Beacon Lights of History, Volume 03: Ancient Achievements. John Lord
Justice was not always to be found on the side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned counsel could be employed only by the rich, and even judges were venal, so that the poor did not easily find adequate redress. But all this is the necessary attendant on a factitious state of society, and by many is regarded as being quite as characteristic of modern, civilized Christian England and America as it was of Pagan Rome. Material civilization leads to an undue estimate of money; and when money purchases all that artificial people desire, then all classes will prostitute themselves for its possession, and justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment will be forced to retreat,–as hermits sought a solitude when society had reached its lowest degradation, out of pure despair of its renovation.
AUTHORITIES
The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes of Gaius have been recovered, many eminent writers on Roman law have appeared, especially in Germany and France. Many might be cited, but for all ordinary purposes of historical study the work of Lord Mackenzie on Roman Law, together with the articles of George Long in Smith's Dictionary, will be found most useful. Maine's Treatise on Ancient Law is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous chapter should also be read by every student. There is a fine translation of the Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible, by Dr. Harris of Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels are of course the original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of Gaius.
In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law. Also Irving, Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the Study of Jurisprudence; Wheaton's Elements of International Law; and Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.
THE FINE ARTS
My object in the present lecture is not a criticism of the principles of art so much as an enumeration of its various forms among the ancients, to show that in this department of civilization they reached remarkable perfection, and were not inferior to modern Christian nations.
The first development of art among all the nations of antiquity was in architecture. The earliest buildings erected were houses to protect people from heat, cold, and the fury of the elements of Nature. At that remote period much more attention was given to convenience and practical utility than to beauty or architectural effect. The earliest houses were built of wood, and stone was not employed until temples and palaces arose. Ordinary houses were probably not much better than log-huts and hovels, until wealth was accumulated by private persons.
The earliest monuments of enduring magnificence were the temples of powerful priests and the palaces of kings; and in Egypt and Assyria these appear earliest, as well as most other works showing civilization. Perhaps the first great monument which arose after the deluge of Noah was the Tower of Babel, built probably of brick. It was intended to be very lofty, but of its actual height we know nothing, nor of its style of architecture. Indeed, we do not know that it was ever advanced beyond its foundations; yet there are some grounds for supposing that it was ultimately finished, and became the principal temple of the Chaldaean metropolis.
From the ruins of ancient monuments we conclude that architecture received its earliest development in Egypt, and that its effects were imposing, massive, and grand. It was chiefly directed to the erection of palaces and temples, the ruins of which attest grandeur and vastness. They were built of stone, in blocks so huge and heavy that even modern engineers are at loss to comprehend how they could have been transported and erected. All the monuments of the Pharaohs are wonders, especially such as appear in the ruins of Karnak,–a temple formerly designated as that of Jupiter Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the Great, the first of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that architecture in Egypt reached its greatest development. Then we find the rectangular-cut blocks of stone in parallel courses, the heavy pier, the cylindrical column with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice.
The imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the impressive vastness of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of proportion or graceful embellishments; it was designed to awe the people, and kindle sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this end was contemplated it was nobly reached; even to this day the traveller stands in admiring amazement before those monuments that were old three thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the Pyramids; no ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes. The temple of Karnak and the palace of Rameses the Great were probably the most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and other structures did not possess that unity of design which marked the Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes formed the approach. At Karnak the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body of the edifice stood two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The principal structures of Egyptian temples do not follow the straight line, but begin with pyramidal towers which flank the gateways; then follow, usually, a court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate temples, and houses for the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidal tower, leads to the interior and most considerable part of the temple,–a portico inclosed with walls, which receives light only through the entablature or openings in the roof. Adjoining this is the cella of the temple, without columns, enclosed by several walls, often divided into various small chambers with monolithic receptacles for idols or mummies or animals. The columns stand within the walls. The colonnade is not, as among the Greeks, an expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with apertures. The walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only on the inside, and bevelled externally, so that the thickness at the bottom sometimes amounts to twenty-four feet; thus the whole building assumes a pyramidal form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian architecture. The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are placed close together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft diminishes upward, and is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique furrows, but not fluted like Grecian columns. The capitals are of the bell form, ornamented with all kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but high abacus. They abound with sculptured decorations, the designs of which were borrowed from the vegetation of the country. The highest of the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a quarter times the greatest diameter.
But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity in their construction, but because of their immense size and unknown age. None but sacerdotal monarchs would ever have erected them; none but a fanatical people would ever have toiled upon them. We do not know for what purpose they were raised, unless as sepulchres for kings. They are supposed to have been built at a remote antiquity, between two thousand and three thousand years before Christ. Lepsius thought that the oldest of these Pyramids were built more than three thousand years before Christ. The Pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is seven hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air nearly five hundred feet. It is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from time than the mountains near it. Possibly it stands over an immense substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient Egypt; it may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which Herodotus speaks, built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this author, one hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty years.
The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, their only difference of architecture being that their rooms are larger and in greater numbers. Some think that the famous labyrinth was a collective palace of many rulers.
Of Babylonian architecture we know little beyond what the Hebrew Scriptures and ancient authors tell us. But though nothing survives of ancient magnificence, we know that a city whose walls, according to Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in thickness, three hundred and thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in circumference, and in which were one hundred gates of brass, must have had considerable architectural splendor. This account of Babylon, however, is probably exaggerated, especially as to the height of the walls. The tower of Belus, the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis were probably wonderful structures, certainly in size, which is one of the conditions of architectural effect.
The