The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]

CHAPTER LIX. THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER

Some of the most important histories of Greece, notably those of Mitford and of Grote, have terminated with the death of Alexander; and in point of fact one feels some logic in the contention that Greece as a factor in civilisation disappeared with the close of the Alexandrian epoch. Yet as far as mere chronology goes Greece continued a nation, and in some respects a more closely unified nation than ever before, for a period after the death of Alexander as long as the period of her prominence before that event. It was in the year 500 B.C. that the Ionian cities of Asia Minor revolted against the Persian power, and precipitated that conflict which had for its chief result the bringing of the Greek nation, for the first time, into prominence as a world power. From this memorable date to the death of Alexander in 323 B.C., is a period of 177 years; and, as it happened, another period of exactly the same length intervened between the death of Alexander and the final overthrow of Greece by the Romans, culminating in the destruction of Corinth in the year 146 B.C.

But while equally extended in point of time, how utterly different are these two periods in world-historic import! Into the first of them were crowded the events which have made the name of Greece famous for all time; the second was a mere period of senility, in which a once powerful and still proud people struggled in vain to regain its former status, and finally collapsed utterly under the blows of a superior power. Yet in mere geographical extent the Greece of this later period was far larger than Greece proper of the earlier time, for now it included, in addition to the original Hellas, the territories of Macedonia and Epirus; but this was never an harmonious coalition.

The old Greeks of the classical territory were never reconciled to the domination of their northern neighbours, whom they preferred to consider as barbarians, but they were obliged for much of the time to accept that domination, however unwillingly; for the kings of Macedonia, though their power fluctuated from time to time, always had more or less influence over the entire territory of the new Greece.

The meteoric career of Alexander had been cut short at a time when that hero, though he had accomplished conquests without precedent in history, had not yet entered upon the full prime of manhood. It is known that his ever active brain was teeming with plans for fresh conquests, and it is hardly to be doubted that, had he lived, some of these would have been put into almost immediate execution. What the final result would have been, is one of those problems that must ever puzzle the mind of the thoughtful student of history. Such conjectures are utterly futile; yet one cannot escape them. Would the conqueror of the East have spread his power to the West also, subjugating Europe as he had already subjugated Asia? Would he have gone on throughout another half century, had that stretch of life been granted to him, ruling with a firm hand the wide territories that he had conquered, and holding his mighty empire under one unified government with himself at its summit—or would his mighty ambition presently have overstepped the bounds of reason, and would some reverse have presently dashed him headlong from his pinnacle of power? As to this no man can say, and all moralisings on the subject are but idle dreams.

[323-301 B.C.]

But turning from such visions to the realities, one is presented with an extraordinary picture of a mighty empire, built up by a mere youth, held for the moment, as it were, in the grasp of his hand, and then dashed suddenly into fragments as that hand fell stricken by death. In twelve years the youth Alexander had made himself absolute master of wider territories than were probably ever ruled before by any one man in recorded history; but, almost before the breath of life had left his body, and literally before that body had been laid in the tomb, a strife had begun among the followers of the great captain, which was to lead to almost immediate dismemberment of his empire.

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.