The Persian empire was a miscellaneous aggregate, with no strong feeling of nationality. The Macedonian conqueror who seized its throne was still more indifferent to national sentiment. He was neither Macedonian nor Greek. Though the absence of this prejudice has sometimes been mounted to him as a virtue, it only made room, in my opinion, for prejudices yet worse. The substitute for it was an exorbitant personality and self-estimation, manifested even in his earliest years, and inflamed by extraordinary success into the belief in divine parentage; which, while setting him above the idea of communion with any special nationality, made him conceive all mankind as subjects under one common sceptre to be wielded by himself. To this universal empire the Persian king made the nearest approach,[636] according to the opinions then prevalent. Accordingly Alexander, when victorious, accepted the position and pretensions of the overthrown Persian court as approaching most nearly to his full due. He became more Persian than either Macedonian or Greek. While himself adopting, as far as he could safely venture, the personal habits of the Persian court, he took studied pains to transform his Macedonian officers into Persian grandees, encouraging and even forcing intermarriages with Persian women according to Persian rites. At the time of Alexander’s death, there was comprised, in his written orders given to Kraterus, a plan for the wholesale transportation of inhabitants, both out of Europe into Asia, and out of Asia into Europe, in order to fuse these populations into one by multiplying intermarriages and intercourse.[637] Such reciprocal translation of peoples would have been felt as eminently odious, and could not have been accomplished without coercive authority.[638] It is rash to speculate upon unexecuted purposes; but, as far as we can judge, such compulsory mingling of the different races promises nothing favorable to the happiness of any of them, though it might serve as an imposing novelty and memento of imperial omnipotence. [636] Xenoph. Cyropæd. viii. 6, 21; Anabas. i. 7, 6; Herodot. vii. 8, 13: compare Arrian, v. 26, 4-10. [637] Diodor. xviii. 4. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις πόλεων συνοικισμοὺς καὶ σωμάτων μεταγωγὰς ἐκ τῆς Ἀσίας εἰς τὴν Εὐρώπην, καὶ κατὰ τοὐναντίον ἐκ τῆς Εὐρώπης εἰς τὴν Ἀσίαν, ὅπως τὰς μεγίστας ἠπείρους ταῖς ἐπιγαμίαις καὶ ταῖς οἰκειώσεσιν εἰς κοινὴν ὁμόνοιαν καὶ συγγενικὴν καταστήσῃ. [638] See the effect produced upon the Ionians by the false statement of Histiæus (Herodot. vi. 3) with Wesseling’s note—and the eagerness of the Pæonians to return (Herod. v. 98; also Justin, viii. 5). Antipater afterwards intended to transport the Ætolians in mass from their own country into Asia, if he had succeeded in conquering them (Diodor. xviii. 25). Compare Pausanias (i. 9, 8-10) about the forcible measures used by Lysimachus, in transporting new inhabitants, at Ephesus and Lysimacheia.