This young man who conquered the world and died at the age of thirty-three has quite naturally captivated the imagination of posterity and formed a model for ambitious generals of later days. Julius Cæsar sighed to think of his inferiority in achievement. Augustus paid a visit to his tomb, and wore his portrait on a ring. Napoleon consciously imitated him. As a soldier he was not only an organiser of victory, though of course he owed a great deal to his father in this respect, and a strategist with an eye for a battlefield, but also a dashing cavalry leader, the sort of man to ride straight for the enemy’s king, to be the first in the breach, and to leap down alone into the enemy’s town. He did this sort of thing with impunity; he never lost a battle. He was chivalrous to ladies, Bayard and Bluebeard by turns. He married a beautiful Eastern princess called Roxana, he rode a beautiful war-horse called Bucephalus. If Lysippus and Apelles may be trusted, he had the face of a Greek god. He had just that touch of dissipation which somehow rounds off the conception of a popular hero. He had the good fortune to die young, in the hour of victory. And what is to be the sober historian’s estimate of this dazzling person? We may minimise his triumphs by pointing out that the Persian empire was helpless before him, like ripe fruit waiting to be gathered. We may certainly charge him with conquering insanely without stopping to organise, and with neglecting his own kingdom and failing to deal adequately with the political condition of old Greece. We may point to the extraordinarily rapid collapse of his empire. But then he died suddenly in the midst of his work, and left no grown heir to succeed him. In some respects I think we must all admit that he showed very remarkable gifts of statesmanship. Though [Illustration: Plate 82.--Alexander at Issus (Pompeii mosaic.) _Brogi._]