COLONIES: OPULENCE.-The Phoenicians were the first great colonizing nation of antiquity. It was the fashion of Assyrians and other conquerors to transport to their own lands multitudes of people, whom they carried away as captives from their homes. The Phoenicians—in this particular the forerunners of the Greeks and of the Dutch and the English—planted trading settlements in Cyprus and Crete, on the islands of the AEgean Sea, in southern Spain, and in North Africa. Cadiz, one of the oldest towns in Europe, was founded by these enterprising traders (about 1100 B.C.). Tarshish was another of their Spanish settlements. "Ships of Tarshish," like the modern "East Indiamen," came to signify vessels capable of making long voyages. The coast of modern Andalusia and Granada belonged to the Phoenicians. Through caravans their intercourse was not less lively with the states on the Euphrates, with Nineveh and Babylon, as well as with Egypt. Tyre was a link between the East and the West.

HIRAM: SETTLEMENT OF CARTHAGE.—The Tyrian power attained to its height under King Hiram I., the contemporary and ally of Solomon. Two Greek historians make his reign to extend from 969 to 936 B.C. The alliance with Solomon extended the traffic of Tyre, and increased its wealth. Hiram connected old and New Tyre by a bridge. The Tyrians adorned their city with stately palaces and temples, and built strong fortifications. Engrossed in manufactures and commerce, and delighting in the affluence thus engendered, the Phoenicians were not ambitious of conquest. Although conquerors upon the sea, they were not a martial people: like commercial states generally, they preferred peace. Of the people of Laish (Dan), it is said in the Book of Judges (xviii. 7), "They dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure." This pacific temper was coupled with a fervent attachment to their own land and to their countrymen wherever they went. But they lacked the political instinct. They did not appreciate liberty, and their love of traffic and of gain often made them prefer to pay tribute rather than to fight. Their colonies were factories, but were not centers of further conquest, or germs of political communities. When, the family of Hiram was exterminated (about 850 B.C.) by the high-priest of the goddess Astarte, who seized on power, civil strife and disorder ensued. Pygmalion, the great-grandson of the high-priest, as it is related by a Grecian authority, slew his uncle, who was to marry Pygmalion's sister, Elissa. On account of this internal conflict, and from dread of the Assyrian power, a large number of the old families emigrated to North Africa, and founded Carthage (about 814 B.C.).

The Phoenician cities were confederated together under hereditary kings, whose power was limited by the lay and priestly aristocracy. The common people, many of whom were skilled artisans, made themselves felt in some degree in public affairs. The mercantile class were influential. Thus there was developed a germinant municipal feeling and organization. The "strong city," Tyre, is mentioned in Joshua xix. 29. In Isaiah xxiii., Tyre is described as "the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth." "He stretched out his hand over the sea, he shook the kingdoms." The fate of Babylon is pointed at by the Prophet, to show what Tyre had to expect from Assyria. Later, before the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel thus speaks of Tyre (chap, xxvii.): "They have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee." "Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars." "Tarshish was thy merchant."

RELIGION AND LETTERS.—A very prominent feature of the religion of the Phaenicians is the local character of their divinities. The word baal("lord" or "god") was not used in Phaenicia as the proper name of any one god. But such names as Baal-sidon, "Lord of Sidon," Baal-libanon, "God of Lebanon," etc., are common. Astarte was the most common name for the local female divinities. The gods were often thought of as dwelling in stones, trees, and other objects; the worship of stone-pillars and sacred poles (ashera; translated "grove" in the English Bible) was especially common in Phaenicia. On the other hand, a "god of heaven" and a "goddess of heaven" were worshiped. In the religion of the Phaenicians, the more elevated ingredients of the Semitic heathenism are in the background. The sensual features of it are more prominent, and savage elements are introduced. It was more adapted to foster than to check lust and cruelty. To Astarte, maidens sacrifice their chastity. There was the same double ritual, made up of gross sensuality on the one hand, and of ascetic practices by the priesthood on the other, that belonged to the service of Mylitta at Babylon. Human sacrifice by fire was another horrible feature. Children, especially, were offered to El ("god"; possibly also called Melek (Moloch), "the king," as among the Hebrews). To appease him at Tyre and Carthage, girls and boys, sometimes in large numbers, and of the highest families, were cast into the flames; while the wailing of their relatives, if it was not stifled by themselves at the supposed demand of piety, was drowned by the sound of musical instruments. As late as 310 B.C., when Agathocles was besieging Carthage, and had reduced the city to the direst straits, we are told that the people laid two hundred boys of their noblest families upon the arms of the brazen image of the god, whence they were allowed to fall into the fire beneath. On similar occasions, even the head of the state sometimes offered himself as a sacrifice. Hamilcar, the Carthaginian, son of Hanno, in Sicily, when the tide of battle was turning against him, threw himself into the fire (480 B.C.). Juba, king of Numidia, prepared to do the same after the battle of Thapsus. Large and costly temples were built, generally in the Egyptian style. Such were the temples of Melkart at Tyre and Cadiz, of Eshmun at Sidon, and of "the Lady of Byblos" at that city. Nature—as dying in the autumn, and again reviving in the spring—is figured as the god Adonisz, who is honored first by a protracted season of mourning, and then by a joyous festival.

The Phoenicians were not a literary people. Their alphabet (invented by them?) was the old Semitic alphabet. Every character represented a sound. From the Phaenicians it spread, and became the mother of most of the graphic systems now existing. Cadmus, however, by whom it was said to be carried to the Greeks, is a fabulous person. The alleged history of Sanchuniathon, which was published in Greek by Philo of Byblus, in the second century A.D., is now generally believed to be the work of Philo himself.

HISTORICAL EVENTS.—In the struggles against the Mesopotamian empires, the Phaenicians defended themselves with valor and perseverance. When Sargon (722-705 B.C.) had subjugated their cities on the mainland, insular Tyre for five years repelled his assaults, although the conduits bringing fresh water from the shore were cut off, and the besieged were obliged to content themselves with the scanty supply to be gained from wells dug with great labor. Soon the Tyrian fleets regained their mastery on the sea. When Nebuchadnezzar captured old Tyre, and a multitude of its inhabitants shared the lot of the Jews, and were dragged off by the conqueror to the Euphrates, the island city withstood his attack for thirteen years, and did not yield until it extorted from him a treaty. But the power of resistance was weakened by the repeated invasions and domination of Nineveh and Babylon. Tyre submitted to Persia after the downfall of the Babylonian monarchy, and added her fleet to the Persian forces; although to the Phoenician towns was left a degree of freedom and their local government. Sidon, Tyre, and Arados had a council of their own, which met with their respective kings and senators at Tripolis, for the regulation of matters of common interest. Manufactures and commerce continued to flourish. Under the Persian supremacy, Sidon once more became the chief city. In the middle of the fourth century B.C., it revolted against the tyranny of the foreign governors. The Persian king, Ochus, ordered that the noblest citizens should be put to death; whereupon the inhabitants set the city on fire, and destroyed themselves and their treasures in the flames. Tyre remained, but ventured to resist Alexander the Great, after his conquest of the Persians, and by him was captured and partly demolished (332 B.C.). After the death of Alexander, the Phoenicians fell under the sway of the Seleucidae at Antioch, and, for a time, of the Egyptian Ptolemies. Both Tyre and Sidon were rebuilt, and flourished anew. It is probably to the third century B.C. that we should assign the native Sidonian dynasty which included the Kings Eshmunazar I., Sedek-yaton, Tabnit, Bodashtart, and Eshmunazar II., whose names are known to us from inscriptions. In the time of the last-named king, the cities Dor and Joppa, with the plain of Sharon, belonged to Sidon.

CARTHAGINIAN HISTORY.—The most prominent of all the Phoenician settlements was Carthage. It had remarkable advantages of situation. Its harbor was sufficient for the anchorage of the largest vessels, and it had a fertile territory around it. These circumstances, in conjunction with the energy of its inhabitants, placed it at the head of the Phoenician colonies. In Carthage, there was no middle class. There were the rich landholders and merchants, and the common people. The government was practically an oligarchy. There were two kings or judges (Shofetes), with little power, and a council or senate; possibly a second council also. But the senate and magistrates were subordinate to an aristocratic body, the hundred judges. The bulk of the citizens had little more than a nominal influence in public affairs.

ASCENDENCY OF CARTHAGE.-When the Greeks (about 600 B.C.) spread their colonies, the rivals of the Phoenician settlements, in the west of the Mediterranean, Carthage was moved to deviate from the policy of the parent cities, and to make herself the champion, protector, and mistress of the Phoenician dependencies in all that region. Thus she became the head of a North-African empire, which asserted its supremacy against its Greek adversaries in Sicily and Spain, as well as in Lybia. When Tyre was subjugated by Persia, Carthage was strengthened by the immigration of many of the best Tyrian families. As the Tyrian strength waned, the Carthaginian power increased. Syracuse, in Sicily, became the first Greek naval power, and the foremost antagonist of the Carthaginian dominion. In 480 B.C., Carthage made war upon the Greek cities in Sicily. The contest was renewed from time to time. In the conflicts between 439-409 B.C., she confirmed her sway over the western half of the island. In later conflicts (317-275 B.C.), in which Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse, was a noted leader of the Greeks, and, after his death, Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was their ally, Carthage alternately lost and regained her Sicilian cities. But the result of the war was to establish her maritime ascendency.

LITERATURE.—Works mentioned on pp. 16, 42: Pietschmann, Geschichte der Phoenizier (1889); Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia (1889); E. Meycr, Art. Phoenicia in the Encycl. Bibl.; Perrot & Chipiez, History of Art in Phoenicia and Cyprus, 2 vols.; Renan, Mission de Phenicie (1874); Meltzer, Geschichte der Karthager; F. W. Newman's Defense of Carthage.



CHAPTER IV. THE HEBREWS.

PECULIARITY OF THE HEBREWS.—While the rest of the nations worshiped "gods many and lords many," whom they confounded with the motions of the heavenly bodies, or with other aspects of nature, there was one people which attained to a faith in one God, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, who is exalted above nature, and whom it was deemed impious to represent by any material image. More than is true of any other people, religion was consciously the one end and aim of their being. To bring the true religion to its perfection, and to give it a world-wide diffusion and sway, was felt by them to be their heaven-appointed mission. The peculiarity of their faith made them stand alone, and rendered them exclusive, and intolerant of the surrounding idolatries. The mountainous character of their land, separated by Lebanon from Phoenicia, and by the desert from the nations on the East and South, was well adapted to the work which they had to fulfill in the course of history.

THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.—The Israelites traced their descent from Abraham, who, to escape the infection of idolatry, left his home, which was in Ur on the lower Euphrates, and came into the land of Canaan, where he led a wandering life, but became the father of a group of nations. According to the popular narrative, Isaac, his son by Sarah, was recognized as the next chief of the family; while Ishmael, Abraham's son by Hagar, became the progenitor of the Arabians. Of the two sons of Isaac, Esau, who was a huntsman, married a daughter of the native people: from him sprung the Edomites. Jacob kept up the occupation of a herdsman. Of his twelve sons, Joseph was an object of jealousy to the other eleven, by whom he was sold to a caravan of merchants on their way to Egypt. There, through his skill in interpreting dreams, he rose to high dignities and honors in the court of Pharaoh; and, by his agency, the entire family were allowed to settle oh the pasture-lands of Goshen in northern Egypt (p. 40). Here in the neighborhood of Heliopolis, for several centuries, they fed their flocks. From Israel, the name given to Jacob, they were commonly called Israelites. The name Hebrews was apparently derived from a word signifying "across the river" (Euphrates); but the original application is quite uncertain.

THE EXODUS (see p. 41).—The time came when the Israelites were no longer well treated. A new Egyptian dynasty was on the throne. Their numbers were an occasion of apprehension. An Egyptian princess saved Moses from being a victim of a barbarous edict issued against them. He grew to manhood in Pharaoh's court, but became the champion of his people. Compelled to flee, he received in the lonely region of Mount Sinai that sublime disclosure of the only living God which qualified him to be the leader and deliverer of his brethren. A "strong east wind," parting the Red Sea, opened a passage for the Israelites, whom a succession of calamities, inflicted upon their oppressors by the Almighty, had driven Pharaoh (Menephthah?) to permit to depart in a body; but the returning waves ingulfed the pursuing Egyptian army. "The sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters." For a long period Moses led the people about in the wilderness. They were trained by this experience to habits of order and military discipline. At Horeb, the Decalogue, the kernel, so to speak, of the Hebrew codes, the foundation of the religious and social life of the people, was given them under circumstances fitted to awaken the deepest awe. They placed themselves under Jehovah as the Ruler and Protector of the nation in a special sense. The worship of other divinities, every form of idolatry, was to be a treasonable offense. The laws of Jehovah were to be kept in the Ark of the Covenant, in the "Tabernacle," which was the sanctuary, and was transported from place to place. The priesthood was devolved on Aaron and his successors, at the side of whom were their assistants, the Levites. The civil authority in each tribe was placed in the hands of the patriarchal chief and the "elders," the right of approval or of veto being left to the whole tribe gathered in an assembly. The heads of the tribes, with seventy representative elders, together with Aaron and Moses, formed a supreme council or standing committee. On particular occasions a congregation of all the tribes might be summoned. The ritual was made up of sacrifices and solemn festivals. The Sabbath was the great weekly commemoration, a day of rest for the slave as well as for the master, for the toiling beast as well as for man. Every seventh year and every fiftieth year were sabbaths, when great inequalities of condition, which might spring up in the intervals, respecting the possession of land, servitude consequent on debts, etc., were removed.

Hebrew Laws.—The Israelites, in virtue of their covenant with Jehovah, were to be a holy people, a nation of priests. They were thus to maintain fraternal equality. There was to be no enslaving of one another, save that which was voluntary and for a limited time. Only prisoners not of their race, or purchased foreigners, could be held as slaves. Every fiftieth year, land was to revert to its original possessor. In the sabbatical years the land was not to be tilled. What then grew wild might be gathered by all. There were careful provisions for the benefit of the poor.

HEADS OF TRIBES.—The progenitors of the tribes, the sons of Jacob, as given in Exodus, were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin.

THE HEBREW RELIGION—Such, in brief, were the beginnings of a religion as unique as it was elevated in its character,—a religion which stood from the outset in mortal antagonism to the Egyptian worship of sun-gods, and to the star-worship, the service of Baal, and of sensual or savage divinities joined with him,—to that service which was diffused through the Semitic nations of western Asia. A people was constituted to be the guardian of this light, kindled in the midst of the surrounding darkness, to carry it down to later ages, and to make it finally, in its perfected form, the heritage of mankind.

THE PROPHETS.—Moses was not only a military leader and a legislator: he stands at the head of the prophets, the class of men who at different times, especially in seasons of national peril and temptation, along the whole course of Israelitish history, were raised up to declare the will of Jehovah, to utter the lessons proper to the hour, to warn evil-doers, and to comfort the desponding.

CONQUEST OF CANAAN: THE ERA OF THE JUDGES.—Moses himself did not enter "the promised land," where the patriarchs were buried, and which the Israelites were to conquer. According to Deut. vii. 2, a war of extermination was commanded. The reason given for the command was that the people must avoid the contagion of idolatry, that it was the fit reward of the nation which they were bidden to dispossess.

The word "Canaanite" was used especially to designate the inhabitants of the coast region of Palestine. It was applied, however, to all the tribes, who were under thirty-one kings or chiefs, in the time of Joshua, There were six principal tribes,—the Hittites, Hivites, Amorites, Jebusites, Perizzites, and Girgashites. These, with the exception of the Hittites, and possibly the Amtorites, were Semitic in their language. The Canaanites had houses and vineyards. From them the Israelites learned agriculture. "They were in possession of fortified towns, treasures of brass, iron, gold, and foreign merchandise" Their religious rites were brutal and debasing,—"human sacrifice, licentious orgies, the worship of a host of divinities."

On the death of Moses, Joshua succeeded to the post of a leader. He defeated the Amontes and other tribes on the east of the Jordan. After the first victories of Joshua, each tribe carried on for itself the struggle with Canaanites, victory over them being often followed by indiscriminate slaughter. It is plain, however, especially from the account in the first chapter of the Book of Judges, that there was a process of assimilation as well as one of conquest. The actual settlement was effected by peaceful as well as by warlike methods. Resistance was stubborn, and the progress of occupation slow. It was not until David's time, centuries after the invasion, that Jebus, the site of Jerusalem, was captured. This delay was due largely to a lack of union, not to a lack of valor. The strength of the Israelites was in their infantry. Hence they preferred to fight upon the hills, rather than to cope with horsemen and chariots on the plains below.

THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES.—The era of the Judges extends from about 1300 B.C. over at least two centuries. Powerful tribes—as Moabites, Midianites, Ammonites, Philistines—were unsubdued. The land was desolated by constant war. It was one sure sign of the prevailing disorder and anarchy, that "the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through byways" (Judg. v. 6). Not unfrequently the people forgot Jehovah, and fell into idolatrous practices. In this period of degeneracy and confusion, men full of sacred enthusiasm and of heroic courage arose to smite the enemies of Israel, and to restore the observance of the law. Of these heroic leaders, Deborah, Gideon, Jepththa, and Samson were the most famous. There remains the song of Deborah on the defeat and death of Sisera (Judg. v.).

The Philistines, on the western coast, captured the sacred ark,—an act that spread dismay among the Israelites. Then they pushed on their conquests as far as the Jordan, took away from the Israelites their weapons, and grievously oppressed them. The Ammonites threatened the tribes on the east of the Jordan with a like fate. At this juncture, an effective leader and reformer appeared, in the person of Samuel, who had been consecrated from his youth up to the service of the sanctuary, and whose devotion to the law was mingled with an ardent patriotism. He roused the courage of the people, and recalled them to the service of Jehovah. In the "schools of the prophets" he taught the young the law, trained them in music and song, and thus prepared a class of inspiring teachers and guides to co-operate with the priesthood in upholding the cause of religion.

THE MONARCHY: SAMUEL AND SAUL.—In the distracted condition of the country, the people demanded a king, to unite them, and lead them to victory, and to administer justice. They felt that their lack of compact organization and defined leadership placed them at a disadvantage in comparison with the tribes about. This demand Samuel resisted, as springing out of a distrust of Jehovah, and as involving a rejection of Him. He depicted the burdens which regal government would bring upon them. Later history verified his prediction. A strong, centralized authority was not in harmony with the family and tribal government which was the peculiarity of their system. It brought in, by the side of the prophetic order, another authority less sacred in its claims to respect. Collisions between the two must inevitably result. But, whatever might be the ideal political system, the exigency was such that Samuel yielded to the persistent call of the people. He himself chose and anointed for the office a tall, brave, and experienced soldier, Saul. Successful in combat, the king soon fell into a conflict with the prophet, by failing to comply with the divine law, and by sparing, contrary to the injunction laid upon him, prisoners and cattle that he had captured. Thereupon Samuel secretly anointed David, a young shepherd of the tribe of Judah; thus designating him for the throne. The envy of Saul at the achievements of David, and at his growing popularity, coupled with secret suspicion of what higher honors might be in store for the valiant youth, embittered the king against him. David was befriended and shielded by Jonathan, Saul's son, who might naturally be looked upon as his suitable successor. The memorials of the friendship of these two youths, in the annals of that troublous time, are like a star in the darkest night. David was obliged to take refuge among the Philistines, where he led a band of free lances, whom the Philistines did not trust as auxiliaries, but who were inured by their daring combats for the struggles that came afterwards. Saul and Jonathan were slain, Saul by his own hand. For six years David was king in Hebron, over the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The other tribes were ruled by Saul's son, Ishbaal ('Ishbosheth'). At length David was recognized as king by all the tribes. Saul's family were exterminated.

CHRONOLOGY.—There is much difficulty in settling the chronology in the early centuries of the regal period of Hebrew history. Apart from the questions which arise in comparing the biblical data, the information derived from Egyptian and especially from Assyrian sources has to be taken into account. Hence the dates given below must be regarded as open to revision as our knowledge increases.

Assyriologists find that Shalmaneser II. received tribute from Ahab, King of Israel, 854 B.C., and from Jehu, 842 B.C.; that Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 B.C.) received tribute from Menahem in 738 B.C. and that Samaria fell in 722 B.C. Assyriology, on the basis of its data, as at present ascertained, would make out a chronology something like the following: Era of the judges, 1300-1020; Saul, 1020-1000; David, 1000-960; Solomon, 960-930; Reho-boam, 930-914 (Jeroboam I., 930-910); Jehoshaphat, 870+-850 (Ahab, 875-853); Azanah (or Uzziah), 779-740 (Jehu, 842-815); (Jeroboam II., 783-743); (Menahem, 744-738).

DAVID AND SOLOMON.—David's reign (about 1000-970 B.C.) is the period of Israel's greatest power. He extended his sway as far as the Red Sea and the Euphrates; he overcame Damascus, and broke down the power of the Philistines; he subdued the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites; he conquered the Jebusites, and made Jerusalem his capital and the center of national worship. A poet himself, he enriched the religious service, which he organized, by lyrics—some of them composed by himself—of unrivaled devotional depth and poetic beauty. He organized his military force as well, and established an orderly civil administration. His favorite son, Absalom, led away by ambition, availed himself of disaffection among the people to head a revolt against his father, but perished in the attempt. David left his crown to Solomon at the close of a checkered life, marked by great victories, and by flagrant misdeeds done under the pressure of temptation.

CHARACTERS OF SOLOMON'S REIGN.—Solomon's reign (about 970-933 B.C.) was the era of luxury and splendor. He sought to emulate the other great monarchs of the time. With the help of Hiram, king of Tyre, who furnished materials and artisans, he erected a magnificent temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. He built costly palaces. He brought horses from Egypt, and organized a standing army, with its cavalry and chariots. He established a harem, bringing into it women from the heathen countries, whom he allowed in their idolatrous rites. He was even seduced to take part in them himself. Renowned for his knowledge and for his wisdom—which was admired by the Queen of Saba (Sheba), who came to visit him from the Arabian coast—famous as the author of wise aphorisms, he nevertheless entailed disasters on his country. He established a sort of Oriental despotism, which exhausted its resources, provoked discontent, and tended to undermine morality as well as religion.

THE DIVIDED KINGDOM.—The bad effect of Solomon's magnificence soon appeared. Before his death a revolt was made under the lead of Jeroboam, which was put down. Of Rehoboam, the successor of Solomon, the ten tribes north of Judah required pledges that their burdens should be lightened. In the room of the heads and elders of the tribes, the late king's officers had come in to oppress them with their hard exactions. The haughty young king spurned the demand for redress. The tribes cast off his rule, and made Jeroboam I. their king (about 933 B.C.). The temple was left in the hands of Judah and Benjamin. The division of the kingdom into two, insured the downfall of both. The rising power of the Mesopotamian Empire could not be met without union. On the other hand, the concentration of worship at Jerusalem, under the auspices of the two southern tribes, may have averted dangers that would have arisen from the wider diffusion, and consequent exposure to corruption, of the religious system. The development and promotion of the true religion—the one great historical part appointed for the Hebrews—may have been performed not less effectively, on the whole, for the separation.

HEATHEN RITES.—From this time the energetic and prolonged contest of the prophets with idolatry is a conspicuous feature, especially in the history of Israel, the northern kingdom. Jeroboam set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel, ancient seats of the worship of Jehovah. Wars with Judah and Damascus weakened the strength of Israel. The Egyptian king, Shishak, captured Jerusalem, and bore away the treasures collected by Solomon (p. 41). Under Jehoshaphat (about 873-849 B.C.) the heathen altars were demolished and prosperity returned.

STRUGGLE WITH IDOLATRY: ELIHAH AND ELISHA.—The contemporary of Jehoshaphat in the northern kingdom was Ahab (about 876-854 B.C.). He expended his power and wealth in the building up of Baal-worship, at the instigation of the Tyrian princess, Jezebel, whom he had married. At Samaria, his capital, he raised a temple to Baal, where four hundred and fifty of his priests ministered. The priests of Jehovah who withstood these measures were driven out of the land, or into hiding-places. The austere and intrepid prophet Elijah found refuge in Mount Carmel. The people, on the occasion of a famine, which he declared to be a divine judgment, rose in their wrath, and slew the priests of Baal. In a war—the third of a series—which Ahab waged against Syria, he still fought in his chariot, after he had received a mortal wound, until he fell dead. He had previously thrown the prophet Micaiah into prison for predicting this result. By the marriage of Athalia, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, with Jehoshaphat's son, Baal-worship was introduced into Jerusalem. Joram succeeded Ahab. The prophet Elisha, who followed in the steps of Elijah, anointed Jehu "captain of the host of Joram." He undertook, with fierce and unsparing energy, to destroy Baal-worship, and to extirpate the house of Ahab, root and branch. The two kings of Israel and of Judah he slew with his own hand. The priests and servants of Baal were put to the sword. These conflicts reduced the strength of Israel, which fell a prey to Syria, until its power was revived by Jeroboam II. (783-743 B.C.). The death of Athalia brought on the expulsion of the Phoenician idolatry from Jerusalem. The southern kingdom suffered from internal strife, and from wars with Israel, until Uzziah (779-740 B.C.) restored its military strength, and caused agriculture and trade once more to flourish.

THE ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY.—The two kingdoms, in the ninth and eighth centuries, instead of standing together against the threatening might of Assyria, sought heathen alliances, and wasted their strength in mutual contention. Against these hopeless alliances, and against the idolatry and the formalism which debased the people, the prophets contended with intense earnestness and unflinching courage. Amos, called from feeding his flocks, inveighed against frivolity and vice, misgovernment and fraud, in Israel. Hosea warned Menahem (743-737 B.C.) against invoking the help of Assyria against Damascus, but in vain. He was terribly punished by what he suffered from the Assyrians; but Jotham (740-736 B.C.) and Ahaz (736-728 B.C.), the Judaean kings, successively followed his example. Tiglath-Pileser made Judaea tributary. The Assyrian rites were brought into the temple of Jehovah. The service of Canaanitish deities was introduced. The one incorruptible witness for the cause of Jehovah was the fearless and eloquent prophet, Isaiah. Hosea, king of Israel, by his alliance with Egypt against Sargon, so incensed this most warlike of the Assyrian monarchs, that, when he had subdued the Phoenician cities, he laid siege to Samaria; and, having captured it at the end of a siege of three years, he led away the king and the larger part of his subjects as captives, to the Euphrates and the Tigris, and replaced them by subjects of his own (722 B.C.). The later Samaritans were the descendants of this mixed population.

The Babylonian Captivity.—When Sargon, the object of general dread, died, Hezekiah, king of Judah (727-699 B.C.), flattered himself that it was safe to disregard the warnings of Isaiah, and, in the hope of throwing off the Assyrian yoke, made a treaty of alliance with the king of Egypt, and fortified Jerusalem. He abolished, however, the heathen worship in "the high places." Sennacherib, Sargon's successor, was compelled to raise the siege (p. 46). Manasseh (698-643 B.C.), in defiance of the prophets, fostered the idolatrous and sensual worship, against which they never ceased to lift their voices. Josiah (640-609 B.C.) was a reformer. As a tributary of Babylon, he sought to prevent Necho, king of Egypt, from crossing his territory, but was vanquished and slain at Megiddo, on the plain of Esdraelon. Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Necho, at Carchemish, enabled the Babylonian king to tread in the footsteps of the Assyrian conquerors. The revolt of Zedekiah, which the prophet Jeremiah was unable to prevent, and his alliance with Egypt, led to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. In this period of national ruin, the prophetic spirit found a voice through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It was during the era of Assyrian and Babylonian invasion that the predictions of a MESSIAH, a great Deliverer and righteous Ruler who was to come, assumed a more definite expression. The spiritual character of Isaiah's teaching has given him the name of "the evangelical prophet."

Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, opened the way (538 B.C.) for the return of the exiles. A small part first came back under Zerubbabel, head of the tribe of Judah, who was made Persian governor. They began to rebuild the temple, which was finished in 516 B.C. Later (458 B.C.) Ezra "the scribe" and Nehemiah led home a larger body. The newly returned Jews were fired with a zeal for the observance of the Mosaic ritual,—a zeal which had been sharpened in the persecutions and sorrows of exile. The era of the "hagiocracy," of the supreme influence of the priesthood and the rigid adherence to the law, with an inflexible hostility to heathen customs, ensued. The spirit of which prophecy had been the stimulant, and partially the fruit, declined. The political independence of the land was gone for ever. The day of freedom under the Maccabees, after the insurrection (168 B.C.) led by that family against the Syrian successors of Alexander, was short. But Israel "had been thrown into the stream of nations." Its religious influence was to expand as its political strength dwindled. Its subjugation and all its terrible misfortunes were to serve as a means of spreading the leavening influence of its monotheistic faith.

In the year 63 B.C., Pompeius made the Jews tributary to the Romans. In the year 40 B.C., Herod began to reign as a dependent king under Rome.

Hebrew Literature.—The literature of the Hebrews is essentially religious in its whole motive and spirit. This is true even of their historical writings. The marks of the one defining characteristic of their national life—faith in Jehovah and in his sovereign and righteous control—are everywhere seen. Hebrew poetry is mainly lyrical. Relics of old songs are scattered through the historical books. In the Psalms, an anthology of sacred lyrics, the spirit of Hebrew poesy attains to its highest flight. Examples of didactic poetry are the Book of Job, and books like the Proverbs, composed mainly of pithy sayings or gnomes. Nowhere, save in the Psalms, does the spirit of the Hebrew religion and the genius of the people find an expression so grand and moving as in the Prophets, of whom Isaiah is the chief.

ART.—In art the Hebrews did not excel. The plastic arts were generally developed in connection with religion. But the religion of the Hebrews excluded all visible representations of deity. Nor were they proficients in science. "Israel was the vessel in which the water of life was inclosed, in which it was kept cool and pure, that it might thereafter refresh the world."

The HISTORICAL BOOKS of the Old Testament comprise, first, the Pentateuch, which describes the origin of the Hebrew people, the exodus from Egypt, and the Sinaitic legislation. Questions pertaining to the date and authorship of these five books, and of the materials at the basis of them, are still debated among historical critics. It may be regarded as certain, however, that materials belonging to nearly every period of Hebrew literature, from the earliest times, are here combined. The early part of Genesis is designed to explain the genealogy of the Hebrews, and to show how, step by step, they were sundered from other peoples. The narratives in the first ten chapters—as the story of the creation, the flood, etc.—so strikingly resemble legends of other Semitic nations, especially the Babyloniansand Phoenicians, as to make it plain that all these groups of accounts are historically connected with one another. But the Genesis narratives are distinguished by their freedom from the polytheistic ingredients which disfigure the corresponding narratives elsewhere. They are on the elevated plane of that pure theism which is the kernel of the Hebrew faith. This whole subject is elucidated by Lenormant, in The Beginnings of History (1882). The Book of Joshua relates the history of the conquest of Canaan; Judges, the tale of the heroic age of Israel prior to the monarchy; the Books of Samuel and of Kings, of the monarchy in its glory and its decline; the Books of Chronicles treat of parts of the same era, more from the point of view of the priesthood; Ruth is an idyl of the narrative type; Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther have to do with the return of the Jews from exile, and the events next following.

The POETIC WRITINGS include the Psalter, by many authors; the Proverbs of Solomon and others; Ecclesiastes, which gives the sombre reflections of one who had tasted to the full the pleasures and honors of life; the Canticles, or Song of Solomon, which depicts a young woman's love in its constancy, and victory over temptation.

The PROPHETS are divided into four classes: i. Those of the early period from the twelfth to the ninth century, including Samuel, Elijah, Eliska, etc, who have left no prophetical writings. 2. The prophets of the Assyrian age (800-700 B.C.), where belong Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Nahum. 3. The prophets of the Babylonian age, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Ezekiel. Here some scholars would place a part of Isaiah. 4. The post-exilian prophets, Haggai, Zachariah, Malackt, Jonah., Daniel, Joel, Obadiah, and considerable portions of Isaiah and Jeremiah.

The APOCRYPHAL BOOKS belong between the closing of the Old-Testament canon and the New Testament. They are instructive as to that intermediate period. The first Book of Maccabees is specially important for its historical matter; the Books of Wisdom and the Son of Sirach for their moral reflections and precepts.

WORKS RELATING TO HEBREW HISTORY.—EWALD, History of the Israelitish People (Eng. trans., 5 vols.); Milman, History of the Jews (3 vols.); Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (2 vols., 1889); Renan, History of the People of Israel (Eng. trans., 1896); Wellhausen. Israelitische und judische Geschichte (3d ed., 1897); Kent, History of the Hebrew People (1898); Guthe, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (1899); the Art. Israel by Wellhausen, in the Encycl. Brit., and the one by Guthe in the Encycl. Bibl. The historical works of Jewish scholars, Herzfeld, Jost, Zunz, Graetz, DERENBOURG, etc., are valuable.



CHAPTER V. THE PERSIANS.

In the western part of the plateau of Iran, which extends from the Suleiman Mountains to the plains of Mesopotamia, were the Medes. On the southern border of the same plateau, along the Persian Gulf, were the Persians. Both were offshoots of the Aryan family, and had migrated westward from the region of the upper Oxus, from Bactria, the original seat of their religion.

RELIGION.—The ancient religion of the Iranians, including the Medes and Persians, was reduced to a system by the Bactrian sage, Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), who, in the absence of authentic knowledge respecting him, may be conjecturally placed at about 1000 B.C. The Zendavesta, the sacred book of the Parsees, the adherents of this religion, is composed of parts belonging to very different dates. It is the fragment of a more extensive literature no longer extant. The Bactrian religion differed from that of their Sanskrit-speaking kindred on the Indus, in being a form of dualism. It grew out of a belief in good demons or spirits, and in evil spirits, making up two hosts perpetually in conflict with each other. At the head of the host of good spirits, in the Zoroastrian creed, was Ormuzd, the creator, and the god of light; at the head of the evil host, was Ahriman, the god of darkness. The one made the world good, the other laid in it all that is evil. The one is disposed to bless man, the other to do him harm. The conflict of virtue and vice in man is a contest for control on the part of these antagonistic powers. In order to keep off the spirits of evil, one must avoid what is morally or ceremonially unclean. He who lived pure, went up at death to the spirits of light. The evil soul departed to consort with evil spirits in the region of darkness. Mithra, the sun-god in the Zoroastrian system, is the equal, though the creature, of Ormuzd. Mithra is the conqueror of darkness, and so the enemy of falsehood. The Medes and Persians were fire-worshipers. To the good spirits, they ascribed life, the fruitful earth, the refreshing waters, fountains and rivers, the tilled ground, pastures and trees, the lustrous metals, also truth and the pure deed. To the evil spirits belonged darkness, disease, death, the desert, cold, filth, sin, and falsehood. The animals were divided between the two realms. All that live in holes, all that hurt the trees and the crops, rats and mice, reptiles of all sorts, turtles, lizards, vermin, and noxious insects, were hateful creatures of Ahriman. To kill any of these was a merit. The dog was held sacred; as was also the cock, who announces the break of day. In the system of worship, sacrifices were less prominent than in India. Prayers, and the iteration of prayers, were of great moment.

THE MAGI.—The Zoroastrian religion was not the same at all times and in every place. The primitive Iranian emigrants were monotheistic in their tendencies. In their western abodes, they came into contact with worshipers of the elements,—fire, air, earth, and water. It is thought by many scholars, that the Magian system, with its more defined dualism and sacerdotal sway, was ingrafted on the native religion of the Iranians through the influence of tribes with whom they mingled in Media. The Magi, according to one account, were charged by Darius with corrupting the Zoroastrian faith and worship. Whatever may have been their origin, they became the leaders in worship, and privy-counselors to the sovereign. They were likewise astrologers, and interpreters of dreams. They were not so distinct a class as the priests in India. A hereditary order, they might still bring new members into their ranks. From the Medes, they were introduced among the Persians.

PERSIAN RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS.—Peculiar customs existed among the Medes in disposing of the dead. They were not to be cast into the fire or the water, or buried in the earth, for this would bring pollution to what was sacred; but their bodies were to be exposed in the high rocks, where the beasts and birds could devour them. Sacrifices were offered on hill-tops. Salutations of homage were made to the rising sun. On some occasions, boys were buried alive, as an offering to the divinities. In early times, there were no images of the gods. As far as they were introduced in later times, it was through the influence of surrounding nations. In the supremacy and the final victory, which, in the later form of Zoroastrianism, were accorded to Ormuzd, there was again an approach to monotheism. Hostility to deception of all sorts, and thus to stealing, was a Persian trait. Herodotus says that the Persians taught their children to ride, to shoot the bow, and to speak the truth. To prize the pursuits of agriculture and horticulture, was a part of their religion. They allowed a plurality of wives, and concubines with them; but there was one wife to whom precedence belonged. Voluntary celibacy in man or woman was counted a flagrant sin.

HISTORY.—The first authentic notice that we have of the MEDES shows them under Assyrian power. This is in the time of Shalmaneser II., 840 B.C. Their rise is coincident with the fall of Assyria. Phraortes (647-625 B.C.) began the Median struggle for independence; although the name of Deioces is given by Herodotus as a previous king, and the builder of Ecbatana the capital. It was reserved for Cyaxares (625-585 B.C.), having delivered his land from the Scythian marauders (p. 47), to complete, in conjunction with the Babylonian king, Nabopolassar, the work of breaking down the Assyrian empire (p. 48). He brought under his rule the Bactrians, and the Persians about Pasargadae and Persepolis, and made the Halys, dividing Asia Minor, the limit of his kingdom. His effeminate son, Astyages, lost what his father had won. The Persian branch of the Iranians gained the supremacy. Cyrus, the leader of the Persian revolt, by whom Astyages was defeated, is described as related to him; but this story, as well as the account of his being rescued from death and brought up among shepherds, is probably a fiction.

CYRUS.—In the sixth century B.C., this famous ruler and conqueror became the founder of an empire which comprised nearly all the civilized nations of Asia. During his reign of thirty years (559-530 B.C.), he annexed to his kingdom the two principal states, LYDIA and BABYLON. The king of Lydia was Croesus, whose story, embellished with romantic details, was long familiar as a signal example of the mutations of fortune. Doomed to be burned after the capture of Sardis, his capital, he was heard, just when the fire was to be kindled, to say something about Solon. In answer to the inquiry of Cyrus, whose curiosity was excited, he related how that Grecian sage, after beholding his treasures, had refused to call him the most fortunate of men, on the ground that "no man can be called happy before his death," because none can tell what disasters may befall him. Cyrus, according to the narrative, touched by the tale, delivered Croesus from death, and thereafter bestowed on him honor and confidence.

There is another form of the tradition, which is deemed by some more probable. Croesus is said to have stood on a pyre, intending to offer himself in the flames, to propitiate the god Sandon, that his people might be saved from destruction; but he was prevented, it is said, by unfavorable auguries.

The subjection of the Greek colonies on the Asia-Minor coast followed upon the subjugation of Lydia. From these colonies, the Phocoeans went forth, and founded Elea in Lower Italy, and Massilia (Marseilles) in Gaul. The Asian Greek cities were each allowed its own municipal rulers, but paid tribute to the Persian master. The conquest of Babylon (538 B.C.), as it opened the way for the return to Jerusalem of the Jewish exiles, enabled Cyrus to establish a friendly people in Judaea, as a help in fortifying his sway in Syria, and in opening a path to Egypt. But in 529 he lost his life in a war which he was waging against the Massagetae, a tribe on the Caspian, allied in blood to the Scythians.

There was a tradition that the barbarian queen, Tomyris, enraged that Cyrus had overcome her son by deceit, dipped the slain king's head in a skin-bag of blood, exclaiming, "Drink thy fill of blood, of which thou couldst not have enough in thy lifetime!"

CAMBYSES.—The successor of Cyrus, a man not less warlike than he, but more violent in his passions, reigned but seven years (529-522 B.C.). His most conspicuous achievement was the conquest of EGYPT. One ground or pretext of his hostility, according to the tale of Herodotus, was the fact that Amasis, the predecessor of Psammeticus III., not daring to refuse the demand of his daughter as a wife, to be second in rank to the Persian queen, had fraudulently sent, either to Cambyses, or, before his time, to Cyrus, Nitetis, the daughter of the king who preceded him, Apries. Defeated at Pelusium, and compelled to yield up Memphis after a siege, it is said that Psammeticus, the Psammenitus of Herodotus, the unfortunate successor of the powerful Pharaohs, was obliged to look on the spectacle of his daughters in the garb of working-women, bearing water, and to see his sons, with the principal young nobles, ordered to execution. But this tale lacks confirmation. His cruelties were probably of a later date, and were provoked by the chagrin he felt, and the satisfaction manifested by the people, at the failure of great expeditions which he sent southward for the conquest of Meroe, and westward against the Oasis of Ammon. His armies perished in the Lybian deserts. Even the story of his stabbing the sacred steer (Apis), after these events, although it may be true, is not sanctioned by the Egyptian inscriptions. His attack upon Ammon probably arose, in part at least, from a desire to possess himself of whatever lay between Egypt and the Carthaginian territory. But the Phoenician sailors who manned his fleet refused to sail against their brethren in Carthage. Cambyses assumed the title and character of an Egyptian sovereign. The story of his madness is an invention of the Egyptian priests.

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

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

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

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

LITERATURE—Works mentioned on pp 16, 42; Encycl. Brit., Art. Persia; Vaux, Persia from the Monuments (1876); Noeldeke, Aufsdtze zur persischen Geschichte (1887); Justi, Geschichte trans (1900); Markham, General Sketch of the History of Persia (1874).

RETROSPECT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



DIVISION II. EUROPE.

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

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

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



SECTION I. GRECIAN HISTORY.

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

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

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

Northern Greece contained two principal countries, Thessaly and Epirus, separated from one another by the Pindus. Thessaly was the largest and most fertile of the Grecian states. The Peneus, into which poured the mountain streams, passed to the sea through a narrow gorge, the famous Vale of Tempe. In the mountainous region of Epirus were numerous streams flowing through the valleys. Within it was the ancient Dodona, the seat of the oracle. Magnesia, east of Thessaly, on the coast, comprised within it the two ranges of Ossa and Pelion. Central Greece contained eleven states. Malis had on its eastern edge the pass of Thermopylae. In Phocis, on the southern slope of Mount Parnassus, was Delphi. Boeotia was distinguished for the number and size of its cities, the chief of which was Thebes. Attica projected from Boeotia to the south-east, its length being seventy miles, and its greatest width thirty miles. Its area was only about seven hundred and twenty square miles. It was thus only a little more than half as large as the State of Rhode Island, which has an area of thirteen hundred and six square miles. Its only important town was Athens. Its rivers, the Ilissus and the two Cephissusses, were nothing more than torrent courses. In Southern Greece were eleven countries. The territory of Corinth embraced most of the isthmus, and a large tract in Peloponnesus. It had but one considerable city, Corinth, which had two ports,—one on the Corinthian Gulf, Lechoeum, and the other on the Saronic Gulf, Cenchreae. Arcadia, the central mountain country, has been called the Switzerland of Peloponnesus. It comprised numerous important towns, as Mantinea, Orchomenus, and, in later times, Megalopolis. In the south-east was Laconia, with an area of about nineteen hundred square miles. It consisted mainly of the valley of the Eurotas, which lay between the lofty mountain ranges of Parnon and Taygetus. "Hollow Lacedaemon" was a phrase descriptive of its situation. Sparta, the capital, was on the Eurotas, twenty miles from the sea. It had no other important city. Argolis, projecting into the sea, eastward of Arcadia, had within it the ancient towns of Mycenae and Argos.

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

The principal island near Greece was Euboea, stretching for a hundred miles along the east coast of Attica, Boeotia, and Locris. On the opposite side of the peninsula, west of Epirus, was the smaller but yet large island of Corcyra (Corfu). On the west, besides, were Ithaca, Cephallenia, and Zacynthus (Zante); on the south, the Oenussae Islands and Cythera; on the east, Aegina, Salamis, etc. From the south-eastern shores of Euboea and Attica, the Cyclades and Sporades extended in a continuous series, "like a set of stepping-stones," across the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor. From Corcyra and the Acroceraunian promontory, one could descry, in clear weather, the Italian coast. These were all littoral islands. Besides these, there were other islands in the northern and central Aegean, such as Lemnos, Samothrace, Delos, Naxos, etc.; and in the southern Aegean, Crete, an island mountainous but fertile, a hundred and fifty miles in length from east to west, and about fifteen in breadth, and containing more than two thousand square miles. The Greek race was still more widely diffused through the settlements in and about the western Mediterranean.

THE BOND OF RACE.—The Greeks, or Hellenes, were not so much a nation as a united race. Politically divided, they were conscious of a fraternal bond that connected them, wherever they might be found, and parted them from the rest of mankind. Their sense of brotherhood is implied in the fabulous belief in a common ancestor named Hellen. Together with a fellowship in blood, there was a community in language, notwithstanding minor differences in dialect. Moreover, there was a common religion. They worshiped the same gods. They had the same ritual, and cherished in common the same beliefs respecting things supernatural. In connection with these ties of blood, of language, and of religion, they celebrated together great national festivals, like the Olympic games, in which Greeks from all parts of the world might take part, and into which they entered with a peculiar enthusiasm. As the Jews, following the impulses of a holier faith, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate as one family their sacred rites; so the Greeks repaired to hallowed shrines of Zeus or Apollo, assembling from afar on the plain of Olympia and at the foot of Parnassus.

DIVISIONS OF GREEK HISTORY.

Greek history embraces three general periods. The first is the formative period, and extends to the Persian wars, 500 B.C. The second period covers the flourishing era of Greece, from 500 B.C. to 359 B.C. The third is the Macedonian period, when the freedom of Greece was lost,—the era of Philip and Alexander, and of Alexander's successors.

PERIOD I. is divided into (1) the mythical or prehistoric age, extending to 776 B.C.; (2) the age of the formation of the principal states. PERIOD II. includes (1) the Persian wars, 502-479 B.C.; (2) the period of Athenian supremacy, 478-431 B.C.; (3) the Peloponnesian war, 431-404 B.C., with the Spartan, followed by the Theban ascendency, 404-362 B.C. PERIOD III. includes (1) the reigns of Philip and Alexander, 359-323 B.C.; (2) the kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander was divided.



PERIOD I. GREECE PRIOR TO THE PERSIAN WARS.



CHAPTER I. THE PREHISTORIC AGE.

ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS—Before the Hellenes parted from their Aryan ancestry, they had words for "father," "mother," "brother," "son," and "daughter," as well as for certain connections by marriage. They lived in houses, pastured flocks and herds, possessed dogs and horses. They had for weapons, the sword and the bow. "They knew how to work gold, silver, and copper; they could count up to a hundred; they reckoned time by the lunar month; they spoke of the sky as the 'heaven-father.'" The differences between the Greek and the Latin languages prove, also, that the Greeks and Italians, after their common progenitors broke off from the primitive Aryan stock, had long dwelt apart. The Greeks, when they first become known to us in historical times, consist of two great branches, the Dorians and Ionians, together with a less distinct branch, the Aeolians, which differs less, perhaps, from the parent Hellenes than do the two divisions just named.

It is a probable opinion of scholars, that the halting-place of the Hellenes, whence, in successive waves, they passed over into Greece, was Phrygia, in the north-west of Asia Minor. Preceding the Greeks both in northern Greece and in Peloponnesus, and spread over the coasts and islands of the Archipelago, was a people of whom they had an indistinct knowledge, whom they called Pelasgians. They were husbandmen or herdsmen. Their national sanctuary was at Dodona, in Epirus. The "Cyclopean" ruins, composed of huge polygonal blocks of stone, which they left behind in various places, are the remnant of their walls and fortifications. The Greeks looked back on these Pelasgian predecessors as different from themselves. Yet no reminiscences existed of any hostility towards them. It is plausibly conjectured that this prehistoric people were emigrants from the region of Phrygia at a more ancient date, and that the Hellenes, a more energetic and gifted branch of the same stock, followed them, and, without force or conflict, became the founders and leaders of a new historic movement, in which the Pelasgians disappeared from view. In this second migration, the ancestors of the Ionians went down from Phrygia to the coast of Asia Minor, and began the career which made them a maritime and commercial people. The Dorians crossed over to the highlands of northern Greece, where they became hardy mountaineers, not addicted to the sea. The one tribe were to be eventually the founders of Athens; the other, of Sparta. Besides these two main tribes, the Aeolians occupied Thessaly, Boeotia, Aetolia, and other districts. To them the Achaeans, who were supreme in Peloponnesus in the days of Homer, were allied.

FOREIGN INFLUENCES.—Besides Phrygia, the legends of the Greeks bear traces of a foreign influence from Phoenicia and Egypt. The Phoenicians were unquestionably early connected with the Greeks, first by commercial visits to Greek ports, to which they brought foreign merchandise. The story of Cadmus, who is said to have founded Thebes, and to have brought in the Phoenician alphabet, is fabulous. But it is probable, that, as early as the close of the ninth century B.C., the alphabet was introduced by Phoenicians, and diffused over Greece. Another legend is that of Cecrops, conceived of later as an Egyptian, who is said to have built a citadel at Athens, and to have imported the seeds of civilization and religion. Danaus, another emigrant from Egypt, coming with his fifty daughters, is said to have built the citadel of Argos. In the later times, the Greeks were fond of tracing their knowledge of the arts to Egyptian sources. It is remarkable that the agents by whom germs of civilization were said to have been imported from abroad, though foreign, are nevertheless depicted as thoroughly Greek in their character. Whatever the Greeks may have owed to Egypt, it is probable was mainly derived from Ionians who had previously planted themselves in that country.

THE DORIAN EMIGRATION.—It was in the prehistoric time that the Dorians left their homes in northern Greece, and migrated into Peloponnesus, where they proved themselves stronger than the Ionians and the Achaeans dwelling there. They left the Achaeans on the south coast of the Corinthian Gulf, in the district called Achaia. Nor did they conquer Arcadia. But of most of Peloponnesus they became masters. This is the portion of historic truth contained in the myth of the Return of the Heraclidae, the descendants of Hercules, to the old kingdom of their ancestor.

MIGRATIONS TO ASIA MINOR.—The Dorian conquest is said to have been the cause of three distinct migrations to Asia Minor. The Achaeans, with their Aeolic kinsmen on the north, established themselves on the north-west coast of Asia Minor, Lesbos and Cyme being their strongholds, and by degrees got control in Mysia and the Troad. Ionic emigrants from Attica joined their brethren on the same coast. The Dorians settled on the south-west coast; they also settled Cos and Rhodes, and at length subdued Crete. The Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, and the migrations just spoken of, were slow in their progress, and possibly stretched over centuries.

CHARACTER OF THE GREEKS.—Originality is a distinguishing trait of the Greeks. Whatever they borrowed from others they made their own, and reproduced in a form peculiar to themselves. They were never servile copyists. All the products of the Greek mind, whether in government, art, literature, or in whatever province of human activity, wear a peculiar stamp. When we leave Asiatic ground, and come into contact with the Greeks, we find ourselves in another atmosphere. A spirit of humanity, in the broad sense of the term, pervades their life. A regard for reason, a sense of order, a disposition to keep every thing within measure, is a marked characteristic. Their sense of form—including a perception of beauty, and of harmony and proportion—made them in politics and letters the leaders of mankind. "Do nothing in excess," was their favorite maxim. They hated every thing that was out of proportion. Their language, without a rival in flexibility and symmetry and in perfection of sound, is itself, though a spontaneous creation, a work of art. "The whole language resembles the body of an artistically trained athlete, in which every muscle, every sinew, is developed into full play, where there is no trace of tumidity or of inert matter, and all is power and life." The great variety of the spiritual gifts of this people, the severest formulas of science, the loftiest flights of imagination, the keenest play of wit and humor, were capable of precise and effective expression in this language "as in ductile play." The use of the language, so lucid and so nice in its discriminations, was itself an education for the young who grew up to hear it and to speak it. In a genial yet invigorating climate, in a land where breezes from the mountain and the sea were mingled, the versatile Greeks produced by physical training that vigor and grace of body which they so much admired; and they developed the civil polity, the artistic discernment, and the complex social life, which made them the principal source of modern culture. Their moral traits are not so admirable. As a race they were less truthful, and less marked for their courage and loyalty, than some other peoples below them in intellect.

RELIGION.—In the early days, when Greece was open to foreign influences, the simple religion of the Aryan fathers was enlarged by new elements from abroad. The Tyrian deity, Melkart, appears at Corinth as Melicertes. Astarte becomes Aphrodite (Venus), who springs from the sea. The myth of Dionysus and the worship of Demeter (Ceres) may be of foreign origin. Poseidon (Neptune), the god of the sea, and Apollo, the god of light and of healing, whose worship carried in it cheer and comfort, though they were brought into Greece, were previously known to the lonians. By Homer and Hesiod, the great poets of the prehistoric age, the gods in these successive dynasties, their offices and mutual relations, were depicted. In Hesiod they stand in a connected scheme or theogony.

1. There are the twelve great gods and goddesses of Olympus, who were named by the Greeks,—Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestos, Hermes, Here, Athene, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hestia, Demeter. 2. Numerous other divinities, not included among the Olympic, but some not less important than the twelve. Such are Hades, Helios, Dionysus, the Charites, the Muses, the Nereids, the Nymphs, etc. 3. Deities who perform special service to the greater gods,—Iris, Hebe, the Horae;, etc. 4. Deities whose personality is less distinct,—Ate, Eris, Thanatos, Hypnos, etc. 5. Monsters, progeny of the gods,—the Harpies, the Gorgons, Pegasus, Chimaera, Cerberus, Scylla and Charybdis, the Centaurs, the Sphinx. Below the gods are the demigods or heroes.

LEGENDS OF HEROES.—The space which precedes the beginning of authentic records, the Greeks filled up with mythical tales, in which gods and heroes are the central figures. The heroes are partly of divine parentage. They are in near intercourse with the deities. Their deeds are superhuman, and embody those ideals of character and of achievement which the early Greeks cherished. The production of a lively imagination, before the dawn of the critical faculty or the growth of reflection, these tales may yet include a nucleus of historical incident or vague reminiscences of historical relations and changes. To attempt to extract these from the fictitious form in which they are embodied, is for the most part hopeless.

The exploits of Heracles (Hercules) have a prominent place in the legends. This hero of Argos submitted to serve a cruel tyrant, but, by prodigious labors (twelve in number), delivered men from dangerous beasts,—the Lernaean hydra, the Nemean lion, etc.,—and performed other miraculous services. Theseus, the national hero of Attica, cleared the roads of savage robbers, and delivered his country from bondage. Minos, the mythical legislator of Crete, cleared the sea of pirates, and founded a maritime state. Of the legendary stories, three of the most famous are The Seven against Thebes The Argonautic Expedition, and The Trojan War. I. Laius, king of Thebes, was told by an oracle that he should be killed by his son. He exposed him, therefore, as soon as he was born, on Mount Cithaeron. Saved by a herdsman, Oedipus was brought up by Polybus, king of Corinth, as his own son. Warned by the oracle that he should kill his father, and marry his mother, the son forsook Corinth, and made his abode at Thebes. Meeting Laius in a narrow pass, and provoked by his attendants, he slew them and him. At Thebes there was a female monster, the Sphinx, who propounded a riddle, and each day devoured a man until it should be solved. Oedipus won the prize which the Queen Jocaste had offered; namely, the crown and her own hand to whomsoever should free the city. When his two sons and daughters had grown up, a pestilence broke out; and the oracle demanded that the murderer of Laius should be banished. Oedipus, in spite of the warnings of the blind priest, Tiresias, finds out the truth. He puts out his eyes, and is driven into exile by his sons, whom he curses. Under the guidance of his daughter Antigone, he finds a resting-place at Colonus, a suburb of Athens, in a grove of the Eumenides, whose function it was to avenge such crimes as his. He received expiation at the hands of Theseus, and died in a calm and peaceful way. This legend was the basis of some of the finest of the Greek dramas, "Oedipus Tyrannus," and the "Oedipus at Colonus" of Sophocles, and "The Seven against Thebes" of Aeschylus. The curse of Oedipus still rested on his sons. The story of Antigone, defying the tyrant Creon, and burying her slain brother, Polynices, is the foundation of the drama of Sophocles, bearing her name. Finally, the Epigoni, descendants of the Seven who had fought Thebes, captured and destroyed that city.

2. Argonauts were described as a band of heroes, who, through perilous and unknown seas, sailed from Iolcos in Thessaly, in the ship "Argo," to Colchis, whence they brought away the golden fleece which had been stolen, and which they found nailed to an oak, and guarded by a sleepless dragon. Jason, the leader, was accompanied on his return by the enchantress, Medea, who had aided him. She, in order to delay their pursuers, killed her brother Absyrtus, and threw his body, piece by piece, into the sea. Her subsequent story involves various other tragic events.

3. The most noted of the legends is the story of the Trojan war. The deeds of the heroes of this war are the subject of the Iliad. Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilios (Troy), in Asia Minor, carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. To recover her, the Greeks united in an expedition against Troy, which they took after a siege of ten years. Agamemnon, Achilles, Odysseus (Ulysses), Ajax son of Telamon, and Ajax son of Oileus, Diomedes, and Nestor were among the chiefs on the Greek side. Troy had its allies. The "Odyssey" relates to the long journey of Odysseus on his return to Ithaca, his home. That there was an ancient city, Troy, is certain. A conflict between the Greeks and a kindred people there, is probable. Not unlikely, there was a military expedition of Grecian tribes. Every thing beyond this is either plainly myth, or incapable of verification.