The Historians' History of the World 04

It is one of the surest tests of a great leader of men to be able to gather about him great men as his assistants. Judged by this test Alexander looms large indeed, for he had among his generals, as after events were to prove, a whole company of men, each of whom acknowledged himself subordinate to Alexander, but declined to bow to any lesser power; each of whom, indeed, believed himself worthy to be a king, and determined to make that belief good in practice, now that the great king was no more. Antipater and Craterus, and Antigonus, and Cassander, and Ptolemy, and Eumenes—these are but a few of the leaders among the men who at once began to quarrel about Alexander’s possessions, even to the neglect of the burial of Alexander’s body. It seems that Alexander had foreseen the inevitable faction, for the story was told that on his death-bed, he had been asked to whom he wished his empire to fall, and he had feebly answered, “to the best man!”

There was, indeed, a pretence of preserving the empire for Alexander’s son, borne by Roxane after his death, and given the name of Alexander the Younger; but a score of years is long to wait for a ruler of a newly formed empire, which has within it so many elements of discord as were to be found in the empire of Alexander; and, however sincere a certain number of the leaders may have been, their original intentions of holding the empire for the heir of its founder had vanished from the minds of every one almost before that heir was born. There was indeed a royalist party, which for a time attempted, perhaps in good faith, to uphold the rights of the royal family of Macedonia; but, in the course of the intricate series of revolts and wars in which the entire empire was soon involved, it became difficult, if not impossible, to trace the motives that influenced the various principal actors. But, whatever these motives, the results were very tangible and unmistakable. Alexander’s heir was never destined to reach manhood. Both he and his mother were ruthlessly killed by Cassander. Olympias, the mother of Alexander, who, for a time, took an active part in the contests, evincing qualities which explained many of the traits of her great son, met a like fate.

The work of destruction went on until the royal family of Macedon, which Philip and Alexander had made illustrious, was routed out to its last member, and finally, after some twenty-two years of incessant warfare, the vast empire of Alexander was divided into three chief parts: Macedonia, including Greece proper, under the Antigonidæ, the descendants of Antigonus; the Asiatic kingdom, under the Seleucidæ; and Egypt, under the Ptolemies. The subsequent history of each of these three kingdoms must be considered by itself, but first we must make a brief survey of that great conglomerate struggle through which this dismemberment of the empire of Alexander was brought about.a Of this Niebuhr says:

“The disputes among the generals of Alexander are to me the most confused events in history. I have very often read them attentively, in order to gain a clear insight into them; but, although I have had a tenacious memory from my early youth, I never was able to gain a distinct recollection of the detail of those quarrels and disputes: I always found myself involved in difficulties. And such is the case still; I find it impossible to group the events in such a manner as to afford an easy survey. This confusion arises from the fact that we have to deal with a crowd of men among whom there is not one that stands forth prominently on account of his personal character. The question always is, whether one robber or another is to be master, and it is impossible to take pleasure in any one of them. One is, indeed, better than another, and Ptolemy is, in my opinion, the best: he was a blessing to Egypt, which under him became happy and prosperous, for his government was rational; but still he is morally a man in whom we can take little interest. His personal character leaves us quite indifferent, when we have once formed a notion of him. Eumenes is the only one who is important on account of his personal character; all the rest are imposing through their deeds of arms alone.

“In the earlier history of Greece we like to follow the great men step by step; but all these Macedonians leave us perfectly indifferent; we feel no interest whether the one is defeated or the other; not even the tragic fall of Lysimachus can make an impression upon us; I look upon it with greater indifference than I should feel at a bull-fight, in which a noble animal defends itself against the dogs that are set at it. I could wish that the earth had opened and swallowed up all the Macedonians. Everyone intimately acquainted with ancient history will share this feeling of indifference with me. And when we are under the influence of such a feeling, it is not easy to dwell upon a history like this; it does not impress itself upon our mind.