THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS, CARTHAGINIANS, ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, INCLUDING A HISTÓRY OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES OF THE ANCIENTS. BY CHARLES ROLLIN, LATE PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, PROFESSOR OF ELOQUENCE IN THE ROYAL COLLEGE, AND MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS AND BELLES LETTRES. WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, BY JAMES BELL. FIRST COMPLETE AMERICAN EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. I. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NO. 82 CLIFF-STREET. 1839. PUBLISHER'S ADVERTISEMENT. IN presenting to the American Public, this new and improved edition of ROLLIN'S ANCIENT HISTORY, the Publisher deems it proper to point out some of the instances, which it is believed will give it a superiority over any other hitherto published in this countryThey are, FIRST-The restoration of the prefatory remarks of Rollin, to each history, as originally prepared by him and inserted in the French editions. SECOND-The addition of "A History of the Arts and Sciences of the Ancients," by Rollin, as inserted in the original, and all subsequent French editions. The following extract from the preface of the Publishers of the Glasgow Edition of 1832, Edited by James Bell, will more clearly show the importance of the additions referred to. "The publishers venture to say this is the only entire and unmutilated edition of Rollin's History in English, which has issued from the press for more than eighty years: indeed they are not aware that any other unmutilated edition was ever printed in Britain, except the first English edition published in 1738 by J. & P. Knapton, London. In Rollin's original work, as may be seen by consulting the French editions, and the first English edition 1738, the author has introduced each separate division of the history by suitable prefatory remarks. In the subsequent editions, however, these different introductions have been thrown together in the most confused and undistinguished manner, for the purpose of forming one general preface to the whole work; by which means not only is the original form of the work marred, but the utility of those valuable portions of it are in a great measure destroyed. But what is still worse, this part of the work has been exceedingly mutilated by the suppression of many paragraphs, and even whole pages; by which means the sentiments and remarks of the learned and pious author upon some of the most important and interesting subjects have been hidden from and lost to his English readers: and this is the more to be regretted, inasmuch as the mutilator has manifested any thing but a preference for the doctrines and morality of the Bible, in the selection of those parts of the work which he has chosen to suppress. In order also to make up the above mentioned heterogeneous preface, the whole of Chapter III. Book X. of the original work, forming part of the history of the Persians and Grecians, and amounting to above one hundred pages of the first English edition, has been torn from its original place in the work, and thrown into the centre of the foresaid general preface, without the smallest apparent regard to any principles of order or connexion, thus completing such a flagrant instance of literary license as it is hoped but seldom occurs. the edition now offered to the public, the various introductions to the several divisions of the history have been printed in their original separate form, and the many paragraphs formerly suppressed, as also Chapter III. Book X. have all been restored to their proper places in the work. In "It is a fact known to few English readers of Rollin, that the original edition of his 'Ancient History,' and all the subsequent French editions down to that edited by M. Letronne in 1823, contain as an integral part of the work, A History of the Arts and Sciences of the Ancients.' What first induced the English publishers to mutilate the work, by suppressing so large and valuable a part of it, we shall not determine; certain, however, it is that their injudicious example has been followed in all the English editions published since 1740: so that even few Booksellers are now aware of the fact, that in all the English editions of Rollin published during the last eighty-five years, nearly a THIRD PART OF THE WORK HAS BEEN SUPPRESSED, and that a part too which the author himself, in common we believe with every enlightened and philosophic mind, regarded as the most valuable and interesting of the whole. For as Dr. Johnson justly remarks, 'There is no part of history so generally useful as that which relates the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reason, the successive advances of science, the vicissitudes of learning and ignorance, which are the light and darkness of thinking beings, the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, surely the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected.'" It will be seen by the above extract, that the present edition of Rollin's Ancient History contains nearly one third more than any other hitherto issued from the American Press. NEW-YORK, OCT. 1834. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE, p. v.-Memoir of Rollin, xv.- Preface, xxiii.-Introduction, xxxi.-Introduction to the history of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Per- sians, xxxii.-Introduction to the history of the Persians and Grecians, xxxiv.-Introduction to the history of Philip king of Macedonia, and Alexander the Great, xlii.-In- troduction to the history of Alexander's successors, xliii. THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS. PART I. The description of Egypt: with an account of what is most curious and remarkable in that country, p. 1. SECT. IV. The lake of Maris, 3. SECT. V. The inundations of the Nile, 4.-The sources of the Nile, ib.-The cataracts of the Nile, ib.-Causes of the inundations of the Nile, ib.-The time and continu- ance of the inundations, ib.-The height of the inundations, 5. The canals of the Nile and spiral pumps, ib.-The fertility caused by the Nile, ib.-Two different pros- pects exhibited by the Nile, 6.-The canal formed by the CHAP. I. The foundation of Carthage, and its aggrand- izement, till the time of the first Punic war, 35.-Conquests CHAP. II. The history of Carthage, from the first ART. I. The first Punic war, 47.-The Libyan war; The march after the battle of the Rhone, 61.-Passage PART II. Of the manners and customs of the Egyp-second and third Punic war, ib. CHAP. I. Concerning the kings and government, 8. CHAP. II. Concerning the priests and religion of the SECT. I. The worship of the various deities, 10. SECT. II. The ceremonies of the Egyptian funerals, 12. SECT. I. Continuation of the history of Hannibal, 75. Hannibal undertakes and completes the reformation of the SECT. II. Dissensions between the Carthaginians and CHAP. VI. Of the fertility of Egypt, 15. PART III. The history of the kings of Egypt, 17.-The THE HISTORY OF THE CARTHAGINIANS. PART I. Of the character, manners, religion, and go- vernment of the Carthaginians, 28. SECT. I. Carthage formed after the model of Tyre, of which that city was a colony, 28. SECT. II. The religion of the Carthaginians, 28. SECT. III. Form of the government of Carthage, 30.- The suffetes, ib.-The senate, ib.-The people, 31.-The tribunal of the Hundred, ib.-Defects in the government SECT. IV. Trade of Carthage, the first source of its CHAP. I. The first empire of the Assyrians, 94. SECT. I. Duration of that empire 94.-The walls, 96. -The quays and bridge, ib.-The lake, ditches, and canals CHAP. II. The second Assyrian empire, both of Nine- |