§ 64. Accordingly, the character of Alexander and his work have not yet been sufficiently weighed and studied to afford us a perfectly clear picture, which might carry conviction to the majority of readers, and finally fix his place in history. As I said above[157:1], Grote's picture of him--the only recent study of the period in England previous to my own _Alexander's Empire_ and _Greek Life and Thought_--is so manifestly unfair that no candid judge will be satisfied with it. If any other writer had used against Demosthenes or Pericles such evidence as Grote cites and believes against Alexander, the great historian would have cried shame upon him, and refuted his arguments with the high satisfaction of supporting an unanswerable case. [Sidenote: Grote's unfairness in accepting evidence against him.] Thus, for example, Grote finds in Q. Curtius, a late, rhetorical, and very untrustworthy Latin historian of Alexander, theatrical details of Alexander's cruelties to the heroic defender of Gaza, or the mythical descendants of the Milesian Branchidæ who had settled in Inner Asia,--details unknown to Arrian, unknown apparently to the Athenians of the day, and fairly to be classed with the king's adventures among the Amazons or in the land beyond the Sun. Yet these stories have their distinct effect upon Grote's estimate of Alexander, whom he esteems hardly a Hellene, but a semi-barbarian conqueror, of transcendent military abilities, only desirous of making for himself a great Oriental despot-monarchy, with a better and more efficient military and civil organization, but without any preparations for higher civilization. [Sidenote: Droysen's estimate.] The estimate of Droysen is nearer the truth, but still not strictly the truth itself[158:1]. To him the Macedonian is a political as well as a military genius of the highest order, who is educated in all the views of Aristotle, who understands thoroughly that the older forms of political life are effete, that small separate States require to be united under a strong central control. He even divines that the wealth and resources of Asia require regeneration through Greek intelligence and enterprise, and therefore the 'marriage of Europe and Asia,' of which the manifest symbol was the wholesale matrimony of his officers with Persian ladies, was the real aim and goal of all his achievements. As such Alexander is more than the worthy pupil of Aristotle, and the legitimate originator of a new and striking form of civilization. [Sidenote: Tendency to attribute calculation to genius.] [Sidenote: Its spontaneity.]