Your aspirations are deeply influenced by your inspirations. Don't produce bad situations due to a lack of creative ambitions.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
These matters coming to the knowledge of the Vitelli and Orsini and their following, it appeared to them that the duke would become too powerful, and it was feared that, having seized Bologna, he would seek to destroy them in order that he might become supreme in Italy. Upon this a meeting was called at Magione in the district of Perugia, to which came the cardinal, Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini, Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Gianpagolo Baglioni, the tyrant of Perugia, and Messer Antonio da Venafro, sent by Pandolfo Petrucci, the Prince of Siena. Here were discussed the power and courage of the duke and the necessity of curbing his ambitions, which might otherwise bring danger to the rest of being ruined. And they decided not to abandon the Bentivogli, but to strive to win over the Florentines; and they send their men to one place and another, promising to one party assistance and to another encouragement to unite with them against the common enemy. This meeting was at once reported throughout all Italy, and those who were discontented under the duke, among whom were the people of Urbino, took hope of effecting a revolution.
A principality is created either by the people or by the nobles, accordingly as one or other of them has the opportunity; for the nobles, seeing they cannot withstand the people, begin to cry up the reputation of one of themselves, and they make him a prince, so that under his shadow they can give vent to their ambitions. The people, finding they cannot resist the nobles, also cry up the reputation of one of themselves, and make him a prince so as to be defended by his authority. He who obtains sovereignty by the assistance of the nobles maintains himself with more difficulty than he who comes to it by the aid of the people, because the former finds himself with many around him who consider themselves his equals, and because of this he can neither rule nor manage them to his liking. But he who reaches sovereignty by popular favour finds himself alone, and has none around him, or few, who are not prepared to obey him.
"So," answered the abbe. "Old enough to be ambitions, but too young to be corrupt. And how did he treat you?"
"They had, however, what supplied the place of those fine qualities," replied the young man, "and that was fanaticism. Napoleon is the Mahomet of the West, and is worshipped by his commonplace but ambitions followers, not only as a leader and lawgiver, but also as the personification of equality."
"Luigi felt a sensation hitherto unknown arising in his mind. It was like an acute pain which gnawed at his heart, and then thrilled through his whole body. He followed with his eye each movement of Teresa and her cavalier; when their hands touched, he felt as though he should swoon; every pulse beat with violence, and it seemed as though a bell were ringing in his ears. When they spoke, although Teresa listened timidly and with downcast eyes to the conversation of her cavalier, as Luigi could read in the ardent looks of the good-looking young man that his language was that of praise, it seemed as if the whole world was turning round with him, and all the voices of hell were whispering in his ears ideas of murder and assassination. Then fearing that his paroxysm might get the better of him, he clutched with one hand the branch of a tree against which he was leaning, and with the other convulsively grasped the dagger with a carved handle which was in his belt, and which, unwittingly, he drew from the scabbard from time to time. Luigi was jealous! He felt that, influenced by her ambitions and coquettish disposition, Teresa might escape him.
Pope Julius came afterwards and found the Church strong, possessing all the Romagna, the barons of Rome reduced to impotence, and, through the chastisements of Alexander, the factions wiped out; he also found the way open to accumulate money in a manner such as had never been practised before Alexander's time. Such things Julius not only followed, but improved upon, and he intended to gain Bologna, to ruin the Venetians, and to drive the French out of Italy. All of these enterprises prospered with him, and so much the more to his credit, inasmuch as he did everything to strengthen the Church and not any private person. He kept also the Orsini and Colonnesi factions within the bounds in which he found them; and although there was among them some mind to make disturbance, nevertheless he held two things firm: the one, the greatness of the Church, with which he terrified them; and the other, not allowing them to have their own cardinals, who caused the disorders among them. For whenever these factions have their cardinals they do not remain quiet for long, because cardinals foster the factions in Rome and out of it, and the barons are compelled to support them, and thus from the ambitions of prelates arise disorders and tumults among the barons. For these reasons his Holiness Pope Leo(*) found the pontificate most powerful, and it is to be hoped that, if others made it great in arms, he will make it still greater and more venerated by his goodness and infinite other virtues.
Considering the difficulties which men have had to hold to a newly acquired state, some might wonder how, seeing that Alexander the Great became the master of Asia in a few years, and died whilst it was scarcely settled (whence it might appear reasonable that the whole empire would have rebelled), nevertheless his successors maintained themselves, and had to meet no other difficulty than that which arose among themselves from their own ambitions.
Devotion which is weary, heroism which has grown old, ambitions which are sated, fortunes which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, what? A shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of tranquillity, of leisure; behold, they are content. But, at the same time certain facts arise, compel recognition, and knock at the door in their turn. These facts are the products of revolutions and wars, they are, they exist, they have the right to install themselves in society, and they do install themselves therein; and most of the time, facts are the stewards of the household and fouriers[32] who do nothing but prepare lodgings for principles.
"Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race--of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance--of substituting peace for war--freedom for bondage--religion for superstition--the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for."
French Judaism was thus in a sense more human if less humane than the Spanish variety; the latter produced thinkers, statesmen, poets and scientists; the former, men with whom the Talmud was a passion, men of robuster because of more naïve and concentrated piety. In Spain and North Africa persecution created that strange and significant phenomenon Maranism or crypto-Judaism, a public acceptance of Islam or Christianity combined with a private fidelity to the rites of Judaism. But in England, France and Germany persecution altogether failed to shake the courage of the Jews, and martyrdom was borne in preference to ostensible apostasy. The crusades subjected the Jews to this ordeal. The evil was wrought, not by the regular armies of the cross who were inspired by noble ideals, but by the undisciplined mobs which, for the sake of plunder, associated themselves with the genuine enthusiasts. In 1096 massacres of Jews occurred in many cities of the Rhineland. During the second crusade (1145-1147) Bernard of Clairvaux heroically protested against similar inhumanities. The third crusade, famous for the participation of Richard I., was the occasion for bloody riots in England, especially in York, where 150 Jews immolated themselves to escape baptism. Economically and socially the crusades had disastrous effects upon the Jews (see J. Jacobs, _Jewish Encyclopedia_, iv. 379). Socially they suffered by the outburst of religious animosity. One of the worst forms taken by this ill-will was the oft-revived myth of ritual murder (q.v.), and later on when the Black Death devastated Europe (1348-1349) the Jews were the victims of an odious charge of well-poisoning. Economically the results were also injurious. "Before the crusades the Jews had practically a monopoly of trade in Eastern products, but the closer connexion between Europe and the East brought about by the crusades raised up a class of merchant traders among the Christians, and from this time onwards restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent" (_op. cit._). After the second crusade the German Jews fell into the class of _servi camerae_, which at first only implied that they enjoyed the immunity of imperial servants, but afterwards made of them slaves and pariahs. At the personal whim of rulers, whether royal or of lower rank, the Jews were expelled from states and principalities and were reduced to a condition of precarious uncertainty as to what the morrow might bring forth. Pope Innocent III. gave strong impetus to the repression of the Jews, especially by ordaining the wearing of a badge. Popular animosity was kindled by the enforced participation of the Jews in public disputations. In 1306 Philip IV. expelled the Jews from France, nine years later Louis X. recalled them for a period of twelve years. Such vicissitudes were the ordinary lot of the Jews for several centuries, and it was their own inner life--the pure life of the home, the idealism of the synagogue, and the belief in ultimate Messianic redemption--that saved them from utter demoralization and despair. Curiously enough in Italy--and particularly in Rome--the external conditions were better. The popes themselves, within their own immediate jurisdiction, were often far more tolerant than their bulls issued for foreign communities, and Torquemada was less an expression than a distortion of the papal policy. In the early 14th century, the age of Dante, the new spirit of the Renaissance made Italian rulers the patrons of art and literature, and the Jews to some extent shared in this gracious change. Robert of Aragon--vicar-general of the papal states--in particular encouraged the Jews and supported them in their literary and scientific ambitions. Small coteries of Jewish minor poets and philosophers were formed, and men like Kalonymos and Immanuel--Dante's friend--shared the versatility and culture of Italy. But in Germany there was no echo of this brighter note. Persecution was elevated into a system, a poll-tax was exacted, and the rabble was allowed (notably in 1336-1337) to give full vent to its fury. Following on this came the Black Death with its terrible consequences in Germany; even in Poland, where the Jews had previously enjoyed considerable rights, extensive massacres took place. Entry: 46
_The New Empire._--The epithet "new" is generally attached to this period, and "empire" instead of "kingdom" marks its wider power. The glorious XVIIIth Dynasty seems to have been closely related to the XVIIth. Its first task was to crush the Hyksos power in the north-east of the Delta; this was fully accomplished by its founder Ahmosi (dialectically Ahmasi, Amosis or Amasis I.) capturing their great stronghold of Avaris. Amasis next attacked them in S.W. Palestine, where he captured Sharuhen after a siege of three years. He fought also in Syria and in Nubia, besides overcoming factious opposition in his own land. The principal source for the history of this time is the biographical inscription at El Kab of a namesake of the king, Ahmosi son of Abana, a sailor and warrior whose exploits extend to the reign of Tethmosis I. Amenophis I. (Amenhotp), succeeding Amasis, fought in Libya and Ethiopia. Tethmosis I. (c. 1540 B.C.) was perhaps of another family, but obtained his title to the throne through his wife Ahmosi. After some thirty years of settled rule uninterrupted by revolt, Egypt was now strong and rich enough to indulge to the full its new taste for war and lust of conquest. It had become essentially a military state. The whole of the administration was in the hands of the king with his vizier and other court officials; no trace of the feudalism of the Middle Kingdom survived. Tethmosis thoroughly subdued Cush, which had already been placed under the government of a viceroy. This province of Cush extended from Napata just below the Fourth Cataract on the south to El Kab in the north, so that it included the first three nomes of Upper Egypt, which agriculturally were not greatly superior to Nubia. Turning next to Syria, Tethmosis carried his arms as far as the Euphrates. It is possible that his predecessor had also reached this point, but no record survives to prove it. These successful campaigns were probably not very costly, and prisoners, plunder and tribute poured in from them to enrich Egypt. Tethmosis I. made the first of those great additions to the temple of the Theban Ammon at Karnak by which the Pharaohs of the Empire rendered it by far the greatest of the existing temples in the world. The temple of Deir el Bahri also was designed by him. Towards the end of his reign, his elder sons being dead, Tethmosis associated Hatshepsut, his daughter by Ahmosi, with himself upon the throne. Tethmosis I. was the first of the long line of kings to be buried in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings of Thebes. At his death another son Tethmosis II. succeeded as the husband of his half-sister, but reigned only two or three years, during which he warred in Nubia and placed Tethmosis III., his son by a concubine Esi, upon the throne beside him (c. 1500 B.C.). After her husband's death the ambitious Hatshepsut assumed the full regal power; upon her monuments she wears the masculine garb and aspect of a king though the feminine gender is retained for her in the inscriptions. On some monuments of this period her name appears alone, on others in conjunction with that of Tethmosis III., while the latter again may appear without the queen's; but this extraordinary woman must have had a great influence over her stepson and was the acknowledged ruler of Egypt. Tethmosis, to judge by the evidence of his mummy and the chronology of his reign, was already a grown man, yet no sign of the immense powers which he displayed later has come down to us from the joint reign. Hatshepsut cultivated the arts of peace. She restored the worship in those temples of Upper and Lower Egypt which had not yet recovered from the religious oppression and neglect of the Hyksos. She completed and decorated the temple of Deir el Bahri, embellishing its walls with scenes calculated to establish her claims, representing her divine origin and upbringing under the protection of Ammon, and her association on the throne by her human father. The famous sculptures of the great expedition by water to Puoni, the land of incense on the Somali coast, are also here, with many others. At Karnak Hatshepsut laboured chiefly to complete the works projected in the reigns of Tethmosis I. and II., and set up two obelisks in front of the entrance as it then was. One of these, still standing, is the most brilliant ornament of that wonderful temple. A date of the twenty-second year of her reign has been found at Sinai, no doubt counted from the beginning of the co-regency with Tethmosis I. Not much later, in his twenty-second year, Tethmosis III. is reigning alone in full vigour. While she lived, the personality of the queen secured the devotion of her servants and held all ambitions in check. Not long after her death there was a violent reaction. Prejudice against the rule of a woman, particularly one who had made her name and figure so conspicuous, was probably the cause of this outbreak, and perhaps sought justification in the fact that, however complete was her right, she had in some degree usurped a place to which her stepson (who was also her nephew) had been appointed. Her cartouches began to be defaced or her monuments hidden up by other buildings, and the same rage pursued some of her most faithful servants in their tombs. But the beauty of the work seems to have restrained the hand of the destroyer. Then came the religious fanaticism of Akhenaton, mutilating all figures of Ammon and all inscriptions containing his name; this made havoc of the exquisite monuments of Hatshepsut; and the restorers of the XIXth Dynasty, refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the queen, had no scruples in replacing her names by those of the associate kings Tethmosis I., II. or III. These acts of vandalism took place throughout Egypt, but in the distant mines of Sinai the cartouches of Hatshepsut are untouched. In the royal lists of Seti I. and Rameses II. Hatshepsut has no place, nor is her reign referred to on any later monument.[20] Entry: 1
This settlement was acquiesced in by the Greek people, who had come to realize the hopelessness of further resistance. The internal disorder which was arising from the numerous disputes about property rights consequent upon the political revolutions was checked by the good offices of the historian Polybius, whom the Senate deputed to mediate between the litigants. The pacification of the country eventually became so complete that the Romans withdrew the former restrictions upon intercourse and allowed some of the leagues to revive. But its quiet was seriously disturbed during the first Mithradatic War (88-84 B.C.), when numerous Greek states sided with Mithradates (q.v.). The success which the invader experienced in detaching the Greeks from Rome is partly to be explained by the skilful way in which his agents incited the imperialistic ambitions of prominent cities like Athens, partly perhaps by his promises of support to the democratic parties. The result of the war was disastrous to Greece. Apart from the confiscations and exactions by which the Roman general L. Cornelius Sulla punished the disloyal communities, the extensive and protracted campaigns left Central Greece in a ruinous condition. During the last decades of the Roman republic European Greece was scarcely affected by contemporary wars nor yet exploited by Roman magistrates in the same systematic manner as most other provinces. Yet oppression by officials who traversed Greece from time to time and demanded lavish entertainments and presentations in the guise of _viaticum_ or _aurum coronarium_ was not unknown. Still greater was the suffering produced by the rapacity of Roman traders and capitalists: it is recorded that Sicyon was reduced to sell its most cherished art treasures in order to satisfy its creditors. A more indirect but none the less far-reaching drawback to Greek prosperity was the diversion of trade which followed upon the establishment of direct communication between Italy and the Levant. The most lucrative source of wealth which remained to the European Greeks was pasturage in large domains, an industry which almost exclusively profited the richer citizens and so tended to widen the breach between capitalists and the poorer classes, and still further to pauperize the latter. The coast districts and islands also suffered considerably from swarms of pirates who, in the absence of any strong fleet in Greek waters, were able to obtain a firm footing in Crete and freely plundered the chief trading places and sanctuaries; the most notable of such visitations was experienced in 69 B.C. by the island of Delos. This evil came to an end with the general suppression of piracy in the Mediterranean by Pompey (67 B.C.), but the depopulation which it had caused in some regions is attested by the fact that the victorious admiral settled some of his captives on the desolated coast strip of Achaea. Entry: I
ISMAIL (1830-1895), khedive of Egypt, was born at Cairo on the 31st of December 1830, being the second of the three sons of Ibrahim and grandson of Mehemet Ali. After receiving a European education at Paris, where he attended the École d'État-Major, he returned home, and on the death of his elder brother became heir to his uncle, Said Mohammed, the Vali of Egypt. Said, who apparently conceived his own safety to lie in ridding himself as much as possible of the presence of his nephew, employed him in the next few years on missions abroad, notably to the pope, the emperor Napoleon III. and the sultan of Turkey. In 1861 he was despatched at the head of an army of 14,000 to quell an insurrection in the Sudan, and this he successfully accomplished. On the death of Said, on 18th January 1863, Ismail was proclaimed viceroy without opposition. Being of an Orientally extravagant disposition, he found with considerable gratification that the Egyptian revenue was vastly increased by the rise in the value of cotton which resulted from the American Civil War, the Egyptian crop being worth about £25,000,000 instead of £5,000,000. Besides acquiring luxurious tastes in his sojourns abroad, Ismail had discovered that the civilized nations of Europe made a free use of their credit for raising loans. He proceeded at once to apply this idea to his own country by transferring his private debts to the state and launching out on a grand scale of expenditure. Egypt was in his eyes the ruler's estate which was to be exploited for his benefit and his renown. His own position had to be strengthened, and the country provided with institutions after European models. To these objects Ismail applied himself with energy and cleverness, but without any stint of expense. During the 'sixties and 'seventies Egypt became the happy hunting-ground of self-seeking financiers, to whose schemes Ismail fell an easy and a willing prey. In 1866-1867 he obtained from the sultan of Turkey, in exchange for an increase in the tribute, firmans giving him the title of khedive, and changing the law of succession to direct descent from father to son; and in 1873 he obtained a new firman making him to a large extent independent. He projected vast schemes of internal reform, remodelling the customs system and the post office, stimulating commercial progress, creating a sugar industry, introducing European improvements into Cairo and Alexandria, building palaces, entertaining lavishly and maintaining an opera and a theatre. It has been calculated that, of the total amount of debt incurred by Ismail for his projects, about 10% may have been sunk in works of permanent utility--always excluding the Suez Canal. Meanwhile the opening of the Canal had given him opportunities for asserting himself in foreign courts. On his accession he refused to ratify the concessions to the Canal company made by Said, and the question was referred in 1864 to the arbitration of Napoleon III., who awarded £3,800,000 to the company as compensation for the losses they would incur by the changes which Ismail insisted upon in the original grant. Ismail then used every available means, by his own undoubted powers of fascination and by judicious expenditure, to bring his personality before the foreign sovereigns and public, and he had no little success. He was made G.C.B. in 1867, and in the same year visited Paris and London, where he was received by Queen Victoria and welcomed by the lord mayor; and in 1869 he again paid a visit to England. The result was that the opening of the Canal in November 1869 enabled him to claim to rank among European sovereigns, and to give and receive royal honours: this excited the jealousy of the sultan, but Ismail was clever enough to pacify his overlord. In 1876 the old system of consular jurisdiction for foreigners was modified, and the system of mixed courts introduced, by which European and native judges sat together to try all civil cases without respect of nationality. In all these years Ismail had governed with _éclat_ and profusion, spending, borrowing, raising the taxes on the fellahin and combining his policy of independence with dazzling visions of Egyptian aggrandizement. In 1874 he annexed Darfur, and was only prevented from extending his dominion into Abyssinia by the superior fighting power of the Abyssinians. But at length the inevitable financial crisis came. A national debt of over one hundred millions sterling (as opposed to three millions when he became viceroy) had been incurred by the khedive, whose fundamental idea of liquidating his borrowings was to borrow at increased interest. The bond-holders became restive. Judgments were given against the khedive in the international tribunals. When he could raise no more loans he sold his Suez Canal shares (in 1875) to Great Britain for £3,976,582; and this was immediately followed by the beginning of foreign intervention. In December 1875 Mr Stephen Cave was sent out by the British government to inquire into the finances of Egypt, and in April 1876 his report was published, advising that in view of the waste and extravagance it was necessary for foreign Powers to interfere in order to restore credit. The result was the establishment of the Caisse de la Dette. In October Mr (afterwards Lord) Goschen and M. Joubert made a further investigation, which resulted in the establishment of Anglo-French control. A further commission of inquiry by Major Baring (afterwards Lord Cromer) and others in 1878 culminated in Ismail making over his estates to the nation and accepting the position of a constitutional sovereign, with Nubar as premier, Mr (afterwards Sir Charles) Rivers Wilson as finance minister, and M. de Blignières as minister of public works. Ismail professed to be quite pleased. "Egypt," he said, "is no longer in Africa; it is part of Europe." The new régime, however, only lasted six months, and then Ismail dismissed his ministers, an occasion being deliberately prepared by his getting Arabi (q.v.) to foment a military _pronunciamiento_. England and France took the matter seriously, and insisted (May 1879) on the reinstatement of the British and French ministers; but the situation was no longer a possible one; the tribunals were still giving judgments for debt against the government, and when Germany and Austria showed signs of intending to enforce execution, the governments of Great Britain and France perceived that the only chance of setting matters straight was to get rid of Ismail altogether. He was first advised to abdicate, and a few days afterwards (26th June), as he did not take the hint, he received a telegram from the sultan (who had not forgotten the earlier history of Mehemet Ali's dynasty), addressed to him as ex-khedive, and informing him that his son Tewfik was his successor. He at once left Egypt for Naples, but eventually was permitted by the sultan to retire to his palace of Emirghian on the Bosporus. There he remained, more or less a state prisoner, till his death on the 2nd of March 1895. Ismail was a man of undoubted ability and remarkable powers. But beneath a veneer of French manners and education he remained throughout a thorough Oriental, though without any of the moral earnestness which characterizes the better side of Mahommedanism. Some of his ambitions were not unworthy, and though his attitude towards western civilization was essentially cynical, he undoubtedly helped to make the Egyptian upper classes realize the value of European education. Moreover, spendthrift as he was, it needed--as is pointed out in Milner's _England in Egypt_--a series of unfortunate conditions to render his personality as pernicious to his country as it actually became. "It needed a nation of submissive slaves, not only bereft of any vestige of liberal institutions, but devoid of the slightest spark of the spirit of liberty. It needed a bureaucracy which it would have been hard to equal for its combination of cowardice and corruption. It needed the whole gang of swindlers--mostly European--by whom Ismail was surrounded." It was his early encouragement of Arabi, and his introduction of swarms of foreign concession-hunters, which precipitated the "national movement" that led to British occupation. His greatest title to remembrance in history must be that he made European intervention in Egypt compulsory. (H. Ch.) Entry: ISMAIL