uld grasp. Plato gave
to thought a scientific basis.

[Footnote 3: See _Defeat of the Athenians at Syracuse_, page 48.]

[Footnote 4: See _Condemnation and Death of Socrates_, page 87.]

Then Macedonia, a border kingdom of ancient kinship to the Greeks, but
not recognized as belonging among them, began to obtrude herself in
their affairs, and at length won that leadership for which they had all
contended. A hundred and fifty years had elapsed since the Greeks had
stood united against Persia. During all that time their strength had
been turned against themselves. Now at last the internecine wars were
checked, and all the power of the sturdy race was directed by one man,
Alexander, King of Macedon. Democracy had made the Greeks intellectually
glorious, but politically weak. Monarchy rose from the ruin they had
wrought.

As though that ancient invasion of Xerxes had been a crime of yesterday,
Alexander proclaimed his intention of avenging it; and the Greeks
applauded. They understood Persia now far better than in the elder days;
they saw what a feeble mass the huge heterogeneous empire had become.
Its people were slaves, its soldiers mercenaries. The Greeks themselves
had been hired to suppress more than one Persian rebellion,[5] and to
foment these also. They had learned the enormous advantage their
stronger personality gave them against the masses of sheeplike Asiatics.

[Footnote 5: See _Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks_, page 68.]

So it was in holiday mood that they followed Alexander, and in schoolboy
roughness that they trampled on the civilization of the East. In fact,
it is worth noting that the most vigorous resistance they encountered
was not from the Persians, but from a remnant of the Semites, the
merchants of the Phoenician city of Tyre.[6] In less than eight years,
B.C. 331-323, Alexander overran the whole known world of the East,[7]
only stopping when, on the border of India, his soldiers broke into open
revolt, not against fighting, but against further wandering.

[Footnote 6: See _Alexander Reduces Tyre_, page 133.]

[Footnote 7: See _The Battle of Arbela_, page 141.]

If this invasion had been the mere outcome of one man's ambition, it
might scarce be worth recording. But Alexander was only the topmost wave
in the surging of a long imminent, inevitable racial movement. Its
effect upon civilization, upon the world, was incalculably vast.
Alexander and his successors were city-builders, administ