The Hartford herald., 1915-05-12
AWFUL TOLL OF ANCIENT WARS
Destruction of the Continent
of Atlantis the Most
Appalling Story.
HUMAN LIFE CHEAPEST THING


things that are wonderful. The
man who lives in New York and hal
never been further away than Yonk
ers firmly believes there is nothinl
worth seeing more than twelve min
utes from Broadway. This is only
natural, and, therefore, IT Is a com
mon thing to refer to the great Eu.
ropean war as the most terrible
thing that has ever happened on
this planet. There is no doubt but
that the war will be classed among
the greatest of this particular
worlds tragedies, but there have
been others-many in fact-far
worse than the slaughter in Europe
Man has lived on this planet al
least one million years. What man
did a million or a half million years
ago We have practically no means
of knowing. He may have written
long detailed histories of his deeds,
but time is a rigid destroyer, and
the only thing We can do is to study
the few relics which have been pre-
served from the ravages of the ele-
ments, and be satisfied with the lit
tie actual knowledge given when
We find the bones of a man along
side those of some wonderful beast.
Finding these in the centers of
huge rocks, rocks which nature
must have taken ages to make, We
concoct a story of the early days of
man, but that is all
Coming down to the historical
period We first come to one of the
greatest of all historical mysteries,
the destruction of Atlantis, the to-
tai disappearance of an entire con-
tinent, with a loss of 2S,000.000
human beings. Atlantis was a mod
erate-sized continent, said to have
been west of the Straits of Gibral1
tar. One day it was teeming with
human beings, the next day 1t had
sunk completely into the ocean.
This is supposed to have happened
at least 10000 years ago, because
it is mentioned in the Egyptian
Book of the Dead, and that particu-
lar Bible is known to have been
written at least previous to the year
1850 B. G. The submerging of the
continent is also mentioned in the
Assyrian books of $500 b. c., like
wise in Chinese books of 1000 B. c.
Later. in our period, references to
the awful disaster were made by
Homer, Horace. Plato and others.
1t is one of the greatest mysteries
in all human history, but the con-
tour of the ocean where the conti-
nent is supposed to have been gives
color to the belief that such a con-
tinent did sink in that locality.
The food of the Hebrews was
supposed to have happened in the
year 1898 B. c., and to have de-
stroyed more than 100000 human
beings.
In the year $50 B. C. Jerusalem
was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar
and the loss of life totaled more
than one-half million.
In comparing great battles the
attack OF Xerxes against Greece in
4S1 b. C. is entitled to rank. Xer-
xes marched forward with an army
Of 100000 warriors and a navy of
1900 ships. When the battle was
ended Xerxes had only $4,000 men
left The loss of life in this war
to more than 1000, 900.
Darius ILL.,. of Persia, fought the
Greeks in 341 B. c. at the battle OF
Granicus. In that one battle Darius
lost more than 100000 warriors
and slew more than $4,000 Greeks.
Probably the greatest tragedy in
the world began in the year $50 B.
C., when the bubonic plague appear
ed in Asia and continued until II
had destroyed the lives OF 1885,
100000 persons.
The Plains of Lombardy ran
blood in 102 b. c., when the Teu-
tons were attacked by the Romans.
The Romans killed more than 1OO,-
900 warriors outright. losing an al
most equal number. When II was
seem that the Romans had won, all
The women and children, numbering
about 10000 killed themselves,
he mothers first killing their child
rem and then taking their own lives
m order to prevent capture and
worse from the Romans.
Mithridates. King OF Pontius. is
'arely mentioned nowadays. but in
he year Ss b. C. he was the terror
II the world. He killed his own