TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the endof the chapters in this HTML version. Obvious errors in punctuation have beensilently corrected. Other than that, printer's inconsistencies in spelling,hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.
THE HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.
THE
HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.
FROM THE GERMAN
OF
PROFESSOR MAX DUNCKER,
BY
EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A.,
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1877.
PREFACE
TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.
Fifty years ago, the opinion was held by some thatwe could watch, in the tradition of the most ancientrealms of the East, the first awkward steps in thechildhood of the human race, while others believedthat it was possible to discover there the remnantsof an original wisdom, received by mankind at thebeginning of their course immediately from the handof heaven. The monuments of the East, subsequentlydiscovered and investigated by the combined labourof English, German, and French scholars, have addedan unexpected abundance of fresh information to theHebrew Scriptures and the narratives of the Greeks,which, till then, were almost our only resource. Noone can any longer be ignorant that Hither Asia ata very remote period was in possession of a rich andmany-sided civilisation. The earliest stages of thatcivilisation in the valley of the Nile, of the Euphratesand the Tigris, on the coasts and in the interior ofSyria are, it is true, entirely hidden from ourknowledge; even the far more recent culture of the[Pg vi]Aryan tribes we can only trace with the help of theVeda and the Avesta back to the point at whichthey were already acquainted with agriculture, andpossessed considerable artistic skill.
Our object in regard to the ancient East is notto retrace the beginning of human civilization, butrather to understand and establish the value andextent of those early phases of civilisation to whichthe entire development of the human race goes back.The way to this aim is clearly sketched out for us.A minute comparison of tradition with the results ofthe successful advance of Oriental studies, a conscientiousexamination of the one by the other, opens outto us the prospect of discerning more precisely thenature of those ancient constitutions and modes oflife.
To this purpose I have undertaken to contributeby a descriptive treatment of the subject. Such anattempt appeared to me indicated by the considerationthat the fragments of our knowledge—and morethan fragments we do not at present possess, andnever shall possess, even though we assume that thenumber of monuments be considerably increased—ifconscientiously brought together, would producethe most effective impression by exhibiting theconnection of all the various sides of those ancientcivilisations—and if to this collection were addedthe conclusions that can be drawn from it andfrom the monuments about the political life, thereligion, the manners and laws, the art and tradeof those nations.
How to offer in a general survey the sum totalof these fragments of the ancient