Chapter I: Preface

There is much truth in the old saying about the difficulty of seeing the wood for the trees. It is the aim of this short book to keep the number of the trees as few as possible so that the wood, as a whole, may be clearly visible.

It is designed to provide scholars and their teachers with an outline of the most important facts in the history of mankind up to the date of the firm establishment of the Roman Empire and the final destruction of Jerusalem--a date at which the various threads of the story come together to a point. In order to avoid confusing the learner, and to enable him to get a clear view of the most important facts, all less important facts and names and dates have been omitted.

With such an outline in his mind, the scholar, coming to the study of a particular nation or period, should be able to fit that nation or period into its proper place. In the absence of any such outline, he must necessarily be at a loss to know the bearing of this or that episode on the whole great story.

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I have to record, very gratefully, my deep obligation to Mr. R. B. Lattimer for reading this book in MS., and for many valuable suggestions and emendations.

H. G. H.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. Before History was Written
II. Egypt down to 1500 B.C.
III. Egyptian Religions, Sacred Writings, Etc.
IV. Babylonia
V. The Minoans in Crete
VI. The Meeting of the Empires
VII. The Jews and Israelites
VIII. The Persians and the Greeks
IX. The Glorious Days of Greece
X. The Meeting of the Nations round Sicily
XI. Macedon
XII. Rome and Carthage
XIII. Rome at Home and in the East
XIV. Rome Mistress of the World
XV. Troubles in the East
XVI. The Dispersal of the Jews
XVII. How the Threads draw together
Index

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Great Pyramids, taken from an Aeroplane ... _Frontispiece_

A Baked Clay Tablet, inscribed with Babylonian Account of the Deluge _British Museum._

Cyperus Papyrus

Isis (with Horus) and Horus (with Symbols)

Bandaging a Mummy
_Wilkinson._

Ancient Egyptian Machine for raising Water, identical with the "Shadoof" of the Present Day _Wilkinson._

Assyrian King in his Robes

Coin of Knossos

Battering-Ram

Sennacherib in his Chariot returning from Battle
_Kouyurijik._

Greek Warrior, 7th-6th Century
_Gerhard_, 207.

Corinthian Architecture
_From Monument of Lysicrates._

Alexander the Great
_From a Bust in the British Museum._

Gallic Warriors
_From Bronzes in the British Museum._

Hannibal

Roman Legionaries

Slab from the Arch of Titus, representing the Spoils of Jerusalem borne in Triumph

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THE GREATEST STORY IN THE WORLD