" Some talk of Alexander-
1.1 Alexander The Great. By Ulrich- Wileken. Translated by G. C. Richards. (Chatto and Windus, -rm.) Few things acquire fresh force and meaning in the process of translatioo: German prose is one of them. Cranmer's Collects, in our Book of emotion Prayer, afford a rare example in another sphere. This book is admirably translated from the German ; it is a pleasure to read, and its construction, in which historical detail is scrupulously treated, without detri- ment to a clear presentation of the main kit motif, contrasts pleasantly with the scintillating phrases and imaginary recon- structions which characterize much recent biography.
Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon, of a worthy father a worthier son, is beyond all question one of the half-dozen greatest men that the world has seen. Like his ancestor and model, Achilles, he died in his thirty-third year, at the height of his youthful vigour, after conquering the Middle East, sulaluing the war-like tribes of North-West India. then, as 'tow, racially unrelated to the Hindu majority. • From the Contemporary record of his admirer and friend Nearchtis, and nom other historical sources, we recognize lit him a per- sonality of towering strength, in whoni clear vision and sober judgement were united with passionate love for his friends, an innbition limited only by the bounds of ocean, and a simple' piety which was the secret of his supreme self-confidence.
The modern idea—how ill-founded we may presently learn
• that economic: and politiml policies can profitably be divorced from strategic and Military considerations, had not yet 'Inert born. To Alexander they were different aspects of the same problem ,--how to unite cast and west.
He wrought a revolution in the economic life of his day. ip to his time the East and West formed separate economic groups, not without numerous contacts, but in no way interdependent. His conquests threw open to Greek enterprise vast reserves of raw in:aerial and 'Bess markets, with consequences to the world second in importance only to those that followed the discovery of the Americas.
He abandoned the hoarding of treasure, and by means of a. currency began to put idle bullion into circulation, reserving I-n himSelf the minting not only of gold but also of-silver., lie created a uniform imperial coinage, and by separating finance from. taxation evolved a centralized system of financial control which raised his system high above. the confusion of his Achaemenid predecessors.
This system was intended to he UM basis of great schemes of economic development : he laboured to restore the canals of Babylon ; he sent experts to investigate the Mineral wealth of and despatched to Macedonia the fittest herds of rattle from"the plains north of Kabul. Though he was ever faithful to Greek culture, and venerated his own-literature. art and architecture; he cherished the idea of a race-fusion of his Macedonians with the Iranian peoples, whom alone in the East he regaded as worthy agents in his plan of world dominion. Ile sought earnestly -to reconcile the East with the West, praying earnestly that concord and partnership of rule might be granted to the Macedonians and Persians ; his was to belt Macedonian-Persian Empire: Ile died at a moment which to him and to his companions was but the outset of his career. He had never been defeated, never checked or baffled ; what general call show such a record after -a score of battles ? And withal a champion while a general. Napoleon used his sword once as generalissimo ; ;%lexander was first in a breach, first in a charge, wounded a dozen times, himself the leader of every desperate expedition. Half of it was mad recklessness, the other was set purpose ; professional armies were new as yet, and the machine needed animating with a personal feeling if it were to submit to the labours which Alexander designed for its endurance. Remem, Bering the impressionable nature of a veteran army, can we wonder at the passionate love evinced on the Aeesines and the Tigris ? There is no more touching scene in history than was enacted in that chamber at Babylon when the scarred veterans of fifty battles, who had mutinied for one more look at their godlike chief, filed in silence before the dying king, speechless but able to look recognition and raise a hand when a well-remembered face went by. It would absolVe Arrian for many- sins that, without a word of rhetorical declamation on such a theme, lie has only repeated the simple story of the royal diary concerning the illness and death of the young conqueror and pacificator of heir the world.
- But there must he reason in hero-worship ; let no one think it a miracle that Alexander conquered the Persian Empire : 11 far meaner general could have done it as surely, if at more cost, and perhaps only accident has robbed Agesilaus of some of the fame of Alexander.
It was much that Alexander isauptered, mud it was more that lie did it at incredibly small expense of life ; but it was most that he left every province as much his own behind hint as if he had spent all his thirty years in its administration. This is his highest honour, and his military fame must take second place. That will always rest on the second count, 011 the economy of life, whereby he certainly ranks above Napo- leon, ixehaps above Hannibal ; on his campaigns beyond the Tigris, wherein his ever-happy dispositions discomfited every variety of enemy, of whom some had baffled every great king since Cyrus ; on the merited butane that never failed betbre is wall or lost a battle. that never knew a Zama or a Waterloo.
lie is not dim-gotten in Asia, where 110 successful statesmail has yet arisen who was not also a great general. The chants of his armies still echo faintly from castle to castle on every sunlit crag on their line of march from Persepolis to Stria. On the North-West Frontier of India. the Pathan wrestler, before closing with his adversary, raises his arms and eyes sky-wards. with the invocation esammce. The word is at once an epitaph and a tribute to Alexander—the Word of Power, compared with which the argosies of flu' merchants, the babbling of the economists, and the interminable chatter of Round Tables
and Councils, am as " the small dust of the balance." •
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