SCHEMES OF CONQUEST
[Sidenote: [334 B.C.]]
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.
The whole of Alexander’s remaining life--from his crossing the 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 ever-multiplied 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
further 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 events. It is only at the death of
Alexander that the Grecian cities again awaken into active movement.
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. The Greeks who served with him were only
auxiliaries, along with the Thracians and Pæonians. Though more numerous
than all the other auxiliaries, they did not constitute, like the Ten
Thousand Greeks in the army of the younger Cyrus, the force on which
he mainly relied for victory. His chief secretary, Eumenes of Cardia,
was a Greek, and probably most of the civil and intellectual functions
connected with the service were also performed by Greeks. Many Greeks
also served in the army of Persia against him, and composed indeed a
larger proportion of the real force (disregarding mere numbers) in
the army of Darius than in that of Alexander. Hence the expedition
becomes indirectly incorporated with the stream of Grecian history by
the powerful auxiliary agency of Greeks on both sides--and still more,
by its connection with previous projects, dreams, and legends, long
antecedent to the aggrandisement of Macedon--as well as by the character
which Alexander thought fit to assume. To take revenge on Persia for
the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and to liberate the Asiatic Greeks,
had been the scheme of the Spartan Agesilaus and of the Pheræan Jason;
with hopes grounded on the memorable expedition and safe return of the
Ten Thousand. It had been recommended by the rhetor Isocrates, first to
the combined force of Greece, while yet Grecian cities were free, under
the joint headship of Athens and Sparta; next, to Philip of Macedon
as the chief of united Greece, when his victorious arms had extorted
a recognition of headship, setting aside both Athens and Sparta. The
enterprising ambition of Philip was well pleased to be nominated chief of
Greece for the execution of this project. From him it passed to his yet
more ambitious son.
Though really a scheme of Macedonian appetite and for Macedonian
aggrandisement, the expedition against Asia thus becomes thrust into the
series of Grecian events, under the Panhellenic pretence of retaliation
for the long-past insults of Xerxes. We call it a pretence, because it
had ceased to be a real Hellenic feeling, and served now two different
purposes: first, to ennoble the undertaking in the eyes of Alexander
himself, whose mind was very accessible to religious and legendary
sentiment, and who willingly identified himself with Agamemnon or
Achilles, immortalised as executors of the collective vengeance of Greece
for Asiatic insult; next, to assist in keeping the Greeks quiet during
his absence. He was himself aware that the real sympathies of the Greeks
were rather adverse than favourable to his success.
Apart from this body of extinct sentiment, ostentatiously rekindled
for Alexander’s purposes, the position of the Greeks in reference to
his Asiatic conquests was very much the same as that of the German
contingents, especially those of the confederation of the Rhine, who
served in the grand army with which the emperor Napoleon invaded Russia
in 1812. They had no public interest in the victory of the invader,
which could end only by reducing them to still greater prostration. They
were likely to adhere to their leader as long as his power continued
unimpaired, but no longer. Yet Napoleon thought himself entitled to
reckon upon them as if they had been Frenchmen, and to denounce the
Germans in the service of Russia as traitors who had forfeited the
allegiance which they owed to him. We find him drawing the same pointed
distinction between the Russian and the German prisoners taken, as
Alexander made between Asiatic and Grecian prisoners. These Grecian
prisoners the Macedonian prince reproached as guilty of treason against
the proclaimed statute of collective Hellas, whereby he had been declared
General and the Persian king a public enemy.
Hellas, as a political aggregate, has now ceased to exist, except in so
far as Alexander employs the name for his own purposes. Its component
members are annexed as appendages, doubtless of considerable value, to
the Macedonian kingdom. Fourteen years before Alexander’s accession,
Demosthenes, while instigating the Athenians to uphold Olynthus
against Philip, had told them: “The Macedonian power, considered as
an appendage, is of no mean value; but by itself, it is weak and full
of embarrassments.” Inverting the position of the parties, these
words represent exactly what Greece herself had become, in reference
to Macedonia and Persia, at the time of Alexander’s accession. Had
the Persians played their game with tolerable prudence and vigour,
his success would have been measured by the degree to which he could
appropriate Grecian force to himself, and withhold it from his enemy.
Alexander’s memorable and illustrious manifestations, on which we are
now entering, are those, not of the ruler or politician, but of the
general and the soldier. In his character his appearance forms a sort of
historical epoch. It is not merely in soldier-like qualities--in the most
forward and even adventurous bravery, in indefatigable personal activity,
and in endurance as to hardship and fatigue--that he stands pre-eminent;
though these qualities alone, when found in a king, act so powerfully on
those under his command, that they suffice to produce great achievements,
even when combined with generalship not surpassing the average of his
age. But in generalship, Alexander was yet more above the level of his
contemporaries. His strategic combinations, his employment of different
descriptions of force conspiring towards one end, his long-sighted plans
for the prosecution of campaigns, his constant foresight and resource
against new difficulties, together with rapidity of movement even in
the worst country--all on a scale of prodigious magnitude--are without
parallel in ancient history. They carry the art of systematic and
scientific warfare to a degree of efficiency, such as even successors
trained in his school were unable to keep up unimpaired.[b]
THE PROBLEM AND THE TROOPS
At a first glance Alexander’s projects appear to bear no slight
disproportion to the resources at his disposal. In superficial extension
his kingdom (even inclusive of Greece) was barely equal to one-fiftieth
of the Persian empire, and the numerical proportion of his fighting power
to that of Persia by sea and land was even less in his favour. If we add
that at Philip’s death the Macedonian treasury was exhausted, that the
greater part of the royal domain had been given away; that most of the
imposts and tributes had been remitted; and finally that, while enormous
stores of gold and silver lay amassed in the treasuries of the Persian
empire, Alexander, on the completion of his armaments, which cost him
eight hundred talents [about £160,000 or $800,000] had no more than
seventy talents [£14,000 or $70,000] left to begin the war with Asia--the
enterprise does in truth appear foolhardy and almost chimerical.
But a closer study of the circumstances shows that Alexander’s projects,
though certainly bold, were not rash, but came within the compass of
the forces and expedients at his command. To realise the possibility
and necessity of their success, to understand the organisation of his
army and the character of its operations, we must forget the analogies
of modern campaigns, since war--as little dependent as anything else in
history on normal laws and conditions--changes its theory and purpose
with the change of the local and historical conditions involved. The
armies which conquered the East were unable to withstand the legions of
Rome.
With reference to the financial considerations we must first bear in mind
that Alexander invaded an enemy’s country, where he might reasonably
expect to find treasure and stores of all sorts. When once his host
was armed and provided with money and food enough to last till they
encountered the foe, he had no further need of a large war-fund; the
wars of his time not being rendered costly by expensive ammunition and
elaborate transport. Thus the lack of money did not hamper Alexander,
while the vaunted treasures of the Great King and the Persian satraps
made them all the more welcome as the adversaries to the Macedonian
soldiery.
[Illustration: STATUE OF ALEXANDER]
The disproportion of the Macedonian sea-power seems a more serious
matter. The Persian king could command four hundred sail, his fleet
was that of the Phœnicians, the best seamen of the ancient world, and,
in their last sea-fight at least, they had defeated the Hellenes. The
Macedonian sea-power, founded by Philip but never yet put to the test,
was insignificant, and the fleet which was to sail against the Persians
consisted mainly of the triremes of the Greek confederacy, from whom an
extreme devotion was naturally not to be expected. Alexander’s plans were
based entirely upon the excellence of his land forces, and the only use
of the fleet was to insure the safety of these in their first movements.
When this object had been achieved it became a burden, and Alexander
therefore soon took the opportunity of dismissing it.
Lastly, to turn to the Macedonian army, we cannot but recognise in its
organisation a rare combination of fortunate circumstance and great
military talent. The moral superiority of the Greek army, as opposed
to the material superiority of the Persians, had been more and more
gloriously proven in almost every war for the last two centuries. The
more highly the art of war was developed among the Greeks by civil and
foreign strife, the more formidable did they become to the troops of
the Persian empire; Alexander’s army, full of martial ardour and proud
memories, skilled in all the technicalities of the military profession,
and notable by reason of its thoroughly practical organisation as the
first strategic body known to history, bore in itself the certainty of
victory.
The armies of Asia have always been characterised by the vehemence of
their onslaught, their overwhelming numbers, and their wild rushes hither
and thither, which make them formidable even in flight. In addition
to this there were many thousands of Greeks in Persian pay, so that
Alexander could not reckon on having to wage war merely on barbarians,
but had to look for Hellenic arms, courage, and military skill, on the
part of the enemy. Finally, in accordance with the natural scope of his
great enterprise, the mobility necessary for taking offensive, and the
stability essential to military occupation, had both to be considered in
the constitution of his army.
THE SIZE OF THE ARMY
In Philip’s time the Macedonian forces had consisted of thirty thousand
infantry and from three to four thousand horsemen. Alexander had led
about the same number of troops against Thebes. On his departure for
Asia he left twelve thousand foot-soldiers and fifteen hundred mounted
men in Macedonia under the command of Antipater, and their place was
taken by eighteen hundred Thessalian knights, five thousand Greek
mercenaries, and seven thousand heavy-armed troops furnished by the Greek
states. Besides these he had in his following five thousand Triballians,
Odrysians, Illyrians, etc., from one to two thousand archers and
Agrianian light infantry, Greek cavalry to the number of six hundred,
Thracian and Pæonian to the number of nine hundred. The sum total of his
troops therefore amounted to not much over 30,000 infantry and a little
more than 5,000 horse. This, with slight divergencies suggested by the
details of the narrative, is the estimate of Diodorus. Ptolemy Lagi
gives the same figures in his _Memorabilia_, and Arrian repeats them
after him. When Anaximenes reckons thirty-four thousand men on foot and
five thousand five hundred on horseback he perhaps includes the corps
which had already been despatched to Asia by Philip. The estimate of
Callisthenes, 40,000 infantry, is obviously too high.
The whole body of infantry and cavalry was not divided into legions or
brigades, but into troops bearing the same weapons and, to some extent,
recruited from the same district. The very advantages of a Macedonian
army rendered necessary an arrangement which would be unsatisfactory
under present conditions; the phalanx would have been no phalanx if
it had fought with cavalry, light infantry, and Thracian slingers all
combined into a complete army in miniature. It is the general use of
small fighting units which has made it necessary for the parts of an army
to be self sufficient, and to repeat on a small scale the organisation
of the whole. Against such an enemy as the Asiatic hordes--collected
together for a pitched battle without previous discipline or training,
giving up all for lost after a single defeat, and gaining nothing but
renewed danger by a victory over organised troops--against such an
enemy, solid and homogeneous masses have the advantage of simplicity,
weight, and internal stability, and in the same region where Alexander’s
phalanx overpowered the army of Darius the Roman legions succumbed to the
vehement onslaught of the Parthians. On the whole, Alexander’s army was
well adapted for such pitched battles, and hence the bulk of it consisted
of his phalanxes and heavy cavalry.
THE PHALANX AND THE CAVALRY
[Illustration: A SOLDIER OF ALEXANDER’S PHALANX]
The peculiar character of the phalanx was due to the weapons and
co-ordination of the individual members. They were heavily armed
according to Greek ideas, equipped with helmets, armour, and a shield
which protected the whole body, and their chief weapons were the
Macedonian sarissa, a lance more than twenty feet long, and the short
Greek sword. Intended solely for close fighting in the mass, they had
to be so arranged as to be able, on the one hand, calmly to await the
fiercest onset of the enemy, and on the other, to be sure of breaking
through the opposing ranks with a rush. They therefore usually stood
sixteen deep, the lances of the first five files projecting beyond the
front, an impenetrable and indeed unassailable barrier to the advancing
enemy; the hinder files laid their sarissa on the shoulders of those in
front, so that the charge of the phalanx was irresistible from the double
force of weight and motion. Nothing but the thorough gymnastic training
of the individual members of the phalanx rendered possible the unity,
precision, and rapidity necessary for the very difficult evolutions of a
body of men crowded into so small a space. Alexander had about eighteen
thousand of these heavy-armed soldiers, the so-called foot-guards, and at
the beginning of the campaign they were divided into six divisions under
the generals Perdiccas, Cœnus, Craterus, Amyntas the son of Andromenes,
Meleager, and Philip the son of Amyntas. The nucleus of these troops at
least was Macedonian, and the divisions were named after the Macedonian
districts from which they were recruited; thus the division under Cœnus
came from Elimea, that under Perdiccas from Orestis and Lyncestis, that
of Philip (afterwards led by Polysperchon) from Stymphæa, etc.
What the phalanx was among the infantry, the Macedonian and Thessalian
_ilai_ were among the cavalry. Both were composed of heavy-armed soldiers
and consisted of the nobility of Macedonia and Thessaly; equal in arms,
in birth, and in fame, they vied with each other in distinguishing
themselves in the eyes of the king, who usually fought at their head.
The importance of this arm to Alexander’s enterprise was proved in
almost every fight; terrible alike in single combat and in charges in
the mass, their discipline and armour rendered them superior to the
light Asiatic cavalry, however great their numbers, and their onslaught
on the enemy’s foot was generally decisive. According to the estimate
of Diodorus, the knighthood of Macedonia and Thessaly each consisted of
five hundred knights; but he, like Callisthenes, sets the cavalry of the
Macedonian army at no more than four thousand five hundred men, while
the best authorities place it at over five thousand. The two bodies of
knights were armed alike--Calas, the son of Harpalus, had command of the
Thessalians; Philotas, the son of Parmenion, of the Macedonians.
The latter naturally took the highest rank of the whole Macedonian army,
and bore the name of the “guards” or the “king’s guards.” It consisted
of eight _ilai_ or squadrons, which were called indifferently by the
names of their districts or of their _ilarchoi_ (colonels). That under
Clitus called the royal _ile_, held the first rank among the Macedonian
knighthood and formed the _agema_ or royal guard. Besides these knights
from Macedonia and Thessaly, there were six hundred more Greek horsemen
in the army; they were usually attached to the Thessalian squadron, and
seemed to have been similarly armed and drilled. They were commanded by
Philip, the son of Menelaus.
Next in rank comes that peculiarly Macedonian body, the hypaspists. The
Athenians under Iphicrates had already instituted, under the name of
peltasts, a corps with linen corslets, and lighter shields and longer
swords than those carried by the hoplites, in order to have a force
swifter in attack than the latter and heavier than the light-armed
troops. This new kind of corps was received with great approval in
Macedonia; the soldier of the phalanx was too heavily armed for service
about the person of the king, the light armed soldier was neither
dignified nor serviceable enough. This intermediate force was selected
for the purpose, and received the name of hypaspists from the long
shield, the aspis, as it was called, which they had adopted from the
phalanx. This force was of enormous value in a war against Asiatic
tribes, for the lie of the land hampered only too often the full use
of the phalanx, and it was often essential to attempt surprises,
quick marches, and strokes of all sorts for which the phalanx was not
sufficiently mobile nor the light troops sufficiently steady. For
occupying heights, forcing the passage of rivers, and supporting and
following up cavalry charges, these hypaspists were admirably adapted.
Their numbers amounted to six thousand men. The whole corps was led by
Nicanor, whose brother, Philotas, commanded the knights of the guard,
and whose father, Parmenion, is described as general of the phalanxes.
The first chiliarchy was that of Seleucus; it bore the title of “royal
hypaspists,” and in its ranks the sons of noble families saw their first
military service as pages of the king. The second bore the title of
“royal escort of hypaspists,” and kept guard over the king’s tent.
THE LIGHT TROOPS
The light troops of the Macedonian army were of peculiar importance.
They came from the countries of the Odrysians, Triballians, Illyrians,
Agrians, and from upper Macedonia; they were armed with their national
weapons of offence and defence, and exercised by the hunting and raiding
to which they were accustomed at home and the countless petty wars of
their chieftains, they were of extreme value in skirmishing, covering the
line of march, and for all the purposes served by Pandours, Croats, and
Highlanders in modern warfare. The most famous among them are the Agrian
chasseurs and the Macedonian archers, who may have formed together a
corps of about two thousand men. There is hardly a battle in which they
do not play a prominent part, and the devotion with which they fought
is testified by the circumstance that the post of toxarch had to be
filled afresh three times in one year. At the opening of the campaign
it was held by Clearchus, Attalus being in command of the Agrianians.
The strength of the other light troops, usually known by the general
designation of Thracians, was five thousand men, under the command of the
Thracian prince Sitalces.
It is obvious that in these troops Alexander brought into use a
strategic element hitherto practically non-existent. At all events, the
light troops of the Greek armies before his time had been of no great
importance, either by numbers or by the uses which they served; nor had
they escaped a certain amount of contempt--a natural result of the Greek
preference for sword-play, rendered more natural by the fact that their
light infantry was composed partly of the off-scouring of the people
and partly of barbarian mercenaries. There now appeared on the scene
light troops whose national characteristics proved advantageous in this
particular kind of fighting, and whose strength and glory lay in those
arts of surprise, alarm, and retreat in apparent confusion, which seemed
purposeless and questionable to Greek warriors. The famous Spartan
general Brasidas himself confessed that the onset of these tribes--with
their loud war-cries and the menacing waving of their weapons--had in it
something alarming; their capricious transition from attack to flight,
and from disorder to pursuit something terrible, against which nothing
but the strict discipline of a Hellenic regiment could make it proof.
As a matter of fact, these bands were able to fulfil their object to
perfection because, being light troops by nature, they needed, when
combined with the serried masses of the army, to be used for no purpose
except that for which they were naturally fit.
The fundamental principle of the battle array of the Macedonian army
was as follows. The army formed two wings, the left under Parmenion,
and the right (which usually made the main attack) under Alexander. The
infantry of both wings, four divisions of the phalanxes on the right and
two, with the corps of hypaspists, on the left, formed the main line, to
which were attached the light and heavy cavalry and the light infantry;
the invariable order being that the Macedonian guards were on the right,
with the Pæonian cavalry and skirmishers, the Agrianian chasseurs and the
archers; and the Thessalian guards on the left, with the Greek cavalry,
Agathon’s Odrysian Thracians, and, lastly, the light infantry, which was
often detached from the fighting-line to protect the camp and baggage.
In the closest formation, when the phalanx was covered by its shields
and stood sixteen deep, and the cavalry eight deep, the line of battle
required a plain of at least half a mile in breadth to deploy in, as a
rule the phalanxes alone forming a line nearly five thousand paces long.
Such was the army with which Alexander proposed to conquer the East.
Though relatively small in numbers it had every prospect of success by
reason of its organisation, the excellent discipline of the several
corps, the moral force of all, and finally, the personal character of
the king and his generals. The Persian empire was not in a position to
offer resistance; in its extent, the condition of its subject races,
and the inefficiency of its government it contained the elements of its
inevitable ruin.
THE CONDITION OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
If we consider the condition of the Persian empire at the time Darius
Codomannus ascended the throne, we see plainly how completely it was
disintegrated and ripe for dissolution. The cause did not lie in the
moral corruption of the court, of the ruling race, and of the peoples it
ruled. This corruption, the invariable accompaniment of despotism, is
never prejudicial to despotic power; and the greatest empire of modern
times gives proof that in the midst of the most shocking profligacy at
court, of constant cabals and scandals among the nobles, violent changes
of dynasty and unnatural cruelty to the party all-powerful up to the
moment of change, despotism enlarges its borders more and more. Persia’s
misfortune was to have a succession of weak rulers, who were unable to
hold the reins of power as firmly as was essential in the interests of
the cohesion of the empire; and the consequence was that the people lost
the slavish fear, the satraps the blind obedience, the whole empire the
only unity which held it together. Thence there grew in the subject
peoples, all of whom retained their old religion, laws, and customs,
and some their native princes, the longing for independence; in the
satraps, too, powerful vicegerents of large and remote districts, the
lust of independent power; in the ruling race--which had forgotten in the
possession and habit of command the very conditions of its establishment
and continuance--indifference to the Great King and the stock of the
Achæmenides. In the hundred years of almost complete inaction which
followed Xerxes’ invasion of Europe, a singular development of the art of
war had taken place, and Asia had lost the capacity for coping with it;
Greek weapons seemed more powerful than the immense hordes of Persia the
satraps trusted to in their rebellions and King Ochus in his campaign to
suppress the revolt in Egypt; so that the empire founded by the victories
of Persian arms was forced to protect itself by the help of Greek
mercenaries.
It is true that Ochus had succeeded in restoring the external unity of
the empire and in asserting his power with the fanatical severity proper
to despotism; but it was too late. He sank into inaction and impotence,
the satraps retained their too lofty station, and in the revival of
oppression the subject peoples, particularly those of the western
satrapies, did not forget that they had all but thrown it off.
[Illustration: A GREEK GENERAL
(After Hope)]
Finally, after fresh and frightful complications, Darius came to the
throne. To save the empire he should have been energetic rather than
virtuous, cruel rather than mild, arbitrary rather than honourable. He
gained the respect of the Persians, all the satraps were devoted to him;
but that could not save Persia. He was not feared but loved, and time was
soon to show that the nobles of the empire preferred their own advantage
to the favour or the service of a master in whom they could admire all
but his imperial qualities.
The empire of Darius extended from the Indus to the Hellenic Sea, from
the Jaxartes to the Libyan desert. His rule, or rather, the rule of his
satraps, did not vary with the character of the various races they ruled;
it was nowhere a national form of government, nor had it anywhere the
guarantee of a dependent organisation; their power was limited to the
satisfaction of arbitrary caprice, the exaction of perpetual impositions,
and a kind of hereditary tenure which had grown customary under weak
princes. Thus the Great King had hardly any authority over them except
the force of arms or such as they chose to recognise for personal
reasons. The conditions which existed everywhere within the Persian
empire merely rendered the mouldering colossus less capable of rising in
its own defence.
The tribes of Iran, Turania, and Ariana were indeed warlike, and happy
under any rule which led them to battle and plunder, and horsemen from
Hyrcania, Bactria, and Sogdiana formed the standing army of the satraps
in most provinces, but there was no great attachment to the Persian
empire to be found among them, and terrible as their onslaught had been
in the armies of Cyrus and Cambyses, they were wholly incapable of a
serious and prolonged defence, especially when opposed to Greek prowess
and military skill.
And as for the western tribes, which were held in subjection only by
force, and often with difficulty, they were certain to abandon the
Persian cause if a victorious enemy approached their borders.
The Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor were barely kept in subjection by
tyrants who depended for their existence on the empire and its satraps,
and the inland tribes of the peninsula, after two centuries of stern
oppression, had neither the power nor the will to rise in the cause of
Persia. They had not even taken part in the previous rebellions of the
satrapies of Asia Minor, they were dull, indolent, and forgetful of their
past. The same held good of the two Syrias on either side of the water;
long centuries of slavery had reduced the inhabitants to the lowest stage
of enervation, and with repulsive indifference they submitted to whatever
fate overtook them. On the coast of Phœnicia alone the old versatile life
survived, and with it more danger than devotion to Persia; and nothing
but private interest and jealousy of Sidon kept Tyre faithful to the
Persians. Lastly, Egypt had never relaxed or disguised her hatred of the
foreigners, and the devastations of Ochus might cripple but could never
subdue her. All the countries conquered to its own perdition by the
Persian empire were to all intents and purposes lost at the first attack
from the West.[c]
THE ENTRY INTO ASIA, ACCORDING TO ARRIAN
In the spring of 334 B.C., Alexander completed his preparations and moved
towards the Hellespont (leaving the administration of the affairs in
Greece in Antipater’s hands), and carried an army of foot, consisting of
archers and light-armed soldiers, about thirty thousand, and a little
above five thousand horse. He first directed his march to Amphipolis,
by way of the lake Cercynites, and thence to the mouths of the river
Strymon, which having crossed, he passed by Mount Pangea, along the
road leading to Abdera and Maronea, maritime cities of Greece. Thence
he marched to the river Hebrus, which being easily forded, he proceeded
through the country of Plætis to the river Melas, and thence, on the
twentieth day after his departure from Macedon, he arrived at Sestos,
whence marching to Elæus, he sacrificed upon the tomb of Protesilaus,
because he, of all the Greeks who accompanied Agamemnon to the siege of
Troy, set his foot first on the Asiatic shore.
[Illustration: GREEK WINE JUG
(Bardon)]
The design of this sacrifice was, that his descent into Asia might be
more successful to him, than the former was to Protesilaus. Then having
committed to Parmenion the care of conveying the greatest part both
of the horse and foot from Sestos to Abydos, they were accordingly
transported in 160 trireme galleys, besides many other vessels of burden.
Several authors report, that Alexander sailed from Elæus, another port
in Greece, himself commanding the flag-ship; and also, that when he was
in the middle of the Hellespont, he offered a bull to Neptune and the
Nereids; and poured forth a libation into the sea from a golden cup. He
is moreover said first of all to have stepped on shore in Asia completely
armed, and to have erected altars to Jupiter Descensor, and to Pallas
and Hercules. When he came to Ilium, he sacrificed to Pallas Iliaca,
and having fixed the arms he then wore in her temple, he took down from
thence some consecrated armour, which had remained there from the time
of the Trojan War. This armour, some targeteers were always wont to bear
before him, in his expedition. He is also said to have sacrificed to
Priam upon the altar of Jupiter Herceios, that he might thereby avert the
wrath of his manes from the progeny of Pyrrhus, whence he deduced his
pedigree.
When he arrived at Ilium, Menetius, the governor, crowned him with a
crown of gold; the same did Chares the Athenian, who came for that
purpose from Sigeum; and several others, as well Greeks as Asiatics,
followed their example. He then encircled the sepulchre of Achilles with
a garland (as Hephæstion did that of Patroclus) and pronounced him happy,
who had such a herald as Homer to perpetuate his name; and indeed he was
deservedly so styled, because that single accident had raised him to
the highest pitch of human glory. As to his actions, none had hitherto
described them in a suitable manner, either in prose or verse, neither
had any attempted them in a lyric strain, as the poets had, heretofore,
done those of Hiero, Gelo, Theron, and many more, whose exploits were no
ways comparable to his; for which reason his greatest acts are less known
than the least and most inconsiderable of many ancient generals.[e]
THE BATTLE OF THE GRANICUS
The army, when reviewed on the Asiatic shore after its crossing,
presented a total of thirty thousand infantry, and forty-five hundred
cavalry, thus distributed:
INFANTRY
Macedonian phalanx and hypaspists 12,000
Allies 7,000
Mercenaries 5,000
------
Under the command of Parmenion 24,000
Odrysians, Triballi (both Thracians), and Illyrians 5,000
Agrianes and archers 1,000
------
Total infantry 30,000
CAVALRY
Macedonian heavy--under Philotas son of Parmenion 1,500
Thessalian (also heavy)--under Calas 1,500
Miscellaneous Grecian--under Erigyius 600
Thracian and Pæonian (light)--under Cassander 900
------
Total cavalry 4,500
Such seems the most trustworthy enumeration of Alexander’s first invading
army. There were, however, other accounts, the highest of which stated
as much as forty-three thousand infantry with four thousand cavalry.
Besides these troops, also, there must have been an effective train of
projectile machines and engines, for battles and sieges, which we shall
soon find in operation. As to money, the military chest of Alexander,
exhausted in part by profuse donatives to his Macedonian officers, was as
poorly furnished as that of Napoleon Bonaparte on first entering Italy
for his brilliant campaign of 1796. According to Aristobulus, he had
with him only seventy talents [£14,000 or $70,000]; according to another
authority, no more than the means of maintaining his army for thirty days.
Previously the Macedonian generals Parmenion and Calas had crossed into
Asia with bodies of troops. Parmenion, acting in Æolis, took Grynia, but
was compelled by Memnon to raise the siege of Pitane; while Calas, in the
Troad, was attacked, defeated, and compelled to retire to Rhœteum.
We thus see that during the season preceding the landing of Alexander,
the Persians were in considerable force, and Memnon both active and
successful even against the Macedonian generals, on the region northeast
of the Ægean. This may help to explain that fatal imprudence, whereby the
Persians permitted Alexander to carry over without opposition his grand
army into Asia, in the spring of 334 B.C. They possessed ample means of
guarding the Hellespont, had they chosen to bring up their fleet, which,
comprising as it did the force of the Phœnician towns, was decidedly
superior to any naval armament at the disposal of Alexander. The
Persian fleet actually came into the Ægean a few weeks afterwards. Now
Alexander’s designs, preparations, and even intended time of march, must
have been well known not merely to Memnon, but to the Persian satraps
in Asia Minor, who had got together troops to oppose him. These satraps
unfortunately supposed themselves to be a match for him in the field,
disregarding the pronounced opinion of Memnon to the contrary, and even
overruling his prudent advice by mistrustful and calumnious imputations.
At the time of Alexander’s landing, a powerful Persian force was already
assembled near Zelia in the Hellespontine Phrygia, under command
of Arsites the Phrygian satrap, supported by several other leading
Persians, Spithridates (satrap of Lydia and Ionia), Pharnaces, Atizyes,
Mithridates, Rheomithres, Niphates, Petines, etc. Forty of these men
were of high rank (denominated kinsmen of Darius), and distinguished for
personal valour. The greater number of the army consisted of cavalry,
including Medes, Bactrians, Hyrcanians, Cappadocians, Paphlagonians,
etc. In cavalry they greatly outnumbered Alexander; but their infantry
was much inferior in number, composed, however, in large proportion,
of Grecian mercenaries. The Persian total is given by Arrian as twenty
thousand cavalry, and nearly twenty thousand mercenary foot; by Diodorus
as ten thousand cavalry, and one hundred thousand infantry; by Justin
even at six hundred thousand. The numbers of Arrian are the more
credible; in those of Diodorus the total of infantry is certainly much
above the truth--that of cavalry probably below it.
Memnon, who was present with his sons and with his own division,
earnestly dissuaded the Persian leaders from hazarding a battle.
Reminding them that the Macedonians were not only much superior in
infantry, but also encouraged by the leadership of Alexander, he enforced
the necessity of employing their numerous cavalry to destroy the forage
and provisions,--and if necessary, even towns themselves,--in order to
render any considerable advance of the invading force impracticable.
While keeping strictly on the defensive in Asia, he recommended that
aggressive war should be carried into Macedonia; that the fleet should
be brought up, a powerful land-force put aboard, and strenuous efforts
made, not only to attack the vulnerable points of Alexander at home, but
also to encourage active hostility against him from the Greeks and other
neighbours.
Had his plan been energetically executed by Persian arms and money,
we can hardly doubt that Antipater in Macedonia would speedily have
found himself pressed by serious dangers and embarrassments, and that
Alexander would have been forced to come back and protect his own
dominions; perhaps prevented by the Persian fleet from bringing back his
whole army. At any rate, his schemes of Asiatic invasion must for the
time have been suspended. But he was rescued from this dilemma by the
ignorance, pride, and pecuniary interests of the Persian leaders. Unable
to appreciate Alexander’s military superiority, and conscious at the
same time of their own personal bravery, they repudiated the proposition
of retreat as dishonourable, insinuating that Memnon desired to prolong
the war in order to exalt his own importance in the eyes of Darius. This
sentiment of military dignity was further strengthened by the fact, that
the Persian military leaders, deriving all their revenues from the land,
would have been impoverished by destroying the landed produce. Arsites,
in whose territory the army stood, and upon whom the scheme would first
take effect, haughtily announced that he would not permit a single
house in it to be burned. Occupying the same satrapy as Pharnabazus had
possessed sixty years before, he felt that he would be reduced to the
same straits as Pharnabazus under the pressure of Agesilaus--“of not
being able to procure a dinner in his own country.” The proposition
of Memnon was rejected, and it was resolved to await the arrival of
Alexander on the banks of the river Granicus.
This unimportant stream, commemorated in the _Iliad_, and immortalised
by its association with the name of Alexander, takes its rise from one
of the heights of Mount Ida near Scepsis, and flows northward into the
Propontis, which it reaches at a point somewhat east of the Greek town
of Parium. It is of no great depth: near the point where the Persians
encamped, it seems to have been fordable in many places; but its right
bank was somewhat high and steep, thus offering obstruction to an enemy’s
attack. The Persians, marching forward from Zelia, took up a position
near the eastern side of the Granicus, where the last declivities of
Mount Ida descend into the plain of Adrastea, a Greek city, situated
between Priapus and Parium.
Meanwhile Alexander marched onward towards this position, from Arisbe
(where he had reviewed his army)--on the first day to Percote, on the
second to the river Practius, on the third to Hermotus; receiving on his
way the spontaneous surrender of the town of Priapus. Aware that the
enemy was not far distant, he threw out in advance a body of scouts under
Amyntas, consisting of four squadrons of light cavalry and one of the
heavy Macedonian (companion) cavalry. From Hermotus (the fourth day from
Arisbe) he marched towards the Granicus, in careful order, with his main
phalanx in double files, his cavalry on each wing, and the baggage in the
rear. On approaching the river, he made his dispositions for immediate
attack, though Parmenion advised waiting until the next morning. Knowing
well, like Memnon on the other side, that the chances of a pitched battle
were all against the Persians, he resolved to leave them no opportunity
of decamping during the night.
Alexander himself took the command of the right, giving that of the
left to Parmenion; by right and left are meant the two halves of the
army, each of them including three _taxeis_ or divisions of the phalanx
with the cavalry on its flank--for there was no recognised centre under
a distinct command. On the other side of the Granicus, the Persian
cavalry lined the bank. The Medes and Bactrians were on their right,
under Rheomithres--the Paphlagonians and Hyrcanians in the centre, under
Arsites and Spithridates--on the left were Memnon and Arsamenes with
their divisions. The Persian infantry, both Asiatic and Grecian, were
kept back in reserve; the cavalry alone being relied upon to dispute the
passage of the river.
In this array, both parties remained for some time, watching each
other in anxious silence. There being no firing or smoke, as with
modern armies, all the details on each side were clearly visible to the
other; so that the Persians easily recognised Alexander himself on the
Macedonian right from the splendour of his armour and military costume,
as well as from the respectful demeanour of those around him. Their
principal leaders accordingly thronged to their own left, which they
reinforced with the main strength of their cavalry, in order to oppose
him personally. Presently he addressed a few words of encouragement to
the troops, and gave the order for advance. He directed the first attack
to be made by the squadron of companion-cavalry whose turn it was on that
day to take the lead (the squadrons of Apollonia, of which Socrates was
captain, commanded on this day by Ptolemæus son of Philippus), supported
by the light horse or Lancers, the Pæonian darters (infantry), and one
division of regularly armed infantry, seemingly hypaspists. He then
himself entered the river, at the head of the right half of the army,
cavalry and infantry, which advanced under sound of trumpets and with
the usual war-shouts. As the occasional depths of water prevented a
straightforward march with one uniform line, the Macedonians slanted
their course suitably to the fordable spaces; keeping their front
extended so as to approach the opposite bank as much as possible in line,
and not in separate columns with flanks exposed to the Persian cavalry.
Not merely the right under Alexander, but also the left under Parmenion,
advanced and crossed in the same movement and under the like precautions.
The foremost detachment under Ptolemy and Amyntas, on reaching the
opposite bank, encountered a strenuous resistance, concentrated as it
was here upon one point. They found Memnon and his sons with the best
of the Persian cavalry immediately in their front; some on the summit
of the bank, from whence they hurled down their javelins--others down
at the water’s edge, so as to come to closer quarters. The Macedonians
tried every effort to make good their landing, and push their way by main
force through the Persian horse, but in vain. Having both lower ground
and insecure footing, they could make no impression, but were thrust
back with some loss, and retired upon the main body which Alexander was
now bringing across. On his approaching the shore, the same struggle
was renewed around his person with increased fervour on both sides. He
was himself among the foremost, and all near him were animated by his
example. The horsemen on both sides became jammed together, and the
contest was one of physical force and pressure by man and horse; but the
Macedonians had a great advantage in being accustomed to the use of the
strong close-fighting pike, while the Persian weapon was the missile
javelin. At length the resistance was surmounted, and Alexander, with
those around him, gradually thrusting back the defenders, made good their
way up the high bank to the level ground. At other points the resistance
was not equally vigorous. The left and centre of the Macedonians,
crossing at the same time on all practicable spaces along the whole line,
overpowered the Persians stationed on the slope, and got up to the level
ground with comparative facility. Indeed no cavalry could possibly stand
on the bank to offer opposition to the phalanx with its array of long
pikes, wherever this could reach the ascent in any continuous front. The
easy crossing of the Macedonians at other points helped to constrain
those Persians, who were contending with Alexander himself on the slope,
to recede to the level ground above.
_Courage and Danger of Alexander_
Here again, as at the water’s edge, Alexander was foremost in personal
conflict. His pike having been broken, he turned to a soldier near
him--Aretis, one of the horse-guards who generally aided him in mounting
his horse--and asked for another. But this man, having broken his pike
also, showed the fragment to Alexander, requesting him to ask some one
else; upon which the Corinthian Demaratus, one of the companion-cavalry
close at hand, gave him his weapon instead. Thus armed anew, Alexander
spurred his horse forward against Mithridates (son-in-law of Darius),
who was bringing up a column of cavalry to attack him, but was himself
considerably in advance of it. Alexander thrust his pike into the face
of Mithridates, and laid him prostrate on the ground: he then turned
to another of the Persian leaders, Rhœsaces, who struck him a blow on
the head with his scimitar, knocked off a portion of his helmet, but
did not penetrate beyond. Alexander avenged this blow by thrusting
Rhœsaces through the body with his pike. Meanwhile a third Persian
leader, Spithridates, was actually close behind Alexander, with hand and
scimitar uplifted to cut him down. At this critical moment, Clitus son of
Dropides--one of the ancient officers of Philip, high in the Macedonian
service--struck with full force at the uplifted arm of Spithridates and
severed it from the body, thus preserving Alexander’s life. Other leading
Persians, kinsmen of Spithridates, rushed desperately on Alexander,
who received many blows on his armour, and was in much danger. But the
efforts of his companions near were redoubled, both to defend his person
and to second his adventurous daring. It was on that point that the
Persian cavalry was first broken. On the left of the Macedonian line,
the Thessalian cavalry also fought with vigour and success; and the
light-armed foot, intermingled with Alexander’s cavalry generally, did
great damage to the enemy. The rout of the Persian cavalry, once begun,
speedily became general. They fled in all directions, pursued by the
Macedonians.
But Alexander and his officers soon checked this ardour of pursuit,
calling back their cavalry to complete his victory. The Persian infantry,
Asiatics as well as Greeks, had remained without movement or orders,
looking on the cavalry battle which had just disastrously terminated.
To them Alexander immediately turned his attention. He brought up his
phalanx and hypaspists to attack them in front, while his cavalry
assailed on all sides their unprotected flanks and rear; he himself
charged with the cavalry, and had a horse killed under him. His infantry
alone was more numerous than they, so that against such odds the result
could hardly be doubtful. The greater part of these mercenaries, after
a valiant resistance, were cut to pieces on the field. We are told that
none escaped, except two thousand made prisoners, and some who remained
concealed in the field among the dead bodies.
In this complete and signal defeat, the loss of the Persian cavalry
was not very serious in mere number, for only one thousand of them
were slain. But the slaughter of the leading Persians, who had exposed
themselves with extreme bravery in the personal conflict against
Alexander, was terrible. There were slain not only Mithridates, Rhœsaces,
Spithridates, whose names have been already mentioned, but also
Pharnaces, brother-in-law of Darius, Mithrobarzanes satrap of Cappadocia,
Atizyes, Niphates, Petines, and others; all Persians of rank and
consequence. Arsites, the satrap of Phrygia, whose rashness had mainly
caused the rejection of Memnon’s advice, escaped from the field, but
died shortly afterwards by his own hand, from anguish and humiliation.
The Persian or Perso-Grecian infantry, though probably more of them
individually escaped than is implied in Arrian’s account, was as a body
irretrievably ruined. No force was either left in the field, or could be
afterwards reassembled in Asia Minor.
The loss on the side of Alexander is said to have been very small.
Twenty-five of the companion-cavalry, belonging to the division under
Ptolemy and Amyntas, were slain in the first unsuccessful attempt to
pass the river. Of the other cavalry, sixty in all were slain; of the
infantry, thirty. This is given to us as the entire loss on the side of
Alexander. It is only the number of killed; that of the wounded is not
stated; but assuming it to be ten times the number of killed, the total
of both together will be 1265. If this be correct, the resistance of the
Persian cavalry, except near that point where Alexander himself and the
Persian chiefs came into conflict, cannot have been either serious or
long protracted. But when we add farther the contest with the infantry,
the smallness of the total assigned for Macedonian killed and wounded
will appear still more surprising. The total of the Persian infantry is
stated at nearly twenty thousand, most part of them Greek mercenaries.
Of these only two thousand were made prisoners; nearly all the rest
(according to Arrian) were slain. Now the Greek mercenaries were well
armed, and not likely to let themselves be slain with impunity; moreover
Plutarch expressly affirms that they resisted with desperate valour, and
that most of the Macedonian loss was incurred in the conflict against
them. It is not easy therefore to comprehend how the total number of
slain can be brought within the statement of Arrian.
After the victory, Alexander manifested the greatest solicitude for
his wounded soldiers, whom he visited and consoled in person. Of the
twenty-five companions slain, he caused brazen statues, by Lysippus,
to be erected at Dium in Macedonia, where they were still standing in
the time of Arrian. To the surviving relatives of all the slain he also
granted immunity from taxation and from personal service. The dead
bodies were honourably buried, those of the enemy as well as of his
own soldiers. The two thousand Greeks in the Persian service who had
become his prisoners, were put in chains, and transported to Macedonia
there to work as slaves; to which treatment Alexander condemned them on
the ground that they had taken arms on behalf of the foreigner against
Greece, in contravention of the general vote passed by the synod at
Corinth. At the same time, he sent to Athens three hundred panoplies
selected from the spoil, to be dedicated to Athene in the Acropolis
with this inscription, “Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks except
the Lacedæmonians (_present these offerings_), out of the spoils of
the foreigners inhabiting Asia.” Though the vote to which Alexander
appealed represented no existing Grecian aspiration, and granted only a
sanction which could not be safely refused, yet he found satisfaction in
clothing his own self-aggrandising impulse under the name of a supposed
Panhellenic purpose: which was at the same time useful as strengthening
his hold upon the Greeks, who were the only persons competent, either
as officers or soldiers, to uphold the Persian empire against him. His
conquests were the extinction of genuine Hellenism, though they diffused
an exterior varnish of it, and especially the Greek language, over much
of the oriental world. “True Grecian interests,” says Grote, “lay more on
the side of Darius than of Alexander.”
EFFECTS OF ALEXANDER’S VICTORY
No victory could be more decisive or terror-striking than that of
Alexander. There remained no force in the field to oppose him. The
impression made by so great a public catastrophe was enhanced by two
accompanying circumstances: first, by the number of Persian grandees
who perished, realising almost the wailings of Atossa, Xerxes, and the
Chorus, in the _Persæ_ of Æschylus, after the battle of Salamis; next,
by the chivalrous and successful prowess of Alexander himself, who,
emulating the Homeric Achilles, not only rushed foremost into the mêlée,
but killed two of these grandees with his own hand. Such exploits,
impressive even when we read of them now, must at the moment when
they occurred have acted most powerfully upon the imagination of the
contemporaries.[f]
[Illustration: BATTLE-FIELD OF ISSUS]