Boundaries advanced and receded, then advanced again; tribes and
nations moved their homes from place to place; empires, kingdoms,
principalities, duchies, and republics flourished brilliantly for a
while, and then went out; many peoples struggled for an autonomous
existence, but hardly a dozen acquired enough territory or mustered
a sufficiently numerous population to warrant their being called
"great nations." Of those that were great nations, only three have
endured as great nations for eight hundred years; and the three
that have so endured are the three greatest in Europe now--the
French, the British, and the German.

Some of the ancient empires continued for long periods. The history
of practical, laborious, and patient China is fairly complete and
clear for more than two thousand years before our era; and of dreamy,
philosophic India for almost as long, though in far less authentic
form. Egypt existed as a nation, highly military, artistic, and
industrious, as her monuments show, for perhaps four thousand years;
when she was forced by the barbarians of Persia into a condition
of dependence, from which she has never yet emerged. The time of
her greatness in the arts and sciences of peace was the time of her
greatest military power; and her decline in the arts and sciences
of peace accompanied her decline in those of war. Assyria, with
her two capitals, Babylon and Nineveh, flourished splendidly for
about six centuries, and was then subdued by the Persians under
Cyrus, after the usual decline. The little kingdom of the Hebrews,
hardy and warlike under Saul and David, luxurious and effeminate
under Solomon, lasted but little more than a hundred years. Persia,
rising rapidly by military means from the barbarian state, lived
a brilliant life of conquest, cultivated but little those arts of
peace that hold in check the passions of a successful military