The Hellenic East

The work, which Alexander king of Macedonia had begun a century before the Romans acquired their first footing in the territory which he had called his own, had in the course of time—while adhering substantially to the great fundamental idea of Hellenizing the East—changed and expanded into the construction of a system of Helleno-Asiatic states. The unconquerable propensity of the Greeks for migration and colonizing, which had formerly carried their traders to Massilia and Cyrene, to the Nile and to the Black Sea, now enabled them to retain what the king had won; and under the protection of the sarissœ, Greek civilization peacefully domiciled itself everywhere throughout the ancient empire of the Achæmenidæ. The officers, who divided the heritage of the great commander, gradually settled their differences, and a system of equilibrium was established, the very oscillations of which manifest some sort of regularity.

The great states. Macedonia

Of the three states of the first rank belonging to this system—Macedonia, Asia, and Egypt—Macedonia under Philip the Fifth, who had occupied the throne since 534, was externally at least very much what it had been under Philip the Second the father of Alexander—a military state compact in form, and with its finances in good order. On its northern frontier matters had resumed their former footing, after the waves of the Gallic inundation had rolled away; the guard of the frontier kept the Illyrian barbarians in check without difficulty, at least in ordinary times.