That epoch in the art life of the Hellenic people associated with the influences arising out of the career and conquests of Alexander the Great, which we have now reached, was one scarcely inferior in interest to that of the time of Pericles. Overflowing as was the great Macedonian leader’s love of art and great as was his ambition to leave behind him lasting monuments that should fittingly stand for the artistic culture of his time, still, for reasons arising partly out of his own career and partly from the ever-changing impulses of human feeling and taste, the art culture of his time must bow to the superiority of that of the time of Pericles, if, in respect to those other features of his leadership and accomplishment, to which history gives a superior rank, his genius is eclipsed by none in the chronicles of civilization. Alexander’s short life, so active in conquest and war, and so much of it passed away from European associations or even the influences of colonial Greece, necessarily gave him little time for indulgence in the arts at home, while it permitted him to manifest it to some considerable extent in founding cities and rearing temples in foreign lands. To this self-imposed banishment, accompanied, as it was, by large armies brought from Greece and her colonies, and the intermixing of her people with foreigners of new tastes and habits of mind, may be attributed that change of art feeling at home which began to assert itself about this time. On the other hand, however, its effect was beneficial to the conquered countries in introducing a more elevated art standard than had existed within them before. Personally, Alexander manifested a keen appreciation of the arts; whether founded upon the same sincerity as that which appeared more natural to the character of Pericles is a question; but we find that Praxiteles, Lysippus and Apelles, the great artists of his time, were no less publicly honored or more highly flattered than were Phidias or Polycletus in the days of Pericles. It is related as an evidence of Alexander’s enthusiasm for art, that he compensated Apelles for his celebrated portrait of him by ordering that the artist’s reward should be _measured out in gold_ instead of being _counted_, an order which perhaps quite as much illustrated the theatrical impulses of which he could be guilty as the calm expression of a genuine appreciation.