Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/281

259 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 259 history of its princes; which Berosus imparted to the Greeks*, as Manetho did the Egyptian history. Ahasuerus is described, in the book of Esther, as causing the benefactors of his throne to be registered in his chronicle f, which was read to him in nights when he could not sleep. Similar registers were perhaps kept many centuries earlier at the courts of Ecbatana and Babylon. The ancient sculptures of central Asia have likewise the same historical character as those of Egypt: they record military expeditions, treaties, pacifications of king- doms, and the tributes of subject provinces. From the discoveries which have been recently made, it may be expected that many more sculptures of this description will be found in different parts of the ancient kingdom of Assyria. The early concentration of vast masses of men in enormous cities; the despotic form of the government; and the a-reat influence exercised bv the events of the court upon the weal and woe of the entire population, directed the attention of millions to one point, and imparted a deep and extensive interest to the journal of the monarch's life. Even, however, without these incentives, which are peculiar to a despotic form of government, the people of Israel, from the early union of its tribes around one sanctuary, and under one law, (for the custody of which a numerous priesthood was appointed,) recorded and preserved very ancient and venerable historical traditions. The difference between these Oriental nations and the Greeks, with respect to their care in recording their history, is very great. The Greeks evinced a careless and almost infantine indifference about the registering of passing events, almost to the time when they became one of the great nations of the world, and waged mighty wars with the ancient kingdoms of the East. The celebration of a by gone age, which imagination had decked with all its charms, engrossed the atten- tion of the Greeks, and prevented it from dwelling on more recent events. The division of the nation into numerous small states, and the republican form of the governments, prevented a concentration of interest on particular events and persons ; the attention to domestic affairs was con- fined within a narrow circle, the objects of which changed with every ge- neration. No action, no event, before the great conflict between Greece and Persia, could be compared in interest with those great exploits of the mythical age, in which heroes from all parts of Greece were sup- posed to have borne a part; certainly none made so pleasing an im- pression upon all hearers. The Greeks required that a work read in public, and designed for general instruction and entertainment, should impart unmixed pleasure to the mind ; but, owing to the dissensions between the Greek republics, their historical traditions could not but offend some, if they flattered others. In short, it was not till a late pe- Babylonica or Chaldaica. BcariXixai hpfi^r, from which CteBias derived information. Diod. II. 32. s 2
 * Blmosus of Chaldaea wrote under Antiochus Theos (262 b.c.) a wuik called