Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 29)

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, lectures 103-104 (volume 3).

{2885}

SELEUCIDÆ:B. C. 224-187. The reign of Antiochus the Great. His early successes. His disastrous war with the Romans. His diminished kingdom. His death.

Antiochus the Great first proved his military talents in the war against the rebellious brothers Molo and Alexander, the satraps of Media and Persia (B. C. 220). "He next renewed the old contest with Egypt for the possession of Cœle-Syria and Palestine, and was forced to cede those provinces to Ptolemy Philopator, as the result of his decisive defeat at Raphia, near Gaza, in the same year in which the battle of the Trasimene lake (between Hannibal and the Romans] was fought (B. C. 217). Meanwhile, Achæus, the governor of Asia Minor, had raised the standard of independence; but after an obstinate resistance he was defeated and taken at Sardis, and put to death by Antiochus (B. C. 214). This success in the West encouraged Antiochus, like his father, to attempt the reconquest of the East, and with greater appearance at least of success. But a seven years' war (B. C. 212-205) only resulted in his acknowledgment of the independence of the Parthian monarchy (B. C. 205). The same year witnessed not only the crisis of the Hannibalic War, but the death of Ptolemy Philopator; and the opportunity offered by the latter event effectually withdrew Antiochus from direct participation in the great conflict. The league which he made with Philip [Philip V., king of Macedonia, who had then just concluded a peace with the Romans, ending the 'First Macedonian War'—see GREECE: B. C. 214-146], instead of being a well-concerted plan for the exclusion of the Romans from Asia, was only intended to leave him at liberty to pursue his designs against Egypt, while Philip bore the brunt of the war with Attalus [king of Pergamus, or Pergamum] and the Romans. During the crisis of the Macedonian War, he prosecuted a vigorous attack upon Cilicia, Cœle-Syria, and Palestine, while the Romans hesitated to engage in a new contest to protect the dominions of their youthful ward [Ptolemy V. Epiphanes, the infant king of Egypt, whose guardians had placed him under the protection of the Roman senate]. At length a decisive victory over the Egyptians at Panium, the hill whence the Jordan rises, was followed by a peace which gave the coveted provinces to Antiochus [see JEWS: B. C. 332-167], while the youthful Ptolemy was betrothed to Cleopatra, the daughter of the Syrian king (B. C. 198). It must not be forgotten that, the transference of these provinces from Egypt, which had constantly pursued a tolerant policy towards the Jews, led afterwards to the furious persecution of that people by Antiochus Epiphanes, and their successful revolt under the Maccabees [see JEWS: B. C. 166-40]. The time seemed now arrived for Antiochus to fly to the aid of Philip, before he should be crushed by the Romans; but the Syrian king still clung to the nearer and dearer object of extending his power over the whole of Asia Minor. … He collected a great army at Sardis, while his fleet advanced along the southern shores of Asia Minor, so that he was brought into collision both with Attalus and the Rhodians, the allies of Rome. … Though the Rhodians succeeded in protecting the chief cities of Caria, and Antiochus was repelled from some important places by the resistance of the inhabitants, he became master of several others, and among the rest of Abydos on the Hellespont. Even the conquest of his ally Philip was in the first instance favourable to his progress; for the hesitating policy of the Romans suffered him to occupy the places vacated by the Macedonian garrisons." It was not until 191 B. C. that the fatuity of the Syrian monarch brought him into collision with the legions of Rome. He had formed an alliance with the Ætolians in Greece, and he had received into his camp the fugitive Carthaginian, Hannibal; but petty jealousies forbade his profiting by the genius of the great unfortunate soldier. He entered Greece with a small force in 192 B. C., occupied the pass of Thermopylæ, and entrenched himself there, waiting reinforcements which did not come to him. Even the Macedonians were arrayed against him. Early in the following year he was attacked in this strong position by the Roman consul Manius Acilius Glabrio, Despite the immense advantages of the position he was defeated overwhelmingly and his army almost totally destroyed (B. C. 191). He fled to Chalcis and from Chalcis to Asia; but he had not escaped the long arm of wrathful Rome, now roused against him. For the first time, a Roman army crossed the Hellespont and entered the Asiatic world, under the command of the powerful Scipios, Africanus and his brother. At the same time a Roman fleet, in co-operation with the navy of Rhodes, swept the coasts of Asia Minor. After some minor naval engagements, a great battle was fought off the promontory of Myonnesus, near Ephesus, in which the Syrians lost half their fleet (B. C. 190). … On land Antiochus fared no better. A vast and motley host which he gathered for the defense of his dominions was assailed by L. Scipio at Magnesia, under Mount Sipylus (B. C. 190), and easily destroyed, some 50,000 of its dead being left on the field. This ended the war and stripped Antiochus of all his former conquests in Asia Minor. Much of the territory taken from him was handed over to the king of Pergamum, faithful ally and friend of Rome; some to the republic of Rhodes, and some was left undisturbed in its political state, as organized in the minor states of Cappadocia, Bithynia and the rest. "As the battle of Magnesia was the last, in ancient history, of those unequal conflicts, in which oriental armies yielded like unsubstantial shows to the might of disciplined freedom, so it sealed the fate of the last of the great oriental empires; for the kingdom left to the heirs of Seleucus was only strong enough to indulge them in the luxuries of Antioch and the malignant satisfaction of persecuting the Jews. All resistance ceased in Asia Minor; that great peninsula was ceded as far as the Taurus and the Halys, with whatever remained nominally to Antiochus in Thrace; and, with characteristic levity, he thanked the Romans for relieving him of the government of too large a kingdom. … Never, perhaps, did a great power fall so rapidly, so thoroughly, and so ignominiously as the kingdom of the Seleucidæ under this Antiochus the Great. He himself was soon afterwards slain by the indignant inhabitants of Elymaïs at the head of the Persian Gulf, on occasion of the plundering of a temple of Bel, with the treasures of which he had sought to replenish his empty coffers (B. C. 187), … The petty princes of Phrygia soon submitted to the power and exactions of the new lords of Western Asia; but the powerful Celtic tribes of Galatia made a stand in the fastnesses of Mount Olympus." They were overcome, however, and the survivors driven beyond the Halys. "That river, fixed by the treaty with Antiochus as the eastern limit of Roman power, in Asia, was respected as the present terminus of their conquests, without putting a bound to their influence." {2886} Eumenes, king of Pergamus, "was justly rewarded for his sufferings and services by the apportionment of the greater part of the territories ceded by Antiochus to the aggrandizement of his kingdom. Pergamus became the most powerful state of Western Asia, including nearly the whole of Asia Minor up to the Halys and the Taurus, except Bithynia and Galatia on the one side, and on the other Lycia and the greater part of Caria, which went to recompense the fidelity of the Rhodians; and to these Asiatic possessions were added, in Europe, the Thracian Chersonese and the city of Lysimachia."

P. Smith, History of the World: Ancient, chapter 27 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. P. Mahaffy, The Story of Alexander's Empire, chapters 24 and 28.

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 2.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 65.

SELEUCIDÆ:B. C. 150. Conquest by the Parthians of Media, Persia, Susiana, Babylonia and Assyria.

See PERSIA: B. C. 150-A. D. 226.

SELEUCIDÆ:B. C. 64. Pompeius in the East. Syria absorbed in the dominion of Rome.

In 64, B. C. having finished the Mithridatic War, driving the Pontic king across the Euxine into the Crimea, Pompeius Magnus marched into Syria to settle affairs in that disordered region.

See ROME: B. C. 69-63.

He had received from the Roman senate and people, under the Manilian Law, an extraordinary commission, with supreme powers in Asia, and by virtue of this authority he assumed to dispose of the eastern kingdoms at will. The last of the Seleucid kings of Syria was deprived of his throne at Pompey's command, and Syria was added to the dominions of Rome. He then turned his attention to Judæa.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 3, chapters 9-10.

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.

—————SELEUCIDÆ: End————

SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.

SELGOVÆ, The.

A tribe which, in Roman times, occupied the modern county of Dumfries, Scotland.

See BRITAIN, CELTIC TRIBES.

SELIM I., Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1512-1520.

Selim II., Turkish Sultan, 1566-1574.

Selim III., Turkish Sultan, 1789-1807.

SELINUS, Destruction of (B. C. 409).

See SICILY: B. C. 409-405.

SELJUKS.

See TURKS (SELJUKS).

SELLA CURULIS.

See CURULE CHAIR.

SELLASIA, Battle of.

The last and decisive battle in what was called the Kleomenic War—fought B. C. 221. The war had its origin in the resistance of Sparta, under the influence of its last heroic king, Kleomenes, to the growing power of the Achaian League, revived and extended by Aratos. In the end, the League, to defeat Kleomenes, was persuaded by Aratos to call in Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, and practically to surrender itself, as an instrument in his hands, for the subjugation of Sparta and all Peloponnesus. The deed was accomplished on the field of Sellasia. Kleomenes fled to Egypt; "Sparta now, for the first time since the return of the Hêrakleids, opened her gates to a foreign conqueror."

E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 7, section 4.

ALSO IN: Plutarch, Kleomenes.

See, also, GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

SELLI, The.

See HELLAS.

SEMINARA, Battle of (1503).

See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.

SEMINOLES.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SEMINOLES, and MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY; also, FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818, 1835-1843.

—————SEMITES: Start————

SEMITES, The

"The 'Semitic Race' owes its name to a confusion of ethnology with philology. A certain family of speech, composed of languages closely related to one another and presupposing a common mother-tongue, received the title of 'Semitic' from the German scholar Eichhorn. There was some justification for such a name. The family of speech consists of Hebrew and Phoenician, of Aramaic, of Assyrian and Babylonian, of Arabian, of South Arabian and of Ethiopic or Ge'ez. Eber, Aram, and Asshur were all sons of Shem, and the South Arabian tribes claimed descent from Joktan. In default of a better title, therefore, 'Semitic' was introduced and accepted in order to denote the group of languages of which Hebrew and Aramaic form part. But whatever justification there may have been for speaking of a Semitic family of languages there was none for speaking of a Semitic race. To do so was to confound language and race, and to perpetuate the old error which failed to distinguish between the two. Unfortunately, however, when scholars began to realise the distinction between language and race, the mischief was already done. 'The Semitic race' had become, as it were, a household term of ethnological science. It was too late to try to displace it; all we can do is to define it accurately and distinguish it carefully from the philological term, 'the Semitic family of speech.' … There are members of the Semitic race who do not speak Semitic languages, and speakers of Semitic languages who do not belong to the Semitic race. … It is questionable whether the Phoenicians or Canaanites were of purely Semitic ancestry, and yet it was from them that the Israelites learned the language which we call Hebrew. … Northern Arabia was the early home of the Semitic stock, and it is in Northern Arabia that we still meet with it but little changed. … The Bedawin of Northern Arabia, and to a lesser extent the settled population of the Hijaz, may therefore be regarded as presenting us with the purest examples of the Semitic type. But even the Bedawin are not free from admixture."

A. H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament, chapter 4.

"The following is a scheme of the divisions of the Semitic race. It is based partly upon the evidence afforded by linguistic affinity, and partly upon geographical and historical distribution:

A. Northern Semites. I. Babylonian: a. Old Babylonian b. Assyrian c. Chaldæan

II. Aramæan: a. Mesopotamian b. Syrian.

III. Canaanitic a. Canaanites b. Phœnicians

IV. Hebraic a. Hebrews b. Moabites c. Ammonites d. Edomites

B. Southern Semites. I. Sabæans

II. Ethiopians

III. Arabs.

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It should be said with regard to the foregoing classification, that it has been made as general as possible, since it is a matter of great difficulty to make clear-cut divisions on an exact ethnological basis. If a linguistic classification were attempted, a scheme largely different would have to be exhibited. … Again it should be observed that the mixture of races which was continually going on in the Semitic world is not and cannot be indicated by our classification. The Babylonians, for example, received a constant accession from Aramæans encamped on their borders, and even beyond the Tigris; but these, as well as non-Semitic elements from the mountains and plains to the east, they assimilated in speech and customs. The same general remark applies to the Aramæans of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, while the peoples of Southern and Eastern Palestine, and in fact all the communities that bordered on the Great Desert, from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, were continually absorbing individuals or tribes of Arabian stock. Finally, it must be remarked that in some sub-divisions it is necessary to use a geographical instead of a properly racial distinction; and that is, of course, to be limited chronologically. Thus, for instance, it is impossible to devise a single strictly ethnological term for the two great divisions of the Aramæans. It is now pretty generally admitted that the home of the Semitic race, before its separation into the historical divisions, was Northern Arabia. … The historical distribution of the several families is thus best accounted for. … While among the Southern Semites the various Arab tribes remained for the most part in their desert home for thousands of years as obscure Bedawin, and the Sabæans cultivated the rich soil of the southwest and the southern coast of Arabia, and there developed cities and a flourishing commerce, and the nearly related Ethiopians, migrating across the Red Sea, slowly built up in Abyssinia an isolated civilization of their own, those branches of the race with which we are immediately concerned, after a lengthened residence in common camping grounds, moved northward and westward to engage in more important enterprises. The Babylonians, occupying the region which the Bible makes known to us as the scene of man's creation, and which historical research indicates to have been the seat of the earliest civilization, made their home on the lands of the Lower Euphrates and Tigris, converting them through canalization and irrigation into rich and powerful kingdoms finally united under the rule of Babylon. Before the union was effected, emigrants from among these Babylonians settled along the Middle Tigris, founded the city of Asshur, and later still the group of cities known to history as Nineveh. The Assyrians then, after long struggles, rose to pre-eminence in Western Asia, till after centuries of stern dominion they yielded to the new Babylonian regime founded by the Chaldæans from the shores of the Persian Gulf. The Canaanites, debarred from the riches of the East, turned northwestward at an unknown early date, and while some of them occupied and cultivated the valleys of Palestine, others seized the maritime plain and the western slope of Lebanon. On the coast of the latter region they took advantage of the natural harbours wanting in the former, and tried the resources and possibilities of the sea. As Phœnicians of Sidon and Tyre, they became the great navigators and maritime traders for the nations, and sent forth colonies over the Mediterranean. …

See PHŒNICIA.

Meanwhile the pasture lands between the Tigris and the Euphrates and between the southern desert and the northern mountains were gradually being occupied by the Aramæans, who advanced with flocks and herds along the Euphrates. … While the bulk of the Aramæans adhered to the old pastoral life among the good grazing districts in the confines of the desert, a large number, favoured by their intermediate position between urban and nomadic settlements, addicted themselves to the carrying trade between the East and the West. … This remarkable people, however, never attained to political autonomy on a large scale in their Mesopotamian home, to which for long ages they were confined. After the decline of the Hettite principalities west of the Euphrates [see HITTITES], to which they themselves largely contributed, they rapidly spread in that quarter also. They mingled with the non-Semitic Hettite inhabitants of Carchemish and Hamath, formed settlements along the slopes of Amanus and Anti-Lebanon, and created on the northeast corner of Palestine a powerful state with Damascus as the centre, which was long a rival of Israel, and even stood out against the might of Assyria. Thus the Aramæans really acted a more prominent political part to the west than they did to the east of the Euphrates, and accordingly they have been popularly most closely associated with the name 'Syria.' At the same time they did not abandon their old settlements between the Rivers. … As the latest of the historical divisions of the race to form an independent community, the Hebraic family made their permanent settlement in and about Palestine.

See JEWS.

Their common ancestors of the family of Terah emigrated from Southern Babylonia more than two thousand years before the Christian era. It is highly probable that they were of Aramæan stock."

J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

"The Hebrews … divided the country of Aram [between the [Mediterranean and the Euphrates] into several regions;

1st Aram Naharaim, or 'Aram of the two rivers,' that is, the Mesopotamia of the Greeks, between the Euphrates and the Tigris;

2d Aram properly so called, that is, Syria, whose most ancient and important city was Damascus; and

3d Aram Zobah, or the region in which in later times was formed the kingdom of Palmyra."

F. Lenormant and E. Chevalier, Manual of the Ancient History of the East, book 1, chapter 4.

"The Semitic home is distinguished by its central position in geography—between Asia and Africa, and between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, which is Europe; and the rôle in history of the Semitic race has been also intermediary. The Semites have been the great middlemen of the world. Not second-rate in war, they have risen to the first rank in commerce and religion. They have been the carriers between East and West, they have stood between the great ancient civilizations and those which go to make up the modern world; while by a higher gift, for which their conditions neither in place nor in time fully account, they have been mediary between God and man, and proved the religious teachers of the world, through whom have come its three highest faiths, its only universal religions."

George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, page 5.

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"If we ask what the Semitic peoples have contributed to this organic and living whole which is called civilization, we shall find, in the first place, that, in polity, we owe them nothing at all. Political life is perhaps the most peculiar and native characteristic of the Indo-European nations. These nations are the only ones that have known liberty, that have reconciled the State with the independence of the individual. … In art and poetry what do we owe to them? In art nothing. These tribes have but little of the artist; our art comes entirely from Greece. In poetry, nevertheless, without being their tributaries, we have with them more than one bond of union. The Psalms have become in some respects one of our sources of poetry. Hebrew poetry has taken a place with us beside Greek poetry, not as having furnished a distinct order of poetry, but as constituting a poetic ideal, a sort of Olympus where in consequence of an accepted prestige everything is suffused with a halo of light. … Here again, however, all the shades of expression, all the delicacy, all the depth is our work. The thing essentially poetic is the destiny of man; his melancholy moods, his restless search after causes, his just complaint to heaven. There was no necessity of going to strangers to learn this. The eternal school here is each man's soul. In science and philosophy we are exclusively Greek. The investigation of causes, knowledge for knowledge's own sake, is a thing of which there is no trace previous to Greece, a thing that we have learned from her alone. Babylon possessed a science, but it had not that pre-eminently scientific principle, the absolute fixedness of natural law. … We owe to the Semitic race neither political life, art, poetry, philosophy, nor science. What then do we owe to them? We owe to them religion. The whole world, if we except India, China, Japan, and tribes altogether savage, has adopted the Semitic religions. The civilized world comprises only Jews, Christians, and Mussulmans. The Indo-European race in particular, excepting the Brahmanic family and the feeble relics of the Parsees, has gone over completely to the Semitic faiths. What has been the cause of this strange phenomenon? How happens it that the nations who hold the supremacy of the world have renounced their own creed to adopt that of the people they have conquered? The primitive worship of the Indo-European race … was charming and profound, like the imagination of the nations themselves. It was like an echo of nature, a sort of naturalistic hymn, in which the idea of one sole cause appears but occasionally and uncertainly. It was a child's religion, full of artlessness and poetry, but destined to crumble at the first demand of thought. Persia first effected its reform (that which is associated with the name of Zoroaster) under influences and at an epoch unknown to us. Greece, in the time of Pisistratus, was already dissatisfied with her religion, and was turning towards the East. In the Roman period, the old pagan worship had become utterly insufficient. It no longer addressed the imagination; it spoke feebly to the moral sense. The old myths on the forces of nature had become changed into fables, not unfrequently amusing and ingenious; but destitute of all religious value. It is precisely at this epoch that the civilized world finds itself face to face with the Jewish faith. Based upon the clear and simple dogma of the divine unity, discarding naturalism and pantheism by the marvellously terse phrase: 'In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth,' possessing a law, a book, the depository of grand moral precepts and of an elevated religious poetry, Judaism had an incontestable superiority, and it might have been foreseen then that some day the world would become Jewish, that is to say would forsake the old mythology for Monotheism."

E. Renan, Studies of Religious History and Criticism, pages 154-160.

SEMITES: Primitive Babylonia.

"The Babylonians were … the first of the Semites to enter the arena of history, and they did so by virtue of the civilization to which they attained in and through their settlements on the Lower Euphrates and Tigris. … The unrivalled fertility of the soil of Babylonia was the result not only of the quality of the soil, but of the superadded benefits of the colossal system of drainage and canalization which was begun by the ingenuity of the first civilized inhabitants. Of the natural elements of fertility, the Euphrates contributed by far the larger share. … The … formations of clay, mud, and gypsum, comprising elements of the richest soil, are found in such profusion in Babylonia that in the days of ancient civilization it was the most fruitful portion of the whole earth with the possible exception of the valley of the Nile. It was roughly reckoned by Herodotus to equal in productiveness half the rest of Asia. … The rise of the Semites in Babylonia, like all other origins, is involved in obscurity. The earliest authentic records, drawn as they are from their own monuments, reveal this gifted race as already in possession of a high degree of civilization, with completed systems of national religion, a language already long past its formative period, and a stage of advancement in art that testifies to the existence of a wealthy class of taste and leisure, to whom their nomadic ancestry must have been little more than a vague tradition. The same records also show this Semitic people to have extended their sway in Western Asia as far as the Mediterranean coastland many centuries before Phœnicians or Hebrews or Hettites came before the world in any national or corporate form. Questions of deep interest arise in connection with such facts as these. It is asked: Did the Babylonian Semites develop the elements of their civilization alone, or did they inherit that of another race? … In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, we are entitled to assume that the same race who in historical times gave proof of high mental endowments reached their unique level of intellectual attainment by a process of self-education. A contrary opinion is held by many scholars of high rank. I refer to the well-known theory that the Semitic Babylonians acquired their civilization from another people who preceded them in the occupation and cultivation of the country.

See BABYLONIA, PRIMITIVE.

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This hypothetical race is named Sumerian from the term Sumer, generally, but erroneously, supposed to be the designation of Southern Babylonia. With this in the Inscriptions is coupled the name of Akkad, another geographical term properly connoting Northern Babylonia. This appellation has given rise to the name 'Akkadian;' used by most of these modern authorities to designate a supposed subdivision of the same people, speaking a dialect of the main Sumerian language. … The Sumerian theory has played a great role in linguistic and ethnological research during the last twenty years. The general aspect of the supposed language led at once to its being classed with the agglutinative families of speech, and the inevitable 'Turanian' conveniently opened its hospitable doors. … While we are … obliged, until further light shall have been cast upon the subject, to assume that the earliest type of Babylonian culture was mainly of Semitic origin, it would be rash to assert that people of that race were the sole occupants of the lower River country in prehistoric times, or that they received no important contributions to their development from any outside races. … It … remains for us to assume it to be possible that an antecedent or contemporanous people bore a small share with the Semites in the early development of the country, and that, as a result of their contact with the stronger race, they bequeathed to it some of the elements of the surviving religion, mythology, and popular superstition."

J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

"As to the ancient history of Babylon, it is well to learn to be patient and to wait. The progress of discovery and decipherment is so rapid, that what is true this year is shown to be wrong next year. … This is no discredit to the valiant pioneers in this glorious campaign. On the contrary it speaks well for their perseverance and for their sense of truth. I shall only give you one instance to show what I mean by calling the ancient periods of Babylonian history also constructive rather than authentic. My friend Professor Sayce claims 4000 B. C. as the beginning of Babylonian literature. Nabonidus, he tells us (Hibbert Lectures, page 21), in 550 B. C. explored the great temple of the Sun god at Sippara. This temple was believed to have been founded by Naram Sin, the son of Sargon. Nabonidus, however, lighted upon the actual foundation-stone—a stone, we are told, which had not been seen by any of his predecessors for 3,200 years. On the strength of this the date of 3,200 + 550 years, that is, 3750 B. C., is assigned to Naram Sin, the son of Sargon. These two kings, however, are said to be quite modern, and to have been preceded by a number of so-called Proto-Chaldæan kings, who spoke a Proto-Chaldæan language, long before the Semitic population had entered the land. It is concluded, further, from some old inscriptions on diorite, brought from the Peninsula of Sinai to Chaldæa, that the quarries of Sinai, which were worked by the Egyptians at the time of their third dynasty, say six thousand years ago, may have been visited about the same time by these Proto-Chaldæans. 4000 B. C., we are told, would therefore be a very moderate initial epoch for Babylonian and Egyptian literature. I am the very last person to deny the ingeniousness of these arguments, or to doubt the real antiquity of the early civilization of Babylon or Egypt. All I wish to point out is, that we should always keep before our eyes the constructive character of this ancient history and chronology. To use a foundation-stone, on its own authority, as a stepping-stone over a gap of 3,200 years, is purely constructive chronology, and as such is to be carefully distinguished from what historians mean by authentic history, as when Herodotus or Thucydides tells us what happened during their own lives or before their own eyes."

F. Max Müller, On the "Enormous Antiquity" of the East (Nineteenth Century, 1891).

"Dr. Tiele rejects the name 'Accadian,' which has been adopted by so many Assyriologists, and is strongly indisposed to admit Turanian affinities. Yet he is so_far from accepting the alternative theory of Halévy and Guyard, that this so-called Accadian, or Sumerian, is only another way of writing Assyrian, that he can scarcely comprehend how a man of learning and penetration can maintain such a strange position. He seems to consider a positive decision in the present stage of the inquiry premature; but pronounces the hypothesis which lies at the basis of the Accadian theory, namely, that the peculiarities of the cuneiform writing are explicable only by the assumption that it was originally intended for another language than the Assyrian, to be by far the most probable. He calls this language, which may or may not have been non-Semitic, 'Old Chaldee,' because what was later on called Chaldaea 'was certainly its starting-point in Mesopotamia.' The superiority of this name to 'Accadian' or 'Sumerian' is not very obvious, as the name 'Chaldee' is not found before the ninth century B. C., while the oldest title of the Babylonian kings is 'king of Sumir and Accad.' In the interesting account of the provinces and cities of Babylonia and Assyria, … two identifications which have found much favour with Assyriologists are mentioned in a very sceptical way. The 'Ur' of Abraham is generally believed, with Schrader, to be the 'El Mughair' of the Arabs. Dr. Tiele coldly observes that this identification, though not impossible, is not proved. Again, the tower of Babel is identified by Schrader either with Babil on the left side of the river, or with Birs Nimrud (Borsippa) on the right side. Dr. Tiele considers the latter site impossible, because Borsippa is always spoken of as a distinct place, and was too distant from Babylon for the supposed outer wall of the great city to enclose it. He also rejects Schrader's theory that the name Nineveh in later times included Dur Sargon (Khorsabad), Resen, and Calah, as well as Nineveh proper. The history is divided into four periods:

1. The old Babylonian period, from the earliest days down to the time when Assyria was sufficiently strong and independent to contend with Babylon on equal terms.

2. The first Assyrian period down to the accession of Tiglath-pileser II. in 745 B. C.

3. The Second Assyrian Period, from 745 B. C. to the Fall of Nineveh.

4. The New Babylonian Empire.

In treating of the first period, Dr. Tiele makes no attempt to deal with the Deluge Tablets as a source of historical knowledge, putting them on one side apparently as purely mythical. He despairs of tracing Babylonian culture to its earliest home. The belief that it originated on the shores of the Persian Gulf seems to him uncertain, but he is not able to fill the gap with any other satisfactory hypothesis. Babylonian history begins for him with Sargon I., whom he regards as most probably either of Semitic descent or a representative of Semitic sovereignty. He is sceptical about the early date assigned to this king by Nabunahid, the thirty-eighth century B. C., and is disposed to regard the quaint story of his concealment when an infant in a basket of reeds as a solar myth; but he is compelled to admit as solid fact the amazing statements of the inscriptions about his mighty empire 'extending from Elam to the coast of the Mediterranean and the borders of Egypt, nay, even to Cyprus.' So early as 1850 B. C., he thinks, the supremacy of Babylon had been established for centuries."

Review of Dr. Tiele's History of Babylonia and Assyria (Academy, January 1, 1887).

ALSO IN: The Earliest History of Babylonia (Quarterly Review, October, 1894, reviewing "Découvertes en Chaldée, par Ernest de Sarsec).

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SEMITES: The First Babylonian Empire.

"It is with the reign of Hammurabi that the importance of Babylonia—the country owning Babel as its capital—begins. … Hammurabi (circ. 2250 B. C.) is the sixth on the Babylonian list [i. e. a list of kings found among the inscriptions recovered from the mounds of ruined cities in Mesopotamia]. The great majority of the inscriptions of his long reign of fifty-five years refer to peaceful works." As, for example, "the famous canal inscription: 'I am Hammurabi, the mighty king, king of Ka-dingirra (Babylon), the king whom the regions obey, the winner of victory for his lord Merodach, the shepherd, who rejoices his heart. When the gods Anu and Bel granted me to rule the people of Sumer and Akkad, and gave the sceptre into my hand, I dug the canal called "Hammurabi, the blessing of the people," which carries with it the overflow of the water for the people of Sumer and Akkad. I allotted both its shores for food. Measures of corn I poured forth. A lasting water supply I made for the people of Sumer and Akkad. I brought together the numerous troops of the people of Sumer and Akkad, food and drink I made for them; with blessing and abundance I gifted them. In convenient abodes I caused them to dwell. Thenceforward I am Hammurabi, the mighty king, the favourite of the great gods. With the might accorded me by Merodach I built a tall tower with great entrances, whose summits are high like … at the head of the canal "Hammurabi, the blessing of the people." I named the tower Sinmuballit tower, after the name of my father, my begetter. The statue of Sinmuballit, my father, my begetter, I set up at the four quarters of heaven.' … Rings bearing the legend 'Palace of Hammurabi' have been found in the neighbourhood of Bagdad, and presumably indicate the existence of a royal residence there."

E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, volume 1, pages 282-283.

"The canal to which this king boasts of having given his name, the 'Nahar-Hammourabi,' was called in later days the royal canal, 'Nahar Malcha.' Herodotus saw and admired it, its good condition was an object of care to the king himself, and we know that it was considerably repaired by Nebuchadnezzar. When civilization makes up its mind to re-enter upon that country, nothing more will be needed for the re-awakening in it of life and reproductive energy, than the restoration of the great works undertaken by the contemporaries of Abraham and Jacob."

G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, History of Art in Chaldæa and Assyria, volume 1, page 40.

"After a reign of fifty-five years, Chammurabi [or Hammurabi] bequeathed the crown of Babylon and the united kingdoms of Babylonia to his son Samsu-iluna (B. C. 2209-2180). This ruler, reigning in the spirit of his father, developed still further the national system of canalization. … Five kings after Chammurabi, till 2098 B. C., complete the list of the eleven kings of this first dynasty, who reigned in all 304 years. The epoch made memorable by the deeds and enterprise of Chammurabi is followed by a period of 368 years, of the occurrences of which absolutely nothing is known, except the names and regnal years of another list of eleven kings reigning in the city of Babylon. … The foreign non-Semitic race, which for nearly six centuries (c. 1730-1153), from this time onward, held a controlling place in the affairs of Babylonia, are referred to in the inscriptions by the name Kassē. These Kasshites came from the border country between Northern Elam and Media, and were in all probability of the same race as the Elamites. The references to them make them out to be both mountaineers and tent-dwellers. … The political sway of the foreign masters was undisputed, but the genius of the government and the national type of culture and forms of activity were essentially unchanged. … Through century after century, and millennium after millennium, the dominant genius of Babylonia remained the same. It conquered all its conquerors, and moulded them to its own likeness by the force of its manifold culture, by the appliances as well as the prestige of the arts of peace. … The Babylonians were not able to maintain perpetually their political autonomy or integrity, not because they were not brave or patriotic," but because "they were not, first and foremost, a military people. Their energies were mainly spent in trade and manufacture, in science and art. … The time which the native historiographers allow to the new [Kasshite] dynasty is 577 years. … This Kasshite conquest of Babylonia … prevented the consolidation of the eastern branch of the Semites, by alienating from Babylonia the Assyrian colonists. … Henceforth there was almost perpetual rivalry and strife between Assyria and the parent country. Henceforth, also, it is Assyria that becomes the leading power in the West."

J. F. McCurdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, book 2, chapter 3, and book 4, chapter 1 (volume 1).

"The Kassites gave a dynasty to Babylonia which lasted for 576 years (B. C. 1806-1230). The fact that the rulers of the country were Kassites by race, and that their army largely consisted of Kassite troops, caused the neighbouring populations to identify the Babylonians with their conquerors and lords. Hence it is that in the tablets of Tel el-Amarna, the Canaanite writers invariably term the Babylonians the 'Kasi.' The 'Kasi' or Cush, we are told, had overrun Palestine in former years and were again threatening the Egyptian province. In calling Nimrod, therefore, a son of Cush the Book of Genesis merely means that he was a Babylonian. But the designation takes us back to the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It was not a designation which could have belonged to that later age, when the Babylonians were known to the Israelites as the 'Kasdim' only. Indeed there is a passage in the Book of Micah (chapter 5) which proves plainly that in that later age 'the land of Nimrod' was synonymous not with Babylonia but with Assyria. The Nimrod of Genesis must have come down to us from the time when the Kassite dynasty still reigned over Babylonia. … {2891} Nimrod was not satisfied with his Babylonian dominions. 'Out of that land he went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and Rehoboth 'Ir (the city boulevards), and Calah and Resen.' … The city of Asshur had been long in existence when Nimrod led his Kassite followers to it, and so made its 'high-priests' tributary to Babylon. It stood on the high-road to the west, and it is not surprising, therefore, that the Kassite kings, after making themselves masters of the future kingdom of Assyria, should have continued their victorious career as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. We may conjecture that Nimrod was the first of them who planted his power so firmly in Palestine as to be remembered in the proverbial lore of the country, and to have introduced that Babylonian culture of which the Tel el-Amarna tablets have given us such abundant evidence."

A. H. Sayce, The Higher Criticism, and the Verdict of the Monuments, chapter 3.

It was during the Kasshite domination in Babylonia that Ahmes, founder of the eighteenth dynasty in Egypt, expelled the Hyksos intruders from that country; and "his successors, returning upon Asia the attack which they had thence received, subjugating, or rather putting to ransom, all the Canaanites of Judea, Phœnicia, and Syria, crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris.

See EGYPT: ABOUT B. C. 1700-1400.

Nineveh twice fell into their power, and the whole Semitic world became vassal to the Pharaohs. The influence of Egypt was real though temporary, but in the reciprocal dealings which were the result of the conquests of the Tutnes [or Thothmes] and the Amenhoteps, the share of the Semites was on the whole the larger. Marriages with the daughters of kings or vassal governors brought into Egypt and established Asiatic types, ideas, and customs on the Theban throne. Amenhotep IV. was purely Semitic; he endeavoured to replace the religion of Ammon by the sun-worship of Syria. In 1887 were discovered the fragments of a correspondence exchanged between the kings of Syria, Armenia, and Babylonia, and the Pharaohs Amenhotep III. and IV.

See EGYPT: ABOUT B. C. 1500-1400.

All these letters are written in cuneiform character and in Semitic or other dialects; it is probable that the answers were drawn up in the same character and in the same languages. For the rest, the subjugated nations had soon recovered. Saryoukm I. had reconstituted the Chaldean empire; the Assyrians, ever at war on their eastern and western frontiers, had more than once crossed the Upper Euphrates and penetrated Asia Minor as far as Troad, where the name Assaracus seems to be a relic of an Assyrian dynasty. The Hittites or Khetas occupied the north of Syria; and when Ramses II., Sesostris, desired in the 15th century to renew the exploits of his ancestors, he was checked at Kadech by the Hittites and forced to retreat after an undecided battle. The great expansion of Egypt was stopped, at least towards the north. The Semitic peoples, on the contrary, were everywhere in the ascendant."

A. Lefèvre, Race and Language, pages 205-206.

SEMITES: The Assyrian Empire.

"According to all appearance it was the Egyptian conquest about sixteen centuries B. C., that led to the partition of Mesopotamia. Vassals of Thothmes and Rameses, called by Berosus the 'Arab kings,' sat upon the throne of Babylon. The tribes of Upper Mesopotamia were farther from Egypt, and their chiefs found it easier to preserve their independence. At first each city had its own prince, but in time one of these petty kingdoms absorbed the rest, and Nineveh became the capital of an united Assyria. As the years passed away the frontiers of the nation thus constituted were pushed gradually southwards until all Mesopotamia was brought under one sceptre. This consummation appears to have been complete by the end of the fourteenth century, at which period Egypt, enfeebled and rolled back upon herself, ceased to make her influence felt upon the Euphrates. Even then Babylon kept her own kings, but they had sunk to be little more than hereditary satraps receiving investiture from Nineveh. Over and over again Babylon attempted to shake off the yoke of her neighbour; but down to the seventh century her revolts were always suppressed, and the Assyrian supremacy re-established after more or less desperate conflicts. During nearly half a century, from about 1060 to 1020 B. C., Babylon seems to have recovered the upper hand. The victories of her princes put an end to what is called the First Assyrian Empire. But after one or two generations a new family mounted the northern throne, and, toiling energetically for a century or so to establish the grandeur of the monarchy, founded the Second Assyrian Empire. The upper country regained its ascendency by the help of military institutions whose details now escape us, although their results may be traced throughout the later history of Assyria. From the tenth century onwards the effects of these institutions become visible in expeditions made by the armies of Assyria, now to the shores of the Persian Gulf or the Caspian, and now through the mountains of Armenia into the plains of Cappadocia, or across the Syrian desert to the Lebanon and the coast cities of Phœnicia. The first princes whose figured monuments—in contradistinction to mere inscriptions—have come down to us, belonged to those days. The oldest of all was Assurnazirpal, whose residence was at Calach (Nimroud). The bas-reliefs with which his palace was decorated are now in the Louvre and the British Museum, most of them in the latter. … To Assurnazirpal's son Shalmaneser III. belongs the obelisk of basalt which also stands in the British Museum. … Shalmaneser was an intrepid man of war. The inscriptions on his obelisk recall the events of thirty-one campaigns waged against the neighbouring peoples under the leadership of the king himself. … Under the immediate successors of Shalmaneser the Assyrian prestige was maintained at a high level by dint of the same lavish bloodshed and truculent energy; but towards the eighth century it began to decline. There was then a period of languor and decadence, some echo of which, and of its accompanying disasters, seems to have been embodied by the Greeks in the romantic tale of Sardanapalus. No shadow of confirmation for the story of a first destruction of Nineveh is to be found in the inscriptions, and, in the middle of the same century, we again find the Assyrian arms triumphant under the leadership of Tiglath Pileser II., a king modelled after the great warriors of the earlier days. This prince seems to have carried his victorious arms as far east as the Indus, and west as the frontiers of Egypt. {2892} And yet it was only under his second successor, Saryoukin, or, to give him his popular name, Sargon, the founder of a new dynasty, that Syria, with the exception of Tyre, was brought into complete submission after a great victory over the Egyptians (721-704). … His son Sennacherib equalled him both as a soldier and as a builder. He began by crushing the rebels of Elam and Chaldæa with unflinching severity; in his anger he almost exterminated the inhabitants of Babylon, the perennial seat of revolt; but, on the other hand, he repaired and restored Nineveh. Most of his predecessors had been absentees from the capital, and had neglected its buildings. … He chose a site well within the city for the magnificent palace which Mr. Layard has been the means of restoring to the world. This building is now known as Kouyoundjik, from the name of the village perched upon the mound within which the buildings of Sennacherib were hidden. Sennacherib rebuilt the walls, the towers, and the quays of Nineveh at the same time, so that the capital, which had never ceased to be the strongest and most populous city of the empire, again became the residence of the king—a distinction which it was to preserve until the fast approaching date of its final destruction. The son of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and his grandson, Assurbanipal [long identified with the Sardanapalus of the Greeks; but Prof. Sayce now finds the Sardanapalus of Greek romance in a rebel king, Assur-dain-pal, who reigned B. C. 827-820, and whose name and history fit the tale], pushed the adventures and conquests of the Assyrian arms still farther. They subdued the whole north of Arabia, and invaded Egypt more than once. … There was a moment when the great Semitic Empire founded by the Sargonides touched even the Ægæan, for Cyges, king of Lydia, finding himself menaced by the Cimmerians, did homage to Assurbanipal, and sued for help against those foes to all civilization."

G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, A History of Art in Chaldæa and Assyria, chapter 1, section 5 (volume 1).

"The power of Assurbanipal was equal to the task of holding under control the subjects of Assyria at all points. He boasts of having compelled the king of Tyre to drink sea-water to quench his thirst. The greatest opposition he met with was in Elam, but this too he was able to suppress. … Assurbanipal says that he increased the tributes, but that his action was opposed by his own brother, whom he had formerly maintained by force of arms in Babylon, This brother now seduced a great number of other nations and princes from their allegiance. … The king of Babylon placed himself, so to speak, at their head. … The danger was immensely increased when the king set up by Assurbanipal in Elam joined the movement. It was necessary to put an end to this revolt, and this was effected for once without much difficulty. … Thereupon the rebellious brother in Babylon has to give way. The gods who go before Assurbanipal have, as he says, thrust the king of Babylon into a consuming fire and put an end to his life. His adherents … are horribly punished. … The provinces which joined them are subjected to the laws of the Assyrian gods. Even the Arabs, who have sided with the rebels, bow before the king, whilst of his power in Egypt it is said that it extended to the sources of the Nile. His dominion reached even to Asia Minor. … Assyria is the first conquering power which we encounter in the history of the world. The most effective means which she brought to bear in consolidating her conquests consisted in the transportation of the principal inhabitants from the subjugated districts to Assyria, and the settlement of Assyrians in the newly acquired provinces. … The most important result of the action of Assyria upon the world was perhaps that she limited or broke up the petty sovereignties and the local religions of Western Asia. … It was … an event which convulsed the world when this power, in the full current of its life and progress, suddenly ceased to exist. Since the 10th century every event of importance had originated in Assyria; in the middle of the 7th she suddenly collapsed. … Of the manner in which the ruin of Nineveh was brought about we have nowhere any authentic record. … Apart from their miraculous accessories, the one circumstance in which … [most of the accounts given] agree, is that Assyria was overthrown by the combination of the Medes and Babylonians. Everything else that is said on the subject verges on the fabulous; and even the fact of the alliance is doubtful, since Herodotus, who lived nearest to the period we are treating of, knows nothing of it, and ascribes the conquest simply to the Medes."

L. von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations, chapter 3.

SEMITES: The last Babylonian Empire and its overthrow.

The story, briefly told, of the alliance by which the Assyrian monarchy is said to have been overthrown, is as follows: About 626 or 625, B. C., a new revolt broke out in Babylonia, and the Assyrian king sent a general named Nabu-pal-usur or Nabopolassar to quell it. Nabu-pal-usur succeeded in his undertaking, and seems to have been rewarded by being made governor of Babylon. But his ambition aimed higher, and he mounted the ancient Babylonian throne, casting off his allegiance to Assyria and joining her enemies. "He was wise enough to see that Assyria could not be completely crushed by one nation, and he therefore made a league with Pharaoh Necho, of Egypt, and asked the Median king, Cyaxares, to give his daughter, Amytes, to Nebuchadnezzar, his son, to wife. Thus a league was made, and about B. C. 609 the kings marched against Assyria. They suffered various defeats, but eventually the Assyrian army was defeated, and Shalman, the brother of the king of Assyria, [was] slain. The united kings then besieged Nineveh. During the siege the river Tigris rose and carried away the greater part of the city wall. The Assyrian king gathered together his wives and property in the palace, and setting fire to it, all perished in the flames. The enemies went into the city and utterly destroyed all they could lay their hands upon. With the fall of Nineveh, Assyria as a power practically ceased to exist." About 608 B. C. Nebuchadnezzar succeeded his father on the throne. "When he had become established in the kingdom he set his various captives, Jews, Phœnicians, Syrians, and Egyptians, at work to make Babylon the greatest city in the world. And as a builder he remains almost unsurpassed."

E. A. Wallis Budge, Babylonian Life and History, chapter 5.

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"The Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar occupied a square of which each side was nearly fifteen miles in length, and was bisected by the Euphrates diagonally from northwest to southeast. This square was enclosed by a deep moat, flooded from the river. The clay excavated in digging the moat, moulded into bricks and laid in bitumen, formed the walls of the city. These walls, more than 300 feet high and more than 70 thick, and protected by parapets, afforded a commodious driveway along their top of nearly 60 miles, needing only aerial bridges over the Euphrates river. The waters of the river were forced to flow through the city between quays of masonry which equaled the walls in thickness and height. The walls were pierced at equal intervals for a hundred gates, and each gateway closed with double leaves of ponderous metal, swinging upon bronze posts built into the wall. Fifty broad avenues, crossing each other at right angles, joined the opposite gates of the city, and divided it into a checkerboard of gigantic squares. The river quays were pierced by 25 gates like those in the outer walls. One of the streets was carried across the river upon an arched bridge, another ran in a tunnel beneath the river bed, and ferries plied continually across the water where the other streets abutted. The great squares of the city were not all occupied by buildings. Many of them were used as gardens and even farms, and the great fertility of the soil, caused by irrigation, producing two and even three crops a year, supplied food sufficient for the inhabitants in case of siege. Babylon was a vast fortified province rather than a city. … There is a curious fact which I do not remember to have seen noticed, and of which I will not here venture to suggest the explanation. Babylon stands in the Book of Revelation as the emblem of all the abominations which are to be destroyed by the power of Christ. But Babylon is the one city known to history which could have served as a model for John's description of the New Jerusalem: 'the city lying four square,' 'the walls great and high,' the river which flowed through the city, 'and in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits;' 'the foundations of the wall of the city garnished with all manner of precious stones,' as the base of the walls inclosing the great palace were faced with glazed and enameled bricks of brilliant colors, and a broad space left that they might be seen,—these characteristics, and they are all unique, have been combined in no other city."

W. B. Wright, Ancient Cities, pages 41-44.

"Undoubtedly, one of the important results already obtained from the study of the native chronicles of Babylon is the establishment, on grounds apart from the question of the authenticity of the Book of Daniel, of the historical character of Belshazzar. The name of this prince had always been a puzzle to commentators and historians. The only native authority on Babylonian history—Berosus—did not appear to have mentioned such a person. … According to the extracts from the work of Berosus preserved for us in the writings of these authors, the following is the history of the last King of Babylon. His name was Nabonidus, or Nabonedus, and he first appears as the leader of a band of conspirators who determined to bring about a change in the government. The throne was then occupied by the youthful Laborosoarchod (for this is the corrupt Greek form of the Babylonian Lâbâshi-Marduk), who was the son of Neriglissar, and therefore, through his mother, the grandson of the great Nebuchadnezzar; but, in spite of his tender age, the new sovereign who had only succeeded his father two months before, had already given proof of a bad disposition. … When the designs of the conspirators had been carried out, they appointed Nabonidus king in the room of the youthful son of Neriglissar. … We next hear that in the seventeenth year of Nabonidus, Cyrus, who had already conquered the rest of Asia, marched upon Babylon, B. C. 538.

See PERSIA B. C. 549-521.

The native forces met the Persians in battle, but were put to flight, with their king at their head, and took refuge behind the ramparts of Borsippa. Cyrus thereupon entered Babylon, we are told, and threw down her walls. … Herodotus states that the last king of Babylon was the son of the great Nebuchadnezzar—to give that monarch his true name—for in so doing he bears out, so far as his testimony is of any value, the words of the Book of Daniel, which not only calls Belshazzar son of Nebuchadnezzar, but also introduces the wife of the latter monarch as being the mother of the ill-fated prince who closed the long line of native rulers. Such being the only testimony of secular writers, there was no alternative but to identify Belshazzar with Nabonidus. … Yet the name Nabonidus stood in no sort of relation to that of Belshazzar; and the identification of the two personages was, undoubtedly, both arbitrary and difficult. The cuneiform inscriptions brought to Europe from the site of Babylon and other ancient cities of Chaldæa soon changed the aspect of the problem. … Nabonidus, or, in the native form, Nabu naïd, that is to say, 'Nebo exalts,' is the name given to the last native king of Babylon in the contemporary records inscribed on clay. This monarch, however, was found to speak of his eldest son as bearing the very name preserved in the Book of Daniel, and hitherto known to us from that source alone. … 'Set the fear of thy great godhead in the heart of. Belshazzar, my firstborn son, my own offspring; and let him not commit sin, in order that he may enjoy the fulness of life.' … 'Belshazzar, my firstborn son, … lengthen his days; let him not commit sin. …' These passages provide us, in an unexpected manner, with the name which had hitherto been known from the Book of Daniel, and from that document alone; but we were still in the dark as to the reason which could have induced the author to represent Belshazzar as king of Babylon. … In 1882 a cuneiform inscription was for the first time interpreted and published by Mr. Pinches; it had been disinterred among the ruins of Babylon by Mr. Hormuzd Russam. This document proved to contain the annals of the king whose fate we have just been discussing—namely, Nabonidus. Though mutilated in parts, it allowed us to learn some portions of his history, both before and during the invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus; and one of the most remarkable facts that it added to our knowledge was that of the regency—if that term may be used—of the king's son during the absence of the sovereign from the Court and army. Here, surely, the explanation of the Book of Daniel was found: Belshazzar was, at the time of the irruption of the Persians, acting as his father's representative; he was commanding the Babylonian army and presiding over the Babylonian Court. When Cyrus entered Babylon, doubtless the only resistance he met with was in the royal palace, and there it was probably slight. In the same night Belshazzar was taken and slain."

B. T. A. Evetts, New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land, chapter 11, part 2.

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Cyrus the Great, in whose vast empire the Babylonian kingdom was finally swallowed up, was originally "king of Anzan in Elam, not of Persia. Anzan had been first occupied, it would appear, by his great-grandfather Teispes the Achaemenian. The conquest of Astyages and of his capital Ekbatana took place in B. C. 549, and a year or two later Cyrus obtained possession of Persia." Then, B. C. 538, came the conquest of Babylonia, invited by a party in the country hostile to its king, Nabonidos. Cyrus "assumed the title of 'King of Babylon,' thus claiming to be the legitimate descendant of the ancient Babylonian kings. He announced himself as the devoted worshipper of Bel and Nebo, who by the command of Merodach had overthrown the sacrilegious usurper Nabonidos, and he and his son accordingly offered sacrifices to ten times the usual amount in the Babylonian temples, and restored the images of the gods to their ancient shrines. At the same time he allowed the foreign populations who had been deported to Babylonia to return to their homes along with the statues of their gods. Among these foreign populations, as we know from the Old Testament, were the Jews."

A. H. Sayce, Primer of Assyriology, pages 74-78.

SEMITES: Hebraic branch.

See JEWS, AMMONITES; MOABITES; and EDOMITES.

SEMITES: Canaanitic branch.

See JEWS: EARLY HISTORY; and PHŒNICIANS.

SEMITES: Southern branches.

See ARABIA; ETHIOPIA; and ABYSSINIA.

—————SEMITES: End————

SEMITIC LANGUAGES.

"There is no stronger or more unchanging unity among any group of languages than that which exists in the Semitic group. The dead and living languages which compose it hardly differ from each other so much as the various Romance or Sclavonic dialects. Not only are the elements of the common vocabulary unchanged, but the structure of the word and of the phrase has remained the same. … The Semitic languages form two great branches, each subdivided into two groups. The northern branch comprehends the Aramaic-Assyrian group and the Canaanitish group; the southern … includes the Arabic group, properly so called, and the Himyarite group. The name Aramaic is given to two dialects which are very nearly allied—Chaldean and Syriac. … The Aramaic which was spoken at the time of Christ was divided into two sub-dialects: that of Galilee, which resembled the Syriac pronunciation, and that of Jerusalem, of which the pronunciation was more marked and nearer to Chaldean. Jesus and his disciples evidently spoke the dialect of their country. … Syriac, in its primitive state, is unknown to us, as also Syro-Chaldean. … Assyrian is a discovery of this century. … To the Canaanitish group belong Phœnician, Samaritan, the languages of the left bank of the Jordan, notably Moabite. … and lastly, Hebrew. The first and the last of these dialects are almost exactly alike. … Arabic, being the language of Islam, has deeply penetrated all the Mussulman nations, Turkish, Persian, and Hindustani. … Himyarite reigned to the south of Arabic; it was the language of the Queen of Sheba, and is now well known through a great number of inscriptions, and is perhaps still spoken under the name of Ekhili in the district of Marah. … It is in Abyssinia that we must seek for the last vestiges of Himyarite. Several centuries before our era, the African coast of the Red Sea had received Semitic colonies, and a language known as Ghez or Ethiopian."

A. Lefèvre, Race and Language, pages 213-223.

SEMNONES, The.

"The Semnones were the chief Suevic clan. Their settlements seem to have been between the Elbe and Oder, coinciding as nearly as possible with Brandenburg, and reaching possibly into Prussian Poland."-

Church and Brodribb, Geographical Notes to The Germany of Tacitus.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 213.

SEMPACH, Battle of (1386).

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1386-1388.

SEMPRONIAN LAWS.

The laws proposed and carried at Rome by the Gracchi, who were of the Sempronian gens, are often so referred to.

See ROME: B. C. 133-121.

SENA, The Druidic oracle of.

A little island called Sena—modern Sein—off the extreme western coast of Brittany, is mentioned by Pomponius Mela as the site of a celebrated oracle, consulted by Gaulish navigators and served by nine virgin priestesses.

E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 23, section 2 (volume 2).

SENATE, Canadian.

See CANADA: A. D. 1867.

SENATE, French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

SENATE, Roman.

"In prehistoric times, the clans which subsequently united to form cantons had each possessed a monarchical constitution of its own. When the clan governments were merged in that of the canton, the monarchs ('reges') of these clans became senators, or elders, in the new community. In the case of Rome the number of senators was three hundred, because in the beginning, as tradition said, there were three hundred clans. In regal times the king appointed the senators. Probably, at first, he chose one from each clan, honoring in this way some man whose age had given him experience and whose ability made his opinion entitled to consideration. Afterward, when the rigidity of the arrangement by clans was lost, the senators were selected from the whole body of the people, without any attempt at preserving the clan representation. Primarily the senate was not a legislative body. When the king died without having nominated his successor, the senators served successively as 'interreges' ('kings for an interval'), for periods of five days each, until a 'rex' was chosen. … This general duty was the first of the senate's original functions. Again, when the citizens had passed a law at the suggestion of the king, the senate had a right ('patrum auctoritas') to veto it, if it seemed contrary to the spirit of the city's institutions. Finally, as the senate was composed of men of experience and ability, the king used to consult it in times of personal doubt or national danger."

A. Tighe, Development of the Roman Constitution, chapter 3.

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Of the Roman Senate as it became in the great days of the Republic—at the close of the Punic Wars and after—the following is an account: "All the acts of the Roman Republic ran in the name of the Senate and People, as if the Senate were half the state, though its number seems still to have been limited to Three Hundred members. The Senate of Rome was perhaps the most remarkable assembly that the world has ever seen. Its members held their seats for life; once Senators always Senators, unless they were degraded for some dishonourable cause. But the Senatorial Peerage was not hereditary. No father could transmit the honour to his son. Each man must win it for himself. The manner in which seats in the Senate were obtained is tolerably well ascertained. Many persons will be surprised to learn that the members of this august body, all —or nearly all—owed their places to the votes of the people. In theory, indeed, the Censors still possessed the power really exercised by the Kings and early Consuls, of choosing the Senators at their own will and pleasure. But official powers, however arbitrary, are always limited in practice; and the Censors followed rules established by ancient precedent. … The Senate was recruited from the lists of official persons. … It was not by a mere figure of speech that the minister of Pyrrhus called the Roman Senate 'an Assembly of Kings.' Many of its members had exercised Sovereign power; many were preparing to exercise it. The power of the Senate was equal to its dignity. … In regard to legislation, they [it] exercised an absolute control over the Centuriate Assembly, because no law could be submitted to its votes which had not originated in the Senate. … In respect to foreign affairs, the power of the Senate was absolute, except in declaring War or concluding treaties of Peace,—matters which were submitted to the votes of the People. They assigned to the Consuls and Prætors their respective provinces of administration and command; they fixed the amount of troops to be levied every year from the list of Roman citizens, and of the contingents to be furnished by the Italian allies. They prolonged the command of a general or superseded him at pleasure. … In the administration of home affairs, all the regulation of religious matters was in their hands. … All the financial arrangements of the State were left to their discretion. … They might resolve themselves into a High Court of Justice for the trial of extraordinary offences."

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 35 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 6, chapter 2.

See, also, ROME: B. C. 146; and CONSCRIPT FATHERS.

SENATE, United States.

"The Senate is composed of two Senators from each State, and these Senators are chosen by the State Legislatures. The representation is then equal, each State having two Senators and each Senator having one vote; and no difference is made among the States on account of size, population, or wealth. The Senate is not, strictly speaking, a popular body, and the higher qualifications demanded of its members, and the longer period of service, make it the more important body of the two. The Senate is presumedly more conservative in its action, and acts as a safeguard against the precipitate and changing legislation that is more characteristic of the House of Representatives, which, being chosen directly by the people, and at frequent intervals, is more easily affected by and reflects the prevailing temper of the times. The Senate is more intimately connected with the Executive than is the lower body. The President must submit to the Senate for its approval the treaties he has contracted with foreign powers; he must ask the advice and consent of the Senate in the appointment of ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments have not been otherwise provided for. … The Senate has sole power to try all impeachments, but it cannot originate proceedings of impeachment. … In case a vacancy occurs when the State Legislature is not in session, the governor may make a temporary appointment; but at the next meeting of the Legislature the vacancy must be filled in the usual way. The presiding officer of the Senate is the Vice-President of the United States. He is elected in the same manner as the President, for were he chosen from the Senate itself, the equality of representation would be broken. He has no vote save when the Senate is equally divided, and his powers are very limited."

W. C. Ford, The American Citizen's Manual, part 1, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: The Federalist, Numbers 62-66.

J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, chapter 10 (volume 2).

J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth, chapters 10-12 (volume 1).

See, also, CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.

SENATUS-CONSULTUM. SENATUS-DECRETUM.

"A proposition sanctioned by a majority of the [Roman] Senate, and not vetoed by one of the Tribunes of the Plebs, who might interrupt the proceedings at any stage, was called Senatus-Consultum or Senatus-Decretum, the only distinction between the terms being that the former was more comprehensive, since Senatus-Consultum might include several orders or Decreta."

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 6.

SENCHUS MOR, The.

One of the books of the ancient Irish laws, known as the Brehon Laws.

SENECAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SENECAS.

SENEFFE, Battle of (1674).

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

SENLAC OR HASTINGS, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (OCTOBER).

SENNACHIES.

One of the names given to the Bards, or Ollamhs, of the ancient Irish.

SENONES, The.

A strong tribe in ancient Gaul whose territory was between the Loire and the Marne. Their chief town was Agedincum—modern Sens.

Napoleon III., History of Cæsar, book 3, chapter 2, foot-note.

The Senones were also prominent among the Gauls which crossed the Alps, settled Cisalpine Gaul and contested northern Italy with the Romans.

See ROME: B. C. 390-347, and 295-191.

SENS, Origin of.

See SENONES.

SENTINUM, Battle of (B. C. 295).

See ROME: B. C. 343-290, and B. C. 295-191.

SEPARATISTS.

See INDEPENDENTS.

SEPHARDIM, The.

Jews descended from those who were expelled from Spain in 1492 are called the Sephardim.

See JEWS: 8-15TH CENTURIES.

SEPHARVAIM.

See BABYLONIA: THE EARLY (CHALDEAN) MONARCHY.

SEPHER YETZIRA, The.

See CABALA.

SEPOY: The name.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

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SEPOY MUTINY, of 1763, The.

See INDIA: A. D. 1757-1772.

Of 1806.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

Of 1857-1858.

See INDIA: A. D. 1857, to 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).

SEPT, OR CLAN.

See CLANS.

SEPTA.

See CAMPUS MARTIUS.

SEPTEMBER LAWS, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1830-1840.

SEPTEMBER MASSACRES AT PARIS.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

SEPTENNATE IN FRANCE, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1871-1876.

SEPTENNIAL ACT, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1716.

SEPTIMANIA: Under the Goths.

See GOTHIA, IN GAUL; also GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419; and 419-451.

SEPTIMANIA: A. D. 715-718. Occupation by the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-732.

SEPTIMANIA: A. D. 752-759. Recovery from the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 752-759.

SEPTIMANIA: 10th Century. The dukes and their successors.

See TOULOUSE: 10-11TH CENTURIES.

SEPTUAGINT, The.

"We have in the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Hebrew Old Testament, the first great essay in translation into Greek, a solitary specimen of the ordinary language spoken and understood in those days [at Alexandria 3d century B. C.]. There is a famous legend of the origin of the work by order of the Egyptian king, and of the perfect agreement of all the versions produced by the learned men who had been sent at his request from Judæa. Laying aside these fables, it appears that the books were gradually rendered for the benefit of the many Jews settled in Egypt, who seem to have been actually forgetting their old language. Perhaps Philadelphus gave an impulse to the thing by requiring a copy for his library, which seems to have admitted none but Greek books."

J. P. Mahaffy, Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 14.

ALSO IN: W. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, lecture 4.

F. W. Farrar, History of Interpretation ( Bampton Lectures, 1885), lecture 3.

SEQUANA, The. The ancient name of the river Seine.

SEQUANI, The.

See GAULS.

SERAI.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.

SERAPEUM, at Alexandria.

See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246, and A. D. 389; also LIBRARIES, ANCIENT: ALEXANDRIA.

SERAPEUM, at Memphis.

"The Serapeum is one of the edifices of Memphis [Egypt] rendered famous by a frequently quoted passage of Strabo, and by the constant mention made of it on the Greek papyri. It had long been sought for, and we had the good fortune to discover it in 1851. Apis, the living image of Osiris revisiting the earth, was a bull who, while he lived, had his temple at Memphis (Mitrahenny), and, when dead, had his tomb at Sakkarah. The palace which the bull inhabited in his lifetime was called the Apieum; the Serapeum was the name given to his tomb."

A. Mariette, Monuments of Upper Egypt, page 88.

SERAPHIM, OR "BLUE RIBBON," The order of the.

"There is no doubt whatever of the antiquity of this Order, yet it is very difficult to arrive at the exact date of the foundation. General opinion, though without positive proof, ascribes its origin, about the year 1280, to King Magnus I. [of Sweden], who is said to have instituted it at the persuasion of the Maltese Knights. Another account ascribes the foundation to Magnus's grandson, Magnus Erichson. … King Frederick I. revived the Order, as also those of the Sword and North Star, on the 28th April, 1748."

Sir B. Burke, The Book of Orders of Knighthood, page 329.

SERBONIAN BOG.

"There is a lake between Cœlo-Syria and Egypt, very narrow, but exceeding deep, even to a wonder, two hundred furlongs in length, called Serbon: if any through ignorance approach it they are lost irrecoverably; for the channel being very narrow, like a swaddling-band, and compassed round with vast heaps of sand, great quantities of it are cast into the lake, by the continued southern winds, which so cover the surface of the water, and make it to the view so like unto dry land, that it cannot possibly be distinguished; and therefore many, unacquainted with the nature of the place, by missing their way, have been there swallowed up, together with whole armies. For the sand being trod upon, sinks down and gives way by degrees, and like a malicious cheat, deludes and decoys them that come upon it, till too late, when they see the mischief they are likely to fall into, they begin to support and help one another, but without any possibility either of returning back or escaping certain ruin."

Diodorus (Booth's translation) book 1, chapter 3.

According to Dr. Brugsch, the lake Serbon, or Sirbonis, so graphically described by Diodorus, but owing its modern celebrity to Milton's allusion (Paradise Lost, ii. 502-4), is in our days almost entirely dried up. He describes it as having been really a lagoon, on the northeastern coast of Egypt, "divided from the Mediterranean by a long tongue of land which, in ancient times, formed the only road from Egypt to Palestine." It is Dr. Brugsch's theory that the exodus of the Israelites was by this route and that the host of Pharaoh perished in the Serbonian quicksands.

H. Brugsch, History of Egypt, volume 2, appendix.

SERBS, The.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES, 7TH CENTURY (SERVIA, CROATIA, ETC.).

SERES.

See CHINA: THE NAMES OF THE COUNTRY.

SERFDOM. SERFS.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN.

SERGIUS I., Pope, A. D. 687-701.

Sergius II., Pope, 844-847.

Sergius III., Pope, 904-911.

Sergius IV., Pope, 1009-1012.

SERINGAPATAM: A. D. 1792. Siege by the English.

See INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.

SERINGAPATAM: A. D. 1799. Final capture by the English. Death of Sultan Tippoo.

See INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805.

SERJEANTS-AT-LAW.

See TEMPLARS: THE ORDER IN ENGLAND.

SERPUL, Treaty of (1868).

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1850-1876.

SERRANO, Ministry and Regency of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1866-1873.

SERTORIUS, in Spain.

See SPAIN: B. C. 83-72.

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SERVI.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN: ENGLAND; also, CATTANI.

SERVIA.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.

SERVIAN CONSTITUTION.

The first important modification of the primitive Roman constitution, ascribed to King Servius Tullius.

See COMITIA CENTURIATA.

SERVIAN WALL OF ROME, The.

See SEVEN HILLS OF ROME.

SERVILES, The.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.

SERVITES, The.

The order of the "Religious Servants of the Holy Virgin," better known as Servites, was founded in 1233 by seven Florentine merchants. It spread rapidly in its early years, and has a considerable number of houses still existing.

SESQUIPES.

See FOOT, THE ROMAN.

SESTERTIUS, The.

See AS.

SESTOS, OR SESTUS, Siege and capture of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 479-478.

SESTUNTII, The.

See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES.

SETTE POZZI, OR MALVASIA, Battle of (1263).

See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.

SETTLEMENT, Act of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1701, and IRELAND: A. D. 1660-1665.

SEVASTOS.

The Greek form, in the Byzantine Empire, of the title of "Augustus." "It was divided into four gradations, sevastos, protosevastos, panhypersevastos, and sevastokrator."

G. Finlay, History Byzantine and Greek Empires, 716-1453, book 3, chapter 2, section 1.

SEVEN BISHOPS, The: Sent to the Tower.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688.

SEVEN BOROUGHS, The.

See FIVE BOROUGHS. THE.

SEVEN CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM, The. St. George, for England, St. Denis, for France, St. James, for Spain, St. Anthony, for Italy, St. Andrew, for Scotland, St. Patrick, for Ireland, and St. David, for Wales, were called, in mediæval times, the Seven Champions of Christendom.

SEVEN CITIES, The Isle of the.

See ANTILLES.

SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

SEVEN DAYS RETREAT, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).

SEVEN GATES OF THEBES, The.

See THEBES, GREECE: THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY.

SEVEN HILLS OF ROME, The.

"The seven hills were not occupied all at once, but one after the other, as they were required. The Palatine held the 'arx' of the primitive inhabitants, and was the original nucleus of the town, round which a wall or earthern rampart was raised by Romulus. The hill of Saturn, afterwards the Capitoline, is said to have been united, after the death of Titus Tatius, by Romulus; who drew a second wall or earthern rampart round the two hills. The Aventine, which was chiefly used as a pasture ground, was added by Ancus Martius, who settled the population of the conquered towns of Politorium, Tellena, and Ficana upon it. According to Livy, the Cælian Hill was added to the city by Tullus Hostilius. The population increasing, it seemed necessary to further enlarge the city. Servius Tullius, Livy tells us, added two hills, the Quirinal and the Viminal, afterwards extending it further to the Esquiline, where, he says, to give dignity to the place, he dwelt himself. The city having reached such an extent, a vast undertaking was planned by the king, Servius, to protect it. A line of wall [the Servian Wall] was built to encircle the seven hills over which the city had extended."

H. M. Westropp, Early and Imperial Rome, pages 56-57.

SEVEN ISLANDS, The Republic of the.

See IONIAN ISLANDS: To 1814.

SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS, The.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: SCHOLASTICISM.

SEVEN MOUNTS, The.

See PALATINE HILL; and QUIRINAL.

SEVEN PINES, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY: VIRGINIA).

SEVEN PROVINCES, The Union of the.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.

SEVEN REDUCTIONS, The War of the.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.

SEVEN RIVERS, The Land of the.

See INDIA: THE IMMIGRATION AND CONQUESTS OF THE ARYAS.

SEVEN WEEKS WAR, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

SEVEN WISE MEN OF GREECE.

"The name and poetry of Solon, and the short maxims, or sayings, of Phokylidês, conduct us to the mention of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. Solon was himself one of the seven, and most if, not all of them were poets, or composers in verse. To most of them is ascribed also an abundance of pithy repartees, together with one short saying, or maxim, peculiar to each, serving as a sort of distinctive motto. … Respecting this constellation of Wise Men—who, in the next century of Grecian history, when philosophy came to be a matter of discussion and argumentation, were spoken of with great eulogy—all the statements are confused, in part even contradictory. Neither the number nor the names are given by all authors alike. Dikæarchus numbered ten, Hermippus seventeen: the names of Solon the Athenian, Thalês the Milesian, Pittakus the Mitylenean, and Bias the Prienean, were comprised in all the lists —and the remaining names as given by Plato were Kleobulus of Lindus in Rhodes, Myson of Chênæ, and Cheilon of Sparta. We cannot certainly distribute among them the sayings, or mottoes, upon which in later days the Amphiktyons conferred the honour of inscription in the Delphian temple: 'Know thyself,' 'Nothing too much,' 'Know thy opportunity,' 'Suretyship is the precursor of ruin.'

… Dikæarchus, however, justly observed that these seven or ten persons were not wise men, or philosophers, in the sense which those words bore in his day, but persons of practical discernment in reference to man and society,—of the same turn of mind as their contemporary the fabulist Æsop, though not employing the same mode of illustration. Their appearance forms an epoch in Grecian history, inasmuch as they are the first persons who ever acquired an Hellenic reputation grounded on mental competency apart from poetical genius or effect—a proof that political and social prudence was beginning to be appreciated and admired on its own account."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 29.

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SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD.

See RHODES, THE COLOSSUS OF.

—————SEVEN YEARS WAR: Start————

SEVEN YEARS WAR: Its causes and provocations.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1754-1755.

SEVEN YEARS WAR: Campaigns in America.

See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, and 1755; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, and 1755; CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

SEVEN YEARS WAR: English Naval Operations.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755; ENGLAND: A. D. 1758 (JUNE-AUGUST), and 1759 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).

SEVEN YEARS WAR: Campaigns in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1756, to 1761-1762.

SEVEN YEARS WAR: The conflict in India.

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

SEVEN YEARS WAR: The Treaties which ended the war. The Peace of Paris and the Peace of Hubertsburg.

Negotiations for a peace between England, France, and Spain were brought to a close by the signing of preliminaries at Fontainebleau, November 3, 1762. In the course of the next month, a conference for the arrangement of terms between Prussia, Austria and Saxony was begun at Hubertsburg, a hunting-seat of the Elector of Saxony, between Leipsic and Dresden. "The definitive Peace of Paris, between France, Spain, England, and Portugal, was signed February 10th 1763. Both France and England abandoned their allies, and neither Austria nor Prussia was mentioned in the treaty." But it was stipulated that all territories belonging to the Elector of Hanover, the Landgrave of Hesse, and the Count of Lippe Bücheburg should be restored to them. "France ceded to England Nova Scotia, Canada, and the country east of the Mississippi as far as the Iberville. A line drawn through the Mississippi, from its source to its mouth, was henceforth to form the boundary between the possessions of the two nations, except that the town and island of New Orleans were not to be included in this cession. France also ceded the island of Cape Breton, with the isles and coasts of the St. Lawrence, retaining, under certain restrictions, the right of fishing at Newfoundland, and the isles of St. Peter and Miquelon. In the West Indies she ceded Grenada and the Grenadines, and three of the so-called neuter islands, namely, Dominica, St. Vincent, and Tobago, retaining the fourth, St. Lucie. Also in Africa, the river Senegal, recovering Goree; in the East Indies, the French settlements on the coast of Coromandel made since 1749, retaining previous ones. She also restored to Great Britain Natal and Tabanouly, in Sumatra, and engaged to keep no troops in Bengal. In Europe, besides relinquishing her conquests in Germany, she restored Minorca, and engaged to place Dunkirk in the state required by former treaties. Great Britain, on her side, restored Belle Isle, and in the West Indies, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Marie Galante, and La Desirade. Spain ceded to Great Britain Florida and all districts east of the Mississippi, recovering the Havannah and all other British conquests. British subjects were to enjoy the privilege of cutting logwood in the Bay of Honduras. … With regard to the Portuguese colonies, matters were to be placed in the same state as before the war. … By way of compensation for the loss of Florida, France, by a private agreement, made over to Spain New Orleans and what remained to her of Louisiana. The Peace of Hubertsburg, between Austria, Prussia, and Saxony, was signed February 15th 1763. Marie Theresa renounced all pretensions she might have to any of the dominions of the King of Prussia, and especially those which had been ceded to him by the treaties of Breslau and Berlin; and she agreed to restore to Prussia the town and county of Glatz, and the fortresses of Wesel and Gelders. The Empire was included in the peace, but the Emperor was not even named. … In the peace with the Elector of Saxony, Frederick engaged speedily to evacuate that Electorate and to restore the archives, &c.; but he would give no indemnification for losses suffered. The Treaty of Dresden, of 1745, was renewed."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 6 (volume 3).

"Of the Peace-Treaties at Hubertsburg, Paris and other places, it is not necessary that we say almost anything. … The substance of the whole lies now in Three Points. … The issue, as between Austria and Prussia, strives to be, in all points, simply 'As-you-were'; and, in all outward or tangible points, strictly is so. After such a tornado of strife as the civilised world had not witnessed since the Thirty-Years War. Tornado springing doubtless from the regions called Infernal; and darkening the upper world from south to north, and from east to west for Seven Years long;—issuing in general 'As-you-were'! Yes truly, the tornado was Infernal; but Heaven, too, had silently its purposes in it. Nor is the mere expenditure of men's diabolic rages, in mutual clash as of opposite electricities, with reduction to equipoise, and restoration of zero and repose again after seven years, the one or the principal result arrived at. Inarticulately, little dreamt on at the time by any bystander, the results, on survey from this distance, are visible as Threefold. Let us name them one other time:

1°. There is no taking of Silesia from this man; no clipping him down to the orthodox old limits; he and his Country have palpably outgrown these. Austria gives-up the problem: 'We have lost Silesia!' Yes; and, what you hardly yet know,—and what, I perceive, Friedrich himself still less knows,— Teutschland has found Prussia. Prussia, it seems, cannot be conquered by the whole world trying to do it; Prussia has gone through its Fire-Baptism, to the satisfaction of gods and men; and is a Nation henceforth. In and of poor dislocated Teutschland, there is one of the Great Powers of the World henceforth; an actual Nation. And a Nation not grounding itself on extinct Traditions, Wiggeries, Papistries, Immaculate Conceptions; no, but on living Facts, —Facts of Arithmetic, Geometry, Gravitation, Martin Luther's Reformation, and what it really can believe in:—to the infinite advantage of said Nation and of poor Teutschland henceforth. …

2°. In regard to England. Her Jenkins's-Ear Controversy is at last settled. Not only liberty of the Seas, but, if she were not wiser, dominion of them; guardianship of liberty for all others whatsoever: Dominion of the Seas for that wise object. America is to be English, not French; what a result is that, were there no other! Really a considerable Fact in the History of the World. Fact principally due to Pitt, as I believe, according to my best conjecture, and comparison of probabilities and circumstances. For which, after all, is not everybody thankful, less or more? O my English brothers, O my Yankee half-brothers, how oblivious are we of those that have done us benefit! …

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3°. In regard to France. It appears, noble old Teutschland, with such pieties and unconquerable silent valours, such opulences human and divine, amid its wreck of new and old confusions, is not to be cut in Four, and made to dance to the piping of Versailles or another. Far the contrary! To Versailles itself there has gone forth, Versailles may read it or not, the writing on the wall: 'Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting' (at last even 'found wanting')! France, beaten, stript, humiliated; sinful, unrepentant, governed by mere sinners and, at best, clever fools ('fous pleins d'esprit'),—collapses, like a creature whose limbs fail it; sinks into bankrupt quiescence, into nameless fermentation, generally into dry-rot."

T. Carlyle, History of Friedrich II., book 20, chapter 13 (volume 9).

The text of the Treaty of Paris may be found here.

Parliamentary History, volume 15, page 1291,

Entick's History of the Late War, volume 5, page 438.

SEVEN YEARS WAR: The death and misery of the war summed up by Frederick the Great.

"Prussia enumerated 180,000 men, whom she had been deprived of by the war. Her armies had fought 16 pitched battles. The enemy had beside almost totally destroyed three large corps; that of the convoy of Olmutz, that of Maxen, and that of Fouquet at Landshut; exclusive of the garrison of Breslau, two garrisons of Schweidnitz, one of Torgau, and one of Wittenberg, that were taken with these towns. It was further estimated that 20,000 souls perished in the kingdom of Prussia by the ravages of the Russians; 6,000 in Pomerania; 4,000 in the New March and 3,000 in the electorate of Brandenbourg. The Russian troops had fought four grand battles, and it was computed that the war had cost them 120,000 men, including part of the recruits that perished, in coming from the frontiers of Persia and China, to join their corps in Germany. The Austrians had fought ten regular battles. Two garrisons at Schweidnitz and one at Breslau had been taken; and they estimated their loss at 140,000 men. The French made their losses amount to 200,000; the English with their allies to 160,000; the Swedes to 25,000; and the troops of the circles to 28,000. … From the general picture which we have sketched, the result is that the governments of Austria, France, and even England, were overwhelmed with debts, and almost destitute of credit; but that the people, not having been sufferers in the war, were only sensible of it from the prodigious taxes which had been exacted by their sovereigns. Whereas, in Prussia, the government was possessed of money, but the provinces were laid waste and desolated, by the rapacity and barbarity of enemies. The electorate of Saxony was, next to Prussia, the province of Germany that had suffered the most; but this country found resources, in the goodness of its soil and the industry of its inhabitants, which are wanting to Prussia throughout her provinces, Silesia excepted. Time, which cures and effaces all ills, will no doubt soon restore the Prussian states to their former abundance, prosperity, and splendor. Other powers will in like manner recover, and other ambitious men will arise, excite new wars, and incur new disasters. Such are the properties of the human mind; no man benefits by example."

Frederick II., History of the Seven Years War (Posthumous Works, volume 3), chapter 17.

—————SEVEN YEARS WAR: End————

SEVERINUS, Pope, A. D. 640, May to August.

SEVERUS, Alexander, Roman Emperor, A. D. 222-235.

SEVERUS, Libius, Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 461-465.

SEVERUS, Septimius, Roman Emperor, A. D. 193-211. Campaigns in Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 208-211.

SEVERUS, Wall of.

See ROMAN WALLS IN BRITAIN.

SEVIER, John, and the early settlement of Tennessee.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1769-1772, to 1785-1796.

—————SEVILLE: Start————

SEVILLE: Early history of the city.

"Seville was a prosperous port under the Phœnicians; and was singularly favored by the Scipios. In 45 B. C., Julius Cæsar entered the city; he enlarged it, strengthened and fortified it, and thus made it a favorite residence with the patricians of Rome, several of whom came to live there; no wonder, with its perfect climate and brilliant skies. It was then called Hispalis."