The Three Germanys (Volume 1); Glimpses Into Their History (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889. Excerpt: ... I INTRODUCTION. THE WORLD BEFORE CHARLEMAGNE. This Period seems to fall into four divisions: I. Before the Birth of Christ. II. From the Birth of Christ to the Irruption of the Barbarians. III. Irruption of the Barbarians. IV. From the Irruption of the Barbarians to Charlemagne. i. THE WORLD BEFORE THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. FROM the earliest dawn of history to the birth of Christ, six great so-called universal monarchies (the origin of the first two lost in the mists of antiquity) successively arose on the shores of the Mediterranean: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome; successive, because the supreme power, about in the order just named, passed from one to the other; universal, because their dominions comprehended the then most civilized portions of the earth. The rest of the globe had not yet fairly ajjpeared upon the stage of history. The greatest of these empires was the last mentioned, Rome. They all comprised Palestine within their limits, and their relations with the Jewish people and Jerusalem formed a striking element in their history. Egypt for several centuries held the whole Jewish nation in slavery; Assyria bore the ten tribes into Asia, whence they never returned; Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar) for the time destroyed Jerusalem, carried the Jews to Babylon, and held them seventy years in slavery; Persia (Cyrus and Artaxerxes) gave them permission to return, and aided them in rebuilding their city; Greece (Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the successors of Alexander the Great) endeavored to extirpate the Jewish religion; and Rome finally destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and scattered the people among the nations of the earth as they are scattered to-day. Of these six empires, two, Assyria and Babylon, have quite disappeared. One, Rome, stil...