Historic Problems. 107
Nor were the Persians inferior in men- been stronger ; and the Roman might
tal vigor or graceful accomplishments not have succeeded against the Perso-
to their Greek neighbors. They culti- Greek, It is suggestive that it was not
vated all the elegant arts. The remains democratic Athens or oligarchal Sparta
of the palace of Chil-menar at Persepo- that withstood Rome the longest and
lis, ascribed by modern superstition to the last, but Macedon and Etolia, —
the architecture of genii, its mighty Macedon whose king paid the tribute
masonry, its terrace flights, its graceful of earth and water to Darius, and Etolia
columns, its marble basins, its sculp- whose wild tribes rushed to the aid of
tured designs stamped with the em- Xerxes.
blems of the IMagian faith, show the It has always been a mooted question
advance of the Persian mind in the whether, if Alexander the Great had met
elaborate art of architecture. The Per- the Romans, he himself or the Romans
sian kings were in most cases men of would have succumbed, Livy the his-
ability, of broad benevolence, of active torian, in a marked passage, undertakes
energy. Palestine renewed her former to weigh the chances of success with
glory under their sway. Why should not which the mighty conqueror of the East
Greece have flourished the same, nay, would have encountered the growing
ten times more abundantly, the active Western Republic, had he lived to lead
Greek blood stimulated by Oriental his veterans across the sea into Italy,
magnificence, had she succumbed to He decides in favor of Rome ; but Livy
Xerxes ? Nor would it have been the was a Roman, and could well do no
first or the last time that Asia has con- otherwise. Besides, he was not in a
quered Europe. Every thing good, ex- position to fairly examine the question
alted, and venerable has come from the upon its merits. Livy lived in the time
East. It was the cradle of art, of poesy, of Augustus ; and it was not easy to con-
of every civilizing agent. All the pro- template, when Rome was the world,
gressive religions of the world rose in that Rome could ever have fallen,
the Orient. It would not have been so Hannibal, Antiochus, Mithridates, had
fearful, after all, if Greece had been con- been conquered : surely, Livy argued,
quered. A hundred years more of Alexander would have been conquered
glory might have been hers; and her too. A modern scholar will hesitate
wise men, her artists, her poets, and before he accepts this decision,
her statesmen, instead of having their Alexander concluded his Oriental
genius cramped by the petty jealousies, conquests, and died at Babylon, in the
the limited ambitions, of their native year 324 B.C. AX this time Rome was
states, might have developed their full engaged in a life-and-death struggle
powers under the fostering care and with the Samnite league. Hardly did
the brilliant courts of the great kings, she succeed against the skill of C. Pon-
In fact, Greece conquered by Persia, tius, the Samnite leader ; and when the
Oriental blood infused into her veins as war closed, the victorious republic was
well as Oriental thought into her brain, reduced to the last stage of exhaustion,
she would have been stronger than she Had the Macedonian led his thirty thou-
could ever have been else. The Greek sand Greeks, flushed with the conquest
mind would not only have risen to of the Eastern world, into Italy, and
greater affluence, but politically have joined the Samnites ; or had he alone
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