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The
Macedonian conquest gave Hellenic civilization, as a priceless compensation, at
least the domination of Asia; and we know what a stimulus to the Greek spirit
was this encounter, in the Alexandrian syncretism, with the genius of the East.
Unhappily,
after a hundred years of splendid progress, the Alexandrianism which, in the
third century, had presided over the hellenization of the East, suffered a
reversal: the Greek spirit was in turn invaded by oriental ideas. Euclid and
Aristarchus had lived at Alexandria, but it was also at Alexandria that the
neo-Platonists and gnostics lived. Lucian’s outbursts of laughter (in the
second century A.D.) were the last protest of the critical spirit against the
return of the murkiest pagan mysticism.
Furthermore,
when Alexander had made the Greeks masters of the East, they transferred to it
their own inability to unite.
The
Macedonia of the Antigonids, the Syria of the Seleucids and the Egypt of the
Ptolemies, like Athens, Sparta and Thebes before them, wore themselves out in
an inconclusive struggle which made them fall, one by one, an easy prey to the
foreigner — in this case to the Romans.
Not with
impunity had the Græco-Macedonian dynasties assumed the mantle of the old
oriental despots.
René
Grousset, A. Patterson ‘The Sum of History’, 1951,pages 9 - 10
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Similar
uncertainty surrounds the personality of Alexander. Should we see in him the
agent of the Hellenic League about to Hellenize Asia? Or the Macedonian whom
the Orient had won over and divested of Greek civilization to the point of
making him a Son of Ammon and Great King?
Both
personalities were present in him. And the whole drama of his brief life lay in
the contrast between them. When he forced the passage of the Granicus, he came
to Asia, like Agesilaus before him, to take vengeance for the invasion of
Xerxes. His first act was to deliver Ionia. He went on to give Hellenism the
coasts of the eastern Mediterranean, Syria, and Egypt; that is, the European
façade of Asia. And this part of all his conquests was the only one to prove
really lasting. Egypt and Syria remained part of Hellas for nine hundred and
seventy years after his day, and western Anatolia for sixteen and a half
centuries.
On the
other hand, east of the Euphrates, on the Persian plateau afterwards conquered
by Alexander, Hellenism maintained its hold for barely two centuries. And it
was there that the Macedonian, for the eight years of life left to him, began
to strip himself of his Greek inheritance.
‘The Sum of
History’,pages 152 -153
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If the
Macedonian kingdoms of Greater Greece had left no other proof of their
activity, they would have done enough for ancient civilization by giving it the
masters of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.
‘The Sum of
History’,page 156
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One of the
sons of Antiochus the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes, tried to react ( 175-164
B.C.). How are we to judge him? The superior strength of the Romans made it
impossible for him to secure the triumph of Hellenism by force of arms. But the
expansion of Greek nationality was the whole raison d’étre of the Seleucids.
Antiochus Epiphanes was therefore obliged to undertake the conquest of the
oriental soul by introducing Hellenism to the native peoples.
‘The Sum of
History’,page 157
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It was the
Byzantine Empire which was to realize Alexander’s idea -Macedonian Panhellenism
— in face of an Asia in revolt, and realize it for the Greeks.
‘The Sum of
History’ ,page 159
