Alexander might now be said to have returned into the heart of his dominions; since the Indus, the laxartes, and the Nile, had become Macedonian rivers. It was a question at that time of great importance to the whole civilised world, what were the plans now floating in the imagination of the youthful conqueror, if not yet reduced to a settled purpose. His character and past achievements naturally excited an expectation of enterprises still more extraordinary. None, perhaps, not absolutely impracticable, could be thought too great for his ambition, or too arduous for his adventurous spirit. Some of those attributed to him however could only have been deemed probable by persons who were incapable of duly estimating the sagacity and prudence which guided even his boldest undertakings. It was believed by many, that he designed to circumnavigate Arabia to the head of the Red Sea, and afterwards Africa, then, entering the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules, to spread the terror of his arms along its western shores, and finally to explore the northern extremity of the lake Mæotis, and, if possible, discover a passage into the Caspian Sea. These reports were not altogether without a visible foundation. They seem to have arisen out of the simple fact, that Alexander, on his return from India, prepared to equip a fleet on the Euphrates, and sent orders to Phœnicia for vessels to be built there and transported to Thapsacus; thence to fall down the river to Babylon, where a harbour was to be formed, capable of containing 1000 galleys of war.

After the conquest of the Bactrian satrapy, there remained only one province of the Persian empire into which Alexander had not yet carried his arms: it was that which tempted his curiosity, as well as his ambition, perhaps more than any other. Already, indeed, before he crossed the Paropamisus, he had made himself master of a great part of the country which the Persians called India, and perhaps had very nearly reached the utmost limits within which the authority of the Great King was acknowledged in the latter years of the monarchy. But the power of the first Darius had certainly been extended much further eastward. It seems probable that a part of his Indian tribute was collected in the Pendjab, and there is some reason to believe that it was on the Hydaspes Scylax began his voyage of discovery. After the death of Darius, the attention of the Persian kings was so much turned toward the west, or distracted by wars with their revolted subjects, that they would scarcely have had leisure for fresh conquests in India, even if the spirit of Cyrus had lived in his successors: and it is very uncertain, whether their territories reached so far as the Indus. The greater part of the peninsula was, as we see from the accounts of Herodotus and Ctesias, utterly unknown to the Persians. The India of Herodotus is bounded on the east by a sandy desert, which, it seems, he believed to be terminated by the ocean which girded his earth, and was inhabited chiefly by pastoral and savage, even it was said cannibal tribes.

We must now resume the narrative which we dropped at the partition of the empire, and distribution of the provinces, that immediately followed Alexander's death, and relate the events which led to the result mentioned at the close of the preceding chapter, and were pregnant with other more momentous consequences. One of the first occurrences which marked the administration of Perdiccas after he had established himself in the regency, was a wound which he inflicted on Greece in a distant corner of Asia: a triumph of the Macedonian arms memorable rather because it prevented than because it produced an important change in the course of affairs, but which serves to illustrate his character, as well as the footing on which he stood. While the struggle which we have seen brought to such a disastrous issue was just beginning in Greece, and the states which took part in it could with difficulty raise a force sufficient to maintain it, a body of Greeks, who, if they had been present in their native land, would probably have thrown their whole weight into the same scale, and might have turned it decisively on the side of freedom, was suddenly swept from the earth. The Greek colonists, whom Alexander had planted in the new cities which he founded in the eastern satrapies, had only been detained by fear during his life in what they considered as a miserable exile.

While Antigonus was engaged, as we have seen, on the western coast of Asia, Eumenes had availed himself of the leisure thus afforded him, to take possession of the authority with which he was invested by Polysperchon. It was a task of infinite difficulty and danger. He was soon forced to quit Cappadocia, by the arrival of Menander and a body of troops, sent in pursuit of him by Antigonus. By a forced march he crossed the Taurus, and in Cilicia met Antigenes and Teutamus. They submitted to the royal mandate, and received him with respect, as commander-in-chief. The jealousy of the Macedonians was subdued by admiration of his genius, and by sympathy with the strange vicissitudes of his fortune. The guardians of the treasury at Quinda also surrendered it to his disposal. Still he saw himself surrounded by officers of high spirit and ambitious views, who looked upon themselves as personally superior to the foreigner whom accident had placed above them, and by troops, proud of their services, spoiled by license and flattery, impatient of discipline and subordination. He perceived that their fidelity could only be secured by the most studied show of moderation and humility: that he must keep his personal pretensions as much as possible in the back-ground, and put forward the legitimate authority in the name of which he claimed their obedience. He therefore declared at once, that he would not accept the 500 talents which had been assigned to him for the supply of his own wants.