During the winter of 335-334 B. C., after the destruction of Thebes and the return of Alexander from Greece to Pella, his final preparations were made for the Asiatic expedition. The Macedonian army with the auxiliary contingents destined for this enterprise were brought together early in the spring. Antipater, one of the oldest and ablest officers of Philip, was appointed to act as viceroy of Macedonia during the king’s absence. A military force, stated at 12,000 infantry and 1500 cavalry,[147] was left with him to keep down the cities of Greece, to resist aggressions from the Persian fleet, and to repress discontents at home. Such discontents were likely to be instigated by leading Macedonians or pretenders to the throne, especially as Alexander had no direct heir: and we are told that Antipater and Parmenio advised postponement of the expedition until the young king could leave behind him an heir of his own lineage.[148] Alexander overruled these representations; yet he did not disdain to lessen the perils at home by putting to death such men as he principally feared or mistrusted, especially the kinsmen of Philip’s last wife Kleopatra.[149] Of the dependent tribes around, the most energetic chiefs accompanied his army into Asia, either by their own preference or at his requisition. After these precautions, the tranquillity of Macedonia was entrusted to the prudence and fidelity of Antipater, which were still farther ensured by the fact that three of his sons accompanied the king’s army and person.[150] Though unpopular in his deportment,[151] Antipater discharged the duties of his very responsible position with zeal and ability; notwithstanding the dangerous enmity of Olympias, against whom he sent many complaints to Alexander when in Asia, whilst she on her side wrote frequent but unavailing letters with a view to ruin him in the esteem of her son. After a long period of unabated confidence, Alexander began during the last years of his life to dislike and mistrust Antipater. He always treated Olympias with the greatest respect; trying however to restrain her from meddling with political affairs, and complaining sometimes of her imperious exigencies and violence.[152]
The army intended for Asia, having been assembled at Pella, was conducted by Alexander himself first to Amphipolis, where it crossed the Strymon; next along the road near the coast to the river Nestus and to the towns of Abdêra and Maroneia; then through Thrace across the rivers Hebrus and Melas; lastly, through the Thracian Chersonese to Sestos. Here it was met by his fleet, consisting of 160 triremes, with a number of trading vessels besides;[153] made up in large proportions from contingents furnished by Athens and Grecian cities.[154] The passage of the whole army, infantry, cavalry, and machines, on ships, across the strait from Sestos in Europe to Abydos in Asia,—was superintended by Parmenio, and accomplished without either difficulty or resistance. But Alexander himself, separating from the army at Sestos, went down to Elæus at the southern extremity of the Chersonese. Here stood the chapel and sacred precinct of the hero Protesilaus, who was slain by Hektor; having been the first Greek (according to the legend of the Trojan war) who touched the shore of Troy. Alexander, whose imagination was then full of Homeric reminiscences, offered sacrifice to the hero, praying that his own disembarkation might terminate more auspiciously.
He then sailed across in the admiral’s trireme, steering with his own hand, to the landing place near Ilium called the Harbor of the Achæans. At mid-channel of the strait, he sacrificed a bull, with libations out of a golden goblet, to Poseidon and the Nereids. Himself too in full armor, he was the first (like Protesilaus) to tread the Asiatic shore; but he found no enemy like Hektor to meet him. From hence, mounting the hill on which Ilium was placed, he sacrificed to the patron-goddess Athênê; and deposited in her temple his own panoply, taking in exchange some of the arms said to have been worn by the heroes in the Trojan war, which he caused to be carried by guards along with him in his subsequent battles. Among other real or supposed monuments of this interesting legend, the Ilians showed to him the residence of Priam with its altar of Zeus Herkeios, where that unhappy old king was alleged to have been slain by Neoptolemus. Numbering Neoptolemus among his ancestors, Alexander felt himself to be the object of Priam’s yet unappeased wrath; and accordingly offered sacrifice to him at the same altar, for the purpose of expiation and reconciliation. On the tomb and monumental column of Achilles, father of Neoptolemus, he not only placed a decorative garland, but also went through the customary ceremony of anointing himself with oil and running naked round it: exclaiming how much he envied the lot of Achilles, who had been blest during life with a faithful friend, and after death, with a great poet to celebrate his exploits. Lastly, to commemorate his crossing, Alexander erected permanent altars, in honor of Zeus, Athênê, and Hêraklês; both on the point of Europe which his army had quitted, and on that of Asia where it had landed.[155]
The proceedings of Alexander, on the ever-memorable site of Ilium, are interesting as they reveal one side of his imposing character—the vein of legendary sympathy and religious sentiment wherein alone consisted his analogy with the Greeks. The young Macedonian prince had nothing of that sense of correlative right and obligation, which characterized the free Greeks of the city-community. But he was in many points a reproduction of the heroic Greeks,[156] his warlike ancestors in legend, Achilles and Neoptolemus, and others of that Æakid race, unparalleled in the attributes of force—a man of violent impulse in all directions, sometimes generous, often vindictive—ardent in his individual affections both of love and hatred, but devoured especially by an inextinguishable pugnacity, appetite for conquest, and thirst for establishing at all cost his superiority of force over others—“Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis”—taking pride, not simply in victorious generalship and direction of the arms of soldiers, but also in the personal forwardness of an Homeric chief, the foremost to encounter both danger and hardship. To dispositions resembling those of Achilles, Alexander indeed added one attribute of a far higher order. As a general, he surpassed his age in provident and even long-sighted combinations. With all his exuberant courage and sanguine temper, nothing was ever omitted in the way of systematic military precaution. Thus much be borrowed, though with many improvements of his own, from Grecian intelligence as applied to soldiership. But the character and dispositions, which he took with him to Asia, had the features, both striking and repulsive, of Achilles, rather than those of Agesilaus or Epaminondas.
The army, when reviewed on the Asiatic shore after its crossing, presented a total of 30,000 infantry, and 4500 cavalry, thus distributed:—
| Infantry. | |
| Macedonian phalanx and hypaspists | 12,000 |
| Allies | 7,000 |
| Mercenaries | 5,000 |
| Under the command of Parmenio | 24,000 |
| Odryssians, Triballi (both Thracians), and Illyrians | 5,000 |
| Agriânes and archers | 1,000 |
| Total Infantry | 30,000 |
| Cavalry. | |
| Macedonian heavy—under Philotas son of Parmenio | 1,500 |
| Thessalian (also heavy)—under Kallas | 1,500 |
| Miscellaneous Grecian—under Erigyius | 600 |
| Thracian and Pæonian (light)—under Kassander | 900 |
| Total Cavalry | 4,500 |
Such seems the most trustworthy enumeration of Alexander’s first invading army. There were however other accounts, the highest of which stated as much as 43,000 infantry with 4000 cavalry.[157] Besides these troops, also, there must have been an effective train of projectile machines and engines, for battles and sieges, which we shall soon find in operation. As to money, the military chest of Alexander, exhausted in part by profuse donatives to his Macedonian officers,[158] was as poorly furnished as that of Napoleon Buonaparte on first entering Italy for his brilliant campaign of 1796. According to Aristobulus, he had with him only seventy talents; according to another authority, no more than the means of maintaining his army for thirty days. Nor had he even been able to bring together his auxiliaries, or complete the outfit of his army, without incurring a debt of 800 talents, in addition to that of 500 talents contracted by his father Philip.[159] Though Plutarch[160] wonders at the smallness of the force with which Alexander contemplated the execution of such great projects, yet the fact is, that in infantry he was far above any force which the Persians had to oppose him;[161] not to speak of comparative discipline and organization, surpassing even that of the Grecian mercenaries, who formed the only good infantry in the Persian service; while his cavalry, though inferior as to number, was superior in quality and in the shock of close combat.
Most of the officers exercising important command in Alexander’s army were native Macedonians. His intimate personal friend Hephæstion, as well as his body-guards Leonnatus and Lysimachus, were natives of Pella: Ptolemy the son of Lagus, and Pithon, were Eordians from Upper Macedonia; Kraterus and Perdikkas, from the district of Upper Macedonia called Orestis;[162] Antipater with his son Kassander, Kleitus son of Drôpides, Parmenio with his two sons Philôtas and Nikanor, Seleukus, Kœnus, Amyntas, Philippus (these two last names were borne by more than one person), Antigonus, Neoptolemus,[163] Meleager, Peukestes, etc., all these seem to have been native Macedonians. All or most of them had been trained to war under Philip, in whose service Parmenio and Antipater, especially, had occupied a high rank.
Of the many Greeks in Alexander’s service, we hear of few in important station. Medius, a Thessalian from Larissa, was among his familiar companions; but the ablest and most distinguished of all was Eumenes, a native of Kardia in the Thracian Chersonese. Eumenes, combining an excellent Grecian education with bodily activity and enterprise, had attracted when a young man the notice of Philip and had been appointed as his secretary. After discharging these duties for seven years until the death of Philip, he was continued by Alexander in the post of chief secretary during the whole of that king’s life.[164] He conducted most of Alexander’s correspondence, and the daily record of his proceedings, which was kept under the name of the Royal Ephemerides. But though his special duties were thus of a civil character, he was not less eminent as an officer in the field. Occasionally entrusted with high military command, he received from Alexander signal recompenses and tokens of esteem. In spite of these great qualities—or perhaps in consequence of them—he was the object of marked jealousy and dislike[165] on the part of the Macedonians,—from Hephæstion the friend, and Neoptolemus the chief armor-bearer, of Alexander, down to the principal soldiers of the phalanx. Neoptolemus despised Eumenes as an unwarlike penman. The contemptuous pride with which Macedonians had now come to look down on Greeks, is a notable characteristic of the victorious army of Alexander, as well as a new feature in history; retorting the ancient Hellenic sentiment in which Demosthenes, a few years before, had indulged towards the Macedonians.[166]
Though Alexander has been allowed to land in Asia unopposed, an army was already assembled under the Persian satraps within a few days’ march of Abydos. Since the reconquest of Egypt and Phenicia, about eight or nine years before, by the Persian king Ochus, the power of that empire had been restored to a point equal to any anterior epoch since the repulse of Xerxes from Greece. The Persian successes in Egypt had been achieved mainly by the arms of Greek mercenaries, under the conduct and through the craft of the Rhodian general Mentor; who, being seconded by the preponderant influence of the eunuch Bagôas, confidential minister of Ochus, obtained not only ample presents, but also the appointment of military commander on the Hellespont and the Asiatic seaboard.[167] He procured the recall of his brother Memnon, who with his brother-in-law Artabazus had been obliged to leave Asia from unsuccessful revolt against the Persians, and had found shelter with Philip.[168] He farther subdued, by force or by fraud, various Greek and Asiatic chieftains on the Asiatic coast; among them, the distinguished Hermeias, friend of Aristotle, and master of the strong post of Atarneus.[169] These successes of Mentor seem to have occurred about 343 B. C. He, and his brother Memnon after him, upheld vigorously the authority of the Persian king in the regions near the Hellespont. It was probably by them that troops were sent across the strait both to rescue the besieged town of Perinthus from Philip, and to act against that prince in other parts of Thrace;[170] that an Asiatic chief, who was intriguing to facilitate Philip’s intended invasion of Asia, was seized and sent prisoner to the Persian court; and that envoys from Athens, soliciting aid against Philip, were forwarded to the same place.[171]