Alexander's Empire

“ His conquests extended over a period of only twelve years, yet they were greater and more dazzling than any man ever made before in a long reign. Had he lived to be fifty, he might have subdued the whole world, and created a universal empire equal to that of the Cæsars—which was the result of five hundred years' uninterrupted conquests by the greatest generals of a military nation. Though we neither love nor reverence Alexander, we can not withhold our admiration, for his almost superhuman energy, courage, and force of will. ”

“ Had Alexander even at the moment of his greatest strength directed his forces westward instead of east, he would have found a different world and encountered a sturdier resistance. He himself recognized this, and during his last years was gathering all the resources of his unwieldy empire, to hurl them against Carthage and against Italy. What the issue might have been no man can say. Alexander's death ended forever the impossible attempt to unite his race. Once more and until the end, Grecian strength was wasted against itself. ”

“ And after they had spent many days in the passage, and were wearied of the wild waste where no water was, and the high hills and the hollows and the broad plains, the Greeks began to murmur among themselves, and to ask, “Why should we do more, since we have conquered the Persians, and seized the empire which formerly took tribute of our fathers? This land of India is inhabited but by beasts, and as for Alexander, he lives but for fighting, and if he lived in peace he would die as if he were starved. Let us leave him to fight with these barbarians, and go home in peace.” ”

“ Alexander, when he sighed for more worlds to conquer, had in reality made himself lord of less than a quarter of Asia and of about one-sixtieth part of Europe.
No man and no nation has ever yet been intrusted with the government of the entire globe. None has proved sufficiently fitted for the giant task. Each empire has been, as it were, but an experiment ”

“ The Emperor Alexander was no longer his admirer and faithful ally. The vast extension of the Empire had weakened his power, and the French people were beginning to discover how dearly they were paying in the sacrifice of their individual liberty for the glory of one man. His wanton interference in Spain had raised a new force against him in the shape of the resistance of a nation, and had afforded the English an opportunity to meet him on land. In Germany, too, a national spirit was rising, and Prussia, which he had maltreated, was reorganised, and ready to set itself at the head of Germany. ”

“ The Legions were then severely disciplined, the central power was established, and the seeds of ruin had not then brought forth their wretched fruits. But in the fifth century nothing could have saved the Empire. Its decline had been rapid for two hundred years, until at last it became as weak as the Oriental monarchies which Alexander subdued. It fell like a decayed and rotten tree. As a political State all vitality had fled from it. The only remaining conservative forces came from Christianity; and Christianity was itself corrupted, and had become a part of the institutions of the State. ”

“ The real interest of this period, however, is to be looked for elsewhere than in Greece itself. Alexander’s career is one of the turning-points in history. He is one of the few to whom it has been given to modify the whole future of the human race. He originated two forces which Alexander’s empire. have profoundly affected the development of civilization. He created Hellenism, and he created for the western world the monarchical ideal. ”

“ Absolute monarchy was the only possible form for the empire. The founder of this empire, who bore as many wounds on his body as anyone among his veterans, who commanded in all battles in person, who himself, by ceaseless toil, carried on the business of administration, might well regard himself as the true king whose right to rule, even his master, Aristotle, did not dispute, though he questioned the possibility of such a man’s existence. But Alexander in no way regarded himself as a sovereign because he had the power. ”

“ The enduring importance of Alexander's conquests is to be estimated not by the duration of his own life and empire, or even by the duration of the kingdoms which his generals after his death formed out of the fragments of that mighty dominion. In every region of the world that he traversed, Alexander planted Greek settlements, and founded cities, in the populations of which the Greek element at once asserted its predominance. ”

“ Russia, under the system that Nicholas pursued, could not have seen Austria absorb Italy without resisting the process at any cost; but Alexander IV., [Footnote: I call the present czar Alexander the Fourth, as there have been three other Alexanders sovereigns of Russia; but he is generally styled Alexander the Second.] a wiser man than his father was, never would have gone to war to prevent it, his views being directed to those internal reforms the success of which is likely to create a Russian People, and to place his empire in a far higher position than it has ever yet occupied. ”

“ The poem is symbolical of the life and experience of Czar Alexander the Second of Russia. As a young man, enthusiastic and desirous to promote his country’s welfare, he set loose the turbulent and revolutionary powers slumbering in his gigantic empire, and they grew to such enormous proportions that even his power, great though it was, was insufficient to curb them ”

“ It is worthy of remark that when Alexander ascended the throne there did not exist in all Russia, not even in St. Petersburg, a single book-store. [29] The Russian sovereigns had wished to take from civilization only that which would add to their despotic power. Desiring to perpetuate the monopoly of authority, they sought to retain in their own hands the privileges of instruction. The impulse which Alexander had given to the cause of education spread throughout the empire, and the nobles, in the distant provinces, interested themselves in establishing schools. ”

“ Antipater and Craterus, and Antigonus, and Cassander, and Ptolemy, and Eumenes—these are but a few of the leaders among the men who at once began to quarrel about Alexander’s possessions, even to the neglect of the burial of Alexander’s body. It seems that Alexander had foreseen the inevitable faction, for the story was told that on his death-bed, he had been asked to whom he wished his empire to fall, and he had feebly answered, “to the best man!” ”

“ A few hours after the death of the Czar Nicholas, his son, heir, and successor, Alexander II., ascended the throne and the officers of the imperial house took the oaths of allegiance. The new Emperor in his manifesto to his subjects says—as his father devoted himself incessantly for the welfare of his Empire, “so do we also on ascending the throne of Russia, and of Poland and Finland, inseparable from it, take a solemn oath before God to regard the welfare of our Empire as our only object. ”

“ The worst thing he has done is that he has taught them how to organise their monstrous armies. The Emperor Alexander, it is said, intends to divide his Empire as did Diocletian, creating two Czars beside himself, and continuing the supreme monarch of the whole. ”

“ Hardly was the great European tragedy ended, when Alexander again turned sorrowfully toward the wronged millions of his Empire. He found that progress in civilization had but made the condition of the serfs worse. The newly ennobled parvenus were worse than the old boyars; they hugged the serf-system more lovingly and the serfs more hatefully. ”

“ The eunuch took an oath and said: "O king, thy wife is just as thou didst leave her; and Alexander is the best and most chaste of men." Upon this Darius stretched his hands towards heaven and prayed as follows:— "King Zeus, [1] to whom power has been assigned to regulate the affairs of kings among men, do thou now protect for me especially the empire of the Persians and Medes, as indeed thou didst give it to me. But if I am no longer king of Asia according to thy behest, at any rate do thou hand over my power to no other man but Alexander." ”

“ Alexander II., who now occupies the throne, was born the 29th of April, 1818. He is a young man of noble character and very thoroughly educated. At the age of sixteen, according to the laws of the empire, he was declared to be of age and took the oath of allegiance to the throne. From that time he lived by his father's side in the cabinet and in the court. His fare was frugal, his bed hard, and his duties arduous in the extreme. In April, 1841, he married the princess Maria, daughter of the Grand Duke of Darmstadt. ”

“ The machine of empire had not functioned altogether smoothly while the king had been absent, and on Alexander’s re-appearance many incapables and rogues in high office had to be replaced by better men. In Carmania, in Persis, complaints from the provinces continued to reach him, as well as the news of disorders in Macedonia and Greece. New orders and appointments served to bring the empire into hand again, and at Susa in the spring of 324 Alexander rested, the task of conquering and compassing the Achaemenian realm achieved. ”

“ Her great military power was not only taken away from the strength of Europe, but the greater part of her celebrated army was incorporated with the armies of those vassal states, which the common enemy had created for the purpose of forwarding his views to universal empire. The pride of Russia has been completely humbled at the battle of Friedland, and by the disgraceful treaty of Tilsit. The Emperor Alexander convinced the world, that no hopes were to be formed from any thing of firmness or vigour, which had hitherto been supposed to belong to his private character. ”

“ In the foreign policy of the empire Alexander III. likewise introduced considerable changes. During his father's reign Foreign policy. its main objects were: in the west, the maintenance of the alliance with Germany; in south-eastern Europe, the recovery of what had been lost by the Crimean War, the gradual weakening of the Sultan's authority, and the increase of Russian influence among the minor Slav nationalities; in Asia, the gradual but cautious expansion of Russian domination. In the reign of Alexander III. the first of these objects was abandoned. ”

“ And still he was not a Lydian or Phoenician, but a man who from his descent ought to have had a share of the spirit of Philip and Alexander, who made all their conquests by the principle that empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. ”

“ Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world ”

“ Thus the Empire of the Greeks, which at first brake into four kingdoms, became now reduced into two notable ones, henceforward called by Daniel the kings of the South and North. For Ptolemy now reigned over Egypt, Lybia, Ethiopia, Arabia, Phœnicia, Cœlosyria, and Cyprus; and Seleucus, having united three of the four kingdoms, had a dominion scarce inferior to that of the Persian Empire, conquered by Alexander the great. All which is thus represented by Daniel: [2] And the king of the South [Ptolemy] shall be strong, and one of his Princes [Seleucus, one of Alexander's Princes] ”

“ The pois'nous Vapor blots the purple Skies,
And withers all before it as it flies.
A Troop came next, who Crowns and Armour wore,
And proud Defiance in their Looks they bore:
For thee (they cry'd) amidst Alarms and Strife,
We sail'd in Tempests down the Stream of Life;
For thee whole Nations fill'd with Flames and Blood,
And swam to Empire thro' the purple Flood.
Those Ills we dar'd thy Inspiration own,
And all that Virtue seem'd was done for thee alone. ”

“ All the Hellenistic states had thus been completely subjected to the protectorate of Rome, and the whole empire of Alexander the Great had fallen to the Roman commonwealth just as if the city had inherited it from his heirs. From all sides kings and ambassadors flocked to Rome to congratulate her; and they showed that fawning is never more abject than when kings are in the antechamber. ”

“ Modern history knows no more tragic figure than that of Alexander. The brilliant promise of his early years; the haunting memory of the crime by which he had obtained the power to realize his ideals; and, in the end, the terrible legacy he left to Russia: a principle of government which, under lofty pretensions, veiled a tyranny supported by spies and secret police; an uncertain succession; an army permeated by organized disaffection; an armed Poland, whose hunger for liberty the tsar had whetted but not satisfied; the quarrel with Turkey, with its alternative of war or humiliation for Russia ”

“ That such a youthful prince should be selected by so powerful a confederation of nations as their leader in such an enterprise as they were about to engage in, indicates a most extraordinary power on his part of acquiring an ascendency over the minds of men, and of impressing all with a sense of his commanding superiority. Alexander returned to Macedon from his expedition to the southward in triumph, and began at once to arrange the affairs of his kingdom, so as to be ready to enter, unembarrassed, upon the great career of conquest which he imagined was before him. ”