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CHAPTER I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY.
"Greek phrase[—]"—HEROD. i. 192.
The site of the second—or great Assyrian-monarchy was the upper portion of the Mesopotamian valley. The cities which successively formed its capitals lay, all of them, upon the middle Tigris; and the heart of the country was a district on either side that river, enclosed within the thirty-fifth and thirty-seventh ... more...
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CHAPTER I.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE COUNTRY.
"Behold the land of the Chaldaeans."—ISAIAH xxiii. 13.
The broad belt of desert which traverses the eastern hemisphere, in a general direction from west to east (or, speaking more exactly, of W. S. W. to N. E. E.), reaching from the Atlantic on the one hand nearly to the Yellow Sea on the other, is interrupted about its centre by a strip of rich vegetation, ... more...
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Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian of the 5th century BC. He wrote a history of the Persian invasion of Greece in the early fifth century B.C., known simply as The Histories of Herodotus. This work was recognized as a new form of literature soon after its publication. Before Herodotus, there had been chronicles and epics, and they too had preserved knowledge of the past. But Herodotus was the first not only to record the past but also to treat it as a philosophical problem, or research project, that could yield knowledge of human behavior. His invention earned him the title "The Father of History".
Published between 430 and 424 B.C., the Histories ...
Published between 430 and 424 B.C., the Histories ...
BOOK V. THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE HISTORIES, CALLED TERPSICHORE
1. In the meantime those of the Persians who had been left behind in Europe by Dareios, of whom Megabazos was the commander, had subdued the people of Perinthos first of the Hellespontians, since they refused to be subject to Dareios. These had in former times also been hardly dealt with by the Paionians: for the Paionians from the Strymon had been ... more...
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Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian of the 5th century BC. He wrote a history of the Persian invasion of Greece in the early fifth century B.C., known simply as The Histories of Herodotus. This work was recognized as a new form of literature soon after its publication. Before Herodotus, there had been chronicles and epics, and they too had preserved knowledge of the past. But Herodotus was the first not only to record the past but also to treat it as a philosophical problem, or research project, that could yield knowledge of human behavior. His invention earned him the title "The Father of History".
Published between 430 and 424 B.C., the Histories ...
Published between 430 and 424 B.C., the Histories ...
PREFACE
If a new translation of Herodotus does not justify itself, it will hardly be justified in a preface; therefore the question whether it was needed may be left here without discussion. The aim of the translator has been above all things faithfulness—faithfulness to the manner of expression and to the structure of sentences, as well as to the meaning of the Author. At the same time it is conceived ... more...
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I.--The Nile and Egypt
A long, low, level shore, scarcely rising above the sea, a chain of vaguely defined and ever-shifting lakes and marshes, then the triangular plain beyond, whose apex is thrust thirty leagues into the land--this, the Delta of Egypt, has gradually been acquired from the sea, and is, as it were, the gift of the Nile. Where the Delta ends, Egypt proper begins. It is only a strip of ... more...
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CHAPTER I—THE DISCOVERY OF PREHISTORIC EGYPT
During the last ten years our conception of the beginnings of Egyptian antiquity has profoundly altered. When Prof. Maspero published the first volume of his great Histoire Ancienne des Peuples des l'Orient Classique, in 1895, Egyptian history, properly so called, still began with the Pyramid-builders, Sne-feru, Khufu, and Khafra (Cheops and Chephren), and ... more...
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CHAPTER I—THE IRANIAN CONQUEST
The Iranian religions—Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in Egypt —Darius and the organisation of the empire.
The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration: the Chaldæan empire of Nebuchadrezzar ... more...
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CHAPTER I—SENNACHERIB (705-681 B.C.)
The struggle of Sennacherib with Judæa and Egypt—Destruction of Babylon.
Sennacherib either failed to inherit his father's good fortune, or lacked his ability.* He was not deficient in military genius, nor in the energy necessary to withstand the various enemies who rose against him at widely removed points of his frontier, but he had neither the ... more...
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CHAPTER I—THE ASSYRIAN REVIVAL AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SYRIA
Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)—The kingdom of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis.
Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldæa, she was the sooner able to recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume ... more...
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CHAPTER I—THE CLOSE OF THE THEBAN EMPIRE—(continued)
Ramses III.: Manners and Customs—Population—The predominance of Amon and his high priests.
Opposite the Thebes of the living, Khafîtnîbûs, the Thebes of the dead, had gone on increasing in a remarkably rapid manner. It continued to extend in the south-western direction from the heroic period of the XVIIIth dynasty ... more...
