Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-04-05
ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
OF the Sarcophagus Containi
the Emperor,s Rndx

discovery of the Sarcophagus Containing
the Einperor's Body.
Inc sarcophagus containing the
body of Alexander the Great has been
discovered at Saida."
imperial Cesar, dead, and turn d
70 clay. was supposed 10 have left, in
shakespeare time. enough of his poor
mortal tenement to "stop hole to
Keep the wind away;" but in Alexan-
DER sareophagus, if this has indeed
been discovered, the explorers will
probably find, after a lapse of over
200 years, as little of the ashes of
poor mortality as they would discover
In the unknown grave of Moses, could
that also be found. 1t is said of Alex
ander that his body was deposited in n
golden coffin at Alexandria bv Ptole-
m9us. and over it was raised a
splendid mausoleum-andd divine hon.
ors were paid him. not only in
Egypt but in other coun tries If
the sarcophagus which the above
quoted paragraph says has been
found at Saida contains the
gold coffi I, that circumstance will
tend to confirm the reality of the sup
posed discovery. If the stone
sepulche that has now been found
should be really proved to have con-
tanned the body of the Old World con =
queror it would only be a new and
eloquent sermon to the people of to-
day on the ephemeral and unreal char
acter of any phase or story of earthly
greatness" that rests upon military
cong uests and military glory. Alex
ander conquered all the countries Their
known, even to India; he was the
world-conqueror who 'sighed for
more worlds to conquer" He es-
tablished Greek Kingdoms throughout
Asia, some of which in India outlasted
him for centuries; he taught Europe
the road to India; he selected the site
and founded the city of Alexandria.
the Egyptian metropolis which was to
be made the great depot of the ex-
changes of the ancient East and West
a selection which time and the rare
fortunes of the city have shown
to have been sagacious. He
had plans. perhaps not wholly
impractical BILE, for the union of Eur ope
and Asia; and he encouraged art.
science and the literature of that time.
He seems TO have been of an impul-
sive and not unkind or ungenerous
nature. but he showed himself capable
of atrocious acts, like the burning of
Persepolis. the cruelties to conquered
Tyre; and he was q vain, self-seeking,
MI nIf nj, Il l..
should have changed the current of
human history in his brief career of
less than twelve years, and have con-
Quered the world before he was thirty.
and died at thirty-two, would be
enough to stamp him as an extraor-
binary man. As a military leader he
possessed undoubtedly n marvellous
power of combination, of shaping
means to circumstances, of dealing
with the necessities of the moment, in
which his only peers in any age of the
world were Hannibal and Napoleon.
That he was unable to bear
his great successes, and sunk
into debauchery and drunken
carousals, like the prolonged
drunk that finally carried him off
at Babylon, was in q sense due to the
age in which he lived. That his cot
fin should be discovered now, at the
close of the nineteenth century of an
era the dawn of which he never lived
20 see or TO imagine. is one of the
strange occurrences which seem to
connect the present times directly
with antiquity the dusty
emptiness of the coffin will tell its
own story of the vanity of human
greatness. which all ends in dust
Heap'd over with mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of
brass!
The time was when the man whose
earthly body is now represented by
some specks of dust was deemed so
great that even his debaucheries were
heralded as the occurrence of some
thing godlike; an army of half mill
ion men were appraised by blare OF
trumpets that Alexander was drink
ing Hartford Times.
NEYT-nnnR NEIGARnPS