THE GREAT VICTORY.
B.C. 331
Alexander makes Tyre his rendezvous.--Festivities.--Alexander prepares
to march east.--The captive queens.--Alexander's treatment of the
queens.--Death of Statira.--Agony of Sysigambis.--Grief of
Darius.--Alexander crosses the Euphrates.--Darius crosses the
Tigris.--Alexander reaches the Tigris.--He crosses the river.--Fording
the river.--The passage effected.--Plan of Darius.--The plain of
Arbela.--The caltrop.--Its use in war.--Eclipse of the
moon.--Consternation of Alexander's army.--Emotions produced by an
eclipse.--Its sublimity.--Measures taken by Alexander to allay the
fears of the soldiers.--Alexander approaches the Persian
army.--Preparations for the battle.--Alexander surveys the Persian
army.--Council of officers.--Number of the armies.--Alexander's
address.--Parmenio and Alexander.--Alexander's dress.--War
elephants.--The phalanx.--Defeat of the Persians.--Flight of
Darius.--Alexander driven from the field.--March to Babylon.--Surrender
of Susa.--Plunder of the palace.--Wholesale robbery and murder.--Immense
treasures.--Pass of Susa.--The mountaineers.
All the western part of Asia was now in Alexander's power. He was
undisputed master of Asia Minor, Phoenicia, Judea, and Egypt. He
returned from Egypt to Tyre, leaving governors to rule in his name in
all the conquered provinces. The injuries which had been done to Tyre,
during the siege and at the assault, were repaired, and it was again a
wealthy, powerful, and prosperous city. Alexander rested and refreshed
his army there, and spent some weeks in most splendid festivities and
rejoicings. The princes and potentates of all the neighboring
countries assembled to partake of his hospitality, to be entertained
by the games, the plays, the spectacles, and the feastings, and to
unite in swelling his court and doing him honor. In a word, he was the
general center of attraction for all eyes, and the object of universal
homage.
All this time, however, he was very far from being satisfied, or
feeling that his work was done. Darius, whom he considered his great
enemy, was still in the field unsubdued. He had retreated across the
Euphrates, and was employed in assembling a vast collection of forces
from all the Eastern nations which were under his sway, to meet
Alexander in the final contest. Alexander therefore made arrangements
at Tyre for the proper government of the various kingdoms and
provinces which he had already conquered, and then began to prepare
for marching eastward with the main body of his army.
During all this time the ladies of Darius's family, who had been taken
captive at Issus, had been retained in captivity, and made to
accompany Alexander's army in its marches. Alexander refused to accede
to any of the plans and propositions which Darius made and offered for
the redemption of his wife and mother, but insisted on retaining them
as his prisoners. He, however, treated them with respect and high
consideration. He provided them with royal tents of great
magnificence, and had them conveyed from place to place, when his army
moved, with all the royal state to which they had been accustomed when
in the court of Darius.
It has been generally thought a proof of nobleness of spirit and
generosity in Alexander that he treated his captives in this manner.
It would seem, however, that true generosity would have prompted the
restoration of these unhappy and harmless prisoners to the husband and
father who mourned their separation from him, and their cruel
sufferings, with bitter grief. It is more probable, therefore, that
policy, and a regard for his own aggrandizement, rather than
compassion for the suffering, led him to honor his captive queens. It
was a great glory to him, in a martial point of view, to have such
trophies of his victory in his train; and, of course, the more highly
he honored the personages, the more glorious the trophy appeared.
Accordingly, Alexander did every thing in his power to magnify the
importance of his royal captives, by the splendor of their retinue,
and the pomp and pageantry with which he invested their movements.
A short time after leaving Tyre, on the march eastward, Statira, the
wife of Darius, was taken suddenly ill and died.[C] The tidings were
immediately brought to Alexander, and he repaired without delay to
Sysigambis's tent. Sysigambis was the mother of Darius. She was in
the greatest agony of grief. She was lying upon the floor of her tent,
surrounded by the ladies of her court, and entirely overwhelmed with
sorrow. Alexander did all in his power to calm and comfort her.
[Footnote C: It was the birth of an infant that caused her death,
exhausted and worn down as she doubtless was, by her captivity and her
sorrows.]
One of the officers of Queen Statira's household[D] made his escape
from the camp immediately after his mistress's death, and fled across
the country to Darius, to carry him the heavy tidings. Darius was
overwhelmed with affliction. The officer, however, in farther
interviews, gave him such an account of the kind and respectful
treatment which the ladies had received from Alexander, during all the
time of their captivity, as greatly to relieve his mind, and to afford
him a high degree of comfort and consolation. He expressed a very
strong sense of gratitude to Alexander for his generosity and
kindness, and said that if his kingdom of Persia _must_ be conquered,
he sincerely wished that it might fall into the hands of such a
conqueror as Alexander.
[Footnote D: A eunuch, a sort of officer employed in Eastern nations
in attendance upon ladies of high rank.]
By looking at the map at the commencement of the volume, it will be
seen that the Tigris and the Euphrates are parallel streams, flowing
through the heart of the western part of Asia toward the southeast,
and emptying into the Persian Gulf. The country between these two
rivers, which was extremely populous and fertile, was called
Mesopotamia. Darius had collected an immense army here. The various
detachments filled all the plains of Mesopotamia. Alexander turned his
course a little northward, intending to pass the River Euphrates at a
famous ancient crossing at Thapsacus, which may be seen upon the map.
When he arrived at this place he found a small Persian army there.
They, however, retired as he approached. Alexander built two bridges
across the river, and passed his army safely over.
In the mean time, Darius, with his enormous host, passed across the
Tigris, and moved toward the northward, along the eastern side of the
river. He had to cross the various branches of the Tigris as he
advanced. At one of them, called the Lycus, which may also be seen
upon the map, there was a bridge. It took the vast host which Darius
had collected _five days_ to pass this bridge.
While Darius had been thus advancing to the northward into the
latitude where he knew that Alexander must cross the rivers,
Alexander himself, and his small but compact and fearless body of
Grecian troops, were moving eastward, toward the same region to which
Darius's line of march was tending. Alexander at length reached the
Tigris. He was obliged to ford this stream. The banks were steep and
the current was rapid, and the men were in great danger of being swept
away. To prevent this danger, the ranks, as they advanced, linked
their arms together, so that each man might be sustained by his
comrades. They held their shields above their heads to keep them from
the water. Alexander waded like the rest, though he kept in front, and
reached the bank before the others. Standing there, he indicated to
the advancing column, by gesticulation, where to land, the noise of
the water being too great to allow his voice to be heard. To see him
standing there, safely landed, and with an expression of confidence
and triumph in his attitude and air, awakened fresh energy in the
heart of every soldier in the columns which were crossing the stream.
Notwithstanding this encouragement, however, the passage of the troops
and the landing on the bank produced a scene of great confusion. Many
of the soldiers had tied up a portion of their clothes in bundles,
which they held above their heads, together with their arms, as they
waded along through the swift current of the stream. They, however,
found it impossible to carry these bundles, but had to abandon them at
last in order to save themselves, as they staggered along through deep
and rapid water, and over a concealed bottom of slippery stones.
Thousands of these bundles, mingled with spears, darts, and every
other sort of weapon that would float, were swept down by the current,
to impede and embarrass the men who were passing below.
At length, however, the men themselves succeeded in getting over in
safety, though a large quantity of arms and of clothing was lost.
There was no enemy upon the bank to oppose them. Darius could not, in
fact, well meet and oppose Alexander in his attempt to cross the
river, because he could not determine at what point he would probably
make the attempt, in season to concentrate so large an army to oppose
him. Alexander's troops, being a comparatively small and compact body,
and being accustomed to move with great promptness and celerity, could
easily evade any attempt of such an unwieldy mass of forces to oppose
his crossing at any particular point upon the stream. At any rate,
Darius did not make any such attempt, and Alexander had no
difficulties to encounter in crossing the Tigris other than the
physical obstacles presented by the current of the stream.
Darius's plan was, therefore, not to intercept Alexander on his march,
but to choose some great and convenient battle-field, where he could
collect his forces, and marshal them advantageously, and so await an
attack there. He knew very well that his enemy would seek him out,
wherever he was, and, consequently, that he might choose his position.
He found such a field in an extensive plain at Guagamela, not far from
the city of Arbela. The spot has received historical immortality under
the name of the plain of Arbela.
Darius was several days in concentrating his vast armies upon this
plain. He constructed encampments; he leveled the inequalities which
would interfere with the movements of his great bodies of cavalry; he
guarded the approaches, too, as much as possible. There is a little
instrument used in war called a _caltrop_.[E] It consists of a small
ball of iron, with several sharp points projecting from it one or two
inches each way. If these instruments are thrown upon the ground at
random, one of the points must necessarily be upward, and the horses
that tread upon them are lamed and disabled at once. Darius caused
caltrops to be scattered in the grass and along the roads, wherever
the army of Alexander would be likely to approach his troops on the
field of battle.
[Footnote E: It receives its name from a kind of thistle called the
caltrop.]
[Illustration: THE CALTROP.]
Alexander, having crossed the river, encamped for a day or two on the
banks, to rest and refresh, and to rearrange his army. While here, the
soldiers were one night thrown into consternation by an eclipse of the
moon. Whenever an eclipse of the moon takes place, it is, of course,
when the moon is full, so that the eclipse is always a sudden, and,
among an ignorant people, an unexpected waning of the orb in the
height of its splendor; and as such people know not the cause of the
phenomenon, they are often extremely terrified. Alexander's soldiers
were thrown into consternation by the eclipse. They considered it the
manifestation of the displeasure of Heaven at their presumptuous
daring in crossing such rivers, and penetrating to such a distance to
invade the territories of another king.
In fact, the men were predisposed to fear. Having wandered to a vast
distance from home, having passed over such mountains and deserts, and
now, at last, having crossed a deep and dangerous river, and thrown
themselves into the immediate vicinity of a foe ten times as numerous
as themselves, it was natural that they should feel some misgivings.
And when, at night, impressed with the sense of solemnity which night
always imparts to strange and novel scenes, they looked up to the
bright round moon, pleased with the expression of cheerfulness and
companionship which beams always in her light, to find her suddenly
waning, changing her form, withdrawing her bright beams, and looking
down upon them with a lurid and murky light, it was not surprising
that they felt an emotion of terror. In fact, there is always an
element of terror in the emotion excited by looking upon an eclipse,
which an instinctive feeling of the heart inspires. It invests the
spectacle with a solemn grandeur. It holds the spectator, however
cultivated and refined, in silence while he gazes at it. It mingles
with a scientific appreciation of the vastness of the movements and
magnitudes by which the effect is produced, and while the one occupies
the intellect, the other impresses the soul. The mind that has lost,
through its philosophy, the power of feeling this emotion of awe in
such scenes, has sunk, not risen. Its possessor has made himself
inferior, not superior, to the rest of his species, by having
paralyzed one of his susceptibilities of pleasure. To him an eclipse
is only curious and wonderful; to others it is sublime.
The soldiers of Alexander were extremely terrified. A great panic
spread throughout the encampment. Alexander himself, instead of
attempting to allay their fears by reasoning, or treating them as of
no importance, immediately gave the subject his most serious
attention. He called together the soothsayers, and directed them to
consult together, and let him know what this great phenomenon
portended. This mere committing of the subject to the attention of the
soothsayers had a great effect among all the soldiers of the army. It
calmed them. It changed their agitation and terror into a feeling of
suspense, in awaiting the answer of the soothsayers, which was far
less painful and dangerous; and at length, when the answer came, it
allayed their anxiety and fear altogether. The soothsayers said that
the sun was on Alexander's side, and the moon on that of the Persians,
and that this sudden waning of her light foreshadowed the defeat and
destruction which the Persians were about to undergo. The army were
satisfied with this decision, and were inspired with new confidence
and ardor. It is often idle to attempt to oppose ignorance and
absurdity by such feeble instruments as truth and reason, and the
wisest managers of mankind have generally been most successful when
their plan has been to counteract one folly by means of the influence
of another.
Alexander's army consisted of about fifty thousand men, with the
phalanx in the center. This army moved along down the eastern bank of
the Tigris, the scouts pressing forward as far as possible in every
direction in front of the main army, in order to get intelligence of
the foe. It is in this way that two great armies _feel_ after each
other, as it were, like insects creeping over the ground, exploring
the way before them with their _antennae_. At length, after three days'
advance, the scouts came in with intelligence of the enemy. Alexander
pressed forward with a detachment of his army to meet them. They
proved to be, however, not the main body of Darius's army, but only a
single corps of a thousand men, in advance of the rest. They retreated
as Alexander approached. He, however, succeeded in capturing some
horsemen, who gave the information that Darius had assembled his vast
forces on the plain of Arbela, and was waiting there in readiness to
give his advancing enemy battle.
Alexander halted his troops. He formed an encampment, and made
arrangements for depositing his baggage there. He refreshed the men,
examined and repaired their arms, and made the arrangements for
battle. These operations consumed several days. At the end of that
time, early one morning, long before day, the camp was in motion, and
the columns, armed and equipped for immediate contest, moved forward.
They expected to have reached the camp of Darius at daybreak, but the
distance was greater than they had supposed. At length, however, the
Macedonians, in their march, came upon the brow of a range of hills,
from which they looked down upon numberless and endless lines of
infantry and cavalry, and ranges after ranges of tents, which filled
the plain. Here the army paused while Alexander examined the field,
studying for a long time, and with great attention, the numbers and
disposition of the enemy. They were four miles distant still, but the
murmuring sounds of their voices and movements came to the ears of the
Macedonians through the calm autumnal air.
Alexander called the leading officers together, and held a
consultation on the question whether to march down and attack the
Persians on the plain that night, or to wait till the next day.
Parmenio was in favor of a night attack, in order to surprise the
enemy by coming upon them at an unexpected time. But Alexander said
no. He was sure of victory. He had got his enemies all before him;
they were fully in his power. He would, therefore, take no advantage,
but would attack them fairly and in open day. Alexander had fifty
thousand men; the Persians were variously estimated between five
hundred thousand and a million. There is something sublime in the idea
of such a pause, made by the Macedonian phalanx and its wings, on the
slopes of the hills, suspending its attack upon ten times its number,
to give the mighty mass of their enemies the chances of a fair and
equal contest.
Alexander made congratulatory addresses to his soldiers on the
occasion of their having now at last before them, what they had so
long toiled and labored to attain, the whole concentrated force of the
Persian empire. They were now going to contend, not for single
provinces and kingdoms, as heretofore, but for general empire; and the
victory which they were about to achieve would place them on the
summit of human glory. In all that he said on the subject, the
unquestionable certainty of victory was assumed.
Alexander completed his arrangements, and then retired to rest. He
went to sleep--at least he appeared to do so. Early in the morning
Parmenio arose, summoned the men to their posts, and arranged every
thing for the march. He then went to Alexander's tent. Alexander was
still asleep. He awoke him, and told him that all was ready. Parmenio
expressed surprise at his sleeping so quietly at a time when such vast
issues were at stake. "You seem as calm," said he, "as if you had had
the battle and gained the victory." "I have done so," said Alexander.
"I consider the whole work done when we have gained access to Darius
and his forces, and find him ready to give us battle."
Alexander soon appeared at the head of his troops. Of course this day
was one of the most important ones of his life, and one of the
historians of the time has preserved an account of his dress as he
went into battle. He wore a short tunic, girt close around him, and
over it a linen breast-plate, strongly quilted. The belt by which the
tunic was held was embossed with figures of beautiful workmanship.
This belt was a present to him from some of the people of the
conquered countries through which he had passed, and it was very much
admired. He had a helmet upon his head, of polished steel, with a neck
piece, also of steel, ornamented with precious stones. His helmet was
surmounted with a white plume. His sword, which was a present to him
from the King of Cyprus, was very light and slender, and of the most
perfect temper. He carried, also, a shield and a lance, made in the
best possible manner for use, not for display. Thus his dress
corresponded with the character of his action. It was simple, compact,
and whatever of value it possessed consisted in those substantial
excellencies which would give the bearer the greatest efficiency on
the field of battle.
The Persians were accustomed to make use of elephants in their wars.
They also had chariots, with scythes placed at the axles, which they
were accustomed to drive among their enemies and mow them down.
Alexander resorted to none of these contrivances. There was the
phalanx--the terrible phalanx--advancing irresistibly either in one
body or in detachments, with columns of infantry and flying troops of
horsemen on the wings. Alexander relied simply on the strength, the
courage, the energy, and the calm and steady, but resistless ardor of
his men, arranging them in simple combinations, and leading them
forward directly to their work.
The Macedonians cut their way through the mighty mass of their enemies
with irresistible force. The elephants turned and fled. The foot
soldiers seized the horses of some of the scythe-armed chariots and
cut the traces. In respect to others, they opened to the right and
left and let them pass through, when they were easily captured by the
men in the rear. In the mean time the phalanx pressed on, enjoying a
great advantage in the level nature of the ground. The Persian troops
were broken in upon and driven away wherever they were attacked. In a
word, before night the whole mighty mass was scattering every where in
confusion, except some hundreds of thousands left trampled upon and
dead, or else writhing upon the ground, and groaning in their dying
agonies. Darius himself fled. Alexander pursued him with a troop of
horse as far as Arbela, which had been Darius's head-quarters, and
where he had deposited immense treasures. Darius had gone through and
escaped when Alexander arrived at Arbela, but the city and the
treasures fell into Alexander's hands.
Although Alexander had been so completely victorious over his enemies
on the day of battle, and had maintained his ground against them with
such invincible power, he was, nevertheless, a few days afterward,
driven entirely off the field, and completely away from the region
where the battle had been fought. What the living men, standing erect
in arms, and full of martial vigor, could not do, was easily and
effectually accomplished by their dead bodies corrupting on the plain.
The corpses of three hundred thousand men, and an equal bulk of the
bodies of elephants and horses, was too enormous a mass to be buried.
It had to be abandoned; and the horrible effluvia and pestilence which
it emitted drove all the inhabitants of the country away. Alexander
marched his troops rapidly off the ground, leaving, as the direct
result of the battle, a wide extent of country depopulated and
desolate, with this vast mass of putrefaction and pestilence reigning
in awful silence and solitude in the midst of it.
Alexander went to Babylon. The governor of the city prepared to
receive him as a conqueror. The people came out in throngs to meet
him, and all the avenues of approach were crowded with spectators. All
the city walls, too, were covered with men and women, assembled to
witness the scene. As for Alexander himself, he was filled with pride
and pleasure at thus arriving at the full accomplishment of his
earliest and long-cherished dreams of glory.
The great store-house of the royal treasures of Persia was at Susa, a
strong city east of Babylon. Susa was the winter residence of the
Persian kings, as Ecbatana, further north, among the mountains, was
their summer residence. There was a magnificent palace and a very
strong citadel at Susa, and the treasures were kept in the citadel. It
is said that in times of peace the Persian monarchs had been
accustomed to collect coin, melt it down, and cast the gold in earthen
jars. The jars were afterward broken off from the gold, leaving the
bullion in the form of the interior of the jars. An enormous amount of
gold and silver, and of other treasures, had been thus collected.
Alexander was aware of this depository before he advanced to meet
Darius, and, on the day of the battle of Arbela, as soon as the
victory was decided, he sent an officer from the very field to summon
Susa to surrender. They obeyed the summons, and Alexander, soon after
his great public entrance into Babylon, marched to Susa, and took
possession of the vast stores of wealth accumulated there. The amount
was enormous, both in quantity and value, and the seizing of it was a
very magnificent act of plunder. In fact, it is probable that
Alexander's slaughter of the Persian army at Arbela, and subsequent
spoliation of Susa, constitute, taken together, the most gigantic
case of murder and robbery which was ever committed by man; so that,
in performing these deeds, the great hero attained at last to the
glory of having perpetrated the grandest and most imposing of all
human crimes. That these deeds were really crimes there can be no
doubt, when we consider that Alexander did not pretend to have any
other motive in this invasion than love of conquest, which is, in
other words, love of violence and plunder. They are only technically
shielded from being called crimes by the fact that the earth has no
laws and no tribunals high enough to condemn such enormous burglaries
as that of one quarter of the globe breaking violently and murderously
in upon and robbing the other.
Besides the treasures, Alexander found also at Susa a number of
trophies which had been brought by Xerxes from Greece; for Xerxes had
invaded Greece some hundred years before Alexander's day, and had
brought to Susa the spoils and the trophies of his victories.
Alexander sent them all back to Greece again.
From Susa the conqueror moved on to Persepolis, the great Persian
capital. On his march he had to pass through a defile of the
mountains. The mountaineers had been accustomed to exact tribute here
of all who passed, having a sort of right, derived from ancient usage,
to the payment of a toll. They sent to Alexander when they heard that
he was approaching, and informed him that he could not pass with his
army without paying the customary toll. Alexander sent back word that
he would meet them at the pass, and give them _their due_.
They understood this, and prepared to defend the pass. Some Persian
troops joined them. They built walls and barricades across the narrow
passages. They collected great stones on the brinks of precipices, and
on the declivities of the mountains, to roll down upon the heads of
their enemies. By these and every other means they attempted to stop
Alexander's passage. But he had contrived to send detachments around
by circuitous and precipitous paths, which even the mountaineers had
deemed impracticable, and thus attack his enemies suddenly and
unexpectedly from above their own positions. As usual, his plan
succeeded. The mountaineers were driven away, and the conqueror
advanced toward the great Persian capital.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER AT THE PASS OF SUSA.]