A Young Macedonian in the Army of Alexander the Great: Historical Novel - Alfred John Church

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leader; no orders had been issued to them. The Persian nobles had felt, in fact, so blind a confidence in the strength of their own special arm, the cavalry, that they had treated this important part of their resources with absolute neglect. And yet, not to speak of the native troops, there were not less than ten thousand Greek mercenaries, resolute, well-armed men, got together and supported at a vast expense, who were never utilized in the struggle, but simply left to be slaughtered. These now remained to be dealt with. The king had recalled his cavalry from their pursuit of the flying Persians, and had launched them against the unprotected flanks of the Greek infantry. Not content with what he had already done in the way of personal exertion—and it was, perhaps, his one defect that he was incontrollably eager in his passion for “drinking the delight of battle,” he charged at the head of the troopers, and had a horse killed under him by a thrust from a mercenary’s lance. This horse was not the famous Bucephalus, which, as it had fallen slightly lame in the course of the battle, he had exchanged for another charger. While he was waiting for another horse to be brought to him, the light infantry came up, and with it Charidemus and his Theban friend. “Ah!” cried the king, recognizing the two comrades, with whom indeed he had exchanged a few words several times on the march from the place of landing, “the crowns of victory have fallen so far to the horsemen; now it is your turn.” He had scarcely spoken when he remembered that one at least of the two might find former friends or even kinsmen in the hostile ranks, for many Thebans, he knew, had, after the fall of their city, taken service with Persia. With the thoughtful kindness that distinguished him till his temper had been spoilt by success and by absolute power, he devised for the young man an escape from so painful a dilemma. Hastily improvising a reason for sending him away from the scene of action he said, “You must be content to help me just now as an aide-de-camp: run to Parmenio21 with all the speed you can command and deliver to him this tablet. It contains some instructions which I should like him to receive at once.” As a matter of fact the instructions contained nothing more than this, “Keep the messenger with you till the battle is over.”

      The final struggle of the day, from which the young Theban thus unconsciously received his dismissal, was fierce, but not protracted. The light-armed infantry, following the charges of the cavalry, acquitted themselves well, and Charidemus especially had the good luck to attract the notice of Alexander by the skilful way in which he disposed of a huge Arcadian. But the mercenaries continued to hold their own till the phalanx came up. The native levies which supported them broke in terror at the sight of that formidable array of steel; and even the hardy Greeks felt an unaccustomed fear. Some indeed, having served all their time in Asia, had never seen it in action before. With slow resistless advance it bore down upon the doomed survivors of the infantry. The front ranks fell before it; the rest stood for a few moments, wavered, and then broke up in hopeless confusion. Two thousand were admitted to quarter; some escaped by feigning death as they lay amidst the piles of their comrades’ corpses; but more than half of the ten thousand perished on the field.

      After this nothing was left but to collect the spoils and to bury the dead. This latter duty Alexander caused to be performed with special care. The enemy received the same decent rites of sepulture as were accorded to his own men.

      Late that night, for it was already dark before the battle was over, the two friends sat talking in the tent which they shared over the events of the day.

      “What think you of our king now?” said the young Macedonian. “Was there ever such a warrior?”

      “No,” returned the Theban. “I compared him in my mind with our own Epaminondas. Epaminondas was as brave; but he was less possessed with the passion for fighting. Our great general felt it his duty to do everything that a common soldier could be asked to do; he thought it a part of a general’s work; and, consequently, he was lost to his country when he was most needed. The life for which ten thousand talents would have been but a poor equivalent was expended in doing something for which one that would have been dear at a score of drachmas would have sufficed.22 It has always been a puzzle to me, but doubtless so wise a man must have known what was best. But to your king the fighting is not a duty but a pleasure. He is greedy of it. He grudges it to others. He would like to do all of it himself. Yes; you are right, he is an incomparable warrior. He is a veritable Achilles. But I tell you he won my heart in quite another way to-day. I have been thinking over his sending me on that message, and I can see what he meant. I did in fact see more than one face that I knew opposite to me, and though I should have done my duty, I hope, it was a terrible dilemma. The general who can think of such a thing on a battle-field, the king who can remember a humble man like myself, is one to be honoured and loved. Yes, after to-day I can follow your Alexander everywhere.”

      Charidemus grasped his hand, “The gods send us good fortune and a prosperous issue!” he exclaimed.

      CHAPTER VI

       HALICARNASSUS

       Table of Contents

      It is no part of my purpose to tell again in detail what has been so often told before, the story of the campaigns of Alexander. The victory of the Granīcus had far-reaching results. It is scarcely too much to say that it gave all Lesser Asia to the conqueror. The details of the battle had been of a singularly impressive kind. It was a veritable hero, men said, a manifest favourite of heaven, who had come to overthrow the kingdom of Cyrus. He was incomparably skilful in counsel; he was irresistible in fight. And then, as a matter of fact, so totally had the beaten army disappeared, the Great King had no force on the western side of the Taurus23 range that could pretend to meet the invaders in the field. Here and there a city or a fortress might be held for him, but the country, with all its resources, was at the mercy of the invaders; and the fortresses, for the most part, did not hold out. The terror of this astonishing success was upon their governors and garrisons, and there were few of the commanders who did not hasten to make terms for themselves. The capital of the satrapy of Phrygia, with all its treasures, was surrendered without a struggle. But a more surprising success, a success which astonished Alexander himself, was the capitulation of Sardis. He had not hoped to take it without a long blockade, for an assault was impossible except the garrison should be utterly negligent or faithless, and yet he got it without losing a single soldier or wasting a single day. The Persian governor, accompanied by the notables of the city, met him as he was advancing towards the walls, and surrendered everything to him.

      What he felt himself he expressed when the next day he inspected the capabilities of the city, notoriously the strongest place in Lesser Asia, which had fallen so unexpectedly into his hands. The town, he said, might have been held for a long time by a resolute garrison; but the citadel, with its sheer descent on every side and its triple wall was absolutely impregnable. “Well,” he went on, turning to Hephaestion, “well might old Meles have neglected to carry his lion’s cub round such a place as this!”24

      A garrison of Argive soldiers was left to hold the place. Alexander, who, like all generals of the very first ability, possessed a gift for remembering everything, had not forgotten that Charidemus had many friends and connections in Argos, and offered the young man the post of second in command, but was not at all displeased when he refused it. “You are right,” he said, “though I thought it well to give you the choice. But a young man like you is fit for something better than garrison duty. You wish to follow me then? to see Susa and Babylon, and Tyre and Jerusalem, and Egypt, perhaps India.” As he said this last word a cloud passed over his face. It brought back what to his dying day was the great remorse and terror of his life, the fate of Thebes and the dreaded anger of Bacchus, that city’s patron god. For was not Bacchus the conqueror of India, and who could hope to be under his ban, and yet safely tread in his footsteps?

      “Young man,” he said, “thank the gods that they have not made you a king, or given you the power to kill and to keep alive.”

      Ephesus was won as easily as Sardis had been; Miletus refused to surrender, but was taken by storm a few days after it had been invested. The only place of any real importance that remained in the west of Lesser Asia was Halicarnassus. But the capture of this town would, it was evident, be a task of difficulty. Memnon, now Commander-in-chief of

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