Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/319

 POWER OF BABYLONIAN KINGS. 303 oomplishment of gigantic results. 1 In Assyria, the results were in great part exaggerations of enterprises in themselves useful to the people for irrigation and defence : religious worship was min- istered to in the like manner, as well as the personal fancies and pomp of their kings : while in Egypt the latter class predomi- nates more over the former. We scarcely trace in either of them the higher sentiment of art, which owes its first marked develop- ment to Grecian susceptibility and genius. But the human mind is in every stage of its progress, and most of all in its rude and unreflecting period, strongly impressed by visible and tangible magnitude, and awe-struck by the evidences of great power. To this feeling, for what exceeded the demands of practical conve- nience and security, the wonders both in Egypt and Assyria chiefly appealed ; while the execution of such colossal rorks de- monstrates habits of regular industry, a concentrated population under one government, and above all, an implicit submission to the regal and priestly sway, contrasting forcibly with the small autonomous communities of Greece and western Europe, where- in the will of the individual citizen was so much more energetic and uncontrolled. The acquisition of habits of regular industry, so foreign to the natural temper of man, was brought about in Egypt and Assyria, in China and Hindostan, before it had ac- quired any footing in Europe ; but it was purchased either by prostrate obedience to a despotic rule, or by imprisonment within the chain of a consecrated institution of caste. Even during the Homeric period of Greece, these countries had attained a certain civilization in mass, without the acquisition of any high mental qualities or the development of any individual genius : the reli- gious and political sanction, sometimes combined and sometimes separate, determined for every one his mode of life, his creed, his duties, and his place in society, without leaving any scope for the will or reason of the agent himself. Now the Phenicians and Carthaginians manifest a degree of individual impulse and energy which puts them greatly above this type of civilization, though in their tastes, social feelings, and religion, they are still Asiatic. 1 Diodoi. (i, 31) states this point justly with regard to the ancient kings of Egypt ep-ya /u'yaAa nai VavfiaaTu 6u"t rdf f, u#uvara r;)f iavT&v 66 vf Karahnrelv iiK