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Outline of Universal History

G >> George Park Fisher >> Outline of Universal History




DARIUS (521-485 B.C.).--For a short time, a pretender, a Magian, who
called himself _Smerdis_, and professed to be the brother of
Cambyses, usurped the throne. Cambyses is said to have put an end to
his own life. After a reign of seven months, during which he kept
himself for the most part hidden from view, Smerdis was destroyed by a
rising of the leading Persian families. Darius, the son of Hystaspes,
of the royal race of the _Achaemenidae_, succeeded. He married
_Atossa_, the daughter of Cyrus. The countries which composed an
Oriental empire were so loosely held together that the death of a
despot or the change of a dynasty was very likely to call forth a
general insurrection. Darius showed his military prowess in conquering
anew various countries, including Babylon, which had revolted. He made
Arabia tributary, and spread the bounds of his vast empire as far as
India and in North Africa. A mighty expedition which he organized
against the Scythians on the Lower Danube failed of the results that
were hoped from it. The barbarians wasted their own fields, filled up
their wells, drove off their cattle, and fled as the army of Darius
advanced. He returned, however, with the bulk of his army intact,
although with a loss of prestige, and enrolled "the Scyths beyond the
sea" among the subjects of his empire. His armies conquered the tribes
of _Thrace_, so that he pushed his boundaries to the frontiers of
Macedonia. The rebellion of the Greek cities on the Asia-Minor coast
he suppressed, and harshly avenged. Of his further conflicts with the
Greeks on the mainland, more is to be said hereafter. He had built
_Persepolis_, but his principal seat of government appears to
have been _Susa_. He did a great work in organizing his imperial
system. The division into _satrapies_--large districts, each
under a _satrap_, or viceroy--was a part of this work. He thus
introduced a more efficient and methodical administration into his
empire,--an empire four times as large as the empire of Assyria, which
it had swallowed up.

GOVERNMENT.--Persia proper corresponded nearly to the modern province
of _Farsistan_ or _Fars_. The Persian Empire stretched from
east to west for a distance of about three thousand miles, and was
from five hundred to fifteen hundred miles in width. It was more than
half as large as modern Europe. It comprised not less than two
millions of square miles. Its population under Darius may have been
seventy or eighty millions. He brought in uniformity of
administration. In each satrapy, besides the satrap himself, who was a
despot within his own dominion, there was at first a commander of the
troops, and a secretary, whose business it was to make reports to the
GREAT KING. These three officers were really watchmen over one
another. It was through spies ("eyes" and "ears") of the king that he
was kept informed of what was taking place in every part of the
empire. At length it was found necessary to give the satraps the
command of the troops, which took away one important check upon their
power. There was a regular system of taxation, but to this were added
extraordinary and oppressive levies. Darius introduced a uniform
coinage. The name of the coin, "daric," is probably not derived from
his name, however. Notwithstanding the government by satraps, local
laws and usages were left, to a large extent, undisturbed. Great
roads, and postal communication for the exclusive use of the
government, connected the capital with the distant provinces. In this
point the Persians set an example which was followed by the
Romans. From _Susa_ to _Sardis_, a distance of about
seventeen hundred English miles, stretched a road, along which, at
proper intervals, were caravansaries, and over which the fleet
couriers of the king rode in six or seven days. The king was an
absolute lord and master, who disposed of the lives and property of
his subjects without restraint. To him the most servile homage was
paid. He lived mostly in seclusion in his palace. On great occasions
he sat at banquet with his nobles. His throne was made of gold,
silver, and ivory. All who approached him kissed the earth. His
ordinary dress was probably of the richest silk. He took his meals
mostly by himself. His fare was made up of the choicest
delicacies. His seraglio, guarded by eunuchs, contained a multitude of
inmates, brought together by his arbitrary command, over whom, in a
certain way, the queen-mother presided. His chief diversions were
playing at dice within doors, and hunting without. _Paradises_,
or parks, walled in, planted with trees and shrubbery, and furnished
with refreshing fountains and streams, were his hunting-ground. Such
inclosures were the delight of all Persians. In war he was attended
with various officers in close attendance on his person,--the
stool-bearer, the bow-bearer, etc. In peace, there was another set,
among whom was "the parasol-bearer,"--for to be sheltered by the
parasol was an exclusive privilege of the king,--the fan-bearer,
etc. There were certain privileged families,--six besides the royal
clan of the _Achæmenidæ_, the chiefs of all of which were his
counselors, and from whom he was bound to choose his legitimate
wives. When the monarch traveled, even on military expeditions, he was
accompanied by the whole varied apparatus of luxury which ministered
to his pleasures in the court,--costly furniture, a vast retinue of
attendants, of inmates of the harem, etc.

ARMY AND NAVY.--The arms of the footman were a sword, a spear, and a
bow. Persian bowmen were skillful. Persian cavalry, both heavy and
light, were their most effective arm. The military leaders depended on
the celerity of their horsemen and the weight of their numbers. It is
doubtful whether they employed military engines. They were not wholly
ignorant of strategy. Their troops were marshaled by nations, each in
its own costume, the commander of the whole being in the center of the
line of battle. The body-guard of the king was "the Immortals," a body
of ten thousand picked footmen, the number being always kept
intact. The enemies of the Persians, except in the case of rebels,
were not treated with inhumanity. In this regard the Persians are in
marked contrast with the Semitic ferocity of the Assyrians. Their
navies were drawn from the subject-peoples. The _trireme_, with
its projecting prow shod with iron, and its crew of two hundred men,
was the principal, but not the only vessel used in sea-fights.

LITERATURE AND ART.--A Persian youth was ordinarily taught to read,
but there was little intellectual culture. Boys were trained in
athletic exercises. It was a discipline in hardy and temperate
habits. Etiquette, in all ranks of the people, was highly
esteemed. The Persians, as a nation, were bright-minded, and not
deficient in fancy and imagination. But they contributed little to
science. Their religious ideas were an heirloom from remote
ancestors. The celebrated Persian poet, _Firdousí_, lived in the
tenth century of our era. His great poem, the _Shahnameh_, or
Book of Kings, is a storehouse of ancient traditions. It is probable
that the ancient poetry of the Persians, like this production, was of
moderate merit. Of the Persian architecture and sculpture, we derive
our knowledge from the massive ruins of _Persepolis_, which was
burned by Alexander the Great, and from the remains of other
cities. They had learned from Assyria and Babylon, but they display no
high degree of artistic talent. They were not an intellectual people:
they were soldiers and rulers.

LITERATURE--Works mentioned on pp 16, 42; _Encycl. Brit.,_
Art. Persia; Vaux, Persia from the Monuments (1876); Nöldeke,
_Aufsdtze zur persischen Geschichte_ (1887); Justi,
_Geschichte trans_ (1900); Markham, _General Sketch of the
History of Persia_ (1874).


RETROSPECT.

In Eastern Asia the _Chinese nation_ was built up, the principal
achievement of the Mongolian race. Its influence was restricted to
neighboring peoples of kindred blood. Its civilization, having once
attained to a certain stage of progress, remained for the most part
stationary. China, in its isolation, exerted no power upon the general
course of history. Not until a late age, when the civilization of the
Caucasian race should be developed, was the culture of China to
produce, in the mingling of the European and Asiatic peoples, its full
fruits, even for China herself. _India_--although the home of a
Caucasian immigrant people, a people of the Aryan family too--was cut
off by special causes from playing an effective part, either actively
or passively, in the general historic movement.

_Egypt_, from 1500 to 1300 B.C., was the leading community of the
ancient world. But civilization in Egypt, at an early date,
crystallized in an unchanging form. The aim was to preserve unaltered
what the past had brought out. The bandaged mummy, the result of the
effort to preserve even the material body of man for all future time,
is a type of the leaden conservatism which pervaded Egyptian life. The
pre-eminence of Egypt was lost by the rise of the Semitic states to
increasing power. _Semitic_ arms and culture were in the
ascendant for six centuries (1300 to 700 B.C.). _Babylonia_
shares with Egypt the distinction of being one of the two chief
fountains of culture. From Babylonia, astronomy, writing, and other
useful arts were disseminated among the other Semitic peoples. It was
a strong state even before 2000 B.C. Babylon was a hive of industry,
and was active in trade, a link of intercourse between the East and
the West. But this function of an intermediate was discharged still
more effectively by the _Phoenicians_, the first great commercial
and naval power of antiquity. _Tyre_ reached the acme of its
prosperity under _Hiram_, the contemporary of _Solomon_,
about 1000 B.C. Meantime, among the Hebrew people, the foundations of
the true religion had been laid,--that religion of monotheism which in
future ages was to leaven the nations. Contemporaneously, the
_Assyrian Monarchy_ was rising to importance on the banks of the
Tigris. The appearance, "in the first half of the ninth century B.C.,
of a power advancing from the heart of Asia towards the West, is an
event of immeasurable importance in the history of the world." The
_Israelites_ were divided. About the middle of the eighth century
B.C., both of their kingdoms lost their independence. Assyria was
vigorous in war, but had no deep foundation of national life. "Its
religion was not rooted in the soil, like that of Egypt, nor based on
the observation of the sky and stars, like that of Babylon." "Its gods
were gods of war, manifesting themselves in the prowess of ruling
princes." The main instrument in effecting the downfall of Assyria was
the _Medo-Persian_ power. Through the _Medes_ and
_Persians_, the Aryan race comes forward into conspicuity and
control. One branch of the Iranians of Bactria, entering _India_,
through the agency of climate and other physical influences converted
their religion into a mystical and speculative pantheism, and their
social organization into a caste-system under the rule of a
priesthood. The Medes and Persians, under other circumstances, in
contact with tribes about them, turned their religion into a dualism,
yet with a monotheistic drift that was not wholly extinguished. The
conquest of Babylon by _Cyrus_ annihilated Semitic power. The
fall of _Lydia_, the conquest of _Egypt_ by _Cambyses_,
and the victories of _Darius_, brought the world into subjection
to Persian rule.

The dates of some of the most important historical events in this
Section are as follow
Menes, the first historic king of Egypt....... about 4000 B.C.
Accession of Ramses II. to the Egyptian throne...... 1340 B.C.
Rise of the Babylonian kingdom................ about 4000 B.C.
Reign of Hiram at Tyre, and of Solomon........ about 950 B.C.
Assyrian captivity: downfall of Israel............... 722 B.C.
Fall of Nineveh...................................... 606 B.C.
Babylonian captivity: downfall of Judah.............. 586 B.C.
Reign of Cyrus begins................................ 559 B.C.
Fall of Lydia: capture of Sardis..................... 546 B.C.
Fall of Babylon...................................... 538 B.C.
Reign of Darius begins............................... 521 B.C.

BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION.--In the history of _Western Asia_ we
discern the beginnings of civilization and of the true religion. In
the room of useless and destructive tribal warfare, great numbers are
banded together under despotic rule. CITIES were built, where property
and life could be protected, and within whose massive walls of vast
circumference the useful arts and the rudiments of science could
spring up. Trade and commerce, by land and sea, naturally
followed. Thus nations came to know one another. Aggressive war and
subjugation had a part in the same result. The power of the peoples of
western Asia, the guardians of infant civilization, availed to keep
back the hordes of barbarians on the north, or, as in the case of the
great Scythian invasion (p. 47), to drive them back to their own
abodes.

DEFECTS OF ASIATIC CIVILIZATION.--But the civilization of the Asiatic
empires had radical and fatal defects. The development of human nature
was in some one direction, to the exclusion of other forms of human
activity. As to knowledge, it was confined within a limit beyond which
progress was slow. The _geometry_ of Egypt and the
_astronomy_ of Babylon remained where the necessity of the
pyramid-builders and the superstition of the astrologers had carried
them. Even the art of war was in a rudimental stage. In battle, huge
multitudes were precipitated upon one another. There are some
evidences of strategy, when we reach the campaigns of Cyrus. But war
was full of barbarities,--the destruction of cities, the expatriation
of masses of people, the pitiless treatment of
captives. _Architecture_ exhibits magnitude without
elegance. Temples, palaces, and tombs are monuments of labor rather
than creations of art. They impress oftener by their size than by
their beauty. _Statuary_ is inert and massive, and appears
inseparable from the buildings to which it is
attached. _Literature_, with the exception of the Hebrew, is
hardly less monotonous than art. The religion of the Semitic nations,
the _Hebrews_ excepted, so far from containing in it a purifying
element, tended to degrade its votaries by feeding the flame of
sensual and revengeful passion. What but debasement could come from
the worship of Astarte and the Phoenician El?

The great empires did not assimilate the nations which they
comprised. They were bound, but not in the least fused, together.
Persia went farther than any other empire in creating a uniform
administration, but even the Persian Empire remained a conglomerate of
distinct peoples.

ORIENTAL GOVERNMENT.--The government of the Oriental nations was a
despotism. It was not a government of laws, but the will of the one
master was omnipotent. The counterpart of tyranny in the ruler was
cringing, abject servility in the subject. Humanity could not thrive,
man could not grow to his full stature, under such a system. It was on
the soil of Europe and among the Greeks that a better type of manhood
and a true idea of liberty were to spring up.




DIVISION II. EUROPE.


PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.--The Alps, continued on the west by the Pyrenees
and the Cantabrian mountains, and carried eastward to the Black Sea by
the Balkan range, form an irregular line, that separates the three
peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and Greece from the great plain of central
Europe. On the north of this plain, there is a corresponding system of
peninsulas and islands, where the Baltic answers in a measure to the
Mediterranean. This midland sea, which at once unites and separates
the three continents, is connected with the Atlantic by the narrow
Strait of Gibraltar, and on the east is continued in the Aegean Sea,
or the Archipelago, which leads into the Hellespont, or the Strait of
the Dardanelles, thence onward into the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora,
and through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoff
beyond. From the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean the Mediterranean is
parted by a space which is now traversed by a canal. The irregularity
of the coast-line is one of the characteristic features of the
European continent. Especially are the northern shores of the
Mediterranean indented by arms of the sea; and this, along with the
numerous islands, marks out the whole region as remarkably adapted to
maritime life and commercial intercourse.

ITS INHABITANTS.--Europe was early inhabited by branches of the
_Aryan_ race. The cradle or primitive seat of the Aryan family
--from which its two main divisions, the European and the Asiatic,
went forth--is not known. It is a matter of theory and debate. We find
the _Graeco-Latin_ peoples on the south, the more central nations
of _Celtic_ speech, the more northern _Teutons_, and in the
north-east the _Slavonians_. But how all these Aryan branches are
mutually related, and of the order and path of their prehistoric
migrations, little is definitely known. The _Celts_ were
evidently preceded by _non-Aryan_ inhabitants, of whom the
_Basques_ in Spain and France are a relic. The
_Celtiberians_ in Spain, as the name implies, were a mixture of
the _Celts_ with the native non-Aryan _Iberians_. The
_Greeks_ and the _Italians_ had a common ancestry, as we
know by their languages; but of that common ancestry neither Greeks
nor Latins in the historic period retained any recollection; nor can
we safely affirm, that, of that earlier stock, they alone were the
offspring.

"All the known Indo-European languages," writes Professor Whitney,
"are descended from a single dialect, which must have been spoken at
some time in the past by a single limited community, by the spread
and emigration of which--not, certainly, without incorporating also
bodies of other races than that to which itself belonged by
origin--it has reached its present wide distribution." "Of course,
it would be a matter of the highest interest to determine the place
and period of this important community, were there any means of
doing so; but that is not the case, at least at present." "The
condition of these languages is reconcilable with any possible
theory as to the original site of the family." "One point is
established, that 'the separation of the five European branches must
have been later than their common separation from the two Asiatic
branches,' the Iranians and Indians." (Whitney's _The Life and
Growth of Language_, pp. 191, 193.)




SECTION I. GRECIAN HISTORY.


THE LAND.--"Greeks" is not a name which the people who bore it applied
to themselves. It was a name given them by their kinsfolk, the
Romans. They called themselves _Hellenes_, and their land they
called _Hellas_. Hellas, or Greece proper, included the southern
portion of the peninsula of which it is a part, the portion bounded on
the north by Olympus and the Cambunian Mountains, and extending south
to the Mediterranean. Its shores were washed on the east by the
Aegean, on the west by the Adriatic, or Ionian Gulf. The length of
Hellas was about two hundred and fifty English miles: its greatest
width, measured on the northern frontier, or from Attica on a line
westward, was about a hundred and eighty miles. It is somewhat smaller
than Portugal.

Along its coast are many deep bays. Long and narrow promontories run
out into the sea. Thus a great length is given to the sea-coast, which
abounds in commodious harbors. The tideless waters are safe for
navigators. Scattered within easy distance of the shore are numerous
islands of great fertility and beauty. So high and rugged are the
mountains that communication between different places is commonly
easier by water than by land. A branch of the Alps at the forty-second
parallel of latitude turns to the south-east, and descends to
_Toenarum_, the southern promontory. On either side, lateral
branches are sent off, at short intervals, to the east and the
west. From these in turn, branches, especially on the east, are thrown
out in the same direction as the main ridge; that is, from north to
south. Little room is left for plains of much extent. _Thessaly_,
with its single river, the _Peneus_, was such a plain. There were
no navigable rivers. Most of the streams were nothing more than
winter-torrents, whose beds were nearly or quite dry in the
summer. They often groped their way to the sea through underground
channels, either beneath lakes or in passages which the streams
themselves bored through limestone. The physical features of the
country fitted it for the development of small states, distinct from
one another, yet, owing especially to the relations of the land to the
sea, full of life and movement.

THE GRECIAN STATES.--The territory of Greece included (1) Northern
Greece, comprising all north of the Malian (Zeitoum) and Ambracian
(Arta) gulfs; (2) Central Greece, extending thence to the Gulf of
Corinth; (3) the peninsula of Peloponnesus (Morea) to the south of the
isthmus. The country was occupied, in the flourishing days of Greece,
by not less than seventeen states.

_Northern Greece_ contained two principal countries,
_Thessaly_ and _Epirus_, separated from one another by the
_Pindus_. Thessaly was the largest and most fertile of the
Grecian states. The _Peneus_, into which poured the mountain
streams, passed to the sea through a narrow gorge, the famous _Vale
of Tempe_. In the mountainous region of _Epirus_ were numerous
streams flowing through the valleys. Within it was the ancient
_Dodona_, the seat of the oracle. _Magnesia_, east of
Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of
_Ossa_ and _Pelion_. _Central Greece_ contained eleven
states. _Malis_ had on its eastern edge the pass of
_Thermopylae_. In _Phocis_, on the southern slope of Mount
Parnassus, was _Delphi_. _Boeotia_ was distinguished for the
number and size of its cities, the chief of which was _Thebes_.
_Attica_ projected from Boeotia to the south-east, its length
being seventy miles, and its greatest width thirty miles. Its area was
only about seven hundred and twenty square miles. It was thus only a
little more than half as large as the State of Rhode Island, which has
an area of thirteen hundred and six square miles. Its only important
town was _Athens_. Its rivers, the _Ilissus_ and the two
_Cephissusses_, were nothing more than torrent courses. In
_Southern Greece_ were eleven countries. The territory of
_Corinth_ embraced most of the isthmus, and a large tract in
Peloponnesus. It had but one considerable city, _Corinth_, which
had two ports,--one on the Corinthian Gulf, _Lechoeum_, and the
other on the Saronic Gulf, _Cenchreae_. _Arcadia_, the
central mountain country, has been called the Switzerland of
Peloponnesus. It comprised numerous important towns, as
_Mantinea_, _Orchomenus_, and, in later times,
_Megalopolis_. In the south-east was _Laconia_, with an area
of about nineteen hundred square miles. It consisted mainly of the
valley of the _Eurotas_, which lay between the lofty mountain
ranges of _Parnon_ and _Taygetus_. "Hollow Lacedaemon" was a
phrase descriptive of its situation. _Sparta_, the capital, was
on the _Eurotas_, twenty miles from the sea. It had no other
important city. _Argolis_, projecting into the sea, eastward of
Arcadia, had within it the ancient towns of _Mycenae_ and
_Argos_.

THE ISLANDS.--It must be remembered that the waters between Europe and
Asia were not a separating barrier, but a close bond of
connection. There is scarcely a single point "where, in clear weather,
a mariner would feel himself left in a solitude between sky and water;
the eye reaches from island to island, and easy voyages of a day lead
from bay to bay." Greek towns, including very ancient places, were
scattered along the western coast of Asia Minor, between the mountains
and the shore. The Aegean was studded with Greek islands. These,
together with the islands in the Ionian Sea, on the west, formed a
part of Greek territory.

The principal island near Greece was _Euboea_, stretching for a
hundred miles along the east coast of Attica, Boeotia, and Locris. On
the opposite side of the peninsula, west of Epirus, was the smaller
but yet large island of _Corcyra_ (Corfu). On the west, besides,
were _Ithaca_, _Cephallenia_, and _Zacynthus_ (Zante);
on the south, the _Oenussae_ Islands and _Cythera_; on the
east, _Aegina_, _Salamis_, etc. From the south-eastern
shores of Euboea and Attica, the _Cyclades_ and _Sporades_
extended in a continuous series, "like a set of stepping-stones,"
across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor. From Corcyra and the
Acroceraunian promontory, one could descry, in clear weather, the
Italian coast. These were all littoral islands. Besides these, there
were other islands in the northern and central Aegean, such as
_Lemnos_, _Samothrace_, _Delos_, _Naxos_, etc.;
and in the southern Aegean, _Crete_, an island mountainous but
fertile, a hundred and fifty miles in length from east to west, and
about fifteen in breadth, and containing more than two thousand square
miles. The Greek race was still more widely diffused through the
settlements in and about the western Mediterranean.

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