When you look at the map you will see how by this time civilisation has described a semi-circle. It begins in Egypt, and by way of Mesopotamia and the Aegean Islands it moves westward until it reaches the European continent. The first four thousand years, Egyptians and Babylonians and Phoenicians and a large number of Semitic tribes (please remember that the Jews were but one of a large number of Semitic peoples) have carried the torch that was to illuminate the world. They now hand it over to the Indo-European Greeks, who become the teachers of another Indo-European tribe, called the Romans. But meanwhile the Semites have pushed westward along the northern coast of Africa and have made themselves the rulers of the western half of the Mediterranean just when the eastern half has become a Greek (or Indo-European) possession.
現在我們回過頭來看一看，你將發現，文明地區已勾勒出一個半圓型的輪廓。它肇始于埃及，再經由美索不達米亞和愛琴海的島嶼向西，一直抵達整個歐洲大陸。在人類文明史的頭4000年里，埃及人、巴比倫人、腓尼基人以及大批的閃米特部族（請記住猶太人就是這些閃米特部族之一），都曾高舉火炬照亮過世界。現在，他們將文明火炬傳遞給印歐種族的希臘人，希臘人又將它交給羅馬人。他們是地中海東部無可爭議的擁有者。而與此同時，閃米特人也正沿北非海岸向西推進，成為了地中海西半部的主人。
This, as you shall see in a moment, leads to a terrible conflict between the two rival races, and out of their struggle arises the victorious Roman Empire, which is to take this Egyptian-Mesopotamian-Greek civilisation to the furthermost corners of the European continent, where it serves as the foundation upon which our modern society is based.
這種狀況發展下去，其結果可以想見。到歷史的某個時刻，人類兩大種族--印歐人和閃米特人，為爭奪地中海和其它區域的統治權，展開了一場可怕的戰爭。在這個巨大的競技場上，誕生出戰功卓著的羅馬帝國。它將埃及--美索不達米亞--希臘的文明更深廣地與歐洲大陸 結合起來，奠定了我們現代歐洲社會的精神根基。
I know all this sounds very complicated, but if you get hold of these few principles, the rest of our history will become a great deal simpler. The maps will make clear what the words fail to tell. And after this short intermission, we go back to our story and give you an account of the famous war between Carthage and Rome.
我知道，這一切聽起來很復雜、很不可思議，但只要你領會了這幾條主要的線索，我們其余的歷史將變得簡明了許多。地圖將使我們明白很多文字難以言傳的東西。在此簡短的小結之后，讓我們回到歷史前進的道路，看一看發生在迦太基和羅馬之間的著名戰爭。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/Article/201701/486821.shtml
評論
打印
