Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/114

ALE along the eastern bank. The martial tribes of the Malli and Oxydracæ were only subdued after a succession of fierce battles. On one occasion Alexander having rashly exposed himself alone among a host of enemies, was very near losing his life. He was only rescued after he had received a severe wound, which detained him for some time near the mouth of the Hydraotes. He descended the Acesines to its confluence with the Indus, and sent a division of the army, under Craterus, to Carmania, by way of the Drangæ, while he proceeded southward through the territories of Musicanus. At Pattala he founded a city and harbour. The fleet was enlarged and given in charge to Nearchus to conduct to the Persian gulf, while he himself determined to lead the rest of the army along the coast. Before setting out, he explored the Delta of the Indus and sailed some short distance into the Indian ocean. It was his last backward look towards those regions from which he was wrested. In passing through the hot, sandy desert of Gedrosia the army suffered severely from thirst. An anecdote is related of Alexander which recalls our own Sidney. A helmet full of water had been procured, and it was presented to his parched lips, but he threw the draught to the ground untasted, and shared the common lot. He rested a short time at Pura, and in Carmania was joined by Craterus, and shortly after by Nearchus, whom he had been anxiously expecting. The admiral proceeded up the Persian gulf. Hephæstion, with the main body of the troops, moved along the shore, and the king himself, with the rest, took the upper road to Pasargadæ and Persepolis. They met at Susa 324.

The task yet remained to Alexander to link together the disconnected masses of his vast dominion, and he found himself called upon to exchange the warrior for the statesman and the judge. Left in the midst of a conquered people, the officers whom he had appointed to preside over the various provinces had been guilty of acts of extortion and tyranny which demanded redress. He set himself to remove the most conspicuous offenders. In some instances his justice was swift and summary; in others it was delayed by feelings of friendship. Thus, Cleander, Heraco, and Sitalces, governors of the force in Media, had been put to death; while Harpalus, who had ruled with despotic oppression over the satrapy of Babylon, was allowed to escape with his plunder, and rouse a new opposition in Athens. The amalgamation of two nations, distinct in their race as in their civilization, was an arduous effort. It was mainly with a view to this end that Alexander celebrated his nuptials at Susa with Statira, daughter of Darius. To Hephæstion was allotted her younger sister, Drypetis; Craterus espoused a niece of the deceased monarch; and wives from among the ladies of rank in the Persian court were assigned to eighty of the other officers. Ten thousand of the soldiery followed the example of their chiefs, and to each a dowry was granted from the royal treasury. Another act of public generosity was the payment of the debts of all such as chose to register their names. Meanwhile, Alexander disbanded the Greek mercenaries throughout the kingdom, and drafted among his troops a large number of Asiatic youths trained to the European arms. This was the occasion of bitter jealousy among the Macedonians, who conceived that their posts of honour were being usurped by a barbaric race. Alexander had improved the navigation of the Tigris and Euphrates, and he sailed up to Opis to a great meeting of the army. An offer to release from service those of his old soldiers who wished to return home, gave additional offence, and a mutiny broke out, which it required all his energy and eloquence to quell. At last he succeeded in subduing their pride; a reconciliation was effected, and 10,000 veterans accompanied Craterus to Macedonia. About this time he proceeded to Ecbatana, and celebrated there one of the most magnificent of his festivals. The rejoicings were interrupted by the death of Hephæstion. Alexander's grief on this event manifested itself with the vehemence that belonged to him. The walls of Ecbatana were dismantled, and the fire quenched in all her sanctuaries. A pile, such as no monarch had ever seen before, was reared for the corpse of the favourite, and his name was enrolled among the demi-gods of Greece. After a short expedition, in which he subdued the rebel tribes of the Cossæi, the king marched to Babylon. In this gorgeous city which he had selected for his capital, he resolved to celebrate the obsequies of his friend. Here, too, a magnificent harbour was constructed, and hither (323 .) embassies from all quarters of the habitable globe, Celts, Ethiopians, Carthaginians, Libyans, Italians, and envoys from the future mistress of the world came to offer tribute, or crowns, or congratulations to the conqueror of Asia. But there was a double gloom over the pomp and splendour of the times. Omens of death had been partially fulfilled, and uneasy forebodings haunted Alexander. The Chaldeans had warned him from Babylon. On a voyage down the Euphrates, a gust of wind carried off his tiara, and it fell among the tombs of the old kings. A stranger came and seated himself on his vacant throne. One dark sign confirmed another. Patroclus had fallen, and Achilles was to survive but for a brief space. Yet the mind of the king was busied to the last on majestic designs. North and south he stretched his plans for discovery and his hopes of power. He had sent three admirals to survey the coasts of Arabia, another to navigate the Caspian sea; he was on the eve of setting out himself on a career of western conquest. A sacrifice was instituted for its success, which ended in a banquet. The festivities of that evening only augmented the fever which had already claimed its victim. From day to day the expedition was postponed, till, on the sixth, Alexander felt that he would no more march at the head of his armies. His generals too were seized with despair, and eager to behold again their great commander, were permitted to pass one by one through his chamber. He lay there yet alive, but the vital spark was rapidly expiring. A grasp of the hand and an expressive glance, was all that he could vouchsafe to the mourners in that solemn procession. He gave his ring to Perdiccas, and thus Alexander bade farewell to his old guard. The god Serapis was asked whether he should be brought into the temple, but a voice from the adytum replied, that he was better where he was. The great spirit had passed away. Demosthenes would not at first credit the report of his death; had it been true, he said, the whole earth would have smelt of his corpse. His remains were embalmed, and the sarcophagus rested in his city by the Nile. Three centuries afterwards the lid of that sepulchre was raised, and the features of the greatest conqueror of ancient times were scanned by the first of the Roman emperors.

Among the soldiers of antiquity, Alexander finds a rival in Hannibal alone. More perhaps than any other commander he combined the chivalry of the heroic age, and the more careful strategetics of later times. His career is equally calculated to excite romantic enthusiasm and thoughtful study. He was at once the Achilles and the Agamemnon of his army; and if ferocity led him at times rashly to risk his life, his ingenuity cut out a way from difficulties which would have overwhelmed any other mortal. But we must grant to Alexander more than the praise of the warrior. His zeal for discovery, love of knowledge, and varied accomplishments, would alone have made him remarkable. His life became an epoch in the world's history as much by policy as by arms. Bringing, for the first time, the East and West into close contact, he acted on the only principle by which races can be moulded together, and, in his perception of harmony in diversity, showed that he had not sat at the feet of Aristotle in vain. He had scarcely begun to be a lawgiver; but his course, so rapid that he might well be said to overrun a great portion of his empire, was everywhere marked by more than ruin. Everywhere he diffused some of the blessings of Greek civilization, opened up new possibilities of progress, and scattered seeds far and wide, to spring up with various degrees of influence over the destinies of mankind. His impress on Greece itself was less beneficent; but Greek freedom was already doomed; and of the jarring fragments into which, on his premature death, his unwieldy empire fell, each was more prosperous because of his reign. He pointed many paths which no successor was found great enough to follow, and India had to wait two thousand years before culture again came with conquest to her shores. Wrath, intemperance, and pride, mar the symmetry of Alexander's story; but those are the common vices of conquerors; he had virtues of chastity, self-denial, and generous magnanimity shared by few. He was a good son, an affectionate pupil, and a warm friend. The tribute of Arrian is just—"such a man would never have been born without a special providence," nor is there in the list of the world's heroes a name more sublime than his.

Plutarch, Curtius, and Aman are the ancient authorities for Alexander's life. The best English account of his campaigns is that given in the vi. and vii. vols. of Bishop Thirlwall's History. With reference to Mr. Grote's xii. vol., see a very able article in the National Review, No. v.—J. N.  ALEXANDER,, fourth Macedonian prince of this 