The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

and sea. But they did not directly affect the

prosperity of his empire. What was the loss of a few thousand slaves, and

of a few hundred Phoenician and Egyptian and Ionian ships, to him?

Indirectly, indeed, it decided the fate of Persia by developing the power

of the Greeks, but ruined in any case that empire must have been, like all

others of its kind. The causes of its fall must be sought for within and not

without. In the natural course of events it would have become the prey of

some people like the Parthian highlanders or the wandering Turks. The

Greek wars had this result; the empire was conquered at an earlier period

than would otherwise have been the case, and it was conquered by a

European instead of an Asiatic power.

 

There is no problem in history so interesting as the unparalleled

development of Greece. How was it that so small a country could exert

so remarkable an influence on the course of events and on the intellectual

progress of mankind? The Greeks, as the science of language clearly

proves, belonged to the same race as the Persians themselves. Many

centuries before history begins a people migrated from the highlands of

Central Asia and overspread Europe on the one side, on the other side

Hindustan. Celts and Germans, Russians and Poles, Romans and Greeks,

Persians and Hindus, all sprang from the loins of a shepherd tribe

inhabiting the tableland of the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes, and are

quite distinct from the Assyrians, the Arabs, and Phoenicians, whose

ancestors descended into the plains of Western Asia from the tableland of

the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates. It is also inferred from the

evidence of language that at some remote period the Egyptians belonged

to the same stock as the mountaineers of Armenia, the Chinese to the

same stock as the highlanders of Central Asia, and that at a period still

more remote the Turanian or Chinese Tartar, the Aryan or Indo-European, and the Semitic races and languages were one. Upon this last

point philologists are not agreed, though the balance of authority is in

favour of the view expressed. But as regards the descent of the English

and Hindus from the same tribe of Asiatic mountaineers, that is now as

much a fact of history as the common descent of the English and the

Normans from the same race of pirates on the Baltic shores. The Celts

migrated first into Europe; they were followed by the Graeco-Italian

people, and then by the German-Slavonians, the Persians and Hindus

remaining longest in their primeval homes. The great difference between

the various breeds of the Indo-European race is partly due to their

intermixture with the natives of the countries which they colonised and

conquered. In India the Aryans found a black race which yet exist in the

hills and jungles of that country, and who yet speak languages of their

own which have nothing in common with the noble Sanskrit. Europe was

inhabited by a people of Tartar origin who still exist as the Basques of the

Pyrenees, and as the Finns and Lapps of Scandinavia. It is probable that

these people also were intruders of comparatively recent date, and that a

yet more primeval race existed on the gloomy banks of the Danube and

the Rhine, in huts built on stakes in the shallow waters of the Swiss lakes,

and in the mountain caverns of France and Spain. The Aryans, who

migrated into India, certainly intermarried with the blacks, and there can

be no reasonable doubt that the Celts who first migrated into Europe took

the wives as well as the lands of the natives. The aborigines were

therefore largely absorbed by the Celts, to the detriment of that race,

before the arrival of the Germans, whose blood remained comparatively

pure.

 

We may freely use the doctrine of intermarriage to explain the difference

in colour between the sepoy and his officer. We may apply it—though

with less confidence—to explain the difference in character and aspect

between the Irish and the English, but we do not think that the doctrine

will help us much towards expounding the genius of Greece. And if the

superiority of that people was not dependent in any way on race

distinction, inherent or acquired, it must have been in some way

connected with locality and other incidents of life.

 

A glance at the map is sufficient to explain how it was that Greece

became civilised before the other European lands. It is nearest to those

countries in which civilisation first arose. It is the borderland of East

and West. The western coast of Asia and the eastern coast of Greece lie

side by side; the sea between them is narrow, with the islands like

stepping-stones across a brook. On the other hand, a mountain wall

extends in the form of an arc from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and shuts

off Europe from Greece, which is thus compelled to grow towards Asia

as a tree grows towards the light. Its coasts are indented in a peculiar

manner by the sea. Deep bays and snug coves, forming hospitable ports,

abound. The character of the Aegean is mild and humane; its atmosphere

is clear and favourable for those who navigate by the eye from island to

island and from point to point. The purple shell-fish, so much in request

with the Phoenicians for their manufactures, was found upon the coasts of

Greece. A trade was opened up between the two lands, and with trade

there came arithmetic and letters to assist the trade, and from these a

desire on the part of the Greeks for more luxury and more knowledge.

All this was natural enough. But how was it that whatever came into the

hands of the Greeks was used merely as raw material—that whatever they

touched was transmuted into gold? How was it that Asia was only their

dame’s school, and that they discovered the higher branches of

knowledge for themselves? How was it that they who were taught by the

Babylonians to divide the day into twelve hours afterwards exalted

astronomy to the rank of an exact science? How was it that they who

received from Egypt the canon of proportions and the first ideas of the

portraiture of the human form, afterwards soared into the regions of the

ideal, and created in marble a beauty more exquisite than can be found on

earth—a vision, as it were, of some unknown yet not unimagined world?

 

The mountains of Greece are disposed in a peculiar manner, so as to

enclose extensive tracts of land which assume the appearance of large

basins or circular hollows, level as the ocean and consisting of rich

alluvial soil through which rise steep insulated rocks. The plain subsisted

a numerous population; the rock became the Acropolis or citadel of the

chief town, and the mountains were barriers against invasion. Other

districts were parcelled out by water in the same manner; their frontiers

were swift streaming rivers or estuaries of the sea. Each of these cantons

became an independent city-state, and the natives of each canton became

warmly attached to their fatherland. Nature had given them ramparts

which they knew how to use. They defended with obstinacy the river and

the pass; if those were forced the citadel became a place of refuge and

resistance, and if the worst came to the worst they could escape to

inaccessible mountain caves.

 

Each of these states possessed a constitution of its own, and each was

home-made and differed slightly from the rest. It may be imagined what

a variety of ideas must have risen in the process of their manufacture.

The laws were debated in a general assembly of the citizens; each

community within itself was full of intellectual activity.

 

Self-development and independence are too often accompanied by

isolation, and nations, like individuals, become torpid when they retire

from the world. But this was not the case with Greece. Though its

people were divided into separate states, they all spoke the same language

and worshipped the same gods, and there existed certain institutions

which at appointed times assembled them together as a nation.

 

Greece is a country which possesses the most extraordinary climate in the

world. Within two degrees of latitude it ranges from the beech to the

palm. In the morning the traveller may be shivering in a snow-storm, and

viewing a winter landscape of naked trees; in the afternoon he may be

sweltering beneath a tropical sun, with oleanders blooming around him

and oranges shining in the green foliage like balls of gold. From this

variety of climate resulted a variety of produce which stimulated the

natives to barter and exchange. A central spot was chosen as the market-place, and it was made, for the common protection, a sanctuary of Apollo.

The people, when they met for the purposes of trade, performed at the

same time religious rites, and also amused themselves, in the rude manner

of the age, with boxing, wrestling, running races, and throwing the spear;

or they listened to the minstrels, who sang the ballads of ancient times,

and to the prophets or inspired politicians, who chanted predictions in

hexameters. That sanctuary became in time the famous oracle of Delphi,

and those sports expanded into the Olympian Games. To the great fair

came Greeks from all parts of the land, and when chariot races were

introduced it became necessary to make good roads from state to state,

and to build bridges across the streams. The administration of the

sanctuary, the laws and regulations of the games, and the management of

the public fund subscribed for the expenses of the fair, could only be

arranged by means of a national council composed of deputies from all

the states. This congress was called the Amphictyonic League, which,

soon extending its powers, enacted national laws, and as a supreme court

of arbitration decided all questions that arose between state and state.

 

At Olympia the inhabitants of the coast displayed the scarlet cloth and the

rich trinkets which they had obtained from Phoenician ships. At Olympia

those who had been kidnapped into slavery, and had afterwards been

ransomed by their friends at home, related to an eager crowd the wonders

which they had seen in the enchanted regions of the East.

 

And then throughout all Greece there was an inward stirring and a

hankering after the unknown, and a desire to achieve great deeds. It

began with the expedition of Jason—an exploring voyage to the Black

Sea; it culminated in the siege of Troy.

 

In such countries as the Grecian states, where the area is small, the

community flourishing, and the frontier inexorably defined, the law of

population operates with unusual force. The mountain walls of the Greek

cantons, like the deserts which surrounded Egypt, not only kept out the

enemy but also kept in the natives; they were not only fortresses but

prisons. In order to exist, the Greeks were obliged to cultivate every inch

of soil. But when this had been done the population still continued to

increase, and now the land could no longer be increased. In those early

days they had no manufactures, mines, or foreign commerce by means of

which they could supply themselves, as we do, with food from other

lands. In such an emergency the government, if it acts at all, has only two

methods to pursue. It must either strangle or bleed the population; it must

organise infanticide or emigration.

 

The first method was practised to some extent, but happily the last was

now within their power. The Trojan war had made them acquainted with

the Asiatic coast, and overcrowded states began to send forth colonies by

public act. The emigrants consisted chiefly, as may be supposed, of the

poor, the dangerous, and the discontented classes. They took with them