Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/187

 persons who can see nothing but desolation and ruin in the paths of a great conqueror, who deem great soldiers the necessary enemies of mankind, and who cannot recognise either the foresight or the motives of men such as Alexander the Great, yet even they must admit that the world ultimately reaped a rich harvest through the creation of Alexandria, and that his triumphs in Asia gain additional renown from his efforts to increase geographical knowledge, and to bring India, by means of a more rapid communication by sea, nearer to Europe than it had ever been before his time.

Nor were the designs of this great conqueror confined to an increase of facilities for conducting with greater rapidity and safety the commercial intercourse of the nations of the West, requiring, as these did for their daily wants, commodities India could alone supply. Alexander created new channels of trade, and fresh wants, and fresh hopes for each country he successively overcame. Instead of devastation and misery marking his progress through Syria and Asia Minor, these countries were greatly enriched by his sovereignty, while their inhabitants secured more freedom and prosperity than they had ever enjoyed under their native princes. Egypt, under the dynasty of the Ptolemies, the first founder of which, Ptolemy the son of Lagos, was one of Alexander's most trusted generals, obtained a commercial pre-*eminence it had not enjoyed during any previous period of its history. Again, when Alexander advanced into the district now known as the Panj̣âb, he conferred many advantages on the natives, and imparted to them much practical and valuable know