Crossing the lofty barrier of the Hindu-Kush, Alexander led his weary soldiers into northwestern India, where a single battle added the Persian province of the Punjab [10] to the Macedonian possessions. Alexander then pressed forward to the conquest of the Ganges valley, but in the full tide of victory his troops refused to go any farther. They had had their fill of war and martial glory; they would conquer no more lands for their ambitious king. Alexander gave with reluctance the order for the homeward march.
ALEXANDER'S RETURN TO BABYLON
Alexander was of too adventurous a disposition to return by the way he had come. He resolved to reach Babylon by a new route. He built a navy on the Indus and had it accompany the army down the river. At the mouth of the Indus Alexander dispatched the fleet under his admiral, Nearchus, to explore the Indian Ocean and to discover, if possible, a sea route between India and the West. He himself led the army, by a long and toilsome march through the deserts of southern Iran, to Babylon. That city now became the capital of the Macedonian Empire.
DEATH OF ALEXANDER, 323 B.C.
Scarcely two years after his return, while he was planning yet more extensive conquests in Arabia, Africa, and western Europe, he was smitten by the deadly Babylonian fever. In 323 B.C., after several days of illness, the conqueror of the world passed away, being not quite thirty- three years of age.
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."