SURVEY

OF

ALEXANDER'S CONQUESTS.

SECTION II.

Two Classes of Asiatic Conquerors.

Assyrians and Egyptians, their Characteristics.-Scythians, their Characteristics. Medes and Persians to be classed with barbarous Conquerors.-The Babylonian Plain. — Its Revolutions and successive Capitals.—Authentic History of Assyria, confirmed by local Circumstances. — State of Asia antecedently to the first great Monarchy. -Inland communication from the Mediterranean to India. - Emporia in Assyria, Ethiopia, and Egypt.Similarity of their Institutions and Government. Pursuits and Attainments of the Egyptian Priests.Their Brethren in Ethiopia. - Meroë, its History and singular Theocracy. The Sabaans and Phoenicians. -Three main Staples - Babylon in Assyria-Bactra in Ariana-Pessinus in Lesser Asia.

II.

AGREEABLY to the method above proposed, SECT. I proceed to examine how far Alexander's plans were original, and how far, in the con- Dynasties cerns either of domestic policy, or of foreign the Mace commerce, he was guided by the examples of donian.

preceding.

II.

SECT. his precursors in empire. The various nations will thus pass in review, who successively governed Asia, and whose transactions, manners, and institutions left indelible impressions on that great division of it known to the writers of antiquity.

Assyrians

tians, their

From the concurring testimony of these and Egyp writers, it appears that, before the Macedonian character- invasion, two classes of conquerors had alteristics. nately held sway in the East. The nations, to

which these conquerors belonged, are marked by wide discriminations of civility and barbarism. Antecedently to the memorable reigns of Ninus and Sesostris, the former of which began only twelve, and the latter about fourteen centuries, before the Christian æra, the Assyrians and Egyptians consisted chiefly of laborious husbandmen and industrious artificers, resident in cities or villages, addicted to pomp in religious worship, and so immemorially conversant with arts and letters, that, at their first appearance above the horizon of time, they should seem to have reached their highest meridian of refinement; and the farther back that we remount in their annals, their proceedings in war and peace become proportionally the more worthy of regard. The stupendous monuments, besides, of both these nations may be considered as still

See the first and second books of Diodorus Siculus throughout. For the extensive conquests, and the yрanтas kupbias, or geographical tables, of the Egyptians, see Apollonius Rhodius Argonaut. 1. iv. v. 275. and Eustathius in Proem, ad Dionys. Perieget. p. 6.

II.

attesting their ancient greatness, since those of SECT. the Egyptians which remain, were, according to unquestionable authority, far surpassed and outshone by those of the Assyrians, which have perished through the slighter consistence of their materials.

The second class of eastern conquerors is dis- Of the tinguished by features equally characteristic, but Scythians. uniformly expressive of grossness and ignorance. Destitute of temples for their gods, and of fixed habitations for themselves, they roved with their flocks, and herds, and tents, over the wide Scythian deserts, stretching between the range of Taurus above described, and another chain of mountains twelve degrees north of it. This northern range, known under the general name of Altai, should seem, from the inhospitable savageness of the inhabitants and the country, to have been rarely visited by strangers during any age of antiquity; in the subsequent times, it is shewn only as the disfigured scene of Tartar and Turkish fables; and it was first carefully surveyed by the curiosity or policy of the Russian government in the course of the last century. Commencing with the lofty Riphæan mountains, a thousand miles due north of the Caspian, Altai prolongs its ridges to the sea-coast of Siberia, and the frightful solitudes of the Tonguses, a people so irreclaimably barbarous, that they are still governed by Sha

Herodot. l. i. c. 178

3 D'Herbelot Bibliotheque Orientale, Article Caf.

II.

SECT. proved tactics of the Medes served not to resist the perpetual torrents of Scythian horsemen that assailed them in rapid succession; and Cyaxares, in danger of being overwhelmed on all sides by this desultory warfare, consented to acknowledge the Scythians for his masters by paying to them large contributions. In the space of five years, the invaders, carrying their houses on their waggons, pushed their predatory colonies into Armenia, Colchis, Pontus, Cappadocia : some ravagers penetrated into Syria, particularly that division of it called Palestine, in which they occupied Bethshean, a town formerly belonging to the half tribe of Manasseh on this side the Jordan, and which thenceforward received the name of Scythopolis." On the frontiers of the Holy Land, Psammeticus, king of Egypt, came forward, not to oppose the invasion by arms, but to divert it by submission and rich presents.12 By these offerings, the rage of the Scythians was appeased: slaves and booty formed the main objects of their ambition; since being narrowed in mind by the same habits and mode of life which invigorated and enlarged their bodies, they were totally unfit to govern the conquests which their valour had achieved, and which their rapacity, for the most part, deformed and desolated; for with them the merciless havoc of war was restrained by no considerations even of interest, the naked face of their own country saving them from fear of reprisals

"Syncell. Chronograph. p. 214. Conf. Herodot. i. 103. et seq. 12 Herodot. i. 105,

II.

in their grossest abuse of victory.13 Among the SECT. fierce natives of the desert, who, on this occasion, established themselves in the counties south of mount Taurus, the sudden alteration in their way of life appears to have produced a correspondent change in their character. Finding themselves in possession of many conve niences and luxuries, hitherto unknown to them, they greedily embraced every new temptation to appetite, indulged the wildest caprices without shame or remorse 14, and passed at one fatal bound from the simplicity of childhood to the miserable voluptuousness of doating old age: a consequence inevitable whenever gross undisciplined minds are borne on too prosperous a tide of fortune. Of this rapid degeneracy, Cyaxares availed himself for destroying part of his unworthy guests, and expelling the remainder of them from Media. In several neighbouring countries, the people collectively took arms against their insolent and besotted oppressors; whose vexations, though dreadful in the villages and open country, had generally stopped short at the gates of walled cities, well provided with granaries and arsenals; and some

13 Arrian has thus explained the principle of Scythian warfare: ετε έδραιοι οίκεσι ὡσε δειμαίνειν περι των φιλτάτων. “ Having no home, they feared not harm to any of its sweet endearments." Arrian Exped. Alexand. iv. 17. And again in his Indian history, c. 40. "Alexander overran the territories of the Uxii, Mardi, and Cossæans, compelling those roving banditti to a settled agricultural life, that having property of their own to defend, they might no longer prey on their neighbours."

14 Plato de Legibus, iii. p. 815.