Chapter 7

MINGLING OF EAST AND WEST AFTER 359 B.C. [1]

39. PHILIP AND THE RISE OF MACEDONIA

MACEDONIA AND THE MACEDONIANS

The land of Macedonia, lying to the north of Greece, for a long time had been an inconspicuous part of the ancient world. Its people, though only partially civilized, were Greeks in blood and language. No doubt they formed an offshoot of those northern invaders who had entered the Balkan peninsula before the dawn of history. The Macedonian kings, from the era of the Persian wars, seized every opportunity of spreading Greek culture throughout their realm. By the middle of the fourth century B.C., when Philip II ascended the throne, the Macedonians were ready to take a leading place in the Greek world.

PHILIP'S AIMS

Philip of Macedonia, one of the most remarkable men of antiquity, was endowed with a vigorous body, a keen mind, and a resolute will. He was no stranger to Greece and its ways. Part of his boyhood had been passed as a hostage at Thebes in the days of Theban glory. His residence there gave him an insight into Greek politics and taught him the art of war as it had been perfected by Epaminondas. In the distracted condition of Greece, worn out by the rivalries of contending cities, Philip saw the opportunity of his own country. He aimed to secure for Macedonia the position of supremacy which neither Athens, Sparta, nor Thebes had been able to maintain.

THE MACEDONIAN ARMY

Philip's most important achievement was the creation of the Macedonian army, which he led to the conquest of Greece and which his son was to lead to the conquest of the World. Taking a hint from the tactics of Epaminondas, Philip trained his infantry to fight by columns, but with sufficient intervals between the files to permit quick and easy movements. Each man bore an enormous lance, eighteen feet in length. When this heavy phalanx was set in array, the weapons carried by the soldiers in the first five ranks presented a bristling thicket of lance-points, which no onset, however determined, could penetrate. The business of the phalanx was to keep the front of the foe engaged, while horsemen rode into the enemy's flanks. This reliance on masses of cavalry to win a victory was something new in warfare. Another novel feature consisted in the use of engines called catapults, able to throw darts and huge stones three hundred yards, and of battering rams with force enough to hurl down the walls of cities. All these different arms working together made a war machine of tremendous power--the most formidable in the ancient world until the days of the Roman legion.

CONQUESTS OF PHILIP

Philip commanded a fine army; he ruled with absolute sway a territory larger than any other Hellenic state; and he himself possessed a genius for both war and diplomacy, With such advantages the Macedonian king entered on the subjugation of disunited Greece. His first great success was won in western Thrace. Here he founded the city of Philippi [2] and seized some rich gold mines, the income from which enabled him to keep his soldiers always under arms, to fit out a fleet, and, by means of liberal bribes, to hire a crowd of agents in nearly every Greek city. Philip next made Macedonia a maritime state by subduing the Greek cities on the peninsula of Chalcidice. [3] He also appeared in Thessaly, occupied its principal fortresses, and brought the frontier of Macedonia as far south as the pass of Thermopylae.

40. DEMOSTHENES AND THE END OF GREEK FREEDOM

DEMOSTHENES, 384-322 B.C.

Philip for many years had been steadily extending his sway over Greece. In the face of his encroachments would Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, so long the leading cities, submit tamely to this Macedonian conqueror? There was one man, at least, who realized the menace to Greek freedom from Philip's onward march. In Demosthenes Greece found a champion of her threatened liberties.

DEMOSTHENES AS AN ORATOR AND A PATRIOT

Demosthenes was the last, as well as the most famous, of the great Athenian orators. When he first began to speak, the citizens laughed at his long, involved sentences, over-rapid delivery, and awkward bearing. Friends encouraged him to persist, assuring him that, if the manner of his speeches was bad, their matter was worthy of Pericles. Numerous stories are told of the efforts made by Demosthenes to overcome his natural defects. He practiced gesturing before a mirror and, to correct a stammering pronunciation, recited verses with pebbles in his mouth. He would go down to the seashore during storms and strive to make his voice heard above the roar of wind and waves, in order the better to face the boisterous Assembly. Before long he came to be regarded as the prince of speakers even in the city of orators. Demosthenes was a man cast in the old heroic mold. His patriotic imagination had been fired by the great deeds once accomplished by free Greeks. Athens he loved with passionate devotion. Let her remember her ancient glories, he urged, and, by withstanding Philip, become the leader of Hellas in a second war for liberty.

LAST STRUGGLE OF THE GREEKS

The stirring appeals of the great orator at first had little effect. There were many friends of Philip in the Greek states, even in Athens itself. When, however, Philip entered central Greece and threatened the independence of its cities, the eloquence of Demosthenes met a readier response. In the presence of the common danger Thebes and Athens gave up their ancient rivalry and formed a defensive alliance against Philip. Had it been joined by Sparta and the other Peloponnesian states, it is possible that their united power might have hurled back the invader. But they held aloof.

BATTLE OF CHAERONEA, 338 B.C.

The decisive battle was fought at Chaeronea in Boeotia. On that fatal field the well-drilled and seasoned troops of Macedonia, headed by a master of the art of war, overcame the citizen levies of Greece. The Greeks fought bravely, as of old, and their defeat was not inglorious. Near the modern town of Chaeronea the traveler can still see the tomb where the fallen heroes were laid, and the marble lion set up as a memorial to their dauntless struggle.

PHILIP'S POLICY AS A CONQUEROR

Chaeronea gave Philip the undisputed control of Greece. But now that victory was assured, he had no intention of playing the tyrant. He compelled Thebes to admit a Macedonian garrison to her citadel, but treated Athens so mildly that the citizens were glad to conclude with him a peace which left their possessions untouched. Philip entered the Peloponnesus as a liberator. Its towns and cities welcomed an alliance with so powerful a protector against Sparta.

CONGRESS AT CORINTH, 337 B.C.

Having completely realized his design of establishing Macedonian rule over Greece, Philip's restless energy drove him forward to the next step in his ambitious program. He determined to carry out the plans, so long cherished by the Greeks, for an invasion of Asia Minor and, perhaps, of Persia itself. In the year 337 B.C. a congress of all the Hellenic states met at Corinth under Philip's presidency. The delegates voted to supply ships and men for the great undertaking and placed Philip in command of the allied forces. A Macedonian king was to be the captain-general of Hellas.

DEATH OF PHILIP, 336 B.C.

But Philip was destined never to lead an army across the Hellespont. Less than two years after Chaeronea he was killed by an assassin, and the scepter passed to his young son, Alexander.

41. ALEXANDER THE GREAT

THE YOUTHFUL ALEXANDER

Alexander was only twenty years of age when he became ruler of Macedonia. From his father he inherited the powerful Frame, the kingly figure, the masterful will, which made so deep an impression on all his contemporaries. His mother, a proud and ambitious woman, told him that the blood of Achilles ran in his veins, and bade him emulate the deeds of that national hero. We know that he learned the _Iliad_ by heart and always carried a copy of it on his campaigns. As he came to manhood, Alexander developed into a splendid athlete, skillful in all the sports of his rough-riding companions, and trained in every warlike exercise.

EDUCATION OF ALEXANDER BY ARISTOTLE

Philip believed that in Alexander he had a worthy son, for he persuaded Aristotle, [4] the most learned man in Greece, to become the tutor of the young prince. The influence of that philosopher remained with Alexander throughout life. Aristotle taught him to love Greek art and science, and instilled into his receptive mind an admiration for all things Grecian. Alexander used to say that, while he owed his life to his father, he owed to Aristotle the knowledge of how to live worthily.

ALEXANDER CRUSHES REBELLION

The situation which Alexander faced on his accession might well have dismayed a less dauntless spirit. Philip had not lived long enough to unite firmly his wide dominions. His unexpected death proved the signal for uprisings and disorder. The barbarous Thracians broke out in widespread rebellion, and the Greeks made ready to answer the call of Demosthenes to arms. But Alexander soon set his kingdom in order. After crushing the tribes of Thrace, he descended on Greece and besieged Thebes, which had risen against its Macedonian garrison. The city was soon captured; its inhabitants were slaughtered or sold into slavery; and the place itself was destroyed. The terrible fate of Thebes induced the other states to submit without further resistance.

SEEMING STRENGTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

With Greece pacified, Alexander could proceed to the invasion of Persia. Since the days of Darius the Great the empire had remained almost intact-- a huge, loosely-knit collection of many different peoples, whose sole bond of union was their common allegiance to the Great King. [5] Its resources were enormous. There were millions of men for the armies and untold wealth in the royal treasuries. Yet the empire was a hollow shell.

EXPEDITION OF THE "TEN THOUSAND," 401-400 B.C.

Some seventy years before Alexander set forth on his expedition the Greeks had witnessed a remarkable disclosure of the military weakness of Persia. One of those rare revolts which troubled the security of the Persian Empire broke out in Asia Minor. It was headed by Cyrus the Younger, a brother of the Persian monarch. Cyrus gathered a large body of native troops and also hired about ten thousand Greek soldiers. He led this mixed force into the heart of the Persian dominions, only to fall in battle at Cunaxa, near Babylon. The Greeks easily routed the enemy arrayed against them, but the death of Cyrus made their victory fruitless. In spite of their desperate situation the Greeks refused to surrender and started to return homewards. The Persians dogged their footsteps, yet never ventured on a pitched battle. After months of wandering in Assyria and Armenia the little band of intrepid soldiers finally reached Trapezus, (Modern Trebizond) a Greek city on the Black Sea.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EXPEDITION

The story of this invasion of Persia and the subsequent retreat was written by the Athenian Xenophon [6] in his _Anabasis_. It is one of the most interesting books that have come down to us from antiquity. We can judge from it how vivid was the impression which the adventures of the "Ten Thousand" made on the Greeks of Xenophon's time. A small army had marched to the center of the Persian dominions, had overcome a host many times its size, and had returned to Greece in safety. It was clear proof that the Persian power, however imposing on the outside, could offer no effective resistance to an attack by a strong force of disciplined Greek soldiers. Henceforth the Greeks never abandoned the idea of an invasion of Persia.

ALEXANDER'S INVASION

The gigantic task fell, however, to Alexander, as the champion of Hellas against the "barbarians." With an army of less than forty thousand men Alexander destroyed an empire before which, for two centuries, all Asia had been wont to tremble. History, ancient or modern, contains no other record of conquests so widespread, so thorough, so amazingly rapid.

42. CONQUEST OF PERSIA AND THE FAR EAST, 334-323 B.C.

BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS, 334 B.C.

Alexander crossed the Hellespont in the spring of the year 334 B.C. He landed not far from the historic plain of Troy and at once began his march along the coast. Near the little river Granicus the satraps of Asia Minor had gathered an army to dispute his passage. Alexander at once led his cavalry across the river in an impetuous charge, which soon sent the Persian troops in headlong flight. The victory cost the Macedonians scarcely a hundred men; but it was complete. As Alexander passed southward, town after town opened its gates--first Sardis, next Ephesus, then all the other cities of Ionia. They were glad enough to be free of Persian control. Within a year Asia Minor was a Macedonian possession.

BATTLE OF ISSUS, 333 B.C.

In the meantime Darius III, the Persian king, had been making extensive preparations to meet the invader. He commanded half a million men, but he followed Alexander too hastily and had to fight in a narrow defile on the Syrian coast between the mountains and the sea. In such cramped quarters numbers did not count. The battle became a massacre, and only the approach of night stayed the swords of the victorious Macedonians. A great quantity of booty, including the mother, wife, and children of Darius, fell into Alexander's hands. He treated his royal captives kindly, but refused to make peace with the Persian king.

CAPTURE OF TYRE, 332 B.C.

The next step was to subdue the Phoenician city of Tyre, the headquarters of Persia's naval power. The city lay on a rocky island, half a mile from the shore. Its fortifications rose one hundred feet above the waves. Although the place seemed impregnable, Alexander was able to capture it after he had built a mole, or causeway, between the shore and the island. Powerful siege engines then breached the walls, the Macedonians poured in, and Tyre fell by storm. Thousands of its inhabitants perished and thousands more were sold into slavery. The great emporium of the East became a heap of ruins.

ALEXANDER IN EGYPT

From Tyre Alexander led his ever-victorious army through Syria into Egypt. The Persian forces here offered little resistance, and the Egyptians themselves welcomed Alexander as a deliverer. The conqueror entered Memphis in triumph and then sailed down the Nile to its western mouth, where he laid the foundations of Alexandria, a city which later became the metropolis of the Orient.

ALEXANDER IN LIBYA

Another march brought Alexander to the borders of Libya, Here he received the submission of Cyrene, the most important Greek colony in Africa. [7] Alexander's dominions were thus extended to the border of the Carthaginian possessions. It was at this time that Alexander visited a celebrated temple of the god Amon, located in an oasis of the Libyan desert. The priests were ready enough to hail him as a son of Amon, as one before whom his Egyptian subjects might bow down and adore. But after Alexander's death his worship spread widely over the world, and even the Roman Senate gave him a place among the gods of Olympus.

BATTLE OF ARBELA, 331 B.C.

The time had now come to strike directly at the Persian king. Following the ancient trade routes through northern Mesopotamia, Alexander crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris and, on a broad plain not far from the ruins of ancient Nineveh, [8] found himself confronted by the Persian host. Darius held an excellent position and hoped to crush his foe by sheer weight of numbers. But nothing could stop the Macedonian onset; once more Darius fled away, and once more the Persians, deserted by their king, broke up in hopeless rout.

END OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

The battle of Arbela decided the fate of the Persian Empire. It remained only to gather the fruits of victory. The city of Babylon surrendered without a struggle. Susa, with its enormous treasure, fell into the conqueror's hands. Persepolis, the old Persian capital, was given up to fire and sword. [9] Darius himself, as he retreated eastward, was murdered by his own men. With the death of Darius the national war of Greece against Persia came to an end.

CONQUEST OF IRAN

The Macedonians had now overrun all the Persian provinces except distant Iran and India. These countries were peopled of by warlike tribes of a very different stamp from the effeminate Persians. Alexander might well have been content to leave them undisturbed, but the man could never rest while there were still conquests to be made. Long marches and much hard fighting were necessary to subdue the tribes about the Caspian and the inhabitants of the countries now known as Afghanistan and Turkestan.

CONQUEST OF INDIA

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."

FUSION OF EAST AND WEST

The ultimate result of Alexander's conquests was the fusion of East and West. He realized that his new empire must contain a place for Oriental, as well as for Greek and East and Macedonian, subjects. It was Alexander's aim, therefore, to build up a new state in which the distinction between the European and the Asiatic should gradually pass away. He welcomed Persian nobles to his court and placed them in positions of trust. He organized the government of his provinces on a system resembling that of Darius the Great. [11] He trained thousands of Persian soldiers to replace the worn-out veterans in his armies. He encouraged by liberal dowries mixed marriages between Macedonians and Orientals, and himself wedded the daughter of the last Persian king. To hold his dominions together and provide a meeting place for both classes of his subjects, he founded no less than seventy cities in different parts of the empire. Such measures as these show that Alexander had a mind of wide, even cosmopolitan, sympathies. They indicate the loss which ancient civilization suffered by his untimely end.

44. HELLENISTIC KINGDOMS AND CITIES

THE THREE GREAT KINGDOMS

The half century following Alexander's death is a confused and troubled period in ancient history. The king had left no legitimate son--no one with an undisputed title to the succession. On his deathbed Alexander had himself declared that the realm should go "to the strongest." [12] It was certain, under these circumstances, that his possessions would become the prey of the leading Macedonian generals. The unwieldy empire at length broke in pieces. Out of the fragments arose three great states, namely, Macedonia, Egypt, and Syria. The kingdom of Egypt was ruled by Ptolemy, one of Alexander's generals. Seleucus, another of his generals, established the kingdom of Syria. It comprised nearly all western Asia. These kingdoms remained independent until the era of Roman conquest in the East.

MINOR INDEPENDENT STATES

Several small states also arose from the break-up of Alexander's empire. [13] Each had its royal dynasty, its capital city, and its own national life. Thus the conquests of Alexander, instead of establishing a world- power under one ruler, led to the destruction of the unity of government which Persia had given to the East.

CITY LIFE IN THE ORIENT

More significant for the history of civilization than these kingdoms were the Hellenistic [14] cities, which from the time of Alexander arose in every part of the eastern world. Some were only garrison towns in the heart of remote provinces or outposts along the frontiers. Many more, however, formed busy centers of trade and industry, and became seats of Greek influence in the Orient. Such cities were quite unlike the old Greek city-states. [15] They were not free and independent, but made a part of the kingdom in which they were situated. The inhabitants consisted of Greeks and Macedonians, comprising the governing class, together with native artisans and merchants who had abandoned their village homes for life in a metropolis. In appearance, also, these cities contrasted with those of old Greece. They had broad streets, well paved and sometimes lighted at night, enjoyed a good water supply, and possessed baths, theaters, and parks.

ALEXANDRIA

In the third century B.C. the foremost Hellenistic city was Alexandria. It lay on a strip of flat, sandy land separating Lake Mareotis from the Mediterranean. On the one side was the lake-harbor, connected with the Nile; on the other side were two sea-harbors, sheltered from the open sea by the long and narrow island of Pharos. [16] The city possessed a magnificent site for commerce. It occupied the most central position that could be found in the ancient world with respect to the three continents, Africa, Asia, and Europe. The prosperity which this port has enjoyed for more than two thousand years is ample evidence of the wisdom which led to its foundation.

ANTIOCH

The chief city in the kingdom of Syria was splendid and luxurious Antioch. It lay in the narrow valley of the Orontes River, so close to both the Euphrates and the Mediterranean that it soon became an important commercial center. The city must have been a most delightful residence, with its fine climate, its location on a clear and rapid stream, and the near presence of the Syrian hills. In the sixth century A.D. repeated earthquakes laid Antioch in ruins. The city never recovered its prosperity, though a modern town, Antakia, still marks the site of the once famous capital.

PERGAMUM

Asia Minor, during this period, contained many Hellenistic cities. One of the most important was Pergamum, the capital of a small but independent kingdom of the same name. Its rulers earned the gratitude of all the Greeks by their resistance to the terrible Gauls. About fifty years after Alexander's death this barbarous people, pouring down from central Europe, had ravaged Greece and invaded Asia Minor. The kings of Pergamum celebrated their victories over the Gauls with so many works of architecture and sculpture that their city became the artistic rival of Athens.

RHODES

One other great Hellenistic center existed in the island city of Rhodes. Founded during the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, Rhodes soon distanced Athens in the race for commercial supremacy. The merchants of Rhodes framed admirable laws, especially for business affairs, and many of these were incorporated in the Roman code. Rhodes was celebrated for art. No less than three thousand statues adorned the streets and public buildings. It was also a favorite place of education for promising orators and writers. During Roman days many eminent men, Cicero and Julius Caesar among them, studied oratory at Rhodes.

45. THE HELLENISTIC AGE

HELLENISTIC LITERATURE

These splendid cities in the Orient were the centers of much literary activity. Their inhabitants, whether Hellenic or "barbarian," used Greek as a common language. During this period Greek literature took on a cosmopolitan character. It no longer centered in Athens. Writers found their audiences in all lands where Greeks had settled. At the same time literature became more and more an affair of the study. The authors were usually professional bookmen writing for a bookish public. They produced many works of literary criticism, prepared excellent grammars and dictionaries, but wrote very little poetry or prose of enduring value.

THE MUSEUM AT ALEXANDRIA

The Hellenistic Age was distinguished as an age of learning. Particularly was this true at Alexandria, where the Museum, founded by the first Macedonian king of Egypt, became a real university. It contained galleries of art, an astronomical observatory, and even zoological and botanical gardens. The Museum formed a resort for men of learning, who had the leisure necessary for scholarly research. The beautiful gardens, with their shady walks, statues, and fountains, were the haunt of thousands of students whom the fame of Alexandria attracted from all parts of the civilized world.

THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY

In addition to the Museum there was a splendid library, which at one time contained over five hundred thousand manuscripts--almost everything that had been written in antiquity. The chief librarian ransacked private collections and purchased all the books he could find. Every book that entered Egypt was brought to the Library, where slaves transcribed the manuscript and gave a copy to the owner in place of the original. Before this time the manuscripts of celebrated works were often scarce and always in danger of being lost. Henceforth it was known where to look for them.

SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES

The Hellenistic Age was remarkable for the rapid advance of scientific knowledge. Most of the mathematical works of the Greeks date from this epoch. Euclid wrote a treatise on geometry which still holds its place in the schools. Archimedes of Syracuse, who had once studied at Alexandria, made many discoveries in engineering. A water screw of his device is still in use. He has the credit for finding out the laws of the lever. "Give me a fulcrum on which to rest," he said, "and I will move the earth." The Hellenistic scholars also made remarkable progress in medicine. The medical school of Alexandria was well equipped with charts, models, and dissecting rooms for the study of the human body. During the second century of our era all the medical knowledge of antiquity was gathered up in the writings of Galen (born about 130 A.D.). For more than a thousand years Galen of Pergamum remained the supreme authority in medicine.

ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE COMPARED

In scientific work it seems as if the Greeks had done almost all that could be accomplished by sheer brain power aided only by rude instruments. They had no real telescopes or microscopes, no mariner's compass or chronometer, and no very delicate balances. Without such inventions the Greeks could hardly proceed much farther with their researches. Modern scientists are perhaps no better thinkers than were those of antiquity, but they have infinitely better apparatus and can make careful experiments where the Greeks had to rely on shrewd guesses.

EXTENSION OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

During the Hellenistic Age men began to gain more accurate ideas regarding the shape and size of the habitable globe. Such events as the expedition of the "Ten Thousand" [17] and Alexander's conquests in central Asia and India brought new information about the countries and peoples of the Orient. During Alexander's lifetime a Greek named Pytheas, starting from Massilia, [18] made an adventurous voyage along the shores of Spain and Gaul and spent some time in Britain. He was probably the first Greek to visit that island.

ERATOSTHENES, ABOUT 276-194 B.C.

All this new knowledge of East and West was soon gathered together by Eratosthenes, the learned librarian of Alexandria. He was the founder of scientific geography. Before his time some students had already concluded that the earth is spherical and not flat, as had been taught in the Homeric poems. [19] Guesses had even been made of the size of the earth. Eratosthenes by careful measurements came within a few thousand miles of its actual circumference. Having estimated the size of the earth, Eratosthenes went on to determine how large was its habitable area. He reached the conclusion that the distance from the strait of Gibraltar to the east of India was about one-third of the earth's circumference. The remaining two-thirds, he thought, was covered by the sea. And with what seems a prophecy he remarked that, if it was not for the vast extent of the Atlantic Ocean, one might almost sail from Spain to India along the same parallel of latitude.

PTOLEMY

The next two centuries after Eratosthenes saw the spread of Roman rule over Greeks and Carthaginians in the Mediterranean and over the barbarous inhabitants of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. The new knowledge thus gained was summed up in the Greek _Geography_ by Ptolemy [20] of Alexandria. His famous map shows how near he came to the real outlines both of Europe and Asia.

THE PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM

Ptolemy was likewise an eminent astronomer. He believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun, planets, and fixed stars all revolved around it. This Ptolemaic system was not overthrown until the grand discovery of Copernicus in the sixteenth century of our era.

46. THE GRAECO-ORIENTAL WORLD

THE NEW LUXURY

The Hellenistic Age was characterized by a general increase in wealth. The old Greeks and Macedonians, as a rule, had been content to live plainly. Now kings, nobles, and rich men began to build splendid palaces and to fill them with the products of ancient art--marbles from Asia Minor, vases from Athens, Italian bronzes, and Babylonian tapestries. They kept up great households with endless lords in waiting, ladies of honor, pages, guards, and servants. Soft couches and clothes of delicate fabric replaced the simple coverlets and coarse cloaks of an earlier time. They possessed rich carpets and hangings, splendid armor and jewelry, and gold and silver vessels for the table. The Greeks thus began to imitate the luxurious lives of Persian nobles.

THE SEA ROUTE TO INDIA

These new luxuries flowed in from all parts of the ancient world. Many came from the Far East in consequence of the rediscovery of the sea route to India, by Alexander's admiral, Nearchus. [21] The voyage of Nearchus was one of the most important results of Alexander's eastern conquests. It established the fact, which had long been forgotten, that one could reach India by a water route much shorter and safer than the caravan roads through central Asia. [22] Somewhat later a Greek sailor, named Harpalus, found that by using the monsoons, the periodic winds which blow over the Indian Ocean, he could sail direct from Arabia to India without laboriously following the coast. The Greeks, in consequence, gave his name to the monsoons.

ORIENTAL INFLUENCE ON THE GREEKS

All this sudden increase of wealth, all the thousand new enjoyments with which life was now adorned and enriched, did not work wholly for good. With luxury there went, as always, laxity in morals. Contact with the vice and effeminacy of the East tended to lessen the manly vigor of the Greeks, both in Asia and in Europe. Hellas became corrupt, and she in turn corrupted Rome.

GREEK INFLUENCE ON THE ORIENT

Yet the most interesting, as well as the most important, feature of the age is the diffusion of Hellenic culture--the "Hellenizing" of the Orient. It was, indeed, a changed world in which men were now living. Greek cities, founded by Alexander and his successors, stretched from the Nile to the Indus, dotted the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian, and arose amid the wilds of central Asia. The Greek language, once the tongue of a petty people, grew to be a universal language of culture, spoken even by "barbarian" lips. And the art, the science, the literature, the principles of politics and philosophy, developed in isolation by the Greek mind, henceforth became the heritage of many nations.

THE NEW COSMOPOLITANISM

Thus, in the period after Alexander the long struggle between East and West reached a peaceful conclusion. The distinction between Greek and Barbarian gradually faded away, and the ancient world became ever more unified in sympathies and aspirations. It was this mingled civilization of Orient and Occident with which the Romans were now to come in contact, as they pushed their conquering arms beyond Italy into the eastern Mediterranean.

STUDIES

1. On an outline map indicate the routes of Alexander, marking the principal battle fields and the most important cities founded by him. Note, also, the voyage of Nearchus.

2. On an outline map indicate the principal Hellenistic kingdoms about 200 B.C.

3. Give the proper dates for (a) accession of Alexander; (b) battle of Issus; (c) battle of Arbela; and (d) death of Alexander.

4. In what sense was Chaeronea a decisive battle?

5. How is it true that the expedition of the Ten Thousand forms "an epilogue to the invasion of Xerxes and a prologue to the conquests of Alexander"?

6. How much can you see and describe in the Alexander Mosaic (illustration, page 123)?

7. Compare Alexander's invasion of Persia with the invasion of Greece by Xerxes.

8. Distinguish between the immediate and the ultimate results of Alexander's conquests.

9. Comment on the following statement: "No single personality, excepting the carpenter's son of Nazareth, has done so much to make the world we live in what it is as Alexander of Macedon."

10. How did the Macedonian Empire compare in size with that of Persia? With that of Assyria?

11. What modern countries are included within the Macedonian Empire under Alexander?

12. How did the founding of the Hellenistic cities continue the earlier colonial expansion of Greece?

13. Why were the Hellenistic cities the real "backbone" of Hellenism?

14. Why do great cities rarely develop without the aid of commerce? Were all the great cities in Alexander's empire of commercial importance?

15. Show how Alexandria has always been one of the meeting points between Orient and Occident.

16. How did the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 A.D. affect the commercial importance of Alexandria?

17. Name some of the great scientists of the Alexandrian age.

18. What were their contributions to knowledge?

19. Using the maps on pages 76 and 132, trace the growth of geographical knowledge from Homer's time to that of Ptolemy.

20. What parts of the world are most correctly outlined on Ptolemy's map?

21. "The seed-ground of European civilization is neither Greece nor the Orient, but a world joined of the two." Comment on this statement.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Webster, _Readings in Ancient History_, chapter xii, "Demosthenes and the Struggle against Philip"; chapter xiii, "Exploits of Alexander the Great."

[2] Philippi became noted afterwards as the first city in Europe where Christianity was preached. See _Acts_, xvi, 9.

[3] See the map between pages 68-69.

[4] See page 275.

[5] See page 39.

[6] See page 272.

[7] See page 90.

[8] See page 36.

[9] See John Dryden's splendid ode, _Alexander's Feast_.

[10] See pages 20 and 39.

[11] See pages 39-40.

[12] Arrian, _Anabasis of Alexander_, vii, 26.

[13] See the map facing page 128.

[14] The term "Hellenic" refers to purely Greek culture; the term "Hellenistic," to Greek culture as modified by contact with Oriental life and customs.

[15] See page 81.

[16] The lighthouse on the island of Pharos was considered one of the "seven wonders" of the ancient world. The others were the hanging gardens and walls of Babylon, the pyramids, the Colossus of Rhodes, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and the statue of Zeus at Olympia.

[17] See page 120.

[18] See page 89.

[19] See page 74.

[20] Not to be confused with King Ptolemy (page 127).

[21] See page 125.

[22] See page 48.