The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 04

by Unknown

ALEXANDER LEAVES EGYPT

Aristobulus perhaps only expressed himself carelessly when he said that the army returned by the same route: we cannot hesitate to prefer Ptolemy’s statement, that it took the direct road to Memphis; unless indeed we should adopt a supposition which might render the two accounts more consistent—that Alexander struck across the desert in a third direction, which leads directly to the lake Mareotis. At Memphis he received reinforcements which had been sent to him by Antipater, and embassies to present congratulations or petitions from several states of Greece: among them, it seems, one which brought a golden crown, that had been decreed by a congress assembled at the isthmus on the occasion of the Isthmian games. It now only remained for him to settle the mode of administration by which Egypt was to be governed in his absence. It was his object at once to gain the good-will of the Egyptians, and to secure a province so important, and so easily defended, from the ambition of his own officers. The system which he established served in some points as a model for the policy of Rome under the emperors. He retained the ancient distribution of the country into the districts called nomes, and not only permitted them to be still governed by the native magistrates, the nomarchs, but placed them all under the authority of two Egyptians. Garrisons were stationed at Memphis and Pelusium. The country on the western side of the Delta was committed to the care of Apollonius; that on the east, towards Arabia, to Cleomenes, an Egyptian Greek of Naucratis, who afterwards became unhappily celebrated for his rapacity and financial stratagems. An army was left under the command of Peucestas and Balacrus, and a fleet under that of Polemon. The mutual jealousy of these officers was a sufficient pledge for their loyalty.

In the spring of 331 he set out from Memphis on his return to Phœnicia. At Tyre he found his fleet arrived, and celebrated another sacrifice to Melkarth, and received an embassy which had been brought over from Athens in the Paralus. Its chief object was to obtain the release of the Athenian prisoners taken at the battle of the Granicus; and this Alexander now granted, with several other requests which were urged by the crew of the Paralus, who accompanied the envoys in a body. The accounts which came from Peloponnesus indicated that it was threatened with a commotion through the restlessness of Sparta; and Amphoterus was ordered to lead a squadron to the aid of the Peloponnesians, who were well affected towards the Macedonian interest and the war with Persia, and to recover Crete from the Spartans. A new fleet of one hundred sail was ordered to be fitted out in the ports of Phœnicia and Cyprus to follow and reinforce Amphoterus. Whether on this occasion Alexander visited Jerusalem is doubtful; but it seems that he made an expedition into Samaria, to punish the Samaritans, who—goaded perhaps by ill-treatment—had revolted against Andromachus, had taken him prisoner, and burnt him alive. On Alexander’s approach, the authors of this atrocity were delivered up to him, and tranquillity was restored. He then began his march towards the Euphrates, and before the end of August arrived at Thapsacus.

Costume of a Persian Magistrate

(After Bardon)

A body of troops had been sent forward to throw a bridge across the river. When he had crossed, Alexander did not follow the route which Cyrus had taken through the Mesopotamian desert, but directed his march towards the northeast, through a country which afforded a more abundant supply of food, and where the army had less to suffer from the heat. On the road some Persian scouts fell into his hands, from whom he learnt that Darius, with an army far greater than he had before brought into the field, lay on the left bank of the Tigris, prepared to guard the passage against him. He now advanced at full speed towards the Tigris: but when he reached it found neither Darius himself nor any hostile force, and met with no other obstacle than the rapidity of the stream. On the left bank he gave his troops a few days’ rest after their forced march, during which there occurred an eclipse of the moon. Aristander expounded it as a sign that, during that month, the Persian monarchy was destined to lose its power and glory; and when Alexander sacrificed to the moon, the sun, and the earth, as the powers which concurred to produce the portent, the victims were found to announce a victory. He then marched southward along the river, and four days after his reconnoitring parties brought word that a body of cavalry was in sight. They fled at his approach, but some were overtaken, and slain or made prisoners. From these he learned that Darius with his whole army was encamped at no great distance.

The Persian king had employed the long interval allowed him by Alexander’s operations after the battle of Issus, to collect the remaining strength of his empire; and he had assembled a host with which, if superiority of numbers could have ensured success, he might reasonably have hoped to crush his adversary. It was also composed for the most part of more warlike troops. The division which was most formidable, both for numbers and martial qualities, consisted of the hardy tribes which inhabited the plains on the eastern side of the Caspian, and the valleys above Cabul on the borders of India. They were led by Bessus, the powerful satrap of Bactria; and he was also followed by a body of horse-bowmen, furnished by the Sacæ, who wandered in the valleys east of Transoxiana, and though they did not acknowledge his authority, willingly joined him as allies for the sake of pay and plunder. All the provinces between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and from Syria and Cappadocia to the mountains west of the Indus, had poured forth their choicest warriors.

The whole amount was stated by some authors at a million of foot and forty thousand horse; this may be a great exaggeration, but it was probably reduced as much too low by those who reckoned no more than two hundred thousand infantry. There were beside two hundred scythed chariots, and fifteen elephants brought from the west of India. With this host Darius had encamped in one of the wide plains between the Tigris and the mountains of Kurdistan, near the Bumadus, a tributary of the Lycus, and a village named Gaugamela (the camel’s house), which should have given its name to the battle fought near it, but was forced, through a caprice of which we have many examples, to surrender this distinction to the town of Arbela, which lay more than twenty miles off, where Darius had left his baggage and his treasure. He had been persuaded by his courtiers that his defeat at Issus was entirely owing to the disadvantage of the ground, and he had therefore chosen a field on which he might fully display his forces, and where the enemy would have neither sea nor mountains to cover his flanks; and he had ordered a large tract of the plain to be cleared and levelled for the evolutions of his cavalry and chariots.[d]