Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/336

312 rivals, and was finally betrayed by the Macedonians whom he had taught, as Plutarch tells us, to love and obey him.

Alexander's empire was soon broken up into Macedonian satrapies or kingdoms. Greece was the continual prey of one of these, and the scene of struggle between others; and the difficulty of maintaining these kingdoms, together with the rude character of their Macedonian rulers, led to continual wars between individual kings at the head of mercenary armies, — wars which seem for a time to deprive history of all its value. Meanwhile the Greeks, instead of finding new life and hope in a mighty political combination of which they, like their in its surrounding territory, were to have been the brain and life, were left to continue half-heartedly, weary and worn-out, in their City-States, under the ominous shadow of Macedonian kings, until some new power should appear with a political genius adequate to the organising of the world afresh.

Such a power at last appeared, after an interval of a century and a half, in that great City-State of the West whose political development has been already sketched. In tracing this development I intentionally dwelt upon those points which seemed to indicate that of all City-States Rome was the best equipped for the task of governing the world.