ALEXANDER THE GREAT 



177 



ALEXANDRA 



Darius, meantime, had collected another vast 

 army, numbering, it is said, over a million men. 

 On the plains of Arbela, near the . city of 

 Nineveh, the two armies met in battle. The 

 Macedonians, though consisting of not more 

 than 47,000 infantry and cavalry, were highly 

 disciplined, and they drove the Persian hordes 

 from the field with terrible slaughter. Arbela, 

 one of the fifteen decisive battles of history, 

 marked the end of the struggle between Orien- 

 tal and Western civilizations. The triumphant 

 Macedonian ruler next led his army to the 

 city of Babylon, which submitted to him with- 

 out striking a blow. Susa and Persepolis, each 

 of which yielded him vast treasures of gold 

 and silver, were his next prizes of war; the 

 inhabitants of the latter city were either mas- 

 sacred or sold into slavery. 



Alexander had come by this time to regard 

 himself as the successor of Darius, who had 

 been slain by one of his own generals after his 

 flight from the field of Arbela. In carrying out 

 his plans as a world-conqueror he led his army 

 to remote regions, subduing tribes that dwelt 

 along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, 

 and the peoples of Bactria and Sogdiana, be- 

 yond the towering Hindu-Kush range. Many 

 cities, some bearing his own name, were 

 founded along his victorious march. In Sog- 

 diana he killed his dearest friend Clitus, during 

 a drunken quarrel an act that overwhelmed 

 him with remorse and showed him that though 

 he was a conqueror of cities, he could not rule 

 his own spirit. 



The next country to acknowledge his prowess 

 was India. Its fertile and populous plains were 

 reached in 327 B.C. Nearly all of its native 

 rulers submitted to him, and only the com- 

 plaints of his toil-worn soldiers kept him from 

 extending his conquests as far east as the 



r Ganges. It was therefore an opportune 



for him to carry out a project that 



savored of peace rather than of war to redis- 



r a lost water route betw.m the Indus 

 and the Euphrates rivers. Sailing down the 



s, he founded another Alexandria at the 

 head of the delta, and then proceeded to tin 

 mouth of the river, which he discovered had its 

 outlet in a great sea, the Indian Ocean. With 

 the greater part of his army he now followed 



coast westward, while his trusted adn 

 Nearchus, was commissioned to explore the 

 sea with a fleet. Two months later the two 

 joined each other in Carmania, in Southeastern 

 Persia, and Alexander learned with joy that 

 tin- lost route had been successfully navigated. 



12 



Alexander was now the sole ruler of a vast 

 realm stretching from the Ionian Sea to the 

 Indus River, and his ambitious spirit projected 

 brilliant schemes for the consolidation of what 

 was practically the civilized world. He con- 

 templated nothing less than the union of all 

 the nations into one great family, with one 

 language and a common civilization. Not only 

 did he himself marry an Asiatic wife the 

 daughter of Darius but he persuaded thou- 

 sands of his soldiers to follow his example. 

 He hoped even to make the continents of 

 Europe and Asia correspond in their natural 

 wealth, by transplanting the vegetation of one 

 to the other. Babylon was chosen as the capi- 

 tal city of the great Empire. Unfortunately 

 for the outcome of these plans, Alexander, 

 whom Themistocles correctly judged to be 

 "greater in genius than in character," was given 

 to debauchery and shameful excesses, and in 

 323 B.C., when he was but thirty-three years 

 of age, he died of a fever brought on by self- 

 indulgence. His body was conveyed to the 

 Egyptian city of Alexandria, and over his coffin 

 was erected a magnificent mausoleum. After 

 his death his great Empire was divided among 

 several rulers. 



His Character. Because of his military 

 genius, his interest in art, literature and science, 

 his ability as an organizer, and his far-reaching 

 plans for the blending of the nations, Alex- 

 ander deserves truly to bear his title "the 

 Great." The extraordinary talents of the man 

 overshadow the defects that marred his char- 

 acter his lack of self-control, his occasional 

 outbursts of vindictive cruelty, his inordinate 

 vanity. Yet he could be most kind and gen- 

 erous, and there was not one hardship suf- 

 fered by his soldiers which he himself did not 

 endure. Whatever be the final estimate of his 

 character, the achievements of Alexander the 

 Great will stand out in bold outline so long as 

 >ry is read. To him the world owes the 

 preservation of Greek culture at a time when 

 th< re was danger that Oriental ideals would 

 dominate both the East and the West. By 

 introducing the spirit of Greek civilisation to 

 peoples of Egypt and Western Asia, he 

 1 ii<i the foundations for the spread of Christian 

 teachings, three centuries later. w. B.L. 



Consult Mahaffy'a The Story of Alexander 1 * 

 Empire; Crete's History of Greece. 



ALEXAN'DRA (1844- ), daughter of 



i:,n IX Q| Denmark and wife of K.iward 



VII of England. Since the death of the latter, 



in 1910, she has been honored as the queen- 



