DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0456
Chap. XV.]
The Successors of Alexander.
433
crowds, and then summoned the inhabitants of the neigh-
bourhood to complete the number of citizens. The
Seleucid and other Greek princes continued the practice.
So it was not long before the cities of Alexander and
his generals absorbed the trade of Asia, and every one
of them was a centre whence the Greek language, Greek
ideas, and Greek religion spread over the East. We
need only mention among them Alexandria, Antioch,
Seleucia, Nicaea, Kandahar, to remind the reader how
many of the great cities of the world then came into
being.
We may divide these cities into groups, according to
their position, and will speak first of the fate of those
founded in the far East. In the remote districts to the
north of Cabul it must be confessed that the fruits of
Alexander's conquests were not lasting. No sooner was
the King dead, than the Macedonians settled on the
Oxus and Jaxartes, to the number of 20,000 infantry
and 3000 cavalry, smitten with a sudden despair at the
thought of their distance from home, left their cities,
and in full battle array took the road for Europe. The
generals at Babylon could resist and slaughter them,
but could not send them back across the Oxus, and by
their desertion the barrier erected to keep out the bar-
barous nomads of Turkistan was most fatally weakened.
A century later one of those great migrations of nations
which have so often changed the face of Asia set in.
Relieved from the pressure of Persian power on the
south, the barbarous nations of Sacae or Scythians on
the borders of China began to migrate in masses towards
the Oxus and Bactria. They had, no doubt, to make
their way by hard fighting; but the flood rolled on
slowly and irresistibly, and in considerably less than
two centuries after Alexander's death it had submerged
the plains of Bactria and Sogdiana; and the semi-Greek
2 F
The Successors of Alexander.
433
crowds, and then summoned the inhabitants of the neigh-
bourhood to complete the number of citizens. The
Seleucid and other Greek princes continued the practice.
So it was not long before the cities of Alexander and
his generals absorbed the trade of Asia, and every one
of them was a centre whence the Greek language, Greek
ideas, and Greek religion spread over the East. We
need only mention among them Alexandria, Antioch,
Seleucia, Nicaea, Kandahar, to remind the reader how
many of the great cities of the world then came into
being.
We may divide these cities into groups, according to
their position, and will speak first of the fate of those
founded in the far East. In the remote districts to the
north of Cabul it must be confessed that the fruits of
Alexander's conquests were not lasting. No sooner was
the King dead, than the Macedonians settled on the
Oxus and Jaxartes, to the number of 20,000 infantry
and 3000 cavalry, smitten with a sudden despair at the
thought of their distance from home, left their cities,
and in full battle array took the road for Europe. The
generals at Babylon could resist and slaughter them,
but could not send them back across the Oxus, and by
their desertion the barrier erected to keep out the bar-
barous nomads of Turkistan was most fatally weakened.
A century later one of those great migrations of nations
which have so often changed the face of Asia set in.
Relieved from the pressure of Persian power on the
south, the barbarous nations of Sacae or Scythians on
the borders of China began to migrate in masses towards
the Oxus and Bactria. They had, no doubt, to make
their way by hard fighting; but the flood rolled on
slowly and irresistibly, and in considerably less than
two centuries after Alexander's death it had submerged
the plains of Bactria and Sogdiana; and the semi-Greek
2 F