THE REACTION.
B.C. 335
Mount Haemus.--Thrace.--The Hebrus.--Thrace.--Valley of the
Danube.--Revolt among the northern nations.--Alexander marches
north.--Old Boreas.--Contest among the mountains.--The
loaded wagons.--Alexander's victorious march.--Mouths of the
Danube.--Alexander resolves to cross the Danube.--Preparations.--The
river crossed.--The landing.--Northern nations subdued.--Alexander
returns to Macedon.--Rebellion of Thebes.--Siege of the citadel.--Sudden
appearance of Alexander.--He invests Thebes.--The Thebans refuse
to surrender.--Storming a city.--Undermining.--Making a
breach.--Surrender.--Carrying a city by assault.--Scenes of
horror.--Thebes carried by assault.--Great loss of life.--Thebes
destroyed.--The manner of doing it.--Alexander's moderation and
forbearance.--Family of Pindar spared.--The number saved.--Efforts
of Demosthenes.--The boy proves to be a man.--All disaffection
subdued.--Moral effect of the destruction of Thebes.--Alexander
returns to Macedon.--Celebrates his victories.
The country which was formerly occupied by Macedon and the other
states of Greece is now Turkey in Europe. In the northern part of it
is a vast chain of mountains called now the Balkan. In Alexander's day
it was Mount Haemus. This chain forms a broad belt of lofty and
uninhabitable land, and extends from the Black Sea to the Adriatic.
A branch of this mountain range, called Rhodope, extends southwardly
from about the middle of its length, as may be seen by the map.
Rhodope separated Macedonia from a large and powerful country, which
was occupied by a somewhat rude but warlike race of men. This country
was Thrace. Thrace was one great fertile basin or valley, sloping
toward the center in every direction, so that all the streams from the
mountains, increased by the rains which fell over the whole surface of
the ground, flowed together into one river, which meandered through
the center of the valley, and flowed out at last into the Aegean Sea.
The name of this river was the Hebrus. All this may be seen
distinctly upon the map.
[Illustration: MAP OF MACEDON AND GREECE.]
The Balkan, or Mount Haemus, as it was then called, formed the great
northern frontier of Macedon and Thrace. From the summits of the
range, looking northward, the eye surveyed a vast extent of land,
constituting one of the most extensive and fertile valleys on the
globe. It was the valley of the Danube. It was inhabited, in those
days, by rude tribes whom the Greeks and Romans always designated as
barbarians. They were, at any rate, wild and warlike, and, as they had
not the art of writing, they have left us no records of their
institutions or their history. We know nothing of them, or of the
other half-civilized nations that occupied the central parts of Europe
in those days, except what their inveterate and perpetual enemies have
thought fit to tell us. According to their story, these countries were
filled with nations and tribes of a wild and half-savage character,
who could be kept in check only by the most vigorous exertion of
military power.
Soon after Alexander's return into Macedon, he learned that there were
symptoms of revolt among these nations. Philip had subdued them, and
established the kind of peace which the Greeks and Romans were
accustomed to enforce upon their neighbors. But now, as they had heard
that Philip, who had been so terrible a warrior, was no more, and that
his son, scarcely out of his teens, had succeeded to the throne, they
thought a suitable occasion had arrived to try their strength.
Alexander made immediate arrangements for moving northward with his
army to settle this question.
He conducted his forces through a part of Thrace without meeting with
any serious resistance, and approached the mountains. The soldiers
looked upon the rugged precipices and lofty summits before them with
awe. These northern mountains were the seat and throne, in the
imaginations of the Greeks and Romans, of old Boreas, the hoary god of
the north wind. They conceived of him as dwelling among those cold and
stormy summits, and making excursions in winter, carrying with him his
vast stores of frost and snow, over the southern valleys and plains.
He had wings, a long beard, and white locks, all powdered with flakes
of snow. Instead of feet, his body terminated in tails of serpents,
which, as he flew along, lashed the air, writhing from under his
robes. He was violent and impetuous in temper, rejoicing in the
devastation of winter, and in all the sublime phenomena of tempests,
cold, and snow. The Greek conception of Boreas made an impression upon
the human mind that twenty centuries have not been able to efface. The
north wind of winter is personified as Boreas to the present day in
the literature of every nation of the Western world.
The Thracian forces had assembled in the defiles, with other troops
from the northern countries, to arrest Alexander's march, and he had
some difficulty in repelling them. They had got, it is said, some sort
of loaded wagons upon the summit of an ascent, in the pass of the
mountains, up which Alexander's forces would have to march. These
wagons were to be run down upon them as they ascended. Alexander
ordered his men to advance, notwithstanding this danger. He directed
them, where it was practicable, to open to one side and the other, and
allow the descending wagon to pass through. When this could not be
done, they were to fall down upon the ground when they saw this
strange military engine coming, and locking their shields together
over their heads, allow the wagon to roll on over them, bracing up
energetically against its weight. Notwithstanding these precautions,
and the prodigious muscular power with which they were carried into
effect, some of the men were crushed. The great body of the army was,
however, unharmed; as soon as the force of the wagons was spent, they
rushed up the ascent, and attacked their enemies with their pikes. The
barbarians fled in all directions, terrified at the force and
invulnerability of men whom loaded wagons, rolling over their bodies
down a steep descent, could not kill.
Alexander advanced from one conquest like this to another, moving
toward the northward and eastward after he had crossed the mountains,
until at length he approached the mouths of the Danube. Here one of
the great chieftains of the barbarian tribes had taken up his
position, with his family and court, and a principal part of his army,
upon an island called Peuce, which may be seen upon the map at the
beginning of this chapter. This island divided the current of the
stream, and Alexander, in attempting to attack it, found that it would
be best to endeavor to effect a landing upon the upper point of it.
To make this attempt, he collected all the boats and vessels which he
could obtain, and embarked his troops in them above, directing them to
fall down with the current, and to land upon the island. This plan,
however, did not succeed very well; the current was too rapid for the
proper management of the boats. The shores, too, were lined with the
forces of the enemy, who discharged showers of spears and arrows at
the men, and pushed off the boats when they attempted to land.
Alexander at length gave up the attempt, and concluded to leave the
island, and to cross the river itself further above, and thus carry
the war into the very heart of the country.
It is a serious undertaking to get a great body of men and horses
across a broad and rapid river, when the people of the country have
done all in their power to remove or destroy all possible means of
transit, and when hostile bands are on the opposite bank, to embarrass
and impede the operations by every mode in their power. Alexander,
however, advanced to the undertaking with great resolution. To cross
the Danube especially, with a military force, was, in those days, in
the estimation of the Greeks and Romans, a very great exploit. The
river was so distant, so broad and rapid, and its banks were bordered
and defended by such ferocious foes, that to cross its eddying tide,
and penetrate into the unknown and unexplored regions beyond, leaving
the broad, and deep, and rapid stream to cut off the hopes of retreat,
implied the possession of extreme self-reliance, courage, and
decision.
Alexander collected all the canoes and boats which he could obtain up
and down the river. He built large rafts, attaching to them the skins
of beasts sewed together and inflated, to give them buoyancy. When
all was ready, they began the transportation of the army in the night,
in a place where the enemy had not expected that the attempt would
have been made. There were a thousand horses, with their riders, and
four thousand foot soldiers, to be conveyed across. It is customary,
in such cases, to swim the horses over, leading them by lines, the
ends of which are held by men in boats. The men themselves, with all
the arms, ammunition, and baggage, had to be carried over in the boats
or upon the rafts. Before morning the whole was accomplished.
The army landed in a field of grain. This circumstance, which is
casually mentioned by historians, and also the story of the wagons in
the passes of Mount Haemus, proves that these northern nations were not
absolute barbarians in the sense in which that term is used at the
present day. The arts of cultivation and of construction must have
made some progress among them, at any rate; and they proved, by some
of their conflicts with Alexander, that they were well-trained and
well-disciplined soldiers.
The Macedonians swept down the waving grain with their pikes, to open
a way for the advance of the cavalry, and early in the morning
Alexander found and attacked the army of his enemies, who were
utterly astonished at finding him on their side of the river. As may
be easily anticipated, the barbarian army was beaten in the battle
that ensued. Their city was taken. The booty was taken back across the
Danube to be distributed among the soldiers of the army. The
neighboring nations and tribes were overawed and subdued by this
exhibition of Alexander's courage and energy. He made satisfactory
treaties with them all; took hostages, where necessary, to secure the
observance of the treaties, and then recrossed the Danube and set out
on his return to Macedon.
He found that it was _time_ for him to return. The southern cities and
states of Greece had not been unanimous in raising him to the office
which his father had held. The Spartans and some others were opposed
to him. The party thus opposed were inactive and silent while
Alexander was in their country, on his first visit to southern Greece;
but after his return they began to contemplate more decisive action,
and afterward, when they heard of his having undertaken so desperate
an enterprise as going northward with his forces, and actually
crossing the Danube, they considered him as so completely out of the
way that they grew very courageous, and meditated open rebellion.
The city of Thebes did at length rebel. Philip had conquered this city
in former struggles, and had left a Macedonian garrison there in the
citadel. The name of the citadel was Cadmeia. The officers of the
garrison, supposing that all was secure, left the soldiers in the
citadel, and came, themselves, down to the city to reside. Things were
in this condition when the rebellion against Alexander's authority
broke out. They killed the officers who were in the city, and summoned
the garrison to surrender. The garrison refused, and the Thebans
besieged it.
This outbreak against Alexander's authority was in a great measure the
work of the great orator Demosthenes, who spared no exertions to
arouse the southern states of Greece to resist Alexander's dominion.
He especially exerted all the powers of his eloquence in Athens in the
endeavor to bring over the Athenians to take sides against Alexander.
While things were in this state--the Thebans having understood that
Alexander had been killed at the north, and supposing that, at all
events, if this report should not be true, he was, without doubt,
still far away, involved in contentions with the barbarian nations,
from which it was not to be expected that he could be very speedily
extricated--the whole city was suddenly thrown into consternation by
the report that a large Macedonian army was approaching from the
north, with Alexander at its head, and that it was, in fact, close
upon them.
It was now, however, too late for the Thebans to repent of what they
had done. They were far too deeply impressed with a conviction of the
decision and energy of Alexander's character, as manifested in the
whole course of his proceedings since he began to reign, and
especially by his sudden reappearance among them so soon after this
outbreak against his authority, to imagine that there was now any hope
for them except in determined and successful resistance. They shut
themselves up, therefore, in their city, and prepared to defend
themselves to the last extremity.
Alexander advanced, and, passing round the city toward the southern
side, established his head-quarters there, so as to cut off
effectually all communication with Athens and the southern cities. He
then extended his posts all around the place so as to invest it
entirely. These preparations made, he paused before he commenced the
work of subduing the city, to give the inhabitants an opportunity to
submit, if they would, without compelling him to resort to force. The
conditions, however, which he imposed were such that the Thebans
thought it best to take their chance of resistance. They refused to
surrender, and Alexander began to prepare for the onset.
He was very soon ready, and with his characteristic ardor and energy
he determined on attempting to carry the city at once by assault.
Fortified cities generally require a siege, and sometimes a very long
siege, before they can be subdued. The army within, sheltered behind
the parapets of the walls, and standing there in a position above that
of their assailants, have such great advantages in the contest that a
long time often elapses before they can be compelled to surrender. The
besiegers have to invest the city on all sides to cut off all supplies
of provisions, and then, in those days, they had to construct engines
to make a breach somewhere in the walls, through which an assaulting
party could attempt to force their way in.
The time for making an assault upon a besieged city depends upon the
comparative strength of those within and without, and also, still
more, on the ardor and resolution of the besiegers. In warfare, an
army, in investing a fortified place, spends ordinarily a considerable
time in burrowing their way along in trenches, half under ground,
until they get near enough to plant their cannon where the balls can
take effect upon some part of the wall. Then some time usually elapses
before a breach is made, and the garrison is sufficiently weakened to
render an assault advisable. When, however, the time at length
arrives, the most bold and desperate portion of the army are
designated to lead the attack. Bundles of small branches of trees are
provided to fill up ditches with, and ladders for mounting embankments
and walls. The city, sometimes, seeing these preparations going on,
and convinced that the assault will be successful, surrenders before
it is made. When the besieged do thus surrender, they save themselves
a vast amount of suffering, for the carrying of a city by assault is
perhaps the most horrible scene which the passions and crimes of men
ever offer to the view of heaven.
It is horrible, because the soldiers, exasperated to fury by the
resistance which they meet with, and by the awful malignity of the
passions always excited in the hour of battle, if they succeed, burst
suddenly into the precincts of domestic life, and find sometimes
thousands of families--mothers, and children, and defenseless
maidens--at the mercy of passions excited to phrensy. Soldiers, under
such circumstances, can not be restrained, and no imagination can
conceive the horrors of the sacking of a city, carried by assault,
after a protracted siege. Tigers do not spring upon their prey with
greater ferocity than man springs, under such circumstances, to the
perpetration of every possible cruelty upon his fellow man. After an
ordinary battle upon an open field, the conquerors have only men,
armed like themselves, to wreak their vengeance upon. The scene is
awful enough, however, here. But in carrying a city by storm, which
takes place usually at an unexpected time, and often in the night, the
maddened and victorious assaulter suddenly burst into the sacred
scenes of domestic peace, and seclusion, and love--the very worst of
men, filled with the worst of passions, stimulated by the resistance
they have encountered, and licensed by their victory to give all these
passions the fullest and most unrestricted gratification. To plunder,
burn, destroy, and kill, are the lighter and more harmless of the
crimes they perpetrate.
Thebes was carried by assault. Alexander did not wait for the slow
operations of a siege. He watched a favorable opportunity, and burst
over and through the outer line of fortifications which defended the
city. The attempt to do this was very desperate, and the loss of life
great; but it was triumphantly successful. The Thebans were driven
back toward the inner wall, and began to crowd in, through the gates,
into the city, in terrible confusion. The Macedonians were close upon
them, and pursuers and pursued, struggling together, and trampling
upon and killing each other as they went, flowed in, like a boiling
and raging torrent which nothing could resist, through the open
arch-way.
It was impossible to close the gates. The whole Macedonian force were
soon in full possession of the now defenseless houses, and for many
hours screams, and wailings, and cries of horror and despair testified
to the awful atrocity of the crimes attendant on the sacking of a
city. At length the soldiery were restrained. Order was restored. The
army retired to the posts assigned them, and Alexander began to
deliberate what he should do with the conquered town.
He determined to destroy it--to offer, once for all, a terrible
example of the consequences of rebellion against him. The case was not
one, he considered, of the ordinary conquest of a _foe_. The states of
Greece--Thebes with the rest--had once solemnly conferred upon him the
authority against which the Thebans had now rebelled. They were
_traitors_, therefore, in his judgment, not mere enemies, and he
determined that the penalty should be utter destruction.
But, in carrying this terrible decision into effect, he acted in a
manner so deliberate, discriminating, and cautious, as to diminish
very much the irritation and resentment which it would otherwise have
caused, and to give it its full moral effect as a measure, not of
angry resentment, but of calm and deliberate retribution--just and
proper, according to the ideas of the time. In the first place, he
released all the priests. Then, in respect to the rest of the
population, he discriminated carefully between those who had favored
the rebellion and those who had been true to their allegiance to him.
The latter were allowed to depart in safety. And if, in the case of
any family, it could be shown that one individual had been on the
Macedonian side, the single instance of fidelity outweighed the
treason of the other members, and the whole family was saved.
And the officers appointed to carry out these provisions were liberal
in the interpretation and application of them, so as to save as many
as there could be any possible pretext for saving. The descendants and
family connections of Pindar, the celebrated poet, who has been
already mentioned as having been born in Thebes, were all pardoned
also, whichever side they may have taken in the contest. The truth
was, that Alexander, though he had the sagacity to see that he was
placed in circumstances where prodigious moral effect in strengthening
his position would be produced by an act of great severity, was swayed
by so many generous impulses, which raised him above the ordinary
excitements of irritation and revenge, that he had every desire to
make the suffering as light, and to limit it by as narrow bounds, as
the nature of the case would allow. He doubtless also had an
instinctive feeling that the moral effect itself of so dreadful a
retribution as he was about to inflict upon the devoted city would be
very much increased by forbearance and generosity, and by extreme
regard for the security and protection of those who had shown
themselves his friends.
After all these exceptions had been made, and the persons to whom
they applied had been dismissed, the rest of the population were sold
into slavery, and then the city was utterly and entirely destroyed.
The number thus sold was about thirty thousand, and six thousand had
been killed in the assault and storming of the city. Thus Thebes was
made a ruin and a desolation, and it remained so, a monument of
Alexander's terrible energy and decision, for twenty years.
The effect of the destruction of Thebes upon the other cities and
states of Greece was what might have been expected. It came upon them
like a thunder-bolt. Although Thebes was the only city which had
openly revolted, there had been strong symptoms of disaffection in
many other places. Demosthenes, who had been silent while Alexander
was present in Greece, during his first visit there, had again been
endeavoring to arouse opposition to Macedonian ascendency, and to
concentrate and bring out into action the influences which were
hostile to Alexander. He said in his speeches that Alexander was a
mere boy, and that it was disgraceful for such cities as Athens,
Sparta, and Thebes to submit to his sway. Alexander had heard of these
things, and, as he was coming down into Greece, through the Straits
of Thermopylae, before the destruction of Thebes, he said, "They say I
am a boy. I am coming to teach them that I am a man."
He did teach them that he was a man. His unexpected appearance, when
they imagined him entangled among the mountains and wilds of unknown
regions in the north; his sudden investiture of Thebes; the assault;
the calm deliberations in respect to the destiny of the city, and the
slow, cautious, discriminating, but inexorable energy with which the
decision was carried into effect, all coming in such rapid succession,
impressed the Grecian commonwealth with the conviction that the
personage they had to deal with was no boy in character, whatever
might be his years. All symptoms of disaffection against the rule of
Alexander instantly disappeared, and did not soon revive again.
Nor was this effect due entirely to the terror inspired by the
retribution which had been visited upon Thebes. All Greece was
impressed with a new admiration for Alexander's character as they
witnessed these events, in which his impetuous energy, his cool and
calm decision, his forbearance, his magnanimity, and his faithfulness
to his friends, were all so conspicuous. His pardoning the priests,
whether they had been for him or against him, made every friend of
religion incline to his favor. The same interposition in behalf of the
poet's family and descendants spoke directly to the heart of every
poet, orator, historian, and philosopher throughout the country, and
tended to make all the lovers of literature his friends. His
magnanimity, also, in deciding that one single friend of his in a
family should save that family, instead of ordaining, as a more
short-sighted conqueror would have done, that a single enemy should
condemn it, must have awakened a strong feeling of gratitude and
regard in the hearts of all who could appreciate fidelity to friends
and generosity of spirit. Thus, as the news of the destruction of
Thebes, and the selling of so large a portion of the inhabitants into
slavery, spread over the land, its effect was to turn over so great a
part of the population to a feeling of admiration of Alexander's
character, and confidence in his extraordinary powers, as to leave
only a small minority disposed to take sides with the punished rebels,
or resent the destruction of the city.
From Thebes Alexander proceeded to the southward. Deputations from the
cities were sent to him, congratulating him on his victories, and
offering their adhesion to his cause. His influence and ascendency
seemed firmly established now in the country of the Greeks, and in due
time he returned to Macedon, and celebrated at Aegae, which was at this
time his capital, the establishment and confirmation of his power, by
games, shows, spectacles, illuminations, and sacrifices to the gods,
offered on a scale of the greatest pomp and magnificence. He was now
ready to turn his thoughts toward the long-projected plan of the
expedition into Asia.