Alexander the Great

Contents

C KAPTEB PAGE

I, The Old World 9

II. Philip II of Macedonia 25

CHAPTER I: The Old World

IT is difficult to realize that the earth on which Alexander the Great was born was the same in its main outlines as the earth on which we stand to-day, and at the same time to realize how very different from our present knowledge were men's ideas then of its area. Even modern writers picture Alexander as primitive in his notions, and it will be interesting to remember, when we find him anxious to press ever farther and farther east and south, that the philosophers of his time, especially his great teacher Aristotle, had just announced new arguments to prove that the earth was spherical in form. The old Homeric ideas that the earth was a flat disk, that the bronze firmament, set with stars, was upheld on great pillars by Atlas, and that the sun (as Herodotus imagined) could be blown out of its course by a strong wind, had passed away for ever.

Among the earliest peoples to travel about the sea were the Phoenicians, a Semitic race akin to the Jews, and the greatest trading and maritime race of antiquity. They ventured far in search of the rich merchandise which they brought back to their cities of Tyre and Sidon on the coast of Syria, to Carthage on the north coast of Africa, and to their other settlements at all quarters of the Mediterranean. They are believed to have learned the alphabet and other arts from their customers the Egyptians, and to have been the teachers of the Greeks in these matters. The Phoenicians told nobody of the geographical knowledge which they acquired in their wanderings, as they were anxious to keep a trading 9 monopoly. They rounded the coast of Spain by the 'Pillars of Hercules' at a very early date, sailed through the Bay of Biscay, established trade with Britain, and perhaps even fetched amber from the shores of the Baltic. When the Greeks, however, first began to launch their merchantmen the Phoenicians assured them that the Pillars of Hercules stood at the western end of the earth, and probably many of the legends which make early Greek geography so picturesque were invented by those wily adventurers in order to discourage the Greeks from following in their steps. Thus the Greeks of the early fifth century B.C. believed that the Arabian frankincense brought by the Phoenicians was guarded by dragons, and that screeching, winged animals sought to peck out the eyes of the Arabians who, clad in stout armour, gathered cassia by the shores of a remote lake.

Cinnamon was supposed to be got by artful devices from the nests of birds on an unscaleable precipice; and gold, the story ran, was stolen by the one-eyed Arimaspi from the griffins. The Persians, who dazzled Greek eyes with their quantities of gold, told the Greeks that it was obtained by Indians at the peril of their lives; they were pursued, as they gathered the gold-dust, by ants somewhat smaller than dogs but bigger than foxes and swifter than any other animal on earth. Many of these legends had become discredited by Alexander's time, but it was owing to his travels that they passed for ever out of the realm of geography into that of myth, as far as the ancients were concerned. The Greeks, unlike the Phoenicians, took a Platonic interest in geography, and before they had many facts to go upon commenced to make maps of the world. More than that, they began to have ideas about the universe. Anaximander, who made the first map early in the sixth century B.C., declared his belief that the earth swung in the sky hke the planets. He does not seem to have taught that it was spherical in shape, but later on in that century Pythagoras made as great a stir as did Copernicus more than two thousand years later, by declaring that the earth revolved round some great central fire in the heavens, and that it was itself a globe. These were only good guesses, and very few people could accept the curious, mystical reasons which Pythagoras gave for his opinions; but the philosophers of the fourth century approved of the theory of sphericity and found good reasons for it. Aristotle, who possessed one of the most scientific brains ever given to a mortal, said that the phenomenon of gravitation would make the earth spherical, and pointed to the fact that the shadow cast by the earth on the moon in an eclipse was invariably circular in shape. Alexander, who had more than the normal Greek geographical curiosity, cannot have failed to know Aristotle's views.

Before Alexander lived the Greeks considered Delphi, where the shrine of Apollo stood, as the centre of the earth's surface. Two eagles, the story ran, released by Zeus at the edges of the eastern and western oceans, had flown until they met at Delphi, where a stone, still in the museum there, was known as the 'navel of the earth.' The Greeks originally divided the earth into the two continents of Asia (including Africa), the land of the sunrise, and

Europe, the land of night, but by the fifth century B.C. they had come to recognize the third continent of Africa, which they named Libya. America and Austraha were not to emerge until two millenniums had passed over; the Red Indians enjoyed their hunting-grounds as yet undisturbed by any white man, and even the Phoenician traders had caught up no story of the Australian aborigines. In the three continents which composed the Old World no one in Alexander's time had any idea of the vast expanse of Africa or of the southern extension of India. The existence of China was unsuspected, while the Pillars of Hercules remained the western boundary of the world at the conqueror's death. About a year after Alexander passed away, Pytheas, a Greek, sailed between the Pillars and cruised along the coast of France to Britain. He was probably the first of his countrymen to adventure so far.

The Greek knowledge of Europe was almost confined to the small portion of it inhabited by themselves, that was, the most easterly of the three peninsulas of the Mediterranean — Greece — colonies on the shores of Thrace and the Hellespont, numerous cities planted on the heel and toe of Italy and in Sicily, and one or two colonies on the coasts of Gaul and Spain Of inland Spain they knew nothing. At the time of Alexander's accession the Greek cities of South Italy were engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Italian tribes, among whom the Romans were not yet predominant. If Alexander had lived longer he might have further changed the course of the world's history by conquering Italy, but as it was he never went near Italy, which is thus out of our story. His only connexion with Rome was to prepare her path by his own work. North of the three peninsulas Httle was known to any one except, perhaps, the Phoenicians. In this district our own Germanic and Celtic ancestors were living, far away from the central stage of history. The Germanic peoples were settled on the north-west shores of the Baltic, and separated from Mediterranean civilization by widespread Celtic tribes. At the commencement of Alexander's reign the Celtic people inhabited North Italy, Spain, France, Britain, and the Netherlands as far as the Weser, as far east as the lower Danube, and almost as far south at that point as the borders of Macedonia. These people, of huge stature and proverbial for their pride, were well known to the Greeks; in 390 B.C. they had made their famous sack of Rome, and after Alexander's death they nearly broke down the power of Macedonia. Alexander's relations with them only amounted to a military demonstration on his part, and their subjugation was reserved for the Romans.

The continent of Africa recognized by the Greeks did not include Egypt, which they considered to be in Asia, as it was a member of the Persian Empire. Egypt was to be conquered by Alexander, and through his con(juest many events fateful for modern civilization were to happen. West of Egypt lay the important Greek colony of Cyrene, and, farther west, Carthage, the rival of the Greeks now, as she was to be in future times of the Romans. South of these states there were strange races called by the Africans — what they probably were — gorillas; and, according to Greek tales, there were still wilder men and women, 13 with eyes in their shaggy breasts, and with dogs heads or no heads at all.

In the continent of Asia all but a year of Alexander's reign was spent, and the scene of our story will lie there almost entirely. His invasion of the Persian Empire is a chapter in the old struggle between West and East, commenced when the Greek Agamemnon besieged Troy and continued when the Persian monarchs, Darius and Xerxes, invaded Greece in the days of Marathon and Salamis. Two centuries before Alexander's birth Persia had risen to be the chief power in the Old World, and its sovereign assumed the title of King of Kings or Lord of the Four Quarters of the Earth. To-day we should call this ruler over many peoples an emperor, but *emperor' was one of the words invented by the Romans and not used in its present sense before the establishment of the Roman Empire; in modern histories, therefore, these ancient rulers of the Persian Empire are often styled for convenience *the Great King.' Before turning our attention to Macedonia and Alexander we will now look briefly at the history of the formation of the Persian Empire and its connexion with Greece before the rise of Macedonia.

Three great empires had risen and passed in Western Asia before the birth of Alexander — those of the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Medes. Assyria (with its capital at Nineveh, in ruins in Alexander's time) and Babylonia (with its capital, Babylon, still one of the finest cities in the world) formed the district of Mesopotamia, between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates; its civilization was perhaps as old as that of Egypt and far older than that of Greece. 14

The Medes establislied their supremacy over this district in the seventh century B.C., and came into bitter conflict with the Greeks of Asia Minor and the iEgean islands, but it was reserved for the Persians, the successors of the Medes, to attack Greece proper. Before, however, the Persians could expand westward into Greek lands they had to overrun the strong state of Lydia, concerning which such charming stories have been handed down to us by the Greeks.

Besides their western colonies the Greeks had planted cities on the coast of Asia Minor before the memory of man. Three successive strips of coast, iEolis, Ionia, and Doris, going from north to south, represented the iEolian, Ionian and Dorian tribes of Greece. Adjoining, there stretched from north to south the non-Greek districts of Phrygia, Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and Lycia. The Lydians extended their supremacy over Greek cities westward and northward, and over Assyrian provinces eastward, until at last their boundary was established at the river Halys, which runs northward into the Black Sea. At their capital, Sardis, the great road from Mesopotamia terminated. For a long time Lydia formed a barrier between the restless Medes and Greece, but in the middle of the sixth century its power was destroyed by the Persian Cyrus, who rebelled against Media and established a Medo- Persian empire. His subjects were largely Medes, and generally called Medes by the Greeks.

The last Lydian king was Croesus, whose wealth, famed then, has now become proverbial.

Croesus sought in vain to oppose the westward IS advance of Cyrus, and was at last (in 546 B.C.) driven into his capital, which was besieged and taken by the Persian conqueror.

After the subjugation of Lydia the Persians occupied the Greek coast towns and the Greek islands off the coast of Asia Minor. Mighty Babylon fell in 538 B.C.; ancient Egypt became a Persian satrapy in 5^5 B.C.; and the Perso-Median Empire extended from the Nile to Afghanistan. Darius I, a ruler only to be compared with Alexander, divided his vast dominions into provinces (satrapies), and established the capital at Susa, about 150 miles from the Persian Gulf. The Royal Road from Sardis, the head of the new Persian satrapy of Lydia and Ionia, was extended to Susa; it was 1,500 miles long and made swift communication possible between West and East. Along the line of this road the first postal service was established. Men and horses were kept in readiness at stations of a day's journey from each other, and the rider from the first station delivered his letter to a rider at the second, who rode off to the third, and so on along the whole route. Nothing mortal, the Greeks said, travelled so fast as these Persian messengers, who were hindered neither by snow, rain, heat, nor the darkness of night. Naturally inns grew up at the stations, and other travellers besides postmen and adventurous merchants began to pass about from country to country.

Darius crossed into Europe in about 512 B.C., subdued Thrace, and, like Alexander after him, made a military demonstration across the Danube. The next step was to conquer Greece, for the Greeks were encouraging their kinsmen in Asia Minor to i6 revolt against Persia. A rising in Ionia took place in 499, and Athens aided in burning Sardis. For the first time the Great King heard of the existence of the Athenians, and, it is said, he bade his attendants sayto him thrice daily when his dinner was spread, "Master, remember the Athenians!" For he meant to punish them heavily when he should have time.

The Ionian rebellion practically came to an end in 494, when Miletus submitted; its male inhabitants were put to the sword, while the women and children were sent as slaves to Susa. Nothing remained but to punish Eretria and Athens for aiding the rebels, and Darius declaring himself overlord of Greece, sent to her chief cities to demand earth and water ^ as a sign of subjection. At Sparta his envoys were thrown into a well; at Athens they were hurled into the Pit of Punishment, wherein iron hooks tore the bodies of falling malefactors; and in 490 B.C., therefore, the Persians sailed for Greece, bringing with them the tyrant Hippias, whom the Athenians had expelled from their city. Burning Eretria, they landed their large army on the plain of Marathon, where by the lowest estimate, 6,400 Medes fell, while the Athenians lost only 192 men. This defeat probably seemed of little consequence to the Persians, but it was of the greatest consequence in Greek history. It really only showed that the Greek soldier well led was more than a match for a number of Asiatics badly led, but it gave the Greeks a confidence which made them irresistible against the Persians.

Darius died in 485, and was followed on the throne by Xerxes, under whom the greater^ invasion of

^ The Asiatic symbols of submission. 17

Greece took place. Unlike Darius, Xerxes determined to come over in person, and it was not until 480 that his enormous force was ready. In the summer of 481 he left Susa and came up to Lydia, staying with Pythius, the richest man in the world after himself. Before crossing the Hellespont in 480 he took up his position on a white marble throne on a hill near Abydos to review his countless troops on the shore below.

Draining rivers dry in its course,^ the army marched over Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly to the pass of Thermopylae, where Leonidas and his three hundred Spartan soldiers made their immortal resistance. From Thermopylae the Persians advanced south and burned Athens, deserted by its citizens, but the Athenians defeated the Persians in the great naval battle in the Bay of Salamis (480 B.C.), and Xerxes fled away to secure his bridge over the Hellespont. He left his general, Mardonius, to winter in Thessaly, but in the spring of 479 Mardonius was defeated by the united Greek states at the decisive battle of Platsea.

The olive-tree of Athena shot up afresh on the Acropolis at Athens, a new and finer array of temples soon took the place of those burned down, and over all Greece there dawned, as a result of the Persian wars, a more splendid day.

The story of Greece until the Macedonian conquest was that of numerous city-states entirely independent of each other. A few of the larger cities had subjugated some of their neighbours, but this subjugation,

^ Modern estimates of the numbers which might be led so far, spoil this old story.

i8 was fiercely resented, and the subject city was always ready to throw off the yoke, while the attempts of one or two leading states to establish small empires roused a clamour of indignation. We know to-day that the nation was bound to supersede the city-state, and we wish that the Greeks could have united in a voluntary federation, and so avoided the fate of passing under the yoke of an inferior civilization, but we see that there were the greatest difficulties in the path of such a movement. In this mountainous country nature kept the different towns apart; each was a separate family, and nothing would induce them to enter into a common life under one national roof. When joint action became necessary, as in the Persian wars, national leaders like Athens and Sparta emerged, but whenever one state won any superiority over the others it always abused its power. Athens and Sparta were 'yoke-fellows' in the leadership of Hellas during the Persian wars, Sparta being regarded as the military head of Greece, while Athens was its intellectual chief. Whether the ancient Spartans were a merely martial race remains the same problem to history as it was to their contemporaries. Their sternly trained youths were models of masculine beauty, and though they seldom spoke they sometimes came out, Plato tells us, with pithy sayings which made other people feel childish. But whether they were the deepest of philosophers or the simplest of fighting peoples, their wisdom was of no benefit to the other Greeks or to the afterworld.

They kept it so jealously to themselves that most people are uncharitable enough to think its existence an Athenian fiction; it was difficult 19 enough for a stranger to find entry into Sparta at any time, and they carefully expelled strangers from their gates, so the Athenians said, before holding any intellectual assemblies. The Athenians, fortunately for the after- world, loved to communicate their ideas. After the second Persian war Athens became the first state in Greece, and so remained until the close of the fifth century B.C. The Parthenon (still lovely though spoiled by time, Turk, friend, and foe) rose on the Acropolis, ^schylus had fought at Marathon, and soon afterward the young Sophocles commenced to produce his tragedies. Euripides, born on the day of Salamis, lived to see the decline of his great city. Driven into exile by unworthy attacks, he came north to the court of Macedonia and there died. Peculiarly associated with Macedonia, lines from Euripides spring to the lips of Alexander and his companions at the great moments of their lives, and in estimating Alexander's attitude toward the religion of his age it is well to remember that he must have been plentifully nourished on a poet who was a notorious heretic. In Macedonia Euripides wrote his BacchcB, which, according to an ingenious modern explanation of its meaning, was the boldest Euripidean atlack on the Olympic deities. The most remarkable personality of fifth-century Athens was one who left no written word behind him, but, on the contrary, informed all and sundry that he "knew nothing." To him, nevertheless, far more justly than to Aristotle, might be given the title of 'Master of those that know.' This was Socrates, the teacher, although he disclaimed such a title, of this great generation; through his chief companion, Plato, the wisdom of Socrates was handed down to Aristotle, Plato's cleverest pupil, and, as tutor of Alexander, an important character in our history. For a few years of his boyhood Alexander was in direct contact with the best thought of the world. Socrates, too, saw the beginning of the decline of his city and the day of its humiliation, and the Athenian people stained its annals by forcing him to drink the cup of hemlock in 399 on the threefold charge of not worshipping the city gods, of introducing new gods (a most ignorant accusation), and of corrupting the youth of the city. Whenever in after-years men have described the ideal city-state destroyed by Macedonia they have been forced to make a more or less feeble apology for the murder of Socrates by the city government.

The invasions by Persia had roused for the first time a national feeling in Greece, and Athens was able to form a federation which contained the germs of a nation; in the end, however, her yoke was found unbearable by her allies, and when they were able to do so they immediately threw it off. This federation was a union of states, mostly Ionian, formed in 478 B.C., with its headquarters at Delos, the sacred island where the twins Apollo and Artemis were born. Athens undertook to be treasurer, and very soon the Delian League became the Athenian Empire and the allies tributary vassals. It had been formed in the deepest national enthusiasm for the defence of Greece against Persia and the liberation of Asia Minor; and the voluntary activity of Athens had created a real loyalty toward that public-spirited state in all Ionian communities. Her statesman

Pericles, could truly say in his famous speech: "Athens is the school of Hellas and ... we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity." Now the splendid 'tyrant city,' on the magnificent buildings of which there was suspiciously much money to spare, excited the jealousy and anger of her allies, who could with difficulty pay the tribute; and Sparta, quite put into the shade by Athens, was still more wroth. In 431 B.C., therefore, the fatal Peloponnesian War broke out, and by its close, in 404 B.C., Athens had been stripped of her empire, and Sparta was more important than ever in Greece. Worse than this, national feeling had been injured by Athens' failure. The Greek states would rather, now, give earth and water to the Great King than acquiesce in the rule of one of their own number. Moreover, the Athenian example had roused an imperial hunger; it was considered wicked to subjugate another Greek state, and yet each had seen the advantage of doing so. From her League there had rolled into Athens a great current of trade, and her rivals had begun to meditate on how to obtain wealth by the same means.

In 404 B.C. the Long Walls of Athens, built during this century from the city to the sea, were pulled down to the sound of flutes amid the wild rejoicing of her enemies, and for a short time a Spartan garrison occupied the Athenian Acropolis; but Athens revived in the most marvellous fashion, and was able to re-enter the lists in the fourth century B.C. The fourth century was occupied until the Macedonian conquest by tlie struggles of the various states for supremacy.

Sparta, convalescent Athens, Thebes, and a Thessalian tyrant took it in turns to sway Greece, and the fall of each of them was brought about by a famous battle. Sparta was pre-eminent from 404 to 371, and was not content to be the figure-head as in old days, but proved a greater tyrant to her allies and subjects than Athens had ever been. She had obtained the aid of Persia in reducing Athens, and allowed the Persians to take back the Greek cities of Asia Minor as a reward, but now began to pose as the national champion against Persia. Her warlike king Agesilaus formed plans hke those afterward carried out by Alexander the Great. He invaded Asia Minor and won several victories over the Persians, but the Spartan fleet was defeated, and Persia, alienated from Sparta, assisted Athens in her wonderful recovery, helping her to rebuild her Long Walls and refortify her port. At the earliest possible moment Athens eagerly discarded the Persian alliance, but by the Peace of Antalcidas (387 B.C.) the Greeks were forced to abandon their kinsmen in Asia Minor to the tender mercies of Persia. Scarcely a hundred years had gone by since Marathon, and yet there was little feeling against this westward retm'n of Persia. Far less outcry was made than when Greek cities were forced to accept the overlordship of the Greek sovereigns of Macedonia.

Sparta fell in 371 B.C., when her tyrannous attack

on Thebes was defeated at Leuctra. Her place was

taken by Thebes, an old-fashioned country town

whose provincial citizens, proverbially stupid, were little expected to make any noise in the world, although Thebes in old times had furnished not onlyheroes but gods to Greece. The commander of the Thebans at Leuctra was the great general Epaminondas, who had evolved a new method of fighting. Like the Spartan hoplites, his soldiers carried pikes, but instead of using shallow lines of regular depth Epaminondas formed at one part a wedge of men standing so close together that their shoulders touched and their pikes projected past the men in front of them. This phalanx or column charged against the Spartans, who were drawn up in the usual columns, widespread and of little depth, and broke their lines by sheer impact. The Spartans were at once thrown into disorder, the rest of the Theban columns joined in, and a scene of carnage followed. Philip and Alexander of Macedon afterward made use of this new 'wedge' in their battles.

Not only at Leuctra did the Thebans perform the unheard-of action of defeating a Spartan army fighting under its king, but they proceeded to invade the Peloponnesus, and harried the lands of Sparta up to the precincts of the city itself. It was in 367 B.C. that Thebes, Athens, and other Greek states appealed to the Great King to settle their disputes. Theban supremacy was bitterly contested, but remained a fact until the death of Epaminondas, who was slain while winning a great victory at Mantinea in 362 B.C. Thebes' power fell with her hero, but neither Athens nor Sparta was to profit by it. For long Greece refused to recognize the fact, but the Macedonian conquest had already begun.

CHAPTER II: Philip II of Macedonia

MACEDONIA, over which Turk, Greek, Bulgarian, and Servian have quarrelled so bitterly to-day, became for the first time a united monarchy under Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. It lay north of Thessaly, from which it was divided by the lofty Cambunian range of hills, snow-capped Olympus, the home of the Greek gods, towering over its southern border. On the west the mountains of Scardus and Pindus separated it from Illyria and all communication with tiie Adriatic, except for the narrow valley of the Eordaicus and a few mountain passes. In the east the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace was, until Philip's reign, the river Axius (the Vardar) which flowed south-eastward to the Gulf of Therme. Round this gulf stretched the fertile province of Emathia. the nucleus of the Macedonian sovereignty. Among ils hills stood the oldest capital, ^gse,' and, lower dovn, in a dreary position over the marshes, the new capital, Pella, where to-day scarcely a stone remains ol the city from which Alexander the Great set forth tc conquer the world. Alexander's successor, Cassander, removed the capital to the coast, and at Therme spiang up the new town of Thessalonica, now the di:ty and picturesque babel of Salonica, of the utmcst importance as a railway terminus. Eastward laj the three-pronged peninsula of Chalcidice, for whidi Philip fought so bitterly with Athens, and, farther east, Greek colonies were scattered along the coast as far as and beyond Byzantium, 25 destined in Christian times, under the name of Constantinople, to become the capital of a new Greek empire, and afterward the headquarters of the Turk.

The Greeks of Alexander's day were as anxious to prove that Macedonia was not a Greek country as the Greeks of to-day are anxious to prove that it is a Greek country. The truth seems to have been that in these northern mountains a conquering Greek stock had united with the native Illyrians and Thracians. The Macedonians spoke a Greek dialect and retained Greek traits, but, cut off as they were from communication with their southern kinsfolk, they had come to seem a barbarous people to the cultured Greeks of the south. These latter, however, seldom questioned that the Macedonian kings were of Greek descent, and a legecd existed that Perdiccas, a scion of the royal house of Argos (itself descended from Heracles), had fled with his brethern into northern Greece, and after living for long as a cowherd had gradually conquered all Macedonia.

The first historical king of Macedonia is Amyntas (c. 540-498 B.C.), who was compelled to submit to Darius the Great. His son, Alexander 1 (498-454 B.C.), extended his domains, but was foTced, though extremely unwilling, to aid Xerxes as ais vassal in his invasion of Greece. His right to tate part in the Olympic Games was called in question, but the Greek descent of his line was recogrized, and he strove and obtained the garland. His son, Perdiccas n (448-413 B.C.), aided in tie destruction of the Athenian Empire; his successor, Archelaus, raised himself to the throne by many crimes, but he was an able ruler and the patron of Greek art and a friend of Euripides. He came down from iEgae to Pella and established a brilliant court there. Thus the flame of civilization was kindled in this land of the wild beast and the huntsman and warring highland tribes. The names of the successors of Archelaus are as much a matter of dispute as the amount of truth in the lurid stories handed down of the crimes they committed, but Macedonia was comparatively tranquil at the accession of Alexander II in 370 B.C. He was called in by the Thessalian cities in 369 B.C. to aid them against the tyrant of Pherse, and proved difficult to get rid of when he had performed his task, but was subdued by the Thebans. He was murdered by the Macedonian Ptolemy, who became regent for the heir, Perdiccas III, and made a treaty with Thebes in 367 B.C., sending Philip, younger brother of Perdiccas, to Thebes as a hostage. There Philip remained, learning all he could in that great school for soldiers, until 364 B.C., when he returned to Macedonia. On the death of Perdiccas in 359 B.C. he became guardian of his brother's son and heir, Amyntas, but soon, at the request of the nobles, assumed the kingship as Philip II.