the Parthians and Bactrians; in feuds
with the Celts, who to the misfortune of Asia Minor had settled within
its bounds; in constant efforts to check the attempts of the eastern
satraps and of the Greek cities of Asia Minor to achieve their
independence; and in family quarrels and insurrections of pretenders.
None indeed of the states founded by the successors of Alexander were
free from such attempts, or from the other horrors which absolute
monarchy in degenerate times brings in its train; but in the kingdom
of Asia these evils were more injurious than elsewhere, because, from
the lax composition of the empire, they usually led to the severance
of particular portions from it for longer or shorter periods.

Egypt

In marked contrast to Asia, Egypt formed a consolidated and united
state, in which the intelligent statecraft of the first Lagidae,
skilfully availing itself of ancient national and religious precedent,
had established a completely absolute cabinet government, and in which
even the worst misrule failed to provoke any attempt either at
emancipation or disruption. Very different from the Macedonians,
whose national attachment to royalty was based upon their personal
dignity and was its political expression, the rural population
in Egypt was wholly passive; the capital on the other hand was
everything, and that capital was a dependency of the court. The
remissness and indolence of its rulers, accordingly, paralyzed the
state in Egypt still more than in Macedonia and in Asia; while on
the other hand when wielded by men, like the first Ptolemy and Ptolemy
Euergetes, such a state machine proved itself extremely useful. It
was one of the peculiar advantages of Egypt as compared with its two
great rivals, that its policy did not grasp at shadows, but pursued
clear and attainable objects. Macedonia, the home of Alexander, and
Asia, the land where he had established his throne, never ceased to
regard themselves as direct continuations of the Alexandrine monarchy
and more or less loudly asserted their claim to represent it at least,
if not to restore it. The Lagidae never tried to found a universal
empire, and never dreamt of conquering India; but, by way of
compensation, they drew the whole traffic between India and the
Mediterranean from the Phoenician ports to Alexandria, and made Egypt
the first commercial and maritime state of this epoch, and the
mistress of the eastern Mediterranean and of its coasts and is