PERSONAL INFLUENCE OF GREAT COMMANDERS IN THE PAST. 6 'J 



accomplished to a far greater degree than either he or his contem- 

 poraries were aware. Finally, it is remarkable that both these 

 great leaders died in early manhood. 



A brief res mm of the careers of each of these seems essentia l 

 to a proper presentation of the subject. I feel I owe an apology 

 to such an audience as this for presenting such a summary of 

 well-known historical facts, but it is necessary to have the 

 broad outlines fresh in memory if we are to derive from them 

 the deductions which we seek. In thus revie\^dng the careers 

 of the two great leaders, endeavour will be made to avoid purely 

 technical details, and confine attention to the main operations 

 and the nature of the tasks presented. 



In the middle of the fourth century B.C., when Alexander 

 was born, the Persian Empire extended from the ^gean to the 

 Indus, and from the Caucasus to the Sudan. It had endeavoured 

 to extend its sway over Europe too, and had made various 

 partially successful efforts in this direction, but at the time to 

 which we refer, the Greek confederacy had resisted the Persians, 

 and the Kingdom of Macedon under Phihp, which extended 

 from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was the most powerful of the 

 Greek states, and possessed a well organised and disciphned 

 army. The Persian rule, immensely powerful though it was, 

 had degenerated from the days of C^tus and Darius Hystaspes, 

 and was not the vigorous vital force that it had been a century 

 or so earlier. Philip, indeed, so far realised this that he was 

 contemplating a campaign against this formidable power at 

 the time when he had consohdated his own kingdom from being 

 a small province to the most thriving and powerful state in 

 Hellas. But his warlike intentions against the Persian Empire 

 were cut short, for he died, leaving to his son Alexander, then 

 only twenty years old, the heritage of a great cause, and to some 

 extent the means of carrying it into effect. The cause was the 

 freedom of the civilised world from the menace of the Persian 

 tjTanny ; the means was the army of Macedonia, organised, 

 armed and disciphned in a better fashion than any then existing. 



Alexander had already shown his aptitude for the task 

 before him. As a lad of sixteen he had been left as regent at 

 the capital when his father was absent on a campaign, and had 

 not only conducted the business of the State wisely, but had put 

 down a revolt of a Balkan tribe. Later on, w^hen eighteen years 

 of age, he had been entrusted by his father wdth the command 

 of the cavalry of the left wing of the Macedonian army against 



