HAVING thus made Greece subject to his power in 338 B. C., Philip planned to unite all the forces of that country in an aggressive war against the great power of Persia, but was murdered in 336 B. C.

Philip's son and successor, Alexander the Great, one of the greatest commanders of any age, then invaded Persia with a small army of about thirty-five thousand. He defeated the Persians in the battle of Granicus (334 B. C.),

and in 333 B. c. won a great victory at Issus over an immense Persian army under Darius. He then reduced Tyre, Gaza, and Egypt (where he founded the seaport of Alexandria), and in 331 B. C. encountered Darius near Arbela, in Assyria, and obtained, with less than fifty thousand men, a complete victory over that monarch and the full force of the Persian Empire.

The fatal blow was struck at Arbela; all the rest was but the long death-agony. RAWLINSON.

The Persian Empire, which once menaced all the nations of the earth with subjection, was irreparably crushed when Alexander had won his crowning victory at Arbela. - CREASY.

At the age of twenty-five Alexander was thus master of the whole Persian dominion (including Egypt). He then pushed his explorations and partial conquests still farther eastward, even beyond the Indus. He planned new undertakings, which he did not live to carry out. He died at Babylon in 323 B. C. The impression made upon Asia and Africa by his conquests was lasting, and long survived the dismemberment of his empire, which followed his death.

During the period of Alexander's conquests, no other events of importance happened in any part of the civilized world, as if a career so brilliant had claimed the undivided attention of mankind. ARNOLD.

High on a throne with trophies charged, I viewed
The youth, that all things but himself subdued;

His feet on sceptres and tiaras trod,

And his horned head belied the Libyan god.

POPE.

And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram

that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he-goat waxed very great. . . . The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. — DANIEL viii. 5–8, 20, 21.

Alexander was but twenty years old when his father was murdered, and succeeded to a kingdom beset on all sides with great dangers and rancorous enemies. For not only the barbarous nations that bordered on Macedonia were impatient of being governed by any but their own native princes, but Philip likewise, though he had been victorious over the Grecians, yet, as the time had not been sufficient for him to complete his conquest and accustom them to his sway, had simply left all things in a general disorder and confusion. — PLUTARCH.

Les conquêtes d'Alexandre opérèrent une révolution dans les sciences comme chez les peuples. CHATEAUBRIAND.

Asia beheld with astonishment and awe the uninterrupted progress of a hero, the sweep of whose conquests was as wide and as rapid as that of her own barbaric kings; but, far unlike the transient whirlwinds of Asiatic warfare, the advance of the Macedonian leader was no less deliberate than rapid at every step the Greek power took root, and the language and the civilization of Greece were planted from the shores of the Ægean to the banks of the Indus, from the Caspian and the great Hyrcanian plain to the cataracts of the Nile; to exist actually for nearly a thousand years, and in their effects to endure forever. ARNOLD.

The prodigious conquests of Alexander and the fortune which was always faithful to his arms have eclipsed the glory of Philip, and dazzled posterity has refused to assign to the father the considerable share which belongs to him in the success of the son. It was Philip who organized the Macedonian army, who disciplined and inured it. MÉRIMÉE.

Independently of the almost immeasurable extension opened to the sphere of development by the advance of the Macedonians, their campaigns acquired a character of profound moral greatness by the incessant efforts of the conqueror to amalgamate all races, and to establish, under the noble influence of Hellenism, a unity throughout the world. - HUMBOLDT.

If it can be averred of any conqueror of the ancient world that he had the power and the will not merely to destroy, but also to build up and found anew, - that he had original, bold, and great ideas, it may be averred of Alexander; and in these ideas he was passionately enthusiastic, not coolly calculating, like Cæsar.- SCHLEGEL.

The kingdom of Persia, which extended from Egypt, inclusive, unto Bactria, and the borders of the East India; and yet, nevertheless, was overrun and conquered, in the space of seven years, by a nation not much bigger than this isle of Britain, and newly grown into name, having been utterly obscure till the time of Philip, the son of Amyntas. Neither was this effected by any rare or heroical prowess in the conqueror, as is vulgarly conceived, for that Alexander the Great goeth now for one of the wonders of the world; for those that have made a judgment grounded upon reason of estate do find that conceit to be merely popular, for so Livy pronounceth of him, “Nihil aliud quam bene ausus vana contemnere." Wherein he judgeth of vastness of territory as a vanity that may astonish a weak mind, but no ways trouble a sound resolution. LORD BACON.

Alexander conquered a part of the world with a handful of men ; but was this a mere irruption on his part, a kind of deluge? No, everything is profoundly planned, boldly executed, wisely conducted. Alexander shows himself at once a great warrior, a great politician, a great legislator. Unhappily, when he reaches the zenith of glory and success, his head becomes turned, or his spirit becomes corrupt. had begun with the spirit of Trajan; he ends with the heart of Nero, and the behavior of Heliogabalus. NAPOLEON.

He

I believe that there was in his time no nation of men, no city, nay, no single individual, with whom Alexander's name had not become a familiar word. I therefore hold that such a man, who was like no ordinary mortal, was not born into the world without some special providence. — ARRIAN.

The story of Alisaunder is so comune,
That every wight that hath discrecioun
Hath herd som-what or al of this fortune;
Thys wyde world as in conclusioun

He wan by strengthe, or for his heigh renoun,
Thay were glad for pees unto him sende.

Comparisoun yit mighte never be maked
Bitwen him and noon other conquerour;
For al this world for drede of him hath quaked.

CHAUCER.

Here the vain youth who made the world his prize,
That prosperous robber, Alexander, lies.
When pitying death, at length, had freed mankind,
To sacred rest his bones were here consigned:
His bones, that better had been tossed and hurled,
With just contempt, around the injured world.
To Macedon, a corner of the earth,

The vast ambitious spoiler owed his birth:
There, soon, he scorned his father's humbler reign,
And viewed his vanquished Athens with disdain.
Driven headlong on, by fate's resistless force,
Through Asia's realms he took his dreadful course:
His ruthless sword laid human nature waste,
And desolation followed where he passed.

Red Ganges blushed, and famed Euphrates' flood,
With Persian this, and that with Indian blood.

Nor flame, nor flood, his restless rage withstand,
Nor Syrts unfaithful, nor the Libyan sand:
O'er waves unknown he meditates his way,
And seeks the boundless empire of the sea.
E'en to the utmost west he would have gone,
Where Tethys' lap receives the setting sun;
Around each pole his circuit would have made,
And drunk from secret Nile's remotest head,
When Nature's hand his wild ambition stayed;
With him, that power his pride had loved so well,
His monstrous, universal empire, fell:

No heir, no just successor left behind,
Eternal wars he to his friends assigned,

To tear the world and scramble for mankind.

LUCAN. Tr. Rowe.

Macedonian Alexander's tomb, if called on to disclose,

Say that the world's two continents his monument compose.

ADDEUS.