and he chose a spot on which he ordered a new city to be founded. It was probably in this voyage that Alexander contracted the germs of the fever which so soon proved fatal.

He returned to Babylon to complete the preparations for his expedition to Arabia, which he designed to be only a first step towards the conquest of the remaining nations of the world. Some new levies from the western shores of Asia were incorporated with his old soldiers into a sort of Perso-Macedonian phalanx, which he expected to be peculiarly efficient. All the preparations were made for the expedition; and at the same time the funeral pile was ready, which he had long since ordered to be constructed for Hephæstion. He resolved to combine the sacrifices inaugurating his enterprise with the obsequies of his friend. A splendid banquet was prepared for the whole army, at which the conqueror himself presided. After partaking freely in the universal revelry, he supped with his favourite, Medius, and spent the night in a carouse. A second night was passed in the same manner; and Alexander, who had gone to bed in the house of Medius, was unable to rise in the morning. For nine days he tried to shake off the fever, conversing with his generals about his schemes, playing at dice with Medius, and rising each day to bathe and offer sacrifice. At last, he was unable to make this effort; and by the time his generals had been summoned round his bed he had become speechless. His last act was to take off his signetring, and deliver it to Perdiccas; but it was reported that, just before his utterance failed him, he was asked to whom he bequeathed his kingdom, and that he replied, "To the strongest!" The soldiers, hearing of his approaching end, surrounded the palace, and being admitted without their arms, they passed before his bed in mournful and respectful silence, while their dying leader made them signs of recognition. His generals slept in the temple of Serapis, hoping to learn by a dream whether he might be healed if he were transported thither; but the oracle bade him be left where he was; and he expired in the afternoon of June 28, B.C. 323, at the age of thirty-two years and eight months, and wanting four months of completing the thirteenth year of his reign.

Historians have delighted in speculating on what would have been the result, had Alexander lived to carry out his new designs, and to come into conflict with the nations of the West. Considering the vast resources of his empire, his prudent skill in turning them to the best account, and his profound knowledge of the art of war, we may be quite sure that he would have accomplished

B.C. 323.]

NATURE OF HIS CONQUESTS.

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deeds surpassing any that he had yet achieved. But his success would only have tended to overwhelm the rising civilization of the West beneath the backward wave of that Orientalism which had already been once repelled from the shores of Greece. The world was reserved for another destiny, to be moulded by Roman energy, Roman law, and the stern Roman sense of duty. Meanwhile, the conquests of Alexander had a prodigious, and upon the whole a most beneficial effect, in bringing the East within the sphere of Hellenic civilization. It may be true that the spread of that civilization was due rather to his successors than to himself, and that his one moving principle was the insatiable lust of conquest. But perhaps the reaction from blind admiration of his exploits has led to a too sweeping denial of those civil qualities which time was not granted him to develope. Even amidst the rapid course of conquest, the pupil of Aristotle, the founder of Alexandria, and the projector of the voyage of Nearchus, was not altogether indifferent to the cause of science; and the genius which organized his army, and so soon reduced his vast empire to order, had equal capacities for civil administration, though it may be doubted whether his impatient temper could have rivalled the works of Cæsar or Napoleon. The cities that he founded in the distant regions of Asia may have been designed chiefly as the outposts of a great military empire; but they became, in fact, the germs of powerful states, which were influenced by Greek civiliza tion from their very origin, and commercial centres by which communication was kept up between the nations of the West and the distant realms of India, and even China. The increased facilities of intercourse-an object at which Alexander was ever aiming-formed a result of his conquests only second in importance to the diffusion of the Greek language. His personal character has been sufficiently delineated in recounting the events of his marvellous career.

VOL II.-6

CHAPTER XVII.

DIVISION OF ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE.-FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER TO THE ACCESSION OF ANTIOCHUS SOTER. B.C. 323 TO B.C. 280.

"Therefore the he goat waxed very great; and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.

. . Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power."-Daniel, chap. viii., 8, 22.

SETTLEMENT OF THE KINGDOM ON PHILIP III. ARIDÆUS-PERDICCAS REGENT-DIVISION OF THE PROVINCES-THE DIADOCHI-FUNERAL OF ALEXANDER-BIRTH OF ALEXANDER EGUS-THE LAMIAN WAR-PERDICCAS AND EUMENES, ANTIPATER AND OLYMPIASDEATH OF PERDICCAS-NEW PARTITION OF THE PROVINCES-WAR OF EUMENES WITH ANTIGONUS-DEATH OF EUMENES-MURDER OF PHILIP ARIDEUS-CASSANDER MASTER OF GREECE, ANTIGONUS OF ASIA-COALITION AGAINST ANTIGONUS-DEMETRIUS POLIORCETES-BATTLE OF GAZA-GENERAL PACIFICATION-MURDER OF ALEXANDER EGUSRENEWAL OF THE WAR-PTOLEMY IN GREECE-BATTLE OF SALAMIS IN CYPRUS-THE GENERALS BECOME KINGS-SIEGE OF RHODES-DEMETRIUS IN GREECE-SUCCESSES OF SELEUCUS NICATOR-NEW COALITION AGAINST ANTIGONUS-BATTLE OF IPSUS-THE HELLENISTIC KINGDOMS-SYRIA-EGYPT-PERGAMUS-BACTRIA.

THE untimely death of Alexander left his empire without an heir, and found the generals unprepared with any plans. Alexander had left an illegitimate son, Hercules, by Barsine, the widow of the Rhodian Memnon; but no pretensions were put forward on his behalf till some years later. The child of the queen Roxana was not born till after Alexander's death. There only remained the half-brother of Alexander, Philip Aridæus, the son of Philip by a Thessalian woman, a youth of weak intellect, and therefore a convenient puppet in the hands of the generals, till time should decide the real heir by the test of Alexander's dying words,-"To the strongest." The conflict almost broke out at the council which was held the day after Alexander's death, under the presidency of Perdiccas, to whom the dying monarch had given his signet-ring; but an arrangement was at last made on the following basis. PHILIP III. ARIDEUS was recognized as the successor to the empire, a share in the inheritance being reserved to the unborn child of Roxana, should it prove to be a son. PERDICCAS took the command of the Companion cavalry, which was vacant by the death of Hephæstion, with the regency on behalf of Philip. The eastern part of the empire was reserved for his immediate government. The prov