Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/443

 1920 435 Reviews of Books Histoire de VAntiquite. I. Javan {jusqu'en 480). Par Eugene Cavaignac. (Paris : Boccardi, 1917.) This is an account in summary form of the history of the ancient world of the Near East, including Greece, from the earliest period to the Persian war. M. Cavaignac does not, so far as we know, write at first hand on the subjects of ancient Egypt and Babylonia ; he must be indebted for his facts to others. On the whole he has got them down correctly enough : we only notice one bad mistake : on p. 101 the Israelites are said to appear in the fifteenth century B.C. as ' Isirailou dans les tablettes de Tell el-Amarna '. We wish they did ; the question of the time of their first appearance in Palestine would then be settled nemine contradicente. As a matter of fact a tribe called Khabiri appear in the Tell el-Amarna tablets as wandering brigands in Palestine in the fifteenth century, who are probably (but not absolutely certainly) to be identified with the 'Ibrim or Hebrews. The ' Isirailu ' of whom M,. Cavaignac is thinking appear two centuries later in the Victory-hymn of King Meneptah : he invaded Palestine, and according to his own account so schooled its peoples that ' Israel [Isirailu] had no seed ; Syria became as the widows of Egypt '. That this is a mention of Israel there is, of course, no doubt. On the subject of Egypt and Babylonia M. Cavaignac avoids generally mistakes, and also avoids controversy. If one presents the learned and interested world with a new account of ancient history, one is at least expected to provide a novel and suggestive presentment, and if possible to contribute new facts to knowledge or new theories for discussion. M. Cavaignac does neither. He provides neither notes nor references ; this is, as he says in his preface, due to the war, which has compelled him to modify the form of his work and omit all reference to the works of his predecessors in justification of his personal views. So far as Egypt and Babylonia are concerned, the latter seems hardly necessary, as he does not seem to give us any new views of his own. He writes a pedestrian account, in a smoothly flowing, uninspired style, of what is already known and generally agreed upon. It is happily somewhat otherwise when Greece — Javan proper — is dealt with. Here M. Cavaignac is no longer skating on thin ice, and his book here shows evidence of original work and knowledge, though it still goes on in the same level style, unrelieved by pregnant phrase, acute generaliza- tion, or striking illustration. About prehistoric Greece he has nothing new to say : the Vaphio cups, though found in Lakonia, do not of them- selves argue an ' agglomeration florissante ' in Lakonia ' a I'epoque rf 2