AT TROY
Early as it was when our hero passed through the camp on his way to the
point from which the king’s galley was to start, everything was in a
great bustle of preparation. More than a hundred and fifty vessels of war
and a huge array of trading ships of every kind and size were standing as
near the shore as their draught would permit, ready to receive the army
and to transport it to the Asiatic shore. The munitions of war and the
artillery had been already embarked, relays of men having been engaged
on this part of the work for some days past. The pier was crowded with
horses and their attendants, this being the only spot from which the
animals could be conveniently put on ship-board. Alexander, however,
contemplated mounting some part of his cavalry with chargers to be
purchased on the soil of Asia, and, with that extraordinary faculty for
organization and management that was as marked in him as was his personal
courage, had provided that there should be no delay in procuring a proper
supply. The soldiers themselves were not to go on board till everything
else had been arranged.
The king’s galley, which was the admiral’s own ship, presented a striking
appearance. At the stern stood Alexander, a splendid figure, tall and
stately, and clad in gilded armour. The pages, wearing purple tunics
with short cloaks richly embroidered with gold thread, were clustered
about him on the after deck, while, close at hand, conspicuous in their
sacrificial white garments, stood the priest and his attendants. All the
crew wore holiday attire, and every part of the vessel was crowned with
garlands.
At a signal from the king the galley pushed off from the shore; the
fugleman struck up a lively strain of martial Dorian music; the rowers,
oarsmen picked for strength and endurance from the whole fleet, struck
the water with their oars in faultless time, while Alexander himself held
the rudder. At first he steered along the shore, for he was bound for
the southern extremity of the peninsula, on which stood the chapel of
Protesilaüs,[14] the hero who, whether from self-sacrifice or ill-luck,
had expiated by his death the doom pronounced on his people. Reaching
the place he went ashore, followed by his companions and attendants,
and, after duly performing sacrifice to the hero, returned to his ship.
The prow was then turned straight to the opposite coast. In mid-channel
the music of the fugleman’s flute ceased, and the rowers rested on their
oars. Leaving the rudder in the charge of Hephaestion, the king advanced
to sacrifice the milk-white bull, which, with richly gilded horns and
garlands of flowers hanging about its neck, stood ready for the rite. He
plucked some hair from between the horns, and duly burned them on the
coals of a brasier, and then sprinkled some salted meal and poured a few
drops of wine on the animal’s forehead. The attendants meanwhile plunged
knives into its throat, and caught the streaming blood in broad shallow
dishes.[15] The entrails were then duly examined by the soothsayer,
who, after an apparently scrupulous investigation, declared that they
presented a singularly favourable appearance. This done, the king took a
golden cup from the hand of an attendant, and after filling it with the
choicest Chian wine, poured out libations to Poseidon, the sea-god, and
to the sisterhood of the nymphs, imploring that they would continue to
him and to his companions the favour which they had shown to the Greek
heroes of old times. His prayer ended, he flung the goblet, as that which
should never be profaned by any meaner function, into the stream of the
Hellespont.
These ceremonies ended, a very brief space of time sufficed to bring the
galley to the “Harbour of the Achæans,” the very spot which tradition
asserted to have been the landing-place of the host of Agamemnon. The
king was the first to leap ashore. For a moment he stood with his spear
poised, as if awaiting an enemy who might dispute his landing; then, no
one appearing, stuck the weapon in the ground, and implored the favour of
Zeus and the whole company of the dwellers in Olympus on the undertaking
of which that day’s work was the beginning. Then followed a number of
remarkable acts. They were partly, one cannot doubt, intended for effect,
the performances of a man who desired above all things to pose as the
representative of Greek feeling, to show himself to the world as the
successor of the heroes who had championed Greece against the lawless
insolence of Asia. But they were also in a great degree the expression of
a genuine feeling. Alexander had a romantic love for the whole cycle of
Homeric song and Homeric legend. A copy of the Iliad was the companion
of all his campaigns; he even slept with it under his pillow. It was
his proudest boast that he was descended from Achilles; and now he was
actually performing in person the drama which had been the romance of
his life. His first visit was to the temple of Athené that crowned the
hill, identified at least by the inhabitants of the place[16] with the
Pergama of ancient Troy. The walls of the temple were adorned with suits
of armour, worn, it was said by the guardians of the place, by heroes who
had fought against Troy. The king had several of these taken down, not
intending to wear them himself, but meaning to have them carried with
him during his campaigns, a purpose which was afterwards fulfilled. He
left instead his own gilded armour, and added other valuable offerings to
the temple. From Athené’s shrine he went to the palace of Priam, where
his guides showed him the very altar of Zeus at which the old king was
slaughtered by the savage son of Achilles. But this son was an ancestor
of his own, and he felt himself bound to expiate by offering sacrifice
the wrath which the murdered man might feel against the descendant of the
murderer. The sight which crowned the glories of the day was the tomb and
monumental column of Achilles. It was the practice of pilgrims to this
sacred spot to strip off their garments, anoint themselves, and run naked
round the mound under which the great hero reposed. “Happy Achilles,” he
cried, when the ceremony was finished; “who didst find a faithful friend
to love thee during life, and a great poet to celebrate thee after death.
The friend is here,” he went on, turning with an affectionate gesture to
Hephaestion, “but the poet——” and he was thinking, it may be possible, of
the unlucky Chœrilus.
Nothing adverse had occurred from morning to evening, but those who
were responsible for the success of the operation had been profoundly
anxious. Sentinels stood on the highest ground at the western end of the
Hellespont, to watch the seas both toward the south and the west for the
first signs of the approach of a hostile squadron, but not a sail was to
be seen; and the tedious and dangerous operation of transferring the army
from one continent to the other had been executed in safety. A squadron
of agile Phœnician galleys, driven by resolute captains on that helpless
crowd of transports, might have wrought irreparable damage, and even
crushed the undertaking in its first stage. This would have been done if
the Persian king had listened to his wisest counsellors; but it was not
to be. Then, as ever, it was true, “Whom the gods will ruin they first
strike with madness.”
The army bivouacked that night, as it best could, on or near the shore.
Next morning it marched past the king in battle array. A more perfect
instrument of war the world had never seen. Skirmishers, light infantry,
cavalry, all were as highly disciplined and as admirably equipped
as the lavish expenditure of trouble and money could make them. But
the irresistible strength of the force was in its famous phalanx.
Each division—there were six of them that passed that day under their
general’s eyes—had a front file of 128 men, while the files were sixteen
deep. Every soldier in this compact body of more than two thousand men
carried the huge Macedonian pike. It was twenty-two feet in length, being
so weighted that the fifteen feet which projected beyond the bearer were
fairly balanced by the six behind him. The pikes of the second rank,
which stood three feet behind the first, projected twelve feet before
the line, those of the third nine, of the fourth six, of the fifth
three. The other ranks sloped their pikes upward, over the shoulders
of their comrades, to form a sort of protection against missiles that
might be discharged against them. The whole presented a most formidable
appearance; and its appearance was not more formidable than its actual
strength. It was cumbrous; it could not manœuvre with ease; it could not
accommodate itself to difficult ground. But on ground of its own, and
when it could bring its strength to bear, it was irresistible. The best
infantry of Greece, though led by skilful generals, and fighting with
desperate courage, had been crushed by it. Long afterwards, when the
Macedonian army was but the shadow of its former self, the sight of the
phalanx could still strike terror into the conquerors of the world.[17]
Alexander’s eyes were lighted up with pride as the massive columns
marched past him. “Nothing can resist them,” he cried; “with these I
shall conquer the world.”[18]