From its origin to the death of Alexander the Great. B. C. 800—323.

1. An Hellenic colony from Argos, headed by the TemenidÆ, a branch of the HeraclidÆ, settled in Emathia, and laid the feeble foundation of the Macedonian empire, which was in time to rise to such power. Not only did the settlers keep their footing in the country, in spite of the aboriginal inhabitants; but their princes gradually extended their territory, by subjecting or expelling several of the neighbouring tribes. Their earlier history, not excepting even the names of their kings, is buried in obscurity till the time of the Persian invasions.

2. When the Persians commenced their incursions into Europe, Macedonia, by its situation, must have been one of the first countries they ravaged. Accordingly, as early as the reign of Darius Hystaspis, the Macedonian kings were tributary to the Persians; and were indebted for their deliverance from that yoke, not to their own valour, but to the victories of the Greeks. The battle of PlatÆÆ restored independence to the Macedonian kingdom, although that independence was not formally acknowledged by the Persians.

3. But the expulsion of the Persians still left Macedonia exposed to the attacks of other formidable neighbours; on one side there was the Thracians, among whom, under Sitalces, and his successor, Seuthes, arose the powerful kingdom of the OdrysÆ; on the other, the Athenians, who, availing themselves of their extensive navy, reduced to subjection the Grecian settlements on the Macedonian shores. Harassing as these neighbours were to the Macedonian kings, they proved to be the very instruments by which Macedonia became so early and so deeply involved in the affairs of Greece.

4. Archelaus, the successor of Perdiccas, introduced agriculture and civilization among the Macedonians, who were never, however, recognized by the Hellenes as their legitimate brethren: highways and military roads were constructed; forts were erected; and the court became the seat of literature. In these days the Macedonian kingdom seems to have comprised Emathia, Mygdonia, and Pelagonia, to which may be added some of the neighbouring tribes, who, although governed by their own kings, were tributary. The power of the kings was insignificant when unaided by the nobles, among whom, as was the case with all the hereditary princes of Greece, they merely held the right of precedence. How difficult was it, even in Alexander's time, to erase from the minds of the Macedonian nobility the recollection of their former importance!

5. The murder of Archelaus was followed by a stormy period, wrapped in obscurity: the unsettled state of the succession raised up many pretenders to the throne, each of whom easily found the means of supporting his claims, either in some of the neighbouring tribes, or in one of the Grecian republics.

6. The three sons of Amyntas II, Alexander, Perdiccas, and Philip, successively ascended the throne after the death of their father; but so violent were the commotions during the reigns of the two former, that the future existence of Macedonia as a kingdom might have been regarded as problematical: it is certain that they were obliged to submit to the payment of tribute to the Illyrians.

7. The reign of Philip, which lasted twenty-four years, is one of the most instructive and interesting in the whole range of history, as well on account of the prudence he displayed, as for the manner in which his plans were arranged and executed. Though it may be difficult to trace in his morals the pupil of Epaminondas, yet it is impossible to view without feelings of astonishment the brilliant career of a man, who, under the almost hopeless circumstances in which he commenced his course, never lost his firmness of mind, and who in the highest prosperity preserved his coolness of reflection.

8. Melancholy posture of the Macedonian affairs at the beginning of Philip's reign. Besides victorious foes abroad, there were at home two pretenders to the throne, ArgÆus, backed by Athens, Pausanias, supported by Thrace; and Philip himself, at first, was merely regent, and not king. In the two first years, however, every thing was changed, and Macedonia recovered her independence. The newly-created phalanx ensured victory over the barbarians; recourse was had to other means than force for success against the suspiciousness of Athens and the neighbouring Greek settlements, particularly against the powerful Olynthus. It is in the conduct of these affairs that the peculiar sagacity of Philip is displayed.

9. Development of Philip's further plans of aggrandizement.—By the gradual subjection of the Macedo-Greek cities, he proposed, not only to make himself sole master in Macedonia, but also to remove the Athenians from his domain.—The first object of his policy against Greece was to get himself acknowledged as a Hellen, and Macedonia as a member of the Hellenic league. Hence the subsequent tutelage in which Macedonia held Greece was not converted into a formal subjection, a proceeding which would have savoured too much of barbarian origin.—The execution of all these plans was facilitated by the possession of the Thracian gold mines, which enabled Philip to create finances as well as the phalanx.

10. The interference of Philip in the affairs of Thessaly dates from the year 357; the possession of that country was an object equally important for the furtherance of his views upon Greece, as for the improvement of his finances. He first stepped forth as the deliverer of Thessaly, and ended in making it a province of Macedonia.

11. The protraction of the sacred war in Greece furnished Philip with an excellent opportunity of promoting his views upon that country; although his first attempt at an irruption, too precipitately undertaken, was frustrated by the Athenians. The capture of Olynthus, notwithstanding the assistance afforded it by the Athenians, after a season of apparent inaction, insured the safety of the frontiers in his rear; and by a master stroke of policy, almost at the very moment in which he was driving the Athenians out of Euboea, he found means to enter with them into negotiations, which, after repeated embassies, were closed by a peace, opening to him the way through ThermopylÆ, and enabling him to raise a party favourable to himself within the very walls of Athens.

12. First descent of Philip into Greece, and termination of the sacred war by reducing the Phocians. The place which he now obtained in the Amphictyonic council, had been the height of his wishes; and the humility of Sparta proved how firmly his ascendancy over Greece was already established.

13. Brief view of the state of Greece, and more particularly of Athens, after the sacred war; description of the means by which Philip succeeded in creating and supporting parties favourable to his own interests in the Grecian states. Bribery was not his only instrument; what he gave he borrowed from others; the main feature of his policy was, that he seldom or ever recurred to the same means. Scheming and consistent even in his drunken revels, he hardly ever appears under the same form.

14. New conquests of Philip in Illyria and Thrace. The Adriatic sea and the Danube appear to have been the boundaries of his empire on this side. But the views of the Macedonian king were directed less against the Thracians, than against the Grecian settlements on the Hellespont; and the attack of the Athenian Diopithes furnished him a pretext for making war against them. The siege, however, of Perinthus and Byzantium, was frustrated by Phocion, to the great vexation of Philip; an event which aroused the Athenians, and even the Persians, from their lethargy.

15. Policy of Philip after this check.—At the very time that, engaged in a war against the barbarians on the Danube, he appears to have wholly lost sight of the affairs of Greece, his agents redouble their activity. Æschines, richly paid for his services, proposes in the Amphictyonic council, that, to punish the sacrilegious insults of the Locrians to the Delphian oracle, he should be elected leader of the Greeks in this new sacred war. Following his usual maxim, Philip suffers himself to be entreated.

16. Second expedition of Philip into Greece. His appropriation of the important frontier town of Elatea soon showed that, for this time at least, he was not contending merely for the honour of Apollo.—Alliance between Athens and Thebes brought about by Demosthenes.—But the defeat of ChÆronea in the same year decided the dependence of Greece. Philip now found it easy to play the magnanimous character towards Athens.

17. Preparations for the execution of his plan against Persia, not as his own undertaking, but as a national war of the Hellenes against the barbarians. Thus, while Philip, by obtaining from the Amphictyons the appointment of generalissimo of Greece against the Persians, secured in an honourable manner the dependence of the country, the splendour of the expedition flattered the nation at whose expense it was to be conducted. It is a question, indeed, whether Philip's own private views extended much further!

18. The internal government of Macedonia, under so skilful and successful a conqueror, must necessarily have been absolute. No pretender would dare to rise up against such a ruler, and the body guard (d???f????) established by him at the beginning of his reign, and taken from the Macedonian nobility, contributed much to keep up a proper understanding between the prince and the nobles. The court became a military staff, while the people, from a nation of herdsmen, was converted into a nation of warriors.—Philip was unfortunate only in his own family; but the blame is not to be attributed to him if he could not agree with Olympias.

19. Philip murdered by Pausanias at ÆgÆ, probably at the instigation of the Persians, while celebrating the marriage of his daughter.

20. The reign of Alexander the Great, in the eyes of the historical inquirer, derives its great interest, not only from the extent, but from the permanence, of the revolution which he effected in the world. To appreciate properly the character of this prince, who died just as he was about to carry his mighty projects into execution, is no easy task; but it is totally repugnant to common sense to suppose that the pupil of Aristotle was nothing more than a wild and reckless conqueror, unguided by any plan.

21. Violent commotions at court, in the conquered countries, and in Greece, after the death of Philip. Great as his power appeared to be, the preservation of it depended entirely on the first display of character in his successor. Alexander showed himself worthy to inherit the sceptre by his victorious expedition against the Thracians; (to whom, and more especially to his alliance with the Agrians, he was afterwards indebted for his light horse;) and by the example which he exhibited to Greece in his treatment of Thebes.

22. Appointment of Alexander in the assembly at Corinth to be generalissimo of the Greeks. Yet what his father would probably have turned to a very different account, he allowed to remain a mere nominal office.—Development of his plan of attack upon Persia.—The want of a navy, soon experienced by Alexander, would probably have frustrated his whole project, had not Memnon's counterplan of an inroad into Macedonia been thwarted by the celerity of the Macedonian king.

23. Passage over the Hellespont, and commencement of the war. The tranquillity of his kingdom and of Greece appeared to be secured, Antipater being left at the head of affairs.—The victory on the Granicus opens to Alexander a path into Asia Minor; but the death of Memnon, which soon after followed, was perhaps a greater advantage than a victory.

24. The victory of Issus, gained over Darius in person, appears to have given Alexander the first idea of completely overturning the Persian throne, as was proved by the rejection of Darius's offers of peace. When indeed have not the plans of conquerors been dependent on the course of events? Yet Alexander must have been pretty certain of his future victory, since he permitted Darius to escape, while he sat down seven months before Tyre, in order to make himself master of the sea; and, after the conquest of Egypt without a battle, to which the possession of Tyre opened the way, to build Alexandria, and erect to himself a monument more lasting than all his victories.

25. Invasion of Inner Asia, facilitated by the tacit submission of the ruling tribes, and by the state of cultivation in which the country was found. On the plains of Arbela the Macedonian tactics were completely triumphant. It might now be said that the throne of Persia was overturned; and the unexpectedly easy capture of Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, was surely of more importance for the moment than the pursuit of a flying king.

26. The subjection of the north-eastern provinces of the Persian empire would perhaps have been attended with the greatest difficulties, had not the astonishing activity of the conqueror crushed in their birth the schemes of the treacherous 330. Bessus, who, after the assassination of Darius, wished to erect a separate kingdom in Bactria. The Jaxartes was now the northern boundary of the Macedonian monarchy, as it had hitherto 329. been that of the Persian. Besides, the possession of the rich trading countries, Bactria and Sogdiana, was in itself an object of vast importance.

27. Alexander's expedition against India had, no doubt, its origin in that propensity to romantic enterprise which constituted a main feature in his character. Yet what could be more natural than that a close view of Persian splendour, the conquest of such wealthy countries, and the desire of prosecuting his vast commercial designs, should gradually mature in the mind of the Macedonian king the plan of subjecting a country which was represented as the golden land of Asia. To this likewise the scantiness of geographic information must have greatly contributed; if he pressed forward to the eastern seas, the circle of his dominion would, it was supposed, be complete.—It appears very certain that Alexander was destitute of a sufficient knowledge of the country when he entered upon this expedition.

28. Although Alexander was obliged to give up the project of conquering India, yet the connection between Europe and the east, which has continued from that time, was the work of his hands. While the communication on land was secured by the establishment of various settlements, the communication by sea was opened by the voyage of his admiral, Nearchus, from the Indus to the Euphrates. In the mean time Alexander himself proceeded to Persis and Babylon, across the desert, and the unexplored provinces of Gedrosia and Carmania.

29. After the abandonment of India, the whole circuit of Alexander's conquests was precisely that of the former Persian empire; his later projects were probably directed against Arabia alone. However easy it had been to make these conquests, it was a more difficult task to retain them; for Macedonia, exhausted by continual levies of men, could not furnish efficient garrisons. Alexander removed this difficulty, by protecting the conquered from oppression; by showing proper respect to their religion; by leaving the civil government in the hands of the native rulers who had hitherto possessed it; and by confiding to Macedonians the command only of the garrisons left in the chief places, and in the newly established colonies. To alter as little as possible in the internal organization of countries was his fundamental principle.

30. Simple as Alexander's plans were in the outset, their simplicity was more than compensated by the magnitude and importance of their results. Babylon was to be the capital of his empire, and consequently of the world. The union of the east and the west was to be brought about by the amalgamation of the dominant races by intermarriage, by education, and, more than all, by the ties of commerce, the importance of which much ruder conquerors, in Asia itself, soon learnt to appreciate. In nothing probably is the superiority of his genius more brilliantly displayed, than in his exemption from all national prejudice, particularly when we consider that none of his countrymen were in this respect to be compared with him. To refuse him this merit is impossible, whatever judgment we may form of his general character.

31. Sudden death of Alexander at Babylon by fever; under the peculiar circumstances of the time, the greatest loss mankind could experience. From the Indus to the Nile the world lay in ruins; and where was now the architect to be found, that could gather up the scattered fragments and restore the edifice?