Part 5

David had killed the giant Goliath. We all love this Bible story because we are always glad when the skilful little chap beats the great, big, bragging bully.

Well, King Saul had a daughter, and she fell in love with this brave and athletic young David the Giant-Killer, and at last they were married.

So after Saul died David became king, and he was the greatest king the Jews ever had. Although Saul had been king he had lived in a tent, not in a palace, and he didn’t even have a capital city.

So David conquered a city in Canaan called Jerusalem and made this city the capital of the Jews.

But David was not only a brave warrior and a great king; he wrote beautiful songs as well.

The blind beggar Homer sang of his fairy-tale gods. The great King David sang of his one God.

These songs are the Psalms, which you hear read and sung in church.

Nowadays even a popular song is popular for only a few months, but the songs which David wrote almost three thousand years ago are still popular to-day! The Twenty-third Psalm, which starts, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is one of the most beautiful and a good one to learn by heart. David likens himself to a sheep and his Lord to a good shepherd who tenderly looks out for the comfort and safety of his sheep.

David’s son was named Solomon, and when David died Solomon became king.

If a good fairy had asked you what you would rather have than anything in the world, I wonder what you would have chosen. When Solomon became king, God is said to have appeared to him in a dream and asked him what he would rather have than anything else in the world. Instead of saying he wanted to be made rich or powerful, Solomon asked to be made wise, and God said He would make him the wisest man that ever lived. Here is a story that shows how wise he was.

Once upon a time two women came to Solomon with a baby, and each woman said the baby was her own child. Solomon called for a sword and said, “Cut the baby in two, and give each a half.” One of the women cried out to give the baby to the other rather than do this, and Solomon then knew who was the real mother and ordered the baby to be given to her.

Solomon built a magnificent temple made of cedar-wood from the famous forest of Lebanon, and of marble and gold and studded with jewels. Then he built himself a wonderful palace, which was so gorgeous and splendid that people came from all over the world to see it. The Bible tells us just how large this temple and palace were, not in feet but in cubits. A cubit was the distance from a man’s elbow to the end of his middle finger, which is about one foot and a half.

The queen of Sheba, among others, came a long distance across Arabia to hear the wise sayings of Solomon and see his palace and the temple he had built.

Although the palace and temple were considered extraordinarily magnificent at that time, you must remember that this was a thousand years before Christ.

Solomon’s temple and palace have disappeared long since, and there is left of them neither stick nor stone. But his wise sayings are preserved in every language and read by every people in every part of the world. There are thousands of buildings now in the world that would make his palace, if still standing, look like a child’s toy-house. But no one has ever been able to say any better the things he said. Do you think you could? Suppose you try. Here are some of them. They are called proverbs.

A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.

What’s that mean?

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches and loving favor rather than silver and gold.

What’s that mean?

Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth.

What’s that mean?

Solomon was the last great king the Jews ever had. After he died the Jewish nation gradually broke up and went to pieces, and the great Jewish people are to-day without a king, without a capital, and without a country of their own, but are found in every other country of the world.

13

The People Who Made Our A B C’s

Long before people knew how to write, there lived a carpenter named Cadmus. One day he was at work on a house when he wanted a tool that he had left at home. Picking up a chip of wood, he wrote something on it and, handing it to his slave, told him to go to his home and give the chip to his wife, saying that it would tell her what he wanted. The slave, wondering, did as he was told. Cadmus’s wife looked at the chip, and without a word handed the tool to the amazed slave, who thought the chip in some mysterious way had spoken the message. When he returned to Cadmus with the tool, he begged for the remarkable chip, and when it was given him, hung it around his neck for a charm.

This is the story the Greeks told of the man they say invented the alphabet. We believe, however, that Cadmus was a mythical person, for the Greeks liked to make up such stories, and we think no _one_ man made the alphabet. But Cadmus was a Phenician and we do know that the Phenician people invented the alphabet. You probably call it your A B C’s, but the Greeks had much harder names for the letters. They called _A_ “alpha,” _B_ “beta,” and so on. So the Greek boy spoke of learning his “alpha beta,” and that is why we call it the “alphabet.”

[Illustration: Cadmus’ slave and the chip.]

You may never have heard of Phenicia or the Phenician people. Yet, if there had been no such country as Phenicia, you might now be learning at school to read and write in hieroglyphics or in cuneiform.

Up to this time, you know, people had very clumsy ways of writing. The Egyptians had to draw pictures, and the Babylonians made writing like chicken-tracks. The alphabet that the Phenicians invented had twenty-two letters, and from it we get the alphabet we use to-day.

Of course, we do not use just the same alphabet now that the Phenicians did, but some of the letters are almost, if not quite, like those we now have after three thousand years. For instance the

Phenician A was written on its side--(sideways A) E “ “ backward--Ǝ Z “ “ just the same--Z O “ “ “ “ “ --O

The Phenicians lived next door to the Jews; in fact they belonged to the same family--the Semites. Their country was just north of the kingdom of the Jews; that is, above it on the map and lying along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Phenicians had a great king named Hiram who lived at the same time as Solomon. In fact, Hiram was a friend of Solomon and sent him some of his best workmen to help build a temple at Jerusalem. And yet Hiram himself and the Phenicians did not believe in the Jewish God.

The Phenicians worshiped idols, terrible monsters named Baal and Moloch, which they called gods of the sun. They also believed in a goddess of the moon named Astarte and made sacrifices of live children to her idol, Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum; this is a real story and not a fairy-tale. Just suppose you had been a child then!

The Jews, as we have learned, were very religious, but their neighbors, the Phenicians, though Semites and therefore relatives, were business people and thought of nothing but money, money, money--all the time. And they were not particular how they earned it, whether honestly or not. Nowadays, dealers know that they must be honest if they are to be very successful, but the Phenicians were usually tricky in their trading with people. They always drove a good bargain and sometimes even cheated when they had a chance.

The Phenicians made many things to sell, and then they went far and near to sell them.

They knew how to make beautiful cloth and glassware and objects in gold and silver and ivory.

They knew the secret of making a wonderful purple dye from the body of a little shell-fish that lived in the water near the city of Tyre. This dye was known as Tyrian purple from the name of that city, and it was so beautiful that kings’ robes were colored with it.

Tyre and Sidon were the two chief cities of Phenicia, and once upon a time they were two of the busiest cities in the world.

In order to find people to sell to, the Phenicians traveled in boats all over the Mediterranean Sea and even went outside this sea into the Great Ocean. This opening is now called the Strait of Gibraltar but was then known as the Pillars of Hercules. They went as far as the British Isles. Other people in those days had not dared to go so far in boats; they thought they would come to the edge of the ocean and tumble off. But the Phenicians had no such fear, and so they were the greatest sailors as well as the greatest traders of their times. Their ships were built from the cedar-trees that grew on the slopes of their hills, which were called Lebanon.

Wherever the Phenicians found good harbors for their boats, they started little towns where they traded with the natives, who at that time were almost savage. With ignorant savages they found they could drive a good bargain. For a few glass beads or a piece of purple dyed cloth worth very little they could get in return gold and silver and other things worth a great deal. On the African coast, one of these towns they started was called Carthage. Of Carthage we shall hear more by and by, for it grew to be so wealthy and important that--but wait until I come to that story.

[Illustration]

14

Hard as Nails

Our story goes back again to Greece, the land of Homer and the fairy-tale gods and to Sparta, where Helen once lived.

About nine hundred years before Christ was born, there lived in Sparta a man named Lycurgus. That is a hard name, and when you hear about this man you may think he was hard, too. Lycurgus wanted his city to be the greatest in the world.

But first he had to find out what it was that made a city and a people great.

So he started off and traveled for years and years visiting all the chief countries of the world to see if he could learn what it was that made them great. And this is what he learned.

Wherever the people thought chiefly of fun and pleasure, of amusing themselves and having a good time--he found they were not much good, not much account--_not_ great.

Wherever the people thought chiefly of hard work and did what they ought, whether it was pleasant or not, he found they were usually good for something--some account--great.

So Lycurgus came back to his home Sparta and set to work to make a set of rules which he thought would make his people greater than all other people in the world. These rules were called a Code of Laws, and I think you’ll agree they were very hard, and they made the Spartans hard, too--as “hard as nails.” We shall see whether they made the Spartans really great, also.

To begin with, babies, as soon as they were born, were examined to see that they were strong and perfect. Whenever one was found that did not seem to be so, he was put out on the mountain-side and left to die. Lycurgus wanted no weaklings in Sparta.

When boys were seven years old, they were taken from their mothers and put in a school, which was more like a soldiers’ camp than a school, and they never lived anywhere else until they were sixty years old.

In this school they were not taught the things you are, but only the things that trained them to be good soldiers.

There were no such things as school-books then.

There were no spelling-books.

There were no arithmetics.

There were no geographies. No one knew enough about the world to write a geography.

There were no histories. No one knew much about things that had happened in the world before that time, and of course none of the history since then that you now study had taken place.

At certain times, the Spartan boy was whipped, not because he had done anything wrong, but just to teach him to suffer pain without whimpering. He would have been disgraced forever if he had cried, no matter how badly he was hurt.

He was exercised and drilled and worked until he was ready to drop. But still he was obliged to keep on, no matter how tired or hungry or sleepy or aching he might be, and he must never show by any sign how he felt.

He was made to eat the worst kind of food, to go hungry and thirsty for long periods of time, to go out in the bitter cold with little or no clothing, just to get used to such hardships and able to bear all sorts of discomforts. This kind of training, this kind of hardening, is therefore called “Spartan discipline.” How do you think you would have liked it?

The Spartans’ food, clothing, and lodging were all furnished them, though it was very poor food and poor clothing and poor lodging. They were not allowed good things to eat, soft beds to lie on, or fine clothing to wear. Such things were called luxuries, and luxuries, Lycurgus thought, would make people soft and weak, and he wanted his people hard and strong.

The Spartans were even taught to speak in a short and blunt manner; they were taught not to waste words; they must say what they had to say in as few words as possible. This manner of speaking we call “Laconic” from the name Laconia, the state in which Sparta was located.

Once a king wrote to the Spartans a threatening letter, saying that they had better do what he told them to, for _if_ he came and took their country, he would destroy their city and make them slaves.

The Spartans sent a messenger back with their answer, and when the letter was opened, it contained only one word:

“_IF!_”

Even to-day, we call such an answer, short but to the point, a Laconic answer.

Did all this hard training and hard work make the Spartans the greatest people in the world?

Lycurgus did make the Spartans the strongest and best fighters in the world--but--

The Spartans conquered all the peoples around about them, though there were ten times as many--but--

They made these people their slaves, who did all their farming and other work--but--

We shall see later whether Lycurgus’s idea was right.

North of Sparta was another great city of Greece called Athens. There were, of course, many other towns in Greece, but Sparta and Athens were the most important. In Athens the people lived and thought quite differently from those in Sparta.

The Athenians were just as fond of everything beautiful as the Spartans were of discipline and of everything military.

The Athenians loved athletic games of all sorts just as the Spartans did, but they also loved music and poetry and beautiful statues, paintings, vases, buildings, and such things that are known as the “arts.”

The Athenians believed in training the mind _as well_ as the body. The Spartans believed the training of the body was the all-important thing. Which do you like better, the Athenians’ idea or the Spartans’ idea?

Once at a big game a very old man was looking for a seat on the Athenians’ side. There was no seat empty, and no Athenian offered to give him one. Whereupon the Spartans called to the old man and gave him the best seat on their side. The Athenians cheered the Spartans to show how fine they thought this act. At this the Spartans said:

“The Athenians _know_ what is right but they don’t _do_ it.”

15

The Crown of Leaves

Greek boys and young men and even girls loved all sorts of outdoor sports.

They didn’t play football or baseball or basketball, but they ran and jumped and wrestled and boxed and threw the discus--a thing like a big, heavy dinner-plate of iron.

From time to time matches were held in different parts of Greece to see who was the best in these sports.

The Big Meet, however, took place only once every four years at a place called Olympia in southern Greece; and these Olympic games, as they were called, were the most important affairs held in Greece, for all the winners from different parts of the country were here matched against each other to see who should be the champion of all Greece.

The time when the games were held was a great national holiday, for the games were in honor of the head god Jupiter, or Zeus as the Greeks called him. People came from all over the known world to see the games much as they do now when a World’s Fair is held or a big football game.

Only Greeks could enter this contest, and only those who had never committed a crime or broken any laws--as a boy nowadays must have a clean record in order to be allowed to play on his college or school team.

If there happened to be a war going on at the time, and there usually was, so important was this holiday that a truce was declared, and everybody went off to the games. Nothing could be allowed to interfere with the games, and even war was not as important. “Business before pleasure!” When the games were finished, they started fighting again!

The Greek boys and young men would train for four years getting ready for this big event, and then nine months before the great day they would go to Olympia to get in training at an open-air gymnasium near the field.

The games lasted five days and began and ended with a parade and prayers and sacrifices to the Greek gods, beautiful statues to whom were placed all about the field, for this was not only sport, but a religious service in honor of Jupiter and the other gods.

There were all sorts of matches--in running, jumping, wrestling, boxing, chariot-racing, and throwing the discus.

Any one who cheated would have been put out and never again allowed to take part. The Greek believed in what we call being a good sport. He didn’t brag if he won. He didn’t make excuses if he lost; he didn’t cry out that the decision was unfair.

The athlete who won one or more of these games was the hero of all Greece, and in particular of the town from which he came. The winner received no money prize but was crowned with a wreath made of laurel leaves. This he valued much more than an athlete nowadays does the silver cup or gold medal he may win. Besides receiving the laurel wreath, the winner had songs written to him by poets, and often statues were made of him by sculptors.

There were not only athletic matches but contests between poets and musicians to see who could write the best poetry or compose and play the sweetest music on a kind of small harp called the lyre. The winners of these contests did not receive a laurel wreath, but they were carried in triumph on the shoulders of the throng, as you may have seen the captain of a winning team picked up and raised aloft by his fellow-players after he has won.

Now, in Greek History the first event which we can be absolutely sure is true is the record of the winner of a foot-race in these Olympic Games 776 years before Christ was born. And from this event the Greeks began to count their history dates, as we do now from the birth of Christ. It was their Year 1.

The four years’ time between the Olympic Games was called an Olympiad. Up to this time, they had no calendar that gave the year or date, so 776 is the date of the first Olympiad. Greek History before that time may have been partly true, but we know much of it was mythical. Beginning with 776, however, Greek history is pretty much all true.

[Illustration: Greek runner.]

After a long while they stopped having the games, but a few years ago it was thought it would be a good thing to start them again. So, for the first time since before Christ, new Olympic Games were again held in 1896 A.D., not in Olympia, however, but in Athens. The games used to be held only in Greece. Now they are held each time in a different country. Only Greeks used to be allowed to take part. Now, however, athletes from almost all the countries of the world are invited to compete. War used to be stopped when the time for the games arrived. Now the games are stopped when war is on.

From what we have learned of the Spartans’ training, we might guess that they used to win most of the athletic prizes, and they did.

Do the Spartans still continue to win most of the prizes in the New Olympic Games?

No. Not even the Greeks now carry off the chief prizes.

[Illustration]

16

A Bad Beginning

Have you ever heard of the Seven-League Boots, the boots in which one could take many miles at a single step?

Well, there is a still bigger boot; it is over five hundred miles long, and it is in the Mediterranean Sea.

No, it’s not a real boot, but it would look like one if you were miles high in an airplane and looking down upon it.

It is called Italy.

Something very important happened in Italy, not long after the First Olympiad in Greece. It was so important that it was called the Year 1, and for a thousand years people counted from it as the Greeks did from the First Olympiad, and as we do now from the birth of Christ. This thing that happened was not the birth of a man, however. It was the birth of a city, and this city was called Rome.

The history of Rome starts with stories that we know are fairy-tales or myths in the same way that the history of Greece does. Homer told about the wanderings of the Greek, Odysseus. A great many years later a poet named Vergil told about the wanderings of a Trojan named Æneas.