Part 7

Carthage evidently made a great effort to bring the war to a successful issue. She seems to have been aware that circumstances were unusually favourable, for the Greek cities of Sicily had never before been in so deplorable a condition of weakness. It was, indeed, a happy thing for the cause of freedom that so exceptionally able a man as Timoleon had the conduct of affairs. The army landed at Lilybæum, under the command of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar, numbered 70,000. Of these, not less than 10,000 were native Carthaginians. Carthage was always sparing of the blood of her own citizens, preferring to buy even at lavish prices the valour and skill which she needed. On this occasion she raised an unprecedently large native force. They were equipped, too, in the most costly fashion. Each soldier was clothed in complete armour, much heavier and, therefore, more impenetrable than that usually worn. Each, too, had an elaborately ornamented breastplate. A _corps d'élite_, numbering 2,500, was the nucleus of the force. A fleet of two hundred ships of war accompanied the army, whose needs were supplied by a vast multitude of nearly a thousand transports. One important item in the war material was a number of chariots. The personal effects of the Carthaginian soldiers, many of whom belonged to the wealthiest families in the city, splendid tents and rich goblets and other plate for the table, were costly in the extreme.

Timoleon could not raise more than 12,000 men. He had 3,000 Syracusan citizens, an unknown number, possibly about 6,000, of volunteers from other Greek cities, and a force of mercenaries. His cavalry numbered one thousand. But he could not keep with him even the whole of these. When he had nearly reached the border of the Carthaginian territory there was a mutiny among the mercenaries. Their pay was considerably in arrears, and one of their officers took advantage of this fact to rouse them against the commander-in-chief. "He is taking you," he said, "on a desperate errand. You will have to encounter an enemy who can match every one of our soldiers with six of his own. And he does not even pay you your wages." Never did the strong personality of Timoleon show itself to more advantage. The mutineers got, in a way, all they wanted. They were sent back to Syracuse with instructions to the authorities at home that they were to be paid off at once, whatever it might cost to raise the money.[11] This concession seemed to put a premium on mutiny. Nevertheless, Timoleon by his personal influence succeeded in checking the movement. The troops that were left, when the discontented element was removed, followed him with unabated loyalty and courage. Marching westward into the heart of the Carthaginian territory, he reached the stream known as the Crimessus.[12] If he had before to contend against the avarice of his soldiers, he had now to deal with their fears. The army was encountered by some mules carrying loads of parsley. The men were dismayed at what they took as an unlucky omen, for parsley was commonly used for the garlands that are placed on tombs. Timoleon was equal to the occasion. "With this," he cried, seizing a sprig of the herb, "we crown our conquerors in the Isthmian Games at home. It is our symbol of victory," and he put a chaplet on his own head and adorned his officers in the same way. The Greek army had now reached the brow of the hill which forms the eastern bank of the valley of the Crimessus. The whole country was covered with a mist, but there came up from the valley beneath a confused sound as of a great host in motion. Suddenly the mist lifted, and Timoleon saw below him the great Carthaginian army. The war-chariots had already crossed the river and were drawn up on the eastern shore; the Carthaginian infantry, in their splendid armour, were in the very act of the passage; pressing on their rear in a disorderly crowd was a multitude of mercenaries and native African levies. Timoleon saw his opportunity, and promptly seized it. He could never have so good a chance of delivering a successful attack on the enemy as when they were thus divided, some being actually in the river and some on the further shore. After a brief exhortation to his men, he led them down the steep slope to the river. The cavalry went first, and charged the native Carthaginians, who were just struggling out of the river and forming themselves in line on the bank. But for a time they charged in vain. Indeed, they had to do their best to save themselves from being broken up, for the chariots were driven furiously backwards and forwards among them. They could hardly keep their own lines; on the lines of the enemy they made no impression. Timoleon then changed his plan. Recalling the cavalry, he sent it to operate on the flank of the enemy, while he proceeded to lead his infantry to a front attack. He took his shield from the attendant that carried it, and bade his men follow him. "He shouted to the infantry to be of good cheer and follow him," says Plutarch, "in a voice much louder than was his natural wont." It may have been the excitement of the conflict that lent it such a power, but the common belief at the time was "that something divine was speaking through him." The work that they had to do required no little enthusiasm of courage. The Carthaginians were stout soldiers and splendidly armed. The spear availed little against them; the Greeks had to get under their guard and assail them with the sword. At this critical point of the battle something happened which convinced Timoleon's soldiers that their leader had powers more than mortal on his side. The mist that had cleared away from the valley, and risen to the hilltop, now seemed to descend again in a furious storm. Besides the sound and sight of the thunder and the lightning--and there were but few spirits in that day hardy enough to despise these terrors--there was a blinding storm of rain and hail driven fiercely by a tempestuous wind into the faces of the Carthaginians. To the Greeks, who had it behind them, it caused little inconvenience. And then the river began to rise. The Carthaginians began to stagger under the weight of their heavy armour and saturated clothing, and when once a man had fallen there was no hope of his rising again. It was not long before the four hundred picked soldiers who formed the front ranks were cut down. These champions gone, the rest broke up and attempted to flee. This was almost impossible. Many were slain in the attempt; many others were drowned; and there were thousands of prisoners. Never before had such a blow fallen on Carthage. She lost, not as usual, the mercenaries whom it was easy to replace as long as her wealth held out, but her noblest sons. On the other hand, the Greeks, besides winning a very complete victory, gathered a spoil more magnificent than the most experienced campaigner had ever seen.

[Illustration: Timoleon holding the Ford of the Crimessus.]

Timoleon had not yet finished his work. He had still to put down the despots whose thrones were propped up by the power of Carthage, and Carthage was not inclined to give up her position in Sicily. In the course of the next year, however, the despots were all destroyed, and Carthage was glad to conclude a peace. By this she bound herself to keep to the western side of the Halycus (_Platani_) and not to interfere with the internal affairs of the Greek cities.

It is needless to continue in detail the story of the conflict between Greece and Carthage. The result was practically fixed by the victory of Timoleon at the Crimessus. Carthage did not indeed altogether abandon her ambition. She still coveted Sicily, still hoped, it may be, to acquire it, and came, once at least, as near to attaining to this end as she had ever done before. In 309 B.C. Syracuse had again lost the freedom which Timoleon had given back to her, and had fallen under the domination of one of the ablest and most unscrupulous in the long list of Sicilian tyrants, Agathocles. This man provoked a war with Carthage, but found himself unequal to his antagonist, and after a series of defeats was shut up in Syracuse. This city was, as it had been eighty-odd years before, the only place in the Island which the Greeks could call their own. Then Agathocles conceived a daring scheme. He would transfer the war to Africa, and attack Carthage at home, where, as he shrewdly perceived, her weakest points were to be found. An invader could always reckon upon the sympathy and support of the subject races, which suffered from the exacting rule of the Carthaginian government. Agathocles carried out his plan, and for a time achieved a brilliant success. He afterwards met with reverses, but his main object, the rescue of Sicily, was fully achieved.

Agathocles died in 289 B.C. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, famous for the victories which he won over Rome, was the next to take up the part of the leader of the Sicilian Greeks in their long struggle with Carthage. He accomplished little. In fact he spent two years only in the Island. The most memorable incident of his stay was that Carthage offered him alliance on most advantageous terms, and that he refused it unless she would agree to evacuate the Island. This was an honourable action, for the offer would have given him a most important advantage in the renewed attack upon Rome which he was planning. But the Sicilian Greeks showed little gratitude for his self-denial; in fact, they became so hostile that he had no alternative left him but to leave the Island. "How fair a wrestling-ring," he is reported to have said as he took his last look of Sicily, "are we leaving to Rome and Carthage!" With this departure of Pyrrhus, Greece, we may say, disappears from the scene, and Rome takes her part. Pyrrhus left Sicily in 276, and Rome came for the first time into collision with Carthage twelve years afterwards in what is called the First Punic War. These wars will be the subject of my Fourth Book.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: It is difficult not to feel a certain satisfaction at knowing that the mutineers came to a bad end. They had a disreputable record, for they had taken the pay of the Phocians, knowing that it had been provided out of the sacred treasures of the temple at Delphi. On receiving their arrears they sailed to Southern Italy, where they attempted to form a settlement, were entrapped by the native inhabitants, and perished to a man.]

[Footnote 12: It is uncertain where this stream is to be located. Some geographers (Sir E. Bunbury among them, in the "Dictionary of Classical Geography") suppose it to be a little river that flows into the sea near Castellamare; by others it is identified with one that has its mouth on the south coast of the island, a few miles to the east of Selinus. This is the view taken by the author of the map recently published by Mr. John Murray, where the name is given to one of the upper tributaries of the Hypsas, now known as the Belici.]

_BOOK III_

GREECE AND PERSIA. THE ATTACK

I. THE FIGHT ON THE RIVER

All danger to Greece from Persian attack, so far as the mainland and the islands in the Ægean were concerned, practically ceased with the victory of Mycalé. But the Greek cities in Asia Minor were not safe. In the years 466-5 B.C. Cimon, son of Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, conducted operations in South-Western Asia Minor, which had for their object the expulsion of the Persians from certain Greek settlements in that region. In 450 a formal convention was made which brought to an end, it may be said, the first act of the drama. The great king bound himself to leave the Asiatic Greeks free and untaxed, and not to send troops within a certain distance of the coast; Athens, on the other hand, agreed to leave Persia in undisturbed possession of Cyprus (though this island had a large Greek population) and of Egypt.

The next period was one in which the relations of Persia and Greece were largely determined by the exigencies of Greek politics. The two great rivals for supremacy, Athens and Sparta, found Persian help, especially in the shape of gold, very useful; and Persia, for her own purposes, played off the two against each other. There is an amusing scene in Aristophanes which illustrates this state of affairs. A pretended Persian envoy is introduced to the Assembly. He wears a mask which is made of one big eye, in token that he is the King's Eye, and mutters some gibberish which his introducer interprets as a promise to send some gold. The scene goes on:--

"Tell them about the gold; speak louder and more plainly."

The Eye spoke again: "Gapey Greeks, gold a fooly jest."

"That is plain enough," cried a man in the Assembly.

_Ambassador._ "Well, what do you make of it?"

_Citizen._ "Why, that it is a foolish jest for us Greeks to think that we shall get any gold."

_Amb._ "You're quite wrong. He didn't say 'jest' but 'chest.' We are to get _chests_ of gold."

_Cit._ (turning to the _Eye_). "Now listen to me; is the king going to send us any gold?"

_Eye_ shakes his head.

_Cit._ "Are the ambassadors cheating us?"

_Eye_ nods.

_Cit._ "Well, anyhow the creature knows how to nod in the right way."

This humiliating state of things reached its worst in 387 B.C., when what was called the Peace of Antalcidas was concluded between Persia and Sparta. It is enough to quote one clause from the treaty, which, it should be said, all the Greek States agreed to accept.

"King Artaxerxes thinks it just that the cities in Asia and the islands of Clazomenæ and Cyprus should belong to him. He thinks it just also to have all the other Hellenic cities autonomous, both small and great, except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which are to belong to Athens as they originally did. Should any parties refuse to accept this peace, I will make war upon them, along with those of the same mind, by land as well as by sea, with ships and with money."

It looked as if all that had been won at Marathon and Salamis had been lost, and Persia had become the arbiter of the fate of Greece. The Asiatic Greeks did lose what had been gained for them, for they fell again under the power of Persia. But these evils worked, in a way, their own cure. The States which had abused their power for selfish purposes fell, one after another, into the background, and others, which had not exhausted themselves in futile struggles for supremacy, came to the front. One of the claims which these new representatives of Greek feeling put forward was the resolve to exact vengeance--for this was the common form which the idea took--for the wrongs which Persia had done to Greece. At the same time there had been various revelations of the real weakness of the gigantic Empire which stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. The Expedition of the Ten Thousand, though it had failed of its immediate object of dethroning one prince in favour of another, had shown the immense superiority of the Greek race over its ancient enemy. Ten thousand men had marched into the very heart of Persia without meeting with a check, and had made their way back again under circumstances of almost incredible difficulty, without suffering anything like disaster. Jason, tyrant of Pheræ in Thessaly (_d._ 370 B.C.) was the first, as far as we know, to form a definite scheme for the invasion of Persia. Thessaly I have had occasion but once only to mention. This was in describing the battle of Platæa, when some cavalry from this region did good service to the Persians. It is strange to find in it the first advocate of what we may call the anti-Persian Crusade. But Jason had not the means to carry out so important a scheme. Anyhow, his career was cut short by assassination.

About a quarter of a century later we find the idea further developed. Its exponent is now the greatest rhetorician of the time, and the champion whose services are invoked is Philip of Macedon. About 346 B.C. Isocrates addressed a letter to Philip, who had recently been made president of the Amphictyonic Council, suggesting to him that he should reconcile the Greek States to each other and with their help wage war against Persia. The counsel was not offered, we may be sure, without a previous assurance that it would be welcome to the prince to whom it was given. Philip certainly cherished some such purpose. This was the ultimate object which he set before himself in his struggle for supremacy in Greece. He even went so far as to make definite preparations for the enterprise. It may well be doubted whether he had genius enough for so gigantic an enterprise. It was not put to the test. His career also was cut short by the sword of the assassin. He was slain in 336 B.C., in the forty-seventh year of his age. Able as he was, he left a still abler successor the inheritance of his preparations and his plans.

Alexander, who at his father's death was not quite twenty, had first to consolidate his position. He began by crushing his barbarous neighbours in the north; he then stamped out a rebellion in Greece. This done he turned his attention to preparing his great plan. All was ready in less than two years.

* * * * *

In April, 334, Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia. He had about 35,000 men with him, one-seventh being cavalry. Marching slowly eastwards, he came, a few weeks later (May 25th), on the Persian army, which was encamped on the eastern bank of the Granicus, a small stream which flows down from the Ida range into the Sea of Marmora. Of the Persian strength differing accounts are given. The total probably exceeded that of Alexander's army. The proportion of cavalry to infantry was certainly much larger. The front line, indeed, which held the bank of the river, consisted wholly of this arm. On the right were the Medes and Bactrians, wearing the national dress, a round-topped cap, gaily-coloured tunic, and scale armour. In the centre, similarly accoutred, were the Paphlagonians and Hyrcanians; on the right was a small body of Greek horse, and the Persian cavalry proper, largely made up of men who claimed descent from the Seven Deliverers, the little company of nobles who delivered Persia from the sway of the false Smerdis.[13] Here Memnon, the Rhodian, the ablest counsellor of King Darius, was in command. The infantry, both Asiatic and Greek, was posted in reserve, on the rising ground which marked the limit of the winter floods. The river was now flowing within its banks, but with a full, strong stream.

Alexander, who was mounted on his famous charger Bucephalus, rode along the line, addressing a few words of encouragement to each squadron and company as he passed it, and finally placed himself at the head of the right division of the army. As soon as the Persian leaders perceived his intention, they began to reinforce their own left. The fame of the king's personal prowess had not failed to reach them, and they knew that the fiercest struggle would be where he might be in immediate command. Alexander saw the movement and the opportunity which it offered him. He would have his antagonists at a disadvantage if he could catch them in the confusion of a change. Accordingly he ordered the whole line to advance, the right division being thrown somewhat forward. Here was a famous _corps d'élite_, a heavy cavalry regiment that went under the name of the "Royal Companions." This was the first to enter the river. A number of javelin-throwers and archers, on either side, covered their advance; they were supported by some light horse and a regiment of light infantry.

The van of the attacking force made its way across the stream in fair order. The river-bed was rough, full of great stones brought down by floods and with here and there a dangerously deep hole, but there was no mud or treacherous sand. The first assault was checked. A line of dismounted troopers stood in the water, wherever it was shallow enough to allow it; on the bank itself was a mass of horsemen, two or three files deep. The combatants below plied their swords; those on the higher ground showered javelins on the advancing foe. Only a few of these could struggle up the somewhat steep bank; of the few some were slain, others thrust back upon the troops that followed them. The attack seemed to have failed. But when the king himself took up the attack the fortunes of the day were rapidly changed. For the first of many times throughout his marvellous career the personal courage of Alexander, his strength, his dexterity in arms, turned the tide of battle. He was a matchless soldier as well as a matchless general, and seemed to combine the old soldiership and the new, the personal prowess of an Achilles and the tactical skill of an Epaminondas. He sprang forward, rallying, as he advanced, his disheartened troops, struck down adversary after adversary, and climbed the bank with astonishing agility. The example of such a leader seemed to give the Companions an irresistible strength. In a few minutes the bank of the Granicus was won. But the battle was not yet over. The Persians had been beaten back from their first line of defence; but they still held the level ground, and till the whole of the Greek army had crossed the stream they had a great superiority in numbers, enabling them to deliver charges which the weight of men and horses might well have made irresistible. Again Alexander was in the thick of the conflict. His pike had been broken in the struggle for the bank. He asked his orderly for another. The man showed him his own broken weapon. Then the king looked round to his followers, holding high the splintered shaft. The appeal was answered in an instant. It was a Corinthian, Demaratus by name, who answered his call and supplied him with a fresh lance. It was not done a moment too soon. The Persian cavalry charged in a heavy column, its leader, Mithradates, son-in-law to King Darius, riding a long way in front of his men. Alexander spurred his horse, charged at Mithradates with levelled pike, struck him in the face, and hurled him dying to the ground. Meanwhile another Persian noble had ridden up. He struck a fierce blow at Alexander with his scymetar, but missing his aim in his excitement, did nothing more than shear off the crest of the helmet. Alexander replied with a thrust which broke through his breastplate and inflicted a mortal wound. There was a third antagonist behind, but his arm was severed by a sword-cut from a Macedonian officer just as he was in the act of delivering a blow. The struggle, however, was continued with unabated fury. It was not till almost every leader had fallen that the Persian cavalry gave way.