The story of each great race or nation is thus clearly disengaged and presented in period after period; but, nevertheless, the book purposes to present the career of man as a whole, in a connected story of expanding life and civilization from the days of the rudest stone hatchet to the Christian cathedrals of Europe, without a serious gap. A symmetrical presentation of the career of man requires adequate space for the origins of civilization and the history of the Orient, as these two subjects have been revealed by the excavations and discoveries of the last two generations, especially the last twenty-five years. The reasons for devoting more than the customary space to these subjects in this book may therefore be briefly noted.  The length of the career of man discernible by us has been enormously increased at the present day by archæological [iv] discovery, carrying back the development of human arts at least fifty, and perhaps two hundred thousand, years. Even as recorded in written documents, modern discovery in the Orient has placed behind the period of human history as formerly known to us another period equally long, thus doubling the length of the historic age. It cannot be said that all this vast new outlook has as yet been surveyed and briefly presented in a form intelligible to younger students as an imposing panorama of the expanding human career. The attainment of such a point of view of the career of man has been a slow process. The ancient history written by Sulpicius Severus, about 400 A.D., survived for over a thousand years, and became a respected textbook, which was in use as late as the sixteenth century. It dealt almost exclusively with the history of Rome. A mention of the battle of Marathon was its only reference to Greek history. The Roman colossus bulked so large that nothing earlier could be seen behind it.

Within the last few years, however, the marvelous genius of the Greeks has finally found full recognition in our historical textbooks. There is another similar step yet to be taken, and that is to discern behind Greece and Rome an additional great and important chapter of the human story and to give it adequate and interesting presentation to young readers. Probably no one outside the arcanum of the traditional classicists would question the assertion that conquests which we owe to the Orient, like the discovery of metal and the invention of alphabetic writing, were achievements of far greater importance than the details of the Peloponnesian Wars, whether estimated by their consequences to the human race or by their value as information in the mind of the modem high-school pupil. Whether such achievements are regarded as falling within the historic epoch or not is a matter of small moment. They belong to the human career, and as such they should find their place in the picture of that career which is presented to the younger generation.

[v] The intelligent person of today desires to be so familiar with such facts as these in the rise of civilization as to possess some moderate acquaintance with the early chapters in the human career. Civilization arose in the Orient, and early Europe obtained it there. But the languages of the early Orient perished, and the ability to read them was lost many centuries ago. On the other hand, the languages of Greece and Rome were never lost, like those of the ancient Orient. In modem educational history Greek and Latin have not been suddenly recovered, and we have not had to grow accustomed to their abrupt introduction into science and education. The sudden and dramatic recovery of the earlier chapters of the human career, lying behind Greece and Rome, has, created a situation to which our histories of the ancient world, as they are found in our public schools, have not yet adjusted themselves. The habit of regarding ancient history as beginning with Greece has become so fixed that it is not easily to be changed. Furthermore, the monuments and documents left us by the ancient Orient are far larger in extent than those which we have inherited from Greece and Rome together, and their enormous volume, together with their difficult systems of writing, have made it very laborious to recover and arrange the history of the Orient in form and language suitable for the high-school pupil.

In 1884 Eduard Meyer, the leading ancient historian of this generation, in his History of Antiquity devoted six hundred and nineteen pages to the Orient. In the third edition, still unfinished, which began to appear in 1913, the portion of the Orient thus far issued (less than half) occupies eleven
hundred and fifty pages. The remainder, still unpublished, will easily bring the treatment of the Orient up to twenty-four or twenty-five hundred pages, that is, about four times its former bulk. A textbook which devotes a brief fifty- or sixty-page introduction to the Orient and begins real history” with the Greeks is not proportioned in accordance with modern knowledge of the ancient world.

[vi]

Furthermore, the value of the early oriental monuments as teaching material has as yet hardly been discerned. The highly graphic pictorial monuments and records of the East, when accompanied by proper explanations, may be made to convey to the young student the meaning and character of a contemporary historical source more vividly than any body of ancient records surviving elsewhere. When adequately explained, such records also serve to dispel that sense of complete unreality which besets the young person in studying the career of ancient man. These materials have not been employed in our schools, because they have not been available to the teacher in the current textbooks.

Finally, when we recall that the leading religion of the world —the one which still dominates Western civilization to-day — came to us out of the Orient; when we further remember that before it fell the Roman Empire was completely orientalized, it would appear to be only fair to our schools to give them books furnishing an adequate treatment of pre-Greek civilization. This does not mean to question for a moment the undeniable supremacy of Greek culture, or to give it any less space than before. The author believes that no one who reads the chapters on Greece in this survey will gain the impression that Hellas has been sacrificed to Moloch — in other words, to her oriental predecessors.

The author is convinced that the surviving monuments of the entire ancient world can be so visualized as to render ancient history a very real story even to young students, and that these monuments may be made to tell their own story with great vividness. This method he has already introduced into the
ancient-history chapters of Outlines of European History, Part I, where it has demonstrated its availability. The same method has been employed in illustrating this ancient history. The result has been a book somewhat larger than the current textbooks on ancient history; but the excess is due to the series of illustrations. The book actually contains a text of about five hundred pages, with a picture book” of about two hundred [vii] and fifteen pages. Teachers will do well to make the illustrations and accompanying descriptive matter part of each lesson.  The references in the text to the illustrations, and the references to the text in the descriptive matter under the illustrations, if noted and used, will be found to merge text and illustrations into a unified whole. It should be noted that all references to the text are by paragraph (§) except a few references by “Section.”

An elaborate system of maps hass been arranged by the author for the purpose of bringing the successive epochs of history before the pupil in terms of geography. The underlying principle is the arrangement on the same plate of from two to four maps representing successive historical epochs.
It is believed that these composite maps, called by the author sequence maps, will prove a powerful aid to the teacher.

The author has not found it an easy task to turn from twenty-five years of research in a laboratory of ancient history, extending from a university post in America to the frontiers of the oriental lands, and endeavor to summarize for youthful readers the facts now discernible in the career of ancient man. Under these circumstances the experience of my friend Professor James Harvey Robinson, who has done so much for the study of history in the schools of America, has been invaluable. The book owes a great deal to the inspiration of his unflagging interest and the helpfulness of his long experience in the art of simplification. It may be mentioned here that Professor Robinson’s Medieval and Modern Times forms the continuation of this volume on ancient history. To my colleague Professor C. F. Huth also I am indebted for careful reading of the proofs, accompanied by unfailingly valuable counsel. To him, furthermore, I owe the excellent bibliography of Greece and Rome at the end of the volume. Mr. Robert I. Adriance, head of the history department of the East Orange high schools, has kindly read all the proofs. His discerning criticisms and wide knowledge have proved very valuable to the
book, and his unfailing interest has been a great encouragement.

[viii] It will be noticed that some of the author’s treatment of the ancient world in Outlines of European History, Part I; has been retained here. These portions had already been looked over by Mr. A. F. Barnard of the University High School of Chicago, and he has also very kindly read the proofs of the remainder of the volume. The chapters on the Babylonians and Assyrians have been read by Professor D. D. Luckenbill, and that on the Hebrews by Professor J. M. Powis Smith, and to their kindness I am indebted for several suggestions. The sections on early Christianity and the Church have likewise been looked over by my colleague Professor S. J. Case. To all these friends and colleagues the author would here express his sincere thanks.

It has been very gratifying to the author to be able to include in a book of this character the six charming etchings made expressly for the volume by Mr. George T. Plowman. To Mrs. William T. Brewster he is also indebted for the beautiful water color of the Plain of Argos (Plate III). Besides
photographs furnished by the Egyptian Expedition of The University of Chicago, many illustrations have been contributed by foreign scholars, to whom the author would here express his thanks, especially to Bissing (Munich), Borchardt (Cairo), Déchelette now alas! a sacrifice of the great war (Roanne), Dörpfeld (Athens and Berlin), Hoernes (Vienna), Koldewey (Babylon), Montelius (Stockholm), Schaefer (Berlin), Schubart (Berlin), Steindorif (Leipzig), and some others, who have kindly furnished photographs and sketches. The author is also especially indebted to Messrs. Underwood & Underwood for permission to use their unrivaled series of Egyptian, oriental, and
Mediterranean photographs as the basis for a number of sketches: Figs. 23, 122, 128, 153, 159, 163, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 189, 190, 203, 221, 260. No more vivid impressions of the places and scenes where the men of the early world lived and wrought can be obtained than by the use
of these photographs in stereoscopic form. Teachers who make the Underwood stereographs a part of their equipment will [ix] find that their teaching gains enormously in effectiveness. The author desires to thank also Mr. E. K. Robinson of Gmn and Company, without whose experienced assistance and unfailing patience it would have been impossible to complete the unusual and elaborate iUustrative scheme of this book. To the publishers, who have unhesitatingly supported this expensive and laborious illustrative equipment and to the remarkably skillful and efficient proofreaders and printers who have solved the numerous and extraordinary typographical difficulties involved in so large an illustrative scheme, the author would also offer his hearty thanks.