Philip Van Ness Myers

“ Other clans and tribes pushed into the peninsulas of Greece and Italy, and, mingling with the peoples already settled there, founded the Greek and Italian city-states, and from the germs of culture which they carried with them, or which they found among the native populations or afterwards received from the Oriental lands, developed what is known as the Classical Civilization. Yet other tribes of the family, either through peaceful expansion, through social relations, or through conquest, had, long before our era, made Aryan in speech almost all the remaining regions of Europe. ”

“ If our hasty glance at those far-away times has done nothing more than this, then we shall never again regard history quite as may have been our wont. We shall see everything in a new light. We shall see the story of man to be more wonderful than we once thought, the path which he has followed to be longer and more toilsome than we ever imagined. ”

“ We are not used to thinking of the men of the first generation of historic times as also the heirs of a great legacy. But even the scanty review we have made of what was discovered, invented, and thought out by man during the unmeasured epochs before history began cannot fail to have impressed us with the fact that a vast estate was transmitted by prehistoric to historic man. ”

“ Periods of time like geologic epochs must have been required for the formation out of the scanty speech of the first men, by the slow process of word-making, of the rich and copious languages already upon the lips of the great peoples of antiquity, the Hamitic Egyptians, the Semitic Babylonians, the Aryans of India and Persia, and their kinsmen, the Greeks and Romans, when they first appear in the morning light of history. ”

“ The length of the Old Stone Age no one knows; we do not attempt to reckon its duration by centuries or millenniums even, but only by geologic epochs. But we do know—and this is something of vastly greater moment than a knowledge of the duration of the age—that the long slow epochs did not pass away without some progress having been made by primeval man, which assures us that though so lowly a creature he was a creature endowed with capacity for growth and improvement. ”

“ This means that for some peoples, as for instance the Egyptians and the Babylonians, these epochs or stages of culture fall within their historic period, while for others, as for instance the Greeks and the Romans, they begin in their prehistoric and overlap their historic age. [4]
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. ”

“ We need not dwell upon the inestimable value to man of the acquisition of language. Without it all his other acquisitions and discoveries would have remained comparatively fruitless, all his efforts to lift himself to higher levels of culture have been unavailing. ”

“ How we learn about Prehistoric Man.—A knowledge of what 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 chapat least some knowledge of the child. ”

“ When the Roman Empire broke up, there arose a number of Latin-speaking nations,—among these, the French, Spaniards, and Portuguese. During the modern age these Romanized nations, through conquest and colonization, have spread their Latin speech and civilization over a great part of the New World. ”

“ It should be carefully noted, however, that where the term Aryan is applied to a people it simply means that the people thus designated use an Aryan speech, and that it does not mean that they are related by blood to any other Aryan-speaking people. Physical or racial relationships cannot be determined by the test of language. Think of the millions of English-speaking African negroes in the United States! For a masterly discussion of the question of the ethnic types or races making up the population of Europe, see Ripley's The Races of Europe (New York, 1899) . ”

“ The Prehistoric and the Historic Age.—The uncounted millenniums which lie back of the time when man began to keep written records of what he thought and did and of what befell him, are called the Prehistoric Age.
The comparatively few centuries of human life which are made known to us through written records comprise the Historic Age. ”

“ The most of this work of inducing the animals of the fields and the 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 to-day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Among the animals which lived with him on the continent of Europe—we know most of Paleolithic man there—were the mammoth, the cave bear, the elk, the rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the reindeer; species which are no longer found in the regions where primitive man hunted them. ”

“ The Black Race.—Africa south of the Sahara is the home of the peoples of the Black Race, but we find them on all the other continents and on many of the islands of the seas, whither they have migrated or been carried as slaves by the stronger races ”

“ 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.
5. The Paleolithic or Old Stone Age.—In the Old Stone Age man's implements were usually made of stone, and particularly of easily chipped flints, though sometimes bones, horns, tusks, and other material were used in their manufacture. These rude tools and weapons of Paleolithic man, found in gravel beds and in caves, are the very oldest things in existence shaped by human hands. ”

“ The Races of Mankind in the Historic Period.— Distinctions in bodily characteristics, such as form, color, and features, divide the human species into three chief types or races, known as the Black or Ethiopian Race, the Yellow or Mongolian Race, and the White or Caucasian Race. ”

“ Early man seems to have realized how much he owed to the art of husbandry, for in the mythologies of many peoples some god or goddess is represented as having taught men how to till the soil and to plant the seed. ”

“ In the gray dawn of history we discover them already settled in the valley of the Nile, and there erecting great monuments so faultless in construction as to render it certain that those who planned them had had long previous training in the art of building. ”

“ So greatly superior were bronze to stone implements that their introduction caused the use of stone for tools and weapons to be discontinued, and consequently the Age of Bronze constitutes a well-defined and important epoch in the liistory of culture. ”

“ Before the end of the age man had learned the use of fire, as we know from the traces of fire found in the caves which were his abode, and had invented the bow and arrow, as is evidenced by arrowheads of flint and of bone which have been discovered. ”

“ In this system of writing the characters are rude pictures of material objects, as for instance a picture of an eye to indicate the organ of sight; or they are symbols of ideas, as for illustration a picture consisting of wavy lines beneath an arc representing the sky to indicate rain. This way of representing ideas, which seems natural to man, is known as ideographic writing, and the signs are. called ideograms.
A great step in advance is taken when the picture writer uses his pictures or symbols to represent not actual objects or ideas, but sounds of the human voice, that is, words. ”

“ The Formation of Language.—Another great task and achievement of primitive man was the making of language. The earliest speech used by historic man, as Tylor observes, "teaches the interesting lesson that the main work of language-making was done in the ages before history." ”

“ 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.
9. 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 Origin of the Use of Fire—In this and following paragraphs we shall dwell briefly upon some of the special discoveries and achievements, several of which have already been mentioned, marking important steps in man's progress during the prehistoric ages. ”

“ In many ways we are able to learn much about him. Thus, for instance, since we now know evolution to be the law of life on the earth, we may regard existing savage and semi-savage races as representing the prehistoric state of the advanced races. ”

“ This attachment to the soil of the hitherto roving clans and tribes meant also the beginning of political life. The cities were united into states and great kingdoms were formed, and the political history of man began, as in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. ”

“ The Antiquity of Man.—We do not know when man first appeared upon the earth. We only know that in ages long past, when both the climate and the outline of the continents were very different from what they are at present, primitive man roamed over them with animals now extinct ”

“ Tliat fire was known to Paleolithic man we learn, as already noted, from the traces of it discovered in the caves and rock shelters which were his abode. No people has ever been fcMHid so low in the scale of culture as to be without it. ”

“ The Roman Empire at its Greatest Extent (under Trajan, A.D. 98–117) 506 17.
The Roman Empire divided into Prefectures 528 18.
Map showing Barbarian Inroads on the Fall of the Roman Empire (movements shown down to A.D. 477) 534 19. ”

“ Coin of Cyrene 159 80.
Coin of Corinth 160 81.
Athens 168 82.
The Athenian Tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogiton 174 83.
Greek Warriors preparing for Battle 183 84.
Hoplite, or Heavy-Armed Greek Warrior 198 85. ”

“ Writing Exercise Tablets of a Child 58 41.
Hammurabi receiving the Code from the Sun-god 59 42.
An Assyrian Winged Bull 62 43.
Restoration of Sargon's Palace at Khorsabad 64 44.
An Assyrian King (? Sennacherib) 65 45.
Restoration of a Court in Sargon's Palace at Khorsabad 67 46. ”