Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/76

64 THE GLORY OF GREECE AND RISE OF ROME opened its gates to him, and thence again to the great Persian capitals of Susa' (the Shushan of the Bible) and Persepolis. But he could not regard the conquest as complete while Darius was still at large in Media. From Persepolis Atexander started in pursuit. The hapless king, however, was murdered by his own followers before Alexander could overtake him. Already Alexander was practically master of the whole Persian Empire, except those wild and never thoroughly sub- Alexander's dued regions which are now called Western further con- Turkestan, Afghanistan and Baluchistan. The quests. subjugation of these districts occupied the next three years. In 326 B.C. he led his army through the passes of the north-west of India, and after conquering the north- western region which we call the Punjab he was obliged to return, because at last his army would follow him no further. In 323 B.C. he died at Babylon, in the thirty-third year of his age. The conquests of Alexander, whose career was closed ten years after his passage into Asia, were sufficiently astonishing What Alex- fr° m a military point of view. In general, no anderdid. doubt, the Greek troops under a Greek com- mander stood in relation to the oriental levies very much as British regiments stood to the levies of the native princes of India; and the 'formation' of troops known as the Macedonian Phalanx was the most formidable weapon which any commander had hitherto wielded. But there were also great masses of Greek mercenary troops in the service of the Persian monarch, and this makes the actual results of the battles more remarkable than they would otherwise have been. Yet, after all, this is only to say that Alexander's enterprise was a piece of correctly calculated audacity ; and correctly calculated audacity is one of the highest qualities of a commander. But it would be unjust to think of Alexander merely as a military adventurer who proved himself an irresistible warrior. His dream of empire was not a purely personal one ; he intended that empire to be solid and united, a fusion of east and west. Two thousand years have passed since his day, and no one has yet solved the problem of fusing east and west. The Asiatic has remained Asiatic, and the European has remained European, in whichever