The Macedonian Empire

“The history of a nation is by no means to be regarded solely as a consequence of the natural condition of its local habitations”. So writes one of the latest of Greek historians in the midst of a graphic description of the climate and physical characteristics of the shores of the Aegean. But the stress which he lays on these characteristics, and the inferences which he draws from them, show that he considers them to have been a strongly determining cause of the history of the peoples who dwelt upon those shores. It is indeed impossible to suppose that, had the Greeks been inhabitants of a level inland country, they would have remained so long disunited, or would have shown (as they did) the restless activity characteristic of the seaman; and we shall have evidence in the following pages of the extraordinary endurance of Greeks amid sudden changes of climate, as well as of their superiority to Asiatics in bodily not less than mental vigour. That some part of this vigour was owing to the country in which they lived will hardly be denied...