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Part II
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7 Herois and their Weapons
The songs of Homer - Schliemann's excavations - Sea-raider kings Crete and
the labyrinth - The Dorian migration - The songs of the heroes - Greek tribes
and their colonies
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The Rape of
Helena, by
Guido Reni,
1631
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Here are some lines to be chanted aloud while tapping their
rhythm,
Lines that were used by the poets of Greece in their stories
of warfare,
Telling the contests of gods and of heroes in earlier ages.
(Verses like this, with six beats to each line, were called 'hexameters'
by the Greeks. The rhythm suits the Greek language, but it sounds a
little unnatural in English.)
You will have heard of the war that arose when Paris, the
Trojan,
Sided with Venus and gave her the apple of gold in the
contest,
How, as reward, she helped him to seize the beautiful Helen,
Wife of the King of the Greeks, Menelaus the Caller in
Battle,
How an army of Greeks laid siege to the city of Troy to
regain her,
With Agamemnon and Nestor the sage, Achilles and Ajax,
And countless heroes who fought in that war with the sons
of King Priam,
Paris and Hector, for ten long summers and winters before
the
City at last was conquered and razed to the ground by the
victors.
Do you also remember the tale of the wily Odysseus?
How, returning from Troy, he experienced the strangest
adventures,
Till, at last, on miraculous ships, he returned to his
homeland,
To the wife who awaited her lord all the years of his absence.
Verses like these were chanted at feasts by Greek minstrels as they
played their lyres. Later, they were written down and people came to
believe that one poet, called Homer, had composed them all. They are
read to this day and you, too, can enjoy them, for they are as fresh and
vivid as ever - full of beauty and wisdom.
'Now wait a minute,' you're going to say. 'These are stories, not
history. What I want to know is, when and how did these events take
place?' A German businessman called Schliemann asked himself that same
question, more than a hundred years ago. He read Homer over and over
again, and longed to see all the beautiful places described by the poet.
If only he could hold in his hands, just once, the wonderful weapons
with which these heroes fought. And one day he did. For it turned out
that all of it was true. Not in every detail, of course: the heroes
named in the songs were no more real than the giants and witches in
fairy tales. But the world that Homer describes - the drinking cups, the
weapons, the buildings and the ships, the princes who were at the same
time shepherds, and the heroes who were also sea raiders - were not
inventions. When Schliemann told people this they laughed at him. But he
didn't give up. He just kept putting money aside, so that one day he
could go to Greece and see for himself. And when he had finally raised
enough money, he hired labourers and set about digging in search of all
the cities mentioned in Homer. At Mycenae he discovered palaces and the
tombs of kings, armour and shields, just as the Homeric songs had
described them. And he found Troy, too, and dug there. And it turned out
that it really had been destroyed by fire. But in all those tombs and
palaces there wasn't one inscription, so that for a long time no one
could put a date to them until, one day, quite by chance, a ring was
found in Mycenae that didn't come from there. On it, in hieroglyphs, was
the name of an Egyptian king who had lived around 1400 ж;, and had been
the predecessor of Akhenaton, the great reformer.
Now at that time there was living in Greece, and on the many
neighbouring islands and shores, a warlike people who had amassed great
treasures. Greece was not so much a kingdom as a collection of small
fortified cities, each with its own palace and king. The people were
mostly seafarers, like the Phoenicians, only they traded less and fought
more. They were often at war with one another, but on occasion would
gang together to plunder other shores. And as their fortunes grew
bigger, they grew bolder - and not just bolder, but braver, because to
be a sea raider takes courage as well as cunning. So sea raiding was a
task which fell to the nobility. The rest of the population were simple
peasants and shepherds.
Now, unlike the Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Assyrians, these
noblemen weren't interested in preserving the ways of their ancestors.
Their many raids and battles with foreign peoples had opened their eyes
to new ideas and taught them to relish variety and change. And it was at
this point, and in this part of the world, that history began to
progress at a much greater speed, because people no longer believed that
the old ways were best. From now on, things were constantly changing.
And this is why, nowadays, when we find even a fragment of pottery - in
Greece, or anywhere else in In:rope - we can say: 'this dates from
roughly this or that period.' Because a hundred years later a pot like
that would have gone out of fashion, and nobody would have wanted it.
It is now thought that all the beautiful things that Schliemann found in
his excavations of Greek cities - the fine vessels and daggers decorated
with hunting scenes, the golden shields and helmets, the jewellery and
even the colourful paintings on the walls of the halls - were not
invented there. They were first made not in Greece or in Troy, but on an
island nearby. This island is called Crete. There, at the time of King
Hammurabi - do you remember when that was? - the Cretans had already
built splendid royal palaces, with innumerable rooms, staircases running
up and down in all directions, great pillars, courtyards, corridors and
cellars - a veritable labyrinth!
Speaking of labyrinths, have you ever heard the story of the evil
Minotaur, half man, half bull, who lived in a labyrinth and made the
Greeks send him seven youths and seven maidens each year as human
sacrifices? Do you know where that was? It was in Crete, so there may be
some truth in the story. Cretan kings may once have ruled over Greek
cities, and those Greeks may have had to send them tribute. In any
event, these Cretans were clearly a remarkable people, even if we still
don't know much about them. You only have to look at the paintings on
the walls of their palaces to see that they are unlike any made at the
same time in Egypt or in Babylon. If you remember, the Egyptian pictures
were very beautiful, but rather severe and stiff, a bit like their
priests. This was not the case in Crete. What mattered most to them was
to catch animals or people in rapid motion: hounds chasing wild boar,
and people leaping over bulls - nothing was too hard for them to paint.
The kings of the Greek cities clearly learnt a great deal from them.
But by 1200 bc this time of splendour was over. For it was at around
that time (some two hundred years before the reign of King Solomon) that
new tribes came down from the north. Whether they were related to the
former builders of Mycenae nobody knows for sure, but it is likely. In
any event, they drove out the kings and installed themselves in their
place. Meanwhile, Crete had been destroyed. But the memory of its
magnificence lived on in the minds of the invaders, even when they
founded new cities and built their own shrines. And as the centuries
went by, the tales of the kings of ancient Mycenae became confused with
those of their own battles and conquests, until they became part of
their own history.
These newcomers were the Greeks, and the myths and songs sung in the
courts of their nobles were the very same Homeric poems with which this
chapter began. It is worth remembering that they were composed shortly
before 800 bc.

The "Mask of
Agamemnon," from the 16th century B.C.
When the Greeks came to Greece, they were not yet Greeks. Does that
sound strange? Yet it is true. For the fact is that when the tribes from
the north first invaded the lands they were to occupy, they weren't yet
a unified people. They spoke different dialects and were obedient to
different chieftains. They were tribes rather like the Sioux or the
Mohicans you read about in stories of the Wild West, and had names such
as the Dorians, Ionians and Aeolians. Like the American Indians they
were warlike and brave, but in other ways they were quite different. The
native Americans were familiar with iron, while the people of Mycenae
and Crete-just as the songs of Homer tell us - had weapons made of
bronze. And so these tribes arrived, with their wives and their
children. The Dorians pushed furthest, right down into the southernmost
tip of Greece which looks like a maple leaf and is called the
Peloponnese. There they subdued the inhabitants, and set them to work in
the fields. They themselves founded a city where they lived, and called
it Sparta.
The Ionians who arrived after the Dorians found there was not enough
room for them all in Greece. Many of them settled above the maple leaf,
to the north of its stalk, on a peninsula called Attica. They made their
homes by the sea and planted vines, cereals and olive trees. And they,
too, founded a city, which they dedicated to the goddess Athena - she
who, in the Homeric songs, so often came to the rescue of Ulysses the
sailor. That city is Athens.
Like all the members of the Ionian tribe, the Athenians were great
seafarers, and in due course they took possession of a number of small
islands, known since that time as the Ionian Islands. Later, they went
even further, and founded cities far across the sea away from Greece,
along the fertile coast of Asia Minor, with its many sheltering bays. No
sooner did the Phoenicians hear of these cities than they sailed there
to trade. And the Greeks will have sold them olive oil and cereals, as
well as silver and other metals found in those regions. But they soon
learnt so much from the Phoenicians that they, too, sailed onwards, to
distant shores, where they founded their own outposts, or colonies as we
call them. And the Phoenicians passed on to them their wonderful way of
writing using letters. You shall see what use they made of it.
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8 An Unequal Struggle
The Persians and their faith - Cyrus conquers Babylon Cambyses in Egypt -
Darius's empire - The Ionian revolt - The first Punitive Expedition - The second
Punitive Expedition and the Battle of Marathon - Xerxes' campaign - Thermopylae
The Battle of Salamis
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Darius I of Persia, behind him his son Xerxes I
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Something very strange happened between 550 and 500 вс. I don't
really understand it myself, but perhaps that's what makes it so
interesting. In the high mountain chain that runs north of Mesopotamia a
wild mountain tribe had long been living. They had a beautiful religion:
they worshipped light and the sun and believed it to be in a state of
constant warfare with the dark - that is, with the dark powers of evil.
These mountain people were the Persians. For hundreds of years they had
been dominated, first by the Assyrians, and then by the Babylonians. One
day they had had enough. Their ruler was a man of exceptional courage
and intelligence called Cyrus, who was no longer prepared to put up with
the oppression of his people. He led his band of horsemen down onto the
plain of Babylon. The Babylonians looked down from their mighty ramparts
and laughed at the little band of warriors that dared attack their city.
Yet, under Cyrus's leadership, they succeeded, through courage and
guile. And so Cyrus became lord of that great realm. His first act was
to free all the peoples held in captivity by the Babylonians.
Among them were the Jews, who went home to Jerusalem (that was, as you
remember, in 538 вс). Not content with his great kingdom, however, Cyrus
marched on to conquer Egypt, only to die on the way. But his son,
Cambyses, succeeded. Egypt fell and the pharaoh was deposed. That was
the end of the Egyptian empire, which had lasted almost three thousand
years! And with its end, this little Persian tribe became master of
nearly all the known world. But only nearly: they hadn't yet swallowed
up Greece. That was still to come.
It came after the death of Cambyses, during the reign of a great king
named Darius. He governed the vast Persian empire - which now stretched
from Egypt to the frontiers of India - in such a way that nothing
happened anywhere that he himself had not decreed. He built roads so
that his orders might be carried without delay to the furthest parts of
his kingdom. And even his highest officials, the satraps, were spied on
by informers known as 'the king's eyes and ears'. Darius now began to
extend his empire out into Asia Minor, along whose coasts lay the cities
of the Ionian Greeks.
Now the Greeks were not used to being part of a great empire, with a
ruler who sent orders from God knows where in the heart of Asia,
expecting instant obedience. Many of the people who lived in the Greek
colonies were rich merchants, used to running their own affairs and
making their own decisions about the administration of their cities,
jointly and independently. They had no wish to be ruled by a Persian
king, nor would they pay him tribute. So they rebelled, and threw out
the Persian governors.
In this they were supported by the Greeks in the motherland, the
original founders of the colonies, and in particular by the Athenians,
who sent them ships. Never before had the king of Persia, the King of
Kings - for that was his title - been so insulted. That this
insignificant tribe, these nobodies, should dare to challenge him, the
ruler of the world! He dealt with the Ionian cities in Asia Minor in
less than no time. But he wasn't finished yet. He was furious with the
Athenians for meddling in his affairs. With the aim of destroying Athens
and conquering Greece, he equipped a large fleet. But his ships were
caught in a violent storm, dashed against the cliffs and sunk. At this
his anger knew no bounds. The story goes that he appointed a slave to
call out three times at every meal: 'Sire, remember the Athenians!' So
great was his fury.
He then sent his son-in-law, with a new and mighty fleet, to sail
against Athens. They conquered many islands on their way and destroyed a
lot of cities. They finally dropped anchor not far from Athens, at a
place called Marathon. There, the whole great Persian army disembarked,
ready to march on Athens. It is said that they numbered seventy thousand
men, as many as the entire population of Athens. With roughly ten
thousand soldiers the Athenian army was outnumbered seven to one. Their
fate was surely sealed. But not quite. For the Athenians had a general
named Miltiades, a brave and able man, who had lived for many years
among the Persians, and knew their fighting tactics. Added to which, the
Athenians all knew what was at stake: their freedom and their lives, and
those of their wives and children. So there at Marathon they formed
ranks, and fell upon the startled Persians. And they were victorious.
The Persians suffered heavy losses. Those remaining took to their ships
and fled.
Such a victory! And against such odds! Others in his place might have
thought of nothing but celebration. But Miltiades was shrewd as well as
brave. He had noted that instead of sailing back the way they had come,
the Persian ships had turned towards Athens, which lay undefended and
open to attack. But as luck would have it, the distance from Marathon to
Athens was greater by sea than by land. For ships had to negotiate a
long spit of land easily crossed on foot. This Miltiades did. He sent a
messenger ahead, who was to run as fast as he could, to warn the
Athenians. This was the famous Marathon Run after which we call our
race. Famous, because the messenger ran so far and so fast that all he
could do was deliver his message before he fell down dead.
Meanwhile Miltiades and his army had taken the same route, marching in
tremendous haste. This was just as well, for no sooner had they reached
the harbour at Athens than the Persian fleet appeared over the horizon.
But there was no more fighting: at the sight of their heroic enemy, the
disheartened Persians turned tail and sailed for home. And not just
Athens, but the whole of Greece was saved. This was 490 вс.
How the great Darius, King of Kings, must have cursed when he learnt of
the defeat at Marathon! But at the time there was little he could do
about Greece, for a revolt had broken out in Egypt which had to be
suppressed. He died soon after, leaving his son and successor, Xerxes,
to take revenge on Greece once and for all.
Xerxes, a hard, ambitious man, needed no urging. He assembled an army
from among all the subject peoples of his empire. Dressed in their
traditional costumes, with their weapons, their bows and arrows, shields
and swords, lances, war-chariots and slings, they were a vast, swirling
multitude, said by some to number more than a million men. What hope had
the Greeks in the face of such a host? This time Xerxes himself took
command. But when the Persians tried to cross the narrow neck of sea
which separates Asia Minor from today's Istanbul, on a bridge made of
boats, rough waves tore the bridge apart. In his fury Xerxes had the
waves lashed with chains. But I doubt if the sea took any notice.
One part of this gigantic army attacked Greece by sea, while another
part marched overland. In northern Greece, a small army of Spartans, who
had made an alliance with the Athenians, tried to block the Persian
advance in a narrow pass called Thermopylae The Persians called on the
Spartans to throw down their weapons. 'Come and get them yourselves!'
was the reply. 'We've enough arrows here to blot out the sun!'
threatened the Persians. 'So much the better', cried the Spartans, 'then
we'll fight in the shade!' But a treacherous Greek showed the Persians a
way over the mountains and the Spartan army was surrounded and trapped.
All three hundred Spartans and seven hundred of their allies were killed
in the battle, but not one of them tried to run away, for that was their
law. Later, a Greek poet wrote these words in their memory:
Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That here obedient to their laws we lie.
Now the Athenians had not been idle since their great victory at
Marathon. And they had a new leader called Themistocles, an astute and
far-sighted man, who repeatedly warned his fellow citizens that a
miracle like Marathon could only happen once, and that if Athens were to
continue to hold out against the Persians, it must have a fleet. So a
fleet was built.
Themistocles had the whole of Athens evacuated - not that the population
can have been very large in those days - and sent to the little island
of Salamis nearby. The Athenian fleet then positioned itself by this
island. When the Persian land army arrived and found Athens abandoned,
they set fire to the city and razed it to the ground, while the
Athenians on their island remained unharmed as they watched their
burning city from afar. But now the Persian fleet appeared, and
threatened to surround Salamis.
The allies panicked, and were all for taking to their ships and leaving
the Athenians to their fate. At this moment Themistocles demonstrated
his extraordinary ingenuity and daring. Having finally succeeded in
persuading the allies not to leave, he secretly sent a messenger to
Xerxes saying: 'Make haste and attack, or the Athenians' allies will
escape you!' Xerxes, who must have heard from his spies that the allies
were set on leaving, fell for it. The next morning he attacked with his
many small and nimble warships. And he lost. The Greek ships were larger
and less easy to manoeuvre, but once again they were fighting
desperately for their freedom. Not only that, but their victory ten
years earlier at Marathon had inspired them with confidence. From a
vantage point Xerxes was forced to look on while his smaller, lighter
galleys were rammed and sunk by the Greeks' heavy ships. Aghast, he
ordered the retreat. And so for the second time the Athenians were
victorious, and against an even greater army than before. This was in
480 BC.
Shortly afterwards, in 479 вс, the Persian land army was also defeated
by the combined forces of the Greeks and their allies, near Plataea.
After this the Persians never again dared attack the Greeks. And this is
very interesting, because it wasn't as if the Persians were weaker or
more stupid than the Greeks - far from it. But, as I said before, the
Greeks were different. For, whereas the great empires of the East bound
themselves so tightly to the traditions and teachings of their ancestors
that they could scarcely move, the Greeks - and the Athenians in
particular - did the opposite. Almost every year they came up with
something new. Everything was always changing. The same went for their
leaders. Miltiades and Themistocles, the great heroes of the Persian
wars, learnt this to their cost: one moment it was high praise, honours
and monuments to their achievements, the next it was accusations,
slander and exile. This was not the best feature of the Athenians, yet
it was part of their nature. Always trying out new ideas, never
satisfied, never at rest. Which explains why, during the hundred years
that followed the Persian wars, more went on in the minds of the people
of the little city of Athens than in a thousand years in all the great
empires of the East. The ideas, the painting, sculpture and
architecture, the plays and poetry, the inventions and experiments, the
discussions and arguments which the young brought to the marketplaces
and the old to their council chambers still continue to concern us
today. It is strange that it should be so, and yet it's true. And what
would it have been like if the Persians had won at Marathon? Or at
Salamis, ten years later? That I cannot say.
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9 Two Small Cities in One Small Land
The Olympic Games - The Delphic Oracle - Sparta and Spartan education -
Athens - Draco and Solon - The People's Assembly and tyrants - The time of
Pericles - Philosophy - Sculpture and painting - Architecture - Theatre
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Young Spartants, by Edgar Degas
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I said earlier that Greece, when set against the Persian empire, was
no more than a small peninsula, dotted here and there with little cities
of busy merchants, a country of barren mountain ranges and stony fields,
able to sustain only a handful of people. And also, as you may remember,
that the Greeks belonged to a number of tribes, the most important of
them being the Dorians in the south and the Ionians and the Aeolians in
the north. These tribes differed little from one another, either in
appearance or in language. They spoke different dialects, which they
could all understand if they chose. But they very rarely did. For, as is
often the case, these close-related, neighbouring tribes were unable to
get on with one another. They spent all their time exchanging insults
and ridicule, when actually they were jealous of each other. For Greece
had no one king or administration in common. Instead, each city was a
kingdom in itself.
But one thing united the Greeks: their religion and their sport. And I
say 'one thing' because, strangely enough, sport and religion weren't
two separate things - they were closely connected. For
instance, in honour of Zeus, the Father of the Gods, great sporting
contests were held every four years in his sanctuary at Olympia. As well
as large temples there was a stadium at Olympia, and all the Greeks -
the Dorians, Ionians, Spartans and Athenians - came there to show how
well they could run, throw the discus and the javelin, fight hand to
hand and race chariots. To be victorious at Olympia was the greatest
honour in a man's life. The prize was no more than a simple garland made
from sprigs of wild olive, but what fame for the winners: the greatest
poets sang their praises, the greatest sculptors carved their statues to
stand for ever in Olympia. They were shown in their chariots, throwing
the discus, or rubbing oil into their bodies before the fight. Victory
statues like these can still be seen today - there may even be one in
your local museum.
Since the Olympic Games took place once every four years, and were
attended by all the Greeks, they provided everyone with a convenient way
to measure time. This was gradually adopted throughout Greece. Just as
we say вс meaning 'Before the birth of Christ' or ad for after the birth
of Christ (Anno Domini which means the year of our Lord in Latin), the
Greeks would say: 'At the time of this or that Olympiad'. The first
Olympiad was in 776 вс. Can you work out when the tenth would have been?
But don't forget! They only happened every four years.
But it wasn't only the Olympic Games that brought all the Greeks
together. There was another sanctuary which they all held sacred. This
one was at Delphi, and belonged to the sun god Apollo, and there was
something most peculiar about it. As sometimes happens in volcanic
regions, there was a fissure in the ground from which vapour issued. If
anyone inhaled it, it literally clouded their mind. It was as if they
were drunk or delirious, and nothing they said made any sense.
The very meaninglessness of these utterances seemed deeply mysterious to
the Greeks, who said that 'the god himself speaks through a mortal
mouth'. So they had a priestess - whom they called Pythia - sit over the
fissure on a three-legged stool, while other priests interpreted her
babble as predictions of the future.
The shrine was known as the Delphic Oracle, and at difficult moments of
their lives Greeks from everywhere made pilgrimages to Delphi, to
consult the god Apollo. The answer they received was often far from
clear, and could be understood in a variety of ways. And in fact we
still say that a vague or enigmatic answer is 'oracular'.
Let us now take a closer look at two of Greece's most important cities:
Sparta and Athens. We already know something about the Spartans: they
were Dorians, who, when they arrived in Greece, in around 1100 вс,
enslaved the former inhabitants and put them to work on the land. But
the slaves outnumbered their masters, and the danger of rebellion meant
that the Spartans had to be constantly on the alert lest they find
themselves homeless again. They only had one aim in life: to be fighting
fit, ready to crush any uprising by their slaves, and to protect
themselves from the surrounding peoples still at liberty.
And they really did think of nothing else. Their lawgiver, Lycurgus, had
already seen to that. A Spartan baby that appeared weak, and unlikely to
grow up to be a warrior, was killed at birth. A strong infant had to be
made stronger. From a very young age he must train from dawn till dusk,
learn to endure pain, hunger and cold, must eat poorly and be denied all
pleasure. Boys were beaten just to harden them to pain. A harsh
upbringing is still called 'spartan' today, and as you know, it worked:
at Thermopylae, in 480 вс, in obedience to their law, the Spartans
allowed themselves to be massacred by the Persians. Knowing how to die
like that isn't easy. But knowing how to live is, perhaps, even harder.
And this is what the Athenians aimed to do. They weren't looking for an
easy, comfortable life, but one which had meaning. A life of which
something remained after one's death. Something of benefit to those who
came after. You shall see how they succeeded.
Had they not lived in fear - fear of their own slaves - the Spartans
might never have become so warlike and brave. Athenians had fewer
reasons to be afraid and they didn't live under the same pressures.
Things were different for them even though, as in Sparta, the nobles who
once ruled Athens imposed harsh laws drawn up by an Athenian named
Draco. (These laws were so strict that people still speak of 'Draconian'
severity.) But the people of Athens, who had roamed the seas in their
ships, and had heard and seen so many different things, did not consent
to this for long.
It was, in fact, a nobleman who had the wisdom to try to give the little
state a new system of government. His name was Solon, and the laws he
introduced in 594 вс - at the time of Nebuchadnezzar - were named after
him. They stated that the people, that is, the city's inhabitants,
should decide the city's affairs themselves. They should assemble in the
marketplace of Athens and vote. The majority should decide and should
elect a council of experts to put those decisions into effect. This sort
of government is called democracy, or 'the rule of the people', in
Greek. This didn't mean that everyone who lived in Athens was entitled
to vote in the Assembly. Citizenship depended on wealth and influence,
and many people, including women and slaves, played no part in
government. But many Athenians could at least have their say, and so
they took an interest in how their city was run. 'Polis' is Greek for
city, 'polities', the affairs of a city.
For a while individual noblemen curried favour with the people to win
their votes, and then seized power. Rulers like these were called
tyrants. But the people soon expelled them and took better care next
time to ensure that it was they themselves who really governed. I have
already told you about the wayward nature of the Athenians. And it was
this, together with a real fear of losing their freedom once again,
which led them to banish any politician who showed signs of becoming too
popular, lest he seize power for himself and rule as a tyrant. The same
free people of Athens who defeated the Persians later treated Miltiades
and Themistocles with just such ingratitude.
But there was one politician who avoided this fate. His name was
Pericles. When he spoke in the Assembly, the Athenians always believed
that it was they who had made the decisions, whereas in fact it was
Pericles, who had made up his mind long before. This wasn't because he
held any special office or had any particular power - he was simply the
wisest and the most intelligent. And so
he gradually worked his way up until, by 444 вс - a number as beautiful
as the time it represents - he was, in effect, the city's sole ruler.
His chief concern was that Athens should maintain its power at sea, and
this he achieved through alliances with other Ionian cities who paid
Athens for its protection. In this way the Athenians grew rich and could
at last afford to make use of their great gifts.
And now I can hear you asking: 'But what exactly did they do that was so
great?' And I can only say 'everything'. But two things interested them
most and these were truth and beauty.
Their assemblies had taught the Athenians how to discuss all matters
openly, with arguments for and against. This was good training in
learning how to think. Soon they were using arguments and
counter-arguments, not just when they were debating everyday matters
like whether or not to increase taxation, but in discussions about the
whole of nature. The Ionians in the colonial outposts may have been
ahead of them here, for they had already reflected on what the world was
actually made of, and what might be the cause of all events and
experiences.
This sort of reflection is what we call philosophy. In Athens, however,
their reflecting - or philosophising - went much further. They also
wanted to know how people should act, what was good and what was evil,
and what was just and what was unjust. They wanted to find an
explanation for human existence and discover the essence of all things.
Of course, not everyone agreed on matters as complex as these - there
were various theories and opinions that were argued back and forth, just
as in the people's Assembly. And since that time, the sort of reflection
and reasoned argument we call philosophy has never stopped.
But the Athenians didn't only pace up and down their porticos and sports
fields talking about things like the essence of life and how to
recognise it, and where it came from. They didn't just picture the world
in a new way in their minds, they saw it with new eyes. When you look at
the works of Greek artists, and see how fresh and simple and beautiful
they are, it is as if their creators were seeing the world for the first
time. We spoke of the statues of Olympic champions earlier. They show
fine human beings, not posed, but looking as if the position they are
shown in is the most natural one in the world. And it is because they
seem so natural that they are so beautiful.

The Column of Zeus
in the Temple at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the
Ancient Word
The Cheeks portrayed their gods with the same beauty and humanity. The
most famous sculptor of such statues was Phidias. He did not create
mysterious and supernatural images, like the colossal statues in
Egyptian temples. Although some of his temple statues were large and
splendid and made of precious materials like ivory and gold, their
beauty was never insipid, and they had a noble and natural grace which
must have inspired confidence in the gods they represented, and the same
can be said for Athenian paintings and buildings. But nothing remains of
the pictures they painted on the walls of their halls and assembly
rooms. All we have are little paintings on pottery- on vases and urns.
Their loveliness tells us what we have lost.
However, the temples are still standing. Even in Athens. And best of
all, the citadel of Athens is still there -the Acropolis- where new
sanctuaries made of marble were erected in the time of Pericles, because
the old ones had been burnt and destroyed by the Persians while the
Athenians watched from the island of Salamis. The Acropolis still
contains the most beautiful buildings we know. Not the grandest, or the
most splendid. Simply the most beautiful. Every detail is so clear and
so simple that one cannot imagine it otherwise. All the forms which the
Greeks employed in these buildings were to be used again and again in
architecture. You will find Greek columns - of which there are several
kinds - in almost every city of the world, once you have learnt to
recognise them. But none of them is as beautiful as those on the
Acropolis where they are used not for show and decoration but for the
purpose for which they were invented: as elegant supports for the roof.
Both wisdom of thought and beauty of form were to be united by the
Athenians in a third art: the art of poetry. And here, too, they
invented something new: the theatre. Their theatre, like their sport,
was also once bound up with their religion, with festivals held in
honour of their god Dionysus (also known as Bacchus). On his least day a
performance was held which could last all day. It took place in the open
air, and the actors wore huge masks and high heels, so that they could
be easily seen from a distance. We still have plays which they
performed. Some are serious, grand and solemn. They are called
tragedies. But there were other ones that were very sharp, witty and
lively, which made fun of certain Athenian citizens. These are called
comedies. I could tell you lots more about the Athenians - about their
historians and their doctors, their singers, their thinkers and their
artists, but I think it would be better for you to find out about them
yourself, one day. Then you'll see that I haven't exaggerated.
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10 The Enlightened One and his Land
India - Mohenjo-Daro, a city from the time of Ur - The Indian migrations -
Indo-European languages - Castes - Brahma and the transmigration of souls -
'This is you' - Prince Gautama The Enlightenment - Release from sufffering -
Nirvana - The followers of the Buddha
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A statue of the Buddha from Sarnath, 4th century CE.
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And now let us go to the opposite end of the world. To India and then
to China, so that we can find out what was going on in these vast lands
at the time of the Persian wars. Like Mesopotamia, India also had a very
ancient civilisation, and at about the same time as the Sumerians were
holding sway at Ur -that is, around 2500 вс - there was a mighty city in
the valley of the Indus. (The Indus is a great river which flows through
what is Pakistan today.) It had well-drained streets, canals, granaries
and workshops, and was called Mohenjo Daro, and until its discovery in
the 1920s nobody had even dreamt of its existence. When it was
excavated, things came to light that were as remarkable as any found in
the rubble mounds at Ur. Although we know almost nothing about the
people who built Mohenjo Daro, we do know that different people arrived
much later, and that they are ancestors of the people who inhabit
northern India and Pakistan today. These people spoke a language similar
not only to those spoken by the Persians and Greeks, but also to those
of the Romans and the Teutons. An example of this is the word for
'father': in ancient Indian it was pitar, the Greek is pater, the Latin,
pater.
Since both Indians and Europeans speak these languages, they are known
as the Indo-European family of languages. Whether the fact that the
languages are similar means that the people who speak them are actually
distant relatives we don't yet know for sure. But in any event, the
people who spoke an Indo-European language invaded India much as the
Dorians invaded Greece, and may have enslaved the native population just
as they did.
In time, most of the continent was subdued by the descendants of these
invaders, who, like the Spartans, maintained a distance between
themselves and the peoples they had conquered. Traces of this division
persist today in what is known as the 'caste system'. In it, professions
or occupations are strictly separated from each other. Men who were
warriors had to remain warriors, and their sons had to be warriors too,
because they belonged to the warrior caste. Other castes were similarly
closed, like those of farmers and craftsmen. A farmer could never become
a craftsman, or a craftsman a farmer - nor could their sons. Someone who
was a member of one caste couldn't marry a girl from another - or even
share a meal with a member of another caste.
At the top were the priests, or Brahmins - even higher than the
warriors. Their task was to perform sacrifices to the gods and look
after the temples, and, as in Egypt, they were in charge of sacred
knowledge. They had to learn all the chants and prayers off by heart so
that they were preserved and handed down, unchanged. They did this for
more than a thousand years until the texts were finally written down.
A tiny part of the population was excluded from any caste. They were
pariahs - people who were given the dirtiest and most unpleasant tasks.
Not even members of the lowest castes could associate with them - their
very touch was thought to be defiling. So they became known as the
'untouchables'. They weren't allowed to fetch water from the streams
that other Indians used, and had to make sure that their shadow never
touched another person, because even that was thought to be defiling.
People can be very cruel.
But it would be wrong to say that the Indians were a cruel people. On
the contrary, their priests were serious and profound thinkers, who
often withdrew into the forest to meditate, alone and undisturbed, on
the most difficult questions. They meditated on their many fierce gods,
and on Brahma, the Sublime, the highest divinity of all. They seemed to
sense the breath of this one Supreme Being throughout the natural world
- in gods as well as men, and in every animal and plant. They felt him
active in all things: in the shining of the sun and in the sprouting of
crops, in growing and in dying. He was everywhere, just as a little salt
dropped in water makes all the water salty, down to the last drop. In
all the variety of nature, in all her cycles and transformations, we
only see the surface. A soul may inhabit the body of a man, and after
his death, that of a tiger, or a cobra, or any other living creature -
the cycle will only end when that soul has become so pure that it can at
last become one with the Supreme Being. For the divine breath of Brahma
is the essence of all things. To help their pupils understand this,
Indian priests had a lovely formula which you may turn over in your
mind. All they said was 'This is you', by which they meant that
everything around you - all the animals and plants and your fellow human
beings - are, with you yourself, part of the breath of God.
The priests had invented an extraordinary way of actually feeling this
all-embracing unity. They would sit down somewhere in the depths of the
ancient Indian forest and think about it, and nothing else, for hours,
days, weeks, months, years. They sat on the ground, upright and still,
their legs crossed and their eyes lowered. They breathed as little as
possible and they ate as little as possible - indeed, some of them even
tormented themselves in special ways to purify themselves and help them
sense the divine breath within them.
Holy men like these penitents and hermits, were common in India three
thousand years ago, and there are still many there today. But one of
them was different from all the others. He was a nobleman called
Gautama, and he lived about five hundred years before Christ.
The story goes that Gautama, whom they were later to call the
'Enlightened One', the 'Buddha', grew up in Eastern luxury and splendour.
It is said that he had three palaces which he never left -one for
summer, one for winter, and one for the rainy season - and that they
were always filled with the most beautiful music. His father wouldn't
allow him to leave their lofty terraces because he wanted to keep him
far away from all the sorrows of the world. And no one who was sick or
unhappy was ever allowed near him. However, one day Gautama summoned his
carriage and went out. On the way he caught sight of a man, bent with
age, and he asked his driver what it was. The driver was forced to
explain that this was an old man. Deep in thought, Gautama returned to
his palace. On another occasion he saw someone who was sick. No one had
ever told him about illness. Pondering even more deeply, he went home to
his wife and his small son. The third time he went out he saw a dead
man. This time he didn't go home to his palace. Coming across a hermit
in the road, he decided that he, too, would go into the wilderness,
where he would meditate on the sufferings of this world which had been
revealed to him in the forms of old age, sickness and death.
Later in his life Gautama told the story of his decision in a sermon:
'And so it came about that, in the full freshness and enjoyment of my
youth, in glowing health, my hair still black, and against the wishes of
my weeping and imploring elders, I shaved my head and beard, dressed in
coarse robes, and forsook the shelter of my home.'
For six years he led the life of a hermit and penitent. But his
meditations were deeper and his sufferings greater than those of any
other hermit. As he sat, he almost stopped breathing altogether, and
endured the most terrible pains. He ate so little that he would often
faint with weakness. And yet, in all those years, he found no inner
peace. For he didn't only reflect on the nature of the world, and
whether all things were really one. He thought about its sadness, of all
the pain and suffering of mankind - of old age, sickness and death. And
no amount of penitence could help him there.
And so, gradually, he began to eat again. His strength returned, and he
breathed like other people. Other hermits who had formerly admired him
now despised him, but he took no notice of them. Then, one night, as he
sat beneath a fig tree in a beautiful clearing in a wood, understanding
came. Suddenly he realised what he had been seeking all those years. It
was as if an inner light had made everything clear. Now, as the
'Enlightened One', the Buddha, he went out to proclaim his discovery to
all men.
It wasn't long before he found like-minded people who were soon
convinced that he had found a way out of human suffering. And because
these followers admired the Buddha, they formed what we would call an
'order' of monks and nuns. This order lived on after his death, and
still exists today in many Eastern countries. You can recognise its
members by their yellow robes and their austere way of life.
I imagine that you'd like to know exactly what happened to Gautama, as
he sat under that fig tree - the Tree of Enlightenment, as it became
known - that took away his doubts and brought him inner peace. But if
you want me to try and explain it, you will have to do some hard
thinking too. After all, Gautama spent six whole years thinking about
this and nothing else. The idea that came to him, his great
Enlightenment, the solution to human suffering, was this: if we want to
avoid suffering, we must start with ourselves, because all suffering
comes from our own desires. Think of it like this. If you are sad
because you can't have something you want - maybe a book or a toy - you
can do one of two things: you can do your best to get it, or you can
stop wanting it. Either way, if you succeed, you won't be sad any more.
This is what the Buddha taught. If we can stop ourselves wanting all the
beautiful and pleasant things in life, and can learn to control our
greed for happiness, comfort, recognition and affection, we shan't feel
sad any more when, as so often happens, we fail to get what we want. He
who ceases to wish for anything ceases to feel sad. If the appetite
goes, the pain goes with it.
I can already hear you saying: 'That's all very well, but people can't
help wanting things!' The Buddha thought otherwise. He said that it is
possible to control our desires, but to do so we need to work on
ourselves, perhaps even for years, so that in the end we only have the
desires we want to have. In other words, we can become masters of
ourselves, in the same way that an elephant driver learns to control his
elephant. A person's highest achievement on earth is to reach the point
at which he or she no longer has any desires. This is the Buddha's
'inner calm', the blissful peace of someone who no longer has any
wishes, someone who is kind to everyone and demands nothing. The Buddha
also taught thai a person who is master of all his wishes will no longer
be reborn alter his death. Only souls which cling to life are reborn -
or so the Buddha's followers believe. He who no longer clings to life is
released from the unending cycle of birth and death, and is at last
freed from all suffering. Buddhists call this state 'Nirvana'.
So this was the Enlightenment that the Buddha experienced under the fig
tree: the realisation that, instead of giving in to our wishes, we can
break free from them - rather like when we are feeling thirsty and take
no notice, and the feeling goes away. You can see that the way to do
this is far from easy. The Buddha called it the 'middle way', because it
lay between useless self-torment and thoughtless pleasure-seeking. The
important thing is to find the right balance: in what we believe, in the
decisions we make, in what we say and what we do, in the way we live, in
our ambitions, in our conscience and our innermost thoughts.
That was the essential message of the Buddha's sermons, and these
sermons made such a deep impression on people that many followed him and
worshipped him as a god. Today (here are almost as many Buddhists in the
world as there are Christians, especially in South East Asia, in Sri
Lanka, Tibet, China and Japan. But not many of them are able to live
their lives in accordance with the Buddha's teachings, and so achieve
that inner calm.
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11 A Great Teacher of a Great People
China in the time before Christ - The emperor of China and the princes - The
meaning of Chinese writing - Confucius - The importance of practices and customs -
The family- Ruler and subject - Lao-tzu - The Tao
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Confucius
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When I was a schoolboy, China was to us, as it were, 'at the other
end of the world'. At most we had seen the odd picture on a teacup or a
vase, so that we imagined a country of stiff little men with long plaits
down their backs, and artful gardens full of hump-backed bridges and
little turrets hung with tinkling bells.
Of course there never was such a fairyland, although it is true that for
more than two hundred years, until 1912, Chinese men were made to wear
their hair plaited in a pigtail, and that we first learnt about them
through delicate objects of porcelain and ivory made by skilled
craftsmen. From their palace in the capital emperors had ruled over
China for more than a thousand years. The fabled emperors of China who
called themselves the 'Son of Heaven', just as the Egyptian pharaoh
called himself 'Son of the Sun'. But at the time I am going to talk
about, around 2,500 years ago, all this was yet to come, though China
was already a vast and ancient kingdom. In its fields many millions of
hard-working peasants grew rice and other crops, while in the towns
people strolled through the streets in sumptuous, silken gowns.
Over all these people a king ruled, and beneath him main-princes who
governed the many provinces of this immense conn try which was larger
than Egypt, and larger than Assyria and Baby Ionia put together. But
soon these princes had become so might у that the king could no longer
command their obedience. They were constantly at war with each other,
the big provinces gobbling up the smaller ones. And because the empire
was so vast that in all its corners the Chinese spoke quite different
languages, it would probably have fallen apart altogether had they not
had one thing in common. This was their script.
'But wait a minute!' you say. 'If they all spoke different languages,
how could using the same script make any difference?' Well, Chinese
writing is special. You can read and understand it even if you don't
know a single word of the spoken language. That must be magic! No,
absolutely not, it is really quite simple. Instead of writing words you
write things. If you want to write 'sun', you make a picture like this:
*. Then you can read it in any language: sun in English, soleil in
French or jih in Mandarin Chinese. Everyone who knows the sign will know
what it means. Now I'll show you how to make the sign for 'tree'. Again
it is quite easy, just a couple of strokes like this: *.. In Mandarin it
is pronounced 'mu', but you hardly need know the sign to guess it is a
tree.
'All right,' you say, 'I can see that works quite well for things you
can draw, but what if you want to write "white"? Do you just paint a
blob of white paint? And what if you want to write "East"? You can
hardly draw a picture of "East"!' On the contrary, you'll see that it's
all quite straightforward. We can write 'white' by drawing something
that is white - in this case, a sunbeam. A stroke coming out of a sun 9
stands for 'white' - blanc - pai, and so on. 'And "East"?' East is where
the sun rises, behind the trees. So I draw a picture of a sun behind a
tree:*.!
That is clever, isn't it? Well, it is and it isn't. There are two sides
to everything! For when you think how many words and things there are in
the world, in Chinese each one has its own sign which must be learnt.
There are already more than forty thousand of them, and some are really
complicated and hard to learn. So I think we should congratulate our
Phoenicians on their twenty-six letters, don't you? However, the Chinese
have been writing like this for many thousands of years, and their signs
are read in many parts of Asia, even where no Chinese is spoken. And
this meant that the thoughts and principles of the great men of China
were able to spread quickly and influence many people.
Now at the same time as the Buddha was seeking to relieve man's
suffering in India (as you remember, that was around 500 вс), there was
in China another great man who was also trying to make people happy
through his teachings. And yet he was as different from the Buddha as he
could possibly be. He wasn't a wealthy nobleman's son but came from a
family that had fallen on hard times. He didn't become a hermit, but an
adviser and teacher. Rather than helping individuals not to want things,
and therefore not to suffer, what mattered most to Confucius was that
everybody should live peacefully together - parents with their children
and rulers with their subjects. That was his goal: to teach the right
way of living together. And he succeeded. Thanks to his teachings all
the peoples of China lived together for thousands of years, more
contentedly and more peacefully than many other peoples of the world. So
I am sure you will be interested in the teachings of Confucius - or
K'ung Fu-tzu, as he was called in Chinese. They aren't hard to
understand. Nor to remember. Perhaps that's why he was so successful.
What Confucius proposed is quite simple. You may not like it, but there
is more wisdom in it than first meets the eye. What he taught was this:
outward appearances are more important than we think - bowing to our
elders, letting others go through a door first, standing up to speak to
a superior, and many other similar things for which they had more rules
in China than we have. All such practices, so he believed, were not just
a matter of chance. They meant something, or had done once. Usually
something beautiful. Which is why Confucius said: 'I believe in
Antiquity, and I love it.' By this he meant that he believed in the
sound good sense of all the many-thousand-year-old customs and habits,
and he repeatedly urged his fellow countrymen to observe them. He
thought that everything in life ran more smoothly if people did. Almost
by itself, as it were, without the need to think too hard about it. Of
course such behaviour does not make people good, but it helps them stay
good.
For Confucius had a very good opinion of humanity. He said that all
people were born honest and good, and that, deep down, they remained so.
Anyone seeing a small child playing near the water's edge will worry
lest it fall in, he said. Concern for our fellow human beings and
sympathy for the misfortunes of others are inborn sentiments. All we
need do is to make sure we do not lose them. And that, said Confucius,
is why we have families. Someone who is always good to his parents, who
obeys them and cares for them - and this comes naturally to us - will
treat others in the same way, and will obey the laws of the state in the
same way that he obeys his father. Thus, for Confucius, the family, with
its brotherly and sisterly love and respect for parents, was the most
important thing of all. He called it 'the root of humanity'.
However, he didn't mean that respect and obedience should be shown only
by a subject to his ruler, and not the other way round as well. On the
contrary, Confucius and his disciples often came up against obstinate
princes, and would usually tell them exactly what they thought of them.
For a prince must take the lead in observing the forms. He must
demonstrate a father's love in providing for his people and deal with
them justly. If he neglects to do so, and brings suffering on his
subjects, then it serves him right if they rise up and overthrow him. So
taught Confucius and his followers. For a prince's first duty was to be
an example to all who lived in his kingdom.
It may seem to you that what Confucius taught was obvious. But that was
exactly his intention. He wanted to teach something that everyone would
find easy to grasp, because it was so just and fair. Then living
together would become much easier. I have already told you that he
succeeded. And, thanks to his teaching, that enormous empire, with all
its provinces, was saved from falling apart.
But you mustn't think that in China there weren't other people more like
the Buddha, for whom what mattered was not living together and bowing to
one another, but the great mysteries of the world. A wise man of this
sort lived in China at about the same time as Confucius. His name was
Lao-tzu. He is said to have been an official who became tired of the way
people lived at court. So he gave up his job and wandered off into the
lonely mountains at the frontier of China to be a hermit.
A simple border guard at a frontier pass asked him to set down his
thoughts in writing, before leaving the world of men. And this Lao-tzu
did. But whether the border guard could make head or tail of them I do
not know, for they are very mysterious and hard to grasp. Their meaning
is roughly this: in all the world - in wind and rain, in plants and
animals, in the passage from day to night, in the movements of the stars
- everything acts in accordance with one great law. This he calls the
'Tao', which means the Way, or the Path. Only man in his restless
striving, in his many plans and projects, even in his prayers and
sacrifices, resists, as it were, this law, obstructs its path and
prevents its fulfilment.
Therefore the one thing we must do, said Lao-tzu, is: do nothing. Be
still within ourselves. Neither look nor listen to anything around us,
have no wishes or opinions. Only when a person has become like a tree or
a flower, empty of all will or purpose, will he begin to feel the Tao -
that great universal law which makes the heavens turn and brings the
spring - begin to work within him. This teaching, as you see, is hard to
grasp and harder still to follow. Perhaps, in the solitude of the
distant mountains, Lao-tzu was able to take 'doing nothing' so far that
the law began to work within him in the way he described. But maybe it
is just as well that it was Confucius, and not Lao-tzu, who became the
great teacher of his people. What do you think?
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12 The Greatest Adventure of All
The Peloponnesian War - The Delphic War - Philip of Macedon -The Battle of
Chaeronea - The decline of the Persian empire - Alexander the Great - The
destruction of Thebes -Aristotle and his knowledge - Diogenes - The conquest of
Asia Minor - The Gordion Knot - The Battle of Issus - The conquest of Tyre and
the conquest of Egypt - Alexandria - The Battle of Gaugamela The Indian
expedition - Porus - Alexander, ruler of the Orient Alexander's death and his
successors - Hellenism The library of Alexandria
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Alexander the Great in the Temple of Jerusalem
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Greece's age of splendour was short-lived. The Greeks could do
everything but live in peace with one another. Above all, it was Athens
and Sparta who could not put up with one another for long. By 430 bc the
two states were locked in a long and bitter conflict. This was the
Peloponnesian War. The Spartans marched on Alhens, savagely laying waste
to the countryside all around. They uprooted all the olive trees and
this was a terrible misfortune because it lakes years for a newly
planted olive tree to bear fruit. The Athenians hit back, attacking the
Spartan colonies to the south of Italy, at Syracuse in Sicily. There was
a great deal of fighting and retaliation, a terrible plague in Athens in
which Pericles died and, in the end, Athens lost the war and the city
walls were torn down. As is usually the case with wars, not only Athens
but the whole country was exhausted by the conflict, and the victors
were no exception. To add to it all, a small tribe near Delphi, provoked
by the priests of the Oracle, invaded and plundered the sanctuary of
Apollo. Utter confusion followed.
A foreign tribe - though not so very foreign - took advantage of this
confusion to interfere. These were the Macedonians, a people who lived
in the mountains to the north of Greece. The Macedonians were related to
the Greeks, but they were barbarous and warlike. Their king, Philip, was
a man of great cunning. He spoke excellent Greek and was familiar with
Greek customs and culture, and his aim was to be king of all Greece.
Since the invasion of the sanctuary at Delphi concerned all tribes loyal
to the Greek religion, he had a good excuse to intervene. There was a
politician in Athens, however, who was suspicious of Philip of Macedon.
This was the famous orator Demosthenes, whose fulminating speeches at
the Assembly, in which he repeatedly warned people against King Philip's
schemes, are known as 'Philippics'. But Greece was too divided to put up
any real defence.
At Chaeronea, in 338 bc, the Greeks, who hardly a hundred years before
had held their own against the gigantic Persian host, were defeated by
King Philip and tiny Macedonia. So ended the freedom of the Greeks - not
that it could be said that they had made good use of it lately. But it
wasn't Philip's intention to enslave or plunder Greece. He had other
ideas: he planned to create a great army made up of Greeks and
Macedonians with which to invade and conquer Persia.
At the time of the Persian wars such a task would have proved
impossible, but things had changed. The great kings of Persia were no
longer able and ambitious like Darius or mighty like Xerxes. They had
long given up ruling the country themselves and contented themselves
with the money their satraps sent back from the provinces. They used it
to build themselves magnificent palaces and held court in great style.
They ate off golden dishes and even their slaves - both male and female
- were dressed in splendid robes. They loved good food, and good wines
even more. So did their satraps. A kingdom like this, thought King
Philip, should be easy to conquer. But before he had even completed the
preparations for his campaign he was assassinated.
His son, who now inherited the whole of Greece, along with his native
Macedonia, was barely twenty years old at the time. His name was
Alexander. The Greeks were convinced that freedom was in their grasp -
he was only a boy and they'd make short work of him. But Alexander was
no ordinary boy. From his youth he had been impatient to be king. When
he was little, he was said to cry whenever his father, King Philip,
conquered another Greek city, saying: 'Father won't leave anything for
me to conquer when I'm king!' Now his father had left him everything. A
Greek city that tried to free itself was razed, and its inhabitants sold
into slavery as a warning to all. Then Alexander summoned all the Greek
leaders to a meeting in the town of Corinth, to discuss the Persian
campaign.
Now Alexander wasn't just a brave and ambitious warrior -there was much
more to him than that. He was exceptionally handsome, with long curly
hair, and he knew just about everything there was to know at the time.
His tutor was the most famous teacher living: the Greek philosopher
Aristotle. And if I tell you that Aristotle wasn't just Alexander's
tutor but - in a manner of speaking - the teacher of mankind for 2,000
years, you'll have an idea of what 1 mean. In the 2,000 years that
followed, whenever people failed to agree on one thing or another, they
turned to his writings. He was their referee. What Aristotle said must
be right. For what he had done was to gather together all the knowledge
of his time. He wrote about the natural sciences - the stars, animals
and plants; about history and people living together in a state -what we
call politics; about the right way to reason — logic; and the right way
to behave - ethics. He wrote about poetry and its beauty. And last of
all he wrote down his own thoughts on a god who hovered impassive and
unseen above the vault of heaven.
All this Alexander studied too, and no doubt he was a good student. Best
of all he loved the stories about heroes in Homer's great lyric poems -
they say he kept them under his pillow at night. But Alexander didn't
spend all his time with his nose in a book. He loved sport, and riding
more than anything. No one rode better than he. His father once bought a
beautiful stallion that no one could tame. His name was Bucephalus.
Whenever anyone tried to mount him they were thrown off. But Alexander
worked out why he did it: the horse was afraid of his own shadow. So
Alexander turned the horse's head towards the sun so that he couldn't
see his shadow on the ground. Stroking him gently, he swung himself onto
his back and rode round to the applause of the whole court. From that
time on, Bucephalus would always be his favourite horse.
Now when Alexander appeared before the Greek leaders in Corinth they
greeted him warmly and paid him lavish compliments - all of them, that
is, but one. A funny fellow, a philosopher named Diogenes. He had views
not unlike those of the Buddha. According to him, possessions and all
the things we think we need only serve to distract us and get in the way
of our simple enjoyment of life. So he had given away everything he
owned and now sat, almost naked, in a barrel in the market square in
Corinth where he lived, as free and independent as a stray dog. Curious
to meet this strange fellow, Alexander went to call on him. Dressed in
shining armour, the plume on his helmet waving in the breeze, he walked
up to the barrel and said to Diogenes: T like you. Let me know your wish
and I shall grant it.' Diogenes, who had until then been comfortably
sunning himself, replied: 'Indeed, Sire, I have a wish.' 'Well, what is
it?' 'Your shadow has fallen over me: stand a little less between me and
the sun.' Alexander is said to have been so struck by this that he said:
'If I weren't Alexander I should like to be Diogenes.'
A king like this was soon as popular with the Greek soldiers as he was
with the Macedonians. They were more than willing to fight for him. So,
with increasing confidence, Alexander marched on Persia. He gave
everything he owned to his friends. They were horrified and said: 'But
what are you leaving for yourself? "Hope', he is said to have replied.
And that hope didn't deceive him. His army reached Asia Minor first.
There he came up against the first Persian army. Although larger than
his own, it turned out to be no more than a milling host of soldiers
with no effective leader. The Persians were quickly put to flight, for
Alexander's army fought bravely, and Alexander most bravely of all in
the heat of the fray.
It so happens that vanquished Asia Minor is the scene of the famous
story of the Gordian Knot. It went like this. In the city of Gordium
there was a temple, and in it an old chariot whose shaft was held fast
by a strap that was tightly and intricately knotted. Now it had been
foretold that he who could untie the enchanted knot would become master
of the world. Alexander wasted little time fiddling with a knot that was
clearly far worse than the sort you get in your shoelace when you are in
a hurry. He did something my mother never let me do: he took his sword
and simply chopped it through. The story's meaning is twofold: Alexander
would conquer the world in fulfilment of the ancient prophecy, and he
would do it with the sword. As indeed he did.

Follow the arrows! They will take you in Alexander's footsteps as
he conquers half the world.
You will find it easier to follow the rest of this story of conquest if
you takea look at the map. Alexander could have
gone on to attack Persia directly, but rather than risk an attack from
the rear by the Persian provinces of Phoenicia and Egypt, he chose to
subdue them first. The Persians tried to block his way near a town
called Issus, but Alexander crushed them. He plundered the magnificent
royal tents and made off with the king's treasure. He captured the
king's wife and sisters, too, and treated them with the utmost respect
and courtesy. That was in 333 вс, an easy date to remember.
Phoenicia was less easy to conquer. For seven long months Alexander laid
siege to the city of Tyre. Its destruction, when it came, was all the
more brutal. Egypt was easier. Glad to be rid of the Persians, the
Egyptians soon surrended to Persia's foe. But Alexander was determined
to be a true ruler of Egypt, the sort they were used to. He marched
across the desert to a temple of the sun god and had the priests
proclaim him Son of the Sun, and therefore righteous Pharaoh. Before he
left Egypt to continue his campaign, he founded a new city by the sea
and named it after himself: Alexandria. It is still there today, and was
for a long time one of the richest and most powerful cities in the
world.
Only now did he march on Persia. In the meantime the Persian king had
assembled a huge army and was waiting for Alexander near ancient Nineveh
at a place called Gaugamela. He sent messengers ahead to meet Alexander
and offered him half his kingdom and his daughter in marriage, if only
he would agree not to fight. 'If I were Alexander, I'd take it,' said
Alexander's friend, Parmenios.
'And so would I, if I were Parmenios,' was Alexander's reply. Half
the world wasn't enough for Alexander. With that, he defeated the last
and greatest Persian army. The king of Persia fled into the mountains,
where he was assassinated.
Alexander punished the assassins. Now he was king of the whole of
Persia. Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, Palestine, Babylonia, Assyria, Asia
Minor and Persia - all these were now part of his empire. He set about
putting it in order. His commands could now be said to reach all the way
from the Nile to Samarkand.
This would probably have been enough for you or me, but Alexander was
far from satisfied. He wanted to rule over new, undiscovered lands. He
longed to see the mysterious, far-off peoples merchants talked about
when they came to Persia with rare goods from the East. Like Dionysus in
the Greek legend, he wanted to ride in triumph to the sun-burnished
Indians of the East, and there receive their tribute. So he spent little
time in the Persian capital, and in 327 вс led his army on the most
perilous adventures over unknown and unexplored mountain passes and down
along the valley of the Indus into India. But the Indians did not submit
to him willingly. The hermits and penitents in the forests denounced the
conquerors from the distant West in their sermons. And the soldiers of
the warrior caste fought valiantly, so that every city had to be
besieged and conquered in its turn.
Alexander himself was no less valiant, as is shown by his encounter with
an Indian king. King Porus had lain in wait for him on a branch of the
Indus River, with a mighty army of war elephants and foot soldiers. When
Alexander reached the river the king's army was positioned on the far
bank, and Alexander and his soldiers had no choice but to cross the
river in the face of the enemy host. His success was one of his greatest
feats. Yet even more remarkable was his victory over that army, in the
stifling heat of India. Porus was brought before him in chains. 'What do
you want of me?' asked Alexander. 'Only that you treat me as befits a
king.' 'And that is all?' 'That is all,' came the reply, 'there is no
more to be said.' Alexander was so impressed that he gave Porus back his
kingdom.
He himself wished to march on even further towards the east, to the even
more mysterious and unknown peoples who lived in the valley of the River
Ganges. But his soldiers had had enough. They didn't want to march on to
the end of the world. They wanted to go home. Alexander begged and
pleaded and threatened to go on alone. He shut himself up in his tent
and refused to come out for three whole days. But in the end the
soldiers had their way, and he was forced to turn back.
But they did agree to one thing: they wouldn't go home by the same
route. Of course it would have been far the simplest thing to do, since
those regions had already been conquered. But Alexander wanted new
sights and new conquests. So they followed the Indus down as far as the
sea. There he put part of his army onto ships and sent them home that
way. He himself chose to endure new and terrible hardships as he marched
with the rest of the army over pitiless desert wastes. Alexander bore
all the privations his army endured and took no more water and slept no
more than the next man. He fought in the foremost ranks.
On one occasion, he only escaped death by a miracle. That day they were
besieging a fortress. Ladders had been set in place to scale the walls.
Alexander was first up. He had reached the top when the ladder snapped
under the weight of the soldiers behind, leaving him alone on top of the
wall. His men shouted to him to jump back down. Instead he leapt
straight into the city and, with his back to the ramparts, defended
himself with his shield against overwhelming odds. By the time the
others were able to scale the wall to rescue him, he had already been
hit by an arrow. It must have been thrilling!
In the end they returned to the Persian capital. But since Alexander had
burnt it down when he conquered it, he chose to set up his court in
Babylon. This was no idle choice: Son of the Sun to the Egyptians, King
of Kings to the Persians, with troops in India and in Athens, he was
determined to show the world that he was its rightful ruler.
It may not have been pride that prompted him to do so. As a pupil of
Aristotle he understood human nature and knew that power needs pomp and
dignity if it wants to make the right impression. So he introduced all
the age-old ceremonies of the Babylonian and Persian courts. Anyone who
came into his presence had to fall on their knees before him and speak
to him as if he were a god. And in the manner of Oriental kings he had
several wives, among them the daughter of the Persian king, Darius,
which made him that king's rightful successor. For Alexander didn't wish
to be seen as a foreign conqueror. His aim was to combine the wisdom and
splendour of the East with the clear thinking and vitality of the
Greeks, and so create something entirely new and wonderful.
But this idea didn't please the Greeks and Macedonians at all. They were
the conquerors, so they should be the masters. What was more, they were
free men, and used to their freedom. They weren't going to bow down to
any man on earth - or, as they put it, lick any man's boots. His Greek
friends and the soldiers became increasingly rebellious, and he was
forced to send them home. Alexander never realised his great ambition of
mingling the two peoples, even though he handed out rich dowries to ten
thousand Macedonian and Greek soldiers so that they could marry Persian
women, and laid on a great wedding feast for all.
He had great plans. He wanted to found many more cities like Alexandria.
He wanted to build roads, and change the face of the world with his
military campaigns, whether the Greeks liked it or not. Just imagine, in
those days, to have a regular postal service running from India to
Athens! But in the midst of all his plans he died, in Nebuchadnezzar's
summer palace, in 323 вс. Не was thirty-two years old - an age when most
people's lives have barely begun.
To the question of who should succeed him, he answered, in his fever:
'He who is most worthy.' But there was no one. The generals and princes
in his entourage were greedy, dissolute and dishonest. They fought over
the empire until it fell apart. Egypt was then governed by a family of
generals - the Ptolemies. The Seleucids ruled Mesopotamia, and the
Attalids Asia Minor. India was simply abandoned.
But although the empire was in pieces, Alexander's grand project slowly
went on taking shape. Greek art and the spirit of Greece had penetrated
Persia and passed on through India to China. Meanwhile the Greeks
themselves had learnt that there was more to the world than Athens and
Sparta, and more to do than waste their lives in endless squabbling
between Dorians and Ionians. And, having lost the little political power
they once had, the Greeks went on to be the bearers of the greatest
intellectual force there has ever been, the force we know as Greek
culture. This force was protected and preserved in some very special
fortresses. Can you guess what those fortresses were? They were
libraries. Alexandria, for instance, had a Greek library that held
around seven hundred thousand scrolls. Those seven hundred thousand
scrolls were the Greek soldiers who set off to conquer the world. And
that empire is still standing today.
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13 New Wars and New Warriors
Italy - Rome and the myth of Rome's foundation - Class warfare -The twelve
tablets of the law - The Roman character - Rome's capture by the Gauls - The
conquest of Italy - Pyrrhus - Carthage - The First Punic War - Hannibal -
Crossing the Alps - Quintus Fabius Maximus - Cannae - The last call to arms -
Scipio's victory over Hannibal - The conquest of Greece - Cato - The destruction
of Carthage
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Carthage and Rome, fighting for the possession of Sicily,
drove Hannibal to bring his army over the Alps.
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Alexander only went east. Although 'only' may not be quite the right
word! Hut the lands that lay to the west of Greece did not tempt him -
just a couple of Phoenician and Greek colonies and a handful of densely
wooded peninsulas inhabited by tribes of stubborn and unruly peasants.
One of Roman year 100 is what we would call the 653rd year before the
birth of Christ - or 653 вс.
The Romans had lots of other stories about the glorious past of their
little city. Tales of kings, both good and bad, and their wars with
neighbouring cities - I almost said with neighbouring villages. The
seventh and last king was called Tarquin the Proud, and he was said to
have been assassinated by a nobleman named Brutus. From that time
onwards, power was in (he hands of the nobility. These were the
patricians - the word means something like 'city fathers' - although in
those days they weren't citizens as we know them, but old landowning
families with vast estates of fields and meadows. And they alone had the
right to choose оfficials to govern the city, once there were no more
kings.
In Rome the highest officials were the consuls. There were always two of
them ruling jointly, and they held office for just one year. Then they
had to stand down. Of course, the patricians weren't the only people who
lived in the city, but if you didn't have illustrious ancestors or great
estates you weren't noble. The others were the plebeians, and they were
almost a caste of their own as in India. A plebeian couldn't marry a
patrician. Still less could he become a consul. He wasn't even allowed
to voice his opinion at the People's Assembly on the Field of Mars
outside the city gates. But the plebeians were many and every inch as
strong-willed and stubborn as the patricians. Unlike the gentle Indians
they didn't willingly submit. On more than one occasion they threatened
to leave the city unless they were treated better and given a share of
the fields and pastures which the patricians liked to keep for
themselves. After a relentless struggle which went on for more than a
hundred years, the plebeians of Rome finally succeeded in obtaining the
same rights as the patricians. Of the two consuls, one would be a
patrician, the other a plebeian. So justice was done. The end of this
long and complicated struggle coincided with the time of Alexander the
Great.
From this struggle you will have gained some idea of what the Romans
were like. They were not as quick-thinking or as inventive as the
Athenians. Nor did they take such delight in beautiful things, in
buildings, statues and poetry. Nor was reflecting on the world and on
life so vital to them. But when they set out to do something, they did
it, even if it took two hundred years, for they were peasants through
and through, not restless seafarers like the Athenians. Their homes,
their livestock and their land - these were what mattered. They cared
little for travel, they founded no colonies. They loved their native
city and its soil and would do anything and everything to increase its
prosperity and power. They would fight for it and they would die for it.
Beside their native soil there was one other thing that was important to
them: their law. Not the law that is just and fair and before which all
men are equal, but the law which is law. The law that is laid down.
Their laws were inscribed on twelve bronze tablets set out in the
marketplace. And those few, stern words meant precisely what they said.
No exceptions, no compassion, no mercy. For these were the laws of their
ancestors and they must be right.
There are many old and wonderful stories telling of the love Romans had
for their native land and of their faithfulness to its laws. Stories of
fathers who sentenced their own sons to death without turning a hair,
because the law so demanded, and of heroes who didn't hesitate to give
their lives for their fellow countrymen on the battlefield or in
captivity. While we don't have to believe every word of them, such
stories give us an idea of what was expected of a Roman: the harshness
and discipline that it was his duty to show towards himself and to
others whenever his native land or the law were involved. Nothing could
shake these Romans. They never gave up. Not even when their city was
captured and burnt to the ground by tribesmen from the north called
Gauls, in 390 вс. They just rebuilt it, fortified it, and gradually
brought the small surrounding towns back under their control.
After the time of Alexander the Great, however, small wars against small
towns ceased to satisfy them and they set about conquering the entire
peninsula. Not, as Alexander had done, in one single great campaign, but
in easy stages - town by town, region by region, and with all their
characteristic single-mindedness and determination. It usually went like
this. Because Rome was a powerful city, other Italian cities wanted to
be its allies. This suited the these peninsulas was Italy, and one of
the peasant tribes, the Romans. At the time of Alexander the Great, the
Roman empire was no more than a little patch of land in the heart of
Italy, and Rome a tiny city of twisting streets within strong walls. But
Rome's inhabitants were a proud people. They loved recounting stories of
the greatness of their past and were convinced of a great future. Their
history, as they told it, went back to ancient Troy. A Trojan named
Aeneas fled to Italy. His descendants were the twin brothers Romulus and
Remus, sons of Mars, the god of war, who were suckled and raised in the
forest by a wild she-wolf. Romulus, so the myth goes, founded Rome. They
even had a date for it, 753 вс, and would later count the years from
that date as the Greeks did from the Olympiads. They would say: in
such-and-such a year after the city's founding. So, for example, the
Romans very well, and all would go smoothly as long as the allies
behaved themselves. But if a disagreement arose that led to an ally's
refusing to follow Rome's instructions, it would mean war - a war which
Rome's regiments or legions usually won. Now it so happened that one day
a city in the south of Italy asked a Greek prince and commander called
Pyrrhus to come to its aid against Rome. He arrived with war elephants -
whose use the Greeks had learnt from the Indians - and succeeded in
defeating the Roman legions. But at a cost: he lost so many of his men
that he is said to have cried out, 'One more such victory and we are
lost!' Which is why people still speak of a 'Pyrrhic victory' if it has
been won at too great a cost.
Pyrrhus soon withdrew his forces, leaving the Romans to become lords of
the whole of southern Italy. But even that was not enough for them. They
aimed to conquer Sicily as well, drawn by the island's fertile soil
which produced such good crops, and by its wealthy Greek colonies. But
Sicily didn't belong to the Greeks any more: it was under the control of
the Phoenicians.
Now as you remember, even before the Greeks, the Phoenicians had set up
trading posts and founded cities everywhere they went. These were mainly
in southern Spain and along the coasts of North Africa. One of the
African cities was Carthage, and it lay immediately opposite Sicily.
Carthage was the richest and mightiest city for miles around and the
Romans referred to its Phoenician inhabitants as 'Punks'. Its ships went
far across the seas, taking goods from one country to another and, since
they were so near Sicily, they fetched grain from there.
Because of this the Carthaginians had become Rome's first real opponents
- and very dangerous ones too. Unlike the Romans they didn't usually
fight themselves, but could afford to pay foreign mercenaries to fight
on their behalf. In the war which now broke out in Sicily they won the
early battles - not least because the Romans didn't have many ships,
weren't used to sea voyages and sea warfare, and knew next to nothing
about shipbuilding. But one day a Carthaginian ship ran aground off
Italy. Using it as a model, and working in furious haste, the Romans
managed to build a whole fleet of identical ships within two months. It
took all the money they had, but with their brand new fleet they
defeated the Carthaginians, who were soon forced to cede Sicily to the
Romans. This happened in 241 вс.
However, it was only the start of the war between the two cities.
They've taken Sicily, the Carthaginians said to themselves, so we'll
take Spain. Now at the time we're talking about there weren't any Romans
in Spain, only wild tribes. Even so, the Romans would not allow it. It
so happened that there was a Carthaginian commander in Spain whose son
Hannibal was a truly extraordinary young man. Reared among soldiers, he
knew everything there was to know about warfare. Hunger and cold, heat
and thirst, forced marches night and day, he had seen them all. He was
fearless, unbelievably tenacious and a born leader. He could outwit the
enemy with his cunning and sum up a situation in an instant, and he had
,i cool head. He was that rare thing: a man who made war like a
chess-player, carefully considering each move before he made it.
But above all he was a good Carthaginian. He already hated the Romans
for trying to subdue his native city, and their meddling in Spain was
the last straw. He left Spain immediately for Italy, equipped with war
elephants and a large army - a truly formidable force. To reach Italy he
had to take his army and all his elephants across the whole of southern
France, across rivers and over mountains and right up over the Alps. He
may have taken the pass that goes over the shoulder of Mount Cenis, as
it is known today. I've been there myself, following a wide, winding
road. But how they found their way over those wild mountains in those
days, with no roads to follow, is impossible to imagine. Surrounded by
deep ravines, sheer precipices and slippery grass ledges - I wouldn't
want to be up there with one elephant, let alone lorty, and by then it
was already September and there was snow on the mountain tops. But
Hannibal found a way through for his army and they finally reached
Italy. There he was confronted by the Romans, but he defeated them in a
bloody battle. Later a second Roman army surprised his camp under cover
of darkness. But Hannibal, having been forewarned, saved himself with a
cunning trick. He tied flaming torches to the horns of a herd of cattle
and drove them down the mountainside where his camp was billeted. In the
darkness the Roman soldiers mistook them for Hannibal's soldiers and
rushed off in hot pursuit. How I would love to have seen their faces
when they finally caught up with them and found they were cows!

Hannibal
The Romans had a very gifted general called Quintus Fabius Maximus, who
wanted to avoid meeting Hannibal in battle. He believed that Hannibal
would eventually become impatient and, being in a foreign country, was
bound to make a blunder. But the Romans didn't like his waiting game and
mocked Quintus Fabius Maximus, calling him 'Cunctator' - 'Hesitator'.
Ignoring his advice, they attacked Hannibal at a place called Cannae.
There they were decisively beaten: forty thousand dead on the Roman
side. This battle, which took place in 217 вс, was their bloodiest
defeat. Yet despite his victory Hannibal did not march on Rome.
Favouring caution, he stayed put and waited for reinforcements from
home. And this was his undoing. For Carthage sent no fresh troops and
his men began to run wild, robbing and plundering the Italian cities.
Though the Romans no longer dared attack him directly, they called up
all their men to fight. Every one of them - even young boys and slaves.
Every man in Italy became a soldier, and these weren't hired soldiers
like Hannibal's. They were Romans, and you know what that means. They
fought the Carthaginians both in Sicily and in Spain. And everywhere
they fought, as long as it wasn't Hannibal they were fighting, they
always won.
After fourteen years in Italy Hannibal finally returned to Africa, where
his countrymen needed him. The Romans, led by Scipio their general, had
reached the gates of Carthage. And there Hannibal met his defeat. In 202
вс the Romans conquered Carthage. The Carthaginians were made to burn
their entire fleet and pay the Romans a huge sum of money. Hannibal
fled, and later poisoned himself rather than fall into the hands of the
Romans. Emboldened by its great victory, Rome now conquered Greece,
still under Macedonian rule and as disunited and fragmented as ever.
They brought home the most beautiful works of art from Corinth and
reduced the city to ashes.
Rome also expanded northwards into the land of the Gauls who, two
hundred years earlier, had sacked Rome. They conquered the region we
know as northern Italy. Yet even this was not enough. Carthage was still
standing, a fact which many Romans would not accept, in particular a
patrician named Cato. Cato was a just and honourable man, but
notoriously severe. Whenever the city council met at the Senate, no
matter what was discussed, he is said to have ended every speech with
the words: 'For the rest, I propose that Carthage be destroyed.' And in
the end that is precisely what they did. The Romans invented a pretext
to attack. The Carthaginians defended themselves desperately, and even
after the city had fallen the Roman soldiers had to fight on, house by
house, through the streets lor six more days. When the city was finally
conquered, every Cart haginian had either been killed or captured. The
Romans razed all the houses and turned the land where Carthage had once
stood into a plain. It was 146 вс. And that was the end of Hannibal's
city. Now Rome was the mightiest city in the world.
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14 An Enemy of History
The Emperor Shih Huang-ti of Ch'in - The burning of the books
-The princes of Ch'in and the naming of China - The Great Wall of China
- The Han ruling family - Learned officials
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Terracotta Army
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If you have always found history boring, you are going to enjoy this
chapter.
At about the same time as Hannibal was in Italy (that is, shortly after
220 вс), an emperor was ruling over China who hated history so much
that, in 213 вс, he ordered all history books and all old reports and
records to be burnt, along with all collections of songs and poems and
the writings of Confucius and Lao-tzu - in fact everything he considered
to be useless rubbish. The only books he permitted were ones on
agriculture and other useful subjects. Anybody found in possession of
any other sort of book was to be put to death.
This emperor was Shih Huang-ti, the first emperor of all China and one
of the greatest warriors there has ever been. He was not born into an
imperial family but was the son of one of the princes I told you about,
who ruled the many Chinese provinces. His province was called Ch'in,
from which his family took its name, and it is likely that the whole
country now known as China was named after him.
There are certainly more than enough reasons for China to take its name
from the Prince of Ch'in. Not only did he make himself the first emperor
of all China, by conquering all the other provinces one by one, but he
transformed the entire country. He threw out all the princes and totally
reorganised his empire. And if you ask me why he hated history and
destroyed all those books, it was because he wanted to wipe out every
trace of how things had been done before, so he could build an entirely
new China - his China - starting from scratch. He built roads everywhere
and began work on an enormous project: the Great Wall of China. Today it
is still a massive construction, a double wall made of stone with tall
towers and castellations, winding its symmetrical way over plains,
through deep ravines and up steep mountain slopes as it follows the line
of the frontier for all of four thousand miles. Shih Huang-ti built it
to protect China's many hardworking and peaceable peasants and
townspeople from the wild tribes of the steppes, whose warlike horsemen
roamed the vast plains of inner Asia. It had to be strong enough to
resist their incessant raids, with all their looting and killing. And he
succeeded. Of course, over the centuries the wall has often been rebuilt
and strengthened, but it is still there today.
Shih Huang-ti didn't have a long reign. Soon a new family ascended the
throne of the Son of Heaven. This was the Han family. They saw no need
to undo all Shih Huang-ti's good works, and under their rule China
remained strong and unified. But by now the Hans were no longer enemies
of history. On the contrary, they remembered China's debt to the
teachings of Confucius and set about searching high and low for all
those ancient writings. It turned out that many people had had the
courage not to burn them after all. Now they were carefully collected
and valued twice as highly as before. And to become a government
official, you had to know them all.
China is, in fact, the only country in the world to be ruled for
hundreds of years, not by the nobility, nor by soldiers, nor even by the
priesthood, but by scholars. No matter where you came from, or whether
you were rich or poor, as long as you gained high marks in your exams
you could become an official. The highest post went to the person with
the highest marks. But the exams were far from easy. You had to be able
to write thousands of characters, and you can imagine how hard that is.
What is more, you had to know an enormous number of ancient books and
all the rules and teachings of Confucius and the other ancient sages off
by heart.
So Shih Huang-ti's burning of the books was all in vain, and if you
thought he was right, you were mistaken. It's a bad idea to try to
prevent people from knowing their own history. If you want to do
anything new you must first make sure you know what people have tried
before.
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