Part 6

Æneas fled from Troy when that city was burning down and started off to find a new home. Finally after several years he came to Italy and the mouth of a river called the Tiber. There Æneas met the daughter of the man who was ruling over that country, a girl by the name of Lavinia, and married her, and they lived happily ever after. So the children of Æneas and Lavinia ruled over the land, and they had children, and their children had children, and their children had children, until at last boy twins were born. These twins were named Romulus and Remus. Here endeth the first part of the story and the trouble begins, for they did not live happily ever after.

At the time the twins were born, a man had stolen the kingdom, and he feared that these two boys might grow up and take his stolen kingdom away from him. So he put the twins in a basket and set them afloat on the river Tiber, hoping that they might be carried out to sea or upset and be drowned. This, he thought, was nearly all right, so long as he didn’t kill them with his own hands. But the basket drifted ashore instead of going out to sea or upsetting, and a mother wolf found the twins and nursed them as if they were her own babies. And a woodpecker also helped and fed them berries. At last a shepherd found them and brought them up as if they were his own sons until they grew up and became men. This sounds a good deal like the story of Paris who was left out to die and was found and brought up by a shepherd also.

[Illustration: Romulus and Remus with the wolf.]

Each of the twins then wished to build a city. But they could not agree which one was to do it, and in quarreling over the matter, Romulus killed his own twin brother Remus. Romulus then built the city by the Tiber River, on the spot where he and his brother had been saved and nursed by the mother wolf. Here there were seven hills. This was in 753 B.C., and he named the city Roma after his own name, and the people who lived there were called Romans. So that is why, ever afterward, the Roman kings always said they were descended from the Trojan hero, Æneas, the great-great-great-grandfather of Romulus.

Don’t you believe this story? Neither do I. But it is such an old, old story every one is supposed to have heard it even though it is only a legend.

In order to get people for the city which he had started, it is said that Romulus invited all the thieves and bad men who had escaped from jail to come and live in Rome, promising them that they would be safe there.

Then as none of the men had wives, and there were no women in his new city, Romulus thought up a scheme to get the men wives. He invited some people called Sabines, who lived near-by, both men and women, to come to Rome to a big party.

They accepted, and a great feast was spread. In the middle of the feast, when every one was eating and drinking, a signal was given, and each of the Romans seized a Sabine woman for his wife and ran off with her.

The Sabine husbands immediately prepared themselves for war against the Romans, who had stolen their wives. When the battle had begun between the two armies, the Sabine women ran out in the midst of the fighting between their new and old husbands and begged them both to stop. They said they had come to love their new husbands and would not return to their old homes.

What do you think of that?

It sounds like a pretty bad beginning for a new city, doesn’t it? and you may well wonder how Rome turned out--a city that started with Romulus killing his brother and that was settled by escaped prisoners who stole the wives of their neighbors. We must remember, however, that then they were nearer the time when Primitive Men lived whose only rule of life was: kill or be killed, steal or be stolen; and whose usual way of getting wives was to knock them in the head and drag them off to their caves while they were senseless. Besides, they believed in the same gods as the Greeks, and we have heard how their gods did all sorts of wicked things themselves. This, too, was long before Christ was born, and at that time they did not know anything about the Christian religion or what we call right and wrong.

You see I have tried to think of some good excuses for the actions of these first Romans.

17

Kings with Corkscrew Curls

After Rome’s bad start she had one king after another, and some of these kings were pretty good and some were pretty bad.

But the most important city in the world at this time was far away from Rome on the Tigris River. This city was called Nineveh, and here lived the kings of the country called Assyria, which I told you about some time ago.

As usual, the chief thing we hear about Assyria and the Assyrians is that they were fighting with their neighbors. This, however, was not the fault of their neighbors.

The Assyrian kings who lived in Nineveh wanted more land and power, and so they fought their neighbors in order to take their land away from them. These kings had long corkscrew curls, and you may think that only girls wear long curls and that a man with curls would be “girl-like.” But these kings were not at all that kind. They were such terrible fighters that they were feared far and near. They treated their prisoners terribly; they skinned them alive, cut off their ears, pulled out their tongues, bored sticks into their eyes, then bragged about it. They made the people whom they conquered pay them huge sums of money and promise to fight with them whenever they went to war.

And so Assyria became so strong and powerful that she at last owned everything of importance in the world, the land between the rivers called Mesopotamia, and the land to the east, north, and south, and Phenicia, and Egypt, and pretty nearly everything except Greece and Italy.

This big, big country of Assyria was ruled by the kings at Nineveh, who lived in great magnificence. They built wonderful palaces for themselves, and on each side of the way that led to the palace they placed rows of huge statues of bulls and lions with wings and men’s heads as a rich man nowadays might plant a row of trees along the driveway that leads up to his home. These winged animals are what are called cherubs in the Bible.

Perhaps you have heard a particularly sweet and pretty little baby called a cherub. Isn’t it strange that these hideous Assyrian monsters should be called cherubs also?

When the Assyrian kings were not fighting men they were fighting wild animals, for they were very fond of hunting with bow and arrow, and they had pictures and statues made of themselves on horseback or in chariots fighting lions. Often they would capture the animals they hunted alive and put them in cages so that the people could come and see them. This was something like a “zoo” such as we have nowadays.

[Illustration: An Assyrian cherub.]

The rulers of Assyria had very strange names. Sennacherib was one of the most famous. Sennacherib lived about 700 B.C. Once upon a time Sennacherib was fighting Jerusalem. His whole army was camped one night when as they lay asleep something happened, for when the morning came, none woke up; all were dead, both men and horses. An English poet named Byron has written a poem called “The Destruction of Sennacherib” describing this event. Perhaps they were poisoned; what do you think?

Assur-bani-pal was another king who ruled later--about 650 B.C. He was a great fighter too, but he was also very fond of books and reading; so Assur-bani-pal started the first public library. The books in that first public library were, however, very peculiar. Of course they were not printed books, and they were not even made of paper. They were made of mud with the words pressed into the clay before it dried. This writing was cuneiform, which I have already told you about. The books were not arranged in bookcases, either, but were placed in piles on the floor. They were, however, kept in careful order and numbered so that a person who wanted to see a book in the library could call for it by its number.

Assyria reached the height of her power during the reign of Sennacherib and Assur-bani-pal, and everything in Nineveh was so lovely for the Ninevites that the time when Assur-bani-pal reigned was called the Golden Age.

But although everything in Nineveh was so lovely for the Ninevites, everywhere else the Assyrians were hated and feared, for their armies brought death and destruction wherever they went.

So it came to pass that not long after Assur-bani-pal died, two of the neighbors of Nineveh could stand it no longer. These two neighbors were the king of Babylon, who lived south, and a people called the Medes, who lived to the east and belonged to the Aryan family. So the king of Babylon and the Medes got together and attacked Nineveh, and together they wiped that city off the face of the earth. This was in 612 B.C.--Six-One-Two--and the power of Nineveh and Assyria was killed dead. This, therefore is called the Fall of Nineveh, the end of Nineveh. We might put up a tombstone:

[Illustration]

18

A City of Wonders and Wickedness

The king of Babylon had beaten Nineveh. But he didn’t stop with that. He wanted his Babylon to be as great as Nineveh had been. So he went on conquering other lands to the left and right until Babylon, in its turn, became the leader and ruler of other countries. Was Babylon, also, in its turn, to fall, as Nineveh had fallen?

When at last the king of Babylon died, he left his vast empire to his son. Now, the king’s son was not called John or James or Charles or anything simple like that. It was--Nebuchadnezzar, and I wonder if his father called him by all that long name or shortened it to a nickname like “Neb,” for instance, or “Chad,” or perhaps “Nezzar.” This is the way Nebuchadnezzar wrote his name, for he used cuneiform writing. How would you like to write your name in such a queer way?

[Illustration: Name of Nebuchadnezzar in cuneiform writing.]

Nebuchadnezzar set to work and made the city of Babylon the largest, the most magnificent and the most wonderful city of that time and perhaps of any time. The city was in the shape of a square and covered more ground than the two largest cities in the world to-day--New York and London--put together. He surrounded it with a wall fifty times as high as a man--fifty times--whew!--and so broad that a chariot could be driven along on the top, and in this wall he made one hundred huge brass gates. The Euphrates River flowed under the wall, across the city, and out under the wall on the other side.

Nebuchadnezzar could not find any one in Babylon who was beautiful enough to be his queen. The Babylonian girls must have felt pretty bad--or mad--about that. So he went to Media, the country that had helped his father conquer Nineveh. There he found a lovely princess, and so he married her and brought her home to Babylon.

Now, Media was a land of hills and mountains, whilst Babylon was on level ground and without even a hill in sight. Nebuchadnezzar’s queen found Babylonia so flat and uninteresting that she became homesick, and she longed for her own country with its wild mountain scenery. So, just to please her and keep her contented Nebuchadnezzar set to work and _built_ a hill for her, but the queer thing was he built it on top of the roof of his palace! On the sides of this hill he made beautiful gardens, and these gardens he planted not only with flowers but also with trees, so that his queen might sit in the shade and enjoy herself. These were called Hanging Gardens. The Hanging Gardens and the tremendous walls were known far and wide as one of the Seven Wonders of the world.

Would you like to know what the other Wonders were?

Well, the pyramids in Egypt were one; the magnificent statue of Jupiter at Olympia, where the Olympic Games were held, was another--so those with the Hanging Gardens make three.

Nebuchadnezzar believed in idols like those terrible monsters the Phenicians worshiped. The Jews away off in Jerusalem believed in one God. Nebuchadnezzar wanted the Jews to worship his gods, but they would not. He also wanted them to pay him taxes, and they would not. So he sent his armies to Jerusalem, destroyed that city, burnt the beautiful Temple that Solomon had built, and brought the Jews and all their belongings to Babylon. There in Babylon Nebuchadnezzar kept the Jews prisoners, and there in Babylon the Jews remained prisoners for fifty years.

Babylon had become not only the most magnificent city in the world; it had become also the most wicked. The people of Babylon gave themselves up to the wildest pleasures. Their only thought seemed to be, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry”; they thought nothing of the morrow; the more wicked the pleasure the more they liked it.

But although Nebuchadnezzar seemed able to do and able to have everything in the world he wanted, he finally went crazy. He thought he was a bull, and he used to get down on his hands and knees and eat grass, imagining he was a beast of the field.

And Babylon, in spite of its tremendous walls and brass gates, was doomed. Babylon was to be conquered. It didn’t seem possible. How could it be conquered, and who was to do the conquering? You would probably never guess.

19

A Surprise Party

When I was a boy I was always told, and you have probably been told the same thing:

“You can have no dessert until you have eaten your dinner.”

No matter whether I was hungry or not, “No dinner, no dessert.” This was a rule which my father said was “like the laws of the Medes and Persians.”

I didn’t know then who the Medes and Persians were, but I know now that they were two Aryan families living next to Babylon--you remember Nebuchadnezzar had married a Median girl--and that they were governed by laws which were fixed so hard and fast and were so unchangeable that we still speak of any such thing that does not change as like “the laws of the Medes and Persians.”

The Medes and the Persians had a religion which was neither like that of the Jews nor like the idol worship of the Babylonians. It had been started by a Persian named Zoroaster, who was a wise man like Solomon. He may even have lived about the same time as Solomon, but probably a good deal later.

Zoroaster went about among the people, teaching them wise sayings and hymns. These wise sayings have been gathered into a book, which is now the Persian Bible.

Zoroaster taught that there were two great spirits in the world, the Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit.

The Good Spirit, he said, was Light, and the Bad Spirit, Darkness. The Good or Light he called Mazda; where have you heard that word, I wonder. So the Persians kept a fire, in which they thought was the Good Spirit, constantly burning on their altars, and they had men watch over this flame to see that it never went out. These men who watched the flame were called Magi, and they were supposed to be able to do all sorts of wonderful things, so that we call such wonderful things “magic,” and the people who are able to do them we call “magicians.”

At the time of this story which I’m telling you, the ruler of the Medes and the Persians was a great king named Cyrus.

But before I go on with this story I must tell you about a little country not far from Troy. This little country was called Lydia. Perhaps you may know a girl named Lydia. I do. Lydia was ruled over by a king named Crœsus who was the richest man in the world. When we want to describe a man as very wealthy, we still say he is “as rich as Crœsus.”

Crœsus owned nearly all the gold-mines, of which there were a great many in that country, and besides this he collected money in the form of taxes from all the cities near him.

Before the time of Crœsus people did not have money such as we have now. When they wished to buy anything, they simply traded something they had for something they wanted--so many eggs for a pound of meat or so much wine for a pair of sandals. To buy anything expensive, such as a horse, they paid with a lump of gold or silver, which was weighed in the scales to see just how heavy it was. It is hard for us to think how people could get along without cents and nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars--with no money at all--and yet they did.

Crœsus, in order to make things simpler, cut up his gold into small bits. Now, it was not easy for every one to weigh each piece each time it was traded, for he might not have any scales handy. So Crœsus had each piece weighed and stamped with its weight and with his name or initials to show that he guaranteed the weight. These pieces of gold and silver were only lumps with Crœsus’ seal pressed into them, but they were the first real money even though they were not round and beautifully engraved like our coins.

Now, Cyrus, the great Persian king, thought he would like to own this rich country of Lydia with all its gold-mines, so he set out to conquer it.

When Cyrus was on the way Crœsus sent in a hurry to the oracle in Greece to ask what was going to happen and who was going to win. You will remember what I said about the oracle at Delphi and how people used to ask the oracle questions--to have their fortunes told, as nowadays some people ask the ouija board.

The oracle replied to Crœsus’ question:

“A great kingdom shall fall.”

Crœsus was delighted, for he thought the oracle meant that Cyrus’ kingdom would fall. The oracle _was_ right, but not in the way Crœsus had thought.

A great kingdom did fall, but it was his own kingdom of Lydia and not Cyrus’ that fell.

But Cyrus was still not satisfied with the capture of Lydia, and so at last he attacked Babylon.

Now, the people in Babylon who thought of nothing but pleasure were busy feasting and drinking and having a good time. Why should they worry about Cyrus? Their city had walls that were so high and thick and was protected by such strong gates of brass that it seemed as if no one could possibly have captured it.

[Illustration: Delphic Oracle.]

But you remember that the Euphrates River ran beneath the walls and crossed right through the city. Well, one night when the young prince of Babylon named Belshazzar was having a gay party and enjoying himself, feeling quite certain that no one could enter the city, Cyrus made a dam and turned the waters of the river to one side. Then Cyrus’ army marched into the city through the dry river-bed and captured the surprised Babylonians without even a fight. It is supposed that some of the Babylonian priests helped him to do this and even opened the gates, for Babylon had become so wicked that they thought it time for it to be destroyed.

Old Lycurgus would have said: “I told you so. People who think of nothing but pleasure never come to a good end.”

This surprise party was in 538--5 and 3 are 8.

Two years later Cyrus let the Jews, who had been carried away fifty years before from Jerusalem, return to the home of their fathers, thus ending the Babylonian Captivity.

To-day the only thing left of this great city of Babylon, which was once bigger than New York and London together--Babylon the Wicked, Babylon the Magnificent, Babylon with all its great walls and brass gates and Hanging Gardens--is only a mound of earth. A few miles away is a ruined tower. This tower, we think, may once have been the Tower of Babel.

20

The Other Side of the World

There used to be a “missionary box” in my Sunday-school, and into this box we dropped our pennies to send a missionary to the heathen.

The heathen, we were told, were people who lived on the other side of the world and worshiped idols.

There was the heathen “Chinee,” the heathen “Japanee,” and the heathen Indian.

These heathen Indians were not our American Indians. They lived in a country called India on the other side of the world. India looks on the map like the little thing that hangs down in the back of your mouth when the doctor says: “Stick out your tongue. Say ’Ah.’” Our Indians are red, but the Indians from India are white. The white Indians belong to the Aryan family, the same family that Cyrus belonged to.

Two thousand years before the time of Cyrus, an Aryan family had moved away from the other Aryan families in Persia until they had come to this country we now call India.

In the course of time there came to be four chief classes of people in India, four chief classes of society--high society, low society, and two classes of society in between. These classes were called castes, and no one in one caste would have anything to do with one in another caste. A boy or girl in one caste would never play with a boy or girl in another caste. A man from one caste would never marry a woman in another. No one from one caste would eat with one in another caste, even though he were starving. Men in different castes were even afraid of touching each other in passing on the street. It was almost as if they were afraid of catching some horrible disease.

The highest caste of all were the Fighters and Rulers. The Rulers were the Fighters, and the Fighters were the Rulers, for they had to be fighters in order to keep their rule.

In the next caste were the Priests; and, as in the case of the Egyptian priests, these men were not what we think of as priests nowadays. They were what we should call professional men--doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.

Next came the farmers and tradespeople--the butcher, the baker, and candlestick maker.

Fourth and last were the common laborers. These were the men who knew nothing and could do nothing but dig or chop wood or carry water.

Below these four castes were still other people so low and mean that they were called outcastes or Pariahs. We now call any person who has done something so disgraceful that no one, not even the lowest, will have anything to do with him a “pariah.”