those salutary shocks which, in the political as in the
natural world, are needed from time to time to stimulate action and
prevent torpor and apathy. KAWLINSON.

ALEXANDEIAN SCHOOL, NEO-PLATONISTS.

THE fame of Alexandria as a seat of learning has been
referred to under the third century before Christ. It con-
tinued till the beginning of the Christian era; but that
celebrated philosophy called Neo-Platonism arose towards
the end of the third century, flourished with some modifi-
cations until the fifth century, and then rapidly declined.

The term " Alexandrian School " is applied, in a loose sense, to the
whole body of eminent men who, in all the departments of knowl-
edge, conferred lustre on the capital of the Ptolemies; but, as a char-
acteristic designation, it is more strictly confined to that particular
section of its philosophers known as the Neo-Platonists. Encyclo-
paedia Britannica.

About A.D

FOURTH CENTURY.
(300-400.)

THE final division of the Eoman dominion into the
Eastern Empire and Western Empire (395), and the be-
ginning of the migrations of the northern nations, are the
national movements of the greatest importance in this
century.

EOME. Constantino the Great, the first Christian em-
peror, unites the whole empire in 323, and makes Byzan-
tium (since called Constantinople) the seat of empire in
330. Under Valentinian I. the division of the Eoman
territory into the Eastern and Western Empires is first
effected in 364 The Eoman dominion is reunited under
Theodosius L, who is the last emperor who rules over the
whole empire ; and after his death the division of the
empire is completed, between his sons, in 395, into
the Western Empire and the Eastern Empire.

NORTHERN NATIONS. Important migrations of the northern
tribes which have long been threatening the Roman Empire and
involving the Romans in constant wars, begin in the latter part of
the century. One of these tribes, the GOTHS, are in the latter part
of the century pushed on by the Huns (a Turanian tribe from Asia,
who in the latter part of this century begin to invade Europe), and in
376 are permitted to pass the Danube and settle within the Roman
dominion. They afterwards spread westward towards Italy. Another
Teutonic tribe, the SAXONS, begin to attack Britain in the latter part
of the century, but are repulsed by Theodosius.

HUNS. See above, under NORTHERN NATIONS.

PERSIA is a powerful state, though an unequal rival of Rome.

A.D. 300 - A. D. 400.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

303. Final persecution of the Christians
by Diocletian.

305. Diocletian and Maximian resign the
empire to the Caesars, Galerius and
Constantius.

312. Constantiue overthrows Maxentius
at the Milvian bridge, and takes
possession of Rome.

323. Constantine sole and undisputed em-
peror.

325. Council of Nice.

330. The seat of Roman government trans-
ferred to Constantinople. Chris-
tianity formally recognized as the

religion of the empire. Constan-
tine divides the empire into the
Eastern, Illyrian, Italian, and Gal-
lic prefectures.

364. Empire divided (Valentinian I.) ;
Valens emperor of the East. This
originates the Eastern and Western
Empires.

378. The G oths defeat the Emperor Valens
in Thrace.

395. Final division of the empire into the

Eastern and Western Empires.

396. The, Goths devastate Thessaly, Cen-

tral Greece, and the Peloponnesus.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

ROME.
I

Emperors. (Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius I.), (Galerius, Constantine the Great),
Julian the Apostate.

WEST. EAST.

Valentinian, Gratian, Valentinian II. Valens, Theodosius (the Great).

Theodosius the Great, emperor of the West and the East.
WESTERN EMPIRE. EASTERN EMPIRE.

Honorius. Arcadius.

Poets. Ausonius, Claudian.
Historian. Eutropius.

Church Fathers, Ecclesiastical Writers, etc. St. Athanasius, Lactantius, Arius, Eu-
sebius, Basil (the Great), Gregory Nazianzen, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Theodoret,
Martin (of Tours), Clirysostom, St. Jerome.

VISIGOTHS.
King. Alaric.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE EOMAN EMPIEE.

THE fourth century of the Christian era must be re-
garded as one of the most important in the history
of mankind, witnessing as it did the overthrow of pagan-
ism, the accession to the throne of the first Christian
emperor, and the consequent establishment of Christianity
as the religion of the state, the final dismemberment of the
empire into two parts with separate capitals, and the be-
ginning of those great movements of the northern tribes
which eventually worked the destruction of Eome. It was
a time of great changes leading to that condition of things
which prevails in the modern world.

The period was now arrived when Rome was to experience at one
and the same time the two most important revolutions that occur in
the whole course of her history. She was to cease to be the capital
of the Roman Empire ; but, by the establishment of Christianity, she
was ultimately to become the capital of the Christian world. DYER.

PEESECUTION OF THE CHEISTIANS.

EAELY in this century the persecution of the Christians,
which had been going on at intervals during the previous

158 FOURTH CENTURY.

three centuries, reached its height ; the last and greatest of
them all, the tenth, as usually reckoned, taking place under
the Emperor Diocletian in the year 303. (See also, for
persecution of the Christians, pages 128, 143, 147.)

The great persecutions are generally enumerated as ten. This is,
however, an arbitrary division, and we must be careful not to take it
too literally. It has arisen in part from that desire to establish a
methodical regularity and a certain supposed order of events, which
often does violence to fact. It would be an error to assert that perse-
cxition burst forth only ten times before the Constantine era. In
reality it never ceased; checked at one point, it only flamed forth
afresh at another. The most prosperous times had their martyrs.
It could not be otherwise. Christianity, until the fourth century,
was an unauthorized religion, a religion proscribed and illegal. The
decree of Trajan, reinforced by many others, was not for a single day
withdrawn. Persecution was therefore always lawful, and did not
need a special permission. It might become more general and more
cruel, according to the disposition of the emperors; but whether they
were well affected or otherwise towards the Christians, persecution
continued to form a part of the penal legislation of the empire, and
any popular tumult, or the mere caprice of the proconsul, sufficed
to bring it down in all its violence upon a city or a province.
FRESHENS!:.

The customary reckoning of ten persecutions was occasioned by
the popular need of some determinate number and by allegorical
predictions. A way was almost always open to those who wished
to escape persecution, and for the most part only those suffered to
whom life would otherwise have been little worth, or those whose
death might serve as a useful warning, slaves and officers of the
Church. Down to the time of Origen but few their number can
easily be estimated had died the death of martyrs. The sweeping
persecution that no longer took account of individuals but carried
away whole masses of people, and which is said to have occurred
under the reigns of Decius and Diocletian, owes its existence largely
to the magnifying power of tradition. Executions took place usually
in accordance with the forms of law, but occasionally, in consequence
of some special imbitterment or terror, dreadful torments were in-
vented. Many saved themselves by denying the name of Christ and

FOURTH CENTURY. 159

offering up sacrifices to the gods, or by bribery obtained from the
magistrates certificates that they had thus sacrificed, or by surrender-
ing the sacred books. The joy of the confessors and martyrs was so
great that they often rushed to meet death in a way not approved by
the more considerate leaders and teachers. The virtues of Greek and
Koman antiquity were renewed in this devotion to a super-earthly
fatherland. The power of faith triumphed over natural feelings,
and over all the shrinking of delicate culture and refined civiliza-
tion. Even children took delight in death, and noble maidens en-
dured what was worse than death. If this passion for martyrdom
was promoted by the disgrace which attached to the treacherous and
apostate, and by the glory and honor which the martyr received on
earth from his admiring friends, and which he might expect to await
him in Paradise, it was none the less a genuine enthusiasm to follow
in the steps of Jesus, and it gave the Church the feeling that she could
never be conquered. KARL HASE.

A general sacrifice was commenced, which occasioned various mar-
tyrdoms. No distinction was made of age or sex; the name of Chris-
tian was so obnoxious to the pagans, that all indiscriminately fell
sacrifices to their opinions. Many houses were set on fire, and whole
Christian families perished in the flames ; and others had stones fas-
tened about their necks, and being tied together were driven into the
sea. The persecution became general in all the Eoman provinces,
but more particularly in the East; and as it lasted ten years, it is
impossible to ascertain the numbers martyred, or to enumerate the
various modes of martyrdom. Racks, scourges, swords, daggers,
crosses, poison, and famine were made use of in various parts to
despatch the Christians, and invention was exhausted to devise
tortures against such as had no crime but thinking differently from
the votaries of superstition. JOHN Fox.

Lament ! for Diocletian's fiery sword
Works busy as the lightning ; tut instinct
With malice ne'er to deadliest weapons linked,
Which God's ethereal storehouses afford
Against the Followers of the incarnate Lord
It rages; some are smitten in the field
Some pierced beneath the unavailing shield
Of sacred home; with pomp are others gored
And dreadful respite.

WORDSWORTH.

160 FOURTH CENTURY.

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.

CONSTANTINOPLE THE SEAT OP EMPIRE.

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT united the whole empire in
323, and, Rome having been forsaken by the emperors as
their ordinary place of abode, he made the ancient Greek
city of Byzantium, on the Bosphorus, the seat of empire in
330. He called the city New Eome, but it has since been
known, after him, as Constantinople, that is, the city of
Constantine (Greek polis, a city).

After that Constantine the eagle turned

Against the course of heaven which it had followed

Behind the ancient who Lavinia took.

Two hundred years and more the bird of God

In the extreme of Europe held itself,

Near to the mountains whence it issued first;

And under shadow of the sacred plumes

It governed there the world from hand to hand.

DANTE, Paradise. Tr. Longfellow.

The transfer of the empire from west to east was turning the
imperial eagle against the course of heaven, which it had followed
in coming from Troy to Italy with Jneas, who married Lavinia,
daughter of King Latinus, and was the founder of the Roman
Empire. LONGFELLOW.

The subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline
of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the
dignity of their ancestors ; but they could feel and lament the rage of
tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase of taxes. The
impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice of their complaints,
will observe some favorable circumstances which tended to alleviate
the misery of their condition. The threatening tempest of barbarians,
which so soon subverted the foundations of Roman greatness, was still
repelled, or suspended, on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and litera-
ture were cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society were enjoyed,
by the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the globe. The forms,
the pomp, and the expense of the civil administration contributed to re-

FOURTH CENTURY. 161

strain the irregular license of the soldiers; and although the laws were
violated by power, or perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the
Roman jurisprudence preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown
to the despotic governments of the East. The rights of mankind
might derive some protection from religion and philosophy; and the
name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might sometimes ad-
monish, the successors of Augustus that they did not reign over a na-
tion of slaves or barbarians. ... It may be sufficient to observe, that
whatever could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or contribute to the
benefit or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was contained within
the walls of Constantinople. A particular description, composed about
a century after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learn-
ing, a circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred and fifty-three
private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts or res-
ervoirs of water, four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate or
courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four thousand
three hundred and eighty-eight houses which for their size or beauty de-
served to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian habitations.
. . . The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal
monument of the glories of his reign, could employ in the prosecution
of that great work the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of
the genius of obedient millions. . . . The buildings of the new city
were executed by such artificers as the reign of Constantine could
afford; but they were decorated by the hands of the most celebrated
masters of the age of Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius
of Phidias and Lysippus surpassed, indeed, the power of a Roman
emperor; but the immortal productions which they had bequeathed
to posterity were exposed without defence to the rapacious vanity of
a despot. By his commands the cities of Greece and Asia were de-
spoiled of their most valuable ornaments. The trophies of memorable
wars, the objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of
the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times, con-
tributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople. ... In less than
a century Constantinople disputed with Rome itself the pre-eminence
of riches and numbers. New piles of buildings, crowded together
with too little regard to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the
intervals of narrow streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses,
and of carriages. The allotted space of ground was insufficient to
contain the increasing people ; and the additional foundations, which

162 FOURTH CENTURY.

on either side were advanced into the sea, might alone have composed
a very considerable city. . . . The magnificence of the first Caesars
was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople, . . .
and the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for the bene-
fit of his new capital was applied to feed a lazy and insolent popu-
lace at the expense of the husbandmen of an industrious province.
GIBBON.

Constantine was the first Christian emperor, and under
him Christianity became established as the religion of the
state in 324, 1 when he became sovereign of the Eomau
world.

The ruin of paganism in the age of Theodosius is perhaps the only
example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular supersti-
tion, and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event
in the history of the human mind. . . . The religion of Constantine
achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman
Empire ; but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the
arts of their vanquished rivals. GIBBON.

Constantine, more clear-sighted and more fortunate than any of
his predecessors, had understood his era and opened his eyes to the
new light which was rising upon the world. Far from persecuting
the Christians, as Diocletian and Galerius had done, he had given
them protection, countenance, and audience, and towards him turned
all their hopes. He had even, it is said, in his last battle against
Maxentius, displayed the Christian banner, the cross, with this in-
scription, Hoc signo vinces (with this device thou shalt conquer).
There is no knowing what was at that time the state of his soul, and
to what extent it was penetrated by the first rays of Christian faith ;
but it is certain that he was the first amongst the masters of the
Roman world to perceive and accept its influence. With him,
Paganism fell and Christianity mounted the throne. With him,
the decay of Roman society stops and the era of modern society
begins. GUIZOT.

1 In 325 he convoked the First Council of Nice, at the place of that name
(Nicaea), which was attended by representatives of the whole Christian world,
and in which Arianism was condemned and a famous Catholic creed was
adopted.

FOURTH CEXTUKY. 163

That the greatest religious change in the history of mankind
should have taken place under the eyes of a brilliant galaxy of
philosophers and historians who were profoundly conscious of the
decomposition around them, that all of these -writers should have
utterly failed to predict the issue of the movement they were observ-
ing, and that, during the space of three centuries, they should have
treated as simply contemptible an agency which all men must now
admit to have been, for good or for evil, the most powerful moral
lever that has ever been applied to the affairs of man, are facts well
worthy of meditation in every period of religious transition. The ex-
planation is to be found in that broad separation between the spheres
of morals and of positive religion we have considered. LECKY.

Constantino died in 337.

After a tranquil and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed
to his family the inheritance of the Roman Empire ; a new capital,
a new policy, and a new religion ; and the innovations which he
established have been embraced and consecrated by succeeding gen-
erations. GIBBON.

DIVISION OF THE EMPIEE.

THE last sovereign who ruled over the whole empire
was Theodosius I., after whose death the dominion became
finally divided between his two sons in 395, into the
Western and Eastern Empires.

The genius of Rome expired with Theodosius. GIBBON.

The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius
marks the final establishment of the Empire of the East, which, from
the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks,
subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years in a state of premature
and perpetual decay. GIBBON.

164 FOURTH CENTURY.

MOVEMENTS OF THE NORTHEEN NATIONS.

From besides Tanais the Goths,
Huns, and Getes sat down.

SPENSEE.

And gathering nations sought the fall of Rome.

JUVENAL.

IMPORTANT migrations of the northern tribes.(the Teu-
tonic or Germanic nations), which had long been threatening
the Koman Empire and involving the Koinans in constant
wars, began in this century. The Huns, a savage people
(a Turanian race from Asia), began in the latter part of
the century to invade Europe and to press upon the Teu-
tonic nations in the north, and one of these Teutonic tribes,
the Goths, being pushed on by the Huns, is allowed to
cross the Danube and settle within the Roman Empire in
376. They afterwards spread westward towards Italy.
The Saxons begin to attack Britain in the latter part of
the century, but are repulsed by Theodosius.

If we consider the Roman Empire in the fourth century of the
Christian era, we shall find in it Christianity, we shall find in it all
the intellectual treasures of Greece, all the social and political wisdom
of Eome. What was not there, was simply the German race and the
peculiar qualities which characterize it. This one addition was of
such power that it changed the character of the whole mass ; the pe-
culiar stamp of the Middle Ages is undoubtedly German; the change
manifested in the last three centuries has been owing to the revival
of the older elements with greater power, so that the German element
has been less manifestly predominant. But that element still pre-
serves its force, and is felt for good or for evil in almost every country
of the civilized world. ARNOLD.

The tendencies of the later times of the Roman Empire to a com-
menting literature and a second-hand philosophy have already been

FOURTH CENTURY. 165

noticed. The loss of the dignity of political freedom, the want of
the cheerfulness of advancing prosperity, and the substitution of the
less philosophical structure of the Latin language for the delicate
intellectual mechanism of the Greek, fixed and augmented the preva-
lent feebleness and barrenness of intellect. Men forgot, or feared,
to consult nature, to seek for new truths, to do what the great dis-
coverers of other times had done ; they were content to consult libra-
ries, to study and defend old opinions, to talk of what great geniuses
had said. WILLIAM WHEWELL.

ALEXANDKIAN SCHOOL, NEO-PLATOMSTS.

THE celebrated philosophy known as Neo-Platonism
flourished during this century. (See, under the THIRD
CENTURY, page 153.)

About A.D.5OO

f'Prtnting Co,ostan

JfJJfTM CENTURY.
(400-500.)

THE migrations of the northern nations and the dissolution of the
Western Roman Empire are the great movements of the fifth century.

WESTERN ROMAN EMPIRE. The Western Empire begins to break
up early in this century, and out of the forests of Northern Europe
come the founders of new nations. The migrations of these northern
nations, which began in the latter part of the preceding century,
now affect the course of history to an important extent. By the
invasions of the tribes of Goths, Franks, Vandals, etc., the Western
emperors lose their power outside of Italy, and the empire itself
ceases to exist in 476, when it is nominally joined to the Eastern
Empire, but really passes into the hands first of the Visigoth Odoacer,
and later (489) into the power of the Ostrogoth Theodoric.

TEUTONIC (GERMANIC) TRIBES. The following are the more
important movements of these nations :

VISIGOTHS (WEST GOTHS). The Visigoths, under Alaric, sack Eome in 410,
and overrun all Southern Italy. The Visigothic kingdom in Spain and South-
ern Gaul begins in 410. The real power of what is now left of the Western
Roman Empire passes into the hands of the Visigoth Odoacer in 476, who is,
however, overthrown by the Ostrogoth Theodoric in 489. OSTROGOTHS (EAST
GOTHS). In 489, Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, overthrows the Visigoth
Odoacer, in Italy, and rules from 493 to 526 over a strong and independent
territory reaching far beyond Italy. VANDALS. The Vandals settle in Spain,
and in 429 cross to Africa, where they found a kingdom. FRANKS. The
Franks come into power in Northern Gaul, under Clovis, who ruled from 481
to 511. BURGUNDIANS. The Burgundians found a kingdom in Southeastern
Gaul. ANGLES, SAXONS, JUTES. These peoples cross over into Britain, which
has been evacuated by the Romans about 410, and there lay the foundation of
the English nation.

HUNS. The Huns play an important part during the fifth century. Under
Attila, they threaten the whole of Europe in 451, but are defeated at Chalons
by the united forces of the Romans, Goths, and Franks. The Huns also
invade the Eastern Empire. After the death of Attila, in 453, the power of the
Huns declines.

EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE. The Eastern Empire remains nearly the same
as at the end of the last century.

PERSIA is engaged in contests with the Eastern Empire.

A.D. 400-A.D. 500.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

410. Alaric the Goth takes Borne. The
Romans abandon Britain about
410. Kingdom of the Visigoths
begins in Spain and GauL

412. The Vandals begin to establish them-
selves in Spain.

418. Gaul invaded by the Franks and other
northern tribes.

429. Establishment of the Vandal kingdom
in Africa under Genseric.

441. Invasion of the Eastern Empire by
the Huns under Attila.

449. The Jutes under Hengist and Horsa
landed at Kent. Beginning of
Saxon conquest of Britain.

451. Battle of Chalons. The Huns, under

Attila, defeated by Aetius.

452. The Huns, under Attila, invade Italy.
455. Rome taken and sacked by the Van-
dals under Genseric.

476. Odoacer the Visigoth takes Rome
and assumes the title of King of
Italy, which ends the history of
ancient Rome and marks the fall
of the Western Empire.

493. Invasion of Italy by the Ostrogoths
under Theodoric.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

WESTERN ROHAN EMPIRE.
Emperors. Honorius, Romulus Augustulus.

ITALY.
Kings. Odoacer (Visigoth), Theodoric (Ostrogoth).

EASTERN EMPIRE.
Emperors. Arcadius, Theodosius II., Marcian, Leo I., Zeno, Anastasius I.

King. Clovis L
King of Visigoths. Alaric.
King. Genseric.
King. Attila.

FRANKS.

GOTHS.
VANDALS.

HONS.

Poets. Claudian, Apollinaris Sidonius.
Grammarian and Writer. Macrobius.

Church Fathers, Ecclesiastical Writers, etc. St. Augustine, Theodoret, Chrysostom,
St. Jerome, Pelagius, St. Cyril (of Alexandria), St. Patrick.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE FALL OF KOME.

The barbarians who broke up the Roman Empire did not arrive a
day too soon. EMERSON.

MAKT signs had long indicated the coming fall of
Rome. The Eoman people had become lost in the
world which they had subdued. The old Eoman life was
corrupted by foreign elements, and debilitated by luxury.

The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of im-
moderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the
causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest ; and as
soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the
stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The
story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why
the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that
it had subsisted so long. GIBBON.

The meanest Roman could purchase with a small copper coin the
daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury which might excite
the envy of the kings of Asia. From these stately palaces [the Baths,
Thermo] issued a swarm of dirty and ragged plebeians, without shoes
and without a mantle ; who loitered away whole days in the street or
Forum, to hear news and to hold disputes ; who dissipated in extrava-
gant gaming the miserable pittance of their wives and children, and
spent the hours of the night in obscure taverns and brothels, in the
indulgence of gross and vulgar sensuality. But the most lively and

170 FIFTH CENTURY.

splendid amusement of the idle multitude depended on the frequent
exhibition of public games and spectacles. The piety of Christian
princes had suppressed the inhuman combats of gladiators ; but the
Roman people still considered the circus as their home, their temple,
and the seat of the republic. The impatient crowd rushed at the
dawn of day to secure their places, and there were many who passed
a sleepless and anxious night in the adjacent porticos. From the
morning to the evening, careless of the sun or of the rain, the spec-
tators, who sometimes amounted to the number of four hundred thou-
sand, remained in eager attention, their eyes fixed on the horses and
charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear for the success of
the colors which they had espoused ; and the happiness of Borne ap-
peared to hang on the event of a race. The same immoderate ardor
inspired their clamors and their applause as often as they were enter-
tained with the hunting of wild beasts, and the various modes of
theatrical representation. . . . The decay of the city had gradually
impaired the value of the public works. The circus and theatres
might still excite, but they seldom gratified, the desires of the people;
the temples, which had escaped the zeal of the Christians, were no
longer inhabited either by gods or men; the diminished crowds of
the Romans were lost in the immense space of their baths and porti-
cos ; and the stately libraries and halls of justice became useless to an
indolent generation, whose repose was seldom disturbed either by
study or business. The monuments of consular or imperial great-
ness were no longer revered as the immortal glory of the capital ;
they were only esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials,
cheaper and more convenient than the distant quarry. GIBBON.

It [the Roman Empire] was in a state analogous to that of the
decrepit human frame when we say it is breaking up; the vital func-
tions go on for a time, but weak and intermitting, neither potions
nor physicians can do more than postpone the evil hour. The throes
of the perishing Colossus were, however, fearful. A glance at the
countries which composed the vast heterogeneous mass of the Roman
Empire will show us rottenness and corruption at the centre, and
utter disorganization towards the extremities. MRS. JAMESON.

Look, too, at the state of Rome, which, when too extensive, became
no better than a carcass, whereupon all the vultures and birds of prey
of the world did seize and raven for many ages ; as a perpetual monu-

FIFTH CENTUKY. 171

ment of the essential differences between the scale of miles and the
scale of forces ; and that the natural arms of each province, or the
protecting arms of the principal state, may, when the territory is too
extensive, be unable to counteract the two dangers incident to every
government, foreign invasion and inward rebellion. LORD BACON.

First freedom, and then glory when that fails,

Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last.

And history, with all her volumes vast,

Hath but one page, 't is better written here,

Where gorgeous tyranny had thus amassed

All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,

Heart, soul, could seek, tongue ask Away with words !

BYRON.

Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray senate, quake,
Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse,
That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit.

LOWELL.

The migrations of those northern nations, noticed in the
latter part of the preceding century, now began to affect
the course of history to an important extent. The Migrations
Western Empire, corrupted and no longer fit to be northern
free, was now destined to be overthrown by the nations -
inroads of these " barbarians," fresh and vigorous from the
forests of Northern Europe.

The migration of the northern nations is the wall of separation
that divides the ancient and the modern world. SCHLEGEL.

This migration of the northern nations is nothing else save the his-
tory of the wars between the free Germanic races and the Roman
masters of the world ; wars which terminated in the dissolution of
the Roman Empire, and in the foundation and first formation of the
modern states and nations. SCHLEGEL.

The fifth century opened with an increased activity and spirit of
enterprise among the barbarian tribes which had been pressing on
the empire, and had even gained a footing within its bounds. Three
great waves of invasion may be distinguished : foremost and nearest
were the Teutonic races ; behind them came the Slaves ; behind them
again, and pressing strongly on all in front, were the Turanian

172 FIFTH CENTURY.

hordes from the centre of Asia, having in their front line the
Huns. R. W. CHURCH.

Could we suppose a philosopher to have lived at this period of the
world, elevated by benevolence and enlightened by learning and re-
flection, concerned for the happiness of mankind and capable of com-
prehending it, we can conceive nothing more interesting than would
to him have appeared the situations and fortunes of the human race.
The civilized world, he would have said, is sinking in the west before
these endless tribes of savages from the north. The sister empire of
Constantinople in the east, the last remaining refuge of civilization,
must soon be overwhelmed by similar irruptions of barbarians from
the northwest, from Scythia, or the remoter east. What can be the
consequence ? Will the world be lost in the darkness of ignorance
and ferocity, sink, never to emerge ? Or will the wrecks of litera-
ture and the arts, that may survive the storm, be fitted to strike the
attention of these rude conquerors, or sufficiently to enrich their
minds with the seeds of future improvement? Or, lastly, and on
the other hand, may not this extended and dreadful convulsion of
Europe be, after all, favorable to the human race ? Some change is
necessary : the civilized world is no longer to be respected ; its man-
ners are corrupted; its literature has long declined; its religion is
lost in controversy, or debased by superstition. There is no genius,
no liberty, no virtue. Surely the human race will be improved by
the renewal which it will receive from the influx of these freeborn.
warriors. Mankind, fresh from the hand of nature, and regenerated
by this new infusion of youth and vigor, will no longer exhibit the
vices and the weakness of this decrepitude of humanity ; their aspect
will be erect, their step firm, their character manly. There are not
wanting the means to advance them to perfection ; the Roman law is at
hand to connect them with each other ; Christianity, to unite them to
their Creator ; they are already free. The world will, indeed, begin
anew, but it will start to a race of happiness and glory. W. SMYTH.

It is a common idea, that the migration of the northern nations
was a deluge, as it were, of countless hosts of barbarians, and that,
from the eastern frontiers of China down to the western coasts of
Spain, a universal restless frenzy, an involuntary impulse, had
suddenly seized on all savage tribes, and swept, driven, and pre-
cipitated them along, till the old civilization was totally destroyed,
and the barbarism of the Middle Age introduced. In reality, and

FIFTH CENTURY. 173

viewed in their historical connection, however, these events present
a very different aspect At first, the Germans and Romans only
really took part in them. The Huns the only people, not
Germanic, and coming immediately from Asia, who exercised any
influence over this migration were so little numerous, and their
influence was so insignificant, that the development of what had
been long ripe for development would upon the whole have occurred,
even without this people, exactly as it did. SCHLEGEL.

A multitude like which the populous north
Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the south, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.

MILTON.

The blue-eyed race

Whose force rough-handed should renew the world,
And from the dregs of Romulus express
Such wine as Dante poured, or he who blew
Roland's vain blast, or sang the Campeador
In verse that clanks like armor in the charge.

LOWELL.

The barriers which had so long separated the savage
and the civilized nations of the earth were now, by the
movements of the various barbarian tribes, fairly
overpassed, and the actual dissolution of the West- Rome.

* -, i i End of the

em Empire may be regarded as beginning early western
in the century. By the invasions of the Goths, pire '
Franks, Vandals, and other Teutonic tribes, the Western
Roman Emperors lost their power outside of Italy, and
the empire itself ceased to exist in 476, when it was
nominally joined to the Eastern Empire, but really passed
into the hands first of the Visigoth Odoacer and later
(-489) into the power of the Ostrogoth Theodoric. 476
is the date commonly assigned for the fall of Eome. At
that time she fairly passed into the hands of the bar-
barians, and the Western Empire came to an end. " Such
was the end of this great empire, that had conquered the

174 FIFTH CENTDKY.

world with its arms, and instructed mankind with its wis-
dom ; that had risen by temperance, and that fell by
luxury ; that had been established by a spirit of patriot-
ism, and that sunk into ruin when the empire had become
so extensive that the title of a Eoman citizen was but an
empty name."

Still the Koman laws and names went on, and we may be sure
that any man in Italy would have been much surprised if he had
been told that the Eoman Empire had come to an end. FREEMAN.

For swifter course cometh thing that is of wight,
Whan it descendeth, than done thinges light.

CHAUCER.

So grew the Romane Empire by degree,

Till barbarian hands it quite did spill.

SPENSEE.

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe.

BYRON.

Two great revolutions have happened in the political state and in
the manners of the European nations. The first was occasioned by
the progress of the Roman power; the second, by the subversion of
it. ROBERTSON.

The union of the Roman Empire was dissolved; its genius was
humbled in the dust ; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing
from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious
reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa. GIBBON.

And with the empire fell also what before in this Western world
was chiefly Roman ; learning, valor, eloquence, history, civility, and
even language itself, all these together, as it were, with equal peace,
diminishing and decaying. MILTON.

Before the conclusion of the fifth century, the mighty fabric of
empire, which valor and policy had founded upon the seven hills of
Rome, was finally overthrown, in all the west of Europe, by the bar-
barous nations from the north, whose martial energy and whose num-
bers were irresistible. A race of men formerly unknown or despised
had not only dismembered that proud sovereignty, but permanently

FIFTH CENTURY. 175

settled themselves in its fairest provinces, and imposed their yoke
upon the ancient possessors. HALLAM.

Such Avas the end of the Empire of the West. Rome had grown
great for the reason that she had only conducted wars which were
successive, each nation, by an inconceivable good fortune, not attack-
ing her until another had been ruined. Rome was destroyed for
the reason that all nations attacked her at once, and penetrated her
dominions on all sides. MONTESQUIEU.

Not only the nation did not uphold the government in its struggle
against the barbarians, but the nation did not attempt resistance. . . .
The nation undergoes all the scourges of war, pillage, famine, a
complete change of condition and destiny, without action, without
speech, without a display of being. This phenomenon is not only
singular, it is unexampled. DE MABLY.

For while they flourished in arms, the largeness of territory was a
strength to them, and added forces, added treasures, added reputation;
but when they decayed in arms, then greatness became a burden. For
their protecting forces did corrupt, supplant, and enervate the natural
and proper forces of all their provinces, which relied and depended
upon the succors and directions of the state above. And when that
waxed impotent and slothful, then the whole state labored with her
own magnitude, and in the end fell with her own weight. And that,
no question, was the reason of the strange inundations of people which
both from the east and northwest overwhelmed the Roman Empire
in one age of the world, which a man upon the sudden would attrib-
ute to some constellation or fatal revolution of time, being indeed
nothing else but the declination of the Roman Empire, which, having
effeminated and made vile the natural strength of the provinces, and
not being able to supply it by the strength imperial and sovereign, did,
as a lure cast abroad, Invite and entice all the nations adjacent, to make
their fortunes upon her decays. LORD BACON.

The fall of the Roman Empire was the overthrow of the greatest,
the strongest, and the most firmly settled state which the world had
ever known ; the dislocation and reversal of the long-received ideas
and assumptions of mankind, of their habits of thinking, of the cus-
toms of life, of the conclusions of experience. R. W. CHUKCH.

Immeasurable were the consequences of this migration of nations
for the whole of modern history; all that has been developed during

176 FIFTH CENTURY.

the last fifteen hundred years by the noble rivalry of so many and
such great national energies has thereby alone been brought about.
Had this migration not taken place ; had the Germanic nations not
succeeded in throwing off the Roman yoke ; had, on the contrary, the
rest of Northern Europe been incorporated with Rome ; had the free-
dom and individuality of the nations been here too destroyed, and had
they been all transformed with like uniformity into provinces, then
would that noble rivalry, that rich development of the human mind,
which distinguishes modern nations, have never taken place.

SCHLEGEL.

There is no denying that we owe to this confusion, this diversity,
this tossing and jostling of elements, the slow progress of Europe, the
storms by which she has been buffeted, the miseries to which ofttimes
she has been a prey. But, however dear these have cost us, we must
not regard them with unmingled regret. . . . What we might call
the hard fortune of European civilization the trouble, the toil it has
undergone, the violence it has suffered in its course has been of
infinitely more service to the progress of humanity than that tran-
quil, smooth simplicity, in which other civilizations have run their
course. Guizoi.

Now, what the invasion of the barbarians and the fall of the
Roman Empire more especially arrested, even destroyed, was intel-
lectual movement ; what remained of science, of philosophy, of the
liberty of mind in the fifth century, disappeared under their blows.
But the moral movement, the practical reformation of Christianity,
and the official establishment of its authority over nations, were not
in any way affected ; perhaps even they gained instead of losing :
this at least, I think, is what the history of our civilization, in pro-
portion as we advance in its course, will allow us to conjecture. The
invasion of the barbarians, therefore, did not in any way kill what pos-
sessed life ; at bottom, intellectual activity and liberty were in decay ;
everything leads us to believe that they would have stopped of them-
selves ; the barbarians stopped them more rudely and sooner. GUIZOT.

It was the rude barbarians of Germany who introduced the senti-
ment of personal independence, the love of individual liberty, into
European civilization ; it was unknown among the Romans, it was
unknown in the Christian Church, it was unknown in nearly all the
civilizations of antiquity. GUIZOT.

FIFTH CENTUKY. 177

The Koman Empire, at its fall, was resolved into the elements of
which it had been composed, and the preponderance of municipal
rule and government was again everywhere visible. The Roman
world had been formed of cities, and to cities again it returned.
GUIZOT.

Perhaps no one arc or segment, detached from the total cycle of
human records, promises so much beforehand so much instruction,
so much gratification to curiosity, so much splendor, so much depth
of interest, as the great period the systole and diastole, flux and
reflux of the Western Roman Empire. Its parentage was magnifi-
cent and Titanic. It was a birth out of the death-struggles of the
colossal republic ; its foundations were laid by that sublime dictator,
" the foremost man of all this world," who was unquestionably, for
comprehensive talents, the Lucifer, the Protagonist, of all antiquity.
Its range, the compass of its extent, was appalling to the imagination.
Coming last amongst what are called the great monarchies of Proph-
ecy, it was the only one which realized in perfection the idea of a
monar chia, being (except for Parthia and the great fable of India
beyond it) strictly coincident with 17 oiKoviJ.ev7), or the civilized world.
Civilization and this empire were commensurate ; they were inter-
changeable ideas and coextensive. Finally, the path of this great
empire, through its arch of progress, synchronized with that of Chris-
tianity ; the ascending orbit of each was pretty nearly the same, and
traversed the same series of generations. These elements, in combi-
nation, seemed to promise a succession of golden harvests. From the
specular station of the Augustan Age, the eye caught glimpses by
anticipation of some glorious Eldorado for human hopes. What was
the practical result for our historic experience ? Answer, a sterile
Zaarrah. Prelibations, as of some heavenly vintage, were inhaled by
the Virgils of the day, looking forward in the spirit of prophetic
rapture ; whilst in the very sadness of truth, from that age forwards
the Roman world drank from stagnant marshes. A Paradise of roses
was prefigured; a wilderness of thorns was found. DE QUINCET.

The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominion which
has ever invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of that immense
empire, erected on the ruins of so many kingdoms, republics, and
states, both barbarous and civilized, and forming in its turn, by its
dismemberment, a multitude of states, republics, and kingdoms ; the
annihilation of the religion of Greece and Rome; the birth and the

178 FIFTH CENTURY.

progress of the two new religions which have shared the most beautiful
regions of the earth; the decrepitude of the ancient world, the specta-
cle of its expiring glory and degenerate manners ; the infancy of the
modern world, the picture of its first progress, of the new direction
given to the mind and character of man, such a subject must
necessarily fix the attention and excite the interest of men, who can-
not behold with indifference those memorable epochs during which,
in the fine language of Corneille, " Un grand destin commence, un
grand destin s'acheve." GUIZOT.

When Rome the head of the world shall have fallen, who can
doubt that the end is come of human things, aye, of the earth itself ?
She, she alone, is the state by which all things are upheld even until
now; wherefore let us make prayers and supplications to the God of
heaven, if indeed his decrees and his purposes can be delayed, that
that hateful tyrant come not sooner than we look for, he for whom
are reserved fearful deeds, who shall pluck out that eye in whose
extinction the world itself shall perish. LACTANTIUS.

Although the Romans ceased to form a state, still the history of
this nation did not yet become extinct; and even their literature
continued to exist partly at Rome, partly at Ravenna. We still
possess a number of small poems and inscriptions on tombs and
churches, many of which are elegant and beautiful. One sees that
the times were not yet barbarous, and Boethius was worthy of the
best ages of literature. . . . The Roman law continued much more
uninterruptedly than is commonly believed. An account of the con-
tinued influence of the Roman intellect would be very attractive and
desirable. NIEBUHE.

This Citie, which was first but shepheards shade,

Uprising by degrees, grewe to such height,
That Queene of land and sea her selfe she made.

At last, not able to bear so great weight,
Her power, disperst, through all the world did vade;
To shew that all in th' end to nought shall fade.

SPENSER.

The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride ;
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the capitol; far and wide

FIFTH CENTUEY. 179

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :
Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void,
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night t

BTHON.

Amidst these scenes, pilgrim ! seek'st thou Rome ?

Vain is thy search, the pomp of Rome is fled ;
Her silent Aventine is glory's tomb ;

Her walls, her shrines, but relics of the dead.
That hill, where Caesars dwelt in other days,

Forsaken mourns where once it towered sublime ;
Each mouldering medal now far less displays

The triumphs won by Latium than by Time.
Tiber alone survives, the passing wave
That bathed her towers now murmurs by her grave,
Wailing with plaintive sound her fallen fanes.

Rome ! of thine ancient grandeur all is passed,

That seemed for years eternal framed to last;
Naught but the wave a fugitive remains.

DE QDEVEDO. Tr. Hemans.

Rome, whose steps of power were necks of kings !
Europe, the earth, beneath her eagle's wings,
How, like a thing divine, she ruled the world !
Her finger lifted, thrones to dust were hurled :
High o'er her site the goddess Victory flew,
Mars waved his sword, and Fame her trumpet blew.
What is she now ? a widow with bowed head,
Her empire vanished, and her heroes dead;
Weeping she sits, a lone and dying thing,
Beneath the yew, and years no solace bring:
What is she now ? a dream of wonder past,
A tombless skeleton, dark, lone, and vast,
Whose heart of fire hath long, long ceased to burn,
Whose ribs of marble e'en to dust return.
Her shade alone, the ghost of ancient power,
Wanders in gloom o'er shrine and crumbling tower,
Points with its shadowy hand to Csesar's hall,
Sighs beneath arches tottering to their fall,
And glides down stately Tiber's rushing waves,
That seem to wail through all their hoary caves.

N. MlCHELL.

For Rome was then abandoned so of all,
In her memorials was seen her fall ;

180 FIFTH CENTURY.

Grand monuments in which her pride was placed
Were by the Goth put to an abject use ;
What held her sacred ashes found abuse,
Into a trough debased.

JEAN REBOUL. Tr. C. F. Bates.

Thou wert the throne and grave of empires ; still
The fount at which the panting mind assuages
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.

BYEON.

OTHEE MOVEMENTS OF THE NORTHERN"
NATIONS.

THE important movements and conquests of the barba-
rians were, however, by no means confined to those imme-
diately connected with the fall of the city of Borne and
the surrounding Italy in 476. The Visigoths [West Goths],
under Alaric, sacked Eome in 410, and overran all South-
ern Italy. "At the hour of midnight the Salarian gate
was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened
by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet; and
eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the founding
of Eome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civil-
ized so considerable a portion of mankind, was delivered
to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and
Scythia."

Across the everlasting Alp

I poured the torrent of my powers,
And feeble Caesars shrieked for help

In vain within their seven-hilled towers.

E. EVERETT.

A Visigothic kingdom in Spain and Southern Gaul began
in 410. In 489, Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths [East

FIFTH CENTURY. 181

Goths], overthrew the Visigoth Odoacer in Italy, and
ruled from 493 to 526 over a strong and independent state,
reaching far beyond Italy. The Vandals settled in Spain,
and in 429 crossed to Africa, where they founded a king-
dom. The Franks came into power in Northern Gaul,
under Clovis, who ruled from 481 to 511. The Burgun-
dians founded a state in Southeastern GauL

It must not be supposed that the invasions of the barbarian hordes
stopped all at once, in the fifth century. Do not believe that because
the Roman Empire was fallen, and kingdoms of barbarians founded
upon its ruins, the movement of nations was over. GUIZOT.

The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes crossed over into Britain,
which was evacuated by the Komans in 410, and there laid
the foundation of the English nation.

"Whereupon they [the Britons] suffered many years under two
very savage foreign nations, the Scots from the Avest and the Picts
from the north. We call these foreign nations, not on account of
their being seated out of Britain, but because they were remote from
that part of it which was possessed by the Britons. THE VEN-
ERABLE BEDE.

The Pictish cloud darkens the enervate land
By Rome abandoned; vain are suppliant cries,
And prayers that would undo her forced farewell,
For she returns not

WORDSWORTH.

For th' Heavens have decreed to displace
The Britons for their sinnes dew punishment,
And to the Saxons over-give their government.

SPENSEE.

from the east hither,
Angles and Saxons
came to land,
o'er the broad seas
Britain sought,
mighty war-smiths.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

182 FIFTH CENTURY.

Then (sad relief!) from the bleak coast that hears
The German Ocean roar, deep-blooming, strong,
And yellow-haired, the blue-eyed Saxon came.

THOMSON.

In a short time swarms of the aforesaid nations [Saxons, Angles,
and Jutes] came over into the island, and they began to increase so
much that they became terrible to the natives themselves, who had
invited them. THE VENERABLE BEDE.

No written record tells us how Saxon or Engle dealt with the land
he had made his own; how he drove out its older inhabitants, or how
he shared it among the new; how the settlers settled down in town-
ship or thorpe, or how they moulded into shape, under changed con-
ditions, the life they had brought with them from German shores.
Even legend and tradition are silent as to their settlement. J. R.
GREEN.

"What strikes us at once in the new England is, that it was the
one purely German nation that rose upon the wreck of Eome. In
other lands, in Spain or Gaul or Italy, though they were equally
conquered by German peoples, religion, social life, administrative
order, still remained Roman. In Britain alone, Eome died into a
vague tradition of the past. J. R. GREEN.

The Huns, who were spoken of in the last century, played
an important part in the fifth century. Under Attila, they
threatened the whole of Europe in 451, but were defeated
at Chalons, by the combined force of the Eomans, Goths,
and Franks. They also invaded the Eastern Empire. After
the death of Attila, in 453 or 454, the power of the Huns
declined.

Justice divine upon this side is goading
That Attila, who was a scourge on earth.

DANTE, Inferno. Tr. Longfellow.

As in polished societies ease and tranquillity are courted, they
delight in war and dangers. He who falls in battle is reckoned
happy. They who die of old age or of disease are deemed infamous.
They boast, with the utmost exultation, of the number of enemies
whom they have slain, and, as the most glorious of all ornaments,

FIFTH CENTUKY. 183

they fasten the scalps of those who have fallen by their hands to the
trappings of their horses. AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.

The Huns were not, like Goths and Vandals, a Teutonic or even
a Slave people. They belonged to that terrible race whose original
seats were in the vast central table-land of Asia; who under various
names Huns, Tartars, Mongols, Turks have made it their boast
to devastate for the sake of devastation, and from whom sprung the
most renowned among the destroyers of men, Attila, Genghis, Timour,
the Ottomans. R. W. CHURCH.

The victory which the Roman general, Aetius, with his Gothic
allies, had then gained over the Huns, was the last victory of imperial
Rome. But among the long Fasti of her triumphs, few can be found
that, for their importance and ultimate benefit to mankind, are com-
parable with this expiring effort of her arms. CREASY.

The discomfiture [battle of Chalons] of the mighty attempt of
Attila to found a new anti-Christian dynasty upon the wreck of the
temporal power of Rome, at the end of the term of twelve hundred
years, to which its duration had been limited by the forebodings of
the heathen. HERBERT.

The battle of Chalons, where Hunland met Rome, and the Earth
was played for, at sword-fence, by two earth-bestriding giants, the
sweep of whose swords cut kingdoms in pieces, hovers dim in the
languid remembrance of a few; while the poor police-court Treachery
of a wretched Iscariot, transacted in the wretched land of Palestine,
centuries earlier, for " thirty pieces of silver," lives clear in the heads,
in the hearts, of all men. CARLYLE.

If a man were called to fix upon the period in the history of the
world during which the condition of the human race was most ca-
lamitous and afflicted, he would, without hesitation, name that which
elapsed from the death of Theodosius the Great to the establishment
of the Lombards in Italy. The contemporary authors, who beheld
that scene of desolation, labor and are at a loss for expressions to
describe the horror of it. TJie Scourge of God, the Destroyer of Na-
tions, are the dreadful epithets by which they distinguish the most
noted of the barbarous leaders; and they compare the ruin which
they had brought on the world to the havoc occasioned by earth-
quakes, conflagrations, or deluges, the most formidable and fatal ca-
lamities which the imagination of man can conceive. ROBERTSON.

THE MIDDLE AGES.

THE DARK AGES.

Our clock strikes when there is a change from hour to hour ; but
no hammer in the Horologe of Time peals through the universe,
ivhen there is a change from Era to Era. CAELYLE.

Many considerable portions of time, especially before the twelfth
century, may justly be deemed so barren of events worthy of re-
membrance, that a single sentence or paragraph is often sufficient
to give the character of entire generations, and of long dynasties
of obscure Icings. HALLAM.

It cost Europe a thousand years of barbarism to escape the fate of
China. MACAULAY.

THE period intervening between the fall of the Western
Eoman Empire (476) and the discovery of America by
Columbus (1492), say from, the fifth to the fifteenth cen-
tury, is usually spoken of as the Middle Ages, or more con-
cisely as the Middle Age. It is marked by many and great
events, such as the institutions of feudalism and chivalry,
the growth of municipalities, the crusades, the rise of the
papal power, the invention of printing, the revival of learn-
ing, maritime discovery, etc., all which will be referred to
in the proper places. The first five centuries of this period,
say from the fall of Eome to the year 1000, are often
known as the Dark Ages, because European society was
then to appearance in a more benighted and semi-barbarous
condition than either immediately before or since that time.
The name Dark Ages is sometimes applied to nearly the
whole period 500-1500.

This is, indeed, the character of the Dark Age : it was a chaos
of all the elements ; the childhood of all the systems ; a universal

THE MIDDLE AGES. 185

jumble, in which even strife itself was neither permanent nor sys-
tematic. GUIZOT.

Writers innumerable have declaimed on the night of the Middle
Ages, on the deluge of barbarism which, under the Goths, flooded
the world, on the torpor of the human intellect, under the com-
bined pressure of savage violence and priestly superstition; yet this
was precisely the period when the minds of men, deprived of external
vent, turned inwards on themselves; and that the learned and thought-
ful, shut out from any active part in society by the general prevalence
of military violence, sought, in the solitude of the cloister, employment
in reflecting on the mind itself, and the general causes which, under
its guidance, operated upon society. The influence of this great
change, in the direction of thought, at once appeared when knowledge,
liberated from the monastery and the university, again took its place
among the affairs of men. ALISON.

It is an exaggeration also to attribute to the Germanic invasions
the retardation of intellectual development during the Middle Ages ;
for the decline was taking place for centuries before the invasions were
of any engrossing importance. COMTE.

The three centuries under consideration, the Middle Ages, were, in
point of fact, one of the most brutal, most ruffianly epochs in history,
one of those wherein we encounter most crimes and violence, wherein
the public peace was most incessantly troubled, and wherein the
greatest licentiousness in morals prevailed. Nevertheless it cannot
be denied that side by side with these gross and barbarous morals,
this social disorder, there existed knightly morality and knightly
poetry. "We have moral records confronting ruffianly deeds ; and
the contrast is shocking, but real. It is exactly this contrast which
makes the great and fundamental characteristic of the Middle Ages.
GUIZOT.

The Dark Ages, as the period of Catholic ascendency is justly called,
do undoubtedly display many features of great and genuine excellence.
In active benevolence, in the spirit of reverence, in loyalty, in co-
operative habits, they far transcend the noblest ages of pagan antiq-
uity, while in that humanity which shrinks from the infliction ot
suffering, they were superior to Roman, and in their respect for chas-
tity, to Greek civilization. On the other hand, they rank immeasur-
ably below the best pagan civilizations in civic and patriotic virtues,

186 THE MIDDLE AGES.

in the love of liberty, in the number and splendor of the great char-
acters they produced, in the dignity and beauty of the type of character
they formed. They had their full share of tumult, anarchy, injus-
tice, and war, and they should probably be placed, in all intellectual
virtues, lower than any other period in the history of mankind. A
boundless intolerance of all divergence of opinion was united with an
equally boundless toleration of all falsehood and deliberate fraud that
could favor received opinions. Credulity being taught as a virtue,
and all conclusions dictated by authority, a deadly torpor sank upon
the human mind, which for many centuries almost suspended its
action, and was only broken by the scrutinizing, innovating, and
free- thinking habits that accompanied the rise of the industrial re-
publics in Italy. Few men who are not either priests or monks
would not have preferred to live in the best days of the Athenian
or of the Roman republics, in the age of Augustus or in the. age of
the Antonines, rather than in any period that elapsed between the
triumph of Christianity and the fourteenth century. LECKY.

During the Middle Ages man had lived enveloped in a cowl. He
had not seen the beauty of the world, or had seen it only to cross him-
self, and turn aside and tell his beads and pray. Like St. Bernard
travelling along the shores of Lake Leman, and noticing neither the
azure of the waters, nor the luxuriance of the vines, nor the radiance
of the mountains with their robe of sun and snow, but bending a
thought-burdened forehead over the neck of his mule; even like this
monk, humanity had passed, a careful pilgrim, intent on the ter-
rors of sin, death, and judgment, along the highways of the world,
and had not known that they were sight-worthy, or that life is a
blessing. J. A. SYMONDS.

All the fictions of the Middle Age explain themselves as a masked
or frolic expression of that which in grave earnest the mind of that
period toiled to achieve. Magic, and all that is ascribed to it, is a
deep presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness,
the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing the elements, of using
the secret virtues of minerals, of understanding the voices of birds,
are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right direction. The preternat-
ural prowess of the hero, the gift of perpetual youth, and the like, are
alike the endeavor of the human spirit " to bend the shows of things
to the desires of the mind." EMERSON.

THE MIDDLE AGES. 187

In the next place, the great lesson -which the Dark Ages exhibit is
also that which human life is unhappily at every moment and on every
occasion exhibiting, the abuse of power. The great characteristics
of the Dark Ages are the feudal system and the papal power. But
consider each ; the incidents, as they are termed, of the feudal system ;
and, again, the doctrines and the decrease of the papal see. Outra-
geous as many of these may seem, they were still but specimens of the
abuse of power. The Dark Ages show human nature under its most
unfavorable aspects, but it is still human nature. We see in them the
picture of our ancestors, but it is only a more harsh and repulsive
portrait of ourselves. W. SMYTH.

Literature, science, taste, were words little in use during the ages
which we are contemplating ; or, if they occur at any time, eminence
in them is ascribed to persons and productions so contemptible, that
it appears their true import was little understood. Persons of the
highest rank, and in the most eminent stations, could not read or
write. . . . The human mind, neglected, uncultivated, depressed, con-
tinued in the most profound ignorance. ROBERTSON.

To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the^ events of
Roman history, and of Roman life itself, appear not so distant as the
Gothic ages which succeeded them. "We stand in the Forum, or on
the height of the Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at
hand. We forget that a chasm extends between it and ourselves, in
which lie all those dark, rude, unlettered centuries, around the birth-
time of Christianity, as well as the age of chivalry and romance, the feu-
dal system, and the infancy of a better civilization than that of Rome.
Or, if we remember these mediaeval times, they look further off than
the Augustan Age. The reason may be, that the old Roman litera-
ture survives, and creates for us an intimacy with the classic ages,
which we have no means of forming with the subsequent ones.
HAWTHOKNE.

As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,
The sickening stars fade off th' ethereal plain ;
As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand opprest,
Closed one by one to everlasting rest ;
Thus at her felt approach and secret might,
Art after art goes out, and all is night.
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heaped on her head;

188 THE MIDDLE AGES.

Philosophy, that reached the heavens before,

Shrinks to her hidden cause, and is no more.

Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,

And Metaphysic calls for aid to Sense :

See Mystery to Mathematics fly !

In vain ! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.

POPE.

Instead of referring the events of the external world to space and
time, to sensible connection and causation, men attempted to reduce
euch occurrences under spiritual and supersensual relations and de-
pendences ; they referred them to superior intelligences, to theologi-
cal conditions, to past and future events in the moral world, to states
of mind and feelings, to the creatures of an imaginary mythology or
demonology. And thus their physical Science became Magic, their
Astronomy became Astrology, the study of the Composition of bodies
became Alchemy, Mathematics became the contemplation of the
Spiritual Relations of number and figure, and Philosophy became
Theosophy. WILLIAM WHEWELL.

The Middle Ages were a period when everything was broken up,
when each people, each province, each city, and each family tended
strongly to maintain its distinct individuality. DE TOCQUEVILLE.

The manners of the Middle Ages were, in the most singular sense,
compulsory. Enterprising benevolence was produced by general
fierceness, gallant courtesy by ferocious rudeness, and artificial gen-
tleness resisted the torrent of natural barbarism. MACKINTOSH.

This period, considered as to the state of society, has been esteemed
dark through ignorance, and barbarous through poverty and want of
refinement. And although this character is much less applicable to
the two last centuries of the period than to those which preceded its
commencement, yet we cannot expect to feel, in respect of ages at best
imperfectly civilized and slowly progressive, that interest which at-
tends a more perfect development of human capacities and more brill-
iant advances in improvement. The first moiety, indeed, of these
ten ages is almost absolutely barren, and presents little but a catalogue
of evils. The subversion of the Roman Empire, and devastation of its
provinces by barbarous nations, either immediately preceded, or were
coincident with the commencement of the middle period. We begin
in darkness and calamity; and though the shadows grow fainter as we

THE MIDDLE AGES. 189

advance, yet we are to break off our pursuit as the morning breathes
upon us, and the twilight reddens into the lustre of day. HALLAM.

"Whichever way we look at the organization proper to the Middle
Ages, its provisional nature is evident from the fact that the develop-
ments it encouraged were the first causes of its decay. COMTE.

In modern Europe, the Middle Ages were called the Dark Ages.
Who dares to call them so now ? They are seen to be the feet on
which we walk, the eyes with which we see. 'T is one of our tri-
umphs to have reinstated them. Their Dante and Alfred and Wick-
liffe and Abelard and Bacon; their Magna Charta, decimal numbers,
mariner's compass, gunpowder, glass, paper, and clocks; chemistry,
algebra, astronomy; their Gothic architecture, their painting, are
the delight and tuition of ours. EMERSON.

About AD. 6OO

TURKISH TRIBES

SIXTH CENTURY.
(500-600.)

EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE. A great change takes place in this
century xmder Justinian, who rules from 527 to 565, during whose
reign the Vandals are driven from Africa in 534, the South of Spain
recovered from the Visigoths, and the Ostrogoths in Italy are con-
quered (535 - 553), thus winning back much of the lost dominion of
the old Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire is at the height
of its glory under Justinian, and the Roman territory again reaches
"from the ocean to the Euphrates, round the greater part of the
Mediterranean." After Justinian's death, in 565, this great power
declines again. The Lombards conquer the northern part of Italy,
and the empire is threatened at the end of the century by the Sla-
vonian and Turanian nations from the north and the Persians in the
east. Part of the dominion in Spain is won back by the Visigoths.

FRANKS. The Franks, under Clovis, become strongly established, their
kingdom embracing parts of modern France and Germany.

LOMBARDS. The Lombards pour down into Italy in 568, and conquer the
northern portion, founding there the kingdom of Lombardy, and leaving to
the Eastern Empire part of Southern Italy, the Exarchate of Kavenna, and
the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, with Venice.

ITALY, in the first of the century nominally a part of the Eastern Empire
but really in the hands of the Ostrogoths, is conquered in the time of Justinian,
and becomes actually a part of the Eastern Empire. After the death of Jus-
tinian, the Lombards conquer part of Italy, forming the kingdom of Lombardy

OSTROGOTHS. The Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy is overcome by the Eastern
Empire in the time of Justinian, and also by the Lombards, who form the king-
dom of Lombardy in the northern part of Italy.

VISIGOTHS. The Visigoths lose part of the South of Spain, which is con-
quered by the Eastern Empire in the time of Justinian. A portion of this lost
dominion is, however, won back by the Visigoths. The Visigoths seize the
remaining territory of the Suevi, in Northwestern Spain, in 585.

VANDALS. The kingdom of the Vandals in Africa comes to an end in, 534,
becoming part of the Eastern Empire.

ANGLES, SAXONS, JUTES, continue their migrations to Britain.

BRITAIN. See ANGLES, SAXONS, JUTES.

PERSIA is a powerful kingdom, and a threatening rival to the Eastern Empire.

SLAVES. An important branch of the Aryan stock the Slaves deserves
notice during this century.

AVARS, ETC. In the lands north of the Danube the kingdom of the Avars
a Turanian race is set up, and in the territory adjacent to the Black Sea
the Chazars establish a great dominion.

A. D. 500- A. D. 60O.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

516. Computation of time by the Christian
Era introduced.

529 (about). The order of Benedictine
monks founded at Monte Casino.

534. Belisarius conquers Africa (Car-
thage). End of the Vandal king-
dom.

537-553. Italy recovered by Belisarius and

Narses.

546. The Goths, under Totila, take Rome.
553. Rome recovered by Narses.
568. Lombard kingdom founded in Italy.
597. Beginning of conversion of Britain

to Christianity (St. Augustine).

PROMINENT NAMES OP THE CENTURY.
EASTERN EMPIBE.

Emperor. Justinian I.
Generals. Belisarius, Narses.
Byzantine Historian. Procopius.
Grammarian. Priscian.

King (Ostrogoths'). Theodoric.

ITALY.

Historian. Gregory (of Tours).

Roman Philosopher and Statesman. Boethius.

Pope Gregory the Great, St. Benedict, St. Gildas, St. Columba, St. Columban.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE EASTERN EMPIRE.

period is often known as the Age of Justinian
-- from the long reign of that monarch (527565), which
covered a considerable part of the century. Justinian was
one of the greatest of the emperors, and distinguished him-
self by his architectural constructions in various parts of
the empire, in particular the building of the church of St.
Sophia at Constantinople, one of the most remarkable edi-
fices in the world, and by the revision and codification of
the Eoman laws, made under his supervision by the great
lawyer Tribonian, and which has become the basis of juris-
prudence in continental Europe. During the reign of
Justinian the empire was enlarged by the accession of the
kingdom of the Vandals in Africa, and of parts of Spain
and Italy which had been conquered by his general Belisa-
rius, of whom it has been said that " he was perhaps the
greatest commander that ever lived, as he did the greatest
things with the smallest means." These conquests, how-
ever, were of short duration.

The vain titles of the victories of Justinian are crumbled into dust;
but the name of the legislator is inscribed on a fair and everlasting
monument. Under his reign, and by his care, the civil jurisprudence
was digested in the immortal works of the CODE, the PANDECTS, and
the INSTITUTES ; the public reason of the Romans has been silently or

194 SIXTH CENTURY.

studiously transfused into the domestic institutions of Europe, and
the laws of Justinian still command the respect or obedience of
independent nations. GIBBON.

If the Roman laws have appeared so sacred, that their majesty still
subsists, notwithstanding the ruin of the empire, it is because good
sense, which controls human life, reigns throughout the whole, and
that there is nowhere to be found a finer application of the principles
of natural equity. BOSSUET.

Victory, by sea and land, attended his [Belisarius'] arms. He
subdued Africa, Italy, and the adjacent islands; led away captives
the successors of Genseric and Theodoric; filled Constantinople with
the spoils of their palaces; and in the space of six years recovered
half the provinces of the Western Empire. GIBBON.

The victories and losses of Justinian were alike pernicious to man-
kind; and such was the desolation of Africa, that in many parts a
stranger might wander whole days without meeting the face either of
a friend or an enemy. The nation of the Vandals had disappeared.

GIBBON.

The Roman Empire appears suddenly to resume her ancient maj-
esty and power. The signs of a just, able, and vigorous administration,

internal peace, prosperity, conquest, and splendor surrounded
the master of the Roman world. The greatest generals since the
days perhaps of Trajan, Belislirius and Narses, appear at the head of
the Roman armies. Persia was kept at bay during several campaigns,
if not continuously successful, yet honorable to the arms of Rome.
The tide of barbarian conquerors rolled back. Africa, the Illyrian
and Dalmatian provinces, Sicily, Italy, with the ancient capital,
were again under the empire of Rome ; the Vandal kingdom, the
Gothic kingdom, fell before the irresistible generals of the East. The
frontiers of the empire were defended with fortifications constructed
at an enormous cost. Justinian aspired to be the legislator of man-
kind; avast system of jurisprudence embodied the wisdom of ancient
and of imperial statutes, mingled with some of the benign influences
of Christianity, of which the author might almost have been war-
ranted in the presumptuous vaticination that it would exercise an
unrepealed authority to the latest ages. The cities of the empire
were adorned with buildings, civil as well as religious, of great mag-
nificence and apparent durability, which, with the comprehensive

SIXTH CENTURY. 195

legislation, might recall the peaceful days of the Antonines. The
empire, at least at first, was restored to religious unity ; Catholicism
resumed its sway, and Arianism, so long its rival, died out in remote
and neglected congregations. MILMAN.

The history of the Greek Empire [after the time of Justinian]
for it is thus that the Roman Empire is named for the future
is nothing but a tissue of revolts, seditions, and perfidies. MON-
TESQUIEU.

If Rome had been the home of independence, Constantinople was
the home of slavery; from thence issued the dogmas of passive obe-
dience to the Church and throne : there was but one right, that of
the empire; but one duty, that of obedience. THIERRY.

Caesar I was, and am Justinian,

"Who, by the will of primal Love I feel,

Took from the laws the useless and redundant;

And ere unto the work I was attent,

One nature to exist in Christ, not more,

Believed, and with such faith was I contented.

DAXTE, Paradiso. Tr. Longfellow.

For him, with sails of red,
And torches at mast-head,

Piloting the great fleet,
I swept the Afric coasts
And scattered the Vandal hosts,

Like dust in a windy street.

For him I won again

The Ausonian realm and reign,

Rome and Parthenope;
And all the land was mine
From the summits of Apennine

To the shores of either sea.

LONGFELLOW, Belisarius.

THE LOMBAEDS IN" ITALY.

THE years immediately following the death of Justinian
were marked by the irruption of the Lombards into Italy,
who overran the greater part of the peninsula. Rome, how-

196 SIXTH CENTURY.

ever, with several other cities, and the islands of Sicily,
Corsica, and Sardinia, still adhered to the empire.

Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of the
Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Kome, which had reached,
about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period of her depres-
sion. By the removal of the seat of empire, and the successive
loss of the provinces, the sources of public and private opulence were
exhausted ; the lofty tree, under whose shade the nations of the earth
had reposed, was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the sapless
trunk was left to wither on the ground. GIBBON.

IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF THE MIGRATION OF
THE NATIONS.

THE consequences, as seen in this century, of the migra-
tions of the northern nations, which resulted in the fall of
Rome in the last century, are thus noticed by the historian
Robertson :

In less than a century after the barbarous nations settled in their
new conquests, almost all the effects of the knowledge and civility
which the Romans had spread through Europe disappeared. Not
only the arts of elegance, which minister to luxury, and are sup-
ported by it, but many of the useful arts, without which life can
scarcely be considered as comfortable, were neglected or lost. . . .
But no expressions can convey so perfect an idea of the destructive
progress of the barbarians as that which must strike an attentive ob-
server when he contemplates the total change which he will discover
in the state of Europe, after it began to recover some degree of tran-
quillity, towards the close of the sixth century. The Saxons were
by that time masters of the southern and more fertile provinces of
Britain; the Franks, of Gaul; the Huns, of Pannonia; the Goths, of
Spain ; the Goths and Lombards, of Italy and the adjacent provinces.
Very faint vestiges of the Roman policy, jurisprudence, arts, or litera-
ture remained. New forms of government, new laws, new manners,
new dresses, new languages, and new names of men and countries,
were everywhere introduced.

SIXTH CENTURY. 197

THE RISE OF MONACHISM.

1 like a church; I like a cowl;

I love a prophet of the soul;

And on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;

Yet not for all his faith can see

Would I that cowUd churchman be.

EMERSON.

THE monastic system had its origin in the East, and was
brought into Western Europe during the early times of the
Christian Church, but did not reach a stage of extended
usefulness till the sixth century, under St. Benedict, who
is regarded as the founder of the monastic system in the
"West. He founded a monastery at Monte-Casino, near
Naples, about 529, and from him dates the distinguished
order of the Benedictines. The rule of his order com-
prised, besides religious duties, various kinds of manual
labor (including especially agriculture), instruction of the
young, and the copying of valuable manuscripts.

The monasteries, scattered all over Europe, formed the
most valuable aids of the Church, and were a sort of con-
necting link during the Dark Ages between the old civili-
zation and that which was to come, and to them is due the
preservation of what remains to us of ancient literature.
During this period, to use the words of a distinguished
French author, " all those men who, if they did not aug-
ment the treasure of the sciences, at least served to trans-
mit it, were monks, or had been such originally. Convents
were, during these stormy ages, the asylum of sciences and
letters. Without these religious men, who, in the silence
of their monasteries, occupied themselves in transcribing, in
studying, and in imitating the works of the ancients, well
or ill, those worjs:s would have perished ; perhaps not one

198 SIXTH CENTURY.

of them would have come down to us. The thread which
connects us with the Greeks and Romans would have been
snapt asunder ; the precious productions of ancient litera-
ture would no more exist for us, than the works, if any
there were, published before the catastrophe that anni-
hilated that' highly scientific nation which, according to
Bailly, existed in remote ages in the centre of Tartary or
at the roots of the Caucasus. In the sciences we should
have had all to create ; and at the moment when the human
mind should have emerged from its stupor and shaken off
its slumbers, we should have been no more advanced than
the Greeks were after the taking of Troy."

During about three centuries, and while Europe had sunk into the
most extreme moral, intellectual, and political degradation, a constant
stream of missionaries poured forth from the monasteries, who spread
the knowledge of the Cross and the seeds of a future civilization
through every land from Lombardy to Sweden. LECKY.

You are all aware it was in the East that the monks took their rise.
The form in which they first appeared was very different from that
which they afterwards assumed, and in which the mind is accustomed
to view them. In the earlier years of Christianity a few men of more
excitable imaginations than their fellows imposed upon themselves all
sorts of sacrifices and of extraordinary personal austerities ; this, how-
ever, was no Christian innovation, for we find it, not in a general
tendency of human nature, but in the religious manners of the entire
East and in several Jewish traditions. The ascetes (this was the name
first given to these pious enthusiasts ; ua-Krja-is, exercises, ascetic life)
were the first form of monks. They did not segregate, in the first in-
stance, from civil society ; they did not retire into the deserts ; they
only condemned themselves to fasting, silence, to all sorts of austeri-
ties, more especially to celibacy. Soon afterwards they retired from
the world ; they went to live far from mankind, absolutely alone,
amidst woods and deserts, in the depths of the Thebaid. The ascetes
became hermits, anchorites; this was the second form of the monastic
life. After some time, from causes which have left no traces behind
them yielding, perhaps, to the powerful attraction, of some more

SIXTH CENTURY. 199

peculiarly celebrated hermit, of St. Anthony for instance, or per-
haps simply tired of complete isolation, the anchorites collected
together, built their huts side by side, and while continuing to
live each in his own abode, performed their religious exercises to-
gether, and began to form a regular community. It was at this
time, as it would seem, that they first received the name of monks.
By and by they made a further step ; instead of remaining in separate
huts, they collected in one edifice, under one roof; the association
was more closely knit, the common life more complete. They be-
came cenobites (cenobitae, icoivoftioi, from KOIVOS, common, and ftios,
life) ; this was the fourth form of the monastic institution, its defini-
tive form, that to which all its subsequent developments were to
adapt themselves. GUIZOT.

In general, if a district in England be surveyed, the most conve-
nient, most fertile, and most peaceful spot will be found to have been
the site of a Benedictine Abbey. MILMAN.

Record we too, with just and faithful pen,
That many hooded cenobites there are,
Who in their private cells have yet a care
Of public quiet; unambitious men,
Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken;
Whose fervent exhortations from afar
Move princes to their duty, peace or war ;
And ofttimes in the most forbidding den
Of solitude, with love of science strong,
How patiently the yoke of thought they bear !
How subtly glide its finest threads along !
Spirits that crowd the intellectual sphere
With mazy boundaries, as the astronomer
With orb and cycle girds the starry throng.

WORDSWORTH.

And they who to be sure of paradise
Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,

Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.

MILTON.

About AD. 70O

TURKISH

rn i B ES

tiryj Co.So.

^o<xc.
X

SEVENTH CENTURY.
(600 - 700.)

SARACENS. A new power now appears. The Saracens (Arabs),
a Semitic people, with the new religion of Mahometanism, attack at
once the Eastern Empire and Persia, seize the provinces of Syria and
Egypt from the Eastern Roman Empire between 632 and 639, invade
Africa in 647, and take Carthage in 698. Between 632 and 651 they
subdue the whole of Persia, which by degrees becomes a Mahometan
country. They invade India and the lands east of the Caspian Sea.
They unsuccessfully besiege Constantinople in 673.

PERSIA now becomes very powerful, and between 611 and 615 overruns
all Egypt, Syria, and Asia. In a war from 620 to 625, Persia is overcome by
the EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE, and gives up the territory which she had taken
from that empire. Between 632 and 651 the whole of Persia is conquered by
the SARACENS, and gradually becomes a Mahometan country.

EASTERN EMPIRE. The Eastern Empire, under Heraclius, overcomes Persia
and wins back, between 620 and 625, all of her dominion which had been taken
by that country (see under PERSIA). A few years later, the Saracens wrench
away a great part of the Oriental dominion of the Eastern Empire. The Roman
province in Spain again comes into the hands of the Visigoths. The territory
of the empire is also encroached npon by inroads of the Slaves.

FRANKS. The kingdom of the Franks suffers no important changes in terri-
tory.

BRITAIN, so far as occupied by the Angles and Saxons, is divided into seven
(or eight) little kingdoms, known as the Saxon Heptarchy.

VISIGOTHS. The Visigoths again get possession of the Roman province in
Spain.

LOMBARDS. The Lombards still hold their possessions in Italy.

SAXONS, ANGLES. See above, under BRITAIN.

SLAVES. The Slavic tribes in this century force their way into the portions
of the empire contiguous to the Adriatic, and give rise to several Slavonic
kingdoms.

A. D. 600. A. D. 700.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

609. Beginning of Mahomet's mission.

622. The Hegira. Mahomet's flight from
Mecca. Heraclius defeats the Per-
sians.

632-<539. The Saracens conquer Syria.

632-651. The Saracens conquer Persia,

637. The Saracens (Omar) take Jerusalem.

638. The Saracens conquer Egypt.

640. The Saracens take Alexandria and

burn the Alexandrian library.
647. The Saracens invade Africa.
661. House of Ommiyades (Saracen).
673. The Saracens besiege Constantinople.
698. The Saracens take Carthage.

PROMINENT NAMES OP THE CENTURY.

EASTERN EM PIKE.
Emperors. Phocas, Heraclius, Justinian II.

SAJRACENS.

Prophet and Lawgiver. Mahomet.
Caliphs. Abu Bekir, Omar, Othman, Ali.

British Clironicler. Nennius.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

MAHOMET AND THE SAEACENS.

Who can doubt the potency of an individual mind, who sees the
shock given to torpid races torpid for ages by Mahomet ;
a vibration propagated over Asia and Africa ? EMERSON.
Paradise is under the shadow of swords. MAHOMET.

ANEW power now appeared, the Saracens, a
Semitic race. As followers of the famous Moham-
med, or Mahomet, they invaded Europe as well as Africa
and Asia with a new religion, giving rise to an immense
power, which was of very great importance during the
Middle Ages. The prophet Mahomet was born at Mecca,
in Arabia, in 569, and taught a faith which he claimed to
be much better than either the Jewish or Christian reli-
gions. He taught that there is but one God. His doc-
trines were committed to writing, forming the book known
as the Koran (the reading). He and his followers propa-
gated the new religion by force, giving to all the choice of
adopting the doctrines of the Koran, of paying tribute, or of
being put to the sword. Mahomet died in 632, after having
spread his religion over the whole peninsula of Arabia.
The Saracens, under his successors (caliphs), with this new

204 SEVENTH CENTUEY.

religion of Mahometanism attacked at once the Eastern
Empire and Persia, seized' the provinces of Syria and Egypt
from the Eastern Empire between 632 and 639, invaded
Africa in 647, and took Carthage in 698. Between 632
and 651 they conquered the whole of Persia, which by de-
grees became a Mahometan country. The Saracens also
invaded India and the lands east of the Caspian Sea, and
they unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople in 673.

In short, the Roman and Persian Empires seemed the only settled
governments in the world; beyond their limits was little but bar-
barism, anarchy, and national migrations ; and Eome and Persia
alike, exhausted by their long conflict, seemed too weak to resist the
attacks of a fresh and vigorous invader. It was, indeed, a mo-
ment for Mahomet and his Saracens to change the face of the
world. FREEMAN.

The Prophet is the centre round which everything connected with
Arabia revolves. The period preceding his birth is regarded and
designated as the times of ignorance. KEIGHTLEY.

Of all the revolutions which have had a permanent influence upon
the civil history of mankind, none could so little be anticipated by
human prudence as that effected by the religion of Arabia. As the
seeds of invisible disease grow up sometimes in silence to maturity, till
they manifest themselves hopeless and irresistible, the gradual propa-
gation of a new faith in a barbarous country beyond the limits of the
empire was hardly known perhaps, and certainly disregarded, in the
court of Constantinople. HALLAM.

While Rome and Persia, engaged in deadly struggle, had no thought
for anything but how most to injure each other, a power began to grow
up in an adjacent country, which had for long ages been despised and
thought incapable of doing any harm to its neighbors. Mahomet,
half impostor, half enthusiast, enunciated a doctrine, and by degrees
worked out a religion, which proved capable of uniting in one the
scattered tribes of the Arabian desert, while at the same time it in-
spired them with a confidence, a contempt for death, and a fanatic
valor, that rendered them irresistible by the surrounding nations.
RAWLINSON.

SEVENTH CENTURY. 205

When the prophet Mahomet began his career at Mecca, Arabia was
hardly known to the rest of the world. Fifty years after his death his
followers were already ruling the land from the Indus in the east, the
Caucasus in the north, to the coasts of the Atlantic in the west.
The world never before saw a quicker or more complete invasion.
Mahomet had succeeded in setting the ardent imaginations of his
countrymen on fire with the idea of a holy war. In short, vigorous
sentences, he preached to them the greatness and power of one Al-
mighty God. He did not reason or explain, but he carried men away
with him. He painted the rewards of Paradise and the tortures of
the damned in glowing colors ; and his whole religion was contained
in these words: Obedience to God and to His Prophet. VON
STEEL.

The Arabs or Saracens, who spread their conquests from India to
Spain, had languished in poverty and contempt, till Mahomet breathed
into those savage bodies the soul of enthusiasm. . . . Mahomet, with
the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his throne
on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of the Arabian
prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of his religion in-
volve the causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern Empire ; and
our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most memorable revolu-
tions, which have impressed a new and lasting character on the na-
tions of the globe. ... It is not the propagation, but the permanency,
of his religion that deserves our wonder ; the same pure and perfect
impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina is preserved,
after the revolutions of twelve centuries, by the Indian, the African,
and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran. GIBBON. *

An individual had started up amidst the sands of Arabia, had per-
suaded his countrymen that he was the prophet of God, had contrived
to combine in his service two of the most powerful passions of the
human heart, the love of glory here, and the desire of happiness
hereafter, and, triumphant in himself and seconded by his followers,
had transmitted a faith and an empire that at length extended through
Asia, Africa, Spain, and nearly through Europe itself ; and had left in
history a more memorable name, and on his fellow-creatures a more
wide and lasting impression, than had ever before been produced by
the energies of a single mind. This individual was Mahomet.
"W. SMYTH.

206 SEVENTH CENTURY.

However he [Mahomet] betrayed the alloy of earth after he had
worldly power at his command, the early aspirations of his spirit con-
tinually returned, and bore him above all earthly things. . . . His
military triumphs awakened no pride nor vainglory. In the time
of his greatest power he maintained the same simplicity of manners
and appearance as in the days of his adversity. So far from affect-
ing royal state, he was displeased if on entering a room any unusual
testimonial of respect were shown him. . . . The general tenor of
Mahomet's conduct up to the time of his flight from Mecca is that of an
enthusiast acting under a species of mental delusion, deeply imbued
with a conviction of his being a Divine agent for religious reform ; and
there is something striking arid sublime in the luminous path which his
enthusiastic spirit struck out for itself through the bewildering maze
of adverse faiths and wild traditions, the pure and spiritual worship
of the one true God, which he sought to substitute for the blind idola-
try of his childhood. . . . All the parts of the Koran supposed to have
been promulgated by him at this time incoherently as they have
come down to us, and marred as their pristine beauty must be in
passing through various hands are of a pure and beautiful char-
acter, and breathe poetical, if not religious, inspiration. They show
that be bad drunk deep of the living waters of Christianity ; and if
HP. had failed tQ^nlnbe__the_m in their crystal purity, it might be
because he hadjgjdrink from broken cisterns and streams troubled
jrad^ jyrverted by those who should have been their guardians.
WASHINGTON IRVING.

The word this man spoke has been the life-guidance now of a hun-
dred and eighty millions of men these twelve hundred years. . . .
Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual leger-
demain, this which so many creatures of the Almighty have lived by
and died by 1 CARLYLE.

Utter the song, my soul ! the flight and return of Mohammed,
Prophet and priest, who scattered abroad both evil and blessing,
Huge wasteful empires founded, and hallowed slow persecution,
Soul-withering, but crushed the blasphemous rites of the pagan
And idolatrous Christians.

COLEBIDGE.

SEVENTH CENTURY. 207

THE EASTERN EMPIRE.

FROM the time of Heraclius [died 641], the Byzantine theatre is
contracted and darkened : the line of empire, which had been denned
by the laws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius, recedes on all
sides from our view ; the Roman name is reduced to a narrow cor-
ner of Europe, to the lonely suburbs of Constantinople ; and the
fate of the Greek Empire has been compared to that of the Rhine,
which loses itself in the sands, before its waters can mingle with the
ocean. GIBBON.

About A.D. 8OO

EIGHTH CENTURY.
(700-800.)

THE end of this century finds three great empires in Europe and
Eastern Asia : the SARACENIC EMPIRE, the EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE,
and the EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE.

SARACENS. Since the date of the last map the Saracens complete,
in 709, the subjection of North Africa, cross in 710 to Spain, where
they defeat the Visigoths and overrun the whole peninsula, except
where the Goths still hold the Christian kingdom of the ASTURIAS.
The Saracens cross the Pyrenees and try to subdue the Franks, "but
are defeated (battle of Tours, 732) and driven back into Spain. In
755 the vast dominion controlled by the Saracens divides into the
Caliphate of Cordova and the Caliphate of Bagdad (762).

FRANKS. The Franks win victories over the Lombards in Italy.
The territory known as the Exarchate of Ravenna is ceded to the
Pope in 756. Charlemagne extends the Frankish power by conquests
among the Saxons ; by victories over the Slavonians, Bavarians,
Avars, and other tribes ; by annexing the whole territory from the
Adriatic to the Baltic (modern Germany and Austria); by incor-
porating the greater part of Italy (774); and by taking from the
Saracens the region north of the Ebro (778). On Christmas day,
800 (see next century), Charlemagne is crowned "Emperor of the
West," a sovereignty equal in extent to that of the old Roman
Empire.

EASTERN EMPIRE. Though the boundaries of the Eastern Empire
are subject to fluctuations from incursions of the Slavic tribes, etc.,
they remain substantially as at the end of the preceding century.

BRITAIN is still divided into petty kingdoms.

The NORTHMEN begin, towards the close of this century, to make their power
felt by their marauding expeditions.

VISIGOTHS. See above, under SARACKNS.

LOMBARDS. The Lombards conquer the Exarchate of Ravenna, but the
Lombard kingdom is itself overthrown by Charlemagne in 774. (See above,
under FRANKS. )

A.D. 700.-A.D. 800.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

709. Conquest of North Africa completed
by the Saracens.

710-713. Conquest of Spain by the Sara-
cens. End of the kingdom of the
Visigoths.

717. Second siege of Constantinople by the
Saracens. Leo the Isaurian.

732. Battle of Tours. Defeat of the Sara-
cens by Charles Martel.

750. End of the Ommiads at Damascus.
The Abbassides.

755. The Pope becomes a temporal prince.

755. Abd-er-Rahman founds the Ommiad
Dynasty in Spain. Caliphate of
Cordova.

762. Bagdad founded by the Saracens.

768. Accession of Carloman and Charle-
magne.

774. Charlemagne overthrows the king-
dom of the Lombards.

777. Charles the second time subdues the

Saxons.

778. Battle of Roncesvalles.

786 - 808. Reign of Haroun-al-Raschid at
Bagdad.

PROMINENT NAMES OP THE CENTURY.

EASTERN EMPIRE.
Emperors. Leo the Isaurian, Leo the Iconoclast.

SARACENS.
Caliph of Bagdad. Haroun-al-Raschid.

FRANKS.
Kings of the Carlovingian Line. Pepin, Charlemagne.

Bede (the Venerable), Alcuin, Joannes Damascenos.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE SARACENS.

rTIHE Saracens continued the career of conquest which
-L they carried on in the last century, and, having com-
pleted in 709 the subjection of North Africa, they crossed
from Africa to Spain, where they defeated the Visigoths
under Eoderick, the " last of the Goths," at Xeres in 710,

Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields (BYRON),

and took possession of the entire peninsula, except the
mountainous region in the north, where a remnant of the
Goths kept up the Christian kingdom of the Asturias.

If any country might have been thought safe from the Saracens, it
was Spain. The Visigoths had been nearly three centuries in posses-
sion of it ; during that time the independent kingdoms which were
founded by the first conquerors had been formed into one great mon-
archy, more extensive and more powerful than any other existing at
the same time in Europe ; they and the conquered were blended into
one people ; their languages were intermingled, and the religion and
laws of the peninsula had received that character which they retain
even to the present day. The Visigoths themselves were a more
formidable enemy than the Mahometans had yet encountered ; in
Persia, Syria, and Egypt they had found a race always accustomed to
oppression, and ready for the yoke of the strongest; among the Greeks,
a vicious and effeminated people, a government at once feeble and

212 EIGHTH CENTURY.

tyrannical, and generals who either by their treachery or incapacity
afforded them an easy conquest ; in Africa they overrun provinces
which had not yet recovered from the destructive victories of Beli-
sarius. But the Spanish Goths were a nation of freemen, and their
strength and reputation unimpaired. Yet in two battles their mon-
archy was subverted, their cities fell as fast as they were summoned,
and in almost as little time as the Moors could travel over the king-
dom, they became masters of the whole, except only those mountainous
regions in which the language of the first Spaniards found an asylum
from the Eomans, and which were now destined to preserve the lib-
erties and institutions of the Goths. SOUTHEY.

They come ! they come ! I see the groaning lands

White with the turbans of each Arab horde ;
Swart Zaarah joins her misbelieving bands,

Alia and Mahomet their battle-word :
The choice they yield the Koran or the sword.

See how the Christians rush to arms amain !
In yonder shout the voice of conflict roared ;

The shadowy hosts are closing on the plain
Now, God and St. Tago strike, for the good cause of Spain !

By heaven, the Moors prevail ! the Christians yield !
Their coward leader gives for flight the sign !

SCOTT.

And like a cloud of locusts, whom the South
Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa,
The Mussulmen upon Iberia's shore
Descend. A countless multitude;
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and Tartar, in one bond
Of erring faith conjoined, strong in the youth
And heat of zeal, a dreadful brotherhood.

Nor were the chiefs

Of victory less assured, by long success
Elate, and proud of that o'erwhelming strength
Which, surely they believed, as it had rolled
Tims far unchecked, would roll victorious on,
Till, like the Orient, the subjected West
Should bow in reverence at Mohammed's name;
And pilgrims from remotest Arctic shores
Tread with religious feet the burning sands
Of Araby and Mecca's stony soil.

SOUTHEY.

EIGHTH CENTURY. 213

Think of that age's awful birth,

When Europe echoed, terror-riven,
That a new foot was on the earth,

And a new name come down from Heaven;
When over Calpe's straits and steeps

The Moor had bridged his royal road,
And Othman's sons from Asia's deeps

The conquests of the Cross o'erflowed.

LORD HOUGHTON.

The victorious Saracens next crossed the Pyrenees and
tried to subdue the Franks, by whom, under Charles Martel
(Charles the Hammer), they were defeated in the
battle of Tours (732) and driven back into Spain,
thus saving the rest of Europe from the Mahometan
rule.

At which time a dreadful plague of Saracens ravaged France with
miserable slaughter; but they not long after in that country received
the punishment due to their wickedness. THE VENERABLE BEDE.

One of those signal deliverances [the battle of Tours] which have
affected for centuries the happiness of mankind. AKNOLD.

The arm of Charles Martel saved and delivered the Christian
nations of the West from the deadly grasp of all-destroying Islam.
SCHLEGEL.

The events that rescued our ancestors of Britain and our neighbors
of Gaul from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran. GIBBON.

One of the most important epochs in the history of the world, the
commencement of the eighth century, when on the one side Mahom-
etanism threatened to overspread Italy and Gaul, and on the other
the ancient idolatry of Saxony and Friesland once more forced its way
across the Rhine. In this peril of Christian institutions, a youthful
prince of the Germanic race, Karl Martel, arose as their champion,
maintained them with all the energy which the necessity for self-
defence calls forth, and finally extended them into new regions.
KANKE.

The victory of Charles Martel has immortalized his name, and may
justly be reckoned among those few battles of which a contrary event

214 EIGHTH CENTURY.

would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its subse-
quent stages. HALLAM.

Let me not for a moment depreciate the fame of so glorious an
exploit. The first total defeat of the Saracen by the Christian in a
great pitched battle was indeed an illustrious event ; and it may be
that Charles Martel saved Gaul from the fate of Spain. But let
honor be given where honor is due ; and honor is not fairly as-
signed when Charles is magnified as the one savior of Christendom,
while Leo the Isaurian is forgotten. [See, on this point, below.]
FREEMAN.

Then Abderrahman [Saracen], seeing the land filled with the multi-
tude of his army, pierces the mountains, marches over rough and level
ground, plunders far into the land of the Franks, and smites all with
the sword, insomuch that God alone knows the number of the slain.
Then Abderrahman encounters the chief of the Austrasian Franks,
Charles, and for nearly seven days they strive intensely, and at last
they set themselves in battle array, and the nations of the North
standing firm as a wall, and impenetrable as a zone of ice, utterly slay
the Arabs with the edge of the sword. ARABIAN CHRONICLERS.

The enduring importance of the battle of Tours in the eyes of the
Moslems is attested by the fact that no more serious attempts at con-
quest beyond the Pyrenees were made by the Saracens. Charles
Martel, and his son and grandson, were left at leisure to consolidate
and extend their power. CREASY.

The Saracens, who had attacked Constantinople in the

preceding century (673), renewed the assault forty-three

years later (716). but in both cases they w.ere re-

The Sara- J

cens pulsed with heavy loss. In the second siege the
Constant!- Emperor Leo the Isaurian defended the city with
n P le - g rea t valor, and was the means of saving Chris-
tianity and European civilization from complete over-
throw.

Leo the Isaurian and Charles Martel maybe placed side by side as
the two deliverers of Christendom at its two ends. [See also above.]
FREEMAN.

EIGHTH CENTUEY. 215

In the two sieges, the deliverance of Constantinople may be chiefly
ascribed to the novelty, the terrors, and the real efficacy of the Greek
fire. 1 GIBBON.

In 755 the vast dominion controlled by the Saracens,
which till then had been under one caliph at Damascus,
became divided into the Ommiad Caliphate of Caliphates
Cordova, which lasted for about two hundred and n j ordova
fifty years, and is famous for the brilliancy of its Ba g dad -
civilization, and the Abbassidian Caliphate of Bagdad
(762), which is also noted for its civilization and for its
caliph Haroun-al-Kaschid (766 ?-809), who figures in the
familiar tales of the " Arabian Nights." (For the Caliph-
ate of Cordova, see also the TENTH CENTUEY.)

For a century at least, the representative of Mahomet ruled over a
vaster continuous empire than the world has beheld before or since.
. . . The recent empire of Spain, the actual empire of Britain, may
surpass the caliphate in population and extent; but these are empires
consisting of provinces scattered over distant portions of the globe.
The present empire of Russia may exceed it in actual continuous ex-
tent, but only by balancing barbarous or uninhabited regions against
fertile provinces and splendid cities. FREEMAN.

There are not any names in the long line of khalifs, after the
companions of Mahomet, more renowned in history than some of the
earlier sovereigns who reigned in this capital: Almansor, Haroun
Alraschid, and Almamun. Their splendid palaces, their numerous
guards, their treasures of gold and silver, the populousness and wealth
of their cities, formed a striking contrast to the rudeness and poverty
of the Western nations in the same age. HALLAM.

Proportioned to the rapidity of the Arab conquests, was the speed
with which the arts and sciences attained among them their high-
est bloom. At first we see the conquerors destroying everything
connected with art and science. Omar is said to have caused the

i A combustible compoiind, supposed to have been composed of asphalt,
nitre, and sulphur, which burned under water, and was blown through copper
tubes upon the object to be ignited.

216 EIGHTH CENTURY.

destruction of the noble Alexandrian Library. " These books," said
he, " either contain what is in the Koran, or something else; in either
case they are superfluous." But soon afterwards the Arabs became
zealous in promoting the arts and spreading them everywhere. Their
empire reached the summit of its glory under the caliphs Al-Mansor
and Haroun Al-Kaschid. Large cities arose in all parts of the empire,
where commerce and manufactures flourished, splendid palaces were
built, and schools created. The learned men of the empire assembled
at the caliph's court, which not merely shone outwardly with the
pomp of the costliest jewels, furniture, and palaces, but was resplen-
dent with the glory of poetry and all the sciences. HEGEL.

We must accompany the khaleefs to their magnificent capital on
the Tigris, whence emanated all that has thrown such a halo of
splendor around the ge,nius and language of Arabia. It is in this seat
of empire that we must look to meet with the origin of the marvels
of Arabian literature. Transplanted to a rich and fertile soil, the
sons of the desert speedily abandoned their former simple mode of
life ; and the court of Bagdad equalled or surpassed in magnificence
anything that the East has ever witnessed. Genius, whatever its
direction, was encouraged and rewarded, and the musician and the
story-teller shared with the astronomer and historian the favor of
the munificent khaleefs. KEIGHTLEY.

The cultivation of the Saracens was no less remarkable than their
military prowess and religious conquests. The khalifs of Bagdad
founded schools of mathematics, arithmetic, astronomy, medicine,
surgery, and general learning; they assembled philosophers and learned
men from all regions, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, and Jews ;
they established libraries; they endeavored to collect the scattered
relics of ancient philosophy and learning; they pursued their re-
searches through every school of science; and they seemed to emulate
the traditional renown of the Alexandrian Museum and the Egyptian
Ptolemies. MAY.

The Arabians cannot claim, in science or philosophy, any really
great names; they produced no men and no discoveries which have
materially influenced the course and destinies of human knowledge;
they tamely adopted the intellectual servitude of the nation which
they conquered by their arms; they joined themselves : it once to the
string of slaves who were dragging the car of Aristotle and Plotinus.

EIGHTH CENTURY. 217

Nor, perhaps, on a little further reflection, shall we "be surprised at
this want of vigor and productive power, in this period of apparent
national youth. The Arabians had not been duly prepared rightly
to enjoy and use the treasures of which they became possessed. They
had, like most uncivilized nations, been passionately fond of their
indigenous poetry ; their imagination had been awakened, but their
rational powers and speculative tendencies were still torpid. They
received the Greek philosophy without having passed through those
gradations of ardent curiosity and keen research, of obscurity brighten-
ing into clearness, of doubt succeeded by the joy of discovery, by
which the Greek mind had been enlarged and exercised. Nor had
the Arabians ever enjoyed, as the Greeks had, the individual con-
sciousness, the independent volition, the intellectual freedom, arising
from the freedom of political institutions; ... in short, they had
not had a national education, such as fitted the Greeks to be disciples
of Plato and Hipparchus. Hence, their new literary wealth rather
encumbered and enslaved, than enriched and strengthened them.
WILLIAM WHEWELL.

And many a sheeny summer morn,

Adown the Tigris I was borne,

By Bagdad's shrines of fretted gold,

High-walled gardens green and old;

True Mussulman was I and sworn,

For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

TENNYSON.

Romantic Bagdad ! name to childhood dear,
Awakening terror's thrill and pity's tear ;
For there the sorcerer gloomed, the genii dwelt,
And Love and Worth to good Al Rashid knelt;
Prince of the Thousand Tales ! whose glorious reign
So brightly shines in fancy's fair domain!
Whose noble deeds still Arab minstrels sing,
Who rivalled all but Gallia's knightly king.

N. MlCHELL.

Such the gay splendor, the luxurious state,

Of caliphs old, who on the Tigris' shore,
In mighty Bagdat, populous and great,

Held their bright court, where was of ladies store;

And verse, love, music, still the garland wore.

THOMSON.

218 EIGHTH CENTURY.

Back to the glories of the Khaleefate,
Back to the faith we loved, the dress we wore,
When in one age the world could well contain
Haroon Er-Rasheed and your Charlemagne !

LORD HOUGHTON.

THE FEANKS.

CONQUESTS OP THE FRANKS. CHARLEMAGNE.

IN the land of the Franks, the first, or Merovingian,
dynasty came to an end through the weakness of its kings,
the real rulers being the Mayors of the Palace, one of
whom was Pepin, son of the Charles Martel referred to
above. Pepiu seized the throne in 753, and thus founded
the second, or Carlovingian, dynasty. He won victories
over the Lombards, and ceded to the Pope the territory
known as the Exarchate of Piavenna, thus laying the
foundation of the temporal power of the papacy. Pepin's
son, Charlemagne (Charles the Great, 742-814), the
greatest man of his age and one of the greatest rulers of all
time, widely extended the Frankish power by conquer-
ing the Saxons; by victories over the Slavonians, Bava-
rians, Avars, and other tribes ; by annexing the whole
territory from the Adriatic to the Baltic (modern Germany
and Austria) ; by incorporating the greater part of Italy ;
and by wresting from the Saracens the region north of the
Ebro (778)'. On Christmas day, 800, Charlemagne was
crowned "Emperor of the West," a sovereignty equal
in extent to that of the old Roman Empire. (See the next
century.)

Considering attentively how many of the old institutions continued
to subsist, and studying the feelings of that time, as they are faintly

EIGHTH CENTURY. 219

preserved in its scanty records, it seems hardly too much to say
that in the eighth century the Roman Empire still existed in the
West, existed in men's minds as a power weakened, delegated,
suspended, but not destroyed. JAMES BRYCE.

And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten
The Holy Church, then underneath its wings
Did Charlemagne victorious succor her.

DANTE, Paradiso. Tr. Longfellow.

Keturning from an invasion of Spain in 778, Charlemagne
suffered a reverse at Eoncesvalles, in which many R 0nces .
famous knights were slain. This event has been v* 116 *
the subject of many romantic legends.

for a blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,

That to King Charles did come,
When Rowland brave, and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer,

On Roncevalles died !

SCOTT.

Twelve paladins had Charles, in court, of whom

The wisest and most famous was Orlando;
Him traitor Gan conducted to the tomb

In Roncesvalles, as the villain planned to,
While the horn rang so loud, and knelled the doom

Of their sad rout, though he did all knight can do;
And Dante, in his comedy, has given
To him a happy seat with Charles in heaven.

PULCI, Morgante Maggiore. Tr. Byron.

About A.D, 9OO

SchotypePrrntrng Co.Sostan .

NINTH CENTURY.
(800-900.)

IN the early part of the century the most influential powers are
the EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE, the EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE, and
the Caliphates of the SARACENS.

EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE, The most striking movement of the
century is the breaking up of the great Empire of Charlemagne, after
the death of that monarch in 814. As the result of this dismember-
ment, we find the empire, in the latter part of the century, divided
into the separate kingdoms of the WESTERN FRANKS and the EAST-
ERN FRANKS (from which afterwards arose the kingdoms of France
and Germany), ITALY, BURGUNDY, and a border-land of undetermined
boundaries, between the Eastern and Western Franks, known as
LOTHARINGIA. These are the elements from which sprang most of
the greater kingdoms of Western Europe.

EASTERN EMPIRE. The Eastern Empire suffers losses from en-
croachments of the Slaves in the north, and also loses to the Saracens
Crete, Sardinia, and the greater part of Sicily.

SARACENS. The power of the Saracens declines. They acquire
Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, and the greater part of Sicily.

GERMANY. See above, under EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE.

ITALY. See above, under EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE.

FRANKS. See above, under EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE.

ENGLAND. The various petty kingdoms in Britain are united by Egbert
early in the century, forming the kingdom of England. England is engaged
in struggles with the Danes, who invade the country.

SCANDINAVIAN NATIONS. In this century we have the kingdoms of DEN-
MARK, SWEDEN, and NORWAY. The ravaging expeditions of the Norsemen
form a marked characteristic of the century.

RUSSIA begins to be of importance.

SCOTLAND is formed by the union of the PICTS and SCOTS.

FINNISH MAGYARS (HUNGARIANS) begin to be of importance in the last part
of the century.

A. D. 800 - A. I). 900.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

800. Empire of the West, under Charle-
magne.

804. The Saxons in Germany overcome by
Charlemagne.

827. Egbert unites the Saxon kingdoms.
Beginning of the kingdom of Eng-
land.

843. Treaty of Verdun. The Empire of
Charlemagne divided. Empire of
Germany established,

887. Final division of the empire into the
Western Franks (Carolingia), East-
ern Franks (Germany), Burgundy,
Italy, and Lothariugia,

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

SARACENS.
Caliphs. Haroun-al-Rasehid, Almamoun.

EMPIRE or THE WEST.
Sovereign. Charlemagne.

WESTERN FRANKS (FRANCE).
Under the Carolingian dynasty.

EASTERN FRANKS (GERMANY).
Under the Carolingian dynasty.

ENGLAND.
Sovereigns (Saxon Line). Egbert, Alfred (the Great).

Alcuin, Joannes Scotus (Erigena), Hincmar.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE.

THE EMPIRE OF THE WEST.

century opens with the coronation of Charle-
-L magne, on Christmas day, 800, as Einperor of the
West ; and he may be regarded as the chief regenerator
of Western Europe after the dissolution of the Eoman
Empire.

The possessions which had descended to him from his
father were small compared with those which he had won
by conquest, and at the date of his coronation he was
ruler of a territory not inferior in extent to that of the old
Eoman Empire, being master of all Germany and Gaul,
the greater part of Italy, and a little of Spain. Under him
the Prankish dominion reaches its highest point.

The day of the Nativity of our Lord, the king came into the basil-
ica of the blessed St. Peter, apostle, to attend the celebration of Mass.
At the moment when, in his place before the altar, he was bowing
down to pray, Pope Leo placed on his head a crown, and all the
Roman people shouted, " Long life and vic,tory to Charles Augustus,
crowned by God, the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans ! "
After this proclamation the pontiff prostrated himself before him
and paid him adoration, according to the custom established in the

224 NINTH CENTURY.

days of the old emperors ; and thenceforward, Charles, giving up the
title of Patrician, bore that of Emperor and Augustus. EGINHARD.

The coronation of Charles is not only the central event of the
Middle Ages, it is also one of those very few events of which, taking
them singly, it may be said that if they bad not happened, the history
of the world would have been different. In one sense, indeed, it has
scarcely a parallel. The assassins of Julius Caesar thought that they
had saved Rome from monarchy, but monarchy came inevitably in
the next generation. The conversion of Constantine changed the
face of the world, but Christianity was spreading fast, and its ulti-
mate triumph was only a question of time. Had Columbus never
spread his sails, the secret of the Western sea would yet have been
pierced by some later voyager. Had Charles V. broken his safe-
conduct to Luther, the voice silenced at Wittenberg would have been
taken up by echoes elsewhere. But if the Roman Empire had not
been restored in the West in the person of Charles, it would never
have been restored at all, and the inexhaustible train of consequences
for good and for evil that followed could not have been. JAMES
BRTCE.

A beautiful empire nourished under a brilliant diadem ; there was
but one prince and one people ; every town had judges and laws.
The zeal of the priests was sustained by frequent councils ; young
people repeatedly read the Holy Scriptures, and the minds of children
were formed to the study of letters. Love, on the one hand, on the
other, fear, everywhere kept up good order. Thus the Frankish
nation shone in the eyes of the whole world. Foreign kingdoms, the
Greeks, the barbarians, and the Senate of Latium sent embassies to
it. The race of Romulus, Rome herself, the mother of kingdoms,
was subject to this nation ; it was there that its chief, sustained by
the help of Christ, received the diadem by apostolic gift. FLORUS.

The worldly, political, and national elements are brilliantly repre-
sented in his [Charlemagne's] reign : the imperial dignity was restored
and endowed with unprecedented power ; and the Pope of Rome was
subservient to him, like any other bishop of his dominions. Science
of every description was fostered, ancient Roman writers imitated, old
German heroic legends collected. But with all this Charlemagne
looked upon his imperial mission as more particularly a religious
one. VON SYBEL.

NINTH CENTUEY. 225

Down to the sea the haughty land is his.

Castles and towers with their embattled walls

Lay low before him. ... At his ease

Beneath a pine, beside an eglantine,

In a great arm-chair, all of solid gold,

Sits Charles the King, who holds sweet France in fee.

His beard is white, and snowy white his hair.

So fair his features, and so proud his mien,

No one need ask, " Which is the Emperor ? "

Chanson de Roland.

And then appeared Charles himself, that man of steel, with his
head encased in a helmet of steel (iron), his hands garnished with
gauntlets of steel, his heart of steel and his shoulders of marble
protected by a cuirass of steel, and his left hand armed with a lance
of steel which he held aloft in the air ; for as to his right hand, he
kept that continually on the hilt of his invincible sword. . . . All
those who went before the monarch, all those who marched at his
side, all those who followed after, even the whole mass of the army,
had armor of the like sort, so far as the means of each permitted.
The fields and highways were covered with steel; the points of steel
reflected the rays of the sun ; and this steel, so hard, was borne by a
people with hearts still harder. Old Chronicle.

The emperor [Charlemagne] was of a ruddy complexion, with
brown hair ; of a well-made, handsome form, but a stern visage. His
height was about eight of his own feet, which were very long. He
was of a strong, robust make ; his legs and thighs very stout, and his
sinews firm. His face was thirteen inches long; his beard a palm;
his nose half a palm ; his forehead a foot over. His lion-like eyes
flashed fire like carbuncles ; his eyebrows were half a palm over.
When he was angry, it was a terror to look upon him. He required
eight spans for his girdle, besides what hung loose. He ate sparingly
of bread ; but a whole quarter of lamb, two fowls, a goose, or a large
portion of pork, a peacock, a crane, or a whole hare. He drank
moderately of wine and water. He was so strong that he could, at a
single blow, cleave asunder an armed soldier on horseback, from the
head to the waist, and the horse likewise. He easily vaulted over
four horses harnessed together, and could raise an armed man from
the ground to his head, as he stood erect upon his hand. TUEPIN'S
Chronicle.

Whether we regard him as a warrior or as a legislator, as a patron

226 NINTH CENTUKY.

of learning or as the civilizer of a barbarous nation, he is entitled to
our warmest admiration. Such he is in history ; but the romancers
represent him as often weak and passionate, the victim of treacherous
counsellors, and at the mercy of turbulent barons, on whose prowess
he depends for the maintenance of his throne. The historical repre-
sentation is doubtless the true one. BULFINCH.

Depend upon it, for one thing, good reader, no age ever seemed the
Age of Romance to itself. Charlemagne, let the Poets talk as they
will, had his own provocations in the world : what with selling of his
poultry and potherbs, what with wanton daughters carrying secreta-
ries through the snow, and, for instance, that hanging of the Saxons
over the Weser bridge (thirty thousand of them, they say, at one
bout), it seems to me that the Great Charles had his temper ruffled at
times. CARLYLE.

Thou [autumn] standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
Upon thy bridge of gold ; thy royal hand
Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain !

LONGFELLOW.

Above his tomb there was put up a gilded arcade with his image
and this superscription : " In this tomb reposeth the body of Charles,
great and orthodox emperor, who did gloriously extend the kingdom
of the Franks, and did govern it happily for forty-seven years. He
died at the age of seventy years, in the year of the Lord 814, in the
seventh year of the Indiction, on the 5th of the Kalends of
February." EGINHARD.

Was it to disenchant, and to undo,

That we approached the seat of Charlemaine ?

To sweep from many an old romantic strain

That faith which no devotion may renew !

Why does this puny church present to view

Its feeble columns ? and that scanty chair !

This sword that one of our weak times might wear.

WORDSWORTH, Aix-la-Chapelle-

Amid the torch-lit gloom of Aachen's aisle

A simple stone, where fitly to record
A world of action by a single word,
Was graven " Carlo Magno."

AUBEET DE VERB.

NINTH CENTUKY. 227

The period of Charlemagne is a great date in history ; for it is the
legal and formal termination of an antiquated state of society. It
was also the introduction to another totally different from itself and
from its predecessor. It was not barbarism, it was not feudalism ;
but it was the bridge which united the two. JAMES WHITE.

In whatever point of view, indeed, we regard the reign of Charle-
magne, we always find its leading characteristic to be a desire to
overcome barbarism and to advance civilization. We see this con-
spicuously in his foundation of schools, in his collecting of libraries,
in his gathering about him the learned of all countries ; in the favor
he showed towards the influence of the Church, for everything, in a
word, which seemed likely to operate beneficially upon society in
general, or the individual man. GUIZOT.

The great aim and glory of the life of Charlemagne had been the
revival of the Empire of Rome in an intimate alliance with the
Church of Rome. This was still the dominant idea of his mind at
the approach, and in the contemplation, of his death. It was,
indeed, an illusion to believe that the world was ripe for such a
design. It was perhaps a still greater illusion to suppose that his
own children were qualified to accomplish it. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes
deserved ; but Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favor the
title has been indissolubly blended with the name. That name, with
the addition of saint, is inserted in the Roman calendar ; and the
saint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of the historians
and philosophers of an enlightened age. His real merit is doubtless
enhanced by the barbarism of the nation and the times from which
he emerged. . , . The dignity of his person, the length of his reign,
the prosperity of his arms, the vigor of his government, and the
reverence of distant nations, distinguish him from the royal crowd ;
and Europe dates a new era from his restoration of the Western
Empire. That empire was not unworthy of its title ; and some of
the fairest kingdoms of Europe were the patrimony or conquest of a
prince who reigned at the same time in France, Spain, Italy, Ger-
many, and Hungary. GIBBON.

The epoch made by Charlemagne in the history of the world, the
illustrious families which prided themselves in him as their pro-

228 NINTH CENTUEY.

genitor, the very legends of romance, which are full of his fabulous
exploits, have cast a lustre around his head, and testify the greatness
that has embodied itself in his name. . . . Like Alexander, he seemed
born for universal innovation : in a life restlessly active, we see him
reforming the coinage, and establishing the legal divisions of money ;
gathering about him the learned of every country ; founding schools,
and collecting libraries ; interfering, but with the tone of a king, in
religious controversies; aiming, though prematurely, at the formation
of a naval force ; attempting, for the sake of commerce, the magnifi-
cent enterprise of uniting the Rhine and the Danube ; and meditat-
ing to mould the discordant codes of Roman and barbarian laws into
a uniform system. The great qualities of Charlemagne were indeed
alloyed by the vices of a barbarian and a conqueror. . . . But per-
haps his greatest eulogy is written in the disgraces of succeeding
times, and the miseries of Europe. He stands alone, like a beacon
upon a waste, or a rock in the broad ocean. His sceptre was as the
bow of Ulysses, which could not be drawn by a weaker hand. In
the dark ages of European history, the reign of Charlemagne affords
a solitary resting-place between two long periods of turbulence and
ignominy. HALL AM.

If we sum up his designs and his achievements, we find an admi-
rably sound idea and a vain dream, a great success and a great failure.
Charlemagne took in hand the work of placing upon a solid founda-
tion the Frankish Christian dominion by stopping, in the north and
south, the flood of barbarians and Arabs, Paganism and Islamism.
In that he succeeded : the inundations of Asiatic populations spent
their force in vain against the Gallic frontier. Western and Chris-
tian Europe was placed, territorially, beyond reach of attacks from
the foreigner and infidel. No sovereign, no human being, perhaps,
ever rendered greater service to the civilization of the world. Char-
lemagne formed another conception and made another attempt. Like
more than one great barbaric warrior, he admired the Roman Empire
that had fallen, its vastness all in one, and its powerful organization
under the hand of a single master. He thought he could resuscitate
it, durably, through the victory of a new people and a new faith, by
the hand of Franks and Christians. With this view he labored to
conquer, convert, and govern. He tried to be, at one and the same
time, Csesar, Augustus, and Constantino. And for a moment he
appeared to have succeeded ; but the appearance passed away with

NINTH CENTUKY. 229

himself. The unity of the empire and the absolute power of the
emperor were buried in his grave. The Christian religion and
human liberty set to work to prepare for Europe other governments
and other destinies. GUIZOT.

The most striking movement of the century is the
breaking up of the great empire of Charlemagne, after
the death of that monarch in 814.

As the result of this dismemberment we find the empire
in the latter part of the century divided into the separate
kingdoms of the Western Franks and the Eastern Franks,
(from which afterwards arose the kingdoms of France and
Germany), Italy, Burgundy, and a border-land of unde-
termined boundaries between the Eastern and Western
Franks, known as Lotharingia. It is from these elements
that most of the greater kingdoms of Western Europe
have arisen. The name and traditions of the empire were
retained, however, by the Eastern Franks, or Germans.

The reign of Charlemagne may be taken as the date of the effec-
tual stimulation of the elements of modern civilization. COMTE.

The corruption of death began to ferment into new forms of life.
While the great body, as a whole, was torpid and passive, every sep-
arate member began to feel with a sense, and to move with an energy,
all its own. Just here, in the most barren and dreary tract of Euro-
pean history, all feudal privileges, all modern nobility, take their
source. MACAULAY.

Now fallen, this great power has lost at once its splendor and the
name of empire : the kingdom, lately so well united, is divided into
three parts ; there is no one who can be looked upon as emperor ;
instead of a king, we see a knight ; instead of a kingdom, a piece of
a kingdom. The general good is annulled ; each occupies himself
with his own interests ; they think of nothing else ; God is forgotten.
The pastors of the Lord, accustomed to meet, can no longer hold
their synods amidst such division. There is no longer any assembly
of the people, no longer any laws. FLORUS.

230 NINTH CENTURY.

The superior genius of Charlemagne, it is true, united all these
disjointed and discordant members, and, forming them again into one
body, restored to government that degree of activity which distin-
guishes his reign, and renders the transactions of it objects not only
of attention but of admiration, to more enlightened times. But this
state of union and vigor, not being natural to the feudal government,
was of short duration. Immediately upon his death, the spirit
which animated and sustained the vast system which he had estab-
lished being withdrawn, it broke into pieces. All the calamities
which flow from anarchy and discord, returning with additional
force afflicted the different kingdoms into which his empire was
split. ROBERTSON.

The empire of Charlemagne was a structure erected in so short a
time that it could not be permanent. Under his immediate suc-
cessor it began to totter, and soon after fell to pieces. The crown
of Germany was separated from that of France, and the descendants of
Charlemagne established two great monarchies so situated as to give
rise to a perpetual rivalship and enmity between them. ROBERTSON.

A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind.
When did one man ever civilize a people ? In the eighth and ninth,
centuries there was not even a people to be civilized. The construc-
tion of Charles was, of necessity, temporary. MOTLEY.

Charlemagne restored for a short time the Roman tradition, a
universal civil empire, furthered the progress of the papal idea of a
universal spiritual empire, closed the era of barbaric invasion, and
secured for Christianity and Latin culture their due influence as fac-
tors in the more complex civilization which began to appear. The
rapid decomposition of his vast empire into small parcels of soil,
each with a few inhabitants dependent on the uncontrolled will of a
petty tyrant, is apt at first glance to seem a directly and exclusively
retrograde movement. It was in reality, however, a necessary stage
of transition to a higher unity. ROBERT FLINT.

NINTH CENTUKY. 231

THE NOKSEMEN.

THE ravaging and piratical expeditions of the Norsemen
(Northmen) from the Scandinavian peninsulas form a
marked characteristic of the century. They invaded
many parts of the Continent and of England. They were
called Danes by the English. (See, under ENGLAND, page
232. See also the next century, page 248.)

What sea- worn barks are those which throw
The light spray from each rushing prow ?
Have they not in the North Sea's blast
Bowed to the waves the straining mast ?
Their frozen sails, the low, pale sun
Of Thule's night has shone upon ;
Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep,
Round icy drift, and headland steep.
Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters
Have watched them fading o'er the waters,
Lessening through driving mist and spray
Like white-winged sea-birds on their way !

WHITTIER.

THE BEGINNING OF ENGLAND.

THE petty kingdoms in Britain were united by Egbert
early in the century, forming the kingdom of England.

The year 800 made way for a great alteration in England, uniting
her seven kingdoms into one, by Egbert the famous West-Saxon.
MILTON.

Ere, blood-cemented, Anglo-Saxon saw '
Egbert and peace on one united throne.

THOMSON.

In a revolution which seemed sudden, but which was in reality
the inevitable close of the growth of natural consciousness through
these centuries of English history, the old severance of people from

232 NINTH CENTURY.

people had at last broken down; and the whole English race in
Britain was for the first time knit together under a single ruler.
Though the legend which made Ecgberht take the title of King of
England is an invention of later times, it expressed an historic
truth. . . . England was made in fact, if not as yet in name.
J. K. GREEN.

In the latter half of the century England was engaged
in struggles with the Danes (see THE NORSEMEN, page
231), who invaded the country. The latter part of the
century is distinguished by the reign of the famous Alfred
the Great, who became King of Wessex in 872.

Under the GREAT ALFRED, all the best points of the English-
Saxon character were first encouraged, and in him first shown. It
has been the greatest character among the nations of the earth.
DICKENS.

Has any country, within so short a period, produced in itself an in-
tellect, amongst its sovereigns, that combined so many excellences ?
TURNER.

Je ne sgais s'il y a jamais eu sur la terre un homme plus digne des
respects de la posterite qu' Alfred le grand, qui rendit ces services &
sa patrie suppose que tout ce qu'on renconte de lui soit veritable.
VOLTAIRE.

But as the greatest minds display themselves in the most turbulent
storms on the call of necessity, so England has to boast, among
others, her Alfred ; a pattern for kings in a time of extremity, a
bright star in the history of mankind. Living a century after Char-
lemagne, he was, perhaps, a greater man in a circle happily more
limited. HERDER.

Alfred rises superior to his age incomparably more than Charle-
magne to his ; and the comparison might terminate altogether unfa-
vorably to the latter, if, instead of judging by the extent of power
and the splendor of empire, we were to contemplate only the quiet
greatness of the man. We should then place by the side of Charle-
magne the pious king Alfred, constant and unwearied under misfor-
tune, cheerful amid his sorrows ; as a minstrel visiting the camp of
the foe, as a herdsman wandering unknown among his own people ;

NINTH CENTURY. 233

and when success and victory had crowned his courageous efforts,
and he beheld his country saved, still preserving moderation in all
things ; mild and humble, he who knew so much that is scarcelv
allowed to his times, who had founded so many wise and beneficial
institutions, that even still excite the admiration of mankind.

SCHLEGEL.

I am really at a loss which part of this great man's character most
to admire. Yet, above all, I see the grandeur, the freedom, the
mildness, the domestic unity, the universal character of the Middle
Ages condensed into Alfred's glorious institution of the trial by jury.
I gaze upon it as the immortal symbol of that age, an age called
indeed dark, but how could that age be considered dark, which
solved the difficult problem of universal liberty, freed man from the
shackles of tyranny, and subjected his actions to the decision of
twelve of his fellow-countrymen. COLERIDGE.

Neither the wars nor the legislation of Alfred were de'stined to
leave such lasting traces upon England as the impulse he gave to its
literature. His end indeed, even in this, was practical rather than
literary. What he aimed at was simply the education of his people.
J. K. GREEN.

Behold a pupil of the monkish gown,

The pious ALFRED, king to Justice dear;

Lord of the harp and liberating spear;

Mirror of princes ! indigent Renown

Might range the starry ether for a crown

Equal to his deserts, who, like the year,

Pours forth his bounty, like the day doth cheer,

And awes like night with mercy-tempered frown.

Ease from this noble miser of his time

No moment steals, pain narrows not his cares.

Though small his kingdom as a spark or gem,

Of Alfred boasts remote Jerusalem,

And Christian India gifts with Alfred shares,

By sacred converse linked with India's clime.

WOEDSWOKTH.

234 NINTH CENTURY.

FEUDALISM.
SEE the TENTH CENTURY, page 241.

THE close of the ninth century witnesses a decided
progress towards more stable forms of government and
greater security of social order.

"We begin at this time to see the wandering life decline ; popula-
tions became fixed ; estates and landed possessions became settled;
the relations between man and man no longer varied from day to
day under the influence of force or chance. The interior and moral
condition of man himself began to undergo a change ; his ideas,
his sentiments, began, like his life, to assume a more fixed char-
acter. GUIZOT.

In the ninth century we trace the first dawnings of the restoration
of science. GIBBON.

Charlemagne in France, and Alfred the Great in England, endeav-
ored to dispel this darkness, and gave their subjects a short glimpse
of light and knowledge. But the ignorance of the age was too
powerful for their efforts and institutions. The darkness returned,
and settled over Europe, more thick and heavy than before.
EOBERTSON.

The ninth century shows us Europe divided into two political
zones : one comprehended the countries still remaining under the
ancient dominion, founded by the conquests of Rome ; the other
contained the countries recently invaded by the Northmen, conquer-
ors of the Roman subjects. The relative conditions of these men,
either as masters or subjects, conquerors or conquered, differed very
much in those two different regions. On one side, all the power
acquired by centuries of conquest was the property cf a single per-
son, who dispensed it around him at his own pleasure ; on the other,
that power was the regular share of all the families sprung from,
the conquerors. The Saxons in Britain, the Franks in Gaul, and the

NINTH CENTURY. 235

Lombards in Italy were all singly proprietors of a portion of the
territory which their ancestors had invaded, all governors and sover-
eign arbitrators of the men conquered by their ancestors. In Greece
there was but one master, and under that master different degrees of
service ; in the West there were thousands of masters free, under a
chief who was but the first among equals. THIERRY.

About A.D. WOO

TENTH CENTURY.
(900-1000.)

GERMANY [EASTERN FRANKS] becomes the greatest power in
Europe, uniting to itself Upper Italy and Lotharingia.

WESTERN FRANKS [FRANCE]. Early in this century the northern
part of the country is invaded by the Norsemen, bold seafaring
adventurers from Denmark and other northern lands, from whom
the name Normandy is derived. (See below, under NORMANDY.)
The kingdom of France begins in 987.

ITALY. The northern part becomes united with the German
Empire. A large part of Southern Italy is still subject to the Eastern
Empire.

EASTERN EMPIRE. The territory and power of the Eastern Empire
become much extended.

SARACENS. The Saracen Empire is divided at the beginning of
this century into no less than seven independent caliphates, of which
the most distinguished is that of the Fatimites. The Saracenic
civilization in Spain is now at its height. By the end of the century
the power of the Saracens in the East is of but little account
politically.

DENMARK, NORWAY, and SWEDEN are powerful kingdoms by the
close of this century. (See also under WESTERN FRANKS [FRANCE],
and ENGLAND.)

ENGLAND is engaged in struggles with, the Danes.

NORMANDY becomes independent in 912. (See above, under WESTERN
FRANKS [FRANCE].)

BURGUNDY lasts through the century.

LEON. This Christian kingdom in Spain begins in 916, and that of NAVARRB
is founded in 905.

RUSSIA in this century is composed of very extensive principalities.

THE MAGYARS, or HUNGARIANS, before the end of the century have established
a strong kingdom in the southeast of Europe ; and to the north the Slavonic
states of POLAND and BOHEMIA are planted.

A. D. 900 - A. D. 1000.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

908. Beginning of the Fatimite dynasty in

Africa.
912. The Normans, under Rollo, settle in

France, and take possession of

Normandy.
924. Beginning of the kingdom of Great

Britain.
962. Coronation at Rome of the Emperor

Otho the Great.

967. The Fatimites in Egypt
987. Hugh Capet becomes King of France.
End of the Carlovingian dynas-

ty.

A widespread belief in the approach of
the end of the world and the day
of judgment prevails during the
latter part of the century.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

GERMANY.
Emperors and Kings. Conrad, Henry (the Fowler), Otho (the Great).

FRANCE.
King. Hugh Capet.

ENGLAND.
Kings. Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edward the Martyr.

Dunstan, Suidas, Gerbert (Pope Sylvester IL ).

ILLUSTRATIONS.

GENEEAL TENDENCIES.

century is, for the most part, rather a period of
JL religious and social movements and tendencies than
one of accomplished results. One important movement is
the establishment of the "Holy Eoman Empire," by Otho
the Great, in 962, a sort of revival of the Western Em-
pire. A protracted contest between the popes and the
emperors begins, which leads in the next century to a
great increase in the power of the Church. Feudalism is
now nearly at its highest point of development.

In the beginning of the tenth century the family of Charlemagne
had almost disappeared ; his monarchy was broken into many hostile
and independent states ; the regal title was assumed by the most
ambitious chiefs ; their revolt was imitated in a long subordination of
anarchy and discord, and the nobles of every province disobeyed their
sovereign, oppressed their vassals, and exercised perpetual hostilities
against their equals and neighbors. GIBBON.

THE SAEACENS IN SPAIN.

THE Mahometan civilization in Spain is at the summit
of its power and splendor, presenting a strong contrast to
the degraded condition of the rest of Western Europe.

240 TENTH CENTURY.

Laying the foundations of their power in a system of wise and
equitable laws, diligently cultivating the arts and sciences, and pro-
moting agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, they gradually
formed an empire unrivalled for its prosperity by any of the empires
of Christendom ; and, diligently drawing round them the graces and
refinements which marked the Arabian empire in the East at the
time of its greatest civilization, they diffused the light of Oriental
knowledge through the western regions of benighted Europe. The
cities of Arabian Spain became the resort of Christian artisans, to
instruct themselves in the useful arts. The universities of Toledo,
Cordova, Seville, and Granada were sought by the pale student from
other lands to acquaint himself with the sciences of the Arabs and
the treasured lore of antiquity ; the lovers of the gay science resorted
to Cordova and Granada to imbibe the poetry and music of the East ;
and the steel-clad warriors of the North hastened thither to accom-
plish themselves in the graceful exercises and courteous usages of
chivalry. . . . With all this, however, the Moslem empire in Spain
was but a brilliant exotic that took no permanent root in the soil
it embellished. Severed from all their neighbors in the West by
impassable barriers of faith and manners, and separated by seas and
deserts from their kindred of the East, the Morisco Spaniards were
an isolated people. Their whole existence was a prolonged, though
gallant and chivalric, struggle for a foothold in a usurped land.
IRVING.

Here the Moorish khalifs of Cordova became the rivals of the
Arab khalifs of Bagdad. At a time when profane learning was
ignored elsewhere, they were patrons of science, learning, and the
arts ; they founded schools and universities ; they encouraged every
branch of scientific research ; and their court was the centre of an
intellectual society. Their splendid palaces still remain as monu-
ments of their magnificence and taste. Their civilization was several
centuries in advance of that of Europe. MAY.

That in many subjects they made experiments, may easily be
allowed. There never was a period of the earth's history, and least
of all a period of commerce and manufactures, luxury and art,
medicine and engineering, in which there were not going on in-
numerable processes which may be termed experiments ; and in
addition to these the Arabians adopted the pursuit of alchemy, and
the love of exotic plants and animals. But so far from their being,

TENTH CENTURY. 241

as has been maintained, a people whose "experimental intellect"
fitted them to form sciences which the " abstract intellect " of the
Greeks failed in producing, it rather appears that several of the
sciences which the Greeks had founded were never even compre-
hended by the Arabians. I do not know any evidence that these
pupils ever attained to understand the real principles of mechanics,
hydrostatics, and harmonics, which their masters had established.
At any rate, when these sciences again became progressive, Europe
had to start where Europe had stopped. There is no Arabian name
which any one has thought of interposing between Archimedes,
the ancient, and Stevinus and Galileo, the moderns. WILLIAM
WHEWELL.

But when I am told, as we sometimes are, not only that they [the
Saracens] had made great comparative advances in learning and
science, but that they had all the learning and science then in the
world to themselves, I simply attribute it to our strange habit of
entirely forgetting the existence of an Eastern as well as a Western
Christendom. Whence did the Saracens obtain their knowledge?
They confessedly did not bring it with them from Mecca or Medina,
and it hardly sprang spontaneously from the ground either at Cordova
or at Bagdad. We must again look to our poor friend, the " Greek
of the Lower Empire." . . . The Arabs seem to have positively
invented nothing, though what they learned from their Byzantine
masters they often, with the zeal of new scholars, developed and
improved. FKEEMAN.

FEUDALISM.

THE characteristic feature of mediasval society is the
institution known as feudalism, which reached its highest
point of diffusion and power in the eleventh century. It
is a form of government which was unknown in ancient
times. Established by the barbarous nations of Europe,
based upon a new division of property resulting from
military service, and the grant of lands by kings and lords

242 TENTH CENTUEY.

to their dependants, it gradually developed, together with
the manners and customs to which it gave rise, into a
great system of civil administration which continued
throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, and which
survives even yet in some of its forms and usages.

As the conquerors of Europe had their acquisitions to maintain,
not only against such of the ancient inhabitants as they had spared,
but against the more formidable inroads of new invaders, self-
defence was their chief care, and seems to have been the chief object
of their first institutions and policy. Instead of those loose associa-
tions which, though they had scarcely diminished their personal
independence, had been sufficient for their security while they
remained in their original countries, they saw the necessity of
uniting in a more close confederacy, and of relinquishing some
of their private rights in order to attain public safety. Every
freeman, upon receiving a portion of the lands which were divided,
bound himself to appear in arms against the enemies of the commu-
nity. This military service was the condition upon which he re-
ceived and held his lands ; and as they were exempted from every
other burden, that tenure among a warlike people was deemed both
easy and honorable. The king or general who led them to conquest
had, of course, the largest portion allotted to him. Having thus
acquired the means of rewarding past services, as well as of gaining
new adherents, he parcelled out his lands with this view, binding
those on whom they were bestowed to resort to his standard with a
number of men in proportion to the extent of the territory which,
they received, and to bear arms in his defence. His chief officers
imitated the example of the sovereign, and, in distributing portions
of their lands among their dependants, annexed the same conditions
to the grant. Thus a feudal kingdom resembled a military establish-
ment rather than a civil institution. The names of a soldier and
a freeman were synonymous. Every proprietor of land, girt with a
sword, was ready to march at the summons of his superior, and to
take field against the common enemy. But though the feudal
policy seems to be so admirably calculated for defence against
the assaults of any foreign power, its provisions for the interior
order and tranquillity of society were extremely defective. The
principles of disorder and corruption are discernible in that

TENTH CENTURY. 243

constitution under its best and most perfect form. They soon.
unfolded themselves, and, spreading with rapidity through every part
of the system, produced the most fatal effects. The bond of political
union was extremely feeble ; the sources of anarchy were innumer-
able. The powerful vassals of the crown soon extorted a confirma-
tion for life of those grants of land which at first had only been
bestowed during pleasure. Not satisfied with this, they prevailed
to have them converted into hereditary possessions. . . . They
obtained the power of supreme jurisdiction, both civil and criminal,
within their own territories ; the right of coining money, together
with the right of carrying on war against their private enemies.
The idea of political subjection was almost entirely lost. A king-
dom, considerable in name and extent, was broken into as many
separate principalities as it contained powerful barons. A thousand
causes of jealousy and discord gave rise to as many wars. Every
country in Europe, wasted or kept in continual alarm during these
endless contests, was filled with castles and places of strength erected
for the security of the inhabitants, not against foreign force, but
against internal hostilities. The people, the most numerous as well
as the most useful part of the community, were either reduced to a
state of actual servitude or treated with the same insolence and
rigor as if they had been degraded into that wretched condition.
The nobles, superior to almost every restraint, harassed each other
with perpetual wars, oppressed their fellow-subjects, and humbled or
insulted their sovereign. To crown all, time gradually fixed and
rendered venerable this pernicious system which violence had es-
tablished. ROBERTSON.

The single word " castle" awakes the idea of feudal society; it seems
to rise up before us. Nothing can be more natural. These castles,
the ruins of which are still scattered about, were constructed by
feudalism ; their elevation was, so to speak, the declaration of its
triumph. GUIZOT.

The origin of feudalism is as difficult to trace as the source of the
Niger. The relation of chief and clansman among barbarians, the
oath of Roman soldiers to the emperor, the civic responsibility of a
father for his children transferred to a lord for his dependants, are
all elements in the system which overspread Europe in the Middle
Ages. Men in those times commonly regarded it from the practical

244 TENTH CENTURY.

point of view, as service for reward. But it came to have a higher
meaning to the state. The feudal baron was the representative of
kingship on his domain, rendering justice, maintaining police, and
seeing that military service was performed. As a viceroy he was
accountable for the just performance of these duties to the crown ;
above all, he was a link in the great chain that bound the lowest
peasant and the successors of Charlemagne together. Roman im-
perialism had divided the world into master and slave. The juster
theory of the Middle Ages, no doubt influenced by Christianity,
regarded mankind as a great family, and sought to strengthen the
bonds of union by engagements taken solemnly before man and
God. The oath of homage was the most binding that could be
taken ; the love of a father to his son, the duty of a wife to her
husband, were regarded as of less force. PEARSON.

It is the previous state of society under the grandchildren of
Charlemagne which we must always keep in mind if we would
appreciate the effects of the feudal system upon the welfare of man-
kind. The institutions of the eleventh century must be compared
with those of the ninth, not with the advanced civilization of
modern times. If the view that I have taken of those dark ages is
correct, the state of anarchy which we usually term feudal was the
natural result of a vast and barbarous empire feebly administered,
and the cause, rather than effect, of the general establishment of
feudal tenures. These, by preserving the mutual relations of the
whole, kept alive the feeling of a common country and common
duties ; and settled, after the lapse of ages, into the free constitution
of England, the firm monarchy of France, and the federal union of
Germany. HALLAM.

Here, then, we see the feudal system to be, in a temporal sense,
the cradle of modern society. It set society forward towards the
great aim of the whole European polity, the gradual transforma-
tion of the military into the industrial life. Military activity was
then employed as a barrier to the spirit of invasion, which, if not so
checked, would have stopped the social progress ; and the result was
obtained when, at length, the peoples of the North and East were
compelled, by their inability to find settlements elsewhere, to undergo
at home their final transition to agricultural and stationary life,
morally guaranteed by their conversion to Catholicism. Thus the

TENTH CENTUBY. 245

progression which the Roman system had started was carried on by
the feudal system. The Roman assimilated civilized nations ; and
the feudal consolidated that union by urging barbarous peoples to
civilize themselves also. COMTE.

Of all the varieties of political institutes under which the na-
tions of the earth have ever lived, the feudal system is perhaps the
only one which, during its existence, was sustained by no popular
enthusiasm, and which, after its overthrow, was followed by no
popular regrets. It was a protracted reign of terror ; and, so far as
I am aware, no trace exists, either in the lighter or in the more
serious literature of the Middle Ages, of any sentiments having been
entertained by the people at large towards the chatelains, the barons,
and the seigneurs, under whom they lived, but such as terror
invariably inspires. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

The temporal decline of the Middle Age system proceeded from
a cause so evident as to require little remark. In all the three aspects
of the feudal regime, its transitory character is distinctly marked. Its
defensive organization was required only till the invaders should
have settled down into agricultural life at home, and become con-
verted to Catholicism ; and military pursuits thenceforth became
more and more exceptional as industry strengthened and extended
itself. The breaking up of the temporal power into partial sov-
ereignties, which was the second feature of the feudal system, was no
less a transient arrangement, which must give place to a new central-
ization ; as we shall presently see that it did. As for the third
feature, the transformation of slavery into serfage, it is unques-
tionable that while slavery may exist a long time under suitable con-
ditions, serfage can be no more than a transition state, sure to be
speedily modified by the establishment of industrial communities,
and serving no other special purpose than gradually leading on the
laborers to entire personal freedom. COMTE.

Among the causes that undermined that Gothic edifice [feudalism]
a conspicuous place must be allowed to the Crusades [see page 260].
The estates of the barons were dissipated, and their race was often
extinguished, in these costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty
extorted from their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked
the fetters of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop
of the artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the

246 TENTH CENTURY.

most numerous and useful part of the community. The conflagra-
tion which destroyed the tall and barren trees of the forest gave air
and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants of
the soil. GIBBON.

We see that the first sparks of European imagination, that the
first attempts of poetry, of literature, that the first intellectual
gratifications which Europe tasted in merging from barbarism,
sprang up under the protection, under the wings, of feudalism. It
was in the baronial hall that they were born, and cherished, and
protected. It is to the feudal times that we trace back the earliest
literary monuments of England, France, and Germany, the earliest
intellectual enjoyments of modern Europe. GUIZOT.

SUPERSTITION OF THE AGE.

IN this time of ignorance and superstition which pre-
vailed throughout Europe (with the exception of Spain), a
general belief arose that the world would come to an end
in the year 1000.

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the
Devil, and Satan, arid bound him a thousand years, and cast him into
the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he
should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should
be fulfilled : and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Revelation xx. 2, 3.

The idea of the end of the world, sad as that world was, was at
once the hope and the terror of the middle age. . . . Misfortune
succeeded misfortune ; ruin, ruin. Some other advent was needed ;
and men expected that it would arrive. The captive expected it in.
the gloomy dungeon, and in the bonds of the sepulchral in pace.
The serf expected it while tracing the furrow under the shadow of his
lord's hated tower. The monk expected it amidst the privations of
the cloister. All longed to be relieved from their sufferings, no mat-
ter at what cost ! MICHELET.

TENTH CENTURY. 247

Many charters begin with these words : " As the world is now
drawing to -its close." An army marching under the Emperor Otho
was so terrified by an eclipse of the sun, which it conceived to
announce this consummation, as to disperse hastily on all sides. As
this notion seems to have been founded on some confused theory of
the millennium, it naturally died away when the seasons proceeded in
the eleventh century with their usual regularity. HALLAM.

Some squandered their wealth in riotous living, others bestowed
it for the good of their souls on churches and convents : weeping
masses lay day and night around the altars ; some looked forward
with dread, but most with secret hope, towards the burning of the
earth and the falling in of heaven. Their actual condition was so
miserable, that the idea of destruction was relief, spite of all its
terrors. VON STBEL.

Preachers came forth announcing that, in the visions of the night,
they had received from the "Saviour himself an intimation that his
second coming was immediately at hand. Mysterious voices were
heard to mingle with the winds. Mailed combatants were seen to
encounter in the clouds. Monstrous births intimated the dislocation
of the whole system of nature. Men sought to propitiate the
approaching Judge, by giving to the Church the lands which were
about to perish in the general conflagration. The alarm, though of
course transitory, was yet sufficiently deep and enduring to depress
the spirits of more than one generation, and to enhance the gloom of
that disastrous age. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

All unity, all general civilization, seemed gone ; society on all sides
seemed dismembered ; a multitude of petty, obscure, isolated, inco-
herent societies arose. This appeared, to those who lived and saw it,
universal anarchy, the dissolution of all things. Consult the poets
and historians of the day : they all believed that the end of the world
was at hand. Yet this was, in truth, a new and real social system
which was forming. GUIZOT.

This belief was, doubtless, widespread, but it was by no means
universal ; and there is abundant evidence to show that it had not
prevented men, towards the close of the tenth century, from under-
taking works intended for long duration. C. E. NORTON.

The tenth century used to be reckoned by mediaeval historians the
darkest part of this intellectual night. It was the iron age, which

248 TENTH CENTURY.

they vie with one another in describing as lost in the most consum-
mate ignorance. This, however, is much rather applicable to Italy
and England than to France and Germany. The former were both
in a deplorable state of barbarism. And there are, doubtless, abun-
dant proof's of ignorance in every part of Europe. But, compared
with the seventh and eighth centuries, the tenth was an age of illu-
mination in France. And Meiners, who judged the Middle Ages
somewhat, perhaps, too severely, but with a penetrating and compre-
hensive observation, of which there had been few instances, has gone
so far as to say, that " in no age, perhaps, did Germany possess more
learned and virtuous churchmen of the episcopal order than in the
latter half of the tenth, and beginning of the eleventh century."
HALLAM.

THE NOETHMEN.

THE piratical expeditions of the Northmen, which formed
a marked characteristic of the ninth century, were continued
during this century. Early in the century, under Eollo,
they sailed up the Seine, and in 912, as the result of their
invasions of the northern Prankish territory, they acquired
the province since called, from them, Normandy. There
they became Christianized. They also invaded England.
(See, under ENGLAND, page 249.)

The continued draught of the best men in Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark, to these piratical expeditions, exhausted those countries,
like a tree which bears much fruit when young ; and these have been
second-rate powers ever since. The power of the race migrated, and
left Norway void. EMERSON.

The wolf beneath the Arctic moon
Has answered to that startling rune;
The Gael has heard its stormy swell,
The light Frank knows its summons well.

WHITTIEB.

TENTH CENTURY. 249

ENGLAND.

ENGLAND was attacked and invaded by the Danes, and
was engaged in struggles with them throughout the
century. (See, under THE NORTHMEN, page 248.)

England yielded to the Danes and Northmen in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, and was the receptacle into which all the mettle
of that strenuous population was poured. EMERSON.

Canute o'ercame
the race of Ethelred,
and Danes wielded
the dear realm
of Angle-land,
eight-and-twenty
of -winters numbered,
wealth dispensed.

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Ne shall the Saxons selves all peaceably

Enioy the crown e, which they from Britons wonne

First ill, and after ruled wickedly :

For, ere two hundred yeares be full outronne,

There shall a Raven, far from rising sunne,

With his wide wings upon them fiercely fly,

And bid his faithlesse chickens overronne

The fruitfull plaines, and with fell cruelty

In their avenge tread downe the victors surquedry.

SPENSER.

IT was, then, from the fifth to the tenth century that the work of
fermentation and amalgamation of the three elements of modern
civilization, namely, the Roman element, the Christian element, and
the German element, was in operation ; and it was only at the end
of the tenth century that the ferment ceased, and, the amalgamation
being nearly accomplished, the development of the new order and
truly modern society began. GUIZOT.

About A.D. 1100

Se!ioty/y Printing a, But*

ELEVENTH CENTURY.
(1000-1100.)

GERMANY. The German, or Holy Eoman, Empire is the leading
power in Europe. Burgundy is united to it in 1032.

EASTERN EMPIRE. Early in the century the Eastern Empire is
the chief of the Christian powers. Its dominion is larger than at
any time since the invasion of the Saracens and Slaves. Towards the
close of the century the empire falls back greatly, losing nearly all
its possessions in Asia, which are wrested from it by the Seljuk
Turks. See ROUM, infra.

SARACENS. The Caliphate of Cordova comes to an end in 1031,
and Spain is invaded by the Almoravides from Africa. The Sara-
cenic power in the East passes into the hands of the Seljuk Turks, a
Tartar tribe from Central Asia. (See below, under ROUM.) The
kingdom of the Fatimites continues in Africa. Sicily is lost to the
Normans.

FRANCE is becoming more and more a kingdom, with some loss of
territory at the beginning, but an increase towards the close, of the
century.

DENMARK, NORWAY, and SWEDEN reach the height of their
power near the beginning of this century.

ENGLAND is won by the Danes in the first part of this century, and
conquered by the Normans (from Normandy) in 1066.

BURGUNDY. See above, under GERMANY.

CASTILE becomes a kingdom in 1026. See below, tinder LEON.

ARAGON becomes a kingdom in 1035.

LEON is \uiited to Castile in 1037.

SICILY is invaded by the Normans (from Normandy) in 1062, and in 1130
the kingdom of Sicily is formed, comprising both the island of that name and
the southern part of the Italian peninsula.

RUSSIA, SERVIA, and HUNGARY are now Christian, powers, the former
somewhat weakened by a division of its territory in 1026.

POLAND, BOHEMIA, PRUSSIA, and other countries still remain pagan.

BULGARIA restored to the Eastern Empire, 1018.

NORMANDY [NORMANS]. See above, under ENGLAND and SICILY.

ROUM. This kingdom is founded in Asia Minor in 1075 by the Seljuk
Turks, a Tartar tribe from Central Asia, who take from the Saracens much of
their power in the East, and from the Eastern Empire nearly all of its posses-
sions in Asia.

JERUSALEM is wrested from the Saracens by the Turks (see under ROUM),
and from the latter by the Crusaders, by whom the Latin kingdom of
Jerusalem was founded, 1099.

A.D. 1000- A. D. 1100.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

1016. Norman invasion of Italy.

1017. Canute the Great, ruler of England.
1031. End of the Ommiads in Spain.
1035. Origin of the Seljuk Turks.

1042. Saxon line restored in England.

1054. Separation of the Eastern Church.

1058. The Seljuk Turks conquer Persia.

1060. Norman conquest of Sicily.

1066. Battle of Hastings. Harold de-
feated by William the Conqueror.
Beginning of Norman rule in
England.

1073-1085. The papacy of Gregory VII.
(Hildebrand).

1075. The kingdom of Rouiu, or Iconium,

founded.

1076. The Seljuk Turks take Jerusalem.

1095. Council of Clermont. Preaching of

the First Crusade.

1096. First Crusade, led by Godfrey of

Bouillon and others.

1099. Jerusalem taken, and Godfrey of
Bouillon elected king.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

GERMAiTV.

King. Henry IV.

ENGLAND.
Kings. Canute (the Great), Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror.

Pope Sylvester II., Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), Abelard, Roscelin, Anselm, Berenger
(of Tours), Lanfranc, the Cid (Campeador).

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF ENGLAND.

The woman-hearted Confessor prepares
The evanescence of the Saxon line.

WORDSWORTH.

"TjlAKLY in the tenth century Norsemen (Northmen)
-CJ from Scandinavia had settled in that province of
France which from them became known as Normandy, and
its inhabitants as Normans. They there became Christian-
ized. In the eleventh century William (since known as
the Conqueror), Duke of the Normans, coveting the throne
of England, crossed the Channel and subdued that country
in 1066 (battle of Hastings). The Normans became the
ruling class in England.

1066. Then was, over all England, such a token seen in the
heavens, as no man ever before saw. Some men said that it was
cometa the star, which some men called the haired star. . . . And
king Harold gathered so great a ship-force, and also a land-force, as
no king here in the land had before done ; because it was made known
to him that William the bastard would come hither and win this
land : all as it afterwards happened. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Then came William earl of Normandy into Pevensey, on the eve
of St. Michael's-mass : and soon after they were on their way, they
constructed a castle at Hastings-port. This then was made known
to king Harold, and he then gathered a great force, and came to meet
him at the estuary of Appledore ; and William came against him
unawares, before his people were set in order. But the king never-

254 ELEVENTH CENTURY.

theless strenuously fought against him with those men who would
follow him ; and there was great slaughter made on either hand.
There was slain king Harold . . . and many good men ; and the
Frenchmen had possession of the place of carnage, all as God granted
them for the people's sins. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Yet shall a Third both these and thine suhdew :
There shall a Lion from the sea-bord wood
Of Neustria come roring, with a crew
Of hungry whelpes, his battailous bold brood,
Whose clawes were newly dipt in cruddy blood.
That from the Daniske Tyrants head shall rend
Th' usurped crowne, as if that he were wood,
And the spoile of the countrey conquered
Emongst his young ones shall divide with bounty hed.

SPENSER.

It took many generations to trim, and comh, and perfume the first
boatload of Norse pirates into royal highnesses and most nohle
Knights of the Garter ; but every sparkle of ornament dates back to
the Norse boat. EMERSON.

The Norman Conquest is the great turning-point in the history of
the English nation. Since the first settlement of the English in
Britain, the introduction of Christianity is the only event which can
compare with it in importance. And there is this wide difference
between the two. The introduction of Christianity was an event
which could hardly fail to happen sooner or later ; in accepting the
Gospel the English only followed the same law which, sooner or
later, affected all the Teutonic nations. But the Norman Conquest
is something which stands without a parallel in any other Teutonic
land. FREEMAN.

The whole importance of the Norman Conquest consists in the
effect which it had on an existing nation, humbled indeed, but
neither wiped out nor utterly enslaved, in the changes which it
wrought on an existing constitution, which was by degrees greatly
modified, but which was never either wholly abolished or wholly
trampled under foot. FREEMAN.

L'expedition normande apparait comme un effet sans cause, un
coup cle flibustier, tente en pleine paix, centre une nation qui avait en
die tous les elements de grandeur et toutes les vertus nationales, germe

ELEVENTH CENTUET. 255

d'un bel avenir ; Guillaume, comme un aventurier de courage qui
s'abat sur tine belle proie et la depece ; le pape comme un ambitieux
qui ne considers que les avantages temporels que 1'Eglise et son chef
peuvent tirer de la conquete. THIERRY.

Not a few years before the Normans came, the clergy, though in
Edward the Confessor's days, had lost all good literature and religion,
scarce able to read and understand their Latin service ; he was a
miracle to others, who knew his grammar. The monks went clad in
fine stuffs, and made no difference what they eat ; which, though in
itself no fault, yet to their consciences was irreligious. The great
men, given to gluttony and dissolute life, made a prey of the com-
mon people, abusing their daughters whom they had in service, then
turning them off to the stews ; the meaner sort, tippling together
night and day, spent all they had in drunkenness, attended with
other vices which effeminate men's minds. Whence it came to pass,
that, carried on with fury and rashness more than any true fortitude or
skill of war, they gave to William their conqueror so easy a conquest.
Not but that some few of all sorts were much better among them ;
but such was the generality. MILTON.

When as the duke of Normandy
With glistening spear and shield,
Had entered into fair England,
And foil'd his foes in field :

On Christmas-day in solemn sort
Then was he crowned here,
By Albert archbishop of York,
With many a noble peer.

Which being done, he changed quite
The customs of this land,
And punisht such as daily sought
His statutes to withstand.

Old Bdttad.

The haughty Norman seized at once an isle,
For which, through many a century, in vain
The Roman, Saxon, Dane, had toiled and bled.
Of Gothic nations this the final burst ;
And, mixed the genius of these people all,
Their virtues mixed in one exalted stream,
Here the rich tide of English blood grew full.

THOMSON.

256 ELEVENTH CENTURY.

Norman saw on English oak,

On English neck a Norman yoke ;

Norman spoon in English dish,

And England ruled as Normans wish ;

Blithe world in England never will be more,

Till England 's rid of all the four.

Old Rhyme.

GROWTH OF THE PAPAL POWER. GREGOEY VII.

From land to land

The ancient thrones of Christendom are stuff
For occupation of a magic wand,
And 't is the Pope that wields it, whetJier rough
Or smooth his front, our world is in his hand 1

WORDSWORTH.

THE temporal power of the popes began in the middle
of the eighth century, and, in the long time of disorder
from the death of Charlemagne until the middle of the
tenth century, the power of the popes increased, and their
authority in political and other temporal affairs was great.
In 962 a revival of the Western Empire came about under
the name of the " Holy Eoman Empire," the emperors of
Germany being also rulers of the West. The popes and
the emperors then became involved in protracted contests,
which led to a great increase in the power of the Church.

Suffice it to say, that in the middle of the eleventh century Europe
once more looked to Rome as the pillar and the ground of the truth ;
while Rome herself looked forth on a long chain of stately monas-
teries, rising like distant bulwarks of her power in every land which
owned her spiritual rule. SIB JAMES STEPHEN.

The emperors asserted that the election of a pope must
be ratified by them, and for a time they exercised a con-
trolling influence over the papal appointments. At this

ELEVENTH CENTURY. 257

time Hildebrand, one of the most remarkable men of the
Middle Ages, rose from the rank of a common monk to the
papal throne (1073), under the name of Gregory VII. He
wished to establish the superiority of the ecclesiastical
over the temporal power, and he succeeded in putting
down the power of the emperors.

The papacy arose from its humiliation, and soon trampled under
foot the princes of the earth. To exalt the papacy was to exalt the
Church, to aggrandize religion, to insure to the spirit the victory
over the flesh, and to God the conquest of the world. Such were its
maxims ; in these, ambition found its advantage, and fanaticism its
excuse. The whole of this new policy is personified in one man, HIL-
DEBRAND. Hildebrand, who has been by turns indiscreetly exalted or
unjustly traduced, is the personification of the Roman pontificate in
its strength and glory. He is one of those characters in history
which include in themselves a new order of things, resembling in
this respect Charlemagne, Luther, and Napoleon, in different spheres
of action. Leo IX. took notice of this monk as he was going to
Cluny, and carried him with him to Rome. From that time Hilde-
brand was the soul of the papacy, till he himself became pope. He
had governed the Church under different pontiffs, before he himself
reigned under the name of Gregory VII. One grand idea occupied
his comprehensive mind. He desired to establish a visible theocracy,
of which the Pope, as the vicar of Christ, should be the head. The
recollection of the ancient universal dominion of heathen Rome
haunted his imagination and animated his zeal. He wished to restore
to Papal Rome what Rome had lost under' the emperors. "What
Marius and Caesar," said his flatterers, " could not effect by torrents
of blood, you have accomplished by a word." D'AuBiGNE.

Scarcely had he grasped the reins of ecclesiastical government
when this carpenter's son developed such a universal genius for rul-
ing as has only since been displayed in the two greatest self-made
men of modern history, Cromwell and Bonaparte. He had the
knowledge, the ability, and the will to do everything. He became
a reformer of the Church, a statesman, and a conqueror, a dema-
gogue and a diplomatist, all with equal vigor and masterly skill.
VON SYBEL.

258 ELEVENTH CENTURY.

Gregory, though he had himself waited for the confirmation of the
emperor before he was consecrated, resolved to take away the right of
investiture claimed by the emperors, to take from the secular princes
the right which they assumed of selling or giving away the sees within
their dominions, a practice which then prevailed throughout the Chris-
tian world. He caused a .decree to be passed by a council at Rome
in 1074, anathematizing all persons guilty of simony, and requiring a
vow of celibacy before admission to holy orders. Another council in
1075 decreed the excommunication of any king who should bestow on
bishops and abbots the ring and crosier, which were the symbols of
their office. The Emperor Henry IV. of Germany defied this decree,
and, indignant at Gregory's assumption of power in this and other
matters, assembled a diet at Worms and deposed him, whereupon the
Pope in 1076 solemnly excommunicated Henry, and declared his sub-
jects free from their oath of allegiance. Henry at first prepared to
resist this bold act, but the power of the papal dominion had now
grown to be so irresistible, together with rebellion of his own sub-
jects, that he was forced to endure a most humiliating penance at the
hands of the Pope, who obliged him to stand for three days without
the castle of Canossa in the winter time, barefoot, and clad only in a
coarse woollen garment. After this humiliation he was absolved.

Black demons hovering o'er his mitred head,

To Caesar's successor the Pontiff spake:

" Ere I absolve thee, stoop ! that on thy neck

Levelled with earth this foot of mine may tread."

Then he who to the altar had been led,

He whose strong arm the Orient could not check,

He who had held the Soldan at his beck,

Stooped, of all glory disinherited,

And even the common dignity of man !

Amazement strikes the crowd; while many turn

Their eyes away in sorrow, others btirn

With scorn, invoking a vindictive ban

From outraged Nature ; but the sense of most

In abject sympathy with power is lost.

WORDSWORTH.

The humbled emperor was not finally vanquished, however, and
Gregory died in exile in 1085.

Gregory was without doubt one of the most remarkable men of
any age. Never, as far as we know, has religious enthusiasm been

ELEVENTH CENTUEY. 259

united with such far-sighted policy, or spiritual fanaticism with such
pronounced talents for government. VON SYBEL.

The papal power continued to increase, and under the
successors of Gregory received large accessions, attaining
its greatest height in the next century under Innocent III.

The papal hierarchy, in fact, constituted, in the Middle Ages, the
main bond among the various European nations, after the decline of
the Roman sway; and in this view the Catholic influence ought to be
judged, as De Maistre truly remarked, not only by the ostensible good
which it produced, but yet more by the imminent evil which it silently
obviated, and which, on that account, we can only inadequately appre-
ciate. COMTE.

We never cease to be amazed at the wonderful luck which raised Na-
poleon from the dust to the throne of the world, as if it were a romance
or a fairy story. But if in the history of kings these astonishing
changes are extraordinary accidents, they seem quite natural in the
history of the popes ; they belong to the very essence of Christendom,
which does not appeal to the person, but to the spirit ; and while the
one history is full of ordinary men, who, without the prerogative of
their crown, would have sunk into eternal oblivion, the other is rich
in great men who, placed in a different sphere, would have been
equally worthy of renown. GREGOROVIUS.

Je la vois cette Borne, ou d'augustes vieillards,
Heritiers d'un ap&tre et vainqueurs des Ce"sars,
Souverains sans armee et conquerants sans guerre,

A leur triple couronne ont asservi la terre.

BACINE.

THE NORMANS IN SICILY AND ITALY.

PERHAPS this is the place to inquire to what may be attributed the
astonishing triumphs of the Normans, as well over victorious Saracens
as over degenerate Greeks. The chroniclers may have augmented the
disproportion of numbers, but, making all due allowance for such
exaggerations, the achievements of the Normans still appear almost
miraculous, and even their enemies testify that the charge of their

2 GO ELEVENTH CENTURY.

cavalry was irresistible. It was partly the armor in which they were
encased, partly the character of their antagonists, partly local jeal-
ousies : in Calabria, the enmity of the Lombards to the Greeks; in
Sicily, the enmity of the Greeks to the Saracens. But the causes of
their uniform success are chiefly to be found in the manly and martial
exercises to which the Normans were accustomed from their earliest
years ; in the chivalrous and adventurous spirit of the age which
excited their minds ; and, above all, in that confidence in self which
makes the soldier invincible. Each individual Norman was, in effect,
a legion. KNIGHT.

CHIVALRY.

SEE, under the TWELFTH CENTURY, page 270.

THE CRUSADES.

THESE remarkable military expeditions (called Crusades
from the French croisade, from Latin crux, cross), under-
taken by Christian powers in the eleventh, twelfth, and
thirteenth centuries, for the recovery of the Holy Land
from the Mahometans, are the principal movements of
European history during the period in which they took
place.

During two centuries Europe seems to have had no object but to re-
cover, or keep possession of, the Holy Land; and through that period
vast armies continued to march thither. ROBERTSON.

The Crusades, or expeditions in order to rescue the Holy Land
out of the hands of infidels, seem to be the first event that roused
Europe from the lethargy in which it had long been sunk, and that
tended to introduce any considerable change in government or in
manners. ROBERTSON.

ELEVENTH CENTUEY. 261

The Crusades must be regarded as one great portion of the struggle
between the two great religions of the world, Christianity and Ma-
hometanism ; a struggle which began in the seventh century, on the
confines of Arabia and Syria, and embraced in quick succession all
the countries round the Mediterranean, and after thousands of years
and changes has disturbed our own century, as it did that of Gregory
VII. The history of the human race records no contest more violent
or more protracted than this. VON SYBEL.

The most durable monuments of human folly. HUME.

When the Seljuk Turks, in the latter half of the cen-
tury, took possession of Palestine, the Christians, who
had long been wont to undertake pilgrimages from all
parts of the Western world to the Holy Land, were
obliged to endure the most harsh cruelties at their hands.
Hence arose a passionate eagerness through all Western
Europe to recover Palestine from the profanation of
the Mahometans, and to check the advance of that de-
tested religion. The First Crusade (1096-1099) was set
in motion by Peter the Hermit, with the encouragement
and help of Pope Urban II. The progress of the Christian
armies led by the chivalry of Europe proved irresistible,
and Syria and Palestine were wrested from the infidels.
But the conquests thus made were preserved with extreme
difficulty, and always held by a most precarious tenure.
The Crusades, comprising eight or nine expeditions, lasted
through two centuries, the final expulsion of the Christians
from Syria occurring in 1291.

It was in these circumstances that a religious opinion suddenly
spread through Europe, that, the place where Jesus Christ was born,
and the place where he suffered, being profaned by infidels, the means
of effacing one's sins was to take arms for their expulsion. Europe
was full of men who loved war, and who had many crimes to expiate.
It was proposed that they should expiate their crimes by following
their dominant passion. The result was that immense multitudes
took the cross and sword. MONTESQUIEU.

262 ELEVENTH CENTUKY.

The turbaned race are pouring in thickening swarms
Along the West ; though driven from Aquitaine,
The Crescent glitters on the towers of Spain ;
And soft Italia feels renewed alarms ;
The scimitar, that yields not to the charms
Of ease, the narrow Bosphorus will disdain ;
Nor long (that crossed) would Grecian hills detain
Their tents, and check the current of their arms.
Then blame not those who, by the mightiest lever
Known to the moral world, imagination,
Upheave (so seems it) from her natural station
All Christendom ; they sweep along (was never
So huge a host !) to tear from the unbeliever
The precious tomb, their haven of salvation.

WORDSWORTH.

Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ
(Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight),
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;
Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb,
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.

SHAKESPEARE.

From the moment that the incursions of the Saracens threatened
Europe, the fear of their progress and the hatred of their religion
armed against them from all parts those Northmen who lived idle on
the territory of Gaul, Spain, and Italy. Frankish adventurers went
to defeat them more than once on the coasts of Calabria and Sicily ;
and when a pope, seconded by the eloquence of the monk Peter,
raised up against them entire Christian Europe, this great insurrection
was only the complement of those partial and obscure enterprises
which had so long been preparing it. THIERRY.

Peter, commonly called the Hermit, a native of Amiens, in
Picardy, had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Being deeply
affected with the dangers to which that act of piety now exposed the
pilgrims, as well as with the instances of oppression under which the
Eastern Christians labored, he entertained the bold and, to all appear-
ance, impracticable project of leading into Asia, from the furthest

ELEVENTH CENTURY. 263

extremities of the west, armies sufficient to subdue those potent and
warlike nations which now held the holy city in subjection. He
proposed his views to Martin Second, who filled the papal chair, and
who, though sensible of the advantages which the head of the Chris-
tian religion must reap from a religious war, and though he esteemed
the blind zeal of Peter a proper means for effecting the purpose,
resolved not to interpose his authority till he saw a greater proba-
bility of success. He summoned a council at Placentia, which con-
sisted of four thousand ecclesiastics and thirty thousand seculars, and
which was so numerous that no hall could contain the multitude, and
it was necessary to hold the assembly on a plain. The harangues of
the Pope, and of Peter himself, representing the dismal situation of
their brethren in the East, and the indignity suffered by the Christian
name in allowing the holy city to remain in the hands of infidels,
here found the minds of men so well prepared, that the whole multi-
tude suddenly and violently declared for the war, and solemnly
devoted themselves to perform this service, so meritorious, as they
believed it, to God and religion. HUME.

Urban and Peter ! the corpses of two millions of men lie heavy on
your graves, and will fearfully summon you on the day of judg-
ment. HELLER.

"And shall," the Pontiff asks, "profaneness flow

From Nazareth, source of Christian piety,

From Bethlehem, from the mounts of agony

And glorified ascension ? Warriors, go ;

With prayers and blessings we your path will sow ;

Like Moses, hold our hands erect, till ye

Have chased far off by righteous victory

These sons of Amalec, or laid them low ! "

" GOD WILLETH IT," the whole assembly cry;

Shout which the enraptured multitude astounded.

The council-roof and Clermont's towers reply :

"God willeth it," from hill to hill rebounded;

Sacred resolve, in countries far and nigh,

Through u Nature's hollow arch," that night resounded! *

WORDSWORTH.

l The decision of this council was believed to be instantly known in remote
parts of Europe.

264 ELEVENTH CENTURY.

Amid the throng the Hermit stood ; so wan,

Careworn, and travel-soiled; with genius high

Throned on his brow, shrined in his spiritual eye.

The Hermit spake, and through the council ran

A tremor, not of fear ; as in the van,

Chafing before embattled chivalry,

A proud steed listens for the clarion's cry,

So sprang they to their feet : and every man,

Pontiff and prince, prelate and peer, caught up

Their swords, and kissed the crosiered hilts, and swore,

As though their lips the sacramental cup

Had touched, Christ's sepulchre to free ! The shore

Of Asia heard that sound, in thunder hurled,

" Deus id vult," from Clermont through the world !

AUBREY DE VERE.

The dream of such, an enterprise had long floated before the minds
of keen-sighted popes and passionate enthusiasts : it was realized for
the first time when, after listening to the burning eloquence of
Urban II. at the council of Clermont, the assembled multitude with
one voice welcomed the sacred war as the will of God. If we regard
this undertaking as the simple expression of popular feeling stirred
to its inmost depths, we may ascribe to the struggle to which they
thus committed themselves a character wholly unlike that of any
earlier wars waged in Christendom, or by the powers of Christendom
against enemies who lay beyond its pale. G. W. Cox.

The Crusades have been represented as a sort of accident, an
unforeseen event, sprung from the recitals of pilgrims returned from
Jerusalem, and the preaching of Peter the Hermit. They were
nothing of the kind. The Crusades were the continuation, the height
of the great struggle which had subsisted for four centuries between
Christianity and Mahometanism. GUIZOT.

Long had those two sisters, those two halves of humanity, Europe
and Asia, the Christian religion and the Mussulman, lost sight of
each other, when they were brought face to face by the Crusade, and
their inquiring gaze met. That first glance was one of horror.
MICHELET.

The Crusades took their rise in Religion; their visible object was,
commercially speaking, worth nothing. It was the boundless, Invis-
ible world that was laid bare in the imaginations of those men ; and
in its burning light the visible shrunk as a scroll. Not mechanical,

ELEVENTH CENTURY. 2G5

nor produced by mechanical means, was this rast movement. No
dining at Freemasons' Tavern, with the other long train of modern
machinery ; no cunning reconciliation of " vested interests," was
required here : only the passionate voice of one man, the rapt soul
looking through the eyes of one man ; and rugged, steel-clad Europe
trembled beneath his words and followed him whither he listed.
CARLTLE.

All Europe, torn up from the foundation, seemed ready to precipi-
tate itself in one united body upon Asia. ANNA COMNENA.

An extraordinary spectacle was then presented ; the world seemed
turned itpside-down. Men suddenly conceived a disgust for all they
had before prized, and hastened to quit their proud castles, their
wives and children. There was no need of preaching ; they preached
to each other. MICHELET.

"When the time was fulfilled which Christ showed to his Apostles,
speaking daily, and especially in the Gospels, " Whosoever will
follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross," then a great
movement took place throughout France : " That whosoever wished
to follow the Lord with his whole heart, and to carry his cross after
him in faith, he should not delay quickly to begin and walk in the
way of the Lord." And straightway the Pope, with his archbishops,
bishops, priests, and abbots, crossed the Alps, and began to teach
wisely and to preach, and spake thus : " Whosoever will save his
soul alive, let him not hesitate to walk in the way of the Lord.
Whosoever lacketh money, he will, by God's grace, be plentifully
provided therewith." And when these words were bruited abroad,
the Franks who heard them sewed red crosses on their shoulders and
said they would follow with one accord the footsteps of Christ.
Gesta Franconum.

The epidemic madness spread with a rapidity inconceivable except
from the knowledge how fully the mind and heart of man were
prepared to imbibe the infection. France, including both its Frank
and Xorman population, took the lead ; Germany, of colder tempera-
ment, and distracted by its own civil contentions, the Imperialist
faction from hatred of the Pope, moved more tardily and reluc-
tantly ; in Italy it was chiefly the adventurous Normans who crowded
to the war ; in England the Normans were too much occupied in
securing their vast possessions, the Anglo-Saxon population too

266 ELEVENTH CENTURY.

much depressed, to send large numbers of soldiers. All Europe,
however, including the Northern nations, except Spain, occupied
with her own crusade in her own realm, sent their contingent either
to the wild multitudes who swarmed forth under Walter the Penni-
less, or the more regular army under Godfrey of Boulogne. The
Crusade was no national war of Italy, France, or Germany against
the Egyptian empire of the Fatimites, or the Seljukian Sultan of
Iconium ; it was a war of Christendom against Mahometanism.
No government hired tne soldiers, unless so far as the feudal chief
summoned his vassals to accompany him ; nor provided transports
and the artillery and implements of war, or organized a commissariat,
or nominated to the chief command. Each was a volunteer, and
brought his own horse, arms, accoutrements, provisions. In the first
disastrous expeditions, under Peter the Hermit and Walter the
Penniless, the leaders were designated by popular acclamation or by
bold and confident self-election. MILMAN.

Many prepared never to return ; nearly all looked forward with
beating hearts to an unknown and distant land, brilliant with all the
glory of miracles and the splendor of fairy tales. Such a state of
mind we, in our fast and far-travelling days, can hardly under-
stand ; it was much as if a large army were now to embark in
balloons, in order to conquer an island between the earth and the
moon, which was also expected to contain the heavenly Paradise.
The lower classes were frantic with excitement. The peasants and
artisans, who took no part in war and were not admitted into the
regular armies, were those upon whom the sufferings of that period
fell hardest, and they pressed with the wildest zeal to join in
the Holy Crusade. VON SYBEL.

I take God to witness that there landed in our ports barbarians
from nations I wist not of : no one understood their tongue, but,
placing their fingers in the form of a cross, they made a sign that
they desired to proceed to the defence of the Christian faith. There
were those who at first had no desire to set out, and who laughed
at those who parted with their property, foretelling them a miserable
voyage and more miserable return. The next day, these very
mockers, by some sudden impulse, gave all they had for money,
and set out with those whom they had just laughed at. Who can
name the children and aged women who prepared for war ; who

ELEVENTH CENTURY. 267

count the virgins, and old men trembling under the weight of years ?
. . . You would have smiled to see the poor shoeing their oxen
like horses, dragging their slender stock of provisions and their
little children in carts ; and these little ones, at each town or castle
they came to, asked in their simplicity, " Is not that the Jerusalem
that we are going to ? " GUIBERT.

As for the multitude of those who advanced towards the great
city, let it be enough to say that they were as the stars in the
heaven, or as the sand upon the sea-shore. They were, in the words
of Homer, as many as the leaves and flowers of spring. But for the
names of the leaders, though they are present in my memory, I will
not relate them. The numbers of these would alone deter me, even
if my language furnished the means of expressing their barbarous
sounds ; and for what purpose should I afflict my readers with a long
enumeration of the names of these whose visible presence gave so
much horror to all that beheld them ? ANNA COMNENA (1097).

In the immense crowd of Crusaders, no count, no prince, deigned
to receive orders from any one. The Christians presented the image
of a republic under arms. This republic, in which everything
appeared to be in common, recognized no other law but that of
honor, no other tie but that of religion. MICHAUD.

Feathered their thoughts, their feet in wings were dight,

Swiftly they marched, yet were not tired thereby,
For willing minds make heaviest burdens light;
But when the gliding sun was mounted high,
Jerusalem, behold, appeared in sight,

Jerusalem they view, they see, they spy;
Jerusalem with merry noise they greet,
With joyful shouts and acclamations sweet.

TASSO. Tr. Fairfax.
Salem, in ancient majesty
Arise, and lift thee to the sky !
Soon on the battlements divine
Shall wave the badge of Constantine.
Ye barons to the sun unfold
Our cross, with crimson wove and gold !

WARTON, The Crusade.

The movement was facilitated by the circumstance that Europe
began to adopt habits of order just at the time when Asia was thrown

268 ELEVENTH CENTUKY.

into a state of anarchy by the invasions of the Seljuk Turks.
FINLAY.

The first character of the Crusades is their universality; all Europe
concurred in them ; they were the first European event. Before the
Crusades, Europe had never been moved by the same sentiment, or
acted in a common cause ; till then, in fact, Europe did not. exist.
The Crusades made manifest the existence of Christian Europe. The
French formed the main body of the first army of Crusaders ; but
there were also Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and English. But look
at the Second and Third Crusades, and we find all the nations of Chris-
tendom engaged in them. The world had never before witnessed a
similar combination. But this is not all. In the same manner as the
Crusades were a European event, so, in each separate nation, they were
a national event. In every nation all classes of society were animated
with the same impression, yielded to the same idea, and abandoned
themselves to the same impulse. Kings, nobles, priests, citizens,
country people, all took the same interest and the same share in the
Crusades. The moral unity of nations was thus made manifest ; a
fact as new as the unity of Europe. . . . The Crusades were the
heroic event of modern Europe, a movement at the same time
individual and general ; national, and yet not under political direc-
tion. GUIZOT.

Nothing is more easy than to detect the worldly motives which
impelled the ruder population of the Western world to roll in eight
successive and desolating torrents towards the shores of Africa and
the East. The Crusader received a plenary indulgence, that is, the
remission of all the penances by which, as he believed, his sins must
otherwise have been expiated, either in the present life or in purga-
tory. During his absence the Church became the protector of his
wife, his children, and his estate. Whoever might injure them was
declared excommunicate, ipso facto, and without further sentence.
His debts ceased to bear interest from the day of his departure, even
though he had bound himself by an oath to the payment of them.
. . . But it would be a libel on our common nature to ascribe to such
causes alone, or chiefly, a movement which during one hundred and
fifty successive years agitated every state and almost every family in
Christendom. SIR JAMES STEPHEN.

No period of history exhibits a larger amount of cruelty, licentious-

ELEVENTH CENTURY. 269

ness, and fanaticism than the Crusades; but side by side with the
military enthusiasm and with the almost universal corruption, there
expanded a vast movement of charity, which covered Christendom
with hospitals for the relief of leprosy, and which grappled nobly,
though ineifectually, with the many forms of suffering that were
generated. LECKY.

None of the sovereigns of Europe took a part in the First Crusade;
but many of their chief vassals, great part of the inferior nobility, and
a countless multitude of the common people. The priests left their
parishes, and the monks their cells ; and though the peasantry were
then in general bound to the soil, we find no check given to their
emigration for this cause. Numbers of women and children swelled
the crowd ; it appeared a sort of sacrilege to repel any one from a
work which was considered as the manifest design of Providence.
But if it were lawful to interpret the will of Providence by events,
few undertakings have been more branded by its disapprobation than
the Crusades. So many crimes and so much misery have seldom
been accumulated in so short a space as in the three years of the first
expedition. HALLAM.

See also, regarding the end and consequences of the Cru-
sades, under the THIRTEENTH CENTURY, page 291.

THE disorders in the feudal system, together with the corruption of
taste and manners consequent upon these, which had gone on increas-
ing during a long course of years, seemed to have attained their utmost
point of excess towards the close of the eleventh century. From that
era we may date the return of government and manners in a contrary
direction, and can trace a succession of causes and events which con-
tributed, some with a nearer and more conspicuous, others with a more
remote and less perceptible influence, to abolish confusion and barbar-
ism, and to introduce order, regularity, and refinement. ROBERTSON.
About the latter part of the eleventh century a greater ardor for
intellectual pursuits began to show itself in Europe, which in the
twelfth broke out into a flame. HALLAM.

About A.D.12OO

Schoty/x-Frartrng Co, Boston

TWELFTH CENTURY.
(1100-1200.)

GERMAN EMPIRE. The power of the German Empire declines,
Germany and Italy beginning to divide into various independent
states. Sicily, however, at the end of the century is united to the
empire.

ITALIAN REPUBLICS. The cities of Northern Italy secure their
independence in the latter half of this century, and rise to great dis-
tinction. The Nornian dynasty in Sicily and Italy ceases, the power
passing into the hands of the German emperors.

The EASTERN EMPIRE loses and gains in extent of territory, but
towards the end of the century recovers much territory in Europe.

The MAHOMETAN STATES in Egypt and Asia are united under
the rule of Saladin, who forms a new Mahometan power. Saladin
takes Jerusalem in 1187.

The kingdom of FRANCE in this century is hemmed in by the two
great powers of Normandy and Aquitaine.

ENGLAND is under its Norman rulers, who also reign over Nor-
mandy and Aquitaine, holding possessions in France superior to those
of the French king.

IRELAND is conquered in 1172 by England.

DENMARK reaches its highest point of political power in this
century.

The northern part of the SPANISH PENINSULA is divided among
the five Christian powers (PORTUGAL, LEON, CASTILE, ARAGON,
NAVARRE), which are engaged in constant struggles with the Moors
occupying the southern portion.

PORTUGAL becomes a kingdom in 1139.

JERUSALEM is taken by Saladin in 1187, and nearly all Palestine
thus wrested from the Christians by the Mahometans.

SICILY. See above, under GERMAN EMPIRE.

Most of the powers of modern Europe have by this time come into
existence.

A.D. 1100- A. D. 1200.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

1130. Norman kingdom of Sicily formed.

1137. The Pandects of Roman law discov-
ered.

1139. Portugal becomes an independent,
kingdom.

1147. The Second Crusade.

1157. The first public bank founded at
Venice.

1171. The Fatimite dynasty overthrown
by Saladin.

1172. Conquest of Ireland.

1176. Battle of Legnano. The Germans

defeated by the Lombard cities.
1183. Peace of Constance. Independence

of the Lombard cities.

1186. Cape of Good Hope discovered by

Bartholomew Diaz.
1180. The Third Crusade.

1187. Saladin takes Jerusalem.

PROMINENT NAMES OF THE CENTURY.

GERMANY.
Emperors. Henry IV., Frederick Barbarossa.

FRANCE.
King. Philip II. (Augustus).

ENGLAND.
Kings. Henry II., Richard I., John.

EGYPT AND SYRIA.
Sultan. Saladin.

Abelard, William of Malmesbury, St. Bernard, Thomas Becket, Peter Lombard
(Master of Sentences), Eusta