Sunday, September 18, 2016
Huns migration
The Huns, whose incursions into Europe constituted the first "yellow
peril," were a nomadic Mongolian race. In the fourth century before Christ
they successfully invaded China. From the country, about A.D. 90, they were
driven by Hiong-nu, and the Huns then proceeded, joined by hordes of their
fellows from the steppes of Tartary, to make their way to the Caspian Sea.
Previous to the incursion of the Huns another Tartar tribe, the Alani -
the first of that race known to the Romans - had ravaged Media and Armenia,
A.D. 75, carrying off a vast number of prisoners and an enormous booty. They
later settled themselves in the country between the Volga and the Tanais, at
an equal distance from the Black Sea and the Caspian. The Huns, having
crossed the Volga, drove the Alani before them to the Danube. Valens, the
then Emperor of the East, was a weak, incapable ruler; he failed to recognize
the peril by which his empire would ere long be threatened, and permitted the
Alani to find a refuge in his dominions. These were in turn followed and
absorbed by the Huns, and the whole Roman Empire was finally faced by Mongol
foes.
The historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote racily of these events at the
time of their occurrence.
The Huns And Their Western Migration
The swift wheel of fortune, which continually alternates adversity with
prosperity, was giving Bellona the Furies for her allies, and arming her for
war; and now transferred our disasters to the east, as many presages and
portents foreshowed by undoubted signs.
For after many true prophecies uttered by diviners and augurs, dogs were
seen to recoil from howling wolves, and the birds of night constantly uttered
querulous and mournful cries; and lurid sunrises made the mornings dark.
Also, at Antioch, among the tumults and squabbles of the populace, it had
come to be a custom for anyone who fancied himself ill-treated to cry out, in
a licentious manner: "May Valens be burned alive." And the voices of the
criers were constantly heard ordering wood to be carried to warm the baths of
Valens, which had been built under the superintendence of the Emperor
himself.
All which circumstances all but pointed out in express words that the
end of the Emperor's life was at hand. Besides all these things, the ghost
of the King of Armenia, and the miserable shades of those who had lately been
put to death in the affair of Theodorus, agitated numbers of people with
terrible alarms, appearing to them in their sleep, and shrieking out verses
of horrible import.
Last of all, when the ancient walls of Chalcedon were thrown down in
order to build a bath at Constantinople, and the stones were torn asunder, on
one squared stone which was hidden in the very centre of the walls these
Greek verses were found engraved, which gave a full revelation of what was to
happen:
"But when young wives and damsels blithe, in dances that delight,
Shall glide along the city streets, with garlands gayly bright; And when
these walls, with sad regrets, shall fall to raise a bath, Then shall the
Huns in multitude break forth with might and wrath, By force of arms the
barrier-stream of Ister they shall cross, O'er Scythic ground and Moesian
lands spreading dismay and loss; They shall Pannonian horsemen brave, and
Gallic soldiers slay, And nought but loss of life and breath their course
shall ever stay."
The following circumstances were the original cause of all the
destruction and various calamities which the fury of Mars roused up, throwing
everything into confusion by his usual ruinous violence: the people called
Huns, slightly mentioned in the ancient records, live beyond the Sea of Azov,
on the border of the Frozen Ocean, and are a race savage beyond all parallel.
At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children
are deeply marked by an iron, in order that the usual vigor of their hair,
instead of growing at the proper season, may be withered by the wrinkled
scars; and accordingly they grow up without beards, and consequently without
any beauty, like eunuchs, though they all have closely knit and strong limbs
and plump necks; they are of great size, and bow-legged, so that you might
fancy them two-legged beasts, or the stout figures which are hewn out in a
rude manner with an axe on the posts at the end of bridges.
They are certainly in the shape of men, however uncouth, but are so
hardy that they neither require fire nor well-flavored food, but live on the
roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw flesh of
any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing in between their own
thighs and the back of their horses.
They never shelter themselves under roofed houses, but avoid them, as
people ordinarily avoid sepulchres as things not fitted for common use. Nor
is there even to be found among them a cabin thatched with reed; but they
wander about, roaming over the mountains and the woods, and accustom
themselves to bear frost and hunger and thirst from their very cradles. And
even when abroad they never enter a house unless under the compulsion of some
extreme necessity; nor, indeed, do they think people under roofs as safe as
others.
They wear linen clothes, or else garments made of the skins of
field-mice; nor do they wear a different dress out of doors from that which
they wear at home; but after a tunic is once put round their necks, however
much it becomes worn, it is never taken off or changed till, from long decay,
it becomes actually so ragged as to fall to pieces.
They cover their heads with round caps, and their shaggy legs with the
skins of kids; their shoes are not made on any lasts, but are so unshapely as
to hinder them from walking with a free gait. And for this reason they are
not well suited to infantry battles, but are nearly always on horseback,
their horses being ill-shaped, but hardy; and sometimes they even sit upon
them like women if they want to do anything more conveniently. There is not
a person in the whole nation who cannot remain on his horse day and night.
On horseback they buy and sell, they take their meat and drink, and there
they recline on the narrow neck of their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as
to indulge in every variety of dream.
And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they
all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under the authority
of a king, but are contented with the irregular government of their nobles,
and under their lead they force their way through all obstacles.
Sometimes, when provoked, they fight; and when they go into battle, they
form in a solid body, and utter all kinds of terrific yells. They are very
quick in their operations, of exceeding speed, and fond of surprising their
enemies. With a view to this, they suddenly disperse, then reunite, and
again, after having inflicted vast loss upon the enemy, scatter themselves
over the whole plain in irregular formations: always avoiding the fort or an
intrenchment.
And in one respect you may pronounce them the most formidable of all
warriors, for when at a distance they use missiles of various kinds, tipped
with sharpened bones instead of the usual points of javelins, and these bones
are admirably fastened into the shaft of the javelin or arrow; but when they
are at close quarters they fight with the sword, without any regard for their
own safety; and often while their antagonists are warding off their blows
they entangle them with twisted cords, so that, their hands being fettered,
they lose all power of either riding or walking.
None of them plough, or even touch a plough handle; for they have no
settled abode, but are homeless and lawless, perpetually wandering with their
wagons, which they make their homes; in fact, they seem to be people always
in flight. Their wives live in these wagons, and there weave their miserable
garments; and here, too, they sleep with their husbands, and bring up their
children till they reach the age of puberty; nor, if asked, can any one of
them tell you where he was born, as he was conceived in one place, born in
another at a great distance, and brought up in another still more remote.
In truces they are treacherous and inconstant, being liable to change
their minds at every breeze of every fresh hope which presents itself, giving
themselves up wholly to the impulse and inclination of the moment; and, like
brute beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the distinction between right and
wrong. They express themselves with great ambiguity and obscurity; have no
respect for any religion or superstition whatever; are immoderately covetous
of gold; and are so fickle and irascible that they very often, on the same
day that they quarrel with their companions without any provocation, again
become reconciled to them without any mediator.
This active and indomitable race, being excited by an unrestrainable
desire of plundering the possessions of others, went on ravaging and
slaughtering all the nations in their neighborhood till they reached the
Alani, who were formerly called the Massagetae; and from what country these
Alani came, or what territories they inhabit - since my subject has led me so
far - it is expedient now to explain, after showing the confusion existing in
the accounts of the geographers, who, at last, have found out the truth.
The Danube, which is greatly increased by other rivers falling into it,
passes through the territory of the Sauromatae [Scythians], which extends as
far as the river Don, the boundary between Asia and Europe. On the other
side of this river the Alani inhabit the enormous deserts of Scythia,
deriving their own name from the mountains around; and they, like the
Persians, having gradually subdued all the bordering nations by repeated
victories, have united them to themselves and comprehended them under their
own name. Of these other tribes the Neuri inhabit the inland districts,
being near the highest mountain chains, which are both precipitous and
covered with the everlasting frost of the north. Next to them are the
Budini, and the Geloni, a race of exceeding ferocity, who flay the enemies
they have slain in battle, and make of their skins clothes for themselves and
trappings for their horses. Next to the Geloni are the Agathyrsi, who dye
both their bodies and their hair of a blue color, the lower classes using
spots few in number and small; the nobles broad spots; close and thick, and
of a deeper hue.
Next to those are the Melanchlaenae and the Anthropophagi, who roam
about upon different tracts of land and live on human flesh. And these men
are so avoided on account of their horrid food that all the tribes which were
their neighbors have removed to a distance from them. And in this way the
whole of that region to the northeast, till you come to the Chinese, is
uninhabited.
On the other side the Alani again extend to the east, near the
territories of the Amazons, and are scattered among many populous and wealthy
nations, stretching to the parts of Asia which, as I am told, extend up to
the Ganges, a river which passes through the country of the Indians, and
falls into the Southern Ocean.
Then the Alani, being thus divided among the two quarters of the globe -
the various tribes which make up the whole nation it is not worth while to
enumerate - although widely separated, wander, like the nomads, over enormous
districts. But in the progress of time all these tribes came to be united
under one generic appellation, and are called Alani.
They have no cottages, and never use the plough, but live solely on meat
and plenty of milk, mounted on their wagons which they cover with a curved
awning made of the bark of trees, and then drive them through their boundless
deserts. And when they come to any pasture land, they pitch their wagons in
a circle, and live like a herd of beasts, eating up all the forage -
carrying, as it were, their cities with them in their wagons. In them the
husbands sleep with their wives - in them their children are born and brought
up; these wagons, in short, are their perpetual habitation, and, wherever
they fix them, that place they look upon as their home.
They drive before them their flocks and herds to their pasturage; and
about all other cattle, they are especially careful of their horses. The
fields in that country are always green, and are interspersed with patches of
fruit-trees, so that, wherever they go, there is no dearth either of food for
themselves or fodder for their cattle. And this is caused by the moisture of
the soil and the number of the rivers which flow through these districts.
All their old people, and especially all the weaker sex, keep close to
the wagons and occupy themselves in the lighter employments. But the young
men, who from their earliest childhood are trained to the use of the horses,
think it beneath them to walk. They are also all trained by careful
discipline of various sorts to become skilful warriors. And this is the
reason why the Persians, who are originally of Scythian extraction, are very
skilful in war.
Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty. Their hair is
somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce; the lightness of their armor
renders them rapid in their movements, and they are in every respect equal to
the Huns, only more civilized in their food and their manner of life. They
plunder and hunt as far as the Sea of Azov and the Cimmerian Bosporus,
ravaging also Armenia and Media.
And as ease is a delightful thing to men of a quiet and placid
disposition, so danger and war are a pleasure to the Alani, and among them
that man is called happy who has lost his life in battle; for those who grow
old, or who go out of the world from accidental sicknesses, they pursue with
bitter reproaches as degenerate and cowardly. Nor is there anything of which
they boast with more pride than of having killed a man; and the most glorious
spoils they esteem the scalps which they have torn from the heads of those
whom they have slain, which they put as trappings and ornaments on their war
horses.
Nor is there any temple or shrine seen in their country, nor even any
cabin thatched with straw, their only idea of religion being to plunge a
naked sword into the ground with barbaric ceremonies, and they worship that
with great respect, as Mars, the presiding deity of the regions over which
they wander.
They presage the future in a most remarkable manner, for they collect a
number of great twigs of osier, then with certain secret incantations they
separate them from one another on particular days; and from them they learn
clearly what is about to happen.
They have no idea of slavery, inasmuch as they themselves are all born
of noble families; and those whom even now they appoint to be judges are
always men of proved experience and skill in war. But now let us return to
the subject which we proposed to ourselves.
The Huns, after having traversed the territories of the Alani, and
especially of that tribe of them who border on the Gruthungi, and who are
called Tanaitae, and having slain many of them and acquired much plunder they
made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those who remained. And when
they had united them to themselves, with increased boldness they made a
sudden incursion into the extensive and fertile districts of Ermenrichus, a
very warlike prince, and one whom his numerous gallant actions of every kind
had rendered formidable to all the neighboring nations.
He was astonished at the violence of this sudden tempest, and although,
like a prince whose power was well established, he long attempted to hold his
ground, he was at last overpowered by a dread of the evils impending over his
country, which were exaggerated by common report, till he terminated his fear
of great danger by a voluntary death.
After his death Vithimiris was made king. He for some time maintained a
resistance to the Alani, relying on the aid of other tribes of the Huns whom
by large promises of pay he had won over to his party; but, after having
suffered many losses, he was defeated by superior numbers and slain in
battle. He left an infant son named Viderichus, of whom Alatheus and Saphrax
undertook the guardianship, both generals of great experience and proved
courage. And when they, yielding to the difficulties of the crisis, had
given up all hope of being able to make an effectual resistance, they retired
with caution till they came to the river Dniester, which lies between the
Danube and the Dnieper, and flows through a vast extent of country.
When Athanaric, the chief magistrate of the Thuringians, had become
informed of those unexpected occurrences, he prepared to maintain his ground,
with a resolution to rise up in strength should he be assailed as the others
had been.
At last he pitched his camp at a distance in a very favorable spot near
the banks of the Dniester and the valleys of the Gruthungi, and sent Muderic,
who afterward became duke of the Arabian frontier, with Lagarimanus and
others of the nobles, with orders to advance for twenty miles, to reconnoitre
the approach of the enemy; while in the mean time he himself, without delay,
marshalled his troops in line of battle.
However, things turned out in a manner very contrary to his
expectations. For the Huns - being very sagacious in conjectures -
suspecting that there must be a considerable multitude farther off, contrived
to pass beyond those they had seen, and arranged themselves to take their
rest where there was nothing at hand to disturb them; and then, when the moon
dispelled the darkness of night, they forded the river, which was the best
plan which presented itself, and fearing lest the pickets at the outposts
might give the alarm to the distant camp, they made all possible speed and
advanced with the hope of surprising Athanaric himself.
He was stupefied at the suddenness of their onset, and, after losing
many of his men, was compelled to flee for refuge to the precipitous
mountains in the neighborhood, where, being wholly bewildered with the
strangeness of this occurrence, and the fear of greater evils to come, he
began to fortify with lofty walls all the territory between the banks of the
River Pruth and the Danube, where it passes through the land of the Taifali;
and he completed this line of fortification with great diligence, thinking
that by this step he should secure his own personal safety.
While this important work was going on, the Huns kept pressing on his
traces with great speed, and they would have overtaken and destroyed him if
they had not been forced to abandon the pursuit from being impeded by the
great quantity of their booty. In the mean time a report spread extensively
through the other nations of the Goths, that a race of men, hitherto unknown,
had suddenly descended like a whirlwind from the lofty mountains, as if they
had risen from some secret recess of the earth, and were ravaging and
destroying everything which came in their way. And then the greater part of
the population which, because of their want of necessaries, had deserted
Athanaric, resolved to flee and to seek a home remote from all knowledge of
the barbarians; and after a long deliberation where to fix their abode, they
resolved that a retreat into Thrace was the most suitable for these two
reasons: first of all, because it is a district most fertile in grass; and
also because, by the great breadth of the Danube, it is wholly separated from
the barbarians, who were already exposed to the thunderbolts of foreign
warfare. And the whole population of the tribe adopted this resolution
unanimously.
Accordingly, under the command of their leader Alavivus, they occupied
the bank of the Danube, and having sent ambassadors to Valens, they humbly
entreated to be received by him as his subjects, promising to live quietly,
and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops if any necessity for such a force
should arise.
While these events were passing in foreign countries, a terrible rumor
arose that the tribes of the North were planning new and unprecedented
attacks upon us; and that over the whole region, which extends from the
country of the Marcomanni and Quadi to Pontus, a barbarian host, composed of
different distant nations, which had suddenly been driven by force from their
own country, was now, with all their families, wandering about in different
directions on the banks of the river Danube.
At first this intelligence was lightly treated by our people, because
they were not in the habit of hearing of any wars in those remote districts
till they were terminated either by victory or by treaty.
But presently, as the belief in these occurrences grew stronger, being
confirmed, too, by the arrival of the foreign ambassadors, who, with prayers
and earnest entreaties, begged that the people thus driven from their homes
and now encamped on the other side of the river might be kindly received by
us, the affair seemed a cause of joy rather than of fear, according to the
skilful flatterers who were always extolling and exaggerating the good
fortune of the Emperor; congratulating him that an embassy had come from the
farthest corners of the earth unexpectedly, offering him a large body of
recruits; and that, by combining the strength of his own nation with these
foreign forces, he would have an army absolutely invincible; observing
further that, by the yearly payment for military reinforcements which came in
every year from the provinces, a vast treasure of gold might be accumulated
in his coffers.
Full of this hope, he sent forth several officers to bring this
ferocious people and their wagons into our territory. And such great pains
were taken to gratify this nation which was destined to overthrow the Empire
of Rome, that not one was left behind, not even of those who were stricken
with mortal disease. Moreover, having obtained permission of the Emperor to
cross the Danube and to cultivate some districts in Thrace, they crossed the
stream day and night, without ceasing, embarking in troops on board ships and
rafts, and canoes made of the hollow trunks of trees, in which enterprise, as
the Danube is the most difficult of all rivers to navigate, and was at that
time swollen with continual rains, a great many were drowned, who, because
they were too numerous for the vessels, tried to swim across, and in spite of
all their exertions were swept away by the stream.
In this way, through the turbulent zeal of violent people, the ruin of
the Roman Empire was brought on. This, at all events, is neither obscure nor
uncertain that the unhappy officers who were intrusted with the charge of
conducting the multitude of the barbarians across the river, though they
repeatedly endeavored to calculate their numbers, at last abandoned the
attempt as hopeless; and the man who would wish to ascertain the number might
as well - as the most illustrious of poets says - attempt to count the waves
in the African Sea, or the grains of sand tossed about by the zephyrs.
Let, however, the ancient annals be accredited which record that the
Persian host which was led into Greece was, while encamped on the shores of
the Hellespont, and making a new and artificial sea, numbered in battalions
at Doriscus; a computation which has been unanimously regarded by all
posterity as fabulous.
But after the innumerable multitudes of different nations, diffused over
all our provinces and spreading themselves over the vast expanses of our
plains, who filled all the champaign country and all the mountain ranges, are
considered, the credibility of the ancient accounts is confirmed by this
modern instance. And first of all Tritigernus was received with Alavivus,
and the Emperor assigned them a temporary provision for their immediate
support, and ordered lands to be assigned them to cultivate.
At that time the defences of our provinces were much exposed and the
armies of barbarians spread over them like the lava of Mount Aetna. The
imminence of our danger manifestly called for generals already illustrious
for their past achievements in war; but nevertheless, as if some unpropitious
deity had made the selection, the men who were sought out for the chief
military appointments were of tainted character. The chief among them were
Lupicinus and Maximus, the one being count of Thrace, the other a leader
notoriously wicked - and both men of great ignorance and rashness.
And their treacherous covetousness was the cause of all our disasters.
For - to pass over other matters in which the officers aforesaid, or others
with their unblushing connivance, displayed the greatest profligacy in their
injurious treatment of the foreigners dwelling in our territory, against
whom no crime could be alleged - this one melancholy and unprecedented piece
of conduct - which, even if they were to choose their own judges, must appear
wholly unpardonable - must be mentioned:
When the barbarians who had been conducted across the river were in
great distress from want of provisions, those detested generals conceived the
idea of a most disgraceful traffic; and having collected hounds from all
quarters with the most unsatiable rapacity, they exchanged them for an equal
number of slaves, among whom were several sons of men of noble birth.
About this time also, Vitheric, the King of the Gruthungi, with Alatheus
and Saphrax, by whose influence he was mainly guided, and also with
Farnobius, approached the bank of the Danube and sent envoys to the Emperor
to entreat that he also might be received with the same kindness that
Alavivus and Fritigern had experienced.
But when, as seemed best for the interests of the State, these
ambassadors had been rejected, and were in great anxiety what they should do,
Athanaric, fearing similar treatment, departed, recollecting that long ago,
when he was discussing a treaty with Valens, he had treated that Emperor with
contempt in affirming that he was bound by a religious obligation never to
set his foot on the Roman territory; and that, by this excuse, he had
compelled the Emperor to conclude a peace in the middle of the war. And he,
fearing that the grudge which Valens bore him for this conduct was still
lasting, withdrew with all his forces to Caucalandes, a place which, from the
height of its mountains and the thickness of its woods, is completely
inaccessible; and from which he had lately driven out the Sarmatians.
Asia's First Civilizations - India And China
Like Sumer, Egypt, and other early civilizations in the Middle East,
civilizations first developed in East and South Asia in the vicinity of great
river systems. When irrigated by the massive spring floods of the Yellow
River, the rich soil of the North China plain proved a superb basis for what
has been the largest and most enduring civilization in human history.
Civilization first developed in the Indus River valley in present-day Pakistan
in the middle of the 3d millennium B.C., more than a thousand years earlier
than it did in China. In fact, the civilization of the Indus valley, usually
called Harappan after its chief city, rivals Sumer and Egypt as humanity's
oldest. But like Sumer and its successor civilizations in the Middle East,
Harappan civilization was unable to survive natural catastrophes and nomadic
invasions. In contrast to the civilization of the Shang rulers in China around
1500 B.C., Harappa vanished from history. Until the mid-19th century it was
"lost" or forgotten, even by the peoples who lived in the vicinity of its
sand-covered ruins. Important elements of Harappan society were transmitted to
later civilizations in the Indian subcontinent. But unlike the Shang kingdom,
Harappa did not survive to be the core and geographical center from which a
unified and continuous civilization developed like that found in China. The
difference in the fate of these two great civilizations provides one of the
key questions in dealing with the history of civilized societies: What factors
permitted some civilizations to endure for millennia while others rose and
fell within a few centuries?
Between about 1500 and 1000 B.C., as the great cities of the Indus region
crumbled into ruins, nomadic Aryan invaders from central Asia moved into the
fertile Indus plains and pushed into the Ganges River valleys to the east. It
took these unruly, warlike peoples many centuries to build a civilization that
rivaled that of the Harappans. The Aryans concentrated on assaulting Harappan
settlements and different Aryan tribal groups. As peoples who depended
primarily on great herds of cattle to provide their subsistence, they had
little use for the great irrigation works and advanced agricultural technology
of the Indus valley peoples. Though they conserved some Harappan beliefs and
symbols, the Aryan invaders did little to restore or replace the great cities
and engineering systems of the peoples they had supplanted.
Eventually, however, many of the Aryan groups began to settle down, and
increasingly they relied on farming to support their communities. By about 700
B.C., their priests had begun to orally record the sacred hymns and ritual
incantations that had long been central to Aryan culture. In the following
centuries, strong warrior leaders built tribunal units into larger kingdoms.
The emergence of priestly and warrior elites signaled the beginning of a new
pattern of civilization in South Asia. By the 6th century B.C., the renewal of
civilized life in India was marked by the emergence of great world religions,
such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and a renewal of trade, urban life, and
splendid artistic and architectural achievements.
The early development of civilization in China combined the successive
phases of advancement of Mesopotamian history with the continuity of Egyptian
civilization. Civilization in China coalesced around 1500 B.C. Chinese
civilization emerged gradually out of Neolithic farming and potterymaking
cultures that had long been present in the Yellow River region of East Asia.
The establishment of the Shang kingdom at this point in time gave political
expression to a combination of civilizing trends. The appearance of a
distinctive and increasingly specialized elite supported by the peasant
majority of the Chinese people, the growth of towns and the first cities, the
spread of trade, and the formulation of a written language all indicated that
a major civilization was emerging in China.
Though the political dominance of the Shang came to an end in 1122 under
the new royal house of the Zhou, civilized development in China was enriched
and extended as the Chinese people migrated east and south from their original
Yellow River heartland. By the end of the Zhou era, which would last
officially until 256 B.C., many of the central elements in Chinese
civilization, one of humankind's oldest, were firmly established. Some of
those elements have persisted to the present day.
civilizations first developed in East and South Asia in the vicinity of great
river systems. When irrigated by the massive spring floods of the Yellow
River, the rich soil of the North China plain proved a superb basis for what
has been the largest and most enduring civilization in human history.
Civilization first developed in the Indus River valley in present-day Pakistan
in the middle of the 3d millennium B.C., more than a thousand years earlier
than it did in China. In fact, the civilization of the Indus valley, usually
called Harappan after its chief city, rivals Sumer and Egypt as humanity's
oldest. But like Sumer and its successor civilizations in the Middle East,
Harappan civilization was unable to survive natural catastrophes and nomadic
invasions. In contrast to the civilization of the Shang rulers in China around
1500 B.C., Harappa vanished from history. Until the mid-19th century it was
"lost" or forgotten, even by the peoples who lived in the vicinity of its
sand-covered ruins. Important elements of Harappan society were transmitted to
later civilizations in the Indian subcontinent. But unlike the Shang kingdom,
Harappa did not survive to be the core and geographical center from which a
unified and continuous civilization developed like that found in China. The
difference in the fate of these two great civilizations provides one of the
key questions in dealing with the history of civilized societies: What factors
permitted some civilizations to endure for millennia while others rose and
fell within a few centuries?
Between about 1500 and 1000 B.C., as the great cities of the Indus region
crumbled into ruins, nomadic Aryan invaders from central Asia moved into the
fertile Indus plains and pushed into the Ganges River valleys to the east. It
took these unruly, warlike peoples many centuries to build a civilization that
rivaled that of the Harappans. The Aryans concentrated on assaulting Harappan
settlements and different Aryan tribal groups. As peoples who depended
primarily on great herds of cattle to provide their subsistence, they had
little use for the great irrigation works and advanced agricultural technology
of the Indus valley peoples. Though they conserved some Harappan beliefs and
symbols, the Aryan invaders did little to restore or replace the great cities
and engineering systems of the peoples they had supplanted.
Eventually, however, many of the Aryan groups began to settle down, and
increasingly they relied on farming to support their communities. By about 700
B.C., their priests had begun to orally record the sacred hymns and ritual
incantations that had long been central to Aryan culture. In the following
centuries, strong warrior leaders built tribunal units into larger kingdoms.
The emergence of priestly and warrior elites signaled the beginning of a new
pattern of civilization in South Asia. By the 6th century B.C., the renewal of
civilized life in India was marked by the emergence of great world religions,
such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and a renewal of trade, urban life, and
splendid artistic and architectural achievements.
The early development of civilization in China combined the successive
phases of advancement of Mesopotamian history with the continuity of Egyptian
civilization. Civilization in China coalesced around 1500 B.C. Chinese
civilization emerged gradually out of Neolithic farming and potterymaking
cultures that had long been present in the Yellow River region of East Asia.
The establishment of the Shang kingdom at this point in time gave political
expression to a combination of civilizing trends. The appearance of a
distinctive and increasingly specialized elite supported by the peasant
majority of the Chinese people, the growth of towns and the first cities, the
spread of trade, and the formulation of a written language all indicated that
a major civilization was emerging in China.
Though the political dominance of the Shang came to an end in 1122 under
the new royal house of the Zhou, civilized development in China was enriched
and extended as the Chinese people migrated east and south from their original
Yellow River heartland. By the end of the Zhou era, which would last
officially until 256 B.C., many of the central elements in Chinese
civilization, one of humankind's oldest, were firmly established. Some of
those elements have persisted to the present day.
end of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in 12,000 B.C
Human Life In The Era Of Hunters And Gatherers
By the end of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in 12,000 B.C., humans had
evolved in physical appearance and mental capacity to roughly the same level
as today. Our species, Homo sapiens, had been competing with increasing
success for game and campsites with other humanlike creatures for nearly
30,000 years. Homo sapiens' enlarged brain, critical to the survival of all of
the branches of the genus Homo, was virtually the same size as that of modern
humans. The erect posture of Stone Age humans produced a tendency toward
spinal strain and backaches that was more than compensated for by the fact
that an upright posture freed their hands, as it had those of earlier human
species. The combination of a larger brain and free hands with opposable
thumbs made it possible for different human species to craft and manipulate
tools and weapons of increasing sophistication. These implements helped to
offset the humans' marked inferiority in body strength and speed to rival
predators, such as wolves and wild cats, as well as to many of the creatures
that humans themselves preyed on. A more highly developed brain also allowed
humans to transform cries and grunts into the patterned sounds that make up
language. Language greatly enhanced the possibilities for cooperation and a
sense of cohesion within the small bands that were the predominant form of
human social organization in this era. By the last phase of the Paleolithic
epoch these advantages had made Homo sapiens a species capable of mastering
the earth.
Paleolithic Culture
No matter how much Homo sapiens sapiens may have developed in physical
appearance and brain capacity by around 12,000 B.C., its culture, with some
exceptions, was not radically different from the cultures of the rival human
species such as the Neanderthals, who had died out thousands of years earlier.
Fire, which was perhaps the most central element in the material culture of
Paleolithic peoples, had been mastered nearly a half million years earlier.
Originally snatched from conflagrations caused by lightning or lava flows,
fire was domesticated as humans developed techniques to preserve glowing
embers and to start fires by rubbing sticks and other materials together. The
control of fire led to numerous improvements in the lives of Stone Age
peoples. It rendered edible a much wider range of foods, particularly animal
flesh, which was virtually the only source of protein in a culture without
cows, goats, or chickens and thus lacking in milk, cheese, and eggs. Cooked
meat, which was easier to digest, may also have been more effectively
preserved and stored, thus giving Stone Age peoples an additional buffer
against the constant threat of starvation. In addition, fire was used in
treating animal hides for clothing and hardening wooden weapons and tools. Its
light and warmth became the focal point of human campsites.
By Late Paleolithic or Old Stone Age times, human groups survived by
combining hunting and fishing with the gathering of fruits, berries, grains,
and root crops that grew in the wild. They had created a considerable number
of tools to assist them in these critical endeavors. Tools of wood and bone
have perished; thus surviving stone tools are our main evidence of the
technology of this epoch. These tools had advanced considerably by the late
Old Stone Age. Early human tools, discovered by archeologists at sites that
date back well over 2 million years, were made by breaking off the edges of
stone cores to create crude points or rough cutting surfaces. By the Late
Paleolithic period, humans had grown much more adept at working stone. They
preferred to chip and sharpen flakes broken off the core stone. These chips
could be fashioned into knife blades, arrow points, or choppers, which had a
wide range of uses from hunting and warfare to skinning animal carcasses and
harvesting wild plants.
Earlier human groups had produced evidence of artistic expression, small
figurines and decorated implements; the Late Paleolithic was a period of
particularly intense creativity. Fine miniature sculpture, beads and other
forms of jewelry, and carved bones were produced by Paleolithic peoples, but
their most impressive artistic contributions were the cave paintings that have
been discovered at sites in southern France and Spain. Remarkably realistic
and colorful depictions of a variety of animals from woolly mammoths to horses
were found deep in the caverns at these sites.
Because the peoples who created these paintings did not write, we cannot
be certain of the reasons for this surge in artistic creativity. These
paintings may have been done for the sake of artistic expression itself. But
the location of the paintings deep in the cave complexes and the rather
consistent choice of game animals as subject matter suggest that they served a
ritual purpose. Perhaps capturing the images of animals in art was seen as a
way of assisting hunting parties in the wild. It is also possible that those
who painted the animal figures hoped to acquire some of the strength and speed
of the animals depicted, to improve their chances in the hunt and to ward off
the animals that preyed on the human hunters themselves. Some paintings may
have been done to celebrate and commemorate particularly successful hunting
expeditions or other key events.
Other paintings and in many cases small sculptures, including those found
at a number of Middle Eastern sites, appear to have religious significance.
They may have been intended, for example, to depict prominent deities or to
promote fertility. There is also speculation that paintings at a number of
sites may represent early counting systems or primitive calendars. Whatever
their purpose, the paintings of the Old Stone Age era suggest quite a
sophisticated level of thinking. They also indicate that humans were becoming
increasingly interested in expressing themselves artistically and leaving
lasting images of their activities and concerns.
The Spread Of Human Culture
The possession of fire and tools with which to make clothing and shelters
made it possible for different human species to extend the range of their
habitation far beyond the East African savanna (grassy plain) zone where they
had originated. During the last Ice Age, which began about 2.5 million years
ago and ended around 8000 B.C., humans first moved northward from Africa into
Europe and eastward across the present-day Middle East into central Asia,
India, and East Asia. Neanderthals and related peoples were found across this
zone as late as 35,000 B.C., and some archeologists claim that by then they
may also have begun to migrate across a land bridge into the New World. By
10,000 B.C., groups of the Homo sapiens sapiens species had colonized all of
the continents except Antarctica. Glaciation, which had caused a significant
drop in sea levels, resulted in land bridges to the New World and Australia.
By the late Paleolithic period, around 12,000 B.C., human colonies were found
in North and South America and in the south and west of Australia. Thus, long
before the rise of civilizations, human societies had proven themselves
capable of surviving in widely varying climates and terrains.
Neolithic agriculture Revolution
The Middle East By 4000 B.C.: The Causes Of Civilization
As you have seen, one reason that civilization first appeared in the
Middle East was because agriculture had taken hold in this region. Over many
centuries agriculture became more common and productive in the Middle East; it
began to create the conditions for further innovations - including
civilization. But the first civilization also required an additional set of
stimuli, the new inventions and organizations that had taken shape around 4000
B.C.
Much time elapsed between the development of agriculture and the rise of
civilization in the Middle East and many other places. The successful
agricultural communities that formed were based primarily on very localized
production, which normally sustained a population despite recurrent disasters
caused by bad weather or harvest problems. Localized agriculture did not
consistently yield the kind of surplus that would allow specializations among
the population, and therefore it could not generate civtlization.
Even the formation of small regional centers, such as Jericho or Catal
Huyuk, did not assure a rapid pace of change. Their economic range remained
localized, with little trade or specialization. Most families who inhabited
them produced for their own needs and nothing more. It was important that more
and more regions in the Middle East were pulled into the orbit of agriculture
as the Neolithic revolution gained ground. By 4000 B.C. large nomadic groups
still flourished only at the southern end of the region in the deserts of the
Arabian peninsula. Even the knowledge of agriculture spread slowly, so the
gradual conversion of virtually the whole Middle East and some surrounding
areas was no small achievement. But the shape of agricultural communities
themselves in 4000 B.C. differed little from that of pioneering agricultural
centers 4000 years before.
Based on the expansion of agriculture in the Middle East, a detached
observer who lived a little before 4000 B.C. might have predicted the gradual
spread or independent development of agriculture in many parts of the world.
Portions of India, northern Africa, central Asia, and southern Europe were
already drawn in (though other nearby regions, such as Italy, remained immune
for another millennium and a half). A separate Neolithic revolution was
beginning to take shape in Central America. All this was vital, but it did not
assure the civilizational revolution within key agricultural regions
themselves.
Dynamic Implications Of Agriculture
Several factors flowed together to create the unexpected development of
civilization. While the establishment of agriculture did not guarantee further
change, it did ultimately co tribute to change by encouraging new forms of
social organization. Settled agriculture, as opposed to slash-and-burn
varieties, usually implied some forms of property so that land could be
identified as belonging to a family, a village, or a landlord. Only with
property was there incentive to introduce improvements, such as wells or
irrigation measures, that could be monopolized by those who created them or
left to their heirs. But property meant the need for new kinds of laws and
enforcement mechanisms, which in turn implied more extensive government. Here
agriculture could create some possibilities for trade and could spur
innovation - new kinds of regulations and some government figures who could
enforce them.
Farming encouraged the formation of larger and more stable communities
than had existed before Neolithic times. Most hunting peoples moved in small
groups containing no more than 60 individuals who could not settle in a single
spot lest the game run out. With settled agriculture the constraints changed.
Communities developed around the cleared and improved fields. In many early
agricultural areas including the Middle East, a key incentive to stability was
the need for irrigation systems. Irrigated agriculture depended on
arrangements that would allow farmers to cooperate in building and maintaining
irrigation ditches and sluices. The needs of irrigation, plus protection from
marauders, help explain why most early agricultural peoples settled in village
communities, rather than isolated farms. Villages that grouped several hundred
people constituted the characteristic pattern of residence in almost all
agricultural societies from Neolithic days to our own times. Some big rivers
encouraged elaborate irrigation projects that could channel water in virtually
assured quantities to vast stretches of land. To create larger irrigation
projects along major rivers such as Tigris-Euphrates or the Nile, large gangs
of laborers had to be assembled. Further, regulations had to assure that users
along the river and in the villages near the river's source would have equal
access to the water supply. This implied an increase in the scale of political
and economic organization. A key link between the advantages of irrigation and
the gradual emergence of civilization was that irrigated land produced
surpluses with greater certainty and required new kinds of organization.
It is no accident that the earliest civilizations arose along large
rivers and amid irrigation projects. Civilization in Mesopotamia and then
Egypt involved not only the central fact of economic surplus but also the
ability to integrate tens, even hundreds of square miles along rivers.
Regional coordination, based first on irrigation needs, could easily lead to
other contacts: shared cultures, including artistic styles and religious
beliefs; economic contacts, including trade; and common political
institutions.
Further Innovations: New Tools And Specializations In The 4th Millennium
The first civilization also required the technological developments whose
impact coalesced around 4000 B.C. These developments addressed problems faced
by agricultural peoples who were encouraged by opportunities available in
individual villages to share ideas and encourage inventive colleagues. Most of
the inventions thus occurred in regions where agriculture was best developed,
which for a long time meant the Middle East. At the same time, the new
inventions enhanced the productivity of Middle Eastern agriculture, creating
the consistent surpluses that would ultimately shape civilization itself. The
result was a recurrent series of technological changes. The first potter's
wheel was invented by about 6000 B.C. It encouraged faster and higher-quality
ceramic pottery production, which facilitated food storage and improved the
reliability of food supplies. Pottery production promoted the emergence of a
group of specialized manufacturing workers who made pots to exchange for food
produced by others.
Better tools allowed improvements in other products made out of wood or
stone. Obsidian, a hard stone, began to be used for tools in the late
Neolithic centuries. The wheel was another Middle-Eastern innovation. Wheeled
vehicles long remained slow but they were vital to many monumental
construction projects where large blocks of stone were moved to the
construction sites of temples. Shipbuilding also gradually improved.
Developments of this sort, enhancing production and possibilities for trade,
set the framework for the outright emergence of civilization with the rise of
Sumerian society along the Tigris-Euphrates.
A key technological change, which occurred slightly after the emergence
of the first civilization, was the introduction of metal for use in tools and
weapons. By about 3000 B.C., copper began to be mixed with tin to make bronze;
this development occurred around the Black Sea and in the Middle East. Use of
metal allowed manufacture of a greater variety of tools than could be made of
stone or bone, and the tools were lighter and more quickly made. The Middle
East was the first region to move from the Neolithic (stone tool) Age to the
Bronze Age. Other parts of the eastern Mediterranean soon made the transition.
Metal hoes, plows, and other implements proved extremely useful to
agricultural societies and also to herding peoples in central Asia. Again new
technology promoted further specialization as groups of artisans concentrated
on metal production, exchanging their wares for food. Widespread use of bronze
also encouraged greater trade, because tin, in particular, was hard to find;
by 2000 B.C. trade had become a motivation for extensive development of sea
routes.
Christianity
n the initial decades of the Roman Empire, at the eastern end of the
Mediterranean, a new religion, Christianity, emerged. Much of the impetus for this new religion rested in issues in the Jewish religion, including a
long-standing belief in the coming of a Messiah and rigidities that had
developed in the Jewish priesthood. Whether or not Christianity was created by God, as Christians believe, the early stages of the religion focused on
cleansing the Jewish religion of stiff rituals and haughty leaders. It had
little at first to do with Roman culture. Christianity arose in a remote
province and appealed particularly to the poorer classes. It is not easy, as a
result, to fit Christianity neatly into the patterns of Roman history: It was
deliberately separate, and only gradually had wider impact.
Christianity originated with Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet and
teacher who probably came to believe he was the Son of God and certainly was regarded as such by his disciples. Jesus preached in Israel during the time of Augustus, urging a purification of the Jewish religion that would free Israel and establish the kingdom of God on earth. He urged a moral code based on love, charity, and humility, and he asked the faithful to follow his lessons, abandoning worldly concern. Many disciples believed that a Final Judgment day was near at hand, on which God would reward the righteous with immortality and condemn sinners to everlasting hell.
Jesus won many followers among the poor. He also roused suspicion among
the upper classes and the leaders of the Jewish religion. These helped
persuade the Roman governor, already concerned about unrest among the Jews, that Jesus was a dangerous agitator. Jesus was put to death as a result, crucified like a common criminal, about A.D. 30. His fo lowers believed that he was resurrected on the third day after his death, a proof that he was the Son of God. This belief helped the religion spread farther among Jewish communities in the Middle East, both within the Roman Empire and beyond. As they realized that the Messiah was not immediately returning to earth to set up the Kingdom of God, the disciples of Jesus began to fan out, particularly around the eastern Mediterranean, to spread the new Christian message.
Initially, Christian converts were Jewish by birth and followed the basic
Jewish law. Their belief that Christ was divine as well as human, however,
roused hostility among other Jews. When one early convert, Stephen, was stoned to death, many disciples left Israel and traveled throughout western Asia.
Christianity Gains Converts And Religious Structure
Gradually over the next 250 years, Christianity won a growing number of
converts. By the 4th century A.D., about 10 percent of the residents of the
Roman Empire were Christian, and the new religion had also made converts
elsewhere in the Middle East and Ethiopia. As it spread, Christianity
connected increasingly with larger themes in Roman history.
With its particularly great appeal to some of the poor, Christianity was
well positioned to reflect social grievances in an empire increasingly marked by inequality. Slaves, dispossessed farmers and impoverished city dwellers found hope in a religion that promised rewards after death. Christianity also answered cultural and spiritual needs - especially but not exclusively among the poor - left untended by mainstream Roman religion and culture. Roman values had stressed political goals and ethics suitable for life in this world. They did not join peoples of the empire in more spiritual loyalties, and they did not offer many emotionally satisfying rituals. As the empire consolidated, reducing direct political participation, a number of mystery religions spread from the Middle East and Egypt, religions that offered emotionally charged rituals. Worship of gods such as Mithra or Isis, derived from earlier Mesopotamian or Egyptian beliefs, attracted some Roman soldiers and others with rites of sacrifice and a strong sense of religious community. Christianity, though far more than a mystery religion, had some of these qualities and won converts on this basis as well. Christianity, in sum, gained ground in part because of features of Roman political and cultural life.
The spread of Christianity also benefited from some of the positive
qualities of Rome's great empire. Political stability and communications over a wide area aided missionary efforts, while the Roman example helped inspire the government forms of the growing Christian church. Early Christian communities regulated themselves, but with expansion more formal government was introduced, with bishops playing a role not unlike Rome's provincial governors. Bishops headed churches in regional centers and supervised the activities of other churches in the area. Bishops in politically powerful cities, including Rome, gained particular authority. Roman principles also helped move what initially had been a religion among Jews to a genuinely cosmopolitan stance. Under the leadership of Paul, converted to Christianity about A.D. 35, Christian missionaries began to move away from insistence that adherents of the new religion must follow Jewish law. Rather, in the spirit of Rome and of Hellenism, the new faith was seen as universal, open to all whether or not they followed Jewish practices in diet, male circumcision, and so on.
Paul's conversion to Christianity proved vital. Paul was Jewish, but he
had been born in a Greek city and was familiar with Greco-Roman culture. He helped explain basic Christian beliefs in terms other adherents of this
culture could grasp, and he preached in Greece and Italy as well as the Middle East. Paul essentially created Christian theology, as a set of intellectual principles that followed from, but generalized, the message of Jesus. Paul also modified certain initial Christian impulses. Jesus himself had drawn a large number of women followers, but Paul emphasized women's subordination to men and the dangers of sexuality. It was Paul's stress on Christianity as a universal religion, requiring abandonment of other religious beliefs, and his related use of Greek - the dominant language of the day throughout the eastern Mediterranean - that particularly transformed the new faith.
Relations With The Roman Empire
Gradually, Christian theological leaders made further contact with
Greco-Roman intellectual life. They began to develop a body of Christian
writings beyond the Bible messages written by the disciples of Jesus. By the
4th century A.D., Christian writings became the only creative cultural
expressions in the Roman Empire, as theologians sought not only to explain
issues in the new religion but also to relate it to Greek philosophy and Roman ethics. Ironically, as the Roman Empire was in most respects declining, Christianity produced an outpouring of complex thought and often elegant use of language. In this effort, Christianity redirected Roman culture (never known for abundant religious subtlety) but also preserved many earlier literary and philosophical achievements.
Adherents of the new religion clashed with Roman authorities, to be sure.
Christians, who put their duties to God first, would not honor the emperor as
a divinity and might seem to reject the authority of the state in other
spheres. Several early emperors, including the mad Nero, persecuted
Christians, killing some and driving their worship underground. Persecution
was not constant, however, which helps explain why the religion continued to spread. It resumed only in the 4th century, when several emperors sought to use religious conformity and new claims to divinity as a way of cementing
loyalties to a declining state. Roman beliefs, including periodic tolerance,
helped shape a Christian view that the state had a legitimately separate if
subordinate sphere; Western Christians would often cite Christ as saying
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's."
The full story of early Christianity goes beyond the history of Rome.
Christianity had more to do with opening a new era in the history of the
Mediterranean region than with shaping the later Roman Empire. Yet important connections did exist that explain features of Christianity and of later Roman history. Though not a Roman product and though benefiting in part from the empire's decline, Christianity in some of its qualities can be counted as part of the Greco-Roman legacy.
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International World History Project
World History From The Pre-Sumerian Period To The PresentA Collection Of World History Related Essays, Documents, Maps and Music
"Oh human race, born to fly upward." "Wherefore at but a little wind does thou so easily fall?"
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