154 COSMOS. 



introduction from the west of Hellenic cultivation. This cul- 

 tivation, blended with the knowledge of the Arabians, the mod- 

 ern Persians and Indians, extended its influence in so great a 

 degree even to the time of the Middle Ages, that it is often 

 difficult to determine the elements which are due to Greek 

 hteratuie, and those which have originated, independently of 

 all admixture, from the inventive spirit of the Asiatic races. 



The principle of unity, or, rather, the feeling of the benefi- 

 cent political influence incorporated in this principle, was deep- 

 ly implanted in the breast of the great conqueror, as is testified 

 by all the arrangements of his poiity ; and its application to 

 Greece itself was a subject that had already early been incul- 

 cated upon him by his great teacher. In the Politica of Aris 

 totle we read as follows :* •' The Asiatic nations are not de- 

 ficient in activity of mind and artistic ingenuity, yet they live 

 in subjection and servitude without evincing the courage nec- 

 essary for resistance, while the Greeks, valiant and energetic, 

 living in freedom, and, therefore, well governed, 77iight, if they 

 %vere united into mie state, exercise dominion over all barba- 

 rians." Thus wrote the Stagirite during his second stay at 

 Athens,! before Alexander had passed the Granicus. These 

 dogmas of the philosopher, however corc-rary to nature he 

 may have professed to consider an unlimited dominion (the 

 7ran6aaiXeia), no doubt made a more vivid impression on the 

 conqueror than the fantastic narrations of Ctesias respecting 

 India, to which August Wilhelm von Schlegel, and, prior to 

 him, Ste. Croix, ascribed so important an influence. $ 



In the preceding pages we have attempted to give a brief 

 delineation of the sea as a means of furthering international 

 contact and union, and of the influence exercised in this re- 

 spect by the extended navigation of the Phoenicians, Cartha- 

 ginians, Tyrrhenians, and Etruscans. We have further shown 

 how the Greeks, whose maritime power was strengthened by 

 numerous colonies, endeavored to penetrate beyond the basin 

 of the Mediterranean toward the east and the west by the 

 Argonautic expedition from lolcus, and.by the voyage of Co- 

 Iseus of Samos ; and, lastly, how the fleet of Solomon and 

 Hiram visited distant gold lands in their voyages to Ophii 

 through the Red Sea. The present section will lead us to the 



* Aristot., Polit., vii., 7, p. 1327, Bekker. (Compare, also, iii., 16, 

 and the remarkable passage of Eratosthenes in Strabo, lib. i., p. Q^ and 

 97, Casaub.) t Stahr, Aristotelia, th. ii., s. 114. 



X Ste. Croix, Examen Critique des Historiens cf Alexandre, p. 731. 

 (Schlegel, Ind. Bibliotkek, bd. i., s. 1.50.) 



