THE ROUT OF THE SATRAPS
Again and yet again Amyntas was thrust back from the other shore, slippery with mud and clay, while deadly gusts of arrows and javelins beat upon him. Jealous of glory, the young Persian nobles crowded with reckless daring to the brink and overwhelmed him by the weight of their numbers. But they could not drive him off. He clung to the attack with the stubborn tenacity that knows not defeat, refusing to abandon the stream, although his lines were broken and his men were falling around him.
Alexander, watching the battle like a hawk, saw the desperate situation into which he had thrown Amyntas. "Enyalius!" he shouted, calling upon the God of War by the name that the Homeric heroes had used before Ilium; "Enyalius! Follow me, Macedonians!"
The Agema swept down the slope behind the waving plumes of white and struck the river into foam. The disordered ranks of Amyntas raised a breathless cheer as it passed, heading straight for the thickest of the fight. There was a splintering of shafts, a crash of steel upon steel, and from the fierce vortex of the battle rose cries of rage and agony.
Clearchus fastened his eyes upon the double white plume which fluttered before them. He heard the cry "Alexander! Alexander!" run from lip to lip through the Persian host and saw its squadrons rushing down to meet the onset.
A lean, swarthy man, wearing a head-dress that glittered with jewels, aimed a blow at him with his curved sword. The Athenian threw himself back upon his horse to avoid the stroke and thrust the man through the side with his lance.
Alexander was fighting in the foremost rank amid a flashing circle of steel. The Persian courtiers threw themselves upon the Macedonian spears in their eagerness to reach the king and win the honors which they knew would be bestowed upon the fortunate man who should slay him. The young leader seemed heedless of his danger. Twice he spurred his horse up the treacherous bank and twice he was hurled back. The river, from shore to shore, was filled with soldiers fending off as best they might the merciless rain of darts and arrows. The moment was critical. Unless the Agema could gain footing on the Persian side, the day was lost.
"We must end this," roared Chares above the turmoil. "Down with them! Alexander!"
He drove his bloody spur deep into the flank of his powerful steed. The tortured animal leaped at the bank and staggered upward against the living wall that barred the way. A score of swords struck at him, and the polished shield that the Theban held above his head rang beneath the blows that were showered upon it. The great roan gained the top of the bank, but a spearman buried a javelin in his broad chest and his knees gave way. As he fell, Chares leaped from his back and stood firm.
"Alexander!" he cried again, in a mighty voice that rose above the din of conflict like the roar of a lion at bay. His long sword, so heavy that a man of ordinary strength could hardly wield it, though he used both hands, swept on this side and on that in whistling circles. Down went horse and rider before it like grain within the compass of a sickle. For a moment a space was cleared, and in the next the double plume of white flaunted before his eyes as Alexander passed him, and the Theban knew that the shore had been won. The Agema, like a wedge, struck far into the Persian ranks and held there, driven home by the weight of troops behind it.
Mithridates, son-in-law of Darius, infuriated by this success, ordered a charge which should sweep the Macedonians back into the river. Followed by Rhoisakes, his brother, and by a throng of nobles he hurled himself upon the stubborn mountaineers, aiming straight for Alexander. Chares, who was in the path of the avalanche, was swept aside. His shield was shattered upon his arm by the blow of a mace which also broke the fastenings of his helmet. A shout of warning rose from the Agema as it wheeled to face the attack. With sword upraised, Mithridates rushed upon Alexander; but the king's tough lance pierced the scales of his armor before he could deliver his stroke. The prince fell from his horse and rolled beneath the flying hoofs. Rhoisakes, thundering behind him, aimed a blow with his keen battle-axe which shore away the king's crest and half the double plume. At the same moment the satrap Spithridates attacked Alexander from behind, but before his arm could fall, dark Clitus, with an upward stroke, severed his wrist so that his hand, still grasping his hilt, leaped into the air. Rhoisakes met his brother's fate upon Alexander's spear. Dismay filled the Persian ranks. The charge was broken. "Enyalius!" Alexander shouted, and the Agema thundered up the slope against the disordered barbarians.
Clearchus and Leonidas fought close behind Alexander. The Athenian was never afterward able to recall the details of that desperate struggle. His remembrance was a confused blur of thrust and parry, of shouting and confusion. Suddenly, out of the shifting throng, the proud, flushed face of Phradates appeared to him as in a dream. The young man's gaze was fixed and he seemed to be striving to extricate his horse from the press that hemmed him in. Struck by the expression of rage and hate that convulsed his features, Clearchus followed the direction of his glance and saw Chares, with bare head and on foot, holding two adversaries in check with his sword. Blood flowed from a wound upon his cheek, reddening his shoulder and dimming the lustre of his armor. He had been left behind by the cavalry, and the space around him was clear except for the two riders, who had thought to find him an easy victim.
Clearchus read the thought in the dark face of the Phœnician. Phradates had recognized his rival and was bent upon taking him at a disadvantage. The Athenian turned to warn Chares of his peril, but Phradates shot out of the crowd in advance of him and spurred down upon his enemy, bending low upon the neck of his fleet Arabian horse.
"Ho, Chares! Guard thyself!" Clearchus shouted, realizing that he would be too late.
The cry reached the ears of the Theban, who turned his head for an instant and saw Phradates rushing upon him. He leaped forward and hewed one of his adversaries from the back of his horse. The other closed in, aiming a blow with his sword that Chares had barely time to catch upon his own blade. The shoulder of the leaping horse hurtled against him, causing him to stagger and drop his point.
"I have thee, dog!" screamed Phradates.
So intent was the Phœnician upon his ignoble revenge that he had not seen Clearchus, spurring desperately to overtake him. The Athenian heard his shout of triumph and his heart failed.
"I cannot reach him in time!" he groaned.
In a few more strides, Chares would be at the mercy of his foe. Phradates raised his arm to strike at the defenceless head. There was one chance of stopping him and one only. Clearchus hurled his sword at the Phœnician. The hilt of the whirling blade struck Phradates on the arm with such force that, with a cry of pain, he let fall the sword from his benumbed fingers.
"Not this time, Phœnician!" Chares shouted, as Phradates swooped past him. "Go back to Tyre and await my coming; for I follow!"
Clearchus leaped down from his horse and recovered his sword with the intention of pursuing Phradates, but he saw at a glance that the attempt would be useless. The Phœnician, unarmed as he was, fled toward the Persian lines too fast to be overtaken.
He looked around for the second of the two horsemen with whom Chares had been engaged when Phradates attacked him, but the man was nowhere to be seen. He turned to his friend and embraced him.
"You were just in time," Chares said.
"Thank the Gods!" Clearchus replied. "This is no place to die. I think the battle is ours."
Phradates, riding at full speed, passed through the Persian lines and galloped up the slope. Here and there a Persian horseman saw him go and followed. Others, and still others, joined the flight until, like a dam that goes down before the swollen current of a river in spring, the barbarian squadrons wavered and broke, streaming up the hill disordered and panic-stricken, with death at their heels. Their only thought was to save themselves.
Slaughter took the place of conflict. Grim and silent the Macedonian cavalry and the Thessalian horse rode among the fugitives with swords that knew no mercy. In that disastrous rout the pride of Persia's chivalry was dragged in the dust, and the courtier deemed himself fortunate who escaped to tell of his own dishonor.
Past the camp of the despised Greek mercenaries who had been bidden to watch the defenders of the Great King conquer or die, ran the barbarian rabble, with the wolves of Macedon tearing at their flanks. Southward they fled, leaving behind a broad track of the wounded and the dying, and scattering as they went until no semblance of the Persian army remained. Sweet in their ears at last was the music of the trumpet notes that withdrew the pursuit and left them free to take breath.
The mercenaries stood before their camp, unmoved amid the panic, awaiting the command to fight or flee. The order never came. Memnon had fought beside the Persian generals and had been swept away with them, leaving his army to its fate. Below them the Greeks saw the Macedonian phalanx re-forming its ranks, with the cavalry, of which they had none, upon its wings.
"Why should we die for these cowards?" they said, one to another. "They have deserted us and we are free."
They stretched out their hands in supplication toward Alexander.
"Grant us our lives, O king!" they cried.
"They surrender," Parmenio said. "They are ready to join us. Why not accept them? It will cost many lives to punish them."
Alexander's brow darkened. "They are traitors to Greece," he said. "I will have none in my army who has raised his hand against his country."
The deep phalanx rolled onward to the chant of the pæan, and the despairing mercenaries knew that they could expect no quarter.
"Let us die like Greeks, since we must die," their captains exhorted. "There is no escape for us."
The phalanx dashed upon them with a rending shock. The long sarissas tore through their ranks; but they stood firm, giving blow for blow, and calling upon each other not to disgrace their name. They even forced the veterans of Macedon to recoil, and the phalanx surged back like a mighty wave that dashes itself against a sounding cliff and returns with renewed strength.
Had only the foot-soldiers, with whom they could fight on equal terms, been arrayed against them, the issue might have remained in doubt; but the cavalry, against which they had no defence, fell upon their rear ranks with terrible effect. Their squares were broken; their captains fell; disordered and without guidance, they went down before lance and sword, fighting to the last.
Alexander's horse was killed under him while he was leading the cavalry charge upon the left, and for the second time that day he narrowly escaped with his life.
"They fought like men," he said sadly to Ptolemy. "I wish they had been with us instead of against us, for they were Greeks."
He gave command to stop the carnage. Where the mercenary line had stood the dead lay in heaps, friend and foe together. A few of the mercenaries who had been cut off from the main body by the cavalry had succeeded in making their escape; but of the twenty thousand whom Memnon had led, eighteen thousand never left that bloody field. At least, they had shown the barbarians how to die.
"It will be harder for Darius to hire Greeks to fight for him after this," Chares remarked, as he reined in his horse beside his two friends and dismounted.
"They were of our race, after all," Clearchus said, regretfully.
"They were not cowards," Chares assented, nodding his head in approval, "and we have lost more men than we could spare. Here is a fellow, now, who might have amounted to something."
He pointed to the body of a young man who lay with his broken sword beside him. His pale face was calm and his wide eyes stared upward at the crimson evening sky. His corselet had been broken, disclosing the end of a thin roll of papyrus. Chares drew it out and broke the seals.
"He may have been a poet," he said, handing the roll to Clearchus. "Read it!"
The Athenian glanced at the writing and uttered a quick exclamation.
"Artemisia is in Halicarnassus!" he cried.
"What do you mean?" Chares demanded.
"This is a letter from Xanthe to me," Clearchus said, and he proceeded to read the lines that his unhappy aunt had written with so much toil.
"Who is this Iphicrates?" Leonidas asked.
"I know not," Clearchus replied eagerly, "but if it be the will of the Gods we shall learn. Let us seek the king at once!"