43. THE WORK OF ALEXANDER
ALEXANDER AS WARRIOR AND STATESMAN
Alexander the Great was one of the foremost, perhaps the first, of the great captains of antiquity. But he was more than a world-conqueror; he was a statesman of the highest order. Had he been spared for an ordinary lifetime, there is no telling how much he might have accomplished. In eleven years he had been able to subdue the East and to leave an impress upon it which was to endure for centuries. And yet his work had only begun. There were still lands to conquer, cities to build, untrodden regions to explore. Above all, it was still his task to shape his possessions into a well-knit, unified empire, which would not fall to pieces in the hands of his successors. His early death was a calamity, for it prevented the complete realization of his splendid ambitions.
HELLENIZING OF THE ORIENT
The immediate result of Alexander's conquests was the disappearance of the barriers which had so long shut in the Orient. The East, until his day, was an almost unknown land. Now it lay open to the spread of Greek civilization. In the wake of the Macedonian armies followed Greek philosophers and scientists, Greek architects and artists, Greek colonists, merchants, and artisans. Everywhere into that huge, inert, unprogressive Oriental world came the active and enterprising men of Hellas. They brought their arts and culture and became the teachers of those whom they had called "barbarians."
FUSION OF EAST AND WEST
The ultimate result of Alexander's conquests was the fusion of East and West. He realized that his new empire must contain a place for Oriental, as well as for Greek and East and Macedonian, subjects. It was Alexander's aim, therefore, to build up a new state in which the distinction between the European and the Asiatic should gradually pass away. He welcomed Persian nobles to his court and placed them in positions of trust. He organized the government of his provinces on a system resembling that of Darius the Great. [11] He trained thousands of Persian soldiers to replace the worn-out veterans in his armies. He encouraged by liberal dowries mixed marriages between Macedonians and Orientals, and himself wedded the daughter of the last Persian king. To hold his dominions together and provide a meeting place for both classes of his subjects, he founded no less than seventy cities in different parts of the empire. Such measures as these show that Alexander had a mind of wide, even cosmopolitan, sympathies. They indicate the loss which ancient civilization suffered by his untimely end.
[Illustration: SARCOPHAGUS FROM SIDON (Imperial Ottoman Museum,
Constantinople.)
One of eighteen splendid sarcophagi discovered in 1887 A.D. in an ancient cemetery at Sidon. The sculptures on the longer sides represent two scenes from the life of Alexander—the one a battle, the other a lion hunt. The figures, in almost full relief, are delicately painted. ]