CHAPTER XLVIII - RETROSPECTIVE SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF PERSIA FROM THE PEACE OF ANTALCIDAS TO ALEXANDER'S ACCESSION

Summary

Alexander's invasion of Asia might well form the subject of a separate work: but it belongs rather to universal history than to the history of Greece. The Greeks indeed were deeply interested in the event: but the effect it produced on their condition might be sufficiently understood from a very summary account of the transactions by means of which it was brought about. Still it was not without reason that writers of Grecian history thought themselves called upon to relate this great triumph of Grecian arts and arms–for such it was, though they were employed by a people whom the Greeks themselves did not account worthy of their name–which spread a Greek population over the fairest provinces of Asia, and carried the Greek language, manners, and modes of thinking, from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Indus. It is now scarcely permitted to one who is traversing the same field to depart from their example. The reader however will not expect to see this subject treated here even with all the fulness of details into which we have entered in other portions of our narrative, which were more essential parts of a history of Greece. Our aim must be confined to a survey of the leading features of this ever memorable conquest, which may enable us to understand the spirit in which it was accomplished, and perhaps to judge of the designs as well as the achievements of the conqueror.