ut a
greater god who had overthrown Darius. The incense which had been burned
before those conquered gods was naturally offered to their conqueror. He
did not refuse it. It was not good policy to do so, and
self-depreciation is not apt to be one of the weaknesses of the born
ruler.[154:3] But besides all this, if you are to judge a God by his
fruits, what God could produce better credentials? Men had often seen
Zeus defied with impunity; they had seen faithful servants of Apollo
come to bad ends. But those who defied Alexander, however great they
might be, always rued their defiance, and those who were faithful to him
always received their reward. With his successors the worship became
more official. Seleucus, Ptolemaeus, Antigonus, Demetrius, all in
different degrees and different styles are deified by the acclamations
of adoring subjects. Ptolemy Philadelphus seems to have been the first
to claim definite divine honours during his own life. On the death of
his wife in 271 he proclaimed her deity and his own as well in the
worship of the Theoi Adelphoi, the 'Gods Brethren'. Of course there was
flattery in all this, ordinary self-interested lying flattery, and its
inevitable accompaniment, megalomania. Any reading of the personal
history of the Ptolemies, the Seleucidae or the Caesars shows it. But
that is not the whole explanation.

One of the characteristics of the period of the Diadochi is the
accumulation of capital and military force in the hands of individuals.
The Ptolemies and Seleucidae had at any moment at their disposal powers
very much greater than any Pericles or Nicias or Lysander.[155:1] The
folk of the small cities of the Aegean hinterlands must have felt
towards these great strangers almost as poor Indian peasants in time of
flood and famine feel towards an English official. There were men now on
earth who could do the things that had hitherto been beyond the power of
man. Were several cities thrown down by earthquake; here was one who by
his nod could build them again. Famines had always occurred and been
mostly incurable. Here was one who could without effort allay a famine.
Provinces were harried and wasted by habitual wars: the eventual
conqueror had destroyed whole provinces in making the wars; now, as he
had destroyed, he could also save. 'What do you mean by a god,' the
simple man might say, 'if these men are not gods? The only difference is
that these gods are visible, and the old gods no man ha