ABSTRACT
The vast European, African, and Asian areas that Alexander's brief appearance had for a moment joined soon resumed their separate existences. The nonliterate peoples of Europe and Asia tell romantic tales of Alexander in many tongues, and the literate have incorporated his records in both profane and sacred literature. Alexander's Empire was built through conquest. His military campaigns were masterfully planned, and his battles are counted among the greatest ever fought. The Indian empire to which Megasthenes was accredited had been established during the years of trouble and confusion that immediately followed the death of Alexander the Great. As formulated by Alexander the Great and the Stoic philosophers, the concept of the cosmopolis had elicited the allegiance of the sophisticated individual but had left the average person unresponsive. The reality of the Hellenistic cosmopolis was so bewildering in the complexity of its new relationships that no one could really understand or define it in one great concept.
