Ancient Man Part 10

A new Theban king, called Tethmosis, invaded Asia and never stopped until he reached the plains of Mesopotamia. He watered his oxen in the river Euphrates, and Babylon and Nineveh trembled at the mention of his name. Wherever he went, he built strong fortresses, which were connected by excellent roads. Tethmosis, having built a barrier against future invasions, went home and died. But his daughter, Hatshepsut, continued his good work. She rebuilt the temples which the Hyksos had destroyed and she founded a strong state in which soldiers and merchants worked together for a common purpose and which was called the New Empire, and lasted from 1600 to 1300 B.C.

Military nations, however, never last very long. The larger the empire, the more men are needed for its defense and the more men there are in the army, the fewer can stay at home to work the farms and attend to the demands of trade. Within a few years, the Egyptian state had become top-heavy and the army, which was meant to be a bulwark against foreign invasion, dragged the country into ruin from sheer lack of both men and money.

Without interruption, wild people from Asia were attacking those strong walls behind which Egypt was h.o.a.rding the riches of the entire civilized world.

At first the Egyptian garrisons could hold their own.

One day, however, in distant Mesopotamia, there arose a new military empire which was called a.s.syria. It cared for neither art nor science, but it could fight. The a.s.syrians marched against the Egyptians and defeated them in battle. For more than twenty years they ruled the land of the Nile. To Egypt this meant the beginning of the end.

A few times, for short periods, the people managed to regain their independence. But they were an old race, and they were worn out by centuries of hard work.

The time had come for them to disappear from the stage of history and surrender their leadership as the most civilized people of the world.

Greek merchants were swarming down upon the cities at the mouth of the Nile.

A new capital was built at Sais, near the mouth of the Nile, and Egypt became a purely commercial state, the half-way house for the trade between western Asia and eastern Europe.

After the Greeks came the Persians, who conquered all of northern Africa.

Two centuries later, Alexander the Great turned the ancient land of the Pharaoh? into a Greek province. When he died, one of his generals, Ptolemy by name, established himself as the independent king of a new Egyptian state.

The Ptolemy family continued to rule for two hundred years.

In the year 30 B.C., Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemys, killed herself, rather than become a prisoner of the victorious Roman general, Octavia.n.u.s.

That was the end.

Egypt became part of the Roman Empire and her life as an independent state ceased for all time.

MESOPOTAMIA, THE COUNTRY BETWEEN THE RIVERS

I am going to take you to the top of the highest pyramid.

It is a good deal of a climb.

The casing of fine stones which in the beginning covered the rough granite blocks which were used to construct this artificial mountain, has long since worn off or has been stolen to help build new Roman cities. A goat would have a fine time scaling this strange peak. But with the help of a few Arab boys, we can get to the top after a few hours of hard work, and there we can rest and look far into the next chapter of the history of the human race.

Way, way off, in the distance, far beyond the yellow sands of the vast desert, through which the old Nile had cut herself a way to the sea, you will (if you have the eyes of a hawk), see something shimmering and green.

It is a valley situated between two big rivers.

It is the most interesting spot of the ancient map.

It is the Paradise of the Old Testament.

It is the old land of mystery and wonder which the Greeks called Mesopotamia.

The word "Mesos" means "middle" or "in between" and "potomos" is the Greek expression for river. (Just think of the Hippopotamus, the horse or "hippos" that lives in the rivers.) Mesopotamia, therefore, meant a stretch of land "between the rivers." The two rivers in this case were the Euphrates which the Babylonians called the "Purattu" and the Tigris, which the Babylonians called the "Diklat." You will see them both upon the map. They begin their course amidst the snows of the northern mountains of Armenia and slowly they flow through the southern plain until they reach the muddy banks of the Persian Gulf. But before they have lost themselves amidst the waves of this branch of the Indian Ocean, they have performed a great and useful task.

They have turned an otherwise arid and dry region into the only fertile spot of western Asia.

That fact will explain to you why Mesopotamia was so very popular with the inhabitants of the northern mountains and the southern desert.

It is a well-known fact that all living beings like to be comfortable.

When it rains, the cat hastens to a place of shelter.

When it is cold, the dog finds a spot in front of the stove. When a certain part of the sea becomes more salty than it has been before (or less, for that matter) myriads of little fishes swim hastily to another part of the wide ocean. As for the birds, a great many of them move from one place to another regularly once a year. When the cold weather sets in, the geese depart, and when the first swallow returns, we know that summer is about to smile upon us.

Man is no exception to this rule. He likes the warm stove much better than the cold wind. Whenever he has the choice between a good dinner and a crust of bread, he prefers the dinner. He will live in the desert or in the snow of the arctic zone if it is absolutely necessary. But offer him a more agreeable place of residence and he will accept without a moment's hesitation. This desire to improve his condition, which really means a desire to make life more comfortable and less wearisome, has been a very good thing for the progress of the world.

It has driven the white people of Europe to the ends of the earth.

It has populated the mountains and the plains of our own country.

It has made many millions of men travel ceaselessly from east to west and from south to north until they have found the climate and the living conditions which suit them best.

In the western part of Asia this instinct which compels living beings to seek the greatest amount of comfort possible with the smallest expenditure of labor forced both the inhabitants of the cold and inhospitable mountains and the people of the parched desert to look for a new dwelling place in the happy valley of Mesopotamia.

It caused them to fight for the sole possession of this Paradise upon Earth.

It forced them to exercise their highest power of inventiveness and their n.o.blest courage to defend their homes and farms and their wives and children against the newcomers, who century after century were attracted by the fame of this pleasant spot.

This constant rivalry was the cause of an everlasting struggle between the old and established tribes and the others who clamored for their share of the soil.

Those who were weak and those who did not have a great deal of energy had little chance of success.

Only the most intelligent and the bravest survived. That will explain to you why Mesopotamia became the home of a strong race of men, capable of creating that state of civilization which was to be of such enormous benefit to all later generations.

THE SUMERIAN NAIL WRITERS

In the year 1472, a short time before Columbus discovered America, a certain Venetian, by the name of Josaphat Barbaro, traveling through Persia, crossed the hills near Shiraz and saw something which puzzled him. The hills of Shiraz were covered with old temples which had been cut into the rock of the mountainside. The ancient worshippers had disappeared centuries before and the temples were in a state of great decay. But clearly visible upon their walls, Barbara noticed long legends written in a curious script which looked like a series of scratches made by a sharp nail.

When he returned he mentioned his discovery to his fellow-townsmen, but just then the Turks were threatening Europe with an invasion and people were too busy to bother about a new and unknown alphabet, somewhere in the heart of western Asia. The Persian inscriptions therefore were promptly forgotten.

Two and a half centuries later, a n.o.ble young Roman by the name of Pietro della Valle visited the same hillsides of Shiraz which Barbaro had pa.s.sed two hundred years before. He, too, was puzzled by the strange inscriptions on the ruins and being a painstaking young fellow, he copied them carefully and sent his report together with some remarks about the trip to a friend of his, Doctor Schipano, who practiced medicine in Naples and who besides took an interest in matters of learning.

Schipano copied the funny little figures and brought them to the attention of other scientific men. Unfortunately Europe was again occupied with other matters.

The terrible wars between the Protestants and Catholics had broken out and people were busily killing those who disagreed with them upon certain points of a religious nature.

Another century was to pa.s.s before the study of the wedge-shaped inscriptions could be taken up seriously.

The eighteenth century--a delightful age for people of an active and curious mind--loved scientific puzzles. Therefore when King Frederick V of Denmark asked for men of learning to join an expedition which he was going to send to western Asia, he found no end of volunteers. His expedition, which left Copenhagen in 1761, lasted six years. During this period all of the members died except one, by the name of Karsten Niebuhr, who had begun life as a German peasant and could stand greater hardships than the professors who had spent their days amidst the stuffy books of their libraries.

This Niebuhr, who was a surveyor by profession, was a young man who deserves our admiration.