B. C.

denly returned, entered Boeotia, and took and levelled that city. All Greece was now at his devotion. He called on the different states for the contingents they had voted his father for the invasion of Asia; and, at the 334. head of 30,000 foot and 4500 horse, passed the Hellespont. At the river Granicus the Persian army opposed his progress: it met a total defeat, and all Lesser Asia fell to the conqueror: he restored the Grecian cities to independence, and pursued his march through Cilicia. At 333. Issus, in the pass of the mountains leading into Syria, he again encountered and defeated the Persian army. He 332. continued his progress southwards, took Tyre, after an obstinate resistance, and reduced all Egypt to subjection. He here founded the most permanent monument of his fame, the city of Alexandria, —a place that has exercised such influence on the political and moral relations of the world as ever to render it memorable,-marched with a select body of men to the oasis containing the temple of Ammon, and obtained from the priests of the god a declaration of his divinity; acting in this, perhaps, with policy, perhaps, with vanity.

The conquests of Alexander can only be compared with those of the Arabs or Mongols in rapidity. Darius having assembled another army, his rival hastened from Egypt. On the plain between Gaugamela and Arbela, at the foot of the Armenian and Koordish mountains, he encountered the host of Darius, composed, it is said, of a million of men, while the Grecian troops were, at most, 331. 50,000 men. The Persians were utterly routed; Darius fled to the north-eastern provinces of his kingdom, and Babylon and Susa fell into the hands of the conqueror. Persepolis and Ecbatana shared their fate. Meantime Darius was murdered by Bessus, governor of Bactria. According to oriental maxims, Alexander was now king, and he resolved to avenge the death of his predecessor: he invaded Bactria, put to death Bessus, who had assumed the diadem, and conquered the whole of those northern provinces of the Persian empire. He founded cities in Bactria and Sogdiana, and then directed his

course towards India. From the southern part of Balkh he marched through Candahar*, Ghizni, and Caubul, to the Indus. Though valiantly opposed by the natives, the predecessors of the modern Seeks, he was victorious, and still advanced, till the discontent of his troops obliged him to return: he proceeded southwards along the river, sent a fleet under Nearchus from the Indus to the Persian Gulf, and, with a great loss of men and beasts, made his way across the deserts into Persia. Shortly afterwards he met his death from drunkenness, or poison, at Baby B. C. lon, in the thirty-second year of his age.

Alexander's great object seems to have been the establishment of one great and permanent empire, of which the different parts would be united by mutual political and commercial advantages. Hence he sought to do away all national prejudices, and make his different subjects feel themselves one people. To attain this object, he founded those numerous Grecian cities in various parts of his oriental dominions, and had he lived a few years longer he might possibly have, in a great measure, accomplished what he aimed at. But his early death frustrated all these great projects, and the ambition of his generals speedily pulled down the fabric he was erecting,

Division of Alexander's Dominions.

The

Alexander died without appointing a successor. queen, Roxana, was pregnant, and he had a half-brother, named Philip Aridæus, who was simple. When dying, he had given his ring to Perdiccas. After much warm dispute among the generals, they came to the resolution that Alexander (Roxana's son) and Philip Aridæus should be proclaimed kings; that Perdiccas should be guardian, and that each general should take the charge of a province. The partition of offices and provinces was thus made:-Perdiccas had no province, but was com

*The city of Candahar is said to have been founded by Alexander. Its name seems evidently derived from his. He is called in the East Iscander, and, rejecting the first syllable, Cander and Candahar are not unlike.

324.

mander-in-chief of the army: Antipater and Craterus had charge of the European dominions; Seleucus, of Babylon; Ptolemy, of Egypt, Libya, and part of Arabia; Leonatus, of Mysia; Antigonus, of Phrygia, Lycia, and Pamphylia; Lysimachus, of Macedonian Thrace; Laomedon had Syria; Python, Media; Menander, Lydia ; &c. &c. To the valiant Eumenes was assigned Cappadocia, whose inhabitants were yet to be subdued.

The kings were only such in name, and these Grecian satraps saw and grasped at the opportunity of making themselves independent princes. A period of unceasing tumult, war, and murder, formed the first sixteen years that succeeded the death of Alexander. Perdiccas first conceived the plan of gaining the empire by destroying the governors, one after another. This plan was facilitated by their mutual animosities, or their contests with those over whom they ruled. Ptolemy, the most powerful of the governors, was singled out as the first object of B. c. attack. Perdiccas led an army into Egypt, but was mur321. dered by his own mutinous troops.

Craterus fell in a battle against Eumenes, and Antipater remained sole regent of Macedon. He died shortly 319. after, having appointed Polysperchon to succeed him. Polysperchon joined the party of Olympias, the mother of Alexander. Aridæus and his wife were put to death, and the friends of Antipater persecuted. The nobles clung to his son Cassander, and Olympias expiated her 315. crimes by a violent death.

Antigonus took and put to death Eumenes, who maintained the rights of Alexander's family. He now ruled over all Lesser Asia, wrested Syria and Phoenicia from Ptolemy, and drove Seleucus from Babylon. His valiant son Demetrius passed over to Greece, and restored the. cities to freedom; then collected a fleet, and defeated that 807. of Ptolemy off Cyprus. His father now assumed the title of king, and his example was followed by the other goThe family of Alexander was now extinct, Roxana and her son having been put to death by Cassander. But Antigonus's reign was of short duration: his

vernors.

ambition was too inordinate; and a league was formed against him by Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander. Antigonus fell, in his 80th year, in battle B. C. against his rivals, on the field of Ipsus, in Phrygia, and 301. the victors shared his dominions among them.

The dominions of Alexander were now divided into four great kingdoms. Macedon, with a part of Greece; Thrace; Syria, with all Upper Asia; Egypt, with Cyrene and Cyprus.

Macedon.

Cassander, when he had destroyed the family of Alexander, took the title of king. His vicious and feeble sons lost their lives and the throne, which was seized on by Demetrius, son of Antigonus: he was expelled by Pyr- 287. rhus, the Epirote; and Pyrrhus, by Lysimachus, king of Thrace. During sixteen years, twelve kings of different houses governed the paternal dominions of Alexander. In the time of these kings, an army of Kelts devastated Macedor, penetrated into Greece, and advanced to pillage the temple of Delphi. The Greeks rolled down rocks from the heights; thunder roared through the mountains; -the terrified barbarians fled, and the god got the renown of defending his temple.

Antigonus Gonatas, son of Demetrius, a man of prudence and humanity, raised Macedon out of the ruin into which it had been plunged; and, during a reign of forty years, he was the protector of Greece. His son, Demetrius II., who succeeded him, emulated his virtues. 243. Demetrius dying, left an infant son, Philip, whose uncle and guardian, Antigonus, surnamed Doson, married the widow of the late king, and usurped the kingdom, which he governed with ability for eleven years, and then left to the lawful heir, Philip. This prince mixed himself in the affairs of Greece, and was recognised as sovereign lord of 198. that country. War took place, in consequence, between him and the Romans, and Philip was defeated, obliged to withdraw his garrisons from Greece, reduce his ship

B. c. ping, and pay the expenses of the war. His son Perseus 143. renewed the war with Rome, but was taken, and died in prison; and Macedon was shortly afterwards reduced to a Roman province.

The Macedonian kingdom extended from the Propontis, through Thrace, to the mountains of Ætolia, lying at the north of the country of Greece.

Greece.

We have seen all Greece submit to Philip and Alexander. After the death of the latter, some unavailing efforts had been made, especially by Athens, to re-establish the ancient freedom; but they were always obliged to bow their necks, once more, to the Macedonian yoke. There was no union among them; they pursued their old feuds and petty contests, instead of combining for a common object; and their country was continually ravaged by the armies of the contending generals of Alexander.

Sparta, which had sulkily refused to take part in the conquest of the East, and had waged an unsuccessful war against Antipater, had long since seen the decline of her Lycurgean constitution. In vain the patriotic Agis sought to bring his country back to her former state; his life atoned for his opposition to the tyrannic oligarchs. Sparta became the dominion of the most odious of tyrants; she joined the Romans against Macedon, and then changed sides, and she ended by becoming, like the other Grecian states, a part of the Roman dominions.

The cities of Achæa renewed among themselves an old confederacy, named the Achæan league, which, under the guidance of Aratus, laboured with vigour for the freedom of Greece against Macedon: gradually, other states, and, amongst them, Athens, joined the league. The Ætolian towns formed a similar union; but their enmity with the Achæans and Sparta prevented their arriving to any importance. Civil discord, the perpetual bane of Greece, gave the Romans the wished-for