28. The almost unbroken series of wars which had raged from the time of Alexander, must have precluded the possibility of much being effected with respect to domestic organization. It appears to have been nearly, if not wholly, military. Yet were the numerous devastations in some measure compensated by the erection of new cities, in which these princes vied with one another, impelled partly by vanity to immortalize their names, partly by policy to support their dominion, most of the new settlements being military colonies. Nevertheless this was but a sorry reparation for the manifold oppressions to which the natives were exposed by the practice of quartering the army upon them. The spread of the language and civilization of the Greeks deprived them of all national distinction; their own languages sinking into mere provincial dialects. Alexander's monarchy affords a striking example of the little that can be expected from a forced amalgamation of races, when the price of that amalgamation is the obliteration of national character in the individuals. HEYNE, _Opum regni Macedonici auctarum, attritarum et eversarum, causae probabiles; in Opusc._ t. iv. This collection contains several other treatises on Grecian and Macedonian history, which cannot be all separately enumerated. THIRD PERIOD. _History of the kingdoms and states which arose upon the dismemberment of the Macedonian Monarchy after the battle of Ipsus._ I. HISTORY OF THE SYRIAN EMPIRE UNDER THE SELEUCIDAE, B. C. 312-64. SOURCES. Neither for the history of the Syrian, nor for that of the Egyptian and Macedonian kingdoms, has any eminent writer been preserved. The fragments of the lost books of Diodorus, and, from the time that these kingdoms became allies of Rome, those of Polybius, several narratives of Livy, the Syriaca of Appian, and a few of Plutarch's Lives, are the principal authorities; too frequently we are obliged to rely upon the extracts of Justin. For the history of the Seleucidae, in consequence of the political connection between these princes and the Jews, the Antiquities of Josephus and the book of Maccabees become of importance. Besides these authorities, the many coins that have been preserved of these kings, afford much information respecting their genealogy and chronology. Of modern publications on the subject, the principal work is VAILLANT, _Imperium Seleucidarum sive historia regum Syriae_, 1681, 4to. The enquiry is principally grounded on coins, as is the case with FROELICH, _Annales rerum et regum Syriae_. Viennae, 1754.