The Age of the Gods

XI. The Warrior Peoples and the Decline of the Archaic Civilisation

174 xi The Warrior Peoples and the Decline of the Archaic Civilisation i. the pacific character of primitive culture The archaic Civilisation, which has been described in the preceding chapters, reached its full development in the third millennium b.c. Thereafter the note of the civilisations of the Near east was conservation rather than progress. In fact, in many respects the general level of material culture stood higher in that age than at any subsequent period . all the great achievements on which the life of civilisation rests had been already reached, and there was no important addition to its material equipment until the rise of the great scientific and industrial movement in Western europe in modern times. The most important inventions which characterise the higher culture, such as agriculture and the domestication of animals, the plough and the wheeled vehicle, irrigation and the construction of canals, the working of metals and stone architecture, navigation and sailing ships, writing and the calendar, the city state and the institution of kingship, had been already achieved by the fourth millennium, and by the third we find organised bureaucratic states, written codes of laws, a highly developed commerce and industry , and the beginnings of astronomy and mathematics. at first sight it is difficult to understand why a civilising movement that had gone so far should go no further, and why the creative power of the archaic civilisation should have deserted it when it was still almost in its prime. To some extent, indeed, it was due to the obscure laws that govern the life of peoples and civilisations, above all to the rigidity which seems Decline of Archaic Culture 175 to characterise a form of culture that has attained a complete equilibrium with its environment. But it also finds an external explanation in the rise of a new type of warlike society, which put an end to the autonomous development of the archaic Culture, and for a time imperilled its very existence. The close of the neolithic age in europe and corresponding period in the Near east was marked by far-reaching movements of peoples and warlike invasions which broke down the frontiers of the old culture-provinces and produced new social forms and a new distribution of peoples and cultures. It may be compared to the ages of barbarian invasion, which so often in later history marked the end of one civilisation and the beginning of a new age. Indeed, it is the earliest example of this process, the first occasion in which we can trace the appearance of organised warfare as a factor in historical development. The earlier changes of culture in europe had been predominantly peaceful. There is no sign that the transition from the palæolithic to the neolithic age or the expansion of peasant culture in eastern and Central europe, or even the beginnings of the age of metal in the Mediterranean, were due in any degree to warlike invasions. In fact, from their open settlements and the lack of weapons, war can have played little part in the life of the neolithic peasant peoples. and the same is true, though to a lesser extent, of the archaic civilisations of the Near east. There, certainly, war was not unknown, either between the city states of sumer, or in the early states of the Nile valley, but it was exceptional and of a rudimentary type. society was not organised for war as in later times. There was no military caste. as Professor Breasted points out, the egyptians of the old Kingdom were essentially unwarlike . Their army consisted of an untrained levy of peasants, such as was used equally for the quarrying and transportation of stone for the great monuments, and its command was entrusted by Pharaoh to some leading official who was himself not a professional soldier. It may seem paradoxical to suggest, as Mr. Perry has done,1 that war is a comparatively late development in the history of humanity. It has been commonly assumed that the savage is essentially a fighter, and 1. Cf. W.J.Perry, An Ethnological Study of Warfare (1917), and War and Civilisation (1918). 176 The Age of the Gods that the early stages of social development were marked by continual warfare. Indeed, many writers have gone further and supposed that man was by nature a beast of prey, and that his progress has been due to a ruthless struggle for existence...