220 climbs, and perceives round him soldiers, either transfixed by the enemy's darts, or thrown headlong by huge stones over 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; for 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.

*

Plutarch in a treatise wherein he eulogizes Alexander, and exhibits him as an accomplished hero, gives a long detail of the several wounds he received in every part of his body; and pretends that the only design of fortune, in thus piercing him with wounds, was to make his courage to appear more conspicuous. A renowned warrior, whose eulogy Plutarch has drawn in another part of his writings, did not judge in this manner. Some persons applauding him for a wound he had received in battle, the general himself declared, that it was a fault which could be excused only in a young man, and justly deserved censure. It has been observed in Hannibal's praise, and I myself have taken notice of it elsewhere, that he was never wounded in all his battles.

The last observation, which relates in general to all Alexander's expeditions in Asia, must necessarily lessen very much the merit of his victories, and the splendour of his reputation; and this is, the genius and character of the nations against whom he fought. Livy, in a digression, where he inquires what would have been the fate of Alexander's arms, in case he had turned them toward Italy; and where he shows that Rome would certainly have checked his conquests, insists strongly on the reflection in question. He opposes to this prince, in the article of courage, a great number of illustrious Romans, who would have resisted him on all occasions; and in the article of prudence, that august senate, which Cyneas, to give a more noble idea of it to Pyrrhus his sovereign, said was composed of so many kings. "Had he marched," says Livy, “against the Romans, he would soon have found, that he was no longer combatting against a Darius, who, encumbered with gold and purple, the vain equipage of his grandeur, and dragging after him a multitude of women and eunuchs, came as a prey, rather than as an enemy; and whom Alexander conquered without shedding much blood, and without wanting any other merit, than that of daring to despise what was really contemptible. He would have found Italy very dif ferent from India, through which he marched in a riotous manner, his army quite stupified with wine; particularly when he should have seen the forests of Apulia, the mountains of Lucania, and the still recent footsteps of the defeat of Alexander, his uncle, king of Epirus, who there lost his life."§ The historian adds, that he speaks of Alexander, not yet depraved and corrupted by prosperity, whose subtile poison worked as strongly upon him as upon any man that ever lived; and he concludes, that being thus transformed, he would have appeared very different in Italy from what he seemed hitherto.

These reflections of Livy show, that Alexander partly owed his victories to the weakness of his enemies; and that, had he met with nations as courageous, and as well inured to all the hardships of war as the Romans, and commanded by as able, experienced generals as those of Rome, then his victories would not have been either so rapid, or so uninterrupted. From hence we are to Judge of the merits of a conqueror. Hanniblal and Scipio are considered as two of the greatest generals that ever lived, and for this reason, both of them

juvenile per

*Plut de Fortun. Alex. Orat. ii. p. 341. (This treatise, if written by Plutarch, seems a formance, and has very much the air of a declamation.) Timotheus, Plut. in Pelop. p. 278. Mention is made of but one single wound. Non jam cum Dario rem esse dixisset, quem mulierum ac spadonum agmen trahentem, inter purpuram atque aurum, oneratum fortunæ suæ apparatibus, prædam verius quam hostem, nihil aliud quam bene ausus vana contemnere, incruentus devicit. Longe alius Italiæ, quam İndiæ, per quam temulento agmine com messabundus incessit, visus illi habitus esset, saltus Apulia ac montes Lucanos cernenti, et vestigia recentia domestica cladis, ubi avunculus ejus nuper, Epiri Rex, Alexander absumptus erat -Liv. l. ix. n. 17.

not only understood perfectly the military science, but their experience, their abilities, their resolution and courage, were put to the trial, and set in the strongest light. Should we give to either of them an unequal antagonist, one whose reputation is not answerable to theirs, we shall no longer have the same idea of them, and their victories, though supposed alike, appear no longer with the same lustre, nor deserve the same applause.

Mankind are but too apt to be dazzled by shining actions and a pompous exterior, and blindly abandon themselves to prejudices of every kind. It cannot be denied that Alexander possessed very great qualities; but if we throw into the other scale his errors and vices, the presumptuous idea he entertained of his merit, the high contempt he had for other men, not excepting his own father; his ardent thirst for praise and flattery; his ridiculous notion of fancying himself the son of Jupiter; of ascribing divinity to himself; of requiring a free, victorious people to pay him a servile homage, and prostrate themselves ignominiously before him; his abandoning himself so shamefully to wine; his violent anger, which rises to brutal ferocity; the unjust and barbarous execution of his bravest and most faithful officers, and the murder of his most worthy friends, in the midst of feasts and carousals: can any one, says Livy, believe that all these imperfections do not greatly sully the reputation of a conqueror?* But Alexander's frantic ambition, which knew neither law nor limits; the rash intrepidity with which he braved dangers, without the least reason or necessity; the weakness and ignorance of the nations, totally unskilled in war, against whom he fought; do not these enervate the reasons for which he is thought to have merited the surname of Great, and the title of Hero? This, however, I leave to the prudence and equity of my reader.

As to myself, I am surprised to find that all orators who applaud a prince, never fail to compare him to Alexander. They fancy, that when he is once equalled to this king, it is impossible for panegyric to soar higher: they cannot imagine to themselves any thing more august; and think they have omitted the stroke which finishes the glory of a hero, should they not exalt him by this comparison. In my opinion, this denotes a false taste, a wrong turn of thinking; and, if I might be allowed to say it, a depravity of judgment, which must naturally shock a reasonable mind. For, as Alexander was invested with supreme power, he ought to have fulfilled the several duties of the sovereignty. We do not find that he possessed the first, the most essential, and most excellent virtues of a great prince, who is to be the father, the guardian, and shepherd of his people; to govern them by good laws; to make their trade, both by sea and land, flourish; to encourage and protect arts and sciences; to establish peace and plenty, and not suffer his subjects to be in any manner aggrieved or injured; to maintain an agreeable harmony between all orders of the state, and make them conspire, in due proportion, to the public welfare; to employ himself in doing justice to all his subjects, to hear their disputes, and reconcile them; to consider himself as the father of his people, consequently as obliged to provide for all their necessities, and to procure them the several enjoyments of life. Now, Alexander, who, almost a moment after he ascended the throne, left Macedonia, and never returned back into it, did not endeavour at any of these things, which however are the chief and most substantial duties of a great prince.

He seems to have possessed such qualities only as are of the second rank, I mean those of war, and these are all extravagant; and carried to the rashest and most odious excess, and to the extremes of folly and fury; while 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

*Referre in tanto Rege piget superbam mutationem vestis, et desideratus humi jacentium adulationes, etiam victis Macedonibus graves, nedum victoribus; et foeda supplicia, et inter vinum et epulas cædas ami Bonum, et vanitatem ementiende stirpis. Quid si vini amor in dies fieret acrior? quid si trux ac præfervida ira? (nec quicquam dubium inter scriptores refero) nullane hæc damna imperatoriis virtutibus ducimus }~~ Liv. l. ix. n. 17.

carried their oppression so far, that Alexander was forced to put them to death. Nor do his soldiers appear in a more advantageous light: for these, after hav ing plundered the wealth of the east, and after the prince had given them the highest marks of his beneficence, grew so licentious, so debauched and abandoned to vices of every kind, that he was forced to pay their debts, amounting to fifteen hundred thousand pounds.* What strange men were these! how depraved their school! how pernicious the fruit of their victories! Is it doing honour to a prince, is it adorning his panegyric, to compare him with such a model?

The Romans indeed seem to have held Alexander's memory in great veneration; but I very much question, whether, in the virtuous ages of the commonwealth, he would have been considered so great a man. Cæsar, seeing his statue in a temple in Spain, during his government of it, after his prætorship, could not forbear groaning and sighing, when he compared the few glorious actions achieved by himself. to the mighty exploits of this conqueror. It was said that Pompey, in one of us triumphs, appeared dressed in that king's surtout. Augustus pardoned the Alexandrians, for the sake of their founder. Caligula, in a ceremony in which he assumed the character of a mighty conqueror, wore Alexander's coat of mail. But no one carried their veneration for this monarch so far as Caracalla. He used the same kind of arms and goblets as that prince; he had a Macedonian phalanx in his army; he persecuted the Peripatetics, and would have burned all the books of Aristotle, their founder, because he was suspected to have conspired with those who poisoned Alexander.t

I believe that I may justly assert, that if an impartial person of good sense reads Plutarch's lives of illustrious men with attention, they will leave such a tacit and strong impression on his mind, as will make him consider Alexander one of the least valuable among them. But how strong would the contrast be found, had we the lives of Epaminondas, of Hannibal, and Scipio, the loss of which can never be too much regretted! How little would Alexander appear, set off with all his titles, and surrounded by all his conquests, even if considered in a military light, when compared to those heroes, who were truly great, and worthy their exalted reputation.

SECTION XX.-REFLECTIONS ON THE PERSIANS, GREEKS, AND MACEDONIANS, BY M. BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX.

The reader will not be displeased with my inserting here part of the admirable reflections* of the bishop of Meaux, on the character and government of the Persians, Greeks, and Macedonians, whose history we have heard.

The Greek nations, several of whom had at first lived under a monarchial form of government, having studied the arts of civil polity, imagined they were able to govern themselves, and most of their cities formed themselves into commonwealths. But the wise legislators, who arose in every country, as a Thales, a Pythagoras, a Pittacus, a Lycurgus, a Solon, and many others mentioned in history, prevented liberty from degenerating into licentiousness. Laws drawn up with great simplicity, and few in number, awed the people, held them in their duty, and made them all conspire to the general good of the country.

The idea of liberty which such a conduct inspired, was wonderful. For the liberty which the Greeks figured to themselves, was subject to the law, that is, to reason itself, acknowledged as such by the whole nation. They would not let men rise to power among them. Magistrates who were feared during their office, became afterwards private men, and had no authority but what their experience gave them. The law was considered as their sovereign; the law appointed magistrates, prescribed the limits of their power, and punished their mal-administration. The advantage of this government was, the citizens

* More than six millions of dollars.

+ Diod. 1. xxxvii. p. 53. App. de Bell. Mithrid. p. 253. Diod. 1. li. p. 454. Id. l. lix. p. 653. Id. L Ixxvii. p. 873. + Discourse on Universal History, Part iii. chap. 4.

bore so much the greater love to their country, as all shared in the government of it, and as every individual was capable of attaining its highest dignities.

The advantage which accrued to Greece from philosophy, with regard to the preservation of its form of government, was incredible. The greater freedom these nations enjoyed, the greater necessity there was to settle the laws relating to manners and those of society, agreeable to reason and good sense. From Pythagoras, Thales, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Archytas, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and many others, the Greeks received their noble precepts.

But why should we mention philosophers only? The writings of even the poets, which were in every body's hands, diverted them very much, but instructed them still more. The most renowned conquerors considered Homer as a master, who taught him to govern wisely. This great poet instructed people no less happily, in obedience, and the duties of a good citizen.

When the Greeks, thus educated, saw the delicacy of the Asiatics, their dress and beauty, emulating that of women, they held them in the utmost contempt. But their form of government, that had no other rule than their prince's will, which took place of all laws, not excepting the most sacred, inspired them with horror; and the barbarians were the most hateful objects to Greece.

The Greeks had imbibed this hatred in the most early times, and it was become almost natural to them.* A circumstance which made those nations delight so much in Homer's poems, was his celebrating the advantages and victories of Greece over Asia. On the side of Asia was Venus, that is to say, the pleasures, the idle loves, and effeminacy: on that of Greece was Juno, or, in other words, gravity with conjugal affection, Mercury with eloquence, and Jupiter with wise policy. With the Asiatics was Mars, an impetuous and brutal deity, that is to say, war carried on with fury; with the Greeks Pallas, or, in other words, the science of war and valour, conducted by reason. The Grecians, from this time, had ever imagined, that understanding and true bravery were natural as well as peculiar to them. They could not bear the thoughts of Asia's design to conquer them; and in bowing to this yoke, they would have thought they had subjected virtue to pleasure, the mind to the body, and true courage to force without reason, which consisted merely in numbers.

The Greeks were strongly inspired with these sentiments, when Darius, son of Hystaspes, and Xerxes, invaded them with armies so prodigiously numerous as exceeds all belief. The Persians found often, to their cost, the great advantage which discipline has over multitude and confusion; and how greatly superior courage, when conducted by art, is to a blind impetuosity.

Persia, after having been so often conquered by the Greeks, had nothing to do but to sow divisions among them; and the height to which conquest had raised the latter, facilitated this object. As, on the one hand, fear held them in the bands of union, so on the other, victory and security gave rise to and cherished dissentions among them. Having always been used to fight and conquer, they no sooner believed that the power of the Persians could not distress them, than they turned their arms against each other †

Among the several republics of which Greece was composed, Athens and Lacedæmon were undoubtedly the chief. These two great commonwealths, whose manners and conduct were directly opposite, perplexed and incommoded each other, in the common design they had of subjecting all Greece; so that they were eternally at variance, and this more from a contrariety of interests, than an opposition of tempers and dispositions.

The Grecian cities would not subject themselves to either, for besides that every one of them desired to live free and independent, they were not pleased with the government of either of those two commonwealths. We have shown, in the course of this history, that the Peloponnesian, and other wars, were either owing to, or supported by, the reciprocal jealousy of Lacedæmon and Athens. But at the same time that this jealousy disturbed, it supported Greece in some measure; and kept it from being dependent on either of those republics.

The Persians soon perceived this state and condition of Greece; after which, the whole secret of their politics was to keep up these jealousies, and foment these divisions. Lacedæmon, being the most ambitious, was the first that made them engage in the Grecian quarrels. The Persians took part in them, with a view of subjecting the whole nation; and, industrious to make the Greeks weaken one another, they only waited for the favourable instant to crush them altogether. The cities of Greece now considered, in their wars, only the kings of Persia, whom they called the great king, or the king, by way of eminence, as if they already thought themselves his subjects. But when Greece was upon the brink of slavery, and ready to fall into the hands of the barbarians, it was impossible for the genius, the ancient spirit of the country, not to rouse and take the alarm. Agesilaus, king of Lacedæmon, made the Persians tremble in Asia Minor, and showed that they might be humbled. Their weakness was still more evident, by the glorious retreat of the ten thousand Greeks who had followed the younger Cyrus.*

It was then that all Greece saw, more plainly than ever, that it possessed an invincible body of soldiery, which was able to subdue all nations; and that nothing but its feuds and divisions could subject it to an enemy who was too weak to resist it when united.

Philip of Macedon, a prince whose abilities were equal to his valour, took so great advantage of the divisions which reigned between the various cities and commonwealths, that though his kingdom was but small, yet, as it was united, and his power absolute, he at last, partly by artifice, and partly by strength, rose to greater power than any of the Grecian states, and obliged them all to march under his standard against the common enemy. This was the state of Greece when Philip lost his life, and Alexander his son succeeded to his kingdom, and to the designs he had projected.

The Macedonians, at his accession, were not only well disciplined and inured to toils, but triumphant; and become, by so many successes, almost as much superior to the other Greeks in valour and discipline, as the rest of the Greeks were superior to the Persians, and to such nations as resembled them.

Darius, who reigned over Persia in Alexander's time, was a just, brave, and generous prince; was beloved by his subjects, and wanted neither good sense nor vigour for the execution of his designs. But, if we compare them; if we oppose the genius of Darius, to the sublime penetration of Alexander; the valour of the former, to the mighty invincible courage of the latter; with that boundless desire of Alexander, of augmenting his glory, and his entire belief that all things ought to bow the neck to him, as being formed by Providence, superior to the rest of mortals; a belief with which he inspired, not only his generals, but the meanest of his soldiers, who thereby rose above difficulties, and even above themselves; the reader will easily judge which of the monarchs was to

be victorious.

If to these considerations we add the advantages which the Greeks and Macedonians had over their enemies, it must be confessed, that it was impossible for the Persian empire to subsist any longer, when invaded by so great a hero, and by such invincible armies. And thus we discover, at one and the same time, the circumstance which ruined the empire of the Persians, and raised that of Alexander.

To smooth his way to victory, the Persians happened to lose the only general who was able to make head against the Greeks, and this was Memnon of Rhodes. So long as Alexander fought against this illustrious warrior, he might glory in having vanquished an enemy worthy of himself. But in the very infancy of a diversion, which began already to divide Greece, Memnon died; after which Alexander obliged all things to give way before him.

This prince made his entrance into Babylon, with a splendour and magnificence which had never been seen before; and, after having revenged Greece,

* Plat. de Leg. 1. iii. Isocrat. in Panegyr.