The name of the victor of Arbela has led to these reflections; for,
although the rapidity and extent of Alexander's conquests have through
all ages challenged admiration and amazement, the grandeur of genius
which he displayed in his schemes of commerce, civilization, and of
comprehensive union and unity among nations, has, until lately, been
comparatively unhonored. This long-continued depreciation was of early
date. The ancient rhetoricians--a class of babblers, a school for lies
and scandal, as Niebuhr justly termed them--chose, among the stock
themes for their commonplaces, the character and exploits of Alexander.

They had their followers in every age; and, until a very recent period,
all who wished to "point a moral or adorn a tale," about unreasoning
ambition, extravagant pride, and the formidable frenzies of free will
when leagued with free power, have never failed to blazon forth the
so-called madman of Macedonia as one of the most glaring examples.
Without doubt, many of these writers adopted with implicit credence
traditional ideas, and supposed, with uninquiring philanthropy, that in
blackening Alexander they were doing humanity good service. But also,
without doubt, many of his assailants, like those of other great men,
have been mainly instigated by "that strongest of all antipathies, the
antipathy of a second-rate mind to a first-rate one," and by the envy
which talent too often bears to genius.

Arrian, who wrote his history of Alexander when Hadrian was emperor of
the Roman world, and when the spirit of declamation and dogmatism was at
its full height, but who was himself, unlike the dreaming pedants of the
schools, a statesman and a soldier of practical and proved ability, well
rebuked the malevolent aspersions which he heard continually thrown upon
the memory of the great conqueror of the East.

He truly says: "Let the man who speaks evil of Alexander not merely
bring forward those passages of Alexander's life which were really evil,
but let him collect and review _all_ the actions of Alexander, and then
let him thoroughly consider first who and what manner of man he himself
is, and what has been his own career; and then let him consider who and
what manner of man Alexander was, and to what an eminence of human
grandeur _he_ arrived. Let him consider that Alexander was a king, and
the undisputed lord of the two continents, and that his name is renowned
throughout the whole earth.

"Let the evil-spe