A brief history of the nations and of their progress in civilization

Preface

Although this work is based on the author's larger work, the "Outlines of Universal History," which is designed for more advanced pupils, it is not a mere abridgment of that work, but a considerable portion of the matter is recast. In the present volume, the aim is to bring together the most important facts of history in their due order and connection, with the inclusion, as far as the space will permit, of such illustrative details as may prevent the narrative from being a dry summary — a skeleton without flesh and blood. Of course, a book which is intended for pupils and readers generally should eschew everything that savors of the spirit of sect or party, and record only well-established judgments respecting persons and events.

In the Introduction the author has aimed to present certain underlying facts of history and to explain the nature of historical evidence, and thus to open the way for a clear comprehension of the narrative that follows.

While the Ancient Period is treated with sufficient fullness to meet the wants of the pupils for whom the book is written, more room is given to the Mediaeval and Modern Periods than is customary in the books of this character. It is the author's conviction that the broad field of history since the fall of the Eoman Empire demands a larger space in popular instruction than is usually allotted to it. Neither the fact that the record becomes more complex as we approach the present time, nor the circumstance that we are more exposed to the necessity of treading upon ground disputed among disciples of diverse yi PREFACE

political and theological creeds, should be allowed to cut off an adequate treatment of this portion of history, with which we are more immediately concerned.

The idea of a General History has been carried out by connecting, as far as practicable, in a single chain of narration, contemporary events in different countries where the several countries stand in so close a mutual relation that the events are interlinked. This method is specially appropriate in dealing with the Mediaeval Period. For example, the Empire and the Papacy are inseparably associated in the movement of the historic stream, and the fortunes of England and France are for a long period so interwoven that the history of each is intermingled with that of the other. Under this method a somcAvhat greater effort of attention and memory may here and there be required of the pupil ; but even if this be a disadvantage it is more than made up by a counterbalancing gain. In general, it is possible to go too far in the direction of seeking to make even introductory studies in history easy to the learner. The main particulars attending the growth of nations and the rise and succession of their rulers may easily be learned in the years when the memory is specially alert and retentive. One may even err in excluding details on these topics which clearly explain historic changes for the sake of sparing a little more effort on the part of the learner.

In the many divisions of so large a subject, great pains are requisite in order to incorporate the latest discoveries and corrections of historical explorers. While it is too much to hope that errors have been wholly escaped, it has been possible silently to introduce no small number of modifications of traditional statements which recent studies have made indispensable. The author, as in the Preface of his previous work, would here likewise acknowledge the large debt which he owes, especially in the Ancient and Mediaeval Periods, to Weber's copious LehrbucJi der Weltgeschichte. The historical maps to illustrate the text have been mostly drawn on the basis of maps in Spruner, Droysen, Putzger, Freeman, etc. George's

PREFACE Vll

Genealogical Tables have been of essential service. Valuable assistance in the labor of revision has been generously afforded the author by his friends and colleagues in different departments of instruction in Yale University, — Professors Seymour, Morris, Hopkins, Peck, Adams, Bourne, Sanders, and Mr. F. W. Williams. The author would also express his obligation for important aid rendered by his son-in-law. Professor George Wharton Pepper, of the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania. The Index, which includes a glossary of pronunciation of proper names, and is so constructed as to be of service in reviews in the class-room, has been made in accordance with the author's plan, by an accurate scholar. Professor James A. Towle.

LIST OF MAPS

Ancient Egypt 25

Babylonia and Assyria 38

Ancient Palestine 48

Kingdom of Alexander the Great 98

Kingdoms of Alexander's Successors 106

Ancient Italy 112

Roman Empire 142-143

The New Nations after the Migrations 200-201

Empire of Charlemagne 235

Empire of Charlemagne, a.d. 843 240

Empire of Charlemagne, a.d. 887 240

Mediterranean Lands at the Time of the Crusades 270-271

France and England, 1154-1189 287

Italy about the Middle of the Sixteenth Century 388

Central Europe, 1360 and 1660 402

Europe about the Middle of the Eighteenth Century (1740) .... 441

Europe about the Time of Napoleon's Greatest Power 488

Central Europe in 1815 495

France since 1871 528-529

German Empire since 1871 534-535

Turkish Empire, Greece, etc., since 1878 538-539

Territorial Growth of the United States 544-545

viii

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introduction 1

ANCIENT HISTORY

Chapter I

Definition of History. — History is the narrative of past events in which men have had a part. It is the story of the past. It is not a bare chronicle of occnrrences, but it aims to point out their connection with one another, or their causes and effects. Biography gives an account of the life of the individual. What it may say about his times and about the people to which he belongs is in order to shed light on the course of one man's life. On the contrary, history has to do with a people taken as a unit. When particular persons are described, it is for the sake of showing the character and progress of the community as a whole. For history deals with nations. Savage tribes whose occupations and traits remain the same, so that the story of one generation, with a change of names and dates, would answer for an account of any other, furnish very scanty materials for history.. Their habits and ways it is interesting to investigate, but to do this belongs to a distinct branch. Anthropology. When we would relate the history of a group of nations, or of the peoples of mankind taken together, we must attend to their relations to one another. A¥e must consider them in their mutual influence, and in their joint influence in shaping the current of events.

Sources of History. — How shall we find out what has taken place in past times ? What are the sources of history ? The entire generation, all who are living at any particular date, soon pass away. No living witnesses of what occurred remain. Of

2 SOURCES OF HISTORY

course, we must depend for our knowledge of the past upon direct and indirect testimony. One channel by which the reports of witnesses may reach us is tradition, and tradition has its value. Yet unwritten tradition falls under the kind of proof termed by lawyers " hearsay evidence." The oftener the tale is repeated, the less trustworthy it becomes, and before long it groAvs to be entirely worthless. Hence authentic history dawns only when men begin to make some kind of records of their doings and experiences. As civilization advances beyond its first steps, such records become more full. At length historical writers spring up who take a special interest in inquiries about what has occurred, or about what is taking place in their own time. This sort of inquiry was the original meaning of the Greek word from which our word history is derived. Of course, ancient buildings of every kind, such as still remain, like the pyramids of Egypt, or those whose ruins, as in the case of Babylon and Nineveh, are dug up, tell us much respecting extinct peoples. This they do, not only by their deciphered inscriptions, but also by their style of structure and their decorations.

History and Geography. — Attention to geography is essential in the study of history. Names of places have different meanings at different dates. The boundaries of countries do not remain the same. " France," for examjole, signifies limits and an extent of territory Avhich vary greatly in successive periods. Physical geography, in its three divisions, land, sea, and air, is at least equally helpful. The traits, employments, and fortunes of nations are greatly affected by climate and by the configuration of the portions of the globe which they occupy. For example, if the Atlantic coast in North America had been as near to a chain of mountains as the Pacific coast is, or even if there had been as few harbors on the Atlantic as on the Pacific border, the histor}^ of our country must have taken a very different turn.

Chronology. — The method of dating from the birth of Jesus was introduced by Dionysius Exiguus, a Roman abbot, about

KINSHIP OF NATIONS 6

the middle of the sixth century. But that starting-point was placed by him too late. The birth of Jesus was four years earlier than the date assigned to it. Pope Gregory XIII. corrected another error in the calendar. The " ISTew Style," which then came in, was gradually adopted. It made a difference of eleven days in the last century, and requires us to add in the present century twelve days. The Mohammedans reckon from the Hegira, or Flight from Mecca to Medina of Mohammed, the founder of their religion (622 e.g.).

Kinship of Nations : Evidence from Physical Characteristics. — Ethnology is a new science having a close connection with history. It explores the origin and kinship of the nations existing now and in the past, and the rise of their customs and beliefs. Beside written memorials, there are two sources of information on the subject of the relationship of different peoples to one another. The first is physical characteristics, or peculiarities of form and feature and color. By this criterion, mankind are divided by many into three classes or races, — the Caucasian or White race, the Mongolian or Yellow race, and the Ethiopic or Negro race. By others the number of these varieties is made to be larger. In any case, there are no hardand-fast lines between the so-called races. There are numerous intermediate variations, or gradations of shape and complexion. Moreover, the defining characteristics of the several races are not always found together. Thus, woolly hair is not uniformly associated with a dark skin.

It is the Caucasian variety which, up to this time, has played the important part in history, for the ancient Egyptians were Caucasians. Civilization and progress are, in the main, the creation of this dominant race.

Evidence of Language. — More instructive to the historical scholar than physical characteristics are likenesses and differences in language. They serve as a clew in the search into the genealogy of nations. Looking abroad over the face of the globe, we observe a multitude of languages and dialects. But, on a close study, a great many of these almost countless varie-

4 THE ARYANS

ties of speech arrange themselves in a comparatively few families or groups. In each of a number of these the members are plainly seen to have sprung from a common stock. Thus it is shown that those who first spoke the tongues comprised in each family had common ancestors.

The Aryan Family. — There is, first, the Aryan, or Indo- European family. Its oldest branch, in many particulars, is the Sanskrit, the language in which the Vedas — the ancient sacred books of the Hindus — were written. Other members of the same family are the Iranian or Persian, the Armenian, the Greek, the Latin, the Celtic languages, the Germanic or Teutonic languages, — which include the Scandinavian, or the tongues of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, — and the Slavonian languages.

AVhen all these Aryan languages are compared, they are found to be at the basis identical. This is true of their grammatical forms and of their words. They have so many words in common that something may be learned from them even in respect to the ideas and customs of the progenitors of all the Aryan nations. Thus the words father, mother, sister, daughter, and other names of blood relations are the same. The word wagon, under the disguises of altered spelling, is found in all the tongues of the Aryan race.

First Abode of the Aryans. — The earliest abode of the Aryans, so far as our knowledge of them extends, was Iran, or the tablelands of eastern Persia. Some contend that we have earlier traces of them along the southern course of the Volga. On the other hand, some hold that there was such an older center in northern Europe. There is no decisive proof in •relation to this question. From Iran conquering emigrants went forth on the one hand into India, and on the other, in successive waves, westward.

The Aryans in Europe. — Of this widely dispersed Aryan race, the Celts were once spread over nearly all western Europe, but they are now confined mostly to the highlands of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and the coast of Prance. The

SEMITIC AND TURANIAN GROUPS 5

Basques, in the southwestern corner of France, are the remnant of a race which preceded even the Celts and were driven out by them. It was the Teutons who drove the Celts into the territories that are now left to them. In like manner, also, the Slavonians, from whom are sprung the Russians, the Poles, the Bohemians, etc., crowded upon the Teutons and drove them out of a portion of their conquests.

The Teutonic nationalities include, besides the Scandinavian peoples, England, Holland, and Germany. The Romanic or Italic tongues of southern Europe — the tongues of Portugal, Spain, Provence, Italy, Wallachia, and the Grisons of Switzerland — are a mixture of the Latin with the provincial dialects once spoken by the common people in these regions. With the exception of the Basques, the Einns, the Hungarians, and the Turks, all Europe is inhabited by Aryans. The world is now practically subject to their power. Beyond Europe they are spread over not far from a third of Asia.

The Semitic Family. — A second family of languages is the Semitic, a name given to the tongues of the communities described in the book of Genesis as the descendants of Shem. Under this head belong the Assyrian and Babylonian, the Hebrew and Phoenician, with the Syrian and Aramaic, and the Arabic. The Phoenician dialect spread among the numerous colonies of Tyre. The Arabic followed the course of the Mohammedan conquests.

There have been three periocis of Semitic might. The first was the era of the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian empires ; the second that of the flourishing Phoenician cities and their colonies; the third the period of the Arabic-Mohammedan conquests. In the Semitic race, the three great monotheistic religions — the Hebrew, the Christian, and the Mohammedan — had their origin.

The Turanian Group. — The third class of languages is the Turanian. Its principal seat is central Asia, but the class is of much wider extent. The representatives of this class in Europe are the Einns, Hungarians, and Turks, mentioned

6 EXCHANGE OF LANGUAGES

above. Their tongues are rather a group than a family ; that is, their actual kinship is less close. It is often obscure and indistinct. Hence the boundaries of this class are not well defined. The Turanian languages differ from the Aryan and Semitic in not being inflected. The roots of the words do not unite with the suf&xes, but these are joined on. Hence these tongues are called agglutinative.

Unclassified Languages. — Xot a few languages thus far do not admit of a sure classification. The old Egyptian tongue, which is often called Hamitic, has some points of likeness to the Semitic languages, but not enough to show an identity at the basis. Whether the Chinese has a Turanian kinship is not yet determined.

Languages may be dropped. — In investigating the kinship of nations as evinced in their speech, it must not be forgotten that a portion of a people, or even an entire people, may change its language. History is full of records of the mixture of races. The Irish people offer an instance of the adoption by a nation of a foreign language. From the tongue spoken by them at present, it might be inferred that they are of the very same stock as the English. But while the English are Teutons, the Irish are Celts, having exchanged the Celtic for the tongue which they now speak. The English blood is compounded of the blood of Danes, Saxons, and Normans. The adoption of the English language by large bodies of emigrants to the United States, from different parts of the continent of Europe, is a fact with many parallels in histor}^ The distinction of tribes was recognized by the Hebrews from the way in which they pronounced the word shibboleth. To St. Peter it was said, "Thy speech bewrayeth thee." His provincial accent proved him to be from Galilee, where the guttural letters of the Hebrew alphabet were uttered indistinctly, and sh changed into th. But such an inference, although frequently just, is far from always settling the question of lineage, even though it may point out the place, of birth and of present abode.

TABLE OF LANGUAGES

TABLE OF LANGUAGES

Aryan or Indo-European Family.

1. The Indie Branch : (1) Ancient Sanskrit (Yeclic) ; Modern

Sanskrit. (2) Pali, the language of Buddhism. (3) Various modern East Indian Dialects and groups of Dialects.

2. The Iranic Branch: (1) Old Bactrian or Avestan (no modern

representatives). (2) Ancient Persian. (3) Modern Persian.

3. The Armenian Branch, by some regarded as belonging to the

Iranic Branch.

4. The Greek Branch :

Old and Modern Greek Dialects, and Albanian.

5. The Italic Branch : (1) Oscan and Umbrian. (2) Latin.

(3) The Romanic Languages (derived from the Latin), including Italian, French, Provencal, Spanish, Portuguese, Roumanian, and the language of the Swiss Grisons.

6. The Celtic Branch :

(2) Gadhaelic ; includes Gaelic (Scotland), Irish, Manx.

7. The Slavic Branch :

(1) Eastern Division, Bulgarian, Servian, and Russian.

(2) Western Division, Bohemian, Polish.

To the general head of Slavic is often reckoned Lithuanian, though the latter more properly makes a branch by itself, consisting of Lithuanian, Lettic, and Old Prussian, distinct from the Slavic, yet closely related to it.

8. The Teutonic Branch:

r(l) Gothic.

East "I (2) Scandinavian: Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, [ Danish.

'(3) Low German, Dutch (English), Flemish, -and

,,^ , several old and modern dialects in Germany, chiefly m the North.

(I) High German, — old, middle, and modern.

8 TABLE OY LANGUAGES

Gothic and Scandinavian are sometimes grouped as Eastern Teutonic, as distinguished from the Western Teutonic. Some place English as a distinct group. Another Teutonic language, Frisian, lies between these groups and is often included with Low German.

II. Semitic Family.

1. The Northern Division: the Hebrew or Phoenician, the

Aramaic or Syrian, the Assyrian or Babylonian.

2. The Southern Division : the Arabian and the Ethiopian.

III. Scythian or Turanian Family.

1. The Finno-Hungarian Branch :

The language of the Finns, the Hungarians, the Lapps, etc.

2. The Samoyed Branch :

Spreading on the Siberian coast from the White Sea to the Ural Mountains.

3. The Turkish Branch.

4. Tlie ]\fongolian Branch :

East of the Turkish, but not reaching to the ocean.

5. The Tungusic : 1 the N.E. conquerors and rulers of China

In the N.E. of Asia, and the language of the Manchu

Languages often classified as Turanian but in regard to whose classification scholars are not yet agreed, are the Japanese, the Chinese, the languages of Farther India, the languages of the Pacific islands S.E. of Asia, including the Malay-Polynesian group of languages, and the Dravidian group of Southern India.

Unity of Descent. — Natural Science teaches that the physical characteristics of the different races of men do not disprove unity of descent, or the fact of a common but remote parentage. So linguistic science teaches that the existing varieties of speech, while they do not prove such a unity, are. not inconsistent with it. Language, before its sounds are set

PREHISTORIC PERIOD 9

down in Avriting, and especially in its infancy, is subject to radical changes. Its "wear and tear" among tribes, when parted from the common center and from one another, may easily cause all features of likeness in speech to vanish. In other words, philology, like zoology, has no answer to give on the question of monogenesis, or the descent of mankind from one pair. It should be noted that the lines dividing mankind by the touchstone .of language by no means always coincide with those founded on physical resemblances and differences.

Prehistoric Period : Older Stone. Age. — It is now established that the globe on which we live has been a great deal longer in being than was once believed, and that men have lived upon it much longer than was once, on the ground of what was thought to be the biblical chronology, supposed to be the fact. In the dark background of all directly attested history is a prehistoric period. Its long duration is proved by relics of uncivilized peoples which lived in places where the climate is proved to have been extremely unlike what it is now. This last fact respecting climate is shown by the remains of animals of which there is no account in recorded history, and some of which could not possibly live in these regions. In

-r^ T ^ . . Stone Axe with Wooden Handle found

France, and to some extent ^^ ^^ English bog

in England, there are found

tools or weapons, made chiefly of flint, which have been carried down by the swift current of rivers and deposited in beds. All these implements are of unpolished stone. Implements are discovered of a somewhat better make, either of stone or of bone or horn, and having on some of them rough drawings of animals. Such remains are shown, from the places where they are found, to have been fashioned by men whose dwellings were caves and who lived at a very remote day. These relics belong to the older stone, or paleolithic, age.

PREHISTORIC PERIOD

Later Stone Age. — " Kitchen middens," or great mounds containing mostly shells of oysters and other shellfish, are found in the neighborhood of the Baltic. These relics mark the beginning of the later stone, or neolithic age. In this stage of progress the implements were furnished with handles, were polished, and more numerous, and certain animals — of which the dog seems to have been the first — were domesticated. The barrows, or tombs of earth,, in different countries, indicate a much further progress in the variety and make of stone

Neolithic Stone Tools from Denmark tools. The lake-dwellers of Switzerland, whose huts were built over the water on piles as a means of safety against attacks of enemies, had cattle, cultivated trees, and wove cloth.

Bronze and Iron Ages. — The stone age was followed by the age of bronze, when implements were made of copper, or a mixture of copper and tin.

The relics do not indicate so wide a gap between the neolithic and the bronze ages as that between the paleolithic and the neolithic. In many lands rude structures are found which are composed of huge stones. These structures are of uncertain date, and served originally as sepulchers and sometimes as altars. They are called dolmens or cromlechs. Stonehenge, near Salisbury, is one of the best known of these ancient monu-

BRONZE AND IRON AGES ments. From its remains tlie lines of the two concentric circles and of the two ellipses within them can be distinctly traced. The implements found in the tumuli or barrows near by, which stand in some relation to the cromlech, are of bronze. Hence it is the opinion of some learned archaeologists that

Stonehenge the old Britons who built Stonehenge lived in the bronze period ; but this opinion is not accepted by all.

Finally, we reach the traces of the more advanced iron age, when this metal was brought into use in the making of tools for industry and weapons of war. It is to be observed that the lines between these several " ages " are not sharply drawn. The eras lap over one another. Nor is there evidence that these several steps of progress in one region were contemporaneous with like steps in every other. Moreover, it cannot be affirmed, in the present state of our knowledge, that in all peoples once civilized there was at some time a passage through these consecutive eras. It may be remarked that the products left behind from prehistoric time afford no proof that the intellectual capacity of men was inferior to what it is now. The drawings — for example, drawings of the reindeer on bone by the paleolithic inhabitants of France — would incline us to think highly of their natural powers.

12 LANDMARKS IN HISTORY

Design in History. — There are traces of design in history as there are in the kingdom of nature. All who believe in Providence hold that the plan of God extends over all mankind and embraces all the ages of man's existence on the earth. But this plan as yet is only partly carried out. The past is only a fraction of the entire course of events. Its meaning, or the design connected with it, can, therefore, be fully discerned only in the light that will be cast back upon it in the future. The drama of history is incomplete. As far as the Aryan family is concerned, by which, in the main, civilization has been built up, a certain order and unity are plainly traceable. Yet India, not less than China with its non-Aryan population, stand apart from the great stream of historic progress. The nations of eastern Asia are now coming into a closer contact and union with the other peoples, and seem about to take an active part in the world's onward movement. Their part in the drama of human affairs may be com^Dared to that of late comers upon the stage. But the modern Aryan nations, compared with the civilized Aryan peoples of antiquity, are new in their rise and their enlightenment.

Landmarks of History. — The real landmarks of history are not separated by intervals of uniform length. They are to mark, not the lapse of a certain amount of time, but turning points in the course of events. There is a real foundation for the general distinction of Ancient and Modern History. Ancient History is the record of a by-gone state of things ; Modern History, of a state of things now existing. There are striking differences between these two great eras. Ancient History has its center in the Mediterranean. The peoples that lived in the three continents, on the borders of that sea, generally became subject to Eome. The empire of Rome was extended to the Euphrates on the east, to the deserts of Africa on the. south, and northward to Britain, and to the shores of the Rhine. In the fourth century began the irruption from the north of the unconquered Teutonic tribes, and with it the breaking up of that wide-spread empire. In 476, the city of Rome itself fell into the hands of the invading barbarians.

LANDMARKS IN HISTORY 13-

With the breaking up of the Eoman Empire, Ancient History ends. The new races of conquerors took power into their hands; new centers of rule arose north of the Alps; a new type of culture and civilization grew up. Yet in the temporary eclipse of civilization there was no gulf of separation from the old order of things. The new era was the heir of priceless treasures handed down from the past. In them were included Christianity and the guidance of the Church. To be sure, no change so stupendous as the shipwreck of the Eoman Empire has since taken place. Nevertheless, after a long interval, which comprises the " middle ages," there occurred, in the fifteenth century, events and changes so momentous as to occasion frequently a triple division of history into the ancient, mediaeval, and modern eras. In this classification the term "modern" is used in a special, more limited sense. During the middle ages, the peoples in the different countries into which the Eoman Empire of the West was broken, were in a process of development. They were becoming distinct from one another, in their la^nguage and institutions, although united by the common bond of ecclesiastical union to Eome. At the same time, the Eastern Eoman Empire, which had its ancient capital at Constantinople, was going through a slow process of decay and dissolution. Slavonian tribes seized upon portions of it, just as the Teutons had established themselves in the provinces of the AYest. Arabic Mohammedan conquerors tore from it extensive territories. Finally, in 1453, Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the Empire of the East was no more. This catastrophe, with the events that led up to it and followed it, had a great influence on society in western Europe.

In connection with the revived study of Antiquity, the modern period arose. A new freedom of thought began to manifest itself. A fresh impulse was given to the spirit of invention and discovery. National feeling gained strength, and the ecclesiastical unity of Europe was broken. The secular interests of society excited an increased attention, while