By the time Alexander the Great was sweeping the civilized world with
conquest after conquest from Chaeronia to Gaza, from Babylon to Cabul;
by the time the first Aryan conquerors were learning the rudiments of
war and government at the feet of the philosopher Aristotle; and by
the time Athens was laying down the foundations of European
civilization, the earliest and greatest Ethiopian culture had already
flourished and dominated the civilized world for over four centuries
and a half. Imperial Ethiopia had conquered Egypt and founded the
XXVth Dynasty, and for a century and a half the central seat of
civilization in the known world was held by the ancestors of the
modern Negro, maintaining and defending it against the Assyrian and
Persian Empires of the East. Thus, at the time when Ethiopia was
leading the civilized world in culture and conquest, East was East,
but West was not, and the first European (Grecian) Olympiad was yet to
be held. Rome was nowhere to be seen on the map, and sixteen centuries
were to pass before Charlemagne would rule in Europe and Egbert became
first King of England. Even then, history was to drag on for another
seven hundred weary years, before Roman Catholic Europe could see fit
to end the Great Schism, soon to be followed by the disturbing news of
the discovery of America and the fateful rebirth of the youngest of
world civilizations.
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