Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/77

 THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 65 continent they have established themselves. The conquests of Greeks or Romans, of Crusaders or British, failed as the con- quest of Arabs and Turks also failed to destroy the barrier which still stands between the peoples of the east and of the west. Alexander made the first great attempt to break it down. The empire which he won fell to pieces. Nevertheless, for centuries to come the oriental peoples were affected by the culture of the west more than at any later period, although their Greek rulers lost much of their western character. When Alexander died he left no heir, and for some years there was a long turmoil of struggles between his generals and the sons of his generals, each of them striving to 2 p art i t i 0n obtain the lion's share of the empire. In the of Alexander's outcome it was parted into four great divisions. Em P ire - The Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies got possession of Egypt. The Greek dynasty of the Seleucidae got possession of Syria, that is to say broadly the regions from the Tigris on the east to Phoenicia on the west, including some parts of Asia Minor. The bulk of Asia Minor forms the third division, and this broke up into separate principalities or kingdoms, some under Greek dynasties and some not. The fourth division is the Macedonian dominion in Europe, while on the east beyond the Tigris there arose a new power to which was given the name of Parthia. We need not here go into the details of the wars and strifes of the Diadochi, as the successors of Alexander are called. But we must note the establishment in Asia Minor of the kingdom of Pontus and Bithynia on the Black Sea, of Pergamus on the west, and also a curious sort of back wave of Celtic invasion which created the Gaelic province of Galatia in the middle of Asia Minor. A Celtic horde invaded Greece from the north ; and though it was driven from thence made its way back eastwards into Asia, and settled there. Seleucus, the founder of the Seleucid dynasty, was one of Alexander's generals, who made himself master of the greater part of the Asiatic Empire. He thought of -r^e seleu- extending his dominion in India, where the cidae. Macedonians had not really established themselves, and in the E