HIS EFFECT ON FEDERALISATION (PÖHLMANN)
[Every one admits that the lack of unity among the Greek towns was the cause of evils innumerable, and that some form of federation was vitally needed. Many have felt that Alexander furnished the needed unifaction by his centralised empire; but Pöhlmann is of contrary mind.]
Droysen’s peculiar way of seeing history has led him greatly to overrate the blessings of the new federal régime. It is true that in Hellas, under the old party names of aristocrat and democrat, the hostile interests of rich and poor were engaged in a pitiless and passionate struggle, and, if we consider the decomposition that was killing the life of communities, a monarchy would appear to be exactly what was needed to exercise a levelling and reconciliatory influence. But a kingdom of this national character, whose first aim would be to satisfy the most vital interests of the nation and create a true internal peace—such a kingdom was not at all the ideal of the Macedonian monarchy. So far from standing superior to party warfare, the monarchy supported itself by favouring the particular interests of that party which came over to the Macedonian camp. The immense emigration produced by the consequent oppression of those who belonged to the opposition, is proof enough that the new order did not produce a citizenship of inner peace, but, on the contrary, gave new food to the differences from which the communities suffered. So far as the policy of Philip was concerned, the object of the bond was attained when it brought the power of the Greek people into its own service; and even if the war against Persia had its national and Hellenic side, yet so early an authority as Polybius rightly and soberly judged that the Macedonian king was chiefly acting in the matter to satisfy a personal end. It is an illusion of Droysen’s to imagine that this subjection of Greece to a policy which was, by its nature, bound to serve dynastic and personal interests, at the same time secured to the Greeks a common national policy.
The consolidation of the new world power was a consequence of Alexander’s irresistible and victorious progress through the heart of the Persian kingdom. His policy was to bring about a new “Hellenistic” régime which should lead to a peaceful blending of Greek and barbarian, and the object was to be gained by putting the oriental and the Græco-Macedonian elements on an equality in army and administration—setting Asiatics, for example, as satraps beside European military governors and treasury officers. He triumphed over opposition, which he encountered chiefly in the army.
This policy was certainly an inevitable consequence of his undertaking and of the conditions which were necessary to its success; but need he have so exaggerated it as to make a complete return to the traditions of oriental despotism? This is a question we do not find so easy to answer in the affirmative, as Droysen does, for he sees nothing but “prejudice” in the resistance which Alexander’s claims to apotheosis and genuflexion encountered in the old Macedonian spirit and the Greek love of freedom.
As Ranke rightly declared, it meant a complete break with their entire national history that the Greeks as well should be subjected to the sway of an authority which was no other than that against which they had warred for centuries. Certainly the “city” had outlived its time as the final political unit. The needs of the day called for “an ascent from the city constitution to state constitutions,” in which the cities themselves would enjoy only a communal independence. But then they must, to use Droysen’s own words, “find in the universal bond their right and their safeguard.” And this safeguard could be offered by no orientalising despotism.[n]