It had now been five years, from the summer of 330, since Alexander had left Ecbatana in pursuit of Darius. His presence was urgently needed, for the government of the empire was in chaotic state so far as the central administration was concerned. Fortunately the attempts at an uprising had generally been feeble, and were easily and loyally suppressed by the satraps where they did occur. Only one gave trouble, a revolt in Bactria, initiated first of all by Greek mercenaries and taken up by the native inhabitants as far as the border of Scythia. This lasted some time, and peace was not restored until after Alexander’s death.
But the maladministration of the conquered provinces was more serious than these uprisings. During Alexander’s absence in the Far East there had been boundless liberty in the financial plundering of the people. Peculation was the rule everywhere, and it was common to the Persian official class, to whom the government of the satrapies had been intrusted. Trained as these officers had been in maladministration and corruption, they had no notion of following different standards, simply because there was a different ruler. While Alexander was in Bactria he had been forced to deprive several satraps of their governments. It was time for the strong arm of the king to be felt, and there was no doubt about his intentions and aims. Many Persian satraps were executed and their places taken by Macedonian officers. But while Alexander had been away the infection had spread to European office-holders, both military and civil. We hear, for example, of the death penalty being inflicted on Greek commanders of the troops in Media, who had plundered graves and temples and had signalized their rule over the subject population by systemic oppression.
Among the guiltiest of this class was the minister of finance, Harpalus, who treated the state’s money as his private property, had brought over from Athens a company of gay comrades, and was living the easy, reckless life of an Oriental satrap. His previous record had been anything but clean; before the battle of Issus he had been obliged to return to Greece and had only come back to Asia because he had received the royal pardon. He knew that there was no chance of finding the king amenable to excuses or explanations; so with 5000 talents taken from the treasury, he raised a body of 6000 mercenaries and departed for the sea coast, hoping to stir up a revolt. The scheme was a pitiable failure; no satrap held out a hand to him; and finally Harpalus sailed to Athens, where he had influence and could count on a welcome, because of the strong anti-Macedonian feeling in the city.
Alexander showed his appreciation of the lesson of Harpalus’ official career by ordering the governors of the provinces to dismiss all soldiers they had collected on their own authority. Now that the period of military expansion was closed, the king devoted himself to the organization of the empire, following the lines he had worked out originally, which tended to the amalgamation of the Greek and Persian elements. This ideal survived the experience of maladministration, and Alexander held fast to it, despite the opposition of the officers of his army. He seems to have believed firmly in the possibility of educating politically the Asiatic peoples so that they could be ruled without display of despotic power, and he was just as firm in trusting to the loyalty of the Persian ruling class to carry out this program of interracial conciliation. In doing so he failed to take account of the Persian’s deep-rooted dislike of the Greeks, which with Oriental wiliness his new subjects could conceal, but which was ever present as an inducement to them to take advantage of the first opportunity that offered to throw off the yoke imposed upon them by the conquest.
Alexander planned to make his scheme a success by marrying the daughters of the Persian official class to the Macedonian officers. He led the way by claiming, as the successor of the Great King, the right to have more than one legitimate wife, and after his return from India he added to his royal household a daughter of Darius, Stateira, and a daughter of Ochus, Parysatis. Alexander’s close friend, Hephæstion, received another daughter of Darius, and altogether eighty of the high officers in command of the Macedonian army were married to Persian women of high degree. The wedding festivities were made a national affair, and took place at Susa on the same day with great ceremonial, all the brides receiving from Alexander marriage portions. The Macedonian private soldiers, who followed the example of their chief on this occasion, were richly rewarded.
It is said that the officers were as dissatisfied with the matrimonial schemes of the king as they had been with his plans for further conquest in India; in any case, it is known that on the king’s death there was a general movement among them to get rid of their Persian helpmates. The discontent among the rank and file of Alexander’s followers with his program of social equality between Greek and Persian could not be appeased, even when he paid their debts at the time of the “Union of the Two Races” festival, an act of bounty which cost him about $5,000,000. The hostility to Persian influence was accentuated by the introduction of foreign troops into the army. This was naturally a step required by the necessity of raising a force greater than Greece could possibly supply. That thinly populated country must have been already drained to the point of exhaustion by the demands already made upon it to fill up the losses during the years of constant campaigning. And as a matter of fact, we know that a year and a half after the passage of the Hellespont with 35,000 men, Alexander led to battle at Arbela about 60,000, and in the years during which the expedition was moving in the Far East, the various additional troops must have equaled altogether 50,000 men. The substitution of Persian contingents for Greek soldiers was a matter of plain necessity. They received lower pay, they cost less to feed, without considering the saving made in the high cost of transportation of bodies of men from continental Greece to the interior of Asia.
Orders had therefore been given to draw 30,000 young men from the conquered provinces and to prepare them for military services according to Macedonian methods. A further and more radical stage in the amalgamation policy was reached when Persians were enrolled in the Macedonian phalanx and Asiatic horsemen in the élite regiment of the Hetæroi; even in the life guards distinguished Persians were received, and the command of that force was assigned to a warrior from Bactria, Hystaspes.
These leveling measures were more than the Macedonian veterans could endure, and they became openly mutinous when Alexander proposed to dismiss those who had been longest in the service. The whole army stood together and told the king that they would serve no longer, and that he would see how he could do without them, now that he had his Persians to serve under him. Alexander then set to work to organize purely Persian regiments on the Macedonian model, a Persian life guard, a Persian squadron of Hetæroi, and a Persian phalanx. This satisfied the Macedonians, and they were farther placated by being given precedence over the various Persian units of the army. Under these conditions, the veterans were willing to be dismissed, and they received one talent as a bonus and full pay until they were actually on Macedonian soil. Moreover, the king agreed to provide for the education of their children. Ten thousand men on these terms returned to Greece.
A more effective means for bringing together the two races on an equal footing was the establishment of military colonies throughout the empire. At an early stage of the expedition this had been adopted as the readiest way of keeping peace in the conquered territory. Tyre and Gaza, after the native population had been sold into slavery, received a new population of Greek origin. We have already noted the extension of this scheme in the Far Eastern provinces and in India. Altogether seventy cities are said to have been founded by Alexander. These colonies, though primarily intended for military purposes, became centers of industrial communication and of civilization. The case of the Egyptian Alexandria is so well known that it does not require to be stressed. Less familiar are the proofs of Alexander’s sagacity as a founder of flourishing towns in other parts of his empire. Alexandria, on the Persian Gulf, continued through the whole period of antiquity to be the greatest emporium of the whole region of Mesopotamia. Alexandria in Arcia (Herat) and Alexandria in Arachosia (Candahar) are still to-day important towns in Persia.
Despite his absorption in military interests, Alexander found time for looking after the economic development of his empire. The Indian Ocean was opened to commerce by the remarkable voyage of Nearchus which concluded the Indian expedition. Attempts were made to circumnavigate the Arabian peninsula, and, though they failed, yet a considerable portion of the coast was explored. The Caspian Sea was also the scene of exploring adventures, because it was supposed to be a part of the vast ocean by which the earth was surrounded. The Tigris was freed from obstruction and made navigable; the ancient irrigation canals in Babylonia were restored; and a beginning was made in constructing a harbor near Babylon.
Equally farsighted was Alexander’s foundation of a unified monetary system for the empire. Under Persian rule the custom had been for the satraps to coin silver money, while the coinage of gold was reserved to the Great King. The result was that each province followed its own customs and financial chaos prevailed. Alexander reserved the minting privilege to the general government; even where provincial coining was permitted, the coins were of the same general type and bore the name of the king. The only exception to this rule is found in the case of the autonomous Greek cities on the western coast of Asia. This new monetary system was based on that of the Athenians; the bimetallic basis, as it had existed in the Persian Empire, was abandoned and the silver standard, as used at Athens and Corinth, took its place. The reformed monetary system of Alexander continued down to Roman times.
The large hoards of precious metals, which fell into Alexander’s hands during the course of his conquests, not only gave occupation to his mints, but also freed him from financial anxiety. He had begun the expedition in a state of insolvency, for he had a debt of 1300 talents with only seventy in his war chest to cover it. The maintenance of the army required a monthly expenditure of 200 talents, and to this 100 talents had to be added for the fleet. The provinces in western Asia, the first fruits of his victories, could not supply a sum so large, and it was lack of money which caused Alexander to give up his fleet in the autumn of 334. After the battle of Issus and the conquest of the rich province of Egypt, there was soon a surplus where there had been a deficit, and Alexander was able to send considerable sums of money to Antipater to help him out in his campaign in Greece.
Rich as were the Persian treasures, they were heavily and constantly drawn upon by the ever-developing military needs of the conqueror. The whole force under arms, including the very numerous garrisons, must have equaled 100,000 men. This meant at least an expense of 7000 talents; to this large sum must be added the drains caused by Alexander’s generosity, by official peculation such as that of Harpalus, and by the gifts to old soldiers, who were richly rewarded. The royal household, which was organized on the Persian model, was most expensive; the royal table alone costing 600 talents. Of course, the receipts were large, probably from fifteen to twenty thousand talents annually, but Alexandria’s budget was far from balancing; and at the time of his death, there were contained in all the treasuries of the empire only 50,000 talents, about $70,000,000, a small sum when the size of the empire is taken into account.
In administering his domains, Alexander showed great conservatism; he made few changes, he allowed each of the countries which acknowledged the Great King as its overlord to retain its particular institutions. One important modification he did introduce into the loosely organized and haphazard Persian system of rule, the division of power. The Persian satrap was generally the sole governor, having in his hands the civil, military, and financial administration. Alexander limited him to matters of internal administration, appointing a financial officer and a military commander armed with considerable powers. After the return from India, there was a further innovation made by the appointment of a Chiliarch, as the supreme director and head of the provinces, with a place immediately after the monarch himself. This official was a part of the governmental machinery of the Persian Empire, holding in it the place of a Grand Vizier. It was given to Alexander’s friend, Hephæstion, but after his death it was left vacant. The most trusted servant, the actual head of the administration, was the Chief Secretary Eumenes from Cardia, a man of first-rate military and civil capacity; he was unfailingly loyal to his master, and after Alexander’s death, suffered many vicissitudes because of his devotion to the Macedonian royal house.
Alexander was not satisfied with the rôle of conqueror; he wished to give his rule in the East that trait of legitimacy which the popular Oriental mind required as a stimulus to its loyalty. It was impossible for him to be King of Persia by the grace of God, for it was the might of his own hand, not the right of succession, that constituted him the heir of Darius. This Gordian knot of politics he solved in his own direct fashion by directing that divine honors should be paid to him by the subject populations. The custom of apotheosis originated in Egypt, but it was not alien to Greek thought, according to which no deep distinction existed between man and divinity. The mythical heroes of the Greek people, whom all allowed to have once been men, were everywhere honored with altars and sacrifice. Asclepius and Herakles sat on Olympus with the greater divinities of a purely spiritual origin. It had become not unusual in the age preceding Alexander to accord divine honors to the living. Such had been the case with Clearchus of Heracleia who had been greeted as the son of Zeus, and with Dionysius the Younger who had caused himself to be honored at Syracuse as the son of Apollo. Alexander’s achievements, far greater in comparison, gave him a right to this distinction during his lifetime; his divine origin had, besides, been attested by the Erythrian Sibyl and by the oracle at Branchidæ; with this theological and official stamp all that remained to be done was to give the accepted belief a concrete form. The cult of the conqueror became a part of the state religion in the Greek communities throughout the empire. Whether Alexander took the initiative in this form of adulation we do not know; he certainly did not discourage it, and on his return from India he did not reject the adulatory form of congratulation expressed by many Greek states, who instead of sending formal deputations, presented the so-called “theories” usual when the festivals of the gods were celebrated. Athens at first resisted this form of transcendent courtesy, but finally, in order to avoid offending Alexander, it was resolved in the year 324 to enrol the conqueror among the gods of the city under the designation of Dionysus. So this debasing custom took root in Greece; the monarch became, by a noxious fiction, differentiated from the rest of mortals, and the infection spread from Greece to Rome, and later on became crystallized in Christian civilization, through the example of the Byzantine court, and under the form of monarchy by divine right has not yet disappeared.
After the dismissal of the veterans from the army at Opis, Alexander withdrew from the plains of the Tigris, and according to the custom of the Persian monarchs spent the summer in the highlands of Media. He passed the time in relaxation; nautical and athletic festivals were held, in which celebrities from Greece took part. When the cooler weather began, there were expeditions to repress the bandit hill-tribes who dwelt between Ecbatana and Susa, people whom the Persians had never succeeded in bringing under control. Afterwards, the king returned to Babylon, where he received deputations from the Greek states and even from Italy. It was thought that an expedition to the west was being planned. But the king preferred to give his immediate attention to Arabia and, by conquering it, to open at last a direct road of communication between the interior of Persia and Egypt.
By June both the fleet and army were ready to start. A great banquet was given in honor of Nearchus, the admiral who was to undertake the adventurous voyage from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. The king withdrew from the feast and spent the rest of the night in a carouse with a friend, Medius. He rose late in the morning and another night was spent in excessive drinking. The following day he was attacked with fever; he could not walk and had to be carried on a couch to the altar, to make the customary sacrifices. He spent the day discussing the plans of the expedition with Nearchus. In the evening he had himself conveyed across the river to a garden villa, hoping for relief from its quiet isolation. But for six days the fever continued, the king being able only to attend the sacrificial ceremonial. His condition grew worse, and he was taken back to the palace; he slept a little, but the fever did not abate, and when his officers visited him, they saw that he had lost the power of speech. There was confusion among the soldiers, for it was rumored that their leader was dead; they clamored to be let into the palace, and passing by the bodyguard they circled past the bed of the dying monarch; but he was not able to speak and only signified by movements of his hands and eyes that he recognized them. Some of those about him spent the night in the temple of Serapis, awaiting an indication of the god that he might be transported to the temple as he lay and be healed by divine help. But they were warned, it is said, by a voice that he was not to be moved, and on the evening of June 13th he died, before he had completed his thirty-third year.
During the years of Alexander’s conquests, the history of the Greek states sinks into insignificance. After the battle of Issus all hope of defeating Macedon by a combination with Persia was abandoned. The confederacy sent congratulations, and only Sparta stood aloof. Its king, Agis, even ventured to declare war, but, after a few small successes, he was defeated in the battle of Megalopolis, losing his life in the field. Sparta then sent hostages to Alexander and was generously treated. Later on he interfered again in the affairs of Greece by directing the confederation to take back the Greek exiles, 20,000 in number, and so mark his overlordship by an era of good feeling. Only two states objected, Athens and Ætolia.
The only exciting incident in continental Greece was connected with the flight of the faithless finance minister, Harpalus, who came to the coast of Attica with 5000 talents, a body of mercenaries, and a considerable fleet, hoping to stir up a revolt. But the Athenian politicians were too cautious to be drawn into an intrigue which would certainly have proved dangerous. They seized Harpalus and took his treasure, proposing only to surrender this money to officers expressly sent by Alexander. Half the money taken disappeared and there was no official record made of the sum received. Demosthenes was involved in the scandal, and he emerged from it with a besmirched reputation. Harpalus escaped and was soon afterwards murdered. Demosthenes was condemned, imprisoned, and escaped. But Greek feeling was not sensitive about a case where it was plain that a man had appropriated stolen money for the good of the state, and Demosthenes was praised as a patriot.
Alexander’s conquests, both in method and in achievement, were but the elaboration of the groundwork laid down by Philip his father. The army that conquered Persia and invaded India was trained in the campaigns of continental Greece, and without this preliminary training in Europe, its spectacular successes in Asia would not have been possible. Up to the time of Philip of Macedon, warfare in Greece had achieved only negative results. It was not systematized, no extensive imperial rule had come to the victors through any of the decisive battlefields, for these military successes were never followed up by a consistent scheme of conquest. Philip changed all this, and he brought his developed army and his new political policy into close connection. Demosthenes himself remarked this contrast, for he said that King Philip fought his wars not only with a phalanx of heavy-armed men, but with light infantry, archers, and cavalry.
The old campaigning schedule, which consisted in ravaging the enemy’s territory for a few months, a set battle in the open country, and a withdrawal to winter quarters, was no longer observed. If the Macedonian king did not find his enemy in the field, he besieged his towns, using siege engines to bring him to terms. Summer and winter were alike used for operations when the old array of citizen amateur soldiers had given place to the professional fighters. Alexander’s victories were won not only on the battlefield, but through the quick following up of his victories; the enemies’ power of resistance was annihilated by the rapidity with which a defeated army was pursued and never allowed a chance to gather itself together again after it was beaten. These cavalry marches in the rear of a retreating enemy, or the suddenly delivered attacks on a foe preparing to resist, attacks made irrespective of mountains and deserts, were as military achievements no less remarkable than the set battles and the sieges of strongly walled cities and citadels. Supremely characteristic of Alexander’s strategy was the pursuit after the battle of Gaugamela, when numbers of horses fell on the road from exhaustion.
As a general, Alexander did great deeds and did them in an heroic style. He was a warrior distinguished by personal bravery, filled with the ardor of combat, eager to be in the thickest of the fight, and yet the physical passion of the fighter in no way dulled the acute intelligence of the general, or made him indifferent to the mastery of details in preparing for battle or in following a victory up after it had been won. He showed strategical knowledge in approaching the enemy and knew how to overcome the natural difficulties in his way. So we see him unhesitatingly marching through narrow defiles and organizing different classes of troops according to the changing conditions which confronted him. He showed high capacity in selecting his base, in looking after his communications, in providing for and provisioning his men. When all was ready, and not before, these cautious provisions gave place to the impetuous onslaught in battle and the untiring pursuit of the defeated enemy. But the duties of generalship, complicated as they were, were not allowed to interfere with the “joy of fighting.” Alexander in every fight led his cavalry in person; whenever a breach was made in a fortification he was in the first rank; whenever a town was taken he was the first to scale the wall.
He seemed instinctively to have taken in the significance of the enlarged scale on which warfare under him was conducted. He had to solve untried problems, due to the vast extent of territory he traversed, so different in every way from the restricted limits of continental Greece. The students of strategy have especially admired his originality in the systematic following up of a victory, an element in successful warfare not dreamed of by the citizen generals of Greece. In the Peloponnesian war it never occurred to the Spartans when they had defeated the Athenians to besiege Athens. But after Issus, a most decisive victory, Alexander showed the utmost resourcefulness in the long seven months’ siege of Tyre, and finally took it by storm. The same mobility of generalship is noted in India, where he did not hesitate in the face of a division of elephants, an unknown arm in warfare, to cross a river and deliver a frontal attack.
The army, which never failed to respond to the ever-developing visions and schemes of its commander, until he had carried it to the eastern limits of the known world in his career of conquest, was at the very beginning of Alexander’s career trained for any military project he might propose. It was composed of seasoned officers and men, who had proved their mettle and gained their laurels under Philip while he was bringing his army to the highest pitch of excellence. In the list of great Greek military leaders, Philip is placed by the side of Epaminondas, the Theban, the man who revolutionized the Greek art of warfare by a fine stroke of genius. It had been noted that in the Greek battles, where the phalanx had become the controlling factor, its right wing was frequently victorious in both opposing armies. This phenomenon was simply due to the fact that the Greek heavy-armed soldier carried a shield on his left arm and naturally tended to move in an oblique direction towards the right hand. The chief innovations introduced by Epaminondas were the strengthening of the left wing by increasing its depth—it was made fifty men deep—and the holding back of the right wing as the whole phalanx advanced in battle array. With the increased depth of the phalanx, the front was necessarily shortened, and in order to prevent flanking operations, Epaminondas made great use of cavalry, in protecting the flanks of his men from an encircling movement on the part of the enemy, whose phalanx, since it was not so deep (being the old shape), would stretch out on both sides beyond the lines of the Theban line. As a general, Philip accepted these new tactical principles originated by Epaminondas, and applying them to Macedonian conditions, made of the Macedonian army a wonderfully effective military machine.
Macedonia was peopled by peasants and herdsmen, and up to Philip’s time they were an untrained mass, insufficiently armed, not able to contend with the armies of the rest of Greece. There was a landed aristocracy in Macedon, forming a special warrior class, who fought as cavalry. Using these elements and adding to them Greek mercenaries, King Philip had created a military force far superior to any that Greece had ever seen before.
The Greek cavalry moved in loose formation, the horsemen wore armor, and as arms they had a shield, sword, and spear, the spear being used rather for throwing than for striking, as is the case with the modern lance, with the whole momentum of the moving mass, man and horse. The troops of the Macedonian cavalry, formed of the nobles of the land, were called the followers of the king, “Hetairoi.” They bore a shield and a spear for casting or thrusting, and a sword, and were always given a crucial position in an engagement. As contrasted with Greek cavalry generally, the Macedonians showed superior training and discipline; they moved together and behaved in a fight, not as individual warriors, but as tactical units, and were controlled in their movements by a single will. Such development of cavalry was unfamiliar to the Greek republics, which confined themselves to the technical training of the phalanx.
The Macedonian foot were the special creation of Philip, and were named by him “the followers on foot.” They fought in the ordinary phalanx formation, but closer together than was usual, and used long spears, so that several lines were enabled at once to engage in actual hand-to-hand fighting. The spear was so constructed as to weight, thickness, and length that it could reach the opposing line and yet be firmly grasped. The ordinary spear was somewhat over six feet in length, but the Macedonian phalanx depended for its success not so much on man-to-man fighting as on the irresistible impact of the whole. When it was acting on the defensive, it was virtually impenetrable. Its disadvantage was in its lack of individual initiative; the soldiers were machines rather than fighting men. It was heavy in its movements and could be thrown into disorder more easily than the older Greek phalanx with its looser formation. The élite corps, the hypaspists, were more lightly armed than the men in the phalanx, and so moved more freely. In Alexander’s battles they were the connecting link between the cavalry and heavy mass of the phalanx, which advanced slowly forward. As managed by Alexander, these various arms seem to have worked admirably together, all sharing in the activity of a general offensive movement. It should be added that Alexander was also indebted to his father for much of the advance made in the art of besieging. He constantly used siege engines, and we have noticed how much he depended on their successful employment at Tyre and Halicarnassus.
Posterity has justly selected the epithet “great” as most fitting to be coupled with Alexander’s name, and he has this honor for more than one reason. It is perhaps less contested than in the case of any other of the world’s leading personalities, Charles the Great alone excepted, for Charles, like Alexander, introduced a new age of the world’s history. Great as were the successes of Alexander, they constitute less of a claim on the personal admiration of posterity than his knightly qualities as a warrior, and the charm and impetuosity of youth. His great victories were won between the years of twenty-one and twenty-five. In the space of thirteen years there are crowded together events and achievements that would exalt the longest life of the greatest man.
His sudden and premature death did him a kind of poetic justice, because his temperament cannot be coupled consistently with the characteristics of old age or even with the middle period of man’s life. His body and his brain had been under a tremendous pressure, which even a strong constitution could not resist. It was this restive youthfulness that spurred him on to adventures which were purposeless when looked at from the point of view of the mature statesman, such as the expedition to India, an uncalculated move not to be understood except as due to the stimulus of an explorer’s curiosity and the desire to accomplish a feat unheard of before.
The impulsiveness and emotionalism of Alexander in combination with his military genius produced results unprecedented in history. His career is that of a Homeric hero on a larger stage. It is not surprising that his conquests almost defy criticism and make a personal estimate seem artificial. He did so much that it apparently makes little difference what he was, for his actions speak for themselves, and they tell their tale like a fairy story, without any need of analysis. It is obviously unfair to look for constructive statesmanship in a career so short, when almost every month was occupied with military campaigns either planned or in execution. When his life was ended, Alexander was still a young man with a fresh and vigorous intelligence, open to new impressions. It is hazardous to infer (as Grote does) that he would have spent his life in acts of military aggression or that he would have sunk to the position of an Oriental despot, little differing from the Persian kings to whose title he succeeded. It is safer to put aside these pessimistic historic prognostics of what might have been, and to recognize that Alexander, provided he kept his mental powers undulled by drink, would have remained a Greek and not become a Hun or a Vandal.
His enthusiasm for absolutism was, when one considers his age and how deeply he was involved in military plans and schemes, less of a reflection on himself than a curse to his followers and successors, who kept faithful to the personal tradition of their leader and made the Hellenization of Asia untrue to so much that was best in Greek political life and thought. It was, as Ranke says, a break in their whole national history, for the Greeks to have extended over them the kind of authority which was in no way different from that against which they had contended in warfare for a century. But it must be remembered that Alexander had only just begun to rule over Asiatics; he had receded before his death from pressing his theory of amalgamation to its logical conclusion, and quick as he was to feel instinctively the meaning of new conditions, it may be fairly supposed that he would have come to recognize the value of Aristotle’s profoundly wise advice to him, that he should behave to the Greeks as a leader or president and to the barbarians or non-Greeks as a master.
We may put to one side all the ingenious speculations as to what might have happened if Alexander had reached the ordinary limit of human life, a line of thought which Livy seems to have originated, when he tried to foretell for his age what would have happened if Alexander had taken up the rôle followed later by his relative, Pyrrhus. It is only necessary to say that, so far as Greek affairs were concerned, Alexander was the son of his father. His public career began when, as Philip’s son, he put the finishing touches to Philip’s program for dominating the free states of Greece. So long as Alexander lived, the lines of Macedonian supremacy, the outcome of the battle of Chæronea, remained clear and fixed. The destruction of Thebes was but the epilogue of Philip’s own career. The sentimental vein in the nature of Alexander made him patient with the somewhat childish and ineffective hostility shown him by both Athens and Sparta, venerable names as protagonists in the secular struggle with the Persians, whose mantle had now fallen on his broader shoulders.
In Asia his conquests, rather than his half-thought-out plans for racial amalgamation, were decisive of future political development. There was an expansion of Hellenic culture throughout the East, marked by the common use of the Greek language and by a general absorption of the special traits of Greek social usages and sympathies. The civilization, so wrought out and transplanted, lost the creativeness and the spontaneity of the small communities of continental Greece. The Hellenic spirit lost its potency, if we may so phrase it, and in the sphere of government especially exhibited disheartening symptoms of selfishness and greed. Economically, the opening up of Asia meant enlarged facilities for the commercial exploitation of a vast and rich territory. It ushered in a period of great industrial fortunes, it increased opportunities for communication both by land and sea, it established higher standards of comfort and taste among populations who had lived a crude, colorless, and isolated existence. On the basis of Alexander’s conquests a grandiose cosmopolitanism was built up in Asia which cast down tribal and racial boundaries and made it possible for masses of plain people to gain a livelihood under tolerable conditions.