Besides which, I am no longer supported by any ancient authors capable of conducting me through this darkness and confusion. Diodorus will entirely abandon me, after having been my guide for some time; and no other historian will appear to take his place. No proper series of affairs will remain; the several events are not to be disposed into any regular connection with each other; nor will it be possible to point out, either the motives to the resolutions formed, or the proper character of the principal actors in this scene of obscurity. I think myself happy when Polybius, or Plutarch, lend me their assistance. In my account of Alexander's successors, whose transactions are, perhaps, the most complicated and perplexed part of ancient history, Usher, Prideaux, and Vaillant, will be my usual guides; and, on many occasions, I shall only transcribe from Prideaux; but, with all these aids, I shall not promise to throw so much light upon this history as I could desire.
After a war of more than twenty years, the number of the principal competitors was reduced to four; Ptolemy, Cassander, Seleucus, and Lysimachus; the empire of Alexander was divided into four fixed kingdoms, agreeably to the prediction of Daniel, by a solemn treaty concluded between the parties. Three of these kingdoms, Egypt, Macedonia, Syria, or Asia, will have a regular succession of monarchs, sufficiently clear and distinct; but the fourth, which comprehended Thrace, with part of the Lesser Asia, and some neighbouring provinces, will suffer a number of variations.
As the kingdom of Egypt was that which was subject to the fewest changes, because Ptolemy, who was established there as governor, at the death of Alexander, retained the possession of it ever after, and left it to his posterity: we shall, therefore, consider this prince as the basis of our chronology, and our several epochas shall be fixed from him.
The fourth volume contains the events for the space of one hundred and twenty years, under the first four kings of Egypt, viz. Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, who reigned thirty-eight years; Ptolemy Philadelphus, who reigned forty; Ptolemy Euergetes, who reigned twenty-five; and Ptolemy Philopator, whose reign continued seventeen.
In order to throw some light upon the history contained therein, I shall, in the first place, give the principal events of it, in a chronological abridgement.
Introductory to which, I must desire the reader to accompany me in some reflections, which have not escaped Monsieur Bossuet, with relation to Alexander. This prince, who was the most renowned and illustrious conqueror in all history, was the last monarch of his race. Macedonia, his ancient kingdom, which his ancestors had governed for so many ages, was invaded from all quarters, as a vacant succession; and after it had long been a prey to the strongest, it was at last transferred to another family. If Alexander had continued peaceably in Macedonia, the grandeur of his empire would not have excited the ambition of his captains; and he might have transmitted the sceptre of his progenitors to his own descendants; but, as he had not prescribed any bounds to his power, he was instrumental in the destruction of his house, and we shall behold the extermination of his family, without the least remaining traces of them in history. His conquests occasioned a vast effusion of blood, and furnished his captains with a pretext for murdering one another. These were the effects that flowed from the boasted bravery of Alexander, or rather from that brutality, which, under the specious names of ambition and glory, spread desolation, and carried fire and sword through whole provinces, without the least provocation, and shed the blood of multitudes who had never injured him.
We are not to imagine, however, that Providence abandoned these events to chance; but, as it was then preparing all things for the approaching appearance of the Messiah, it was vigilant to unite all the nations that were to be first enlightened with the Gospel, by the use of one and the same language, which was that of Greece: and the same Providence made it necessary for them to learn this foreign tongue, by subjecting them [pg cxxv] to such masters as spoke no other. The Deity, therefore, by the agency of this language, which became more common and universal than any other, facilitated the preaching of the apostles, and rendered it more uniform.
The partition of the empire of Alexander the Great, among the generals of that prince, immediately after his death, did not subsist for any length of time, and hardly took place, if we except Egypt, where Ptolemy had first established himself, and on the throne of which he always maintained himself without acknowledging any superior.
A.M. 3704. Ant. J.C. 300.
It was not till after the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, wherein Antigonus, and his son Demetrius, surnamed Poliorcetes, were defeated, and the former lost his life, that this partition was fully regulated and fixed. The empire of Alexander was then divided into four kingdoms, by a solemn treaty, as had been foretold by Daniel. Ptolemy had Egypt, Libya, Arabia, Cœlesyria, and Palestine. Cassander, the son of Antipater, obtained Macedonia and Greece. Lysimachus acquired Thrace, Bithynia, and some other provinces on the other side of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus. And Seleucus had Syria, and all that part of the greater Asia which extended to the other side of the Euphrates, and as far as the river Indus.