[625] Livy, ix. 17-19. A discussion of Alexander’s chances against the Romans—extremely interesting and beautiful, though the case appears to me very partially set forth. I agree with Niebuhr in dissenting from Livy’s result; and with Plutarch in considering it as one of the boons of fortune to the Romans, that Alexander did not live long enough to attack them (Plutarch de Fortunâ Romanor. p. 326). Livy however had great reason for complaining of those Greek authors (he calls them “levissimi ex Græcis”) who said that the Romans would have quailed before the terrible reputation of Alexander, and submitted without resistance. Assuredly his victory over them would have been dearly bought. [626] Alexander of Epirus is said to have remarked, that he, in his expeditions into Italy, had fallen upon the ἀνδρωνῖτις or chamber of the men; while his nephew (Alexander the Great), in invading Asia, had fallen upon the γυναικωνῖτις or chamber of the women (Aulus Gellius, xvii. 21; Curtius, viii. 1, 37). Among all the qualities which go to constitute the highest military excellence, either as a general or as a soldier, none was wanting in the character of Alexander. Together with his own chivalrous courage—sometimes indeed both excessive and unseasonable, so as to form the only military defect which can be fairly imputed to him—we trace in all his operations the most careful dispositions taken beforehand, vigilant precaution in guarding against possible reverse, and abundant resource in adapting himself to new contingences. Amidst constant success, these precautionary combinations were never discontinued. His achievements are the earliest recorded evidence of scientific military organization on a large scale, and of its overwhelming effects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than any other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of all that constitutes effective force—as an individual warrior, and as organizer and leader of armed masses; not merely the blind impetuosity ascribed by Homer to Ares, but also the intelligent, methodized, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in Athênê. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against enemies; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind, known and unknown, except those who chose to submit to him. In his Indian campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we perceive that not only those who stand on their defence, but also those who abandon their property and flee to the mountains, are alike pursued and slaughtered.