Rollin.
1. After the battle of Platæa, in which the army of the Persian king Xerxes was defeated and destroyed, the Greek states became the dominant power in the civilized world, and the Greek cities became centers of influence and art. Under Pericles, the successor of Themistocles, Athens, in richness and beauty of her palaces and temples, arrived at a point of excellence which far surpassed anything the world had before seen. But jealousies between different states led to civil wars that desolated the whole land, and in the next one hundred and fifty years scarcely any progress was made in adding to the national strength. While these bloody wars were going on principally between Sparta and Athens, the tribes of Macedon, a region lying immediately north of Greece, were rapidly becoming civilized and consolidated. In 359B. C.Philip became the reigning monarch.
2. He was very desirous of being considered as a Greek, invited distinguished men to his court, and ordered public rejoicings in his kingdom when his chariots had won the prize at the Olympic games. He was very clever, and cared little about the justice and honor of the means by which he attained his ends, which were, to hold in subjection all the rest of Greece, and to conquer Persia. In the first design he succeeded, for the latter he only prepared the way for his son. He had both to form his officers and his army. The first he attempted by bringing the young nobles to his court, and there instructing them; and in the last he succeeded in a remarkable manner.
3. The chief strength of the army, as he constituted it, was in the phalanx, a body of sixteen thousand foot soldiers, fully armed in the Greek fashion, with spearstwenty-four feet long. When drawn up in order of battle, the four front ranks held their spears pointing outward, and stood at such a space apart, that the foremost line had four spear-points between each man and the enemy, or on occasion they marched with their shields touching, so as to form an almost impenetrable wall.
4. As soon as Philip's designs against Greece were apparent, a strong spirit of resistance showed itself, and chiefly at Athens, where the great orator, Demosthenes, never ceased to rouse his countrymen to maintain their freedom. Demosthenes had trained himself in eloquence under great difficulties; he naturally either stammered, or had an indistinct pronunciation—a defect which he cured by speaking with pebbles in his mouth, and he used to rehearse his speeches to the roaring sea, in order to nerve himself against the clamors of a tumultuous assembly. He so far succeeded, that he often swayed the minds of the Athenians; his name stands as the first of orators, and his Philippics, as his discourses against Philip are called, are considered as models of rhetoric.
5. At Cheronæa, in 338, a battle was fought by Philip against the allied forces of the Athenians and Thebans. At one time the Athenians gained some advantage, but they used it so ill, that Philip, calling out to his troops, "They do not know how to conquer," made a sudden charge, and routed them with great slaughter. The battle of Cheronæa was the end of the independence of Greece, which from that time forward became subject to Macedon, in spite of its many struggles to shake off the yoke, and recover the liberty which had been lost for want of a firm, united, settled government.
6. The King of Macedon next commenced his arrangements for his other favorite scheme—the invasion of Asia; but in the year 336, in the midst of the feasts inhonor of his daughter's marriage, he was murdered by a young Macedonian noble, who was slain in the first anger of the surrounding guards, without having time to disclose the motive of his crime.
7. Alexander, son of Philip and his Epirot queen Olympias, was twenty years of age when he came to the throne. On the night of his birth the temple of Diana, at Ephesus, was burned to the ground by a man named Erostratus, in the foolish desire of making himself notorious, and this Alexander liked to consider as an omen that he should himself kindle a flame in Asia.
8. He traced his descent from his father's side from Hercules, and by his mother's from Achilles, and throughout his boyhood he seems to have lived in a world of the old Greek poetry, sleeping with Homer's works under his pillow, and dreaming of deeds in which he should rival the fame of the victors of Troy. He was placed under the care of Aristotle, the great philosopher of Stagira, to whom, when Philip had written to announce Alexander's birth, he had said that he knew not whether most to rejoice at having a son, or that his son would have such a teacher as Aristotle.
9. From him the young Alexander learned to think deeply, to resolve firmly, and devise plans of government; by others he was instructed in all the graceful accomplishments of the Greeks, and under his father he was trained to act promptly. At fourteen he tamed the noble horse Bucephalus, which no one else dared to mount; two years later he rescued his father in a battle with the Scythians, and he commanded the cavalry at Cheronæa, but he was so young at the time of his accession, that the Greeks thought they had nothing to fear from him.
A battleBattle on the Granicus.
Battle on the Granicus.
10. There were very ungenerous rejoicings at Athensat the murder of Philip. Demosthenes, though he had just lost a daughter, crowned himself with a wreath of flowers, and came with great tokens of joy to announce it to the Athenians so soon after the event, as almost to excite a suspicion that he must have been concerned in the crime. But they found that their joy was unfounded, for no sooner did Thebes take up arms, than Alexander marched against it, destroyed the walls, killed many of the citizens, and blotted it out from the number of Greek cities. The other states did not dare to make any further opposition, and he was thus at leisure to prepare for the invasion of Persia.
11. Leaving Antipater as governor of Macedon, he set out in the spring of 334, at the head of thirty thousand infantry and four thousand five hundred cavalry, and bade farewell to his native land, which he was never to see again. He crossed the Hellespont, and was the first man to leap on Asiatic ground; then, while his forces were landing, he went to visit the spot which had so long been the object of his dreams—the village which marked the site of Troy. He offered a sacrifice at the tomb of Achilles, hung up his own shield in the temple, and took down one which was said to be a relic of the Greek conquerors, intending to have it always borne before him in battle.
12. His march was at first toward the east, along the shore of the Hellespont, until at the river Granicus he met the Persians drawn up on the other bank of the river, under the command of the satrap Memnon. Alexander himself, at the head of his cavalry, charged through the midst of the rapid stream, won the landing-place, and followed by the phalanx, quickly gained a complete victory.
13. All the neighboring country fell into his hands, and after taking possession of it, he changed his course,marching along the shores of the Ægean, and taking all the towns. It was his first object to cut the Persians off from their seaports, and thus deprive them of the use of their fleet, which was so superior to his own, that he never ventured on one sea-fight.
14. This march round the western and southern coasts of Asia Minor, together with an expedition into the interior, occupied a year, and in the early part of the summer, he arrived at Tarsus, in Cilicia. Here, on entering the city, overwhelmed with heat and fatigue, he bathed in the cold waters of the Cydnus, and the chill brought on a violent fever, which nearly cost him his life. A letter was sent to warn him that his physician, Philip, had been bribed by the Persian king to poison him. While he was reading it the physician himself brought him a draught of medicine; the king put the letter into his hand, took the cup and drank it off, even before Philip could profess his innocence. In three days' time he was again able to appear at the head of his troops, and not before he was needed, for the enemy's army was near at hand, under King Darius Codomanus himself.
15. The Persians advanced in great state. First came a number of persons bearing silver altars, on which burned the sacred fire; then followed the Magi, and three hundred and sixty-five youths robed in scarlet, in honor of the days of the year. Next came the chariot and horses of the Sun, with their attendants, and afterward the army itself, the Immortal Band, with gold-handled lances, white robes, and jeweled corslets, and a host of others of less note, all far more fit for show than for battle. Darius himself, arrayed in purple robes and glittering with jewels, was in the midst, in a chariot covered with gold ornaments, and with him came his mother, Sisygambis, his principal wife, his daughters, a number of other ladies,and a multitude of slaves. This unwieldy and useless host took up their position on the hilly ground above the city of Issus, where they were so entangled among the rocks, that their numbers were of little profit to them, and it was an easy victory for the Macedonians. No sooner did Darius see that the day was against him, than he turned his chariot and fled, leaving his family to fall into the hands of the conqueror, while he himself hastened to Babylon to collect another army.
16. Alexander treated the mother, wife, and children of Darius with great kindness and courtesy, sending an officer to assure them of his protection, and going the next morning to visit them, accompanied by his friend Hephæstion, a young man of his own age. Alexander, though of beautiful and noble countenance, and well formed for strength and activity, was rather short in stature, and as his dress was very simple, Sisygambis mistook Hephæstion for the King of Macedon, and threw herself on the ground before him; and she was greatly confused and distressed when she discovered her error; but Alexander said, as he raised her, "You were not deceived, for he is Alexander's other self." He gave her the name of mother, never sat down in her presence except at her request, and showed in every point a respect and courtesy such as she had probably never before received from the Asiatic princes, who always held women in contempt.
17. Pursuing his intention of first destroying the naval power of the Persian empire, Alexander next entered Phoenicia, and readily received the submission of Zidon, but Tyre refused to admit him within the walls. New Tyre, which was built after the seventy years' desolation which followed the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, stood upon an island about half a mile from the shore, and was inhabited by a numerous and brave people, whothought themselves secure from an enemy who had no fleet to bring against them.
18. Alexander was, however, not to be daunted by any difficulty. He at first attempted to build a causeway from the shore to the island, and when the Tyrians destroyed his works he went to Zidon and there obtained a fleet, by means of which he at length took the city after a seven months' siege. He stained his victory by a cruel slaughter, and made slaves of all whose lives were spared, excepting a few whom the Zidonians contrived to conceal in their ships. This was the final fall of the great merchant city, so often predicted by Isaiah and Ezekiel.
19. He then marched through the rest of Palestine, intending to punish Jerusalem, which had stood loyal to Darius, and refused to send him supplies. The Jews, on his approach, prayed for guidance and protection, and it was revealed to Jaddua, the high-priest, that he should open the gates and go forth in his sacred robes to receive the Grecian conqueror. It was accordingly done; and Jaddua, in the vestments of Aaron, came forth at the head of the choir of priests in white garments as Alexander and the Greeks mounted the hill toward the city. No sooner did the king meet the procession than he bent down to the ground in adoration, and walked in the midst of the priests to the temple, where a sacrifice was offered; and he not only spared the Jews, but showed them much favor.
20. He told his generals that before he left Macedon he had seen in a dream a figure exactly resembling that of the high-priest, which had foretold all his conquests. And surely there is little reason to doubt that such a revelation might be made to a conqueror marked out as clearly by prophecy as Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus, before he set out on the work appointed for him. Both his predecessors in conquest, as soon as they came in contact withthe chosen people, were taught that they were the subjects of prophecy; and Alexander, in his turn, was shown by Jaddua the prediction of Daniel, which spoke of him as a he-goat (the actual ensign of Macedon), "Who came from the West, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns, and cast him down and trampled on him." "And the rough goat is the King of Grecia."
21. He then proceeded southward, besieged and took Gaza, after a brave resistance, which he cruelly requited, and entered Egypt, subduing it with little difficulty. On one of the peninsulas formed by the mouth of the Nile, he founded a city, called after his name Alexandria, which became the capital of Egypt under its Greek rulers, and one of the most famous cities in the world. He made an expedition to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, on an oasis in the Libyan desert, and consulted the oracle there, and then after appointing a Macedonian satrap in Egypt, retraced his steps toward the Holy Land, and marched toward Babylonia, where Darius was again collecting his forces to oppose him.
Charlotte M. Yonge.
1. Alexander crossed the Euphrates and Tigris without opposition, and the decisive battle did not take place till he reached the plain of Arbela, where the Persians were drawn up to receive him. The Macedonians wished to make a night attack, but Alexander would not permit it, saying that he disdained to steal a victory, and the combat took place the next day.
2. The present army of Persians was drawn from themore remote regions of Bactria and Parthia, where the men were more warlike, and they fought better than any whom the Macedonians had before encountered; but Darius himself fled early in the day, leaving behind him his bow and shield; his men lost courage, and followed him, and Alexander was left master of the field of Arbela.
3. This battle placed in his power all the western part of the Persian empire, and he had only to march to the great cities of Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis, to take possession of the huge stores of treasures there heaped up by the Persian kings, which he now distributed among his followers with royal bounty. The unfortunate Darius escaped into Bactria, where two satraps, in whom he had confided, treacherously seized him and made him prisoner, carrying him along with them as they fled before Alexander, until at length, being closely pressed by the Greeks, they threw their darts at him, and left him lying on the ground mortally wounded.
4. He was still alive when some of the Greeks came up, but died before the arrival of Alexander. The conqueror wept as he beheld the corpse of the last of a line of such great princes; he threw his own cloak over it, and sent it to Babylon, where it was buried with great magnificence.
Death of a kingAlexander at the Dead Body of Darius.
Alexander at the Dead Body of Darius.
5. The wife of Darius had died a prisoner, but Sisygambis still remained with her grandchildren at Babylon. Only once does Alexander seem to have hurt her feelings, and this was through ignorance of Persian customs. He showed her some robes of his sister's own weaving and embroidery, and offered to have her grand-daughters instructed in the same art, at which she wept, since Persian ladies deemed such employments work fit only for slaves and captives, and Alexander was obliged to explain howhonorably the loom and needle were esteemed by his own countrywomen.
6. Alexander was much attached to his own mother, Olympias, and portions of his letters to her have come down to our time. She was a proud and violent woman, who often interfered with Antipater, governor of Macedon, and caused him to send many complaints to the king: "Ah!" said Alexander, "Antipater does not know that one tear of a mother will blot out ten thousand of his letters."
7. Alexander had indeed an open and affectionate heart, but he was fast becoming too much uplifted by his successes. On Darius's death, he took the state as well as the title of a king of Persia, wore the tiara and robes, and claimed from the Macedonians the same servile tokens of homage as were paid by the eastern nations, thus causing perpetual heart-burnings among them, since they could neither endure to see their king exalted so much further above them, nor to be placed on the same level with the barbarians whom they despised.
8. Their jealousies troubled Alexander from the time he assumed the tiara of Persia. He found it impossible to raise the condition of the Persians, and treat them with favor, without offending the Macedonians, and his temper did not always endure these provocations. The worst action of his life was the sentencing to death, on a false accusation, the wise old General Parmenio, and his son; and in a fit of passion at a riotous banquet, he slew, with his own hand, his friend Clitus, his nurse's son, who had saved his life at the battle of Granicus. It was the deed of a moment of drunken violence, and he bitterly lamented it, shutting himself up for several days without allowing any one to approach him, and paying all honors to the memory of his murdered friend.
9. His pride and vain-glory went so far, that he declared that the oracle of Jupiter Ammon had announced that he was the son of Jupiter, and sent to Greece to desire to be enrolled among the gods in his life-time. Some of the Greeks were shocked at his profanity, others laughed at him; but all the Spartans said was, "If Alexander will be a god, let him."
10. The next four years were the most laborious of Alexander's life. He pursued the murderers of Darius into Bactria and Sogdiana, avenged his death, and reduced the numerous hill-forts as far as the frontier of Scythia. Fierce insurrections broke out among the wild tribes of Sogdiana, which it required all his activity and judgment to quell, and more than once provoked him into cruelty, though in general, conqueror as he was, he was no spoiler, but wherever he went founded cities, and tried to teach the Persians the civilized arts of Greece.
11. In 326 he set out for India, as the region was called round the river Indus. Here the inhabitants were warlike, and Porus, king of a portion of the country, made a brave resistance, but was at length defeated and taken prisoner. On being brought before Alexander he said he had nothing to ask, save to be treated as a king. "That I shall do for my own sake," said Alexander, and accordingly not only set him at liberty, but enlarged his territory.
12. All these Indian nations brought a tribute of elephants, which the Macedonians now for the first time learned to employ in war. Alexander wished to proceed into Hindostan, a country hitherto entirely unknown, but his soldiers grew so discontented at the prospect of being led so much farther from home, into the utmost parts of the earth, that he was obliged to give up his attempt, andvery unwillingly turned back from the banks of the Sutlej.
13. While returning, he besieged a little town belonging to a tribe called the Malli, and believed to be the present city of Mooltan. He was the first to scale the wall, and after four others had mounted, the ladder broke, and he was left standing on the wall, a mark for the darts of the enemy. He instantly leaped down within the wall into the midst of the Malli, and there setting his back against a fig-tree, defended himself until a barbed arrow deeply pierced his breast, and, after trying to keep up a little longer, he sunk, fainting, on his shield. His four companions sprung down after him—two were slain, but the others held their shields over him till the rest of the army succeeded in breaking into the town and coming to the rescue.
14. His wound was severe and dangerous, but he at length recovered, sailed down to the mouth of the Indus, and sent a fleet to survey the Persian Gulf, while he himself marched along the shore. The country was bare and desert, and his army suffered dreadfully from heat, thirst, and hunger, while he readily shared all their privations. A little water was once brought him on a parching day, as a great prize, but since there was not enough for all, he poured it out on the sand, lest his faithful followers should feel themselves more thirsty when they saw him drink alone.
15. At last he safely arrived at Caramania, whence he returned to the more inhabited and wealthy parts of Persia, held his court with great magnificence at Susa, and then went to Babylon. Here embassies met him from every part of the known world, bringing gifts and homage, and above all, there arrived from the Greek states the much desired promise that he should be honoredas a god. He was at the highest pitch of worldly greatness to which mortal man had yet attained, and his designs were reaching yet further; but his hour was come, and at Babylon, the home of pride, "the great horn" was to be broken.
Viewing the landsAlexander the Great.
Alexander the Great.
16. In the marshes into which the Euphrates had spread since its channel was altered by Cyrus, there breathed a noxious air, and a few weeks after Alexander's arrival, he was attacked by a fever, perhaps increased by intemperance. He bore up against it as long as possible, continued to offer sacrifices daily, though with increasing difficulty, and summoned his officers to arrange plans for his intended expedition; but his strength failed him on the ninth day, and though he called them together as usual, he could not address them. Perhaps he thought in that hour of the prophecy he had seen at Jerusalem, that the empire he had toiled to raise should be divided, for he is reported to have said that there would be a mighty contest at his funeral games. He made no attempt to name a successor, but he took off his signet-ring, placed it on the finger of Perdiccas, one of his generals, and a short time after expired, in the thirty-third year of his age, and the twelfth of his reign.
17. There was a voice of wailing throughout the city that night. The Babylonians shut up their houses, and trembled at the neighborhood of the fierce Greek soldiery, now that their protector was dead; the Macedonians stood to arms all night, as if in presence of the enemy; and when in the morning the officers assembled in the palace council chamber, bitter and irrepressible was the burst of lamentation that broke out at the sight of the vacant throne, where lay the crown, scepter, and royal robes, and where Perdiccas now placed the signet-ring. More deeply than all mourned the prisoner, the aged Sisygambis, who covered her face with a black veil, sat down in a corner of her room, refused all entreaties to speak or to eat, and expired five days after Alexander.
18. Nor did the Persians soon cease to lament the conqueror, who had ruled them more beneficently than theirown monarchs had done; their traditions made Alexander a prince of their own, and adorned him with every virtue valued in the East. That he had many great faults has already been shown, and, of course, by the rules of justice, his conquests were but reckless gratifications of his own ambition; but he was a high-minded, generous man, open of heart, free of hand, and for the most part acting up to his knowledge of right; and if unbridled power, talent of the highest order, and glory such as none before or since has ever attained, inflamed his passions, and elated him with pride, still it is not for us to judge severely of one who had such great temptations, and so little to guide him aright.
Charlotte M. Yonge.
1. The kingdom of Judah escaped destruction at the hands of Sennacherib, but its respite was short. Soon afterward Babylon, closely related to Assyria, and the heir of its dominion, swept into captivity in distant Mesopotamia nearly all that were left of Hebrew stock. For a time, the nation seemed to have been wiped from the face of the earth. The ten tribes of Israel that had been first dragged forth never returned to Judea, and their ultimate fate, after the destruction of Nineveh, whose splendor they had in their servitude done so much to enhance, was that of homeless wanderers. The harp of Judah, silent upon the devastated banks of the Jordan, was hung upon the Babylonian willows, for how could the exiles sing the Lord's song in a strange land! Butthe cry went forth at length that Babylon had fallen in her turn, just as destruction had before overtaken Nineveh. In the middle of the sixth centuryB. C., Cyrus the Mede made a beginning of restoring the exiles, who straightway built anew the Temple walls.
2. In David's time, the population of Palestine must have numbered several millions, and it largely increased during the succeeding reigns. Multitudes, however, had perished by the sword, and other multitudes were retained in strange lands. Scarcely fifty thousand found their way back in the time of Cyrus to the desolate site of Jerusalem, but, one hundred years later, the number was increased by a re-enforcement under Ezra. From this nucleus, with astonishing vitality, a new Israel was presently developed. With weapons always at hand to repel the freebooters of the desert, they constructed once more the walls of Jerusalem. Through all their harsh experience their feelings of nationality had not been at all abated; their blood was untouched by foreign admixture, though some Gentile ideas had entered into the substance of their faith. The conviction that they were the chosen people of God was as unshaken as in the ancient time. With pride as indomitable as ever, intrenched within their little corner of Syria, they confronted the hostile world.
3. But a new contact was at hand, far more memorable even than that with the nations of Mesopotamia—a contact whose consequences affect at the present hour the condition of the greater part of the human race. In the year 332B. C., the high-priest, Jaddua, at Jerusalem, was in an agony, not knowing how he should meet certain new invaders of the land, before whom Tyre, and Gaza, the old Philistine stronghold, had fallen, and who were now marching upon the city of David. But Godwarned him in a dream that he should take courage, adorn the city, and open the gates; that the people should appear in white garments of peace, but that he and the priests should meet the strangers in the robes of their office. At length, at the head of a sumptuous train of generals and tributary princes, a young man of twenty-four, upon a beautiful steed, rode forward from the way going down to the sea to the spot which may still be seen, called, anciently, Scopus, the prospect, because from that point one approaching could behold, for the first time, Jerusalem crowned by the Temple rising fair upon the heights of Zion and Moriah.
4. The youth possessed a beauty of a type in those regions hitherto little known. As compared with the swarthy Syrians in his suite, his skin was white; his features were stamped with the impress of command, his eyes filled with an intellectual light. With perfect horsemanship he guided the motions of his charger. A fine grace marked his figure, set off with a cloak, helmet, and gleaming arms, as he expressed with animated gestures his exultation over the spectacle before him. But now, down from the heights came the procession of the priests and the people. The multitude proceeded in their robes of white; the priests stood clothed in fine linen; while the high-priest, in attire of purple and scarlet, upon his breast the great breastplate of judgment with its jewels, upon his head the mitre marked with the plate of gold whereon was engraved the name of God, led the train with venerable dignity.
5. Now, says the historian, when the Phœnicians and Chaldeans that followed Alexander thought that they should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the high-priest to death, the very reverse happened; for the young leader, when he saw the multitude in the distance,and the figure of the high-priest before, approached him by himself, saluted him, and adored the name, which was graven upon the plate of the mitre. Then a captain, named Parmino, asked him how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high-priest of the Jews. To whom the leader replied: "I do not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with his high-priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Macedonia, who, when I was considering how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would conduct my army, and could give me the dominion over the Persians." Then, when Alexander had given the high-priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him and he came into the city, and he offered sacrifice to God in the Temple, according to the high-priest's direction, and magnificently treated both the high-priest and the priests. He granted all the multitude desired; and when he said to them that if any of them would enlist themselves in his army on this condition, that they should continue under the laws of their forefathers, he was willing to take them with him, many were ready to accompany him in his wars.
6. But this Aryan troop that went southward is less interesting to us than companies that departed westward, for in these westward marching bands went the primeval forefathers from whose venerable loins we ourselves have proceeded. They passed into Western Asia, and from Asia into Europe—each migrating multitude impelled by a new swarm sent forth from the parent hive behind. At the head of the Adriatic Sea an Aryan troop had divided, sending down into the eastern peninsula the ancestors of the Greeks, and into the western peninsulathe train destined to establish upon the seven hills the power of Rome. Already the Aryan pioneers, the Celts, on the outmost rocks of the western coast of Europe, were fretting against the barrier of storm and sea, across which they were not to find their way for many ages. Already Phœnician merchants, trading for amber in the far-off Baltic, had become aware of the wild Aryan tribes pressing to the northwest—the Teutons and Goths. Already, perhaps, upon the outlying spur of the Ural range, still other Aryans had fixed their hold, the progenitors of the Sclav. The aboriginal savage of Europe was already nearly extinct. His lance of flint had fallen harmless from the Aryan buckler; his rude altars had become displaced by the shrines of the new gods. In the Mediterranean Sea each sunny isle and pleasant promontory had long been in Aryan hands, and now in the wintry forests to the northward the resistless multitudes had more recently fixed their seats.
7. In the Macedonians, the Aryans, having established their dominion in Europe, march back upon the track which their forefathers long before had followed westward; and now it is that the Hebrews become involved with the race that from that day to this has been the master-race of the world. It was a contact taking place under circumstances, it would seem, the most auspicious—the venerable old man and the beautiful Greek youth clasping hands, the ruthless followers of the conqueror baffled in their hopes of booty, the multitudes of Jerusalem, in their robes of peace, filling the air with acclamations, as Alexander rode from the place of prospect, upon the heights of Zion, into the solemn precincts of the Temple.
8. The successors of Alexander the Great made the Jews a link between the Hellenic populations that had become widely scattered throughout the East by theMacedonian conquests, and the great barbarian races among whom the Greeks had placed themselves. The dispersion of the Jews, which had already taken place to such an extent through the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, went forward now more vigorously. Throughout Western Asia they were found everywhere, but it was in Egypt that they attained the highest prosperity and honor. The one city, Alexandria alone, is said to have contained at length a million Jews, whom the Greek kings of Egypt, the Ptolemies, preferred in every way to the native population. Elsewhere, too, they were favored, and hence they were everywhere hated; and the hatred assumed a deeper bitterness from the fact that the Jew always remained a Jew, marked in garb, in feature, in religious faith, always scornfully asserting the claim that he was the chosen of the Lord. Palestine became incorporated with the empire of the Seleucidæ, the Macedonian princes to whom had fallen Western Asia. Oppression at last succeeded the earlier favor, the defenses of Jerusalem were demolished, and the Temple defiled with pagan ceremonies; and now it is that we reach some of the finest figures in Hebrew history, the great high-priests, the Maccabees.
9. There dwelt at the town of Modin a priest, Mattathias, the descendant of Asmonæus, to whom had been born five sons—John, Simon, Judas Maccabæus, or the Hammer, Eleazar, and Jonathan. Mattathias lamented the ravaging of the land and the plunder of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, and when, in the year 167B. C., the Macedonian king sent to Modin to have sacrifices offered, the Asmonæan returned a spirited reply. "Thou art a ruler," said the king's officers, "and an honorable and great man in this city, and strengthened with sons and brethren. Now, therefore, come thou first: so shaltthou and thy house be in number of the king's friends, and thou and thy children shall be honored with silver and gold and many rewards." But Mattathias replied with a loud voice: "Though all the nations that are under the king's dominions obey him, and fall away every one from the religion of their fathers, yet will I and my sons and my brethren, walk in the covenant of our fathers. God forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordinances! We will not hearken to the king's words to go from our religion, either on the right hand or the left."
10. An heroic struggle for freedom at once began, which opened for the Jews full of sadness. An apostate Jew, approaching to offer sacrifice in compliance with the command of Antiochus, was at once slain by Mattathias, who struck down also Apelles, the king's general, with some of his soldiers. As he fled with his sons into the desert, leaving his substance behind him, many of the faithful Israelites followed, pursued by the Macedonians seeking revenge. The oppressors knew well how to choose their time. Attacking on the Sabbath-day, when, according to old tradition, it was a transgression even to defend one's life, a thousand with their wives and children were burned and smothered in the caves in which they had taken refuge. But Mattathias, rallying those that remained, taught them to fight on the Sabbath, and at all times. The heathen altars were overthrown, the breakers of the law were slain, the uncircumcised boys were everywhere circumcised. But the fullness of time approached for Mattathias; after a year his day of death had come, and these were his parting words to his sons: "I know that your brother Simon is a man of counsel; give ear unto him always; he shall be a father unto you. As for Judas Maccabæus, he hath been mighty and strong even from his youth up; let him be your captain and fightthe battles of the people. Admit among you the righteous."
11. No sooner had the father departed, than it appeared that the captain whom he had designated was a man as mighty as the great champions of old, Joshua and Gideon and Samson. He forthwith smote with defeat Apollonius, the general in the Samaritan country, and when he had slain the Greek he took his sword for his own. Seron, general of the army in Cœle-Syria, came against him with a host of Macedonians strengthened by apostate Jews. The men of Judas Maccabæus were few in number, without food, and faint-hearted, but he inspired them with his own zeal, and overthrew the new foes at Bethoron. King Antiochus, being now called eastward to Persia, committed military matters in Palestine to the viceroy, Lysias, with orders to take an army with elephants and conquer Judea, enslave its people, destroy Jerusalem, and abolish the nation. At once the new invaders were upon the land; of foot-soldiers there were forty thousand, of horsemen seven thousand, and as they advanced many Syrians and renegade Jews joined them. Merchants marched with the army, with money to buy the captives as slaves, and chains with which to bind those whom they purchased. But Judas Maccabæus was no whit dismayed. Causing his soldiers to array themselves in sackcloth, he made them pray to Jehovah. He dismissed those lately married, and those who had newly come into great possessions, as likely to be faint-hearted. After addressing those that remained, he set them in the ancient order of battle, and waited the opportunity to strike.
12. The hostile general, fancying he saw an opportunity to surprise the little band of Hebrews, sent a portion of his host against them, by secret ways at night.But the spies of Judas were out. Leaving the fires burning brightly in his camp, to lure forward those who were commissioned to attack him, he rushed forth under the shadows against the main body, weakened by the absence of the detachment. He forced their position, though strongly defended, overcame the army; then turned back to scatter utterly the other party who were seeking him in the abandoned camp. He took great booty of gold and silver, and of raiment purple and blue. He marched home in great joy to the villages of Judea, singing hymns to God, as was done in the days of Miriam, long before, because they had triumphed gloriously.
13. The next year Lysias advanced from Antioch, the Syrian capital, with a force of sixty-five thousand. Judas Maccabæus, with ten thousand, overthrew his vanguard, upon which the viceroy, terrified at the desperate fighting, retired to assemble a still greater army. For a time there was a respite from war, during which Judas counseled the people to purify the Temple. The Israelites, overjoyed at the revival of their ancient customs, the restoration of the old worship in all its purity, and the relief from foreign oppressors, celebrated for eight days a magnificent festival. The lamps in the Temple porches were rekindled to the sound of instruments and the chant of the Levites. But one vial of oil could be found, when, lo, a miracle! the one vial sufficed for the supply of the seven-branched golden candlestick for a week. This ancient Maccabæan festival faithful Jews still celebrate under the name of the Hanoukhah, the Feast of Lights.
14. Judas subdues also the Idumeans of the southward, and the Ammonites. His brethren, too, have become mighty men of valor. Jonathan crosses the Jordan with him and campaigns against the tribes to the eastward. Eleazar is a valiant soldier, and Simon carriessuccor to the Jews in Galilee. But at length the Macedonian is again at hand, more terrible than before. The foot are a hundred thousand, the horse twenty thousand; and as rallying-points, thirty-two elephants tower among the ranks. About each one of the huge beasts is collected a troop of a thousand foot and five hundred horse; high turrets upon their backs are occupied by archers; their great flanks and limbs are cased in plates of steel. The host show their golden and brazen shields, making in the sun a glorious splendor, and shout in exultation so that the mountains echo. In the battle that follows Fortune does not altogether favor the Jews. In particular, the champion Eleazar lays down his life. He had attacked the largest elephant, a creature covered with plated armor, and carrying upon his back a whole troop of combatants, among whom it was believed that the king himself fought. Eleazar had slain those in the neighborhood, then, creeping beneath the belly of the elephant, had pierced him. As the brute fell, Eleazar was crushed in the fall. Judas was forced to retire within the defenses of Jerusalem, where still further disaster seemed likely to overcome him. Dissensions among themselves, however, weakened the Macedonians. Peace was offered the Jews, and permission to live according to the law of their fathers—proposals which were gladly accepted, although the invaders razed the defenses of the Temple.
15. The peace was not enduring. New Macedonian invasions followed; new Hebrew successes, the Maccabees and their partisans making up, by their fierce zeal, their military skill, and dauntless valor, for their want of numbers. But a sad day came at last. Judas, twenty times outnumbered, confronts the leader Bacchides in Galilee. The Greek sets horsemen on both wings, his light troops and archers before the heavier phalanx, and takes his ownstation on the right. The Jewish hero is valiant as ever; the right wing of the enemy turns to flee. The left and center, however, encompass him, and he falls, fighting gloriously, having earned a name of the most skillful and valorous of the world's great vindicators of freedom.
James K. Hosmer. "The Story of the Jews."
Putnam's "Stories of the Nations" Series.
Engraving of Romulus and Remus
1. For his tyranny King Tarquin was banished from Rome about 500B. C., and after his expulsion he sent messengers to Rome to ask that his property should be given up to him, and the senate decreed that his prayer should be granted. But the king's ambassadors, while they were in Rome, stirred up the minds of the young men and others who had been favored by Tarquin, so that a plot was made to bring him back. Among those who plotted were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of the consul Brutus; and they gave letters to the messengers of the king. But it chanced that a certain slave hid himself in the place where they met, and overheard them plotting; and he came and told the thing to the consuls, who seized the messengers of the king with the letters upon their persons, authenticated by the seals of the young men. The culprits were immediately arrested;but the ambassadors were let go, because their persons were regarded as sacred. And the goods of King Tarquin were given up for plunder to the people.
2. Then the traitors were brought up before the consuls, and the sight was such as to move all beholders to pity; for among them were the sons of Lucius Junius Brutus himself, the first consul, the liberator of the Roman people. And now all men saw how Brutus loved his country; for he bade the lictors put all the traitors to death, and his own sons first; and men could mark in his face the struggle between his duty as a chief magistrate of Rome and his feelings as a father. And while they praised and admired him they pitied him yet more. This was the first attempt to restore Tarquin the Proud.
3. When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, he prevailed on the people of Tarquinii and Veii to make war with him against the Romans. But the consuls came out against them; Valerius commanding the main army, and Brutus the cavalry. And it chanced that Aruns, the king's son, led the cavalry of the enemy. When he saw Brutus, he spurred his horse against him, and Brutus did not decline the combat. They rode straight at each other with leveled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that they pierced each other through from breast to back, and both fell dead.
4. Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was neither won nor lost. But in the night a voice was heard by the Etruscans, saying that the Romans were the conquerers. So the enemy fled by night; and when the Romans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose them. Then they took up the body of Brutus, and departed home, and buried him in public with great pomp.
5. And thus the second attempt to restore King Tarquin was frustrated. After the death of Brutus, Valerius,the remaining consul, ruled the people for awhile by himself, and began to build himself a house upon the ridge called Velia, which looks down upon the forum. So the people thought that he was going to make himself king; but when he heard this, he called an assembly of the people, and appeared before them with his fasces lowered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom remained ever after, that no consular lictors wore axes within the city, and no consul had power of life and death except when he was in command of his legions abroad. And he pulled down the beginning of his house upon the Velia, and built it below that hill. Also, he passed laws that every Roman citizen might appeal to the people against the judgment of the chief magistrates. Wherefore he was greatly honored among the people, and was calledPoplicola, orFriend of the People.
6. After this Valerius called together the great assembly of the centuries, and they chose Spurius Lucretius, father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus. But he was an old man, and not many days afterward he died, and Marcus Horatius was chosen in his stead.
7. The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin began had never yet been consecrated. Then Valerius and Horatius drew lots which should be the consecrator, and the lot fell on Horatius. But the friends of Valerius murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius from having the honor; so, when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon the door-post of the temple, there came a messenger who told him that his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly consecrate the temple. But Horatius kept his hand upon the door-post, and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rite of consecration. Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son.
8. In the next year Valerius was again made consul, with Titus Lucretius; and Tarquin, despairing now of aid from his friends at Veii and Tarquinii, went to Lars Porsena of Clusium, a city on the river Clanis, which falls into the Tiber. Porsena was, at this time, acknowledged as chief of the twelve Etruscan cities; and he assembled a powerful army and came to Rome. He came so quickly that he reached the Tiber, and was near the Sublician Bridge before there was time to destroy it; and if he had crossed it the city would have been lost.
9. Then, a noble Roman, called Horatius Cocles, of the Lucerian tribe, with two friends—Spurius Lartius, a Ramnian, and Titus Herminius, a Titian—posted themselves at the far end of the bridge, and defended the passage against all the Etruscan host, while the Romans were cutting it off behind them. When it was all but destroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and Horatius was left alone to bear the whole attack of the enemy. He kept his ground, standing unmoved amid the darts which were showered upon his shield, till the last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river. Then he prayed, saying, "Father Tiber, receive me, and bear me up I pray thee." He then plunged in, and reached the other side safely; and the Romans honored him greatly: they put up his statue in the Comitium, and gave him as much land as he could plow round in a day, and every man at Rome subscribed the cost of one day's food to reward him.