Page 3334 - 1970S

THE
UNSEENHAND
INHISTORY
In October, 539 B.C., · Baby Ion -
the greatest city of the ancient
world - fell to a Medo-Persian
army under Cyrus the Great.
Less than a half century earlier,
the famed city had reached the
height of its power and splendor un–
der King Nebuchadnezzar, builder
of the magnificent lshtar Gate and
the world-renowned Hanging Gar–
dens, one of the seven wonders of
the ancient world .
After Nebuchadnezzar's death.
however, Babylonian power de–
clined rapidly. By 539, the stage was
set for collapse.
Greek historians Herodotus and
Xenophon claim that Cyrus
achieved entry into the heavily forti–
fied capital by cleverly diverting the
waters of the Euphrates Ri ver,
which flowed under the city's huge
brass gates and through the length
of the metropolis. • ·
Upstream, according to the ac–
count , Cyrus' army dug a channel to
lead off the water into a huge aban–
doned reservoir near the river. The
leve! of the river soon began to sink,
and Cyrus ' army, under cover of
darkness, slipped quietly down into
th e now knee-deep water and
waded under the gates into the un–
suspecting city. The Babylonians
were taken by surprise, and the city
fell with little bloodshed.
The fall of Babylon was one of
the decisive events of antiquity,
marking the end of an era. The
once-great Babylonian realm was
absorbed into the Persian Empire,
which soon included all of the Near
East from the Aegean Sea to the
lndus River.
Design in History?
Eventually, however, the great Per–
sian Empire followed in the foot–
steps of its predecessor, falling to
the armies of Alexander the Great
The PLAIN TRUTH January 1977
ls history simply a
meaningless patchwork
of random events?
Or is there a definite design
and purpose behind it?
by Keith W. Stump
sorne 200 years later. And likewise,
the legions of Rome ultimately
swallowed up the one-time domains
of Alexander.
The rise and fall of empir.es is a
recurring feature of history. One
power rises to prominence, only to
decline and eve ntually be sup–
planted by another.
The Greek historian Polybius
recounts how the great Roman com–
mander Scipio the Younger, while
watching lhe city of Carthage going
up in flames in 146 B.C., remarked
lo him: "A glorious moment, Po–
lybius; bul 1 have a dread fore–
boding thal sorne day tbe same
doom will be pronounced upon my
own counlry.... [For thus it had]
happened lo Illium ... and to lhe
empires of Assyria, Media, and Per–
sia, the greatest oftheir time...."
For centuries historians have pon–
dered the inexorable progression of
civilizations. ls history, they have
wondered, simply an arbitrary suc–
cession of events, a meaningless
patchwork of random incidenls, de–
void of purpose? Or is there sorne
sort of overall design or recurring
pattern in history?
Differing Views
The belief that it is possible to dis–
cern in the course of human history
sorne all-encompassing pattern or
general scheme is very old. Many
widely varying theories have been
advanced attempling to give mean–
ing to the historical process.
Oswald Spengler, the early twen-
tieth-cenlury German philosopher,
drew an analogy between the life
cycles of cultures and those of bio–
logical organisms. He maintained
that all civilizations pass inevitably
lhrough a four-period life cycle of
birth, maturity, decay, and death .
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- the "fathers of communism" -
saw an endless "class struggle" be–
lween the oppressed and the oppres–
sors as lhe mainspring and primary
motive force of history.
Thomas Carlyle, the nineteenth–
century Scottish essayist and histo–
rian, contended il was the actions of
a few outstanding figures such as
Alexander the Great, Caesar, Gen–
ghis Khan, and Napoleon which -
above all other factors - shaped the
course of history. "The history of
the world," he wrote, "is bul the
biography of great men."
The eminent English historian
Arnold Toynbee maintained - based
on his analysis of 26 civilizations
throughoul history - that the
growth and continuance of civ–
ilizations is the direct resull of lheir
responding successfully to chal–
lenges, under the leadership of cre–
ative minorities. Once a civilization
fails to respond successfully, it disin–
tegrates. Unlike Spengler, however,
Toynbee did not regard the death
of a civilization as inevitable.
Other theorists have attempted to
apply scientific procedures to the
study of history, hoping to formu–
late scientific " laws" of historical de–
velopment.
Still others have pursued various
religious or metaphysical inler–
pretations of history, such as St. Au–
gustine in his magnum opus The
City of God (A.D. 426), in which he
conceives history as the drama of
the redemption ofman.
Sorne historians, however, tind no
overall pattern at all, stressing the
31