The picked troops alone gave
battle, the rest were scattered and massacred. Between the battles the
conquest was only a triumphal progress. Nobody resisted (except the
city of Tyre, commercial rival of the Greeks); what cared the peoples
of the empire whether they were subject to Darius or Alexander? Each
victory gave Alexander the whole of the country: the Granicus opened
Asia Minor, Issus Syria and Egypt, Arbela the rest of the empire.
=Death of Alexander.=--Master now of the Persian empire Alexander
regarded himself as the heir of the Great King. He assumed Persian
dress, adopted the ceremonies of the Persian court and compelled his
Greek generals to prostrate themselves before him according to Persian
usage. He married a woman of the land and united eighty of his
officers to daughters of the Persian nobles. He aimed to extend his
empire to the farthest limits of the ancient kings and advanced even
to India, warring with the combative natives. After his return with
his army to Babylon (324), he died at the age of thirty-three,
succumbing to a fever of brief duration (323).
=Projects of Alexander.
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