Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/676

This page needs to be proofread.

660 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

divisions corresponded only in the least degree to the old divi- sions. The political and military frontiers were continually over- thrown ; finally at the death of Seleucus, the last of the lieutenants of Alexander, there remained three great kingdoms, Syria, Egypt, and Macedonia, and other less important kingdoms in Bithynia and northern Cappadocia, but the dismemberment into distinct sovereignties with narrowed political frontiers did not prevent the other frontiers from further expansion. Thus the divinities of Egypt penetrated the Greek world, just as its pantheon did Egypt and the Orient. Each divinity had two names, one Egyptian, the other Greek; Ammon-Zeus, Hathor- Aphrodite, Thoth-Hermes. In the same way intercontinental trade had everywhere Asiatic, African, and European representatives of all races, and moreover already of mixed varieties. In Egypt the names were preserved, but as administrative districts; there were two capitals, Memphis, the Egyptian, and Alexandria, the Grecian ; both of them more- over Asiatic, Further, during almost all of the third century Egypt held Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Cos.

At the same period there was developed on the borders of Egypt, an empire comprising all the basin of the Upper Nile, from the Tropic of Cancer to the region of the sources. It was a true military march in continual contact and conflict with the savage populations which separated Ethiopia from the Red Sea, who were shielded by the mountains which lie between Ethiopia and that body of water. These regions are still in our day the seat of a military power, Abyssinia, which has been able to hold in check and to defeat Italy.

In his Principles of Sociology (Vol. Ill, pp. 387 ff., French trans.) H. Spencer, in the course of numerous observations agreeing in part with the preceding, concluded with some generalizations which may be accepted as an approximation to the positive theory of frontiers, but still a superficial one. Accord- ing to him, in proportion as political integration progresses, it effaces the primitive divisions of the parts integrated. In the first place, the non-topographical divisions which proceed from con- sanguinity disappear slowly, for example, in clans and separate tribes; these divisions are effaced by mutual mingling. In the