Ancient History flows from these sources.
=Books.=--Ancient peoples have left written records behind them. Some
of these peoples had sacred books--for example, the Hindoos, the
Persians, and the Jews; the Greeks and Romans have handed down to us
histories, poems, speeches, philosophical treatises. But books are
very far from furnishing all the information that we require. We do
not possess a single Assyrian or Phoenician book. Other peoples have
transmitted very few books to us. The ancients wrote less than we, and
so they had a smaller literature to leave behind them; and as it was
necessary to transcribe all of this by hand, there was but a small
number of copies of books. Further, most of these manuscripts have
been destroyed or have been lost, and those which remain to us are
difficult to read. The art of deciphering them is called Palaeography.
=The Monuments.=--Ancient peoples, like ourselves, built monuments of
different sorts: palaces for their kings, tombs for the dead,
fortresses, bridges, aqueducts, triumphal arches. Of these monuments
many have fallen into ruin, have been razed, shattered by the enemy or
by the people themselves.
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