BOOKS.
GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE—.VOLUME XII..
MR. GROTE's twelfth and concluding volume embraces the history of Alexander the Great from his accession to the throne of Mace- don in 336 B.C. to his death in 323 B.C.; the affairs of Greece Proper through the same period, and onward to the immediate results of the battle of Ipsus in 301 B.c.; the career of Agathocles in Sicily and Africa ; and a sketch of the history of the "out- ying Grecian cities" in Gaul and Spain and on the shores of the Euxme. The reasons which induce Mr. Grote to continue his. history after the real independence of Greece has ceased with the battle of Chteroneia, and she becomes a dependency of conquering Macedonia, are thus stated by him at the commencement of the present volume. , "First, conquered Greece exercised a powerful action on her conqueror- ' Griecia capta, ferum vietorem eepit.' The Macedonians, though speaking a language of their own, had neither language for communicating with others, nor literature, nor philosophy, except Grecian and derived from Greeks. Philip, while causinghiinself to be chosen chief of Hellas, was him- self not only.partially hellenized, but an eager candidate for Hellenic ad- miration. He demanded the headship under the declared pretence of satis- fying the old antipathy against Persia. Next, the conquests of Alexander, though essentially Macedonian, operated indirectly as the initiatory step of a series of events, diffusing Hellenic language (with some tinge of Hel- lenic literature) over a large breadth of Asia,—opening that territory to the better observation, in some degree even to the superintendence, of in- telligent Greeks—and thus producing consequences important in many ways to the history of mankind. Lastly, the generation of free Greeks upon whom the battle of Clueroneia fell, were not disposed to he quiet if any opportunity occurred for shaking of their Macedonia' n masters."
Other historians have carried on the history of Greece till her final absorption into the Roman system, but Mr. Grote in deter- mining to stop as soon as the peculiar character of Greek history altered definitively from the record of an aggregate of self- governed communities acting freely upon one another, and free from all external control or pressure, to a mere geographical col- lection of towns and districts dependent upon a foreign state and rigorously isolated from each other, has acted wisely, considering the great extent his work has already attained, and still more wisely in obedience to the feeling so strongly- pervading his whole work, that the essential worth and interest of Greek history lie for us in the autonomy of its comnIunities, the free development of its conflicting tendencies, its complete exemption from influences not Hellenic. It is not the history of the geographical district that Mr. Grote has undertaken to write, but the history of a na- tionality, of a self-directing collective will and intelligence. When these have become extinct, it is not history but autopsy that is in question, even though for two thousand years the corpse has preserved a semblance of life, and may even yet start up into a new and more glorious Hellas, if native vices and foreign inter- ference do not mar a future to which a turn of the scale may make all the difference between imperial grandeur and pro- vincial obscurity. In Sicily, too, all true Hellenic life dies out with Agathocles : after him, the Sicilian Greeks are tossed about between different masters, till they finally fall into the wide- sweeping net of the Roman Republic, and their history loses all independent interest.
In the case of Greece Proper, we are inclined to wish that Mr. Grote had stopped at the battle of Chreroneia, rather than to com- plain of him for not including the history of the Achiean League, and the other recorded events between the battle of Ipsus and the conquest by the Romans. The great charm of Mr. Grote's his- tory has been throughout the cordial admiration he feels for the people.whose acts and fortunes he has to relate ; and this charm fails when he has to narrate the conquests of Alexander, whose greatness, though not capable of being denied, is grudgingly- al- lowed. It is only the civic virtues, and the military prowess which is employed in sustaining and defending eivic liberty, for which Mr. Grote has apparently a strong sympathy; and while no writer can be less justly charged with any leanings to what are called Peace doctrines—while no writer recognizes more frilly the sacred duty of maintaining a military spirit among citizens—he evidently has an equally strong dislike to wars of aggression and to the type of character developed in them. We see in his ac- count of -Alexander of Macedon much more of the despot and the savage than of the genuine hero and tonsuramate general ; and, for the first time in the course of the whole history, we are inclined to prefer even the moral tone of Bishop Thirl- wall's narrative, which is elsewhere by the side of Mr. Grote's too frigid, too reserved, and too little sympathetic. Perhaps a few years ago Englishmen would not generally have felt any great interest in studying the Asiatic campaigns of Alex- ander, and would not have been inclined to set at their true value • History of Greece. By George Grote, Beg. Vol. MIL Willi Portrait and Index. Published by Murray.
those qualities of mind and body which enabled him to crowd into a few years triumphs of fabulous magnitude, and to traverse with victorious hosts the whole of the known world to the East of the Mediterranean Sea. Recent events have both turned our thoughts with curiosity not unmixed with anxiety to the regions of Alexander's conquests, and have taught us the worth and the rarity of high military talents. Mr. Grote's volume comes op- portunely to invite the attention of students to the military geo- graphy and political condition of regions which have perhaps altered as little in either respect from what they were in Alexan- der's time as any regions in the world ; and to force upon the minds of all who read it, that the obstacles which intervene be- between the North-western boundary of Persia and the Indus, though undoubtedly great, only require military genius and the spirit of a conqueror to yield as they yielded two thousand years ago. The campaigns of Alexander prove incontestably that there is not only one route possible to an army invading India from the West, but half-a-dozen routes : and persons fond of indulging his- torical speculations have more than their usual ground of pro- phecy in pointing to the regions of Central Asia as the probable converging point in the immediate future of European interest, and the scene of conflict between great European powers. However that may be, the lesson to be learned from Alexander's campaigns is one of universal applicability. It is, that no vast- ness of resources, no personal bravery even of soldiers and gene- rals, can withstand the assaults of military genius and disciplined force. The side on which these latter exist in preponderating power will in the long run conquer ; and the' cannot be impro- vised. Perhaps the whole future history of England and of the world depends on the extent to which we have been taught this lesson, and have taken it to heart as a basis of practical conduct. Without falling prostrate in slavish and stupid admiration of great soldiers, we ought to feel that they are as essential as great statesmen to the wellbeing of a community, and far more essen- tial than great writers and great manufacturers. Some people seem to imagine that the employment of what they are pleased to term brute force is in itself degrading and pernicious, and that persuasion is the only instrument becoming a man to use. In that ease, the world is paradoxically constructed ; for small indeed is the range of persuasion compared with that of stern compulsion. Thou shalt is the formula of Nature, and of the Almighty Being whose instrument and organ Nature is, far more than Pray do, you willpul it right and good. Force, used to compel men to do what is right and good for them to do, is about one of the noblest exertions of collective human activity ; and it is not with- out a moral significance that the history of nations has been written in the march of armies.
How far the history of the world has been altered by Alex- ander's career, is, like most other speculative questions, far easier to ask than to answer. His empire fell to pieces immediately after his death, and was only partially reconstituted as a portion of the Roman empire. Perhaps, but for him, Hellenic independ- ence might have survived for some time longer, probably to come into direct conflict with the Roman republic, when it would have as certainly succumbed as did the free confederacies and independ- ent towns of Central and Southern Italy. The difference would have been, that in this case Greece would have contributed a nobler political sentiment to the Roman aggregate, if by her re- sistance she had not brought on the utter destruction of her citi- zens. As it was, Greece Proper passed in all the essentials of her political life out of existence ; and for the positive good to balance this evil, we must look, if anywhere, to the hellemzmg influences exerted upon Asia by the Macedonian conquest. Those influences are thus summed up by Mr. Grote.
"This process of helleniring Asia—in so far as Asia WU ever hel- lenized—whieh has often been ascribed to Alexander, was in reality the work of the Diadochi who came after him ; though his conquests doubtless opened the door and established the military ascendency which rendered such a work practicable. The position, the aspirations, and the interests of these Diadochi—Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleukus, Lyauna- cans, &e.—were materially different from those of Alexander. They had neither appetite nor means for new and remote conquest ; their great rivalry was with each other; each sought to strengthen himself near home against the rest. It became a matter of fashion and pride with them, not less than of interest, to found new cities immortalizing their family names. These foundations were chiefly made in the regions of Asia near and known to Greeks, where Alexander had planted none. Thus the great and numerous foundations of Seleukus Nikator and his successors covered Syria, Mesopo- tamia, and parts of Asia Minor. All these regions were known to Greeks, and more or less tempting to new Grecian immigrants—not out of reach or hearing of the Olympic and other festivals, as the Jaxartes and the Indus were. In this way a considerable influx of new Hellenic blood MB poured into Asia during the century succeeding Alexander—probably in great mea- sure from Italy and Sicily, where the condition of the Greek cities became more and more calamitous—besides the numerous Greeks who took service as individuals under these Asiatic kings. Greeks, and Macedonians speak- ing Greek, became predominant, if not in numbers, at least in importance, throughout most of the cities in Western Asia. In particular, the Macedo- nian military organization, discipline, and administration, was maintained systematically among these Asiatic kings. In the account of the battle of Mag- nesia, fought by the Seleukid kihnalarAluictieioehua the Great against the Roma=
in 190 s.c., the Macedonian p constituting the main force of his Asiatic army, appears in all its comp tenets, just as it stood under Philip and Perseus in Macedonia itself.
"When iris said; however, that Asia became hellenized under Alexander's successors, the phrase requires explanation. Hellenism properly so ctdled —the aggregate of habits, sentiments, energies, and intelligence, manifested by the Greeks during their epoch of autonomy—never passed over into Asia; neither the highest qualities of the Greek mind, nor even the entire charac- ter of ordinary Greeks. This genuine Hellenism could not subsist under the overruling compression of Alexander, nor even under the less irresistible pressure of his successors. Its living force, productive genius, self-organiz- ing power, and active spirit of political communion, were stifled, and gradu- ally died out. All that passed into Asia was a faint and partial resemblance of it, carrying the superficial marks of the original The administration of the Greco-Asiatic kings was not Hellenic (as it has been sometimes called), but completely despotic, as that of the Persians had been before. Whoever follows their history, until the period of Roman dominion, will see that it turned upon the tastes, temper, and ability of the prince, and on the circum- stances of the regal family. Viewing their government as a system, its pro- minent difference as compared with their Persian predecessors consisted in their retaining the military traditions and organization of Philip and Alex- ander; an elaborate scheme of discipline and manceuvering, which could not be kept up without permanent official grades and a higher measure of in- telligence than had ever been displayed under the Achremenid kings, who had no military school or training whatever. Hence, a great number of in- dividual Greeks found employment in the military as well as in the civil service of these Greco-Asiatic kings. The intelligent Greek, instead of a citizen of Hellas, became the instrument of a foreign prince ; the details of government were managed to a great degree by Greek officials, and always in the Greek language. "Moreover, besides this, there was the still more important fact of the many new cities founded in Asia by the Seleukithe and the other contemporary ldngs. Each of these cities had a considerable infusion of Greek and Mace- donian citizens among the native Orientals located there, often brought by compulsion from neighbouring villages. In what numerical ratio these two elements of the civic population stood to each other, we cannot say. But the Greeks and Macedonia= were the leading _and active portion, who ex- ercised the greatest assimilating force, gave imposing effect to the public manifestations of religion, had wider views and sympathies, dealt with the central government, and carried on that contracted measure of municipal autonomy which the city was permitted to retain. In these cities the Greek inhabitants, though debarred from political freedom, enjoyed a range of social activity suited to their tastes. In each, Greek was the language of public business and dealing ; each formed a centre of attraction and com- merce for an extensive neighbourhood ; all together, they were the main Hellenic or quasi-Hellenic element in Asia under the Greco-Asiatic kings, as contrasted with the rustic villages, where native manners, and probably native speech, still continued with little modification. But the Greeks of Antioch, or Alexandria, or Seleukeia, were not like citizens of Athens or Thebes' nor even like men of Tarentum or Ephesus. While they commu- nicated their language to Orientals, they became themselves substantially. orientalized. Their feelings, judgments, and habits of action' ceased to be Hellenic. Polybius, when he visited Alexandria, looked with surprise and aversion on the Greeks there resident, though they were superior to the non-Hellenic population, whom he considered worthless. Greek social habits, festivals, and legends, passed with the Hellenic settlers into Asia; all becoming amalgamated and transformed so as to suit a new Asiatic abode. Important social and political consequences turned upon the diffu- sion of the thnguage, and upon the establishment of such a common medium of communication throughout Western Asia. But after all, the hellenized Asiatic was not so much a Greek as a foreigner with Grecian speech, exte- rior varnish, and superficial manifestations ; distinguished fundamentally from those Greek citizens with whom the present history has been con- cerned. So he would have been considered by Sophokles, by Thucydides, by Sokrates. Thus much is necessary, in order to understand the bearing of Alexan- der's conquests, not only upon the Hellenic population, but upon Hellenic attributes and peculiarities. While crushing the Greeks as communities at home, these conquests opened a wider range to the Greeks as individuals abroad ; and produced—perhaps the best of all their effects—a great increase of intercommunication, multiplication of roads, extension of commercial dealing, and enlarged facilities for the acquisition of geographical know- ledge. There already existed in the Persian empire an easy and convenient royal road (established by Darius son of Hystaspes, and described as well as admired by Herodotus) for the three months' journey between Sardis and Buse; and there must have been another regular road from Suss and Ekba- tans to Baktria, Sogdiana, and India. Alexander, had he lived, would doubtless have multiplied on a still larger scale the communications both by sea and land between the various parts of his world-empire. We read, that among the gigantic projects which he was contemplating when surprised by death, one was, the construction of a road all along the Northern coast of Africa, as far as the Pillars of Herakles. He had intended to found a new maritime city on the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Euphrates, and to incur much outlay for regulating the flow of water in its lower course. The river would probably.have been thus made again to afford the same conve- niences, both for navigation and irrigation, as it appears to have furnished in earlier times under the ancient Babylonian Line. Orders had been also given for constructing a fleet to explore the Caspian Sea. Alexander be- lieved that sea to be connected with the Eastern Ocean and intended to make it his point of departure for circumnavigating the Eastern limits of Asia, which country yet remained for him to conquer. The voyage already performed by Nearchus, from the mouth of the Indus to that of the Eu- phrates,. was in those days a splendid maritime achievement ; to which an- other still greater was on the point of being added—the circumnavigation of Arabia from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea ; though here we must re- mark, that this same voyage (from the mouth of the Indus round Arabia into the Red Sea) had been _performed in thirty menthe, a century and a half before, by Skylax of ryanda,_under the orders of Darius son of Hystaspes ; yet, though recorded by Herodotus, forgotten (as it would ap- pear) by Alexander and his contemporaries. This enlarged and systematic exploration of the earth, combined with increased means of communication among its inhabitants, is the main feature in Alexander's career which pre- sents itself as promising real consequences beneficial to humanity."
The career of Alexander occupies somewhat more than half the volume. In coming back to Athens, Mr. Grote comes back to the centre of his attraction. He is always most delightful when ex- patiating on the grand characters produced by her free social and political constitution; setting forth their actions in the light which a thorough sympathy with and knowledge of popular bodies and institutions shed over them; correcting previous misconception, and vindicating for freedom, ifts claim to be the foster-mother of
virtue and genius of greatness and goodness. He discusses at length in this portion the charge against Demosthenes of receiving bribes from Harpaltis, illustrated as it has been by the recent dis- covery of fragments of the Aamous oration of Hyperides ; and his defence agreeing in the main. with that of Wshop
must be perfectly satisfactory to all but prejudiced partisans who carry modern politics into ancient history. Phocion's character is dealt with not harshly but with critical strictness, and, while his personal virtue is admitted and admired, his policy is severely condemned. As Mr. Pitt's enemies used to say of him, Phocion ruined his country gratis. Mr. Grote's last words about Athens have an interest quite apart from their particular value, but they are valuable as indicating more clearly than any criticism of ours could indicate the spirit and purpose of his great work. "The Greeks to whom these volumes have been devoted—those of Homer, Archilochus, Solon, Esehylus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Demosthenes—present as their most marked characteristic a loose aggre- gation of antonomous tribes or communities, acting and reacting eely among themselves with little or no pressure from foreigners. The main in- terest of the narrative has consisted in the spontaneous grouping of the dif- ferent Hellenic fractions—in the self-prompted coOperathons and conffictst- the abortive attempts to bring about something like an effective federal or- ganization, or to maintain two permanent rival confederacies—the energetic ambition, and heroic endurance, of men to whom Hellas was the entire political world. The freedom of Hellas, the life and soul of this history from its commencement, disappeared completely during the first years of Alex- ander's reign. After following to their tombs the generation of Greeks con- temporary with him, men like Demosthenes and Phokion, born in a state of freedom—I have pursued the history into that gulf of Grecian nullity which marks the succeeding century ; exhibiting sad evidence of the degrading servility, and suppliant king-worship, into which the countrymen of Aria- teides and Perikles had been driven, by their own conscious weakness under overwhelming pressure from without. "I cannot better complete that picture than by showing what the leading democratical citizen became under the altered atmosphere which now be- dimmed his city. Demochares, the nephew of Demosthenes, has been men- tioned as one of the few distinguished Athenians in this last generation. He was more than once chosen to the highest public offices; he was con- spicuous for his free speech both, as an orator and as an historian, in the face of powerful enemies ; he remained throughout a long life faithfully attached to the democratical constitution, and was banished for a time by its opponents. In the year 280 B.C., he prevailed on the Athenians to erect a public monument, with a commemorative inscription, to his uncle Demos- thenes. Seven or eight years afterwards, Demochares himself died, aged nearly eighty. His son Laches proposed and obtained a publid decree, that a statue should be erected with an annexed inscription to his honour. We read in the decree a recital of the distinguished public services whereby Demochares merited this compliment from his countrymen. All that the proposer of the decree, his son and fellow-citizent can find to recite, as en- nobling the last half of the father's public life, (since his return from exile,) is as follows. 1. He contracted the public expenses, and introduced a more frugal management. 2. He undertook an embassy to King Iysimachus, from whom he obtained two presents for the people, one of thirty talents, the other of one hundred talents. 3. He proposed the vote for sending en- voys to Ring Ptolemy in Egypt, from whom fifty talents were obtained for the people. 4. He went as envoy to Antipatet, received from him twenty talenth, and delivered them to the people at the Eleusinian festival. "When such begging missions are the deeds for which Athens both em- ployed and recompensed her most eminent citizens, an historian accustomed to the Grecian world as described by Herodotus, Thucytlides, and Xenophon, feels that the life has departed from his subject, and with sadness and hu- miliation brings his narrative to a close." Those who have followed Mr. Grote thus far need not be told how important a feature of his work is his account of the Sicilian Greeks. No more living portraits exist of the men of old time than those he has drawn of the leading characters of Sicilian his- tory; and he now adds to that gallery another as striking in in- terest and as admirably portrayed as any in Agathocles the lad pure Hellenic leader whose brilliant qualities illustrated the de- caying fortunes of the richest and loveliest of islands. And with this reference we bid Mr. Grote farewell; heartily congratulating him on the conclusion of a work which is a monument of English learning, of English dearsightedness, and of English love of free- dom and the characters it produces. We are promised a supple- mental volume on the Philosophies of Plato and. Aristotle ; and we look forward to that work with the more expectation, that Mr. Grote's mind is perfectly free from all tendency to mysticism, and he is not likely to seek in Plato for premonitions and con- firmations of the Articles of the Church of England, nor to look on Aristotle as the father of all who set up the fleshly understanding and put out the eyes of man's reason and quench the light of the soul.
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