World History Volume Digital Research and Knowledge Share

In the tenth year of the war the Greek hero Achilles slew Hector, the Trojan, in single combat. (Paris, the cause of all the trouble, never distinguished himself very much in the fighting.) The death of Hector was a cruel blow to the Trojans, particularly to Hector’s old father Priam; but they still did not surrender. In the end they were beaten by a trick. The Greeks built a huge wooden horse, big enough to hold a number of fully armed men. They put the pick of their warriors inside the horse and left it on the shore. All the rest of the Greek army sailed away. Hector were supposed to think that the Greeks had given up hope and gone home; but in fact they had only withdrawn to an island nearby. The Trojans streamed out of their city and strolled delightedly through the deserted Greek camp and along the shore where the Greek ships had been drawn up. The wooden horse started them arguing. Should they destroy it? Or should they drag it into their city and keep it there as a memorial of their victory? One Trojan, Laocoon, had no doubts. “I fear the Greeks, even when they bring us gifts”, he said and threw his spear at the horse’s great wooden belly. There was a hollow sound and perhaps Laocoon would have persuaded the Trojans to open up the horse straight away if their attention had not at that moment been distracted by something even more interesting — the discovery of a live Greek. This Greek was a young spy named Sinon. His hands were bound and he had a plausible story to tell. The Greeks, he said, had been going to make a human sacrifice of him in order to ensure that the gods would …

Helen “of Troy“ was in fact Helen of Sparta where she was the wife of King Menelaus. She only spent part of her life in Troy, but it was those years which made her famous. The cause of her going there was the following. The three goddesses, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite (goddess of love) were attending a wedding, when a golden apple was thrown among the guests. It was inscribed “to the fairest”. Naturally, each of the three goddesses claimed it. Zeus ordered Hermes to take them to Mount Ida, near Troy, where Paris would settle their dispute. Paris was the son of King Priam, but it had been prophesied that he would cause trouble; so he had left the court and was working on Mount Ida as a shepherd. Instead of letting Paris decide simply by looking at them, the three goddesses all offered him bribes. Hera said she would make him a powerful ruler if he chose her. Athena offered him fame as a warrior. However, Aphrodite promised Paris that if he would award her the golden apple she would give him the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Paris gave the golden apple to Aphrodite. Aphrodite kept her promise, but not in the way one might have expected. Instead of finding a beautiful unmarried girl for Paris, she caused him to fall in love with Helen of Sparta and he eloped with her to Troy. This was an outrageous thing to do. It is not surprising that the poets who told the story made Helen of Troy the cause of a ten year war.

So much for the legend. What of the facts? At Cnossos, near Herakleion, in Crete are the ruins of an enormous palace, which must have needed somebody like Daedalus to design it. Its honeycomb of cavernous cellars, traces of which still remain, might well have given rise to stories of a “labyrinth” and though no pictures of the Minotaur himself have been found, bulls occur frequently in the paintings which can still be seen upon the palace walls. Sir Arthur Evans began to excavate this great palace in 1899 and called it “The Palace of Minos”. He did not find evidence that a king called Minos had built it. Minos remains legendary, but the name was dignified and convenient. From excavations at Cnossos and elsewhere in Crete, it has been possible to trace the history of Cretan civilization back to about 3000 B.C. So it is here, not on the mainland, that a history of Greece ought to begin. Crete is only 180 miles from the coast of North Africa, along which ships could sail to Egypt. Archaeologists have been able to show that Crete did in fact have links with Egypt as well as with the ancient civilizations of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. A copper axe found at Cnossos shows that Crete probably received copper from Egypt as early as 3000 B.C. and the Cretans later learned pottery and other arts from the Egyptians. By 2000 B.C. Crete was a highly civilized country. Writing, to which dogged scholarship has only recently found the key, had been developed; but as there were no papyrus marshes, clay tablets were used. The pottery and metalwork industries had made a thriving foreign trade possible. The first palaces had been built and much of the island was united under one line of Kings. The …

The Greeks, then, had their story of the creation of the world, of a great flood and a heroic ancestor; but the only fact we have met so far is that a tribe called Hellenes did in fact exist in Northern Greece. The search now turns southward, to Crete. Once again we begin with a legend. Minos, King of Crete, had a brilliantly athletic son, Androgeus, a beautiful daughter, Ariadne and a monster, the Minotaur, (half bull, half man). The Minotaur was kept shut up in a labyrinth, a vast network of caves and underground passages, designed by Daedalus, a brilliant Athenian exile. Androgeus was happy and successful. Too successful. For, when he had competed in the games at Athens and won every event, Aegeus, King of Athens, had him put to death. Minos then made war on the Athenians to avenge his son’s death and compelled them to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete every year as victims for the Minotaur. When he grew up, Theseus, the son of King Aegeus, volunteered to be one of the unlucky fourteen and sailed with them to Crete in their black-sailed ship. He had made up his mind to kill the Minotaur. King Aegeus, praying that his son might succeed, had a white sail put on board the ship and gave orders for it to be hoisted on the homeward voyage, if Theseus were alive. In Crete, Ariadne the daughter of King Minos, helped Theseus by giving him a ball of thread. He fixed the end of this at the entrance of the labyrinth and unwound it as he went along. So he not only succeeded in killing the Minotaur but was also able to escape with his companions. On the voyage back to Athens there was a good deal …

GREECE is a country that people go to on cruises in spring, summer and autumn. Like other people who go on cruises, they are in search of sunshine. They pack bathing suits. But, unlike most other people who go on cruises, they also pack a lot of books-The Iliad, The Odyssey, How to enjoy GreekArt, The Greek CityState, The Play: of Sophocles. Some of the books are in Greek, e.g., The Apology of Socrates. There is another queer thing about cruising to Greece. The labels on the passengers’ luggage probably do not have the word “Greece” on them at all. Instead you will find the word “Hellenic”. This is a “Hellenic” cruise and the king of the country the passengers are about to visit is called King of the Hellenes, not King of Greece. When they buy their first postage stamps after arriving in Athens they will find them inscribed, which in English would be written HELLAS. The fact is that the Greeks, who call themselves Hellenes, have a very long and in some respects very splendid history. They are proud of it and people of other countries approach Greece with reverence. Reverence means loving and admiring at the same time. It is a much more serious feeling than usually comes over a person looking at Stonehenge or the Pyramids. Who were the Hellenes, whom we call Greeks because the Romans called them Greeks? This is the first of many questions about early Greek history to which there are two answers — the truth, as far as we have been able to get at it and the myths and legends told among the ancient Greeks themselves. It is usually convenient to put the old story first and the truth, as far as it is known, second. For the truth is usually …

The civilizations of India, China and the Moslem world progressed to about the year 1500 A.D., but what had been happening in western Europe in the centuries after Roman power began to decline and barbarian tribesmen had overrun the lands once part of the proud Roman Empire? What had taken the place of Roman might, government and law in western Europe? As Rome’s rule faded away, western Europe entered a period known as the Middle Ages or the medieval period. For a long time there was neither a single empire nor nations as we know them to day. Central governments, such as there were, had little power. Warfare and violence were the rule rather than the exception. Bands of armed men roamed the countryside robbing and killing. Commerce dwindled from a stream to a mere trickle and cities diminished in number, size and importance. Men’s interest in art and learning became less and less. Only in the churches and monasteries where the men of God prayed and worked was there peace and learning. During the later Middle Ages forces were at work which were to bring about great changes in western Europe. For most people, however, the years from about 500 A.D. to 1300 A.D. were years of grinding toil on the little farms that encircled the villages. They were years of obedience to, and fear of, the grim armour clad fighting men who lived in the castles and manor houses dotting the countryside. They were years when the knowledge that had been developed by the Greeks and Romans was largely forgotten and the new learning of the Moslems was as yet little known. They were also years of ever growing religious faith. During that time the Catholic Church was not only the guardian of men’s consciences and souls; it …

Thirteen and a half centuries ago a new religion began in Arabia. Today millions of people are followers of this religion. It is called Islam and its followers, Moslems. All their lives long, Moslems must pray, in ways clearly prescribed, five times every day. No ordinary event must be allowed to interfere with these moments of prayer. Moslems must learn to recite their creed — a long statement of their religious belief. For one month each year they must fast all of every day from sunrise to sunset. They must give generously to charity. They should, if at all possible, go at least once during their lives to the holy city of Mecca, where Mohammed, the founder of Islam, began this new religion. People of other faiths are forbidden to enter Mecca. A few miles outside of Mecca, Moslems must change to pilgrims’ dress and proceed barefoot when they enter this city, high up in west-central Arabia. Mohammed and his first followers were Arabs. Arab merchants and Arab warriors, influenced the history of other peoples. United by loyalty to their religious faith, Arabs created a large empire. Arab rulers occupied positions of great influence and were keenly interested in advancing learning. How did all this come about? 1. How did the religion of Mohammed create a powerful Moslem world? 2. What kind of civilization developed in the Moslem world? 1. How did the Religion of Mohammed Create a Powerful Moslem World? Arab civilization started later than other great civilizations. The story of the Moslem world began about 600 A.D. in Arabia, a huge peninsula covered for the most part with burning desert. Arabia is separated from Africa by the Red Sea and from Iran (Persia) by the Persian Gulf. To the north and west of the Arabian peninsula is the …

In the same way that important ancient civilizations grew out of small beginnings in the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates and the Indus, so another great civilization of Early times — that of China — was cradled in the valley of the Yellow River. To be sure, China’s civilization did not commence as early as did Egypt’s, Mesopotamia’s, or India’s. The ancient Egyptian and the Mesopotamian kingdoms lost their power many centuries ago and early India never became completely united under one empire. China therefore has had a longer national life than any other ancient or modern state. It is the oldest of today’s nations. 1. How Did Early China Develop Under Various Ruling Families? China is dominated by three great rivers. China’s life, today as in olden times, centres in three river valleys. The great Hwang-Ho, Chinese for Yellow River, rises in the lofty mountains of Tibet. Winding its way slowly across the wide plain of North China, it flows into the Yellow Sea, so called because of the yellow soil the great river empties into it. Unlike Egypt or India, the North China plain has a climate like that of southern Canada, with warm summers and severe winters. The wind storms, disastrous dry spells and terrifying floods often bring destruction and misery to its inhabitants. Farther to the south is the valley of the Yangtze River. The Yangtze is one of the longest rivers in the world. In all, it flows nearly 4000 miles on its way to the sea. Still farther south is the Si, or West River. The climate of South China is warm and there is a heavier rainfall there than in North China. Many of China’s good ports are located along the southern coast. A Bronze Age civilization appeared first on the North …

Two hundred years before Columbus discovered America, a certain Marco Polo told strange, exciting stories to his friends and neighbours in Venice, a city in northern Italy. He had travelled, he said, to distant lands in Asia and had become rich. Europeans at that time had some general knowledge of eastern Asia and of its products, but Polo furnished detailed and colourful descriptions of magnificent cities, of strange customs and of powerful rulers who owned many palaces and lived in unheard of luxury. Marco Polo had visited the court of the khan, or ruler, of an empire that included most of east Asia as well as great islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Polo had been made a public official. He had been sent on errands to the cold wastes of present day Siberia and the green Spice Islands where it was always warm. He had seen civilizations of many kinds — some primitive, some more magnificent than those in Europe. Marco Polo’s stories were so amazing that not until long after his death did most people believe them. “How,” thought Europeans, “could Asians have travelled so far on the long road from savagery without our help?” Today we know that Marco Polo’s stories were true, atleast in all important respects. We know that while Egyptians were building their pyramids and the Sumerians their temple towers in Mesopotamia, civilization was growing in India. We know also that while the Greeks and Romans were creating “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome,” the Chinese were developing their own civilization and way of life. You will not find the empire of Alexander or the Roman Empire on a modern map of the world, as you know, but India and China still exist. Many changes have taken place …

Christianity was the movement that spread Across the Roman Empire Pointing the way for the rest of the ancient world toward belief in a single God. The year is 400 A.D. Andropolos paces impatiently up and down the deck of the merchant ship. He is eager to get back home; and to Andropolos, home is the city of Constantinople, a new capital of the Roman Empire. He can already see the walls and buildings of the great city shimmering in the distance. Now the ship is nearing the narrow Bosporus, the waterway where Europe and Asia are hardly a mile apart. The voyage from Ostia, the port of the old city of Rome, had been long and tiresome. Andropolos had been only too glad to leave Italy. The city that was once a hub of the Roman Empire, though still large, had a down at the heel look. Simultaneously the cities of northern Italy were becoming crowded with rough barbarians. Tall Germans also were filling the ranks of Roman legions. In times past, men such as these had been defeated again and again by Roman armies made up of men from Italy, but those victories had been won long ago and Rome had no such fighters left. Yes, Andropolos is thankful to leave Italy. Here in Constantinople the authority of the Roman emperor still counts. Andropolos shakes his head sadly as he recalls what has happened — the Roman Empire is not what it used to be. For Andropolos, though he is Greek born and Greek speaking, proudly calls himself a Roman citizen. The walls of Constantinople on the left grow closer as the ship enters the Bosporus. Soon it will dock in the harbour of the Golden Horn and Andropolos’ long voyage will be over. When he steps ashore, …