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PHILIP AND ALEXANDER 
 . OF MACEDON 
 
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PHILIP AND ALEXANDER 
 OF MACEDON 
 
 TWO ESSAYS IN BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID G. HOGARTH 
 
 M.A., FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFOKD, F.S.A., F.R.G.S. 
 
 WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHAELES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1897 
 Br Charles Sckibnek's Sons 
 
 SSntbersitg -Press 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
Clartsstmo et (Carissinto 
 
 (ZCollegto 
 
 Beatae jjHartae JHafltoalenae 
 
 apulu ©lontenaes 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The heroes of these essays need no introduction, and 
 I have no excuse for making them my theme if 
 this book supplies none. I treat the two Makers of 
 Macedon, not in proportion to their respective bulk 
 in history, but to the number of books written 
 already about them. Philip, so far as I know, sup- 
 plies the central figure to no extant biography ; 
 Alexander has inspired a whole literature. 
 
 My debts to previous students are obvious enough, 
 even when not indicated in footnotes. I believe 
 I have left very few works bearing on the subject 
 unread, and my unconscious obligations must be 
 many. I thank the authorities of the Departments 
 of Coins and Medals and of Classical Antiquities at 
 the British Museum, and also of the Cabinet des 
 Medailles at Paris, for material supplied for my 
 illustrations. To those who have criticised my book 
 while in the press — Mr. R. W. Macan, Reader in 
 Ancient History in the University of Oxford, and 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 Mr. C. H. Turner, Fellow of Magdalen — I can offer, 
 by a mere expression of thanks in a Preface, no 
 return in the least commensurate with the acute 
 and learned labour which they have bestowed. 
 They have emended many things ; and if still many 
 shortcomings remain, I can plead only the inter- 
 ruptions which are inseparable from the life of an 
 exploring scholar. 
 
 D. G. H. 
 
 London, 
 December 14, 1896. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Philip. page 
 
 Prologue. The Man of the Age 1 
 
 Introductory. Macedonians and feudatories 4 
 
 Early kings 10 
 
 The Macedonian land 13 
 
 Macedonian king and vassals .... 15 
 
 Early years of Philip 22 
 
 Thebes and Thebans 28 
 
 Accession of Philip 43 
 
 First campaign 46 
 
 Army-making 49 
 
 New military ideas 60 
 
 Getting ready for action 64 
 
 Open war with Athens 67 
 
 War in Thessaly 70 
 
 War on the north and east 73 
 
 Olynthus and her confederacy 74 
 
 Athens and her statesmen 79 
 
 Peace between Athens and Philip 86 
 
 Philip marches south 92 
 
 Macedonian supremacy 97 
 
 Troubles with Athens 99 
 
 Philip marches to the Danube 106 
 
 Eupture with Athens 110 
 
 Sieges of Perinthus and Byzantium Ill 
 
 The young Alexander 116 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Philip marches south again ...... . . . 119 
 
 . _Chaeronea and its consequents^ 1-"' 
 
 TTTe Panhellenic League - • 134 
 
 Philip and his household 136 
 
 Murder of Philip 142 
 
 Epilogue. Limitations of Philip 143 
 
 Philip and Athens 145 
 
 The expansion of Hellas 155 
 
 II. Alexander. 
 
 Prologue. Alexander and his inheritance 159 
 
 First campaigns in Europe 168 
 
 Alexander and Panhellenism 171 
 
 The vengeance of Hellas 173 
 
 Alexander starts for Asia 177 
 
 The coast campaigns , . 181 
 
 Issus and its consequents 183 
 
 Alexander the Founder 187 
 
 Ammon and his Son 193 
 
 The advance resumed . 200 
 
 Arbela 202 
 
 Development of Alexander's ideal 206 
 
 Reorganization of the expeditionary force . . . . . 212 
 
 Last pursuit of Darius 213 
 
 The Army of the East 217 
 
 Colonization of the East 225 
 
 Afghanistan and Turkestan 228 
 
 Alexander Emperor 234 
 
 The march into India 236 
 
 Mutiny and retreat 241 
 
 The spirit of India and Alexander 242 
 
 Exploration of Ocean 249 
 
 Oecumenic Scheme 259 
 
 Alexander and Rome compared 263 
 
 Alexander goes north 260 
 
 Arrival at Babylon ............ 269 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Army of the West 271 
 
 The last days 273 
 
 Epilogue. Alexander's permanent work 276 
 
 His personal immortality 278 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 The cardinal dates of Alexander's life 284 
 
 Intermediate events 288 
 
 The latter half of Alexander's reign 291 
 
 Three doubtful years 295 
 
 Table of results 304 
 
 Index 307 
 
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 TO FACE PAGE 
 
 Alexander in Battle (from the Sarcophagus of the 
 Satraps, Constantinople) Frontispiece 
 
 Philip (Tarsus Medallion, Cabinet de France) ... 1 
 
 Copy of a Portrait Bust of Alexander Tivoli Herii 
 
 in the Louvre 159 
 
 Copy op a Portrait Bust of Alexander in the British 
 
 Museum 161 
 
 Alexander deified as Ammon — Coins of Lysimachus 
 
 (British Museum) 278 
 
 Alexander deified as Heracles in Roman Times — ■ 
 
 Tarsus Medallion (Cabinet de France) .... 280 
 
 Alexander Immortal (Tarsus Medallion, Cabinet de 
 
 France) 282 
 
 Map of the Area of Alexander's Asiatic Conquest At the end. 
 
PHILIP 
 Tarsus Medallion— Cabinet cle France 
 
PHILIP 
 
 The Man of an Age is judged least justly by 
 those who have lived in the Age ; for historical 
 vision can adjust its focus to the nearest objects no 
 better than the natural eye. Posterity, therefore, 
 while taking contemporary evidence for fact, must 
 reserve the verdict to itself, and most jealously in 
 an epoch of great change. While an old order is 
 passing into a new, the destruction of the one 
 obscures the construction of the other ; and those 
 who watch the great man to his grave seldom attain 
 to more than a dim suspicion that he has been 
 neither wholly dreamer nor wholly devil. Thus, 
 although Theopompus condemned Philip of Mace- 
 don with utter condemnation, none the less his 
 chronicle of the king's deeds, so far as preserved, 
 makes it clear that, had we it all, we should say of 
 the hostile historian, as has been said even of Demos- 
 thenes, " personne mieux n'a fait ressortir les grandes 
 qualites du fondateur de la puissance Macedonienne." * 
 
 1 Weil: introduction to his Plaidoyers de Demosthene, p. 18. 
 
 1 
 
2 PHILIP 
 
 Every cloud that can gather about a great man has 
 darkened the fame of Philip. No work of a contem- 
 porary historian has come down to us except in frag- 
 ments ; and until some Egyptian grave gives up 
 the Philippica of Theopompus, or the Macedonica of 
 Anaximenes, we must be content to glean the facts 
 of Philip's life from late epitomes of late historians, 
 from scanty narratives of universal chroniclers, and 
 from gossips and retailers of anecdote ; while for 
 first-hand evidence we have only the partial utter- 
 ances of the Athenian orators, his enemies or his 
 hirelings. I The eyes of posterity, both in ancient 
 and modern times, have been dazzled by Alexander, 
 and hardly have remarked the great figure which 
 stands behind hirnj and enthusiasm for Hellas in 
 a cultivated modern age has begotten bitter hatred 
 for the name which is associated with the fall of 
 Greek autonomy. Grote, for example, insensible to 
 the fact that he himself has described with masterly 
 skill the process of inevitable decay, at the end, not 
 the beginning, of which stands Macedonian supremacy, 
 seconds the champions of a shadow of liberty as though 
 they were fighting still for a Periclean Athens. 
 Even Thirl wall, most judicious historian of the last 
 age of free Greece, feels constrained to deny personal 
 merit to Philip, " great, not for what he was, but 
 for what it was given him to do ! " What is this 
 distinction between a man and his acts ? Philip is 
 the great individual, who stands in the gap between 
 two stages of human progress and is himself the link. 
 He recognized entirely neither what was passing away 
 
THE MAN OF THE AGE 3 
 
 nor what was coming to pass, but he was not therefore 
 more a blind tool of Heaven than all human agents of 
 destruction and construction have been and must be. 
 Few men have seen so surely as he the faults of a 
 dying order, and set themselves so consciously to 
 create a new. The defects of the city-state, its 
 premature senility, resultant on too intense political 
 life, its incapacity for growth and combination, and 
 its weakness in the face of wider unions — these 
 things Philip discerned, and history warrants us in 
 crediting him with a reasoned conviction that the 
 city was to pass away before the nation ; that division 
 of labour and mutual assistance must take the place of 
 the direct fulfilment of all functions by all ; and that 
 spasmodic individual effort would be superseded by 
 permanent organization. Reading the lesson of his 
 times, and marking the proved inferiority of citizen 
 militia to standing forces, and of the capricious rule 
 of the many to an imperial system under a single 
 head, he evolved the first European Power in the 
 modern sense of the word — an armed nation with a 
 common national ideal/ This, his own conception, 
 he understood clearly and pursued consistently 
 through twenty-three years. Surely such a man 
 may be called great for what he was. 
 
PHILIP 
 
 Philip was born in the year 382 before our era. 
 The baby's prospect in life was not brilliant. He was 
 third son of Amyntas of Macedonia, a petty king 
 of no account in the world as it was then, who had 
 been chased once to the last hold in his kingdom 
 and compelled to see a rival sit on his throne ; 
 who had been restored by foreign swords, and was 
 still in direst danger from barbarians on the north 
 and Greeks on the south, but most of all from his 
 own subjects. To understand both the position of 
 this man's son, and his conduct when, twenty-three 
 years later, he succeeded to a throne whose occupants 
 hardly ever had died in their beds, it is necessary 
 that we examine briefly the conditions under which 
 Macedonian monarchy existed. 
 
 The origin of the peoples who in the dawn of 
 history inhabited the part of south-eastern Europe 
 since called Macedonia, 1 is a question singularly 
 obscure and perhaps insoluble. Fortunately the 
 point really important for later history is neither 
 insoluble nor obscure, namely, the belief held and 
 
 1 I use the name in its ordinary, not its Eoman, sense, to 
 include only the country between the mouth of the Nestus, 
 Olympus, the Cambunian range, and the vague northern frontier 
 of Paeonia. 
 
THE MACEDONIAN PEOPLE 5 
 
 acted upon in ancient times. Tradition asserted 
 that the population of " Macedonia " had neither one 
 source nor one history ; for one element in it was (as 
 Hellenes said) " barbarian," another Hellene. The first 
 element it pleased antiquarians to call " Pelasgic," 1 
 but that name, meaning, in the first instance, probably 
 no more than "the old folk," had come to be vised of 
 any early people of doubtful origin who had lived 
 where in later times Hellenes were found. It is 
 certain now that the element in question was largely 
 composed of that race, to which the Bryges and many 
 other European tribes pertained, together with their 
 myths 2 of Gordius and Midas, whose final home is 
 Phrygia. Its progress across Europe and its overflow 
 into Asia have been traced by ethnologists, and the 
 wanderings of its groups at various epochs account 
 perhaps for those traces of " Thracian " and " Carian " 
 occupation in Hellas and the isles which have puzzled 
 antiquarians in all ages. 3 This race was Aryan, but 
 in the eyes of the Hellenes "barbarian." 
 
 Tradition held the other element to be Hellenic, 
 and no one in the fourth century seriously questioned 
 its belief. 4 We meet with it in legends of the 
 
 1 Vide e. g. Justin, vii. 1. 
 
 2 We have the early authority of Herodotus for these myths 
 (viii. 138) ; cf. Justin, vii. 1, etc. 
 
 8 Strabo (p. 445) quotes Aristotle for " Thracians " in Euboea 
 and Phocis. The " Carian question" is well known. The best 
 views on the whole matter are Professor W. M. Ramsay's, in 
 " A Study of Phrygian Art " {.Town. Hell. Studies, vols. ix. and x.). 
 
 1 The taunts of a hostile orator levelled against Philip are no 
 evidence at all of popular incredulity on the point (Demosth., 
 Phil. i. 10 ; Olyntli. iii. 24 ; F. L. 327, etc.). The fact that Philip 
 
6 PHILIP 
 
 migrations of " Macedonian " peoples out of Hellas, 
 such as Bottiaeans from Crete, 1 or Athens, and 
 Dorians from Histiaeotis of Thessaly, 2 or Argos. The 
 evidence that the latter city was believed to be the 
 earliest home of the Macedonian kings and their 
 immediate followers (for kings do not establish them- 
 selves on thrones without strong battalions behind 
 them) is overwhelming; 3 on the strength of that 
 belief the Macedonian kings obtained admission to 
 the common festivals of Hellas, and consistently acted 
 in the government of their realm. 
 
 To the second element it was believed that the 
 dominant race, the Macedonians properly so-called, 
 belonged. They were (in Greek opinion) an immi- 
 grant people from the south, whose leader " conquered 
 land for his subjects and became king; " 4 they settled 
 in the fertile plains about the mouths and lower 
 
 ruled over many "barbarians would give those taunts quite point 
 enough for the occasion. Herodotus ( v. 22) tells us that Alex- 
 ander I. was called fidpfiapos when he tried to enter the stadium 
 at Olympia early in the fifth century, but triumphantly refuted the 
 libel. 
 
 1 A view strongly supported by place-names like Gortyuia, 
 Idomenaea, etc., found in historical times in the Vardar valley. 
 See Strabo, pp. 330, 279, 282; Plut., Thes. 16 (quoting Aristotle), 
 and Qu. Gr. 35, etc. 
 
 2 Hdt. (i. 56) calls this race MolkcSvov. Abel thinks that the 
 root M<xk is also that of Mdy-vryres. 
 
 8 See, e. }., Hdt., v. 22 ; viii. 137 ; Time, ii. 99 ; Tsocr., Phil. 32 ; 
 Theopomp. fr. 30; Justin, vii. 1; Strabo, p. 329; Paus., vii. 8, 9; 
 Appian, Syr. 63; Diod., xvii. 1; Plut., Alex. 2, etc. Abel's 
 ingenious theory that another Argos in Lyncestis was the real 
 source, even if proved, makes no difference to Greek belief, which 
 unquestionably looked to the Peloponnesian city. 
 
 4 Cf. Thuc, ii. 99. 
 
HELLENIC AND BARBARIAN ELEMENTS 7 
 
 courses of the Kara Su and the Vardar, which were 
 called in ancient times Pieria and Emathia (or earlier 
 Bottiaea), 1 and they pushed the older peoples into the 
 western and northern highlands, where they continued 
 to subsist under many titles — Orestians, Lyncestians, 
 Elimiotes, Paeonians, and so forth. So far as we 
 can tell, the belief that the " Macedonians " of the 
 coast-plains and the men of the hills were distinct 
 peoples with distinct traditions and claims was held 
 not only in Greece but in Macedonia as well. The 
 clearest distinction is always drawn between " Mace- 
 donians " and all other components of the national 
 phalanx in the Asiatic army of Alexander. 2 
 
 I have said already that we are not concerned with 
 the truth or falsehood of these opinions. In this 
 matter, as so often in history, it imports infinitely less 
 that an event did not happen than that it was believed 
 to have happened. We even need not have definite 
 views as to the exclusively Hellenic character of one 
 element, 3 or the exclusively barbarian character of 
 the other ; probably much intermixture took place. 4 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 330 ; cf. also Justin, vii. 1. 
 
 2 Cf., e.g., Arr., iii. 18, 20, 23, with vii. 4; and Plut., Bum. 4. 
 
 8 It is beyond the scope of this essay to attempt any inquiry into 
 the real ethnic affinities of the Macedonian people, based on 
 philological or archaeological evidence. In point of fact, there is 
 not nearly enough evidence available to lead to any useful result ; 
 in proof of which I will only refer the curious to such inquiries 
 as that in Parts I., II., of Abel's Makedonien vor Konig Philip, 
 and Pick, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xxiii. p. 193. 
 
 4 Thucydides, indeed, includes the Lyncestians and Elimiotes 
 among " Macedonians," at the same time insisting on their separate 
 political status (ii. 99) ; and we know the Lyncestian princely 
 
8 PHILIP 
 
 Our cardinal point is this — that between the 
 " Macedonians " of the coast-plain and the free men 
 of the hills before the time of Philip the Second 
 there was not that community of tradition and hope, 
 which alone consummates the identity of a nation. 
 There were hostile elements in the political whole, 
 one element having been conquered by another but 
 not completely enough to lose its independent con- 
 stitution and to become absorbed or enslaved, as 
 was the case in Laconia, the second of the three 
 monarchical realms surviving in Greece in the time 
 of Aristotle. 1 
 
 The key to the history of Macedonia lies in this 
 disunion of tradition. The king was chief in the first 
 instance of a race of plain-dwellers, who held them- 
 selves to be, like him, of Hellenic stock, and were 
 his faithful Companions (ercupoi), retained by ties of 
 common interest and common danger. In the second 
 place he was over-lord of a more numerous but less 
 united body of hill-tribes, whom he had forced to 
 acknowledge his power, but not to give up their 
 princes. 2 There had been some kind of compromise 
 between two not very unequal forces, with a result 
 so near equilibrium that a little weight thrown into 
 one scale or the other made always peace or war. 
 The king ever and anon is struggling with hostile 
 
 house to have been Bacchiad, and to have borne Greek names like 
 Alexander and Eurydice. Eordaea, Thucydides says, was com- 
 pletely conquered, like Bottiaea. Cf. Strabo, p. 326. 
 
 1 Pol. v. 8. 5. 
 
 2 There were still semi-independent kinglets in the extreme west 
 after Philip's death. Arr., i. 5. 
 
THE FEUDATORIES 9 
 
 feudatories, who try to regain their lost autonomy or 
 even to establish a supremacy in place of his. All 
 we know of the earliest reigns is the fact of recur- 
 ring wars with " Illyrians." J Now, that nationality, 
 as Abel 2 has observed, to reach Emathia must pass 
 through the lands of the feudatory hill-tribes, with 
 whom we find it often allied during the fourth century. 
 Indeed, there is some evidence 3 to show that Greek 
 historians did not clearly distinguish between the 
 allies, and a probability that in nine out of ten cases, 
 when Macedonian kings went out to battle with 
 " Illyrians," they were at war first and foremost with 
 their own great feudatories of Lyncestis, Orestis, 
 Elimiotis, or Paeonia. Furthermore, when the suc- 
 cession to the Macedonian throne was interrupted — 
 as, for example, after the death of Archelaus — or 
 when " pretenders " arose, as in the reign of Amyntas 
 or the first year of Philip himself, then a subject 
 hill-people or a group of tribes was asserting itself 
 successfully against the hereditary foe. 
 
 The Macedonian therefore came to learn that he 
 must cultivate the Hellene, and identify himself and 
 his interest with the south. From Alexander I., who 
 rode to the Athenian pickets the night before Plataea 
 and proclaimed himself to the generals their friend 
 and a Greek, down to Amyntas, father of Philip, who 
 joined forces with Lacedaemon in 382, the kings 
 of Macedon bid for Greek support by being more 
 
 1 Justin, vii. 2. 2 Page 206. 
 
 8 E. g. Eurydice, Philip's mother, a Lyncestian princess, is called 
 an Illy ri an. 
 
10 PHILIP 
 
 Hellenic than the Hellenes. Alexander I. contended 
 in the stadium at Olympia, and earned, like Amasis 
 of Egypt, the epithet " Philhellene." Archelaus 
 patronized Athenian poets and Athenian drama, 1 and 
 commissioned Euripides to dramatize the deeds of his 
 Argive ancestor. 2 Even those kings who, like Perdiccas 
 and Amyntas, were prevented by internal difficulties 
 from cultivating the peaceful arts of Hellenism, 3 
 maintained alliances and friendship as consistently 
 as their necessities or their interest would allow. 
 I " Macedonia," therefore, throughout historical times 
 until the accession of Philip the Second, presents 
 the spectacle of a nation that was no nation but 
 a group of discordant units, without community of 
 race, religion, speech, or sentiment, resultant from 
 half-accomplished conquest^jand weak as the several 
 sticks of the faggot in the fable. The history of 
 its stronger kings is a history of attempts to complete 
 the original conquest, and with Greek help to bind 
 the faggot together ; the history of its weaker kings 
 is a history of a series of successful reactions by the 
 hill-men, aided by Illyrians or Thracians from beyond 
 the border. The work done by that Aeropus, who 
 as a child was placed in a cradle behind his army, 
 to force it to face the "Illyrians," 4 and as a man 
 broke the " Illyrian " power, was continued by his 
 successors, Amyntas and Alexander, with the aid 
 
 1 Agatharch. ap. Phot., s. v. 'Ap^tAuos. 
 
 2 Archelaus also instituted a Macedonian festival of Zeus 
 Olympius. Ait., i. 11. See Holm, Gr. Gescli. iii. 14, p. 230. 
 
 3 See Isocr., Phil. 107. 
 
 4 Justin, vii. 1. 
 
EARLY KINGS 11 
 
 of Persia, whose satraps they consented for the time 
 to be. When the Persian was gone, Alexander allied 
 himself openly to the Greek, and his son, Perdiccas, 
 a diplomat of the first force, played with masterly 
 skill a double game to gain Greek support without 
 risking Greek encroachment. For nearly a hundred 
 years the great feudatories were coerced ever more 
 and more boldly until Archelaus, succeeding in 413 
 B. a., hoped to complete the process and indissolubly 
 to bind the faggot together. He seems to have been 
 an enlightened strategist, for he instituted great works 
 of communication and centralization, cut direct roads 
 through the mountain passes to tie the tribes together 
 and to promote trade, laid out chains of forts, and 
 perhaps began to form a national army, 1 the best 
 unifier of all, as a greater king was to find half a cen- 
 tury later. But, overstrung, the bow snapped ; and 
 Archelaus' murder 2 in 399 was the beginning of forty 
 years of turmoil and trouble. The feudatories warred 
 against their Macedonian over-lord, and either openly 
 seized his throne, as Argaeus did that of Amyntas 
 II., or forced their " guardianship " on a young king, 
 as Ptolemy Alorites, after murdering Amyntas' eldest 
 son, intruded with the queen-mother's connivance on 
 the independence of the second brother. The relation 
 of the "Steward" Aeropus in 399 to Archelaus' 
 son, Orestes, whom he afterwards murdered and 
 
 1 See a remarkable passage of Thueydides (ii. 100). 
 
 2 The result of conspiracy, according to the contemporary Plato 
 (Alcib. p. 141 d.), and Aristotle (Pol. v. 8. 11-13) : the TraiSixd 
 who effected it was probably no more than the agent of others. 
 
12 PHILIP 
 
 succeeded, was doubtless of the same equivocal 
 character. 
 
 Thus Macedonia, when Philip was born, had sprung 
 back with a rebound to the internal discord and 
 external weakness of a century before. The " pre- 
 tender" Argaeus had vanished from the throne, but 
 Amyntas held his own merely by sufferance of 
 Thessalians and Spartans. An Acanthian envoy at 
 Sparta in 383 describes the Macedonian king as 
 forced to retire from his cities and " all but fallen 
 out of his kingdom." x He retained it, indeed, up to 
 his death twelve years later, but in what jeopardy we 
 may judge from events immediately consequent — 
 from the conspiracy of his wife against his person, 
 the tragic end of his eldest son and successor, the 
 usurpation and murder of Ptolemy Alorites, the 
 battles of the second son with the " Illyrians," and 
 the crop of " pretenders " who greeted the accession 
 of Philip — these the events of just ten years ! A 
 Macedonian prince in the early part of the fourth 
 century could hope to succeed to little more than 
 the chieftainship of a clan, imperilled by a neces- 
 sity for asserting over hostile aliens an hereditary 
 suzerainty, which, like the wolf's ears in the Greek 
 proverb, it was equally dangerous to hold or to 
 leave. 
 
 He was king, however, absolute as in heroic times 
 
 among his peculiar people, that small dominant clan 
 
 of Macedonian settlers who held themselves to be of 
 
 like origin with him. Thucydides, 2 a contemporary 
 
 1 Xen., Hell. v. 2, 13. 2 ii. 99. 
 
THE MACEDONIAN LAND 13 
 
 of Archelaus and Perdiccas, and personally acquainted 
 to some extent with the Macedonian land, makes it 
 clear that the original holding of the Macedonians 
 was just that semi-circular expanse of low land which 
 lies west and north of the Gulf of Salonica. Whoever 
 has sailed up that sea and ridden three days north to 
 Vodhena, and three days east to Cavalla, has seen 
 the whole cradle of Macedonian power. The three- 
 pronged peninsula of Chalcidice was not included, 
 for it was in Greek hands ; nor were the high valleys, 
 lying between the first conspicuous western range and 
 the loftier mountain chain behind, which now divides 
 Macedonia from Albania, since those were the hold- 
 ings of the Elimiote, Orestian, Lyncestian, and Pela- 
 gonian feudatories ; nor, again, was the plain of 
 Monastir on the north between Mount Scardus and the 
 hills which close upon the Vardar at Demir Kapou 
 included, for this was Paeonian territory. All these 
 lands, indeed, except Chalcidice, as Thucydides bears 
 witness, were to be called later by the common name 
 Macedonia, and Lyncestians and Elimiotes and other 
 upland peoples were included eventually among 
 Macedonians, but as a result of conquest ; the 
 Athenian historian is clear that the early Temenid 
 kings ruled, in the first instance, only over the 
 "lower" or "maritime" Macedonia, from which 
 they had thrust the Pierians, Eordaeans, Bottiaeans, 
 and Edonian Thracians. 
 
 We know very little about the condition of this 
 low tract in early days. The words put by Arrian 
 into the mouth of Alexander, taunting his mutinous 
 
14 PHILIP 
 
 army at Opis with base ingratitude to the son 
 of the man who had given them cloaks in place of 
 coverings of skins, brought them down from the hills 
 to inhabit cities in the plains, and be men of wealth 
 and ease instead of savages 1 — those often-quoted 
 sentences, if based on Ptolemy's or Aristobulus' 
 recollection of the conqueror's own words, were 
 spoken, be it remembered, not to the little Clan 
 of pre-Philippian days, but to the new military 
 Nation of Philip's making, in which Lyncestians, 
 Orestians and the like were one with the dwellers 
 in the Emathian and Pierian plains. These last 
 were inhabitants of rich, low-lying levels, fat corn- 
 land and deep grass at the present day, close to 
 centres of Greek civilization. To suppose that the 
 farmers themselves were civilized up to a Greek 
 standard, because Archelaus and other kings were 
 <f>i\6fiov(TOL, is probably as absurd as to assume 
 that the Scottish Highlands were civilized in the 
 seventeenth century because certain chieftains " had 
 the English" and had been in London; but we 
 have the evidence of an extensive coinage issued 
 from Pella, 2 and ranging over a long period, to 
 prove that the early Macedonians carried on much 
 trade with Greeks. They were a feudal race of 
 sturdy farmers, 3 not unlike the Boeotians, well-to-do 
 in peace, and affording admirable material for heavy 
 
 1 vii. 9. 
 
 2 The ancient xpTjfAaTLo-TrjpLov of Macedonia (Strabo, p. 330), 
 even when Aegae was still the capital. 
 
 8 " Ein kraftiges Bauernvolk, eifrige Krieger und Jager." 
 Holm, Gr. Gesch. iii. p. 232. 
 
MACEDONIAN KINGSHIP 15 
 
 cavalry or infantry in war. If ever the Tombs of 
 the Kings be found at Vodhena (Aegae or Edessa), 
 we may learn something of this primitive Macedonian 
 life. At present so little has the land been explored, 
 that we know far less of its civilization than of that 
 of far remoter parts of the classic east : no remains 
 of early native art, either decorative or industrial, 
 have been found; there is not an early tomb 
 nor an archaic inscription to teach us anything 
 at all. 
 
 Surrounding perils apart, the valleys of Haliacmon 
 and Axius were goodly heritage enough for a king as 
 absolute as the Macedonian, A "constitution" the 
 Macedonians had no more than Highland clansmen. 
 Their land seems to have been all property of the 
 king, 1 to be granted by him in fief ; Alexander dis- 
 tributed estates broadcast before he crossed the 
 Hellespont, 2 and remitted by a word all imposts on 
 the land as well as all obligations of personal service 
 to himself 3 in favour of the families of those he 
 delighted to honour. The king levies whom he will 
 for military service, 4 and can depute to another in his 
 absence functions as absolute as his own. 5 Regents 
 
 1 See an inscription of Potidaea cited in the French edition of 
 Droysen, Hellenismus, i. p. 76. 
 
 2 Pint., Alex. 15. 
 
 8 Air., i. 16 ; vii. 10 : oi Kara, ras KT^cms u<r<$>opai, and a! 
 Xu-ovpyiai tu> crai/ua™. The families of the halpoi who fell at 
 Granicus were so honoured. 
 
 4 Arr.,i. 34 ; vii. 12. 
 
 5 So Antipater, authorized by Alexander's seal, collects fleets, 
 (Arr., ii. 2), makes war, and holds a royal court (Ait., vii. 12), 
 supreme even over the queen-mother. 
 
16 PHILIP 
 
 and governors lie appoints and removes at will. He 
 can do no wrong ; 2 he marries and puts away wives, 
 apparently as it pleases him, 3 and is the sole fountain 
 of honour. 4 Seldom can the principle of absolute 
 submission to a monarch have been implanted deeper 
 than in the Macedonians. When Eumenes, the only 
 Greek of pure blood among Alexander's Successors, 
 wished to exalt his authority over that of the Regent 
 and the Generals, he erected an empty tent, placed 
 within it the emblems of Macedonian royalty, and 
 commanded unquestioned obedience, as the repre- 
 sentative of the presence within. 5 In the words of 
 Demosthenes, comparing the centralized and silent 
 rule of Philip with the diffused and loquacious 
 sovereignty of Demos, the Macedonian king was, " in 
 his single person, lord of all things, both open and 
 secret, at once General and Lord Absolute and 
 Treasurer." 6 
 
 He was, in short, a clan-chieftain. The greatest of 
 his subjects had no rights against him, but only privi- 
 leges, 7 as children may have by favour of a father. 
 They were proverbially free of speech 8 in his pre- 
 sence, and the absence of servility, which emboldened 
 
 1 See esp. Ait., vi. 27 and vii. 11. 
 
 2 Arr, iv. 9. 7. 3 Plut., Alex. 9. 
 
 4 Compare the institution of the Pages, Arr., iv. 13 ; Ael. V. H. 
 xiv. 49. 
 
 5 Plut., Etim. 13. So Eumenes also distributed royal gifts (e. 8). 
 
 6 Be Cor. 235. 
 
 7 Polybius' statement (v. 27. 6.) that the Macedonian king ruled 
 fiacn\iKui<5 oi rvpawiKu><s, implies no more than this. 
 
 8 Polyb., v. 27. 6. 
 
THE VASSALS 17 
 
 them to refuse his gifts 1 or give advice unasked, 
 earned for them in antiquity the repute of ekevOepoi 
 au8pe<;. But it was no more than a " shadow of 
 liberty ; " 2 they must follow whenever and wherever 
 the king might lead, and leave farm or market to 
 fight his battles. 3 One constitutional right, and one 
 only, can we trace in Macedonian history. If we are 
 to believe that Curtius uses good authorities, the 
 Macedonians, strictly so called, were summoned by 
 the king to general assembly if a charge were in ques- 
 tion involving the life of one of their number : " De 
 capitalibus rebus vetusto Macedonian modo inquirebat 
 exercitits — in pace erat vulgi — et nihil potestas regum 
 valebat, nisi prius vahdsset aitctoritas." * This state- 
 ment is confirmed in the main by Arrian, who 
 narrates that Alexander accused Philotas " before the 
 Macedonians," while another suspect of conspiracy, 
 Amyntas, made his defence iv rrj iKKXrjcrCa, and 
 obtained leave from the latter body to bring his brother 
 Polemon before the king to be exonerated from the 
 charge. 5 If condemnation ensued on such an accusa- 
 tion, the Assembly itself appears to have executed its 
 
 1 So Parmenio and others refused Alexander's gift of lands, 
 offered before he crossed the Hellespont. Pint., Alex. 15. 
 Unasked advice is offered commonly enough by Alexander's 
 marshals. 
 
 2 Lucian, Dial. Mort. 14. 
 
 8 Cf. Demosthenes' descriptions of Macedonia tired of, but 
 helpless to protest against, Philip's many wars {Olyntli. ii. 15 ; Ad 
 Epist. Phil. 9, 10) — tirades hardly, however, to be taken au 
 pied de la lettre. 
 
 4 Curt., vi. 8. 32. 6 iii. 26. 27. 
 
J 
 
 18 PHILIP 
 
 own sentence — or rather that of the king, who was 
 the actual judge — by overwhelming the culprit with 
 javelins or stones. 1 These cases, however, do not 
 warrant us in supposing that a Popular Assembly 
 met for any but very special purposes in Mace- 
 donia ; as, for instance, if one of the great Com- 
 panions was accused of high treason in time of war. 
 We have no warrant for supposing (and it is highly 
 improbable) that in the case of meaner men such a 
 cumbrous court had to be constituted, nor for a less 
 crime than treason against the king's majesty. In 
 ordinary cases the king was judge alone. 2 
 
 In all monarchical states we expect gradations of 
 rank, an aristocracy of birth or of honours conferred 
 by the king, and a lower class which tills the land. 
 In Macedonia there was no serf-population. The 
 original conquest had not been complete enough to 
 produce Helots or even Perioeci ; and the Emathian 
 and Pierian farmers tilled their fields with the aid 
 only of such slaves as they could buy or make prize 
 of war. 3 
 
 It appears that the whole body of Macedonians 
 (in the restricted sense of the original settlers in 
 Emathia and Pieria) distinguished themselves from 
 the semi-subjugated " Macedonians " of the hills as 
 the king's kraipoi, or Companions ; but that within this 
 
 1 Arr., iii. 26. 27. ; cf. also the case of Hermolaus the Page 
 (iv. 14). 
 
 2 Plut., Alex. 42. 
 
 8 E. g. the Greeks captured at Granicus were sent to till the 
 soil in Macedonia (Arr., ii. 16). 
 
THE COMPANIONS 19 
 
 large class, considering itself privileged, there were 
 narrower circles of privilege, based on property — 
 that is to say, in the first instance, on the favour 
 of the king, who granted lands. In ancient states 
 the outward and visible sign of a higher class con- 
 sisted often in the providing of a war-horse, and in 
 service therewith in the cavalry. So in Macedonia 
 we find a smaller body of ircupoL, especially so-called, 
 who are the flower of the cavalry, and a larger body 
 of TreleratpoL, 1 who are the flower of the infantry; 
 and it is probable that under these two names was 
 included (either on the active list or in the reserve) 
 every able-bodied man among the descendants of the 
 original settlers who followed the Temenid kings to 
 Pieria. The superior class of horsemen in Philip's 
 time was almost certainly identical with those eight 
 hundred landed proprietors who, as the contemporary 
 Theopompus 2 tells us, enjoyed estates as large as 
 those of ten thousand Greeks ; but the same autho- 
 rity and Anaximenes 3 state that their original 
 numbers had been swelled somewhat before this 
 period, not only by Philip's admission of foreigners 
 to their ranks, 4 but by the policy of his eldest brother, 
 Alexander II., who added also to the TrdJ.Ta.ipoi. 
 
 1 I have discussed this disputed term in an article on the 
 "Army of Alexander," in Journal of Philology, vol. xvii. No. 33, 
 pp. 10 ff. ; but must modify now many of my early views. See 
 note infra, p. 56. 
 
 2 Fr. 249. 
 
 3 Fr. 7. 
 
 4 Philip freely made such men as Callias of Chalcis (Aesch., 
 Ctes. 89) Hetaeri in the later years of his life; and probably 
 Theopompus is here reviewing his whole policy. 
 
20 PHILIP 
 
 The latter king, however, during a reign of hardly 
 twelve months, could not have effected much change, 
 and the total of Philip's earliest body of cavalry — 
 six hundred 1 — is probably as near as may be to that 
 of the Companions. Within even this circle was one 
 still more select, that of the court, the intimates — Com- 
 panions in the strictest sense — of the king himself, in 
 war-time his staff — ol d/xcj) clvtov iralpoL, as Arrian 
 often calls them, — whom, to the number of something 
 less than a hundred, Alexander married at Susa to the 
 noblest of the Persian ladies. 2 They formed a natural 
 council for the king to consult on great matters, 3 
 and in order to qualify for this high honour, the 
 noblest youths were glad to become Pages of the 
 Body, according to Philip's institution, and perform 
 menial offices about the king's person. 4 The highest 
 distinction of all was still one of immediate personal 
 service, the rank of Guard of the Person, only 
 attained, it appears, after some signal service rendered 
 directly to the king. Of eight Guards of Alexander's 
 Person, two are known to have saved his life, one 
 to have been his ally against his father, and one his 
 second self. 5 
 
 1 Diod. xvi. 4. 
 
 2 Arr. vii. 4. I dare not suggest a number for the lower 
 class, the ire^raipoi. The scanty data we have apply only to 
 post-Philippian days, and, as I hope to show, to a wholly changed 
 national system. Herein lies the cardinal difficulty of determining 
 anything whatever with regard to early Macedonia. 
 
 8 E. g. the policy of marching to Issus (Arr. ii. 6). 
 * Arr. iv. 13; Curt. viii. 6. 
 
 5 See the article quoted above (p. 19). The qualification must 
 have been as stated, for the list does not include Alexander's 
 
THE CLAN 21 
 
 / Thus we find privilege within privilege, ascending 
 to the fountain of all honour, the king. The lowest 
 Macedonian felt himself exalted above the highest 
 Orestian, as a king's Companion : the highest in 
 rank was the nearest to the king's person. If such 
 a system tended to breed insolence towards the un- 
 privileged, 1 it implied also an inherent unity which 
 in master-hands was capable of much. The clan 
 spirit makes for strength almost as much as the 
 political self-subordination of the Greek city-state, 
 but is not, like the latter, incapable of expansion. 
 For the present, the Macedonian community had the 
 same fault as the city-state — it was too small ; and 
 no way had been found to increase it, and at the 
 same time preserve its unity. It had further a fault, 
 natural to landed aristocracies, that, while possessing 
 a narrow territory, it did not increase its wealth by 
 sea-going trade. Macedonia was a poor land, 2 and 
 its clansmen a numerically insignificant unity in the 
 midst of hordes in political disunion. How could 
 
 greatest marshals, e. g. Antipater, Parmenio, or Craterus, while it 
 does include men too old to have been his " aequales." The eight 
 were : Lysimachus and Peueestas, Ptolemy Lagus, Hephaestion, 
 Perdiccas, Leonnatus, Aristinous, and Peithon. 
 
 1 As proved to be the case when first Macedonians were set 
 over subjugated races. See Arr. vi. 27. 
 
 2 'H oiSe /36ctkovo-cl vfJia<; koAw, says Alexander to the mutineers 
 (Arr. vii. 9). The mines of Pangaeus were in Thracian or Amphi- 
 politan hands ; the rich corn-lands, forests, and ports of Chalcidice 
 under the Olynthian power. (See the speech of the Acanthian at 
 Sparta in the year 383, Xen., HM. v. 2. 16, and an inscription 
 relating to a treaty between Philip's father and the Olynthian s 
 about B.C. 389, H. Sauppe, Inscr. Mac. Quattuor, in JahresbericM 
 etc., Weimar, 1847.) 
 
22 PHILIP 
 
 a source of wealth and a way of expansion be found ? 
 It looked little likely in the year 382. 
 
 Of Philip's father, Amyntas, we know little but his 
 misfortunes and his death. Philip's mother, Eurydice, 
 belonged to the Bacchiad house of Lyncestis 1 — that 
 is, to the enemy — and in after years she was to betray 
 her husband. 2 Marriage may have been the price 
 paid by Amyntas for the recovery of his throne from 
 the pretender Argaeus, perhaps the reigning Lyn- 
 cestian of the time. 3 If ever the veil be lifted from 
 the events of early Macedonian history, we shall 
 find, perhaps, that the vicissitudes of the royal house 
 were connected directly with changes in the balance 
 of power in Greece. The Athenian Aeschines 4 once 
 claimed, in Philip's presence, that it was Athens 
 that had supported his predecessors. The orator 
 reminded the king of the good will shown and good 
 deeds done by the Athenian city towards his father, 
 who in his turn had adopted the Athenian Iphicrates 
 as his son. From an Attic inscription 5 we know 
 that Macedonian envoys were at Athens about 382, 
 and a scholiast 6 alleges that Amyntas owed his re- 
 covered throne in some sense to Athens. In the 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 326. a Justin, vii. 4. 
 
 2 Philip, born in 382, had two brothers, and perhaps a sister, 
 older than himself. The marriage of his parents must be put 
 back, therefore, to 386, or earlier. Amyntas regained his throne 
 in 360, according to Clinton's chronology (Fasti Hell, ii., App. 
 ch. 4). 
 
 4 F. L. 26 ff. 8 O.I.A. ii. 155, and Add. 
 
 6 On Aesch. F. L. 26. 
 
 
PHILIP'S EARLY YEARS 23 
 
 turmoil which followed the murder of Philip's eldest 
 brother, it was Iphicrates, says the orator, who 
 secured the throne for the second son ; and the latter, 
 when he had slain his " Thebizing " guardian, allied 
 himself with Timotheus, newly come against Aruphi- 
 polis. Certainly there are notable coincidences. The 
 fall of Athenian power on the Thracian coasts 
 succeeds a long peace in Macedonia, and is followed 
 by the murder of Archelaus and ten years of turmoil. 
 Amyntas establishes his throne ever more firmly as 
 the second Athenian league is formed. Leuctra is 
 followed by the murder of Alexander II., by Pau- 
 sanias' rebellion, and by the domination of the 
 " Thebizing " Ptolemy Alorites. 
 
 In the face of the statements of Aeschines it is 
 impossible to doubt that it was a maxim of Athenian 
 policy to support the Macedonian House, 1 and it 
 ceases to be wonderful that, in years to come, Philip 
 himself, when Athens had most provoked his ven- 
 geance and was most at his mercy, so signally stayed 
 his hand. 
 
 The boy was brought up at Pella 2 — a mean place 
 then, compared with its after-splendour, but still the 
 
 1 See Schafer, Demosthenes, ii. p. 6, for evidence of connection 
 between Athens and Macedon. 
 
 2 Strabo, p. 330. He may have been born there; for although, 
 in 383, Pella was in Olynthian hands (Xen. Hell. v. 2, 13), the 
 appearance of Eudamidas with his Spartan expeditionary force in 
 the winter of that year (which was followed by the revolt of 
 Potidaea from Olynthus), most probably caused the Olynthians to 
 retire within their own territory, where Teleutias seemed to have 
 found them on his arrival in the spring of 382. 
 
24 PHILIP 
 
 greatest of Macedonian cities. 1 It had a beach on 
 the Ludian lake, and an outlet to the sea — not, in those 
 days, the sluggish creek, lost in pestiferous marsh, which 
 the traveller sees now — and it was the centre of such 
 trade and civilization as existed in the Emathian plain. 
 There the young Philip learned the rudiments of 
 Greek letters, and grew to be, even among Hellenes, 
 cultured and polite. It was a time of peace and 
 comparative security under the shelter of Greek 
 supremacy. Sparta had broken the Olynthian power 
 when Philip was three years old, and given back to 
 his father the lands and cities about the Thermaic 
 gulf. Jason of Pherae also became Amyntas' ally 
 and friend. 2 Philip had reached the age of six when 
 the battle of Naxos was won by Athens, and Spartan 
 influence replaced by hers ; but the royal house of 
 Macedon became probably only the more secure by 
 the change, for strong Athenian fleets, maintaining 
 friendly relations with Amyntas, 3 were constantly 
 about the coasts till 371. In that year an event, 
 of far graver import than the sea-fight at Naxos, 
 shook Greece from end to end — the battle of Leuctra. 
 
 1 Cf. Strabo, I.e., with Xen. I.e., and Dem. de Cor. 68. The 
 old capital and royal burial-place was Aegae, or Edessa, a short day's 
 journey higher up the plain ; but Pella had long been, it appears, 
 the mint and home of the court. I visited its site in 1887, but 
 found that the city had vanished as though it had never been. 
 The plateau above the marsh, on which it stood, is now plough 
 land, where a few fragments of marble and mouldings and many 
 coins have been turned up from time to time. See for descrip- 
 tion, H. F. Tozer, Highlands of Turkey, vol. i. p. 153, and an 
 article of mine in Macmillau's Magazine, 1889, Aug., p. 287. 
 
 2 Diod. xv. 60. 8 Aesch. F. L. 26. 
 
ALEXANDER THE SECOND 25 
 
 Its wave of disturbance did not travel at once 
 northwards. Amyntas reigned for two years more, 
 beset with domestic trouble, but died after all in his 
 bed, leaving his throne to Alexander, his firstborn, 
 when Philip, his youngest, was barely thirteen years 
 old. 
 
 The passing of a sceptre from old hands to young 
 in a half-barbarous land seldom is effected in peace ; 
 and in Macedonia in 369 the times were ripe for 
 trouble. The repressive influence of the old imperial 
 cities of Hellas, whose interest it had been to main- 
 tain peace in the inner country, operated no longer, 
 for they were overshadowed now by a new power — 
 that of Thebes — which had no foreign empire, and 
 a policy directly contrary to theirs. Accordingly, the 
 old feud between suzerain and feudatory broke out 
 again, and the more bitterly for long repression. 
 We know almost nothing of this stormy year, 369. 
 The young king appears to have courted southern 
 help by rendering service to the great Larissan house 
 of the Aleuadae, 1 and perhaps he enrolled some of 
 their Thessalians among his "Companions;" 2 but 
 to no good purpose. The kingdom was torn between 
 rival forces. On the one side was a "pretender," 
 Pausanias, backed by Greek swords, drawing half 
 
 1 Diod. xv. 61, 67. 
 
 2 Anaximenes (fr. 7) says that he increased his cralpoi and 
 Tr^iraLpoL. As these terms, I believe, included already all true 
 Macedonians, Alexander must have enrolled members of other 
 races, and was little likely to include his feudatories. 
 
\ 
 
 26 PHILIP 
 
 Macedonia after him ; x on the other, stood the Lyn- 
 cestian queen-mother, already enamoured during her 
 husband's lifetime of her son-in-law, Ptolemy of Alorus, 
 and now plotting against her son. Heedless of the 
 advance of Pausanias, she and her paramour put 
 their plot into execution. A troop of dancers was 
 introduced to the king's presence, and in the midst 
 of the performance of a war-dance, 2 they fell upon 
 and slew him. The immediate result, however, was 
 disastrous to the plotters. If we are to interpret 
 closely Aeschines' speech to Philip, Pausanias at once 
 advanced with giant strides, supported now by the 
 infuriate adherents of the murdered king. 3 Anthemus, 
 Therma, Strepsa, and other strong places opened 
 their gates to him. But once more Athens, anxious 
 for her remaining dependencies, interfered on behalf 
 of the royal house. Invited by Eurydice, the famous 
 Iphicrates, who was on the coast, went up to the 
 court. The murderess of Amyntas' firstborn besought 
 the Athenian, by the memory of Amyntas, to save 
 Amyntas' children, and she bade the elder boy, 
 Perdiccas, take the old man's hands, and the younger, 
 Philip, embrace his knees. Thus Aeschines describes 
 the scene, veiling the fact that the chief actress was 
 
 1 Aesch. F. L. 27 ; cf. Justin, vii. 4. 
 
 2 Marsyas, fr. ap. Jthen., xiv. p. 629 D. The name of one 
 assassin, Apollophanes of Pydna, is preserved by Dem., F. L. 195. 
 
 3 This must have been the meaning of ol Bokovvtcs eTvai <f>(\oi, 
 who "betrayed" Eurydice after the murder (Acsch. F. L. 26). 
 There is no means of telling whom or what this "pretender" 
 Pausanias represented. Aeschines describes him as fyvyas fi.lv wv, 
 to Kaipip 8' lo-xyw. About the time of Perdiccas' death, in 360 or 
 359, he reappeared with Thracian backing. 
 
PERDICCAS 27 
 
 an adulterous mother who had slain her child. 
 The veteran general could hardly have felt much 
 emotion, but he knew that his best policy lay in 
 supporting the legitimate succession. He took up 
 /the quarrel, chased Pausanias beyond the border, and 
 set Perdiccas on the throne. 
 
 In the councils of the minor the Lyncestian mother 
 and her paramour continued to rule, and the latter, 
 whom Aeschines calls Eegent, others call King. 1 The 
 favour of Athens was worth much, but of more worth 
 in those days was the favour of Thebes. Pelopidas 
 chanced to march with a Theban force into Thessaly 
 early in 367 ; 2 Ptolemy opened negotiations, and 
 invited the famous captain to Pella. Terms were 
 agreed to, but a substantial guarantee of good faith 
 was demanded of the slippery Regent. The young 
 king's brother, Philip, was already a pledge in the 
 hands of Eury dice's kinsmen, as security for certain 
 payments, probably blackmail levied on the plainsmen, 
 whose obedience to the Eegent and the Lyncestian 
 adulteress was far from assured. Pelopidas agreed 
 to support the Lyncestians, and their illustrious 
 
 1 Diodorus, xv. 71, 77, and Dexippus ap. Syncell., p. 263 B. 
 
 2 It must have been in very early spring, for Pelopidas went up 
 to Susa also in 367. If he took the usual overland route through 
 Asia Minor, he would start not later than April, for the passes are 
 open then. He would pass the summer in Susa and return in the 
 cool of autumn. I cannot follow Clinton in assigning more than one 
 year to Alexander II. Surely Aeschines implies that the interval 
 between the deaths of father and son was of the briefest. Allow a 
 few months for the establishment of Perdiccas and Ptolemy, and for 
 the latter's change of policy, and we reach 367 for the year of Philip's 
 removal to Thebes. 
 
28 PHILIP 
 
 hostage was transferred to his custody together with 
 twenty-nine other noble youths; and thus at the 
 age of fifteen Philip came to spend three most 
 momentous years of his boyhood at the house of 
 Pammenes in Thebes. 1 
 
 Thebes, in 368, was the most powerful state in 
 south-eastern Europe. Her title to pre-eminence 
 rested singly on her citizen soldiery, and she instilled 
 into the young prince, during his sojourn within her 
 walls, the lesson that nothing need be impossible to 
 a worthy and confident leader of big battalions. 
 
 1 As is well known, our authorities for the circumstances of 
 Philip's transference to Thebes cannot be reconciled altogether. 
 Diodorus (xvi. 2) says it was Amyntas who placed him with the 
 "Illyrians;" Justin (vii. 5) that it was Alexander II. Diodorus 
 says that the Illyrians passed him on to Thebes; Justin, that 
 Alexander did so " interjecto . . . tempore ;" Aesehines (F. L. 26, 
 28) that he was still with his mother when Alexander had just 
 died ; Plutarch {Pel. 26) that Ptolemy gave him to Pelopidas. 
 The last two are the best authorities, and the coincidence they show 
 with Pelopidas' well-known Thessalian expedition is strong. Philip 
 stayed three years in Thebes, and returned therefore in 364, just 
 / when his brother had slain Ptolemy and reasserted himself in Mace- 
 donia — also a strong coincidence. A further question arises, why 
 " Illyrians " should have sent their hostage to Thebes ? I believe 
 (with Abel, though I differ from him in one or two details) that 
 much of the confusion is due to the common use of the name 
 "Illyrians" for Lyncestians. The "Illyrians" here are Eurydice's 
 kinsmen, holding Philip as hostage for the good faith of Perdiccas and 
 Ptolemy (a Pierian of Alorus), whom they were allowing to reign on 
 sufferance. Their interest and that of Thebes were identical : both 
 were anti-Athenian, and wished to keep Macedonia out of Iphicrates' 
 hands; and it is the Lyncestians who therefore hand over Philip, 
 with Ptolemy's consent. Diodorus and Justin, finding that Philip 
 was given to "Illyrians," and not aware that Lyncestians are meant, 
 have to go back to the reigns of Alexander or Amyntas to find an 
 " Ulyrian " invasion. 
 
THE THEBANS 29 
 
 The Theban of the fourth century (with, certain 
 brilliant exceptions) was of an animal type, common 
 in aristocratic states. Generations of his forefathers 
 had devoted every energy of mind and body to the 
 pleasures of the flesh. The Boeotian plains gave the 
 Theban citizens meat and corn, wine, women, and 
 horses, in abundance ; the nearest hills afforded them 
 the varied excitement of the chase. They were well- 
 grown, evppwcTTOt rots acofxacnv, * fond of extending 
 exuberant muscles in the gymnasium, 2 and they fought 
 for the love of fighting. A full-blooded, boisterous 
 race, proud of their past, 3 they were determined to 
 enjoy the present. Born to domineer, and bend to 
 their purposes all who could subserve their pleasures, 
 they became a menace to their neighbours whenever 
 they needed space for their healthy stock, but 
 bounded ambition by the satisfaction of appetite. 
 For the barren glory of leading Hellas they cared 
 not a jot. They despised commerce as men who 
 know that their internal resources are amply suffi- 
 cient to supply internal wants. Handicraft they 
 held beneath the dignity of gentlemen, and denied 
 a magistracy to a citizen if he had followed a 
 trade within ten years. 4 Their capital lay near 
 good harbours on three seas, but only once sent 
 out a fleet, and a contemporary historian, 5 who saw 
 Thebes at her highest and her lowest, remarks that 
 she might have been leader of Greece, had she not 
 
 1 Diod. xv. 50; Plut. Pel. 3. 2 Diod. I.e. ; Nep. Epam. 2. 
 
 8 Diod. I.e. 4 Arist. Pol. iii. 3. 4. 
 
 5 Ephorus, ap. Strab., p. 400 (cf. Isocr. Phil. 93). 
 
30 PHILIP 
 
 neglected, in the cultivation of warlike valour, the 
 gentle arts of literature and converse with men. 
 Even rude Sparta has its School of Sculpture ; but 
 no type of art is known to us as Theban, 1 nor do we 
 hear of any conspicuous man of letters born actually 
 within her walls. Even at the very zenith of her 
 power she can base no claim to consideration by 
 universal history on those glories which most re- 
 deem the political insignificance of other states of 
 Hellas. 
 
 Certain qualities which the Thebans shared with 
 the Spartans they owed to similar circumstances. 
 They, too, were a conquering caste in an alien land. 
 What upper Laconia and Messenia were to Sparta, 
 the northern Boeotian plain and the Attic marches 
 were to Thebes. Like Sparta, Thebes coveted her 
 neighbours' lands, and only offered to be federal 
 leader when unable to be sovereign lord. The key 
 to Boeotian history and Theban character is to be 
 found in the relations of the Cadmeian city to her 
 neighbour cities. Among them she was an upstart ; 
 for tradition maintained, and recent research has 
 supported the contention, that Minyan Orchomenus 
 in the northern plain was the richer and greater in 
 heroic times. 2 Subsequent to that era is the age of 
 racial Sittings : the Cadmeians appeared in Thebes, 
 whence no one in aftertimes knew certainly, but 
 
 1 There is much Boeotian art of course ; but Theban sculptors 
 only appear after the civilizing efforts of Epaminondas, and none 
 attain to pre-eminence. 
 
 2 Cf. Iliad, ii. 494-510 ; and Strabo, p. 401. 
 
THEBES AND BOEOTIA 31 
 
 men said from the East ; the northern peoples were 
 pressed southward by some unknown cause; and 
 Boeotia, like the Peloponnese, was overrun. 1 When 
 the turmoil, in which the heroic civilization of the 
 Argolid perished, has died away, we find the Minyae 
 vanished from Orchomenus, 2 and the cities of Boeotia 
 in unwilling dependence on Cadmeian Thebes. They 
 would gladly have been beholden to any other lord. 3 
 The cities of the Asopus valley looked to Athens, 
 the cities of the west and north were ready to rally 
 round Orchomenus, should Thebes be weak and out- 
 side support strong. Unable to annex them, the 
 Cadmeians pose as their federal leaders, and inscribe 
 Bolcdtwv on the coinage of the " League." In the last 
 half of the fifth century, the coin-legend changes to 
 ®r)(3a£bjv, for the Boeotian cities in 447, the dis- 
 astrous year of the first battle of Coronea, lose the 
 support of Athens. Thebes at once begins to 
 bully and reduce the cities to mere appendages — 
 TrepioiKOL — of herself, 4 and they fight under her 
 banners, in name, but not in fact, a federal army, 5 the 
 bolder spirits constantly intriguing with foreign powers 
 to regain freedom. 6 Never did a " Confederacy " 
 
 1 Thuc. i. 12. 2 Ibid. iv. 76. 
 
 3 Ibid. iii. 61. 
 
 4 She seizes Plataea (Time. ii. 2) and transplants Oropus seven 
 stades from the sea (Diod. xiv. 17). 
 
 6 Thuc. iv. 91. The Theban Boeotarchs are in supreme com- 
 mand ; the rest wish not to fight. 
 
 6 Cf. for this feeling at a later time, Xen. Hell. iii. 5. The 
 Orchomenians admit Lysander to Boeotia, and do not rank with 
 the Thebans at Corinth. Hell. iv. 2, 17. 
 
32 PHILIP 
 
 less merit a name associated with Liberty and Fra- 
 ternity. When a foreign power at last prevailed 
 against Thebes, the cities one and all rushed into 
 its arms. They did, indeed, no better than change 
 masters ; but the spectacle of a Spartan garrison in 
 the Cadmeia reconciled Orchomenus and Thespiae 
 to Spartan men-at-arms within their own walls A/ 
 
 When Thebes has expelled her foreign lords and 
 her own traitors, and made sure that neither Sparta 
 nor Athens had power or leisure to hinder, she throws 
 off any mask she has ever thought it worth while to 
 assume. 1 She establishes SwacrreZai in all the cities ; 2 
 she makes no secret of her suppression of avTovo/jiLa, 3 
 or her determination to organize Boeotia KaO' ev ; 4 she 
 sweeps Plataea again from the face of the earth 
 for past offences, and punishes Thespiae hardly less 
 severely for having favoured Sparta ; once more she 
 lays hands on Oropus, and only spares Orchomenus 
 for the moment after Leuctra, to destroy it root 
 and branch three years later. 5 At the zenith of her 
 power, Thebes was so far from leading a free con- 
 federacy that she had appropriated absolutely the 
 lands of five of the leading cities of Boeotia — Orcho- 
 menus, Chaeronea, Thespiae, Oropus, and Plataea ; 
 and the coinage of her supremacy, which bears 
 neither Boiwtwv nor ©-qfiaioiv, but the name of a 
 Theban magistrate, fitly commemorates the notorious 
 character of her " League." 
 
 1 See Pans. ix. 13. 2. 2 Hell, v. 4. 46, 63 ; vi. 1. 1. 
 
 8 Ibid. vi. 3. 19. 4 Ibid. v. 2. 16 ; vi. 4. 3 ; Diod. xv. 51. 
 
 6 Cf. Diod. xv. 57, 79. 
 
THEBAN POLITICS 33 
 
 No wonder the Theban was the " oligarchic man ! " 
 He could be no better a democrat than can the 
 Englishman or any other member of a dominant 
 race in modern times that stands in an imperial 
 relation to weaker peoples. When democracy was 
 planted in Thebes, it was but a sickly growth, and 
 soon died. 1 There were parties indeed in the city 
 during her supremacy ; but to call them aristocratic 
 and democratic is to use names without meaning. 
 Within the established aristocracy there were men of 
 liberal views like Epaminondas, and men of more 
 conservative and generally accepted views like Pelo- 
 pidas ; but the disgrace of Epaminondas in 363 2 
 implies not a revolution, but only the temporary 
 prevalence in a Tory state of ultra Tory politics. The 
 constitution of Thebes has as good a claim as that 
 of Sparta to be called changeless. From the days of 
 Philolaus 3 to those of Sulla, there is no warrant 
 for the existence of political division, except that 
 caused by the presence within the walls of a 
 " Boeotian " minority identified with the interests of 
 the subject cities. This it was, and not a party 
 of democratic idealists, that invited the Spartans in 
 382 to garrison the Cadmeia. 
 
 Like Sparta in so many of her characteristics and 
 circumstances, how different is the history and the 
 fame of Thebes ! Sparta, by force or persuasion, 
 welds the southern Peloponnese into a peaceful whole, 
 
 1 Arist. Pol. v. 2. 7. 
 
 2 Nep. Epam. 7 ; Pint. Pel. 28 ; Diod. xv. 71. 
 8 Arist. Pol. ii. 9. 7. 
 
 3 
 
34 PHILIP 
 
 and embarks on foreign conquest ; Thebes never 
 really assimilates a single subject city. Sparta is 
 hardly more comparable to Athens in art and litera- 
 ture, but her name is coupled with that of the 
 Ionian city as fellow-bearer of the message o^ Hellenic 
 civilization ; Thebes ranks with Thessaly or Epirus. 
 The Theban is the equivalent of the Spartan, with the 
 most Hellenic features in the nature of the latter left 
 out ; reserve and sense of proportion are exchanged 
 for overweening pride and unmeasured exultation, and 
 the " Leuctric insolence " 1 of the Theban became a 
 byword in Greece. Of devotion to the common weal, 
 and anthropomorphic idealism in worship, in which 
 consisted the best heritage of Hellas, Spartan history 
 can show many evidences, Theban history none. 
 The Cadmeian characteristics are those of a conquering 
 people of the East ; both in war and in peace they 
 foreshadow those of the Ottoman Turk. Tradition, 
 various in all else concerning the founders of Thebes, 
 agrees in this alone — that the Cadmeian was an 
 alien in Boeotia in a far more real sense than the 
 Dorian Spartan among the earlier races of the 
 Peloponnese. Whether he came from the East or 
 the North, whether he was Semite or no, we can at 
 least assert that most that is known of him recalls 
 the barbarian rather than the Hellene, Cadmus the 
 " Phoenician " rather than Amphion and Zethus, his 
 rivals in the honour of founding Thebes. The 
 familiar legends of Thebes are as gloomy as the 
 horrible nature myths of the East. Oedipus, who 
 1 Dem. de Cor. 18; Diod. xvi. 58. Ch. Justin, viii. 1. 
 
ORIENTALISM OF THEBES 35 
 
 fertilizes his own mother; the man-eating Sphinx; 
 Actaeon devoured by his hounds ; Agave and her 
 hideous orgy ; Dirce tied to the wild bull's horns — all 
 these forms of horror find parallels in Thrace Phrygia 
 or Phoenicia rather than in Hellas. Even in 371 the 
 Theban commanders at Leuctra could debate the 
 propriety of offering human sacrifice to the unpro- 
 pitious gods ; 1 and, whatever excuses be made for 
 the consistent "Medism" of Thebes by modern 
 apologists, the fact that the Greeks themselves made 
 none, but scored her crime against her when those of 
 Argos and Thessaly were forgiven, suspected her of 
 treachery against Hellas even in 354, 2 and formally 
 condemned her for old sins in 335, suggests that 
 the contemporary world believed her to incline to the 
 barbarian of her own preference and her good will. 
 The Theban is oriental in his sluggish fatalism, 
 oriental in his addiction to and open avowal of 
 sexless love, 3 oriental in his orgiastic worships 
 and in his orgiastic feasts. The supper of the Pole- 
 marchs on the night of the Liberation in 378 might 
 have been held in a banquet hall of Babylon ! 
 
 Unintelligent fatalists of powerful build, whose 
 ambition is limited to their bodily wants, make 
 unequalled soldiery. The athletic gentleman of 
 Thebes and the stolid farmer of the Teneric plain 
 supplied as fine material as there was in the world 
 for the solid phalanx of the days of " political " 
 armies. Theban military strength was notorious in 
 
 1 Plut. Pel. 21. 2 Dem. de Si/mm. 33. 
 
 3 Cf. on the Sacred Band, Plutarch, Pel. 18 ff. 
 
36 PHILIP 
 
 Greece before the Theban "supremacy." Slow to 
 stir, the Cadmeian city was a dangerous foe when 
 roused, and her weight, thrown into the scale at 
 critical moments, had changed more than once the 
 course of history. She, not Sparta, checked the flow- 
 ing tide of Athenian conquest at Coronea in 447, and 
 she, more than Sparta, in 424 restored equilibrium 
 during the Ten Years' War. Confessedly the third 
 power in Greece, she showed little fear of the first 
 or second, stood with neither one nor the other 
 at the Peace of 421, and boldly urged her views on 
 victorious Sparta in 404. Feeling herself wronged 
 in the matter of the spoil of Athens, she dared to 
 affront the conqueror, 1 and suffered only a Pyrrhic 
 defeat at Coronea at the hands of the best general 
 and the best army that ever fought for Sparta. 
 
 But fatalistic soldiers, to be effective in attack, 
 must be animated by a brilliant leader ; otherwise, 
 like the best Turkish troops of the present day, 
 they fight their best only at bay, and relapse into 
 inaction when stress is past. 2 In the hands of a 
 great commander, however, soldiery such as tbe 
 Theban makes a finer fighting material than the 
 quick-witted Athenian, who understood his peril, or 
 the mechanical Spartan, who fought from sheer 
 habit. 
 
 Therefore the simultaneous appearance of two great 
 men at Thebes in the fourth century was fraught 
 
 1 Hell. iii. 4. 4. 
 
 2 Cf. the attitude of the Thehans after killing Lysander at 
 Haliartus in 395. Hell. iii. 5. 21, sq. 
 
THEBAN SUPREMACY 37 
 
 with, possibilities exceptional even in an age of 
 small city-states, where a constructive individual 
 was always a most potent force. The avalanches of 
 eastern conquest in all ages have been set rolling by 
 the great man, and Thebes was an eastern state. 
 The lesson was not lost on Philip : the man who had 
 witnessed at close quarters the careers of Eparni- 
 nondas and Pelopidas, estimated later the potential 
 danger from Thebes at a very high value. While 
 he ignored Sparta, and courteously left Athens alone, 
 the founder of Macedonian supremacy paid Thebes the 
 rude compliment of garrisoning the Cadmeia with 
 Macedonian men-at-arms ; Alexander razed all but 
 her temples to the ground. 
 
 Great men are those that use their opportunities, 
 and the fame of Epaminondas is not less well deserved 
 because external conditions were very favourable to 
 the expansion of Thebes in the fourth century. The 
 great city-states — Sparta and Athens — were suffering 
 already from that premature exhaustion which is the 
 penalty of too intense a political life. The sloth of the 
 former was thrown in her teeth by her allies in 376 ; x 
 the slackness of the latter is the monotonous theme of 
 ,her orators. Athens was feeling the obliteration of her 
 free working class, which Periclean state-socialism, 
 based on slave labour, had brought about; Sparta 
 was combating the steady decrease of her nobility. 2 
 
 1 Hell. v. 4. 60. 
 
 2 The oXiyavOpumia of Sparta in tbe fourth and third centuries 
 may be seen in the diminution of the Spartiate army by one half 
 after Leuetra — 12 Xd^oi instead of 24, as of old. Cf. Hell. vii. 
 4. 20 with 5. 10. Aristotle, Pol. ii. 6. 
 
38 PHILIP 
 
 Nor, again, is credit less due to Epaminondas because 
 he was aided in the task of rousing the Thebans by 
 the action of Agesilaus. 1 A taunt levelled at the 
 latter by a political rival, 2 that he was teaching 
 the Thebans the art of war, was justified enough in 
 fact; the boldness of the Thebans, who, four years 
 before Leuctra, gratuitously and alone attacked a 
 superior force of Spartiatae at Tegyrae, 3 after three 
 years of Spartan invasion, smacks of contempt, bred 
 already by familiarity. 
 
 Without Epaminondas, the Thebans of his genera- 
 tion would have been as their ancestors and posterity 
 — men abiding in their tents, eating, drinking, and 
 lusting. 4 With Epaminondas their whole character 
 was for a time changed ; and Philip, living in close 
 intercourse with that great man, and watching the 
 effect of his personality upon a people singularly like 
 that over which he hoped one day to rule, learned a 
 lesson in the power of individual will, of which his 
 later life was a consistent exposition. 
 
 Alas ! no master-hand has drawn for us the 
 portrait of this greatest of Philip's teachers, but 
 his figure detaches itself from the crowd that passes 
 over the historic stage. He is the ideal Hellene, for 
 all the Cadmeian blood in his veins, as cultured 
 as an Athenian, as disciplined as a Spartan, pre- 
 eminent in all provinces of his powers. Not less 
 brilliant and forceful a political idealist than Pericles, 
 he far transcends the Athenian in the ruder fields of 
 
 1 Plut. Pel. 15. 2 Pint. Ages. 26. 8 Plut. Pel. 16. 
 
 4 Nepos, Epam. ad fin. ; Diod. xv. 39. 
 
EPAMINONDAS AND PELOPIDAS 39 
 
 action. Too rigorous, 1 and too complex to be wholly 
 understood or loved by the rude Thebans, as be 
 understood and loved them, he won their blind 
 obedience by sheer dominance of will and their awe- 
 struck respect by consistent subordination of self to 
 their common good. Many of his countrymen were 
 powerful athletes and brave soldiers, but, their equal 
 in physical excellence, Epaminondas stands alone in 
 intellectual eminence, a devoted student of philosophy, 
 an orator in the first rank, a master in music. 2 
 Majestic and unapproachable as a Phidian god, one 
 story only connects him with a softer passion, as 
 Greeks understood such passions : for the rest, the 
 private man is absorbed in the patriot, who dies 
 happy that his soldiers have won Mantinea, and that 
 two great victories, rather than human offspring, will 
 perpetuate his name. 
 
 Pelopidas, his famous henchman, is better known 
 to us than his master, although one of his biographers 
 admits that he was " magis historicis quam vulgo 
 notus." 3 He is a more human figure, easier to 
 portray, a type of his nation purged of its coarsest 
 qualities. Removed by no such gulf as Epaminondas, 
 he was the idol of the Theban people from the 
 night when he slew the Polemarchs to the day of his 
 reckless death in Thessaly. 4 History credits him 
 with neither statesmanlike ideals nor intellectual 
 tastes, but with fiery enthusiasm, perfect courage, and 
 
 1 Nepos, Epam. 4. 
 
 2 Id. Ejjam. 3; Diod. 1. c, and 88. 8 Nepos, Pel. i. 
 
 4 Diod. xv. 81. 
 
40 PHILIP 
 
 lifelong devotion. 1 He was the fiery soul of the body 
 politic, the link between the brain and the members. 
 Liberator of the city, sole victor of Tegyrae, animating 
 spirit of the Leuctran charge, dauntless avenger of 
 the oppressed in Thessaly, Pelopidas glitters through 
 the short, glorious epoch of Theban history like a 
 knight errant of the days of chivalry. Historians 
 have not hesitated to set the impetuous soldier below 
 Epaminondas ; but in turn they must maintain that 
 to awaken the state, the hot recklessness of the one 
 was not less necessary in Thebes than the cool 
 calculation of the other. 
 
 There were elements in the coarser but stronger 
 nature of Philip that recall both the great Thebans. 
 His union of practical genius with appreciation of the 
 power of culture, and his comprehensive vision of the 
 co-operating forces which constitute a Power, elevate 
 him to the same pinnacle with Epaminondas. In his 
 sympathy with the rudest of his soldiery and in the 
 rough good fellowship which so often won hearts in 
 spite of themselves, he resembled, consciously or not, 
 Pelopidas. And, did we know more of the details of 
 history during either the supremacy of Thebes or the 
 reign of Philip, it might be possible to detect often, 
 in the latter's words and deeds, distinct reminiscences 
 of the great men with whom he must have been 
 brought in contact, either directly or through their 
 chief disciples Gorgias, Pammenes (with whom the 
 young hostage lived in most intimate relations), or 
 others now unknown. Certainly Philip had had a 
 1 Plut. Pel. 4 ; Nep. Pel. 4. 
 
PHILIP LEAVES THEBES 41 
 
 singular object-lesson in the power of the individual ; 
 certainly it had been given to him to see what a 
 new military idea could do for infantry warfare. 
 The last stage in the efficiency of a citizen' army had 
 been reached, and new formations, new weapons, 
 and new tactics must be developed by any one who 
 should aspire to supremacy. 
 
 Philip was no longer in Thebes when her sun passed 
 its zenith. 1 He heard of the deaths of Pelopidas 
 and Epaminondas when once more in Macedonia, 
 whither he had returned in 364, after Perdiccas his 
 brother had slain his self-styled guardian and resumed 
 the reins of power. He found the head of his house 
 co-operating with Timotheus the Athenian against 
 Amphipolis. Nothing, however, came of repeated 
 efforts of Athens to seize the key of the mines ; and 
 Perdiccas, when a Theban fleet began to hover about 
 the Thracian seas, seems to have changed his game ; 
 before 361 he had taken Amphipolis into his own 
 possession. 
 
 For the moment the Macedonian king seemed 
 strong. He established his brother Philip in a semi- 
 independent principality, for he had by this time an 
 infant son to succeed to his own throne. But new 
 trouble was brewing. The Lyncestian Athaliah had 
 vowed vengeance for her leman's murder. The 
 death of Epaminondas, and general peace in Greece 
 
 1 We do not know why the hostage was released. Perhaps those 
 in authority at Thebes felt that by this time they could rely upon his 
 admiration or his fear, and that he might exert a useful influence in 
 his own country. 
 
42 PHILIP 
 
 deprived Perdiccas of the active support of Thebes, 
 even as his own action in the matter of Amphipolis 
 had shut out possible help from Athens. Eurydice 
 seized the moment. The fiery cross went out among 
 her tribesmen of Lyncestis, and a cloud of hillmen 
 and " Illyrians " burst on Emathia. Perdiccas faced 
 them and fell. His clansmen swore allegiance to the 
 infant son and to his uncle Philip as Regent. But 
 swiftly a new storm broke on the north, where the 
 Paeonians were out ; from the east the old pretender, 
 Pausanias, was advancing with a Thracian host at 
 his back ; and the angry Athenians welcomed the 
 opportunity to nominate also a creature of their own. 
 The heart of such a cyclone was no place for a baby 
 king. Macedonia clamoured for a man, and, per- 
 suaded at last, Philip climbed into the perilous 
 throne. 1 
 
 1 'So Justin, vii. 5. His words are, "Dm non regem sed tutorem 
 pupilli egit. At ubl graviora bella imminebant serumque auxilium 
 in exspectatione infantis erat, compulsus a populo regnum suscepit." 
 A mass meeting of the clan probably took place, similar to that 
 held by the army at Babylon after the death of Alexander the 
 Great, in which it was decided to await the birth of Eoxana's 
 child. 
 
ACCESSION OF PHILIP 43 
 
 The new king could count on little but his faithful 
 clansmen, his hopes, and his youth. He had legions 
 of enemies, no money, no allies, and, for inheritance, 
 the sins of his fathers. Had he boasted that he 
 could make a nation and an empire out of nothing, 
 he hardly had desired a more genuine opportunity. 1 
 But in personal capital he was rich. He had 
 been trained in the school of the two greatest 
 men of his age ; nature had given him a frame of 
 iron, and the Pythagorean doctors the habit to 
 nurture it hardly; neither the many lusts of his 
 flesh 2 nor the pride of his body held him back a 
 moment from action, and he could sacrifice to his 
 ambition his own person as resolutely as that of his 
 foe. "What a man," said Demosthenes 3 after his 
 death, " had we to fight ! For the sake of power and 
 dominion he had an eye thrust out, a shoulder 
 broken, an arm and a leg mortified. Whichever 
 member fortune demanded, that he cast away, so the 
 rest might be in glory and honour." His intellectual 
 force was of the first order, his perception as rapid 
 
 1 Of. Diod. xvi. 95. 
 
 ' See Polybius, quoting Theopompus (viii. 11). 
 
 3 Be Cor. 67. 
 
44 PHILIP 
 
 and certain as the action which followed it. The 
 width of his sympathies, coupled with a radical 
 insincerity of character, enabled him to adapt himself 
 to all things and all men — to talk with Aristotle, or 
 to drink to excess of good fellowship with boors and 
 bravos. 1 No obstacles of principle beset his path, 
 and two-thirds of the anecdotes recorded of him 
 illustrate his perfidy. To one thing, however, he 
 was never false — his personal ambition as involved 
 in the greatness of his own people. Self-sufficing, 
 masterful to all men, without scruples and without 
 foibles, he was a man rather to fear than to love. 
 Like a Napoleon, he could inspire those whom he 
 kept at a distance with enthusiastic admiration for 
 his strength and his star ; but perhaps no heart of 
 man or woman ever beat for him with gentler passion) 
 Philip's character had been formed in the school of 
 exile and danger by the time that he was twenty- 
 three ; and already he had proposed to go far. For 
 the moment, Athens was his most dangerous foe. 
 The Macedonian had recourse to his first weapon, 
 craft ; he declared her long estranged colony, the 
 mining city Amphipolis, independent of himself. 
 Athens turned to the lure, let the Macedonian chase 
 her pretender to his ships, and ratified a peace 
 with the first of the many ambassadors she was to 
 receive from Philip/ The other pretender, Pau- 
 sanias, found his forces melt away ; Philip knew that 
 he had only to give the Thracians and Paeonians gold 
 
 1 Cf. Plutarch, Bern. 16, who calls him a " sponge," and 
 Theopompus, quoted above. 
 
THE FIRFT WINTER 45 
 
 while he prepared his steel. The Illyrian-Lyncestian 
 host, however, fought for a cause and a woman not 
 to be bought ; but it stayed at the sight of Philip's 
 energy and the approach of winter, and he gained a 
 few months' space to breathe. 
 
 His clansmen's spirits rose, 1 and their faith centred 
 in him. Here was the nucleus of an army, but as 
 yet too small and too little professional. Philip must 
 train and arm this Clan like Greeks, and swell their 
 number by the only method open to him as yet — 
 the hiring of mercenaries. But first and foremost 
 he had need of money. Ports and ships the Mace- 
 donian did not possess, but the mines on Pangaeus 
 above Amphipolis, belonged as much to him as to 
 any one. He went cautiously to work in the matter, 
 for fear of alarming Athens. A number of Thasian 
 miners came to the mainland, and settled at Crenides 
 on Pangaeus, apparently as spontaneous colonists, 
 but (beyond doubt, when we consider after events) 
 on Philip's invitation. 2 
 
 The winter was spent by Philip's recruiting ser- 
 geants in enlisting soldiers of fortune, and by him- 
 self in training his clansmen to be the soul of the 
 new army. He went to work as Agesilaus had done 
 forty years before, when he trained the army at 
 Ephesus, which he hoped to lead to Babylon. Philip 
 taught his Macedonians the Greek drill and tactics, 
 constantly exercised them under arms, and made 
 them cover as much as five and thirty miles a day in 
 heavy marching order, each man with flour for a 
 1 Diod. xvi. 3. 2 Id. I.e. Cf. Strabo, p. 331. 
 
46 PHILIP 
 
 month and full baggage. 1 No personal effects would 
 the king allow any foot-soldier to place on a vehicle ; 2 
 and his discipline was more than Spartan. He once 
 heard that a Tarentine captain had taken a hot bath. 
 " A Macedonian woman washes in cold water in 
 childbed ! " exclaimed the king, and dismissed him 
 from his command ; and at a later period, we hear 
 that two distinguished officers were banished their 
 country for introducing a prostitute into camp. 3 
 | Knowing Philip's discipline of self, we may say safely 
 that he asked his men to do nothing that he did 
 not do habitually. Emulation was awakened by 
 the institution of contests in military gymnastics, 
 which Alexander copied at a later period. 4 Philip 
 himself wrestled and boxed in the common arena, 8 
 drank with his knights, and was prodigal of good- 
 fellowship and bounty. 6 Little by little he welded 
 all together and to himself, taught the foot-soldiers 
 to stand firm as a Theban phalanx, and the knights 
 to manoeuvre at his will, not merely to skirmish or 
 pursue : and by this means and that, when the 
 season of 358 opened, he was at the head of six 
 hundred knights and ten thousand infantry, the like 
 of which for discipline had not been seen north of 
 Olympus. 
 
 The Paeonians surrendered after a single engage- 
 ment. Bardylis, leader of the Lyncestian-Illyrian 
 
 1 Diod, xvi. 3 ; Polyaen. iv. 2. 10 ; Frontin. iv. 1. 6. 
 
 2 Frontin. 1. c. 3 Polyaen. iv. 2. 1 and 3. 
 4 Diod. xvii. 2. 5 Polyaen. iv. 2. 6. 
 
 6 Cf. Theopomp. fragments 27 and 249; Diod. xvi. 3; Polyaen. 
 iv. 9. 
 
THE ILLYRIAN CAMPAIGN 47 
 
 host, proposed peace on terms uti possidetis . Philip 
 demanded that the Lyncestian towns be surren- 
 dered at discretion and the Illyrian allies be sent 
 away. The armies met, and Philip experimented for 
 the first time in the new tactics, which were to crush 
 Greece and conquer Asia. The foe was in solid 
 formation; Philip opposed to them the phalanx, 
 strengthened especially on the left by the cavalry. 
 He led his solid centre and right to engage the whole 
 barbarian front, keeping his left in reserve, till the 
 foe's formation became somewhat disordered. Then 
 the real attack was developed; the Macedonian 
 Knights galloped forward and fell on flank and 
 rear ; the phalanx pushed into the front of the 
 disordered mass, while the cavalry rode in from the 
 left. The Illyrians turned and fled. Plundreds were 
 cut down in the pursuit, and! when it was over, 
 and the barbarians came to fetch their dead under 
 flag of trjice, Philip, with callous treachery, attacked 
 again. 1 / They left more than seven thousand dead 
 on the field ; and Philip swept the lands of the 
 feudatories as far as the Lake Ochrida and the 
 watershed of the Adriatic. 2 
 
 In one short campaign Philip had restored the 
 Macedonian monarchy to a position that it had not 
 held since the days of Archelaus. The king was 
 once more lord undisputed over the greatest of his 
 feudatories. It remained to secure the mines. Philip 
 
 1 Diocl. xvi. 4 ; Frontin. ii. 3. 2. I have used also Polyaenus' 
 thoroughly characteristic story (iv. 2. 5) of the second rout. 
 
 2 Diod. xvi. 8. 
 
48 PHILIP 
 
 marched across his kingdom, gathered up a siege- 
 train prepared during the winter, and incontinently 
 summoned Amphipolis to surrender. The townsmen 
 shut their gates, and sent to apprise Athens ; Philip 
 countermoved by courteously informing the Athenians 
 that he was acting on their behalf, and would hand 
 over the town to their representatives, and in the 
 meantime he brought up his engines. The Athenians 
 hesitated ; Philip's rams broke the wall ; Amphipolis 
 fell in the autumn of 358, and all sympathisers with 
 Athens were expelled from her gates. 1 j The news 
 caused a panic among the Greek towns of Chalcidice, 
 and their leader, Olynthus, sent at once to Athens. 
 But the latter had more on her hands now than she 
 could deal with. Her great dependencies had declared 
 the Social War against her, and she was fain to 
 content herself with Philip's studious courtesy to her 
 captured citizens, and a vague understanding 2 that 
 in his own good time he would exchange his new 
 conquest against their holding of Pydna, the outlet 
 of Pierian trade. For the present Philip openly ac- 
 knowledged as his men the Thasian miners of Cre- 
 nides, and built up their settlement into a great 
 frontier-fortress, called after himself Philippi, which, 
 with Amphipolis, should command not only the 
 mines, but the Thracian coast from Galepsus to the 
 Nestus. 3 He had found at last his sinews of war. 
 The gold ore of Pangaeus presently brought in more 
 
 1 Dem. Ohjnth. i. 8. 
 
 2 The famous airopp-qrov, Dem. Olyntli. ii. 6. 
 8 Strabo, p. 331. 
 
ARMY MAKING 49 
 
 than a thousand talents yearly, a much larger 
 revenue than was accruing at this time from external 
 sources to any state except Persia, — and he began to 
 strike that extensive coinage J of staters which pene- 
 trated to Britain, and originated the types of certain 
 of our early coins. 2 
 
 In the winter of 358 Philip could begin in 
 earnest the great work which he had conceived 
 at Thebes — the creation of a national standing 
 army. 
 
 He cannot have been unconscious that his work 
 would prove in the event not merely military. If 
 his national army was to be more than an organiza- 
 tion of his own clansmen, he must incorporate the 
 feudatories ; and whenever the army should become 
 an accomplished fact, there would be in Macedonia no 
 longer a disunion of tribes, but the unity of a nation. 
 It is not to be supposed that his main object was the 
 promotion of a political union, nor indeed that in 358 
 he had that end more consciously in view, than had 
 the organizers of the Prussian military system in 
 1864 ; but neither he was not more ignorant than 
 they of the unifying influence of common service in 
 a great war. Salamis had consolidated the Athenian 
 Demos, and Leuctra made Boeotia almost one in 
 sentiment with Thebes. Community of hope passes 
 in very short time into community of tradition. 
 
 1 Diod. xvi. 8. 
 
 2 The remarkable series, illustrating the degeneration of the 
 type, is well known. Philip's original staters have been found in 
 greater numbers than almost any other gold coins of antiquity. 
 
 4 
 
50 PHILTP 
 
 As the Germans in 1870, so the Macedonians in 352 
 marched out an Alliance to return a Union. Philip's 
 claim to rank among great creative statesmen is not 
 that he foreknew all the ultimate results of his action, 
 but that he seized in their inception and directed 
 successive developments. Both his ideal, and his 
 knowledge of the means to attain it, grew with the 
 growth of events. If in 358 it did not rise above 
 the consolidation of the military strength of 
 Macedonia, and chance in the main made him the 
 creator of Macedonian political unity, it is very 
 certain that he had come to be possessed by a clear 
 conception even of the unification of all Hellas, 1 when 
 he spent his last two years in enlisting the Greeks 
 for common service with Macedonians in a great war. 
 Twelve years later again his son, rising to a con- 
 ception of world-wide empire on the stepping-stone 
 of his father's pan hellenic kingdom, dreamed of 
 effacing the distinction of Macedonian, Hellene, and 
 Asiatic, by making all march shoulder to shoulder to 
 the conquest of Africa and Europe. 
 
 A national standing army was a new thing in 
 those days. The world was familiar with armies, 
 national, but not standing, levies of citizens, or the 
 subjects of a king, called out for particular campaigns 
 and relegated presently to private occupations. Even 
 the most 'professional' of such armies, that of 
 
 1 Holm (Gr. Oesch. iii. ch. xvii. p. 278) and others date this 
 conception and Philip's Asian schemes almost to the beginning of 
 his reign, but on no evidence. Both evidence and probability are 
 all for later development. 
 
GREEK ARMIES 51 
 
 Sparta, was not kept constantly under arms, and 
 took a more soldierly than civic character only 
 through constantly mounting guard over a dis- 
 affected population. The world was becoming 
 familiar also with armies, standing, but not national, 
 maintained at various epochs by kings and governors 
 of Persia or Egypt, commercial cities like Carthage, 
 or individual adventurers such as the elder Dionysius 
 of Syracuse, or Jason of Pherae. Such forces as 
 theirs were difficult to control, devoid of esprit de 
 corps, liable to seduction, and withal enormously 
 expensive. The citizen army, on the other hand, was 
 either sheer militia, incapable of any but the simplest 
 manoeuvres, or very small in numbers, and in both 
 cases difficult to retain in the field, f Philip's new 
 army was to combine the merits of both the civic 
 and the mercenary; its chief constituent was to 
 be a large force, derived from his own subjects, 
 imbued with national spirit, and induced by rewards 
 and prizes of war to make soldiering a profession, 
 and remain long enough with the colours to acquire 
 drill and discipline superior to the best mercenary 
 armies. A professional army with a national spirit 
 — that was the new idea ; and Philip, equally great 
 in practice and theory, intended to add later a >new 
 organization, a new weapon, and new tactics. ' But 
 the introduction of those novelties' detail must 
 depend on the successful realization of the main 
 principle; for only an army perfect in cohesion, 
 temper, and drill can profit by an elaborate organiza- 
 tion, make effective use of a weapon of abnormal 
 
52 PHILIP 
 
 character, or be depended upon to execute rapid 
 scientific evolutions in the face of an enemy. 
 
 Neither an army nor a nation is made in a day. 
 The six years which succeeded the capture of Amphi- 
 polis and preceded the first serious attempt on Greece, 
 probably saw in Macedonia the birth of both one 
 and the other; but Pbilip was engaged all his life 
 in completing his work. Time alone could cause the 
 all-important tradition to grow. At the beginning 
 of his reign, Alexander had still to face some political 
 reaction on the part of the feudatories, and to beware 
 a little longer of the Lyncestian ; but in his army 
 of Asia there is left hardly a trace of race hatred. 
 Philip, in fact, had completed his military creation 
 ere his death. In many details of organization his 
 system was modified by both bis son and his son's 
 successors, till it became crystallized in the corps 
 oVarmee known as the Macedonian to the tactical 
 writers of Roman times ; but it is practically certain 
 that the army which won Granicus, Issus, and 
 Arbela was the army of Philip, and that we may 
 use the authorities for the early campaigns of Alex- 
 ander as evidence for the father's work. We have 
 detailed information of the reorganization of certain 
 corps at Susa, and of the whole force after Alexander's 
 return from India, but no hint of any earlier changes. 
 It was the opinion of antiquity that Alexander 
 received his Asian army from his father ; 1 and it 
 must be our opinion also if we reflect on the little 
 leisure enjoyed by Alexander from the first moment 
 1 Frontin. iv. 2, 4. 
 
PHILIP'S CREATION 53 
 
 he ascended his throne, and on the reputation 
 already possessed far and wide by his Macedonian 
 soldiery before he had met any Persian army in 
 the field. 1 
 
 It was the unanimous opinion of antiquity also 
 that Philip did his work alone. No one of his 
 marshals is ever credited with a share. Parmenio, 
 of whom his king said that he was the only general 
 he had ever known, 2 and Antipater, the future regent 
 of Europe, alone among them rose above mediocrity. 
 The rest of the elder marshals of Alexander — 
 Perdiccas, Craterus, Leonnatus, Polysperchon, Anti- 
 gonus — shone only with reflected light. The one 
 man, whose after-career warrants the supposition 
 that he may have helped in a great work of organi- 
 zation, is Eumenes, whom Philip found a boy at 
 Cardia, 3 and made his secretary in later years. 
 
 Already, before Philip's time, there had existed the 
 levy of the Macedonian clan, a race long inured to 
 guerilla Avarfare, 4 and organized to some extent by 
 Archelaus 5 and by Philip's eldest brother. 6 The 
 problem was, how to incorporate with the clan the 
 feudatories who had been regarded hitherto at best 
 as its allies ? 7 The clan-spirit lives only in the clan ; 
 
 1 See Memnon's advice to the Persians before Granicus, Ait. 
 i. 12. 
 
 2 Plut. ApopUTi. Phil. 2. s Id. Eum. i. 
 4 Justin, vii. 2. 5 Thuc. ii. 100. 
 
 6 Anaxim. fr. 7. Vide supra, p. 19. 
 
 7 Such as Derdas of Elimia, whose excellent cavalry joined 
 Amyntas in 382. Hell. v. 2, 39. 
 
54 PHILIP 
 
 civic patriotism was exotic outside the city-states of 
 Hellas ; national patriotism as yet did not and could 
 not exist. Philip knew that what he must create 
 was a purely military esprit de corps, and his army 
 must be induced to set up itself and himself as gods. 
 He began by enrolling all his subjects according to 
 their local and tribal divisions, and assigning them 
 to standing territorial regiments. Of the infantry 
 we can only infer the fact ; 1 but the names of certain 
 squadrons of the cavalry are actually recorded, for 
 example, rj ' Avdejxovcria. and 17 KevyaLa, and so are 
 the homes of others, " the horsemen from Upper 
 Macedonia," or "Bottiaea and Amphipolis." 2 
 
 These standing regiments are known each by its 
 colonel's name, and quoted thus by Arrian, who 
 reflects the military usage of his authorities. A rafts 
 of foot, whose colonel is absent, is still referred to as 
 his, though led by another ; and Clitus' cavalry com- 
 mand bears his name after his death. 3 
 
 All were called alike " Macedonians ; " the only 
 general distinction, made hereafter, is between Mace- 
 donians and Greeks, Thracians or Illyrians. 4 
 
 Philip knew, however, that it was not enough to 
 make distinct territorial regiments ; he must endow 
 
 1 From Arr. iii. 16, where the recruits (foot) from Macedonia 
 are distributed into t<££«s. Cf. Curt. v. 2. 6, where we are told that 
 Alexander's main innovation at Susa was the abolition of all local 
 and national divisions throughout the army. 
 
 2 Arr. ii. 9 ; i. 2. 8 Id. iii. 11 ; vi. 6. 
 
 4 So in Diodorus' catalogue of the army about to cross to 
 Asia (xvii. 17) ; and passim in Arrian, where the common phrase, 
 01 Trl'C,oi tu>v MaKtSovwv (e. g. as early as i. 6), includes every one — 
 Lyncestian, Orestian, Elimiote, and the like. 
 
CORPS D'ELITE 55 
 
 them with, common emulation. He conceived there- 
 fore for different corps a scale of honour rising towards 
 the person of the king. Service in the heavy cavalry 
 ranked above service in the foot, for the former were 
 more especially the iralpoi, or " Companions " of the 
 king ; their generals have the most important com- 
 mands in Alexander's army, and their troopers enjoy 
 treble share of prize money. 1 Philip promoted whom 
 he pleased to this service, 2 Macedonian or Greek, and 
 thus in time swelled the six hundred who accom- 
 panied him on his first campaign, to the two thousand 
 who followed his son to Asia. 3 The whole body of 
 iralpoL were " Royals," but one squadron was of 
 greatest honour, the " Royal," or " King's Own," 
 sometimes called the "Ay-qpa* which took the right 
 of the whole line at Arbela. 5 
 
 Most honoured among the Foot was the Corps of 
 Guards (vTrao-rrLo-Tai), specially attached to the jjerson 
 of the king. They became very famous in Alexander's 
 wars, and later under the name of the Silver Shields 
 (' Apyvpdo-mSes). 6 Like the cavalry they were all 
 " Royals," but there was among them a special corps 
 cC elite (to ay-qpa to fiao-ikiKov) 7 one thousand strong, 
 
 1 Cf. Diod, xvii. 63,74 ; Curt. vii. 5. 23. 
 
 2 Theopomp. fr. 249. 
 
 B Perhaps even more, if the fifteen hundred horse left with 
 Antipater be reckoned into the calculation. 
 4 Arr. iii. 11. 
 6 Also at the crossing of the Hydaspes (Arr. v. 13). 
 
 6 Plut. Hum. 16 ff. For the grounds of the certain identifica- 
 tion of the Argyraspids and Hypaspists, see " Army of Alexander," 
 in Journ. of Philology, xvii. No. 33, p. 14. 
 
 7 Cf., e. ff., Arr. iii. 11 j v. 13. 
 
56 PHILIP 
 
 a third of the whole. This force took the right of all 
 the infantry at Arbela. 
 
 As Philip had extended the honourable title of 
 " King's Followers " to all his native cavalry, so he 
 took the corresponding term 7re£erat/Doi, and applied 
 it to all the Macedonian infantry, whether of his 
 clan or no : thus distinguishing the new nation from 
 the Greeks, as the clan had once distinguished itself 
 from the feudatories. 1 
 
 1 This is the view to which I am compelled, on reconsideration 
 of the passages in which the term ireCc'raipot (already in dispute 
 in the days of Ulpian) occurs. When I wrote the article on 
 Alexander's army, referred to above, I was inclined to regard it as 
 equivalent only to the one ra^ts of Coenus (on the strength of 
 Arr. ii. 23). In some sense a distinction is implied in the term, 
 or the mutineers at Opis would not have coupled it with the ay^/ta 
 and dpyupaoTriSes (Arr. vii. 11). But I now believe that Demos- 
 thenes is approximately accurate when he uses the term to express 
 all the constituents of Philip's Phalanx that were not £eVoi 
 (Ohjntli. ii. 17). Such a distinction would be sufficient to account 
 for the phrase oi ir. oi koXov^vol, used by Arrian four times out 
 of seven. One of Ulpian's explanations is that the it. were the 
 pick of the infantry ; but care must be taken not to include in 
 the term the Hypaspistae, if Arrian is to be credited with any 
 precision of nomenclature at all. Droysen and Grote go wrong 
 on this point. 
 
 I conceive, therefore, that each of Alexander's great regiments 
 of foot (e. /;. the six enumerated at Arbela, Arr. iii. 11) was 
 made up of two battalions — one of most honour, containing only 
 Macedonian jie£eVaipoi, one of less honour, made up of allies and 
 mercenaries. The second composed the oWepa <j>d\ay£ at Arbela 
 — the line of reserve designed to face about and meet an 
 attack — and also probably formed the rear of the SittA.^ <f,d.\a.y£ 
 before Granicus (Arr. i. 13). Whenever Alexander, therefore, 
 takes oi ire^eraipoi o! KaXovfxwoi on special expeditions, he is 
 picking the first battalions of his regiments. Not infrequently 
 these regiments are credited with two commanders by Arrian 
 («. g. iv. 22, rrjv [tci|iv] IIoAvo-7r€pxovTos /cat 'Atto.Xov ; iv. 24, ttjv 
 
REWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS 57 
 
 Here, then, is a system of honourable nomenclature 
 — f&acrikiKoi, jSacriAi/cal lAat, aytJiAa/ra, iralpou, ireJ^i- 
 Taipoi — designed to give the army pride in itself, and 
 to attach it to the person of the king. We cannot 
 doubt that promotion into the distinguished corps 
 was made possible for all Macedonians who should 
 win the king's favour ; it could even be granted to 
 aliens. Further, there was, of course, a scale of - 
 military honour for individuals ; this man takes the 
 lead of his file and faces the foe in the front rank ; 
 that one brings up the rear, and is important as a 
 pivot. One private receives double pay; another 
 ten staters ; l and so forth, up to the culminating 
 distinction of Guard of the Person, which in Alex- 
 ander's time was enjoyed by four natives of Pella, 
 one of Orestis, and two of Eordaea. 2 
 
 If military service is to be accepted readily as the 
 main reason and object of existence, the sollier must 
 be caught young. Philip, therefore, enacte* that all 
 
 K.OLVOV re kou 'AttolXov Ta£iv ; V. 12, rrjv KXetVou re km KoiVou), as 
 are also the cavalry 'nrirapxiai (e. g. v. 12, ttjv TlepdtKKov re kcu 
 Aij/xiyrptW). Unfortunately Arrian is not exact in his use of the 
 names of corps, especially tci£is; but still some value may be 
 attached to these twin commands, in view of the other evidence 
 for the dual nature of the regiments. If Diodorus' figures 
 (xvii. 17) are accurate, the Trc^craipoi in Alexander's force, when 
 he crossed to Asia, numbered 9000; each first battalion, therefore, 
 at Arbela would be 1500 strong. The allies and mercenaries 
 numbered 12000, and the second battalions may therefore have 
 been 2000 strong, but more probably 1500 also, 3000 men being 
 reserved to counterbalance the 3000 Hypaspistae. 
 
 1 Arr. vii. 23. 
 
 a Id. vi. 28. The home of one — Peucestas, added in 324 — is 
 unknown. 
 
58 PHILIP 
 
 sons of the upper classes of his subjects should be 
 sent to the court to serve as Pages of the Body, in 
 peace to be Equerries or Gentlemen of the Chamber, 
 in war to follow the campaign as an inner Guard, 
 and always to study those military duties which they 
 would have to perform presently as officers of the 
 Cavalry or the Line. 1 If he made any special pro- 
 vision for the boys of the lower classes, we do not 
 know it ; but we do know that the child born or bred 
 in barracks grows up in the military tradition, and 
 there must always be many such children where 
 there is a standing army. It is noteworthy that 
 Alexander, when he sent the time-expired veterans 
 home in 324, retained all their children born in 
 Asia. 2 
 
 By such means did Philip hope to make the pride 
 of service in a great army the ruling passion of his 
 people ; and he must have foreseen that, if he was 
 successful, the small race divisions among his sub- 
 jects would fade little by little into a common 
 distinction of all from the rest of the world. In 
 the event the Macedonians became one people, and 
 their common military pride and exclusiveness barred 
 even Alexander's way when he dreamed of a wider 
 union. He could abolish the territorial regiments 
 without trouble at Susa in 330, as having become 
 already superfluous divisions, but his first attempts 
 
 1 Such an institution at a court half Greek, half barbarian, 
 gave, of course, many occasions to scandal ; but Arrian (iv. 13) 
 and Curtius (viii. 6) agree as to the object which Philip had in 
 view when he instituted it. 
 2 Arr. vii. 12. 
 
THE CORPS D'ARM^E 59 
 
 to expand the great Macedonian union provoked 
 open mutiny. 
 
 The ancient treatise on Tactics, which has come 
 down to our times in two recensions, to which the 
 names of Arrian and Aelian have been attached, 
 furnishes elaborate detail of the Macedonian military 
 organization ; but so seldom do either the names or 
 strength of the corps agree with our authorities for 
 Alexander's army, 1 that we must suppose them to be 
 of later times. Furthermore, the system described in 
 that treatise, of units ascending in arithmetical pro- 
 gression from the file of 16 to the full brigade of 
 16,384, 2 belongs to a time when the territorial 
 battalion had ceased to be the unit. It is more 
 probable that Philip organized his new army by 
 regiments than by brigades ; and that Alexander first 
 began to work towards the latter system at Susa 
 in 330. 
 | Contemporary authority makes it clear that Philip's 
 army was a standing force of men with arms always 
 in their hands, 3 ready to march in summer or winter 
 alike ; 4 and that it was organized as a corps d'armee, 
 the phalanx of Macedonian foot having a regular 
 complement of all arms, light troops, cavalry, and 
 archers, attached to it, and both siege and field 
 artillery. 5 It was in the strictest sense a professional 
 
 1 See article on " Avmy of Alexander," p. 20, cit. supra. The 
 coincidence of names is about fifty-five per cent., that of numbers 
 not above thirty per cent. 
 
 2 Tact. 10. » Dem. Be Cor. 235. 
 4 Id. Phil. iii. 48 ff. 
 
 6 Cf. Diod. xvi. 8 and 74 ; Arr. i. 6. 
 
60 PHILIP 
 
 army, elaborately trained to march under heavy arms 
 and baggage, 1 highly paid and rewarded, and as 
 capable of fortifying a camp or mining a wall as 
 of executing every movement in the face of the 
 enemy. 
 """" Relying on its training and discipline, Philip 
 could introduce it to new fighting methods. He 
 taught his Cavalry to charge, not in line, but in 
 wedge-shaped formations, 2 a device destined to be 
 resorted to by his son at Arbela. For the In- 
 fantry, he perfected the famous phalanx. Though 
 in conception this phalanx was not different from 
 the existing Greek fighting array, Philip so far 
 developed and systematized it that he came to be 
 regarded as its inventor. His new ideas seem to 
 have been two : First to render bodies of pikemen 
 more mobile and pliable than the Theban or Spartan. 
 So far as we can judge, the idea of the Greek 
 formations had been to range pikemen together in 
 one compact mass, and win by sheer weight of 
 man pushing on man, breast to back and shoulder to 
 shoulder. It was hardly possible in such formation 
 for the man-at-arms to make play with his pike, and 
 uneven ground or any accident caused serious con- 
 fusion. With highly disciplined soldiers like the 
 Spartan, able to re-form quickly, and knowing how to 
 use their weight, a considerable advantage might be 
 gained; but, nevertheless, as was proved in 394 at 
 Coronea, training in this formation could not over- 
 come sheer weight sturdily applied. Epaminondas saw 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 45. 2 Tact. 16. 
 
NEW IDEAS 61 
 
 that the traditional deep formation 1 of the Boeotians, 
 if practised by trained and resolute men on good 
 ground, must break a thin line opposed to it; but 
 only able to find enough trained men to strengthen 
 one wing, he conceived the idea of attacking with 
 one part of his line only, and trusting to the moral 
 effect upon all the foe of the breaking of their 
 formation at an important point. The Leuctrian 
 " Wedge " marked the extreme that could be attained 
 in the use of sheer weight. It was obvious, however, 
 that, if opposed to a mobile and ready foe, its clumsy 
 mass would be in grave peril, the weak part of the 
 line might be cut off, and a very little movement 
 over uneven ground would cause disorder. / Philip, 
 therefore, in search of a new idea, did not proceed on 
 Theban lines, but reverting to shallow formations of 
 eight, ten, or perhaps sixteen deep at the most, 
 drilled his pikemen to stand in open order, in which 
 they could ply their pikes easily and move quickly. 
 If we can trust the Tactica, there were usually three 
 feet between each man, both in rank and file interval, 
 and in the closest order a foot and a half. Ample 
 room therefore was left for individual and sectional 
 movement, such as that implied in the opening of 
 lanes in Alexander's array on the Balkans to allow 
 passages for the Thracian waggons, or at Arbela to 
 give the frightened horses yoked to Darius' scythed 
 chariots a chance to bolt clear through the lines. All 
 tacticians know that soldiers must be more thoroughly 
 
 1 Cf. their depth of twenty-five shields as early as 424, at 
 Delium (Thuc. iv. 93). 
 
62 PHILIP 
 
 drilled and of better temper to preserve their forma- 
 tion and steadiness in open than in close order ; but 
 Philip had secured those essential first requisites, 
 and thus could form a fighting force able to charge 
 over bad ground and engage formations much deeper 
 than their own. 
 
 His second idea was the " sarissa" or long pike, 
 ivliich would enable his phalanx to strike the first blow. 
 To the efficient using of such a weapon, training and 
 discipline were all essential. Macedonian armies of 
 the third and second centuries plied a sarissa even 
 twenty-four feet long, 1 and six points protected the 
 front rank man. It is needless to credit Philip's 
 pikeman with so monstrous a weapon as this ; it 
 belongs to the days of decline when generals, deficient 
 in tactical ability, had reverted to solid immobile 
 formations as more within their power to handle. 2 
 No allusion is made by any historian of Alexander's 
 wars to so abnormal a weapon as the sarissa, which 
 astonished Polybius and Livy. On the contrary, the 
 mobility, which stands out as the most striking 
 virtue of Alexander's phalanx, witnesses that its 
 weapon was not unwieldy. His formations are never 
 
 1 The coincidence of Polybius (xviii. 12) with. Polyaenus 
 (ii. 29. 2) and the second recension of the Tactica (15) puts 
 this beyond doubt. Cf. also Livy's remarks on its unwieldy 
 length (xliv. 41). The first recension of the Tactica reads 7ro'8as 
 for Tracts, reducing the length to fourteen or sixteen feet; but 
 either this is a manuscript error or correction, or it is a remi- 
 niscence of the earlier sarissa. 
 
 2 In the same way, heavy body armour was introduced in 
 the Middle Ages, to compensate for degeneracy in drill and 
 tactics. 
 
THE PHALANX 63 
 
 (like those which the Romans met) at the mercy of 
 uneven ground. They even crossed the Pinarus at 
 Issus and re-formed in the face of the enemy. The 
 Greek weapon may be assumed not to have exceeded 
 the greatest length assigned by the author of the 
 Tactica to a practicable pike, viz. twelve feet. 1 Let 
 a foot or two more be allowed to the phalangite of 
 Philip and Alexander, and we save the indubitable 
 fact that a longer weapon than the Greek was intro- 
 duced, and do not render the attack at Issus a 
 practicable impossibility. 
 
 This Phalanx, however, be it observed, did not prove 
 instantly superior to the Greek infantry formations 
 that it encountered ; and it is a frequent error, derived 
 from the Romans, to attach to it a supreme import- 
 ance in the Macedonian fighting line. Its inventor 
 and his son used it to play a great but subordinate 
 part ; secure of its discipline and steadiness, they 
 could engage with it the whole front of a superior 
 enemy, while the real attack was developed by the 
 cavalry on the flanks. We have seen already the 
 first outcome of these tactics against the Illyrians : 
 they were to win Chaeronea, and be used with signal 
 effect at Issus. The secret of the success of Philip 
 and Alexander in their pitched battles lies in their 
 handling of the magnificent horse, Macedonian and 
 allied, and, in lesser affairs, of the lighter Guards 2 
 
 1 12. 
 
 2 The Guards (viracnrio-Taf) are often reckoned into the Phalanx, 
 e.g. in Arrian's catalogue of the array at Arbela (iii. 11); but 
 they are also distinguished clearly from the heavy phalangites whenever 
 
64 PHILIP 
 
 and archers. In later days only, when there was 
 no longer a general to handle them, did these corps 
 sink in repute below the automatically moving 
 Phalanx. 
 
 The perfected military system must have been the 
 work of many years. For a long time Philip's 
 national army was supplemented largely by mer- 
 cenaries, 1 and the use of such auxiliaries was not 
 abandoned entirely even by his son. 2 But we know 
 that Philip at his death left to Alexander forty 
 thousand seasoned men, and a system established so 
 firmly that Phocion was moved to warn the exultant 
 Athenians that the belauded poniard of Pausanias 
 had done no more than diminish the army of 
 Chaeronea by just a single man. 3 
 
 Four years passed while Philip organized, plotted, 
 and planned, but made hardly a sign to the outer 
 world. In that obscure interval not only an army 
 of soldiers was created, but another army with golden 
 weapons sent forth to serve within the walls of every 
 city-state of Hellas.* Fraud before force, but force 
 at the last — such was Philip's principle of empire.! 1 
 Once only he aggressed, and that, perhaps, in reply 
 to a hostile move. Athens, who still included in her 
 
 any occasion arises for distinction, e. g. on Alexander's rapid march to 
 the CiKcian gates (ii. 4). 
 
 1 Cf. Diod. xvi. 8 ; Dem. Ohjnth. ii. 17. 
 
 2 There were 5000 in Alexander's Asian array (Diod. xvii. 17). 
 Cf. the corps of apyaioi. Kakovjxevoi £h/oi, at Arbela (Arr. iii. 12). 
 
 8 Pint. Phoc. 16. 
 
 4 Demosthenes (De Cor. 19) implies that there were already paid 
 agents of Philip at Athens in 356. 
 
YEARS OP WAITING 65 
 
 League some of the ports round the Thermaic Gulf, 
 had begun a year or two before this date to intrigue 
 with cities and chieftains of Thrace. 1 Now, however, 
 she was struggling with revolt elsewhere, and the 
 allegiance of all her dependencies was shaken. At 
 such a favourable moment , secret overtures were 
 made by certain citizens of Pydna and Potidaea. 
 Philip accepted their conditions, the gates were 
 opened, and both towns passed unresisting into his 
 hands. He was not, however, ready either to use 
 them or to fight for them, and with cool perfidy he 
 handed them over, together with Anthemus, to the 
 keeping of a local Greek confederation, which Olyn- 
 thus was | striving to increase at the expense of 
 Athens. For he knew that the gift would be 
 guarded gratefully, till in his own good time he might 
 swallow that confederation and his gift at a gulp. 
 
 For the rest, Philip lived in comparative peace, 
 doing no more than egg on a Thracian neighbour, 
 Kersobleptes, to loosen the grip of Athens on his 
 coasts, 2 and harry the Illyrians by deputy. 3 Visit- 
 ing the isle of Samothrace, to be initiated into the 
 mysteries of the Cabiri, he met another royal novice, 
 Olympias, daughter of a dead Epirote king and 
 reputed of the Greek stem of Aeacus. 4 Her fierce 
 
 1 Neopolis, C. I. A. ii. 66 ; Ketriporis and Lykkeios, ii. 66 b. 
 
 2 But cf. Diotl. xvi. 22. Cf. also Isocr. Be Pace, 22 (spoken in 
 355) with Dem. in Arid. 183. 
 
 8 Plut. Alex. 3. 
 
 4 Id. Alex. 3. Cf. Pans. i. 9. 8. The Alexander Romance 
 alludes to a former marriage and an earlier offspring (Ps. Callisth. 
 i. 13), but there is no corroborative evidence. 
 
 5 
 
66 PHILIP 
 
 fantastic nature appealed to the Macedonian in the 
 common excitement of the orgies, and as soon as 
 might be he wedded the wild woman. Men believed 
 that portents marked her bridal night, and visions and 
 strange dreams the early months of her pregnancy ; 
 and on a stormy night of October, 356, while the 
 Ephesian fane of the Goddess of Asia was aflame, 
 she bore Philip a son. 
 
 In the spring of 353 the king was ready at last with 
 soldiers and plans. He came out to war with a double 
 purpose — to free his new-made nation from all frontier 
 danger once and for all, and to increase to a sufficient 
 degree its internal strength and wealth. He had 
 chastised already the Illyrians and Paeonians, and 
 allied himself by marriage with Epirus. Thracian 
 chieftains, whom he had courted hitherto to keep 
 them indifferent to the seductions of Athens, 1 must 
 be crushed now to secure the northern and eastern 
 marches. The Greek cities on his southern coasts 
 from Olympus to the Chersonese were a stand- 
 ing peril; while Thessaly contained the menacing 
 Pheraean power, and withal the finest cavalry in 
 Europe next to his own. 2 
 
 He seems to have tried his strength first on certain 
 
 1 Cf. Diod. xvi. 34, with Dem. in Arid. 183. 
 
 2 Cf. Justin, vii. 6. " Hinc Thessaliam non praedae cupiditate, 
 sed quod exercitui suo robur Thessaloruni equitura adjungere 
 gestiebat, nihil minus quam bellum metuentem improvisus ex- 
 pugnat; unumque corpus equitum pedestriumque copiarum invicti 
 exercitus fecit." 
 
SIEGE OF METHONE 67 
 
 of the Greek cities ; 1 but his Thracian allies took 
 fright and called in Chares the Athenian. Philip 
 eluded his fleet, and came back west to Methone, 
 the one port of importance which Athens held still on 
 the inner Macedonian sea. The imperial Republic 
 was appealed to, but sent no help ; {Philip pressed the 
 siege, and when his men had scaled the wall, took 
 away their ladders and so forced them into the town. 2 
 The citizens — men, women, and children — were sent 
 forth in tbe clothes they wore to find another home, 
 and their city was razed to the ground j' it had cost 
 Philip an eye. 3 
 
 It marks an era in Philip's life, this siege of a 
 little port in Pieria, for it meant war open and 
 declared with Athens. Amphipolis, indeed, had not 
 been forgotten by the jealous Republic, but Philip 
 could allege that for long it had not been an Athenian 
 dependency de facto, and he made feint of debating 
 still the question of exchange. Pydna and Potidaea 
 had invited him of their own motion, and, though 
 he took them, he did not keep them in his hands. 
 Ancient states often hovered long between peace and 
 war, inflicting and receiving minor injuries, tantamount 
 
 1 Cf. Olynth. iii. 4. Abdera and Maronea, at any rate. Cf. 
 Dem. in Arid. I.e. with Polyaen., iv. 2, 22. 
 
 2 Polyaen. iv. 2, 15. 
 
 8 Callisthenes (ap. Stob. vii. § 65) says the eye was shot out by 
 one Aster, as Philip was marching to the siege of Olynthus ; but 
 Callisthenes seems to have confused the siege of Methone with 
 the later operations against Chalcidice. Cf. Diod. xvi. 34 ; Strabo, 
 p. 33 a; Justin, vii. 6; Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 37; Plut. Parallel. 
 ch. viii. ; and Suidas, s.v. Mc^cuvy. The latter says that Aster was 
 a Methonaean. 
 
68 PHILIP 
 
 to casus belli, but sent no heralds. Philip knew well 
 this practice and how to use it ; 1 but Methone made 
 nothing possible but open war ; and the Athenians 
 always looked back to that siege as a point of de- 
 parture in the Macedonian's deliberate scheme to 
 humble then country. 
 
 Nevertheless, in 353, Philip had no wish to humble 
 Athens, except on his own coasts. Throughout life 
 his rude nature hankered after the approval of the 
 city which he called the " Theatre of Glory," 2 and 
 always he was more than half ashamed to use his 
 brute broadsword against her wit. Athenians alone 
 among his captives he freed unransomed, when the 
 chance of war threw them into his hands ; their land 
 alone in Greece he neither entered himself nor allowed 
 a single soldier to violate, even after Chaeronea. 
 Had Athens not clung to her imperial relations with 
 the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, her orbit would 
 never have disturbed that of Philip. It was the 
 western ports which first embroiled the two ; it was 
 Halonnesus and the Chersonese which strained their 
 newly made Peace ; it was Athenian support of the 
 cities on the sea of Marmora, which indirectly brought 
 Philip down at last to Chaeronea. (Neither his last 
 acts nor his first can be justified by international 
 right, as commonly understood ; the attempt to acquit 
 him by the laws of individual morality would be as 
 futile as absurd. Let those that are without sin 
 arraign by which code they will this architect of a 
 nation. 
 
 1 Cf. Dem. Phil. iv. 61. 2 Plut. Apophth. Phil. 11. 
 
THESSALY 69 
 
 It was late in that summer ere Philip could put 
 hand to his clearest project. The great knightly house 
 of Larissa had invited him to interfere in their quarrel 
 with the rival house of Pherae. 1 An intriguer could 
 wish no fairer field than Thessaly. One in name, 
 it was divided from end to end by the fatal feuds 
 of families. The great houses of Larissa, Pherae, 
 Crannon, Pharsalus, and Pelinna, idle and luxurious 
 feudal Barons with no overlord, rode and fought and 
 oppressed their serfs. They knew no voluntary 
 union ; but sometimes one house would so far increase 
 its power as to force submission or unequal alliance 
 on others, as the Aleuadae of Larissa had clone in 
 time past, and to claim for its chief the title of tagus 
 of all Thessaly. More than twenty years before the 
 Larissan family sent their invitation to Macedonia, 
 a great Baron, one Jason, had arisen in Pherae — a 
 man of a genius unscrupulous and masterful as that 
 of Philip himself. This man, noting the success of 
 professional armies in Asia, used the revenues of his 
 cornlands and his port of Pagasae to buy soldiers of 
 fortune ; and ere he died, hi the year after Leuctra, 
 lord of all the six thousand Thessalian knights, 2 
 
 1 Both Diodorus (xvi. 14) and Justin (vii. 6) possibly imply 
 that Philip made an expedition to help these Aleuadae of Larissa 
 earlier than 353. Demosthenes, however, reckons {Phil. iii. 25) 
 that up to 341 Philip had been marching about Greek soil for less 
 than thirteen years. I prefer to rate this explicit contemporary 
 statement above the very vague indications of the chroniclers ; 
 but it is quite possible that the invitation reached Philip earlier 
 than 353, but was put aside till it could conveniently be com- 
 plied with. 
 
 2 See for Thessaly under Jason, the speech of Polydamas of 
 Pharsalus at Sparta in 374. Xen. Hell. vi. 1. 
 
70 PHILIP 
 
 he could marshal with his mercenaries and allies the 
 most formidable force in Greece. But by 353 he and 
 his sons had met tyrants' deaths. A shadow of their 
 power alone survived at Pherae ; and the Aleuadae 
 of Larissa had fair hope of tasting full vengeance 
 for the wrongs of twenty years, when Philip marched 
 south from Methone to gain a footing in Thessaly. 
 
 He appears to have underrated his foes, or over- 
 rated his friends. The Pheraean Baron called up 
 seven thousand mercenaries from the spoilers of Delphi, 
 and against these Philip could make no head. A second 
 check disheartened his men, and with much ado he 
 drew them back to Macedonia. During the winter 
 he pressed the Thessalians to supply better support, 
 and when he came south again in the spring of 352 
 he was able to take the field with more than twenty 
 thousand foot and three thousand horse. A host of 
 knights and mercenaries, superior to his own, was 
 awaiting him, and in the plain of Volo Philip fought 
 his first great battle on Greek soil. As champion 
 of outraged Apollo against the impious Phocian 
 hirelings, he exalted the superstitious confidence of 
 his soldiers by wreathing their helmets as for a 
 festival. / They charged with the fury of fanaticism : 
 the Phocian mercenaries and their leader Onomar- 
 chus, 1 stricken with panic, hardly awaited the onset 
 of the phalanx ; and the Companion and Larissan 
 cavalry bore down on the Pheraeans until all broke 
 and fled together towards the sea. An Athenian fleet 
 was standing in-shore, and those that had fled first 
 1 Cf. Justin, viii. 2 ; and Paus. x. 2, 5. 
 
BATTLE OF PAGASAE 71 
 
 stripped off their armour and waded out towards 
 the ships, but ere Onomarchus was out of his 
 depth he was killed by missiles. The victor crucified 
 the body, and put to death three thousand of his 
 prisoners, as sacrilegious men outside the pale of 
 international right. 
 
 The results of the victory were grave indeed ! 
 The Pheraean army had lost nearly half its numbers, 
 and its best ally. The Baron surrendered his city 
 without another blow, flying south of Thermopylae 
 with the last of his mercenaries ; and his port of 
 Pagasae fell. The power which Jason founded had 
 received its death-blow, and it was for the Macedonian 
 now to be tagus of Thessaly. 
 
 Flushed with success, Philip conceived the idea of 
 pushing his pious championship of Apollo even to 
 Delphi. Perhaps already he craved for Hellenic 
 recognition ; certainly he wished to secure Thessaly 
 on the south by breaking up the main Phocian force 
 and seizing the southern Gate. He was not, however, 
 to pass Thermopylae yet. News came up that it was 
 held by a strong force, not of Phocians, but Athen- 
 ians. Chares had sent home word of Philip's project, 
 and the Republic that had been dashed too severely 
 by the disastrous result of the Social War to make 
 any serious effort to stay the Macedonian, started 
 at last from lethargy at the news that an army 
 greater than any since that of Xerxes' was making 
 for the pass. Philip had no idea of forcing his 
 passage against serious opposition. So he turned 
 back to Thessaly, and by the space of two years used 
 
72 PHILIP 
 
 all his arts to make it his own. Nowhere, except 
 at Pherae, whose last shadow of a tyrant he expelled 
 in 351, did he cry Vae metis ! He would be, forsooth, 
 no more than tagus, with harbour-dues to recoup 
 expenses, and the good will of free Thessaly for 
 reward. He won the land " by wiles rather than 
 by arms," l fostering every weakening quarrel and 
 supporting the masses against the Barons. To only 
 one district, that of Magnesia and its port of 
 Pagasae, did he lay imperial claim ; for there his gar- 
 risons could command the harbour of Volo, match- 
 less shelter for his own privateers, and dangerous 
 inlet for those of his foes. Jason and his sons already 
 had proved its value, and Philip's successors reckoned 
 the fortress, which they built on its shore a mile from 
 the modern town, to be one of the keys of Greece. It 
 was largely this claim that so long delayed the settle- 
 ment of Thessaly ; protest upon protest was made by 
 the Thessalians, and we find Parmenio engaged still 
 in 346 in reducing one of the towns on the gulf. 
 
 The filaments of Philip's web stretched even to the 
 long island of Euboea, whence Athenian influence 
 could always threaten Thessaly. | Gold and promises 
 gathered a Macedonian party in Chalcis and Eretria, 
 and fomented civil war. The opponents of Philip 
 called upon Athens ; but when Phocion, her general, 
 • arrived in 349, it was to find that Philip's, gold had 
 debauched even the leader of his own allies, f Deserted 
 on the field of Tamynae, he saved himself and his 
 army, and chastised his betrayer ; but the Athenians 
 1 Polyaen. iv. 2. 19. 
 
PAEONIA AND THRACE 73 
 
 never recovered again all their prestige in Euboea. 
 ; Thenceforward tyrants ruled the cities in the interests 
 of PhilipL or at best of themselves, and Athens felt 
 that she might be threatened at any moment from 
 vantage points whose possessors could turn both 
 Thermopylae and the passes of Cithaeron. 
 
 For half a dozen years after Pagasae we are 
 allowed no more than glimpses of Philip. His agents 
 appear in Greek towns, 1 and his privateers in Greek 
 waters ; but of himself, so soon as he has left Thes- 
 saly, we hear only that he is on his own confines. 2 He 
 had set himself to finish that task which was but half 
 done when he marched into Thessaly, viz. the reduction 
 once for all of the western half of the Balkan penin- 
 sula. The northern Illyrians and Paeonians, and his 
 own Epirote kinsman, Arybbas, still professed independ- 
 ence. 3 The most part of the Greek coast towns, from 
 the Plebrus to the Axius, had yet to acknowledge Mace- 
 donian sway. Whenever the cloud lifts, we descry the 
 restless king warring far inland, now stricken with 
 sickness, now reported dead. At one moment he is 
 besieging Heraeonteichos by the Hebrus, at another 
 sweeping back through Geira to Stagira, Mecyberna 
 and Torone. 4 This much, at least, is certain — that, 
 the six years completed, Philip had only the east 
 of the Balkan peninsula to conquer, and hardly a 
 
 1 Detn. Phil. i. 17, 41 ; Olynth. ii. 18 ; Be Pace, 6 ; F.I. 10. 
 
 2 Phil. i. 11. 
 
 8 Olynth. i. 13. Cf. Plut. Alex. 2 ; C. I. A. ii. 115, which 
 proves that Arybbas, when heaten, sought refuge at Athens. 
 4 Olynth. iii. 5 ; Diod. xvi. 52 ; Ael. V. II. xii. 54. 
 
74 PHILIP 
 
 Thracian port west of Hebrus is reckoned thereafter 
 independent of him. It was estimated that ere he 
 came down to Olynthus hi 349, he had suppressed 
 the freedom of thirty-two Hellenic cities of Thrace ; i 
 and a later age interpreted as portents to Hellas 
 the comets and earthquakes which marked the 
 year 350. 2 
 
 Philip, who had threatened Olynthus already three 
 years before and driven her to compound her quarrel 
 with Athens, 3 drew at last towards her walls in the 
 spring of 349. The capital of Chalcidice, although not 
 comparable to the greatest maritime cities of Ionia, 
 Greece, or Sicily, could offer a resistance more serious 
 and a prize more valuable than any port of Thrace, 
 except Byzantium. She had risen to her dignity on 
 the ruins of the first maritime empire of Athens, 
 by forcing into an unwilling federation most of 
 the towns on the trident peninsula, 4 and opposing 
 herself consistently to the enfeebled leaders of the 
 southern Hellenes. Sparta, indeed, at the zenith of 
 her own power, had read her one rude lesson ; but 
 relying first on the Thracian tribes, and latterly on 
 the Macedonian king himself, 6 Olynthus had persisted 
 in asserting her headship ; and the fitful efforts of 
 Athenian admirals to re-establish their dominion in 
 Thrace had gone far to unite her confederacy with her 
 
 1 Callisth. fr. 42 ; Suid. s. v. Kapavos. 
 
 2 Pliny, N. H. ii. 27. 
 
 3 C. I. A. ii. 105. Cf. Libanius, arg. to Olynthiac orations. 
 
 4 See Xen. Hell. v. 211 ff, for a contemporary statement of the 
 nature of her " federation." 
 
 6 Dem. in Aristocr. 107. 
 
CHALCIDICE AND OLYNTHUS 75 
 
 in common resistance. To panhellenic sympathy, 
 therefore, Olynthus had established no claim, nor 
 indeed did she obtain it either before or after her 
 fall. Only it chanced, as Ave shall see, that her in- 
 terests were made the cry of a certain Athenian party, 
 and that its leading spokesman saw fit to suppress 
 her early record, to exaggerate both what she was 
 and what she might have been, and to paint in vivid 
 colours the dolorous impression caused by her cata- 
 strophe — a picture which the subsequent attitude of 
 the Athenians towards the oppressor of Olynthus, and 
 of the Peloponnesians towards Olynthian captives (to 
 take the orator's own story) signally fails to support. 
 I In the trident Philip played his usual ruthless 
 game. He broke into the confederate cities one by 
 one, but, assuring Olynthus that he was not at 
 war with herself, 1 contrived to convince her that he, 
 her old ally, would hand over once more to her 
 keeping the fractious members of her confederacy, 
 chastened and subject as Potidaea seven years before. 
 His spears moved stage by stage nearer the capital. 
 The Olynthians suspected nothing, or lulled their 
 suspicions ; when lo ! a Macedonian herald appeared 
 at their gates, and throwing it in their teeth that 
 they were sheltering two of his master's half-brothers, 
 destined long ago to death at their kinsman's 
 accession, 2 proclaimed his brutal ultimatum, that 
 Macedonia was not wide enough for Olynthus and 
 for Philip. 3 / It was a bolt from the blue. / No room 
 
 1 See Phil. iii. 11. 
 2 Justin, viii. 3. 3 Dem. Phil. I.e. 
 
76 PHILIP 
 
 was opened for grace, and the citizens could but 
 shut their gates and look round the Hellenic world 
 for help. One state only was there, independent of 
 Persia and already embroiled with Philip, which pos- 
 sessed any considerable fleet. That state was Athens, 
 and for the second time to Athens must Olynthus go. 
 The Olynthian envoys were received in the summer 
 by the Athenian people, without, it seems, great 
 enthusiasm — but they were heard. In the exhausted 
 Republic an imperial policy had not been popular 
 since the Social War, and now that there was trouble 
 in Euboea, a majority of the citizens were disposed 
 to accept the statements of Philip's agents that 
 the Macedonian king's ambition was not directed 
 against the Athenian state, which indeed, they 
 protested, he held in high esteem. I The loss of the 
 Thracian mines however rankled in the soul of 
 Demos, who had come to love free shows and to 
 hate taxation as heartily as a Roman state-pensioner ; 
 and withal individual Athenians of position, like 
 Roman nobles, foresaw in foreign commands very 
 pretty opportunities for loot and blackmail. There- 
 fore, rather perhaps because they did not love Olyn- 
 thus than because they did, the Athenians acceded 
 to the envoys' prayer so far as to despatch a half- 
 piratical expedition of two thousand hired soldiers 
 in thirty ships of war under their notorious con- 
 dotliere, Chares. How this force conducted itself 
 we may infer from Demosthenes' complaints in the 
 second Olynthiac oration, 1 and also from the fact 
 1 § 28; cf. Phil. i. 45. 
 
ATHENS AND OLYNTHUS 77 
 
 that it appears to have done no sort of harm to 
 Philip. Chares was back in Athens by October; 
 and already, in response to a second appeal from 
 Olynthus, the still more notorious pirate Charidemus * 
 had taken eighteen Athenian ships of war, four 
 thousand light troops, and a small force of cavalry, 
 drafted from the Euboean army of Phocion, 2 and 
 gone off to Chalciclice ; where he raided the lands of 
 the Greek towns in Pallene and Bottiaea to the no 
 small satisfaction of himself and his men, but neither 
 to the serious hurt of Philip nor to the conspicuous 
 advantage of Olynthus. The latter, in fact, sent 
 presently to complain of these hireling hordes, but 
 only obtained early in 348 3 the loan of Chares again, 
 followed this time by a citizen force of two thou- 
 sand spears and three hundred horse, together with 
 seventeen ships of war. But we are not led to 
 suppose that any good result followed ; Chares 
 returned probably ere the Olympic Truce was 
 proclaimed, 4 Philip not having been driven back 
 a sinsde foot. 
 
 Already the lesser Chalcidic cities were under the 
 Macedonian's heel, and the Olynthian forces, after 
 two hard-fought but unsuccessful engagements, 5 were 
 
 1 See Dem. in Aristocratem, passim ; and Theopompus, fr. 155. 
 
 2 Dem. in Mid. p. 197. 
 
 3 Such an interval before the third expedition is in itself 
 probable, and not at all inconsistent with the words of Philochorus 
 as quoted by Dionysius (ad Amm. 9). Holm (Gr. GescA. iii. 
 ch. 17, p. 280) anticipates me in this view. 
 
 4 Aesch. F. L. 12. 
 
 6 Cf. Theopoinp. fr. 155, for their partial success. 
 
78 PHILIP 
 
 penned within their walls. | Ancient sieges were slow 
 and painful if there was no traitor to open a 
 gate, and the besieged had access to the sea ; and 
 Olynthus might have kept Philip without its walls 
 for long enough, had he depended on force alone. 
 The Macedonian, however, had his agents within the 
 gates as well as his pikes outside, and was working to 
 corrupt some leader of the aristocratic faction, which, 
 it seems, inspired the defence. 1 During the winter 
 the stalwart Apollonides came to be disgraced, and 
 traitors, Lasthenes and Euthycrates, 2 to be put in his 
 room, and from them the surrender was bought at 
 last in the early spring of 347. The aristocratic 
 knights were betrayed ; the commons ceased to 
 resist ; and more by fraud at the last than force 
 Philip found himself in Olynthus. He razed the 
 city to the ground, sold its citizens for slaves, after 
 the brutal Macedonian manner, which even his 
 hellenized son used, executed his two half-brothers, 
 and went off to Dium to give thanks at the great 
 festival of Macedonian Zeus 3 for the crowning mercy 
 of a united Macedonia. I 
 
 Winter had set in when a herald appeared at the' 
 court of Pella, announcing that an embassy was on its 
 way from Athens with overtures of peace. Philip had 
 still to realize two schemes in his earliest programme 
 of ambition. The eastern half of the Balkan penin- 
 sula remained to be subdued ; and his supremacy 
 
 1 Phil. iii. 56 ff. 2 Dem. Chers. 40. 
 
 8 Diod. xvi. 55. 
 
STRENGTH OF ATHENS 79 
 
 must be established south of Thermopylae. He was 
 meditating on the immediate prosecution of the first 
 of these schemes, with its implied assault on Athenian 
 interests in the Thracian Chersonese, 1 and on an 
 aggressive movement in Euboea, designed, doubtless, 
 to check the Attic privateers ; 2 but the appearance of 
 the Athenian herald induced him to postpone all this 
 in favour of the second scheme. It was a singular 
 opportunity. Athens, so devoutly desiring peace, 
 might well let him pass Thermopylae without a 
 battle ; and for the rest he would answer himself with 
 his diplomacy and his spears. 
 
 The Macedonian had been looming large in the 
 Athenian sky these seven years past. Athens also, 
 beyond question, had occupied no small place in the 
 thoughts of the Macedonian. But it is a grave 
 error in historical perspective to represent Philip as 
 engaged consciously during all his reign in a great 
 duel with Demosthenes. A right understanding 
 either of that orator's position in Athens, or of the 
 part played at this epoch by the Republic herself in 
 the political arena of eastern Europe, will supply salu- 
 tary correction. For fifty years past Athens had been 
 hardly superior in naval strength to Rhodes, and for 
 half that time distinctly inferior in military power to 
 Thebes ; and it is clear that Philip rated her capacity 
 for offence hardly higher than that of Olynthus or 
 Byzantium. 
 ! As a military power, Athens, never the equal even 
 
 1 Aesch. I. L. 82. 2 Dem. F. L. 315. 
 
80 PHILIP 
 
 of such little city-states as Sparta and Thebes, was 
 worth consideration now only in so far as she could 
 hire soldiers of fortune. For, like Venice in the 
 Middle Ages, she possessed but an insignificant 
 peasant class, the most part of her citizens being 
 townsmen of one town, engaged in commerce or sea- 
 going trade. The size of her army, therefore, would 
 depend directly on the measure of her revenues ; and 
 these had sunk by 346 to a figure not more than 
 commensurate with her internal needs. Since the 
 Social War, the tribute paid annually to her by 
 other states had fallen to less than fifty talents ; and 
 even that insignificant sum could not always be 
 realized. Internally, she seems to have been still 
 very wealthy; but since her citizens seldom or 
 never submitted to direct taxation, and had come, 
 with the spread of free thought and philosophic 
 scepticism, to be but lukewarm in voluntary bounty, 
 the State was scarcely tapping private capital at all. 
 Accordingly, we find that the forces which from time 
 to time Athens sends to Thrace or to Euboea are 
 hardly worthy of mention beside Philip's effective 
 armies, even had the Athenian bands been (as, indeed, 
 they were not !) properly paid and equipped, and 
 of assured loyalty to their mistress. 
 
 On the sea, Athens was hardly more formidable 
 than on land. For although she had still a larger 
 fleet than any single state in the Aegean, and 
 presently, under careful administration, brought the 
 tale of her ships up to three hundred (as the marble 
 navy records still bear witness), it is manifest that 
 
ATHENIAN ARMY AND FLEET 81 
 
 she could neither put in commission any large 
 number of vessels at one time, nor keep such as she 
 did commission long on the sea. Men and money 
 were wanting to her fleet as to her army ; and the 
 requisite ship-furniture was not in her arsenals. 
 There is no evidence that she ever had more than 
 fifty ships on active service after the Social War. 
 And, moreover, it must be pointed out that, although 
 it might be irksome to Philip not to have the com- 
 mand of the Aegean, that disability was not more fatal 
 to him than it proved two centuries later to Rome. 
 His was a land power resting on a continental basis, 
 and, in the main, independent of sea-going trade ; 
 and even had Athens not had rivals on her own 
 element, such as Rhodes, Chios, Byzantium, and 
 Syracuse, the geographical position of Philip's realm 
 would have placed him beyond the reach of anything 
 but irritation from her admirals. 
 
 Weak as Athens was herself in offensive force, she 
 stood also practically alone. After the Social War 
 she never resumed an imperial position, nor was able 
 to count on the men or money of others. Her writ 
 ran only where her squatters had been planted, 
 in Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros, Samos, and the Thracian 
 Chersonese. On the cities of Thrace, and even on 
 Euboea (as the demands made by Callias in 342 
 suffice to prove), her hold was very weak, and only if 
 in a moment of common fear she came to be added 
 to some independent power, equal or superior to 
 herself, would she cease to be negligeable. That 
 moment came in 338 ; but even then she could not 
 
 6 
 
82 PHILIP 
 
 outlast a single pitched battle, and fifteen years 
 later, after the Lamian War had flickered out, 
 Athens was forced to confess that she had not a 
 single army to put in the field. 
 
 As it had been given to Thucydides to exalt a 
 series of raids into a great national war, so the 
 transcendent oratory of Demosthenes has led historians 
 to invest his opposition to Philip with an importance 
 of which assuredly Philip was not aware. But since 
 Athens, through her letters and her art, takes a place 
 in universal history far above that due to her politics 
 or her arms, the historian to-day is bound to esteem 
 her by the former and not the latter standard. 
 She may be a weakling compared to Thebes, and a 
 pigmy beside Persia, but she has affected our world 
 so much more than either, that small events in her 
 history possess an interest far greater than the 
 great events of theirs. To ignore her, or even to 
 relegate her to lesser importance in relation to 
 Philip, is to forget that Philip himself, little as he 
 regarded her fleets or her armies, bowed himself 
 none the less to her culture as he bowed to the 
 arms of no other state. Consistently he modified 
 his policy and excused his actions, for fear of forfeit- 
 ing irretrievably her good will ; and he looked to a 
 recognition by her as more to be desired and more 
 pregnant of advantage than twice a victory of 
 Chaeronea. 
 
 Therefore, every relation which Philip has with 
 Athens is worthy of more than ordinary note in his 
 biography, and it is no paradox to say that the 
 
ATHENIAN PARTIES 83 
 
 chance that we know so much of those relations, 
 and so little of his intercourse with the Great King 
 at Susa, and the princes of the Balkans and Albania 
 with whom he was intriguing or warring all his 
 life, implies no iniquity of fate. Certainly there is 
 no more notable moment in his career, historically 
 regarded, than this at which he became for the first 
 time the theme of a supreme Athenian orator. He 
 had been mentioned, indeed, as early as 355 by 
 Isocrates, who, in a speech recommending peace with 
 the confederate rebels of the Social War, assured the 
 Athenians that the Macedonian king would not oppose 
 their claim to Amphipolis ; * and, in the same year, he 
 was alluded to first by the great Demosthenes. 2 But 
 it is not till after the battle of Pagasae that 
 Philip inspired a whole oration. 
 
 It had been the policy of Athens for some years 
 past not to intervene in foreign affairs. The minis- 
 terial majority, led by a few able men like Eubulus 
 and Phocion, found the ground of their faith in the 
 lesson of the Social War, in a depleted treasury, and 
 in a just estimate of the present capacity of the over- 
 politicized Athenian people ; for practical support 
 they relied on an idle populace and on a cultured 
 landed class desirous only to possess its soul on its 
 Attic estates. Opposed to these responsible statesmen 
 was a fervid minority all for empire and for war, 
 certain members of it being imbued with a genuine 
 desire to arrest the slow decay of the state, more 
 descrying in Opposition the road to political fame. 
 1 Be Pace, 22. 2 Lept. 61. 
 
84 PHILIP 
 
 Partly of one class and partly of the other was 
 Demosthenes, now just thirty years of age, crying in 
 season and out of season against the smug ministerial 
 majority. 1 
 
 In this year, 352, the foreign potentate most con- 
 cerned with the traditional area of Athenian empire 
 was Philip, and upon him accordingly the attention 
 of the Opposition is concentrated. Therefore we are 
 the richer for a series of speeches of surpassing merit 
 as oratory, but neither convincing nor convinced. 
 They were not productive, perhaps were not intended 
 to be productive, of any result beyond that of bring- 
 ing their author to the front of the political stage. 
 There is the First Philippic, which impugns the slack 
 military methods of the Ministry, and makes Philip's 
 restless aggression occasion to call for a signal re- 
 versal of the ministerial peace policy. There is the 
 speech for the Freedom of the Rhodians, spoken in 
 351, in which the orator lashes out, in passing, 2 at 
 the official apathy about Philip's movements. There 
 are the three Olynthiac orations, all delivered pro- 
 bably late in 349 (one perhaps early in 348) in the 
 debates excited by the successive appeals of the 
 Olynthians. This group of great orations is not to 
 be taken too seriously. The orator knew very well 
 that it was not among the practical possibilities of 
 politics that the Olynthian quarrel should be taken 
 up very strenuously, or the Sacred Fund, set apart 
 for the providing of free shows, be voted for the war. 
 
 1 Cf. Be Pace, 6 ; Deinarch. in Bern. pp. 12, 102, 99 ; Plut. Bern. 
 
 2 § 2. 
 
DEMOSTHENES 85 
 
 Secure, therefore, in irresponsibility, he can flout the 
 majority, and extol or depreciate Philip's power and 
 character, according as the Ministry finds its excuse 
 for inaction in contempt or fear of the foe. The 
 three speeches have been placed in this sequence or 
 in that, according as the necessities of Olynthus are 
 pressed or ignored, as Philip bulks small or large, 
 arid as the recommendation of a financial expedient is 
 tentative or precise. 1 But it is to be remarked that 
 since the references in these orations to the Olyn- 
 thian war are in the last degree meagre and vague, 
 and those to Philip merely general, the Olynthiacs 
 would possess for the historian only an academic 
 interest, even did not the position of the speaker and 
 the character of the action taken by the Ministry 
 make it impossible to invest them with any respon- 
 sibility for the Athenian expeditions. 2 
 
 No sooner was Demosthenes on the road to recog- 
 nition and office, than he rounded towards the policy 
 of the majority, and was found among the ten 
 envoys at Pella in the winter of 347. He was 
 destined presently to revert to his former policy, 
 thanks to circumstances beyond his own control, and 
 to intensify it into that persistent Philippic Crusade 
 which we associate with his name. In brief, it was 
 the rare fortune of Demosthenes to be forced into 
 consistency with himself ; yet, nevertheless, there 
 is no need to call him trimmer or opportunist. 
 The young party-politician always must begin 
 
 1 On such principles, II., I., III., must be the order. 
 
 2 Cf., per contra, Ulpian, ad Bern. Olynth. I. 
 
86 PHILIP 
 
 uncertainly ; and if it be borne in mind that Demos- 
 thenes was not, as some have loved to represent him, 
 a voice crying in the wilderness, but essentially and 
 always a man of party, spokesman of one strong 
 faction against another, we shall not degrade him 
 to a political rogue, 1 any more than exalt him as 
 political saint. His conduct of the embassies should 
 make that last exaggeration impossible, although the 
 conspicuous correspondence of his later action with 
 the magnificent principles, that he enunciated so 
 magnificently, set him as high as a politician has 
 ever stood in a democratic state. 
 
 The reason of the herald's coming to Pella was on 
 this wise. The Athenian people, seeing itself as far 
 as ever from recovering the mines, 2 had left Olynthus 
 to its fate a full year before ; and now the destruction 
 of its Chalcidic ally released it from its oaths of 
 alliance and all lingering doubts. Already, in 349, 
 Philip had been reported to desire peace, and latterly 
 one Ctesiphon had brought a verbal message from 
 him to the Athenians that he warred unwillingly 
 against their city. 3 A motion even had been made 
 in the Assembly at the end of 348, to invite Philip 
 to make first move. Philip did not respond. It was 
 hardly his part to come a-courting now ! Therefore, 
 
 1 "Malum virum accepimus " (Quintilian, xii. I. 14). 
 
 2 That this was the sole object which aroused any public 
 interest at Athens in the Olynthian war, is proved abundantly by 
 all the authorities. The war with Philip is called consistently 
 " for Amphipolis." Cf. especially, Libanius, arg. to Dera. F. L. 
 
 a Aesch. F. L. 13. 
 
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 87 
 
 the first panic over, and their envoys recalled from 
 the Greek states, the Athenian Ministry, hearing a 
 renewal of Philip's expression of good will in the 
 mouth of Aristodemus, an actor, put up one Pkilo- 
 crates to move for a commission to negotiate peace. 
 Ten members were proposed — the mover himself and 
 Ctesiphon, and six elderly colleagues, together with 
 the two free lances, Demosthenes and Aeschines, 1 
 whose inclusion would muzzle the Opposition. This 
 motion being agreed to, a herald was despatched, as 
 we have seen ; and late in the autumn the Com- 
 missioners crossed to Euboea, and journeyed overland 
 up to Oreus, in order, doubtless, to avoid the 
 privateers in the Aegean and the Thebans on the 
 mainland. At Oreus they proposed to await their 
 herald's return ; but he not appearing, and the 
 season being late, they took ship to the Bay of 
 Pagasae, where Parmenio was beleaguering Halus, 
 obtained his safe conduct, and so came in peace 
 through his lines to Larissa, where at last the herald 
 brought word that all was well. Philip was lying 
 at Pella, and a few days later received them there 
 with all honour. 
 
 This first audience, which the architect of the new 
 order gave to the last brilliant spirits of the old, is 
 one of the very few events of Philip's life that we 
 can invest with circumstance. Aeschines, giving three 
 years later an account of his acts to an Athenian 
 jury, has left us a suggestion of the scene — the king 
 
 1 These two were not on distinct sides of the house at this 
 period. Cf. Aesch. F. L. 79, with Dem. F. L. 10, 11, 302, 310. 
 
88 PHILIP 
 
 seated on his throne in the public assembly of his 
 vassals, and of those famous knights whom Demos- 
 thenes had disparaged as "no better than other 
 men ; " 1 standing before him a little group of unarmed 
 strangers with their sponsor and their herald, who 
 represented the crown of civilization in their time. 
 The older men first addressed the king, stating briefly 
 the griefs and proposals of their city, and made way 
 for the two young immortals, who behaved, however, 
 very much as mortals conscious of budding reputa- 
 tions. For we gather that they launched out into 
 lengthy harangues about the ancestors of the king 
 and of themselves, and the eternal laws of wrong and 
 right ; and the greater Immortal of the two forgot 
 his notes, and breaking clown in mid-air, had to be 
 handled kindly by the " barbarian," and encouraged 
 to collect himself ; but all to no purpose. Thereupon 
 the herald bade the ambassadors withdraw out of the 
 presence ; and the Commission fell to wrangling about 
 the success or failure of this member and that, but 
 in the midst of the dispute came the king's men 
 to lead them back to the presence. And when 
 they were seated, Philip replied to them severally 
 with such courtesy and address that those masters 
 of debate knew not afterwards which to admire most, 
 his temper or his wit. 2 Thereafter he bade them to 
 a feast, and entreated them so well at his table 
 and always while they stayed at his court, that they 
 went back to Larissa vying in praise of him, but 
 agreed, nevertheless, when they should come to 
 Athens, to assume a more discreet reserve. 
 
 1 Ohjnth. ii. 17. 2 Aesch. F. L. 41 ff. 
 
ATHENIAN COMMISSION AT PELLA 89 
 
 When the relative strength of the two powers is 
 considered, and regard is had to the terms of the 
 subsequent peace, it is evident that in all this matter 
 Athens had done the kissing, and Philip but offered 
 his cheek. And the mutual contradictions of the rival 
 orators in the famous Embassy Speeches leave no 
 room for doubt that the question of Amphipolis and 
 the mines had not been insisted upon by the Com- 
 mission, probably not advanced at all, for fear 
 negotiations should miscarry from the very outset. 1 
 
 Philip commissioned his herald to go to Athens 
 with the envoys and bear a courteous letter, agree- 
 ing to a peace on the terms uti possidetis, with a 
 guarantee that he would not attack the Chersonese, 
 and adding, it seems, even a proposal of alliance. 
 The Athenian Ministry asked no better terms, and 
 received with all good will a few days later Philip's 
 Commissioners, among whom were two destined to 
 a wider fame, Parmenio, future lieutenant of Alex- 
 ander in the conquest of Asia, and Antipater, the 
 coming Regent of Europe, who was to return to 
 Athens in very different case. 
 
 Meanwhile Philip himself did not rest on his oars. 
 When the events soon to happen are considered, there 
 can be little doubt that now or earlier he made 
 secret overtures to the Phocians and to Thebes, and 
 invited the deputations from those states which met 
 him on his return to Pella. A man of Philip's clear 
 
 1 Cf. Demosthenes' own view of the hopelessness of entertain- 
 ing any idea of recovering Amphipolis, expressed long before this 
 date {Phil. i. 12). 
 
90 PHILIP 
 
 purpose leaves as little as may be to chance. But in 
 the interval he betook himself to the Hebrus, and 
 turned his hand to reducing an old foe, or old ally, 
 now leagued with Athens, the chieftain Kersobleptes, 
 whose dominions, lying very near to the Chersonese, 
 might be put out of Macedonian reach by the terms 
 of the peace, if not annexed before its ratification. 
 We know no details of this campaign ; we hear only 
 vaguely of the Macedonian armies as now on the coast 
 of Thrace, now on the Holy Mountain, which over- 
 looks the sea of Marmora, and in May Philip returns 
 to Pella with Kersobleptes at his chariot wheels. 
 There a crowd of envoys from the Greek States was 
 waitiug, together with the Athenian Commission, 
 returned with full powers to ratify peace and alliance. 
 A biographer of Philip may resign with heartfelt 
 thankfulness to the historian of Greece the minute 
 examination of what had taken place at Athens ere 
 the Commission started again for Pella. And, kideed, 
 it may be questioned whether such history as can 
 be written from the forensic assertions of two rival 
 orators, each concerned to falsify his own and his 
 opponent's part in a negotiation which had come in 
 three years to stink in Athenian nostrils, does not 
 fill, as it is, too large a place in standard works, to 
 the wearying of the reader and the distortion of 
 perspective. The sum of events is this. The majority 
 of Athenians were plainly for peace at almost any 
 price, and both Aeschines and Demosthenes, then 
 stepping on to the threshold of office, went with the 
 majority. Certain difficulties arose from the fact that 
 
AFFAIRS AT ATHENS 91 
 
 the city had allies, who must be included, and that 
 the Macedonian Commission declined on Philip's behalf 
 to admit all of these to the Treaty. The Macedonians 
 gave way in the matter of Kersobleptes (a concession 
 which availed the Thracian not at all), but set their 
 faces as adamant against the Phocians, now impiously 
 holding Delphi and Thermopylae, and lying under 
 ban therefor. But the Athenian Ministry, in its 
 present mood, was not prepared to stand out for 
 Phocians any more than for Amphipolis, and having 
 put off its allies with vague assertions (for the allies, 
 it seems, did not wish to meet Philip so far beyond 
 halfway as the dominant partner), took the oaths on 
 the Macedonian terms. Philip's Commission, greatly 
 complimented, left for Pella, and the Athenian 
 envoys were reappointed and sent out again by way 
 of Euboea. Much was said afterwards about their 
 delays ; they should have gone direct to Thrace and 
 by swearing Philip then and there, have saved many 
 towns ; but evidently the Ministry had no mind to tax 
 Philip's forbearance, and had indeed bidden their Com- 
 mission take the usual road, and wait at Pella till the 
 conqueror should be pleased to come back from Thrace. 
 Historians have laboured to account for this 
 humble attitude of Athens by laying stress on her 
 uneasiness for her citizens held captive since the 
 fall of Olynthus, on her hatred of Thebes, and on 
 the deception practised by Philip's agents. But, 
 surely, no further explanation is called for (if we look 
 at the acts "of her responsible statesmen, Eubulus 
 or Phocion, and • not only listen to the grandiose 
 
92 PHILIP 
 
 utterances of Demosthenes) than her own conscious- 
 ness that her effective forces had become, in 346, 
 feeble indeed compared to those of the Macedonian. 
 
 Never did Philip hold better cards than at Pella 
 in May, 346, and never better did he play his game. 
 Encamped about him in the plain of the Vardar was 
 such an army as united Greece could not excel ; and 
 embassies from Athens, from Thebes, from the 
 Phocians, from the Thessalian synod, from Aetolia, 
 were bidding for his favour, each interpreting in 
 their own sense the purpose which alone he knew. 
 His whole soul was set on one great end — uncon- 
 ditional supremacy over the Hellenes — and he had the 
 most definite plan of action. First, he must secure 
 the command of the land route into central Greece ; 
 second, he looked to obtain a recognized position in 
 the inner communion of the Hellenes ; 1 and third, 
 he proposed to reduce the Greek states to an inno- 
 cuous equality. In effect, he would seize and hold 
 Thermopylae ; he would assume the double role of 
 champion of the Delphian Apollo and patron of 
 Athens ; and he would crush the Phocian " Grand 
 Company," Sparta, and eventually Thebes. 
 
 The game must have been pretty playing for 
 Philip. It had leaked out that he was going to 
 march south; but whether to do more than help 
 Parmenio against Halus, the envoys were not agreed. 
 Collectively the Greek states, represented at Pella, 
 had suspicions of Philip's ultimate intentions; 
 1 Cf. Dem. Be Pace, 19, 22. 
 
PHILIP GOES SOUTH 93 
 
 individually, they cherished immediate aims which he 
 could advance. ;]The one thing needful for the Mace- 
 donian was to keep doubt of his destination from 
 becoming certainty till his goal was in sight, that he 
 might arrive within touch of the venal Phocians in 
 Thermopylae before any one could forestall his bid. 
 It was easy to retain the Greek envoys, who knew 
 well enough that their safe conduct through Thessaly 
 depended on the king's advices to his lieutenant ; * 
 nor was it difficult, by giving secret pledges to their 
 several enmities, to prevent their concerted action. 
 The Athenians were talked to privily about the The- 
 bans, the Thebans about the Phocians, the Phocians 
 about the Thebans. Late in May, the peace with 
 Athens being still unratified and no decisive 
 answer having been given to anybody, Philip is- 
 sued marching orders, and came through the pass of 
 Tempe with all the envoys intriguing and back- 
 biting in his train ; and so to Pherae, the scene of his 
 triumph six years before. There he called a halt, 
 as though to breathe before assaulting Halns. And 
 at last in a khan, which stood on the great south 
 road, over against a temple of the Twin Brothers, 
 Philip swore a solemn oath to observe peace with the 
 Athenians, and with their children's children, and put 
 forward representatives of all his " allied " cities, from 
 Epirus to Cardia in the Chersonese, to do the like. 
 The final terms implied the abandonment of Amphi- 
 polis to Philip ; the recognition that Cardia was his 
 
 1 Needless here to listen to the eternal cry of bribery — the 
 Athenian "Nous sommes trahis ! " (Dem. Cor. 32). 
 
94 PHILIP 
 
 ally ; the relinquishing of the great eastern islands. 
 Rhodes, Chios, and Cos, to the satrap of Caria ; and 
 the acknowledgment of the right of the Byzantines 
 to levy their own tolls in the Bosphoms. In effect, 
 Athens accepted the fact that she was no longer 
 imperial. Nevertheless, the ten Athenians received 
 Philip's oaths and accepted a safe conduct, and, not 
 a little relieved, took ship to Euboea, and came again 
 to Athens early in June. 
 
 In time to come the Athenians were to repent 
 that their envoys had accepted the oaths of Philip's 
 allied towns by their proxies. They had bidden, said 
 they, their Commission visit each several " allied " 
 town in turn and judge its claim to be included or 
 excluded ; and the failure to obey led to wild accusa- 
 tions of venality and bad faith, culminating in one 
 famous charge. But all that can be said nowadays 
 is, that manifestly at the time of ratification the 
 Athenians were too well pleased with peace at any 
 cost to press such a point. And, indeed, it is difficult 
 to see how better the envoys could have acted. If 
 the master of so many battalions would not take 
 oaths but at his own good time, who was to force 
 him ? And until he had taken them and given the 
 envoys safe conduct, how should they go to the 
 Thracian cities ? At Pherae Philip was too strong and 
 too nigh for the Athenians to be other than thankful 
 to obtain full ratification of their peace without 
 another day's delay. The cry about Cardia and 
 against the Peace comes later in time, when the 
 impunity which the Macedonian's ambition, not his 
 
PHILIP AT THERMOPYLAE 95 
 
 fear, secured to Athens, while she lay at his mercy, 
 had restored her assurance. For from first to last 
 the Athenian ascribed to fear rather than to generosity 
 any act of grace. 
 
 Whether Philip took Halus now or later, we know 
 not ; 1 in any case it held out but little longer before 
 being dismantled and given to the keeping of the 
 Pharsalians. At any rate, it is clear that he delayed 
 the shortest possible time before rounding Othrys, 
 and confronting the eight or ten thousand merce- 
 naries ranged under the Phocian banner at Thermo- 
 pylae. A small Lacedaemonian force was with these, 
 and a weak Athenian squadron watched events from 
 Oreus. For the temper of the mercenaries was very 
 doubtful ; their pay was in arrear, and their leader 
 had quarrelled with the Phocian government. 2 Philip 
 halted, and sent a herald into the Pass. Phalaecus, 
 the condotticre, asked for time. He had envoys at 
 Athens, and wished to know whether that city meant 
 to support him. Should she not send help, his posi- 
 tion would be scarcely tenable, with the Thebans in his 
 rear, and the best army in Europe ready to assault 
 his front. So the pickets of Phalaecus and Philip 
 watched each other across the Asopus until the 
 seventh day, or thereabouts, when the Phocian 
 envoys returned to say that the Athenian assemblies 
 were passing idle votes against Philip, and idle votes 
 
 1 Demosthenes says (F. L. 36) that Philip had professed to 
 detain the Athenian envoys, that they might mediate in the 
 matter of Halus. 
 
 2 Aesch. F. L. 132. 
 
96 PHILIP 
 
 of sympathy with, his opponents, 1 but plainly did 
 not intend to send a lance or contribute a drachma. 
 The Lacedaemonians decamped then and there ; the 
 Athenian fleet made no sign ; and three days later 
 Phalaecus had sold the Pass and the Phocian cause 
 to Philip, and marched his sacrilegious bravos into 
 the Peloponnese ; whence they betook themselves to 
 Elis, Crete, and Sicily, and as the Greeks loved to 
 believe, perished to a man miserably by the wrath 
 of Apollo. 
 
 Philip was within the gates of Greece. What would 
 he do ? For whom, against whom, would he be ? All 
 Greece waited, hoping somewhat fearing more, Athens 
 especially looking to her walls, and calling in her 
 country folk, though it was near the season of the 
 rural feast of Heracles. I With masterly duplicity, 
 Philip held out the hand of frank fellowship to 
 Thebes, 2 who had been on the right side in the Sacred 
 War when Lacedaemon and Athens had been on the 
 wrong. The Boeotian cities, Orchomenus, Coronea, 
 and Corsiae, whilom allies of the Phocians, were handed 
 over to Theban mercies, 3 and Philip marched into the 
 mountains to avenge Apollo. Fire and sword went 
 through Phocis, as through no Greek state since Epa- 
 minondas had raided Laconia. Twenty-three cities 
 were dismantled, and broken up into open villages, 4 
 a device learned from the great Theban, and after ten 
 years the Delphians were led back to their Delphi, and 
 put in possession of its spoiled and violated shrine. 
 
 1 Dem. F. L. 50, 181. 2 Cf. Paus. x. 2, 5. 
 
 3 Dem. F. L. 149. * Diod. xvi. 60. 
 
PANHELLENISM 97 
 
 The God who sat on the navel of Hellas acknow- 
 ledged his new champion through the mouth of his 
 Prophetess. The ancient and venerated union of the 
 Amphictyons elected him by acclamation to the 
 empty seat of the Phocians, receiving him thus into 
 the innermost circle of the Hellenes. And in the 
 character of the greatest Hellene of them all he sat 
 in the Pythian chair of presidency that autumn, and 
 gave the bay-leaf crowns to the victors at the games. 
 With the noise of him all Greece was filled, even as 
 the brain of that half-witted Arcadian, who, arrested 
 at Delphi, cried that he was running and would 
 run still, until he came to a people that knew not 
 Philip. 1 
 
 For the six years or more that follow, Philip's life 
 alas ! is withdrawn, except at rare intervals, from 
 our knowledge. Alas, indeed ! for these are the 
 years in which his men-at-arms marched, the first 
 foreigners since history had begun, into the Pelo- 
 ponnese, and he himself besieged and took cities on 
 the Adriatic, and led his spearmen up to, or even 
 beyond, the Danube ; years, too, in which his final 
 ambition took shape, "for it was coming to be his 
 desire to be designated Captain-General of Hellas, 
 and to wage the War against the Persian." 2 To 
 such a purpose did the old Isocrates incite him now, 3 
 fired in the evening of his long life with a vision 
 of a panhellenic Union, in which the petty quarrels 
 
 1 Theopomp. fr. 235. 2 Diod. xvi. 60. 
 
 8 His Letter to Philip was written about 345. 
 
 7 
 
98 PHILIP 
 
 of cities, which had made history during all his 
 days, would be forgotten. Years, finally, in which 
 the father began to educate the son to be not 
 less a warrior and more a Hellene than himself, little 
 thinking how entirely the execution of the great 
 project, with which his own soul was filled, was to 
 fall with all its glory to the boy. 
 
 It seems that Philip himself went back to his 
 capital to spend the winter of 346-345, 1 leaving 
 garrisons in Phocis and Thermopylae, 2 and orders to 
 his lieutenants to watch Thebes and obtain a footing 
 in Euboea, disposed already in his favour ; and that 
 
 Jin the spring of 345 he sent out agents and troops to 
 secure to himself almost all the states of Greece, 
 except Attica. Everywhere his game was to divide] a 
 policy which he may have learned from Epaminondas. 
 
 J Thessaly, so apt to be united by a powerful Baron, 
 was split in four, and Councils of Ten, acting for 
 Philip, and paying to him the revenues of the land, 3 
 replaced the baronial rule in the cities. ' Euboea was 
 won over with the single doubtful exception of Chalcis, 
 and Macedonian garrisons were placed in Porthmus 
 and Oreus, 4 the points of entrance and departure on 
 the north road from Attica, which the embassies were 
 used to follow. In the previous autumn the king 
 seems to have gone to Thebes, to be received as a 
 gracious benefactor, where twenty years before he 
 
 1 Diod. xvi. 60. 
 
 2 Dem. Ad Ep. Phil. 4, says that Philip garrisoned Nicaea, 
 near Thermopylae. 
 
 8 Phil. ii. 22 ; iii. 26, 33. 
 
 4 Dem. Phil. iii. 12. 57, 58 ; F. L. 219. 
 
PHILIP AND ATHENS 99 
 
 had lived in exile. In 345, however, the most part 
 of Philip's intrigue and coercion was exercised within 
 the Isthmus to the breaking-up of the traditional 
 supremacy of Sparta, against whom he could allege 
 that she had ranged herself in Thermopylae with 
 the violators of Delphi. But, although compelled 
 now by superior force to swallow peace with Argos, 1 
 and to see Arcadia set up again, 2 and to resign Mes- 
 sene, 3 Sparta never submitted herself altogether, but in 
 years to come alone of all the Greeks refused to serve 
 under Philip's banner against Persia, and broke out 
 against his son, so soon as he was gone into Asia. 
 Furthermore we hear now of Philip's agents in Elis 
 as the first cause of intestine dissensions in all its 
 cities and of faction fights and massacres ; 4 and also 
 that he projected the seizure of Megara. 
 
 Athens herself, however, Philip did not touch. 5 
 Determined as he was to end her claims to imperial 
 dominion on the coasts which he conceived to be his 
 own, he respected nevertheless the soil of Attica more 
 than if it had been holy ground. And not only so, 
 but by letter after letter, and envoy after envoy, he 
 tried to soothe the fears of the city and heal her 
 wounded feelings. First he sent her two invitations 
 
 1 Pans. ii. 20. 1 ; vii. 11. 2 ; Dem. F. L. 260. 
 
 2 Paus. viii. 7. 4, 27, 10. 
 
 8 Dem. Phil. ii. 13, 20, 26, and arg. 
 
 4 Dem. F. L. 260, 294 ; Phil. iii. 27 ; Paus. iv. 28, 4. 
 
 5 There is a loose rhetorical passage in Phil. ii. 36, which 
 might imply that Philip made a descent on the Attic coast ; but 
 we may be sure that, if a fact, we should have heard of it again 
 and again. 
 
100 PHILIP 
 
 to participate in the pious task of vindicating 
 Apollo ; * then, taking no umbrage that she did not 
 comply, he communicated his own success in a third 
 letter, with many expressions of good will. 2 All the 
 Athenians taken at Olynthus returned unransomed to 
 their country, — and indeed Philip prided himself on 
 taking no money for an Athenian. Furthermore by 
 the mouths of his agents he promised constantly that 
 Athens should reap no small advantage from the 
 Peace she had made; 3 and doubtless he promised 
 sincerely, and withal fulfilled his word, as it seemed 
 to him, by crushing her old foes in Greece, and 
 exalting her as the one inviolate Queen of civili- 
 zation. Lastly, most signal act of all, some time 
 in 344, when master of all Greece beside, Philip 
 sent one, Python, to plead against the evil things 
 said constantly of him in Athens, and to bid for the 
 good will it seemed so hard to win, by proposing to 
 amend the Peace in those clauses which had vexed 
 the Athenians most. And all this labour of con- 
 ciliation, is it to be referred to no nobler an instinct 
 than fear ? It can scarcely be thought to spring from 
 that in 346, but what are we to say in 338, when 
 point for point it was taken up again after Chaeronea ? 
 Rather to Philip's honour let it be recorded, as to 
 the honour of any warrior-statesman, that sword in 
 hand he paid homage to the arts of peace. And not 
 less be it recorded to the honour of Athens, that she 
 did not accept his homage. For ever since her third 
 
 1 Dem. F. L. 51. 3 Dem. F. L. 36. 
 
 3 Dem. Halonn. 33. 
 
THE PHILIPPIC CRUSADE 101 
 
 Embassy had broken up on its way north, hearing 
 that Philip was already within Thermopylae, she had 
 protested against this great armament that paraded 
 Greece, sparing only herself with an intolerable 
 sufferance. Chafing at Philip's reception among the 
 Amphictyons, she would have disowned even the 
 Treaty she had sworn, had Demosthenes not inter- 
 vened. 1 Checked in this act of folly, she was fain to 
 console herself with decreeing exile against the chief 
 authors of the Peace, and with harbouring all men 
 disaffected to Philip, and with applauding Demos- 
 thenes when he flouted Philip's envoys, and with 
 proposing preposterous amendments to the Treaty, 
 and with sending Diopithes and a fleet to the 
 Chersonese to sail as near to war as he might in 
 time of peace. Now is the time when Demosthenes 
 emerges finally from his uncertain youth, and, 
 winning the ear of the citizens, adopts a strong 
 policy to be maintained more or less till the day of 
 his death. No longer is he "unstable in his ways, 
 incapable of constancy to one policy or to one party," 
 as Theopompus said of him in one of those vigorous 
 sentences, 2 which show how much we have lost in 
 losing the " Philippica." 
 
 It is easy to sit in judgment now on this policy 
 of Demosthenes, easy to prove that resistance to 
 Philip was worse than useless, and that Athens had 
 not the internal resources to enable her to assume 
 again an imperial position. She lost, maybe, the 
 full favour of the master of her fate, and she should 
 1 Be Pace, 13. a Fr. 106. 
 
102 PHILIP 
 
 have been urged to take a less selfish and more 
 panhellenic view of the great king, who only aspired 
 to lead united Hellas against her ancient foe! 
 Demosthenes was unjust, improvident, blind to the 
 lesson of his age — be it so ! Cicero too was blind 
 when he opposed Caesar and supported Octavian. The 
 greatest statesmen have been just as blind in every 
 age of change. But just as individual character gains 
 more by fighting out a battle than by a cunning 
 surrender, so the character of a people purges itself 
 in strenuous resistance of base elements that would 
 increase perilously, did it subordinate wholly its 
 choleric emotions to its pure reason. And inas- 
 much as this is so, the sympathy which has always 
 gone out to the leaders of forlorn hopes, and to 
 those who butt against stone walls, and to those 
 who will not take quarter, can be justified of its 
 unreason. And, moreover, it may well be doubted 
 if the tradition of Attic letters and art, with which 
 the Hellenistic age began, would have been near so 
 vivid without this last flash of Athenian freedom. 
 In any case, there would have been no such e'Mj 
 samples of style and Atticism as the second, third, 
 and fourth Philippics, the speeches on the Chersonese, 
 the Embassy, and the Crown. 
 
 After 346, there was to be no more fruitless 
 epideictic oratory. Demosthenes and his party were 
 terribly in earnest, and by their deeds, as much as by 
 their words, laid up the store of hate which Philip 
 bequeathed to Alexander. Now Demosthenes is 
 making a tour of the Peloponnese, in the vain hope of 
 
HALONNESUS 103 
 
 detaching the Arcadians and the rest from Philip ; 
 now at Athens he is urging the Messenian envoys to 
 disobey Macedonian orders and stand by Sparta; 
 but once more in vain. Then his partisan Timarchus 
 moves that it be penal to supply Philip with muni- 
 tions of war ; and when the king sends his envoys to 
 protest against all this covert hostility, Demosthenes 
 retorts with the second of his Philippics, a master- 
 piece of invective against this sacker of cities, who 
 cried peace where there was no peace, and suborned 
 a great party to aid " in putting all the world 
 under his feet." 
 
 With the winter Philip was gone north again, and 
 so far as we know, came south of Thermopylae 
 neither in 344 nor in five succeeding years. He was 
 in Ambracia and Epirus, perhaps, too, in the western 
 isles, tie conducted a campaign against the races 
 of the north, practising the Persian policy of trans- 
 ferring wholesale populations from mountain to plain, 
 and plain to mountain, the better to break tribal 
 traditions ; x j and coming clown to Cardia, he made 
 the Athenian farmers in the Chersonese shake in 
 their shoes, and send urgent appeals to Piraeus. Of his 
 direct dealings with Greece, if indeed he had many 
 in these years, we know only his disputes with 
 Athens about Potidaea and in the matter of Halon- 
 nesus, a wretched rock north of Euboea, which had 
 become a nest of pirates, and been smoked out by a 
 Macedonian admiral. Whereupon the neighbouring 
 Peparethians, pirates also no doubt, settled on it, 
 1 Justin, viii. 5, referring obviously to Paeonia. 
 
104 PHILIP 
 
 but were ousted promptly, and their own island was 
 raided. In which matter no one outside would have 
 concerned themselves, had it not chanced that 
 Athens, conceiving herself to have a lien on both 
 Halonnesus and Peparethus, took occasion to revive 
 a dispute as to the uti possidetis clause in the treaty 
 of 346. 
 
 The said clause had not proved efficacious in the 
 sense intended by the Athenian Ministry of the time ; 
 for in addition to the difficulty about the Thracian 
 cities, taken by Philip in the interval between the 
 proposal and tbe conclusion of the Peace, there were 
 on the one hand, many Greek cities, such as the 
 Elean colonies in Ambracia, independent of either 
 party to the treaty, and open, therefore, to sub- 
 sequent absorption by Philip, to the prejudice of 
 Athens ; and, on the other, certain cities and islands 
 existed which Athens considered to be in her own 
 " empire," but for so many years had neither occu- 
 pied nor done anything to protect, that her claim 
 was scarcely to be maintained. Halonnesus was just 
 such a case. Philip asserted, with some show of 
 equity, that the Athenian right to that island had 
 lapsed, but, for the sake of peace and quietness, he 
 offered now to "present " it to Athens. The Ministry 
 of the Eepublic stipulated, however, that it be under- 
 stood clearly that Philip "restored" the island — a 
 quarrel about words, or, as it happens in the Greek 
 speech, about syllables, which raised the whole issue. 
 Thereupon Hegesippus was sent up to Pella in 343, to 
 press on Philip certain comprehensive amendments 
 
AMENDMENTS TO THE PEACE 105 
 
 to the original Peace, designed to cover this case and 
 those of all Hellenic cities not denned clearly in 346. 
 He was instructed to propose that : (1) the phrase uti 
 possidetis be amended to a declaration that each party 
 do retain his lawful property ; (2) all Greeks — being 
 not parties, and still independent — be recognized 
 as independent, and guaranteed by both parties ; (3) 
 Philip do restore the Thracian cities, taken after his 
 envoys had accepted the treaty in March, 346. These 
 amendments had all been proposed to, and received 
 in silence by, Python and his fellow Macedonian 
 envoys at Athens in the previous year ; and it pleased 
 the Athenians, therefore, to assume that Philip had 
 accepted them in principle. 
 
 The king, however, irritated by the attitude of 
 Athens, brusquely removed any such illusions from 
 Hegesippus' mind. Amendment number one he re- 
 jected flatly ; it was designed to cover a claim for the 
 cession of Amphipolis and Potidaea, and other j)laces 
 which he, Philip, had held these ten years. To number 
 two he made no demur : there was nothing in Greece 
 worth speaking of still absolutely independent of 
 himself, and the proposed clause seems not to have 
 been framed to be retrospective. On number three 
 he offered to accept the arbitration of some umpire 
 mutually acceptable. No such umpire, however, 
 was to be found, and the whole negotiation led to 
 nothing but recriminations, encroachments, and re- 
 prisals which culminated three years later in rupture. 
 During the irritation caused by Hegesippus' subse- 
 quent report at Athens, the famous charge of treason 
 
106 PHILIP 
 
 in the First Embassy, in 346, was preferred at last by 
 Demosthenes against Aeschines in terms very trucu- 
 lent and hostile to Philip ; but partly because all 
 men knew that Demosthenes as ambassador had 
 acted largely in sympathy with the man he was now 
 accusing after three years ; partly because it was never 
 approved that a man should turn upon his colleague, 
 however greatly they had differed ; partly perhaps 
 also because the Ministerial Centre were not prepared 
 to associate themselves altogether with utterances so 
 provocative to Phdip, the case resulted in acquittal 
 and the enriching of literature with two incomparable 
 forensic harangues. 
 
 For the moment the restless Macedonian was not 
 concerned with Greece. He had reverted to his 
 great project, postponed five years before, of con- 
 quering the western shores of the Black Sea, and 
 the northern coasts of the sea of Marmora, and all 
 inland up to the Danube. To effect this purpose 
 he must break the back of the Odrysian Thracians 
 in Roumelia, of the Triballi in Bulgaria, and the 
 " Scythians " in the Dobrudscha, and be acknow- 
 ledged suzerain by the great Propontic Greek 
 colonies, Byzantium, Perinthus, and Selymbria. That 
 done, and the Hellespont watched from Cardia, he 
 would have all the corn trade in his own hands, 1 the 
 food of Greece at his mercy, and the way to Asia 
 open. 
 
 His army was mobilized in the spring of 342, 
 and he went off to the north. The disappearance of 
 
 1 Dem. Cor. 87. 
 
WAR IN THE BALKANS 107 
 
 contemporary chronicles lias reduced our knowledge 
 of this great military venture to almost nothing, and 
 historians have been led to ignore 1 almost entirely an 
 expedition comparable to nothing in antiquity since 
 Darius' famous march to Scythia, and a worthy pre- 
 lude to the conquest of Asia. We know that Philip 
 and his army were out for ten months at least, and, 
 spending the winter in the field, 2 endured, leader 
 and follower alike, grievous hardships by storm, sick- 
 ness, and war. 3 But we hear nothing more precise 
 until the spring of 341, when they had returned 
 across the Balkans to the upper waters of the Hebrus, 
 and were warrmg with the Odrysian tribes. 4 In 
 Roumelia it was reported that the Athenian Diopithes, 
 sent out to reinforce the colonists of the Chersonesus, 
 had assaulted Cardia and raided inland Thrace. 
 Whereupon Philip detached a force for the relief of 
 Cardia and the chastising of the Athenian. Never- 
 theless, it was not to be war yet with the Republic, 
 for, when taxed, she disowned her admiral, 5 who 
 indeed was little better than a blackmailing buccaneer 
 with unjoaid pirates at his orders. 
 
 But all this year a belief gathered strength that 
 Philip was about to rob Athens of the Chersonese, 
 and then speedily of her own liberty. Demosthenes 
 gives that opinion utterance in a speech boldly justi- 
 fying Diopithes, and in the third and greatest of his 
 
 1 Possible allusions to this expedition are to be found in 
 Frontinus, ii. 8. 14, and Strabo, p. 320. 
 
 2 Chers. 14. s Chen. 35. 4 Chert. Arg. 3. 
 6 See Chers. 28. 
 
 . 
 
108 PHILIP 
 
 Philippics, wherein he demands that all this latent 
 bickering and underground trifling be exchanged for 
 brute war, open and declared, cost what it may; 
 and in a last Philippic, often ascribed to another 
 orator, but " Demosthenic " from end to end, wherein 
 the Athenians are warned that Philip in Thrace and 
 the Chersonese is only preliminary to Philip in 
 Athens, and that every drachma and every spear 
 the city can muster must be used in war against him, 
 who makes pretension, forsooth, to enlist the Greeks 
 against another barbarian king who is far less their 
 enemy. Two overt acts, moreover, were perpetrated 
 by the Athenian Ministry, under Demosthenes' guid- 
 ance, which Philip could not view with equanimity. 
 Firstly, they formed a kind of anti-Macedonian 
 League among some of the smaller states of Greece, 1 
 and chiefly won over to it Euboea, by sending 
 Phocion to help its cities to expel Philip's partisans 
 and to range themselves under Callias of Chalcis, 
 and by promising to recognize the entire autonomy 
 of the island for the future. Secondly, they sent 
 envoys up to the Great King in Susa, to warn 
 him of Philip's panhellenic project, and induce 
 him to assist Philip's enemies. To counteract the 
 first of these hostile moves and the depredations of 
 Callias and Athenian volunteers, 2 Philip himself made 
 a rapid journey, it seems, to Thessaly 3 in 341, leaving 
 
 1 The rebuilding of the long walls of Megara by Phocion must 
 have taken place at this period (Plut. Phoc. 15) as a sequel to 
 long intrigues prosecuted there by agents of Philip v. agents of 
 Athens. Cf. 
 
 2 Aesch. Ctes. 83. 3 Phil. iii. 12 ; iv. 9. 
 
BYZANTIUM 109 
 
 his army in eastern Thrace ; and in order to reproach 
 the Athenians for their intrigue with Persia, and for 
 many covert acts of enmity, he despatched a long 
 epistle to be read in the Assembly. But still it was 
 not war. 
 
 The forbearance, however, of the Macedonian, his 
 reference of disputed points to arbitration, and his 
 abstention from the Chersonese, served him with the 
 Athenian Ministry as conciliation usually serves with 
 an oriental government. In short it emboldened the 
 Republic to take matters into her own hands. She 
 had encouraged the Thracian chieftains already in 
 the summer of 341 ; * now she went further, and sent 
 Demosthenes to Byzantium to urge the guardians 
 of the Bosphorus to break off relations with Philip, 
 close their gates on the land side, and hold out. 
 
 Byzantium, like Olynthus, had been for many 
 years no friend to Athens. She had shared with the 
 eastern islands and the cities of Asia and Thrace that 
 intense dislike of Athenian imperial pretensions, 
 which found violent vent both after Sparta's triumph 
 in 404, and again in the " Social War." If entire 
 autonomy was not to be attained, any barbarian 
 supporter — the Great King, the Carian viceroy, the 
 Thracian princes, even the Macedonian himself — was 
 preferred to the aggressive Ionian Republic, which 
 demanded so much and gave so little. But now 
 Athens was too weak to pretend to be more than an 
 ally, and Philip had become the more dangerous foe 
 to freedom. So the Byzantines listened to the 
 1 Ep. Phil. 8. ff. 
 
110 PHILIP 
 
 voice of Demosthenes, and persuaded Perinthus and 
 Selymbria to listen likewise ; and almost at the same 
 moment the Macedonian army in its winter quarters 
 learned that the Propontic cities had declared against 
 them, and that the Athenians had solemnly removed 
 their pillar graven with the terms of the peace and 
 alliance of 346. 
 
 Demosthenes throughout the year 341 speaks of' 
 Philip so constantly as moving on Byzantium, that 
 we must understand the Macedonian army to have 
 spent all that summer, autumn, and perhaps winter 
 in eastern Thrace, reducing the dominions of the 
 chieftains Teres, Sitalces, and Kersobleptes, to com- 
 plete submission. There seems to have been a sturdy 
 resistance, and in consequence a settlement more 
 drastic than it was Philip's wont to impose. Not 
 only were the Thracian lands compelled henceforward 
 to pay him tithe, but he founded military colonies 
 here and there in all the region, continuing a policy 
 inaugurated by himself at Philippi, and destined to 
 be developed signally by his son and his successors 
 in Asia, Egypt, and Greece. Of two among his new 
 cities we know no more than the names, Bine and 
 Philippopolis ; but a third is said to have been a 
 punishmen1>colony, founded as a sink for two thousand 
 bad characters, and named Poneropolis, " city of bad 
 men." 1 In the early spring of 340 the settlement 
 
 1 Theopomp. ff. 122. Plutarch, Pliny, and Suidas repeat the 
 statement, no doubt, from this passage. Cf. Strabo calls it Calybe 
 (p. 320). 
 
SIEGE OF PERINTHUS 111 
 
 of Thrace was accomplished ; and gathering up a 
 siege-train, the like of which had not been seen in 
 Europe, Philip marched his great army 1 down to 
 the sea of Marmora, and sat down before Perinthus. 
 
 The siege which ensued must have been very 
 famous in antiquity for Diodorus to have admitted 
 so detailed an account into his Universal Chronicle. 
 It marked, in fact, an epoch in military history, for 
 in it was first applied on a large scale the scientific 
 method of assault by simultaneous sap, bombard- 
 ment, and storm, with which the operations of 
 Alexander at Tyre and Gaza, of Demetrius at Ehodes, 
 and of the Romans at Syracuse were soon to make 
 the world familiar. 2 Clumsy devices as the rams and 
 catapults and movable storming-towers may seem to 
 modern science, and hugely laborious as were the 
 works needed to bring them into action — the isthmus, 
 for instance, built through deep water at Tyre, the 
 mounds about the walls of Gaza, the valley filled 
 with stones and trees below the Rock of Chorienes 
 — such expedients were the only ones by which 
 natural citadels could be reduced. In the Propontic 
 cities, it seems, Philip could find no " Macedonizing " 
 traitors or not enough ; at hand was the sea, on 
 which no blockade was ever quite effective in the 
 day of small sailing craft. An Athenian admiral, 
 Chares, was hanging off the Chersonese, and Philip, 
 in order to get his own fleet through the Dardanelles 
 
 1 Justin, ix. 1, alludes to its great size. Diodorus says he had 
 30,000 men before Perinthus alone. 
 
 3 Cf. Frontin. iii. 9. 8, for Philip's methods. 
 
112 PHILIP 
 
 at all, had to make a raid into the peninsula, and 
 seize the ports from which privateers were issuing. 1 
 Even when the Macedonian admiral was safe in 
 the sea of Marmora, he was unable to prevent 
 the Byzantines throwing supplies continually into 
 Perinthus, or the Persian satrap of the southern 
 shore from running large convoys of provisions, 
 munitions of war, and men-at-arms. 2 For the Great 
 King- at Susa had taken in earnest the Athenian 
 warning, and despatched the most imperative orders 
 to his governors in Anatolia to aid and abet the 
 foes of the Macedonian. 
 
 Perinthus was extraordinarily strong, being perched 
 on a precipitous hill rising at the end of a narrow 
 neck, a furlong out at sea ; and as in so many 
 picturesque cities of the Levant at this day, its 
 lofty houses huddled one on the other, round the 
 rock " as in a theatre." 3 With sap and rams and 
 huge wooden towers rising a hundred and twenty 
 feet on their wheels, Philip was not long in breach- 
 ing and clearing the lines of defence across the 
 isthmus ; but meanwhile the besieged had built an 
 inner curtain, and the assault was all to begin again. 
 The Macedonian projectiles cleared this second wall, 
 but the Perinthians returned to the defence, and, 
 well supplied with missiles, wore down the first stress 
 of Philip's assault. The king changed his tactics, 
 and divided his great army into successive storming 
 parties, keeping the besieged without rest night or 
 day. Piece by piece the inner lines were reduced 
 1 Justin, xi. 1. 2 Diod. xvi. 75. 8 Diod. I.e. 
 
SIEGE OF BYZANTIUM 113 
 
 to rum, and their defenders to despair. At last they 
 ga^e way, and the Macedonians rushed in, but only 
 to be checked immediately at the lowest tier of 
 houses, linked together by barricades. Of such ram- 
 parts there were as many as there were streets. The 
 siege had lasted already far into the summer, and 
 thanks to the Byzantines, the besieged were as well 
 supplied as ever. 
 
 Philip tried a diversion. Drawing off a picked 
 force, he vanished to the eastward, fell suddenly on 
 Selymbria, 1 and presently appeared before Byzantium 
 itself ere the citizens could call in their forces from 
 Perinthus. The chief magistrate, one Leon, a student 
 of peripatetic philosophy, and destined to be the 
 historian of this siege, came out to parley. The 
 Macedonian king in a merry mood said that, being 
 smitten with love for the fair city, he did but 
 come to her gates to sue for favours. " But these 
 are not lovers' lutes," cried the Byzantine, looking 
 round at the pikeheads, and went in again forthwith. 2 
 Philip himself led the assault with sap and storm. 3 
 The place was neither naturally so strong as Perin- 
 thus, nor so well fortified, and its citizens were but 
 just equal to manning the great length of the wall. 
 The Macedonian fleet hovered round the sea-front, 
 
 1 Although this assault is mentioned only in the probably 
 spurious documents inserted in the Speech de Corona, I feel no 
 doubt it occurred. The name would hardly appear in those 
 documents -without suggestion from some authority ; and, geo- 
 graphically, such an assault was almost inevitable on a march from 
 Perinthus to Byzantium. 
 
 2 Suid. s. v. AeW ; and Philostr. jun., Be Soph. i. 
 8 Hesych. Miles. Orig. Const. 26. 
 
114 PHILIP 
 
 and raided up the Bosphorus, and into the Black Sea. 
 But the Byzantine resistance was obstinate, and just 
 strong enough; the defenders attempted no sortie, 
 but were content to hold the wall in the hope 
 that time would come to their aid. The crisis came 
 on a moonless night of wind and rain in the early 
 winter of 339. The storming party was already at 
 the wall when, it is said, the dogs of the city gave 
 an alarm, and the defenders, rushing to their posts, 
 saw by the light of a falling meteor in the northern 
 sky the nature of their peril. 1 The surprise had 
 failed, the storming party fell back, and the citizens 
 raised a statue to Hecate the Torch-bearer, and in 
 her honour struck coins bearing her emblem, the 
 crescent moon, which Byzantium has bequeathed to 
 Constantinople, and Islam borrowed all over the 
 world. Thenceforward the tide turned against the 
 besieger. His efforts to seduce Leon were not suc- 
 cessful. The wall was repaired and heightened with 
 tombstones, like that of Athens of old. The Athenian 
 Chares, having got through the Hellespont, fortified 
 a headland over against the Princes' Islands, and 
 helped the Byzantines to rout Philip's fleet ; 2 but 
 his wife dying, he sailed away, to be replaced by a 
 better man, the famous Phocion, with whom Athens 
 sent the best fleet she had commissioned since the 
 battle of Naxos. The Carian satrap brought up 
 
 1 This tale, told in most detail by Hesychius Milesius, 27, is 
 alluded to by Steph. Byz. s.v. BoWopos ; and by Eustathius, 
 ad Bionys. Perieg. 143. 
 
 2 Hesych, Miles. 27, 28. 
 
THE SIEGE RAISED 115 
 
 ships of the Chians and Rhodians, and it was 
 reported that a fresh Persian force had been thrown 
 into Thrace. 1 All Hellas seemed to be arming, and it 
 was high time to go. The Macedonian fleet seems to 
 have been blocked in the Black Sea by the Athenians 
 who held the Bosphorus. Philip is said to have 
 written a fictitious letter to Antipater in Macedonia, 
 saying that Thrace had risen and his case was 
 desperate. It was contrived that this should fall 
 into the hands of Phocion, who withdrew to the 
 Chersonese, leaving the strait open. The next 
 problem was how to pass the Dardanelles, now closed 
 by an allied squadron, but Philip, making preliminary 
 proposals of peace, threw the enemy off his guard, 
 and once more saved the most of his fleet. 2 His land 
 forces were drawn off, the Chersonese was evacuated, 
 and the Macedonian retired to ruminate on the most 
 signal reverse that he had experienced in twenty 
 years. 
 
 To Byzantium and the satraps he proposed peace ; 
 with Athens he persisted in not accepting war ; and 
 he proceeded to spend the rest of the year as far 
 from Greece as might be, in prosecuting a raid up to 
 the distant region where reigned Ateas the Scythian. 3 
 Partly, perhaps, he wished to remove from his 
 soldiers' minds the memory of failure ; partly he 
 desired plunder ; partly too he had a personal score 
 
 1 Ait. ii. 14. Cf. Dem. ad Ep. Phil. 5. 
 
 2 Frontin. i. 4. 10. Cf. Plut. Phoc. 14, for the loss of some 
 Macedonian vessels. 
 
 8 Strabo, p. 307; Justin, ix. 2. 
 
116 PHILIP 
 
 to pay, for this Ateas a year before had invited his 
 help against the Istrians, making offer even to the 
 succession of his kingdom. Philip in response had 
 detached a force, but Ateas' danger was passed before 
 the Macedonians arrived, and he dismissed them 
 scornfully with neither pay nor rations, excusing 
 himself on the score of the leanness of his land. 
 Therefore Philip was moving northward now, amusing 
 himself by sending on messages in his own grim vein 
 of irony. He had pledged himself, he said, during 
 the siege of Byzantium, to set up a statue to 
 Heracles at the Danube mouth. " Then," replied the 
 Scythian, " send the statue to me." " But it must 
 be guaranteed inviolable," said the Macedonian, and 
 marched on. " If thou settest it up against my will," 
 retorted Ateas, " it shall be overthrown and melted 
 down for arrow-heads." For which reply the Scy- 
 thian paid with twenty thousand of his women and 
 boys, flocks and herds, and twenty thousand mares, 
 taken by the victor to multiply on the Emathian 
 plains. But in the Balkans the Triballian tribesmen 
 fell on the retiring column, and having chanced to 
 wound Philip sorely in the thigh, succeeded in driving 
 off amid the confusion much of the spoil. And the 
 king returned to Pella as winter drew on, with 
 mortification threatening his leg to add to the many 
 afflictions — the broken collar bone, the blinded eye, 
 the gangrened arm — that he had endured already in 
 the chase of glory. 
 
 This year, 339, claims a peculiar place in universal 
 
ALEXANDER 117 
 
 history, as that in which the figure of the great 
 Alexander appears first upon its stage. He had 
 received his baptism of blood, if we may believe 
 Justin, 1 before the walls of Perinthus, and now being 
 turned sixteen, he was sent back to take the seals of 
 Regency from Antipater. And in such capacity it 
 fell to him to do three things of which tradition 2 
 took note — to lead his first army against an Illyrian 
 rising, to found his first city, 3 and to receive a party 
 of envoys sent by the Great King of Persia, 4 doubtless 
 in response to Philip's proposal of peace. The 
 retailers of anecdote loved to record that the invader- 
 to-be gravely and narrowly questioned the Asiatics 
 on roads and marches, and the strength of the Great 
 King's armies, to their no small wonder. Nor is it 
 altogether incredible that even at sixteen Alexander 
 had a definite ambition of Asiatic conquest, which 
 issued in a little envy of his father, as Plutarch states. 
 His later career, at least, shows him a miracle of pre- 
 cocious development, destroyer of Thebes at twenty- 
 one, master of Babylon at twenty-five, dying worn 
 and aged at thirty-three with the world at his feet. 
 The blood of Philip flowed in his veins, mixed with 
 the strain of that savage witch, whom alone he feared 
 
 1 ix. 1. But Justin states his age wrongly. He was barely 
 sixteen. 
 
 2 Cf. Ps. Callisth. i. 23. 
 
 8 Curt. viii. 1 ; Plut. Alex. 9 ; cf. Steph. Byz., whose third 
 Alexandria (©paz^s) this is. It was among the tribe of Mardi, 
 i.e. in the upper Strymon valley. Nothing certain is known as 
 to its precise representative in modern times. 
 
 4 Plut. Alex. 5. 
 
118 PHILIP 
 
 in later days and his successors feared after him ; he 
 was bred in the boisterous court of Pella, his father 
 being always at the wars, and himself with his 
 singular beauty the centre of feudal idolatry : was 
 he not bound to become very early headstrong, self- 
 assured, self-centred ? 
 
 The famous story of his boyhood, how he mastered 
 and rode the wild horse Bucephalus, is worth repeat- 
 ing from Plutarch, for the picture it affords of father 
 and son at this time. A Thessalian appeared at the 
 court of Pella offering to sell for thirteen talents a 
 magnificent horse. Philip coveted the beast, and, 
 with his son, his courtiers, . and his grooms, went 
 down in the evening into the plain below the city 
 to try him : but he could not be mounted, hardly 
 handled even, and at last the king, disgusted with 
 his fractiousness, ordered the vendor to lead him 
 away. Upon this the young prince, who had been 
 watching the trials with a fine scorn, interposed with 
 broad hints, which Philip for some time ignored, 
 annoyed with his forwardness, but was forced at last 
 to reprove, telling the speaker sharply not to set 
 himself up against his elders. The boy, however, was 
 not abashed, but offered to stake the price of the 
 horse on the trial. Without more ado he wheeled 
 the wild beast's head to the sun, having noted that 
 he was shying at his own shadow. Then, having led 
 him a little about the meadow, soothina: and stroking 
 him, he slipped stealthily his upper garment and 
 vaulted gently on Bucephalus' back. The horse 
 started, but Alexander sat quiet, feeling his mouth, 
 
THE HERALD FROM DELPHI 119 
 
 and presently put him into a gentle canter, increasing 
 the pace gradually with voice and heel until he was 
 heading into the open country at full speed. The 
 gallop was soon over. No southern horse ever lasts 
 fully extended, and it was a very tame Bucephalus 
 that the prince rode back at last triumphant into the 
 meadow. The crowd cheered ; the king, overwrought 
 by his excitement and fears, fell weeping, and kissed 
 Alexander on the forehead, crying, " Boy, find thee 
 a kingdom for thyself, for Macedonia is too strait 
 for thee and me ! " 
 
 Plutarch says, no doubt truly, that it was on 
 account of this early development of a temper to be 
 governed only by a precocious reason, that Philip sent 
 now for the great Aristotle from Atarneus to take in 
 hand the boy of fifteen, making thereby a conjunction 
 of immortal names which has set rhetoricians vapour- 
 ing, fabulists romancing, and poets singing ever since. 
 
 Through the winter Philip nursed his wound until, 
 big with fate, the spring of 338 came in. ) Early in 
 March a herald came to Pella bearing a request from 
 the Holy Synod of the Amphictyons, that the king 
 would be pleased to use his army to coerce on their 
 behalf a contumacious town near Delphi. Philip 
 needed little pressing ; it was always to his mind to 
 head a Hellenic league! ne h ac ^ work of his own to 
 do in Greece, and the memory of Perinthus and 
 Byzantium to efface. The word went through his 
 camp for active service, and that with all speed. 
 
 The appearance of this herald was so opportune, and 
 
120 PHILIP 
 
 the sequel of his message so momentous, that many 
 historians have credited Philip with having invited 
 his invitation. Admitted that habitually the Mace- 
 donian left little to chance ; admitted that the artifice 
 was quite in his vein; admitted that two-thirds of 
 the Holy Synod were his dependents ; admitted that, 
 having clone much violence to Hellenic feeling on the 
 Propontis, and proposed lately a general peace, he may 
 have thought it expedient not to move south without 
 the sanction of a formal invitation, master of the 
 Gates and lord of many battalions though he was — all 
 these things being admitted, nevertheless, neither does 
 any ancient authority state that he had foreknowledge 
 of the herald's coming, nor do the antecedent facts 
 point that way. /The Amphictyonic quarrel, which 
 resulted in Philip being invited, and need be noticed 
 only in so far as it bears on him, had been on foot 
 for at least a year ; and it is not to be disputed that 
 great efforts had been made by the Holy Synod to 
 settle it without calling in the Macedonian. He was 
 invited only in the last resort, the Thebans being 
 friends of the guilty Amphissa, the Athenians having 
 decreed the withdrawal of their forces from the 
 venture, and the Amphictyonic condottiere having 
 been handled severely when the greater states ceased 
 to support him. It is quite possible that Philip 
 long had contemplated an expedition to the south ; 
 but as he kept his own conscience, no one in 
 Greece probably knew the fact then, and no one can 
 prove it now. In any case, it seems distinctly not 
 proven that either himself or his paid agents cooked 
 
PHILIP ACCEPTS THE CALL 121 
 
 irp the Amphissian quarrel, or led it to an issue 
 favourable to his own ambition. It is generally more 
 true that a great man uses than that he makes his 
 opportunities. 
 
 Thessaly was Philip's own, and Thermopylae was 
 held by his garrison. Without let or hindrance, 
 therefore, his army marched south to Nicaea in May. 
 Here was the situation. The object of his march 
 was Amphissa, a town of sturdy mountaineers, north- 
 west of Delphi. The Amphissians had been called 
 to account in one of those superstitious panics, 
 which, like the excitement after the affair of the 
 Hermae at Athens, proceed from the most primitive 
 motives, and require no subtle explanation ; in brief, 
 it was demanded of these mountaineers that they 
 should desist from an old standing occupation of 
 certain sacred domain land of Apollo. But they had 
 declined to obey the Holy Synod, and for a year 
 had resisted its resort to force. To arrive within 
 striking distance of them, Philip must lead his army 
 round the end of Oeta into Phocis and the basin 
 of the Cephissus and, when he should turn up into 
 the defiles of Parnassus, he would leave on his left 
 flank Thebes, which had supported Amphissa all 
 through its revolt, and was strong enough to cut 
 his communications with Thermopylae. The hostility 
 to himself in Greece was now, as he well knew, 
 greater than in 346, and since his failure on the 
 Bosphorus, the fear was less. 
 
 His first measures, therefore, were directed to the 
 safeguarding of his flank and communications. The 
 
122 PHILIP 
 
 Theban garrison, to which he had handed Nicaea 
 eight years before, 1 was bidden retire, and Philip 
 established Thessalians to guard in their place the 
 southern mouth of the Pass. 2 Then, pursuing his 
 way into Phocis, he reached the ruins of Elatea, where 
 his path towards Amphissa forked west from the 
 great south road which traversed the Copaic plain to 
 Thebes. Since 346 the site had been untenanted, for 
 Elatea was one of the towns whose inhabitants had 
 been punished in that year by being distributed into 
 villages. Here Philip called a halt, and prepared to 
 establish a fortified camp. At the same time he 
 seems to have sent an embassy southwards to Thebes, 
 to persuade the city to detach itself from Amphissa 
 and act with himself. 
 
 Here is an event which has been misrepresented 
 both in ancient and modern times, perhaps more than 
 anything in history. The fortification of Elatea by 
 Philip was manifestly the reasonable precaution of a 
 prudent general. If it menaced any city, that city 
 was Thebes. The site of Elatea lies more than sixty 
 miles by any practicable road from the nearest point 
 of the Attic frontier, and at least ninety from Athens. 
 The whole Copaic plain, the Theban territory, and the 
 range of Cithaeron intervene. There was absolutely 
 no ground, in 338, except Demosthenes' unsupported 
 word, for the belief that Philip was entrenching 
 Elatea as a menace to Athens. There is absolutely 
 no other ground for the same belief being held now. 
 But in spite of the geographical absurdity, in spite 
 1 Dem. ad Phil. ep. 4. 2 Aesch. Ctes. 140. 
 
FORTIFICATION OF ELATEA 123 
 
 of the positive denial given by Philip's subsequent 
 action, the suggestion, for which a great orator in 
 the interests of a policy succeeded in obtaining 
 credence two thousand years ago, has been accepted 
 absolutely ever since ! 
 
 Word came to Athens one day towards sundown, 
 that Philip was fortifying Elatea. The news caused 
 great excitement, for the city considered herself at 
 this particular moment to be still at Avar with the 
 Macedonian, and always was agitated by the passing 
 of Thermopylae. Furthermore, with the self-con- 
 scious vanity of a great people, the Athenian, like 
 the Briton, habitually relates to himself every event 
 that happens in his world. Doubtless on that spring 
 evening, season of chatter and intercourse in all the 
 East, there was much discussion of the news, and 
 an Assembly was summoned for next morning at 
 sunrise, no abnormal hour at shadeless Athens in 
 April. Here, however, was an obvious opportunity 
 for the War Party. Thebes, hostile to Philip's errand 
 in any case, having taken already the same side in 
 the matter of Amphissa as Athens, might reasonably 
 be expected to regard a fortified Elatea as a menace, 
 and to ally herself with Athens ; and with her help 
 Ministers could hope reasonably for a vigorous prose- 
 cution of their policy, and a prosperous issue, the great 
 success of the previous year at Byzantium being con- 
 sidered. Philip once beaten decisively, the restoration 
 of the Athenian Empire would follow in due course. 
 
 There was no vote needed for war, for war had 
 been the city's nominal relation to Philip these two 
 
124 PHILIP 
 
 years past ; but in the interests of vigorous action by 
 land, and of alliance with the unpopular Thebans, it 
 was necessary to arouse the citizens to a sense of private 
 peril. Demosthenes undertook this task, and with all 
 his eloquence coloured Philip's design, declared Elatea 
 to be but a stage on the road to Attica, and pointed 
 out the nakedness of the frontier should the Thebans 
 take sides with the Macedonian. The case seemed 
 clear as daylight; the citizens shouted for action; 
 and while the levies were being called out, Demos- 
 thenes himself undertook to conduct an embassy to 
 Thebes and sue for the Theban alliance. 
 
 In the Cadmeian city he found Philip's envoys, 1 
 newly come from Elatea. For what passed then and 
 there we have the worst authority in the world, the 
 statements of two contradictory pamphleteers, who 
 published years afterwards, in the guise of orations, 
 apologies for their own conduct in this matter. 
 Demosthenes a is the less precise ; he relates that the 
 Thebans first heard Philip's legates and their urgent 
 request that Thebes would join their master in war 
 on Athens, or at least give him passage to Attica ; 
 but the effect so produced was swept away from the 
 Boeotarchs' mind as soon as himself, Demosthenes, 
 appeared. Aeschines 3 says that at the first audience 
 Demosthenes was received coldly, and the Boeotarchs 
 
 1 Marsyas, fr. ap. Plut., Dem. 18. 
 
 2 Be Cor. 211 if. 
 
 8 Ctes. 149 ff. There is a doubt whether his description 
 really refers to this first embassy of Demosthenes to Thebes, or 
 to another just before Chaeronea. On the whole, I adhere to the 
 view in the text. 
 
THEBES AND ATHENS ALLIED 125 
 
 sent notice to the Athenian force, already on the 
 move, not to enter Theban territory. Demosthenes, 
 however, at a second audience demanded if not 
 alliance, at least free passage for the Athenian army ; 
 and, at last, by persistent working on the fears of 
 the Thebans, and promising that his own city should 
 take only second place in the field and pay two- 
 thirds of the cost of the war, the orator persuaded 
 the Boeotarchs to swear alliance. 
 
 The end at least is certain. Thebes concluded a 
 league for offence and defence with Athens, and 
 received the forces of the latter within her walls ; and 
 the two took the field against Philip with a larger 
 and a finer army than had been drawn from Greek 
 cities for many a year. The larger Peloponnesian 
 states, threatened or cajoled by Philip, 1 stood aloof, 
 waiting the event, Arcadia, perhaps, as Aeschines said 
 afterwards, only for want of funds ; 2 but certain of 
 the smaller, Achaea, Corinth, and Megara, with the 
 islands of Corcyra, Leucas, and Euboea, joined the 
 allies ; and Byzantium promised to see to the safety 
 of the corn ships. 
 
 One point only in these preliminary matters calls 
 for more remark. Demosthenes states, and he alone, 
 that Philip declared through his envoys from Elatea 
 that his march was directed against Athens. When 
 his entire abstention from any forward movement 
 towards Attica, and his refusal to violate a foot 
 of Athenian territory after Chaeronea, are recalled, 
 it seems most improbable that his private purpose 
 
 1 Cor. 218. 2 Ctes. 240. Cf. Paus. viii. 27. 10. 
 
126 PHILIP 
 
 was ever anything of the kind ; but that he should 
 have said so to the Thebans is far from dissonant 
 with his character, or with the usual methods of 
 diplomacy ; and that Ms envoys, confronted with 
 Demosthenes, bid against the latter on the spur of 
 the moment with such a statement is most credible. 
 The fact itself, indeed, is more worthy of credit than 
 the authority for it. 
 
 Word of the new alliance was brought to Elatea 
 by the returning envoys. Philip indited a letter of 
 bitter reproach to the Athenians, and anxious missives 
 of encouragement to the Peloponnese, but proceeded 
 none the less on his road to Amphissa. 1 The allies, 
 if we are to believe Polyaenus, 2 threw a force into the 
 passes of Parnassus, but by his old device of leaving 
 a sham despatch in the enemy's path, the Macedonian 
 got through. Amphissa had been reinforced strongly 
 by Athenian hired troops, 3 and a desultory campaign 
 seems to have been waged for some weeks on the 
 slopes above the Corinthian Gulf 4 and the hills 
 bordering Boeotia. The allies gained two small 
 successes, 6 of which they made the most, but by 
 
 1 Plutarch (Bern. 18) Inverts the order of these events; but I 
 agree with Holm and Hoffman (schol. Dem. ii. 5, 44) in dis- 
 regarding his sequence. 
 
 2 iv. 2, 8. 
 
 8 Aesch. Ctes. 146. 
 
 4 The surprise of Naupactus (Theopomp. fr. 46) seems to 
 belong to this war. 
 
 6 One of these skirmishes is alluded to by Demosthenes (who 
 alone has recorded them) as rj x il ^P lv V {Cor. 216). This term 
 must mean the " Battle of the Storm ; " but the translation of it 
 as " Battle of the Winter " has led to the absurd supposition that 
 
BATTLE OF CHAERONEA 127 
 
 August they had fallen back on the great south road, 
 and concentrated all their forces at the crossing of the 
 Cephissus in the plain before Chaeronea. 
 
 On the 7th of the Athenian month Metageitnion — 
 in early August or early September (how Meta- 
 geitnion fell in 338 is doubtful) — one of the decisive 
 issues of the world's history was fought out. On the 
 one side stood the miscellaneous array, half mercenary, 
 half civic, of the last imperial Greek city-states ; on 
 the other was ranged the first great army of a 
 national power. Tried by any standard, Chaeronea 
 ranks as a great battle. The Macedonian came 
 down from Elatea with thirty thousand of the best 
 infantry, and two thousand of the best cavalry in 
 the world. The allied army is stated variously to 
 have been more and less than his, 1 and probably was 
 about equal in numbers. 2 The Theban horse and 
 light troops, if we may judge from their condition 
 three years later, 3 ranked hardly inferior to the Mace- 
 donian ; but the Greek army was hampered by a dual 
 command, Theban and Athenian, and we gather that 
 it was not too harmonious in face of the foe; for 
 
 Philip spent a whole winter, spring, and most of a summer, ranging 
 about Amphissa, and to a general distortion of the chronology, 
 340-338. Grote, for instance, tries to include the end of the 
 siege of Byzantium, a last campaign in the Chersonese, the march 
 up to Scythia, the return through the Triballian country, the 
 march through the Gates, the fortification of Elatea, and the 
 marshalling of the allies, all in the one year 339 ! 
 
 1 Cf. Diod. xvi. 85, with Justin, ix. 3. 
 
 2 We gather from Aesch. Ctes. 146, that the larger part of the 
 Athenian mercenary force was shut up still in Amphissa. 
 
 8 Arr. i. 7. 
 
128 PHILIP 
 
 there were some who would have fallen in with 
 Philip's proffered terms rather than fight. The 
 gods were not for the Greeks; portents and in- 
 auspicious omens ushered in the fatal morning. 
 
 We know too little, alas! of what happened on 
 that memorable summer day, to fight the battle o'er 
 again. No surviving author of antiquity has described 
 it. By inference only can we set out even the 
 skeleton of the battle array : on the Macedonian 
 side, the Thessalian and allied cavalry to the right ; 
 in the centre the phalanx, mercenaries to right, 
 Macedonians to left, behind a bristling hedge of 
 spear points ; on the left probably the Guards and 
 Philip himself; and, flanking these and the whole 
 array, the matchless feudal " Companion " cavalry, led 
 to-day by no less a captain than Alexander. In the 
 adverse array, facing the Companions and the Mace- 
 donian left centre, was the Theban phalanx, with 
 the Sacred Band in its centre front ; on the left 
 ranked the Athenian brigades and mercenaries, and 
 the Achaean 1 and other allies, probably out-flanking 
 Philip's right. On either wing, and ranging before 
 the battle-line in the faulty Greek manner, were 
 targeteers and cavalry, the last used only to skirmish 
 and pursue. 
 
 Allusions and anecdotes which survive imply that 
 the fight was stubborn and long drawn out, Philip 
 keeping back his decisive charge until the unseasoned 
 levies opposed to him should begin to tire. 2 The 
 
 1 Paus. vii. 6. 5. 
 
 2 Polyaen. iv. 2. 7 ; Frontin. ii. 19. 
 
•■ 
 
 DEFEAT OF THE ALLIES 129 
 
 heavy Theban phalanx wore itself out slowly against 
 the mobile veteran formation of Macedonian spear- 
 men ; the Athenians with better fortune broke the 
 allies and mercenaries on Philip's left, and rushed on, 
 shouting " To Macedonia ! " " These men know 
 little of winning ! " grimly remarked the king, and 
 threw his phalanx into the fatal gap which now 
 had opened 1 between Athenians and Thebans. It 
 seems that the latter proved the harder to break, 
 and gave way only to Pbilip's heaviest blow — a flank 
 charge by the Conrpanions, led by Alexander ; 2 but 
 not before there had been one perilous moment when 
 Philip, owing, it is said, to a sudden quarrel in 
 his own phalanx between the Macedonian and the 
 mercenary spearmen, the former perhaps jeering at 
 the latter for having been broken by the Athenian 
 onset, was struck down and hardly saved by his 
 son. For which service, 3 and for such credit as he 
 claimed for the charge which decided that day, 
 Alexander was never forgiven wholly by his father. 
 It was the end. The Greek line gave way along 
 its whole length, the Theban leader fell, the Sacred 
 Band died in its ranks, lovers and loved, the 
 Athenians ran, Demosthenes with the rest, and the 
 supreme effort of Greece was spent. 
 
 The Athenians lost three thousand men, killed or 
 taken ; the Thebans mourned their general, and pro- 
 bably not less of the rank and file than their allies. 
 Pursuit seems not to have been pressed far, for it 
 
 1 Polyaen. iv. 2. 2. 2 Plut. Alex. 9. 8 Curt. viii. 1, 23, 24. 
 
130 PHILIP 
 
 was from Lebadea 1 that heralds came the same 
 evening to supplicate the victor to give up the 
 dead. There is a tale, strangely characteristic of 
 Philip, told by more than one authority 2 about this 
 night at Chaeronea. The suppliant heralds were 
 bidden to wait — one authority says their request 
 was refused — and Philip himself made meanwhile 
 a great feast with his captains. It was such an 
 orgy as his soul delighted in, with many a light o' 
 love, and music and dancing ; and in the grey dawn 
 he reeled out mad drunk through his camp and on 
 to the corpse-strewn field, shouting songs of tipsy 
 triumph, and jeering at the Athenians and their 
 runaway Demosthenes. But among his huddling 
 prisoners stood forth an Athenian orator, one 
 Demades, a man of incisive speech, as many anec- 
 dotes attest, and he faced Philip unabashed, " King, 
 when Fate has cast thee for Agamemnon, art not 
 ashamed to play Thersites ? " And something 
 in the gibe, perhaps because it reminded him 
 of that world of culture to which he had bid so 
 long and so doubtfully for acceptance, some dim 
 conviction of a shameful inferiority, penetrated 
 to the fuddled sense of Philip. The impetuous 
 captain tore off his garlands and trod them under- 
 foot with the winecups and flutes and licentious 
 emblems of his crew, and ordering Demades to be 
 loosed, went away humbled and ashamed. 
 
 1 Plut. Fit. x. Orat. p. 849. 
 
 2 Cf. Theopomp. fr. 262, with Diod. xvi. 87, Plut. Bern. 20, 
 and Sext. Empir. Adv. Gram. p. 281. 
 
TREATMENT OF THEBES 131 
 
 Certainly afterwards he comported himself towards 
 one part of his beaten foes with a forbearing and, 
 as it were, an apologetic temper 1 that is all the more 
 conspicuous by contrast with the measure that he 
 meted out to Thebes. That city, into which the 
 Macedonians presently marched, was made to feel 
 all the bitterness of defeat. Her headship of the 
 Boeotian towns was stripped from her for ever, and 
 Orchomenus and Plataea were encouraged to rise 
 again on the north and the south. 2 And not only 
 this, but her own civic autonomy was destroyed, her 
 leaders being proscribed or banished, and their lands 
 seized for the king ; and, while a Macedonian 
 garrison was installed in the Cadmeia, 3 a body of 
 three hundred men, formerly exiled for adherence 
 to Macedonian interests, was put in office in the 
 lower city to work their will on the lives and goods 
 of the citizens. 4 Thus did Philip remove the last 
 obstacle to his sway in northern Hellas, paying the 
 city which had taught him war and cost him most 
 the rude compliment of a treatment more brutal than 
 any great state of Greece had experienced since the 
 Persian War. 
 
 But to Athens, his consistent foe, who now was 
 cowering desperately behind her walls newly repaired 
 with gravestones and the trunks of trees — to Athens, 
 who had proposed even to enfranchise her aliens and 
 free her slaves, and had sent round to the remnant of 
 
 1 Cf. Justin, ix. 4 ; Diod. xvi. 87 ; Polyb. v. 10, xvii. 14. 
 
 2 Paus. ix. 1. 8, 37, 8. 
 
 8 Paus. ix. 1. 8 ; and Arr. i. 7. 4 Cf. Justin, ix. 4. 
 
132 PHILIP 
 
 her allies to beg men and money for a last stand, 
 he " behaved so in victory that none might feel 
 him victor." 1 Not only did he restore freely the 
 Athenian dead — he had made the Thebans pay a 
 ransom — but all his two thousand Athenian prisoners. 
 Furthermore, he sent back Aeschines 2 and other 
 envoys who had come to him, and with them 
 Demades, to assure the terrified citizens not only of 
 peace but his alliance, and he gave withal a signal 
 pledge of good faith by allotting to the Republic of 
 the spoil of Thebes the oft-disputed border town, 
 Oropus. No Macedonian soldier was permitted to 
 violate Attic soil, but in order to ratify the peace, 
 Philip sent to Athens personages no less than Anti- 
 pater, his Regent, and his own famous son, who saw 
 then, for the first time so far as we know, those most 
 glorious works of a civilization which it was to be 
 given to him, more than to any Athenian, to spread 
 to the ends of the earth. 
 
 It was an extraordinary attitude for the master 
 of irresistible legions to assume in the moment of 
 decisive victory. From a military point of view 
 Philip had nothing to fear, and next to nothing to 
 gain, from Athens.. The Republic had now no 
 allies worth mentioning that had not been crushed 
 equally with herself at Chaeronea, except the Pro- 
 pontic cities, with whom her tie of friendship was 
 very loose. She had ships, but never could com- 
 mission two large fleets at a time ; and her army had 
 almost ceased to exist. A few triremes and a small 
 
 1 Justin, I.e. 2 Dem. de Cor. 282. 
 
TREATMENT OF ATHENS 133 
 
 force of cavalry were all Philip could expect her to 
 contribute to the alliance with himself. 1 Demos- 
 thenes, after abandoning the idea of a last desperate 
 struggle behind the walls, to furthering which he 
 had given his voice, his money, and his official ser- 
 vice, never credited his city with any further power 
 of resistance. In his funeral oration over the dead 
 of Chaeronea, 2 and in his continued capacity as 
 Minister, 3 he contented himself with mourning over 
 lost greatness, and with devoting his energies to 
 lightening the public poverty. 4 
 
 Philip's attitude, however, was no other than 
 the logical consequence of all his previous conduct 
 towards the Athenian city. While he could not 
 brook her rival empire, 5 he hankered after her 
 approval of his own, and confessed an inferiority 
 which no arms could adjust. And now that she was 
 at his feet, he could confer so great a favour that — 
 man of no delicate susceptibilities as he was — he 
 thought she might be won. Needless to say, he only 
 seemed to succeed. Her adhesion to his panhellenic 
 League against the Persian was only compelled, as 
 not he, but his son lived to know. But nevertheless 
 in spite of his failure, there must be conceded to him 
 a certain enlightenment in the conception of this 
 policy, and a certain rude nobility in the execution ; 
 and, at the least, Philip may claim to rank with 
 
 1 Plut. Phoc. 17. 
 
 2 See Cor. 285-288; Aesch. Ctes. 152 ; Plut. Dew.. 21. 
 
 8 Plut. Bern. I.e. 4 Aesch. Ctes. 159. 
 
 6 Cf. Paus. i. 25. 3. 
 
134 PHILIP 
 
 Sulla, who like him warred on Athens, and like 
 him spared her when at his mercy in hope to 
 find grace in her eyes, regarding not her weakness, 
 hut "the weight and repute" 1 that once had 
 been hers. 
 
 The twelvemonth after Chaeronea was spent by the 
 Macedonian King in smoothing the last obstacles in 
 his way to what had been growing during the past 
 decade to be tbe crowning ambition of his life. He 
 was become at last lord of the Hellenes de facto ; he 
 would be acknowledged Captain-General of Hellenism 
 de jure. Now that Thebes was crushed and Athens 
 bound by treaty, there was no doubt of his being 
 acknowledged Captain, except by the Peloponnesian 
 states, which had been neither for him nor against 
 him at Chaeronea. So, having secured Corinth, he 
 displayed his spearmen in the spring and summer of 
 337 within the Isthmus. The most part of the states 
 bowed low : Elis, a friend of old, added a new monu- 
 ment to the Altis, the round Philippekm, and set up 
 therein chryselephantine statues of the conqueror, his 
 progenitors, and his kin — the first of many Mace- 
 donian effigies destined soon to stand in Athens and 
 Olympia ; 3 but Sparta, a little exalted perhaps in the 
 day of her hereditary foe's humiliation, would have 
 none of the new Crusade. Philip had to make a 
 demonstration in the Eurotus valley, in the course of 
 which a party of his men were handled roughly near 
 
 1 Diod. xvi. 8. 
 
 2 See Paus. v. 20. 10; i. 9. 4 ; vi. 11. 1. 
 
CAPTAIN GENERAL OF HELLAS 135 
 
 Gythium ; 1 but raid her fields and sack her towns as 
 he might, Sparta would not acknowledge him. To 
 his demand for Laconian citizenship, she retorted 
 quite in her old manner, that at least he could not 
 prevent the Spartans dying for their country ; 2 and 
 Philip was fain at last to content himself with cutting 
 her territory down to the point at which she would 
 become innocuous, but beyond which he might have 
 outraged Hellenic sentiment, and with obtaining his 
 recognition by the states of Hellas with one dis- 
 sentient voice. 
 
 His ambition was satisfied formally about a twelve- 
 month after Chaeronea. Delegates from all the states, 
 except Sparta, came to meet him at the Isthmus. 
 We do not know what arguments he may have 
 proffered at the Congress ; we hear that he spoke 
 at length about the Crusade against the Persian, 
 and aroused some expression of enthusiasm, to which 
 doubtless the presence of his army without the walls 
 lent a certain warmth. No one in those latter 
 days felt strongly on the Panhellenic Question, or 
 was bitter against the Great King of Susa, whose 
 daries alone, not his men-at-arms, were to be ex- 
 pected in Europe ; but many of the Greeks, doubtless, 
 were not averse to the restless Macedonian departing 
 for Asia. From one motive or another the delegates 
 were content to acclaim Philip Captain-General, and 
 to promise the spearmen, cavalry, and ships which he 
 asked each state to provide, that his venture might 
 
 1 Frontin. iv. 5. 12. 
 
 2 Paus. iii. 24. 6 ; v. 4. 9. 
 
136 PHILIP 
 
 assume a panhellenic character. If their fellow- 
 citizens grumbled privately, the returned delegates 
 . reminded them that they could hardly have done 
 less for the master of so many legions. To Philip 
 it mattered little if the panhellenic movement was 
 factitious now ; a successful campaign in Asia would 
 go far to give it reality, and common danger and 
 common triumph would unite his Macedonians and 
 their Greek allies. In 337 he had probably no such 
 Asiatic Empire in view, as that which later his son 
 conceived ; he was possessed rather with an idea of 
 nation-making at home, to which end the mere 
 warring with a common enemy would conduce more 
 than the sack of the latter's towns, or the loot of 
 his camps. 
 
 The word given for a twelvemonth from that 
 time, Philip left Greece, well pleased to gather up 
 his forces for the great adventure which should 
 crown all previous successes, and set the seal on 
 his nation and his fame. He had a great army to 
 equip and supply, and all that winter the arsenal 
 of Pella 1 must have rung to the sound of his 
 arming. By the spring of 336 his host was ready, 
 and making two divisions, he despatched the lesser 
 in advance under Parmenio, with Amyntas and 
 Attalus for lieutenant-generals, to hold the passage 
 of the Dardanelles, and secure the Greek cities on 
 the farther shore against his own coming with the 
 second division and the allied army of Greeks. The 
 total of the Grand Army we do not know. Justin 
 1 Cf. Strabo, p. 752; Livy, xlii. 51. 
 
PHILIP AND HIS HOUSE 137 
 
 gives an absurd aggregate of two hundred thousand 
 foot and fifteen thousand horse for the Greek con- 
 tingent alone. Alexander, however, began his venture 
 two years later with not more than forty thousand 
 men ; and at no higher figure is it probable that 
 Philip's national Macedonian force should be estimated. 
 But there remains to be added the auxiliary host of 
 Greeks, who would have been used rather to garrison 
 towns and keep open communications than to accom- 
 pany the seasoned troops into the heart of the 
 Persian Empire. 
 
 Philip put off his own march to the autumn, for 
 he had his house to set in order. His family affairs 
 had been going ill these two years past. Himself 
 being always in the field, 1 and consorting now with 
 this woman, now with that, 2 it is small wonder if 
 his Jezebel of a Queen did not keep in the patbs of 
 strict virtue. A votary of the Cabiric mysteries 
 before marriage was open to more than suspicion, 
 and Philip was rumoured always to have doubted 
 his own paternity of Alexander. The legends of 
 the serpent seen with Olyiripias, and the seal set 
 thereafter on her womb ; her affectation of divine 
 relations, 8 and that worldwide story of her seduction 
 by an Egyptian astrologer, are so many popular 
 improvements on the contemporary scandal which 
 the Macedonian, Attalus, blurted when he prayed 
 
 1 Cf. Ps. Callisth., i. 4. 
 
 2 Aid Kara 7rd\e/xov lyafiei, says the contemporary Satyrus 
 (fragm. ap. Athena, xiii. p. 557b). 
 
 8 See Plut. Alex. 2, 3, etc. 
 
138 PHILIP 
 
 tipsily for a legitimate heir to the throne of 
 Philip, and received Alexander's drinking-cup in his 
 face. 1 
 
 The relations between father and son had long 
 left much to be desired. Seeing, however, that 
 Alexander was made Regent in 339, and led 
 the Companions at Chaeronea in 338, we may 
 infer that mutual jealousy had not led to an out- 
 break before that battle. The open rupture came, 
 it seems, in 337, after Philip's return from the 
 Congress of Corinth. He had fallen in love with 
 a Macedonian lady, 2 niece of his general Attalus ; 
 and she, more ambitious than the dancing-girls 3 and 
 the like who had yielded to the king's embraces, 
 worked upon his growing distaste for his wife, until 
 she induced him to prefer a definite charge of in- 
 fidelity against Olympias and to wed herself. The 
 Epirote, bidden, like a woman of the harem, to cover 
 her face, departed raging to her brother, and presently 
 her son came to an issue with his father. During 
 the feast at the new nuptials, as a sequel to a brawl 
 Avith Attalus, alluded ' to already, Philip drew his 
 sword, and made for Alexander in drunken fury ; 
 but stumbling over the fallen cups, he suffered him- 
 self to be pacified by his officers, while Alexander, 
 gibing at the man who would cross to Asia, but 
 could not pass from couch to couch, betook himself 
 
 1 Plut. Alex. 9. 
 
 2 Cleopatra, according to Plut. Alex. 9 ; Justin, ix. 7 ; Paus. 
 viii. 77; Aelian, V. H. xiii. 36; Diod. xvi. 91. But Eurydice, 
 Arr. iii. 6. 
 
 8 E.g. the Larrissean who bore him Philip Arrhidaeus. 
 
ALEXANDER AND HIS FATHER 139 
 
 to Epirus, and having seen his mother safe, went 
 up into Lyncestis. 1 
 
 Philip, however, coming to himself, invited his son 
 to return ; but presently he fell out with the youth 
 again, not this time for a fault, but through a mis- 
 understanding. For it seems that Pixodarus, satrap 
 of Caria, wishing to stand well with the coming 
 invader, sent to negotiate a marriage between his 
 eldest daughter and a natural son of Philip, Arrhi- 
 daeus, begotten of a Thessalian dancing-girl. Upon 
 this Olympias, convinced that by hook or by crook her 
 own boy was to be robbed of his succession to the 
 throne, had Alexander persuaded that this was too 
 brilliant a match for his bastard half-brother ; for 
 the Carian satrap was at that time the wealthiest of 
 princes, and almost a king hi his own right. Accord- 
 ingly Alexander despatched a Corinthian friend to 
 Caria, to tell the satrap that he, the legitimate heir, 
 was willing ; whereat the Carian, who had not dared 
 to look so high, was mightily gratified. But Philip, 
 hearing of the plot, took one of Alexander's intimates 
 aside, when the boy himself was out of the way, 
 and expressed his high displeasure that his heir 
 should have deigned to propose alliance with a 
 Carian subject of the Persian King, and a barbarian 
 to boot. And he followed up his reproof with strin- 
 gent punishment of the Corinthian go-between, and 
 decrees of exile against four intimates of his son, 
 who, he believed, were suborned by Olympias to 
 
 1 Plut. Alex. 9. The Romance (Ps. Callisth. i. 21) has a 
 picturesque exaggeration of this historical scene. 
 
140 PHILIP 
 
 poison the mind of the boy. 1 Among these last were 
 some marked for fame in different ways : Harpalus, 
 who would rebel against and rob Alexander at Baby- 
 lon ; and Ptolemy, destined to be the historian of the 
 Conquest of Asia, and himself a king. 
 
 Such was not a state of affairs that Philip cared to 
 leave in and about Macedonia on the eve of a long 
 absence, and he proposed therefore to render harmless 
 his divorced queen by detaching her powerful brother. 
 Accordingly he offered to the latter a formal recon- 
 ciliation and the hand of Alexander's sister. The 
 overture was accepted, and Philip determined to make 
 of the wedding a magnificent demonstration of the 
 unity of his panhellenic Empire. In pressing terms 
 he invited representatives of the states of Hellas and 
 all notable Greeks to repair in the autumn to Aegae, 
 the old capital of his kingdom. The great actors of 
 Greece were invited to attend and perform the classic 
 dramas ; games were projected on an Olympian scale, 
 and shows and banquets ordered, even to the entire 
 depletion of the royal exchequer. V No matter ! Was 
 not all the gold of Asia about to flow into the coffers 
 of Macedon ? 
 
 A few days 2 before the opening of the festival, the 
 new queen was delivered of a boy. Here at last was 
 an heir of undoubted legitimacy. We are not told 
 that Philip ever proposed actually to dispossess 
 Alexander in favour of the little Caranus, as the 
 baby was named; but Olympias, watching from 
 among the Lyncestians, jumped to a conclusion, 
 1 Arr. iii. 6, and Plut. Alex. 10. 2 Diod. xvii. 2. 
 
THE MARRIAGE FESTIVAL 141 
 
 and warning her adherents of Alexander's peril, coun- 
 selled speedy action of the most desperate kind. 
 Whether she admitted her son to the plot or no the 
 world has never agreed, and probably never will agree. 
 The measures that Alexander took afterwards, and 
 the terms in which he spoke of his father, tell neither 
 for nor against his guilt. That subsequently he should 
 have put out of the way not only the accomplices of 
 his father's assassin, but also his own rivals, the baby 
 Caranus, and the queen's uncle and brother, is only 
 what an oriental monarch does as matter of course. 
 But we are bound to remember how little love was 
 lost between father and son, and how much Alexander 
 desired that Asia should be left for himself to 
 conquer. 1 
 
 The great day of the marriage feast arrived. A vast 
 crowd of sight-seers had thronged into the theatre 
 before daybreak, 2 and at sunrise a procession entered 
 with superb effigies of the twelve Olympian gods, 
 and of Philip himself, thirteenth. Men recalled 
 afterwards that this public apotheosis was itself the 
 most signal of omens, and interpreted too late a 
 cloud of portents, how the prophetess of Delphi had 
 replied to Philip's demand for an auspicious oracle 
 ere he should attack Persia, with a vague hexameter, 
 which signifies, being interpreted, — " The bull is 
 garlanded ; his end draws on ; the sacrificer stands 
 ready." 3 Again, had not the Athenian herald, 
 offering a crown of honour the day before, stated 
 solemnly that his city would give up to justice any 
 1 Plut. Alex. 5. 2 Diod. xvi. 92. 8 Paus. viii. 7. 6. 
 
142 PHILIP 
 
 man who attacked the king? and did not Neopto- 
 lemus, the great Athenian player, recite at the royal 
 banquet overnight an apostrophe to Death ? 
 
 But no one that morning thought of oracles or 
 omens, only of the king's entry, now at every moment 
 expected. The royal procession approached at last, 
 and halting a moment, Philip bade his nobles and high 
 guests precede him, and his guards stand back, that 
 he himself might be the more conspicuous entering 
 the theatre in his white robe, hero acclaimed equally 
 by Macedonians and by Greeks. The leaders entered 
 the building ; the rearguard hung back obediently, 
 and Philip stepped forward alone under the gateway. 
 In that instant a man sprang from the lateral corri- 
 dor, thrust a short Celtic blade between the ribs of 
 the king, and rushed off as his victim fell. In the 
 wild confusion that arose, the assassin came near 
 getting clear away, for he had friends and swift 
 horses ready ; but his sandal caught in a vine-stock, 
 and pursuers were on him before he could rise. They 
 pulled him to his feet, and pierced him through and 
 through with their spears. 1 
 
 Philip was found to be dead. Who was first cause 
 of his murder, there is no doubt. Seek the woman, 
 slighted, and cast off ! The assassin was a mere tool, 
 one Pausanias, an Orestian favourite, ill-treated it 
 seems by Philip, and unable to obtain redress for a 
 degrading insult put upon him by the new queen's 
 uncle, but not a man of such calibre as would 
 1 Diod. xvi. 94. 
 
THE MURDER 143 
 
 avenge himself unsupported. His hysterical, half- 
 feminine rancour was remarked by the disaffected 
 party, itself reinforced, for aught we know, by Greek 
 sympathy or Persian gold, 1 and the Celtic sword was 
 put by others into his hands. 
 
 So perished the maker of Macedon, at a moment 
 and in a manner which make his death the most 
 dramatic in history. In the prime of his life — he 
 was only forty-six — at the supreme crisis of his fame, 
 on the eve of the greatest enterprise of arms the 
 world had seen, he having steered the ship of his 
 ambition through breakers and rocks to the open sea, 
 — to fall at the whisper of a woman and by the hand 
 of an androgyne ! 
 
 For all that, it may be said of Philip that 
 perhaps he died none too soon. The great work of 
 his life was accomplished. Macedonia was already 
 a nation, and, as Phocion warned the exulting 
 Athenians, 2 by the death of its creator, the army of 
 Chaeronea lost no more than one man. Further- 
 more, the work which was to follow was not for 
 Philip to do. The expansion of the Greeks into a 
 new nationality, blending with and absorbing the 
 barbarians around them, could be effected only by a 
 leader of a personality more magnetic and a genius 
 more universal than his ; and the conquest of Asia 
 from the Hellespont to the Punjab would demand a 
 
 1 Arr. ii. 14. 
 
 2 Cf., for their attitude, Arr. i. 10; Aesch. Ctes. 77; Plut. 
 Bern. 22. 
 
144 PHILIP 
 
 master in civil organization as well as a master 
 in war. 
 
 For while the creative military genius of Philip 
 ranks with the very first in the history of arms, and 
 'he added to his magnificent excellences of person a 
 certain statesmanlike breadth and insight and fore" 
 sight, which have been equalled seldom, he was in 
 some respects not a great man of civic affairs. To the 
 bitter end he understood but very imperfectly the arts 
 of peace. He could conquer, but usually he was 
 embarrassed by his conquest. Often in the record of 
 his life we have to note that his work must be done 
 twice, even thrice over. Thessaly, for example, was 
 organized into due subjection only after years of 
 desultory fighting and intriguing; in Euboea Philip 
 never wholly succeeded at all. There is a certain crude 
 and tentative character about his dealings with the 
 Greeks, and with Athens especially, which his son 
 never would have displayed, never indeed did dis- 
 play. Those all-powerful bonds of trade, that astute 
 balancing of nationalities, that subtle use of religious 
 influences, which made every province that Alexander 
 left behind him as much his as if he had spent all 
 his life in organizing it alone, — these things were 
 hardly dreamed of by his father. Philip could have 
 marched, no doubt, to the confines of India equally 
 with his son, but all behind him would have been 
 swelling up like the belly of that wineskin, on 
 whose corner a Brahman trod to demonstrate to 
 Alexander the futility of conquest. It was well for 
 Philip, and it is very well for the world, that it was 
 
PHILIP AND HELLENISM 145 
 
 not by him that the West was to be led against the 
 East. "Europe had borne," indeed, "no such man, 
 take him for all in all, as the son of Amyntas ; " 1 — 
 until she bore Amyntas' grandson ! 
 
 Of Philip's conscious constructive work in Macedon 
 we have spoken already. History will never deny 
 him the credit of having made there a Nation and a 
 Power. But it were idle to ignore that posterity has 
 always overbalanced its praise by bitter censure for 
 what he did in Hellas. 
 
 The interest of the modern world in Philip, and 
 his place in universal history, depend after all most 
 on his relation to Greek civilization. Therefore we 
 must examine, hi conclusion, the indictment so often 
 repeated, that the Macedonian destroyed Hellenic 
 liberty, and the measure of the wrong he did to 
 civilization, if that indictment be true. And since 
 Athens contained always the quintessence of Hel- 
 lenism, and in this century had come to gather more 
 and more to herself all great Hellenes, wheresoever 
 born, let the inquiry be narrowed to her polity ; and 
 the charge, on which Philip shall stand arraigned, will 
 be this — that, Athens still possessing all the elements 
 and conditions of vigorous life, with promises yet 
 unredeemed, and much still to be developed in hei- 
 fer Avhose full flower mankind would have been the 
 better, he, Philip, did so restrict her imperial scope, 
 and oppress her liberal aspirations, as to cause grave 
 hurt to civilization. The charge implies, it will be 
 
 1 Theopomp. fr. 27 ; Suid. s.v. Traponrav. 
 10 
 
146 PHILIP 
 
 noted, two assertions of fact : first (which is matter 
 of knowledge), that Athens was vigorous up to 
 Philip's day; second (which is matter rather of 
 opinion), that the continued vigour of her civic life 
 was still the most precious condition of human 
 progress. 
 
 The comparison of the life of states to the life 
 of the individual is something more than a mere 
 analogy. Organized in a polity, individuals have a 
 corporate intellect and corporate emotions, corporate 
 morality and corporate vices ; and, associated, they 
 display a corporate development from youth to man- 
 hood and manhood to age. The youth of the Athenian 
 polity lies in the centuries before the Persian War. 
 From that fiery trial the city emerged into manhood. 
 Can it be that a century later she was falling already 
 into sere senility ? 
 
 The most ardent advocate of Athenian liberty 
 has not denied that early in the fourth century the 
 Athenian polity was showing signs of exhaustion. 
 The slackness of its political life during that period 
 is attested too well, and confessed too universally, to 
 need demonstration. The orators have depicted for 
 us even to satiety the figure of the too intellectual over- 
 politicized Athenian, who is the later type of Demos. 
 We know so familiarly that loafer in the market-place 
 and on the hill of Assembly, averse equally to 
 personal service and to direct taxation for the weal 
 of his city ; who was little better than an out-pauper 
 with his constant cry, pancm et circenses, having 
 replaced the unreasoned belief of his forefathers that 
 
THE ATHENIAN DEMOS 147 
 
 the individual exists for the state, by a reasoned 
 conviction that the state exists to support and amuse 
 the individual. That his city should have a circle 
 of tributary dependencies whose contributions would 
 pay for mercenaries to fight and row in his stead, 
 for ships to secure his corn supply, 1 and for free 
 shows in his theatre and his stadium, was a consum- 
 mation which he contented himself with desiring 
 devoutly. He would neither fight nor pay for its 
 accomplishment, and with his idle criticism, his 
 spoiled temper, his love of litigation, and his cease- 
 less talk he so hampered his own executive 2 that it 
 could carry out no imperial policy, and the few 
 men of action left in the city hastened to reside 
 beyond his reach. 3 
 
 As a matter of fact (and this consideration is very 
 germane to the issue) during this period Athens had 
 no truly imperial position at all, not even a hege- 
 monic one, for which it might be claimed that it 
 ennobled leader or led. Her First Empire, so soon 
 as, having ceased to be a militant League against 
 Persia, it lost its first justification, had assumed 
 another under the reasoned direction of Pericles. The 
 imperial Republic, keeping her tributaries entirely 
 under her control, was to elevate them with herself 
 into a splendid organism, representative of the best 
 in Hellenism as against all the world. Obligations 
 
 1 For the importance of this supply, cf. Hell. v. 1, 28; 4. 61; 
 and Dem. Cor. 87. 
 
 2 Cf. Phil. i. 46, 47. 
 
 8 Theopomp. fr. 117 ; Nep. Chabr. 3. 
 
148 PHILIP 
 
 which could not be enforced upon her were to be 
 acquitted of her own free will more fully than her 
 subjects could have dreamed. Hence that largeness 
 of ideal, and especially that exalted sense of obligation, 
 which characterize the policy of Athens in the fifth 
 century and are reflected in her literature and her 
 art. The citizen has an ambition transcending mere 
 civic life; the calls upon him keep him alert and 
 active ; his ruder energies find worthy vent, and his 
 sense of demi-godlike superiority to his kind renders 
 him incapable of what is sordid and small. In this 
 way the First Empire justified itself awhile to the 
 leader herself, and may perhaps find justification also 
 at the bar of history, notwithstanding that the led 
 for their part in no way identified themselves with, 
 nor even acquiesced in, this ideal of their leader. 
 
 But the Second Empire, falsely so-called, that 
 is the revived League of 378, must be judged less 
 favourably by history. The incompatibility of the 
 Periclean ideal with weak human nature had come to 
 be proved before Pericles' own death by protest after 
 protest from the " allies," followed by actual revolt. 
 The very loftiness of the leader caused her to be 
 hated with such a hatred as has been meted out to 
 few imperial cities ; and the constantly increasing 
 coercion which she had to practise towards her 
 dependencies throughout the closing decades of the 
 century went far to neutralize any ennobling effect of 
 her imperial position. ^Athens stood, at the opening 
 of the fourth century, amid the ruins of her First 
 Empire, disillusioned, her demi-godlike state past for 
 
ATHENIAN EMPIRE 149 
 
 ever, herself tumbled rudely to a lower level of 
 obligation and ideal. 
 
 Therefore, when, after the conclusion of a series of 
 free commercial alliances and the reconstitution of 
 her own means of offence and defence, Athens suc- 
 ceeded, a generation later, in imposing her headship 
 once more on above seventy cities, she did so under 
 conditions which precluded this restored " Empire " 
 from having any ennobling or elevating effect even 
 on herself. The Second League was formed by the 
 coercion of a single victorious fleet, and had a host 
 of foes both within and without. In the original 
 articles of association, which have been preserved to 
 us on the official marble, 1 Athens abandons by 
 implication all the impeAl rights which in her first 
 Empire she had assumedin virtue of her own demigod- 
 head. This League the Eepublic forms, not for her own 
 aggrandisement, but in the interest of the continued 
 existence of herself, equally with that of the smallest 
 signatory. She admits that she has no right to use 
 the lands of the allies for her own benefit, or to try 
 their citizens by her laws. They, for their part, 
 agree to send deputies and contributions to her for 
 convenience' sake, being obviously jealous of her head- 
 ship, and prepared to dissociate on the slightest sign 
 of her assertion. With hardly anything in common 
 but jealousy, such a League did not need a Philip 
 to break it up, and as a matter of fact it had 
 dissolved by no act or devising of his, before ever 
 he laid a finger on Athenian possessions. 
 1 0. I. A. ii. 17. 
 
150 PHILIP 
 
 Thereafter Athens in the fourth century had a 
 number of uncertain, free allies, but no subject empire 
 really under her own control, except those tracts in 
 Samos, and on the northern shore of the Dardanelles, 
 which were held, in contravention of her sworn assur- 
 ance, by bodies of armed colonists, together with the 
 unimportant islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, 
 and, for a brief period and very doubtfully, Euboea — 
 and these few she effectually could neither protect 
 nor coerce. 
 
 Small wonder that Imperialism, when not recalled 
 as a glorious memory of an earlier age, connoted 
 little to the orators and historians of the fourth 
 century but piratical raiding and the levying of 
 blackmail, truckling to t^^ Barbarian, 1 complaints 
 and protests from islands and cities, mercenary 
 expeditions, and shifty evasions of sworn treaties. 
 So far from ennobling, it reminded of decadence of 
 prestige abroad, and was associated with failure of 
 political morality at home. 
 
 It is contended, however, that in this first half of 
 the fourth century there was merely an eddy in the 
 stream of Athenian progress ; that the polity of 
 Athens was not really old, only exhausted for the 
 moment by mighty effort, and about to have risen 
 again, a giantess refreshed. Now a state no more 
 than an individual can put on its youth again, 
 but not less than an individual it may hasten its 
 age. While the pulse beats at fever heat, both an 
 individual and a state live many years in one. The 
 
 1 Cf. Aesch. Ctes. 238 ; Bern. Phil. iv. 31. 
 
A CHOSEN PEOPLE 151 
 
 Athenians, who had started manhood under the tre- 
 mendous stimulus of a general belief that they were 
 a chosen people, continued to live at the highest 
 pressure under the guidance of Pericles and Periclean 
 ideas for more than two generations. It was the 
 existence of a huge slave population, of course, that 
 made it possible for the privileged citizen body to 
 cultivate exclusively its intellectual and physical 
 perfection. It was the quick Ionian wit of its 
 members that inclined them to the life political. 
 The ephebic training gave every young citizen the 
 same ambitions and the same tastes, and Periclean 
 state-socialism took from them all concern for old 
 age. Thus not merely a leisured minority, but the 
 whole body of citizens, was able to lead for two- 
 thirds of a century a life more intense than has 
 fallen to the lot of any class in history ; and the 
 Athenian state passed through the experience of three 
 centuries at least in that one, working out a more 
 complete evolution in politics, in art, and in letters, 
 than many another people has developed in a 
 millennium. 
 
 Beginning the century as an aristocratic state, 
 Athens ended it as a democracy developed to the 
 last degree that that form of polity, as understood 
 by Greek publicists, would admit. There was no 
 reserve, nothing still to come in the next age, no 
 large proletariate, for example, whose gradual eman- 
 cipation might initiate fresh phases of vigour. The 
 proletariate of Athens was all servile, and reckoned 
 outside the polity. Henceforward there is no further 
 
152 PHILIP 
 
 constitutional development to be remarked in Athens, 
 but merely abuse of what has been developed already, 
 as obligation ceased to be felt and self-indulgence 
 increased. The orator system, for instance, is no 
 new feature, merely an inevitable exaggeration of an 
 old one. When Athens was aristocratic, but not 
 imperial, we hear most of her Archons ; with the rise 
 of her empire the Generals come to the front ; with 
 its fall, and the disappearance of the aristocracy, the 
 Talkers preside over the State. Alexander demanded 
 the surrender not of generals, but orators. Demos- 
 thenes himself was a symptom of democracy in decay. 
 
 If we turn from politics to art and literature, we 
 note the same complete evolution. Sculpture has 
 passed in a century from archaism to the birth 
 of mannerism with Praxiteles. All writers on the 
 subject recognize a pause in the fourth century. 
 The artist in marble or bronze has no more to 
 learn, no new world to conquer ; his art has come 
 down to earth, and is henceforward to be imitative 
 or reforming only. The case is not otherwise with 
 literature. The Epos is fixed finally ; prose style 
 culminates in Isocrates ; Euripides has developed the 
 Drama to the last point of humanism which the 
 peculiar conditions of the Greek stage would admit, 
 and presently with Menander it is to cease to be 
 scenic and to become literary. 
 
 Furthermore, let two things be remarked in Athenian 
 literature which, more than anything else, argue that 
 the Athenian polity was aging, and not enduring a 
 mere passing reaction. It has been remarked often 
 
GENERAL DECAY 153 
 
 that towards the end of the fifth century the tone 
 of Athenian writers becomes distinctly anti-imperial. 
 Thucydides, Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, are none 
 of them for the Empire. All condemn in their 
 several ways the imperial idea, although, as certainly 
 as our own giants in letters of the Elizabethan and 
 Victorian ages, those great Athenians owed their 
 own intellectual eminence to the imperial position 
 of the society in which they moved. The explana- 
 tion is not far to seek. The intellectual activity, 
 which the empire stimulated, had led, on the one 
 hand, to a dawning sense of a circle of obligation, 
 with which Empire was not consistent, on the other, 
 to ideals of human happiness not necessarily political. 
 The Athenian had become conscious, and a race, once 
 it has reasoned about its own existence, has left its 
 demi-god state behind for ever, and is no longer 
 " chosen." The heyday of life vanishes with the 
 birth of reflection. 
 
 Secondly, it is surely significant that poets, both 
 of the first and second order, should cease from 
 Athens as the fourth century advanced. For a 
 nation to confine its artistic effort in literature to 
 the study of assonance and hiatus in prose, and 
 that mainly ad captanclum in the shallow style 
 of the orator, implies surely that the evening of 
 creative power has set in. That there should have 
 come to be a demand for elaborate harangues, smelling 
 of the lamp, was a sign of political decadence ; that 
 the literary class should have supplied almost nothing 
 else, is proof that the decadence extended to art. 
 
154 PHILIP 
 
 Philip obtrudes himself on this Athenian stage 
 when decadence is no longer a tendency but an estab- 
 lished fact ; when democracy has passed into mob- 
 rule, and opportunists, like Eubulus, 1 are at the helm 
 of state. The Macedonian was responsible not for 
 the predominance of such opportunists, but merely, 
 like Sparta of old, for the line they elected to 
 take. He appears also Avhen there exists no longer 
 at Athens generals even of the type of Chabrias 
 or Timotheus, 2 but in their stead condottieri and 
 respectable corporals like Phocion; when no poet 
 has been seen since Euripides, prose has reached its 
 last expression in the orator, and artists are passing 
 into imitative artisans. So far as we can see, there 
 loomed before the Athenian, in the middle of the 
 fourth century, no future except to develop exag- 
 geration, refinement, mannerism, and imitation in 
 the small round of in-bred city life, and to pass away 
 at last, monstrous or decayed. 
 
 The siim of this whole matter may be set down 
 thus. Had Macedon never arisen, the city of Athens 
 probably would not have been very different at the 
 end of the fourth century from what actually she 
 came to be; and Philip may be acquitted at once 
 of having done, even indirectly, any grave hurt to 
 civilization by his action towards her. Nay more — 
 and now we face the assertion that the continued 
 vigour of the civic existence of Athens, had it been 
 
 1 Tbeopomp. fr. 96. Cf. Aesch. Ctes. 25 ; Dein. in Bern. p. 102, 
 99. 
 
 2 Nep. Ckabr. 3. 
 
THE EXPANSION OF HELLAS 155 
 
 possible for it to be sustained, would have been the 
 most precious condition of human progress — Philip, 
 by hastening the decadence of the Greek city-state, 
 did the Greek race in particular, and all mankind in 
 general, no small service. Needless to say, no such 
 service was in his thoughts. Needless to say, it was 
 not he that first set going, or he that conducted to its 
 height, the overflow of Hellas. The banks had been 
 leaking obscurely for a half century past. Mercen- 
 aries, trading colonists, favourites of kings, and bar- 
 barian chieftains, had been learning to forget their 
 civic allegiance in wider spheres of energy ; and 
 Cyrus the Younger, Agesilaus, Jason of Pherae, had 
 all done their part to awake dim consciousness in the 
 Hellene that it lay but with himself to possess the 
 world. But it needed a mightier arm than theirs 
 to break clown altogether the barriers which con- 
 fined the citizen to his city. Philip may be said 
 to have cut decisively the dykes, Alexander to have 
 guided and controlled the flood. 
 
 This is not the place — another may be found 
 more suitable — to portray the Greek of the coming 
 age, called so justly the Hellenistic ; for the expan- 
 sion of Hellas reached, of course, its full limits only 
 under the successors of Philip's son. But as it was 
 Philip who, at least, made that expansion possible, it 
 is but just to link his name loosely with those great 
 benefits which were to accrue to Hellenism and the 
 world in the new era. Briefly, the Hellene, being 
 cut as by a pruner from the aged stem of his polity, 
 began an independent development in a new soil, 
 
156 PHILIP 
 
 with new juices to feed upon and a new sky opened 
 overhead. No longer bound by the tyranny of cor- 
 porate evolution to refine on the already too refined, 
 and to follow the grooves which decline to corporate 
 death, his individual genius could enter on a new 
 progress. Born and trained to a higher grade of 
 political capacity than members of any other con- 
 temporary race, he applied to all communities into 
 which he came higher and more universal principles 
 of government than they had known hitherto ; and 
 in the new field those principles took a new and 
 larger scope than in his own little polity of old. 
 His mind having been exercised through thought 
 and the application of thought, he could apply it 
 to any science or condition of life, and accordingly 
 everywhere he instituted an advance on what had 
 preceded him. But removed from the hothouse 
 atmosphere of his parent polity, his genius takes 
 now a more practical aspect. It turns to applied 
 science rather than the pure theoretic, to decorative 
 and domestic art, to application of literary form 
 and finish, to the presentation of useful knowledge, 
 to treating, in short, art as made for man rather 
 than man as made for art. Aristotle, Euclid, Era- 
 tosthenes, and Ptolemy the geographer are more 
 genuine products of this new era than Apollonius, 
 Callimachus, or Theocritus; the artistic culinary 
 implements of Pompeii express it more aptly than 
 the Sidon sarcophagi, the Pergamum frieze, or the 
 Laocoon. The Greek went out to be the leaven of 
 a world, which had not forgotten art and theory, but 
 was no longer to live by art and theory alone. 
 
PHILIP'S PART 157 
 
 It was remarked long ago that the modern world 
 has taken no political institution consciously or 
 directly from Athens, that is to say, in letters 
 and in art the Athenian is not our immediate fore- 
 father. For if it is true that all the roads of 
 civilization lead back to Greece, equally it is true 
 that they run for vastly the greater part of their 
 course not through Greece. But none the less all 
 along those roads, down to the gate of modern times, 
 the Greek is conducting us always, himself the spirit 
 of progression. Had no Philip nor such rude giant 
 driven him forth from the frontiers of his little state, 
 our present debt to Hellas had been little greater than 
 can be contracted by conscious archaists in political 
 science, in letters, and in art. But Philip it was that 
 forced the Hellene into the open sea, and therefore, 
 if it be that " nothing moves in the world which is 
 not Greek in origin," it is owed to no man more than 
 the Macedonian. And surely if the great dead still 
 may note the course of progress, in which once they 
 played a part, a reconciliation must have been sealed 
 long ago in the Elysian Fields between Demosthenes 
 and his " barbarian of Pella." 
 

 fry— 
 
 PORTRAIT BUST OF ALEXANDER 
 Tivoli Herm in the Louvre 
 
ALEXANDER 
 
 The bloody mantle of a murdered king has dropped 
 seldom so uneasily as upon the shoulders of Alex- 
 ander. His legitimacy had been impugned by his 
 father. The party that looked to him was not 
 dominant at court. A dispossessed uncle and a half- 
 brother were at hand to claim his succession. His 
 mother had contrived certainly, and he himself was 
 suspected to have been privy to, the cruel catastrophe 
 that had just befallen. 
 
 It can have been with no too sanguine hopes 
 that the boy allowed friends and flatterers to buckle 
 his corslet and lead him to claim Philip's throne. 
 A few minutes earlier the butchered king had been 
 borne back to his palace. The streets on that October 
 morning, all in gala trappings for the interrupted 
 feast, were probably as empty now as the fatal 
 Theatre ; for it was the doubtful hour after a great 
 crime, when an oriental crowd runs instinctively to 
 cover. Presently, however, what might notj the 
 assembled nobles and burghers attempt ? What 
 would be the policy of that brilliant gathering of 
 Envoys Extraordinary? What last and most, was 
 
160 ALEXANDER 
 
 likely to be the mood of the great Army of Asia, 
 marshalled in the Vardar plain? 
 
 In the event this concurrent presence of ambas- 
 sadors and soldiers in the first critical hours saved 
 Alexander. Ere another's standard could be raised, 
 he had had time to appeal in person to his father's 
 allies, and to all sections of his father's army. 
 The representatives of the former in the presence 
 of the latter would have assured any heir of their 
 loyalty perhaps with equal effusion; and honestly 
 and promptly the army declared for the hero of 
 Chaeronea. Olympias had counted on memories 
 of that great day, and Alexander appealing now 
 with beauty and youth for his allies, did not appeal 
 in vain. 
 
 We can call up his image more distinctly than 
 that of his father ; for Plutarch, who had seen por- 
 traits by Lysippus and read contemporary memoirs 
 now lost, has left a descriptive chapter, to be com- 
 pared with such copies of the Lysippean type as sur- 
 vive, and with countless idealized heads on medals and 
 in marble. In all antiquity Alexander was famous for 
 beauty of face, not quite of the then accepted type, 
 but fuller featured and more ardent. Plutarch reports 
 that his skin was singularly fair and clear, and though 
 in stature not above the ordinary, he had the frame 
 and aspect of an Olympic athlete. His father, indeed, 
 once proposed that he should enter the lists for 
 the great foot-race, but the haughty boy would not 
 compete with less than his social peers. Further we 
 are told that habitually his head was inclined a little 
 
PORTRAIT BUST OF ALEXANDER 
 in the British Museum 
 
PORTRAIT 161 
 
 towards the left shoulder, more probably in an uncon- 
 scious pose than through malformation or disease, 1 
 and that large and liquid but fiery eyes 2 arrested, 
 attention most in his face. In a copy of a por- 
 trait bust, brought from Alexandria to our national 
 collection, the spectator does remark indeed the 
 character of the eyes, deep sunk beneath brows extra- 
 ordinarily prominent, and shaded by very full lids, 
 which fold over on themselves, the whole giving a 
 singular impression of amplitude and life. Not less 
 remarkable, however, are the mouth and chin, both 
 sensuous, and inspiring insistent suspicion whether 
 the Macedonian conqueror can indeed have been so 
 indifferent to the lusts of the flesh as the ancients 
 agreed to believe. 
 
 This bust in the opinion of some critics 3 is a too 
 emphatic copy, and less faithful than the Tivoli 
 herm of the Louvre ; others 4 question if it represent 
 a portrait at all. But in the matter of the mouth 
 there is no need to take cover behind such doubts ; 
 the tradition of antiquity and the sculptor are both 
 
 1 Torticollis, or atrophy of the right side. Vide extracts from 
 a paper by A. Dechambre, quoted in Rev. Arch. Ser. i. ix. 
 p. 422. The learned doctor in his resume (p. 433) says, 
 " L'antique connu sous le nom d'hermes d'Alexandre represente 
 un personnage atteint d'un torticolis par raccourcissement du 
 muscle sterno-mastoidien droit." 
 
 2 Cf. Plut. Pomp. 2. 
 
 8 E. g. Th. Reinach, in his discussion of the Alexander-heads on 
 the Sidon sarcophagus (Une Necropole royale, etc., text, p. 293). 
 Cf. frontispiece to this volume. 
 
 * B. g. P. Koepp {TJeber das Bildniss Alexanders des Grossen, 
 Berlin, 1892). 
 
 11 
 
162 ALEXANDER 
 
 to be justified. For two things about Alexander 
 must be borne in mind. On the one hand, he had no 
 characteristic more salient than an inordinate pride 
 of self which stepped in whenever his emotion 
 threatened to break from control. He owed that 
 pride to many causes — equally to the very plenitude 
 of his powers, and to the circumstances of an early 
 life, spent in bitter quarrel with his natural guardian, 
 and in the premature independence which such rela- 
 tions in a feudal state induce. Exalted by the 
 admonishment of a great tutor, the boy had been 
 also early invested with command, and exposed to 
 every intoxication of flattery. By one of these 
 influences or another, Alexander had manifestly been 
 brought, ere he reached manhood, to regard, as many 
 men not professedly moral have regarded, sexual 
 surrender as to be withstood always and every- 
 where. Those impulses which threaten most absolute 
 dominion over self, he dreaded most ; and in the 
 sequel, largely through the strenuous part for which 
 he was cast during all his life, he succeeded in keep- 
 ing them under, as few ascetics have done. He who 
 had refused angrily to marry and leave an heir 
 before he set out for Asia, begot only two children 
 of his body, the second, Roxana's boy, after four 
 fruitless years of wedlock ; and since death inter- 
 posed early between his will and its inevitable decay, 
 he has remained a pattern of continence to the ages, 
 the most signal example perhaps in history of the 
 subjection of the flesh to inordinate pride ! 
 
 On the other hand, his nature was neither cold 
 
CHARACTER 163 
 
 nor passionless. The flame burned fiercely enough 
 in Alexander, little issue though it found in the love 
 of women. The most beautiful of these he affected 
 to regard as " soulless dolls," * but none the less he 
 gloried in wine and song and feasting, like his father 
 before him. 2 And even if we did not know his record 
 so intimately, we might assume that no nature 
 coldly intellectual could display the half of Alex- 
 ander's recklessness ; no man not essentially emotional 
 would risk so much for ideas ; no one not frankly 
 passionate had attached a great host to himself by 
 a bond which held for seven years through sands 
 and snows, and survived at the Sutlej and at Opis. 
 But we do not depend alone on inference. Was 
 there not in Alexander's life at least one emotional 
 friendship, a friendship of that type which, based 
 obscurely on passion, in certain natures passes the 
 love of women ? Perhaps he consciously directed 
 the imperious current of his emotion into that 
 channel to avoid all risk of sexual slavery ; but even 
 so, if we believe Plutarch 3 and the consent of anti- 
 quity, Alexander stands absolved of all suspicion of 
 sin ; and we must count him not worse than the 
 best of the race and school of Plato in the age before 
 the idealization of woman. 
 
 The prince, called thus suddenly to Philip's seat, 
 had enjoyed no common education. The nature 
 inborn in any son of Olympias (Aeacid though 
 she was) would be rather that of an Albanian 
 
 x Plut. Alex. 21. z Cf. Athen. x. 45. 3 Alex. 22. 
 
164 ALEXANDER 
 
 chieftain than a Greek citizen ; and if indeed Alex- 
 ander sprang too from Philip's loins, he would be 
 also on that side but a rude Hellene. On this 
 proud mountain stock, however, had been grafted, 
 by Philip's example and the precepts of his tutors, 
 all the most exclusive sentiment of a Greek. Con- 
 fident heir of a new-made order, cradled in the late- 
 invented militarism, and imbued almost at his father's 
 knee with the idea that whoso disposed of the forces 
 of Macedon could dispose also of the earth, Alex- 
 ander had been subjected to all exalting influences, 
 and those untempered by parental control worthy 
 the name. By inevitable consequence, in a latitude 
 of early maturity, he was become full man ere he 
 ascended his father's throne — a man who for years 
 had been forming most definite ambitions, and, in 
 measuring his personal powers against those of all 
 the leading spirits of his sphere, had rated himself 
 their equal or their better. He would know and do 
 what no man else had known or clone. " Not 
 rightly," he wrote to Aristotle, " hast thou published 
 the doctrines that thou taughtest to me by word of 
 mouth, for why should the rest of the world be 
 even as I ? " To himself he seemed to be the " god 
 in mankind," with no straiter limitations, no gentler 
 code of right, than a demi-god of Homer's world. 
 There are many stories of the boy's precocious self- 
 assertion. Like a potentate of our own day, educated 
 under influences not dissimilar, who maybe has 
 modelled himself a little on the Macedonian, Alex- 
 ander believed in royal roads to knowledge. He 
 
ASSERTION" OF SELF 165 
 
 would grasp the innermost mysteries of philosophy 
 before he had learned well its rudiments ; he thought 
 to have penetrated the arcana of medicine, and 
 gravely lectured his most venerable physicians. But 
 the ready smile fades in wonder, that, seeing who 
 this prince was, and how brought up — seeing that 
 his interests ranged from the conquest of the world 
 to the collection of specimens — seeing withal that 
 his follies were committed all before men — never- 
 theless such tales should be so few ! 
 
 So we are confronted, from the very outset, by a 
 most masterful and conscious character, self-reliant 
 to a fault, little hampered by restraints of constitution 
 or family, but disciplined somewhat in Philip's hard 
 school of arms. Add a most brilliant, precocious 
 intellect, given the widest scope by contact for three 
 years with the mind of Aristotle and deeply tinged 
 with the romantic side of Hellenic culture ; add the 
 frame and constitution of an Olympic victor, and, 
 again, the beauty of a Praxitelean god. Alexander's 
 physical excellences attracted those whom his intel- 
 lectual force might have daunted or repelled ; and 
 the two together endowed him with a personal 
 magnetism which seems to have been felt equally 
 by the subtlest Greek and the rudest barbarian in 
 his service. On a far greater scale than Alcibiades, 
 Alexander was born to do the most good or the 
 most harm to all his world. 
 
 What nature of inheritance devolved on this 
 leader of men ? A professional army of probably 
 
166 ALEXANDER 
 
 not less than 60,000 men of all arms was absolutely 
 ready to his hand, mobilized at the moment of his 
 accession. That force was in a state of perfect 
 discipline and efficiency, having received the last 
 touches of its maker ; and no soldiery in the world 
 could compare with it for purposes of offence. 
 The Macedonian navy, however, was but a small, 
 neglected force, hardly adequate for coast defence, 
 and inferior to fleets which several Greek and 
 Asiatic cities severally could put on the sea at 
 short notice. 
 
 In territorial possession the boy received absolutely 
 what still we call Macedonia, with the most part of 
 Roumelia, bounded west by the Albanian watershed 
 and north by the Balkan chains ; but the Black Sea 
 slope was part savage and half-subdued, 1 part friendly 
 but independent, under Byzantium. 2 Absolutely also 
 he was lord of Thessaly. The completeness of sub- 
 jection to Macedonian rule is shown best in all this 
 region by the fact that it has left no coinage of 
 this period but that issued by the royal mints of 
 Macedon. 
 
 The remainder of the Balkan peninsula lay also in 
 dependence more or less complete. Greece south of 
 Tbermopylae was kept in check by military occupa- 
 tion, the Gates themselves, the Theban cidatel, Chalcis 
 the key of Euboea and Attica, and the Corinthian 
 
 1 These Thracians are still called aii-ovo/noi in Alexander's reign 
 (Arr. i. 1). 
 
 2 Which city sent ships to help Alexander in his Thracian 
 campaign (Arr. i. 3). 
 
INHERITANCE 167 
 
 approach to the Peloponnese, being held strongly 
 with royal troops. But the cities continued to coin 
 their own money, 1 and to be regarded nominally as sub- 
 ject allies of the Macedonian king, a condition which 
 they detested and would repudiate as soon as might 
 be. Epirus remained an ally without being subject ; 
 and all round the outer circle of the west and north 
 the highland tribes of Albania, Montenegro, Servia, 
 and Bulgaria were in an ill-defined tributary position 
 towards Macedon, which called for rude correction 
 from time to time; for Philip's latest operations in 
 those Balkan regions had not contributed much to a 
 definite settlement. Finally, Macedonian troops were 
 at this moment in possession of the farther shore of 
 the Dardanelles, and a little of the inner land of Asia. 
 It was a somewhat thorny heritage of Empire. No 
 part of it was quite sound, not even the core, which 
 it had been Philip's life-work to expand and assure. 
 Through him indeed it was become loyal enough to 
 the Macedonian crown, but not by any means was 
 it so certainly attached to the person of the new 
 king. The old trouble with the Feudatories was not 
 quite past and done with : Alexander had to proceed 
 at first with extreme caution in dealing, for ex- 
 ample, with Lyncestians ; 2 and the arch Lyncestian 
 
 1 The value of the numismatic test may be illustrated by the 
 change which supervenes in Athens and the Peloponnese after the dis- 
 astrous end of the Lamian War in 322. Their independent coinage 
 becomes thenceforward as non-existent as that of Thessaly. 
 
 2 Certain of whose chiefs fought on the Persian side in Asia, 
 e. g. Neoptolemus at Halicarnassus, and Amyntas at Issus ; and 
 Polemon fled to the foe at a later period, but returned to allegiance. 
 
168 ALEXANDER 
 
 conspirator could not be put to death until years 
 after his guilt was established. 1 Still more dangerous 
 seemed certain of those who, having been foremost 
 in Philip's councils, knew that his elder son perhaps 
 would not, had the father lived longer, have been 
 his designated successor. 
 
 Eager to realize the legacy of his father's hopes, 
 the son had first to secure the inheritance of his 
 father's deeds. Alexander's seat in Europe was none 
 too sure. Greece, agitated by Demosthenes, showed 
 a most uncertain mood ; 2 the Balkan tribesmen were 
 openly defiant. To neutralizing these foes within 
 and without the first year and a half of the new reign 
 had to be devoted, and in that brief but strenuous 
 schooling in peril and patience the exuberant boy 
 sensibly matured. Most notable is it, how these two 
 preliminary campaigns in Europe display already the 
 assertive personality of the future conqueror. Alex- 
 ander has a perfect machine left ready to his hand, 
 but its mechanical perfection induces in him no me- 
 chanical habit ; even thus early he quickens it with 
 all the fire of his own spirit. When at the outset 
 the Thessalians bid him wait without their closed 
 door of Tempe, convention would have enjoined 
 
 1 Cf. An-, i. 25, with Curt. vii. 15, and Justin, xi. 2. 
 
 2 The state of Greece at this crisis is well set forth by B. Niese, 
 Geschichte der griech. und makedon. Staaten, etc. (i. pp. 53 fF.). In 
 fact, this passage and another on the condition of Greece and 
 the West generally during Alexander's last years (p. 161 ff.) are 
 the best in Niese's too summary and too little critical work 
 (1893). 
 
FIRST CAMPAIGNS 169 
 
 the assault or the purchase of what had long been 
 held to be the one practicable pass. But the new 
 Captain, without a moment's hesitation, turns to 
 the impracticable route, and succeeds. His spear- 
 men are bidden cut steps along the sea-face of Ossa, 1 
 and get through where goats hardly had passed 
 before. For result, the rising insolence of the penin- 
 sula abjectly collapsed, and not a murmur was heard 
 except from Sparta, when the boy came down to 
 Corinth to claim the proud prerogatives of his father. 
 And for further result, a year later, only the reported 
 death of this stripling of twenty, at whom Demos- 
 thenes had been jeering so lately, emboldened tortured 
 Thebes to raise the standard of revolt. Warning of 
 the dreadful phalanx did not dash the spirit of the 
 rebels, for they were told it was led by Antipater, or 
 by some namesake of Alexander. Then lo ! the boy 
 himself was without the walls. Just as he found 
 himself with his army at the moment that the ill 
 news came to Lake Ochrida, unreinforced, careless of 
 his communications and his supplies, he had made 
 straight for the nearest gap in the frontier range, 
 and in fourteen days was seated over against the 
 Cadmeia. There was one sortie, and a tough tussle 
 in the streets with the stiff-backed Theban burghers, 
 and not another sword was unsheathed in Greece for 
 five years. 
 
 In the previous Balkan campaign, too, the dptcrreta 
 had been not less Alexander's, half reckless barbarian 
 that he was, half heir of the highest civilization in 
 1 Polyaenus, iv. 3. 23. 
 
170 ALEXANDER 
 
 his age, and always source and spring of action. He 
 demanded and obtained from his soldiers the prowess 
 of single champions. In the very first engagement 
 they must break up their close, confident formation, 
 and, crouching under their shields, let Triballian 
 waggons hurtle over their bodies down the Balkan 
 slopes. 1 They were ferried hi a single night across 
 the greatest river in their world, to demonstrate 
 in a land absolutely unreconnoitred. The most 
 complicated movements of the parade-ground had 
 to be executed calmly in an open valley, for the 
 psychologic value of the spectacle upon the watch- 
 ing ambuscades which beset flank and rear. And 
 already we find Alexander obeyed implicitly by 
 professional soldiery, doubtless not a little because 
 he was the bombastic young athlete, darling of rude 
 men, who dropped the generalissimo whenever there 
 was a wild charge to be headed, who risked him- 
 self and the flower of his force across the Danube, 
 simply that he might say he had crossed it, and 
 prodigally spent health and strength in being first 
 in every forced march, first through every doubtful 
 ford, and first into every fenced city. A measure 
 of self-conscious display was added to impulse, for 
 Alexander was but twenty-one ; and there are well- 
 known tales of his frank disappointment if his 
 audience remained unmoved. But whether when 
 Diogenes grimly tells him, would-be Lord Bountiful, 
 to stand away from his sunlight, or when certain 
 hairy Kelts, to whose thews the boy's soul had 
 
 1 Polyaenus, iv. 3. 11. 
 
ALEXANDER PANHELLENE 171 
 
 warmed, refuse in the true Scots spirit the shadow 
 of a compliment to all his fishing, Alexander has 
 always enough conviction or enough nobility to keep 
 his temper and his dignity. And, indeed, the very 
 frankness of the boy's self-assertion, inspiring still a 
 kindly sentiment for him in this fair spring of his 
 year, reveals the secret of his extraordinary personal 
 magnetism. However conscious the pose, however 
 deliberate the action, there remained in Alexander to 
 the end so much of an exuberant child of nature, 
 who used all his powers recklessly for all they were 
 worth, that custom never staled the enthusiasm he 
 so openly sought. 
 
 A year and a half passed by, and by the time 
 that the young Captain was ready for the great 
 venture in whose inception his father had died, and 
 whereof himself had dreamed long, the noise of him 
 and the fear had spread from the Danube to the 
 southernmost isles of the Greek sea. He was become 
 to the mass of his Macedonians a Hero who could do no 
 wrong ; but this idolatry was not enough for his ambi- 
 tion, and he was bent on winning a like throne in the 
 hearts of the Greeks. Even as Philip, so Alexander, 
 piqued by the precious exclusiveness of Athens, paid 
 involuntary homage to her pre-eminence in a world 
 more universal than his own; but more than his 
 father, for he had had the better Hellenic training, 
 he would make appeal to her literary and artistic 
 sense, sparing the house of Pindar, sleeping head 
 on Homer, and proclaiming in an open letter to 
 
172 ALEXANDER 
 
 Aristotle, that lie set the great achievements of pure 
 intellect above all feats of arms. A romantic vein 
 having led him in this first bloom of his youth to set 
 up the Homeric Hero as his life's ideal, the title of 
 Captain-General of Hellas, which seemed to lift its 
 holder to an Agamemnonic pinnacle, was taken 
 probably by Alexander at the first much more 
 seriously than by Philip. 
 
 The boy could not, however, have been possessed 
 of the intelligence which was bis, had he supposed 
 the Greeks, least of all the Athenians, to be with 
 him heart and soul. The reception which the 
 news of his father's death had met with south of 
 Olympus, the obstruction offered to his own first 
 entry into Thessaly, the revolt of Thebes, and the 
 sympathy shown to her beyond Cithaeron, had supplied 
 warnings patent to a duller man than Alexander. 
 And, indeed, it was clearly to conciliate a hostile 
 spirit of which he was uneasily conscious, that he 
 began by making not only appeal to Athenian culture, 
 but the same sort of gracious concession to Athenian 
 political pride that his father had fancied would be 
 grateful. Like Philip, Alexander never violated Attic 
 soil; like Philip, when he had to arraign certain 
 statesmen for words or deeds hostile to himself, he 
 ostentatiously left the convicted in the hands of the 
 sovereign Athenian people. Unlike Philip, however, 
 he seems not to have believed that such favours 
 could avail alone, but to have relied for ultimate 
 success rather on his own personality, on his physical 
 beauty, on his intellectual culture, and on the 
 
THE PERSIAN CRUSADE 173 
 
 Homeric spectacle he was about to display of a 
 new Achilles gone to Asia. Ruined Thebes he hoped 
 thus would be forgotten, 1 thus the enthusiastic 
 applause of the Academy be won, thus that he might 
 make of his present Empire and his future conquest 
 one Hellenic unity, himself acclaimed by free conviction 
 the one worthy prince of the whole. 
 
 T 
 
 Behold, then, a very sanguine and large-hearted 
 youth, somewhat conscious and greedy of recognition 
 and applause, bid adieu to his mother on the Mace- 
 donian border in early spring of 334, and march off 
 with forty thousand men-at-arms and his hopes for 
 the Dardanelles. Those " hopes " which, after giving 
 away almost all his substance with a quixotic indif- 
 ference to money and luxuries which remained cha- 
 racteristic to the end, Alexander had said, laughing, 
 would pass the straits alone of all his treasures, were 
 already full-fledged. He proposed nothing short of 
 complete dispossession of the great Darius in favour 
 of himself, Captain-General of Hellas, in short, the 
 establishment of his own panhellenic Empire in the 
 room of the Persian. 
 
 It might be superfluous to emphasize this so 
 obvious ambition of the young Alexander, were it not 
 that there is hardly a commentator or a critic but 
 has forgotten it by the time the Conqueror is come 
 to Issus. Thenceforward special reasons are sought 
 and supplied with a wealth of perverse ingenuity for 
 almost every forward movement. From Egypt to 
 1 Plut. Alex. 13. 
 
174 ALEXANDER 
 
 the Euphrates, from Persepolis to the Caspian, from 
 the Caspian to the Sir Daria, from Balkh to India, 
 Alexander is said to be forced by this particular 
 consideration of policy, or that fresh goad of masterful 
 fate. In truth, however, the motive influence was 
 always one and simple. From the first Alexander 
 looked to reach no goal, and indeed reached none, 
 either at Memphis, or at Arbela, or at Babylon, or 
 at Persepolis, or in the little gorge where Darius lay 
 dead, so long as any tiara but his own was erect 
 in the Persian Empire, or a single satrapy had failed 
 to acknowledge his sway. And such a plan of cam- 
 paign was, beyond a doubt, what contemporary Greeks 
 understood by the due wreaking of the revenge of 
 Hellas. That the campaign of Vengeance should 
 be merely demonstrative, to be relinquished when 
 the Palace of Xerxes was burned, or his successor 
 had been done to death — that one should vanquish 
 but not possess the lands of the vanquished — this 
 was neither contemporary theory, nor likely to be 
 contemporary practice. At least no such conception 
 was present to the minds of those who saw, some 
 with grief, some with joy, but all with surprise, 
 Alexander burn at Persepolis what they recognized 
 was now become his own. 
 
 We are not called upon to find a fresh motive for 
 progress west of the Indus. The simple scheme of 
 dispossessing the one rival Emperor in his world and 
 possessing in his room, had been Philip's last absorb- 
 ing idea ; it had become that of the boy Alexander 
 even before his father's death ; it continued to be his 
 
SPIRIT OF THE CRUSADE 175 
 
 when king. From the very first in Asia Alexander 
 assumed the position of the Persian, replacing the 
 latter' s satraps with his own, continuing the old 
 system of administration, with, at first, special 
 indulgence for Greek cities, 1 accepting even Persian 
 officials if proved loyal to their new Great King ; and 
 every province, witness Egypt in chief, was organized 
 as a possession for ever. The Macedonian put his 
 own purpose nakedly enough in replying to Darius' 
 overtures before Arbela, 2 that he required all the 
 king's lands, not any part : " I, Alexander, consider 
 the whole of thy treasure, and the whole of thy 
 land, to be mine." How can this be misconceived ? 
 The Conqueror did not march on a bee-line to 
 Susa, but he was making thither not less but 
 more surely, because from Side, from Issus, from 
 Arbela he turned off the main track to fix his foot- 
 ing so surely that no one after him ruled in the 
 western empire of Persia but on western lines before 
 the Hegira. 
 
 Ultimately, as will be seen in the sequel, the 
 Conqueror's ideal came to transcend these primary 
 limits, and the conquest of Persia was forgotten in 
 the conquest of the Earth. Equally, but much 
 earlier, the outward sanction which the Conqueror 
 
 1 Cf. his letter to the people of Smyrna, the record of which is 
 preserved in an inscription (C. I. O. 3137, 11- 100 ff.) ; also similar 
 privileges granted to Priene (B. M. inscr., iii., No. 400). 
 
 2 On the authenticity of these letters to Darius, see Pridik, Be 
 Al. Magni epistularum commercio, pp. 39 ff. That learned scholar 
 accepts them as at least embodying genuine matter. Niese accepts 
 them also, but without criticism. 
 
176 ALEXANDER 
 
 had sought at first for his conquest was forgotten 
 also. Partly it had become meaningless in the face 
 of facts; partly it was needed no longer. What 
 survived through all change was the single human 
 desire, which was actuating Alexander on the hither 
 shore of the Dardanelles, and would be prepon- 
 derating on his death-bed, the desire, namely, of 
 acquisition. Trite as it may seem, this needs saying 
 again. Alexander, like Philip, was but a man of his 
 age and race — an age and race whose greatest thinker 
 laid it clown for law that Hellene was justified abso- 
 lutely in enslaving barbarian. No more subtle moral 
 rule claimed the attention of a Hellenic conqueror in 
 Asia at that day, than the right of the stronger. 
 The world was that Hellene's oyster whose sword 
 could lift the shell. 
 
 Why Philip wished to be first and foremost a 
 Hellene has been discussed in the former essay. All 
 the motives which actuated him were but stronger 
 in Alexander. Both wished to rest on a unified base 
 wider than Macedonia, both to conquer and hold a 
 vast Empire beside. Both — for they were Hellenes 
 by birth and training — believed that the second 
 element to be incorporated with the Macedonian, 
 both in the base and in the conquest, was the Hel- 
 lenic ; but Alexander understood the better how to 
 deal with it. One cannot be too fearful of credit- 
 ing a youth who makes history with a consciousness 
 in advance of his epoch, or beyond his years. To 
 claim for Alexander that he conceived the regeneration 
 of the world by the Hellene is sheerly absurd ; to 
 
CROSSING TO ASIA 177 
 
 suppose that thus early he foresaw altogether even 
 what Hellenes would effect for his own selfish end of 
 Empire, is to rank him with the Prophets. But to 
 say that he had learned from his father's and his own 
 experience that a base on which Hellene and Mace- 
 donian would fuse firmly together must be outside 
 the traditional home of either ; that the Hellene would 
 prove of even greater service in the holding of Empire 
 than in the conquering thereof ; and that with a view 
 to both these considerations the Hellene's commercial 
 interest must be appealed to, and his commercial apti- 
 tudes utilized — this is only to place Aristotle's pupil 
 early in his precocious life among the more enlightened 
 minds of his own day. 
 
 Alexander came, then, in this April of 334, to the 
 shore of the Dardanelles, with an ambition to possess 
 all Persia as already he possessed all Greece. He was 
 captain of the Hellenes, full of faith in the Hellenic 
 nationality, and most desirous, in the interests of 
 security as well as of sentiment, that enforced obedi- 
 ence might give place through the gods and him- 
 self to some such willing recognition of his own pre- 
 eminence as Pericles had enjoyed awhile at Athens. 
 His mood was of the most exalted and romantic ; he 
 crossed and landed with the strictest Heroic usage, 
 solemnly visited Ilium, and went through a whole 
 archaistic masque as another Achilles. 1 And when 
 
 1 He even returned after Granicus, aud promoted the squalid 
 village to be a free city by way of thanksgiving (Strabo, p. 593) ; 
 and it is probably the ruin of this New Ilium that Schliemann 
 
 12 
 
178 ALEXANDER 
 
 a few days later he found himself for the first time 
 face to face with his foe, scorning, as a Hero might, 
 all counsels of caution, he charged forthwith with 
 a rush of horsemen through the stream of Granicus, 
 himself seeking and fighting single combats as before 
 windy Troy. The spoil was dedicated as a solemn 
 firstfruits to the gods of the Greeks, and in formal 
 terms Alexander decreed annihilation to those dastard 
 Hellenes who were found opposing in arms the Captain- 
 General of their race. 
 
 Scarce two months later at Miletus Alexander again 
 had at his mercy a body of Greeks, equally guilty ; 
 he allowed them to surrender on terms, and took 
 them into his service. It is a small matter, but 
 a straw on the stream of events. What had hap- 
 pened since the " Cavalry Battle," to ease the con- 
 science of the Captain-General? In effect enough 
 to make Miletus a point clearly marked in the 
 passing of the enthusiastic boy into the calculating 
 man of affairs. For those two months had proved 
 to demonstration nothing less than that the maritime 
 states of Hellas, those that alone greatly mattered, 
 were in their hearts not for Alexander, but for his 
 enemies. The larger islands, Ehodes, Chios, and 
 Lesbos, and nearly all the lesser, kept open ports 
 
 found in the uppermost layer at Hissarlik (cf. Schuchhardt, 
 Scldiemann's Excavations, pp. 79 ff. ; and C. I. G. 3595 for its 
 increase under the Diadochi). It was not a foundation to serve any 
 purposes of commerce or strategy; for Antigonus was under the 
 necessity of creating hard by a new city for those ends, namely that 
 Alexandria of the Troad, which became well known in subsequent 
 centuries. 
 
FEELINGS OF THE GREEKS 179 
 
 to the Persian admirals, and the city of Athens had 
 been at no pains to disguise her sympathies. Her 
 continental position and twenty of her ships, 
 held as hostages by the Macedonian, made her warn 
 Pharnabazus off the Piraeus ; but openly she sat 
 within her walls watching for the first Macedonian 
 reverse, and indeed had sent already, or was about 
 to send soon, an envoy direct to Darius. 
 
 In brief, Alexander had failed entirely to carry 
 Athens with him on the wind of his enthusiasm. 
 He had failed, partly because some of her best spirit 
 survived still, refusing to be comforted for the loss 
 of Empire ; partly because she had. outlived her heroic 
 period. At that stage of her conscious intellectualism, 
 when oratory and philosophy had become popular 
 diversions, an exuberant Homeric champion struck no 
 true note of admiration. There was felt in Athens 
 no longer any enthusiasm for crusades, and at best 
 but a languid interest in the physical excellences 
 of a youth who assumed the Hero and dared kings 
 to battle. She was perhaps, to tell truth, a little 
 wearied with him, and needed only encouragement 
 by an active agitator to express her feelings in open 
 hostility. 
 
 Therefore, at Miletus, the first sanguine hour of 
 Alexander's life has closed, and on the wreck of his 
 exuberant illusions begins to rise a sterner purpose. 
 Greece must be coerced if she will not be courted. 
 Her command of the seas shall be broken by the 
 capture of the coasts of the Levant, and her people 
 be bent willy nilly to do panhellenic work. For 
 
180 ALEXANDER 
 
 Alexander knew that, even in spite of themselves, 
 they would do it for him. And therefore, not having 
 resigned all hope that they might be brought some 
 day to see with him eye to eye, he retained, and 
 put forward still the style and title of Captain- 
 General. In face of present hostility, however, it 
 was no longer worth while to maintain an offensive 
 fleet ; and, accordingly, he issued now his much 
 canvassed decision to " burn his boats " and leave 
 himself stranded in Asia. 
 
 It has not always been understood how inevitably 
 that decision followed on the revelation that had 
 been made. The sea was the element of the Greek. 
 No fleet that, as yet, Alexander could requisition 
 would make head for a moment against the squadrons 
 of Persia and the Hellenic powers, should these 
 combine. Furthermore, like most self-reliant men, 
 Alexander was never easy about operations not 
 conducted under his immediate eye. He could not 
 be on the sea and the land at once; furthermore, 
 he had never contemplated, when he equipped his 
 own small squadron, that it would remain always 
 small ; and therefore, now that the expected reinforce- 
 ments were accruing rather to the fleets of the foe 
 than to himself, the Macedonian had no choice but 
 to disband his few ships, become too precarious 
 hostages to fortune. 
 
 This early disillusionment, though it cooled the 
 boy's spirit all too soon, and when pressed home by 
 much future trouble with Greeks, embittered him not 
 a little, and forced him in the end to adopt a policy 
 
CONQUEST OP THE COASTS 181 
 
 alien to modern sympathy, was in certain ways 
 salutary. The remembrance of it, and futile regrets 
 that recurred from time to time all through his life, 
 served for his memento mori, a constant check on 
 the confident animalism of his physical nature. Had 
 Alexander never experienced anything less stimu- 
 lating than the favour and applause amid which he 
 started for Asia, his splendid mental powers might 
 have been exercised but little. Nature had framed 
 him for a great warrior; necessity made of him a 
 great organizer of peace ; and it may be said that 
 Greek hostility did at least as much as Greek precept 
 to give him the claim that is his to have been more 
 than conqueror. 
 
 The check that he had experienced on the sea 
 turned Alexander's eyes wholly to that element for 
 two years. The campaigns of the last half of 334, 
 of 333, and of 332 had all for their objective the 
 littoral of the Levant. Alexander took little trouble 
 except with the coast districts, and little account of 
 the Persian armies but as incidental checks. After 
 traversing Lycia and Pamphylia with much thorough- 
 ness, and marching and counter-marching for some 
 weeks along the coasts of the latter, when at last 
 he turned inland the conqueror stayed not to 
 organize, hardly even to conquer, but was content 
 to sweep - clear a road up to some point which 
 would be convenient for his reinforcements and 
 command a practicable route to the south-eastern 
 coasts. Gordium, where in the valley of the 
 
182 ALEXANDER 
 
 Sakkaria a natural route from the Sea of Marmora 
 — in part now the line of a railway — meets the 
 track of the royal Anatolian highway of antiquity, 
 was such a point ; and accordingly Alexander came 
 thither in the spring of 333. Thence he set forth 
 again in early summer, without visiting any part of 
 the Black Sea littoral, content with a formal sub- 
 mission made by the Paphlagonians ere he left 
 Ancyra. All the rest of the work to be done in 
 Asia Minor was left to satraps, and after two years 
 the Cappadocians were able still to join Darius at 
 Arbela. 
 
 The Macedonian had reason enough to hold in 
 slight esteem the peoples of the Anatolian plateau, 
 and to despise the foreigner who so long had claimed 
 sovereignty over them, but, holding their lands by 
 neither a military 1 nor a civil organization worth 
 the name, has left hardly a memorial of his two 
 centuries of empire ! Alexander's attitude, however, 
 implied not so much contempt for the inner land, as 
 anxiety for the coast ; and for the coast he went 
 again hot and hard, covering in a day and a night, 
 we are told, not less than sixty-two miles, and thereby 
 succeeded in swooping on the Cilician Gates before the 
 Viceroy of Cilicia had begun to think seriously of 
 reinforcing his pickets in the pass. How much time 
 and trouble the unsparing Captain must have saved 
 by that forced march may, perhaps, be estimated, if 
 we recall that until Ibrahim Pasha, little more than 
 a half-century ago, blasted the rocks in the famous 
 
 1 See Niese, op. cit. p. 66. 
 
CILICIA 183 
 
 defile, every camel had to be unloaded before it could 
 pass. 
 
 Spent by long noons and sleepless nights, Alexander 
 brought his army, in the fearful heat of a Cilician 
 August, to the sea-level, having descended three 
 thousand feet in about three days. Small wonder 
 that then and there he caught the Cilician fever ! 1 — 
 the which mischance gave him, indeed, a notable 
 opportunity of knitting more tightly the bonds of 
 affection between himself and his immediate circle at 
 a moment when murmurs, provoked by recent labours 
 and his own exuberance, were beginning to be heard, 
 but it lost a precious month. Let it not be supposed, 
 however, that it was Issus that immediately was 
 delayed. The settlement of an important maritime 
 province came first in Alexander's mind. Darius was 
 camped all the while no farther away than the plain 
 of Sinjerli beyond Amanus ; but his rival found time 
 to visit Soli twice, and to raid the hillmen of the 
 Tracheia district, ere going leisurely enough to meet 
 the Persian by the indirect way of Mallus. 
 
 It is only the dazzling appeal that pitched battles 
 make to the imagination which gives Granicus and 
 Issus their bulk in Alexander's history. The first 
 of those battles had been really a small affair, 
 always regarded by contemporaries as a cavalry 
 skirmish. It was not more comparable in respect 
 of difficulties overcome or important result to the 
 
 1 The famous bath in the Cydnus is more likely to have been 
 aggravation than cause of that malady — a foolish attempt to 
 alleviate the first flush, of heat. 
 
184 ALEXANDER 
 
 subsequent sieges of such cities as Halicarnassus, 
 than was the fight at Issus to the siege of Tyre. 
 Alexander himself wasted not a day's pursuit on 
 either of the Persian Grand Armies which he met 
 west of Euphrates. He found them in his path, 
 dealt a smashing blow, and left them to break up 
 as they might, himself in each case continuing on 
 his way irrespective of theirs. There was hardly 
 more respect shown to the defeated army of Issus 
 than to tbe Pisidian hillmen. 
 
 That Issus, however, proved so light a matter to 
 Alexander, was due, it is well known, to a particular 
 mistake of the enemy. Had Darius stayed where 
 he was encamped at first, Alexander must, in the 
 interests of his own base and communications, have 
 gone to find him, and been faced by a problem hardly 
 less serious than ultimately he was to meet east of 
 Tigris — how, in fact, with a very small force effec- 
 tually to cut up an immense host, deployed where it 
 could bring its overwhelming weight of flesh to bear. 
 Partly, no doubt, because he expected such a task, Alex- 
 ander took so much time to make Cilicia his, having 
 little expectation that Darius would do anything so 
 suicidal as move his unwieldy army through the moun- 
 tains. The news that after all this clumsy host had 
 deserted its chosen ground, and was to be met not even 
 in the open Aleian plain, but in the cramped defiles of 
 Issus, seemed to Alexander too good to be true ; and 
 on its confirmation, he turned back — and no wonder ! — 
 hot-foot and exulting, careless that his communications 
 had been cut, careless that he was trapped, knowing 
 
ISSUS AND ITS CONSEQUENTS 185 
 
 that the very stars in their courses would fight his 
 battle. We must admire the skill and force with which 
 he proceeded to follow up his advantage on the field, 
 himself always in the front, inspiring the vital move- 
 ment and securing the event against any possible 
 mischance ; but let it be remembered at the same 
 time that, from the very first, he was playing the 
 winning game, and we shall confine our admiration 
 to the degree and the manner in which he knew how 
 to win. 
 
 Certain consequents of Issus, however, are of more 
 importance to Alexander's individual history than 
 the battle itself ; for through it, in two ways, illu- 
 mination came to him, and a distinct change in 
 his personal attitude ensues. In the first place, not 
 only had he been placed by the capture of Darius' 
 baggage in possession of much correspondence between 
 the Great King and Hellenic states, but also, for 
 the first time, he had seized in flagrant fault the 
 persons of Hellenic envoys sent up to the Persian. 
 Tbese springs of irritation fell to be added to all 
 that had been happening for a year past in Greece, 
 to the crusade preached by Agis of Sparta, to the 
 militant speeches of the anti-Macedonian orators at 
 Athens, 1 and to the unequal struggle of his friends 
 in the islands with the ubiquitous Persian admirals. 
 In the second place, the final proof thus furnished, that 
 he could never hope to enjoy to the full the Periclean 
 form of kingship, coincided with the first revelation 
 
 1 Demosthenes and Hyperides, in the summer of 333. Fide 
 Droysen, p. 242. 
 
186 ALEXANDER 
 
 of the possibilities of another form. "This, it 
 seems," said Alexander, as he gazed on the state and 
 luxury of Darius' tent after the battle, " it is to be 
 a Khig ! " And, although he would have no commerce 
 with Darius' harem — a continence due as much 
 to temperament as to chivalry — and remained con- 
 temptuous of luxury, 1 it was not for nothing that, 
 having become possessed of a large slice of wealth 
 by Parmenio's capture of Damascus, he learned now 
 what wealth could buy. Alexander's simplicity before 
 this epoch had been the unconscious habit of his race ; 
 hereafter it will be conscious policy. He has eaten 
 of the fruit of the Tree, and with growing conscious- 
 ness begins inevitable hardening. We detect the 
 process presently in the tone and tenor of his letters 
 to Darius, in his arbitrary attitude towards his 
 prisoners and the vengeance meted out to Tyre and 
 to Gaza ; 2 but best in more private matters, so far as 
 we may know them. The famous scene in the tent 
 of the captive queens at Issus is perhaps the last 
 glimpse afforded in Alexander's life of that unre- 
 flective chivalry which had induced him, a month or 
 two before, to take his chance of death by poison 
 rather than show suspicion of a friend. 
 
 He was not, indeed, solely responsible for the 
 change. Some of his followers had eaten also of the 
 same fruit, and taken the greater harm ; for shortly 
 
 1 Cf. e.g. Plut. Alex. 57 ; Polyaen. iv. 3. 10. 
 
 2 The story of the punishment of Batis, the brave defender of 
 Gaza (found in Curt. iv. fi, and Dion. Hal. de Comp. Verb. pp. 
 123-125), is not to be set lightly aside for an utterly incredible 
 cruelty, as Droysen pretends. 
 
ALEXANDER THE FOUNDER 187 
 
 after Issus the first whispers of treason were breathed 
 by Philotas to his mistress. Therefore, never again 
 could Alexander afford so well to take chances as they 
 came, never again to give without receiving directly 
 the value of his gift. The illusions of boyhood 
 had melted at Miletus, the hopes of youth have begun 
 to fade at Issus. Alexander at Tyre is removed by 
 two stages of growth from Alexander at Troy. He 
 has become already older than his years, a man 
 harder and more reflective, seeing farther and deeper 
 than is congruous with his age of twenty-four : and 
 after another year of most strenuous effort (for the 
 capture of Tyre remains the greatest of his triumphs 
 over natural difficulties and obstinate resistance), 
 when the coasts of the Levant had become wholly 
 his, and he was come down to the Mareotic shore, 
 we find him founding his greatest Alexandria with 
 the calculation and the providence of a mature man. 
 
 It was once the fashion to endow Alexander the 
 Founder with more than human foreknowledge of the 
 future of bis foundations ; now, by reaction, we are 
 asked to deny him design. Alexandria in Egypt, 
 it is said, was no better than a lucky accident. The 
 new foundation was meant at most to be an improved 
 Naucratis, at once emporium for Greek traders to 
 Egypt, and garrisoned post of observation on the 
 Nile valley. Circumstances, in no way foreseen by 
 the Founder, made a cosmopolitan city of what had 
 been at first a mere Greek harbour in Egypt. 
 
 Needless to say, many circumstances of which 
 
188 ALEXANDER 
 
 Alexander had not foreknowledge, still less had con- 
 trol, did combine indeed to raise Alexandria in two 
 generations after its birth to the rank of second, if not 
 first, city in the Mediterranean, and undisputed first 
 in the Levant. The Founder did not foresee the Indian 
 and Arabian trade which would come in by way of 
 Coptos and the Nile, much as half-consciously he did 
 later to open a route for that trade. The Founder 
 did not foresee the influx into his city of an obscure 
 race of Semitic traders, risen from the ashes of their 
 Phoenician cousins, — the Jews, of whose cosmopolitan 
 expansion the ruin of Tyre and the rise of Alexandria 
 are jointly the first cause. The Founder did not 
 foresee into what wise hands Egypt was to fall at 
 his own death, and how she, and Alexandria within 
 her, would grow at the expense of the rest of his 
 distracted Empire. The Founder did not foresee that 
 Hellenism would follow his own footsteps so far 
 abroad, that its centre would shift to a great city of 
 Egypt and a great city of Syria. 
 
 Certain things, however, were not hidden in the 
 womb of the Future. It must have been patent to 
 a meaner intelligence than Alexander's, that the great 
 trading area of the Levant was for the moment 
 without focus. Tyre lay an utter wreck, and the 
 other Phoenician cities, never in recent centuries of 
 great account beside her, had been stripped lately of 
 such fleets as they had. It might have been patent 
 to less than Alexander, that, if Greeks were to seize 
 this favourable occasion,, it must be done by settling at 
 a point not already occupied ; and that, if Greeks and 
 
ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT 189 
 
 Macedonians were to coalesce into a Hellenistic nation, 
 there was no land on the eastern Mediterranean left 
 so open to mixed colonization as the Egyptian. 
 Racial fusions, be it observed, were quite within the 
 scope of the political foresight of Alexander's day. 
 Greek colonies for three centuries had supplied an 
 object lesson in the feasibility of such fusions and 
 the rapid gathering of strength which ensued upon 
 them. To plant rival sections of one race on a new 
 soil, in the sure hope that their old dissensions 
 would be forgotten, was not much beyond what had 
 been the notorious policy of many Greek lawgivers 
 and of the Apolline priests. In the event, Alexandria 
 in Egypt did become the scene of just such a fusion, 
 and remained the capital of the resultant Hellenistic 
 nationality. 
 
 Did Alexander, however, consciously found it for 
 nation-making ? He founded it, assuredly, for some 
 special reason or other, as he had created his first 
 Alexandria to guard the defiles north and south of 
 the bay of Iskenderun. He selected for the second 
 the one possible site on the Egyptian coast 1 for a 
 great port, as all previous and later experience has 
 gone to prove. For the new harbour must lie outside 
 the reach of the Nilotic silt ; therefore not on the 
 Delta coast-line. It must be sheltered from the west, 
 
 1 A great authority on Ptolemaic Egypt has recently called this 
 fact in question. Surely a moment's consideration of the peculiar 
 conditions of a Delta coast, and a glance at the Admiralty charts of 
 this particular Delta littoral, leave no doubt, even to one who has not 
 surveyed the district with his own eyes (see Mahaffy, Empire of the 
 Ptolemies, p. 11). 
 
190 ALEXANDER 
 
 the prevailing wind in the Levant; therefore no 
 point on the exposed shore trending north-east from 
 Pelusium would serve. It must be, lastly, within 
 reach of sweet Nile water ; therefore it could hardly 
 be placed farther west than Rhacotis. The site 
 now chosen was eminently defensible, having Lake 
 Mareotis in the rear ; and the tradition of history 
 has ascribed unanimously to Alexander a personal 
 share in, and solicitude for, the inaugurating of this 
 Egyptian city, of which no mention is made in 
 connection with any other of his foundations. And 
 reasonably ; for Egypt beyond a doubt held a peculiar 
 place in Alexander's affections, as the land of the 
 particular God by whom he secretly fancied himself 
 to have been begotten. 
 
 Alexander, then, may be assumed to have in- 
 tended his Alexandria in Egypt to be an important 
 harbour ; but important to what end ? As the key 
 of Egypt ? Yet he kept his main garrison always 
 at Memphis. As a gate whereby Greek trade of 
 the old type might enter the Nile valley ? Eor that 
 alone a new foundation was scarcely needed ; Nau- 
 cratis had existed long, and long continued to exist. 
 But to gather in a wider commerce ? If that end be 
 allowed, then it must follow that Alexandria was 
 created as a direct consequence of the ruin of Tyre, 
 and was intended to be a new focus for the Levant *. 
 and even if Alexander did not consciously create a 
 new capital to concentrate a new mixed nationality — 
 though such a purpose was neither beyond the scope 
 of his intelligence, nor anything but consonant with 
 
ALEXANDER AND COMMERCE 191 
 
 his general policy — the fact will stand that consciously 
 he created a new local capital for commerce. 1 And, 
 surely, to do that is to open the door to so many 
 possibilities of expansion, that the Founder of such 
 a city, if it prosper, may claim credit for the greatness 
 and wealth which have followed on his action. 
 
 The conception thus ascribed to Alexander is no 
 way incredible on circumstantial evidence. For, first, 
 such commercial aims in colonization had been in 
 the Greek air for centuries, and Alexander would 
 have been perfectly familiar with them, even had 
 he not sat at the feet of the greatest of Greek 
 economists : and, second, in his subsequent career 
 the Founder of Alexandria will give ample proof 
 that he was indeed familiar with economic questions, 
 and had a vivid interest and belief in the influence of 
 commerce. His instructions to Nearchus before he 
 left the Indus ; his removal of the obstructions in 
 the Tigris water-way ; 2 his proposal to create a second 
 Phoenicia on the shore of the Persian Gulf 3 — these 
 are instances of a single-minded commercial purpose, 
 which conditioned also, but less directly, many other 
 enterprise^ the explorations, for example, of the 
 Caspian, the Persian Gulf, and the Indus, and pro- 
 1> 'the foundation of all the Eastern colonies, 
 
 1 Cf. Econ. ii. 33, for the reflection of a contemporary view of the 
 Founder's purpose (whether by Aristotle or another). Even Niese 
 admits that Alexandria was intended "den Verkehr tnit Griechenland 
 und Makedonien zu vermitteln und eine sichere Verbindung Agyptens 
 mit diesen Landern zu gewahren " (p. 85). 
 
 2 Strabo, p. 740 ; Arrian, vii. 1. 
 8 Arr. vii. 19. 
 
192 ALEXANDER 
 
 whose representatives survive still as ganglia in 
 Asia's nerve system of caravan roads. Hereby we 
 are ascribing to Alexander no prophetic view of 
 the regeneration of Asia or the mission of the Hel- 
 lene, indeed no altruistic motive at all. His was 
 simply a highly enlightened selfishness, which, having 
 conquered by the sword, knew it could possess in 
 permanence only by fostering the influences of peace. 
 To Alexander commerce and Hellenism were means 
 not ends, means indeed far from clearly grasped or 
 understood ; but in so far as he did grasp and under- 
 stand them, his is the glory to all time of having 
 applied on a great scale for whatever end the greatest 
 influences for peace in the world of his day. 
 
 If any further proof were needed that we have to 
 reckon already with an advanced student of state- 
 craft in the Founder of Alexandria, it can be supplied 
 by the organization which he imposed in this same 
 winter on the whole province of Egypt. We are 
 allowed to see only its skeleton, and to detect 
 little more than its singularity — a singularity which 
 proves that, however he may have learned them, 
 Alexander certainly knew those unique difficulties 
 which Egypt presents to foreign occupation. With 
 marsh at one end and tropics at the other, eight 
 hundred miles of deserts on its either flank, and itself 
 nowhere more than thirty miles in breadth, the 
 Nile valley has called always for a peculiar scheme 
 of government. Arrian is probably right in saying 
 that the Macedonian system, with its lack of an all- 
 powerful supreme official, its three nationalities set 
 
THE EXPEDITION TO AMMON 193 
 
 one against the other, and its counteracting civil and 
 military powers, anticipated in some ways the Roman. 
 For if Augustus, who indeed was a professed disciple 
 of Alexander, had needed a model for the imperial 
 settlement of the Nile valley, he would have looked, 
 not to any Ptolemaic king who had ruled Egypt 
 from within, but to the first western emperor who 
 had held it as a foreign possession. 
 
 But this precocious Founder and craftsman in 
 politics has not forsworn yet all the dreams of his 
 youth. Between creating a city and organizing a 
 province, he is capable of the romantic folly of the 
 expedition to the oracle of Amnion. 
 
 What can be said certainly of this folly ? Hardly 
 more than that indeed Alexander went to the 
 Amnion Temple. He can have made no general 
 announcement either of what he asked its priests or 
 of what they replied. 1 For the rest, the record of 
 this expedition is shrouded in inconsistency and myth. 
 As Arrian's two best authorities 2 insisted on distinct 
 routes for Alexander's return from the Oasis, we may 
 
 1 Cf. Arrian, iii. 4 ad fin., and Plutarch's quotation {Alex. 27) 
 from Alexander's letter to his mother, speaking of the "secret 
 answers which he will tell on his return to her alone." 
 
 2 On Arrian's authorities for the Anabasis, and indeed on the 
 whole subject of the Quellen, see Erankel's monumental work 
 (Breslau, 1883), and lesser and more recent inquiries by E. Peters- 
 dorff, Mine neue Hauptquelle des Q. Curtius, etc. (Hanover, 1884) ; 
 E. Pridik, Be A. M. epistularum commercio (1893) ; and A. 
 Zumetikos, Be A. Olymjiiadi&que epist. fontibus et reliqtiiis (1894). 
 Niese devotes a section to the subject, but hardly attempts 
 criticism. 
 
194 ALEXANDER 
 
 infer with some confidence that neither chronicler 
 accompanied him. And with almost equal confidence 
 it can be maintained that the expedition was a small 
 affair that assumed little importance at the time, but 
 came to be subject of general gossip at some later 
 period, when recollection of the facts was confused 
 and vague. Whether Alexander, when he started 
 along the coast from Mareotis, was making indeed 
 for Amnion, or not rather for Cyrene — even this 
 must remain uncertain ; for his historians dismiss 
 with a mere mention the submission of the greatest 
 Greek colony in Africa, which was made to him on 
 his way. 1 How did those Cyrenian envoys come so 
 aptly to Paraetonium ? Their city must have been 
 summoned to surrender, or have been fearful of an 
 attack. Paraetonium, be it remarked, lies a good 
 deal further west than the usual point at which a 
 caravan leaves the coast and strikes across the desert 
 to the oasis of Siwah ; and indeed had Alexander had 
 merely Siwah for objective, his natural road had lain 
 not by the north at all, but through the Fayum. 
 
 Let the conjecture, then, be hazarded for what it 
 is worth, that if indeed a large force went with the 
 king to Paraetonium, on receipt of the Cyrenian 
 submission the most part of it was sent back; 
 and Alexander seized the occasion to fulfil an old 
 ambition by going to Siwah. He struck inland 
 with a small party, such as alone can traverse 
 so much waterless desert ; and since no chronicler of 
 
 1 Diod. xvii. 49. Arrian omits, but Curtius (iv. 7. 9) confirms 
 Diodorus. 
 
ALEXANDER'S PURPOSE 195 
 
 his acts was included in his following, the Alexander 
 of history melts into the Iskender of romance until 
 such time as he reaches Memphis again. 
 
 The obvious purpose of Alexander, as Pharaoh, 
 was to pay a visit of ceremony to his official Father, 
 Amen. His added secret object was to ask a par- 
 ticular question as to his own carnal origin. All 
 tradition agrees on this last point. Likely enough, 
 Olympias had worked on a mind already full of 
 romantic Homeric ideas. His father had publicly 
 called him bastard. Was he, then, after all, like 
 one of the Heroes, god-begotten on a mortal woman ? 
 It is not impossible that, in this matter, Alexander 
 was doing no more than the behest of his mother; 
 for he himself mostly made scant account of oracles 
 and divinations, unless they chanced to agree with 
 a policy preconceived. As a boy, he had treated 
 cavalierly even the Pythia. As a man, he refused 
 to listen when a soothsayer forbade his venture 
 across the Sir Daria ; he committed palpable fraud 
 with the auspices to save his dignity at the Sutlej ; 
 and replied with scornful sarcasm to the last warn- 
 ings of the prophets of Bel. Why, however, Alex- 
 ander chose to ask his question of Amen of the 
 Oases rather than of Amen of the mother-shrine 
 at Karnak must remain doubtful until we learn 
 more of the religious connections between Egypt 
 and Europe at this period. 1 
 
 1 Prof. G-. Maspero, in a recent article {Comment A. le O. devint 
 dleu en ffigypte, in the Annnaire de Vtlcole pratique des Hautes 
 Etudes, 1897), explains Alexander's choice of Siwah simply by the 
 
196 ALEXANDER 
 
 None of the authorities, however, on whom Arrian 
 relied, knew what passed in the Holy of Holies. 
 Later gossip was better informed — not impossibly 
 by report of Alexander's own loose talk with inti- 
 mate friends. It is certain, at least, that publicly 
 and officially Alexander remained son of Philip 1 
 till his death, and found no greater inconsistency 
 in asserting his private belief that Ammon had 
 indeed begotten him, than Queen Hatasu or Amen- 
 hotep III., being children respectively of Thothmes I. 
 and Thothmes IV., found in depicting on their 
 temple walls at Der el Bahari and Luxor a legend 
 of their miraculous begetting by Amen. 
 
 Certain historians, however, have laboured to 
 elevate Alexander's expedition to Siwah into the 
 
 familiarity of the Greeks with the god of the Oases, as compared 
 with their ignorance of Thebes. This does not, however, go far 
 enough. Why in the first instance was Ammon of Siwali so 
 familiar to Greek legend ? For the rest, Prof. Maspero's learned 
 and ingenious article is a most welcome contribution to this 
 question. The author, as an Egyptologist, examines the ritual 
 observed on these ceremonial visits of Pharaohs to their Father, 
 Amen ; and from his point of view he reaches much the same 
 conclusion as to the significance of Alexander's visit as is 
 expressed above, namely, that no exceptional public policy was 
 involved. At most the new Pharaoh was legitimized for Egypt 
 by a dogma of miraculous conception, like Queen Hatasu, 
 Amenhotep III., and later, Caesarion. Prof. Maspero's expla- 
 nation of the euhemeristie genesis of the Nectanebo myth agrees 
 with my own, published in January, 1896, in the Eng. Hist. 
 Revieio. 
 
 1 Cf. his letters to Darius and to the Athenians (Plut. Alex. 28), 
 and also Arr. ii. 5 ; iii. 3 ; iv. 8 ; vi. 3, in all of which passages 
 reference is made to his Heraclid descent, of course through 
 Philip. 
 
DEIFICATION 197 
 
 inception of a great policy. The king, say they, about 
 to proceed to the East, and already desirous of exalta- 
 tion above his Macedonians and Greeks, deliberately 
 assumed divine character as son of Amen. Mis- 
 placed ingenuity ! Every king of Egypt had been 
 son of Amen since the growth of Thebes. The last 
 Nectanebo, as well as the first Ptolemy, bear the 
 title on their inscriptions equally with Alexander. 
 In Egypt sonship to Amen was so far from being 
 an exception, that it could not be escaped by a 
 Pharaoh. Outside Egypt it was useless. Who, 
 beyond Pelusium, worshipped Amen, or, beyond 
 Euphrates, even knew his name ? 
 
 Furthermore, evidence lacks wholly for the divine 
 style, least of all with any express statement of son- 
 ship to Ammon, being used officially by Alexander ; or 
 for such " divine honours " as Persians paid or Greeks 
 decreed being rendered as to the son of the Egyptian 
 god. The men of the East prostrated themselves 
 to Alexander as to all their princes ; and when the 
 Macedonian demanded the same adoration from men 
 of the West, it was not as son of Ammon, but as 
 Emperor, that there might be no invidious distinction 
 among his subjects. 
 
 Moreover, with respect to this matter two things 
 must be distinguished sharply, which usually are 
 confused : * a claim, however publicly made, by 
 
 1 I did not keep them distinct myself in an article written in part 
 as an undergraduate, and published in the Mng. Hist. Review, April, 
 1887. J. P. Mahaffy confuses them also in his criticism of that 
 article in Problems of Greek History, p. 165 if. 
 
198 ALEXANDER 
 
 Alexander to be of divine parentage is one thing ; the 
 institution by him of any cult of himself is wholly 
 another. In Greek mythology, it should be borne 
 in mind, the first of these things did not involve 
 the second. Neither was Achilles worshipped in the 
 Greek camp, nor Aeneas in the Trojan, because they 
 had goddesses to their mothers. Alexander himself, 
 although his Macedonian royalty and the manner of 
 his life led him to assert personality in a manner 
 foreign to Greek civic usage, and even to give his 
 name to cities, appears to have introduced no effigy 
 of himself on to his coinage. In his lifetime we never 
 hear of his temples, altars, groves or games, such as 
 not a generation later were dedicated to the living 
 Demetrius. Greek adulation suggested the paying 
 of divine honours to Alexander more than once, 
 but the supposed prompting of these by an Imperial 
 Decree rests on an inference so indirect from a 
 statement historically so worthless that one can only 
 wonder how it has found a place in the creed of 
 a responsible historian. 1 
 
 There is, in short, hardly any question of public 
 policy involved. Alexander went to Siwah purposing 
 little more than to test a romantic belief which he 
 owed to Homer, and in diverse ways to both his 
 parents ; and ever afterwards he hugged to himself 
 the belief that the Egyptian Zeus was not only his 
 
 1 Practically it rests only on a passage in Aelian, V. H. ii. 19. 
 See my article quoted supra, in which I have given every shred of 
 evidence. Grote, at any rate, little as he loves Alexander, omits the 
 whole question of the Decree as not worth serious discussion. 
 
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER 199 
 
 official but his fleshly father. In moments of con- 
 fidence and moments of exaltation, such as became 
 more frequent as his imperial position developed, 
 there can be no doubt that he made a boast of 
 this divine origin, and thereby gave a handle to 
 malcontents, and maybe some difficulty to himself 
 in junctures when it was expedient to make appeal 
 to his dynastic feudal position. It was a foolish 
 fancy, no doubt, incompatible with the more advanced 
 thought of his time, but quite consistent with the 
 belief of older fashion that gods were really existent 
 in human form with human passions. 
 
 This much may be granted ; but it cannot be 
 conceded by historical truth that Alexander seated 
 himself even in imagination on Olympus, as praesens 
 deus. He never pretended that his veins distilled 
 ichor, claimed supernatural powers, 1 or affected to be 
 fed by the smoke of altar fires. Had he cherished 
 such delusions or made such pretensions, his earthly 
 success had never been attained. His wildest imagi- 
 nation did no more than set him among the half-divine 
 Heroes : his sober reason claimed that he was godlike 
 man, one of those noblest mortals who in a peculiar 
 sense are sons of the common Father. 2 
 
 And with this let us leave an incident possessed 
 of no great import nor grave result, and unworthy 
 of much attention, were it not that in such affairs 
 as this — by his sick-bed at Tarsus, or in the Queens' 
 tent at Issus — we get a passing glimpse of Alexander 
 in an atmosphere less artificial than that of the 
 1 Cf. Plut. Alex. 17. 2 Plut. Alex. 27. 
 
200 ALEXANDER 
 
 Council chamber, and for once not obscured by the 
 dust and blood of the battle-field. 
 
 In Egypt Alexander had received tidings that 
 his admirals had triumphed on the Aegean, where, 
 since the fall of Phoenicia, they had been able to 
 take the offensive. The submission of Cyrene had 
 completed their conquest, and the rising walls of 
 Alexandria were to assure the enjoyment of its 
 fruit. With the sea went one half of the Persian 
 realm : it remained to win the other half. To 
 accomplish this second part of his primary scheme, 
 Alexander inarched out of Egypt in the spring of 
 331. He assured himself, in passing, of the com- 
 plete humility of Tyre — caution significant in the 
 Founder of Alexandria ! — and reached the Euphrates 
 late in July. Neither there, nor in rounding the 
 head of the Mesopotamian Desert, nor during the 
 five days that his army was ferrying itself painfully 
 over Tigris, was he opposed seriously. The Persian 
 outposts fell back so weakly from every point of 
 vantage, that it seems as if their commander, 
 Mazaeus, had begun already to serve the new master, 
 for whom afterwards long and faithfully he governed 
 Babylon. 
 
 The Great King was waiting beyond Tigris, on 
 the threshold of the inner half of his realm. He 
 lay at a point where great roads come together, 
 those from farther Asia through Hamadan and 
 Tabriz, that from Babylon and the Gulf, those 
 from the Armenian gorges of the Tigris, -and from 
 
THE ADVANCE RESUMED 201 
 
 the West by the way Alexander himself had marched. 
 It is this concurrence that gives importance still to 
 Mosul, and determined in the dawn of history the 
 site of Nineveh. But already, in this year 331, 
 Nineveh was a forgotten ruin, and the great battle 
 which decided the fate of the East, though fought 
 almost within sight of the famous Assyrian mounds, 
 has taken its popular name, not from the once 
 imperial city nor from the nearest village, but from 
 Arbela, an obscure local capital situate sixty miles 
 away : and " of Arbela," in defiance of geographical 
 purists, this battle will be to the end of time. 
 
 A glance at Arrian's list of the Persian array 
 will show how much more formidable that host must 
 have been on its own chosen ground, than any 
 that Alexander hitherto had encountered. Grouped 
 round a nucleus of Greek veteran swashbucklers 
 more numerous than all the Macedonian force, were 
 the picked guerilla fighters of the warlike East, 
 all in enormous strength: — masses of those nomads 
 of Turkestan, accustomed to fight in hordes, who 
 were hereafter to give Alexander much trouble ; 
 Pathans and hillmen from Chitral and Khond and all 
 the range of Hindu Kush against whom four years 
 later the Macedonians would have to fight every mile 
 of their way ; wild mountaineers of southern Persis, 
 Lars and Lurs and Kurds and Beclawin from the 
 Mesopotamian and Arabian wastes. Decisive defeat 
 alone would find out their want of a real principle 
 of cohesion : undefeated they were most formidable. 
 For even had the host contained elements less warlike, 
 
202 ALEXANDER 
 
 its mere weight brought to bear in an open plain, the 
 sheer butcher's work that must be clone to break it 
 up, caused it to present a terribly difficult problem in 
 the days of direct charging and hand-to-hand battle. 
 The gravity of his danger did not escape Alexander. 
 The dare-devil youth, who had rushed across Granicus 
 and turned hot-foot and jubilant to meet his pursuers 
 in the defile of Issus, is seen now displaying the 
 caution of a veteran. With Tigris and Euphrates 
 behind him, mountain and desert hemming him in, 
 he must win outright, or be trampled in retreat 
 under the hoofs of a cloud of horsemen. 
 
 The preliminaries of this most famous fight of 
 antiquity display the Captain at his best. Most 
 cautiously he moved four marches along the Babylon 
 road, and having met and driven in the first scouting 
 parties of the foe, called a halt, to collect information, 
 rest his army, purge away all non-combatants, and 
 fortify a camp. He could afford to take his time. 
 A host, such as that opposed to him, neither would 
 nor could be moved at short notice. At the second 
 watch of the fourth night his columns, selected and 
 stiffened, set out again, having some eight miles to 
 cover, and hoping to be within touch of an unready 
 foe at dawn. But from the top of the last range 
 of hills the Persian army was perceived in the plain 
 of Gaugamela, ordered already in line of battle. 
 Alexander once more gave the order to bivouac : for 
 he was in a very strong position, and might well 
 wait yet another day to study the ground and the 
 dispositions of the mighty host below. Thus the last 
 
EVE OF AEBELA 203 
 
 daylight of September passed away, the Macedonians 
 resting for the most part, the Persians nervously 
 standing to their arms ; and as the night falls Plutarch, 
 with a rare graphic touch, sketches on his canvas the 
 great plain kindling to the horizon with myriad bar- 
 barian fires, and the flare of the torches carried before 
 the Great King as he passed restlessly up and down 
 his lines. The hum of the immense multitude rose 
 to the Macedonian posts on the hill-tops, and old 
 Parmenio, mindful of many fights, gazed over the 
 limitless vista of fires, and listened to the confused 
 roar that came down the night wind. How could 
 the little army behind him overcome in equal fight 
 by day that swarming host ? It seemed madness 
 to await the morning light, and he turned to the 
 royal tent to urge a night attack, the counsel of 
 despair. The king cut short his argument with a curt 
 reply, that must have astonished the veteran student 
 of strategy, " Alexander will steal no victories ! " 
 
 Not a moment for theatrical phrases, it might be 
 said ! but indeed no moment is adapted better for 
 them than the eve of a battle, and no audience will 
 be so responsive as an army waiting the signal to 
 attack. Moreover, sound policy was expressed in this 
 phrase, as Arrian, commander of Roman frontier 
 legions, perceived. For the iron Macedonian discipline 
 would have counted but little in a night attack, and 
 the practised soldier have been almost on a par with 
 the brigand. A victory half won in the dark might 
 well have been followed by a rally at dawn, and the 
 weary Macedonian army would have found itself still 
 
204 ALEXANDER 
 
 opposed by scarcely diminished myriads. And even 
 were final and complete victory granted, its moral 
 effect under such circumstances would be so little as 
 by no means to ensure the breaking up of Darius' 
 host. In sober reason, it was better that the attack 
 on such odds should be delivered with every resource 
 of the parade ground, the General being able to 
 discern the critical moments over all the field ; and 
 that victory, wherever declaring itself, should be 
 victory patent to all. 
 
 The argument with his Marshal and the decision 
 forced upon him seem to have cleared Alexander's 
 mind. Dawn found him sleeping. Uneasy generals 
 gathered about his tent ; surely the fight was to be 
 that day, and yet even the signal for the army to 
 breakfast had not been given ! The Marshal bade 
 the bugle sound the call ; but the king still slept on, 
 and Parmenio, having called him repeatedly by name 
 without success, ventured at last to awake him with 
 his hand. " How is it," protested the Marshal, " that 
 thou, who so often surprisest the watch, canst sleep 
 on such a morning as this ? " "I have followed 
 Darius up and down through all Asia," said Alexander, 
 " and shall I not sleep now when he is given into my 
 hand ? " 
 
 Of the great battle, which has made the first day 
 of October an anniversary famous for all time, a 
 civilian had best say little more than that its course 
 justified all Alexander's previous caution, and that 
 never did the Grand Army owe more to the man who 
 had given them their military training, and to his 
 
BATTLE OF ARBELA 205 
 
 son who led them now. Far out-flanked, at one time 
 almost surrounded, cut off for three parts of the day 
 from their only support, the entrenched camp, they 
 remained steady as on the parade ground by the 
 Vardar. No battle in antiquity is described so fully 
 as this of Arbela, and historians have not known 
 which most to admire, the confidence of the western 
 army, or the skill with which it was directed ; the 
 discipline which opened the ranks to let scythed 
 chariots thunder harmlessly through, or the temper 
 with which the left wing, cut off and ridden over, 
 recovered itself before help came. 
 
 There is a story told by Curtius of the awful 
 night that followed, when a rout of half a million 
 men went roaring through the dust to the Zab, which, 
 if true, shows how the spirit of dare-deviltry was latent 
 always in the cool calculator of chances. It is said 
 that, the fever of that chase seizing him, Alexander 
 himself rode fast and far into the night, and turn- 
 ing back at last with only a remnant of his staff 
 was confronted by a large body of the flying foe. 
 The barbarians saw their chance, and bore down 
 upon the Conqueror. But Alexander, taking up 
 the Homeric part, spurred at the leader, and having 
 struck him down engaged with fury the next man 
 and the next. The barbarians rode ten to one, but 
 Victory herself seemed to sit on the Macedonian's 
 helm. The fugitives wavered, Alexander and his 
 band pressed their advantage, and their foes turned 
 and fled once more into the dark. 
 
 Darius got clear away to the eastward through 
 
206 ALEXANDER 
 
 Zagros, and so to Hamadan ; his vast army dispersed 
 to its deserts and hills at the four winds of heaven. 
 Both king and army were ignored by the Conqueror 
 as absolutely as after Issus : for Alexander for his 
 part kept on straight to the south, pursuing his pre- 
 dominant purpose to assume methodically and in 
 permanence the Persian lands. Babylon, which had 
 nearly proved a Capua, but for his prompt action — 
 action not to be forgotten when, mindful of Hannibal, 
 we estimate the issue of the struggle between Rome 
 and the Macedonian that was never fought — Susa, 
 Persepolis, the southern capitals with their stores of 
 bullion, were swept into the net, and almost a year 
 elapsed ere Alexander troubled himself again about 
 the Great King. 
 
 Indeed, as a single expression, the Persian Empire 
 had ceased to exist. Alexander never met again an 
 imperial army. For the future his affair was to be 
 with the levies of irresponsible satraps or frontier 
 kings, and the half-independent hillmen and nomads. 
 The campaigns of the rest of his life are, in fact, 
 precisely such as the Persian kings had always had 
 to wage from time to time for the holding of their 
 outlying provinces or the securing of their communi- 
 cations. And he himself seems to have understood 
 that this was to be ; for in the camp outside Babylon 
 he made changes, for the first time, in the organization 
 of the military machine he had inherited ; in fact, he 
 took there first steps towards multiplying units in the 
 interest of detachment and mobility, and towards that 
 
ALEXANDER'S CHANGED POSITION 207 
 
 denationalization which gradually he would promote 
 in his eastern campaigns. Later events gave to his 
 aims an extension and scope not as yet conceived ; but 
 in the obscure allusions of Arrian and Curtius we may 
 espy at Babylon in 331 the birth of ideas which were 
 in fair way to be realized in 323 at Babylon again. 
 
 There was, however, more involved than a military 
 idea. The little cloud was rising no bioger than 
 a man's hand. Alexander's position towards the 
 different elements in his army and realm had been 
 from the first ambiguous. He was officially both 
 King of Macedon and Federal Captain-General of the 
 Hellenes ; but neither the habitual attitude of his 
 Macedonians towards his Greeks, nor of his Greeks 
 towards his Macedonians, was consistent with the 
 relation in which each stood to the General. Alex- 
 ander had started for Asia with good hope that the 
 ambiguity would disappear as by common service 
 and common interest a single Hellenistic nation was 
 evolved, over which he himself would reign as freely 
 accepted sovereign. The attitude of the Hellenes in 
 Greece had raised, as we have seen, a first difficulty ; 
 the attitude of the elder Macedonians was now 
 raising a second. The party which Parmenio led 
 had no panhellenic ideals. They would have had 
 Alexander even as Philip and his forefathers had 
 been — feudal king of the Macedonians, conqueror of 
 the Greeks if he would, and of the Persians if he 
 could. Their chief had urged acceptance of Darius' 
 terms after Issus, seeing no larger question involved 
 than acquisition of territory, and fearful that further 
 
208 ALEXANDER 
 
 conquest might shift the centre from Macedon. " I 
 would accept, were I Alexander," said the old Marshal. 
 " And I, if I were Parmenio," replied the King, well 
 knowing how radically their points of view diverged, 
 and why. 1 For there had been many mutterings 
 among the Macedonians, as we are to learn hereafter ; 
 and an actual outbreak with the Greeks took place, 
 it is said, on the field of Issus. 
 
 Alexander, indeed, had no idea of remaining 
 Macedonian King. His ambition demanded a much 
 more catholic position ; and his sympathy, unlike 
 Philip's, was not really with his ruder subjects. 2 For 
 these reasons he had begun the advance as Captain 
 of all the Hellenes ; but the adhesion of the wider 
 nationality was so little spontaneous, wherever mili- 
 tary duty and the magnetism of his own presence did 
 not have effect, that the title soon proved to be 
 little worth. Now at Babylon a dignity, still more 
 catholic, in which Macedonian kingship and Hellenic 
 hegemony would alike be absorbed, was beginning to 
 loom in his mental vision. 3 Always as he advanced, 4 
 
 1 Diodorus (xvii. 39) tells us that Alexander suppressed the actual 
 letter of Darius when it came up for consideration in the council of 
 the generals, and read a letter much less equitable. If true, this 
 action shows conclusively that Alexander well knew his own aims and 
 those of the Macedonians to differ, and that he feared the too sudden 
 enlightenment of his vassals. 
 
 2 Cf. Plut. Alex. 28 ; and the story of the Clitus tragedy, narrated 
 below, p. 231. 
 
 8 Cf. Plut. Alex. 47, for the sympathy which young Macedonia 
 showed to this idea. 
 
 4 For, as Talboys Wheeler excellently says (Hist, of India, iii. 
 p. 153), Alexander was, like ourselves, of "the true Aryan or 
 political type of conqueror, which identifies itself with the empire it 
 conquers." 
 
KING TO EMPEROR 209 
 
 he widened his pantheon to receive successively 
 Melkarth, and Amen, Jehovah, 1 and Bel ; and more 
 and more readily he accepted natives of the East 
 to rule in his newly won cities and provinces. In a 
 word, Alexander was passing already, scarce knowing 
 it, from King to Emperor. 2 
 
 The same opposition which had forced Alexander 
 to the inception of this change, when redoubled and 
 unified by the change itself, forced him, as we shall 
 see, to develop his new position far more completely 
 than at first he had contemplated. For since it com- 
 pelled him to rely on all sorts and conditions of his 
 subjects, it led to the breaking down of national 
 privilege, and the inevitable widening of his own 
 ideal. Indeed, quite as much as, if not more than, 
 congenital lust of acquisition, opposition may be said 
 to have led him in the end to that oecumenic 
 scheme which began to take visible shape a year 
 from this, and had absorbed his whole ambition ere 
 his death. 3 
 
 For the moment, however, the change worked 
 
 1 On the often-debated qnestion of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem, 
 see Niese, op. cit. p. 83. 
 
 • 2 Not merely to Great King, in the Persian sense. This cannot 
 be too much insisted upon. Alexander never proposed to put 
 Persians in a position of superior privilege, but of equality only ; 
 and he obviously intended, in pursuance of a distinct policy, that a 
 non-Persian capital, Babylon, should be his own centre of empire. 
 (See Strabo, p. 731.) 
 
 3 The last despatches which Alexander gave Craterus to 
 convey to Antipater, and which were opened in Cilicia on the 
 news of the Emperor's death, are said to have contained a plan for 
 transporting European peoples into Asia, and Asiatic into Europe 
 (Diod. xviii. 4). 14 
 
210 ALEXANDER 
 
 inwardly more than outwardly. If the Macedonian 
 King has almost ceased to be, the Captain-General of 
 Hellas is, by consequence, all the more conspicuous in 
 this year. It is the year of the famous burning of 
 Persepolis, with all its formal parade of restoring the 
 spoil of Xerxes, and its orgy of the vengeance of 
 Hellas, who spoke not inappropriately in these deca- 
 dent days by the beautiful courtesan who led the 
 rout. It is the year also of the surrender of Darius, 
 Greeks at the Caspian, and of the Greek envoys who 
 had fled with the Great King, to whom, for the last 
 recorded time, Alexander solemnly proclaimed his 
 Hellenic mission. But that mission was coming to 
 be believed in neither by leader nor by led ; and in 
 the valleys of Afghanistan it dropped, scarce re- 
 marked, out of mind, the quicker, perhaps, for the 
 news of the revolt of Agis and the treason trials of 
 Prophthasia, but long doomed to disappear. 
 
 The southern provinces and the treasure cities of 
 the Eastern Empire bad all fallen to Alexander in 
 six months after Arbela, at no greater cost than a 
 little hill-fighting. The north, however, as he knew 
 well, was no way disposed to follow tamely the 
 fortunes of the south. The Great King himself was 
 still in his northern capital of Ecbatana with tiara 
 erect ; the great Viceroys of the East had not deserted 
 his cause ; and about him stayed still the nucleus of a 
 formidable army. So long as these things were so, 
 the Conqueror had realized his original scheme no 
 more than his later dreams. 
 
PURSUIT RESUMED 211 
 
 Alexander took up the offensive again from 
 Persepolis in April, when the snows had vanished 
 from the passes. At starting he seems to have 
 thought that Darius would stand and fight near 
 Hamadan. 1 That illusion was soon to be dispelled. 
 There was treachery in the Persian Court, and the 
 northern nomads had not responded a second time 
 to the war-summons of their King. At a point three 
 days south of Hamadan news reached the Macedo- 
 nian army that Darius had gathered up his few thou- 
 sands of men, evacuated his last capital, and gone 
 north-east for the passes which lead to Meshed. 
 
 The vast treasure left in Ecbatana compelled 
 Alexander to proceed thither instead of cutting 
 across to the Teheran road ; but he was determined, 
 none the less, to pursue and to capture at all costs 
 the person of Darius. For as previously he seems 
 to have thought that another victory would secure 
 the submission of the north-east, so now he took 
 on the hope that the capture of the King's person 
 would spare him the march into Bactria. News, 
 however, came presently to Ecbatana that modified 
 all his plans. Darius had been degraded to a mere 
 puppet by the great Viceroys of the north-east, who 
 were his keepers and proposed to be independent 
 of his fate. Tn the interests of his own legitimate 
 establishment on the Persian throne, it was still 
 desirable for Alexander to possess himself of the 
 person of its last Achaemenid occupant, and it was 
 
 1 According to Curtius' authority (v. 8. 2), such indeed had been 
 Darius' original intention. 
 
212 ALEXANDER 
 
 more than possible that, should the stiff-backed 
 Viceroys be captured with the King, after all their 
 provinces would make peaceful submission. Such 
 speedy success, however, could not be reckoned upon, 
 and Alexander felt that now he must lay plans 
 openly for a long eastern march. 
 
 First and foremost came reorganization. In view 
 of the probable duration of the coming campaign, its 
 certain hardships, and the necessity, if the eastern 
 provinces were to be more than overrun, of planting 
 and peopling colonies far out of sight of the West, 
 the feudal and political character of a large part of 
 the Grand Army must be swamped as far as possible 
 in the professional element. The character best 
 adapted to the work that lay before the expedi- 
 tionary force, was that of a Grand Company, own- 
 ing no obligation but a common tie of devotion to 
 its general, his venture, and his star. The Mace- 
 donians would be retained, for to follow the King 
 was their simple feudal duty. The professional part 
 of the Philippian army, even if not Macedonian by 
 birth, could be relied on to stay by the standards, 
 for it knew no other trade half so lucrative. But 
 to all the allied political contingents, especially 
 the Greek, which had been sent by their cities to 
 assist a Crusade for which neither they themselves 
 nor their Captain-General felt unmixed enthusiasm, 
 there must now be offered a choice between retiring 
 from further service or re-enlisting simply as soldiers 
 of fortune. The most part at once took their dis- 
 missal, their pay, and a regal gratuity, and set out for 
 
REORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY 213 
 
 the sea. But " not a few," we are told, volun- 
 teered to become Alexander's men absolute!} 7 , whether 
 from love of adventure, or of prize-money, or of 
 the person of the conqueror himself ; and of their 
 mind will be henceforward nearly all Alexander's 
 Grand Army. Its complexion is so professional that 
 many of its veterans seem to have retained little 
 or no desire to return to the West. The old 
 Body Guard, for example, were still selling their 
 services as the " Silver Shields " to this king and 
 that in Asia long after Alexander had been laid in 
 Memphis. 
 
 Thus openly did Alexander prepare in Ecbatana 
 for long campaigns of conquest. But still he had 
 hope of saving much time and toil by overtaking 
 Darius and his party before they reached the desert 
 of Khorasan : and as soon as might be he started in 
 pursuit with the pick of the expeditionary force. It 
 is a strange chapter in history, this grim, stern chase 
 of king by king in the heart of Asia — from Rama- 
 dan to Rhagae on the confines of Teheran, * and from 
 Rhasrae to the defiles on the borders of the desert. 
 At the entrance to those defiles, in the midst of a halt 
 to collect supplies, news arrived that the miserable 
 
 1 Plutarch (Alex. 42, pace Niese, op. cit. p. 100) cannot include 
 only the march to Rhagae in his eleven days, for the distance between 
 Hamadan and Teheran is not above the half of what he states ; and 
 we have no reason to suppose that either Alexander's rate of march- 
 ing between those points, or the nature of the country traversed, 
 entailed any special hardship. Plutarch evidently speaks of the 
 whole march, up to the capture of Darius, and has got his distance 
 right, his time wrong. 
 
214 ALEXANDER 
 
 treachery ahead had reached its crisis. Darius was 
 become actually a bound prisoner in the hands of his 
 Viceroys, and the faithful Greek mercenaries, who 
 had remained by him to the last, were gone north 
 through the Elburz chain. Forthwith Alexander, 
 without waiting for the return of his foraging parties, 
 took all his cavalry and the most athletic of his 
 footmen, and pressed forward all a night and half a 
 day. A few hours' rest were followed by a second 
 night of marching, and at dawn the column reached 
 a deserted camp of the fugitives. Here further news 
 was obtained that the Viceroys meant to give up 
 their King, if pressed by the pursuit. It was no 
 time for rest, and at nightfall Alexander was again in 
 his saddle, and careless that men fell out and horses 
 foundered, " still he drove on," until at high noon he 
 found himself in a village not twenty-four hours 
 behind his quarry. The Viceroys, however, were 
 reported here to intend a forced march in the coming 
 night; and Alexander's column had almost spent 
 its effort. Was there no short way ? The villagers 
 knew of a path more direct than the main road, 
 but it was without water. The King, without 
 hesitation, unhorsed his weaker troopers, mounted 
 the sturdiest of his footmen, and at dusk led up 
 the short cut at a trot. 1 Fifty miles were covered 
 in that night, and as dawn broke, lo! the fugitives 
 were just ahead, straggling over the road, weary 
 
 1 See Cm-zon, Persia, i. pp. 293 ff., on the Sirdara Pass ; and for 
 a lengthy discussion of all the ancient authorities, Th. Zolling, A. des 
 G. Felchiig in Central Aden, pp. 93 ff. 
 
DEATH OF DARIUS 215 
 
 and some unarmed. 1 There was a wild panic and 
 stampede : a few rallied for a stand, but it was very 
 brief. The captive King was bidden by his jailors 
 to leave his waggon and mount a horse ; but he 
 refused obstinately, and the sorry tragedy reached 
 its catastrophe with a vengeful sword-thrust, and the 
 clatter of flying hoofs. The last scene is singularly 
 pathetic as Cur tins finds it in authorities now lost. 2 
 The driver of the Kind's waggon had fled with the 
 Viceroys, and the mules, feeling the reins on their 
 backs, wandered off the road, in quest of water, and 
 dragged the dying man to a pool in a little lateral 
 gorge. There a Macedonian rider found him, and 
 mercifully gave him to drink ; and with words of 
 gratitude on his lips, the gentle prince, of whom as 
 man no one has said an ill word, but few will venture 
 a good one as king, breathed his last. The rhetorical 
 historians and the poets of the East have loved to 
 imagine that Alexander found " Dara" still breathing, 
 and received from his lips a legacy of empire and 
 edifying moralities on the vanity of greatness ; but 
 more sober chroniclers record that the Conqueror came 
 up only after the end, and with some natural impulse of 
 emotion covered the poor body with his cloak. 
 
 Fortune, it has been remarked by many critics, 
 
 1 An added motive for Alexander's haste was the fear of giving 
 the Persians time to destroy supplies. Cf. Potyaenus, iv. 3. 18, for 
 the similar motive for rapid pursuit after Arbela. 
 
 2 I agree with Niese, that the earlier part of Curtius' dramatic 
 narrative of the Plight is not to be taken au pied de la lettre ; but 
 rather because he has antedated things than because he has related 
 incidents that never occurred. 
 
216 ALEXANDER 
 
 never served Alexander better than when it delivered 
 into his hand Darius already dead. The Macedonian, 
 say they, obtained the inheritance of the Persian 
 without either the odious obligation of putting him 
 to death, or the equally odious and more dangerous 
 necessity of dragging an ex-king captive at his chariot 
 wheels. Alexander himself, however, seems to have 
 felt more chagrin than relief. So far as there was 
 odium abroad, it fell as justly on him who had 
 hounded the Great King to a miserable end, as on 
 those who, pleading dire necessity, actually killed 
 him. As a rule, on the occasion of a dynastic change 
 in the East, the execution of a king dethroned does 
 not follow immediately on his fall. For a time he 
 may serve many ends of his conqueror ; and in such 
 a captive position a man of so weak a character as 
 Darius might have been of no small advantage to 
 his jailor. Furthermore it must be borne in mind 
 that Alexander already had in his hands a wife and 
 daughter, held very dear by the fallen prince, and 
 far from ill-disposed to their captor, through whose 
 influence and agency the Macedonian might easily 
 have been legitimized with something like the open 
 consent of the fallen king, and might have used 
 this consent to compel obedience from the eastern 
 Viceroys. The grief, which all authorities report that 
 Alexander displayed on seeing the dead Persian, 
 sprang in the main, we are glad to believe, from a 
 generous impulse of remorse ; but it may well have 
 been embittered by the reflection that a fearful chase 
 through three midsummer days and four nights had 
 
TURjST OF THE YEAR 217 
 
 resulted in no greater gain than this poor corpse. 
 The real holders of all that Alexander had not won 
 already for himself before he began the pursuit had 
 made good their escape. Having made this point 
 for the occasion his winning-post, the Macedonian 
 had spent his last effort to reach it. His track 
 was strewn with his horses and his men ; his heavy 
 columns were lagging far in the rear ; and, after 
 all, what could he do but lap the royal mummy in 
 boughs, as still is a practice in Asia, and having sent 
 it forward to the tombs of its House in Persis, go 
 back slowly by the road he had come ? 
 
 Nevertheless, although the death of Darius did 
 not constitute in itself a decisive moment, historians 
 have been right in regarding the summer in which 
 it took place as cardinal in Alexander's career ; for 
 it was then that first it became clear to all men that 
 there was presently to be neither King of Macedon 
 nor Captain-General of Hellas, nor Great King of 
 Persia, but an Emperor of Europe and Asia. The 
 little cloud of Babylon was swelling over all the sky. 
 It is the turn of Alexander's year. 
 
 He had transformed his army at Ecbatana, and by 
 the time he reached the Caspian the new character 
 of his following was beginning to react inevitably on 
 himself. All the remainder of this year, 330, in 
 which Alexander begins in patient earnest the advance 
 into the Far East, overrunning Mazenderan, and 
 thence following the great Indian road until winter 
 overtakes him in Seistan, a shadow is spreading over 
 
218 ALEXANDER 
 
 the glory of his early days. There is no decay of 
 his own powers, for much that he will do hereafter 
 is not more inferior to the exploits of his former 
 years than the days of July to those of June. Nay, 
 rather, his genius will rise to the greater occasions 
 that present themselves. But as his soldiery become 
 less responsible and more servile, so the Captain 
 exalts himself, obtruding always more and more the 
 garish aspect of his personality ; until we begin to 
 lose sight of anything but his single figure loom- 
 ing larger and sombre against the lurid sky of his 
 evening. 
 
 The disorder within may be known by the sore 
 that breaks outwardly. An ulcer was spreading 
 among the Macedonian members of the Grand 
 Army. Till now, as every point in advance had 
 brought gain of a rich land, or a fair city, or a 
 mighty treasure, all ranks of the vassals had been 
 buoyed up in toil and peril by hope presently to 
 possess their souls in wealth. But hope of return 
 had become hope indefinitely deferred : their king's 
 ideal was growing manifestly above and beyond their 
 own ; and they felt that daily their privilege became 
 less, as the privilege of others became more. 
 
 In particular, certain of the prouder Macedonian 
 vassals of the elder school had begun to foresee with 
 bitterness their effacement in the colossal shadow of 
 Alexander, many cherishing in secret the memory 
 of Philip, first and last a Macedonian, who had made 
 so much of his native nobility, and now was spoken 
 of lightly by the son he had not loved. Parmenio, 
 
DISAFFECTION AND CONSPIRACY 219 
 
 once Philip's right hand-man in war, represented to 
 this party the heroic age, and, whether he wished it 
 or no, was looked to as chief. But he was old and 
 not assertive of himself, and the habit of feudalism 
 lay heavy upon him ; * and therefore it was upon his 
 son Philotas that there fell the active lead in this 
 discontent. Philotas seems to have been a man of 
 little restraint and a rude manner, who, holding high 
 office, ran riot in private speech against the royal 
 boy, who, he said, owed everything to him and to 
 his father. Certain of his words had been brought 
 by a Greek girl to Alexander's ears in Egypt before 
 the close of the year 332 ; 2 but partly from trust in 
 Parmenio, partly, no doubt, for fear of exasperating 
 a strong section of his Macedonians, the King con- 
 tented himself with observing in secret, in the hope 
 that common service in the Advance about to be 
 resumed would gradually eliminate the malcontent 
 spirit. Before long, however, having fancied himself 
 to have been supported but indifferently by Parmenio's 
 command at Arbela, he was moved to adopt a more 
 decided policy, and to keep the old Marshal behind 
 the main advance in positions where he could be 
 checked by commanders of a fidelity more assured. 
 
 The murmurs grew loud on the Caspian shore ; 
 for, having purged his Grand Army of all but 
 volunteers, friends, and vassals, Alexander was 
 
 1 Plutarch quotes from Callisthenes that Parmenio inwardly 
 regarded anything but kindly Alexander's growing power, ambition, 
 and surroundings of ceremony (Alex. 33). 
 
 2 We have this on the best authority. Vide Arr. iii. 26. 
 
220 ALEXANDER 
 
 venturing to assume something of the dress and style 
 of an Asiatic, and the aloofness of an Emperor. 1 The 
 hint was not lost on either Macedonians or Greeks ; 
 did it not imply that the Grand Army was no 
 longer of the West, but become definitively of the 
 East ? Throughout a long halt at Zadracarta, and 
 the subsequent march towards Seistan, disaffection 
 gathered strength, and a certain party, which covertly 
 imputed all its personal woes to the King, spoke in 
 secret of poison and daggers. But there can have 
 been little combination in conspiracy, for the story 
 goes that matters came quite fortuitously to a 
 head at Prophthasia during the winter of 330, 2 
 through none other than Philotas being made privy, 
 all unexpecting and involuntary, to the vapour- 
 ings of a nobody. The same idle words presently 
 reached Alexander's ears also, but not, as they should 
 have done, from the lips of Parmenio's son. Philotas 
 may or may not have been guilty of sympathy with 
 the vapourer; at any rate, he had let the matter 
 drift, and the King, waiting for some pretext to strike 
 a decisive blow at the malcontent party, chose to 
 assume his guilt. Alexander was in a stronger position 
 in this far land than in Egypt, for the mass of his 
 army had fallen into an absolute dependence on his 
 
 1 Cf. Plut. Phoc. 17, for his omission henceforth of the usual 
 courteous greeting to his correspondents. The fact of the Median 
 royal dress, etc., is beyond question, though it seems to have been 
 assumed only on certain festal or religious occasions ; e. g. at 
 Maracanda, Bactra, Susa, and Opis. Turgid lies are told about it 
 by such as Ephippus of Olynthus (ap. Atlien. p. 537 E.). 
 
 2 See Appendix for the chronology of the next three years. 
 
TREASON TRIALS 221 
 
 life. Philotas was arrested at once, and haled before 
 the general feudal assembly ; but such evidence, as 
 was adduced there and then, established criminal 
 negligence, hardly more. An adjournment was pro- 
 claimed, and in the night Hephaestion wrested in 
 the torture-chamber a confession from the son, which 
 included the father's name. That evidence was more 
 than enough for such a Court ; the faithful vassals, 
 transported with rage, acted both as judges and 
 executioners, Macedonum more, and in twelve days 
 three swift dromedaries bore back, across the plains 
 of Khorasan, the death-warrant of Parmenio. 1 The 
 Lyncestian Alexander, who, at first a suspected 
 friend, had for four years been a prisoner of state, 
 was dragged forth also and put to death — a warning 
 to all his tribesmen ; 2 and subsequently four or five 
 intimates of Philotas were put on their trial ; but 
 Alexander had been warned to accept easy satis- 
 faction, 3 and the most part were dismissed scot-free. 
 
 It was a grievous necessity, which has been 
 regarded often enough as judicial murder. But if 
 the ulcer of discontent was in the Army — and there 
 seems no doubt that it had been spreading there these 
 two years — Alexander had little choice, in view of the 
 tremendous needs and risks of warfare, but to cut — 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 724. The ordinary rate of travelling was thirty to 
 forty days to Ecbatana. 
 
 2 Diod. xvii. 80; and Curtius, vii. 1. 6. 
 
 3 According to Curtius' authorities, there was much grumbling 
 after Philotas' death (vii. 2. 10), and Alexander had to make a 
 punishment battalion (cf. Diod. xvii. 80). Also the garrison of 
 Ecbatana came very near open mutiny in sympathy for Parmenio. 
 
222 ALEXANDER 
 
 and he cut strongly. Kegicide was not spoken of 
 again in the camp, except by one little group nursing 
 a private grievance of the moment ; and to secure 
 this immunity Alexander, after all, had taken means, 
 the moral responsibility for which is not more than 
 rests on any general who decimates a mutinous 
 company. Let whoso sits in the seat of judgment 
 on this matter remember that he has not one-tenth 
 of the evidence that was before the Emperor ; and 
 that he is revising the acts not of a civil, but a 
 martial court. A 
 
 At the same time, while we recognize dire necessity 
 in this matter, we would not maintain that the dis- 
 content of the great vassals was causeless, or indeed 
 anything but reasonable. The loss of privilege is a 
 very bitter fruit, whose taste long remains in the 
 mouth. They would have been more or less than 
 men had they swallowed and smiled ! And, more- 
 over, the sun of their feudal system no longer shone 
 as graciously as of old. The enthusiastic boy who 
 had led them out of Macedon was dragging them 
 inexorably into far deserts and sky-kissing hills, 
 as an irritable and uncertain despot, flaming into 
 dangerous passion and collapsing into as dangerous 
 remorse. His many hurts had not been suffered for 
 nothing — the stroke on the neck and head in the 
 Balkans, the fever at Tarsus, the stab in the thigh at 
 Issus, the almost fatal bolt-wound at Gaza. Every 
 change in a character such as Alexander's makes for 
 intensification ; insensibility to pain becomes positive 
 cruelty, impetuosity grows to foolhardiness, and 
 
ALEXANDER AND HIS ARMY 223 
 
 diplomacy to deceit. The man who had wept over 
 the corpse of Darius made presently so brutalizing 
 an exhibition of a regicide at Balkh as to shock his 
 greatest eulogists ; the cool deliberator of Arbela 
 is become the almost suicide of Mooltan; he who 
 never refused quarter to surrendered foes, stains 
 his record on the Swat with a massacre of men on 
 parole. 1 
 
 Fortunately, whatever the decay of his character, 
 neither was Alexander's mental force nor was the abso- 
 lute devotion of the rank and file to his person abated. 
 He had studied to ripen that goodwill of the soldiery, 
 which had been won ere he came to the throne, into 
 something little less than worship, by arts which 
 sympathy with fighting men enabled Philip's son to 
 apply with rare success. By magnificent funerals and 
 posthumous honours to those who fell in battle, by 
 huge gratuities when money was flush, 2 by personal 
 recognition and fellowship in all things, 3 by voluntary 
 concessions such as the despatch of the married men 
 from Halicarnassus to spend winter with their wives, 
 
 1 Diod. xvii. 84. Alexander's act is condemned especially by- 
 Plutarch. 
 
 2 E. g. one talent to each horseman, and ten minae to each foot- 
 soldier, discharged at Ecbatana in 330 ; six minae to each Mace- 
 donian horseman, five to each allied horseman, two to foot-soldiers, 
 at Babylon in 331 (Diod. xvii. 63). 
 
 8 A story is told by two authorities (Curt. viii. 4. 15, and 
 Erontinus, iv. 6. 3) of Alexander restoring a frost-bitten soldier by 
 seating him on his own seat by the fire. Cf. the well-known 
 story of the draught of water in the desert {infra, p. 253) ; the 
 debt-paying at Susa; and Alexander's sacrifice of his own super- 
 fluities in order to obtain destruction of those of his men (Plut. 
 Alex. 57 ; cf. also 41). 
 
224 ALEXANDER 
 
 by the confidence with which he drank the perilous 
 cup at Tarsus, — by these and many other means 
 Alexander bound his men's interests to his. Add 
 such enthusiasm as beauty, daring, and pre-eminent 
 powers will breed, and the dependence of men lost 
 in a strange land ; and perhaps we shall cease to 
 wonder at that marvellous temper which Alexander's 
 army shows, even in its most mutinous moods, when 
 it is accepting in sorrowful silence his taunts at the 
 Hyphasis, or uttering heart-broken protests at Opis. 
 Many armies have made a massacre to avenge a 
 general's wound, as the Macedonians did in Chitral ; 
 and many, in similar plight, might equal the wild 
 joy of the phalanx at Mooltan, when its single hope 
 came back from the gates of death. But how many 
 veterans, who had mutinied against a particular 
 decree, have accepted the same a few clays later, 
 unmodified in a single point, as the time-expired 
 men accepted their dismissal at Opis ? 
 
 Nothing short of such devotion will account for the 
 readiness with which the Army followed whither their 
 Captain, leaving Seistan in the spring of 329, was 
 about to go — into the snow-blocked ranges between 
 Candahar and Cabul in midwinter; through Hindu 
 Kush and over the deserts of Turkestan in mid- 
 summer ; up and down huge foothills of the Hima- 
 laya, which European armies hardly can penetrate 
 even now ; across the Punjab in the Rains ; and 
 finally into that land of Gedrosia, which later Moslem 
 conquerors regarded as a fit resort for the souls of 
 the damned. Nothing short of such devotion will 
 
EASTERN COLONIZATION 225 
 
 explain the acquiescence of so many in the sentences 
 of exile which were pronounced whenever there was 
 planted one of those military trading colonies, of 
 which we know so little but the fact of their foun- 
 dation. How large they were ; built upon what 
 plan, Greek or Oriental ; endowed with what com- 
 munal government — who can say ? 1 We are told 
 only that at this point or that the " geographical 
 eye " of the Emperor sees that a city ". would become 
 great and prosperous among men," and inexorably 
 he details men-at-arms to build its walls, and a draft 
 of his Macedonians or Greeks, the least fit for further 
 marching, to form an official class and a garrison 
 among a proletariate of camp followers and natives. 
 The Europeans were not too willing. When Alex- 
 ander came back through Hindu Kush in 327 by 
 way of his yearling city of Alexandria ad Paropa- 
 misum, he found it in a very unsatisfactory state. 
 Two or three years later some three thousand colonists 
 of the north country shook the dust of their exile 
 off their feet, while over twenty thousand, after the 
 Emperor's death, set out from the same region for 
 the west. 2 
 
 1 Diodorus (xvii. 83) does indeed tell us that a town at the foot 
 of Hindu Kush was peopled at the first with seven thousand natives, 
 and three thousand camp followers and volunteers ; hut with that 
 our knowledge begins and ends. 
 
 2 See Curt. ix. 7. 1, and Diod. xvii. 99, xviii. 7, for the circum- 
 stances of these movements, which seem to have led to the breaking 
 off of Bactria from the rest of the empire even while Alexander was 
 alive. The number of Greeks — stated even as high as forty thou- 
 sand — is to be accounted for by the very numerous colonies and 
 garrisons in Bactria, and a large infusion of camp followers. 
 
 15 
 
226 ALEXANDER 
 
 This development of Alexander's colonial policy is 
 the most interesting feature of the eastern cam- 
 paigns. Out of the sixteen Alexandrias enumerated 
 by Stephen of Byzantium which can be referred 
 with probability to the son of Philip, not less than 
 eleven are to be placed east of Persis, whilst in the 
 north-east alone we are told by other authorities 
 that Alexander founded at least eight cities. 1 Such 
 
 1 Justin states that there were twelve colonies in the north-east 
 (xii. 5); Strabo eight (p. 517), while Curtius mentions six in and 
 about Margiana alone (vii. 10. 15). We know of only two 
 individually — Alexandria iaxdrr], on the Sir Daria, near Khojend 
 (Arr. iv. 4. 1 ; and Pliny, N. H. vi. 16), and Alexandria koto. 
 BaKrpa (Steph. Byz.), which seems to have been a foundation on 
 the northern slopes of Hindu Kush, designed to watch the direct 
 passes from Cabul (cf. the old reading of Pliny, N. H. vi. 23). 
 But Hephaestion's commission, ras iv rjj SoySiavrj iroXus <tvvoiki'(,c.w 
 (Arr. iv. 16. 3), implies a larger number; and the high figures 
 given (e.g. by Diod. xviii. 7) for the total of the subsequent 
 mutineers supports the statement of Strabo, and even that of 
 Justin. Pliny (N. H. vi. 16) explicitly states that Alexander 
 founded a colony also in the oasis of Margiane, i. e. Merv ; which 
 was destroyed by the Turkmans, and then reconstituted by 
 Antiochus. This deliberate assertion has been much called in 
 question, simply because it is hard to see how or when Alexander 
 himself can have gone to Merv. But it is quite unnecessary to 
 assume that no Alexandrian colony was founded without Alex- 
 ander's presence. There are definite instances to the contrary, e. g. 
 in Sogdiana itself Hephaestion was sent out to plant colonies 
 (Arr. iv. 16. 3), and Leonnatus had a similar mission in Beluchis- 
 tan (Pliny, N. H. vi. 23). A priori it is most probable that Alex- 
 ander would have taken pains to secure the most direct road from 
 the west to his Sogdian province, and the colony may very well have 
 been founded by an expedition sent from Balkh in 328 (possibly 
 that referred to by Curtius as going to the urbs Margiana, round 
 which six colonies were planted, vii. 10. 15 : Curtius would in 
 that case be wrong in representing that Alexander himself led 
 the expedition ; but such a mistake is very natural to a careless 
 
AGENCIES OF PEACE 227 
 
 development, however, was in practice rather than 
 theory. Whereas in the west of the new empire city 
 life existed already full grown, and new centres 
 needed to be created only at certain important key- 
 positions, Alexander found such organizations almost 
 non-existent in the basins of the Oxus and the Indus, 
 and was forced to create them new in the interests 
 of imperial unification. In districts open to nomad 
 raids and hill brigandage, communication and com- 
 merce cannot be maintained without strong cities not 
 far apart ; and we may credit Alexander with some 
 inkling at least of what Imperial Rome afterwards 
 understood so clearly, that nothing settles rude and 
 wandering tribes like open markets and the introduc- 
 tion of an attractive apparatus of civilization. 1 It 
 may be recalled that it was in the west only that 
 Rome, when her time came, had such work as this 
 to do ; for the east, thanks to Alexander, and to suc- 
 cessors working on Alexander's ideas, was organized 
 already as she would have wished to have it. It 
 was the chief glory of the Delphian Apollo that he 
 fostered the birth of cities ; and to all time it will 
 be the chief glory of Alexander that not only did he 
 
 chronicler of a single hero's deeds). Or the city might have 
 owed its origin to the generals who marched up to Balkh with 
 reinforcements in December, 328. The Hellenistic sites in these 
 remote regions are not satisfactorily identified yet, but their 
 number and size are attested by the large finds of Graeco-Bactrian 
 antiquities, which have found their way to India and Russia 
 in recent years. On "F. v. Schwarz's book on Turkestan, see 
 Appendix, p. 299. 
 
 1 See Arr. Ind. 40, for Alexander's policy in the hill-country ot 
 Persis. 
 
228 ALEXANDER 
 
 select a unique site in familiar Egypt, but on the 
 unknown map of Central Asia 1 chose situations 
 for great cities so wisely that their importance 
 survives to this day with little change of locality 
 in Herat, Farrah, Candahar, Ghazni, Cabul, and 
 Khojend ! 2 
 
 As the Conqueror moves east and north from 
 
 1 Unfortunately we are left very much in the dark as to the 
 amount of information which Alexander or his father may have 
 possessed before setting out to conquer the East. Xenophon and 
 traditions of the Ten Thousand would serve for the road up to 
 Babylon. Plutarch, moreover, tells a story of the conqueror as a 
 boy closely questioning as to roads and distances a Persian em- 
 bassy sent to his father. Eoute-notes of returned Greek envoys 
 may have been collected, giving indications as far as Ecbatana. 
 But Alexander's surprise, expressed some years later than this, 
 that envoys from Europe should be able to reach him more quickly 
 in Media by way of the Black Sea than by the way of Asia Minor 
 or Phoenicia, does not imply much idea of the lie of the land. 
 Similarly his delusions about the Caspian, about the country 
 beyond the Jaxartes, and about the identity of the Indus with 
 the Nile, and his ignorance of the outflow of the Five Kivers, 
 show complete fog as to the Eastern map. The capture of the 
 Persian Kecords must have put him in possession of official infor- 
 mation as to distances between centres of administration, ere he 
 went north-east, and he seems to have had with himself a body of 
 men — the " Bematistae " — who concerned themselves with routes; 
 but whether to lay out a line of march beforehand, or only to meas- 
 ure it as it was being traversed, we do not know. At least they 
 recorded the distances covered. Alexander had also engineers with 
 him, but mainly for siege purposes. Another obscure point is his 
 commissariat, if indeed he had any. The facts recorded of his 
 Gedrosian march make it appear as if the army was expected to live 
 on what it could collect day by day. Out of the large number of 
 Greek camp followers, however, from whom Alexander largely peo- 
 pled his eastern colonies, there may have been many sutlers and 
 vendors of provision. 
 
 2 See Appendix, p. 297. 
 
FORCES OF EARTH 229 
 
 Seistan, the scene grows, with the man, more tremen- 
 dous. The Hindu Kush interposes, its stupendous 
 wall, the Desert spreads its deathly sands, and the 
 mighty stream of Oxus rolls across his path ; but 
 all are vain. The mere distances that Alexander 
 covers in this vast region of Central Asia excite our 
 interest, rather than the driving of Turkman hordes 
 into the desert, and incessant fighting among hill 
 forts ; and even the chain of cities which he created 
 to far Khojend, and the provincial organization which 
 after three campaigns he imposed from Balkh to 
 Samarcand, 1 remain so unknown to us by anything 
 but the fact of their long survival, that they fail to 
 divert attention from the personality of their creator, 
 forcing his tireless way even to the Sir Daria, the 
 uttermost limit of the Persian Empire, and, in his 
 belief, of Asia. For beyond it he found Scythians 
 whom he thought to be Scythians of Europe, and a 
 little farther on saw in fancy the girdle of the whole 
 world, Homer's Stream of Ocean, of which he had 
 been told the Caspian was but a bay. Presently 
 would end, thought he, r) oikou/xo^, the world of 
 human life, beyond which could lie only the region 
 behind the sun, such a land of spirits and demons 
 as afterwards the Greeks credited him with having 
 explored — so far out of their ken lay the steppes 
 of Turkestan and the plains of the Punjab ! 
 
 1 That he did create such an organization might be inferred 
 indirectly from the fact of the subsequent kingdom's existence ; 
 but the summoning of the Hyparchs to council in 328 (Arr. iv. 1), 
 supplies direct evidence. 
 
230 ALEXANDER 
 
 No sooner, however, was Alexander at this limit of 
 earth than the land rose behind him, and he was 
 forced to reconquer. With a rapidity and energy 
 which he never excelled, but a severity harsher than 
 his earlier wont, he inflicted, ere summer ended, 
 a signal chastisement on the northern strongholds, 
 and then, partly in bravado, and partly to assure 
 the rising walls of a new city, destined to become 
 Khojend, he threw himself across even the Sir Daria 
 itself, and rode for a day against the astounded 
 nomads of the Mogul Dagh, contracting by foul 
 water a dysenteric flux, from which he was hard 
 put to it to recover. 
 
 Almost a whole year, however, had to be spent 
 in desultory campaigns before the back of the revolt 
 was broken finally. With vast deserts to west, 
 and the huge gorges leading eastward to the Roof 
 of the World, Sogdiana and Bactria offered too many 
 refuges to rebel chieftains to be brought under at 
 the first attempt. The western wastes, after one 
 serious reverse — the worst that ever befell Alexander's 
 forces (he himself was not present) — were cleared 
 readily enough, and cruel revenge was taken on the 
 fertile valley of the Saravshan ; but the hill forts of 
 the east occupied all an autumn and spring, and 
 taxed every resource of the Macedonian's ingenuity 
 and all the discipline and dash of his men-at-arms. 
 It was not till the summer of 327 that the Emperor 
 was ready to repass the Hindu Kush ; and so 
 obstinate had been the resistance, and so apt did 
 the hill country appear for fresh revolt, that he was 
 
TURKESTAN 231 
 
 prompted to seek the first of his two political mar- 
 riages. Roxana, daughter of one of the greatest 
 of the hill chiefs, was selected by the conqueror, and 
 we are told much of his enslavement to her beauty ; 1 
 but it should be noted that we hear no more of the 
 Queen for the rest of Alexander's campaigns, and 
 that she conceived no child by him until a few 
 months before his death. 
 
 Through the cloud of expeditions and sieges and 
 official acts one lurid gleam falls in the Bactrian 
 year full upon the man. The Emperor was lying in 
 Samarcand at the late winter season, in the interval 
 between his second campaign in the north-west and 
 that to come in the east, having just succeeded in 
 retrieving finally the grievous mishap his lieutenants 
 had met with in the past summer. It seems that in 
 consequence of that event there had arisen some 
 odious comparison of the Macedonian marshals with 
 their ever-victorious King, 2 and that Alexander by 
 reason of his triumph and of much feasting was more 
 than ever disposed to override prejudices of race. Es- 
 pecially it fell out, at a great banquet given to all sorts 
 and conditions on the Festival of the Dioscuri, that the 
 court rhymers made invidious capital of the disaster, 
 and the talk at table chancing on the Immortal 
 Twins, whose day it was, certain Greek soldiers of 
 fortune pointed in tipsy flattery to the coincidence 
 
 1 E.g. by Curtius, viii. 4. 25. His further statement — that the 
 Macedonians regarded the alliance with much disfavour — is more 
 credible. 
 
 2 Plut. Alex. 50. 
 
232 ALEXANDER 
 
 of the birth of the so-called sons of Tyndareus 
 with that of Alexander; for both, said they, were 
 fathered on a mortal, who were really children of 
 Zeus, and how much greater was the conqueror 
 of Asia than those sackers of Aphidnae ! A little 
 leaked out also in direct disparagement of Philip. 
 Alexander, far gone in wine, smiled on the talk ; 
 but a knot of his elder Macedonians took it ill, 
 reviving memories of the elder king ; and at last 
 Clitus, emboldened by the privilege of a foster-brother, 
 took up cudgels for the old Maker of Macedon, crying 
 shame on the decriers of the king whose men had 
 opened Asia. Alexander, to his honour, took the 
 implied rebuke quietly enough, but Clitus was fool 
 enough, or drunk enough, to point it with a direct 
 personal sting. The insulted Emperor threw an 
 angry warning across to his foster-brother, but only to 
 receive in the teeth an outrageous gibe at his Median 
 dress and would-be imperial state. He sprang to his 
 feet, but restraining himself a moment, bade his 
 Greeks note what barbarians were these Macedonians 
 after all ! Clitus, not to be browbeaten, thanked God 
 devoutly he at least was none of the slaves ! It 
 was too much. Alexander snatched a missile, and 
 leaping the table felt for his dagger ; but it had been 
 withdrawn privily from his side, and in the confusion, 
 while he called in wild Macedonian speech for his 
 body-guard, friends hustled Clitus protesting from 
 the banquet. The ill-starred man, however, broke 
 away, and rushing back to another door, drew 
 aside the hangings and shouted an insulting line of 
 
DEATH OF CL1TUS 233 
 
 Euripides down the ball. Alexander turned to the 
 voice, and seizing a weapon hurled it at the falling 
 curtain, and behind it his foster-brother went down 
 in the agony of death. 
 
 From wild wrath to the repentance of a madman 
 a nature like Alexander's passes in a flash. Rushing 
 to the fallen man, the Emperor drew out the fatal 
 lance, and tried to throw himself on its point. 1 But 
 the great officers seized his wrists, and ordering the 
 corpse to be withdrawn hastily, attended their lord 
 to his chamber ; where for three days and nights the 
 exalted and overwrought spirit passed through the 
 darkest valley of self-abasement, till specious plati- 
 tudes of kismet and predestination began to soothe, 
 and a sophistic Greek infused a baleful balm, remind- 
 ing the successor of Dataus that emperors stand above 
 obligation and above law. 
 
 So Alexander came to his confident self again. 
 But the sorry tragedy had left a mark, and seems to 
 have prompted the Emperor to make a more strenuous 
 attempt at Balkh in the following spring to break down 
 invidious distinctions of nationality, and obliterate 
 Macedonian privilege. Not only the Macedonians, 
 however, but the Greeks as well, proved mighty stiff- 
 necked about paying homage in the eastern manner 
 by prostration ; and a lesson, rude but effective, was 
 read to Alexander by the discovery of a second plot 
 against his life, hatched indeed from the trivial grief 
 of a Page, but fostered, it appears, by those of more 
 
 1 I see no reason to doubt this attempt at suicide. It was the 
 received tradition in antiquity (cf. Cicero, Tusc. Bisp. iv. 37). 
 
234 ALEXANDER 
 
 weight who had fallen out of favour in the recent 
 matter of the homage. 
 
 A strangely significant picture this, that the 
 meagre chroniclers throw into relief — this inheritor 
 of a European throne in his Persian robes, perfumed 
 and tiaraed, with a motley company drawn from 
 half Asia and half Europe, listening in Samarcand 
 to Greek song and Greek talk ! How far and fast 
 had the world moved since Marathon ! Greeks were 
 fraternizing now with Persians, both at their ease ; 
 only the Macedonians sat glowering and constrained, 
 masterful, stiff-necked Northerners that they were. 
 They might well feel uneasy ! Their native speech 
 had become so rare at the court of their King that 
 a word of command, shouted in it, rang on unwonted 
 ears like a tocsin. And what a strange position 
 among all these is Alexander's ! — he drinking rose- 
 crowned among his captains, knowing that he is 
 using them, each and all, as means to an end Avhich 
 they comprehend not, and, comprehending, would 
 not accept. With one section of his following, the 
 Macedonian — that, by custom, most attached to his 
 person — he is out of all sympathy. "With a second, 
 the Greek, he is for the moment in accord, but the 
 greater one day will be its undeceiving. With the 
 third, the Oriental, this Homeric paladin is on terms 
 at all only by stifling the prejudices of his education 
 and all recollection of his first ideals. Insensibly 
 and inevitably his fortune has lifted him out of the 
 plane of all contemporary men, and it will raise him 
 ever higher and higher on his pinnacle of isolation, 
 
ISOLATION 235 
 
 until his nerves begin to crack and his head to 
 swim. 
 
 For also all ties of private sympathy were falling 
 fast away from him. His mother, alone of all his 
 nearer kin, had been anything to him in his youth, 
 and the wild harridan had come near estranging 
 herself altogether in this seven years' absence by the 
 dangerous discord that she fostered in Europe. " A 
 heavy rent is this I pay for my nine months," groaned 
 her son, on hearing from Antipater of some fresh 
 outrage ; but he clung, nevertheless, to her memory 
 — he had little else to cling to ; and even though 
 he forbade her to touch public affairs, he allowed 
 her tears to weigh against all his Viceroy's griefs. 
 Had not his foster-brother, too, fallen by his hand ? 
 and did not he bear hardly less heavy on his 
 soul the deaths of many others near and dear, who 
 had fallen in his wars ? Of his earliest intimates and 
 comrades in exile, Ptolemy, Erigyius, and Nearchus 
 were with him still ; but Harpalus, who had played 
 him false already, and would betray his trust once 
 more, was left behind in Babylon. The other strong 
 attachment of his boyhood, that to his great tutor, 
 had been strained by long absence and gradual 
 divergence of ideas. Aristotle had now resided for 
 long in Athens; and from that centre of Hellenic 
 exclusiveness he came to speak and write less and 
 less kindly of his royal pupil who would obliterate 
 the heaven-ordained privilege of Hellenes. Those 
 of Aristotle's school who had accompanied Alexander 
 had been most consistent opponents of his imperial 
 
236 ALEXANDER 
 
 ideal, and latterly Callisthenes, their best and 
 bravest spirit, accused of complicity in the Page's plot, 
 had paid with his life for representing too well his 
 master in philosophy. Philotas and Parmenio, Clitus 
 and Callisthenes, head a grievous death-roll, which 
 after the Indian campaigns fills apace. Many of the 
 names written thereon in the last years of Alexander 
 are doubtless those of men, cruel and rapacious, who 
 indeed had misused their office ; but also many, doubt- 
 less, fell victims to their inability to grasp an ideal 
 grown too wide, or were placed in a mere semblance 
 of fault by the suspicion with which fear had begun 
 to cloud the mind of their sovereign. 
 
 The spring of 327 was far spent ere Alexander 
 moved south from Balkh, and, marching back over 
 Hindu Kush, came down to his city founded eighteen 
 months before. The last labour of his Herculean 
 doom lay before him as he entered the Indian 
 satrapy. In the Persian imperial scheme India lay 
 rather west than east of the Indus, and signified the 
 basin of the Cabul River, and as much of the Indus 
 Valley as the Great King could hold tributary. But 
 the limits of his assumed Persian inheritance were 
 becoming too strait for Alexander. Had he not given 
 warning of a scheme of Empire more universal when 
 he asked, at sight of the Caspian, if that was not a 
 part of the girdling Ocean Stream, and when he 
 questioned the Scythians of Tashkend about Europe? 
 Soon the oecnmenic ideal will develop apace. Ocean 
 seems the only true limit of empire. Where, then, 
 
THE CONQUEST OF THE EARTH 237 
 
 is its Stream on the east ? As the army pushes 
 forward, it recedes. The Indus proves after all not 
 to be the Nile, 1 and a still greater river is reported 
 to flow beyond its tributaries. Let that, however, 
 be crossed, and Ocean could not but be near ; and 
 therefore sore indeed was the constraint put on the 
 Captain by the refusal of his army to leave the 
 Punjab. Foiled on one side, the sanguine man 
 turned south to seek the Stream again, and having 
 arrived at a tidal sea put his whole soul into such 
 an expedition as would prove that there, at least, 
 his work was done. No Greek conceived of any- 
 thing but fairy-land beyond a tidal ocean. As the 
 Pillars of Hercules were notoriously the limit on the 
 West, so this beach of the Indus Delta, on which 
 Alexander's ships were left suddenty aground, could 
 seem nothing else than an uttermost edge of earth. 
 From this moment, therefore, was born Alexander's 
 last and most vast project of rounding off the 
 world south, west, and north, with a fleet and army 
 proceeding through Africa to Europe, which two 
 continents he seems, following his favourite Homer, 
 to have pictured as shallow half-moons, their chords 
 resting on the interposed Mediterranean Sea. 
 
 The hillmen on the northern streams of the Cabul 
 basin gave Alexander, as they have given every 
 invader since his time, some very tough fighting ; and 
 
 1 For this strange, passing delusion of Alexander's, we have 
 the authority of Arrian (vi. 1) and Strabo (p. 707). Both seem to 
 derive from one source — Alexander's letters to Olympias. 
 
238 ALEXANDER 
 
 the late autumn and early winter were spent by a 
 Macedonian column in the upper valleys of Khond, 
 Kafiristan, and Chitral, chasing agile foes from rock 
 to rock, and taking innumerable walled villages, the 
 larger of which, such as a certain Massaga on the 
 Swat, cost short but formal sieges. The year 326 was 
 well begun ere the Emperor could come down to the 
 Indus, having captured the last and strongest hold, 
 situated on the great river itself ; and he' found ready 
 the material for a floating bridge, prepared by his 
 main body, which had come direct from Cabul by the 
 Khyber Pass. 
 
 That wild land of the north-west, however, was not 
 really subjugated. Alexander himself had to go back 
 to Dir and deal another blow ere he left the Indus. 
 His lieutenants in the following year were still raiding 
 and fighting, and a year later still his Viceroy was 
 murdered as prelude to a general revolt, in which, after 
 the great Captain's death, most part of Afghanistan 
 and Khelat slipped again out of Macedonian hands. 1 
 But at this moment Alexander had not patience 
 to tarry among hill forts, and with the first of the 
 spring had ferried his Grand Army across the Indus, 
 and was marching into the north of the Punjab. 
 
 A local rajah of the Indus Valley had made terms 
 with the western invader, but the main levy of the 
 warrior peasantry of the upper country was waiting 
 in arms behind the Jhelum. In all Asia Alexander 
 had not been brought to face a problem more grave 
 than now. For he had come, hardly knowing it, to 
 1 Strabo, p. 698. 
 
THE HYDASPES 239 
 
 the threshold of a new world, and into conflict with 
 an unknown civilization, as stable and cohesive as 
 his own. It was no group of robber chieftains that 
 waited beyond the river, but the able prince of a great 
 and warlike empire ; a no accumulation of gregarious 
 nomads, but a disciplined force possessing all his 
 arms, and one that he had not — a corps of war- 
 elephants. At Arbela there had been a weak spot 
 at the heart of the foe, and most loose attachment 
 of his members. At the Hydaspes the enemy's force 
 was uniform, disciplined, confident, and marshalled 
 on its own ground. The torrential rains and heavy 
 heat of a clime utterly unlike anything in their ex- 
 perience were beginning to tell on Alexander's men : 
 and if an issue was to be come to at all, passage must 
 first be forced across a river wider than the Tigris 
 — the first great river, indeed, which had been held 
 in force against the Macedonians. 
 
 All the world knows how Alexander triumphed. 
 The battle of the Hydaspes, won after long de- 
 moralizing delay, takes established rank among the 
 most brilliant operations of ancient warcraft. The 
 strategy which distracted the attention of the foe 
 till a river half a mile wide had been all but 
 crossed on a black night of storm, is only equalled 
 by the supreme audacity of the venture. The confi- 
 dence of the Grand Army is never more amazing 
 
 1 See Talboys Wheeler (pp. cii.) on the ancient Kshatviya 
 Empire of the Punjab. He quotes from Ferishta how the great 
 King " P'hoor " marched to the frontier of India to oppose 
 Alexander. 
 
240 ALEXANDER 
 
 than here at Plydaspes, and, as always in strenuous 
 action, the Captain himself is seen at his best. His 
 imperious soul was fulfilled now only in most intense 
 excitement, for it had come to be with him as with 
 the Spartan, that he " went to ruin in the day of 
 peace." In the dust and stress of battle the heroic 
 side of Alexander's character at once appears. In 
 instant sympathy with his own men, and generous 
 to those of his foe, tireless, fearless, swift to decide 
 and swift to act, he is hardly ever at fault, and never 
 weak. | So he remains the one general of history 
 who won all his battles, f 
 
 From the Jhelum to the Chenab, the Chenab to the 
 Ravi, and the Ravi to the Sutlej, the Grand Army, 
 swelled now with Afghans and Punjabis, marched 
 without serious opposition, save at one stockade of the 
 Cathaeans near Amritsar ; and princes even of Cash- 
 mere sent to propitiate the new Conqueror. Ganges 
 itself was said to flow but twelve marches distant 
 through rich cities and fat lands. Alexander gave the 
 word to bridge and pass the last of the Five Rivers. 
 
 But the western soldiers faced about. The awful 
 climate * had forced on a crisis. Eight years ago 
 many had looked last on wife and child and home. 
 There was not a regiment but had been decimated 
 since it marched out at the first, and no survivor 
 who kept a whole skin. Turn they would, and reap 
 some reward in life for so long labour. 2 
 
 1 See Strabo, p. 691. 
 
 2 These are, of course, the members of the original Grand 
 Army led by Alexander across the Dardanelles, though all the 
 
MUTINY AT THE SUTLEJ 241 
 
 Here is, perhaps, the most singular mutiny in 
 history. There seems to have been neither heat nor 
 anger, but simply the dogged determination of weary 
 men. The unanimity was absolute, and the mortified 
 Emperor might beg, demand, decree — no mutineer 
 yielded a step to pity or to fear. The spirit of the 
 whole Army is represented admirably by the speech 
 that Arrian puts into the mouth of Coenus. There 
 is the true note of weariness, the old spearmen's sense 
 of the injustice of hope so long deferred, their sore 
 sickness for home, and, through all, an uneasy fear 
 lest they offend beyond pardon the idol of all their 
 hearts, and the one man who could lead them back. 
 
 For three days Alexander waited, gloomy as 
 Achilles in his tent ; but the camp lay in silence 
 unbroken. The Captain knew the sign, and bowed 
 
 rest joined in this mutiny. A large part of the Army of India, 
 however, must have been composed of men of shorter service, for 
 during the past eight years a great many reinforcements had 
 marched up and been drafted into the rants; e.g. 3,650 of all 
 arms joined at Gordium in 333 (Callisthenes, ajt. Polyb. xii. 19. 2, 
 raises this reinforcement to 5,800 men) ; 4,000 Greeks at Sidon 
 in 332; 900 Greeks and Thracians in Egypt early in 331; 15,000 
 men at Susa late in the same year; 1,500 of Darius' Greek 
 mercenaries in Hyrcania in 330 ; 6,000 Indians at Nysa, at the 
 Indus, and at Taxila in 327-326. Diodorus adds 30,000 Greek 
 mercenaries incorporated at the Hydaspes. To counterbalance 
 these, which are probably only a part of the fresh drafts, we must 
 subtract an indefinite number who took their discharge at Ecba- 
 tana, the large garrisons and colonizing drafts left here and there, 
 and the losses by battle or sickness. But on the whole the Grand 
 Army increased very largely as it went on. Arrian tells us, in the 
 Indica (19), that it had reached a total of 120,000 men on its re- 
 turn to the Hydaspes. Niese has a good passage (p. 158) on the 
 changes effected during the Eastern march. 
 
 16 
 
242 ALEXANDER 
 
 his stubborn bead. 1 He decreed a solemn taking 
 of omens, as though bent still on passing the river, 
 but the gods kindly took on themselves to give the 
 veto. The word went forth for return, and the 
 veterans gave vent to their pent-up emotion in 
 weeping and shouting and crowding about Alex- 
 ander's tent to tender humble gratitude and humbly 
 to pray for pardon. 
 
 Twelve altars rose above the Sutlej to the gods of 
 the Greeks, and long were fed by the rajahs of this 
 region ; 2 and there, at the end of the world, was held 
 the last of tbose Olympic contests by which the 
 Emperor, throughout his Indian march, sought to 
 inspirit his men to resist the Rains. Exotic, indeed, 
 these contests must have seemed — expressions of a 
 sanguine civilization, that exalted the flesh, in a far 
 contemplative land, where bliss is impersonal Nirvana 
 through the flesh mortified. Exotic indeed, and 
 therefore India, when .. Alexander left her, was still 
 what she had been when he came. For not only was 
 she too vast and too old to learn in the summer of 
 one year, but the superiority of the newly imported 
 civilization was not sufficiently obvious to weigh 
 against all in it that was uncongenial. As a great 
 French eulogist of Alexander 3 most justly says : " Ce 
 qui manqua a Alexandre ce fut de porter a l'Asie 
 une religion plus pure et plus lumineuse que les reves 
 
 1 If we can trust Diodorus' authorities, Alexander had several 
 motives for compliance ; indeed, it was hardly possible to have 
 kept the field much longer in any case. 
 
 2 Plut. Alex. 62. 
 
 3 Lamartine, at the end of his Vie d' Alexandre. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF INDIA 243 
 
 de 1'Olympe, qui ne valaient pas les reves des mages 
 ou les mysteres pleins de divinite de l'lnde." The 
 Hellene was baffled by the difficulty that still con- 
 fronts even those who would introduce the creed 
 of Christ to Brahmans. The advance that he pro- 
 posed in theory and practice was too delicate to 
 induce change in minds already habituated to a high 
 and congenial philosophy, and by reason of race and 
 clime little prone to move. In vain the drama of 
 Athens 1 was exhibited by Alexander to Indian eyes, 
 in vain her nude athletes wrestled and her four-horse 
 chariots raced. These things but passed as a midday 
 dream through the ecstatic brain of a fakir; and 
 those fifteen Brahmans on the Lower Indus who 
 refused to be impressed by the Conqueror and took 
 his messenger scornfully to task, as one who, com- 
 pared to themselves, grovelled in the flesh, spoke 
 finally for the whole cultured class of India — a class 
 shallow, vainglorious, prone to evade by quibble the 
 obligation to know, and able to be degraded, but 
 neither wishing nor able to be raised by western 
 methods to western ideals. 2 
 
 Therefore, although some personal memories sur- 
 vived as to Chandragupta, the adventurer-sultan of 
 
 1 On the question of the performance of the Agen on the 
 Hydaspes, see Dro3'sen, i. p. 639, note, and Niese, op. cit. p. 156. 
 The latter gives ample reasons for continuing to believe that 
 India was the scene. 
 
 2 The Greeks, for their part, seem to have been greatly im- 
 pressed with the Brahmans. The apocryphal and romantic litera- 
 ture connecting Alexander with them and their King, Dandamis, 
 is very large. 
 
244 ALEXANDER 
 
 Patali-putra, who, as a boy, had seen the Conqueror, 1 
 Alexander's name is said not to appear in Sanskrit 
 literature ; 2 and he faded slowly from Indian tradition, 
 until the wave of Islam brought him back on its crest, 
 transfigured as D' hulkarnein, the " two-horned," the 
 Prophet. 
 
 The Return was not to follow the line of the 
 Advance further westward than the Jhelum. Two 
 months before, ere Alexander had left the two cities 
 that he had founded at the scene of his triumph over 
 Porus, he had issued orders that such of his soldiers 
 and camp-followers as were natives of the Levantine 
 coasts should prepare a river flotilla. For he had 
 learned from native report that the Four Rivers 
 flowed into the Indus, and that the united stream 
 could not be the Nile, for" it ran presently into a sea. 
 Was that sea not part of Ocean Stream ? He would 
 descend the water-way, opening out and securing his 
 new Indian province as he went ; and thereafter there 
 would remain no more to be done on the southern 
 edge of the world. 
 
 The flotilla was ready, and the leisurely voyage 
 begun, by November of 326. The most part of the 
 army marched still by land, meeting the fleet at 
 successive points ; and as soon as the Levantine boat- 
 men settled down to an understanding of such new 
 navigation, all went smoothly enough. Too smoothly, 
 perhaps, for Alexander's unquiet spirit, for all the 
 while he was raiding on this side and that, without 
 
 1 Plut. Alex. 62. 3 Max Miiller, India, p. 274. 
 
THE FIGHT AT MOOLTAN 245 
 
 much ostensible provocation, unless it were that the 
 tribes refused to bring down supplies. Such warfare 
 by the wayside, with its little of definite purpose, 
 and its absence of permanent results, might well be 
 ignored, were it not that in its course occurred the 
 most famous, the most foolish, and not the least 
 characteristic of the exploits of Alexander's autum- 
 nal years. 
 
 The affair befell in a certain city of the southern 
 Punjab, probably hard by where now stands Mooltan. 
 The streets were already in the hands of tbe Mace- 
 donian column, but tbe mud walls of the citadel 
 held out still. The attacking Guards had no siege- 
 train, nor, it appears, more than two ladders ; and 
 the scaling parties seem to have been hanging back 
 until more and better means of ascent should be 
 procured. Alexander, however, seldom could wait. 
 Seizing a ladder from its bearers, he reared it with 
 his own hands against the wall, and crouching under 
 his shield, climbed, followed by two esquires, while 
 by the second ladder a sturdy veteran also reached 
 the battlement. The defenders of the wall fell back 
 from close quarters with the glittering figure of the 
 Emperor ; but bolts and stones rained about him from 
 the nearest towers and the rising ground within. 
 The Guards saw from below that their Captain was 
 in imminent danger, and began to swarm pell-mell 
 up the two ladders ; but these, being probably only 
 such as could be requisitioned from houses of the 
 town, collapsed under the rush, and left the attack 
 for the moment paralyzed. Alexander could hardly 
 
246 ALEXANDER 
 
 remain where he was, unsupported and a mark 
 for all missiles. Another man would have dropped 
 back again on his own side of the wall ; but the 
 dare-devil madness was awake in Philip's son, and, 
 with scarce a moment's hesitation, he took a flying 
 leap, the light gleaming on his ringing arms, full 
 into the fort, and by a miracle found his feet. His 
 three followers, for a few instants, hung back from 
 the leap, and meanwhile Alexander, who had set 
 his back against the outer wall, kept the astonished 
 Indians at bay with stones and play of sword. But 
 when the three Macedonians had scrambled down 
 to join their Captain, and no one else appeared, 
 the enemy took heart. The veteran man-at-arms 
 was first to fall, shot in the face ; the esquires 
 covered Alexander as best they could ; but a stone 
 fell with stunning force on his helm, and before 
 he could recover his guard, an arrow struck right 
 through corselet and breast-bone to the lung. The 
 stricken man faced the foe a few moments longer, 
 then reeled and fell ; and his shield-bearers stepped 
 across the body for a last stand. But the Guards 
 without the wall had been finding methods of despair, 
 and by one way or another — by hoisting themselves 
 on other men's shoulders, by driving pegs into the 
 hard mud — here and there they gained the battle- 
 ments, and with shouts of rage leaped down within 
 the wall. The Indians drew back ; a gate was 
 forced ; and the furious spearmen hewed their way 
 through the fort until not a soul — man, woman, 
 child — was left alive, y 
 
THE RETURN TO THE FLEET 247 
 
 Alexander had come to himself, and demanded to 
 have the barbed head cut out of his chest. This 
 was done — some say by a Coan leech, others by the 
 rude surgery of Perdiccas' sword — and in the flux 
 of blood that followed, the Emperor fell again insen- 
 sible. A report that he was dead flew round the 
 main camp on the Chenab. But Alexander was not 
 to die yet, and after some days, hearing that the 
 worst news was gaining general credit, and grave 
 disorders threatened, he demanded to be conveyed by 
 boat down to the flotilla. As his bark approached, 
 the whole army crowded to the shore, believing it 
 to bring their Emperor's corpse ; but ordering the 
 curtain about his bed to be drawn aside, Alexander 
 stretched out a hand towards the bank, and a wild 
 shout went up from the host. Not content with this 
 demonstration of life, he refused, on landing, to enter 
 the litter prepared, but had himself lifted on to a 
 horse, and so rode painfully to his tent, the scarred 
 veterans casting flowers in his path and fighting 
 with one another for a touch of his hand or his 
 knee, or of just the hem of his garment. 
 
 Friends were found to tell Alexander the candid 
 truth — that such Homeric championship was no part 
 of the duty of a general, and least of one on whom 
 the lives of an army depended so absolutely. But 
 he liked best the old Boeotian pikeman, who said, in 
 his rustic dialect, that his Captain had played the 
 man, for in this world it is ever a law, " Take no 
 pain, get no gain ! " 
 
 Many were the days of slow convalescence ere 
 
248 ALEXANDER 
 
 again the Emperor could embark, and by easy stages 
 reach the main stream of Indus, where he decreed the 
 founding of two cities near the point of confluence ; 
 for so he hoped to cover the great western road up 
 the Bolan Pass, by which the larger part of the 
 army would be bidden presently to march to Persis. 
 Thence the flotilla dropped down to its goal, the apex 
 of the Delta, as it was then, some miles south-east 
 of Haiderabad, 1 and there it was docked at the 
 deserted town of Pattala. 
 
 There was brief repose for the army, but not for 
 its Captain. The fever of unrest had burned into 
 his inmost soul, and, grown familiar now with ever- 
 lengthening vistas of empire, he would accept nothing 
 less than all the earth. His oecumenic scheme was 
 developed full}', and henceforth would condition all 
 his acts. First and last, Ocean was in his thoughts. 
 Already the voyage of Nearchus was planned, the 
 ships were collected, and the first wells dug to the 
 eastward ; and the Emperor had paid in person his 
 solemn homage to the great World-Stream, having 
 sailed down both outflows of Indus and a mile or 
 two out on to the broad bosom of the deep. The 
 main part of the Grand Army was departed already 
 for the Bolan Pass, and, simply for the fleet's sake, 
 a small picked force that remained was destined to 
 follow its unsparing Captain into the hideous land 
 of Gedrosia — he knew well how hideous ! 2 
 
 1 General Haig (Indus Delta, p. 18) places Pattala thirty -five 
 miles south-east of Haiderabad. 
 
 2 See Arr. vi. 24 ; Strabo, p. 722. 
 
ALEXANDER AND THE OCEAN 249 
 
 The famous ocean voyage, which the bosom friend 
 of Alexander's early years now volunteered to lead, 
 is the most curious incident in all the Conquest. 
 The Emperor showed a preliminary solicitude for its 
 equipment, a poignant anxiety for its fate, and an 
 exuberant joy at its safe arrival in the Persian Gulf, 
 which are not to be explained simply by the danger 
 to which he believed himself to be exposing friends 
 and followers. These dangers no doubt he magnified 
 as much as did Nearchus himself. Demon-haunted 
 Ocean, with its tremendous cataclysms, possessed 
 once a horror for the sailors of inland seas which 
 now can hardly be realized, even in the light of such 
 recitals as Arrian's account of this voyage ; and, as 
 has been said already, Alexander had too little con- 
 fidence in the ability of others to carry through criti- 
 cal enterprises without his own personal presence. 
 
 Nevertheless, so unique a display of nervousness 
 and emotion by a nature case-hardened as that of 
 Alexander had come to be must have drawn from 
 deeper sources than those of the moment or occasion. 
 The interests which Alexander believed to be involved 
 in the success of Nearchus' voyage were for him 
 paramount. Not only would the arrival of the fleet 
 in the Persian Gulf prove that the limit of earth 
 had been reached indeed, but also that there was 
 an open Ocean-way by which the different extremi- 
 ties of a world-empire could be joined. It may be 
 said with truth that Alexander was actuated by 
 both commercial and geographical motives. He had 
 commerce distinctly in view when he explored both 
 
250 ALEXANDER 
 
 mouths of the Indus, and established docks in the 
 lagoons on the eastern arm; and he proposed 
 directly to enlarge the bounds of knowledge when 
 he enjoined Nearchus to take careful note of all he 
 might pass by land or sea. 1 But always there was 
 an ulterior aim, the better securing of the permanence 
 of his own empire. And with this in view he seems 
 to have been possessed, in his latter years, by the 
 idea of opening water communications. Few have 
 had better reason than Alexander to know how slow, 
 how costly, and how wasteful is transit by land ; and 
 after eight years spent in marching across a continent, 
 it is small wonder that he looked about for a better 
 way. Much of his later time was spent on the water. 
 He was more than seven months on the Indian 
 streams ; he took ship again on the Karun River, 
 and made his way from its mouth up the Shatt-el- 
 Arab and the Tigris; and last of all we find him 
 exploring the water-ways about Babylon. 
 
 Therefore Alexander endured more and spent more 
 to ensure the success of this voyage of Nearchus than 
 in all eight years of conquest. Starting nearly a 
 month ahead of the fleet, he made direct for the 
 Purali River, and thereafter, with a small detachment, 
 followed the waterless coast-line, digging wells against 
 the arrival of the sailors. 2 And not only temporary 
 but permanent provision was made in the sorry 
 Beluchi land ; for after the usual raids in terrorem, a 
 colony was planted on the last outskirts of cultivation, 
 
 1 Arr. vii. 20. 
 
 2 See Haig, op. cit. App. E., on this march. 
 
BELUCHISTAN 251 
 
 surely in the least desirable locality ever favoured by 
 a Greek founder ! 1 The reason for the existence of 
 such a city, and indeed for any expedition into this 
 region, is to be sought in no other consideration than 
 the interests of the sea route round its coasts. Most 
 sparsely inhabited by unwarlike peoples, so poor as to 
 yield the scantiest food for those few, cut off by the 
 Gedrosian Desert from affording any reasonable route 
 to the West, Beluchistan might have been left un- 
 visited more fitly than many outlying districts which 
 Alexander had passed by — the north of Asia Minor, 
 for instance, the hills of Kurdistan and Armenia, 
 or the oases of Merv and of Khiva. In all the 
 Mekran Alexander met no foes, hardly even a human 
 being, founded no cities, and annexed no territory. 
 He did no more than devote himself and the lives of 
 his men to making provision for Nearchus. Parties 
 were sent down from time to time into the ghastly 
 littoral " to see what harbours there were existing, to 
 dig wells, to establish markets or stake out anchor- 
 ages, to prepare all, in short, for the passage of the 
 fleet." The explorers go down and find no living 
 souls but half-human fish-eaters, and returning, are 
 bidden by the Emperor to take all the corn that he 
 has been able to scrape from the upper country, and 
 
 1 There seems to have been two colonies planted in Beluchistan, 
 not only this, alluded to in the text, founded by Leonnatus (Pliny, 
 N. H. vi. 23 ; Arr. vi. 28, 5), but also one founded by Hephaes- 
 tion just west of the Purali (Arr., vi. 21. 5 ; and Steph. Byz. 
 s.v. OritcE). Pliny indeed (I.e.) indicates a third — " Arbis oppi- 
 dum " — founded by Nearchus, but probably it was not more than 
 a temporary factory. 
 
252 ALEXANDER 
 
 cache it here and there on the coast. The convoy 
 itself, however, is presently so famished that it dares 
 to break the imperial seals and eat a little of the 
 corn ; and Alexander has no choice but to pass the 
 heinous offence in silence. 
 
 The story of the Macedonian march through the 
 Gedrosian Desert is like nothing so much as a fever- 
 ish dream. 1 The miserable column ploughed its 
 way, worn, famished, and parched, over an ocean of 
 powdery hillocks into which feet sank " as in mud 
 or untrod snow-drifts." 2 The animals laboured even 
 more grievously than the men, and uncertainty where 
 water would at last be found was the worst of all their 
 miseries. The marches dragged far into the night 
 after all a day, and far into the day after all a night. 3 
 Soon the men begin to kill and cut up privily the 
 horses and mules, telling their officers that the beasts 
 have dropped of themselves ; and though the deceit 
 is patent, Alexander must go grimly on. There 
 are not beasts left to carry the weak, and the 
 waggon-loads of sick have long been abandoned 
 in the sand. Men drop out, and die horribly, 
 writhing as in the throes of cramp. If one falls 
 asleep in a long night march, his comrade lets him 
 lie, for each man thinks only of himself ; and when 
 at last water is found, the pool is quickly fouled 
 
 1 Cf. Arrian (vi. 23 ff.) with Strabo (p. 722). Neither author 
 is given to rhetoric. 
 
 2 Arr. vi. 24. 
 
 8 Strabo reports that as much as seventy-five miles had to be 
 covered on one occasion between water and water ! 
 
AKRIVAL IN CARMANIA 253 
 
 with swollen corpses. 1 Alexander seems to have 
 done all in human power to lighten the awful trial, 
 himself scouting for water and riding farthest and 
 longest, or leading the march on foot ; and if the 
 famous story that he rejected a draught, brought to 
 him in a helmet, be true (and if indeed it happened 
 here, and not in the pursuit of Darius), it shows that 
 there was not only heroism in the captain, but courage 
 still in the men. On the sixtieth day after leaving 
 his latest colony 2 Alexander dragged a sorry remnant 
 into the land of the living, two-thirds, it is said, of 
 his original force being left behind in the hell into 
 which he had led them ; and the final halt was called 
 late in December of 325, at a pleasant spot inland 
 some five days' journey from the mouth of the Shur 
 River. 
 
 Ill news met the Emperor. Craterus arrived 
 indeed in safety with the main army, having marched 
 by the Bolan road to the Helmund Valley, and 
 come thence across the plains of Kirman, and great 
 was the joy of reunion ; but with him came also 
 evidence of much rottenness in the central provinces 
 of the empire. Several governors had made uneasy 
 haste to meet Alexander; and not only they, but 
 a crowd of suppliants, anxious to report deeds of 
 viceroys and generals done in the years of his 
 
 1 To this march must be referred the story in Polyaerms (iv. 3. 
 28), that Alexander once prevented his army breaking its ranks 
 by declaring a river to be poisonous. 
 
 3 Mr. Curzon says (Persia, ii. p. 234) that from Alexander in 
 325 B.C. to the year 1809 a.d., no European is recorded to have 
 penetrated into the interior of the Mekran. 
 
254 ALEXANDER 
 
 absence. The chief crimes alleged seem to have had 
 a political and religious colour, namely, violation and 
 robbery of temples and tombs, especially in the holy 
 places of Persis. 1 We are told no more than that in 
 many cases Alexander held guilt to be proved, and 
 had governors degraded or executed ; which severity 
 pleased mightily the Persians, and instilled a whole- 
 some terror into those in authority throughout the 
 empire. We could wish, however, to have had more 
 information as to the motives and nature of the 
 proved acts ; for that this sacrilegious form of 
 robbery should have prevailed exclusively, where so 
 many other forms were possible, and mainly in 
 Persis and Media, is strongly suggestive of an 
 organized policy on the part of the Macedonians 
 left in those provinces, to counteract by insult and 
 spoliation Alexander's favour to Persians at the front. 
 It is said that successive rumours of the Emperor's 
 death in India and in Gedrosia had reached the 
 central provinces ; and these may have unchained 
 there those national hatreds which Alexander had 
 almost effaced from the Grand Army. 
 
 Grave as were these troubles, they seem to have 
 weighed on Alexander less heavily than the absence 
 of news from Nearchus ; and no messenger ever 
 brought him tidings more welcome than a local 
 official from the Gulf, who appeared in the camp one 
 
 1 The violation of the Tomb of Cyrus is the capital instance, 
 and Strabo's emphatic statement about it (p. 730) really goes 
 farther to confirm than to refute the accusation against the 
 satrap ; it certainly supports the theory that the crime was 
 political. 
 
NEARCHUS ARRIVES 255 
 
 day, saying he had seen the fleet. In hot haste 
 messengers posted along various roads to summon 
 Nearchus inland ; but when clays passed and no 
 confirmation of the news came in, despair took pos- 
 session of Alexander. The first messenger, however, 
 had spoken truly enough, and, as Arrian pictures it, 
 giving momentary play to the Greek in himself, a 
 few mariners, weather-beaten out of all recognition, 
 the sea-salt stiff in their hair, and their faces bleached 
 by long sea vigils, were brought at last to the camp, 
 where none knew them at first sight, and so into 
 Alexander's presence. The Emperor came forward to 
 meet them, and, falling on the neck of the admiral, 
 fell a-weeping for the crews of which he supposed 
 them to survive alone. Whereupon Nearchus made 
 haste to announce that all his ships were safe and 
 sound in port, and Alexander wept the more for joy, 
 and swore a great oath that he would rather hear 
 that news than be hailed conqueror of Asia from sea 
 to sea ! 
 
 The story that Nearchus had to tell must have 
 fallen upon Alexander's curious ear like the tales 
 brought back by seamen of Magellan. And even as 
 we hear it now, shorn of almost every grace, and 
 become hardly more than a catalogue of the daily 
 runs, even so, in the meagre narration of a Roman 
 officer, it retains a certain odour of salt and mystery 
 of the unknown sea. We are shown the nervous 
 crews, hardly reassured by the thought that their 
 Emperor, having put in command one of his dearest 
 friends, cannot expect them indeed to perish, creeping 
 
256 ALEXANDER 
 
 out of the Indus estuary and beating up the coast 
 to north-west, having made an inauspicious start 
 before their time for fear of the Indians, who had 
 become insolent and aggressive since the departure of 
 the Army. 1 Then for four and twenty days they are 
 forced to await the lulling of a head monsoon, but at 
 last they can beat out again and hug noon by noon 
 along the shore, pushing timidly between islands and 
 the coast for fear of the swell of open ocean. They 
 seem to have been equipped with little or no appliance 
 for storing water, and, like the land army, to have 
 been expected to live entirely on what they could 
 find on their way. Once they shipped as much as 
 ten days' provision, but soon fell into dearth and 
 distress again, having aboard no standby, it seems, of 
 dried flesh, or biscuit, or grain. Therefore they had 
 to land continually, and indeed they suffered sorely 
 if the sea was kept for long together, for the boats 
 were cranky, needing frequently to be oA^erhauled, 
 and most of the sailors no better than sheer lands- 
 men, worn out as much by the swell of the great 
 deep as by their ceaseless fears. Arrian interrupts 
 his catalogue at rare intervals to give a picture of 
 some shore adventure. At one point half-naked 
 savages rushed to the water's edge brandishing heavy 
 lances with fire-hardened points, and the ships, like 
 the typical pirate schooner with its brass guns, threw 
 bolts and stones from engines on their decks, and 
 under such cover the lighter armed and more active 
 swam to the shallows, and there forming, charged 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 721. 
 
INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE 257 
 
 up the beach. But at other points the natives bring 
 down kindly enough their poor gifts of fish and 
 meats and fruits of the earth, only to be tricked on 
 one occasion by Nearchus with such sorry perfidy as 
 our navigators used often enough in the South Seas. 
 For, gaining entrance in all amity to a stockade, the 
 admiral shut the gates and held the fence till search 
 had been made from house to house for grain. Very 
 little was found after all, for the wretched Ichthyo- 
 phagi used powdered flesh of fish for their flour, and 
 even the sheep ate sea things, and tasted like sea-bird 
 meat ; and we may hope that Nearchus and his 
 buccaneers went back a little shamefaced to their 
 ships. A comic scene of panic is caused b} 7 a school 
 of blowing whales ; but Nearchus, taking heart and 
 ordering his men to shout the war-cry and his 
 trumpets to sound, puts his own ship at a spouting 
 monster, who astonished — and no wonder ! — dives 
 incontinent and, coming up again astern, spouts 
 as before ; and all the sailors breathe again and 
 hail Nearchus as their only saviour. Thus in much 
 distress for grain and all kinds of food, the fleet 
 reached at last the mouth of the Persian Gulf, and 
 came near making across, on the advice of Onesicritus, 
 to lias Mussendom, which loomed high on their left 
 hand. In which event they would have wandered 
 down the coasts of Oman and Muscat, and probably 
 have perished miserably without seeing the Army 
 again. But fortunately Nearchus insisted that the 
 letter of his commission enjoined him to exploi'e alt 
 the coast-line, gulf and bay alike, and so they kept 
 
 17 
 
258 ALEXANDER 
 
 on, hugging the right-hand shore, and about the 
 eightieth day since first loosing from the Indus bank 
 brought up in a harbour hard by Bunder Abbas. 
 There they went ashore to build a stockade and to 
 recruit, and certain of them, all unsuspecting, lighted 
 on a man dressed as a Greek and speaking the Greek 
 tongue ; and they fell on his neck, and asked how 
 he came into that strange land. But behold, he 
 was one of the Army, and the Emperor himself 
 was distant but five days' journey in the upper 
 country. Whereupon Nearchus and Archias took a 
 few followers and made inland for the camp, as 
 already has been narrated. 
 
 This voyage, thought so marvelloxis a feat, is no 
 more than the short steam run from Karachi to 
 Bunder Abbas ; 1 and, in fact, it added little enough 
 to the knowledge which the Army itself had bought 
 so dearly by the land march. But as Columbus for 
 the Spanish and Portuguese navigators, so Nearchus 
 for the Greek, swept away by this venture a barrier 
 of superstitious imaginings more awful than all the 
 storms of the deep. Like that mysterious island 
 at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, on which no 
 man could land and live, till Nearchus showed it 
 to be not different from any other land, so the 
 Ocean had been proved at last to be essentially a 
 sea like any other familiar sea, vexed, indeed, with 
 greater heavings, running with a mightier surf on 
 its coasts, and subject to wider change of tide, but 
 
 1 The eastern portion of it is treated with special local knowl- 
 edge by Gen. Haig. (pp. cit., pp. 10 ff. and App. R). 
 
BREAKING THE EGG 259 
 
 devoid as the waters of Greece of demoniac whirlpools 
 and magnetic rocks and man-eating sirens and worse 
 terrors without name passing the wit of man to avoid. 
 To Alexander in particular the voyage seemed to 
 make certain much that had been most doubtful 
 before. The problem how he should conquer the 
 other half of the earth now appeared shorn of half its 
 difficulty. For surely he might sail on westwards 
 where Nearchus had shown the way. Henceforth 
 there need be but few of those heartbreaking marches 
 of the earlier conquest, which year by year led farther 
 from the base and ended in despair and mutiny; for 
 the sea would afford a main road, always open. 1 
 Accordingly Alexander's last months were all devoted 
 to preparing for a great expedition by way of Ocean. 
 Ships were to be brought in sections from the 
 Phoenician ports to the Euphrates, put together on 
 the river, and navigated down to Babylon. Scout- 
 ing vessels were sent out to determine the projection 
 of Arabia; and the waterways from the Gulf to the 
 huge dock projected at the capital, were explored 
 and rendered navigable. 
 
 It has been a commonplace of historians to depict 
 Alexander as emerging a madman from Gedrosia; 
 
 1 He had not emancipated himself, however, from the necessity 
 of having an accompanying land force (cf. Ait. vii. 25). But 
 the ships were evidently to be the main vehicle of the advance, 
 and would be invaluable for the transport of a proper siege train, 
 the conveyance of which by land had been all along one of 
 Alexander's most insuperable difficulties. Cf. Diod. xvii. 22, for 
 the retention of a few ships in 334, probably to serve a like 
 purpose. 
 
260 ALEXANDER 
 
 and, indeed, lie might well have been no less, seeing 
 that the horrors of that march, in which he had 
 spared himself no more than of old, followed within a 
 few months on the terrible wound at Mooltan ; seeing, 
 further, that that hurt was preceded by three others 
 in the Afghan hills ; that in Turkestan the fibula of 
 his leg had been broken, and he had all but died of 
 dysentery ; while all these strains have to be added 
 to a list already long enough when the advance to 
 the Far East was begun ! 1 
 
 None the less, if he is to be judged by his acts, 
 Alexander was never in fuller possession of bodily 
 and mental vigour than in his last two years. He 
 displayed, indeed, exuberances and passions exag- 
 gerated to the point of disease, but never was more 
 clear and tenacious of purpose, or more astute and 
 bold in adopting and adapting means. The half 
 world he had won already had to be ordered and 
 made secure, and, that done, in pursuance of a scheme 
 long formed he meant to march to win the other half. 
 But bitter experience had shown, that a second time 
 neither might he leave national divisions unreconciled 
 behind him, nor could he dare to start with a simple 
 national army. The task, therefore, to which he set 
 himself, in the years 324 and 323, was the fusion of 
 nationalities alike in the official and military classes. 
 He found it necessary both to destroy and construct. 
 First he must purge the officials of their stiff-necked 
 nationalists — that he effected by judicial process in 
 Carmania and Persis ; and he must clear the army of 
 1 Supra, p. 222. 
 
THE OECUMENIC SCHEME 261 
 
 the stiff-necked veterans — this he did at Opis. Second, 
 it behoved to import into both services, as far as 
 possible, an element ready fused. This object was 
 attained, for better or for worse, by the Susian orgy 
 of intermarriage, and by drafting Orientals into all 
 ranks of the army. Incidentally to the main issue 
 Alexander contrived to remodel his own court, to 
 reform the tactical structure of his army, to dis- 
 tribute his offensive strength between land and sea, 
 to institute relations with western courts, and to 
 neutralize the ever-pressing danger of Greek jealousy. 
 A full two-years' record, it must be allowed, even 
 for a sane man ! 
 
 It will be objected, however, that neither tenacity 
 in the pursuit of an aim, nor extreme astuteness in 
 the choice of means, are inconsistent with mania. 
 The true test is the nature of the aim. "Waiving 
 the tenable position that the scale of Alexander's 
 provision and preparation is too vast to be consistent 
 with anything like madness as usually understood, 
 let us be content to consider simply this final aim, 
 which has been called mad, the aim, in short, of 
 world-empire. Must we deem it mad, because no sane 
 person at the time could have conceived its accom- 
 plishment ? As the map of the world was pictured 
 in the fourth century before our era, Alexander would 
 imagine that he had not more left to win than already 
 was his. Both on the Sir Daria and the Sutlej he 
 saw reason to believe that the limit of earth was so 
 near as, in the one case, to render further advance 
 unnecessary, in the other, to necessitate perhaps a 
 
262 ALEXANDER 
 
 single additional campaign. Recall that he was now 
 not much more than thirty-one years of age ; that 
 with the exception of a few outlying provinces, his 
 conquests had not proved difficult to hold together, 
 while he believed himself to have established a new 
 and quicker route for his main advance, and an ever- 
 open road of communication. As the scheme of the 
 second conquest would have been projected on such 
 a chart as could have been set out at Babylon in 323, 
 how would it have appeared manifestly impossible ? 
 Others beside Alexander, and later than he, saw no 
 impossibility in the accomplishment of his last pro- 
 gramme, or Livy would not have had to maintain 
 that Rome could have held her own against even 
 the Macedonian. 1 
 
 But if the sane contemporary would have believed 
 the scheme not impossible, could he sanely have 
 held its accomplishment justified by the laws of 
 God or man ? Here we enter on the question of 
 historical right and wrong, a slippery matter, wherein 
 the ethics of a later age are most apt to be sub- 
 stituted for the ethics of contemporaries. The right 
 of the stronger to take and hold was as much 
 morality as a Macedonian king could be expected 
 to practise ; and for the very highest international 
 ethics of the time we need look no further than that 
 famous statement made by Alexander's own tutor 
 concerning Hellenes and barbarians in the opening 
 of his treatise on Politic. Aristotle at least, who 
 there laid it down that the higher civilization has 
 
 1 ix. 17. 
 
MORALITY OF THE SCHEME 263 
 
 right absolute to enslave the lower, would not have 
 condemned on moral grounds Alexander's scheme. 
 
 On the ground, however, that that scheme was not 
 conceived in the interests of Hellenism unalloyed, the 
 great thinker might have condemned it, probably as 
 he did condemn much that Alexander had done. But 
 to such a judgment posterity must make reply that, 
 in the expansion of Hellas, contaminated Hellenism 
 was soon proved to go farther and effect more than 
 Hellenism pure. Aristotle, living in an epoch of 
 transition a life secluded from affairs, was more prone 
 to look back and less able to see forward in such 
 an inquiry, than those who had been engaged, with 
 however little understanding, in planting the Hellene 
 in new soils. And, indeed, if Alexander were con- 
 scious that a question of morality was involved in 
 conquest at all, he might well have held all the 
 right to be on his own side, and yet, as the ethics 
 of his age stood, and as have stood the ethics of 
 many ages subsequent to his, have been absolutely 
 sane. 
 
 If we look to the means which Alexander adopted 
 in his last months to advance his great aim, we 
 perceive that in conception he anticipated the cardinal 
 cause of the provincial success of the Roman Empire. 
 For he saw that universal conquests could not be 
 accomplished, still less retained, with the strength 
 of a single mother-people, but that the one half 
 the world must be enlisted to conquer and hold the 
 other half. Had he lived to subdue North Africa, 
 we may be sure that Moors and Numidians would 
 
264 ALEXANDER 
 
 have been found fighting under his banners in Spain 
 and Gaul, and Spaniards and Gauls in Italy. His 
 mixed army of Europeans and Asiatics, organized in 
 Babylon in the spring of 323, was no more than the 
 predecessor of those Gaulish and German legions 
 which brought Emperors to Rome. 
 
 When the historian finds Alexander punishing with 
 drastic severity Viceroys of his own race whom he 
 believed, wrongly or rightly, to have outraged alien 
 faiths and extorted provincial money, his thought will 
 pass on to Tiberius and the quinquennium Neronis. 
 When he sees Persians and Bactrians set high in a 
 Macedonian empire, he thinks of Trajan the Spaniard, 
 Elagabalus the Syrian, Maximin the Goth, and Philip 
 the Arabian. The so-called Epigoni — those Oriental 
 youths trained in the Macedonian manner, who were 
 brought to Susa to be enrolled — recall the heirs of 
 client kings, educated perforce in the Eternal City, 
 and those children of the camps, who were the back- 
 bone of the legionary system. Only when we come 
 to assist at the famous marriage festival whereat 
 Alexander and all his captains formally took to them- 
 selves wives of the Orientals, and prizes and remission 
 of debts were promised to such of the rank and file 
 as would follow that example and beget citizens of 
 the united empire, do we lose sight of Rome. Nothing 
 so artificial ever entered into the policy of the most 
 cosmopolitan of the Italian emperors. 1 
 
 1 Alexander's project of forcing races to exchange habitats 
 (mentioned already in note to p. 209) should be recalled here, 
 although it was never carried out. Grote regards it as a new and 
 
ALEXANDER AND ROME 265 
 
 The Roman universal empire, however, was a 
 system independent of the life of an individual ; the 
 Macedonian empire, as yet, but an expression of the 
 genius of one man. The distinction is too obvious 
 to need precision. What the cosmopolitan emperors 
 of Rome inherited crystallized through unconscious 
 centuries, Alexander had received fluid from his 
 father. Did we know more details of the forty 
 years of Augustus, we might find actions not less 
 artificial than the Susian nuptials, although whereas 
 the first Roman Emperor had ready to his hand the 
 work of the last Dictator and all two centuries 
 of senatorial system, the Macedonian had to start, 
 like a Scipio, with just a military system and a 
 hardly welded nation. Alexander, it may be, showed 
 himself in this matter the young man in a hurry. 
 But, be it not forgotten, he had to conquer young or 
 conquer not at all, for only in full physical vigour 
 could he hope to endure such labours as he was 
 projecting for himself ; and further, that haste largely 
 spells success in the subduing of low civilizations. 
 Rapid action is apt to be dubbed hurry or decision, 
 as it fails or succeeds. Alexander had not the de- 
 liberate Western to deal with, but quick, adaptable 
 Hellenes, who, as all know who are familiar with 
 them now in Asia and Africa, rapidly form with 
 Oriental civilizations an amalgam marvellously last- 
 monstrous conception, abhorrent to the humane world. But surely- 
 such tribe-transportation had long been a Persian usage ? Philip 
 himself had practised it in Paeonia (Justin, viii. 5 ; see Philip, 
 p. 103), and it is part of our own habitual policy on the north- 
 west frontier of our Indian Empire. 
 
266 ALEXANDER 
 
 ing. We are considering for the moment, not the 
 advantage of this amalgam, but the mode of its 
 formation and its chances of permanence ; and in 
 this connection it is enough to remind critics that a 
 "mixed" empire, with an Asiatic centre, successively 
 Seleucid, Parthian, and Persian, survived Alexander's 
 death by fully a thousand years. 
 
 The mutiny of the Army, which the concentration 
 of so much artificial action into a few months induced 
 presently at Opis, can make no difference to a judg- 
 ment of Alexander's policy by results, for, so far as 
 we can see, that mutiny left no mark. The Emperor 
 deviated not one whit from his purpose ; the Army 
 continued loyal as before. The time-expired men 
 went home ; those designated for further service re- 
 mained with the colours, and a year later displayed 
 more conspicuous devotion than ever to their dying 
 Captain. The ebullition had but left the Empire 
 stronger, as the casting out of humours by an un- 
 sightly eruption leaves the body. 
 
 Late in 324 Alexander passed from the southern 
 Residences to his northern capital, making, in a sort, 
 an imperial progress through the heart of the Empire, 
 to appease recent griefs and promote future unity ; 
 and at Ecbatana there fell upon him, as a stunning 
 blow, the loss of Hephaestion. It followed close on 
 the second treason and final flight of another of the 
 few intimates of his boyhood, Harpalus, whilom 
 Treasurer of the Empire, who, conscious of vast 
 peculations and most unbridled life, vanished from 
 
DEATH OF HEPHAESTION 267 
 
 Babylon as his master approached from the East, and 
 fled to make a chapter of history in the last days 
 of free Athens. And now Hephaestion, too, was gone, 
 the congenial enthusiastic nature which had been so 
 much more to Alexander than Ptolemy's sagacity or 
 Nearchus' careful courage, the friend, more than a 
 friend, and closer than a brother, who alone awoke 
 a gentler emotion in the breast of the lonely Con- 
 queror. For there come, alike in discouragement and 
 exaltation, to all men, however strong of body or 
 brain, moments of craving, in which the soul gropes 
 blindly for another soul ; and the most strong, if he 
 owns this need most rarely, feels it most imperious. 
 The blood of Olympias ran hotly in the veins of her 
 son beneath that crust with which ambition and its 
 fulfilment had overlaid him. In all things passionate, 
 he passionately craved sympathy, and all the master- 
 ful yearnings of his soul had been satisfied first and 
 only by Hephaestion. The rest of the world had 
 dwindled beneath his feet ; and lo ! now in a 
 moment he was left in such a solitude as has 
 seldom been the doom even of kings. All the 
 savage in Alexander was unchained : he passed 
 from paroxysm to paroxysm of emotion, at one 
 moment abased in utter despair, at another seeking 
 to fulfil his soul in strenuous cruelty. The last 
 resources of extravagance were exhausted in sending 
 the dear ghost worthily to the world below, and such 
 a monument arose as only kings can raise to the 
 one human being with whom they have been able 
 to lay aside the king. 
 
268 ALEXANDER 
 
 Little by little time assuaged the pain, and his 
 great scheme of coming conquest resumed its mastery 
 over Alexander's mind. He set out for Babylon 
 very early in the new year, and not inopportunely 
 encountered on his road a group of envoys, des- 
 patched by many peoples of Africa and Europe who 
 had caught the fast-spread news that the Conqueror 
 of the East was coming to the West. The Ethiopian 
 kingdom of Meroe, the great Republic of Carthage, 
 many races of Spain and southern Gaul, and certain 
 peoples of central and southern Italy, sent to spy 
 the way of the wind. Envoys from the rising 
 Eepublic of Rome, however, did not accompany the 
 other Italians ; 1 and this fact suggests that among 
 the objects of the latter was the securing, if possible, 
 a future friend against the menacing growth of the 
 former. 
 
 The sight of the men of the West would seem to 
 have revived all Alexander's interest in his oecumenic 
 dream ; for we hear that he sent an officer back to 
 explore the Caspian, and find its opening into the 
 girdle Stream. 2 And his spirit so far recovered that 
 
 1 Can any one maintain the contrary now, in face of the express 
 statement of so well read a Greek as Arrian, a Roman official 
 of Hadrian's time, that all the Latin and all the decent Greek 
 authorities omitted mention of any Rom^n embassy (see Arr. 
 vii. 15) ? The earlier letter of Alexander to the Romans in re the 
 Illyrian pirates (Strabo, p. 232), has also been often called in 
 question, e. g. by Grote, Westermann, etc. ; but Thirlwall, Niebuhr, 
 and Schafer accepted it. 
 
 2 According to Strabo's authorities (p. 509), Alexander seems 
 to have supposed the Caspian to communicate with the Sea of 
 Azov, and both with the Ocean. 
 
ARRIVAL AT BABYLON 269 
 
 he made sport of certain solemn words of the priests 
 of Bel who came out to deter him from entering 
 their city of Babylon " There are prophets good 
 and prophets bad," laughed the Emperor, quoting 
 Euripides ; " the best guesser is the best seer." For 
 he knew that these priests had peculiar reasons for not 
 desiring his presence in Babylon, where he might be 
 expected to make inquiry into certain trust-funds of 
 the god. Nevertheless, he was rendered somewhat 
 uneasy by the persistence of the prophets of evil, 
 and would have gladly given way to their super- 
 stitions so far as to enter his capital with face to 
 the rising, not the setting sun ; but finding that 
 he could not take an army through the western 
 marshes, in the end he came in by the east. 
 
 Alexander's intention was to start for Arabia late 
 in the coming summer, and Babylon was already a 
 scene of tense activity. Embassies from the leading 
 states of Greece were waiting to assure their over-lord 
 that the civic governments had accepted his imperial 
 decree, 1 promulgated at the late Olympic festival, that 
 they should amnesty and receive back their several 
 political exiles, and thus divide their houses against 
 themselves. The ships, ordered in sections from 
 Phoenicia, had arrived ; along the quays of Euphrates 
 others were in building, while a myriad crew had 
 begun to excavate a basin to hold a thousand hulls. 
 
 o 
 
 1 Their compliance, as a matter of fact, left a good deal to be 
 desired. Cf. Diod. xviii. 8, and inscriptions and authorities 
 quoted in Droysen. 
 
270 ALEXANDER 
 
 Cruisers sailed out at once to explore the Persian 
 Gulf and bring back word of Arabia. But in the 
 event they could only report that the peninsula 
 would take more time to circumnavigate than Alex- 
 ander had imagined ; for the boldest skipper had 
 gone no farther than the coast of Oman. Mean- 
 while the Emperor was waiting for his lieutenants 
 to bring down from Persis the picked Asiatics 
 whom he proposed to draft into his Army of the 
 West, and he took occasion of tbe delay to explore 
 the waterways on the west of the main stream 
 of Euphrates, which creep through a wild tract of 
 reedy marsh, full of ruinous tombs of long-for- 
 gotten kings. Especially be proposed to see the 
 so-called Pallacopas, a canal which acted as a huge 
 culvert to draw off the spring inundations into 
 the marshes. The cutting and closing of its slimy 
 embankments had given annual trouble in default 
 of proper sluices, and Alexander now selected a 
 spot for a main water-gate, and left instructions to 
 his engineers to execute a great work for the better 
 regulation of the outflow in the coming summer. 
 
 He returned to Babylon with the spring, to find 
 twenty thousand picked Asiatics arrived, and he 
 set himself to draft them into the ranks of the 
 Grand Army on a new system, probably thought out 
 long before. His primary object being half-political, 
 he required that tbe Asiatic element should be 
 fused entirely with his Macedonians and Greeks. 
 This could not be effected to any real purpose by 
 simply arming and drilling the new recruits like the 
 
KECONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY 271 
 
 rest, and letting them rank in distinct brigades. 
 Rather it was necessary to incorporate them in the 
 Macedonian regiments themselves. This policy, how- 
 ever, entailed a further military change of the most 
 signal sort. The Oriental recruits were not adapted 
 for ordinary phalanx fighting ; to make them adopt 
 inordinately long pikes, heavy body-armour and close 
 order, was to make inferior heavy files of men who 
 had superior capacity for light warfare. Alexander 
 was probably not averse on any grounds to a radical 
 modification of the old phalanx formation, which 
 even his father had never valued very highly. The 
 son, so far as we can follow in singularly deficient 
 authorities his successive efforts at reorganization, had 
 been inspired in every military change by a desire to 
 promote greater capacity for division and, by conse- 
 quence, greater ease of movement. For some years 
 he had been using but seldom the old close formation 
 — even in pitched battle at the Hydaspes his pikemen 
 seem to have attacked in open order 1 — and now that 
 he had a steadfast nucleus of veterans, he proposed to 
 throw the compact phalanx overboard. The basis of 
 the new disposition was to be the file of sixteen. In 
 this only the three leaders and the rear-rank man were 
 to be Macedonian pikemen ; the core, ranged twelve 
 deep in open order, was, throughout the fighting line, 
 to be composed of Asiatic archers and throwers of 
 missiles. We are told no further details, but we 
 
 1 Cf. a statement of Frontinns (i. 3. 1), that Alexander always 
 fought in line (i. e. not in the regular column formation of the 
 phalanx), if his army appeared eager for the fray. 
 
272 ALEXANDER 
 
 may be sure that the general idea implied that the 
 light files should sally forth to attack, and retire, 
 when charged, behind the triple wall of pike-heads. 
 Fate ordained that the new organization should never 
 be used in the field by its inventor ; but it is obvious 
 that, had he himself survived to discipline and direct 
 it, a new infantry array would have come into being 
 as much superior in mobility to the old Macedonian 
 and Theban formations as the latter in their day 
 had been to the Spartan. For, if for no other reason, 
 when three-fourths of each file, which formerly could 
 only back up the front ranks by its weight or fill the 
 places of the slain, was employed in active operations 
 of offence and defence, the whole force was become 
 vastly more effective. 
 
 We have said that its inventor never used this 
 new disposition ; and there is no evidence that any 
 one else adopted it. Certainly in European Mace- 
 donia the older formation held the day until its 
 glaring defects were found out by the Roman 
 legionaries. The reason is no doubt that no one 
 in that age could have fought with Alexander's new 
 phalanx except Alexander. He had left it untried, 
 and probably largely untrained ; and since it is a 
 commonplace of strategy that a mobile force ma- 
 noeuvring in many units, while vastly more effective, 
 if well handled, than a compact force of few units, 
 is fraught with the greater danger if disordered, this 
 new mixed phalanx demanded, after its inventor's 
 death, first a further organizer, and second a great 
 leader. Alexander left behind him many capable 
 
THE EXPEDITION READY 273 
 
 marshals, but certainly not one heaven-born genius 
 in war. 
 
 The drafting seems to have been superintended by 
 Alexander in person, for a story, told by a good 
 authority, has survived, concerning an omen that 
 occurred when tbe king had been sitting through a 
 long day, seeing to the incorporation of the Asiatics. 
 Feeling athirst, he rose, and left his throne empty for 
 a few moments, during which some crazy creature, 
 such as begs in Eastern streets, wandered, no one 
 observing, towards the royal chair, and sat himself 
 down. The eunuchs, moved by some occult supersti- 
 tion, dared not drag him away, but beat their breasts 
 for a calamity to come ; and although Alexander had 
 the man seized and examined under torture, yet he 
 said nothing more than that he had done this thing 
 he knew not why, the spirit moving him. 
 
 It was already summer. The Army of the West was 
 organized, dock and ships were ready, and captains 
 and full crews had been allotted to each vessel. The 
 Emperor had fixed the 19th of the current month for 
 the start of the division, which was to follow the fleet 
 along the coast, and the 20th for his own departure 
 for the Gulf. It was now the 14th, and nothing 
 remained except the final sacrificial ceremonies and 
 festivals of adieu. Huge Babylon thronged in that 
 brilliant May with the officers and men of the great 
 Expedition, and with embassies and countless officials, 
 sent up even from Antipater's vice-royalty of Europe 
 to wish the Emperor good speed. 
 
 18 
 
274 ALEXANDER 
 
 From this point the Court Diary narrates the 
 catastrophe, and a historian had best imitate the 
 admirable simplicity with which its entries have been 
 reproduced by both Arrian and Plutarch, the latter 
 expressing a noble sense that no rhetoric or dramatic 
 setting can enhance the pathos of the story. On 
 the 15th a great feast was given to the Grand Army, 1 
 at the expense of the Emperor, who presided in person. 
 He would have retired thence to bed, but a Thessa- 
 lian officer, one Medius, who seems to have succeeded 
 in some way to the privileges of Hephaestion, prayed 
 him to honour a parting revel. Alexander consented, 
 and stayed through the night. The next evening he 
 honoured Medius again, and once more sat long over 
 the wine. Towards dawn he rose from table, bathed, 
 and breakfasted, but feeling somewhat feverish, ate 
 but little before lying down to sleep. He woke after 
 a few hours in a high fever, but insisted none the less 
 on offering the daily sacrifice, and talking with the 
 generals over details of the Expedition, decreed to 
 start in three days' time. Thereafter he had himself 
 carried to a cool garden-house beyond the river ; 
 but the fever did not abate for the change, and 
 he had to put off the setting-forth of the Expedi- 
 tion first by one day, and then definitely to the 
 23rd. On the 21st and 22nd he convened the 
 generals again, to remind them that all must be 
 ready ; but he was now very ill, and, needless to say, 
 on the 23rd no corps moved from Babylon. The 
 Emperor, none the less, talked still in half-delirium 
 1 Or to the crews of the fleet only? (Plut. Alex. 75). 
 
THE END 275 
 
 of the start, and on the morrow, taking a fancy 
 that the commanders must stay nearer to him, had 
 himself carried back to the great Palace in the 
 city, where they could wait in the ante-chambers ; 
 but when they came into his presence he could not 
 utter a word. For two days and nights the fever 
 raged still more fiercely, and on the 27th 1 a clamour 
 rose in the ranks of the Grand Army that the 
 Emperor was already dead, and the generals were 
 hiding the fact. Veterans gathered thick about the 
 palace gates, demanding admission to the death- 
 chamber, until, for fear of mutiny, the chamberlains 
 were forced to admit them in Indian file : and so the 
 old spearmen of the Asian Conquest passed in a last 
 review before their Captain, but he " could not speak, 
 and only touched the right hand of each, and raised 
 his head a little, and signed with his eyes." That 
 night certain of the marshals kept vigil in the fane 
 of Serapis, seeking a sign that they should convey 
 the Emperor, as a last hope, to the presence of the 
 god. But a voice from the night bade them let him 
 be, and towards sundown of the 28th Alexander died. 2 
 We are told that deep silence fell upon the great city 
 and camp of Babylon for four days and four nights, 
 each man looking helplessly to his helpless neighbour ; 
 
 1 Plutarch, using also the royal journal, puts this event a day 
 earlier, and leaves about thirty-six hours between the vigil of the 
 marshals in the temple and the end. 
 
 2 The symptoms and cause of this malady have been treated, 
 though somewhat cursorily, by E. Littre (Sur la maladie d'A. 
 le G. Paris, 1842) : the doctor decides positively against poison. 
 Without this expert opinion, the question would be even less easy to 
 
276 ALEXANDER 
 
 and thereafter, the embalmed body lay other thirty 
 days while there was being decided the first tussle 
 of that funeral contest, which, grimly foretold by 
 the dying Emperor, would shake his empire from 
 sea to sea. The great Expedition of conquest never 
 started ; the Grand Army never fought again under 
 one leader ; the Empire never owned a second single 
 
 decide than that other, which arises from Alexander's death — Did 
 he leave any will, or depute any successor to his empire? A 
 death-bed partition of the world by him was a favourite fancy 
 of romanticists and rhetoricians ; we find it as early as the First 
 Book of Maccabees (i. 6) — " He parted his kingdom among them, 
 while he was yet alive;" — and it reappears in all versions and 
 derivatives of the Romance cycle. But against it we have the 
 weighty negative evidence of the better historians, who repeat 
 nothing but his whisper, "™ icpa-ncr™," — "to the best man." 
 In fact, by the time Alexander could realize that he was in danger 
 he had become almost incapable of speech and half-delirious; and 
 it should be noted that the Army acted after his death as if 
 entirely unguided by any word of their dead Captain. His last 
 despatches, opened by Craterus in Cilicia, seem to have been 
 in no sense testamentaiy. 
 
 As to the poison question, circumstantial evidence would leave 
 the decision very doubtful. On the one hand, we have Plutarch's 
 statement that no hint of it was heard for six years, until Olympias 
 found she could use it as a charge against Cassander ; and the further 
 fact that, whatever fears Antipater and Cassander might have 
 entertained, they were about to be left in peace for many years 
 while the Emperor was conquering the West. On the other hand, 
 it must be said that suspicion of poison attaches so inevitably to a 
 royal death-bed in the East, that it is almost incredible that nothing 
 should have been said in this case for six years, unless it was the 
 interest of some one in power to suppress what was a well-known 
 fact. Alexander's recent developments of imperial impartiality 
 supplied motive enough to unmitigated Macedonians like Antipater 
 and his son ; and the accounts of the poisoning, though con- 
 flicting, are precise enough. On the whole, we may fall back with 
 thankfulness, though without entire conviction, on the expert 
 decision of the question. 
 
PERMANENCE OF ALEXANDER'S WORK 277 
 
 Emperor ; the destinies of the West were left to be 
 settled by Carthage and by Rome. But although 
 nothing that Alexander left unfinished at his death 
 was done by another as he himself would have done 
 it, very little that, indeed, he had done was ever 
 undone. No part of the vast area, that he had 
 traversed this side the Indus, was governed for 
 many centuries but by an administration western 
 in origin or in type. Greece never recovered an 
 independent voice to recall her sons from their 
 mission in the ends of the earth, and Hellenisticism 
 grew steadily out of Hellenism. Alexander's own 
 principle and model of colonization, the general 
 scheme of his provincial organization, the channels 
 into which half-unconsciously he had directed trade, 
 his types and standards of currency, and the military 
 system of his father and himself, held good until, and 
 even beyond, the coining of Rome. He did more 
 than any single man to break down that proud 
 division of the world into few Greeks and myriad 
 barbarians, which had stimulated the seed of civiliza- 
 tion, but was become a cramping and suffocating 
 influence on the grown plant. He did more than any 
 single man up to his day to make one part of the 
 world known to the other, and, unconsciously enough, 'W<~4 ■ 
 so to widen the application of his great tutor's principle **° ' '' ,,(> 
 of social organization, that little more than three cen- 
 turies later a Church became possible which contained 
 Jews, Greeks, and Latins, "Parthians, and Medes, V , 
 and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia." u \ 
 The personal figure of Alexander has never suffered 
 
278 ALEXANDER 
 
 eclipse. Because his empire in no part, but the 
 Indian, reverted to what it had been before him, he 
 himself put on instant immortality as the political 
 god of his legacy of kingdoms from the Oxus to 
 the Nile. For many generations idealized portraits 
 stamped on coins kept his individuality in mind over 
 well-nigh all the world. The Seleucid Empire, the 
 Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt, and the original realm 
 of Macedon maintained a worship of him as the 
 genius of Hellenistic rule. Groves and games, altars 
 and images : took his name, and he seems to have 
 been promoted definitely, even by the Senate of 
 Rome, to a thirteenth throne in the august circle 
 of Olympus. The organizer of that greater empire, 
 which absorbed nearly all that Alexander had won, 
 and under whose system in a sense we live still, set 
 him up as chief of his gods. Augustus . not only 
 paid to Alexander divine honours, and used his 
 effigy as the imperial signet, but imitated, we are 
 told, the knitting of the brows which was habitual to 
 the Macedonian, and that famous inclination of his 
 beautiful head towards the left shoulder, which the 
 Marshals and Successors had affected, and we hear 
 of as a fashion still in the time of Severus. 2 
 
 This cult of a Hellenistic Genius supplied a model 
 for the establishment of the universal worship of the 
 
 1 See, e.g. Strabo, p. 644 (Clazomenee) ; Amm. Marcell. 22. 8 
 (Borystkenes) ; Clem. Alex. Colt, ad Gent. p. 211. A. ed. Migne 
 (Alexandria) ; Chrvsost. vol. xi. p. 240 (Antioch). 
 
 2 See Clem. Alex. I.e. ; Cyril, c. Julian, vi. p. 205; Chrvsost. 
 In Ep. 2 ad Cor. Bom. 26, p. 580; Suet. Aug. 18, 50; AureL 
 Vict. Epit. xxi. 4, p. 211 ; Themist. Or at. 13, p. 175, B. 
 
ALEXANDER DEIFIED AS AMNION 
 Coins of Sysimachus— British Museum 
 
ALEXANDER IMMORTAL 279 
 
 Genius of Roman Empire. But, unlike Augustus, 
 Alexander the man was never lost in an impersonal 
 system. He had been so pre-eminent above his 
 followers in almost all his powers, he had done so 
 much of his work with his own hand, and exalted so 
 conspicuously his own personality always and every- 
 where, that in tradition and legend his individuality 
 could not die. Him the Parsees curse still as the 
 destroyer of their sacred books at Persepolis ; he, as 
 Iskender Dliulkamein, or el Junani, " the Ionian," is 
 reverenced still as mythic founder of nearly every 
 old city from the Euphrates to the frontier of China. 
 The making of his myth began early. At the very 
 first the mere possession of his body had been ac- 
 counted the best of all title-deeds in the scarcely 
 established order of things ; and the dispute for its 
 possession, the gorgeous funeral train which after 
 the lapse of a year set out with it for Damascus, the 
 beauty of the sarcophagus, in which it was. conveyed 
 to Memphis, and the splendour of its ultimate in- 
 stallation in Alexandria, were hardly less notorious 
 than the living man had been. And if Alexandria 
 ascribed the birth of its fame to Alexander, Alexander 
 in turn has owed much of his own undying memory 
 to Alexandria. For whereas the tombs of Roman 
 Emperors rose outside a capital which had seen 
 centuries of greatness before them, and rulers as 
 conspicuous since their day, Alexander lay in the 
 heart of a city he had himself created, and in 
 which he was the first and only Emperor. The two 
 main streets of the town met and crossed before 
 
280 ALEXANDER 
 
 his mausoleum. Round about it, in reverent sub- 
 ordination, were laid the generations of the royal 
 dead of Egypt. The facade of the Museum, focus 
 of Hellenic culture, and resort of the civilized world, 
 faced across to his sepulchre. No god displaced 
 Alexander there. Emperors of Rome, who came to 
 his city, Augustus and Severus, made pilgrimage 
 first to his tomb, and paid homage to his embalmed 
 corpse ; 1 and still at this day, after a dozen centuries 
 of decline, and three generations of rapid renewing, 
 the holiest place in Alexandria is believed to conceal 
 Alexander's grave. 
 
 Nor is this all. Long after Clement could point 
 in fervid exultation to the ruined tomb of the 
 city-god, whose mortality had been proved at 
 Babylon, even after Islam had swept over all his 
 empire, Alexander was still growing in name and 
 fame. The ubiquitous traditions of his actual words 
 and deeds, the local identifications of him with older 
 folk-heroes, which cropped up presently over all the 
 western East, and most in Hellenistic Egypt, were 
 collected from time to time, and made the basis 
 of popular tales ; and at last, probably about the 
 third century of our era, all were crystallized into 
 a single work of romance, which in a thousand years 
 passed into more men's ears, and became the spring 
 and basis of more literature, than any record of true 
 history. The Greek Romance, whose earliest form 
 has come down to us under a false name of the 
 historian Callisthenes, strings on a tangled thread of 
 
 1 Suet. Aug. 18; Dio. lxxv. 13. 
 
ALEXANDER DEIFIED AS HERCULES IN ROMAN TIMES 
 Tarsus Medallion — Cabinet de France 
 
ALEXANDER IN EOMANCE 281 
 
 Alexander's real words and acts a fascinating broidery 
 of those marvels and moralities which are the com- 
 mon heritage of half the world. From the Greek it 
 has passed to Latin, to Syriac, to Ethiopic, to Ara- 
 bic, to Hebrew, to Samaritan, to Armenian, to 
 Persian ; from the Latin to early English, to 
 French, to German, to Italian, even to Scandinavian. 
 Through this universal cycle Alexander took on new 
 immortality as the evidence of his actual works on 
 earth grew fainter. Islam itself adopted him among 
 her Prophets, and carried his forgotten fame back 
 into India. A world that he himself never saw, on 
 the Ganges 1 and the Blue Nile, in Britain and in 
 Provence, became familiar with his name ; until his 
 romance ended by ousting his history from Byzan- 
 tine chroniclers, and still, by a curious irony, en- 
 grosses most the attention of scholars. 2 
 
 Independently, however, of all myth or romance, 
 Alexander has been received into the small circle of 
 
 1 See especially Spiegel, Die Alexandersage bei den Orientalen, 
 and chap. 6 of the fifth book of the same author's monumental 
 Eranische A Iterlhumskunde. 
 
 2 Within a very few years, we have had elaborate works pro- 
 duced in England by Dr. Wallis Budge on the Syriac and Ethiopie 
 versions. The early French, the early English, and texts of the 
 Latin versions, have been published in a generation which has 
 seen no critical edition of Arrian or Plutarch. Articles and 
 inaugural dissertations on this subject sucpeed one another in 
 Germany, and recently Th. Reinach has published a fragment of 
 a new Greek version (Revue des Htudes Grecques, 1892, p. 306). 
 Indeed, to obtain the reward of public interest for a real addi- 
 tion to knowledge, a scholar could not do better now than 
 re-edit the original pseudo-Callisthenes, disentangling its skeins, 
 arriving through the versions at its earliest form, and showing 
 
282 ALEXANDER 
 
 the Great. The proud title is his not as conscious 
 apostle of light any more than as " gurges ille miseri- 
 aruin atque atrocissimus turbo totius Orientis," 1 but 
 because, having the greatest powers, he set up the 
 greatest aims consistent with his day, and pursued 
 them greatly. Philip lives hardly outside the world 
 of scholars. The son is still a master to all masters 
 in war, and his type has been chosen by Art for the 
 Hero. Judge how we may his intentions and his 
 acts, this at least cannot be doubted, that since so 
 much that he said and did, and so much that is 
 credited to him, has passed into the common thought 
 and speech of mankind, saint or sinner, devil or god, 
 Alexander is among the Immortals. 
 
 what amount of real tradition and genuine folk-lore it embodies : 
 and he will find considerable help in the recently published work 
 of E. Eaabe ('Io-ropia 'AA.e£ai>Spov. Leipz. 1896), who has rendered 
 the Mechitarist text of the very early Armenian version back into 
 Greek. 
 
 1 Orosius, Hist. iii. 7. 
 
ALEXANDER IMMORTAL 
 Tarsus Medallion — Cabinet cle France 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 On Questions of Chronology in Alexander's Eeign 
 
 Since the accepted schedule of Greek chronology was drawn 
 out, mainly by Ideler and Clinton, there have not been 
 wanting scholars to call the foundations of the whole system 
 in question ; and we may yet be asked to renounce even 
 those cardinal dates which, calculated on certain eclipses, 
 have served for starting and correcting points. Whenever 
 that revolution takes place the reigns of Philip and Alexander 
 no doubt will have to be moved back or forward en bloc. 
 But since those wholesale processes can hardly make any 
 difference to the actual consecution of events, and since, 
 relatively to one another, the items of the careers of both 
 kings will maintain their position, for the present we may 
 leave the larger question alone and make inquiry only into 
 the relative dating of certain events in the reign of Alexander, 
 which have been subject of controversy 1 or need to be dis- 
 cussed. These fall into two divisions : — 
 
 (A.) The cardinal dates of Alexander's Birth, Accession, 
 and Death. 
 
 1 The works to which I shall refer directly or indirectly most often are 
 Ideler, Ueber das Todesjahr A. des G. (Abhandl. d. Berlin. Akad., 1820), 
 and Handb. d. math, und teehn. Ghronologie; Droysen, ffellenismus, vol. 
 i., Fr. tr., app. vi.; Clinton, Fasti Helleniei, vol. ii. ; linger in L. v. Miiller's 
 Handb. der Mass. Altcrthums- Wissenschaft, pp. 773 ff. ; Schrader, De 
 Alexandri M. vitae tempore (Bonn, 1889) ; Kohn, Ephemerides rerum 
 ab Alexandra M. in partitas orientis gcstarum (Bonn, 1890) ; and the 
 histories of Thirlwall, Grote, A. Holm, and B. Niese. 
 
284 APPENDIX 
 
 (B.) The disposition of events within those termini, more 
 especially during those parts of the years 330-327 
 which the Grand Army spent between the Caspian 
 and the Indus. 
 
 On the cardinal dates I do not differ materially from the 
 resultant of the views of Unger and Schrader, accepted in 
 essence by Kohn, and based largely on an observation con- 
 cerning the Olympic periods communicated by H. Nissen to 
 the Rheinisclies Museum in 1885 (vol. xl. pp. 350 ff. ) ; and I 
 should not discuss those dates here at all if it were not that 
 the latest views are not very well known or accessible, and that 
 the second matter, viz. the disposition of events between the 
 cardinal points (v. infra, B. ), can hardly be expounded clearly 
 except in sequence to a preliminary statement of the termini. 
 
 There can be no serious question as to the total duration 
 of either Alexander's life or his reign. These are stated by 
 Arrian (vii. 28) on the express authority of Aristobulus, 
 the most trustworthy contemporary and companion of the 
 Emperor, as 
 
 Life 32 years, 8 months. 
 
 Beign 12 years, 8 months. 
 
 By consequence, Alexander must have been just about 20 
 years of age at his Accession, as indeed he is explicitly stated 
 to have been by Arrian (i. 1) and Plutarch (Alex. 11). 
 
 It is to be noted, before we pass on, that the month-numeral 
 in this passage of Arrian is the less possibly erroneous, since it 
 is repeated — Kalrovs oktqi firjva<; — and since Diodorus, the 
 only other surviving authority (except Eusebius, 1 whose 
 numerals are both corrupt and contradictory) who attempts 
 precision, varies only by one month (xvii. 117). 2 
 
 1 Like Clement of Alexandria, who quotes from Eratosthenes, Eusebius 
 in one passage gives a round number of twelve years, and divides it into 
 equal halves by the death of Darius. 
 
 2 The fact that only eight years are assigned to Alexander's reign in 
 Egypt cannot be made much use of in the absence of certainty as to the 
 
APPENDIX 285 
 
 "Within what precise yearly and monthly points, however, 
 do these periods of Alexander's life and reign lie ? It is obvious 
 that any one of these three cardinal points, if certainly 
 ascertained, will serve to fix the others. 
 
 Fortunately, though there are no eclipses to help us, two 
 of the points can be connected with that great standby of 
 chronologists of antiquity — the Olympic Games. Plutarch, 
 in a well-known synchronistic passage (Alex. 3), and again in 
 Consol. ad Apoll. 6 (if that treatise be Plutarch's), mentions 
 that Philip received at the same time, under the walls of 
 Potidaea, news of the birth of his son, of a successful battle 
 in Illyria against the northern hillmen, and of the victory of 
 his team at Olympia. There is no reason to question the 
 main fact of this synchronism, for Greek memory was tena- 
 cious of nothing so much as Olympic records. The three 
 announcements may be taken to have arrived near enough 
 to one another for the new-born babe, as Schrader acutely 
 observes, to be reputed ever afterwards " The child of two 
 victories. " 
 
 The year of birth, therefore, being a multiple of four, can 
 be no other than 356, unless the whole system of Greek 
 chronology, as at present accepted, is to be thrown overboard. 
 For in 360 Philip was hardly yet seated on his throne ; in 
 352 he was certainly not besieging Potidaea, Furthermore, 
 we know that Eratosthenes fixed Philip's murder to 
 Olympiad cxi. 1, i.e. 336-335, at which time Alexander was 
 about twenty years of age. Any one of the surviving express 
 statements of Eratosthenes is held rightly to be weighty 
 evidence, and for all practical purposes we may safely follow 
 it, and, counting back twenty years, fix 356 as the year of 
 Alexander's birth. 
 
 The month raises the more difficult question. According 
 
 date from which that computation starts — whether, in fact, from Alexander's 
 first entry into the country, or his coming to Memphis, or his foundation 
 of Alexandria, or his second coming to Memphis, when he settled the 
 system of government. The actual entry into Egypt may have been made 
 any time from October (linger, Chron. des Manetlw) to December, 332. 
 
286 APPENDIX 
 
 to Aristobulus' statement, we must reckon thirty-two years 
 and eight months to Alexander's death. Now there are some 
 independent grounds for believing that the Emperor died not 
 before the summer of the year. There is a not very sure 
 allusion in Quintus Curtius (x. 10. 31) to the heat prevailing 
 at the time ; there is a more sound argument to be deduced 
 from the fact that whereas Alexander was still in or about 
 Hamadan in winter-time (for the snows lay deep in the 
 Cossaean mountains during his campaign there), he had still 
 to accomplish the march to Babylon and there to do great 
 works of reorganization and preparation, which were com- 
 pleted ere his death. But even more consideration is to 
 be attached to a probability that Alexander, about to sail 
 by way of the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean, must 
 have taken the monsoons into account. Two years earlier 
 he had based his calculations for Nearchus' voyage upon the 
 seasons of those winds, and since that voyage he must have 
 become still better informed of them and more convinced 
 of their influence. He would time his start so as at least 
 to avoid the south-west monsoon, if not immediately to get 
 the benefit of the north-east monsoon on emerging from the 
 Gulf, and as the latter wind begins to blow in November, 1 if we 
 make the most liberal allowance possible for the voyage down 
 the Shatt-el-Arab, with all the initial delays concomitant with 
 so large an expedition, and for the coasting voyage and 
 conquest of the littoral of Arabia on the west of the Gulf 
 as far as Bas Mussendom, we can hardly set the projected 
 start farther back than the very end of May. 
 
 If Aristobulus' eight odd months are reckoned backwards 
 from such a date, we find ourselves in the early autumn, and 
 must place Alexander's birthday in October. How will this 
 month accord, however, with the coincidence of his birth 
 and the Olympic Games? The latter usually have been 
 
 1 See a valuable note in General Haig's Indus Delta (1894), p. 16. 
 The south-west monsoon, according to General Haig, ceases in September, 
 so that Alexander might have timed himself to start west during the 
 interval of calm. See infra, p. 294. 
 
APPENDIX 287 
 
 supposed to have opened with the first full moon after the 
 summer solstice, 1 and the gap between the news of an 
 Olympic victory in July reaching Philip (a matter of a week 
 at most), and October is rather wide even for a Greek 
 synchronist. In an article published in 1885, 2 however, 
 H. Nissen drew attention to certain scholia on Pindar {01. iii. 
 35, 33) which do not square with the received view as to 
 the month-date of the Olympic Games ; and from the state- 
 ments in these scholia he derived an Olympic cycle, in 
 accordance with which the festival opened on dates varying 
 over a period of two months, and in this particular year 356 
 began as late as September 27. This calculation, which 
 was made without reference to any controversy concerning 
 Alexander's life, has been adopted in principle by later 
 inquirers, 3 and, in fact, it tallies so singularly with the neces- 
 sities of Alexander's case, as well as with other points in 
 Greek history, 4 that, personally, I have no hesitation in accept- 
 ing it and fixing Alexander's birth early in October, 356. 
 
 On this reckoning, Alexander's Accession must have taken 
 place about the same month in 336. The actual date should 
 be placed rather earlier than later, as time has to be allowed 
 for a military demonstration in Greece before the winter. 
 
 Alexander's Death must be dated to June, 323, 5 considerably 
 less than a year after the Olympic festival of 324, at which 
 (/3pa%ei %poW> Trporepov t?}? TeXeim}?, Diod. xviii. 8) his 
 
 1 E. g. by the latest historian, B. Niese, to judge by the date he assigns 
 to Alexander's birth (GcschicMc, p. 51). Clinton's dates are of course 
 all based on this belief, and it forces him to add two months to Aristobnlus' 
 statement of the duration of Alexander's reign. See also A. Mommsen, 
 Ucbcr die Zeit der Olympien, 1891, pp. 80 ff. 
 
 2 Cit. supra. 
 
 8 E.g. Schrader and Kohn, opp. cit. supra. Unger has doubts, but quotes. 
 
 i Cf. Nissen's article. 
 
 6 = June 13th, according to German chronologists (Unger, Kohn), while 
 the birthday = October 3rd. But Schrader is surely right in abstaining 
 from such precise dating, which can only rest on the unsound month- 
 computations of ancient chroniclers, e.g. the pseudo-Callisthenes ! (Unger.) 
 The old views about the death-date are to be found in Ideler, Todes- 
 jahr, etc. 
 
288 APPENDIX 
 
 Decree concerning political exiles was promulgated. This 
 dating makes it possible and probable that the Greek embassies 
 which came to Alexander on his road towards and arrival 
 at Babylon, were concerned with that Decree. 
 
 B. 
 
 It will be observed that I have taken no account of 
 precise statements by Plutarch or others as to the actual 
 Attic or Macedonian months in which any of the events 
 discussed above took place ; and, following Droysen in his 
 criticism of Ideler (I. c. ), 1 1 should recommend a like reserve 
 as to all the month-dates given for intermediate events by 
 Arrian, 2 or Plutarch. 3 The grounds of such reserve are, that 
 
 (a) those recorded in the Macedonian calendar cannot be 
 fixed at present with any adequate certainty on the ex- 
 tremely scanty and conflicting data which we have as to 
 that calendar, its synchronisms and its adjustments, in the 
 period of Alexander — data which acquire no greater pre- 
 cision by comparison with another most dubious system, the 
 Egyptian of Ptolemaic times (see Unger, op. cit. p. 776) ; 
 
 (b) those month-dates that are recorded in terms of the Attic 
 calendar have been converted from the Macedonian on a 
 system or systems which are unknown to us, and, in face 
 of the utter inconsistency of, e. g. Plutarch's adjustments 
 (v. Droysen, I.e.), they cannot be relied on for a moment. 
 There is also one doubtful month-date given in the Julian 
 calendar by Justin 4 (= Trogus Pompeius), viz. mense Junio, 
 for Alexander's death. This, though probably correct, we will 
 ignore likewise and on the same grounds, the more readily 
 
 1 Cf. also Kohn, op. cit. pp. 6 ff. But Niese uses the month-dates 
 freely. 
 
 2 Anah. ii. 11, Issus ; 24, fall of Tyre ; iii. 7, passage of Euphrates ; 15, 
 Arbela ; 22, death of Darius ; v. 19, battle of Hydaspes ; Iiid. 21, start of 
 Nearchus. 
 
 8 Alex. 16, Granicus ; Cam.Hl. 19, Arbela. 
 
 4 xii. 16. The synchronistic passage in jElian ( V. H. ii. 25) is not worthy 
 of serious consideration. 
 
APPENDIX 289 
 
 since the reading of the manuscripts is subject to the variants 
 mensem unum and mense uno. 
 
 I will venture, therefore, in dealing with events in 
 Alexander's life between the fixed termini, to proceed rather 
 upon a Thucydidean system of summers and winters, checked 
 by certain definite records of the duration of particular enter- 
 prises. We have one astronomical fixed date in the first 
 half of Alexander's reign, namely, the lunar eclipse which 
 preceded by a few days the battle of Arbela. This has been 
 calculated for the night of September 20-21, 331. 1 Plutarch 
 states that the camps were pitched in sight of each other for 
 the first time on the eleventh day after that eclipse ; and 
 thus we arrive with sufficient certainty at October 1st 
 as the date of the actual battle. 
 
 Neither before Arbela nor after it until the death of 
 Darius, is there any serious question of chronology. The 
 last-named event took place in the course of the year 
 succeeding Arbela, and it can be calculated within very 
 narrow limits of error from the fixed date of that battle. 
 We have to allow for — 
 
 March to Babylon, at least 40 days 2 
 
 Halt in Babylon ... 34 " (Curt, v. 1 ; Just. xi. 14) s 
 
 March to Susa .... 20 " (Arr. iii. 16) 
 
 Stay in Susa . . . . x " 
 
 1 Doubts have been raised about these eclipse computations ; but I am 
 assured by astronomers that they are practically subject to no doubt. This 
 particular eclipse is the first in history for which we have recorded observa- 
 tions in more than one place. See G. Hofman, Somen- mid Mondfinsl.ernisse, 
 p. 28 ; Oppolzer, Canon dcr Finstcrnisse, p. 338 ; and Ideler, Handbucli der 
 Chronologic, i. 347. 
 
 2 Murray's Guidebook to Asiatic Turkey (new ed. 1895) gives eighty-two 
 hours from Mosul to Baghdad, and sixteen from Baghdad to Babylon. This 
 is equivalent to about three hundred miles. To march this distance, about 
 thirty days are necessary, and ten more must be added for halts, crossing of 
 Tigris, etc. 
 
 3 Q. Curtiua may be used where rhetoric and romance do not come in. The 
 remarkable coincidence of his work with Justin's Epitome suggests that 
 Trogus Pompeius himself, rather than Greek chroniclers, is the foundation of 
 Curtius' history. 
 
 19 
 
290 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 
 March to Persepolis . . 
 
 30 days 
 
 1 
 
 Stay in Persis .... 
 
 120 
 
 (Plut. Alex. 27) a 
 
 March to Ecbatana . . 
 
 12 + x " 
 
 (Arr. iii. 19) 
 
 Stay in Ecbatana . . . 
 
 X 
 
 
 March to Rhagae . 
 
 11 
 
 (Ait. iii. 20) 
 
 Stay in Khagae . . . 
 
 5 
 
 (Arr. iii. 20) 
 
 Last stages of the pursuit 
 
 5 
 
 (Arr. iii. 21) 
 
 Total 277 + x days. 
 
 
 The death of Darius, therefore, took place near Shahrud, 
 about the three hundredth day after Arbela, i. e. at the very 
 end of July or beginning of August, 330. This, as it happens, 
 coincides, according to received computation, with Arrian's 
 statement (iii. 22) that the month of the murder was the 
 Attic Hecatombaeon. 
 
 Alexander gave up further pursuit of the satraps, and 
 returned to pick up his stragglers and heavy column some- 
 where near Semnun. The events, therefore, of Alexander's 
 latter years have to be fitted in time and place between 
 two points fixed chronologically and geographically : — 
 
 Early August, 330. Semnun. 
 Early June, 323. Babylon. 
 
 The period within these limits is portioned out less satis- 
 factorily and with less certainty than the first half of 
 Alexander's reign, largely because the scene of action was 
 for the most part geographically so little known to his 
 chroniclers. 3 In considering this period, we must call in geo- 
 graphy to help chronology, and chronology to help geography. 
 
 1 It is to be borne in mind that Alexander was interfered with on this 
 march, first by the Uxians, secondly, and more seriously, by Ariobarzanes. 
 The distance is about 4,200 stades. Curtius (v. 4. 18) states that Persis was 
 already under deep snow. 
 
 2 Curtius (v. 6. 21) gives details of a winter campaign in the hills of Persis, 
 lasting thirty days. This fact is confirmed by Arr. Ind. 40. 
 
 3 Perhaps also because the most learned and orderly of the contemporary 
 chronicles, that of Callisthenes, ended with Darius' death, or shortly after 
 that event. The author was put in chains in Bactria early in 327, and exe- 
 cuted not long afterwards. 
 
APPENDIX 291 
 
 Sure results cannot be hoped for where the site of hardly 
 a single town mentioned by the chroniclers is known 
 beyond question, and before really satisfactory study can be 
 made of the subject the exploring scholar must go through 
 Central Asia. In the mean time we can perhaps show what 
 is possible or what impossible, and the boundaries of our 
 ignorance. 
 
 We are often left in so much uncertainty about the exact 
 line of Alexander's marches in the far East, and so seldom 
 are told the duration of his halts, 1 that it would be perfectly 
 futile to attempt to calculate his progress by the method 
 employed above to determine the date of the death of Darius. 
 But in the course of these years we have certain facts 
 recorded as to times and seasons, whicb, proceeding from 
 actual observation of eye-witnesses, 2 may be set forth and 
 used as a base, although one far from assured : — 
 
 (a.) Alexander marched through the Paropamisadae Inrb 
 7r\e«zSo? hvaiv, hills and passes being blocked with snow. 
 He kept the high range of Hindu Kush on his left hand, 
 and wintered below the mountains, having India to his 
 right hand, and built a city. Thence he crossed the 
 chain, and in fifteen days from his winter quarters 
 reached Adrapsa in Bactria (Strabo, pp. 724-5). 
 (h. ) When Alexander was on the Jaxartes (Sir Daria) it 
 was high summer. The watercourse at Cyropolis was 
 dry (Arr. iv. 3), and terrible heat was experienced 
 during the raid across the river (ibid. iv. 4). 
 (c.) The anny left the Paropamisadae fiera Svcrpas 
 TrXrjidSwv, and was in Khond and Chitral in winter time 
 (Aristobulus, ap. Strabon. p. 691). 
 (d. ) The Indus was crossed obviously when not in flood, 
 i. e. before spring was far advanced. 
 
 1 I am obliged to ignore Curtius in this connection, since he never gives 
 his authorities. Not hut what he often enough squares with facts, as 
 F. v. Schwarz sufficiently shows (A. d. G. Feldziige in Turkestan, 
 passim. ) 
 
 2 Ex, kypothesi I ignore the few month-dates that are given us ; v. supra. 
 
292 APPENDIX 
 
 («. ) The army " went down " into India at the beginning 
 of spring (Aristobulus, I.e.). 
 
 (/.) Eains began after the army left Taxila (Aristobul. 
 1. c. ). The Jhelum is represented as running 1200 yards 
 broad when the army reached it, rjv yap (Spa eVov? y 
 jiera TpoTra<; jxaXiara Iv 8epei Tpdirerai 6 97X10? (Arr. 
 v. 9). 
 
 (g. ) Some section of the army was encamped near the 
 bank of the Chcnab Kara 6epiva<i rpoird 1 ; (Nearchus, ap. 
 Strab. p. 692). 
 
 (h. ) The rains continued all along the march to the Sutlej 
 and back to the Jhelum, with etesian winds (= south- 
 west monsoon) (Aristobul. 1. c. ). 
 
 (i.) The flotilla started down the Jhelum, irpo Bvcrem 
 irX-qidho 1 ; ov 7roXXat? rj/xepaa, and in fine weather. It 
 arrived in the district of Pattala, Trepl icvvos imToktfv, 
 after ten months' voyage. 1 It had experienced no rainy 
 weather, but the Indus was in full flood. The summer 
 monsoons were still blowing out at sea (Aristobul. 1. c. ). 
 
 (j.) Nearchus, one month after Alexander had left for 
 Oritis, started Kara 7rA.etaSo? eTri,ro\fjV eairepCav, the mon- 
 soons not yet being favourable (Nearchus, ap. Strabon. 
 p. 721). In the end he had to lie to for twenty-four 
 days in the interval between the summer and winter 
 monsoons (Arr. Ind. 21). 
 
 {k. ) The voyage of Nearchus took, as nearly as can be 
 calculated from the itinerary in Arrian's Inclica, eighty 
 days in all, up to Harmozia on the Persian Gulf, near 
 which place Alexander had arrived already. 
 
 (I ) Alexander's Decree for the Amnesty of Exiles was read 
 at an Olympic festival ; this must fall in late summer, 324. 
 The Decree must have been despatched from Asia at 
 least four months before. It seems probable, therefore, 
 that Alexander was back in the west of his empire 
 
 1 Five months, Pliny, jV. H. vi. 60, and seven months, Plut. Alex. 66. 
 Perhaps Plutarch is reckoning time of actual sailing only, exclusive of halts. 
 
APPENDIX 293 
 
 by April, 324. (Diod. xviii. 8 ; Dinarch. in Devi. 
 100. 28.) 
 (m. ) When Alexander was raiding the Cossaean hillmen 
 near Ecbatana, there was much snow. He had cele- 
 brated the Dionysia before this at Ecbatana. If this 
 festival corresponded to the Athenian usage, as is prob- 
 able, it must have been held in October. 
 (n.) When Alexander was in the marshes near Babylon, 
 inspecting the Pallacopas canal, it would seem as though 
 the early spring floods were over, and he was in a position 
 to see the damage they had done. 
 If these data are taken as check-points, it will be observed 
 that three years are satisfactorily accounted for. From 
 point (c), when the army is in the Cabul basin, to point 
 (I), when it is in Persis or Susiana, there is no serious gap. 
 At the period of the setting of the Pleiads (middle of 
 November) in a certain year, Alexander was still near Cabul ; * 
 in the succeeding months of winter he prosecuted his Khond 
 and Chitral campaign, and crossed the Indus in very early 
 spring of the following year, before the high' snows had 
 melted. He left Taxila just as the rains began (i. e. in April), 
 and was on the Jhelum when that river was already con- 
 siderably swollen, as is the case in May. There a delay ensued 
 owing to the difficulty of forcing the passage against Porus, 
 and the actual battle of the Hydaspes was not fought till 
 about midsummer. The distance from the Jhelum to the 
 bank of the Chenab is so small (hardly above forty miles 
 on this line) that there is really no difficulty about points (/) 
 and (g), allowance being made for a little laxity in statements 
 
 1 Four or five months seems a long time for Alexander to have delayed in 
 the Cabul district. But it must he remembered that not only had he to 
 reconstitute Alexandria ad Caucasum (Arr. iv. 22. 5), but, apparently, to 
 found or refound several other cities (cf. Diod. xvii. 83, and Pliny, N~. IT. 
 vi. 23, 92). Among the latter was probably the original Cabul itself, Orlos- 
 pana, now renamed Nicma. Among new foundations were perhaps Pliny's 
 Cart.ona and Cadru.ii, and Stephen of Byzantium's 5th Alexandria, it rrj 
 'Owiavfi Kara tt\v 'IvSiK^v, which General Cunningham would identify with the 
 modern Afghan village of Opian. 
 
294 APPENDIX 
 
 made (as Droysen acutely remarks) merely to explain the rise 
 of the rivers, not to fix dates. The forward march to the 
 Sutlej and the return to the Jhelum would fall easily within 
 the latter Eains. After a halt to prepare for the voyage, the 
 start of the river flotilla took place a few days before the 
 setting of the Pleiads (i.e. early in November). The final 
 docking of the fleet at the apex of the Delta of the Indus 
 was at the flood time, about the rising of the dog star and 
 during the prevalence of the monsoons at sea. This period 
 suits well enough with August. Nearchus started about the 
 evening rising of the Pleiads in the interval between the 
 monsoons. l According to the calculations of Fb'rster, given 
 by Droysen (p. 794), the Pleiads rose at the Indus mouth in this 
 year on October 12th. I cannot agree with Droysen that 
 merely conventional mean risings and settings of the Pleiads 
 are intended in these astronomical quotations from Alexander's 
 generals. These statements are far more likely to be based 
 on actual observations recorded at the time by Aristobulus 
 and Nearchus, and good for the particular latitudes and 
 longitudes in which the observers happened to be. In 
 countries where the seasons were very different to those 
 of their home, the strangers would naturally have turned 
 for guidance to familiar stars and have observed their risings 
 and settings precisely enough. The winter monsoons begin 
 to blow ordinarily in the Indian Ocean in November. 
 
 1 There is a difficulty here. Gen. Haig (note (it. p. 286) who knows 
 Sindh well, says, "The violence of the south-west monsoon is past by the 
 middle of August, and a month later the wind drops almost entirely." 
 The period at which, according to the reckoning given above, Nearchus 
 started, is invariably the calmest in the whole year. Yet twenty-four 
 days' continuous gales were experienced. If Aristobulus' statement as to 
 the duration of the river voyage (ten months), and the astronomical 
 coincidences, are not to he rejected, these storms must be set down as an 
 extraordinary occurrence. If the astronomical coincidences are thrown 
 overboard, then we might reckon with Plutarch the voyage at seven 
 months, bring Alexander to Pattala in June, and date the start of 
 Nearchus to July, and his arrival in the Persian Gulf to October. The 
 chronology of the rest of the three years would hardly be affected in 
 any case. 
 
APPENDIX 295 
 
 The reckoning deduced from the Jw&'ctt^bringsNearchus to 
 Harmozia about the New Year, and Alexander to Persis and 
 Susiana easily enough by the middle of spring. 
 
 As Alexander came south through Hindu Kush after a 
 spring campaign in Bactria, we can date his passage to the 
 summer of a certain year, and thence until full spring or 
 summer three years later his movements can be traced 
 sufficiently well both in time and place. 
 
 Indeed there is not much more doubt for the remainder of 
 the time up to Alexander's death. The Emperor went north- 
 wards in the late summer, marched up to Ecbatana in fifty 
 days, 2 and spent autumn and early winter there, raiding the 
 Cossaean hillmen after Hephaestion's death. He came to 
 Babylon early in the succeeding year, 323, and died in June. 
 
 Therefore we can now reckon back from the fixed date, June, 
 323, without interruption through four years, and establish 
 the fact that Alexander recrossed Hindu Kush in the summer 
 of 327. 
 
 There remain three years reckoned back to the end of 
 July, 330, within which fall the conquest of Hyrcania 
 (Mazenderan), the march through Khorasan, northern Seistan, 
 and Afghanistan, to the passes of Hindu Kush above Cabul; 
 the passage of that great range ; the advance to Balkh, thence 
 to the Oxus, and thence to the Sir Daria; the protracted 
 conquest of all Turkestan south thereof, and the return to 
 the neighbourhood of Cabul. 
 
 In this period, if we omit, for the moment, all reference 
 to Arrian, Diodorus, or Curtius, we have for chronological 
 guides only the statement of Aristobulus, quoted by Strabo, 
 that part of the Afghan march was made about November, 
 and the inference about the season at which the army was 
 on the Sir Daria, quoted above on p. 291 (a.) (b.). 
 
 Chronologists have agreed to fix the arrival of Alexander 
 
 1 See Vincent, Voyage of Nearchits, p. 340 and previous. 
 
 2 Diod. xvii. 110. 
 
296 APPENDIX 
 
 at Hindu Kush to December, 330, have brought him to 
 the Sir Daria in the summer of 329, and have allowed the 
 balance of that year, all the year succeeding, and the follow- 
 ing spring of 327, for the conquest of Turkestan. 1 
 
 There is, however, a most grave objection to this disposition 
 of events, and one of which not nearly enough account has 
 been taken. The distance from Zadracarta (near Sari, on the 
 Caspian littoral), where Alexander resumed his advance after 
 overrunning Mazenderan, to the foot of Hindu Kush north 
 of Cabul by way of northern Seistan and Candahar, is at 
 least 1300 miles. The stages by the great caravan route are 
 in round numbers as follows : — 
 
 Sari to Shahrud at least 100 miles 
 
 Shahrud to Meshed over 300 " 
 
 Meshed to Herat ahout 220 
 
 Herat to Candahar by the great road 2 . . about 330 " 
 
 Candahar to Hindu Kush north of Cabul . about 350 " 
 
 1300 miles 
 
 Now the death of Darius cannot have taken place before 
 the very end of July, 330 (" non ante X Aug. , " Kohn, op. cit. 
 p. 9). After that event Alexander retraced some stages of 
 his route, collected his forces, crossed the Elburz chain, over- 
 ran all Mazenderan, apparently pushing westwards towards 
 Eesht, and finally halted for fifteen days at Zadracarta. It is 
 hardly conceivable therefore that he can have resumed the 
 main Advance before the beginning of October at the very 
 earliest. How, then, can he have been in the " land of the 
 Paropamisadae, " i. e. at nearest, the mountains between 
 Candahar and Cabul, by any part of November of that same 
 year ? The thing becomes even more impossible when we 
 recall that, after leaving Meshed, he went some way on the 
 direct road to Balkh before being recalled to Aria by news 
 
 1 Such is still Niese's view in 1893 (Geschichte, p. 113). 
 
 2 Alexander almost certainly did not take a direct route, but deflected con- 
 siderably to the south into northern Seistan. 
 
APPENDIX 297 
 
 of its revolt; that he fought a short campaign there and 
 prosecuted a siege of Artacoana; that he founded a great 
 colony near Herat; that he made a halt among the 
 " Evergetae, " according to one authority (Curtius) of not less 
 than sixty days, and that there, or wherever " Prophthasia" 
 may have been, the whole affair of the Treason Trials was 
 transacted ; that he founded three more great colonies in the 
 region of Candahar ; a and finally that he had a most difficult 
 
 1 Cf. the statement as to Alexander's eastern foundations made on 
 p. 228. That statement is intended to imply nothing more precise than 
 that Alexander founded cities in the districts in which certain important 
 modern towns now stand. It is not implied that Herat, Farrah, Candahar, 
 Ghazni, Cabul, or Khojend, are placed actually on Alexandrian founda- 
 tions, for there is, as yet, not a tittle of evidence to prove that. But the 
 East is prone stare super aniiquas vias, and the natural conditions which 
 direct the course of roads remain the same. These take the same easy 
 valleys and passes and make for the same oases now as of old, and 
 their points of bifurcation will not vary greatly. For example, there 
 can be practically no question that Darius fled eastwards along a great 
 road, which had long been in existence, and that the same conditions, the 
 Elburz Range and the deserts, keep the same track still in use as the main 
 highway : Teheran has but succeeded to Ehagae, Meshed to Susia. Simi- 
 larly, as Alexander was advancing at first from Meshed by a great route 
 to Balkh, which skirts south of the deserts of Merv, so, on hearing of the 
 defection of Aria, he turned south to Herat, and thereafter followed the 
 already existing high-road to India. This, in Sultan Baber's time, led 
 from Khorasan "by way of Candahar," and was "a straight, level road, 
 not going through any hill-passes " (Memoirs, Eng. tr. Leyden and 
 Erskine, p. 140) ; and the main caravan route is still the same at this 
 day. It runs south from Herat, skirts the north of Seistan, passing Farrah 
 to Candahar, and thence turns north-eastward to Ghazni and Cabul. In 
 the record of Alexander's march over this line, we hear of the foundation 
 of five colonies at least. 
 
 (i.) Of the first — Alexandria of the A Hans — we are told by Pliny (JV. H. 
 vi. 17. 23) that, it was situated on the River Arius and in the road to India, 
 and by Strabo (p. 723) that it was the point of bifurcation for the direct 
 road to Ortospana (Cabul) and the ordinary route to Draugiana (Seistan). 
 This last fact tells so strongly for the site, or at least district, of Herat, 
 that, added to the very probable identification of the names Arius and 
 Heri-rud, it amounts almost to certainty ; and we need not invoke the 
 doubtful aid of modern local tradition, which, indeed, ascribes almost every 
 old town east of Euphrates, as far as the Chinese border, to Alexander. 
 The new Alexandria cannot have been far removed from the old Artacoana, 
 
298 APPENDIX 
 
 country to traverse between Candahar and Cabul ! A year 
 rather than three months is required for a inarch of 1300 
 miles with such delays and under such conditions. 
 
 and was, perhaps, founded in the same district to fulfil the same function 
 towards caravan trade, and to be a check on the native capital. 
 
 A statement of Ammianus, however (xxiii. 6. 39), that this colony was 
 connected by water with the Caspian, and only fifteen hundred stades distant 
 from that sea, raises a question. The Heri-rud now loses itself in the sands 
 at least two hundred miles before the Caspian Sea, and Herat is about 
 thrice fifteen hundred stades from the nearest point of the latter's coast. 
 The great changes of course, to which livers in this region are notoriously 
 subject (e. g. the Oxus, now debouching in the Aral Sea, once flowed to 
 the Caspian), might be taken to obviate the first difficulty, and an easy 
 corruption of numerals to explain the second. But I suspect that really 
 Ammianus is confounding a distinct city with the better known Herat 
 foundation, and that his Alexandria was situated, perhaps, on the Eiver 
 Ochus (Atrek ?). In Roman times, and, indeed, down to our own day, 
 the geography of the remote Khorasan region was very little known, 
 and confusions are the rule. Another Alexandria or Alexandropolis is 
 referred to by Pliny (N. H. vi. 25), and marked on the Peutinger Table 
 much nearer the Caspian than Herat, and in the region of Niccea, which 
 seems, from Strabo's account (p. 511), to have been on the edge of the 
 northern desert and in the basin of the Ochus. I would suggest that this 
 Alexandria was somewhere about Kushan, and on the Atrek, and that it is 
 confounded by Ammianus with Alexandria of the Arians. 
 
 (ii.) The double authority of the author of the treatise De Fort. 
 AlexandH (5) and of Stephen of Byzantium (s. v. $pd5a) represents 
 Prophthasia as a foundation, or rather re-foundation, of Alexander's. 
 The latter, in mentioning that its earlier name was $pdda, seems to imply 
 that that name survived the re-foundation ; and, if that be so, it is most 
 tempting to look for it still in Farrah of Seistan. Such reversions to 
 earlier native names are characteristic of Asia from the Indus to the 
 Aegean. The only difficulty (for Alexander certainly passed by or near 
 Farrah) lies in statements as to the distance of Prophthasia from Alex- 
 andria of the Arians. The ancient authorities (Pliny and Strabo, quoting 
 Eratosthenes) represent these cities to have been a little less than two 
 hundred miles apart. From Herat to Farrah is about a hundred and 
 fifty miles. The ancient reckoning seems to have been made, however, 
 from Alexander's march, and is therefore subject to an error of excess. 
 In any case, Prophthasia is in Seistan ; and partly in the north of that 
 region, partly, perhaps, farther south in the Helmund valley, I should 
 place Alexander's wintering 330-329. (On Seistan, in mediaeval times, 
 see Sharaf-al-din 'Ali Yazdi's History of Timnr, in the English translation 
 (1723) of Peter de la Croix's version, ch. 43, ff. In modern times Gen. 
 
APPENDIX 299 
 
 Compared to this march the distances traversed by 
 Alexander north of Hindu Kush are nothing. From the 
 
 Goldsmid has described its remains in Joum. of R. G. S., 1874, p. 
 167 ff.). 
 
 (iii. ) The Afghan colonies are a most difficult problem, to which I can 
 contribute nothing beyond what is set forth by Droysen (vol. ii. App. iii. 
 pp. 674 ff.)- It mav be there are three foundations to be placed in the 
 Candahar region ; it may be only two, for Isidorus' first Alexandria, near 
 " Sigal, the royal city of the Sakae," is, perhaps, no other than a western 
 name for Phrada-Prophthasia in northern Seistan. 
 
 In the Cabul region there was one very famous foundation — Alexandria 
 ad Paropamisum — which seems to have come to be widely known in 
 the East as Ale-ssada, capital of the Yona, or Ionians, and to have 
 been " missionized " by Asoka. We know it to have been situated at the 
 foot of Hindu Kush (Arr. iii. 28. 4 ; iv. 22. 5 ; Diod. xvii. 83 ; Curt. vii. 
 3, 23), and to have been some distance north of Ortospana (Cabul) (Pliny, 
 N. H. vi. 17). It was not, however, the only foundation or re-founda- 
 tion in this region (vide note, p. 293) ; nor is there one site only in the 
 Cabul district where Hellenistic remains have been found. Alexander 
 evidently attached great importance to the southern keys of the seven gates 
 through Hindu Kush (cf. Memoirs of Baler, Eng. tr. pp. 139 ff.), and 
 occupied several points, not only Beghram and Charikar or Opian, 
 but the Bala Hissar as well. Which of the many ancient sites in this 
 region represent which of Alexander's foundations, and, indeed, which 
 represent Hellenistic towns at all, we have yet to learn. A material 
 advance in knowledge can be made only through careful exploration by 
 some one thoroughly conversant with Hellenistic remains. Nothing proves 
 this more conclusively than F. von Schwarz's book on Alexander in 
 Turkestan, already quoted. The author has travelled all over Trans- 
 oxiana, but, owing to his want of archaeological knowledge, or concealment 
 of it, he fails to satisfy ns about a single site. His work is useful for 
 roads, passes, and distances, but fixes no points. Nor is any service 
 rendered by mere multiplication and complication of conjectures by those 
 who have not visited the sites themselves. Droysen has collected the 
 data of ancient authorities ; Wilson (Ariana Antiqua., eh. iii.) and Cun- 
 ningham [Ancient Geog. of India, pp. 16 ff. ) have said as much as can 
 be said usefully about the modern sites by those who are not Hellenistic 
 experts. We can only sit down and wait for changes in the political 
 frontiers of Asia and for the exploring scholar. 
 
 It seems, however, not too much to assert even now that all the great 
 road-centres from Herat to Hindu Kush by way of the Helmund valley 
 and Candahar, were appropriated by Alexander. We have fair evidence 
 for the fact of his colonizing the districts of Herat and Farrah, and 
 even better evidence for that of Cabul. Between these points we have 
 to fit in two cities at least, in all reasonable probability situated on 
 
300 APPENDIX 
 
 main chain to Balkh, and thence to the limit of the Advance, 
 is not more than 400 miles in all, and it must be noted 
 that the subsequent Sogdian campaigns were fought within 
 an area much less extensive, i.e. in just the country between 
 the Oxus and the Saravshan Eiver. There is nothing in those 
 campaigns, as recorded by Arrian or Curtius, to necessitate 
 an allowance of longer time than a spring, a summer, an 
 autumn, and a spring. 
 
 Let us suggest, therefore, that the Advance to the Hindu 
 Kush occupied, not three months, but fourteen or fifteen, and 
 that the Army came through the " land of the Paropamisadae " 
 in November, 329 ; further that it reached the Sir Daria in 
 the early summer of 328, spent the rest of that summer, the 
 autumn, and part of the winter in crushing the Revolt, and 
 the spring of 327 in subduing the last of the hill fortresses — 
 where lies the difficulty ? Not in Strabo, of course, nor in 
 the induction drawn above as to the season of the advance 
 to the Sir Daria ; but in objections derived not only from 
 statements of Arrian, but from his silence. 
 
 To take the last objection first. If a winter halt was 
 made anywhere on the Advance to Cabul, Arrian gives no 
 indication of it. The force of this objection, however, is 
 almost wholly discounted by the fact that no more does 
 Arrian mention the winter halt at the foot of Hindu Kush. 
 The fact of that halt we learn simply from Strabo. Arrian, 
 for his part, implies quite as clearly that the Advance was 
 continuous from Zadracarta to the Sir Daria, as from Zadra- 
 carta to Hindu Kush. 
 
 The other objection is the more serious. Arrian (Anab. 
 iv. 1 ff. ), after relating the advance from Balkh to Mara- 
 canda and the Sir Daria, the suppression of the first Bevolt, 
 the demonstration across the Sir Daria, the disaster to the 
 Macedonian square in the desert, and Alexander's vindictive 
 campaign against Spitamenes, brings the Emperor back over 
 
 the great road, which has not changed ; and there arises a strong pre- 
 sumption that their sites are represented with little change by Candahae 
 and Kelat-i-Ghilzai, or Ghazni. 
 
APPENDIX 301 
 
 the Oxus to Zariaspa, where " he remained, ecrre irapeXdelv 
 to a,Kfj,alov tov ^et/iwyo? " (c. 7). Here occurred the punish- 
 ment of Bessus, the death of Clitus, and a visit from a 
 Scythian embassy. Thereafter Arrian relates (but without 
 mentioning the coming of spring, as more usually is his 
 custom) that Alexander recrossed the Oxus, and prosecuted 
 a second campaign in Sogdiana, again visiting Maracanda ; 
 but he gives almost no details at all, filling up chapter 17 
 with an account of a diversion made by Spitamenes in the 
 rear ; and in chapter 18 he states that the victorious marshal 
 rejoined his Emperor at Nautaca, where the main army was 
 reposing, on irepl aKfialov tov yeiixStvo^ r/v. Presently on 
 the approach of spring — ap.a ra rjpi virofyaLvovn — Alexander 
 moved from Nautaca, conducted a hill campaign against the 
 rock fortresses which still held out, married Eoxana, recrossed 
 the Oxus to Balkh, where occurred the affairs of the 
 Prostration and the Pages' conspiracy, and towards the end 
 of spring — ef i]kovto<; tjStj tov rjpos — marched south for the 
 Hindu Kush and India. 
 
 Now all the last part of this narration refers beyond doubt 
 to the spring of 327, and it should be observed, in order that 
 the small size of the area of operations may be realized, how 
 much is done there in a period unquestionably not longer 
 than three months. Does the earlier part of the narration, 
 however, up to the halt at Nautaca, refer to one year or to two ? 
 It has been usually inferred that two years are meant, 
 and that the winters alluded to in connection with Zariaspa 
 and Nautaca are distinct seasons. 
 
 It will be remarked, however, by every reader of Arrian, 
 that in that case their author, for some not obvious reason, 
 has dealt most perfunctorily with the second of the two 
 years. Alexander's own operations during the long period 
 of a twelvemonth occupy but a few lines at the opening 
 of chapter 16, and a few words in the middle of chapter 17, 
 and are related absolutely without detail. The rest of these 
 two chapters is devoted to contemporaneous operations of 
 marshals in command of other columns or of garrisons. If 
 
302 APPENDIX 
 
 Arrian really intended to convey the idea that this is the 
 history of a whole year, he has dealt with it as he deals, in 
 the Anabasis, with the history of no other year before or 
 after. In short, he leaves 328 without further comment 
 than a brief account of not important operations, prosecuted 
 over an area less than 200 miles by 150. 
 
 Curtius (vii. 4 ff.), the only other ancient authority we 
 have for the details of tins period (for there is a lacuna in 
 the manuscripts of Diodorus covering the whole Bactrian 
 expedition), relates the incidents of the first march to the 
 Sir Daria, of the Eevolt, etc. , substantially as Arrian does ; 
 and also, like Arrian, he brings Alexander back again over 
 the Oxus, but to Bactra, not Zariaspa. 1 There Bessus is 
 punished; but we hear nothing of Clitus yet, nor of the 
 Scythian embassy ; and, without any indication of a long halt, 
 we are told that the Army, having received reinforcements, 
 took the field again, and in four days was back at the Oxus. 
 A campaign against hill-forts and the like in Sogdiana 
 follows ; and Alexander, after visiting Bazira, comes to 
 Maracanda, and there, at last, occurs the Clitus affair. The 
 halt there is represented as but short (not much above fifteen 
 days), and Hephaestion is sent back across the Oxus com- 
 meatus in hiemem paraturum; but Alexander himself retired 
 no further than Nautaca. Here he spent two months and 
 tertio mense ex hibernis movit exercitum (cap. 4). A campaign 
 against hill-forts, the affairs of the Prostration and the Pages, 
 and the advance to India follow in due course. 
 
 There are, in this account, certain additions to Arrian's 
 narrative, and two discrepancies with it, one grave, namely, 
 that with regard to the locality of the murder of Clitus. The 
 chief points, however, are confirmatory, and the main stream 
 of events is not inconsistent with Arrian's; but we gain a 
 clear impression that, while the halt after the first return to 
 
 1 See, on the identity of these places, Droysen, ii. Fr. tr. p. 679. 
 
 F. von Schwarz (p. 65) maintains a contrary view. For him Zariaspa = 
 
 Tsehardschui, on the road from Merv to Bokhara. But see note, supra, 
 p. 299. 
 
APPENDIX 303 
 
 Bactra was very brief, that at Nautaca involved a distinct 
 wintering. 
 
 The heads of Diodorus' narrative (which survive in an 
 index to his seventeenth book) serve to confirm Arrian and 
 Curtius in their common statement that Alexander returned, 
 after the first revolt, to the Bactrian bank of the Oxus. They 
 further imply but a short halt there, and proceed to support 
 Curtius with regard to Bazira (called Bda-iarot) and his 
 localization of the Clitus affair. Thereafter Alexander goes 
 to Nautaca, and a campaign follows in a season of heavy 
 snow, as is the case in Curtius' narrative. With the 
 marriage of Roxana, and the march southwards to India, 
 we reach the summer. 
 
 The sole serious chronological crux, then, in these authori- 
 ties consists in Arrian's two distinct allusions to winter. 
 When we remember, however, how small is the area of 
 operations, and how long the winter of Turkestan, it seems 
 far from impossible that both allusions refer to the same winter. 
 The phrase, cuc^alov tov %et / u.&ii'o?, in both cases can easily 
 enough mean, " full winter -time, " and be applied equally to 
 December or to February. These two allusions, as we have 
 seen, are not divided by any mention of spring, nor, indeed, 
 by any account of protracted operations. All that is required 
 by the words of Arrian and Curtius is that Alexander should 
 have returned to Balkh about November of his first year 
 in Turkestan, left it again in December, recrossed the Oxus, 
 marched rapidly towards Bokhara, turned east to Samarcand, 
 and finally come to a halt early in February at Nautaca 
 (Karshi, or Shahrisab). Thence, intending himself to remain 
 two months (Curt. I. c. ), he seems to have despatched some 
 part of his army under Coenus, to pass the remainder of 
 the winter at Balkh (Arr. iv. 17), where Hephaestion had 
 already prepared supplies (Curt. 1. c. ). Alexander resumed 
 operations against the hill -forts early in April, and thereafter 
 there is plenty of time for him to be in Balkh by the middle 
 of May, and to start for the Hindu Kush again ere the end 
 of that month. 
 
304 APPENDIX 
 
 On the one side, therefore, must be set a slight confusion 
 or vagueness of terms in a not contemporary chronicler, 
 due possibly to the failure of his best-ordered authority, 
 Callisthenes ; on the other, there is a most glaring geographi- 
 cal difficulty, not to be got over if we accept, on the one 
 hand, the eclipse date for Arbela, on the other, Strabo's 
 statement that a winter was passed just north of Cabul. I 
 have myself no hesitation in bowing to the geographical 
 difficulty, and allowing fourteen months for the march from 
 the Caspian to Cabul. 
 
 Nor am I in this view without the positive support of an 
 ancient chronologist. Diodorus, in the chapters which precede 
 the lacuna in his seventeenth book, begins an Attic year 
 after the murder of Darius (ch. 74) and ends it just as Alex- 
 ander is about to enter the land of the Paropamisadae (ch. 
 82). This is to say, that in Diodorus' view the first winter 
 after the Caspian had been left was spent in Drangiana, and 
 not until the following July did the Army march northwards 
 from Candahar. And this view I have little hesitation in 
 maintaining to be absolutely correct. The place, where the 
 winter of 330 was passed, was Seistan, and Curtius' sixty 
 days among the Evergetae perhaps represent accurately 
 enough the duration of the longest halt, that, namely, in 
 the Helmund valley 
 
 The following table will serve to sum up the conclusions 
 arrived at in this discussion : — 
 
 Alexander born early October 356 
 
 succeeds Philip September or October 336 
 
 wins Arbela October 1st 331 
 
 overtakes Darius first days of August 330 
 
 " leaves Zadracarta October " 
 
 " halts for winter in Seistan .... December " 
 
 " resumes advance spring 329 
 
 " reaches Candahar summer " 
 
 " reaches. Cabul November " 
 
 " takes up winter-quarters at the foot 
 
 of Hindu Kush December " 
 
 passes Hindu Kush early spring 328 
 
 " reaches Sir Daria June " 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 305 
 
 Alexander returns to Balkh 
 
 " sets out again for the Saravshan 
 valley 
 
 reaches Sainarcaud 
 
 goes into winter-quarters at Nautaca 
 
 takes the field again 
 
 recrosses the Oxus 
 
 sets out for the south 
 
 re-enters Cahul valley 
 
 marches east from Cabul .... 
 
 crosses the Indus 
 
 leaves Taxila 
 
 reaches the Jhelurn 
 
 crosses the Jhelum 
 
 returns to the Jhelum 
 
 starts with the flotilla 
 
 reaches the Indian Ocean .... 
 
 starts for Beluchistan 
 
 Nearchus sets sail 
 
 Alexander reaches Carmania and meets Nearchus 
 
 " reaches Ecbatana 
 
 " enters Babylon 
 
 " dies 
 
 October or November 328 
 
 December " 
 
 late in January 327 
 February " 
 April " 
 May " 
 end of May " 
 June " 
 November " 
 
 March 326 
 April " 
 May 
 midsummer " 
 September " 
 November " 
 
 August 325 
 early in September " 
 very early in October " 
 
 about new year 324 
 early autumn " 
 
 February or March 323 
 in first half of June " 
 
INDEX 
 
 Numerical references jirintcd in italics occur only in the footnotes. 
 
 Abel, " Makedonien vor Konig 
 Philip," 6, 7, 28 
 
 Aegae, or Edessa, 13, 15, 8f 
 
 Aelian, 58, 59, 198 
 
 Aeropus, 10 
 
 Aeschines, 22, 26, 27 ; on Philip at 
 Thebes, 28 ; the embassy to Pella, 
 87 ; charged by Demosthenes with 
 treason, 106 ; the embassy to 
 Thebes, 124, 132 
 
 "A.yriixa. rb (3aai\u<6i>, 55 
 
 Agesilaus, 38 
 
 Agis of Sparta, 185 
 
 Aleuadae, the (of Larissa), 25, 69 
 
 Alexander I., 10 ; taunts liis mutinous 
 army, 13 ; accuses Philotas, 17 
 
 Alexander II., 19 ; his murder, 23 
 
 Alexander the Great, his birth, 66 ; 
 a miracle of precocity, 117 ; his 
 Pmcephalus exploit, 118 ; at Chae- 
 ronea, 128 ; the quarrel with his 
 father, 138 ; Plutarch's description 
 of, 160 ; his portrait bust, 161 ; 
 his self-restraint, 162 ; his emo- 
 tional nature, 163 ; his pride 
 of self, 164 ; the secret of his 
 personal magnetism, 165, 171 ; a 
 thorny heritage of Empire, 166, 
 167 ; his preliminary campaigns, 
 168; Thessaly obstructs, Thebes 
 revolts, 169 ; attempts to conciliate 
 Athens, 172, 179 ; a panhellenic 
 for a Persian Empire, 173 ; a 
 campaign of vengeance, 174 ; his 
 reply to Darius' s overtures, 175 ; 
 his desire and ambition, 176, 177 ; 
 battles of Granicus and Miletus, 
 178, 183; burns his boats and 
 starts for Asia, 180 ; the coast 
 campaigns, 181 ; the forced march 
 to Cilicia, 182 ; Issus and its con- 
 
 sequents, 184 ; on Darius's luxury, 
 186 ; founder of Alexandria, 187 ; 
 his commercial purpose, 191 ; ob- 
 ject of his visit to Amnion, 193, 
 195, ct scq. ; boasts his divine 
 origin, 199 ; marches into Persia, 
 200 ; battle of Arbela, 202 ; pass- 
 ing from king to emperor, 209 ; 
 his pursuit of Darius, 211 ; army 
 reorganization, 21 2 ; a stern chase, 
 213; the dead Darius, 215; his 
 grief, 216 ; the turn of his years, 
 217 ; disaffection in his army, 220 ; 
 a grievous necessity, 221 ; the 
 devotion of his soldiers, 223 ; 
 colonization of the East, 225 ; his 
 tireless way through Asia, 229 ; 
 desultory campaigns, 230 ; marries 
 Pi.oxana, 231 ; the Clitus tragedy, 
 232 ; attempts suicide, 233 ; a 
 significant picture, 234 ; his isola- 
 tion, 235 ; marches into India, 237 ; 
 his strange delusion, 237 ; the hill- 
 men foes, 238 ; his strategy at the 
 Hydaspes, 239 ; mutiny and re- 
 treat, 241 ; the last Olympic con- 
 test, 242 ; the spirit of India, 243 ; 
 Indian apathy, ibid. ; a river 
 flotilla, 214 ; his foolhardiness at 
 Mooltan, 245 ; his oecumenic 
 scheme, 248, 259-263 ; the famous 
 ocean voyage, 249 ; the Beluchis- 
 tan colony, 251 ; through the 
 Gedrosian desert, 252 ; ill news, 
 253 ; the Persian governor's mis- 
 conduct, 254 ; Nearchus' story, 
 255 ; mad or sane ? 260 ; Alexan- 
 der and Rome — a contrast, 264 ; 
 the young man in a hurry, 265 ; 
 the loss of Hephaestion, 266 ; the 
 savage in him unchained, 267 ; 
 arrival at Babylon, 269; the Pal. 
 lacopas, 270 ; incorporation of the 
 
308 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Asiatics : reorganization of the 
 phalanx, 271 ; an omen, 273 ; his 
 last days, 274 ; his death, 275 ; 
 his work, 277 ; the genius of Hel- 
 lenistic rule, 278 ; the mythic 
 founder, 279 ; Alexandria's debt, 
 ibid. ; his grave, 280 ; takes on 
 new immortality, 281 ; received 
 into the small circle of the Great, 
 282 ; questions of chronology in 
 his reign, 283-305 ; cardinal dates 
 of his life, 284 ; intermediate 
 events, 2S8 ; latter half of his 
 reign, 291 ; the three doubtful 
 years, 295 ; table of results, 304 
 Alexandria, 187, el seq. ; her debt, 
 
 279 
 Amnion, the oracle of, Alexander's 
 
 expedition to, 193 
 Amphictyons, 97; their Holy Synod, 
 
 119 
 Amphipolis, 44 ; taken by Philip, 48 
 Amphissa, 121, 126 
 Amyntas, Philip's father, 4, 12, 22 ; 
 
 his death, 25 
 Amyntas the Conspirator, 17 
 Anaximenes, 2, 19, 25 
 Antipater, 15, 53, 89, 276 
 Apollonides, 78 
 
 Arbda, 175 ; battle of, 201-205 
 Archelaus, 10, 11, 53 
 Archias, 258 
 Argaeus, 11, 12, 22 
 Ai-gos, the earliest home of Mace- 
 donian kings, 6 
 Argyraspids, " Silver Shields," 55 
 Aristodemus, 87 
 
 Aristotle, 11 ; Alexander's tutor, 
 119 ; his coldness to Alexander, 
 235 
 Army, the Macedonian, 49-64 
 Arrbidaens, 139 
 
 Arrian, 13, 15, 17, SI, 54, 56, 5S, 59, 
 64. 166, 192, 196, 201, S26, 229, 
 237, 241, 252, 255, 259, 26S 
 Arybbas, 73 
 
 Ateas, the Scythian, 115 
 Athens, her premature exhaustion, 
 38 ; treaty with Philip, 44 ; ap- 
 pealed to by Olynthus, 48 ; open 
 war with Philip, 67; her reception 
 of the Olynthian envoys, 76 ; sues 
 Philip for peace, 78 ; as a military 
 and naval power, 80 ; her isolation, 
 81 ; her culture, 82; her statesmen, 
 83 ; her overtures to Philip and 
 his terms, 86-91 ; declines Philip's 
 homage, 100; fruitless negotia- 
 tions, 104, 105 ; her anti-Mace- 
 donian League, 108 ; her embassy 
 
 to Darius, ibid. ; rupture with 
 Philip, 110 ; the War Party in, 
 123; her league with Thebes, 125 ; 
 the battle of Chaeronea, ] 29 ; 
 spared by Philip, 132; powerless 
 to resist, 133 ; Philip's relation to 
 her polity, 145-157 ; signs of de- 
 cadence, 146 ; the First Empire, 
 147; the Second League, 149; 
 the intenseness of her life, 151 ; 
 decline of her art and literature, 
 152, 154; her anti-imperial wri- 
 ters, 153 ; Alexander's conciliatory 
 efforts, 172; her Persian sym- 
 pathies, 179 ; militant speeches of 
 the Macedonian orators, 185 
 
 Attalus, 136, 138 
 
 Axius Valley, the, 15 
 
 B 
 
 Babylon, Alexander at, 269 ; the 
 Army of the West at, 273 
 
 Balkan peninsula, 73 
 
 Bardylis, 46 
 
 Batis", 1S6 
 
 Beluchistan, Alexander's colony in, 
 251 
 
 Bematistae, 228 
 
 Boeotia, 31 
 
 Bottiaea, 7 
 
 Brahmans, in the Lower Indus, 243 
 
 Budge, Dr. "Wallis, 281 
 
 Byzantium, Demosthenes at, 109; 
 assaulted by Philip, 113 
 
 C 
 
 Cadmeia, 30, 31, 34 
 
 Callisthenes, 67, 236, 841 
 
 Caranus, 140 
 
 Cardia, 107 
 
 Cassander, 276 
 
 Ca valla, 13 
 
 Chaeronea, battle of, 127 
 
 Chalcidice, 13 
 
 Chares, the Athenian, 67, 71, 111, 
 
 114 
 Charidemus, the pirate, 77 
 Chenab, the camp on the, 247 
 Cilicia, Alexander in, 182 
 Clinton, Professor, 22, 27 
 Clitus, 232 
 Coenus, 241 
 
 Corinth, Congress of, 135 
 Coronea, 36 
 Craterus, 253 
 Ctesiphon, 86 
 
INDEX 
 
 309 
 
 Curtius, 17, 54, 58, 186, 194; story 
 of Alexander's dare-devilry, 205 ; 
 Darius's flight, 215 ; Philotas's 
 death, 221 ; his anecdote of Alex- 
 ander, 223; Alexander's colonists, 
 225, 226; on Alexander and 
 Roxana, 231 
 
 Curzon's "Persia," 214, 253 
 
 Cyrcne, 200 
 
 D 
 
 Darius, and the Athenian envoys, 
 108 ; his overtures to Alexander, 
 175 ; battle of Issus, 184 ; his 
 luxury, 186 ; at Arbela, 200 ; at 
 Ecbatana, 210 ; pursued by Alex- 
 ander, 213 ; his death, 215 
 Deehambre, A., 161 
 Demades, 130, 132 
 Demosthenes on the Macedonian 
 kingship, 16; his tirades, 17; his 
 view of Philip, 43 ; his use of the 
 term ire^raipoL, 56 ; Philip's paid 
 agents at Athens, 64 ; the loss of 
 Philip's eye, 67 ; the Olynthiac 
 orations, 76 ; his position in 
 Athens, 79 ; a group of great 
 orations, 84; envoy at Pella, 87; 
 on the loss of Amphipolis, 89 ; his 
 strong policy, 101 ; terribly in 
 earnest, 102 ; v. Aeschines, 106 ; 
 his justification of Diopithes, 107 ; 
 his warning to Athens, 108 ; at 
 Byzantium, 109 ; his embassy to 
 Thebes, 124 ; on Philip's designs 
 in Greece, 125, 126 ; after Chae- 
 ronea, 133 
 
 Diodorus, 28. 54, 57, 68, 111, 194, 
 208, 223, 225, 241, 242, 259, 269 
 
 Diogenes, 170 
 
 Dionysius, 77, 1S6 
 
 Diopithes, 107 
 
 Droysen, H., 15, 56, 57, 186, 243, 26i 
 
 E 
 
 Ecbatana, 210, 211 
 
 Edessa, or Aegae, 13, 15, 24 
 
 Elatea, 122 
 
 Elimiotis, 9, 13 
 
 Elis, 134 
 
 Emathia, 7 
 
 Epaminondas, 33, 37 ; his character, 
 
 38; invents the " Leuctrian 
 
 AVedge," 61 
 Erigyius, 235 
 'Eraipoi, 8, 18, 55 
 
 Euboea, 72 ; won over by Philip, 98 
 
 Eumenes, 16, 53 
 
 Euphrates, the, 200 
 
 Eurydice, Philip's mother, 22, 26, 42 
 
 Eustathius, 114 
 
 Euthyerates, 78 
 
 Fick, 7 
 Fraukel, 193 
 Frontinus, 107, 111, 
 
 G 
 
 3, 271 
 
 Gaugamela, plain of, 202 
 Gedrosia, 252 
 Gordium, 181 
 Gorgias, 40 
 
 Granicus, battle of, 178 
 Grote, George, 2, 56, 127, 264 
 Guards, Philip's (uiraa~7ri.<TTaL), 55 
 Gythium, 135 
 
 H 
 
 Haig, General, 24$, 250, 258 
 
 Haliacmon Valley, 15 
 
 Halonnesus, 18 
 
 Halus, 95 
 
 Hamadan, 206, 211 
 
 Harpalus, 140, 235 
 
 Hegesippus, 104 
 
 Hellas, expansion of, 155 ; a new 
 
 evolution, 156 
 Hephaestion, 221, 266 
 Hermolaus, 18 
 Herodotus, 5, 6 
 Hesyehius Miletus, 114 
 Hetaeri {iralpoi), 8, 18, 55 
 Holm, A., 8, 14, 50, 77 
 Hydaspes, battle of, 239 
 Hypaspists (inraanaTal), 55 
 
 I 
 
 Icthyophagi, 257 
 
 Ilium, 177 
 
 Illyrians, the, 9, 28, 47 
 
 India, Alexander's army in, 241 
 
 Iphicrates, 22, 26 
 
 Isocrates, 97 
 
 Issus, battle of, 184 
 
 Jason, of Phaerae, 69 
 
 Journal of Philology ('Army of 
 
 Alexander '), 19, 55, 59 
 Justin, 28, 66, 68, 103, 111, 117 ; on 
 
 Alexander's colonies, 226, 264. 
 
310 
 
 INDEX 
 
 K 
 
 Kara Su, 7 
 
 Kersobleptes, 65, 90, 110 
 Koepp, F., 161 
 
 Lamartine's "Vie d' Alexandre," 242 
 
 Larissa, 69 
 
 Lasthenes, 78 
 
 Leon, of Byzantium, 113 
 
 Leuctra, battle of, 24 
 
 Libanius, 86 
 
 Littre, E., " Sur la Maladie d'Alex- 
 
 andre le Grand," 275 
 Livy, his description of the Sarissa, 
 
 62 
 Lyncestis, 9, 13 
 Lysippus, 160 
 
 M 
 
 Macedonia, origin of its peoples, 4 ; 
 the Pelasgic and Hellenic element, 
 5 ; Greek view of, 6 ; the king and 
 his eraipoi, 8 ; at war with her 
 feudatories, 9 ; her bid for Greek 
 support, ibid. ; a group of discord- 
 ant units, 10 ; her original hold- 
 ings, 13 ; an absolute monarchy, 
 15 ; one constitutional right, 17 ; 
 eraipoi and we^Ta-ipoi, 19 ; the 
 clan-spirit, 21 ; the national stand- 
 ing army, 49-64 
 
 Mahaffy, J. P., 189, 197 
 
 Maspero, Professor G., 195 
 
 Mazaeus, 200 
 
 Medius, 274 
 
 Methone, siege of, 67 
 
 Mooltan, Alexander's foolhardiness 
 at, 245 
 
 N 
 
 Naxos, battle of, 24 
 
 Nearchus, 235, 249 ; story of his 
 
 ocean voyage, 255-258 
 Niese, P.., 168, 191, 193, 209, 215, 
 
 2U, 2^3 
 
 O 
 
 Olympias, Philip's wife, 65 ; the 
 
 Jezebel of a Queen, 137 ; the wild 
 
 harridan, 235 
 Olynthus, 48 ; Philip's ultimatum to, 
 
 75 ; embassy to Athens, 76 ; taken 
 
 by rhilip, 78 
 
 Onesicritus, 257 
 Onomaichus, 70 
 Orchomenus, 30-32, 213 
 Orestes, 11 
 Orestis, 9, 13 
 Oreus, 87 
 Oropus, 32, 132 
 
 Paeonia, 9, 13 ' 
 
 Pagasae, 72 
 
 Pallacopas (canal), 270 
 
 Pammenes, 28, 40 
 
 Pangaeus, the mines of, 45, 48 
 
 Panhellenio League, 136 
 
 Paraetonium, 194 
 
 Parmenio, 17, 53, 72, 89, 136, 203, 
 208, 218, 236 
 
 Pattala, 248 
 
 Pausanias, the Orestian, assassinates 
 Philip, 142 
 
 Pausanias, the pretender, 25, 42, 44 
 
 Pella, 14, 23, 87 
 
 Pelopidas, 27, 33 ; his character, 39 
 
 Peparethus, 104 
 
 Perdiccas, 11, 26, 41 
 
 Peiinthus, siege of, 111 
 
 Persia, Alexander's march into, 200 ; 
 her army at Arbela, 201 
 
 Peterdorff, R., 193 
 
 Ue^raipoi, 19, oG 
 
 Phalaecus, 95 
 
 Phalanx, the Theban, 46 ; perfected 
 by Philip, 62; unfit for Orientals, 
 271 
 
 Pherae, 69, 93 
 
 Philip, his birth and parentage, 4, 
 22 ; early years, 24 ; a hostage at 
 Thebes, 27 ; his greatest teacher, 
 38 ; his resemblance to Epaminon- 
 das and Pelopidas, 40 ; on the 
 Macedonian throne, 42 ; his char- 
 acter, 43 ; his craft, 44 ; army- 
 training, 45 ; the Theban phalanx 
 46 ; defeats the Ulyrians by new 
 tactics, 47 ; takes Amphipolis, 48 ; 
 his staters, 49 ; army-making, 50 ; 
 territorial regiments, 54 ; scale of 
 military honour, 55 ; pages in 
 peace and equerries in war, 58 ; 
 new military ideas : his famous 
 phalanx, 60 ; the sarissa, 62 ; his 
 principle of Empire, 64 ; Pydna 
 and Potidaea, 65 ; marries Olym- 
 pias, 66 ; ready with soldiers and 
 plans, ibid. ; loses an eye at 
 Methone, 67 ; open war with 
 Athens, ibid. ; battle of Yolo, 70 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 tagus of Thessaly, 71 ; his wiles 
 and bribes, 72 ; a restless king 
 warring far inland, 73 ; his ulti- 
 matum to Olyntlms, 75 ; takes 
 Olynthus, 78 ; Athens sues tor 
 peace, 79 ; his respect for and 
 goodwill to Athens, 82, 99 ; his 
 reception of the Athenian envoys, 
 87 ; secret overtures to the Pho- 
 cians and Thebes, 89 ; Athens 
 accepts his terms, 91 ; his aims 
 and plans, 92 ; marches into 
 Greece, 93; fire aud sword through 
 Phocis, 96 ; the greatest Hellene 
 of them all, 97 ; his policy of 
 division, 98 ; his projects against 
 Sparta, 99 ; fruitless negotiations 
 with Athens, 104, 105 ; marches 
 to the Danube, 106 ; the relief of 
 Cardia, 107 ; result of his forbear- 
 ance, 109 ; rupture with Athens, 
 110 ; his drastic settlement of 
 Eastern Thrace, ibid. ; siege of 
 Perinthus, 111 ; assaults Byzan- 
 tium, 113; evacuates the Cher- 
 sonese, 115 ; defeats Ateas and 
 returns to Pella, 116 ; Alexander 
 and Bucephalus, 118 ; the Amphic- 
 tyons, 120 ; marches into Greece 
 again, 121 ; the fortification of 
 Elatea, 122 ; his envoys at Thebes, 
 124; reproaches Athens, 126 ; bat- 
 tle of Chaeronea, 127 ; Deniades' 
 gibe, 130 ; punishes Thebes, 131 ; 
 his attitude to Athens, 132 ; his 
 crowning ambition, 134 ; pro- 
 claimed Captain General at Con- 
 gress of Corinth, 135 ; the 
 Panhellenic League, 136 ; equip- 
 ment of the Great Army, 136 ; 
 troubles in his household, 137 ; 
 his quarrel with Alexander, 138 ; 
 the marriage feast, 140 ; his public 
 apotheosis, 141 ; his assassination, 
 142 ; his limitations, 144 ; his 
 relation to Athenian polity and 
 Greek civilisation, 145-157 ; 
 Greece's debt to him, 157 
 
 Philocrates, 87 
 
 Philotas, 17, 18, 219-221, 236 
 
 Phocion, 64, 72, 114, 143 
 
 Phocis, 89, 96 
 
 Pieria, 7 
 
 Pixodarus, 139 
 
 Plato, 11 
 
 Pliny, on Alexander's Colonies, 226, 
 251 
 
 Plutarch, 2S ; Philip the 'sponge,' 
 44 ; story of Alexander and Buce- 
 phalus, 118 ; Philip v. Alexander, 
 
 144 ; description of Alexander, 
 
 160 ; of the visit to Amnion, 193 ; 
 
 of Arbela, 203 
 Polemon, 17 
 Polyaenus, 62, 215, 253 
 Polybius, 16 ; description of the 
 
 sarissa, 62 
 Poneropolis, 110 
 Potidaea, 65, 103 
 Pridik, E„ 175, 193 
 Ptolemy, of Alorus, 11, 26, 27 
 Ptolemy, King and Historian, 140, 
 
 235 
 Pydna, 65 
 Python, 100 
 
 Quintilian, S6 
 
 Quintus Curtius. See Cdetius. 
 
 R 
 
 Raabe, R., 282 
 
 Ramsay, Professor W. M., 5 
 
 Reinaeh, Th., 161, 2S1 
 
 Rhagae, 213 
 
 Rome, and Alexander — a contrast, 
 
 264 
 P.oxana, 231 
 
 S 
 
 Salonica, Gulf of, 13 
 
 Samarcand, 231 
 
 Sarissa, the, or long pike, 62 
 
 Satyrus, 137 
 
 Sauppe, H., 21 
 
 Schal'er, 23 
 
 Schliemann's Excavations, 178 
 
 Schwartz, F. von, 227 
 
 Selymbria, 113 
 
 Silver Shields, the (apyvpaairides), 55 
 
 Sitalces, 110 
 
 Siwah, 194 
 
 Sparta and Thebes, 33, 34, 36 ; her 
 
 premature exhaustion, 37 ; refuses 
 
 submission to Philip, 99 ; her 
 
 stubbornness, 134 
 Spiegel, 2S1 
 Strabo, 5, 24, 107, 177, 226, 229, 237, 
 
 252, 269 
 Suidas, 67 
 Sutlej, the, Olympic contest at, 212 
 
312 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Teres, 110 
 
 Thebes, in the 4th century, 29, et 
 seq.; her neglect of the arts, 30 ; 
 her neighbours, ibid. ; the oli- 
 garchic man, 33 ; compared with 
 Sparta, 33, 34, 36; " Leuctrian 
 insolence," 34 ; gloominess of her 
 legends, 35 ; her behaviour to 
 Sparta, 36 ; a league with Athens, 
 123-125 ; punished by Philip, 131 ; 
 her revolt and its consequents, 169 
 
 Theopompus, 1, 19, 77, 101, 126 
 
 Thessaly, fatal feuds in, 69 ; Philip, 
 tagus of, 71 ; " split in four" by 
 Philip, 98 ; obstructs Alexander at 
 Tempes, 169 
 
 Thirlwall, denies personal merit to 
 Philip, 2 
 
 Thrace, 74 ; Philip's drastic measures 
 in, 110 
 
 Thucydides, 7, 11, 31, 61 ; on the 
 original holding of the Mace- 
 donians, 13 
 
 Tigris, 200 
 
 Timarchus, 103 
 
 Timotheus, 23, 41 
 
 Tozer, H.F., "Highlands of Turkey," 
 Tyre, taken by Alexander, 187 
 
 U 
 
 Ulpian, 56 
 
 'YiraairiaTai, foot guards, 55 
 
 Vardar Eiver, 7, 13 
 
 Vodhena (Aegae, or Edessa), 13, 15 
 
 Volo, battle of, 70 
 
 W 
 
 Weil, " Plaidoyers de Demosthene," 1 
 Wheeler, Talboys, 208, 239 
 
 Zadracasta, 220 
 Zolling, Th., 214 
 Zumetikos, A., 193 
 
 THE END.