Ancient civilization

“ We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature, in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances. ”

“ It was these Romans who united in one State the Culture which had now been produced by the intermixture of different races, and who thereby completed the period of Ancient Time and closed the simple course of Ancient Civilization. With respect to its influence on Universal History, this nation, more than any other, was the blind and unconscious instrument for the furtherance of a higher World-Plan, since it had formed itself, as indicated above, into a most fit and proper instrument for that purpose. ”

“ In other parts of the kingdom the remains of an ancient civilization are prepared ever to guide, to cultivate, to influence, the rising mind; but they are born in a miraculous creation of novel powers, and it is rather a providential instinct that has developed the necessary means of maintaining the order of your new civilization than the matured foresight of man. ”

“ The Roman civilization, certainly. It is true that the Greek civilization, like all the ancient civilizations, including that of Rome, was exclusively national and based on slavery. But, in spite of these two immense defects, the former none- 43 - the less conceived and realized the idea of humanity; it ennobled and really idealized the life of men; it transformed human herds into free associations of free men; it created through liberty the sciences, the arts, a poetry, an immortal philosophy, and the primary concepts of human respect. ”

“ Their success in war is tantamount to saying that in one great field of genius, which civilization honors, they not merely distinguished themselves, and gained a proud fame which will never die out of the memory of man, but that they have had no equals in any age. War enabled them to build up a vast empire, which empire gave a great impulse to ancient civilization. ”

“ When, as in early English literature, we find Greek history conceived in terms of feudal institutions, and the heroes of antiquity spoken of as princes, knights, and squires, it becomes clear to us that the ideas concerning ancient civilization must have been utterly wrong. ”

“ By the same reasoning, there will rise again a civilization of even vaster promise standing upon our shoulders, as we have stood upon the shoulders of ancient Sumer, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The learned among that culture of the future may study with pleasure and profit things now in existence which are unique to our time, growing out of our circumstances, needs, and desires. ”

“ Lack of Power in the Ancient World.—The Greeks and the Romans had a civilization which is a wonder even to the people of our day. They had the arts and architecture which are now regarded as superb and incomparable. ”

“ It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of antiquity. In this great department of human inquiry modern genius shines with the lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly attests the advance of civilization. It is this which has distinguished and elevated the races of Europe, and carried them in the line of progress beyond the attainments of the Greeks and Romans. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI. GRECIAN CIVILIZATION BEFORE THE PERSIAN WARS. Early civilization. We understand by civilization the progress which nations have made in art, literature, material strength, social culture, and political institutions, by which habits are softened, the mind enlarged, the soul elevated, and a wise government, by laws established, protecting the weak, punishing the wicked, and developing wealth and national resources. ”

“ And it is possible that the great tragedies of history—that is, the great civilizations that have been created by the spirit of man—may all reveal the same plot, if we analyse them rightly. Each civilization—for instance, the civilization of Mediaeval and Modern Europe and again that of Ancient Greece—is probably a variant of a single theme. And to study the plot of civilization in a great exposition of it—like the Hellenic exposition or our own Western exposition—is surely the right goal of a humane education. ”

“ To a complete knowledge of this civilization belongs all that the ancients possessed or did, all that they thought or wrote, whether or not any particular part of it had an influence upon later times or is, in itself, interesting or valuable now. All parts alike are phenomena of the life of these ancient peoples and so of the life of the human race. ”

“ The social masses, the foundations of civilization, the solid group of superimposed and adherent interests, and the secular profiles of the ancient Gallic formations, appear and disappear every moment through the stormy clouds of systems, passions, and theories. ”

“ If we scrutinize the field carefully, it is evident that one of the greatest and far reaching facts of ancient civilization, as it emerges from the darkness of prehistoric times, as well as one of the most considerable facts of subsequent history is just this cleavage into two principal classes. ”

“ The light of civilization was carried [Pg 460] thither by Arian colonies. The substratum of the social structure was composed of elements of the yellow race, but the white civilizers received reinforcements of their blood at various times.
6. The ancient civilization of the Italian peninsula (the Etruscan civilization) , was developed by a mosaic of populations of the Celtic, Iberian, and Shemitic stock, but cemented by Arian elements. From it emerged the civilization of Rome.
7. Our civilization is indebted for its tone and character to the Germanic conquerors of the fifth century. ”

“ A regular gradation of nobles or chiefs was established, to whom the people at large looked up, while a King, Sovereign, or Emperor governed the whole. These are the leading ideas connected with ancient civilization. These elements flourished largely in the last of the old empires, or that of Rome, which before its fall had transcended all that went before in commerce, civilization, learning, refinement, science, art, as well as in grandeur and extent of territory. ”

“ Such are among the chief ideas which the fathers taught, and which have entered even into the modern institutions of society, and form the peculiar glory of our civilization. When we remember this, we feel that the church has performed no mean mission, even if it did not save the Roman empire. The glory of warriors, of statesmen, of artists, of philosophers, of legislators, and of men of science and literature in the ancient world, still shines, and no one would dim it, or hide it from the admiration of mankind. ”

“ To demonstrate this truth we might begin with primeval man, go through ancient history, tracing the march of mind from the mythic Hermes of Egypt, the Pythagoras of Greece, the Zoroaster of Persia, to the grand display of civilization exhibited by the Roman Empire under Aurelius Antoninus, or under Constantine the Great, and thence follow the current in all its vicissitudes down to the present age. But the limits of a single article preclude so extended a review of human progress. ”

“ If a complicated system of laws and government, on which the reason and experience of ages were expended, did not prevent the empire from falling into the hands of barbarians, much less was to be expected of art, for which the Romans were also distinguished in common with the Greeks. Much is said of the ennobling influence of those great creations which gave so great lustre to ancient civilization. ”

“ Let us, before tracing the history of the empire, take a brief survey of its extent, resources, population, institutions, state of society, and that development of Art, science, and literature, which we call civilization, in the period which immediately preceded the birth of Christ, when the nations were subdued, submissive to the one central power, and at peace with each other. ”

“ Great Divisions of History.—The history of civilization begins with the oldest civilized people and continues to the present time. Antiquity is the most remote period, Modern Times the era in which we live.
Ancient History.—Ancient History begins with the [Pg 12] oldest known nations, the Egyptians and Chaldeans (about 3,000 years before our era) , and surveys the peoples of the Orient, the Hindoos, Persians, Phœnicians, Jews, Greeks, and last of all the Romans. It terminates about the fifth century A.D., when the Roman empire of the west is extinguished. ”

“ We shall attempt nothing of the kind; we have not undertaken a work of criticism or æsthetic demonstration. We wish to build up the history of ancient civilization through the study, description, and comparison of its plastic remains. ”

“ Material glories we share with the ancients; we have simply improved upon them. In some things they are our superiors. We do not see the superiority of modern over ancient civilization in material wonders, so much as in immaterial ideas. ”

“ If the old civilization had a life of itself, it would have saved the race. But as it was purely man's creation, his work, it had no inherent vitality or power to save him. The people were great before the fruits of their culture appeared. They were great in consequence of living virtues, not legacies of genius. They ran the usual course of the ancient nations. The sterling virtues of primitive times produced prosperity and material greatness. ”

“ The antique civilization of the Roman Empire was followed by that depression of decadence and barbarization which separates antiquity from the Middle Ages. Out of the confusion of this intervening period emerged the mediaeval peoples of western Europe. These, as knowledge increased with them, began to manifest spiritual traits having no clear counterpart in the ancient sources from which they drew the matter of their thought and contemplation. ”

“ We see no evidence of it among the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans, nor among modern Chinese or Japanese. None of these could conceive any civilization higher than their own. None of these dreamed of an onward progress of the whole race, of which their own civilization was only one temporary phase. ”

“ I have said that the country inherited an ancient civilization, and it will perhaps be well to describe in a brief word the salient points of that civilization, which was not introduced by the Fulani, but adopted by them from their predecessors, and has its origin in remote antiquity. ”

“ Our object in regard to the ancient East is not to retrace the beginning of human civilization, but rather to understand and establish the value and extent of those early phases of civilisation to which the entire development of the human race goes back. ”

“ The earliest historical records and relics of the seats of ancient civilization all point backward to an earlier period of human life. Looking back from the earliest civilizations along the Euphrates and the Nile that have recorded the deeds of man so that their evidences could be handed down from generation to generation, the earlier prehistoric records of man stretch away in the dim past for more than a hundred thousand years. ”

“ The greatest part of the universe, and at the same time a civilization different but certainly as developed as that of the ancient Greeks and Romans, remained unknown to those who wrote the history of their little world while they believed that they, were setting forth the history of the world as a whole. ”

“ The Roman empire will seem to touch our modern civilization, and many of the differences which strike us so strongly will be imperceptible. They will perceive that we had a new religion and new inventions, but they will take more account of the resemblances than of the differences. Our languages, manners, laws, and forms of government will seem to them continuations of those of Greece and Rome. ”

“ Though the experience of these nations embodies all the information necessary to illustrate the periods of civilization, both ancient and modern, together with a part of that in the Later period of barbarism, their anterior experience must be deduced, in the main, from the traceable connection between the elements of their existing institutions and inventions, and similar elements still preserved in those of savage and barbarous tribes.
It may be remarked finally that the experience of mankind has run in nearly uniform channels ”

“ There is a peculiar fascination in tracking any highly developed civilization to its source, and in watching its growth from the rude and tentative efforts of a primitive people to the more elaborate achievements of a later day. And it is owing to recent excavation that we are now in a position to elucidate the early history of the three principal civilizations of the ancient world. The origins of Greek civilization may now be traced beyond the Mycenean epoch, through the different stages of Aegean culture back into the Neolithic age. ”

“ Yet, when we learn from the monuments what ancient Egyptian life was like toward five thousand years ago, it appears that civilization had already come on so far that there was an elaborate system of government, an educated literary priesthood, a nation skilled in agriculture, architecture, and metal-work. ”