CHAPTER III
The Fabulous and Heroic Ages, to the Institution of the Olympic Games.
We have already spoken, in the Introductory Remarks, of the impossibility of obtaining any authentic history of Greece previous to the first recorded Olympiad or 776 в.c. Of the works of the chroniclers who preceded Herodotus we have only a few extracts; from these as well as from the statements of other writers, we gather that they had but slender right to the title of historians. Niebuhr has distinctly asserted that, before the work of Herodotus was written, there was no writing in Greece which could be properly called historical, and Herodotus himself was not strictly contemporary with any part of the history which he writes.
Still, although it would be useless to assign definite dates where we have no evidence to warrant our so doing, we can trace out a certain order of developement which is unquestionably historical. In the Greeks we have a race which brought to their greatest perfection the highest gifts of the great Aryan stock to which they belonged. Coming into their new homes with the stores of a mythology, or rather of a mythical speech which they shared in common with the Celt, the Teuton, and the Scandinavian, they showed at once a marvellous creative power, whether in poetry, science, or art. From their mythical speech sprang up, in process of time, the epics of the heroic age. From their own innate genius was evolved a physical science, to which Egyptians and Assyrians could lay not the most distant claim, and an astronomy which rose indefinitely above the barren observations of Chaldæan star-gazers. We cannot, with Thucydides, dissect the wonderful legends of the Trojan war, and after making an arbitrary selection of a few details and incidents, assert the narrative so produced to be historical. The legend could not bear the criticism of Herodotus: it is not likely to stand before the criticism of our own day. But in the state of society which is depicted in the Homeric poems we see a real condition of things which made the future development of Greek life a matter of certainty, and without which the latter society would never have come into existence. We see in them a picture of political life utterly different from any exhibited in the Eastern world; and in the discussions of the Agora, in the influence of wisdom and eloquence over physical force, in the sense of beauty and the conscious submission to law, we have the earnest of Athenian greatness in the days of Pericles.
Of the events which are alleged to have preceded the foundation of Rome, we can say nothing. There is no evidence that any national epic poems ever existed, although such was the hypothesis of Niebuhr; and of the wanderings of Æneas there are many versions, all contradicting each other, and all as much or as little deserving of belief. Whatever basis of real fact there may be in the legendary history of the Roman kings, we can detect none in that of the supposed migration of Æneas into Italy.
Though we necessarily omit, in this brief outline, a multitude of important transactions which are recorded in the Bible, the reader must not lose sight of the fact that the sacred volume is full of historical interest; and we shall have frequent occasion to refer to the action of "God's chosen people" as we describe events mentioned by profane writers. For the present it is suſſicient to state, that about 1050 years before the birth of Christ the kingdom of Judea, under king David, approached its utmost extent of power; that in the glorious reign of his son, the wise and peaceful Solomon, which followed, that stupendous and costly edifice, "the temple of God," was completed, and its dedication solemnized with extraordinary piety and magnificence; that the revolt of the ten tribes took place in the reign of Rehoboam, the son and successor of Solomon, by which Jerusalem was rendered a more easy prey to the Egyptian king, called in Scripture Shishak, and supposed to be the great Sesostris, whose deeds make so conspicuous a figure in the history of his country. After the lapse of another century, we learn that Zera, an Ethiopian, invaded Judea with an army composed of a million of infantry and three hundred chariots, but was defeated with great slaughter by Asa, whose troops amounted to about half that number. By this time the Syrians had become a powerful people; and, taking advantage of the rivalry which existed between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, aimed at the subjugation of both. The Syrian empire was, however, eventually destroyed by the Assyrians, under Tiglath Pilesar, in 740 B. c.; as was also the kingdom of Samaria by Shalmaneser, his successor, in 721; and such of the people as escaped death, were carried captives into Media, Persia, etc.
While the resources of the mighty nations of the East were expended in effecting their mutual destruction, the foundations of some powerful empires were laid in the West, which were destined, in process of time, to subjugate and give laws to the Eastern world. About eight centuries before the Christian era the city of Carthage, in Africa, was founded by a Tyrian colony, and became the capital of a powerful republic, which continued 724 years; during the greater part of which time its ships traversed the Mediterranean and even the Atlantic, whereby it was enabled to monpolize, as it were, the commerce of the whole world.