We have seen that after the fall of Babylon in 1530 B. C. and the collapse of the Amorite kingdoms of the Euphrates area and North Syria, new peoples of different races entered the area and a new pattern of settlement developed. In the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries, the focus of our interest leaves the valley of the Two Rivers and is concentrated rather on Syria and Palestine and in particular on the new kingdoms which, with a population now partly Semitic (or “Canaanite,” the Biblical writers’ term) and partly Hurrian and often with an Indo-European aristocracy, were emerging as …

Aryan peoples from the North descended into India, radically affecting the native civilization, round about between 1750 to 1400 B.C. Some four thousand years ago in India, around the Indus Valley at Mohenjo-daro and farther north at Harappa, a civilization flourished rivaling those of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Streets were laid out at right angles, brick houses existed and an elaborate drainage system was installed. Writing had also been invented. Pottery was produced and there were certainly trading contacts with Mesopotamia. They were not simply invaders — though archaeology has produced evidence of fighting at Mohenjo-daro — but settlers. The Aryan …

Palestine was possessed by Egypt. In the year 1887 an Egyptian peasant, digging in the ruins of an ancient city on the banks of the Nile, came across some baked clay tablets impressed with cuneiform writing. In due course these tablets came into the hands of dealers and eventually their importance realized. The city had once been the capital of Egypt, for a brief time in the early fourteenth century B.C. and the tablets had come from the record office of the palace; they were letters, part of the files of the Foreign office, the correspondence of the potentates and …

The Hebrews were a nomadic people, some of whom settled in Egypt. They had their own God — Yahweh or Jehovah — and in this respect they differed little from the people around them. Yet the Israelites, led by Moses, were convinced that their God had promised them a land of their own and that they must leave Egypt and go to Palestine. Their God was essentially a god of battle and as such, invaluable as long as they were on the march. What would happen once they settled down? Inevitably there were attempts to worship local gods also, but …

Although the Exodus of the “children of Israel” from Egypt is rightly to be regarded as one of the greatest milestones in human history, in the context of the age in which they lived it must have seemed a very small, even trivial event. The Egyptians themselves would have regarded it as just one more tiresome episode in a constantly recurring situation. For centuries the bedouin tribesmen of Sinai and south Palestine had been permitted from time to time to bring their flocks to the fringes of the fertile Delta in search of pasture; whenever there was famine on the …

For several years the Sea Peoples from the north had been drawing closer and closer to Egypt. Syria and Libya fell to them and under the leadership of Mernera of Libya they began to prepare for an assault on Egypt itself. Merneptah, son of Ramses II, decided to take the initiative and attack first. His strategy was justfied by his resounding victory, but the Sea Peoples learned a lesson and devised a new tactic. They began to infiltrate the country in families and groups. Unknown to the Egyptian administration, a new onslaught of Sea Peoples was about to occur. Happily …

With the collapse of Crete, the Mediterranean focus moves to Greece. The destruction of Knossos in 1450 B.C. precipitated the end of a brilliant period in Cretan civilization. The focus of power, subsequently lay on the Greek mainland, in the great fortress-cities of Mycenae and Tiryns. These cities were remembered in Homeric legend, in the poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Confirmation as fact of what scholars had credited merely as legend was provided by the excavation of the site of Homer’s “Mycenae rich in gold” by the German merchant-turned-archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, in 1876. His discoveries there brought to …

A victorious Athens was thanks to Themistocles, whose farsighted proposal that the Athenians should fight the Persians at sea rather than land, paved the way for the defeat of King Xerxes. Greece was threatened by the advance of the Persians, but even in the face of such a threat, the Greeks were unable to unite as a nation. The basis of Greek life was the “polis” or city-state and the concept of nationhood was completely foreign to this system. Eventually, however, a Hellenic league of Greek cities was formed, led by Athens and Sparta. In 480 the Persians were defeated …

Classical Greece was a period during which the finest products of Greek civilization were achieved, has been defined as beginning after the victory over the Persians. Its end is marked by the appearance of Macedonian soldiers in Greece and the capitulation of the Greek cities to their semi-Greek conquerors from the north. This was the first stage in the vast program of military expansion under the Macedonian king, Alexander, which ended with his death. Macedonian expansion changed the whole face of the East: in the West events were less momentous, though in the same year as the battle of Salamis …

Alexander the Great succeeded to the throne upon the assassination of Philip of Macedonia, in northern Greece. This succession, both as king and as leader to the League of Corinth, was his twenty-year-old son Alexander. In addition to the throne, young Alexander inherited his father’s mission to take revenge on the Persians on their own ground. The fulfilling of that mission and its consequences constitute one of the most glittering pages in the history of the ancient world. Alexander may not have wanted to fuse the traditions of East and West in the empire he created, but he gave Hellenism …

The Chinese grew a new empire in the east, after the death of Alexander the Great. The empire of Cyrus and Xerxes was vast. The empire left by Alexander on his death was even larger and it did not outlast its founder. The most obvious reasons for its immediate breakup were the lack of overall homogeneity, the variety of individual characteristics and political traditions in the area it covered and the Virtual impossibility of establishing a strong central authority to hold it together. The theme of empire is a recurrent one throughout this volume: Xerxes, Alexander, Hannibal, Shih-huang-ti and lastly …

The Great Wall of China is probably the world’s most stupendous monument to human ingenuity, human industry and purportedly is the only one of man’s works that could be seen from the moon. Finding his country a patchwork of desperate states, Shih-huang-ti, the first Emperor of China, imposed upon it unity and coherence. Centralized administration demanded swift communications, so a vast network of roads and canals was thrown across the country. Weights and measures were standardized and the same writing script introduced throughout the land. Unity, however, was of little use without security and to protect his new empire from …

Hannibal alone, would have dared embark on such a venture. Two powers confronted each other to dispute mastery of the Mediterranean — Rome and Carthage. The Carthaginians were interested in colonial expansion as an extension of their trading interests, but were prepared to protect those interests if necessary. Rome’s view was essentially different. In fact, some Romans believed that the fates of the two nations were inextricably linked and that they were doomed to a duel to the death. Carthage’s sphere of influence extended over a great deal of the western Mediterranean, so Rome had to become a naval power …

Slaves could be imported to Italy when and where they were needed. The demand for labour was immediate and there was a much faster and more predictable solution to such a demand, than encouraging population growth or attracting the movement of free workers. The expansion of Carthage was brought to a grinding halt when the genius of the Roman general Scipio enabled the Romans to defeat the Carthaginians decisively on their own ground, at Zama in North Africa. Hannibal lived out the rest of his life in haunted exile, forever planning to challenge the might of Rome again, whether on …

As Rome’s armies marched victorious across the known world and her fleets patrolled the Mediterranean, hundreds and thousands of slaves were shipped back to Italy as cheap and expendable labour for the vast estates of the rich. Many worked in chain gangs under the lash of brutal taskmasters or were sent as shepherds to the milder parts of the country. Others were put into gladiatorial establishments, where a cruel and bloody death was an almost certain fate. In such conditions revolt seemed inevitable and after an unsuccessful attempt in Sicily in 135 B.C., a new revolt, under the leadership of …

The happy judgment of the historian Polybius on the strength of the Roman constitution, because of its mixture of popular, oligarchic and monarchical elements, might certainly appear as an optimistic theorization after the revolt of Spartacus. The Roman state had been shaken by a bitter and violent social disturbance that had only been resolved by two individuals whose power, though technically constitutional, was far too great for the Senate to feel comfortable. Crassus, the multimillionaire and Pompey, the popular general — had succeeded where the regularly appointed consuls had failed and the “extraordinary commands” with which they had been vested …