Mosaics of Grecian History

by Marcius Willson; Robert Pierpont Wilson

VII. BATTLE OF ARBE'LA.—FLIGHT AND DEATH OF DARIUS.

On a beautiful plain, twenty miles distant from the town of Arbela, the Persian monarch, surrounded by all the pomp and luxury of Eastern magnificence, had collected the remaining strength of his empire, consisting of an army of more than a million of infantry and forty thousand cavalry, besides two hundred scythed chariots, and fifteen elephants brought from the west of India. To oppose this immense force Alexander had only forty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry. But his forces were well armed and disciplined, and were led by an able general who had never known defeat. Darius sustained the conflict with better judgment and more courage than at Issus; but the cool intrepidity of the Macedonians was irresistible, and the field of battle soon became a scene of slaughter, in which some say forty thousand, and others three hundred thousand, of the barbarians were slain, while the loss of Alexander did not exceed five hundred men. Although Darius escaped with a portion of his body-guard, the whole of the royal baggage and treasure was captured at Arbela.

Now simply a fugitive, "with merely the title of king," Darius crossed the mountains into Media, where he remained six or seven months, and until the advance of Alexander in pursuit compelled him to pass through the Caspian Gates into Parthia. Here, on the near approach of the enemy, he was murdered by Bessus, satrap of Bactria, because he refused to fly farther. "Within four years and three months from the time Alexander crossed the Hellespont," says GROTE, "by one stupendous defeat after another Darius had lost all his Western empire, and had become a fugitive eastward of the Caspian Gates, escaping captivity at the hand of Alexander only to perish by that of the satrap Bessus. All antecedent historical parallels—the ruin and captivity of the Lydian Croe'sus, the expulsion and mean life of the Syracusan Dionysius, both of them impressive examples of the mutability of human condition—sink into trifles compared with the overthrow of this towering Persian colossus. The orator Æschines expressed the genuine sentiment of a Grecian spectator when he exclaimed (in a speech delivered at Athens shortly before the death of Darius):

"'What is there among the list of strange and unexpected events which has not occurred in our time? Our lives have transcended the limits of humanity; we are born to serve as a theme for incredible tales to posterity. Is not the Persian king—who dug through Athos and bridged the Hellespont, who demanded earth and water from the Greeks, who dared to proclaim himself, in public epistles, master of all mankind from the rising to the setting sun—is not he now struggling to the last, not for dominion over others, but for the safety of his own person?' [Footnote: He speaks of both Xerxes and Darius as the Persian king.] Such were the sentiments excited by Alexander's career even in the middle of 330 B.C., more than seven years before his death."

Babylon and Susa, where the riches of the East lay accumulated, had meanwhile opened their gates to Alexander, and thence he directed his march to Persepolis, the capital of Persia, which he entered in triumph. Here he celebrated his victories by a magnificent feast, at which the great musician Timo'theus, of Thebes, performed on the flute and the lyre, accompanied by a chorus of singers. Such was the wonderful power of his music that the whole company are said to have been swayed by it to feelings of love, or hate, or revenge, as if by the wand of a magician. The poet DRYDEN has given us a description of this feast in a poem that has been called by some "the lyric masterpiece of English poetry," and by others "an inspired ode." Though designed especially to illustrate the power of music, it is based on historic facts. Only partial extracts from it can here be given.

Alexander's Feast.

'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:
His valiant peers were placed around,
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
(So should desert in arms be crowned).
The lovely Thais, by his side
Sat, like a blooming Eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserve the fair.

In the second division of the poem Timo'theus is represented as singing the praises of Jupiter, when the crowd, carried away by the enthusiasm with which the music had inspired them, proclaim Alexander a deity! The monarch accepts the adoration of his subjects, and "assumes the god."

The list'ning crowd admire the lofty sound:
"A present deity!" they shout around:
"A present deity!" the vaulted roofs rebound.
With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.

The praises of Bacchus and the joys of wine being next sung, the effects upon the king are described; and when the strains had fired his soul almost to madness, Timotheus adroitly changes the spirit and measure of his song, and as successfully allays the tempest of passion that his skill had raised. The effects of this change are thus described:

Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he Heaven and Earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful Muse,
Soft pity to infuse;
He sung Darius, great and good,
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless victor sat,
Revolving in his altered soul
The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then a sigh he stole,
And tear's began to flow.

Under the soothing influence of the next theme, which is Love, Alexander sinks into a slumber, from which, however, a change in the music to discordant strains arouses him to feelings of revenge, as the singer draws a picture of the Furies, and of the Greeks "that in battle were slain." Then it was that Alexander, instigated by Thais, a celebrated Athenian beauty who accompanied him on his expedition, set fire to the palace of Persepolis, intending to burn the whole city—"the wonder of the world." The poet compares Thais to Helen, whose fatal beauty caused the downfall of Troy, 852 years before.

Now strike the golden lyre again;
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark! the horrid sound
Has raised up his head,
As awaked from the dead,
And, amazed, he stares around.
Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,
See the Furies arise!
See the snakes that they rear!
How they hiss in their hair,
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
These are the Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain,
Inglorious on the plain:
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew,
Behold how they toss their torches on high!
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud with a furious joy;
And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy!

During four years Alexander remained in the heart of Persia, reducing to subjection the chiefs who still struggled for independence, and regulating the government of the conquered provinces. Ambitious of farther conquests, he passed the Indus, and invaded the country of the Indian king Po'rus, whom he defeated in a sanguinary engagement, and took prisoner. Alexander continued his march eastward until he reached the Hyph'asis, the most eastern tributary of the Indus, when his troops, seeing no end of their toils, refused to follow him farther, and he was reluctantly forced to abandon the career of conquest, which he had marked out for himself, to the Eastern ocean. He descended the Indus to the sea, whence, after sending a fleet with a portion of his forces around through the Persian Gulf to the Euphrates, he marched with the remainder of his army through the barren wastes of Gedro'sia, and after much suffering and loss once more reached the fertile provinces of Persia.