Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/291

 IMMENSE ASPIRATIONS OF ALEXANDER. 259 through Athos and bridged the Hellespont, — who demanded earth and water from the Greeks, — who dared to proclaim him self, in public epistles, master of all mankind from the rising to the setting sun — is not he now struggling to the last, not for do- minion over others, but for the safety of his own person ? " ^ Such were the sentiments excited by Alexander's career even in the middle of 330 b. c, more than seven years before his death. During the following seven years, his additional achieve- ments had carried astonishment yet farther. He had mastered, in defiance of fatigue, hardship, and combat, not merely all the eastern half of the Persian empire, but unknown Indian regions beyond its easternmost limits. Besides Macedonia, Greece, and Thrace, he possessed all that immense treasure and military force which had once rendered the Great King so formidable. By no contemporary man had any such power ever been known or con- ceived. With the turn of imagination then prevalent, many were doubtless disposed to take him for a god on earth, as Gre- cian spectators had once supposed with regard to Xerxes, when they beheld the innumerable Persian host crossing the Helles pont.*^ Exalted to this prodigious grandeur, Alexander was at the time of his death little more than thirty-two years old — the age at which a citizen of Athens was growing into important com- mands ; ten years less than the age for a consul at Rome ; ^ two years younger than the age at which Timour first acquired the crown, and began his foreign conquests.* His extraordinary 1 iEscliincs adv. Ktesiph. p. 524. c. 43. ToLyuprot. ri tuv uve2,niaT0)v Kal inrpoadoKijruv icb' I'/fiuv ov yiyovev ! ov yap jiiov }■' ^/^f?f av&puTTivov (^efSLu- Kaf^Ei', afJC e<; TvapaSo^oTiOy'iav Tolg kaouEvoi<; fiE'&'' ijfiag e^vuev. Ov^ (5 fiev riov TlFpcruv (iaoikev^, 6 rov 'k-Buv diopv^ag Kal ~bv 'EA/It/ctttoitov ^ev^ac, 6 yfjv Kal Mup Toijg *EA>l?/»'af alruv, 6 to1/j.cjv ev ralg kwiaToTialg ypiKpeiv on deaTroTTjQ iariv uttuvtov uv&puTTUv CKJ)' iiT^iov aviovroc fiexf- ^vo/xevov, vvv cv TTEpl Tov Kvptoc hepuv clvat Siaycjvi^ETni, uX/i' 7/<h) Trepl t7/c tuv ai',)/mTor aurjjp'iag ; Compare the striking fragment, of a like tenor, out of the lost work of the Phalerean Demetrius — IlEpl tijc rvxric — Fragment. Ilistor. Graecor. vol. ii. p. 368. '■' Herodot. vii. 56. ' Cicero, Philippic, v. 17, 48. de la Croix, vol. i. p. 203.
 * See Histoire do Timour-Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, translated by Petit