General Introduction

Question 1

What is the practical limit of history?

Answer 1

The practical limit of history extends over a period of roughly 3,000 years.

Question 2

How far back does the practical limit of history go?

Answer 2

Back to about 1,000 B. C.

Question 3

What do we know of history beyond the practical limit?

Answer 3

Scraps of archeological evidence; names of pictures engraved on stone.

Question 4

Who are the ancient people who were to set their imprint on later ages?

Answer 4

Untutored and unknown wandering tribes of Aryans.

Question 5

How far did the ancient people travel, who were to set their imprint on later ages?

Answer 5

The tribes of Ayrans worked their way through the great plains of the Volga, the Dnieper, and the Danube, eventually forced their way into the Balkan and the Italian peninsulas.

Question 6

Where did the ancient people first settle, who were to set their imprint on later ages?

Answer 6

In the Italian peninsulas, with the sea barring their farther progress.

Question 7

Which two cities of the ancient people were to rise to the greatest celebrity?

Answer 7

Rome and Athens.

Question 8

When did Greece emerge from obscurity?

Answer 8

About the year 1,000 B. C. or a little later.

Question 9

What character made Greece emerge from obscurity?

Answer 9

Homer, about the year 1,000 B. C., or a little later.

Question 10

Who are the Jews’ historical counterpart to Greece’s Homer? Why?

Answer 10

Joshua—who lead their conquest of Palestine whereby they, as the ancient Greeks, emerged from obscurity. For he comes close enough chronologically to Homer.

Question 11

Who brought the alphabet to the ancient people who were to set their imprint on later ages and how?

Answer 11

Tyre, Phocaea, Carthage, and Marseille: for they were the early traders.

Question 12

In whose writer’s verses did the Greeks weave their early legends?

Answer 12

Homer.

Question 13

Who are the major dramatists of ancient Greece?

Answer 13

Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Question 14

Who were the major historians of ancient Greece?

Answer 14

Thucydides and Herodotus.

Question 15

In which mode of thought did the Greek achieve their most important results?

Answer 15

Philosophy.

Question 16

In which philosophers did ancient Greek philosophy find its supreme expression?

Answer 16

In Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno.

Question 17

When did Greek begin to lose its vitality and to decay?

Answer 17

From the close of the Fourth Century B. C., the time of Aristotle and his pupil Alexander the Great.

Question 18

How wide was the Greek empire as Alexander the Greek had created it?

Answer 18

It stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indus.

Question 19

What happened to the Greek empire after Alexander’s death?

Answer 19

It was split into a number of monarchies, the Greek kingdoms of the East.

Question 20

What was the last Greek kingdom to survive after Alexander’s death?

Answer 20

The kingdom of the Ptolemies in Egypt.

Question 21

How did the last Greek kingdom perish?

Answer 21

The kingdom of the Ptolemies perished when Augustus defeated Antony and Cleopatra in B. C. 31, exactly 300 years after Alexander’s final victory over Darius at Arbela.

Question 22

During the three hundred years between Alexander’s final victory over Darius and the victory of Augustus over Antony and Cleopatra in B. C. 31, what more western branch of the Aryans had forced their way to supremacy?

Answer 22

The Romans.

Question 23

When did Rome break down the power of Carthage, get control of the Mediterranean, and then suddenly stretch out her hand over its eastern half?

Answer 23

About B. C. 200.

Question 24

From about B. C. 200, how long did it take Rome to complete the conquest of the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Egypt, and make the Mediterranean a Roman lake?

Answer 24

Less than two centuries.

Question 25

According to the outline of facts afforded by the legends and history of the Republic of Rome, how far back does the city go?

Answer 25

It goes back 500 B. C.

Question 26

When did the Romans find literary expression?

Answer 26

Only after establishing contact with civilization and language of Greece.

Question 27

To which period of Roman history do the early years of the Empire refer?

Answer 27

The age of Augustus.

Question 28

Who was the Roman imitator of and counterpart to Greece’s Homer?

Answer 28

Virgil.

Question 29

Who was the first Roman philosopher?

Answer 29

Lucretius.

Question 30

On whom did Cicero model himself?

Answer 30

On Demosthenes.

Question 31

In which only mode of thought did the Romans equal the Greeks?

Answer 31

History.

Question 32

Who was Rome’s worthy rival to Thucydides?

Answer 32

Tacitus.