Question

Are you afraid that a few natives who may still be left will offer opposition? Come, come! These natives either surrender without a blow or are caught on the run--or leave their country undefended for your taking; and when we take it, we make a present of it to those who have joined us of their own free will and fight on our side.-Alexander the great
What could you learn about the growth of the Greek empire from the speech above?

Answer 1

Well, that it was an empire and not direct territorial expansion. That is, in the empire of Alexander -- which incidentally I would characterize as Macedonian, not Greek, because, among other things, his first stop was to conquer the Greek cities, and they were not particularly glad of that -- the local populations were not slaughtered or sold into slavery to make room for Macedonian settlers, and the local government retained much of its local authority. The point of Macedonian overlordship was to control military and foreign affairs, but to leave the local affairs relatively undisturbed. (Although of course the overlords could and would intervene locally for good enough reason.)

This is similar to the British in India, as opposed to the British in North America. In North America, the native populations were displaced root and branch and replaced with English settlers, English industry, English customs and English law. In India, however, there were relatively few English settlers, and the British confined themselves to governing India's external affairs and and general government structure. They did not (usually) interfere as far down as village governance.

What Alexander is suggesting in this speech is that because he does not intend to exterminate or even govern closely the affairs of the conquered people, they will not resist as strongly, and therefore the conquest should be easier. He was certainly correct. However, the flip side of this is that his empire could only be held together by his own charisma and personally-led army. As soon as he died, it fell apart, as it had nothing at all aside from Alexander and his army to hold it together.