Chapter LXXXVI: Book IX: The Next Stage in History (6)

[102] My friend Colonel Lawrence tells me that the movement among the Arabs is somewhat as follows: (1) the sessile village cultivators are pushed out by over-population into the desert--very reluctantly; (2) they wander in the desert for a thousand years or so--as a stick pushed into the water gets carried about for a long way; (3) they are pushed again out of the desert, back again into sessile life by starvation--very reluctantly (they have learned to love the desert); and when they come back into sessile life they are on the other side--_i.e._ having started in west Arabia, they land in Mesopotamia. Thus they wander a thousand years or so, and end up thousands of miles from where they started.--E. B.

[103] Sir H. H. Johnston is inclined to believe that a common late Neolithic and early bronze culture spread widely in this primitive world. He links the Dravidian languages of India--some of which group are to be found in Beluchistan and the eastern fringe of Persia--with certain languages in the Caucasian Mountains, and these again with Basque. He would bring the Sumerians, the early Cretans, and the early peoples of Asia Minor into this early “brown” or dark white culture before the Aryans, Semites, or Hamites developed their language cultures and thrust across this band of primordial civilization. He connects these “class and prefix” languages with the creation of the African Bantu, but that is a speculation beyond the scope of this present work. A series of articles on this subject by the Rev. W. Crabtree will be found in the _Journal of the African Society_. The connection of Sumerian and Bantu was first suggested by Sir Richard Burton in 1885. These views are in complete accordance with Elliot Smith’s suggestion of a widespread heliolithic culture already dealt with in chap. xiii, § 4, p. 146

[104] Excavations conducted at Eridu by Capt. R. Campbell Thompson during the recent war have revealed an early Neolithic agricultural stage, before the invention of writing or the use of bronze, beneath the earliest Sumerian foundations. The crops were cut by sickles of earthenware. Capt. Thompson thinks that these pre-Sumerian people were not of Sumerian race, but proto-Elamites. Entirely similar Neolithic remains have been found at Susa, once the chief city of Elam.

[105] Sayce, in _Babylonian and Assyrian Life_, estimates that in 6500 B.C. Eridu was on the seacoast.

[106] Authorities vary upon this date. Some put back Sargon I to 3750 B.C. This latter was his traditional date based on Babylonian records.

[107] Of unknown language and race, “neither Sumerians nor Semites,” says Sayce. Their central city was Susa. Their archæology is still largely an unworked mine. They are believed by some, says Sir H. H. Johnston, to have been negroid in type. There is a strong negroid strain in the modern people of Elam.

[108] For most of these dates here Winckler in _Helmolt’s World History_ has been followed.

[109] II. Kings xv. 29, and xvi. 7 _et seq._

[110] II. Kings xvii. 3.

[111] To be murdered by his sons.

[112] Winckler (Craig), _History of Babylonia and Assyria_.

[113] “The original home or centre of development of this ‘Dynastic’ Egyptian type seems to have been in southern or south-western Arabia. This region of south-western and southern Arabia, ten to fifteen thousand years ago, was probably an even better favoured province than it is at the present day, when it still bears the Roman designation of Arabia Felix--so much of the rest of this gaunt, lava-covered, sand-strewn peninsula being decidedly ‘infelix.’ It has high mountains--a certain degree of rainfall on them, and was anciently clothed in rich forests before the camels, goats, and sheep of Neolithic and Bronze Age man nibbled away much of this verdure. Above all there grew trees oozing with delicious-scented resins or gums. These, when civilization dawned on the world, became very precious and an offering of sweet savour to the civilized man’s gods, because so grateful to his own nostrils.” _Africa_, by Sir H. H. Johnston.

[114] 3733 B.C., Wallis Budge.

[115] But compare the citation of _Beowulf_ in Chap. XV, § 2.--R. L. C.

[116] The great pyramid is 450 feet high and its side 700 feet long. It is calculated (says Wallis Budge) to weigh 4,883,000 tons. All this stone was lugged into place chiefly by human muscle.

[117] There are variants to these names, and to most Egyptian names, for few self-respecting Egyptologists will tolerate the spelling of their colleagues. One may find, for instance, Thethmosis, Thoutmosis, Tahutmes, Thutmose, or Thethmosis; Amunothph, Amenhotep or Amenothes. A pleasing variation is to break up the name, as, for instance, Amen Hetep. This particular little constellation of variants is given here not only because it is amusing, but because it is desirable that the reader should know such variations exist. For most names the rule of this book has been to follow whatever usage has established itself in English literature, regardless of the possible contemporary pronunciation. Amenophis, for example, has been so written in English books for two centuries. It came into the language by indirect routes, but it is now as fairly established as is Damascus as the English name of a Syrian town. Nevertheless, there are limits to this classicism. The writer, after some vacillation, has abandoned Oliver Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson in the case of “Peisistratus” and “Keltic,” which were formerly spelt “Pisistratus” and “Celtic.”

[118] _China and the League of Nations_, a pamphlet by Mr. Liang-Chi-Chao. (_Pekin Leader_ Office.)

[119] Here we touch on highly controversial matters. The reader interested in the question of the separate origin of the American civilization should consult _Nature_, Jan. 27, 1916, Spinden and Elliot Smith in discussion.

[120] F. Ratzel, _History of Mankind_.

[121] Sayce.

[122] Mosso, _The Dawn of Mediterranean Civilization_.--R. L. G.

[123] Cecil Torr, _Ancient Ships_.

[124] See Evans’ _Prehistoric Tombs of Cnossos_.

[125] This is, I think, too dogmatic about Helen. True, raids on women were a real cause of war, but they were also a very favourite _ficelle_ of fiction. A war with Troy might easily arise by the carrying off of a woman. But why was Troy destroyed six several times? It looks to me as if there was some strong motive for building just there, and an equally strong motive for great confederacies destroying the city when built.--G. M.

Walter Leaf in his _Homer and History_ is in agreement with G. M. on this point.--G. Wh.

[126] There were no domesticated camels in Africa until after the Persian conquest of Egypt. This must have greatly restricted the desert routes. (See Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography_, note to Chap. VIII.) But the Sahara desert of 3000 or 2000 years ago was less parched and sterile than it is to-day. From rock engravings we may deduce the theory that the desert was crossed from oasis to oasis by riding oxen and by ox-carts: perhaps, also, on horses and asses. The camel as a beast of transport was seemingly not introduced into North Africa till the Arab invasions of the seventh century A.D. The fossil remains of camels are found in Algeria, and wild camels may have lingered in the wastes of the Sahara and Somaliland till the domesticated camel was introduced. The Nubian wild ass also seems to have extended its range to the Sahara.--H. H. J.

[127] There was Sumerian trade organized round the temples before the Semites got into Babylonia. See Hall and King, _Archæological Discoveries in Western Asia_.--E. B.

[128] Iron bars of fixed weight were used for coin in Britain. Cæsar, _De Bello Gallico_.--G. Wh.

[129] The earliest coinage of the west coast of Asia Minor was in electrum, a mixture of gold and silver, and there is an interesting controversy as to whether the first issues were stamped by cities, temples, or private bankers.--P. G.

[130] Small change was in existence before the time of Alexander. The Athenians had a range of exceedingly small silver coins running almost down to the size of a pinhead, which were generally carried in the mouth; a character in Aristophanes was suddenly assaulted, and swallowed his change in consequence.--P. G.

[131] There is an inn-keeper in Aristophanes, but it may be inferred from the circumstance that she is represented as letting lodgings in hell that the early inn left much to be desired.--P. G.

[132] See the _Encyclopædia Brit._, Article _China_, p. 218.

[133] The writer’s friend, Mr. L. Y. Chen, thinks that this is only partially true. He thinks that the emperors insisted upon a minute and rigorous study of the set classics in order to check intellectual innovation. This was especially the case with the Ming emperors, the first of whom, when reorganizing the examination system on a narrower basis, said definitely, “This will bring all the intellectuals of the world into my trap.” The Five Classics and the Four Books have imprisoned the mind of China.

[134] The Libyan alphabet survived in North Africa until a century ago, and was still used then for correspondence. It was supposed to be extinct, but in 1897 Sir Arthur Evans and Mr. J. L. Myres saw what looked like ancient Cretan lettering on some dyed skins from the Sahara in the bazaar at Tripoli. It was the ancient alphabet still in use for commercial signs.--E. B.

[135] The Sumerians allowed much more freedom and authority to women than the Semites. They had priestess-queens, and one of their great divinities was a goddess, Ishtar.

[136] See Johnson’s _Byeways of British Archæology_.

[137] Many Christian churches, almost all, indeed, built between the fifth century and the Renaissance, are oriented to the east. St. Peter’s at Rome is oriented east and west.

[138] In his _Dawn of Astronomy_.

[139] Legrain’s _Le Temps des Rois d’Ur_ (Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes) was useful here.

[140] Cp. Moses and the Egyptian Magicians.

[141] According to Winckler, Sargon II, unlike his son, was pro-priest, and his usurpation of the throne was the result of an intrigue of the Babylonian priests against the feudal Assyrian military system of Tiglath Pileser III.

[142] See the last two verses of the Second Book of Chronicles, and Ezra, ch. i.

[143] A book of the utmost interest and value here is Breasted’s _Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_.

[144] See S. Sharpe’s _Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity_.

[145] Akhnaton lost some or all his father’s Syrian conquests.--G. W. B.

[146] Many authorities regard Alexander as a man with the ideas of a pushful nineteenth-century (A.D.) monarch, and consider this visit to Jupiter Ammon as a master-stroke of policy. He was, we are asked to believe, deliberately and cynically acquiring divinity as a “unifying idea.” The writer is totally unable to accept anything of the sort. For a discussion of the question, see Ferguson’s _Greek Imperialism_.

[147] “His reforming zeal made him unpopular with the upper classes. Schoolmen and pedants held up to the admiration of the people the heroes of the feudal times and the advantages of the system they administered. Seeing in this propaganda danger to the state, Shi Hwang-ti determined to break once and for all with the past. To this end he ordered the destruction of all books having reference to the past history of the empire, and many scholars were put to death for failing in obedience to it.”--The late Sir R. K. Douglas in the _Encyclopædia Brit._, article _China_.

Mr. L. Y. Chen does not agree with Sir R. K. Douglas here. He thinks that the motives of Shi Hwang-ti were obscurantist. His object was the intellectual slavery of the people. He collected a library for his own use.

[148] There were literary expressions of social discontent in Egypt before 2000 B.C. See “Social Forces and Religion” in Breasted’s _Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_ for some of the earliest complaints of the common man under the ancient civilizations.

[149] The student should compare with this J. J. Atkinson’s account (in his _Primal Law_) of the significance of marriage by capture and his theory of the origin of marriage.

[150] See also his shorter _Social Life of the Babylonians and Assyrians_.

[151] See Mary Austin, _The Flock_.

[152] J. L. M. says this is the view of a Londoner. In a village or small town where everyone knows everyone, long credits are possible with barter. In Asia Minor there is much reckoning with quite imaginary money of account.

[153] From _casta_, a word of Portuguese origin; the Indian word is _varna_, colour.

[154] In the time of Confucius classes were much more fixed than later. Under the Han Dynasty the competitive examination system was not yet established. Scholars were recommended for appointments by local dignitaries, etc.--L. Y. C.

[155] The Grand Canal of China, the longer portion of which was made in the sixth century A.D., has a total length of nearly 900 miles. It was begun in the fifth century B.C. “Between Su-chow and Chin-kiang the canal is often 100 feet wide and its sides are, in many places, faced with stone. It is spanned by fine stone bridges, and near its banks are many memorial arches and lofty pagodas.” The Great Wall of China, which was begun in the third century B.C., was built originally to defend China against the Huns. It is about 1500 miles long; its average height is between 20 and 30 feet, and every 200 yards there are towers 40 feet high.

[156] Damascus was already making Damask, and “Damascening” steel.

[157] _The Encyclopædia Biblica_ has been of great use here.

[158] This is probably much too early an estimate. The Book of Daniel was not written until 167-5 B.C. Ecclesiastes and several Psalms are later than Alexander.--G. W. B.

[159] See also G. B. Gray, _A Critical Introduction to the Old Testament_.

[160] This may seem to contradict Genesis xx. 15, and xxi. and xxvi. various verses, but compare with this the _Encyclopædia Biblica_ article _Philistines_.

[161] So this name should be spelt in English. It is now the fashion among the learned and among the sceptical to spell it Yahwe or Jahveh or Jahve, or in some such fashion. There is a justification for this in the fact that at first only the consonants were written in Hebrew, and then, for reasons into which we will not enter here, the wrong vowels were inserted in this name. But ever since the days of Tyndale’s Bible, Jehovah has been established in English literature as the name of the God of Israel, and it is not to be lightly altered. There is at present a deplorable tendency to strange spelling among historians. Attention has already been called to the confusion that is being accumulated in people’s minds by the variable spelling of Egyptologists, but the tendency is now almost universal among historical writers. In an otherwise admirable little book, _The Opening-up of Africa_, by Sir H. H. Johnston, for example, one finds him spelling Saul as Sha’ul and Solomon as Shelomoh; Jerusalem becomes Yerusalim and the Hebrews, Habiru or Ibrim. Historians do not realize how the mind of the general reader is distressed and discouraged by these constantly fluctuating attempts to achieve phonetic exactitude. This treatment of old forms has much the same effect as the dazzle-painting of ships that went on during the submarine warfare. It is dazzle-spelling. The ordinary educated man is so confused that he fails altogether to recognize even his oldest friends under their modern disguises. He loses his way in the story hopelessly. The old events occur to novel names in unfamiliar places. He conceives a disgust for history in which no record seems to tally with any other record. Still more maddening and confusing is the variable spelling of Chinese names. A large part of the popular indifference to Chinese history may be due to the impossibility of holding on to the thread of a story in which one narrator talks of T’sin and another of Sin, and both forms mix themselves with Chin and T’chin. A boldly Europeanized name, such as Confucius, is far more readily grasped. Modern writers in their zeal for phonetics seem to have lost their sense of proportion. It is of far more importance not merely to civilization, but to the welfare, respect, and endowment of historians, that the general community should form clear and sound ideas of historical processes, than that it should pronounce the name Jehovah exactly as this or that learned gentleman believes it was pronounced by the Hebrews of the days of Ezra. A day may come in the future for one final, conclusive reform in the spelling of historical names. Meanwhile, it will probably save school teachers of history from endless confusion and muddle if they adhere firmly to the time-established spelling. Yet we have attempted no pedantic classicalism. The reader will find Peisistratus for Goldsmith’s Pisistratus, the Arabic spelling of Muhammad, Kelt for Celt, and Habsburg taking the place of the older Hapsburg.

[162] Figures certainly exaggerated.--G. M.

[163] That is, where is the glory?

[164] But upon the question whether its “Centralization” was the work of Solomon or a much later idea, cp. S. R. Driver, _Deuteronomy_ (Int. Crit. Commentary).--G. W. B.

[165] Estimates of the cubit vary. The greatest is 44 inches. This would extend the width to seventy-odd feet.

[166] But one version of the Creation story and the Eden story, though originally from Babylon, seem to have been known to the Hebrews before the Exile.--G. W. B.

[167] For early Egyptian anticipations of the idea of a Messiah and of the prophetic style, see Breasted’s _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt_. A very good book on the Hebrew prophets is W. A. C. Allen’s _Old Testament Prophets_.

[168] Fletcher H. Swift’s _Education in Ancient Israel from Earliest Times to A.D. 70_ is an interesting account of the way in which the Jewish religion, because it was a literature-sustained religion, led to the first efforts to provide elementary education for all the children in the community.

[169] Ridgeway’s _Early History of Greece_ has been used here, and Gilbert Murray’s _Rise of the Greek Epic_.

[170] Roger Pocock’s _Horses_ is a good and readable book on these questions.

[171] This is a little misleading. I may quote from C. D. Buch, _Introduction to the Study of Greek Dialects_ (_a_) “The great majority of the dialects play no rôle whatever in literature” (p. 14); (_b_) “In the course of literary development the dialects” (in a mixed and artificial form, _e.g._ the “epic” dialect) “came to be characteristic of certain classes of literature; and their rôle once established, the choice usually depended upon this factor, rather than upon the native dialect of the author.” (p. 12.) Speaking generally, each class of literature preserved the dialect of the region where it was first cultivated.

The following work is a most illuminating one on this subject: A. Meillet, _Aperçu d’une Histoire de la Langue Grecque_ (Paris, 1913).--H. L. J.

[172] Vowels were less necessary for the expression of a Semitic language. In the early Semitic alphabets only A, I, and U were provided with symbols, but for such a language as Greek, in which many of the inflectional endings are vowels, a variety of vowel signs was indispensable.

[173] See Zimmern’s _Greek Commonwealth_, Bury’s _History of Greece_, and Barker’s _Greek Political Theory_.

[174] “For them the state did not exist.” This needs qualification. Cephalus, at whose house the conversation of Plato’s _Republic_ is placed, was a resident alien. He was a wealthy man in the best society, and taken as a type of the “happy man.” His son, Lysias, was a leading orator. Even in the matter of the slaves: the Old Oligarch, in the “Constitution of Athens,” complains that the Athenian slaves had no distinctive dress or manners, and so a gentleman could not even push one of them! In the _Republic_ itself there is a description of the Democratic State, in which the slaves push you off the pavement. Moreover, even during the Peloponnesian War, there was no persecution of aliens and no expulsion of aliens from Athens. They were evidently a loyal and contented class. True, in time of food shortage, the claims of everybody to true citizenship were scrutinized more and more closely; but that was unavoidable.--G. M.

[175] I do not agree with “hereditary barristers” or “fee-hunting.” The Athenian dicasts were not barristers, but judges: they sat in panels (sometimes a panel of some hundreds) and judged. They had to be paid for attendance as judges (don’t we pay jurymen?) because it took them away from their work as potters, dyers, and stone-masons. Pay was a genuine and good democratic institution; it was just what made possible the ordinary citizen’s co-operation in the life of the state, and stopped its business from being the perquisite of the rich. I feel strongly that the text is unjust to Athens.--E. B.

See Zimmern’s _Greek Commonwealth_, and Barker’s _Greek Political Theory_, pp. 29-30.

[176] From ostrakon, a tile; the voter wrote the name on a tile or shell.

[177] 776 B.C. is the year of the First Olympiad, a valuable starting-point in Greek chronology.

[178] It is, at least, doubtful whether any change of climate expelled either lion or elephant from southeast Europe and Asia Minor; the cause of their gradual disappearance was--I think--nothing but Man, increasingly well armed for the chase. Lions lingered in the Balkan peninsula till about the fourth century B.C., if not later. Elephants had perhaps disappeared from western Asia by the eighth century B.C. The lion (much bigger than the existing form) stayed on in southern Germany till the Neolithic period. The panther inhabited Greece, southern Italy, and southern Spain likewise till the beginning of the historical period (say 1000 B.C.).--H. H. J.

[179] But a thousand years earlier the Hittites seem to have had paved high roads running across their country.

[180] But cp. Bury’s _History of Greece_, ch. vi., § 5.

[181] Winckler, in Helmolt’s _Universal History_.

[182] See in relation to this chapter, Zimmern’s _Greek Commonwealth_. A very handy book for the student in this section is Abbott’s _Skeleton Outline of Greek History_.

[183] _Ancient Greek Literature_, by Gilbert Murray (Heinemann, 1911).

[184] _Plutarch._

[185] For an account of his views, see Burnet’s _Early Greek Philosophy_. Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_ is also a good book for this section.

[186] “But it was not only against the lives, properties, and liberties of Athenian citizens that the Thirty made war. They were not less solicitous to extinguish the intellectual force and education of the city, a project so perfectly in harmony both with the sentiment and practice of Sparta, that they counted on the support of their foreign allies. Among the ordinances which they promulgated was one, expressly forbidding any one ‘to teach the art of words.’ The edict of the Thirty was, in fact, a general suppression of the higher class of teachers or professors, above the rank of the elementary (teacher of letters or) grammatist. If such an edict could have been maintained in force for a generation, combined with the other mandates of the Thirty--the city out of which Sophocles and Euripides had just died, and in which Plato and Isocrates were in vigorous age, would have been degraded to the intellectual level of the meanest community in Greece. It was not uncommon for a Grecian despot to suppress all those assemblies wherein youths came together for the purpose of common training, either intellectual or gymnastic, as well as the public banquets and clubs or associations, as being dangerous to his authority, tending to elevation of courage, and to a consciousness of political rights among the citizens.”--Grote’s _History of Greece_.

[187] A very good and useful account of this great literature for the reader who is not a classical student is Norwood’s _Greek Tragedy_.

[188] Mahaffy.

[189] There is not a single sentence in praise of Alexander, no dedication, no compliments, in all Aristotle. On the other hand, he never mentions Demosthenes nor quotes him in the Rhetoric.--G. M.

[190] Wheeler.

[191] Bauer, in _Vom Griechentum zum Christentum_, says that Alexander sent a mission of exploration to Abyssinia to enable Aristotle to settle the question of the cause of the Nile inundations (melting of mountain snows), and that he also had tropical flora and other material collected for him--E. B.

[192] _Ancient Greek Literature._

[193] Jung in his _Psychology of the Unconscious_ is very good in his chapter I on the differences between ancient (pre-Athenian) thought and modern thought. The former he calls Undirected Thinking, the latter Directed Thinking. The former was a thinking in images, akin to dreaming; the latter a thinking in words. Science is an organization of directed thinking. The Antique spirit (before the Greek thinkers, _i.e._) created not science but mythology. The ancient human world was a world of subjective fantasies like the world of children and uneducated young people to-day, and like the world of savages and dreams. Infantile thought and dreams are a re-echo of the prehistoric and savage. Myths are the mass dreams of peoples, and dreams the myths of individuals. The work of hard and disciplined thinking by means of carefully analyzed words and statements which was begun by the Greek thinkers and resumed by the scholastic philosophers of whom we shall tell in the middle ages, was a necessary preliminary to the development of modern science.

[194] “For the proper administration of justice and for the distribution of authority it is necessary that the citizens be acquainted with each other’s characters, so that, where this cannot be, much mischief ensues, both in the use of authority and in the administration of justice; for it is not just to decide arbitrarily, as must be the case with excessive population.” Aristotle’s _Politics_, quoted by Wheeler, who adds, “Aristotle comes to the conclusion that the natural ‘limit to the size of the state must be found in the capability of being easily taken in at a glance.’” But Murray notes that the word Eusunopton means also “capable of being comprehended as a unity”--a very different and wider idea.

[195] Benjamin Ide Wheeler’s _Alexander the Great_ and G. D. Hogarth’s _Philip and Alexander_ have been very useful here.

[196] To the common Athenians, that is. But to many thoughtful Greeks the rôle of Macedonia in their future was a matter of earnest speculation. Herodotus (viii. 137) tells a long story of a prophecy by which the inheritance of Perdiccas, the ancestor of the Macedonian kings, was to embrace at last the whole round world. This was written a hundred years before Philip and Alexander.

[197] Goldsmith’s _History of Greece_. The picturesque disposition of the novelist rather than the austere method of the historian, is apparent here.

[198] But Phocis was treated in the same way by Philip and his friends in 346, and Mantinea by Sparta in 385. It was a regular Greek punishment of a city to break it up into villages; and as for selling into slavery, Callicratidas the Spartan, in the Peloponnesian War, was held to be very noble when he said he would not sell Greeks into slavery. Anyhow, the destruction of Thebes was due to the _Greek_ enemies of Thebes, who pressed it on Alexander.--E. B.

[199] Mahaffy. Their names have undergone various changes--_e.g._ Candahar (Iskender) and Secunderabad.

[200] D. G. Hogarth.

[201] The stages by which Bactria degenerated into Afghanistan may be studied neatly in the progressive deterioration of its coinage from a decent standard of Hellenic accomplishment into the vague flourishes of Orientalism; it began by displaying a Heracles of pure Greek blood and a pair of horsemen who would hardly have seemed out of place on the frieze of the Parthenon, and it fell steadily to a level of incompetence only equalled by the crude imitations of Roman currency that were being made in pre-Roman Britain about the same time.--P. G.

[202] Before that time. But such speculation was going on then. There is some interesting economic theory in Plato’s _Republic_, and Aristotle was writing the _œconomica_. Xenophon wrote on Athenian revenues and other economic matters. Thucycides wrote an excellent passage on the Greek past, and Aristotle dealt with barbaric customs.--E. B.

[203] _Vide_ Mahaffy’s _Greek Life and Thought and his Progress of Hellenism in Alexander’s Empire_, Marvin’s _Living Past_, Legge’s _Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity_, and Reinach’s _Orpheus_.

[204] The question whether the vivisection of human beings, or, indeed, whether any vivisection at all occurred at Alexandria, is one of considerable importance because of the light it throws upon the moral and intellectual quality of the time. One of the editors of this book was inclined to throw doubt upon it, as a thing antipathetic to the Greek spirit. The writer has taken some pains to find out the facts of the case, and he has been so fortunate as to have the help of Dr. Singer, one of the greatest living authorities upon the history of medicine. There are statements made by Tertullian (_De Anima_, chap. xxv.), but he was a biased and untrustworthy witness. The conclusive passage is taken from Celsus, who wrote during the reign of Tiberius, three centuries after the great days of Alexandria. “If you are to have one witness,” writes Dr. Singer, “you could hardly have a better. In my own mind I am satisfied with the evidence of Celsus, and I have asked Dr. E. T. Wittrington, our best authority on Greek medicine, and he also is satisfied.”

The following is a translation of the passage in Celsus, _De Re Medica_. One school says that “it is necessary to dissect the bodies of the dead, and to examine their viscera and intestines. Herophilus and Erasistratus adopted by far the best method, for they obtained criminals from prison by royal permission, and dissected them alive, and they examined, while they still breathed, the parts which Nature had concealed, noting their position, warmth (or possibly ‘colour’--_colorem_ instead of _calorem_), shape, size, relation, hardness, softness, smoothness, and feel; also the projections and depressions of each and how they fit into one another. For if there happen any inward pain, he who has not learned where the viscera and intestines are placed, cannot know where the pain is; nor can the diseased part be cured by one who does not know what part it is. Again, if the viscera of any one are exposed by a wound, he who is ignorant of the natural colour of that part in the healthy state cannot know whether it be sound or corrupted, and therefore cannot cure the corrupted part. Moreover remedies can be applied more appropriately externally when the position, shape, and size of the internal parts is known, and the same argument holds for all the other matters that we have mentioned. Nor is it a cruel act, as many would have it, to seek remedies for innocent mankind throughout the ages by torture of a few criminals.”

Against this view, says Celsus, the other school argues that “to cut open the abdomen and thorax of living men, and thus to turn that art which concerns itself with the health of mankind not only into an instrument of death (_pestem_--lit. ‘a plague’), but (death) in its most horrible form, and this although some of the things that we seek thus barbarously can by no means be known, while others may be learned without cruelty. For the colour, smoothness, softness, hardness, and all their like are not the same when the body is cut open as when it is whole; and, moreover, even in bodies that have not been thus ravaged, these properties are often changed by fear, grief, want of food, or of digestion, fatigue and a thousand other lesser causes. It is thus more likely that the inner organs, which are more tender, and to which the light is a new experience, are changed by serious wounds and by mangling.

“Further, nothing can be more foolish than to think that any things are the same in a live man as in a moribund one, or, rather, in one practically dead. It is indeed true that the abdomen, with which our argument is less concerned, can be opened while a man yet lives, but as soon as the knife reaches the thorax (præcordium), and outs the transverse septum, which is a membrane dividing the superior parts from the inferior and called diaphragma by the Greeks, the man at once gives up the ghost, and thus it is the breast and its viscera of a dead and not a living man which the murderous physician examines. He has thus but performed a cruel murder, and has not learned what the viscera of a living man are like.”

Celsus’ own judgment is given a little later: “To dissect a living body is both cruel and unnecessary; to dissect dead bodies is necessary.”

It is to be noted, says Professor Murray, that Herophilus and Erasistratus were not living in a Greek city state, but under an _oriental despot_.

[205] Mahaffy.

[206] It has been suggested that new books were perhaps dictated to a roomful of copyists, and so issued in a first edition of some hundreds at least. In Rome, Horace and Virgil seem to have been issued in quite considerable editions.

[207] See Ferguson’s _Hellenistic Athens_.

[208] Serapis sounds like a compound of Apis and Osiris, but there is reason for supposing that the name is really of Chaldean origin. See Cumont, _Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism_.

[209] Legge, _Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity_.

[210] See for much light on the syncretic religions before Christianity Franz Cumont, _Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism_. This is a very able and thoroughly interesting book.

[211] Rhys Davids’ _Buddhism_ and other writings by him have been our chief guide here.

[212] Pronounced Ashoka.

[213] The _Burmese Chronicle_, quoted by Rhys Davids.

[214] The _Madhurattha Vilasini_, quoted by Rhys Davids.

[215] Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_.

[216] See R.F. Johnston, _Buddhist China_.--L.C.B.

[217] Hue’s _Travels in Tartary, Tibet, and China_.

[218] Rhys Davids. He was the son of a king by a low-caste mother.

[219] See Giles, _Confucianism and its Rivals_.

[220] S. N. Fu.

[221] Hirth’s _The Ancient History of China_.

[222] The reader will find a footnote to Chap. XXXI, § 8, signed L. C. B., which gives the main differences between the teachings of Confucius and Lao Tse.

[223] See Hue’s _Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China_.

[224] A very convenient handbook for this and the next two chapters is Matheson’s _Skeleton Outline of Roman History_.

[225] For Italian pre-history see Modestov’s _Introduction à l’histoire Romaine_, and Peet’s _Stone and Bronze Age in Italy and Sicily_.

[226] See Lloyd’s _Making of the Roman People_.

[227] Latin _Pœni_ = Carthaginians. _Punicus (adj.)_ = Carthaginian, _i.e._ Phœnician.

[228] See Pelham, _Outlines of Roman History_; Mommsen, _History of Rome_; and the histories of the Roman Empire by Bury, H. Stuart Jones, and W. E. Heitland.

[229] Ferrero, _The Greatness and Decline of Rome_.

[230] J. Wells, _Short History of Rome to the Death of Augustus_.

[231] J. Wells.

[232] But note that Athens had (1) no taxes on foreigners, and inflicted no disabilities on them except absence of citizenship. No “expulsions of aliens” such as were regular at Sparta, and common in most places. This is a frequent Athenian boast. Cp. Thucydides, ii. 39, “Our city is thrown open to the world. We never expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing and learning anything of which the secret, if revealed, might be useful to an enemy.” (2) Practically Free Trade; only a general 5 per cent. import duty. (3) Great interest in foreign places, constitutions, customs, etc. Athens was very oppressive--by modern standards--to its subject-allies; chiefly because there was no representation, and because she was so much at war. But even here, after her defeat in 404, they voluntarily gathered to her again. The second Athenian Empire was not in any way forced upon them.--G. M.

[233] Haverfield says--and I think he is right--that Rome had a great advantage in her imperial development--viz., that she was a city and not a nation. A nation implies some unity of race, and race prejudice. A city is based on the mere fact of citizenship. We should have said to St. Paul: “Citizen or no citizen, you are only a Levantine Jew.” But a Roman, apparently, did not think of saying so. Hence the great freedom with which emperors and senators are taken from other races.--G. M.

[234] The point raised here that Rome never developed representation is a very interesting one. There was a golden chance in the Social War (90 B.C.). The allies of Rome (socii) revolted, and set up a counter Rome in Corfinium. Now, to our minds, the obvious thing for them to do was (1) to make Corfinium just a capital; (2) to set up a parliament there, consisting of representatives drawn from the allies, who lived, of course, all over Italy. Not a bit of it. They made Corfinium a city state (not a capital), and feigned themselves all to be citizens of it, meeting in a primary assembly there. They also set up, it is true, a senate of 500; but this was just a copy of the Roman senate, and not a representative body (see Mommsen, vol. iii. pp. 237-8, Eng. trans.). Under the Roman Empire there were germs of representation in provincial assemblies: see Bury, _Student’s Roman Empire_, on the _concilium Lugdunense_ in Gaul and τἁ κοιγἁ in Asia Minor.--E. B.

[235] Seyffert’s _Dictionary of Classical Antiquities_. (Nettleship Sandys.)

[236] Aristotle, _Politics_, Bk. ii. ch. xi.; and J. Wells, _Rome to the Death of Augustus_.

[237] J. Wells, _op. cit._

[238] Plutarch, _Life of Cato_.

[239] Mommsen says the other provinces cost as much as they paid.

[240] But it was this Scipio Nasica who was responsible for the killing of Tiberius Gracchus. On the whole, he seems to have been a statesman of very distinguished abilities. He was the means of bringing the Asiatic Great Mother Goddess to Rome. “People at Rome generally were beginning to see that they would have to take over Asia. Had they any right? Nasica was sent on a mission to invite the Magna Mater at Pessinus to come to Rome. Her image nodded ‘yes.’ She was brought and installed in Rome. Now this is a policy of peaceful assimilation. Just as in Babylon you get gods of other cities brought to Babylon, just as Nabonidus (see Chap. xix. § 6) was trying to get an amicable pantheon as a way of peaceful assimilation, and failing to do so because he did not bring the priesthoods as well as the gods, so Rome was at this time thinking on the same lines. Camillus had shown the way when he suggested the invitation of Juno of Veii to Rome. Now Nasica, it may be suggested, wanted to treat Carthage in the same fashion. He opposed the destruction of Carthage in 146 (Mommsen, iii. p. 23, p. 39). If he had had his way, one may guess, he would have invited the Carthaginian gods to Rome, and the corollary would have been the enfranchisement of the Carthaginian population--the treatment of the Carthaginians as equals, whose gods had been received in Rome, and stood in Rome. Mummius did the same in carrying off the statues of Greek gods to Rome, only, being stupid, he did not understand why (146 B.C.).”

Nasica’s visit to Pessinus was as important as the testament of Attalus. His policy is not the policy of Rome the conqueror, but Rome the assimilator. He is trying to get a nexus by a common pantheon. If this had been done, the Republic might have survived. As it was, the deification of the ruler had to provide the nexus, as in Alexander’s empire. The “Synœcism of gods” or the “deification of rulers,” those are the only ways of amalgamating peoples. It is a pity Alexander and Rome did not attempt the former.--J. L. M. and E. B.

[241] The intervening Scipio was a man of learning and high character who died young.--G. M.

[242] Julius Cæsar (60 B.C.) caused the proceedings of the Senate to be published by having them written up upon bulletin boards, _in albo_ (upon the white). It had been the custom to publish the annual edict of the prætor in this fashion. There were professional letter-writers who sent news by special courier to rich country correspondents, and these would copy down the stuff upon the Album (white board). Cicero, while he was governor in Cilicia, got the current news from such a professional correspondent. He complains in one letter that it was not what he wanted; the expert was too full of the chariot races and other sporting intelligence, and failed to give any view of the political situation. Obviously this news-letter system was available only for public men in prosperous circumstances.

[243] Seyffert, _op. cit._

[244] Authorities differ here. Mayor says thumbs up (to the breast) meant death and thumbs down meant “Lower that sword.” The popular persuasion is that thumbs down meant death. Seyffert’s _Dict. Class. Antiq._ gives this view. See the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, article “Gladiators.”

[245] “A little more needs to be said on this matter. The Greeks cited gladiatorial shows as a reason for regarding the Romans as _Barbaroi_, and there were riots when some Roman proconsul tried to introduce them in Corinth. Among Romans, the better people evidently disliked them, but a sort of shyness prevented them from frankly denouncing them as cruel. For instance, Cicero, when he had to attend the Circus, took his tablets and his secretary with him, and didn’t look. He expresses particular disgust at the killing of an elephant; and somebody in Tacitus (Drusus, Ann. 1. 76) was unpopular because he was too fond of gladiatorial bloodshed--“_quamquam vili sanguine nimis gaudens_” (“rejoicing too much in blood, worthless blood though it was”). The games were unhesitatingly condemned by Greek philosophy, and at different times two Cynics and one Christian gave their lives in the arena, protesting against them, before they were abolished.

“I do not think Christianity had any such relation to slavery as is here stated. St. Paul’s action in sending back a slave to his master, and his injunction, ‘Slaves, obey your masters,’ were regularly quoted on the pro-slavery side, down to the nineteenth century; on the other hand, both the popular philosophies and the Mystery religions were against slavery in their whole tendency, and Christianity of course in time became the chief representative of these movements. Probably the best test is the number of slaves who occupied posts of honour in the religious and philosophic systems, like Epictetus, for instance, or the many slaves who hold offices in the Mithraic Inscriptions. I do not happen to know if any slaves were made Christian bishops, but by analogy I should think it likely that some were. In all the Mystery religions, as soon as you entered the community, and had communion with God, earthly distinctions shrivelled away.”--G. M.

The Spirit of Jesus is something different from formal Christianity, which I regard as the vehicle, the largely unsympathetic vehicle, by which that spirit was carried about the world.--H. G. W.

[246] _Greatness and Decline of Rome_, bk. i. ch. xi.

[247] There is no evidence of forgery and no contemporary suggestion of the sort. The bequest of Attalus, even if it was a forgery (Mommsen accepts it, iii. p. 55), is of importance, as showing that a great many people did think that Rome was the best administrator. Otherwise, the story (if it is only a story) could not have caught on. _A priori_ there seems good reason for the testament. The Attalid dynasty was “petering out”; there were troublesome Gauls about (Mommsen, iii. p. 53).--J. L. M. and E. B.

[248] Ferrero.

[249] Ferrero.

[250] Plutarch. To which, however, G. M. adds the following note. “It is generally believed that Sulla died through bursting a blood-vessel in a fit of temper. The story of abominable vices seems to be only the regular slander of the Roman mob against anyone who did not live in public.”

[251] Plutarch.

[252] The bow was probably the composite bow, so called because it is made of several plates (five or so) of horn, like the springs of a carriage: it discharges a high-speed arrow with a twang. This was the bow the Mongols used. This short composite bow (it was not a long bow) was quite old in human experience. It was the bow of Odysseus; the Assyrians had it in a modified form. It went out in Greece, but it survived as the Mongol bow. It was quite short, very stiff to pull, with a flat trajectory, a remarkable range, and a great noise (cp. Homer’s reference to the twang of the bow). It went out in the Mediterranean because the climate was not good for it, and because there were insufficient animals to supply the horn.--J. L. M.

[253] For a good compact account of Cæsar, much more appreciative of him than our text, see Warde Fowler’s _Julius Cæsar_.

[254] See Strachan Davidson’s _Cicero_, or, better, his own letters to Atticus.

[255] H. S. Jones, in _The Encyclopædia Britannica_, article “Rome.” His contribution is admirably verified and exact, and we are greatly indebted to it.

[256] The best book in a compact compass for expanding this chapter is H. Stuart Jones’s _The Roman Empire_.

[257] Gibbon.

[258] _Encyclopædia Britannica_, article “Rome.”

[259] See _Encyclopædia Britannica_, article “Longinus.” The Syrian queen referred to by Gibbon is Zenobia. Longinus was put to death by Aurelian. See ch. xxxii., § 2.

[260] The natural result of a plutocratic rule above was a vigorous trade-unionism intent only on short hours and high wages below, and as indifferent as the rich to the common weal. See Hubbard’s _Fate of Empires_, a very stimulating book, differing widely in its spirit and conclusions from those of the writer.

[261] See Legge, _Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity_.

[262] No really good, full, and popular descriptive history, with maps and illustrations, of early and medieval China, nor of the Mongol (Hun) and Turkish peoples, seems to exist in the English language. The writer has consulted Skrine and Ross’s _Heart of Asia_, Hirth’s _Ancient History of China_, S. Wells Williams’ _History of China_, _A Thousand Years of the Tartars_, by E. H. Parker, H. H. Howorth’s History of the Mongols, and has found much useful material scattered through Ratzel and Helmolt. He has later on made a useful section from Watters’ translation and commentary upon the _Travels of Yuan Chwang_, supplemented by the _Life of Yuan Chwang_, edited by L. Cranmer Byng. Yule’s edition of Marco Polo has also been a very inspiring source of material.

[263] E. H. Parker, _A Thousand Years of the Tartars_.

[264] Even in eastern Turkestan there are still strong evidences of Nordic blood in the physiognomy of the people. See Ella and Percy Sykes, _Through Deserts and Oases of Central Asia_.

[265] See Roger Pocock, _Horses_, a very interesting and picturesque little book.

[266] _The History of Mankind_, book v., C.

[267] _The History of Mankind_, book v., C.

[268] See _Migrations_, by Flinders Petrie, the 1906 Huxley Lecture of the Royal Anthrop. Institute.

[269] E. B.

[270] In Helmolt’s _History of the World_.

[271] E. B. disagrees with this view. He regards it as the pro-Teutonic view of the German historians.

[272] Gibbon.

[273] Gibbon.

[274] The spread and the vitality of the place-name “Rome” were even greater than the vogue of the title “Cæsar.” All the countries which had formed part of the Eastern and Western divisions of the Roman Empire (excepting the ephemeral extension of Roman rule over Mesopotamia) were known to the Saracens, the Arabs, the Berbers as “Rum,” and their peoples as “Rumis,” “Rumas.” And this name was applied without, in all cases, carrying with it the signification of “Christian” or “Christendom.” Thus the Spanish Moors were, and their descendants are, styled by the Moroccan Moors and the Algerians and Tunisians: “Rumas.” When expelled from Spain most of them took service under the Sharifian Emperors of Morocco, and brought with them a European knowledge of fire-arms. Thus you are told in Algeria that “Romans” (_i.e._ Spanish Moors) conquered the Upper Niger basin for Morocco in the seventeenth century; their descendants remain there till to-day between Jenné and Timbuktu, still known to the French as “Roumas.” Some Spanish Moors even penetrated to the coast of eastern equatorial Africa and carried the name of “Rome” into the fierce expulsion of the Portuguese from those parts which was begun by the Omani Arabs.--H. H. J.

[275] Josephus.

[276] See _Encyclopædia Biblica_; article “Jesus.”

[277] Matt. xii. 46-50.

[278] Mark x. 17-25.

[279] Mark. vii. 1-9.

[280] Mark xii. 13-17.

[281] Mark x. 35-45.

[282] For the connexion of Jesus with the Messiah idea, see E. F. Scott’s _Kingdom of the Messiah_.

[283] Hirth, _The Ancient History of China_. Chap. viii.

[284] “St. Paul understood what most Christians never realize, namely, that the Gospel of Christ is not a religion, but religion itself in its most universal and deepest significance.”--Dean Inge in _Outspoken Essays_.

[285] Authorities vary considerably upon this date, and upon most of the dates of the life of Jesus. See _Encyclopædia Biblica_, art. “Chronology.”

[286] See _Judaism and St. Paul_, by C. G. Montefiore, for some interesting speculations on the religion of Paul before his conversion. See also the very interesting paper on St. Paul in Dean Inge’s _Outspoken Essays_ already quoted in a footnote. An excellent book widely divergent from the opinions expressed in the text is W. Morgan’s _Religion and Theology of St. Paul_.

[287] Paul’s Greek is very good. He is affected by the philosophical jargon of the Hellenistic schools and by that of Stoicism. But his mastery of sublime language is amazing.--G. M.

[288] The spirit of Jesus, the animating spirit of Christianity, which breathes through the gospels, was flatly opposed both to private property and slavery, but the attitude of the Christians was never so definite. Generally they ameliorated rather than abolished.--H. G. W.

Patristic theory justified slavery as a result of the Fall. See Carlyle, _Medieval Political Theory in the West_.--E. B.

[289] Serapis was a synthesis of Osiris and Apis.

[290] See Legge, _Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity_, chap. xii. See also Cumont’s _Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism_ for a very clear account of the gradual development of Roman Paganism into a religion very similar to Christianity _pari passu_ with the development of Christianity.

[291] Cp. Father Hugh Benson’s account of the procession of the Host in his book _Lourdes_.

[292] In any prayer book of the Episcopalian Church. The Athanasian Creed embodies the view of Athanasius, but probably was not composed by him.

[293] Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, chap. xvi.

[294] Here, from another point of view, are some remarks upon the acceptance of Christianity by the empire. Let us remember that the Church, an object so familiar to us, was to the decent Roman a very strange thing. It was a vast society for mutual help, quite outside the state and the recognized corporations; it was secret (hence the frequent inquisitions and the praise given by Church historians to those who “confessed Christ”); it drew its main strength from a class “not well thought of by the police, the proletariat of the big manufacturing towns of Syria and the Levant, like Antioch.” Alternately proscribed and connived at, much subjected to pogroms, it gradually increased in strength. Diocletian summoned his two associated Cæsars to a conference on the subject, and they decided to crush the society by a drastic persecution. They persecuted and failed, and Diocletian resigned. Constantine the Great, the next claimant to the empire, made terms with the society and succeeded. He established it as official, and overcame its hatred of Rome by showering wealth and power on it. Eventually, when in fear of death, he got baptized. All modern analogies are fallacious, but if you imagine a blend of pacifist international socialists with some mystical Indian sect, drawing its supporters mainly from an oppressed and ill-liked foreign proletariat, such as the “hunkey” population of some big American towns, full of the noblest moral professions but at the same time alien, or even hostile, to the whole established order of society, I think you will get the sort of impression that the Christian society made on a Roman. The conception of the blameless and saintly Early Christian is, I think, hugely romance. Of course, like most religious reformers, they were in the main seekers after righteousness and above the average of their contemporaries. Also the Christian writers are apt to have more life and vision than their conventional or reactionary Pagan contemporaries. But consider the appalling accusations made by all the Christian sects against each other, and the furious denunciation of the turbulent Christian monastics by Augustine. Also consider what a spirit lies behind the Book of Revelation! Read especially Chapters 17-19, a series of elaborate and horrific curses upon Rome (including repeated threats of its destruction by fire, which the Christians were believed to have attempted), or the end of Chapter 14 where the ministers of the Son of Man tread the winepress of the world till the blood comes “even to the bridles of the horses.” If we found such a book now circulating in India, with England taking the place of Rome, I fear there would be some shooting and hanging. The fact that the Christians actually prayed for the destruction of the whole world by fire seemed to the average non-Christian evidence of almost maniacal wickedness.