The countries that laid the foundation of our civilisation are not of those through which traffic passes on its way from land to land. Neither Babylon nor Egypt lies on one of the natural highways of the world; they lie hidden, encircled by mountains or deserts, and the seas that wash their shores are such as the ordinary seafarer avoids rather than frequents. But this very seclusion, which to us, with our modern ideas, seems a thing prejudicial to culture, did its part toward furthering the development of mankind in these ancient lands; it assured to their inhabitants a less troublous life than otherwise falls to the lot of nations under primitive conditions. Egypt, more particularly, had no determined adversary, nor any that could meet her on equal terms close at hand. To west of her stretched a desert, leading by interminable wanderings to sparsely populated lands. On the east the desert was less wide indeed, but beyond it lay the Red Sea, and he who crossed it did but reach another desert, the Arabian waste. Southward for hundreds of miles stretched the barren land of Nubia, where even the waterway of the Nile withholds its wonted service, so that the races of the Sudan are likewise shut off from Egypt. And even the route from Palestine to the Nile, which we are apt to think of as so short and easy, involved a march of several days through waterless desert and marshy ground. These neighbour countries, barren as they are, were certainly inhabited, but the dwellers there were poor nomads; they might conquer Egypt now and again, but they could not permanently injure her civilisation. Thus the people which dwelt in Egypt could enjoy undisturbed all the good things their country had to bestow. For in this singular river valley it was easier for men to live and thrive than in most other countries of the world. Not that the life was such as is led in those tropic lands where the fruits of earth simply drop into the mouth, and the human race grows enervated in a pleasant indolence; the dweller in Egypt had to cultivate his fields, to tend his cattle, but if he did so he was bounteously repaid for his labour. Every year the river fertilised his fields that they might bring forth barley and spelt and fodder for his oxen. He became a settled husbandman, a grave and diligent man, who was spared the disquiet and hardships endured by the nomadic tribes. Hence in this place there early developed a civilisation which far surpassed that of other nations, and with which only that of far-off Babylonia, where somewhat similar local conditions obtained, could in any degree vie. And this civilisation, and the national characteristics of the Egyptian nation which went hand in hand with it, were so strong that they could weather even a grievous storm. For long ago, in the remote antiquity which lies far beyond all tradition, Egypt was once overtaken by the same calamity which was destined to befall her twice within historic times—she was conquered by Arab Bedouins, who lorded it over the country so long that the Egyptians adopted their language, though they altered and adapted it curiously in the process. This transplantation of an Asiatic language to African soil is the lasting, but likewise the only, trace left by this primeval invasion; in all other respects the conquerors were merged into the Egyptian people, to whom they, as barbarians, had nothing to offer. There is nothing in the ideas and reminiscences of later Egyptians to indicate that a Bedouin element had been absorbed into the race; in spite of their language the aspect they present to us is that of the true children of their singular country, a people to whom the desert and its inhabitants are something alien and incomprehensible. It is the same scene, mutatis mutandis, that was enacted in the full light of history at the rise of Islam; then, too, the unwarlike land was subdued by the swift onset of the Bedouins, who also imposed their language on it in the days of their rule; and yet the Egyptian people remains ever the same, and the people who speak Arabic to-day in the valley of the Nile have little in common with the Arabs of the desert.

A complete world history should, properly speaking, begin with the creation of the world as man’s habitat, and should trace every step of human progress from the time when man first appeared on the globe. Unfortunately, the knowledge of to-day does not permit us to follow this theoretical obligation. We now know that the gaps in the history of human evolution as accessible to us to-day, vastly exceed the recorded chapters; that, in short, the period with which history proper has, at present, to content itself, is a mere moment in comparison with the vast reaches of time which, in recognition of our ignorance, we term “prehistoric.” But this recognition of limitations of our knowledge is a quite recent growth—no older, indeed, than a half century. Prior to 1859 the people of Christendom rested secure in the supposition that the chronology of man’s history was fully known, from the very year of his creation. One has but to turn to the first chapter of Genesis to find in the margin the date 4004 B.C., recorded with all confidence as the year of man’s first appearance on the globe. One finds there, too, a brief but comprehensive account of the manner of his appearance, as well as of the creation of the earth itself, his abiding-place. Until about half a century ago, as has just been said, the peoples of our portion of the globe rested secure in the supposition that this record and this date were a part of our definite knowledge of man’s history. Therefore, one finds the writers of general histories of the earlier days of the nineteenth century beginning their accounts with the creation of man, B.C. 4004, and coming on down to date with a full and seemingly secure chronology. Our knowledge of the world and of man’s history has come on by leaps and bounds since then, with the curious result that to-day no one thinks of making any reference to the exact date of the beginnings of human history,—unless, indeed, it be to remark that it probably reaches back some hundreds of thousands of years. The historian can speak of dates anterior to 4004 B.C., to be sure. The Egyptologist is disposed to date the building of the Pyramids a full thousand years earlier than that. And the Assyriologist is learning to speak of the state of civilisation in Chaldea some 6000 or 7000 years B.C. with a certain measure of confidence. But he no longer thinks of these dates as standing anywhere near the beginning of history. He knows that man in that age, in the centres of progress, had attained a high stage of civilisation, and he feels sure that there were some thousands of centuries of earlier time, during which man was slowly climbing through savagery and barbarism, of which we have only the most fragmentary record. He does not pretend to know anything, except by inference, of the “dawnings of civilisation.” Whichever way he turns in the centres of progress, such as China, Egypt, Chaldea, India, he finds the earliest accessible records, covering at best a period of only eight or ten thousand years, giving evidence of a civilisation already far advanced. Of the exact origin of any one of the civilisations with which he deals he knows absolutely nothing. “The Creation of Man,” with its fixed chronology, is a chapter that has vanished from our modern histories. To be continue in this ebook...

Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World Some of the most fascinating human epochs lie in the borderlands between history and mystery. So it is with the life of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire in the sixth century B.C. By conquest or gentler means, he brought under his rule a dominion stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Hindu Kush and encompassing some tens of millions of people. All across this immense imperium, he earned support and stability by respecting local customs and religions, avoiding the brutal ways of tyranny, and efficiently administering the realm through provincial governors. The empire would last another two centuries, leaving an indelible Persian imprint on much of the ancient world. The Greek chronicler Xenophon, looking back from a distance of several generations, wrote: “Cyrus did indeed eclipse all other monarchs, before or since.” The biblical prophet Second Isaiah anticipated Cyrus’ repatriation of the Jews living in exile in Babylon by having the Lord say, “He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please.” Despite what he achieved and bequeathed, much about Cyrus remains uncertain. Persians of his era had no great respect for the written word and kept no annals. The most complete accounts of his life were composed by Greeks. More fragmentary or tangential evidence takes many forms – among them, archaeological remains, administrative records in subject lands, and the always tricky stuff of legend. Given these challenges, Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World is a remarkable feat of portraiture. In his vast sweep, Reza S. Zarghamee draws on sources of every kind, painstakingly assembling detail, and always weighing evidence carefully where contradictions arise. He describes the background of the Persian people, the turbulence of the times, and the roots of Cyrus’ policies. His account of the imperial era itself delves into religion, military methods, commerce, court life, and much else besides. The result is a living, breathing Cyrus standing atop a distant world that played a key role in shaping our own.