Link Relations of Southwestern Asia 



295 



Assyrian rule, with its stead}^ coninier- 

 <:ial polic}-, its continuous extension 

 along trade routes which stretch to the 

 westward, the more northern toward 

 Antioch and the gates of Syria, the 

 more southern to the Phoenician cities — 

 always extending along these lines by 

 annexation and b}" treaties manifestly 

 intended to control trade. All these 

 early areas had been engulfed by the 

 Persian realm, which, as was later to be 

 repeated under the Abasside Caliphate, 

 held all the channels of trade, the south- 

 ern by sea and land on either side of the 

 Arabian Peninsula, the great mountain 

 routes which descend from Balkh or 

 from Cabul, and the lesser lines of travel 

 which reach the Persian plateau. Open 

 to trade and travel as these were, the 

 Phoenician exclusion had turned the 

 steady stream of Greek traders toward 

 the Bactrian routes and those w^hich 

 reached the Indus across the higher 

 passes of Asia. The direct routes were 

 impeded. The commerce which in the 

 second and the first half of the first mil- 

 lennium before Christ had made Nau- 

 cratis and the other Greek settlements in 

 Egypt centers of a trade which fed the 

 . obsidian works of Delos and enriched 

 the buildings of the Peloponnesus with 

 the work of Kgypt and Phoenicia was 

 closed. The Greek trader was present 

 only b}^ sufferance on the caravan routes 

 of Mesopotamia. Nothing so proves 

 the extent to which this trade was di- 

 verted to another channel as the wealth 

 of gold ornaments which the spade is 

 perpetualh^ turning up, all made within 

 a comparatively narrow period, in the 

 brief existence of Greek colonies in the 

 Tauric Chersonese and the adjacent 

 mainland. When in his easternmost 

 campaign Alexander was moving with 

 the skill and certainty of a man maneu- 

 vering and marching in an accustomed 

 region, it was undoubtedly because his 

 army was thick scattered with Greeks 

 who in trading expeditions had threaded 

 all the defiles which enter Bactria to 



the north or debouch upon the valley of 

 the Indus. 



His campaigns throughout are marked 

 b5'that intelligent and instinctive knowl- 

 edge of ph3^siographic conditions which 

 marks the great commander and sets 

 him apart from the mere winner of in- 

 dividual battles or the mere leader of 

 a charge. It was because Alexander 

 added this power to those other two, 

 both of which he had as only a few men 

 have ever possessed them, that he stands 

 alone in all the surge of conquest which 

 has ebbed and flowed over the narrow 

 region which joins the east to the west. 

 He began by winning at the Granicus, 

 the entrance to eastern Asia Minor, 

 wasting no time upon its internal con- 

 quest, an error from which Caesar later 

 was not wholly free, or his work would 

 not have been so soon undone. He 

 struck straight for the heads of the 

 great trade routes, passed around Asia 

 Minor, fought his great battle at the 

 very point where, as has already been 

 indicated, the great rift of the south 

 meets the rounding curve of the out- 

 work of the great system of mountains 

 which divide into two great channels 

 the course of Eurasian history north 

 and south, halted only for two great 

 sieges — one of Tyre, where he redressed 

 the long exclusion of generations from 

 the trade of the Eevant, and the other 

 of Gaza, which owed all its importance, 

 its garrison, and doubtless the selection 

 of a commander of the ability of Batis 

 to its position at the head of the trade 

 routes through the passes of Arabia 

 Petra. Holding the ends of the land 

 routes, he turned aside, and founding 

 Alexandria, established the supremacy 

 of the Greek trader for nearly five cen- 

 turies over the Red Sea. Alone of all 

 men who have struggled for this region, 

 Alexander seems to have divined that 

 his work could not be complete until he 

 had pushed his boundaries to the em- 

 treme limit of the physiographic terri- 

 tory which we are considering. His 



