e capital of which was to have been Babylon. Had
this idea been carried out, the Persians would, it is evident, have lost
but little by their subjugation. Placed on a par with the Greeks, united
with them in marriage bonds, and equally favored by their common ruler,
they could scarcely have uttered a murmur, or have been seriously
discontented with their position. But when the successors of the great
Macedonian, unable to rise to the height of his grand conception, took
lower ground, and, giving up the idea of a fusion, fell back upon
the ordinary status, and proceeded to enact the ordinary role, of
conquerors, the feelings of the late lords of Asia, the countrymen of
Cyrus and Darius, must have undergone a complete change. It had been the
intention of Alexander to conciliate and elevate the leading Asiatics
by uniting them with the Macedonians and the Greeks, by promoting social
intercourse between the two classes of his subjects and encouraging them
to intermarry, by opening his court to Asiatics, by educating then in
Greek ideas and in Greek schools, by promoting them to high employments,
and making them feel that they were as much valued and as well cared for
as the people of the conquering race: it was the plan of the Seleucidae
to govern wholly by means of European officials, Greek or Macedonian,
and to regard and treat the entire mass of their Asiatic subjects as
mere slaves. Alexander had placed Persian satraps over most of the
provinces, attaching to them Greek or Macedonian commandants as checks.
Seloucus divided his empire into seventy-two satrapies; but among his
satraps not one was an Asiatic--all were either Macedonians or Greeks.
Asiatics, indeed, formed the bulk of his standing army, and so far were
admitted to employment; they might also, no doubt, be tax-gatherers,
couriers, scribes, constables, and officials of that mean stamp; but
they were as carefully excluded from all honorable and lucrative offices
as the natives of Hindustan under the rule of the East India Company.
The standing army of the Seleucidae was wholly officered, just as was
that of our own Sepoys, by Europeans; Europeans thronged the court,
and filled every important post under the government. There cannot be
a doubt that such a high-spirited and indeed arrogant people as the
Persians must have fretted and chafed under this treatment, and have
detested the nation and dynasty which had thrust them down from their
pre-eminence and convert