ALEXANDER'S END.
B.C. 326-319
Alexander's invasion of India.--Insubordination of the
army.--Alexander's address to the army.--Address made to him.--The
army refuses to go further.--Alexander's disappointment.--Alexander
resolves to return.--He is wounded in an assault.--Alexander's
excesses.--He abandons his old friends.--Entrance into
Babylon.--Magnificent spectacle.--The astrologers.--Study of the
stars.--Warning of the astrologers.--Alexander's perplexity.--Death
of Hephaestion.--Alexander's melancholy.--Funeral honors to
Hephaestion.--A stupendous project.--Alexander's depression.--Magnificent
plans.--A prolonged carousal.--Alexander's excesses.--Alexander's last
sickness.--His dying words.--Alexander's death.--Alexander and
Washington.--Calamitous results which followed Alexander's
death.--Stormy debates.--Aridaeus appointed king.--Effects of the
news of Alexander's death.--Death of Sysigambis.--Rejoicings at
Athens.--Demosthenes.--Joy of the Athenians.--Phocion.--Measures of
the Athenians.--Triumphant return of Demosthenes.--Grand reception of
Demosthenes.--Preparations for the funeral.--Destination of Alexander's
body.--A funeral on a grand scale.--The funeral car.--Its construction
and magnitude.--Ornaments and basso relievos.--Column of mules.--Crowds
of spectators.--The body deposited at Alexandria.--Alexander's true
character.--Conclusion.
After the events narrated in the last chapter, Alexander continued,
for two or three years, his expeditions and conquests in Asia, and in
the course of them he met with a great variety of adventures which can
not be here particularly described. He penetrated into India as far as
the banks of the Indus, and, not content with this, was preparing
to cross the Indus and go on to the Ganges. His soldiers, however,
resisted this design. They were alarmed at the stories which they
heard of the Indian armies, with elephants bearing castles upon their
backs, and soldiers armed with strange and unheard-of weapons. These
rumors, and the natural desire of the soldiers not to go away any
further from their native land, produced almost a mutiny in the army.
At length, Alexander, learning how strong and how extensive the spirit
of insubordination was becoming, summoned his officers to his own
tent, and then ordering the whole army to gather around, he went out
to meet them.
He made an address to them, in which he recounted all their past
exploits, praised the courage and perseverance which they had shown
thus far, and endeavored to animate them with a desire to proceed.
They listened in silence, and no one attempted to reply. This solemn
pause was followed by marks of great agitation throughout the
assembly. The army loved their commander, notwithstanding his faults
and failings. They were extremely unwilling to make any resistance to
his authority; but they had lost that extreme and unbounded confidence
in his energy and virtue which made them ready, in the former part of
his career, to press forward into any difficulties and dangers
whatever, where he led the way.
At last one of the army approached the king and addressed him somewhat
as follows:
"We are not changed, sir, in our affection for you. We still have, and
shall always retain, the same zeal and the same fidelity. We are ready
to follow you at the hazard of our lives, and to march wherever you
may lead us. Still we must ask you, most respectfully, to consider the
circumstances in which we are placed. We have done all for you that it
was possible for man to do. We have crossed seas and land. We have
marched to the end of the world, and you are now meditating the
conquest of another, by going in search of new Indias, unknown to the
Indians themselves. Such a thought may be worthy of your courage and
resolution, but it surpasses ours, and our strength still more. Look
at these ghastly faces, and these bodies covered with wounds and
scars. Remember how numerous we were when first we set out with you,
and see how few of us remain. The few who have escaped so many toils
and dangers have neither courage nor strength to follow you any
further. They all long to revisit their country and their homes, and
to enjoy, for the remainder of their lives, the fruits of all their
toils. Forgive them these desires, so natural to man."
The expression of these sentiments confirmed and strengthened them in
the minds of all the soldiers. Alexander was greatly troubled and
distressed. A disaffection in a small part of an army may be put down
by decisive measures; but when the determination to resist is
universal, it is useless for any commander, however imperious and
absolute in temper, to attempt to withstand it. Alexander, however,
was extremely unwilling to yield. He remained two days shut up in his
tent, the prey to disappointment and chagrin.
The result, however, was, that he abandoned plans of further conquest,
and turned his steps again toward the west. He met with various
adventures as he went on, and incurred many dangers, often in a rash
and foolish manner, and for no good end. At one time, while attacking
a small town, he seized a scaling ladder and mounted with the troops.
In doing this, however, he put himself forward so rashly and
inconsiderately that his ladder was broken, and while the rest
retreated he was left alone upon the wall, whence he descended into
the town, and was immediately surrounded by enemies. His friends
raised their ladders again, and pressed on desperately to find and
rescue him. Some gathered around him and defended him, while others
contrived to open a small gate, by which the rest of the army gained
admission. By this means Alexander was saved; though, when they
brought him out of the city, there was an arrow three feet long, which
could not be extracted, sticking into his side through his coat of
mail.
The surgeons first very carefully cut off the wooden shaft of the
arrow, and then, enlarging the wound by incisions, they drew out the
barbed point. The soldiers were indignant that Alexander should
expose his person in such a fool-hardy way, only to endanger himself,
and to compel them to rush into danger to rescue him. The wound very
nearly proved fatal. The loss of blood was attended with extreme
exhaustion; still, in the course of a few weeks he recovered.
Alexander's habits of intoxication and vicious excess of all kinds
were, in the mean time, continually increasing. He not only indulged
in such excesses himself, but he encouraged them in others. He would
offer prizes at his banquets to those who would drink the most. On one
of these occasions, the man who conquered drank, it is said, eighteen
or twenty pints of wine, after which he lingered in misery for three
days, and then died; and more than forty others, present at the same
entertainment, died in consequence of their excesses.
Alexander returned toward Babylon. His friend Hephaestion was with him,
sharing with him every where in all the vicious indulgences to which
he had become so prone. Alexander gradually separated himself more and
more from his old Macedonian friends, and linked himself more and more
closely with Persian associates. He married Statira, the oldest
daughter of Darius, and gave the youngest daughter to Hephaestion. He
encouraged similar marriages between Macedonian officers and Persian
maidens, as far as he could. In a word, he seemed intent in merging,
in every way, his original character and habits of action in the
effeminacy, luxury, and vice of the Eastern world, which he had at
first so looked down upon and despised.
Alexander's entrance into Babylon, on his return from his Indian
campaigns, was a scene of great magnificence and splendor. Embassadors
and princes had assembled there from almost all the nations of the
earth to receive and welcome him, and the most ample preparations were
made for processions, shows, parades, and spectacles to do him honor.
The whole country was in a state of extreme excitement, and the most
expensive preparations were made to give him a reception worthy of one
who was the conqueror and monarch of the world, and the son of a god.
When Alexander approached the city, however, he was met by a
deputation of Chaldean astrologers. The astrologers were a class of
philosophers who pretended, in those days, to foretell human events by
means of the motions of the stars. The motions of the stars were
studied very closely in early times, and in those Eastern countries,
by the shepherds, who had often to remain in the open air, through the
summer nights, to watch their flocks. These shepherds observed that
nearly all the stars were _fixed_ in relation to each other, that is,
although they rose successively in the east, and, passing over, set in
the west, they did not change in relation to each other. There were,
however, a few that wandered about among the rest in an irregular and
unaccountable manner. They called these stars the wanderers--that is,
in their language, _the planets_--and they watched their mysterious
movements with great interest and awe. They naturally imagined that
these changes had some connection with human affairs, and they
endeavored to prognosticate from them the events, whether prosperous
or adverse, which were to befall mankind. Whenever a comet or an
eclipse appeared, they thought it portended some terrible calamity.
The study of the motions and appearances of the stars, with a view to
foretell the course of human affairs, was the science of astrology.
The astrologers came, in a very solemn and imposing procession, to
meet Alexander on his march. They informed him that they had found
indubitable evidence in the stars that, if he came into Babylon, he
would hazard his life. They accordingly begged him not to approach any
nearer, but to choose some other city for his capital. Alexander was
very much perplexed by this announcement. His mind, weakened by
effeminacy and dissipation, was very susceptible to superstitious
fears. It was not merely by the debilitating influence of vicious
indulgence on the nervous constitution that this effect was produced.
It was, in part, the moral influence of conscious guilt. Guilt makes
men afraid. It not only increases the power of real dangers, but
predisposes the mind to all sorts of imaginary fears.
Alexander was very much troubled at this announcement of the
astrologers. He suspended his march, and began anxiously to consider
what to do. At length the Greek philosophers came to him and reasoned
with him on the subject, persuading him that the science of astrology
was not worthy of any belief. The Greeks had no faith in astrology.
They foretold future events by the flight of birds, or by the
appearances presented in the dissection of beasts offered in
sacrifice!
At length, however, Alexander's fears were so far allayed that he
concluded to enter the city. He advanced, accordingly, with his whole
army, and made his entry under circumstances of the greatest possible
parade and splendor. As soon, however, as the excitement of the first
few days had passed away, his mind relapsed again, and he became
anxious, troubled, and unhappy.
Hephaestion, his great personal friend and companion, had died while
he was on the march toward Babylon. He was brought to the grave by
diseases produced by dissipation and vice. Alexander was very much
moved by his death. It threw him at once into a fit of despondency and
gloom. It was some time before he could at all overcome the melancholy
reflections and forebodings which this event produced. He determined
that, as soon as he arrived in Babylon, he would do all possible honor
to Hephaestion's memory by a magnificent funeral.
He accordingly now sent orders to all the cities and kingdoms around,
and collected a vast sum for this purpose. He had a part of the city
wall pulled down to furnish a site for a monumental edifice. This
edifice was constructed of an enormous size and most elaborate
architecture. It was ornamented with long rows of prows of ships,
taken by Alexander in his victories, and by statues, and columns, and
sculptures, and gilded ornaments of every kind. There were images of
sirens on the entablatures near the roof, which, by means of a
mechanism concealed within, were made to sing dirges and mournful
songs. The expense of this edifice, and of the games, shows, and
spectacles connected with its consecration, is said by the historians
of the day to have been a sum which, on calculation, is found equal to
about ten millions of dollars.
There were, however, some limits still to Alexander's extravagance and
folly. There was a mountain in Greece, Mount Athos, which a certain
projector said could be carved and fashioned into the form of a
man--probably in a recumbent posture. There was a city on one of the
declivities of the mountain, and a small river, issuing from springs
in the ground, came down on the other side. The artist who conceived
of this prodigious piece of sculpture said that he would so shape the
figure that the city should be in one of its hands, and the river
should flow out from the other.
[Illustration: PROPOSED IMPROVEMENT OF MOUNT ATHOS.]
Alexander listened to this proposal. The name Mount Athos recalled
to his mind the attempt of Xerxes, a former Persian king, who had
attempted to cut a road through the rocks upon a part of Mount Athos,
in the invasion of Greece. He did not succeed, but left the unfinished
work a lasting memorial both of the attempt and the failure. Alexander
concluded at length that he would not attempt such a sculpture. "Mount
Athos," said he, "is already the monument of one king's folly; I will
not make it that of another."
As soon as the excitement connected with the funeral obsequies of
Hephaestion were over, Alexander's mind relapsed again into a state of
gloomy melancholy. This depression, caused, as it was, by previous
dissipation and vice, seemed to admit of no remedy or relief but in
new excesses. The traces, however, of his former energy so far
remained that he began to form magnificent plans for the improvement
of Babylon. He commenced the execution of some of these plans. His
time was spent, in short, in strange alternations: resolution and
energy in forming vast plans one day, and utter abandonment to all the
excesses of dissipation and vice the next. It was a mournful spectacle
to see his former greatness of soul still struggling on, though more
and more faintly, as it became gradually overborne by the resistless
inroads of intemperance and sin. The scene was at length suddenly
terminated in the following manner:
On one occasion, after he had spent a whole night in drinking and
carousing, the guests, when the usual time arrived for separating,
proposed that, instead of this, they should begin anew, and commence
a second banquet at the end of the first. Alexander, half intoxicated
already, entered warmly into this proposal. They assembled,
accordingly, in a very short time. There were twenty present at this
new feast. Alexander, to show how far he was from having exhausted
his powers of drinking, began to pledge each one of the company
individually. Then he drank to them all together. There was a very
large cup, called the bowl of Hercules, which he now called for, and,
after having filled it to the brim, he drank it off to the health of
one of the company present, a Macedonian named Proteas. This feat
being received by the company with great applause, he ordered the
great bowl to be filled again, and drank it off as before.
The work was now done. His faculties and his strength soon failed him,
and he sank down to the floor. They bore him away to his palace. A
violent fever intervened, which the physicians did all in their power
to allay. As soon as his reason returned a little, Alexander aroused
himself from his lethargy, and tried to persuade himself that he
should recover. He began to issue orders in regard to the army, and to
his ships, as if such a turning of his mind to the thoughts of power
and empire would help bring him back from the brink of the grave
toward which he had been so obviously tending. He was determined, in
fact, that he would not die.
He soon found, however, notwithstanding his efforts to be vigorous and
resolute, that his strength was fast ebbing away. The vital powers had
received a fatal wound, and he soon felt that they could sustain
themselves but little longer. He came to the conclusion that he must
die. He drew his signet ring off from his finger; it was a token that
he felt that all was over. He handed the ring to one of his friends
who stood by his bed-side. "When I am gone," said he, "take my body to
the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, and inter it there."
The generals who were around him advanced to his bed-side, and one
after another kissed his hand. Their old affection for him revived as
they saw him about to take leave of them forever. They asked him to
whom he wished to leave his empire. "To the most worthy," said he. He
meant, doubtless, by this evasion, that he was too weak and exhausted
to think of such affairs. He knew, probably, that it was useless for
him to attempt to control the government of his empire after his
death. He said, in fact, that he foresaw that the decision of such
questions would give rise to some strange funeral games after his
decease. Soon after this he died.
The palaces of Babylon were immediately filled with cries of mourning
at the death of the prince, followed by bitter and interminable
disputes about the succession. It had not been the aim of Alexander's
life to establish firm and well-settled governments in the countries
that he conquered, to encourage order, and peace, and industry among
men, and to introduce system and regularity in human affairs, so as to
leave the world in a better condition than he found it. In this
respect his course of conduct presents a strong contrast with that
of Washington. It was Washington's aim to mature and perfect
organizations which would move on prosperously of themselves, without
him; and he was continually withdrawing his hand from action and
control in public affairs, taking a higher pleasure in the independent
working of the institutions which he had formed and protected, than in
exercising, himself, a high personal power. Alexander, on the other
hand, was all his life intent solely on enlarging and strengthening
his own personal power. _He_ was all in all. He wished to make himself
so. He never thought of the welfare of the countries which he had
subjected to his sway, or did any thing to guard against the anarchy
and civil wars which he knew full well would break out at once over
all his vast dominions, as soon as his power came to an end.
The result was as might have been foreseen. The whole vast field of
his conquests became, for many long and weary years after Alexander's
death, the prey to the most ferocious and protracted civil wars. Each
general and governor seized the power which Alexander's death left in
his hands, and endeavored to defend himself in the possession of it
against the others. Thus the devastation and misery which the making
of these conquests brought upon Europe and Asia were continued for
many years, during the slow and terrible process of their return to
their original condition.
In the exigency of the moment, however, at Alexander's death, the
generals who were in his court at the time assembled forthwith, and
made an attempt to appoint some one to take the immediate command.
They spent a week in stormy debates on this subject. Alexander had
left no legitimate heir, and he had declined when on his death-bed, as
we have already seen, to appoint a successor. Among his wives--if,
indeed, they may be called wives--there was one named Roxana, who had
a son not long after his death. This son was ultimately named his
successor; but, in the mean time, a certain relative named Aridaeus was
chosen by the generals to assume the command. The selection of Aridaeus
was a sort of compromise. He had no talents or capacity whatever, and
was chosen by the rest on that very account, each one thinking that if
such an imbecile as Aridaeus was nominally the king, he could himself
manage to get possession of the real power. Aridaeus accepted the
appointment, but he was never able to make himself king in any thing
but the name.
In the mean time, as the tidings of Alexander's death spread over the
empire, it produced very various effects, according to the personal
feelings in respect to Alexander entertained by the various
personages and powers to which the intelligence came. Some, who had
admired his greatness, and the splendor of his exploits, without
having themselves experienced the bitter fruits of them, mourned and
lamented his death. Others, whose fortunes had been ruined, and whose
friends and relatives had been destroyed, in the course, or in the
sequel of his victories, rejoiced that he who had been such a scourge
and curse to others, had himself sunk, at last under the just judgment
of Heaven.
We should have expected that Sysigambis, the bereaved and widowed
mother of Darius, would have been among those who would have exulted
most highly at the conqueror's death; but history tells us that,
instead of this, she mourned over it with a protracted and
inconsolable grief. Alexander had been, in fact, though the implacable
enemy of her son, a faithful and generous friend to her. He had
treated her, at all times, with the utmost respect and consideration,
had supplied all her wants, and ministered, in every way, to her
comfort and happiness. She had gradually learned to think of him and
to love him as a son; he, in fact, always called her mother; and
when she learned that he was gone, she felt as if her last earthly
protector was gone. Her life had been one continued scene of
affliction and sorrow, and this last blow brought her to her end. She
pined away, perpetually restless and distressed. She lost all desire
for food, and refused, like others who are suffering great mental
anguish, to take the sustenance which her friends and attendants
offered and urged upon her. At length she died. They said she starved
herself to death; but it was, probably, grief and despair at being
thus left, in her declining years, so hopelessly friendless and alone,
and not hunger, that destroyed her.
In striking contrast to this mournful scene of sorrow in the palace of
Sysigambis, there was an exhibition of the most wild and tumultuous
joy in the streets, and in all the public places of resort in the city
of Athens, when the tidings of the death of the great Macedonian king
arrived there. The Athenian commonwealth, as well as all the other
states of Southern Greece, had submitted very reluctantly to the
Macedonian supremacy. They had resisted Philip, and they had resisted
Alexander. Their opposition had been at last suppressed and silenced
by Alexander's terrible vengeance upon Thebes, but it never was
really subdued. Demosthenes, the orator, who had exerted so powerful
an influence against the Macedonian kings, had been sent into
banishment, and all outward expressions of discontent were restrained.
The discontent and hostility existed still, however, as inveterate as
ever, and was ready to break out anew, with redoubled violence, the
moment that the terrible energy of Alexander himself was no longer to
be feared.
When, therefore, the rumor arrived at Athens--for at first it was a
mere rumor--that Alexander was dead in Babylon, the whole city was
thrown into a state of the most tumultuous joy. The citizens assembled
in the public places, and congratulated and harangued each other with
expressions of the greatest exultation. They were for proclaiming
their independence and declaring war against Macedon on the spot. Some
of the older and more sagacious of their counselors were, however,
more composed and calm. They recommended a little delay, in order to
see whether the news was really true. Phocion, in particular, who was
one of the prominent statesmen of the city, endeavored to quiet the
excitement of the people. "Do not let us be so precipitate," said he.
"There is time enough. If Alexander is really dead to-day, he will be
dead to-morrow, and the next day, so that there will be time enough
for us to act with deliberation and discretion."
Just and true as this view of the subject was, there was too much of
rebuke and satire in it to have much influence with those to whom
it was addressed. The people were resolved on war. They sent
commissioners into all the states of the Peloponnesus to organize a
league, offensive and defensive, against Macedon. They recalled
Demosthenes from his banishment, and adopted all the necessary
military measures for establishing and maintaining their freedom. The
consequences of all this would doubtless have been very serious, if
the rumor of Alexander's death had proved false; but, fortunately for
Demosthenes and the Athenians, it was soon abundantly confirmed.
The return of Demosthenes to the city was like the triumphal entry of
a conqueror. At the time of his recall he was at the island of Aegina,
which is about forty miles southwest of Athens, in one of the gulfs of
the Aegean Sea. They sent a public galley to receive him, and to bring
him to the land. It was a galley of three banks of oars, and was
fitted up in a style to do honor to a public guest. Athens is
situated some distance back from the sea, and has a small port, called
the Piraeus, at the shore--a long, straight avenue leading from the
port to the city. The galley by which Demosthenes was conveyed landed
at the Piraeus. All the civil and religious authorities of the city
went down to the port, in a grand procession, to receive and welcome
the exile on his arrival, and a large portion of the population
followed in the train, to witness the spectacle, and to swell by their
acclamations the general expression of joy.
In the mean time, the preparations for Alexander's funeral had been
going on, upon a great scale of magnificence and splendor. It was two
years before they were complete. The body had been given, first, to be
embalmed, according to the Egyptian and Chaldean art, and then had
been placed in a sort of sarcophagus, in which it was to be conveyed
to its long home. Alexander, it will be remembered, had given
directions that it should be taken to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, in
the Egyptian oasis, where he had been pronounced the son of a god. It
would seem incredible that such a mind as his could really admit such
an absurd superstition as the story of his divine origin, and we must
therefore suppose that he gave this direction in order that the place
of his interment might confirm the idea of his superhuman nature in
the general opinion of mankind. At all events, such were his orders,
and the authorities who were left in power at Babylon after his death,
prepared to execute them.
It was a long journey. To convey a body by a regular funeral
procession, formed as soon after the death as the arrangements could
be made, from Babylon to the eastern frontiers of Egypt, a distance of
a thousand miles, was perhaps as grand a plan of interment as was ever
formed. It has something like a parallel in the removal of Napoleon's
body from St. Helena to Paris, though this was not really an
interment, but a transfer. Alexander's was a simple burial procession,
going from the palace where he died to the proper cemetery--a march
of a thousand miles, it is true, but all within his own dominions The
greatness of it resulted simply from the magnitude of the scale on
which every thing pertaining to the mighty here was performed, for
it was nothing but a simple passage from the dwelling to the
burial-ground on his own estates, after all.
A very large and elaborately constructed carriage was built to convey
the body. The accounts of the richness and splendor of this vehicle
are almost incredible. The spokes and staves of the wheels were
overlaid with gold, and the extremities of the axles, where they
appeared outside at the centers of the wheels, were adorned with
massive golden ornaments. The wheels and axle-trees were so large, and
so far apart, that there was supported upon them a platform or floor
for the carriage twelve feet wide and eighteen feet long. Upon this
platform there was erected a magnificent pavilion, supported by Ionic
columns, and profusely ornamented, both within and without, with
purple and gold. The interior constituted an apartment, more or less
open at the sides, and resplendent within with gems and precious
stones. The space of twelve feet by eighteen forms a chamber of no
inconsiderable size, and there was thus ample room for what was
required within. There was a throne, raised some steps, and placed
back upon the platform, profusely carved and gilded. It was empty; but
crowns, representing the various nations over whom Alexander had
reigned, were hung upon it. At the foot of the throne was the coffin,
made, it is said, of solid gold, and containing, besides the body, a
large quantity of the most costly spices and aromatic perfumes, which
filled the air with their odor. The arms which Alexander wore were
laid out in view, also, between the coffin and the throne.
On the four sides of the carriage were _basso relievos_, that is,
sculptured figures raised from a surface, representing Alexander
himself, with various military concomitants. There were Macedonian
columns, and Persian squadrons, and elephants of India, and troops of
horse, and various other emblems of the departed hero's greatness and
power. Around the pavilion, too, there was a fringe or net-work of
golden lace, to the pendents of which were attached bells, which
tolled continually, with a mournful sound, as the carriage moved
along. A long column of mules, sixty-four in number, arranged in sets
of four, drew this ponderous car. These mules were all selected for
their great size and strength, and were splendidly caparisoned. They
had collars and harnesses mounted with gold, and enriched with
precious stones.
Before the procession set out from Babylon an army of pioneers and
workmen went forward to repair the roads, strengthen the bridges, and
remove the obstacles along the whole line of route over which the
train was to pass. At length, when all was ready, the solemn procession
began to move, and passed out through the gates of Babylon. No pen can
describe the enormous throngs of spectators that assembled to witness
its departure, and that gathered along the route, as it passed slowly
on from city to city, in its long and weary way.
Notwithstanding all this pomp and parade, however, the body never
reached its intended destination. Ptolemy, the officer to whom Egypt
fell in the division of Alexander's empire, came forth with a grand
escort of troops to meet the funeral procession as it came into Egypt.
He preferred, for some reason or other, that the body should be
interred in the city of Alexandria. It was accordingly deposited
there, and a great monument was erected over the spot. This monument
is said to have remained standing for fifteen hundred years, but all
vestiges of it have now disappeared. The city of Alexandria itself,
however, is the conqueror's real monument; the greatest and best,
perhaps, that any conqueror ever left behind him. It is a monument,
too, that time will not destroy; its position and character, as
Alexander foresaw, by bringing it a continued renovation, secure
its perpetuity.
Alexander earned well the name and reputation of THE GREAT. He was
truly great in all those powers and capacities which can elevate one
man above his fellows. We can not help applauding the extraordinary
energy of his genius, though we condemn the selfish and cruel ends to
which his life was devoted. He was simply a robber, but yet a robber
on so vast a scale, that mankind, in contemplating his career, have
generally lost sight of the wickedness of his crimes in their
admiration of the enormous magnitude of the scale on which they were
perpetrated.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and to
ensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise,
every effort has been made to remain true to the original book.
2. The chapter summaries in this text were originally published as
banners in the page headers, and have been moved to beginning of the
chapter for the reader's convenience.