delicacy in the details of vice which his narrative too often ob- trudes upon him;-a praise to which Gibbon can lay no claim. In his preface, Dr. Gillies mentions the obstacles which he had to overcome in his present undertaking, and the plan according to which he proposed to accomplish it. The reigns of Alexander and Augustus, he observes, are separated by a period of three hundred years, the busiest in the annals of mankind. In this period, and particularly toward its close, the most conspicuous place is occupied by the transactions of Rome: but these have been so frequently recorded, and are in many particulars so slightly connected with the affairs of the Grecian kingdoms, that the historian of Greece has only incidentally to touch upon the Roman annals. But the times nearer to Alexander must be viewed under a different and entirely independent aspect. Between the reign of that conqueror, (the most brilliant æra of Greece) and the incipient. ascendency of Rome, the events of a hundred and five years intervene, related hitherto in a manner so little satisfactory, that they are considered by readers of reflection as leaving a sort of blank in history. This chasm our author has endeavoured to fill up, by drawing together many detached incidents calculated to give form and colour to the subject; and by obviating the chief difficulties attending it, with illustra tions from parallel occurrences in earlier and later times. He professes, in addition to the details of battles, negociations, and political revolutions, to have bestowed his attention on the more alluring investigation of the local circumstances, occupations, and manners of communities at large, and of the various ranks of persons composing them. Following the example of Herodotus, the father of history, he has inquired "who they were, those ancient and once illustrious nations subdued and long governed by the Greeks and Macedonians : in what characteristic particulars they either agreed with or differed from each other: what had been their pursuits, and what their attainments.' According to this method "the history of Greece, the country to which we are indebted for our general acquaintance with antiquity, will naturally expand into the history of the Eastern world, and of those remote regions of the South and West which gradually fell within the sphere either of its military exertion or of its commercial intercourse." Notwithstanding all this, however, we have great doubts whether" this second part, if it shall be so considered, of the History of ancient Greece, its colonies and conquests, necessarily rises above the first in greatness and novelty of design" although we may be inclined to admit that "its execu tion has been incomparably more difficult, from the variety, VOL. IV. K intricacy, and dispersion of materials ;" and are certainly by no means averse to grant it "the same public indulgence, which its precursor continues to experience." The preliminary survey of Alexander's conquests, announced in Dr. Gillies's title-page, is an important essay of considerable length, divided into five sections. It is too common to consider the Macedonian hero as a giddy youth, prompted by the inordinate love of military glory to forsake his paternal dominions, in order to ramble over the world in pursuit of conquests which he valued only as preparatory to fresh victories; and who, when he had exhausted the range of territory then known to his countrymen, sat down and wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. From this imputation Dr. Gillies successfully rescues his favourite hero. He shews that the plans of Alexander were digested with consummate wisdom,and that his views of conquest were of the most enlarged and enlightened kind: that he did not traverse the fertile regions of the East, merely to dazzle mankind with a temporary splendour; but with the nobler aim of consolidating, into one mighty empire,the fairest districts of Europe and Asia, and of establishing, throughout his conquered dominions, the laws, the commerce, and the civilization of his native land. To justify this conclusion, Dr. Gillies inquires at length into the preparatory arrangements of the Macedonian hero, the resources to which he had to trust in accomplishing his views, and the precautions by which he gave permanency to his conquests. In all these particulars, he finds his conduct directed by the principles of the soundest policy; combining, in short, the military maxims derived from his father, with the political doctrines instilled by his preceptor. Before setting out on his Asiatic expedition, he took care to secure a regular supply of troops and other necessaries from his European dominions, by subjugating the intervening hordes of Thrace, and occupying the maritime cities of Asia Minor. By his generosity to the nations who submitted to his arms, he generally succeeded in gaining their good will, and was able to recruit his exhausted ranks with their choicest troops, which were thus converted from dangerous enemies into useful allies. By this policy his army continually accumulated, and at no period was more numerous than when he had reached the eastern extremity of his conquests. According to Dr. Gillies, Alexander never entertained the romantic idea of universal empire, but prudently limited his conquests by the great barriers which Nature herself pointed out in the different quarters of the world. These boundaries were, on the North, the Danube, the Jaxartes, and the Great Scythian Desert; on the East, the remote branches of the Indus; on the South, the sandy Deserts of Arabia and Libya; and on the West, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. He judiciously fixed upon Babylon, an extensive city, situated in a wide and fertile plain upon the banks of a noble river, to form the capital of this mighty empire; and at the same time provided for the tranquillity and allegiance of his distant provinces, by erecting fortresses in all parts, and stationing garrisons of observation, on whose fidelity he could depend. He was anxious that the condition of his new subjects should be ameliorated by the introduction of the laws, arts, and sciences of his European dominions; but was too wise to shock their prejudices by a sudden abolition of their ancient usages, and on all occasions testified the greatest respect for whatever they deemed venerable. In no instance was the wisdom of Alexander more manifest, than in the measures which he adopted for the encouragement of commerce, as the means both of increasing the wealth, and promoting the civilization of his new territories. He built cities wherever he found situations eligible for commercial intercourse; and many Alexandrias adorned his extensive empire, beside the celebrated Egyptian city which still retains the name, and which is so admirably calculated to answer the purpose of its founder, by connecting together the commerce of Europe, Asia, and Africa. At the very Eastern extremity of his conquests, he constructed a mighty fleet, which was intended to explore the unknown coasts of those remote regions, and which, under the command of Nearchus, completed its prescribed voyage between the mouth of the Indus and the inmost recesses of the Persian Gulf. While at Babylon, he superintended in person the operations which he directed for opening up the navigation of the Euphrates, and its numerous canals, and for constructing a harbour in that city, adapted to its destined magnificence. The respect which he uniformly paid to the temples and sanctuaries of barbarous nations, is ingeniously ascribed by Dr. Gillies to his regard for the interests of commerce. From the earliest periods, those sacred receptacles, from their inviolability, had been made the seats of trade. The temples of Greece constituted the ordinary banks of deposit both for individuals and for states. "The venerable mansion of Saturn formed the principal treasury at Rome; and such is the force of imitation, that the vestibules and sacred inclosures of the temple of Jerusalem, were sordidly applied to purposes very different from their pure and primitive destination." The veneration, therefore, of Alexander for imaginary gods, so universally attested, and so unanimously approved by ancient historians, discovers a respect, as our author observes," for productive and commercial industry, for safe communication and confidential intercourse, for all the arts, either of elegance or utility; in a word, for whatever in that age had a tendency to restrain the brutal passions of men, and to engage them in laudable exertions." It is certain that much of this high encomium upon the character and views of the Macedonian hero, was justly merited. His career of military glory, and his victorious progress over the nations of the East, were marked with very different features from the transient passage of Sesostris, or the bloody devastation of Timour. But there are many abatements of his fame, to which Dr. Gillies has not sufficiently attended. The portion of philanthropy which could be discovered in his motives to military undertakings, was exceedingly small. His magnanimity could not always save him from arrogance and childish vanity. He was frequently profuse in his bounty, and sometimes cruel in his resentment. greatest fault was his inordinate love of pleasure and proneness to debauchery, which precipitated him into many acts of violence, and was at last the cause of his untimely death.— "Tot regum et populorum victor, iræ tristitiæ voluptati succubuit: id enim studuerat, ut omnia potiùs haberet in potestate quàm affectus." (Seneca, Ep. 113.) But his In the course of appreciating the merits of Alexander the Great, Dr. Gillies is led to compare his character as a conqueror with those who had preceded him in the subjugation of the ancient world; a comparison which leads our author to give an abridged history of the various dynasties, whether barbarous or civilized, that successively bore sway in remote ages. In this part of his essay, the history of the ancient Scythians, of the Medes, Persians, Egyptians, and Assyrians, successively passes under review; and much critical skill is exercised in the endeavour to reconcile the jarring accounts of ancient historians, respecting these celebrated nations. We give Dr. Gillies credit for the authority which he attaches to the sacred writings, in illustrating this part of ancient history, and for his endeavour to incorporate the transactions ascribed to the kings of Assyria and Babylonia in holy writ, with the nar ratives of profane historians. We think, however, that he has erred in placing the kings of Assyria celebrated in scripture, viz. Phul, Tiglath-pileser, Salmanazar, Senacherib, &c. antecedent to the reign of the voluptuous Sardanapalus: it is more probable that they flourished after that period, and that, on the death of Sardanapalus, the Assyrian monarchy did not terminate, but only passed into a new dynasty. The whole of this preliminary survey will amply reward the attention of the reader: its disquisitions are not only learned, but ingenious and sagacious; it has a kind of novelty, also, from its form, to which the body of the History can scarcely pretend. After the cursory view of it which we have been able to give, we might easily adorn our pages with a selection of paragraphs; a few of which we shall now introduce. The following remarks afford a much more rational theory of the frequency of revolutions in Asia, than that of Montesquieu, founded on his favourite notion of the influence of climate, and adopted by Gibbon. A lively writer, cited and approved by a learned one, ascribes the frequent revolutions in Asia to the extremes of cold and heat, which, in that continent, immediately touch each other, without any intervening degree of middle temperature. But consistently with the records of history, indispensable premises to such general conclusions, the vicissitudes in the Eastern world may more truly be referred to the striking contrast between fierce Nomades, with their warlike manners and habits, and the softened civilization in their neighbourhood of men collected in great cities, dissolved in the luxury of baths and harams. If the Scythians often descended in terror from their cold mountains, the shepherds of Arabia and Ethiopia, as we shall see presently, emerged with as successful boldness from their scorching plains. The Medes, inhabiting a country more southern than Spain, held sway, during their rude pastoral state, for a century and a half, in Upper Asia. But, corrupted by their conquests in Assyria, the Medes lost their military prowess without improving in civil wisdom; and thereupon submitted to Cyrus and his Persians, a people visited by a still warmer sun, but who then lived in scattered villages, subsisted chiefly by hunting and pasturage, and were commonly clothed in the skins of wild beasts." pp. 42, 43. An ingenious discrimination of the meaning of some important words, aukwardly and irrelevantly introduced into one of the notes, is worthy of notice. Exp in Herodotus, and other correct Greek authors, signifies "the freedom of one nation from vassalage under another." Herod. i. 95. iii. 87 & passim. The words denoting what we call "liberty," are ισονομία and ισηγορία, words happily chosen, since the former expresses "equality of law regulating actions," and the latter, " equality in the use of speech and writing," implying a perfect independence of thought.' pp. 29, 30. We shall add, as a complete specimen of the work, Dr. G.'s description of a very singular state, whose government has been styled a theocracy; it is an island of the Nile. 168 Encompassed by watery boundaries so interesting in history, Meroé was celebrated for its profusion of precious metals, and of gems still more precious. It abounded beyond all countries in ebony; and with this valuable wood it abounds to the present day. 169 In the flourishing age of the Ethiopians, it is said to have been defended by upwards of two hundred thousand soldiers, and enriched by double that number of industrious artizans. 170 But the circumstance especially deserving regard is, that it 168 Strabo, l. xvii. p. 821. 170 Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. iv. c. 129. 169 Bruce, v. iii. p. 651. |
