Domestic Everyday Life, Manners, and Customs in the Ancient World
History is, of all studies, the most interesting and the most generally followed. By this means we become acquainted with what has taken place during the ages of the world which preceded our own; and vast and valuable indeed are the lessons to be learned from the extended experience thus afforded. Of all the various branches of history, that which relates to the domestic everyday life of our fellow-creatures who have lived before us under very different circumstances from those by which we are surrounded, and who have been influenced by events and causes totally different from any of those by which we can be affected, appears to me to be by far the most useful for us to be acquainted with. An account of the wars which have been waged between different nations, a narrative of the political intrigues which have been carried on in certain states, a description of the various kings and queens who have reigned over particular peoples, possess their peculiar attractions for some tastes; but a relation of what were the modes of life, the daily pursuits, the ōrdinary occupations, and the common resources of the people themselves at these various periods of the world's history, appears to me to be a subject that comes home more nearly to us, and is calculated more warmly to excite our interest than any of the former matters. We shall thus be led to trace out the earliest dawn of civilisation, and shall have an opportunity of watching its course from the period when its light first gleamed above the horizon, to that when its midday splendour served to disperse the darkness of barbarism, and to diffuse knowledge and refinement wherever its rays had penetrated.