Ancient history

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am indebted for the whole of this note to Greswell’s Early Parisian Greek Press, i. 1.
Study of antiquities. 47. Ancient learning is to be divided into two great departments; the knowledge of what is contained in the works of Greek and Roman authors, and that of the matériel, if I may use the word, which has been preserved in a bodily shape, and is sometimes known by the name of antiquities. Such are buildings, monuments, inscriptions, coins, medals, vases, instruments, which by gradual accumulation have thrown a powerful light upon ancient history and literature. ”

“ It is a history well deserving of attention, even looking only to the liveliness of the incidents, introducing us as they do into the full movement of the ancient world,—incidents which I see no reason for doubting, with a reasonable allowance for the dramatic amplification of the historian. ”

“ The principal facts of ancient history, and the authenticity of the works from which chiefly our knowledge of antiquity is derived, are now freely admitted, after a few exceptive instances have been set off, which are unproved, or doubtful. ”

“ These events, marvellous in themselves and in their accessories, and momentous from the way in which they have affected the destinies of the human race, present a study singularly and enduringly interesting, differing so strongly as they do from the characteristics of ancient history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In fact, in the course of my travels and observations in America, after having devoted ten years to the study of a large section of ancient history, I have realised how much the ancient history, which I had studied in Europe, helped me to understand America;37 and how much the America which I had before my eyes helped me to a better understanding of the distant reality of that vanished world of long ago. ”

“ To my Lord PEMBROKE. I Have sometimes in travelling been apt, within my own mind, to make a comparison between the excellence of the study of Philosophy, and that commonly called Antiquity, that is, ancient history. ”

“ It directs us to look back through all the ages of modern human history, through the great days of ancient Greece and Rome, back through the times when Egypt and Assyria were names of renown, through the days when Nineveh and Babylon were mighty and populous cities in the zenith of their glory. ”

“ It is only slowly making its way towards the recognized method and the recognized principles which even an art requires. Here, it seemed, a student of ancient history might proffer parallels from antiquity, and especially from the Hellenistic and Roman ages, which somewhat resemble the present day in their care for the well-being of the individual. ”

“ It is also quite as credible as many of the stories concerning the early history of the heroes of ancient history and fable, which are thought worth recording by every author who writes of Greece and Rome, and are read by every child with wonder. ”

“ we may, in like manner, affirm, that nothing gives history a greater superiority to many other branches of literature, than to see in a manner imprinted, in almost every page of it, the precious footsteps and shining proofs of this great truth, viz. that God disposes all events as supreme Lord and Sovereign; that he alone determines the fate of kings and the duration of empires; and that he transfers the government of kingdoms from one nation to another, because of the unrighteous dealing and wickedness committed therein.3 ”

“ Look back through history, and see for yourselves what has made the nations great and glorious. Why is it that, after twenty centuries, the memory of ancient Greece is still enshrined among the most cherished traditions of our race? ”

“ We are fully204 aware of the uncertainty which attaches itself to tradition in general, and of the caution with which it should be accepted in treating of the foundations of history; but still, with reference to the origin and growth of old world nations, nothing better offers itself in many instances than suspicious legends. The histories of the Egyptians, the Trojans, the Greeks, and of even ancient Rome rests on no surer footing. ”

“ Ancient science is not so well-known45 as ancient art and literature; and it certainly did not make very striking progress during the last brilliant period of ancient history—the Roman Empire. Therefore to many, whose knowledge regarding it is comparatively superficial, the ancient world may seem empty of scientific wisdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every city of the ancient world, where civilization had made any progress, was crowded with columns, statues, busts, monuments, inscriptions, by which every memorable event, and every illustrious personage, was perpetually presented to the regards of the people, and was retained in their recollection. It is certain that this monumental and sculptural mode of embodying a people’s history obtained to a far greater extent in ancient cities than it does in those of our times. And so it was that to visit a city—to pace its public ways—to enter its temples and its halls, was to peruse its history. ”

“ The study of ancient history requires for its basis a sound, able, philological, and grammatical spirit, which is proof against every temptation to indulge in fanciful etymologies; a well cultivated and practised taste, so as to distinguish possibilities or probabilities, and realities ”

“ Taking men, ideas, money, everywhere and from every people, it created first an empire, then a literature, an architecture, an administration, and a new religion, that were the most tremendous synthesis of the ancient world. ”

“ Our knowledge of ancient history has been wonderfully extended by the study of the modern Asiatic languages, and the restoration of tongues, which had been forgotten for centuries, and the Roman Empire, which once included in its history that of the greater part of the ancient world, is almost equaled in interest and importance by the records of Egypt, India, and China. What is wanted, therefore, is a concise abstract, which shall embody the labor of all former histories and the discoveries of modern research. ”

“ Archæology, as the discovery and classification of the facts of history, is the means by which we may obtain a true knowledge of what has happened in the past. It is the instrument with which we may dissect legend, and extract from myth its ingredients of fact. Cold history tells the Greek patriot, eager to enter the fray, that he must set little store by the precedent of the deeds of the Trojan war. ”

“ If we trace history back to the ancient Egyptians, the Persians, the Scythians, the Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans; indeed, with all nations of which history gives us any knowledge, we find that it has ever prevailed. ”

“ It remains, therefore, to consider why the ancients, in their great struggle to extend the dominion of man over nature, felt no need of help from swift engines of iron, and, therefore, did not make the effort necessary to invent them. This is a question of the highest importance for the history of civilisation, for by its solution only can we gain an insight into what is perhaps the most profound difference between ancient and modern civilisation. ”

“ The study of Popular Antiquities, as connected with the early history of mankind, is one of deep interest, involving researches into the different ancient systems of religion, and is a subject of too serious a nature to be enlarged on in the following pages. ”

“ In ancient history we have wonderful models of thoughtful writing, and ingenious record of primitive tradition, tradition at least that is so far primitive that to us no further analysis is possible. There are exceptional departments even here; recent discoveries in Assyriology and Egyptology are opening up regions of interest which appear to me to be absolutely beyond parallel or comparison ”

“ Thus it has been that—by the intellectual activity of one age, by the slumbering or the inert industry of the next period, and at length, by the utter mindlessness of centuries—the precious products of the ancient world have been conserved for our use in this age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The various facts, above alluded to, serve to connect the literary remains of antiquity—now in our hands, with the period of their pristine existence:—we traverse the long era of general ignorance—that wide gulf which separates the intelligence and civilization of antiquity from the intelligence and civilization of modern times, and we land, as it were, upon the native soil of these monuments of Mind, and we once more find ourselves surrounded by that abundance of evidence which belongs to an advanced state of knowledge. ”

“ Most successful teachers of Modern History have passed through the gate of the ancient lore; but if they would look the truth in the face, they would see that the help which that ancient lore gave to the study of the modern, was first in the discipline of the mind, for which it furnishes an incomparable exercise, and secondly in the wealth of illustration with which it provides them ”

“ But now the proof which establishes the general authenticity of ancient historians, and which demonstrates that their writings are, in the main, what they profess to be—that is—genuine narratives of events, composed and published in the age to which they are usually assigned, carries with it, by implication, a proof of the genuineness of other remains of ancient literature. ”

“ All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others. ”

“ Such were the material wonders of the ancient civilizations, culminating in their latest and greatest representative, and displayed in its proud capital,--nearly all of which became later the spoil of barbarians, who ruthlessly marched over the classic world, having no regard for its choicest treasures. Those old glories are now indeed succeeded by a prouder civilization,--the work of nobler races after sixteen hundred years of new experiments. ”

“ For, in spite of the valuable expositions of so many able commentators, our stock of information respecting the ancient world still remains lamentably inadequate to the demands of an enlightened curiosity. ”

“ 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 first inquiry we naturally make is in regard to the various religious systems which were accepted by the ancient nations, since religion, in some form or other, is the most universal of institutions, and has had the earliest and the greatest influence on the condition and life of peoples--that is to say, on their civilizations--in every period of the world. ”

“ We have begun our history with the mythologies handed down to us, as well those of the Grecians as of the barbarians, seriously weighing and considering, as far as we were able, what every one of them have related of things done in ancient times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But reasons of still greater moment recommend the subject of the following pages to the attention of the reader; for it is certain that every one, whether or not [Pg 5] he is contented to admit, without inquiry, the authenticity of profane history, has the highest personal concern in the truth of that particular portion of ancient history with which the Christian religion is connected; and, therefore, every one should think himself bound to convince himself of the genuineness of the books in which its principles are contained. ”