hile governor of Babylon, was
occupied in the attempt to exchange the vegetation of Europe and Asia;
he intertransplanted the productions of Persia and Greece, succeeding,
as is related, in his object of making all European plants that he
tried, except the ivy, grow in Mesopotamia. The journey to the Caspian
Sea, the expedition into the African deserts, indicate Alexander's
personal taste for natural knowledge; nor is it without significance
that, while on his death-bed, and, indeed, within a few days of his
decease, he found consolation and amusement in having Nearchus by his
side relating the story of his voyages. Nothing shows more strikingly
how correct was his military perception than the intention he avowed of
equipping a thousand ships for the conquest of Carthage, and thus
securing his supremacy in the Mediterranean. Notwithstanding all this,
there were many points of his character, and many events of his life,
worthy of the condemnation with which they have been visited; the
drunken burning of Persepolis, the prisoners he slaughtered in honour of
Hephaestion, the hanging of Callisthenes, were the results of
intemperance and unbridled passion. Even so steady a mind as his was
incapable of withstanding the influence of such enormous treasures as
those he seized at Susa; the plunder of the Persian empire; the
inconceivable luxury of Asiatic life; the uncontrolled power to which he
attained. But he was not so imbecile as to believe himself the
descendant of Jupiter Ammon; that was only an artifice he permitted for
the sake of influencing those around him. We must not forget that he
lived in an age when men looked for immaculate conceptions and celestial
descents. These Asiatic ideas had made their way into Europe. The
Athenians themselves were soon to be reconciled to the appointment of
divine honours to such as Antigonus and Demetrius, adoring them as
gods--saviour gods--and instituting sacrifices and priests for their
worship.

[Sidenote: The Greek age of Reason ushered in.]

[Sidenote: Its inability to accomplish the civilization of Europe.]

Great as were the political results of the Macedonian expedition, they
were equalled by the intellectual. The times were marked by the ushering
in of a new philosophy. Greece had gone through her age of Credulity,
her age of Inquiry, her age of Faith; she had entered on her age of
Reason, and, had freedom of action been permitted to her, she would have
given a decisive t