the seven great monarchies of the ancient asian world by george rawlinson an index edited by david widger project gutenberg editions george rawlinson (1812-1902) chaldaea, assyria, media, babylon, persia, parthia, sassanian empire; and the history of phoenicia contents click on the ## before each title to go directly to a linked index of the detailed chapters and illustrations ## chaldaea ## assyria ## media ## babylon ## persia ## parthia ## sassanian empire and ## history of phoenicia volumes, chapters and stories chaldaea preface to five great monarchies. preface to second edition. preface to the sixth monarchy. preface to seventh monarchy. references the first monarchy. chaldaea. chapter i. general view of the country chapter ii. climate and productions chapter iii. the people chapter iv. language and writing chapter v. arts and sciences chapter vi. manners and customs chapter vii. religion chapter viii. history and chronology list of illustrations plate 1 1. plan of mugheir ruins (after taylor) plate 2 2. ruins of warka (erech) (after loftus) plate 3 3. akkerkuf (after ker porter) 4. hamman (after loftus) plate 4 5. tel-ede (ditto) 6. palms (after oppert) plate 5 7. chaldaean reeds, from an assyrian sculpture (after layard) plate 6 8. wild sow and pigs, from koyunjik (layard) 9. ethiopians (after prichard) 10. cuneiform inscriptions (drawn by the author, from bricks in the british museum) page 42 plate 7 10. cuneiform inscriptions (drawn by the author, from bricks in the british museum) 11. chaldaean tablet (after layard) 12. signet-cylinder (after ker porter) page 44 plate 8 13. bowariyeh (after loftus) 14. mugheir temple (ditto) plate 9 15. ground-plan of ditto (ditto) 16. mugheir temple, restored (by the author) 17. terra-cotta cone, actual size (after loftus) plate 10 18. plan and wall of building patterned with cones (after loftus) 19. ground-plan of chambers excavated at abu-shahrein (after taylor) plate 11 20. brick vault at mugheir (ditto) 21. chaldaean dish-cover tombs (ditto) plate 12 21. chaldaean dish-cover tombs (ditto) 22. chaldaean jar-coffin (ditto) 23. section of drain (ditto) plate 13 24. chaldaean vases of the first period (drawn by the author from vases in the british museum) 25. chaldaean vases, drinking-vessels, and amphora of the second period (ditto) 26. chaldaean lamps of the second period (ditto) plate 14 27. seal-cylinder on metal axis (drawn and partly restored by the author) 28. signet-cylinder of king urukh (after ker porter) 29. flint knives (drawn by the author from the originals in the british museum) plate 15 30. stone hammer, hatchet, adze, and nail (chiefly after taylor) 31. chaldaean bronze spear and arrow-heads (drawn by the author from the originals in the british museum) plate 16 32. bronze implements (ditto) 33. flint implement (after taylor) 34. ear-rings (drawn by the author from the originals in the british museum) 16 plate 17 35. leaden pipe and jar (ditto) 36. bronze bangles (ditto) plate 18 37. senkareh table of squares page 66 plate 19 38. costumes of chaldaeans from the cylinders (after cullimore and rich) 39. serpent symbol (after cullimore) 40. flaming sword (ditto) 41. figure of nin. the fish-god (layard) 42. nin's emblem. the man bull (ditto) 43. fish symbols (after cullimore) 44. bel-mer dash (ditto) page 81 page 83 page 84 plate 20 45. nergal's emblem, the ilan-lion (layard) plate 21 46. 47. clay images of ishtar (after cullimore and layard) 48. nebo (drawn by the author from a statue in the british museum) page 99 page 113�table of chaldaean kings assyria the second monarchy chapter i. description of the country chapter ii. climate and productions chapter iii. the people chapter iv. the capital chapter v. language and writing chapter vi. architecture and other arts chapter vii. manners and customs chapter viii. religion chapter ix. chronology and history references map_top_th (118k) map_bottom_th (92k) [click on maps to enlarge] media chapter i. description of the country. chapter ii. climate and productions. chapter iii. character, manners and customs. chapter iv. religion. chapter v. language and writing. chapter vi. chronology and history. list of illustrations map plate i. plate ii. plate iii. plate iv. plate v. plate vi. plate vii. babylon chapter i. extent of the empire. chapter ii. climate and productions. chaptee iii. the people. chaptee iv. the capital. chapter v. arts and sciences. chapter vi. manners and customs. chapter vii. religion. chapter viii. history and chronology. appendix. a. standard inscription of nebuchadnezzar. b. on the meanings of babylonian names. list of illustrations map plate vii. plate viii. plate ix. plate x. plate xi. plate xii. plate xiii. page 182 plate xiv. plate xv. plate xvi. plate xvii. plate xviii. plate xix. plate xx. plate xxi. plate xxii. plate xxiii. plate xxiv. plate xxv. page 229 page 237 page 263 page 264 page 265 persia chapter i. extent of the empire. chapter ii. climate and productions. chapter iii. character, manners and customs. chapter iv. language and writing. chapter v. architecture and other arts. chapter vi. religion. chapter vii. chronology and history. begin chapter i. parthia chapter i. chapter ii. chapter iii. chapter iv. chapter v. chapter vi. chapter vii. chapter viii. chapter ix. chapter x. chapter xi. chapter xii. chapter xiii. chapter xiv. chapter xv. chapter xvi. chapter xvii. chapter xviii. chapter xix. chapter xx. chapter xxi. chapter xxii. chapter xxiii. list of illustrations map of parthia proper map of parthia plate 1. plate 2. plate 3. plate 4. plate 5. plate 6. plate 7. plate 8. plate 9. plate 10. sassanian empire chapters i. to xiv. chapters xv. to xxviii. with maps and illustrations the seventh monarchy history of the sassanian or new persian empire. sassian_empire_th (154k) begin chapter i. history of phoenicia preface history of phoenicia chapter i�the land chapter ii�climate and productions chapter iii�the people�origin and characteristics chapter iv�the cities chapter v�the colonies chapter vi�architecture chapter vii�æsthetic art chapter viii�industrial art and manufactures chapter ix�ships, navigation, and commerce chapter x�mining chapter xi�religion chapter xii�dress, ornaments, and social habits chapter xiii�phoenician writing, language, and literature chapter xiv�political history 1. phoenicia, before the establishment of the hegemony of tyre. 2. phoenicia under the hegemony of tyre (b.c. 1252-877) 3. phoenicia during the period of its subjection to assyria (b.c. 4. phoenicia during its struggles with babylon and egypt (about b.c. 5. phoenicia under the persians (b.c. 528-333) 6. phoenicia in the time of alexander the great (b.c. 333-323) 7. phoenicia under the greeks (b.c. 323-65) 8. phoenicia under the romans (b.c. 65-a.d. 650) footnotes history of egypt, chaldæa, syria, babylonia, and assyria by gaston maspero (1846-1916) an index edited by david widger project gutenberg editions contents ## volume i. ## volume ii. ## volume iii. ## volume iv. ## volume v. ## volume vi. ## volume vii. ## volume viii. ## volume ix. ## volume x. ## volume xi. ## volume xii. ## volume xiii. volumes, chapters and stories volume i. editor's preface translator's preface chapter i.�the nile and egypt chapter ii.�the gods of egypt chapter iii.�the legendary history of egypt illustrations of particular interest (170 images in volume i.) mummy wrappings from tomb at thebes well providing water for irrigation sacrifice of the bull occupations of ani in the elysian fields an incident in the wars of hartheous and sit volume ii. chapter i�the political constitution of egypt chapter ii�the memphite empire chapter iii�the first theban empire list of colored and special illustrations stele in the form of a door the island and temple of phil. collosal statue of a king colored sculptures in the palace cutting and carrying the harvest the pyramid of khephren passenger vessel under sail avenue of sphinxes�karnak denderah�temple of tentyra the channel of the nile between the two fortresses of semneh and kummeh painting at the entrance of the fifth tomb volume iii. chapter i�ancient chaldæa chapter ii�the temples and the gods of chaldæa chapter iii�chaldæan civilization appendix�the pharaohs of the ancient and middle empires listing of special color plates and photographs the charioteer the plenisphere wrappings of a mummy manuscript on papyrus egyptian slave merchant egyptian manuscript astronomical tablet volume iv. chapter i�the first chaldæan empire and the hyksôs in egypt chapter ii�syria at the beginning of the egyptian conquest chapter iii�the eighteenth theban dynasty list of special illustrations in this volume collection of vases painting in tomb of the kings thebes signs, arms and instruments valley of the tomb of the kings an egyptian trading vessel: xviiith dynasty a column of troops on the march two companies on the march encounter between egyptian and asiatic chariots ramses ii. counting of the hands painting on the tomb of the kings avenue of rams and pylon at karnak thutmosis iii.,statue in the turin museum volume v. chapter i�the eighteenth theban dynasty�(continued) chapter ii�the reaction against egypt chapter iii�the close of the theban empire color plates and special illustrations a procession of negroes painted tablets in the hall of harps the simoom. sphinx and pyramids at gizeh amenothes iii. colossal head, british museum the decorated pavement of the palace profile of head of mummy (thebes tombs) columns of temple at luxor paintings of chairs the coffin and mummy of ramses ii the defeat of the peoples of the sea ramses iii. binds the chiefs of the libyans signs, arms and instruments volume vi. chapter i�the close of the theban empire�(continued) chapter ii�the rise of the assyrian empire chapter iii�the hebrews and the philistines�damascus list of color plates and special illustrations painting in the fifth tomb of the kings to the right the mummy factory paintings at the end of the hall of the fifth the tomb the lady taksûhît decorated wrappings of a mummy one of the mysterious books of amon one of the hours of the night ishtar as a warrior bringing prisoners to a conquering king a lion-hunt paintings of chairs making a bridge for the passage of the chariots a procession of philistine captives at medinet-habu king solomon and the queen of sheba the mummies of queen mâkerî and her child volume vii. chapter i�the assyrian revival and the struggle for syria chapter ii�tiglath-pileser iii. and the organisation of the assyrian chapter iii�sargon of assyria (722-705 b.c.) list of special images and color plates no. 1. enameled brick (nimrod). no. 2. fragment of mural painting (nimrod). temple of khaldis at muzazir sacrifice offered by shalmaneser iii. costumes found in the fifth tomb prayer at sunset tiglath-pileser iii. in his state chariot picture in the hall of the harps in the fifth tomb manuscript on papyrus in hieroglyphics the sword dance iaubîdi of hamath being flayed alive. taking of the city of kishîsim by the assyrians bird's eye view of sargon's palace at dur-sharrukîn volume viii. chapter i�sennacherib (705-681 b.c.) chapter ii�the power of assyria at its zenith; esarhaddon and assur-bani-pal chapter iii�the medes and the second chaldæan empire list of special illustrations and color plates esneh�principal abyssinian trading village sennacherib receiving the submissions of the jews the fleet of sennacherib on the nar-marratum assyrian bas-reliefs at bavian great assyrian stele at baviaît. transport of a winged bull on a sledge. the column of taharqa, at karnak mural decorations from the grottoes a lion issuing from its cage the battle of tulliz khumb-nigash proclaimed king the head of thumman sent to nineveh two elamite chiefs flayed alive prayer in the desert after painting by gerome illustrated manuscript in heiroglyphics chieck beled�gizeh museum decorations on the wrappings of a mummy. the façade of the great temple of abu-simbel prisoners under torture having their tongues torn out a king putting out the eyes of a prisoner a people carried away into captivity volume ix. chapter i�the iranian conquest chapter ii�the last days of the old eastern world list of color images and special illustrations hypostyle of hall of xerxes: detail of entablature the occupations of ani in the elysian fields croesus on his pyre the two goddesses of law; ani adoring osiris; the trial of the conscience; toth and the feather of the law. amasis in adoration before the bull apis encampment de bacharis street vender of curios after the painting by gerome. funeral offerings. the tomb of darius freize of archers at suza fountain and school of the mother of little mohamad a bas-relief on a sidonian sarcophagus volume x. part a. part b. part c. volume xi. chapter i�egypt under the roman empire chapter ii.�the christian period in egypt chapter iii.�egypt during the muhammedan period list of color plates and special illustrations a koptic maiden fragments in wood painted temple at tentyra, enlarged by roman architects an arab girl ethiopian arabs scene in a sepuuchral chamber the slumber song painting at the entrance of the fifth tomb egyptian slave street vendors in metal ware a young egyptian wearing the royal lock an egyptian water-carrier street and mosque of mahdjiar a modern kopt volume xii. chapter i�the crusaders in egypt chapter ii.�the french in egypt chapter iii.�the rule of mehemet ali chapter iv�the british influence in egypt chapter v.�the water ways of egypt chapter vi�the decipherment of the hieroglyphs chapter vii�the development of egyptology chapter viii.�important researches in egypt list of color plates and special illustrations enamelled glass cup from arabia gate of el futuh at cairo interior of the mosque, kilawun bonaparte in egypt the prophet muhammed cairo�eskibieh quarter mosque of mehemit ali a distinguished egyptian jew slave boats on the nile hieroglyphic record of an ancient canal examples of phoenecian porcelain phoenician jewlery the great hall of abydos plans of the tombs of den-setui and others three types of sealings volume xiii. part i. egypt and mesopotamia chapter i�the discovery of prehistoric egypt chapter ii�abydos and the first three dynasties part ii. chapter iii�memphis and the pyramids chapter iv�recent excavations in western asia and the dawn of chaldæan history part iii. chapter v�elam and babylon, the country of the sea and the kassites chapter vi�early babylonian life and customs part iv. chapter vii�temples and tombs of thebes chapter viii�the assyrian and neo-babylonian empires in the light of chapter ix�the last days of ancient egypt listing of special color plates and photographs stele of vultures in context quick image stele of victory in context quick image statue of queen teta-shera in context quick image wall painting in context quick image ancient man the beginning of civilizations by hendrik willem van loon 1922 dedication to hansje and willem. my darling boys, you are twelve and eight years old. soon you will be grown up. you will leave home and begin your own lives. i have been thinking about that day, wondering what i could do to help you. at last, i have had an idea. the best compass is a thorough understanding of the growth and the experience of the human race. why should i not write a special history for you? so i took my faithful corona and five bottles of ink and a box of matches and a bale of paper and began to work upon the first volume. if all goes well there will be eight more and they will tell you what you ought to know of the last six thousand years. but before you start to read let me explain what i intend to do. i am not going to present you with a textbook. neither will it be a volume of pictures. it will not even be a regular history in the accepted sense of the word. i shall just take both of you by the hand and together we shall wander forth to explore the intricate wilderness of the bygone ages. i shall show you mysterious rivers which seem to come from nowhere and which are doomed to reach no ultimate destination. i shall bring you close to dangerous abysses, hidden carefully beneath a thick overgrowth of pleasant but deceiving romance. here and there we shall leave the beaten track to scale a solitary and lonely peak, towering high above the surrounding country. unless we are very lucky we shall sometimes lose ourselves in a sudden and dense fog of ignorance. wherever we go we must carry our warm cloak of human sympathy and understanding for vast tracts of land will prove to be a sterile desert--swept by icy storms of popular prejudice and personal greed and unless we come well prepared we shall forsake our faith in humanity and that, dear boys, would be the worst thing that could happen to any of us. i shall not pretend to be an infallible guide. whenever you have a chance, take counsel with other travelers who have passed along the same route before. compare their observations with mine and if this leads you to different conclusions, i shall certainly not be angry with you. i have never preached to you in times gone by. i am not going to preach to you today. you know what the world expects of you--that you shall do your share of the common task and shall do it bravely and cheerfully. if these books can help you, so much the better. and with all my love i dedicate these histories to you and to the boys and girls who shall keep you company on the voyage through life. hendrik willem van loon. _barrow street, new york city. may 8, xx_. contents chapter i. prehistoric man ii. the world grows cold iii. end of the stone age iv. the earliest school of the human race v. the key of stone vi. the land of the living and the land of the dead vii. the making of a state viii. the rise and fall of egypt ix. mesopotamia--the country between the rivers x. the sumerian nail writers xi. assyria and babylonia--the great semitic melting-pot xii. the story of moses xiii. jerusalem--the city of the law xiv. damascus--the city of trade xv. the phoenicians who sailed beyond the horizon xvi. the alphabet follows the trade xvii. the end of the ancient world prehistoric man it took columbus more than four weeks to sail from spain to the west indian islands. we on the other hand cross the ocean in sixteen hours in a flying machine. five hundred years ago, three or four years were necessary to copy a book by hand. we possess linotype machines and rotary presses and we can print a new book in a couple of days. we understand a great deal about anatomy and chemistry and mineralogy and we are familiar with a thousand different branches of science of which the very name was unknown to the people of the past. in one respect, however, we are quite as ignorant as the most primitive of men--we do not know where we came from. we do not know how or why or when the human race began its career upon this earth. with a million facts at our disposal we are still obliged to follow the example of the fairy-stories and begin in the old way: "once upon a time there was a man." this man lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. what did he look like? we do not know. we never saw his picture. deep in the clay of an ancient soil we have sometimes found a few pieces of his skeleton. they were hidden amidst masses of bones of animals that have long since disappeared from the face of the earth. we have taken these bones and they allow us to reconstruct the strange creature who happens to be our ancestor. the great-great-grandfather of the human race was a very ugly and unattractive mammal. he was quite small. the heat of the sun and the biting wind of the cold winter had colored his skin a dark brown. his head and most of his body were covered with long hair. he had very thin but strong fingers which made his hands look like those of a monkey. his forehead was low and his jaw was like the jaw of a wild animal which uses its teeth both as fork and knife. [illustration: prehistoric man.] he wore no clothes. he had seen no fire except the flames of the rumbling volcanoes which filled the earth with their smoke and their lava. he lived in the damp blackness of vast forests. when he felt the pangs of hunger he ate raw leaves and the roots of plants or he stole the eggs from the nest of an angry bird. once in a while, after a long and patient chase, he managed to catch a sparrow or a small wild dog or perhaps a rabbit these he would eat raw, for prehistoric man did not know that food could be cooked. his teeth were large and looked like the teeth of many of our own animals. during the hours of day this primitive human being went about in search of food for himself and his wife and his young. at night, frightened by the noise of the beasts, who were in search of prey, he would creep into a hollow tree or he would hide himself behind a few big boulders, covered with moss and great, big spiders. in summer he was exposed to the scorching rays of the sun. during the winter he froze with cold. when he hurt himself (and hunting animals are for ever breaking their bones or spraining their ankles) he had no one to take care of him. he had learned how to make certain sounds to warn his fellow-beings whenever danger threatened. in this he resembled a dog who barks when a stranger approaches. in many other respects he was far less attractive than a well-bred house pet. altogether, early man was a miserable creature who lived in a world of fright and hunger, who was surrounded by a thousand enemies and who was for ever haunted by the vision of friends and relatives who had been eaten up by wolves and bears and the terrible sabre-toothed tiger. of the earliest history of this man we know nothing. he had no tools and he built no homes. he lived and died and left no traces of his existence. we keep track of him through his bones and they tell us that he lived more than two thousand centuries ago. the rest is darkness. until we reach the time of the famous stone age, when man learned the first rudimentary principles of what we call civilization. of this stone age i must tell you in some detail. the world grows cold something was the matter with the weather. early man did not know what "time" meant. he kept no records of birthdays and wedding-anniversaries or the hour of death. he had no idea of days or weeks or years. when the sun arose in the morning he did not say "behold another day." he said "it is light" and he used the rays of the early sun to gather food for his family. when it grew dark, he returned to his wife and children, gave them part of the day's catch (some berries and a few birds), stuffed himself full with raw meat and went to sleep. in a very general way he kept track of the seasons. long experience had taught him that the cold winter was invariably followed by the mild spring--that spring grew into the hot summer when fruits ripened and the wild ears of corn were ready to be plucked and eaten. the summer ended when gusts of wind swept the leaves from the trees and when a number of animals crept into their holes to make ready for the long hibernal sleep. [illustration: the glacial period.] it had always been that way. early man accepted these useful changes of cold and warm but asked no questions. he lived and that was enough to satisfy him. suddenly, however, something happened that worried him greatly. the warm days of summer had come very late. the fruits had not ripened at all. the tops of the mountains which used to be covered with grass lay deeply hidden under a heavy burden of snow. then one morning quite a number of wild people, different from the other inhabitants of his valley had approached from the region of the high peaks. they muttered sounds which no one could understand. they looked lean and appeared to be starving. hunger and cold seemed to have driven them from their former homes. there was not enough food in the valley for both the old inhabitants and the newcomers. when they tried to stay more than a few days there was a terrible fight and whole families were killed. the others fled into the woods and were not seen again. for a long time nothing occurred of any importance. but all the while, the days grew shorter and the nights were colder than they ought to have been. finally, in a gap between the two high hills, there appeared a tiny speck of greenish ice. it increased in size as the years went by. very slowly a gigantic glacier was sliding down the slopes of the mountain ridge. huge stones were being pushed into the valley. with the noise of a dozen thunderstorms they suddenly tumbled among the frightened people and killed them while they slept. century-old trees were crushed into kindling wood by the high walls of ice that knew of no mercy to either man or beast. at last, it began to snow. it snowed for months and months and months. [illustration: the cave-man.] all the plants died. the animals fled in search of the southern sun. the valley became uninhabitable. man hoisted his children upon his back, took the few pieces of stone which he had used as a weapon and went forth to find a new home. why the world should have grown cold at that particular moment, we do not know. we can not even guess at the cause. the gradual lowering of the temperature, however, made a great difference to the human race. for a time it looked as if every one would die. but in the end this period of suffering proved a real blessing. it killed all the weaker people and forced the survivors to sharpen their wits lest they perish, too. placed before the choice of hard thinking or quick dying the same brain that had first turned a stone into a hatchet now solved difficulties which had never faced the older generations. in the first place, there was the question of clothing. it had grown much too cold to do without some sort of artificial covering. bears and bisons and other animals who live in northern regions are protected against snow and ice by a heavy coat of fur. man possessed no such coat. his skin was very delicate and he suffered greatly. he solved his problem in a very simple fashion. he dug a hole and he covered it with branches and leaves and a little grass. a bear came by and fell into this artificial cave. man waited until the creature was weak from lack of food and then killed him with many blows of a big stone. with a sharp piece of flint he cut the fur of the animal's back. then he dried it in the sparse rays of the sun, put it around his own shoulders and enjoyed the same warmth that had formerly kept the bear happy and comfortable. then there was the housing problem. many animals were in the habit of sleeping in a dark cave. man followed their example and searched until he found an empty grotto. he shared it with bats and all sorts of creeping insects but this he did not mind. his new home kept him warm and that was enough. often, during a thunderstorm a tree had been hit by lightning. sometimes the entire forest had been set on fire. man had seen these forest-fires. when he had come too near he had been driven away by the heat. he now remembered that fire gave warmth. thus far, fire had been an enemy. now it became a friend. a dead tree, dragged into a cave and lighted by means of smouldering branches from a burning forest filled the room with unusual but very pleasant heat. perhaps you will laugh. all these things seem so very simple. they are very simple to us because some one, ages and ages ago, was clever enough to think of them. but the first cave that was made comfortable by the fire of an old log attracted more attention than the first house that ever was lighted by electricity. when at last, a specially brilliant fellow hit upon the idea of throwing raw meat into the hot ashes before eating it, he added something to the sum total of human knowledge which made the cave-man feel that the height of civilization had been reached. nowadays, when we hear of another marvelous invention we are very proud. "what more," we ask, "can the human brain accomplish?" and we smile contentedly for we live in the most remarkable of all ages and no one has ever performed such miracles as our engineers and our chemists. forty thousand years ago when the world was on the point of freezing to death, an unkempt and unwashed cave-man, pulling the feathers out of a half-dead chicken with the help of his brown fingers and his big white teeth--throwing the feathers and the bones upon the same floor that served him and his family as a bed, felt just as happy and just as proud when he was taught how the hot cinders of a fire would change raw meat into a delicious meal. "what a wonderful age," he would exclaim and he would lie down amidst the decaying skeletons of the animals which had served him as his dinner and he would dream of his own perfection while bats, as large as small dogs, flew restlessly through the cave and while rats, as big as small cats, rummaged among the left overs. quite often the cave gave way to the pressure of the surrounding rock. then man was hurled amidst the bones of his own victims. thousands of years later the anthropologist (ask your father what that means) comes along with his little spade and his wheelbarrow. he digs and he digs and at last he uncovers this age-old tragedy and makes it possible for me to tell you all about it. the end of the stone age the struggle to keep alive during the cold period was terrible. many races of men and animals, whose bones we have found, disappeared from the face of the earth. whole tribes and clans were wiped out by hunger and cold and want. first the children would die and then the parents. the old people were left to the mercy of the wild animals who hastened to occupy the undefended cave. until another change in the climate or the slowly decreasing moisture of the air made life impossible for these wild invaders and forced them to find a retreat in the heart of the african jungle where they have lived ever since. this part of my history is very difficult because the changes which i must describe were so very slow and so very gradual. nature is never in a hurry. she has all eternity in which to accomplish her task and she can afford to bring about the necessary changes with deliberate care. prehistoric man lived through at least four definite eras when the ice descended far down into the valleys and covered the greater part of the european continent. the last one of these periods came to an end almost thirty thousand years ago. from that moment on man left behind him concrete evidence of his existence in the form of tools and arms and pictures and in a general way we can say that history begins when the last cold period had become a thing of the past. the endless struggle for life had taught the survivors many things. stone and wooden implements had become as common as steel tools are in our own days. gradually the rudely chipped flint axe had been replaced by one of polished flint which was infinitely more practical. it allowed man to attack many animals at whose mercy he had been since the beginning of time. the mammoth was no longer seen. the musk-ox had retreated to the polar circle. the tiger had left europe for good. the cave-bear no longer ate little children. the powerful brain of the weakest and most helpless of all living creatures--man--had devised such terrible instruments of destruction that he was now the master of all the other animals. the first great victory over nature had been gained but many others were to follow. equipped with a full set of tools both for hunting and fishing, the cave-dweller looked for new living quarters. the shores of rivers and lakes offered the best opportunity for a regular livelihood. the old caves were deserted and the human race moved toward the water. now that man could handle heavy axes, the felling of trees no longer offered any great difficulties. for countless ages birds had been constructing comfortable houses out of chips of wood and grass amidst the branches of trees. man followed their example. he, too, built himself a nest and called it his "home." he did not, except in a few parts of asia, take to the trees which were a bit too small and unsteady for his purpose. he cut down a number of logs. these he drove firmly into the soft bottom of a shallow lake. on top of them he constructed a wooden platform and upon this platform he erected his first wooden house. it offered many advantages over the old cave. no wild animals could break into it and robbers could not enter it. the lake itself was an inexhaustible store-room containing an endless supply of fresh fish. these houses built on piles were much healthier than the old caves and they gave the children a chance to grow up into strong men. the population increased steadily and man began to occupy vast tracts of wilderness which had been unoccupied since the beginning of time. and all the time new inventions were made which made life more comfortable and less dangerous. often enough these innovations were not due to the cleverness of man's brain. he simply copied the animals. you know of course that there are a large number of beasties who prepare for the long winter by burying nuts and acorns and other food which is abundant during the summer. just think of the squirrels who are for ever filling their larder in gardens and parks with supplies for the winter and the early spring. early man, less intelligent in many respects than the squirrels, had not known how to preserve anything for the future. he ate until his hunger was stilled, but what he did not need right away he allowed to rot. as a result he often went without his meals during the cold period and many of his children died from hunger and want. until he followed the example of the animals and prepared for the future by laying in sufficient stores when the harvest had been good and there was an abundance of wheat and grain. we do not know which genius first discovered the use of pottery but he deserves a statue. very likely it was a woman who had got tired of the eternal chores of the kitchen and wanted to make her household duties a little less exacting. she noticed that chunks of clay, when exposed to the rays of the sun, got baked into a hard substance. if a flat piece of clay could be transformed into a brick, a slightly curved piece of the same material must produce a similar result. and behold, the brick grew into a piece of pottery and the human race was able to save for the day of tomorrow. if you think that my praises of this invention are exaggerated, look at the breakfast table and see what pottery, in one form and the other, means in your own life. your oatmeal is served in a dish. the cream is served from a pitcher. your eggs are carried from the kitchen to the dining-room table on a plate. your milk is brought to you in a china mug. then go to the store-room (if there is no store-room in your house go to the nearest delicatessen store). you will see how all the things which we are supposed to eat tomorrow and next week and next year have been put away in jars and cans and other artificial containers which nature did not provide for us but which man was forced to invent and perfect before he could be assured of his regular meals all the year around. even a gas-tank is nothing but a large pitcher, made of iron because iron does not break as easily as china and is less porous than clay. so are barrels and bottles and pots and pans. they all serve the same purpose--of providing us in the future with those things of which we happen to have an abundance at the present moment. and because he could preserve eatable things for the day of need, man began to raise vegetables and grain and saved the surplus for future consumption. this explains why, during the late stone age, we find the first wheat-fields and the first gardens, grouped around the settlements of the early pile-dwellers. it also tells us why man gave up his habit of wandering and settled down in one fixed spot where he raised his children until the day of his death when he was decently buried among his own people. [illustration: prehistoric man is discovered.] it is safe to say that these earliest ancestors of ours would have given up the ways of savages of their own accord if they had been left to their fate. but suddenly there was an end to their isolation. prehistoric man was discovered. a traveler from the unknown south-land who had dared to cross the turbulent sea and the forbidding mountain passes had found his way to the wild people of central europe. on his back he carried a pack. when he had spread his wares before the gaping curiosity of the bewildered natives, their eyes beheld wonders of which their minds had never dared to dream. they saw bronze hammers and axes and tools made of iron and helmets made of copper and beautiful ornaments consisting of a strangely colored substance which the foreign visitor called "glass." and overnight the age of stone came to an end. it was replaced by a new civilization which had discarded wooden and stone implements centuries before and had laid the foundations for that "age of metal" which has endured until our own day. it is of this new civilization that i shall tell you in the rest of my book and if you do not mind, we shall leave the northern continent for a couple of thousand years and pay a visit to egypt and to western asia. "but," you will say, "this is not fair. you promise to tell us about prehistoric man and then, just when the story is going to be interesting, you close the chapter and you jump to another part of the world and we must jump with you whether we like it or not." i know. it does not seem the right thing to do. unfortunately, history is not at all like mathematics. when you solve a sum you go from "a" to "b" and from "b" to "c" and from "c" to "d" and so on. history on the other hand jumps from "a" to "z" and then back to "f" and next to "m" without any apparent respect for neatness and order. there is a good reason for this. history is not exactly a science. it tells the story of the human race and most people, however much we may try to change their nature, refuse to behave with the regularity and the precision of the tables of multiplication. no two men ever do precisely the same thing. no two human brains ever reach exactly the same conclusion. you will notice that for yourself when you grow up. it was not different a few hundred centuries ago. prehistoric man, as i just told you, was on a fair way to progress. he had managed to survive the ice and the snow and the wild animals and that in itself, was a great deal. he had invented many useful things. suddenly, however, other people in a different part of the world entered the race. they rushed forward at a terrible speed and within a very short space of time they reached a height of civilization which had never before been seen upon our planet. then they set forth to teach what they knew to the others who had been less intelligent than themselves. now that i have explained this to you, does it not seem just to give the egyptians and the people of western asia their full share of the chapters of this book? the earliest school of the human race we are the children of a practical age. we travel from place to place in our own little locomotives which we call automobiles. when we wish to speak to a friend whose home is a thousand miles away, we say "hello" into a rubber tube and ask for a certain telephone number in chicago. at night when the room grows dark we push a button and there is light. if we happen to be cold we push another button and the electric stove spreads its pleasant glow through our study. on the other hand in summer when it is hot the same electric current will start a small artificial storm (an electric fan) which keeps us cool and comfortable. we seem to be the masters of all the forces of nature and we make them work for us as if they were our very obedient slaves. but do not forget one thing when you pride yourself upon our splendid achievements. we have constructed the edifice of our modern civilization upon the fundament of wisdom that had been built at great pains by the people of the ancient world. do not be afraid of their strange names which you will meet upon every page of the coming chapters. babylonians and egyptians and chaldeans and sumerians are all dead and gone, but they continue to influence our own lives in everything we do, in the letters we write, in the language we use, in the complicated mathematical problems which we must solve before we can build a bridge or a skyscraper. and they deserve our grateful respect as long as our planet continues to race through the wide space of the high heavens. these ancient people of whom i shall now tell you lived in three definite spots. two of these were found along the banks of vast rivers. the third was situated on the shores of the mediterranean. the oldest center of civilization developed in the valley of the nile, in a country which was called egypt. the second was located in the fertile plains between two big rivers of western asia, to which the ancients gave the name of mesopotamia. the third one which you will find along the shore of the mediterranean, was inhabited by the phoenicians, the earliest of all colonizers and by the jews who bestowed upon the rest of the world the main principles of their moral laws. this third center of civilization is known by its ancient babylonian name of suri, or as we pronounce it, syria. the history of the people who lived in these regions covers more than five thousand years. it is a very, very complicated story. i can not give you many details. i shall try and weave their adventures into a single fabric, which will look like one of those marvelous rugs of which you read in the tales which scheherazade told to harun the just. the key of stone fifty years before the birth of christ, the romans conquered the land along the eastern shores of the mediterranean and among this newly acquired territory was a country called egypt. the romans, who are to play such a great role in our history, were a race of practical men. they built bridges, they constructed roads, and with a small but highly trained army of soldiers and civil officers, they managed to rule the greater part of europe, of eastern africa and western asia. as for art and the sciences, these did not interest them very much. they regarded with suspicion a man who could play the lute or who could write a poem about spring and only thought him little better than the clever fellow who could walk the tightrope or who had trained his poodle dog to stand on its hind legs. they left such things to the greeks and to the orientals, both of whom they despised, while they themselves spent their days and nights keeping order among the thousand and one nations of their vast empire. when they first set foot in egypt that country was already terribly old. more than six thousand and five hundred years had gone by since the history of the egyptian people had begun. long before any one had dreamed of building a city amidst the swamps of the river tiber, the kings of egypt had ruled far and wide and had made their court the center of all civilization. while the romans were still savages who chased wolves and bears with clumsy stone axes, the egyptians were writing books, performing intricate medical operations and teaching their children the tables of multiplication. this great progress they owed chiefly to one very wonderful invention, to the art of preserving their spoken words and their ideas for the benefit of their children and grandchildren. we call this the art of writing. we are so familiar with writing that we can not understand how people ever managed to live without books and newspapers and magazines. but they did and it was the main reason why they made such slow progress during the first million years of their stay upon this planet. they were like cats and dogs who can only teach their puppies and their kittens a few simple things (barking at a stranger and climbing trees and such things) and who, because they can not write, possess no way in which they can use the experience of their countless ancestors. this sounds almost funny, doesn't it? and why make such a fuss about so simple a matter? but did you ever stop to think what happens when you write a letter? suppose that you are taking a trip in the mountains and you have seen a deer. you want to tell this to your father who is in the city. what do you do? you put a lot of dots and dashes upon a piece of paper--you add a few more dots and dashes upon an envelope and you carry your epistle to the mailbox together with a two-cent stamp. what have you really been doing? you have changed a number of spoken words into a number of pothooks and scrawls. but how did you know how to make your curlycues in such a fashion that both the postman and your father could retranslate them into spoken words? you knew, because some one had taught you how to draw the precise figures which represented the sound of your spoken words. just take a few letters and see the way this game is played. we make a guttural noise and write down a "g." we let the air pass through our closed teeth and we write down "s." we open our mouth wide and make a noise like a steam engine and the sound is written down "h." it took the human race hundreds of thousands of years to discover this and the credit for it goes to the egyptians. of course they did not use the letters which have been used to print this book. they had a system of their own. it was much prettier than ours but not quite so simple. it consisted of little figures and images of things around the house and around the farm, of knives and plows and birds and pots and pans. these little figures their scribes scratched and painted upon the wall of the temples, upon the coffins of their dead kings and upon the dried leaves of the papyrus plant which has given its name to our "paper." but when the romans entered this vast library they showed neither enthusiasm nor interest. they possessed a system of writing of their own which they thought vastly superior. [illustration: the key of stone] they did not know that the greeks (from whom they had learned their alphabet) had in turn obtained theirs from the phoenicians who had again borrowed with great success from the old egyptians. they did not know and they did not care. in their schools the roman alphabet was taught exclusively and what was good enough for the roman children was good enough for everybody else. you will understand that the egyptian language did not long survive the indifference and the opposition of the roman governors. it was forgotten. it died just as the languages of most of our indian tribes have become a thing of the past. the arabs and the turks who succeeded the romans as the rulers of egypt abhorred all writing that was not connected with their holy book, the koran. at last in the middle of the sixteenth century a few western visitors came to egypt and showed a mild interest in these strange pictures. but there was no one to explain their meaning and these first europeans were as wise as the romans and the turks had been before them. now it happened, late in the eighteenth century that a certain french general by the name of buonaparte visited egypt. he did not go there to study ancient history. he wanted to use the country as a starting point for a military expedition against the british colonies in india. this expedition failed completely but it helped solve the mysterious problem of the ancient egyptian writing. among the soldiers of napoleon buonaparte there was a young officer by the name of broussard. he was stationed at the fortress of st. julien on the western mouth of the nile which is called the rosetta river. broussard liked to rummage among the ruins of the lower nile and one day he found a stone which greatly puzzled him. like everything else in that neighborhood, it was covered with picture writing. but this slab of black basalt was different from anything that had ever been discovered. it carried three inscriptions and one of these (oh joy!) was in greek. the greek language was known. as it was almost certain that the egyptian part contained a translation of the greek (or vice versa), the key to ancient egyptian seemed to have been discovered. but it took more than thirty years of very hard work before the key had been made to fit the lock. then the mysterious door was opened and the ancient treasure house of egypt was forced to surrender its secrets. the man who gave his life to the task of deciphering this language was jean francois champollion--usually called champollion junior to distinguish him from his older brother who was also a very learned man. champollion junior was a baby when the french revolution broke out and therefore he escaped serving in the armies of the general buonaparte. while his countrymen were marching from one glorious victory to another (and back again as such imperial armies are apt to do) champollion studied the language of the copts, the native christians of egypt. at the age of nineteen he was appointed a professor of history at one of the smaller french universities and there he began his great work of translating the pictures of the old egyptian language. for this purpose he used the famous black stone of rosetta which broussard had discovered among the ruins near the mouth of the nile. the original stone was still in egypt. napoleon had been forced to vacate the country in a hurry and he had left this curiosity behind. when the english retook alexandria in the year 1801 they found the stone and carried it to london, where you may see it this very day in the british museum. the inscriptions however had been copied and had been taken to france, where they were used by champollion. the greek text was quite clear. it contained the story of ptolemy v and his wife cleopatra, the grandmother of that other cleopatra about whom shakespeare wrote. the other two inscriptions, however, refused to surrender their secrets. one of them was in hieroglyphics, the name we give to the oldest known egyptian writing. the word hieroglyphic is greek and means "sacred carving." it is a very good name for it fully describes the purpose and nature of this script. the priests who had invented this art did not want the common people to become too familiar with the deep mysteries of preserving speech. they made writing a sacred business. they surrounded it with much mystery and decreed that the carving of hieroglyphics be regarded as a sacred art and forbade the people to practice it for such a common purpose as business or commerce. they could enforce this rule with success so long as the country was inhabited by simple farmers who lived at home and grew everything they needed upon their own fields. but gradually egypt became a land of traders and these traders needed a means of communication beyond the spoken word. so they boldly took the little figures of the priests and simplified them for their own purposes. thereafter they wrote their business letters in the new script which became known as the "popular language" and which we call by its greek name, the "demotic language." the rosetta stone carried both the sacred and the popular translations of the greek text and upon these two champollion centered his attack. he collected every piece of egyptian script which he could get and together with the rosetta stone he compared and studied them until after twenty years of patient drudgery he understood the meaning of fourteen little figures. that means that he spent more than a whole year to decipher each single picture. finally he went to egypt and in the year 1823 he printed the first scientific book upon the subject of the ancient hieroglyphics. nine years later he died from overwork, as a true martyr to the great task which he had set himself as a boy. his work, however, lived after him. others continued his studies and today egyptologists can read hieroglyphics as easily as we can read the printed pages of our newspapers. fourteen pictures in twenty years seems very slow work. but let me tell you something of champollion's difficulties. then you will understand, and understanding, you will admire his courage. the old egyptians did not use a simple sign language. they had passed beyond that stage. of course, you know what sign language is. every indian story has a chapter about queer messages, written in the form of little pictures. hardly a boy but at some stage or other of his life, as a buffalo hunter or an indian fighter, has invented a sign language of his own, and all boy scouts are familiar with it. but egyptian was something quite different and i must try and make this clear to you with a few pictures. suppose that you were champollion and that you were reading an old papyrus which told the story of a farmer who lived somewhere along the banks of the river nile. suddenly you came across a picture of a man with a saw. [illustration: saw] "very well," you said, "that means, of course, that the farmer went out and cut a tree down." most likely you had guessed correctly. next you took another page of hieroglyphics. they told the story of a queen who had lived to be eighty-two years old. right in the middle of the text the same picture occurred. that was very puzzling, to say the least. queens do not go about cutting down trees. they let other people do it for them. a young queen may saw wood for the sake of exercise, but a queen of eighty-two stays at home with her cat and her spinning wheel. yet, the picture was there. the ancient priest who drew it must have placed it there for a definite purpose. what could he have meant? that was the riddle which champollion finally solved. he discovered that the egyptians were the first people to use what we call "phonetic writing." like most other words which express a scientific idea, the word "phonetic" is of greek origin. it means the "science of the sound which is made by our speech." you have seen the greek word "phone," which means the voice, before. it occurs in our word "telephone," the machine which carries the voice to a distant point. ancient egyptian was "phonetic" and it set man free from the narrow limits of that sign language which in some primitive form had been used ever since the cave-dweller began to scratch pictures of wild animals upon the walls of his home. now let us return for a moment to the little fellow with his saw who suddenly appeared in the story of the old queen. evidently he had something to do with a saw. a "saw" is either a tool which you find in a carpenter shop or it means the past tense of the verb "to see." this is what had happened to the word during the course of many centuries. first of all it had meant a man with a saw. then it came to mean the sound which we reproduce by the three modern letters, s, a and w. in the end the original meaning of carpentering was lost entirely and the picture indicated the past tense of "to see." a modern english sentence done into the images of ancient egypt will show you what i mean. [illustration: eye bee leaf eye saw giraffe] the [illustration: eye] means either these two round objects in your head which allow you to see, or it means "i," the person who is talking or writing. a [illustration: bee] is either an animal which gathers honey and pricks you in the finger when you try to catch it, or it represents to verb "to be," which is pronounced the same way and which means to "exist." again it may be the first part of a verb like "be-come" or "be-have." in this case the bee is followed by a [illustration: leaf] which represents the sound which we find in the word "leave" or "leaf." put your "bee" and your "leaf" together and you have the two sounds which make the verb "bee-leave" or "believe" as we write it nowadays. the "eye" you know all about. finally you get a picture which looks like a giraffe. [illustration: giraffe] it is a giraffe, and it is part of the old sign language, which has been continued wherever it seemed most convenient. therefore you get the following sentence, "i believe i saw a giraffe." this system, once invented, was developed during thousands of years. gradually the most important figures came to mean single letters or short sounds like "fu" or "em" or "dee" or "zee," or as we write them, f and m and d and z. and with the help of these, the egyptians could write anything they wanted upon every conceivable subject, and could preserve the experience of one generation for the benefit of the next without the slightest difficulty. that, in a very general way, is what champollion taught us after the exhausting search which killed him when he was a young man. that too, is the reason why today we know egyptian history better than that of any other ancient country. the land of the living and the land of the dead the history of man is the record of a hungry creature in search of food. wherever food was plentiful and easily gathered, thither man travelled to make his home. the fame of the nile valley must have spread at an early date. from far and wide, wild people flocked to the banks of the river. surrounded on all sides by desert or sea, it was not easy to reach these fertile fields and only the hardiest men and women survived. we do not know who they were. some came from the interior of africa and had woolly hair and thick lips. others, with a yellowish skin, came from the desert of arabia and the broad rivers of western asia. they fought each other for the possession of this wonderful land. they built villages which their neighbors destroyed and they rebuilt them with the bricks they had taken from other neighbors whom they in turn had vanquished. gradually a new race developed. they called themselves "remi," which means simply "the men." there was a touch of pride in this name and they used it in the same sense that we refer to america as "god's own country." part of the year, during the annual flood of the nile, they lived on small islands within a country which itself was cut off from the rest of the world by the sea and the desert. no wonder that these people were what we call "insular," and had the habits of villagers who rarely come in contact with their neighbors. they liked their own ways best. they thought their own habits and customs just a trifle better than those of anybody else. in the same way, their own gods were considered more powerful than the gods of other nations. they did not exactly despise foreigners, but they felt a mild pity for them and if possible they kept them outside of the egyptian domains, lest their own people be corrupted by "foreign notions." they were kind-hearted and rarely did anything that was cruel. they were patient and in business dealings they were rather indifferent life came as an easy gift and they never became stingy and mean like northern people who have to struggle for mere existence. when the sun arose above the blood-red horizon of the distant desert, they went forth to till their fields. when the last rays of light had disappeared beyond the mountain ridges, they went to bed. they worked hard, they plodded and they bore whatever happened with stolid unconcern and profound patience. they believed that this life was but a short preface to a new existence which began the moment death had entered the house. until at last, the life of the future came to be regarded as more important than the life of the present and the people of egypt turned their teeming land into one vast shrine for the worship of the dead. [illustration: the land of the dead.] and as most of the papyrus-rolls of the ancient valley tell stories of a religious nature we know with great accuracy just what gods the egyptians revered and how they tried to assure all possible happiness and comfort to those who had entered upon the eternal sleep. in the beginning each little village had possessed a god of its own. often this god was supposed to reside in a queerly shaped stone or in the branch of a particularly large tree. it was well to be good friends with him for he could do great harm and destroy the harvest and prolong the period of drought until the people and the cattle had all died of thirst. therefore the villages made him presents--offered him things to eat or a bunch of flowers. when the egyptians went forth to fight their enemies the god must needs be taken along, until he became a sort of battle flag around which the people rallied in time of danger. but when the country grew older and better roads had been built and the egyptians had begun to travel, the old "fetishes," as such chunks of stone and wood were called, lost their importance and were thrown away or were left in a neglected corner or were used as doorsteps or chairs. their place was taken by new gods who were more powerful than the old ones had been and who represented those forces of nature which influenced the lives of the egyptians of the entire valley. first among these was the sun which makes all things grow. next came the river nile which tempered the heat of the day and brought rich deposits of clay to refresh the fields and make them fertile. then there was the kindly moon which at night rowed her little boat across the arch of heaven and there was thunder and there was lightning and there were any number of things which could make life happy or miserable according to their pleasure and desire. ancient man, entirely at the mercy of these forces of nature, could not get rid of them as easily as we do when we plant lightning rods upon our houses or build reservoirs which keep us alive during the summer months when there is no rain. on the contrary they formed an intimate part of his daily life--they accompanied him from the moment he was put into his cradle until the day that his body was prepared for eternal rest. neither could he imagine that such vast and powerful phenomena as a bolt of lightning or the flood of a river were mere impersonal things. some one--somewhere--must be their master and must direct them as the engineer directs his engine or a captain steers his ship. a god-in-chief was therefore created, like the commanding general of an army. a number of lower officers were placed at his disposal. within their own territory each one could act independently. in grave matters, however, which affected the happiness of all the people, they must take orders from their master. the supreme divine ruler of the land of egypt was called osiris, and all the little egyptian children knew the story of his wonderful life. once upon a time, in the valley of the nile, there lived a king called osiris. he was a good man who taught his subjects how to till their fields and who gave his country just laws. but he had a bad brother whose name was seth. now seth envied osiris because he was so virtuous and one day he invited him to dinner and afterwards he said that he would like to show him something. curious osiris asked what it was and seth said that it was a funnily shaped coffin which fitted one like a suit of clothes. osiris said that he would like to try it. so he lay down in the coffin but no sooner was he inside when bang!--seth shut the lid. then he called for his servants and ordered them to throw the coffin into the nile. soon the news of his terrible deed spread throughout the land. isis, the wife of osiris, who had loved her husband very dearly, went at once to the banks of the nile, and after a short while the waves threw the coffin upon the shore. then she went forth to tell her son horus, who ruled in another land, but no sooner had she left than seth, the wicked brother, broke into the palace and cut the body of osiris into fourteen pieces. [illustration: a pyramid.] when isis returned, she discovered what seth had done. she took the fourteen pieces of the dead body and sewed them together and then osiris came back to life and reigned for ever and ever as king of the lower world to which the souls of men must travel after they have left the body. as for seth, the evil one, he tried to escape, but horus, the son of osiris and isis, who had been warned by his mother, caught him and slew him. this story of a faithful wife and a wicked brother and a dutiful son who avenged his father and the final victory of virtue over wickedness formed the basis of the religious life of the people of egypt. osiris was regarded as the god of all living things which seemingly die in the winter and yet return to renewed existence the next spring. as ruler of the life hereafter, he was the final judge of the acts of men, and woe unto him who had been cruel and unjust and had oppressed the weak. as for the world of the departed souls, it was situated beyond the high mountains of the west (which was also the home of the young nile) and when an egyptian wanted to say that someone had died, he said that he "had gone west." isis shared the honors and the duties of osiris with him. their son horus, who was worshipped as the god of the sun (hence the word "horizon," the place where the sun sets) became the first of a new line of egyptian kings and all the pharaohs of egypt had horus as their middle name. of course, each little city and every small village continued to worship a few divinities of their own. but generally speaking, all the people recognized the sublime power of osiris and tried to gain his favor. this was no easy task, and led to many strange customs. in the first place, the egyptians came to believe that no soul could enter into the realm of osiris without the possession of the body which had been its place of residence in this world. [illustration: how the pyramids grew.] whatever happened, the body must be preserved after death, and it must be given a permanent and suitable home. therefore as soon as a man had died, his corpse was embalmed. this was a difficult and complicated operation which was performed by an official who was half doctor and half priest, with the help of an assistant whose duty it was to make the incision through which the chest could be filled with cedar-tree pitch and myrrh and cassia. this assistant belonged to a special class of people who were counted among the most despised of men. the egyptians thought it a terrible thing to commit acts of violence upon a human being, whether dead or living, and only the lowest of the low could be hired to perform this unpopular task. afterwards the priest took the body again and for a period of ten weeks he allowed it to be soaked in a solution of natron which was brought for this purpose from the distant desert of libya. then the body had become a "mummy" because it was filled with "mumiai" or pitch. it was wrapped in yards and yards of specially prepared linen and it was placed in a beautifully decorated wooden coffin, ready to be removed to its final home in the western desert. the grave itself was a little stone room in the sand of the desert or a cave in a hill-side. after the coffin had been placed in the center the little room was well supplied with cooking utensils and weapons and statues (of clay or wood) representing bakers and butchers who were expected to wait upon their dead master in case he needed anything. flutes and fiddles were added to give the occupant of the grave a chance to while away the long hours which he must spend in this "house of eternity." then the roof was covered with sand and the dead egyptian was left to the peaceful rest of eternal sleep. but the desert is full of wild creatures, hyenas and wolves, and they dug their way through the wooden roof and the sand and ate up the mummy. this was a terrible thing, for then the soul was doomed to wander forever and suffer agonies of a man without a home. to assure the corpse all possible safety a low wall of brick was built around the grave and the open space was filled with sand and gravel. in this way a low artificial hill was made which protected the mummy against wild animals and robbers. then one day, an egyptian who had just buried his mother, of whom he had been particularly fond, decided to give her a monument that should surpass anything that had ever been built in the valley of the nile. he gathered his serfs and made them build an artificial mountain that could be seen for miles around. the sides of this hill he covered with a layer of bricks that the sand might not be blown away. people liked the novelty of the idea. soon they were trying to outdo each other and the graves rose twenty and thirty and forty feet above the ground. at last a rich nobleman ordered a burial chamber made of solid stone. on top of the actual grave where the mummy rested, he constructed a pile of bricks which rose several hundred feet into the air. a small passage-way gave entrance to the vault and when this passage was closed with a heavy slab of granite the mummy was safe from all intrusion. the king of course could not allow one of his subjects to outdo him in such a matter. he was the most powerful man of all egypt who lived in the biggest house and therefore he was entitled to the best grave. what others had done in brick he could do with the help of more costly materials. pharaoh sent his officers far and wide to gather workmen. he constructed roads. he built barracks in which the workmen could live and sleep (you may see those barracks this very day). then he set to work and made himself a grave which was to endure for all time. we call this great pile of masonry a "pyramid." the origin of the word is a curious one. when the greeks visited egypt the pyramids were already several thousand years old. [illustration: the mummy] of course the egyptians took their guests into the desert to see these wondrous sights just as we take foreigners to gaze at the wool-worth tower and brooklyn bridge. the greek guest, lost in admiration, waved his hands and asked what the strange mountains might be. his guide thought that he referred to the extraordinary height and said "yes, they are very high indeed." the egyptian word for height was "pir-em-us." the greek must have thought that this was the name of the whole structure and giving it a greek ending he called it a "pyramis." we have changed the "s" into a "d" but we still use the same egyptian word when we talk of the stone graves along the banks of the nile. the biggest of these many pyramids, which was built fifty centuries ago, was five hundred feet high. at the base it was seven hundred and fifty-five feet wide. it covered more than thirteen acres of desert, which is three times as much space as that occupied by the church of saint peter, the largest edifice of the christian world. during twenty years, over a hundred thousand men were used to carry the stones from the distant peninsula of sinai--to ferry them across the nile (how they ever managed to do this we do not understand)--to drag them halfway across the desert and finally hoist them into their correct position. but so well did pharaoh's architects and engineers perform their task that the narrow passage-way which leads to the royal tomb in the heart of the pyramid has never yet been pushed out of shape by the terrific weight of those thousands and thousands of tons of stone which press upon it from all sides. the making of a state nowadays we all are members of a "state." we may be frenchmen or chinamen or russians; we may live in the furthest corner of indonesia (do you know where that is?), but in some way or other we belong to that curious combination of people which is called the "state." it does not matter whether we recognize a king or an emperor or a president as our ruler. we are born and we die as a small part of this large whole and no one can escape this fate. the "state," as a matter of fact, is quite a recent invention. the earliest inhabitants of the world did not know what it was. every family lived and hunted and worked and died for and by itself. sometimes it happened that a few of these families, for the sake of greater protection against the wild animals and against other wild people, formed a loose alliance which was called a tribe or a clan. but as soon as the danger was past, these groups of people acted again by and for themselves and if the weak could not defend their own cave, they were left to the mercies of the hyena and the tiger and nobody was very sorry if they were killed. in short, each person was a nation unto himself and he felt no responsibility for the happiness and safety of his neighbor. very, very slowly this was changed and egypt was the first country where the people were organized into a well-regulated empire. the nile was directly responsible for this useful development. i have told you how in the summer of each year the greater part of the nile valley and the nile delta is turned into a vast inland sea. to derive the greatest benefit from this water and yet survive the flood, it had been necessary at certain points to build dykes and small islands which would offer shelter for man and beast during the months of august and september. the construction of these little artificial islands however had not been simple. [illustration: the young nile.] a single man or a single family or even a small tribe could not construct a river-dam without the help of others. however much a farmer might dislike his neighbors he disliked getting drowned even more and he was obliged to call upon the entire country-side when the water of the river began to rise and threatened him and his wife and his children and his cattle with destruction. necessity forced the people to forget their small differences and soon the entire valley of the nile was covered with little combinations of people who constantly worked together for a common purpose and who depended upon each other for life and prosperity. out of such small beginnings grew the first powerful state. it was a great step forward along the road of progress. it made the land of egypt a truly inhabitable place. it meant the end of lawless murder. it assured the people greater safety than ever before and gave the weaker members of the tribe a chance to survive. nowadays, when conditions of absolute disorder exist only in the jungles of africa, it is hard to imagine a world without laws and policemen and judges and health officers and hospitals and schools. but five thousand years ago, egypt stood alone as an organized state and was greatly envied by those of her neighbors who were obliged to face the difficulties of life single-handedly. a state, however, is not only composed of citizens. there must be a few men who execute the laws and who, in case of an emergency, take command of the entire community. therefore no country has ever been able to endure without a single head, be he called a king or an emperor or a shah (as in persia) or a president, as he is called in our own land. [illustration: the fertile valley.] in ancient egypt, every village recognized the authority of the village-elders, who were old men and possessed greater experience than the young ones. these elders selected a strong man to command their soldiers in case of war and to tell them what to do when there was a flood. they gave him a title which distinguished him from the others. they called him a king or a prince and obeyed his orders for their own common benefit. therefore in the oldest days of egyptian history, we find the following division among the people: the majority are peasants. all of them are equally rich and equally poor. they are ruled by a powerful man who is the commander-in-chief of their armies and who appoints their judges and causes roads to be built for the common benefit and comfort. he also is the chief of the police force and catches the thieves. in return for these valuable services he receives a certain amount of everybody's money which is called a tax. the greater part of these taxes, however, do not belong to the king personally. they are money entrusted to him to be used for the common good. but after a short while a new class of people, neither peasants nor king, begins to develop. this new class, commonly called the nobles, stands between the ruler and his subjects. since those early days it has made its appearance in the history of every country and it has played a great role in the development of every nation. i must try and explain to you how this class of nobles developed out of the most commonplace circumstances of everyday life and why it has maintained itself to this very day, against every form of opposition. to make my story quite clear, i have drawn a picture. it shows you five egyptian farms. the original owners of these farms had moved into egypt years and years ago. each had taken a piece of unoccupied land and had settled down upon it to raise grain and cows and pigs and do whatever was necessary to keep themselves and their children alive. apparently they had the same chance in life. how then did it happen that one became the ruler of his neighbors and got hold of all their fields and barns without breaking a single law? [illustration: the origins of the feudal system.] one day after the harvest, mr. fish (you see his name in hieroglyphics on the map) sent his boat loaded with grain to the town of memphis to sell the cargo to the inhabitants of central egypt. it happened to have been a good year for the farmer and fish got a great deal of money for his wheat. after ten days the boat returned to the homestead and the captain handed the money which he had received to his employer. a few weeks later, mr. sparrow, whose farm was next to that of fish, sent his wheat to the nearest market. poor sparrow had not been very lucky for the last few years. but he hoped to make up for his recent losses by a profitable sale of his grain. therefore he had waited until the price of wheat in memphis should have gone a little higher. that morning a rumor had reached the village of a famine in the island of crete. as a result the grain in the egyptian markets had greatly increased in value. sparrow hoped to profit through this unexpected turn of the market and he bade his skipper to hurry. the skipper handled the rudder of his craft so clumsily that the boat struck a rock and sank, drowning the mate who was caught under the sail. sparrow not only lost all his grain and his ship but he was also forced to pay the widow of his drowned mate ten pieces of gold to make up for the loss of her husband. these disasters occurred at the very moment when sparrow could not afford another loss. winter was near and he had no money to buy cloaks for his children. he had put off buying new hoes and spades for such a long time that the old ones were completely worn out. he had no seeds for his fields. he was in a desperate plight. he did not like his neighbor, mr. fish, any too well but there was no way out. he must go and humbly he must ask for the loan of a small sum of money. he called on fish. the latter said that he would gladly let him have whatever he needed but could sparrow put up any sort of guaranty? sparrow said, "yes." he would offer his own farm as a pledge of good faith. unfortunately fish knew all about that farm. it had belonged to the sparrow family for many generations. but the father of the present owner had allowed himself to be terribly cheated by a phoenician trader who had sold him a couple of "phrygian oxen" (nobody knew what the name meant) which were said to be of a very fine breed, which needed little food and performed twice as much labor as the common egyptian oxen. the old farmer had believed the solemn words of the impostor. he had bought the wonderful beasts, greatly envied by all his neighbors. they had not proved a success. they were very stupid and very slow and exceedingly lazy and within three weeks they had died from a mysterious disease. the old farmer was so angry that he suffered a stroke and the management of his estate was left to the son, who worked hard but without much result. the loss of his grain and his vessel were the last straw. young sparrow must either starve or ask his neighbor to help him with a loan. fish who was familiar with the lives of all his neighbors (he was that kind of person, not because he loved gossip but one never knew how such information might come in handy) and who knew to a penny the state of affairs in the sparrow household, felt strong enough to insist upon certain terms. sparrow could have all the money he needed upon the following condition. he must promise to work for fish six weeks of every year and he must allow him free access to his grounds at all times. sparrow did not like these terms, but the days were growing shorter and winter was coming on fast and his family were without food. he was forced to accept and from that time on, he and his sons and daughters were no longer quite as free as they had been before. they did not exactly become the servants or the slaves of their neighbor, but they were dependent upon his kindness for their own livelihood. when they met fish in the road they stepped aside and said "good morning, sir." and he answered them--or not--as the case might be. he now owned a great deal of water-front, twice as much as before. he had more land and more laborers and he could raise more grain than in the past years. the nearby villagers talked of the new house he was building and in a general way, he was regarded as a man of growing wealth and importance. late that summer an unheard-of-thing happened. it rained. the oldest inhabitants could not remember such a thing, but it rained hard and steadily for two whole days. a little brook, the existence of which everybody had forgotten, was suddenly turned into a wild torrent. in the middle of the night it came thundering down from the mountains and destroyed the harvest of the farmer who occupied the rocky ground at the foot of the hills. his name was cup and he too had inherited his land from a hundred other cups who had gone before. the damage was almost irreparable. cup needed new seed grain and he needed it at once. he had heard sparrow's story. he too hated to ask a favor of fish who was known far and wide as a shrewd dealer. but in the end, he found his way to the fishs' homestead and humbly begged for the loan of a few bushels of wheat. he got them but not until he had agreed to work two whole months of each year on the farm of fish. fish was now doing very well. his new house was ready and he thought the time had come to establish himself as the head of a household. just across the way, there lived a farmer who had a young daughter. the name of this farmer was knife. he was a happy-go-lucky person and he could not give his child a large dowry. fish called on knife and told him that he did not care for money. he was rich and he was willing to take the daughter without a single penny. knife, however, must promise to leave his land to his son-in-law in case he died. this was done. the will was duly drawn up before a notary, the wedding took place and fish now possessed (or was about to possess) the greater part of four farms. it is true there was a fifth farm situated right in between the others. but its owner, by the name of sickle, could not carry his wheat to the market without crossing the lands over which fish held sway. besides, sickle was not very energetic and he willingly hired himself out to fish on condition that he and his old wife be given a room and food and clothes for the rest of their days. they had no children and this settlement assured them a peaceful old age. when sickle died, a distant nephew appeared who claimed a right to his uncle's farm. fish had the dogs turned loose on him and the fellow was never seen again. these transactions had covered a period of twenty years. the younger generations of the cup and sickle and sparrow families accepted their situation in life without questioning. they knew old fish as "the squire" upon whose good-will they were more or less dependent if they wanted to succeed in life. when the old man died he left his son many wide acres and a position of great influence among his immediate neighbors. young fish resembled his father. he was very able and had a great deal of ambition. when the king of upper egypt went to war against the wild berber tribes, he volunteered his services. he fought so bravely that the king appointed him collector of the royal revenue for three hundred villages. often it happened that certain farmers could not pay their tax. then young fish offered to give them a small loan. before they knew it, they were working for the royal tax gatherer, to repay both the money which they had borrowed and the interest on the loan. the years went by and the fish family reigned supreme in the land of their birth. the old home was no longer good enough for such important people. a noble hall was built (after the pattern of the royal banqueting hall of thebes). a high wall was erected to keep the crowd at a respectful distance and fish never went out without a bodyguard of armed soldiers. twice a year he travelled to thebes to be with his king, who lived in the largest palace of all egypt and who was therefore known as "pharaoh," the owner of the "big house." upon one of his visits, he took fish the third, grandson of the founder of the family, who was a handsome young fellow. the daughter of pharaoh saw the youth and desired him for her husband. the wedding cost fish most of his fortune, but he was still collector of the royal revenue and by treating the people without mercy he was able to fill his strong-box in less than three years. when he died he was buried in a small pyramid, just as if he had been a member of the royal family, and a daughter of pharaoh wept over his grave. that is my story which begins somewhere along the banks of the nile and which in the course of three generations lifts a farmer from the ranks of his own humble ancestors and drops him outside the gate but near the throne-room of the king's palace. what happened to fish, happened to a large number of equally energetic and resourceful men. they formed a class apart. they married each other's daughters and in this way they kept the family fortunes in the hands of a small number of people. they served the king faithfully as officers in his army and as collectors of his taxes. they looked after the safety of the roads and the waterways. they performed many useful tasks and among themselves they obeyed the laws of a very strict code of honor. if the kings were bad, the nobles were apt to be bad too. when the kings were weak the nobles often managed to get hold of the state. then it often happened that the people arose in their wrath and destroyed those who oppressed them. many of the old nobles were killed and a new division of the land took place which gave everybody an equal chance. but after a short while the old story repeated itself. this time it was perhaps a member of the sparrow family who used his greater shrewdness and industry to make himself master of the countryside while the descendants of fish (of glorious memory!) were reduced to poverty. otherwise very little was changed. the faithful peasants continued to work and pay taxes. the equally faithful tax gatherers continued to gather wealth. but the old nile, indifferent to the ambitions of men, flowed as placidly as ever between its age-worn banks and bestowed its fertile blessings upon the poor and upon the rich with the impartial justice which is found only in the forces of nature. the rise and fall of egypt we often hear it said that "civilization travels westward." what we mean is that hardy pioneers have crossed the atlantic ocean and settled along the shores of new england and new netherland--that their children have crossed the vast prairies--that their great-grandchildren have moved into california--and that the present generation hopes to turn the vast pacific into the most important sea of the ages. as a matter of fact, "civilization" never remains long in the same spot. it is always going somewhere but it does not always move westward by any means. sometimes its course points towards the east or the south. often it zigzags across the map. but it keeps moving. after two or three hundred years, civilization seems to say, "well, i have been keeping company with these particular people long enough," and it packs its books and its science and its art and its music, and wanders forth in search of new domains. but no one knows whither it is bound, and that is what makes life so interesting. [illustration: the soil of the fertile valley.] in the case of egypt, the center of civilization moved northward and southward, along the banks of the nile. first of all, as i told you, people from all over africa and western asia moved into the valley and settled down. thereupon they formed small villages and townships and accepted the rule of a commander-in-chief, who was called pharaoh, and who had his capital in memphis, in the lower part of egypt. after a couple of thousand years, the rulers of this ancient house became too weak to maintain themselves. a new family from the town of thebes, 350 miles towards the south in upper egypt, tried to make itself master of the entire valley. in the year 2400 b.c. they succeeded. as rulers of both upper and lower egypt, they set forth to conquer the rest of the world. they marched towards the sources of the nile (which they never reached) and conquered black ethiopia. next they crossed the desert of sinai and invaded syria where they made their name feared by the babylonians and assyrians. the possession of these outlying districts assured the safety of egypt and they could set to work to turn the valley into a happy home, for as many of the people as could find room there. they built many new dikes and dams and a vast reservoir in the desert which they filled with water from the nile to be kept and used in case of a prolonged drought. they encouraged people to devote themselves to the study of mathematics and astronomy so that they might determine the time when the floods of the nile were to be expected. since for this purpose it was necessary to have a handy method by which time could be measured, they established the year of 365 days, which they divided into twelve months. contrary to the old tradition which made the egyptians keep away from all things foreign, they allowed the exchange of egyptian merchandise for goods which had been carried to their harbors from elsewhere. they traded with the greeks of crete and with the arabs of western asia and they got spices from the indies and they imported gold and silk from china. but all human institutions are subject to certain definite laws of progress and decline and a state or a dynasty is no exception. after four hundred years of prosperity, these mighty kings showed signs of growing tired. rather than ride a camel at the head of their army, the rulers of the great egyptian empire stayed within the gates of their palace and listened to the music of the harp or the flute. one day there came rumors to the town of thebes that wild tribes of horsemen had been pillaging along the frontiers. an army was sent to drive them away. this army moved into the desert. to the last man it was killed by the fierce arabs, who now marched towards the nile, bringing their flocks of sheep and their household goods. another army was told to stop their progress. the battle was disastrous for the egyptians and the valley of the nile was open to the invaders. they rode fleet horses and they used bows and arrows. within a short time they had made themselves master of the entire country. for five centuries they ruled the land of egypt. they removed the old capital to the delta of the nile. they oppressed the egyptian peasants. they treated the men cruelly and they killed the children and they were rude to the ancient gods. they did not like to live in the cities but stayed with their flocks in the open fields and therefore they were called the hyksos, which means the shepherd kings. at last their rule grew unbearable. a noble family from the city of thebes placed itself at the head of a national revolution against the foreign usurpers. it was a desperate fight but the egyptians won. the hyksos were driven out of the country, and they went back to the desert whence they had come. the experience had been a warning to the egyptian people. their five hundred years of foreign slavery had been a terrible experience. such a thing must never happen again. the frontier of the fatherland must be made so strong that no one dare to attack the holy soil. a new theban king, called tethmosis, invaded asia and never stopped until he reached the plains of mesopotamia. he watered his oxen in the river euphrates, and babylon and nineveh trembled at the mention of his name. wherever he went, he built strong fortresses, which were connected by excellent roads. tethmosis, having built a barrier against future invasions, went home and died. but his daughter, hatshepsut, continued his good work. she rebuilt the temples which the hyksos had destroyed and she founded a strong state in which soldiers and merchants worked together for a common purpose and which was called the new empire, and lasted from 1600 to 1300 b.c. military nations, however, never last very long. the larger the empire, the more men are needed for its defense and the more men there are in the army, the fewer can stay at home to work the farms and attend to the demands of trade. within a few years, the egyptian state had become top-heavy and the army, which was meant to be a bulwark against foreign invasion, dragged the country into ruin from sheer lack of both men and money. without interruption, wild people from asia were attacking those strong walls behind which egypt was hoarding the riches of the entire civilized world. at first the egyptian garrisons could hold their own. one day, however, in distant mesopotamia, there arose a new military empire which was called assyria. it cared for neither art nor science, but it could fight. the assyrians marched against the egyptians and defeated them in battle. for more than twenty years they ruled the land of the nile. to egypt this meant the beginning of the end. a few times, for short periods, the people managed to regain their independence. but they were an old race, and they were worn out by centuries of hard work. the time had come for them to disappear from the stage of history and surrender their leadership as the most civilized people of the world. greek merchants were swarming down upon the cities at the mouth of the nile. a new capital was built at sais, near the mouth of the nile, and egypt became a purely commercial state, the half-way house for the trade between western asia and eastern europe. after the greeks came the persians, who conquered all of northern africa. two centuries later, alexander the great turned the ancient land of the pharaoh? into a greek province. when he died, one of his generals, ptolemy by name, established himself as the independent king of a new egyptian state. the ptolemy family continued to rule for two hundred years. in the year 30 b.c., cleopatra, the last of the ptolemys, killed herself, rather than become a prisoner of the victorious roman general, octavianus. that was the end. egypt became part of the roman empire and her life as an independent state ceased for all time. mesopotamia, the country between the rivers i am going to take you to the top of the highest pyramid. it is a good deal of a climb. the casing of fine stones which in the beginning covered the rough granite blocks which were used to construct this artificial mountain, has long since worn off or has been stolen to help build new roman cities. a goat would have a fine time scaling this strange peak. but with the help of a few arab boys, we can get to the top after a few hours of hard work, and there we can rest and look far into the next chapter of the history of the human race. way, way off, in the distance, far beyond the yellow sands of the vast desert, through which the old nile had cut herself a way to the sea, you will (if you have the eyes of a hawk), see something shimmering and green. it is a valley situated between two big rivers. it is the most interesting spot of the ancient map. it is the paradise of the old testament. it is the old land of mystery and wonder which the greeks called mesopotamia. the word "mesos" means "middle" or "in between" and "potomos" is the greek expression for river. (just think of the hippopotamus, the horse or "hippos" that lives in the rivers.) mesopotamia, therefore, meant a stretch of land "between the rivers." the two rivers in this case were the euphrates which the babylonians called the "purattu" and the tigris, which the babylonians called the "diklat." you will see them both upon the map. they begin their course amidst the snows of the northern mountains of armenia and slowly they flow through the southern plain until they reach the muddy banks of the persian gulf. but before they have lost themselves amidst the waves of this branch of the indian ocean, they have performed a great and useful task. they have turned an otherwise arid and dry region into the only fertile spot of western asia. that fact will explain to you why mesopotamia was so very popular with the inhabitants of the northern mountains and the southern desert. it is a well-known fact that all living beings like to be comfortable. when it rains, the cat hastens to a place of shelter. when it is cold, the dog finds a spot in front of the stove. when a certain part of the sea becomes more salty than it has been before (or less, for that matter) myriads of little fishes swim hastily to another part of the wide ocean. as for the birds, a great many of them move from one place to another regularly once a year. when the cold weather sets in, the geese depart, and when the first swallow returns, we know that summer is about to smile upon us. man is no exception to this rule. he likes the warm stove much better than the cold wind. whenever he has the choice between a good dinner and a crust of bread, he prefers the dinner. he will live in the desert or in the snow of the arctic zone if it is absolutely necessary. but offer him a more agreeable place of residence and he will accept without a moment's hesitation. this desire to improve his condition, which really means a desire to make life more comfortable and less wearisome, has been a very good thing for the progress of the world. it has driven the white people of europe to the ends of the earth. it has populated the mountains and the plains of our own country. it has made many millions of men travel ceaselessly from east to west and from south to north until they have found the climate and the living conditions which suit them best. in the western part of asia this instinct which compels living beings to seek the greatest amount of comfort possible with the smallest expenditure of labor forced both the inhabitants of the cold and inhospitable mountains and the people of the parched desert to look for a new dwelling place in the happy valley of mesopotamia. it caused them to fight for the sole possession of this paradise upon earth. it forced them to exercise their highest power of inventiveness and their noblest courage to defend their homes and farms and their wives and children against the newcomers, who century after century were attracted by the fame of this pleasant spot. this constant rivalry was the cause of an everlasting struggle between the old and established tribes and the others who clamored for their share of the soil. those who were weak and those who did not have a great deal of energy had little chance of success. only the most intelligent and the bravest survived. that will explain to you why mesopotamia became the home of a strong race of men, capable of creating that state of civilization which was to be of such enormous benefit to all later generations. the sumerian nail writers in the year 1472, a short time before columbus discovered america, a certain venetian, by the name of josaphat barbaro, traveling through persia, crossed the hills near shiraz and saw something which puzzled him. the hills of shiraz were covered with old temples which had been cut into the rock of the mountainside. the ancient worshippers had disappeared centuries before and the temples were in a state of great decay. but clearly visible upon their walls, barbara noticed long legends written in a curious script which looked like a series of scratches made by a sharp nail. when he returned he mentioned his discovery to his fellow-townsmen, but just then the turks were threatening europe with an invasion and people were too busy to bother about a new and unknown alphabet, somewhere in the heart of western asia. the persian inscriptions therefore were promptly forgotten. two and a half centuries later, a noble young roman by the name of pietro della valle visited the same hillsides of shiraz which barbaro had passed two hundred years before. he, too, was puzzled by the strange inscriptions on the ruins and being a painstaking young fellow, he copied them carefully and sent his report together with some remarks about the trip to a friend of his, doctor schipano, who practiced medicine in naples and who besides took an interest in matters of learning. schipano copied the funny little figures and brought them to the attention of other scientific men. unfortunately europe was again occupied with other matters. the terrible wars between the protestants and catholics had broken out and people were busily killing those who disagreed with them upon certain points of a religious nature. another century was to pass before the study of the wedge-shaped inscriptions could be taken up seriously. the eighteenth century--a delightful age for people of an active and curious mind--loved scientific puzzles. therefore when king frederick v of denmark asked for men of learning to join an expedition which he was going to send to western asia, he found no end of volunteers. his expedition, which left copenhagen in 1761, lasted six years. during this period all of the members died except one, by the name of karsten niebuhr, who had begun life as a german peasant and could stand greater hardships than the professors who had spent their days amidst the stuffy books of their libraries. this niebuhr, who was a surveyor by profession, was a young man who deserves our admiration. he continued his voyage all alone until he reached the ruins of persepolis where he spent a month copying every inscription that was to be found upon the walls of the ruined palaces and temples. after his return to denmark he published his discoveries for the benefit of the scientific world and seriously tried to read some meaning into his own texts. he was not successful. but this does not astonish us when we understand the difficulties which he was obliged to solve. when champollion tackled the ancient egyptian hieroglyphics he was able to make his studies from little pictures. the writing of persepolis did not show any pictures at all. they consisted of v-shaped figures that were repeated endlessly and suggested nothing at all to the european eye. nowadays, when the puzzle has been solved we know that the original script of the sumerians had been a picture-language, quite as much as that of the egyptians. but whereas the egyptians at a very early date had discovered the papyrus plant and had been able to paint their images upon a smooth surface, the inhabitants of mesopotamia had been forced to carve their words into the hard rock of a mountain side or into a soft brick of clay. [illustration: the rocks of behistun.] driven by necessity they had gradually simplified the original pictures until they devised a system of more than five hundred different letter-combinations which were necessary for their needs. let me give you a few examples. in the beginning, a star, when drawn with a nail into a brick looked as follows. [illustration: star] but after a time the star shape was discarded as being too cumbersome and the figure was given this shape. [illustration: asterisk] after a while the meaning of "heaven" was added to that of "star," and the picture was simplified in this way [illustration: odd cross] which made it still more of a puzzle. in the same way an ox changed from [illustration: ox head] into [illustration: pattern] a fish changed from [illustration: fish] into [illustration: fish scales] the sun, which was originally a plain circle, became [illustration: diamond] and if we were using the sumerian script today we would make an [illustration: bike] look like this [illustration: pattern]. you will understand how difficult it was to guess at the meaning of these figures but the patient labors of a german schoolmaster by the name of grotefend was at last rewarded and thirty years after the first publication of niebuhr's texts and three centuries after the first discovery of the wedge-formed pictures, four letters had been deciphered. these four letters were the d, the a, the r and the sh. they formed the name of darheush the king, whom we call darius. then occurred one of those events which were only possible in those happy days before the telegraph-wire and the mail-steamer had turned the entire world into one large city. while patient european professors were burning the midnight candles in their attempt to solve the new asiatic mystery, young henry rawlinson was serving his time as a cadet of the british east indian company. he used his spare hours to learn persian and when the shah of persia asked the english government for the loan of a few officers to train his native army, rawlinson was ordered to go to teheran. he travelled all over persia and one day he happened to visit the village of behistun. the persians called it bagistana which means the "dwellingplace of the gods." centuries before the main road from mesopotamia to iran (the early home of the persians) had run through this village and the persian king darius had used the steep walls of the high cliffs to tell all the world what a great man he was. high above the roadside he had engraved an account of his glorious deeds. the inscription had been made in the persian language, in babylonian and in the dialect of the city of susa. to make the story plain to those who could not read at all, a fine piece of sculpture had been added showing the king of persia placing his triumphant foot upon the body of gaumata, the usurper who had tried to steal the throne away from the legitimate rulers. for good measure a dozen followers of gaumata had been added. they stood in the background. their hands were tied and they were to be executed in a few moments. the picture and the three texts were several hundred feet above the road but rawlinson scaled the walls of the rock at great danger to life and limb and copied the entire text. his discovery was of the greatest importance. the rock of behistun became as famous as the stone of rosetta and rawlinson shared the honors of deciphering the old nail-writing with grotefend. although they had never seen each other or heard each other's names, the german schoolmaster and the british officer worked together for a common purpose as all good scientific men should do. their copies of the old text were reprinted in every land and by the middle of the nineteenth century, the cuneiform language (so called because the letters were wedge-shaped and "cuneus" is the latin name for wedge) had given up its secrets. another human mystery had been solved. [illustration: a tower of babel.] but about the people who had invented this clever way of writing, we have never been able to learn very much. they were a white race and they were called the sumerians. they lived in a land which we call shomer and which they themselves called kengi, which means the "country of the reeds" and which shows us that they had dwelt among the marshy parts of the mesopotamian valley. originally the sumerians had been mountaineers, but the fertile fields had tempted them away from the hills. but while they had left their ancient homes amidst the peaks of western asia they had not given up their old habits and one of these is of particular interest to us. living amidst the peaks of western asia, they had worshipped their gods upon altars erected on the tops of rocks. in their new home, among the flat plains, there were no such rocks and it was impossible to construct their shrines in the old fashion. the sumerians did not like this. all asiatic people have a deep respect for tradition and the sumerian tradition demanded that an altar be plainly visible for miles around. to overcome this difficulty and keep their peace with the gods of their fathers, the sumerians had built a number of low towers (resembling little hills) on the top of which they had lighted their sacred fires in honor of the old divinities. when the jews visited the town of bab-illi (which we call babylon) many centuries after the last of the sumerians had died, they had been much impressed by the strange-looking towers which stood high amidst the green fields of mesopotamia. the tower of babel of which we hear so much in the old testament was nothing but the ruin of an artificial peak, built hundreds of years before by a band of devout sumerians. it was a curious contraption. the sumerians had not known how to construct stairs. they had surrounded their tower with a sloping gallery which slowly carried people from the bottom to the top. a few years ago it was found necessary to build a new railroad station in the heart of new york city in such a way that thousands of travelers could be brought from the lower to the higher levels at the same moment. it was not thought safe to use a staircase for in case of a rush or a panic people might have tumbled and that would have meant a terrible catastrophe. to solve their problem the engineers borrowed an idea from the sumerians. and the grand central station is provided with the same ascending galleries which had first been introduced into the plains of mesopotamia, three thousand years ago. assyria and babylonia--the great semitic melting-pot we often call america the "melting-pot." when we use this term we mean that many races from all over the earth have gathered along the banks of the atlantic and the pacific oceans to find a new home and begin a new career amidst more favorable surroundings than were to be found in the country of their birth. it is true, mesopotamia was much smaller than our own country. but the fertile valley was the most extraordinary "melting-pot" the world has ever seen and it continued to absorb new tribes for almost two thousand years. the story of each new people, clamoring for homesteads along the banks of the tigris and the euphrates is interesting in itself but we can give you only a very short record of their adventures. [illustration: hammurapi.] the sumerians whom we met in the previous chapter, scratching their history upon rocks and bits of clay (and who did not belong to the semitic race) had been the first nomads to wander into mesopotamia. nomads are people who have no settled homes and no grain fields and no vegetable gardens but who live in tents and keep sheep and goats and cows and who move from pasture to pasture, taking their flocks and their tents wherever the grass is green and the water abundant. far and wide their mud huts had covered the plains. they were good fighters and for a long time they were able to hold their own against all invaders. but four thousand years ago a tribe of semitic desert people called the akkadians left arabia, defeated the sumerians and conquered mesopotamia. the most famous king of these akkadians was called sargon. he taught his people how to write their own semitic language in the alphabet of the sumerians whose territory they had just occupied. he ruled so wisely that soon the differences between the original settlers and the invaders disappeared and they became fast friends and lived together in peace and harmony. the fame of his empire spread rapidly throughout western asia and others, hearing of this success, were tempted to try their own luck. a new tribe of desert nomads, called the amorites, broke up camp and moved northward. thereupon the valley was the scene of a great turmoil until an amorite chieftain by the name of hammurapi (or hammurabi, as you please) established himself in the town of bab-illi (which means the gate of the god) and made himself the ruler of a great bab-illian or babylonian empire. this hammurapi, who lived twenty-one centuries before the birth of christ, was a very interesting man. he made babylon the most important town of the ancient world, where learned priests administered the laws which their great ruler had received from the sun god himself and where the merchant loved to trade because he was treated fairly and honorably. indeed if it were not for the lack of space (these laws of hammurapi would cover fully forty of these pages if i were to give them to you in detail) i would be able to show you that this ancient babylonian state was in many respects better managed and that the people were happier and that law and order was maintained more carefully and that there was greater freedom of speech and thought than in many of our modern countries. but our world was never meant to be too perfect and soon other hordes of rough and murderous men descended from the northern mountains and destroyed the work of hammurapi's genius. the name of these new invaders was the hittites. of these hittites i can tell you even less than of the sumerians. the bible mentions them. ruins of their civilization have been found far and wide. they used a strange sort of hieroglyphics but no one has as yet been able to decipher these and read their meaning. they were not greatly gifted as administrators. they ruled only a few years and then their domains fell to pieces. of all their glory there remains nothing but a mysterious name and the reputation of having destroyed many things which other people had built up with great pain and care. then came another invasion which was of a very different nature. a fierce tribe of desert wanderers, who murdered and pillaged in the name of their great god assur, left arabia and marched northward until they reached the slopes of the mountains. then they turned eastward and along the banks of the euphrates they built a city which they called ninua, a name which has come down to us in the greek form of nineveh. at once these new-comers, who are generally known as the assyrians, began a slow but terrible warfare upon all the other inhabitants of mesopotamia. in the twelfth century before christ they made a first attempt to destroy babylon but after a first success on the part of their king, tiglath pileser, they were defeated and forced to return to their own country. five hundred years later they tried again. an adventurous general by the name of bulu made himself master of the assyrian throne. he assumed the name of old tiglath pileser, who was considered the national hero of the assyrians and announced his intention of conquering the whole world. [illustration: nineveh.] he was as good as his word. asia minor and armenia and egypt and northern arabia and western persia and babylonia became assyrian provinces. they were ruled by assyrian governors, who collected the taxes and forced all the young men to serve as soldiers in the assyrian armies and who made themselves thoroughly hated and despised both for their greed and their cruelty. fortunately the assyrian empire at its greatest height did not last very long. it was like a ship with too many masts and sails and too small a hull. there were too many soldiers and not enough farmers--too many generals and not enough business men. the king and the nobles grew very rich but the masses lived in squalor and poverty. never for a moment was the country at peace. it was for ever fighting someone, somewhere, for causes which did not interest the subjects at all. until, through this continuous and exhausting warfare, most of the assyrian soldiers had been killed or maimed and it became necessary to allow foreigners to enter the army. these foreigners had little love for their brutal masters who had destroyed their homes and had stolen their children and therefore they fought badly. life along the assyrian frontier was no longer safe. strange new tribes were constantly attacking the northern boundaries. one of these was called the cimmerians. the cimmerians, when we first hear of them, inhabited the vast plain beyond the northern mountains. homer describes their country in his account of the voyage of odysseus and he tells us that it was a place "for ever steeped in darkness." they were a race of white men and they had been driven out of their former homes by still another group of asiatic wanderers, the scythians. the scythians were the ancestors of the modern cossacks, and even in those remote days they were famous for their horsemanship. [illustration: nineveh destroyed.] the cimmerians, hard pressed by the scythians, crossed from europe into asia and conquered the land of the hittites. then they left the mountains of asia minor and descended into the valley of mesopotamia, where they wrought terrible havoc among the impoverished people of the assyrian empire. nineveh called for volunteers to stop this invasion. her worn-out regiments marched northward when news came of a more immediate and formidable danger. for many years a small tribe of semitic nomads, called the chaldeans, had been living peacefully in the south-eastern part of the fertile valley, in the country called ur. suddenly these chaldeans had gone upon the war-path and had begun a regular campaign against the assyrians. attacked from all sides, the assyrian state, which had never gained the good-will of a single neighbor, was doomed to perish. when nineveh fell and this forbidding treasure house, filled with the plunder of centuries, was at last destroyed, there was joy in every hut and hamlet from the persian gulf to the nile. and when the greeks visited the euphrates a few generations later and asked what these vast ruins, covered with shrubs and trees might be, there was no one to tell them. the people had hastened to forget the very name of the city that had been such a cruel master and had so miserably oppressed them. babylon, on the other hand, which had ruled its subjects in a very different way, came back to life. during the long reign of the wise king nebuchadnezzar the ancient temples were rebuilt. vast palaces were erected within a short space of time. new canals were dug all over the valley to help irrigate the fields. quarrelsome neighbors were severely punished. egypt was reduced to a mere frontier-province and jerusalem, the capital of the jews, was destroyed. the holy books of moses were taken to babylon and several thousand jews were forced to follow the babylonian king to his capital as hostages for the good behavior of those who remained behind in palestine. but babylon was made into one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. trees were planted along the banks of the euphrates. flowers were made to grow upon the many walls of the city and after a few years it seemed that a thousand gardens were hanging from the roofs of the ancient town. as soon as the chaldeans had made their capital the show-place of the world they devoted their attention to matters of the mind and of the spirit. like all desert folk they were deeply interested in the stars which at night had guided them safely through the trackless desert. they studied the heavens and named the twelve signs of the zodiak. they made maps of the sky and they discovered the first five planets. to these they gave the names of their gods. when the romans conquered mesopotamia they translated the chaldean names into latin and that explains why today we talk of jupiter and venus and mars and mercury and saturn. they divided the equator into three hundred and sixty degrees and they divided the day into twenty-four hours and the hour into sixty minutes and no modern man has ever been able to improve upon this old babylonian invention. they possessed no watches but they measured time by the shadow of the sun-dial. they learned to use both the decimal and the duodecimal systems (nowadays we use only the decimal system, which is a great pity). the duodecimal system (ask your father what the word means), accounts for the sixty minutes and the sixty seconds and the twenty-four hours which seem to have so little in common with our modern world which would have divided day and night into twenty hours and the hour into fifty minutes and the minute into fifty seconds according to the rules of the restricted decimal system. the chaldeans also were the first people to recognize the necessity of a regular day of rest. when they divided the year into weeks they ordered that six days of labor should be followed by one day, devoted to the "peace of the soul." [illustration: the chaldeans.] it was a great pity that the center of so much intelligence and industry could not exist for ever. but not even the genius of a number of very wise kings could save the ancient people of mesopotamia from their ultimate fate. the semitic world was growing old. it was time for a new race of men. in the fifth century before christ, an indo-european people called the persians (i shall tell you about them later) left its pastures amidst the high mountains of iran and conquered the fertile valley. the city of babylon was captured without a struggle. nabonidus, the last babylonian king, who had been more interested in religious problems than in defending his own country, fled. a few days later his small son, who had remained behind, died. cyrus, the persian king, buried the child with great honor and then proclaimed himself the legitimate successor of the old rulers of babylonia. mesopotamia ceased to be an independent state. it became a persian province ruled by a persian "satrap" or governor. as for babylon, when the kings no longer used the city as their residence it soon lost all importance and became a mere country village. in the fourth century before christ it enjoyed another spell of glory. it was in the year 331 b.c. that alexander the great, the young greek who had just conquered persia and india and egypt and every other place, visited the ancient city of sacred memories. he wanted to use the old city as a background for his own newly-acquired glory. he began to rebuild the palace and ordered that the rubbish be removed from the temples. unfortunately he died quite suddenly in the banqueting hall of nebuchadnezzar and after that nothing on earth could save babylon from her ruin. as soon as one of alexander's generals, seleucus nicator, had perfected the plans for a new city at the mouth of the great canal which united the tigris and the euphrates, the fate of babylon was sealed. a tablet of the year 275 b.c. tells us how the last of the babylonians were forced to leave their home and move into this new settlement which had been called seleucia. even then, a few of the faithful continued to visit the holy places which were now inhabited by wolves and jackals. the majority of the people, little interested in those half-forgotten divinities of a bygone age, made a more practical use of their former home. they used it as a stone-quarry. for almost thirty centuries babylon had been the great spiritual and intellectual center of the semitic world and a hundred generations had regarded the city as the most perfect expression of their people's genius. it was the paris and london and new york of the ancient world. at present three large mounds show us where the ruins lie buried beneath the sand of the ever-encroaching desert. this is the story of moses high above the thin line of the distant horizon there appeared a small cloud of dust. the babylonian peasant, working his poor farm on the outskirts of the fertile lands, noticed it. "another tribe is trying to break into our land," he said to himself. "they will not get far. the king's soldiers will drive them away." he was right. the frontier guards welcomed the new arrivals with drawn swords and bade them try their luck elsewhere. they moved westward following the borders of the land of babylon and they wandered until they reached the shores of the mediterranean. there they settled down and tended their flocks and lived the simple lives of their earliest ancestors who had dwelt in the land of ur. then there came a time when the rain ceased to fall and there was not enough to eat for man or beast and it became necessary to look for new pastures or perish on the spot. once more the shepherds (who were called the hebrews) moved their families into a new home which they found along the banks of the red sea near the land of egypt. but hunger and want had followed them upon their voyage and they were forced to go to the egyptian officials and beg for food that they might not starve. the egyptians had long expected a famine. they had built large store-houses and these were all filled with the surplus wheat of the last seven years. this wheat was now being distributed among the people and a food-dictator had been appointed to deal it out equally to the rich and to the poor. his name was joseph and he belonged to the tribe of the hebrews. as a mere boy he had run away from his own family. it was said that he had escaped to save himself from the anger of his brethren who envied him because he was the favorite of their father. whatever the truth, joseph had gone to egypt and he had found favor in the eyes of the hyksos kings who had just conquered the country and who used this bright young man to assist them in administering their new possessions. as soon as the hungry hebrews appeared before joseph with their request for help, joseph recognized his relatives. but he was a generous man and all meanness of spirit was foreign to his soul. he did not revenge himself upon those who had wronged him but he gave them wheat and allowed them to settle in the land of egypt, they and their children and their flocks--and be happy. for many years the hebrews (who are more commonly known as the jews) lived in the eastern part of their adopted country and all was well with them. then a great change took place. a sudden revolution deprived the hyksos kings of their power and forced them to leave the country. once more the egyptians were masters within their own house. they had never liked foreigners any too well. three hundred years of oppression by a band of arab shepherds had greatly increased this feeling of loathing for everything that was alien. [illustration: moses.] the jews on the other hand had been on friendly terms with the hyksos who were related to them by blood and by race. this was enough to make them traitors in the eyes of the egyptians. joseph no longer lived to protect his people. after a short struggle they were taken away from their old homes, they were driven into the heart of the country and they were treated like slaves. for many years they performed the dreary tasks of common laborers, carrying stones for the building of pyramids, making bricks for public buildings, constructing roads, and digging canals to carry the water of the nile to the distant egyptian farms. their suffering was great but they never lost courage and help was near. there lived a certain young man whose name was moses. he was very intelligent and he had received a good education because the egyptians had decided that he should enter the service of pharaoh. if nothing had happened to arouse his anger, moses would have ended his days peacefully as the governor of a small province or the collector of taxes of an outlying district. but the egyptians, as i have told you before, despised those who did not look like themselves nor dress in true egyptian fashion and they were apt to insult such people because they were "different." and because the foreigners were in the minority they could not well defend themselves. nor did it serve any good purpose to carry their complaints before a tribunal for the judge did not smile upon the grievances of a man who refused to worship the egyptian gods and who pleaded his case with a strong foreign accent. now it occurred one day that moses was taking a walk with a few of his egyptian friends and one of these said something particularly disagreeable about the jews and even threatened to lay hands on them. moses, who was a hot-headed youth hit him. the blow was a bit too severe and the egyptian fell down dead. to kill a native was a terrible thing and the egyptian laws were not as wise as those of hammurapi, the good babylonian king, who recognized the difference between a premeditated murder and the killing of a man whose insults had brought his opponent to a point of unreasoning rage. moses fled. he escaped into the land of his ancestors, into the midian desert, along the eastern bank of the red sea, where his tribe had tended their sheep several hundred years before. a kind priest by the name of jethro received him in his house and gave him one of his seven daughters, zipporah, as his wife. there moses lived for a long time and there he pondered upon many deep subjects. he had left the luxury and the comfort of the palace of pharaoh to share the rough and simple life of a desert priest. in the olden days, before the jewish people had moved into egypt, they too had been wanderers among the endless plains of arabia. they had lived in tents and they had eaten plain food, but they had been honest men and faithful women, contented with few possessions but proud of the righteousness of their mind. all this had been changed after they had become exposed to the civilization of egypt. they had taken to the ways of the comfort-loving egyptians. they had allowed another race to rule them and they had not cared to fight for their independence. instead of the old gods of the wind-swept desert they had begun to worship strange divinities who lived in the glimmering splendors of the dark egyptian temples. moses felt that it was his duty to go forth and save his people from their fate and bring them back to the simple truth of the olden days. and so he sent messengers to his relatives and suggested that they leave the land of slavery and join him in the desert. but the egyptians heard of this and guarded the jews more carefully than ever before. it seemed that the plans of moses were doomed to failure when suddenly an epidemic broke out among the people of the nile valley. the jews who had always obeyed certain very strict laws of health (which they had learned in the hardy days of their desert life) escaped the disease while the weaker egyptians died by the hundreds of thousands. amidst the confusion and the panic which followed this silent death, the jews packed their belongings and hastily fled from the land which had promised them so much and which had given them so little. as soon as the flight became known the egyptians tried to follow them with their armies but their soldiers met with disaster and the jews escaped. they were safe and they were free and they moved eastward into the waste spaces which are situated at the foot of mount sinai, the peak which has been called after sin, the babylonian god of the moon. there moses took command of his fellow-tribesmen and commenced upon his great task of reform. in those days, the jews, like all other people, worshipped many gods. during their stay in egypt they had even learned to do homage to those animals which the egyptians held in such high honor that they built holy shrines for their special benefit. moses on the other hand, during his long and lonely life amidst the sandy hills of the peninsula, had learned to revere the strength and the power of the great god of the storm and the thunder, who ruled the high heavens and upon whose good-will the wanderer in the desert depended for life and light and breath. this god was called jehovah and he was a mighty being who was held in trembling respect by all the semitic people of western asia. through the teaching of moses he was to become the sole master of the jewish race. one day moses disappeared from the camp of the hebrews. he took with him two tablets of rough-hewn stone. it was whispered that he had gone to seek the solitude of mount sinai's highest peak. that afternoon, the top of the mountain was lost to sight. the darkness of a terrible storm hid it from the eye of man. but when moses returned, behold! ... there stood engraved upon the tablets the words which jehovah himself had spoken amidst the crash of his thunder and the blinding flashes of his lightning. from that moment on, no jew dared to question the authority of moses. when he told his people that jehovah commanded them to continue their wanderings, they obeyed with eagerness. for many years they lived amidst the trackless hills of the desert. they suffered great hardships and almost perished from lack of food and water. but moses kept high their hopes of a promised land which would offer a lasting home to the true followers of jehovah. at last they reached a more fertile region. they crossed the river jordan and, carrying the holy tablets of law, they made ready to occupy the pastures which stretch from dan to beersheba. as for moses, he was no longer their leader. he had grown old and he was very tired. he had been allowed to see the distant ridges of the palestine mountains among which the jews were to find a fatherland. then he had closed his wise eyes for all time. he had accomplished the task which he had set himself in his youth. he had led his people out of foreign slavery into the new freedom of an independent life. he had united them and he had made them the first of all nations to worship a single god. jerusalem--the city of the law palestine is a small strip of land between the mountains of syria and the green waters of the mediterranean. it has been inhabited since time immemorial, but we do not know very much about the first settlers, although we have given them the name of canaanites. the canaanites belonged to the semitic race. their ancestors, like those of the jews and the babylonians, had been a desert folk. but when the jews entered palestine, the canaanites lived in towns and villages. they were no longer shepherds but traders. indeed, in the jewish language, canaanite and merchant came to mean the same thing. they had built themselves strong cities, surrounded by high walls and they did not allow the jews to enter their gates, but they forced them to keep to the open country and make their home amidst the grassy lands of the valleys. after a time, however, the jews and the canaanites became friends. this was not so very difficult for they both belonged to the same race. besides they feared a common enemy and only their united strength could defend their country against these dangerous neighbors, who were called the philistines and who belonged to an entirely different race. the philistines really had no business in asia. they were europeans, and their earliest home had been in the isle of crete. at what age they had settled along the shores of the mediterranean is quite uncertain because we do not know when the indo-european invaders had driven them from their island home. but even the egyptians, who called them purasati, had feared them greatly and when the philistines (who wore a headdress of feathers just like our indians) went upon the war-path, all the people of western asia sent large armies to protect their frontiers. [illustration: jerusalem.] as for the war between the philistines and the jews, it never came to an end. for although david slew goliath (who wore a suit of armor which was a great curiosity in those days and had been no doubt imported from the island of cyprus where the copper mines of the ancient world were found) and although samson killed the philistines wholesale when he buried himself and his enemies beneath the temple of dagon, the philistines always proved themselves more than a match for the jews and never allowed the hebrew people to get hold of any of the harbors of the mediterranean. the jews therefore were obliged by fate to content themselves with the valleys of eastern palestine and there, on the top of a barren hill, they erected their capital. the name of this city was jerusalem and for thirty centuries it has been one of the most holy spots of the western world. in the dim ages of the unknown past, jerusalem, the home of peace, had been a little fortified outpost of the egyptians who had built many small fortifications and castles along the mountain ridges of palestine, to defend their outlying frontier against attacks from the east. after the downfall of the egyptian empire, a native tribe, the jebusites, had moved into the deserted city. then came the jews who captured the town after a long struggle and made it the residence of their king david. at last, after many years of wandering the tables of the law seemed to have reached a place of enduring rest. solomon, the wise, decided to provide them with a magnificent home. far and wide his messengers travelled to ransack the world for rare woods and precious metals. the entire nation was asked to offer its wealth to make the house of god worthy of its holy name. higher and higher the walls of the temple arose guarding the sacred laws of jehovah for all the ages. alas, the expected eternity proved to be of short duration. themselves intruders among hostile neighbors, surrounded by enemies on all sides, harassed by the philistines, the jews did not maintain their independence for very long. they fought well and bravely. but their little state, weakened by petty jealousies, was easily overpowered by the assyrians and the egyptians and the chaldeans and when nebuchadnezzar, the king of babylon, took jerusalem in the year 586 before the birth of christ, he destroyed the city and the temple, and the tablets of stone went up in the general conflagration. at once the jews set to work to rebuild their holy shrine. but the days of solomon's glory were gone. the jews were the subjects of a foreign race and money was scarce. it took seventy years to reconstruct the old edifice. it stood securely for three hundred years but then a second invasion took place and once more the red flames of the burning temple brightened the skies of palestine. when it was rebuilt for the third time, it was surrounded by two high walls with narrow gates and several inner courts were added to make sudden invasion in the future an impossibility. but ill-luck pursued the city of jerusalem. in the sixty-fifth year before the birth of christ, the romans under their general pompey took possession of the jewish capital. their practical sense did not take kindly to an old city with crooked and dark streets and many unhealthy alley-ways. they cleaned up this old rubbish (as they considered it) and built new barracks and large public buildings and swimming-pools and athletic parks and they forced their modern improvements upon an unwilling populace. the temple which served no practical purposes (as far as they could see) was neglected until the days of herod, who was king of the jews by the grace of the roman sword and whose vanity wished to renew the ancient splendor of the bygone ages. in a half-hearted manner the oppressed people set to work to obey the orders of a master who was not of their own choosing. when the last stone had been placed in its proper position another revolution broke out against the merciless roman tax gatherers. the temple was the first victim of this rioting. the soldiers of the emperor titus promptly set fire to this center of the old jewish faith. but the city of jerusalem was spared. palestine however continued to be the scene of unrest. the romans who were familiar with all sorts of races of men and who ruled countries where a thousand different divinities were worshipped did not know how to handle the jews. they did not understand the jewish character at all. extreme tolerance (based upon indifference) was the foundation upon which rome had constructed her very successful empire. roman governors never interfered with the religious belief of subject tribes. they demanded that a picture or a statue of the emperor be placed in the temples of the people who inhabited the outlying parts of the roman domains. this was a mere formality and it did not have any deep significance. but to the jews such a thing seemed highly sacrilegious and they would not desecrate their holiest of holies by the carven image of a roman potentate. they refused. the romans insisted. in itself a matter of small importance, a misunderstanding of this sort was bound to grow and cause further ill-feeling. fifty-two years after the revolt under the emperor titus the jews once more rebelled. this time the romans decided to be thorough in their work of destruction. jerusalem was destroyed. the temple was burned down. a new roman city, called aelia capitolina was erected upon the ruins of the old city of solomon. a heathenish temple devoted to the worship of jupiter was built upon the site where the faithful had worshipped jehovah for almost a thousand years. the jews themselves were expelled from their capital and thousands of them were driven away from the home of their ancestors. from that moment on they became wanderers upon the face of the earth. but the holy laws no longer needed the safe shelter of a royal shrine. their influence had long since passed beyond the narrow confines of the land of judah. they had become a living symbol of justice wherever honorable people tried to live a righteous life. damascus--the city of trade the old cities of egypt have disappeared from the face of the earth. nineveh and babylon are deserted mounds of dust and brick. the ancient temple of jerusalem lies buried beneath the blackened ruins of its own glory. one city alone has survived the ages. it is called damascus. within its four great gates and its strong walls a busy people has followed its daily occupations for five thousand consecutive years and the "street called straight" which is the city's main artery of commerce, has seen the coming and going of one hundred and fifty generations. humbly damascus began its career as a fortified frontier town of the amorites, those famous desert folk who had given birth to the great king hammurapi. when the amorites moved further eastward into the valley of mesopotamia to found the kingdom of babylon, damascus had been continued as a trading post with the wild hittites who inhabited the mountains of asia minor. in due course of time the earliest inhabitants had been absorbed by another semitic tribe, called the aramaeans. the city itself however had not changed its character. it remained throughout these many changes an important center of commerce. it was situated upon the main road from egypt to mesopotamia and it was within a week's distance from the harbors on the mediterranean. it produced no great generals and statesmen and no famous kings. it did not conquer a single mile of neighboring territory. it traded with all the world and offered a safe home to the merchant and to the artisan. incidentally it bestowed its language upon the greater part of western asia. commerce has always demanded quick and practical ways of communication between different nations. the elaborate system of nail-writing of the ancient sumerians was too involved for the aramaean business man. he invented a new alphabet which could be written much faster than the old wedge-shaped figures of babylon. the spoken language of the aramaeans followed their business correspondence. aramaean became the english of the ancient world. in most parts of mesopotamia it was understood as readily as the native tongue. in some countries it actually took the place of the old tribal dialect. and when christ preached to the multitudes, he did not use the ancient jewish speech in which moses had explained the laws unto his fellow wanderers. he spoke in aramaean, the language of the merchant, which had become the language of the simple people of the old mediterranean world. the phoenicians who sailed beyond the horizon a pioneer is a brave fellow, with the courage of his own curiosity. perhaps he lives at the foot of a high mountain. so do thousands of other people. they are quite contented to leave the mountain alone. but the pioneer feels unhappy. he wants to know what mysteries this mountain hides from his eyes. is there another mountain behind it, or a plain? does it suddenly arise with its steep cliffs from the dark waves of the ocean or does it overlook a desert? one fine day the true pioneer leaves his family and the safe comfort of his home to go and find out. perhaps he will come back and tell his experience to his indifferent relatives. or he will be killed by falling stones or a treacherous blizzard. in that case he does not return at all and the good neighbors shake their heads and say, "he got what he deserved. why did he not stay at home like the rest of us?" [illustration: the distant horizon] but the world needs such men and after they have been dead for many years and others have reaped the benefits of their discoveries, they always receive a statue with a fitting inscription. more terrifying than the highest mountain is the thin line of the distant horizon. it seems to be the end of the world itself. heaven have mercy upon those who pass beyond this meeting-place of sky and water, where all is black despair and death. and for centuries and centuries after man had built his first clumsy boats, he remained within the pleasant sight of one familiar shore and kept away from the horizon. then came the phoenicians who knew no such fears. they passed beyond the sight of land. suddenly the forbidding ocean was turned into a peaceful highway of commerce and the dangerous menace of the horizon became a myth. these phoenician navigators were semites. their ancestors had lived in the desert of arabia together with the babylonians, the jews and all the others. but when the jews occupied palestine, the cities of the phoenicians were already old with the age of many centuries. there were two phoenician centers of trade. one was called tyre and the other was called sidon. they were built upon high cliffs and rumor had it that no enemy could take them. far and wide their ships sailed to gather the products of the mediterranean for the benefit of the people of mesopotamia. at first the sailors only visited the distant shores of france and spain to barter with the natives and hastened home with their grain and metal. later they had built fortified trading posts along the coasts of spain and italy and greece and the far-off scilly islands where the valuable tin was found. [illustration: the phoenicians.] to the uncivilized savages of europe, such a trading post appeared as a dream of beauty and luxury. they asked to be allowed to live close to its walls, to see the wonderful sights when the boats of many sails entered the harbor, carrying the much-desired merchandise of the unknown east. gradually they left their huts to build themselves small wooden houses around the phoenician fortresses. in this way many a trading post had grown into a market place for all the people of the entire neighborhood. today such big cities as marseilles and cadiz are proud of their phoenician origin, but their ancient mothers, tyre and sidon, have been dead and forgotten for over two thousand years and of the phoenicians themselves, none have survived. this is a sad fate but it was fully deserved. the phoenicians had grown rich without great effort, but they had not known how to use their wealth wisely. they had never cared for books or learning. they had only cared for money. they had bought and sold slaves all over the world. they had forced the foreign immigrants to work in their factories. they cheated their neighbors whenever they had a chance and they had made themselves detested by all the other people of the mediterranean. they were brave and energetic navigators, but they showed themselves cowards whenever they were obliged to choose between honorable dealing and an immediate profit, obtained through fraudulent and shrewd trading. as long as they had been the only sailors in the world who could handle large ships, all other nations had been in need of their services. as soon as the others too had learned how to handle a rudder and a set of sails, they at once got rid of the tricky phoenician merchant. from that moment on, tyre and sidon had lost their old hold upon the commercial world of asia. they had never encouraged art or science. they had known how to explore the seven seas and turn their ventures into profitable investments. no state, however, can be safely built upon material possessions alone. the land of phoenicia had always been a counting-house without a soul. it perished because it had honored a well-filled treasure chest as the highest ideal of civic pride. the alphabet follows the trade i have told you how the egyptians preserved speech by means of little figures. i have described the wedge-shaped signs which served the people of mesopotamia as a handy means of transacting business at home and abroad. but how about our own alphabet? from whence came those compact little letters which follow us throughout our life, from the date on our birth certificate to the last word of our funeral notice? are they egyptian or babylonian or aramaic or are they something entirely different? they are a little bit of everything, as i shall now tell you. our modern alphabet is not a very satisfactory instrument for the purpose of reproducing our speech. some day a genius will invent a new system of writing which shall give each one of our sounds a little picture of its own. but with all its many imperfections the letters of our modern alphabet perform their daily task quite nicely and fully as well as their very accurate and precise cousins, the numerals, who wandered into europe from distant india, almost ten centuries after the first invasion of the alphabet. the earliest history of these letters, however, is a deep mystery and it will take many years of painstaking investigation before we can solve it. this much we know--that our alphabet was not suddenly invented by a bright young scribe. it developed and grew during hundreds of years out of a number of older and more complicated systems. in my last chapter i have told you of the language of the intelligent aramaean traders which spread throughout western asia, as an international means of communication. the language of the phoenicians was never very popular among their neighbors. except for a very few words we do not know what sort of tongue it was. their system of writing, however, was carried into every corner of the vast mediterranean and every phoenician colony became a center for its further distribution. it remains to be explained why the phoenicians, who did nothing to further either art or science, hit upon such a compact and handy system of writing, while other and superior nations remained faithful to the old clumsy scribbling. the phoenicians, before all else, were practical business men. they did not travel abroad to admire the scenery. they went upon their perilous voyages to distant parts of europe and more distant parts of africa in search of wealth. time was money in tyre and sidon and commercial documents written in hieroglyphics or sumerian wasted useful hours of busy clerks who might be employed upon more useful errands. when our modern business world decided that the old-fashioned way of dictating letters was too slow for the hurry of modern life, a clever man devised a simple system of dots and dashes which could follow the spoken word as closely as a hound follows a hare. this system we call "shorthand." the phoenician traders did the same thing. they borrowed a few pictures from the egyptian hieroglyphics and simplified a number of wedge-shaped figures from the babylonians. they sacrificed the pretty looks of the older system for the benefit of speed and they reduced the thousands of images of the ancient world to a short and handy alphabet of only twenty-two letters. they tried it out at home and when it proved a success, they carried it abroad. among the egyptians and the babylonians, writing had been a very serious affair--something almost holy. many improvements had been proposed but these had been invariably discarded as sacrilegious innovations. the phoenicians who were not interested in piety succeeded where the others had failed. they could not introduce their script into mesopotamia and egypt, but among the people of the mediterranean, who were totally ignorant of the art of writing, the phoenician alphabet was a great success and in all nooks and corners of that vast sea we find vases and pillars and ruins covered with phoenician inscriptions. the indo-european greeks who had migrated to the many islands of the aegean sea at once applied this foreign alphabet to their own language. certain greek sounds, unknown to the ears of the semitic phoenicians, needed letters of their own. these were invented and added to the others. but the greeks did not stop at this. they improved the whole system of speech-recording. all the systems of writing of the ancient people of asia had one thing in common. the consonants were reproduced but the reader was forced to guess at the vowels. this is not as difficult as it seems. we often omit the vowels in advertisements and in announcements which are printed in our newspapers. journalists and telegraph operators, too, are apt to invent languages of their own which do away with all the superfluous vowels and use only such consonants as are necessary to provide a skeleton around which the vowels can be draped when the story is rewritten. but such an imperfect scheme of writing can never become popular, and the greeks, with their sense of order, added a number of extra signs to reproduce the "a" and the "e" and the "i" and the "o" and the "u." when this had been done, they possessed an alphabet which allowed them to write everything in almost every language. five centuries before the birth of christ these letters crossed the adriatic and wandered from athens to rome. the roman soldiers carried them to the furthest corners of western europe and taught our own ancestors the use of the little phoenician signs. twelve centuries later, the missionaries of byzantine took the alphabet into the dreary wilderness of the dark russian plain. today more than half of the people of the world use this asiatic alphabet to keep a record of their thoughts and to preserve a record of their knowledge for the benefit of their children and their grandchildren. the end of the ancient world so far, the story of ancient man has been the record of a wonderful achievement. along the banks of the river nile, in mesopotamia and on the shores of the mediterranean, people had accomplished great things and wise rulers had performed mighty deeds. there, for the first time in history, man had ceased to be a roving animal. he had built himself houses and villages and vast cities. he had formed states. he had learned the art of constructing and navigating swift-sailing boats. he had explored the heavens and within his own soul he had discovered certain great moral laws which made him akin to the divinities which he worshipped. he had laid the foundations for all our further knowledge and our science and our art and those things that tend to make life sublime beyond the mere grubbing for food and lodging. most important of all he had devised a system of recording sound which gave unto his children and unto his children's children the benefit of their ancestors' experience and allowed them to accumulate such a store of information that they could make themselves the masters of the forces of nature. but together with these many virtues, ancient man had one great failing. he was too much a slave of tradition. he did not ask enough questions. he reasoned "my father did such and such a thing before me and my grandfather did it before my father and they both fared well and therefore this thing ought to be good for me too and i must not change it." he forgot that this patient acceptance of facts would never have lifted us above the common herd of animals. once upon a time there must have been a man of genius who refused any longer to swing from tree to tree with the help of his long, curly tail (as all his people had done before him) and who began to walk on his feet. but ancient man had lost sight of this fact and continued to use the wooden plow of his earliest ancestors and continued to believe in the same gods that had been worshipped ten thousand years before and taught his children to do likewise. instead of going forward he stood still and this was fatal. for a new and more energetic race appeared upon the horizon and the ancient world was doomed. we call these new people the indo-europeans. they were white men like you and me, and they spoke a language which was the common ancestor of all our european languages with the exception of hungarian, finnish and the basque of northern spain. when we first hear of them they had for many centuries made their home along the banks of the caspian sea. but one day (for reasons which are totally unknown to us) they packed their belongings on the backs of the horses which they had trained and they gathered their cows and dogs and goats and began to wander in search of distant happiness and food. some of them moved into the mountains of central asia and for a long time they lived amidst the peaks of the plateau of iran, whence they are called the iranians or aryans. others slowly followed the setting sun and took possession of the vast plains of western europe. they were almost as uncivilized as those prehistoric men who made their appearance within the first pages of this book. but they were a hardy race and good fighters and without difficulty they seem to have occupied the hunting grounds and the pastures of the men of the stone age. they were as yet quite ignorant but thanks to a happy fate they were curious. the wisdom of the ancient world, which was carried to them by the traders of the mediterranean, they very soon made their own. but the age-old learning of egypt and babylonia and chaldea they merely used as a stepping-stone to something higher and better. for "tradition," as such, meant nothing to them and they considered that the universe was theirs to explore and to exploit as they saw fit and that it was their duty to submit all experience to the acid test of human intelligence. [illustration: a colony.] soon therefore they passed beyond those boundaries which the ancient world had accepted as impassable barriers--a sort of spiritual mountains of the moon. then they turned against their former masters and within a short time a new and vigorous civilization replaced the out-worn structure of the ancient asiatic world. but of these indo-europeans and their adventures i give you a detailed account in "the story of mankind," which tells you about the greeks and the romans and all the other races in the world. a few dates connected with the people of the ancient world i can not give you any positive dates connected with prehistoric man. the early europeans who appear in the first chapters of this book began their career about fifty thousand years ago. the egyptians the earliest civilization in the nile valley developed forty centuries before the birth of christ. 3400 b.c. the old egyptian empire is founded. memphis is the capital. 2800--2700 b.c. the pyramids are built. 2000 b.c. the old empire is destroyed by the arab shepherds, called the "hyksos." 1800 b.c. thebes delivers egypt from the hyksos and becomes the center of the new egyptian empire. 1350 b.c. king rameses conquers eastern asia. 1300 b.c. the jews leave egypt. 1000 b.c. egypt begins to decline. 700 b.c. egypt becomes an assyrian province. 650 b.c. egypt regains her independence and a new state is founded with sais in the delta as its capital. foreigners, especially greeks, begin to dominate the country. 525 b.c. egypt becomes a persian province. 300 b.c. egypt becomes an independent kingdom ruled by one of alexander the great's generals, called ptolemy. 30 b.c. cleopatra, the last princess of the ptolemy dynasty, kills herself and egypt becomes part of the roman empire. the jews 2000 b.c. abraham moves away from the land of ur in eastern babylonia and looks for a new home in the western part of asia. 1550 b.c. the jews occupy the land of goshen in egypt. 1300 b.c. moses leads the jews out of egypt and gives them the law. 1250 b.c. the jews have crossed the river jordan and have occupied palestine. 1055 b.c. saul is king of the jews. 1025 b.c. david is king of a powerful jewish state. 1000 b.c. solomon builds the great temple of jerusalem. 950 b.c. the jewish state divided into two kingdoms, that of judah and that of israel. 900-600 b.c. the age of the great prophets. 722 b.c. the assyrians conquer palestine. 586 b.c. nebuchadnezzar conquers palestine. the babylonian captivity. 537 b.c. cyrus, king of the persians, allows the jews to return to palestine. 167-130 b.c. last period of jewish independence under the maccabees. 63 b.c. pompeius makes palestine part of the roman empire. 40 b.c. herod king of the jews. 70 a.d. the emperor titus destroys jerusalem. mesopotamia 4000 b.c. the sumerians take possession of the land between the tigris and the euphrates. 2200 b.c. hammurapi, king of babylon, gives his people a famous code of law. 1900 b.c. beginning of the assyrian state, with nineveh as its capital. 950-650 b.c. assyria becomes the master of western asia. 700 b.c. sargon, the ruler of the assyrians, conquers palestine, egypt and arabia. 640 b.c. the medes revolt against the assyrian rule. 530 b.c. the scythians attack assyria. there are revolutions all over the kingdom. 608 b.c. nineveh is destroyed. assyria disappears from the map. 608-538 b.c. the chaldeans reestablish the babylonian kingdom. 604-561 b.c. nebuchadnezzar destroys jerusalem, takes phoenicia and makes babylon the center of civilization. 538 b.c. mesopotamia becomes a persian province. 330 b.c. alexander the great conquers mesopotamia. the phoenicians 1500-1200 b.c. the city of sklon is the chief phoenician center of trade. 1100-950 b.c. tyre becomes the commercial center of phoenicia. 1000-600 b.c. development of the phoenician colonial empire. 850 b.c. carthage is founded. 586-573 b.c. siege of tyre by nebuchadnezzar. the city is captured and destroyed. 538 b.c. phoenicia becomes a persian province. 60 b.c. phoenicia becomes part of the roman empire. [illustration: a persian altar] the persians at an unknown date the indo-european people began their march into europe and into india. the year 1000 b.c. is usually given for zarathustra, the great teacher of the persians, who gave an excellent moral law. 650-b.c. the indo-european medes found a state along the eastern boundaries of babylonia. 550-330 b.c. the kingdom of the persians. beginning of the struggle between indo-europeans and semites. 525-8.c. cambyses, king of the persians, takes egypt. 520-485 b.c. rule of darius, king of the persians, who conquers babylon and attacks greece. 485-465 b.c. rule of king xerxes, who tries to establish himself in eastern europe but fails. 330 b.c. the greek, alexander the great, conquers all of western asia and egypt and persia becomes a greek province. the ancient world which was dominated by semitic peoples lasted almost forty centuries. in the fourth century before the birth of christ it died of old age. western asia and egypt had been the teachers of the indo-europeans who had occupied europe at an unknown date. in the fourth century before christ, the indo-european pupils had so far surpassed their teachers that they could begin their conquest of the world. the famous expedition of alexander the great in 330 b.c. made an end to the civilizations of egypt and mesopotamia and established the supremacy of greek (that is european) culture. peeps at many lands ancient egypt [illustration: plate 1. an egyptian galley.] peeps at many lands ancient egypt by rev. james baikie, f.r.a.s. author of "peeps at the heavens," "the story of the pharaohs," "the sea kings of crete," etc. with sixteen full-page illustrations, those in colour being by constance n. baikie a. & c. black, ltd. 4, 5 & 6, soho square, london, w. 1916 * * * * * _first published october 1912_ _reprinted january and april 1916_ agents america the macmillan company 64 & 66 fifth avenue, new york australasia oxford university press 205 flinders lane, melbourne canada the macmillan company of canada, ltd. st. martin's house, 70 bond street, toronto india macmillan & company, ltd. macmillan building, bombay 309 bow bazaar street, calcutta _printed in great britain._ * * * * * contents chapter page i. a land of old renown 1 ii. a day in thebes 6 iii. a day in thebes (_continued_) 11 iv. pharaoh at home 17 v. the life of a soldier 24 vi. child-life in ancient egypt 33 vii. some fairy-tales of long ago 41 viii. some fairy-tales of long ago (_continued_) 47 ix. exploring the soudan 54 x. a voyage of discovery 59 xi. egyptian books 66 xii. temples and tombs 72 xiii. an egyptian's heaven 82 * * * * * list of illustrations plate *1. an egyptian galley, 1500 b.c. _frontispiece_ facing page 2. the goddess isis dandling the king 9 3. the great gate of the temple of luxor, with obelisk 16 *4. ramses ii. in his war-chariot--sardinian guardsmen on foot 25 *5. zazamankh and the lost coronet 32 6. granite statue of ramses ii. 35 7. nave of the temple at karnak 38 *8. "and the goose stood up and cackled" 41 *9. an egyptian country house 48 10. statues of king amenhotep iii. 51 11. the sphinx and the second pyramid 54 *12. a desert postman 57 *13. the bark of the moon, guarded by the divine eyes 64 14. gateway of the temple of edfu 73 15. wall-pictures in a theban tomb 80 *16. pharaoh on his throne 20 _sketch-map of ancient egypt on page viii_ * these eight illustrations are in colour; the others are in black and white. * * * * * [illustration: sketch-map of ancient egypt.] ancient egypt chapter i "a land of old renown" if we were asked to name the most interesting country in the world, i suppose that most people would say palestine--not because there is anything so very wonderful in the land itself, but because of all the great things that have happened there, and above all because of its having been the home of our lord. but after palestine, i think that egypt would come next. for one thing, it is linked very closely to palestine by all those beautiful stories of the old testament, which tell us of joseph, the slave-boy who became viceroy of egypt; of moses, the hebrew child who became a prince of pharaoh's household; and of the wonderful exodus of the children of israel. but besides that, it is a land which has a most strange and wonderful story of its own. no other country has so long a history of great kings, and wise men, and brave soldiers; and in no other country can you see anything to compare with the great buildings, some of them most beautiful, all of them most wonderful, of which egypt has so many. we have some old and interesting buildings in this country, and people go far to see cathedrals and castles that are perhaps five or six hundred years old, or even more; but in egypt, buildings of that age are looked upon as almost new, and nobody pays very much attention to them. for the great temples and tombs of egypt were, many of them, hundreds of years old before the story of our bible, properly speaking, begins. the pyramids, for instance, those huge piles that are still the wonder of the world, were far older than any building now standing in europe, before joseph was sold to be a slave in potiphar's house. hundreds upon hundreds of years before anyone had ever heard of the greeks and the romans, there were great kings reigning in egypt, sending out their armies to conquer syria and the soudan, and their ships to explore the unknown southern seas, and wise men were writing books which we can still read. when britain was a wild, unknown island, inhabited only by savages as fierce and untaught as the south sea islanders, egypt was a great and highly civilized country, full of great cities, with noble palaces and temples, and its people were wise and learned. so in this little book i want to tell you something about this wonderful and interesting old country, and about the kind of life that people lived in it in those days of long ago, before most other lands had begun to waken up, or to have any history at all. first of all, let us try to get an idea of the land itself. it is a very remarkable thing that so many of the countries which have played a great part in the history of the world have been small countries. our own britain is not very big, though it has had a great story. palestine, which has done more than any other country to make the world what it is to-day, was called "the least of all lands." greece, whose influence comes, perhaps, next after that of palestine, is only a little hilly corner of southern europe. and egypt, too, is comparatively a small land. it looks a fair size when you see it on the map; but you have to remember that nearly all the land which is called egypt on the map is barren sandy desert, or wild rocky hill-country, where no one can live. the real egypt is just a narrow strip of land on either side of the great river nile, sometimes only a mile or two broad altogether, never more than thirty miles broad, except near the mouth of the river, where it widens out into the fan-shaped plain called the delta. someone has compared egypt to a lily with a crooked stem, and the comparison is very true. the long winding valley of the nile is the crooked stem of the lily, and the delta at the nile mouth, with its wide stretch of fertile soil, is the flower; while, just below the flower, there is a little bud--a fertile valley called the fayum. long before even egyptian history begins, there was no bloom on the lily. the nile, a far bigger river then than it is now, ran into the sea near cairo, the modern capital of egypt; and the land was nothing but the narrow valley of the river, bordered on either side by desert hills. but gradually, century by century, the nile cut its way deeper down into the land, leaving banks of soil on either side between itself and the hills, and the mud which it brought down in its waters piled up at its mouth and pressed the sea back, till, at last, the delta was formed, much as we see it now. this was long before egypt had any story of its own; but even after history begins the delta was still partly marshy land, not long reclaimed from the sea, and the real egyptians of the valley despised the people who lived there as mere marsh-dwellers. even after the delta was formed, the whole country was only about twice as large as wales, and, though there was a great number of people in it for its size, the population was only, at the most, about twice as great as that of london. an old greek historian once said, "egypt is the gift of the nile," and it is perfectly true. we have seen how the great river made the country to begin with, cutting out the narrow valley through the hills, and building up the flat plain of the delta. but the nile has not only made the country; it keeps it alive. you know that egypt has always been one of the most fertile lands in the world. almost anything will grow there, and it produces wonderful crops of corn and vegetables, and, nowadays, of cotton. it was the same in old days. when rome was the capital of the world, she used to get most of the corn to feed her hungry thousands from egypt by the famous alexandrian corn-ships; and you remember how, in the bible story, joseph's brethren came down from palestine because, though there was famine there, there was "corn in egypt." and yet egypt is a land where rain is almost unknown. sometimes there will come a heavy thunder-shower; but for month after month, year in and year out, there may be no rain at all. how can a rainless country grow anything? the secret is the nile. every year, when the rains fall in the great lake-basin of central africa, from which one branch of the great river comes, and on the abyssinian hills, where the other branch rises, the nile comes down in flood. all the lower lands are covered, and a fresh deposit of nile mud is left upon them; and, though the river does not rise to the higher grounds, the water is led into big canals, and these, again, are divided up into little ones, till it circulates through the whole land, as the blood circulates through your arteries and veins. this keeps the land fertile, and makes up for the lack of rain. apart from its wonderful river, the country itself has no very striking features. it is rather a monotonous land--a long ribbon of green running through a great waste of yellow desert and barren hills. but the great charm that draws people's minds to egypt, and gives the old land a never-failing interest, is its great story of the past, and all the relics of that story which are still to be seen. in no other land can you see the real people and things of the days of long ago as you can see them in egypt. think how we should prize an actual building that had been connected with the story of king arthur, if such a thing could be found in our country, and what wonderful romance would belong to the weapons, the actual shields and helmets, swords and lances, of the knights of the round table, lancelot and tristram and galahad--if only we could find them. out there in egypt you can see buildings compared with which king arthur's camelot would be only a thing of yesterday; and you can look, not only on the weapons, but on the actual faces and forms of great kings and soldiers who lived, and fought bravely for their country, hundreds of years before saul and jonathan and david began to fight the battles of israel. you can see the pictures of how people lived in those far-away days, how their houses were built, how they traded and toiled, how they amused themselves, how they behaved in time of sorrow, how they worshipped god--all set down by themselves at the very time when they were doing these things. you can even see the games at which the children used to play, and the queer old-fashioned toys and dolls that they played with, and you can read the stories which their mothers and their nurses used to tell them. these are the things which make this old land of egypt so interesting to us all to-day; and i want to try to tell you about some of them, so that you may be able to have in your mind's eye a real picture of the life of those long past days. chapter ii a day in thebes if any foreigner were wanting to get an idea of our country, and to see how our people live, i suppose the first place that he would go to would be london, because it is the capital of the whole country, and its greatest city; and so, if we want to learn something about egypt, and how people lived there in those far-off days, we must try to get to the capital of the country, and see what is to be seen there. suppose, then, that we are no longer living in britain in the twentieth century, but that somehow or other we have got away back into the past, far beyond the days of jesus christ, beyond even the times of moses, and are living about 1,300 years before christ. we have come from tyre in a phoenician galley, laden with costly bales of cloth dyed with tyrian purple, and beautiful vessels wrought in bronze and copper, to sell in the markets of thebes, the greatest city in egypt. we have coasted along past carmel and joppa, and, after narrowly escaping being driven in a storm on the dangerous quicksand called the syrtis, we have entered one of the mouths of the nile. we have taken up an egyptian pilot at the river mouth, and he stands on a little platform at the bow of the galley, and shouts his directions to the steersmen, who work the two big rudders, one on either side of the ship's stern. the north wind is blowing strongly and driving us swiftly upstream, in spite of the current of the great river; so our weary oarsmen have shipped their oars, and we drive steadily southwards under our one big swelling sail. at first we sail along through a broad flat plain, partly cultivated, and partly covered with marsh and marsh plants. by-and-by the green plain begins to grow narrower; we are coming to the end of the delta, and entering upon the real valley of egypt. soon we pass a great city, its temples standing out clear against the deep blue sky, with their towering gateways, gay flags floating from tall flagstaves in front of them, and great obelisks pointing to the sky; and our pilot says that this is memphis, one of the oldest towns in the country, and for long its capital. not far from memphis, three great pyramid-shaped masses of stone rise up on the river-bank, looking almost like mountains; and the pilot tells us that these are the tombs of some of the great kings of long past days, and that all around them lie smaller pyramids and other tombs of kings and great men. but we are bound for a city greater even than memphis, and so we never stop, but hasten always southward. several days of steady sailing carry us past many towns that cluster near the river, past one ruined city, falling into mere heaps of stone and brick, which our pilot tells us was once the capital of a wicked king who tried to cast down all the old gods of egypt, and to set up a new god of his own; and at last we see, far ahead of us, a huge cluster of buildings on both sides of the river, which marks a city greater than we have ever seen. as we sweep up the river we see that there are really two cities. on the east bank lies the city of the living, with its strong walls and towers, its enormous temples, and an endless crowd of houses of all sorts and sizes, from the gay palaces of the nobles to the mud huts of the poor people. on the west bank lies the city of the dead. it has neither streets nor palaces, and no hum of busy life goes up from it; but it is almost more striking than its neighbour across the river. the hills and cliffs are honeycombed with long rows of black openings, the doorways of the tombs where the dead of thebes for centuries back are sleeping. out on the plain, between the cliffs and the river, temple rises after temple in seemingly endless succession. some of these temples are small and partly ruined, but some are very great and splendid; and, as the sunlight strikes upon them, it sends back flashes of gold and crimson and blue that dazzle the eyes. [illustration: plate 2 the goddess isis dandling the king. _page 18_] but now our galley is drawing in towards the quay on the east side of the river, and in a few minutes the great sail comes thundering down, and, as the ship drifts slowly up to the quay, the mooring-ropes are thrown and made fast, and our long voyage is at an end. the egyptian custom-house officers come on board to examine the cargo, and collect the dues that have to be paid on it; and we watch them with interest, for they are quite different in appearance from our own hook-nosed, bearded sailors, with their thick many-coloured cloaks. these egyptians are all clean shaven; some of them wear wigs, and some have their hair cut straight across their brows, while it falls thickly behind upon their necks in a multitude of little curls, which must have taken them no small trouble to get into order. most wear nothing but a kilt of white linen; but the chief officer has a fine white cloak thrown over his shoulders; his linen kilt is stiffly starched, so that it stands out almost like a board where it folds over in front, and he wears a gilded girdle with fringed ends which hang down nearly to his knees. in his right hand he carries a long stick, which he is not slow to lay over the shoulders of his men when they do not obey his orders fast enough. after a good deal of hot argument, the amount of the tax is settled and paid, and we are free to go up into the great town. we have not gone far before we find that life in thebes can be quite exciting. a great noise is heard from one of the narrow riverside streets, and a crowd of men comes rushing up with shouts and oaths. ahead of them runs a single figure, whose writing-case, stuck in his girdle, marks him out as a scribe. he is almost at his last gasp, for he is stout and not accustomed to running; and he is evidently fleeing for his life, for the men behind him--rough, half-naked, ill-fed creatures of the working class--are chasing him with cries of anger, and a good deal of stone-throwing. bruised and bleeding, he darts up to the gate of a handsome house whose garden-wall faces the street. he gasps out a word to the porter, and is quickly passed into the garden. the gate is slammed and bolted in the faces of his pursuers, who form a ring round it, shouting and shaking their fists. in a little while the gate is cautiously unbarred, and a fine-looking man, very richly dressed, and followed by half a dozen well-armed negro guards, steps forward, and asks the workmen why they are here, making such a noise, and why they have chased and beaten his secretary. he is prince paser, who has charge of the works department of the theban government, and the workmen are masons employed on a large job in the cemetery of thebes. they all shout at once in answer to the prince's question; but by-and-by they push forward a spokesman, and he begins, rather sheepishly at first, but warming up as he goes along, to make their complaint to the great man. he and his mates, he says, have been working for weeks. they have had no wages; they have not even had the corn and oil which ought to be issued as rations to government workmen. so they have struck work, and now they have come to their lord the prince to entreat him either to give command that the rations be issued, or, if his stores are exhausted, to appeal to pharaoh. "we have been driven here by hunger and thirst; we have no clothes, we have no oil, we have no food. write to our lord the pharaoh, that he may give us something for our sustenance." when the spokesman has finished his complaint, the whole crowd volubly assents to what he has said, and sways to and fro in a very threatening manner. prince paser, however, is an old hand at dealing with such complaints. with a smiling face he promises that fifty sacks of corn shall be sent to the cemetery immediately, with oil to correspond. only the workmen must go back to their work at once, and there must be no more chasing of poor secretary amen-nachtu. otherwise, he can do nothing. the workmen grumble a little. they have been put off with promises before, and have got little good of them. but they have no leader bold enough to start a riot, and they have no weapons, and the spears and bows of the prince's nubians look dangerous. finally they turn, and disappear, grumbling, down the street from which they came; and prince paser, with a shrug of his shoulders, goes indoors again. whether the fifty sacks of corn are ever sent or not, is another matter. strikes, you see, were not unknown, even so long ago as this. chapter iii a day in thebes--_continued_ having seen the settlement of the masons' strike, we wander up into the heart of the town. the streets are generally narrow and winding, and here and there the houses actually meet overhead, so that we pass out of the blinding sunlight into a sort of dark tunnel. some of the houses are large and high; but even the largest make no display towards the street. they will be fine enough inside, with bright courts surrounded with trees, in the midst of which lies a cool pond of water, and with fine rooms decorated with gay hangings; but their outer walls are almost absolutely blank, with nothing but a heavy door breaking the dead line. we pass by some quarters where there is nothing but a crowd of mud huts, packed so closely together that there is only room for a single foot-passenger to thread his way through the narrow alleys between them. these are the workmen's quarters, and the heat and smell in them are so overpowering that one wonders how people can live in such places. by-and-by we come out into a more open space--one of the bazaars of the city--where business is in full swing. the shops are little shallow booths quite open to the front; and all the goods are spread out round the shopkeeper, who squats cross-legged in the middle of his property, ready to serve his customers, and invites the attention of the passers-by by loud explanations of the goodness and cheapness of his wares. all sorts of people are coming and going, for a theban crowd holds representatives of nearly every nation known. here are the townsfolk, men and women, out to buy supplies for their houses, or to exchange the news of the day; peasants from the villages round about, bringing in vegetables and cattle to barter for the goods which can only be got in the town; fine ladies and gentlemen, dressed elaborately in the latest court fashion, with carefully curled wigs, long pleated robes of fine transparent linen, and dainty, brightly-coloured sandals turned up at the toes. at one moment you rub shoulders with a hittite from kadesh, a conspicuous figure, with his high-peaked cap, pale complexion, and heavy, pointed boots. he looks round him curiously, as if thinking that thebes would be a splendid town to plunder. then a priest of high rank goes by, with shaven head, a panther skin slung across his shoulder over his white robe, and a roll of papyrus in his hand. a sardinian of the bodyguard swaggers along behind him, the ball and horns on his helmet flashing in the sunlight, his big sword swinging in its sheath as he walks; and a libyan bowman, with two bright feathers in his leather skull-cap, looks disdainfully at him as he shoulders his way through the crowd. all around us people are buying and selling. money, as we know it, has not yet been invented, and nearly all the trade is done by means of exchange. when it comes to be a question of how many fish have to be given for a bed, or whether a load of onions is good value for a chair, you can imagine that there has to be a good deal of argument. besides, the egyptian dearly loves bargaining for the mere excitement of the thing, and so the clatter of tongues is deafening. here and there one or two traders have advanced a little beyond the old-fashioned way of barter, and offer, instead of goods, so many rings of copper, silver, or gold wire. a peasant who has brought in a bullock to sell is offered 90 copper "uten" (as the rings are called) for it; but he loudly protests that this is robbery, and after a long argument he screws the merchant up to 111 "uten," with 8 more as a luck-penny, and the bargain is clinched. even then the rings have still to be weighed that he may be sure he is not being cheated. so a big pair of balances is brought out; the "uten" are heaped into one scale, and in the other are piled weights in the shape of bulls' heads. finally, he is satisfied, and picks up his bag of rings; but the wily merchant is not done with him yet. he spreads out various tempting bargains before the eyes of the countryman, and, before the latter leaves the shop, most of the copper rings have found their way back again to the merchant's sack. a little farther on, the tyrian traders, to whom the cargo of our galley is consigned, have their shop. screens, made of woven grass, shelter it from the sun, and under their shade all sorts of gorgeous stuffs are displayed, glowing with the deep rich colours, of which the tyrians alone have the secret since the sack of knossos destroyed the trade of crete. beyond the tyrian booth, a goldsmith is busily employed in his shop. necklets and bracelets of gold and silver, beautifully inlaid with all kinds of rich colours, hang round him; and he is hard at work, with his little furnace and blowpipe, putting the last touches to the welding of a bracelet, for which a lady is patiently waiting. in one corner of the bazaar stands a house which makes no display of wares, but, nevertheless, seems to secure a constant stream of customers. workmen slink in at the door, as though half ashamed of themselves, and reappear, after a little, wiping their mouths, and not quite steady in their gait. a young man, with pale and haggard face, swaggers past and goes in, and, as he enters the door, one bystander nudges another and remarks: "pentuere is going to have a good day again; he will come to a bad end, that young man." by-and-by the door opens again, and pentuere comes out staggering. he looks vacantly round, and tries to walk away; but his legs refuse to carry him, and, after a stumble or two, he falls in a heap and lies in the road, a pitiful sight. the passers-by jeer and laugh at him as he lies helpless; but one decent-looking man points him out to his young son, and says: "see this fellow, my son, and learn not to drink beer to excess. thou dost fall and break thy limbs, and bespatter thyself with mud, like a crocodile, and no one reaches out a hand to thee. thy comrades go on drinking, and say, 'away with this fellow, who is drunk.' if anyone should seek thee on business, thou art found lying in the dust like a little child." but in spite of much wise advice, the egyptian, though generally temperate, is only too fond of making "a good day," as he calls it, at the beerhouse. even fine ladies sometimes drink too much at their great parties, and have to be carried away very sick and miserable. worst of all, the very judges of the high court have been known to take a day off during the hearing of a long case, in order to have a revel with the criminals whom they were trying; and it is not so long since two of them had their noses cut off, as a warning to the rest against such shameful conduct. sauntering onwards, we gradually get near to the sacred quarter of the town, and can see the towering gateways and obelisks of the great temples over the roofs of the houses. soon a great crowd comes towards us, and the sounds of trumpets and flutes are heard coming from the midst of it. inquiring what is the meaning of the bustle, we are told that one of the images of amen, the great god of thebes, is being carried in procession as a preliminary to an important service which is to take place in the afternoon, and at which the king is going to preside. stepping back under the doorway of a house, we watch the procession go past. after a group of musicians and singers, and a number of women who are dancing as they go, and shaking curious metal rattles, there comes a group of six men, who form the centre of the whole crowd, and on whom the eyes of all are fixed. they are tall, spare, keen-looking men, their heads clean shaven, their bodies wrapped in pure white robes of the beautiful egyptian linen. on their shoulders they carry, by means of two long poles, a model of a nile boat, in the midst of which rises a little shrine. the shrine is carefully draped round with a veil, so as to hide the god from curious eyes. but just in front of the doorway where we are standing a small stone pillar rises from the roadway, and when the bearers come to this point, the bark of the god is rested on the top of the pillar. two censer-bearers come forward, and swing their censers, wafting clouds of incense round the shrine; a priest lifts up his voice, loudly intoning a hymn of praise to the great god who creates and sustains all things; and a few of the by-standers lay before the bark offerings of flowers, fruit, and eatables of various kinds. then comes the solemn moment. amid breathless silence, the veil of the shrine is slowly drawn aside, and the faithful can see a little wooden image, about 18 inches high, adorned with tall plumes, carefully dressed, and painted with green and black. the revelation of this little doll, to a theban crowd the most sacred object in all the world, is hailed with shouts of wonder and reverence. then the veil is drawn again, the procession passes on, and the streets are left quiet for awhile. [illustration: plate 3 the great gate of the temple of luxor, with obelisk. _pages 74, 75_] we are reminded that, if we wish to get a meal before starting out to see pharaoh passing in procession to the temple, we had better lose no time, and so we turn our faces riverwards again, and wander down through the endless maze of streets to where our galley is moored at the quay. chapter iv pharaoh at home the time is coming on now for the king to go in state to the great temple at karnak to offer sacrifice, and as we go up to the palace to see him come forth in all his glory, let me tell you a little about him and the kind of life he leads. pharaoh, of course, is not his real name; it is not even his official title; it is just a word which is used to describe a person who is so great that people scarcely venture to call him by his proper name. just as the turks nowadays speak of the "sublime porte," when they mean the sultan and his government, so the egyptians speak of "per-o," or pharaoh, as we call it, which really signifies "great house," when they mean the king. for the king of egypt is a very great man indeed; in fact, his people look upon him, and he looks upon himself, as something more than a man. there are many gods in egypt; but the god whom the people know best, and to whom they pay the most reverence, is their king. ever since there have been kings in the country, and that is a very long time now, the reigning monarch has been looked upon as a kind of god manifest in the flesh. he calls himself "son of the sun"; in the temples you will see pictures of his childhood, where great goddesses dandle the young god upon their knees (plate 2). divine honours are paid, and sacrifices offered to him; and when he dies, and goes to join his brother-gods in heaven, a great temple rises to his memory, and hosts of priests are employed in his worship. there is just one distinction made between him and the other gods. amen at thebes, ptah at memphis, and all the rest of the crowd of divinities, are called "the great gods." pharaoh takes a different title. he is called "the good god." at present "the good god" is ramses ii. of course, that is only one part of his name; for, like all the other pharaohs, he has a list of titles that would fill a page. his subjects in thebes have not seen very much of him for a long time, for there has been so much to do away in syria, that he has built another capital at tanis, which the hebrews call zoan, down between the delta and the eastern frontier, and spends most of his time there. people who have been down the river tell us great wonders about the beauty of the new town, its great temple, and the huge statue of the king, 90 feet high, which stands before the temple gate. but thebes is still the centre of the nation's life, and now, when it is growing almost certain that there will be another war with those vile hittites in the north of syria, he has come up to the great city to take counsel with his brother-god, amen, and to make arrangements for gathering his army. the royal palace is in a constant bustle, with envoys coming and going, and counsellors and generals continually passing in and out with reports and orders. outside, the palace is not so very imposing. the egyptians built their temples to last for ever; but the palaces of their kings were meant to serve only for a short time. the new king might not care for the old king's home, and so each pharaoh builds his house according to his own taste, of light materials. it will serve his turn, and his successor may build another for himself. a high wall, with battlements, towers, and heavy gates, surrounds it; for, though pharaoh is a god, his subjects are sometimes rather difficult to keep in order. plots against the king have not been unknown in the past; and on at least one occasion, a great pharaoh of bygone days had to spring from his couch and fight single-handed for his life against a crowd of conspirators who had forced an entrance into the palace while he was enjoying his siesta. so since then pharaoh has found it better to trust in his strong walls, and in the big broadswords of his faithful sardinian guardsmen, than in any divinity that may belong to himself. within the great boundary wall lie pleasant gardens, gay with all sorts of flowers, and an artificial lake shows its gleaming water here and there through the trees and shrubs. the palace itself is all glittering white stucco on the outside. a high central door leads into a great audience hall, glowing with colour, its roof supported by painted pillars in the form of lotus-stalks; and on either side of this lie two smaller halls. behind the audience chamber are two immense dining-rooms, and behind these come the sleeping apartments of the numerous household. ramses has a multitude of wives, and a whole army of sons and daughters, and it takes no small space to house them all. the bedroom of the great king himself stands apart from the other rooms, and is surrounded by banks of flowers in full bloom. the son of the sun has had a busy day already. he has had many letters and despatches to read and consider. some of the syrian vassal-princes have sent clay tablets, covered with their curious arrow-headed writing, giving news of the advance of the hittites, and imploring the help of the egyptian army; and now the king is about to give audience, and to consider these with his great nobles and generals. at one end of the reception hall stands a low balcony, supported on gaily-painted wooden pillars which end in capitals of lotus-flowers. the front of this balcony is overlaid with gold, and richly decorated with turquoise and lapis lazuli. here the king will show himself to his subjects, accompanied by his favourite wife, queen nefertari, and some of the young princes and princesses. the folding doors of the audience chamber are thrown open, and the barons, the provincial governors, and the high officers of the army and the state throng in to do homage to their master. [illustration] in a few moments the glittering crowd is duly arranged, a door opens at the back of the balcony, and the king of the two lands, lord of the vulture and the snake, steps forth with his queen and family. in earlier times, whenever the king appeared, the assembled nobles were expected to fall on their faces and kiss the ground before him. fashion has changed, however, and now the great folks, at all events, are no longer required to "smell the earth." as pharaoh enters the balcony, the nobles bow profoundly, and raise their arms as if in prayer to "the good god." then, in silent reverence, they wait until it shall please their lord to speak. ramses sweeps his glance over the crowd, singles out the general in command of the theban troops, and puts a question to him as to the readiness of his division--the picked division of the army. the soldier steps forward with a deep bow; but it is not court manners for him to answer his lord's question directly. instead, he begins by reciting a little psalm of praise, which tells of the king's greatness, his valour and skill in war, and asserts that wherever his horses tread his enemies flee before him and perish. this little piece of flattery over, the general begins, "o king, my master," and in a few sensible words gives the information required. so the audience goes on, counsellor after counsellor coming forward at the royal command, reciting his little hymn, and then giving his opinion on such matters as his master suggests to him. at last the council is over, the king gives orders to his equerry to prepare his chariot for the procession to the temple, and, as he turns to leave the audience chamber, the assembled nobles once more bow profoundly, and raise their arms in adoration. after a short delay, the great gates of the boundary wall of the palace are opened; a company of spearmen, in quilted leather kilts and leather skull-caps, marches out, and takes position a short distance from the gateway. behind them comes a company of the sardinians of the guard, heavily armed, with bright helmets, broad round shields, quilted corselets, and long, heavy, two-edged swords. they range themselves on either side of the roadway, and stand like statues, waiting for the appearance of pharaoh. there is a whir of chariot-wheels, and the royal chariot sweeps through the gateway, and sets off at a good round pace towards the temple. the spearmen in front start at the double, and the guardsmen, in spite of their heavy equipment, keep pace with their royal master on either side. the waiting crowd bows to the dust as the sovereign passes; but pharaoh looks neither to the right hand nor to the left. he stands erect and impassive in the swaying chariot, holding the crook and whip which are the egyptian royal emblems. on his head he wears the royal war helmet, in the front of which a golden cobra rears its crest from its coils, as if to threaten the enemies of egypt. his finely-shaped, swarthy features are adorned, or disfigured, by an artificial beard, which is fastened on by a strap passing up in front of the ears. his tall slender body is covered, above his corselet, with a robe of fine white linen, a perfect wonder of pleating; and round his waist passes a girdle of gold and green enamel, whose ends cross and hang down almost to his knees, terminating in two threatening cobra heads (plate 4 and cover picture). on either side of him run the fan-bearers, who manage, by a miracle of skill and activity, to keep their great gaily-coloured fans of perfumed ostrich feathers waving round the royal head even as they run. behind the king comes a long train of other chariots, only less splendid than that of ramses. in the first stands queen nefertari, languidly sniffing at a lotus-flower as she passes on. the others are filled by some of the princes of the blood, who are going to take part in the ceremony at the temple, chief among them the wizard prince khaemuas, the greatest magician in egypt, who has spells that can bring the dead from their graves. some in the crowd shrink from his keen eye, and mutter that the papyrus roll which he holds so close to his breast was taken from the grave of another magician prince of ancient days, and that khaemuas will know no peace till it is restored. in a few minutes the whole brilliant train has passed, dazzling the eyes with a blaze of gold and white and scarlet; and crowds of courtiers stream after their master, as fast as their feet can carry them, towards karnak. you have seen, if only for a moment, the greatest man on earth--the great oppressor of hebrew story. very mighty and very proud he is; and he does not dream that the little hebrew boy whom his daughter has adopted, and who is being trained in the priestly college at heliopolis, will one day humble all the pride of egypt, and that the very name of ramses shall be best remembered because it is linked with that of moses. chapter v the life of a soldier when you read about the egyptians in the bible, it seems as though they were nearly always fighting; and, indeed, they did a good deal of fighting in their time, as nearly every nation did in those old days. but in reality they were not a great soldier people, like their rivals the assyrians, or the babylonians. we, who have had so much to do with their descendants, the modern egyptians, and have fought both against them and with them, know that the "gippy" is not fond of soldiering in his heart. he makes a very good, patient, hardworking soldier when he has good officers; but he is not like the soudanese, who love fighting for fighting's sake. he much prefers to live quietly in his own native village, and cultivate his own bit of ground. and his forefathers, in these long-past days, were very much of the same mind. often, of course, they had to fight, when pharaoh ordered them out for a campaign in the soudan or in syria, and then they fought wonderfully well; but all the time their hearts were at home, and they were glad to get back to their farm-work and their simple pleasures. they were a peaceful, kindly, pleasant race, with little of the cruelty and fierceness that you find continually among the assyrians. [illustration: plate 4. ramses ii. in his war chariot: sardinian guardsmen on foot.] in fact, the old egyptian rather despised soldiering as a profession. he thought it was rather a miserable, muddled kind of a job, in which, unless you were a great officer, you got all the hard knocks and none of the honours; and i am not sure that he was far wrong. his great idea of a happy life was to get employment as a scribe, or, as we should say, a clerk, to some big man or to the government, to keep accounts and write reports. of course the people could not all be scribes; but an egyptian who had sons was never so proud as when he could get one of them into a scribe's position, even though the young man might look down upon his old father and his brothers, toiling on the land or serving in the army. a curious old book has come down to us from these ancient days, in which the writer, who had been both a soldier and a high officer under government in what we should call the diplomatic service, has told a young friend his opinion of soldiering as a profession. the young man had evidently been dazzled with the idea of being in the cavalry, or, rather, the chariotry, for the egyptian soldiers did not ride on horses like our cavalry, but drove them in chariots, in each of which there were two men--the charioteer, to drive the two horses, and the soldier, who stood beside the driver and fought with the bow, and sometimes with the lance or sword. but this wise old friend tells him that even to be in the chariotry is not by any means a pleasant job. of course it seems very nice at first. the young man gets his new equipment, and thinks all the world of himself as he goes home to show off his fine feathers. "he receives beautiful horses, and rejoices and exults, and returns with them to his town." but then comes the inspection, and if he has not everything in perfect order he has a bad time of it, for he is thrown down on the ground, and beaten with sticks till he is sore all over. but if the lot of the cavalry soldier is hard, that of the infantry-man is harder. in the barracks he is flogged for every mistake or offence. then war breaks out, and he has to march with his battalion to syria. day after day he has to tramp on foot through the wild hill-country, so different from the flat, fertile homeland that he loves. he has to carry all his heavy equipment and his rations, so that he is laden like a donkey; and often he has to drink dirty water, which makes him ill. then, when the battle comes, he gets all the danger and the wounds, while the generals get all the credit. when the war is over, he comes home riding on a donkey, a broken-down man, sick and wounded, his very clothes stolen by the rascals who should have attended on him. far better, the wise man says, to be a scribe, and to remain comfortably at home. i dare say it was all quite true, just as perhaps it would not be very far from the truth at the present time; but, in spite of it all, pharaoh had his battles to fight, and he got his soldiers all right when they were needed. the egyptian army was not generally a very big one. it was nothing like the great hosts that we hear of nowadays, or read of in some of the old histories. the armies that the pharaohs led into syria were not often much bigger than what we should call an army corps nowadays--probably about 20,000 men altogether, rarely more than 25,000. but in that number you could find almost as many different sorts of men as in our own indian army. there would be first the native egyptian spearmen and bowmen--the spearmen with leather caps and quilted leather tunics, carrying a shield and spear, and sometimes an axe, or a dagger, or short sword--the bowmen, more lightly equipped, but probably more dangerous enemies, for the egyptian archers were almost as famous as the old english bowmen, and won many a battle for their king. then came the chariot brigade, also of native egyptians, men probably of higher rank than the foot-soldiers. the chariots were very light, and it must have been exceedingly difficult for the bowman to balance himself in the narrow car, as it bumped and clattered over rough ground. the two horses were gaily decorated, and often wore plumes on their heads. the charioteer sometimes twisted the reins round his waist, and could take a hand in the fighting if his companion was hard pressed, guiding his horses by swaying his body to one side or the other. round the pharaoh himself, as he stood in his beautiful chariot, marched the royal bodyguard. it was made up of men whom the egyptians called "sherden"--sardinians, probably, who had come over the sea to serve for hire in the army of the great king. they wore metal helmets, with a round ball on the top and horns at the sides, carried round bossed shields, and were armed with great heavy swords of much the same shape as those which the norman knights used to carry. behind the native troops and the bodyguard marched the other mercenaries--regiments of black soudanese, with wild-beast skins thrown over their ebony shoulders; and light-coloured libyans from the west, each with a couple of feathers stuck in his leather skull-cap. scouts went on ahead to scour the country, and bring to the king reports of the enemy's whereabouts. beside the royal chariot there padded along a strange, but very useful soldier--a great tame lion, which had been trained to guard his master and fight with teeth and claws against his enemies. last of all came the transport train, with the baggage carried on the backs of a long line of donkeys, and protected by a baggage-guard. the egyptians were good marchers, and even in the hot syrian sunshine, and across a rough country where roads were almost unknown, they could keep up a steady fifteen miles a day for a week on end without being fagged out. let us follow the fortunes of an egyptian soldier through one of the great battles of the nation's history. menna was one of the most skilful charioteers of the whole egyptian army--so skilful that, though he was still quite young, he was promoted to be driver of the royal war-chariot when king ramses ii. marched out from zaru, the frontier garrison town of egypt, to fight with the hittites in northern syria. during all the long march across the desert, through palestine, and over the northern mountain passes, no enemy was seen at all, and, though menna was kept busy enough attending to his horses and seeing that the chariot was in perfect order, he was in no danger. but as the army began to wind down the long valley of the orontes towards the town of kadesh, the scouts were kept out in every direction, and the whole host was anxiously on the lookout for the hittite troops. kadesh came in sight at last. far on the horizon its towers could be seen, and the sun's rays sparkled on the river and on the broad moat which surrounded the walls; but still no enemy was to be seen. the scouts came in with the report that the hittites had retreated northwards in terror, and king ramses imagined that kadesh was going to fall into his hands without a battle. his army was divided into four brigades, and he himself hurried on rather rashly with the first brigade, leaving the other three to straggle on behind him, widely separated from one another (plate 4). the first brigade reached its camping-ground to the north-west of kadesh; the tired troops pitched camp; the baggage was unloaded; and the donkeys, released from their burdens, rolled on the ground in delight. just at that moment some of the egyptian scouts came in, bringing with them two arabs whom they had caught, and suspected to belong to the enemy. king ramses ordered the arabs to be soundly beaten with sticks, and the poor creatures confessed that the hittite king, with a great army, was concealed on the other side of kadesh, watching for an opportunity to attack the egyptian army. in great haste ramses, scolding his scouts the while for not keeping a better lookout, began to get his soldiers under arms again, while menna ran and yoked to the royal chariot the two noble horses which had been kept fresh for the day of battle. but before pharaoh could leap into his chariot a wild uproar broke out at the gate of the camp, and the scattered fragments of the second brigade came pouring in headlong flight into the enclosure. behind them the whole hittite chariot force, 2,500 chariots strong, each chariot with three men in it, came clattering and leaping upon the heels of the fugitives. the hittite king had waited till he saw the first brigade busy pitching camp, and then, as the second came straggling up, he had launched his chariots upon the flank of the weary soldiers, who were swept away in a moment as if by a flood. the rush of terrified men carried off the first brigade along with it in hopeless rout. ramses and menna were left with only a few picked chariots of the household troops, and the whole hittite army was coming on. but though king ramses had made a terrible bungle of his generalship, he was at least a brave man. leaping into his chariot, and calling to the handful of faithful soldiers to follow him, he bade menna lash his horses and charge the advancing hittites. menna was no coward, but when he saw the thin line of egyptian troops, and looked at the dense mass of hittite chariots, his heart almost failed him. he never thought of disobedience, but, as he stooped over his plunging horses, he panted to the king: "o mighty strength of egypt in the day of battle, we are alone in the midst of the enemy. o, save us, ramses, my good lord!" "steady, steady, my charioteer," said ramses, "i am going among them like a hawk!" in a moment the fiery horses were whirling the king and his charioteer between the files of the hittite chariots, which drew aside as if terrified at the glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly. as they swept through, menna had enough to do to manage his steeds, which were wild with excitement; but ramses' bow was bent again and again, and at every twang of the bowstring a hittite champion fell from his chariot. behind the king came his household troops, and all together they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long trail marked by dead and wounded men, overturned chariots, and maddened horses. still king ramses had only gained a breathing-space. the hittites far outnumbered his little force, and, though his orderlies were madly galloping to bring up the third and fourth brigades, it must be some time yet before even the nearest could come into action. besides, on the other bank of the river there hung a great cloud of 8,000 hittite spearmen, under the command of the hittite king himself. if these got time to cross the river, the egyptian position, bad enough as it was, would be hopeless. there was nothing for it but to charge again and again, and, if possible, drive back the hittite chariots on the river, so as to hinder the spearmen from crossing. so menna whipped up his horses again, and, with arrow on string, the pharaoh dashed upon his enemies once more. again they burst through the opposing ranks, scattering death on either side as they passed. now some of the fragments of the first and second brigades were beginning to rally and come back to the field, and the struggle was becoming less unequal. the egyptian quivers were nearly all empty now; but lance and sword still remained, and inch by inch the hittites were forced back upon the river. their king stood ingloriously on the opposite bank, unable to do anything. it was too late for him to try to move his spearmen across--they would only have been trampled down by the retreating chariots. at last a great shout from the rear announced the arrival of the third egyptian brigade, and, the little knot of brave men who had saved the day still leading, the army swept the broken hittites down the bank of the orontes into the river. great was the confusion and the slaughter. as the chariots struggled through the ford, the egyptian bowmen, spread out along the bank, picked off the chiefs. the two brothers of the hittite king, the chief of his bodyguard, his shield-bearer, and his chief scribe, were all killed. the king of aleppo missed the ford, and was swept down the river; but some of his soldiers dashed into the water, rescued him, and, in rough first aid, held the half-drowned leader up by the heels, to let the water drain out of him. the hittite king picked up his broken fugitives, covered them with his mass of spearmen, and moved reluctantly off the field where so splendid a chance of victory had been missed, and turned into defeat. the egyptians were too few and too weary to attempt to cross the river in pursuit, and they retired to the camp of the first brigade. then pharaoh called his captains before him. the troops stood around, leaning on their spears, ashamed of their conduct in the earlier part of the day, and wondering at the grim signs of conflict that lay on every side. king ramses called menna to him, and, handing the reins to a groom, the young charioteer came bowing before his master. pharaoh stripped from his own royal neck a collar of gold, and fastened it round the neck of his faithful squire; and, while the generals and captains hung their heads for shame, the king told them how shamefully they had left him to fight his battle alone, and how none had stood by him but the young charioteer. "as for my two horses," he said, "they shall be fed before me every day in the royal palace." [illustration: plate 5. zazamankh and the lost coronet.] both armies had suffered too much loss for any further strife to be possible, and a truce was agreed upon. the hittites drew off to the north, and the egyptians marched back again to egypt, well aware that they had gained little or nothing by all their efforts, but thankful that they had been saved from the total destruction which had seemed so near. a proud man was menna when he drove the royal chariot up to the bridge of zaru. as the troops passed the frontier canal the road was lined on either side with crowds of nobles, priests, and scribes, strewing flowers in the way, and bowing before the king. and after the pharaoh himself, whose bravery had saved the day, there was no one so honoured as the young squire who had stood so manfully by his master in the hour of danger. chapter vi child-life in ancient egypt how did the boys and girls live in this quaint old land so many hundreds of years ago? how were they dressed, what sort of games did they play at, what sort of lessons did they learn, and what kind of school did they go to? if you could have lived in egypt in those far-off days, you would have found many differences between your life of to-day and the life that the egyptian children led; but you would also have found that there were very many things much the same then as they are now. boys and girls were boys and girls three thousand years ago, just as they are now; and you would find that they did very much the same things, and even played very much the same games as you do to-day. when you read in your fairy-stories about a little boy or girl, you often hear that they had fairy godmothers who came to their cradles, and gave them gifts, and foretold what was going to happen to the little babies in after years. well, when little tahuti or little sen-senb was born in thebes fifteen hundred years before christ, there were fairy godmothers too, who presided over the great event; and there were others called the hathors, who foretold all that was going to happen to the little boy or girl as the years went on. the baby was kept a baby much longer in those days than our little ones are kept. the happy mother nursed the little thing carefully for three years at all events, carrying it about with her wherever she went, either on her shoulder, or astride upon her hip. if baby took ill, and the doctor was called in, the medicines that were given were not in the least like the sugar-coated pills and capsules that make medicine-taking easy nowadays. the egyptian doctor did not know a very great deal about medicine and sickness, but he made up for his ignorance by the nastiness of the doses which he gave to his patients. i don't think you would like to take pills made up of the moisture scraped from pig's ears, lizard's blood, bad meat, and decaying fat, to say nothing of still nastier things. often the doctor would look very grave, and say, "the child is not ill; he is bewitched"; and then he would sit down and write out a prescription something like this: "remedy to drive away bewitchment. take a great beetle; cut off his head and his wings, boil him, put him in oil, and lay him out. then cook his head and his wings; put them in snake-fat, boil, and let the patient drink the mixture." i think you would almost rather take the risk of being bewitched than drink a dose like that! [illustration: plate 6 granite statue of ramses ii. _page_ 75 note the hieroglyphics on base of statue. _pages_ 68, 69] sometimes the doctor gave no medicines at all, but wrote a few magic words on a scrap of old paper, and tied it round the part where the pain was. i daresay it did as much good as his pills. very often the mother believed that it was not really sickness that was troubling her child, but that a ghost was coming and hurting him; so when his cries showed that the ghost was in the room, the mother would rise up, shaking all over, i daresay, and would repeat the verse that she had been taught would drive ghosts away: "comest thou to kiss this child? i suffer thee not to kiss him; comest thou to quiet him? i suffer thee not to quiet him; comest thou to harm him? i suffer thee not to harm him; comest thou to take him away? i suffer thee not to take him away." when little tahuti has got over his baby aches, and escaped the ghosts, he begins to run about and play. he and his sister are not bothered to any great extent with dressing in the mornings. they are very particular about washing, but as egypt is so hot, clothes are not needed very much, and so the little boy and girl play about with nothing at all on their little brown bodies except, perhaps, a narrow girdle, or even a single thread tied round the waist. they have their toys just like you. tahuti has got a wonderful man, who, when you pull a string, works a roller up and down upon a board, just like a baker rolling out dough, and besides he has a crocodile that moves its jaws. his sister has dolls: a fine egyptian lady and a frizzy-haired, black-faced nubian girl. sometimes they play together at ninepins, rolling the ball through a little gate. for about four years this would go on, as long as tahuti was what the egyptians called "a wise little one." then, when he was four years old, the time came when he had to become "a writer in the house of books," which is what the egyptians called a school-boy; so little tahuti set off for school, still wearing no more clothes than the thread tied round his waist, and with his black hair plaited up into a long thick lock, which hung down over his right ear. the first thing that he had to learn was how to read and write, and this was no easy task, for egyptian writing, though it is very beautiful when well done, is rather difficult to master, all the more as there were two different styles which had to be learned if a boy was going to become a man of learning. i don't suppose that you think your old copy-books of much importance when you are done with them; but the curious thing is that among all the books that have come down to us from ancient egypt, there are far more old copy-books than any others, and these books, with the teachers' corrections written on the margins, and rough sketches scratched in here and there among the writing, have proved most valuable in telling us what the egyptians learned, and what they liked to read; for a great deal of the writing consisted in the copying out of wise words of the men of former days, and sometimes of stories of old times. these old copy-books can speak to us in one way, but if they could speak in another, i daresay they would tell us of many weary hours in school, and of many floggings and tears; for the egyptian school-master believed with all his heart in the cane, and used it with great vigour and as often as he could. little tahuti used to look forward to his daily flogging, much as he did to his lunch in the middle of the day, when his careful mother regularly brought him three rolls of bread and two jugs of beer. "a boy's ears," his master used to say, "are on his back, and he hears when he is beaten." one of the former pupils at his school writing to his teacher, and recalling his school-days, says: "i was with thee since i was brought up as a child; thou didst beat my back, and thine instructions went into my ear." sometimes the boys, if they were stubborn, got punishments even worse than the cane. another boy, in a letter to his old master, says: "thou hast made me buckle to since the time that i was one of thy pupils. i spent my time in the lock-up, and was sentenced to three months, and bound in the temple." i am afraid our schoolboys would think the old egyptian teachers rather more severe than the masters with whom they have to do nowadays. lesson-time occupied about half the day, and when it came to an end the boys all ran out of the school, shouting for joy. that custom has not changed much, anyway, in all these hundreds of years. i don't think they had any home lessons to do, and so, perhaps, their school-time was not quite so bad as we might imagine from the rough punishments they used to get. when tahuti grew a little older, and had fairly mastered the rudiments of writing, his teacher set him to write out copies of different passages from the best known egyptian books, partly to keep up his hand-writing, and partly to teach him to know good egyptian and to use correct language. sometimes it was a piece of a religious book that he was set to copy, sometimes a poem, sometimes a fairy-tale. for the egyptians were very fond of fairy-tales, and later on, perhaps, we may hear some of their stories, the oldest fairy-stories in the world. but generally the piece that was chosen was one which would not only exercise the boy's hand, and teach him a good style, but would also help to teach him good manners, and fill his mind with right ideas. very often tahuti's teacher would dictate to him a passage from the wise advice which a great king of long ago left to his son, the crown prince, or from some other book of the same kind. and sometimes the exercises would be in the form of letters which the master and his pupils wrote as though they had been friends far away from one another. tahuti's letters, you may be sure, were full of wisdom and of good resolutions, and i dare say he was just about as fond of writing them as you are of writing the letters that your teacher sometimes sets as a task for you. when it came to arithmetic, tahuti was so far lucky that the number of rules he had to learn was very few. his master taught him addition and subtraction, and a very slow and clumsy form of multiplication; but he could not teach him division, for the very simple reason that he did not properly understand it himself. enough of mensuration was taught him to enable him to find out, though rather roughly, what was the size of a field, and how much corn would go into a granary of any particular size. and when he had learned these things, his elementary education was pretty well over. [illustration: plate 7 nave of the temple at karnak. _pages_ 75, 76] of course a great deal would depend on the profession he was going to follow. if he was going to be only a common scribe, his education would go no farther; for the work he would have to do would need no greater learning than reading, writing, and arithmetic. if he was going to be an officer in the army, he entered as a cadet in a military school which was attached to the royal stables. but if he was going to be a priest, he had to join one of the colleges which belonged to the different temples of the gods, and there, like moses, he was instructed in all the wisdom of the egyptians, and was taught all the strange ideas which they had about the gods, and the life after death, and the wonderful worlds, above and below, where the souls of men lived after they had finished their lives on earth. but, whether his schooling was carried on to what we should call a university training or not, there was one thing that tahuti was taught with the utmost care, and that was to be very respectful to those who were older than himself, never to sit down while an older person was standing in the room, and always to be very careful in his manners. chief of the older people to whom he had to show respect were his parents, and above all, his mother, for the egyptians reverenced their mothers more than anyone else in the world. here is a little scrap of advice that a wise old egyptian once left to his son: "thou shalt never forget what thy mother has done for thee. she bare thee, and nourished thee in all manner of ways. she nursed thee for three years. she brought thee up, and when thou didst enter the school, and wast instructed in the writings, she came daily to thy master with bread and beer from her house. if thou forgettest her, she might blame thee; she might lift up her hands to god, and he would hear her complaint." children nowadays might do a great deal worse than remember these wise words of the oldest book in the world. but you are not to think that the egyptian children's life was all teaching and prim behaviour. when tahuti got his holidays, he would sometimes go out with his father and mother and sister on a fishing or fowling expedition. if they were going fishing, the little papyrus skiff was launched, and the party paddled away, armed with long thin spears, which had two prongs at the point. drifting over the quiet shallow waters of the marshy lakes, they could see the fish swimming beneath them, and launch their spears at them. sometimes, if he was lucky, tahuti's father would pierce a fish with either prong of the spear, and then there was great excitement. but still more interesting was the fowling among the marshes. the spears were laid aside on this kind of expedition, and instead, tahuti and his father were armed with curved throw-sticks, shaped something like an australian boomerang. but, besides the throw-sticks, they had with them a rather unusual helper. when people go shooting nowadays, they take dogs with them to retrieve the game. well, the egyptians had different kinds of dogs, too, which they used for hunting; but when they went fowling they took with them a cat which was trained to catch the wounded birds and bring them to her master. the little skiff was paddled cautiously across the marsh, and in among the reeds where the wild ducks and other waterfowl lived, sen-senb and her mother holding on to the tall papyrus plants and pulling them aside to make room for the boat, or plucking the beautiful lotus-lilies, of which the egyptians were so fond. when the birds rose, tahuti and his father let fly their throw-sticks, and when a bird was knocked down, the cat, which had been sitting quietly in the bow of the boat, dashed forward among the reeds and secured the fluttering creature before it could escape. [illustration: plate 8. "and the goose stood up and cackled."] altogether, it was great fun for the brother and sister, as well as for the grown folks, and tahuti and sen-senb liked nothing so well as when the gaily-painted little skiff was launched for a day on the marshes. i think that, on the whole, they had a very bright and happy life in these old days, and that, though they had not many of the advantages that you have to-day, the boys and girls of three thousand years ago managed to enjoy themselves in their own simple way quite as well as you do now. chapter vii some fairy-tales of long ago the little brown boys and girls who lived in egypt three thousand years ago were just as fond as you are of hearing wonderful stories that begin with "once upon a time;" and i want in this chapter to tell you some of the tales that tahuti and sen-senb used to listen to in the evening when school was over and play was done--the oldest of all wonder-tales, stories that were old and had long been forgotten, ages before the sleeping beauty and jack and the beanstalk were first thought of. one day, when king khufu, the great king who built the biggest of the pyramids, had nothing else to do, he called his sons and his wise men together, and said, "is there anyone among you who can tell me the tales of the old magicians?" then the king's son, prince baufra, stood up and said, "your majesty, i can tell you of a wonder that happened in the days of your father, king seneferu. it fell on a day that the king grew weary of everything, and sought through all his palace for something to please him, but found nothing. then he said to his officers, 'bring to me the magician zazamankh.' and when the magician came, the king said to him, 'o zazamankh, i have sought through all my palace for some delight, and i have found none.' then said zazamankh, 'let thy majesty go in thy boat upon the lake of the palace, and let twenty beautiful girls be brought to row thee, and let their oars be of ebony, inlaid with gold and silver. and i myself will go with thee; and the sight of the water-birds, and the fair shores, and the green grass will cheer thy heart.' so the king and the wizard went down to the lake, and the twenty maidens rowed them about in the king's pleasure-galley. nine rowed on this side, and nine on that, and the two fairest stood by the two rudders at the stern, and set the rowing song, each for her own side. and the king's heart grew glad and light, as the boat sped hither and thither, and the oars flashed in the sunshine to the song of the rowers. "but as the boat turned, the top of the steering-oar struck the hair of one of the maidens who steered, and knocked her coronet of turquoise into the water; and she stopped her song, and all the rowers on her side stopped rowing. then his majesty said, 'why have you stopped rowing, little one?' and the maiden answered, 'it is because my jewel of turquoise has fallen into the water.' 'row on,' said the king, 'and i will give you another.' but the girl answered, 'i want my own one back, as i had it before.' so king seneferu called zazamankh to come to him, and said, 'now, zazamankh, i have done as you advised, and my heart is light; but, behold, the coronet of this little one has fallen into the water, and she has stopped singing, and spoiled the rowing of her side; and she will not have a new jewel, but wants the old one back again.' "then zazamankh the wizard stood up in the king's boat, and spoke wonderful words. and, lo! the water of one half of the lake rose up, and heaped itself upon the top of the water of the other half, so that it was twice as deep as it was before. and the king's bark rode upon the top of the piled-up waters; but beyond it the bottom of the lake lay bare, with the shells and pebbles shining in the sunlight. and there, upon a broken shell, lay the little rower's coronet. then zazamankh leaped down and picked it up, and brought it to the king. and he spake wonderful words again, and the water sank down, and covered the whole bed of the lake, as it had done at first. so his majesty spent a joyful day, and gave great rewards to the wizard zazamankh." when king khufu heard that story, he praised the men of olden times. but another of his sons, prince hordadef, stood up, and said, "o king, that is only a story of bygone days, and no one knows whether it is true or a lie; but i will show thee a magician of to-day." "who is he, hordadef?" said king khufu. and hordadef answered, "his name is dedi. he is a hundred and ten years old, and every day he eats five hundred loaves of bread, and a side of beef, and drinks a hundred jugs of beer. he knows how to fasten on a head that has been cut off. he knows how to make a lion of the desert follow him, and he knows the plan of the house of god that you have wanted to know for so long." then king khufu sent prince hordadef to bring dedi to him, and he brought dedi back in the royal boat. the king came out, and sat in the colonnade of the palace, and dedi was led before him. then said his majesty, "why have i never seen you before, dedi?" and dedi answered, "life, health, strength to your majesty! a man can only come when he is called." "is it true, dedi, that you can fasten on a head which has been cut off?" "certainly i can, your majesty." then said the king, "let a prisoner be brought from the prison, and let his head be struck off." but dedi said, "long life to your majesty; do not try it on a man. let us try a bird or an animal." so a goose was brought; its head was cut off; and the head was laid at the east side of the hall, and the body at the west. then dedi rose, and spoke wonderful words. and, behold! the body of the goose waddled to meet the head, and the head came to meet the body. they joined together before his majesty's throne, and the goose stood up and cackled (plate 8). then, when dedi had joined to its body again the head that had been struck off from an ox, and the ox followed him lowing, king khufu said to him, "is it true, o dedi, that you know the plans of the house of god?" "it is true, your majesty; but it is not i who shall give them to you." "who, then?" said the king. "it is the eldest of three sons who shall be born to the lady rud-didet, wife of the priest of ra, the sun-god. and ra has promised that these three sons shall reign over this kingdom of thine." when king khufu heard that word, his heart was troubled; but dedi said, "let not your majesty's heart be troubled. thy son shall reign first, then thy son's son, and then one of these." so the king commanded that dedi should live in the house of prince hordadef; and that every day there should be given to him a thousand loaves, a hundred jugs of beer, an ox, and a hundred bunches of onions! when the three sons of rud-didet were born, ra sent four goddesses to be their godmothers. they came attired like travelling dancing-girls; and one of the gods came with them, dressed like a porter. and when they had nursed the three children awhile, rud-didet's husband said to them, "my ladies, what wages shall i give you?" so he gave them a bushel of barley, and they went away with their wages. but when they had gone a little way, isis, the chief of them, said, "why have we not done a wonder for these children?" so they stopped, and made crowns, the red crown and the white crown of egypt, and hid them in the bushel of barley, and sealed the sack, and put it in rud-didet's store-chamber, and went away again. a fortnight later, when rud-didet was going to brew the household beer, there was no barley. and her maidservant said, "there is a bushel, but it was given to the dancing-girls, and lies in the store-room, sealed with their seal." so the lady said to her maid, "go down and fetch it, and we shall give them more when they need it." the maid went down, but when she came to the store-room, lo! from within there came a sound of singing and dancing, and all such music as should be heard in a king's court. so in fear she crept back to her mistress and told her, and rud-didet went down and heard the royal music, and she told her husband when he came home at night, and their hearts were glad because their sons were to be kings. but after a time the lady rud-didet quarrelled with her maid, and gave her a beating, as ladies sometimes did in those days; and the weeping maid said to her fellow-servants, "shall she do this to me? she has borne three kings, and i will go and tell it to his majesty, king khufu." so she stole away first to her uncle, and told him of her plot; but he was angry because she wished to betray the children to king khufu, and he beat her with a scourge of flax. and as she went away by the side of the river a great crocodile came out of the water, and carried her off.... but here, alas! our story breaks off; the rest of the book is lost, and we cannot tell whether king khufu tried to kill the three royal babies or not. only we do know that the first three kings of the race which succeeded the race of khufu bore the same names as rud-didet's three babies, and were called, like all the kings of egypt after them, "sons of the sun." these, then, are absolutely the oldest fairy-stories in the world, and if they do not seem very wonderful to you, you must remember that everything has to have a beginning, and that the people who made these tales hadn't had very much practice in the art of story-telling. chapter viii some fairy-tales of long ago (_continued_) our next story belongs to a time several hundred years later, and i dare say it seemed as wonderful to the little egyptians as the story of sindbad the sailor does to you. it is called "the story of the shipwrecked sailor," and the sailor himself tells it to a noble egyptian. "i was going," he says, "to the mines of pharaoh, and we set sail in a ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide (225 feet by 60 feet--quite a big ship for the time). we had a crew of 150 of the best sailors of egypt, men whose hearts were as bold as lions. they all foretold a happy voyage, but as we came near the shore a great storm blew, the sea rose in terrible waves, and our ship was fairly overwhelmed. clinging to a piece of wood, i was washed about for three days, and at last tossed up on an island; but not one was left of all my shipmates--all perished in the waves. "i lay down in the shade of some bushes, and when i had recovered a little, i looked about me for food. there was plenty on every hand--figs and grapes, berries and corn, with all manner of birds. when my hunger was satisfied, i lit a fire, and made an offering to the gods who had saved me. suddenly i heard a noise like thunder; the trees shook, and the earth quaked. looking round, i saw a great serpent approaching me. he was nearly 50 feet long, and had a beard 3 feet in length. his body shone in the sun like gold, and when he reared himself up from his coils before me i fell upon my face. "then the serpent began to speak: 'what has brought thee, little one, what has brought thee? if thou dost not tell me quickly what has brought thee to this isle, i shall make thee vanish like a flame.' so saying, he took me up in his mouth, carried me gently to his lair, and laid me down unhurt; and again he said, 'what has brought thee, little one, what has brought thee to this isle of the sea?' so i told him the story of our shipwreck, and how i alone had escaped from the fury of the waves. then said he to me: 'fear not, little one, and let not thy face be sad. if thou hast come to me, it is god who has brought thee to this isle, which is filled with all good things. and now, see: thou shalt dwell for four months in this isle, and then a ship of thine own land shall come, and thou shalt go home to thy country, and die in thine own town. as for me, i am here with my brethren and my children. there are seventy-five of us in all, besides a young girl, who came here by chance, and was burned by fire from heaven. but if thou art strong and patient, thou shalt yet embrace thy children and thy wife, and return to thy home.' "then i bowed low before him, and promised to tell of him to pharaoh, and to bring him ships full of all the treasures of egypt; but he smiled at my speech, and said, 'thou hast nothing that i need, for i am prince of the land of punt, and all its perfumes are mine. moreover, when thou departest, thou shalt never again see this isle, for it shall be changed into waves.' [illustration: plate 9. an egyptian country house.] "now, behold! when the time was come, as he had foretold, the ship drew near. and the good serpent said to me, 'farewell, farewell! go to thy home, little one, see again thy children, and let thy name be good in thy town; these are my wishes for thee.' so i bowed low before him, and he loaded me with precious gifts of perfume, cassia, sweet woods, ivory, baboons, and all kinds of precious things, and i embarked in the ship. and now, after a voyage of two months, we are coming to the house of pharaoh, and i shall go in before pharaoh, and offer the gifts which i have brought from this isle into egypt, and pharaoh shall thank me before the great ones of the land." our last story belongs to a later age than that of the shipwrecked sailor. about 1,500 years before christ there arose in egypt a race of mighty soldier-kings, who founded a great empire, which stretched from the soudan right through syria and mesopotamia as far as the great river euphrates. mesopotamia, or naharaina, as the egyptians called it, had been an unknown land to them before this time; but now it became to them what america was to the men of queen elizabeth's time, or the heart of africa to your grandfathers--the wonderful land of romance, where all kinds of strange things might happen. and this story of the doomed prince, which i have to tell you, belongs partly to naharaina, and, as you will see, some of our own fairy-stories have been made out of very much the same materials as are used in it. once upon a time there was a king in egypt who had no child. his heart was grieved because he had no child, and he prayed to the gods for a son; so in course of time a son was born to him, and the fates (like fairy godmothers) came to his cradle to foretell what should happen to him. and when they saw him, they said, "his doom is to die either by the crocodile, or by the serpent, or by the dog." when the king heard this, his heart was sore for his little son, and he resolved that he would put the boy where no harm could come to him; so he built for him a beautiful house away in the desert, and furnished it with all kinds of fine things, and sent the boy there, with faithful servants to guard him, and to see that he came to no hurt. so the boy grew up quietly and safely in his house in the desert. but it fell on a day that the young prince looked out from the roof of his house, and he saw a man walking across the desert, with a dog following him. so he said to the servant who was with him, "what is this that walks behind the man who is coming along the road?" "it is a dog," said the page. then the boy said, "you must bring me one like him," and the page went and told his majesty. then the king said, "get a little puppy, and take it to him, lest his heart be sad." so they brought him a little dog, and it grew up along with him. now, it happened that, when the boy had grown to be a strong young man, he grew weary of being always shut up in his fine house. therefore he sent a message to his father, saying, "why am i always to be shut up here? since i am doomed to three evil fates, let me have my desire, and let god do what is in his heart." so the king agreed, and they gave the young prince arms, and sent him away to the eastern frontier, and his dog went with him, and they said to him, "go wherever you will." so he went northward through the desert, he and his dog, until he came to the land of naharaina. [illustration: plate 10 statues of king amenhotep iii.] now, the chief of the land of naharaina had no children, save one beautiful daughter, and for her he had built a wonderful house. it had seventy windows, and it stood on a great rock more than 100 feet high. and the chief summoned the sons of all the chiefs of the country round about, and said to them, "the prince who can climb to my daughter's window shall have her for his wife." so all the young princes of the land camped around the house, and tried every day to climb to the window of the beautiful princess; but none of them succeeded, for the rock was very steep and high. then, one day when they were climbing as they were wont, the young prince of egypt rode by with his dog; and the princes welcomed him, bathed him, and fed his horse, and said to him, "whence comest thou, thou goodly youth?" he did not wish to tell them that he was the son of pharaoh, so he answered, "i am the son of an egyptian officer. my father married a second wife, and, when she had children, she hated me, and drove me away from my home." so they took him into their company, and he stayed with them many days. now, it fell on a day that he asked them, "why do you stay here, trying always to climb this rock?" and they told him of the beautiful princess who lived in the house on the top of the rock, and how the man who could climb to her window should marry her. therefore the young prince of egypt climbed along with them, and it came to pass that at last he climbed to the window of the princess; and when she saw him, she fell in love with him, and kissed him. then was word sent to the chief of naharaina that one of the young men had climbed to his daughter's window, and he asked which of the princes it was, and the messenger said, "it is not a prince, but the son of an egyptian officer, who has been driven away from egypt by his stepmother." then the chief of naharaina was very angry, and said, "shall i give my daughter to an egyptian fugitive? let him go back to egypt." but, when the messengers came to tell the young man to go away, the princess seized his hand, and said, "if you take him from me, i will not eat; i will not drink; i shall die in that same hour." then the chief sent men to kill the youth where he was in the house. but the princess said, "if you kill him, i shall be dead before the sun goes down. i will not live an hour if i am parted from him." so the chief was obliged to agree to the marriage; and the young prince was married to the princess, and her father gave them a house, and slaves, and fields, and all sorts of good things. but after a time the young prince said to his wife, "i am doomed to die, either by a crocodile, or by a serpent, or by a dog." and his wife answered, "why, then, do you keep this dog always with you? let him be killed." "nay," said he, "i am not going to kill my faithful dog, which i have brought up since the time that he was a puppy." so the princess feared greatly for her husband, and would never let him go out of her sight. now, it happened in course of time that the prince went back to the land of egypt; and his wife went with him, and his dog, and he dwelt in egypt. and one day, when the evening came, he grew drowsy, and fell asleep; and his wife filled a bowl with milk, and placed it by his side, and sat to watch him as he slept. then a great serpent came out of his hole to bite the youth. but his wife was watching, and she made the servants give the milk to the serpent, and he drank till he could not move. then the princess killed the serpent with blows of her dagger. so she woke her husband, and he was astonished to see the serpent lying dead, and his faithful wife said to him, "behold, god has given one of thy dooms into thy hand; he will also give the others." and the prince made sacrifice to god, and praised him. now, it fell on a day that the prince went out to walk in his estate, and his dog went with him. and as they walked, the dog ran after some game, and the prince followed the dog. they came to the river nile, and the dog went into the river, and the prince followed him. then a great crocodile rose in the river, and laid hold on the youth, and said, "i am thy doom, following after thee." ... but just here the old papyrus roll on which the story is written is torn away, and we do not know what happened to the doomed prince. i fancy that, in some way or other, his dog would save him from the crocodile, and that later, by some accident, the poor faithful dog would be the cause of his master's death. at least, it looks as if the end of the story must have been something like that; for the egyptians believed that no one could escape from the doom that was laid upon him, but had to suffer it sooner or later. perhaps, some day, one of the explorers who are searching the land of egypt for relics of the past may come on another papyrus roll with the end of the story, and then we shall find out whether the dog did kill the prince, or whether god gave all his dooms into his hand, as his wife hoped. these are some of the stories that little tahuti and sen-senb used to listen to in the long evenings when they were tired of play. perhaps they seem very simple and clumsy to you; but i have no doubt that, when they were told in those old days, the black eyes of the little egyptian boys and girls used to grow very big and round, and the wizard who could fasten on heads which had been cut off seemed a very wonderful person, and the talking serpents and crocodiles seemed very real and very dreadful. anyhow, you have heard the oldest stories in all the world--the fathers and mothers, so to speak, of all the great family of wonder-tales that have delighted and terrified children ever since. chapter ix exploring the soudan there is no more wonderful or interesting story than that which tells how bit by bit the great dark continent of africa has been explored, and made to yield up its secrets. but did you ever think what a long story it is, and how very early it begins? it is in egypt that we find the first chapters of the story; and they can still be read, written in the quaint old picture writing which the egyptians used, on the rock tombs of a place in the south of egypt, called elephantine. [illustration: plate 11 the sphinx and the second pyramid. _page_ 79] in early days the land of egypt used to end at what was called the first cataract of the nile, a place where the river came down in a series of rapids among a lot of rocky islets. the first cataract has disappeared now, for british engineers have made a great dam across the nile just at this point, and turned the whole country, for miles above the dam, into a lake. but in those days the egyptians used to believe that the nile, to which they owed so much, began at the first cataract. yet they knew of the wild country of nubia beyond and, in very early times indeed, about 5,000 years ago, they used to send exploring expeditions into that half-desert land which we have come to know as the soudan. near the first cataract there lies the island of elephantine, and when the egyptian kingdom was young the great barons who owned this island were the lords of the egyptian marches, just as the percies and the douglases were the lords of the marches in england and scotland. it was their duty to keep in order the wild nubian tribes south of the cataract, to see that they allowed the trading caravans to pass safely, and sometimes to lead these caravans through the desert themselves. a caravan was a very different thing then from the long train of camels that we think of now when we hear the name. for, though there are some very old pictures which show that, before egyptian history begins at all, the camel was known in egypt, somehow that useful animal seems to have disappeared from the land for many hundreds of years. the pharaohs and their adventurous barons never used the queer, ungainly creature that carries the desert postman in our picture (plate 12), and the ivory, gold-dust, and ebony that came from the soudan had to be carried on the backs of hundreds of asses. the barons of elephantine bore the proud title of "keepers of the door of the south," and, in addition, they display, seemingly just as proudly, the title "caravan conductors." in those days it was no easy task to lead a caravan through the soudan, and bring it back safe with its precious load through all the wild and savage tribes who inhabited the land of nubia. more than one of the barons of elephantine set out with a caravan never to return, but to leave his bones, and those of his companions, to whiten among the desert sands; and one of them has told us how, hearing that his father had been killed on one of these adventurous journeys, he mustered his retainers, marched south with a train of a hundred asses, punished the tribe which had been guilty of the deed, and brought his father's body home, to be buried with all due honours. some of the records of these early journeys, the first attempts to explore the interior of africa, may still be read, carved on the walls of the tombs where the brave explorers sleep. one baron, called herkhuf, has told us of no fewer than four separate expeditions which he made into the soudan. on his first journey, as he was still young, he went in company with his father, and was away for seven months. the next time he was allowed to go alone, and brought back his caravan safely after an absence of eight months. on his third journey he went farther than before, and gathered so large a quantity of ivory and gold-dust that three hundred asses were required to bring his treasure home. so rich a caravan was a tempting prize for the wild tribes on the way; but herkhuf persuaded one of the soudanese chiefs to furnish him with a large escort, and the caravan was so strongly guarded that the other tribes did not venture to attack it, but were glad to help its leader with guides and gifts of cattle. herkhuf brought his treasures safely back to egypt, and the king was so pleased with his success that he sent a special messenger with a boat full of delicacies to refresh the weary traveller. [illustration: plate 12. a desert postman.] but the most successful of all his expeditions was the fourth. the king who had sent him on the other journeys had died, and was succeeded by a little boy called pepy, who was only about six years old when he came to the throne, and who reigned for more than ninety years--the longest reign in the world's history. in the second year of pepy's reign, the bold herkhuf set out again for the soudan, and this time, along with other treasures, he brought back something that his boy-king valued far more than gold or ivory. you know how, when stanley went in search of emin pasha, he discovered in the central african forests a strange race of dwarfs, living by themselves, and very shy of strangers. well, for all these thousands of years, the forefathers of these little dwarfs must have been living in the heart of the dark continent. in early days they evidently lived not so far away from egypt as when stanley found them, for, on at least one occasion, one of pharaoh's servants had been able to capture one of the little men, and bring him down as a present to his master, greatly to the delight of the king and court. herkhuf was equally fortunate. he managed to secure a dwarf from one of these pigmy tribes, and brought him back with his caravan, that he might please the young king with his quaint antics and his curious dances. when the king heard of the present which his brave servant was bringing back for him, he was wild with delight. the thought of this new toy was far more to the little eight-year-old, king though he was, than all the rest of the treasure which herkhuf had gathered; and he caused a letter to be written to the explorer, telling him of his delight, and giving him all kinds of advice as to how careful he should be that the dwarf should come to no harm on the way to court. the letter, through all its curious old phrases, is very much the kind of letter that any boy might send on hearing of some new toy that was coming to him. "my majesty," says the little eight-year-old pharaoh, "wisheth to see this pigmy more than all the tribute of punt. and if thou comest to court having this pigmy with thee sound and whole, my majesty will do for thee more than king assa did for the chancellor baurded." (this was the man who had brought back the other dwarf in earlier days.) little king pepy then gives careful directions that herkhuf is to provide proper people to see that the precious dwarf does not fall into the nile on his way down the river; and these guards are to watch behind the place where he sleeps, and look into his bed ten times each night, that they may be sure that nothing has gone wrong. the poor little dwarf must have had rather an uncomfortable time of it, one fancies, if his sleep was to be broken so often. perhaps there was more danger of killing him with kindness and care, than if they had left him more to himself; but pepy's anxiety was very like a boy. however, herkhuf evidently succeeded in bringing his dwarf safe and sound to the king's court, and no doubt the quaint little savage proved a splendid toy for the young king. one wonders what he thought of the great cities and the magnificent court of egypt, and whether his heart did not weary sometimes for the wild freedom of his lost home. herkhuf was so proud of the king's letter that he caused it to be engraved, word for word, on the walls of the tomb which he hewed out for himself at elephantine, and there to this day the words can be read which tell us how old is the story of african exploration, and how a boy was always just a boy, even though he lived five thousand years ago, and reigned over a great kingdom. chapter x a voyage of discovery about 3,500 years ago, there reigned a great queen in egypt. it was not usual for the egyptian throne to be occupied by a woman, though great respect was always shown to women in egypt, and the rank of a king's mother was considered quite as important as that of his father. but once at least in her history egypt had a great queen, whose fame deserves to be remembered, and who takes honourable rank among the great women, like queen elizabeth and queen victoria, who have ruled kingdoms. during part of her life queen hatshepsut was only joint sovereign along with her husband, and in the latter part of her reign she was joint sovereign with her half-brother or nephew, who succeeded her; but for at least twenty years she was really the sole ruler of egypt, and governed the land wisely and well. perhaps the most interesting thing that happened in her reign was the voyage of discovery which she caused to be made by some ships of her fleet. centuries before her time, when the world was young, the egyptians had made expeditions down the red sea to a land which they sometimes called punt, and sometimes "the divine land." probably it was part of the country that we now know as somaliland. but for a very long time these voyages had ceased, and people only knew by hearsay, and by the stories of ancient days, of this wonderful country that lay away by the southern sea. one day, the queen tells us, she was at prayers in the temple of the god amen at thebes, when she felt a sudden inspiration. the god was giving her a command to send an expedition to this almost forgotten land. "a command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest of the god himself, that the ways which lead to punt should be explored, and that the roads to the ladders of incense should be trodden." in obedience to this command, the queen at once equipped a little fleet of the quaint old galleys that the egyptians then used (plate 1), and sent them out, with picked crews, and a royal envoy in command, to sail down the red sea, in search of the divine land. the ships were laden with all kinds of goods to barter with the punites, and a guard of egyptian soldiers was placed on board. we do not know how long it took the little squadron to reach its destination. sea voyages in those days were slow and dangerous. but at last the ships safely reached the mouth of the elephant river in somaliland, and went up the river with the tide till they came to the village of the natives. they found that the punites lived in curious beehive-shaped houses, some of them made of wicker-work, and placed on piles, so that they had to climb into them by ladders. the men were not negroes, though some negroes lived among them; they were very much like the egyptians in appearance, wore pointed beards, and were dressed only in loincloths, while the women wore a yellow sleeveless dress, which reached halfway between the knee and ankle. nehsi, the royal envoy, landed with an officer and eight soldiers, and, to show that he came in peace, he spread out on a table some presents for the chief of the punites--five bracelets, two gold necklaces, a dagger, with belt and sheath, a battle-axe, and eleven strings of glass beads--much such a present as a european explorer might give to-day to an african chief. the natives came down in great excitement to see the strangers who had brought such treasures, and were astonished at the arrival of such a fleet. "how is it," they said, "that you have reached this country, hitherto unknown to men? have you come by way of the sky, or have you sailed on the waters of the divine sea?" the chief, who was called parihu, came down with his wife aty, and his daughter. aty rode down on a donkey, but dismounted to see the strangers, and, indeed, the poor donkey must have been greatly relieved, for the chieftainess was an exceedingly fat lady, and her daughter, though so young, showed every intention of being as fat as her mother. after the envoy and the chief had exchanged compliments, business began. the egyptians pitched a tent in which they stored their goods for barter, and to put temptation out of the way of the natives, they drew a guard of soldiers round the tent. for several days the market remained open, and the country people brought down their treasures, till the ships were laden as deeply as was safe. the cargo was a varied and valuable one. elephants' tusks, gold, ebony, apes, greyhounds, leopard skins, all were crowded into the galleys, the apes sitting gravely on the top of the bales of goods, and looking longingly at the land which they were leaving. but the most important part of the cargo was the incense, and the incense-trees. great quantities of the gum from which the incense was made were placed on board, and also thirty-one of the incense sycamores, their roots carefully surrounded with a large ball of earth, and protected by baskets. several young chiefs of the punites accompanied the expedition back to thebes, to see what life was like in the strange new world which had been revealed to them. altogether the voyage home must have been no easy undertaking, for the ships, with their heavy cargoes, must have been very difficult to handle. the arrival of the squadron at thebes, which they must have reached by a canal connecting the nile with the red sea, was made the occasion of a great holiday festival. long lines of troops in gala attire came out to meet the brave explorers, and an escort of the royal fleet accompanied the exploring squadron up to the temple quay where the ships were to moor. then the thebans feasted their eyes on the wonderful treasures that had come from punt, wondering at the natives, the incense, the ivory, and, above all, at a giraffe which had been brought home. how the poor creature was stowed away on the little egyptian ship it is hard to see; but there he was, with his spots and his long neck, the most wonderful creature that the good folks of thebes had ever seen. the precious incense gum was stored in the temple, and the queen herself gave a bushel measure, made of a mixture of gold and silver, to measure it out with. so the voyage of discovery had ended in a great success. but queen hatshepsut's purpose was only half fulfilled as yet. in a nook of the limestone cliffs, not far from thebes, her father before her had begun to build a very wonderful temple, close beside the ruins of an older sanctuary which had stood there for hundreds of years. hatshepsut had been gradually completing his work, and the temple was now growing into a most beautiful building, very different from ordinary egyptian temples. from the desert sands in front it rose terrace above terrace, each platform bordered with rows of beautiful limestone pillars, until at last it reached the cliffs, and the most sacred chamber of it, the holy of holies, was hewn into the solid wall of rock behind. this temple the queen resolved to make into what she called a paradise for amen, the god who had told her to send out the ships. so she planted on the terraces the sacred incense-trees which had been brought from punt; and, thanks to careful tending and watering, they flourished well in their new home. and then, all along the walls of the temple, she caused her artists to carve and paint the whole story of the voyage. we do not know the names of the artists who did the work, though we know that of the architect, sen-mut, who planned the building. but, whoever they were, they must have been very skilful sculptors; for the story of the voyage is told in pictures on the walls of this wonderful temple, so that everything can be seen just as it actually happened more than three thousand years ago. you can see the ships toiling along with oar and sail towards their destination, the meeting with the natives, the palaver and the trading, the loading of the galleys, and the long procession of theban soldiers going out to meet the returning explorers. not a single detail is missed, and, thanks to the queen and her artists, we can go back over all these years, and see how sailors worked, and how people lived in savage lands in that far-off time, and realize that explorers dealt with the natives in foreign countries in those days very much as they deal with them now. when our explorers of to-day come back from their journeys, they generally tell the story of their adventures in a big book with many pictures; but no explorer ever published the account of a voyage of discovery on such a scale as did queen hatshepsut, when she carved the voyage to punt on the walls of her great temple at deir-el-bahri, and no pictures in any modern book are likely to last as long, or to tell so much as these pictures that have come to light again during the last few years, after being buried for centuries under the desert sands. [illustration: plate 13. the bark of the moon, guarded by the divine eyes.] queen hatshepsut has left other memorials of her greatness besides the temple with its story of her voyage. she has told us how one day she was sitting in her palace, and thinking of her creator, when the thought came into her mind to rear two great obelisks before the temple of amen at karnak. so she gave the command, and sen-mut, her clever architect, went up the nile to aswan, and quarried two huge granite blocks, and floated them down the river. cleopatra's needle, which stands on the thames embankment, is 68-1/2 feet high, and it seems to us a huge stone for men to handle. our own engineers had trouble enough in bringing it to this country, and setting it up. but these two great obelisks of queen hatshepsut were 98-1/2 feet high, and weighed about 350 tons apiece. yet sen-mut had them quarried, and set up, and carved all over from base to summit in seven months from the time when the queen gave her command! one of them still stands at karnak, the tallest obelisk in the temple there; while the other great shaft has fallen, and lies broken, close to its companion. they tell us their own plain story of the wisdom and skill of those far-off days; and perhaps the great queen who thought of her creator as she sat in her palace, and longed to honour him, found that the god whom she ignorantly worshipped was indeed not far from his servant's heart. chapter xi egyptian books the egyptians were, if not quite the earliest, at least among the earliest of all the peoples of the world to find out how to put down their thoughts in writing, or in other words, to make a book; and one of their old books, full of wise advice from a father to his son, is, perhaps, the oldest book in the world. two words which we are constantly using might help to remind us of how much we owe to their cleverness. the one is "bible," and the other is "paper." when we talk of the bible, which just means "the book," we are using one of the words which the greeks used to describe the plant out of which the egyptians made the material on which they wrote; and when we talk of paper, we are using another name, the commoner name, of the same plant. for the egyptians were the first people to make paper, and they used it for many centuries before other people had learned how much handier it was than the other things which they used. yet, if you saw an egyptian book, you would think it was a very curious and clumsy thing indeed, and very different from the handy volumes which we use nowadays. when an egyptian wanted to make a book, he gathered the stems of a kind of reed called the papyrus, which grew in some parts of egypt in marshy ground. this plant grew to a height of from 12 to 15 feet, and had a stalk about 6 inches thick. the outer rind was peeled off this stalk, and then the inner part of it was separated, by means of a flat needle, into thin layers. these layers were joined to one another on a table, and a thin gum was spread over them, and then another layer was laid crosswise on the top of the first. the double sheet thus made was then put into a press, squeezed together, and dried. the sheets varied, of course, in breadth according to the purpose for which they were needed. the broadest that we know of measure about 17 inches across, but most are much narrower than that. when the egyptian had got his paper, he did not make it up into a volume with the sheets bound together at the back, as we do. he joined them end to end, adding on sheet after sheet as he wrote, and rolling up his book as he went along; so when the book was done it formed a big roll, sometimes many feet long. there is one great book in the british museum which measures 135 feet in length. you would think it very strange and awkward to have to handle a book like that. but if the book seemed curious to you, the writing in it would seem still more curious; for the egyptian writing was certainly the quaintest, and perhaps the prettiest, that has ever been known. it is called "hieroglyphic," which means "sacred carving," and it is nothing but little pictures from beginning to end. the egyptians began by putting down a picture of the thing which was represented by the word they wanted to use, and, though by-and-by they formed a sort of alphabet to spell words with, and had, besides, signs that represented the different syllables of a word, still, these signs were all little pictures. for instance, one of their signs for _a_ was the figure of an eagle; their sign for _m_ was a lion, and for _u_ a little chicken; so that when you look at an egyptian book written in the hieroglyphic character, you see column after column of birds and beasts and creeping things, of men and women and boats, and all sorts of other things, marching across the page. when the egyptians wanted any of their writings to last for a very long time, they did not trust them to the frail papyrus rolls, but used another kind of book altogether. you have heard of "sermons in stones"? well, a great many of the egyptian books that tell us of the great deeds of the pharaohs were written on stone, carved deep and clear in the hard granite of a great obelisk, or in the limestone of a temple wall. when one of the kings came back from the wars, he generally published the account of his battles and victories by carving them on the walls of one of the great temples, or on a pillar set up in the court of a temple, and there they remain to this day for scholars to read. when the hieroglyphics were cut in stone, the lines were often filled in with pastes of different colours, so that the whole writing was a blaze of beautiful tints, and the walls looked as if they were covered with finely-coloured hangings. of course, the colours have mostly faded now; but there are still some temples and tombs where they can be seen, almost as fresh as when they were first laid on, and from these we can gather some idea of how wonderfully beautiful were these stone books of ancient egypt. the scribes and carvers knew very well how beautiful their work was, and were careful to make it look as beautiful as possible; so much so, that if they found that the grouping of figures to make up a particular word or sentence was going to be ugly or clumsy, they would even prefer to spell the word wrong, rather than spoil the appearance of their picture-writing. some of you, i dare say, spell words wrong now and again; but i fancy it isn't because you think they look prettier that way. but now let us turn back again to our papyrus roll. suppose that we have got it, clean and fresh, and that our friend the scribe is going to write upon it. how does he go about it? to begin with, he draws from his belt a long, narrow wooden case, and lays it down beside him. this is his palette; rather a different kind of palette from the one which artists use. it is a piece of wood, with one long hollow in it, and two or three shallow round ones. the long hollow holds a few pens, which are made out of thin reeds, bruised at the ends, so that their points are almost like little brushes. the shallow round hollows are for holding ink--black for most of the writing, red for special words, and perhaps one or two other colours, if the scribe is going to do a very fine piece of work. so he squats down, cross-legged, dips a reed-pen in the ink, and begins. as he writes he makes his little figures of men and beasts and birds face all in the one direction, and his readers will know that they must always read from the point towards which the characters face. now and then, when he comes to some specially important part, he draws, in gay colours, a little picture of the scene which the words describe. now, you can understand that this picture-writing was not very easy work to do when you had nothing but a bruised reed to draw all sorts of animals with. gradually the pictures grew less and less like the creatures they stood for to begin with, and at last the old hieroglyphic broke down into a kind of running hand, where a stroke or two might stand for an eagle, a lion, or a man. and very many of the egyptian books are written in this kind of broken-down hieroglyphic, which is called "hieratic," or priestly writing. but some of the finest and costliest books were still written in the beautiful old style. on their papyrus rolls the egyptians wrote all sorts of things--books of wise advice, stories like the fairy-tales which we have been hearing, legends of the gods, histories, and poems; but the book that is oftenest met with is one of their religious books. it is nearly always called the "book of the dead" now, and some people call it the egyptian bible, but neither of these names is the right one. certainly, it is not in the least like the bible, and the egyptians themselves never called it the book of the dead. they called it "the chapters of coming forth by day," and the reason they gave it that name was because they believed that if their dead friends knew all the wisdom that was written in it, they would escape all the dangers of the other world, and would be able in heaven to go in and out just as they had done upon earth, and to be happy for ever. the book is full of all kinds of magical charms against the serpents and dragons and all the other kinds of evil things that sought to destroy the dead person in the other world. the scribes used to write off copies of it by the dozen, and keep them in stock, with blank places for the names of the persons who were to use them. when anyone died, his friends went away to a scribe, and bought a roll of the book of the dead, and the scribe filled in the name of the dead person in the blank places. then the book was buried along with his mummy, so that when he met the demons and serpents on the road to heaven, he would know how to drive them away, and when he came to gates that had to be opened, or rivers that had to be crossed, he would know the right magical words to use. some of these rolls of the book of the dead are very beautifully written, and illustrated with most wonderful little coloured pictures, representing different scenes of life in the other world, and it is from these that we have learned a great deal of what the egyptians believed about the judgment after death, and heaven. but the common ones are very carelessly done. the scribes knew that the book was going to be buried at once, and that nobody was likely ever to see it again; so they did not care much whether they made mistakes or not, and often they missed out parts of the book altogether. they little thought that, thousands of years after they were dead, scholars would dig up their writings again, and read them, and see all their blunders. of course, a great deal of this book is dreadful rubbish, and anything more unlike the noble and beautiful teaching of the bible you can scarcely imagine. it has no more sense in it than the "fee! fi! foh! fum!" of our fairy-stories. here is one little chapter from it. it is called "the chapter of repulsing serpents," and the egyptians supposed that when a serpent attacked you on your way to heaven, you had only to recite this verse, and the serpent would be powerless to harm you: "hail, thou serpent rerek! advance not hither. stand still now, and thou shalt eat the rat which is an abomination unto ra (the sun-god), and thou shalt crunch the bones of a filthy cat." it sounds very silly, doesn't it? and there are many things quite as silly as this in the book. you can scarcely imagine how wise people like the egyptians could ever have believed in such drivel. but, then, side by side with this miserable stuff, you find really wonderful and noble thoughts, that surely came to these men of ancient days from god himself, telling them how every man must be judged at last for all that he has done on earth, and how only those who have done justly, and loved mercy, and walked humbly with god, will be accepted by him. chapter xii temples and tombs anyone travelling through our own land, or through any european country, to see the great buildings of long ago, would find that they were nearly all either churches or castles. there are the great cathedrals, very beautiful and wonderful; and there are the great buildings, sometimes partly palaces and partly fortresses, where kings and nobles lived in bygone days. well, if you were travelling in egypt to see its great buildings, you would find a difference. there are plenty of churches, or temples, rather, and very wonderful they are; but there are no castles or palaces left, or, at least, there are next to none. instead of palaces and castles, you would find tombs. egypt, in fact, is a land of great temples and great tombs. [illustration: plate 14 gateway of the temple of edfu. _pages_ 74, 75] now, one can see why the egyptians built great temples; for they were a very religious nation, and paid great honour to their gods. but why did they give so much attention to their tombs? the reason is, as you will hear more fully in another chapter, that there never was a nation which believed so firmly as did the egyptians that the life after death was far more important than life in this world. they built their houses, and even their palaces, very lightly, partly of wood and partly of clay, because they knew that they were only to live in them for a few years. but they called their tombs "eternal dwelling-places"; and they have made them so wonderfully that they have lasted long after all the other buildings of the land, except the temples, have passed away. first of all, let me try to give you an idea of what an egyptian temple must have been like in the days of its splendour. people come from all parts of the world to see even the ruins of these buildings, and they are altogether the most astonishing buildings in the world; but they are now only the skeletons of what the temples once were, and scarcely give you any more idea of their former glory and beauty than a human skeleton does of the beauty of a living man or woman. suppose, then, that we are coming up to the gates of a great egyptian temple in the days when it was still the house of a god who was worshipped by hundreds of thousands of people. as we pass out of the narrow streets of the city to which the temple belongs, we find ourselves standing upon a broad paved way, which stretches before us for hundreds of yards. on either side, this way is bordered by a row of statues, and these statues are in the form of what we call sphinxes--that is to say, they have bodies shaped like crouching lions, and on the lion-body there is set the head of a different creature. some of the sphinxes, like the great sphinx, have human heads; but those which border the temple avenues have oftener either ram or jackal heads. as we pass along the avenue, two high towers rise before us, and between them is a great gateway. in front of the gate-towers are two tall obelisks, slender, tapering shafts of red granite, like cleopatra's needle on the thames embankment. they are hewn out of single blocks of stone, carved all over with hieroglyphic figures, polished till they shine like mirrors, and their pointed tops are gilded so that they flash brilliantly in the sunlight. beside the obelisks, which may be from 70 to 100 feet high, there are huge statues, perhaps two, perhaps four, of the king who built the temple. these statues represent the king as sitting upon his throne, with the double crown of egypt, red and white, upon his head. they also are hewn out of single blocks of stone, and when you look at the huge figures you wonder how human hands could ever get such stones out of the quarry, sculpture them, and set them up. before one of the temples of thebes still lie the broken fragments of a statue of ramses ii. when it was whole the statue must have been about 57 feet high, and the great block of granite must have weighed about 1,000 tons--the largest single stone that was ever handled by human beings. plate 10 will give you some idea of what these huge statues looked like. fastened to the towers are four tall flagstaves--two on either side of the gate--and from them float gaily-coloured pennons. the walls of the towers are covered with pictures of the wars of the king. here you see him charging in his chariot upon his fleeing enemies; here, again, he is seizing a group of captives by the hair, and raising his mace or his sword to kill them; but whatever he is doing, he is always gigantic, while his foes are mere helpless human beings. all these carvings are brilliantly painted, and the whole front of the building glows with colour; it is really a kind of pictorial history of the king's reign. now we stand in front of the gate. its two leaves are made of cedar-wood brought from lebanon; but you cannot see the wood at all, for it is overlaid with plates of silver chased with beautiful designs. passing through the gateway, we find ourselves in a broad open court. all round it runs a kind of cloister, whose roof is supported upon tall pillars, their capitals carved to represent the curving leaves of the palm-tree. in the middle of the court there stands a tall pillar of stone, inscribed with the story of the great deeds of pharaoh, and his gifts to the god of the temple. it is inlaid with turquoise, malachite, and lapis-lazuli, and sparkles with precious stones. at the farther side of this court, another pair of towers and another gateway lead you into the second court. here we pass at once out of brilliant sunlight into semi-darkness; for this court is entirely roofed over, and no light enters it except from the doorway and from grated slits in the roof. look around you, and you will see the biggest single chamber that was ever built by the hands of man. down the centre run two lines of gigantic pillars which hold up the roof, and form the nave of the hall; and beyond these on either side are the aisles, whose roofs are supported by a perfect forest of smaller columns. look up to the twelve great pillars of the nave. they soar above your head, seventy feet into the air, their capitals bending outwards in the shape of open flowers. on each capital a hundred men could stand safely; and the great stone roofing beams that stretch from pillar to pillar weigh a hundred tons apiece. how were they ever brought to the place? and, still more, how were they ever swung up to that dizzy height, and laid in their places? each of the great columns is sculptured with figures and gaily painted, and the surrounding walls of the hall are all decorated in the same way. but when you look at the pictures, you find that it is no longer the wars of the king that are represented. the inside of the temple is too holy for such things. instead, you have pictures of the gods, and of the king making all kinds of offerings to them; and these pictures are repeated again and again, with endless inscriptions, telling of the great gifts which pharaoh has given to the temple. finally we pass into the holy of holies. here no light of day ever enters at all. the chamber, smaller and lower than either of the others, is in darkness except for the dim light of the lamp carried by the attendant priest. here stands the shrine, a great block of granite, hewn into a dwelling-place for the figure of the god. it is closed with cedar doors covered with gold plates, and the doors are sealed; but if we could persuade the priest to let us look within, we should see a small wooden figure something like the one that we saw carried through the streets of thebes, dressed and painted, and surrounded by offerings of meat, drink, and flowers. for this little figure all the glories that we have passed through have been created: an army of priests attends upon it day by day, dresses and paints it, spreads food before it, offers sacrifices and sings hymns in its praise. behind the sanctuary lie storehouses, which hold corn and fruits and wines enough to supply a city in time of siege. the god is a great proprietor, holding more land than any of the nobles of the country. he has a revenue almost as great as that of pharaoh himself. he has troops of his own, an army which obeys no orders but his. on the red sea he has one fleet, bringing to his temple the spices and incense of the southland; and from the nile mouths another fleet sails to bring home cedar-wood from lebanon, and costly stuffs from tyre. his priests have far more power than the greatest barons of the land, and pharaoh, mighty as he is, would think twice before offending a band of men whose hatred could shake him on his throne. such was an egyptian temple 3,000 years ago, when egypt was the greatest power in the world. but if the temples of ancient egypt are wonderful, the tombs are almost more wonderful still. very early in their history the egyptians began to show their sense of the importance of the life after death by raising huge buildings to hold the bodies of their great men. even the earliest kings, who lived before there was any history at all, had great underground chambers scooped out and furnished with all sorts of things for their use in the after-life. but it is when we come to that king khufu, who figures in the fairy-stories of zazamankh and dedi, that we begin to understand what a wonderful thing an egyptian tomb might be. not very far from cairo, the modern capital of egypt, a line of strange, pointed buildings rises against the sky on the edge of the desert. these are the pyramids, the tombs of the great kings of egypt in early days, and if we want to know what egyptian builders could do 4,000 years before christ, we must look at them. take the largest of them, the great pyramid, called the pyramid of cheops. cheops is really khufu, the king who was so much put out by dedi's prophecy about rud-didet's three babies. no such building was ever reared either before or since. it stands, even now, 450 feet in height, and before the peak was destroyed, it was about 30 feet higher. each of its four sides measures over 750 feet in length, and it covers more than twelve acres of ground, the size of a pretty large field. but you will get the best idea of how tremendous a building it is when i tell you that if you used it as a quarry, you could build a town, big enough to hold all the people of aberdeen, out of the great pyramid; or if you broke up the stones of which it is built, and laid them in a line a foot broad and a foot deep, the line would reach a good deal more than halfway round the world at the equator. you would have some trouble in breaking up the stones, however; for many of the great blocks weigh from 40 to 50 tons apiece, and they are so beautifully fitted to one another that you could not get the edge of a sheet of paper into the joints! inside this great mountain of stone there are long passages leading to two small rooms in the centre of the pyramid; and in one of these rooms, called "the king's chamber," the body of the greatest builder the world has ever seen was laid in its stone coffin. then the passages were closed with heavy plug-blocks of stone, so that no one should ever disturb the sleep of king khufu. but, in spite of all precautions, robbers mined their way into the pyramid ages ago, plundered the coffin, and scattered to the winds the remains of the king, so that, as byron says, "not a pinch of dust remains of cheops." the other pyramids are smaller, though, if the great pyramid had not been built, the second and third would have been counted world's wonders. near the second pyramid sits the great sphinx. it is a huge statue, human-headed and lion-bodied, carved out of limestone rock. who carved it, or whose face it bears, we do not certainly know; but there the great figure crouches, as it has crouched for countless ages, keeping watch and ward over the empty tombs where the pharaohs of egypt once slept, its head towering seventy feet into the air, its vast limbs and body stretching for two hundred feet along the sand, the strangest and most wonderful monument ever hewn by the hands of man (plate 11). later on in egyptian history the kings and great folk grew tired of building pyramids, and the fashion changed. instead of raising huge structures above ground, they began to hew out caverns in the rocks in which to lay their dead. round about thebes, the rocks on the western side of the nile are honeycombed with these strange houses of the departed. their walls, in many cases, are decorated with bright and cheerful pictures, showing scenes of the life which the dead man lived on earth. there he stands, or sits, placid and happy, with his wife beside him, while all around him his servants go about their usual work. they plough and hoe, sow and reap; they gather the grapes from the vines and put them into the winepress; or they bring the first-fruits of the earth to present them before their master (plate 15). in other pictures you see the great man going out to his amusements, fishing, hunting, or fowling; or you are taken into the town, and see the tradesmen working, and the merchants, and townsfolk buying and selling in the bazaars. in fact, the whole of life in ancient egypt passes before your eyes as you go from chamber to chamber, and it is from these old tomb-pictures that we have learned the most of what we know of how people lived and worked in those long-past days. in one wild rocky glen, called the "valley of the kings," nearly all the later pharaohs were buried, and to-day their tombs are one of the sights of thebes. let us look at the finest of them--the tomb of sety i., the father of that ramses ii. of whom we have heard so much. entering the dark doorway in the cliff, you descend through passage after passage and hall after hall, until at last you reach the fourteenth chamber, "the gold house of osiris," 470 feet from the entrance, where the great king was laid in his magnificent alabaster coffin. the walls and pillars of each chamber are wonderfully carved and painted. the pillars show pictures of the king making offerings to the gods, or being welcomed by them, but the pictures on the walls are very strange and weird. they represent the voyage of the sun through the realms of the under-world, and all the dangers and difficulties which the soul of the dead man has to encounter as he accompanies the sun-bark on its journey. serpents, bats, and crocodiles, spitting fire, or armed with spears, pursue the wicked. the unfortunates who fall into their power are tortured in all kinds of horrible ways; their hearts are torn out; their heads are cut off; they are boiled in caldrons, or hung head downwards over lakes of fire. gradually the soul passes through all these dangers into the brighter scenes of the fields of the blessed, where the justified sow and reap and are happy. finally, the king arrives, purified, at the end of his long journey, and is welcomed by the gods into the abode of the blessed, where he, too, dwells as a god in everlasting life. [illustration: plate 15 wall-pictures in a theban tomb. _pages_ 80, 81] the beautiful alabaster coffin in which the mummy of king sety was laid is now in the soane museum, london. when it was discovered, nearly a century ago, it was empty, and it was not till 1872 that some modern tomb-robbers found the body of the king, along with other royal mummies, hidden away in a deep pit among the cliffs. now it lies in the museum at cairo, and you can see the face of this great king, its fine, proud features not so very much changed, we can well believe, from what they were when he reigned 3,200 years ago. in the same museum you can look upon the faces of tahutmes iii., the greatest soldier of egypt; of ramses ii., the oppressor of the israelites; and, perhaps most interesting of all, of merenptah, the pharaoh who hardened his heart when moses pled with him to let the hebrews go, and whose picked troops were drowned in the red sea as they pursued their escaping slaves. it is very strange to think that one can see the actual features and forms on which the heroes of our bible story looked in life. the reason of such a thing is that the egyptians believed that when a man died, his soul, which passed to the life beyond, loved to return to its old home on earth, and find again the body in which it once dwelt; and even, perhaps, that the soul's existence in the other world depended in some way on the preservation of the body. so they made the bodies of their dead friends into what we call "mummies," steeping them for many days in pitch and spices till they were embalmed, and then wrapping them round in fold upon fold of fine linen. so they have endured all these hundreds of years, to be stored at last in a museum, and gazed upon by people who live in lands which were savage wildernesses when egypt was a great and mighty empire. chapter xiii an egyptian's heaven in this chapter i want to tell you a little about what the egyptians thought of heaven--what it was, where it was, how people got there after death, and what kind of a life they lived when they were there. they had some very quaint and curious ideas about the heavens themselves. they believed, for instance, that the blue sky overhead was something like a great iron plate spread over the world, and supported at the four corners, north, south, east, and west, by high mountains. the stars were like little lamps, which hung down from this plate. right round the world ran a great celestial river, and on this river the sun sailed day after day in his bark, giving light to the world. you could only see him as he passed round from the east by the south to the west, for after that the river ran behind high mountains, and the sun passed out of sight to sail through the world of darkness. behind the sun, and appearing after he had vanished, came the moon, sailing in its own bark. it was protected by two guardian eyes, which watched always over it (plate 13), and it needed the protection, for every month it was attacked by a great enemy in the form of a sow. for a fortnight the moon sailed on safely, and grew fuller and rounder; but at the middle of the month, just when it was full, the sow attacked it, tore it out of its place, and flung it into the celestial river, where for another fortnight it was gradually extinguished, to be revived again at the beginning of the next month. that was the egyptians' curious way of accounting for the waxing and waning of the moon, and many of their other ideas were just as quaint as this. i do not mean to say anything of what they believed about god, for they had so many gods, and believed such strange things about them, that it would only confuse you if i tried to make you understand it all. but the most important thing in all the egyptian religion was the belief in heaven, and in the life which people lived there after their life on earth was ended. no other nation of these old times ever believed so firmly as did the egyptians that men were immortal, and did not cease to be when they died, but only began a new life, which might be either happy or miserable, according to the way in which they had lived on earth. they had a lot of different beliefs about the life after death, some of them rather confusing, and difficult to understand; but i shall tell you only the main things and the simplest things which they believed. they said, then, that very long ago, when the world was young, there was a great and good king called osiris, who reigned over egypt, and was very good to his subjects, teaching them all kinds of useful knowledge. but osiris had a wicked brother named set, who hated him, and was jealous of him. one day set invited osiris to a supper, at which he had gathered a number of his friends who were in the plot with him. when they were all feasting gaily, he produced a beautiful chest, and offered to give it to the man who fitted it. one after another they lay down in the chest, but it fitted none of them. then at last osiris lay down in it, and as soon as he was inside, his wicked brother and the other plotters fastened the lid down upon him, and threw the chest into the nile. it was carried away by the river, and at last was washed ashore, with the dead body of the good king still in it. but isis, wife of osiris, sought for her husband everywhere, and at last she found the chest with his body. while she was weeping over it the wicked set came upon her, tore his brother's body to pieces, and scattered the fragments far and wide; but the faithful isis traced them all, and buried them wherever she found them. now, isis had a son named horus, and when he grew to manhood he challenged set, fought with him, and defeated him. then the gods all assembled, and gave judgment that osiris was in the right, and set in the wrong. they raised osiris up from the dead, made him a god, and appointed him to be judge of all men after death. and then, not all at once, but gradually, the egyptians came to believe that because osiris died, and rose again from the dead, and lived for ever after death, therefore all those men who believed in osiris would live again after death, and dwell for ever with osiris. you see that in some respects the story is strangely like that of the death and resurrection of jesus christ. well, then, they supposed that, when a man died on earth, after his body was mummified and laid in its tomb, his soul went on to the gates of the palace of osiris in the other world, where was the hall of truth, in which souls were judged. the soul had to know the magic names of the gates before it could even enter the hall; but as soon as these names were spoken the gates opened, and the soul went in. within the hall there stood a great pair of scales, and beside the scales stood a god, ready to mark down the result of the judgment; while all round the hall sat forty-two terrible creatures, who had authority to punish particular sins. the soul had to make confession to these avengers of sin that he had not been guilty of the sins which they had power to punish; then, when he had made his confession, his heart was taken, and weighed in the scales against a feather, which was the egyptian sign for truth. if it was not of the right weight, the man was false, and his heart was thrown to a dreadful monster, part crocodile, part hippopotamus, which sat behind the balances, and devoured the hearts of the unjust; but if it was right, then horus, the son of osiris, took the man by the hand, and led him into the presence of osiris the judge, and he was pronounced just, and admitted to heaven. but what was heaven? well, the egyptians had several different ideas about it. one rather pretty one was that the souls which were pronounced just were taken up into the sky, and there became stars, shining down for ever upon the world. another was that they were permitted to enter the boat, in which, as i told you, the sun sails round the world day by day, and to keep company with the sun on his unending voyage. but the idea that most believed in and loved was that somewhere away in a mysterious land to the west, there lay a wonderful and beautiful country, called the field of bulrushes. there the corn grew three and a half yards high, and the ears of corn were a yard long. through the fields ran lovely canals, full of fish, and bordered with reeds and bulrushes. when the soul had passed the judgment hall, it came, by strange, hard roads, and through great dangers, to this beautiful country. and there the dead man, dead now no more, but living for ever, spent his time in endless peace and happiness, sowing and reaping, paddling in his canoe along the canals, or resting and playing draughts in the evening under the sycamore-trees. now, i suppose that all this seemed quite a happy sort of heaven to most of the common people, who had been accustomed all their days to hard work and harder fare; but by-and-by the great nobles came to think that a heaven of this sort was not quite good enough for them. they had never done any work on earth; why should they have to do any in heaven? so they thought that they would find out a way of taking their slaves with them into the other world. i fancy that at first they actually tried to take them by killing the slaves at their master's grave. when the funeral of a great man took place, some of his servants would be killed beside the tomb, so that they might go with their lord into heaven, and work for him there, as they had worked for him on earth. but the egyptians were always a gentle, kind-hearted people, and they quickly grew disgusted with the idea of such cruelty, so they found another way out of the difficulty. they got numbers of little clay figures made in the form of servants--one with a hoe on his shoulder, another with a basket in his hand, and so on. they called these little figures "answerers," and when a man was buried, they buried a lot of these clay servants along with him, so that, when he reached heaven, and was summoned to do work in the field of bulrushes, the answerers would rise up and answer for him, and take the task off his shoulders. so, along with the mummies of the dead egyptians, there is often found quite a number of these tiny figures, all ready to make heaven easy for their master when he gets there. they have sometimes a little verse written upon them, to tell the answerer what he has got to do in the other world. it runs like this: "oh, thou answerer, when i am called, and when i am asked to do any kind of work that is done in heaven, and am required at any time to cause the field to flourish, or to convey the sand from east to west, thou shalt say, 'here am i.'" it all seems rather a curious idea of heaven, does it not? and most curious of all is the idea of dodging work in the other world by carrying a bundle of china dolls to heaven with you. but, even if we think that very ridiculous, we need not forget that the egyptians had a wonderfully clear and sure grasp of the fact that it is a man's character in this world which will make him either happy or unhappy in the next, and that evil-doing, even if it escapes punishment in this life, is a thing that god will surely punish at last. remember that these men of old, wonderfully wise and strong as they were in many ways, were still the children of the time when the world was young; like children, forming many false and even ridiculous ideas about things they could not understand; like children, too, reaching out their groping hands through the darkness to a father whose love they felt, though they could not explain his ways. we need not wonder if at times they made mistakes, and went far astray. we may wonder far more at the way in which he taught them so many true and noble things and thoughts, never leaving himself without a witness even in those days of long ago. the end. printed at the complete press west norwood london team (http://www.fadedpage.com) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 31413-h.htm or 31413-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31413/31413-h/31413-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31413/31413-h.zip) the story of extinct civilizations of the west by robert e. anderson, m.a., f.a.s. author of extinct civilizations of the east [illustration: prehistoric structure, uxmal (yucatan) (p. 76).] [illustration] venient annis saecula seris quibus oceanus vincula rerum laxet, et ingens pateat tellus tethys que novos detegat orbes. --seneca. new york _mcclure, phillips & co._ mcmiv copyright, 1903, by d. appleton and company contents chapter page introduction 9 i. pre-columbian discoveries of america 19 ii. "discovery of the world and of man" 36 iii. the extinct civilization of the aztecs 54 iv. american archeology 71 v. mexico before the spanish invasion 88 vi. arrival of the spaniards 106 vii. cortés and montezuma 135 viii. balboa and the isthmus 164 ix. extinct civilization of peru 172 x. pizarro and the incas 186 maps, etc. page prehistoric structure, uxmal (yucatan) _frontispiece_ imaginary continent, south of africa and asia 12 remains of a norse church at katortuk, greenland 21 map of vinland 24 the dighton stone in the taunton river, massachusetts 27 the dighton stone. fig. 2 28 cipher autograph of columbus 46 chulpa or stone tomb of the peruvians 87 quetzalcoatl 93 ancient bridge near tezcuco 100 teocalli, aztec temple for human sacrifices 105 monolith doorway. near lake titicaca. fig. 1 173 image over the doorway shown in fig. 1. near lake titicaca. fig. 2 175 the quipu 180 gold ornament (? zodiac) from a tomb at cuzco 182 extinct civilizations of the west introduction throughout all the periods of european history, ancient or modern, no age has been more remarkable for events of first-rate importance than the latter half of the fifteenth century. the rise of the new learning, the "discovery of the world and of man," the displacement of many outworn beliefs, these with other factors produced an awakening that startled kings and nations. then felt they like balboa, when with eagle eyes he stared at the pacific, and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise silent, upon a peak in darien. it was at this historical juncture that the "middle ages" came to an end, and modern europe had its beginning. (see chapter ii.) why was europe so long in discovering the vast continent which all the time lay beyond the western ocean? simply because every skipper and every "board of admiralty" believed that this world on which we live and move is flat and level. they did not at all realize the fact that it is _ball_-shaped; and that when a ball is very large (say, as large as a balloon), then any small portion of the surface must appear flat and level to a fly or "mite" traveling in that vicinity. homer believed that our world is a flat and level plain, with a great river, oceanus, flowing round it; and for many ages that seemed a very natural and sufficient theory. the pythagoreans, it is true, argued that our earth must be spherical, but why? oh, said they, because in geometry the sphere is the "most perfect" of all solid figures. aristotle, being scientific, gave better reasons for believing that the earth is spherical or ball-shaped. he said the shadow of the earth is always round like the shadow of a ball; and the shadow of the earth can be seen during any eclipse of the moon; therefore, all who see that shadow on the moon's disk know, or ought to know, that the earth is ball-shaped. another reason given by aristotle is that the altitude of any star above the horizon changes when the observer travels north or south. for example, if at london a star appears to be 40° above the northern horizon, and at york the same star at the same instant appears 42-1/2°, it is evident that 2-1/2° is the difference (increase) of altitude at york compared with london. such an observation shows that the road from london to york is not over a flat, level plane, but over the curved surface of a sphere, the arc of a circle, in fact. herodotus, the father of history, was a good geographer and an experienced traveler, yet his only conception of the world was as a flat, wide-extending surface. in egypt he was told how pharaoh necho had sent a crew of phenicians to explore the coast of africa by setting out from the red sea, and how they sailed south till they had _the sun on their right hand_. "absurd!" says herodotus, in his naïve manner, "this story i can not believe." in egypt, as in greece or europe generally, the sun rises on the left hand, and at noon casts a shadow pointing north; whereas in south africa the sun at noon casts a shadow pointing south, and sunrise is therefore on the _right hand_. the honest sailors had told the truth; they had merely "crossed the line," without knowing it. if herodotus had known that the world was spherical or ball-shaped, he could easily have understood that by traveling due south the sun must at last appear at noon to the north instead of the south. a counterpart to the story of the phenician sailors occurs in pliny: he tells how some ambassadors came to the roman emperor claudius from an island in the south of asia, and when in italy were much astonished to see the sun at noon to the south, casting shadows to the north. they also wondered, he says, to see the great bear and other groups of stars which had never been visible in their native land (nat. hist., vi, 22). that there were islands or even a continent in the western ocean was a tradition not infrequent in classical and medieval times, as we shall presently see, but to place a continent in the southern ocean was a greater stretch of imagination. the great outstanding problem of the sources of the nile probably suggested this southern continent to some. ptolemy, the great egyptian geographer, even formed the conjecture that the southern continent was joined to africa by a broad isthmus, as indicated in certain maps. such a connection of the two continents would at once dispose of the story that the phenician sailors had "doubled the cape." in several maps after the time of columbus, australia is extended westward in order to pass muster for the southern continent. [illustration: imaginary continent, south of africa and asia. [the cardinal points are shown by the four winds.] beginning of the fifteenth century. the word brumæ = the winter solstices.] it is with a western continent, however, that we are now mainly concerned. what lands were imagined by the ancients in the far west under the setting sun? the mighty ocean beyond spain was to the greeks and latins a place of dread and mystery. "stout was his heart and girt with triple brass," says the roman poet, "who first hazarded his weak vessel on the pitiless ocean." even the western parts of the mediterranean were shrunk from, according to the odyssey, without speaking of the horrors of the great ocean beyond. "beyond gades," i. e., scarcely outside of the pillars of hercules, the extreme limit of the ancient world, "no man," said pindar, "however daring, could pass; only a god might voyage those waters!" in spite of the dread which the ancient mariners felt for the great western ocean, their poets found it replete with charm and mystery. the imagination rested upon those golden sunsets, and the tales of marvel which, after long intervals, sea-borne sailors had told of distant lands in the west. the poets placed there the happy home destined for the souls of heroes. thus (odys. iv, 561): no snow is there, nor yet great storm nor any rain, but always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill west, and bloweth cool on men. so far homer. his contemporary, hesiod, thus describes the elysian fields as islands under the setting sun: there on earth's utmost limits zeus assigned a life, a seat, distinct from human kind, beside the deepening whirlpools of the main, in those blest isles where saturn holds his reign, apart from heaven's immortals calm they share, a rest unsullied by the clouds of care: and yearly thrice with sweet luxuriance crown'd springs the ripe harvest from the teeming ground. the poet pindar places in the same mysterious west "the castle of chronos" (i. e., "old time"), "where o'er the isles of the blest ocean breezes blow, and flowers gleam with gold, some from the land on glistening trees, while others the water feeds; and with bracelets of these they entwine their hands, and make crowns for their heads." _vesper_, the star of evening, was called hesperus by the greeks; and hence the hesperides, daughters of the western star, had the task of watching the golden apples planted by the goddess hera in the garden of the gods, on the other side of the river oceanus. one of the labors of hercules was to fetch three of those mystic apples for the king of mycenae. the poet euripides thus refers to the gardens of the west, when the chorus wish to fly "over the adriatic wave": or to the famed hesperian plains, whose rich trees bloom with gold, to join the grief-attunèd strains my winged progress hold; beyond whose shores no passage gave the ruler of the purple wave. of all the lands imagined to lie in the western ocean by the greeks, the most important was "atlantis." some have thought it may possibly have been a prehistoric discovery of america. in any case it has exercised the ingenuity of a good many modern scientists. the tale of atlantis we owe to plato himself, who perhaps learned it in egypt, just as herodotus picked up there the account of the circumnavigation of africa by the phenician mariners. "when solon was in egypt," says plato, "he had talk with an aged priest of sais who said, 'you greeks are all children: you know but of one deluge, whereas there have been many destructions of mankind both by flood and fire.'... in the distant western ocean lay a continent larger than libya and asia together."... in this atlantis there had grown up a mighty state whose kings were descended from poseidon and had extended their sway over many islands and over a portion of the great continent; even libya up to the gates of egypt, and europe as far as tyrrhenia, submitted to their sway.... afterward came a day and night of great floods and earthquakes; atlantis disappeared, swallowed by the waves. geologists and geographers have seriously tried to find evidence of atlantis having existed in the atlantic, whether as a portion of the american continent, or as a huge island in the ocean which could have served as a stepping-stone between the western world and the eastern. from a series of deep-sea soundings ordered by the british, american, and german governments, it is now very well known that in the middle of the atlantic basin there is a ridge, running north and south, whose depth is less than 1,000 fathoms, while the valleys east and west of it average 3,000 fathoms. at the azores the north atlantic ridge becomes broader. the theory is that a part of the ridge-plateau was the atlantis of plato that "disappeared swallowed by the waves." (nature, xv, 158, 553, xxvii, 25; science, june 29, 1883.) buffon, the naturalist, with reference to fauna and flora, dated the separation of the new and old world "from the catastrophe of atlantis" (epoques, ix, 570); and sir charles lyell confessed a temptation to "accept the theory of an atlantis island in the northern atlantic." (geology, p. 141.) the following account "from an historian of the fourth century b. c." is another possible reference to a portion of america--from a translation "delivered in english," 1576. selenus told midas that without this worlde there is a continent or percell of dry lande which in greatnesse (as hee reported) was unmeasureable; that it nourished and maintained, by the benifite of the greene meadowes and pasture plots, sundrye bigge and mighty beastes; that the men which inhabite the same climate exceede the stature of us twise, and yet the length of there life is not equale to ours. the historian plutarch, in his morals, gives an account of ogygia, with an illusion to a continent, possibly america: an island, ogygia, lies in the arms of the ocean, about five days' sail west from britain.... the adjacent sea is termed the saturnian, and the continent by which the great sea is circularly environed is distant from ogygia about 5,000 stadia, but from the other islands not so far.... one of the men paid a visit to the great island, as they called europe. from him the narrator learned many things about the state of men after death--the conclusion being that the souls of men arrive at the moon, wherein lie the elysian fields of homer. the greek historian, diodorus siculus, has a similar account with curious details of an "island" which might very well have been part of a continent. columbus believed to the last that cuba was a continent. in the ocean, at the distance of several days' sailing to the west, there lies an island watered by several navigable rivers. its soil is fertile, hilly, and of great beauty.... there are country houses handsomely constructed, with summer-houses and flower-beds. the hilly district is covered with dense woods and fruit-trees of every kind. the inhabitants spend much time in hunting and thus procure excellent food. they have naturally a good supply of fish, their shores being washed by the ocean.... in a word this island seems a happy home for gods rather than for men (v. 19). another greek writer, lucian, in one of his witty dialogues, refers to an island in the atlantic, that lies eighty days' sail westward of the pillars of hercules--the extreme limit of the ancient world, as has already been seen. readers of henry fielding and admirers of squire westers will remember how in the london of the eighteenth century the limits of piccadilly westward was a tavern at hyde park corner called the _hercules' pillars_, on the site of the future apsley house.[1] although neither greek nor roman navigators were likely to attempt a voyage into the ocean beyond the straits of gibraltar, yet a trading vessel from carthage or phenicia might easily have been driven by an easterly gale into, or even across, the atlantic. some involuntary discoveries were no doubt due to this chance, and the reports brought to europe were probably the germs of such tales as the poets invented about the fair regions of the west. in celtic literature, moreover, "avalon" was placed far under the setting sun beyond the ocean--avalon or "glas-inis" being to the bards the land of the dead, marvelous and mysterious. [footnote 1: tom jones, xvi. chap. 2, 3, etc.] in english literature of the middle ages there is a remarkable passage relating to our present subject, which was written long before that rise of the new learning mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. it is a statement made by roger bacon, the greatest of oxonian scholars of the thirteenth century, who, long before the renascence, did much to restore the study of science, especially in geography, chronology, and optics. in his opus majus, the elder bacon wrote: more than the fourth part of the earth which we inhabit is still unknown to us.... it is evident therefore that between the extreme west and the confines of india, there must be a surface which comprises more than half the earth. though roger bacon, to use his own words, died "unheard, forgotten, buried," our recent historians place his name first in the great roll of modern science. there now remains only one quotation to make from the ancients. we have been reserving it for two reasons--first, because it is a singularly happy anticipation of the discovery of the new world, so happy that it became a favorite stanza with the discoverer himself. this we learn from the life of the "great admiral," written by his son ferdinand. secondly, because it adorns our title-page and has been characterized as "a lucky prophecy"--written in the first century a. d. the author, seneca, was a dramatist as well as a philosopher, the lines occurring at the end of one of his choruses--medea, 376. we may thus translate the prophetic stanza: for at a distant date this ancient world will westward stretch its bounds, and then disclose beyond the main a vast new continent, with realms of wealth and might. chapter i pre-columbian discoveries of america 1 _norse discovery._--by glancing at a map of the north atlantic, the reader will at once see that the natural approach from europe to the western continent was by iceland and greenland--especially in those early days when ocean navigation was unknown. iceland is nearer to greenland than to norway; and greenland is part of america. but in iceland there were celtic settlers in the early centuries; and even king arthur, according to the history of geoffrey of monmouth, sailed north to that "ultima thule." during the ninth century a christian community had been established there under certain irish monks. this early civilization, however, was destined to become presently extinct. it was in a. d. 875, i. e., during the reign of alfred the great in england, that the norse earl, ingolf, led a colony to iceland. more strenuous and savage than the christian celts whom they found there, the latter with their preaching monks soon sailed to the south, and left the northmen masters of the island. the norse colony under ingolf was strongly reenforced by norwegians who took refuge there to avoid the tyranny of their king, harold, the fair-haired. ingolf built the town ingolfshof, named after him, and also reikiavik, afterward the capital, named from the "reek" or steam of its hot springs. so important did this colony become that in the second generation the population amounted to 60,000. ingolf was admired by the poet james montgomery (not to be confounded with robert, whom macaulay criticized so severely), who in 1819 thus wrote of him and his island: there on a homeless soil his foot he placed, framed his hut-palace, colonized the waste, and ruled his horde with patriarchal sway --where justice reigns, 'tis freedom to obey.... and iceland shone for generous lore renowned, a northern light when all was gloom around. the next year after ingolf had come to iceland, gunnbiorn, a hardy norseman, driven in his ship westerly, sighted a strange land.... about half a century later, judging by the icelandic sagas, we learn that a wind-tossed vessel was thrown upon a coast far away which was called "mickle ireland" (_irland it mikla_)--[winsor's hist. america, i, 61]. gunnbiorn's discovery was utilized by erik the red, another sea-rover, in a. d. 980, who sailed to it and, after three years' stay, returned with a favorable account--giving it the fair name _greenland_. the norse established two centers of population on greenland. it is now believed that after doubling cape farewell, they built their first town near that head and the second farther north. the former, _eystribygd_ (i. e., "easter bigging"), developed into a large colony, having in the fourteenth century 190 settlements, with a cathedral and eleven churches, and containing two cities and three or four monasteries. the second town, _westribygd_ (i. e., "wester bigging") had grown to ninety settlements and four churches in the same time. the germ and root of that civilization (afterward extinct, as we shall see) was due to leif the son of red erik, who visited norway, the mother-country, at the very close of the tenth century. [illustration: remains of a norse church at katortuk, greenland.] he found that the king and people there had enthusiastically embraced the new religion, _christianity_. leif presently shared their fervor, and decided to reject woden, thor, and the other gods of old scandinavia. a priest was told off to accompany leif back to greenland, and preach the new faith. it was thus that a christian civilization first found footing in arctic america. the ruins of those early christian churches (see illustration above) form most interesting objects in modern greenland; near the chief ruin is a curious circular group of large stones. the poet of "greenland," to whom we have already referred, quotes from a danish chronicle to the effect that, in the golden age of the colony, there were a hundred parishes to form the bishopric; and that the see was ruled by seventeen bishops from a. d. 1120 to 1408. bishop andrew is the last mentioned, ordained in 1408 by the archbishop of drontheim. from the same authority we learn that according to some of the annals "the best wheat grew to perfection in the valleys; the forests were extensive; flocks and herds were numerous and very large and fat." the cloister of st. thomas was heated by pipes from a warm spring, and attached to the cloister was a richly cultivated garden. after leif, son of erik, had introduced christianity into greenland, his next step was to extend the norse civilization still farther within the american continent. news had reached him of a new land, with a level coast, lying nine days' sailing southwest of greenland. picking thirty-five men, leif started for further exploration. one part of the new country was barren and rocky, therefore leif named it _helluland_ (i. e., "stone land"), which appears to have been newfoundland. farther south they found a sandy shore, backed by a level forest country, which leif named _markland_ (i. e., "wood land"), identified with nova scotia. after two days' sail, according to the saga account, having landed and explored the new continent along the banks of a river, they resolved to winter there. in one of these explorations a german called tyrker found some grapes on a wild vine, and brought a specimen for the admiration of leif and his party. this country was therefore named _vinland_ (i. e., "wine land"), and is identified with new england, part of rhode island, and massachusetts.[2] [footnote 2: prof. r. b. anderson says, "the basin of the charles river should be selected as the most probable scene of the visits of leif erikson, etc." [_v._ map.]] our greenland poet thus refers to leif's landing: wineland the glad discoverers called that shore, and back the tidings of its riches bore; but soon return'd with colonizing bands. the norsemen founded a regular settlement in vinland, establishing there a christian community related to that of greenland. leif's brother, korvald, explored the interior in all directions. with the natives, who are called "skraelings" in the sagas, they traded in furs; these people, who seemed dwarfish to the norsemen, used leathern boats and were no doubt eskimos: a stunted, stern, uncouth, amphibious stock. the principal settler in vinland was thorfinn, an icelander, who had married a daughter-in-law of erik the red. she persuaded thorfinn to sail to the new country in order to make a permanent settlement there. in the year 1007 a. d. he sailed with 160 men, having live stock and other colonial equipments. after three years he returned to greenland, his wife having given birth to a son during their first year in vinland. from this son, snorre, it is claimed by some norwegian historians, that thorwaldsen, the eminent danish sculptor is descended. after the time of thorfinn, the settlement in vinland continued to flourish, having a good export trade in timber with greenland. in 1121 a. d. according to the icelandic saga, the bishop, erik upsi, visited vinland, that country being, like iceland and greenland, included in his bishopric. the last voyage to vinland for timber, according to the sagas, was in 1347. [illustration: map] professor horsford, of cambridge, mass., finds the site of norumbega, mentioned in various old maps, on the river charles, near waltham, mass., and maintains that town to be identical with vinland of the norsemen. to prove his belief in this theory, the professor built a tower commemorating the norse discoveries. he argued that norumbega was a corruption by the indians of the word _norvegr_ a norse form of "norway." the abandonment of vinland by the norse settlers may be compared with that of gosnold's expedition to the same region near the end of queen elizabeth's reign. gosnold was sent to plant an english colony in america, after the failure of sir walter raleigh's settlement at roanoke (north carolina); and the coast explored corresponded exactly to that which the norse settlers had named vinland, lying between the sites of boston and new york. he gave the name cape cod to that promontory, and also named the islands nantucket, martha's vineyard, and the elizabeth group. selecting one of these for settling a colony, he built on it a storehouse and fort. the scheme, however, failed, owing to the threats of the natives and the scarcity of supplies, and all the colonists sailed from massachusetts, just as the norse settlers had done many generations previously. the expedition of gosnold to vinland, however, bore good fruit, from the favorable report of the new country which he made at home. the merchants of bristol fitted out two ships under martin pring, and in the first voyage a great part of maine (lying north of massachusetts) was explored, and the coast south to martha's vineyard, where gosnold had been. this led to profitable traffic with the natives, and three years later pring made a more complete survey of maine. vinland was also the scene of the famous landing of the mayflower, bringing its puritans from england. it was in cape cod bay that she was first moored. after exploring the new country, just as leif erikson had done so many generations previously, they chose a place on the west side of the bay and named the little settlement "plymouth," after the last english port from which they had sailed. farther north, still in vinland, they soon founded two other towns, "salem" and "boston." those three settlements have ever since been important centers of energy and intelligence in massachusetts, as well as memorials of the norse occupation of vinland. on the occasion of a public statue being erected in boston, mass., to the memory of leif erikson, a committee of the massachusetts historical society formally decided thus: "it is antecedently probable that the northmen discovered america in the early part of the eleventh century." prof. daniel wilson, in his learned work prehistoric man (ii, 83, 85), thus gives his opinion as to the norse colony: with all reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of details, there is the strongest probability in favor of the authenticity of the american vinland. [illustration: the dighton stone in the taunton river, massachusetts.] of the norse colonies in greenland there are some undoubted remains, one being a stone inscription in _runes_, proving that it was made before the reformation, when that mode of writing was forbidden by law. the stone is four miles beyond upernavik. the inscription, according to professor rask, runs thus: erling the son of sigvat, and enride oddsoen, had cleared the place and raised a mound on the friday after rogation-day; --date either 1135 or 1170. rafn, the celebrated danish archeologist, states as the result of many years' research, that america was repeatedly visited by the icelanders in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; that the estuary of the st. lawrence was their chief station; that they had coasted southward to carolina, everywhere introducing some christian civilization among the natives. [illustration: the dighton stone. fig. 2.] a supposed rock memorial of the norsemen is the dighton stone in the taunton river, massachusetts; one of its sentences, according to professor rafn, being: "thorfinn with 151 norse seafaring men took possession of this land." the figures and letters (whether runic or merely indian) inscribed on the dighton rock have been copied by antiquaries at the following dates: 1680, 1712, 1730, 1768, 1788, 1807, 1812. the above illustration (fig. 2) shows the last mentioned. there have been many probable traces of ancient norsemen found in america, besides those already given. at cape cod, in the last generation, a number of hearth-stones were found under a layer of peat. a more famous relic was the skeleton dug up in fall river, mass., with an ornamental belt of metal tubes made from fragments of flat brass; there were also some arrow-heads of the same material. longfellow, the new england poet, naturally had his attention directed to this discovery (made, 1831), and founded on it his ballad the skeleton in armor, connecting it with the round tower at newport. the latter, according to professor rafn, "was erected decidedly not later than the twelfth century." i was a viking old, my deeds, though manifold, no skald in song has told no saga taught thee!... far in the northern land by the wild baltic's strand i with my childish hand tamed the ger-falcon. oft to his frozen lair tracked i the grisly bear, while from my path the hare fled like a shadow. * * * * * scarce had i put to sea bearing the maid with me- fairest of all was she among the norsemen! three weeks we westward bore, and when the storm was o'er, cloud-like we saw the shore stretching to leeward; there for my lady's bower, built i this lofty tower which to this very hour stands looking seaward! sir clements markham, of the royal geographical society, believes that the norse settlers in greenland were driven from their settlements there by eskimos coming, not from the interior of america, but from west siberia along the polar regions, by wrangell land [_v._ journal, r, g. s., 1865, and arctic geography, 1875]. there was much curiosity from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century as to the site of the lost colonies of greenland which had so long flourished. in 1568 and 1579 the king of denmark sent two expeditions, the latter in charge of an englishman, but no traces were found. at the beginning of the eighteenth century some light was thrown upon the problem by a missionary called egede, who first described the ruins and relics observable on the west coast. by the success of his preaching among the greenlanders for fifteen years, assisted by other gospel missionaries, the moravians were induced to found their settlements in the country, principally in the southwest. it seems probable that in early times the climate of iceland was milder than it now is. columbus, some fifteen years before his great voyage across the atlantic, sailed to this northern "thule," and reports that there was no ice. if so, it is surely possible that greenland also may have been greener and more attractive than during the recent centuries. why should it not at one time have been fully deserving of the name by which we still know it? some would explain the change in climatic conditions by the closing in of icepacks. at present greenland is buried deep under a vast, solid ice-cap from which only a few of the highest peaks protrude to show the position of the submerged mountains, but at former periods, according to geologists, there were gardens and farms flourishing under a genial climate. others suppose that, were the ice removed, we should see an archipelago of elevated islands. 2. _celtic discovery of america._--we have already glanced at the fact that when the norsemen first seized iceland they found that island inhabited by irish celts. these christianized celts made way before the savage invaders, who did not accept the catholic religion till about the close of the tenth century. sailing south, those dispossessed irish probably joined their brother celts who had already long held a district on the eastern coast of north america, which some norse skippers called "white man's land," and also _irland-it-mikla_ (i. e., "mickle ireland"). professor rafn places this district on the coast of carolina. a learned memoir, published 1851, attempts to prove that the mysterious "mound-builders" of the ohio valley were of the same race as the settlers on mickle ireland, and related to the "white-bearded men" who established an extinct civilization in mexico. a french antiquary, 1875, identified mickle ireland with ontario and quebec. beauvois, in his elysée trans-atlantique, derives the name labrador from the _innis labrada_, an island mentioned in an ancient irish romance.[3] another irish discoverer was st. brandan,[4] abbot of cluainfert, ireland (died may 16, 577), who was told that far in the ocean lay an island which was the land promised to the saints. st. brandan set sail in company with seventy-five monks, and spent seven years upon the ocean in two voyages, discovering this island and many others equally marvelous, including one which turned out to be the back of a huge fish, upon which they celebrated easter.[5] [footnote 3: as to the irish claim for the pre-columbian discovery of america, see also humboldt (cosmos, ii, 607), and laing (heimsk., i, 186).] [footnote 4: ms. book of lismore.] [footnote 5: the story is given by humboldt and d'avezac.] among the celtic claimants for discovery we must also include the welsh, who lay stress upon certain resemblances between their language and the dialects of the native americans. a better argument is the historical account taken from their annals about the expedition of prince madoc, son of a welsh chieftain, who sailed due west in the year 1170, after the rumor of the norse discoveries had reached britain. he landed on a vast and fertile continent where he settled 120 colonists. on his return to wales he fitted out a second fleet of ten ships, but the annals give no report of the result. several writers state that the place of landing was near the gulf of mexico: hakluyt connecting the discovery with mexico (1589) and again with the west indies (edition of 1600). in the seventeenth century some authors wished to substantiate the story of prince madoc, in order that the british claim to america should antedate the spanish claim through columbus. prince madoc is, to most readers, only known by southey's poem.[6] [footnote 6: some quotations from southey's poem are given in chapters v, vi.] 3. _basque discovery of america._--who are the basque people? a curious race of spanish mountaineers, who have been as great a puzzle to ethnologists and historians as their language has been to philologists and scholars. we know, however, that in former times they were nearly all seamen, making long voyages to the north for whale and newfoundland cod fishing. they have produced excellent navigators; and possibly preceded columbus in discovering america. sebastian, the lieutenant of magellan, was one of the basque race. magellan did not live to complete his famous voyage, therefore sebastian was the first actual circumnavigator of our globe. françois michel, in his work le pays basque, says that the basque sailors knew the coasts of newfoundland a century before the time of columbus; and that it was from one of these ocean mariners that he first learned the existence of a continent beyond the atlantic. other arguments are derived from comparing the peculiarities of the basque tongue with those of the american dialects. whitney, an american scholar, concludes that "no other dialect of the old world so much resembles the american languages in structure as the basque." 4. _jewish discovery of america._--there is one claim for the discovery of america, which, though quite improbable, if not impossible, has been upheld and sanctioned by many scholarly works in several languages. it is argued that the red indians represent the ten "lost tribes" of the hebrew people who had been deported to assyria and media (_v._ extinct civilizations of the east, p. 109). the theory was first started by some spanish priest-missionaries, and has since been defended by many learned divines both in england and america, one leading argument being certain similarities in the languages. catlin (_v._ smithsonian report, 1885) enumerates many analogies which he found among the western indians. the most authoritative statement is that of lord kingsborough in the well-known mexican antiquities (1830-'48), chiefly in vol. vii. some writers actually quote a statement made in the mormon bible! leading new england divines, like mayhew and cotton mather, espoused the cause with similar faith, as well as roger williams and william penn. 5. _the italian discovery of america._--not through columbus the genoese, or amerigo vespucci, the florentine, although they were certainly italians, but by two venetians, nicolo and antonio zeno. in a. d. 1380 or 1390 these brothers zeni were shipwrecked in the north atlantic, and, when staying in frislanda, made the acquaintance of a sailor who, after twenty-six years' absence, had returned, giving them the following report: "being driven west in a gale, he found an island with civilized inhabitants, who had latin books, but could not speak norse, and whose country was called estotiland, while a region on the mainland, farther south, to which he had also gone, was called drogeo. here he had met with cannibals. still farther south was a great country with towns and temples." the two brothers zeni finally conveyed this account to another brother in venice, together with a map of those distant regions, but these documents remained neglected till 1558, when a descendant compiled a book to embody the information, accompanied by a map, now famous as "the zeno map." humboldt, with reference to this map, remarks that it is singular that the name frislanda should have been applied by columbus to an island south of iceland. washington irving (in his life of columbus) explains the book by a desire to appeal to the national pride of italy, since, if true, the discovery of the brothers would antedate that of columbus by a century. malte-brun, the distinguished geographer, distinctly accepted the zeni narrative as true, and believed that it was by colonists from greenland that the latin books had reached estotiland. another strong advocate afterward appeared in mr. major, an official in the map department of the british museum, who believed that much of the map in question represented genuine information of the fourteenth century, mixed with some spurious parts inserted by the younger zeno. mr. major's paper on the site of the lost colony of greenland determined, and the pre-columbian discoveries of america confirmed, appeared in r. geog. soc. journal, 1873; _v_. also proc. mass. hist. soc., 1874. nordenskjöld also accepted the chief results of this italian discovery, and as an arctic explorer of experience, his opinion carries weight. mercator and hugo grotius were also believers in the zeni account. chapter ii "discovery of the world and of man" at the beginning of this book a reference was made to the great upheaval in european history called the "renascence" (fr. _renaissance_) or revival of learning. in 1453 the turks took constantinople, driving the greek scholars to take refuge in italy, which at once became the most civilized nation in europe. poetry, philosophy, and art thence found their way to france, england, and germany, being greatly assisted by the invention of printing, which just then was beginning to make books cheaper than they ever had been. at the same time feudalism was ruined, because the invention of gunpowder had previously been changing the art of war. for example, the king of france, louis xi, as well as the king of england, henry vii, had entire disposal of the national artillery; and therefore overawed the barons and armored knights. neither moated fortresses nor mail-clad warriors, nor archers with bows and arrows, could prevail against powder and shot. the middle ages had come to an end; modern europe was being born. france had become concentrated by the union of the south to the north on the conclusion of the "hundred years' war," the final expulsion of the english, and the abolition of all the great feudatories of the kingdom. england, at the same time, had entirely swept away the rule of the barons by the recent "wars of the roses," and henry had strengthened his position by alliance with france, spain, and scotland. spain, by the expulsion of the moors from granada in a. d. 1492, was for the first time concentrated into one great state by the union of isabella's kingdom of castile-leon to ferdinand's kingdom of aragon-sicily. from the importance of the word _renaissance_ as indicating the "movement of transition from the medieval to the modern world," matthew arnold gave it the english form "renascence"--adopted by j. r. green, coleridge, and others. in germany, this great revival of letters and learning was contemporaneous with the reformation, which had long been preparing (e. g., in england since john wyclif) and was specially assisted by the invention of printing, which we have just mentioned. the minds of men everywhere were expanded: "whatever works of history, science, morality, or entertainment seemed likely to instruct or amuse were printed and distributed among the people at large by printers and booksellers." thus it was that, though the turks never had any pretension to learning or culture, yet their action in the middle of the fifteenth century indirectly caused a marvelous tide of civilization to overflow all the western countries of europe. another result in the same age was the increase of navigation and exploration--the discovery of the world as well as of man. when the turks became masters of the eastern shores of the mediterranean, the european merchants were prevented from going to india and the east by the overland route, as had been done for generations. thus, since geography was at this very time improved by the science of copernicus and others, the natural inquiry was how to reach india by sea instead of going overland. columbus, therefore, sailed due west to reach asia, and stumbled upon a "new world" without knowing what he did; then cabot, sailing from bristol, sailed northwest to reach india, and stumbled upon the continent of america; and during the same reign (henry vii) the atlantic coast of both north and south america was visited by english, portuguese, or spanish navigators. the third expedition to reach india by sea was under de gama. he set out in the same year as cabot, sailing into the south atlantic, and ultimately did find the west coast of india at calicut, after rounding the cape. the mere enumeration of so many events, all of first-rate importance, proves that that half century (say from a. d. 1460 to 1520) must be called "an age of marvels," _sæclum mirabile_. the concurrence of so many epoch-making results gave a great impulse, not only to the study of literature, science, and art, but to the exploration of many unknown countries in america, africa, and asia, and the universal expansion of human knowledge generally. i.--we shall now consider the first of these discoverers, who was also the greatest. columbus, the latinized form of the italian colombo, spanish, colon. this genoese navigator must throughout all history be called the discoverer of america, notwithstanding all the work of smaller men. from his study of geographical books in several languages, columbus had convinced himself that our planet is spherical or ball-shaped, not a flat, plane surface. till then india had always been reached by traveling overland toward the rising sun. why not sail westward from europe over the ocean, and thus come to the eastern parts of asia by traveling toward the setting sun? by doing so, since our world is ball-shaped, said columbus, we must inevitably reach zipango (i. e., "japan") and cathay (i. e., "china"), which are the most eastern parts of asia. india then will be a mere detail. judging from the accounts of asia and its eastern islands given by marco polo, a venetian, as well as from the maps sketched by ptolemy, the egyptian geographer, columbus believed that the east coast of asia was not so very far from the west coast of europe. columbus was confirmed in this opinion by a learned geographer of florence, named paul, and henceforward impatiently waited for an opportunity of testing the truth of his theory. he convinced himself, but could not convince any one else, that a westerly route to india was quite feasible. first he laid his plans before the authorities at genoa, who had for generations traded with asia by the overland journey, and ought therefore to have been glad to learn of this new alternative route, since the turks were now playing havoc with the other; but no, they told columbus that his idea was chimerical! next he applied to the court of france. "ridiculous!" was the reply, accompanied with a polite sneer. next columbus sent his scheme to henry vii of england, a prince full of projects, but miserly. "too expensive!" was the tudor's reply, though presently, after the spanish success, he became eager to despatch expeditions from bristol under the cabots. then columbus, by the advice of his brother, who had settled in lisbon as a map-maker, approached king john, seeking patronage and assistance, pleading the foremost position of portugal among the maritime states. the portuguese neglected the golden opportunity, ocean navigation not being in their way as yet; their skippers preferred "to hug the african shore." at last columbus gained the ear of isabella, queen of castile; she believed in him and tried to get the assistance of her husband, ferdinand, king of aragon, in providing an outfit for the great expedition. owing to ferdinand's war in expelling the moors from granada, columbus had still to wait several years. in a previous year, 1477, columbus had sailed to the north atlantic, perhaps in one of those basque whalers already referred to, going "a hundred leagues beyond thule." if that means iceland, as is generally supposed, it seems most probable that, when conversing with the sailors there he must have heard how leif, with his norsemen, had discovered the american coasts of newfoundland and vinland some five centuries earlier, and how they had settled a colony on the new continent. other writers have pointed out that columbus could very well have heard of vinland and the northmen before leaving genoa, since one of the popes had sanctioned the appointment of a bishop over the new diocese. if so, the visit of columbus to iceland probably gave him confirmation as to the norse discovery of the american continent. when at last king ferdinand had taken granada from the moors, columbus was put in command of three ships, with 120 men. he set sail from the port of palos, in andalusia, on a friday, august 3, 1492, first steering to the canary islands, and then standing due west. in september, to the amazement of all on board, the compass was seen to "vary": an important scientific discovery--viz., that the magnetic needle does not always point to the pole-star. some writers have imagined that the compass was for the first time utilized for a long journey by columbus, but the occult power of the magnetic needle or "lodestone" had been known for ages before the fifteenth century. the ancient persians and other "wise men of the east" used the lodestone as a talisman. both the mongolian and caucasian races used it as an infallible guide in traveling across the mighty plains of asia. the cynosure in the great bear was the "guiding star," whether by sea or land; but when the heavens were wrapped in clouds, the magic stone or needle served to point exactly the position of the unseen star. what columbus and his terrified crews discovered was the "variation of the compass," due to the fact that the magnetic needle points, not to the north star, but to the "magnetic pole," a point in canada to the west of baffin's bay and north of hudson bay. if columbus had continued steering due west he would have landed on the continent of america in florida; but before sighting that coast the course was changed to southwest, because some birds were seen flying in that direction. the first land reached was an island of the bahama group, which he named _san salvador_. as the spanish boats rowed to shore they were welcomed by crowds of astonished natives, mostly naked, unless for a girdle of wrought cotton or plaited feathers. hence the lines of milton: such of late columbus found the american, so girt with feathered cincture, naked else and wild, among the trees on isles and woody shores. the spot of landing was formerly identified by washington irving and baron humboldt with "cat island"; but from the latest investigation it is now believed to have been watling's island. here he landed on a friday, october 12, 1492. so little was then known of the geography of the atlantic or of true longitude, that columbus attributed these islands to the _east coast of asia_. he therefore named them "indian islands," as if close to hindustan, a blunder that has now been perpetuated for four hundred and ten years. the natives were called "indians" for the same reasons. as the knowledge of geography advanced it became necessary to say "west indies" or "east indies" respectively, to distinguish american from asiatic--"indian corn" means american, but "indian ink" means asiatic, etc. even after his fourth and last voyage columbus believed that the continent, as well as the islands, was a portion of eastern asia, and he died in that belief, without any suspicion of having discovered a new world. a curious confirmation of the opinion of columbus has just been discovered (1894) in the florence library, by dr. wieser, of innsbruck. it is the actual copy of a map by the great admiral, drawn roughly in a letter written from jamaica, july, 1503. it shows that his belief as to the part of the world reached in his voyages was that it was the east coast of asia. the chief discovery made by columbus in his first voyage was the great island of cuba, which he imagined to be part of a continent. some of the spaniards went inland for sixty miles and reported that they had reached a village of more than a thousand inhabitants, and that the corn used for food was called _maize_--probably the first instance of europeans using a term which was afterward to become as familiar as "wheat" or "barley." the natives told columbus that their gold ornaments came from _cubakan_, meaning the interior of cuba; but he, on hearing the syllable _kan_, immediately thought of the "khan" mentioned by marco polo, and therefore imagined that "cathay" (the china of that famous traveler) was close at hand. the simple-minded cubans were amazed that the spaniards had such a love for gold, and pointed eastward to another island, which they called _hayti_, saying it was more plentiful there than in cuba. thus columbus discovered the second in size of all the west indian islands, cuba being the first; he, after landing on it, called it "hispaniola," or little spain. hayti in a few years became the headquarters of the spanish establishments in the new world, after its capital, san domingo, had been built by bartholomew columbus. it was in this island that the spaniards saw the first of the "caziques," or native princes, afterward so familiar during the conquest of mexico; he was carried on the shoulders of four men, and courteously presented columbus with some plates of gold. in a letter to the monarchs of spain the admiral thus refers to the natives of hayti: the people are so affectionate, so tractable, and so peaceable that i swear to your highnesses there is not a better race of men, nor a better country in the world; ... their conversation is the sweetest and mildest in the world, and always accompanied with a smile. the king is served with great state, and his behavior is so decent that it is pleasant to see him. the admiral had previously described the indians of cuba as equally simple and friendly, telling how they had "honored the strangers as sacred beings allied to heaven." the pity of it, and the shame, is that those frank, unsuspicious, islanders had no notion or foresight of the cruel desolation which their gallant guests were presently to bring upon the native races--death, and torture, and extermination! a harbor in cuba is thus described by columbus in a letter to ferdinand and isabella: i discovered a river which a galley might easily enter.... i found from five to eight fathoms of water. having proceeded a considerable way up the river, everything invited me to settle there. the beauty of the river, the clearness of the water, the multitude of palm-trees and an infinite number of other large and flourishing trees, the birds and the verdure of the plains, ... i am so much amazed at the sight of such beauty, that i know not how to describe it. having lost his flag-ship, columbus returned to spain with the two small caravels that remained from his petty fleet of three, arriving in the port of palos march 15, 1493. the reception of the successful explorer was a national event. he entered barcelona to be presented at court with every circumstance of honor and triumph. sitting in presence of the king and queen he related his wondrous tale, while his attendants showed the gold, the cotton, the parrots and other unknown birds, the curious arms and plants, and above all the nine "indians" with their outlandish trappings--brought to be made christians by baptism. ferdinand and isabella heaped honors upon the successful navigator; and in return he promised them the untold riches of zipango and cathay. a new fleet, larger and better equipped, was soon found for a second voyage. with his new ships, in 1498, columbus again stood due west from the canaries; and at last discovering an island with three mountain summits he named it trinidad (i. e., "trinity") without knowing that he was then coasting the great continent of south america. a few days later he and the crew were amazed by a tumult of waves caused by the fresh water of a great river meeting the sea. it was the "oronooko," afterward called orinoco; and from its volume columbus and his shipmates concluded that it must drain part of a continent or a very large island. where orinoco in his pride, rolls to the main no tribute tide, but 'gainst broad ocean urges far a rival sea of roaring war; while in ten thousand eddies driven the billows fling their foam to heaven, and the pale pilot seeks in vain, where rolls the river, where the main. that was the first glimpse which they had of america proper, still imagining it was only a part of eastern asia. in the following voyage, his last, columbus coasted part of the isthmus of darien. it was not, however, explored till the visit of balboa. [illustration: cipher autograph of columbus. the interpretation of the cipher is probably: servatf christus maria yosephus (christoferens).] it was during his third voyage that the "great admiral" suffered the indignity at san domingo of being thrown into chains and sent back to spain. this was done by bobadilla, an officer of the royal household, who had been sent out with full power to put down misrule. the monarchs of spain set columbus free; and soon afterward he was provided with four ships for his fourth voyage. stormy weather wrecked this final expedition, and at last he was glad to arrive in spain, november 7, 1504. he now felt that his work on earth was done, and died at valladolid, may 20, 1506. after temporary interment there his body was transferred to the cathedral of san domingo--whence, 1796, some remains were removed with imposing ceremonies to havana. from later investigations it appears that the ashes of the genoese discoverer are still in the tomb of san domingo. it was in the cathedral of seville, over his first tomb, that king ferdinand is said to have honored the memory of the great admiral with a marble monument bearing the well-known epitaph: a castilla y aragon nuevo mundo dio colon. or, "_to the united kingdom of castile-aragon columbus gave a new world_." after the death of columbus, it seemed as if fate intended his family to enjoy the honors and rewards of which he had been so unjustly deprived. his son, diego, wasted two years trying to obtain from king ferdinand the offices of viceroy and admiral, which he had a right to claim in accordance with the arrangement formerly made with his father. at last diego began a suit against ferdinand before the council which managed indian affairs. that court decided in favor of diego's claim; and as he soon greatly improved his social position by marrying the niece of the duke of alva, a high nobleman, diego received the appointment of governor (not viceroy), and went to hayti, attended by his brother and uncles, as well as his wife and a large retinue. there diego columbus and his family lived, "with a splendor hitherto unknown in the new world." ii.--henry vii of england, after repenting that he had not secured the services of columbus, commissioned john cabot to sail from bristol across the atlantic in a northwesterly direction, with the hope of finding some passage there-abouts to india. in june, 1497, a new coast was sighted (probably labrador or newfoundland), and named _prima vista_. they coasted the continent southward, "ever with intent to find the passage to india," till they reached the peninsula now called florida. on this important voyage was based the claim which the english kings afterward made for the possession of all the atlantic coast of north america. king henry wished colonists to settle in the new land, _tam viri quam feminæ_, but since, in his usual miserly character, he refused to give a single "testoon," or "groat" toward the enterprise, no colonies were formed till the days of walter raleigh, more than a century later. sebastian cabot, born in bristol, 1477, was more renowned as a navigator than his father, john, and almost ranks with columbus. after discovering labrador or newfoundland with his father, he sailed a second time with 300 men to form colonies, passing apparently into hudson bay. he wished to discover a channel leading to hindustan, but the difficulties of icebergs and cold weather so frightened his crews that he was compelled to retrace his course. in another attempt at the northwest passage to asia, he reached latitude 67-1/2° north, and "gave english names to sundry places in hudson bay." in 1526, when commanding a spanish expedition from seville, he sailed to brazil, which had already been annexed to portugal by cabrera, explored the river la plata and ascended part of the paraguay, returning to spain in 1531. after his return to england, king edward vi had some interviews with cabot, one topic being the "variation of the compass." he received a royal pension of 250 marks, and did special work in relation to trade and navigation. the great honor of cabot is that he saw the american continent before columbus or amerigo vespucci. iii.--of the great navigators of that unexampled age of discovery, as spain was honored by columbus and england by cabot, so portugal was honored by de gama. vasco de gama, the greatest of portuguese navigators, left lisbon in 1497 to explore the unknown world lying east of the cape of good hope, arriving at calicut, may, 1498. before that, diaz had actually rounded the cape, but seems to have done so merely before a high gale. he named it "the stormy cape." cabrera, or cabral, was another great explorer sent from portugal to follow in the route of de gama; but being forced into a southwesterly route by currents in the south atlantic, he landed on the continent of america, and annexed the new country to portugal under the name of brazil. cabrera afterward drew up the first commercial treaty between portugal and india. iv.--magellan, scarcely inferior to columbus, brought honor as a navigator both to portugal and spain. for the latter country, when in the service of charles v, he revived the idea of columbus that we may sail to asia or the spice islands by sailing _west_. with a squadron of five ships, 236 men, he sailed, in 1519, to brazil and convinced himself that the great estuary was not a strait. sailing south along the american coast, he discovered the strait that bears his name, and through it entered the pacific, then first sailed upon by europeans, though already seen by balboa and his men "upon a peak in darien"--as keats puts it in his famous sonnet.[7] from the continuous fine weather enjoyed for some months, magellan naturally named the new sea "the pacific." after touching at the ladrones and the philippines, magellan was killed in a fight with the inhabitants of matan, a small island. sebastian, his basque lieutenant (mentioned in chapter i) then successfully completed the circumnavigation of the world, sailing first to the moluccas and thence to spain. [footnote 7: the poet, however, makes the clerical blunder of writing cortez for balboa.] v.--of all the world-famous navigators contemporary with colon, the genoese, there remains only one deserving of our notice, and that because his name is for all time perpetuated in that of the new world. amerigo (latin _americus_) vespucci, born at florence, 1451, had commercial occupation in cadiz, and was employed by the spanish government. he has been charged with a fraudulent attempt to usurp the honor due to columbus, but humboldt and others have defended him, after a minute examination of the evidence. in a book published in 1507 by a german, _waldseemüller_, the author happens to say: and the fourth part of the world having been discovered by americus, it may be called amerige, that is the land of americus, or _america_. vespucci never called himself the discoverer of the new continent; as a mere subordinate he could not think of such a thing. as a matter of fact, he and columbus were always on friendly terms, attached, and trusted. humboldt explains the blunder of waldseemüller and others by the general ignorance of the history of how america was discovered, since for some years it was jealously guarded as a "state secret." humboldt curiously adds that the "musical sound of the name caught the public ear," and thus the blunder has been universally perpetuated: _statque stabitque in omne volubilis ævum_. another reason for the universal renown of amerigo was that his book was the first that told of the new "western world"; and was therefore eagerly read in all parts of europe. cuba, though the largest of the west indian islands, and second to be discovered, was not colonized till after the death of columbus. thus for more than three centuries and a half, as "queen of the antilles" and "pearl of the antilles," cuba has been noted as a chief colonial possession of spain, till recent events brought it under the power of the united states. the conquest of the island was undertaken by velasquez, who, after accompanying the great admiral in his second voyage, had settled in hispaniola (or hayti) and acquired a large fortune there. he had little difficulty in the annexation of cuba, because the natives, like those of hispaniola, were of a peaceful character, easily imposed upon by the invaders. the only difficulty velasquez had was in the eastern part of the island, where hatuey, a cazique or native chief, who had fled there from hispaniola, made preparations to resist the spaniards. when defeated, he was cruelly condemned by velasquez to be burned to death, as a "slave who had taken arms against his master." the scene at hatuey's execution is well known: when fastened to the stake, a franciscan friar promised him immediate admittance into the joys of heaven, if he would embrace the christian faith. "are there any spaniards," says he, after some pause, "in that region of bliss which you describe?" "yes," replied the monk, "but only such as are worthy and good." "the best of them have neither worth nor goodness: i will not go to a place where i may meet with one of that accursed race." being thus annexed in 1511, by the middle of the century all the native indians of cuba had become extinct. in the following century this large and fertile island suffered severely by the buccaneers, but during the eighteenth century it prospered. during the nineteenth century, the united states government had often been urged to obtain possession of it; for example, the sum of one hundred million dollars was offered in 1848 by president polk. slavery was at last abolished absolutely in 1886. in recent years spain, by ceding cuba and the philippines to the united states and the carolines to germany, has brought her colonial history to a close. two other important events occurred when velasquez was governor of cuba: first, the escape of balboa from hispaniola, to become afterward governor of darien; and, second, the expedition under cordova to explore that part of the continent of america which lies nearest to cuba. this expedition of 110 men, in three small ships, led to the discovery of that large peninsula now known as yucatan. cordova imagined it to be an island. the natives were not naked, like those of the west indian islands, but wore cotton clothes, and some had ornaments of gold. in the towns, which contained large stone houses, and country generally, there were many proofs of a somewhat advanced civilization. the natives, however, were much more warlike than the simple islanders of cuba and hispaniola; and cordova, in fact, was glad to return from yucatan. velasquez, on hearing the report of cordova, at once fitted out four vessels to explore the newly discovered country, and despatched them under command of his nephew, grijalva. everywhere were found proofs of civilization, especially in architecture. the whole district, in fact, abounds in prehistoric remains. from a friendly chief grijalva received a sort of coat of mail covered with gold plates; and on meeting the ruler of the province he exchanged some toys and trinkets, such as glass beads, pins, scissors, for a rich treasure of jewels, gold ornaments and vessels. grijalva was therefore the first european to step on the aztec soil and open an intercourse with the natives. velasquez, the governor, at once prepared a larger expedition, choosing as leader or commander an officer who was destined henceforth to fill a much larger place in history than himself, one who presently appeared capable of becoming a general in the foremost rank, hernando cortés, greatest of all spanish explorers. chapter iii the extinct civilization of the aztecs in the extinct civilizations of the east it was shown that the cosmogony of the chaldeans closely resembles that of the hebrews and the phenicians, and that the account of the deluge in genesis exactly reproduces the much earlier one found on one of the babylonian tablets. traces of a deluge legend also existed among the early aztecs. they believed that two persons survived the deluge, a man named koksoz and his wife. their heads are represented in ancient paintings together with a boat floating on the waters at the foot of a mountain. a dove is also depicted, with a hieroglyphical emblem of languages in his mouth.... tezpi, the noah of a neighboring people, also escaped in a boat, which was filled with various kinds of animals and birds. after some time a vulture was sent out from it, but remained feeding on the dead bodies of the giants, which had been left on the earth as the waters subsided. the little humming-bird was then sent forth and returned with the branch of a tree in its mouth. another aztec tradition of the deluge is that the pyramidal mound, the temple of cholula (a sacred city on the way between the capital and the seaport), was built by the giants to escape drowning. like the tower of babel, it was intended to reach the clouds, till the gods looked down and, by destroying the pyramid by fires from heaven, compelled the builders to abandon the attempt. the hieroglyphics used in the aztec calendar correspond curiously with the zodiacal signs of the mongols of eastern asia. "the symbols in the mongolian calendar are borrowed from animals, and four of the twelve are the same as the aztec." the antiquity of most of the monuments is proved--e. g., by the growth of trees in the midst of the buildings in yucatan. many have had time to attain a diameter of from six to nine feet. in a courtyard at uxmal, the figures of tortoises sculptured in relief upon the granite pavement are so worn away by the feet of countless generations of the natives that the design of the artist is scarcely recognizable. the spanish invaders demolished every vestige of the aztec religious monuments, just as roman catholic images and paraphernalia were once treated by the "straitest sects" of protestants, or even mohammedans. the beautiful plateau around the lakes of mexico, as well as other central portions of america, were without any doubt occupied from the earliest ages by peoples who gradually advanced in civilization from generation to generation and passed through cycles of revolutions--in one century relapsing, in another advancing by leaps and bounds by an infusion of new blood or a change of environment--exactly similar to the checkered annals of the successive dynasties in the nile valley and the plains of babylonia. in the new world, as in the old world, from prehistoric times wealth was accumulated at such centers, bringing additional comfort and refinement, and implying the practise of the useful arts and some applications of science. as to the legendary migrations or even those extinct races whose names still remain, max müller said:[8] [footnote 8: chips from a german workshop, i, 327.] the traditions are no better than the greek traditions about pelasgians, æolians, and ionians, and it would be a mere waste of time to construct out of such elements a systematic history, only to be destroyed again sooner or later, by some niebuhr, grote, or lewis. _anahuac_ (i. e., "waterside" or "the lake-country"), in the early centuries of our era, was a name of the country round the lakes and town afterward called mexico. to this center, as a place for settlement, there came from the north or northwest a succession of tribes more or less allied in race and language--especially (according to one theory) the _toltecs_ from tula, and the _aztecs_ from aztlan. tula, north of the mexican valley, had been the first capital of the toltecs, and at the time of the spanish conquest there were remains of large buildings there. most of the extensive temples and other edifices found throughout "new spain" were attributed to this race and the word "toltek" became synonymous with "architect." some five centuries after the toltecs had abandoned tula, the aztecs or early mexicans arrived to settle in the valley of anahuac. with the aztecs came the tezcucans, whose capital, tezcuco, on the eastern border of the mexican lake, has given it its still surviving name. the aztecs, again, after long migrations from place to place, finally, in a. d. 1325, halted on the southwestern shores of the great lake. according to tradition, a heavenly vision thus announced the site of their future capital: they beheld perched on the stem of a prickly-pear, which shot out from the crevice of a rock washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in its talons, and its broad wings opened to the rising sun. they hailed the auspicious omen, announced by an oracle as indicating the sight of their future city, and laid its foundations by sinking piles into the shallows; for the low marshes were half buried under water.... the place was called tenochtitlan (i. e. "the cactus on a rock") in token of its miraculous origin. [such were the humble beginnings of the venice of the western world.][9] [footnote 9: prescott, i, i, pp. 8, 9.] to this day the arms of the mexican republic show the device of the eagle and the cactus--to commemorate the legend of the foundation of the capital--afterward called mexico from the name of their war-god. fiercer and more warlike than their brethren of tezcuco, the men of the latter town were glad of their assistance, when invaded and defeated by a hostile tribe. thus mexico and tezcuco became close allies, and by the time of montezuma i, in the middle of the fifteenth century, their sovereignty had extended beyond their native plateau to the coast country along the gulf of mexico. the capital rapidly increased in population, the original houses being replaced by substantial stone buildings. there are documents showing that tenochtitlan was of much larger dimensions than the modern capital of mexico, on the same site. just before the arrival of the spaniards, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the kingdom extended from the gulf across to the pacific; and southward under the ruthless ahuitzotl over the whole of guatemala and nicaragua. the aztecs resembled the ancient peruvians in very few respects, one being the use of knots on strings of different colors to record events and numbers. compare our account of "the quipu" in chapter x. the aztecs seem to have replaced that rude method of making memoranda during the seventh century by picture-writing. before the spanish invasion, thousands of native clerks or chroniclers were employed in painting on vegetable paper and canvas. examples of such manuscripts may still be seen in all the great museums. their contents chiefly refer to ritual, astrology, the calendar, annals of the kings, etc. most of the literary productions of the ancient mexicans were stupidly destroyed by the spanish under cortés. the first archbishop of mexico founded a professorship in 1553 for expounding the hieroglyphs of the aztecs, but in the following century the study was abandoned. even the native-born scholars confessed that they were unable to decipher the ancient writing. one of the most ancient books (assigned to tula, the "toltec" capital, a. d. 660, and written by huetmatzin, an astrologer), describes the heavens and the earth, the stars in their constellations, the arrangement of time in the official calendar, with some geography, mythology, and cosmogony. in the fifteenth century the king of tezcuco published sixty hymns in honor of the supreme being, with an elegy on the destruction of a town, and another on the instability of human greatness. in the same century the three anahuac states (acolhua, mexico, and tlacopan) formed a confederacy with a constant tendency to give mexico the supremacy. the two capitals looking at each other across the lake were steadily growing in importance, with all the adjuncts of public works--causeways, canals, aqueducts, temples, palaces, gardens, and other evidences of wealth. the horror and disgust caused by the aztec sacrificial bloodshed are greatly increased by considering the number of the victims. the kings actually made war in order to provide as many victims as possible for the public sacrifices--especially on such an occasion as a coronation or the consecration of a new temple. captives were sometimes reserved a considerable time for the purpose of immolation. it was the regular method of the aztec warrior in battle not to kill one's opponent if he could be made a captive; to take him alive was a meritorious act in religion. in fact, the spaniards in this way frequently escaped death at the hands of their mexican opponents. when king montezuma was asked by a european general why he had permitted the republic of tlascala to remain independent on the borders of his kingdom, his reply was, "that she might furnish me with victims for my gods." in reckoning the number of victims prescott seems to have trusted too implicitly to the almost incredible accounts of the spanish. zumurraga, the first bishop of mexico, asserts that 20,000 were sacrificed annually, but casas points out that with such a "waste of the human species," as is implied in some histories, the country could not have been so populous as cortés found it. the estimate of casas is "that the mexicans never sacrificed more than fifty or a hundred persons in a year." notwithstanding the wholesale bloodshed before the shrines of their gory gods, we can still assign to the aztecs a high degree of civilization. the history of even modern europe will illustrate this statement, although apparently paradoxical. consider "the condition of some of the most polished countries in the sixteenth century after the establishment of the modern inquisition--an institution which yearly destroyed its thousands by a death more painful than the aztec sacrifices, ... which did more to stay the march of improvement than any other scheme ever devised by human cunning.... human sacrifice was sometimes voluntarily embraced by the aztecs as the most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage into paradise. the inquisition, on the other hand, branded its victims with infamy in this world, and consigned them to everlasting perdition in the next." the difficulty with the aztecs is how to reconcile such refinement as their extinct civilization showed with their savage enjoyment of bloodshed. "no captive was ever ransomed or spared; all were sacrificed without mercy, and their flesh devoured." the first of the four chief counselors of the empire was called the "prince of the deadly lance," the second "divider of men," the third "shedder of blood," the fourth "the lord of the dark house." the temples were very numerous, generally merely pyramidal masses of clay faced with brick or stone. the roof was a broad area on which stood one or two towers, from forty to fifty feet in height, forming the sanctuaries of the presiding deities, and therefore containing their images. before these sanctuaries stood the dreadful stone of sacrifice. there were also two altars with sacred fires kept ever burning. all the religious services were public, and the pyramidal temples, with stairs round their massive sides, allowed the long procession of priests to be visible as they ceremoniously ascended to perform the dread office of slaughtering the human victims. human sacrifices had not originally been a feature of the aztec worship. but about 200 years before the arrival of the spanish invaders was the beginning of this religious atrocity, and at last no public festival was considered complete without some human bloodshed. prescott takes as an example the great festival in honor of tezcatlipoca, a handsome god of the second rank, called "the soul of the world," and endowed with perpetual youth. a year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his personal beauty and without a blemish on his body, was selected.... tutors took charge of him and instructed him how to perform his new part with becoming grace and dignity. he was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion of sweet-scented flowers.... when he went abroad he was attended by a train of the royal pages, and as he halted in the streets to play some favorite melody, the crowd prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their good deity.... four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the principal goddesses, were selected, and with them he continued to live idly, feasted at the banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him all the honors of a divinity. when at length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived, ... stripped of his gaudy apparel, one of the royal barges transported him across a lake to a temple which rose on its margin.... hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked to witness the consummation of the ceremony. as the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chaplets of flowers and broke in pieces his musical instruments. ... on the summit he was received by six priests, whose long and matted locks flowed in disorder over their sable robes, covered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import. they led him to the sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its upper surface somewhat convex. on this the victim was stretched. five priests secured his head and limbs, while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor of _itzli_, and inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart, and after holding it up to the sun (as representing the supreme god), cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the temple was devoted, while the multitudes below prostrated themselves in humble adoration. such was an instance of the human sacrifices for which ancient mexico became infamous to the whole civilized world. one instance of a sacrifice differing from the ordinary sort is thus given by a spanish historian: a captive of distinction was sometimes furnished with arms for single combat against a number of mexicans in succession. if he defeated them all, as did occasionally happen, he was allowed to escape. if vanquished he was dragged to the block and sacrificed in the usual manner. the combat was fought on a huge circular stone before the population of the capital. women captives were occasionally sacrificed before those bloodthirsty gods, and in a season of drought even children were sometimes slaughtered to propitiate tlaloc, the god of rain. borne along in open litters, dressed in their festal robes and decked with the fresh blossoms of spring, they moved the hardest hearts to pity, though their cries were drowned in the wild chant of the priests who read in their tears a favorable augury for the rain prayer. one spanish historian informs us that these innocent victims of this repulsive religion were generally bought by the priests from parents who were poor. we may now resume the traditional settlement of the ancient mexicans on the region called anahuac, including all the fertile plateau and extending south to the lake of nicaragua. the chief tribes of the race were said to have come from california, and after being subject to the colhua people asserted their independence about a. d. 1325. soon afterward, their first capital, tenochtitlan, was built on the site of mexico, their permanent center. for several generations they lived, like their remote ancestors, the red men of the woods, as hunters, fishers, and trappers, but at last their prince or chief cazique was powerful enough to be called king. the rule of this aztec prince, beginning a. d. 1440, marked the beginning of their greatness as a race. it became a rule of their kingdom that every new king must gain a victory before being crowned; and thus by the conquest of a new nation furnish a supply of captives to gratify their tutelary deity by the necessary human sacrifices. in 1502 the younger montezuma ascended the throne. he is better known to us than the previous kings, because it was in his reign that the spanish conquerors appeared on the scene. from the time of cortés the history of the aztecs becomes part of that of the mexicans. they were easily conquered by the european troops, partly because of their betrayal by various of the neighboring nations whom they had formerly conquered. at the beginning of the sixteenth century, according to prescott, the aztec king ruled the continent from the atlantic to the pacific. from the scientific side of their extinct civilization it is their knowledge of astronomy that chiefly causes astonishment (see also p. 85). as in the case of the chaldeans and babylonians, a motive for the study of the stars and planets was the priestly one of accurately fixing the religious festivals. the tropical year being thus ascertained, their tables showed the exact time of the equinox or sun's transit across the equatorial, and of the solstice. from a very early period they had practised agriculture, growing indian corn and "mexican aloe." having no animals of draft, such as the horse, or ox, their farming was naturally of a rude and imperfect sort. "the degree of civilization," says prescott, "which the aztecs reached, as inferred by their political institutions, may be considered, perhaps, not much short of that enjoyed by our saxon ancestors under alfred." in a passage comparing the aztecs to the american indians, we read: the latter has something peculiarly sensitive in his nature. he shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a foreign hand. even when this foreign influence comes in the form of civilization he seems to sink and pine away beneath it. it has been so with the mexicans. under the spanish domination their numbers have silently melted away. their energies are broken. they no longer tread their mountain plains with the conscious independence of their ancestors. in their faltering step and meek and melancholy aspect we read the sad characters of the conquered race.... their civilization was of the hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. the fierce virtues of the aztec were all his own. humboldt found some analogy between the aztec theory of the universe, as taught by the priests, and the asiatic "cosmogonies." the aztecs, in explaining the great mystery of man's existence after death, believed that future time would revolve in great periods or cycles, each embracing thousands of years. at the end of each of the four cycles of future time in the present world, "the human family will be swept from the earth by the agency of one of the elements, and the sun blotted out from the heavens to be again rekindled." the priesthood comprised a large number who were skilled in astrology and divination. the great temple of mexico, alone, had 5,000 priests in attendance, of whom the chief dignitaries superintended the dreadful rites of human sacrifice. others had management of the singing choirs with their musical accompaniment of drums and other instruments; others arranged the public festivals according to the calendar, and had charge of the hieroglyphical word-painting and oral traditions. one important section of the priesthood were teachers, responsible for the education of the children and instruction in religion and morality. the head management of the hierarchy or whole ecclesiastical system, was under two high priests--the more dignified that they were chosen by the king and principal nobles without reference to birth or social station. these high priests were consulted on any national emergency, and in precedency of rank were superior to every man except the king. montezuma is said to have been a priest. the priestly power was more absolute than any ever experienced in europe. two remarkable peculiarities were that when a sinner was pardoned by a priest, the certificate afterward saved the culprit from being legally punished for any offense; secondly, there could be no pardon for an offense once atoned for if the offense were repeated. "long after the conquest, the simple natives when they came under the arm of the law, sought to escape by producing the certificate of their former confession." (prescott, i, 33.) the prayer of the priest-confessor, as reported by a spanish historian, is very remarkable: "o, merciful lord, thou who knowest the secrets of all hearts, let thy forgiveness and favor descend, like the pure waters of heaven, to wash away the stains from the soul. thou knowest that this poor man has sinned, _not from his own free will_, but from the influence of the sign under which he was born...." after enjoining on the penitent a variety of minute ceremonies by way of penance, the confessor urges the necessity of instantly procuring a slave for sacrifice to the deity. in the schools under the clergy the boys were taught by priests and the girls by priestesses. there was a higher school for instruction in tradition and history, the mysteries of hieroglyphs, the principles of government, and certain branches of astronomical and natural science. in the education of their children the mexican community were very strict, but from a letter preserved by one of the spanish historians, we can not doubt the womanly affection of a mother who thus wrote to her daughter: my beloved daughter, very dear little dove, you have already heard and attended to the words which your father has told you. they are precious words, which have proceeded from the bowels and heart in which they were treasured up; and your beloved father well knows that you, his daughter, begotten of him, are his blood and his flesh; and god our lord knows that it is so. although you are a woman, and are the image of your father, what more can i say to you than has already been said?... my dear daughter, whom i tenderly love, see that you live in the world in peace, tranquillity, and contentment--see that you disgrace not yourself, that you stain not your honor, nor pollute the luster and fame of your ancestors.... may god prosper you, my first-born, and may you come to god, who is in every place.[10] [footnote 10: sahagun, hist. de nueva españa, vi, 19.] some trace of a "natural piety," which will probably surprise our readers, is also found in the ceremony of aztec baptism, as described by the same writer. after the head and lips of the infant were touched with water and a name given to it, the goddess cioacoatl was implored "that the sin which was given to us before the beginning of the world might not visit the child, but that, cleansed by these waters, it might live and be born anew." in sahagun's account we read: when all the relations of the child were assembled, the midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism, was summoned. when the sun had risen, the midwife, taking the child in her arms, called for a little earthen vessel of water.... to perform the rite, she placed herself _with her face toward the west_, and began to go through certain ceremonies.... after this she sprinkled water on the head of the infant, saying, "o my child! receive the water of the lord of the world, which is our life, and is given for the increasing and renewing of our body. it is to wash and to purify." ... [after a prayer] she took the child in both hands, and lifting him toward heaven said, "o lord, thou seest here thy creature whom thou hast sent into this world, this place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence. grant him, o lord, thy gifts and thine inspiration." the science of the aztecs has excited the wonder of all competent judges, such as humboldt (already quoted) and the astronomer la place. lord kingsborough remarks in his great work: it can hardly be doubted that the mexicans were acquainted with many scientifical instruments of strange invention;... whether the telescope may not have been of the number is uncertain; but the thirteenth plate of m. dupaix's monuments, which represents a man holding something of a similar nature to his eye, affords reason to suppose that they knew how to improve the powers of vision. references to the calendar of the aztecs should not omit the secular festival occurring at the end of their great cycle of fifty-two years. from the length of the period, two generations, one might compare it with the "jubilee" of ancient israel--a word made familiar toward the close of queen victoria's reign. the great event always took place at midwinter, the most dreary period of the year, and when the five intercalary days arrived they "abandoned themselves to despair," breaking up the images of the gods, allowing the holy fires of the temples to go out, lighting none in their homes, destroying their furniture and domestic utensils, and tearing their clothes to rags. this disorder and gloom signified that figuratively the end of the world was at hand. on the evening of the last day, a procession of priests, assuming the dress and ornaments of their gods, moved from the capital toward a lofty mountain, about two leagues distant. they carried with them a noble victim, the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the _new fire_, the success of which was an augury of the renewal of the cycle. on the summit of the mountain, the procession paused till midnight, when, as the constellation of the pleiades[11] approached the zenith, the new fire was kindled by the friction of some sticks placed on the breast of the victim. the flame was soon communicated to a funeral-pyre on which the body of the slaughtered captive was thrown. as the light streamed up toward heaven, shouts of joy and triumph burst forth from the countless multitudes who covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the housetops.... couriers, with torches lighted at the blazing beacon, rapidly bore them over every part of the country.... a new cycle had commenced its march. the following thirteen days were given up to festivity. ... the people, dressed in their gayest apparel, and crowned with garlands and chaplets of flowers, thronged in joyous procession to offer up their oblations and thanksgivings in the temples. dances and games were instituted emblematical of the regeneration of the world. [footnote 11: a famous group of seven small stars in the bull constellation. the "seven sisters" appear as only _six_ to ordinary eyesight: to make out the seventh is a test of a practised eye and excellent vision.] prescott compares this carnival of the aztecs to the great secular festival of the romans or ancient etruscans, which (as suetonius remarked) "few alive had witnessed before, or could expect to witness again." the _ludi sæculares_ or secular games of rome were held only at very long intervals and lasted for three days and nights. the poet southey thus refers to the ceremony of opening the new aztec cycle, or circle of the years. on his bare breast the cedar boughs are laid, on his bare breast, dry sedge and odorous gums, laid ready to receive the sacred spark, and blaze, to herald the ascending sun, upon his living altar. round the wretch the inhuman ministers of rites accurst stand, and expect the signal when to strike the seed of fire. their chief, apart from all, ... eastward turns his eyes; for now the hour draws nigh, and speedily he look's to see the first faint dawn of day break through the orient sky. _madoc_, ii, 26. chapter iv american archeology long before the time of columbus and the spanish conquest there existed on the table-land of mexico two great races or nations, as has already been shown, both highly civilized, and both akin in language, art, and religion. ethnologists and antiquaries are not agreed as to their origin or the development of their civilization. many recent critics have held the theory that there had been a previous people from whom both races inherited their extinct civilization, this previous race being the "toltecs," whom we have repeatedly mentioned in the preceding chapter. to that previous race some attribute the colossal stonework around lake titicaca, as well as other survivals of long-forgotten culture. some would even class them with the "mound-builders" of the ohio valley. other recent antiquaries, however, while fully admitting the aztec-tescucan civilization to be real and historical, treat the toltec theory as partly or entirely mythical. one writer alleges, after the manner of max müller, that the toltecs are "simply a personification of the rays of light" radiating from the aztec sun-god. leaving abstract theories, we shall devote this chapter to the principal facts of american archeology--especially as regards the races and the monuments of their long extinct civilizations. throughout many parts of both north and south america, and over large areas, the red-skinned natives continued their generations as their ancestors had done through untold centuries, scarcely rising above the state of rude, uncultured sons of the soil living as hunters, trappers, fishers, as had been done immemorially when wild in woods the noble savage ran, as dryden puts it. but in mexico, yucatan, and central america, colombia, and peru there were men of the original redskin race who had distinctly attained to civilization for unknown generations before the time of columbus. not only so, but in many centers of wealth and population the process of social improvement and advance had been continuous for unrecorded ages; and in certain cases a long extinct civilization had over-laid a previous civilization still more remotely extinct. some works constructed for supplying water, for example, could only have been applied to that purpose when the climate or geological conditions were quite different from what they have always been in historical times! who is the red man? compared in numbers with the yellow man, the white man, or even the black, he is very unimportant, being only one-tenth as great as the african race.[12] in american ethnology, however, the red man is all-important. primeval men of this race undoubtedly formed the original stock whence during the centuries were derived all the numerous tribes of "indians" found in either north or south america. throughout asia and africa there is great diversity in type among the races that are indigenous; but as to america, to quote humboldt: [footnote 12: white or caucasian 640,000,000, yellow or mongolian 600,000,000, black or african 200,000,000, red or american 20,000,000.] the indians of new spain [i. e., mexico] bear a general resemblance to those who inhabit canada, florida, peru, and brazil. we have the same swarthy and copper color, straight and smooth hair, small beard, squat body, long eye, with the corner directed upward toward the temples, prominent cheek-bones, thick lips, and expression of gentleness in the mouth, strongly contrasted with a gloomy and severe look. whence the original red men of america were derived it is impossible to say. the date is too remote and the data too few. from fossil remains of human bones, agassiz estimated a period of at least ten thousand years; and near new orleans, beneath four buried forests, a skeleton was found which was possibly fifty thousand years old. if, therefore, the redskins branched off from the yellow man, it must have been at a period which lies utterly beyond historic ken or calculation. some recent ethnologists have borrowed the "glacier theory" from the science of geology, in order to trace the development of civilization among certain races. in switzerland and greenland the signs of the action of a glacier can be traced and recognized just as we trace the proofs of the action of water in a dry channel. visit the front of a glacier in autumn after the summer heat has made it shrink back, you will see (1) rounded rocks, as if planed on the top, with (2) a mixed mass of stones and gravel like a rubbish-heap, scattered on (3) a mass of clay and sand, containing boulders. the same three tests are frequently found in countries where there have been no glaciers within the memory of man. such traces, found not only in england, scotland, and ireland, but in northern germany and denmark, prove that the mountain mass of scandinavia was the nucleus of a huge ice-cap "radiating to a distance of not less than 1,000 miles, and thick enough to block up with solid ice the north sea, the german ocean, the baltic, and even the atlantic up to the 100-fathom line." in north america the same thing is proved by similar evidence. a gigantic ice-cap extending from canada has glaciated all the minor mountain ranges to the south, sweeping over the whole continent. the drift and boulders still remain to prove the fact, as far south as only 15° north of the tropic. a warm oceanic current, like the gulf stream of the atlantic, would shorten a glacial period. speaking of scotland, one authority states that "if the gulf stream were diverted and the highlands upheaved to the height of the new zealand alps, the whole country would again be buried under glaciers pushing out into the seas" on the west and east. the theory is that as the climate became warmer, the ice-fronts retreated northward by the shrinking of the glaciers, and therefore the animals, including man, were able to live farther north. the men of that very remote period were "neolithic," and some of the stone monuments are attributed to them that were formerly called "druidic." a recent writer asks; with reference to stonehenge: did neolithic men slowly coming northward, as the rigors of the last glacial period abated, domicile here, and build this huge gaunt temple before they passed farther north, to degrade and dwindle down into eskimos wandering the dismal coasts of arctic seas? another writer, with reference to the american ice-sheet, says: during the second glacial epoch when the great boreal ice-sheet covered one-half of the north american continent, reaching as far south as the present cities of philadelphia and st. louis, and the glaciated portions were as unfit for human occupation as the snow-cap of greenland is to-day, aggregations of population clustered around the equatorial zone, because the climatic conditions were congenial. and inasmuch as civilization, the world over, clings to the temperate climates and thrives there best, we are not surprised to learn that communities far advanced in arts and architecture built and occupied those great cities in yucatan, honduras, guatemala, and other central american states, whose populations once numbered hundreds of thousands. an approximate date when this civilization was at the acme of its glory would be about ten thousand years ago. this is established by observations upon the recession of the existing glacier fronts, which are known to drop back twelve miles in one hundred years. with the gradual withdrawal of the glacial ice-sheet the climate grew proportionately milder, and flora and fauna moved simultaneously northward. some emigrants went to south america and settled there, carrying their customs, arts, ceremonial rites, hieroglyphs, architecture, etc.; and an immense exodus took place into mexico, which ultimately extended westward up the pacific coast. in subsequent epochs when the ice-sheet had withdrawn from large areas, there were immense influxes of people from asia via bering strait on the pacific side, and from northwestern europe via greenland on the atlantic side. the korean immigration of the year 544 led to the founding of the mexican empire in 1325. to trace then the gradations of ascent from the native american--called "indians" by a blunder of the great admiral, as afterward they were nicknamed "redskins" by the english settlers--to the mexicans, peruvians, or colombians is a task far beyond our strength. leaving the question of race, therefore, we now turn to the antiquarian remains, especially the architectural. the prehistoric civilization which was developed to the south of mexico is generally known as "mayan," although the mayas were undoubtedly akin to the aztecs or early mexicans. the maya tribes in yucatan and honduras, from abundant evidence, must have risen to a refinement in prehistoric times, which, in several respects, was superior to that of the aztecs. in architecture they were in advance from the earliest ages not only of the aztec peoples, but of all the american races. in yucatan the mayas have left some wonderful remains at mayapan, their prehistoric capital, and near it at a place called uxmal which has become famous from its vast and elaborate structures,[13] evidencing a knowledge of art and science which had flourished in this region for centuries before the arrival of the spanish. the chief building in uxmal is in pyramidal form, the principal design in the ancient aztec temples (as well as those of chaldea, etc.), consisting of three terraces faced with hewn stone. the terraces are in length 575, 545, and 360 feet respectively; with the temple on the summit, 322 feet, and a great flight of stairs leading to it. the whole building is surrounded by a belt of richly sculptured figures, above a cornice. at chichen, also in yucatan, there is an area of two miles perimeter entirely covered with architectural ruins; many of the roofs having apparently consisted of stone arches, painted in various colors. one building, of peculiar construction, proves an enigma to all travelers: it is more than ninety yards long and consists of two parallel walls, each ten yards thick, the distance between them being also ten yards. it has been conjectured that the anomalous construction had reference to some public games by which the citizens amused themselves in that long-forgotten period. among other memorials of mayan architecture in this country is the city of tuloom on the east coast, fortified with strong walls and square towers. a more remarkable "find" in the dense forests of chiapas, in the same country, is the city recorded by stephens and other travelers. it is near the coast, at the place where cortés and his spanish soldiers were moving about for a considerable time, yet they do not appear to have ever seen the splendid ruins, or to have at all suspected their existence. even if the natives knew, the spaniards might have found the toil of forcing a passage through such forests too laborious. the name of the city which had so long been buried under the tropical vegetation was quite unknown, nor was there any tradition of it; but when found it was called "palenque," from the nearest inhabited village. there were substantial and handsome buildings with excellent masonry, and in many cases beautiful sculptures and hieroglyphical figures. [footnote 13: see frontispiece.] merida, the capital of yucatan, is on the site of a prehistoric city whose name had also become unknown. when building the present town, the spaniards utilized the ancient buildings as quarries for good stones. the larger prehistoric structures are frequently on artificial mounds, being probably intended for religious or ceremonial purposes. the walls both within and without are elaborately decorated, sometimes with symbolic figures. sometimes officials in ceremonial costumes are seen apparently performing religious rites. these are often accompanied by inscriptions in low relief, with the peculiar mayan characters which some archeologists call "calculiform hieroglyphs" (_v._ p. 82). on one of the altar-slabs near palenque there occurs a sculptured group of several figures in the act of making offerings to a central object shaped like the latin cross. "the latin, the greek, and the egyptian cross or _tau_ (t) were evidently sacred symbols to this ancient people, bearing some religious meanings derived from their own cult."[14] [footnote 14: d. g. brinton.] the cross occurs frequently, not only in the mayan sculptures, but also in the ceremonial of the aztecs. the spanish followers of cortés were astonished to see this symbol used by these "barbarians," as they called them. winsor (i, 195) says that the mayan cross has been explained to mean "the four cardinal points, the rain-bringers, the symbol of life and health"; and again, "the emblem of fire, indeed an ornamental fire-drill." students of architecture find a rudimentary form of the arch occurring in some of the ruins, notably at palenque. two walls are built parallel to each other, at some distance apart, then at the beginning of the arch the layers on both sides have the inner stones slightly projecting, each layer projecting a little more than the previous one, till at a certain height the stones of one wall are almost touching those of the wall opposite. finally, a single flat stone closes in the space between and completes the arch. in honduras, on the banks of the copan, the spaniards found a prehistoric capital in ruins, on an elevated area, surrounded by substantial walls built of dressed stones, and enclosing large groups of buildings. one structure is mainly composed of huge blocks of polished stone. in several houses the whole of the external surface is covered with elaborate carved designs: the adjacent soil is covered with sculptured obelisks, pillars, and idols, with finely dressed stones, and with blocks ornamented with skilfully carved figures of the characteristic maya hieroglyphs, which, could they be deciphered, would doubtless reveal the story of this strange and solitary city. in western guatemala, at utatla, the ancient capital of the quiches, a tribe allied to the mayas, several pyramids still remain. one is 120 feet high, surmounted by a stone wall, and another is ascended by a staircase of nineteen steps, each nineteen inches in height. the literary remains (such as alphabets, hieroglyphs, manuscripts, etc.) of the maya and aztec races are in some respects as vivid a proof of the extinct civilizations as any of the architectural monuments already discussed. both aztecs and mayans of yucatan and central america used picture-writing, and sometimes an imperfect form of hieroglyphics. the most elementary kind was simply a rough sketch of a scene or historical group which they wished to record. when, for example, cortés had his first interview with some messengers sent by montezuma, one of the aztecs was observed sketching the dress and appearance of the spaniards, and then completing his picture by using colors. even in recent times indians have recorded facts by pictographs: in harper's magazine (august, 1902) we read that "pictographs and painted rocks to the number of over 3,000 are scattered all over the united states, from the dighton rock, massachusetts (_v_. pp. 27, 28), to the kern river cañon in california, and from the florida cape to the mouse river in manitoba. the identity of the indians with their ancient progenitors is further proved by relics, mortuary customs, linguistic similarities, plants and vegetables, and primitive industrial and mechanical arts, which have remained constant throughout the ages." the pictographs of the kern river cañon, according to the same writer, were inscribed on the rocks there "about five thousand years ago." a more advanced form of picture-writing is frequently found in the mayan and other inscriptions and manuscripts. two objects are represented, whose names, when pronounced together, give a sound which suggests the name to be recorded or remembered. thus, the name gladstone may be expressed in this manner by two pictures, one a laughing face (i. e., "happy" or "glad"), the other a rock (i. e., "stone"). it is exactly the same contrivance that is used to construct the puzzle called a "rebus." a third form of hieroglyphic was by devising some conventional mark or symbol to suggest the initial sound of the name to be recorded. such a mark or character would be a "letter," in fact; and thus the prehistoric alphabets were arrived at, not only among the early mayans of yucatan, etc., but among the prehistoric peoples of asia, as the chinese, the hittites, etc., as well as the primeval egyptians. many of the sculptures in copan and palenque to which we have referred contain pictographs and hieroglyphs. a spanish bishop of yucatan drew up a mayan alphabet in order to express the hieroglyphs on monuments and manuscripts in roman letters; but much more data are needed before scholars will read the ancient mayan-aztec tongues as they have been enabled to understand the egyptian inscriptions or the cuneiform records of babylonia. for the american hieroglyphs we still lack a second young or champollion. there are three famous manuscripts in the mayan character: 1. the dresden codex, preserved in the royal library of that city. it is called a "religious and astrological ritual" by abbé brasseur. 2. codex troano, in madrid, described in two folios by abbé brasseur. 3. codex peresianus, named from the wrapper in which it was found, 1859, which had the name "perez." it is also known as codex mexicanus. in lord kingsborough's great work on mexican antiquities there are several of the mayan manuscripts printed in facsimile, and others in a book by m. aubin, of paris. each group of letters in a mayan inscription is enclosed in an irregular oval, supposed to resemble the cross-section of a pebble; hence the term _calculiform_ (i. e., "pebble-shaped") is applied to their hieroglyphs, as _cuneiform_ (i. e., "wedge-shaped") is applied to the babylonian and assyrian letters. the paper which the prehistoric mexicans (mayas, aztecs, or tescucans, etc.) used for writing and drawing upon was of vegetable origin, like the egyptian papyrus. it was made by macerating the leaves of the _maguey_, a plant of the greatest importance (_v._ p. 94). when the surface of the paper was glazed, the letters were painted on in brilliant colors, proceeding from left to right, as we do. each book was a strip of paper, several yards long and about ten inches wide, not rolled round a stick, as the volumes of ancient rome were, but folded zigzag, like a screen. the protecting boards which held the book were often artistically carved and painted. the topics of the ordinary books, so far as we yet know, were religious ritual, dreams, and prophecies, the calendar, chronological notes, medical superstitions, portents of marriage and birth. the written language was in common and extensive use for the legal conveyance and sale of property. one of the most remarkable facts connected with this extinct civilization was the accuracy of their calendar and chronological system. their calendar was actually superior to that then existing in europe. they had two years: one for civil purposes, of three hundred and sixty-five days, divided into eighteen months of twenty days, besides five supplementary days; the other, a ritual or ecclesiastical year, to regulate the public festivals. the civil year required thirteen days to be added at the end of every fifty-two years, so as to harmonize with the ritual year. each month contained four weeks of five days, but as each of the twenty days (forming a month) had a distinct name, humboldt concluded that the names were borrowed from a prehistoric calendar, used in india and tartary. wilson (prehistoric man, i, 133) remarks: by the unaided results of native science the dwellers on the mexican plateau had effected an adjustment of civil to solar time so nearly correct that when the spaniards landed on their coast, their own reckoning according to the unreformed julian calendar, was really eleven days in error, compared with that of the barbarian nation whose civilization they so speedily effaced. in 1790 there was found in the square of mexico a famous relic, the mexican calendar stone, "one of the most striking monuments of american antiquity." it was long supposed to have been intended for chronological purposes; but later authorities call it a votive tablet or sacrificial altar.[15] similar circular stones have been dug up in other parts of mexico and in yucatan. [footnote 15: pp. 68-70, _v._ p. 95.] both the mayas and the aztecs excelled in the ordinary arts of civilized life. paper-making has already been spoken of. cotton being an important produce of their soil, they understood its spinning, dyeing, and weaving so well that the spaniards mistook some of the finer aztec fabrics for silk. they cultivated maize, potatoes, plantains, and other vegetables. both in mexico and yucatan they produced beautiful work in feathers; metal working was not so important as in some countries, being chiefly for ornamental purposes. in fact, it was the comparative plenty of gold and silver around mexico that delayed the invasion of the mayan country for more than twenty years. the mayas had developed trade to a considerable extent before the spanish invasion, and interchanged commodities with the island of cuba. it was there, accordingly, that columbus first saw this people, and first heard of yucatan. of the mexican remains on the central plateau, the most conspicuous is the mound or pyramid of cholula, although it retains few traces of prehistoric art. a modern church with a dome and two towers now occupies the summit, with a paved road leading up to it. it is chiefly noted, first, by antiquaries, as having originally been a great temple of quetzalcoatl, the beneficent deity, famous in story; and, secondly, for the fierce struggle around the mound and on the slopes between the mexicans and spanish. (_v._ pp. 130-133.) another mound in this district, yochicalco, lies seventy-five miles southwest of the capital. it is considered one of the best memorials of the extinct civilization, consisting of five terraces supported by stone walls, and formerly surmounted by a pyramid. passing from the traces of aztec and mayan civilization, we may now glance at the antiquities of the colombian states. there are no temples or large structures, because the natives, before the spanish conquest, used timber for building, but owing to the abundance of gold in their brooks and rivers, they developed skill in gold-working, and produced fine ornaments of wonderful beauty. many hollow figures have been found, evidently cast from molds, representing men, beasts, and birds, etc. stone-cutting was also an art of this ancient race, sometimes applied to making idols bearing hieroglyphs. when the spaniards invaded them to take their gold and precious stones, the "chibchas," who then held the colombian table-land and valleys, threw large quantities of those valuables into a lake near bogota, the capital. it was afterward attempted to recover those treasures by draining off the water, but only a small portion was found; and in the present year (1903) a new engineering attempt has been made. a spanish writer, in 1858, asserted that evidence was found in the caves and mines that in ancient times the colombians produced an alloy of gold, copper, and iron having the temper and hardness of steel. on a tributary of the river magdalena there are many curious stone images, sometimes with grotesquely carved faces. turning next to the mound-builders, in the ohio and upper mississippi valley, we find traces of an extinct civilization in high mounds, evidently artificial, extensive embankments, broad deep ditches, terraced pyramids, and an interesting variety of stone implements and pottery. some mounds were for burial-places, others for sacrificial purposes, others again as a site for building, like those we have seen in mexico and maya. many enclosures contain more than fifty acres of land; and one embankment is fifty miles long. among the relics associated with those works are articles of pottery, knives, and copper ornaments, hammered silver, mica, obsidian, pearls, beautifully sculptured pipes, shells, and stone implements. the mounds found in some of the gulf states seem to confirm a theory that the mound-builders were the ancestors of the choctaw indians and their allies, and had been driven southward. in the lower mississippi valley, eastward to the seacoast, there are many large earthworks, including round and quadrilateral mounds, embankments, canals, and artificial lakes. similar works can be traced to the southern extremity of florida. some were constructed as sites for large buildings. the tribes to whom they are due are now known to have been agricultural--growing maize, beans, and pumpkins; with these products and those of the chase they supported a considerable population. among other antiquarian remains in america are the cliff-houses and "pueblos." the former peculiarity is explained by the deep cañons of the dry table-land of colorado. imagine a narrow deep cutting or narrow trench worn by water-courses out of solid rock, deep enough to afford a channel to the stream from 500 to 1,500 feet below the plateau above. next imagine one of the caves which the water many ages ago had worn out of the perpendicular sides of the cañon; and in that cave a substantial, well-built structure of cut stones bedded in firm mortar. such are the "cliff--houses," sometimes of two stories. occasionally there is a watch-tower perched on a conspicuous point of rock near a cliff-dwelling, with small windows looking to the east and north. these curious buildings, though now prehistoric, in a sense, are believed by archeologists to be later than the spanish conquest. peru is very important archeologically, but some interesting points will properly fall under our general account of that country and its conquest by spain. [illustration: chulpa or stone tomb of the peruvians.] in peruvian architecture, we find "cyclopean walls," with polygonal stones of five or six feet diameter, so well polished and adjusted that no mortar was necessary; sometimes with a projecting part of the stone fitting exactly into a corresponding cavity of the stone immediately above or below it. such huge stones are of hard granite or basalt, etc. the walls are often very massive and substantial, sometimes from thirty to forty feet in thickness. the only approach to the modern "arch" in the peruvian structures is a device similar to that which was described under the mayan architecture. some important buildings were surrounded with large upright stones, similar to the famous "druidic" temple at stonehenge. all of the chief structures were accurately placed with reference to the cardinal points, and the main entrance always faced the east. the peruvian tombs were very elaborate, one kind being made by cutting caverns in the steep precipices of the cordillera and then carefully walling in the entrance. another variety (the _chulpa_) was really a stone tower erected above ground, twelve to thirty feet high. the chulpas were sometimes built in groups. chapter v mexico before the spanish invasion the aztecs and the tescucans were the chief races occupying the great table-land of anahuac, including, as we have seen, the famous mexican valley. in the preceding chapter we have set forth some of the leading points in the extinct civilization of those races, and also that of the mayas, who in several respects were perhaps superior to the anahuac kingdoms. several features of the early mexican civilization will come before us as we accompany the european conquerors, in their march over the table-land. meantime, we glance first at the geography of this magnificent region, and secondly at the manners and institutions of the people, their industrial arts, etc., and their terrible religion. the last-mentioned topic has already been partly discussed in chapter iii. the tropic of cancer passes through the middle of mexico, and therefore its southern half, which is the most important, is all under the burning sun of the "torrid zone." this heat, however, is greatly modified by the height of the surface above sea-level, since the country, taken as a whole, is simply an extensive table-land. the height of the plain in the two central states, mexico and puebla, is 8,000 feet, or about double the average height of the highest summits in the british isles. on the west of the republic is a continuous chain of mountains, and on the east of the table-land run a series of mountainous groups parallel to the seacoast, with a summit in vera cruz of over 13,400 feet. to the south of the capital an irregular range running east and west contains these remarkable volcanoes--colima, 14,400 feet; jorulla, popocatepetl, 17,800; orizaba (extinct), 18,300, the highest summit in mexico, and, with the exception of some of the mountains of alaska, in north america. the great plateau-basin formed around the capital and its lakes is completely enclosed by mountains. this high table-land has its own climate as compared with the broad tract lying along the atlantic. hence the latter is known as the hot region (_caliente_), and the former the cold region (_fria_). between the two climates, as the traveler mounts from the sea-level to the great plateau, is the temperate region (_templada_), an intermediate belt of perpetual humidity, a welcome escape from the heat and deadly malaria of the hot region with its "bilious fevers." sometimes as he passes along the bases of the volcanic mountains, casting his eye "down some steep slope or almost unfathomable ravine on the margin of the road, he sees their depths glowing with the rich blooms and enameled vegetation of the tropics." this contrast arises from the height he has now gained above the hot coast region. the climate on the table-land is only cold in a relative sense, being mild to europeans, with a mean temperature at the capital of 60°, seldom lowered to the freezing-point. the "temperate" slopes form the "paradise of mexico," from "the balmy climate, the magnificent scenery, and the wealth of semitropical vegetation." the aztec and tescucan laws were kept in state records, and shown publicly in hieroglyphs. the great crimes against society were all punished with death, including the murder of a slave. slaves could hold property, and all their sons were freedmen. the code in general showed real respect for the leading principles of morality. in mexico, as in ancient egypt, the soldier shared with the priest the highest consideration. the king must be an experienced warrior. the tutelary deity of the aztecs was the god of war. a great object of military expeditions was to gather hecatombs of captives for his altars. the soldier who fell in battle was transported at once to the region of ineffable bliss in the bright mansions of the sun.... thus every war became a crusade; and the warrior was not only raised to a contempt of danger, but courted it--animated by a religious enthusiasm like that of the early saracen or the christian crusader. the officers of the armies wore rich and conspicuous uniforms--a tight-fitting tunic of quilted cotton sufficient to turn the arrows of the native indians; a cuirass (for superior officers) made of thin plates of gold or silver; an overcoat or cloak of variegated feather-work; helmets of wood or silver, bearing showy plumes, adorned with precious stones and gold ornaments. their belts, collars, bracelets, and earrings were also of gold or silver. southey, in his poem, makes his welsh prince, madoc, thus boast: their mail, if mail it may be called, was woven of vegetable down, like finest flax, bleached to the whiteness of new-fallen snow, ... others of higher office were arrayed in feathery breastplates, of more gorgeous hue than the gay plumage of the mountain-cock, than the pheasants' glittering pride. but what were these or what the thin gold hauberk, when opposed to arms like ours in battle? _madoc_, i, 7. we learn of the ancient mexicans, to their honor, that in the large towns hospitals were kept for the cure of the sick and wounded soldiers, and as a permanent refuge if disabled. not only so, says a spanish historian, but "the surgeons placed over them were so far better than those in europe that they did not protract the cure to increase the pay." even the red man of the woods, as we learn from fenimore cooper and catlin, believes reverently in the great spirit who upholds the universe; and similarly his more civilized brother of mexico or tezcuco spoke of a supreme creator, lord of heaven and earth. in their prayers some of the phrases were: the god by whom we live, omnipresent, knowing all thoughts, giving all gifts, without whom man is nothing, invisible, incorporeal, of perfect perfection and purity, under whose wings we find repose and a sure defense. prescott, however, remarks that notwithstanding such attributes "the idea of unity--of a being with whom volition is action, who has no need of inferior ministers to execute his purposes--was too simple, or too vast, for their understandings; and they sought relief, as usual, in a plurality of deities, who presided over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various occupations of man." the aztecs, in fact, believed in thirteen _dii majores_ and over 200 _dii minores_. to each of these a special day was assigned in the calendar, with its appropriate festival. chief of them all was that bloodthirsty monster _huitsilopochtli_, the hideous god of war--tutelary deity of the nation. there was a huge temple to him in the capital, and on the great altar before his image there, and on all his altars throughout the empire, the reeking blood of thousands of human victims was being constantly poured out. the terrible name of this mexican mars has greatly puzzled scholars of the language. according to one derivation, the name is a compound of two words, _humming-bird_ and _on the left_, because his image has the feathers of that bird on the left foot. prescott naturally thinks that "too amiable an etymology for so ruffian a deity." the other name of the war-god, _mexitl_ (i. e., "the hare of the aloes"), is much better known, because from it is derived the familiar name of the capital. [illustration: quetzalcoatl.] the god of the air, _quetzalcoatl_, a beneficent deity, who taught mexicans the use of metals, agriculture, and the arts of government. prescott remarks that he was doubtless one of those benefactors of their species who have been deified by the gratitude of posterity. there was a remarkable tradition of quetzalcoatl, preserved among the mexicans, that he had been a king, afterward a god, and had a temple dedicated to his worship at cholula[16] when on his way to the mexican gulf. embarking there, he bade his people a long farewell, promising that he and his descendants would revisit them. the expectation of his return prepared the way for the success of the tall white-skinned invaders. [footnote 16: the ruins were referred to in chap, iv, (_v._ p. 84, also 130.)] in the aztec agriculture, the staple plant was of course the _maize_ or indian corn. humboldt tells us that at the conquest it was grown throughout america, from the south of chile to the river st. lawrence; and it is still universal in the new world. other important plants on the aztec soil were the _banana_, which (according to one spanish writer) was the forbidden fruit that tempted our poor mother eve; the _cacao_, whose fruit supplies the valuable chocolate; the _vanilla_, used for flavoring; and most important of all, the _maguey_, or mexican aloe, much valued because its leaves were manufactured into paper, and its juice by fermentation becomes the national intoxicant, "pulque." the _maguey_, or great mexican aloe, grown all over the table-land, is called "the miracle of nature," producing not only the _pulque_, but supplying _thatch_ for the cottages, _thread_ and _cords_ from its tough fiber, _pins_ and _needles_ from the thorns which grow on the leaves, an excellent _food_ from its roots, and _writing-paper_ from its leaves. one writer, after speaking of the "pulque" being made from the "maguey," adds, "with what remains of these leaves they manufacture excellent and very fine cloth, resembling holland or the finest linen." the _itztli_, formerly mentioned as being used at the sacrifices by the officiating priest, was "obsidian," a dark transparent mineral, of the greatest hardness, and therefore useful for making knives and razors. the mexican sword was serrated, those of the finest quality being of course edged with itztli. sculptured figures abounded in every aztec temple and town, but in design very inferior to the ancient specimens of egypt and babylonia, not to mention greece. a remarkable collection of their sculptured images occurred in the _place_ or great square of mexico--the aztec forum--and similar spots. ever since the spanish invasion the destruction of the native objects of art has been ceaseless and ruthless. "two celebrated bas-reliefs of the last montezuma and his father," says prescott, "cut in the solid rock, in the beautiful groves of chapoltepec, were deliberately destroyed, as late as the last century [i. e., the eighteenth], by order of the government." he further remarks: this wantonness of destruction provokes the bitter animadversion of the spanish writer martyr, whose enlightened mind respected the vestiges of civilization wherever found. "the conquerors," says he, "seldom repaired the buildings that they defaced; they would rather sack twenty stately cities than erect one good edifice." the pre-columbian mexicans inherited a practical knowledge of mechanics and engineering. the calendar stone, for example (spoken of in the preceding chapter), a mass of dark porphyry estimated at fifty tons weight, was carried for a distance of many leagues from the mountains beyond lake chalco, through a rough country crossed by rivers and canals. in the passage its weight broke down a bridge over a canal, and the heavy rock had to be raised from the water beneath. with such obstacles, without the draft assistance of horses or cattle, how was it possible to effect such a transport? perhaps the mechanical skill of their builders and engineers had contrived some tramway or other machinery. an english traveler had a curious suggestion: latrobe accommodates the wonders of nature and art very well to each other, by suggesting that these great masses of stone were transported by means of the mastodon, whose remains are occasionally disinterred in the mexican valley. the mexicans wove many kinds of cotton cloth, sometimes using as a dye the rich crimson of the cochineal insect. they made a more expensive fabric by interweaving the cotton with the fine hair of rabbits, and other animals; sometimes embroidering with pretty designs of flowers and birds, etc. the special art of the aztec weaver was in feather-work, which when brought to europe produced the highest admiration: with feathers they could produce all the effect of a beautiful mosaic. the gorgeous plumage of the tropical birds, especially of the parrot tribe, afforded every variety of color; and the fine down of the humming-bird, which reveled in swarms among the honeysuckle bowers of mexico, supplied them with soft aerial tints that gave an exquisite finish to the picture. the feathers, pasted on a fine cotton web, were wrought into dresses for the wealthy, hangings for apartments, and ornaments for the temples. when some of the mexican feather-work was shown at strasbourg: "never," says one admirer, "did i behold anything so exquisite for brilliancy and nice gradation of color, and for beauty of design. no european artist could have made such a thing." instead of shops the aztecs had in every town a market-place, where fairs were held every fifth day--i. e., once a week. each commodity had a particular quarter, and the traffic was partly by barter, and partly by using the following articles as money: bits of tin shaped like an egyptian cross (t), bags of cacao holding a specified number of grains, and, for large values, quills of gold-dust. the married women among the aztecs were treated kindly and respectfully by their husbands. the feminine occupations were spinning and embroidery, etc., as among the ancient greeks, while listening to ballads and love stories related by their maidens and musicians (ramusio, iii, 305). in banquets and other social entertainments the women had an equal share with the men. sometimes the festivities were on a large scale, with costly preparations and numerous attendants. the mexicans, ancient and modern, have always been passionately fond of flowers, and on great occasions not only were the halls and courts strewed and adorned in profusion with blossoms of every hue and sweet odor, but perfumes scented every room. the guests as they sat down found ewers of water before them and cotton napkins, since washing the hands both before and after eating was a national habit of almost religious obligation.[17] modern europeans believe that tobacco was introduced from america in the time of queen isabella and queen elizabeth, but ages before that period the aztecs at their banquets had the "fragrant weed" offered to the company, "in pipes, mixed up with aromatic substances, or in the form of cigars, inserted in tubes of tortoise-shell or silver." the smoke after dinner was no doubt preliminary to the _siesta_ or nap of "forty winks." it is not known if the aztec ladies, like their descendants in modern mexico, also appreciated the _yetl_, as the mexicans called "tobacco." our word came from the natives of hayti, one of the islands discovered by columbus. [footnote 17: sahagun (vi, 22) quotes the precise instructions of a father to his son: he must wash face and hands before sitting down to table, and must not leave till he has repeated the operation and cleansed his teeth.] the tables of the aztecs abounded in good food--various dishes of meat, especially game, fowl, and fish. the turkey, for example, was introduced into europe from mexico, although stupidly supposed to have come from asia. the french named it _coq d'inde_,[18] the "indian cock," meaning american, but the ordinary hearer imagined _d'inde_ meant from hindustan. the blunder arose from that misapplication of the word "indian," first made by columbus, as we formerly explained. [footnote 18: the spanish named this handsome bird _gallopavo_ (lat. _pavo_, the "peacock"). the wild turkey is larger and more beautiful than the tame, and therefore benjamin franklin, when speaking sarcastically of the "american eagle," insisted that the wild turkey was the proper national emblem.] the aztec cooks dressed their viands with various sauces and condiments, the more solid dishes being followed by fruits of many kinds, as well as sweetmeats and pastry. chafing-dishes even were used. besides the varieties of beautiful flowers which adorned the table there were sculptured vases of silver and sometimes gold. at table the favorite beverage was the _chocolatl_ flavored with vanilla and different spices. the fermented juice of the maguey, with a mixture of sweets and acids, supplied also various agreeable drinks, of different degrees of strength. when the young mexicans of both sexes amused themselves with dances, the older people kept their seats in order to enjoy their _pulque_ and gossip, or listen to the discourse of some guest of importance. the music which accompanied the dances was frequently soft and rather plaintive. the early mexicans included the tezcucans as well as the aztecs proper; and since their capitals were on the same lake and both races were closely akin, we may devote some space to these alcohuans or eastern aztecs. their civilization was superior to that of the western aztecs in some respects, and nezahual-coyotl, their greatest prince, formed alliance with the western state, and then remodeled the various departments of his government. he had a council of war, another of finance, and a third of justice. a remarkable institution, under king nezahual-coyotl, was the "council of music," intended to promote the study of science and the practise of art. tezcuco, in fact, became the nursery not only of such sciences as could be compassed by the scholarship of the period, but of various useful and ornamental arts. "its historians, orators, and poets were celebrated throughout the country.... its idiom, more polished than the mexican, continued long after the conquest to be that in which the best productions of the native races were composed. tezcuco was the athens of the western world.... among the most illustrious of her bards was their king himself." a spanish writer adds that it was to the eastern aztecs that noblemen sent their sons "to study poetry, moral philosophy, the heathen theology, astronomy, medicine, and history." [illustration: ancient bridge near tezcuco.] the most remarkable problem connected with ancient mexico is how to reconcile the general refinement and civilization with the sacrifices of human victims. there was no town or city but had its temples in public places, with stairs visibly leading up to the sacrificial stone, ever standing ready before some hideous idol or other--as already described. in all countries there have been public spectacles of bloodshed, not only as in the gladiators in the ancient circus- butchered to make a roman holiday, or the tournays of the middle ages, but in the prize-ring fights and public executions by ax or guillotine, of the age that is just passing away. the thousands who perished for religious ideas by means of the holy roman inquisition should not be overlooked by the spanish writers who are so indignant that montezuma and his priests sacrificed tens of thousands under the claims of a heathen religion. the very day on which we write these words, august 18th, is the anniversary of the last sentence for beheading passed by our house of lords. by that sentence three scottish "jacobites" passed under the ax on tower hill, where their remains still rest in a chapel hard by. so lately as 1873, the shah of persia, when resident as a visitor in buckingham palace, was amazed to find that the laws of great britain prevented him from depriving five of his courtiers of their lives. they had just been found guilty of some paltry infringement of persian etiquette. during the last generation or the previous one, both in england and scotland, the country schoolmaster on a certain day had the schoolroom cleared so that the children and their friends should enjoy the treat of seeing all the game-cocks of the parish bleeding on the floor one after another, being either struck by a spur to the brain, or else wounded to a painful death. when james boswell and others regularly attended the spectacles of tyburn and sometimes cheered the wretched victim if he "died game," the philosopher will not wonder at the populace of some city of ancient mexico crowding round the great temple and greedily watching the bloody sacrifice done with full sanction of the priesthood and the king. the primitive religions were derived from sun-worship, and as fire is the nearest representative of the sun, it seemed essential to _burn_ the victim offered as a sacrifice. at carthage, the great phenician colony, children were cruelly sacrificed by fire to the god melkarth of tyre. "melkarth" being simply _melech kiriath_ (i. e., "king of the city"), and therefore identical with the "moloch" or "molech" of the ammonites, moabites, and israelites. in the earliest prehistoric age the children of ammon, moab, and israel were apparently so closely akin that they had practically the same religion and worshiped the same idols. the tribal god was originally the god of syria or canaan. in more than a dozen places of the old testament we find the hebrews accused of burning their children or passing them through the fire to the sun-god, but the ancient mexicans did not burn their victims, and _in no case were the victims their own children_. the victims were captives taken in war, or persons convicted of crime; and thus the mexicans were in atrocity far surpassed by those races akin to the hebrews who are much denounced by the sacred writers, e. g.: josiah ... defiled topheth that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to molech (2 kings xxiii, 10). they have built also the high places to burn their sons with fire for burnt-offerings (jer. xix, 5). yea, they shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of canaan (ps. cvi, 37). that a father should offer his own child as a sacrifice to the sun-god or any other, would to the mild and gentle aztec be too dreadful a conception. it is the enormous number who were immolated that shocks the european mind, but to the populace enjoying the spectacle the victims were enemies of the king or criminals deserving execution. perhaps it is a more difficult problem to explain how so civilized a community as the aztec races undoubtedly were could look with complacency upon any one tasting a dish composed of some part of the captive he had taken in battle. it is not only repulsive as an idea, but seems impossible. yet much depends on the point of view as well as the atmosphere. according to archeologists, all the primeval races of men could at a pinch feed on human flesh, but after many generations learned to do better without it. we may have simply outgrown the craving, till at last we call it unnatural, whereas those ancient mexicans, with all their wealth of food, had refined upon it. let us again refer to the old testament: thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters and these hast thou sacrificed to be devoured (ezek. xvi, 20). ... have caused their sons to pass for them through the fire, to devour them (ezek. xxiii, 37). we may therefore infer that to the early races of canaan (including israel), as well as to the primeval aztecs, it was a privilege and religious custom to eat part of any sacrifice that had been offered. there can be little doubt, to any one who has studied the earliest human antiquities, that all races indulged in cannibalism, not only during that enormously remote age called paleolithic, but in comparatively recent though still prehistoric times. "this is clearly proved by the number of human bones, chiefly of women and young persons, which have been found charred by fire and split open for extraction of the marrow." such charred bones have frequently been preserved in caves, as at chaleux in belgium, where in some instances they occurred "in such numbers as to indicate that they had been the scene of cannibal feasts." the survival of human sacrifice among the aztecs, with its accompanying traces of cannibalism, was due to the savagery of a long previous condition of their indian race; just as in the greek drama, when that ancient people had attained a high level of culture and refinement, the sacrifice of a human life, sometimes a princess or other distinguished heroine, was not unfrequent. we remember polyxena, the virgin daughter of hecuba, whom her own people resolved to sacrifice on the tomb of achilles; and her touching bravery, as she requests the greeks not to bind her, being ashamed, she says, "having lived a princess to die a slave." a better known example is iphigenia, so beloved by her father, king agamemnon, and yet given up by him a victim for purposes of state and religion. [illustration: teocalli, aztec temple for human sacrifices.] from the greek drama, human sacrifices frequently passed to the roman; nor does such a refined critic as horace object to it, but only suggests that the bloodshed ought to be perpetrated behind the scenes. in seneca's play, medea (quoted in our introduction), that rule was grossly violated, since the children have their throats cut by their heroic mother in full view of the audience. in the same passage (ars poët., 185, 186) horace forbids a banquet of human flesh being prepared before the eyes of the public, as had been done in a play written by ennius, the roman poet. the religious sacrifice of human victims by the "druids" or priests of ancient gaul and britain seems exactly parallel to the wholesale executions on the mexican _teocallis_, since the wretched victims whom our celtic ancestors packed for burning into those huge wicker images, were captives taken in battle, like those stretched for slaughter upon the mexican stone of sacrifice. human sacrifice was so common in civilized rome that it was not till the first century b. c. that a law was passed expressly forbidding it--(pliny, hist. nat., xxx, 3, 4). chapter vi arrival of the spaniards the "new birth" of the world, which characterized the end of the fifteenth century, had an enormous influence upon spain. her queen, the "great catholic isabella," had, by assisting columbus, done much in the great discovery of the western world. spain speedily had substantial reward in the boundless wealth poured into her lap, and the rich colonies added to her dominion. thus in the beginning of the sixteenth century the new consolidated spain, formed by the union of the two kingdoms, castile and aragon, became the richest and greatest of all the european states. the spanish governors in the west indies being ambitious of planting new colonies in the name of the spanish king, conquest and annexation were stimulated in all directions. when cuba and hayti were overrun and annexed to spain, not without much unjust treatment of the simple natives, as we have seen, they became centers of operation, whence expeditions could be sent to trinidad or any other island, to panama, to yucatan, or florida, or any other part of the continent. after the marvelous experience of grijalva in yucatan, then considered an island, and his report that its inhabitants were quite a civilized community compared with the natives of the isles, velasquez, the governor of cuba, resolved at once to invade the new country for purposes of annexation and plunder. velasquez prepared a large expedition for this adventure, consisting of eleven ships with more than 600 armed men on board; and after much deliberation chose fernando cortés to be the commander. who was this cortés, destined by his military genius and unscrupulous policy to be comparable to hannibal or julius cæsar among the ancients, and to clive or napoleon bonaparte among the moderns? velasquez knew him well as one of his subordinates in the cruel conquest of cuba; before that cortés had distinguished himself in hayti as an energetic and skilled officer. of an impetuous and fiery temper which he had learned to keep thoroughly in command, he was characterized by that quality possessed by all commanders of superior genius, the "art of gaining the confidence and governing the minds of men." as a youth in spain he had studied for the bar at the university of salamanca; and in some of his speeches on critical occasions one can find certain traces of his academical training in the adroit arguments and clever appeals. other qualifications as an officer were his manly and handsome appearance, his affable manners, combined with "extraordinary address in all martial exercises, and a constitution of such vigor as to be capable of enduring any fatigue." cortés on reviewing his commission from the governor, velasquez, was too shrewd not to be aware of the importance of his new position. the "great admiral," with reference to the discovery of the new world, had said: "i have only opened the door for others to enter"; and cortés was conscious that now was the moment for that entrance. filled with unbounded ambition he rose to the occasion. velasquez somewhat hypocritically pretended that the object he had in view was merely barter with the natives of new spain--that being the name given by grijalva to yucatan and the neighboring country. he ordered cortés to impress on the natives the grandeur and goodness of his royal master; to invite them to give in their allegiance to him, and to manifest it by regaling him with such comfortable presents of gold, pearls, and precious stones as by showing their own good-will would secure his favor and protection. mustering his forces for the new expedition, cortés found that he had no sailors, 553 soldiers, besides 200 indians of the island; ten heavy guns, four lighter ones, called falconets. he had also sixteen horses, knowing the effect of even a small body of cavalry in dealing with savages. on february 18, 1519, cortés sailed with eleven vessels for the coast of yucatan. landing at tabasco, where grijalva had found the natives friendly, cortés found that the yucatans had resolved to oppose him, and were presently assembled in great numbers. the result of the fighting, however, was naturally a foregone conclusion, partly on account of "the astonishment and terror excited by the destructive effect" of the european firearms, and the "monstrous apparition" of men on horseback. such quadrupeds they had never seen before, and they concluded that the rider with his horse formed one unaccountable animal. gomara and other chroniclers tell how st. james, the tutelar saint of spain, appeared in the ranks on a gray horse, and led the christians to victory over the heathen. an especially fortunate thing for cortés was that among the female slaves presented after this battle, there was one of remarkable intelligence, who understood both the aztec and the mayan languages, and soon learned the spanish. she proved invaluable to cortés as an interpreter, and afterward had a share in all his campaigns. she is generally called marina. if the spanish accounts are true, stating that the native army consisted of five squadrons of 8,000 men each, then this victory is one of the most remarkable on record, as a proof of the value of gunpowder as compared with primitive bows and arrows. to the simple americans the terrible invaders seemed actually to wield the thunder and the lightning. next day cortés made an arrangement with the chiefs; and after confidence was restored, asked where they got their gold from. they pointed to the high grounds on the west, and said _culhua_, meaning mexico. the palm sunday being at hand, the conversion of the "heathen" was duly celebrated by pompous and solemn ceremonial. the army marched in procession with the priests at their head, accompanied by crowds of indians of both sexes, till they reached the principal temple. a new altar being built, the image of the presiding deity was taken from its place and thrown down, to make room for that of the virgin carrying the infant saviour. cortés now learned that the capital of the mexican empire was on the mountain plains nearly seventy leagues inland; and that the ruler was the great and powerful montezuma. it was on the morning of good friday that cortés landed on the site of vera cruz, which after the conquest of mexico speedily grew into a flourishing seaport, becoming the commercial capital of new spain. a friendly conference took place between cortés and teuhtlile, an aztec chief, who asked from what country the strangers had come and why they had come. "i am a servant," replied cortés, "of a mighty monarch beyond the seas, who rules over an immense empire, having kings and princes for his vassals. since my master has heard of the greatness of the mexican emperor he has desired me to enter into communication with him, and has sent me as envoy to wait upon montezuma with a present in token of good-will, and with a message which i must deliver in person. when can i be admitted to your sovereign's presence?" the aztec chief replied with an air of dignity: "how is it that you have been here only two days, and demand to see the emperor? if there is another monarch as powerful as montezuma, i have no doubt my master will be happy to interchange courtesies." the slaves of teuhtlile presented to cortés ten loads of fine cotton, several mantles of that curious feather-work whose rich and delicate dyes might vie with the most beautiful painting, and a wicker basket filled with ornaments of wrought gold, all calculated to inspire the spaniards with high ideas of the wealth and mechanical ingenuity of the mexicans. having duly expressed his thanks, cortés then laid before the aztec chief the presents intended for montezuma. these were "an armchair richly carved and painted; a crimson cap bearing a gold medal emblazoned with st. george and the dragon; collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of cut-glass, which, in a country where glass was unknown, might claim to have the value of real gems." during the interview teuhtlile had been curiously observing a shining gilt helmet worn by a soldier, and said that it was exactly like that of quetzalcoatl. "who is he?" asked cortés. "quetzalcoatl is the god about whom the aztecs have the prophecy that he will come back to them across the sea." cortés promised to send the helmet to montezuma, and expressed a wish that it would be returned filled with the gold-dust of the aztecs, that he might compare it with the spanish gold-dust! one reporter who was present says: he further told governor teuhtlile that the spaniards were troubled with a disease of the heart for which gold was a specific remedy! another incident of this notable interview was that one of the mexican attendants was observed by cortés to be scribbling with a pencil. it was an artist sketching the appearance of the strangers, their dress, arms, and attitude, and filling in the picture with touches of color. struck with the idea of being thus represented to the mexican monarch, cortés ordered the cavalry to be exercised on the beach in front of the artists. the bold and rapid movements of the troops, ... the apparent ease with which they managed the fiery animals on which they were mounted, the glancing of their weapons, and the shrill cry of the trumpet, all filled the spectators with astonishment; but when they heard the thunders of the cannon, which cortés ordered to be fired at the same time, and witnessed the volumes of smoke and flame issuing from these terrible engines, and the rushing sound of the balls, as they dashed through the trees of the neighboring forest, shivering their branches into fragments, they were filled with consternation and wonder, from which the aztec chief himself was not wholly free. this was all faithfully copied by the picture-writers, so far as their art went, in sketching and vivid coloring. they also recorded the ships of the strangers--"the water-houses," as they were named--whose dark hulls and snow-white sails were swinging at anchor in the bay. meantime what had montezuma been doing, the sad-faced[19] and haughty emperor of mexico, land of the aztecs and the tezcucans? at the beginning of his reign he had as a skilful general led his armies as far as honduras and nicaragua, extending the limits of the empire, so that it had now reached the maximum. [footnote 19: the name montezuma means "sad or severe man," a title suited to his features, though not to his mild character.] tezcuco, the sister state to mexico, had latterly shown hostility to montezuma, and still more formidable was the republic of tlascala, lying between his capital and the coast. prodigies and prophecies now began to affect all classes of the population in the mexican valley. everybody spoke of the return from over the sea of the popular god quetzalcoatl, the fair-skinned and longhaired (p. 93). a generation had already elapsed since the first rumors that white men in great mysterious vessels, bearing in their hands the thunder and lightning, were seizing the islands and must soon seize the mainland. no wonder that montezuma, stern, tyrannical, and disappointed, should be dismayed at the news of grijalva's landing, and still more so when hearing of the fleet and army of cortés, and seeing their horsemen pictured by his artists--the whole accompanied by exaggerated accounts of the guns and cannon able to produce thunder and lightning. after holding a council, montezuma resolved to send an embassy to cortés, presenting him with a present which should reflect the incomparable grandeur and resources of mexico, and at the same time forbidding an approach to the capital. the governor teuhtlile, on this second embassy, was accompanied by two aztec nobles and 100 slaves, bearing the present from montezuma to cortés. as they entered the pavilion of the spanish general the air was filled with clouds of incense which rose from censers carried by some attendants. some delicately wrought mats were then unrolled, and on them the slaves displayed the various articles, ... shields, helmets, cuirasses, embossed with plates and ornaments of pure gold; collars and bracelets of the same metal, sandals, fans, and crests of variegated feathers, intermingled with gold and silver thread, and sprinkled with pearls and precious stones; imitations of birds and animals in wrought and cast gold and silver, of exquisite workmanship; curtains, coverlets, and robes of cotton, fine as silk, of rich and various dyes, interwoven with feather-work that rivaled the delicacy of painting.... the things which excited most admiration were two circular plates of gold and silver, as "large as carriage-wheels"; one representing the sun was richly carved with plants and animals. it was thirty palms in circumference, and was worth about £52,500 sterling.[20] [footnote 20: robertson, the historian, gives £5,000; but prescott reckons a _peso de oro_ at £2 12s. 6d.; whence the 20,000 of the text gives 20,000 x 2-5/8 = 2,500 x 21 = £52,500.] cortés was interested in seeing the soldier's helmet brought back to him full to the brim with grains of gold. the courteous message from montezuma, however, did not please him much. montezuma excused himself from having a personal interview by "the distance being too great, and the journey beset with difficulties and dangers from formidable enemies.... all that could be done, therefore, was for the strangers to return to their own land." soon after cortés, by a species of statecraft, formed a new municipality, thus transforming his camp into a civil community. the name of the new city was _villa rica de vera cruz_, i. e., "the rich town of the true cross." once the municipality was formed, cortés resigned before them his office of captain-general, and thus became free from the authority of velasquez. the city council at once chose cortés to be captain-general and chief justice of the colony. he could now go forward unchecked by any superior except the crown. it was a desperate undertaking to climb with an army from the hot region of this flat coast through the varied succession of "slopes" which form the temperate region, and at last, on the high table-land, obtain entrance upon the great enclosed valley of mexico. cortés found that an essential preliminary was to gain the friendship of the totonacs, a nation tributary to montezuma. their subjection to the aztecs he had already verified, since one day when holding a conference with the totonac leaders and a neighboring cazique (i. e., "prince"), cortés saw five men of haughty appearance enter the market-place, followed by several attendants, and at once receive the politest attention from the totonacs. cortés asked marina, his slave interpreter, who or what they were. "they are aztec nobles," she replied, "sent by montezuma to receive tribute." presently the totonac chiefs came to cortés with looks of dire dismay, to inform him of the great emperor's resentment at the entertainment offered to the spaniards, and demanding in expiation twenty young men and women for sacrifice to the aztec gods. cortés, with every look of indignation, insisted that the totonacs should not only refuse to comply, but should seize the aztec messengers and hold them strictly confined in prison. unscrupulous to gain his ends, cortés by lies and cunning duplicity managed to set the mexican nobles free, dismissing them with a friendly message to montezuma, while at the same time securing the confidence of the simple-minded totonacs, urging them to join the spaniards and make a bold effort to regain their independence. some thought that cortés was really the kindly divinity quetzalcoatl, promised by the prophets to bring freedom and happiness. as an instance of the religious enthusiasm of the spanish invaders, we may give the account of the "conversion" of zempoalla, a city in the totonac district. when cortés pressed upon the cazique of zempoalla that his mission was to turn the indians from the abominations of their present religion, that prince replied that he could not accept what the spanish priests had told him about the creator and ruler of the universe; especially that he ever stooped to become a mere man, weak and poor, so as to suffer voluntarily persecution and even death at the hands of some of his own creatures. the cazique added that he "would resist any violence offered to his gods, who would, indeed, avenge the act themselves by the instant destruction of their enemies." cortés and his men seized the opportunity. there is no doubt that, after witnessing some of the barbarous sacrifices of human victims followed by cannibal feasts, their souls had naturally been sickened. they now proceeded to force the work of conversion as soon as cortés had appealed to them and declared that "god and the holy saints would never favor their enterprise, if such atrocities were allowed; and that for his own part, he was resolved the indian idols should be demolished that very hour if it cost him his life. "scarcely waiting for his commands the spaniards moved toward one of the principal _teocallis_, or temples, which rose high on a pyramidal foundation with a steep ascent of stone steps in the middle. the cazique, divining their purpose, instantly called his men to arms. the indian warriors gathered from all quarters, with shrill cries and clashing of weapons, while the priests, in their dark cotton robes, with disheveled tresses matted with blood, rushed frantic among the natives, calling on them to protect their gods from violation! all was now confusion and tumult.... cortés took his usual prompt measures. causing the cazique and some of the principal citizens and priests to be arrested, he commanded them to quiet the people, declaring that if a single arrow was shot against a spaniard, it should cost every one of them his life.... the cazique covered his face with his hands, exclaiming that the gods would avenge their own wrongs. "the christians were not slow in availing themselves of his tacit acquiescence. fifty soldiers, at a signal from their general, sprang up the great stairway of the temple, entered the building on the summit, the walls of which were black with human gore, and dragged the huge wooden idols to the edge of the terrace. their fantastic forms and features, conveying a symbolic meaning which was lost on the spaniards, seemed to their eyes only the hideous lineaments of satan. with great alacrity they rolled the colossal monsters down the steps of the pyramid, amid the triumphant shouts of their own companions and the groans and lamentations of the natives. they then consummated the whole by burning them in the presence of the assembled multitude." after the temple had been cleansed from every trace of the idol-worship and its horrors, a new altar was raised, surmounted by a lofty cross, and hung with garlands of roses. a reaction having now set in among the indians, many were willing to become christians, and some of the aztec priests even joined in a procession to signify their conversion, wearing white robes instead of their former dark mantles, and carrying lighted candles in their hands, "while an image of the virgin half smothered under the weight of flowers was borne aloft, and, as the procession climbed the steps of the temple, was deposited above the altar.... the impressive character of the ceremony and the passionate eloquence of the good priest touched the feelings of the motley audience, until indians as well as spaniards, if we may trust the chronicler, were melted into tears and audible sobs." before finally marching westward toward the temperate "slopes" of the mountains, cortés had another opportunity of proving his generalship and prompt resource at a critical moment. when agathocles, the autocratic ruler of syracuse, sailed over to defeat the carthaginians, the first thing he did on landing in africa was to burn his ships, that his soldiers might have no opportunity of retreat, and no hope but in victory. cortés now acted on exactly the same principle. after discovering that a number of his soldiers had formed a conspiracy to seize one of the ships and sail to cuba, cortés, on conviction, punished two of the ringleaders with death. soon after, he formed the extraordinary resolution of destroying his ships without the knowledge of his army. the five worst ships were first ordered to be dismantled; and, soon after, to be sunk. when the rest were inspected, four of them were condemned in the same manner. when the news reached zempoalla, the army were excited almost to open mutiny. cortés, however, was perfectly cool. addressing the army collectively, he assured them that the ships were not fit for service, as had been shown by due inspection. "there is one important advantage gained to the army, viz., the addition of a hundred able-bodied recruits who were necessary to man the lost ships. besides all that, of what use could ships be to us in the present expedition? as for me, i will remain here even without a comrade. as for those who shrink from the dangers of our glorious enterprise, let them go back, in god's name! let them go home, since there is still one vessel left; let them go on board and return to cuba. they can tell how they deserted their commander and their comrades, and patiently wait till they see us return loaded with the spoils of the aztecs." persuasion is the end of true oratory. the reply of the army to cortés was the unanimous shout "to mexico! to mexico!" after beginning the gradual ascent in their march toward the table-land of mexico, the first place noted by the invaders was jalapa, a town which still retains its aztec name, known to all the world by the well-known drug grown there. it is a favorite resort of the wealthier residents in vera cruz, and that too tropical plain which cortés had just left. the mighty mountain orizaba, one of the guardians of the mexican valley, is now full in sight, towering in solitary grandeur with its robe of snow. at last they reached a town so populous that there were thirteen aztec temples with the usual sacrificial stone for human victims before each idol. in the suburbs the spanish were shocked by a gathering of human skulls, many thousand in number. this appalling reminder of the unspeakable sacrifices soon became a familiar sight as they marched through that country. cortés asked the cazique if he were subject to montezuma. "who is there," replied the local prince, "that is not tributary to that emperor?" "_i_ am not," said the stranger general. cortés assured him that the monarch whom the spaniards served had princes as vassals, who were more powerful than the aztec ruler. the cazique said: montezuma could muster thirty great vassals, each master of 100,000 men. his revenues were incalculable, since every subject, however poor, paid something.... more than 20,000 victims, the fruit of his wars, were annually sacrificed on the altars of his gods! his capital stood on a lake, in the center of a spacious valley.... the approach to the city was by means of causeways several miles long; and when the connecting bridges were raised all communication with the country was cut off. the indians showed the greatest curiosity respecting the dresses, weapons, horses, and dogs of their strange visitors. the country all around was then well wooded and full of villages and towns, which disappeared after the conquest. humboldt remarked, when he traveled there, that the whole district had, "at the time of the arrival of the spanish, been more inhabited and better cultivated, and that in proportion as they got higher up near the table-land, they found the villages more frequent, the fields more subdivided, and the people more law-abiding." before entering upon the table-land, cortés resolved to visit the republic of tlascala, which was noted for having retained its independence in spite of the aztecs. after sending an embassy, consisting of the four chief zempoallas, who had accompanied the army, he set out toward tlascala, lingering as they proceeded, so that his ambassadors should have time to return. while wondering at the delay, they suddenly reached a remarkable fortification which marked the limits of the republic, and acted as a barrier against the mexican invasions. prescott thus describes it: a stone wall nine feet in height and twenty in thickness, with a parapet a foot and a half broad raised on the summit for the protection of those who defended it. it had only one opening in the center, made by two semicircular lines of wall overlapping each other for the space of forty paces, and affording a passageway between, ten paces wide, so contrived, therefore, as to be perfectly commanded by the inner wall. this fortification, which extended more than two leagues, rested at either end on the bold natural buttresses formed by the sierra. the work was built of immense blocks of stone nicely laid together without cement, and the remains still existing, among which are rocks of the whole breadth of the rampart, fully attest its solidity and size. who were the people of this stout-hearted republic? the tlascalans were a kindred tribe to the aztecs, and after coming to the mexican valley, toward the close of the twelfth century, had settled for many years on the western shore of lake tezcuco. afterward they migrated to that district of fruitful valleys where cortés found them; _tlascala_, meaning "land of bread." they then, as a nation, consisted of four separate states, considerably civilized, and always able to protect their confederacy against foreign invasion. their arts, religion, and architecture were the same as those of the aztecs and tezcucans. more than once had the aztecs attempted to bring the little republic into subjection, but in vain. in one campaign montezuma had lost a favorite, besides having his army defeated; and though a much more formidable invasion followed, "the bold mountaineers withdrew into the recesses of their hills, and coolly watching their opportunity, rushed like a torrent on the invaders, and drove them back with dreadful slaughter from their territories." the tlascalans had of course heard of the redoubtable europeans and their advance upon montezuma's kingdom, but not expecting any visit themselves, they were in doubt about the embassy sent by cortés, and the council had not reached a decision when the arrival of cortés was announced at the head of his cavalry. attacked by a body of several thousand indians, he sent back a horseman to make the infantry hurry up to his assistance. two of the horses were killed, a loss seriously felt by cortés; but when the main body had discharged a volley from their muskets and crossbows, so astounded were the tlascalan indians that they stopped fighting and withdrew from the field. next morning, after cortés had given careful instruction to his army (now more than 3,000 in number, with his indian auxiliaries), they had not marched far when they were met by two of the zempoallans, who had been sent as ambassadors. they informed cortés that, as captives, they had been reserved for the sacrificial stone, but had succeeded in breaking out of prison. they also said that forces were being collected from all quarters to meet the spaniards. at the first encounter, the indians, after some spirited fighting, retreated in order to draw the spanish army into a defile impracticable for artillery or cavalry. pressing forward they found, on turning an abrupt corner of the glen, that an army of many thousands was drawn up in order, prepared to receive them. as they came into view, the tlascalans set up a piercing war-cry, shrill and hideous, accompanied by the melancholy beat of a thousand drums. cortés spurred on the cavalry to force a passage for the infantry, and kept exhorting his soldiers, while showing them an example of personal daring. "if we fail now," he cried, "the cross of christ can never be planted in this land. forward, comrades! when was it ever known that a castilian turned his back on a foe?" with desperate efforts the soldiers forced a passage through the indian columns, and then, as soon as the horse opened room for the movements of the gunners, the terrible "thunder and lightning" of the cannon did the rest. the havoc caused in their ranks, combined with the roar and the flash of gunpowder, and the mangled carcasses, filled the whole of the barbarian army with horror and consternation. eight leaders of the tlascalan army having fallen, the prince ordered a retreat. the chief of the tlascalans, xicotencatl, was no ordinary leader. when cortés wished to press on to the capital, he sent two envoys to the tlascalan camp, but all that xicotencatl deigned to reply was that the spaniards might pass on as soon as they chose to tlascala, and when they reached it their flesh would be hewn from their bodies for sacrifice to the gods. if they preferred to remain in their own quarters, he would pay them a visit there the next day. the envoys also told cortés that the chief had now collected another very large army, five battalions of 10,000 men each. there was evidently a determination to try the fate of tlascala by a pitched battle and exterminate the bold invaders. the next day, september 5, 1519, was therefore a critical one in the annals of cortés. he resolved to meet the tlascalan chief in the field, after directing the foot-soldiers to use the point of their swords and not the edge; the horse to charge at half speed, directing their lances at the eyes of their enemies; the gunners and crossbowmen to support each other, some loading while others were discharging their pieces. before cortés and his soldiers had marched a mile they saw the immense tlascalan army stretched far and wide over a vast plain. nothing could be more picturesque than the aspect of these indian battalions, with the naked bodies of the common soldiers gaudily painted, the fantastic helmets of the chiefs bright with ornaments and precious stones, and the glowing panoplies of feather-work.... the golden glitterance and the feather-mail more gay than glittering gold; and round the helm a coronal of high upstanding plumes.... ... with war-songs and wild music they came on.[21] [footnote 21: southey (madoc, i, 7).] the tlascalan warriors had attained wonderful skill in throwing the javelin. "one species, with a thong attached to it, which remained in the slinger's hand, that he might recall the weapon, was especially dreaded by the spaniards." their various weapons were pointed with bone or obsidian, and sometimes headed with copper. the yell or scream of defiance raised by these indians almost drowned the volume of sound from "the wild barbaric minstrelsy of shell, atabal, and trumpet with which they proclaimed their triumphant anticipations of victory over the paltry forces of the invaders." advancing under a thick shower of arrows and other missiles, the spanish soldiers at a certain distance quickly halted and drew up in order, before delivering a general fire along the whole line. the front ranks of their wild opponents were mowed down and those behind were "petrified with dismay." but for the accident of dissension having arisen between the chiefs of the tlascalans, it almost seemed as if nothing could have saved cortés and his spanish army. before the battle, the haughty treatment of one of those chiefs by xicotencatl, the cazique, provoked the injured man to draw off all his contingent during the battle, and persuade another chief to do the same. with his forces so weakened, the cazique was compelled to resign the field to the spaniards. xicotencatl, in his eagerness for revenge, consulted some of the aztec priests, who recommended a night attack upon cortés's camp in order to take his army by surprise. the tlascalan, therefore, with 10,000 warriors, marched secretly toward the spanish camp, but owing to the bright moonlight they were not unseen by the vedettes. besides that, cortés had accustomed his army to sleep with their arms by their side and the horses ready saddled. in an instant, as it were, the whole camp were on the alert and under arms. the indians, meanwhile, were stealthily advancing to the silent camp, and, "no sooner had they reached the slope of the rising ground than they were astounded by the deep battle-cry of the spaniards, followed by the instantaneous appearance of the whole army. scarcely awaiting the shock of their enemy, the panic-struck barbarians fled rapidly and tumultuously across the plain. the horse easily overtook the fugitives, riding them down, and cutting them to pieces without mercy." next day cortés sent new ambassadors to the tlascalan capital, accompanied by his faithful slave interpreter, marina. they found the cazique's council sad and dejected, every gleam of hope being now extinguished. the message of cortés still promised friendship and pardon, if only they agreed to act as allies. if the present offer were rejected, "he would visit their capital as a conqueror, raze every house to the ground, and put every inhabitant to the sword." on hearing this ultimatum, the council chose four leading chiefs to be entrusted with a mission to cortés, "assuring him of a free passage through the country, and a friendly reception in the capital." the ambassadors, on their way back to cortés, called at the camp of xicotencatl, and were there detained by him. he was still planning against the terrible invaders. cortés, in the meantime, had another opportunity of showing his resource and presence of mind. some of his soldiers had shown a grumbling discontent: "the idea of conquering mexico was madness; if they had encountered such opposition from the petty republic, what might they not expect from the great mexican empire? there was now a temporary suspension of hostilities; should they not avail themselves of it to retrace their steps to vera cruz?" to this cortés listened calmly and politely, replying that "he had told them at the outset that glory was to be won only by toil and danger; he had never shrunk from his share of both. to go back now was impossible. what would the tlascalans say? how would the mexicans exult at such a miserable issue! instead of turning your eyes toward cuba, fix them on mexico, the great object of our enterprise." many other soldiers having gathered round, the mutinous party took courage to say that "another such victory as the last would be their ruin; they were going to mexico only to be slaughtered." with some impatience cortés gaily quoted a soldiers' song: better die with honor than live in long disgrace! --a sentiment which the majority of the audience naturally cheered to the echo, while the malcontents slunk away to their quarters. the next event was the arrival of some tlascalans wearing white badges as an indication of peace. they brought a message, they said, from xicotencatl, who now desired an arrangement with cortés, and would soon appear in person. most of them remained in the camp, where they were treated kindly; but marina, with her "woman's wit," became somewhat suspicious of them. perhaps some of them, forgetting that she knew their language, let drop a phrase in talking to each other, which awoke her distrust. she told cortés that the men were spies. he had them arrested and examined separately, ascertaining in that way that they were sent to obtain secret information of the spanish camp, and that, in fact, xicotencatl was mustering his forces to make another determined attack on the invading army. to show the fierceness of his resentment at such treatment, cortés ordered the fifty spy ambassadors to have their hands hacked off, and sent back to tell their lord that "the tlascalans might come by day or night, they would find the spaniards ready for them." the sight of their mutilated comrades filled the indian camp with dread and horror. all thoughts of resistance to the advance of cortés were now abandoned, and not long after the arrival of xicotencatl himself was announced, attended by a numerous train. he advanced with "the firm and fearless step of one who was coming rather to bid defiance than to sue for peace. he was rather above the middle size, with broad shoulders and a muscular frame, intimating great activity and strength. he made the usual salutation by touching the ground with his hand and carrying it to his head." he threw no blame on the tlascalan senate, but assumed all the responsibility of the war. he admitted that the spanish army had beaten him, but hoped they would use their victory with moderation, and not trample on the liberties of the republic. cortés admired the cazique's lofty spirit, while pretending to rebuke him for having so long remained an enemy. "he was willing to bury the past in oblivion, and to receive the tlascalans as vassals to the emperor, his master." before the entry into tlascala, the capital, there arrived an embassy from montezuma, who had been keenly disappointed, no doubt, that cortés had not only not been defeated by the bravest race on the mexican table-land, but had formed a friendly alliance with them. as cortés, with his army, approached the populous city, they were welcomed by great crowds of men and women in picturesque dresses, with nosegays and wreaths of flowers; priests in white robes and long matted tresses, swinging their burning censers of incense. the anniversary of this entry into tlascala, september 23, 1519, is still celebrated as a day of rejoicing. cortés, in his letter to the emperor, king of spain, compares it for size and appearance to granada, the moorish capital. pottery was one of the industries in which tlascala excelled. the tlascalan was chiefly agricultural in his habits; his honest breast glowed with the patriotic attachment to the soil, which is the fruit of its diligent culture, while he was elevated by that consciousness of independence which is the natural birthright of a child of the mountains. cholula, capital of the republic of that name, is six leagues north of tlascala, and about twenty southeast of mexico. in the time of the conquest of the table-land of anahuac, as the whole district is sometimes termed, this city was large and populous. the people excelled in mechanical arts, especially metal-working, cloth-weaving, and a delicate kind of pottery. reference has already been made to the god quetzalcoatl, in whose honor a huge pyramid was erected here. from the farthest parts of anahuac devotees thronged to cholula, just as the mohammedans to mecca. the spaniards found the people of cholula superior in dress and looks to any of the races they had seen. the higher classes "wore fine embroidered mantles resembling the moorish cloak in texture and fashion.... they showed the same delicate taste for flowers as the other tribes of the plateau, tossing garlands and bunches among the soldiers.... the spaniards were also struck with the cleanliness of the city, the regularity of the streets, the solidity of the houses, and the number and size of the pyramidal temples." after being treated with kindness and hospitality for several days, all at once the scene changed, the cause being the arrival of messengers from montezuma. at the same time some tlascalans told cortés that a great sacrifice, mostly of children, had been offered to propitiate the favor of the gods. at this juncture, marina, the indian slave interpreter, again proved to be the "good angel" of cortés. she had become very friendly with the wife of one of the cholula caziques, who gave her a hint that there was danger in staying at the house of any spaniard; and, when further pressed by marina, said that the spaniards were to be slaughtered when marching out of the capital. the plot had originated with the aztec emperor, and 20,000 mexicans were already quartered a little distance out of town. in this most critical position, cortés at once decided to take possession of the great square, placing a strong guard at each of its three gates of entrance. the rest of what troops he had in the town, he posted without with the cannon, to command the avenues. he had already sent orders to the tlascalan chiefs to keep their soldiers in readiness to march, at a given signal, into the city to support the spaniards. presently the caziques of cholula arrived with a larger body of levies than cortés had demanded. he at once charged them with conspiring against the spaniards after receiving them as friends. they were so amazed at his discovery of their perfidy that they confessed everything, laying the blame on montezuma. "that pretense," said cortés, assuming a look of fierce indignation, "is no justification; i shall now make such an example of you for your treachery that the report of it will ring throughout the wide borders of anahuac!" at the firing of a harquebus, the fatal signal, the crowd of unsuspecting cholulans were massacred as they stood, almost without resistance. meantime the other indians without the square commenced an attack on the spaniards, but the heavy guns of the battery played upon them with murderous effect, and cavalry advanced to support the attack. the steeds, the guns, the weapons of the spaniards, were all new to the cholulans. notwithstanding the novelty of the terrific spectacle, the flash of arms mingling with the deafening roar of the artillery, the desperate indians pushed on to take the places of their fallen comrades. while this scene of bloodshed was progressing, the tlascalans, as arranged, were hastening to the assistance of their spanish allies. the cholulans, when thus attacked in rear by their traditional enemies, speedily gave way, and tried to save themselves in the great temple and elsewhere. the "holy city," as it was called, was converted into a pandemonium of massacre. in memory of the signal defeat of the cholulans, cortés converted the chief part of the great temple into a christian church. envoys again arrived from mexico with rich presents and a message vindicating the pusillanimous emperor from any share in the conspiracy against cortés. continuing their march, the allied army of spaniards and tlascalans proceeded till they reached the mountains which separate the table-land of puebla from that of mexico. to cross this range they followed the route which passes between the mighty popocatepetl (i. e., "the smoking mountain") and another called the "white woman" from its broad robe of snow. the first lies about forty miles southeast of the capital to which their march was directed. it is more than 2,000 feet higher than mont blanc, and has two principal craters, one of which is about 1,000 feet deep and has large deposits of sulfur which are regularly mined. popocatepetl has long been only a quiescent volcano, but during the invasion by cortés it was often burning, especially at the time of the siege of tlascala. that was naturally interpreted all over the district of anahuac to be a bad omen, associated with the landing and approach of the spaniards. cortés insisted on several descents being made into the great crater till sufficient sulfur was collected to supply gunpowder to his army. the icy cold winds, varied by storms of snow and sleet, were more trying to the europeans than the tlascalans, but some relief was found in the stone shelters which had been built at certain intervals along the roads for the accommodation of couriers and other travelers. at last they reached the crest of the sierra which unites popocatepetl, the "great _volcan_," to its sister mountain the "woman in white." soon after, at a turning of the road, the invaders enjoyed their first view of the famous valley of mexico or tenochtitlan, with its beautiful lakes in their setting of cultivated plains, here and there varied by woods and forests. "in the midst, like some indian empress with her coronal of pearls, the fair city with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing as it were on the bosom of the waters--the far-famed 'venice of the aztecs.'" this view of the "promised land" will remind some of the picturesque account given by livy (xxi, 35) of hannibal reaching the top of the pass over the alps and pointing out the fair prospect of italy to his soldiers. we may thus render the passage: "on the ninth day the ridge of the alps was reached, over ground generally trackless and by roundabout ways.... the order for marching being given at break of day, the army were sluggishly advancing over ground wholly covered with snow, listlessness, and despair depicted on the features of all, hannibal went on in front, and after ordering the soldiers to halt on a height which commanded a distant view, far and wide, points out to them italy and the plains of lombardy on both banks of the po, at the foot of the alps, telling them that at that moment they were crossing not only the walls of italy but of the roman capital; that the rest of the march was easy and downhill." the situation of hannibal and his carthaginians surveying italy for the first time is in some respects closely analogous to that of cortés pointing out the valley of mexico to his spanish soldiers. chapter vii cortés and montezuma we have now seen the spanish conquerors with a large contingent of 6,000 natives surmounting the mountains to the east of the mexican valley and looking down upon the lake of tezcuco on which were built the sister capitals. montezuma, the aztec monarch, was already in a state of dismay, and sent still another embassy to propitiate the terrible cortés, with a great present of gold and robes of the most precious fabrics and workmanship; and a promise that, if the foreign general would turn back toward vera cruz, the mexicans would pay down four loads of gold for himself and one to each of his captains, besides a yearly tribute to their king in europe. these promises did not reach cortés till he was descending from the sierra. he replied that details were best arranged by a personal interview, and that the spaniards came with peaceful motives. montezuma was now plunged in deep despair. at last he summoned a council to consult his nobles and especially his nephew, the young king of tezcuco, and his warlike brother. the latter advised him to "muster as large an army as possible, and drive back the invaders from his capital or die in its defense." "ah!" replied the monarch, "the gods have declared themselves against us!" still another embassy was prepared, with his nephew, lord of tezcuco, at its head, to offer a welcome to the unwelcome visitors. cortés approached through fertile fields, plantations, and maguey-vineyards till they reached lake chalco. there they found a large town built in the water on piles, with canals instead of streets, full of movement and animation. "the spaniards were particularly struck with the style and commodious structure of the houses, chiefly of stone, and with the general aspect of wealth and even elegance which prevailed." next morning the king of tezcuco came to visit cortés, in a palanquin richly decorated with plates of gold and precious stones, under a canopy of green plumes. he was accompanied by a numerous suite. advancing with the mexican salutation, he said he had been commanded by montezuma to welcome him to the capital, at the same time offering three splendid pearls as a present. cortés "in return threw over the young king's neck a chain of cut glass, which, where glass was as rare as diamonds, might be admitted to have a value as real as the latter." the army of cortés next marched along the southern side of lake chalco, "through noble woods and by orchards glowing with autumnal fruits, of unknown names, but rich and tempting hues." they also passed "through cultivated fields waving with the yellow harvest, and irrigated by canals introduced from the neighboring lake, the whole showing a careful and economical husbandry, essential to the maintenance of a crowded population." a remarkable public work next engaged the attention of the spaniards, viz., a solid causeway of stone and lime running directly through the lake, in some places so wide that eight horsemen could ride on it abreast. its length is some four or five miles. marching along this causeway, they saw other wonders; numbers of the natives darting in all directions in their skiffs, curious to watch the strangers marching, and some of them bearing the products of the country to the neighboring cities. they were amazed also by the sight of the floating gardens, teeming with flowers and vegetables, and moving like rafts over the waters. all round the margin, and occasionally far in the lake, they beheld little towns and villages, which, half concealed by the foliage, and gathered in white clusters round the shore, "looked in the distance like companies of white swans riding quietly on the waves." about the middle of this lake was a town, to which the spaniards gave the name of venezuela[22] (i. e., "little venice"). from its situation and the style of the buildings, cortés called it the most beautiful town that he had yet seen in new spain. [footnote 22: not to be confounded with the indian village on the shore of lake maracaibo, to which (with similar motive) vespucci had given that name--now capital of a large republic.] after crossing the isthmus which separates that lake from lake tezcuco they were now at iztapalapan, a royal residence in charge of the emperor's brother. here a ceremonious reception was given to cortés and his staff, "a collation being served in one of the great halls of the palace. the excellence of the architecture here excited the admiration of the general. the buildings were of stone, and the spacious apartments had roofs of odorous cedar-wood, while the walls were tapestried with fine cotton stained with brilliant colors. "but the pride of iztapalapan was its celebrated gardens, covering an immense tract of land and laid out in regular squares. the gardens were stocked with fruit-trees and with the gaudy family of flowers which belonged to the mexican flora, scientifically arranged, and growing luxuriant in the equable temperature of the table-land. in one quarter was an aviary filled with numerous kinds of birds remarkable in this region both for brilliancy of plumage and for song. but the most elaborate piece of work was a huge reservoir of stone, filled to a considerable height with water, well supplied with different sorts of fish. this basin was 1,600 paces in circumference, and surrounded by a walk." readers must remember that at that age no beautiful gardens on a large scale were known in any part of europe. the first "garden of plants" (to use the name afterward applied by the french) is said to have been an italian one, at padua, in 1545, a whole generation after the time of the arrival of cortés in mexico. it was only under louis "le magnifique" that france created the versailles gardens, and not till the time of george iii and his tutor bute could we boast of the gardens at kew, now admired by all the world. the ancient mexicans, therefore, under their extinct civilization, had developed this taste for the beautiful many ages before the most cultivated races in europe. cortés took up his quarters at this residence of iztapalapan for the night, expecting to meet montezuma on the morrow. mexico was now distinctly full in view, looking "like a thing of fairy creation," a city of enchantment. there aztlan stood upon the farther shore; amid the shade of trees its dwellings rose, their level roofs with turrets set around and battlements all burnished white, which shone like silver in the sunshine. i beheld the imperial city, her far-circling walls, her garden groves and stately palaces, her temples mountain size, her thousand roofs. and when i saw her might and majesty my mind misgave me then. _madoc_, i, 6. that following day, november 8, 1519, should be noted in every calendar, when the great capital of the western world admitted the conquering general from the eastern world. the invaders were now upon a larger causeway, which stretched across the salt waters of lake tezcuco; and "had occasion more than ever to admire the mechanical science of the aztecs." it was wide enough throughout its whole extent for ten horsemen to ride abreast. the spaniards saw everywhere "evidence of a crowded and thriving population, exceeding all they had yet seen." the water was darkened by swarms of canoes filled with indians; and here also were those fairy islands of flowers. half a league from the capital they encountered a solid work of stone, which traversed the road. it was twelve feet high, strengthened by towers at the extremities, and in the center was a battlemented gateway, which opened a passage to the troops. here they were met by several hundred aztec chiefs, who came out to announce the approach of montezuma, and to welcome the spaniards to his capital. they were dressed in the fanciful gala costume of the country, with the cotton sash around their loins, and a broad mantle of the same material, or of the brilliant feather embroidery, flowing gracefully down their shoulders. on their necks and arms they displayed collars and bracelets of turquoise mosaic, with which delicate plumage was curiously mingled, while their ears, under lips, and occasionally their noses were garnished with pendants formed of precious stones, or crescents of fine gold. after all the caziques had performed the same formal salutation separately, there was no further delay till they reached a bridge near the gates of the capital. soon after "they beheld the glittering retinue of the emperor emerging from the great street leading through the heart of the city. amid a crowd of indian nobles preceded by three officers of state bearing golden wands, they saw the royal palanquin blazing with burnished gold. it was borne on the shoulders of nobles, and over it a canopy of gaudy feather-work, covered with jewels and fringed with silver, was supported by four attendants of the same rank." at a certain distance from the spaniards "the train halted, and montezuma, descending from the litter, came forward, leaning on the arms of the lords of tezcuco and iztapalapan"--the emperor's nephew and brother, already mentioned. "as the monarch advanced, his subjects, who lined the sides of the causeway, bent forward, with their eyes fastened on the ground, as he passed." montezuma wore the ample square cloak common to the mexicans, but of the finest cotton sprinkled with pearls and precious stones; his sandals were similarly sprinkled, and had soles of solid gold. his only head ornament was a bunch of feathers of the royal green color. a man about forty; tall and rather thin; black hair, cut rather short for a person of rank; dignified in his movements; his features wearing an expression of benignity not to be expected from his character. after dismounting from horseback, cortés advanced to meet montezuma, who received him with princely courtesy, while cortés responded by profound expressions of respect, with thanks for his experience of the emperor's munificence. he then hung round montezuma's neck a sparkling chain of colored crystal, accompanying this with a movement as if to embrace him, when he was restrained by the two aztec lords, shocked at the menaced profanation of the sacred person of their monarch and master. montezuma appointed his brother to conduct the spaniards to their residence in the capital, and was again carried through the adoring crowds in his litter. "the spaniards quickly followed, and with colors flying and music playing soon made their entrance into the southern quarter." on entering "they found fresh cause for admiration in the grandeur of the city and the superior style of its architecture. the great avenue through which they were now marching was lined with the houses of the nobles, who were encouraged by the emperor to make the capital their residence. the flat roofs were protected by stone parapets, so that every house was a fortress. sometimes these roofs seemed parterres of flowers ... broad terraced gardens laid out between the buildings. occasionally a great square intervened surrounded by its porticoes of stone and stucco; or a pyramidal temple reared its colossal bulk crowned with its tapering sanctuaries, and altars blazing with unextinguishable fires. but what most impressed the spaniards was the throngs of people who swarmed through the streets and on the canals." probably, however, the spectacle of the european army with their horses, their guns, bright swords and helmets of steel, a metal to them unknown; their weird and mysterious music--the whole formed to the aztec populace an inexplicable wonder, combined with those foreigners who had arrived from the distant east, "revealing their celestial origin in their fair complexions." many of the aztec citizens betrayed keen hatred of the tlascalans who marched with the spaniards in friendly alliance. at length cortés with his mixed army halted near the center of the city in a great open space, "where rose the huge pyramidal pile dedicated to the patron war-god of the aztecs, second only to the temple of cholula in size as well as sanctity." the present famous cathedral of modern mexico is built on part of the same site. a palace built opposite the west side of the great temple was assigned to cortés. it was extensive enough to accommodate the whole of the army of cortés. montezuma paid him a visit there, having a long conversation through the indispensable assistance of marina, the slave interpreter. "that evening the spaniards celebrated their arrival in the mexican capital by a general discharge of artillery. the thunders of the ordnance reverberating among the buildings and shaking them to their foundations, the stench of the sulfureous vapor reminding the inhabitants of the explosions of the great volcano (popocatepetl) filled the hearts of the superstitious aztecs with dismay." next day cortés had gracious permission to return the visit of the emperor, and therefore proceeded to wait upon him at the royal palace, dressed in his richest suit of clothes. the spanish general felt the importance of the occasion and resolved to exercise all his eloquence and power of argument in attempting the "conversion" of montezuma to the christian faith. for this purpose, with the assistance of the faithful marina, cortés engaged the emperor in a theological discussion; explaining the creation of the world as taught in the jewish scriptures; the fall of man from his first happy and holy condition by the temptation of satan; the mysterious redemption of the human race by the incarnation and atonement of the son of god himself. "he assured montezuma that the idols worshiped in mexico were satan under different forms. a sufficient proof of this was the bloody sacrifices they imposed, which he contrasted with the pure and simple rite of the mass. it was to snatch the emperor's soul and the souls of his people from the flames of eternal fire that the christians had come to this land." montezuma replied that the god of the spaniards must be a good being, and "my gods also are good to me; there was no need to further discourse on the matter." if he had "resisted their visit to his capital, it was because he had heard such accounts of their cruelties--that they sent the lightning to consume his people, or crushed them to pieces under the hard feet of the ferocious animals on which they rode. he was now convinced that these were idle tales; that the spaniards were kind and generous in their nature." he concluded by admitting the superiority of the sovereign of cortés beyond the seas. "your sovereign is the rightful lord of all: i rule in his name." the rough spanish cavaliers were touched by the kindness and affability of montezuma. as they passed him, says diaz, in his history, they made him the most profound obeisance, hat in hand; and on the way home could discourse of nothing but the gentle breeding and courtesy of the indian monarch. montezuma's capital cortés and his army being now fairly domesticated in mexico, and the emperor having apparently become reconciled to the presence of his formidable guests, we may pause to consider the surroundings. the present capital occupies the site of tenochtitlan, but many changes have occurred in the intervening four centuries. first of all, the salt waters of the great lake have entirely shrunk away, leaving modern mexico high and dry, a league away from the waters that cortés saw flowing in ample canals through all the streets. formerly the houses stood on elevated piles and were independent of the floods which rose in lake tezcuco by the overflowing of other lakes on a higher level. but when the foundations were on solid ground it became necessary to provide against the accumulated volume of water by excavating a tunnel to drain off the flood. this was constructed about one hundred years after the invasion of the spaniards, and has been described by humboldt as "one of the most stupendous hydraulic works in existence." the appearance of the lake and suburbs of the capital have long lost much of the attractive appearance they had at the time of the spanish visit; but the town itself is still the most brilliant city in spanish america, surmounted by a cathedral, which forms "the most sumptuous house of worship in the new world." the great causeway already described as leading north from the royal city of iztapalapan, had another to the north of the capital, which might be called its continuation. the third causeway, leading west to the town tacuba from the island city, will be noticed presently as the scene of the spaniards' retreat. there were excellent police regulations for health and cleanliness. water supplied by earthen pipes was from a hill about two miles distant. besides the palaces and temples there were several important buildings: an armory filled with weapons and military dresses; a granary; various warehouses; an immense aviary, with "birds of splendid plumage assembled from all parts of the empire--the scarlet cardinal, the golden pheasant, the endless parrot tribe, and that miniature miracle of nature, the humming-bird, which delights to revel among the honeysuckle bowers of mexico." the birds of prey had a separate building. the menagerie adjoining the aviary showed wild animals from the mountain forests, as well as creatures from the remote swamps of the hot lands by the seashore. the serpents "were confined in long cages lined with down or feathers, or in troughs of mud and water." wishing to visit the great mexican temple, cortés, with his cavalry and most of his infantry, followed the caziques whom montezuma had politely sent as guides. on their way to the central square the spaniards "were struck with the appearance of the inhabitants, and their great superiority in the style and quality of their dress over the people of the lower countries. the women, as in other parts of the country, seemed to go about as freely as the men. they wore several skirts or petticoats of different lengths, with highly ornamented borders, and sometimes over them loose-flowing robes, which reached to the ankles. no veils were worn here as in some other parts of anahuac. the aztec women had their faces exposed; and their dark raven tresses floated luxuriantly over their shoulders, revealing features which, although of a dusky or rather cinnamon hue, were not unfrequently pleasing, while touched with the serious, even sad expression characteristic of the national physiognomy." when near the great market "the spaniards were astonished at the throng of people pressing toward it, and on entering the place their surprise was still further heightened by the sight of the multitudes assembled there, and the dimensions of the enclosure, twice as large, says one spanish observer, as the celebrated square of salamanca. here were traders from all parts; the goldsmiths from azcapozalco, the potters and jewelers of cholula, the painters of tezcuco, the stone-cutters, hunters, fishermen, fruiterers, mat and chair makers, florists, etc. the pottery department was a large one; so were the armories for implements of war; razors and mirrors--booths for apothecaries with drugs, roots, and medical preparations. in other places again, blank-books or maps for the hieroglyphics or pictographs were to be seen folded together like fans. animals both wild and tame were offered for sale, and near them, perhaps, a gang of slaves with collars round their necks. one of the most attractive features of the market was the display of provisions: meats of all kinds, domestic poultry, game from the neighboring mountains, fish from the lakes and streams, fruits in all the delicious abundance of these temperate regions, green vegetables, and the unfailing maize." this market, like hundreds of smaller ones, was of course held every fifth day--the week of the ancient mexicans being one-fourth of the twenty days which constituted the aztec month. this great market was comparable to "the periodical fairs in europe, not as they now exist, but as they existed in the middle ages," when from the difficulties of intercommunication they served as the great central marts for commercial intercourse, exercising a most important and salutary influence on the community. one of the spaniards in the party accompanying cortés was the historian diaz, and his testimony is remarkable: there were among us soldiers who had been in many parts of the world, constantinople and rome, and through all italy, and who said that a market-place so large, so well ordered and regulated, and so filled with people, they had never seen. proceeding next to the great _teocalli_ or aztec temple, covering the site of the modern cathedral with part of the market-place and some adjoining streets, they found it in the midst of a great open space, surrounded by a high stone wall, ornamented on the outside by figures of serpents raised in relief, and pierced by huge battlemented gateways opening on the four principal streets of the capital. the _teocalli_ itself was a solid pyramidal structure of earth and pebbles, coated on the outside with hewn stones, the sides facing the cardinal points. it was divided into five stories, each of smaller dimensions than that immediately below. the ascent was by a flight of steps on the outside, which reached to the narrow terrace at the bottom of the second story, passing quite round the building, when a second stairway conducted to a similar landing at the base of the third. thus the visitor was obliged to pass round the whole edifice four times in order to reach the top. this had a most imposing effect in the religious ceremonials, when the pompous procession of priests with their wild minstrelsy came sweeping round the huge sides of the pyramid, as they rose higher and higher toward the summit in full view of the populace assembled in their thousands. cortés marched up the steps at the head of his men, and found at the summit "a vast area paved with broad flat stones. the first object that met their view was a large block of jasper, the peculiar shape of which showed it was the stone on which the bodies of the unhappy victims were stretched for sacrifice. its convex surface, by raising the breast, enabled the priest to perform more easily his diabolical task of removing the heart. at the other end of the area were two towers or sanctuaries, consisting of three stories, the lower one of stone, the two upper of wood elaborately carved. in the lower division stood the images of their gods; the apartments above were filled with utensils for their religious services, and with the ashes of some of their aztec princes who had fancied this airy sepulcher. before each sanctuary stood an altar, with that undying fire upon it, the extinction of which boded as much evil to the empire as that of the vestal flame would have done in ancient rome. here also was the huge cylindrical drum made of serpents' skins, and struck only on extraordinary occasions, when it sent forth a melancholy, weird sound, that might be heard for miles" over the country, indicating fierce anger of deity against the enemies of mexico. as cortés reached the summit he was met by the emperor himself attended by the high priest. taking the general by the hand, montezuma pointed out the chief localities in the wide prospect which their position commanded, including not only the capital, "bathed on all sides by the salt floods of the tezcuco, and in the distance the clear fresh waters of lake chalco," but the whole of the valley of mexico to the base of the circular range of mountains, and the wreaths of vapor rolling up from the hoary head of popocatepetl. cortés was allowed "to behold the shrines of the gods. they found themselves in a spacious apartment, with sculptures on the walls, representing the mexican calendar, or the priestly ritual. before the altar in this sanctuary stood the colossal image of huitzilopochtli, the tutelary deity and war-god of the aztecs. his countenance was distorted into hideous lineaments of symbolical import. the huge folds of a serpent, consisting of pearls and precious stones, were coiled round his waist, and the same rich materials were profusely sprinkled over his person. on his left foot were the delicate feathers of the humming-bird, which gave its name to the dread deity. the most conspicuous ornament was a chain of gold and silver hearts alternate, suspended round his neck, emblematical of the sacrifice in which he most delighted. a more unequivocal evidence of this was afforded by three human hearts that now lay smoking on the altar before him. "the adjoining sanctuary was dedicated to a milder deity. this was tezcatlipoca, who created the world, next in honor to that invisible being the supreme god, who was represented by no image, and confined by no temple. he was represented as a young man, and his image of polished black stone was richly garnished with gold plates and ornaments. but the homage to this god was not always of a more refined or merciful character than that paid to his carnivorous brother." according to diaz, whom we have already quoted, the stench of human gore in both those chapels was more intolerable than that of all the slaughter-houses in castile. glad to escape into the open air, cortés expressed wonder that a great and wise prince like montezuma could have faith "in such evil spirits as these idols, the representatives of the devil! permit us to erect here the true cross, and place the images of the blessed virgin and her son in these sanctuaries; you will soon see how your false gods will shrink before them!" this extraordinary speech of the general shocked montezuma, who, in reproof, said: "had i thought you would have offered this outrage to the gods of the aztecs, i would not have admitted you into their presence." cortés, as a general, had some of the great qualities of napoleon, but he also resembled him occasionally in a singular lack of delicacy and good taste. we do not, however, find that he ever showed such mean malignity as the french general did when persecuting madame de staël, because in her germany she had omitted to mention his campaigns and administration. within the same enclosure, cortés and his companions visited a temple dedicated to quetzalcoatl, a god referred to already. other buildings served as seminaries for the instruction of youth of both sexes; and according to the spanish accounts of the teaching and management of these institutions there was "the greatest care for morals and the most blameless deportment." seizure of montezuma after being guest of the mexican emperor for a week, cortés resolved to carry out a most daring and unprecedented scheme--a purely "napoleonic movement," such as could scarcely have entered the brain of any general ancient or modern. he argued with himself that a quarrel might at any moment break out between his men and the citizens; the spaniards again could not remain long quiet unless actively employed; and, thirdly, there was still greater danger with the tlascalans, "a fierce race now in daily contact with a nation that regards them with loathing and detestation." lastly, the governor of cuba, already grossly offended with cortés, might at any moment send after him a sufficient army to wrest from him the glory of conquest. cortés therefore formed the daring resolve to seize montezuma in his palace and carry him as a prisoner to the spanish quarters. he hoped thus to have in his own hands the supreme management of affairs, and at the same time secure his own safety with such a "sacred pledge" in keeping. it was necessary to find a pretext for seizing the hospitable montezuma. news had already come to cortés, when at cholula, that escalante, whom he had left in charge of vera cruz, had been defeated by the aztecs in a pitched battle, and that the head of a spaniard, then slain, had been sent to the emperor, after being shown in triumph throughout some of the chief cities. cortés asked an audience from montezuma, and that being readily granted, he prepared for his plot by having a large body of armed men posted in the courtyard. choosing five companions of tried courage, cortés then entered the palace, and after being graciously received, told montezuma that he knew of the treachery that had taken place near the coast, and that the emperor was said to be the cause. the emperor said that such a charge could only have been concocted by his enemies. he agreed with the proposal of cortés to summon the aztec chief who was accused of treachery to the garrison at vera cruz; and was then persuaded to transfer his residence to the palace occupied by the spaniards. he was there received and treated with ostentatious respect; but his people observed that in front of the palace there was constantly posted a patrol of sixty soldiers, with another equally large in the rear. when the aztec chief arrived from the coast, he and his sixteen aztec companions were condemned to be burned alive before the palace. the next daring act of the spanish general was to order iron fetters to be fastened on montezuma's ankles. the great emperor seemed struck with stupor and spoke never a word. meanwhile the aztec chiefs were executed in the courtyard without interruption, the populace imagining the sentence had been passed upon them by montezuma, and the victims submitting to their fate without a murmur. cortés returning then to the room where montezuma was imprisoned, unclasped the fetters and said he was now at liberty to return to his own palace. the emperor, however, declined the offer. the instinctive sense of human sympathy must have frequently been not only repressed but extinguished by all the great conquering generals who have crushed nations under foot. besides those of prehistoric times in asia and europe, we have examples in alexander the greek, julius cæsar the roman, cortés and pizarro the spaniards, frederick the prussian, and napoleon the corsican. the great french general consciously aimed at dramatic effect in his exploits, but how paltry his seizing the duc d'enghien at dead of night by a troop of soldiers, or his coercing the king of spain to resign his sovereignty after inducing him to cross the border into france. in the unparalleled case of cortés, a powerful emperor is seized by a few strangers at noonday and carried off a prisoner without opposition or bloodshed. so extraordinary a transaction, says robertson, would appear "extravagant beyond the bounds of probability" were it not that all the circumstances are "authenticated by the most unquestionable evidence." the nephew of montezuma, cakama, the lord of tezcuco, had been closely watching all the motions of the spaniards. he "beheld with indignation and contempt the abject condition of his uncle; and now set about forming a league with several of the neighboring caziques to break the detested yoke of the spaniards." news of this league reached the ears of cortés, and arresting him with the permission of montezuma, he deposed him, and appointed a younger brother in his place. the other caziques were seized, each in his own city, and brought to mexico, where cortés placed them in strict confinement along with cakama. the next step taken by cortés was to demand from montezuma an acknowledgment of the supremacy of the spanish emperor. the aztec monarch and chief caziques easily granted this; and even agreed that a gratuity should be sent by each of them as proof of loyalty. collectors were sent out, and "in a few weeks most of them returned, bringing back large quantities of gold and silver plate, rich stuffs, etc." to this montezuma added a huge hoard, the treasures of his father. when brought into the quarters, the gold alone was sufficient to make three great heaps. it consisted partly of native grains, and partly of bars; but the greatest portion was in utensils, and various kinds of ornaments and curious toys, together with imitations of birds, insects, or flowers, executed with uncommon truth and delicacy. there were also quantities of collars, bracelets, wands, fans, and other trinkets, in which the gold and feather-work were richly powdered with pearls and precious stones. montezuma expressed regret that the treasure was no larger; he had "diminished it," he said, "by his former gifts to the white men." the spaniards gazed on this display of riches, far exceeding all hitherto seen in the new world--though small compared with the quantity of treasure found in peru. the whole amount of this mexican gift was about £1,417,000, according to prescott, dr. robertson making it smaller. it was no easy task to divide the spoil. a fifth had to be deducted for the crown, and an equal share went to the general, besides a "large sum to indemnify him and the governor of cuba for the charges of the expedition and the loss of the fleet. the garrison of vera cruz was also to be provided for. the cavalry, musketeers, and crossbowmen each received double pay." thus for each of the common soldiers there was only 100 gold _pesos_--i. e., £2-5/8 x 100 = £262 10s. to many this share seemed paltry, compared with their expectations; and it required all the tact and authority of cortés to quell the grumbling. there still remained one important object of the spanish invasion, an object which cortés as a good catholic dared not overlook--the conversion of the aztec nation from heathenism. the bloody ritual of the _teocallis_ was still observed in every city. cortés waited on montezuma, urging a request that the great temple be assigned for public worship according to the christian rites. montezuma was evidently much alarmed, declaring that his people would never allow such a profanation, but at last, after consulting the priest, agreed that one of the sanctuaries on the summit of the temple should be granted to the christians as a place of worship. an altar was raised, surmounted by a crucifix and the image of the virgin. the whole army ascended the steps in solemn procession and listened with silent reverence to the service of the mass. in conclusion, "as the beautiful te deum rose toward heaven, cortés and his soldiers kneeling on the ground, with tears streaming from their eyes, poured forth their gratitude to the almighty for this glorious triumph of the cross." such a union of heathenism and christianity was too unnatural to continue. a few days later the emperor sent for cortés and earnestly advised him to leave the country at once. cortés replied that ships were necessary. montezuma agreed to supply timber and workmen, and in a short time the construction of several ships was begun at vera cruz on the seacoast, while in the capital the garrison kept itself ready by day and by night for a hostile attack. only six months had elapsed since the arrival of the spaniards in the capital, 1519, and now the army was in more uncomfortable circumstances than ever. meanwhile, while cortés had been reducing mexico and humbling the unfortunate montezuma, the governor of cuba had complained to the court of spain, but without success. charles v, since his election to the imperial crown of germany, had neglected the affairs of spain; and when the envoys from vera cruz waited upon him, little came of the conference except the astonishment of the court at the quantity of gold, and the beautiful workmanship of the ornaments and the rich colors of the mexican feather-work. the opposition of the bishop of burgos thwarted the conqueror of mexico, as he had already successfully opposed the schemes of the "great admiral" and his son diego columbus. we shall presently see how this influential ecclesiastic was able to thwart balboa when governor of darien. velasquez was now determined to wreak his revenge upon cortés without waiting longer for assistance from spain. he prepared an expedition of eighteen ships with eighty horsemen, 800 infantry, 120 crossbowmen, and twelve pieces of artillery. to command these velasquez chose a hidalgo named narvaez, who had assisted formerly in subduing cuba and hispaniola. the personal appearance of narvaez, as given by diaz, is worth quoting: he was tall, stout-limbed, with a large head and red beard, an agreeable presence, a voice deep and sonorous, as if it rose from a cavern. he was a good horseman and valiant. meanwhile cortés persuaded montezuma that some friends from spain had arrived at vera cruz, and therefore got permission to leave him and the capital in charge of alvarado and a small garrison. montezuma, in his royal litter, borne on the shoulders of his aztec nobles, accompanied the spanish general to the southern causeway. when cortés was within fifteen leagues' distance of zempoalla, where narvaez was encamped, the latter sent a message that if his authority were acknowledged he would supply ships to cortés and his army so that all who wished might freely leave the country with all their property. cortés, however, with his usual astuteness, replied: "if narvaez bears a royal commission i will readily submit to him. but he has produced none. he is a deputy of my rival, velasquez. for myself, i am a servant of the king; i have conquered the country for him; and for him i and my brave followers will defend it to the last drop of our blood. if we fall it will be glory enough to have perished in the discharge of our duty." narvaez and his army were meantime spending their time frivolously; and when the actual attack was begun in the dead of night, under a pouring rain-storm, it appeared that only two sentinels were on guard. narvaez, badly wounded, was taken prisoner on the top of a _teocalli_; and in a very short time his army was glad to capitulate. the horse-soldiers whom narvaez had sent to waylay one of the roads to zempoalla, rode in soon after to tender their submission. the victorious general, seated in a chair of state, with a richly embroidered mexican mantle on his shoulders, received his congratulations from the officers and soldiers of both armies. narvaez and several others were led in chains. cortés not only defeated narvaez, but, after the battle, enlisted under his standard the spanish soldiers who had been sent to attack him--reminding one of the "magnetism" of hannibal or napoleon, and the consequent enthusiasm caused by mere presence, looks, and words. before the rejoicings were finished, however, tidings were brought to cortés from the mexican capital that the whole city was in a state of revolt against alvarado. on his march back to the great plateau cortés found the inhabitants of tlascala still friendly and willing to assist as allies in the struggle against their ancient foes, the mexicans. on reaching the camp of the spaniards in mexico, cortés found that alvarado had provoked the insurrection by a massacre of the aztec populace. having entered the precincts with his army, cortés at once made anxious preparations for the siege which was threatened by the aztecs, now assembling in thousands. as the assailants approached "they set up a hideous yell, or rather that shrill whistle used in fight by the nations of anahuac," accompanied by the sound of shell and atabal and their other rude instruments of wild music. this was followed by a tempest of missiles, stones, darts, and arrows. the spaniards waited until the foremost column had arrived within distance, when a general discharge of artillery and muskets swept the ranks of the assailants. never till now had the mexicans witnessed the murderous power of these formidable engines. at first they stood aghast, but soon rallying, they rushed forward over the prostrate bodies of their comrades. pressing on, some of them tried to scale the parapet, while others tried to force a breach in it. when the parapet proved too strong they shot burning arrows upon the wooden outworks. next day there were continually fresh supplies of warriors added to the forces of the assailants, so that the danger of the situation was greatly increased. diaz, an onlooker, thus wrote: the mexicans fought with such ferocity that if we had been assisted by 10,000 hectors and as many orlandos, we should have made no impression on them. there were several of our troops who had served in the italian wars, but neither there nor in the battles with the turks had they ever seen anything like the desperation shown by these indians. cortés at last drew off his men and sounded a retreat, taking refuge in the fortress. the mexicans encamped round it, and during the night insulted the besieged, shouting, "the gods have at last delivered you into our hands: the stone of sacrifice is ready: the knives are sharpened." cortés now felt that he had not fully understood the character of the mexicans. the patience and submission formerly shown in deference to the injured montezuma was now replaced by concentrated arrogance and ferocity. the spanish general even stooped to request the interposition of the aztec emperor; and, at last, when assured that the foreigners would leave his country if a way were opened through the mexican army he agreed to use his influence. for this purpose he put on his imperial robes; his mantle of white and blue flowed over his shoulders, held together by its rich clasp of the green _chalchivitl_. the same precious gem, with emeralds of uncommon size, set in gold, profusely ornamented other parts of his dress. his feet were shod with the golden sandals, and his brows covered with the mexican diadem, resembling in form the pontifical tiara. thus attired and surrounded by a guard of spaniards, and several aztec nobles, and preceded by the golden wand, the symbol of sovereignty, the indian monarch ascended the central turret of the palace. at the sight of montezuma all the mexican army became silent, partly, no doubt, from curiosity. he assured them that he was no prisoner; that the strangers were his friends, and would leave mexico of their own accord as soon as a way was opened. to call himself a friend of the hateful spaniards was a fatal argument. instead of respecting their monarch, though in his official robes, the populace howled angry curses at him as a degenerate aztec, a coward, no longer a warrior or even a man! a cloud of missiles was hurled at montezuma, and he was struck to the ground by the blow of a stone on his head. the unfortunate monarch only survived his wounds for a few days, disdaining to take any nourishment, or to receive advice from the spanish priests. meanwhile, cortés and his army met with an unexpected danger. a large body of the indian warriors had taken possession of the great temple, at a short distance from the spanish quarters. from this commanding position they kept shooting a deadly flight of arrows on the spaniards. cortés sent his chamberlain, escobar, with a body of men to storm the temple, but, after three efforts, the party had to relinquish the attempt. cortés himself then led a storming party, and after some determined fighting reached the platform at the top of the temple where the two sanctuaries of the aztec deities stood. this large area was now the scene of a desperate battle, fought in sight of the whole capital as well as of the spanish troops still remaining in the courtyard. this struggle between such deadly enemies caused dreadful carnage on both sides: the edge of the area was unprotected by parapet or battlement; and the combatants, as they struggled in mortal agony, were sometimes seen to roll over the sheer sides of the precipice together. cortés himself had a narrow escape from this dreadful fate.... the number of the enemy was double that of the christians; but the invulnerable armor of the spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of it, gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of physical strength and numbers. this unparalleled scene of bloodshed lasted for three hours. of the mexicans "two or three priests only survived to be led away in triumph"; yet the loss of the spaniards was serious enough, amounting to forty-five of their best men. nearly all the others were wounded, some seriously. after dragging the uncouth monster, huitzilopochtli, from his sanctuary, the assailants hurled the repulsive image down the steps of the temple, and then set fire to the building. the same evening they burned a large part of the town. cortés now resolved upon a night retreat from the capital; but when marching along one of the causeways they were attacked by the mexicans in such numbers that, when morning dawned, the shattered battalion was reduced to less than half its number. in after years that disastrous retreat was known to the spanish chroniclers as _noche triste_, the "night of sorrows." after a hurried six days' march before the pursuers, cortés gained a victory so signal that an alliance was speedily formed with tlascala against mexico. cortés built twelve brigantines at vera cruz in order to secure the command of lake tescuco and thus attempt the reduction of the mexican capital. on his return to the great lake he found that the throne was now occupied by guatimozin, a nephew of montezuma. using their brigantines the spanish soldiers now began the siege of mexico--"the most memorable event in the conquest of america." it lasted seventy-five days, during which the whole of the capital was reduced to ruins. guatimozin, the last of the aztec emperors, was condemned by the spanish general to be hanged on the charge of treason. cortés was now master of all mexico. the spanish court and people were full of admiration for his victories and the extent of his conquests; and charles v appointed him "captain-general and governor of new spain." on revisiting europe, the emperor honored him with the order of st. jago and the title of marquis. latterly, however, after some failures in his exploring expeditions, cortés, on his return to spain, found himself treated with neglect. it was then, according to voltaire's story, that when charles asked the courtiers, "who is that man?" referring to cortés, the latter said aloud: "it is one, sire, that has added more provinces to your dominions than any other governor has added towns!" cortés died in his sixty-second year, december 2, 1547. chapter viii balboa and the isthmus in the spanish conquest of america there are three great generals: cortés, balbao, and pizarro. the third may to many readers seem immeasurably superior as explorer and conqueror to the second, but it must be remembered that pizarro's scheme of discovering and invading peru was precisely that which balboa had already prepared. pizarro could afford to say, "others have labored, and i have merely entered into their labors." what, then, was the work done by balboa, and what prevented him from taking peru? in 1510, the year before the conquest of cuba, balboa was glad to escape from hispaniola, not to avoid the spanish cruelties, like hatuey, the luckless cazique, but to escape from his spanish creditors. so anxious was he to get on board that he concealed himself in a cask to avoid observation. balboa, however, had administrative qualities, and after taking possession of the uncleared district of darien in the name of the king of spain, he was appointed governor of the new province. he built the town santa maria on the coast of the darien gulf; but so pestilential was the district (and still is) that the settlers were glad after a short time to remove to the other side of the isthmus. it was by mere accident that balboa first heard of a great ocean beyond the mountains of darien, and of the enormous wealth of peru, a country hitherto unknown to spain or europe. as several soldiers were one day disputing about the division of some gold-dust, an indian cazique called out: "why quarrel about such a trifle? i can show you a region where the commonest pots and pans are made of that metal." to the inquiries of balboa and his companions, the cazique replied that by traveling six days to the south they should see another ocean, near which lay the wealthy kingdom. resolving to cross the isthmus, notwithstanding a thousand formidable obstructions, balboa formed a party consisting of 190 veterans, accompanied by 1,000 indians, and several fierce dogs trained to hunt the naked natives. such were the difficulties that the "six days' journey" occupied twenty-five before the ridge of the isthmus range was reached. balboa commanded his men to halt, and advanced alone to the summit, that he might be the first who should enjoy a spectacle which he had so long desired. as soon as he beheld the sea stretching in endless prospect below him he fell on his knees; ... his followers observing his transports of joy rushed forward to join in his wonder, exultation, and gratitude. that was the moment, september 25, 1513, immortalized in keats's sonnet: when with eagle eyes he stared at the pacific, and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent, upon a peak in darien. balboa hurried down the western slope of the isthmus range to take formal possession in the name of the spanish monarch. he found a fishing village there which had been named panama (i. e., "plenty fish") by the indians, but had also a reputation for the pearls found in its bay. in his letter to spain, balboa said, to illustrate the difficulties of the expedition, that of all the 190 men in his party there were never more than eighty fit for service at one time. notwithstanding the wonderful news of the discovery of the "great southern ocean," as the pacific was then called, ferdinand overlooked the great services of balboa, and appointed a new governor of darien called pedrarias, who instituted a judicial inquiry into some previous transactions of balboa, imposing a heavy fine as punishment. the new governor committed other acts of great imprudence, and at length ferdinand felt that he had only superseded the most active and experienced officer he had in the new world. to make amends to balboa, he was appointed "lieutenant-governor of the countries upon the south sea," with great privileges and authority. at the same time pedrarias was commanded to "support balboa in all his operations, and to consult with him concerning every measure which he himself pursued." balboa, in 1517, began his preparations for entering the south sea and conveying troops to the country which he proposed to invade. with four small brigantines and 300 chosen soldiers (a force superior to that with which pizarro afterward undertook the same expedition), he was on the point of sailing toward the coasts of which they had such expectations, when a message arrived from pedrarias. balboa being unconscious of crime, agreed to delay the expedition, and meet pedrarias for conference. on entering the palace balboa was arrested and immediately tried on the charge of disloyalty to the king and intention of revolt against the governor. he was speedily sentenced to death, although the accusation was so absurd that the judges who pronounced the sentence "seconded by the whole colony, interceded warmly for his pardon." "the spaniards beheld with astonishment and sorrow the public execution of a man whom they universally deemed more capable than any who had borne command in america, of forming and accomplishing great designs." this gross injustice amounting to a public scandal was accounted for by the malignant influence of the bishop of burgos, in spain, who was the original cause of balboa being superseded as governor of darien. the expedition designed by balboa was now relinquished; but the removal of the colony soon afterward to the pacific side of the isthmus may be considered a step toward the realization of an exactly similar attempt by pizzaro. to some historical readers the word "darien" only recalls the bitter prejudice entertained against william iii, our "dutch king," notwithstanding the special pleading of lord macaulay and others. some scottish merchants had adopted a scheme recommended by the most reliable authorities[23] of that age, viz., the settlement of a half-commercial, half-military colony on the atlantic coast of the isthmus. such a company, in the words of paterson, would be masters of the "door of the seas," and the "key of the universe." the east india companies both of england and holland showed an envious jealousy of the scottish merchants, and therefore no assistance was to be expected from the king, although he had given his royal sanction to the scots act of parliament creating the company. the scottish people, however, zealously continued the scheme. some 1,200 men "set sail from leith amid the blessings of many thousands of their assembled countrymen. they reached the gulf of darien in safety, and established themselves on the coast in localities to which they gave the names of new caledonia and new st. andrews." the government of spain (secretly instigated, it was believed, by the english king) resolved to attack the embryo colony. the shipwreck of the whole scheme soon followed, due undoubtedly more to the jealousy of the english merchants (who believed that any increase of trade in scotland or ireland was a positive loss to england) and the bad faith of our dutch king, than to all other causes whatever. of the colony, according to dalrymple (ii, 103), not more than thirty ever saw their own country again. [footnote 23: e.g., paterson, founder of the bank of england, fletcher of saltoun, the marquis of tweeddale, then chief minister of scotland, sir john dalrymple, etc.] in 1526 a company of english merchants was formed to trade with the west indies and the "spanish main," and commanded great success. other merchants did the same. soon after the spanish court instituted a coast-guard to make war upon these traders; and as they had full power to capture and slay all who did not bear the king of spain's commission, there were terrible tales told in europe of mutilation, torture, and revenge. the windward islands having been gradually settled by french and english adventurers, frederick of toledo was sent with a large fleet to destroy those petty colonies. this harsh treatment rendered the planters desperate, and under the name of buccaneers,[24] they continued "a retaliation so horribly savage [_v._ notes to rokeby] that the perusal makes the reader shudder. from piracy at sea, they advanced to making predatory descents on the spanish territories; in which they displayed the same furious and irresistible valor, the same thirst of spoil, and the same brutal inhumanity to their captives." the pride and presumption of spain were partly resisted by the english monarchs, but not with real effect before the time of cromwell, strongest of all the rulers of britain. under his government of the seas spain was deprived of the island of jamaica; and the buccaneers to their disgust found that the flag of the great protector was a check against all piracy and injustice. [footnote 24: named from _boucan_, a kind of preserved meat, used by those rovers. they had learned this peculiar art of preserving from the native caribs.] under charles ii, however, the buccaneers resumed their conflict with the spanish, and in 1670, henry morgan, with 1,500 english and french ruffians resolved to cross the isthmus like balboa, to plunder the depositories of gold and silver which lay in the city of panama and other places on the pacific coast. having stormed a strong fortress at the mouth of the chagres river, they forced their way through the entangled forests for ten days, and after much hardship reached panama, to find it defended by a regular army of twice their number. the spaniards, however, were beaten, and morgan thoroughly sacked and plundered the city, taking captive all the chief citizens in order to extort afterward large ransoms. ten years afterward the isthmus of darien was crossed by dampier, another celebrated buccaneer, but his party was too small to attack panama. they seized some spanish vessels in the bay and plundered all the coast for some distance. the following description by the bold buccaneer is not without interest to those who consider the present importance of the place: near the riverside stands new panama, a very handsome city, in a spacious bay of the same name, into which disembogue many long and navigable rivers, some whereof are not without gold; besides that it is beautified by many pleasant isles, the country about it affording a delightful prospect to the sea.... the houses are chiefly of brick and pretty lofty, especially the president's, the churches, the monasteries, and other public structures, which make the best show i have seen in the west indies. the present prosperity of panama is due to its large transit trade, which was recently estimated at £15,000,000 a year. the pearl-fisheries, famous at the time of balboa's visit, have now little value. the narrowest breadth of the isthmus being only thirty miles, there have naturally been many engineering proposals to connect the pacific and atlantic oceans by a canal. m. de lesseps founded a french company in 1881 for the construction of a ship-canal with eight locks, and over forty-six miles in length; but in 1889, the excavations stopped after some 48-1/2 millions of cubic meters of earth and rock had been removed. meanwhile a railway 47-1/2 miles long connects colon on the atlantic with panama on the pacific. the mexican isthmus of tehuantepec, only 140 miles across, separates the bay of campeachy from the pacific, and failing the panama canal some engineers were in favor of a _ship-railway_ for conveying large vessels _bodily_ from the atlantic to the pacific. the scheme met with great favor in the united states, but has not yet been carried out. the third proposal for connecting the two great oceans is probably the most feasible because it follows the most deeply marked depression of the isthmus. the nicaraguan ship-canal will, if the scheme be carried out, pass from greytown on the atlantic to brito on the pacific, about 170 miles apart, through the republic of nicaragua, which lies north of panama and south of guatemala. one obvious advantage of this ship-canal is that the great lake is utilized, affording already about one-third of the waterway; only twenty-eight miles, in fact, being actual canal, and the rest river, lake, and lagoon navigation. in the latest specifications the engineers proposed to dam up the river (san juan) by a stone wall seventy feet high and 1,900 feet long, thus raising the water to a level of 106 feet above the sea. only three locks will be required to work the nicaraguan ship-canal. chapter ix extinct civilization of peru § (a) _peruvian archeology_ as the extinct civilization of the incas of peru is the most important phase of development among all the american races, so also their prehistoric remains are extremely interesting to the archeologist. [illustration: monolith doorway. near lake titicaca. fig. 1.] 1. _architecture._--in the interior of the country we find many remarkable examples of stone building, such as walls of huge polygonal stones, four-sided or five-sided or six-sided, some six feet across, laid without mortar, and so finely polished and adjusted that the blade of a knife can not be inserted between them. the strength of the masonry is sometimes assisted by having the projecting parts of a stone fitting into corresponding hollows or recesses in the stone above or below it. the stones being frequently extremely hard granite, or basalt, etc., antiquarian travelers have wondered how in early times the natives could have cut and polished them without any metal tools. the ordinary explanation is that the work was done by patiently rubbing one stone against another, with the aid of sharp sand, "time being no object" in the case of the laborers among savage and primitive races. it is believed by most antiquaries that long before the period of the incas there was a powerful empire to which we must attribute such cyclopean ruins; especially as the construction and style differ so greatly from what is found in the inca period. the huge stones occur at tiahuanacu (near lake titicaca), cuzco, ollantay, and the altar of concacha. fig. 1 is a broken doorway at tiahuanacu, composed of huge monoliths. fig. 2 is an enlargement of an image over the doorway shown in fig. 1. the doorway forms the entrance to a quadrangular area (400 yards by 350) surrounded by large stones standing on end. the gateway or doorway of fig. 1 is one of the most marvelous stone monuments existing, being _one block of hard rock_, deeply sunk in the ground. the present height is over seven feet. the whole of the inner side "from a line level with the upper lintel of the doorway to the top" is a mass of sculpture, "which speaks to us," says sir c. r. markham, "in difficult riddles of the customs and art culture, of the beliefs and traditions of an ancient" extinct civilization. the figure in high relief above the doorway (fig. 2) is a head surrounded by rays, "each terminating in a circle or the head of an animal." six human heads hang from the girdle, and two more from the elbows. each hand holds a scepter terminating at the lower end with the head of a condor--that huge american vulture familiar to the peruvians. that bird of prey was probably an emblem of royalty to the prehistoric dynasty now long forgotten. [illustration: image over the doorway shown in fig. 1. near lake titicaca. fig. 2.] some older historians speak of richly carved statues which formerly stood in this enclosure, and "many cylindrical pillars." of the masonry of these ruins generally, squier says: "the stone is faced with a precision that no skill can excel, its right angles turned with an accuracy that the most careful geometer could not surpass. i do not believe there exists a better piece of stone-cutting, the material considered, on this or the other continent." the fortress above cuzco, the capital of the incas, is considered the grandest monument of extinct american civilization. "like the pyramids and the coliseum, it is imperishable.... a fortified work, 600 yards in length, built of gigantic stones, in three lines, forming walls supporting terraces and parapets.... the stones are of blue limestone, of enormous size and irregular in shape, but fitted into each other with rare precision. one stone is twenty-seven feet high by fourteen; and others fifteen feet high by twelve are common throughout the work." in all the architecture of the prehistoric peruvians the true arch is not found, though there is an approach to the "maya arch," formerly described, finishing the doorway overhead by overlapping stones. the immense fortresses of ollantay and pisac are really hills which, by means of encircling walls, have been transformed into immense pyramids with many terraces rising above each other. all large buildings, such as temples and palaces, were laid out to agree with the "cardinal points," the principal entrance always facing the rising sun. the tomb construction of the ancient peruvians has been already noticed (_v._ chap. iv). to the south of cuzco are the ruins of a temple, cacha, which is considered to be of a date between the cyclopean structures already described and the inca architecture. the chief part is 110 yards long, built of wrought stones; and in the middle of the building from end to end runs a wall pierced by twelve high doorways. there were also two series of pillars which had formerly supported a floor. those traces of the cyclopean builders point to an extremely early date, but several students of the peruvian antiquities point confidently to distinct evidence of a still more primitive race--to be compared, perhaps, with those builders of "druidic monuments" whom it is now the fashion to call "neolithic men." some "cromlechs" or burial-places have been found in bolivia and other parts of peru; and in many respects they are parallel to the stone monuments found in great britain as well as brittany and other parts of europe. some of those peruvian cromlechs consist of four great slabs of slate, each about five feet high, four or five in width, and more than an inch thick. a fifth is placed over them. over the whole a pyramid of clay and rough stones is piled. possibly that race of cromlech builders bore the same relation to the temple builders described above that the builders of kits coty house, between rochester and maidstone, bore to the temple builders of stonehenge on salisbury plain. if they had to retreat, as the ice-sheet was driven farther from the torrid zone, then by the theory of the glacial period the cromlech men in both cases would at last be simply eskimos. 2. _aqueducts._--the ancient peruvians attained great skill in the distribution of water--especially for irrigation. artificial lakes or reservoirs were formed, so that by damming up the streams in the rainy season a good supply was created for the dry season. some great monuments still remain of their hydraulic engineering, such as extensive cisterns, solid dikes along the rivers to prevent overflow, tunnels to drain lakes during an oversupply, and, in some places, artificial cascades. 3. _roads and bridges._--the roads and highways of the incas were so excellent that "in many places" they still offer by far the most convenient avenues of transit. they are from fifteen to twenty-five feet in width, bedded with small stones often laid in concrete. as the use of beasts of burden was almost unknown, the roads did not ascend a steep inclination by zigzags but by steps cut in the rock. at certain distances public shelters were erected for travelers, and some of these still offer the best lodging-houses to be found along the routes. bridges were of wood, of ropes made from maguey fiber, or of stone. some of the latter are still in excellent condition, in spite of the violence of the mountain torrents which they have spanned for four centuries. 4. _sculpture._--the maya race of yucatan and central america were much superior to the prehistoric peruvians in stone sculpture. except those examples already referred to under 1, their artists have apparently produced nothing to show skill in workmanship, much less fertility of imagination. that is largely explained by their lack of suitable tools. 5. _goldsmith's work._--in this branch of art the ancient peruvians greatly excelled, especially in inlaying and gilding. gold-beating and gilding had been prosecuted to remarkable delicacy, and the very thin layers of gold-leaf on many articles led the spaniards at first to believe they were of the solid metal. these delicate layers showed ornamental designs, including birds, butterflies, and the like. 6. _pottery._--in this department of industrial art the prehistoric peruvians showed much aptitude both "in regard to variety of design and technical skill in preparing the material. vases with pointed bottoms and painted sides recalling those of ancient greece and etruria are often disinterred along the coast." the merit of those artists lay in perfect imitation of natural objects, such as birds, fishes, fruits, plants, skulls, persons in various positions, faces (often with graphic individuality). some jars exactly resembled the "magic vases" which are still found in hindustan, and can be emptied only when held at a certain angle. 7. though ignorant of perspective and the rules of light and shade, these ancient peruvians had an accurate eye for color. "spinning, weaving, and dyeing," to quote sir c. r. markham, "were arts which were sources of employment to a great number, owing to the quantity and variety of the fabrics.... there were rich dresses interwoven with gold or made of gold thread; fine woolen mantles ornamented with borders of small square plates of gold and silver; colored cotton cloths worked in complicated patterns; and fabrics of aloe fiber and sheep's sinews for breeches. coarser cloths of llama wool were also made in vast quantities." [illustration: the quipu.] 8. the _quipu_ (i e., "knot").--without writing or even any of the simpler forms of pictographs which some indian races inferior to them in refinement had invented, the peruvians had no means of sending a message relating to tribute or the number of warriors in an army, or a date, except the _quipu_. it consisted of one principal cord about two feet long held horizontally, to which other cords of various colors and lengths were attached, hanging vertically. the knots on the vertical cords, and their various lengths served by means of an arranged code to convey certain words and phrases. each color and each knot had so many conventional significations; thus _white_ = silver, _green_ = corn, _yellow_ = gold; but in another quipu, _white_ = peace, _red_ = war, soldiers, etc. the quipu was originally only a means of numeration and keeping accounts, thus: a single knot = 10 a double knot = 100 a triple knot = 1,000 two singles = 20 two doubles = 200 etc. 9. the great stone monuments described in our first section belonged, according to some writers, to a dynasty called pirua, who ruled over the highlands of peru and bolivia long before the times of the incas. that early race had as the center of their civilization the shores of lake titicaca. 10. _the ancient capital._--cuzco, the center of government till the time of the conquest by the spaniards, and for a long time the only city in the peruvian empire, deserves a paragraph under the head archeology. its wonderful fortress has already been referred to, and there are other cyclopean remains, such as the great wall which contains the "stone of twelve corners." some monuments of the inca period also attract much attention, such as the curi-cancha temple, 296 feet long, the palace of amaru-cancha (i. e., "place of serpents"), so called from the serpents sculptured in relief on the exterior. of these and other buildings squier remarks that the "joints are of a precision unknown in our architecture; the world has nothing to show in the way of stone-cutting and fitting to surpass the skill and accuracy displayed in the inca structures of cuzco." to obtain the site for their capital the incas had to carry out a great engineering work, by confining two mountain torrents between walls of substantial masonry so solid as to serve even to modern times. the valley of cuzco was the source of the peruvian civilization, center and origin of the empire. hence the name, cuzco = "navel," just as the ancient greeks called athens _umbilicus terræ_, and our new england cousins fondly refer to boston, mass., as "the hub of the universe"! [illustration: gold ornament (? zodiac) from a tomb at cuzco.] § (b) _peru before the arrival of the spaniards_ the "national myth" of the peruvians was that at lake titicaca two supernatural beings appeared, both children of the sun. one was manco capac, the first inca, who taught the people agriculture; the other was his wife, who taught the women to spin and weave. from them were lineally derived all the incas. as representing the sun, the inca was high priest and head of the hierarchy, and therefore presided at the great religious festivals. he was the source from which everything flowed--all dignity, all power, all emolument. louis le magnifique when at the height of his power might be taken as a type of the emperor inca: both could literally use the phrase, _l'état c'est moi,_ "the state! i am the state!" in the royal palaces and dress great barbaric pomp was assumed. all the apartments were studded with gold and silver ornaments. the worship of the sun, representing the creator, the dweller in space, the teacher and ruler of the universe,[25] was the religion of the incas inherited from their distant ancestry. the great temple at cuzco, with its gorgeous display of riches, was called "the place of gold, the abode of the teacher of the universe." an elliptical plate of gold was fixed on the wall to represent the deity. [footnote 25: according to sir c. r. markham, f. r. s.] sufficient evidence is still visible of the engineering industry evinced by the natives before the arrival of pizarro. we give some particulars of the two principal highways, both joining quito to cuzco, then passing south to chile. first, the high level road, 1,600 miles in length, crossing the great peruvian table-land, and conducted over pathless sierras buried in snow; with galleries cut for leagues through the living rock, rivers crossed by means of bridges, and ravines of hideous depth filled up with solid masonry. the roadway consisted of heavy flags of freestone. secondly, the low level highway along the coast country between the andes and the pacific. the prehistoric engineers had here to encounter quite a different task. the causeway was raised on a high embankment of earth, with trees planted along the margin. in the strips of sandy waste, huge piles (many of them to be seen to this day) were driven into the ground to indicate the route. another colossal effort was the conveyance of water to the rainless country by the seacoast, especially to certain parts capable of being reclaimed and made fertile. some of the aqueducts were of great length--one measuring between 400 and 500 miles. the following table gives the peruvian calendar for a year: i. raymi, the _festival of the winter solstice_, in honor of the sun june 22d. season of plowing july 22d. season of sowing august 22d. ii. _festival of the spring equinox_ september 22d. season of brewing october 22d. commemoration of the dead november 22d. iii. _festival of the summer solstice_ december 22d. season of exercises january 22d. season of ripening february 22d. iv. _festival of autumn equinox_ march 22d. beginning of harvest april 22d. harvesting month may 22d. since quito is exactly on the equator, the vertical rays of the sun at noon during the equinox cast no shadow. that northern capital, therefore, was "held in especial veneration as the favored abode of the great deity." at the feast of raymi, or new year's day, the sacrifice usually offered was that of the llama, a fire being kindled by means of a concave mirror of polished metal collecting the rays of the sun into a focus upon a quantity of dried cotton. the national festival of the aztecs we compared to the secular celebration of the romans; so now the raymi of the peruvians may be likened to the panathenæa of ancient athens, when the people of attica ascended in splendid procession to the shrine on the acropolis. in mexico the spanish travelers often experienced severe famines; and in india, even at the present day (to the disgrace perhaps of our management) nearly every year many thousands die of hunger. it was very different under the ancient peruvians, because by law "the product of the lands consecrated to the sun, as well as those set apart for the incas, was deposited in the _tambos_, or public storehouses, as a stated provision for times of scarcity." the spaniards found those prehistoric agriculturists utilizing the inexhaustible supply of guano found on all the islands of the pacific. it was not till the middle of the nineteenth century that the british farmer found the value of this fertilizer. chapter x pizarro and the incas when stout-hearted balboa first reached the summit of the isthmus range and looked south over the bay of panama, he might have seen the "silver bell," which forms the summit of the mighty volcano chimborazo. still farther south in the same direction lay the "land of gold," of which he had heard. balboa was unjustly prevented from exploring that unknown country, but among the spanish soldiers in panama there were two who determined to carry out balboa's scheme. the younger, pizarro, was destined to rival cortés as explorer and conqueror; almagro, his companion in the expedition, was less crafty and cruel. sailing from panama, the spanish first landed on the coast below quito, and found the natives wearing gold and silver trinkets. on a second voyage, with more men, they explored the coast of peru and visited tumbez, a town with a lofty temple and a palace for the incas. they beheld a country fully peopled and cultivated; the natives were decently clothed, and possessed of ingenuity so far surpassing the other inhabitants of the new world as to have the use of tame domestic animals. but what chiefly attracted the notice of the visitors was such a show of gold and silver, not only in ornaments, but in several vessels and utensils for common use, formed of those precious metals as left no room to doubt that they abounded with profusion in the country. after his return pizarro visited spain and secured the patronage of charles v, who appointed him governor and captain-general of the newly discovered country. in the next voyage from panama, pizarro set sail with 180 soldiers in three small ships--"a contemptible force surely to invade the great empire of peru." pizarro was very fortunate in the time of his arrival, because two brothers were fiercely contending in civil war to obtain the sovereignty. their father, huana capac, the twelfth inca in succession from manco capac, had recently died after annexing the kingdom of quito, and thus doubling the power of the empire. pizarro made friends with atahualpa, who had become inca by the defeat and death of his brother, and a friendly meeting was arranged between them. the peruvians are thus described by a spanish onlooker: first of all there arrived 400 men in uniform; the inca himself, on a couch adorned with plumes, and almost covered with plates of gold and silver, enriched with precious stones, was carried on the shoulders of his principal attendants. several bands of singers and dancers accompanied the procession; and the whole plain was covered with troops, more than 30,000 men. after engaging in a religious dispute with the inca, who refused to acknowledge the authority of the pope and threw the breviary on the ground, the spanish chaplain exclaimed indignantly that the word of god had been insulted by a heathen. pizarro instantly gave the signal of assault: the martial music struck up, the cannon and muskets began to fire, the horse rallied out fiercely to the charge, the infantry rushed on sword in hand. the peruvians, astonished at the suddenness of the attack, dismayed with the effect of the firearms and the irresistible impression of the cavalry, fled with universal consternation on every side. pizarro, at the head of his chosen band, soon penetrated to the royal seat, and seizing the inca by the arm, carried him as a prisoner to the spanish quarters. for his ransom atahualpa agreed to pay a weight of gold amounting to more than five millions sterling. instead of keeping faith with the inca by restoring him to liberty, pizarro basely allowed him to be tried on several false charges and condemned to be burned alive. after hearing of the enormous ransom many spaniards hurried from guatemala, panama, and nicaragua to share in the newly discovered booty of peru, the "land of gold." pizarro, therefore, being now greatly reenforced with soldiers, forced his way to cuzco, the capital. the riches found there exceeded in value what had been received as atahualpa's ransom. as governor of peru, pizarro chose a new site for his capital, nearer the coast than cuzco, and there founded lima. it is now a great center of trade. pizarro lived here in great state till the year 1542, when his fate reached him by means of a party of conspirators seeking to avenge the death of almagro, his former rival, whom he had cruelly executed as a traitor. on sunday, june 26th, at midday, while all lima was quiet under the siesta, the conspirators passed unobserved through the two outer courts of the palace, and speedily despatched the soldier-adventurer, intrepidly defending himself with a sword and buckler. "a deadly thrust full in the throat," and the tale of daring pizarro was told. _raro antecedentem scelestum_ _deseruit pede poena claudo._ when did doom, though lame, not bide its time, to clutch the nape of skulking crime? w. e. gladstone. general index. a. agathocles, 119. agassiz, 73. alfred, king, 19. almagro, pizarro's rival, 186, 189. alvarado, 158, 159. america, discoveries of, 19-35, 38-45, 48-53. america, origin of the name, 50. american archeology, 71-79 (_see_ also aztec, peru, civilization). amerigo (_americus_), (_see_ vespucci). anahuac, 56, 58, 63. archeology, 71-88 (see under aztec, mexico, peru, and civilization, extinct). aristotle, shape of the earth, 10. arthur, king, 19. atahualpa, inca, 187, 188. atlantic, ridge, 15. atlantis, island or continent, 14, 15. avalon, 17. aztecs, their traditions, 54, 56, 57, 62, 63. aztecs, antiquities, 55. aztecs, kingdom, 58; empire founded, 76. aztecs, letters, etc., 58, 79-82. aztecs, astronomy, 64, 65, 68, 83. aztecs, human sacrifices, 59, 60, 62, 102, 106; how explained by comparison with jews, greeks, druids, etc., 100-106. aztecs, priesthood, 65, 67. aztecs, religion, 92, 93; laws, 90. aztecs, natural piety, 66-68. aztecs, secular festival, 68-70. aztecs, soldiery, 91, 92. aztecs, agriculture, 94. aztecs, markets, 97, 147. aztecs, banquets, social amusements, 97, 99. aztlan, 56. b. bacon, roger, 18. bahamas, 41. balboa, 9, 50, 52, 164, 168. balboa scheme--adopted by pizarro, 186. balboa hears of the land of gold, 165. balboa crosses the isthmus, 166, 167. balboa unjustly treated, 167, 168. barcelona, columbus honored at court, 45. basque discovery, 32. boston in vinland, 26, 182. brandan, st. discoverer, 32. brito, ship-canal, 172. buccaneers, origin, etc., 169, 170. buffon, 15. burgos, bishop of, 157, 168. c. cabot, 38, 48, 49. cabrera reaches brazil, 49. cakama, prince of tezcuco, 154. calendar stone, 83, 84. calicut reached by gama, 49. canaanites, etc., sun-worship, 102, 103. cannibalism, 102, 103. capac, inca, 182, 187. carthage, 17, 102. cathay, 39, 43, 45. cazique, 43, 117, etc. celtic discoveries, 19, 30-32. chalco, lake, 136, 137. charles v. and cortés, 164. chiapas, 77. chibchas, 85. cholula, 84, 94, 130, 133. civilization, extinct, chaps, iii, ix. civilization, celtic, 19. civilization, norse, 19-25, 27-31. civilization, aztec, etc., 54-70, 82, 83. civilization, peru, 172-185. colon (_see_ columbus); also an atlantic port on the isthmus of darien, 172. columbia, 76, 85. columbus, 17-18, 37, 38-46, 157. columbus, early failures, 39. columbus, voyage to iceland, 39. columbus, variation of the compass, 41, 42, 49. columbus, discovers bahamas, cuba, hayti, 42-44. columbus, discovers trinidad and orinoco, 45. columbus, map by (found in 1894), 42. columbus, autograph (cut) and epitaph, 46. columbus, ferdinand, 18; bartholomew, 43. columbus, diego, 47, 157. continent, supposed southern (cut), 12. continent, western, 13 (_see_ atlantis, hesperides). condor, emblem of prehistoric inca, 173, 175 (cuts). copan, 79-81. cordova lands on yucatan, 53. cortés appointed leader, 53, 64, 77, 80. cortés at cuba and hayti, 117. cortés at yucatan, 109. cortés and teuhtile, in, 112. cortés, generalship, 119, 124, 126, 159. cortés, resource, 127, 128, 158. cortés, cruelty, 129, 132, 153. cortés at popocatepetl, 133. cortés and montezuma, 141, 143-143. cortés, lack of delicacy, 152. cortés, arrest of montezuma, 152-157. cortés, personal courage, 162. cortés, retreat, "night of sorrows," 163. cortés, mexico retaken and its emperor hanged, 164. cortés and charles v., 164. cliff-houses, 86. cotton, az. tec., preparation of, 84, 96. cromwell, his influence, 170. cruz, vera, 110, 114, 120, 156, 157, 163. cuba, 43-45, 51-53, 84. culhua, 110. cuzco, 174, 176, 181, 183, 188. cuzco, cyclopean remains, 181, 183. cuzco, temple, 183. cyclopean ruins in peru, 173, 178, 181-183. cyclopean ruins in peru (cuts), 173, 175. d. dalrymple, sir john, 169, 170. dampier, buccaneer, 170. darien, taken by balboa, 169. darien, scottish expedition, 169. darien, causes of failure, 169, 170. darien, crossed by morgan, 170, 171. darien, crossed by dampier, 171. diaz, navigator, rounds the cape of good hope and names it the "stormy cape," 49. diaz, historian, quoted, 148, 151, 158, 160. dighton stone, 28 (cuts, 27, 28). diodorus siculus, 16. druid sacrifices, 106. "druidic," 74, 177, 178. e. edward vi and cabot, 48. elysian fields, 13, 14, 16. erik the red, 20. escobar, 162. euripides, quoted, 14. f. feather-work, 84, 96. ferdinand and isabella, 40, 41. feudalism ended, 36. g. gama, de, 38, 58. gardens, 138, 139. glazier, theory, 73-74. gladstone quoted, 189. gosnold's expedition, 25, 26. greenland, 19-25, 30, 31. grijalva and yucatan, 10, 53. guatemala, 58, 76, 79. guatimozin, 163. gunnbiorn, 20. h. hannibal on the alps, 134, 135. harold fair-hair, 20. hatuey, 51, 52. hayti, 43, 98. helluland (newfoundland), 22. henry vii., 48, 49. hercules' pillars, 13, 17. herodotus, 10, 11. hesiod, quoted, 13. hesperides, isles of the blest, 14. homer, quoted, 10, 13. honduras, 76, 79. huitzilopochtli, god of battles, 93, 94, 150, 151 (_see_ mexitl.) humboldt, 35, 50, 65, 73, 83, 94. i. iceland, 19, 20. incas, 172, 182 (_see_ peru). "indian," as a term applied to the new world by mistake, a blunder still perpetuated, 42 (_cf_. 98.) indians, "red-skins," 72-74, 80, 90. ingolf, 19. iphigenia, 104. ireland, mickle, 20, 31, 32. italian discovery, 34-36. itztli (obsidian), used as a sharp flint, 95. iztapalapan, 138. j. jamaica, 170. jewish "discovery," 33. juan, s., ship-canal, 172. k. katortuk (greenland), 21, 22 (cut, 21). kingsborough, lord, 34, 69, 82. l. leif erikson, 21-23. lesseps de, 171-173. loadstone, 41, 42. longfellow, quoted, 29. lucian, quoted, 17. m. madoc, 32, 33, 70. magellan reaches the pacific ocean and names it, 49; killed at matan, 50. magnetic pole, 41. maguey plant, its singular value, 94. major, mr., on pre-columbian discoveries of america, and site of the greenland colonies, 35, 36. malte-brun, 35. marina, "slave-interpreter," 109, 115, 128, 131. markham, sir c., quoted, 30, 174, 179, 183. markland (nova scotia), 22. marvels, age of, 38, 39. maya, mayapan, 76, 79. maya, ms., 81, 82. maya, trade, 84. _mayflower_ lands in vinland, 26. medea, 18, 104. merida, 78. mexico, mexicans (_see also_ aztecs). mexico, archeology, 72-86. mexico, geography, 89, 90, 133-135. mexico, valley, 134, 135. mexico, town, 139, 142, 145-151. mexico, wealth, 155. mexico, siege, 160-164. mexico, ferocity in war, 160-164. mexitl, the god of battles, another name for huitzilopochtli, 93. monolith (cuts), 173, 175. montezuma i., 57. montezuma, 110-113. montezuma, meaning of name, 113. montezuma, power, 120, 121, 135, 141. montezuma, affability, 144. montezuma, dress, etc., 161. montezuma, death, 162. montgomery, james, 20, 22, 23. morgan, buccaneer, 170. mound builders, 31, 71, 85. müller, max, quoted, 56. n. narvaez, 158, 159. nicaragua, ship-canal, 58, 172. norse discovery, 19-32. norse towns in greenland, 20. norumbega, 25. o. ocean, western, 12, 16, 17. ocean, southern, first name for the atlantic (q.v.) oceanus, river, 10. ogygia, 16. ollantay, peru, 174, 176. orinoco, discovered, 45. orizaba, 120. overland route, 37. p. pacific, first seen, 166. pacific, first sailed upon, 50. palenque, 77, 79, 81. palos, 41, 45. panama, 166, 171, 172. panama, modern, 171. paper (prehistoric) of mexico, 82. pedrarias, 167, 168. peru and incas, chaps. ix., x. peru agriculture, 182, 185. peru aqueducts, roads, etc., 177. peru archeology, 172-182. peru architecture, 87, 172-178. peru calendar, 184, 185. peru chulpas, 87 (cut). peru quipu, 180 (cut). peru sculpture and pottery, 178. peru history and religion, 182. phenicians, 11, 17. pictograph, 80, 112. pindar, quoted, 13. pizarro, 164, 167. pizarro and atahualpha, 187, 188. pizarro and peru, 186-189. pizarro, first and second voyages, 186, 187. pizarro imitated balboa, 165, 186. pizarro invades peru, 187. pizarro, his treachery and cruelty, 188, 189. pizarro at cusco, 188. pizarro founds lima, 188. pizarro, "doom" at last, 189. plato, 14, 15. plutarch, 16. polo, marco, 39, 43. polyxena, 104. popocatepetl, 133, 134. ptolemy, 11, 39. pythagorean theory, 10. q. quetzalcoatl, 84, 93, 94, 111, 113, 130, 152. quipu, 180, 181 (cut, 180). r. rafn, 28, 29, 31. raymi, peruvian festival, 184, 185. renascence, 9, 36, 37. renascence influence on travel and exploration, 38. renascence assisted the reformation, 37. runes in greenland, 27, 28. s. sebastian, magellan's basque lieutenant, 33, 50. seneca, 18, 19 (title-page). "scraelings," vinland, 23. "skeleton in armor," 29. spain, how consolidated, 37, 106. spain, close of its colonial history, 52. squier, quoted, 176, 181. t. tambos, peru, 185. tehuantepec, isthmus, 171. tenochtitlan, mexico, 57. teocalli, 106, 117, 148-151, 156 (cut, 105). tezcatlipoca, god of youth, 61. tezcuco, eastern capital, mexico, 56. tezcuco, 56, 57, 136. tezcuco, king of, 100. tezcuco, lake, 139-140. thorfinn, 23. thorwaldsen, 23. titicaca, lake, 71, 182. titicaca (_see_ cyclopean ruins), 174, 175. tlaloc, god of rain, 63. tlascala, 113, 121-127, 130, 153, 159, 163. tlascala, people, and siege, 130, 133. toltecs, 56, 71. totonacs, 115. trinidad, 45. tula, 56. tumbez, peru, 186. turks, causing civilization, 36, 38. u. utatla, 79. uxmal, 55, 76 (frontispiece). v. valladolid, 46. velasquez, 51-53, 107, 108, 158. vesper, 14 (_see_ hesperides). vespucci, 49, 51, 52. vinland (new england), 23, 25. vinland, map of, 24. voltaire, story of cortés, 164. w. waldseemüller, 50. watling's island, 42. welsh discovery, 32, 33. william iii. and darien scheme, 168-169. wilson, "prehistoric man," 26, 81. world, shape of, 9-11. x. xalapa, 120. xicotencatl, tlascalan, 124, 126, 127-130. xicotencatl appearance, 129. y. yochicalco, 86. yucatan, 53, 54, 75-77. z. zempoalla, "conversion of," 116. zempoalla, 119, 158, 159. zeni, italian brothers, 34-35. zeno map, 34, 35. zipango (japan), 39, 45. zodiac, comparative, 55. zodiac (cut) from a tomb at cusco, 182. * * * * * transcriber's note: the many spelling and hyphenation discrepancies in this text are as in the original. lord's lectures beacon lights of history, volume i the old pagan civilizations. by john lord, ll.d., author of "the old roman world," "modern europe," etc., etc. to the memory of mary porter lord, whose friendship and appreciation as a devoted wife encouraged me to a long life of historical labors, this work is gratefully and affectionately dedicated by the author. publishers' note. in preparing a new edition of dr. lord's great work, the "beacon lights of history," it has been necessary to make some rearrangement of lectures and volumes. dr. lord began with his volume on classic "antiquity," and not until he had completed five volumes did he return to the remoter times of "old pagan civilizations" (reaching back to assyria and egypt) and the "jewish heroes and prophets." these issued, he took up again the line of great men and movements, and brought it down to modern days. the "old pagan civilizations," of course, stretch thousands of years before the hebrews, and the volume so entitled would naturally be the first. then follows the volume on "jewish heroes and prophets," ending with st. paul and the christian era. after this volume, which in any position, dealing with the unique race of the jews, must stand by itself, we return to the brilliant picture of the pagan centuries, in "ancient achievements" and "imperial antiquity," the latter coming down to the fall of rome in the fourth century a.d., which ends the era of "antiquity" and begins the "middle ages." new york, september 15, 1902. author's preface. it has been my object in these lectures to give the substance of accepted knowledge pertaining to the leading events and characters of history; and in treating such a variety of subjects, extending over a period of more than six thousand years, each of which might fill a volume, i have sought to present what is true rather than what is new. although most of these lectures have been delivered, in some form, during the last forty years, in most of the cities and in many of the literary institutions of this country, i have carefully revised them within the last few years, in order to avail myself of the latest light shed on the topics and times of which they treat. the revived and wide-spread attention given to the study of the bible, under the stimulus of recent oriental travels and investigations, not only as a volume of religious guidance, but as an authentic record of most interesting and important events, has encouraged me to include a series of lectures on some of the remarkable men identified with jewish history. of course i have not aimed at an exhaustive criticism in these biblical studies, since the topics cannot be exhausted even by the most learned scholars; but i have sought to interest intelligent christians by a continuous narrative, interweaving with it the latest accessible knowledge bearing on the main subjects. if i have persisted in adhering to the truths that have been generally accepted for nearly two thousand years, i have not disregarded the light which has been recently shed on important points by the great critics of the progressive schools. i have not aimed to be exhaustive, or to give minute criticism on comparatively unimportant points; but the passions and interests which have agitated nations, the ideas which great men have declared, and the institutions which have grown out of them, have not, i trust, been uncandidly described, nor deductions from them illogically made. inasmuch as the interest in the development of those great ideas and movements which we call civilization centres in no slight degree in the men who were identified with them, i have endeavored to give a faithful picture of their lives in connection with the eras and institutions which they represent, whether they were philosophers, ecclesiastics, or men of action. and that we may not lose sight of the precious boons which illustrious benefactors have been instrumental in bestowing upon mankind, it has been my chief object to present their services, whatever may have been their defects; since it is for _services_ that most great men are ultimately judged, especially kings and rulers. these services, certainly, constitute the gist of history, and it is these which i have aspired to show. john lord. vol. i. the old pagan civilizations. contents. ancient religions: egyptian, assyrian, babylonian, and persian. ancient religions christianity not progressive jewish monotheism religion of egypt its great antiquity its essential features complexity of egyptian polytheism egyptian deities the worship of the sun the priestly caste of egypt power of the priests future rewards and punishments morals of the egyptians functions of the priests egyptian ritual of worship transmigration of souls animal worship effect of egyptian polytheism on the jews assyrian deities phoenician deities worship of the sun oblations and sacrifices idolatry the sequence of polytheism religion of the persians character of the early iranians comparative purity of the persian religion zoroaster magism zend-avesta dualism authorities religions of india. brahmanism and buddhism. religions of india antiquity of brahmanism sanskrit literature the aryan races original religion of the aryans aryan migrations the vedas ancient deities of india laws of menu hindu pantheism corruption of brahmanism the brahmanical caste character of the brahmans rise of buddhism gautama experiences of gautama travels of buddha his religious system spread of his doctrine buddhism a reaction against brahmanism nirvana gloominess of buddhism buddhism as a reform of morals sayings of siddârtha his rules failure of buddhism in india authorities religion of the greeks and romans. classic mythology. religion of the greeks and romans greek myths greek priests greek divinities greek polytheism greek mythology adoption of oriental fables greek deities the creation of poets peculiarities of the greek gods the olympian deities the minor deities the greeks indifferent to a future state augustine view of heathen deities artists vie with poets in conceptions of divine temple of zeus in olympia greek festivals no sacred books among the greeks a religion without deities roman divinities peculiarities of roman worship ritualism and hypocrisy character of the roman authorities confucius. sage and moralist. early condition of china youth of confucius his public life his reforms his fame his wanderings his old age his writings his philosophy his definition of a superior man his ethics his views of government his veneration for antiquity his beautiful character his encouragement of learning his character as statesman his exaltation of filial piety his exaltation of friendship the supremacy of the state necessity of good men in office peaceful policy of confucius veneration for his writings his posthumous influence lao-tse authorities ancient philosophy. seeking after truth. intellectual superiority of the greeks early progress of philosophy the greek philosophy the ionian sophoi thales and his principles anaximenes diogenes of apollonia heraclitus of ephesus anaxagoras anaximander pythagoras and his school xenophanes zeno of elea empedocles and the eleatics loftiness of the greek philosopher progress of scepticism the sophists socrates his exposure of error socrates as moralist the method of socrates his services to philosophy his disciples plato ideas of plato archer butler on plato aristotle his services the syllogism the epicureans sir james mackintosh on epicurus the stoics zeno principles of the stoical philosophy philosophy among the romans cicero epictetus authorities socrates. greek philosophy. mission of socrates era of his birth; view of his times his personal appearance and peculiarities his lofty moral character his sarcasm and ridicule of opponents the sophists neglect of his family his friendship with distinguished people his philosophic method his questions and definitions his contempt of theories imperfection of contemporaneous physical science the ionian philosophers socrates bases truth on consciousness uncertainty of physical inquiries in his day superiority of moral truth happiness, virtue, knowledge,--the socratic trinity the "daemon" of socrates his idea of god and immortality socrates a witness and agent of god socrates compared with buddha and marcus aurelius his resemblance to christ in life and teachings unjust charges of his enemies his unpopularity his trial and defence his audacity his condemnation the dignity of his last hours his easy death tardy repentance of the athenians; statue by lysippus posthumous influence authorities phidias. greek art. general popular interest in art principles on which it is based phidias taken merely as a text not much known of his personal history his most famous statues; minerva and olympian jove his peculiar excellences as a sculptor definitions of the word "art" its representation of ideas of beauty and grace the glory and dignity of art the connection of plastic with literary art architecture, the first expression of art peculiarities of egyptian and assyrian architecture ancient temples, tombs, pyramids, and palaces general features of grecian architecture the doric, ionic, and corinthian orders simplicity and beauty of their proportions... the horizontal lines of greek and the vertical lines of gothic architecture assyrian, egyptian, and indian sculpture superiority of greek sculpture ornamentation of temples with statues of gods, heroes, and distinguished men the great sculptors of antiquity their ideal excellence antiquity of painting in babylon and egypt its gradual development in greece famous grecian painters decline of art among the romans art as seen in literature literature not permanent without art artists as a class art a refining influence rather than a moral power authorities literary genius. the greek and roman classics. richness of greek classic poetry homer greek lyrical poetry pindar dramatic poetry aeschylus, sophocles, and euripides greek comedy: aristophanes roman poetry naevius, plautus, terence roman epic poetry: virgil lyrical poetry: horace, catullus didactic poetry: lucretius elegiac poetry: ovid, tibullus satire: horace, martial, juvenal perfection of greek prose writers history: herodotus thucydides, xenophon roman historians julius caesar livy tacitus orators pericles demosthenes aeschines cicero learned men: varro seneca quintilian lucian authorities list of illustrations. volume i. agapè, or love feast among the early christians _frontispiece_ _after the painting by j.a. mazerolle_. procession of the sacred bull apis-osiris _after the painting by e.f. bridgman_. driving sacrificial victims into the fiery mouth of baal _after the painting by henri motte_. apollo belvedere _from a photograph of the statue in the vatican, rome._ confucian temple, forbidden city, pekin _from a photograph_. the school of plato _after the painting by o. knille_. socrates instructing alcibiades _after the painting by h.f. schopin_. socrates _from the bust in the national museum, naples_. pericles and aspasia in the studio of phidias _after the painting by hector le roux_. zeuxis choosing models from among the beauties of kroton for his picture of helen _after the painting by e. pagliano_. homer _from the bust in the national museum, naples_. demosthenes _from the statue in the vatican, rome_. ancient religions: egyptian, assyrian, babylonian, and persian. beacon lights of history. ancient religions: egyptian, assyrian, babylonian, and persian. it is my object in this book on the old pagan civilizations to present the salient points only, since an exhaustive work is impossible within the limits of these volumes. the practical end which i have in view is to collate a sufficient number of acknowledged facts from which to draw sound inferences in reference to the progress of the human race, and the comparative welfare of nations in ancient and modern times. the first inquiry we naturally make is in regard to the various religious systems which were accepted by the ancient nations, since religion, in some form or other, is the most universal of institutions, and has had the earliest and the greatest influence on the condition and life of peoples--that is to say, on their civilizations--in every period of the world. and, necessarily, considering what is the object in religion, when we undertake to examine any particular form of it which has obtained among any people or at any period of time, we must ask, how far did its priests and sages teach exalted ideas of deity, of the soul, and of immortality? how far did they arrive at lofty and immutable principles of morality? how far did religion, such as was taught, practically affect the lives of those who professed it, and lead them to just and reasonable treatment of one another, or to holy contemplation, or noble deeds, or sublime repose in anticipation of a higher and endless life? and how did the various religions compare with what we believe to be the true religion--christianity--in its pure and ennobling truths, its inspiring promises, and its quiet influence in changing and developing character? i assume that there is no such thing as a progressive christianity, except in so far as mankind grow in the realization of its lofty principles; that there has not been and will not be any improvement on the ethics and spiritual truths revealed by jesus the christ, but that they will remain forever the standard of faith and practice. i assume also that christianity has elements which are not to be found in any other religion,--such as original teachings, divine revelations, and sublime truths. i know it is the fashion with many thinkers to maintain that improvements on the christian system are both possible and probable, and that there is scarcely a truth which christ and his apostles declared which cannot be found in some other ancient religion, when divested of the errors there incorporated with it. this notion i repudiate. i believe that systems of religion are perfect or imperfect, true or false, just so far as they agree or disagree with christianity; and that to the end of time all systems are to be measured by the christian standard, and not christianity by any other system. the oldest religion of which we have clear and authentic account is probably the pure monotheism held by the jews. some nations have claimed a higher antiquity for their religion--like the egyptians and chinese--than that which the sacred writings of the hebrews show to have been communicated to abraham, and to earlier men of god treated of in those scriptures; but their claims are not entitled to our full credence. we are in doubt about them. the origin of religions is enshrouded in mystical darkness, and is a mere speculation. authentic history does not go back far enough to settle this point. the primitive religion of mankind i believe to have been revealed to inspired men, who, like shem, walked with god. adam, in paradise, knew who god was, for he heard his voice; and so did enoch and noah, and, more clearly than all, abraham. they believed in a personal god, maker of heaven and earth, infinite in power, supreme in goodness, without beginning and without end, who exercises a providential oversight of the world which he made. it is certainly not unreasonable to claim the greatest purity and loftiness in the monotheistic faith of the hebrew patriarchs, as handed down to his children by abraham, over that of all other founders of ancient religious systems, not only since that faith was, as we believe, supernaturally communicated, but since the fruit of that stock, especially in its christian development, is superior to all others. this sublime monotheism was ever maintained by the hebrew race, in all their wanderings, misfortunes, and triumphs, except on occasions when they partially adopted the gods of those nations with whom they came in contact, and by whom they were corrupted or enslaved. but it is not my purpose to discuss the religion of the jews in this connection, since it is treated in other volumes of this series, and since everybody has access to the bible, the earlier portions of which give the true account not only of the hebrews and their special progenitor abraham, but of the origin of the earth and of mankind; and most intelligent persons are familiar with its details. i begin my description of ancient religions with those systems with which the jews were more or less familiar, and by which they were more or less influenced. and whether these religions were, as i think, themselves corrupted forms of the primitive revelation to primitive man, or, as is held by some philosophers of to-day, natural developments out of an original worship of the powers of nature, of ghosts of ancestral heroes, of tutelar deities of household, family, tribe, nation, and so forth, it will not affect their relation to my plan of considering this background of history in its effects upon modern times, through judaism and christianity. * * * * * the first which naturally claims our attention is the religion of ancient egypt. but i can show only the main features and characteristics of this form of paganism, avoiding the complications of their system and their perplexing names as much as possible. i wish to present what is ascertained and intelligible rather than what is ingenious and obscure. the religion of egypt is very old,--how old we cannot tell with certainty. we know that it existed before abraham, and with but few changes, for at least two thousand years. mariette places the era of the first egyptian dynasty under menes at 5004 b.c. it is supposed that the earliest form of the egyptian religion was monotheistic, such as was known later, however, only to a few of the higher priesthood. what the esoteric wisdom really was we can only conjecture, since there are no sacred books or writings that have come down to us, like the indian vedas and the persian zend-avesta. herodotus affirms that he knew the mysteries, but he did not reveal them. but monotheism was lost sight of in egypt at an earlier period than the beginning of authentic history. it is the fate of all institutions to become corrupt, and this is particularly true of religious systems. the reason of this is not difficult to explain. the bible and human experience fully exhibit the course of this degradation. hence, before abraham's visit to egypt the religion of that land had degenerated into a gross and complicated polytheism, which it was apparently for the interest of the priesthood to perpetuate. the egyptian religion was the worship of the powers of nature,--the sun, the moon, the planets, the air, the storm, light, fire, the clouds, the rivers, the lightning, all of which were supposed to exercise a mysterious influence over human destiny. there was doubtless an indefinite sense of awe in view of the wonders of the material universe, extending to a vague fear of some almighty supremacy over all that could be seen or known. to these powers of nature the egyptians gave names, and made them divinities. the egyptian polytheism was complex and even contradictory. what it lost in logical sequence it gained in variety. wilkinson enumerates seventy-three principal divinities, and birch sixty-three; but there were some hundreds of lesser gods, discharging peculiar functions and presiding over different localities. every town had its guardian deity, to whom prayers or sacrifices were offered by the priests. the more complicated the religious rites the more firmly cemented was the power of the priestly caste, and the more indispensable were priestly services for the offerings and propitiations. of these egyptian deities there were eight of the first rank; but the list of them differs according to different writers, since in the great cities different deities were worshipped. these were ammon--the concealed god,--the sovereign over all (corresponding to the jupiter of the romans), whose sacred city was thebes. at a later date this god was identified with ammon ra, the physical sun. ra was the sun-god, especially worshipped at heliopolis,--the symbol of light and heat. kneph was the spirit of god moving over the face of the waters, whose principal seat of worship was in upper egypt. phtha was a sort of artisan god, who made the sun, moon, and the earth, "the father of beginnings;" his sign was the scarabaeus, or beetle, and his patron city was memphis. khem was the generative principle presiding over the vegetable world,--the giver of fertility and lord of the harvest. these deities are supposed to have represented spirit passing into matter and form,--a process of divine incarnation. but the most popular deity was osiris. his image is found standing on the oldest monument, a form of ra, the light of the lower world, and king and judge of hades. his worship was universal throughout egypt, but his chief temples were at abydos and philae. he was regarded as mild, beneficent, and good. in opposition to him were set, malignant and evil, and bes, the god of death. isis, the wife and sister of osiris, was a sort of sun goddess, representing the productive power of nature. khons was the moon god. maut, the consort of ammon, represented nature. sati, the wife of kneph, bore a resemblance to juno. nut was the goddess of the firmament; ma was the goddess of truth; horus was the mediator between creation and destruction. but in spite of the multiplicity of deities, the egyptian worship centred in some form upon heat or fire, generally the sun, the most powerful and brilliant of the forces of nature. among all the ancient pagan nations the sun, the moon, and the planets, under different names, whether impersonated or not, were the principal objects of worship for the people. to these temples were erected, statues raised, and sacrifices made. no ancient nation was more devout, or more constant to the service of its gods, than were the egyptians; and hence, being superstitious, they were pre-eminently under the control of priests, as the people were in india. we see, chiefly in india and egypt, the power of caste,--tyrannical, exclusive, and pretentious,--and powerful in proportion to the belief in a future state. take away the belief in future existence and future rewards and punishments, and there is not much religion left. there may be philosophy and morality, but not religion, which is based on the fear and love of god, and the destiny of the soul after death. saint augustine, in his "city of god," his greatest work, ridicules all gods who are not able to save the soul, and all religions where future existence is not recognized as the most important thing which can occupy the mind of man. we cannot then utterly despise the religion of egypt, in spite of the absurdities mingled with it,--the multiplicity of gods and the doctrine of metempsychosis,--since it included a distinct recognition of a future state of rewards and punishments "according to the deeds done in the body." on this belief rested the power of the priests, who were supposed to intercede with the deities, and who alone were appointed to offer to them sacrifices, in order to gain their favor or deprecate their wrath. the idea of death and judgment was ever present to the thoughts of the egyptians, from the highest to the lowest, and must have modified their conduct, stimulating them to virtue, and restraining them from vice; for virtue and vice are not revelations,--they are instincts implanted in the soul. no ancient teacher enjoined the duties based on an immutable morality with more force than confucius, buddha, and epictetus. who in any land or age has ignored the duties of filial obedience, respect to rulers, kindness to the miserable, protection to the weak, honesty, benevolence, sincerity, and truthfulness? with the discharge of these duties, written on the heart, have been associated the favor of the gods, and happiness in the future world, whatever errors may have crept into theological dogmas and speculations. believing then in a future state, where sin would be punished and virtue rewarded, and believing in it firmly and piously, the ancient egyptians were a peaceful and comparatively moral people. all writers admit their industry, their simplicity of life, their respect for law, their loyalty to priests and rulers. hence there was permanence to their institutions, for rapine, violence, and revolution were rare. they were not warlike, although often engaged in war by the command of ambitious kings. generally the policy of their government was conservative and pacific. military ambition and thirst for foreign conquest were not the peculiar sins of egyptian kings; they sought rather to develop national industries and resources. the occupation of the people was in agriculture and the useful arts, which last they carried to considerable perfection, especially in the working of metals, textile fabrics, and ornamental jewelry. their grand monuments were not triumphal arches, but temples and mausoleums. even the pyramids may have been built to preserve the bodies of kings until the soul should be acquitted or condemned, and therefore more religious in their uses than as mere emblems of pride and power; and when monuments were erected to perpetuate the fame of princes, their supreme design was to receive the engraven memorials of the virtuous deeds of kings as fathers of the people. the priests, whose business it was to perform religious rites and ceremonies to the various gods of the egyptians, were extremely numerous. they held the highest social rank, and were exempt from taxes. they were clothed in white linen, which was kept scrupulously clean. they washed their whole bodies twice a day; they shaved the head, and wore no beard. they practised circumcision, which rite was of extreme antiquity, existing in egypt two thousand four hundred years before christ, and at least four hundred years before abraham, and has been found among primitive peoples all over the world. they did not make a show of sanctity, nor were they ascetic like the brahmans. they were married, and were allowed to drink wine and to eat meat, but not fish nor beans, which disturbed digestion. the son of a priest was generally a priest also. there were grades of rank among the priesthood; but not more so than in the roman catholic church. the high-priest was a great dignitary, and generally belonged to the royal family. the king himself was a priest. the egyptian ritual of worship was the most complicated of all rituals, and their literature and philosophy were only branches of theology. "religious observances," says freeman clarke, "were so numerous and so imperative that the most common labors of daily life could not be performed without a perpetual reference to some priestly regulation." there were more religious festivals than among any other ancient nation. the land was covered with temples; and every temple consecrated to a single divinity, to whom some animal was sacred, supported a large body of priests. the authorities on egyptian history, especially wilkinson, speak highly, on the whole, of the morals of the priesthood, and of their arduous and gloomy life of superintending ceremonies, sacrifices, processions, and funerals. their life was so full of minute duties and restrictions that they rarely appeared in public, and their aspect as well as influence was austere and sacerdotal. one of the most distinctive features of the egyptian religion was the idea of the transmigration of souls,--that when men die; their souls reappear on earth in various animals, in expiation of their sins. osiris was the god before whose tribunal all departed spirits appeared to be judged. if evil preponderated in their lives, their souls passed into a long series of animals until their sins were expiated, when the purified souls, after thousands of years perhaps, passed into their old bodies. hence it was the great object of the egyptians to preserve their mortal bodies after death, and thus arose the custom of embalming them. it is difficult to compute the number of mummies that have been found in egypt. if a man was wealthy, it cost his family as much as one thousand dollars to embalm his body suitably to his rank. the embalmed bodies of kings were preserved in marble sarcophagi, and hidden in gigantic monuments. the most repulsive thing in the egyptian religion was animal-worship. to each deity some animal was sacred. thus apis, the sacred bull of memphis, was the representative of osiris; the cow was sacred to isis, and to athor her mother. sheep were sacred to kneph, as well as the asp. hawks were sacred to ra; lions were emblems of horus, wolves of anubis, hippopotami of set. each town was jealous of the honor of its special favorites among the gods. "the worst form of this animal worship," says rawlinson, "was the belief that a deity absolutely became incarnate in an individual animal, and so remained until the animal's death. such were the apis bulls, of which a succession was maintained at memphis in the temple of phtha, or, according to others, of osiris. these beasts, maintained at the cost of the priestly communities in the great temples of their respective cities, were perpetually adored and prayed to by thousands during their lives, and at their deaths were entombed with the utmost care in huge sarcophagi, while all egypt went into mourning on their decease." such was the religion of egypt as known to the jews,--a complicated polytheism, embracing the worship of animals as well as the powers of nature; the belief in the transmigration of souls, and a sacerdotalism which carried ritualistic ceremonies to the greatest extent known to antiquity, combined with the exaltation of the priesthood to such a degree as to make priests the real rulers of the land, reminding us of the spiritual despotism of the middle ages. the priests of egypt ruled by appealing to the fears of men, thus favoring a degrading superstition. how far they taught that the various objects of worship were symbols merely of a supreme power, which they themselves perhaps accepted in their esoteric schools, we do not know. but the priests believed in a future state of rewards and punishments, and thus recognized the soul to be of more importance than the material body, and made its welfare paramount over all other interests. this recognition doubtless contributed to elevate the morals of the people, and to make them religious, despite their false and degraded views of god, and their disgusting superstitions. the jews could not have lived in egypt four hundred years without being influenced by the popular belief. hence in the wilderness, and in the days of kingly rule, the tendency to animal worship in the shape of the golden calves, their love of ritualistic observances, and their easy submission to the rule of priests. in one very important thing, however, the jews escaped a degrading superstition,--that of the transmigration of souls; and it was perhaps the abhorrence by moses of this belief that made him so remarkably silent as to a future state. it is seemingly ignored in the old testament, and hence many have been led to suppose that the jews did not believe in it. certainly the most cultivated and aristocratic sect--the sadducees--repudiated it altogether; while the pharisees held to it. they, however, were products of a later age, and had learned many things--good and bad--from surrounding nations or in their captivities, which moses did not attempt to teach the simple souls that escaped from egypt. * * * * * of the other religions with which the jews came in contact, and which more or less were in conflict with their own monotheistic belief, very little is definitely known, since their sacred books, if they had any, have not come down to us. our knowledge is mostly confined to monuments, on which the names of their deities are inscribed, the animals which they worshipped, symbolic of the powers of nature, and the kings and priests who officiated in religious ceremonies. from these we learn or infer that among the assyrians, babylonians, and phoenicians religion was polytheistic, but without so complicated or highly organized a system as prevailed in egypt. only about twenty deities are alluded to in the monumental records of either nation, and they are supposed to have represented the sun, the moon, the stars, and various other powers, to which were delegated by the unseen and occult supreme deity the oversight of this world. they presided over cities and the elements of nature, like the rain, the thunder, the winds, the air, the water. some abode in heaven, some on the earth, and some in the waters under the earth. of all these graven images existed, carved by men's hands,--some in the form of animals, like the winged bulls of nineveh. in the very earliest times, before history was written, it is supposed that the religion of all these nations was monotheistic, and that polytheism was a development as men became wicked and sensual. the knowledge of the one god was gradually lost, although an indefinite belief remained that there was a supreme power over all the other gods, at least a deity of higher rank than the gods of the people, who reigned over them as lord of lords. this deity in assyria was asshur. he is recognized by most authorities as asshur, a son of shem and grandson of noah, who was probably the hero and leader of one of the early migrations, and, as founder of the assyrian empire, gave it its name,--his own being magnified and deified by his warlike descendants. assyria was the oldest of the great empires, occupying mesopotamia,--the vast plain watered by the tigris and euphrates rivers,--with adjacent countries to the north, west, and east. its seat was in the northern portion of this region, while that of babylonia or chaldaea, its rival, was in the southern part; and although after many wars freed from the subjection of assyria, the institutions of babylonia, and especially its religion, were very much the same as those of the elder empire. in babylonia the chief god was called el, or il. in babylon, although bab-el, their tutelary god, was at the head of the pantheon, his form was not represented, nor had he any special temple for his worship. the assyrian asshur placed kings upon their thrones, protected their armies, and directed their expeditions. in speaking of him it was "asshur, my lord." he was also called "king of kings," reigning supreme over the gods; and sometimes he was called the "father of the gods." his position in the celestial hierarchy corresponds with the zeus of the greeks, and with the jupiter of the romans. he was represented as a man with a horned cap, carrying a bow and issuing from a winged circle, which circle was the emblem of ubiquity and eternity. this emblem was also the accompaniment of assyrian royalty. these assyrian and babylonian deities had a direct influence on the jews in later centuries, because traders on the tigris pushed their adventurous expeditions from the head of the persian gulf, either around the great peninsula of arabia, or by land across the deserts, and settled in canaan, calling themselves phoenicians; and it was from the descendants of these enterprising but morally debased people that the children of israel, returning from egypt, received the most pertinacious influences of idolatrous corruption. in phoenicia the chief deity was also called bel, or baal, meaning "lord," the epithet of the one divine being who rules the world, or the lord of heaven. the deity of the egyptian pantheon, with whom baal most nearly corresponds, was ammon, addressed as the supreme god. ranking after el in babylon, asshur in assyria, and baal in phoenicia,--all shadows of the same supreme god,--we notice among these mesopotamians a triad of the great gods, called anu, bel, and hea. anu, the primordial chaos; hea, life and intelligence animating matter; and bel, the organizing and creative spirit,--or, as rawlinson thinks, "the original gods of the earth, the heavens, and the waters, corresponding in the main with the classical pluto, jupiter, and neptune, who divided between them the dominion over the visible creation." the god bel, in the pantheon of the babylonians and assyrians, is the god of gods, and father of gods, who made the earth and heaven. his title expresses dominion. in succession to the gods of this first trio,--anu, bel, and hea,--was another trio, named siu, shamas, and vul, representing the moon, the sun, and the atmosphere. "in assyria and babylon the moon-god took precedence of the sun-god, since night was more agreeable to the inhabitants of those hot countries than the day." hence, siu was the more popular deity; but shamas, the sun, as having most direct reference to physical nature, "the lord of fire," "the ruler of the day," was the god of battles, going forth with the armies of the king triumphant over enemies. the worship of this deity was universal, and the kings regarded him as affording them especial help in war. vul, the third of this trinity, was the god of the atmosphere, the god of tempests,--the god who caused the flood which the assyrian legends recognize. he corresponds with the jupiter tonans of the romans,--"the prince of the power of the air," destroyer of crops, the scatterer of the harvest, represented with a flaming sword; but as god of the atmosphere, the giver of rain, of abundance, "the lord of fecundity," he was beneficent as well as destructive. all these gods had wives resembling the goddesses in the greek mythology,--some beneficent, some cruel; rendering aid to men, or pursuing them with their anger. and here one cannot resist the impression that the earliest forms of the greek mythology were derived from the babylonians and phoenicians, and that the greek poets, availing themselves of the legends respecting them, created the popular religion of greece. it is a mooted question whether the greek civilization is chiefly derived from egypt, or from assyria and phoenicia,--probably more from these old monarchies combined than from the original seat of the aryan race east of the caspian sea. all these ancient monarchies had run out and were old when the greeks began their settlements and conquests. there was still another and inferior class of deities among the assyrians and babylonians who were objects of worship, and were supposed to have great influence on human affairs. these deities were the planets under different names. the early study of astronomy among the dwellers on the plains of babylon and in mesopotamia gave an astral feature to their religion which was not prominent in egypt. these astral deities were nin, or bar (the saturn of the romans); and merodach (jupiter), the august god, "the eldest son of heaven," the lord of battles. this was the favorite god of nebuchadnezzar, and epithets of the highest honor were conferred upon him, as "king of heaven and earth," the "lord of all beings," etc. nergal (mars) was a war god, his name signifying "the great hero," "the king of battles." he goes before kings in their military expeditions, and lends them assistance in the chase. his emblem is the human-headed winged lion seen at the entrance of royal palaces. ista (venus) was the goddess of beauty, presiding over the loves of both men and animals, and was worshipped with unchaste rites. nebo (mercury) had the charge over learning and culture,--the god of wisdom, who "teaches and instructs." there were other deities in the assyrian and babylonian pantheon whom i need not name, since they played a comparatively unimportant part in human affairs, like the inferior deities of the romans, presiding over dreams, over feasts, over marriage, and the like. the phoenicians, like the assyrians, had their goddesses. astoreth, or astarte, represented the great female productive principle, as baal did the male. it was originally a name for the energy of god, on a par with baal. in one of her aspects she represented the moon; but more commonly she was the representative of the female principle in nature, and was connected more or less with voluptuous rites,--the equivalent of aphrodite, or venus. tanith also was a noted female deity, and was worshipped at carthage and cyprus by the phoenician settlers. the name is associated, according to gesenius, with the egyptian goddess nut, and with the grecian artemis the huntress. an important thing to be observed of these various deities is that they do not uniformly represent the same power. thus baal, the phoenician sun-god, was made by the greeks and romans equivalent to zeus, or jupiter, the god of thunder and storms. apollo, the sun-god of the greeks, was not so powerful as zeus, the god of the atmosphere; while in assyria and phoenicia the sun-god was the greater deity. in babylonia, shamas was a sun-god as well as bel; and bel again was the god of the heavens, like zeus. while zeus was the supreme deity in the greek mythology, rather than apollo the sun, it seems that on the whole the sun was the prominent and the most commonly worshipped deity of all the oriental nations, as being the most powerful force in nature. behind the sun, however, there was supposed to be an indefinite creative power, whose form was not represented, worshipped in no particular temple by the esoteric few who were his votaries, and called the "father of all the gods," "the ancient of days," reigning supreme over them all. this indefinite conception of the jehovah of the hebrews seems to me the last flickering light of the primitive revelation, shining in the souls of the most enlightened of the pagan worshippers, including perhaps the greatest of the monarchs, who were priests as well as kings. the most distinguishing feature in the worship of all the gods of antiquity, whether among egyptians, or assyrians, or babylonians, or phoenicians, or greeks, or romans, is that of oblations and sacrifices. it was even a peculiarity of the old jewish religion, as well as that of china and india. these oblations and sacrifices were sometimes offered to the deity, whatever his form or name, as an expiation for sin, of which the soul is conscious in all ages and countries; sometimes to obtain divine favor, as in military expeditions, or to secure any object dearest to the heart, such as health, prosperity, or peace; sometimes to propitiate the deity in order to avert the calamities following his supposed wrath or vengeance. the oblations were usually in the form of wine, honey, or the fruits of the earth, which were supposed to be necessary for the nourishment of the gods, especially in greece. the sacrifices were generally of oxen, sheep, and goats, the most valued and precious of human property in primitive times, for those old heathen never offered to their deities that which cost them nothing, but rather that which was dearest to them. sometimes, especially in phoenicia, human beings were offered in sacrifice, the most repulsive peculiarity of polytheism. but the instincts of humanity generally kept men from rites so revolting. christianity, as one of its distinguishing features, abolished all forms of outward sacrifice, as superstitious and useless. the sacrifices pleasing to god are a broken spirit, as revealed to david and isaiah amid all the ceremonies and ritualism of jewish worship, and still more to paul and peter when the new dispensation was fully declared. the only sacrifice which christ enjoined was self-sacrifice, supreme devotion to a spiritual and unseen and supreme god, and to his children: as the christ took upon himself the form of a man, suffering evil all his days, and finally even an ignominious death, in obedience to his father's will, that the world might be saved by his own self-sacrifice. with sacrifices as an essential feature of all the ancient religions, if we except that of persia in the time of zoroaster, there was need of an officiating priesthood. the priests in all countries sought to gain power and influence, and made themselves an exclusive caste, more or less powerful as circumstances favored their usurpations. the priestly caste became a terrible power in egypt and india, where the people, it would seem, were most susceptible to religious impressions, were most docile and most ignorant, and had in constant view the future welfare of their souls. in china, where there was scarcely any religion at all, this priestly power was unknown; and it was especially weak among the greeks, who had no fear of the future, and who worshipped beauty and grace rather than a spiritual god. sacerdotalism entered into christianity when it became corrupted by the lust of dominion and power, and with great force ruled the christian world in times of ignorance and superstition. it is sad to think that the decline of sacerdotalism is associated with the growth of infidelity and religious indifference, showing how few worship god in spirit and in truth even in christian countries. yet even that reaction is humanly natural; and as it so surely follows upon epochs of priestcraft, it may be a part of the divine process of arousing men to the evils of superstition. among all nations where polytheism prevailed, idolatry became a natural sequence,--that is, the worship of animals and of graven images, at first as symbols of the deities that were worshipped, generally the sun, moon, and stars, and the elements of nature, like fire, water, and air. but the symbols of divine power, as degeneracy increased and ignorance set in, were in succession worshipped as deities, as in india and africa at the present day. this is the lowest form of religion, and the most repulsive and degraded which has prevailed in the world,--showing the enormous difference between the primitive faiths and the worship which succeeded, growing more and more hideous with the progress of ages, until the fulness of time arrived when god sent reformers among the debased people, more or less supernaturally inspired, to declare new truth, and even to revive the knowledge of the old in danger of being utterly lost. it is a pleasant thing to remember that the religions thus far treated, as known to the jews, and by which they were more or less contaminated, have all passed away with the fall of empires and the spread of divine truth; and they never again can be revived in the countries where they nourished. mohammedanism, a monotheistic religion, has taken their place, and driven the ancient idols to the moles and the bats; and where mohammedanism has failed to extirpate ancient idolatries, christianity in some form has come in and dethroned them forever. * * * * * there was one form of religion with which the jews came in contact which was comparatively pure; and this was the religion of persia, the loftiest form of all pagan beliefs. the persians were an important branch of the iranian family. "the iranians were the dominant race throughout the entire tract lying between the suliman mountains and the pamir steppe on the one hand, and the great mesopotamian valley on the other." it was a region of great extremes of temperature,--the summers being hot, and the winters piercingly cold. a great part of this region is an arid and frightful desert; but the more favored portions are extremely fertile. in this country the iranians settled at a very early period, probably 2500 b.c., about the time the hindus emigrated from central asia to the banks of the indus. both iranians and hindus belonged to the great aryan or indo-european race, whose original settlements were on the high table-lands northeast of samarkand, in the modern bokhara, watered by the oxus, or amon river. from these rugged regions east of the caspian sea, where the means of subsistence are difficult to be obtained, the aryans emigrated to india on the southeast, to iran on the southwest, to europe on the west,--all speaking substantially the same language. of those who settled in iran, the persians were the most prominent,--a brave, hardy, and adventurous people, warlike in their habits, and moral in their conduct. they were a pastoral rather than a nomadic people, and gloried in their horses and cattle. they had great skill as archers and horsemen, and furnished the best cavalry among the ancients. they lived in fixed habitations, and their houses had windows and fireplaces; but they were doomed to a perpetual struggle with a severe and uncertain climate, and a soil which required ceaseless diligence. "the whole plateau of iran," says johnson, "was suggestive of the war of elements,--a country of great contrasts of fertility and desolation,--snowy ranges of mountains, salt deserts, and fields of beauty lying in close proximity." the early persians are represented as having oval faces, raised features, well-arched eyebrows, and large dark eyes, now soft as the gazelle's, now flashing with quick insight. such a people were extremely receptive of modes and fashions,--the aptest learners as well as the boldest adventurers; not patient in study nor skilful to invent, but swift to seize and appropriate, terrible breakers-up of old religious spells. they dissolved the old material civilization of cushite and turanian origin. what passion for vast conquests! "these rugged tribes, devoted to their chiefs, led by cyrus from their herds and hunting-grounds to startle the pampered lydians with their spare diet and clothing of skins; living on what they could get, strangers to wine and wassail, schooled in manly exercises, cleanly even to superstition, loyal to age and filial duties; with a manly pride of personal independence that held a debt the next worst thing to a lie; their fondness for social graces, their feudal dignities, their chiefs giving counsel to the king even while submissive to his person, esteeming prowess before praying; their strong ambition, scorning those who scorned toil." artaxerxes wore upon his person the worth of twelve thousand talents, yet shared the hardships of his army in the march, carrying quiver and shield, leading the way to the steepest places, and stimulating the hearts of his soldiers by walking twenty-five miles a day. there was much that is interesting about the ancient persians. all the old authorities, especially herodotus, testify to the comparative purity of their lives, to their love of truth, to their heroism in war, to the simplicity of their habits, to their industry and thrift in battling sterility of soil and the elements of nature, to their love of agricultural pursuits, to kindness towards women and slaves, and above all other things to a strong personality of character which implied a powerful will. the early persians chose the bravest and most capable of their nobles for kings, and these kings were mild and merciful. xenophon makes cyrus the ideal of a king,--the incarnation of sweetness and light, conducting war with a magnanimity unknown to the ancient nations, dismissing prisoners, forgiving foes, freeing slaves, and winning all hearts by a true nobility of nature. he was a reformer of barbarous methods of war, and as pure in morals as he was powerful in war. in short, he had all those qualities which we admire in the chivalric heroes of the middle ages. there was developed among this primitive and virtuous people a religion essentially different from that of assyria and egypt, with which is associated the name of zoroaster, or zarathushtra. who this extraordinary personage was, and when he lived, it is not easy to determine. some suppose that he did not live at all. it is most probable that he lived in bactria from 1000 to 1500 b.c.; but all about him is involved in hopeless obscurity. the zend-avesta, or the sacred books of the persians, are mostly hymns, prayers, and invocations addressed to various deities, among whom ormazd was regarded as supreme. these poems were first made known to european scholars by anquetil du perron, an enthusiastic traveller, a little more than one hundred years ago, and before the laws of menu were translated by sir william jones. what we know about the religion of persia is chiefly derived from the zend-avesta. _zend_ is the interpretation of the avesta. the oldest part of these poems is called the gâthâs, supposed to have been composed by zoroaster about the time of moses. as all information about zoroaster personally is unsatisfactory, i proceed to speak of the religion which he is supposed to have given to the iranians, according to dr. martin haug, the great authority on this subject. its peculiar feature was dualism,--two original uncreated principles; one good, the other evil. both principles were real persons, possessed of will, intelligence, power, consciousness, engaged from all eternity in perpetual contest. the good power was called ahura-mazda, and the evil power was called angro-mainyus. ahura-mazda means the "much-knowing spirit," or the all-wise, the all-bountiful, who stood at the head of all that is beneficent in the universe,--"the creator of life," who made the celestial bodies and the earth, and from whom came all good to man and everlasting happiness. angro-mainyus means the black or dark intelligence, the creator of all that is evil, both moral and physical. he had power to blast the earth with barrenness, to produce earthquakes and storms, to inflict disease and death, destroy flocks and the fruits of the earth, excite wars and tumults; in short, to send every form of evil on mankind. ahura-mazda had no control over this power of evil; all he could do was to baffle him. these two deities who divided the universe between them had each subordinate spirits or genii, who did their will, and assisted in the government of the universe,--corresponding to our idea of angels and demons. neither of these supreme deities was represented by the early iranians under material forms; but in process of time corruption set in, and magism, or the worship of the elements of nature, became general. the elements which were worshipped were fire, air, earth, and water. personal gods, temples, shrines, and images were rejected. but the most common form of worship was that of fire, in mithra, the genius of light, early identified with the sun. hence, practically, the supreme god of the persians was the same that was worshipped in assyria and egypt and india,--the sun, under various names; with this difference, that in persia there were no temples erected to him, nor were there graven images of him. with the sun was associated a supreme power that presided over the universe, benignant and eternal. fire itself in its pure universality was more to the iranians than any form. "from the sun," says the avesta, "are all things sought that can be desired." to fire, the persian kings addressed their prayers. fire, or the sun, was in the early times a symbol of the supreme power, rather than the power itself, since the sun was created by ahura-mazda (ormazd). it was to him that zoroaster addressed his prayers, as recorded in the gâthâs. "i worship," said he, "the creator of all things, ahura-mazda, full of light.... teach thou me, ahura-mazda, out of thyself, from heaven by thy mouth, whereby the world first arose." again, from the khorda-avesta we read: "in the name of god, the giver, forgiver, rich in love, praise be to the name of ormazd, who always was, always is, and always will be; from whom alone is derived rule." from these and other passages we infer that the religion of the iranians was monotheistic. and yet the sun also was worshipped under the name of mithra. says zoroaster: "i invoke mithra, the lofty, the immortal, the pure, the sun, the ruler, the eye of ormazd." it would seem from this that the sun was identified with the supreme being. there was no other power than the sun which was worshipped. there was no multitude of gods, nothing like polytheism, such as existed in egypt. the iranians believed in one supreme, eternal god, who created all things, beneficent and all-wise; yet this supreme power was worshipped under the symbol of the sun, although the sun was created by him. this confounding the sun with a supreme and intelligent being makes the iranian religion indefinite, and hard to be comprehended; but compared with the polytheism of egypt and babylon, it is much higher and purer. we see in it no degrading rites, no offensive sacerdotalism, no caste, no worship of animals or images; all is spiritual and elevated, but little inferior to the religion of the hebrews. in the zend-avesta we find no doctrines; but we do find prayers and praises and supplication to a supreme being. in the vedas--the hindu books--the powers of nature are gods; in the avesta they are spirits, or servants of the supreme. "the main difference between the vedic and avestan religions is that in the latter the vedic worship of natural powers and phenomena is superseded by a more ethical and personal interest. ahura-mazda (ormazd), the living wisdom, replaces indra, the lightning-god. in iran there grew up, what india never saw, a consciousness of world-purpose, ethical and spiritual; a reference of the ideal to the future rather than the present; a promise of progress; and the idea that the law of the universe means the final deliverance of good from evil, and its eternal triumph." [1] [footnote 1: samuel johnson's religion of persia.] the loftiness which modern scholars like haug, lenormant, and spiegel see in the zend-avesta pertains more directly to the earlier portions of these sacred writings, attributable to zoroaster, called the gâthâs. but in the course of time the avesta was subjected to many additions and interpretations, called the zend, which show degeneracy. a world of myth and legend is crowded into liturgical fragments. the old bactrian tongue in which the avesta was composed became practically a dead language. there entered into the avesta old chaldaean traditions. it would be strange if the pure faith of zoroaster should not be corrupted after persia had conquered babylon, and even after its alliance with media, where the magi had great reputation for knowledge. and yet even with the corrupting influence of the superstitions of babylon, to say nothing of media, the persian conquerors did not wholly forget the god of their fathers in their old bactrian home. and it is probable that one reason why cyrus and darius treated the jews with so much kindness and generosity was the sympathy they felt for the monotheism of the jewish religion in contrast with the polytheism and idolatry of the conquered babylonians. it is not unreasonable to suppose that both the persians and jews worshipped substantially the one god who made the heaven and the earth, notwithstanding the dualism which entered into the persian religion, and the symbolic worship of fire which is the most powerful agent in nature; and it is considered by many that from the persians the jews received, during their captivity, their ideas concerning a personal devil, or power of evil, of which no hint appears in the law or the earlier prophets. it would certainly seem to be due to that monotheism which modern scholars see behind the dualism of persia, as an elemental principle of the old religion of iran, that the persians were the noblest people of pagan antiquity, and practised the highest morality known in the ancient world. virtue and heroism went hand in hand; and both virtue and heroism were the result of their religion. but when the persians became intoxicated with the wealth and power they acquired on the fall of babylon, then their degeneracy was rapid, and their faith became obscured. had it been the will of providence that the greeks should have contended with the persians under the leadership of cyrus,--the greatest oriental conqueror known in history,--rather than under xerxes, then even an alexander might have been baffled. the great mistake of the persian monarchs in their degeneracy was in trusting to the magnitude of their armies rather than in their ancient discipline and national heroism. the consequence was a panic, which would not have taken place under cyrus, whenever they met the greeks in battle. it was a panic which dispersed the persian hosts in the fatal battle of arbela, and made alexander the master of western asia. but degenerate as the persians became, they rallied under succeeding dynasties, and in artaxerxes ii. and chosroes the romans found, in their declining glories, their most formidable enemies. though the brightness of the old religion of zoroaster ceased to shine after the persian conquests, and religious rites fell into the hands of the magi, yet it is the only oriental religion which entered into christianity after its magnificent triumph, unless we trace early monasticism to the priests of india. christianity had a hard battle with gnosticism and manichaeism,--both of persian origin,--and did not come out unscathed. no grecian system of philosophy, except platonism, entered into the christian system so influentially as the disastrous manichaean heresy, which augustine combated. the splendid mythology of the greeks, as well as the degrading polytheism of egypt, assyria, and phoenicia, passed away before the power of the cross; but persian speculations remained. even origen, the greatest scholar of christian antiquity, was tainted with them. and the mighty myths of the origin of evil, which perplexed zoroaster, still remain unsolved; but the belief of the final triumph of good over evil is common to both christians and the disciples of the bactrian sage. * * * * * authorities. rawlinson's egypt and babylon; history of babylonia, by a.h. sayce; smith's dictionary of the bible; rawlinson's herodotus; george smith's history of babylonia; lenormant's manuel d'histoire ancienne; layard's nineveh and babylon; journal of royal asiatic society; heeren's asiatic nations; dr. pusey's lectures on daniel; birch's egypt from the earliest times; brugsch's history of egypt; records of the past; rawlinson's history of ancient egypt; wilkinson's ancient egyptians; sayce's ancient empires of the east; rawlinson's religions of the ancient world; james freeman clarke's ten great religions; religion of ancient egypt, by p. le page renouf; moffat's comparative history of religions; bunsen's egypt's place in history; persia, from the earliest period, by w. s. w. vaux; johnson's oriental religions; haug's essays; spiegel's avesta. the above are the more prominent authorities; but the number of books on ancient religions is very large. religions of india. brahmanism and buddhism. that form of ancient religion which has of late excited the most interest is buddhism. an inquiry into its characteristics is especially interesting, since so large a part of the human race--nearly five hundred millions out of the thirteen hundred millions--still profess to embrace the doctrines which were taught by buddha, although his religion has become so corrupted that his original teachings are nearly lost sight of. the same may be said of the doctrines of confucius. the religions of ancient egypt, assyria, and greece have utterly passed away, and what we have had to say of these is chiefly a matter of historic interest, as revealing the forms assumed by the human search for a supernatural ruler when moulded by human ambitions, powers, and indulgence in the "lust of the eye and the pride of life," rather than by aspirations toward the pure and the spiritual. buddha was the great reformer of the religious system of the hindus, although he lived nearly fifteen hundred or two thousand years after the earliest brahmanical ascendency. but before we can appreciate his work and mission, we must examine the system he attempted to reform, even as it is impossible to present the protestant reformation without first considering mediaeval catholicism before the time of luther. it was the object of buddha to break the yoke of the brahmans, and to release his countrymen from the austerities, the sacrifices, and the rigid sacerdotalism which these ancient priests imposed, without essentially subverting ancient religious ideas. he was a moralist and reformer, rather than the founder of a religion. brahmanism is one of the oldest religions of the world. it was flourishing in india at a period before history was written. it was coeval with the religion of egypt in the time of abraham, and perhaps at a still earlier date. but of its earliest form and extent we know nothing, except from the sacred poems of the hindus called the vedas, written in sanskrit probably fifteen hundred years before christ,--for even the date of the earliest of the vedas is unknown. fifty years ago we could not have understood the ancient religions of india. but sir william jones in the latter part of the last century, a man of immense erudition and genius for the acquisition of languages, at that time an english judge in india, prepared the way for the study of sanskrit, the literary language of ancient india, by the translation and publication of the laws of menu. he was followed in his labors by the schlegels of germany, and by numerous scholars and missionaries. within fifty years this ancient and beautiful language has been so perseveringly studied that we know something of the people by whom it was once spoken,--even as egyptologists have revealed something of ancient egypt by interpreting the hieroglyphics; and chaldaean investigators have found stores of knowledge in the babylonian bricks. the sanskrit, as now interpreted, reveals to us the meaning of those poems called vedas, by which we are enabled to understand the early laws and religion of the hindus. it is poetry, not history, which makes this revelation, for the hindus have no history farther back than five or six hundred years before christ. it is from homer and hesiod that we get an idea of the gods of greece, not from herodotus or xenophon. from comparative philology, a new science, of which prof. max müller is one of the greatest expounders, we learn that the roots of various european languages, as well as of the latin and greek, are substantially the same as those of the sanskrit spoken by the hindus thirty-five hundred years ago, from which it is inferred that the hindus were a people of like remote origin with the greeks, the italic races (romans, italians, french), the slavic races (russian, polish, bohemian), the teutonic races of england and the continent, and the keltic races. these are hence alike called the indo-european races; and as the same linguistic roots are found in their languages and in the zend-avesta, we infer that the ancient persians, or inhabitants of iran, belonged to the same great aryan race. the original seat of this race, it is supposed, was in the high table-lands of central asia, in or near bactria, east of the caspian sea, and north and west of the himalaya mountains. this country was so cold and sterile and unpropitious that winter predominated, and it was difficult to support life. but the people, inured to hardship and privation, were bold, hardy, adventurous, and enterprising. it is a most interesting process, as described by the philologists, which has enabled them, by tracing the history of words through their various modifications in different living languages, to see how the lines of growth converge as they are followed back to the simple aryan roots. and there, getting at the meanings of the things or thoughts the words originally expressed, we see revealed, in the reconstruction of a language that no longer exists, the material objects and habits of thought and life of a people who passed away before history began,--so imperishable are the unconscious embodiments of mind, even in the airy and unsubstantial forms of unwritten speech! by this process, then, we learn that the aryans were a nomadic people, and had made some advance in civilization. they lived in houses which were roofed, which had windows and doors. their common cereal was barley, the grain of cold climates. their wealth was in cattle, and they had domesticated the cow, the sheep, the goat, the horse, and the dog. they used yokes, axes, and ploughs. they wrought in various metals; they spun and wove, navigated rivers in sailboats, and fought with bows, lances, and swords. they had clear perceptions of the rights of property, which were based on land. their morals were simple and pure, and they had strong natural affections. polygamy was unknown among them. they had no established sacerdotal priesthood. they worshipped the powers of nature, especially fire, the source of light and heat, which they so much needed in their dreary land. authorities differ as to their primeval religion, some supposing that it was monotheistic, and others polytheistic, and others again pantheistic. most of the ancient nations were controlled more or less by priests, who, as their power increased, instituted a caste to perpetuate their influence. whether or not we hold the primitive religion of mankind to have been a pure theism, directly revealed by god,--which is my own conviction,--it is equally clear that the form of religion recorded in the earliest written records of poetry or legend was a worship of the sun and moon and planets. i believe this to have been a corruption of original theism; many think it to have been a stage of upward growth in the religious sense of primitive man. in all the ancient nations the sun-god was a prominent deity, as the giver of heat and light, and hence of fertility to the earth. the emblem of the sun was fire, and hence fire was deified, especially among the hindus, under the name of agni,--the latin _ignis_. fire, caloric, or heat in some form was, among the ancient nations, supposed to be the _animus mundi_. in egypt, as we have seen, osiris, the principal deity, was a form of ra, the sun-god. in assyria, asshur, the substitute for ra, was the supreme deity. in india we find mitra, and in persia mithra, the sun-god, among the prominent deities, as helios was among the greeks, and phoebus apollo among the romans. the sun was not always the supreme divinity, but invariably held one of the highest places in the pagan pantheon. it is probable that the religion of the common progenitors of the hindus, persians, greeks, romans, kelts, teutons, and slavs, in their hard and sterile home in central asia, was a worship of the powers of nature verging toward pantheism, although the earliest of the vedas representing the ancient faith seem to recognize a supreme power and intelligence--god--as the common father of the race, to whom prayers and sacrifices were devoutly offered. freeman clarke quotes from müller's "ancient sanskrit literature" one of the hymns in which the unity of god is most distinctly recognized:-"in the beginning there arose the source of golden light. he was the only lord of all that is. he established the earth and sky. who is the god to whom we shall offer our sacrifices? it is he who giveth life, who giveth strength, who governeth all men; through whom heaven was established, and the earth created." but if the supreme god whom we adore was recognized by this ancient people, he was soon lost sight of in the multiplied manifestations of his power, so that rawlinson thinks[2] that when the aryan race separated in their various migrations, which resulted in what we call the indo-european group of races, there was no conception of a single supreme power, from whom man and nature have alike their origin, but nature-worship, ending in an extensive polytheism,--as among the assyrians and egyptians. [footnote 2: religions of the ancient world, p. 105.] as to these aryan migrations, we do not know when a large body crossed the himalaya mountains, and settled on the banks of the indus, but probably it was at least two thousand years before christ. northern india had great attractions to those hardy nomadic people, who found it so difficult to get a living during the long winters of their primeval home. india was a country of fruits and flowers, with an inexhaustible soil, favorable to all kinds of production, where but little manual labor was required,--a country abounding in every kind of animals, and every kind of birds; a land of precious stones and minerals, of hills and valleys, of majestic rivers and mountains, with a beautiful climate and a sunny sky. these aryan conquerors drove before them the aboriginal inhabitants, who were chiefly mongolians, or reduced them to a degrading vassalage. the conquering race was white, the conquered was dark, though not black; and this difference of color was one of the original causes of indian caste. it was some time after the settlement of the aryans on the banks of the indus and the ganges before the vedas were composed by the poets, who as usual gave form to religious belief, as they did in persia and greece. these poems, or hymns, are pantheistic. "there is no recognition," says monier williams, "of a supreme god disconnected with the worship of nature." there was a vague and indefinite worship of the infinite under various names, such as the sun, the sky, the air, the dawn, the winds, the storms, the waters, the rivers, which alike charmed and terrified, and seemed to be instinct with life and power. god was in all things, and all things in god; but there was no idea of providential agency or of personality. in the vedic hymns the number of gods is not numerous, only thirty-three. the chief of these were varuna, the sky; mitra, the sun; and indra, the storm: after these, agni, fire; and soma, the moon. the worship of these divinities was originally simple, consisting of prayer, praise, and offerings. there were no temples and no imposing sacerdotalism, although the priests were numerous. "the prayers and praises describe the wisdom, power, and goodness of the deity addressed," [3] and when the customary offerings had been made, the worshipper prayed for food, life, health, posterity, wealth, protection, happiness, whatever the object was,--generally for outward prosperity rather than for improvement in character, or for forgiveness of sin, peace of mind, or power to resist temptation. the offerings to the gods were propitiatory, in the form of victims, or libations of some juice. nor did these early hindus take much thought of a future life. there is nothing in the rig-veda of a belief in the transmigration of souls[4], although the vedic bards seem to have had some hope of immortality. "he who gives alms," says one poet, "goes to the highest place in heaven: he goes to the gods[5].... where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is placed,--in that immortal, imperishable world, place me, o soma! ... where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasures reside, where the desires of our heart are attained, there make me immortal." [footnote 3: rawlinson, p. 121.] [footnote 4: wilson: rig-veda, vol. iii. p. 170.] [footnote 5: müller: chips from a german workshop, vol. i. p. 46.] in the oldest vedic poems there were great simplicity and joyousness, without allusion to those rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices which formed so prominent a part of the religion of india at a later period. four hundred years after the rig-veda was composed we come to the brahmanic age, when the laws of menu were written, when the aryans were living in the valley of the ganges, and the caste system had become national. the supreme deity is no longer one of the powers of nature, like mitra or indra, but according to menu he is brahm, or brahma,--"an eternal, unchangeable, absolute being, the soul of all beings, who, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, created the waters and placed in them a productive seed. the seed became an egg, and in that egg he was born, but sat inactive for a year, when he caused the egg to divide itself; and from its two divisions he framed the heaven above, and the earth beneath. from the supreme soul brahma drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by the senses; and before mind, the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor; and before them both he produced the great principle of the soul.... the soul is, in its substance, from brahma himself, and is destined finally to be resolved into him. the soul, then, is simply an emanation from brahma; but it will not return unto him at death necessarily, but must migrate from body to body, until it is purified by profound abstraction and emancipated from all desires." this is the substance of the hindu pantheism as taught by the laws of menu. it accepts god, but without personality or interference with the world's affairs,--not a god to be loved, scarcely to be feared, but a mere abstraction of the mind. the theology which is thus taught in the brahmanical vedas, it would seem, is the result of lofty questionings and profound meditation on the part of the indian sages or priests, rather than the creation of poets. in the laws of menu, intended to exalt the brahmanical caste, we read, as translated by sir william jones:-"to a man contaminated by sensuality, neither the vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor strict observances, nor pious austerities, ever procure felicity.... let not a man be proud of his rigorous devotion; let him not, having sacrificed, utter a falsehood; having made a donation, let him never proclaim it.... by falsehood the sacrifice becomes vain; by pride the merit of devotion is lost.... single is each man born, single he dies, single he receives the reward of the good, and single the punishment of his evil, deeds.... by forgiveness of injuries the learned are purified; by liberality, those who have neglected their duty; by pious meditation, those who have secret thoughts; by devout austerity, those who best know the vedas.... bodies are cleansed by water; the mind is purified by truth; the vital spirit, by theology and devotion; the understanding, by clear knowledge.... a faithful wife who wishes to attain in heaven the mansion of her husband, must do nothing unkind to him, be he living or dead; let her not, when her lord is deceased, even pronounce the name of another man; let her continue till death, forgiving all injuries, performing harsh duties, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rules of virtue.... the soul itself is its own witness, the soul itself is its own refuge; offend not thy conscious soul, the supreme internal witness of man, ... o friend to virtue, the supreme spirit, which is the same as thyself, resides in thy bosom perpetually, and is an all-knowing inspector of thy goodness or wickedness." such were the truths uttered on the banks of the ganges one thousand years before christ. but with these views there is an exaltation of the brahmanical or sacerdotal life, hard to be distinguished from the recognition of divine qualities. "from his high birth," says menu, "a brahman is an object of veneration, even to deities." hence, great things are expected of him; his food must be roots and fruit, his clothing of bark fibres; he must spend his time in reading the vedas; he is to practise austerities by exposing himself to heat and cold; he is to beg food but once a day; he must be careful not to destroy the life of the smallest insect; he must not taste intoxicating liquors. a brahman who has thus mortified his body by these modes is exalted into the divine essence. this was the early creed of the brahman before corruption set in. and in these things we see a striking resemblance to the doctrines of buddha. had there been no corruption of brahmanism, there would have been no buddhism; for the principles of buddhism, were those of early brahmanism. but brahmanism became corrupted. like the mosaic law, under the sedulous care of the sacerdotal orders it ripened into a most burdensome ritualism. the brahmanical caste became tyrannical, exacting, and oppressive. with the supposed sacredness of his person, and with the laws made in his favor, the brahman became intolerable to the people, who were ground down by sacrifices, expiatory offerings, and wearisome and minute ceremonies of worship. caste destroyed all ideas of human brotherhood; it robbed the soul of its affections and its aspirations. like the pharisees in the time of jesus, the brahmans became oppressors of the people. as in pagan egypt and in christian mediaeval europe, the priests held the keys of heaven and hell; their power was more than druidical. but the brahman, when true to the laws of menu, led in one sense a lofty life. nor can we despise a religion which recognized the value and immortality of the soul, a state of future rewards and punishments, though its worship was encumbered by rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices. it was spiritual in its essential peculiarities, having reference to another world rather than to this, which is more than we can say of the religion of the greeks; it was not worldly in its ends, seeking to save the soul rather than to pamper the body; it had aspirations after a higher life; it was profoundly reverential, recognizing a supreme intelligence and power, indefinitely indeed, but sincerely,--not an incarnated deity like the zeus of the greeks, but an infinite spirit, pervading the universe. the pantheism of the brahmans was better than the godless materialism of the chinese. it aspired to rise to a knowledge of god as the supremest wisdom and grandest attainment of mortal man. it made too much of sacrifices; but sacrifices were common to all the ancient religions except the persian. "he who through knowledge or religious acts henceforth attains to immortality, shall first present his body, death, to thee." whether human sacrifices were offered in india when the vedas were composed we do not know, but it is believed to be probable. the oldest form of sacrifice was the offering of food to the deity. dr. h. c. trumbull, in his work on "the blood covenant," thinks that the origin of animal sacrifices was like that of circumcision,--a pouring out of blood (the universal, ancient symbol of _life_) as a sign of devotion to the deity; and the substitution of animals was a natural and necessary mode of making this act of consecration a frequent and continuing one. this presents a nobler view of the whole sacrificial system than the common one. yet doubtless the latter soon prevailed; for following upon the devoted life-offerings to the divine friend, came propitiatory rites to appease divine anger or gain divine favor. then came in the natural human self-seeking of the sacerdotal class, for the multiplication of sacrifices tended to exalt the priesthood, and thus to perpetuate caste. again, the brahmans, if practising austerities to weaken sensual desires, like the monks of syria and upper egypt, were meditative and intellectual; they evolved out of their brains whatever was lofty in their system of religion and philosophy. constant and profound meditation on the soul, on god, and on immortality was not without its natural results. they explored the world of metaphysical speculation. there is scarcely an hypothesis advanced by philosophers in ancient or modern times, which may not be found in the brahmanical writings. "we find in the writings of these hindus materialism, atomism, pantheism, pyrrhonism, idealism. they anticipated plato, kant, and hegel. they could boast of their spinozas and their humes long before alexander dreamed of crossing the indus. from them the pythagoreans borrowed a great part of their mystical philosophy, of their doctrine of transmigration of souls, and the unlawfulness of eating animal food. from them aristotle learned the syllogism.... in india the human mind exhausted itself in attempting to detect the laws which regulate its operation, before the philosophers of greece were beginning to enter the precincts of metaphysical inquiry." this intellectual subtlety, acumen, and logical power the brahmans never lost. to-day the christian missionary finds them his superiors in the sports of logical tournaments, whenever the brahman condescends to put forth his powers of reasoning. brahmanism carried idealism to the extent of denying any reality to sense or matter, declaring that sense is a delusion. it sought to leave the soul emancipated from desire, from a material body, in a state which according to indian metaphysics is _being_, but not _existence_. desire, anger, ignorance, evil thoughts are consumed by the fire of knowledge. but i will not attempt to explain the ideal pantheism which brahmanical philosophers substituted for the nature-worship taught in the earlier vedas. this proved too abstract for the people; and the brahmans, in the true spirit of modern jesuitism, wishing to accommodate their religion to the people,--who were in bondage to their tyranny, and who have ever been inclined to sensuous worship,--multiplied their sacrifices and sacerdotal rites, and even permitted a complicated polytheism. gradually piety was divorced from morality. siva and vishnu became worshipped, as well as brahma and a host of other gods unknown to the earlier vedas. in the sixth century before christ, the corruption of society had become so flagrant under the teachings and government of the brahmans, that a reform was imperatively needed. "the pride of race had put an impassable barrier between the aryan-hindus and the conquered aborigines, while the pride of both had built up an equally impassable barrier between the different classes among the aryan people themselves." the old childlike joy in life, so manifest in the vedas, had died away. a funereal gloom hung over the land; and the gloomiest people of all were the brahmans themselves, devoted to a complicated ritual of ceremonial observances, to needless and cruel sacrifices, and a repulsive theology. the worship of nature had degenerated into the worship of impure divinities. the priests were inflated with a puerile but sincere belief in their own divinity, and inculcated a sense of duty which was nothing else than a degrading slavery to their own caste. under these circumstances buddhism arose as a protest against brahmanism. but it was rather an ethical than a religious movement; it was an attempt to remove misery from the world, and to elevate ordinary life by a reform of morals. it was effected by a prince who goes by the name of buddha,--the "enlightened,"--who was supposed by his later followers to be an incarnation of deity, miraculously conceived, and sent into the world to save men. he was nearly contemporary with confucius, although the buddhistic doctrines were not introduced into china until about two hundred years before the christian era. he is supposed to have belonged to a warlike tribe called sâkyas, of great reputed virtue, engaged in agricultural pursuits, who had entered northern india and made a permanent settlement several hundred years before. the name by which the reformer is generally known is gautama, borrowed by the sâkyas after their settlement in india from one of the ancient vedic bard-families. the foundation of our knowledge of sâkya buddha is from a life of him by asvaghosha, in the first century of our era; and this life is again founded on a legendary history, not framed after any indian model, but worked out among the nations in the north of india. the life of buddha by asvaghosha is a poetical romance of nearly ten thousand lines. it relates the miraculous conception of the indian sage, by the descent of a spirit on his mother, maya,--a woman of great purity of mind. the child was called siddârtha, or "the perfection of all things." his father ruled a considerable territory, and was careful to conceal from the boy, as he grew up, all knowledge of the wickedness and misery of the world. he was therefore carefully educated within the walls of the palace, and surrounded with every luxury, but not allowed even to walk or drive in the royal gardens for fear he might see misery and sorrow. a beautiful girl was given to him in marriage, full of dignity and grace, with whom he lived in supreme happiness. at length, as his mind developed and his curiosity increased to see and know things and people beyond the narrow circle to which he was confined, he obtained permission to see the gardens which surrounded the palace. his father took care to remove everything in his way which could suggest misery and sorrow; but a _deva_, or angel, assumed the form of an aged man, and stood beside his path, apparently struggling for life, weak and oppressed. this was a new sight to the prince, who inquired of his charioteer what kind of a man it was. forced to reply, the charioteer told him that this infirm old man had once been young, sportive, beautiful, and full of every enjoyment. on hearing this, the prince sank into profound meditation, and returned to the palace sad and reflective; for he had learned that the common lot of man is sad,--that no matter how beautiful, strong, and sportive a boy is, the time will come, in the course of nature, when this boy will be wrinkled, infirm, and helpless. he became so miserable and dejected on this discovery that his father, to divert his mind, arranged other excursions for him; but on each occasion a _deva_ contrived to appear before him in the form of some disease or misery. at last he saw a dead man carried to his grave, which still more deeply agitated him, for he had not known that this calamity was the common lot of all men. the same painful impression was made on him by the death of animals, and by the hard labors and privations of poor people. the more he saw of life as it was, the more he was overcome by the sight of sorrow and hardship on every side. he became aware that youth, vigor, and strength of life in the end fulfilled the law of ultimate destruction. while meditating on this sad reality beneath a flowering jambu tree, where he was seated in the profoundest contemplation, a _deva_, transformed into a religious ascetic, came to him and said, "i am a shaman. depressed and sad at the thought of age, disease, and death, i have left my home to seek some way of rescue; yet everywhere i find these evils,--all things hasten to decay. therefore i seek that happiness which is only to be found in that which never perishes, that never knew a beginning, that looks with equal mind on enemy and friend, that heeds not wealth nor beauty,--the happiness to be found in solitude, in some dell free from molestation, all thought about the world destroyed." this embodies the soul of buddhism, its elemental principle,--to escape from a world of misery and death; to hide oneself in contemplation in some lonely spot, where indifference to passing events is gradually acquired, where life becomes one grand negation, and where the thoughts are fixed on what is eternal and imperishable, instead of on the mortal and transient. the prince, who was now about thirty years of age, after this interview with the supposed ascetic, firmly resolved himself to become a hermit, and thus attain to a higher life, and rise above the misery which he saw around him on every hand. so he clandestinely and secretly escapes from his guarded palace; lays aside his princely habits and ornaments; dismisses all attendants, and even his horse; seeks the companionship of brahmans, and learns all their penances and tortures. finding a patient trial of this of no avail for his purpose, he leaves the brahmans, and repairs to a quiet spot by the banks of a river, and for six years practises the most severe fasting and profound meditation. this was the form which piety had assumed in india from time immemorial, under the guidance of the brahmans; for siddârtha as yet is not the "enlightened,"--he is only an inquirer after that saving knowledge which will open the door of a divine felicity, and raise him above a world of disease and death. siddârtha's rigorous austerities, however, do not open this door of saving truth. his body is wasted, and his strength fails; he is near unto death. the conviction fastens on his lofty and inquiring mind that to arrive at the end he seeks he must enter by some other door than that of painful and useless austerities, and hence that the teachings of the brahmans are fundamentally wrong. he discovers that no amount of austerities will extinguish desire, or produce ecstatic contemplation. in consequence of these reflections a great change comes over him, which is the turning-point of his history. he resolves to quit his self-inflicted torments as of no avail. he meets a shepherd's daughter, who offers him food out of compassion for his emaciated and miserable condition. the rich rice milk, sweet and perfumed, restores his strength. he renounces asceticism, and wanders to a spot more congenial to his changed views and condition. siddârtha's full enlightenment, however, has not yet come. under the shade of the bôdhi tree he devotes himself again to religious contemplation, and falls into rapt ecstasies. he remains a while in peaceful quiet; the morning sunbeams, the dispersing mists, and lovely flowers seem to pay tribute to him. he passes through successive stages of ecstasy, and suddenly upon his opened mind bursts the knowledge of his previous births in different forms; of the causes of re-birth,--ignorance (the root of evil) and unsatisfied desires; and of the way to extinguish desires by right thinking, speaking, and living, not by outward observance of forms and ceremonies. he is emancipated from the thraldom of those austerities which have formed the basis of religious life for generations unknown, and he resolves to teach. buddha travels slowly to the sacred city of benares, converting by the way even brahmans themselves. he claims to have reached perfect wisdom. he is followed by disciples, for there was something attractive and extraordinary about him; his person was beautiful and commanding. while he shows that painful austerities will not produce wisdom, he also teaches that wisdom is not reached by self-indulgence; that there is a middle path between penance and pleasures, even _temperance_,---the use, but not abuse, of the good things of earth. in his first sermon he declares that sorrow is in self; therefore to get rid of sorrow is to get rid of self. the means to this end is to forget self in deeds of mercy and kindness to others; to crucify demoralizing desires; to live in the realm of devout contemplation. the active life of buddha now begins, and for fifty years he travels from place to place as a teacher, gathers around him disciples, frames rules for his society, and brings within his community both the rich and poor. he even allows women to enter it. he thus matures his system, which is destined to be embraced by so large a part of the human race, and finally dies at the age of eighty, surrounded by reverential followers, who see in him an incarnation of the deity. thus buddha devoted his life to the welfare of men, moved by an exceeding tenderness and pity for the objects of misery which he beheld on every side. he attempted to point out a higher life, by which sorrow would be forgotten. he could not prevent sorrow culminating in old age, disease, and death; but he hoped to make men ignore their miseries, and thus rise above them to a beatific state of devout contemplation and the practice of virtues, for which he laid down certain rules and regulations. it is astonishing how the new doctrines spread,--from india to china, from china to japan and ceylon, until eastern asia was filled with pagodas, temples, and monasteries to attest his influence; some eighty-five thousand existed in china alone. buddha probably had as many converts in china as confucius himself. the buddhists from time to time were subjected to great persecution from the emperors of china, in which their sacred books were destroyed; and in india the brahmans at last regained their power, and expelled buddhism from the country. in the year 845 a.d. two hundred and sixty thousand monks and nuns were made to return to secular life in china, being regarded as mere drones,--lazy and useless members of the community. but the policy of persecution was reversed by succeeding emperors. in the thirteenth century there were in china nearly fifty thousand buddhist temples and two hundred and thirteen thousand monks; and these represented but a fraction of the professed adherents of the religion. under the present dynasty the buddhists are proscribed, but still they flourish. now, what has given to the religion of buddha such an extraordinary attraction for the people of eastern asia? buddhism has a twofold aspect,--_practical_ and _speculative_. in its most definite form it was a moral and philanthropic movement,--the reaction against brahmanism, which had no humanity, and which was as repulsive and oppressive as roman catholicism was when loaded down with ritualism and sacerdotal rites, when europe was governed by priests, when churches were damp, gloomy crypts, before the tall cathedrals arose in their artistic beauty. from a religious and philosophical point of view, buddhism at first did not materially differ from brahmanism. the same dreamy pietism, the same belief in the transmigration of souls, the same pantheistic ideas of god and nature, the same desire for rest and final absorption in the divine essence characterized both. in both there was a certain principle of faith, which was a feeling of reverence rather than the recognition of the unity and personality and providence of god. the prayer of the buddhist was a yearning for deliverance from sorrow, a hope of final rest; but this was not to be attained until desires and passions were utterly suppressed in the soul, which could be effected only by prayer, devout meditations, and a rigorous self-discipline. in order to be purified and fitted for nirvana the soul, it was supposed, must pass through successive stages of existence in mortal forms, without conscious recollection,--innumerable births and deaths, with sorrow and disease. and the final state of supreme blessedness, the ending of the long and weary transmigration, would be attained only with the extinction of all desires, even the instinctive desire for existence. buddha had no definite ideas of the deity, and the worship of a personal god is nowhere to be found in his teachings, which exposed him to the charge of atheism. he even supposed that gods were subject to death, and must return to other forms of life before they obtained final rest in nirvana. nirvana means that state which admits of neither birth nor death, where there is no sorrow or disease,--an impassive state of existence, absorption in the spirit of the universe. in the buddhist catechism nirvana is defined as the "total cessation of changes; a perfect rest; the absence of desire, illusion, and sorrow; the total obliteration of everything that goes to make up the physical man." this theory of re-births, or transmigration of souls, is very strange and unnatural to our less imaginative and subtile occidental minds; but to the speculative orientals it is an attractive and reasonable belief. they make the "spirit" the immortal part of man, the "soul" being its emotional embodiment, its "spiritual body," whose unsatisfied desires cause its birth and re-birth into the fleshly form of the physical "body,"--a very brief and temporary incarnation. when by the progressive enlightenment of the spirit its longings and desires have been gradually conquered, it no longer needs or has embodiment either of soul or of body; so that, to quote elliott coues in olcott's "buddhist catechism," "a spirit in a state of conscious formlessness, subject to no further modification by embodiment, yet in full knowledge of its experiences [during its various incarnations], is nirvanic." buddhism, however, viewed in any aspect, must be regarded as a gloomy religion. it is hard enough to crucify all natural desires and lead a life of self-abnegation; but for the spirit, in order to be purified, to be obliged to enter into body after body, each subject to disease, misery, and death, and then after a long series of migrations to be virtually annihilated as the highest consummation of happiness, gives one but a poor conception of the efforts of the proudest unaided intellect to arrive at a knowledge of god and immortal bliss. it would thus seem that the true idea of god, or even that of immortality, is not an innate conception revealed by consciousness; for why should good and intellectual men, trained to study and reflection all their lives, gain no clearer or more inspiring notions of the being of infinite love and power, or of the happiness which he is able and willing to impart? what a feeble conception of god is a being without the oversight of the worlds that he created, without volition or purpose or benevolence, or anything corresponding to our notion of personality! what a poor conception of supernal bliss, without love or action or thought or holy companionship,--only rest, unthinking repose, and absence from disease, misery, and death, a state of endless impassiveness! what is nirvana but an escape from death and deliverance from mortal desires, where there are neither ideas nor the absence of ideas; no changes or hopes or fears, it is true, but also no joy, no aspiration, no growth, no life,--a state of nonentity, where even consciousness is practically extinguished, and individuality merged into absolute stillness and a dreamless rest? what a poor reward for ages of struggle and the final achievement of exalted virtue! but if buddhism failed to arrive at what we believe to be a true knowledge of god and the destiny of the soul,--the forgiveness and remission, or doing-away, of sin, and a joyful and active immortality, all which i take to be revelations rather than intuitions,--yet there were some great certitudes in its teachings which did appeal to consciousness,--certitudes recognized by the noblest teachers of all ages and nations. these were such realities as truthfulness, sincerity, purity, justice, mercy, benevolence, unselfishness, love. the human mind arrives at ethical truths, even when all speculation about god and immortality has failed. the idea of god may be lost, but not that of moral obligation,--the mutual social duties of mankind. there is a sense of duty even among savages; in the lowest civilization there is true admiration of virtue. no sage that i ever read of enjoined immorality. no ignorance can prevent the sense of shame, of honor, or of duty. everybody detests a liar and despises a thief. thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not kill,--these are laws written in human consciousness as well as in the code of moses. obedience and respect to parents are instincts as well as obligations. hence the prince siddârtha, as soon as he had found the wisdom of inward motive and the folly of outward rite, shook off the yoke of the priests, and denounced caste and austerities and penances and sacrifices as of no avail in securing the welfare and peace of the soul or the favor of deity. in all this he showed an enlightened mind, governed by wisdom and truth, and even a bold and original genius,--like abraham when he disowned the gods of his fathers. having thus himself gained the security of the heights, buddha longed to help others up, and turned his attention to the moral instruction of the people of india. he was emphatically a missionary of ethics, an apostle of righteousness, a reformer of abuses, as well as a tender and compassionate man, moved to tears in view of human sorrows and sufferings. he gave up metaphysical speculations for practical philanthropy. he wandered from city to city and village to village to relieve misery and teach duties rather than theological philosophies. he did not know that god is love, but he did know that peace and rest are the result of virtuous thoughts and acts. "let us then," said he, "live happily, not hating those who hate us; free from greed among the greedy.... proclaim mercy freely to all men; it is as large as the spaces of heaven.... whoever loves will feel the longing to save not himself alone, but all others." he compares himself to a father who rescues his children from a burning house, to a physician who cures the blind. he teaches the equality of the sexes as well as the injustice of castes. he enjoins kindness to servants and emancipation of slaves. "as a mother, as long as she lives, watches over her child, so among all beings," said gautama, "let boundless good-will prevail.... overcome evil with good, the avaricious with generosity, the false with truth.... never forget thy own duty for the sake of another's.... if a man speaks or acts with evil thoughts pain follows, as the wheel the foot of him who draws the carriage.... he who lives seeking pleasure, and uncontrolled, the tempter will overcome.... the true sage dwells on earth, as the bee gathers sweetness with his mouth and wings.... one may conquer a thousand men in battle, but he who conquers himself alone is the greatest victor.... let no man think lightly of sin, saying in his heart, 'it cannot overtake me.'... let a man make himself what he preaches to others.... he who holds back rising anger as one might a rolling chariot, him, indeed, i call a driver; others may hold the reins.... a man who foolishly does me wrong, i will return to him the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me." these are some of the sayings of the indian reformer, which i quote from extracts of his writings as translated by sanskrit scholars. some of these sayings rise to a height of moral beauty surpassed only by the precepts of the great teacher, whom many are too fond of likening to buddha himself. the religion of buddha is founded on a correct and virtuous life, as the only way to avoid sorrow and reach nirvana. its essence, theologically, is "quietism," without firm belief in anything reached by metaphysic speculation; yet morally and practically it inculcates ennobling, active duties. among the rules that buddha laid down for his disciples were--to keep the body pure; not to enter upon affairs of trade; to have no lands and cattle, or houses, or money; to abhor all hypocrisy and dissimulation; to be kind to everything that lives; never to take the life of any living being; to control the passions; to eat food only to satisfy hunger; not to feel resentment from injuries; to be patient and forgiving; to avoid covetousness, and never to tire of self-reflection. his fundamental principles are purity of mind, chastity of life, truthfulness, temperance, abstention from the wanton destruction of animal life, from vain pleasures, from envy, hatred, and malice. he does not enjoin sacrifices, for he knows no god to whom they can be offered; but "he proclaimed the brotherhood of man, if he did not reveal the fatherhood of god." he insisted on the natural equality of all men,--thus giving to caste a mortal wound, which offended the brahmans, and finally led to the expulsion of his followers from india. he protested against all absolute authority, even that of the vedas. nor did he claim, any more than confucius, originality of doctrines, only the revival of forgotten or neglected truths. he taught that nirvana was not attained by brahmanical rites, but by individual virtues; and that punishment is the inevitable result of evil deeds by the inexorable law of cause and effect. buddhism is essentially rationalistic and ethical, while brahmanism is a pantheistic tendency to polytheism, and ritualistic even to the most offensive sacerdotalism. the brahman reminds me of a dunstan,--the buddhist of a benedict; the former of the gloomy, spiritual despotism of the middle ages,--the latter of self-denying monasticism in its best ages. the brahman is like thomas aquinas with his dogmas and metaphysics; the buddhist is more like a mediaeval freethinker, stigmatized as an atheist. the brahman was so absorbed with his theological speculation that he took no account of the sufferings of humanity; the buddhist was so absorbed with the miseries of man that the greatest blessing seemed to be entire and endless rest, the cessation of existence itself,--since existence brought desire, desire sin, and sin misery. as a religion buddhism is an absurdity; in fact, it is no religion at all, only a system of moral philosophy. its weak points, practically, are the abuse of philanthropy, its system of organized idleness and mendicancy, the indifference to thrift and industry, the multiplication of lazy fraternities and useless retreats, reminding us of monastic institutions in the days of chaucer and luther. the buddhist priest is a mendicant and a pauper, clothed in rags, begging his living from door to door, in which he sees no disgrace and no impropriety. buddhism failed to ennoble the daily occupations of life, and produced drones and idlers and religious vagabonds. in its corruption it lent itself to idolatry, for the buddhist temples are filled with hideous images of all sorts of repulsive deities, although buddha himself did not hold to idol worship any more than to the belief in a personal god. "buddhism," says the author of its accepted catechism, "teaches goodness without a god, existence without a soul, immortality without life, happiness without a heaven, salvation without a saviour, redemption without a redeemer, and worship without rites." the failure of buddhism, both as a philosophy and a religion, is a confirmation of the great historical fact, that in the ancient pagan world no efforts of reason enabled man unaided to arrive at a true--that is, a helpful and practically elevating--knowledge of deity. even buddha, one of the most gifted and excellent of all the sages who have enlightened the world, despaired of solving the great mysteries of existence, and turned his attention to those practical duties of life which seemed to promise a way of escaping its miseries. he appealed to human consciousness; but lacking the inspiration and aid which come from a sense of personal divine influence, buddhism has failed, on the large scale, to raise its votaries to higher planes of ethical accomplishment. and hence the necessity of that new revelation which jesus declared amid the moral ruins of a crumbling world, by which alone can the debasing superstitions of india and the godless materialism of china be replaced with a vital spirituality,--even as the elaborate mythology of greece and rome gave way before the fervent earnestness of christian apostles and martyrs. it does not belong to my subject to present the condition of buddhism as it exists to-day in thibet, in siam, in china, in japan, in burmah, in ceylon, and in various other eastern countries. it spread by reason of its sympathy with the poor and miserable, by virtue of its being a great system of philanthropy and morals which appealed to the consciousness of the lower classes. though a proselyting religion it was never a persecuting one, and is still distinguished, in all its corruption, for its toleration. authorities. the chief authorities that i would recommend for this chapter are max müller's history of ancient sanskrit literature; rev. s. seal's buddhism in china; buddhism, by t. w. rhys-davids; monier williams's sákoontalá; i. muir's sanskrit texts; burnouf's essai sur la vêda; sir william jones's works; colebrook's miscellaneous essays; joseph muller's religious aspects of hindu philosophy; manual of buddhism, by r. spence hardy; dr. h. clay trumbull's the blood covenant; orthodox buddhist catechism, by h. s. olcott, edited by prof. elliott c. coues. i have derived some instruction from samuel johnson's bulky and diffuse books, but more from james freeman clarke's ten great religions^ and rawlinson's religions of the ancient world. religion of the greeks and romans. classic mythology. religion among the lively and imaginative greeks took a different form from that of the aryan race in india or persia. however the ideas of their divinities originated in their relations to the thought and life of the people, their gods were neither abstractions nor symbols. they were simply men and women, immortal, yet having a beginning, with passions and appetites like ordinary mortals. they love, they hate, they eat, they drink, they have adventures and misfortunes like men,--only differing from men in the superiority of their gifts, in their miraculous endowments, in their stupendous feats, in their more than gigantic size, in their supernal beauty, in their intensified pleasures. it was not their aim "to raise mortals to the skies," but to enjoy themselves in feasting and love-making; not even to govern the world, but to protect their particular worshippers,--taking part and interest in human quarrels, without reference to justice or right, and without communicating any great truths for the guidance of mankind. the religion of greece consisted of a series of myths,--creations for the most part of the poets,--and therefore properly called a mythology. yet in some respects the gods of greece resembled those of phoenicia and egypt, being the powers of nature, and named after the sun, moon, and planets. their priests did not form a sacerdotal caste, as in india and egypt; they were more like officers of the state, to perform certain functions or duties pertaining to rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices. they taught no moral or spiritual truths to the people, nor were they held in extraordinary reverence. they were not ascetics or enthusiasts; among them were no great reformers or prophets, as among the sacerdotal class of the jews or the hindus. they had even no sacred books, and claimed no esoteric knowledge. nor was their office hereditary. they were appointed by the rulers of the state, or elected by the people themselves; they imposed no restraints on the conscience, and apparently cared little for morals, leaving the people to an unbounded freedom to act and think for themselves, so far as they did not interfere with prescribed usages and laws. the real objects of greek worship were beauty, grace, and heroic strength. the people worshipped no supreme creator, no providential governor, no ultimate judge of human actions. they had no aspirations for heaven and no fear of hell. they did not feel accountable for their deeds or thoughts or words to an irresistible power working for righteousness or truth. they had no religious sense, apart from wonder or admiration of the glories of nature, or the good or evil which might result from the favor or hatred of the divinities they accepted. these divinities, moreover, were not manifestations of supreme power and intelligence, but were creations of the fancy, as they came from popular legends, or the brains of poets, or the hands of artists, or the speculations of philosophers. and as everything in greece was beautiful and radiant,--the sea, the sky, the mountains, and the valleys,--so was religion cheerful, seen in all the festivals which took the place of the sabbaths and holy-days of more spiritually minded peoples. the worshippers of the gods danced and played and sported to the sounds of musical instruments, and revelled in joyous libations, in feasts and imposing processions,--in whatever would amuse the mind or intoxicate the senses. the gods were rather unseen companions in pleasures, in sports, in athletic contests and warlike enterprises, than beings to be adored for moral excellence or supernal knowledge. "heaven was so near at hand that their own heroes climbed to it and became demigods." every grove, every fountain, every river, every beautiful spot, had its presiding deity; while every wonder of nature,--the sun, the moon, the stars, the tempest, the thunder, the lightning,--was impersonated as an awful power for good or evil. to them temples were erected, within which were their shrines and images in human shape, glistening with gold and gems, and wrought in every form of grace or strength or beauty, and by artists of marvellous excellence. this polytheism of greece was exceedingly complicated, but was not so degrading as that of egypt, since the gods were not represented by the forms of hideous animals, and the worship of them was not attended by revolting ceremonies; and yet it was divested of all spiritual aspirations, and had but little effect on personal struggles for truth or holiness. it was human and worldly, not lofty nor even reverential, except among the few who had deep religious wants. one of its characteristic features was the acknowledged impotence of the gods to secure future happiness. in fact, the future was generally ignored, and even immortality was but a dream of philosophers. men lived not in view of future rewards and punishments, or future existence at all, but for the enjoyment of the present; and the gods themselves set the example of an immoral life. even zeus, "the father of gods and men," to whom absolute supremacy was ascribed, the work of creation, and all majesty and serenity, took but little interest in human affairs, and lived on olympian heights like a sovereign surrounded with the instruments of his will, freely indulging in those pleasures which all lofty moral codes have forbidden, and taking part in the quarrels, jealousies, and enmities of his divine associates. greek mythology had its source in the legends of a remote antiquity,--probably among the pelasgians, the early inhabitants of greece, which they brought with them in their migration from their original settlement, or perhaps from egypt and phoenicia. herodotus--and he is not often wrong--ascribes a great part of the mythology which the greek poets elaborated to a phoenician or egyptian source. the legends have also some similarity to the poetic creations of the ancient persians, who delighted in fairies and genii and extravagant exploits, like the labors of hercules the faults and foibles of deified mortals were transmitted to posterity and incorporated with the attributes of the supreme divinity, and hence the mixture of the mighty and the mean which marks the characters of the iliad and odyssey. the greeks adopted oriental fables, and accommodated them to those heroes who figured in their own country in the earliest times. "the labors of hercules originated in egypt, and relate to the annual progress of the sun in the zodiac. the rape of proserpine, the wanderings of ceres, the eleusinian mysteries, and the orgies of bacchus were all imported from egypt or phoenicia, while the wars between the gods and the giants were celebrated in the romantic annals of persia. the oracle of dodona was copied from that of ammon in thebes, and the oracle of apollo at delphos has a similar source." behind the oriental legends which form the basis of grecian mythology there was, in all probability, in those ancient times before the pelasgians were known as ionians and the hellenes as dorians, a mystical and indefinite idea of supreme power,--as among the persians, the hindus, and the esoteric priests of egypt. in all the ancient religions the farther back we go the purer and loftier do we find the popular religion. belief in supreme deity underlies all the eastern theogonies, which belief, however, was soon perverted or lost sight of. there is great difference of opinion among philosophers as to the origin of myths,--whether they began in fable and came to be regarded as history, or began as human history and were poetized into fable. my belief is that in the earliest ages of the world there were no mythologies. fables were the creations of those who sought to amuse or control the people, who have ever delighted in the marvellous. as the magnificent, the vast, the sublime, which was seen in nature, impressed itself on the imagination of the orientals and ended in legends, so did allegory in process of time multiply fictions and fables to an indefinite extent; and what were symbols among eastern nations became impersonations in the poetry of greece. grecian mythology was a vast system of impersonated forces, beginning with the legends of heroes and ending with the personification of the faculties of the mind and the manifestations of nature, in deities who presided over festivals, cities, groves, and mountains, with all the infirmities of human nature, and without calling out exalted sentiments of love or reverence. they are all creations of the imagination, invested with human traits and adapted to the genius of the people, who were far from being religious in the sense that the hindus and egyptians were. it was the natural and not the supernatural that filled their souls. it was art they worshipped, and not the god who created the heavens and the earth, and who exacts of his creatures obedience and faith. in regard to the gods and goddesses of the grecian pantheon, we observe that most of them were immoral; at least they had the usual infirmities of men. they are thus represented by the poets, probably to please the people, who like all other peoples had to make their own conceptions of god; for even a miraculous revelation of deity must be interpreted by those who receive it, according to their own understanding of the qualities revealed. the ancient romans, themselves stern, earnest, practical, had an almost oriental reverence for their gods, so that their jupiter (father of heaven) was a majestic, powerful, all-seeing, severely just national deity, regarded by them much as the jehovah of the hebrews was by that nation. when in later times the conquest of eastern countries and of macedon and greece brought in luxury, works of art, foreign literature, and all the delightful but enervating influences of aestheticism, the romans became corrupted, and gradually began to identify their own more noble deities with the beautiful but unprincipled, self-indulgent, and tricky set of gods and goddesses of the greek mythology. the greek zeus, with whom were associated majesty and dominion, and who reigned supreme in the celestial hierarchy,--who as the chief god of the skies, the god of storms, ruler of the atmosphere, was the favorite deity of the aryan race, the indra of the hindus, the jupiter of the romans,--was in his grecian presentment a rebellious son, a faithless husband, and sometimes an unkind father. his character was a combination of weakness and strength,--anything but a pattern to be imitated, or even to be reverenced. he was the impersonation of power and dignity, represented by the poets as having such immense strength that if he had hold of one end of a chain, and all the gods held the other, with the earth fastened to it, he would be able to move them all. poseidon (roman neptune), the brother of zeus, was represented as the god of the ocean, and was worshipped chiefly in maritime states. his morality was no higher than that of zeus; moreover, he was rough, boisterous, and vindictive. he was hostile to troy, and yet persecuted ulysses. apollo, the next great personage of the olympian divinities, was more respectable morally than his father. he was the sun-god of the greeks, and was the embodiment of divine prescience, of healing skill, of musical and poetical productiveness, and hence the favorite of the poets. he had a form of ideal beauty, grace, and vigor, inspired by unerring wisdom and insight into futurity. he was obedient to the will of zeus, to whom he was not much inferior in power. temples were erected to this favorite deity in every part of greece, and he was supposed to deliver oracular responses in several cities, especially at delphos. hephaestus (roman vulcan), the god of fire, was a sort of jester at the olympian court, and provoked perpetual laughter from his awkwardness and lameness. he forged the thunderbolts for zeus, and was the armorer of heaven. it accorded with the grim humor of the poets to make this clumsy blacksmith the husband of aphrodite, the queen of beauty and of love. ares (roman mars), the god of war, was represented as cruel, lawless, and greedy of blood, and as occupying a subordinate position, receiving orders from apollo and athene. hermes (roman mercury) was the impersonation of commercial dealings, and of course was full of tricks and thievery,--the olympian man of business, industrious, inventive, untruthful, and dishonest. he was also the god of eloquence. besides these six great male divinities there were six goddesses, the most important of whom was hera (roman juno), wife of zeus, and hence the queen of heaven. she exercised her husband's prerogatives, and thundered and shook olympus; but she was proud, vindictive, jealous, unscrupulous, and cruel,--a poor model for women to imitate. the greek poets, however, had a poor opinion of the female sex, and hence represent this deity without those elements of character which we most admire in woman,--gentleness, softness, tenderness, and patience. she scolded her august husband so perpetually that he gave way to complaints before the assembled deities, and that too with a bitterness hardly to be reconciled with our notions of dignity. the roman juno, before the identification of the two goddesses, was a nobler character, being the queen of heaven, the protectress of virgins and of matrons, and was also the celestial housewife of the nation, watching over its revenues and its expenses. she was the especial goddess of chastity, and loose women were forbidden to touch her altars. athene (roman minerva) however, the goddess of wisdom, had a character without a flaw, and ranked with apollo in wisdom. she even expostulated with zeus himself when he was wrong. but on the other hand she had few attractive feminine qualities, and no amiable weaknesses. artemis (roman diana) was "a shadowy divinity, a pale reflection of her brother apollo." she presided over the pleasures of the chase, in which the greeks delighted,--a masculine female who took but little interest in anything intellectual. aphrodite (roman venus) was the impersonation of all that was weak and erring in the nature of woman,--the goddess of sensual desire, of mere physical beauty, silly, childish, and vain, utterly odious in a moral point of view, and mentally contemptible. this goddess was represented as exerting a great influence even when despised, fascinating yet revolting, admired and yet corrupting. she was not of much importance among the romans,--who were far from being sentimental or passionate,--until the growth of the legend of their trojan origin. then, as mother of aeneas, their progenitor, she took a high rank, and the greek poets furnished her character. hestia (roman vesta) presided over the private hearths and homesteads of the greeks, and imparted to them a sacred character. her personality was vague, but she represented the purity which among both greeks and romans is attached to home and domestic life. demeter (roman ceres) represented mother earth, and thus was closely associated with agriculture and all operations of tillage and bread-making. as agriculture is the primitive and most important of all human vocations, this deity presided over civilization and law-giving, and occupied an important position in the eleusinian mysteries. these were the twelve olympian divinities, or greater gods; but they represent only a small part of the grecian pantheon. there was dionysus (roman bacchus), the god of drunkenness. this deity presided over vineyards, and his worship was attended with disgraceful orgies,--with wild dances, noisy revels, exciting music, and frenzied demonstrations. leto (roman latona), another wife of zeus, and mother of apollo and diana, was a very different personage from hera, being the impersonation of all those womanly qualities which are valued in woman,--silent, unobtrusive, condescending, chaste, kindly, ready to help and tend, and subordinating herself to her children. persephone (roman proserpina) was the queen of the dead, ruling the infernal realm even more distinctly than her husband pluto, severely pure as she was awful and terrible; but there were no temples erected to her, as the greeks did not trouble themselves much about the future state. the minor deities of the greeks were innumerable, and were identified with every separate thing which occupied their thoughts,--with mountains, rivers, capes, towns, fountains, rocks; with domestic animals, with monsters of the deep, with demons and departed heroes, with water-nymphs and wood-nymphs, with the qualities of mind and attributes of the body; with sleep and death, old age and pain, strife and victory; with hunger, grief, ridicule, wisdom, deceit, grace; with night and day, the hours, the thunder the rainbow,---in short, all the wonders of nature, all the affections of the soul, and all the qualities of the mind; everything they saw, everything they talked about, everything they felt. all these wonders and sentiments they impersonated; and these impersonations were supposed to preside over the things they represented, and to a certain extent were worshipped. if a man wished the winds to be propitious, he prayed to zeus; if he wished to be prospered in his bargains, he invoked hermes; if he wished to be successful in war, he prayed to ares. he never prayed to a supreme and eternal deity, but to some special manifestation of deity, fancied or real; and hence his religion was essentially pantheistic, though outwardly polytheistic. the divinities whom he invoked he celebrated with rites corresponding with those traits which they represented. thus, aphrodite was celebrated with lascivious dances, and dionysus with drunken revels. each deity represented the grecian ideal,--of majesty or grace or beauty or strength or virtue or wisdom or madness or folly. the character of hera was what the poets supposed should be the attributes of the queen of heaven; that of leto, what should distinguish a disinterested housewife; that of hestia, what should mark the guardian of the fireside; that of demeter, what should show supreme benevolence and thrift; that of athene, what would naturally be associated with wisdom, and that of aphrodite, what would be expected from a sensual beauty. in the main, zeus was serene, majestic, and benignant, as became the king of the gods, although he was occasionally faithless to his wife; poseidon was boisterous, as became the monarch of the seas; apollo was a devoted son and a bright companion, which one would expect in a gifted poet and wise prophet, beautiful and graceful as a sun-god should be; hephaestus, the god of fire and smiths, showed naturally the awkwardness to which manual labor leads; ares was cruel and bloodthirsty, as the god of war should be; hermes, as the god of trade and business, would of course be sharp and tricky; and dionysus, the father of the vine, would naturally become noisy and rollicking in his intoxication. thus, whatever defects are associated with the principal deities, these are all natural and consistent with the characters they represent, or the duties and business in which they engage. drunkenness is not associated with zeus, or unchastity with hera or athene. the poets make each deity consistent with himself, and in harmony with the interests he represents. hence the mythology of the poets is elaborate and interesting. who has not devoured the classical dictionary before he has learned to scan the lines of homer or of virgil? as varied and romantic as the "arabian nights," it shines in the beauty of nature. in the grecian creations of gods and goddesses there is no insult to the understanding, because these creations are in harmony with nature, are consistent with humanity. there is no hatred and no love, no jealousy and no fear, which has not a natural cause. the poets proved themselves to be great artists in the very characters they gave to their divinities. they did not aim to excite reverence or stimulate to duty or point out the higher life, but to amuse a worldly, pleasure-seeking, good-natured, joyous, art-loving, poetic people, who lived in the present and for themselves alone. as a future state of rewards and punishments seldom entered into the minds of the greeks, so the gods are never represented as conferring future salvation. the welfare of the soul was rarely thought of where there was no settled belief in immortality. the gods themselves were fed on nectar and ambrosia, that they might not die like ordinary mortals. they might prolong their own existence indefinitely, but they were impotent to confer eternal life upon their worshippers; and as eternal life is essential to perfect happiness, they could not confer even happiness in its highest sense. on this fact saint augustine erected the grand fabric of his theological system. in his most celebrated work, "the city of god," he holds up to derision the gods of antiquity, and with blended logic and irony makes them contemptible as objects of worship, since they were impotent to save the soul. in his view the grand and distinguishing feature of christianity, in contrast with paganism, is the gift of eternal life and happiness. it is not the morality which christ and his apostles taught, which gave to christianity its immeasurable superiority over all other religions, but the promise of a future felicity in heaven. and it was this promise which gave such comfort to the miserable people of the old pagan world, ground down by oppression, injustice, cruelty, and poverty. it was this promise which filled the converts to christianity with joy, enthusiasm, and hope,--yea, more than this, even boundless love that salvation was the gift of god through the self-sacrifice of christ. immortality was brought to light by the gospel alone, and to miserable people the idea of eternal bliss after the trials of mortal life were passed was the source of immeasurable joy. no sooner was this sublime expectation of happiness planted firmly in the minds of pagans, than they threw their idols to the moles and the bats. but even in regard to morality, augustine showed that the gods were no examples to follow. he ridicules their morals and their offices as severely as he points out their impotency to bestow happiness. he shows the absurdity and inconsistency of tolerating players in their delineation of the vices and follies of deities for the amusement of the people in the theatre, while the priests performed the same obscenities as religious rites in the temples which were upheld by the state; so that philosophers like varro could pour contempt on players with impunity, while he dared not ridicule priests for doing in the temples the same things. no wonder that the popular religion at last was held in contempt by philosophers, since it was not only impotent to save, but did not stimulate to ordinary morality, to virtue, or to lofty sentiments. a religion which was held sacred in one place and ridiculed in another, before the eyes of the same people, could not in the end but yield to what was better. if we ascribe to the poets the creation of the elaborate mythology of the greeks,--that is, a system of gods made by men, rather than men made by gods,--whether as symbols or objects of worship, whether the religion was pantheistic or idolatrous, we find that artists even surpassed the poets in their conceptions of divine power, goodness, and beauty, and thus riveted the chains which the poets forged. the temple of zeus at olympia in elis, where the intellect and the culture of greece assembled every four years to witness the games instituted in honor of the father of the gods, was itself calculated to impose on the senses of the worshippers by its grandeur and beauty. the image of the god himself, sixty feet high, made of ivory, gold, and gems by the greatest of all the sculptors of antiquity, must have impressed spectators with ideas of strength and majesty even more than any poetical descriptions could do. if it was art which the greeks worshipped rather than an unseen deity who controlled their destinies, and to whom supreme homage was due, how nobly did the image before them represent the highest conceptions of the attributes to be ascribed to the king of heaven! seated on his throne, with the emblems of sovereignty in his hands and attendant deities around him, his head, neck, breast, and arms in massive proportions, and his face expressive of majesty and sweetness, power in repose, benevolence blended with strength,--the image of the olympian deity conveyed to the minds of his worshippers everything that could inspire awe, wonder, and goodness, as well as power. no fear was blended with admiration, since his favor could be won by the magnificent rites and ceremonies which were instituted in his honor. clarke alludes to the sculptured apollo belvedere as giving a still more elevated idea of the sun-god than the poets themselves,--a figure expressive of the highest thoughts of the hellenic mind,--and quotes milman in support of his admiration:- "all, all divine! no struggling muscle glows, through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows; but, animate with deity alone, in deathless glory lives the breathing stone." if a christian poet can see divinity in the chiselled stone, why should we wonder at the worship of art by the pagan greeks? the same could be said of the statues of artemis, of pallas-athene, of aphrodite, and other "divine" productions of grecian artists, since they represented the highest ideal the world has seen of beauty, grace, loveliness, and majesty, which the greeks adored. hence, though the statues of the gods are in human shape, it was not men that the greeks worshipped, but those qualities of mind and those forms of beauty to which the cultivated intellect instinctively gave the highest praise. no one can object to this boundless admiration which the greeks had for art in its highest forms, in so far as that admiration became worship. it was the divorce of art from morals which called out the indignation and censure of the christian fathers, and even undermined the religion of philosophers so far as it had been directed to the worship of the popular deities, which were simply creations of poets and artists. it is difficult to conceive how the worship of the gods could have been kept up for so long a time, had it not been for the festivals. this wise provision for providing interest and recreation for the people was also availed of by the mosaic ritual among the hebrews, and has been a part of most well-organized religious systems. the festivals were celebrated in honor not merely of deities, but of useful inventions, of the seasons of the year, of great national victories,--all which were religious in the pagan sense, and constituted the highest pleasures of grecian life. they were observed with great pomp and splendor in the open air in front of temples, in sacred groves, wherever the people could conveniently assemble to join in jocund dances, in athletic sports, and whatever could animate the soul with festivity and joy. hence the religious worship of the greeks was cheerful, and adapted itself to the tastes and pleasures of the people; it was, however, essentially worldly, and sometimes degrading. it was similar in its effects to the rural sports of the yeomanry of the middle ages, and to the theatrical representations sometimes held in mediaeval churches,--certainly to the processions and pomps which the catholic clergy instituted for the amusement of the people. hence the sneering but acute remark of gibbon, that all religions were equally true to the people, equally false to philosophers, and equally useful to rulers. the state encouraged and paid for sacrifices, rites, processions, and scenic dances on the same principle that they gave corn to the people to make them contented in their miseries, and severely punished those who ridiculed the popular religion when it was performed in temples, even though it winked at the ridicule of the same performances in the theatres. among the greeks there were no sacred books like the hindu vedas or hebrew scriptures, in which the people could learn duties and religious truths. the priests taught nothing; they merely officiated at rites and ceremonies. it is difficult to find out what were the means and forms of religious instruction, so far as pertained to the heart and conscience. duties were certainly not learned from the ministers of religion. from what source did the people learn the necessity of obedience to parents, of conjugal fidelity, of truthfulness, of chastity, of honesty? it is difficult to tell. the poets and artists taught ideas of beauty, of grace, of strength; and nature in her grandeur and loveliness taught the same things. hence a severe taste was cultivated, which excluded vulgarity and grossness in the intercourse of life. it was the rule to be courteous, affable, gentlemanly, for all this was in harmony with the severity of art. the comic poets ridiculed pretension, arrogance, quackery, and lies. patriotism, which was learned from the dangers of the state, amid warlike and unscrupulous neighbors, called out many manly virtues, like courage, fortitude, heroism, and self-sacrifice. a hard and rocky soil necessitated industry, thrift, and severe punishment on those who stole the fruits of labor, even as miners in the rocky mountains sacredly abstain from appropriating the gold of their fellow-laborers. self-interest and self-preservation dictated many laws which secured the welfare of society. the natural sacredness of home guarded the virtue of wives and children; the natural sense of justice raised indignation against cheating and tricks in trade. men and women cannot live together in peace and safety without observing certain conditions, which may be ranked with virtues even among savages and barbarians,--much more so in cultivated and refined communities. the graces and amenities of life can exist without reference to future rewards and punishments. the ultimate law of self-preservation will protect men in ordinary times against murder and violence, and will lead to public and social enactments which bad men fear to violate. a traveller ordinarily feels as safe in a highly-civilized pagan community as in a christian city. the "heathen chinee" fears the officers of the law as much as does a citizen of london. the great difference between a pagan and a christian people is in the power of conscience, in the sense of a moral accountability to a spiritual deity, in the hopes or fears of a future state,--motives which have a powerful influence on the elevation of individual character and the development of higher types of social organization. but whatever laws are necessary for the maintenance of order, the repression of violence, of crimes against person and the state and the general material welfare of society, are found in pagan as well as in christian states; and the natural affections,--of paternal and filial love, friendship, patriotism, generosity, etc.,--while strengthened by christianity, are also an inalienable part of the god-given heritage of all mankind. we see many heroic traits, many manly virtues, many domestic amenities, and many exalted sentiments in pagan greece, even if these were not taught by priests or sages. every man instinctively clings to life, to property, to home, to parents, to wife and children; and hence these are guarded in every community, and the violation of these rights is ever punished with greater or less severity for the sake of general security and public welfare, even if there be no belief in god. religion, loftily considered, has but little to do with the temporal interests of men. governments and laws take these under their protection, and it is men who make governments and laws. they are made from the instinct of self-preservation, from patriotic aspirations, from the necessities of civilization. religion, from the christian standpoint, is unworldly, having reference to the life which is to come, to the enlightenment of the conscience, to restraint from sins not punishable by the laws, and to the inspiration of virtues which have no worldly reward. this kind of religion was not taught by grecian priests or poets or artists, and did not exist in greece, with all its refinements and glories, until partially communicated by those philosophers who meditated on the secrets of nature, the mighty mysteries of life, and the duties which reason and reflection reveal. and it may be noticed that the philosophers themselves, who began with speculations on the origin of the universe, the nature of the gods, the operations of the mind, and the laws of matter, ended at last with ethical inquiries and injunctions. we see this illustrated in socrates and zeno. they seemed to despair of finding out god, of explaining the wonders of his universe, and came down to practical life in its sad realities,--like solomon himself when he said, "fear god and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." in ethical teachings and inquiries some of these philosophers reached a height almost equal to that which christian sages aspired to climb; and had the world practised the virtues which they taught, there would scarcely have been need of a new revelation, so far as the observance of rules to promote happiness on earth is concerned. but these pagan sages did not hold out hopes beyond the grave. they even doubted whether the soul was mortal or immortal. they did teach many ennobling and lofty truths for the enlightenment of thinkers; but they held out no divine help, nor any hope of completing in a future life the failures of this one; and hence they failed in saving society from a persistent degradation, and in elevating ordinary men to those glorious heights reached by the christian converts. that was the point to which augustine directed his vast genius and his unrivalled logic. he admitted that arts might civilize, and that the elaborate mythology which he ridiculed was interesting to the people, and was, as a creation of the poets, ingenious and beautiful; but he showed that it did not reveal a future state, that it did not promise eternal happiness, that it did not restrain men from those sins which human laws could not punish, and that it did not exalt the soul to lofty communion with the deity, or kindle a truly spiritual life, and therefore was worthless as a religion, imbecile to save, and only to be classed with those myths which delight an ignorant or sensuous people, and with those rites which are shrouded in mystery and gloom. nor did he, in his matchless argument against the gods of greece and rome, take for his attack those deities whose rites were most degrading and senseless, and which the thinking world despised, but the most lofty forms of pagan religion, such as were accepted by moralists and philosophers like seneca and plato. and thus he reached the intelligence of the age, and gave a final blow to all the gods of antiquity. it would be instructive to show that the religion of greece, as embraced by the people, did not prevent or even condemn those social evils that are the greatest blot on enlightened civilization. it did not discourage slavery, the direst evil which ever afflicted humanity; it did not elevate woman to her true position at home or in public; it ridiculed those passive virtues that are declared and commended in the sermon on the mount; it did not pronounce against the wickedness of war, or the vanity of military glory; it did not dignify home, or the virtues of the family circle; it did not declare the folly of riches, or show that the love of money is a root of all evil. it made sensual pleasure and outward prosperity the great aims of successful ambition, and hid with an impenetrable screen from the eyes of men the fatal results of a worldly life, so that suicide itself came to be viewed as a justifiable way to avoid evils that are hard to be borne; in short, it was a religion which, though joyous, was without hope, and with innumerable deities was without god in the world,--which was no religion at all, but a fable, a delusion, and a superstition, as paul argued before the assembled intellect of the most fastidious and cultivated city of the world. and yet we see among those who worshipped the gods of greece a sense of dependence on supernatural power; and this dependence stands out, both in the iliad and the odyssey, among the boldest heroes. they seem to be reverential to the powers above them, however indefinite their views. in the best ages of greece the worship of the various deities was sincere and universal, and was attended with sacrifices to propitiate favor or avert their displeasure. it does not appear that these sacrifices were always offered by priests. warriors, kings, and heroes themselves sacrificed oxen, sheep, and goats, and poured out libations to the gods. homer's heroes were very strenuous in the exercise of these duties; and they generally traced their calamities and misfortunes to the neglect of sacrifices, which was a great offence to the deities, from zeus down to inferior gods. we read, too, that the gods were supplicated in fervent prayer. there was universally felt, in earlier times, a need of divine protection. if the gods did not confer eternal life, they conferred, it was supposed, temporal and worldly good. people prayed for the same blessings that the ancient jews sought from jehovah. in this sense the early greeks were religious. irreverence toward the gods was extremely rare. the people, however, did not pray for divine guidance in the discharge of duty, but for the blessings which would give them health and prosperity. we seldom see a proud self-reliance even among the heroes of the iliad, but great solicitude to secure aid from the deities they worshipped. * * * * * the religion of the romans differed in some respects from that of the greeks, inasmuch as it was emphatically a state religion. it was more of a ritual and a ceremony. it included most of the deities of the greek pantheon, but was more comprehensive. it accepted the gods of all the nations that composed the empire, and placed them in the pantheon,--even mithra, the persian sun-god, and the isis and osiris of the egyptians, to whom sacrifices were made by those who worshipped them at home. it was also a purer mythology, and rejected many of the blasphemous myths concerning the loves and quarrels of the grecian deities. it was more practical and less poetical. every roman god had something to do, some useful office to perform. several divinities presided over the birth and nursing of an infant, and they were worshipped for some fancied good, for the benefits which they were supposed to bestow. there was an elaborate "division of labor" among them. a divinity presided over bakers, another over ovens,--every vocation and every household transaction had its presiding deities. there were more superstitious rites practised by the romans than by the greeks,--such as examining the entrails of beasts and birds for good or bad omens. great attention was given to dreams and rites of divination. the roman household gods were of great account, since there was a more defined and general worship of ancestors than among the greeks. these were the _penates_, or familiar household gods, the guardians of the home, whose fire on the sacred hearth was perpetually burning, and to whom every meal was esteemed a sacrifice. these included a _lar_, or ancestral family divinity, in each house. there were vestal virgins to guard the most sacred places. there was a college of pontiffs to regulate worship and perform the higher ceremonies, which were complicated and minute. the pontiffs were presided over by one called pontifex maximus,--a title shrewdly assumed by caesar to gain control of the popular worship, and still surviving in the title of the pope of rome with his college of cardinals. there were augurs and haruspices to discover the will of the gods, according to entrails and the flight of birds. the festivals were more numerous in rome than in greece, and perhaps were more piously observed. about one day in four was set apart for the worship of particular gods, celebrated by feasts and games and sacrifices. the principal feast days were in honor of janus, the great god of the sabines, the god of beginnings, celebrated on the first of january, to which month he gave his name; also the feasts in honor of the penates, of mars, of vesta, of minerva, of venus, of ceres, of juno, of jupiter, and of saturn. the saturnalia, december 19, in honor of saturn, the annual thanksgiving, lasted seven days, when the rich kept open house and slaves had their liberty,--the most joyous of the festivals. the feast of minerva lasted five days, when offerings were made by all mechanics, artists, and scholars. the feast of cybele, analogous to that of ceres in greece and isis in egypt, lasted six days. these various feasts imposed great contributions on the people, and were managed by the pontiffs with the most minute observances and legalities. the principal roman divinities were the olympic gods under latin names, like jupiter, juno, mars, minerva, neptune, vesta, apollo, venus, ceres, and diana; but the secondary deities were almost innumerable. some of the deities were of etruscan, some of sabine, and some of latin origin; but most of them were imported from greece or corresponded with those of the greek mythology. many were manufactured by the pontiffs for utilitarian purposes, and were mere abstractions, like hope, fear, concord, justice, clemency, etc., to which temples were erected. the powers of nature were also worshipped, like the sun, the moon, and stars. the best side of roman life was represented in the worship of vesta, who presided over the household fire and home, and was associated with the lares and penates. of these household gods the head of the family was the officiating minister who offered prayers and sacrifices. the vestal virgins received especial honor, and were appointed by the pontifex maximus. thus the romans accounted themselves very religious, and doubtless are to be so accounted, certainly in the same sense as were the athenians by the apostle paul, since altars, statues, and temples in honor of gods were everywhere present to the eye, and rites and ceremonies were most systematically and mechanically observed according to strict rules laid down by the pontiffs. they were grave and decorous in their devotions, and seemed anxious to learn from their augurs and haruspices the will of the gods; and their funeral ceremonies were held with great pomp and ceremony. as faith in the gods declined, ceremonies and pomps were multiplied, and the ice of ritualism accumulated on the banks of piety. superstition and unbelief went hand in hand. worship in the temples was most imposing when the amours and follies of the gods were most ridiculed in the theatres; and as the state was rigorous in its religious observances, hypocrisy became the vice of the most prominent and influential citizens. what sincerity was there in julius caesar when he discharged the duties of high-priest of the republic? it was impossible for an educated roman who read plato and zeno to believe in janus and juno. it was all very well for the people so to believe, he said, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higher classes until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry of lucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the gods had been the curse of the human race. if the romans were more devoted to mere external and ritualistic services than the greeks,--more outwardly religious,--they were also more hypocritical. if they were not professed freethinkers,--for the state did not tolerate opposition or ridicule of those things which it instituted or patronized,--religion had but little practical effect on their lives. the romans were more immoral yet more observant of religious ceremonies than the greeks, who acted and thought as they pleased. intellectual independence was not one of the characteristics of the roman citizen. he professed to think as the state prescribed, for the masters of the world were the slaves of the state in religion as in war. the romans were more gross in their vices as they were more pharisaical in their profession than the greeks, whom they conquered and imitated. neither the sincere worship of ancestors, nor the ceremonies and rites which they observed in honor of their innumerable divinities, softened the severity of their character, or weakened their passion for war and bloody sports. their hard and rigid wills were rarely moved by the cries of agony or the shrieks of despair. their slavery was more cruel than among any nation of antiquity. butchery and legalized murder were the delight of romans in their conquering days, as were inhuman sports in the days of their political decline. where was the spirit of religion, as it was even in india and egypt, when women were debased; when every man and woman held a human being in cruel bondage; when home was abandoned for the circus and the amphitheatre; when the cry of the mourner was unheard in shouts of victory; when women sold themselves as wives to those who would pay the highest price, and men abstained from marriage unless they could fatten on rich dowries; when utility was the spring of every action, and demoralizing pleasure was the universal pursuit; when feastings and banquets were riotous and expensive, and violence and rapine were restrained only by the strong arm of law dictated by instincts of self-preservation? where was the ennobling influence of the gods, when nobody of any position finally believed in them? how powerless the gods, when the general depravity was so glaring as to call out the terrible invective of paul, the cosmopolitan traveller, the shrewd observer, the pure-hearted christian missionary, indicting not a few, but a whole people: "who exchanged the truth of god for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator, ... being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of god, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affections, unmerciful." an awful picture, but sustained by the evidence of the roman writers of that day as certainly no worse than the hideous reality. if this was the outcome of the most exquisitely poetical and art-inspiring mythology the world has ever known, what wonder that the pure spirituality of jesus the christ, shining into that blackness of darkness, should have been hailed by perishing millions as the "light of the world"! * * * * * authorities. rawlinson's religions of the ancient world; grote's history of greece; thirlwall's history of greece; homer's iliad and odyssey; max müller's chips from a german workshop; curtius's history of greece; mr. gladstone's homer and the homeric age; rawlinson's herodotus; döllinger's jew and gentile; fenton's lectures on ancient and modern greece; smith's dictionary of greek and roman mythology; clarke's ten great religions; dwight's mythology; saint augustine's city of god. confucius. sage and moralist. 550-478 b.c. about one hundred years after the great religious movement in india under buddha, a man was born in china who inaugurated a somewhat similar movement there, and who impressed his character and principles on three hundred millions of people. it cannot be said that he was the founder of a new religion, since he aimed only to revive what was ancient. to quote his own words, he was "a transmitter, and not a maker." but he was, nevertheless, a very extraordinary character; and if greatness is to be measured by results, i know of no heathen teacher whose work has been so permanent. in genius, in creative power, he was inferior to many; but in influence he has had no equal among the sages of the world. "confucius" is a latin name given him by jesuit missionaries in china; his real name was k'ung-foo-tseu. he was born about 550 b.c., in the province of loo, and was the contemporary of belshazzar, of cyrus, of croesus, and of pisistratus. it is claimed that confucius was a descendant of one of the early emperors of china, of the chow dynasty, 1121 b.c.; but he was simply of an upper-class family of the state of loo, one of the provinces of the empire,--his father and grandfather having been prime ministers to the reigning princes or dukes of loo, which state resembled a feudal province of france in the middle ages, acknowledging only a nominal fealty to the emperor. we know but little of the early condition of china. the earliest record of events which can be called history takes us back to about 2350 b.c., when yaou was emperor,--an intelligent and benignant prince, uniting under his sway the different states of china, which had even then reached a considerable civilization, for the legendary or mythical history of the country dates back about five thousand years. yaou's son shun was an equally remarkable man, wise and accomplished, who lived only to advance the happiness of his subjects. at that period the religion of china was probably monotheistic. the supreme being was called shang-te, to whom sacrifices were made, a deity who exercised a superintending care of the universe; but corruptions rapidly crept in, and a worship of the powers of nature and of the spirits of departed ancestors, who were supposed to guard the welfare of their descendants, became the prevailing religion. during the reigns of these good emperors the standard of morality was high throughout the empire. but morals declined,--the old story in all the states of the ancient world. in addition to the decline in morals, there were political discords and endless wars between the petty princes of the empire. to remedy the political and moral evils of his time was the great desire and endeavor of confucius. the most marked feature in the religion of the chinese, before his time, was the worship of ancestors, and this worship he did not seek to change. "confucius taught three thousand disciples, of whom the more eminent became influential authors. like plato and xenophon, they recorded the sayings of their master, and his maxims and arguments preserved in their works were afterward added to the national collection of the sacred books called the 'nim classes.'" confucius was a mere boy when his father died, and we know next to nothing of his early years. at fifteen years of age, however, we are told that he devoted himself to learning, pursuing his studies under considerable difficulties, his family being poor. he married when he was nineteen years of age; and in the following year was born his son le, his only child, of whose descendants eleven thousand males were living one hundred and fifty years ago, constituting the only hereditary nobility of china,--a class who for seventy generations were the recipients of the highest honors and privileges. on the birth of le, the duke ch'aou of loo sent confucius a present of a carp, which seems to indicate that he was already distinguished for his attainments. at twenty years of age confucius entered upon political duties, being the superintendent of cattle, from which, for his fidelity and ability, he was promoted to the higher office of distributer of grain, having attracted the attention of his sovereign. at twenty-two he began his labors as a public teacher, and his house became the resort of enthusiastic youth who wished to learn the doctrines of antiquity. these were all that the sage undertook to teach,--not new and original doctrines of morality or political economy, but only such as were established from a remote antiquity, going back two thousand years before he was born. there is no improbability in this alleged antiquity of the chinese empire, for egypt at this time was a flourishing state. at twenty-nine years of age confucius gave his attention to music, which he studied under a famous master; and to this art he devoted no small part of his life, writing books and treatises upon it. six years afterward, at thirty-five, he had a great desire to travel; and the reigning duke, in whose service he was as a high officer of state, put at his disposal a carriage and two horses, to visit the court of the emperor, whose sovereignty, however, was only nominal. it does not appear that confucius was received with much distinction, nor did he have much intercourse with the court or the ministers. he was a mere seeker of knowledge, an inquirer about the ceremonies and maxims of the founder of the dynasty of chow, an observer of customs, like herodotus. he wandered for eight years among the various provinces of china, teaching as he went, but without making a great impression. moreover, he was regarded with jealousy by the different ministers of princes; one of them, however, struck with his wisdom and knowledge, wished to retain him in his service. on the return of confucius to loo, he remained fifteen years without official employment, his native province being in a state of anarchy. but he was better employed than in serving princes, prosecuting his researches into poetry, history, ceremonies, and music,--a born scholar, with insatiable desire of knowledge. his great gifts and learning, however, did not allow him to remain without public employment. he was made governor of an important city. as chief magistrate of this city, he made a marvellous change in the manners of the people. the duke, surprised at what he saw, asked if his rules could be employed to govern a whole state; and confucius told him that they could be applied to the government of the empire. on this the duke appointed him assistant superintendent of public works,--a great office, held only by members of the ducal family. so many improvements did confucius make in agriculture that he was made minister of justice; and so wonderful was his management, that soon there was no necessity to put the penal laws in execution, since no offenders could be found. confucius held his high office as minister of justice for two years longer, and some suppose he was made prime minister. his authority certainly continued to increase. he exalted the sovereign, depressed the ministers, and weakened private families,--just as richelieu did in france, strengthening the throne at the expense of the nobility. it would thus seem that his political reforms were in the direction of absolute monarchy, a needed force in times of anarchy and demoralization. so great was his fame as a statesman that strangers came from other states to see him. these reforms in the state of loo gave annoyance to the neighboring princes; and to undermine the influence of confucius with the duke, these princes sent the duke a present of eighty beautiful girls, possessing musical and dancing accomplishments, and also one hundred and twenty splendid horses. as the duke soon came to think more of his girls and horses than of his reforms, confucius became disgusted, resigned his office, and retired to private life. then followed thirteen years of homeless wandering. he was now fifty-six years of age, depressed and melancholy in view of his failure with princes. he was accompanied in his travels by some of his favorite disciples, to whom he communicated his wisdom. but his fame preceded him wherever he journeyed, and such was the respect for his character and teachings that he was loaded with presents by the people, and was left unmolested to do as he pleased. the dissoluteness of courts filled him with indignation and disgust; and he was heard to exclaim on one occasion, "i have not seen one who loves virtue as he loves beauty,"--meaning the beauty of women. the love of the beautiful, in an artistic sense, is a greek and not an oriental idea. in the meantime confucius continued his wanderings from city to city and state to state, with a chosen band of disciples, all of whom became famous. he travelled for the pursuit of knowledge, and to impress the people with his doctrines. a certain one of his followers was questioned by a prince as to the merits and peculiarities of his master, but was afraid to give a true answer. the sage hearing of it, said, "you should have told him, he is simply a man who in his eager pursuit of knowledge forgets his food, who in the joy of his attainments forgets his sorrows, and who does not perceive that old age is coming on." how seldom is it that any man reaches such a height! in a single sentence the philosopher describes himself truly and impressively. at last, in the year 491 b.c., a new sovereign reigned in loo, and with costly presents invited confucius to return to his native state. the philosopher was now sixty-nine years of age, and notwithstanding the respect in which he was held, the world cannot be said to have dealt kindly with him. it is the fate of prophets and sages to be rejected. the world will not bear rebukes. even a friend, if discreet, will rarely venture to tell another friend his faults. confucius told the truth when pressed, but he does not seem to have courted martyrdom; and his manners and speech were too bland, too proper, too unobtrusive to give much offence. luther was aided in his reforms by his very roughness and boldness, but he was surrounded by a different class of people from those whom confucius sought to influence. conventional, polite, considerate, and a great respecter of persons in authority was the chinese sage. a rude, abrupt, and fierce reformer would have had no weight with the most courteous and polite people of whom history speaks; whose manners twenty-five hundred years ago were substantially the same as they are at the present day,--a people governed by the laws of propriety alone. the few remaining years of confucius' life were spent in revising his writings; but his latter days were made melancholy by dwelling on the evils of the world that he could not remove. disappointment also had made him cynical and bitter, like solomon of old, although from different causes. he survived his son and his most beloved disciples. as he approached the dark valley he uttered no prayer, and betrayed no apprehension. death to him was a rest. he died at the age of seventy-three. in the tenth book of his analects we get a glimpse of the habits of the philosopher. he was a man of rule and ceremony.-he was particular about his dress and appearance. he was no ascetic, but moderate and temperate. he lived chiefly on rice, like the rest of his countrymen, but required to have his rice cooked nicely, and his meat cut properly. he drank wine freely, but was never known to have obscured his faculties by this indulgence. i do not read that tea was then in use. he was charitable and hospitable, but not ostentatious. he generally travelled in a carriage with two horses, driven by one of his disciples; but a carriage in those days was like one of our carts. in his village, it is said, he looked simple and sincere, as if he were one not able to speak; when waiting at court, or speaking with officers of an inferior grade, he spoke freely, but in a straightforward manner; with officers of a higher, grade he spoke blandly, but precisely; with the prince he was grave, but self-possessed. when eating he did not converse; when in bed he did not speak. if his mat were not straight he did not sit on it. when a friend sent him a present he did not bow; the only present for which he bowed was that of the flesh of sacrifice. he was capable of excessive grief, with all his placidity. when his favorite pupil died, he exclaimed, "heaven is destroying me!" his disciples on this said, "sir, your grief is excessive." "it is excessive," he replied. "if i am not to mourn bitterly for this man, for whom should i mourn?" the reigning prince of loo caused a temple to be erected over the remains of confucius, and the number of his disciples continually increased. the emperors of the falling dynasty of chow had neither the intelligence nor the will to do honor to the departed philosopher, but the emperors of the succeeding dynasties did all they could to perpetuate his memory. during his life confucius found ready acceptance for his doctrines, and was everywhere revered among the people, though not uniformly appreciated by the rulers, nor able permanently to establish the reforms he inaugurated. after his death, however, no honor was too great to be rendered him. the most splendid temple in china was built over his grave, and he received a homage little removed from worship. his writings became a sacred rule of faith and practice; schools were based upon them, and scholars devoted themselves to their interpretation. for two thousand years confucius has reigned supreme,--the undisputed teacher of a population of three or four hundred millions. confucius must be regarded as a man of great humility, conscious of infirmities and faults, but striving after virtue and perfection. he said of himself, "i have striven to become a man of perfect virtue, and to teach others without weariness; but the character of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what i have not attained to. i am not one born in the possession of knowledge, but i am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there. i am a transmitter, and not a maker." if he did not lay claim to divine illumination, he felt that he was born into the world for a special purpose; not to declare new truths, not to initiate any new ceremony, but to confirm what he felt was in danger of being lost,--the most conservative of all known reformers. confucius left behind voluminous writings, of which his analects, his book of poetry, his book of history, and his rules of propriety are the most important. it is these which are now taught, and have been taught for two thousand years, in the schools and colleges of china. the chinese think that no man so great and perfect as he has ever lived. his writings are held in the same veneration that christians attach to their own sacred literature. there is this one fundamental difference between the authors of the bible and the chinese sage,--that he did not like to talk of spiritual things; indeed, of them he was ignorant, professing no interest in relation to the working out of abstruse questions, either of philosophy or theology. he had no taste or capacity for such inquiries. hence, he did not aspire to throw any new light on the great problems of human condition and destiny; nor did he speculate, like the ionian philosophers, on the creation or end of things. he was not troubled about the origin or destiny of man. he meddled neither with physics nor metaphysics, but he earnestly and consistently strove to bring to light and to enforce those principles which had made remote generations wise and virtuous. he confined his attention to outward phenomena,--to the world of sense and matter; to forms, precedents, ceremonies, proprieties, rules of conduct, filial duties, and duties to the state; enjoining temperance, honesty, and sincerity as the cardinal and fundamental laws of private and national prosperity. he was no prophet of wrath, though living in a corrupt age. he utters no anathemas on princes, and no woes on peoples. nor does he glow with exalted hopes of a millennium of bliss, or of the beatitudes of a future state. he was not stern and indignant like elijah, but more like the courtier and counsellor elisha. he was a man of the world, and all his teachings have reference to respectability in the world's regard. he doubted more than he believed. and yet in many of his sayings confucius rises to an exalted height, considering his age and circumstances. some of them remind us of some of the best proverbs of solomon. in general, we should say that to his mind filial piety and fraternal submission were the foundation of all virtuous practices, and absolute obedience to rulers the primal principle of government. he was eminently a peace man, discouraging wars and violence. he was liberal and tolerant in his views. he said that the "superior man is catholic and no partisan." duke gae asked, "what should be done to secure the submission of the people?" the sage replied, "advance the upright, and set aside the crooked; then the people will submit. but advance the crooked, and set aside the upright, and the people will not submit." again he said, "it is virtuous manners which constitute the excellence of a neighborhood; therefore fix your residence where virtuous manners prevail." the following sayings remind me of epictetus: "a scholar whose mind is set on truth, and who is ashamed of bad clothes and bad food, is not fit to be discoursed with. a man should say, 'i am not concerned that i have no place,--i am concerned how i may fit myself for one. i am not concerned that i am not known; i seek to be worthy to be known.'" here confucius looks to the essence of things, not to popular desires. in the following, on the other hand, he shows his prudence and policy: "in serving a prince, frequent remonstrances lead to disgrace; between friends, frequent reproofs make the friendship distant." thus he talks like solomon. "tsae-yu, one of his disciples, being asleep in the day-time, the master said, 'rotten wood cannot be carved. this yu--what is the use of my reproving him?'" of a virtuous prince, he said: "in his conduct of himself, he was humble; in serving his superiors, he was respectful; in nourishing the people, he was kind; in ordering the people, he was just." it was discussed among his followers what it is to be distinguished. one said: "it is to be heard of through the family and state." the master replied: "that is notoriety, not distinction." again he said: "though a man may be able to recite three hundred odes, yet if when intrusted with office he does not know how to act, of what practical use is his poetical knowledge?" again, "if a minister cannot rectify himself, what has he to do with rectifying others?" there is great force in this saying: "the superior man is easy to serve and difficult to please, since you cannot please him in any way which is not accordant with right; but the mean man is difficult to serve and easy to please. the superior man has a dignified ease without pride; the mean man has pride without a dignified ease." a disciple asked him what qualities a man must possess to entitle him to be called a scholar. the master said: "he must be earnest, urgent, and bland,--among his friends earnest and urgent, among his brethren bland." and, "the scholar who cherishes a love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar." "if a man," he said, "take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand." and again, "he who requires much from himself and little from others, he will keep himself from being an object of resentment." these proverbs remind us of bacon: "specious words confound virtue." "want of forbearance in small matters confound great plans." "virtue," the master said, "is more to man than either fire or water. i have seen men die from treading on water or fire, but i have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue." this is a lofty sentiment, but i think it is not in accordance with the records of martyrdom. "there are three things," he continued, "which the superior man guards against: in youth he guards against his passions, in manhood against quarrelsomeness, and in old age against covetousness." i do not find anything in the sayings of confucius that can be called cynical, such as we find in some of the proverbs of solomon, even in reference to women, where women were, as in most oriental countries, despised. the most that approaches cynicism is in such a remark as this: "i have not yet seen one who could perceive his faults and inwardly accuse himself." his definition of perfect virtue is above that of paley: "the man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a secondary consideration." throughout his writings there is no praise of success without virtue, and no disparagement of want of success with virtue. nor have i found in his sayings a sentiment which may be called demoralizing. he always takes the higher ground, and with all his ceremony ever exalts inward purity above all external appearances. there is a quaint common-sense in some of his writings which reminds one of the sayings of abraham lincoln. for instance: one of his disciples asked, "if you had the conduct of armies, whom would you have to act with you?" the master replied: "i would not have him to act with me who will unarmed attack a tiger, or cross a river without a boat." here something like wit and irony break out: "a man of the village said, 'great is k'ung the philosopher; his learning is extensive, and yet he does not render his name famous by any particular thing.' the master heard this observation, and said to his disciples: 'what shall i practise, charioteering or archery? i will practise charioteering.'" when the duke of loo asked about government, the master said: "good government exists when those who are near are made happy, and when those who are far off are attracted." when the duke questioned him again on the same subject, he replied: "go before the people with your example, and be laborious in their affairs.... pardon small faults, and raise to office men of virtue and talents." "but how shall i know the men of virtue?" asked the duke. "raise to office those whom you do know," the key to his political philosophy seems to be this: "a man who knows how to govern himself, knows how to govern others; and he who knows how to govern other men, knows how to govern an empire." "the art of government," he said, "is to keep its affairs before the mind without weariness, and to practise them with undeviating constancy.... to govern means to rectify. if you lead on the people with correctness, who will not dare to be correct?" this is one of his favorite principles; namely, the force of a good example,--as when the reigning prince asked him how to do away with thieves, he replied: "if you, sir, were not covetous, although you should reward them to do it, they would not steal." this was not intended as a rebuke to the prince, but an illustration of the force of a great example. confucius rarely openly rebuked any one, especially a prince, whom it was his duty to venerate for his office. he contented himself with enforcing principles. here his moderation and great courtesy are seen. confucius sometimes soared to the highest morality known to the pagan world. chung-kung asked about perfect virtue. the master said: "it is when you go abroad, to behave to every one as if you were receiving a great guest, to have no murmuring against you in the country and family, and not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself.... the superior man has neither anxiety nor fear. let him never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety; then all within the four seas will be brothers.... hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles, and be moving continually to what is right." fan-chi asked about benevolence; the master said: "it is to love all men." another asked about friendship. confucius replied: "faithfully admonish your friend, and kindly try to lead him. if you find him impracticable, stop. do not disgrace yourself." this saying reminds us of that of our great master: "cast not your pearls before swine." there is no greater folly than in making oneself disagreeable without any probability of reformation. some one asked: "what do you say about the treatment of injuries?" the master answered: "recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness." here again he was not far from the greater teacher on the mount "when a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain and his virtue is not sufficient to hold, whatever he may have gained he will lose again." one of the favorite doctrines of confucius was the superiority of the ancients to the men of his day. said he: "the high-mindedness of antiquity showed itself in a disregard of small things; that of the present day shows itself in license. the stern dignity of antiquity showed itself in grave reserve; that of the present shows itself in quarrelsome perverseness. the policy of antiquity showed itself in straightforwardness; that of the present in deceit." the following is a saying worthy of montaigne: "of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. if you are familiar with them, they lose their humility; if you maintain reserve to them, they are discontented." such are some of the sayings of confucius, on account of which he was regarded as the wisest of his countrymen; and as his conduct was in harmony with his principles, he was justly revered as a pattern of morality. the greatest virtues which he enjoined were sincerity, truthfulness, and obedience to duty whatever may be the sacrifice; to do right because it is right and not because it is expedient; filial piety extending to absolute reverence; and an equal reverence for rulers. he had no theology; he confounded god with heaven and earth. he says nothing about divine providence; he believed in nothing supernatural. he thought little and said less about a future state of rewards and punishments. his morality was elevated, but not supernal. we infer from his writings that his age was degenerate and corrupt, but, as we have already said, his reproofs were gentle. blandness of speech and manners was his distinguishing outward peculiarity; and this seems to characterize his nation,--whether learned from him, or whether an inborn national peculiarity, i do not know. he went through great trials most creditably, but he was no martyr. he constantly complained that his teachings fell on listless ears, which made him sad and discouraged; but he never flagged in his labors to improve his generation. he had no egotism, but great self-respect, reminding us of michael angelo. he was humble but full of dignity, serene though distressed, cheerful but not hilarious. were he to live among us now, we should call him a perfect gentleman, with aristocratic sympathies, but more autocratic in his views of government and society than aristocratic. he seems to have loved the people, and was kind, even respectful, to everybody. when he visited a school, it is said that he arose in quiet deference to speak to the children, since some of the boys, he thought, would probably be distinguished and powerful at no distant day. he was also remarkably charitable, and put a greater value on virtues and abilities than upon riches and honors. though courted by princes he would not serve them in violation of his self-respect, asked no favors, and returned their presents. if he did not live above the world, he adorned the world. we cannot compare his teachings with those of christ; they are immeasurably inferior in loftiness and spirituality; but they are worldly wise and decorous, and are on an equality with those of solomon in moral wisdom. they are wonderfully adapted to a people who are conservative of their institutions, and who have more respect for tradition than for progress. the worship of ancestors is closely connected with veneration for parental authority; and with absolute obedience to parents is allied absolute obedience to the emperor as head of the state. hence, the writings of confucius have tended to cement the chinese imperial power,--in which fact we may perhaps find the secret of his extraordinary posthumous influence. no wonder that emperors and rulers have revered and honored his memory, and used the power of the state to establish his doctrines. moreover, his exaltation of learning as a necessity for rulers has tended to put all the offices of the realm into the hands of scholars. there never was a country where scholars have been and still are so generally employed by government. and as men of learning are conservative in their sympathies, so they generally are fond of peace and detest war. hence, under the influence of scholars the policy of the chinese government has always been mild and pacific. it is even paternal. it has more similarity to the governments of a remote antiquity than that of any existing nation. thus is the influence of confucius seen in the stability of government and of conservative institutions, as well as in decency in the affairs of life, and gentleness and courtesy of manners. above all is his influence seen in the employment of men of learning and character in the affairs of state and in all the offices of government, as the truest guardians of whatever tends to exalt a state and make it respectable and stable, if not powerful for war or daring in deeds of violence. confucius was essentially a statesman as well as a moralist; but his political career was an apparent failure, since few princes listened to his instructions. yet if he was lost to his contemporaries, he has been preserved by posterity. perhaps there never lived a man so worshipped by posterity who had so slight a following by the men of his own time,--unless we liken him to that greatest of all prophets, who, being despised and rejected, is, and is to be, the "headstone of the corner" in the rebuilding of humanity. confucius says so little about the subjects that interested the people of china that some suppose he had no religion at all. nor did he mention but once in his writings shang-te, the supreme deity of his remote ancestors; and he deduced nothing from the worship of him. and yet there are expressions in his sayings which seem to show that he believed in a supreme power. he often spoke of heaven, and loved to walk in the heavenly way. heaven to him was destiny, by the power of which the world was created. by heaven the virtuous are rewarded, and the guilty are punished. out of love for the people, heaven appoints rulers to protect and instruct them. prayer is unnecessary, because heaven does not actively interfere with the soul of man. confucius was philosophical and consistent in the all-pervading principle by which he insisted upon the common source of power in government,--of the state, of the family, and of one's self. self-knowledge and self-control he maintained to be the fountain of all personal virtue and attainment in performance of the moral duties owed to others, whether above or below in social standing. he supposed that all men are born equally good, but that the temptations of the world at length destroy the original rectitude. the "superior man," who next to the "sage" holds the highest place in the confucian humanity, conquers the evil in the world, though subject to infirmities; his acts are guided by the laws of propriety, and are marked by strict sincerity. confucius admitted that he himself had failed to reach the level of the superior man. this admission may have been the result of his extraordinary humility and modesty. in "the great learning" confucius lays down the rules to enable one to become a superior man. the foundation of his rules is in the investigation of things, or _knowledge_, with which virtue is indissolubly connected,--as in the ethics of socrates. he maintained that no attainment can be made, and no virtue can remain untainted, without learning. "without this, benevolence becomes folly, sincerity recklessness, straightforwardness rudeness, and firmness foolishness." but mere accumulation of facts was not knowledge, for "learning without thought is labor lost; and thought without learning is perilous." complete wisdom was to be found only among the ancient sages; by no mental endeavor could any man hope to equal the supreme wisdom of yaou and of shun. the object of learning, he said, should be truth; and the combination of learning with a firm will, will surely lead a man to virtue. virtue must be free from all hypocrisy and guile. the next step towards perfection is the _cultivation of the person_,--which must begin with introspection, and ends in harmonious outward expression. every man must guard his thoughts, words, and actions; and conduct must agree with words. by words the superior man directs others; but in order to do this his words must be sincere. it by no means follows, however, that virtue is the invariable concomitant of plausible speech. the height of virtue is _filial piety_; for this is connected indissolubly with loyalty to the sovereign, who is the father of his people and the preserver of the state. loyalty to the sovereign is synonymous with duty, and is outwardly shown by obedience. next to parents, all superiors should be the object of reverence. this reverence, it is true, should be reciprocal; a sovereign forfeits all right to reverence and obedience when he ceases to be a minister of good. but then, only the man who has developed virtues in himself is considered competent to rule a family or a state; for the same virtues which enable a man to rule the one, will enable him to rule the other. no man can teach others who cannot teach his own family. the greatest stress, as we have seen, is laid by confucius on filial piety, which consists in obedience to authority,--in serving parents according to propriety, that is, with the deepest affection, and the father of the state with loyalty. but while it is incumbent on a son to obey the wishes of his parents, it is also a part of his duty to remonstrate with them should they act contrary to the rules of propriety. all remonstrances, however, must be made humbly. should these remonstrances fail, the son must mourn in silence the obduracy of the parents. he carried the obligations of filial piety so far as to teach that a son should conceal the immorality of a father, forgetting the distinction of right and wrong. brotherly love is the sequel of filial piety. "happy," says he, "is the union with wife and children; it is like the music of lutes and harps. the love which binds brother to brother is second only to that which is due from children to parents. it consists in mutual friendship, joyful harmony, and dutiful obedience on the part of the younger to the elder brothers." while obedience is exacted to an elder brother and to parents, confucius said but little respecting the ties which should bind husband and wife. he had but little respect for woman, and was divorced from his wife after living with her for a year. he looked on women as every way inferior to men, and only to be endured as necessary evils. it was not until a woman became a mother, that she was treated with respect in china. hence, according to confucius, the great object of marriage is to increase the family, especially to give birth to sons. women could be lawfully and properly divorced who had no children,--which put women completely in the power of men, and reduced them to the condition of slaves. the failure to recognize the sanctity of marriage is the great blot on the system of confucius as a scheme of morals. but the sage exalts friendship. everybody, from the emperor downward, must have friends; and the best friends are those allied by ties of blood. "friends," said he, "are wealth to the poor, strength to the weak, and medicine to the sick." one of the strongest bonds to friendship is literature and literary exertion. men are enjoined by confucius to make friends among the most virtuous of scholars, even as they are enjoined to take service under the most worthy of great officers. in the intercourse of friends, the most unbounded sincerity and frankness is imperatively enjoined. "he who is not trusted by his friends will not gain the confidence of the sovereign, and he who is not obedient to parents will not be trusted by friends." everything is subordinated to the state; but, on the other hand, the family, friends, culture, virtue,--the good of the people,--is the main object of good government. "no virtue," said emperor kuh, 2435 b.c., "is higher than love to all men, and there is no loftier aim in government than to profit all men." when he was asked what should be done for the people, he replied, "enrich them;" and when asked what more should be done, he replied, "teach them." on these two principles the whole philosophy of the sage rested,--the temporal welfare of the people, and their education. he laid great stress on knowledge, as leading to virtue; and on virtue, as leading to prosperity. he made the profession of a teacher the most honorable calling to which a citizen could aspire. he himself was a teacher. all sages are teachers, though all teachers are not sages. confucius enlarged upon the necessity of having good men in office. the officials of his day excited his contempt, and reciprocally scorned his teachings. it was in contrast to these officials that he painted the ideal times of kings wan and woo. the two motive-powers of government, according to confucius, are righteousness and the observance of ceremonies. righteousness is the law of the world, as ceremonies form a rule to the heart. what he meant by ceremonies was rules of propriety, intended to keep all unruly passions in check, and produce a reverential manner among all classes. doubtless he over-estimated the force of example, since there are men in every country and community who will be lawless and reckless, in spite of the best models of character and conduct. the ruling desire of confucius was to make the whole empire peaceful and happy. the welfare of the people, the right government of the state, and the prosperity of the empire were the main objects of his solicitude. as conducive to these, he touched on many other things incidentally,--such as the encouragement of music, of which he was very fond. he himself summed up the outcome of his rules for conduct in this prohibitive form: "do not unto others that which you would not have them do to you." here we have the negative side of the positive "golden rule." reciprocity, and that alone, was his law of life. he does not inculcate forgiveness of injuries, but exacts a tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye. as to his own personal character, it was nearly faultless. his humility and patience were alike remarkable, and his sincerity and candor were as marked as his humility. he was the most learned man in the empire, yet lamented the deficiency of his knowledge. he even disclaimed the qualities of the superior man, much more those of the sage. "i am," said he, "not virtuous enough to be free from cares, nor wise enough to be free from anxieties, nor bold enough to be free from fear." he was always ready to serve his sovereign or the state; but he neither grasped office, nor put forward his own merits, nor sought to advance his own interests. he was grave, generous, tolerant, and sincere. he carried into practice all the rules he taught. poverty was his lot in life, but he never repined at the absence of wealth, or lost the severe dignity which is ever to be associated with wisdom and the force of personal character. indeed, his greatness was in his character rather than in his genius; and yet i think his genius has been underrated. his greatness is seen in the profound devotion of his followers to him, however lofty their merits or exalted their rank. no one ever disputed his influence and fame; and his moral excellence shines all the brighter in view of the troublous times in which he lived, when warriors occupied the stage, and men of letters were driven behind the scenes. the literary labors of confucius were very great, since he made the whole classical literature of china accessible to his countrymen. the fame of all preceding writers is merged in his own renown. his works have had the highest authority for more than two thousand years. they have been regarded as the exponents of supreme wisdom, and adopted as text-books by all scholars and in all schools in that vast empire, which includes one-fourth of the human race. to all educated men the "book of changes" (yin-king), the "book of poetry" (she-king), the "book of history" (shoo-king), the "book of rites" (le-king), the "great learning" (ta-heo), showing the parental essence of all government, the "doctrine of the mean" (chung-yung), teaching the "golden mean" of conduct, and the "confucian analects" (lun-yu), recording his conversations, are supreme authorities; to which must be added the works of mencius, the greatest of his disciples. there is no record of any books that have exacted such supreme reverence in any nation as the works of confucius, except the koran of the mohammedans, the book of the law among the hebrews, and the bible among the christians. what an influence for one man to have exerted on subsequent ages, who laid no claim to divinity or even originality,--recognized as a man, worshipped as a god! no sooner had the sun of confucius set under a cloud (since sovereigns and princes had neglected if they had not scorned his precepts), than his memory and principles were duly honored. but it was not until the accession of the han dynasty, 206 b.c., that the reigning emperor collected the scattered writings of the sage, and exerted his vast power to secure the study of them throughout the schools of china. it must be borne in mind that a hostile emperor of the preceding dynasty had ordered the books of confucius to be burned; but they were secreted by his faithful admirers in the walls of houses and beneath the ground. succeeding emperors heaped additional honors on the memory of the sage, and in the early part of the sixteenth century an emperor of the ming dynasty gave him the title which he at present bears in china,--"the perfect sage, the ancient teacher, confucius." no higher title could be conferred upon him in a land where to be "ancient" is to be revered. for more than twelve hundred years temples have been erected to his honor, and his worship has been universal throughout the empire. his maxims of morality have appealed to human consciousness in every succeeding generation, and carry as much weight to-day as they did when the han dynasty made them the standard of human wisdom. they were especially adapted to the chinese intellect, which although shrewd and ingenious is phlegmatic, unspeculative, matter-of-fact, and unspiritual. moreover, as we have said, it was to the interest of rulers to support his doctrines, from the constant exhortations to loyalty which confucius enjoined. and yet there is in his precepts a democratic influence also, since he recognized no other titles or ranks but such as are won by personal merit,--thus opening every office in the state to the learned, whatever their original social rank. the great political truth that the welfare of the people is the first duty and highest aim of rulers, has endeared the memory of the sage to the unnumbered millions who toil upon the scantiest means of subsistence that have been known in any nation's history. this essay on the religion of the chinese would be incomplete without some allusion to one of the contemporaries of confucius, who spiritually and intellectually was probably his superior, and to whom even confucius paid extraordinary deference. this man was called lao-tse, a recluse and philosopher, who was already an old man when confucius began his travels. he was the founder of tao-tze, a kind of rationalism, which at present has millions of adherents in china. this old philosopher did not receive confucius very graciously, since the younger man declared nothing new, only wishing to revive the teachings of ancient sages, while he himself was a great awakener of thought. he was, like confucius, a politico-ethical teacher, but unlike him sought to lead people back to a state of primitive society before forms and regulations existed. he held that man's nature was good, and that primitive pleasures and virtues were better than worldly wisdom. he maintained that spiritual weapons cannot be formed by laws and regulations, and that prohibiting enactments tended to increase the evils they were meant to avert. while this great and profound man was in some respects superior to confucius, his influence has been most seen on the inferior people of china. taoism rivals buddhism as the religion of the lower classes, and taoism combined with buddhism has more adherents than confucianism. but the wise, the mighty, and the noble still cling to confucius as the greatest man whom china has produced. of spiritual religion, indeed, the lower millions of chinese have now but little conception; their nearest approach to any supernaturalism is the worship of deceased ancestors, and their religious observances are the grossest formalism. but as a practical system of morals in the days of its early establishment, the religion of confucius ranks very high among the best developments of paganism. certainly no man ever had a deeper knowledge of his countrymen than he, or adapted his doctrines to the peculiar needs of their social organism with such amazing tact. it is a remarkable thing that all the religions of antiquity have practically passed away, with their cities and empires, except among the hindus and chinese; and it is doubtful if these religions can withstand the changes which foreign conquest and christian missionary enterprise and civilization are producing. in the east the old religions gave place to mohamedanism, as in the west they disappeared before the power of christianity. and these conquering religions retain and extend their hold upon the human mind and human affections by reason of their fundamental principles,--the fatherhood of a personal god, and the brotherhood of universal man. with the ideas prevalent among all sects that god is not only supreme in power, but benevolent in his providence, and that every man has claims and rights which cannot be set aside by kings or rulers or priests,--nations must indefinitely advance in virtue and happiness, as they receive and live by the inspiration of this elevating faith. * * * * * authorities. religion in china, by joseph edkins, d.d.; rawlinson's religions of the ancient world; freeman clarke's ten great religions; johnson's oriental religions; davis's chinese; nevins's china and the chinese; giles's chinese sketches; lenormant's ancient history of the east; hue's christianity in china; legge's prolegomena to the shoo-king; lecomte's china; dr. s. wells williams's middle kingdom; china, by professor douglas; the religions of china, by james legge. ancient philosophy. seeking after truth. whatever may be said of the inferiority of the ancients to the moderns in natural and mechanical science, which no one is disposed to question, or even in the realm of literature, which may be questioned, there was one department of knowledge to which we have added nothing of consequence. in the realm of art they were our equals, and probably our superiors; in philosophy, they carried logical deduction to its utmost limit. they advanced from a few crude speculations on material phenomena to an analysis of all the powers of the mind, and finally to the establishment of ethical principles which even christianity did not supersede. the progress of philosophy from thales to plato is the most stupendous triumph of the human intellect. the reason of man soared to the loftiest flights that it has ever attained. it cast its searching eye into the most abstruse inquiries which ever tasked the famous minds of the world. it exhausted all the subjects which dialectical subtlety ever raised. it originated and carried out the boldest speculations respecting the nature of the soul and its future existence. it established important psychological truths and created a method for the solution of abstruse questions. it went on from point to point, until all the faculties of the mind were severely analyzed, and all its operations were subjected to a rigid method. the romans never added a single principle to the philosophy which the greeks elaborated; the ingenious scholastics of the middle ages merely reproduced greek ideas; and even the profound and patient germans have gone round in the same circles that plato and aristotle marked out more than two thousand years ago. only the brahmans of india have equalled them in intellectual subtilty and acumen. it was greek philosophy in which noble roman youths were educated; and hence, as it was expounded by a cicero, a marcus aurelius, and an epictetus, it was as much the inheritance of the romans as it was of the greeks themselves, after grecian liberties were swept away and greek cities became a part of the roman empire. the romans learned what the greeks created and taught; and philosophy, as well as art, became identified with the civilization which extended from the rhine and the po to the nile and the tigris. greek philosophy was one of the distinctive features of ancient civilization long after the greeks had ceased to speculate on the laws of mind or the nature of the soul, on the existence of god or future rewards and punishments. although it was purely grecian in its origin and development, it became one of the grand ornaments of the roman schools. the romans did not originate medicine, but galen was one of its greatest lights; they did not invent the hexameter verse, but virgil sang to its measure; they did not create ionic capitals, but their cities were ornamented with marble temples on the same principles as those which called out the admiration of pericles. so, if they did not originate philosophy, and generally had but little taste for it, still its truths were systematized and explained by cicero, and formed no small accession to the treasures with which cultivated intellects sought everywhere to be enriched. it formed an essential part of the intellectual wealth of the civilized world, when civilization could not prevent the world from falling into decay and ruin. and as it was the noblest triumph which the human mind, under pagan influences, ever achieved, so it was followed by the most degrading imbecility into which man, in civilized countries, was ever allowed to fall. philosophy, like art, like literature, like science, arose, shone, grew dim, and passed away, leaving the world in night. why was so bright a glory followed by so dismal a shame? what a comment is this on the greatness and littleness of man! in all probability the development of greek philosophy originated with the ionian sophoi, though many suppose it was derived from the east. it is questionable whether the oriental nations had any philosophy distinct from religion. the germans are fond of tracing resemblances in the early speculations of the greeks to the systems which prevailed in asia from a very remote antiquity. gladish sees in the pythagorean system an adoption of chinese doctrines; in the heraclitic system, the influence of persia; in the empedoclean, egyptian speculations; and in the anaxagorean, the jewish creeds. but the orientals had theogonies, not philosophies. the indian speculations aim at an exposition of ancient revelation. they profess to liberate the soul from the evils of mortal life,--to arrive at eternal beatitudes. but the state of perfectibility could be reached only by religious ceremonial observances and devout contemplation. the indian systems do not disdain logical discussions, or a search after the principles of which the universe is composed; and hence we find great refinements in sophistry, and a wonderful subtilty of logical discussion, though these are directed to unattainable ends,--to the connection of good with evil, and the union of the supreme with nature. nothing seemed to come out of these speculations but an occasional elevation of mind among the learned, and a profound conviction of the misery of man and the obstacles to his perfection. the greeks, starting from physical phenomena, went on in successive series of inquiries, elevating themselves above matter, above experience, even to the loftiest abstractions, until they classified the laws of thought. it is curious how speculation led to demonstration, and how inquiries into the world of matter prepared the way for the solution of intellectual phenomena. philosophy kept pace with geometry, and those who observed nature also gloried in abstruse calculations. philosophy and mathematics seem to have been allied with the worship of art among the same men, and it is difficult to say which more distinguished them,--aesthetic culture or power of abstruse reasoning. we do not read of any remarkable philosophical inquirer until thales arose, the first of the ionian school. he was born at miletus, a greek colony in asia minor, about the year 636 b.c., when ancus martius was king of rome, and josiah reigned at jerusalem. he has left no writings behind him, but was numbered as one of the seven wise men of greece on account of his political sagacity and wisdom in public affairs. i do not here speak of his astronomical and geometrical labors, which were great, and which have left their mark even upon our own daily life,--as, for instance, in the fact that he was the first to have divided the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. "and he, 'tis said, did first compute the stars which beam in charles's wain, and guide the bark of the phoenecian sailor o'er the sea." he is celebrated also for practical wisdom. "know thyself," is one of his remarkable sayings. the chief claim of thales to a lofty rank among sages, however, is that he was the first who attempted a logical solution of material phenomena, without resorting to mythical representations. thales felt that there was a grand question to be answered relative to the _beginning of things._ "philosophy," it has been well said, "maybe a history of _errors_^ but not of _follies_". it was not a folly, in a rude age, to speculate on the first or fundamental principle of things. thales looked around him upon nature, upon the sea and earth and sky, and concluded that water or moisture was the vital principle. he felt it in the air, he saw it in the clouds above and in the ground beneath his feet. he saw that plants were sustained by rain and by the dew, that neither animal nor man could live without water, and that to fishes it was the native element. what more important or vital than water? it was the _prima materia_, the [greek: archae] the beginning of all things,--the origin of the world. how so crude a speculation could have been maintained by so wise a man it is difficult to conjecture. it is not, however, the cause which he assigns for the beginning of things which is noteworthy, so much as the fact that his mind was directed to any solution of questions pertaining to the origin of the universe. it was these questions, and the solution of them, which marked the ionian philosophers, and which showed the inquiring nature of their minds. what is the great first cause of all things? thales saw it in one of the four elements of nature as the ancients divided them; and this is the earliest recorded theory among the greeks of the origin of the world. it is an induction from one of the phenomena of animated nature,--the nutrition and production of a seed. he regarded the entire world in the light of a living being gradually maturing and forming itself from an imperfect seed-state, which was of a moist nature. this moisture endues the universe with vitality. the world, he thought, was full of gods, but they had their origin in water. he had no conception of god as _intelligence_, or as a _creative_ power. he had a great and inquiring mind, but it gave him no knowledge of a spiritual, controlling, and personal deity. anaximenes, the disciple of thales, pursued his master's inquiries and adopted his method. he also was born in miletus, but at what time is unknown,--probably 500 b.c. like thales, he held to the eternity of matter. like him, he disbelieved in the existence of anything immaterial, for even a human soul is formed out of matter. he, too, speculated on the origin of the universe, but thought that _air_, not water, was the primal cause. this element seems to be universal. we breathe it; all things are sustained by it. it is life,--that is, pregnant with vital energy, and capable of infinite transmutations. all things are produced by it; all is again resolved into it; it supports all things; it surrounds the world; it has infinitude; it has eternal motion. thus did this philosopher reason, comparing the world with our own living existence,--which he took to be air,--an imperishable principle of life. he thus advanced a step beyond thales, since he regarded the world not after the analogy of an imperfect seed-state, but after that of the highest condition of life,--the human soul. and he attempted to refer to one general law all the transformations of the first simple substance into its successive states, in that the cause of change is the eternal motion of the air. diogenes of apollonia, in crete, one of the disciples of anaximenes, born 500 b.c., also believed that air was the principle of the universe, but he imputed to it an intellectual energy, yet without recognizing any distinction between mind and matter. he made air and the soul identical. "for," says he, "man and all other animals breathe and live by means of the air, and therein consists their soul." and as it is the primary being from which all is derived, it is necessarily an eternal and imperishable body; but as _soul_ it is also endued with consciousness. diogenes thus refers the origin of the world to an intelligent being,--to a soul which knows and vivifies. anaximenes regarded air as having life; diogenes saw in it also intelligence. thus philosophy advanced step by step, though still groping in the dark; for the origin of all things, according to diogenes, must exist in _intelligence_. according to diogenes laertius, he said: "it appears to me that he who begins any treatise ought to lay down principles about which there can be no dispute." heraclitus of ephesus, classed by ritter among the ionian philosophers, was born 503 b.c. like others of his school, he sought a physical ground for all phenomena. the elemental principle he regarded as _fire_, since all things are convertible into it. in one of its modifications this fire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating everything as the soul or principle of life, is endowed with intelligence and powers of ceaseless activity. "if anaximenes," says maurice, not very clearly, "discovered that he had within him a power and principle which ruled over all the acts and functions of his bodily frame, heraclitus found that there was life within him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in the very highest sense, _himself_, so that without it he would have been a poor, helpless, isolated creature,--a universal life which connected him with his fellow-men, with the absolute source and original fountain of life.... he proclaimed the absolute vitality of nature, the endless change of matter, the mutability and perishability of all individual things in contrast with the eternal being,--the supreme harmony which rules over all." to trace the divine energy of life in all things was the general problem of the philosophy of heraclitus, and this spirit was akin to the pantheism of the east. but he was one of the greatest speculative intellects that preceded plato, and of all the physical theorists arrived nearest to spiritual truth. he taught the germs of what was afterward more completely developed. "from his theory of perpetual fluxion," says archer butler, "plato derived the necessity of seeking a stable basis for the universal system in his world of ideas." heraclitus was, however, an obscure writer, and moreover cynical and arrogant. anaxagoras, the most famous of the ionian philosophers, was born 500 b.c., and belonged to a rich and noble family. regarding philosophy as the noblest pursuit of earth, he abandoned his inheritance for the study of nature. he went to athens in the most brilliant period of her history, and had pericles, euripides, and socrates for pupils. he taught that the great moving force of nature was intellect ([greek: nous]). intelligence was the cause of the world and of order, and mind was the principle of motion; yet this intelligence was not a moral intelligence, but simply the _primum mobile_,--the all-knowing motive force by which the order of nature is effected. he thus laid the foundation of a new system, under which the attic philosophers sought to explain nature, by regarding as the cause of all things, not _matter_ in its different elements, but rather _mind_, thought, intelligence, which both knows and acts,--a grand conception, unrivalled in ancient speculation. this explanation of material phenomena by intellectual causes was the peculiar merit of anaxagoras, and places him in a very high rank among the thinkers of the world. moreover, he recognized the reason as the only faculty by which we become cognizant of truth, the senses being too weak to discover the real component particles of things. like all the great inquirers, he was impressed with the limited degree of positive knowledge compared with what there is to be learned. "nothing," says he, "can be known; nothing is certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short,"--the complaint, not of a sceptic, but of a man overwhelmed with the sense of his incapacity to solve the problems which arose before his active mind. anaxagoras thought that this spirit ([greek: nous]) gave to all those material atoms which in the beginning of the world lay in disorder the impulse by which they took the forms of individual things, and that this impulse was given in a circular direction. hence that the sun, moon, and stars, and even the air, are constantly moving in a circle. in the mean time another sect of philosophers had arisen, who, like the ionians, sought to explain nature, but by a different method. anaximander, born 610 b.c., was one of the original mathematicians of greece, yet, like pythagoras and thales, speculated on the beginning of things. his principle was that _the infinite_ is the origin of all things. he used the word _[greek: archae] (beginning)_ to denote the material out of which all things were formed, as the everlasting, the divine. the idea of elevating an abstraction into a great first cause was certainly a long stride in philosophic generalization to be taken at that age of the world, following as it did so immediately upon such partial and childish ideas as that any single one of the familiar "elements" could be the primal cause of all things. it seems almost like the speculations of our own time, when philosophers seek to find the first cause in impersonal force, or infinite energy. yet it is not really easy to understand anaximander's meaning, other than that the abstract has a higher significance than the concrete. the speculations of thales had tended toward discovering the material constitution of the universe upon an _induction_ from observed facts, and thus made water to be the origin of all things. anaximander, accustomed to view things in the abstract, could not accept so concrete a thing as water; his speculations tended toward mathematics, to the science of pure _deduction_. the primary being is a unity, one in all, comprising within itself the multiplicity of elements from which all mundane things are composed. it is only in infinity that the perpetual changes of things can take place. thus anaximander, an original but vague thinker, prepared the way for pythagoras. this later philosopher and mathematician, born about the year 600 b.c., stands as one of the great names of antiquity; but his life is shrouded in dim magnificence. the old historians paint him as "clothed in robes of white, his head covered with gold, his aspect grave and majestic, rapt in the contemplation of the mysteries of existence, listening to the music of homer and hesiod, or to the harmony of the spheres." pythagoras was supposed to be a native of samos. when quite young, being devoted to learning, he quitted his country and went to egypt, where he learned its language and all the secret mysteries of the priests. he then returned to samos, but finding the island under the dominion of a tyrant he fled to crotona, in italy, where he gained great reputation for wisdom, and made laws for the italians. his pupils were about three hundred in number. he wrote three books, which were extant in the time of diogenes laertius,--one on education, one on politics, and one on natural philosophy. he also wrote an epic poem on the universe, to which he gave the name of _kosmos_. among the ethical principles which pythagoras taught was that men ought not to pray for anything in particular, since they do not know what is good for them; that drunkenness was identical with ruin; that no one should exceed the proper quantity of meat and drink; that the property of friends is common; that men should never say or do anything in anger. he forbade his disciples to offer victims to the gods, ordering them to worship only at those altars which were unstained with blood. pythagoras was the first person who introduced measures and weights among the greeks. but it is his philosophy which chiefly claims our attention. his main principle was that _number_ is the essence of things,--probably meaning by number order and harmony and conformity to law. the order of the universe, he taught, is only a harmonical development of the first principle of all things to virtue and wisdom. he attached much value to music, as an art which has great influence on the affections; hence his doctrine of the music of the spheres. assuming that number is the essence of the world, he deduced the idea that the world is regulated by numerical proportions, or by a system of laws which are regular and harmonious in their operations. hence the necessity for an intelligent creator of the universe. the infinite of anaximander became the one of pythagoras. he believed that the soul is incorporeal, and is put into the body subject to numerical and harmonical relation, and thus to divine regulation. hence the tendency of his speculations was to raise the soul to the contemplation of law and order,--of a supreme intelligence reigning in justice and truth. justice and truth became thus paramount virtues, to be practised and sought as the end of life. "it is impossible not to see in these lofty speculations the effect of the greek mind, according to its own genius, seeking after god, if haply it might find him." we now approach the second stage of greek philosophy. the ionic philosophers had sought to find the first principle of all things in the elements, and the pythagoreans in number, or harmony and law, implying an intelligent creator. the eleatics, who now arose, went beyond the realm of physics to pure metaphysical inquiries, to an idealistic pantheism, which disregarded the sensible, maintaining that the source of truth is independent of the senses. here they were forestalled by the hindu sages. the founder of this school was xenophanes, born in colophon, an ionian city of asia minor, from which being expelled he wandered over sicily as a rhapsodist, or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiest truths, and at last, about the year 536 b.c., came to elea, where he settled. the principal subject of his inquiries was deity itself,--the great first cause, the supreme intelligence of the universe. from the principle _ex nihilo nihil fit_ he concluded that nothing could pass from non-existence to existence. all things that exist are created by supreme intelligence, who is eternal and immutable. from this truth that god must be from all eternity, he advances to deny all multiplicity. a plurality of gods is impossible. with these sublime views,--the unity and eternity and omnipotence of god,--xenophanes boldly attacked the popular errors of his day. he denounced the transference to the deity of the human form; he inveighed against homer and hesiod; he ridiculed the doctrine of migration of souls. thus he sings,- "such things of the gods are related by homer and hesiod as would be shame and abiding disgrace to mankind,- promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other." and again, respecting anthropomorphic representations of the deity,- "but men foolishly think that gods are born like as men are, and have too a dress like their own, and their voice and their figure; but there's but one god alone, the greatest of gods and of mortals, neither in body to mankind resembling, neither in ideas." such were the sublime meditations of xenophanes. he believed in the _one_, which is god; but this all-pervading, unmoved, undivided being was not a personal god, nor a moral governor, but deity pervading all space. he could not separate god from the world, nor could he admit the existence of world which is not god. he was a monotheist, but his monotheism was pantheism. he saw god in all the manifestations of nature. this did not satisfy him nor resolve his doubts, and he therefore confessed that reason could not compass the exalted aims of philosophy. but there was no cynicism in his doubt. it was the soul-sickening consciousness that reason was incapable of solving the mighty questions that he burned to know. there was no way to arrive at the truth, "for," said he, "error is spread over all things." it was not disdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions that oppressed him. he could not solve the questions pertaining to god. what uninstructed reason can? "canst thou by searching find out god? canst thou know the almighty unto perfection?" what was impossible to job was not possible to xenophanes. but he had attained a recognition of the unity and perfections of god; and this conviction he would spread abroad, and tear down the superstitions which hid the face of truth. i have great admiration for this philosopher, so sad, so earnest, so enthusiastic, wandering from city to city, indifferent to money, comfort, friends, fame, that he might kindle the knowledge of god. this was a lofty aim indeed for philosophy in that age. it was a higher mission than that of homer, great as his was, though not so successful. parmenides of elea, born about the year 530 b.c., followed out the system of xenophanes, the central idea of which was the existence of god. with parmenides the main thought was the notion of _being_. being is uncreated and unchangeable; the fulness of all being is _thought_; the _all_ is thought and intelligence. he maintained the uncertainty of knowledge, meaning the knowledge derived through the senses. he did not deny the certainty of reason. he was the first who drew a distinction between knowledge obtained by the senses and that obtained through the reason; and thus he anticipated the doctrine of innate ideas. from the uncertainty of knowledge derived through the senses, he deduced the twofold system of true and apparent knowledge. zeno of elea, the friend and pupil of parmenides, born 500 b.c., brought nothing new to the system, but invented _dialectics_, the art of disputation,--that department of logic which afterward became so powerful in the hands of plato and aristotle, and so generally admired among the schoolmen. it seeks to establish truth by refuting error through the _reductio ad absurdum_. while parmenides sought to establish the doctrine of the _one_, zeno proved the non-existence of the _many_. he did not deny existences, but denied that appearances were real existences. it was the mission of zeno to establish the doctrines of his master. but in order to convince his listeners, he was obliged to use a new method of argument. so he carried on his argumentation by question and answer, and was therefore the first who used dialogue, which he called dialectics, as a medium of philosophical communication. empedocles, born 444 b.c., like others of the eleatics, complained of the imperfection of the senses, and looked for truth only in reason. he regarded truth as a perfect unity, ruled by love,--the only true force, the one moving cause of all things,--the first creative power by which or whom the world was formed. thus "god is love" is a sublime doctrine which philosophy revealed to the greeks, and the emphatic and continuous and assured declaration of which was the central theme of the revelation made by jesus, the christ, who resolved all the law and the gospel into the element of love,--fatherly on the part of god, filial and fraternal on the part of men. thus did the eleatic philosophers speculate almost contemporaneously with the ionians on the beginning of things and the origin of knowledge, taking different grounds, and attempting to correct the representations of sense by the notions of reason. but both schools, although they did not establish many truths, raised an inquisitive spirit, and awakened freedom of thought and inquiry. they raised up workmen for more enlightened times, even as scholastic inquirers in the middle ages prepared the way for the revival of philosophy on sounder principles. they were all men of remarkable elevation of character as well as genius. they hated superstitions, and attacked the anthropomorphism of their day. they handled gods and goddesses with allegorizing boldness, and hence were often persecuted by the people. they did not establish moral truths by scientific processes, but they set examples of lofty disdain of wealth and factitious advantages, and devoted themselves with holy enthusiasm to the solution of the great questions which pertain to god and nature. thales won the respect of his countrymen by devotion to studies. pythagoras spent twenty-two years in egypt to learn its science. xenophanes wandered over sicily as a rhapsodist of truth. parmenides, born to wealth and splendor, forsook the feverish pursuit of sensual enjoyments that he might "behold the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies." zeno declined all worldly honors in order that he might diffuse the doctrines of his master. heraclitus refused the chief magistracy of ephesus that he might have leisure to explore the depths of his own nature. anaxagoras allowed his patrimony to run to waste in order to solve problems. "to philosophy," said he, "i owe my worldly ruin, and my soul's prosperity." all these men were, without exception, the greatest and best men of their times. they laid the foundation of the beautiful temple which was constructed after they were dead, in which both physics and psychology reached the dignity of science. they too were prophets, although unconscious of their divine mission,--prophets of that day when the science which explores and illustrates the works of god shall enlarge, enrich, and beautify man's conceptions of the great creative father. nevertheless, these great men, lofty as were their inquiries and blameless their lives, had not established any system, nor any theories which were incontrovertible. they had simply speculated, and the world ridiculed their speculations. their ideas were one-sided, and when pushed out to their extreme logical sequence were antagonistic to one another; which had a tendency to produce doubt and scepticism. men denied the existence of the gods, and the grounds of certainty fell away from the human mind. this spirit of scepticism was favored by the tide of worldliness and prosperity which followed the persian war. athens became a great centre of art, of taste, of elegance, and of wealth. politics absorbed the minds of the people. glory and splendor were followed by corruption of morals and the pursuit of material pleasures. philosophy went out of fashion, since it brought no outward and tangible good. more scientific studies were pursued,--those which could be applied to purposes of utility and material gains; even as in our day geology, chemistry, mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men, command talent, and lead to certain reward. in athens, rhetoric, mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculations on god and providence. renown and wealth could be secured only by readiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which brought immediate recompense, like eloquence. men began to practise eloquence as an art, and to employ it in furthering their interests. they made special pleadings, since it was their object to gain their point at any expense of law and justice. hence they taught that nothing was immutably right, but only so by convention. they undermined all confidence in truth and religion by teaching its uncertainty. they denied to men even the capability of arriving at truth. they practically affirmed the cold and cynical doctrine that there is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink. _cui bono?_ this, the cry of most men in periods of great outward prosperity, was the popular inquiry. who will show us any good?--how can we become rich, strong, honorable?--this was the spirit of that class of public teachers who arose in athens when art and eloquence and wealth and splendor were at their height in the fifth century before christ, and when the elegant pericles was the leader of fashion and of political power. these men were the sophists,--rhetorical men, who taught the children of the rich; worldly men, who sought honor and power; frivolous men, trifling with philosophical ideas; sceptical men, denying all certainty in truth; men who as teachers added nothing to the realm of science, but who yet established certain dialectical rules useful to later philosophers. they were a wealthy, powerful, honored class, not much esteemed by men of thought, but sought out as very successful teachers of rhetoric, and also generally selected as ambassadors on difficult missions. they were full of logical tricks, and contrived to throw ridicule upon profound inquiries. they taught also mathematics, astronomy, philology, and natural history with success. they were polished men of society; not profound nor religious, but very brilliant as talkers, and very ready in wit and sophistry. and some of them were men of great learning and talent, like democritus, leucippus, and gorgias. they were not pretenders and quacks; they were sceptics who denied subjective truths, and labored for outward advantage. they taught the art of disputation, and sought systematic methods of proof. they thus prepared the way for a more perfect philosophy than that taught by the ionians, the pythagoreans, or the eleatics, since they showed the vagueness of such inquiries, conjectural rather than scientific. they had no doctrines in common. they were the barristers of their age, _paid_ to make the "worse appear the better reason;" yet not teachers of immorality any more than the lawyers of our day,--men of talents, the intellectual leaders of society. if they did not advance positive truths, they were useful in the method they created. they had no hostility to truth, as such; they only doubted whether it could be reached in the realm of psychological inquiries, and sought to apply knowledge to their own purposes, or rather to distort it in order to gain a case. they are not a class of men whom i admire, as i do the old sages they ridiculed, but they were not without their use in the development of philosophy. the sophists also rendered a service to literature by giving definiteness to language, and creating style in prose writing. protagoras investigated the principles of accurate composition; prodicus busied himself with inquiries into the significance of words; gorgias, like voltaire, gloried in a captivating style, and gave symmetry to the structure of sentences. the ridicule and scepticism of the sophists brought out the great powers of socrates, to whom philosophy is probably more indebted than to any man who ever lived, not so much for a perfect system as for the impulse he gave to philosophical inquiries, and for his successful exposure of error. he inaugurated a new era. born in athens in the year 470 b.c., the son of a poor sculptor, he devoted his life to the search after truth for its own sake, and sought to base it on immutable foundations. he was the mortal enemy of the sophists, whom he encountered, as pascal did the jesuits, with wit, irony, puzzling questions, and remorseless logic. it is true that socrates and his great successors plato and aristotle were called "sophists," but only as all philosophers or wise men were so called. the sophists as a class had incurred the odium of being the first teachers who received pay for the instruction they imparted. the philosophers generally taught for the love of truth. the sophists were a natural and necessary and very useful development of their time, but they were distinctly on a lower level than the philosophers, or _lovers_ of wisdom. like the earlier philosophers, socrates disdained wealth, ease, and comfort,--but with greater devotion than they, since he lived in a more corrupt age, when poverty was a disgrace and misfortune a crime, when success was the standard of merit, and every man was supposed to be the arbiter of his own fortune, ignoring that providence who so often refuses the race to the swift, and the battle to the strong. he was what in our time would be called eccentric. he walked barefooted, meanly clad, and withal not over cleanly, seeking public places, disputing with everybody willing to talk with him, making everybody ridiculous, especially if one assumed airs of wisdom or knowledge,--an exasperating opponent, since he wove a web around a man from which he could not be extricated, and then exposed him to ridicule in the wittiest city of the world. he attacked everybody, and yet was generally respected, since it was _errors_ rather than persons, _opinions_ rather than vices, that he attacked; and this he did with bewitching eloquence and irresistible fascination, so that though he was poor and barefooted, a silenus in appearance, with thick lips, upturned nose, projecting eyes, unwieldy belly, he was sought by alcibiades and admired by aspasia. even xanthippe, a beautiful young woman, very much younger than he, a woman fond of the comforts and pleasures of life, was willing to marry him, although it is said that she turned out a "scolding wife" after the _res angusta domi_ had disenchanted her from the music of his voice and the divinity of his nature. "i have heard pericles," said the most dissipated and voluptuous man in athens, "and other excellent orators, but was not moved by them; while this marsyas--this satyr--so affects me that the life i lead is hardly worth living, and i stop my ears as from the sirens, and flee as fast as possible, that i may not sit down and grow old in listening to his talk." socrates learned his philosophy from no one, and struck out an entirely new path. he declared his own ignorance, and sought to convince other people of theirs. he did not seek to reveal truth so much as to expose error. and yet it was his object to attain correct ideas as to moral obligations. he proclaimed the sovereignty of virtue and the immutability of justice. he sought to delineate and enforce the practical duties of life. his great object was the elucidation of morals; and he was the first to teach ethics systematically from the immutable principles of moral obligation. moral certitude was the lofty platform from which he surveyed the world, and upon which, as a rock, he rested in the storms of life. thus he was a reformer and a moralist. it was his ethical doctrines which were most antagonistic to the age and the least appreciated. he was a profoundly religious man, recognized providence, and believed in the immortality of the soul. he did not presume to inquire into the divine essence, yet he believed that the gods were omniscient and omnipresent, that they ruled by the law of goodness, and that in spite of their multiplicity there was unity,--a supreme intelligence that governed the world. hence he was hated by the sophists, who denied the certainty of arriving at any knowledge of god. from the comparative worthlessness of the body he deduced the immortality of the soul. with him the end of life was reason and intelligence. he deduced the existence of god from the order and harmony of nature, belief in which was irresistible. he endeavored to connect the moral with the religious consciousness, and thus to promote the practical welfare of society. in this light socrates stands out the grandest personage of pagan antiquity,--as a moralist, as a teacher of ethics, as a man who recognized the divine. so far as he was concerned in the development of greek philosophy proper, he was inferior to some of his disciples, yet he gave a turning-point to a new period when he awakened the _idea_ of knowledge, and was the founder of the method of scientific inquiry, since he pointed out the legitimate bounds of inquiry, and was thus the precursor of bacon and pascal. he did not attempt to make physics explain metaphysics, nor metaphysics the phenomena of the natural world; and he reasoned only from what was generally assumed to be true and invariable. he was a great pioneer of philosophy, since he resorted to inductive methods of proof, and gave general definiteness to ideas. although he employed induction, it was his aim to withdraw the mind from the contemplation of nature, and to fix it on its own phenomena,--to look inward rather than outward; a method carried out admirably by his pupil plato. the previous philosophers had given their attention to external nature; socrates gave up speculations about material phenomena, and directed his inquiries solely to the nature of knowledge. and as he considered knowledge to be identical with virtue, he speculated on ethical questions mainly, and the method which he taught was that by which alone man could become better and wiser. to know one's self,--in other words, that "the proper study of mankind is man,"--he proclaimed with thales. cicero said of him, "socrates brought down philosophy from the heavens to the earth." he did not disdain the subjects which chiefly interested the sophists,--astronomy, rhetoric, physics,--but he chiefly discussed moral questions, such as, what is piety? what is the just and the unjust? what is temperance? what is courage? what is the character fit for a citizen?--and other ethical points, involving practical human relationships. these questions were discussed by socrates in a striking manner, and by a method peculiarly his own. "professing ignorance, he put perhaps this question: what is law? it was familiar, and was answered offhand. socrates, having got the answer, then put fresh questions applicable to specific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give an answer inconsistent with the first, thus showing that the definition was too narrow or too wide, or defective in some essential condition. the respondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to other questions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with the amendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentangle himself, was obliged to plead guilty to his inconsistencies, with an admission that he could make no satisfactory answer to the original inquiry which had at first appeared so easy." thus, by this system of cross-examination, he showed the intimate connection between the dialectic method and the logical distribution of particulars into species and genera. the discussion first turns upon the meaning of some generic term; the queries bring the answers into collision with various particulars which it ought not to comprehend, or which it ought to comprehend, but does not. socrates broke up the one into many by his analytical string of questions, which was a mode of argument by which he separated _real_ knowledge from the _conceit_ of knowledge, and led to precision in the use of definitions. it was thus that he exposed the false, without aiming even to teach the true; for he generally professed ignorance on his part, and put himself in the attitude of a learner, while by his cross-examinations he made the man from whom he apparently sought knowledge to appear as ignorant as himself, or, still worse, absolutely ridiculous. thus socrates pulled away all the foundations on which a false science had been erected, and indicated the mode by which alone the true could be established. here he was not unlike bacon, who pointed out the way whereby science could be advanced, without founding any school or advocating any system; but the athenian was unlike bacon in the object of his inquiries. bacon was disgusted with ineffective _logical_ speculations, and socrates with ineffective _physical_ researches. he never suffered a general term to remain undetermined, but applied it at once to particulars, and by questions the purport of which was not comprehended. it was not by positive teaching, but by exciting scientific impulse in the minds of others, or stirring up the analytical faculties, that socrates manifested originality. it was his aim to force the seekers after truth into the path of inductive generalization, whereby alone trustworthy conclusions could be formed. he thus struck out from his own and other minds that fire which sets light to original thought and stimulates analytical inquiry. he was a religious and intellectual missionary, preparing the way for the platos and aristotles of the succeeding age by his severe dialectics. this was his mission, and he declared it by talking. he did not lecture; he conversed. for more than thirty years he discoursed on the principles of morality, until he arrayed against himself enemies who caused him to be put to death, for his teachings had undermined the popular system which the sophists accepted and practised. he probably might have been acquitted if he had chosen to be, but he did not wish to live after his powers of usefulness had passed away. the services which socrates rendered to philosophy, as enumerated by tennemann, "are twofold,--negative and positive. _negative_, inasmuch as he avoided all vain discussions; combated mere speculative reasoning on substantial grounds; and had the wisdom to acknowledge ignorance when necessary, but without attempting to determine accurately what is capable and what is not of being accurately known. _positive_, inasmuch as he examined with great ability the ground directly submitted to our understanding, and of which man is the centre." socrates cannot be said to have founded a school, like xenophanes. he did not bequeath a system of doctrines. he had however his disciples, who followed in the path which he suggested. among these were aristippus, antisthenes, euclid of megara, phaedo of elis, and plato, all of whom were pupils of socrates and founders of schools. some only partially adopted his method, and each differed from the other. nor can it be said that all of them advanced science. aristippus, the founder of the cyreniac school, was a sort of philosophic voluptuary, teaching that pleasure is the end of life. antisthenes, the founder of the cynics, was both virtuous and arrogant, placing the supreme good in virtue, but despising speculative science, and maintaining that no man can refute the opinions of another. he made it a virtue to be ragged, hungry, and cold, like the ancient monks; an austere, stern, bitter, reproachful man, who affected to despise all pleasures,--like his own disciple diogenes, who lived in a tub, and carried on a war between the mind and body, brutal, scornful, proud. to men who maintained that science was impossible, philosophy is not much indebted, although they were disciples of socrates. euclid--not the mathematician, who was about a century later--merely gave a new edition of the eleatic doctrines, and phaedo speculated on the oneness of "the good." it was not till plato arose that a more complete system of philosophy was founded. he was born of noble athenian parents, 429 b.c., the year that pericles died, and the second year of the peloponnesian war,--the most active period of grecian thought. he had a severe education, studying mathematics, poetry, music, rhetoric, and blending these with philosophy. he was only twenty when he found out socrates, with whom he remained ten years, and from whom he was separated only by death. he then went on his travels, visiting everything worth seeing in his day, especially in egypt. when he returned he began to teach the doctrines of his master, which he did, like him, gratuitously, in a garden near athens, planted with lofty plane-trees and adorned with temples and statues. this was called the academy, and gave a name to his system of philosophy. it is this only with which we have to do. it is not the calm, serious, meditative, isolated man that i would present, but _his contribution_ to the developments of philosophy on the principles of his master. surely no man ever made a richer contribution to this department of human inquiry than plato. he may not have had the originality or keenness of socrates, but he was more profound. he was pre-eminently a great thinker, a great logician, skilled in dialectics; and his "dialogues" are such perfect exercises of dialectical method that the ancients were divided as to whether he was a sceptic or a dogmatist. he adopted the socratic method and enlarged it. says lewes:-"analysis, as insisted on by plato, is the decomposition of the whole into its separate parts,--is seeing the one in many.... the individual thing was transitory; the abstract idea was eternal. only concerning the latter could philosophy occupy itself. socrates, insisting on proper definitions, had no conception of the classification of those definitions which must constitute philosophy. plato, by the introduction of this process, shifted philosophy from the ground of inquiries into man and society, which exclusively occupied socrates, to that of dialectics." plato was also distinguished for skill in composition. dionysius of halicarnassus classes him with herodotus and demosthenes in the perfection of his style, which is characterized by great harmony and rhythm, as well as by a rich variety of elegant metaphors. plato made philosophy to consist in the discussion of general terms, or abstract ideas. general terms were synonymous with real existences, and these were the only objects of philosophy. these were called _ideas_; and ideas are the basis of his system, or rather the subject-matter of dialectics. he maintained that every general term, or abstract idea, has a real and independent existence; nay, that the mental power of conceiving and combining ideas, as contrasted with the mere impressions received from matter and external phenomena, is the only real and permanent existence. hence his writings became the great fountain-head of the ideal philosophy. in his assertion of the real existence of so abstract and supersensuous a thing as an idea, he probably was indebted to pythagoras, for plato was a master of the whole realm of philosophical speculation; but his conception of _ideas_ as the essence of being is a great advance on that philosopher's conception of _numbers_. he was taught by socrates that beyond this world of sense there is the world of eternal truth, and that there are certain principles concerning which there can be no dispute. the soul apprehends the idea of goodness, greatness, etc. it is in the celestial world that we are to find the realm of ideas. now, god is the supreme idea. to know god, then, should be the great aim of life. we know him through the desire which like feels for like. the divinity within feels its affinity with the divinity revealed in beauty, or any other abstract idea. the longing of the soul for beauty is _love_. love, then, is the bond which unites the human with the divine. beauty is not revealed by harmonious outlines that appeal to the senses, but is _truth_; it is divinity. beauty, truth, love, these are god, whom it is the supreme desire of the soul to comprehend, and by the contemplation of whom the mortal soul sustains itself. knowledge of god is the great end of life; and this knowledge is effected by dialectics, for only out of dialectics can correct knowledge come. but man, immersed in the flux of sensualities, can never fully attain this knowledge of god, the object of all rational inquiry. hence the imperfection of all human knowledge. the supreme good is attainable; it is not attained. god is the immutable good, and justice the rule of the universe. "the vital principle of plato's philosophy," says ritter, "is to show that true science is the knowledge of the good, is the eternal contemplation of truth, or ideas; and though man may not be able to apprehend it in its unity, because he is subject to the restraints of the body, he is nevertheless permitted to recognize it imperfectly by calling to mind the eternal measure of existence by which he is in his origin connected." to quote from ritter again:-"when we review the doctrines of plato, it is impossible to deny that they are pervaded with a grand view of life and the universe. this is the noble thought which inspired him to say that god is the constant and immutable good; the world is good in a state of becoming, and the human soul that in and through which the good in the world is to be consummated. in his sublimer conception he shows himself the worthy disciple of socrates.... while he adopted many of the opinions of his predecessors, and gave due consideration to the results of the earlier philosophy, he did not allow himself to be disturbed by the mass of conflicting theories, but breathed into them the life-giving breath of unity. he may have erred in his attempts to determine the nature of good; still he pointed out to all who aspire to a knowledge of the divine nature an excellent road by which they may arrive at it." that plato was one of the greatest lights of the ancient world there can be no reasonable doubt. nor is it probable that as a dialectician he has ever been surpassed, while his purity of life and his lofty inquiries and his belief in god and immortality make him, in an ethical point of view, the most worthy of the disciples of socrates. he was to the greeks what kant was to the germans; and these two great thinkers resemble each other in the structure of their minds and their relations to society. the ablest part of the lectures of archer butler, of dublin, is devoted to the platonic philosophy. it is at once a criticism and a eulogium. no modern writer has written more enthusiastically of what he considers the crowning excellence of the greek philosophy. the dialectics of plato, his ideal theory, his physics, his psychology, and his ethics are most ably discussed, and in the spirit of a loving and eloquent disciple. butler represents the philosophy which he so much admires as a contemplation of, and a tendency to, the absolute and eternal good. as the admirers of ralph waldo emerson claim that he, more than any other man of our times, entered into the spirit of the platonic philosophy, i introduce some of his most striking paragraphs of subdued but earnest admiration of the greatest intellect of the ancient pagan world, hoping that they may be clearer to others than they are to me:-these sentences [of plato] contain the culture of nations; these are the corner-stone of schools; these are the fountain-head of literatures. a discipline it is in logic, arithmetic, taste, symmetry, poetry, language, rhetoric, ontology, morals, or practical wisdom. there never was such a range of speculation. out of plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought. great havoc makes he among our originalities. we have reached the mountain from which all these drift-bowlders were detached.... plato, in egypt and in eastern pilgrimages, imbibed the idea of one deity, in which all things are absorbed. the unity of asia and the detail of europe, the infinitude of the asiatic soul and the defining, result-loving, machine-making, surface-seeking, opera-going europe plato came to join, and by contact to enhance the energy of each. the excellence of europe and asia is in his brain. metaphysics and natural philosophy expressed the genius of europe; he substricts the religion of asia as the base. in short, a balanced soul was born, perceptive of the two elements.... the physical philosophers had sketched each his theory of the world; the theory of atoms, of fire, of flux, of spirit,--theories mechanical and chemical in their genius. plato, a master of mathematics, studious of all natural laws and causes, feels these, as second causes, to be no theories of the world, but bare inventories and lists. to the study of nature he therefore prefixes the dogma,--'let us declare the cause which led the supreme ordainer to produce and compose the universe. he was good; ... he wished that all things should be as much as possible like himself.'... plato ... represents the privilege of the intellect,--the power, namely, of carrying up every fact to successive platforms, and so disclosing in every fact a germ of expansion.... these expansions, or extensions, consist in continuing the spiritual sight where the horizon falls on our natural vision, and by this second sight discovering the long lines of law which shoot in every direction.... his definition of ideas as what is simple, permanent, uniform, and self-existent, forever discriminating them from the notions of the understanding, marks an era in the world. the great disciple of plato was aristotle, and he carried on the philosophical movement which socrates had started to the highest limit that it ever reached in the ancient world. he was born at stagira, 384 b.c., and early evinced an insatiable thirst for knowledge. when plato returned from sicily aristotle joined his disciples at athens, and was his pupil for seventeen years. on the death of plato, he went on his travels and became the tutor of alexander the great, and in 335 b.c. returned to athens after an absence of twelve years, and set up a school in the lyceum. he taught while walking up and down the shady paths which surrounded it, from which habit he obtained the name of the peripatetic, which has clung to his name and philosophy. his school had a great celebrity, and from it proceeded illustrious philosophers, statesmen, historians, and orators. aristotle taught for thirteen years, during which time he composed most of his greater works. he not only wrote on dialectics and logic, but also on physics in its various departments. his work on "the history of animals" was deemed so important that his royal pupil alexander presented him with eight hundred talents--an enormous sum--for the collection of materials. he also wrote on ethics and politics, history and rhetoric,--pouring out letters, poems, and speeches, three-fourths of which are lost. he was one of the most voluminous writers of antiquity, and probably is the most learned man whose writings have come down to us. nor has any one of the ancients exercised upon the thinking of succeeding ages so wide an influence. he was an oracle until the revival of learning. hegel says:-"aristotle penetrated into the whole mass, into every department of the universe of things, and subjected to the comprehension its scattered wealth; and the greater number of the philosophical sciences owe to him their separation and commencement." he is also the father of the history of philosophy, since he gives an historical review of the way in which the subject has been hitherto treated by the earlier philosophers. says adolph stahr:-"plato made the external world the region of the incomplete and bad, of the contradictory and the false, and recognized absolute truth only in the eternal immutable ideas. aristotle laid down the proposition that the idea, which cannot of itself fashion itself into reality, is powerless, and has only a potential existence; and that it becomes a living reality only by realizing itself in a creative manner by means of its own energy." there can be no doubt as to aristotle's marvellous power of systematizing. collecting together all the results of ancient speculation, he so combined them into a co-ordinate system that for a thousand years he reigned supreme in the schools. from a literary point of view, plato was doubtless his superior; but plato was a poet, making philosophy divine and musical, while aristotle's investigations spread over a far wider range. he differed from plato chiefly in relation to the doctrine of ideas, without however resolving the difficulty which divided them. as he made matter to be the eternal ground of phenomena, he reduced the notion of it to a precision it never before enjoyed, and established thereby a necessary element in human science. but being bound to matter, he did not soar, as plato did, into the higher regions of speculation; nor did he entertain as lofty views of god or of immortality. neither did he have as high an ideal of human life; his definition of the highest good was a perfect practical activity in a perfect life. with aristotle closed the great socratic movement in the history of speculation. when socrates appeared there was a general prevalence of scepticism, arising from the unsatisfactory speculations respecting nature. he removed this scepticism by inventing a new method of investigation, and by withdrawing the mind from the contemplation of nature to the study of man himself. he bade men to look inward. plato accepted his method, but applied it more universally. like socrates, however, ethics were the great subject of his inquiries, to which physics were only subordinate. the problem he sought to solve was the way to live like the deity; he would contemplate truth as the great aim of life. with aristotle, ethics formed only one branch of attention; his main inquiries were in reference to physics and metaphysics. he thus, by bringing these into the region of inquiry, paved the way for a new epoch of scepticism. both plato and aristotle taught that reason alone can form science; but, as we have said, aristotle differed from his master respecting the theory of ideas. he did not deny to ideas a _subjective_ existence, but he did deny that they have an objective existence. he maintained that individual things alone _exist_; and if individuals alone exist, they can be known only by _sensation_. sensation thus becomes the basis of knowledge. plato made _reason_ the basis of knowledge, but aristotle made _experience_ that basis. plato directed man to the contemplation of ideas; aristotle, to the observation of nature. instead of proceeding synthetically and dialectically like plato, he pursues an analytic course. his method is hence inductive,--the derivation of certain principles from a sum of given facts and phenomena. it would seem that positive science began with aristotle, since he maintained that experience furnishes the principles of every science; but while his conception was just, there was not at that time a sufficient amount of experience from which to generalize with effect. it is only a most extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition which will warrant secure reasoning upon it. aristotle reasoned without sufficient certainty of the major premise of his syllogisms. aristotle was the father of logic, and hegel and kant think there has been no improvement upon it since his day. this became to him the real organon of science. "he supposed it was not merely the instrument of thought, but the instrument of investigation." hence it was futile for purposes of discovery, although important to aid processes of thought. induction and syllogism are the two great features of his system of logic. the one sets out from particulars already known to arrive at a conclusion; the other sets out from some general principle to arrive at particulars. the latter more particularly characterized his logic, which he presented in sixteen forms, the whole evincing much ingenuity and skill in construction, and presenting at the same time a useful dialectical exercise. this syllogistic process of reasoning would be incontrovertible, if the _general_ were better known than the _particular_; but it is only by induction, which proceeds from the world of experience, that we reach the higher world of cognition. thus aristotle made speculation subordinate to logical distinctions, and his system, when carried out by the mediaeval schoolmen, led to a spirit of useless quibbling. instead of interrogating nature they interrogated their own minds, and no great discoveries were made. from want of proper knowledge of the conditions of scientific inquiry, the method of aristotle became fruitless for him; but it was the key by which future investigators were enabled to classify and utilize their vastly greater collection of facts and materials. though aristotle wrote in a methodical manner, his writings exhibit great parsimony of language. there is no fascination in his style. it is without ornament, and very condensed. his merit consisted in great logical precision and scrupulous exactness in the employment of terms. philosophy, as a great system of dialectics, as an analysis of the power and faculties of the mind, as a method to pursue inquiries, culminated in aristotle. he completed the great fabric of which thales laid the foundation. the subsequent schools of philosophy directed attention to ethical and practical questions, rather than to intellectual phenomena. the sceptics, like pyrrho, had only negative doctrines, and held in disdain those inquiries which sought to penetrate the mysteries of existence. they did not believe that absolute truth was attainable by man; and they attacked the prevailing systems with great plausibility. they pointed out the uncertainty of things, and the folly of striving to comprehend them. the epicureans despised the investigations of philosophy, since in their view these did not contribute to happiness. the subject of their inquiries was happiness, not truth. what will promote this? was the subject of their speculation. epicurus, born 342 b.c., contended that pleasure was happiness; that pleasure should be sought not for its own sake, but with a view to the happiness of life obtained by it. he taught that happiness was inseparable from virtue, and that its enjoyments should be limited. he was averse to costly pleasures, and regarded contentedness with a little to be a great good. he placed wealth not in great possessions, but in few wants. he sought to widen the domain of pleasure and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state of life as the highest. nor did he dread death, which was deliverance from misery, as the buddhists think. epicurus has been much misunderstood, and his doctrines were subsequently perverted, especially when the arts of life were brought into the service of luxury, and a gross materialism was the great feature of society. epicurus had much of the spirit of a practical philosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of a religious man. he himself led a virtuous life, because he thought it was wiser and better and more productive of happiness to be virtuous, not because it was his duty. his writings were very voluminous, and in his tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of study and enjoyment. his followers, and they were numerous, were led into luxury and effeminacy,--as was to be expected from a sceptical and irreligious philosophy, the great principle of which was that whatever is pleasant should be the object of existence. sir james mackintosh says:-"to epicurus we owe the general concurrence of reflecting men in succeeding times in the important truth that men cannot be happy without a virtuous frame of mind and course of life,--a truth of inestimable value, not peculiar to the epicureans, but placed by their exaggerations in a stronger light; a truth, it must be added, of less importance as a motive to right conduct than to the completeness of moral theory, which, however, it is very far from solely constituting. with that truth the epicureans blended another position,--that because virtue promotes happiness, every act of virtue must be done in order to promote the happiness of the agent. although, therefore, he has the merit of having more strongly inculcated the connection of virtue with happiness, yet his doctrine is justly charged with indisposing the mind to those exalted and generous sentiments without which no pure, elevated, bold, or tender virtues can exist." the stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but they added nothing to the domain of thought,--they created no system, they invented no new method, they were led into no new psychological inquiries. their inquiries were chiefly ethical; and since ethics are a great part of the system of greek philosophy, the stoics are well worthy of attention. some of the greatest men of antiquity are numbered among them,--like seneca, epictetus, and marcus aurelius. the philosophy they taught was morality, and this was eminently practical and also elevated. the founder of this sect, zeno, was born, it is supposed, on the island of cyprus, about the year 350 b.c. he was the son of wealthy parents, but was reduced to poverty by misfortune. he was so good a man, and so profoundly revered by the athenians, that they intrusted to him the keys of their citadel. he lived in a degenerate age, when scepticism and sensuality were eating out the life and vigor of grecian society, when greek civilization was rapidly passing away, when ancient creeds had lost their majesty, and general levity and folly overspread the land. deeply impressed with the prevailing laxity of morals and the absence of religion, he lifted up his voice more as a reformer than as an inquirer after truth, and taught for more than fifty years in a place called the _stoa_, "the porch," which had once been the resort of the poets. hence the name of his school. he was chiefly absorbed with ethical questions, although he studied profoundly the systems of the old philosophers. "the sceptics had attacked both perception and reason. they had shown that perception is after all based upon appearance, and appearance is not a certainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguish between appearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena to build upon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself." then they proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. but zeno, taking a stand on common-sense, fought for morality, as did buddha before him, and long after him reid and beattie, when they combated the scepticism of hume. philosophy, according to zeno and other stoics, was intimately connected with the duties of practical life. the contemplation, meditation, and thought recommended by plato and aristotle seemed only a covert recommendation of selfish enjoyment. the wisdom which it should be the aim of life to attain is virtue; and virtue is to live harmoniously with nature. to live harmoniously with nature is to exclude all personal ends; hence pleasure is to be disregarded, and pain is to be despised. and as all moral action must be in harmony with nature the law of destiny is supreme, and all things move according to immutable fate. with the predominant tendency to the universal which characterized their system, the stoics taught that the sage ought to regard himself as a citizen of the world rather than of any particular city or state. they made four things to be indispensable to virtue,--a knowledge of _good_ and _evil_, which is the province of the reason; _temperance_, a knowledge of the due regulation of the sensual passions; _fortitude_, a conviction that it is good to suffer what is necessary; and _justice_, or acquaintance with what ought to be to every individual. they made _perfection_ necessary to virtue; hence the severity of their system. the perfect sage, according to them, is raised above all influence of external events; he submits to the law of destiny; he is exempt from desire and fear, joy or sorrow; he is not governed even by what he is exposed to necessarily, like sorrow and pain; he is free from the restraints of passion; he is like a god in his mental placidity. nor must the sage live only for himself, but for others also; he is a member of the whole body of mankind. he ought to marry, and to take part in public affairs; but he is to attack error and vice with uncompromising sternness, and will never weakly give way to compassion or forgiveness. yet with this ideal the stoics were forced to admit that virtue, like true knowledge, although theoretically attainable is practically beyond the reach of man. they were discontented with themselves and with all around them, and looked upon all institutions as corrupt. they had a profound contempt for their age, and for what modern society calls "success in life;" but it cannot be denied that they practised a lofty and stern virtue in their degenerate times. their god was made subject to fate; and he was a material god, synonymous with nature. thus their system was pantheistic. but they maintained the dignity of reason, and sought to attain to virtues which it is not in the power of man fully to reach. zeno lived to the extreme old age of ninety-eight, although his constitution was not strong. he retained his powers by great abstemiousness, living chiefly on figs, honey, and bread. he was a modest and retiring man, seldom mingling with a crowd, or admitting the society of more than two or three friends at a time. he was as plain in his dress as he was frugal in his habits,--a man of great decorum and propriety of manners, resembling noticeably in his life and doctrines the chinese sage confucius. and yet this good man, a pattern to the loftiest characters of his age, strangled himself. suicide was not deemed a crime by his followers, among whom were some of the most faultless men of antiquity, especially among the romans. the doctrines of zeno were never popular, and were confined to a small though influential party. with the stoics ended among the greeks all inquiry of a philosophical nature worthy of especial mention, until centuries later, when philosophy was revived in the christian schools of alexandria, where the hebrew element of faith was united with the greek ideal of reason. the struggles of so many great thinkers, from thales to aristotle, all ended in doubt and in despair. it was discovered that all of them were wrong, or rather partial; and their error was without a remedy, until "the fulness of time" should reveal more clearly the plan of the great temple of truth, in which they were laying foundation stones. the bright and glorious period of greek philosophy was from socrates to aristotle. philosophical inquiries began about the origin of things, and ended with an elaborate systematization of the forms of thought, which was the most magnificent triumph that the unaided intellect of man ever achieved. socrates does not found a school, nor elaborate a system. he reveals most precious truths, and stimulates the youth who listen to his instructions by the doctrine that it is the duty of man to pursue a knowledge of himself, which is to be sought in that divine reason which dwells within him, and which also rules the world. he believes in science; he loves truth for its own sake; he loves virtue, which consists in the knowledge of the good. plato seizes the weapons of his great master, and is imbued with his spirit. he is full of hope for science and humanity. with soaring boldness he directs his inquiries to futurity, dissatisfied with the present, and cherishing a fond hope of a better existence. he speculates on god and the soul. he is not much interested in physical phenomena; he does not, like thales, strive to find out the beginning of all things, but the highest good, by which his immortal soul may be refreshed and prepared for the future life, in which he firmly believes. the sensible is an impenetrable empire; but ideas are certitudes, and upon these he dwells with rapt and mystical enthusiasm,--a great poetical rhapsodist, severe dialectician as he is, believing in truth and beauty and goodness. then aristotle, following out the method of his teachers, attempts to exhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into the outward world of sense and observation, but all with the view of discovering from phenomena the unconditional truth, in which he too believes. but everything in this world is fleeting and transitory, and therefore it is not easy to arrive at truth. a cold doubt creeps into the experimental mind of aristotle, with all his learning and his logic. the epicureans arise. misreading or corrupting the purer teaching of their founder, they place their hopes in sensual enjoyment. they despair of truth. but the world will not be abandoned to despair. the stoics rebuke the impiety which is blended with sensualism, and place their hopes on virtue. yet it is unattainable virtue, while their god is not a moral governor, but subject to necessity. thus did those old giants grope about, for they did not know the god who was revealed unto the more spiritual sense of abraham, moses, david, and isaiah. and yet with all their errors they were the greatest benefactors of the ancient world. they gave dignity to intellectual inquiries, while by their lives they set examples of a pure morality. * * * * * the romans added absolutely nothing to the philosophy of the greeks. nor were they much interested in any speculative inquiries. it was only the ethical views of the old sages which had attraction or force to them. they were too material to love pure subjective inquiries. they had conquered the land; they disdained the empire of the air. there were doubtless students of the greek philosophy among the romans, perhaps as early as cato the censor. but there were only two persons of note in rome who wrote philosophy, till the time of cicero,--aurafanius and rubinus,--and these were epicureans. cicero was the first to systematize the philosophy which contributed so greatly to his intellectual culture, but even he added nothing; he was only a commentator and expositor. nor did he seek to found a system or a school, but merely to influence and instruct men of his own rank. those subjects which had the greatest attraction for the grecian schools cicero regarded as beyond the power of human cognition, and therefore looked upon the practical as the proper domain of human inquiry. yet he held logic in great esteem, as furnishing rules for methodical investigation. he adopted the doctrine of socrates as to the pursuit of moral good, and regarded the duties which grow out of the relations of human society as preferable to those of pursuing scientific researches. he had a great contempt for knowledge which could lead neither to the clear apprehension of certitude nor to practical applications. he thought it impossible to arrive at a knowledge of god, or the nature of the soul, or the origin of the world; and thus he was led to look upon the sensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusive inductions, or deductions from a truth not satisfactorily established. cicero was an eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in the ancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter of speculation. this is especially seen in his treatise "de finibus bonorum et malorum," in which the opinions of all the grecian schools concerning the supreme good are expounded and compared. nor does he hesitate to declare that the highest happiness consists in the knowledge of nature and science, which is the true source of pleasure both to gods and men. yet these are but hopes, in which it does not become us to indulge. it is the actual, the real, the practical, which pre-eminently claims attention,--in other words, the knowledge which will furnish man with a guide and rule of life. even in the consideration of moral questions cicero is pursued by the conflict of opinions, although in this department he is most at home. the points he is most anxious to establish are the doctrines of god and the soul. these are most fully treated in his essay "de natura deorum," in which he submits the doctrines of the epicureans and the stoics to the objections of the academy. he admits that man is unable to form true conceptions of god, but acknowledges the necessity of assuming one supreme god as the creator and ruler of all things, moving all things, remote from all mortal mixture, and endued with eternal motion in himself. he seems to believe in a divine providence ordering good to man, in the soul's immortality, in free-will, in the dignity of human nature, in the dominion of reason, in the restraint of the passions as necessary to virtue, in a life of public utility, in an immutable morality, in the imitation of the divine. thus there is little of original thought in the moral theories of cicero, which are the result of observation rather than of any philosophical principle. we might enumerate his various opinions, and show what an enlightened mind he possessed; but this would not be the development of philosophy. his views, interesting as they are, and generally wise and lofty, do not indicate any progress of the science. he merely repeats earlier doctrines. these were not without their utility, since they had great influence on the latin fathers of the christian church. he was esteemed for his general enlightenment. he softened down the extreme views of the great thinkers before his day, and clearly unfolded what had become obscured. he was a critic of philosophy, an expositor whom we can scarcely spare. if anybody advanced philosophy among the romans it was epictetus, and even he only in the realm of ethics. quintius sextius, in the time of augustus, had revived the pythagorean doctrines. seneca had recommended the severe morality of the stoics, but added nothing that was not previously known. the greatest light among the romans was the phrygian slave epictetus, who was born about fifty years after the birth of jesus christ, and taught in the time of the emperor domitian. though he did not leave any written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by his disciple arrian, who had for him the reverence that plato had for socrates. the loftiness of his recorded views has made some to think that he must have been indebted to christianity, for no one before him revealed precepts so much in accordance with its spirit. he was a stoic, but he held in the highest estimation socrates and plato. it is not for the solution of metaphysical questions that he was remarkable. he was not a dialectician, but a moralist, and as such takes the highest ground of all the old inquirers after truth. with him, as to cicero and seneca, philosophy is the wisdom of life. he sets no value on logic, nor much on physics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity and grandeur. his great idea is the purification of the soul. he believes in the severest self-denial; he would guard against the siren spells of pleasure; he would make men feel that in order to be good they must first feel that they are evil. he condemns suicide, although it had been defended by the stoics. he would complain of no one, not even as to injustice; he would not injure his enemies; he would pardon all offences; he would feel universal compassion, since men sin from ignorance; he would not easily blame, since we have none to condemn but ourselves. he would not strive after honor or office, since we put ourselves in subjection to that we seek or prize; he would constantly bear in mind that all things are transitory, and that they are not our own. he would bear evils with patience, even as he would practise self-denial of pleasure. he would, in short, be calm, free, keep in subjection his passions, avoid self-indulgence, and practise a broad charity and benevolence. he felt that he owed all to god,--that all was his gift, and that we should thus live in accordance with his will; that we should be grateful not only for our bodies, but for our souls and reason, by which we attain to greatness. and if god has given us such a priceless gift, we should be contented, and not even seek to alter our external relations, which are doubtless for the best. we should wish, indeed, for only what god wills and sends, and we should avoid pride and haughtiness as well as discontent, and seek to fulfil our allotted part. such were the moral precepts of epictetus, in which we see the nearest approach to christianity that had been made in the ancient world, although there is no proof or probability that he knew anything of christ or the christians. and these sublime truths had a great influence, especially on the mind of the most lofty and pure of all the roman emperors, marcus aurelius, who _lived_ the principles he had learned from the slave, and whose "thoughts" are still held in admiration. thus did the philosophic speculations about the beginning of things lead to elaborate systems of thought, and end in practical rules of life, until in spirit they had, with epictetus, harmonized with many of the revealed truths which christ and his apostles laid down for the regeneration of the world. who cannot see in the inquiries of the old philosopher,--whether into nature, or the operations of mind, or the existence of god, or the immortality of the soul, or the way to happiness and virtue,--a magnificent triumph of human genius, such as has been exhibited in no other department of human science? nay, who does not rejoice to see in this slow but ever-advancing development of man's comprehension of the truth the inspiration of that divine teacher, that holy spirit, which shall at last lead man into all truth? we regret that our limits preclude a more extended view of the various systems which the old sages propounded,--systems full of errors yet also marked by important gains, but, whether false or true, showing a marvellous reach of the human understanding. modern researches have discarded many opinions that were highly valued in their day, yet philosophy in its methods of reasoning is scarcely advanced since the time of aristotle, while the subjects which agitated the grecian schools have been from time to time revived and rediscussed, and are still unsettled. if any intellectual pursuit has gone round in perpetual circles, incapable apparently of progression or rest, it is that glorious study of philosophy which has tasked more than any other the mightiest intellects of this world, and which, progressive or not, will never be relinquished without the loss of what is most valuable in human culture. * * * * * authorities. for original authorities in reference to the matter of this chapter, read diogenes laertius's lives of the philosophers; the writings of plato and aristotle; cicero, de natura deorum, de oratore, de officiis, de divinatione, de finibus, tusculanae disputationes; xenophon, memorabilia; boethius, de consolatione philosophiae; lucretius. the great modern authorities are the germans, and these are very numerous. among the most famous writers on the history of philosophy are brucker, hegel, brandis, i.g. buhle, tennemann, hitter, plessing, schwegler, hermann, meiners, stallbaum, and spiegel. the history of ritter is well translated, and is always learned and suggestive. tennemann, translated by morell, is a good manual, brief but clear. in connection with the writings of the germans, the great work of the french cousin should be consulted. the english historians of ancient philosophy are not so numerous as the germans. the work of enfield is based on brucker, or is rather an abridgment. archer butler's lectures are suggestive and able, but discursive and vague. grote has written learnedly on socrates and the other great lights. lewes's biographical history of philosophy has the merit of clearness, and is very interesting, but rather superficial. see also thomas stanley's history of philosophy, and the articles in smith's dictionary on the leading ancient philosophers. j. w. donaldson's continuation of k. o. müller's history of the literature of ancient greece is learned, and should be consulted with thompson's notes on archer butler. schleiermacher, on socrates, translated by bishop thirlwall, is well worth attention. there are also fine articles in the encyclopaedias britannica and metropolitana. socrates. 470-399 b.c. greek philosophy. to socrates the world owes a new method in philosophy and a great example in morals; and it would be difficult to settle whether his influence has been greater as a sage or as a moralist. in either light he is one of the august names of history. he has been venerated for more than two thousand years as a teacher of wisdom, and as a martyr for the truths he taught. he did not commit his precious thoughts to writing; that work was done by his disciples, even as his exalted worth has been published by them, especially by plato and xenophon. and if the greek philosophy did not culminate in him, yet he laid down those principles by which only it could be advanced. as a system-maker, both plato and aristotle were greater than he; yet for original genius he was probably their superior, and in important respects he was their master. as a good man, battling with infirmities and temptations and coming off triumphantly, the ancient world has furnished no prouder example. he was born about 470 or 469 years b.c., and therefore may be said to belong to that brilliant age of grecian literature and art when prodicus was teaching rhetoric, and democritus was speculating about the doctrine of atoms, and phidias was ornamenting temples, and alcibiades was giving banquets, and aristophanes was writing comedies, and euripides was composing tragedies, and aspasia was setting fashions, and cimon was fighting battles, and pericles was making athens the centre of grecian civilization. but he died thirty years after pericles; so that what is most interesting in his great career took place during and after the peloponnesian war,--an age still interesting, but not so brilliant as the one which immediately preceded it. it was the age of the sophists,--those popular but superficial teachers who claimed to be the most advanced of their generation; men who were doubtless accomplished, but were cynical, sceptical, and utilitarian, placing a high estimate on popular favor and an outside life, but very little on pure subjective truth or the wants of the soul. they were paid teachers, and sought pupils from the sons of the rich,--the more eminent of them being protagoras, gorgias, hippias, and prodicus; men who travelled from city to city, exciting great admiration for their rhetorical skill, and really improving the public speaking of popular orators. they also taught science to a limited extent, and it was through them that athenian youth mainly acquired what little knowledge they had of arithmetic and geometry. in loftiness of character they were not equal to those ionian philosophers, who, prior to socrates, in the fifth century b.c., speculated on the great problems of the material universe,--the origin of the world, the nature of matter, and the source of power,--and who, if they did not make discoveries, yet evinced great intellectual force. it was in this sceptical and irreligious age, when all classes were devoted to pleasure and money-making, but when there was great cultivation, especially in arts, that socrates arose, whose "appearance," says grote, "was a moral phenomenon." he was the son of a poor sculptor, and his mother was a midwife. his family was unimportant, although it belonged to an ancient attic _gens_. socrates was rescued from his father's workshop by a wealthy citizen who perceived his genius, and who educated him at his own expense. he was twenty when he conversed with parmenides and zeno; he was twenty-eight when phidias adorned the parthenon; he was forty when he fought at potidaea and rescued alcibiades. at this period he was most distinguished for his physical strength and endurance,--a brave and patriotic soldier, insensible to heat and cold, and, though temperate in his habits, capable of drinking more wine, without becoming intoxicated, than anybody in athens. his powerful physique and sensual nature inclined him to self-indulgence, but he early learned to restrain both appetites and passions. his physiognomy was ugly and his person repulsive; he was awkward, obese, and ungainly; his nose was flat, his lips were thick, and his neck large; he rolled his eyes, went barefooted, and wore a dirty old cloak. he spent his time chiefly in the market-place, talking with everybody, old or young, rich or poor,--soldiers, politicians, artisans, or students; visiting even aspasia, the cultivated, wealthy courtesan, with whom he formed a friendship; so that, although he was very poor,--his whole property being only five minae (about fifty dollars) a year,--it would seem he lived in "good society." the ancient pagans were not so exclusive and aristocratic as the christians of our day, who are ambitious of social position. socrates never seemed to think about his social position at all, and uniformly acted as if he were well known and prominent. he was listened to because he was eloquent. his conversation is said to have been charming, and even fascinating. he was an original and ingenious man, different from everybody else, and was therefore what we call "a character." but there was nothing austere or gloomy about him. though lofty in his inquiries, and serious in his mind, he resembled neither a jewish prophet nor a mediaeval sage in his appearance. he looked rather like a silenus,--very witty, cheerful, good-natured, jocose, and disposed to make people laugh. he enjoined no austerities or penances. he was very attractive to the young, and tolerant of human infirmities, even when he gave the best advice. he was the most human of teachers. alcibiades was completely fascinated by his talk, and made good resolutions. his great peculiarity in conversation was to ask questions,--sometimes to gain information, but oftener to puzzle and raise a laugh. he sought to expose ignorance, when it was pretentious; he made all the quacks and shams appear ridiculous. his irony was tremendous; nobody could stand before his searching and unexpected questions, and he made nearly every one with whom he conversed appear either as a fool or an ignoramus. he asked his questions with great apparent modesty, and thus drew a mesh over his opponents from which they could not extricate themselves. his process was the _reductio ad absurdum_. hence he drew upon himself the wrath of the sophists. he had no intellectual arrogance, since he professed to know nothing himself, although he was conscious of his own intellectual superiority. he was contented to show that others knew no more than he. he had no passion for admiration, no political ambition, no desire for social distinction; and he associated with men not for what they could do for him, but for what he could do for them. although poor, he charged nothing for his teachings. he seemed to despise riches, since riches could only adorn or pamper the body. he did not live in a cell or a cave or a tub, but among the people, as an apostle. he must have accepted gifts, since his means of living were exceedingly small, even for athens. he was very practical, even while he lived above the world, absorbed in lofty contemplations. he was always talking with such as the skin-dressers and leather-dealers, using homely language for his illustrations, and uttering plain truths. yet he was equally at home with poets and philosophers and statesmen. he did not take much interest in that knowledge which was applied merely to rising in the world. though plain, practical, and even homely in his conversation, he was not utilitarian. science had no charm to him, since it was directed to utilitarian ends and was uncertain. his sayings had such a lofty, hidden wisdom that very few people understood him: his utterances seemed either paradoxical, or unintelligible, or sophistical. "to the mentally proud and mentally feeble he was equally a bore." most people probably thought him a nuisance, since he was always about with his questions, puzzling some, confuting others, and reproving all,--careless of love or hatred, and contemptuous of all conventionalities. so severely dialectical was he that he seemed to be a hair-splitter. the very sophists, whose ignorance and pretension he exposed, looked upon him as a quibbler; although there were some--so severely trained was the grecian mind--who saw the drift of his questions, and admired his skill. probably there are few educated people in these times who could have understood him any more easily than a modern audience, even of scholars, could take in one of the orations of demosthenes, although they might laugh at the jokes of the sage, and be impressed with the invectives of the orator. and yet there were defects in socrates. he was most provokingly sarcastic; he turned everything to ridicule; he remorselessly punctured every gas-bag he met; he heaped contempt on every snob; he threw stones at every glass house,--and everybody lived in one. he was not quite just to the sophists, for they did not pretend to teach the higher life, but chiefly rhetoric, which is useful in its way. and if they loved applause and riches, and attached themselves to those whom they could utilize, they were not different from most fashionable teachers in any age. and then socrates was not very delicate in his tastes. he was too much carried away by the fascinations of aspasia, when he knew that she was not virtuous,--although it was doubtless her remarkable intellect which most attracted him, not her physical beauty; since in the "menexenus" (by many ascribed to plato) he is made to recite at length one of her long orations, and in the "symposium" he is made to appear absolutely indelicate in his conduct with alcibiades, and to make what would be abhorrent to us a matter of irony, although there was the severest control of the passions. to me it has always seemed a strange thing that such an ugly, satirical, provoking man could have won and retained the love of xanthippe, especially since he was so careless of his dress, and did so little to provide for the wants of the household. i do not wonder that she scolded him, or became very violent in her temper; since, in her worst tirades, he only provokingly laughed at her. a modern christian woman of society would have left him. but perhaps in pagan athens she could not have got a divorce. it is only in these enlightened and progressive times that women desert their husbands when they are tantalizing, or when they do not properly support the family, or spend their time at the clubs or in society,--into which it would seem that socrates was received, even the best, barefooted and dirty as he was, and for his intellectual gifts alone. think of such a man being the oracle of a modern salon, either in paris, london, or new york, with his repulsive appearance, and tantalizing and provoking irony. but in artistic athens, at one time, he was all the fashion. everybody liked to hear him talk. everybody was both amused and instructed. he provoked no envy, since he affected modesty and ignorance, apparently asking his questions for information, and was so meanly clad, and lived in such a poor way. though he provoked animosities, he had many friends. if his language was sarcastic, his affections were kind. he was always surrounded by the most gifted men of his time. the wealthy crito constantly attended him; plato and xenophon were enthusiastic pupils; even alcibiades was charmed by his conversation; apollodorus and antisthenes rarely quitted his side; cebes and simonides came from thebes to hear him; isocrates and aristippus followed in his train; euclid of megara sought his society, at the risk of his life; the tyrant critias, and even the sophist protagoras, acknowledged his marvellous power. but i cannot linger longer on the man, with his gifts and peculiarities. more important things demand our attention. i propose briefly to show his contributions to philosophy and ethics. in regard to the first, i will not dwell on his method, which is both subtle and dialectical. we are not greeks. yet it was his method which revolutionized philosophy. that was original. he saw this,--that the theories of his day were mere opinions; even the lofty speculations of the ionian philosophers were dreams, and the teachings of the sophists were mere words. he despised both dreams and words. speculations ended in the indefinite and insoluble; words ended in rhetoric. neither dreams nor words revealed the true, the beautiful, and the good,--which, to his mind, were the only realities, the only sure foundation for a philosophical system. so he propounded certain questions, which, when answered, produced glaring contradictions, from which disputants shrank. their conclusions broke down their assumptions. they stood convicted of ignorance, to which all his artful and subtle questions tended, and which it was his aim to prove. he showed that they did not know what they affirmed. he proved that their definitions were wrong or incomplete, since they logically led to contradictions; and he showed that for purposes of disputation the same meaning must always attach to the same word, since in ordinary language terms have different meanings, partly true and partly false, which produce confusion in argument. he would be precise and definite, and use the utmost rigor of language, without which inquirers and disputants would not understand each other. every definition should include the whole thing, and nothing else; otherwise, people would not know what they were talking about, and would be forced into absurdities. thus arose the celebrated "definitions,"--the first step in greek philosophy,--intending to show what _is_, and what _is not_. after demonstrating what is not, socrates advanced to the demonstration of what is, and thus laid a foundation for certain knowledge: thus he arrived at clear conceptions of justice, friendship, patriotism, courage, and other certitudes, on which truth is based. he wanted only positive truth,--something to build upon,--like bacon and all great inquirers. having reached the certain, he would apply it to all the relations of life, and to all kinds of knowledge. unless knowledge is certain, it is worthless,--there is no foundation to build upon. uncertain or indefinite knowledge is no knowledge at all; it may be very pretty, or amusing, or ingenious, but no more valuable for philosophical research than poetry or dreams or speculations. how far the "definitions" of socrates led to the solution of the great problems of philosophy, in the hands of such dialecticians as plato and aristotle, i will not attempt to enter upon here; but this i think i am warranted in saying, that the main object and aim of socrates, as a teacher of philosophy, were to establish certain elemental truths, concerning which there could be no dispute, and then to reason from them,--since they were not mere assumptions, but certitudes, and certitudes also which appealed to human consciousness, and therefore could not be overthrown. if i were teaching metaphysics, it would be necessary for me to make clear this method,--the questions and definitions by which socrates is thought to have laid the foundation of true knowledge, and therefore of all healthful advance in philosophy. but for my present purpose i do not care so much what his _method_ was as what his _aim_ was. the aim of socrates, then, being to find out and teach what is definite and certain, as a foundation of knowledge,--having cleared away the rubbish of ignorance,--he attached very little importance to what is called physical science. and no wonder, since science in his day was very imperfect. there were not facts enough known on which to base sound inductions: better, deductions from established principles. what is deemed most certain in this age was the most uncertain of all knowledge in his day. scientific knowledge, truly speaking, there was none. it was all speculation. democritus might resolve the material universe--the earth, the sun, and the stars--into combinations produced by the motion of atoms. but whence the original atoms, and what force gave to them motion? the proudest philosopher, speculating on the origin of the universe, is convicted of ignorance. much, has been said in praise of the ionian philosophers; and justly, so far as their genius and loftiness of character are considered. but what did they discover? what truths did they arrive at to serve as foundation-stones of science? they were among the greatest intellects of antiquity. but their method was a wrong one. their philosophy was based on assumptions and speculations, and therefore was worthless, since they settled nothing. their science was based on inductions which were not reliable, because of a lack of facts. they drew conclusions as to the origin of the universe from material phenomena. thales, seeing that plants are sustained by dew and rain, concluded that water was the first beginning of things. anaximenes, seeing that animals die without air, thought that air was the great primal cause. then diogenes of crete, making a fanciful speculation, imparted to air an intellectual energy. heraclitus of ephesus substituted fire for air. none of the illustrious ionians reached anything higher, than that the first cause of all things must be intelligent. the speculations of succeeding philosophers, living in a more material age, all pertained to the world of matter which they could see with their eyes. and in close connection with speculations about matter, the cause of which they could not settle, was indifference to the spiritual nature of man, which they could not see, and all the wants of the soul, and the existence of the future state, where the soul alone was of any account. so atheism, and the disbelief of the existence of the soul after death, characterized that materialism. without god and without a future, there was no stimulus to virtue and no foundation for anything. they said, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,"--the essence and spirit of all paganism. socrates, seeing how unsatisfactory were all physical inquiries, and what evils materialism introduced into society, making the body everything and the soul nothing, turned his attention to the world within, and "for physics substituted morals." he knew the uncertainty of physical speculation, but believed in the certainty of moral truths. he knew that there was a reality in justice, in friendship, in courage. like job, he reposed on consciousness. he turned his attention to what afterwards gave immortality to descartes. to the scepticism of the sophists he opposed self-evident truths. he proclaimed the sovereignty of virtue, the universality of moral obligation. "moral certitude was the platform from which he would survey the universe." it was the ladder by which he would ascend to the loftiest regions of knowledge and of happiness. "though he was negative in his means, he was positive in his ends." he was the first who had glimpses of the true mission of philosophy,--even to sit in judgment on all knowledge, whether it pertains to art, or politics, or science; eliminating the false and retaining the true. it was his mission to separate truth from error. he taught the world how to weigh evidence. he would discard any doctrine which, logically carried out, led to absurdity. instead of turning his attention to outward phenomena, he dwelt on the truths which either god or consciousness reveals. instead of the creation, he dwelt on the creator. it was not the body he cared for so much as the soul. not wealth, not power, not the appetites were the true source of pleasure, but the peace and harmony of the soul. the inquiry should be, not what we shall eat, but how shall we resist temptation; how shall we keep the soul pure; how shall we arrive at virtue; how shall we best serve our country; how shall we best educate our children; how shall we expel worldliness and deceit and lies; how shall we walk with god?--for there is a god, and there is immortality and eternal justice: these are the great certitudes of human life, and it is only by these that the soul will expand and be happy forever. thus there was a close connection between his philosophy and his ethics. but it was as a moral teacher that he won his most enduring fame. the teacher of wisdom became subordinate to the man who lived it. as a living christian is nobler than merely an acute theologian, so he who practises virtue is greater than the one who preaches it. the dissection of the passions is not so difficult as the regulation of the passions. the moral force of the soul is superior to the utmost grasp of the intellect. the "thoughts" of pascal are all the more read because the religious life of pascal is known to have been lofty. augustine was the oracle of the middle ages, from the radiance of his character as much as from the brilliancy and originality of his intellect. bernard swayed society more by his sanctity than by his learning. the useful life of socrates was devoted not merely to establish the grounds of moral obligation, in opposition to the false and worldly teaching of his day, but to the practice of temperance, disinterestedness, and patriotism. he found that the ideas of his contemporaries centred in the pleasure of the body: he would make his body subservient to the welfare of the soul. no writer of antiquity says so much of the soul as plato, his chosen disciple, and no other one placed so much value on pure subjective knowledge. his longings after love were scarcely exceeded by augustine or st. theresa,--not for a divine spouse, but for the harmony of the soul. with longings after love were, united longings after immortality, when the mind would revel forever in the contemplation of eternal ideas and the solution of mysteries,--a sort of dantean heaven. virtue became the foundation of happiness, and almost a synonym for knowledge. he discoursed on knowledge in its connection with virtue, after the fashion of solomon in his proverbs. happiness, virtue, knowledge: this was the socratic trinity, the three indissolubly connected together, and forming the life of the soul,--the only precious thing a man has, since it is immortal, and therefore to be guarded beyond all bodily and mundane interests. but human nature is frail. the soul is fettered and bewildered; hence the need of some outside influence, some illumination, to guard, or to restrain, or guide. "this inspiration, he was persuaded, was imparted to him from time to time, as he had need, by the monitions of an internal voice which he called [greek: daimonion], or daemon,--not a personification, like an angel or devil, but a divine sign or supernatural voice." from youth he was accustomed to obey this prohibitory voice, and to speak of it,--a voice "which forbade him to enter on public life," or to take any thought for a prepared defence on his trial. the fathers of the church regarded this daemon as a devil, probably from the name; but it is not far, in its real meaning, from the "divine grace" of st. augustine and of all men famed for christian experience,--that restraining grace which keeps good men from folly or sin. socrates, again, divorced happiness from pleasure,--identical things, with most pagans. happiness is the peace and harmony of the soul; pleasure comes from animal sensations, or the gratification of worldly and ambitious desires, and therefore is often demoralizing. happiness is an elevated joy,--a beatitude, existing with pain and disease, when the soul is triumphant over the body; while pleasure is transient, and comes from what is perishable. hence but little account should be made of pain and suffering, or even of death. the life is more than meat, and virtue is its own reward. there is no reward of virtue in mere outward and worldly prosperity; and, with virtue, there is no evil in adversity. one must do right because it is right, not because it is expedient: he must do right, whatever advantages may appear by not doing it. a good citizen must obey the laws, because they are laws: he may not violate them because temporal and immediate advantages are promised. a wise man, and therefore a good man, will be temperate. he must neither eat nor drink to excess. but temperance is not abstinence. socrates not only enjoined temperance as a great virtue, but he practised it. he was a model of sobriety, and yet he drank wine at feasts,--at those glorious symposia where he discoursed with his friends on the highest themes. while he controlled both appetites and passions, in order to promote true happiness,--that is, the welfare of the soul,--he was not solicitous, as others were, for outward prosperity, which could not extend beyond mortal life. he would show, by teaching and example, that he valued future good beyond any transient joy. hence he accepted poverty and physical discomfort as very trifling evils. he did not lacerate the body, like brahmans and monks, to make the soul independent of it. he was a greek, and a practical man,--anything but visionary,--and regarded the body as a sacred temple of the soul, to be kept beautiful; for beauty is as much an eternal idea as friendship or love. hence he threw no contempt on art, since art is based on beauty. he approved of athletic exercises, which strengthened and beautified the body; but he would not defile the body or weaken it, either by lusts or austerities. passions were not to be exterminated but controlled; and controlled by reason, the light within us,--that which guides to true knowledge, and hence to virtue, and hence to happiness. the law of temperance, therefore, is self-control. courage was another of his certitudes,--that which animated the soldier on the battlefield with patriotic glow and lofty self-sacrifice. life is subordinate to patriotism. it was of but little consequence whether a man died or not, in the discharge of duty. to do right was the main thing, because it was right. "like george fox, he would do right if the world were blotted out." the weak point, to my mind, in the socratic philosophy, considered in its ethical bearings, was the confounding of virtue with knowledge, and making them identical. socrates could probably have explained this difficulty away, for no one more than he appreciated the tyranny of passion and appetite, which thus fettered the will; according to st. paul, "the evil that i would not, that i do." men often commit sin when the consequences of it and the nature of it press upon the mind. the knowledge of good and evil does not always restrain a man from doing what he knows will end in grief and shame. the restraint comes, not from knowledge, but from divine aid, which was probably what socrates meant by his daemon,--a warning and a constraining power. "est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo." but this is not exactly the knowledge which socrates meant, or solomon. alcibiades was taught to see the loveliness of virtue and to admire it; but _he_ had not the divine and restraining power, which socrates called an "inspiration," and others would call "grace." yet socrates himself, with passions and appetites as great as alcibiades, restrained them,--was assisted to do so by that divine power which he recognized, and probably adored. how far he felt his personal responsibility to this power i do not know. the sense of personal responsibility to god is one of the highest manifestations of christian life, and implies a recognition of god as a personality, as a moral governor whose eye is everywhere, and whose commands are absolute. many have a vague idea of providence as pervading and ruling the universe, without a sense of personal responsibility to him; in other words, without a "fear" of him, such as moses taught, and which is represented by david as "the beginning of wisdom,"--the fear to do wrong, not only because it is wrong, but also because it is displeasing to him who can both punish and reward. i do not believe that socrates had this idea of god; but i do believe that he recognized his existence and providence. most people in greece and rome had religious instincts, and believed in supernatural forces, who exercised an influence over their destiny,--although they called them "gods," or divinities, and not _the_ "god almighty" whom moses taught. the existence of temples, the offices of priests, and the consultation of oracles and soothsayers, all point to this. and the people not only believed in the existence of these supernatural powers, to whom they erected temples and statues, but many of them believed in a future state of rewards and punishments,--otherwise the names of minos and rhadamanthus and other judges of the dead are unintelligible. paganism and mythology did not deny the existence and power of gods,--yea, the immortal gods; they only multiplied their number, representing them as avenging deities with human passions and frailties, and offering to them gross and superstitious rites of worship. they had imperfect and even degrading ideas of the gods, but acknowledged their existence and their power. socrates emancipated himself from these degrading superstitions, and had a loftier idea of god than the people, or he would not have been accused of impiety,--that is, a dissent from the popular belief; although there is one thing which i cannot understand in his life, and cannot harmonize with his general teachings,--that in his last hours his last act was to command the sacrifice of a cock to aesculapius. but whatever may have been his precise and definite ideas of god and immortality, it is clear that he soared beyond his contemporaries in his conceptions of providence and of duty. he was a reformer and a missionary, preaching a higher morality and revealing loftier truths than any other person that we know of in pagan antiquity; although there lived in india, about two hundred years before his day, a sage whom they called buddha, whom some modern scholars think approached nearer to christ than did socrates or marcus aurelius. very possibly. have we any reason to adduce that god has ever been without his witnesses on earth, or ever will be? why could he not have imparted wisdom both to buddha and socrates, as he did to abraham, moses, and paul? i look upon socrates as one of the witnesses and agents of almighty power on this earth to proclaim exalted truth and turn people from wickedness. he himself--not indistinctly--claimed this mission. think what a man he was: truly was he a "moral phenomenon." you see a man of strong animal propensities, but with a lofty soul, appearing in a wicked and materialistic--and possibly atheistic--age, overturning all previous systems of philosophy, and inculcating a new and higher law of morals. you see him spending his whole life,--and a long life,--in disinterested teachings and labors; teaching without pay, attaching himself to youth, working in poverty and discomfort, indifferent to wealth and honor, and even power, inculcating incessantly the worth and dignity of the soul, and its amazing and incalculable superiority to all the pleasures of the body and all the rewards of a worldly life. who gave to him this wisdom and this almost superhuman virtue? who gave to him this insight into the fundamental principles of morality? who, in this respect, made him a greater light and a clearer expounder than the christian paley? who made him, in all spiritual discernment, a wiser man than the gifted john stuart mill, who seems to have been a candid searcher after truth? in the wisdom of socrates you see some higher force than intellectual hardihood or intellectual clearness. how much this pagan did to emancipate and elevate the soul! how much he did to present the vanities and pursuits of worldly men in their true light! what a rebuke were his life and doctrines to the epicureanism which was pervading all classes of society, and preparing the way for ruin! who cannot see in him a forerunner of that greater teacher who was the friend of publicans and sinners; who rejected the leaven of the pharisees and the speculations of the sadducees; who scorned the riches and glories of the world; who rebuked everything pretentious and arrogant; who enjoined humility and self-abnegation; who exposed the ignorance and sophistries of ordinary teachers; and who propounded to _his_ disciples no such "miserable interrogatory" as "who shall show us any good?" but a higher question for their solution and that of all pleasure-seeking and money-hunting people to the end of time,--"what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" it very rarely happens that a great benefactor escapes persecution, especially if he is persistent in denouncing false opinions which are popular, or prevailing follies and sins. as the scribes and pharisees, who had been so severely and openly exposed in all their hypocrisies by our lord, took the lead in causing his crucifixion, so the sophists and tyrants of athens headed the fanatical persecution of socrates because he exposed their shallowness and worldliness, and stung them to the quick by his sarcasms and ridicule. his elevated morality and lofty spiritual life do not alone account for the persecution. if he had let persons alone, and had not ridiculed their opinions and pretensions, they would probably have let him alone. galileo aroused the wrath of the inquisition not for his scientific discoveries, but because he ridiculed the dominican and jesuit guardians of the philosophy of the middle ages, and because he seemed to undermine the authority of the scriptures and of the church: his boldness, his sarcasms, and his mocking spirit were more offensive than his doctrines. the church did not persecute kepler or pascal. the athenians may have condemned xenophanes and anaxagoras, yet not the other ionian philosophers, nor the lofty speculations of plato; but they murdered socrates because they hated him. it was not pleasant to the gay leaders of athenian society to hear the utter vanity of their worldly lives painted with such unsparing severity, nor was it pleasant to the sophists and rhetoricians to see their idols overthrown, and they themselves exposed as false teachers and shallow pretenders. no one likes to see himself held up to scorn and mockery; nobody is willing to be shown up as ignorant and conceited. the people of athens did not like to see their gods ridiculed, for the logical sequence of the teachings of socrates was to undermine the popular religion. it was very offensive to rich and worldly people to be told that their riches and pleasures were transient and worthless. it was impossible that those rhetoricians who gloried in words, those sophists who covered up the truth, those pedants who prided themselves on their technicalities, those politicians who lived by corruption, those worldly fathers who thought only of pushing the fortunes of their children, should not see in socrates their uncompromising foe; and when he added mockery and ridicule to contempt, and piqued their vanity, and offended their pride, they bitterly hated him and wished him out of the way. my wonder is that he should have been tolerated until he was seventy years of age. men less offensive than he have been burned alive, and stoned to death, and tortured on the rack, and devoured by lions in the amphitheatre. it is the fate of prophets to be exiled, or slandered, or jeered at, or stigmatized, or banished from society,--to be subjected to some sort of persecution; but when prophets denounce woes, and utter invectives, and provoke by stinging sarcasms, they have generally been killed. no matter how enlightened society is, or tolerant the age, he who utters offensive truths will be disliked, and in some way punished. so socrates must meet the fate of all benefactors who make themselves disliked and hated. first the great comic poet aristophanes, in his comedy called the "clouds," held him up to ridicule and reproach, and thus prepared the way for his arraignment and trial. he is made to utter a thousand impieties and impertinences. he is made to talk like a man of the greatest vanity and conceit, and to throw contempt and scorn on everybody else. it is not probable that the poet entered into any formal conspiracy against him, but found him a good subject of raillery and mockery, since socrates was then very unpopular, aside from his moral teachings, for being declared by the oracle of delphi the wisest man in the world, and for having been intimate with the two men whom the athenians above all men justly execrated,--critias, the chief of the thirty tyrants whom lysander had imposed, or at least consented to, after the peloponnesian war; and alcibiades, whose evil counsels had led to an unfortunate expedition, and who in addition had proved himself a traitor to his country. public opinion being now against him, on various grounds he is brought to trial before the dikastery,--a board of some five hundred judges, leading citizens of athens. one of his chief accusers was anytus,--a rich tradesman, of very narrow mind, personally hostile to socrates because of the influence the philosopher had exerted over his son, yet who then had considerable influence from the active part he had taken in the expulsion of the thirty tyrants. the more formidable accuser was meletus,--a poet and a rhetorician, who had been irritated by socrates' terrible cross-examinations. the principal charges against him were, that he did not admit the gods acknowledged by the republic, and that he corrupted the youth of athens. in regard to the first charge, it could not be technically proved that he had assailed the gods, for he was exact in his legal worship; but really and virtually there was some foundation for the accusation, since socrates was a religious innovator if ever there was one. his lofty realism _was_ subversive of popular superstitions, when logically carried out. as to the second charge, of corrupting youth, this was utterly groundless; for he had uniformly enjoined courage, and temperance, and obedience to the laws, and patriotism, and the control of the passions, and all the higher sentiments of the soul but the tendency of his teachings was to create in young men contempt for all institutions based on falsehood or superstition or tyranny, and he openly disapproved some of the existing laws,--such as choosing magistrates by lot,--and freely expressed his opinions. in a narrow and technical sense there was some reason for this charge; for if a young man came to combat his father's business or habits of life or general opinions, in consequence of his own superior enlightenment, it might be made out that he had not sufficient respect for his father, and thus was failing in the virtues of reverence and filial obedience. considering the genius and innocence of the accused, he did not make an able defence; he might have done better. it appeared as if he did not wish to be acquitted. he took no thought of what he should say; he made no preparation for so great an occasion. he made no appeal to the passions and feelings of his judges. he refused the assistance of lysias, the greatest orator of the day. he brought neither his wife nor children to incline the judges in his favor by their sighs and tears. his discourse was manly, bold, noble, dignified, but without passion and without art. his unpremeditated replies seemed to scorn an elaborate defence. he even seemed to rebuke his judges, rather than to conciliate them. on the culprit's bench he assumed the manners of a teacher. he might easily have saved himself, for there was but a small majority (only five or six at the first vote) for his condemnation. and then he irritated his judges unnecessarily. according to the laws he had the privilege of proposing a substitution for his punishment, which would have been accepted,--exile for instance; but, with a provoking and yet amusing irony, he asked to be supported at the public expense in the prytaneum: that is, he asked for the highest honor of the republic. for a condemned criminal to ask this was audacity and defiance. we cannot otherwise suppose than that he did not wish to be acquitted. he wished to die. the time had come; he had fulfilled his mission; he was old and poor; his condemnation would bring his truths before the world in a more impressive form. he knew the moral greatness of a martyr's death. he reposed in the calm consciousness of having rendered great services, of having made important revelations. he never had an ignoble love of life; death had no terrors to him at any time. so he was perfectly resigned to his fate. most willingly he accepted the penalty of plain speaking, and presented no serious remonstrances and no indignant denials. had he pleaded eloquently for his life, he would not have fulfilled his mission. he acted with amazing foresight; he took the only course which would secure a lasting influence. he knew that his death would evoke a new spirit of inquiry, which would spread over the civilized world. it was a public disappointment that he did not defend himself with more earnestness. but he was not seeking applause for his genius,--simply the final triumph of his cause, best secured by martyrdom. so he received his sentence with evident satisfaction; and in the interval between it and his execution he spent his time in cheerful but lofty conversations with his disciples. he unhesitatingly refused to escape from his prison when the means would have been provided. his last hours were of immortal beauty. his friends were dissolved in tears, but he was calm, composed, triumphant; and when he lay down to die he prayed that his migration to the unknown land might be propitious. he died without pain, as the hemlock produced only torpor. his death, as may well be supposed, created a profound impression. it was one of the most memorable events of the pagan world, whose greatest light was extinguished,--no, not extinguished, since it has been shining ever since in the "memorabilia" of xenophon and the "dialogues" of plato. too late the athenians repented of their injustice and cruelty. they erected to his memory a brazen statue, executed by lysippus. his character and his ideas are alike immortal. the schools of athens properly date from his death, about the year 400 b.c., and these schools redeemed the shame of her loss of political power. the socratic philosophy, as expounded by plato, survived the wrecks of material greatness. it entered even into the christian schools, especially at alexandria; it has ever assisted and animated the earnest searchers after the certitudes of life; it has permeated the intellectual world, and found admirers and expounders in all the universities of europe and america. "no man has ever been found," says grote, "strong enough to bend the bow of socrates, the father of philosophy, the most original thinker of antiquity." his teachings gave an immense impulse to civilization, but they could not reform or save the world; it was too deeply sunk in the infamies and immoralities of an epicurean life. nor was his philosophy ever popular in any age of our world. it never will be popular until the light which men hate shall expel the darkness which they love. but it has been the comfort and the joy of an esoteric few,--the witnesses of truth whom god chooses, to keep alive the virtues and the ideas which shall ultimately triumph over all the forces of evil. * * * * * authorities. the direct sources are chiefly plato (jowett's translation) and xenophon. indirect sources: chiefly aristotle, metaphysics; diogenes laertius's lives of philosophers; grote's history of greece; brandis's plato, in smith's dictionary; ralph waldo emerson's representative men; cicero on immortality; j. martineau, essay on plato; thirlwall's history of greece. see also the late work of curtius; ritter's history of philosophy; f.d. maurice's history of moral philosophy; g. h. lewes' biographical history of philosophy; hampden's fathers of greek philosophy; j.s. blackie's wise men of greece; starr king's lecture on socrates; smith's biographical dictionary; ueberweg's history of philosophy; w.a. butler's history of ancient philosophy; grote's aristotle. phidias 500-430 b.c. greek art. i suppose there is no subject, at this time, which interests cultivated people in favored circumstances more than art. they travel in europe, they visit galleries, they survey cathedrals, they buy pictures, they collect old china, they learn to draw and paint, they go into ecstasies over statues and bronzes, they fill their houses with bric-á-brac, they assume a cynical criticism, or gossip pedantically, whether they know what they are talking about or not. in short, the contemplation of art is a fashion, concerning which it is not well to be ignorant, and about which there is an amazing amount of cant, pretension, and borrowed opinions. artists themselves differ in their judgments, and many who patronize them have no severity of discrimination. we see bad pictures on the walls of private palaces, as well as in public galleries, for which fabulous prices are paid because they are, or are supposed to be, the creation of great masters, or because they are rare like old books in an antiquarian library, or because fashion has given them a fictitious value, even when these pictures fail to create pleasure or emotion in those who view them. and yet there is great enjoyment, to some people, in the contemplation of a beautiful building or statue or painting,--as of a beautiful landscape or of a glorious sky. the ideas of beauty, of grace, of grandeur, which are eternal, are suggested to the mind and soul; and these cultivate and refine in proportion as the mind and soul are enlarged, especially among the rich, the learned, and the favored classes. so, in high civilizations, especially material, art is not only a fashion but a great enjoyment, a lofty study, and a theme of general criticism and constant conversation. it is my object, of course, to present the subject historically, rather than critically. my criticisms would be mere opinions, worth no more than those of thousands of other people. as a public teacher to those who may derive some instruction from my labors and studies, i presume to offer only reflections on art as it existed among the greeks, and to show its developments in an historical point of view. the reader may be surprised that i should venture to present phidias as one of the benefactors of the world, when so little is known about him, or can be known about him. so far as the man is concerned, i might as well lecture on melchizedek, or pharaoh, or one of the dukes of edom. there are no materials to construct a personal history which would be interesting, such as abound in reference to michael angelo or raphael. thus he must be made the mere text of a great subject. the development of art is an important part of the history of civilization. the influence of art on human culture and happiness is prodigious. ancient grecian art marks one of the stepping-stones of the race. any man who largely contributed to its development was a world-benefactor. now, history says this much of phidias: that he lived in the time of pericles,--in the culminating period of grecian glory,--and ornamented the parthenon with his unrivalled statues; which parthenon was to athens what solomon's temple was to jerusalem,--a wonder, a pride, and a glory. his great contribution to that matchless edifice was the statue of minerva, made of gold and ivory, forty feet in height, the gold of which alone was worth forty-four talents,--about fifty-thousand dollars,--an immense sum when gold was probably worth more than twenty times its present value. all antiquity was unanimous in its praise of this statue, and the exactness and finish of its details were as remarkable as the grandeur and majesty of its proportions. another of the famous works of phidias was the bronze statue of minerva, which was the glory of the acropolis, this was sixty feet in height. but even this yielded to the colossal statue of zeus or jupiter in his great temple at olympia, representing the figure in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on a throne made of gold, ebony, ivory, and precious stones. in this statue the immortal artist sought to represent power in repose, as michael angelo did in his statue of moses. so famous was this majestic statue, that it was considered a calamity to die without seeing it; and it served as a model for all subsequent representations of majesty and repose among the ancients. this statue, removed to constantinople by theodosius the great, remained undestroyed until the year 475 a.d. phidias also executed various other works,--all famous in his day,--which have, however, perished; but many executed under his superintendence still remain, and are universally admired for their grace and majesty of form. the great master himself was probably vastly superior to any of his disciples, and impressed his genius on the age, having, so far as we know, no rival among his contemporaries, as he has had no successor among the moderns of equal originality and power, unless it be michael angelo. his distinguished excellence was simplicity and grandeur; and he was to sculpture what aeschylus was to tragic poetry,--sublime and grand, representing ideal excellence, though his works have perished, the ideas he represented still live. his fame is immortal, though we know so little about him. it is based on the admiration of antiquity, on the universal praise which his creations extorted even from the severest critics in an age of art, when the best energies of an ingenious people were directed to it with the absorbing devotion now given to mechanical inventions and those pursuits which make men rich and comfortable. it would be interesting to know the private life of this great artist, his ardent loves and fierce resentments, his social habits, his public honors and triumphs,--but this is mere speculation. we may presume that he was rich, flattered, and admired,--the companion of great statesmen, rulers, and generals; not a persecuted man like dante, but honored like raphael; one of the fortunate of earth, since he was a master of what was most valued in his day. but it is the work which he represents--and still more comprehensively art itself in the ancient world--to which i would call your attention, especially the expression of art in buildings, in statues, and in pictures. "art" is itself a very great word, and means many things; it is applied to style in writing, to musical compositions, and even to effective eloquence, as well as to architecture, sculpture, and painting. we speak of music as artistic,--and not foolishly; of an artistic poet, or an artistic writer like voltaire or macaulay; of an artistic preacher,--by which we mean that each and all move the sensibilities and souls and minds of men by adherence to certain harmonies which accord with fixed ideas of grace, beauty, and dignity. eternal ideas which the mind conceives are the foundation of art, as they are of philosophy. art claims to be creative, and is in a certain sense inspired, like the genius of a poet. however material the creation, the spirit which gives beauty to it is of the mind and soul. imagination is tasked to its utmost stretch to portray sentiments and passions in the way that makes the deepest impression. the marble bust becomes animated, and even the temple consecrated to the deity becomes religious, in proportion as these suggest the ideas and sentiments which kindle the soul to admiration and awe. these feelings belong to every one by nature, and are most powerful when most felicitously called out by the magic of the master, who requires time and labor to perfect his skill. art is therefore popular, and appeals to every one, but to those most who live in the great ideas on which it is based. the peasant stands awe-struck before the majestic magnitude of a cathedral; the man of culture is roused to enthusiasm by the contemplation of its grand proportions, or graceful outlines, or bewitching details, because he sees in them the realization of his ideas of beauty, grace, and majesty, which shine forever in unutterable glory,--indestructible ideas which survive all thrones and empires, and even civilizations. they are as imperishable as stars and suns and rainbows and landscapes, since these unfold new beauties as the mind and soul rest upon them. whenever, then, man creates an image or a picture which reveals these eternal but indescribable beauties, and calls forth wonder or enthusiasm, and excites refined pleasures, he is an artist. he impresses, to a greater or less degree, every order and class of men. he becomes a benefactor, since he stimulates exalted sentiments, which, after all, are the real glory and pride of life, and the cause of all happiness and virtue,--in cottage or in palace, amid hard toils as well as in luxurious leisure. he is a self-sustained man, since he revels in ideas rather than in praises and honors. like the man of virtue, he finds in the adoration of the deity he worships his highest reward. michael angelo worked preoccupied and rapt, without even the stimulus of praise, to advanced old age, even as dante lived in the visions to which his imagination gave form and reality. art is therefore not only self-sustained, but lofty and unselfish. it is indeed the exalted soul going forth triumphant over external difficulties, jubilant and melodious even in poverty and neglect, rising above all the evils of life, revelling in the glories which are impenetrable, and living--for the time--in the realm of deities and angels. the accidents-of earth are no more to the true artist striving to reach and impersonate his ideal of beauty and grace, than furniture and tapestries are to a true woman seeking the beatitudes of love. and it is only when there is this soul longing to reach the excellence conceived, for itself alone, that great works have been produced. when art has been prostituted to pander to perverted tastes, or has been stimulated by thirst for gain, then inferior works only have been created. fra angelico lived secluded in a convent when he painted his exquisite madonnas. it was the exhaustion of the nervous energies consequent on superhuman toils, rather than the luxuries and pleasures which his position and means afforded, which killed raphael at thirty-seven. the artists of greece did not live for utilities any more than did the ionian philosophers, but in those glorious thoughts and creations which were their chosen joy. whatever can be reached by the unaided powers of man was attained by them. they represented all that the mind can conceive of the beauty of the human form, and the harmony of architectural proportions, in the realm of beauty and grace modern civilization has no prouder triumphs than those achieved by the artists of pagan antiquity. grecian artists have been the teachers of all nations and all ages in architecture, sculpture, and painting. how far they were themselves original we cannot tell. we do not know how much they were indebted to egyptians, phoenicians, and assyrians, but in real excellence they have never been surpassed. in some respects, their works still remain objects of hopeless imitation: in the realization of ideas of beauty and form, they reached absolute perfection. hence we have a right to infer that art can flourish under pagan as well as christian influences. it was a comparatively pagan age in italy when the great artists arose who succeeded da vinci, especially under the patronage of the medici and the medicean popes. christianity has only modified art by purifying it from sensual attractions. christianity added very little to art, until cathedrals arose in their grand proportions and infinite details, and until artists sought to portray in the faces of their saints and madonnas the seraphic sentiments of christian love and angelic purity. art even declined in the roman world from the second century after christ, in spite of all the efforts of christian emperors. in fact neither christianity nor paganism creates it; it seems to be independent of both, and arises from the peculiar genius and circumstances of an age. make art a fashion, honor and reward it, crown its great masters with olympic leaves, direct the energies of an age or race upon it, and we probably shall have great creations, whether the people are christian or pagan. so that art seems to be a human creation, rather than a divine inspiration. it is the result of genius, stimulated by circumstances and directed to the contemplation of ideal excellence. much has been written on those principles upon which art is supposed to be founded, but not very satisfactorily, although great learning and ingenuity have been displayed. it is difficult to conceive of beauty or grace by definitions,---as difficult as it is to define love or any other ultimate sentiment of the soul. "metaphysics, mathematics, music, and philosophy," says cleghorn, "have been called in to analyze, define, demonstrate, or generalize," great critics, like burke, alison, and stewart, have written interesting treatises on beauty and taste. "plato represents beauty as the contemplation of the mind. leibnitz maintained that it consists in perfection. diderot referred beauty to the idea of relation. blondel asserted that it was in harmonic proportions. leigh speaks of it as the music of the age." these definitions do not much assist us. we fall back on our own conceptions or intuitions, as probably did phidias, although art in greece could hardly have attained such perfection without the aid which poetry and history and philosophy alike afforded. art can flourish only as the taste of the people becomes cultivated, and by the assistance of many kinds of knowledge. the mere contemplation of nature is not enough. savages have no art at all, even when they live amid grand mountains and beside the ever-changing sea. when phidias was asked how he conceived his olympian jove, he referred to homer's poems. michael angelo was enabled to paint the saints and sibyls of the sistine chapel from familiarity with the writings of the jewish prophets. isaiah inspired him as truly as homer inspired phidias. the artists of the age of phidias were encouraged and assisted by the great poets, historians, and philosophers who basked in the sunshine of pericles, even as the great men in the court of elizabeth derived no small share of their renown from her glorious appreciation. great artists appear in clusters, and amid the other constellations that illuminate the intellectual heavens. they all mutually assist each other. when rome lost her great men, art declined. when the egotism of louis xiv. extinguished genius, the great lights in all departments disappeared. so art is indebted not merely to the contemplation of ideal beauty, but to the influence of great ideas permeating society,--such as when the age of phidias was kindled with the great thoughts of socrates, democritus, thucydides, euripides, aristophanes, and others, whether contemporaries or not; a sort of augustan or elizabethan age, never to appear but once among the same people. now, in reference to the history or development of ancient art, until it culminated in the age of pericles, we observe that its first expression was in architecture, and was probably the result of religious sentiments, when nations were governed by priests, and not distinguished for intellectual life. then arose the temples of egypt, of assyria, of india. they are grand, massive, imposing, but not graceful or beautiful. they arose from blended superstition and piety, and were probably erected before the palaces of kings, and in egypt by the dynasty that builded the older pyramids. even those ambitious and prodigious monuments, which have survived every thing contemporaneous, indicate the reign of sacerdotal monarchs and artists who had no idea of beauty, but only of permanence. they do not indicate civilization, but despotism,--unless it be that they were erected for astronomical purposes, as some maintain, rather than as sepulchres for kings. but this supposition involves great mathematical attainments. it is difficult to conceive of such a waste of labor by enlightened princes, acquainted with astronomical and mathematical knowledge and mechanical forces, for herodotus tells us that one hundred thousand men toiled on the great pyramid during forty years. what for? surely it is hard to suppose that such a pile was necessary for the observation of the polar star; and still less probably was it built as a sepulchre for a king, since no covered sarcophagus has ever been found in it, nor have even any hieroglyphics. the mystery seems impenetrable. but the temples are not mysteries. they were built also by sacerdotal monarchs, in honor of the deity. they must have been enormous, perhaps the most imposing ever built by man: witness the ruins of karnac--a temple designated by the greeks as that of jupiter ammon---with its large blocks of stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and three hundred wide, its alleys over a mile in length lined with colossal sphinxes, and all adorned with obelisks and columns, and surrounded with courts and colonnades, like solomon's temple, to accommodate the crowds of worshippers as well as priests. but these enormous structures were not marked by beauty of proportion or fitness of ornament; they show the power of kings, not the genius of a nation. they may have compelled awe; they did not kindle admiration. the emotion they called out was such as is produced now by great engineering exploits, involving labor and mechanical skill, not suggestive of grace or harmony, which require both taste and genius. the same is probably true of solomon's temple, built at a much later period, when art had been advanced somewhat by the phoenicians, to whose assistance it seems he was much indebted. we cannot conceive how that famous structure should have employed one hundred and fifty thousand men for eleven years, and have cost what would now be equal to $200,000,000, from any description which has come down to us, or any ruins which remain, unless it were surrounded by vast courts and colonnades, and ornamented by a profuse expenditure of golden plates,--which also evince both power and money rather than architectural genius. after the erection of temples came the building of palaces for kings, equally distinguished for vast magnitude and mechanical skill, but deficient in taste and beauty, showing the infancy of art. yet even these were in imitation of the temples. and as kings became proud and secular, probably their palaces became grander and larger,--like the palaces of nebuchadnezzar and rameses the great and the persian monarchs at susa, combining labor, skill, expenditure, dazzling the eye by the number of columns and statues and vast apartments, yet still deficient in beauty and grace. it was not until the greeks applied their wonderful genius to architecture that it became the expression of a higher civilization. and, as among egyptians, art in greece is first seen in temples; for the earlier greeks were religious, although they worshipped the deity under various names, and in the forms which their own hands did make. the dorians, who descended from the mountains of northern greece, eighty years after the fall of troy, were the first who added substantially to the architectural art of asiatic nations, by giving simplicity and harmony to their temples. we see great thickness of columns, a fitting proportion to the capitals, and a beautiful entablature. the horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice predominate over the vertical lines of the columns. the temple arises in the severity of geometrical forms. the doric column was not entirely a new creation, but was an improvement on the egyptian model,--less massive, more elegant, fluted, increasing gradually towards the base, with a slight convexed swelling downward, about six diameters in height, superimposed by capitals. "so regular was the plan of the temple, that if the dimensions of a single column and the proportion the entablature should bear to it were given to two individuals acquainted with this style, with directions to compose a temple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size, arrangement, and general proportions." and yet while the style of all the doric temples is the same, there are hardly two temples alike, being varied by the different proportions of the _column_, which is the peculiar mark of grecian architecture, even as the _arch_ is the feature of gothic architecture. the later doric was less massive than the earlier, but more rich in sculptured ornaments. the pedestal was from two thirds to a whole diameter of a column in height, built in three courses, forming as it were steps to the platform on which the pillar rested. the pillar had twenty flutes, with a capital of half a diameter, supporting the entablature. this again, two diameters in height, was divided into architrave, frieze, and cornice. but the great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,--a forest of columns, supporting the pediment above, which had at the base an angle of about fourteen degrees. from the pediment the beautiful cornice projects with various mouldings, while at the base and at the apex are sculptured monuments representing both men and animals. the graceful outline of the columns, and the variety of light and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals, produced an effect exceedingly beautiful. all the glories of this order of architecture culminated in the parthenon,--built of pentelic marble, resting on a basement of limestone, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns of six feet and two inches diameter at the base and thirty-four feet in height, the frieze and pediment elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, while within the cella or interior was the statue of minerva, forty feet high, built of gold and ivory. the walls were decorated with the rarest paintings, and the cella itself contained countless treasures. this unrivalled temple was not so large as some of the cathedrals of the middle ages, but it covered twelve times the ground of the temple of solomon, and from the summit of the acropolis it shone as a wonder and a glory. the marbles have crumbled and its ornaments have been removed, but it has formed the model of the most beautiful buildings of the world, from the quirinus at rome to the madeleine at paris, stimulating alike the genius of michael angelo and christopher wren, immortal in the ideas it has perpetuated, and immeasurable in the influence it has exerted. who has copied the flavian amphitheatre except as a convenient form for exhibitors on the stage, or for the rostrum of an orator? who has not copied the parthenon as the severest in its proportions for public buildings for civic purposes? the ionic architecture is only a modification of the doric,--its columns more slender and with a greater number of flutes, and capitals more elaborate, formed with volutes or spiral scrolls, while its pediment, the triangular facing of the portico, is formed with a less angle from the base,--the whole being more suggestive of grace than strength. vitruvius, the greatest authority among the ancients, says that "the greeks, in inventing these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and aspects of a man, and in the other the delicacy and ornaments of a woman, whose ringlets appear in the volutes of the capital." the corinthian order, which was the most copied by the romans, was still more ornamented, with foliated capitals, greater height, and a more decorated entablature. but the principles of all these three orders are substantially the same,--their beauty consisting in the column and horizontal lines, even as vertical lines marked the gothic. we see the lintel and not the arch; huge blocks of stone perfectly squared, and not small stones irregularly laid; external rather than internal pillars, the cella receiving light from the open roof above, rather than from windows; a simple outline uninterrupted,--generally in the form of a parallelogram,--rather than broken by projections. there is no great variety; but the harmony, the severity, and beauty of proportion will eternally be admired, and can never be improved,--a temple of humanity, cheerful, useful, complete, not aspiring to reach what on earth can never be obtained, with no gloomy vaults speaking of maceration and grief, no lofty towers and spires soaring to the sky, no emblems typical of consecrated sentiments and of immortality beyond the grave, but rich in ornaments drawn from the living world,--of plants and animals, of man in the perfection of physical strength, of woman in the unapproachable loveliness of grace of form. as the world becomes pagan, intellectual, thrifty, we see the architecture of the greeks in palaces, banks, halls, theatres, stores, libraries; when it is emotional, poetic, religious, fervent, aspiring, we see the restoration of the gothic in churches, cathedrals, schools,--for philosophy and art did all they could to civilize the world before christianity was sent to redeem it and prepare mankind for the life above. such was the temple of the greeks, reappearing in all the architectures of nations, from the romans to our own times,--so perfect that no improvements have subsequently been made, no new principles discovered which were not known to vitruvius. what a creation, to last in its simple beauty for more than two thousand years, and forever to remain a perfect model of its kind! ah, that was a triumph of art, the praises of which have been sung for more than sixty generations, and will be sung for hundreds yet to come. but how hidden and forgotten the great artists who invented all this, showing the littleness of man and the greatness of art itself. how true that old greek saying, "life is short, but art is long." but the genius displayed in sculpture was equally remarkable, and was carried to the same perfection. the greeks did not originate sculpture. we read of sculptured images from remotest antiquity. assyria, egypt, and india are full of relics. but these are rude, unformed, without grace, without expression, though often colossal and grand. there are but few traces of emotion, or passion, or intellectual force. everything which has come down from the ancient monarchies is calm, impassive, imperturbable. nor is there a severe beauty of form. there is no grace, no loveliness, that we should desire them. nature was not severely studied. we see no aspiration after what is ideal. sometimes the sculptures are grotesque, unnatural, and impure. they are emblematic of strange deities, or are rude monuments of heroes and kings. they are curious, but they do not inspire us. we do not copy them; we turn away from them. they do not live, and they are not reproduced. art could spare them all, except as illustrations of its progress. they are merely historical monuments, to show despotism and superstition, and the degradation of the people. but this cannot be said of the statues which the greeks created, or improved from ancient models. in the sculptures of the greeks we see the utmost perfection of the human form, both of man and woman, learned by the constant study of anatomy and of nude figures of the greatest beauty. a famous statue represented the combined excellences of perhaps one hundred different persons. the study of the human figure became a noble object of ambition, and led to conceptions of ideal grace and loveliness such as no one human being perhaps ever possessed in all respects. and not merely grace and beauty were thus represented in marble or bronze, but dignity, repose, majesty. we see in those figures which have survived the ravages of time suggestions of motion, rest, grace, grandeur,--every attitude, every posture, every variety of form. we see also every passion which moves the human soul,--grief, rage, agony, shame, joy, peace. but it is the perfection of form which is most wonderful and striking. nor did the artists work to please the vulgar rich, but to realize their own highest conceptions, and to represent sentiments in which the whole nation shared. they sought to instruct; they appealed to the highest intelligence. "some sought to represent tender beauty, others daring power, and others again heroic grandeur." grecian statuary began with ideal representations of deities; then it produced the figures of gods and goddesses in mortal forms; then the portrait-statues of distinguished men. this art was later in its development than architecture, since it was directed to ornamenting what had already nearly reached perfection. thus phidias ornamented the parthenon in the time of pericles, when sculpture was purest and most ideal in some points of view it declined after phidias, but in other respects it continued to improve until it culminated in lysippus, who was contemporaneous with alexander. he is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues, and to have displayed great energy of execution. he idealized human beauty, and imitated nature to the minutest details. he alone was selected to make the statue of alexander, which is lost. none of his works, which were chiefly in bronze, are extant; but it is supposed that the famous _hercules_ and the _torso belvedere_ are copies from his works, since his favorite subject was hercules. we only can judge of his great merits from his transcendent reputation and the criticism of classic writers, and also from the works that have come down to us which are supposed to be imitations of his masterpieces. it was his scholars who sculptured the _colossus of rhodes_, the _laocoön_, and the _dying gladiator_. after him plastic art rapidly degenerated, since it appealed to passion, especially under praxiteles, who was famous for his undraped venuses and the expression of sensual charms. the decline of art was rapid as men became rich, and epicurean life was sought as the highest good. skill of execution did not decline, but ideal beauty was lost sight of, until the art itself was prostituted--as among the romans--to please perverted tastes or to flatter senatorial pride. but our present theme is not the history of decline, but of the original creations of genius, which have been copied in every succeeding age, and which probably will never be surpassed, except in some inferior respects,--in mere mechanical skill. the _olympian jove_ of phidias lives perhaps in the _moses_ of michael angelo, great as was his original genius, even as the _venus_ of praxiteles may have been reproduced in powers's _greek slave_. the great masters had innumerable imitators, not merely in the representation of man but of animals. what a study did these artists excite, especially in their own age, and how honorable did they make their noble profession even in degenerate times! they were the school-masters of thousands and tens of thousands, perpetuating their ideas to remotest generations. their instructions were not lost, and never can be lost in a realm which constitutes one of the proudest features of our own civilization. it is true that christianity does not teach aesthetic culture, but it teaches the duties which prevent the eclipse of art. in this way it comes to the rescue of art when in danger of being perverted. grecian art was consecrated to paganism,--but, revived, it may indirectly be made tributary to christianity, like music and eloquence. it will not conserve christianity, but may be purified by it, even if able to flourish without it. i can now only glance at the third development of grecian art, as seen in painting. it is not probable that such perfection was reached in this art as in sculpture and architecture. we have no means of forming incontrovertible opinions. most of the ancient pictures have perished; and those that remain, while they show correctness of drawing and brilliant coloring, do not give us as high conceptions of ideal beauties as do the pictures of the great masters of modern times. but we have the testimony of the ancients themselves, who were as enthusiastic in their admiration of pictures as they were of statues. and since their taste was severe, and their sensibility as to beauty unquestioned, we have a right to infer that even painting was carried to considerable perfection among the greeks. we read of celebrated schools,--like the modern schools of florence, rome, bologna, venice, and naples. the schools of sicyon, corinth, athens, and rhodes were as famous in their day as the modern schools to which i have alluded. painting, being strictly a decoration, did not reach a high degree of art, like sculpture, until architecture was perfected. but painting is very ancient. the walls of babylon, it is asserted by the ancient historians, were covered with paintings. many survive amid the ruins of egypt and on the chests of mummies; though these are comparatively rude, without regard to light and shade, like chinese pictures. nor do they represent passions and emotions. they aimed to perpetuate historical events, not ideas. the first paintings of the greeks simply marked out the outline of figures. next appeared the inner markings, as we see in ancient vases, on a white ground. the effects of light and shade were then introduced; and then the application of colors in accordance with nature. cimon of cleonae, in the eightieth olympiad, invented the art of "fore-shortening," and hence was the first painter of perspective. polygnotus, a contemporary of phidias, was nearly as famous for painting as he was for sculpture. he was the first who painted woman with brilliant drapery and variegated head-dresses. he gave to the cheek the blush and to his draperies gracefulness. he is said to have been a great epic painter, as phidias was an epic sculptor and homer an epic poet. he expressed, like them, ideal beauty. but his pictures had no elaborate grouping, which is one of the excellences of modern art. his figures were all in regular lines, like the bas-reliefs on a frieze. he took his subjects from epic poetry. he is celebrated for his accurate drawing, and for the charm and grace of his female figures. he also gave great grandeur to his figures, like michael angelo. contemporary with him was dionysius, who was remarkable for expression, and micon, who was skilled in painting horses. with apollodorus of athens, who flourished toward the close of the fifth century before christ, there was a new development,--that of dramatic effect. his aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the appearance of reality. he painted men and things as they appeared. he also improved coloring, invented _chiaroscuro_ (or the art of relief by a proper distribution of the lights and shadows), and thus obtained what is called "tone." he prepared the way for zeuxis, who surpassed him in the power to give beauty to forms. the _helen_ of zeuxis was painted from five of the most beautiful women of croton. he aimed at complete illusion of the senses, as in the instance recorded of his grape picture. his style was modified by the contemplation of the sculptures of phidias, and he taught the true method of grouping. his marked excellence was in the contrast of light and shade. he did not paint ideal excellence; he was not sufficiently elevated in his own moral sentiments to elevate the feelings of others: he painted sensuous beauty as it appeared in the models which he used. but he was greatly extolled, and accumulated a great fortune, like rubens, and lived ostentatiously, as rich and fortunate men ever have lived who do not possess elevation of sentiment. his headquarters were not at athens, but at ephesus,--a city which also produced parrhasins, to whom zeuxis himself gave the palm, since he deceived the painter by his curtain, while zeuxis only deceived birds by his grapes. parrhasius established the rule of proportions, which was followed by succeeding artists. he was a very luxurious and arrogant man, and fancied he had reached the perfection of his art. but if that was ever reached among the ancients it was by apelles,--the titian of that day,--who united the rich coloring of the ionian school with the scientific severity of the school of sicyonia. he alone was permitted to paint the figure of alexander, as lysippus only was allowed to represent him in bronze. he invented ivory black, and was the first to cover his pictures with a coating of varnish, to bring out the colors and preserve them. his distinguishing excellency was grace,--"that artless balance of motion and repose," says fuseli, "springing from character and founded on propriety." others may have equalled him in perspective, accuracy, and finish, but he added a refinement of taste which placed him on the throne which is now given to raphael. no artists could complete his unfinished pictures. he courted the severest criticism, and, like michael angelo, had no jealousy of the fame of other artists; he reposed in the greatness of his own self-consciousness. he must have made enormous sums of money, since one of his pictures--a venus rising out of the sea, painted for a temple in cos, and afterwards removed by augustus to rome--cost one hundred talents (equal to about one hundred thousand dollars),--a greater sum, i apprehend, than was ever paid to a modern artist for a single picture, certainly in view of the relative value of gold. in this picture female grace was impersonated. after apelles the art declined, although there were distinguished artists for several centuries. they generally flocked to rome, where there was the greatest luxury and extravagance, and they, pandered to vanity and a vitiated taste. the masterpieces of the old artists brought enormous sums, as the works of the old masters do now; and they were brought to rome by the conquerors, as the masterpieces of italy and spain and flanders were brought to paris by napoleon. so rome gradually possessed the best pictures of the world, without stimulating the art or making new creations; it could appreciate genius, but creative genius expired with grecian liberties and glories. rome multiplied and rewarded painters, but none of them were famous. pictures were as common as statues. even varro, a learned writer, had a gallery of seven hundred portraits. pictures were placed in all the baths, theatres, temples, and palaces, as were statues. we are forced, therefore, to believe that the greeks carried painting to the same perfection that they did sculpture, not only from the praises of critics like cicero and pliny, but from the universal enthusiasm which the painters created and the enormous prices they received. whether polygnotus was equal to michael angelo, zeuxis to titian, and apelles to raphael, we cannot tell. their works have perished. what remains to us, in the mural decorations of pompeii and the designs on vases, seem to confirm the criticisms of the ancients. we cannot conceive how the greek painters could have equalled the great italian masters, since they had fewer colors, and did not make use of oil, but of gums mixed with the white of eggs, and resin and wax, which mixture we call "encaustic." yet it is not the perfection of colors or of design, or mechanical aids, or exact imitations, or perspective skill, which constitute the highest excellence of the painter, but his power of creation,--the power of giving ideal beauty and grandeur and grace, inspired by the contemplation of eternal ideas, an excellence which appears in all the masterworks of the greeks, and such as has not been surpassed by the moderns. but art was not confined to architecture, sculpture, and painting alone. it equally appears in all the literature of greece. the greek poets were artists, as also the orators and historians, in the highest sense. they were the creators of _style_ in writing, which we do not see in the literature of the jews or other oriental nations, marvellous and profound as were their thoughts. the greeks had the power of putting things so as to make the greatest impression on the mind. this especially appears among such poets as sophocles and euripides, such orators as pericles and demosthenes, such historians as xenophon and thucydides, such philosophers as plato and aristotle. we see in their finished productions no repetitions, no useless expressions, no superfluity or redundancy, no careless arrangement, no words even in bad taste, save in the abusive epithets in which the orators indulged. all is as harmonious in their literary style as in plastic art; while we read, unexpected pleasures arise in the mind, based on beauty and harmony, somewhat similar to the enjoyment of artistic music, or as when we read voltaire, rousseau, or macaulay. we perceive art in the arrangement of sentences, in the rhythm, in the symmetry of construction. we see means adapted to an end. the latin races are most marked for artistic writing, especially the french, who seem to be copyists of greek and roman models. we see very little of this artistic writing among the germans, who seem to disdain it as much as an english lawyer or statesman does rhetoric. it is in rhetoric and poetry that art most strikingly appears in the writings of the greeks, and this was perfected by the athenian sophists. but all the greeks, and after them the romans, especially in the time of cicero, sought the graces and fascinations of style. style is an art, and all art is eternal. it is probable also that art was manifested to a high degree in the conversation of the greeks, as they were brilliant talkers,--like brougham, mackintosh, madame de staël, and macaulay, in our times. but i may not follow out, as i could wish, this department of art,--generally overlooked, certainly not dwelt upon like pictures and statues. an interesting and captivating writer or speaker is as much an artist as a sculptor or musician; and unless authors possess art their works are apt to perish, like those of varro, the most learned of the romans. it is the exquisite art seen in all the writings of cicero which makes them classic; it is the style rather than the ideas. the same may be said of horace: it is his elegance of style and language which makes him immortal. it is this singular fascination of language and style which keeps hume on the list of standard and classic writers, like pascal, goldsmith, voltaire, and fénelon. it is on account of these excellences that the classical writers of antiquity will never lose their popularity, and for which they will be imitated, and by which they have exerted their vast influence. art, therefore, in every department, was carried to high excellence by the greeks, and they thus became the teachers of all succeeding races and ages. artists are great exponents of civilization. they are generally learned men, appreciated by the cultivated classes, and usually associating with the rich and proud. the popes rewarded artists while they crushed reformers. i never read of an artist who was persecuted. men do not turn with disdain or anger in disputing with them, as they do from great moral teachers; artists provoke no opposition and stir up no hostile passions. it is the men who propound agitating ideas and who revolutionize the character of nations, that are persecuted. artists create no revolutions, not even of thought. savonarola kindled a greater fire in florence than all the artists whom the medici ever patronized. but if the artists cannot wear the crown of apostles and reformers and sages,--the men who save nations, men like socrates, luther, bacon, descartes, burke,--yet they have fewer evils to contend with in their progress, and they still leave a mighty impression behind them, not like that of moses and paul, but still an influence; they kindle the enthusiasm of a class that cannot be kindled by ideas, and furnish inexhaustible themes of conversation to cultivated people and make life itself graceful and beautiful, enriching our houses and adorning our consecrated temples and elevating our better sentiments. the great artist is himself immortal, even if he contributes very little to save the world. art seeks only the perfection of outward form; it is mundane in its labors; it does not aspire to those beatitudes which shine beyond the grave. and yet it is a great and invaluable assistance to those who would communicate great truths, since it puts them in attractive forms and increases the impression of the truths themselves. to the orator, the historian, the philosopher, and the poet, a knowledge of the principles of art is as important as to the architect, the sculptor, and the painter; and these principles are learned only by study and labor, while they cannot be even conceived of by ordinary men. thus it would appear that in all departments and in all the developments of art the greeks were the teachers of the modern european nations, as well of the ancient romans; and their teachings will be invaluable to all the nations which are yet to arise, since no great improvement has been made on the models which have come down to us, and no new principles have been discovered which were not known to them. in everything which pertains to art they were benefactors of the human race, and gave a great impulse to civilization. authorities. müller's de phidias vita, vitruvius, aristotle. pliny, ovid, martial, lucian, and cicero have made criticisms on ancient art. the modern writers are very numerous, especially among the germans and the french. from these may be selected winckelmann's history of ancient art; müller's remains of ancient art; donaldson's antiquities of athens; sir w. gill's pompeiana; montfançon's antiquité expliquée en figures; ancient marbles of the british museum, by taylor combe; mayer's kunstgechicte; cleghorn's ancient and modern art; wilkinson's topography of thebes; dodwell's classical tour; wilkinson's ancient egyptians; flaxman's lectures on sculpture; fuseli's lectures; sir joshua reynolds's lectures; also see five articles on painting, sculpture, and architecture, in the encyclopaedia britannica, and in smith's dictionary. literary genius: the greek and roman classics. we know but little of the literature of antiquity until the greeks applied to it the principles of art. the sanskrit language has revealed the ancient literature of the hindus, which is chiefly confined to mystical religious poetry, and which has already been mentioned in the chapter on "ancient religions." there was no history worthy the name in india. the egyptians and babylonians recorded the triumphs of warriors and domestic events, but those were mere annals without literary value. it is true that the literary remains of egypt show a reading and writing people as early as three thousand years before christ, and in their various styles of pen-language reveal a remarkable variety of departments and topics treated,--books of religion, of theology, of ethics, of medicine, of astronomy, of magic, of mythic poetry, of fiction, of personal correspondence, etc. the difficulties of deciphering them, however, and their many peculiarities and formalisms of style, render them rather of curious historical and archaeological than of literary interest. the chinese annals also extend back to a remote period, for confucius wrote history as well as ethics; but chinese literature has comparatively little interest for us, as also that of all oriental nations, except the hindu vedas and the persian zend-avesta, and a few other poems showing great fertility of the imagination, with a peculiar tenderness and pathos. accordingly, as i wish to show chiefly the triumphs of ancient genius when directed to literature generally, and especially such as has had a direct influence upon our modern literature, i confine myself to that of greece and rome. even our present civilization delights in the masterpieces of the classical poets, historians, orators, and essayists, and seeks to rival them. long before christianity became a power the great literary artists of greece had reached perfection in style and language, especially in athens, to which city youths were sent to be educated, as to a sort of university town where the highest culture was known. educated romans were as familiar with the greek classics as they were with those of their own country, and could talk greek as the modern cultivated germans talk french. without the aid of greece, rome could never have reached the civilization to which she attained. how rich in poetry was classical antiquity, whether sung in the greek or latin language! in all those qualities which give immortality classical poetry has never been surpassed, whether in simplicity, in passion, in fervor, in fidelity to nature, in wit, or in imagination. it existed from the early times of greek civilization, and continued to within a brief period of the fall of the roman empire. with the rich accumulation of ages the romans were familiar. they knew nothing indeed of the solitary grandeur of the jewish muse, or the nature-myths of the ante-homeric singers; but they possessed the iliad and the odyssey, with their wonderful truthfulness, their clear portraiture of character, their absence of all affectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, their good sense and healthful sentiments, withal so original that the germ of almost every character which has since figured in epic poetry can be found in them. we see in homer a poet of the first class, holding the same place in literature that plato holds in philosophy or newton in science, and exercising a mighty influence on all the ages which have succeeded him. he was born, probably, at smyrna, an ionian city; the dates attributed to him range from the seventh to the twelfth century before christ. herodotus puts him at 850 b.c. for nearly three thousand years his immortal creations have been the delight and the inspiration of men of genius; and they are as marvellous to us as they were to the athenians, since they are exponents of the learning as well as of the consecrated sentiments of the heroic ages. we find in them no pomp of words, no far-fetched thoughts, no theatrical turgidity, no ambitious speculations, no indefinite longings; but we see the manners and customs of the primitive nations, the sights and wonders of the external world, the marvellously interesting traits of human nature as it was and is; and with these we have lessons of moral wisdom,--all recorded with singular simplicity yet astonishing artistic skill. we find in the homeric narrative accuracy, delicacy, naturalness, with grandeur, sentiment, and beauty, such as phidias represented in his statues of zeus. no poems have ever been more popular, and none have extorted greater admiration from critics. like shakspeare, homer is a kind of bible to both the learned and unlearned among all peoples and ages, --one of the prodigies of the world. his poems form the basis of greek literature, and are the best understood and the most widely popular of all grecian compositions. the unconscious simplicity of the homeric narrative, its high moral tone, its vivid pictures, its graphic details, and its religious spirit create an enthusiasm such as few works of genius can claim. moreover it presents a painting of society, with its simplicity and ferocity, its good and evil passions, its tenderness and its fierceness, such as no other poem affords. its influence on the popular mythology of the greeks has been already alluded to. if homer did not create the grecian theogony, he gave form and fascination to it. nor is it necessary to speak of any other grecian epic, when the iliad and the odyssey attest the perfection which was attained one hundred and twenty years before hesiod was born. grote thinks that the iliad and the odyssey were produced at some period between 850 b.c. and 776 b.c. in lyrical poetry the greeks were no less remarkable; indeed they attained to what may be called absolute perfection, owing to the intimate connection between poetry and music, and the wonderful elasticity and adaptiveness of their language. who has surpassed pindar in artistic skill? his triumphal odes are paeans, in which piety breaks out in expressions of the deepest awe and the most elevated sentiments of moral wisdom. they alone of all his writings have descended to us, but these, made up as they are of odic fragments, songs, dirges, and panegyrics, show the great excellence to which he attained. he was so celebrated that he was employed by the different states and princes of greece to compose choral songs for special occasions, especially for the public games. although a theban, he was held in the highest estimation by the athenians, and was courted by kings and princes. born in thebes 522 b.c., he died probably in his eightieth year, being contemporary with aeschylus and the battle of marathon. we possess also fragments of sappho, simonides, anacreon, and others, enough to show that could the lyrical poetry of greece be recovered, we should probably possess the richest collection that the world has produced. greek dramatic poetry was still more varied and remarkable. even the great masterpieces of sophocles and euripides now extant were regarded by their contemporaries as inferior to many other greek tragedies utterly unknown to us. the great creator of the greek drama was aeschylus, born at eleusis 525 b.c. it was not till the age of forty-one that he gained his first prize. sixteen years afterward, defeated by sophocles, he quitted athens in disgust and went to the court of hiero, king of syracuse. but he was always held, even at athens, in the highest honor, and his pieces were frequently reproduced upon the stage. it was not so much the object of aeschylus to amuse an audience as to instruct and elevate it. he combined religious feeling with lofty moral sentiment, and had unrivalled power over the realm of astonishment and terror. "at his summons," says sir walter scott, "the mysterious and tremendous volume of destiny, in which is inscribed the doom of gods and men, seemed to display its leaves of iron before the appalled spectators; the more than mortal voices of deities, titans, and departed heroes were heard in awful conference; heaven bowed, and its divinities descended; earth yawned, and gave up the pale spectres of the dead and yet more undefined and ghastly forms of those infernal deities who struck horror into the gods themselves." his imagination dwells in the loftiest regions of the old mythology of greece; his tone is always pure and moral, though stern and harsh; he appeals to the most violent passions, and is full of the boldest metaphors. in sublimity aeschylus has never been surpassed. he was in poetry what phidias and michael angelo were in art. the critics say that his sublimity of diction is sometimes carried to an extreme, so that his language becomes inflated. his characters, like his sentiments, were sublime,--they were gods and heroes of colossal magnitude. his religious views were homeric, and he sought to animate his countrymen to deeds of glory, as it became one of the generals who fought at marathon to do. he was an unconscious genius, and worked like homer without a knowledge of artistic laws. he was proud and impatient, and his poetry was religious rather than moral. he wrote seventy plays, of which only seven are extant; but these are immortal, among the greatest creations of human genius, like the dramas of shakspeare. he died in sicily, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. the fame of sophocles is scarcely less than that of aeschylus. he was twenty-seven years of age when he publicly appeared as a poet. he was born in colonus, in the suburbs of athens, 495 b.c., and was the contemporary of herodotus, of pericles, of pindar, of phidias, of socrates, of cimon, of euripides,--the era of great men, the period of the peloponnesian war, when everything that was elegant and intellectual culminated at athens. sophocles had every element of character and person to fascinate the greeks,--beauty of face, symmetry of form, skill in gymnastics, calmness and dignity of manner, a cheerful and amiable temper, a ready wit, a meditative piety, a spontaneity of genius, an affectionate admiration for talent, and patriotic devotion to his country. his tragedies, by the universal consent of the best critics, are the perfection of the greek drama; and they moreover maintain that he has no rival, aeschylus and shakspeare alone excepted, in the whole realm of dramatic poetry. it was the peculiarity of sophocles to excite emotions of sorrow and compassion. he loved to paint forlorn heroes. he was human in all his sympathies, perhaps not so religious as aeschylus, but as severely ethical; not so sublime, but more perfect in art. his sufferers are not the victims of an inexorable destiny, but of their own follies. nor does he even excite emotion apart from a moral end. he lived to be ninety years old, and produced the most beautiful of his tragedies in his eightieth year, the "oedipus at colonus." sophocles wrote the astonishing number of one hundred and thirty plays, and carried off the first prize twenty-four times. his "antigone" was written when he was forty-five, and when euripides had already gained a prize. only seven of his tragedies have survived, but these are priceless treasures. euripides, the last of the great triumvirate of the greek tragic poets, was born at athens, 485 b.c. he had not the sublimity of aeschylus, nor the touching pathos of sophocles, nor the stern simplicity of either, but in seductive beauty and successful appeal to passion was superior to both. in his tragedies the passion of love predominates, but it does not breathe the purity of sentiment which marked the tragedies of aeschylus and sophocles; it approaches rather to the tone of the modern drama. he paints the weakness and corruptions of society, and brings his subjects to the level of common life. he was the pet of the sophists, and was pantheistic in his views. he does not attempt to show ideal excellence, and his characters represent men not as they ought to be, but as they are, especially in corrupt states of society. euripides wrote ninety-five plays, of which eighteen are extant. whatever objection may be urged to his dramas on the score of morality, nobody can question their transcendent art or their great originality. with the exception of shakspeare, all succeeding dramatists have copied the three great greek tragic poets whom we have just named,--especially racine, who took sophocles for his model,--even as the great epic poets of all ages have been indebted to homer. the greeks were no less distinguished for comedy than for tragedy. both tragedy and comedy sprang from feasts in honor of bacchus; and as the jests and frolics were found misplaced when introduced into grave scenes, a separate province of the drama was formed, and comedy arose. at first it did not derogate from the religious purposes which were at the foundation of the greek drama; it turned upon parodies in which the adventures of the gods were introduced by way of sport,--as in describing the appetite of hercules or the cowardice of bacchus. the comic authors entertained spectators by fantastic and gross displays, by the exhibition of buffoonery and pantomime. but the taste of the athenians was too severe to relish such entertainments, and comedy passed into ridicule of public men and measures and the fashions of the day. the people loved to see their great men brought down to their own level. comedy, however, did not flourish until the morals of society were degenerated, and ridicule had become the most effective weapon wherewith to assail prevailing follies. in modern times, comedy reached its culminating point when society was both the most corrupt and the most intellectual,--as in france, when molière pointed his envenomed shafts against popular vices. in greece it flourished in the age of socrates and the sophists, when there was great bitterness in political parties and an irrepressible desire for novelties. comedy first made itself felt as a great power in cratinus, who espoused the side of cimon against pericles with great bitterness and vehemence. many were the comic writers of that age of wickedness and genius, but all yielded precedence to aristophanes, of whose writings only his plays have reached us. never were libels on persons of authority and influence uttered with such terrible license. he attacked the gods, the politicians, the philosophers, and the poets of athens; even private citizens did not escape from his shafts, and women were the subjects of his irony. socrates was made the butt of his ridicule when most revered, cleon in the height of his power, and euripides when he had gained the highest prizes. aristophanes has furnished jests for rabelais, hints to swift, and humor for molière. in satire, in derision, in invective, and bitter scorn he has never been surpassed. no modern capital would tolerate such unbounded license; yet no plays in their day were ever more popular, or more fully exposed follies which could not otherwise be reached. aristophanes is called the father of comedy, and his comedies are of great historical importance, although his descriptions are doubtless caricatures. he was patriotic in his intentions, even setting up as a reformer. his peculiar genius shines out in his "clouds," the greatest of his pieces, in which he attacks the sophists. he wrote fifty-four plays. he was born 444 b.c., and died 380 b.c. thus it would appear that in the three great departments of poetry,--the epic, the lyric, and the dramatic,--the old greeks were great masters, and have been the teachers of all subsequent nations and ages. the romans in these departments were not the equals of the greeks, but they were very successful copyists, and will bear comparison with modern nations. if the romans did not produce a homer, they can boast of a virgil; if they had no pindar, they furnished a horace; and in satire they transcended the greeks. the romans produced no poetry worthy of notice until the greek language and literature were introduced among them. it was not till the fall of tarentum that we read of a roman poet. livius andronicus, a greek slave, 240 b.c., rudely translated the odyssey into latin, and was the author of various plays, all of which have perished, and none of which, according to cicero, were worth a second perusal. still, andronicus was the first to substitute the greek drama for the old lyrical stage poetry. one year after the first punic war, he exhibited the first roman play. as the creator of the drama he deserves historical notice, though he has no claim to originality, but, like a schoolmaster as he was, pedantically labored to imitate the culture of the greeks. his plays formed the commencement of roman translation-literature, and naturalized the greek metres in latium, even though they were curiosities rather than works of art. naevius, 235 b.c., produced a play at rome, and wrote both epic and dramatic poetry, but so little has survived that no judgment can be formed of his merits. he was banished for his invectives against the aristocracy, who did not relish severity of comedy. mommsen regards naevius as the first of the romans who deserves to be ranked among the poets. his language was free from stiffness and affectation, and his verses had a graceful flow. in metres he closely adhered to andronicus. plautus was perhaps the first great dramatic poet whom the romans produced, and his comedies are still admired by critics as both original and fresh. he was born in umbria, 257 b.c., and was contemporaneous with publius and cneius scipio. he died 184 b.c. the first development of roman genius in the field of poetry seems to have been the dramatic, in which still the greek authors were copied. plautus might be mistaken for a greek, were it not for the painting of roman manners, for his garb is essentially greek. plautus wrote one hundred and thirty plays, not always for the stage, but for the reading public. he lived about the time of the second punic war, before the theatre was fairly established at rome. his characters, although founded on greek models, act, speak, and joke like romans. he enjoyed great popularity down to the latest times of the empire, while the purity of his language, as well as the felicity of his wit, was celebrated by the ancient critics. cicero places his wit on a par with the old attic comedy; while jerome spent much time in reading his comedies, even though they afterward cost him tears of bitter regret. modern dramatists owe much to plautus. molière has imitated him in his "avare," and shakspeare in his "comedy of errors." lessing pronounces the "captivi" to be the finest comedy ever brought upon the stage; he translated this play into german, and it has also been admirably translated into english. the great excellence of plautus was the masterly handling of language, and the adjusting the parts for dramatic effect. his humor, broad and fresh, produced irresistible comic effects. no one ever surpassed him in his vocabulary of nicknames and his happy jokes. hence he maintained his popularity in spite of his vulgarity. terence shares with plautus the throne of roman comedy. he was a carthaginian slave, born 185 b.c., but was educated by a wealthy roman into whose hands he fell, and ever after associated with the best society and travelled extensively in greece. he was greatly inferior to plautus in originality, and has not exerted a like lasting influence; but he wrote comedies characterized by great purity of diction, which have been translated into all modern languages. terence, whom mommsen regards as the most polished, elegant, and chaste of all the poets of the newer comedy, closely copied the greek menander. unlike plautus, he drew his characters from good society, and his comedies, if not moral, were decent. plautus wrote for the multitude, terence for the few; plautus delighted in noisy dialogue and slang expressions; terence confined himself to quiet conversation and elegant expressions, for which he was admired by cicero and quintilian and other great critics. he aspired to the approval of the cultivated, rather than the applause of the vulgar; and it is a remarkable fact that his comedies supplanted the more original productions of plautus in the later years of the republic, showing that the literature of the aristocracy was more prized than that of the people, even in a degenerate age. the "thyestes" of varius was regarded in its day as equal to greek tragedies. ennius composed tragedies in a vigorous style, and was regarded by the romans as the parent of their literature, although most of his works have perished. virgil borrowed many of his thoughts, and was regarded as the prince of roman song in the time of cicero. the latin language is greatly indebted to him. pacuvius imitated aeschylus in the loftiness of his style. from the times before the augustan age no tragic production has reached us, although quintilian speaks highly of accius, especially of the vigor of his style; but he merely imitated the greeks. the only tragedy of the romans which has reached us was written by seneca the philosopher. in epic poetry the romans accomplished more, though even here they are still inferior to the greeks. the aeneid of virgil has certainly survived the material glories of rome. it may not have come up to the exalted ideal of its author; it may be defaced by political flatteries; it may not have the force and originality of the iliad,--but it is superior in art, and delineates the passion of love with more delicacy than can be found in any greek author. in soundness of judgment, in tenderness of feeling, in chastened fancy, in picturesque description, in delineation of character, in matchless beauty of diction, and in splendor of versification, it has never been surpassed by any poem in any language, and proudly takes its place among the imperishable works of genius. henry thompson, in his "history of roman literature," says:-"availing himself of the pride and superstition of the roman people, the poet traces the origin and establishment of the 'eternal city' to those heroes and actions which had enough in them of what was human and ordinary to excite the sympathies of his countrymen, intermingled with persons and circumstances of an extraordinary and superhuman character to awaken their admiration and awe. no subject could have been more happily chosen. it has been admired also for its perfect unity of action; for while the episodes command the richest variety of description, they are always subordinate to the main object of the poem, which is to impress the divine authority under which aeneas first settled in italy. the wrath of juno, upon which the whole fate of aeneas seems to turn, is at once that of a woman and a goddess; the passion of dido and her general character bring us nearer to the present world,--but the poet is continually introducing higher and more effectual influences, until, by the intervention of gods and men, the trojan name is to be continued in the roman, and thus heaven and earth are appeased." probably no one work of man has had such a wide and profound influence as this poem of virgil,--a textbook in all schools since the revival of learning, the model of the carlovingian poets, the guide of dante, the oracle of tasso. virgil was born seventy years before christ, and was seven years older than augustus. his parentage was humble, but his facilities of education were great. he was a most fortunate man, enjoying the friendship of augustus and maecenas, fame in his own lifetime, leisure to prosecute his studies, and ample rewards for his labors. he died at brundusium at the age of fifty. in lyrical poetry, the romans can boast of one of the greatest masters of any age or nation. the odes of horace have never been transcended, and will probably remain through all ages the delight of scholars. they may not have the deep religious sentiment and unity of imagination and passion which belong to the greek lyrical poets, but as works of art, of exquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images, they are unrivalled. even in the time of juvenal his poems were the common school-books of roman youth. horace, born 65 b.c., like virgil was also a favored man, enjoying the friendship of the great, and possessing ease, fame, and fortune; but his longings for retirement and his disgust at the frivolities around him are a sad commentary on satisfied desires. his odes composed but a small part of his writings. his epistles are the most perfect of his productions, and rank with the "georgics" of virgil and the "satires" of juvenal as the most perfect form of roman verse. his satires are also admirable, but without the fierce vehemence and lofty indignation that characterized those of juvenal. it is the folly rather than the wickedness of vice which horace describes with such playful skill and such keenness of observation. he was the first to mould the latin tongue to the greek lyric measures. quintilian's criticism is indorsed by all scholars,--_lyricorum horatius fere solus legi dignus, in verbis felicissime audax_. no poetry was ever more severely elaborated than that of horace, and the melody of the language imparts to it a peculiar fascination. if inferior to pindar in passion and loftiness, it glows with a more genial humanity and with purer wit. it cannot be enjoyed fully except by those versed in the experiences of life, who perceive in it a calm wisdom, a penetrating sagacity, a sober enthusiasm, and a refined taste, which are unusual even among the masters of human thought. it is the fashion to depreciate the original merits of this poet, as well as those of virgil, plautus, and terence, because they derived so much assistance from the greeks. but the greeks also borrowed from one another. pure originality is impossible. it is the mission of art to add to its stores, without hoping to monopolize the whole realm. even shakspeare, the most original of modern poets, was vastly indebted to those who went before him, and he has not escaped the hypercriticism of minute observers. in this mention of lyrical poetry i have not spoken of catullus, unrivalled in tender lyric, the greatest poet before the augustan era. he was born 87 b.c., and enjoyed the friendship of the most celebrated characters. one hundred and sixteen of his poems have come down to us, most of which are short, and many of them defiled by great coarseness and sensuality. critics say, however, that whatever he touched he adorned; that his vigorous simplicity, pungent wit, startling invective, and felicity of expression make him one of the great poets of the latin language. in didactic poetry lucretius was pre-eminent, and is regarded by schlegel as the first of roman poets in native genius. he was born 95 b.c., and died at the age of forty-two by his own hand. his principal poem "de rerum natura" is a delineation of the epicurean philosophy, and treats of all the great subjects of thought with which his age was conversant. somewhat resembling pope's "essay on man" in style and subject, it is immeasurably superior in poetical genius. it is a lengthened disquisition, in seven thousand four hundred lines, upon the great phenomena of the outward world. as a painter and worshipper of nature, lucretius was superior to all the poets of antiquity. his skill in presenting abstruse speculations is marvellous, and his outbursts of poetic genius are matchless in power and beauty. into all subjects he casts a fearless eye, and writes with sustained enthusiasm. but he was not fully appreciated by his countrymen, although no other poet has so fully brought out the power of the latin language. professor ramsay, while alluding to the melancholy tenderness of tibullus, the exquisite ingenuity of ovid, the inimitable felicity and taste of horace, the gentleness and splendor of virgil, and the vehement declamation of juvenal, thinks that had the verse of lucretius perished we should never have known that the latin could give utterance to the grandest conceptions, with all that self-sustained majesty and harmonious swell in which the grecian muse rolls forth her loftiest outpourings. the eulogium of ovid is- "carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura lucretî, exitio terras quum dabit una dies." elegiac poetry has an honorable place in roman literature. to this school belongs ovid, born 43 b.c., died 18 a.d., whose "tristia," a doleful description of the evils of exile, were much admired by the romans. his most famous work was his "metamorphoses," mythologic legends involving transformations,--a most poetical and imaginative production. he, with that self-conscious genius common to poets, declares that his poem would be proof against sword, fire, thunder, and time,--a prediction, says bayle, which has not yet proved false. niebuhr thinks that ovid next to catullus was the most poetical of his countrymen. milton thinks he might have surpassed virgil, had he attempted epic poetry. he was nearest to the romantic school of all the classical authors; and chaucer, ariosto, and spenser owe to him great obligations. like pope, his verses flowed spontaneously. his "tristia" were more highly praised than his "amores" or his "metamorphoses," a fact which shows that contemporaries are not always the best judges of real merit. his poems, great as was their genius, are deficient in the severe taste which marked the greeks, and are immoral in their tendency. he had great advantages, but was banished by augustus for his description of licentious love. nor did he support exile with dignity; he languished like cicero when doomed to a similar fate, and died of a broken heart. but few intellectual men have ever been able to live at a distance from the scene of their glories, and without the stimulus of high society. chrysostom is one of the few exceptions. ovid, as an immoral writer, was justly punished. tibullus, also a famous elegiac poet, was born the same year as ovid, and was the friend of the poet horace. he lived in retirement, and was both gentle and amiable. at his beautiful country-seat he soothed his soul with the charms of literature and the simple pleasures of the country. niebuhr pronounces the elegies of tibullus to be doleful, but merivale thinks that "the tone of tender melancholy in which he sung his unprosperous loves had a deeper and purer source than the caprices of three inconstant paramours.... his spirit is eminently religious, though it bids him fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in hope. he alone of all the great poets of his day remained undazzled by the glitter of the caesarian usurpation, and pined away in unavailing despondency while beholding the subjugation of his country." propertius, the contemporary of tibullus, born 51 b.c., was on the contrary the most eager of all the flatterers of augustus,--a man of wit and pleasure, whose object of idolatry was cynthia, a poetess and a courtesan. he was an imitator of the greeks, but had a great contemporary fame. he showed much warmth of passion, but never soared into the sublime heights of poetry, like his rival. such were among the great elegiac poets of rome, who were generally devoted to the delineation of the passion of love. the older english poets resembled them in this respect, but none of them have risen to such lofty heights as the later ones,--for instance, wordsworth and tennyson. it is in lyric poetry that the moderns have chiefly excelled the ancients, in variety, in elevation of sentiment, and in imagination. the grandeur and originality of the ancients were displayed rather in epic and dramatic poetry. in satire the romans transcended both the greeks and the moderns. satire arose with lucilius, 148 b.c., in the time of marius, an age when freedom of speech was tolerated. horace was the first to gain immortality in this department. next persius comes, born 34 a.d., the friend of lucian and seneca in the time of nero, who painted the vices of his age as it was passing to that degradation which marked the reign of domitian, when juvenal appeared. the latter, disdaining fear, boldly set forth the abominations of the times, and struck without distinction all who departed from duty and conscience. there is nothing in any language which equals the fire, the intensity, and the bitterness of juvenal, not even the invectives of swift and pope. but he flourished during the decline of literature, and had neither the taste nor the elegance of the augustan writers. he was born 60 a.d., the son of a freedman, and was the contemporary of martial. he was banished by domitian on account of a lampoon against a favorite dancer, but under the reign of nerva he returned to rome, and the imperial tyranny was the subject of his bitterest denunciation next to the degradation of public morals. his great rival in satire was horace, who laughed at follies; but juvenal, more austere, exaggerated and denounced them. his sarcasms on women have never been equalled in severity, and we cannot but hope that they were unjust. from an historical point of view, as a delineation of the manners of his age, his satires are priceless, even like the epigrams of martial. this uncompromising poet, not pliant and easy like horace, animadverted like an incorruptible censor on the vices which were undermining the moral health and preparing the way for violence; on the hypocrisy of philosophers and the cruelty of tyrants; on the frivolity of women and the debauchery of men. he discoursed on the vanity of human wishes with the moral wisdom of dr. johnson, and urged self-improvement like socrates and epictetus. i might speak of other celebrated poets,--of lucan, of martial, of petronius; but i only wish to show that the great poets of antiquity, both greek and roman, have never been surpassed in genius, in taste, and in art, and that few were ever more honored in their lifetime by appreciating admirers,--showing the advanced state of civilization which was reached in those classic countries in everything pertaining to the realm of thought and art. the genius of the ancients was displayed in prose composition as well as in poetry, although perfection was not so soon attained. the poets were the great creators of the languages of antiquity. it was not until they had produced their immortal works that the languages were sufficiently softened and refined to admit of great beauty in prose. but prose requires art as well as poetry. there is an artistic rhythm in the writings of the classical authors--like those of cicero, herodotus, and thucydides--as marked as in the beautiful measure of homer and virgil. plato did not write poetry, but his prose is as "musical as apollo's lyre." burke and macaulay are as great artists in style as tennyson himself. and it is seldom that men, either in ancient or modern times, have been distinguished for both kinds of composition, although voltaire, schiller, milton, swift, and scott are among the exceptions. cicero, the greatest prose writer of antiquity, produced in poetry only a single inferior work, which was laughed at by his contemporaries. bacon, with all his affluence of thought, vigor of imagination, and command of language, could not write poetry any easier than pope could write prose,--although it is asserted by some modern writers, of no great reputation, that bacon wrote shakspeare's plays. all sorts of prose compositions were carried to perfection by both greeks and romans, in history, in criticism, in philosophy, in oratory, in epistles. the earliest great prose writer among the greeks was herodotus, 484 b.c., from which we may infer that history was the first form of prose composition to attain development. but herodotus was not born until aeschylus had gained a prize for tragedy, nor for more than two hundred years after simonides the lyric poet nourished, and probably five or six hundred years after homer sang his immortal epics; yet though two thousand years and more have passed since he wrote, the style of this great "father of history" is admired by every critic, while his history as a work of art is still a study and a marvel. it is difficult to understand why no work in prose anterior to herodotus is worthy of note, since the greeks had attained a high civilization two hundred years before he appeared, and the language had reached a high point of development under homer for more than five hundred years. the history of herodotus was probably written in the decline of life, when his mind was enriched with great attainments in all the varied learning of his age, and when he had conversed with most of the celebrated men of the various countries he had visited. it pertains chiefly to the wars of the greeks with the persians; but in his frequent episodes, which do not impair the unity of the work, he is led to speak of the manners and customs of the oriental nations. it was once the fashion to speak of herodotus as a credulous man, who embodied the most improbable though interesting stories. but now it is believed that no historian was ever more profound, conscientious, and careful; and all modern investigations confirm his sagacity and impartiality. he was one of the most accomplished men of antiquity, or of any age,--an enlightened and curious traveller, a profound thinker; a man of universal knowledge, familiar with the whole range of literature, art, and science in his day; acquainted with all the great men of greece and at the courts of asiatic princes; the friend of sophocles, of pericles, of thucydides, of aspasia, of socrates, of damon, of zeno, of phidias, of protagoras, of euripides, of polygnotus, of anaxagoras, of xenophon, of alcibiades, of lysias, of aristophanes,--the most brilliant constellation of men of genius who were ever found together within the walls of a grecian city,--respected and admired by these great lights, all of whom were inferior to him in knowledge. thus was he fitted for his task by travel, by study, and by intercourse with the great, to say nothing of his original genius. the greatest prose work which had yet appeared in greece was produced by herodotus,--a prose epic, severe in taste, perfect in unity, rich in moral wisdom, charming in style, religious in spirit, grand in subject, without a coarse passage; simple, unaffected, and beautiful, like the narratives of the bible, amusing yet instructive, easy to understand, yet extending to the utmost boundaries of human research,--a model for all subsequent historians. so highly was this historic composition valued by the athenians when their city was at the height of its splendor that they decreed to its author ten talents (about twelve thousand dollars) for reciting it. he even went from city to city, a sort of prose rhapsodist, or like a modern lecturer, reciting his history,--an honored and extraordinary man, a sort of humboldt, having mastered everything. and he wrote, not for fame, but to communicate the results of inquiries made to satisfy his craving for knowledge, which he obtained by personal investigation at dodona, at delphi, at samos, at athens, at corinth, at thebes, at tyre; he even travelled into egypt, scythia, asia minor, palestine, babylonia, italy, and the islands of the sea. his episode on egypt is worth more, from an historical point of view, than all things combined which have descended to us from antiquity. herodotus was the first to give dignity to history; nor in truthfulness, candor, and impartiality has he ever been surpassed. his very simplicity of style is a proof of his transcendent art, even as it is the evidence of his severity of taste. the translation of this great history by rawlinson, with notes, is invaluable. to thucydides, as an historian, the modern world also assigns a proud pre-eminence. he was born 471 b.c., and lived twenty years in exile on account of a military failure. he treated only of a short period, during the peloponnesian war; but the various facts connected with that great event could be known only by the most minute and careful inquiries. he devoted twenty-seven years to the composition of his narrative, and weighed his evidence with the most scrupulous care. his style has not the fascination of herodotus, but it is more concise. in a single volume thucydides relates what could scarcely be compressed into eight volumes of a modern history. as a work of art, of its kind it is unrivalled. in his description of the plague of athens this writer is as minute as he is simple. he abounds with rich moral reflections, and has a keen perception of human character. his pictures are striking and tragic. he is vigorous and intense, and every word he uses has a meaning, but some of his sentences are not always easily understood. one of the greatest tributes which can be paid to him is the estimate of an able critic, george long, that we have a more exact history of a protracted and eventful period by thucydides than we have of any period in modern history equally extended and eventful; and all this is compressed into a volume. xenophon is the last of the trio of the greek historians whose writings are classic and inimitable. he was born probably about 444 b.c. he is characterized by great simplicity and absence of affectation. his "anabasis," in which he describes the expedition of the younger cyrus and the retreat of the ten thousand greeks, is his most famous book. but his "cyropaedia," in which the history of cyrus is the subject, although still used as a classic in colleges for the beauty of its style, has no value as a history, since the author merely adopted the current stories of his hero without sufficient investigation. xenophon wrote a variety of treatises and dialogues, but his "memorabilia" of socrates is the most valuable. all antiquity and all modern writers unite in ascribing to xenophon great merit as a writer and great moral elevation as a man. if we pass from the greek to the latin historians,--to those who were as famous as the greek, and whose merit has scarcely been transcended in our modern times, if indeed it has been equalled,--the great names of sallust, of caesar, of livy, of tacitus rise up before us, together with a host of other names we have not room or disposition to present, since we only aim to show that the ancients were at least our equals in this great department of prose composition. the first great masters of the greek language in prose were the historians, so far as we can judge by the writings that have descended to us, although it is probable that the orators may have shaped the language before them, and given it flexibility and refinement the first great prose writers of rome were the orators; nor was the latin language fully developed and polished until cicero appeared. but we do not here write a history of the language; we speak only of those who wrote immortal works in the various departments of learning. as herodotus did not arise until the greek language had been already formed by the poets, so no great prose writer appeared among the romans for a considerable time after plautus, terence, ennius, and lucretius flourished. the first great historian was sallust, the contemporary of cicero, born 86 b.c., the year that marius died. q. fabius pictor, m. portius cato, and l. cal. piso had already written works which are mentioned with respect by latin authors, but they were mere annalists or antiquarians, like the chroniclers of the middle ages, and had no claim as artists. sallust made thucydides his model, but fell below him in genius and elevated sentiment. he was born a plebeian, and rose to distinction by his talents, but was ejected from the senate for his profligacy. afterward he made a great fortune as praetor and governor of numidia, and lived in magnificence on the quirinal,--one of the most profligate of the literary men of antiquity. we possess but a small portion of his works, but the fragments which have come down to us show peculiar merit. he sought to penetrate the human heart, and to reveal the secret motives which actuate the conduct of men. the style of sallust is brilliant, but his art is always apparent; he is clear and lively, but rhetorical. like voltaire, who inaugurated modern history, sallust thought more of style than of accuracy as to facts. he was a party man, and never soared beyond his party. he aped the moralist, but exalted egoism and love of pleasure into proper springs of action, and honored talent disconnected with virtue. like carlyle, sallust exalted _strong_ men, and _because_ they were strong. he was not comprehensive like cicero, or philosophical like thucydides, although he affected philosophy as he did morality. he was the first who deviated from the strict narratives of events, and also introduced much rhetorical declamation, which he puts into the mouths of his heroes. he wrote for _éclat_. julius caesar, born 100 or 102 b.c., as an historian ranks higher than sallust, and no roman ever wrote purer latin. yet his historical works, however great their merit, but feebly represent the transcendent genius of the most august name of antiquity. he was mathematician, architect, poet, philologist, orator, jurist, general, statesman, and imperator. in eloquence he was second only to cicero. the great value of caesar's history is in the sketches of the productions, the manners, the customs, and the political conditions of gaul, britain, and germany. his observations on military science, on the operation of sieges and the construction of bridges and military engines are valuable; but the description of his military career is only a studied apology for his crimes,--even as the bulletins of napoleon were set forth to show his victories in the most favorable light. caesar's fame rests on his victories and successes as a statesman rather than on his merits as an historian,--even as louis napoleon will live in history for his deeds rather than as the apologist of his great usurping prototype. caesar's "commentaries" resemble the history of herodotus more than any other latin production, at least in style; they are simple and unaffected, precise and elegant, plain and without pretension. the augustan age which followed, though it produced a constellation of poets who shed glory upon the throne before which they prostrated themselves in abject homage, like the courtiers of louis xiv., still was unfavorable to prose composition,--to history as well as eloquence. of the historians of that age, livy, born 59 b.c., is the only one whose writings are known to us, in the shape of some fragments of his history. he was a man of distinction at court, and had a great literary reputation,--so great that a spaniard travelled from cadiz on purpose to see him. most of the great historians of the world have occupied places of honor and rank, which were given to them not as prizes for literary successes, but for the experience, knowledge, and culture which high social position and ample means secure. herodotus lived in courts; thucydides was a great general, as also was xenophon; caesar was the first man of his times; sallust was praetor and governor; livy was tutor to claudius; tacitus was praetor and consul; eusebius was bishop and favorite of constantine; ammianus was the friend of the emperor julian; gregory of tours was one of the leading prelates of the west; froissart attended in person, as a man of rank, the military expeditions of his day; clarendon was lord chancellor; burnet was a bishop and favorite of william iii.; thiers and guizot both were prime ministers; while gibbon, hume, robertson, macaulay, grote, milman, froude, neander, niebuhr, müller, dahlman, buckle, prescott, irving, bancroft, motley, have all been men of wealth or position. nor do i remember a single illustrious historian who has been poor and neglected. the ancients regarded livy as the greatest of historians,--an opinion not indorsed by modern critics, on account of his inaccuracies. but his narrative is always interesting, and his language pure. he did not sift evidence like grote, nor generalize like gibbon; but like voltaire and macaulay, he was an artist in style, and possessed undoubted genius. his annals are comprised in one hundred and forty-two books, extending from the foundation of the city to the death of drusus, 9 b.c., of which only thirty-five have come down to us,--an impressive commentary on the vandalism of the middle ages and the ignorance of the monks who could not preserve so great a treasure. "his story flows in a calm, clear, sparkling current, with every charm which simplicity and ease can give." he delineates character with great clearness and power; his speeches are noble rhetorical compositions; his sentences are rhythmical cadences. livy was not a critical historian like herodotus, for he took his materials second-hand, and was ignorant of geography, nor did he write with the exalted ideal of thucydides; but as a painter of beautiful forms, which only a rich imagination could conjure, he is unrivalled in the history of literature. moreover, he was honest and sound in heart, and was just and impartial in reference to those facts with which he was conversant. in the estimation of modern critics the highest rank as an historian is assigned to tacitus, and it would indeed be difficult to find his superior in any age or country. he was born 57 a.d., about forty-three years after the death of augustus. he belonged to the equestrian rank, and was a man of consular dignity. he had every facility for literary labors that leisure, wealth, friends, and social position could give, and lived under a reign when truth might be told. the extant works of this great writer are the "life of agricola," his father-in-law; his "annales," which begin with the death of augustus, 14 a.d., and close with the death of nero, 68 a.d.; the "historiae," which comprise the period from the second consulate of galba, 68 a.d., to the death of domitian; and a treatise on the germans. his histories describe rome in the fulness of imperial glory, when the will of one man was the supreme law of the empire. he also wrote of events that occurred when liberty had fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearly insupportable. he describes a period of great moral degradation, nor does he hesitate to lift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation had wrapped itself. he fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquities of the early emperors, and writes with judicial impartiality respecting all the great characters he describes. no ancient writer shows greater moral dignity and integrity of purpose than tacitus. in point of artistic unity he is superior to livy and equal to thucydides, whom he resembles in conciseness of style. his distinguishing excellence as an historian is his sagacity and impartiality. nothing escapes his penetrating eye; and he inflicts merited chastisement on the tyrants who revelled in the prostrated liberties of his country, while he immortalizes those few who were faithful to duty and conscience in a degenerate age. but the writings of tacitus were not so popular as those of livy, since neither princes nor people relished his intellectual independence and moral elevation. he does not satisfy dr. arnold, who thinks he ought to have been better versed in the history of the jews, and who dislikes his speeches because they were fictitious. neither the latin nor greek historians are admired by those dry critics who seek to give to rare antiquarian matter a disproportionate importance, and to make this matter as fixed and certain as the truths of natural science. history can never be other than an approximation to the truth, even when it relates to the events and characters of its own age. history does not give positive, indisputable knowledge. we know that caesar was ambitious; but we do not know whether he was more or less so than pompey, nor do we know how far he was justified in his usurpation. a great history must have other merits besides accuracy, antiquarian research, and presentation of authorities and notes. it must be a work of art; and art has reference to style and language, to grouping of details and richness of illustration, to eloquence and poetry and beauty. a dry history, however learned, will never be read; it will only be consulted, like a law-book, or mosheim's "commentaries." we require _life_ in history, and it is for their vividness that the writings of livy and tacitus will be perpetuated. voltaire and schiller have no great merit as historians in a technical sense, but the "life of charles xii." and the "thirty years' war" are still classics. neander has written one of the most searching and recondite histories of modern times; but it is too dry, too deficient in art, to be cherished, and may pass away like the voluminous writings of varro, the most learned of the romans. it is the _art_ which is immortal in a book,--not the knowledge, nor even the thoughts. what keeps alive the "provincial letters" of pascal? it is the style, the irony, the elegance that characterize them. the exquisite delineation of character, the moral wisdom, the purity and force of language, the artistic arrangement, and the lively and interesting narrative appealing to all minds, like the "arabian nights" or froissart's "chronicles," are the elements which give immortality to the classic authors. we will not let them perish, because they amuse and interest and inspire us. a remarkable example is that of plutarch, who, although born a greek and writing in the greek language, was a contemporary of tacitus, lived long in rome, and was one of the "immortals" of the imperial age. a teacher of philosophy during his early manhood, he spent his last years as archon and priest of apollo in his native town. his most famous work is his "parallel lives" of forty-six historic greeks and romans, arranged in pairs, depicted with marvellous art and all the fascination of anecdote and social wit, while presenting such clear conceptions of characters and careers, and the whole so restrained within the bounds of good taste and harmonious proportion, as to have been even to this day regarded as forming a model for the ideal biography. but it is taking a narrow view of history to make all writers after the same pattern, even as it would be bigoted to make all christians belong to the same sect. some will be remarkable for style, others for learning, and others again for moral and philosophical wisdom; some will be minute, and others generalizing; some will dig out a multiplicity of facts without apparent object, and others induce from those facts; some will make essays, and others chronicles. we have need of all styles and all kinds of excellence. a great and original thinker may not have the time or opportunity or taste for a minute and searching criticism of original authorities; but he may be able to generalize previously established facts so as to draw most valuable moral instruction from them for the benefit of his readers. history is a boundless field of inquiry; no man can master it in all its departments and periods. it will not do to lay great emphasis on minute details, and neglect the art of generalization. if an historian attempts to embody too much learning, he is likely to be deficient in originality; if he would say everything, he is apt to be dry; if he elaborates too much, he loses animation. moreover, different classes of readers require different kinds and styles of histories; there must be histories for students, histories for old men, histories for young men, histories to amuse, and histories to instruct. if all men were to write history according to dr. arnold's views, we should have histories of interest only to classical scholars. the ancient historians never quoted their sources of knowledge, but were valued for their richness of thoughts and artistic beauty of style. the ages in which they flourished attached no value to pedantic displays of learning paraded in foot-notes. thus the great historians whom i have mentioned, both greek and latin, have few equals and no superiors in our own times in those things that are most to be admired. they were not pedants, but men of immense genius and genuine learning, who blended the profoundest principles of moral wisdom with the most fascinating narrative,--men universally popular among learned and unlearned, great artists in style, and masters of the language in which they wrote. rome can boast of no great historian after tacitus, who should have belonged to the ciceronian epoch. suetonius, born about the year 70 a.d., shortly after nero's death, was rather a biographer than an historian; nor as a biographer does he take a high rank. his "lives of the caesars," like diogenes laertius's "lives of the philosophers," are rather anecdotical than historical. l. anneus florus, who flourished during the reign of trajan, has left a series of sketches of the different wars from the days of romulus to those of augustus. frontinus epitomized the large histories of pompeius. ammianus marcellinus wrote a history from nerva to valens, and is often quoted by gibbon. but none wrote who should be adduced as examples of the triumph of genius, except sallust, caesar, livy, plutarch, and tacitus. * * * * * there is another field of prose composition in which the greeks and romans gained great distinction, and proved themselves equal to any nation of modern times,--that of eloquence. it is true, we have not a rich collection of ancient speeches; but we have every reason to believe that both greeks and romans were most severely trained in the art of public speaking, and that forensic eloquence was highly prized and munificently rewarded. it began with democratic institutions, and flourished as long as the people were a great power in the state; it declined whenever and wherever tyrants bore rule. eloquence and liberty flourish together; nor can there be eloquence where there is not freedom of debate. in the fifth century before christ--the first century of democracy--great orators arose, for without the power and the opportunity of defending himself against accusation no man could hold an ascendent position. socrates insisted upon the gift of oratory for a general in the army as well as for a leader in political life. in athens the courts of justice were numerous, and those who could not defend themselves were obliged to secure the services of those who were trained in the use of public speaking. thus arose the lawyers, among whom eloquence was more in demand and more richly paid than in any other class. rhetoric became connected with dialectics, and in greece, sicily, and italy both were extensively cultivated. empedocles was distinguished as much for rhetoric as for philosophy. it was not, however, in the courts of law that eloquence displayed the greatest fire and passion, but in political assemblies. these could only coexist with liberty; for a democracy is more favorable than an aristocracy to large assemblies of citizens. in the grecian republics eloquence as an art may be said to have been born. it was nursed and fed by political agitation, by the strife of parties. it arose from appeals to the people as a source of power: when the people were not cultivated, it addressed chiefly popular passions and prejudices; when they were enlightened, it addressed interests. it was in athens, where there existed the purest form of democratic institutions, that eloquence rose to the loftiest heights in the ancient world, so far as eloquence appeals to popular passions. pericles, the greatest statesman of greece, 495 b.c., was celebrated for his eloquence, although no specimens remain to us. it was conceded by the ancient authors that his oratory was of the highest kind, and the epithet of "olympian" was given him, as carrying the weapons of zeus upon his tongue. his voice was sweet, and his utterance distinct and rapid. peisistratus was also famous for his eloquence, although he was a usurper and a tyrant. isocrates, 436 b.c., was a professed rhetorician, and endeavored to base his art upon sound moral principles, and rescue it from the influence of the sophists. he was the great teacher of the most eminent statesmen of his day. twenty-one of his orations have come down to us, and they are excessively polished and elaborated; but they were written to be read, they were not extemporary. his language is the purest and most refined attic dialect. lysias, 458 b.c., was a fertile writer of orations also, and he is reputed to have produced as many as four hundred and twenty-five; of these only thirty-five are extant. they are characterized by peculiar gracefulness and elegance, which did not interfere with strength. so able were these orations that only two were unsuccessful. they were so pure that they were regarded as the best canon of the attic idiom. but all the orators of greece--and greece was the land of orators--gave way to demosthenes, born 385 b.c. he received a good education, and is said to have been instructed in philosophy by plato and in eloquence by isocrates; but it is more probable that he privately prepared himself for his brilliant career. as soon as he attained his majority, he brought suits against the men whom his father had appointed his guardians, for their waste of property, and after two years was successful, conducting the prosecution himself. it was not until the age of thirty that he appeared as a speaker in the public assembly on political matters, where he rapidly attained universal respect, and became one of the leading statesmen of athens. henceforth he took an active part in every question that concerned the state. he especially distinguished himself in his speeches against macedonian aggrandizements, and his philippics are perhaps the most brilliant of his orations. but the cause which he advocated was unfortunate; the battle of cheronaea, 338 b.c., put an end to the independence of greece, and philip of macedon was all-powerful. for this catastrophe demosthenes was somewhat responsible, but as his motives were conceded to be pure and his patriotism lofty, he retained the confidence of his countrymen. accused by aeschines, he delivered his famous oration on the crown. afterward, during the supremacy of alexander, demosthenes was again accused, and suffered exile. recalled from exile on the death of alexander, he roused himself for the deliverance of greece, without success; and hunted by his enemies he took poison in the sixty-third year of his age, having vainly contended for the freedom of his country,---one of the noblest spirits of antiquity, and lofty in his private life. as an orator demosthenes has not probably been equalled by any man of any country. by his contemporaries he was regarded as faultless in this respect; and when it is remembered that he struggled against physical difficulties which in the early part of his career would have utterly discouraged any ordinary man, we feel that he deserves the highest commendation. he never spoke without preparation, and most of his orations were severely elaborated. he never trusted to the impulse of the occasion; he did not believe in extemporary eloquence any more than daniel webster, who said there is no such thing. all the orations of demosthenes exhibit him as a pure and noble patriot, and are full of the loftiest sentiments. he was a great artist, and his oratorical successes were greatly owing to the arrangement of his speeches and the application of the strongest arguments in their proper places. added to this moral and intellectual superiority was the "magic power of his language, majestic and simple at the same time, rich yet not bombastic, strange and yet familiar, solemn and not too ornate, grave and yet pleasing, concise and yet fluent, sweet and yet impressive, which altogether carried away the minds of his hearers." his orations were most highly prized by the ancients, who wrote innumerable commentaries on them, most of which are lost. sixty of the great productions of his genius have come down to us. demosthenes, like other orators, first became known as the composer of speeches for litigants; but his fame was based on the orations he pronounced in great political emergencies. his rival was aeschines, who was vastly inferior to demosthenes, although bold, vigorous, and brilliant. indeed, the opinions of mankind for two thousand years have been unanimous in ascribing to demosthenes the highest position as an orator among all the men of ancient and modern times. david hume says of him that "could his manner be copied, its success would be infallible over a modern audience." says lord brougham, "it is rapid harmony exactly adjusted to the sense. it is vehement reasoning, without any appearance of art. it is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom involved in a continual stream of argument; so that of all human productions his orations present to us the models which approach the nearest to perfection." it is probable that the romans were behind the athenians in all the arts of rhetoric; yet in the days of the republic celebrated orators arose among the lawyers and politicians. it was in forensic eloquence that latin prose first appeared as a cultivated language; for the forum was to the romans what libraries are to us. the art of public speaking in rome was early developed. cato, laelius, carbo, and the gracchi are said to have been majestic and harmonious in speech, yet excelled by antonius, crassus, cotta, sulpitius, and hortensius. the last had a very brilliant career as an orator, though his orations were too florid to be read. caesar was also distinguished for his eloquence, its characteristics being force and purity. "coelius was noted for lofty sentiment, brutus for philosophical wisdom, calidius for a delicate and harmonious style, and calvus for sententious force." but all the roman orators yielded to cicero, as the greeks did to demosthenes. these two men are always coupled together when allusion is made to eloquence. they were pre-eminent in the ancient world, and have never been equalled in the modern. cicero, 106 b.c., was probably not equal to his great grecian rival in vehemence, in force, in fiery argument which swept everything away before him, nor generally in original genius; but he was his superior in learning, in culture, and in breadth. cicero distinguished himself very early as an advocate, but his first great public effort was made in the prosecution of verres for corruption. although verres was defended by hortensius and backed by the whole influence of the metelli and other powerful families, cicero gained his cause,--more fortunate than burke in his prosecution of warren hastings, who also was sustained by powerful interests and families. the speech on the manilian law, when cicero appeared as a political orator, greatly contributed to his popularity. i need not describe his memorable career,--his successive elections to all the highest offices of state, his detection of catiline's conspiracy, his opposition to turbulent and ambitious partisans, his alienations and friendships, his brilliant career as a statesman, his misfortunes and sorrows, his exile and recall, his splendid services to the state, his greatness and his defects, his virtues and weaknesses, his triumphs and martyrdom. these are foreign to my purpose. no man of heathen antiquity is better known to us, and no man by pure genius ever won more glorious laurels. his life and labors are immortal. his virtues and services are embalmed in the heart of the world. few men ever performed greater literary labors, and in so many of its departments. next to aristotle and varro, cicero was the most learned man of antiquity, but performed more varied labors than either, since he was not only great as a writer and speaker, but also as a statesman, being the most conspicuous man in rome after pompey and caesar. he may not have had the moral greatness of socrates, nor the philosophical genius of plato, nor the overpowering eloquence of demosthenes, but he was a master of all the wisdom of antiquity. even civil law, the great science of the romans, became interesting in his hands, and was divested of its dryness and technicality. he popularized history, and paid honor to all art, even to the stage; he made the romans conversant with the philosophy of greece, and systematized the various speculations. he may not have added to philosophy, but no roman after him understood so well the practical bearing of all its various systems. his glory is purely intellectual, and it was by sheer genius that he rose to his exalted position and influence. but it was in forensic eloquence that cicero was pre-eminent, in which he had but one equal in ancient times. roman eloquence culminated in him. he composed about eighty orations, of which fifty-nine are preserved. some were delivered from the rostrum to the people, and some in the senate; some were mere philippics, as severe in denunciation as those of demosthenes; some were laudatory; some were judicial; but all were severely logical, full of historical allusion, profound in philosophical wisdom, and pervaded with the spirit of patriotism. francis w. newman, in his "regal rome," thus describes cicero's eloquence:-"he goes round and round his object, surveys it in every light, examines it in all its parts, retires and then advances, compares and contrasts it, illustrates, confirms, and enforces it, till the hearer feels ashamed of doubting a position which seems built on a foundation so strictly argumentative. and having established his case, he opens upon his opponent a discharge of raillery so delicate and good-natured that it is impossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it; or, when the subject is too grave, he colors his exaggerations with all the bitterness of irony and vehemence of passion." critics have uniformly admired cicero's style as peculiarly suited to the latin language, which, being scanty and unmusical, requires more redundancy than the greek. the simplicity of the attic writers would make latin composition bald and tame. to be perspicuous, the latin must be full. thus arnold thinks that what tacitus gained in energy he lost in elegance and perspicuity. but cicero, dealing with a barren and unphilosophical language, enriched it with circumlocutions and metaphors, while he freed it of harsh and uncouth expressions, and thus became the greatest master of composition the world has seen. he was a great artist, making use of his scanty materials to the best effect; he had absolute control over the resources of his vernacular tongue, and not only unrivalled skill in composition, but tact and judgment. thus he was generally successful, in spite of the venality and corruption of the times. the courts of justice were the scenes of his earliest triumphs; nor until he was praetor did he speak from the rostrum on mere political questions, as in reference to the manilian and agrarian laws. it is in his political discourses that cicero rises to the highest ranks. in his speeches against verres, catiline, and antony he kindles in his countrymen lofty feelings for the honor of his country, and abhorrence of tyranny and corruption. indeed, he hated bloodshed, injustice, and strife, and beheld the downfall of liberty with indescribable sorrow. thus in oratory as in history the ancients can boast of most illustrious examples, never even equalled. still, we cannot tell the comparative merits of the great classical orators of antiquity with the more distinguished of our times; indeed only mirabeau, pitt, fox, b