It must be confessed, that the actions of this prince diffuse a splendour that dazzles and astonishes the imagination, which is ever fond of the great and marvellous. His enthusiastic courage raises and transports all who read his history, as it transported himself. But ought we to give the name of bravery and valour to a boldness that is equally blind, rash, and impetuous; a boldness void of all rule, that will never listen to the voice of reason, and has no other guide than a senseless ardour for false glory, and a wild desire of distinguishing itself at any price? This character suits only a military robber, who has no attendants; whose own life is alone exposed; and who, for that reason, may be employed in some desperate action; but the case is far otherwise with regard to a king, who owes his life to all his army and his whole kingdom. True valour is not desirous of displaying itself, is no ways anxious about its own reputation, but is solely intent on preserving the army.
Do any of these characteristics suit Alexander? When we peruse his history and follow him to sieges and battles, we are perpetually alarmed for his safety, and that of his army; and conclude every moment that they are upon the point of being destroyed. Here we see a rapid flood, which is going to draw in and swallow up this conqueror: there we behold a craggy rock, which he climbs, and perceives round him soldiers, either transfixed by the enemy’s darts, or thrown headlong by huge stones from precipices. We tremble when we perceive in a battle the axe just ready to cleave his head; and much more when we behold him alone in a fortress, whither his rashness had drawn him, exposed to all the javelins of the enemy. Alexander was ever persuaded, that miracles would be wrought in his favour, than which nothing could be more unreasonable, as Plutarch observes; miracles do not always happen; and the gods at last are weary of guiding and preserving rash mortals, who abuse the assistance they afford them.
Alexander seems possessed of such qualities only as are of the second rank, I mean those of war, and these are all extravagant; are carried to the rashest and most odious excess, and to the extremes of folly and fury; whilst his kingdom is left a prey to the rapine and exactions of Antipater; and all the conquered provinces abandoned to the insatiable avarice of the governors, who carried their oppressions so far, that Alexander was forced to put them to death.
Nor do his soldiers appear to be better regulated; for these, having plundered the wealth of the East, after the prince had given them the highest marks of his beneficence, grew so licentious, so disorderly, so debauched and abandoned to vices of every kind, that he was forced to pay their debts by a largess of £1,500,000.
What strange men were these! how depraved their school! how pernicious the fruit of their victories![h]
HIS EVIL INFLUENCE (NIEBUHR)
Alexander is for the East, what Charlemagne is for the West; and, next to Rustam, he is the chief hero of the Persian fairy tales and romances. To us also he is a man of extraordinary importance, inasmuch as he gave a new appearance to the whole world. He began what will now be completed, in spite of all obstacles—the dominion of Europe over Asia; he was the first that led the victorious Europeans to the East. Asia had played its part in history, and was destined to become the slave of Europe. He has also become the national hero of the Greeks, although he was as foreign to them as Napoleon was to the French, notwithstanding that he traced his family to the mythical heroes of Greece.
But his personal character will appear to us in a different light. Many a rhetorician, even in antiquity, formed a correct judgment of him. Who does not know the story of the pirate, who was condemned to death by Alexander, and, on being brought before him, said, that there was no difference between them! The Orientals still call him, “Alexander the robber.” I will not judge of him from this point of view, for the whole history of the world turns upon war and conquest; I speak only of his personal character. But, without agreeing with the declamations which have so often been made about him, I unhesitatingly declare, that I have formed a very unfavourable opinion of him. When I behold a young man, who, in his twentieth year, ascends the throne, after having conspired against his father—who then displays in his policy a cruelty like that of the house of the Medici in the sixteenth century, like Cosmo de Medici and his two sons—who not only sacrifices his step-mother to Olympias, but causes the innocent infant of the unhappy Cleopatra, as well as several other near relatives, to be murdered (we do not know their names, as Arrian skilfully evades mentioning them)—who despatched all that knew anything of his complicity, as well as those who had previously offended him—such a young man is condemned for all time to come.
Plutarch shows a foolish and unfounded partiality towards him, and such was universally the case among the Greeks. His drunkenness cannot be denied, and with it they excuse his murders, as, for example, that of Clitus; and, in order poetically to complete the indescribable folly committed by later Greeks, they compare him with Dionysus. But his drunkenness does not account for all he did. He caused the most innocent and most faithful servant, the best general of his father, to be maliciously assassinated in a truly oriental manner; the man had been frank and open, and knew that Alexander was what he was through him. The murder of his friend Clitus, who told him the truth, was a fearful act. I do not comprehend how persons can excuse Alexander by saying, that he was an unusually great man; if he was so, was he not then responsible for his unusually great powers? All his actions, which are praised as generous, are of a theatrical nature and mere ostentation. His friendship for Aristotle did not save Callisthenes. His attachment to Hephæstion was not friendship, but a disgrace. His generosity towards the captive Persian princesses is nothing extraordinary; if it be not ostentation, it is something quite natural, and of everyday occurrence; but it is mere ostentation.
