The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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Philosophers, taking with them a venture of oil to pay expenses, could
now visit the learned countries of the East with more profit than had
previously been the case. Since that country was deprived of its
independence, the priests were inclined to encourage the cultivated
curiosity of their new scholars.
Egypt from the earliest times had been the university of Greece. It had
been visited, according to tradition, by Orpheus and Homer: there Solon
had studied law-making, there the rules and principles of the Pythagorean
order had been obtained, there Thales had taken lessons in geometry,
there Democritus had laughed and Xenophanes had sneered. And now
every intellectual Greek made the voyage to that country; it was regarded
as a part of education, as a pilgrimage to the cradle-land of their
mythology. To us Egypt is a land of surpassing interest, but nevertheless
merely a charnel-house, a museum, a valley of ruins and dry bones. The
Greeks saw it alive. They saw with their own eyes the solemn and absurd
rites of the templeβthe cat solemnly enthroned, the tame crocodiles
being fed, ibis mummies being packed up in red jars, scribes carving the
animal language upon the granite. They wandered in the mazes of the
Labyrinth: they gazed on the mighty Sphinx couched on the yellow sands
with a temple between its paws: they entered the great hall of Carnac,
filled with columns like a forest and paved with acres of solid stone. In
that country Herodotus resided several years and took notes on his
wooden tablets of everything that he saw, ascertained the existence of the
Niger, made inquiries about the sources of the Nile, collated the traditions
of the priests of Memphis with those of Thebes. To Egypt came the
divine Plato, and drank long and deeply of its ancient lore. The house in
which he lived at Heliopolis was afterwards shown to travellersβit was
one of the sights of Egypt in Straboβs day. There are some who ascribe
the whole civilisation of Greece, and the rapid growth of Greek literature,
to the free trade which existed between the two lands. Greece imported
all its paper from Egypt, and without paper there would have been few
books. The skins of animals were too rare, and their preparation too
expensive, to permit the growth of a literature for the people.
Gradually the Greeks become dispersed over the whole Asiatic world,
and such was the influence of their superiority that countries in which
they had no political power adopted much of their culture and their
manners. They surpassed the inhabitants of Asia as much in the arts of
war as in those of peace. They served as mercenaries in every land;
wherever the kettledrum was beaten they assembled in crowds.
It soon became evident to keen observers that the Greeks were destined to
inherit the Persian world. That vast empire was beginning to decay. The
character of the ruling people had completely changed. It is said that the
Lombards of the fourth generation were terrified when they looked at the
portraits of their savage ancestors who, with their hair shaved behind and
hanging down over their mouths in front, had issued from the dark forests
of Central Europe, and had streamed down from the Alps upon the green
Italian plains. The Persians soon ceased to be the rude and simple
mountaineers who had scratched their heads with wonder at the sight of a
silk dress, and who had been unable to understand the object of changing
one thing for another. It was remarked that no people adopted more
readily the customs of other nations. Whenever they heard of a new
luxury they made it their own. They soon became distinguished for that
exquisite and refined politeness which they retain at the present day; their
language cast off its guttural sounds and became melodious to the ear.
Time went on, and their old virtues entirely departed. They made use of
gloves and umbrellas when they walked out in the sun; they no longer
hunted except in battues, slaughtering without danger or fatigue the lean,
mangy creatures of the parks. They painted their faces and pencilled their
eyebrows and wore bracelets and collars, and dined on a variety of
entrees, tasting a little here and a little there, drank deep, yawned half the
day in their harems, and had valets de chambre to help them out of bed.
Their actions were like water, and their words were like the wind. Once a
Persianβs right hand had been a pledge which was never broken; now no
one could rely on his most solemn oath.
A country in which polygamy prevails can never enjoy a well-ordered
constitution. There is always an uncertainty about succession. The
kingdom does not descend by rule to the eldest son, but to the son of the
favourite wife; it is not determined beforehand by a national law, constant
and unchangeable, given forth from the throne and ratified by the estates;
it may be decided suddenly and at any moment in that hour when men are
weak and yielding, women sovereign and strongβwhen right is often
strangled by a fond embrace and reason kissed to sleep by rosy lips. The
fatal βYesβ! is uttered and cannot be revoked. The heir is appointed and
an injustice has been done. But the rival mother has yet a hopeβthe
appointed heir may die. Then the seraglio becomes a nursery of treason;
the harem administration is stirred by dark whispers; the cabinet of
women and eunuchs is cajoled and bribed. A crime is committed and is
revenged. The whole palace smells of blood. The king trembles on his
throne. He himself is never safe; he is always encircled by soldiers; he
never sleeps twice in the same place; his dinner is served in sealed trays;
a man stands at his left hand who tastes from the cup before he dares to
raise it to his lips.
The satrap form of government is far superior to that of vassal kings. As
long as the system of inspection is kept up there is no comparison
between the two. But if once the satrapies are allowed to become
hereditary there is no difference between the two. In the latter days of the
Persian empire the satraps were no longer supervised by royal visitors
and clerks of the accounts. Each of these viceroys had his bodyguard of
Persians and his army of mercenary Greeks. Sometimes they fought
against each other; sometimes they even contested for the throne. As for
the subject nations, they were by no means idle; revolts broke out in all
directions. Egypt enjoyed a long interlude of independence, though
afterwards she was again reduced to servitude. The Indians appear to
have shaken themselves free, and to have attained the position of allies.
Many provinces still recognised the emperor as their suzerain and lord,
but did not pay him any tribute. When he travelled from Susa to
Persepolis he had to go through a rocky pass where he paid a toll. The
King of Persia could not enter Persia proper without buying the
permission of a little shepherd tribe.
A remarkable event now occurred. A pretender to the throne hired a
Greek army, led it to Babylon, and defeated the Great King at the gates of
his palace. The empire was won, but the pretender had fallen in the
battle; his Persian adherents went over to the other side; the Greeks were
left without a commander and without a cause. They were in the heart of
Asia, cut off from their home by swift streaming rivers and burning plains
of sand. They were only then thousand strong, yet in spite of their
desperate condition they cut their way back to the sea. That glorious
victory, that still more glorious retreat, exposed the true state of affairs to
public view, and it became known all over Greece that the Persian empire
could be overcome.
But Greece unhappily was subject to vices and abuses of its own, and was
not in a position to take advantage of the weakness of its neighbour.
The intellectual achievements of the Greeks have been magnificently
praised. And when we consider what the world was when they found it,
and what it was when they left it, when we review their productions in
connection with the time and the circumstances under which they were
composed, we are forced to acknowledge that it would be difficult to
exaggerate their excellence. But the splendour of their just renown must
not blind us to their moral defects, and to their exceeding narrowness as
politicians.
In the arts and letters they were one nation, and their jealousy of one
another only served to stimulate their inventiveness and industry. But in
politics this envious spirit had a very different effect; it divided them, it
weakened them; the Ionian cities were enslaved again and again because
they could not combine. And one reason of their not being able to
combine was this: they never trusted one another. It was their inveterate
dishonesty, their want of faith, their disregards for the sanctity of oaths,
their hankering after money, which had much to do with their disunion
even in the face of danger. There are some who desire to persuade us
that the Greeks whom the Romans described were entirely a different
race from the Greeks of the Persian wars. But an unprejudiced study of
original authorities gives no support to such a theory. From the pirates to
the orators, from the heroic and treacherous Ulysses to the patriotic and
venal Demosthenes, we find almost all their best men tainted with the
same disease. Polybius complains that the Greek statesmen would never
keep their hands out of the till. In Xenophonβs Retreat of the Ten
Thousand a little banter is exchanged between a Spartan and an Athenian
which illustrates the state of public opinion in Greece. They have come
to a country where it is necessary to rob the natives in order to provide
themselves with food. The Athenian says that, as the Spartans are taught
to steal, now is the time for them to show that they have profited by their
education. The Spartan replies that the Athenians will no doubt be able to
do their share, as the Athenians appoint their best men to govern the state,
and their best men are invariably thieves. The same kind of pleasantry,
no doubt, goes on in Greece at the present day; to rob a foreigner in the
mountains, or to filch the money from the public chest, are looked upon
in that country as βlittle affairsβ which are not disgraceful so long as they
are not found out. But the modern Greeks are degenerate in every way.
The ancient Greeks surpassed them not only in sculpture and in
metaphysics but also in duplicity. With their fine phrases and rhetorical
expressions, they have even swindled history, and obtained a vast amount
of admiration under false pretences.
The narrowness of the Greeks was not less strongly marked. When
Athens obtained the supremacy a wise and just policy might have formed
the Greeks into a nation. But Pericles had no sympathies beyond the city
walls: he was a good Athenian but a bad Greek. He removed the federal
treasury from Delphi to Athens, where it was speedily emptied on the
public works. Since Athens had now become the university and capital
of Greece, it appears not unjust that it should have been beautiful at the
expense of Greece. But it must be remembered that the Athenians
considered themselves the only pure Greeks, and no Athenian was
allowed to marry a Greek who was not also an Athenian. Heavy taxes
were laid on the allies, and were not spent entirely on works of art.
Besides the money that was purloined by government officials, large
sums
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