Part 8

Elsewhere in the field the victory was more easily won. The _élite_ of the Persian army had been brought together to oppose Alexander, and the remainder did not hold their ground with equal tenacity. When the phalanx had made its way across the river, and reformed itself again on the eastern bank, it encountered no opposition.

There still remained, however, a force to be dealt with which, had it been properly handled, might have been found a serious difficulty for the conquerors. The infantry, as has been said, was posted in reserve, and of this force not less than a half, numbering as many as ten thousand, consisted of Greek mercenaries. These had remained in absolute inaction, idly watching the struggle on the level ground below. They had no responsible leaders; no orders had been issued to them. The Persian generals, confident in the strength of their special arm, the cavalry, neglected to make any use of this invaluable force. And yet they might have known what ten thousand Greeks, well led, could do! Alexander came up and charged the unprotected flank of the Greek force. "He had the defects of his virtues," and was too eager in "drinking the delight of battle." His charger--not the famous Bucephalus, which had fallen lame, but another horse--was killed under him. The light infantry also delivered an attack, but the mercenaries still held their ground. But when the phalanx came up, their strength or their courage failed. The front ranks were crushed by the advance of the ponderous machine, and the rest first wavered, then broke up in hopeless confusion. Not less than half of their number were killed in their places or in the attempt to escape. The rest were either admitted to quarter, or contrived to make their way to some place of safety.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: Cambyses, in a fit of frantic jealousy--so the story ran--had put his brother Smerdis to death. Cambyses died in Egypt. The magi, Median soothsayers and priests, contrived that one of their number should personate the murdered prince. After he had occupied the Persian throne for a few months, seven nobles conspired against him and slew him. One of the seven, Darius, became king; the others were rewarded by perpetual immunity from taxes, for themselves and their descendants, and other privileges.]

II

THE IRRESISTIBLE PHALANX

The eighteen months that followed the battle of the Granicus Alexander spent in Asia Minor. A few strong places resisted him, but on the whole he met with little opposition. On the other hand, he did not move very quickly. At Gordium, in Phrygia, he gave his army a long rest, and at Tarsus, in Cilicia, he was detained against his will by a severe illness, contracted, it was said, by bathing in the ice-cold waters of the Cydnus. Meanwhile Darius had been gathering together from all parts of the Empire a vast army which would be sure, he thought, to crush the invader. So confident did he feel that he did not attempt to check Alexander's advance. He left the strong passes into Cilicia undefended. He did the same with the passes from Cilicia into Syria. He desired nothing better than that the enemy should come to close quarters with him. His original plan was to wait for the Macedonian army at a place named Sochi, where there was a great expanse of level ground. Then he began to fear that Alexander might after all escape him. He left Sochi, and marched by one of the passes of Mons Amanus (Sáwur Dagh) to Issus, where he would be in the rear of the enemy, and so be able to cut off the retreat which he believed would be attempted. Alexander, who had in the highest degree the faculty of guessing what his antagonist was thinking, saw his advantage. At Issus, Darius could not make use of his numbers, and so might be attacked with good hope of success. He made a night march, recrossed into Cilicia, and fought at Issus the second of his great battles.

Darius took up his position on the north bank of the River Pinarus (_Deli Tschai_). The centre of his line of battle was composed of 90,000 heavy-armed infantry, drawn up in three bodies of 30,000 each. One of these consisted of Greek mercenaries, and occupied the middle place; on either side were the other two--Asiatics armed in Greek fashion. His own place was behind the Greeks. It was in them that he really trusted, though he had violently resented the suggestion when it was made by another. Some weeks before, when reviewing the army with which he was about to encounter Alexander, he had asked for the opinion of Charidemus, an Athenian exile, who was in attendance on him. Charidemus was bidden to speak his mind freely, and he was imprudent enough to take the king at his word. The substance of his advice to the king was not to trust Asiatics, but to spend his accumulated treasure in hiring Greeks. Darius was deeply offended, and the great nobles about him were furious with rage. Charidemus was put to death, but his advice must have been followed. The cavalry was massed on the right wing--that end of the line which was nearest to the sea, for there alone was there any ground suitable for their action. On the left wing, reaching far up the mountain-side, were twenty thousand light-armed infantry, who were to throw themselves on the flank of the Macedonians as soon as these should attempt to cross the river. Behind this line of battle, numbering, it is probable, not less than 120,000 men, stood a mixed multitude, swept together from all the provinces of the vast Persian Empire. This mass of combatants, if combatants they can be called, already unwieldy, received the addition of 50,000 troops, who had been posted on the southern bank of the river to cover the operation of forming the Persian line, and who were brought back when the formation was completed. The ground had been over-crowded before, and this addition to the numbers of the second line only made it more hopelessly unmanageable.

Alexander put his light infantry on the extreme right of his line, opposite, it will be remembered, to a similar force in the Persian array. Here also was the cavalry regiment of the "Companions," and with them some Thessalian horse. The main line was composed of the phalanx in five divisions, the fifth, on the extreme left, being close to the sea, which was little more than a mile and a half from the foot of the mountains--so narrow was the space which Darius had chosen for a battlefield. He could have done nothing better calculated to destroy any advantage that might have been given by his vast superiority in numbers. On the left were some squadrons of Greek cavalry, and bodies of light-armed troops from Crete and Thrace.

On coming in sight of the enemy Alexander made some changes in the disposition of his forces. The most important of these was to transfer some light infantry, cavalry, and archers to act against the 20,000 Persians who had been so placed as to threaten his right flank. It was a wise precaution, but, as a matter of fact, it was not needed. The Persians made no move, and Alexander soon perceived that they might be safely neglected. He left a few hundred cavalry to watch them, and placed the rest of the force destined for this service in his main line.

A brief time was allowed for rest when the river was reached. It was well, too, to wait for a possible forward movement on the part of the Persians. The confidence that had prompted the march to Issus might also prompt an attack. But the Persian line remained in its place, and Alexander crossed the stream. He had with him his light infantry, not slingers and archers, it should be explained, but regular soldiers, with armour and weapons so modified as to enable them to move quickly, the "Companions," and two divisions of the phalanx. The phalanx was drawn up in companies each sixteen deep. All the soldiers were armed with a pike (_sarissa_), which was twenty-one feet in length. The pikes of the front rank projected fifteen feet, the other end being weighted so that the weapon could be held without difficulty. The pikes of the second rank projected twelve feet, of the third, nine, of the fourth, six, of the fifth, three. The other ranks held their pikes in a slanting direction over the shoulders of those who stood in front. Alexander led the attack, as usual, in person. The Macedonians, moving as quickly as the phalanx could go, fell upon the Asiatic heavy-armed, who occupied the left division of the main Persian line. They were mainly Carduchi, the Kurds of to-day, better hands, it would seem, then as now, at plundering than at fighting. The Carduchi gave way, not waiting for the Macedonians to come to close quarters with them. Their flight endangered the safety of the king, or, rather, the king himself believed that it was endangered. He bade his charioteer turn the horses' heads and fly. As long as the ground allowed he kept to the chariot; when it became too rough he sprang upon a horse, and fled in such haste that he threw away his royal mantle, his bow, and his shield. The mixed multitude that stood behind the main line of Persian battle, as soon as they saw the king quit the field, fled, or, rather, attempted to fly. But, so narrow was the space in which they had been crowded together, they could scarcely move. A scene of frightful terror and confusion followed. The fugitives struggled fiercely with each other in the frantic attempt to escape. Had they shown as much energy in resisting the enemy as in thrusting aside and trampling down their friends, they might have changed the fortune of the day. In less than half an hour from the time when Alexander crossed the Pinarus the left wing of the Persian host was a hopeless mass of confusion.

[Illustration: The Battle of Issus.]

Yet the Persians had a still unbroken strength with which much might have been done, if only there had been a leader to make use of it. The Greeks in the centre stood their ground bravely. They even advanced, charged the left divisions of the phalanx, which had not completed the passage of the Pinarus, and inflicted some loss upon it, killing as many as 150 of the front rank men, and the officer in command. But by themselves they could not hope to hold the field. When Alexander, wheeling round after his victorious assault on the Persian right, attacked them in flank, they were forced to give way. But they retired in good order, and the main body of them made good their escape. The Persian cavalry, too, had shown themselves not altogether unworthy of their ancient renown. They had actually crossed the Pinarus, and charged the Thessalian horse, which had been transferred, it should be said, by Alexander from the right to the left of his army. In the combat that ensued they held their own. But their courage failed when they became aware of the flight of Darius. When their king had given up the struggle what was there for them to stay for? To him they were bound, but they had no conception of a country to whose service it was their duty to devote their lives. They fled, suffering greatly in the pursuit.

The Macedonians lost 450 in killed, Alexander himself being slightly wounded. The slaughter among the Persians cannot be estimated. It was put down at more than 100,000. Ptolemy, afterwards King of Egypt, who was one of Alexander's most trusted generals, declared that he found a ravine so choked with dead bodies that he could use them as a bridge. Ptolemy kept a diary of the war, which he afterwards embodied in a regular narrative. Arrian, who wrote the story of Alexander's campaign in the second century of our era, had this work before him.

III

THE ARMY OF THE HUNDRED PROVINCES

During the twenty months which followed the victory of Issus, Alexander continued to make fresh conquests and to consolidate those already made. He subdued Syria--a name which must be taken to include both Phœnicia and Palestine. Here the two cities of Tyre and Gaza made an obstinate resistance, the two detaining him for no less than nine months. Egypt, which hated its intolerant Persian masters, gave itself up without a struggle. Early in 331 he heard that Darius had collected another huge army, with which to make another effort for his kingdom. The king had lost the western half of his dominions, but the eastern still remained to him, and from this he drew forces which exceeded in number even the great host which he had put into the field at Issus. The meeting-place was at Arbela, a place still known by the slightly changed name of Erbil, and situated on the caravan-route between Erzeroum and Bagdad; but the actual battlefield must be looked for some twenty miles away in a level region known by the name of Gaugamela.

On the extreme right were the Medes, once the ruling people of Asia and still mindful of their old renown, the Parthian cavalry, and the sturdy mountaineers of the Caucasus; on the opposite wing were the Bactrians--mostly hardy dwellers in the hills, and famous both for activity and for fierceness--and the native Persians, horse and foot, in alternate formation. But it was in the centre of the line, round the person of Darius, where he stood conspicuous on his royal chariot, that the choicest troops of the Empire were congregated. Here were ranged the Persian Horseguards--a force levied from the noblest families of the race that had ruled Western Asia for more than two centuries. They were known by the proud title of "Kinsmen of the King," and the Footguards, also a _corps d'élite_, who carried apples at the butt-end of their pikes. Next to these stood the Carians, probably a colony from the well-known people of that name in Asia Minor, possibly transported by some Persian king to a settlement in the East. Of all Asiatic races the Carians had shown themselves the most apt to learn the Greek discipline and to rival Greek valour. Next to the Carians, again, stood the Greek mercenaries.

In front of the line were the scythed chariots, numbering two hundred in all, each with its sharp-pointed sides projecting far beyond the horses, and its sword-blades and scythes stretching from the yoke and from the naves of the wheels. (This is the first time that we hear of the scythed chariot. It was a device of a barbarian kind, and seldom, as far as we know, very effective.) Behind the line, again, was a large mixed multitude, drawn from every tribe that still owned the Great King's sway.

Alexander saw that this time he had a formidable enemy to deal with. He had an entrenched camp constructed, as possibly useful in case of a reverse, and he consulted his generals--a course which he seldom followed--as to how an attack might be most advantageously delivered. But when one of his most experienced officers suggested an assault by night, he emphatically rejected the idea. It was, he declared, an unworthy stratagem; victory so won would be worse than defeat. A more powerful reason was probably the danger of such an attempt. A night attack is always a desperate device.

The first day after coming in sight of the enemy Alexander spent in preparation and consultation. On the morrow he drew out his order of battle. As usual he put himself at the head of the right wing. This was made up of the "Companions," the light infantry, and three out of the six divisions of the phalanx. The left wing, if it may be so called, for there was no centre, consisted of the rest of the phalanx, with a body of cavalry from the allied Greek states.

And now, for the first time, Alexander had a second line in reserve. His numbers were considerably increased, the 35,000 with which he had crossed into Asia having now mounted up to nearly 50,000. And the nature of the battlefield made such an arrangement necessary. The enemy had an enormously superior force and it was necessary to guard against attacks on the flank and the rear. The second line consisted of the light cavalry, the Macedonian archers, contingents from some of the half-barbarous tribes which bordered on Macedonia, some veteran Greek mercenaries and other miscellaneous troops. Some Thracian infantry were detached to guard the camp and the baggage.

The Persians, with their vastly larger numbers, were, of course, extended far beyond the Macedonian line. Left to make the attack, they might easily have turned the flank, or even assailed the rear of their opponents. Alexander, seeing this, and following the tactics which had twice proved so successful, took the offensive. He put himself at the head of the "Companions," who were stationed, as has been said, on the extreme right, and led them forward in person, still keeping more and more to the right, and thus threatening the enemy with the very movement which he had himself reason to dread. He thus not only avoided the iron spikes, which, as a deserter had warned him, had been set to injure the Macedonian cavalry, but almost got beyond the ground which the Persians had caused to be levelled for the operations of their chariots. Fearful at once of being outflanked and of having his chariots made useless, Darius launched some Bactrian and Scythian cavalry against the advancing enemy; Alexander, on the other hand, detached some cavalry of his own to charge the Bactrians, and the action began.

The Bactrians commenced with a success, driving back the Greek horsemen. These fell back on their supports, and advancing again in increased force, threw the Bactrians into confusion. Squadron after squadron joined the fray, till a considerable part of the Macedonian right and of the Persian left wing was engaged. The Persians were beginning to give way, when Darius saw, as he thought, the time for bringing the scythed chariots into action, and gave the word for them to charge, and for his main line to advance behind them. The charge was made, but failed, almost entirely, of its effect. The Macedonian archers and javelin-throwers wounded many of the horses; some agile skirmishers even seized the reins and dragged down the drivers from their places. Other chariots got as far as the Macedonian line, but recoiled from the bristling line of outstretched pikes; and the few whose drivers were lucky enough or bold enough to break their way through all hindrances were allowed to pass between the Macedonian lines, without being able to inflict any serious damage. Then Alexander delivered his counter attack. He ceased his movement to the right. Wheeling half round, the "Companions" dashed into the open space which the advance of the Bactrian squadrons had left in the Persian line. At the same time his own main line raised the battle-cry, and moved forward. Once within the enemy's ranks he pushed straight for the place where, as he knew, the battle would be decided, the chariot of the king. The first defence of that all-important position was the Persian cavalry. Better at skirmishing than at hand-to-hand fighting, it broke before his onslaught. Still there remained troops to be reckoned with who might have made the fortune of the day doubtful, the flower of the Persian foot and the veteran Greeks. For a time these men held their ground; they might have held it longer, perhaps with success, but for the same cause which had brought about the disastrous result of Issus, the cowardice of Darius. He had been dismayed to see his chariots fail and his cavalry broken by the charge of the "Companions," and he lost heart altogether when the dreaded phalanx itself, with its bristling array of pikes, seemed to be forcing a way through the line of his infantry and coming nearer to himself. He turned his chariot and fled, the first, when he should have been the last, to leave his post.

The flight of the king was the signal for a general rout, so far at least as the centre and left wing of the Persian army was concerned. It was no longer a battle; it was a massacre. Alexander pressed furiously on, eager to capture the fugitive Darius. But the very completeness of his victory, it may be said, hindered him. So headlong was the flight that the dust, which, after the months of burning summer heat, lay thick upon the plain, rose like the smoke of a vast conflagration. The darkness was as the darkness of night. Nothing could be seen, but all around were heard the cries of fury and despair, the jingling of the chariot wheels, and the sound of the whips which the terrified charioteers were plying with all their might.

Nor was Alexander permitted to continue the pursuit. Though the Persian left, demoralised by the cowardice of the king, had fled, the right wing had fought with better fortune. It was under the command of Mazæus, who was probably the ablest of the Persian generals, and knew how to use his superiority of numbers. Whilst the sturdy Median infantry engaged the Macedonian front line, Mazæus put himself at the head of the Parthian horse and charged the flank. Parmenio, Alexander's ablest lieutenant--his one general, as he was reported to have said--who was in command, sent an urgent request for help, so hard pressed did he find himself to be. Alexander was greatly vexed, for he saw that all chance of capturing Darius was lost, but he knew his business too well to neglect the demand. He at once called back his troops from the pursuit, and led them to the help of the left wing. Parmenio had sent the same message to that division of the phalanx which had taken part in the advance of the right wing.

As things turned out, however, the help was hardly needed. On the one hand, the Thessalian cavalry had proved themselves worthy of their old reputation as the best horsemen in Greece. Held during the earlier part of the engagement in reserve, they had made a brilliant charge on the Parthians, and had restored the fortune of the day. And then, on the other hand, Mazæus and his men had felt the same infection of fear which the flight of Darius had communicated to the rest of the army. Parmenio felt the vigour of the enemy's attack languish, though he did not know the cause, and had the satisfaction of regaining, and more than regaining, the ground which he had lost, before the reinforcements arrived.