Empire; and how these three fragments dragged on a separate existence, full of wars and revolts; all this belongs to Grecian history.
How, about two centuries and a half before Christ, another, but more mixed portion of this Pelasgic family, which had arisen in Italy, and in the course of several centuries rendered itself coëxtensive with that peninsula—began to assume consequence in the wider area of the Mediterranean world: how it first grappled with the power of the Carthaginians (B. C. 264-201), who for several centuries had been pursuing the career of world-*merchants, formerly pursued by their fathers the Ph[oe]nicians; how it then assailed and subdued the crumbling Macedonian monarchy, incorporating all Greece with itself (B. C. 134); how retrograding, so to speak, into Asia, it gradually absorbed the Syrian and Egyptian monarchies, till it came into collision with the Parthian empire at the Euphrates (B. C. 134-B. C. 60); how, advancing into the new regions of northern and western Europe, it compelled the yet uncultured races there—the Celts or Gauls, the Iberians, etc.—to enter the pale of civilization (B. C. 80-50); how thus, from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, was founded a new empire, called 'The Roman,' retaining, with vast additions, all that portion of humanity which the former empires had embraced, with the exception of what had lapsed back to the Parthians; how this empire subsisted for several centuries, a great mass of matured humanity girt by comparative barbarism—that is, surrounded on the east by the Parthians, on the south by the Ethiopians, on the north by the Germans and Scythians, and on the west by the roar of the Atlantic; and how at last (A. D. 400-475) this great mass, having lost its vitality, fell asunder before the irruption of the barbaric element—that is, the Germans, the Scythians, and the Arabs—giving rise to the infant condition of the modern world; all this belongs to Roman history, which forms the subject of a separate treatise.
With one general remark we shall conclude; namely: that the progress of history—that is, of Caucasian development—has evidently been, upon the whole, from the east westward. First, as we have seen, the Assyrian or Semitic fermentation affected western Asia as far as the Mediterranean; then the Persian movement extended the historic stage to the Ægean; after that the Macedonian conquest extended it to the Adriatic; and finally, the Romans extended it to the Atlantic. For fifteen centuries humanity kept dashing itself against this barrier; till, at length, like a great missionary sent in search, the spirit of Columbus shot across the Atlantic. And now, in the form of a dominant Anglic race, though with large inter-*mixture, Caucasian vitality is working in its newest method, with Ethiopian help, on the broad and fertile field of America.
HISTORY OF GREECE—EARLY MYTHOLOGY.
The history of the Grecian states commences about 1800 years before Christ, when the Egyptians on the opposite side of the Mediterranean were in a high state of civilization; but the portion of history which precedes 884 B. C. is understood to be fabulous, and entitled to little credit.
According to the Greek poets, the original inhabitants of the country,
