Читать книгу The History of the Ancient Civilizations - Duncker Max - Страница 6

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History knows nothing of her infancy. The beginning of the development of the human race lies beyond the sphere of memory, and so also do the first steps in that development. The early stages of culture—whether in nations or individuals—are unconscious, and unobservant of self; they are therefore without the conditions which make remembrance possible. The original forms of social life in the family and in the tribe, the movement of wandering hunters and shepherds, the earliest steps in agriculture, could leave behind them neither monuments nor records. It is true no gifted or favoured nation, which has raised itself above these beginnings to civic life and independent culture, has neglected to cast a backward glance upon the history of its past. Everywhere the attempt has been made to present the past from the later point of culture. Whether the memory reaches but a little way, or goes back far into the past, it is always enriched by ideas taken from religious conceptions, or national pride, from reflection or theory. Such reconstructions are significant of the nature and character of the people for whom they replace the history of their youth, but they have no claim to represent the actual course of their development. The case is different when the growing culture of a people is observed by nations already at a higher grade of civilisation. The Romans were in a position to leave behind a picture of the youthful German tribes; the Byzantines could inform us of the movements of the Slaves; modern Europe could observe the tribes of America, the nomadic shepherds of Asia, and the islanders of the South Sea from a higher and riper point of development.

The oldest kingdoms of which tradition and monuments preserve any information passed unobserved through the earliest stages of their culture. Tradition and the earliest monuments present them already in the possession of a many-sided and highly-developed civilisation. In what way these nations, the oldest representatives of the culture of mankind, arrived at their possession, we can only deduce from such evidence as is before us anterior to tradition and independent of it—from the nature of the regions where these civilisations sprung up, from the physical character and constitution of the nations which developed them, from their languages and their religious ideas.

The history of antiquity is the description of the forms of culture first attained by the human race. If it is impossible to discover the origin of these forms historically, and the attempt is made to indicate their preliminary stages, so far as the recorded elements allow connected conclusions, it becomes the chief object of such a history to recover from the fragments of monuments and tradition the culture of the ancient East, and of the Hellenes so closely connected with the East: to reconstruct from isolated relics and myths the image of that rich and ample life which filled the East in religion and state, in art and industry, in research and commerce, in political struggles and intense religious devotion, long before the time when Solon gave laws to the Athenians, and the army of Cyrus trod the shore of the Ægean Sea.

The oldest civilisation, the oldest state grew up on that quarter of the globe which seems least favourable to the development of mankind. On either side of the equator, Africa stretches out in huge land-locked masses. A vast table-land occupies the whole south of the continent, and in the north sinks down to a plain more impassable even than the broad seas which wash the coasts of Africa on the west, south, and east. This plain—the bed of a dry sea—lies in the burning sun without vegetation. Only where springs water the thirsty soil do fruitful islands rise out of the moving sand, the lonely waste of ravines, the craggy ridges, and bald platforms of rock.

As the sea nowhere indents the coasts of Africa with deep bays, the rivers cannot excavate broad and fruitful valleys, and provide means of access to the interior. The high table-land is surrounded by a steep rampart of mountains, which descend in terraces to the coast, and here, almost without exception, leave narrow strips of low and marshy land. Through the barrier drawn around them by this rampart the rivers must force their path in a violent course, in waterfalls and rapids, in order to fall into the sea after a short, and proportionately more sluggish course through the narrow strip on the shore.

The table-land, its rampart of mountains, and the long lines of coast, are, with the exception of the southern apex and the Alpine territory of Abyssinia in the east, the dwelling-places of the black race—the negro. However great the number of negro nations and tribes, however much they differ in physical form and in dialect—living as they do beneath a vertical sun, in regions difficult of access—they have never risen beyond the infancy of human civilisation—a rude worship of gods. Wherever they have not been powerfully affected by the introduction of foreign elements, generation has followed generation without remembrance or essential alteration.

The north coast of Africa is of a different character to the rest of the continent. While the western coast looks to the broad Atlantic Ocean, and the waves which break on the southern apex lead to the ice of the pole, the north coast is separated from the neighbouring shores by a basin of moderate extent. It is a mountainous district which fills up the space between the Sahara and the Mediterranean. Towards the west the peaks of Atlas reach, even in this climate, to the region of eternal snow; on the east, towards the mouths of the Nile, the hills gradually sink down, and the plain of Barca rises little more than 1,000 feet above the sea level. Numerous chains of hills, at one time pressing close upon the sea, at another leaving more extensive plains upon the coast, cover the northern edge, which along the deep valleys of the mountain streams exhibits that vigorous and luxuriant vegetation so characteristic of Africa when not checked by want of water, although even these fruitful valleys are again in their turn broken by droughty, and therefore bare, table-lands and depressions.

On this northern coast, toward the Mediterranean, opens the valley which, in extent of fruitful territory, is the largest in the whole continent. It occupies the north-east corner of Africa, which is only separated from Arabia by a narrow strip of sea, and carries its gleaming waters through the wide space from the subsidence of the table-land down to the coast, where for almost its whole remaining breadth the continent is filled up with the desert of Sahara.

From the north-east spur of the table-land, out of vast lakes (Ukerewe), fed from the glaciers and snows of huge mountains lying under the equator, and passing through the lower lake Mwutan, flows the western arm of the Nile, the White Nile, Bahr-el-Abiad. After bursting through the terraces of the mountain, it reaches, at the foot, a woody morass, filled with thickets of tamarisks and sycamores, of bamboo and reeds and tall creepers, inhabited by the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus and the crocodile, the zebra and hyena, by antelopes and snakes. Then the stream passes into broad savannas, covered here and there with tropic forests, and while flowing through a mountainous district of moderate elevation, it unites with the eastern arm, the Blue Nile, Bahr-el-Azrak, which, rising further to the east out of the Abyssinian plateau, brings down a far smaller bulk of water from the Alpine glades of the snowy mountain Samen. Combined into one stream, these waters flow through a broad expanse of rock and desert, covered with conical stones of volcanic origin. The lines of hills running parallel to the terraces of the mountain rampart lie athwart the river; and through this barrier it breaks in numerous cataracts. Only in the depressions between them can the soil, refreshed with water, support vegetation. Finally, at Syene the Nile passes through the last cataract. Henceforward the structure of the mountains is changed. A fissure in the rock about 750 miles long opens on the Mediterranean; and through this the mighty river—at the last cataract it is 3,000 feet in breadth—can flow onward in undisturbed peace to the ocean.

Out of this fissure the Nile has created a narrow strip of fruitful soil—the valley is not more than three or four hours in breadth on an average—which is secured by the heights on the west from the moving sand and the storms of the great desert, and is separated by the mountain on the east from the rocky crags, the desolate flats, and sandy dunes which fill up the space between the valley of the river and the Red Sea. To this valley the mighty river not only gives a refreshing coolness and moisture by the mass of its waters, it fertilises and manures it from year to year by its overflow. At the summer solstice, when the snow on the peaks of the lofty mountains, in which the two arms of the Nile take their rise, is melting, and the tropical rains fall upon its upper course, the waters of the river slowly and gradually rise. Towards the end of July it passes over the banks and overflows the whole valley as far as the enclosing lines of hills, so that towards the end of September it stands more than twenty feet above the lowest water level. Falling as gradually as it rose after more than four months it sinks back to the ordinary level. Wherever the overflowing waters have covered the land, there is left behind a fertilising mud or slime. This is the soil which the two rivers before uniting have washed from the upper hills. Carried down by the stream, it is deposited by the gentle flow of the waters on the surface of the valley. The refreshment of the earth by the inundation, the fertilisation by this slime, and the cooling of the air by the immense body of water, are the essential advantages which Egypt owes to her river, and hence, even as early as Herodotus, Egypt seemed to be the gift of the Nile. The watering of the soil and the cooling of the air just in the very hottest months of the year, are the more invaluable because the blue and gleaming sky of the upper valley is never darkened by rain clouds, while the heat is severe, and the storms from the south-west occasionally carry the sand and the dust over the Libyan hills into the Nile. In the Delta, the region along the lowest course of the Nile, showers occasionally rise from the neighbouring sea; and through eight months of the year the whole valley opening on the Mediterranean is fanned by refreshing winds from the north, which also facilitate navigation against the stream.

This river-valley, the like of which in nature and formation is not to be found in the whole globe, offered in its seclusion a peculiarly favoured spot. It was a small green oasis of luxuriant fertility and grateful coolness in the midst of boundless deserts. The dwellers in a land whose soil was every year newly manured by nature, which brought forth abundantly almost without labour, must very soon have abandoned a pastoral life for agriculture, and in consequence have acquired fixed abodes and settled possessions. But the yearly inundation compelled them also at an early period to protect their flocks from the water, to secure their habitations, to observe the periods of the rising and falling of the stream. The long duration of the overflow made it necessary to provide for the support of man and beast. They had to learn how to carry on their dealings with each other upon the water, when the whole valley was still filled with the river, and to mark out firmly the limits of their plots, so that they might again take possession of them after the inundation. In Nubia the cataracts stopped the navigation of the river, and the lines of rock and strips of desert made intercourse difficult, and confined the life of the tribes within the limits of the native valley to their separate possessions. In Egypt, within the two lines of hills, land and river created no hindrance. A region so concentrated could not but carry the tribes beyond the limits of separate existence; the very land forced them to live a life more in common. There was only a slight natural distinction between the more secluded upper valley and the lower opening in the Delta about the mouths of the Nile; and this could merely have a stimulating effect upon the development of culture, without interfering in any way with its unity. Nevertheless the community of life in the valley of the Nile was not caused solely by the nature of the land. The tribes of the deserts around this long and narrow oasis must have had all the more lively a sense of the charm of the favoured valley owing to the difficulty with which they procured their own subsistence. Against these plundering neighbours, and their attempts to force themselves into the valley of blessing and abundance, the inhabitants of Egypt had to combine their forces. They needed a strong centralized command, a warlike monarchy, to which here, earlier than elsewhere, the patriarchal government of the tribes would therefore give way.

Egypt kept her inhabitants secluded within hard and fast limits; beyond the hills began the desert. With the increasing number of inhabitants the attempt must have been made to set low-lying marshy districts free from the excess of water, and to make fruitful the higher parts of the valley beyond the reach of the inundations by bringing the water upon them. Experience quickly taught that the plot produced the most abundant fruits on which the inundation had continued longest, and consequently had time to deposit the thickest layer of mud. Hence the attempt was made to keep the water longer on the soil by means of dykes. These objects, in regard to which the interests of the several districts differed, and which required the combination of large masses of operatives to carry them out, must have made the need of a supreme decisive and executive power felt earlier in Egypt than in other lands.

The inhabitants of Egypt found themselves surrounded by a solemn landscape, before fixed and unchanging forms and outlines, in the midst of natural phenomena, recurring with invariable regularity and always in the same succession. Such surroundings and impressions must have stamped on the young life of a ripening nation a settled, stern, and unvarying character. When the original unity and society of life, which comprises all members of the family and in the tribe, has been broken through—when at the beginning of their settled life some have turned their attention to agriculture and cattle, others to hunting and war, others again to the fulfilment of religious duties—the sons are wont to carry on the vocation of the fathers. This is the rule often in far more advanced periods; and simpler conditions of life compel the son to carry on the life of the father, in whose occupation he has grown up. In such times there is no mode of teaching and instruction but through the family. In this way the tribes and the nation part into separate circles, which carry on as an inheritance the mode of life derived from their forefathers. These divisions of occupation, of vocation, and mode of life could be carried out earlier and with greater sharpness in Egypt than in other lands.

As life becomes more settled and developed, there are always found families with an especial liking for war. They are enriched by the spoil which is the fruit of their bravery, and protect the agricultural and pastoral part of their tribe from the attacks of plunderers. Every nation gives willing honour to the brave warriors among them, and gladly recognises the superiority of a mode of life which puts life to the risk over other occupations. And when, from the early simple stage, in which every head of a family approaches the gods with his offerings in trust and confidence, religion has developed into a body of usages and customs which must be performed and followed out if any share is to be obtained in the grace of the gods, the exact knowledge of these can only be handed down from father to son. And if the mass of the population gives honour to the warriors, how much more readily will it bow down before those who, by their prayers, libations, and offerings, can bring them the fruits of the field and the blessing of the gods—protection in this world and salvation in the next! Moreover, if the families of warriors and priests, filled with the conviction of their own higher worth, disdain the occupations of the rest of the people; if they are convinced that they are of a better kind than the rest, that only from the noble and good can the noble and good arise—that better blood gives better feelings, and better birth better men—then in this feeling, so natural to a primitive era, they allow their occupation to be shared only by those who belong to their race; they take wives from their own class only, not from others; they give their daughters in marriage to their own people only. Thus the various modes of life and orders which naturally come into existence end in castes.

The more fruitful the land of Egypt, the richer the products of the soil, and the more frequent the necessity of repelling the plundering inroads of the desert tribes, the more rapidly did the distinction between the agricultural and military orders spring up. And the greater the pride with which the inhabitants of this favoured land might and did look down upon the miserable tribes of the desert, the more grateful were the looks turned towards the gods, who had given them so beautiful and productive a land in the midst of the desert, who supplied them with water, fertilised their soil, cooled the heat of the atmosphere and gave them life and plenty, while all around them reigned desolation and death. To these beneficent powers the inhabitants of the valley of the Nile could not refuse an earnest service of thanksgiving for blessings so rich and so ceaselessly renewed; by their piety they had also to provide that the gods would graciously preserve these blessings to them. It is obvious that a tone and feeling like this, arising in the population from the very nature of the land, must have been in a high degree conducive to the rise of a priestly order in Egypt.

Egypt had excellent natural boundaries. If the forces of the land were once united in a single hand, there could be no difficulty in repelling the tribes of the desert. Thenceforward there would be little reason to fear an enemy on this side of the boundary hills. No rival power could arise in the neighbouring deserts, and should any victorious state arise at a distance, the deserts checked the advance of their armies. It was much more probable that the united forces of the river-valley should subjugate the tribes of the surrounding desert. Hence the position of their land allowed the inhabitants of the valley to develop undisturbed. The culture once obtained could be quietly transmitted to others, and constantly extended. This circumstance, in connection with the domestic peace of the country under a monarchy, allowed the priesthood to extend their lore in unbroken tradition from generation to generation, while quietly amassing stores of knowledge; and with the increase of the population all the hands not required for agriculture—and in Egypt this claims but a small amount of labour—had to devote themselves to trade and manufacture. And even these arts were likely to attain the greater excellence in so far as the artisans and tillers of the ground were less disturbed by war and military service. The more distinct the boundaries of the land, the less to conquer and occupy outside them, the more industrious, amid the growing population, must have been the culture of the ground and the irrigation of it, the more actively must the artisans have pursued their trade, and industry must have developed with a greater vigour as the number of mouths requiring food increased.

So far as our knowledge reaches, the northern edge of Africa, like the valley of the Nile as far as the marshes at the foot of the Abyssinian hills, was inhabited by nations who in colour, language, and customs were sharply distinguished from the negro. These nations belong to the whites: their languages were most closely allied to the Semitic.[1] From this, and from their physical peculiarities, the conclusion has been drawn that these nations at some time migrated from Asia to the soil of Africa. They formed a vast family, whose dialects still continue in the language of the Berbers. Assisted by the favourable conditions of their land, the tribe which settled on the Lower Nile quickly left their kinsmen far behind. Indeed the latter hardly rose above a pastoral life. The descendants of these old inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, in spite of the numerous layers which the course of centuries has subsequently laid upon the soil of the land, still form the larger part of the population of Egypt, and the ancient language is preserved in the dialect of the Copts.[2]