The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 04

Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne, John [Editor] Rudd, Rossiter Johnson

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• Publié par: fyam
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 27
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4, by Various, Edited by Rossiter Johnson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 Author: Various Release Date: March 12, 2005 [eBook #15345] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS, VOLUME 4*** E-text prepared by David Kline, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team THE GREAT EVENTS BY FAMOUS HISTORIANS A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY EMPHASIZING THE , MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY WITH THOROUGH INDICES, BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND . COURSES OF READING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D. ASSOCIATE EDITORS CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. JOHN RUDD, LL.D. With a staff of specialists VOLUME IV The National Alumni 1905 CONTENTS VOLUME IV An Outline Narrative of the Great Events CHARLES F. HORNE Visigoths Pillage Rome (A.D. 410) EDWARD GIBBON Huns Invade the Eastern Roman Empire Attila Dictates a Treaty of Peace (A.D. 441) EDWARD GIBBON The English Conquest of Britain (A.D. 449-579) JOHN R. GREEN CHARLES KNIGHT Attila Invades Western Europe Battle of Châlons (A.D. 451) SIR EDWARD S. CREASY EDWARD GIBBON Foundation of Venice (A.D. 452) THOMAS HODGKIN JOHN RUSKIN Clovis Founds the Kingdom of the Franks It Becomes Christian (A.D. 486-511) FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT Publication of the Justinian Code (A.D. 529-534) EDWARD GIBBON Augustine's Missionary Work in England (A.D. 597) THE VENERABLE BEDE JOHN R. GREEN The Hegira: Career of Mahomet The Koran: and Mahometan Creed (A.D. 622) WASHINGTON IRVING SIMON OCKLEY The Saracen Conquest of Syria (A.D. 636) SIMON OCKLEY Saracens Conquer Egypt Destruction of the Library at Alexandria (A.D. 640) WASHINGTON IRVING Evolution of the Dogeship in Venice (A.D. 697) WILLIAM C. HAZLITT Saracens in Spain Battle of the Guadalete (A.D. 711) AHMED IBN MAHOMET AL-MAKKARI Battle of Tours (A.D. 732) SIR EDWARD S. CREASY Founding of the Carlovingian Dynasty Pépin the Short Usurps the Frankish Crown (A.D. 751) FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT Career of Charlemagne (A.D. 772-814) FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT Egbert Becomes King of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy (A.D. 827) DAVID HUME Universal Chronology (A.D. 410-842) JOHN RUDD LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME IV A captive's wife pleads with the barbarian chief for the life of her husband , Frontispiece Painting by R. Peacock. Mahomet, preaching the unity of God, enters Mecca at the head of his victorious followers, Painting by A. Mueller. A captive's wife pleads with the barbarian chief for the life of her husband , Frontispiece Painting by R. Peacock. AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT EVENTS (FROM THE FALL OF ROME TO THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE) CHARLES F. HORNE Our modern civilization is built up on three great corner-stones, three inestimably valuable heritages from the past. The Græco-Roman civilization gave us our arts and our philosophies, the bases of intellectual power. The Hebrews bequeathed to us the religious idea, which has saved man from despair, has been the potent stimulus to two thousand years of endurance and hope. The Teutons gave us a healthy, sturdy, uncontaminated physique, honest bodies and clean minds, the lack of which had made further progress impossible to the ancient world. This last is what made necessary the barbarian overthrow of Rome, if the world was still to advance. The slowly progressing knowledge of the arts and handicrafts which we have seen passed down from Egypt to Babylonia, to Persia, Greece, and Rome, had not been acquired without heavy loss. The system of slavery which allowed the few to think, while the many were constrained to toil as beasts, had eaten like a canker into the heart of society. The Roman world was repeating the oft-told tale of the past, and sinking into the lifeless formalism of which Egypt was the type. Man had become wise, but worthless. As though on purpose to prove to future generations how utterly worthless, the Roman civilization was allowed to continue uninterrupted in one unneeded corner of its former domains. For over a thousand years the successors of Theodosius and of Constantine held unbroken sway in the capital which the latter had founded. They only succeeded in emphasizing how futile their culture had become. The entire ten centuries that followed the overthrow of Rome have long been spoken of as the "Dark Ages," but, considering how infinitely darker those same ages must have become without the intervention of the Teutons, present criticism begins to protest against the term. All that was lost with the ancient world was something of intellectual keenness, something of artistic culture, quickly regained when man was once more ripe for them. What the Teutons had to offer of infinitely greater worth, what they had developed in their cold, northern forests, was their sense of liberty and equality, their love of honesty, their respect for womankind. It is not too much to say that, without these, any higher progress was, and always will be, impossible. In short, the Roman and Grecian races had become impotent and decrepit. The high destiny of man lay not with them, but with the younger race, for whom all earlier civilizations had but prepared the way. Who were these Teutons? Rome knew them only vaguely as wild tribes dwelling in the gloom of the great forest wilderness. In reality they were but the vanguard of vast races of human beings who through ages had been slowly populating all Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Beyond the Teutons were other Aryans, the Slavs. Beyond these were vague non-Aryan races like the Huns, content to direct their careers of slaughter against one another, and only occasionally and for a moment flaring with red-fire beacons of ruin along the edge of the Aryan world. Some at least of the Teutonic tribes had grown partly civilized. The Germans along the Rhine, and the Goths along the Danube, had been from the time of Augustus in more or less close contact with Rome. Germanicus had once subdued almost the whole of Germany; later emperors had held temporarily the broad province of Dacia, beyond the Danube. The barbarians were eagerly enlisted in the Roman army. During the closing centuries of decadence they became its main support; they rose to high commands; there were even barbarian emperors at last. The intermingling of the two worlds thus became extensive, and the Teutons learned much of Rome. The Goths whom Theodosius permitted to settle within its dominions were already partly Christian. THE PERIOD OF INVASION It was these same Goths who