第十三章-希腊人

2016年5月24日功课

THE GREEKS

希腊人

MEANWHILE THE INDO-EUROPEAN TRIBE OF THE HELLENES WAS TAKING POSSESSION OF GREECE

同时，古希腊的印欧民族正逐渐控制了希腊。

2016年5月25日功课

THE Pyramids were a thousand years old and were beginning to show the first signs of decay, and Hammurabi, the wise king of Babylon, had been dead and buried several centuries, when a small tribe of shepherds left their homes along the banks of the River Danube and wandered southward in search of fresh pastures. They called themselves Hellenes, after Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha. According to the old myths these were the only two human beings who had escaped the great flood, which countless years before had destroyed all the people of the world, when they had grown so wicked that they disgusted Zeus, the mighty God, who lived on Mount Olympus.

矗立了千年的金字塔开始褪去昔日的光辉，巴比伦的圣王汉谟拉比也已经入土几个世纪。这时一个小的游牧民族离开自己的家乡，沿着多瑙河向南逡巡，在沿岸寻找新鲜的牧草。他们自称为赫伦人（一般译作古希腊人），以丢卡利翁与皮拉的儿子赫楞的名字命名。根据远古传说，丢卡利翁和皮拉是唯一两个逃脱大洪水的人。很久很久以前，世人不讲道德作恶多端，并且藐视住在奥林匹斯山的天神宙斯，被那场大洪水完全消灭。

2016年5月26日功课

Of these early Hellenes we know nothing. Thucydides, the historian of the fall of Athens, describing his earliest ancestors, said that they ``did not amount to very much,'' and this was probably true. They were very ill-mannered. They lived like pigs and threw the bodies of their enemies to the wild dogs who guarded their sheep. They had very little respect for other people's rights, and they killed the natives of the Greek peninsula (who were called the Pelasgians) and stole their farms and took their cattle and made their wives and daughters slaves and wrote endless songs praising the courage of the clan of the Achæans, who had led the Hellenic advance-guard into the mountains of Thessaly and the Peloponnesus.

关于赫伦人（古希腊人），我们什么也不知道。古雅典的历史学家修昔德底斯，描述他们原始祖先说“他们在数量上确实不多”，这应该是事实。他们一点不懂得礼仪。他们像猪一样生活，他们把敌人的尸体直接用来喂看管羊群的野狗，毫不顾及他人的权利。他们杀戮希腊半岛的土著居民（他们被称作佩拉斯基人），并且抢夺土著的耕地和牲畜，霸占他们的妻子和女儿为奴隶。他们写了无数的歌曲称颂亚加亚人的勇气，亚加亚人在古希腊进入塞萨利群山和伯罗奔尼萨半岛时领导了先锋部队。

2016年5月27日功课

But here and there, on the tops of high rocks, they saw the castles of the Ægeans and those they did not attack for they feared the metal swords and the spears of the Ægean soldiers and knew that they could not hope to defeat them with their clumsy stone axes.

但是，在高高的岩石上，他们总能看到爱琴人的城堡。迫于爱琴人士兵的金属刀剑和长矛，他们不敢攻击爱琴人，因为他们直到用自己笨拙的石斧不可能抵御爱琴人的士兵。

For many centuries they continued to wander from valley to valley and from mountain side to mountain side.Then the whole of the land had been occupied and the migration had come to an end.

几百年来，他们在群山峡谷之间不停的游荡。差不多占领了整片土地，但这批移民的还日子也到头了。

That moment was the beginning of Greek civilisation. The Greek farmer, living within sight of the Ægean colonies, was finally driven by curiosity to visit his haughty neighbours. He discovered that he could learn many useful things from the men who dwelt behind the high stone walls of Mycenæ, and Tiryns.

希腊文明的时代逐渐到来。希腊农夫与爱琴人的殖民地并肩而居，最后在好奇心的驱使下访问了他们这个傲慢的邻居。希腊人发现自己可以向居住在迈锡尼和梯林斯城堡里的那些人学习许多东西。

2016年5月28日功课

He was a clever pupil. Within a short time he mastered the art of handling those strange iron weapons which the Ægeans had brought from Babylon and from Thebes. He came to understand the mysteries of navigation. He began to build little boats for his own use.

古希腊人是一个机灵的学生。只用了很短的时间，他们就学会怎样使用钢铁武器。那是爱琴人从巴比伦人和底比斯人哪里学来的。他也掌握了航海的秘密。希腊人开始制造小船自己使用。

2016年5月30日功课

And when he had learned everything the Ægeans could teach him he turned upon his teachers and drove them back to their islands. Soon afterwards he ventured forth upon the sea and conquered all the cities of the Ægean. Finally in the fifteenth century before our era he plundered and ravaged Cnossus and ten centuries after their first appearance upon the scene the Hellenes were the undisputed rulers of Greece, of the Ægean and of the coastal regions of Asia Minor. Troy, the last great commercial stronghold of the older civilisation, was destroyed in the eleventh century B.C. European history was to begin in all seriousness.

当古希腊人从爱琴人身上学到了所有能学的东西以后，就抛弃了他们的这个老师，并把他们赶回了他们的岛屿上。他们就在海上四面出击，很快就占领了爱琴海所有的城市。距今1500年前，他们洗劫了克诺索斯。在他们第一次登上历史舞台1000年之后，赫伦人成为了希腊、爱琴海以及整个小亚细亚海域无可争议的霸主。特洛伊这个昔日强大的旧文明体系贸易重镇，在公元前11世纪被摧毁。认真的说，欧洲历史即将开启。