Outlines of history

Front matter

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Chapter I. Origin Of The Nations

Different nations of the world (i) — diffei'ence between East and West (2) — the Aryan nations (3) — connexion among their Ianguages {3) — amount of progress made by thejn before their dispersidn (4) — their advances in religion and government {^)—the Semitic nations (6) — their religious influence on the world {6) — the Turanian and other Non-Aryan nations (7) — their extent in Asia (7) — traces of them in Europe (7) — movements of the Aryans in Europe and Asia (8) — geographical shape of Europe (9) — the three great peninsulas (10) — advance of the successive Aryan swarms (ll) — the Greeks and Italians (ll, 12) — the Celts (12) — • the Teutons (13) — the Slaves and Lithuanians (14) — later Turanian settlements in Europe ; Hungarians and Turks (14) — dif ferent degrees of importaiue among the Aryans of Etirope (15) — Rome the central point of all European History {15) — Division of periods before and after the Roman Dominion (16).

I. Different Aspects of History. — The history of the various nations, of mankind may be looked at in many and very different ways ; and the importance of different parts ot history varies widely according to the way in

B which they are looked at. One who wishes to trace out the history of religion, or of language, or of manners and customs, will often find as much that is useful for his purpose among savage nations, who have played no important part in the world, as among the most famous and civilized people. But researches of this sort cannot be put together into a continuous tale ; they are not history strictly so called. By history in the highest sense we understand the history of those nations which have really influenced one another, so that their whole story, from the beginning to our own time, forms one tale, of which, if we wholly leave out any part, we cannot rightly undei stand what follows it. Such a history as this is found only in the history of the chief nations of Europe, and of those nations of Asia and Africa which have had most to do with them.

2. Difference between East and West.— But between the

history of the East, as we may vaguely call it, that is chiefly

the history of Asia and Africa, and the history of our own

Western world in Europe and America, the gap is in many

ways wide. To take one point of difference among many,

the history of the East does not give the same poKtical

teaching as that of the West. It is in a much greater degree

the history of a mere succession of empires and dynasties,

and in a much less degree the history of the people. We

shall therefore do right if we ' deal with the history of the

West as our main subject, and treat of the history of the

East only so far as it bears on the history of the West. For

history in the highest sense, for the history of man in his

highest poKtical character, for the highest developements of

art, literature, and political freedom, we must look to that

family of mankind to which we ourselves belong, and to that

division of the world in which we ourselves dwell. The

branch of history which is history in the highest and truest

sense is the history of the Aryan nations of Europe, and of

Sj EAST AND WEST. 3

those who have in later times gone forth from among them to carry the arts and languages of Europe into other continents. The history of these nations forms Western or European history, the history of Europe and of Europeaji Colo7iies. But here too we shall find some periods and countries of higher interest and importance than others. Still the whole, from the earliest times to which we can trace it back, forms one connected story. No part is altogether void of interest in itself, none is altogether cut off from connexion with the general thread of continuous history. And with regard to particular times and places, this part of history reaches the highest degree of interest and importance that history can reach. It takes in the history of those times and places which most directly concern ourselves, and it takes in the history of those times and places which have had the deepest and most lasting influence on the world in general. It is then to the history of Europe, and of the Aryan nations in Europe and in European colonies elsewhere, that the present sketch, and the more detailed histories which are to follow it, will mainly be devoted. The history of other parts of the world, and of other families of the human race, will be dealt with only so far as those other nations and countries are brought into connexion with the long unbroken tale of European history.

3. The Aryan Nations.— Some readers may perhaps by this time have asked what is to be understood by a word which has been already used more than once, namely, the Aryan nations. That is the name which is now generally received to express that division of the human race to which we ourselves belong, and which, takes in nearly all the present nations of Europe and several of the chief nations of Asia. The evidence of language shows that there was a time, a time of course long before the beginning of recorded history, when the forefathers of all these nations*

B 2 were one people, speaking one language. Sanscrit^ the ancient language of India, Persian^ Greek^ Latin, English, and other tongues, many of which we shall soon have occasion to speak of, are really only dialects of one common speech. They show their common origin alike by their grammatical forms, such as the endings of nouns and verbs and the like, and by what is more easily understood by people in general, by their still having many of the commonest and most necessary words, those words without which no language can get on, essentially the same. Now many of the nations which now speak these languages have for ages been so far parted from one another, that it is quite impossible that they can have borrowed these words, and still less these grammatical forms, from one another. We can thus see that all these nations are really kinsfolk, that they once were only one nation, the different branches of which parted off from one another at a time long before written history begins.

4. Early State of the Aryan Nations. — But what we know of the languages of the various Aryan nations tells us something more than this. By the nature of the words which are common to all or most of the kindred tongues we can see what steps the forefathers of these various nations had already taken in the way of social life and regular government in the days before they parted asunder. And we can see that those steps were no small steps. Before there were such nations as Hindoos and Greeks and Germans, while the common forefathers of all were still only one people, they had risen very far indeed above the state of mere savages. They had already learned to build houses, to plough the ground, and to grind their corn in a mill. This is shown by the words for ploughing, building, and grinding being still nearly the same in all the kindred languages. It is easy for anyone to see that our word mill is the same as the Latin molay and that our old word to ear — that is, to J>lough-^th.Q ground,

I.] THE EARLY ARYANS. 5

which is sometimes used in the Old Testament, is the same as the Latin arare, which has the same meaning. But no one ought to fancy that the EngUsh word is derived from the Latin, or that we learned the use of the thing from any people who spoke Latin, because the same words are found also in many other of the kindred languages, even those which are spoken in countries which are furthest removed from one another. We see then that words of this kind — and I have only chosen two out of many — are really fragments remaining from the old common language which was spoken by our common forefathers before they branched off and became different nations. It is therefore quite plain that the things themselves, the names of which have thus been kept in so many different languages for thousands of years, were already known to the Aryan people before they parted into different nations. And I need not say that people who build houses, plough the ground, and grind their corn, though they may still have very much to learn, are in a much higher state than the people in some parts of the world are in even now.

5. Early Aryan Religion and Government. — But language again tells us something more of the early Aryan people than the progress which they had made in the merely mechanical arts. We find that the names for various family relations, for the different degrees of kindred and affinity, father^ mother, brother, sister, and the like, are the same in all or most of the kindred tongues. We see then that, before the separation, the family life, the groundwork of all society and government, was already well understood and fully established. And we see too that regular government itself had already begun ; for words meaning king or ruler are the same in languages so far distant from one another as Sanscrit, Latin, and English. The Latin words rex, regere, regtmnij are the same as the Old-English rica, rixian, 7'ice^ words which have dropped out of the language, but which still remain in the ending of such words as bishoprick, where the last syllable means government or possession. And we can also see that the Aryans before their dispersion had already something of a religion. For there is a common stock of words and tales common to most of the Aryan nations, many of which they cannot have borrowed from one another, and which point to an early reverence for the great powers of the natural world. Thus the same name for the sky, or for the great God of the sky, appears in very different languages, as Dymis in Sanscrit, Zetis in Greek, and the Old- English God Thu, from whom we still call the third day of the week Tiwesdceg or Tuesday. And there are a number of stories about various Gods and heroes found among different Aryan nations, all of which seem to come from one common source. And we may go on and see that the first glimpses which we can get of the forms of government in the early days of the kindred nations show them to have been wonderfully like one another. Alike among the old Greeks, the old Italians, and the old Germans, there was 2. King or chief with limited power, there was a smaller Council of nobles or of old men, and a general Assembly of the whole people. Such was the old constitution of England, out of which its present constitution has grown step by step. But there is no reason to think that this was at all peculiar to England, or even peculiar to those nations who are most nearly akin to the English. Thei'e is every reason to believe that this form of government, in which every m.an had a place, though some had a greater place than others, was really one of the possessions which we have in common with the whole Aryan family. We see then that our common Aryan forefathers, in the times when they were still one people, times so long ago that we cannot hope to give them any certain date, had already made advances in civiliza-

L] THE SEMITIC NATIONS. 7

tion which placed them far above mere savages. They already had the family life ; they already had the beginnings of religion and government ; and they already knew most of those simple arts which are most needed for the comfort of human life.

6. The Semitic Nations.— Such then were the original Aryans — that one among the great families of mankind to which we ourselves belong, and that which has played the greatest part in the history of the world. Still the Aryan nations are only a small part among the nations of the earth. It is not needful for our purpose to speak at any length ot the nations which are not Aryan ; but a few words must be given to the two great families which have always pretty well divided Europe and Asia with the Aryans, and with whom the history of the Aryans is constantly coming in contact. Next in importance to the Aryans w^e must place those which are called the Semitic nations, among whom those with whom we have most concern are the Hebrews, the PhcB?iicians, and the Arabs. And in one point we must set them even above the Aryans ; for the three religions which have taught men that there is but one God — the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mahometan — have all come from among them. But those among the Semitic nations to whom this great truth was not known seem often to have fallen into lower forms of idolatry than the Ar^'^aiis. Now the Semitic nations have, so to speak, kept much closer together than the Aryans have. They have always occupied a much smaller portion of the world than the Aryans, and they have kept much more in the same part of the world. Their chief seats have aiways been in south-western Asia ; and though they have spread themselves thence into distant parts of the world, in Asia, Africa, and even Europe, yet this has mainly been by settlements in comparatively late times, about whose history we know something. Their

8 ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS. [chai.

languages also have parted off much less from one another than the Aryan languages have ; the Semitic nations have thus always kept up more of the character of one family than the Aryans.

7. The Turanian Nations. — The rest of Asia, which is not occupied either by Aryan or by Semitic people, is occupied by various nations whose tongues differ far more widely from one another than the Aryan tongues do. Still there is reason to believe that many of them at least were originally one people, and at all events it is convenient for our purposes to class together all those nations of Europe and Asia which are neither Aryan nor Semitic. ' The people of the greater part of Asia are commonly known as the Turaniafi nations. In the old Persian stories Tiiran, the land of darkness, is opposed to /r^;z or Aria, the land of light ; and it is from this h'an^ the old name of Persia, that it has been thought convenient to give the whole family the name of A ryans. And besides that large part of Asia which is still occupied by the Turanians, it is plain that in earlier times they occupied a large part of Europe also. But the Aryans have driven them out of nearly all Europe, except a few remnants in out-of-the-way corners, such as the Fi?is and Laps in the north. The Basques also on the borders of Spain and Gaul, whether akin to the Turanians or not, are at least neither Aryan nor Semitic, so that for our purposes they may all go together. Except these few remnants of the old races, all Europe has been Aryan since the beginning of written history, except when Semitic or Turanian invaders have come in later times. But in Asia the nations which are neither Aryan nor Semitic, the Chinese^ Mongols^ Turks, and others, still far outnumber the Aryan and Semitic nations put together.

8. The Aryan Dispersion. — We have seen that there was a time, long before the beginnmg of recorded history, when

I.] THE ARYAN DISPERSION. g

the forefathers of the various Aryans dwelled together as one people, speaking one language. And the advances which they had made towards civilization show that they must have dwelled together for a long time, but a time whose length we cannot undertake to measure. Nor can we undertake to fix a date for the time of the great separation, when the families which had hitherto dwelled together parted off in different directions and became different nations speaking tongues which are easily seen to be near akin to each other, but which gradually parted from one another so that different nations could no longer understand each other's speech. All that we can say is that these are facts which happened long before the beginnings of written history, but which are none the less certain because we learn them from another kind of proof. The various wandering bands must have parted off at long intervals, one by one, and it often happened that a band split off into two or more bands in the course of its wanderings. And in most cases they did not enter upon uninhabited lands, but upon lands in which men of other races were already dwelling, among whom they appeared as conquerors, and whom, for the most part, they drove out of the best parts of the land into out-of-the-way corners. First of all, there are the two great divisions of the Eastern and the Weste?"n, the Asiatic and the European^ Aryans, divisions which became altogether cut off from one another in geographical position and in habits and feelings. From the old mother-land one great troop pressed to the south-east and became the forefathers of the Persians and Hindoos, driving the older inhabitants of India down to the south, into the land which is properly distinguished from Hindostan by the name of the Deccan. The other great troop pressed westward, and, sending off one swarm after another, formed the various Aryan nations of Europe. The order in which they lo ORIGIN OF THE NA IIONS. [chap.

came can be known only by their geographical position. The first waves of the migration must be those whom we find furthest to the West and furthest to the South. But, in order fully to take in the force of the evidence furnished by the geographical position of the various Aryan nations in Europe, it is needful to say a few words as to the geographical aspect of the continent of Europe itself.

9. Geographical Shape of Europe, — A glance at the map will show that, of the three continents which form the Old World, Eicrope, Asia, and Africa, the first two are far more closely connected with one another than either of them is with the third. Africa is a vast peninsula — in our own day indeed it may be said to have become an island — united to the other two by a very narrow isthmus. But Europe and Asia form one continuous mass, and in some parts the boundary between the two is purely artificial. Some maps, for instance, make the Don the boundary ; others make it the Volga. The most northern and the most central parts of Europe and Asia form continuous geographical wholes ; it is only the southern parts of the two continents which are quite cut off from one another. And it is in these southern parts of each that the earliest recorded history, at all events the earliest recorded history of the Aryan nations, begins. Central Europe and central Asia form one great solid mass of nearly unbroken territory. The southern parts of each continent, the lands below these central masses, consist of a series of peninsulas, running, in the case of Europe, into the great inland sea called the Mediterranean — the sea which brings all three continents into connexion — in the case of Asia into the Ocean itself. Europe thus consists of a great central plain, cut off by a nearly unbroken mountain range from a system of islands and peninsulas to the south, which is again balanced to the north by a sort of secondary system

I.] . GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE, II

of islands and peninsulas, the Baltic being a sort of northern Mediterranean. We might almost say the same of Asia, as the mouths of the great rivers which run to the north form several peninsulas and inland seas. But then this part of the world has always been, so to speak, frozen up, and it never has played, nor can play, any part in history.

10. The three great European Peninsulas. — We thus see that the southern part of Europe consists mainly of three great peninsulas, those of Spain, Italy, and what we may roughly call Greece. Of these, the two eastern peninsulas are purely Mediterranean, while Spain, from its position at one end of the Old World, could not help having one side to the Ocean. So Northern Europe may be said to consist of the two Scandinaviaii peninsulas and of our own British islands, which in a certain way balance Spain, and which, in a general glance, seem peninsular rather than insular. Now of the three southern peninsulas, it will be seen at once that the eastern one has a character of its own. Though the nearest to Asia, it is in its geographical character the most thoroughly European. As Europe is, more than either of the other continents, a land of islands and peninsulas, so Greece and the countries near to it are, more than any other part of Europe, a land of islands and peninsulas. It is therefore hardly more than we should expect when we fmd that the recorded history of Europe begins in this eastern peninsula, that is to say, in Greece ; that for several ages the history of Europe is httle more than a history of this and the neighbouring peninsula, that is to say, of Greece and Italy ; that the third peninsula, that of Spain, first appears in European history as a kind of appendage to the other two ; and that the historical importance of central and northern Europe belongs to a later date still.

11. The Aryan Settlement of Europe. The Greeks and Italians.— This does not however necessarily prove that the two peninsulas of Greece and Italy were positively the first parts of Europe which received Aryan inhabitants. There can be no doubt, from the close likeness of the Greek and Latin languages, that the Aryan inhabitants of those two peninsulas branched off from the original stock as one swarm, and parted most probably at the head of the great Hadriatic Gulf. They thus became two nations, or rather two groups of many nations ; but the fact that the Greek and Latin languages agree so closely together shows that there A^as a time when the forefathers of the Greeks and the forefathers of the Italians had already parted off from the forefathers of the Hindoos and Germans, but had not yet parted off from one another. Now the time when they occupied these two peninsular must have been long before the beginnings of recorded history, so that it is impossible to give any details of the way in which the land was conquered. Still it is not in the least likely that they found the land uninhabited. They may have found earlier inhabitants who were not Aryans, as the Aryans certainly did in many other parts of Europe, or they may even have found Aryan settlers earlier than themselves. The exact relations between the Greeks and the other ancient nations of south-eastern Europe are in some respects very hard to make out, and the little that can be said about it in such a sketch as this had better be said when we come to speak of Greece somewhat more particularly. But of the people whom the Italians found in the middle peninsula of the three, we must say something more. 12, The Italians and Celts. — In the case of the Italians, we know a little more of the nations, both Aryan and otherwise, whom they seem to have found in their peninsula. In some parts they most likely found a non- Aryan people, and it can hardly be doubted that, if they entered their peninsula by land from the head of the Hadriatic Gulf, they already found a Celtic people in the northern part of it. The Celts were f.] THE CELTS. 13

the first wave of the Aryan migration in central Europe, and we therefore find them the furthest to the west of any Aryan people. In historical times we find them in Gaul, in the British Islands, in parts of Spain and Italy, and in the bordei lands of Italy and Germaiiy south of the Danube. Now it is not likely that they found any part of these lands quite uninhabited ; it is far more likely that they found an earlier people dwelling in th^m, whom they slew or drove out. In Spain indeed and in Southern Gaul we know that they did so, because, as has been already said, there is a small district on each side of the Pyrenees, where a non-Aryan tongue is still spoken by the Basqties. These, we cannot doubt, are remnants of the earlier people who inhabited Spain and Southern Gaul, and most likely other parts of Western Europe, before either the Celts or Italians came. And we can hardly doubt that the Italians found people of this race, perhaps in their peninsula itself, and at any rate on its borders. But the Italians never settled far west of their own peninsula ; the first Aryans who pushed their way intc Western Europe as far as the Ocean were the Celts. But we must now mark that, as the Aryans pressed upon and slew 01 drove out the Turanians and other earlier settlers whom they found in the lands into which they came, so presently other Aryan swarms came pressing upon the first Aryans, and dispossessed or drove them out in like manner. Thus, in Western Europe, while the earlier inhabitants have been driven up by the Celts into very small corners indeed, the Celts themselves were in the end also driven up into corners, though not into quite such small corners. Thus, out of all the lands where the Celts once dwelled, their languages, of which the British or Welsh, the Breton, and the Irish tongues still survive, are now spoken only in certain parts of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland. This change is partly because, as we shall see as we go on, a large part of the

Celts were conquered by the Romans, and learned to speak their language. But it is also partly because another wave of Aryan settlement presently came into Western Europe, pressed upon the Celts from the east, and drove them out ot a great part of the land, just as they had driven the earlier people. And so in later times, other branches of the Aryan family have pressed backwards and forwards, and have conquered and displaced other Aryan nations, just as much as those that were not Aryan. But there can be no doubt that the Celts, whom we find the furthest to the west of any Aryan people, were the first Aryans who made their way into the western lands of Spain, Gaul, and Britain.

13. The Teutons or Dutch. — The second Aryan swarm in Western Europe, that which came after the Celts, is the one with whose history we are more concerned than with that ot any other ; for it is the branch of the Aryan family to wliich we ourselves belong. These are the Teutons, the forefathers of the Germans and the English, and of the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians in Northern Europe. They do not appear in history till a much later time than the Celts, and then we find them lying immediately to the east of the Celts, chiefly in the land which is now called Gerjnany. From this they spread themselves into many of the countries of Europe ; but in most cases they got lost among the earlier inhabitants, and learned to speak their language. The chief parts of Europe where Teutonic languages are now spoken are Germany, England, and Scandinavia. In the last-named country we cannot doubt that the present Teutonic inhabitants were the first Aryan settlers ; for it is plain that they found a Turanian jieople there, some of whom still remain, by the name of Laps and Fitis, in the extreme north of Sweden and Norway and on the eastern coast of the Baltic. But in most places the Teutons, as the second wave, came into lands where other Aryan settlers had been before them. Sometimes they

1.] THE TEUTONS AND SLAVES.

may have simply come in the wake of the Celts as they were pressing westward ; but sometimes they found the Celts in the land and drove them out, as was especially the case in the British Isles. Of the first coming of the Teutons into Europe we can say nothing from written history, any more than of the first coming of the Celts. But many of their chief settlements, and among them their settlement in Britain, happened so late that we know a good deal about them. The true name of the Teutons is Theodisc or Diitch, from Theod, people^ as one might say " the people,'' as opposed to foreigners. The Germans still call themselves Deutschen in their own language, and not so long ago the word DtUch was still used in English in a sense at least as wide as this, and did not mean only the one people to whom alone we now commonly give the name.