DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0439
416
New Chapters in Greek History.
[Chap. XV.
view of the career of Alexander very different from Mr.
Grote's. We will cite but a single passage from Plutarch,
who wrote ages after the glamour and glare, which for
long after Alexander's death concealed the reality of
his achievements, had died away: " He taught the Hyr-
canians the institution of marriage, the Arachosians
agriculture ; he caused the Sogdians to support, not kill,
their parents, the Persians to respect, not wed, their
mothers. Wondrous philosopher! who made the Indians
worship the gods of the Greeks, the Scythians bury their
dead instead of eating them. Asia, ordered by Alex-
ander, read Homer; the sons of the Persians, Susians,
Gedrosians, repeated the tragedies of Euripides and So-
phocles." This may be rhetorical, but still the rhetoric
is very careful in its sweep to avoid collision with fact.
It was precisely the people of North India who did
receive the Greek deities ; it was, above all tragedians,
Sophocles and Euripides who were in favour with the
Asiatics. What Plutarch says about the Sogdians is
completely confirmed by Strabo.
The truth is, that the history of Greece consists of two
parts, in every respect contrasted one with the other.
The first recounts the stories of the Persian and Pelo-
ponnesian wars, and ends with the destruction of Thebes
and the subjugation of Athens and Sparta. The Hellas
of which it speaks is a cluster of autonomous cities in
the Peloponnesus, the Islands, and Northern Greece,
together with their colonies scattered over the coasts of
Italy, Sicily, Thrace, the Black Sea, Asia Minor, and
Africa. These cities care only to be independent, or at
most to lord it over one ^another. Their political insti-
tutions, their religious ceremonies, their customs, are civic
and local. Language, commerce, a common Pantheon,
and a common art and poetry are the ties that bind
them together. In its second phase, Greek history
New Chapters in Greek History.
[Chap. XV.
view of the career of Alexander very different from Mr.
Grote's. We will cite but a single passage from Plutarch,
who wrote ages after the glamour and glare, which for
long after Alexander's death concealed the reality of
his achievements, had died away: " He taught the Hyr-
canians the institution of marriage, the Arachosians
agriculture ; he caused the Sogdians to support, not kill,
their parents, the Persians to respect, not wed, their
mothers. Wondrous philosopher! who made the Indians
worship the gods of the Greeks, the Scythians bury their
dead instead of eating them. Asia, ordered by Alex-
ander, read Homer; the sons of the Persians, Susians,
Gedrosians, repeated the tragedies of Euripides and So-
phocles." This may be rhetorical, but still the rhetoric
is very careful in its sweep to avoid collision with fact.
It was precisely the people of North India who did
receive the Greek deities ; it was, above all tragedians,
Sophocles and Euripides who were in favour with the
Asiatics. What Plutarch says about the Sogdians is
completely confirmed by Strabo.
The truth is, that the history of Greece consists of two
parts, in every respect contrasted one with the other.
The first recounts the stories of the Persian and Pelo-
ponnesian wars, and ends with the destruction of Thebes
and the subjugation of Athens and Sparta. The Hellas
of which it speaks is a cluster of autonomous cities in
the Peloponnesus, the Islands, and Northern Greece,
together with their colonies scattered over the coasts of
Italy, Sicily, Thrace, the Black Sea, Asia Minor, and
Africa. These cities care only to be independent, or at
most to lord it over one ^another. Their political insti-
tutions, their religious ceremonies, their customs, are civic
and local. Language, commerce, a common Pantheon,
and a common art and poetry are the ties that bind
them together. In its second phase, Greek history