Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical way, valuing it only so far as it could be made serviceable to land-measuring. As for the stars and planets, he supposed it was impossible to arrive at a true knowledge of them, and regarded speculations upon them as useless.

It must be admitted that the Greek astronomers, however barren were their general theories, laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras taught the obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the identity of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he maintained that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the earth revolved around it; but this he did not demonstrate, and his whole system was unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from which he reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than earth; that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that the extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts,—and hence, as the centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move round the fiery centre." But this was no heliocentric system, since the sun moved, like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the fixed opinion of philosophers that the earth was the centre of the universe, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolved. But the Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon, and planets are circular and equable. Their idea that the celestial bodies emitted a sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony, was exceedingly crude, however beautiful "The music of the spheres" belongs to poetry, as well as to the speculations of Plato.

Eudoxus, in the fifth century before Christ, contributed to science by making a descriptive map of the heavens, which was used as a manual of sidereal astronomy to the sixth century of our era.

The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of Saturn shows that there had been for a long time close observations. Aristotle—whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in all forms of knowledge—condensed all that was known in his day into a treatise concerning the heavens. He regarded astronomy as more intimately connected with mathematics than any other branch of science. But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his day, since he held to the immobility of the earth,—the grand error of the ancients. Some few speculators in science (like Heraclitus of Pontus, and Hicetas) conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as to account for the apparent motion of the sun; but they also thought it was in the centre of the universe.

The introduction of the gnomon (time-pillar) and dial into Greece advanced astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the equinoxes and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a sun-dial at Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour varied with the time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into twelve equal parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus, 224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the introduction of water-clocks instead.

Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the hypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of which the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars, having the same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit of the earth is to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the sphere of the fixed stars is to its surface." Aristarchus also, according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported his heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch maintains that he demonstrated it. This theory gave great offence, especially to the Stoics; and Cleanthes, the head of the school at that time, maintained that the author of such an impious doctrine should be punished. Aristarchus left a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances of the Sun and Moon;" and his methods to measure the apparent diameters of the sun and moon are considered theoretically sound by modern astronomers, but practically inexact owing to defective instruments. He estimated the diameter of the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth part of the circumference of the circle which it describes in its diurnal revolution, which is not far from the truth; but in this treatise he does not allude to his heliocentric theory.

Archimedes of Syracuse, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the distance of the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in which he exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony of Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes, who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. The latter was a native of Athens, but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed at the head of the library. His great achievement was the determination of the circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the ground the distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and Alexandria, situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be five thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith of Alexandria he estimated to be 7 deg. 12', or a fiftieth part of the circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia,—which is not very different from our modern computation. The circumference being known, the diameter of the earth was easily determined. The moderns have added nothing to this method. He also calculated the diameter of the sun to be twenty-seven times greater than that of the earth, and the distance of the sun from the earth to be eight hundred and four million stadia, and that of the moon seven hundred and eighty thousand stadia,—a close approximation to the truth.

Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of Alexandria, the greatest light of which was Hipparchus, who flourished early in the second century before Christ. He laid the foundation of astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined," says Delambre, "the position of the stars by right ascensions and declinations, and was acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He determined the inequality of the sun and the place of its apogee, as well as its mean motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and apogee; the equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its orbit. He calculated eclipses of the moon, and used them for the correction of his lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax." His determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and his method of predicting eclipses evince great mathematical genius. But he combined with this determination a theory of epicycles and eccentrics which modern astronomy discards. It was however a great thing to conceive of the earth as a solid sphere, and to reduce the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform motions in circular orbits. "That Hipparchus should have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance," says Whewell, "which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of great astronomers." But he did even more than this: he discovered that apparent motion of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called the Precession of the Equinoxes,—one of the greatest discoveries in astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not greater than fifty-nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds. Hipparchus also framed a catalogue of the stars, and determined their places with reference to the ecliptic by their latitudes and longitudes. Altogether he seems to have been one of the greatest geniuses of antiquity, and his works imply a prodigious amount of calculation.

Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets. Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred and forty thousand stadia, by a different method from Eratosthenes. The barrenness of discovery from Hipparchus to Ptolemy,—the Alexandrian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer in the second century of the Christian era,—in spite of the patronage of the royal Ptolemies of Egypt, was owing to the want of instruments for the accurate measure of time (like our clocks), to the imperfection of astronomical tables, and to the want of telescopes. Hence the great Greek astronomers were unable to realize their theories. Their theories however were magnificent, and evinced great power of mathematical combination; but what could they do without that wondrous instrument by which the human eye indefinitely multiplies its power? Moreover, the ancients had no accurate almanacs, since the care of the calendar belonged not so much to the astronomers as to the priests, who tampered with the computation of time for sacerdotal objects. The calendars of different communities differed. Hence Julius Caesar rendered a great service to science by the reform of the Roman calendar, which was exclusively under the control of the college of pontiffs, or general religious overseers. The Roman year consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days; and in the time of Caesar the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of sixty-seven days. These, together with ninety days, were added to three hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first month in the year after the winter solstice; and to prevent the repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days, which he effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and December, making an addition of ten days to the old year of three hundred and fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of one day in every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining quarter of a day.

Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was defined by the sun, and not as before by the moon.

Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to measure diurnal time. Yet even these were not constructed as they should have been. The hour-marks on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead of varying with the periods of the day,—so that the length of the hour varied with the length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided into twelve equal parts; so that if the sun rose at five A.M., and set at eight P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude method of measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth century. Clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the twelfth century.

The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D., in Alexandria. He was acquainted with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but accepted Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical and revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers, who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth revolves in an orbit around the centre of the planetary system, and turns upon its axis,—two ideas in common with the doctrines which Copernicus afterward unfolded. But even Ptolemy did not conceive the heliocentric theory,—the sun the centre of our system. Archimedes and Hipparchus both rejected this theory.

In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient astronomers, it may be said that had they possessed clocks and telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the great stretch of the perceptive powers, and the magnificent field they afford for sublime contemplation. "But," as Sir G. Cornewall Lewis remarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius, or the northern position of the Great Bear." This may seem to be a utilitarian view, with which those philosophers who have cultivated science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, can have no sympathy.

The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced reasoning and mathematical powers that have never been surpassed. Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place, and all ages will reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data, they reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine of the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of gravitation,—the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of our race.

Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was first taught in Egypt,—the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks disturbed by the inundations of the Nile. There is hardly any trace of geometry among the Hebrews. Among the Hindus there are some works on this science, of great antiquity. Their mathematicians knew the rule for finding the area of a triangle from its sides, and also the celebrated proposition concerning the squares on the sides of the right-angled triangle. The Chinese, it is said, also knew this proposition before it was known to the Greeks, among whom it was first propounded by Thales. He applied a circle to the measurement of angles. Anaximander made geographical charts, which required considerable geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed himself in prison in attempting to square the circle. Thales, as has been said, discovered the important theorem that in a right-angled triangle the squares on the sides containing the right angle are together equal to the square on the opposite side of it. Pythagoras discovered that of all figures having the same boundary, the circle among plane figures and the sphere among solids are the most capacious. Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and wrote elements of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal to a triangle whose base is equal to its circumference and altitude equal to its radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and discovered the geometrical foci.

It was however reserved for Euclid to make his name almost synonymous with geometry. He was born 323 B.C., and belonged to the Platonic sect, which ever attached great importance to mathematics. His "Elements" are still in use, as nearly perfect as any human production can be. They consist of thirteen books. The first four are on plane geometry; the fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies to magnitude in general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on arithmetic; the tenth on the arithmetical characteristics of the division of a straight line; the eleventh and twelfth on the elements of solid geometry; the thirteenth on the regular solids. These "Elements" soon became the universal study of geometers throughout the civilized world; they were translated into the Arabic, and through the Arabians were made known to mediaeval Europe. There can be no doubt that this work is one of the highest triumphs of human genius, and it has been valued more than any single monument of antiquity; it is still a text-book, in various English translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote various other works, showing great mathematical talent.

Perhaps a greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C. He wrote on the sphere and cylinder, terminating in the discovery that the solidity and surface of a sphere are two thirds respectively of the solidity and surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on conoids and spheroids. "The properties of the spiral and the quadrature of the parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last being a great step in the progress of the science, since it was the first curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may not have the patience to go through his investigations, since the conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods; but the great conclusions of the old geometers were reached by only prodigious mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor of engines of war and of various ingenious machines than as a mathematician, great as were his attainments in this direction. His theory of the lever was the foundation of statics till the discovery of the composition of forces in the time of Newton, and no essential addition was made to the principles of the equilibrium of fluids and floating bodies till the time of Stevin, in 1608. Archimedes detected the mixture of silver in a crown of gold which his patron, Hiero of Syracuse, ordered to be made; and he invented a water-screw for pumping water out of the hold of a great ship which he had built. He contrived also the combination of pulleys, and he constructed an orrery to represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an extraordinary inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry and new points of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had a habit of abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his meals. He was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken; and the Sicilians so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they did not know where his tomb was.

Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the magnitude of the earth,—being one of the first who brought mathematical methods to the aid of astronomy, which in our day is almost exclusively the province of the mathematician.

Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes, and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections, which was regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and in some respects is unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern mathematicians. He however made use of the labors of his predecessors, so that it is difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of science must necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them. Even Homer, in the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung for a thousand years before him; and in the realms of philosophy the great men of all ages have built up new systems on the foundations which others have established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries with Thales, would they have matured so wonderful a system of dialectics? Yet if Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might have added to the great Athenian's sublime science even more than did Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians of antiquity; they were all wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with the Newtons and Keplers of our times. Considering their means and the state of science, they made as great though not as fortunate discoveries,—discoveries which show patience, genius, and power of calculation. Apollonius was one of these,—one of the master intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and Archimedes; one of the master intellects of all ages, like Newton himself. I might mention the subjects of his various works, but they would not be understood except by those familiar with mathematics.

Other famous geometers could also be named, but such men as Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this inscription: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." He believed that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras, the great founder of the science, whose main formula was that number is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity; and mathematics, being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to greater heights than the ancients; but then it is all the more remarkable that without the aid of algebraic analysis they were able to solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient mathematicians.

No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or in any particular epoch; it can only expand with the progressive developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times, the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery and the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was, indeed, in old times another word for physics,—the science of Nature,—and the physician was the observer and expounder of physics. The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of Nature,—that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph, seventeen hundred years before the birth of Christ, commanded his physician to embalm the body of his father; and the process of embalming was probably known to the Egyptians before the period when history begins. Helen, of Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and anger, and causes oblivion of all ills." Solomon was a great botanist,—a realm with which the science of medicine is indissolubly connected. The origin of Hindu medicine is lost in remote antiquity. The Ayur Veda, written nine hundred years before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of previous periods relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to the treatment of insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to personal hygiene, and to diseases of the generative functions.

Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period. The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules and Aesculapius,—that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to Aesculapius in Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and the temples themselves hospitals. In them were practised rites apparently mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of mesmerism, hydropathy, the use of mineral springs, and other essential elements of empirical science. And these temples were also medical schools. That of Cos gave birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that his writings were begun. Pythagoras—for those old Grecian philosophers were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and empirical sciences as well as philosophy itself—studied medicine in the schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in science. He travelled from town to town as a teacher or lecturer, establishing communities in which medicine as well as numbers was taught.

The greatest name in medical science in ancient or in modern times, the man who did the most to advance it, the greatest medical genius of whom we have any early record, was Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos, 460 B.C., of the great Aesculapian family. He received his instruction from his father. We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer himself, although he lived in the period of the highest splendor of Athens. Even his writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to be the work of different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were no slight means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the Middle Ages in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled. The Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates introduced a new era in medicine, which before his time had been monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not be established by facts; he was always open to conviction, and candidly confessed his mistakes; he was conscientious in the practice of his profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold. The Athenians revered Hippocrates for his benevolence as well as genius. The great principle of his practice was trust in Nature; hence he was accused of allowing his patients to die. But this principle has many advocates among scientific men in our day; and some suppose that the whole successful practice of Homoeopathy rests on the primal principle which Hippocrates advanced, although the philosophy of it claims a distinctly scientific basis in the principle similia similibus curantur. Hippocrates had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical genius is most severely tested; his practice was cautious and timid in contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the celebrated maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes of disease into two principal classes,—the one comprehending the influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal properties of drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the course of a malady. He knew but little of surgery, although he was in the habit of bleeding, and often employed the knife; he was also acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the arteries. Hippocrates wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works have gone through three hundred editions, so highly have they been valued. His authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the revival of science in Europe. Yet who have been greater ornaments and lights than these two distinguished Greeks?

The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it esteemed that Galen in the second century,—born in Greece, but famous in the service of Rome,—went there to study, five hundred years after its foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific anatomy and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. Galen was the Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In eight books he developed the general principles of natural science known to the Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the Alexandrian physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology. Herophilus discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and advanced the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.

Although the Romans had but little sympathy with science or philosophy, being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts, medicine received a good share of their attention. The first physicians in Rome were Greek slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the friendship of Cicero. It is from him that the popular medical theories as to the "pores" have descended. He was the inventor of the shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work on medicine which takes almost equal rank with the Hippocratic writings.

Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in Hippocrates. Galen was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed himself of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He was born at Pergamos about the year 130 A.D., where he learned, under able masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his studies at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the Emperor. Like his imperial patron, Galen was one of the brightest ornaments of the heathen world, and one of the most learned and accomplished men of any age. He left five hundred treatises, most of them relating to some branch of medical science, which give him the name of being one of the most voluminous of authors. His celebrity is founded chiefly on his anatomical and physiological works. He was familiar with practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge from dissection. His observations about health are practical and useful; he lays great stress on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the pleasures of the chase, the cold bath in hot weather, hot baths for old people, the use of wine, and three meals a day. The great principles of his practice were that disease is to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease itself,—hence the name Allopathy, invented by the founder of Homoeopathy to designate the fundamental principle of the general practice,—and that nature is to be preserved by that which has relation with nature. His "Commentaries on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of medical criticism, from which succeeding annotators borrowed. No one ever set before the medical profession a higher standard than Galen advanced, and few have more nearly approached it. He did not attach himself to any particular school, but studied the doctrines of each. The works of Galen constituted the last production of ancient Roman medicine, and from his day the decline in medical science was rapid, until it was revived among the Arabs.

The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly along the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position and characteristics of countries could not be ascertained with the definiteness that it is at present. But geography was not utterly neglected in those early times, nor was natural history.

Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and customs of Oriental and barbarous nations; and Pliny wrote a Natural History in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards of two thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of importance. He was born 23 A.D., and was fifty-six when the eruption of Vesuvius took place, which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a scientific genius in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he an original observer,—his materials being drawn up second-hand, like a modern encyclopaedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection: he had a great love of the marvellous, and his work was often unintelligible; but it remains a wonderful monument of human industry. His Natural History treats of everything in the natural world,—of the heavenly bodies, of the elements, of thunder and lightning, of the winds and seasons, of the changes and phenomena of the earth, of countries and nations, of seas and rivers, of men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants, of minerals and medicines and precious stones, of commerce and the fine arts. He is full of errors, but his work is among the most valuable productions of antiquity. Buffon pronounced his Natural History to contain an infinity of knowledge in every department of human occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and brilliant. It is a literary rather than a scientific monument, and as such it is wonderful. In strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of modern research; but there are few minds, even in these times, who have directed inquiries to such a variety of subjects as are treated in Pliny's masterpiece.

If we would compare the geographical knowledge of the ancients with that of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable inferiority of the ancients.

Eratosthenes, though more properly an astronomer, and the most distinguished among the ancients, was also a considerable writer on geography, indeed, the first who treated the subject systematically, although none of his writings have reached us. The improvements he pointed out were applied by Ptolemy himself. His work was a presentation of the geographical knowledge known in his day, so far as geography is the science of determining the position of places on the earth's surface. When Eratosthenes began his labors, in the third century before Christ, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical; he established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles.

Hipparchus (beginning of second century before Christ) introduced into geography a great improvement; namely, the relative situation of places, by the same process that he determined the positions of the heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude might be determined by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This led to the construction of maps; but none have reached us except those that were used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was the first who raised geography to the rank of a science. He starved himself to death, being tired of life.

Posidonius, who was nearly a century later, determined the arc of a meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a forty-eighth part of the whole circumference,—an enormous calculation, yet a remarkable one in the infancy of astronomical science. His writings on history and geography are preserved only in quotations by Cicero, Strabo, and others.

Geographical knowledge however was most notably advanced by Strabo, who lived in the Augustan era; although his researches were chiefly confined to the Roman empire. Strabo was, like Herodotus, a great traveller, and much of his geographical information is the result of his own observations. It is probable he was much indebted to Eratosthenes, who preceded him by three centuries. The authorities of Strabo were chiefly Greek, but his work is defective from the imperfect notions which the ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination of the earth's figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the essential foundation of geographical description, was unknown. The enormous strides which all forms of physical science have made since the discovery of America throw all ancient descriptions and investigations into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great disadvantage as Pliny or Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering his means, and the imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface and astronomical science in his day, was really a great achievement. He treats of the form and magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books to Europe, six to Asia, and one to Africa. The description of places belongs to Strabo, whose work was accepted as the text-book of the science till the fifteenth century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He maintained that the earth is spherical, and established the terms longitude and latitude, which Eratosthenes had introduced, and computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand stadia in circumference, and a degree to be five hundred stadia in length, or sixty-two and a-half Roman miles. His estimates of the length of a degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in the degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to west too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a western passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.

Whatever may be said of the accuracy of the great geographer of antiquity, it cannot be denied that he was a man of immense research and learning. His work in seventeen books is one of the most valuable that have come down from antiquity, both from the discussions which run through it, and the curious facts which can be found nowhere else. It is scarcely fair to estimate the genius of Strabo by the correctness and extent of his geographical knowledge. All men are comparatively ignorant in science, because science is confessedly a progressive study. The great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge be made the test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of mind, their original labors, which we are to consider.

Thus it would seem that among the ancients, in those departments of science which are inductive, there were not sufficient facts, well established, from which to make sound inductions; but in those departments which are deductive, like pure mathematics, and which require great reasoning powers, there were lofty attainments,—which indeed gave the foundation for the achievements of modern science.

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AUTHORITIES.

An exceedingly learned work (London, 1862) on the Astronomy of the Ancients, by Sir George Cornewall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in the parade of authorities, and minute on points which are not of much consequence, is worth consulting. Delambre's History of Ancient Astronomy has long been a classic, but is richer in materials for a history than a history itself. There is a valuable essay in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which refers to a list of special authors. Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with profit. Dunglison's History of Medicine is a standard, giving much detailed information, and Leclerc among the French and Speugel among the Germans are esteemed authorities. Strabo's Geography is the most valuable of antiquity; see also Polybius: both of these have been translated and edited for English readers.



MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.

MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.

4000-50 B.C.

While the fine arts made great progress among the cultivated nations of antiquity, and with the Greeks reached a refinement that has never since been surpassed, the ancients were far behind modern nations in everything that has utility for its object. In implements of war, in agricultural instruments, in the variety of manufactures, in machinery, in chemical compounds, in domestic utensils, in grand engineering works, in the comfort of houses, in modes of land-travel and transportation, in navigation, in the multiplication of books, in triumphs over the forces of Nature, in those discoveries and inventions which abridge the labors of mankind and bring races into closer intercourse,—especially by such wonders as are wrought by steam, gas, electricity, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, and the art of printing,—the modern world feels its immense superiority to all the ages that have gone before. And yet, considering the infancy of science and the youth of nations, more was accomplished by the ancients for the comfort and convenience and luxury of man than we naturally might suppose.

Egypt was the primeval seat of what may be called material civilization, and many arts and inventions were known there when the rest of the world was still in ignorance and barbarism. More than four thousand years ago the Egyptians had chariots of war and most of the military weapons known afterward to the Greeks,—especially the spear and bow, which were the most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages. Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow. One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and bridles of their horses were nearly as perfect as ours are at the present time; the leather they used was dyed in various colors, and adorned with metal edges. The wheels of their chariots were bound with hoops of metal, and had six spokes. Umbrellas to protect from the rays of the sun were held over the heads of their women of rank when they rode in their highly-decorated chariots. Walls of solid masonry, thick and high, surrounded their principal cities, while an attacking or besieging army used movable towers. Their disciplined troops advanced to battle in true military precision, at the sound of the trumpet.

The public works of Egyptian kings were on a grand scale. They united rivers with seas by canals which employed hundreds of thousands of workmen. They transported heavy blocks of stone, of immense weight and magnitude, for their temples, palaces, and tombs. They erected obelisks in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and were one hundred and twenty feet in length.

Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver, and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers. According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height, and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed, generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars, and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine was poured into large earthen jars, corresponding to the amphorae of the Romans, and covered with lids made air-tight by resin and bitumen. The Egyptians had several kinds of wine, highly praised by the ancients; and wine among them was cheap and abundant. Egypt was also renowned for drugs unknown to other nations, and for beer made of barley, as well as wine. As for fruits, they had the same variety as we have at the present day, their favorite fruit being dates. "So fond were the Egyptians of trees and flowers that they exacted a contribution from the nations tributary to them of their rarest plants, so that their gardens bloomed with flowers of every variety in all seasons of the year." Wreaths and chaplets were in common use from the earliest antiquity. It was in their gardens, abounding with vegetables as well as with fruits and flowers, that the Egyptians entertained their friends.

In Egyptian houses were handsome chairs and fauteuils, stools and couches, the legs of which were carved in imitation of the feet of animals; and these were made of rare woods, inlaid with ivory, and covered with rich stuffs. Some of the Egyptian chairs were furnished with cushions and covered with the skins of leopards and lions; the seats were made of leather, painted with flowers. Footstools were sometimes made of elegant patterns, inlaid with ivory and precious woods. Mats were used in the sitting-rooms. The couches were of every variety of form, and utilized in some instances as beds. The tables were round, square, and oblong, and were sometimes made of stone and highly ornamented with carvings. Bronze bedsteads were used by the wealthy classes.

In their entertainments nothing was omitted by the Egyptians which would produce festivity,—music, songs, dancing, and games of chance. The guests arrived in chariots or palanquins, borne by servants on foot, who also carried parasols over the heads of their masters. Previous to entering the festive chamber water was brought for the feet and hands, the ewers employed being made often of gold and silver, of beautiful form and workmanship. Servants in attendance anointed the head with sweet-scented ointment from alabaster vases, and put around the heads of the guests garlands and wreaths in which the lotus was conspicuous; they also perfumed the apartments with myrrh and frankincense, obtained chiefly from Syria. Then wine was brought, and emptied into drinking-cups of silver or bronze, and even of porcelain, beautifully engraved, one of which was exclusively reserved for the master of the house. While at dinner the party were enlivened with musical instruments, the chief of which were the harp, the lyre, the guitar, the tambourine, the pipe, the flute, and the cymbal. Music was looked upon by the Egyptians as an important science, and was diligently studied and highly prized; the song and the dance were united with the sounds of musical instruments. Many of the ornamented vases and other vessels used by the Egyptians in their banquets were not inferior in elegance of form and artistic finish to those made by the Greeks at a later day. The Pharaoh of the Jewish Exodus had drinking-vessels of gold and silver, exquisitely engraved and ornamented with precious stones.

Some of the bronze vases found at Thebes and other parts of Egypt show great skill in the art of compounding metals, and were highly polished. Their bronze knives and daggers had an elastic spring, as if made of steel. Wilkinson expresses his surprise at the porcelain vessels recently discovered, as well as admiration of them, especially of their rich colors and beautiful shapes. There is a porcelain bowl of exquisite workmanship in the British Museum inscribed with the name of Rameses II., proving that the arts of pottery were carried to great perfection two thousand years before Christ. Boxes of elaborate workmanship, made of precious woods finely carved and inlaid with ivory, are also preserved in the different museums of Europe, all dating from a remote antiquity. These boxes are of every form, with admirably fitting lids, representing fishes, birds, and animals. The rings, bracelets, and other articles of jewelry that have been preserved show great facility on the part of the Egyptians in cutting the hardest stones. The skill displayed in the sculptures on the hard obelisks and granite monuments of Egypt was remarkable, since they were executed with hardened bronze.

Glass-blowing was another art in which the Egyptians excelled. Fifteen hundred years before Christ they made ornaments of glass, and glass vessels of large size were used for holding wine. Such was their skill in the manufacture of glass that they counterfeited precious stones with a success unknown to the moderns. We read of a counterfeited emerald six feet in length. Counterfeited necklaces were sold at Thebes which deceived strangers. The uses to which glass was applied were in the manufacture of bottles, beads, mosaic work, and drinking-cups, and their different colors show considerable knowledge of chemistry. The art of cutting and engraving stones was doubtless learned by the Israelites in their sojourn in Egypt. So perfect were the Egyptians in the arts of cutting precious stones that they were sought by foreign merchants, and they furnished an important material in commerce.

From the earliest times the Egyptians were celebrated for their manufacture of linen, which was one of the principal articles of commerce; and cotton and woollen cloths as well as linen were woven. Cotton was used not only for articles of dress, but for the covering of chairs and other kinds of furniture. The great mass of the mummy cloths is of coarse texture; but the "fine linen" spoken of in the Scripture was as fine as muslin, in some instances containing more than five hundred threads to an inch, while the finest productions of the looms of India have only one hundred threads to the inch. Not only were the threads of linen cloth of extraordinary fineness, but the dyes were equally remarkable, and were unaffected by strong alkalies. Spinning was principally the occupation of women, who also practised the art of embroidery, in which gold thread was used, supposed to be beaten out by the hammer; but in the arts of dyeing and embroidery the Egyptians were surpassed by the Babylonians, who were renowned for their cloths of various colors.

The manufacture of paper was another art for which the Egyptians were famous, made from the papyrus, a plant growing in the marsh-land of the Nile. The papyrus was also applied to the manufacture of sails, baskets, canoes, and parts of sandals. Some of the papyri, on which is hieroglyphic writing dating from two thousand years before our era, are in good preservation. Sheep-skin parchment also was used for writing.

The Egyptians were especially skilled in the preparation of leather for sandals, shields, and chairs. The curriers used the same semicircular knife which is now in use. The great consumption of leather created a demand far greater than could be satisfied by the produce of the country, and therefore skins from foreign countries were imported as part of the tribute laid on conquered nations or tribes.

More numerous than the tanners in Egypt were the potters, among whom the pottery-wheel was known from a remote antiquity, previous to the arrival of Joseph from Canaan, and long before the foundation of the Greek Athens. Earthenware was used for holding wine, oils, and other liquids; but the finest production of the potter were the vases, covered with a vitreous glaze and modelled in every variety of forms, some of which were as elegant as those made later by the Greeks, who excelled in this department of art.

Carpenters and cabinet-makers formed a large class of Egyptian workmen for making coffins, boxes, tables, chairs, doors, sofas, and other articles of furniture, frequently inlaid with ivory and rare woods. Veneering was known to these workmen, probably arising from the scarcity of wood. The tools used by the carpenters, as appear from the representations on the monuments, were the axe, the adze, the hand-saw, the chisel, the drill, and the plane. These tools were made of bronze, with handles of acacia, tamarisk, and other hard woods. The hatchet, by which trees were felled, was used by boat-builders. The boxes and other articles of furniture were highly ornamented with inlaid work.

Boat-building in Egypt also employed many workmen. Boats were made of the papyrus plant, deal, cedar, and other woods, and were propelled both by sails and oars. One ship-of-war built for Ptolemy Philopater is said by ancient writers to have been 478 feet long, to have had forty banks of oars, and to have carried 400 sailors, 4,000 rowers, and 3,000 soldiers. This is doubtless an exaggeration, but indicates great progress in naval architecture. The construction of boats varied according to the purpose for which they were intended. They were built with ribs as at the present day, with small keels, square sails, with spacious cabins in the centre, and ornamented sterns; there was usually but one mast, and the prows terminated in the heads of animals. The boats of burden were somewhat similar to our barges; the sails were generally painted with rich colors. The origin of boat-building was probably the raft, and improvement followed improvement until the ship-of-war rivalled in size our largest vessels, while Egyptian merchant vessels penetrated to distant seas, and probably doubled the Cape of Good Hope.

In regard to agriculture the Egyptians were the most advanced of the nations of antiquity, since the fertility of their soil made the occupation one of primary importance. Irrigation was universally practised, the Nile furnishing water for innumerable canals. The soil was often turned up with the hoe rather than the plough. The grain was sown broadcast, and was trodden in by goats. Their plough was very simple, and was drawn by oxen; the yoke being attached to the horns. Although the soil was rich, manures were frequently used. The chief crops were those of wheat, barley, beans, peas, lentils, vetches, lupines, clover, rice, indigo, cotton, lettuce, flax, hemp, cumin, coriander, poppy, melons, cucumbers, onions, and leeks. We do not read of carrots, cabbages, beets, or potatoes, which enter so largely into modern husbandry. Oil was obtained from the olive, the castor-berry, simsin, and coleseed. Among the principal trees which were cultivated were the vine, olive, locust, acacia, date, sycamore, pomegranate, and tamarisk. Grain, after harvest, was trodden out by oxen, and the straw was used as provender. To protect the fields from inundation dykes were built.

All classes in Egypt delighted in the sports of the field, especially in the hunting of wild animals, in which the arrow was most frequently used. Sometimes the animals were caught in nets, in enclosed places near water-brooks. The Egyptians also had numerous fish-ponds, since they were as fond of angling as they were of hunting. Hunting in Egypt was an amusement, not an occupation as among nomadic people. Not only was hunting for pleasure a great amusement among Egyptians, but also among Babylonians and Persians, who coursed the plains with dogs. They used the noose or lasso also to catch antelopes and wild cattle, which were hunted with lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex, the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe. The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks, owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks, plovers, snipes, geese, and ducks, many of which were taken in nets. The Nile and Lake Birket el Keroun furnished fish in great abundance. The profits of the fisheries were enormous, and were farmed out by the government.

The Egyptians were very fond of ornaments in dress, especially the women. They paid great attention to their sandals; they wore their hair long and plaited, bound round with an ornamented fillet fastened by a lotus bud; they wore ear-rings and a profusion of rings on the fingers and bracelets for the arms, made of gold and set with precious stones. The scarabaeus, or sacred beetle, was the adornment of rings and necklaces; even the men wore necklaces and rings and chains. Both men and women stained the eyelids and brows. Pins and needles were among the articles of the toilet, usually made of bronze; also metallic mirrors finely polished. The men carried canes or walking-sticks,—the wands of Moses and Aaron.

As the Egyptians paid great attention to health, physicians were held in great repute; and none were permitted to practise but in some particular branch, such as diseases of the eye, the ear, the head, the teeth, and the internal maladies. They were paid by government, and were skilled in the knowledge of drugs. The art of curing diseases originated, according to Pliny, in Egypt. Connected with the healing art was the practice of embalming dead bodies, which was carried to great perfection.

In elegance of life the Greeks and Romans, however, far surpassed any of the nations of antiquity, if not in luxury itself, which was confined to the palaces of kings. In social refinements the Greeks were not behind any modern nation, as one infers from reading Becker's Charicles. Among the Greeks was the network of trades and professions, as in Paris and London, and a complicated social life in which all the amenities known to the modern world were seen, especially in Athens and Corinth and the Ionian capitals. What could be more polite and courteous than the intercourse carried on in Greece among cultivated and famous people? When were symposia more attractive than when the elite of Athens, in the time of Pericles, feasted and communed together? When was art ever brought in support of luxury to greater perfection? We read of libraries and books and booksellers, of social games, of attractive gardens and villas, as well as of baths and spectacles, of markets and fora in Athens. The common life of a Pericles or a Cicero differed but little from that of modern men of rank and fortune.

In describing the various arts which marked the nations of antiquity, we cannot but feel that in a material point of view the ancient civilization in its important features was as splendid as our own. In the decoration of houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the Romans were our equals. The mosaics, the signet rings, cameos, bracelets, bronzes, vases, couches, banqueting-tables, lamps, colored glass, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables of thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as modern sideboards; wood and ivory were carved in Rome as exquisitely as in Japan and China; mirrors were made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the colors of precious stones so well that the Portland vase, from the tomb of Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonyx. The palace of Nero glittered with gold and jewels; perfumes and flowers were showered from ivory ceilings. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his beds were silver, and his tables of gold. A banquet dish of Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds of silver. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals; sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with scenes from the poets; libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of rare woods; sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes, and were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the seas for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses with carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bithynia, marbles from Numidia, bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens,—whatever, in short, was precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries.

What a concentration of material wonders was to be seen in all the countries that bordered on the Mediterranean,—not merely in Italy and Greece, but in Sicily and Asia Minor, and even in Gaul and Spain! Every country was dotted with cities, villas, and farms. Every country was famous for oil, or fruit, or wine, or vegetables, or timber, or flocks, or pastures, or horses. More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous.

The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life. Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum, Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated.

And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa. Syracuse was older than Rome, and had a fortress of a mile and a half in length. Carthage, under the emperors, nearly equalled its ancient magnificence. Athens was never more splendid than in the time of the Roman Antonines. In spite of successive conquests, there still towered upon the Acropolis the most wonderful temple of antiquity, built of Pentelic marble, and adorned with the sculptures of Phidias. Corinth was richer and more luxurious than Athens, and possessed the most valuable pictures of Greece, as well as the finest statues; a single street for three miles was adorned with costly edifices. And even the islands which were colonized by Greeks were seats of sculpture and painting, as well as of schools of learning. Still grander were the cities of Asia Minor. Antioch had a street four miles in length, with double colonnades; and its baths, theatres, museums, and temples excited universal admiration. At Ephesus was the grand temple of Diana, four times as large as the Parthenon at Athens, covering as much ground as Cologne Cathedral, with one hundred and twenty-eight columns sixty feet high. The Ephesian theatre was capable of seating sixty thousand spectators. Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, was no mean city; and Damascus, the old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich.

Laodicea was famous for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares, Cybara for its dyes, Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful monuments, Delos for its slave-trade, Cyrene for its horses, Paphos for its temple of Venus, in which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the Tigris, had a population of four hundred thousand. Caesarea in Palestine, founded by Herod the Great, and the principal seat of government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal in size to the renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest winds by a mole of such massive construction that the blocks of stone, sunk under the water, were fifty feet in length, eighteen in width, and nine in thickness. The city itself was constructed of polished stone, with an agora, a theatre, a circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre, which had resisted for seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to the fall of the empire a great emporium of trade; it monopolized the manufacture of imperial purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its glass and embroidered robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and imitated precious stones. But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in ships, which visited all the coasts of the Mediterranean, and even penetrated to Britain and India.

But greater than Tyre or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria, the capital of Egypt. Egypt even in its decline was still a great monarchy; and when the sceptre of three hundred kings passed from Cleopatra the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus Caesar the conqueror at Actium, the military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven hundred thousand men. The annual revenues of this State under the Ptolemies amounted to about seventeen million dollars in gold and silver, besides the produce of the earth. A single feast cost Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and he had accumulated treasures to the amount of seven hundred and forty thousand talents, or about eight hundred and sixty million dollars. What European monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt, even when tributary to Rome, were richer in gold and silver than was Louis XIV. in the proudest hour of his life.

The ground-plan of Alexandria was traced by Alexander himself, but it was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were regular, and crossed one another at right angles, being wide enough for free passage of both carriages and foot passengers. Its harbor could hold the largest fleet ever congregated; its walls and gates were constructed with all the skill and strength known to antiquity; its population numbered six hundred thousand, and all nations were represented in its crowded streets. The wealth of the city may be inferred from the fact that in one year sixty-two hundred and fifty talents, or more than six million dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The library was the largest in the world, numbering over seven hundred thousand volumes; and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a botanical garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the most famous university in the Roman empire. The inhabitants were chiefly Greek, and had all the cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift of that quick-witted people. In a commercial point of view Alexandria was the most important city in the world, and its ships whitened every sea. Unlike most commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of poetry, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more renowned than even those of Athens during the third and fourth centuries. Alexandria, could it have been transported in its former splendor to our modern world, would be a great capital in these times.

And all these cities were connected with one another and with Rome by magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were used by travellers, and on them posts were regularly established; they crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains; in Italy, especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the provinces. There was an uninterrupted communication from the wall of Antoninus through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons, Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem,—a distance of thirty-seven hundred and forty miles; and these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for travellers erected upon them at points of every five or six miles.

Commerce under the Roman emperors was not what it now is, but still was very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome; every year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over in twenty-four hours; this was the average speed, or about seven knots. From the mouth of the Tiber vessels could usually reach Africa in two days, Massilia in three, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven; from Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate winds, in nine days. These facts, however, apply only to the summer, and to favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement seasons; but in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and Egypt. This was the most important trade; but a considerable commerce was carried on also in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics, pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, and oil. Greek and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the Grecian cities, of wild animals for the amphitheatre, of marble, of the spoils of eastern cities, of military engines and stores, and of horses, required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably belonged chiefly to great maritime cities. These cities with their dependencies required even more vessels for communication with one another than for Rome herself,—the great central object of enterprise and cupidity.

In this survey of ancient cities I have not yet spoken of the great central city,—the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was tributary. Whatever was costly or rare or beautiful, in Greece or Asia or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were provincial governors. All the great highways, from the Atlantic to the Tigris, converged to the capital,—all roads led to Rome; all the ships of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals, were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions, or commerce, or manufactures,—centres of influence and power in the countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than did ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome, however, monopolized every thing, and controlled all nations and peoples; she could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons and Bordeaux are to Paris, Corinth and Babylon were to Rome,—mere dependent cities. Paul, condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome protected him. The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman nobility. The kings of the East resorted to the palaces of Mount Palatine for favors or safety; the governors of Syria and Egypt, reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, returned to Rome to squander the riches they had accumulated. Senators and nobles took their turn as sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in which Darius and Alexander and Pericles and Croesus and Solomon and Cleopatra had feasted, became the witness of the banquets of Roman proconsuls. Babylon, Thebes, and Athens were only what Delhi and Calcutta are to the English of our day,—cities to be ruled by the delegates of the imperial Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine. What a concentration of works of art on the hills, and around the Forum, and in the Campus Martius, and other celebrated quarters! There were temples rivalling those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more ground than the Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns, and filled with the choicest treasures ransacked from the cities of Greece and Asia; palaces in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are small; theatres which seated a larger audience than any present public buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight times as many spectators as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church; circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand persons could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges, still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass, and covered with bas-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and basilicas connected together, and extending more than three thousand feet in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" of conquerors, kings, statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers; mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the spoils and trophies of conquered empires.

Such was the proud capital,—a city of palaces, a residence of nobles who were virtually kings, enriched with the accumulated treasures of ancient civilization. Great were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but how pre-eminent was Rome, since all were subordinate to her! How bewildering and bewitching to a traveller must have been the varied wonders of the city! Go where he would, his eye rested on something which was both a study and a marvel. Let him drive or walk about the suburbs,—there were villas, tombs, aqueducts looking like our railroads on arches, sculptured monuments, and gardens of surpassing beauty and luxury. Let him approach the walls,—they were great fortifications extending twenty-one miles in circuit, according to the measurement of Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-five miles according to other authorities. Let him enter any of the various gates that opened into the city from the roads which radiated to all parts of Italy and the world,—they were of monumental brass covered with bas-reliefs, on which the victories of generals for a thousand years were commemorated. Let him pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares,—he saw houses towering scarcely ever less than seventy feet, as tall as those of Edinburgh in its oldest sections. Most of the houses in which this vast population lived, according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a never-failing supply of water from the rivers that flowed into the city through the aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber. Let the traveller walk up the Via Sacra,—that short street, scarcely half a mile in length,—and he passed the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Titus, the Temples of Peace, of Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch of Severus, the Temple of Saturn, and stood before the majestic ascent to the Capitoline Jupiter, with its magnificent portico and ornamented pediment, surpassing the facade of any modern church. On his left, as he emerged from beneath the sculptured Arch of Titus, was the Palatine Mount, nearly covered by the palace of the Caesars, the magnificent residences of the higher nobility, and various temples, of which that of Apollo was the most magnificent, built by Augustus, of solid white marble from Luna. Here were the palaces of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antoninus, of Clodius, of Agrippa, and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline, though he could not see it, concealed from view by the great Temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the still greater edifice known as the Basilica Julia, was the quarter called the Velabrum, extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crossed it,—a low quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived and died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and the Forum Romanum, was that magnificent series of edifices extending from the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the Basilica Ulpia,—a space more than three thousand feet in length, and six hundred in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticos and colonnades, and filled with statues and pictures,—displaying on the whole probably the grandest series of public buildings clustered together ever erected, especially if we include the Forum Romanum and the various temples and basilicas which connected the whole,—a forest of marble pillars and statues. Ascending the steps which led from the Temple of Concord to the Temple of Juno Moneta upon the Arx, or Tarpeian Rock, on the southwestern summit of the hill, itself one of the most beautiful temples in Rome, erected by Camillus on the spot where the house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had stood, and one came upon the Roman mint. Near this was the temple erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans, and that built by Domitian to Jupiter Custos. But all the sacred edifices which crowned the Capitoline were subordinate to the Templum Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform of eight thousand square feet, and built of the richest materials. The portico which faced the Via Sacra consisted of three rows of Doric columns, the pediment profusely ornamented with the choicest sculptures, the apex of the roof surmounted by the bronze horses of Lysippus, and the roof itself covered with gilded tiles. The temple had three separate cells, though covered with one roof; in front of each stood colossal statues of the three deities to whom it was consecrated. Here were preserved what was most sacred in the eyes of Romans, and it was itself the richest of all the temples of the city.

What a beautiful panorama was presented to the view from the summit of this consecrated hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred steps! To the south was the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and beyond it the Appia Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye could reach. A little beyond the fora to the east was the Carinae, a fashionable quarter of beautiful shops and houses, and still farther off were the Baths of Titus, extending from the Carinae to the Esquiline Mount. To the northeast were the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after the Palatine the most ancient part of the city, the seat of the Sabine population, abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which was the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides, seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterward the property of the Emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still farther to the east the Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lighted on the Pincian Hill covered with the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the death of Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In the valley which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the celebrated Subura, the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,—a busy, noisy, vulgar section, not beautiful, but full of life and enterprise and wickedness. The eye then turned to the north, and the whole length of the Via Flamina was exposed to view, extending from the Capitoline to the Flaminian gate, perfectly straight, the finest street in Rome, and parallel to the modern Corso; it was the great highway to the north of Italy. Monuments and temples and palaces lined this celebrated street; it was spanned by the triumphal arches of Claudius and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it was the Campus Martius, with its innumerable objects of interest,—the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon, the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae Alexandrinae, near the Pantheon, was the magnificent bridge which crossed the Tiber, built by Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it led, still standing under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye took in eight or nine bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but generally of stone, of beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. In the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine, was the great Circus Maximus, founded by the early Tarquin; it was the largest open space, inclosed by walls and porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins of which, next to those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest impression of all I saw that pertains to antiquity, though these were not so large as those of Diocletian. The view south took in the Caelian Hill, the ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. This hill was the residence of many distinguished Romans, among whose palaces was that of Claudius Centumalus, which towered ten or twelve stories into the air. But grander than any of these palaces was that of Plautius Lateranus, on whose site now stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,—the gift of Constantine to the bishop of Rome,—one of the most ancient of the Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily services have been performed.

Such were the objects of interest and grandeur that met the eye as it was turned toward the various quarters of the city, which contained between three and four millions of people. Lipsius estimates four millions as the population, including slaves, women, children, and strangers. Though this estimate is regarded as too large by Merivale and others, yet how enormous must have been the number of the people when there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths, and when those of Diocletian could accommodate thirty-two hundred bathers at a time! The wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty thousand seats; that of Marcellus twenty thousand; the Colosseum would seat eighty-seven thousand persons, and give standing space for twenty-two thousand more. The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. If only one person out of four of the free population witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we thus must have four millions of people altogether in the city. The Aurelian walls are now only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius estimates the original circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus at nearly fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum,—the central and most conspicuous object in the city except the capitol.

Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now boast of. Grave historians are loath to compromise their dignity and character for truth by admitting statements which seem, to men of limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience. But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars, which nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which, connected together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by the palaces of the Louvre and Tuileries, with all their galleries and courts; almost nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little comparatively of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what does remain attests an unparalleled grandeur,—the broken pillars of the Forum; the lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon, lifting its spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and Trajan and Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts which cross the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes and lakes of the infant city; and, above all, the Colosseum. What glory and shame are associated with that single edifice! That alone, if nothing else remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and a folly such as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful skill in masonry and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth and resources of rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at their command; it shows the restless passions of the people for excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of yielding to this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which could afford to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What facilities for transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts could be brought to the capitol from the central parts of Africa without calling out unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the government to provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on the dedication of the Colosseum, lasted one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts were slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the Emperor himself presided under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, was a solid pavement, so closely cemented that it could be turned into an artificial lake, on which naval battles were fought. But it was the conflict of gladiators which most deeply stimulated the passions of the people. The benches were crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred thousand were raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sank exhausted in the bloody sport.

Yet it was not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most strikingly attested the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves were sometimes maintained as domestic servants for a single establishment,—twelve hundred in number according to the lowest estimate, but probably five times as numerous, since every senator, every knight, and every rich man was proud to possess a residence which would attract attention; nor the temples, which numbered four hundred and twenty-four, most of which were of marble, filled with statues, the contributions of ages, and surrounded with groves; nor the fora and basilicas, with their porticos, statues, and pictures, covering more space than any cluster of public buildings in Europe, a mile and a half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly as large, still more completely filled with works of art; nor the Circus Maximus, where more people witnessed the chariot races at a time than are nightly assembled in all the places of public amusement in Paris, London, and New York combined,—more than could be seated in all the cathedrals of England and France. It is not these which most impressively make us feel the amazing grandeur of the old capital of the world. The triumphal processions of the conquering generals were still more exciting to behold, for these appealed more directly to the imagination, and excited those passions which urged the Romans to a career of conquest from generation to generation. No military review of modern times equalled those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic performance compares with the gladiatorial shows; the sun has never shone upon any human assemblage so magnificent and so grand, so imposing and yet so guilty. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered kingdoms, and the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military strength of the capital; an army of one hundred thousand men, flushed with victory, followed the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes. The triumph of Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea of the grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were followed by sixteen hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns of conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then ambassadors from all parts of the earth, all remarkable in their rich dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the various wars,—Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold, and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate and the army closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the people, and the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day until the ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capitol; and the festival was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the circus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval engagements."

Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud capital,—nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a prouder civilization,—the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred years of new experiments. But why such an eclipse of the glory of man? The reason is apparent if we survey the internal state of the ancient empires, especially of society as it existed under the Roman emperors.

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AUTHORITIES.

Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Titus Livius, Pausanias, on the geography and resources of the ancient nations. See an able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Louis Napoleon's History of Caesar. Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography is exhaustive. Wilkinson has revealed the civilization of ancient Egypt. Professor Becker's Handbook of Rome, as well as his Gallus and Charicles shed much light on manners and customs. Dyer's History of the City of Rome is the fullest description of its wonders that I have read. Niebuhr, Bunsen, and Platner, among the Germans, have written learnedly, but also have created much doubt about things supposed to be established. Mommsen, Curtius, and Merivale are also great authorities. Nor are the magnificent chapters of Gibbon to be disregarded by the student of Roman history, notwithstanding his elaborate and inflated style.



THE MILITARY ART.

WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.

1300-100 A.D.

In surveying the nations of antiquity nothing impresses us more forcibly than the perpetual wars in which they were engaged, and the fact that military art and science seem to have been among the earliest things that occupied the thoughts of men. Personal strife and tribal warfare are coeval with the earliest movements of humanity.

The first recorded act in the Hebraic history of the world after the expulsion of Adam from Paradise is a murder. In patriarchal times we read of contentions between the servants of Abraham and of Lot, and between the petty kings and chieftains of the countries where they journeyed. Long before Abraham was born, violence was the greatest evil with which the world was afflicted. Before his day mighty conquerors arose and founded kingdoms. Babylon and Egypt were powerful military States in pre-historic times. Wars more or less fierce were waged before nations were civilized. The earliest known art, therefore, was the art of destruction, growing out of the wicked and brutal passions of men,—envy and hatred, ambition and revenge; in a word, selfishness. Race fought with race, kingdom with kingdom, and city with city, in the very infancy of society. In secular history the greatest names are those of conquerors and heroes in every land under the sun; and it was by conquerors that those grand monuments were erected the ruins of which astonish every traveller, especially in Egypt and Assyria.

But wars in the earliest ages were not carried on scientifically, or even as an art. There was little to mark them except brute force. Armies were scarcely more than great collections of armed men, led by kings, either to protect their States from hostile invaders, or to acquire new territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained the victory.

One of the earliest descriptions of war is to be found in the Iliad of Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.