The Historians' History of the World 04

The conqueror celebrated his return to Macedonia with an Olympic festival at Ægæ, and with games in honour of the Muses at Dium in Pieria. The inhabitants of Dium held the memory of Orpheus in great reverence, and boasted of the possession of his bones. At the time of the games it was reported that a statue of the ancient bard, which perhaps adorned his monument near the town, had been seen bathed in sweat. Alexander’s Lycian soothsayer, Aristander of Telmessus, bade him hail the omen: it signified that the masters of epic and lyric poetry should be wearied by the tale of his achievements. These achievements will now for some time claim our undivided attention.h

FOOTNOTES

[19] [It is a bishop and a doctor of divinity, Thirlwall, who justifies this mummery. If it is “excusable” and almost “pious,” the trickeries of Philip merit the same tender consideration.]

Greek Harvesting

Apollo and Mercury

CHAPTER LI. ALEXANDER INVADES ASIA

SCHEMES OF CONQUEST

[334 B.C.]

A year and some months had sufficed for Alexander to make a first display of his energy and military skill, destined for achievements yet greater; and to crush the growing aspirations for freedom among Greeks on the south, as well as among Thracians on the north, of Macedonia. The ensuing winter was employed in completing his preparations; so that early in the spring of 334 B.C., his army destined for the conquest of Asia was mustered between Pella and Amphipolis, while his fleet was at hand to lend support.

The whole of Alexander’s remaining life—from his crossing the Hellespont in March or April 334 B.C., to his death at Babylon in June 323 B.C., eleven years and two or three months—was passed in Asia, amidst unceasing military operations, and ever-multiplied conquests. He never lived to revisit Macedonia; but his achievements were on so transcendent a scale, his acquisitions of territory so unmeasured, and his thirst for further aggrandisement still so insatiate, that Macedonia sinks into insignificance in the list of his possessions. Much more do the Grecian cities dwindle into outlying appendages of a newly grown oriental empire. During all these eleven years, the history of Greece is almost a blank, except here and there a few scattered events. It is only at the death of Alexander that the Grecian cities again awaken into active movement.

The Asiatic conquests of Alexander do not belong directly and literally to the province of an historian of Greece. They were achieved by armies of which the general, the principal officers, and most part of the soldiers, were Macedonian. The Greeks who served with him were only auxiliaries, along with the Thracians and Pæonians. Though more numerous than all the other auxiliaries, they did not constitute, like the Ten Thousand Greeks in the army of the younger Cyrus, the force on which he mainly relied for victory. His chief secretary, Eumenes of Cardia, was a Greek, and probably most of the civil and intellectual functions connected with the service were also performed by Greeks. Many Greeks also served in the army of Persia against him, and composed indeed a larger proportion of the real force (disregarding mere numbers) in the army of Darius than in that of Alexander. Hence the expedition becomes indirectly incorporated with the stream of Grecian history by the powerful auxiliary agency of Greeks on both sides—and still more, by its connection with previous projects, dreams, and legends, long antecedent to the aggrandisement of Macedon—as well as by the character which Alexander thought fit to assume. To take revenge on Persia for the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and to liberate the Asiatic Greeks, had been the scheme of the Spartan Agesilaus and of the Pheræan Jason; with hopes grounded on the memorable expedition and safe return of the Ten Thousand. It had been recommended by the rhetor Isocrates, first to the combined force of Greece, while yet Grecian cities were free, under the joint headship of Athens and Sparta; next, to Philip of Macedon as the chief of united Greece, when his victorious arms had extorted a recognition of headship, setting aside both Athens and Sparta. The enterprising ambition of Philip was well pleased to be nominated chief of Greece for the execution of this project. From him it passed to his yet more ambitious son.