Introductory American History
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Title: Introductory American History
Author: Henry Eldridge Bourne
Elbert Jay Benton
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTRODUCTORY AMERICAN HISTORY ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Gundry and PG
Distributed Proofreaders
INTRODUCTORY AMERICAN HISTORY
BY
HENRY ELDRIDGE BOURNE
AND
ELBERT JAY BENTON
PROFESSORS OF HISTORY IN WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
1912
INTRODUCTION
This volume is the introductory part of a course in American history
embodying the plan of study recommended by the Committee of Eight of the
American Historical Association.[1] The plan calls for a continuous
course running through grades six, seven, and eight. The events which
have taken place within the limits of what is now the United States must
necessarily furnish the most of the content of the lessons. But the
Committee urge that enough other matter, of an introductory character,
be included to teach boys and girls of from twelve to fourteen years of
age that our civilization had its beginnings far back in the history of
the Old World. Such introductory study will enable them to think of our
country in its true historical setting. The Committee recommend that
about two-thirds of one year's work be devoted to this preliminary
matter, and that the remainder of the year be given to the period of
discovery and exploration.
The plan of the Committee of Eight emphasizes three or four lines of
development in the world's history leading up to American
history proper.
First, there was a movement of conquest or colonization by which the
ancient civilized world, originally made up of communities like the
Greeks and Phoenicians in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Seas,
spread to southern Italy and adjacent lands. The Roman conquest of Italy
and of the barbarian tribes of western Europe expanded the civilized
world to the shores of the Atlantic. Within this greater Roman world new
nations grew up. The migration of Europeans to the American continent
was the final step.
Second, accompanying the growth of the civilized world in extent was a
growth of knowledge of the shape of the earth, or of what we call
geography. Columbus was a geographer as well as the herald of an
expanding world.
A third process was the creation and transmission of all that we mean by
civilization. Here, as the Committee remark, the effort should be to
"show, in a very simple way, the civilization which formed the heritage
of those who were to go to America, that is, to explain what America
started with."
The Committee also suggest that it is necessary "to associate the three
or four peoples of Europe which were to have a share in American
colonization with enough of their characteristic incidents to give the
child some feeling for the name 'England,' 'Spain,' 'Holland,' and
'France.'"
No attempt is made in this book to give a connected history of Greece,
Rome, England, or any other country of Europe. Such an attempt would be
utterly destructive of the plan. Only those features of early
civilization and those incidents of history have been selected which
appear to have a vital relation to the subsequent fortunes of mankind in
America as well as in Europe. They are treated in all cases as
introductory. Opinions may differ upon the question of what topics best
illustrate the relation. The Committee leaves a wide margin of
opportunity for the exercise of judgment in selection. In the use of a
textbook based on the plan the teacher should use the same liberty of
selection. For example, we have chosen the story of Marathon to
illustrate the idea of the heroic memories of Greece. Others may prefer
Thermopylae, because this story seems to possess a simpler dramatic
development. In the same way teachers may desire to give more emphasis
to certain phases of ancient or mediaeval civilization or certain heroic
persons treated very briefly in this book. Exercises similar to those
inserted at the end of each chapter offer means of supplementing work
provided in the text.
The story of American discovery and exploration in the plan of the
Committee of Eight follows the introductory matter as a natural
culmination. In our textbook we have adhered to the same plan of
division. The work of the seventh grade will, therefore, open with the
study of the first permanent English settlements.
The discoveries and explorations are told in more detail than most of
the earlier incidents, but whatever is referred to is treated, we hope,
with such simplicity and definiteness of statement that it will be
comprehensible and instructive to pupils of the sixth grade.
At the close of the book will be found a list of references. From this
teachers may draw a rich variety of stories and descriptions to
illustrate any features of the subject which especially interest their
classes. In the index is given the pronunciation of difficult names.
We wish to express gratitude to those who have aided us with wise advice
and criticism.
[Footnote 1: The Study of History in Elementary Schools. Scribner's,
1909.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE SCATTERED CHILDREN OF EUROPE
II. OUR EARLIEST TEACHERS
III. HOW THE GREEKS LIVED
IV. GREEK EMIGRANTS OR COLONISTS
V. NEW RIVALS OF THE GREEKS
VI. THE MEDITERRANEAN A ROMAN LAKE
VII. THE ANCIENT WORLD EXTENDED TO THE SHORES OF THE ATLANTIC
VIII. THE CIVILIZATION OF THE ROMAN WORLD
IX. CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
X. EMIGRANTS A THOUSAND YEARS AGO
XI. HOW ENGLISHMEN LEARNED TO GOVERN THEMSELVES
XII. THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE AGES
XIII. TRADERS, TRAVELERS, AND EXPLORERS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
XIV. THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD
XV. OTHERS HELP IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD
XVI. EARLY SPANISH EXPLORERS AND CONQUERORS OF THE MAINLAND
XVII. THE SPANISH EXPLORERS OF NORTH AMERICA
XVIII. RIVALRY AND STRIFE IN EUROPE
XIX. FIRST FRENCH ATTEMPTS TO SETTLE AMERICA
XX. THE ENGLISH AND THE DUTCH TRIUMPH OVER SPAIN
XXI. THE ENGLISH PEOPLE ATTEMPT TO SETTLE AMERICA
REFERENCES FOR TEACHERS
INDEX AND PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY
INTRODUCTORY AMERICAN HISTORY
CHAPTER I
THE SCATTERED CHILDREN OF EUROPE
THE EMIGRANT AND WHAT HE BRINGS TO AMERICA. The emigrant who lands
at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or any other seaport, brings with
him something which we do not see. He may have in his hands only a
small bundle of clothing and enough money to pay his railroad fare to
his new home, but he is carrying another kind of baggage more valuable
than bundles or boxes or a pocket full of silver or gold. This other
baggage is the knowledge, the customs, and the memories he has brought
from the fatherland.
He has already learned in Europe how to do the work at which he hopes
to labor in America. In his native land he has been taught to obey the
laws and to do his duty as a citizen. This fits him to share in our
self-government. He also brings great memories, for he likes to think
of the brave and noble deeds done by men of his race. If he is a
religious man, he worships God just as his forefathers have for
hundreds of years. To understand how the emigrant happens to know what
he does and to be what he is, we must study the history of the country
from which he comes.
ALL AMERICANS ARE EMIGRANTS. If this is true of the newcomer, it is
equally true of the rest of us, for we are all emigrants. The Indians
are the only native Americans, and when we find out more about them we
may learn that they, too, are emigrants. If we follow the history of
our families far enough back, we shall come upon the names of our
forefathers who sailed from Europe. They may have come to America in
the early days when there were only a few settlements scattered along
our Atlantic coast, or they may have come since the Revolutionary War
changed the English colonies into the United States.
Like the Canadians, the South Americans, and the Australians, we are
simply Europeans who have moved away. The story of the Europe in which
our forefathers lived is, therefore, part of our story. In order to
understand our own history we must know something of the history of
England, France, Germany, Italy, and other European lands.
WHAT THE EARLY EMIGRANTS BROUGHT. If we read the story of our
forefathers before they left Europe, we shall find answers to several
important questions. Why, we ask, did Columbus seek for new lands or
for new ways to lands already known? How did the people of Europe live
at the time he discovered America? What did they know how to do? Were
they skilful in all sorts of work, or were they as rude and ignorant
as the Indians on the western shores of the Atlantic?
The answers which history will give to these questions will say that
the first emigrants who landed on our shores brought with them much of
the same knowledge and many of the same customs and memories which
emigrants bring nowadays and which we also have. It is true that since
the time the first settlers came men have found out how to make many
new things. The most important of these are the steam-engine, the
electric motor, the telegraph, and the telephone. But it is surprising
how many important things, which we still use, were made before
Columbus saw America.
[Illustration: A MODERN STEAMSHIP AND AN EARLY SAILING VESSEL
The early emigrants came in small sailing vessels and suffered great
hardships]
For one thing, men knew how to print books. This art had been
discovered during the boyhood of Columbus. Another thing, men could
make guns, while the Indians had only bows and arrows. The ships in
which Columbus sailed across the ocean seemed very large and wonderful
to the Indians, who used canoes. The ships were steered with the help
of a compass, an instrument which the Indians had never seen.
Some of the things which the early emigrants knew had been known
hundreds or thousands of years before. One of the oldest was the art
of writing. The way to write words or sounds was found out so long ago
that we shall never know the name of the man who first discovered it.
The historians tell us he lived in Egypt, which was in northern
Africa, exactly where Egypt is now. Some men were afraid that the new
art might do more harm than good. The king to whom the secret was told
thought that the children would be unwilling to work hard and try to
remember because everything could be written down and they would not
need to use their memories. The Egyptians at first used pictures to
put their words upon rocks or paper, and even after they made several
letters of the alphabet their writing seemed like a mixture of little
pictures and queer marks.
[Illustration: Cleopatra EGYPTIAN PHONETIC WRITING]
OLD AND NEW INVENTIONS. Those who first discover how to make things
are called inventors, and what they make are called inventions. Now if
we should write out a list of the most useful inventions, we could
place in one column the inventions which were made before the days of
Columbus and in another those which have been made since. With this
list before us we may ask which inventions we could live without and
which we could not spare unless we were willing to become like the
savages. We should find that a large number of the inventions which we
use every day belong to the set of things older than Columbus. This is
another reason why, if we wish to understand our ways of living and
working, we must ask about the history of the countries where our
forefathers lived. It is the beginning of our own history.
[Illustration: Phoenician Early Greek Early Latin English
GROWTH OF LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET]
A PLAN OF STUDY. The discovery of America was made in 1492, at the
beginning of what we call Modern Times. Before Modern Times were the
Middle Ages, lasting about a thousand years. These began three or four
hundred years after the time of Christ or what we call the beginning
of the Christian Era. All the events that took place earlier we say
happened in Ancient Times. Much that we know was learned first by the
Greeks or Romans who lived in Ancient Times.
It is in the Middle Ages that we first hear of peoples called
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Dutchmen, Italians, Spaniards, and
many others now living in Great Britain and on the Continent of
Europe. We shall learn first of the Greeks and Romans and of what they
knew and succeeded in doing, and then shall find out how these things
were learned by the peoples of the Middle Ages and what they added to
them. This will help us to find out what our forefathers started with
when they came to live in America.
QUESTIONS
1. What does the emigrant from Europe bring to America besides his
baggage?
2. Why are all Americans emigrants?
3. What did the earliest emigrants from Europe to America bring with
them?
4. Which do you think the more useful invention--the telephone or
the art of writing? Who invented this art? Find Egypt on the map.
How did Egyptian writing look?
5. Why was it a help to Columbus that gunpowder and guns were
invented before he discovered America?
6. When did the Christian Era begin? What is meant by Ancient Times?
By the Middle Ages? By Modern Times? In what Times was the art of
writing invented? In what Times was the compass invented? In what
Times was the telephone invented?
EXERCISES
1. Collect from illustrated papers, magazines, or advertising
folders, pictures of ocean steamships. Collect pictures of sailing
ships, ships used now and those used long ago.
2. Collect from persons who have recently come to this country
stories of how they traveled from Europe to America, and from ports
like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia to where they now live.
3. Let each boy and girl in the schoolroom point out on the map the
European country from which his parents or his grandparents or his
forefathers came.
4. Let each boy and girl make a list of the holidays which his
forefathers had in the "fatherland" or "mother country." Let each
find out the manner in which the holidays were kept. Let each tell
the most interesting hero story from among the stories of the mother
country or fatherland. Let each find out whether the tools used in
the old home were like the tools his parents use here.
CHAPTER II
OUR EARLIEST TEACHERS
ANCIENT CITIES THAT STILL EXIST. In Ancient Times the most
important peoples lived on the shores of the Mediterranean. The
northern shore turns and twists around four peninsulas. The first is
Spain, which separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean;
the second, shaped like a boot, is Italy; and the third, the end of
which looks like a mulberry leaf, is Greece. Beyond Greece is Asia
Minor, the part of Asia which lies between the Mediterranean Sea and
the Black Sea.
The Italians now live in Italy, but the Romans lived there in Ancient
Times. The people who live in Greece are called Greeks, just as they
were more than two thousand years ago. Many of the cities that the
Greeks and Romans built are still standing. Alexandria was founded by
the great conqueror Alexander. Constantinople used to be the Greek
city of Byzantium. Another Greek city, Massilia, has become the modern
French city of Marseilles. Rome had the same name in Ancient Times,
except that it was spelled Roma. The Romans called Paris by the name
of Lutetia, and London they called Lugdunum.
RUINS WHICH SHOW HOW THE ANCIENTS LIVED. In many of these cities
are ancient buildings or ruins of buildings, bits of carving, vases,
mosaics, sometimes even wall paintings, which we may see and from
which we may learn how the Greeks and Romans lived. Near Naples are
the ruins of Pompeii, a Roman city suddenly destroyed during an
eruption of the volcano Vesuvius.
For hundreds of years the city lay buried under fifteen or twenty feet
of ashes. When these were taken away, the old streets and the walls of
the houses could be seen. No roofs were left and the walls in many
places were only partly standing, but things which in other ancient
cities had entirely disappeared were kept safe in Pompeii under the
volcanic ashes.
The traveler who walks to-day along the ruined streets can see how its
inhabitants lived two thousand years ago. He can visit their public
buildings and their private houses, can handle their dishes and can
look at the paintings on their walls or the mosaics in the floors. But
interesting as Pompeii is, we must not think that its ruins teach us
more than the ruins of Rome or Athens or many other ancient cities.
Each has something important to tell us of the people who lived long
ago.
ANCIENT WORDS STILL IN USE. The ancient Greeks and Romans have left
us some things more useful than the ruins of their buildings. These
are the words in our language which once were theirs, and which we use
with slight changes in spelling. Most of our words came in the
beginning from Germany, where our English forefathers lived before
they settled in England. To the words they took over from Germany they
added words borrowed from other peoples, just as we do now. We have
recently borrowed several words from the French, such as tonneau and
limousine, words used to describe parts of an automobile, besides the
name automobile itself, which is made up of a Latin and a Greek word.
[Illustration: RUINS OF A HOUSE AT POMPEII The houses of the
better sort were built with an open court in the center]
In this way, for hundreds of years, words have been coming into our
language from other languages. Several thousand have come from Latin,
the language of the Romans; several hundred from Greek, either
directly or passed on to us by the Romans or the French. The word
school is Greek, and the word arithmetic was borrowed from the French,
who took it from the Greeks. Geography is another word which came,
through French and Latin, from the Greeks, to whom it meant that which
is written about the earth. The word grammar came in the same way. The
word alphabet is made by joining together the names of the first two
Greek letters, alpha and beta.
Many words about religion are borrowed from the Greeks, and this is
not strange, for the New Testament was written in Greek. Some of these
are Bible, church, bishop, choir, angel, devil, apostle, and martyr.
The Greeks have handed down to us many words about government,
including the word itself, which in the beginning meant "to steer."
Politics meant having to do with a _polis_ or city. Several of the
words most recently made up of Greek words are telegraph, telephone,
phonograph, and thermometer.
MANY WORDS BORROWED FROM THE ROMANS. Nearly ten times as many of
our words are borrowed from the Romans as from the Greeks, and it is
not strange, because at one time the Romans ruled over all the country
now occupied by the Italians, the French, the Spaniards, a part of the
Germans, and the English, so that these peoples naturally learned the
words used by their conquerors and governors.
INTERESTING ANCIENT STORIES. In the poems and tales which we learn
at home or at school are stories which Greek and Roman parents and
teachers taught their children many hundred years ago. We learn them
partly because they are interesting, and because they please or amuse
us, and partly because they appear so often in our books that it is
necessary to know them if we would understand our own books and
language. Who has not heard of Hercules and his Labors, of the Search
for the Golden Fleece, the Siege of Troy, or the Wanderings of
Ulysses? We love modern fairy stories and tales of adventure, but they
are not more pleasing than these ancient stories.
[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF MARATHON]
THE STORY OF THE GREEKS. Our language and our books are full of
memories of Greek and Roman deeds of courage. The story of the Greeks
comes before the story of the Romans, for the Greeks were living in
beautiful cities, with temples and theaters, while the Romans were
still an almost unknown people dwelling on the hills that border the
river Tiber.
MEMORIES OF GREEK COURAGE. The most heroic deeds of the Greeks took
place in a great war between the Greek cities and the kingdom of
Persia about five hundred years before Christ. In those days there was
no kingdom called Greece, such as the geographies now describe.
Instead there were cities, a few of which were ruled by kings, others
by the citizens themselves. These cities banded together when any
danger threatened them. Sometimes one city turned traitor and helped
the enemy against the others. The most dangerous enemy the Greeks had,
until the Romans attacked them, was the kingdom of Persia, which
stretched from the Aegean Sea far into Asia. In the war with the
Persians the Greeks fought three famous battles, at Marathon,
Thermopylae, and Salamis, the stories of which men have always liked
to hear and remember.
PREPARING FOR MARATHON, 490 B.C. To the Athenians belong the
glories of Marathon. They lived where the modern city of Athens now
stands. The ruins of their temples and theaters still attract students
and travelers to Greece. The plain of Marathon lay more than twenty
miles to the northeast, and the roads to it led through mountain
passes. When the Athenians heard that the hosts of the Great King of
Persia were approaching, they sent a runner, Pheidippides by name, to
ask aid of Sparta, a city one hundred and forty miles away, in the
peninsula now called the Morea, where dwelt the sturdiest fighters of
Greece. This runner reached Sparta on the second day, but the Spartans
said it would be against their religious custom to march before the
moon was full. The Athenians saw that they must meet the enemy
alone--one small city against a mighty empire. They called their ten
thousand men together and set out. On the way they were joined by a
thousand more, the whole army of the brave little town of Plataea.
[Illustration: GREEK SOLDIERS IN ARMS From a Greek vase of
about the time of the battle of Marathon]
HOW THE ATHENIANS WERE ARMED. Although the Persians had six times
as many soldiers as the Athenians, they were not so well armed for
hand to hand fighting. Their principal weapon was the bow and arrow,
while the Greeks used the lance and a short sword. The Greek soldier
was protected by his bronze helmet, solid across the forehead and over
the nose; by his breastplate, a leathern or linen tunic covered with
small metal scales, with flaps hanging below his hips; and by greaves
or pieces of metal in front of his knees and shins. He was also
protected by a shield, often long enough to reach from his face to his
knees. According to a strange custom the Athenians were led by ten
generals, each commanding one day in turn.
THE BATTLE-GROUND. Marathon was a plain about two miles wide, lying
between the mountains and the sea. From it two roads ran toward
Athens, one along the shore where the hills almost reached the sea,
the other up a narrow valley and over the mountains. The Athenians
were encamped in this valley, where they could attack the Persians if
they tried to follow the shore road.
The Persians landed from their ships and filled the plain near the
shore. They wanted to fight in the open plain because they had so many
more soldiers than the Athenians and because they meant to use their
horsemen. For some time the Athenians watched the Persians, not
knowing what it was best to do. Half the generals did not wish to risk
a battle, but Miltiades was eager to fight, for he feared that delay
would lead timid citizens or traitors to yield to the Persians. He
finally gained his wish, and on his day of command the battle was
ordered.
THE BATTLE. The Persians by this time had decided to sail around to
the harbor of Athens and had taken their horsemen on board their
ships. When they saw the Greeks coming they drew up their
foot-soldiers in deep masses. The Athenians and their comrades--the
Plataeans--soon began to move forward on the run. The Persians thought
this madness, because the Greeks had no archers or horsemen. But the
Greeks saw that if they moved forward slowly the Persians would have
time to shoot arrows at them again and again.
When the Greeks rushed upon the Persians the soldiers at the two ends
of the Persian line gave way and fled towards the shore. In the
center, where the best Persian soldiers stood, the Greeks were not at
first successful, and were forced to retreat. But those who had been
victorious came to their rescue, attacked the Persians in the rear,
and finally drove them off. The Persians ran into the sea to reach the
ships, and the Athenians followed them. Some of the Greeks were so
eager in the fight that they seized the sides of the ships and tried
to keep them from being rowed away, but the Persians cut at their
hands and made them let go.
[Illustration: THE STRAITS OF SALAMIS Where a great sea-fight
between Greeks and Persians took place]
THE NEWS OF THE VICTORY. The Athenians had won a victory of which
they were so proud that they meant it never should be forgotten. Their
city had suddenly become great through the courage and self-sacrifice
of her citizens. One hundred and ninety-two Greeks had fallen, and on
the battle-field their comrades raised over their bodies a mound of
earth which still marks their tomb. The victors sent the runner
Pheidippides to bear the news to Athens. Over the hills he ran until
he reached the market place, and there, with the message of triumph on
his lips, he fell dead.
OTHER VICTORIES OF THE GREEKS. Marathon was only the beginning of
Greek victories over the Persians, only the first struggle in the long
wars between Europe and Asia. Ten years after Marathon the Spartans
won everlasting glory by their heroic stand at the Pass of Thermopylae
--three hundred Greeks against the mighty army of the Persian king
Xerxes. The barbarian hordes passed over their bodies, took the road
to Athens, burned the city, but were soon beaten in the sea-fight
which took place on the waters lying between the mainland of Athenian
territory and the island of Salamis. This victory was also due to
Athenian courage and leadership, for the Athenians and their leader,
Themistocles, were resolved to stay and fight, although the other
Greeks wanted to sail away.
WHY MARATHON IS REMEMBERED. The victories of Marathon and Salamis
were great not only because small armies of Greeks put to flight the
hosts of Persia, they were great because they saved the independence
of Greece. If the Greeks had become the subjects and slaves of Persia,
they would not have built the wonderful buildings, or carved the
beautiful statues, or written the books which we study and admire.
When we think of the Greeks as our first teachers we feel as proud of
their victories as if they were our own victories.
THE WARS OF THE GREEK CITIES. The Athenians had done the most in
winning the victory over the Persians, and therefore Athens was for
many years the most powerful city in Greece. The Spartans were always
jealous of the Athenians, and in less than a century after the victory
of Marathon they conquered and humbled Athens. The worst faults of the
Greeks were such jealousies and the desire to lord it over one
another. Greek history is full of wars of city against city, Sparta
against Athens, Corinth against Athens, and Thebes against Sparta. In
these wars many heroic deeds were done, of which we like to read, but
it is more important for us to understand how the Greeks lived.
QUESTIONS
1. What ancient cities still exist? Find them on the map.
(For each difficult name find the pronunciation in the index.)
2. What things do we find in the ruins of ancient cities which tell
us how the people lived?
3. From what country did most of our words come in the beginning?
Why are they now called English? What peoples used the word
geography before we did? About how many words do we get from the
Greeks, and how many from the Romans?
4. Which people became famous earlier, the Greeks or the Romans?
Point out on the map the peninsula where each lived.
5. Why do we like to remember the brave deeds of the Greeks?
6. Find the city of Athens on the map. Find Sparta. Where
was Marathon? What city won glory at Marathon?
7. What were the worst faults of the Greeks?
EXERCISES
1. Collect pictures of ruined cities in Italy, Greece, and Asia
Minor, from illustrated papers, magazines, or advertising folders.
Collect postal cards giving such pictures.
2. Choose the best one of the Greek stories mentioned in Chapter II,
and tell it.
3. Find out how differently soldiers now are clothed and armed from
the way the Greek soldiers were.
4. Find out why a long distance run is now called a "Marathon."
CHAPTER III
HOW THE GREEKS LIVED
THE GREEK CITIES. The Greeks lived in cities so much of the time that
we do not often think of them as ever living in the country. The
reason for this was that their government and everything else
important was carried on in the city. The cities were usually
surrounded by high, thick stone walls, which made them safe from
sudden attack. Within or beside the city there was often a lofty hill,
which we should call a fort or citadel, but which they called the
upper city or acropolis. There the people lived at first when they
were few in number, and thither they fled if the walls of their city
were broken down by enemies.
In Athens such a hill rose two hundred feet above the plain. Its top
was a thousand feet long, and all the sides except one were steep
cliffs. On it the Athenians built their most beautiful temples.
PRIVATE HOUSES. Unlike people nowadays the Greeks did not spend much
money on their dwelling-houses. To us these houses would seem small,
badly ventilated, and very uncomfortable. But what their houses lacked
was more than made up by the beauty and splendor of the public
buildings, halls, theaters, porticoes, and especially the temples.
TEMPLES. The temples were not intended to hold hundreds of worshipers
like the large churches of Europe and America to-day. Religious
ceremonies were most often carried on in the open air. The Parthenon,
the most famous temple of Ancient Times, was small. Its principal room
measured less than one hundred feet in length. Part of this room was
used for an altar and for the ivory and gold statue of the goddess
Athena.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS AS IT IS TO-DAY]
THE PARTHENON. In a picture of the Parthenon, or of a similar temple,
we notice the columns in front and along the sides. The Parthenon had
eight at each end and seventeen on each side. They were thirty-four
feet high. A few feet within the columns on the sides was the wall of
the temple. Before the vestibule and entrances at the front and at the
rear stood six more columns. The beauty of the marble from which
stones and columns were cut might have seemed enough, but the builders
carved groups of figures in the three-cornered space (called the
pediment) in front between the roof and the stones resting upon the
columns. The upper rows of stones beneath the roof and above the
columns were also carved, and continuous carvings (called a frieze)
ran around the top of the temple wall on the outside. The temple was
not left a glistening white, but parts of it were painted in blue, or
red, or gilt, or orange.
[Illustration: THE TOP OF THE ACROPOLIS 2000 YEARS AGO The
Parthenon is the large temple on the right]
OTHER GREEK TEMPLES. This beautiful temple is now partly ruined. Ruins
of other temples are on the Acropolis, and one better preserved,
called the Theseum, stands on a lower hill. There are also similar
ruins in many places along the shores of the Mediterranean. The most
interesting are at Paestum in Italy, and at Girgenti in Sicily. Long
before these temples were ruined they had taught the Romans how to
construct one of the most beautiful kinds of buildings, and this the
Romans later taught the peoples of western Europe.
GREEK METHODS OF BUILDING STILL USED. If we look at our large
buildings, we shall see much to remind us of the Greek buildings.
Sometimes the exact form of the Greek building is imitated; sometimes
this form is changed as the Romans changed it, or as it was changed by
builders who lived after the time of the Romans. If the model of the
whole building is not used, there are similar pillars, or gables, or
the sculpture in the pediment and the frieze is imitated. The Greeks
had three kinds of pillars, named Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The
Doric is simple and solid, the Ionic shows in its capital, or top,
delicate and beautiful curves, while the Corinthian is adorned with
leaves springing gracefully from the top of the pillar.
[Illustration: Doric Ionic Corinthian GREEK ORDERS OF
ARCHITECTURE]
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE GREEK THEATER AT EPIDAURUS]
THEATERS. The first Greek theater was only a smooth open space near a
hillside, with a tent, called a _skené_, or scene, in which the
actors dressed. Later an amphitheater of stone seats was constructed
on the hillside, and across the open end was placed the _scene_,
which had been changed into a stone building. On its front sometimes a
house or a palace was painted, just as nowadays theaters are furnished
with painted scenery. In these open-air theaters thousands of people
gathered. Plays were generally given as a part of religious festivals,
and there were contests between writers to see which could produce the
best play. Sometimes the plays followed one another for three days
from morning until night. Many of them are so interesting that people
still read them, after twenty-five hundred years. The Romans studied
them, and so do modern men who are preparing themselves to write
plays.
[Illustration: THE MODERN STADIUM AT ATHENS]
THE STADIUM. A building which somewhat resembled the theater was the
stadium, where races were run. The difference was that it was oblong
instead of half round. The most famous stadium, at Olympia, was seven
hundred and two feet long, with raised seats on both sides and around
one end of the running track. The other end was open. About fifty
thousand persons used to gather there to watch the races.
PORTICOES. There were other buildings, some for meeting places, some
for gymnasiums, and still others called porticoes, where the judges
held court or the city officers carried on their business. The
porticoes were simply rows of columns, roofed over, with occasionally
a second story. As they stretched along the sides of a square or
market place they added much to the beauty of a city.
GREEK SCULPTURE. We know that the Greeks were skilful sculptors
because from the ruins of their cities have been dug wonderful marble
and bronze statues which are now preserved in the great museums of the
world, in Paris, London, Berlin, and Rome, and here in America, in New
York and Boston. Museums which cannot have the original statues
usually contain copies or casts of them in plaster. The statues are
generally marred and broken, but enough remains to show us the
wonderful beauty of the artist's work. Among the most famous are the
Venus, of Melos (or "de Milo"), which stands in a special room in a
museum called the Louvre in Paris; the Hermes in the museum of Olympia
in Greece; and the figures from the Parthenon in the British Museum in
London.
[Illustration: THE DISCUS-THROWER (DISCOBOLOS) An ancient
Greek statue now in the Vatican]
Artists nowadays, like the Roman artists long ago, study the Greek
statues and the Greek sculpture, in order that they may learn how such
beautiful things can be made. They do not hope to excel the Greeks,
but are content to remain their pupils.
PAINTING AND POTTERY. The Greeks were also painters, makers of
pottery, and workers in gold and silver. Many pieces of their
workmanship have been discovered by those who have dug in the ruins of
ancient buildings and tombs.
[Illustration: A GREEK BOOK The upper picture, shows the book
open.]
WHAT THE BOYS WERE TAUGHT. The Greek boys were not very good at
arithmetic, and even grown men used counting boards or their fingers
to help them in reckoning. In learning to write they smeared a thin
layer of wax over a board and marked on that. There was a kind of
paper called papyrus, made from a reed which grew mostly in Egypt, but
this was expensive. Rolls were made of sheets of it pasted together,
and these were their books. One of the books the boys studied much was
the poems of Homer--the Iliad and the Odyssey--which tell about the
siege of Troy and the wanderings of Ulysses. Boys often learned these
long poems by heart. They also stored away in their memories the
sayings of other poets and wise men, so that they could generally know
what to think, having with them so many good and wise thoughts put in
such excellent words.
GAMES AND EXERCISES FOR BOYS. It is not surprising that Greek boys
knew how to play, but it is surprising that they played many of the
games which boys play now, such as hide-and-seek, tug of war, ducks
and drakes, and blind man's buff. They even "pitched pennies." In
school the boys were taught not only to read and write, but to be
skilful athletes, and to play on the lyre, accompanying this with
singing. The gymnasium was often an open space near a stream into
which they could plunge after their exercises were over. They were
taught to box, to wrestle, to throw the discus, and to hurl the spear.
Military training was important for them, since all might be called to
fight for the safety of their city.
THE OLYMPIC GAMES. Boys and young men were trained as runners,
wrestlers, boxers, and discus throwers, not only because they enjoyed
these exercises and the Greeks thought them an important part of
education, but also that they might bring back honors and prizes to
their city from the great games which all the Greeks held every few
years. The most famous of these games were held at Olympia. There the
Greeks went from all parts of the country, carrying their tents and
cooking utensils with them, because there were not enough houses in
Olympia to hold so many people. Wars even were stopped for a time in
order that the games might not be postponed.
THE REWARDS OF THE VICTORS. The principal contest was a dash for two
hundred yards, although there were longer races and many other kinds
of contests. Unfortunately the Greeks liked to see the most brutal
sort of boxing, in which the boxer's hands and arms were covered with
heavy strips of leather stiffened with pieces of iron or lead. For the
games men trained ten months, part of the time at Olympia. The prize
was a crown of wild olive, and the winner returned in triumph to his
city, where poets sang his praises, a special seat at public games was
reserved for him, and often artists were employed to make a bronze
statue of him to be set up in Olympia or in his own city.
[Illustration: GREEK GAMES--RUNNING From an antique vase]
THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS. The citizen of Athens, and of other Greek
cities, had more to do with his government than do most Americans with
theirs. As nearly all work was done by slaves, he had plenty of time
to attend meetings. All the citizens could attend the great assembly,
or _ecclesia_, where six thousand at least must be present before
anything could be decided. By this assembly foreigners might be
admitted to citizenship or citizens might be expelled, or ostracized,
from Athens as hurtful to its welfare.
There was a smaller council of five hundred which decided less
important questions without laying them before the general assembly.
This body was chosen by lot just as our juries are, but members of the
council whose term had ended had a right to object to any new member
as an unworthy citizen A tenth of the council ruled for a tenth of the
year, and they chose their president by lot every day, so that any
worthy man at Athens had a chance to be president for a day and a
night.
[Illustration: A DECREE OF THE COUNCIL--ABOUT 450 B.C.]
Many citizens also served in the courts, for there were six thousand
judges, and in deciding important cases as many as a thousand and one,
or even fifteen hundred and one, took part. Before such large courts
and assemblies it was necessary to be a good speaker to be able to win
a case or persuade the citizens. Some of the greatest orators of the
world were Athenians, the best known being Demosthenes.
SOCRATES. The Athenians were not always just, although so many of them
acted as judges. One court, composed of five hundred and one judges,
condemned to death Socrates, the wisest man of the Greeks and one of
the wisest in the world. He did not make speeches, or write books, or
teach in school. He went about, in the market place, at the gymnasium,
and on the streets, asking men, young and old, questions about what
interested him most, that is, What is the true way to live? If people
did not give him an answer which seemed good, he asked more questions,
until sometimes they went away angry. Many of them thought because he
asked questions about everything that he did not believe in anything,
not even in the religion of his city.
[Illustration: SOCRATES After the marble bust in the Vatican]
THE DEATH OF SOCRATES, 399 B.C. After a while the enemies of Socrates
accused him of being a wicked man who persuaded young men to be
wicked. He was tried by an Athenian court, which made the terrible
blunder of finding him guilty and condemning him to death. According
to the Athenian custom he was obliged to drink a cup of poisonous
hemlock. This he did, after talking to his friends cheerily about how
a good man should live. As he wrote no books we have learned about him
from his friends. The most famous of these was Plato, who is also
counted among the wisest men that ever lived. The story of the lives
of these men is another gift which the Greeks made to all who were to
live after them, and it is quite as valuable as are the ways of
building, artistic skill, or great poems and plays.
QUESTIONS
1. Why do we wish to know how the Greeks lived?
2. What was an Acropolis? How does the Acropolis at Athens look?
3. On the picture of the Parthenon point out the pediment. Show
where the frieze was placed. Find on a map Paestum.
4. What did the Greeks first mean by a _scene_? Why do we still
study Greek plays? What is left of the Greek theaters?
5. What was a stadium, a portico, a gymnasium? Do we have such
buildings?
6. How do we know that the Greeks made beautiful statues?
7. What games for Greek boys were like our games? Tell about the
great public games of the Greeks.
8. How were the Greek rolls or books made?
9. Tell the story of Socrates.
EXERCISES
1. Are there any buildings in your town which are like Greek
buildings?
2. Find in your town Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns.
3. Get from a wall-paper dealer a sample of a frieze for a papered
room.
4. What is the difference between the government of Athens and the
government of your town?
5. What is the difference between the courts at Athens and the
courts in your town?
6. Are Olympic games held now? Where?
7. Which prizes would you prefer, the prizes given to winners at
Greek games or the prizes given to winners in our athletic games?
CHAPTER IV
GREEK EMIGRANTS OR COLONISTS
WHEN THE ATLANTIC WAS UNKNOWN. One of the most important things
done by the men of Ancient Times was to explore the coasts and lands of
Europe and to make settlements wherever they went. At first they knew
little of the western and northern parts of Europe. Herodotus, a Greek
whom we call the "Father of History," and who was a great traveler,
said, "Though I have taken vast pains, I have never been able to get an
assurance from any eye-witness that there is any sea on the further side
of Europe." By the "further side" he meant "western," and his remark
shows that he did not know of the Atlantic Ocean. He understood that tin
and amber came from the "Tin Islands," which he called the "ends of the
earth." As tin came from England, it is plain that he had heard a little
of that island.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD AS DESCRIBED BY THE GREEK
HISTORIAN HERODOTUS]
GREEK EMIGRANTS. Long before Athens became a great and beautiful
city the Greeks had begun to make settlements on distant shores. Those
who lived on the western coast of Asia Minor, as well as those who lived
where the kingdom of Greece is now, sent out colonists or emigrants. The
Greek colonies were very important, because by them the ancient
civilized world was made larger, just as by the settlement of America
the modern world was doubled in size. The colonists sailed away from
home for the same reasons which led our forefathers to leave England and
Europe for America. They either hoped to find it easier in a new land to
make a living and obtain property, or they did not like the way their
city was ruled, and being unable to change this, resolved to build
elsewhere a city which they could manage as they pleased.
HOW THEY LOCATED A NEW CITY. There were several different lands to
which they could go, just as the European of to-day may sail for the
United States or South America or Australia. They could attempt to
settle on the shores of the Black Sea, or cross over to northern Africa,
or try to reach Italy and the more distant coasts of what are now France
and Spain. In order to choose wisely, they generally asked the advice of
the priests of their god Apollo at his temple at Delphi. These priests
knew more about good places for settlements than most other persons,
because travelers from everywhere came to Delphi and the priests were
wise enough to inquire about all parts of the world.
[Illustration: _The territory occupied by the Greeks is
indicated by solid black_]
The story is told that one group of emigrants was advised to locate
their new colony opposite the "city of the blind." They discovered that
these words meant that an earlier band of emigrants had passed by the
wonderful harbor of the present city of Constantinople and had settled
instead on the other shore of the Bosphorus. Taught by the oracle they
chose the better place and began to build the city of Byzantium, which
later became Constantinople.
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER CITIES. Solemn ceremonies took place when
colonists departed. They carried with them fire from the hearth of the
mother city in order to light a similar fire on their new hearth, for
every city had its hearthstone and on it a fire that was never quenched.
The ties between the mother and the daughter city were close, and the
enemies of one were the enemies of the other. He who wished to visit the
colony usually went to the mother city to find a ship bound thither.
WHERE THE SETTLEMENTS WERE MADE. When the Greek sailors first
entered the Black Sea, they thought it a boundless ocean, and called it
the Pontus, a word which means "The Main." Until that time they had been
accustomed to sail only from island to island in the Aegean Sea. After a
while they made settlements all around the shores of the Black Sea, and
in later times Athens drew from this region her supply of grain. Still
more important settlements were made in Sicily and southern Italy, for
it was through these settlements that some of the things the Greeks
knew, like the art of writing, were taught to the Italian tribes and to
the Romans.
DANGERS OF THE VOYAGE. At first Greek sailors feared the dangers of the
western Mediterranean as much as those of the Black Sea. They imagined
that the huge, misshapen, and dreadful monsters Scylla and Charybdis
lurked in the Straits of Messina waiting to seize and swallow the
unlucky passer-by. On the slopes of Mount Aetna dwelt, they thought,
hideous, one-eyed giants, the Cyclops, who fed their fierce appetites
with the quivering flesh of many captives.
[Illustration: GREEK RUINS AT PAESTUM IN ITALY]
GREEKS IN THE WEST. The earliest settlement of the Greeks in Italy
was at Cumae, on a headland at the entrance of the Bay of Naples. Later
these colonists entered the bay and founded the "new city," or Neapolis,
which we call Naples. Finally there were so many Greek cities in
southern Italy that it was named "Great Greece." The Greeks also made
settlements in what is now southern France and eastern Spain. The
principal one was Massilia, or Marseilles. Through the traders of this
city the ancient world obtained a supply of tin from Britain, a country
which is now called England.
GREEK COLONIES AS CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION. The Greeks in these
colonies traded with the natives whose villages were near by, and many
of the natives learned to live like the Greeks. In this way the Greeks
became teachers of civilization, and the Greek world, which at first was
made up of cities on the shores of the Aegean Sea, was spread from place
to place along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea.
[Illustration: A GREEK TRIREME]
GREEK SHIPS. The ships of the Greeks were very different from
modern vessels. Of course they were not driven by steam, nor did they
rely as much on sails as modern sailing ships do. They had sails, but
were driven forward mostly by their oars. The trireme, or ordinary
war-ship, had its oars arranged in three banks, fifty men rowing at
once. After these had rowed several hours, or a "watch," another fifty
took their places, and finally a third fifty, so that the ships could be
rowed at high speed all the time. With the aid of its two sails a
trireme is said to have gone one hundred and fifty miles in a day and a
night. These boats were about one hundred and twenty feet long and
fifteen feet wide. They could be rowed in shallow water, but were not
high enough to ride heavy seas safely. They had a sharp beak, which,
driven against an enemy's ship, would break in its sides. The Greek
grain ships and freight boats were heavier and more capable of enduring
rough weather.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER THE GREAT After the bust in the
Capitoline Museum, Rome]
ALEXANDER THE GREAT, KING OF MACEDON FROM 336 TO 323 B.C. Greek
ways of living were also carried eastward as well as westward. The
enlargement of the Greek world in this direction was due to Alexander
the Great, the most skilful soldier and the ablest leader of men among
all the Greeks. Alexander was king of Macedon, and like the earlier
Greeks he regarded the Persians as his enemies, and made war upon them.
After conquering the Persians he marched across western Asia until he
had reached the Indus River in India. He was a builder of cities as well
as a conqueror. He founded seventy cities, and sixteen of them were
named for him. The most important was the Alexandria which is still the
chief seaport of Egypt. Greek became the language commonly spoken
throughout the lands near the eastern Mediterranean. This is the reason
why in later times the New Testament was written in Greek.
ALEXANDRIA. Of this Greek world Athens ceased to be the center and
Alexandria took its place. At Alexandria there was a great library which
contained over five hundred thousand volumes or rolls. There also was
the museum or university, in which many learned men were at work. The
best known of these men was Euclid, who perfected the mathematics which
we call geometry, and Ptolemy, whose ideas about geography and the shape
and size of the globe Columbus carefully studied before he set out on
his great voyage. Alexandria was also a center of trade and commerce.
From Alexandria, because its ships were the first foreign ships to be
admitted to a Roman port, the Romans gained their liking for many of the
beautiful things which the Greeks made.
QUESTIONS
1. Why were the Greek colonies important? Why did the Greeks
emigrate to the colonies?
2. Point out on the map, the lands to which they might go.
Name several cities which they built.
3. What were the ties between the daughter and the mother city?
4. Why was a part of southern Italy called Great Greece?
5. Describe a Greek trireme and the way it was managed.
6. Of what country was Alexander the Great king? When did he reign?
How far east did he march? What did he do besides winning victories?
7. Why was the city of Alexandria famous in Ancient Times?
8. Of what help was Ptolemy to Columbus?
EXERCISES
1. Find out the colonies we have. For what purpose do Americans go
to these colonies? Is it as hard to reach them as it was for the
Greeks to reach their colonies?
2. What country now has the most colonies?
3. Learn and tell the story of Ulysses and the Cyclops.
4. Find out what is meant at Constantinople by "the Golden Horn?"
Who now live at Constantinople, at Naples, at Marseilles?
5. Collect pictures of these cities.
REVIEW
(Chapters II, III, and IV)
_Ten things we owe to the Greeks_:
1. Many useful words.
2. Many interesting tales.
3. Many examples of heroism.
4. Knowledge of how to construct beautiful buildings.
5. How to carve beautiful statues, reliefs, and friezes.
6. How to write great plays.
7. How to speak before large audiences.
8. Wise sayings of men like Socrates and Plato.
9. Knowledge of geography and mathematics.
10. Their work as colonists in teaching other peoples to live, and
think and act as they did.
_Two important dates_:
Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. Death of Alexander the Great, 323 B.C.
CHAPTER V
NEW RIVALS OF THE GREEKS
THE GREEK COLONIES AND THE CARTHAGINIANS. The Greek colonies were
sometimes in danger of being attacked by the native tribes whose lands
they had seized or by the wilder tribes that dwelt further from the
coast. In Sicily their most dangerous neighbors were the Carthaginians
at the western end of the island. The chief town of these people was
Carthage, situated opposite Sicily in northern Africa in what is now
Tunis. The Carthaginians were emigrants from Tyre and other cities of
Phoenicia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and because of
their many ships held control of a large part of the western
Mediterranean. They had colonies even in Spain, where in very early
times Phoenician traders had gone to obtain gold and silver.
THE GREEKS AND THE ROMANS. In Italy the most dangerous neighbors of
the Greek colonists were the Romans, who lived half-way up the western
side of the peninsula along the river Tiber. The history of the Romans,
like the history of the Greeks, is full of interesting and wonderful
tales. Some of them are legends, such as every people likes to tell
about its early history. They relate how the city was founded by two
brothers, Romulus and Remus; how Horatius defended the bridge across the
Tiber against the hosts of the exiled Tarquin king; how the farmer
Cincinnatus, having been made leader or dictator, in sixteen days drove
off the neighboring tribes which were attacking the Romans and then went
back to his plough.
THE GAULS BURN ROME, 390 B.C. The Romans told stories of their
defeats as well as of their victories. One of these tells how hosts of
Gauls, a people of the same race as the forefathers of the French,
streamed southward from the valley of the Po. The Romans were alarmed by
such tall men, with fierce eyes, and fair, flowing hair, whose swords
crashed through the frail Roman helmets. They sent a large army to stop
the invaders, but in the battle, which was fought only twelve miles from
Rome, this army was destroyed.
The few defenders that were left withdrew to the Capitoline, the
steepest of the hills over which the city had spread. Some of the older
senators and several priests scorned to seek a refuge from the fury of
the barbarians, and took their seats quietly in ivory chairs in the
market place or Forum at the foot of the Capitoline hill. The Gauls at
first gazed in wonder at the strange sight of the motionless figures.
When one of them attempted to stroke the white beard of a senator, the
senator struck him with his staff; then the Gauls fell upon senators and
priests and slew them.
[Illustration: CLIFF OF THE CAPITOLINE HILL]
The sides of the Capitoline hill were so steep that for a long time the
Gauls were baffled in their attempts to seize it. At last they
discovered a path, and one dark night were on the point of scaling the
height when some geese, sacred to the goddess Juno, cackled and flapped
their wings until the garrison was aroused and the Gauls hurled headlong
down the precipice. The garrison was saved, but the city was burned.
This happened in Rome just one hundred years after the battle of
Marathon in Greece.
THE CAUDINE FORKS. Another adventure did not have so happy an
ending. The Romans were at war with the Samnites, a tribe living on the
slopes of the Apennines, who were continually attacking the Greek cities
on the coast. The war was caused by the attempt of the Romans to protect
one of the Greek cities. The Roman generals, with a large army, in
making their way into the Samnite country attempted to march through a
narrow gorge which broadened out into a plain and then was closed again
at the farther end by another gorge. When they reached this second gorge
they found the road blocked by fallen trees and heaps of stones. They
also saw Samnites on the heights above them. In alarm they hastened to
retrace their steps, only to find the other entrance closed in the same
way. After vain attempts to force a passage or to scale the surrounding
heights they were obliged to surrender.
[Illustration: THE REGION OF THE CAUDINE FORKS]
[Illustration: ITALY BEFORE THE GROWTH OF ROMAN POWER]
The Samnites compelled the Roman army, both generals and soldiers, each
clad in a single garment, to pass "under the yoke" made of two spears
set upright with one laid across, while they stood by and jeered. If any
Roman looked angry or sullen at his disgrace, they struck or even killed
him. This was called the disaster of the Caudine Forks, from the pass
where the Romans were caught.
THE ROMANS AND THE GREEK CITIES. Not many years after this the
Romans quarreled with the Greek cities of southern Italy. The Greeks of
Tarentum, situated where Taranto is now, called to their aid Pyrrhus,
who ruled a part of Alexander's old kingdom. Pyrrhus was a skilful
general, and he had with him, besides his foot-soldiers and horsemen,
many trained elephants. A charge of these elephants was too much for the
Romans, who were already hard pressed by the long spears of the soldiers
of Pyrrhus. But the Romans were ready for another battle, and in this
they fought so stubbornly and killed so many of the Greek soldiers that
Pyrrhus cried out, "Another victory like this and we are ruined." In a
third battle, which took place 275 B.C., he was defeated, and returned
to Greece, leaving the Romans masters of the Greek cities in Italy.
THE ROMANS CONQUERORS OF ITALY. By this time there were few tribes
south of the river Po which did not own the Romans as their masters. All
Italy was united under their rule. This was the first step in the
conquest of the world that lay about the Mediterranean Sea and in the
extension of that ancient world to the shores of the Atlantic and to
England. Before we read the story of the other conquests we must inquire
who the Roman people were and how they lived.
HOW THE ROMANS LIVED. In early times most of the Romans were
farmers or cattle raisers. A man's wealth was reckoned according to the
number of cattle he owned. Their manner of living was simple and frugal.
Like the Greek, the Roman had his games. He enjoyed chariot-races, but
used slaves or freedmen as drivers. He also went to the theater,
although he thought it unworthy of a Roman to be an actor. Such an
occupation was for foreigners or slaves.
[Illustration: A ROMAN WEARING A TOGA]
ROMAN BOYS AT SCHOOL. The boys at school did not learn poems, as
did the Greek boys, but studied the first set of laws made by the
Romans, called the Twelve Tables. This they read, copied, and learned by
heart. Their interest in laws was the first sign that they were to
become the world's greatest lawmakers.
ROMAN WOMEN. In their respect for women the Romans were superior to
the Greeks. The Roman mother did not remain in the women's apartments of
the house, as she was expected to do at Athens, but was her husband's
companion, received his guests, directed her household, and went in and
out as she chose.
PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. The men of the families which first ruled
Rome were called patricians or nobles, while the rest were plebeians or
common people. There were also many slaves, but they had no rights. At
first only the patricians knew exactly what the laws were, because the
laws were not written in a book. When disputes arose between patricians
and plebeians about property, the plebeians believed the patricians
changed the laws in order to gain an advantage over their poorer
neighbors.
The story is told that twice the plebeians withdrew from the city and
refused to return until their wrongs were removed. Then they compelled
the nobles to draw up the laws in a roll called the Twelve Tables. At
this time messengers were sent to Athens to examine the laws of the
Greeks. The richer plebeians were also gradually admitted to all the
offices of the Roman republic, and so became nobles themselves.
GOVERNMENT AT ROME. The Romans had once been ruled by kings, but
now their chief officers were consuls. Two consuls were chosen each year
because the Romans feared that a single consul might make himself a
king, or, at least, gain too much power. The real rulers of Rome,
however, were the senators, the men who had held the prominent offices.
There were assemblies of the people, but these generally did what the
senators or other officers told them to do.
Among the interesting officers of Rome was the censor, who drew up a
list or census of the citizens and of their property. Another officer
was the tribune, chosen in the beginning by the plebeians to protect
them against the patricians. The tribune was not at first a member of
the senate, but he was given a seat outside the door, and if a law was
proposed that would injure the plebeians, he cried out, "Veto," which
means "I forbid," and the law had to be dropped. This is the origin of
our word "veto."
HOW THE ROMANS TREATED THE ITALIANS. The Romans were wise in their
dealings with the cities or tribes which they conquered. They not only
sent out colonies of their fellow-citizens to occupy a part of the lands
they had seized, but they also gave the conquered peoples a share in
their government, and in some cases allowed them to act as citizens of
Rome. These new Roman citizens helped the older Romans in their wars
with other tribes. In this way Roman towns gradually spread over Italy.
[Illustration: A ROMAN MILITARY STANDARD]
QUESTIONS
1. What was the name of the dangerous neighbors of the Greeks in
Sicily? Find Carthage on the map. Where did the
Carthaginians come from originally? Find Phoenicia on the map.
2. Who were the dangerous neighbors of the Greeks in Italy? Find the
Tiber and Rome on the map.
3. Tell the story of the capture of Rome by the Gauls. How long was
this after the battle of Marathon? How long after the death of
Socrates? How long before Alexander became king of Macedon?
4. Find the land of the Samnites on the map. Tell the story
of the Caudine Forks.
5. What Greek king did the people of Tarentum call to Italy to help
them against the Romans? What did he say after his second battle
with the Romans?
6. After the defeat of Pyrrhus how much of Italy owned the Romans as
masters? How did the Romans treat the Italians?
7. Explain how the early Roman ways of living differed from the ways
of the Greeks.
8. How differently did the Romans and the Greeks govern themselves?
EXERCISES
1. Read the story of Horatius in Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome."
2. Collect pictures of Rome and Italy.
3. Is there a modern city of Carthage? What country rules over
Tunis? Are there now any Phoenicians?
4. Read the description of Tyre in the Bible, Ezekiel xxvii. 3-25,
and tell what is said there about the riches of the Tyrians. Find
out who destroyed Tyre.
[Illustration: AN EARLY ROMAN COIN]
CHAPTER VI
THE MEDITERRANEAN A ROMAN LAKE
ROME IN PERIL. The conquest of Italy by the Romans took about two
hundred and fifty years. The conquest of the peoples living in the
other lands on the shores of the Mediterranean took nearly as long
again. Only twice in these four or five hundred years was Rome in
serious danger of destruction. Once it was by the Gauls, as we have
read, who captured all the city except the citadel. The second time it
was by the Carthaginians, who lived on the northern coast of Africa.
The Romans were finally victorious over all their enemies because they
were patient and courageous in misfortune and refused to believe that
they could be conquered.
CAUSE OF WAR WITH CARTHAGE. The Carthaginians were angry at the way
the Romans treated them. They watched with alarm the steady growth of
the Roman power, and feared that the Romans, if masters of Italy,
would attack their trade with the cities of the western Mediterranean.
A quarrel broke out over a city in Sicily. At first the Carthaginians
seemed to have the best of it, because they had a strong war fleet
while the Romans had only a few small vessels. But the Romans
hurriedly built ships and placed upon each a kind of drawbridge,
fitted with great hooks called grappling-irons. These they let down
upon the enemy's decks as soon as the ships came close enough, and
over these drawbridges the Roman soldiers rushed and captured the
Carthaginian ships.
When the Carthaginians asked for peace, the Romans demanded a great
sum of money and a promise that the Carthaginians would leave the
cities in Sicily which they occupied. Soon afterward the Romans took
advantage of a mutiny in the Carthaginian army to demand more money
and to seize Sardinia and Corsica. No wonder the Carthaginians were
angry. The result was a new and more terrible war.
HANNIBAL. The Carthaginians in the new war were led by Hannibal, who
understood how to fight battles better than any of the generals whom
the Romans sent against him. The story is told that when he was a boy
his father made him promise, at the altar of his city's gods, undying
hatred to Rome. Even the Romans thought him a wonderful man. Their
historians said that toil did not wear out his body or exhaust his
energy. Cold or heat were alike to him. He never ate or drank more
than he needed. He slept when he had time, whether it was day or
night, wrapping himself in a military cloak and lying on the ground in
the midst of his soldiers. He did not dress better than the other
officers, but his weapons and his horses were the best in the army.
WAR CARRIED INTO ITALY, 218 B.C. Hannibal decided that the war should
be carried into Italy to the very gates of Rome. He started from
Spain, half of which the Carthaginians ruled, marched across southern
Gaul, and came to the foot-hills of the Alps. To climb the Alps was
the most difficult part of his long journey.
CROSSING THE ALPS. There were no roads across the mountains, only
rough paths used by the mountaineers, who constantly attacked
Hannibal's soldiers, bursting out suddenly upon them from behind a
turn in the trail, or rolling huge rocks upon them from above. The
elephants, the horses, and the baggage animals of the army were
frightened, and in the tumult many of them slipped over the precipices
and were dashed on the rocks below. For five days the army toiled
upward, and then rested two days on the summit of the pass.
[Illustration: THE ALPS THAT HANNIBAL HAD TO CROSS]
Although the road down into Italy was short, it was steep, and the
paths were slippery with ice and with snow trodden into slush by
thousands of men and animals. In one place there had been a landslide,
and the road along the rocky slope was cut away for a thousand feet.
In order to build a new road it was necessary to crack the rocks. This
the soldiers did by making huge fires and pouring wine over the heated
surface. At last, worn out, ragged, and half starved, the army reached
the plains of Italy, but with a loss of half its men.
HOW HANNIBAL WON A VICTORY. The first great battle with the Romans was
fought on the river Trebia in northern Italy, and in it Hannibal
showed how easily he could outwit and destroy a Roman army. It was a
winter's day and the river was swollen by rains. The two camps lay on
opposite banks. In the early morning Hannibal sent across the river a
body of horsemen to attack the Roman camp and draw the Romans into a
battle. At the same time he ordered his other soldiers to eat
breakfast, to build fires before their tents to warm themselves, and
to rub their bodies with oil, so that they might be strong for the
coming fight.
The Romans were suddenly roused by the attack of the Carthaginian
horsemen, and, without waiting for food, moved out of camp, chasing
the horsemen toward the river. Into its icy waters the Romans waded
breast-high, and when they came up on the opposite bank they were
benumbed with cold. As soon as Hannibal knew that the Romans had
crossed the river he attacked them fiercely with all his troops. Two
thousand men whom he had placed in ambush fell upon the rear of their
line. Their allies were frightened by a charge of elephants. Seeing
that destruction was certain, ten thousand of the best soldiers broke
through the Carthaginian line and marched away. All the rest of the
army was destroyed.
ROMAN ENDURANCE. This was not the last of the Roman defeats. Two other
armies were destroyed by Hannibal during the next two years. In the
battle of Cannae nearly seventy thousand Romans, including eighty
senators, were slain. The news filled the city with weeping women, but
the senate did not think of yielding. When their allies deserted them,
they besieged the faithless cities, took them, beheaded the rulers,
and sold the inhabitants into slavery.
They did not dare to fight Hannibal in the open field, but tried to
wear him out by cutting off all small bodies of his troops and by
making it difficult for him to get food for his army. They carried the
war into Spain and finally into Africa, and when, with a weakened
army, Hannibal faced them there, they defeated him. His defeat was the
ruin of Carthage, for the unhappy city was compelled to see her fleet
destroyed, to pay the Romans a huge sum of money, and to give up Spain
to them.
[Illustration: A ROMAN SOLDIER]
OTHER ROMAN TRIUMPHS. The war with Carthage ended two hundred and two
years before the birth of Christ. In the wars that followed, Roman
armies fought not only in Spain and Africa, but also in Greece and
Asia. Carthage was destroyed; as was also Corinth, a Greek city. Roman
generals enriched themselves and sent great treasures back to Rome.
Roman merchants grew rich because their rivals in Carthage and Corinth
were ruined or because the conquered cities were forbidden to trade
with any city but Rome. All this took a long time and many wars, but
in the end the Romans became masters of every land along the shores of
the Mediterranean. This was not wholly a misfortune, for the Romans
had learned that the Greeks were superior to them in some things and
they took the Greeks as their teachers in most of the arts of living.
The ancient world became a sort of partnership, and we call its
civilization Graeco-Roman, that is, both Greek and Roman.
THE ROMANS AS RULERS. The Romans at first treated the lands in Sicily,
Spain, Africa, Greece, and Asia as conquered territories, or
provinces, sending to rule over them officers who were to act both as
governors and judges. With these men went many tax-collectors or
"publicans." The Romans were obliged to leave in most provinces a
large body of soldiers to put down any attempt at rebellion. Often the
officers and the publicans robbed the country instead of ruling it
justly.
EVIL RESULTS OF CONQUEST. During the wars the Romans had lost many of
their simple ways of living. Some had grown rich in the business of
providing for the armies and navies, and they were eager for new wars
in order to make still bigger fortunes. Hannibal's marches up and down
Italy had driven thousands of farmers from their homes, and they had
wandered to Rome for safety and food. When the war was over many of
them did not go back to their homes. Those who did found that they
could no longer get fair prices for their crops because great
quantities of wheat were shipped to Rome from the conquered lands.
Wealthy men bought the little farms and joined them, making great
estates where slaves raised sheep and cattle or tended vineyards and
olive groves. There was not much work for free men in Rome, for slaves
were very cheap. One army of prisoners was sold at about eight cents
apiece. In this way the poor were made idle, while the rich sent
everywhere for new luxuries.
[Illustration: GLADIATORS After carvings on the tomb of
Scaurus]
CRUEL SPORTS. To amuse the idle crowds, office-seekers and victorious
generals provided cruel sports. Savage animals were turned loose to
tear one another to pieces. What was worse, human prisoners were
compelled to fight, armed with swords or spears. These men were called
gladiators, and often were specially trained to fight with one another
or with wild beasts.
SOME THINGS THE ROMANS LEARNED. But the successes of the Romans
brought them other things which were good. They took the buildings of
the Greeks as models and built similar temples and porticoes in Rome,
especially about the old market place or Forum. Their own houses,
which in earlier times were nothing but cabins, they enlarged, and if
they were rich enough, built palaces, adorned with paintings and with
statues. Unfortunately many of these came from the plunder of Greek
cities, for the Romans were great robbers of other peoples. The poorer
Romans continued to live in wretched hovels.
THE THEATER. The Romans learned more about the theaters of the Greeks.
Their plays were either translated into Latin from Greek or retold in
a different manner from the original Greek. The Romans did not succeed
in writing any plays of their own which were as good as the plays of
the Greeks.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE ROMAN THEATER AT ORANGE, FRANCE]
THE NEW EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS. The Greeks also taught the Romans how
to write poems and histories. The first histories were written in
Greek, but later the Romans learned how to write in Latin prose and
poetry as good as much that had been written by the Greeks. Greek
became the second language of every educated Roman, and thus he could
enjoy the books of the Greeks as well as those written by Romans. The
education of the Roman boy now began with the poems of Homer, and the
young man's education was not thought to be finished until he had
traveled in Greece and the lands along the eastern Mediterranean.
QUESTIONS
1. How long did it take the Romans to conquer Italy? How long to
conquer the lands about the Mediterranean? In what "Times" did all
this happen?
2. Why did the Carthaginians and the Romans fight? What did Hannibal
promise his father? What sort of a leader was Hannibal?
3. How did Hannibal reach Italy? How did he win the battle of the
Trebia?
4. Why was he unable to force the Romans to yield?
5. How long before the beginning of the Christian Era did this war
with Hannibal close? How long after the battle of Marathon, and
after the death of Alexander the Great?
6. What other lands did the Romans conquer? How did they rule these
colonies?
7. Were they better for the wealth and power they gained? What
became of many of the Italian farmers? Where did the Romans get
their slaves?
8. What good things did they learn from the Greeks? What was the
Graeco-Roman world?
EXERCISES
1. On an outline map of the lands around the Mediterranean mark on
each land, Spain, Greece, northern Africa, Asia Minor, and Egypt,
the dates at which the Romans conquered each, finding these dates in
any brief Roman or Ancient History--Botsford, Myers, Morey,
West, Wolfson.
CHAPTER VII
THE ANCIENT WORLD EXTENDED TO THE SHORES OF THE ATLANTIC
NEW CONQUESTS OF THE ROMANS. The Romans had as yet conquered only
civilized peoples like themselves, with the exception of the tribes in
Spain and southern Gaul. Now the Roman armies were to push northward
over the plains and through the forests of Gaul, across the Rhine into
unknown Germany, and over the Channel into Britain, equally unknown.
They were to be explorers as well as conquerors. In this way they were
to carry their civilization to the Rhine and the Atlantic, and so
increase greatly the part of the earth where men lived and thought as
the Romans did and as the Greeks had before them. The ancient civilized
world was beginning to move from its older center, the Mediterranean,
toward the shore of the Atlantic.
ANCESTORS OF THE FRENCH AND THE GERMANS. The tribes living in Gaul
were not at that time called French, but Gallic. The Gauls were like the
Britons who lived across the Channel in Britain. The German ancestors of
the English had not yet crossed the North Sea to that land. Beyond the
Rhine lived the Germans, who had but little to do with the Romans and
the Greeks and were still barbarians. The Gauls living farthest away
from the Roman settlements were not much more civilized.
The principal difference between the Germans and the Gauls was that the
Gauls lived in villages and towns and cultivated the land or dug in
mines or traded along the rivers, while the Germans had no towns and
dwelt in clearings of the forest. Their wealth, like that of the early
Romans, was their cattle. The land they cultivated was divided between
them year after year, so that a German owned only his hut and the plot
of ground or garden about it. Some of the towns of the Gauls were placed
on high hills and were protected by strong walls.
THE TERRIBLE GERMANS. The Romans had at first been afraid of the
Gauls, because they had never forgotten how terribly these people had
once defeated them. But since that time they had fought the Gauls so
often that they were losing this fear. They now dreaded more to meet the
Germans, who seemed like giants because they were taller even than
the Gauls.
[Illustration: GALLIC WARRIORS]
GALLIC AND GERMAN WARRIORS. The leaders of the Germans were sometimes
kings and sometimes nobles whom the Romans called _duces_, from which
comes our word duke. The Gallic chieftains were adorned with gold
necklaces, bracelets, and rings. When they went out to battle, they wore
helmets shaped like the head of some ravenous beast, and their bodies
were protected by coats of chain armor made of iron rings. Their
principal weapon was a long, heavy sword. Both German and Gallic nobles
were accompanied by bands of young men, their devoted followers, who
shared the joys of victory or died with them in case of defeat. It was a
disgrace to lose one's sword or to survive if the leader was killed.
HOW THE GERMANS LIVED. When the Germans were not fighting they were
idle, for all work was done by women and slaves. They were great
drinkers and gamblers, and often in their games a man would stake his
freedom upon the result. If he lost, he became the slave of the winner.
The Germans respected their wives, even if they compelled them to do the
hard work. The women sometimes went with the men to battle, and their
cries encouraged the warriors, or if the warriors wavered, the fierce
reproaches of the women drove them back to the fight.
RELIGION OF THE GERMANS. We remember the religion of the Germans
because four days of the week are named for their gods or the gods of
their neighbors across the Baltic. Their principal god was Wodan, or
Odin, god of the sun and the tempest. Wodan's day is Wednesday. Thursday
is named for Thor, the Northmen's god of thunder. The god of war, Tiw,
gave a name to Tuesday, and Frigu, the goddess of love, to Friday. The
German, like his northern neighbors, thought of heaven as the place
where brave warriors who had died in battle spent their days
in feasting.
JULIUS CAESAR. Julius Caesar was the great Roman general who
conquered the Gauls and led the first expeditions across the Rhine into
Germany and over the Channel into Britain. He was a wealthy noble who,
like other nobles, held one office after another until he became consul.
He was also a great political leader, and with two other men controlled
Rome. We should call them "bosses," but the Romans called them
"triumvirs."
[Illustration: JULIUS CAESAR After the bust in the Museum at
Naples]
CAESAR IN GAUL. As soon as Caesar became governor of the province
of southern Gaul, he showed that he was a skilful general as well as a
successful politician. He interfered in the wars between the Gauls,
taking sides with the friends of the Romans. When a large army of
Germans entered Gaul, he defeated it and drove it back across the Rhine.
One war led to another until all the tribes from the country now called
Belgium to the Mediterranean coast professed to be friends of the Roman
people. His campaigns lasted from 58 B.C. for nine years. Two or three
times Caesar was very close to ruin, but by his courage and energy he
always succeeded in gaining the victory.
VERCINGETORIX, GALLIC HERO. The great hero of the Gauls in their
struggle with the Romans was Vercingetorix. He was a young noble who
lived in a mountain town of central Gaul. His father had been killed in
an attempt to make himself king of his native city. Vercingetorix
believed that if the Gauls did not unite against the Romans they would
soon see their lands become Roman provinces. As he knew his army was no
match for the Romans in open fight, he persuaded the Gauls to try to
starve the Romans out of the country. He planned to destroy all village
stores of grain, and to cut off the smaller bands of soldiers which
wandered from the main army in search of food.
CAESAR AND VERCINGETORIX. Vercingetorix found the work of
conquering Caesar in this way too difficult. He was finally driven to
take refuge in Alesia, on a hilltop in eastern Gaul. Here the Romans
prepared to starve him into surrender. They dug miles of deep trenches
about the fortress so that the imprisoned Gauls could not break through.
They dug other trenches to protect themselves from the attacks of a
great army of Gauls which came to rescue Vercingetorix. These trenches
were fifteen or twenty feet wide; they were strengthened by palisades
and ramparts, and filled with water where this was possible. Several
times the Gauls nearly succeeded in breaking through, but the quickness
and stubborn courage of Caesar always saved the day.
DEATH OF VERCINGETORIX. Vercingetorix now proved that he was a real
hero. He offered to give himself up to Caesar, if this would save the
town. But Caesar demanded the submission of all the chiefs. When they
had laid down their arms before the conqueror, Vercingetorix appeared on
a gaily decorated horse. He rode around the throne where Caesar sat,
dismounted in front, took off his armor, and bowed to the ground. His
fate was hard. He was sent to Rome a prisoner, was shown in the
triumphal procession of the victorious Caesar, and was then put to death
in a dungeon. On the site of Alesia stands a monument erected by the
French to the memory of the brave Gallic hero. The defeat of
Vercingetorix ended the resistance of the Gauls, and not many years
afterward their country was added to the long list of Roman provinces.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE ON WHICH CAESAR'S ARMY CROSSED THE
RHINE]
CAESAR IN GERMANY. Caesar crossed the Rhine into Germany on a bridge
which his engineers built in ten days. He laid waste the fields of the
tribes near the river in order to make the name of Rome feared, and then
returned to Gaul and destroyed the bridge. Twice he sailed over to
Britain, the last time marching a few miles north of where London now
stands. His purpose was to keep the Britons from stirring up the Gauls
to attack him. Other generals many years later conquered Britain as far
as the hills of Scotland.
THE GERMAN HERO HERMANN. The Romans were not fortunate in their
later attempts to conquer a part of Germany. When Caesar's grandnephew
Augustus was master of Rome, he sent an army under Varus into the
forests far from the Rhine. Hermann, a leader of the Germans, gathered
the tribes together and utterly destroyed the army of Varus. Whenever
Augustus thought of this dreadful disaster, he would cry out, "O Varus,
give me back my legions!" The Rhine and the Danube became the northern
boundaries of the Roman conquests.
GAULS AND BRITONS BECOME ROMAN. Although the Gauls had fought
stubbornly against Caesar they soon became as Roman as the Italians
themselves. They ceased to speak their own language and began to use
Latin. They mastered Latin so thoroughly that their schools were
sometimes regarded as better than the schools in Italy, and Roman youths
were sent to Gaul to learn how best to speak their own language. The
Britons also became very good Romans. Even the Germans frequently
crossed the Rhine and enlisted in the Roman armies. When they returned
to their own country they carried Roman ideas and customs with them.
THE INTEREST OF AMERICANS IN ROMAN SUCCESSES. For Americans the
influence the Romans exerted in Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain is
more important than their work in the eastern Mediterranean, because
from those countries came the early settlers of America. The
civilization which the Romans taught the peoples of western Europe was
to become a valuable part of the civilization of our forefathers.
[Illustration: THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT IN 395
A.D.]
SIZE OF THE ROMAN WORLD. We may realize how large the world of the
Romans was by observing on a modern map that within its limits lay
modern England, France, Spain, Portugal, the southern part of
Austria-Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, the Turkish Empire both in
Europe and Asia, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. For a time
they also ruled north of the Danube, and the Rumanians boast that they
are descended from Roman colonists. The peoples in southern Russia were
influenced by the Greeks and by the Romans, although the Romans did not
try to bring them under their rule.
No modern empire has included so many important countries. If we compare
this vast territory with, the scattered colonies of the Greeks, we shall
understand how useful it was that the Romans adopted much of the Greek
civilization, for they could carry it to places that the Greeks
never reached.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE ANCIENT GAULS AT CARNAC,
IN BRITTANY, FRANCE]
QUESTIONS
1. After the Romans had conquered the lands about the Mediterranean,
into what other countries did they march?
2. Who once lived where the French now live? Tell how the Gauls
lived.
3. How did the manner of living of the Germans differ from that of
the Gauls? Were the Britons similar to the Germans or to the Gauls?
4. What names do we get from the names of the German gods?
5. Who was Julius Caesar? Why did he go among the Gauls? What was
the result of his wars with the Gauls? Tell the story of
Vercingetorix.
6. After the conquest of the Gauls, into what countries did Caesar
go?
[Illustration: A ROMAN COIN WITH THE HEAD OF JULIUS CAESAR]
7. What was the fate of the Roman army in Germany in the time of
Augustus?
8. In which of these countries did the peoples become much like the
Romans?
9. Why have Americans a special interest in the Roman conquest of
Gaul and Britain?
EXERCISES
1. Caesar and Alexander were two of the greatest generals who ever
lived. How many years after Alexander died did Caesar begin his wars
in Gaul? What difference was there between what these two generals
did? Whose work is the more important for us?
2. Plan a large map of the Graeco-Roman world, pasting on each
country a picture of some interesting Greek or Roman ruin. This will
take a long time, but many pictures may be found in advertising
folders of steamship lines and tourist agencies.
REVIEW
(Chapters IV, V, VI, and VII)
_How the Graeco-Roman world was built up_:
1. The Greeks drive back the Persians.
2. The Greeks settle in many places on the shores of the
Mediterranean and Black Seas.
3. Alexander conquers the countries about the eastern Mediterranean.
4. The Romans conquer the Greeks in Italy, but learn their ways of
living.
5. The Romans conquer the Carthaginians and seize their colonies.
6. The Romans conquer all the lands around the Mediterranean.
7. The Romans conquer Gaul and Britain.
_Important dates in this work of building a Graeco-Roman world_:
Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C. Work of Alexander ended, 323 B.C.
Romans become masters of Italy, 275 B.C. Romans conquer Hannibal,
202 B.C. Caesar's conquest of Gaul complete, 49 B.C.
[Illustration: ROMAN FARMER'S CALENDAR]
CHAPTER VIII
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE ROMAN WORLD
STRIFE AT ROME. While the Romans were conquering the ancient world
they had begun to quarrel among themselves. Certain men resolved that
Rome should not be managed any longer by the noble senators for their
own benefit or for the benefit of rich contractors and merchants. They
wished to have the idle crowds of men who packed the shows and circuses
settled as free farmers on the unused lands of Italy.
Among these new leaders were two brothers, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus,
sons of one of Rome's noblest families. The other nobles looked upon
them with hatred and killed them, first Tiberius and afterward Caius.
These murders did not end the trouble. The leaders on both sides armed
their followers, and bloody battles were fought in the streets. Generals
led their armies to Rome, although, according to the laws, to bring an
army into Italy south of the Rubicon River was to make war on the
republic and be guilty of treason. Once in the city these generals put
to death hundreds of their enemies.
CAESAR RULES ROME. The strife in the city had ceased for a time
when Pompey, a famous general, who had once shared power with Caesar as
a "triumvir," joined the senators in planning his ruin. Caesar led his
army into Italy to the borders of the Rubicon. Exclaiming, "The die is
cast,'" he crossed the sacred boundary and marched straight to Rome.
Pompey and his party fled, and civil war divided the Roman world into
those who followed Caesar and those who followed Pompey, Caesar was
everywhere victorious, in Italy, Africa, Spain, and the East. He brought
back order into the government of the city and of the provinces, but in
the year 44 B.C. he was murdered in the senate-house by several
senators, one of whom, Marcus Brutus, had been his friend.
ORIGIN OF THE TITLE "EMPEROR." Caesar had not been called
"emperor," though the chief power had been his. One of his titles was
"imperator," or commander of the army, a word from which our word
"emperor" comes. He was really the first emperor of Rome. In later times
the very word Caesar became an imperial title, not only in the Roman
Empire, but also in modern Germany, for "Kaiser" is another form of the
word "Caesar."
BEGINNINGS OF THE EMPIRE. Caesar's successor was his grandnephew
Octavius, usually called Augustus, which was one of his titles. Augustus
carried out many of Caesar's plans for improving the government in Rome
and in the provinces. The people in the provinces were no longer robbed
by Roman officers. Many of them became Roman citizens. After a time all
children born within the empire were considered Romans, just as if they
had been born in Rome.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The Roman Empire carried on the work which the
republic had begun. It did some things better than the republic had done
them. Within its frontiers there was peace for two or three hundred
years. Many people had an opportunity to share in all the best that the
Greeks and Romans had learned. Unfortunately the peoples imitated the
bad as well as the good.
ROMAN ROADS. As builders the Romans taught much to those who lived
after them. Their great roads leading out from Rome have never been
excelled. In Gaul these roads served, centuries later, to mark out the
present French system of highroads and showed many a route to the
builders of railroads. They were made so solid that parts of them still
remain after two thousand years.
[Illustration: Augustus Caesar After the statue in the Vatican]
HOW THESE ROADS WERE BUILT. In planning their roads the Romans did
not hesitate before obstacles like hills or deep valleys or marshy
lands. They often pierced the hills with tunnels and bridged the valleys
or swamps. In building a road they dug a trench about fifteen feet wide
and pounded the earth at the bottom until it was hard. Upon this bottom
was placed a layer of rough stones, over which were put nine inches of
broken stone mixed with lime to form a sort of concrete. This was
covered by a layer six inches deep of broken bricks or broken tiles,
which when pounded down offered a hard, smooth surface. On the top were
laid large paving stones carefully fitted so that there need be no jar
when a wagon rolled over the road.
Such roads were necessary for the traders who passed to and fro
throughout the empire, but especially for troops or government
messengers sent with all speed to regions where there was danger of
revolt or where the frontiers were threatened by the barbarians.
[Illustration: CROSS-SECTION OF A ROMAN ROAD]
AQUEDUCTS. Next to their roads the most remarkable Roman structures
were the aqueducts which brought water to the city from rivers or
springs, some of them many miles away. Had they known, as we do, how to
make heavy iron pipes, their aqueducts would have been laid underground,
except where they crossed deep valleys. The lead pipes which they used
were not strong enough to endure the force of a great quantity of water,
and so when the aqueducts reached the edge of the plain which stretches
from the eastern hills to the walls of Rome, the streams of flowing
water were carried in stone channels resting upon arches which sometimes
reached the height of over ninety feet.
THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT. The Claudian aqueduct, which is the most
magnificent ever built, is carried on such arches for about seven miles
and a half. Although broken in many places, and though the water has not
flowed through its lofty channels for sixteen hundred years, it is one
of the grandest sights in the neighborhood of Rome. If we add together
the lengths of the aqueducts, underground or carried on arches, which
provided Rome with her water supply, the total is over three hundred
miles. They could furnish Rome with a hundred million gallons of water
a day.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT Completed by the
Roman Emperor Claudian in 52 A.D. The structure was nearly a hundred
feet high]
PUBLIC BATHS. The Romans used great quantities of water for their
public baths, which were large buildings with rooms especially made for
bathing in hot or cold water and for plunges. They were also, like the
Greek gymnasiums, places for exercise, conversation, and reading. Many
were built as monuments by wealthy men and by emperors. A very small fee
was charged for entrance, and the money was used to pay for repairs and
the wages of those who managed the baths.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE COLOSSEUM]
TWO FAMOUS BUILDINGS. Many of the Roman temples, porticoes, and
theaters were copied from Greek buildings, but the Romans used the arch
more than did the Greeks, and in this the builders of later times
imitated them. Among their greatest buildings were the amphitheaters,
from the benches of which crowds watched gladiators fighting one another
or struggling with wild beasts. The largest of these amphitheaters was
the Colosseum, the ruins of which still exist. Its outer walls were one
hundred and sixty feet high. In one direction it measured six hundred
and seventeen feet and in another five hundred and twelve. There were
seats enough for forty-five thousand persons. The lowest seats were
raised fifteen feet above the arena or central space where men or wild
beasts fought. Through an arrangement of underground pipes the arena
could be flooded so that the spectators might enjoy the excitement of a
real naval battle.
Another great building was the Circus Maximus, built to hold the crowds
that watched the chariot-races, and at one time having seats for two
hundred thousand persons. In their amusements the Romans became more and
more vulgar, excitable, and cruel. Some equally splendid buildings were
used for better things.
[Illustration: The Pantheon]
THE PANTHEON. One of these was the Pantheon, a temple which was
afterward a Christian church. It still stands, and is now used as the
burial-place of the Italian kings. The most remarkable part of it is the
dome, which has a width of a little over one hundred and forty-two feet.
No other dome in the world is so wide. The Romans were very successful
in covering large spaces with arched or vaulted ceilings. All later
builders of domes and arches are their pupils.
[Illustration: THE ARCH OF TITUS]
BASILICAS. The Romans had other large buildings called basilicas.
These were porticoes or promenades, with the space in the center covered
by a great roof. They were used as places for public meetings. One of
them had one hundred and eight pillars arranged in a double row around
the sides and ends of this central space. The name basilica is Greek and
means "royal." Some of these basilicas were used as Christian churches
when the Romans accepted the Christian religion. The central space was
then called the "nave," and the spaces between the columns the aisles.
TRIUMPHAL ARCHES. The Romans built beautiful arches to celebrate
their victories. Several of these still remain, with sentences cut into
their stone tablets telling of the triumphs of their builders. Modern
people have taken them as models for similar memorial arches.
[Illustration: A ROMAN AQUEDUCT Still in good repair, the Pont
du Gard, near Nîmes, France]
ROMAN LAW. The Romans did much for the world by their laws. They
showed little regard for the rights of men captured in war and were
cruel in their treatment of slaves, but they considered carefully the
rights of free men and women. Under the emperors the lawyers and judges
worked to make the laws clearer and fairer to all. Finally the Emperor
Justinian, who ruled at the time when the empire was already half ruined
by the attacks of barbarian enemies, ordered the lawyer Tribonian to
gather into a single code all the statutes and decrees. These laws
lasted long after the empire was destroyed, and out of them grew many of
the laws used in Europe to-day. They have also influenced our laws
in America.
[Illustration: PAVEMENT OF A ROMAN VILLA IN ENGLAND Unearthed
not many years ago at Aldborough. Such stones laid in the form of
designs or pictures are called Mosaics]
QUESTIONS
1. In the political strife at Rome what did the brothers Tiberius
and Caius Gracchus try to do?
2. What did Julius Caesar do when a party of senators tried to ruin
him? What was the result of his war with the other Roman leaders?
3. From what Roman word does "Emperor" come? What is the origin of
the word "Kaiser"? How did Caesar die?
4. Who was Caesar's successor and the first one who organized the
Roman Empire?
5. Why were the Romans such great builders of roads? How were their
roads built? Do any traces of them still remain?
6. How did the Romans provide the city with a supply of pure water?
7. What was a Roman bath?
8. Were the Romans as famous as the Greeks for their buildings? Name
the largest buildings in Rome. What was a basilica? Of what use were
basilicas to the Christians later?
9. Do you remember the earliest form of the Roman law (Chapter
V)? What did Justinian do with the laws in his day? Are
these laws important to us?
EXERCISES
1. What emperors are there now? Are they like Caesar and Augustus?
2. Find out if our roads are built as carefully as the Roman roads
and if they are likely to last as long. What different kinds of
roads do we have? Can any one in the room construct a small model of
a Roman road?
3. Find out how water is now carried to cities. Are cities provided
with great public baths like those of the Romans?
4. Ask a librarian or a lawyer to show you a copy of the revised
statutes of your state. This is a code somewhat like the code of
Justinian, only not so brief.
[Illustration: TEMPLUM JOVIS CAPITOLINI (Medallion)]
CHAPTER IX
CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE
THE RELIGION OF THE JEWS. Among the cities captured by the Romans
was Jerusalem, about which cluster so many stories from the Old
Testament. There, hundreds of years before, lived David, the shepherd
boy who, after wonderful adventures, became king of his people. There
his son Solomon built a temple of dazzling splendor. Among this people
had arisen great preachers,--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah,--who declared that
religion did not consist in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, but in
justice, in mercy, and in humility. They had a genius for religion, just
as the Greeks had a genius for art, and the Romans a genius for
government.
THE JEWS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS. When the Jews first heard of the
Romans they admired these citizens of a republic who made and unmade
kings. In later years they learned that the Romans were hard masters and
they feared and hated them. The Jewish kingdom was one of the last
countries along the shores of the Mediterranean which the Romans
conquered, but like all the others it finally became a Roman province.
JESUS OF NAZARETH. A few years before the Jewish kingdom became a
Roman province there was born in a village near Jerusalem a child named
Jesus. After he had grown to manhood in Nazareth he gathered about him
followers or disciples whom he taught to live and act as is told in the
books of the New Testament.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF JERUSALEM Showing the Mount of Olives
in the distance]
This was the beginning of the Christian religion. It was first held by a
little band of Jews, but Paul, a Jew born in Tarsus, a city of Asia
whose inhabitants had received the rights of Roman citizenship, believed
that the message of the new religion was meant for all nations. He
taught it in many cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and even went as far
west as Rome. Several of the epistles or letters in the New Testament
were written by Paul to churches which he had founded or where he had
taught. So it happens that from Palestine came religious teachings which
multitudes consider even more important than the art and literature of
the Greeks or the laws and political methods of the Romans.
WHY THE CHRISTIANS WERE PERSECUTED. The Romans at first refused to
permit any one in their empire to call himself a Christian. They
disliked the Jews because the Jews denied that the Roman gods were real
gods, asserting that these gods were mere images in wood and stone. The
Christians did this also, but in the eyes of the Roman rulers the worst
offense of the Christians was that they appeared to form a sort of
secret society and held meetings to which other persons were not
admitted. The emperor had forbidden such societies.
The Romans also disliked the Christians because of their refusal to join
in the public ceremonies which honored the emperor as if he were a god
who had given peace and order to the world and who was able to reward
the good and punish the evil. The Christians believed it to be wrong to
join in the worship of an emperor, whether he were alive or dead.
CHRISTIANS PUT TO DEATH. The Romans were cruel in their manner of
punishing disobedience, and many Christians suffered death in its most
horrible forms. Some were burned, others were tortured, others were torn
to pieces by wild animals in the great amphitheaters to satisfy the
fierce Roman crowd. Nero, the worst of the Roman emperors, who, many
thought, set Rome on fire in order that he might enjoy the sight of the
burning city, tried to turn suspicion from himself by accusing the
Christians of the crime. He punished them by tying them to poles,
smearing their bodies with pitch, and burning them at night as torches.
THE CHRISTIANS ALLOWED TO WORSHIP. The new religion spread rapidly
from province to province in spite of these persecutions. At first the
Christians worshiped secretly, but later they ventured to build
churches. Finally, three centuries after the birth of Christ, the
emperors promised that the persecutions should cease and that the
Christians might worship undisturbed.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF CONSTANTINOPLE]
THE ROMAN EMPIRE BECOMES CHRISTIAN ABOUT 325 A.D. Constantine was
the first emperor to become Christian. He was the one who made the Greek
city Byzantium the capital of the empire and for whom it was renamed
Constantinople. For a time both the old Roman religion and the Christian
religion were favored by the emperors, but before the fourth century
closed the old religion was forbidden. In later days worshipers of the
Roman gods were mostly country people, called in Latin _pagani_, and
therefore their religion was called "paganism."
HOW THE CHURCH WAS RULED. One of the reasons why the Christians had
been successful in their struggle with the Roman emperors was that they
were united under wise and brave leaders. The Christians in each large
city were ruled by a bishop, and the bishops of several cities were
directed by an archbishop. In the western part of the empire the bishop
of Rome, who was called the pope, was honored as the chief of the
bishops and archbishops, and the successor of the Apostle Peter. In the
eastern part the archbishops or patriarchs of Constantinople and
Alexandria and Jerusalem honored the pope, but claimed to be equal in
authority with him.
There were also two kinds of clergy, parish priests and monks. The
priests were pastors of ordinary parishes, but the monks lived in groups
in buildings called monasteries. Sometimes their purpose was to dwell
far from the bustle and wrongs of ordinary life and give themselves to
prayer and fasting; sometimes they acted as a brotherhood of teachers in
barbarous communities, teaching the people better methods of farming,
and carrying the arts of civilized life beyond the borders of
the empire.
QUESTIONS
1. Where did the Jews live in Ancient Times?
2. Do you remember any of the stories of David?
3. What finally became of the kingdom over which David ruled?
4. What era in the history of the world begins with the birth of
Jesus Christ?
5. Why did the Romans forbid the Christians to worship? How did the
Romans punish them? How long after the birth of Christ before the
emperors allowed the Christians to worship undisturbed?
[Illustration: A MONASTERY IN THE MIDDLE AGES Abbey of
Saint-Germain des Prés as it appeared in 1361 with wall, towers, and
moat or ditch]
6. What is the name of the first Roman emperor who became a
Christian? What name was soon given to the worshipers of the old
Roman gods?
7. By what titles were the leaders of the Christians named? What two
kinds of clergy were there?
_Important date_: 325 A.D., when the Roman Empire became Christian.
CHAPTER X
EMIGRANTS A THOUSAND YEARS AGO
THE MIDDLE AGES. It was more than a thousand years from the time of
Constantine to the time of Columbus. This period is called "Mediaeval,"
or the "Middle Ages." During these long centuries the ancient civilized
world of the Roman Empire was much changed. The Roman or Greek cities on
the southern shores of the Mediterranean were captured by Arabs or
Moors. The Moors conquered the larger part of Spain. The eastern lands
of Palestine and Asia Minor fell into the hands of the Turks. The Turks,
the Moors, and the Arabs were followers of the "prophet" Mohammed, who
died in the year 632. The Mohammedans were enemies of the Christians.
WESTERN EUROPE. The other part of the European world was also
changed. The countries on the shores of the Atlantic were now more
important than those on the shores of the Mediterranean. The names of
the different countries were changed. Instead of Gallia or Gaul, there
was France; instead of Britannia, England; for Hispania, Spain; for
Germania, Deutschland or Germany. Italy, the center of the old empire,
was finally divided into several states--city republics like Genoa and
Venice, provinces ruled by the pope, and other territories ruled by
dukes, princes, or kings.
FATE OF CIVILIZATION. The most important question to ask is, How
much of the manner of living or civilization of the Greeks and the
Romans did the later Europeans still retain? The answer is found in the
history of the Middle Ages. In this history is also found what men added
to that which they had learned from the Greeks and the Romans. The
emigrants to America were to carry with them knowledge which not even
the wisest men of the ancient world had possessed.
[Illustration: WALL OF AURELIAN This wall enclosed the ancient
city of Rome. It was about thirteen miles in circumference, fifty-five
feet high, and had three hundred towers]
MEDIAEVAL GERMAN EMIGRANTS. The first part of the history of the
Middle Ages explains how the German peoples from whom most of our
forefathers were descended began to move from the northern forests
towards the borders of the Roman Empire. Many thousand men had already
crossed the Rhine and the Danube to serve in the Roman armies. Sometimes
an unusually strong and skilful warrior would be made a general. Germans
had also crossed the Rhine to work as farmers on the estates of the rich
Gallic nobles. Other Germans, called Goths, worked in Constantinople and
the cities of the East as masons, porters, and water-carriers. The
Romans had owned so many slaves that they had lost the habit of work and
were glad to hire these foreigners.
STORY OF ULFILAS. Many of the Goths who lived north of the Danube
had forsaken their old gods and become Christians. They were taught by
Bishop Ulfilas, once a captive among them, afterward a missionary. He
translated the Bible into the Gothic language, and this translation is
the most ancient specimen of German that we possess. Many of the other
German tribes learned about Christianity from the Goths, and although
they might be enemies of the Roman government, they were not enemies of
the Church.
THE GOTHS INVADE THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The Roman emperors tried to
prevent the northern tribes from crossing the frontier in great numbers,
because, once across, if they did not find work and food, they became
plunderers. Not many years after Constantine's death, a million Goths
had passed the Danube and had plundered the country almost to the walls
of Constantinople. This was not like the invasion of a regular army,
which comes to fight battles and to arrange terms of peace.
The Goths, and the Germans who soon followed their example, moved as a
whole people, with their wives and children, their cattle, and the few
household goods they owned. Wherever they wished to settle they demanded
of the Romans one third, sometimes two thirds, of the land. They soon
learned to be good neighbors of the older inhabitants, although at first
they were little better than robbers. Alaric, one of the leaders of the
Goths, led them into Italy and in the year 410 captured Rome. Alaric did
not injure the buildings much, and he kept his men from robbing the
churches. Some of the other barbarous tribes who roamed about plundering
villages and attacking cities did far greater damage. The Roman
government grew weaker and weaker, until one by one the provinces fell
into the hands of German kings.
BEGINNINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND GERMANY. Britain was attacked by
the Angles and Saxons from the shores of Germany across the North Sea.
They drove away the inhabitants or made slaves of
them and settled upon the lands they had seized. The country was then
called Angle-land or England, and the people Anglo-Saxons or Englishmen.
The Roman provinces in Gaul were gradually conquered by the Franks from
the borders of the Rhine, and they gave the name France to the land.
At about the same time the other German tribes that had remained in
Germany united under one king.
THE RESULT OF BARBARIAN ATTACKS. The part of the ancient world
which lay about Constantinople was less changed than the rest during the
Middle Ages. The walls of Constantinople were high and thick, and they
withstood attack after attack until 1453. Within their shelter men
continued to live much as they had lived in Ancient Times. A few
delighted to study the writings of the ancient Greeks. In Italy and the
other countries of western Europe most of the cities were in ruins. The
ancient baths, amphitheaters, aqueducts, and palaces of Rome crumbled
and fell. The mediaeval Romans also used huge buildings like the
Colosseum as quarries of cut stone and burned the marble for lime. This
was done in every country where Roman buildings existed.
[Illustration: THE AMPHITHEATER AT ARLES]
The amphitheater at Arles in southern France had a still stranger
fortune. It was used at one time as a citadel, at another as a prison
and gradually became the home of hundreds of the criminals and the poor
of the city. "Every archway held its nest of human outcasts. From stone
to stone they cast their rotting beams and plaster and burrowed into the
very entrails of the enormous building to seek a secure retreat from the
pursuit of the officers of the law."
Few persons traveled from Constantinople to Italy or France, and few
from western Europe visited Constantinople. The men of Italy and France
and England did not know how to read Greek. Many of them also ceased to
read the writings of the ancient Romans.
[Illustration: ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY, ENGLAND This
church is on the site of a chapel built in the sixth century. Its walls
show some of the bricks of the original chapel]
THE ENGLISH BECOME CHRISTIANS, 597 A.D. Christianity had spread
throughout the Roman Empire, and it became the religion of all the
tribes who founded kingdoms of their own upon the ruins of the Empire.
The Angles and Saxons, when they invaded Britain, were still worshipers
of the gods Wodan and Thor. They had never learned from the Goths of
Ulfilas anything about Christianity.
One day in the slave market at Rome three fair-haired boys were offered
for sale. Gregory, a noble Roman, who had become a monk and was the
abbot of his monastery, happened to be passing and asked who they were.
He was told they were Angles. "Angels," he cried, "yes, they have faces
like angels, and should become companions of the angels in heaven." When
this good abbot became pope, he sent missionaries to Angle-land and they
established themselves at Canterbury.
[Illustration: GREGORY AND THE LITTLE ENGLISH SLAVES]
MISSIONARIES TO THE GERMANS AND THE SLAVS. The conversion of the
English helped in the spread of Christianity on the Continent, for
Boniface, an English monk, was the greatest missionary to the Germans.
He won thousands from the worship of their ancient gods and founded many
churches. The Slavs, who lived east of the Germans, were taught by
missionaries from Constantinople instead of from Rome.
THE EDUCATED MEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. The missionaries and teachers
of the Church had been educated like the older Romans. They read Roman
books, and tried to preserve the knowledge which both Greeks and Romans
had gathered. Influenced by them, the emigrants and conquerors from the
north also tried to be like the Romans. Educated men, and especially the
priests of the Church, used Latin as their language. In this way some
parts of the old Roman and Greek civilization were preserved, although
the Roman government had fallen and many beautiful cities were mere
heaps of ruins.
THE VIKINGS. The emigration of whole peoples from one part of
Europe to another did not stop when the Roman Empire was overrun. New
peoples appeared and sought to plunder or crowd out the tribes which had
already settled within its boundaries and were learning the ways of
civilization.
One of these peoples came from the regions now known as Norway, Sweden,
and Denmark. They were called Danes by the English, and Northmen or
Normans by other Europeans. They had another name, Vikings, which was
their word for sea-rovers.
It was their custom to sail the seas and rivers rather than march on the
land. They were a hardy and daring people, who liked nothing better than
to fight and conquer and rob in other countries. There was not a land in
western Europe, even as far south as Sicily, that they did not visit.
Wherever they went they plundered and burned and murdered, leaving a
blackened trail.
THE DANES IN ENGLAND. The Danes ravaged the eastern and southern
shores of England, and after they were tired of robbery, partly because
there was little left to take, they began to settle in the land. Alfred,
the greatest of the early English kings, was driven by them into the
swamps for a while, but in the year 878 A.D. he conquered an army of
them in battle and persuaded one of their kings to be baptized as a
Christian. Alfred was obliged to allow them to keep the eastern portion
of England, a region called Danelaw, because the law of the Danes was
obeyed there.
[Illustration: A VIKING SHIP AT SEA]
THE DANES BECOME NORMANS. No more Danes or Northmen came to trouble
England for a time, but instead they crossed the Channel to France and
rowed up the Seine and tried to capture Paris. A few years later a
Frankish king gave them the city of Rouen, further down the Seine, and
the region about it which was called Normandy. These Normans also
accepted Christianity.
THE VIKINGS BECOME DISCOVERERS. Before another hundred years had
passed the Northmen performed a feat more difficult than sailing up
rivers and burning towns. They were the first to venture far out of
sight of land, though their ships were no larger than our fishing boats.
These bold sailors visited the Orkney and the Shetland Islands, north of
Scotland, and finally reached Iceland. In Iceland their sheep and cattle
flourished, and a lively trade in fish, oil, butter, and skins sprang up
with the old homeland and with the British islands.
Before long one of the settlers, named Eric the Red, led a colony to
Greenland, the larger and more desolate island further west. He called
it Greenland because, he said, men would be more easily persuaded to go
there if the land had a good name. This was probably in the year 985.
[Illustration: LEIF ERICSON From the statue in Boston]
DISCOVERY OF VINLAND. Eric had a son, called Leif Ericson, or Leif
the Lucky, who visited Norway and was well received at the court of King
Olaf. Not long before missionaries had persuaded Olaf and his people to
give up their old gods and accept Christianity, and Leif followed their
example. Leif set out in the early summer of the year 1000 to carry the
new religion to his father, Eric the Red, to his father's people, and to
his neighbors. The voyage was a long one, lasting all the summer, for on
the way his ship was driven out of its course and came upon strange
lands where wild rice and grape-vines and large trees grew. The milder
climate and stories of large trees useful for building ships aroused the
curiosity of the Greenlanders.
They sent exploring expeditions, and found the coast of North America at
places which they called Helluland, that is, the land of flat stones;
Markland, the land of forests; and Vinland, where the grape-vines grow.
Helluland was probably on the coast of Labrador, Markland somewhere on
the shores of Newfoundland, and Vinland in Nova Scotia.
THE SETTLEMENT IN VINLAND. Thornfinn Karlsefni, a successful trader
between Iceland and Greenland, attempted to plant a colony in the new
lands. Karlsefni and his friends, to the number of one hundred and sixty
men and several women, set out in 1007 with three or four ships, loaded
with supplies and many cattle. They built huts and remained three or
four winters in Vinland, but all trace of any settlement
disappeared long ago.
They found, their stories tell us, swarthy, rough-looking Indians, with
coarse hair, large eyes, and broad cheeks, with whom they traded red
cloth for furs. Trouble broke out between the Northmen and the Indians,
who outnumbered them. So many Northmen were killed that the survivors
became alarmed and returned to Greenland.
[Illustration: DISCOVERIES OF THE NORTHMEN The American lands
they found are marked with diagonal lines]
VINLAND FORGOTTEN. The voyages to Vinland soon ceased and the
discoveries of Leif and his followers were only remembered in the songs
or "sagas" of the people. They thought of Vinland mainly as a land of
flat stones, great trees, and fierce natives. Nor did the wise men of
Europe who heard the Northmen's story guess that a New World had been
discovered. It was probably fortunate that five hundred years were to go
by before Europeans settled in America, for within that time they were
to learn a great deal and to find again many things which the Romans had
left but which in the year 1000 were hidden away, either in the ruins of
the ancient cities or in libraries and treasure-houses, where few knew
of them. The more Europeans possessed before they set out, the more
Americans would have to start with.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A BIT OF AN OLD SAGA MANUSCRIPT]
QUESTIONS
1. What is meant by the "Middle Ages" or the "Mediaeval" period?
2. Show on the map, what part of the Roman Empire was
conquered by the Mohammedans.
3. Mention the Roman names of England, France, Germany, and Spain,
Why were they changed to what they are now?
4. What people early in the Middle Ages began to emigrate from their
homes to the Roman Empire? What did they do for a living?
5. Where did the Goths live? Who taught them the Christian religion?
When the Goths entered the Roman Empire what did they ask of the
inhabitants? Did they destroy much? How many years separated the
capture of Rome by Alaric from its capture by the Gauls?
6. What tribes conquered England or Britain? What tribes conquered
Roman Gaul or France? How long before Constantinople was captured?
7. What was the effect of these raids and wars upon many cities? Who
tried to keep fresh the memory of what the Greeks and the Romans had
done? Who used the language of the Romans?
8. Tell the story of the way the English became Christians. Who
taught the Christian religion to many Germans? From what city did
the Slavs receive missionaries?
9. What different names are given to the inhabitants of Denmark,
Norway, and Sweden who became rovers over the seas? Where did they
make settlements?
10. Tell the story of how Leif the Lucky discovered America. Why did
the Northmen leave Vinland?
EXERCISES
1. Point out on the map all the places mentioned in this chapter.
2. On an outline map mark the names of the peoples mentioned in the
chapter on the countries where they settled.
3. Ask children in school who know some other language than English
what are their names for England, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
_Important dates_:
Alaric's capture of Rome, 410 A.D.
Discovery of America by the Northmen, 1000 A.D.
CHAPTER XI
HOW ENGLISHMEN LEARNED TO GOVERN THEMSELVES
HEROES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. The Middle Ages, like Ancient Times, are
recalled by many interesting tales. Some of them, such as the stories of
King Arthur and his Knights, the story of Roland, and the Song of the
Niebelungs, are only tales and not history. Others tell us about great
kings, Charlemagne and St. Louis of France, Frederick the Redbeard of
Germany, or St. Stephen of Hungary. The hero-king for England was
Alfred, who fought bravely against the pirate Danes and finally
conquered and persuaded many of them to live quietly under his rule.
KING ALFRED BEGAN TO REIGN IN 871. King Alfred was a skilful
warrior, but he was also an excellent ruler in time of peace. When he
was a boy he had shown his love of books. His mother once offered a
beautifully written Saxon poem as a prize to the one of her sons who
should be the first to learn it. Alfred could not yet read, but he had a
ready memory, and with the aid of his teacher he learned the poem and
won the prize.
At that time almost all books were written in Latin and few even of the
clergy could read. During the long wars with the Danes many books had
been destroyed. Men found battle-axes more useful than books and ceased
to care about reading. King Alfred feared that the Saxons would soon
become ignorant barbarians, and sent for priests and monks who were
learned and were able to teach his clergy. He sent even into France
for such men.
EARLY ENGLISH BOOKS. As it would be easier for people to learn to
read books written in the language they spoke rather than in Latin,
Alfred helped to translate several famous Latin books into English.
Among these was a history written by a Roman before the Germans had
overthrown the Roman Empire. This history told about the world of the
Greeks and the Romans.
Alfred commanded some of his clergy to keep a record from year to year
of things which happened in his kingdom. This record was called the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and was the first history written in the English
language. It was carefully kept for many years after Alfred's death.
Another wise thing Alfred did was to collect the laws or "dooms" of the
earlier kings, so that every one might know what the law required.
[Illustration: EXTRACT FROM THE SAXON CHRONICLE From a copy in
the British Museum]
THE BEGINNING OF A NAVY. Alfred has been called the creator of the
English navy. He thought that the only way to keep the Danes from
plundering his shores was to fight them on the sea. He built several
ships which were bigger than the Danish ships, but they were not always
victorious, for they could not follow the Danish ships into shallow
water. Nevertheless, the Danes could not plunder England as easily
as before.
THE NEW ARMY. Alfred organized his fighting men in a better way. In
times past the men had been called upon to fight only when the Danes
were near, but now he kept a third of his men ready all the time, and
another third he placed in forts, so the rest were able to work in the
fields in safety. There are good reasons why Englishmen regard Alfred
as a hero.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR BEGAN TO RULE ENGLAND IN 1066. About a
hundred and fifty years after Alfred died, William, duke of Normandy,
crossed the Channel with an army, killed the English king in battle, and
seized the throne. This was not altogether a misfortune to the English,
for they came under the same ruler as the Normans and they shared in all
that the men of the Continent were beginning to learn. For one thing,
builders from the Continent taught the English to construct the great
Norman churches or cathedrals which every traveler in England sees.
Besides, William the Conqueror was a strong king and put down the chiefs
or lords that were inclined to oppress the common people.
HENRY II. Henry II, one of William's successors, ruled over most of
western France as well as over England. His officers and nobles were
tired out by his endless traveling in his lands, which extended from the
banks of the river Loire in France to the borders of Scotland. All
Englishmen and Americans should remember him with gratitude because of
the improvements he made in the ways of discovering the truth when
disputes arose and were carried into courts.
[Illustration: THE NORMANS CROSSING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL From the
Bayeux Tapestry, embroidered in the time of William the Conqueror. The
figures are worked on a band of linen two hundred and thirty feet long,
and twenty inches wide. Worsteds of eight colors are used]
ORDEALS AND TRIALS BY BATTLE. Before Henry's reign it was the
custom when a man was accused of a crime to find out the truth by
arranging a wager of battle or what were called ordeals. The two most
common ordeals were the ordeal by fire and the ordeal by water. In the
ordeal by fire an iron was heated red-hot, and after it had been blessed
by a priest it was put into the hand of the man the truth of whose word
was being tested, and he had to carry it a certain number of feet. His
hand was then bound up and left for three days. If at the end of that
time the wound was healing, men believed he was innocent, for they
thought God would keep an innocent man from being punished.
In the ordeal by water the man was tied and thrown into water which had
been blessed by the priest. If he was guilty, the people thought the
water would not receive him. If he sank at once, he was pulled out and
treated as if he had told the truth.
[Illustration: TRIAL BY BATTLE After a drawing in an old
manuscript]
A wager of battle was a fight between the two men whose dispute was to
be settled, or between a man and his accuser. Each was armed with a
hammer or a small battle-axe, and the one who gave up lost his case.
TRIAL BY JURY. King Henry introduced a better way of finding out
the truth. He called upon twelve men from a neighborhood to come before
the judges, to promise solemnly to tell what they knew about a matter,
and then to decide which person was in the right. They were supposed to
know about the facts, and they were allowed to talk the matter over with
one another before they made a decision.
Later these men from the neighborhood were divided into two groups, one
to tell what they knew and the other to listen and decide what was true.
Those who told what they knew were called the witnesses, and those who
listened and decided were called jurors. The name jurors came from a
Latin word meaning to take an oath.
RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED. King Henry had two sons, Richard and John.
Richard was the boldest and most skilful fighter of his time. When the
news was brought to England that Jerusalem had been captured by the
Mohammedans, he led an army to Palestine to recapture it. He failed to
take the city, but he became famous throughout the East as a fearless
warrior and was ever afterwards called the "Lionhearted." At his death
his brother John became king. He was as cowardly and wicked as Richard
was brave and generous.
THE GREAT CHARTER. The leaders of the people, the nobles and the
clergy, soon grew tired of John's wickedness. In 1215 they raised an
army and threatened to take the kingdom from John and crown another
prince as king. John was soon ready to promise anything in order to
obtain power once more, and the nobles and bishops met him at Runnymede
on the river Thames, a few miles west of London, and compelled him to
sign a list of promises. As the list contained sixty-three separate
promises, it was called the Great Charter or Magna Charta. If John did
not keep these promises, the lords and clergy agreed to make war on him,
and he even said that this would be their duty.
PROMISES OF THE CHARTER. Many of the articles of the Great Charter
were important only to the men of King John's day, but others are as
important to us as to them. In these the king promised that every one
should be treated justly. He said he would not refuse to listen to the
complaints of those who thought they were wronged. The king also
promised that he would not decide in favor of a rich man just because
the rich man might offer him money. He would put no one in prison who
had not been tried and found guilty by a jury. By another important
promise the king said he would not levy new taxes without the consent of
the chief men of the kingdom. This opened the way for the people to have
something to say about how their money should be spent. This right is a
very important part of what we call self-government.
[Illustration: A PORTION OF THE GREAT CHARTER]
PROMISES OF THE GREAT CHARTER RENEWED. In after times whenever the
English thought a king was doing them a wrong they reminded him of the
promises made by King John in the Great Charter and demanded that the
promises be solemnly renewed.
In 1265 a great noble named Simon de Montfort asked many towns to send a
number of their chief men to meet with the nobles and clergy to talk
over the conduct of the king. Others, even kings, soon followed Simon's
example by asking the townsmen for advice about matters of government.
After a while this became the custom. Occasionally the king wanted the
advice of the clergy, the nobles, and the townsmen at the same time and
called them together. The meeting was called a parliament, that is, an
assembly in which talking or discussion goes on.
[Illustration: Parliament House Westminster Hall Westminster
Abbey--WHERE PARLIAMENT MET IN LONDON IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT. Only the most important nobles or lords
could go in person to the assemblies, otherwise the meeting would be too
large to do any business. The other lords chose certain ones from their
number to go in place of all the rest. We call such men representatives.
In this way, besides the men who represented the towns, there were
present these nobles who represented the landowners of the counties.
Gradually these nobles and the townsmen formed an assembly of their own,
while the greater lords, the bishops, and abbots sat together in another
assembly. The two assemblies were called the House of Commons and the
House of Lords, and the two made up the parliament.
AN ASSEMBLY OF REPRESENTATIVES. This parliament was a great
invention. The English had discovered a better way of governing
themselves than either the Greeks or the Romans. We call it the
representative system. If a Roman citizen who lived far from Rome wanted
to take part in the elections, he was obliged to leave his farm or his
business and travel to Rome, for only the citizens who were at Rome
could have a share in making the laws. It never occurred to the Romans
that the citizens outside of Rome could send some of their number as
representatives to Rome. The formation of the English parliament was an
important step towards what we mean in America by "government of the
people, for the people, and by the people."
QUESTIONS
1. Mention the names of heroes or hero-kings of the Middle Ages.
What stories have you learned about these heroes?
2. Who was the hero-king of the English? How did he early show his
love of books? What did he do to help his people to a knowledge
of books?
3. How did he succeed better than other kings in driving back the
Danes? Why has he been called the creator of the English navy?
4. What was the name of the Norman duke who conquered the English
and ruled over them? Did this conquest hinder or help them?
5. Why should we remember Henry II gratefully? Explain an ordeal and
a trial by battle. How were the first juries formed and what did
they do? How were they afterwards divided?
6. For what was King Richard most celebrated? What sort of a king
was his brother John?
7. Why was the Charter which John was forced to grant called
"Great"? Repeat some of its promises. Did the English soon forget
these promises?
8. Who asked the townsmen to send several of their number to talk
over affairs with the clergy and the nobles? What was this body
finally called? Into what two bodies was it divided?
9. What is a "representative system"? Why was it an invention? What
did the Romans do when they lived in towns distant from Rome and
wanted to take part in elections or help make the laws?
EXERCISES
1. Learn and tell one of the King Arthur stories and a part of the
story of the Niebelungs. Find a story about Charlemagne, Frederick
the Redbeard, St. Louis, or St. Stephen.
2. Collect pictures of war vessels, those of old times and those of
to-day, and explain their differences.
3. Find out how men nowadays decide whether an accused man is
guilty.
4. What is the name of the assembly in your state which makes the
laws? What assembly at Washington makes the laws for the
whole country?
CHAPTER XII
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE AGES
WHAT THE ENGLISH OWED TO THEIR EUROPEAN NEIGHBORS. If the English
succeeded better than other Europeans in learning how to govern
themselves, one reason was that the Channel protected them from attack,
and they could quarrel with their king without running much risk that
their enemies in other countries would take advantage of the quarrel to
seize their lands or attempt to conquer them.
The French were not so well placed. France also was not united like
England, and whole districts called counties or duchies were almost
independent of the king, being ruled by their counts and dukes. In
France it would not have been wise for the people to quarrel with the
king, for he was their natural protector against cruel lords. Germany
and Italy were even more divided, with not only counties and duchies,
but also cities nearly as independent as the ancient cities of Greece.
The Europeans on the Continent did many things which the English were
doing, and some of these were so well done that the English were ready
to accept these Europeans as their teachers. The memory of what the
Greeks and the Romans had done remained longer in southern France and
Italy because so many buildings were still standing which reminded
Frenchmen and Italians of the people who built them.
[Illustration: A MONK COPYING MANUSCRIPT BOOKS]
CLASSES OF PEOPLE. The people of Europe, as well as of England,
were divided into two classes, nobles and peasants. The clergy seemed to
form another class because there were so many of them. Besides the
parish priests and the bishops there were thousands of monks, who were
persons who chose to dwell together in monasteries under the rule of an
abbot or a prior, rather than live among ordinary people where men were
so often tempted to do wrong or were so likely to be wronged by others.
The monks worked on the farms of the monasteries, or studied in the
libraries, or prayed and fasted. For a long time the men who knew how to
read were nearly always monks or priests. Outside of the monasteries or
the bishops' houses there were few books.
THE NOBLES. The nobles were either knights, barons, counts, or
dukes. In England there were also earls. Many mediaeval nobles ruled
like kings, but over a smaller territory. They gained their power
because they were rich in land and could support many men who were ready
to follow them in battle, or because in the constant wars they proved
themselves able to keep anything they took, whether it was a hilltop or
a town. Timid and peaceable people were often glad to put themselves
under the protection of such a fighter, who saved them from being robbed
by other fighting nobles.
In this way the nobles served a good purpose until the kings, who were
at first only very successful nobles, were able to bring nobles as well
as peasants under their own rule and to compel every one to obey the
same laws. After this the nobles became what we call an aristocracy,
proud of their family history, generally living in better houses and
owning more land than their neighbors, but with little power
over others.
[Illustration: PLAN OF A MEDIAEVAL CASTLE 1. The Donjon-keep. 2.
Chapel. 3. Stables. 4. Inner Court. 5. Outer Court. 6. Outworks. 7.
Mount, where justice was executed. 8. Soldiers' Lodgings]
[Illustration: PIERREFONDS--ONE OF THE GREAT CASTLES OF FRANCE]
CASTLES. For safety, kings and nobles in the Middle Ages were
obliged to build strong stone forts or fortified houses called castles.
They were often placed on a hilltop or on an island or in a spot where
approach to the walls could be made difficult by a broad canal, or moat,
filled with water. At different places along the walls were towers, and
within the outer ring of walls a great tower, or keep, which was hard to
capture even after the rest of the castle had been entered by the enemy.
These castles were gloomy places to live in until, centuries later,
their inner walls were pierced with windows. Many are still standing,
others are interesting heaps of ruins.
KNIGHTHOOD. The lords of the castles were occupied mostly in
hunting or fighting. They fought to keep other lords from interfering
with them or to win for themselves more lands and power. They hunted
that they might have meat for their tables. In later times, when it was
not so necessary to kill animals for food, they hunted as a sport.
Fighting also ceased to be the chief occupation, although the nobles
were expected to accompany the king in his wars.
From boyhood the sons of nobles, unless they entered the Church as
priests or monks, were taught the art of fighting. A boy was sent to the
castle of another lord, where he served as a page, waiting on the lord
at table or running errands. He was trained to ride a horse boldly and
to be skilful with the sword and the lance. When his education was
finished he was usually made a knight, an event which took place with
many interesting ceremonies.
The young man bathed, as a sign that he was pure. The weapons and arms
for his use were blessed by a priest and laid on the altar of the
church, and near them he knelt and prayed all night. In the final
ceremony a sword was girded upon him and he received a slight blow on
the neck from the sword of some knight, or perhaps of the king. His
armor covered him from head to foot in metal, and sometimes his horse
was also covered with metal plates. When he was fully armed, he was
expected to show his skill to the lords and ladies who were present.
THE DUTIES OF A KNIGHT. The duties of the knight were to defend the
weak, to protect women from wrong, to be faithful to his lord and king,
and to be courteous even to an enemy. A knight true to these duties was
called "chivalrous," a word which means very much what we mean by the
word "gentlemanly." There were many wicked knights, but we must not
forget that the good knights taught courtesy, faithfulness in keeping
promises, respect for women, courage, self-sacrifice, and honor.
[Illustration: A Knight in Armor Thirteenth century]
THE PEASANTS. Most of the people were peasants or townsmen. There
were few towns, because many had been burned by the barbarian tribes
which broke into the Roman Empire, or had been destroyed in the later
wars. The peasants were crowded in villages close to the walls of some
castle or monastery. They paid dearly for the protection which the lord
of the castle or the abbot of the monastery gave them, for they were
obliged to work on his lands three days or more each week, and to bring
him eggs, chickens, and a little money several times a year. They also
gave him a part of their harvest.
THE TOWNSMEN. At first the towns belonged to lords, or abbots, or
bishops, but many towns drove out their lords and ruled themselves or
received officers from the king. When they ruled themselves, their towns
were called communes. The citizens agreed that whenever the town bell
was rung they would gather together. Any one who was absent was fined.
For them "eternal vigilance was the price of liberty." Some of the
belfries of these mediaeval towns are still standing, and remind the
citizens of to-day of the struggles of the early days.
[Illustration: VIEW OF CARCASSONNE This is an ancient city in
France founded by the Romans]
The men of each occupation or trade were organized into societies or
guilds, with masters, journeymen, and apprentices. There were guilds of
goldsmiths, ironmongers, and fishmongers, that is, workers in gold and
iron and sellers of fish. The merchants also had their guilds. In many
towns no one was allowed to work at a trade or sell merchandise who was
not a member of a guild.
OLD CITIES WHICH STILL EXIST. Many of the towns which grew up in
the Middle Ages are now the great cities of England and Europe. Their
citizens can look back a thousand years and more over the history of
their city, can point to churches, to town halls, and sometimes to
private houses, that have stood all this time. They can often show the
remains of mediaeval walls or broad streets where once these walls
stood, and the moats that surrounded them. The traveler in York or
London, in Paris, in Nuremburg, in Florence, or in Rome eagerly searches
for the relics about which so many interesting stories of the past
are told.
VENICE AND GENOA. One of the most fascinating of these old cities
is Venice, built upon low-lying islands two miles from the shore of
Italy and protected by a sand bar from the waters of the Adriatic.
Venice was founded by men and women who fled from a Roman city on the
mainland which was ruined by the barbarians in the fifth century after
Christ. In many places piles had to be driven into the loose sands to
furnish a foundation for houses. The Venetians did not try to keep out
the water but used it as streets, and instead of driving in wagons they
went about in boats. They grew rich in trade on the sea, as the Greeks
had done in those same waters hundreds of years before.
Farther down the coast of Italy were the cities Brindisi and Taranto,
the Brundusium and Tarentum of the Romans. Across the peninsula to the
west was another trading city called Genoa, which was the birthplace
of Columbus.
MODERN LANGUAGES. While the people of mediaeval times were building
city walls and towers to protect themselves they were also doing other
things. Almost without knowing it they formed the languages which we now
speak and write--English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish.
The English and German languages are closely related because the
forefathers of the English emigrated to England from Germany, taking
their language with them. This older language was gradually changed, but
it still remained like German. Dutch is another language like both
English and German.
There are many words in these languages borrowed from other peoples.
Englishmen, because of their long union with western France, borrowed
many words from the French. The French did not invent these words, for
the French language grew out of the Latin language which the French
learned from the Romans.
HOW MODERN LANGUAGES WERE FORMED. In English we have two sets of
words and phrases: one is used in writing books or speeches, the other
in conversation. When the Gauls learned Latin, the language of Rome,
most of them learned the words used in conversation and did not learn
the words of Roman books. Before long spoken words differed so much from
the older written words that only scholars understood that the two had
belonged to the same language. This new language was French. In the same
way Italian and Spanish grew out of the ordinary Latin spoken in Italy
and Spain.
When men began to write books in the new languages, the changes went on
more slowly because the use of words in books kept the spelling the
same. Men wrote less in Latin, but it was still used in the religious
services of the Church and in the schools and universities.
[Illustration: VENICE AND THE GRAND CANAL]
SCHOOLS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. In the Middle Ages most boys and girls
did not go to school. Education was principally for those who expected
to become priests or monks. The schools were in the monasteries or in
the houses or palaces of the bishops. The students were taught a little
Latin grammar, to write or speak Latin, and to debate. They also learned
arithmetic; enough astronomy to reckon the days on which the festivals
of the Church should come; and music, so much as was then known of it.
Printing had not been invented, so there were no text-books for them to
study, and written books or manuscripts were too costly. Students
listened to the teacher as he read from his manuscripts and copied the
words or tried to remember them.
THE BEGINNING OF UNIVERSITIES. If students remained in the schools
after these things had been learned, they studied the laws of the
Romans, or the practise of medicine, or the religious questions which
are called theology. Some teachers talked in such an interesting way
about such questions that hundreds of students came to listen. Like
other kinds of workers, who were organized in societies or guilds, the
teachers and students formed a guild called a university. The teachers
were the master-workmen, and the students were the apprentices.
WHERE THE STUDENTS LIVED. In the beginning the universities had no
buildings of their own, and the teachers taught in hired halls, the
students boarding wherever they could find lodgings. Partly to help
students who were too poor to pay for good lodgings, and partly to bring
the students under the direct rule of teachers, colleges were built.
These were not separate institutions like the American colleges, but
simply houses for residence, although later some teaching was done
in them.
SOME FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES. The oldest university was in Bologna in
Italy, and teachers began to explain the laws of the Romans to its
students eight hundred years ago. The University of Paris was called the
greatest university in the Middle Ages. Its students numbered sometimes
between six and seven thousand. About the same time the English
universities of Oxford and Cambridge were formed, and there, many years
later, a large number of the men who settled in America were educated.
THE WISDOM OF THE ARABS. Students in these universities obtained
several of the writings of the Greeks through the Arabs, the followers
of Mohammed, who had conquered most of Spain. Long before Europeans
thought of founding universities the Arabs had flourishing schools and
universities in Spain. The capital of the Mohammedan Empire was first at
Bagdad on the Euphrates, where once ruled Haroun-al-Raschid, the hero of
the tales of the Arabian Nights.
[Illustration: VIEW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD Built in the
fourteenth century]
WHAT EUROPEANS BORROWED FROM THE ARABS. The Arabs had learned much
of geography and mathematics from the Greeks, and they also found out
much for themselves. The numerals which we use are Arabic; and algebra,
one of our principal studies in mathematics, was thought out by the
Arabs. Their learned men were deeply interested in the books of
Aristotle, an ancient Greek, who had been a teacher of Alexander the
Great. They translated his books into Arabic, and Christian students in
Spain translated the Arabic into Latin. The great scholars at the
University of Paris believed that Aristotle reasoned better than other
thinkers, and took as their model the methods of reasoning found in this
Latin translation of an Arabic translation of what Aristotle had
written in Greek.
[Illustration: THE ALCAZAR AT SEVILLE Built by the Moors in the
twelfth century. Note the elaborate decoration of the Moorish
architecture.]
BUILDERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. The Greeks and the Romans had been
great builders, but the men of the Middle Ages succeeded in building
churches, town halls, and palaces or castles which equaled in grandeur
and beauty the best that the ancient builders had made. The large
churches or cathedrals seem wonderful because their builders were able
to place masses of stone high in the air and to cover immense spaces
with beautiful vaulted roofs. Builders nowadays imitate, but not often,
if ever, equal them. Fortunately the original buildings are still
standing in many English and European cities: in Canterbury, Durham, and
Winchester; in Paris, Chartres, and Rheims; in Cologne, Erfurt, and
Strasbourg; in Barcelona and Toledo; in Milan, Venice, and Rome.
[Illustration: NOTRE DAME IN PARIS View from the rear,
showing the arches and buttresses]
CHURCH BUILDING. The Italians began by building churches like Roman
basilicas. Roman arches and domes, supported by heavy walls, were also
used north of the Alps, and the method of building was named Romanesque,
or in England, Norman. The architects or builders of western France
discovered a way of roofing over just as large spaces without using such
heavy walls, so that the interior could be lighted by larger windows.
Instead of having rounded arches they used pointed arches. The walls
between the windows were strengthened by masses of stone called
buttresses. The peak of the roof of these cathedrals was sometimes more
than one hundred and fifty feet above the floor. The glass of the
windows showed in beautiful colors scenes from the Bible or from lives
of sainted men and women. The outer walls, especially the western front,
the doorways and the towers, were richly carved and adorned with
statues, and often with the figures of strange birds and beasts which
lived only in the imagination of the builders. This method of building
was named Gothic, and it was used not only for churches but for town
halls and private houses. Architects use similar methods of
building nowadays.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL AT AMIENS A typical Gothic
interior.]
THE RENAISSANCE. Men who could build and adorn great churches and
town halls and who were eager to study in the new universities should be
called civilized. The barbarous days were gone, but men still had much
to learn from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Many of the ancient
buildings were in ruins, the statues half buried or broken, the
paintings destroyed, and the books lost. Men began to search for what
was left of these things and to study them carefully to learn what the
Graeco-Roman world had been like. After a while students could think of
nothing else, and tried to imitate, if they could not surpass, what the
Romans and the Greeks had done. The age in which men were first
interested in these things is called the Renaissance or "rebirth,"
because men were so unlike what they had been that they seemed born
again. With the beginning of the Renaissance the Middle Ages came to
an end.
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S AT ROME]
PETRARCH. One of the earliest of these "new" men was Petrarch, an
Italian poet who lived in the fourteenth century, a hundred years before
Columbus. He wished above all things to read, copy, and possess the
writings of the Romans, and especially of Cicero, an orator and writer
who lived in the days of Julius Caesar. Petrarch and his friends
searched for the manuscripts of Roman authors which had been preserved,
hidden away in monastery libraries.
The same love of Roman books seized others, and princes spent large sums
of money in collecting and copying ancient writings. At this time a
beginning of the great libraries of Europe was made, Petrarch tried to
learn Greek, but could find no one in Italy able to teach him.
GREEK BOOKS BROUGHT AGAIN TO ITALY. Shortly after Petrarch died
some Greeks came from Constantinople seeking the aid of the pope and the
kings of the West in an attempt to drive back the Turks, who had already
crossed into Europe and settled in the lands which they now occupy.
Unless help should be sent to Constantinople, the city would certainly
fall into their hands. With these Greeks was one of those men who still
loved to read the writings of the ancient authors. He was persuaded to
remain a few years in Florence and other Italian cities and teach Greek
to the eager Italian scholars. He was also persuaded to write a grammar
of the Greek language, in order that after he had returned to
Constantinople others might be able to continue his teaching.
Collectors of books now searched for Greek writings as eagerly as they
had searched for Latin writings. Merchants sent their agents to
Constantinople to buy books. One traveler and scholar brought back to
Italy over two hundred. Soon Italy was the land to which students from
Germany, France, and England went to learn Greek and to obtain copies of
Greek books. It was fortunate that so many books had been brought from
Constantinople, for at last, in 1453, the Turks captured that city and
no place in the East was left where the books of the Greeks were studied
as they had been at Constantinople.
[Illustration: A PRINTING OFFICE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY]
THE INVENTION OF PRINTING. After collectors of Greek and Roman
writings had made several good libraries, partly by purchase, partly by
copying manuscripts belonging to others, a great invention was made
which enabled these writings to be spread far and wide and placed in the
hands of every student. This invention was the method of printing with
movable types. It is not quite certain who made the invention, although
John Gutenberg, of Mainz, in Germany, has generally been called the
inventor. Probably several men thought of the method at about the same
time, that is, about 1450.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF TYPE. In forming their type the German printers
imitated the lettering made by copyists with a quill. Their type is
called Gothic, and it is still widely used in German books. The Italian
printers made their letters more round and simple in shape, imitating
the handwriting of the best Italian copyists. This is the Roman type, in
which many European peoples, as also the English and the Americans,
print their books. The Italians also prepared a kind of lettering which,
because they were the inventors, is named _italic_.
THE ALDINE PRESS. One of the most famous printers of this early
time was a Venetian named Aldus Manutius or Manucci. He gathered about
him a number of Greeks and planned to print all the Greek manuscripts
that had been discovered. This he did in beautiful type, imitated from
the handwriting of one of his Greek friends. He sold the books for a
price per volume about equal to our fifty cents, so that few scholars
were too poor to buy.
SOME EARLY PRINTED BOOKS. Another great printer was the Englishman
William Caxton, who learned the art in the Netherlands. Among the books
he printed was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The first book printed by
Gutenberg was the Bible in Latin. Early in the sixteenth century,
through the labors of a Dutch scholar, Erasmus, and of his printer, the
German Froben, the New Testament in Greek was printed.
ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE. The artists and the architects of this
time began to imitate the buildings they found or that they unearthed.
They used round arches and domes more than the pointed arches and
vaulted roofs of the Gothic builders. Sculptors pictured in stone the
stories of the Greek and Roman gods and heroes. Statues long buried in
ancient ruins were dug up, and great artists like the Italian Michel
Angelo studied them and rivaled them in the beautiful statues they cut.
On every hand men's minds were awakened by what they saw of the work of
the founders of the civilized world.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF PART OF CAXTON'S AENEID (REDUCED)
With the same in modern type]
QUESTIONS
1. Why did the memory of the Greeks and Romans remain longer in
France and Italy than in Germany and England?
2. What different classes of people were there in the Middle Ages?
What was the difference between a parish priest and a monk?
3. How did the nobles gain a living? Were they useful? In what sorts
of houses did they live? Describe a castle. What was the "keep"?
4. How were the sons of nobles trained? What was a page? How was a
young man made a knight? What were the duties of a knight?
5. Were the farmers or peasants prosperous and happy in the Middle
Ages? How did the townsmen learn to protect themselves? What was a
guild? Why are many Europeans proud of their cities?
6. Why is Venice especially interesting? Why do we remember Genoa?
7. From what language did French, Italian, and Spanish grow? How
were the changes made in the old language? Where did the English get
their language? Was it just like the English we speak?
8. What did the boys study in the Middle Ages? What did the word
"university" mean then? Name two or three universities founded then
which still exist. What did the Arabs teach Christian students?
9. What sort of buildings did men in the Middle Ages especially like
to build? Are these buildings still standing? Why do we admire these
great churches?
10. What do we call the time when men began to study once more Roman
and Greek books, and began to imitate the ways of living and
thinking common in the Graeco-Roman world? Who was the first of
these "new" men? Where especially did men search for Greek books?
11. What invention helped men spread far and wide this new
knowledge? How do the Germans come to have "Gothic" type? Where do
we get our Roman and _italic_ type? What books did the Venetian
printer Aldus print? Name a famous English and a famous
German printer.
12. What besides ancient books did the men of the Renaissance like
to study and imitate?
EXERCISES
1. Find out what titles of noblemen are used now in different
European countries. In what country are men often knighted? Why are
they knighted? What title shows that a man is a knight?
2. Collect pictures of armor and of castles, especially of castles
still standing. Collect pictures of old town walls.
3. Collect pictures of Venice and Genoa, especially from advertising
folders.
4. Find the names of several large American universities. Do the
students live in "colleges" as students did in the Middle Ages?
5. Tell one or two stories from the Arabian Nights. Collect pictures
of Arabian costumes and of Arabian buildings in Spain, or Africa,
or Asia.
6. Collect pictures of English and European cathedrals. Find
pictures of churches in America which resemble them.
REVIEW
_How ancient civilization was preserved_
1. What ruined so many ancient cities?
2. Who tried to preserve the memory of what the Greeks and the
Romans had done?
3. What language did the churchmen continue to use?
4. How did the missionaries help?
5. How did Alfred teach the English some of the things the Romans
had known?
6. What did the Arabs teach the Christians which the Greeks had
known?
7. What was studied at Bologna? How did the universities help in
preserving the ancient knowledge?
8. What did Petrarch do to find lost books? What did other men of
Petrarch's time do?
9. What help came from the invention of printing?
10. From what besides books did the men of the Renaissance learn
about the Greeks and the Romans?
[Illustration: HUSBANDMAN AND COUNTRY WOMAN OF FIFTEENTH
CENTURY]
CHAPTER XIII
TRADERS, TRAVELERS, AND EXPLORERS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
THE PERILS OF TRADERS. There was a time in the Middle Ages when
merchants scarcely dared to travel from one town to another for fear of
being plundered by some robber lord or common thief. If they traveled by
sea they might also be attacked by robbers. Some of these robbers, like
the Northmen, came from afar, but others were ordinary sailors who put
out from near-by ports when there seemed nothing better to do.
This state of things gradually changed. The kings or great lords
succeeded in protecting merchants on land, and the merchants armed
vessels of their own to drive the pirates from the sea. As trade grew
greater the towns became richer and stronger and the robbers and pirates
fewer, so that the number of merchant ships increased rapidly and long
voyages were attempted.
FAIRS. At first trade was carried on at great fairs, held in places
convenient for the merchants of England and western Europe. The fairs
lasted about six weeks, and one fair followed another. As soon as the
first was over the merchants packed their unsold wares and journeyed to
the next. At the fairs were found drugs and spices, cottons and silks
from the East, skins and furs from the North, wool from England, and
other products from Germany, Italy, France, and Spain.
THE TREASURES OF THE EAST. Men in the Middle Ages were dependent
for luxuries upon the lands of Asia which are commonly called the East.
By this name we may mean Persia, Arabia, India, China, or the Molucca
Islands, where the choicest spices still grow. Spices were a great
luxury, and were needed to flavor the food, because the manner of
cooking was poor and there was little variety in the kinds of food. Most
of the cotton cloth, the silks, the drugs, and the dyes were also
procured from the East.
[Illustration: TRADER'S CARAVAN CROSSING THE DESERT]
ROUTES TO THE EAST. No one knew that it was possible to reach Asia
by sailing around the southern point of Africa or through what is called
the Strait of Magellan. The products of the East were brought to Europe
by several routes, two reaching the Mediterranean at Alexandria, in
Egypt, a third at Antioch, in Syria, and a fourth on the southeastern
shore of the Black Sea.
The loads were carried by camels in long caravans across the deserts
from the Red Sea, or the Persian Gulf, or from northern India. Ships
from the Italian cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice struggled with one
another for the right to bring back these precious wares and sell them
to the merchants of Europe, who were ready to pay high prices.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE TRADE ROUTES IN THE MIDDLE AGES]
VENETIAN TRADERS. Merchants from Germany came to Venice to trade
the products of the North for spices, drugs, dyes, and silks, which they
carried back across the Alps. Once a year the Venetians sent a fleet of
vessels westward through the straits of Gibraltar and along the Atlantic
shore as far as Bruges and London. The voyage was long and dangerous,
and the Venetians traded in ports on the way. Spices in Bruges sold for
two or three times what they cost in Venice.
THE CRUSADES. One event that brought to the Venetians an
opportunity to enrich themselves was the Crusades. The Mohammedans had
long held a large part of Spain, and towards the end of the eleventh
century they threatened France and Italy. They also attacked what was
left of the Roman Empire in the East, and the emperors sent to the pope
and the western kings frantic appeals for help. Thousands of Frenchmen,
Germans, Englishmen, and Italians were suddenly seized with the desire
to go to Palestine and drive the Mohammedans from Jerusalem, the Holy
City, and from the tomb of Christ. For the next two centuries large
armies were sent there, sometimes gaining victories, sometimes being
defeated in battle or overcome by disease.
WHAT THE VENETIANS GAINED FROM THE CRUSADES. Most of the Crusaders
went to the Holy Land by sea, and when they had no ships of their own
they often took passage in Venetian ships. The Venetians asked large
sums for this, and also succeeded in obtaining all the rights of trade
in many of the seaports which were captured. Sometimes the Venetians
undertook to govern islands like Cyprus and Crete, or territories along
the coasts, but their main aim was to increase their trade rather than
to build up an empire.
THE NEW VENETIAN SHIPS. The Crusaders who returned to Europe brought
back a liking for the luxuries of the East, and their tales made other
men eager for them. For this reason more ships were built to sail in the
Mediterranean. The shipowners attempted to make their ships larger and
stronger. They were larger than those built by the English or by other
peoples along the Atlantic coast, but they would seem small to us. There
is an account of Venetian ships in the thirteenth century which tells us
that they were one hundred and ten feet long and carried crews of one
thousand men. They relied mainly upon the use of oars, but had a mast,
sometimes two masts, rigged with sails, which they could use if the wind
was favorable.
[Illustration: VENETIAN SHIPS]
DANGERS OF THE SEA. One difficulty about sailing was the lack of
any means in cloudy weather, and especially at night, of telling the
direction in which they were going. The sailors did not like to venture
far from shore, although the open sea is safer during a storm than a
wind-swept and rocky coast. At the time when the sailors of the
Mediterranean were building up their trade to Alexandria, Antioch, and
the Black Sea, two instruments came into use which enabled them to tell
just where they were.
THE COMPASS. One of these instruments was the compass, which the
Chinese had long used, and which was known to the Arabs before the
Europeans heard of it. If a boy will take a needle, rub its point with a
magnet, and lay the needle on a cork floating in water, he will have a
rough sort of compass. The point of the needle wherever it may be turned
will swing back towards the north, thus guiding the sailors.
[Illustration: MARINER'S COMPASS]
The compass was known in Europe about 1200. There is a story that at
first sailors thought its action due to magic and refused to sail under
a captain who used it. But a century later it was in general use, and
had been so much improved that even in the severest storms the needle
remained level and pointed steadily towards the north.
[Illustration: AN ASTROLABE]
THE ASTROLABE. The other instrument, called the astrolabe, was a
brass circle marked off into 360 degrees. To this circle were fastened
two movable bars, at the ends of which were sights, or projecting pieces
pierced by a hole. The astrolabe was hung on a mast in such a way that
one bar was horizontal and the other could be moved until through its
sights some known star could be seen. The number of degrees marked on
the circle between the two bars told how high the star was above the
horizon, and the sailors could reckon the latitude of the place where
they were. In a similar way their longitude could be found out.
The astrolabe was not so useful as the compass, for it could be used
only on clear days or nights. With these two instruments it was possible
to sail far out into the Atlantic. By the middle of the fourteenth
century ships from Genoa and Portugal had visited the Madeira and the
Canary Islands, and even the Azores which are a thousand miles from
the mainland.
WHAT MEN THOUGHT ABOUT A SEA ROUTE TO THE EAST. Men learned more
about other strange lands through a Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, who
wrote an account of his wonderful journey to the court of the Grand
Khan, or Emperor of the Mongols, of his travels through China, and of
his return to Persia by sea.
Many men in the Middle Ages had believed that east of Asia was a great
marsh, and that because of it even if they succeeded in sailing around
Africa it would be impossible to reach the region of the spices and
silks and jewels which they so much desired. They also thought that the
heat in the tropics was so intense that at a certain distance down the
coast of Africa they would find the water of the ocean boiling. These
things and the tales of strange monsters that inhabited the deep sea had
terrified them. The news which Marco Polo brought changed this feeling.
THE MONGOLS. The way Marco Polo happened to visit the court of the
Mongol emperor was this. The Mongol Tartars were great conquerors, and
they not only subdued the Chinese but marched westward, overrunning most
of Russia and stopping only when they were on the frontiers of Italy.
For a long time southern Russia remained under their rule. Their capital
was just north of the Great Wall of China.
The Mongol emperor did not hate Europeans, and even sent to the pope for
missionaries to teach his people. Marco Polo's father and uncle while on
a trading expedition had found their way to his court, and on a second
journey, in 1271, they took with them Marco, a lad of seventeen years.
The emperor was much interested in his western visitors and took young
Marco into his service.
[Illustration: THE MONGOL EMPEROR OF MARCO POLO'S TIME After an
old Chinese manuscript]
MARCO POLO'S TRAVELS. Marco Polo traveled over China on official
errands, while his father and uncle were gathering wealth by trade.
After many years they desired to return to Italy, but the emperor was
unwilling to lose such able servants. It happened, however, that the
emperor wished to send a princess as a bride to the Khan or Emperor of
Persia, also a Mongol sovereign, and the three Polos, who were known to
be trustworthy seamen, were selected to escort the princess to her royal
husband. After doing this they did not return to China, but went on
to Italy.
They had been absent twenty-four years, and they found that their
relatives had given them up for dead and did not recognize them. It was
like the old story of Ulysses, who, when he returned to his native
Ithaca after his wanderings, was recognized by nobody. The Polos proved
the truth of what they said by showing the great treasures which they
had sewed into the dresses of coarse stuff of a Tartar pattern which
they wore. They displayed jewels of the greatest value, diamonds,
emeralds, rubies, and sapphires.
[Illustration: MAP OF MARCO POLO'S TRAVELS
The known world is in white, the undiscovered in black, and that first
described by Marco Polo is dotted]
WHAT MARCO POLO TOLD. In the account Marco Polo wrote of his
travels and of the countries he had visited he described a wonderful
palace of the Great Emperor. Its walls were covered with gold and
silver, the dining hall seated six thousand people, and its ceiling was
inlaid with gold. This palace seemed to Marco Polo so large, so rich,
and so beautiful that no man on earth could design anything to equal it.
The robes of the emperor and his twelve thousand nobles and knights were
of silk and beaten gold, each having a girdle of gold decorated with
precious stones.
Marco Polo told of great cities in China where men traded in the costly
wares of the East, and where silk was abundant and cheap. He described
from hearsay Japan as an island fifteen hundred miles from the mainland.
Its people, he said, were white, civilized, and wondrously rich. The
palace of the emperor of Japan was roofed with gold, its pavements and
floors were of solid gold, laid in plates two fingers thick.
REASONS FOR FINDING A SEA ROUTE TO THE EAST. Tales of such great
wealth made Europeans more eager than ever to reach the East. Marco Polo
had shown that it was possible to sail past India, through the islands,
to the eastern coast of Asia. When printing was invented his account was
printed, and the copy of that book which Columbus owned is still
preserved. Upon its margins Columbus wrote his own opinions about
geography.
Other travelers besides the Polos returned with similar tales of the
East. Soon, however, all chance to go there by way of the land was lost,
because the Mongol emperors were driven out of China and the new rulers
would not permit Europeans to enter the country. The ordinary caravan
routes to the East were also closed not long afterwards. In 1453 the
Turks captured Constantinople, drove away the Italian merchants, and
prevented European sailors from reaching the Black Sea. Fifty years
later the Turks seized Egypt and closed that route also. Fortunately
before this happened a better route had been discovered.
THE PORTUGUESE SAILORS. During the Middle Ages the Portuguese princes
fought to recover Portugal from the Moors. When this was done they were
eager to cross the straits and attack the Moors in Africa. Prince Henry
of Portugal made an expedition to Africa and returned with the desire to
know more about the coast south of the point beyond which European
sailors dared not venture. Sailors were afraid of being lost in the Sea
of Darkness or killed by the heat of the boiling tropics.
[Illustration: DANGERS OF THE "SEA OF DARKNESS" From an old
picture]
From his love of exploring the seas Prince Henry has been called "The
Navigator." He took up his residence on a lonely promontory in southern
Portugal, and gathered about him learned men of all peoples, Arabian and
Jewish mathematicians, and Italian mapmakers. Captains trained in this
new school of seamanship were sent into the southern seas. Each was to
sail farther down the western coast of Africa than other captains had
gone. Before Prince Henry died in 1460 his captains had passed Cape
Verde, and ten years later they crossed the equator without suffering
the fate which men had once feared. But they were discouraged when they
found that beyond the Gulf of Guinea the coast turned southward again,
for they had hoped to sail eastward to Asia.
[Illustration: THE PORTUGUESE ROUTE TO INDIA
The broken lines show the old trade routes to the East. The solid line
shows the new Portuguese route]
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE DISCOVERED. At last in 1487 the end of what
seemed to be an endless coast was reached. The fortunate captain who
accomplished this was Bartholomew Diaz, who came of a family of daring
seamen. He had been sailing southward along the coast for nearly eight
months, when a northerly gale drove him before it for thirteen days. The
weather cleared and Diaz turned eastward to find the coast. As he did
not see land he turned northward and soon discovered land to the west.
This showed that he had passed the southern point of Africa. His crew
were unwilling to go farther and he followed the coast around to the
western side again. The southern point he called the Cape of Storms, but
the king of Portugal, when the voyagers returned, named it the Cape of
Good Hope, for now he knew that an expedition could be sent directly to
the Indies.
Diaz had sailed thirteen thousand miles, and his voyage was the most
wonderful that Europeans had ever heard about.
THE SEA ROUTE TO INDIA. Eleven years later the Portuguese king sent
Vasco da Gama, another captain, to attempt to reach the coast of India
by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope which Diaz had discovered. Da
Gama was successful and landed at Calicut on the south-western coast of
India. He returned to Portugal in 1499, and his cargo was worth sixty
times the cost of the voyage. This was the beginning of a trade with the
East which enriched Portugal and especially the merchants of Lisbon.
QUESTIONS
1. What dangers threatened traders in the Middle Ages who traveled
by sea or land? What was a fair?
2. What products were brought from the East? By what routes? Point
these out on a map. What rival trading cities were in Italy? How did
the Venetians get their wares to London?
3. Who were the Crusaders? Why did they attack the Mohammedans? What
did the Venetian traders gain by these wars? Describe a large
Venetian ship of this time.
4. When was the compass invented? Why was it dangerous to sail great
seas and oceans without a compass? Tell how an astrolabe was made.
5. What at first kept men from attempting to sail to eastern Asia?
Who was Marco Polo? Describe his adventures. How did he return to
Venice? How did people learn about the lands he had visited?
6. Why after 1453 was it necessary to find a sea route to Asia? What
did Prince Henry the Navigator succeed in doing? How was the Cape of
Good Hope discovered? Who went with Diaz on this voyage?
7. Who first sailed to India by the Cape of Good Hope? Was the
voyage profitable? What city was made rich by the new trade?
EXERCISES
1. Find from a map in the geography how many miles goods must have
been carried to reach Venice from Persia, India, the Moluccas, or
China. How far is it from Venice by sea to Bruges or London?
2. Where and how do we now obtain cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves?
3. What line of emperors has been recently ruling over China? Where
has been their capital? Find out about the present Mongols. Collect
pictures of China and Japan.
4. Read a longer account of Marco Polo.
5. Study the geography of Portugal. Collect pictures of Portugal.
Find out if many Portuguese are living in the United States.
REVIEW
_Steps Towards the Discovery of America_
Greek colonies in Italy, Gaul, and Spain.
Roman conquest of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.
Viking voyages to Greenland and Vinland.
Venetian trade in spices with the East, and Venetian voyages to
London and Bruges.
Marco Polo's travels in China and the East.
Portuguese voyages down the coast of Africa and about the Cape of
Good Hope.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Six years before Vasco da Gama made his
famous voyage to India around Africa and opened a new trade route for
the Portuguese merchants, another seaman had formed and carried out a
much bolder plan. This was Christopher Columbus, and his plan was to
sail directly west from Europe into the unknown ocean in search of new
islands and the coast of Asia. Columbus, who was a native of Genoa in
Italy, had followed his younger brother to Portugal. Both were probably
led there by the fame of Prince Henry's explorations.
The brothers became very skilful in making maps and charts for the
Portuguese. They also frequently sailed with them on their expeditions
along the coast of Africa. All the early associations of Columbus were
with men interested in voyages of discovery, and particularly with those
engaged in the daring search for a sea route to India.
HOW COLUMBUS FORMED HIS PLAN. Columbus gathered all the information
on geography which he could from ancient writers and from modern
discoverers. Many of them believed that the world was shaped like a
ball. If such were its shape, Columbus reasoned, why might not a ship
sail around it from east to west? Or, better, why not sail directly west
to India, and perhaps find many wonderful islands between Europe and
Asia? His imagination was also fired by Marco Polo's description of the
marvelous riches of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. But the idea of
going directly west into the midst of the unknown and seemingly
boundless waste of water, and on and on to Asia, appeared to most men of
the fifteenth century to be madness.
[Illustration: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS The oldest known picture of
Columbus, in the National Library, Madrid]
HIS NOTION OF THE DISTANCE TO ASIA. Columbus made two fortunate
errors in reckoning the distance to the Indies. He imagined that Asia
extended much farther eastward than it actually does, making it nearer
Europe, and estimated the earth to be smaller than it is. His figures
placed Japan less than 3,000 miles west of the Canary Islands, instead
of the 12,000 miles which is the real distance. He accordingly thought
Japan would be found about where Mexico or Florida is situated.
HOW HE SECURED HELP. Even so, many years passed before Columbus was
able to undertake a voyage. He was too poor himself, and needed the help
of some government to fit out such an expedition. He may have tried to
get his native city, Genoa, to help him. There is such a story. If he
did, it was without success. He tried to obtain the help of Portugal,
where he lived a long time, and whose princes were greatly interested in
the discovery of new trade routes. His brother visited England in the
same cause. Neither of these countries, however, was willing to
undertake this expensive and doubtful enterprise.
The King and Queen of Spain, to whom Columbus turned, kept him waiting
many years for an answer. They thought that they had more important work
in hand. There was another king in Spain at the time, the king of the
Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella, the Christian king and queen, were trying
to conquer the Moors, and thus to end the struggle between Christians
and Mohammedans for the possession of Spain, which had lasted nearly
eight centuries. This war required all the strength and revenue
of Spain.
Fortunately, just as Columbus was becoming thoroughly discouraged, the
war with the Moors came to an end. Granada, the seat of their former
power, was finally taken in January, 1492. Now was a good time to ask
favors of the sovereigns of Spain, and to plan large enterprises for the
future. Powerful friends aided Columbus to renew his petition, and Queen
Isabella was persuaded to promise him all the help that he needed.
THE SHIPS OF COLUMBUS. Three ships, or caravels as they were
called, were fitted out. The _Santa Maria_ was the largest of the three,
but it was not much larger than the small sailing yachts which we see
to-day. It was about ninety feet long by twenty feet broad, and had a
single deck. This was Columbus's principal ship or flagship. The second
caravel, the _Pinta_, was much swifter, built high at the prow and
stern, and furnished with a forecastle for the crew and a cabin for the
officers, but without a deck in the center. The third and smallest
caravel, called the _Niña_, the Spanish word for baby, was built much
like the _Pinta_. Ninety persons made up the three crews.
[Illustration: COLUMBUS'S IDEAS OF THE ATLANTIC The shaded portions
represent the land as Columbus expected to find it. The light outline
of the Americas shows the actual position of the land as he found it.]
The ships were the usual size of those which coasted along the shores
of Europe in the fifteenth century. Expeditions had never gone far out
into the ocean. Columbus preferred the smaller vessels in a voyage of
discovery, because they would be able to run close to the shores and
into the smaller harbors and up the rivers.
BEGINNING OF THE VOYAGE. The expedition set sail from Palos in
Spain, August 3, 1492. It went directly to the Canary Islands. These
were owned by Spain, and were selected by Columbus as the most
convenient starting-point. The little fleet was delayed three weeks at
the islands making repairs. On September 6 Columbus was off again. He
struck due west from the Canaries.
THE TERRORS OF THE VOYAGE. While the little fleet was still in
sight of the Canary Islands a volcanic eruption nearly frightened the
sailors out of their wits. They deemed such an event an omen of evil.
But the expedition had fine weather day after day. Steady, gentle,
easterly winds, the trade winds of the tropics, wafted them slowly
westward. But the timid sailors began to wonder how they would ever be
able to return against winds which seemed never to change from the east.
Then they came to an immense field of seaweed, larger in area than the
whole of Spain. This terrified the sailors, who feared they might be
driven on hidden rocks or be engulfed in quicksands. They imagined, too,
that great sea-monsters were lurking beyond the seaweed waiting to
devour them.
[Illustration: A CARAVEL OF COLUMBUS After the reconstructed
model exhibited at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893]
THE FIRST SIGNS OF A NEW LAND. In spite of fears and complaints,
and threats of resistance, Columbus kept a westward course for more than
four weeks. Then as he began to see so many birds flying to the
southwest, he concluded that land must be nearer in that direction. He
had heard that most of the islands held by the Portuguese were
discovered by following the flight of birds. So on October 7 the
westward course was changed to one slightly southwest.
From this time on the signs of land grew frequent. Floating branches,
occasionally covered with berries, pieces of wood, bits of cane, were
encouraging signs. Birds like ducks and sandpipers became common sights.
The Queen had promised a small pension to the one who should first see
land. Columbus had offered to give a silken doublet in addition. With
what eagerness the sailors must have kept on the lookout!
THE GREAT DISCOVERY. At last as the fleet was sailing onward in the
bright moonlight Columbus saw a light moving as if carried by hand along
a shore. A few hours later, about two o'clock on the morning of October
12, a sailor on the _Pinta_ saw land distinctly, and soon all beheld, a
few miles away, a long, low beach. The vessels hove to and waited for
daylight. Early the same day, Friday, October 12, 1492, they approached
the land, which proved to be a small island. Columbus named it San
Salvador, which means Holy Saviour. We do not know which one of the
Bahama islands he first saw, but we believe it was the one now called
Watling Island. Columbus went ashore with the royal standard and banners
flying to take possession of the land in the name of King Ferdinand and
Queen Isabella.
WHERE COLUMBUS THOUGHT HE WAS. The astonished inhabitants of the
island soon gathered to see the strange sight--the landing of white men
in the West Indies. They looked upon the ships as sea-monsters, and the
white men as gods. Nor was Columbus less puzzled by what he saw. The
people were a strange race--cinnamon colored, naked, greased, and
painted to suit each one's fancy. They had only the rudest means of
self-defense, and were almost as poor as the parrots that chattered in
the trees above them. Such savages bore little resemblance to the people
whom Marco Polo said inhabited the Spice Islands.
Columbus thought that he had reached some outlying island not far from
Japan. A cruise of a few days among the Bahamas satisfied him that he
was in the ocean near the coast of Asia, for had not Marco Polo
described it as studded with thousands of spice-bearing islands? He had
not found any spices, but the air was full of fragrance and the trees
and herbs were strange in appearance. Of course if the islands were the
Indies, the people must be Indians. Columbus called them Indians, and
this name clung to the red men, although their islands were not the
true Indies.
[Illustration: WATLING ISLAND, WHERE COLUMBUS FIRST LANDED]
THE SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN EAST. Columbus thought that the natives
meant to tell him in their sign language of a great land to the south
where gold abounded. He set off in search of this, and came upon a land
the natives called Cuba. Its large size convinced him that he had at
last found the Asiatic mainland, and he sent two messengers, one a Jew
knowing many languages, in search of the Emperor of China. They found
neither cities nor kingdoms, neither gold nor spices. This was a great
disappointment to Columbus, but he patiently kept up his search for the
riches which he expected to find.
THE MISFORTUNES OF COLUMBUS. While on the coast of Cuba, Pinzon,
the commander of the _Pinta_, deserted him. Pinzon, whose ship was
swifter than the others, probably wished to be the first to get home, in
order to tell a story which would gain him the credit of the discovery
of the Indies. A few days later Columbus discovered a large island which
the natives called Hayti, and which he called Española or "Spanish
Land." At every island he searched for the spices and gold which Marco
Polo had given him reason to expect. In a storm off Española Columbus's
own ship, the _Santa Maria_, was totally wrecked. Such disasters
convinced him that it was high time to return to Spain with the news of
his discovery.
PREPARATIONS FOR RETURN TO SPAIN. As there was not room for both
crews on the tiny _Niña_, his one remaining ship, it became necessary to
leave about forty sailors in Española. A fort was built, and supplies
were left for a year. Columbus with the rest set off on the return to
Spain. Ten Indians were captured and taken with them to show to his
friends in Europe. Besides, Columbus hoped that they would learn the
language of Spain, and carry Christianity back to their people.
THE SEARCH FOR CHINA RENEWED. There was rejoicing in Palos when the
voyagers returned. Great honors were bestowed upon Columbus. It was now
easy to get men and money for another voyage. In September, 1493,
Columbus started to return to his islands, this time with seventeen
ships and fifteen hundred men, all confident that they would soon see
the marble palaces of China, and secure a share in the wealth of the
Spice Islands. No one yet realized that a new world--two great
continents--lay between them and their coveted goal in Asia. Columbus
went directly to Española, where he found that his colony of the
previous year had been murdered by the Indians. A new settlement was
quickly started. A little town called Isabella was built, with a fort, a
church, a market place, public granary, and dwelling-houses. Isabella
was the first real settlement in the New World.
[Illustration: MAP OF LANDS DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS]
OTHER VOYAGES TO THE NEW WORLD. Columbus made two other voyages. He
continued to search for the coast of Asia, which he believed to be near.
He made a third voyage from Spain to the West Indies in 1498. He sailed
farther south, and came upon the mainland which later was called South
America. A fourth expedition in 1502 touched on the coast that we call
Central America. He died soon after this voyage, still believing that he
had discovered a new route to the Indies and new lands on the coast
of Asia.
THE SAD END OF COLUMBUS'S LIFE. The close of his life was a sad
one. The lands he had found did not yield the riches which he had
expected. The colonists whom he had sent out to the islands had
rebelled, and jealous enemies had accused him falsely before the king
and queen of misgovernment in his territories. Once his opponents had
him carried to Spain chained like a common prisoner. He was given his
liberty on reaching Spain, but the people had become prejudiced
against him.
Ferdinand, the son of Columbus, tells us that as he and his brother
Diego, who were pages in the queen's service, happened to pass a crowd
of his father's enemies, the latter greeted them with hoots: "There go
the sons of the Admiral of Mosquitoland, the man who has discovered a
land of vanity and deceit, the grave of Spanish gentlemen." Hardships
and disappointments broke down the great discoverer, and he died
neglected and almost forgotten by the people of Spain.
[Illustration: THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT AT GENOA]
QUESTIONS
1. What plan did Columbus form? Why was it bolder than the plan Diaz
had carried out in 1487, or even than that Da Gama carried out a few
years later? Why did men like Columbus and Diaz desire to find a sea
route to India? Had anybody be
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