The Martyrdom of Man - Winwood Reade (golden son ebook txt) 📗
- Author: Winwood Reade
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prosperity of his empire. What was the loss of a few thousand slaves, and
of a few hundred Phoenician and Egyptian and Ionian ships, to him?
Indirectly, indeed, it decided the fate of Persia by developing the power
of the Greeks, but ruined in any case that empire must have been, like all
others of its kind. The causes of its fall must be sought for within and not
without. In the natural course of events it would have become the prey of
some people like the Parthian highlanders or the wandering Turks. The
Greek wars had this result; the empire was conquered at an earlier period
than would otherwise have been the case, and it was conquered by a
European instead of an Asiatic power.
There is no problem in history so interesting as the unparalleled
development of Greece. How was it that so small a country could exert
so remarkable an influence on the course of events and on the intellectual
progress of mankind? The Greeks, as the science of language clearly
proves, belonged to the same race as the Persians themselves. Many
centuries before history begins a people migrated from the highlands of
Central Asia and overspread Europe on the one side, on the other side
Hindustan. Celts and Germans, Russians and Poles, Romans and Greeks,
Persians and Hindus, all sprang from the loins of a shepherd tribe
inhabiting the tableland of the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes, and are
quite distinct from the Assyrians, the Arabs, and Phoenicians, whose
ancestors descended into the plains of Western Asia from the tableland of
the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates. It is also inferred from the
evidence of language that at some remote period the Egyptians belonged
to the same stock as the mountaineers of Armenia, the Chinese to the
same stock as the highlanders of Central Asia, and that at a period still
more remote the Turanian or Chinese Tartar, the Aryan or Indo-European, and the Semitic races and languages were one. Upon this last
point philologists are not agreed, though the balance of authority is in
favour of the view expressed. But as regards the descent of the English
and Hindus from the same tribe of Asiatic mountaineers, that is now as
much a fact of history as the common descent of the English and the
Normans from the same race of pirates on the Baltic shores. The Celts
migrated first into Europe; they were followed by the Graeco-Italian
people, and then by the German-Slavonians, the Persians and Hindus
remaining longest in their primeval homes. The great difference between
the various breeds of the Indo-European race is partly due to their
intermixture with the natives of the countries which they colonised and
conquered. In India the Aryans found a black race which yet exist in the
hills and jungles of that country, and who yet speak languages of their
own which have nothing in common with the noble Sanskrit. Europe was
inhabited by a people of Tartar origin who still exist as the Basques of the
Pyrenees, and as the Finns and Lapps of Scandinavia. It is probable that
these people also were intruders of comparatively recent date, and that a
yet more primeval race existed on the gloomy banks of the Danube and
the Rhine, in huts built on stakes in the shallow waters of the Swiss lakes,
and in the mountain caverns of France and Spain. The Aryans, who
migrated into India, certainly intermarried with the blacks, and there can
be no reasonable doubt that the Celts who first migrated into Europe took
the wives as well as the lands of the natives. The aborigines were
therefore largely absorbed by the Celts, to the detriment of that race,
before the arrival of the Germans, whose blood remained comparatively
pure.
We may freely use the doctrine of intermarriage to explain the difference
in colour between the sepoy and his officer. We may apply it—though
with less confidence—to explain the difference in character and aspect
between the Irish and the English, but we do not think that the doctrine
will help us much towards expounding the genius of Greece. And if the
superiority of that people was not dependent in any way on race
distinction, inherent or acquired, it must have been in some way
connected with locality and other incidents of life.
A glance at the map is sufficient to explain how it was that Greece
became civilised before the other European lands. It is nearest to those
countries in which civilisation first arose. It is the borderland of East
and West. The western coast of Asia and the eastern coast of Greece lie
side by side; the sea between them is narrow, with the islands like
stepping-stones across a brook. On the other hand, a mountain wall
extends in the form of an arc from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and shuts
off Europe from Greece, which is thus compelled to grow towards Asia
as a tree grows towards the light. Its coasts are indented in a peculiar
manner by the sea. Deep bays and snug coves, forming hospitable ports,
abound. The character of the Aegean is mild and humane; its atmosphere
is clear and favourable for those who navigate by the eye from island to
island and from point to point. The purple shell-fish, so much in request
with the Phoenicians for their manufactures, was found upon the coasts of
Greece. A trade was opened up between the two lands, and with trade
there came arithmetic and letters to assist the trade, and from these a
desire on the part of the Greeks for more luxury and more knowledge.
All this was natural enough. But how was it that whatever came into the
hands of the Greeks was used merely as raw material—that whatever they
touched was transmuted into gold? How was it that Asia was only their
dame’s school, and that they discovered the higher branches of
knowledge for themselves? How was it that they who were taught by the
Babylonians to divide the day into twelve hours afterwards exalted
astronomy to the rank of an exact science? How was it that they who
received from Egypt the canon of proportions and the first ideas of the
portraiture of the human form, afterwards soared into the regions of the
ideal, and created in marble a beauty more exquisite than can be found on
earth—a vision, as it were, of some unknown yet not unimagined world?
The mountains of Greece are disposed in a peculiar manner, so as to
enclose extensive tracts of land which assume the appearance of large
basins or circular hollows, level as the ocean and consisting of rich
alluvial soil through which rise steep insulated rocks. The plain subsisted
a numerous population; the rock became the Acropolis or citadel of the
chief town, and the mountains were barriers against invasion. Other
districts were parcelled out by water in the same manner; their frontiers
were swift streaming rivers or estuaries of the sea. Each of these cantons
became an independent city-state, and the natives of each canton became
warmly attached to their fatherland. Nature had given them ramparts
which they knew how to use. They defended with obstinacy the river and
the pass; if those were forced the citadel became a place of refuge and
resistance, and if the worst came to the worst they could escape to
inaccessible mountain caves.
Each of these states possessed a constitution of its own, and each was
home-made and differed slightly from the rest. It may be imagined what
a variety of ideas must have risen in the process of their manufacture.
The laws were debated in a general assembly of the citizens; each
community within itself was full of intellectual activity.
Self-development and independence are too often accompanied by
isolation, and nations, like individuals, become torpid when they retire
from the world. But this was not the case with Greece. Though its
people were divided into separate states, they all spoke the same language
and worshipped the same gods, and there existed certain institutions
which at appointed times assembled them together as a nation.
Greece is a country which possesses the most extraordinary climate in the
world. Within two degrees of latitude it ranges from the beech to the
palm. In the morning the traveller may be shivering in a snow-storm, and
viewing a winter landscape of naked trees; in the afternoon he may be
sweltering beneath a tropical sun, with oleanders blooming around him
and oranges shining in the green foliage like balls of gold. From this
variety of climate resulted a variety of produce which stimulated the
natives to barter and exchange. A central spot was chosen as the market-place, and it was made, for the common protection, a sanctuary of Apollo.
The people, when they met for the purposes of trade, performed at the
same time religious rites, and also amused themselves, in the rude manner
of the age, with boxing, wrestling, running races, and throwing the spear;
or they listened to the minstrels, who sang the ballads of ancient times,
and to the prophets or inspired politicians, who chanted predictions in
hexameters. That sanctuary became in time the famous oracle of Delphi,
and those sports expanded into the Olympian Games. To the great fair
came Greeks from all parts of the land, and when chariot races were
introduced it became necessary to make good roads from state to state,
and to build bridges across the streams. The administration of the
sanctuary, the laws and regulations of the games, and the management of
the public fund subscribed for the expenses of the fair, could only be
arranged by means of a national council composed of deputies from all
the states. This congress was called the Amphictyonic League, which,
soon extending its powers, enacted national laws, and as a supreme court
of arbitration decided all questions that arose between state and state.
At Olympia the inhabitants of the coast displayed the scarlet cloth and the
rich trinkets which they had obtained from Phoenician ships. At Olympia
those who had been kidnapped into slavery, and had afterwards been
ransomed by their friends at home, related to an eager crowd the wonders
which they had seen in the enchanted regions of the East.
And then throughout all Greece there was an inward stirring and a
hankering after the unknown, and a desire to achieve great deeds. It
began with the expedition of Jason—an exploring voyage to the Black
Sea; it culminated in the siege of Troy.
In such countries as the Grecian states, where the area is small, the
community flourishing, and the frontier inexorably defined, the law of
population operates with unusual force. The mountain walls of the Greek
cantons, like the deserts which surrounded Egypt, not only kept out the
enemy but also kept in the natives; they were not only fortresses but
prisons. In order to exist, the Greeks were obliged to cultivate every inch
of soil. But when this had been done the population still continued to
increase, and now the land could no longer be increased. In those early
days they had no manufactures, mines, or foreign commerce by means of
which they could supply themselves, as we do, with food from other
lands. In such an emergency the government, if it acts at all, has only two
methods to pursue. It must either strangle or bleed the population; it must
organise infanticide or emigration.
The first method was practised to some extent, but happily the last was
now within their power. The Trojan war had made them acquainted with
the Asiatic coast, and overcrowded states began to send forth colonies by
public act. The emigrants consisted chiefly, as may be supposed, of the
poor, the dangerous, and the discontented classes. They took with them
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