Various - The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1

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THE GREAT EVENTS

BY

FAMOUS HISTORIANS

A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS

NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL

ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES, ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

_With a staff of specialists_

_VOLUME 1_

The National Alumni

COPYRIGHT, 1905,

By THE NATIONAL ALUMNI

CONTENTS

VOLUME I

_General Introduction_

_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_
CHARLES F. HORNE

_Dawn of Civilization_ (_B.C. 5867_)
G.C.C. MASPERO

_Compilation of the Earliest Code_ (_B.C. 2250_)
HAMMURABI

_Theseus Founds Athens_ (_B.C. 1235_)
PLUTARCH

_The Formation of the Castes in India_ (_B.C. 1200_)
GUSTAVE LE BON
W.W. HUNTER

_Fall of Troy_ (_B.C. 1184_)
GEORGE GROTE

_Accession of Solomon_
_Building of the Temple at Jerusalem_ (_B.C. 1017_)
HENRY HART MILMAN

_Rise and Fall of Assyria_
_Destruction of Nineveh_ (_B.C. 789_)
F. LENORMANT AND E. CHEVALLIER

_The Foundation of Rome_ (_B.C. 753_)
BARTHOLD GEORG NIEBUHR

_Prince Jimmu Founds Japan's Capital_ (_B.C. 660_)
SIR EDWARD REED
THE "NEHONGI"

_The Foundation of Buddhism_ (_B.C. 623_)
THOMAS W. RHYS-DAVIDS

_Pythian Games at Delphi_ (_B.C. 585_)
GEORGE GROTE

_Solon's Early Greek Legislation_ (_B.C. 594_)
GEORGE GROTE

_Conquests of Cyrus the Great_ (_B.C. 550_)
GEORGE GROTE

_Rise of Confucius, the Chinese Sage_ (_B.C. 550_)
R.K. DOUGLAS

_Rome Established as a Republic_
_Institution of Tribunes_ (_B.C. 510-494_)
HENRY GEORGE LIDDELL

_The Battle of Marathon_ (_B.C. 490_)
SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

_Invasion of Greece by Persians under Xerxes_
_Defence of Thermopylae_ (_B.C. 480_)
HERODOTUS

_Universal Chronology_ (_B.C. 5867-451_)
JOHN RUDD

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

_Sphinx, with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh_ (_page 12_)
Frontispiece From an original photograph.

_The Rosetta Stone, and Description_
Facsimile of original in the British Museum.

_The Sabine Women_--_now mothers_--_suing for peace between the
combatants_ (_their Roman husbands and their Sabine relatives_)
Painting by Jacques L. David.

THE GREAT EVENTS

BY

FAMOUS HISTORIANS

* * * * *

General Introduction

THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS is the answer to a problem which
has long been agitating the learned world. How shall real history, the
ablest and profoundest work of the greatest historians, be rescued from
its present oblivion on the dusty shelves of scholars, and made welcome
to the homes of the people?

THE NATIONAL ALUMNI, an association of college men, having given this
question long and earnest discussion among themselves, sought finally
the views of a carefully elaborated list of authorities throughout
America and Europe. They consulted the foremost living historians and
professors of history, successful writers in other fields, statesmen,
university and college presidents, and prominent business men. From this
widely gathered consensus of opinions, after much comparison and sifting
of ideas, was evolved the following practical, and it would seem
incontrovertible, series of plain facts. And these all pointed toward
"THE GREAT EVENTS."

In the first place, the entire American public, from top to bottom of
the social ladder, are at this moment anxious to read history. Its
predominant importance among the varied forms of literature is fully
recognized. To understand the past is to understand the future. The
successful men in every line of life are those who look ahead, whose
keen foresight enables them to probe into the future, not by magic, but
by patiently acquired knowledge. To see clearly what the world has done,
and why, is to see at least vaguely what the world will do, and when.

Moreover, no man can understand himself unless he understands others;
and he cannot do that without some idea of the past, which has produced
both him and them. To know his neighbors, he must know something of the
country from which they came, the conditions under which they formerly
lived. He cannot do his own simple duty by his own country if he does
not know through what tribulations that country has passed. He cannot be
a good citizen, he cannot even vote honestly, much less intelligently,
unless he has read history. Fortunately the point needs little urging.
It is almost an impertinence to refer to it. We are all anxious, more
than anxious to learn--_if only the path of study be made easy_.

Can this be accomplished? Can the vanishing pictures of the past be made
as simply obvious as mathematics, as fascinating as a breezy novel of
adventure? Genius has already answered, yes. Hand to a mere boy
Macaulay's sketch of Warren Hastings in India, and the lad will see as
easily as if laid out upon a map the host of interwoven and elaborate
problems that perplexed the great administrator. Offer to the youngest
lass the tale told by Guizot of King Robert of France and his struggle
to retain his beloved wife Bertha. Its vivid reality will draw from the
girl's heart far deeper and truer tears than the most pathetic romance.

We begin to realize that in very truth History has been one vast
stupendous drama, world-embracing in its splendor, majestic, awful,
irresistible in the insistence of its pointing finger of fate. It has
indeed its comic interludes, a Prussian king befuddling ambassadors in
his "Tobacco Parliament"; its pauses of intense and cumulative suspense,
Queen Louise pleading to Napoleon for her country's life; but it has
also its magnificent pageants, its gorgeous culminating spectacles of
wonder. Kings and emperors are but the supernumeraries upon its boards;
its hero is the common man, its plot his triumph over ignorance, his
struggle upward out of the slime of earth.

_Yet the great historians are not being widely read_. The ablest and
most convincing stories of his own development seem closed against the
ordinary man. Why? In the first place, the works of the masters are too
voluminous. Grote's unrivalled history of Greece fills ten large and
forbidding volumes. Guizot takes thirty-one to tell a portion of the
story of France. Freeman won credit in the professorial world by
devoting five to the detailing of a single episode, the Norman Conquest.
Surely no busy man can gather a general historic knowledge, if he must
read such works as these! We are told that the great library of Paris
contains over four hundred thousand volumes and pamphlets on French
history alone. The output of historic works in all languages approaches
ten thousand volumes every year. No scholar, even, can peruse more than
the smallest fraction of this enormously increasing mass. Herodotus is
forgotten, Livy remains to most of us but a recollection of our
school-days, and Thucydides has become an exercise in Greek.

There is yet another difficulty. Even the honest man who tries, who
takes down his Grote or Freeman, heroically resolved to struggle through
it at all speed, fails often in his purpose. He discovers that the
greatest masters nod. Sometimes in their slow advance they come upon a
point that rouses their enthusiasm; they become vigorous, passionate,
sarcastic, fascinating, they are masters indeed. But the fire soon dies,
the inspiration flags, "no man can be always on the heights," and the
unhappy reader drowses in the company of his guide.

This leads us then to one clear point. From these justly famous works a
selection should be made. Their length should be avoided, their prosy
passages eliminated; the one picture, or perhaps the many pictures,
which each master has painted better than any rival before or since,
that and that alone should be preserved.

Read in this way, history may be sought with genuine pleasure. It is
only pedantry has made it dreary, only blindness has left it dull. The
story of man is the most wonderful ever conceived. It can be made the
most fascinating ever written.

With this idea firmly established in mind, we seek another line of
thought. The world grows smaller every day. Russia fights huge battles
five thousand miles from her capital. England governs India. Spain and
the United States contend for empire in the antipodes. Our rapidly
improving means of communication, electric trains, and, it may be,
flying machines, cables, and wireless telegraphy, link lands so close
together that no man lives to-day the subject of an isolated state.
Rather, indeed, do all the kingdoms seem to shrink, to become but
districts in one world-including commonwealth.

To tell the story of one nation by itself is thus no longer possible.
Great movements of the human race do not stop for imaginary boundary
lines thrown across a map. It was not the German students, nor the
Parisian mob, nor the Italian peasants who rebelled in 1848; it was the
"people of Europe" who arose against their oppressors. To read the
history of one's own country only is to get distorted views, to
exaggerate our own importance, to remain often in densest ignorance of
the real meaning of what we read. The ideas American school-boys get of
the Revolution are in many cases simply absurd, until they have been
modified by wider reading.

From this it becomes very evident that a good history now must be, not a
local, but a world history. The idea of such a work is not new. Diodorus
penned one two hundred years before Christ. But even then the tale took
forty books; and we have been making history rather rapidly since
Diodorus' time. Of the many who have more recently attempted his task,
few have improved upon his methods; and the best of these works only
shows upon a larger scale the same dreariness that we have found in
other masters.

Let us then be frank and admit that no one man can make a thoroughly
good world history. No one man could be possessed of the almost infinite
learning required; none could have the infinite enthusiasm to delight
equally in each separate event, to dwell on all impartially and yet
ecstatically. So once more we are forced back upon the same conclusion.
We will take what we already have. We will appeal to each master for the
event in which he did delight, the one in which we find him at his best.

This also has been attempted before, but perhaps in a manner too
lengthy, too exact, too pedantic to be popular. The aim has been to get
in everything. Everything great or small has been narrated, and so the
real points of value have been lost in the multiplicity of lesser facts,
about which no ordinary reader cares or needs to care. After all, what
we want to know and remember are the Great Events, the ones which have
really changed and influenced humanity. How many of us do really know
about them? or even know what they are? or one-twentieth part of them?
And until we know, is it not a waste of time to pore over the lesser
happenings between?

Yet the connection between these events must somehow be shown. They must
not stand as separate, unrelated fragments. If the story of the world is
indeed one, it must be shown as one, not even broken by arbitrary
division into countries, those temporary political constructions, often
separating a single race, lines of imaginary demarcation, varying with
the centuries, invisible in earth's yesterday, sure to change if not to
perish in her to-morrow. Moreover, such a system of division
necessitates endless repetition. Each really important occurrence
influences many countries, and so is told of again and again with
monotonous iteration and extravagant waste of space.

It may, however, be fairly urged that the story should vary according to
the country for which it is designed. To our individual lives the events
happening nearest prove most important. Great though others be, their
influence diminishes with their increasing distance in space and time.
For the people of North America the story of the world should have the
part taken by America written large across the pages.

From all these lines of reasoning arose the present work, which the
National Alumni believe has solved the problem. It tells the story of
the world, tells it in the most famous words of the most famous writers,
makes of it a single, continued story, giving the results of the most
recent research. Yet all dry detail has been deliberately eliminated;
the tale runs rapidly and brightly. Whatever else may happen, the reader
shall not yawn. Only important points are dwelt on, and their relative
value is made clear.

Each volume of THE GREAT EVENTS opens with a brief survey of the period
with which it deals. The broad world movements of the time are pointed
out, their importance is emphasized, their mutual relationship made
clear. If the reader finds his interest specially roused in one of these
events, and he would learn more of it, he is aided by a directing note,
which, in each case, tells him where in the body of the volume the
subject is further treated. Turning thither he may plunge at once into
the fuller account which he desires, sure that it will be both vivid and
authoritative; in short, the best-known treatment of the subject.

Meanwhile the general survey, being thus relieved from the necessity of
constant explanation, expansion, and digression, is enabled to flow
straight onward with its story, rapidly, simply, entertainingly. Indeed,
these opening sketches, written especially for this series, and in a
popular style, may be read on from volume to volume, forming a book in
themselves, presenting a bird's-eye view of the whole course of earth,
an ideal world history which leaves the details to be filled in by the
reader at his pleasure. It is thus, we believe, and thus only, that
world history can be made plain and popular. The great lessons of
history can thus be clearly grasped. And by their light all life takes
on a deeper meaning.

The body of each volume, then, contains the Great Events of the period,
ranged in chronological order. Of each event there are given one,
perhaps two, or even three complete accounts, not chosen hap-hazard, but
selected after conference with many scholars, accounts the most accurate
and most celebrated in existence, gathered from all languages and all
times. Where the event itself is under dispute, the editors do not
presume to judge for the reader; they present the authorities upon both
sides. The Reformation is thus portrayed from the Catholic as well as
the Protestant standpoint. The American Revolution is shown in part as
England saw it; and in the American Civil War, and the causes which
produced it, the North and the South speak for themselves in the words
of their best historians.

To each of these accounts is prefixed a brief introduction, prepared for
this work by a specialist in the field of history of which it treats.
This introduction serves a double purpose. In the first place, it
explains whatever is necessary for the understanding and appreciation
of the story that follows. Unfortunately, many a striking bit of
historic writing has become antiquated in the present day. Scholars have
discovered that it blunders here and there, perhaps is prejudiced,
perhaps extravagant. Newer writers, therefore, base a new book upon the
old one, not changing much, but paraphrasing it into deadly dullness by
their efforts after accuracy. Thanks to our introduction we can revive
the more spirited account, and, while pointing out its value to the
reader, can warn him of its errors. Thus he secures in briefest form the
results of the most recent research.

Another purpose of the introduction is to link each event with the
preceding ones in whatever countries it affects. Thus if one chooses he
may read by countries after all, and get a completed story of a single
nation. That is, he may peruse the account of the battle of Hastings and
then turn onward to the making of the _Domesday Book_, where he will
find a few brief lines to cover the intervening space in England's
history. From the struggles of Stephen and Matilda he is led to the
quarrel of her son, King Henry, with Thomas Becket, and so onward step
by step.

Starting with this ground plan of the design in mind, the reader will
see that its compilation was a work of enormous labor. This has been
undertaken seriously, patiently, and with earnest purpose. The first
problem to be confronted was, What were the Great Events that should be
told? Almost every writer and teacher of history, every well-known
authority, was appealed to; many lists of events were compiled, revised,
collated, and compared; and so at last our final list was evolved,
fitted to bear the brunt of every criticism.

Then came the heavier problem of what authorities to quote for each
event. And here also the editors owe much to the capable aid of many
generous, unremunerated advisers. Thus, for instance, they sought and
obtained from the Hon. Joseph Chamberlain his advice as to the
authorities to be used for the Jameson raid and the Boer war. The
account presented may therefore be fairly regarded as England's own
authoritative presentment of those events. Several little known and
wholly unused Russian sources were pointed out by Professor Rambaud,
the French Academician. But this is mentioned only to illustrate the
impartiality with which the editors have endeavored to cover all fields.
If, under the plea of expressing gratitude to all those who have lent us
courteous assistance, we were to spread across these pages the long roll
of their distinguished names, it would sound too much like boasting of
their condescension.

The work of selecting the accounts has been one of time and careful
thought. Many thousands of books have been read and read again. The
cardinal points of consideration in the choice have been: (1) Interest,
that is, vividness of narration; (2) simplicity, for we aim to reach the
people, to make a book fit even for a child; (3) the fame of the author,
for everyone is pleased to be thus easily introduced to some
long-heard-of celebrity, distantly revered, but dreaded; and (4)
accuracy, a point set last because its defects could be so easily
remedied by the specialist's introduction to each event.

These considerations have led occasionally to the selection of very
ancient documents, the original "sources" of history themselves, as, for
instance, Columbus' own story of his voyage, rather than any later
account built up on this; Pliny's picture of the destruction of Pompeii,
for Pliny was there and saw the heavens rain down fire, and told of it
as no man has done since. So, too, we give a literal translation of the
earliest known code of laws, antedating those of Moses by more than a
thousand years, rather than some modern commentary on them. At other
times the same principles have led to the other extreme, and on modern
events, where there seemed no wholly satisfactory or standard accounts,
we have had them written for us by the specialists best acquainted with
the field.

As the work thus grew in hand, it became manifest that it would be, in
truth, far more than a mere story of events. With each event was
connected the man who embodied it. Often his life was handled quite as
fully as the event, and so we had biography. Lands had to be
described--geography. Peoples and customs--sociology. Laws and the
arguments concerning them--political economy. In short, our history
proved a universal cyclopaedia as well.

To give it its full value, therefore, an index became obviously
necessary--and no ordinary index. Its aim must be to anticipate every
possible question with which a reader might approach the past, and
direct him to the answer. Even, it might be, he would want details more
elaborate than we give. If so, we must direct him where to find them.

Professional index-makers were therefore summoned to our help, a
complete and readable chronology was appended to each volume, and the
final volume of the series was turned over to the indexers entirely. We
believe their work will prove not the least valuable feature of the
whole. Briefly, the Index Volume contains:

1. A complete list of the Great Events of the world's history. Opposite
each event are given the date, the name of the author and standard work
from which our account is selected, and a number of references to other
works and to a short discussion of these in our Bibliography. Thus the
reader may pursue an extended course of study on each particular event.

2. A bibliography of the best general histories of ancient, mediaeval,
and modern times, and of important political, religious, and educational
movements; also a bibliography of the best historical works dealing with
each nation, and arranged under the following subdivisions: (_a_) The
general history of the nation; (_b_) special periods in its career;
(_c_) the descriptions of the people, their civilization and
institutions. On each work thus mentioned there is a critical comment
with suggestions to readers. This bibliography is designed chiefly for
those who desire to pursue more extended courses of reading, and it
offers them the experience and guidance of those who have preceded them
on their special field.

3. A classified index of famous historic characters. The names are
grouped under such headings as "Rulers, Statesmen, and Patriots,"
"Famous Women," "Military and Naval Commanders," "Philosophers and
Teachers," "Religious Leaders," etc. Under each person's name is given a
biographical chronology of his career, showing every important event in
which he played a part, together with the date of the event, and the
volume and page of this series where a full account of it may be found.
This plan provides a new and very valuable means of reading the
biography of any noted personage, one of the great advantages being that
the accounts of the various events in his life are not all in the
language of the same author, not written by a man anxious to bring out
the importance of his special hero. The writers are mainly interested in
the event, and show the hero only in his true and unexaggerated relation
to it. Under each name will also be found references to such further
authorities on the biography of the personage as may be consulted with
profit by those students and scholars who wish to pursue an exhaustive
study of his career.

4. A biographical index of the authors represented in the series. This
consists of brief sketches of the many writers whose work has been drawn
upon for the narratives of Great Events. It is intended for ready
reference, and gives only the essential facts. This index serves a
double purpose. Suppose, for instance, that a reader is familiar with
the name of John Lothrop Motley, but happens not to know whether he is
still living, whether he had other occupation than writing, or what
offices he held. This index will answer these questions. On the other
hand, an admirer of Thomas Jefferson or Theodore Roosevelt may wish to
know whether we have taken anything--and, if so, what--from their
writings. This index will answer at once.

5. A general index covering every reference in the series to dates,
events, persons, and places of historic importance. These are made
easily accessible by a careful and elaborate system of cross-references.

6. A separate and complete chronology of each nation of ancient,
mediaeval, and modern times, with references to the volume and page where
each item is treated, either as an entire article or as part of one; so
that the history of any one nation may be read in its logical order and
in the language of its best historians.

Such, as the National Alumni regard it, are the general character, wide
scope, and earnest purpose of THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS. Let
us end by saying, in the friendly fashion of the old days when
bookmakers and their readers were more intimate than now: "Kind reader,
if this our performance doth in aught fall short of promise, blame not
our good intent, but our unperfect wit."

THE NATIONAL ALUMNI.

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE GREAT EVENTS

A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE, ITS ADVANCE IN
KNOWLEDGE AND CIVILIZATION, AND THE BROAD WORLD MOVEMENTS WHICH HAVE
SHAPED ITS DESTINY

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.

CONTINUED THROUGH THE SUCCESSIVE VOLUMES AND COVERING THE SUCCESSIVE
PERIODS OF

THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE GREAT EVENTS

(FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIANS)

CHARLES F. HORNE

History, if we define it as the mere transcription of the written
records of former generations, can go no farther back than the time such
records were first made, no farther than the art of writing. But now
that we have come to recognize the great earth itself as a story-book,
as a keeper of records buried one beneath the other, confused and half
obliterated, yet not wholly beyond our comprehension, now the historian
may fairly be allowed to speak of a far earlier day.

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