Horace - "The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos"

Alfred Ollivant - "The Gentleman"

Various - "Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance"

Grace S. Richmond - "Under the Country Sky"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

A General History for Colleges and High Schools

P >> P. V. N. Myers >> A General History for Colleges and High Schools




At one blow the region of northwestern India known as the Punjab, was
brought under Persian authority; and thus with a single effort were the
eastern limits of the empire pushed out so as to include one of the
richest countries of Asia--one which henceforth returned to the Great King
an annual revenue vastly larger than that of any other province hitherto
acquired, not even excepting the rich district of Babylonia.

With an army numbering, it is said, more than 700,000 men, Darius now
crossed the Bosphorus by means of a sort of pontoon bridge, constructed by
Grecian architects, and passing the Danube by means of a similar bridge,
penetrated far into what is now Russia, which was then occupied by
Scythian hordes. The results of the expedition were the addition of Thrace
to the Persian empire, and the making of Macedonia a tributary kingdom.
Thus the Persian kings secured their first foothold upon the European
continent.

The most significant campaign in Europe was yet to follow. In 500 B.C.,
the Ionian cities in Asia Minor subject to the Persian authority revolted.
The Greeks of Europe lent aid to their sister states. Sardis was sacked
and burned by the insurgents. With the revolt crushed and punished with
great severity, Darius determined to chastise the European Greeks, and
particularly the Athenians, for their insolence in giving aid to his
rebellious subjects. Herodotus tells us that he appointed a person whose
sole duty it was daily to stir up the purpose of the king with the words,
"Master, remember the Athenians."

A large land and naval armament was fitted out and placed under the
command of Mardonius, a son-in-law of Darius. The land forces suffered
severe losses at the hands of the barbarians of Thrace, and the fleet was
wrecked by a violent storm off Mount Athos, three hundred ships being lost
(492 B.C.).

Two years after this disaster, another expedition, consisting of 120,000
men, was borne by ships across the AEgean to the plains of Marathon. The
details of the significant encounter that there took place between the
Persians and the Athenians will be given when we come to narrate the
history of Greece. We need now simply note the result,--the complete
overthrow of the Persian forces by the Greeks under Miltiades (490 B.C.).

Darius, angered beyond measure by the failure of the expedition, stirred
up all the provinces of his vast empire, and called for new levies from
far and near, resolved upon leading in person such an army into Greece
that the insolent Athenians should be crushed at a single blow, and the
tarnished glory of the Persian arms restored. In the midst of these
preparations, with the Egyptians in revolt, the king suddenly died, in the
year 486 B.C.

REIGN OF XERXES I. (486-465 B.C.).--The successor of Darius, his son
Xerxes, though more inclined to indulge in the ease and luxury of the
palace than to subject himself to the hardship and discipline of the camp,
was urged by those about him to an active prosecution of the plans of his
father.

After crushing the Egyptian revolt and another insurrection in Babylonia,
the Great King was free to devote his attention to the distant Greeks.
Mustering the contingents of the different provinces of his empire, Xerxes
led his vast army over the bridges he had caused to be thrown across the
Hellespont, crushed the Spartan guards at the Pass of Thermopylae, pushed
on into Attica, and laid Athens in ruins. But there fortune forsook him.
At the naval battle of Salamis, his fleet was cut to pieces by the Grecian
ships; and the king, making a precipitate retreat into Asia, hastened to
his capital, Susa. Here, in the pleasures of the harem, he sought solace
for his wounded pride and broken hopes. He at last fell a victim to palace
intrigue, being slain in his own chamber (465 B.C.).

END OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.--The power and supremacy of the Persian
monarchy passed away with the reign of Xerxes. The last one hundred and
forty years of the existence of the empire was a time of weakness and
anarchy. This period was spanned by the reigns of eight kings. It was in
the reign of Artaxerxes II., called Mnemon for his remarkable memory, that
took place the well-known expedition of the Ten Thousand Greeks under
Cyrus, the brother of Artaxerxes, an account of which will be given in
connection with Grecian history (see chap. XV.).

The march of the Ten Thousand through the very heart of the dominions of
the Great King demonstrated the amazing internal weakness of the empire.
Marathon and Salamis had shown the immense superiority of the free
soldiery of Greece over the splendid but servile armies of Persia, that
were often driven to battle with the lash. These disclosures invited the
Macedonians to the invasion and conquest of the empire.

In the year 334 B.C., Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, led a small
army of thirty-five thousand Greeks and Macedonians across the Hellespont.
Three great battles--that of the Granicus, that of Issus, and that of
Arbela--decided the fate of the Persian Empire. Darius III., the last of
the Persian kings, fled from the field of Arbela, on the plains of
Assyria, only to be treacherously assassinated by one of his own generals.

The succeeding movements of Alexander, and the establishment by him of the
short-lived Macedonian monarchy upon the ruins of the Persian state, are
matters that properly belong to Grecian history, and will be related in a
following chapter.


2. GOVERNMENT, RELIGION, AND ARTS.

THE GOVERNMENT.--Before the reign of Darius I., the government of the
Persian Empire was like that of all the great monarchies that had preceded
it; that is, it consisted of a great number of subject states, which were
allowed to retain their own kings and manage their own affairs, only
paying tribute and homage, and furnishing contingents in time of war, to
the Great King.

We have seen how weak was this rude and primitive type of government.
Darius I., who possessed rare ability as an organizer, remodelled the
system of his predecessors, and actually realized for the Persian monarchy
what Tiglath-Pileser II. had long before attempted, but only with partial
and temporary success, to accomplish for the Assyrian.

The system of government which Darius I. thus first made a real fact in
the world, is known as the _satrapal_, a form represented to-day by
the government of the Turkish Sultan. The entire kingdom was divided into
twenty or more provinces, over each of which was placed a governor, called
a satrap, appointed by the king. These officials held their position at
the pleasure of the sovereign, and were thus rendered his subservient
creatures. Each province contributed to the income of the king a stated
revenue.

There were provisions in the system by which the king might be apprised of
the disloyalty of his satraps. Thus the whole dominion was firmly cemented
together, and the facility with which almost sovereign states--which was
the real character of the different parts of the empire under the old
system--could plan and execute revolt, was removed.

LITERATURE AND RELIGION: ZOROASTRIANISM.--The literature of the ancient
Persians was mostly religious. Their sacred book is called the Zendavesta.
The oldest part is named the Vendidad. This consists of laws,
incantations, and mythical tales.

[Illustration: THE KING IN COMBAT WITH A MONSTER. (From Persepolis.)]

The religious system of the Persians, as taught in the Zendavesta, is
known as Zoroastrianism, from Zoroaster, its founder. This great reformer
and teacher is now generally supposed to have lived and taught about 1000
B.C.

Zoroastrianism was a system of belief known as dualism. Opposed to the
"good spirit," Ormazd (Ahura Mazda), there was a "dark spirit," Ahriman
(Angro-Mainyus), who was constantly striving to destroy the good creations
of Ormazd by creating all evil things--storm, drought, pestilence, noxious
animals, weeds and thorns in the world without, and evil in the heart of
man within. From all eternity these two powers had been contending for the
mastery; in the present neither had the decided advantage; but in the near
future Ormazd would triumph over Ahriman, and evil be forever destroyed.

The duty of man was to aid Ormazd by working with him against the evil-
loving Ahriman. He must labor to eradicate every evil and vice in his own
bosom; to reclaim the earth from barrenness; and to kill all bad animals--
frogs, toads, snakes, lizards--which Ahriman had created. Herodotus saw
with amazement the Magian priests armed with weapons and engaged in
slaying these animals as a "pious pastime." Agriculture was a sacred
calling, for the husbandman was reclaiming the ground from the curse of
the Dark Spirit. Thus men might become co-workers with Ormazd in the
mighty work of overthrowing and destroying the kingdom of the wicked
Ahriman.

The evil man was he who allowed vice and degrading passions to find a
place in his own soul, and neglected to exterminate noxious animals and
weeds, and to help redeem the earth from the barrenness and sterility
created by the enemy of Ormazd. [Footnote: The belief of the Zoroastrians
in the sacredness of the elements,--earth, water, fire, and air,--created
a difficulty in regard to the disposal of dead bodies. They could neither
be burned, buried, thrown into the water, nor left to decay in a
sepulchral chamber or in the open air, without polluting one or another of
the sacred elements. So they were given to the birds and wild beasts,
being exposed on lofty towers or in desert places. Those whose feelings
would not allow them thus to dispose of their dead, were permitted to bury
them, provided they first encased the body in wax, to preserve the ground
from contamination. The modern Parsees, or Fire-Worshippers, give their
dead to the birds.]

After death the souls of the good and the bad alike must pass over a
narrow bridge: the good soul crosses in safety, and is admitted to the
presence of Ahura Mazda; while the evil soul is sure to fall from the
path, sharp as the edge of a scimitar, into a pit of woe, the dwelling-
place of Ahriman.

ARCHITECTURE.--The simple religious faith of the Persians discouraged,
though it did not prohibit, the erection of temples: their sacred
architecture scarcely included more than an altar and pedestal. The palace
of the monarch was the structure that absorbed the best efforts of the
Persian artist.

In imitation of the inhabitants of the valley of the Euphrates, the
Persian kings raised their palaces upon lofty terraces, or platforms. But
upon the table-lands they used stone instead of adobe or brick, and at
Persepolis, raised, for the substruction of their palaces, an immense
platform of massive masonry, which is one of the most wonderful monuments
of the world's ancient builders. This terrace, which is uninjured by the
2300 years that have passed since its erection, is about 1500 feet long,
1000 feet wide, and 40 feet high. The summit is reached by broad stairways
of stone, pronounced by competent judges the finest work of the kind that
the ancient or even the modern world can boast.

[Illustration: THE RUINS OF PERSEPOLIS.]

Surmounting this platform are the ruins of the palaces of several of the
Persian monarchs, from Cyrus the Great to Artaxerxes Ochus. These ruins
consist chiefly of walls, columns, and great monolithic door- and window-
frames. Colossal winged bulls, copied from the Assyrians, stand as wardens
at the gateway of the ruined palaces.

Numerous sculptures in bas-relief decorate the faces of the walls, and
these throw much light upon the manners and customs of the ancient Persian
kings. The successive palaces increase, not only in size, but in
sumptuousness of adornment, thus registering those changes which we have
been tracing in the national history. The residence of Cyrus was small and
modest, while that of Artaxerxes Ochus equalled in size the great palace
of the Assyrian Sargon.


TABLE OF KINGS OF MEDIA AND PERSIA.

Kings of Media
Phraortes. . . . . . . . . . . . ? -625
Cyaxares . . . . . . . . . . . . 625-585
Astyages . . . . . . . . . . . . 585-558

Kings of Persia
Cyrus . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558-529
Cambyses . . . . . . . . . . . . 529-522
Pseudo-Smerdis . . . . . . . . . 522-521
Darius I. . . . . . . . . . . . 521-486
Xerxes I. . . . . . . . . . . . 486-465
Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus) . . . 465-425
Xerxes II. . . . . . . . . . . . 425
Sogdianus . . . . . . . . . . . 425-424
Darius II. (Nothus) . . . . . . 424-405
Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon) . . . . 405-359
Artaxerxes III. (Ochus) . . . . 359-338
Arses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338-336
Darius III. (Codomannus) . . . . 336-330




SECTION II.--GRECIAN HISTORY


CHAPTER IX.

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.


DIVISIONS OF GREECE.--Long arms of the sea divide the Grecian peninsula
into three parts, called Northern, Central, and Southern Greece.

Northern Greece included the ancient districts of Thessaly and Epirus.
Thessaly consists mainly of a large and beautiful valley, walled in on all
sides by rugged mountains. It was celebrated far and wide for the variety
and beauty of its scenery. On its northern edge, lay a beautiful glen,
called the Vale of Tempe, the only pass by which the plain of Thessaly
could be entered from the north. The district of Epirus stretched along
the Ionian Sea on the west. In the gloomy recesses of its forests of oak
was situated the renowned Dodonean oracle of Zeus.

Central Greece was divided into eleven districts, among which were Phocis,
Boeotia, and Attica. In Phocis was the city of Delphi, famous for its
oracle and temple; in Boeotia, the city of Thebes; and in Attica, the
brilliant Athens.

Southern Greece, or the Peloponnesus, was also divided into eleven
provinces, of which the more important were Arcadia, embracing the central
part of the peninsula; Achaia, the northern part; Argolis, the eastern;
and Messenia and Laconia, the southern. The last district was ruled by the
city of Sparta, the great rival of Athens.

MOUNTAINS.--The Cambunian Mountains form a lofty wall along a considerable
reach of the northern frontier of Greece, shutting out at once the cold
winds and hostile races from the north. Branching off at right angles to
these mountains is the Pindus range, which runs south into Central Greece.

In Northern Thessaly is Mount Olympus, the most celebrated mountain of the
peninsula. The ancient Greeks thought it the highest mountain in the world
(it is 9700 feet in height), and believed that its cloudy summit was the
abode of the celestials.

South of Olympus, close by the sea, are Ossa and Pelion, celebrated in
fable as the mountains which the giants, in their war against the gods,
piled one upon another, in order to scale Olympus.

Parnassus and Helicon, in Central Greece,--beautiful mountains clad with
trees and vines and filled with fountains,--were believed to be the
favorite haunts of the Muses. Near Athens are Hymettus, praised for its
honey, and Pentelicus, renowned for its marbles.

The Peloponnesus is rugged with mountains that radiate in all directions
from the central country of Arcadia,--"the Switzerland of Greece."

ISLANDS ABOUT GREECE.--Very much of the history of Greece is intertwined
with the islands that lie about the mainland. On the east, in the Aegean
Sea, are the Cyclades, so called because they form an irregular circle
about the sacred isle of Delos, where was a very celebrated shrine of
Apollo. Between the Cyclades and Asia Minor lie the Sporades, which
islands, as the name implies, are sown irregularly over that portion of
the Aegean.

Just off the coast of Attica is a large island called by the ancients
Euboea, but known to us as Negropont. Close to the Asian shores are the
large islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Rhodes.

To the west of Greece lie the Ionian Islands, the largest of which was
called Corcyra, now Corfu. The rugged island of Ithaca was the birthplace
of Odysseus, or Ulysses, the hero of the _Odyssey_. Cythera, just south of
the Peloponnesus, was sacred to Aphrodite (Venus), as it was here fable
said she rose from the sea-foam. Beyond Cythera, in the Mediterranean,
midway between Greece and Egypt, is the large island of Crete, noted in
legend for its labyrinth and its legislator Minos.

INFLUENCE OF COUNTRY.--The physical features of a country have much to do
with the moulding of the character and the shaping of the history of its
people. Mountains, isolating neighboring communities and shutting out
conquering races, foster the spirit of local patriotism and preserve
freedom; the sea, inviting abroad, and rendering intercourse with distant
countries easy, awakens the spirit of adventure and develops commercial
enterprise.

Now, Greece is at once a mountainous and a maritime country. Abrupt
mountain-walls fence it off into a great number of isolated districts,
each of which in ancient times became the seat of a distinct community, or
state. Hence the fragmentary character of its political history. The
Hellenic states never coalesced to form a single nation.

The peninsula is, moreover, by deep arms and bays of the sea, converted
into what is in effect an archipelago. (No spot in Greece is forty miles
from the sea.) Hence its people were early tempted to a sea-faring life.
The shores of the Mediterranean and the Euxine were dotted with Hellenic
colonies. Intercourse with the old civilizations of Egypt and Phoenicia
stirred the naturally quick and versatile Greek intellect to early and
vigorous thought. The islands strewn with seeming carelessness through the
AEgean Sea were "stepping-stones," which invited the earliest settlers of
Greece to the delightful coast countries of Asia Minor, and thus blended
the life and history of the opposite shores.

Again, the beauty of Grecian scenery inspired many of the most striking
passages of her poets; and it is thought that the exhilarating atmosphere
and brilliant skies of Attica were not unrelated to the lofty achievements
of the Athenian intellect.

THE PELASGIANS.--The historic inhabitants of the land we have described
were called by the Romans Greeks, but they called themselves Hellenes,
from their fabled ancestor Hellen.

But the Hellenes, according to their own account, were not the original
inhabitants of the country. They were preceded by a people whom they
called Pelasgians. Who these folk were is a matter of debate. Some think
that the Pelasgians and Hellenes were kindred tribes, but that the
Hellenes, possessing superior qualities, gradually acquired ascendency
over the Pelasgians and finally absorbed them.

[Illustration: PREHISTORIC WALLS AT MYCENAE. (The Lions' Gate.)]

The Pelasgians were somewhat advanced beyond the savage state. They
cultivated the ground, and protected their cities with walls. Remnants of
their rude but massive masonry still encumber in places the soil of
Greece.

THE HELLENES.--The Hellenes were divided into four tribes; namely, the
Ionians, the Dorians, the Achaeans, and the AEolians. The Ionians were a
many-sided, imaginative people. They developed every part of their nature,
and attained unsurpassed excellence in art, literature, and philosophy.
The most noted Ionian city was Athens, whose story is a large part of the
history of Hellas.

The Dorians were a practical, unimaginative race. Their speech and their
art were both alike without ornament. They developed the body rather than
the mind. Their education was almost wholly gymnastic and military. They
were unexcelled as warriors. The most important city founded by them was
Sparta, the rival of Athens.

These two great Hellenic families divided Hellas [Footnote: Under the name
Hellas the ancient Greeks included not only Greece proper and the islands
of the adjoining seas, but also the Hellenic cities in Asia Minor,
Southern Italy, Sicily, and elsewhere. "Wherever were Hellenes, there was
Hellas."] into two rival parties, which through their mutual jealousies
and contentions finally brought all the bright hopes and promises of the
Hellenic race to utter ruin.

The Achaeans are represented by the Greek legends as being the predominant
race in the Peloponnesus during the Heroic Age. The AEolians formed a
rather ill-defined division. In historic times the name is often made to
include all Hellenes not enumerated as Ionians or Dorians.

These several tribes, united by bonds of language and religion, always
regarded themselves as members of a single family. They were proud of
their ancestry, and as exclusive almost as the Hebrews. All non-Hellenic
people they called _Barbarians_ [Footnote: At first, this term meant
scarcely more than "unintelligible folk"; but later, it came to express
aversion and contempt.].

When the mists of antiquity are first lifted from Greece, about the
beginning of the eighth century B.C., we discover the several families of
the Hellenic race in possession of Greece proper, of the islands of the
AEgean, and of the western coasts of Asia Minor. Respecting their
prehistoric migrations and settlements, we have little or no certain
knowledge.

ORIENTAL IMMIGRANTS.--According to their own traditions the early growth
of civilization among the European Hellenes was promoted by the settlement
among them of Oriental immigrants, who brought with them the arts and
culture of the different countries of the East.

From Egypt, legend affirms, came Cecrops, bringing with him the arts,
learning, and priestly wisdom of the Nile valley. He is represented as the
builder of the citadel (the _Cecropia_) of what was afterwards the
illustrious city of Athens. From Phoenicia Cadmus brought the letters of
the alphabet, and founded the city of Thebes. The Phrygian Pelops, the
progenitor of the renowned heroes Agamemnon and Menelaus, settled in the
southern peninsula, which was called after him the Peloponnesus (the
Island of Pelops).

The nucleus of fact in all these legends is probably this,--that the
European Greeks received the primary elements of their culture from the
East through their Asiatic kinsmen.

LOCAL PATRIOTISM OF THE GREEKS: THE CITY THE POLITICAL UNIT.--The narrow
political sympathies of the ancient Greeks prevented their ever uniting to
form a single nation. The city was with them the political unit. It was
regarded as a distinct, self-governing state, just like a modern nation. A
citizen of one city was an alien in any other: he could not marry a woman
of a city not his own, nor hold property in houses or lands within its
territory.

A Greek city-state usually embraced, besides the walled town, a more or
less extensive border of gardens and farms, a strip of sea-coast, or
perhaps a considerable mountain-hemmed valley or plain. The _model_
city (or _state_, as we should say) must not be over large. In this,
as in everything else, the ancient Greeks applied the Delphian rule--
"Measure in all things." "A small city," says one of their poets, "set
upon a rock and well governed, is better than all foolish Nineveh."
Aristotle thought that the ideal city should not have more than ten
thousand citizens.




CHAPTER X.

THE LEGENDARY, OR HEROIC AGE.
(From the earliest times to 776 B.C.)


CHARACTER OF THE LEGENDARY AGE.--The real history of the Greeks does not
begin before the eighth century B.C. All that lies back of that date is an
inseparable mixture of myth, legend, and fact. Yet this shadowy period
forms the background of Grecian history, and we cannot understand the
ideas and acts of the Greeks of historic times without at least some
knowledge of what they believed their ancestors did and experienced in
those prehistoric ages.

So, as a sort of prelude to the story we have to tell, we shall repeat
some of the legends of the Greeks respecting their national heroes and
their great labors and undertakings. But it must be carefully borne in
mind that these legends are not history, though some of them may be
confused remembrances of actual events.

THE HEROES: HERACLES, THESEUS, AND MINOS.--The Greeks believed that their
ancestors were a race of heroes of divine or semi-divine lineage. Every
tribe, district, city, and village even, preserved traditions of its
heroes, whose wonderful exploits were commemorated in song and story. Many
of these personages acquired national renown, and became the revered
heroes of the whole Greek race.

Heracles was the greatest of the national heroes of the Greeks. He is
represented as performing, besides various other exploits, twelve
superhuman labors, and as being at last translated from a blazing pyre to
a place among the immortal gods. The myth of Heracles, who was at first a
solar divinity, is made up mainly of the very same fables that were told
of the Chaldaean solar hero Izdubar (see p. 46). Through the Phoenicians,
these stories found their way to the Greeks, who ascribed to their own
Heracles the deeds of the Chaldaean sun-god.

Theseus, a descendant of Cecrops, was the favorite hero of the Athenians,
being one of their legendary kings. Among his great exploits was the
slaying of the Minotaur,--a monster which Minos, king of Crete, kept in a
labyrinth, and fed upon youths and maidens sent from Athens as a forced
tribute.

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