General history

Front matter

Class jjf 2 > i

Book ' MH

(Jntftiiglit Iv " I '-j 2 I

Preface To The Second Revised Edition

The present work is the second revised edition of my " General History," the first edition of which was published thirty-two years ago. The original text of the ancient and mediaeval periods has here been severely tompressed in order to make room for a fuller treatment of the history of modern times. A fresh chapter is devoted to the World War and the work of the Paris Peace Conference.

College IIlll, Cincinnati

The real history of the human race is the history of tendencies which are perceived by the mind, and not of events which are discovered by the senses. — Buckle

Historical facts should not be a burden to the memory but an illumination of the soul. — Lord Acton

But history ought surely in some degree, if it is worth anything, to anticipate the lessons of time. We shall no doubt be wise after the event ; we study history that we may be wise before the event. — Seeley

Contents

PAGE

CHAPTER ,

I. GENERAL Introduction: Prehistoric TIMES ....

Part I. Ancient History Divisio.v I. The Easterx Xa Tions

II. Races and Groups of Peoples .' ' ' ' ^^

III. Ancient Egypt

I. Political History

H. Religion, Arts, and General Culture I

. • 24 IV. Babylonia and Assyria

I. The Early City-Kingdoms of Babylonia and the Old

Babylonian Empire

II. The Assyrian Empire o' [

HI. The Chaldean or New Babylonian Empire (625-38 B.C.) 33

V The Hebrews

VL The Phoenicians

VII. The Persian Empire (558-330 b-c) / ^^

VIII. The East Asian Peoples

II. China . . • •

DIVISIOXII. GREECE

IX The Land and the People

X. Greek Legends; the ^GEAN Civilization 57

. XI. THE Heritage of the Historic Greeks ^

XII. The Growth of Sparta

XIII. The Age of Colonization and of Tyrannies .... 73

I. The Age of Colonization (about 750-600 i-c.) ... 73

H. The Tyrannies (about 650-500 B.C.) ....•• 11

V vi CONTENTS

XIV. The History of Athens up to the Persian Wars. 79

XV. The Persian Wars (500-479 b.c.) 85

XVI. The Athenian Empire 92

XVII. The Peloponnesian War; the Spartan and the

Theban Supremacy 98

I. The Peloponnesian War (431-404 H.c.) .... 98

II. The Spartan and the Theban Supremacy . . , . 105

XVIII. Alexander the Great (336-323 b.c.) 109

XIX. The Gr/ECO-Oriental World from the Death of Alexander to the Conquest of Greece by the

XX. Greek Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting . 119

I. Architecture I 19

II. Sculpture and Painting 123

XXI. Greek Literature 127

XXII. Greek Philosophy and Science 134

XXIII. Social Life of the Greeks 141

DIVISION III. ROME

XXIV. Italy and its Early Inhabitants . . . . . . . 146

XXV. Roman Institutions; Rome under the Kings . . 150

I. Society and Government 150

II. Religion 154

III. Rome under the Kings (legendary date 753-509 I'-C) 157

XXVI, The Early Republic; Plebeians become Citizens

WITH Full Rights (509-367 B.C.) 159

XXVII. The Conquest and Unification of Italy (367-

XXVIII. Expansion of Rome beyond the Peninsula . . . 172

I. The First Punic War {264-241 B.C.) 172

II. The Second Punic War (218-201 H.c.) 174

III. Expansion of Rome into the East 177

IV. The Third Punic War (149-146 is.c.) 179

CONTENTS

Vll

CHAPTER

XXIX The Last Century of the Republic (133-31 '-'-c.)

XXX THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EMPIRE AND THE PRIX-

ciPATE OF Augustus C^sar (31 b.c.-a.d. 14) • •

XXXI. From Tiberius to the Accession of Diocletian

XXXII. Diocletian and Constantine the Great . • •

I. The Reign of Diocletian (a.d. 284-305) . . • •

I. Reign of Constantine

PAGE 181

206 215 215 218

XXXIII. The Last Century of the Empire in the West

XXXIV. Architecture, Literature, Law, and Social Life

among the Romans

I. Architecture and Engineering

II. Literature, Philosophy, and Law

III. Social Life

233 233 235 239

Part II. Mediaeval And Modern History

XXXV. Introduction

DIVISION I. THE MID DIE AGES FIRST PERIOD. THE DARK AGES

(From the Fall of Rome to the Eleventh Century)

XXXVI. The Barbarian Kingdoms . . • • XXXVII. The Church and its Institutions .

I. The Conversion of the Barbarians

II. The Rise of Monasticism . . •

III. The Rise of the Papacy . . • ■

XXXVIII. The Fusion of Latin and Teuton .

XXXIX. The Roman Empire in the East .

XL. The Rise of Islam

XLI. Charlemagne and the Restoration

piRE IN THE West

XLII. The Northmen: the Coming of the Vikings

OF THE

Em-

250 254 254 257 259

277 282 viii CONTENTS

SECOND PERIOD. THE AGE OF REVIVAL

(From the Opening of the Eleventh Century to the Discovery of America by Columbus in 1492)

XLIII. Feudalism and Chivalry 286

I. Feudalism 286

II. Chivalry 294

XLIV. The Norman Conquest of England 298

XLV. The Papacy and the Empire 303

XLVII. Supremacy of the Papacy; Decline of its Temporal Power 318

XLVIII. Turanian Conquests; Mongols and Turks . . . 324

XLIX. The Growth of the Towns 329

L. The Universities and the Schoolmen 335

LI. Growth of the Nations: Formation of National

Governments and Literatures 340

I. England 341

II. France 351

III. Spain 355

IV. Germany 357

V. Russia 358

VI. Italy 359

LII. The Renaissance 363

DIVISION IL THE MODERN AGE

THIRD PERIOD. THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION'

(From the Discovery of America, In 1492, to the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648)

LIII. Geographical Discoveries and the Beginnings of

Modern Colonization 370

LIV. The Beginnings of the Reformation 383

LV. The Ascendancy of Spain ; her Relation to the

Catholic' Reaction 399

I. Reign of the Emperor Charles V (i 519-1556) . . 399

II. Spain under Philip II ( 1 556-1 598) . . . . . 404

CONTENTS ix

LVI. The Tudors axd the English Reformation (1485-

1603) 407

1. Introductory 407

II. The Reign of Henry VII (1485-1509) .... 409

III. England severed from the Papacy by Henry VIII

(1509-1547) 410

IV. Changes in Doctrine and Ritual under Edward VI

(1547-1553) 417

V. Reaction under Mary (1553-1 55S) 418

VI. Final Establishment of Protestantism under Elizabeth (1558-1603) 420

LVII. The Revolt of the Netherlands; Rise of the

LVIII. The Huguenot Wars in France (i 562-1629) . . . . 435

LIX. The Thirty Years' War (1 61 8-1 648) 442

FOURTH PERIOD. THE ERA OF THE POLITICAL

REVOLUTION

(From the Peace of Westphalia (1648) to the Treaty of Versailles (1919))

/. THE AGE OF ABSOLUTE MONARCHY {\(A%-\TSff)

LX. Introductory : the Doctrine of the Divine Right OF Kings and the Maxims of the Enlightened

Despots 449

LXI. The- Ascendancy of France under Louis XIV (1643-

LXII. The Stuarts and the English Revolution (1603-

1689) 462

I. The First Two Stuarts 462

II. The Commonwealth and the Protectorate (1649-

1660) 472

III. The Restored Stuarts 480

IV. Reign of William and Mary (i 689-1 702) . . . 483

LXIII. The Rise of Russia: Peter the Great (1682-1796) 485 LXIV. The Rise of Prussia: Frederick the Great (1740-

1.786) 493

LXV. England in the Eighteenth Century 501

X CONTENTS

//. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEONIC ERA (1789-1815)

LXVI. The French Revolution (1789- 1799) 512

I. Causes of the Revolution ; the States-General of

1789 512

II. The National or Constituent Assembly (June 17,

III. The Legislative Assembly (October i, 1791-Sep-

IV. The National Convention (September .?o, 1792-

V. The Directory (October 27, 1795-November 9,

1799) 537

LXVII. The Consulate and the Napoleonic Empire (1799-

1815) 543

II. The Napoleonic Empire; the War of Liberation

(1804-1815) 546

///. FROM THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA TO THE TREA TV OF VERSAILLES (1815-1919)

LXVIII. The Congress of Vienna and Metternich . . . ^6^ LXIX. France from the Second Restoration to the

LXX. England from the Battle of W^aterloo to the

I. Progress toward Democracy 580

II. Extension of the Principle of Religious Equality . 586 III. England's Relations with Ireland 590

LXXI. The Liberation and Unification of Italy . . . 594

LXXII. The Making of the New German Empire .... 604 LXXIII. Russia from the Congress of Vienna to the

I. Russia's Wars against Turkey and her Allies . . 620 II. The Emancipation of the Serfs, and the Liberal

Movement 624

CONTENTS

XI

LXXIV. The New Industrialism 628

LXXV. European Expansion in the Nineteenth and the

Early Twentieth Centurv 633

I. Causes and General Phases of the Expansion

Movement 633

II. The Expansion of England 636

III. The Expansion of France 642

IV. The Expansion of Germany 644

V. The Expansion of Russia 645

VI. The Expansion of the United States .... 647 VII. Check to European Expansion and Aggression in

Eastern Asia 648

LXXVI. Evolution toward World Federation .... 655

LXXVII. The World War (1914-1918) 660

I. Causes of the War and Train of Preceding Events 660

II. Outstanding Events of the War 677

APPENDIX i

INDEX xiii

LIST OF MAPS

COLORED MAPS

Based in the main on Kiepert, Schrader, Droysen, Spruner-Sieglin, Poole, and

Freeman. Many of the maps have been so modified by additions and omissions that as they here appear they are practically new charts.

Assyrian Empire, about 660 b.c 3^

The Persian Empire at its Greatest Extent, about 500 b.c 44

General Reference Map of Ancient Greece 52

Greece and the Greek Colonies 74

Empire of Alexander the Great, about 323 b.c "2

Italy before the Growth of the Roman Empire 146

The Roman Empire at its Greatest Extent (under Trajan, a.d. 98-117) 210 Map showing Barbarian Inroads on the Fall of the Roman Empire

(movements shown down to a.d. 477) 228

Greatest Extent of the Saracen Dominions, about a.d. 750 . . . . 274

The Western Empire as divided at Verdun, a.d. 843 280

Hitchin Manor, England, about 1816 290

Europe and the Orient in 1096 3o8

The Spanish Kingdoms in 1360 35^

Globe de Martin Behaim, 1492, and Globe Dore vers 1528 .... 37© Explorations and Colonies of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth

Centuries . 376

Europe at the Accession of the Emperor Charles V, 1519 . . • • 398

Europe after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648 446

The Partition of Poland 492

Prussia under Frederick the Great, 1 740-1 786 498

Central Europe in 1801 556

Europe after 1815 ^^^

Italy in 1859 ^^^

The Partition of Africa ^34

The Far East ^5o

Europe in 1914 "78

The New Europe 7o6

xiii xiv LIST OF MAPS

SKETCH MAPS

PAGE

The World according to Homer 64

The Seven Hills of Rome 157

The Roman Domain and the Latin Confederacy in the Time of the

Early Republic, about 450 b.c 162

The Barbarian Kingdoms 250

The Roman Empire under Justinian 269

Discoveries of the Northmen 283

The Empire of the Ottoman Turks about 1464 328

The Hansa Towns and their Chief Foreign Settlements 331

The Plantagenet Possessions in England and France 342

Ethnographic Map of Austria-Hungary 618

Southeastern Europe after the Treaty of Berlin (1878) 624

Asian Turkey and the Bagdad Railway 666

Southeastern Europe, 1914 674

Mittel-Europa and Turkish Annex 686

The Western Front, July 15, 1918 697

GENERAL HISTORY

Chapter I General Introduction : Prehistoric Times

1. The Prehistoric and the Historic Age. The immensely long periods of human life which lie back of the time when man began to keep written or graven records of events form what is called the Prehistoric Age. The comparatively few centuries of human experience made known to us through such records comprise the Historic Age. For Egypt the historic period begins about 4000 B.C.; for the Mediterranean regions of Europe it opens about 1000 B.C.; for the countries of central and northern Europe, speaking broadly, not until about the beginning of our era ; and for the New World only a little over four hundred years ago.

2. How we Learn about Prehistoric Man. A knowledge of what manner of man prehistoric man was and what he did is indispensable to the historical student ; for the dim prehistoric ages of human life form the childhood of the race— and the man cannot be understood without at least some knowledge of the child.

But how, in the absence of written records, are we to find out anything about prehistoric man? In many ways we are able to learn much about him. First, by studying the life of present-day backward races ; for what they now are, the great races of history; we have reason to believe, were in their prehistoric age.

Again, the men who lived before the dawn of history left behind them many things which witness as to what manner of men they were. In ancient gravel beds along the streams where they fished or hunted, in the caves which afforded them shelter, in the refuse heaps (kitchen middens) on the sites of their villages or camping places, or in the graves where they laid away their dead, we find

2 GENERAL INTRODUCTION [§ 3

great quantities of tools and weapons and other articles shaped by their hands/ From these various things we learn what skill these early men had acquired as tool makers, what degree of culture they had attained, and something of their conception of the life in the hereafter.

3. Divisions of Prehistoric Times. The long period of prehistoric times is divided into different ages, or stages of culture, which are named from the material which man used in the manufacture of his weapons and tools. The earliest epoch is known as the Old Stone Age ; the following one as the New Stone Age ; and the later period as the Age of Metals. The division lines between these ages are not sharply drawn. In most countries the epochs run into and overlap one another, just as in modern times the Age of Steam runs into and overlaps the Age of Electricity.

4. The Old Stone Age. In the Old Stone Age man's chief implements were usually made of stone, and especially of chipped flints, though bones, horns, tusks, and other materials were also used in their manufacture. These rude implements and weapons of his, found mostly in river gravel beds and in caves, are the very oldest things in existence which we know positively to have been shaped by human hands.

The man of the Old Stone Age in Europe saw the retreating glaciers of the great Ice Age, of which geology tells us. Among the animals which lived with him on that continent (we know most of early man there) were the woolly-haired mammoth, the bison, the wild ox, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the reindeer— species which are no longer found in the regions where primitive man hunted them. As the climate and the vegetation changed, some of these animals became extinct, while others of the cold-loving species retreated up the mountains or migrated toward the north.

What we know of man of the Old Stone Age may be summed up as follows: he was a hunter and fisher ; his habitation was often

n..t.HnWv' '^""" ™f '"'^ '^'"^' '^'' '^" ^' ^^^" ^"^ h^^dled, there are many immaterial things -as, for mstance, language, which is as full of human memories as the rocks are of fossils - that light up for us the dim ages before history

§4]

THE OLD STONE AGE merely a cave or a rock shelter ; his implements were in the main roughly shaped flints ; he had no domestic animals save possibly the dog ; he was ignorant of the arts of spinning and weaving, and practically also of the art of making pottery.^

The length of the Old Stone Age no one knows ; we do not attempt to reckon its duration by years or by centuries, but only

Fig. I. Implements of the Old Stone Age

No. /, the core of a flint nodule, was the earliest and the characteristic ^ool and weapon of man of the Old Stone Age. It served a variety of purposes, and was used without a handle, being clutched with the hand (No. g), and hence is called the hand-ax or fist-ax. No 2 is a flint flake struck from a nodule. No. 8 (a harpoon-point) tells us that the man of this age was a fisher as well as a hunter. From No. 6 (a bone needle) we may infer that he made clothing of skins, for since he had not yet learned the art of weaving (the spindle-whorl does not appear till the next epoch ; see Fig. 5 and explanatory note), the material of which he made clothing could hardly have been anything else than the skins of animals killed in the chase. That skins were carefully prepared is evidenced by the scraper (Nos. 4, //), an implement used in dressing hides. No. 7 (an engraving-tool) tells us that art had its beginnings in the Old Stone .A.ge

by geologic ages. We do know, however, that the long, slow agss did not pass away without some progress having been made by primeval man, which assures us that, though so lowly a creature, he was endowed with the capacity for growth and improvement. Before the end of the period he had acquired wonderful skill in the chipping of flint points and blades ; he had learned the use of fire, as we know from the traces of fire found in the places where

1 The Australians and New Zealanders when first discovered were in the Old Stone Age stage of culture ; the Tasmanians had not yet reached it.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

[§4

Fig

2. Engraving op^ a Mammoth on THE Fragment of a Tusk (Old Stone Age)

he made his abode ; and he had probably invented the bow and arrow, as we find this weapon in very general use at the opening

of the following epoch.

This important invention gave man what was to be one of his chief weapons in the chase and in war for thousands of years — down to and even after the invention of firearms late in the historic period.

But most prophetic of the great future of this savage or semi-savage cave man of the Old Stone Age was the fine artistic talent that some tribes or races of the period possessed ; for, strange as it may seem, among the men of this epoch there were some amazingly good artists. Besides numerous specimens of his drawings and carvings of animals, chiefly on bone and ivory, which have been found from time to time during the last half century and more, there have recently been discovered many large drawings and paintings on the walls of various grottoes in southern France and northern Spain.^ These wonderful pictures are mainly representations of animals. The species most often depicted are the bison, the horse, the wild ox, the reindeer, and the mammoth.

1 The first of these wall paintings were discovered in 1879, but that they really were of the immense age claimed for them was not established beyond all doubt until 1902. The pictures are generally found in the depths of caverns where not a ray of the light of day ever enters. They were made by the light of lamps fed with the fat of animals. It is almost certain that they had a magical purpose, that is, were made in the belief that by a species of magic they would cause an increase of the game animals represented, or would render them a sure prey in the chase.

Fig. 3. Wall Picture from the

Cavern of Font-de-Gaume, France

(After Breiiil)

A

Fig. 4. Specimens of the Art of the European Cave Man

These remarkable animal forms were painted, in colors still well preserved, on the walls of French and Spanish caverns, by a race of hunter-artists of the Old Stone Age. They were drawn probably at least ten or fifteen thousand years before the Pyramids

were erected

THE NEW STONE AGE

This astonishing art of the European cave men shows that primitive man, probably because he is a hunter and lives so close to the wild life around him, often has a keener eye for animal forms and movements than the artists of more advanced races. The history of art (sculpture, engraving, and painting) must hereafter begin with the works of these artist hunters of the Old Stone Age.

Fig. 5. Implements of the New Stone Age

These tools and weapons mark a great advance over the chipped flints of the Old Stone Age (Fig. 1). They embody the results of thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of years of human experience and invention, and mark the first steps in human progress. Nos. 1-3 and y-io show how after unmeasured ages man had learned to increase the effectiveness of his tools and weapons by grinding them smooth and sharp, and by fitting handles to them. No. 5 records the incoming of the art of making pottery — one of the most important industrial arts prior to the Age of Iron. No. 6 (a spindle-whorl of stone or of hardened clay used as a weight in twisting thread) informs us that man had learned the civilizing arts of spinning and weaving

5. The New Stone Age. The Old Stone Age was followed by the New. Chipped or hammered stone implements still continued to be used, but what characterizes this period was the use of ground or polished implements. Man had learned the art of grinding his tools and weapons to a sharp edge with sand on a grinding stone. ^ To his ax he had also learned to attach a handle, which made it a vastly more effective implement (Fig. 5).

1 The North American Indians were in this stage of culture at the time of the discovery of the New World. The Egyptians and Babylonians were just emerging from it when they first appeared in history.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

[§6

Besides these improvements in his tools and weapons, the man of the New Stone Age had made other great advances beyond the man of the Old Stone Age. He had learned to till the soil ; he had learned to make fine pottery, to spin, and to weave ; he had domesticated various wild animals ; he built houses, often on piles on the margins of lakes and morasses ; and he buried his dead in such a manner — with accompanying gifts (Fig. 6) — as to show that he had a firm belief in a future life.^

6. The Age of Metals. Finally the long ages of stone passed into the Age of Metals. This age falls into three subdivisions — the Age of Copper, the Age of Bronze, and the Age of Iron.

Some peoples, like the African negroes, passed directly from the use of stone to the use of iron ; but in most of the countries of the Orient and of Europe the three metals came into use one after the other and in the order named. Speaking broadly, we may say that the Age of Metals began for the more advanced peoples of the ancient world between 4000 and 3000 B.C.

The history of metals has been declared to be the history of civilization.

Indeed, it would be almost impossible to overestimate their importance to man. Man could do very little with stone implements compared with what he could do with metal implements. It was a great labor for primitive man, even with the aid of fire, to fell a tree with a stone ax and to hollow out the trunk for a boat. He was hampered in all his tasks by the rudeness of

Fig. 6. A Prehistoric

Egyptian Tomb

(After /. de Morgafi)

Primitive man's belief in a future life led him to place in the grave of the deceased weapons, implements, food, and articles of personal adornment for use in the other world. Outfits of this kind found in prehistoric graves are an important source of our knowledge of man before recorded history begins

1 Recent discoveries have revealed traces of this belief even before the close of the Old Stone Age. Several cases of burial have been found with rich grave outfits of flint implements and weapons, which point unmistakably to a belief in a life after death.

§7.

THE ORIGIN OF THE USE OF FIRE his tools. It was only as the bearer of metal implements and weapons that he began really to subdue the earth and to get dominion over nature. All the higher cultures of the ancient world with which history begins were based on the knowledge and use of metals.

7. The Origin of the Use of Fire. That fire was known to man of the Old Stone Age we learn, as already noted, from the

Fk;. 7. Primitive Methods of making Fire. (After Tylor)

Doubtless the discovery that fire could be produced by friction came about through the operation of the primitive toolmaker. The processes of smoothing, polishing, and grooving softwood implements, and of boring holes in them with pieces of harder wood, could hardly fail of revealing the secret. The character of the fire-making devices of present-day savages point the way of the discovery

traces of it discovered in the caves and rock shelters which were his abode. No people has ever been found so low in the scale of culture as to be without it.

As to the way in which early man came into possession of fire, we have no knowledge. Possibly he kindled his first fire from a glowing lava stream or from some burning tree trunk set aflame by the lightning.^ However this may be, he had in the earliest times learned to produce the vital spark by means of friction. The fire borer, according to Tylor, is among the oldest of human inventions. , — ^nce the awakening of the spark was difficult, the fire once alight was carefully fed so that it should not go out. The duty of watching the flame naturally fell to the old women or to the daughters of the community, to which custom may be traced the origin of such institutions as that among the Romans of the six

1 Fires thus lighted are surprisingly numerous. During the year 1914 there were over 2000 fires started by lightning in the national forests of the United States.

8 GENERAL INTRODUCTION [§ 8

vestal virgin priestesses, the keepers of the sacred fire which flamed on the common household hearth in the temple of the goddess Vesta (sect. 237).

Only gradually did primeval man learn the various properties of fire and discover the different uses to which it might be put, just as historic man has learned only gradually the possible uses of electricity. By some happy accident or discovery he learned that it would harden clay, and he became a potter ; that it would smelt ores, and he became a worker in metals ; and that it would aid him in a hundred other ways. "Fire," says Joly, "presided at the birth of nearly every art, or quickened its progress." The place it holds in the development of the family, of religion, and of the industrial arts is revealed by these three significant words — "the hearth, the altar, the forge." No other agent has contributed more to the progress of civilization. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive how without fire primitive man could ever have emerged from the Age of Stone.

8. The Domestication of Animals. "When we visit a farm at the present day and observe the friendly nature of the life which goes on there, — the horse proudly and obediently bending his neck to his yoke ; the cow offering her streaming udder to the milkmaid ; the woolly flock going forth to the field, accompanied by their trusty protector, the dog, who comes fawning to his master, — this familiar intercourse between man and beast seems so natural that it is scarcely conceivable that things may once have been different. And yet in the picture we see only the final result of thousands and thousands of years of the work of civilization, the enormous importance of which simply escapes our notice because it is by everyday wonders that our amazement is least excited."^

The most of this work of inducing the animals of the fields and woods to become, as it were, members or dependents of the human family, to enter into a league of friendship with man and to become his helpers, was done by prehistoric man. When man appears in history, he appears surrounded by almost all the domestic animals known to us today. The dog was already his faithful

1 Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples (1890), p. 259.

§ 9] THE DOMESTICATION OF PLANTS 9

companion — and probably the first won from among the wild creatures ; the sheep, the cow, and the goat shared his shelter with him.

The domestication of animals had such a profound effect upon human life and occupation that it marks the opening of a new epoch in history. The hunter became a shepherd, and the hunting stage in culture gave place to the pastoral.^

9. The Domestication of Plants. Long before the dawn of history those peoples of the Old World who were to play great parts in early historic times had advanced from the pastoral to the agricultural stage of culture. Just as the step from the hunting to the pastoral stage had been taken with the aid of a few of the most social species of animals, so had this second upward step, from the pastoral to the agricultural stage, been taken by means of the domestication of a few of the innumerable species of the seed grasses and plants growing wild in field and wood.

Wheat and barley, two of the most important of the cereals, were probably first domesticated somewhere in Asia, and from there carried over Europe. These grains, together with oats and rice, have been, in the words of Tylor, "the mainstay of human life and the great moving power of civilization."