Читать книгу Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading - George Park Fisher - Страница 22

DIVISIONS OF ANCIENT HISTORY.—Ancient history separates itself into two main divisions. In the first the Oriental nations form the subject; in the second, which follows in the order of time, the European peoples, especially Greece and Rome, have the central place. The first division terminates, and the second begins, with the rise of Grecian power and the great conflict of Greece with the Persian Empire, 492 B.C.

SECTIONS OF ORIENTAL HISTORY.—But Oriental history divides itself into two distinct sections. The first embraces China and India, nations apart, and disconnected from the Mediterranean and adjacent peoples. China and India have a certain bond of connection with one another through the spread in China of the Buddhistic religion. The second section includes the great empires which preceded, and paved the way for, European history; viz., Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, and Persia. In this section, along the course of the historic stream, other nations which exercised a powerful influence, attract special attention, especially the Phoenicians and the Hebrews. All these Oriental peoples are so connected together that they stand in history as the Earliest Group of Nations. The historic narrative must be so shaped as to describe them in part singly, but, at the same time, in their mutual relations.

Ancient history, from an ethnographical point of view, would embrace two general divisions—Eastern peoples and Western peoples. The first would comprise Egyptians (Hamitic); Jews, Babylonians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Lydians (Semitic); Hindus, Bactrians, Medes, Persians (Aryan); Parthians, Chinese, Japanese. The second would include Celts, Britons, Greeks, Romans, Teutons (Aryan). (Ploetz, Universal History, p. 1.)

From a geographical point of view, ancient history would fall into three general divisions: I. Asia, including (1) India, (2) China (with Japan), (3) Babylonia and Assyria, (4) Phoenicia, (5) Palestine, (6) Media and Persia. II. Africa, including (1) Egypt, (2) Carthage. III. Europe including (1) Greece, with its states and colonies; (2) Italy.