CHAPTER XCII

ASIATIC CAMPAIGNS OF ALEXANDER

 

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 Paeonians. 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 Kardia, 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 connexion 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 Pheraean 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 Pan-Hellenic pretence of retaliation for the long-past insults of Xerxes. I 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 them1—“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 this character his appearance forms a sort of historical epoch. It is not merely in soldierlike qualities—in the most forward and even adven­turous bravery—in indefatigable personal activity, and in endurance as to hardship and fatigue,—that he stands pre­eminent; 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.

We must recollect however that Alexander found the Macedonian military system built up by Philip, and had only to apply and enlarge it. As transmitted to him, it embodied the accumulated result and matured fruit of a series of successive improvements, applied by Grecian tacticians to the primitive Hellenic arrangements. During the sixty years before the accession of Alexander, the art of war had been conspicuously progressive—to the sad detriment of Grecian political freedom. “Everything around us (says Demosthenes addressing the people of Athens in 342 B.C.) has been in advance for some years past—nothing is like what it was formerly—but nowhere is the alteration and enlargement more conspicuous than in the affairs of war. Formerly, the Lacedaemonians as well as other Greeks did nothing more than invade each other’s territory, during the four or five summer months, with their native force of citizen hoplites: in winter they stayed at home. But now we see Philip in constant action, winter as well as summer, attacking all around him, not merely with Macedonian hoplites, but with cavalry, light infantry, bowmen, foreigners of all descriptions, and siege batteries.”

I have in several preceding chapters dwelt upon this progressive change in the character of Grecian soldiership. At Athens, and in most other parts of Greece, the burghers had become averse to hard and active military service. The use of arms had passed mainly to professional soldiers, who, without any feeling of citizenship, served wherever good pay was offered, and became immensely multiplied, to the detriment and danger of Grecian society. Many of these mercenaries were lightly armed—peltasts served in combination with the hoplites. Iphicrates greatly improved and partly re-armed the peltasts; whom he employed conjointly with hoplites so effectively as to astonish his contemporaries. His innovation was further developed by the great military genius of Epaminondas; who not only made infantry and cavalry, light-armed and heavy-armed, conspire to one scheme of operations, but also completely altered the received principles of battle­manoeuvring, by concentrating an irresistible force of attack on one point of the enemy’s line, and keeping the rest of his own line more on the defensive. Besides these important improvements, realised by generals in actual practice, intelligent officers like Xenophon embodied the results of their military experience in valuable published criticisms. Such were the lessons which the Macedonian Philip learnt and applied to the enslavement of those Greeks, especially of the Thebans, from whom they were derived. In his youth, as a hostage at Thebes, he had probably conversed with Epaminondas, and must certainly have become familiar with the Theban military arrangements. He had every motive, not merely from ambition of conquest, but even from the necessities of defence, to turn them to account; and he brought to the task military genius and aptitude of the highest order. In arms, in evolutions, in engines, in regimenting, in war-office arrangements, he introduced important novelties; bequeathing to his successors the Macedonian military system, which, with improvements by his son, lasted until the conquest of the country by Rome, near two centuries afterwards.

The military force of Macedonia, in the times anterior to Philip, appears to have consisted, like that of Thessaly, in a well-armed and well-mounted cavalry, formed from the substantial proprietors of the country—and in a numerous assemblage of peltasts or light infantry (somewhat analogous to the Thessalian Penestae): these latter were the rural population, shepherds or cultivators, who tended sheep and cattle, or tilled the earth, among the spacious mountains and valleys of Upper Macedonia. The Grecian towns near the coast, and the few Macedonian towns in the interior, had citizen-hoplites better armed: but foot service was not in honour among the natives, and the Macedonian infantry in their general character were hardly more than a rabble. At the period of Philip’s accession, they were armed with nothing better than rusty swords and wicker shields, no way sufficient to make head against the inroads of their Thracian and Illyrian neighbours; before whom they were constantly compelled to flee for refuge up to the mountains. Their condition was that of poor herdsmen, half- naked or covered only with hides, and eating from wooden platters; not much different from that of the population of Upper Macedonia three centuries before, when first visited by Perdikkas the ancestor of the Macedonian kings, and when the wife of the native prince baked bread with her own hands. On the other hand, though the Macedonian infantry was thus indifferent, the cavalry of the country was excellent, both in the Peloponnesian war, and in the war carried on by Sparta against Olynthus more than twenty years afterwards. These horse­men, like the Thessalians, charged in compact order, carrying as their principal weapon of offence, not javelins to be hurled, but the short thrusting-pike for close combat.

Thus defective was the military organisation which Philip found. Under his auspices it was cast altogether anew. The poor and hardy Landwehr of Macedonia, constantly on the defensive against predatory neighbours, formed an excellent material for soldiers, and proved not intractable to the innova­tions of a warlike prince. They were placed under constant training in the regular rank and file of heavy infantry: they were moreover brought to adopt a new description of arm, not only in itself very difficult to manage, but also comparatively useless to the soldier when fighting single-handed, and only available by a body of men in close order, trained to move or stand together. The new weapon, of which we first hear the name in the army of Philip, was the sarissa—the Macedonian pike or lance. The sarissa was used both by the infantry of his phalanx, and by particular regiments of his cavalry; in both cases it was long, though that of the phalanx was much the longer of the two. The regiments of cavalry called Sarissophori or Lancers were a sort of light-horse, carrying a long lance, and distinguished from the heavier cavalry intended for the shock of hand combat, who carried the xyston or short pike. The sarissa of this cavalry may have been fourteen feet in length, as long as the Cossack pike now is; that of the infantry in phalanx was not less than twenty-one feet long. This dimension is so prodigious and so unwieldy, that we should hardly believe it, if it did not come attested by the distinct assertion of an historian like Polybius.

The extraordinary reach of the sarissa or pike constituted the prominent attribute and force of the Macedonian phalanx. The phalangites were drawn up in files generally of sixteen deep, each called a Lochus; with an interval of three feet between each two soldiers from front to rear. In front stood the lochage, a man of superior strength, and of tried military experience. The second and third men in the file, as well as the rearmost man who brought up the whole, were also picked soldiers, receiving larger pay than the rest. Now the sarissa, when in horizontal position, was held with both hands (distinguished in this respect from the pike of the Grecian hoplite, which occupied only one hand, the other being required for the shield), and so held that it projected fifteen feet before the body of the pikeman; while the hinder portion of six feet was so weighted as to make the pressure convenient in such division. Hence, the sarissa of the man standing second in the file, projected twelve feet beyond the front rank; that of the third man, nine feet; those of the fourth and fifth ranks respectively six feet and three feet. There was thus presented a quintuple series of pikes by each file to meet an advancing enemy. Of these five, the three first would be decidedly of greater projection, and even the fourth of not less projection, than the pikes of Grecian hoplites coming up as enemies to the charge. The ranks behind the fifth, while serving to sustain and press onward the front, did not carry the sarissa in a horizontal position, but slanted it over the shoulders of those before them, so as to break the force of any darts or arrows which might be shot over head from the rear ranks of the enemy.

The phalangite (soldier of the phalanx) was further provided with a short sword, a circular shield of rather more than two feet in diameter, a breast-piece, leggings, and a kausia or broad­brimmed hat—the head-covering common in the Macedonian army. But the long pikes were in truth the main weapons of defence as well as of offence. They were destined to contend against the charge of Grecian hoplites with the one-handed pike and heavy shield; especially against the most formidable manifestation of that force, the deep Theban column organised by Epaminondas. This was what Philip had to deal with, at his accession, as the irresistible infantry of Greece, bearing down everything before it by thrust of pike and propulsion of shield. He provided the means of vanquishing it, by training his poor Macedonian infantry to the systematic use of the long two-handed pike. The Theban column, charging a phalanx so armed, found themselves unable to break into the array of protended pikes, or to come to push of shield. We are told that at the battle of Chaeronea, the front rank Theban soldiers, the chosen men of the city, all perished on the ground; and this is not wonderful, when we conceive them as rushing, by their own courage as well as by the pressure upon them from behind, upon a wall of pikes double the length of their own. We must look at Philip’s phalanx with reference to the enemies before him, not with reference to the later Roman organisation, which Polybius brings into comparison. It answered perfectly the purposes of Philip, who wanted it mainly to stand the shock in front, thus overpowering Grecian hoplites in their own mode of attack. Now Polybius informs us, that the phalanx was never once beaten, in front and on ground suitable for it; and wherever the ground was fit for hoplites, it was also fit for the phalanx. The inconveniences of Philip’s array, and of the long pikes, arose from the incapacity of the phalanx to change its front or keep its order on unequal ground; but such inconveniences were hardly less felt by Grecian hoplites.

The Macedonian phalanx, denominated the Pezetaeri or Foot Companions of the King, comprised the general body of native infantry, as distinguished from special corps d’armée. The largest division of it which we find mentioned under Alexander, and which appears under the command of a general of division, is called a Taxis. How many of these Taxeis there were in all, we do not know; the original Asiatic army of Alexander (apart from what he left at home) included six of them, coinciding apparently with the provincial allotments of the country: Orestas, Lynkestae, Elimiotae, Tymphaei, &C. The writers on tactics give us a systematic scale of distribution (ascending from the lowest unit, the Lochus of sixteen men, by successive multiples of two, up to the quadruple phalanx of 16,384 men) as pervading the Macedonian army. Among these divisions, that which stands out as most fundamental and constant, is the Syntagma, which contained sixteen Lochi. Forming thus a square of sixteen men in front and depth, or 256 men, it was at the same time a distinct aggregate or permanent battalion, having attached to it five supernumeraries, an ensign, a rear-man, a trumpeter, a herald, and an attendant or orderly. Two of these Syntagmas com­posed a body of 512 men, called a Pentakosiarchy, which in Philip’s time is said to have been the ordinary regiment, acting together under a separate command; but several of these were doubled by Alexander when he reorganised his army at Susa, so as to form regiments of 1024 men, each under his Chiliarch, and each comprising four Syntagmas. All this systematic distribution of the Macedonian military force when at home, appears to have been arranged by the genius of Philip. On actual foreign service, no numerical precision could be observed; a regiment or a division could not always contain the same fixed number of men. But as to the array, a depth of sixteen, for the files of the phalangites, appears to have been regarded as important and characteristic, perhaps essential to impart a feeling of confidence to the troops. It was a depth much greater than was common with Grecian hoplites, and never surpassed by any Greeks except the Thebans.

But the phalanx, though an essential item, was yet only one among many, in the varied military organisation introduced by Philip. It was neither intended, nor fit, to act alone; being clumsy in changing front to protect itself either in flank or rear, and unable to adapt itself to uneven ground. There was another description of infantry organised by Philip called the Hypaspists—shield-bearers or Guards; originally few in number, and employed for personal defence of the prince—but afterwards enlarged into several distinct corps d'armée. These Hypaspists or Guards were light infantry of the line; they were hoplites, keeping regular array and intended for close combat, but more lightly armed, and more fit for diversities of circumstance and position than the phalanx. They seem to have fought with the one-handed pike and shield, like the Greeks; and not to have carried the two-handed phalangite pike or sarissa. They occupied a sort of intermediate place between the heavy infantry of the phalanx properly so called— and the peltasts and light troops generally. Alexander in his later campaigns had them distributed into Chiliarchies (how the distribution stood earlier, we have no distinct information), at least three in number, and probably more. We find them employed by him in forward and aggressive movements; first his light troops and cavalry begin the attack; next the hypaspists come to follow it up; lastly, the phalanx is brought up to support them. The hypaspists are used also for assault of walled places, and for rapid night marches. What was the total number of them we do not know.

Besides the phalanx, and the hypaspists or Guards, the Macedonian army, as employed by Philip and Alexander, included a numerous assemblage of desultory or irregular troops, partly native Macedonians, partly foreigners, Thracians, Paeonians, &c. They were of different descriptions; peltasts, darters, and bowmen. The best of them appear to have been the Agrisines, a Paeonian tribe expert in the use of the javelin. All of them were kept in vigorous movement by Alexander, on the flanks and in front of his heavy infantry, or intermingled with his cavalry,—as well as for pursuit after the enemy was defeated.

Lastly, the cavalry in Alexander’s army was also admirable—at least equal, and seemingly even superior in efficiency, to his best infantry. I have already mentioned that cavalry was the choice native force of Macedonia, long before the reign of Philip; by whom it had been extended and improved. The heavy cavalry, wholly or chiefly composed of native Macedonians, was known by the denomination of the Companions. There was besides a new and lighter variety of cavalry, apparently introduced by Philip, and called the Sarissophori, or Lancers, used like Cossacks for advanced posts or scouring the country. The sarissa which they carried was probably much shorter than that of the phalanx; but it was long, if compared with the xyston or thrusting-pike used by the heavy cavalry for the shock of close combat. Arrian, in describing the army of Alexander at Arbela, enumerates eight distinct squadrons of this heavy cavalry—or cavalry of the Companions; but the total number included in the Macedonian army at Alexander’s accession, is not known. Among the squadrons, several at least (if not all) were named after particular towns or districts of the country—Bottiaea, Amphipolis, Apollonia, Anthemus, &c.; there was one or more, distinguished as the Royal Squadron—the Agema or leading body of cavalry—at the head of which Alexander generally charged, himself among the foremost of the actual combatants.

The distribution of the cavalry into squadrons was that which Alexander found at his accession; but he altered it, when he remodelled the arrangements of his army (in 330 B.C.) at Susa, so as to subdivide the squadron into two Lochi, and to establish the Lochus for the elementary division of cavalry, as it had always been of infantry. His reforms went thus to cut down the primary body of cavalry from the squadron to the half-squadron or Lochus, while they tended to bring the infantry together into larger bodies—from cohorts of 500 each to cohorts of 1000 men each.

Among the Hypaspists or Guards, also, we find an Agema or chosen cohort which was called upon oftener than the rest to begin the fight. A still more select corps were, the Body­Guards; a small company of tried and confidential men, individually known to Alexander, always attached to his person, and acting as adjutants or as commanders for special service. These Body-Guards appear to have been chosen persons promoted out of the Royal Youths or Pages; an institution first established by Philip, and evincing the pains taken by him to bring the leading Macedonians into military organisation as well as into dependence on his own person. The Royal Youths, sons of the chief persons throughout Macedonia, were taken by Philip into service, and kept in permanent residence around him for purposes of domestic attendance and companionship. They maintained perpetual guard of his palace, alternating among themselves the hours of daily and nightly watch: they received his horse from the grooms, assisted him to mount, and accompanied him if he went to the chase: they introduced persons who came to solicit interviews, and admitted his mistresses by night through a special door. They enjoyed the privilege of sitting down to dinner with him, as well as that of never being flogged except by his special order. The precise number of the company we do not know; but it must have been not small, since fifty of these youths were brought out from Macedonia at once by Amyntas to join Alexander, and to be added to the company at Babylon. At the same time the mortality among them was probably considerable; since, in accompanying Alexander, they endured even more than the prodigious fatigues which he imposed upon himself. The training in this corps was a preparation, first for becoming Body-Guards of Alexander,—next, for appointment to the great and important military commands. Accordingly, it had been the first stage of advancement to most of the Diadochi, or great officers of Alexander, who after his death carved kingdoms for themselves out of his conquests.

It was thus that the native Macedonian force was enlarged and diversified by Philip, including at his death:—

1. The phalanx, Foot-companions, or general mass of heavy infantry, drilled to the use of the long two-handed pike or sarissa—

2. The Hypaspists, or lighter-armed corps of foot-guards—

3. The Companions, or heavy cavalry, the ancient indigenous force consisting of the more opulent or substantial Macedonians

4. The lighter cavalry, lancers, or Sarissophori. With these were joined foreign auxiliaries of great value. The Thessalians, whom Philip had partly subjugated and partly gained over, furnished him with a body of heavy cavalry not inferior to the native Macedonian. From various parts of Greece he derived hoplites, volunteers taken into his pay, armed with the full­sized shield and one-handed pike. From the warlike tribes of Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, &c., whom he had subdued around him, he levied contingents of light troops of various descriptions, peltasts, bowmen, darters, &c., all excellent in their way, and eminently serviceable to his combinations, in conjunction with the heavier masses. Lastly, Philip had completed his military arrangements by organising what may be called an effective siege-train for sieges as well as for battles; a stock of projectile and battering machines, superior to anything at that time extant. We find this artillery used by Alexander in the very first year of his reign, in his campaign against the Illyrians. Even in his most distant Indian marches, he either carried it with him, or had the means of constructing new engines for the occasion. There was no part of his military equipment more essential to his conquests. The victorious sieges of Alexander are among his most memorable exploits.

To all this large, multifarious and systematised array of actual force, are to be added the civil establishments, the depots, magazines of arms, provision for remounts, drill officers and adjutants, &c., indispensable for maintaining it in constant training and efficiency. At the time of Philip’s accession, Pella was an unimportant place; at his death, it was not only strong as a fortification and place of deposit for regal treasure, but also the permanent centre, war office, and training quarters, of the greatest military force then known. The military registers as well as the traditions of Macedonian discipline were preserved there until the fall of the monarchy.1 Philip had employed his life in organising this powerful instrument of dominion. His revenues, large as they were, both from mines and from tributary conquests, had been exhausted in the work, so that he had left at his decease a debt of 500 talents. But his son Alexander found the instrument ready-made, with excellent officers, and trained veterans for the front ranks of his phalanx.

This scientific organisation of military force, on a large scale and with all the varieties of arming and equipment made to co-operate for one end, is the great fact of Macedonian history. Nothing of the same kind and magnitude had ever before been seen. The Macedonians, like Epirots and Aetolians, had no other aptitude or marking quality except those of soldiership. Their rude and scattered tribes manifest no definite political institutions and little sentiment of national brotherhood; their union was mainly that of occasional fellowship in arms under the king as chief. Philip the son of Amyntas was the first to organise this military union into a system permanently and efficaciously operative, achieving by means of it conquests such as to create in the Macedonians a common pride of superiority in arms, which served as substitute for political institutions or nationality. Such pride was still further exalted by the really superhuman career of Alexander. The Macedonian kingdom was nothing but a well-combined military machine, illustrating the irresistible superiority of the rudest men, trained in arms and conducted by an able general, not merely over undisciplined multitudes, but also over free, courageous, and disciplined citizenship, with highly gifted intelligence.

During the winter of 335-334 B.C., after the destruction of Thebes and the return of Alexander from Greece to Pella, his final preparations were made for the Asiatic expedition. The Macedonian army, with the auxiliary contingents destined for this enterprise, were brought together early in the spring. Antipater, one of the oldest and ablest officers of Philip, was appointed to act as viceroy of Macedonia during the king’s absence. A military force, stated at 12,000 infantry and 1500 cavalry, was left with him to keep down the cities of Greece, to resist aggressions from the Persian fleet, and to repress discontents at home. Such discontents were likely to be instigated by leading Macedonians or pretenders to the throne, especially as Alexander had no direct heir: and we are told that Antipater and Parmenio advised postponement of the expedition until the young king could leave behind him an heir of his own lineage. Alexander overruled these representations, yet he did not disdain to lessen the perils at home by putting to death such men as he principally feared or mistrusted, especially the kinsmen of Philip’s last wife Cleopatra. Of the dependent tribes around, the most energetic chiefs accompanied his army into Asia, either by their own preference or at his requisition. After these precautions, the tranquillity of Macedonia was entrusted to the prudence and fidelity of Antipater, which were still further ensured by the fact that three of his sons accompanied the king’s army and person. Though unpopular in his deportment, Antipater discharged the duties of his very responsible position with zeal and ability; notwithstanding the dangerous enmity of Olympias, against whom he sent many complaints to Alexander when in Asia, while she on her side wrote frequent but unavailing letters with a view to ruin him in the esteem of her son. After a long period of unabated confidence, Alexander began during the last years of his life to dislike and mistrust Antipater. He always treated Olympias with the greatest respect; trying however to restrain her from meddling with political affairs, and complaining sometimes of her imperious exigencies and violence.

The army intended for Asia, having been assembled at Pella, was conducted by Alexander himself first to Amphipolis, where it crossed the Strymon; next along the road near the coast to the river Nestus and to the towns of Abdera and Maroneia; then through Thrace across the rivers Hebrus and Melas; lastly, through the Thracian Chersonese to Sestos. Here it was met by his fleet, consisting of 160 triremes, with a number of trading vessels besides, made up in large proportions from contingents furnished by Athens and Grecian cities. The passage of the whole army—infantry, cavalry, and machines, on ships, across the strait from Sestos in Europe to Abydos in Asia—was superintended by Parmenio, and accomplished without either difficulty or resistance. But Alexander himself, separating from the army at Sestos, went down to Elaeus at the southern extremity of the Chersonese. Here stood the chapel and sacred precinct of the hero Protesilaus, who was slain by Hektor; having been the first Greek (according to the legend of the Trojan war) who touched the shore of Troy. Alexander, whose imagination was then full of Homeric reminis­cences, offered sacrifice to the hero, praying that his own disembarkation might terminate more auspiciously.

He then sailed across in the admiral’s trireme, steering with his own hand, to the landing-place near Ilium called the Harbour of the Achaeans. At mid-channel of the strait, he sacrificed a bull, with libations out of a golden goblet, to Poseidon and the Nereids. Himself too in full armour, he was the first (like Protesilaus) to tread the Asiatic shore; but he found no enemy like Hektor to meet him. From hence, mounting the hill on which Ilium was placed, he sacrificed to the patron-goddess Athens; and deposited in her temple his own panoply, taking in exchange some of the arms said to have been worn by the heroes in the Trojan war, which he caused to be carried by guards along with him in his subsequent battles. Among other real or supposed monuments of this interesting legend, the Ilians showed to him the residence of Priam with its altar of Zeus Herkeios, where that unhappy old king was alleged to have been slain by Neoptolemus. Numbering Neoptolemus among his ancestors, Alexander felt himself to be the object of Priam’s yet unappeased wrath; and accordingly offered sacrifice to him at the same altar, for the purpose of expiation and reconciliation. On the tomb and monumental column of Achilles, father of Neoptolemus, he not only placed a decorative garland, but also went through the customary ceremony of anointing himself with oil and running naked up to it: exclaim­ing how much he envied the lot of Achilles, who had been blest during life with a faithful friend, and after death with a great poet to celebrate his exploits. Lastly, to commemorate his crossing, Alexander erected permanent altars in honour of Zeus, Athene, and Herakles; both on the point of Europe which his army had quitted, and on that of Asia where it had landed.

The proceedings of Alexander, on the ever-memorable site of Ilium, are interesting as they reveal one side of his imposing character—the vein of legendary sympathy and religious sentiment wherein alone consisted his analogy with the Greeks. The young Macedonian prince had nothing of that sense of correlative right and obligation which characterised the free Greeks of the city community. But he was in many points a reproduction of the heroic Greeks, his warlike ancestors in legend, Achilles and Neoptolemus, and others of that Eakid race, unparalleled in the attributes of force—a man of violent impulse in all directions, sometimes generous, often vindictive —ardent in his individual affections both of love and hatred, but devoured especially by an inextinguishable pugnacity, appetite for conquest, and thirst for establishing at all cost his superiority of force over others—“Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis”—taking pride, not simply in victorious generalship and direction of the arms of soldiers, but also in the personal forwardness of an Homeric chief, the foremost to encounter both danger and hardship. To dispositions resembling those of Achilles, Alexander indeed added one attribute of a far higher order. As a general, he surpassed his age in provident and even long-sighted combinations. With all his exuberant courage and sanguine temper, nothing was ever omitted in the way of systematic military precaution. Thus much he borrowed, though with many improvements of his own, from Grecian intelligence as applied to soldiership. But the character and dispositions, which he took with him to Asia, had the features, both striking and repulsive, of Achilles, rather than those of Agesilaus or Epaminondas.

The army, when reviewed on the Asiatic shore after its crossing, presented a total of 30,000 infantry, and 4500 cavalry, thus distributed:—

Infantry.

Macedonian phalanx and hypaspists                                      12,000

Allies                                                                                               7,000

Mercenaries                                                                                  5,000

Under the command of Parmenio                                         24,000

Odryssians, Triballi (both Thracians), and Illyrians            5,000

Agrianes and archers                                                                   1,000

Total infantry                                                                                 30,000

Cavalry.

Macedonian heavy—under Philotas son of Parmenio              1,500

Thessalian (also heavy)—under Kallas                                    1,500

Miscellaneous Grecian—under Erigyius                                     600

Thracian and Paeonian (light)—under Kassander                     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 43,000 infantry with 4000 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 Buonaparte on first entering Italy for his brilliant campaign of 1796. According to Aristobulus, he had with him only seventy talents; according to another authority, no more than the means of maintaining his army for thirty days. Nor had he even been able to bring together his auxiliaries, or complete the outfit of his army, without incurring a debt of 800 talents, in addition to that of 500 talents contracted by his father Philip. Though Plutarch wonders at the smallness of the force with which Alexander contemplated the execution of such great projects, yet the fact is, that in infantry he was far above any force which the Persians had to oppose him; not to speak of comparative discipline and organisation, surpassing even that of the Grecian mercenaries, who formed the only good infantry in the Persian service; while his cavalry, though inferior as to number, was superior in quality and in the shock of close combat.

Most of the officers exercising important command in Alexander’s army were native Macedonians. His intimate personal friend Hephaestion, as well as his body-guards Leonnatus and Lysimachus, were natives of Pella: Ptolemy the son of Lagus, and Pithon, were Eordians from Upper Macedonia; Kraterus and Perdikkas, from the district of Upper Macedonia called Orestis; Antipater with his son Kassander, Kleitus son of Dropides, Parmenio with his two sons Philotas and Nikanor, Seleucus, Koenus, Amyntas, Philippus (these two last names were borne by more than one person), Antigonus, Neoptolemus, Meleager, Peukestes, &c., all these seem to have been native Macedonians. All or most of them had been trained to war under Philip, in whose service Parmenio and Antipater, especially, had occupied a high rank.

Of the many Greeks in Alexander’s service, we hear of few in important station. Medius, a Thessalian from Larissa, was among his familiar companions; but the ablest and most distinguished of all was Eumenes, a native of Kardia in the Thracian Chersonese. Eumenes, combining an excellent Grecian education with bodily activity and enterprise, had attracted when a young man the notice of Philip, and had been appointed as his secretary. After discharging these duties for seven years until the death of Philip, he was continued by Alexander in the post of chief secretary during the whole of that king’s life. He conducted most of Alexander’s corre­spondence, and the daily record of his proceedings, which was kept under the name of the Royal Ephemerides. But though his special duties were thus of a civil character, he was not less eminent as an officer in the field. Occasionally entrusted with high military command, he received from Alexander signal recompenses and tokens of esteem. In spite of these great qualities—or perhaps in consequence of them—he was the object of marked jealousy and dislike1 on the part of the Macedonians,—from Hephaestion the friend, and Neoptolemus the chief armour-bearer, of Alexander, down to the principal soldiers of the phalanx. Neoptolemus despised Eumenes as an unwarlike penman. The contemptuous pride with which Macedonians had now come to look down on Greeks, is a notable characteristic of the victorious army of Alexander, as well as a new feature in history; retorting the ancient Hellenic sentiment, in which Demosthenes, a few years before, had indulged towards the Macedonians.

Though Alexander had been allowed to land in Asia unopposed, an army was already assembled under the Persian satraps within a few days’ march of Abydos. Since the reconquest of Egypt and Phenicia, about eight or nine years before, by the Persian king Ochus, the power of that empire had been restored to a point equal to any anterior epoch since the repulse of Xerxes from Greece. The Persian successes in Egypt had been achieved mainly by the arms of Greek mercenaries, under the conduct and through the craft of the Rhodian general Mentor; who, being seconded by the preponderant influence of the eunuch Bagoas, confidential minister of Ochus, obtained not only ample presents, but also the appointment of military commander on the Hellespont and the Asiatic seaboard. He procured the recall of his brother Memnon, who with his brother-in-law Artabazus had been obliged to leave Asia from unsuccessful revolt against the Persians, and had found shelter with Philip. He further subdued, by force or by fraud, various Greek and Asiatic chieftains on the Asiatic coast; among them, the distinguished Hermeias, friend of Aristotle, and master of the strong post of Atameus. These successes of Mentor seem to have occurred about 343 B.C. He, and his brother Memnon after him, unheld vigorously the authority of the Persian king in the regions near the Hellespont. It was probably by them that troops were sent across the strait both to rescue the besieged town of Perinthus from Philip, and to act against that prince in other parts of Thrace; that an Asiatic chief, who was intriguing to facilitate Philip’s intended invasion of Asia, was seized and sent prisoner to the Persian court; and that envoys from Athens, soliciting aid against Philip, were forwarded to the same place.

Ochus, though successful in regaining the full extent of Persian dominion, was a sanguinary tyrant, who shed by whole­sale the blood of his family and courtiers. About the year 338 B.C., he died poisoned by the eunuch Bagoas, who placed upon the throne Arses, one of the king’s sons, killing all the rest. After two years, however, Bagoas conceived mistrust of Arses, and put him to death also, together with all his children : thus leaving no direct descendant of the regal family alive. He then exalted to the throne one of his friends named Darius Codomannus (descended from one of the brothers of Artaxerxes Mnemon), who had acquired glory, in a recent war against the Kadusians, by killing in single combat a formidable champion of the enemy’s army. Presently, however, Bagdas attempted to poison Darius also; but the latter, detecting the snare, forced him to drink the deadly draught himself. In spite of such murders and change in the line of succession, which Alexander afterwards reproached to Darius, the authority of Darius seems to have been recognised, without any material opposition, throughout all the Persian empire.

Succeeding to the throne in the early part of B.C. 336, when Philip was organising the projected invasion of Persia, and when the first Macedonian division under Parmenio and Attalus was already making war in Asia—Darius prepared measures of defence at home, and tried to encourage anti­Macedonian movements in Greece. On the assassination of Philip by Pausanias, the Persian king publicly proclaimed himself (probably untruly) as having instigated the deed, and alluded in contemptuous terms to the youthful Alexander. Conceiving the danger from Macedonia to be past, he imprudently slackened his efforts and withheld his supplies during the first months of Alexander’s reign, when the latter might have been seriously embarrassed in Greece and in Europe by the effective employment of Persian ships and money. But the recent successes of Alexander in Thrace, Illyria, and Boeotia, satisfied Darius that the danger was not past, so that he resumed his preparations for defence. The Phenician fleet was ordered to be equipped; the satraps in Phrygia and Lydia got together a considerable force, consisting in part of Grecian mercenaries; while Memnon, on the seaboard, was furnished with the means of taking 5000 of these mercenaries under his separate command.

We cannot trace with any exactness the course of these events, during the nineteen months between Alexander’s accession and his landing in Asia (August 336 B.C. to March or April 334 B.C.). We learn generally that Memnon was active and even aggressive on the north-eastern coast of the Aegean. Marching northward from his own territory (the region of Assus or Atarneus skirting the Gulf of Adramyttium) across the range of Mount Ida, he came suddenly upon the town of Cyzicus on the Propontis. He failed, however, though only by a little, in his attempt to surprise it, and was forced to content himself with a rich booty from the district around. The Macedonian generals Parmenio and Kallas had crossed into Asia with bodies of troops. Parmenio, acting in Aeolis, took Grynium, but was compelled by Memnon to raise the siege of Pitane; while Kallas, in the Troad, was attacked, defeated, and compelled to retire to Rhoeteium.

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 north-east of the Aegean. 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 Phenician towns, was decidedly superior to any naval armament at the disposal of Alexander. The Persian fleet actually came into the Aegean 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 Zeleia 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, &c. 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, Hyrcaniana, Cappadocians, Paphlagonians, &. 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 20,000 cavalry, and nearly 20,000 mercenary foot; by Diodorus as 10,000 cavalry, and 100,000 infantry; by Justin even at 600,000. 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 this 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 burnt. 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 Skepsis, 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 Zeleia, took up a position near the eastern side of the Granikus, where the last declivities of Mount Ida descend into the plain of Adrasteia, 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 Perkote, on the second to the river Praktius, 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 direct towards the Granikus, 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 Parmenio 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.

In Alexander’s array, the phalanx or heavy infantry formed the central body. The six Taxeis or divisions, of which it consisted, were commanded (reckoning from right to left) by Perdikkas, Koenus, Amyntas son of Andromenes, Philippus, Meleager, and Kraterus.1 Immediately on the right of the phalanx, were the hypaspistae, or light infantry, under Nikanor son of Parmenio—then the light horse or lancers, the Paeonians, and the Apolloniate squadron of Companion-cavalry com­manded by the Ilarch Socrates, all under Amyntas son of Arrhibaeus—lastly the full body of Companion-cavalry, the bowmen, and the Agrianian darters, all under Philotas (son of Parmenio), whose division formed the extreme right. The left flank of the phalanx was in like manner protected by three distinct divisions of cavalry or lighter troops—first, by the Thracians, under Agathon—next, by the cavalry of the allies, under Philippus son of Menelaus—lastly, by the Thessalian cavalry, under Kallas, whose division formed the extreme left. Alexander himself took the command of the right, giving that of the left to Parmenio; 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 Granikus, 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 squadron of Apollonia, of which Sok rates was captain—commanded on this day by Ptolemaeus son of Philippus) supported by the light horse or Lancers, the Paeonian darters (infantry), and one division of regularly armed infantry, seemingly hypaspista. 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 Parmenio, 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.

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 horseguards 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, Rhoesakes, 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 Rhoesakes through the body with his pike.1 Meanwhile a third Persian leader, Spithridates, was actually close behind Alexander, with hand and scimitar uplifted to cut him down. At this critical moment, Kleitus 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 hypaspistae 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 2000 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 1000 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, Rhoesakes, and Spithridates, whose names have been already mentioned,—but also Pharnakes, 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 re-assembled 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 further 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 20,000, most part of them Greek mercenaries. Of these only 2000 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 Lacedaemonians (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 Pan-Hellenic 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 lay more on the side of Darius than of Alexander.

The battle of the Granicus, brought on by Arsites and the other satraps contrary to the advice of Memnon, was moreover so unskilfully fought by them, that the gallantry of their infantry, the most formidable corps of Greeks that had ever been in the Persian service, was rendered of little use. The battle, properly speaking, was fought only by the Persian cavalry; the infantry was left to be surrounded and destroyed afterwards.

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 Persae of Aeschylus, 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 melée, 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 contemporaries.

Several of the neighbouring Mysian mountaineers, though mutinous subjects towards Persia, came down to make submission to him, and were permitted to occupy their lands under the same tribute as they had paid before. The inhabitants of the neighbouring Grecian city of Zeleia, whose troops had served with the Persians, surrendered and obtained their pardon; Alexander admitting the plea that they had served only under constraint. He then sent Parmenio to attack Daskylium, the stronghold and chief residence of the satrap of Phrygia. Even this place was evacuated by the garrison and surrendered, doubtless with a considerable treasure therein. The whole satrapy of Phrygia thus fell into Alexander’s power, and was appointed to be administered by Kallas for his behalf, levying the same amount of tribute as had been paid before. He himself then marched, with his main force, in a southerly direction towards Sardis—the chief town of Lydia, and the main station of the Persians in Asia Minor. The citadel of Sardis—situated on a lofty and steep rock projecting from Mount Tmolus, fortified by a triple wall with an adequate garrison—was accounted impregnable, and at any rate could hardly have been taken by anything less than a long blockade, which would have allowed time for the arrival of the fleet and the operations of Memnon. Yet such was the terror which now accompanied the Macedonian conqueror, that when he arrived within eight miles of Sardis, he met not only a deputation of the chief citizens, but also the Persian governor of the citadel, Mithrines. The town, citadel, garrison, and treasure were delivered up to him without a blow. Fortunately for Alexander, there was not in Asia any Persian governors of courage and fidelity such as had been displayed by Maskames and Boges after the repulse of Xerxes from Greece. Alexander treated Mithrines with courtesy and honour, granted freedom to the Sardians and to the other Lydians generally, with the use of their own Lydian laws. The betrayal of Sardis by Mithrines was a signal good fortune to Alexander. On going up to the citadel, he contemplated with astonishment its prodigious strength; congratulating himself on so easy an acquisition, and giving directions to build there a temple of Olympian Zeus, on the spot where the old palace of the kings of Lydia had been situated. He named Pausanias governor of the citadel, with a garrison of Peloponnesians from Argos; Asander, satrap of the country; and Nikias, collector of tribute. The freedom granted to the Lydians, whatever it may have amounted to, did not exonerate them from paying the usual tribute.

From Sardis, he ordered Kallas, the new satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia—and Alexander son of Aeropus, who had been promoted in place of Kallas to the command of the Thessalian cavalry—to attack Atarneus and the district belonging to Memnon, on the Asiatic coast opposite Lesbos. Meanwhile he himself directed his march to Ephesus, which he reached on the fourth day. Both at Ephesus and at Miletus—the two principal strongholds of the Persians on the coasts as Sardis was in the interior—the sudden catastrophe at the Granikus had struck unspeakable terror. Hegesistratus, governor of the Persian garrison (Greek mercenaries) at Miletus, sent letters to Alexander offering to surrender the town on his approach ; while the garrison at Ephesus, with the Macedonian exile Amyntas, got on board two triremes in the harbour and fled. It appears that there had been recently a political revolution in the town, conducted by Syrphax and other leaders, who had established an oligarchical government. These men, banishing their political opponents, had committed depredations on the temple of Artemis, overthrown the statue of Philip of Macedon dedicated therein, and destroyed the sepulchre of Heropythus the liberator in the agora.1 Some of the party, though abandoned by their garrison, were still trying to invoke aid from Memnon, who however was yet at a distance. Alexander entered the town without resistance, restored the exiles, established a democratical constitution, and directed that the tribute heretofore paid to the Persians should now be paid to the Ephesian Artemis. Syrphax and his family sought refuge in the temple, from whence they were dragged by the people and stoned to death. More of the same party would have been despatched, had not the popular vengeance been restrained by Alexander; who displayed an honourable and prudent moderation.

Thus master of Ephesus, Alexander found himself in com­munication with his fleet, under the command of Nikanor; and received propositions of surrender from the two neighbouring inland cities, Magnesia and Tralleis. To occupy these cities, he despatched Parmenio with 5000 foot (half of them Macedonians) and 200 of the Companion-cavalry; while he at the same time sent Antimachus with an equal force in a northerly direction, to liberate the various cities of Aeolic and Ionic Greeks. This officer was instructed to put down in each of them the ruling oligarchy, which acted with a mercenary garrison as an instrument of Persian supremacy—to place the government in the hands of the citizens—and to abolish all payment of tribute. He himself—after taking part in a solemn festival and procession to the temple of Ephesian Artemis, with his whole army in battle-array—marched southward towards Miletus; his fleet under Nikanor proceeding thither by sea. He expected probably to enter Miletus with as little resistance as Ephesus. But his hopes were disappointed : Hegesistratus, commander of the garrison in that town, though under the immediate terror of the defeat at the Granikus he had written to offer submission, had now altered his tone, and determined to hold out. The formidable Persian fleet, four hundred sail of Phenician and Cyprian ships of war with well-trained seamen, was approaching.

This naval force, which a few weeks earlier would have prevented Alexander from crossing into Asia, now afforded the only hope of arresting the rapidity and ease of his conquests. What steps had been taken by the Persian officers since the defeat at the Granikus, we do not hear. Many of them had fled, along with Memnon, to Miletus; and they were probably disposed, under the present desperate circumstances, to accept the command of Memnon as their only hope of safety, though they had despised his counsel on the day of the battle. Whether the towns in Memnon’s principality of Atarneus had attempted any resistance against the Macedonians, we do not know. His interests however were so closely identified with those of Persia, that he had sent up his wife and children as hostages, to induce Darius to entrust him with the supreme conduct of the war. Orders to this effect were presently sent down by that prince;4 but at the first arrival of the fleet, it seems not to have been under the command of Memnon, who was however probably on board.

It came too late to aid in the defence of Miletus. Three days before its arrival, Nikanor the Macedonian admiral, with his fleet of one hundred and sixty ships, had occupied the island of Lade, which commanded the harbour of that city. Alexander found the outer portion of Miletus evacuated, and took it without resistance. He was making preparations to besiege the inner city, and had already transported 4000 troops across to the island of Lade, when the powerful Persian fleet came in sight, but found itself excluded from Miletus, and obliged to take moorings under the neighbouring promontory of Mykale. Unwilling to abandon without a battle the command of the sea, Parmenio advised Alexander to fight this fleet, offering himself to share the hazard aboard.

But Alexander disapproved the proposition, affirming that his fleet was inferior not less in skill than in numbers; that the high training of the Macedonians would tell for nothing on shipboard; and that a naval defeat would be the signal for insurrection in Greece. Besides debating such prudential reasons, Alexander and Parmenio also differed about the religious promise of the case. On the sea-shore, near the stern of the Macedonian ships, Parmenio had seen an eagle, which filled him with confidence that the ships would prove victorious. But Alexander contended that this interpretation was incorrect. Though the eagle doubtless promised to him victory, yet it had been seen on land—and therefore his victories would be on land: hence the result signified was, that he would overcome the Persian fleet, by means of land operations. This part of the debate, between two practical military men of ability, is not the least interesting of the whole; illustrating as it does, not only the religious susceptibilities of the age, but also the pliancy of the interpretative process, lending itself equally well to inferences totally opposite. The difference between a sagacious and a dull-witted prophet, accommodating ambiguous omens to useful or mischievous conclusions, was one of very material importance in the ancient world.

Alexander now prepared vigorously to assault Miletus, repudiating with disdain an offer brought to him by a Milesian citizen named Glaukippus—that the city should be neutral and open to him as well as to the Persians. His fleet under Nikanor occupied the harbour, blocked up its narrow mouth against the Persians, and made threatening demonstrations from the water’s edge; while he himself brought up his battering-engines against the walls, shook or overthrew them in several places, and then stormed the city. The Milesians, with the Grecian mercenary garrison, made a brave defence, but were overpowered by the impetuosity of the assault. A large number of them were slain, and there was no way of escape except by jumping into little boats, or swimming off upon the hollow of the shield. Even of these fugitives, most part were killed by the seamen of the Macedonian triremes; but a division of 300 Grecian mercenaries got on to an isolated rock near the mouth of the harbour, and there prepared to sell their lives dearly. Alexander, as soon as his soldiers were thoroughly masters of the city, went himself on shipboard to attack the mercenaries on the rock, taking with him ladders in order to effect a landing upon it. But when he saw that they were resolved on a desperate defence, he preferred admitting them to terms of capitulation, and received them into his own service. To the surviving Milesian citizens he granted the condition of a free city, while he caused all the remaining prisoners to be sold as slaves.

The powerful Persian fleet, from the neighbouring promontory of Mykale, was compelled to witness, without being able to prevent, the capture of Miletus, and was presently withdrawn to Halikarnassus. At the same time Alexander came to the resolution of disbanding his own fleet; which, while costing more than he could then afford, was nevertheless unfit to cope with the enemy in open sea. He calculated that by concentrating all his efforts on land operations, especially against the cities on the coast, he should exclude the Persian fleet from all effective hold on Asia Minor, and ensure that country to himself. He therefore paid off all he ships, retaining only a moderate squadron for the purpose of transport.

Before this time, probably, the whole Asiatic coast northward of Miletus—including the Ionic and Aeolic cities and the principality of Memnon—had either accepted willingly the dominion of Alexander, or had been reduced by his detachments. Accordingly he now directed his march southward from Miletus, towards Karia, and especially towards Halikarnassus, the principal city of that territory. On entering Karia, he was met by Ada, a member of the Karian princely family, who tendered to him her town of Alinda and her other possessions, adopting him as her son, and entreating his protection. Not many years earlier, under Mausolus and Artemisia, the powerful princes of this family had been formidable to all the Grecian islands. It was the custom of Karia that brothers and sisters of the reigning family intermarried with each other: Mausolus and his wife Artemisia were succeeded by Idrieus and his wife Ada, all four being brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of Hekatomnus. On the death of Idrieus, his widow Ada was expelled from Halikarnassus and other parts of Karia by her surviving brother Pixodarus; though she still retained some strong towns, which proved a welcome addition to the conquests of Alexander. Pixodarus, on the contrary, who had given his daughter in marriage to a leading Persian named Orontobates, warmly espoused the Persian cause, and made Halikarnassus a capital point of resistance against the invader.

But it was not by him alone that this city was defended. The Persian fleet had repaired thither from Miletus; Memnon, now invested by Darius with supreme command on the Asiatic coast and the Aegean, was there in person. There was not only Orontobates with many other Asiatics, but also a large garrison of mercenary Greeks, commanded by Ephialtes, a brave Athenian exile. The city, strong both by nature and by art, with a surrounding ditch forty-five feet broad and twenty-two feet deep, had been still further strengthened under the prolonged superintendence of Memnon; lastly, there were two citadels, a fortified harbour with its entrance fronting the south, abundant magazines of arms, and good provision of defensive engines. The siege of Halikarnassus was the most arduous enterprise which Alexander had yet undertaken. Instead of attacking it by land and sea at once, as at Miletus, he could make his approaches only from the land, while the defenders were powerfully aided from seaward by the Persian ships with their numerous crews.

His first efforts, directed against the gate on the north or north-east of the city, which led towards Mylasa, were interrupted by frequent sallies and discharges from the engines on the walls. After a few days thus spent without much avail, he passed with a large section of his army to the western side of the town, towards the outlying portion of the projecting tongue of land, on which Halikarnassus and Myndus (the latter farther westward) were situated. While making demonstrations on this side of Halikarnassus, he at the same time attempted a night attack on Myndus, but was obliged to retire after some hours of fruitless effort. He then confined himself to the siege of Halikarnassus. His soldiers, protected from missiles by moveable penthouses (called Tortoises), gradually filled up the wide and deep ditch round the town, so as to open a level road for his engines (rolling towers of wood) to come up close to the walls. The engines being brought up close, the work of demolition was successfully prosecuted; notwithstanding vigorous sallies from the garrison, repulsed, though not without loss and difficulty, by the Macedonians. Presently the shock of the battering-engines had overthrown two towers of the city­wall, together with two intermediate breadths of wall; and a third tower was beginning to totter. The besieged were employed in erecting an inner wall of brick to cover the open space, and a wooden tower of the great height of 150 feet for the purpose of casting projectiles. It appears that Alexander waited for the full demolition of the third tower, before he thought the breach wide enough to be stormed; but an assault was prematurely brought on by two adventurous soldiers from the division of Perdikkas. These men, elate with wine, rushed up singlehanded to attack the Mylaean gate, and slew the foremost of the defenders who came out to oppose them, until at length, reinforcements arriving successively on both sides, a general combat took place at a short distance from the wall. In the end, the Macedonians were victorious, and drove the besieged back into the city. Such was the confusion, that the city might then have been assaulted and taken, had measures been prepared for it beforehand. The third tower was speedily overthrown; nevertheless, before this could be accomplished, the besieged had already completed their half-moon within, against which accordingly, on the next day, Alexander pushed forward his engines. In this advanced position, however, being as it were within the circle of the city-wall, the Macedonians were exposed to discharges not only from engines in their front, but also from the towers yet standing on each side of them. Moreover, at night, a fresh sally was made with so much impetuosity, that some of the covering wicker­work of the engines, and even the main woodwork of one of them, was burnt. It was not without difficulty that Philotas and Hellanikus, the officers on guard, preserved the remainder; nor were the besieged finally driven in, until Alexander himself appeared with reinforcements. Though his troops had been victors in these successive combats, yet he could not carry off his dead, who lay close to the walls, without soliciting a truce for burial. Such request usually counted as a confession of defeat: nevertheless Alexander solicited the truce, which was granted by Memnon, in spite of the contrary opinion of Ephialtes.

After a few days of interval, for burying his dead and repairing the engines, Alexander recommenced attack upon the half-moon, under his own personal superintendence. Among the leaders within, a conviction gained ground that the place could not long hold out. Ephialtes especially, resolved not to survive the capture, and seeing that the only chance of preservation consisted in destroying the besieging engines, obtained permission from Memnon to put himself at the head of a last desperate sally. He took immediately near him 2000 chosen troops, half to encounter the enemy, half with torches to burn the engines. At daybreak, all the gates being suddenly and simultaneously thrown open, sallying parties rushed out from each against the besiegers; the engines from within supporting them by multiplied discharges of missiles. Ephialtes with his division, marching straight against the Macedonians on guard at the main point of attack, assailed them impetuously, while his torch-bearers tried to set the engines on fire. Himself distinguished no less for personal strength than for valour, he occupied the front rank, and was so well seconded by the courage and good array of his soldiers charging in deep column, that for a time he gained advantage. Some of the engines were successfully fired, and the advanced guard of the Macedonian troops, consisting of young troops, gave way and fled. They were rallied partly by the efforts of Alexander, but still more by the older Macedonian soldiers, companions in all Philip’s campaigns; who, standing exempt from night-watches, were encamped more in the rear. These veterans, among whom one Atharrias was the most conspicuous, upbraiding the cowardice of their comrades, cast themselves into their accus­tomed phalanx-array, and thus both withstood and repulsed the charge of the victorious enemy. Ephialtes, foremost among the combatants, was slain, the rest were driven back to the city, and the burning engines were saved with some damage. During this same time, an obstinate conflict had also taken place at the gate called Tripylon, where the besieged had made another sally, over a narrow bridge thrown across the ditch. Here the Macedonians were under the command of Ptolemy (not the son of Lagus), one of the king’s body-guards. He, with two or three other conspicuous officers, perished in the severe struggle which ensued, but the sallying party were at length repulsed and driven into the city. The loss of the besieged was severe, in trying to get again within the walls, under vigor­ous pursuit from the Macedonians.

By this last unsuccessful effort, the defensive force of Halikarnassus was broken. Memnon and Orontobates, satisfied that no longer defence of the town was practicable, took advantage of the night to set fire to their wooden projectile engines and towers, as well as to their magazines of arms, with the houses near the exterior wall, while they carried away the troops, stores, and inhabitants, partly to the citadel called Salmakis—partly to the neighbouring islet called Arkonnesus—partly to the island of Kos. Though thus evacuating the town, however, they still kept good garrisons well provisioned in the two citadels belonging to it. The conflagration, stimulated by a strong wind, spread, widely. It was only extinguished by the orders of Alexander, when he entered the town, and put to death all those whom he found with firebrands. He directed that the Halikarnassians found in the houses should be spared, but that the city itself should be demolished. He assigned the whole of Karia to Ada, as a principality, doubtless under condition of tribute. As the citadels still occupied by the enemy were strong enough to require a long siege, he did not think it necessary to remain in person for the purpose of reducing them; but surrounding them with a wall of blockade, he left Ptolemy and 3000 men to guard it.

Having concluded the siege of Halikarnassus, Alexander sent back his artillery to Tralles, ordering Parmenio, with a large portion of the cavalry, the allied infantry, and the baggage waggons, to Sardis.

The ensuing winter months he employed in the conquest of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia. All this southern coast of Asia Minor is mountainous; the range of Mount Taurus descending nearly to the sea, so as to leave little or no intervening breadth of plain. In spite of great strength of situation, such was the terror of Alexander’s arms, that all the Lycian towns—Hypama, Telmissus, Pinara, Xanthus, Patara, and thirty others— submitted to him without a blow. One alone among them, called Marmareis, resisted to desperation. On reaching the territory called Milyas, the Phrygian frontier of Lycia, Alexander received the surrender of the Greek maritime city, Phaselis. He assisted the Phaselites in destroying a mountain fort erected and garrisoned against them by the neighbouring Pisidian mountaineers, and paid a public compliment to the sepulchre of their deceased townsman, the rhetorician Theodektes.

After this brief halt at Phaselis, Alexander directed his course to Perge in Pamphylia. The ordinary mountain road, by which he sent most of his army, was so difficult as to require some leveling by Thracian light troops sent in advance for the purpose. But the king himself, with a select detachment, took a road more difficult still, called Klimax, under the mountains by the brink of the sea. When the wind blew from the south, this road was covered by such a depth of water as to be impracticable; for some time before he reached the spot, the wind had blown strong from the south—but as he came near, the special providence of the gods (so he and his friends conceived it) brought on a change to the north, so that the sea receded and left an available passage, though his soldiers had the water up to their waists. From Perge he marched on to Side, receiving on his way envoys from Aspendus, who offered to surrender their city, but deprecated the entrance of a garrison; which they were allowed to buy off by promising fifty talents in money, together with the horses which they were bringing up as tribute for the Persian king. Having left a garrison at Side, he advanced onward to a strong place called Sy Ilium, defended by brave natives with a body of mercenaries to aid them. These men held out, and even repulsed a first assault; which Alexander could not stay to repeat, being apprised that the Aspendians had refused to execute the conditions imposed, and had put their city in a state of defence. Returning rapidly, he constrained them to submission, and then marched back to Perge; from whence he directed his course towards the greater Phrygia, through the difficult mountains, and almost indomitable population, of Pisidia.

After remaining in the Pisidian mountains long enough to reduce several towns or strong posts, Alexander proceeded northward into Phrygia, passing by the salt lake called Askanius to the steep and impregnable fortress of Kelsenae, garrisoned by 1000 Karians, and 100 mercenary Greeks. These men, having no hope of relief from the Persians, offered to deliver up the fortress, unless such relief should arrive before the sixtieth day. Alexander accepted the propositions, remained ten days at Kelaenae, and left there Antigonus (afterwards the most powerful among his successors) as satrap of Phrygia, with 1500 men. He then marched northward to Gordium on the river Sangarius, where Parmenio was directed to meet him, and where his winter-campaign was concluded.