Ancient history

Front matter

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AHOIENT HISTORY,

Preface

The science of Ancient History, though universally considered essential to a finished education, is still very imperfectly taught in our schools. The difficulty of combining the interest of a consecutive narrative with an intelligent view of cotemporaneous events has proved a serious embarrassment to writers and teachers ; while students, lost in the dim regions of the past, confused with a multiplicity of characters, to which they were unable to attach any definite idea, have thrown down their text-books in despair, and turned their attention to some more alluring study.

This state of things must exist so long as teachers attempt to store the minds of their pupils with facts unconnected by the two strong associations of time and place.

The present work has been compiled from standard authors, and submitted to the criticism of distinguished individuals, by whom it has been warmly commended. It combines the features, to a large extent, which have made Anderson's series of United States Histories so successful in the many schools throughout the country in which they are used; and, having already passed the test of experience, the work, it is believed, will prove such a combination of the chronological and ethnographical methods as shall make Ancient History one of the most agreeable and useful branches of education.

TO TEACHERS.

GENERAL PLAN OP THE WORK, AND DIRECTIONS FOR USING- THE CHART.

It is the plan of this work to consider the history of the world as divided into periods of one thousand years each, four of which expired before the commencement of the Christian era. These periods are called millenniums.

The book comprises the histories of Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Gi-eece, the four kingdoms formed from the empire of Alex ander, and Rome. Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome were the four " Universal Monarchies ;" but as Egypt, owing to the extraordinary fertility and early civilization, was the parent of the arts and sciences, and the great fountain of heathen mythology, its history is introduced in the order of chronology.

The Sacred Scriptures are the only record from which we derive our knowledge of the events which transpired before the Flood, so that the first two millenniums contain only very brief accounts of the Creation, the fall of man, the expulsion from Eden, the genealogy of the antediluvian patriarchs, their deaths, the wickedness of the world, and its consequent destruction by the deluge, and the various settlements made in Asia, Africa, and Europe by the descendants of Noah.

By consulting the Genealogical Tree, inserted at the beginning of the book, it will be seen that the children of Japheth peopled Europe, and those of Shem and Ham, Asia and Africa. From the plain of the Euphrates, the "Land of Shinar," where the " children of men began to build a city and a tower," were the tribes of the earth scattered abroad ; from Nineveh and Babylon, the most ancient cities, the course of empire took its way in a westerly direction, the scepter of universal rule being

TO TEACHERS. V

transferred successively from the Assyrians to the Persians, from the Persians to the Greeks, and from the Greeks to the Romans.

It is certain that no satisfactory knowledge of history can be acquired unless its chronology and geography are well understood. A free and systematic use of the Chronological Chart and Maps is therefore especially recommended. A class consisting of ten pupils might represent a millennium, each pupil naming from the chart the principal events of one century. Let this exercise take place preliminary to the recitation of every lesson. The uniform flow of time will thus be clearly presented, and cotemporaneous events fixed indelibly upon the memory. Beside a systematic use of the chart, such as is here suggested, a variety of questions could be asked, which, in answering from the chart, would convey to the mind of the learner, in the readiest manner, facts of a comprehensive character.

Take these, for example :

How long was it from Adam to Noah? Adam to Abraham ? Adam to Solomon ? Noah to Abraham ? Noah to Solomon ? Noah to the Christian era ? From the Creation

to the Flood ? What was the most important event in

millennium ? Which millennium contained the most important events ? Why ? At what time did the history of Greece commence ? What was the duration of the Roman Empire ? &c., &c.

An alphabetical list of the names of individuals and places pronounced will be found in the closing pages of this work, and it is proposed that the teacher require the scholar, as an exercise in composition, to write a biography of every important character, and a history of every important place.

Contents

Section— pagb

YIII. The Christian Era . . . , . .404

MAPS.