ms of the Greeks. This is
why the title "Great" has been assigned to Alexander.

THE HELLENES IN THE ORIENT

=Dissolution of the Empire of Alexander.=--Alexander had united under
one master all the ancient world from the Adriatic to the Indus, from
Egypt to the Caucasus. This vast empire endured only while he lived.
Soon after his death his generals disputed as to who should succeed
him; they made war on one another for twenty years, at first under the
pretext of supporting some one of the house of Alexander--his brother,
his son, his mother, his sisters or one of his wives, later openly in
their own names.

Each had on his side a part of the Macedonian army or some of the
Greek mercenary soldiers. The Greeks were thus contending among
themselves who should possess Asia. The inhabitants were indifferent
in these wars as they had been in the strife between the Greeks and
the Persians. When the war ceased, there remained but three generals;
from the empire of Alexander each of them had carved for himself a
great kingdom: Ptolemy had Egypt, Seleucus Syria, Lysimachus
Macedonia. Other smaller kingdoms were already separated or detached
themselves later: in Europe Epirus; in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Pergamos; in Persia, Bactriana and Parthia. Thus
the empire of Alexander was dismembered.

=The Hellenistic Kingdoms.=--In these new kingdoms the king was a
Greek; accustomed to speak Greek, to adore the Greek gods, and to live
in Greek fashion, he preserved his language, his religion, and his
customs. His subjects were Asiatics, that is to say, barbarians; but
he sought to maintain a Greek court about him; he recruited his army
with Greek mercenaries, his administrative officers were Greeks, he
invited to his court Greek poets, scholars, and artists.

Already in the time of the Persian kings there were many Greeks in the
empire as colonists, merchants, and especially soldiers. The Greek
kings attracted still more of these. They came in such numbers that at
last the natives adopted the costume, the religion, the manners, and
even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic, and
became Hellenic. The Romans found here in the first century B.C. only
peoples like the Greeks and who spoke Greek.[97]

=Alexandria.=--The Greek kings of Egypt, descendants of Ptolemy,[98]
accepted the title of Pharaoh held by the ancient kings, wore the
diadem, and, like the earlier sovereigns, had themse