Ancient Books

CHAPTER I ASSYRIAN HISTORIANS AND THEIR HISTORIES To the serious student of Assyrian history, it is obvious that we cannot write that history until we have adequately discussed the sources. We must learn what these are, in other words, we must begin with a bibliography of the various documents. Then we must divide them into their various classes, for different classes of inscriptions are of varying... more...

PREFACE If a new translation of Herodotus does not justify itself, it will hardly be justified in a preface; therefore the question whether it was needed may be left here without discussion. The aim of the translator has been above all things faithfulness—faithfulness to the manner of expression and to the structure of sentences, as well as to the meaning of the Author. At the same time it is... more...

CHAPTER I.DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY."Greek phrase[—]"—HEROD. i. 192. The site of the second—or great Assyrian-monarchy was the upper portion of the Mesopotamian valley. The cities which successively formed its capitals lay, all of them, upon the middle Tigris; and the heart of the country was a district on either side that river, enclosed within the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh... more...

CHAPTER I. ITALY. I am going to tell you next about the most famous nation in the world. Going westward from Greece another peninsula stretches down into the Mediterranean. The Apennine Mountains run like a limb stretching out of the Alps to the south eastward, and on them seems formed that land, shaped somewhat like a leg, which is called Italy. Round the streams that flowed down from these hills,... more...

CHAPTER I—THE DISCOVERY OF PREHISTORIC EGYPT During the last ten years our conception of the beginnings of Egyptian antiquity has profoundly altered. When Prof. Maspero published the first volume of his great Histoire Ancienne des Peuples des l'Orient Classique, in 1895, Egyptian history, properly so called, still began with the Pyramid-builders, Sne-feru, Khufu, and Khafra (Cheops and... more...

CHAPTER I—THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE—(continued) Ramses III.: Manners and Customs—Population—The predominance of Amon and his high priests. Opposite the Thebes of the living, Khafîtnîbûs, the Thebes of the dead, had gone on increasing in a remarkably rapid manner. It continued to extend in the south-western direction from the heroic period of the XVIIIth dynasty onwards, and all the... more...

THE ESTRANGER In the effort to dull the edge of his mental anguish by physical exhaustion Catullus had walked far out from the town, through vineyards and fruit-orchards displaying their autumnal stores and clamorous with eager companies of pickers and vintagers. On coming back to the eastern gate he found himself reluctant to pass from the heedless activities of the fields to the bustle of the town... more...

CHAPTER I—EGYPT UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE The Roman dominion on the Nile: Settlement of the Egyptian frontiers: Religious developments: Rebellions. Augustus began his reign in Egypt in B.C. 30 by ordering all the statues of Antony, of which there were more than fifty ornamenting the various public buildings of the city, to be broken to pieces; and it is said he had the meanness to receive a bribe of one... more...

EDITOR'S PREFACE Professor Maspero does not need to be introduced to us. His name is well known in England and America as that of one of the chief masters of Egyptian science as well as of ancient Oriental history and archaeology. Alike as a philologist, a historian, and an archaeologist, he occupies a foremost place in the annals of modern knowledge and research. He possesses that quick... more...

CHAPTER I—SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.) The struggle of Sennacherib with Judæa and Egypt—Destruction of Babylon. Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the... more...