B.C. 335–334

A year and some months had sufficed for Alexander to make a first display of his energy and military skill, destined for achievements yet greater; and to crush the growing aspirations for freedom among Greeks on the south, as well as among Thracians on the north, of Macedonia. The ensuing winter was employed in completing his preparations; so that early in the spring of 334 B.C, his army destined for the conquest of Asia was mustered between Pella and Amphipolis, while his fleet was at hand to lend support.

During Alexander's reign, the history of Greece is nearly a blank

The whole of Alexander's remaining life—from his crossingthe Hellespont in March or April 334 B.C. to his death at Babylon in June 323 B.C, eleven years and two or three months—was passed in Asia, amidst unceasing military operations, and evermultiplied conquests. He never lived to revisit Macedonia; but his achievements were on so transcendent a scale, his acquisitions of territory so unmeasured, and his thirst for farther aggrandisement still so insatiate, that Macedonia sinks into insignificance in the list of his possessions. Much more do the Grecian cities dwindle into outlying appendages of a newly-grown Oriental empire. During all these eleven years, the history of Greece is almost a blank, except here and there a few scattered eventa. It is only at the death of Alexander that the Grecian cities again awaken into active movement.

To what extent the Asiatic projects of Alexander belonged to Grecian history

The Asiatic conquests of Alexander do not belong directly and literally to the province of an historian of Greece. They were achieved by armies of which the general, the principal officers, and most part of the soldiers, were Macedonian.