Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/117

Rh at Arbela (331 B.C.) made him temporary master of the whole East. In accomplishing the first two of these stages Alexander was not compelled to assume any new character. The king of Macedon, the elective captain-general of Greece, needed no other titles by which to hold the lands to which he came as a deliverer from Persia. The later history of these lands is the proof. Asia Minor was by degrees thoroughly Hellenized, and remained Greek till the Turks came in the llth century. Syria and Egypt were not indeed Hellenized as whole countries, but their capital cities, Antioch and Alexandria, were Hellenic ; and the control established by Alexander was retained by Macedonia or by Rome for centuries. At the third stage, however, Alexander s conquests entered upon an entirely new phase, and compelled him to take up an altogether new position. Neither in his Hellenic nor in his Macedonian capacity could he put forward any effective claim to hold the Persian empire proper, the empire stripped of its Egyptian, Phoenician, and Hellenic dependencies. He could hold Persia only as a Persian king, as the successor of those Achaemenid kings whose dynasty he had overthrown. The constitutional king of Macedonia, with limited prerogatives, the elective captain of Greece, must now assume a third and distinct character. He must be also a Persian king, a constitutional despot. The merely European influences re presented by Alexander might leaven the East, but they could not lastingly possess or transform it. Hellenic culti vation, like Roman power, was not permanently introduced over any wide area east of the Euphrates. This fact is enough to illustrate the enormous difficulty of the task which Alexander had undertaken. It seems not impossible that policy may have been mingled with vanity in his ex action of divine honours. Greeks or Macedonians could never pay him the slavish homage which Persian subjects rendered to their king. But the contrast between European and Asiatic royalty would at least be less glaring if the master of Persia were also acknowledged as the son of Zeus Ammon.

The colonies planted by Alexander in his progress through Asia make the beginning of a new period in Hellenic history. Hitherto we have had to do with a people whose Hellenic unity rests, not merely on community of language and civilization, but also upon community of blood. Now, by the side of this natural Hellenic nation, there arises an artificial Hellenic nation, with a common language and civilization, but not exclusively of Hellenic blood. The Macedonians may be regarded as the founders of this artificial nationality. They were doubtless of a stock kindred to the Hellenic ; in what degree, it is less easy to say but (with the exception of their kings) they were generally regarded by the Greeks as standing half-way between Greeks and barbarians. Philip did much to Hellenize Macedonia; and the Macedonian colonies of Alexander became in their turn centres from which the influence of Hellenic civilization was diffused through Asia. Henceforth there are two Hellenic types : the Greek of Greece proper, who preserves in some degree the marked individuality of the old Greek character ; and the Asiatic Greek, more readily affected by foreign surroundings, more pliant and less independent. The history of the modern Greek nationality dates from the days of Alexander.

The results of Alexander s conquests were beneficent chiefly in two ways : first, by liberating the hoarded treasures of the Eastern kings, and so stimulating industry and commerce ; secondly, by opening Asia to a new civiliza tion, which helped to promote intellectual and moral pro gress, even in those places where its influence was limited or transient. In the process of doing this much that was valuable may have been destroyed. But it can hardly be questioned that on the whole the gain far outweighed the loss. If Alexander had not died at the age of thirty-two, leaving his work unfinished, it would perhaps have been easier to judge how far he deserves the credit of having con templated these benefits to mankind. There is nothing to show that he intended to govern otherwise than as an absolute ruler, with a better machinery for controlling his subordinates than had been possessed by the Persian kings. Such a view is not inconsistent with the fact that his colonies enjoyed municipal freedom. Nor can it be proved that he meant his colonies to be anything more than military strong holds or commercial centres. But it may at least be said that, if his object had been to diffuse Hellenic cultivation over Asia, he could have adopted no more effectual means. It is conceivable that, in his vision of that complex empire which imposed such almost irreconcilable tasks upon its ruler, the idea of engrafting Eastern absolutism on Greek politics may have co-existed with the idea of Hellenizing Asiatic society. In that period of Hellenic history which closes with Alexander we are tracing the gradual development of a race with special gifts of mind and body, which strongly distinguish it from all other races. The Hellenes set the Hellenic stamp on everything which they create, first, on their language itself, then on their politics, their literature, and their manners. Every element of their life receives its mature shape from themselves, even when the germ has been borrowed ; the Hellenes are an original people in tho sense that they either invent or transform. At a very early time they have the political life of cities, and they never rise from the conception of the city to the higher unity of the nation. Their love of clear outline and their sense of measure shrink from every vague abstraction ; the principle of order itself is by them identified with " the limit " ; the indefinite is a synonym for disorder and evil. The city, an easily comprehended whole, satisfies this instinct ; but there is room within its framework for the gradations of monarchy, oligarchy, democracy ; for the various modes of acting and thinking which characterize Achaeans, Dorians, lonians. As the leading commonwealths j grow to maturity, two principles of government stand out i by a great city round which the lesser states are grouped. i The inevitable collision comes, and the representative of j oligarchy is discredited by the selfish ambition of its cham pion. A time of political confusion follows, in which no one city can keep a leading place. Separate interests prevail over principles ; public spirit declines. The disunion of, the cities incurable, because arising from a deep inner decay enables the crafty king of a half-barbarian country to make himself the military dictator of Greece. But just when the better days of Hellenic civilization seem to be over, a new career is opened to it. Men who are not of Hellenic blood help to diffuse the Hellenic language, thought, and manners over a wider field ; and the life of the modern Greek nation begins.
 * in contrast, oligarchy and democracy. Each is represented
 * democracy is at last vanquished But in the hour of victory

 

The later history of the Greeks, from the end of 's reign to the taking of by the, may be divided most naturally into five periods, viz.&mdash;I. The period of Greek subjection&thinsp;: from the death of Alexander to the accession of Constantine the Great as sole emperor, 323 B.C. to 323 A.D. II. The period of Greek revival&thinsp;: from Constantine the Great to Leo III. (the Isaurian), 323-716 A.D. III. The period of Byzantine prosperity&thinsp;: from Leo III. to Isaac I. (Comnenus), 716-1057 A.D. IV.&thinsp;The period of Byzantine decline&thinsp;: from Isaac I. to the taking of Constantinople by the Latins,