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(4) The Scian Muse.-Homer. Scio, or Chios (an island near the west coast of Asia Minor), is one of the seven places which laid claim to the honour of having been his birthplace.

(5) The Teian Muse.-Anacreon of Teos (a town on the west coast of Asia Minor) was a celebrated writer of love-songs in the sixth century B.C. In the next line of this poem, "The hero's harp' refers to Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey commemorate the deeds and adventures of heroes; and 'the lover's lute,' to Anacreon.

(6) Marathon.-Famous for its battle, in which 10,000 Athenians defeated an immense army, which Darius, king of Persia, had sent against their country (490 B. C.).

(7) Salamis.-A small island near Athens. Here the Persian fleet which was co-operating with Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, in his invasion of Greece, was totally defeated by the united squadrons of the different Greek states. Xerxes, seated upon a throne which had been erected for him on a lofty height on the Attic shore, witnessed with rage and shame the destruction of his fleet and the ruin of his hopes (480 B.C.). 72. (1) Thermopylæ.

p. 65.

See pp. 65-70, and Explanatory Note to

(2) Samian wine.-Samos is a fertile island, separated by a narrow channel from the west coast of Asia Minor.

(3) Bacchanal.-The Bacchanals were women who celebrated with wild orgies the worship of Bacchus, the god of wine.

(4) The Pyrrhic dance.-A celebrated war-dance, which in many parts of Greece was regarded rather as an amusement than as a piece of military training. It was danced to the flute, and its tune was quick and light.

(5) The Pyrrhic phalanx.-The Phalanx or Greek formation of heavy-armed infantry, after passing through various phases of development, reached its final and most perfect form in the Macedonian army, and as such was employed by Philip of Macedon against Greece, by Alexander his son against the empires of the East, and by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, against the lighter legions of Rome (280-274 B. C.). The Phalanx consisted of a line of parallel columns armed with long spears.

(6) Cadmus.-The reputed founder of Thebes. He is said to have introduced into Greece, either from Egypt or Phoenicia, an alphabet of sixteen letters.

(7) Polycrates.-Tyrant, or irresponsible ruler of Samos. He lived in the sixth century B. C., and was celebrated above all other Greek rulers for his wealth and power, for the splendour

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of his court, and for his patronage of literature and art. Anacreon of Teos (see note (5) to p. 70) was an honoured guest at his court.

73. (1) Miltiades.--Leader of the Athenians at the glorious battle of Marathon (see note (6) to p. 70). The word Chersonese means land-island or peninsula. The Thracian Chersonese (the modern Gallipoli) is here alluded to.

(2) Suli.-A group of mountains in the south of Epirus. Its inhabitants, the Suliotes (whose ancestors had fled to its fastnesses from their Turkish oppressors during the seventeenth century), offered a desperate resistance to Ali Pasha, from 1788 to 1803. The very women are said to have taken part in these struggles.

(3) Parga.-A place on the coast of Epirus, to which the Suliotes retreated after having been expelled from their mountain home (1803). They subsequently took a glorious part in the war of Greek independence.

(4) Doric Mothers. The Doric race was one of the great divisions of the Hellenic people. They seem to have been originally settled in the country north of the Corinthian Gulf. From this they moved southwards and conquered the Peloponnese (the southern part of Greece, now known as the Morea). They were more famous for courage in battle than for skill in art and song. Of all the Doric cities, Sparta was by far the most renowned.

(5) Heracleidan blood.-The Heracleids or descendants of Heracles (or Hercules) are said to have been expelled from the Peloponnese. After an interval of exile they returned as the companions and leaders of the invading Dorians, and received as their reward a third portion of the conquered land. The story, though doubtless in large measure mythical, seems to have at least a substratum of truth.

(6) The Franks.-The Western Nations. The Franks were a German tribe who, in the fifth century A. D., overran Gaul and founded the kingdom of France. At the time of the Crusades the name was applied by the Greeks of Constantinople to the inhabitants of Western Europe.

(7) Sunium.-A rocky promontory at the southern extremity

of Attica.

74. Funeral Oration delivered by Pericles.-After the Persian invasions of Greece had been successfully repelled, Athens became the leading city in an important maritime confederacy, acquired ascendancy over several states on the mainland, and rose to an

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extraordinary height of power, prosperity, and splendour. The feeling with which she came to be regarded throughout Greece was one of mingled fear, hatred, and admiration.' In the year 431 B.C. the Peloponnesian states, together with several of the cities north of the Corinthian Gulf, formed themselves into a league under the leadership of Sparta, and commenced a war against Athens, known as the Peloponnesian war, which lasted, with one interval of peace, for nearly thirty years. Those Athenians who fell in the first year of the war, were buried, 'in accordance with an old national custom,' at the public charge, and a funeral oration was delivered over them by Pericles, a famous orator and statesman, who had been for many years the foremost man at Athens.

84. (1) Zoroaster. -The founder, or rather reformer, of the ancient Persian religion. His life is shrouded in darkness, and his date is quite uncertain. He was not the founder of Sun-worship, which indeed, as a branch of Nature-worship, is of immemorial antiquity. It is probable that he was himself a fire-priest, and that his great work was to reduce to a unity the plurality of good spirits which the fire-priests before him had worshipped. The word Zoroaster is a title rather than a proper name. The reformer's family name was Spitama.

(2) Brahminism.—The religion of the great majority of the inhabitants of India. Its origin is lost in the darkness of antiquity; but it seems, in the first instance, to have consisted in the worship of the elementary powers of Nature. Zoroastrianism (see above) was simply a later development of Brahminism.

(3) Buddhism.-A religion founded in the sixth century B.C. by Siddhartha (called also Gautama and Sakya-muni), an Indian prince. The word Buddha, like Zoroaster, is a title rather than a name, and means he who knows or he to whom truth is known. Buddhism is in strictness a system of morality or a scheme of life rather than a religion (in the vulgar acceptation of the word), the idea of a God as creating or in any way ruling the world being entirely wanting to it. At the present day it prevails in Ceylon, Farther India, Tibet, Mongolia, and over a large part of China.

(4) The new Rome of Constantine.-Constantinople. In 330 A.D. Constantine the Great, one of the most illustrious of the Roman Emperors, made Byzantium on the Bosphorus the capital of his empire, and gave it the name of Constantinople, or the City of Constantine.

85. Ælius Gallus. -A Roman general in the reign of Augustus, who

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led an army into the heart of Arabia B.C. 24. His troops suffered much from sickness and want of water, and were at last compelled to retreat.

86. Allah.-The Arabic name of the Supreme Being.

87. (1) Magianism.—The religion of ancient Persia (see note (1) to p. 84). The Magi were the keepers of the sacred things, the learned of the people, the philosophers and servants of God. They were credited with the possession of supernatural powers, were held in the highest reverence, and had unbounded influence both in public and private life.

(2) Talmudic Judaism.-The name Talmud is given to the books in which is embodied the post-Mosaic code of the Jewish civil and canonical law. The Talmud consists of two parts, the Mishna or written law, and the Gemara or collection of traditions and comments of Jewish doctors.

88. The Koran.—The sacred book of Mohammedanism. Its contents are believed to have been divinely revealed to Mohammed, by whom they were dictated to scribes and written down in chapters on separate leaves and tablets.

89. (1) The Caaba (or Kaaba).—An oblong stone building which now stands within the great mosque of Mecca. The building seems to have existed from time immemorial. Before the conquest

of Mecca by Mohammed, it was used by the Arabs as a place of idolatrous worship.

(2) The Mouedhin. -The duty of the Mouedhin (or Muëddin) is to announce from the roofs of the Mosques the different times of prayer.

91 (1) The Teutons, the Huns, or even the later Mongols of the North and East.-The Teutons (i.e. the German and Scandinavian races) broke down the barriers of the Roman Empire and conquered nearly the whole of Central and Western Europe. The Huns overran Eastern and Central Europe in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries A.D. Attila was the most famous of their leaders. His conquering progress was arrested at the great battle of Chalons-sur-Marne, 451 A.D. power of the Huns was broken in pieces. Genghiz Khan, in the early part of the thirteenth century A.D., overran the greater part of Asia and a large part of Europe, founding a short-lived empire which extended from the shores of the Pacific to the borders of Germany.

After his death the The Mongols under

(2) The romance of Antar. - The story of the chivalrous exploits and romantic adventures of Antar, an Arab chief and poet of the sixth century A.D.

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92. The Arian Goths or Vandals. — Arius, a native of Libya, who flourished in the early part of the fourth century A.D., denied the divinity of Christ. His doctrines met with much support, but also with violent opposition. Many of the German races that overran the Roman Empire, notably the Goths and the Vandals, adopted the Arian form of Christianity; but the Trinitarian doctrine gradually established itself throughout Christendom, the Longobards, who were the last to give up Arianism, becoming converted to the orthodox faith in 662 A.D.

94. (1) The battle-word of Charlemagne against the Saxons.-The Saxons, who were heathens, were conquered by Charlemagne, the great Frankish king, and forcibly converted to Christianity after a series of bloody wars in 782 A. D. Charlemagne's object in making war against them was twofold-(1) to secure the frontiers of his own kingdom, and (2) to extend the Christian religion.

(2) St. Louis.-King of France from 1226 to 1270. Having recovered from a dangerous illness, he embarked on a crusade in fulfilment of a vow, in August 1248, and invaded Egypt, hoping by the conquest of that country to open the way to Palestine. His expedition was unsuccessful, and he returned to France in 1252. In 1270 he embarked on a new crusade, and proceeded to Tunis, where he and the greater part of his army perished of pestilence. Pope Boniface VIII. canonized him in 1297. 95. (1) Allemaine.-Germany. Alemanni was the name given to a military confederacy of German tribes, who made many incursions into Gaul in the third and fourth centuries A.D., and were finally subdued by Clovis, king of the Franks, towards the end of the fifth century.

1

(2) The Magnificat.—The hymn of thanksgiving said by the Virgin Mary, Luke i. 46-55, beginning, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord.' The word magnificat is the Latin for 'doth magnify.' 98. (1) The old Saturnian reign. There was a tradition that Saturn (the dethroned king of Heaven) had at one time reigned in Italy, and that during his reign the country had been blessed with peace and plenty.

(2) Enceladus.—One of the giants who rebelled against Zeus. The story went that he was overwhelmed beneath Mount Etna, and that the eruptions of the mountain were caused by his attempts to free himself from its weight.

100. (1) Salerno.-A town in Southern Italy, about thirty miles to the south-east of Naples.

(2) Palermo.-The capital of Sicily. A large town in the north-west of the island.