Table Of ContentALEXANDER THE GREAT.
THE OF
LIFE
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
By THE REV. JOHN WILLIAMS, M.A.
VICAR OF LAMPETER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ARTHUR
M. CURTEIS, M.A.
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND WITH NOTES BY
HENRY KETCHAM
ILLUSTRATED
BURT COMPANY, i
A. L. o» o» jt
^ * * PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK
Copyright, 1902,
brainerd,
By E. a.
65V
CONTENTS.
PAGE
v
Introduction
CHAPTER
I.
Of the Birth, Education, and early Life of Alexander. 1
. • •
CHAPTER
II.
The Assassination of Philip 14
CHAPTER
III.
Transactions in Europe previous to the Invasion of Asia. 18
CHAPTER
IV.
State of the Civilized World, and of the Resources of the
two Contending Parties, at the period of Alexander's In-
vasion of Asia 46
CHAPTER
V.
First Campaign of Asia 51
CHAPTER
VI.
The Second Campaign in Asia, B. C. 333 85
CHAPTER
VII.
Third Campaign, B. C. 332 117
• ••
111
CONTENTS.
iv
PAGE
CHAPTER
VIII.
Fourth Campaign, B. C. 331 143
CHAPTER
IX.
Fifth Campaign, B. C. 330 178
CHAPTER
X.
The Sixth Campaign, B. C. 329 201
CHAPTER
XI.
Seventh Campaign, B. C. 328 234
haiti: xir.
< re
Eighth Campaign, B. C. 327 239
CHAPTER
XIII.
Ninth Campaign, B. C. 32G 272
CHAPTER XIV.
Ninth Campaign, B. C. 325 319
CHAPTER XV.
I
Transactions of the Tenth Year in Asia, B. C. 324 340
CHAPTER
XVI.
Last Year of Alexander's Life, B.C. 323 383
INTRODUCTION.
BY ARTHUR M. CURTEIS, M. A.
Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.
It has been said that none of mortal birth ever
went through such an ordeal as Alexander the Great
^
and Arrian insists on certain points which ought not
to be forgotten in forming an estimate of his hero.
He was the son of the able and unscrupulous Philip
and of the violent Olympias. He was brought up in
He
a court notoriously licentious. was a king at
—
twenty the greatest monarch of the world before
A
thirty. general who never knew defeat, he was
-urrounded by men vastly inferior to himself, who
intrigued for his favor and flattered his weakness.
Thus inheriting a fierce and ambitious temper, and
placed in circumstances calculated to foster it, it
would have been little short of a miracle had Alex-
ander shown a character without alloy. To stand on
a pinnacle of greatness higher than man had ever
iched before, and to be free at the same time from
vanity, would have required a combination of virtues
impossible before Christ, perhaps never possible,^
Alexander was beyond question vain, impulsive, pas-
INTRODUCTION.
Vi
sionate, at times furious but he had strong affections,
;
and called out strong affections in others. (A man of
energy and ambition, he was the hardest worker of
his day both in body and mind. Incapable of fear,
he foresaw difficulties or combinations which others
never dreamed of, and provided against them with
Amid
successj endless temptations this son of Philip
remained comparatively pure. Unlike his fellow-
countrymen, he was (says Arrian) no great drinker, '
though he loved a banquet and its genial flow of con-
On
versation. one point in his character Arrian
dwells with an admiration in which we may heartily
join. Alexander, he says, stood almost alone in his
readiness to acknowledge and express regret for hav-
ing done wrong. That in his later days, and when he
had succeeded to the position of the Great King, he
adopted the Persian dress and customs may be
ascribed to the same motive which induced him him-
self to marry, and to press his officers and soldiers to
marry, Asiatic women, a politic desire not indeed to
ape the ways of foreigners, but to amalgamate his
diverse subjects into one body. And over and
if,
above this, he went so far as to claim divine honors
as the son of a god, we may remember that of all men
Greeks were most easily thrown off their balance by
extraordinary prosperity, as were Miltiades and
Alkibiades, Pausanias and Lysandros, and that few
men of his day or country were more susceptible to
the charm of heroic and legendary associations than
was Alexander. Elated, therefore, by success, and
genuinely wrought upon by the legends which were as
INTRODUCTION.
vii
the air ho breathed, he sot an extravagant value on
obtaining a public recognition of the super-human
nature of hid pow< re, in which, perhaps, he had even
(•Mine to believe himself.
has been Baid in depreciation of Alexander that
It
hia conquests were needle-.- and the bloodshed wan-
ton, that lie gave the final Btroke to the ruin of free
Bellas, and that whatever benefits Asia derived from
it- conquests by Greeks were due rather to Alexan-
der's bu< >rs than to himself. These objections are
in the spirit as they are true in the letter.
For on the first of these points we shall go altogether
astray unless we place ourselves at the point of view
of a Greek of the fourth century. His view of the
relation- h tween himself and a barbarian (and all
who were not Greeks were barbarians) was something
similar to that of a mediaeval Christian towards a
Mohammedan, or of a Mohammedan towards an in-
fidel The natural state of things between them was
war; and for the vanquished there remained death
to the men, slavery or worse for women and children.
Any milder treatment was magnanimous clemency.
For years before Alexander, the idea of a war of re-
vel (gainst Persia had been rife. That he should
invade Asia, therefore, and put down the Great King,
and harry and day his subjects, would seem to almost
eek right and proper.
( -
A few here and there indeed were eleardioaded
enough to see that the elevation <>{ ICacedon meant
thed ofall of fn ( •. It clearly was so. And
yet, if we look the facts in the face, we observe (be
—
INTRODUCTION.
yiij
free life of Greece in the fourth century assuming a
phase incompatible in the long run with freedom. It
was the day of orators, not of statesmen or warriors
of timid action and peace at any price. It was a time
of isolation, when (thanks to Sparta) the glorious
opportunity of a free Hellenic nation had been forever
lost, and when the narrow Greek notion of political
life within the compass of city walls and no further
had reasserted itself. It was the day of mercenary
forces, when free men talked of freedom but did not
fight for it. It was a time of corruption, when politi-
cians could be bought, and would sell their country's
honor. Indeed, considering that the hegemony of
Macedon was distinctly less oppressive than that of
Sparta, we may well believe that while cities, like
Athens or Sparta, which had once been leaders them-
selves felt a real humiliation in subjection to Mace-
don, many less prominent states felt it to be a change
for the better, in proportion as such government was
less oppressive than rulers of the type of the Spartan
harmosts or the Thirty Tyrants at Athens. Tech-
nically the Macedonian conquest did put an end to
On
Hellenic freedom. the other hand, that freedom
was fast tending towards, if in some cases it had not
already passed into, the anarchy which belies free-
dom, or the pettiness which cramps
it.
Lastly, we may allow that in all probability Alex-
ander neither intended nor foresaw half the benefits
which resulted from his career to Asia and the world,
without saying more than has to be said of every man
iof commanding and progressive ideas. It is not, as a
INTRODUCTION.
x
l
men
rule, given to to see the fruit of their labors.
[Nevertheless the world combines to honor those who
initiate its varied steps of progress. The change for
the better which Alexander's conquests made in Asia
can hardly be exaggerated. Order look the place of
disorder. The vast accumulations of the Persian
kings, lying idle in their coffers, were once more
brought into circulation, and at least tended to stimu-
late energy and commercial activity. Cities were
New
founded in great numbers. channels of com-
munication were opened between the ends of the
empire. Confidence was restored and it may fairly
;
be added that only the king's own premature death
cut short the far-sighted plans which he had devised
for the gradual elevation of his Asiatic subjects to the
level of his European, and which, indeed, had already
begun to work the results which he intended. It is
true we can trace no signs of political reform in
Alexander's projects but Asiatics had never known
;
any but despotic government, and beyond question
were unfit for any other; while a king of Macedon
would probably look on government by free assem-
blies with as much contempt and suspicion as a Tsar
of Russia in our own day. Even Greece, which
gained no direct benefit from the Macedonian empire,
was yet indirectly a gainer, in the fact that it was her
language which was the medium of communication,
her literature which modified the religion that came
back to her and to Europe from Asia. It was Alex-*
ander who planted that literature and language in
[Asia; and it was to Alexander that the great
