The Historians' History of the World 04

[16] [Niebuhr,h commenting on our scant information, says, “It is as if the muse of Greece had grown dumb on the death-day of Greek liberty, and had thrown her veil over the death blow.” Later he notes the remarkable coincidence that the battle of Chæronea was fought in the same year in which Rome conquered the Volscians and Latins “and laid the foundation of her sovereignty over all Italy.”]

[17] [According to Diodorus,i

he said, “Since Fortune, O King, has represented thee like Agamemnon, art thou not ashamed to act the part of Thersites?” With this sharp reproof Philip was so startled, they say, that he wholly changed his former course, and with admiration released the man that had reprehended him and advanced him to places of honour.]

[18] [But Niebuhrh is less negative. He exclaims, “Alexander was no doubt deeply implicated in this murder. A jury would have condemned him as an accomplice. But he was prudent enough to make away with the participators in the conspiracy, who might have betrayed him.”]

CHAPTER L. ALEXANDER THE GREAT

The world has seen many great conquerors, but certainly not more than two or three who have stamped their names so indelibly upon the pages of history and appealed to the imagination of so wide an audience as the hero of Macedonia. The young soldier’s meteoric career, which Appian, the great Roman historian, justly likened to a flash of lightning, had all the elements of dramatic picturesqueness. Alexander was the wonder of the age in which he lived, and no less a wonder to each succeeding generation. A myth soon grew up about his name, but the myth was scarcely more wonderful than the bald facts of his history. The main outlines of that history are familiar to every school-boy, yet it is a curious fact that no contemporary record of the achievements of Alexander has come down to us. We have the account of the Persian Wars written by Herodotus who was born before their close. We have the record of the Peloponnesian War written by Thucydides who participated in it, and by Xenophon who must have known personally many of its greatest actors. Xenophon has also left us a biography of Agesilaus, who so nearly anticipated Alexander in an Asiatic conquest, and, in so doing, he writes not merely as a contemporary but as a personal friend. But the oldest extant writings that give us an account of the deeds of Alexander were not penned until some three centuries after that hero lived and died. It is true that contemporary records of the history of Alexander were written in numbers, but by some curious chance no copy of any one of these records has been preserved.

Fortunately, however, the histories of Alexander that have come down to us are all based more or less on the contemporary records that are lost. There are five of these important histories, all written, perhaps, almost in the same century—the works namely of Diodorus, Justin, Plutarch, Curtius, and Arrian. The most ancient of these is the history of Diodorus, which dates from somewhere about the age of Julius Cæsar; the latest, that of Arrian, was written probably about the time of the reign of Adrian. There are, of course, numerous other classical authors who make reference to Alexander, but these five are the only ones who have given us anything like a complete history of his doings.

Of these histories, by common consent, the most authoritative is that of Arrian.i This work is based upon the writings of two of Alexander’s generals, Ptolemy and Aristobulus. The point of view from which the work is written cannot be better described than in the author’s own words: