Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading. George Park Fisher

Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

interpreted the whole mythology as an exaggeration, by imagination and invention, of historical events which form its slender nucleus. With the loss of liberty and the downfall of the Greek states, philosophy became, so to speak, more cosmopolitan. It no longer exalted, in the same narrow spirit, the Greek above the barbarian. It looked at mankind more as one community. This was a feature of the first of the two principal sects, the Stoics, of whom Zeno (about 330 B.C.), and Chrysippus (280–207 B.C.) were the founders. They taught that virtue is the only good; that is consists in living according to nature; that reason should be dominant, and tranquillity of spirit be maintained by the complete subjugation of feeling. The emotions are to be kept down by the force of and iron will. This is the Stoic apathy. The world is wisely ordered: whatever is, is right; yet the cause of all things is not personal. Mankind form on great community, "one city." The Epicureans, the second of the prominent sects—so called from Epicurus, their founder (342–370 B.C.)—made pleasure the chief good, which is to be secured by prudence, or such a regulation of our desires as will yield, on the whole, the largest fruit of happiness. They believed that the gods exist, but denied Providence.

CULTURE.—In the Greek cities which were founded by the Macedonians, the political life and independence which Greece had enjoued did not exist. The "Hellenistic" literature and culture, as it is called, which followed, lacked the spontaneous energy and original spirit of the old time. The civilization was that of people not exclusively Greek in blood. Alexandria was its chief seat. Poetry languished. It was prose—and prose in the form of learned inquiries, criticism, and science—that flourished. The path was the same as that marked out by Aristotle. Theocritus, born in Syracuse, or Cos, under Ptolemy I. (about 320 B.C.), had distinction as a pastoral or bucolic poet. Euclid, under Ptolemy Soter, systemized geometry. Archimedes, who died in 212 B.C., is said to have invented the screw, and was skillful in mechanics. Eratosthenes founded descriptive astronomy and scientific chronology. "The Alexandrian age busied itself with literary or scientific research, and with setting in order what the Greek mind had done in its creative time." After Greece became subject to Rome (146 B.C.) the Graeco Roman period in Greek literature begins. The Greek historian Polybius stands on the border between the Alexandrian age and this next era. He was born about 210 B.C., and died about 128 B.C.

LITERATURE.—Works mentioned on p. 16: Histories of Greece by GROTE (12 vols.) (democratic in his sympathies), E. CURTIUS (5 vols.), THIRLWALL (8 vols.), W. Smith (1 vol.), G. W. Cox. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte; Fyffe, History of Greece (primer); Duncker, History of Greece [separately published]; Abbott (2 vols.); Holm (4 vols.); Bury; Oman.

On special periods: The writings of the ancient authors—Herodotus (Rawlinson's translation, 4 vols.), Xenophon, THUCYDIDES (Jowett's translation, 2 vols.), Polybius, Plutarch's Lives. Schäfer, Demosthenes und seine Zeit (3 vols.); DROYSEN, Geschichte des Hellenismus (3 vols.); E. A. FREEMAN, History of Federal Government (vol. i.); FINLAY, History of Greece from the Conquest of the Romans (7 vols.); G. W. Cox, History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the End of the Persian War (2 vols.), and Lives of Greek Statesmen (1 vol.); Freeman, History of Sicily (4 vols.).

On special topics: BOECKH, The Public Economy of Athens; Coulanges, The Ancient City, etc.: Gõll, Kulturbilder aus Hellas und Rom (3 vols.); Guhl and Koner, The Life of the Greeks and Romans, etc.; Green, Greece and Greek Antiquities (primer); J. P. Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece, also Rambles in Greece, Old Greek Education, and History of Greek Literature (2 vols.); Becker, Charicles (a story illustrative of Greek life); F. A. Paley, Greek Wit (2 vols.); Church, Stories from Homer; Black, The Wise Men of Greece; Neares, Greek Anthology [in Ancient Classics for English Readers], Chief Ancient Philosophies [Stoicism, etc.] (1 vol., 1880); Müller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (3 vols.); Mure, A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece (5 vols.); Jebb, Attic Orators (2 vols.); Symonds, The Greek Poets (2 vols.); G. F. Schömann, The Antiquities of Greece; Gladstone, Studies on the Homeric Age and Homer; Lübke, Outlines of the History of Art; FERGUSSON, History of Architecture; D'Anvers, Elementary History of Art; Botsford, Development of the Athenian Constitution; W. W. Fowler, The City-State of the Greeks and Romans; Gilbert, Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens; Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitutional History; H. N. Fowler, History of Greek Literature; Marshall, Short History of Greek Philosophy; Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture; Tarbell, History of Greek Art_; Tozer, Primer of Classical Geography; Kiepert, Atlas Antiquus; Cunningham, Western Civilization (vol. 1); Smith (Wayte & Marindin), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (2 vols., 1890); Seyffert (Nettleship and Sandys), Dictionary of Classical Antiquities.

MACEDONIAN ROYAL HOUSES

A.—House of Alexander the Great.

B.—House of Antipater.

C.—House of Antigonus.

[From Rawlinson's Manual of Ancient History.]

SECTION II. ROMAN HISTORY.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION.

PLACE OF ROME IN HISTORY.—Rome is the bridge which unites, while it separates, the ancient and the modern world. The history of Rome is the narrative of the building up of a single City, whose dominion gradually spread until it comprised all the countries about the Mediterranean, or what were then the civilized nations. "In this great empire was gathered up the sum total that remained of the religions, laws, customs, languages, letters, arts, and sciences of all the nations of antiquity which had successively held sway or predominance." Under the system of Roman government and Roman law they were combined in one ordered community. It was out of the wreck of the ancient Roman Empire that the modern European nations were formed. Their likeness to one another, their bond of fellowship, is due to the heritage of laws, customs, letters, religion, which they have received in common from Rome.

THE INHABITANTS OF ANCIENT ITALY.—Until a late period in Roman history, the Apennines, and not the Alps, were the northern boundary of Italy. The most of the region between the Alpine range and the Apennines, on both sides of the Po, was inhabited by Gauls, akin to the Celts of the same name north of the Alps. On the west of Gallia were the Ligurians,

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