With Droysen, the word Hellenismus—Das Hellenistische Staatensystem—is applied to the state of things which followed upon Alexander’s death; to the aggregate of kingdoms into which Alexander’s conquests become distributed, having for their point of similarity the common use of Greek speech, a certain proportion of Greeks both as inhabitants and as officers, and a partial streak of Hellenic culture.
I cannot but think that such an employment of the word is misleading. At any rate, its sense must be constantly kept in mind, in order that it may not be confounded with hellenism in the stricter meaning.
[650] Strabo, xvii. p. 797, ὁ γοῦν Πολύβιος, γεγονὼς ἐν τῇ πόλει (Alexandria), βδελύττεται τὴν ταύτῃ κατάστασιν, etc.
The Museum of Alexandria (with its library) must be carefully distinguished from the city and the people. It was an artificial institution, which took its rise altogether from the personal taste and munificence of the earlier Ptolemies, especially the second. It was one of the noblest and most useful institutions recorded in history, and forms the most honorable monument of what Droysen calls the hellenistic period, between the death of Alexander and the extension of the Roman empire into Asia. But this Museum, though situated at Alexandria, had no peculiar connection with the city or its population; it was a College of literary Fellows (if we may employ a modern word) congregated out of various Grecian towns. Eratosthenes, Kallimuchus, Aristophanes, Aristarchus, were not natives of Alexandria.
[651] Diodor. xviii. 4. Pausanias (ii. 1. 5) observes that Alexander wished to cut through Mount Mimas (in Asia. Minor), but that this was the only one, among all his undertakings, which did not succeed. “So difficult is it (he goes on) to put force upon the divine arrangements”, τὰ θεῖα βιάσασθαι. He wished to cut through the isthmus between Teos and Klazomenæ, so as to avoid the navigation round the cliffs of Mimas (σκόπελον νιφόεντα Μίμαντος—Aristophan. Nub. 274) between Chios and Erythræ. Probably this was among the projects suggested to Alexander, in the last year of his life. We have no other information about it.
[652] Arrian, v. 26, 2.
[653] Herodot. iv. 44: compare iii. 102. That Arrian had not present to his memory this narrative of Herodotus, is plain from the last chapter of his Indica; though in his history of Alexander he alludes several times to Herodotus. Some authors have concluded from Arrian’s silence that he disbelieved the fact: if he had disbelieved it, I think that he would have mentioned the statement of Herodotus nevertheless, with an intimation that he did not think it worthy of credit. Moreover, Arrian’s disbelief (even granting that such was the state of his mind) is not to be held as a conclusive disproof of the story. I confess that I see no sufficient reason for discrediting the narrative of Herodotus—though some eminent modern writers are of an opposite opinion.
[654] Pliny, H. N. viii. 17; Athenæus, ix. p. 398. See Schneider’s Preface to his edition of Aristotle’s Historiæ De Animalibus, p. xxxix. seq.
[655] Plutarch, Alexand. 8.
[656] Aristot. Physic. iv. 3. p. 210 a. 21. ἔτι ὡς ἐν βασιλεῖ τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων, καὶ ὅλως ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ κινητικῷ.