Justin, in the preface to his work entitled De Historiis Philippicis, informs us that it was “a kind of anthology”—veluti florum corpusculum—extracted from the forty-four volumes published by Pompeius Trogus on Philippic (i.e. Macedonian) history. As these volumes included histories of nearly all the countries with which the Macedonian sovereigns had transactions, they embraced such a very wide field that they were regarded as a cyclopaedia of general history. Justin remarks that while many authors regard it as an arduous task to write no more than the history of one king or one state, we cannot but think that Pompeius had the daring of Hercules in attacking the whole world, seeing that in his books are contained the res gestae of all ages, kings, nations, and peoples. He then states that he had occupied his leisure while in Rome by selecting those passages of Trogus which seemed most worthy of being generally known, and passing over such as he took to be neither particularly interesting nor instructive. He has been much, but unjustly, blamed for his omissions, seeing that his only object in writing was to compile a work of elegant historical extracts. By so doing he has rescued from oblivion many facts not elsewhere recorded. From the extracts relating to India we gather more information about Sandrokottos (Chandragupta) than from any other classical source. Trogus Pompeius belonged, we know, to the age of Augustus, but it is uncertain when Justin lived. As the earliest writer by whom he is mentioned is St. Jerome, his date cannot be later than the beginning of the fifth century of our aera.
The Life of Alexander the Great
Fig. 1.—Lysimachos.
Fig. 2.—Aristotle.
Alexander III., King of Macedonia, surnamed the Great, was born at Pella in the year 356 B.C. He was the son of Philip II. and Olympias, who belonged to the royal race of Epeiros, which claimed to be descended from Achilles, the hero of the Iliad. The education of the prince was in the outset entrusted to Lysimachos, an Akarnanian, and to his mother’s kinsman Leonidas, a man of an austere character, who inured his pupil to Spartan-like habits of hard exercise and simple fare. In his thirteenth year he was placed under the immediate tuition of Aristotle, who acquired a life-long influence over the mind and character of his pupil. It may be supposed that the eager love of discovery which conspicuously distinguished Alexander from ordinary conquerors was in a great measure inspired and stimulated by the precepts of his master. In his sixteenth year he was entrusted, during his father’s absence on a foreign expedition, with the regency of Macedonia; and two years later, at the battle of Chaironeia, which was won chiefly through his impetuous valour, he displayed for the first time his incomparable genius for war. This victory made the Macedonian King supreme in Greece, and at a convention which met soon afterwards at his summons, and which was attended by deputies from all the Grecian states except Sparta, he was appointed to command the national forces and to conduct an expedition against Persia to avenge the invasions of Mardonios and Xerxes. He was actively engaged in preparing for this great contest when he fell by the hand of an assassin. Alexander succeeded (336 B.C.) not only to his sovereignty, but also to his supremacy in the affairs of Greece. He found himself, immediately on his accession, beset on all sides with most formidable opponents. Attalos, who was in Asia with a considerable force under his command, aspired to the throne; the Greeks, instigated by the passionate eloquence of Demosthenes, attempted to liberate themselves from Macedonian dictation, and the barbarians of the north threatened his hereditary dominions with invasion. The youthful monarch was equal to the emergency. He at once seized Attalos and put him to death. Then suddenly marching southwards, he suppressed by skilful diplomacy the incipient rebellion of the Greek states. In the next place he turned his arms northwards, and, after much severe fighting, subjugated the barbarous tribes which lay between the frontiers of his kingdom and the Danube. Finally, he quelled in blood and desolation the revolt of Thebes, which had been prompted by a false rumour of his death. Having thus in a single year made himself a more powerful monarch than his father had ever been, he directed all his energies to complete the arrangements for the Persian expedition. The whole force which he collected for this purpose amounted to little more than 30,000 foot and 4500 horse.
The empire which this comparatively insignificant force was destined to attack and overthrow was the greatest which the world had as yet seen, and had already subsisted for two hundred years. It had been founded by Cyrus the Great, and extended by his successors till it embraced all Asia from the shores of the Aegean and the Levant to the regions of the Jaxartes and the Indus. It was divided by the great belt of desert, which stretches almost continuously from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Aral, into two great sections which differed widely both in their physical aspect and the character of their inhabitants. The eastern tribes living amid mountains and deserts were rude, but distinguished for their hardihood, their love of independence, and their martial prowess. The western Asiatics, on the other hand, who inhabited those fair and fertile countries which had been the earliest seats of civilisation, were singularly deficient in these qualities. Enervated by ease and the affluence of luxuries, they offered but a feeble resistance to Alexander, and bent their necks submissively to his yoke. He had quite a different experience when he came into conflict with the tribes of the Oxus, Jaxartes, and Indus. They resisted him with the utmost spirit and determination, rose against him even after defeat, and succeeded in inflicting a signal disaster on his arms.
The system by which the vast empire was governed may be described as a rigid monarchy. It was divided by Darius Hystaspes into twenty provinces, a number which was afterwards much augmented probably by the subdivision of the larger ones. The government of each was committed to a satrap[8] whose powers were almost despotic. He collected the revenues, from which, besides defraying the expenses of his own administration, he was obliged to remit a fixed amount of annual tribute to the royal treasury. The Indian satrapy, which probably included Baktria and was limited to the regions west of the Indus, paid the largest tribute, which, as we learn from Herodotos, amounted to the immense sum of 360 talents of gold dust.
The king who filled the throne at the time of the invasion was Darius Kodomannos, who had some reputation for personal courage and some other virtues which might have adorned his reign had it been fated to be peaceful. He was, however, like Louis XVI. of France, quite destitute of the skill and nerve required for piloting the vessel of the state in stormy times. The empire long before his accession had been falling into decay. Insurrections were for ever breaking out. Some of the provinces, though nominally subject, were practically independent, while in others the satraps both claimed and exercised the right of transmitting their authority by hereditary succession. What saved it from dissolution was, not so much the strength of the government, as the reluctance of the leading men, through their distrust of each other’s good faith, to enter into combinations against it. It was another symptom of its weakness, that the king in his wars trusted far more to the Greek troops in his pay than to his native levies and their leaders. Neither the Greeks nor the Persians had lost sight of the fact that at Kounaxa the victory had been won for Cyrus by the Greek mercenaries.