CROSSING THE HELLESPONT.
B.C. 334
The expedition into Asia.--Debates upon it.--Objections of
Antipater and Parmenio.--Their foresight.--Alexander decides
to go.--Preparations.--Description of Thessaly.--Vale of
Tempe.--Olympus.--Pelion and Ossa.--Alexander's generosity.--Love
of money.--Religious sacrifices and spectacles.--Ancient forms
of worship.--Religious instincts.--The nine Muses.--Festivities
in honor of Jupiter.--Spectacles and shows.--Alexander's
route.--Alexander begins his march.--Romantic adventure.--The plain
of Troy.--Tenedos.--Mount Ida.--The Scamander.--The Trojan war.--Dream
of Priam's wife.--Exposure of Paris.--The apple of discord.--The
dispute about the apple.--Decided in favor of Venus.--The story
of the bull.--Paris restored to his parents.--Abduction of
Helen.--Destruction of Troy.--Homer's writings.--Achilles.--The
Styx.--Character of Achilles.--Agamemnon.--Death of Patroclus.--Hector
slain by Achilles.--Alexander proceeds to Troy.--Neptune.--Landing of
Alexander.--Sacrifices to the gods.--Alexander proceeds on his
march.--Alexander spares Lampsacus.--Arrival at the Granicus.
On Alexander's arrival in Macedon, he immediately began to turn his
attention to the subject of the invasion of Asia. He was full of ardor
and enthusiasm to carry this project into effect. Considering his
extreme youth, and the captivating character of the enterprise, it is
strange that he should have exercised so much deliberation and caution
as his conduct did really evince. He had now settled every thing in
the most thorough manner, both within his dominions and among the
nations on his borders, and, as it seemed to him, the time had come
when he was to commence active preparations for the great Asiatic
campaign.
He brought the subject before his ministers and counselors. They, in
general, concurred with him in opinion. There were, however, two who
were in doubt, or rather who were, in fact, opposed to the plan,
though they expressed their non-concurrence in the form of doubts.
These two persons were Antipater and Parmenio, the venerable officers
who have been already mentioned as having served Philip so faithfully,
and as transferring, on the death of the father, their attachment and
allegiance at once to the son.
Antipater and Parmenio represented to Alexander that if he were to go
to Asia at that time, he would put to extreme hazard all the interests
of Macedon. As he had no family, there was, of course, no direct heir
to the crown, and, in case of any misfortune happening by which his
life should be lost, Macedon would become at once the prey of
contending factions, which would immediately arise, each presenting
its own candidate for the vacant throne. The sagacity and foresight
which these statesmen evinced in these suggestions were abundantly
confirmed in the end. Alexander did die in Asia, his vast kingdom at
once fell into pieces, and it was desolated with internal commotions
and civil wars for a long period after his death.
Parmenio and Antipater accordingly advised the king to postpone his
expedition. They advised him to seek a wife among the princesses of
Greece, and then to settle down quietly to the duties of domestic
life, and to the government of his kingdom for a few years; then,
when every thing should have become settled and consolidated in
Greece, and his family was established in the hearts of his
countrymen, he could leave Macedon more safely. Public affairs would
go on more steadily while he lived, and, in case of his death, the
crown would descend, with comparatively little danger of civil
commotion, to his heir.
But Alexander was fully decided against any such policy as this. He
resolved to embark in the great expedition at once. He concluded to
make Antipater his vicegerent in Macedon during his absence, and to
take Parmenio with him into Asia. It will be remembered that Antipater
was the statesman and Parmenio the general; that is, Antipater had
been employed more by Philip in civil, and Parmenio in military
affairs, though in those days every body who was in public life was
more or less a soldier.
Alexander left an army of ten or twelve thousand men with Antipater
for the protection of Macedon. He organized another army of about
thirty-five thousand to go with him. This was considered a very small
army for such a vast undertaking. One or two hundred years before this
time, Darius, a king of Persia, had invaded Greece with an army of
five hundred thousand men, and yet he had been defeated and driven
back, and now Alexander was undertaking to retaliate with a great deal
less than one tenth part of the force.
Of Alexander's army of thirty-five thousand, thirty thousand were foot
soldiers, and about five thousand were horse. More than half the whole
army was from Macedon. The remainder was from the southern states of
Greece. A large body of the horse was from Thessaly, which, as will be
seen on the map,[A] was a country south of Macedon. It was, in fact,
one broad expanded valley, with mountains all around. Torrents
descended from these mountains, forming streams which flowed in
currents more and more deep and slow as they descended into the
plains, and combining at last into one central river, which flowed to
the eastward, and escaped from the environage of mountains through a
most celebrated dell called the Vale of Tempe. On the north of this
valley is Olympus, and on the south the two twin mountains Pelion and
Ossa. There was an ancient story of a war in Thessaly between the
giants who were imagined to have lived there in very early days, and
the gods. The giants piled Pelion upon Ossa to enable them to get up
to heaven in their assault upon their celestial enemies. The fable has
led to a proverb which prevails in every language in Europe, by which
all extravagant and unheard-of exertions to accomplish an end is said
to be a piling of Pelion upon Ossa.
[Footnote A: At the commencement of Chapter iii.]
Thessaly was famous for its horses and its horsemen. The slopes of the
mountains furnished the best of pasturage for the rearing of the
animals, and the plains below afforded broad and open fields for
training and exercising the bodies of cavalry formed by means of them.
The Thessalian horses were famous throughout all Greece. Bucephalus
was reared in Thessaly.
Alexander, as king of Macedon, possessed extensive estates and
revenues, which were his own personal property, and were independent
of the revenues of the state. Before setting out on his expedition, he
apportioned these among his great officers and generals, both those
who were to go and those who were to remain. He evinced great
generosity in this, but it was, after all, the spirit of ambition,
more than that of generosity, which led him to do it. The two great
impulses which animated him were the pleasure of doing great deeds,
and the fame and glory of having done them. These two principles are
very distinct in their nature, though often conjoined. They were
paramount and supreme in Alexander's character, and every other human
principle was subordinate to them. Money was to him, accordingly, only
a means to enable him to accomplish these ends. His distributing his
estates and revenues in the manner above described was only a
judicious appropriation of the money to the promotion of the great
ends he wished to attain; it was expenditure, not gift. It answered
admirably the end he had in view. His friends all looked upon him as
extremely generous and self-sacrificing. They asked him what he had
reserved for himself. "Hope," said Alexander.
At length all things were ready, and Alexander began to celebrate the
religious sacrifices, spectacles, and shows which, in those days,
always preceded great undertakings of this kind. There was a great
ceremony in honor of Jupiter and the nine Muses, which had long been
celebrated in Macedon as a sort of annual national festival. Alexander
now caused great preparations for this festival.
In the days of the Greeks, public worship and public amusement were
combined in one and the same series of spectacles and ceremonies. All
worship was a theatrical show, and almost all shows were forms of
worship. The religious instincts of the human heart demand some sort
of sympathy and aid, real or imaginary, from the invisible world, in
great and solemn undertakings, and in every momentous crisis in its
history. It is true that Alexander's soldiers, about to leave their
homes to go to another quarter of the globe, and into scenes of danger
and death from which it was very improbable that many of them would
ever return, had no other celestial protection to look up to than the
spirits of ancient heroes, who, they imagined, had, somehow or other,
found their final home in a sort of heaven among the summits of the
mountains, where they reigned, in some sense, over human affairs; but
this, small as it seems to us, was a great deal to them. They felt,
when sacrificing to these gods, that they were invoking their presence
and sympathy. These deities having been engaged in the same
enterprises themselves, and animated with the same hopes and fears,
the soldiers imagined that the semi-human divinities invoked by them
would take an interest in their dangers, and rejoice is their success.
The Muses, in honor of whom, as well as Jupiter, this great
Macedonian festival was held, were nine singing and dancing maidens,
beautiful in countenance and form, and enchantingly graceful in all
their movements. They came, the ancients imagined, from Thrace, in the
north, and went first to Jupiter upon Mount Olympus, who made them
goddesses. Afterward they went southward, and spread over Greece,
making their residence, at last, in a palace upon Mount Parnassus,
which will be found upon the map just north of the Gulf of Corinth and
west of Boeotia. They were worshiped all over Greece and Italy as
the goddesses of music and dancing. In later times particular sciences
and arts were assigned to them respectively, as history, astronomy,
tragedy, &c., though there was no distinction of this kind in early
days.
The festivities in honor of Jupiter and the Muses were continued in
Macedon nine days, a number corresponding with that of the dancing
goddesses. Alexander made very magnificent preparations for the
celebration on this occasion. He had a tent made, under which, it is
said, a hundred tables could be spread; and here he entertained, day
after day, an enormous company of princes, potentates, and generals.
He offered sacrifices to such of the gods as he supposed it would
please the soldiers to imagine that they had propitiated. Connected
with these sacrifices and feastings, there were athletic and military
spectacles and shows--races and wrestlings--and mock contests, with
blunted spears. All these things encouraged and quickened the ardor
and animation of the soldiers. It aroused their ambition to
distinguish themselves by their exploits, and gave them an increased
and stimulated desire for honor and fame. Thus inspirited by new
desires for human praise, and trusting in the sympathy and protection
of powers which were all that they conceived of as divine, the army
prepared to set forth from their native land, bidding it a long, and,
as it proved to most of them, a final farewell.
By following the course of Alexander's expedition upon the map at the
commencement of chapter iii., it will be seen that his route lay first
along the northern coasts of the Aegean Sea. He was to pass from Europe
into Asia by crossing the Hellespont between Sestos and Abydos. He
sent a fleet of a hundred and fifty galleys, of three banks of oars
each, over the Aegean Sea, to land at Sestos, and be ready to transport
his army across the straits. The army, in the mean time, marched by
land. They had to cross the rivers which flow into the Aegean Sea on
the northern side; but as these rivers were in Macedon, and no
opposition was encountered upon the banks of them, there was no
serious difficulty in effecting the passage. When they reached Sestos,
they found the fleet ready there, awaiting their arrival.
It is very strikingly characteristic of the mingling of poetic
sentiment and enthusiasm with calm and calculating business
efficiency, which shone conspicuously so often in Alexander's career,
that when he arrived at Sestos, and found that the ships were there,
and the army safe, and that there was no enemy to oppose his landing
on the Asiatic shore, he left Parmenio to conduct the transportation
of the troops across the water, while he himself went away in a single
galley on an excursion of sentiment and romantic adventure. A little
south of the place where his army was to cross, there lay, on the
Asiatic shore, an extended plain, on which were the ruins of Troy. Now
Troy was the city which was the scene of Homer's poems--those poems
which had excited so much interest in the mind of Alexander in his
early years; and he determined, instead of crossing the Hellespont
with the main body of his army, to proceed southward in a single
galley, and land, himself, on the Asiatic shore, on the very spot
which the romantic imagination of his youth had dwelt upon so often
and so long.
[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF TROY.]
Troy was situated upon a plain. Homer describes an island off the
coast, named Tenedos, and a mountain near called Mount Ida. There was
also a river called the Scamander. The island, the mountain, and the
river remain, preserving their original names to the present day,
except that the river is now called the Mender, but, although various
vestiges of ancient ruins are found scattered about the plain, no spot
can be identified as the site of the city. Some scholars have
maintained that there probably never was such a city; that Homer
invented the whole, there being nothing real in all that he describes
except the river, the mountain, and the island. His story is, however,
that there was a great and powerful city there, with a kingdom
attached to it, and that this city was besieged by the Greeks for ten
years, at the end of which time it was taken and destroyed.
The story of the origin of this war is substantially this. Priam was
king of Troy. His wife, a short time before her son was born, dreamed
that at his birth the child turned into a torch and set the palace on
fire. She told this dream to the soothsayers, and asked them what it
meant. They said it must mean that her son would be the means of
bringing some terrible calamities and disasters upon the family. The
mother was terrified, and, to avert these calamities, gave the child
to a slave as soon as it was born, and ordered him to destroy it. The
slave pitied the helpless babe, and, not liking to destroy it with his
own hand, carried it to Mount Ida, and left it there in the forests to
die.
A she bear, roaming through the woods, found the child, and,
experiencing a feeling of maternal tenderness for it, she took care of
it, and reared it as if it had been her own offspring. The child was
found, at last, by some shepherds who lived upon the mountain, and
they adopted it as their own, robbing the brute mother of her charge.
They named the boy Paris. He grew in strength and beauty, and gave
early and extraordinary proofs of courage and energy, as if he had
imbibed some of the qualities of his fierce foster mother with the
milk she gave him. He was so remarkable for athletic beauty and manly
courage, that he not only easily won the heart of a nymph of Mount
Ida, named Oenone, whom he married, but he also attracted the
attention of the goddesses in the heavens.
At length these goddesses had a dispute which they agreed to refer to
him. The origin of the dispute was this. There was a wedding among
them, and one of them, irritated at not having been invited, had a
golden apple made, on which were engraved the words, "TO BE GIVEN TO
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL." She threw this apple into the assembly: her
object was to make them quarrel for it. In fact, she was herself the
goddess of discord, and, independently of her cause of pique in this
case, she loved to promote disputes. It is in allusion to this ancient
tale that any subject of dispute, brought up unnecessarily among
friends, is called to this day an _apple_ of discord.
Three of the goddesses claimed the apple, each insisting that she was
more beautiful than the others, and this was the dispute which they
agreed to refer to Paris. They accordingly exhibited themselves before
him in the mountains, that he might look at them and decide. They did
not, however, seem willing, either of them, to trust to an impartial
decision of the question, but each offered the judge a bribe to induce
him to decide in her favor. One promised him a kingdom, another great
fame, and the third, Venus, promised him the most beautiful woman in
the world for his wife. He decided in favor of Venus; whether because
she was justly entitled to the decision, or through the influence of
the bribe, the story does not say.
All this time Paris remained on the mountain, a simple shepherd and
herdsman, not knowing his relationship to the monarch who reigned over
the city and kingdom on the plain below. King Priam, however, about
this time, in some games which he was celebrating, offered, as a
prize to the victor, the finest bull which could be obtained on Mount
Ida. On making examination, Paris was found to have the finest bull
and the king, exercising the despotic power which kings in those days
made no scruple of assuming in respect to helpless peasants, took it
away. Paris was very indignant. It happened, however, that a short
time afterward there was another opportunity to contend for the same
bull, and Paris, disguising himself as a prince, appeared in the
lists, conquered every competitor, and bore away the bull again to his
home in the fastnesses of the mountain.
In consequence of this his appearance at court, the daughter of Priam,
whose name was Cassandra, became acquainted with him, and, inquiring
into his story, succeeded in ascertaining that he was her brother, the
long-lost child, that had been supposed to be put to death. King Priam
was convinced by the evidence which she brought forward, and Paris was
brought home to his father's house. After becoming established in his
new position, he remembered the promise of Venus that he should have
the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife, and he began,
accordingly, to inquire where he could find her.
[Illustration: PARIS AND HELEN.]
There was in Sparta, one of the cities of Southern Greece, a certain
king Menelaus, who had a youthful bride named Helen, who was famed far
and near for her beauty. Paris came to the conclusion that she was the
most lovely woman in the world, and that he was entitled, in virtue of
Venus's promise, to obtain possession of her, if he could do so by any
means whatever. He accordingly made a journey into Greece, visited
Sparta, formed an acquaintance with Helen, persuaded her to abandon
her husband and her duty, and elope with him to Troy.
Menelaus was indignant at this outrage. He called on all Greece to
take up arms and join him in the attempt to recover his bride. They
responded to this demand. They first sent to Priam, demanding that he
should restore Helen to her husband. Priam refused to do so, taking
part with his son. The Greeks then raised a fleet and an army, and
came to the plains of Troy, encamped before the city, and persevered
for ten long years in besieging it, when at length it was taken and
destroyed.
These stories relating to the origin of the war, however, marvelous
and entertaining as they are, were not the points which chiefly
interested the mind of Alexander. The portions of Homer's narratives
which most excited his enthusiasm were those relating to the
characters of the heroes who fought, on one side and on the other, at
the siege, their various adventures, and the delineations of their
motives and principles of conduct, and the emotions and excitements
they experienced in the various circumstances in which they were
placed. Homer described with great beauty and force the workings of
ambition, of resentment, of pride, of rivalry, and all those other
impulses of the human heart which would excite and control the action
of impetuous men in the circumstances in which his heroes were placed.
Each one of the heroes whose history and adventures he gives,
possessed a well-marked and striking character, and differed in
temperament and action from the rest. Achilles was one. He was fiery,
impetuous, and implacable in character, fierce and merciless; and,
though perfectly undaunted and fearless, entirely destitute of
magnanimity. There was a river called the Styx, the waters of which
were said to have the property of making any one invulnerable. The
mother of Achilles dipped him into it in his infancy, holding him by
the heel. The heel, not having been immersed, was the only part which
could be wounded. Thus he was safe in battle, and was a terrible
warrior. He, however, quarreled with his comrades and withdrew from
their cause on slight pretexts, and then became reconciled again,
influenced by equally frivolous reasons.
[Illustration: ACHILLES.]
Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of the Greek army. After a
certain victory, by which some captives were taken, and were to be
divided among the victors, Agamemnon was obliged to restore one, a
noble lady, who had fallen to his share, and he took away the one that
had been assigned to Achilles to replace her. This incensed Achilles,
and he withdrew for a long time from the contest; and, in consequence
of his absence, the Trojans gained great and continued victories
against the Greeks. For a long time nothing could induce Achilles to
return.
At length, however, though he would not go himself, he allowed his
intimate friend, whose name was Patroclus, to take his armor and go
into battle. Patroclus was at first successful, but was soon killed by
Hector, the brother of Paris. This aroused anger and a spirit of
revenge in the mind of Achilles. He gave up his quarrel with Agamemnon
and returned to the combat. He did not remit his exertions till he had
slain Hector, and then he expressed his brutal exultation, and
satisfied his revenge, by dragging the dead body at the wheels of his
chariot around the walls of the city. He then sold the body to the
distracted father for a ransom.
It was such stories as these, which are related in the poems of Homer
with great beauty and power, that had chiefly interested the mind of
Alexander. The subjects interested him; the accounts of the
contentions, the rivalries, the exploits of these warriors, the
delineations of their character and springs of action, and the
narrations of the various incidents and events to which such a war
gave rise, were all calculated to captivate the imagination of a young
martial hero.
Alexander accordingly resolved that his first landing in Asia should
be at Troy. He left his army under the charge of Parmenio, to cross
from Sestos to Abydos, while he himself set forth in a single galley
to proceed to the southward. There was a port on the Trojan shore
where the Greeks had been accustomed to disembark, and he steered his
course for it. He had a bull on board his galley which he was going to
offer as a sacrifice to Neptune when half way from shore to shore.
Neptune was the god of the sea. It is true that the Hellespont is not
the open ocean, but it is an arm of the sea, and thus belonged
properly to the dominions which the ancients assigned to the divinity
of the waters. Neptune was conceived of by the ancients as a monarch
dwelling on the seas or upon the coasts, and riding over the waves
seated in a great shell, or sometimes in a chariot, drawn by dolphins
or sea-horses. In these excursions he was attended by a train of
sea-gods and nymphs, who, half floating, half swimming, followed him
over the billows. Instead of a scepter Neptune carried a trident. A
trident was a sort of three-pronged harpoon, such as was used in those
days by the fishermen of the Mediterranean. It was from this
circumstance, probably, that it was chosen as the badge of authority
for the god of the sea.
Alexander took the helm, and steered the galley with his own hands
toward the Asiatic shore. Just before he reached the land, he took his
place upon the prow, and threw a javelin at the shore as he approached
it, a symbol of the spirit of defiance and hostility with which he
advanced to the frontiers of the eastern world. He was also the first
to land. After disembarking his company, he offered sacrifices to the
gods, and then proceeded to visit the places which had been the scenes
of the events which Homer had described.
Homer had written five hundred years before the time of Alexander, and
there is some doubt whether the ruins and the remains of cities which
our hero found there were really the scenes of the narratives which
had interested him so deeply. He, however, at any rate, believed them
to be so, and he was filled with enthusiasm and pride as he wandered
among them. He seems to have been most interested in the character of
Achilles, and he said that he envied him his happy lot in having such
a friend as Patroclus to help him perform his exploits, and such a
poet as Homer to celebrate them.
After completing his visit upon the plain of Troy, Alexander moved
toward the northeast with the few men who had accompanied him in his
single galley. In the mean time Parmenio had crossed safely, with the
main body of the army, from Sestos to Abydos. Alexander overtook them
on their march, not far from the place of their landing. To the
northward of this place, on the left of the line of march which
Alexander was taking, was the city of Lampsacus.
Now a large portion of Asia Minor, although for the most part under
the dominion of Persia, had been in a great measure settled by Greeks,
and, in previous wars between the two nations, the various cities had
been in possession, sometimes of one power and sometimes of the other.
In these contests the city of Lampsacus had incurred the high
displeasure of the Greeks by rebelling, as they said, on one occasion,
against them. Alexander determined to destroy it as he passed. The
inhabitants were aware of this intention, and sent an embassador to
Alexander to implore his mercy. When the embassador approached,
Alexander, knowing his errand, uttered a declaration in which he bound
himself by a solemn oath not to grant the request he was about to
make. "I have come," said the embassador, "to implore you to _destroy_
Lampsacus." Alexander, pleased with the readiness of the embassador in
giving his language such a sudden turn, and perhaps influenced by his
oath, spared the city.
He was now fairly in Asia. The Persian forces were gathering to attack
him, but so unexpected and sudden had been his invasion that they were
not prepared to meet him at his arrival, and he advanced without
opposition till he reached the banks of the little river Granicus.