纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 031亚历山大头像硬币(8)

And it worked for Lysimachus himself, up to a point.

而且，在一定程度上，这一做法对利西马科斯自己也起了积极作用。

He's a mere historical footnote in comparison to Alexander-he didn't get an empire.

与亚历山大的光辉相比，他只能算个历史的注脚。

But he did get, and he hung on to, a kingdom.

他未能建立帝国，但毕竟实打实地拥有一个王国。

Twenty years after Alexander's death, it was clear that his empire would never be reconstituted, and for the next three hundred years the Middle East would be ruled by many cultured but competitive Greek-speaking kings and dynasties.

亚历山大死后二十年，帝国已彻底分崩离析,无法重拾往日荣光。接下来的三百年内，中东地区由数位说希腊语的国王统治过，他们治下的王朝文明发达，但彼此竞争激烈。

In a later programme this week I'll be looking at probably the most famous monument of any of these Greek-speaking states, the Rosetta Stone, but in the next programme I'll be in India, where the great emperor Ashoka linked himself to a different kind of authority to strengthen his political position.

后文将要提到的罗塞塔石碑，便是所有希腊国王所遗留下来的最著名的纪念碑。但下一节我们要先谈到印度。阿育王用了一种不同的统治方式来巩固自己的政治地位：

Not the authority of a great warrior, but of one of the greatest of all religious teachers . . . the Buddha.

他所依赖的不是强大的武力，而是最伟大的宗教家释迦牟尼。