Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/191

 A L K X A N D E R. ing Darius, c ' No," faid Alexander, " I would not flcal a 44 tory." Darius owed his etc ape from Arbela t > tliv i, nefs of his horfej ami wlnlc he was collet new the war, was tnfidioufly ilain by IJellu .nor of the Badlrians. Alexander wept at the fate ofDafiift ; :m -1 after- wards procuring I'cllus to be given up to him, pmi.lhed the inhuman according to his deierts. J'r. m . . i>!(_r purfued his conquefts eaftward ; andcviry thing tell into his hamls, even to the Indies. Hue he lud Ionic tioi. with king Porus, whom however he fubducd and r,nk. Porus w^s a m;,n of fpirit, and his fpirit was IK : .cd even by his defeat ; for, when Alexander alkcd him, ' how " he would be treated," he anfvvered very intrepidly, " like " a king :'' which, it is faid, fo pleafed the conqueror, that he ordered the greatef!: atteniion to be paid him, and after- wards rertorcd him to his kingdom. Having ranged over all the Eaft, and made even the Indies provinces of his empire, he returned to Babylon, where he died in the jjd year of his age, fome fay by poifon, others by diinking. The character of this hero is fo familiar to every body, that it is almoft needlefs labour to draw it. All the world knows, fays Mr. Bayle, that it was equally compofed of very D;a. Art. great virtues and very great vices. He had no mediocrity ijjMACD any thing but his ftature : in his other properties, whether ffood or bad, he was all extremes. His ambition rofe even to ^ madnefs. His father was not at all miflaken in fuppofing the bounds of Macedon too fmall for his Ion : for how could Macedon bound the arabition of a man, who reckoned the whole world too fmall a dominion ? He wept at hearing the philofopher Anaxarchus fay, that there was an infinite num- ber of worlds: his tears were owing to his dcfpair of con-p] Jt jrch. quering them all, fince he had not yet been able to conquer"-"^!;;;. one, *Livy, in a fhort digrcflion, has attempted to enquire ute ' niu11 into- the events which might have happened, if Alexander, after Lib. ix. the conqueft of Afia, had brought his arms into Italy ? Doubt- - l6 Jels things might have taken a very different turn with him ; and all the grand projects, which fucceeded fo well againlt an effeminate Perfian monarch, might eafily have mifcarricd. if he had to do with rouuh hardy Roman armies. And LL the vaft aims of this mighty conqueror, if feen under another point of view, may appear to have been confined in a very narrow compafs } fnice, as we are told, the utmoft wifn ot that great heart, for which the whole earth was not big enough, was, after all, to bepraifed by the Athenians : for it is lelated, that the difficulties which he encountered in order PiutiKh. to