Unlike the Romans, 'who conquered all to destruct all, he wanted to preserve all, and in every country he entered, his first ideas, his first designs, were always to do something to increase its prosperity and power'. He admires the policy adopted by Alexander toward his ancient enemies but also toward the elites of the countries he conquered. ![]() But it is especially Montesquieu who is responsible for the diffusion of this completely new image in books X and XXI of the Esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws, 1748 1757), he devoted long passages to the Macedonian conqueror and made him a conqueror moved by reason and not by his passions. He changed the face of commerce in Asia, Europe, and Africa, of which Alexandria became the universal warehouse'. He built more towns than all the other conquerors of Asia destroyed. Between 17, Voltaire repeatedly proclaimed his admiration for Alexander, who 'gave laws in the midst of war, formed colonies, established commerce, founded Alexandria and Iskanderun, which are today the centre of trade in the Orient. ![]() Huet was also read and used by the French historian-philosophers Voltaire and Montesquieu, who were both at the origin of the creation of the new image of Alexander. ![]() Huet's book was a success in Europe and was translated into English (1717), Dutch (1722), Italian (1737), German (1763, 1775), and Spanish (1793). The dedication made it perfectly clear that European expansion in India was following in the tracks of Alexander's conquests, regarded as a precedent and a model. The English translation (1717) was dedicated by the translator 'to the Honourable Chairman of the East-India Company' as well as to the Deputy-Chairman and 'to the other Directors'. a new epoch of Commerce' (1716, chapter XVII). In his response to a request from a minister anxious to know the solutions that the (Greek and Roman) ancients had given to maritime commerce and in particular to commerce with India (Colbert was planning to establish the French East India Company), Huet gave him the text of a report on the Histoire sommaire du commerce et de la navigation des Anciens, in which Alexander played a decisive role: 'This made a great revolution in the affairs of Commerce. Although the text remained unpublished for half a century (it was not published until 1716), the report submitted by Pierre-Daniel Huet to Colbert in the autumn of 1667 gives an account of the relationship between research into antiquity and contemporary political imperatives. This new conception imposed itself in close alignment with the political and cultural challenges arising from European expansion overseas and particularly in India. The men of the Enlightenment, in France, Scotland, and England, but also in Germany, showed a considerable interest in Alexander and his historical achievement, and they devoted important works and essays to these questions. ![]() Known and admired in the Alexander-Romance, a famous Greek text translated into Latin and then into every European language, the legendary and idealized figure of Alexander would undergo a profound transformation over the course of the long 18th century. Drawing on a lecture delivered at UCL on 1 March 2017, Pierre Briant discusses how Enlightenment histories of Alexander the Great can help us to understand the nature, and legacy, of European expansion.
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