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 farther aggrandizement 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 Pæonians. 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 connection with previous projects, dreams, and legends, long antecedent to the aggrandizement 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 Pheræan Jason; with hopes grounded on the memorable expedition and safe return of the Ten Thousand. It had been recommended by the rhetor Isokrates, 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 aggrandizement, 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, immortalized 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 favorable 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.[113]

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 them[114]—“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 vigor, 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 soldier-like qualities—in the most forward and even adventurous bravery—in indefatigable personal activity, and in endurance as to hardship and fatigue,—that he stands pre-eminent; 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 welfare 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 Lacedæmonians 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.”[115]

I have in my last two volumes 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.[116] Many of these mercenaries were lightly armed—peltasts served in combination with the hoplites.[117] Iphikrates greatly improved and partly re-armed the peltasts; whom he employed conjointly with hoplites so effectively as to astonish his contemporaries.[118] His innovation was farther 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 battle-manœuvring, 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, realized by generals in actual practice, intelligent officers like Xenophon embodied the results of their military experience in valuable published criticisms.[119] 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 Penestæ): 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 honor 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, noway sufficient to make head against the inroads of their Thracian and Illyrian neighbors; before whom they were constantly compelled to flee for refuge up into the mountains.[120] Their condition was that of a poor herdsman, 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.[121] 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.[122] 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 organization which Philip found. Under his auspices it was cast altogether anew. The poor and hardy Landwehr of Macedonia, constantly on the defensive against predatory neighbors, 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 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 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; these 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.[123]

The phalangite (soldier of the phalanx) was farther provided with a short sword, a circular shield of rather more than two feet in diameter, a breast-piece, leggings, and a kausia or broad-brimmed-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 organized 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 Chæroneia, 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 organization, which Polybius brings into comparison. It answered perfectly the purposes of Philip, who wanted 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.[124]

The Macedonian phalanx, denominated the Pezetæri[125] 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: Orestæ, Lynkestæ, Elimiotæ, Tymphæi, etc.[126] 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.[127] 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 reorganized his army at Susa,[128] so as to form regiments of 1024 men, each under its 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,[129] 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 organization 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 organized by Philip called the Hypaspists—shield-bearers or Guards;[130] 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;[131] 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.[132] 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.[133] What was the total number of them, we do not know.[134]

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, Pæonians, etc. They were of different descriptions; peltasts, darters, and bowmen. The best of them appear to have been the Agriânes, a Pæonian 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.[135] 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.[136] 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 Arbêla, 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—Bottiæa, Amphipolis, Apollonia, Anthemus, etc.;[137] there was one or more, distinguished as the Royal Squadron—the Agêma or leading body of cavalry—at the head of which Alexander generally charged, himself among the foremost of the actual combatants.[138]

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.[139] 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 Agêma or chosen cohort, which was called upon oftener than the rest to begin the fight. A still more select corps were, the Body-Guards; 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 organization 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.[140] 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.[141] 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.[142] 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 full-sized shield and one-handed pike. From the warlike tribes of Thracians, Pæonians, Illyrians, etc., whom he had subdued around him, he levied contingents of light troops of various descriptions, peltasts, bowmen, darters, etc., 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 organizing 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.[143] 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 systematized array of actual force, are to be added the civil establishments, the depôts, magazines of arms, provision for remounts, drill officers and adjutants, etc., indispensable for maintaining it in constant training and efficiency. At the time of Philip’s accession, Pella was an unimportant place;[144] 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.[145] Philip had employed his life in organizing 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.[146]

This scientific organization 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 Ætolians, 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 organize 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 farther 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,[147] 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.[148] 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 Kleopatra.[149] 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 farther ensured by the fact that three of his sons accompanied the king’s army and person.[150] Though unpopular in his deportment,[151] 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, whilst 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.[152]

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 Abdêra 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;[153] made up in large proportions from contingents furnished by Athens and Grecian cities.[154] 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 Elæus 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 Harbor of the Achæans. 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 armor, 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 Athênê; 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 round 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 honor of Zeus, Athênê, and Hêraklês; both on the point of Europe which his army had quitted, and on that of Asia where it had landed.[155]

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 characterized the free Greeks of the city-community. But he was in many points a reproduction of the heroic Greeks,[156] his warlike ancestors in legend, Achilles and Neoptolemus, and others of that Æakid 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 be 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:—

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.[157] 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,[158] 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.[159] Though Plutarch[160] 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;[161] not to speak of comparative discipline and organization, 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 Hephæstion, 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;[162] Antipater with his son Kassander, Kleitus son of Drôpides, Parmenio with his two sons Philôtas and Nikanor, Seleukus, Kœnus, Amyntas, Philippus (these two last names were borne by more than one person), Antigonus, Neoptolemus,[163] Meleager, Peukestes, etc., 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.[164] 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 dislike[165] on the part of the Macedonians,—from Hephæstion the friend, and Neoptolemus the chief armor-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.[166]

Though Alexander has 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 Bagôas, confidential minister of Ochus, obtained not only ample presents, but also the appointment of military commander on the Hellespont and the Asiatic seaboard.[167] 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.[168] He farther 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 Atarneus.[169] These successes of Mentor seem to have occurred about 343 B. C. He, and his brother Memnon after him, upheld 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;[170] 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.[171]

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 Bagôas, who placed upon the throne Arses, one of the king’s sons, killing all the rest. After two years, however, Bagôas 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 Memnon), 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, Bagôas attempted to poison Darius also; but the latter, detecting the snare, forced him to drink the deadly draught himself.[172] In spite of such murders and change in the line of succession, which Alexander afterwards reproached to Darius[173]—the authority of Darius seems to have been recognized, without any material opposition, throughout all the Persian empire.

Succeeding to the throne in the early part of B. C. 336, when Philip was organizing 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 anti-Macedonian movements in Greece.[174] 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.[175] 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 Bœotia, 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.[176]

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 Ægean. Marching northward from his own territory (the region of Assus or Atarneus skirting the Gulf of Adramyttium[177]) across the range of Mount Ida, he came suddenly upon the town of Kyzikus 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.[178] The Macedonian generals Parmenio and Kallas had crossed into Asia with bodies of troops. Parmenio, acting in Æolis, took Grynium, but was compelled by Memnon to raise the siege of Pitanê; while Kallas, in the Troad, was attacked, defeated, and compelled to retire to Rhœteium.[179]

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 Ægean. 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 Ægean 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), Pharnakes, Atizyes, Mithridates, Rhomithres, Niphates, Petines, etc. Forty of these men were of high rank (denominated kinsmen of Darius), and distinguished for personal valor. The greater number of the army consisted of cavalry, including Medes, Baktrians, Hyrkanians, Kappadokians, Paphlagonians, etc.[180] In cavalry they greatly outnumbered Alexander; but their infantry was much inferior in number,[181] 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 neighbors.[182]

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 dishonorable, 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 farther 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.[183] 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”.[184] The proposition of Memnon was rejected, and it was resolved to await the arrival of Alexander on the banks of the river Granikus.

This unimportant stream, commemorated in the Iliad, and immortalized by its association with the name of Alexander, takes its rise from one of the heights of Mount Ida near Skêpsis,[185] 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.[186]

Meanwhile Alexander marched onward towards this position, from Arisbê (where he had reviewed his army)—on the first day to Perkôtê, on the second to the river Praktius, on the third to Hermôtus; 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 Hermôtus (the fourth day from Arisbê) 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, Kœnus, Amyntas son of Andromenes, Philippus, Meleager, and Kraterus.[187] Immediately on the right of the phalanx, were the hypaspistæ, or light infantry, under Nikanor son of Parmenio—then the light horse or lancers, the Pæonians, and the Apolloniate squadron of Companion-cavalry commanded by the Ilarch Sokrates, all under Amyntas son of Arrhibæus—lastly the full body of Companion-cavalry, the bowmen, and the Agrianian darters, all under Philôtas (son of Parmenio), whose division formed the extreme right.[188] 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 recognized centre under a distinct command. On the other side of the Granikus, the Persian cavalry lined the bank. The Medes and Baktrians were on their right, under Rheomithres—the Paphlagonians and Hyrkanians in the centre, under Arsites and Spithridates—on the left were Memnon and Arsamenes, with their divisions.[189] 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.[190] 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 recognized Alexander himself on the Macedonian right from the splendor of his armor and military costume, as well as from the respectful demeanor 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 Sokrates was captain—commanded on this day by Ptolemæus son of Philippus) supported by the light horse or Lancers, the Pæonian darters (infantry), and one division of regularly armed infantry, seemingly hypaspistæ.[191] 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.[192] 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 fervor 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.[193] 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, Rhœsakes, who struck him a blow on the head with his scymetar, knocked off a portion of his helmet, but did not penetrate beyond. Alexander avenged this blow by thrusting Rhœsakes through the body with his pike.[194] Meanwhile a third Persian leader, Spithridates, was actually close behind Alexander, with hand and scymetar 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 armor, 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 vigor and success;[195] 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 ardor 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.[196] He brought up his phalanx and hypaspistæ 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.[197]

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, Rhœsakes, and Spithridates, whose names have been already mentioned,—but also Pharnakes, brother-in-law of Darius, Mithrobarzanes satrap of Kappadokia, 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.[198] 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 reassembled 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.[199] 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.[200] 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 farther 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 valor, 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.[201]