The Martyrdom of Man - Winwood Reade (golden son ebook txt) 📗
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works of the preceding ages were edited and arranged, and it was there
that language was first studied for itself, and that lexicons and grammars
were first compiled. It was only in the Museum that anatomists could
sometimes obtain the corpse of a criminal to dissect; elsewhere they were
forced to content themselves with monkeys. There Eratosthenes, the
“Inspector of the Earth,” elevated geography to a science, and Euclid
produced that work which, as Macaulay would say, “every schoolboy
knows.” There the stars were carefully catalogued and mapped, and
chemical experiments were made. Expeditions were sent to Abyssinia to
ascertain the cause of the inundation of the Nile. The Greek intellect had
hitherto despised the realities of life: it had been considered by Plato
unworthy of a mathematician to apply his knowledge to so vulgar a
business as mechanics. But this notion was corrected at Alexandria by
the practical tendencies of Egyptian science. The Suez Canal was
reopened, and Archimedes taught the Alexandrians to apply his famous
screw to the irrigation of their fields. These Egyptian pumps, as they
were then called, were afterwards used by the Romans to pump out the
water from their silver-mines in Spain.
No doubt most of the Museum professors were pitiful “Graeculi”—
narrow-minded pedants such as are always to be found where patronage
exists, parasites of great libraries who spend their lives in learning the
wrong things. No doubt much of the astronomy was astrological, much
of the medicine was magical, much of the geography was mythical, and
much of the chemistry was alchemical—for they had already begun to
attempt the transmutation of metals and to search for the elixir vitae and
the philosopher’s stone. No doubt physics were much too metaphysical,
in spite of the example which Aristotle had given of founding philosophy
on experiment and fact; and the alliance between science and labour,
which is the true secret of modern civilisation, could be but faintly carried
out in a land which was under the fatal ban of slavery. Yet with all this it
should be remembered that from Alexandria came the science which the
Arabs restored to Europe, with some additions, after the Crusades. It was
in Alexandria that were composed those works which enabled Copernicus
to lay the keystone of astronomy, and which emboldened Columbus to
sail across the Western seas.
The history of the nation under the Ptolemies resembles its history under
the Phil-Hellenes, Egypt and Asia were again rivals, and again contested
for the vineyards of Palestine and the forests of Lebanon. Alexander had
organised a brigade of elephants for his army of the Indus, and these
animals were afterwards invariably used by the Greeks in war. Pyrrhus
took them to Italy, and the Carthaginians adopted the idea from him. The
elephants of the Asiatic Greeks were brought from Hindustan. The
Ptolemies, like the Carthaginians, had elephant forests at their own doors.
Shooting-boxes were built on the shores of the Red Sea: elephant hunting
became a royal sport. The younger members of the herd were entrapped
in large pits, or driven into enclosures cunningly contrived; were then
tamed by starvation, shipped off to Egypt, and drilled into beasts of war.
On the field of battle the African elephants, distinguished by their huge,
flapping ears and their convex brows, fought against the elephants of
India, twisting their trunks together and endeavouring to gore one another
with their tusks. The Indian species is unanimously described as the
larger animal and the better soldier of the two.
The third Ptolemy made two brilliant campaigns. In one he overran
Greek Asia and brought back the sacred images and vessels which had
been carried off by the Persians centuries before; in the other he made an
Abyssinian expedition resembling the achievement of Napier. He landed
his troops in Annesley Bay, which he selected as his base of operations,
and completely subdued the mountaineers of the plateau, carrying the
Egyptian arms, as he boasted, where the Pharaohs themselves had never
been. But the policy of the Ptolemies was on the whole a policy of peace.
Their wars were chiefly waged for the purpose of obtaining timber for
their fleet, and of keeping open their commercial routes. They
encouraged manufactures and trade, and it was afterwards observed that
Alexandria was the most industrious city in the world. “Idle people were
there unknown. Some were employed in the blowing of glass, others in
the weaving of linen, others in the manufacture of the Papyrus. Even the
blind and the lame had occupations suited to their condition.”
The glorious reigns of the three first Ptolemies extended over nearly a
century, and then Egypt began again to decline. Such must always be the
case where a despotic government prevails, and where everything
depends on the taste and temper of a single man. As long as a good king
sits upon the throne all is well. A gallant service, an intellectual
production, merit of every kind is recognised at once. Corrupt tax-gatherers and judges are swiftly punished. The enemies of the people are
the enemies of the king. His palace is a court of justice always open to
his children; he will not refuse a petition from the meanest hand. But
sooner or later in the natural course of events the sceptre is handed to a
weak and vicious prince, who empties the treasury of its accumulated
wealth; who plunders the courtiers, allowing them to indemnify
themselves at the expense of those that are beneath them; who dies,
leaving behind him a legacy of wickedness which his successors are
forced to accept. Oppression has now become a custom, and custom is
the tyrant of kings. In Egypt the prosperity of the land depended entirely
on the government. Unless the public works were kept in good order half
the land was wasted, half the revenue was lost, half the inhabitants
perished of starvation. But the dikes could not be repaired and the screw
pumps could not be worked without expense, and so if the treasury was
empty the inland revenue ceased to flow in. The king could still live in
luxury on the receipts of the foreign trade, but the life of the people was
devoured, and the ruin of the country was at hand. The Ptolemies became
invariably tyrants and debauchees—perhaps the incestuous marriages
practised in that family had something to do with the degeneration of the
race. The Greeks of Alexandria became half Orientals, and were
regarded by their brethren of Europe with aversion and contempt. One by
one the possessions of Egypt abroad were lost. The condition of the land
became deplorable. The empire which had excited the envy of the world
became deficient in agriculture, and was fed by foreign corn. Alexandria
glittered with wealth which it was no longer able to defend. The Greeks
of Asia began to fix their eyes on the corrupt and prostrate land. Armies
gathered on the horizon like dark clouds; then was seen the flashing of
arms; then was heard the rattling of distant drums.
The reigning Ptolemy had but one resource. In that same year a great
battle had been fought, a great empire had fallen on the African soil. For
the first time in history the sun was seen rising in the West. Towards the
West ambassadors from Egypt went forth with silks and spices and
precious stones. They returned bringing with them an ivory chair, a
course garment of purple, and a quantity of copper coin. These humble
presents were received in a delirium of joy. The Roman senate accorded
its protection, and Alexandria was saved. But its independence was
forfeited, its individuality became extinct. Here endeth the history of
Egypt. Let us travel to another shore.
There was a time when the waters of the Mediterranean were silent and
bare; when nothing disturbed the solitude of that blue and tideless sea but
the weed which floated on its surface and the gull which touched it with
its wing.
A tribe of Canaanites, or people of the plain, driven hard by their foes,
fled over the Lebanon and took possession of a narrow strip of land shut
off by itself between the mountains and the sea.
The agricultural resources of the little country were soon outgrown, and
the Phoenicians were forced to gather a harvest from the water. They
invented the fishing-line and net, and when the fish could no longer be
caught from the shore they had to follow them out to sea or starve. They
hollowed trunks of trees with axe and fire into canoes; they bound logs of
wood together to form a raft, with a bush stuck in it for a sail. The
Lebanon mountains supplied them with timber; in time they discovered
how to make boats with keels, and to sheathe them with copper, which
also they found in their mountains. From those heights of Lebanon the
island of Cyprus could plainly be seen, and the current assisted them
across. They colonised the island; it supplied them with pitch, timber,
copper, and hemp—everything that was required in the architecture of a
ship. With smacks and cutters they followed the tunny-fish in their
migrations; they discovered villages on other coasts, pillaged them, and
carried off their inhabitants as slaves. Some of these, when they had
learnt the language, offered to pay a ransom for their release; the
arrangement was accomplished under oath, and presents as tokens of
goodwill were afterwards exchanged. Each party was pleased to obtain
something which his own country did not produce, and thus arose a
system of barter and exchange.
The Phoenicians from fishermen became pirates, and from pirates traders:
from simple traders they became also manufacturers. Purple was always
the fashionable colour in the East, and they discovered two kinds of
shell-fish which yielded a handsome dye. One species was found on
rocks, the other under water. These shells they collected by means of
divers and pointer dogs. When the supply on their own coast was
exhausted they obtained them from foreign coasts, and as the shell
yielded but a small quantity of fluid, and therefore was inconvenient to
transport, they preferred to extract the dyeing material on the spot where
the shells were found. This led to the establishment of factories abroad,
and permanent settlements were made. Obtaining wool from the Arabs
and other shepherd tribes, they manufactured woven goods and dyed
them with such skill that they found a ready market in Babylonia and
Egypt. In this manner they purchased from those countries the produce
and manufactures of the East, and these they sold at a great profit to the
inhabitants of Europe.
When they sailed along the shores of that savage continent and came to a
place where they intended to trade, they lighted a fire to attract the
natives, pitched tents on shore, and held a six days’ fair, exhibiting in
their bazaar the toys and trinkets manufactured at Tyre expressly for their
naked customers, with purple robes and works of art in tinted ivory and
gold for those who, like the Greeks, were more advanced. At the end of
the week they went away, sometimes kidnapping a few women and
children to “fill up”. But in the best trading localities the factory system
prevailed, and their establishments were planted in the Grecian
Archipelago and in Greece itself, on the marshy shores of the Black Sea,
in Italy, in Sicily, on the African coast and in Spain.
Then, becoming bolder and more skilful, they would no longer be
imprisoned within the lake-like waters of the land-locked sea. They
sailed out through the Straits of Gibraltar and beheld the awful
phenomenon of tides. They sailed on the left hand to Morocco for ivory
and gold dust, on the right hand for amber and tin to the ice-creeks of the
Baltic and the foaming waters of the British Isles. They also opened up
an
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