A strong case of identity is thus made out between this mountain

and the Aornos _described by Arrian_. But undoubtedly it does not

coincide with the Aornos _described by Curtius_, who compares

Aornos to a Meta (the conical goal of the stadium), and says that

the Indus washed its base,—that at the first assault several

Macedonian soldiers were hurled down into the river. This close

juxtaposition of the Indus has been the principal feature looked

for by travellers who have sought for Aornos; but no place has

yet been found answering the conditions required. We have here

to make our election between Arrian and Curtius. Now there is

a general presumption in Arrian’s favor, in the description of

military operations, where he makes a positive statement; but in

this case, the presumption is peculiarly strong, because Ptolemy

was in the most conspicuous and difficult command for the capture

of Aornos, and was therefore likely to be particular in the

description of a scene where he had reaped much glory.

[536] Arrian, iv. 30, 13. ἡ στρατιὰ αὐτῷ ὡδοποίει τὸ πρόσω ἰοῦσα,

ἄπορα ἄλλως ὄντα τὰ ταύτῃ χωρία, etc.

The countries here traversed by Alexander include parts of

Kafiristan, Swart, Bajore, Chitral, the neighborhood of the

Kameh and other affluents of the river Kabul before it falls

into the Indus near Attock. Most of this is Terra Incognita

even at present; especially Kafiristan, a territory inhabited

by a population said to be rude and barbarous, but which has

never been conquered—nor indeed ever visited by strangers. It is

remarkable, that among the inhabitants of Kafiristan,—as well

as among those of Badakshan, on the other or northern side of

the Hindoo-Koosh—there exist traditions respecting Alexander,

together with a sort of belief that they themselves are descended

from his soldiers. See Ritter’s Erdkunde, part vii. book iii. p.

200 _seq._; Burnes’s Travels, vol. iii. ch. 4. p. 186, 2nd ed.;

Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 194 _seq._

[537] Arrian, iv. 30, 16; v. 7, 2.

Such fatiguing operations of Alexander, accomplished amidst all

the hardships of winter, were followed by a halt of thirty days,

to refresh the soldiers before he crossed the Indus, in the early

spring of 326 B. C.[538] It is presumed, probably enough,

that he crossed at or near Attock, the passage now frequented. He

first marched to Taxila, where the prince Taxilus at once submitted,

and reinforced the army with a strong contingent of Indian soldiers.

His alliance and information was found extremely valuable. The whole

neighboring territory submitted, and was placed under Philippus

as satrap, with a garrison and depôt at Taxila. He experienced no

resistance until he reached the river Hydaspes (Jelum), on the other

side of which the Indian prince Porus stood prepared to dispute

the passage; a brave man, with a formidable force, better armed

than Indians generally were, and with many trained elephants; which

animals the Macedonians had never yet encountered in battle. By

a series of admirable military combinations, Alexander eluded the

vigilance of Porus, stole the passage of the river at a point a

few miles above, and completely defeated the Indian army. In spite

of their elephants, which were skilfully managed, the Indians

could not long withstand the shock of close combat, against such

cavalry and infantry as the Macedonian. Porus, a prince of gigantic

stature, mounted on an elephant, fought with the utmost gallantry,

rallying his broken troops and keeping them together until the last.

Having seen two of his sons slain, himself wounded and perishing

with thirst, he was only preserved by the special directions of

Alexander. When Porus was brought before him, Alexander was struck

with admiration at his stature, beauty, and undaunted bearing.[539]

Addressing him first, he asked, what Porus wished to be done for

him. “That you should treat me as a king,” was the reply of Porus.

Alexander, delighted with these words, behaved towards Porus with

the utmost courtesy and generosity; not only ensuring to him his

actual kingdom, but enlarging it by new additions. He found in

Porus a faithful and efficient ally. This was the greatest day of

Alexander’s life; if we take together the splendor and difficulty of

the military achievement, and the generous treatment of his conquered

opponent.[540]

[538] The halt of thirty days is mentioned by Diodorus, xvii. 86.

For the proof that these operations took place in winter, see the

valuable citation from Aristobulus given in Strabo (xv. p. 691).

[539] Arrian. v. 19, 1. Ἀλέξανδρος δὲ ὡς προσάγοντα ἐπύθετο,

προσιππεύσας πρὸ τῆς τάξεως σὺν ὀλίγοις τῶν ἑταίρων ἀπαντᾷ τῷ

Πώρῳ, καὶ ἐπιστήσας τὸν ἵππον, τό τε μέγεθος ἐθαύμαζεν ὑπὲρ πέντε

πήχεις μάλιστα ξυμβαῖνον, ~καὶ τὸ κάλλος τοῦ Πώρου~, καὶ ὅτι οὐ

δεδουλωμένος τῇ γνώμῃ ἐφαίνετο, etc.

We see here how Alexander was struck with the stature and

personal beauty of Porus, and how much these visual impressions

contributed to determine, or at least to strengthen, his

favorable sympathies towards the captive prince. This illustrates

what I have observed in the last chapter, in recounting his

treatment of the eunuch Batis after the capture of Gaza; that

the repulsive appearance of Batis greatly heightened Alexander’s

indignation. With a man of such violent impulses as Alexander,

these external impressions were of no inconsiderable moment.

[540] These operations are described in Arrian, v. 9. v. 19 (we

may remark that Ptolemy and Aristobulus, though both present,

differed on many points, v. 14); Curtius, viii. 13, 14; Diodor.

xvii. 87, 88. According to Plutarch (Alex. 60), Alexander dwelt

much upon the battle in his own letters.

There are two principal points—Jelum and Julalpoor—where high

roads from the Indus now cross the Hydaspes. Each of these

points have been assigned by different writers, as the probable

scene of the crossing of the river by Alexander. Of the two

Jelum (rather higher up the river than Julalpoor) seems the more

probable. Burnes points out that near Jelum the river is divided

into five or six channels with islands (Travels, vol. ii. ch. 2.

p. 50, 2nd ed.). Captain Abbott (in the Journal of the Asiatic

Society, Calcutta, Dec. 1848) has given an interesting memoir on

the features and course of the Hydaspes a little above Jelum,

comparing them with the particulars stated by Arrian, and showing

highly plausible reasons in support of this hypothesis—that the

crossing took place near Jelum.

Diodorus mentions a halt of thirty days, after the victory (xvii.

89), which seems not probable. Both he and Curtius allude to

numerous serpents, by which the army was annoyed between the

Akesines and the Hydraotes (Curtius, ix. 1, 11).

Alexander celebrated his victory by sacrifices to the gods, and

festivities on the banks of the Hydaspes; where he also gave

directions for the foundation of two cities—Nikæa, on the eastern

bank; and Bukephalia, on the western, so named in commemoration of

his favorite horse, who died here of age and fatigue.[541] Leaving

Kraterus to lay out and erect these new establishments, as well

as to keep up communication, he conducted his army onward in an

easterly direction towards the river Akesines (Chenab).[542] His

recent victory had spread terror around; the Glaukæ, a powerful

Indian tribe, with thirty-seven towns and many populous villages,

submitted, and were placed under the dominion of Porus; while

embassies of submission were also received from two considerable

princes—Abisares, and a second Porus, hitherto at enmity with his

namesake. The passage of the great river Akesines, now full and

impetuous in its current, was accomplished by boats and by inflated

hides, yet not without difficulty and danger. From thence he

proceeded onward in the same direction, across the Punjab—finding

no enemies, but leaving detachments at suitable posts to keep up

his communications and ensure his supplies—to the river Hydraotes

or Ravee; which, though not less broad and full than the Akesines,

was comparatively tranquil, so as to be crossed with facility.[543]

Here some free Indian tribes, Kathæans and others, had the courage

to resist. They first attempted to maintain themselves in Sangala by

surrounding their town with a triple entrenchment of waggons. These

being attacked and carried, they were driven within the walls, which

they now began to despair of defending, and resolved to evacuate by

night. But the project was divulged to Alexander by deserters, and

frustrated by his vigilance. On the next day, he took the town by

storm, putting to the sword 17,000 Indians, and taking (according to

Arrian) 70,000 captives. His own loss before the town was less than

100 killed, and 1200 wounded. Two neighboring towns, in alliance with

Sangala, were evacuated by their terrified inhabitants. Alexander

pursued, but could not overtake them, except 500 sick or weakly

persons, whom his soldiers put to death. Demolishing the town of

Sangala, he added the territory to the dominion of Porus, then

present, with a contingent of 5000 Indians.[544]

[541] Arrian states (v. 19, 5) that the victory over Porus

was gained in the month Munychion of the archon Hegemon at

Athens—that is, about the end of April, 326 B. C. This

date is not to be reconciled with another passage, v. 9, 6—where

he says that the summer solstice had already passed, and that all

the rivers of the Punjab were full of water, turbid and violent.

This swelling of the rivers begins about June; they do not attain

their full height until August. Moreover, the description of the

battle, as given both by Arrian and by Curtius, implies that it

took place after the rainy season had begun (Arrian, v. 9, 7; v.

12, 5. Curtius, viii. 14, 4).

Some critics have proposed to read _Metageitnion_ (July-August)

as the month, instead of _Munychion_; an alteration approved by

Mr. Clinton and received into the text by Schmieder. But if this

alteration be admitted, the name of the Athenian archon must be

altered also; for Metageitnion of the archon Hegemon would be

eight months earlier (July-August, 327 B. C.); and at

this date Alexander had not as yet crossed the Indus, as the

passage of Aristobulus (ap. Strabo. xv. p. 691) plainly shows—and

as Droysen and Mützel remark. Alexander did not cross the Indus

before the spring of 326 B. C. If, in place of the

archon Hegemon, we substitute the next following archon Chremês

(and it is remarkable that Diodorus assigns the battle to this

later archonship, xvii. 87), this would be July-August 326 B. C.;

which would be a more admissible date for the battle than the

preceding month of Munychion. At the same time, the substitution

of Metageitnion _is_ mere conjecture; and seems to leave hardly

time enough for the subsequent events. As far as an opinion can

be formed, it would seem that the battle was fought about the end

of June or beginning of July 326 B. C. after the rainy season had

commenced; towards the close of the archonship of Hegemon, and

the beginning of that of Chremes.

[542] Arrian, v. 20; Diodor. xvii. 95. Lieut. Wood (Journey to

the source of the Oxus, p. 11-39) remarks that the large rivers

of the Punjab change their course so often and so considerably,

that monuments and indications of Alexander’s march in that

territory cannot be expected to remain, especially in ground near

rivers.

[543] Arrian, v. 20.

[544] Arrian, v, 23, 24; Curtius, ix. 1, 15.

Sangala was the easternmost of all Alexander’s conquests. Presently

his march brought him to the river Hyphasis (Sutledge), the last of

the rivers in the Punjab—seemingly at a point below its confluence

with the Beas. Beyond this river, broad and rapid, Alexander was

informed that there lay a desert of eleven days’ march, extending

to a still greater river called the Ganges; beyond which dwelt the

Gandaridæ, the most powerful, warlike, and populous, of all the

Indian tribes, distinguished for the number and training of their

elephants.[545] The prospect of a difficult march, and of an enemy

esteemed invincible, only instigated his ardor. He gave orders for

the crossing. But here for the first time his army, officers as

well as soldiers, manifested symptoms of uncontrollable weariness;

murmuring aloud at these endless toils, and marches they knew not

whither. They had already over-passed the limits where Dionysus

and Herakles were said to have stopped: they were travelling into

regions hitherto unvisited either by Greeks or by Persians, merely

for the purpose of provoking and conquering new enemies. Of victories

they were sated; of their plunder, abundant as it was, they had

no enjoyment;[546] the hardships of a perpetual onward march,

often excessively accelerated, had exhausted both men and horses;

moreover, their advance from the Hydaspes had been accomplished in

the wet season, under rains more violent and continued than they had

ever before experienced.[547] Informed of the reigning discontent,

Alexander assembled his officers and harangued them, endeavoring

to revive in them that forward spirit and promptitude which he had

hitherto found not inadequate to his own.[548] But he entirely

failed. No one indeed dared openly to contradict him. Kœnus alone

hazarded some words of timid dissuasion; the rest manifested a

passive and sullen repugnance, even when he proclaimed that those

who desired might return, with the shame of having deserted their

king, while he would march forward with the volunteers only. After a

suspense of two days, passed in solitary and silent mortification—he

still apparently persisted in his determination, and offered the

sacrifice usual previous to the passage of a river. The victims were

inauspicious; he bowed to the will of the gods; and gave orders for

return, to the unanimous and unbounded delight of his army.[549]

[545] Curtius, ix. 2, 3; Diodor. xvii. 93; Plutarch, Alex. 62.

[546] Curtius, ix. 3, 11 (speech of Kœnus). “Quoto cuique lorica

est? Quis equum habet? Jube quæri, quam multos servi ipsorum

persecuti sint, quid cuique supersit ex prædâ. Omnium victores,

omnium inopes sumus.”

[547] Aristobulus ap. Strabo. xv. p. 691-697. ὕεσθαι συνεχῶς.

Arrian, v, 29, 8; Diodor. xvii. 93. χειμῶνες ἄγριοι κατεῤῥάγησαν

ἐφ᾽ ἡμέρας ἑβδομήκοντα, καὶ βρονταὶ συνεχεῖς καὶ κεραυνοὶ

κατέσκηπτον, etc.

[548] In the speech which Arrian (v. 25, 26) puts into the mouth

of Alexander, the most curious point is, the geographical views

which he promulgates. “We have not much farther now to march (he

was standing on the western bank of the Sutledge) to the river

Ganges, and the great Eastern Sea which surrounds the whole

earth. The Hyrkanian (Caspian) Sea joins on to this great sea on

one side, the Persian Gulf on the other; after we have subdued

all those nations which lie before us eastward towards the Great

Sea, and northward towards the Hyrkanian Sea, we shall then sail

by water first to the Persian Gulf, next round Libya to the

pillars of Herakles; from thence we shall march back all through

Libya, and add it to all Asia as parts of our empire.” (I here

abridge rather than translate).

It is remarkable, that while Alexander made so prodigious an

error in narrowing the eastern limits of Asia, the Ptolemaic

geography, recognized in the time of Columbus, made an error not

less in the opposite direction, stretching it too far to the

East. It was upon the faith of this last mistake, that Columbus

projected his voyage of circumnavigation from Western Europe,

expecting to come to the eastern coast of Asia from the West,

after no great length of voyage.

[549] Arrian, v. 28, 7. The fact that Alexander, under all

this insuperable repugnance of his soldiers, still offered the

sacrifice preliminary to crossing—is curious as an illustration

of his character, and was specially attested by Ptolemy.

To mark the last extremity of his eastward progress, he erected

twelve altars of extraordinary height and dimension on the western

bank of the Hyphasis, offering sacrifices of thanks to the gods,

with the usual festivities, and matches of agility and force. Then,

having committed all the territory west of the Hyphasis to the

government of Porus, he marched back, repassed the Hydraotes and

Akesines, and returned to the Hydaspes near the point where he had

first crossed it. The two new cities—Bukephalia and Nikæa—which he

had left orders for commencing on that river, had suffered much from

the rains and inundations during his forward march to the Hyphasis,

and now required the aid of the army to repair the damage.[550] The

heavy rains continued throughout most of his return march to the

Hydaspes.[551]

[550] Arrian, v. 29, 8; Diodor. xvii. 95.

[551] Aristobulus ap. Strab. xv. p. 691—until the rising of

Arkturus. Diodorus says, 70 days (xvii. 73), which seems more

probable.

On coming back to this river, Alexander received a large

reinforcement both of cavalry and infantry, sent to him from Europe,

together with 25,000 new panoplies, and a considerable stock of

medicines.[552] Had these reinforcements reached him on the Hyphasis,

it seems not impossible that he might have prevailed on his army to

accompany him in his farther advance to the Ganges and the regions

beyond. He now employed himself, assisted by Porus and Taxilus, in

collecting and constructing a fleet for sailing down the Hydaspes and

thence down to the mouth of the Indus. By the early part of November,

a fleet of nearly 2000 boats or vessels of various sizes having

been prepared, he began his voyage.[553] Kraterus marched with one

division of the army, along the right bank of the Hydaspes—Hephæstion

on the left bank with the remainder, including 200 elephants;

Nearchus had the command of the fleet in the river, on board of

which was Alexander himself. He pursued his voyage slowly down the

river, to the confluence of the Hydaspes with the Akesines—with the

Hydraotes—and with the Hyphasis—all pouring, in one united stream,

into the Indus. He sailed down the Indus to its junction with the

Indian Ocean. Altogether this voyage occupied nine months,[554]

from November 326 B. C. to August 325 B. C. But it was a voyage full

of active military operations on both sides of the river. Alexander

perpetually disembarked to attack, subdue, and slaughter all such

nations near the banks as did not voluntarily submit. Among them were

the Malli and Oxydrakæ, free and brave tribes, who resolved to defend

their liberty, but, unfortunately for themselves, were habitually

at variance, and could not now accomplish any hearty co-operation

against the common invader.[555] Alexander first assailed the Malli

with his usual celerity and vigor, beat them with slaughter in the

field, and took several of their towns.[556] There remained only

their last and strongest town, from which the defenders were already

driven out and forced to retire to the citadel.[557] Thither they

were pursued by the Macedonians, Alexander being among the foremost,

with only a few guards near him. Impatient because the troops with

their scaling-ladders did not come up more rapidly, he mounted upon

a ladder that happened to be at hand, attended only by Peukestes and

one or two others, with an adventurous courage even transcending what

he was wont to display. Having cleared the wall by killing several

of its defenders, he jumped down into the interior of the citadel,

and made head for some time, nearly alone, against all within. He

received however a bad wound from an arrow in the breast, and was

on the point of fainting, when his soldiers burst in, rescued him,

and took the place. Every person within, man, woman, and child, was

slain.[558]

[552] Diodor. xvii. 95; Curtius, ix. 3, 21.

[553] The voyage was commenced a few days before the setting of

the Pleiades (Aristobulus, ap. Strab. xv. p. 692).

For the number of the ships, see Ptolemy ap. Arrian, vi. 2, 8.

On seeing crocodiles in the Indus, Alexander was at first led

to suppose that it was the same river as the Nile, and that he

had discovered the higher course of the Nile, from whence it

flowed into Egypt. This is curious, as an illustration of the

geographical knowledge of the time (Arrian, vi. 1, 3).

[554] Aristobulus ap. Strab. xv. p. 692. Aristobulus said that

the downward voyage occupied ten months; this seems longer than

the exact reality. Moreover Aristobulus said that they had no

rain during all the voyage down, through all the summer months:

Nearchus stated the contrary (Strabo, _l. c._).

[555] Curtius, ix. 4, 15; Diodor. xvii 98.

[556] Arrian, vi. 7, 8.

[557] This last stronghold of the Malli is supposed, by Mr.

Cunningham and others, to have been the modern city of Multan.

The river Ravee or Hydraotes is said to have formerly run past

the city of Multan into the Chenab or Akesines.

[558] Arrian, vi. 9, 10, 11. He notices the great discrepancy

in the various accounts given of this achievement and dangerous

wound of Alexander.

Compare Diodor. xvii. 98, 99; Curtius, ix. 4, 5; Plutarch, Alex.

63.

The wound of Alexander was so severe, that he was at first reported

to be dead to the great consternation and distress of the army.

However, he became soon sufficiently recovered to show himself, and

to receive their ardent congratulations, in the camp established at

the point of junction between the Hydraotes (Ravee) and Akesines

(Chenab).[559] His voyage down the river, though delayed by the care

of his wound, was soon resumed and prosecuted, with the same active

operations by his land-force on both sides to subjugate all the

Indian tribes and cities within accessible distance. At the junction

of the river Akesines (Punjnud) with the Indus, Alexander directed

the foundation of a new city, with adequate docks and conveniences

for ship-building, whereby he expected to command the internal

navigation.[560] Having no farther occasion now for so large a

land-force, he sent a large portion of it, under Kraterus, westward

(seemingly through the pass now called Bolan) into Karmania.[561] He

established another military and naval post at Pattala, where the

Delta of the Indus divided; and he then sailed, with a portion of his

fleet, down the right arm of the river to have the first sight of the

Indian Ocean. The view of ebbing and flowing tide, of which none had

had experience on the scale there exhibited, occasioned to all much

astonishment and alarm.[562]

[559] Arrian, xi. 13.

[560] Arrian, xi. 15, 5.

[561] Arrian, xi. 17, 6; Strabo, xv. p. 721.

[562] Arrian, xi. 18, 19; Curtius, ix. 9. He reached Pattala

towards the middle or end of July, περὶ κυνὸς ἐπιτολήν (Strabo,

xv. p. 692).

The site of Pattala has been usually looked for near the modern

Tatta. But Dr. Kennedy, in his recent ‘Narrative of the Campaign

of the Army of the Indus in Scinde and Kabool’ (ch. v. p.

104), shows some reasons for thinking that it must have been

considerably higher up the river than Tatta; somewhere near

Sehwan. “The delta commencing about 130 miles above the sea, its

northern apex would be somewhere midway between Hyderabad and

Sehwan; where local traditions still speak of ancient cities

destroyed, and of greater changes having occurred than in any

other part of the course of the Indus.”

The constant changes in the course of the Indus, however (compare

p. 73 of his work), noticed by all observers, render every

attempt at such identification conjectural—see Wood’s Journey to

the Oxus, p. 12.

The fleet was now left to be conducted by the admiral Nearchus,

from the mouth of the Indus round by the Persian Gulf to that of

the Tigris: a memorable nautical enterprise in Grecian antiquity.

Alexander himself (about the month of August) began his march by land

westward through the territories of the Arabitæ and the Oritæ, and

afterwards through the deserts of Gedrosia. Pura, the principal town

of the Gedrosians, was sixty days’ march from the boundary of the

Oritæ.[563]

[563] Arrian, vi. 24, 2; Strabo, xv. p. 723.

Here his army, though without any formidable opposing enemy,

underwent the most severe and deplorable sufferings; their march

being through a sandy and trackless desert, with short supplies of

food and still shorter supplies of water, under a burning sun. The

loss in men, horses, and baggage-cattle from thirst, fatigue, and

disease was prodigious; and it required all the unconquerable energy

of Alexander to bring through even the diminished number.[564] At

Pura the army obtained repose and refreshment, and was enabled to

march forward into Karmania, where Kraterus joined them with his

division from the Indus, and Kleander with the division which had

been left at Ekbatana. Kleander, accused of heinous crimes in his

late command, was put to death or imprisoned: several of his comrades

were executed. To recompense the soldiers for their recent distress

in Gedrosia, the king conducted them for seven days in drunken

bacchanalian procession through Karmania, himself and all his friends

taking part in the revelry; an imitation of the jovial festivity

and triumph with which the god Dionysus had marched back from the

conquest of India.[565]

[564] Arrian, vi. 25, 26; Curtius. ix. 10; Plutarch, Alex. 66.

[565] Curtius, ix. 10; Diodor. xvii. 106; Plutarch, Alex. 67.

Arrian (vi. 28) found this festal progress mentioned in some

authorities, but not in others. Neither Ptolemy nor Aristobulus

mentioned it. Accordingly Arrian refuses to believe it. There

may have been exaggerations or falsities as to the details of

the march; but as a general fact, I see no sufficient ground for

disbelieving it. A season of excessive license to the soldiers,

after their extreme suffering in Gedrosia, was by no means

unnatural to grant. Moreover, it corresponds to the general

conception of the returning march of Dionysus in antiquity,

while the imitation of that god was quite in conformity with

Alexander’s turn of sentiment.

I have already remarked, that the silence of Ptolemy and

Aristobulus is too strongly insisted on, both by Arrian and by

others, as a reason for disbelieving affirmations respecting

Alexander.

Arrian and Curtius (x. 1) differ in their statements about the

treatment of Kleander. According to Arrian, he was put to death;

according to Curtius, he was spared from death, and simply put

in prison, in consequence of the important service which he had

rendered by killing Parmenio with his own hand; while 600 of his

accomplices and agents were put to death.

During the halt in Karmania Alexander had the satisfaction of seeing

his admiral Nearchus,[566] who had brought the fleet round from the

mouth of the Indus to the harbor called Harmozeia (Ormuz), not far

from the entrance of the Persian Gulf; a voyage of much hardship

and distress, along the barren coasts of the Oritæ, the Gedrosians,

and the Ichthyophagi.[567] Nearchus, highly commended and honored,

was presently sent back to complete his voyage as far as the mouth

of the Euphrates; while Hephæstion also was directed to conduct the

larger portion of the army, with the elephants and heavy baggage,

by the road near the coast from Karmania into Persis. This road,

though circuitous, was the most convenient, as it was now the winter

season;[568] but Alexander himself, with the lighter divisions of his

army, took the more direct mountain road from Karmania to Pasargadæ

and Persepolis. Visiting the tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the

Persian empire, he was incensed to find it violated and pillaged.

He caused it to be carefully restored, put to death a Macedonian

named Polymachus as the offender, and tortured the Magian guardians

of it for the purpose of discovering accomplices, but in vain.[569]

Orsines, satrap of Persis, was however accused of connivance in

the deed, as well as of various acts of murder and spoliation:

according to Curtius, he was not only innocent, but had manifested

both good faith and devotion to Alexander;[570] in spite of which

he became a victim of the hostility of the favorite eunuch Bagoas,

who both poisoned the king’s mind with calumnies of his own, and

suborned other accusers with false testimony. Whatever may be the

truth of the story, Alexander caused Orsines to be hanged; naming as

satrap Peukestes, whose favor was now high, partly as comrade and

preserver of the king in his imminent danger at the citadel of the

Malli,—partly from his having adopted the Persian dress, manners, and

language more completely than any other Macedonian.[571]

[566] Nearchus had begun his voyage about the end of September,

or beginning of October (Arrian, Indic. 21; Strabo, xv. p. 721).

[567] Arrian, vi. 28, 7; Arrian, Indica, c. 33-37.

[568] Arrian, vi. 28, 12-29, 1.

[569] Plutarch, Alex. 69; Arrian, vi. 29, 17; Strabo, xv. p. 730.

[570] Arrian, vi. 30, 2; Curtius, x. 1, 23-38. “Hic fuit exitus

nobilissimi Persarum, nec insontis modo, sed eximiæ quoque

benignitatis in regem.” The great favor which the beautiful

eunuch Bagoas (though Arrian does not mention him) enjoyed

with Alexander, and the exalted position which he occupied,

are attested by good contemporary evidence, especially the

philosopher Dikæarchus—see Athenæ. xiii. p. 603; Dikæarch. Fragm.

19. ap. Hist. Græc. Fragm. Didot, vol. ii. p. 241. Compare the

Fragments of Eumenes and Diodotus (Ælian, V. H. iii. 23) in

Didot, Fragm. Scriptor. Hist. Alex. Magni, p. 121; Plutarch De

Adul. et Amic. Discrim. p. 65.

[571] Arrian, vi. 30; Curtius, x. 1, 22-30.

It was about February, in 324 B. C.,[572] that Alexander

marched out of Persis to Susa. During this progress, at the point

where he crossed the Pasitigris, he was again joined by Nearchus, who

having completed his circumnavigation from the mouth of the Indus

to that of the Euphrates, had sailed back with the fleet from the

latter river and come up the Pasitigris.[573] It is probable that

the division of Hephæstion also rejoined him at Susa, and that the

whole army was there for the first time brought together, after the

separation in Karmania.

[572] Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. B. C. 325, also Append. p.

232) places the arrival of Alexander in Susiana, on his return

march, in the month of February B. C. 325; a year too early, in

my opinion. I have before remarked on the views of Mr. Clinton

respecting the date of Alexander’s victory over Porus on the

Hydaspes, where he alters the name of the month as it stands

in the text of Arrian (following Schmieder’s conjecture), and

supposes that battle to have occurred in August B. C. 327 instead

of April B. C. 326. Mr. Clinton antedates by one year all the

proceedings of Alexander subsequent to his quitting Baktria

for the last time in the summer of B. C. 327. Dr. Vincent’s

remark—“that the supposition of _two winters_ occurring after

Alexander’s return to Susa is not borne out by the historians”

(see Clinton. p. 232), is a perfectly just one; and Mitford has

not replied to it in a satisfactory manner. In my judgment,

there was only an interval of sixteen months (not an interval of

twenty-eight months, as Mr. Clinton supposes) between the return

of Alexander to Susa and his death at Babylon (Feb. 324 B. C. to

June 323 B. C.).

[573] Arrian, vii. 5. 9; Arrian, Indica, c. 42. The voluntary

death of Kalanus the Indian Gymnosophist must have taken place

at Susa (where Diodorus places it—xvii. 107), and not in Persis;

for Nearchus was seemingly present at the memorable scene of the

funeral pile (Arrian, vii. 3, 9)—and he was not with Alexander in

Persis.

In Susa and Susiana Alexander spent some months. For the first time

since his accession to the throne, he had now no military operations

in hand or in immediate prospect. No enemy was before him, until it

pleased him to go in quest of a new one;—nor indeed could any new

one be found, except at a prodigious distance. He had emerged from

the perils of the untrodden East, and had returned into the ordinary

localities and conditions of Persian rule, occupying that capital

city from whence the great Achæmenid kings had been accustomed to

govern the Western as well as the Eastern portions of their vast

empire. To their post, and to their irritable love of servility,

Alexander had succeeded; but bringing with him a restless energy such

as none of them except the first founder Cyrus had manifested—and a

splendid military genius, such as was unknown alike to Cyrus and to

his successors.

In the new position of Alexander, his principal subjects of

uneasiness were, the satraps and the Macedonian soldiers. During

the long interval (more than five years) which had elapsed since he

marched eastward from Hyrkania in pursuit of Bessus, the satraps had

necessarily been left much to themselves. Some had imagined that

he would never return; an anticipation noway unreasonable, since

his own impulse towards forward march was so insatiate that he was

only constrained to return by the resolute opposition of his own

soldiers; moreover his dangerous wound among the Malli, and his

calamitous march through Gedrôsia, had given rise to reports of

his death, credited for some time even by Olympias and Kleopatra

in Macedonia.[574] Under these uncertainties, some satraps stood

accused of having pillaged rich temples, and committed acts of

violence towards individuals. Apart from all criminality, real

or alleged, several of them, also, had taken into pay bodies of

mercenary troops, partly as a necessary means of authority in their

respective districts, partly as a protection to themselves in the

event of Alexander’s decease. Respecting the conduct of the satraps

and their officers, many denunciations and complaints were sent in;

to which Alexander listened readily and even eagerly, punishing the

accused with indiscriminate rigor, and resenting especially the

suspicion that they had calculated upon his death.[575] Among those

executed, were Abulites, satrap of Susiana, with his son Oxathres;

the latter was even slain by the hands of Alexander himself, with a

sarissa[576]—the dispensation of punishment becoming in his hands

an outburst of exasperated temper. He also despatched peremptory

orders to all the satraps, enjoining them to dismiss their mercenary

troops without delay.[577] This measure produced considerable

effect on the condition of Greece—about which I shall speak in a

subsequent chapter. Harpalus, satrap of Babylon (about whom also

more, presently), having squandered large sums out of the revenues of

the post upon ostentatious luxury, became terrified when Alexander

was approaching Susiana, and fled to Greece with a large treasure

and a small body of soldiers.[578] Serious alarm was felt among all

the satraps and officers, innocent as well as guilty. That the most

guilty were not those who fared worst, we may see by the case of

Kleomenes in Egypt, who remained unmolested in his government, though

his iniquities were no secret.[579]

[574] Plutarch, Alexand. 68.

[575] Arrian, vii. 4, 2-5; Diodor. xvii. 108; Curtius, x. 1,

7. “Cœperat esse præceps ad repræsentanda supplicia, item ad

deteriora credenda” (Curtius, x. 1, 39).

[576] Plutarch, Alex. 68.

[577] Diodor. xvii. 106-111.

[578] Among the accusations which reached Alexander against this

satrap, we are surprised to find a letter addressed to him (ἐν

τῇ πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον ἐπιστολῇ) by the Greek historian Theopompus;

who set forth with indignation the extravagant gifts and honors

heaped by Harpalus upon his two successive mistresses—Pythionikê

and Glykera; celebrated Hetæræ from Athens. These proceedings

Theopompus describes as insults to Alexander (Theopompus ap.

Athenæ. xiii. p. 586-595; Fragment. 277, 278 ed. Didot).

The satyric drama called Ἀγὴν, represented before Alexander at

a period subsequent to the flight of Harpalus, cannot have been

represented (as Athenæus states it to have been) on the banks

of _the Hydaspes_, because Harpalus did not make his escape

until he was frightened by the approach of Alexander _returning_

from India. At the Hydaspes, Alexander was still on his outward

progress; very far off, and without any idea of returning.

It appears to me that the words of Athenæus respecting this

drama—ἐδίδαξε Διονυσίων ὄντων ἐπὶ τοῦ ~Ὑδάσπου~ τοῦ ποταμοῦ

(xiii, p. 595)—involve a mistake or misreading; and that it

ought to stand ἐπὶ τοῦ ~Χοάσπου~ τοῦ ποταμοῦ. I may remark that

the words _Medus Hydaspes_ in Virgil, Georg. iv. 211, probably

involve the same confusion. The Choaspes was the river, near

Susa; and this drama was performed before Alexander at Susa

during the Dionysia of the year 324 B. C., after

Harpalus had fled. The Dionysia were in the month Elaphebolion;

now Alexander did not fight Porus on the Hydaspes until the

succeeding month Munychion at the earliest—and probably later.

And even if we suppose (which is not probable) that he reached

the Hydaspes in Elaphebolion, he would have no leisure to

celebrate dramas and a Dionysiac festival, while the army of

Porus was waiting for him on the opposite bank. Moreover it is no

way probable that, on the remote Hydaspes, he had any actors or

chorus, or means of celebrating dramas at all.

[579] Arrian, vii. 18, 2; vii. 23, 9-13.

Among the Macedonian soldiers, discontent had been perpetually

growing, from the numerous proofs which they witnessed that Alexander

had made his election for an Asiatic character, and abnegated his own

country. Besides his habitual adoption of the Persian costume and

ceremonial, he now celebrated a sort of national Asiatic marriage at

Susa. He had already married the captive Roxana, in Baktria; he next

took two additional wives—Statira, daughter of Darius—and Parysatis,

daughter of the preceding king Ochus. He at the same time caused

eighty of his principal friends and officers, some very reluctantly,

to marry (according to Persian rites) wives selected from the

noblest Persian families, providing dowries for all of them.[580] He

made presents besides, to all those Macedonians who gave in their

names as having married Persian women. Splendid festivities[581]

accompanied these nuptials, with honorary rewards distributed to

favorites and meritorious officers. Macedonians and Persians, the

two imperial races, one in Europe, the other in Asia, were thus

intended to be amalgamated. To soften the aversion of the soldiers

generally towards these Asiatising marriages,[582] Alexander issued

proclamation that he would himself discharge their debts, inviting

all who owed money to give in their names with an intimation of the

sums due. It was known that the debtors were numerous; yet few came

to enter their names. The soldiers suspected the proclamation as

a stratagem, intended for the purpose of detecting such as were

spendthrifts, and obtaining a pretext for punishment: a remarkable

evidence how little confidence or affection Alexander now inspired,

and how completely the sentiment entertained towards him was that

of fear mingled with admiration. He himself was much hurt at their

mistrust, and openly complained of it; at the same time proclaiming

that paymasters and tables should be planted openly in the camp,

and that any soldier might come and ask for money enough to pay

his debts, without being bound to give in his name. Assured of

secrecy, they now made application in such numbers that the total

distributed was prodigiously great; reaching, according to some, to

10,000 talents—according to Arrian, not less than 20,000 talents or

£4,600,000 sterling.[583]

[580] Arrian, vii. 4, 6-9. By these two marriages, Alexander thus

engrafted himself upon the two lines of antecedent Persian Kings.

Ochus was of the Achæmenid family, but Darius Codomannus, father

of Statira, was not of that family; he began a new lineage. About

the overweening regal state of Alexander, outdoing even the

previous Persian kings, see Phylarchus ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 539.

[581] Chares ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 538.

[582] Arrian, vii. 6, 3. καὶ τοὺς γάμους ἐν τῷ νόμῳ τῷ Περσικῷ

ποιηθέντας οὐ πρὸς θυμοῦ γενέσθαι τοῖς πολλοῖς αὐτῶν, οὐδὲ τῶν

γημάντων ἐστὶν οἷς, etc.

[583] Arrian, vii. 5; Plutarch, Alexand. 70; Curtius, x. 2, 9;

Diodor. xvii. 109.

Large as this donative was, it probably gave but partial

satisfaction, since the most steady and well-conducted soldiers could

have received no benefit, except in so far as they might choose to

come forward with fictitious debts. A new modification moreover was

in store for the soldiers generally. There arrived from the various

satrapies—even from those most distant, Sogdiana, Baktria, Aria,

Drangiana, Arachosia, etc.—contingents of young and fresh native

troops, amounting in total to 30,000 men; all armed and drilled

in the Macedonian manner. From the time when the Macedonians had

refused to cross the river Hyphasis and march forward into India,

Alexander saw, that for his large aggressive schemes it was necessary

to disband the old soldiers, and to organize an army at once more

fresh and more submissive. He accordingly despatched orders to the

satraps to raise and discipline new Asiatic levies, of vigorous

native youths; and the fruit of these orders was now seen.[584]

Alexander reviewed the new levies, whom he called the Epigoni, with

great satisfaction. He moreover incorporated many native Persians,

both officers and soldiers, into the Companion-cavalry, the most

honorable service in the army; making the important change of arming

them with the short Macedonian thrusting-pike in place of the missile

Persian javelin. They were found such apt soldiers, and the genius of

Alexander for military organization was so consummate, that he saw

himself soon released from his dependence on the Macedonian veterans;

a change evident enough to them as well as to him.[585]

[584] Diodor. xvii. 108. It must have taken some time to get

together and discipline these young troops; Alexander must

therefore have sent the orders from India.

[585] Arrian, vii. 6.

The novelty and success of Nearchus in his exploring voyage had

excited in Alexander an eager appetite for naval operations. Going on

board his fleet in the Pasitigris (the Karun, the river on the east

side of Susa), he sailed in person down to the Persian Gulf, surveyed

the coast as far as the mouth of the Tigris, and then sailed up the

latter river as far as Opis. Hephæstion meanwhile, commanding the

army, marched by land in concert with this voyage, and came back to

Opis, where Alexander disembarked.[586]

[586] Arrian, vii. 7.

Sufficient experiment had now been made with the Asiatic levies, to

enable Alexander to dispense with many of his Macedonian veterans.

Calling together the army, he intimated his intention of sending

home those who were unfit for service either from age or wounds, but

of allotting to them presents at departure sufficient to place them

in an enviable condition, and attract fresh Macedonian substitutes.

On hearing this intimation, all the long-standing discontent of the

soldiers at once broke out. They felt themselves set aside as worn

out and useless,—and set aside, not to make room for younger men of

their own country, but in favor of those Asiatics into whose arms

their king had now passed. They demanded with a loud voice that he

should dismiss them all—advising him by way of taunt to make his

future conquests along with his father Ammon. These manifestations so

incensed Alexander, that he leaped down from the elevated platform on

which he had stood to speak, rushed with a few of his guards among

the crowd of soldiers, and seized or caused to be seized thirteen

of those apparently most forward, ordering them immediately to be

put to death. The multitude were thoroughly overawed and reduced to

silence, upon which Alexander remounted the platform and addressed

them in a speech of considerable length. He boasted of the great

exploits of Philip, and of his own still greater: he affirmed that

all the benefit of his conquests had gone to the Macedonians, and

that he himself had derived from them nothing but a double share of

the common labors, hardships, wounds, and perils. Reproaching them

as base deserters from a king who had gained for them all these

unparalleled acquisitions, he concluded by giving discharge to

all—commanding them forthwith to depart.[587]

[587] Arrian, vii. 9, 10; Plutarch, Alex. 71; Curtius, x. 2;

Justin, xii. 11.

After this speech—teeming (as we read it in Arrian) with that

exorbitant self-exaltation which formed the leading feature in

his character—Alexander hurried away into the palace, where he

remained shut up for two days without admitting any one except his

immediate attendants. His guards departed along with him, leaving

the discontented soldiers stupefied and motionless. Receiving no

farther orders, nor any of the accustomed military indications,[588]

they were left in the helpless condition of soldiers constrained to

resolve for themselves, and at the same time altogether dependent

upon Alexander whom they had offended. On the third day, they learnt

that he had convened the Persian officers, and had invested them with

the chief military commands, distributing the newly arrived Epigoni

into divisions of infantry and cavalry, all with Macedonian military

titles, and passing over the Macedonians themselves as if they did

not exist. At this news, the soldiers were overwhelmed with shame and

remorse. They rushed to the gates of the palace, threw down their

arms, and supplicated with tears and groans for Alexander’s pardon.

Presently he came out, and was himself moved to tears by seeing their

prostrate deportment. After testifying his full reconciliation,

he caused a solemn sacrifice to be celebrated, coupled with a

multitudinous banquet of mixed Macedonians and Persians. The Grecian

prophets, the Persian magi and all the guests present, united in

prayer and libation for fusion, harmony, and community of empire,

between the two nations.[589]

[588] See the description given by Tacitus (Hist. ii. 29) of

the bringing round of the Vitellian army,—which had mutinied

against the general Fabius Valens:—“Tum Alphenus Varus,

præfectus castrorum, deflagrante paulatim seditione, addit

consilium—vetitis obire vigilias centurionibus, omisso tubæ

sono, quo miles ad belli munia cietur. Igitur torpere cuncti,

circumspectare inter se attoniti, _et id ipsum, quod nemo

regeret, paventes_; silentio, patientiâ, postremo precibus et

lacrymis veniam quærebant. Ut vero deformis et fiens, et præter

spem incolumis, Valens processit, gaudium, miseratio, favor;

versi in lætitiam (ut est vulgus utroque immodicum) laudantes

gratantesque, circumdatum aquilis signisque, in tribunal ferunt.”

Compare also the narrative in Xenophon (Anab. i. 3) of the

embarrassment of the Ten Thousand Greeks at Tarsus, when they at

first refused to obey Klearchus and march against the Great King.

[589] Arrian, vii. 11.

This complete victory over his own soldiers was probably as

gratifying to Alexander as any one gained during his past life;

carrying as it did a consoling retribution for the memorable stoppage

on the banks of the Hyphasis, which he had neither forgotten nor

forgiven. He selected 10,000 of the oldest and most exhausted among

the soldiers to be sent home under Kraterus, giving to each full pay

until the time of arrival in Macedonia, with a donation of one talent

besides. He intended that Kraterus, who was in bad health, should

remain in Europe as viceroy of Macedonia, and that Antipater should

come out to Asia with a reinforcement of troops.[590] Pursuant to

this resolution, the 10,000 soldiers were now singled out for return,

and separated from the main army. Yet it does not appear that they

actually did return, during the ten months of Alexander’s remaining

life.

[590] Arrian, vii. 12, 1-7; Justin, xii. 12. Kraterus was

especially popular with the Macedonian soldiers, because he had

always opposed, as much as he dared, the Oriental transformation

of Alexander (Plutarch, Eumenes, 6).

Of the important edict issued this summer by Alexander to the

Grecian cities, and read at the Olympic festival in July—directing

each city to recall its exiled citizens—I shall speak in a future

chapter. He had now accomplished his object of organizing a land

force, half Macedonian, half Asiatic. But since the expedition of

Nearchus, he had become bent upon a large extension of his naval

force also; which was indeed an indispensable condition towards

his immediate projects of conquering Arabia, and of pushing both

nautical exploration and aggrandizement from the Persian Gulf round

the Arabian coast. He despatched orders to the Phenician ports,

directing that a numerous fleet should be built; and that the ships

should then be taken to pieces, and conveyed across to Thapsakus

on the Euphrates, from whence they would sail down to Babylon. At

that place, he directed the construction of other ships from the

numerous cypress trees around—as well as the formation of an enormous

harbor in the river at Babylon, adequate to the accommodation of

1000 ships of war. Mikkalus, a Greek of Klazomenæ, was sent to

Phenicia with 500 talents, to enlist, or to purchase, seamen for the

crews. It was calculated that these preparations (probably under the

superintendence of Nearchus) would be completed by the spring, for

which period contingents were summoned to Babylon for the expedition

against Arabia.[591]

[591] Arrian, vii. 19. He also sent an officer named Herakleides

to the shores of the Caspian sea, with orders to construct ships

and make a survey of that sea (vii. 16).

In the mean time, Alexander himself paid a visit to Ekbatana, the

ordinary summer residence of the Persian kings. He conducted his army

by leisurely marches, reviewing by the way the ancient regal parks

of the celebrated breed called Nisæan horses now greatly reduced in

number.[592] On the march, a violent altercation occurred between his

personal favorite Hephæstion,—and his secretary Eumenes, the most

able, dexterous, and long-sighted man in his service. Eumenes, as a

Greek of Kardia, had been always regarded with slight and jealousy by

the Macedonian officers, especially by Hephæstion; Alexander now took

pains to reconcile the two, experiencing no difficulty with Eumenes,

but much with Hephæstion.[593] During his stay at Ekbatana, he

celebrated magnificent sacrifices and festivities, with gymnastic and

musical exhibitions, which were farther enlivened, according to the

Macedonian habits, by banquets and excessive wine-drinking. Amidst

these proceedings, Hephæstion was seized with a fever. The vigor of

his constitution emboldened him to neglect all care or regimen, so

that in a few days the disease carried him off. The final crisis came

on suddenly, and Alexander was warned of it while sitting in the

theatre; but though he instantly hurried to the bedside, he found

Hephæstion already dead. His sorrow for this loss was unbounded,

manifesting itself in excesses suitable to the general violence of

his impulses, whether of affection or of antipathy. Like Achilles

mourning for Patroklus, he cast himself on the ground near the dead

body, and remained there wailing for several hours; he refused

all care, and even food, for two days; he cut his hair close, and

commanded that all the horses and mules in the camp should have their

manes cut close also; he not only suspended the festivities, but

interdicted all music and every sign of joy in the camp; he directed

that the battlements of the walls belonging to the neighboring cities

should be struck off; he hung, or crucified, the physician Glaukias,

who had prescribed for Hephæstion; he ordered that a vast funeral

pile should be erected at Babylon, at a cost given to us as 10,000

talents (£2,300,000), to celebrate the obsequies; he sent messengers

to the oracle of Ammon, to inquire whether it was permitted to

worship Hephæstion as a god. Many of those around him, accommodating

themselves to this passionate impulse of the ruler, began at once

to show a sort of worship towards the deceased, by devoting to

him themselves and their arms; of which Eumenes set the example,

conscious of his own personal danger, if Alexander should suspect

him of being pleased at the death of his recent rival. Perdikkas was

instructed to convey the body in solemn procession to Babylon, there

to be burnt in state when preparations should be completed.[594]

[592] Arrian, vii. 13, 2; Diodor. xvii. 110. How leisurely the

march was may be seen in Diodorus.

The direction of Alexander’s march from Susa to Ekbatana, along

a frequented and good road which Diodorus in another place

calls a royal road (xix. 19), is traced by Ritter, deriving

his information chiefly from the recent researches of Major

Rawlinson. The larger portion of the way lay along the western

side of the chain of Mount Zagros, and on the right bank of the

river Kerkha (Ritter, Erdkunde, part ix. b. 3. p. 329, West Asia).

[593] Arrian, vii. 13, 1; Plutarch, Eumenes, 2.

[594] Arrian, vii. 14; Plutarch, Alexand. 72; Diodor. xvii. 110.

It will not do to follow the canon of evidence tacitly assumed

by Arrian, who thinks himself authorized to discredit all the

details of Alexander’s conduct on this occasion, which transgress

the limits of a dignified, though vehement sorrow.

When Masistius was slain, in the Persian army commanded by

Mardonius in Bœotia, the manes of the horses were cut, as token

of mourning: compare also Plutarch, Pelopidas, 33; and Euripid.

Alkestis, 442.

Alexander stayed at Ekbatana until winter was at hand, seeking

distraction from his grief in exaggerated splendor of festivals

and ostentation of life. His temper became so much more irascible

and furious, that no one approached him without fear, and he was

propitiated by the most extravagant flatteries.[595] At length he

roused himself and found his true consolation, in gratifying the

primary passions of his nature—fighting and man-hunting.[596] Between

Media and Persis, dwelt the tribes called Kossæi, amidst a region

of lofty, trackless, inaccessible mountains. Brave and predatory,

they had defied the attacks of the Persian kings. Alexander now

conducted against them a powerful force, and in spite of increased

difficulties arising from the wintry season, pushed them from point

to point, following them into the loftiest and most impenetrable

recesses of their mountains. These efforts were continued for forty

days, under himself and Ptolemy, until the entire male population

was slain; which passed for an acceptable offering to the manes of

Hephæstion.[597]

[595] See the curious extracts from Ephippus the

Chalkidian,—seemingly a contemporary, if not an eye-witness (ap.

Athenæ. xii. p. 537, 538)—εὐφημία δὲ καὶ σιγὴ κατεῖχε πάντας ὑπὸ

δέους τοὺς παρόντας· ἀφόρητος γὰρ ἦν (Alexander) καὶ φονικός·

ἐδόκει γὰρ εἶναι μελαγχολικὸς, etc.

[596] I translate here, literally, Plutarch’s expression—Τοῦ

δὲ πένθους παρηγορίᾳ τῷ πολέμῳ χρώμενος, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ θήραν καὶ

~κυνηγέσιον ἀνθρώπων~ ἐξῆλθε, καὶ τὸ Κοσσαίων ἔθνος κατεστρέψατο,

~πάντας ἡβηδὸν ἀποσφάττων~. Τοῦτο δὲ Ἡφαιστίωνος ἐναγισμὸς

ἐκαλεῖτο (Plutarch, Alexand. 72: compare Polyænus, iv. 3, 31).

[597] Arrian, vii. 15; Plutarch, Alex. 72; Diodor. xvii. 111.

This general slaughter, however, can only be true of portions of

the Kossæan name; for Kossæans occur in after years (Diodor. xix.

19.).

Not long afterwards, Alexander commenced his progress to Babylon;

but in slow marches, farther retarded by various foreign embassies

which met him on the road. So widely had the terror of his name

and achievements been spread, that several of these envoys came

from the most distant regions. There were some from the various

tribes of Lybia—from Carthage—from Sicily and Sardinia—from

the Illyrians and Thracians—from the Lucanians, Bruttians, and

Tuscans, in Italy—nay, even (some affirmed) from the Romans, as

yet a people of moderate power.[598] But there were other names

yet more surprising—Æthiopians, from the extreme south, beyond

Egypt—Scythians from the north, beyond the Danube—Iberians and Gauls,

from the far west, beyond the Mediterranean Sea. Legates also arrived

from various Grecian cities, partly to tender congratulations and

compliments upon his matchless successes, partly to remonstrate

against his sweeping mandate for the general restoration of the

Grecian exiles.[599] It was remarked that these Grecian legates

approached him with wreaths on their heads, tendering golden wreaths

to him,—as if they were coming into the presence of a god.[600] The

proofs which Alexander received even from distant tribes with names

and costumes unknown to him, of fear for his enmity and anxiety

for his favor, were such as had never been shown to any historical

person, and such as entirely to explain his superhuman arrogance.

[598] Pliny, H. N. iii. 9. The story in Strabo, v. p. 232, can

hardly apply to Alexander the Great. Livy (ix. 18) conceives that

the Romans knew nothing of Alexander even by report, but this

appears to me not credible.

On the whole, though the point is doubtful, I incline to believe

the assertion of a Roman embassy to Alexander. Nevertheless,

there were various false statements which afterwards became

current about it—one of which may be seen in Memnon’s history

of the Pontic Herakleia ap. Photium, Cod. 224; Orelli Fragment.

Memnon, p. 36. Kleitarchus (contemporary of Alexander), whom

Pliny quotes, can have had no motive to insert falsely the name

of Romans, which in his time was nowise important.

[599] Arrian, vii. 15; Justin, xii. 13; Diodor. xvii. 113. The

story mentioned by Justin in another place (xxi. 6) is probably

referable to this season of Alexander’s career. A Carthaginian

named Hamilkar Rhodanus, was sent by his city to Alexander;

really as an emissary to acquaint himself with the king’s real

designs, which occasioned to the Carthaginians serious alarm—but

under color of being an exile tendering his services. Justin says

that Parmenio introduced Hamilkar—which must, I think, be an

error.

[600] Arrian, vii. 19, 1; vii. 23, 3.

In the midst of this exuberant pride and good fortune, however, dark

omens and prophecies crowded upon him as he approached Babylon. Of

these the most remarkable was, the warning of the Chaldean priests,

who apprised him, soon after he crossed the Tigris, that it would

be dangerous for him to enter that city, and exhorted him to remain

outside of the gates. At first he was inclined to obey; but his

scruples were overruled, either by arguments from the Greek sophist

Anaxarchus, or by the shame of shutting himself out from the most

memorable city of the empire, where his great naval preparations

were now going on. He found Nearchus with his fleet, who had come

up from the mouth of the river,—and also the ships directed to be

built in Phenicia, which had come down the river from Thapsakus,

together with large numbers of seafaring men to serve aboard.[601]

The ships of cypress-wood, and the large docks, which he had ordered

to be constructed at Babylon, were likewise in full progress. He lost

no time in concerting with Nearchus the details of an expedition

into Arabia and the Persian Gulf, by his land-force and naval

force coöperating. From various naval officers, who had been sent

to survey the Persian Gulf and now made their reports, he learned

that though there were no serious difficulties within it or along

its southern coast, yet to double the eastern cape which terminated

that coast—to circumnavigate the unknown peninsula of Arabia—and

thus to reach the Red Sea—was an enterprise perilous at least, if

not impracticable.[602] But to achieve that which other men thought

impracticable, was the leading passion of Alexander. He resolved to

circumnavigate Arabia as well as to conquer the Arabians, from whom

it was sufficient offence that they had sent no envoys to him. He

also contemplated the foundation of a great maritime city in the

interior of the Persian Gulf, to rival in wealth and commerce the

cities of Phenicia.[603]

[601] Arrian, vii. 19, 5-12; Diodor. xvii. 112.

[602] Arrian, vii. 20, 15; Arrian, Indica, 43. To undertake this

circumnavigation, Alexander had despatched a ship-master of Soli

in Cyprus, named Hiero; who becoming alarmed at the distance

to which he was advancing, and at the apparently interminable

stretch of Arabia towards the south, returned without

accomplishing the object.

Even in the time of Arrian, in the second century after the

Christian era, Arabia had never been circumnavigated, from the

Persian Gulf to the Red Sea—at least so far as his knowledge

extended.

[603] Arrian, vii. 19, 11.

Amidst preparations for this expedition—and while the immense funeral

pile destined for Hephæstion was being built—Alexander sailed down

the Euphrates to the great dyke called Pallakopas, about ninety miles

below Babylon; a sluice constructed by the ancient Assyrian kings,

for the purpose of being opened when the river was too full, so as

to let off the water into the interminable marshes stretching out

near the western bank. The sluice being reported not to work well,

he projected the construction of a new one somewhat farther down. He

then sailed through the Pallakopas in order to survey the marshes,

together with the tombs of the ancient Assyrian kings which had been

erected among them. Himself steering his vessel, with the kausia on

his head, and the regal diadem above it,[604] he passed some time

among these lakes and swamps, which were so extensive that his fleet

lost the way among them. He stayed long enough also to direct, and

even commence, the foundation of a new city, in what seemed to him a

convenient spot.[605]

[604] Arrian, vii. 22, 2, 3; Strabo, xvi. p. 741.

[605] Arrian, vii. 21, 11. πόλιν ἐξῳκοδόμησέ τε καὶ ἐτείχισε.

On returning to Babylon, Alexander found large reinforcements arrived

there—partly under Philoxenus, Menander, and Menidas, from Lydia and

Karia—partly 20,000 Persians, under Peukestes the satrap. He caused

these Persians to be incorporated in the files of the Macedonian

phalanx. According to the standing custom, each of these files

was sixteen deep, and each soldier was armed with the long pike

or sarissa wielded by two hands; the lochage, or front-rank man,

being always an officer receiving double pay, of great strength and

attested valor—and those second and third in the file, as well as the

rearmost man of all, being likewise strong and good men, receiving

larger pay than the rest. Alexander, in his new arrangement, retained

the three first ranks and the rear rank unchanged, as well as the

same depth of file; but he substituted twelve Persians in place

of the twelve Macedonians who followed after the third-rank man;

so that the file was composed first of the lochage and two other

chosen Macedonians, each armed with the sarissa—then of twelve

Persians armed in their own manner with bow or javelin—lastly, of a

Macedonian with his sarissa bringing up the the rear.[606] In this

Macedonico-Persian file, the front would have only three projecting

pikes, instead of five, as the ordinary Macedonian phalanx presented;

but then, in compensation, the Persian soldiers would be able to

hurl their javelins at an advancing enemy, over the heads of their

three front-rank men. The supervening death of Alexander prevented

the actual execution of this reform, interesting as being his last

project for amalgamating Persians and Macedonians into one military

force.

[606] Arrian, vii. 23, 5. Even when performing the purely

military operation of passing these soldiers in review,

inspecting their exercise, and determining their array,—Alexander

sat upon the regal throne, surrounded by Asiatic eunuchs; his

principal officers sat upon couches with silver feet, near to him

(Arrian, vii. 24, 4). This is among the evidences of his altered

manners.

Besides thus modifying the phalanx, Alexander also passed in review

his fleet, which was now fully equipped. The order was actually

given for departing, so soon as the obsequies of Hephæstion should

be celebrated. This was the last act which remained for him to

fulfil. The splendid funeral pile stood ready—two hundred feet

high, occupying a square area, of which the side was nearly one

furlong, loaded with mostly decorations from the zeal, real and

simulated, of the Macedonian officers. The invention of artists was

exhausted, in long discussions with the king himself, to produce

at all cost an exhibition of magnificence singular and stupendous.

The outlay (probably with addition of the festivals immediately

following) is stated at 12,000 talents, or £2,760,000 sterling.[607]

Alexander awaited the order from the oracle of Ammon, having sent

thither messengers to inquire what measure of reverential honor he

might properly and piously show to his departed friend.[608] The

answer was now brought back, intimating that Hephæstion was to be

worshipped as a Hero—the secondary form of worship, not on a level

with that paid to the gods. Delighted with this divine testimony

to Hephæstion, Alexander caused the pile to be lighted, and the

obsequies celebrated, in a manner suitable to the injunctions of the

oracle.[609] He farther directed that magnificent chapels or sacred

edifices should be erected for the worship and honor of Hephæstion,

at Alexandria in Egypt,—at Pella in Macedonia,—and probably in other

cities also.[610]

[607] Diodorus, xvii. 115; Plutarch, Alex. 72.

[608] Arrian, vii. 23, 8.

[609] Diodor. xvii. 114, 115: compare Arrian, vii. 14, 16;

Plutarch, Alexand. 75.

[610] Arrian, vii. 23, 10-13; Diod. xviii. 4. Diodorus speaks

indeed, in this passage, of the πυρὰ or funeral pile in honor

of Hephæstion, as if it were among the vast expenses included

among the memoranda left by Alexander (after his decease) of

prospective schemes. But the funeral pile had already been

erected at Babylon, as Diodorus himself had informed us.

What Alexander left unexecuted at his decease, but intended to

execute if he had lived, was the splendid edifices and chapels in

Hephæstion’s honor—as we see by Arrian, vii. 23, 10. And Diodorus

must be supposed to allude to these intended sacred buildings,

though he has inadvertently spoken of the funeral pile. Kraterus,

who was under orders to return to Macedonia, was to have built

one at Pella.

The Olynthian Ephippus had composed a book περὶ τῆς Ἡφαιστίωνος

καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου ταφῆς, of which there appear four or five

citations in Athenæus. He dwelt especially on the luxurious

habits of Alexander, and on his unmeasured potations—common to

him with other Macedonians.

Respecting the honors intended for Hephæstion at Alexandria, he

addressed to Kleomenes, the satrap of Egypt, a despatch which becomes

in part known to us. I have already stated that Kleomenes was among

the worst of the satraps; having committed multiplied public crimes,

of which Alexander was not uninformed. The regal despatch enjoined

him to erect in commemoration of Hephæstion a chapel on the terra

firma of Alexandria, with a splendid turret on the islet of Pharos;

and to provide besides that all mercantile written contracts, as

a condition of validity, should be inscribed with the name of

Hephæstion. Alexander concluded thus: “If on coming I find the

Egyptian temples and the chapels of Hephæstion completed in the best

manner, I will forgive you for all your past crimes; and in future,

whatever magnitude of crime you may commit, you shall suffer no bad

treatment from me.”[611] This despatch strikingly illustrates how

much the wrong doings of satraps were secondary considerations in

his view, compared with splendid manifestations towards the gods and

personal attachments towards friends.

[611] Arrian, vii. 23, 9-14. Καὶ Κλεομένει ἀνδρὶ κακῷ, καὶ πολλὰ

ἀδικήματα ἀδικήσαντι ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, ἐπιστέλλει ἐπιστολήν.... Ἢν γὰρ

καταλάβω ἐγὼ (ἔλεγε τὰ γράμματα) τὰ ἱερὰ τὰ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ καλῶς

κατεσκευασμένα καὶ τὰ ἡρῷα τὰ Ἡφαιστίωνος, εἴτε τι πρότερον

ἡμάρτηκας, ἀφήσω σε τούτων, καὶ τολοιπόν, ὁπήλικον ἂν ἁμάρτῃς,

οὐδὲν πείσῃ ἐξ ἐμοῦ ἄχαρι.—In the oration of Demosthenes against

Dionysodoras (p. 1285), Kleomenes appears as enriching himself by

the monopoly of corn exported from Egypt: compare Pseudo-Aristot.

Œconom. c. 33. Kleomenes was afterwards put to death by the first

Ptolemy, who became king of Egypt (Pausanias, i. 6, 3).

The intense sorrow felt by Alexander for the death of Hephæstion—not

merely an attached friend, but of the same age and exuberant vigor

as himself—laid his mind open to gloomy forebodings from numerous

omens, as well as to jealous mistrust even of his oldest officers.

Antipater especially, no longer protected against the calumnies of

Olympias by the support of Hephæstion,[612] fell more and more into

discredit; whilst his son Kassander, who had recently come into Asia

with a Macedonian reinforcement, underwent from Alexander during

irascible moments much insulting violence. In spite of the dissuasive

warning of the Chaldean priests,[613] Alexander had been persuaded to

distrust their sincerity, and had entered Babylon, though not without

hesitation and uneasiness. However, when, after having entered the

town, he went out of it again safely on his expedition for the survey

of the lower Euphrates, he conceived himself to have exposed them

as deceitful alarmists, and returned to the city with increased

confidence, for the obsequies of his deceased friend.[614]

[612] Plutarch, Alex. 74; Diodor. xvii. 114.

[613] Arrian, vii. 16, 9; vii. 17, 6. Plutarch, Alex. 73. Diodor.

xvii. 112.

[614] Arrian, vii. 22, 1. Αὐτὸς δὲ ~ὡς ἐξελέγξας δὴ~ τῶν Χαλδαίων

μαντείαν, ὅτι οὐδὲν πεπονθὼς εἴη ἐν Βαβυλῶνι ἄχαρι (ἀλλ᾽ ἔφθη γὰρ

ἐλάσας ἔξω Βαβυλῶνος πρίν τι παθεῖν) ἀνέπλει αὖθις κατὰ τὰ ἕλη

~θαῤῥῶν~, etc.

The uneasiness here caused by these prophecies and omens, in the

mind of the most fearless man of his age, is worthy of notice as

a psychological fact, and is perfectly attested by the authority

of Aristobulus and Nearchus. It appears that Anaxarchus and

other Grecian philosophers encouraged him by their reasonings

to despise all prophecy, but especially that of the Chaldæan

priests; who (they alleged) wished to keep Alexander out of

Babylon in order that they might continue to possess the large

revenues of the temple of Belus, which they had wrongfully

appropriated; Alexander being disposed to rebuild that ruined

temple, and to re-establish the suspended sacrifices to which its

revenues had been originally devoted (Arrian, vii. 17; Diodor.

xvii. 112). Not many days afterwards, Alexander greatly repented

of having given way to these dangerous reasoners, who by their

sophistical cavils set aside the power and the warnings of

destiny (Diodor. xvii. 116).

The sacrifices connected with these obsequies were on the most

prodigious scale. Victims enough were offered to furnish a feast for

the army, who also received ample distributions of wine. Alexander

himself presided at the feast, and abandoned himself to conviviality

like the rest. Already full of wine, he was persuaded by his friend

Medius to sup with him, and to pass the whole night in yet farther

drinking, with the boisterous indulgence called by the Greeks Kômus

or Revelry. Having slept off his intoxication during the next day,

he in the evening again supped with Medius, and spent a second night

in the like unmeasured indulgence.[615] It appears that he already

had the seeds of fever upon him, which was so fatally aggravated by

this intemperance that he was too ill to return to his palace. He

took the bath, and slept in the house of Medius; on the next morning,

he was unable to rise. After having been carried out on a couch to

celebrate sacrifice (which was his daily habit), he was obliged to

lie in bed all day. Nevertheless he summoned the generals to his

presence, prescribing all the details of the impending expedition,

and ordering that the land-force should begin its march on the

fourth day following, while the fleet, with himself aboard, would

sail on the fifth day. In the evening, he was carried on a couch

across the Euphrates into a garden on the other side, where he

bathed and rested for the night. The fever still continued, so that

in the morning, after bathing and being carried out to perform the

sacrifices, he remained on his couch all day, talking and playing at

dice with Medius; in the evening, he bathed, sacrificed again, and

ate a light supper, but endured a bad night with increased fever. The

next two days passed in the same manner, the fever becoming worse

and worse; nevertheless Alexander still summoned Nearchus to his

bedside, discussed with him many points about his maritime projects,

and repeated his order that the fleet should be ready by the third

day. On the ensuing morning the fever was violent; Alexander reposed

all day in a bathing-house in the garden, yet still calling in the

generals to direct the filling up of vacancies among the officers,

and ordering that the armament should be ready to move. Throughout

the two next days, his malady became hourly more aggravated. On the

last day of the two, Alexander could with difficulty support the

being lifted out of bed to perform the sacrifice; even then, however,

he continued to give orders to the generals about the expedition.

On the morrow, though desperately ill, he still made the effort

requisite for performing the sacrifice; he was then carried across

from the garden-house to the palace, giving orders that the generals

and officers should remain in permanent attendance in and near the

hall. He caused some of them to be called to his bedside; but though

he knew them perfectly, he had by this time become incapable of

utterance. One of his last words spoken is said to have been, on

being asked to whom he bequeathed his kingdom, “_To the strongest_;”

one of his last acts was, to take the signet ring from his finger,

and hand it to Perdikkas.[616]

[615] Arrian, vii. 24, 25. Diodorus states (xvii. 117) that

Alexander, on this convivial night, swallowed the contents of a

large goblet called the cup of Herakles, and felt very ill after

it; a statement repeated by various other writers of antiquity,

and which I see no reason for discrediting, though some modern

critics treat it with contempt. The royal Ephemerides, or Court

Journal, attested only the general fact of his long potations and

the long sleep which followed them: see Athenæus, x. p. 434.

To drink to intoxication at a funeral, was required as a token of

respectful sympathy towards the deceased—see the last words of

the Indian Kalanus before he ascended the funeral pile—Plutarch,

Alexander, 69.

[616] These last two facts are mentioned by Arrian (vii. 26, 5)

and Diodorus (xvii. 117), and Justin (xii. 15): but they found

no place in the Court Journal. Curtius (x. v. 4) gives them with

some enlargement.

For two nights and a day he continued in this state, without either

amendment or repose. Meanwhile, the news of his malady had spread

through the army, filling them with grief and consternation. Many of

the soldiers, eager to see him once more, forced their way into the

palace, and were admitted unarmed. They passed along by the bedside,

with all the demonstrations of affliction and sympathy: Alexander

knew them, and made show of friendly recognition as well as he could;

but was unable to say a word. Several of the generals slept in the

temple of Serapis, hoping to be informed by the god in a dream

whether they ought to bring Alexander into it, as a suppliant to

experience the divine healing power. The god informed them in their

dream, that Alexander ought not to be brought into the temple—that it

would be better for him to be left where he was. In the afternoon he

expired—June 323 B. C.—after a life of thirty-two years and

eight months—and a reign of twelve years and eight months.[617]

[617] The details, respecting the last illness of Alexander,

are peculiarly authentic, being extracted both by Arrian and by

Plutarch, from the Ephemerides Regiæ, or short Court Journal;

which was habitually kept by his secretary Eumenes, and another

Greek named Diodotus (Athenæ. x. p. 434): see Arrian, vii. 25,

26; Plutarch, Alex. 76.

It is surprising that throughout all the course of this malady

no mention is made of any physician as having been consulted. No

advice was asked; if we except the application to the temple of

Serapis, during the last day of Alexander’s life. A few months

before, Alexander had hanged or crucified the physician who

attended Hephæstion in his last illness. Hence it seems probable

that he either despised or mistrusted medical advice, and would

not permit any to be invoked. His views must have been much

altered since his dangerous fever at Tarsus, and the successful

treatment of it by the Akarnanian physician Philippus.

Though the fever (see some remarks from Littré attached to

Didot’s Fragm. Script. Alex. Magn. p. 124) which caused

Alexander’s death is here a plain fact satisfactorily made out,

yet a different story was circulated some time afterwards, and

gained partial credit (Plutarch De Invidiâ, p. 538), that he

had been poisoned. The poison was said to have been provided

by Aristotle,—sent over to Asia by Antipater through his son

Kassander,—and administered by Iollas (another son of Antipater),

Alexander’s cupbearer (Arrian, vii. 27, 2; Curtius, x. 10, 17;

Diodor. xvii. 118; Justin, xii. 13). It is quite natural that

fever and intemperance (which latter moreover was frequent with

Alexander) should not be regarded as causes sufficiently marked

and impressive to explain a decease at once so unexpected and so

momentous. There seems ground for supposing, however, that the

report was intentionally fomented, if not originally broached,

by the party-enemies of Antipater and Kassander—especially by

the rancorous Olympias. The violent enmity afterwards displayed

by Kassander against Olympias, and all the family of Alexander

helped to encourage the report. In the life of Hyperides in

Plutarch, (Vit. X. Oratt. p. 849) it is stated, that he proposed

at Athens public honors to Iollas for having given the poison to

Alexander. If there is any truth in this, it might be a stratagem

for casting discredit on Antipater (father of Iollas), against

whom the Athenians entered into the Lamian war, immediately after

the death of Alexander.

The death of Alexander, thus suddenly cut off by a fever in the

plenitude of health, vigor, and aspirations, was an event impressive

as well as important, in the highest possible degree, to his

contemporaries far and near. When the first report of it was brought

to Athens, the orator Demades exclaimed:—“It cannot be true: if

Alexander were dead, the whole habitable world would have smelt of

his carcass.”[618] This coarse but emphatic comparison illustrates

the immediate, powerful, and wide-reaching impression produced by

the sudden extinction of the great conqueror. It was felt by each

of the many remote envoys who had so recently come to propitiate

this far-shooting Apollo—by every man among the nations who had sent

these envoys—throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, as then known,—to

affect either his actual condition or his probable future.[619] The

first growth and development of Macedonia, during the twenty-two

years preceding the battle of Chæroneia, from an embarrassed

secondary State into the first of all known powers, had excited

the astonishment of contemporaries, and admiration for Philip’s

organizing genius. But the achievements of Alexander, during his

twelve years of reign, throwing Philip into the shade, had been on a

scale so much grander and vaster, and so completely without serious

reverse or even interruption, as to transcend the measure, not only

of human expectation, but almost of human belief. The Great King (as

the king of Persia was called by excellence) was, and had long been,

the type of worldly power and felicity, even down to the time when

Alexander crossed the Hellespont. Within four years and three months

from this event, by one stupendous defeat after another, Darius had

lost all his Western Empire, and had become a fugitive eastward of

the Caspian Gates, escaping captivity at the hands of Alexander only

to perish by those of the satrap Bessus. All antecedent historical

parallels—the ruin and captivity of the Lydian Crœsus, the expulsion

and mean life of the Syracusan Dionysius, both of them impressive

examples of the mutability of human condition,—sank into trifles

compared with the overthrow of this towering Persian colossus.

The orator Æschines expressed the genuine sentiment of a Grecian

spectator, when he exclaimed (in a speech delivered at Athens shortly

before the death of Darius):—“What is there among the list of strange

and unexpected events, that has not occurred in our time? Our lives

have transcended the limits of humanity; we are born to serve as a

theme for incredible tales to posterity. Is not the Persian king—who

dug through Athos and bridged the Hellespont,—who demanded earth

and water from the Greeks,—who dared to proclaim himself, in public

epistles, master of all mankind from the rising to the setting sun—is

not _he_ now struggling to the last, not for dominion over others,

but for the safety of his own person?”[620]

[618] Plutarch, Phokion, 22; Demetrius Phaler. De Elocution.

s. 300. Οὐ τέθνηκεν Ἀλέξανδρος, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι—ὦζε γὰρ ἂν ἡ

οἰκουμένη τοῦ νεκροῦ.

[619] Dionysius, despot of the Pontic Herakleia, fainted away

with joy when he heard of Alexander’s death, and erected a statue

of Εὐθυμία or Comfort (Memn. Heracl. Fragm. ap. Photium, Cod.

224. c. 4).

[620] Æschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 524. c. 43. Τοιγάρτοι τί τῶν

ἀνελπίστων καὶ ἀπροσδοκήτων ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν οὐ γέγονεν! οὐ γὰρ βίον

γ᾽ ἡμεῖς ἀνθρώπινον βεβιώκαμεν, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς παραδοξολογίαν τοῖς

ἐσομένοις μεθ᾽ ἡμᾶς ἔφυμεν. Οὐχ ὁ μὲν τῶν Περσῶν βασιλεὺς, ὁ τὸν

Ἄθων διορύξας καὶ τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον ζεύξας, ὁ γῆν καὶ ὕδωρ τοὺς

Ἕλληνας αἰτῶν, ὁ τολμῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς γράφειν ὅτι δεσπότης

ἐστὶν ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων ἀφ᾽ ἡλίου ἀνιόντος μέχρι δυομένου, νῦν οὐ

περὶ τοῦ κύριος ἑτέρων εἶναι διαγωνίζεται, ἀλλ᾽ ἤδη περὶ τῆς τοῦ

σώματος σωτηρίας;

Compare the striking fragment, of a like tenor, out of the lost

work of the Phalerean Demetrius—Περὶ τῆς τύχης—Fragment. Histor.

Græcor. vol. ii. p. 368.

Such were the sentiments excited by Alexander’s career even in the

middle of 330 B. C., more than seven years before his death.

During the following seven years, his additional achievements had

carried astonishment yet farther. He had mastered, in defiance of

fatigue, hardship, and combat, not merely all the eastern half of the

Persian empire, but unknown Indian regions beyond its easternmost

limits. Besides Macedonia, Greece, and Thrace, he possessed all that

immense treasure and military force which had once rendered the Great

King so formidable. By no contemporary man had any such power ever

been known or conceived. With the turn of imagination then prevalent,

many were doubtless disposed to take him for a god on earth, as

Grecian spectators had once supposed with regard to Xerxes, when they

beheld the innumerable Persian host crossing the Hellespont.[621]

[621] Herodot. vii. 56.

Exalted to this prodigious grandeur, Alexander was at the time of

his death little more than thirty-two years old—the age at which a

citizen of Athens was growing into important commands; ten years

less than the age for a consul at Rome;[622] two years younger

than the age at which Timour first acquired the crown, and began

his foreign conquests.[623] His extraordinary bodily powers were

unabated; he had acquired a large stock of military experience; and

what was still more important, his appetite for farther conquest

was as voracious, and his readiness to purchase it at the largest

cost of toil or danger, as complete, as it had been when he first

crossed the Hellespont. Great as his past career had been, his

future achievements, with such increased means and experience, were

likely to be yet greater. His ambition would have been satisfied

with nothing less than the conquest of the whole habitable world

as then known;[624] and if his life had been prolonged, he would

probably have accomplished it. Nowhere (so far as our knowledge

reaches) did there reside any military power capable of making head

against him; nor were his soldiers, when he commanded them, daunted

or baffled by any extremity of cold, heat, or fatigue. The patriotic

feelings of Livy dispose him to maintain[625] that Alexander,

had he invaded Italy and assailed Romans or Samnites, would have

failed and perished like his relative Alexander of Epirus. But this

conclusion cannot be accepted. If we grant the courage and discipline

of the Roman infantry to have been equal to the best infantry of

Alexander’s army, the same cannot be said of the Roman cavalry as

compared with the Macedonian Companions. Still less is it likely

that a Roman consul, annually changed, would have been found a match

for Alexander in military genius and combinations; nor, even if

personally equal, would he have possessed the same variety of troops

and arms, each effective in its separate way, and all conspiring

to one common purpose—nor the same unbounded influence over their

minds in stimulating them to full effort. I do not think that even

the Romans could have successfully resisted Alexander the Great;

though it is certain that he never throughout all his long marches

encountered such enemies as they, nor even such as Samnites and

Lucanians—combining courage, patriotism, discipline, with effective

arms both for defence and for close combat.[626]

[622] Cicero, Philippic. v. 17, 48.

[623] See Histoire de Timour-Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, translated

by Petit de la Croix, vol. i. p. 203.

[624] This is the remark of his great admirer Arrian, vii. 1, 6.

[625] Livy, ix. 17-19. A discussion of Alexander’s chances

against the Romans—extremely interesting and beautiful, though

the case appears to me very partially set forth. I agree with

Niebuhr in dissenting from Livy’s result; and with Plutarch in

considering it as one of the boons of fortune to the Romans, that

Alexander did not live long enough to attack them (Plutarch de

Fortunâ Romanor. p. 326).

Livy however had great reason for complaining of those Greek

authors (he calls them “levissimi ex Græcis”) who said that

the Romans would have quailed before the terrible reputation

of Alexander, and submitted without resistance. Assuredly his

victory over them would have been dearly bought.

[626] Alexander of Epirus is said to have remarked, that he, in

his expeditions into Italy, had fallen upon the ἀνδρωνῖτις or

chamber of the men; while his nephew (Alexander the Great), in

invading Asia, had fallen upon the γυναικωνῖτις or chamber of the

women (Aulus Gellius, xvii. 21; Curtius, viii. 1, 37).

Among all the qualities which go to constitute the highest military

excellence, either as a general or as a soldier, none was wanting

in the character of Alexander. Together with his own chivalrous

courage—sometimes indeed both excessive and unseasonable, so as to

form the only military defect which can be fairly imputed to him—we

trace in all his operations the most careful dispositions taken

beforehand, vigilant precaution in guarding against possible reverse,

and abundant resource in adapting himself to new contingences.

Amidst constant success, these precautionary combinations were never

discontinued. His achievements are the earliest recorded evidence

of scientific military organization on a large scale, and of its

overwhelming effects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than

any other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of

all that constitutes effective force—as an individual warrior,

and as organizer and leader of armed masses; not merely the blind

impetuosity ascribed by Homer to Ares, but also the intelligent,

methodized, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in

Athênê. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against

enemies; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind, known

and unknown, except those who chose to submit to him. In his Indian

campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we perceive that not

only those who stand on their defence, but also those who abandon

their property and flee to the mountains, are alike pursued and

slaughtered.

Apart from the transcendent merits of Alexander as a soldier and a

general, some authors give him credit for grand and beneficent views

on the subject of imperial government, and for intentions highly

favorable to the improvement of mankind. I see no ground for adopting

this opinion. As far as we can venture to anticipate what would have

been Alexander’s future, we see nothing in prospect except years of

ever-repeated aggression and conquest, not to be concluded until he

had traversed and subjugated all the inhabited globe. The acquisition

of universal dominion—conceived not metaphorically, but literally,

and conceived with greater facility in consequence of the imperfect

geographical knowledge of the time—was the master-passion of his

soul. At the moment of his death, he was commencing fresh aggression

in the south against the Arabians, to an indefinite extent;[627]

while his vast projects against the western tribes in Africa and

Europe, as far as the pillars of Herakles, were consigned in the

orders and memoranda confidentially communicated to Kraterus.[628]

Italy, Gaul, and Spain, would have been successively attacked and

conquered; the enterprises proposed to him when in Baktria by the

Chorasmian prince Pharasmanes, but postponed then until a more

convenient season, would have been next taken up, and he would

have marched from the Danube northward round the Euxine and Palus

Mæotis against the Scythians and the tribes of Caucasus.[629] There

remained moreover the Asiatic regions east of the Hyphasis, which

his soldiers had refused to enter upon, but which he certainly would

have invaded at a future opportunity, were it only to efface the

poignant humiliation of having been compelled to relinquish his

proclaimed purpose. Though this sounds like romance and hyperbole, it

was nothing more than the real insatiate aspiration of Alexander, who

looked upon every new acquisition mainly as a capital for acquiring

more.[630] “You are a man like all of us, Alexander—except that

you abandon your home (said the naked Indian to him[631]) like a

meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions; enduring

hardship yourself, and inflicting hardship upon others.” Now, how

an empire thus boundless and heterogeneous, such as no prince has

ever yet realized, could have been administered with any superior

advantages to subjects—it would be difficult to show. The mere task

of acquiring and maintaining—of keeping satraps and tribute-gatherers

in authority as well as in subordination—of suppressing resistances

ever liable to recur in regions distant by months of march[632]—would

occupy the whole life of a world-conqueror, without leaving any

leisure for the improvements suited to peace and stability, if we

give him credit for such purposes in theory.

[627] Arrian, vii. 28, 5.

[628] Diodor. xviii. 4.

[629] Arrian, iv. 15, 11.

[630] Arrian, vii. 19, 12. Τὸ δὲ ἀληθὲς, ὥς γέ μοι δοκεῖ,

ἄπληστος ἦν τοῦ κτᾶσθαί τι ἀεὶ Ἀλέξανδρος. Compare vii. 1, 3-7;

vii. 15, 6, and the speech made by Alexander to his soldiers on

the banks of the Hyphasis, when he was trying to persuade them

to march forward, v. 26 _seq._ We must remember that Arrian

had before him the work of Ptolemy, who would give, in all

probability, the substance of this memorable speech from his own

hearing.

[631] Arrian, vii. 1, 8. σὺ δὲ ἄνθρωπος ὢν, παραπλήσιος τοῖς

ἄλλοις, πλήν γε δὴ, ὅτι πολυπράγμων καὶ ἀτάσθαλος, ἀπὸ τῆς

οἰκείας τοσαύτην γῆν ἐπεξέρχῃ, πράγματα ἔχων τε καὶ παρέχων

ἄλλοις.

[632] Arrian, vii. 4, 4, 5.

But even this last is more than can be granted. Alexander’s

acts indicate that he desired nothing better than to take up

the traditions of the Persian empire; a tribute-levying and

army-levying system, under Macedonians, in large proportion, as

his instruments; yet partly also under the very same Persians who

had administered before, provided they submitted to him. It has

indeed been extolled among his merits that he was thus willing to

re-appoint Persian grandees (putting their armed force however

under the command of a Macedonian officer)—and to continue native

princes in their dominions, if they did willing homage to him, as

tributary subordinates. But all this had been done before him by the

Persian kings, whose system it was to leave the conquered princes

undisturbed, subject only to the payment of tribute, and to the

obligation of furnishing a military contingent when required.[633] In

like manner Alexander’s Asiatic empire would thus have been composed

of an aggregate of satrapies and dependent principalities, furnishing

money and soldiers; in other respects, left to the discretion of

local rule, with occasional extreme inflictions of punishment, but

no systematic examination or control.[634] Upon this, the condition

of Asiatic empire in all ages, Alexander would have grafted one

special improvement: the military organization of the empire, feeble

under the Achæmenid princes, would have been greatly strengthened by

his genius, and by the able officers formed in his school, both for

foreign aggression and for home control.[635]

[633] Herodot. iii. 15. Alexander offered to Phokion (Plutarch,

Phok. 18) his choice between four Asiatic cities, of which (that

is, of any one of them) he was to enjoy the revenues; just

as Artaxerxes Longimanus had acted towards Themistokles, in

recompense for his treason. Phokion refused the offer.

[634] See the punishment of Sisamnes by Kambyses (Herodot. v. 25).

[635] The rhetor Aristeides, in his Encomium on Rome, has some

good remarks on the character and ascendancy of Alexander,

exercised by will and personal authority, as contrasted with the

systematic and legal working of the Roman empire (Orat. xiv. p.

332-360, vol. i. ed. Dindorf).

The Persian empire was a miscellaneous aggregate, with no strong

feeling of nationality. The Macedonian conqueror who seized its

throne was still more indifferent to national sentiment. He was

neither Macedonian nor Greek. Though the absence of this prejudice

has sometimes been mounted to him as a virtue, it only made room,

in my opinion, for prejudices yet worse. The substitute for it was

an exorbitant personality and self-estimation, manifested even in

his earliest years, and inflamed by extraordinary success into the

belief in divine parentage; which, while setting him above the

idea of communion with any special nationality, made him conceive

all mankind as subjects under one common sceptre to be wielded by

himself. To this universal empire the Persian king made the nearest

approach,[636] according to the opinions then prevalent. Accordingly

Alexander, when victorious, accepted the position and pretensions of

the overthrown Persian court as approaching most nearly to his full

due. He became more Persian than either Macedonian or Greek. While

himself adopting, as far as he could safely venture, the personal

habits of the Persian court, he took studied pains to transform his

Macedonian officers into Persian grandees, encouraging and even

forcing intermarriages with Persian women according to Persian rites.

At the time of Alexander’s death, there was comprised, in his written

orders given to Kraterus, a plan for the wholesale transportation

of inhabitants, both out of Europe into Asia, and out of Asia into

Europe, in order to fuse these populations into one by multiplying

intermarriages and intercourse.[637] Such reciprocal translation of

peoples would have been felt as eminently odious, and could not have

been accomplished without coercive authority.[638] It is rash to

speculate upon unexecuted purposes; but, as far as we can judge, such

compulsory mingling of the different races promises nothing favorable

to the happiness of any of them, though it might serve as an imposing

novelty and memento of imperial omnipotence.

[636] Xenoph. Cyropæd. viii. 6, 21; Anabas. i. 7, 6; Herodot.

vii. 8, 13: compare Arrian, v. 26, 4-10.

[637] Diodor. xviii. 4. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις πόλεων συνοικισμοὺς

καὶ σωμάτων μεταγωγὰς ἐκ τῆς Ἀσίας εἰς τὴν Εὐρώπην, καὶ κατὰ

τοὐναντίον ἐκ τῆς Εὐρώπης εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν, ὅπως τὰς μεγίστας

ἠπείρους ταῖς ἐπιγαμίαις καὶ ταῖς οἰκειώσεσιν εἰς κοινὴν ὁμόνοιαν

καὶ συγγενικὴν καταστήσῃ.

[638] See the effect produced upon the Ionians by the false

statement of Histiæus (Herodot. vi. 3) with Wesseling’s note—and

the eagerness of the Pæonians to return (Herod. v. 98; also

Justin, viii. 5).

Antipater afterwards intended to transport the Ætolians in

mass from their own country into Asia, if he had succeeded in

conquering them (Diodor. xviii. 25). Compare Pausanias (i.

9, 8-10) about the forcible measures used by Lysimachus, in

transporting new inhabitants, at Ephesus and Lysimacheia.

In respect of intelligence and combining genius, Alexander was

Hellenic to the full; in respect of disposition and purpose, no one

could be less Hellenic. The acts attesting his Oriental violence of

impulse, unmeasured self-will,[639] and exaction of reverence above

the limits of humanity—have been already recounted. To describe him

as a son of Hellas, imbued with the political maxims of Aristotle,

and bent on the systematic diffusion of Hellenic culture for the

improvement of mankind[640]—is, in my judgment, an estimate of

his character contrary to the evidence. Alexander is indeed said

to have invited suggestions from Aristotle as to the best mode of

colonizing; but his temper altered so much, after a few years of

Asiatic conquest, that he came not only to lose all deference for

Aristotle’s advice, but even to hate him bitterly.[641] Moreover,

though the philosopher’s full suggestions have not been preserved,

yet we are told generally that he recommended Alexander to behave

to the Greeks as a leader or president, or limited chief—and to

the Barbarians (non-Hellenes) as a master;[642] a distinction

substantially coinciding with that pointed out by Burke in his

speeches at the beginning of the American war, between the principles

of government proper to be followed by England in the American

colonies, and in British India. No Greek thinker believed the

Asiatics to be capable of that free civil polity[643] upon which

the march of every Grecian community was based. Aristotle did not

wish to degrade the Asiatics below the level to which they had been

accustomed, but rather to preserve the Greeks from being degraded

to the same level. Now Alexander recognized no such distinction as

that drawn by his preceptor. He treated Greeks and Asiatics alike,

not by elevating the latter, but by degrading the former. Though he

employed all indiscriminately as instruments, yet he presently found

the free speech of Greeks, and even of Macedonians, so distasteful

and offensive, that his preferences turned more and more in favor of

the servile Asiatic sentiment and customs. Instead of hellenizing

Asia, he was tending to asiatize Macedonia and Hellas. His temper

and character, as modified by a few years of conquest, rendered him

quite unfit to follow the course recommended by Aristotle towards the

Greeks—quite as unfit as any of the Persian kings, or as the French

Emperor Napoleon, to endure that partial frustration, compromise, and

smart from free criticism, which is inseparable from the position of

a limited chief. Among a multitude of subjects more diverse-colored

than even the army of Xerxes, it is quite possible that he might have

turned his power towards the improvement of the rudest portions.

We are told (though the fact is difficult to credit, from his want

of time) that he abolished various barbarisms of the Hyrkanians,

Arachosians, and Sogdians.[644] But Macedonians as well as Greeks

would have been pure losers by being absorbed into an immense Asiatic

aggregate.

[639] Livy, ix. 18. “Referre in tanto rege piget superbam

mutationem vistis, et desideratas humi jacentium adulationes,

etiam victis Macedonibus graves, nedum victoribus: en fœda

supplicia, et inter vinum et epulas cædes amicorum, et vanitatem

ementiendæ stirpis. Quid si vini amor in dies fieret acrior? quid

si trux et præfervida ira? (_nec quidquam dubium inter scriptores

refero_) nullane hæc damna imperatoriis virtutibus ducimus?”

The appeal here made by Livy to the full attestation of these

points in Alexander’s character deserves notice. He had doubtless

more authorities before him than we possess.

[640] Among other eulogists of Alexander, it is sufficient

to name Droysen—in his two works, both of great historical

research—Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen—and Geschichte des

Hellenismus oder der Bildung des Hellenischen Staaten Systemes

(Hamburg, 1843). See especially the last and most recent work, p.

27 _seqq._, p. 651 _seqq._—and elsewhere _passim_.

[641] Plutarch, Alex. 55-74.

[642] Plutarch, Fortun. Alex. M. p. 329. Ἀλέξανδρος δὲ τῷ λόγῳ τὸ

ἔργον παρέσχεν· οὐ γὰρ, ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης συνεβούλευεν αὐτῷ, τοῖς

μὲν Ἕλλησιν ἡγεμονικῶς, τοῖς δὲ βαρβάροις δεσποτικῶς χρώμενον

... ἀλλὰ κοινὸς ἥκειν θεόθεν ἁρμοστὴς καὶ διαλλακτὴς τῶν ὅλων

νομίζων, οὓς τῷ λόγῳ μὴ συνῆγε, τοῖς ὅπλοις βιαζόμενος, εἰς τὸ

αὐτὸ συνενεγκὼν τὰ παντάχοθεν, etc.

Strabo (or Eratosthenes, see Strabo, i. p. 66) and Plutarch

understand the expression of Aristotle erroneously—as if that

philosopher had meant to recommend harsh and cruel treatment of

the non-Hellenes, and kind treatment only towards Greeks. That

Aristotle could have meant no such thing, is evident from the

whole tenor of his treatise on Politics. The distinction really

intended is between a greater and a less measure of extra-popular

authority—not between kind and unkind purposes in the exercise

of authority. Compare Tacitus, Annal. xii. 11—the advice of the

Emperor Claudius to the Parthian prince Meherdates.

[643] Aristot. Politic. i. 1, 5; vii. 6, 1. See the memorable

comparison drawn by Aristotle (Polit. vii. 6) between the

Europeans and Asiatics generally. He pronounces the former to be

courageous and energetic, but wanting in intelligence or powers

of political combination; the latter to be intelligent and clever

in contrivance, but destitute of courage. Neither of them have

more than a “one-legged aptitude” (φύσιν μονόκωλον); the Greek

alone possesses both the courage and intelligence united. The

Asiatics are condemned to perpetual subjection; the Greeks might

govern the world could they but combine in one political society.

[644] Plutarch, Fortun. Alex. M. p. 328. The stay of Alexander

in these countries was however so short, that even with the best

will he could not have enforced the suppression of any inveterate

customs.

Plutarch states that Alexander founded more than seventy new cities

in Asia.[645] So large a number of them is neither verifiable nor

probable, unless we either reckon up simple military posts, or borrow

from the list of foundations really established by his successors.

Except Alexandria in Egypt, none of the cities founded by Alexander

himself can be shown to have attained any great development. Nearly

all were planted among the remote, warlike, and turbulent peoples

eastward of the Caspian Gates. Such establishments were really

fortified posts to hold the country in subjection: Alexander lodged

in them detachments from his army; but none of these detachments

can well have been large, since he could not afford materially to

weaken his army, while active military operations were still going

on and while farther advance was in contemplation. More of these

settlements were founded in Sogdiana than elsewhere; but respecting

the Sogdian foundations, we know that the Greeks whom he established

there, chained to the spot only by fear of his power, broke away

in mutiny immediately on the news of his death.[646] Some Greek

soldiers in Alexander’s army on the Jaxartes or the Hydaspes, sick

and weary of his interminable marches, might prefer being enrolled

among the colonists of a new city on one of these unknown rivers, to

the ever-repeated routine of exhausting duty.[647] But it is certain

that no volunteer emigrants would go forth to settle at distances

such as their imaginations could hardly conceive. The absorbing

appetite of Alexander was conquest, to the East, West, South, and

North; the cities which he planted were established, for the most

part, as garrisons to maintain his most distant and most precarious

acquisitions. The purpose of colonization was altogether subordinate;

and that of hellenizing Asia, so far as we can see, was not even

contemplated, much less realized.

[645] Plutarch, Fortun. Al. M. p. 328. Plutarch mentions, a few

lines afterwards, Seleukeia in Mesopotamia, as if he thought that

it was among the cities established by Alexander himself. This

shows that he has not been exact in distinguishing foundations

made by Alexander, from those originated by Seleukus and the

other Diadochi.

The elaborate article of Droysen (in the Appendix to his

Geschichte des Hellenismus, p. 588-651), ascribes to Alexander

the largest plans of colonization in Asia, and enumerates a

great number of cities alleged to have been founded by him. But

in regard to the majority of these foundations, the evidence

upon which Droysen grounds his belief that Alexander was the

founder, appears to me altogether slender and unsatisfactory. If

Alexander founded so many cities as Droysen imagines, how does it

happen that Arrian mentions only so comparatively small a number?

The argument derived from Arrian’s silence, for rejecting what

is affirmed by other ancients respecting Alexander, is indeed

employed by modern authors (and by Droysen himself among them),

far oftener than I think warrantable. But if there be any one

proceeding of Alexander more than another, in respect of which

the silence of Arrian ought to make us suspicious—it is the

foundation of a new colony; a solemn act, requiring delay and

multiplied regulations, intended for perpetuity, and redounding

to the honor of the founder. I do not believe in any colonies

founded by Alexander, beyond those comparatively few which Arrian

mentions, except such as rest upon some other express and good

testimony. Whoever will read through Droysen’s list, will see

that most of the names in it will not stand this test. The short

life, and rapid movements, of Alexander, are of themselves the

strongest presumption against his having founded so large a

number of colonies.

[646] Diodor. xvii. 99; xviii. 7. Curtius, ix. 7, 1. Curtius

observes (vii. 10, 15) respecting Alexander’s colonies in

Sogdiana—that they were founded “velut fræni domitarum gentium;

nunc originis suæ oblita serviunt, quibus imperaverunt.”

[647] See the plain-spoken outburst of the Thurian Antileon, one

of the soldiers in Xenophon’s Ten Thousand Greeks, when the army

reached Trapezus (Xenoph. Anabas. v. 1, 2).

This process of hellenizing Asia—in so far as Asia was ever

hellenized—which has often been ascribed to Alexander, was in

reality the work of the Diadochi who came after him; though his

conquests doubtless opened the door and established the military

ascendency which rendered such a work practicable. The position, the

aspirations, and the interests of these Diadochi—Antigonus, Ptolemy,

Seleukus, Lysimachus, etc.—were materially different from those of

Alexander. They had neither appetite nor means for new and remote

conquest; their great rivalry was with each other; each sought to

strengthen himself near home against the rest. It became a matter

of fashion and pride with them, not less than of interest, to found

new cities immortalizing their family names. These foundations

were chiefly made in the regions of Asia near and known to Greeks,

where Alexander had planted none. Thus the great and numerous

foundations of Seleukus Nikator and his successors covered Syria,

Mesopotamia, and parts of Asia Minor. All these regions were known

to Greeks, and more or less tempting to new Grecian immigrants—not

out of reach or hearing of the Olympic and other festivals, as the

Jaxartes and the Indus were. In this way a considerable influx of new

hellenic blood was poured into Asia during the century succeeding

Alexander,—probably in great measure from Italy and Sicily, where the

condition of the Greek cities became still more calamitous—besides

the numerous Greeks who took service as individuals under these

Asiatic kings. Greeks, and Macedonians speaking Greek, became

predominant, if not in numbers, at least in importance, throughout

most of the cities in Western Asia. In particular, the Macedonian

military organization, discipline, and administration, was maintained

systematically among these Asiatic kings. In the account of the

battle of Magnesia, fought by the Seleukid king Atiochus the Great

against the Romans in 190 B. C., the Macedonian phalanx,

constituting the main force of his Asiatic army, appears in all its

completeness, just as it stood under Philip and Perseus in Macedonia

itself.[648]

[648] Appian, Syriac. 32.

When it is said however that Asia became hellenized under Alexander’s

successors, the phrase requires explanation. Hellenism, properly

so called—the aggregate of habits, sentiments, energies, and

intelligence, manifested by the Greeks during their epoch of

autonomy[649]—never passed over into Asia; neither the highest

qualities of the Greek mind, not even the entire character of

ordinary Greeks. This genuine Hellenism could not subsist under

the overruling compression of Alexander, nor even under the less

irresistible pressure of his successors. Its living force, productive

genius, self-organizing power, and active spirit of political

communion, were stifled, and gradually died out. All that passed

into Asia was a faint and partial resemblance of it, carrying

the superficial marks of the original. The administration of the

Greco-Asiatic kings was not hellenic (as it has been sometimes

called), but completely despotic, as that of the Persians had been

before. Whoever follows their history, until the period of Roman

dominion, will see that it turned upon the tastes, temper, and

ability of the prince, and on the circumstances of the regal family.

Viewing their government as a system, its prominent difference

as compared with their Persian predecessors, consisted in their

retaining the military traditions and organization of Philip and

Alexander, an elaborate scheme of discipline and manœuvring, which

would not be kept up without permanent official grades and a higher

measure of intelligence than had ever been displayed under the

Achæmenid kings, who had no military school or training whatever.

Hence a great number of individual Greeks found employment in the

military as well as in the civil service of these Greco-Asiatic

kings. The intelligent Greek, instead of a citizen of Hellas, became

the instrument of a foreign prince; the details of government were

managed to a great degree by Greek officials, and always in the Greek

language.

[649] This is the sense in which I have always used the word

Hellenism, throughout the present Work.

With Droysen, the word _Hellenismus_—_Das Hellenistische

Staatensystem_—is applied to the state of things which followed

upon Alexander’s death; to the aggregate of kingdoms into which

Alexander’s conquests become distributed, having for their

point of similarity the common use of Greek speech, a certain

proportion of Greeks both as inhabitants and as officers, and a

partial streak of Hellenic culture.

I cannot but think that such an employment of the word is

misleading. At any rate, its sense must be constantly kept in

mind, in order that it may not be confounded with _hellenism_ in

the stricter meaning.

Moreover, besides this, there was the still more important fact of

the many new cities founded in Asia by the Seleukidæ and the other

contemporary kings. Each of these cities had a considerable infusion

of Greek and Macedonian citizens, among the native Orientals located

there, often brought by compulsion from neighboring villages. In

what numerical ratio these two elements of the civic population

stood to each other, we cannot say. But the Greeks and Macedonians

were the leading and active portion, who exercised the greatest

assimilating force, gave imposing effect to the public manifestations

of religion, had wider views and sympathies, dealt with the central

government, and carried on that contracted measure of municipal

autonomy which the city was permitted to retain. In these cities the

Greek inhabitants, though debarred from political freedom, enjoyed

a range of social activity suited to their tastes. In each, Greek

was the language of public business and dealing; each formed a

centre of attraction and commerce for an extensive neighborhood; all

together, they were the main hellenic or quasi-hellenic element in

Asia under the Greco-Asiatic kings, as contrasted with the rustic

villages, where native manners, and probably native speech, still

continued with little modification. But the Greeks of Antioch, or

Alexandria, or Seleukeia, were not like citizens of Athens or Thebes,

nor even like men of Tarentum or Ephesus. While they communicated

their language to Orientals, they became themselves substantially

orientalized. Their feelings, judgments, and habits of action, ceased

to be hellenic. Polybius, when he visited Alexandria, looked with

surprise and aversion on the Greeks there resident, though they

were superior to the non-hellenic population, whom he considered

worthless.[650] Greek social habits, festivals, and legends, passed

with the hellenic settlers into Asia; all becoming amalgamated and

transformed so as to suit a new Asiatic abode. Important social and

political consequences turned upon the diffusion of the language,

and upon the establishment of such a common medium of communication

throughout Western Asia. But after all, the hellenized Asiatic was

not so much a Greek as a foreigner with Grecian speech, exterior

varnish, and superficial manifestations; distinguished fundamentally

from those Greek citizens with whom the present history has been

concerned. So he would have been considered by Sophokles, by

Thucydides, by Sokrates.

[650] Strabo, xvii. p. 797, ὁ γοῦν Πολύβιος, γεγονὼς ἐν τῇ πόλει

(Alexandria), βδελύττεται τὴν ταύτῃ κατάστασιν, etc.

The Museum of Alexandria (with its library) must be carefully

distinguished from the city and the people. It was an artificial

institution, which took its rise altogether from the personal

taste and munificence of the earlier Ptolemies, especially the

second. It was one of the noblest and most useful institutions

recorded in history, and forms the most honorable monument of

what Droysen calls the _hellenistic_ period, between the death

of Alexander and the extension of the Roman empire into Asia.

But this Museum, though situated at Alexandria, had no peculiar

connection with the city or its population; it was a College of

literary Fellows (if we may employ a modern word) congregated

out of various Grecian towns. Eratosthenes, Kallimuchus,

Aristophanes, Aristarchus, were not natives of Alexandria.

Thus much is necessary in order to understand the bearing of

Alexander’s conquests, not only upon the hellenic population, but

upon hellenic attributes and peculiarities. While crushing the Greeks

as communities at home, these conquests opened a wider range to the

Greeks as individuals abroad; and produced—perhaps the best of all

their effects—a great increase of intercommunication, multiplication

of roads, extension of commercial dealing, and enlarged facilities

for the acquisition of geographical knowledge. There already

existed in the Persian empire an easy and convenient royal road

(established by Darius son of Hystaspes and described as well as

admired by Herodotus) for the three months’ journey between Sardis

and Susa; and there must have been another regular road from Susa

and Ekbatana to Baktria, Sogdiana, and India. Alexander, had he

lived, would doubtless have multiplied on a still larger scale the

communications both by sea and land between the various parts of his

world-empire. We read that among the gigantic projects which he was

contemplating when surprised by death, one was, the construction of

a road all along the northern coast of Africa, as far as the Pillars

of Herakles.[651] He had intended to found a new maritime city on

the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Euphrates, and to incur much

outlay for regulating the flow of water in its lower course. The

river would probably have been thus made again to afford the same

conveniences, both for navigation and irrigation, as it appears to

have furnished in earlier times under the ancient Babylonian kings.

Orders had been also given for constructing a fleet to explore the

Caspian Sea. Alexander believed that sea to be connected with the

Eastern Ocean,[652] and intended to make it his point of departure

for circumnavigating the eastern limits of Asia, which country

yet remained for him to conquer. The voyage already performed by

Nearchus, from the mouth of the Indus to that of the Euphrates, was

in those days a splendid maritime achievement; to which another

still greater was on the point of being added—the circumnavigation

of Arabia from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea; though here we must

remark, that this same voyage (from the mouth of the Indus round

Arabia into the Red Sea) had been performed in thirty months, a

century and a half before, by Skylax of Karyanda, under the orders

of Darius son of Hystaspes;[653] yet, though recorded by Herodotus,

forgotten (as it would appear) by Alexander and his contemporaries.

This enlarged and systematic exploration of the earth, combined with

increased means of communication among its inhabitants, is the main

feature in Alexander’s career which presents itself as promising real

consequences beneficial to humanity.

[651] Diodor. xviii. 4. Pausanias (ii. 1. 5) observes that

Alexander wished to cut through Mount Mimas (in Asia. Minor), but

that this was the only one, among all his undertakings, which

did not succeed. “So difficult is it (he goes on) to put force

upon the divine arrangements”, τὰ θεῖα βιάσασθαι. He wished to

cut through the isthmus between Teos and Klazomenæ, so as to

avoid the navigation round the cliffs of Mimas (σκόπελον νιφόεντα

Μίμαντος—Aristophan. Nub. 274) between Chios and Erythræ.

Probably this was among the projects suggested to Alexander, in

the last year of his life. We have no other information about it.

[652] Arrian, v. 26, 2.

[653] Herodot. iv. 44: compare iii. 102. That Arrian had not

present to his memory this narrative of Herodotus, is plain

from the last chapter of his Indica; though in his history of

Alexander he alludes several times to Herodotus. Some authors

have concluded from Arrian’s silence that he disbelieved the

fact: if he had disbelieved it, I think that he would have

mentioned the statement of Herodotus nevertheless, with an

intimation that he did not think it worthy of credit. Moreover,

Arrian’s disbelief (even granting that such was the state of his

mind) is not to be held as a conclusive disproof of the story.

I confess that I see no sufficient reason for discrediting the

narrative of Herodotus—though some eminent modern writers are of

an opposite opinion.

We read that Alexander felt so much interest in the extension

of science, that he gave to Aristotle the immense sum of 800

talents in money, placing under his directions several thousand

men, for the purpose of prosecuting zoological researches.[654]

These exaggerations are probably the work of those enemies of the

philosopher who decried him as a pensioner of the Macedonian court;

but it is probable enough that Philip, and Alexander in the early

part of his reign, may have helped Aristotle in the difficult process

of getting together facts and specimens for observation—from esteem

towards him personally, rather than from interest in his discoveries.

The intellectual turn of Alexander was towards literature, poetry,

and history. He was fond of the Iliad especially, as well as of the

Attic tragedians; so that Harpalus, being directed to send some books

to him in Upper Asia, selected as the most acceptable packet various

tragedies of Æschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides, with the dithyrambic

poems of Telestes and the histories of Phlistus.[655]

[654] Pliny, H. N. viii. 17; Athenæus, ix. p. 398. See

Schneider’s Preface to his edition of Aristotle’s Historiæ De

Animalibus, p. xxxix. _seq._

[655] Plutarch, Alexand. 8.