Chapter 12

SUMMARY OF WORLD HISTORY

WITH

A CHRONOLOGY OF TEN THOUSAND YEARS

By Arthur D. Innes, M.A.

WITHIN the memory of living men, the most advanced peoples of the world believed that the world itself had been created not 6,000 years ago. We have all learned now that the globe itself, that life—and long later mankind—came into being thousands, hundreds of thousands—it may be millions—of years ago.

How long precisely, none can tell. What we do know with certainty is that before the continents finally emerged in their present shape there was an Ice Age, immediately preceded by what is called the Drift Age, and that as early as the Drift Age man, the maker of implements, lived, and did battle with the cave bear and other monsters. Where man first came into being, how he spread over the globe, how the great races acquired their characteristics, we can only conjecture.

The Birth of the Nations

Wherever and whenever man appeared, the earliest traces show him to have been a sociable animal living in communities. The earliest unmistakable traces of civilisation, order, polity, are found in the basins of the Nile and the Euphrates, dating probably as far back as ten thousand years ago. The people who built the Pyramids had already advanced far in the knowledge which gives man the mastery over Nature; and the Pyramids were built certainly 3,000, and probably nearer 5,000, years before the Christian era. And while those pristine civilisations rose and fell in Egypt, civilisations were rising and passing away in Mesopotamia also.

In the fourth millennium there appears first a people with new characteristics—the Semitic race, gradually dominating the Mesopotamian civilisation, spreading westward in successive waves to the Mediterranean, surging into Egypt and out again; creating the Empires of Babylonia and of Assyria, and the Phœnician and Canaanite nations. And while the Semite Empires rose and fell, and Egypt held upon her ancient way, still mightier nations were coming to birth. The great Aryan or Indo-European migrations began, the Celt, the Latin, and the Hellene rolling westward by the Euxine and the Northern Mediterranean; while another group passed southward, to the East of the Semites, spreading the Aryan conquest over the greater part of the Indian peninsula.

Conflicts of Ancient Peoples

Of the doings of the great Semitic Powers in the second millenniumB.C.we have some knowledge from the Hebrew records; and year by year fresh light is thrown on those records by inscriptions and tablets newly discovered or newly deciphered, Egyptian, Assyrian, or Hittite. Of the Hittite or early Syrian dominion we know little enough, except that it successfully defied the invading armies of Assyrian kings and Egyptian Pharaohs. Before 1500 the Semite conquerors of Egypt, the Hyksos, were driven out—an event associated by some authorities with the Hebrew Exodus. From this time the ebb and flow of Egyptian and Assyrian dynasties are more definitely recorded. In the closing centuries the prosperity of Tyre and Sidon reached its height, and the theocratic Hebrew nationality formed a kingdom. We become aware of Hellenic or kindred Powers in Asia Minor, at Troy, in Crete, at Mycenæ; of Achæans and Danaans in Egypt.

The First Formation of States

Before another five hundred years had passed, throughout the coasts and islands of the Ægean Sea, Æolians, Ionians, Dorians established themselves in cities, and every city rapidly grew into a highly-organised State. Over the Mediterranean, to Southern Italy, to Sicily, to Marseilles, the new Greek civilisation carried its commerce and its culture. In Italy the Latin races were in like manner forming themselves into city-states, developing conceptions of Government undreamed of by Oriental minds. Rome was founded, and acquired a leadership. Throughout the Hellenic and the Latin world the idea of civic freedom took root; the primitive monarchical systems disappeared, and, through revolutions and temporary despotisms, sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent, the States took on for the most part a Republican form.

TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: B.C. 8000 to 500

This Chronology, prepared as a companion to the Summary of the World’s History, sets forth in tabular form for ready reference the events dealt with in the narrative on opposite pages

B.C.8000

Early civilisation of the Nile Basin. Egypt before the Pyramids.

7000

Asiatic invasion of EgyptPre-Semitic civilisations of the Euphrates Basin. Susa founded.

6000

Invasion of Egypt by dynastic race, 5800. Mena rules all Egypt. First dynasty, 5500.Babylonian kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad. Ea founds Eridu and civilises Babylonia.

5000

Egypt. The Pyramid builders. Great Pyramid built by Khufu (Cheops), 4700.Earliest monuments to kings in Babylonia, 4700.

4000

Egypt invaded from the north. First, or Babylonian, Semitic wave in the Euphrates Valley. Rise of Babylonian kingdoms. Sargon and Naram-Sin, Semitic rulers of Akkad. Middle kingdom of Egypt. Revival of art. Twelfth dynasty (3400).Gudea’s rule in Babylon. Development of commerce, 3300.

3000

Egypt invaded by the Hyksos, nomadic Semitic conquerors, the “Shepherd Kings.” Fifteenth Dynasty (2500). Second Hyksos movement (2250).Conquest of Babylon by Elamites. Rule of Hammurabi (Amraphel of Gen. xiv.), 2129.Second, or Canaanite, Semitic wave, extending to the Mediterranean.First Aryan migration westward over Europe, and southward; conquest of Hindostan.

2000

The Hyksos dominate Egypt. New kingdom. Eighteenth dynasty, 1580.Expulsion of the Hyksos, about 1560.Rise of Assyria.The Kassite dynasty in Babylon, about 1750–1130.Hittite Empire in Syria.Latin and Hellenic entry into Europe and Asia Minor.Third (Aramæan) Semitic wave, dominating W. Asia, but absorbed in existing states.

1500

FAREAST: Beginning of definite Chinese history, with the Chau dynasty.EGYPT: Nineteenth dynasty, Sethos and the Ramesides; struggle with Hittite Empire.WESTERNASIA: Burnaburiash, 1380. Pashe dynasty in Babylon, 1130–1000.Period of Phœnician prosperity.Rise of the United Kingdom of the Hebrews.Crete, Troy, and Mycenæ. The Ionic and Doric migrations.

1000

WESTERNASIA: The Hebrew kingdom divided into Judah and Israel or Samaria.Rise of Aramæan kingdom of Syria. Chaldean domination in Babylon.Assyrian Middle Empire.EGYPT: Twenty-second dynasty (“Shishak” king of Egypt).

900

EUROPE: Early monarchical governments replaced usually by aristocracies.Probable period of the Homeric poems.WESTERNASIA: Successful resistance of Syria to Assyria.Appearance of the (Aryan) Medes in the East.AFRICA: Founding of Carthage.

800

EGYPT: Domination of Ethiopians or Cushites.WESTERNASIA: Assyrian New Empire; conquest of Syria, Samaria, and Babylon.Lydian and Phrygian kingdoms in Asia Minor.EUROPE: Development of city states in Greece and Italy. Lycurgan legislation of Sparta, about 800.Rome founded as a monarchy, 753.Spread of Greek colonies along Mediterranean coasts and islands.

700

WESTERNASIA:Extension of Lydian kingdom in Asia Minor 687–546.Irruption of Cimmerians from the North.Repulse of Sennacherib before Jerusalem. Decline of Assyria.EGYPT: Invasion by Esarhaddon. Expulsion of Cushites. The Saitic dynasty.EUROPE: Between 700 and 500, sporadic displacement of aristocracies by “tyrannies,” followed either by an oligarchical restoration or by democracies.Rome becomes head of the League of Latin cities.FAREAST: Japanese history begins.

600

500B.C.

WESTERNASIA:Narbonaid, King of Babylon (556–538). Overthrow of Assyrian by New Babylonian Empire; the Babylonish captivity.Rise of Media, of which Cyrus, the Persian, makes himself master.Persian Empire: Overthrow of Lydia, New Babylonia, and Egypt. Aahmes (Amasis), 570–526.FAREAST: Confucius and Lao-Tse in China, and Buddha in India.EUROPE: Greek states consolidated. Athens: Solon 594. Pisistratidæ expelled, 510.ROME:Expulsion of the kings, about 510. The Commonwealth. Administration aristocratic: Army and legislative assembly on basis of land-ownership.Etruscan—pre-Latin—domination in Italy.

500B.C.

In the East an Aryan Power overthrew the last of the Assyrian-Babylonian dynasties; but these Persian conquerors became assimilated to the conquered nations. Fundamentally their empire was of the same type as its predecessors. The Persian sway, however, extended not only into Egypt but over the partly Hellenised Asia Minor; and the Ionic revolt, in the first year of the fifth centuryB.C.brought the spirit of the East and the spirit of the West into fierce collision. The great king hurled his hosts against defiant Hellas; at Marathon and at Salamis, Athens shattered his army and his fleets. Thenceforth, for a thousand years, the West was the aggressor.

Athens and the Greek Immortals

But the rolling back of the “barbarian” tide was not the only glory that fell to Athens; in that same century the little state bore sons whose names stand in the front rank of the immortals for all time: Æschylus and Sophocles, Phidias, Pericles, Socrates, and Plato; in the next half century, Demosthenes; with others almost if not quite, on the same plane. The character of Athens, idealised, no doubt, is epitomised by Thucydides in the speech of Pericles. She was the sum of all that was best and noblest in Hellenism—its love of freedom, of beauty, of energy, of harmony, and its public spirit. Politically, the story of the period which followed Salamis is mainly one of the rivalry between Athens and Sparta; until the rise of Macedon, when King Philip made himself master of all Hellas.

The Coming-up of Alexander

Then, with the beginning of the last quarter of the fourth century, Alexander the Great blazed upon the world, toppled the empires of Western Asia before him, conquered Egypt, and swept over the great mountain-barriers into India, where Buddhism had already begun to displace the ancient Brahmanism of the first Aryans. The Greek influences did not long linger in the far East after the great conqueror’s death. His empire broke up. Asia west of the Euphrates remained, indeed, under the dominion mainly of one Grecian dynasty, the Seleucidæ; Egypt under that of another, the Ptolemies. Yet Alexander’s attempts to blend East and West failed. Orientalism abode, unconquered, ineradicable; Hellenism prevailed almost after the fashion of British domination in India to-day, in the land, but not of it.

Meanwhile, the struggle between Aryans and non-Aryans had been running a partly separate course in the West. The Phœnicians of Carthage and the pre-Aryan Etruscans, the dominant power in Italy, made a joint assault on the Greeks of Sicily and the Latins of the mainland at the beginning of the fifth century. They were beaten back, but for a century the struggle continued between Rome and Veii. The great Celtic incursion of the Gauls threatened destruction to Rome, but completed the destruction of Etruria. In the fourth century and the first half of the third centuryB.C.Rome was chiefly engaged in the double task of achieving supremacy, passing into actual dominion among the Latin states, and of establishing the great Senatorial oligarchy, against whose stubborn resolution the Epirote Pyrrhus hurled himself in vain.

Just sixty years after Alexander’s death began the sixty years’ struggle between Rome and Carthage, in the latter years of which the genius of Hannibal was pitted against the grim persistence of the Roman oligarchy. Carthage fell; Rome triumphed, and with her triumph entered on her career of extended conquest.

The Triumph of Rome

The organisation which had ruled the city-state itself not ill, and raised it to an immense pre-eminence, sufficed also to maintain its powers of conquest, but not its political virtue. Rome’s armies subdued the divided and disorganised realms which more or less recognised the over-lordship of Macedon; they made the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ acknowledge their supremacy; they shattered the new barbarian hordes, which began to pour across the Alpine passes, and the African tribes of Numidia. But the lofty public spirit was gone which had made Rome so great when she was battling for life. Reformers arose, only to prove that there was no power in the constitution strong enough to enforce reform. Victorious generals with their legions behind them began to dictate legislation; Marius and Sulla, democrats or reactionaries, signalised their political successes by slaughtering hecatombs of their opponents.

At last, statesmanship and generalship found their supreme incarnation in one person, Julius Cæsar. For many years one of the two foremost men in the Republic, he finally crushed his rival Pompeius and became acknowledged head of the state. Before he could complete the work of reconstruction, Cæsar fell beneath the daggers of Republican enthusiasts; but ere many years had passed his adopted son Octavian triumphed over all rivals, and established the Principate or Empire, the absolute dominion of one ruler over the whole Roman world—although that dominion was still maintained under the Republican forms.

TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: B.C. 500 to 1

Collision of East and West. The Glory of Greece. Alexander and His Conquests. The Rise of Rome. Overthrow of Carthage and the Establishment of the Roman Empire

B.C.500

The East and Africa

Europe

B.C.500

GREECE: Revolt of Ionian Greeks from Persia, 499.Liberation from Persia of Greek States in Asia Minor.Revolt of Egypt from Persia: re-conquest.

GREECE: Repulse of Persia at Marathon (490), Salamis (480) and Plataea (479) and of Carthage by Syracuse at Himera (480).ROME: Increase of political power of Plebeians.Tribunes. First Roman Legal Code (the XII. Tables).

450

Egypt again independent of Persia.

GREECE: Age of Pericles, the great Athenian dramatists, and Phidias.Struggle for supremacy between Athens and Sparta.ROME: Decadence of Etruscan power.Progress of Plebeians in obtaining administrative power.

400

Revival of Persian energy under Artaxerxes Ochus.

GREECE: Socrates and Plato.Spartan and Theban supremacies.ROME: Invasion by the Gauls.The land question: the Licinian Laws.Establishment of new “Senatorial” oligarchy.Extension of Roman military settlements or colonies.

350

Overthrow of Persia by Alexander; India invaded.Partition of Alexander’s Empire. The Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucidæ in Asia.Friendly relations between Seleucus and Chandragupta of Hindostan.

GREECE: Philip of Macedon. Demosthenes at Athens. Aristotle.Conquests of Alexander the Great, 334–322.ROME: Second Roman treaty with Carthage.Dissolution of Latin League. Supremacy of Rome in Italy. Samnite wars.

300

Contests between Syria (Seleucidæ) and Egypt (the Ptolemaic dynasty).

ROME: Legislative power of Plebeian Comitia. Tributa established.Pyrrhus in Italy and Sicily.Treaty between Rome and Egypt.Senatorial supremacy at Rome.First Punic War (264–241).GREECE: Rise of the Achæan League.

250

Asoka, king of Maghada (Hindostan), Buddhist.Extension of the Seleucid dominion under Antiochus the Great.Rise of the Parthian dominion of the Arsacidæ.Fall of Carthage, 202.

Carthaginian power established in Spain.ROME: Second Punic War, 218–201. Hannibal in Italy, 218–203. Scipio in Spain, 211–206. Zama, 202.Extension of Roman dominion over Spain and North Africa.

200

Wars between Parthia and the Seleucidæ.Maccabean revolt of Judæa.Antiochus Epiphanes conquers Egypt, but retires.Egypt and Syria become Roman protectorates.

Organisation of provinces subject to the Imperial Republic.History of Europe merges in that of ROME.Collision of Rome with (1) Macedon; (2) the Syrian kingdom of the Seleucidæ.Macedon becomes a Roman province.Rome assumes protectorate of Egypt and Syria.

150

Nabatæan State in Arabia.A Tartar kingdom established in east of Parthia.Jugurthan War in Africa.

Third Punic War, and destruction of Carthage, 146.Greek States absorbed into province of Macedonia.Development of political power of (1) demagogues; (2) soldiers.The Gracchi, 133–121.Conquest of South Gaul: defeat of Teutones and Cimbri by Marius.

100

Mithradatic wars, 88–63.The East, to the Euphrates, brought under Roman dominion.Judæa: fall of the Maccabees.

Social war. Marius and Sulla. The Proscriptions.The Sullan Constitution, 81.Pompey. Rise of Julius Cæsar.The East brought under Roman dominion.Cæsar conquers Gaul; lands in Britain.

1B.C.

Scythian or Tartar incursion into India, and admixture with Punjab races.Egypt becomes a Roman province, 30.

Overthrow of Pompey: Cæsar virtual emperor.Murder of Cæsar, 44.Rivalry of Antony and Octavian, 43–30.The Principate, or Empire, established under Augustus (Octavian) in virtue of the Imperium Proconsulare (27) and Tribunicia Potestas (23). The Empire organised.Cicero, Virgil Livy, Horace.

1B.C.

The Birth of Christ

A tremendous event in itself, the reign of Augustus also witnessed one which has had a great influence on the history of the world—the birth of Christ. His ministry, to which perhaps the term event should be applied, was during the reign of the second Emperor, Tiberius. The new faith born on the soil of Judæa was to modify profoundly all the ideals, social and political as well as theological and personal, of the entire Western world; but for many years its adherents remained nothing more than a persecuted yet steadily growing sect; suspected and hated as anarchists rather than as misbelievers, in a world where the rankest and wildest superstitions lived side by side with a general intellectual scepticism.

For four centuries the Imperial city ruled over nearly the whole known world. Beyond the Euphrates on the east, beyond the Rhine and the Danube, she could maintain no permanent footing; within her own borders it seemed as though her sway became a part of the natural order—so much so that when her power had passed away her very conquerors did her homage and took upon themselves titles as her officers.

Rome in her Decline

But the overthrow was yet a long way off. The reconstruction organised by Augustus and his Ministers was developed by able rulers—Tiberius, Trajan, Hadrian, the Antonines—during some two hundred years, in spite of intervals when a murderous tyranny or a feeble incompetence occupied the throne of the Cæsars. From the Pillars of Hercules to the river of Mesopotamia, northward as far as Britain, southward to the deserts of Africa, Roman civilisation, Roman law and justice, Roman military discipline, and Roman roads maintained the Roman peace.

Fall of Rome and Rise of Goths

Then came an era when the Imperial purple became the prize of successful generals acclaimed by their legions; and the frontier armies, themselves largely formed out of Teutonic or other semi-“barbarian” tribes, found themselves face to face with new barbarian hordes which for another century and a half they held in check. But the tremendous external pressure on frontiers so vast made it imperative that the Government should be somewhat decentralised. At the end of the third century Diocletian parted the empire into four great divisions. The new system could not endure; Constantine the Great again became sole emperor. Under him Christianity was at length adopted as the state religion; the Church herself became a fundamental factor in the political system; and the political centre of gravity was transferred from Rome to Byzantium.

Beginning of Byzantium

Again the empire was partitioned, and then, for a brief while before the end of the fourth century, united again under Theodosius. But the end was at hand. For a few years the great general Stilicho held the Teutonic Goths at bay in Italy, while Vandals and Sueves poured through Gaul into Spain. Then, early in the fifth century, Stilicho died. Alaric led his conquering hordes to the gates of Rome, and sacked the Eternal City. His successor, Ataulf, took his Goths away, to drive the Vandals out of Spain into Africa, and set up a great western kingdom on their own account. But after the Goths, fresh barbarians swarmed in—Tartar Huns under Attila, who wrought huge devastation and then vanished for ever; then fresh Teutonic armies, which took possession of Italy, though in the East the Empire still held its own. And in Gaul the (German) Franks under their king, Clovis (Chlodwig, Ludwig), established the dominion which was to give its name to France when the Frankish element had almost passed out of the country. Far-away Britain had already been abandoned, and was falling a prey to the Saxons and the Angles, the “English” who were driving the earlier Celtic inhabitants before them into the mountain fastnesses of the west and north. Again, in the East, in the sixth century, the empire centred at Byzantium asserted its power. Justinian is memorable for that great codification of Roman Law on which the legal systems of half the jurists in Europe have been based. His reign is famous also for the exploits of his brilliant general, Belisarius, who destroyed the Vandal kingdom in Africa, restored the Imperial rule in Italy, and recovered provinces in Asia which had been in danger of falling into the grip of the now aggressive rulers of Persia. But in the West, the success was only temporary. Under pressure of Tartar or Slavonic hosts from the East, a fresh Teutonic swarm, the Lombards, entered Italy and mastered the North. The significance of Rome now lay in the supremacy of her pontificate, unacknowledged in the East.

TIME-TABLE OF THE WORLD: A.D. 1 to 500

Organisation of the Roman Empire. The Rise of Christianity. Partition of the Empire. The Barbarian Invasion and Fall of the Western Empire. Rise of the Franks

A.D.1

The East and Africa

Europe

A.D.1

Beginning of the Christian Era.Imperial system completed under Tiberius.Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates form frontiers of the Empire.Caligula and Claudius emperors.BRITAIN: Roman occupation.Spread of Christianity.

Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, 70.

Nero emperor: Galba, Otho, Vitellius.Vespasian: the “Flavian” emperors.Nerva chosen by Senate in succession to Domitian. The “Five good Emperors,” 96–180.Succession of Trajan, 98.

100

Arabia designated as a Roman province.Trajan’s expedition to the Persian Gulf unsuccessful. Eastward expansion of Rome checked.

Trajan’s campaigns in Dacia.Administration organised under Hadrian.Roman law systematised by Salvius Julianus.Antoninus Pius.

150

Establishment of Roman supremacy in Armenia.Successful campaigns of Severus against Parthians.

Establishment of Roman supremacy in Armenia.

Development of Roman civilisation in Gaul and Spain.Campaigns of Marcus Aurelius in Pannonia.The legions in Illyria, largely composed of “barbarians,” acquire power.After Commodus, series of emperors by military selection.Severus temporarily assigns the West to Clodius Albinus.

200

Persian kingdom of the Sassanides displaces the Parthian Empire.

Further systematising of Roman law by thejuris consulti, Ulpian, etc.Increasing pressure of Teutonic tribes on the frontier. Campaigns of Maximinus.Decius emperor: official persecution of Christianity.

250

Overthrow of Emperor Valerian in the East by the Persians.Destruction of Palmyra in the reign of Zenobia.

Advance of the Goths and Alemanni checked by Claudius and Aurelian.Diocletian emperor. Division of the Empire under a subordinate “Augustus” and two subordinate “Cæsars”.

300

Extension of Buddhism in China.

Last persecution of Christians under Diocletian.Constantine the Great.Constantinople (New Rome, Byzantium) is made the centre of the Empire.Christianity established as the State religionCouncil of Nicæa.

350

Unsuccessful Roman campaign against Persia.

Temporary revival of Paganism under Julian the Apostate.Advance of the Goths checked by Theodosius.Empire separated into East and West, 396.Alaric the Visigoth held in check in the Western Empire by Stilicho.Westward movement of Vandals through Gaul to Spain.

400

Vandals, expelled from Spain, established in Africa.

Sack of Rome by Alaric, after death of Stilicho.End of the Roman occupation of Britain.The Goths withdraw westwards. Establishment of the Visigothic kingdom of Theoderic in Spain and Aquitania.Irruption of the Huns under Attila.

450

500A.D.

BRITAIN: The coming of the Saxons.Barbarian “Patricians” set up and depose Western Emperors.Odoacer, “King” in Italy, recognises supremacy of the Eastern Emperor Zeno.Theoderic the Ostrogoth founds a Teutonic State in Italy.Rise of the Franks in Gaul, under Clovis.

500A.D.

In Spain, the Gothic supremacy gave promise of an orderly and just government. In the wide realms of the Franks anarchy and bloodshed were almost ceaseless. In neither did the dominant Teutons drive out the older Iberian and Celtic populations, as the English were doing in the open lands of the northern island. In both, the German institutions were developing into that feudal system which was utterly incompatible with the maintenance of a strong central rule, since it enabled a powerful vassal to bid defiance to his nominal suzerain. Throughout the sixth and seventh centuries progress was stayed in ancient Gaul; in Spain it was to be revolutionised by a new invader.

Islam in Being

Eastward, at the end of the sixth century, the Slavonic wave was surging upon the empire’s northern frontier; in Asia, Persia was again forcing her way towards the Mediterranean. Both were checked by the Emperor Heraclius early in the seventh century. But, meantime, a new Power had come into being. Mohammed had arisen. Inspired by the fanatical fervour of Islam, the warriors of Arabia, soon to be known as the Saracens, swept all before them. They did not at first make Europe their objective; the Caliphs carried their conquering arms over Western Asia, into Egypt, and along the southern coasts of the Mediterranean. Then they began to beat against the empire itself. The eighth century had hardly opened when they poured into Spain; dissensions among the Gothic chiefs gave them prompt victory. They swept up to the Pyrenees; but their advance was stayed by Charles Martel, the virtual lord of the Frankish kingdom. On the East their armies assailed Constantinople, but were disastrously repulsed by the Emperor Leo the Isaurian.

Now, for the first time, Papal sanction was demanded and obtained for a change of dynasty. The last Merovingian king of the Franks was deposed in favour of Pepin, the son of Charles Martel. He was succeeded by his son, Karl, a German of the Germans, despite the French form of his popular title Charlemagne.

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