not escaped Monsieur Bossuet, with relation to
Alexander. This prince, who was the most renowned and illustrious
conqueror in all history, was the last monarch of his race. Macedonia, his
ancient kingdom, which his ancestors had governed for so many ages, was
invaded from all quarters, as a vacant succession; and after it had long
been a prey to the strongest, it was at last transferred to another
family. If Alexander had continued peaceably in Macedonia, the grandeur of
his empire would not have excited the ambition of his captains; and he
might have transmitted the sceptre of his progenitors to his own
descendants; but, as he had not prescribed any bounds to his power, he was
instrumental in the destruction of his house, and we shall behold the
extermination of his family, without the least remaining traces of them in
history. His conquests occasioned a vast effusion of blood, and furnished
his captains with a pretext for murdering one another. These were the
effects that flowed from the boasted bravery of Alexander, or rather from
that brutality, which, under the specious names of ambition and glory,
spread desolation, and carried fire and sword through whole provinces,
without the least provocation, and shed the blood of multitudes who had
never injured him.

We are not to imagine, however, that Providence abandoned these events to
chance; but, as it was then preparing all things for the approaching
appearance of the Messiah, it was vigilant to unite all the nations that
were to be first enlightened with the Gospel, by the use of one and the
same language, which was that of Greece: and the same Providence made it
necessary for them to learn this foreign tongue, by subjecting them to
such masters as spoke no other. The Deity, therefore, by the agency of
this language, which became more common and universal than any other,
facilitated the preaching of the apostles, and rendered it more uniform.

The partition of the empire of Alexander the Great, among the generals of
that prince, immediately after his death, did not subsist for any length
of time, and hardly took place, if we except Egypt, where Ptolemy had
first established himself, and on the throne of which he always maintained
himself without acknowledging any superior.

(M13) It was not till after the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, wherein
Antigonus, and his son Demetrius, surnamed Poliorcetes, were defeated, and
the former lost his life, that this partition was f