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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of the roving tribes were broken in; the others were driven into the desert
or into wild Morocco. A line of fortified posts and block-houses
protected the cultivated land. The desire to obtain red cloth and amber
and blue beads secured the allegiance of many unconquerable desert
tribes, and by their means, although the camel had not yet been
introduced, a trade was opened up between Carthage and Timbuktu.
Negro slaves, bearing tusks of ivory on their shoulders and tied to one
another so as to form a chain of flesh and blood, were driven across the
terrible desertβa caravan of death, the route of which was marked by
bones bleaching in the sun. Gold dust also was brought over from those
regions of the Niger, and the Carthaginian traders reached the same
land by sea. For they were not content, like the Tyrians, to trade only
on the Morocco coast as far as Mogadore. By good fortune there
has been preserved the log-book of an expedition which sailed to the
wood-covered shores of Guinea; saw the hills covered with fire, as they
always are in the dry season when the grass is being burnt; heard the
music of the natives in the night; and brought home the skins of three
chimpanzees which they probably killed near Sierra Leone.
When Phoenicia died, Carthage inherited its settlements on the coasts of
Sicily and Spain and on the adjoining isles. Not only were these islands
valuable possessions in themselvesβMalta as a cotton plantation, Elba as
an iron mine, Majorca and Minorca as a recruiting ground for slingers;
they wee also useful as naval stations to preserve the monopoly of the
Western waters.
The foreign policy of Carthage was very different from that of the
motherland. The Phoenicians had maintained an army of mercenaries,
but had used them only to protect their country from the robber kings of
Damascus and Jerusalem. They had many ships of war, but had used
them only to convoy their round-bellied ships of trade and to keep off the
attacks of the Greek and Etruscan pirates. Their settlements were merely
fortified factories; they made no attempt to reduce the natives of the land.
If their settlements grew into colonies they let them go. But Carthage
founded many colonies and never lost a single one. Situated among
them, and possessing a large fleet, she was able both to punish and
protect. She defended them in time of war; she controlled them in time of
peace.
A policy of concession had not saved the Phoenicians from the Greeks,
and now these same Greeks were settling in the West and displaying
immense activity. The Carthaginians saw that they must resist or be
ruined, and they went to war as a matter of business. They first put down
the Etruscan rovers, in which undertaking they were assisted by the
events which occurred on the Italian main. They next put a stop to the
spread of the Greek power in Africa itself.
Half-way between Algeria and Egypt, in the midst of the dividing sea of
sand, is a coast oasis formed by a tableland of sufficient height to
condense the vapours which float over from the sea, and to chill them into
rain. There was a hole in the sky above it, as the natives used to say. To
this island-tract came a band of Greeks directed thither by the oracle at
Delphi, where geography was studied as a part of the system. They
established a city and called it Cyrene.
The land was remarkably fertile, and afforded them three harvests in the
course of the year. One was gathered on the coast meadows, which were
watered by the streams that flowed down from the hills; a second on the
hill-sides; a third on the surface of the plateau,* which was about two
thousand feet above the level of the sea. Cyrenaica produced the
silphium, or asafoetida, which, like the balm of Gilead, was one of the
specifics of antiquity, and which is really a medicine of value. It was
found in many parts of the worldβfor instance, in certain districts of
Asia Minor, and on the summit of the Hindu Kush. But the asafoetida of
Cyrene was the most esteemed. Its juice, when dried, was worth its
weight in gold; its leaves fattened cattle and cured them of all diseases.
*(spelt pleateau in the original text)
Some singular pits or chasms existed in the lower part of the Cyrene hills.
Their sides were perpendicular walls of rock: it appeared impossible to
descend to the bottom of the precipice, and yet, when the traveller peeped
over the brink, he saw to his astonishment that the abyss beneath had
been sown with herbs and corn. Hence rose the legend of the Gardens of
the Hesperides.
Cyrene was renowned as the second medical school of the Greek world.
It produced a noted freethinker, who was a companion of Socrates and
the founder of a school. It was also famous for its barbs, which won
more than one prize in the chariot races of the Grecian games. It obtained
the honour of more than one Pindaric ode. But owing to internal
dissension it never became great. It was conquered by Persia, it
submitted to Alexander, and Carthage speedily checked its growth
towards the west by taking the desert which lay between them, and which
it then garrisoned with nomad tribes.
The Carthaginians hitherto had never paid tribute, and they had never
suffered a serious reverse. Alcibiades talked much of invading them
when he had done with Sicily, and the young men of his set were at one
time always drawing plans of Carthage in the dust of the market-place at
Athens; but the Sicilian expedition failed. The affection of the Tyrians
preserved them from Cambyses. Alexander opportunely died. Pyrrhus in
Sicily began to collect ships to sail across, but he who tried to take up
Italy with one hand and Carthage with the other, and who also excited the
enmity of the Sicilian Greeks, was not a very dangerous foe. Agathocles
of Syracuse invaded Africa, but it was the action of a desperate and
defeated man and bore no result.
Sicily was long the battlefield of the Carthaginians, and ultimately proved
their ruin. Its western side belonged to them: its eastern side was held by
a number of independent Greek cities which were often at war with one
another. Of these Syracuse was the most important: its ambition was the
same as that of Carthageβto conquer the whole island, and then to
extend its rule over the flourishing Greek towns on the south Italian coast.
Hence followed wars generation after generation, till at length the
Carthaginians obtained the upper hand. Already they were looking on the
island as their own when a new power stepped upon the scene.
The ancient Tuscans or Etruscans had a language and certain arts peculiar
to themselves, and Northern Italy was occupied by Celtic Gauls. But the
greater part of the peninsula was inhabited by a people akin to the Greeks,
though differing much from them in character, dwelling in city states,
using a form of the Phoenician alphabet, and educating their children in
public schools. The Greek cities on the coast diffused a certain amount of
culture through the land.
A rabble of outlaws and runaway slaves banded together, built a town,
fortified it strongly, and offered it as an asylum to all fugitives. To Rome
fled the over-beaten slave, the thief with his booty, the murdered with
blood-red hands. This city of refuge became a war-townβto use an
African phraseβits citizens alternately fought and farmed; it became the
dread and torment of the neighbourhood. However, it contained no
women, and it was hoped that in course of time the generation of robbers
would die out. The Romans offered their hands and hearts to the
daughters of a neighbouring Sabine city. The Sabines declined, and told
them that they had better make their city an asylum for runaway women.
The Romans took the Sabine girls by force; a war ensued, but the
relationship had been established; the women reconciled their fathers to
their husbands, and the tribes were united in the same city.
The hospitality which Rome had offered in its early days in order to
sustain its life became a custom and a policy. The Romans possessed the
art of converting their conquered enemies into allies, and this was done
by means of concessions which cities of respectable origin would have
been too proud to make.
Their military career was very different from that of the Persians, who
swept over the continent in a few months. The Romans spent three
centuries in establishing their rule within a circle of a hundred miles
round the city. Whatever they won by the sword they secured by the
plough. After every successful war they demanded a tract of land, and on
this they planted a colony of Roman farmers. The municipal
governments of the conquered cities were left undisturbed. The Romans
aimed to establish, at least in appearance, a federation of states, a United
Italy. At the time of the first Punic War this design had nearly been
accomplished. Wild tribes of Celtic shepherds still roamed over the rich
plains at the foot of the Alps, but the Italian boroughs had acknowledged
the supremacy of Rome. The Greek cities on the southern coast had, a
few years before, called over Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, a soldier of fortune
and the first general of the day. But the legion broke the Macedonian
phalanx, and the broadsword vanquished the Macedonian spear. The
Greek cities were no longer independent except in name. Pyrrhus
returned to Greece, and prophesied of Sicily, as he left its shores, that it
would become the arena of the Punic and the Roman arms.
In the last war that was ever waged between the Syracusans and the
Carthaginians, the former had employed some mercenary troops
belonging to the Mamertines, an Italian tribe. When the war was ended
these soldiers were paid off and began to march home. They passed
through the Greek town of Messina on their road, were hospitably
received by the citizens, and provided with quarters for the night. In the
middle of the night they rose up and massacred the men, married the
widows, and settled down as rulers of Messina, each soldier beneath
another manβs vine and fig-tree. A Roman regiment stationed at
Rhegium, a Greek town on the Italian side of the straits, heard of this
exploit, considered it an excellent idea, and did the same. The Romans
marched upon Rhegium, took it by storm, and executed four hundred of
the soldiers in the Forum. The king of Syracuse, who held the same
position in eastern Sicily as did Rome on the peninsula, marched against
Messina. The Mamertine bandits became alarmed; one party sent to the
Carthaginians for assistance; another party sent to Rome, declaring that
they were kinsmen and desired to enter the Italian league.
The Roman senate rejected this request on account of its βmanifest
absurdity.β They had just punished their soldiers for imitating the
Mamertines; how then could they interfere with the punishment of the
Mamertines? But in Rome the people possessed the sovereign power of
making peace or war. There was a scarcity of money at that time; a raid
on Sicily would yield plunder, and troops were accordingly ordered to
Messina. For the first time Romans went outside Italy-βthe vanguard of
an army which subdued the world. The Carthaginians were already in
Messina: the Romans drove them out, and the war began. The
Syracusans were defeated in the first battle, and then went over to the
Roman side. It became a war between Asiatics and Europeans.
The two great republics were already well acquainted with each other. In
the apartment of
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