Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

XXIV DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 301
In Hellas, on the other hand, the physical conditions always
made for freedom ; but the intense love of freedom prevented
Hellas from developing into a great power, and
to the end of the history of Greece there was no continuous
unity of effort.
Macedonia was not strictly a Greek state, being composed
of a number of mountain tribes who served an
absolute monarch ; but that monarch was strongly imbued
with all that Hellas could teach, and thus Alexander the
Great was the torchbearer of Hellenism, and the Biadochi
or "Successors" founded dynasties which were Greek
in mind and speech. But, as absolute monarchs, both
he and they conflicted with the spirit of Hellenism,
which implied a certain type of character and a certain
cast of ideas entirely opposed to absolutism. The life of
the Greek citizen was dominated by his sense of duty to
the state, of which he was himself a part, and it was this
which gave him his love of freedom, his individuality, and
his spirit of enterprise, priceless qualities that raised him
above the Asiatic. But the lack of other qualities hindered
the Greeks from the steady co-operation necessary to make
a united Hellenic people. The Macedonian kings were
absolute rulers, and consequently would be regarded as
tyrants by the Greeks ; yet they were Hellenes, who looked
to Athens for fame, and who treated their own countrymen
in a different spirit from that shown towards the
subject Asiatics.
A Comparison between the Hellenized and the British
Empire,— It is interesting to compare the Greeks with our-
selves, and their empire with that of Great Britain. It
can certainly be maintained that the class from which the
administrators of Great Britain ha:ve been mostly drawn is
trained at the Public Schools both mentally and physically
to produce an average type which in many respects must
resemble the best Greek ideals more closely than any
other since the downfall of Hellas. Indeed in some ways
it even surpasses the highest Greek ideals. This training,
in a society which is from many points of view a model
republic, produces a certain type of character and a certain
cast of ideas which no other European race can rival ; and