Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/293

 PROBABLE FUTUBE OF ALEXANDER. 261 to full effort. I do not think that even the Romans could have successfully resisted Alexander the Great ; though it is certain that he never throughout all his long marches encountered such enemies as they, nor even such as Saranites and Lucanians — combining courage, patriotism, discipline, with effective arma both for defence and for close combat.i Among all the qualities M^hich go to constitute the highest mil- itary excellence, either as a general or as a soldier, none was wanting in the character of Alexander. Together with his own chivalrous courage — sometimes indeed both excessive and un- seasonable, so as to funn the only military defect which can be fairly imputed to him — we trace in all his operations the most careful dispositions taken beforehand, vigilant precaution in guarding against possible reverse, and abundant resource in adapting himself to new contingences. Amidst constant success, these precautionary combinations were never discontinued. Hia achievements are the earliest recorded evidence of scientific mil- itary organization on a large scale, and of its overwhelming ef- fects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than any other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of all that constitutes effective force — as an individual warrior, and as or- ganizer and leader of armed masses ; not merely the blind im- petuosity ascribed by Homer to Ares, but also the intelligent, methodized, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in Athene. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against enemies ; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind, known and unknown, except those who chose to sub- mit to him. Li his Indian campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we perceive that not only those who stand on their de- fence, but also those who abandon their property and flee to the mountains, are alike pursued and slaughtered. Apart from the transcendent merits of Alexander as a soldier and a general, some authors give him credit for grand and bene- ' Alexander of Epiras is said to have remarked, that he, in his expedi tions into Italy, had fallen upon the uvdpuvlrtg or chamber of the men : while his nephew (Alexander the Great), in invading Asia, had fallen npon the yvvaiKuvlTLg or chamber of the women (Aulus Gellius, xvii. 21 ; Curtins^ viii. 1,37).