turning to his native city, now looked upon himself as a man and
upon the Alexandrians as little better than slaves. This sturdy
vigour and unimpaired national spirit were turned to peculiarly good
account by the Macedonians, as the most powerful and best organized
of the states of northern Greece. There, no doubt, absolutism had
emerged in opposition to the old constitution, which to some extent
recognized different estates; but sovereign and subject by no means
stood towards each other in Macedonia as they stood in Asia and Egypt,
and the people still felt itself independent and free. In steadfast
resistance to the public enemy under whatever name, in unshaken
fidelity towards their native country and their hereditary government,
and in persevering courage amidst the severest trials, no nation in
ancient history bears so close a resemblance to the Roman people as
the Macedonians; and the almost miraculous regeneration of the state
after the Gallic invasion redounds to the imperishable honour of its
leaders and of the people whom they led.

Asia

The second of the great states, Asia, was nothing but Persia
superficially remodelled and Hellenized--the empire of "the king
of kings," as its master was wont to call himself in a style
characteristic at once of his arrogance and of his weakness--with the
same pretensions to rule from the Hellespont to the Punjab, and with
the same disjointed organization; an aggregate of dependent states in
various degrees of dependence, of insubordinate satrapies, and of
half-free Greek cities. In Asia Minor more especially, which was
nominally included in the empire of the Seleucidae, the whole north
coast and the greater part of the eastern interior were practically
in the hands of native dynasties or of the Celtic hordes that had
penetrated thither from Europe; a considerable portion of the west was
in the possession of the kings of Pergamus, and the islands and coast
towns were some of them Egyptian, some of them free; so that little
more was left to the great-king than the interior of Cilicia, Phrygia,
and Lydia, and a great number of titular claims, not easily made good,
against free cities and princes--exactly similar in character to the
sovereignty of the German emperor, in his day, beyond his hereditary
dominions. The strength of the empire was expended in vain endeavours
to expel the Egyptians from the provinces along the coast; in frontier
strife with the eastern peoples,