The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

required to sit in the starlight in the circle of the tribesmen. He was expected to tell of his origin, his race, and tribe; and then the hosts also told the fame of their ancestors and sang the deeds of their fathers and themselves, the feuds and encounters in which their tribe had been victorious, the virtues of their favourite horses, and the swiftness of their camels.

      Poetry was the only form of intellectual life known to the tribes of the desert. The Bedouins had a lively sense of the incidents which broke the simple loneliness of their lives, and gave them a vigorous and even a fiery expression. The artless song was the expression of feelings deeply stirred by sorrow or joy. Such songs were equally adapted for calling to mind their own deeds and fortunes or those of the tribe, and for moral exhortation. They were "occasional" pieces. Lament for the dead, praise of the noblest warrior, the battles and exaltation of the tribe, the generosity and courage of their own tribe or hatred of the hostile tribe, derision of the enemy, hunting, weapons, rides through the desert, horses and camels, are the subjects of this poetry, which is expressed in short iambic verses. Tradition mentions Lokman as the oldest poet. He is supposed to be a contemporary of David; and round his name is gathered a number of proverbs, gnomes, and fables. The short poems lived on in the tribe, they were sung again and again, extended and recast. At a later time there were also rhapsodes who could repeat a store of such poems.

      The Arabs have developed in the most healthy and marked manner the characteristic features of the Semitic race. Their roving life in the deserts under the burning sun and amid tempests and whirlwinds of sand has strengthened and hardened them. Surrounded in pathless isolation by beasts of prey and hostile tribes, every one was dependent on his own watchfulness and keenness, on his courage and resolution, on his horse and his lance. On a frugal and scanty sustenance the body became lean and thin, but supple, muscular, and capable of endurance; and in these hardy bodies dwelt a resolute spirit. Thus the Arabs display a freer attitude, a more steadfast repose, a more haughty pride, a greater love of independence, and a more adventurous boldness than their kinsmen. Their land and their mode of life have saved them from the greedy avarice, from the luxury and debauchery, into which the Semitic nations on the Euphrates and Tigris, as on the Mediterranean, often fell, though they share in the cruelty and bloodthirstiness common to their race. It was the Arabs on whose virgin strength a new Semitic empire and civilization was able to be founded in the Middle Ages, when Babel and Asshur, Tyre and Carthage, Jerusalem and Palmyra had long passed away.

      FOOTNOTES:

      [428] Herod. 3, 7; 1, 131; 7, 69, 86.

      [429] Eratosthenes in Strabo, p. 767.

      [430] Strabo, p. 777.

[431] Diod. 2, 48; 3, 44.

[432] Diod. 2, 48, 50, 54; 3, 42, 43. The accounts of the grove are taken from Agatharchides.—Strabo, p. 777.

[433] "Hist. Nat." 6, 32.

[434] Amm. Marcell. 14, 4.

[435] Herod. 3, 107–113.

[436] Heracl. Cuman. Fragm. 4. ed. Müller.

[437] Apud Strabon. p. 768 ff.

[438] Agatharch. "De Mari Erythr.;" apud Diod. 3, 45–48, and the excerpt of Photius in Müller, "Geogr. Gr. Min." 1, 111 ff.; cf. Strabo, p. 778.

[439] Strabo, p. 778.

[440] "Hist. Nat." 12, 32; 6, 32 seq.

[441] The queen of Sheba, who brings such large gifts of gold and spices to Solomon, must in any case be regarded as the queen of the rich spice land, and with this account agree other passages in which Sheba is mentioned. To the Seba, who are mentioned in Psalm lxxii. 10, 15, as rich in gold along with the Sheba, and are described in Isaiah as people of great stature (xlv. 15; cf. xliii. 3), and are placed in Genesis x. 7 among the children of Cush, I cannot assign any place. Prideaux assumes that the two nations became amalgamated; "Trans. Bibl. Arch." 2, 2.

[442] Isaiah xxi. 13, 14, 17.

[443] Dümichen, "Die Flotte einer ægyptischen Königin."

[444] G. Smith, "Assyr. Discov." p. 286; Schrader, "Keilschriften und Alt. Test." s. 56, 143, 163.

[445] G. Smith, "Assurbanipal," pp. 264, 265, 275.

[446] Gen. xxv. 1–11; xxvi. 34; xxxvi. 11.

[447] Birch, "The Annals of Tutmes III.;" "Archæolog." vol. xlv.

[448] Papyrus Harris in Chabas, "Recherches sur la Dynastie 19," p. 59.

[449] Movers, "Phœnizier," 2, 3, 302.

[450] Strabo, p. 756; Pliny, "Hist. Nat." 12, 32.

[451] Isaiah xxi. 13, 14.

[452] Movers, "Phœnizier," 2, 3, 293.

[453] Isaiah lx. 6.

[454] Herod. 3, 97.

[455] 1 Kings xxii. 49; 2, xiv. 7, 22; 2 Chronicles xvii.; 2, xxvi. 6, 7. Under Ahaz, the grandson of Uzziah, Elath was again lost.—2 Kings xvi. 6.

[456] Caussin de Percival, "Histoire des Arabes," 1, 16, 17; Wellsted, "Reisen in Arabien, von E. Rödiger," 1, 307.

[457] Prideaux, "Trans. Bibl. Arch." 2, 19.

[458] D. H. Müller, "Zeit. d. d. M. Gesellschaft," 1876, s. 522 ff.

[459] Osiander in the "Zeit. d. d. M. Gesellschaft," 10, 17–73; Praetorius, loc.