Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/103

 ALEXANDER'S VISIT TO ILIUM. 71 The proceedings of Alexander, on the ever-memorable site of Ilium, are interesting as they reveal one side of his imposing character — the vein of legendary sympathy and religious senti- ment wherein alone consisted his analogy with the Greeks. The young Macedonian prince had nothing of that sense of correla- tive right and obligation, which characterized the free Greeks of the city-community. But he was in many points a reproduction of the heroic Greeks,^ his warlike ancestors in legend, Achilles and Neoptolemus, and others of that ^akid race, unparalleled in the attributes of force — a man of violent impulse in all direc- tions, sometimes generous, often vindictive — ardent in his indi- vidual affections both of love and hatred, but devoured especially by an inextinguishable pugnacity, appetite for conquest, and thirst for establishing at all cost his superiority of force over others — " Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis " — tak- ing pride, not simply in victorious generalship and direction of the arms of soldiers, but also in the personal forwardness of an Homeric cTiief, the foremost to encounter both danger and hard- ship. To dispositions resembling those of Achilles, Alexander indeed added one attribute of a far higher order. As a general, he surpassed his age in provident and even long-sighted combi- nations. With all his exuberant courage and sanguine temper, nothing was ever omitted in the way of systematic military pre- caution. Thus much he borrowed, though with many improve- ments of his own, from Grecian intelligence as applied to soldier- ship}. But the character and dispositions, which he took with him to Asia, had the features, both striking and repulsive, of Achilles, rather than those of Agesilaus or Epaminondas. which that prince exhibited for the affection between Achilles and Patro- klus : which sympathy Dikaearchus illustrated by characterizing Alexander as "jJiAoTratf cK/iavug, and by recounting his public admiration for the eunuch Bagoas : compare Curtius, x. i. 25 — about Bagoas. ' Plutarch, Fort. Al.. M. ii. p. 334. Bpn^i)c ottTiitotzu^m^, 6dloQ uvrtird' /lo(f — TavTTjv £X"^ TEXVTjv TtpoyoviKTjv utt' XlaKi6C)v, etc. 'A/l/C7?v iikv yap eSukev '07.vnmo<; KiaKiSijai, NoCi' (5' 'Afiv&aovidatg, ■k}^cvtov J' ETrop' 'ArpEidr/atv. (Hesiod. Fragment. 223, ed. Marktscheffd.) Like Achilles, Alexander was distinguished for swiftness of foot (Plui..r6i; fort. Al. M. i. p. 331 ).