Small loss

of the Ma

and humiliation'. The Persian or Perso-Grecian infantry, though probably more of them individually escaped than is implied in Arrian's account, was as a body irretrievably ruined. No force was either left in the field, or could be afterwards reassembled in Asia Minor.

The loss on the side of Alexander is said to have cedonians. been very small. Twenty-five of the Companioncavalry, belonging to the division under Ptolemy and Amyntas, were slain in the first unsuccessful attempt to pass the river. Of the other cavalry, sixty in all were slain; of the infantry, thirty. This is given to us as the entire loss on the side of Alexander. It is only the number of killed; that of the wounded is not stated; but assuming it to be ten times the number of killed, the total of both together will be 12653. If this be correct, the resistance of the Persian cavalry, except near that point where Alexander himself and the Persian chiefs came into conflict, cannot have been either serious or long protracted. But when we add farther the contest with the infantry, the smallness of the total assigned for Macedonian killed and wounded will appear still more surprising. The total of the Persian infantry is stated at nearly 20,000, most part of them Greek mercenaries. Of these only 2000 were made prisoners; nearly all the rest (according to Arrian) were slain. Now the Greek mercenaries were well

Arrian, i. 16, 5, 6.

2 Arrian, i. 16, 7, 8,

3 Arrian, in describing another battle, considers that the proportion of twelve to one, between wounded and killed, is above what could have been expected (v. 24, 8). Rüstow and Köchly (p. 273) state that in modern battles, the ordinary proportion of wounded to killed is from 8:1 to 10: 1.

CHAP. XCII.]

LOSS OF THE TWO ARMIES.

117

armed, and not likely to let themselves be slain with impunity; moreover Plutarch expressly affirms that they resisted with desperate valour, and that most of the Macedonian loss was incurred in the conflict against them. It is not easy therefore to comprehend how the total number of slain can be brought within the statement of Arrian'.

Alexander's his woundand severe

kindness to

ed soldiers,

treatment of the

After the victory, Alexander manifested the greatest solicitude for his wounded soldiers, whom he visited and consoled in person. Of the twenty-five Companions slain, he caused brazen statues, by Lysippus, to be erected at Dium in Macedonia, Grecian prisoners. where they were still standing in the time of Arrian. To the surviving relatives of all the slain he also granted immunity from taxation and from personal service. The dead bodies were honourably buried, those of the enemy as well as of his own soldiers. The two thousand Greeks in the Persian service who had become his prisoners, were put in chains, and transported to Macedonia there to work as slaves; to which treatment Alexander condemned them on the ground that they had taken arms on behalf of the foreigner against Greece, in contravention of the general vote passed by the synod at Corinth. At the same time, he sent to Athens three hundred panoplies selected from the spoil, to be dedicated to Athênê in the acropolis with this inscription" Alexander son of Philip, and the Greeks, except the Lacedæmonians (present these

1 Arrian, i. 16, 8; Plutarch, Alexand. 16. Aristobulus (apud Plutarch. 7. c.) said that there were slain, among the companions of Alexander (Tŵv Teρì Tòv 'Aλé§avôpov) thirty-four persons, of whom nine were infantry. This coincides with Arrian's statement about the twentyfive companions of the cavalry, slain.

Unskilful ness of the Persian

leaders.

Immense

offerings), out of the spoils of the foreigners inhabiting Asia'." Though the vote to which Alexander appealed represented no existing Grecian aspiration, and granted only a sanction which could not be safely refused, yet he found satisfaction in clothing his own self-aggrandising impulse under the name of a supposed Pan-hellenic purpose: which was at the same time useful as strengthening his hold upon the Greeks, who were the only persons competent, either as officers or soldiers, to uphold the Persian empire against him. His conquests were the extinction of genuine Hellenism, though they diffused an exterior varnish of it, and especially the Greek language, over much of the Oriental world. True Grecian interests lay more on the side of Darius than of Alexander.

The battle of the Granikus, brought on by Arsites and the other satraps contrary to the advice of Memnon, was moreover so unskilfully fought by impression them, that the gallantry of their infantry, the most formidable corps of Greeks that had ever been in the Persian service, was rendered of little use. The battle, properly speaking, was fought only by the Persian cavalry2; the infantry was left to be surrounded and destroyed afterwards.

produced by Alexander's victory.

No victory could be more decisive or terrorstriking than that of Alexander. There remained no force in the field to oppose him. The impression made by so great a public catastrophe was en1 Arrian, i. 16, 10, 11.

2 Arrian usually calls the battle of the Granikus an iññoμuxía (i. 17, 10, and elsewhere).

The battle was fought in the Attic month Thargelion: probably the beginning of May (Plutarch, Camillus, 19).

CHAP. XCII.] EFFECTS OF ALEXANDER'S VICTORY.

119

hanced by two accompanying circumstances; first, by the number of Persian grandees who perished, realising almost the wailings of Atossa, Xerxes, and the Chorus, in the Persæ of Eschylus', after the battle of Salamis-next, by the chivalrous and successful prowess of Alexander himself, who, emuating the Homeric Achilles, not only rushed foremost into the mélée, but killed two of these grandees with his own hand. Such exploits, impressive even when we read of them now, must at the moment when they occurred have acted most powerfully upon the imagination of contemporaries.

submission

Asiatics to

of the

fortress of

Several of the neighbouring Mysian mountaineers, Terror and though mutinous subjects towards Persia, came of the down to make submission to him, and were per- Alexander. mitted to occupy their lands under the same tri- Surrender bute as they had paid before. The inhabitants of strong the neighbouring Grecian city of Zeleia, whose Sardis. troops had served with the Persians, surrendered and obtained their pardon; Alexander admitting the plea that they had served only under constraint. He then sent Parmenio to attack Daskylium, the stronghold and chief residence of the satrap of Phrygia. Even this place was evacuated by the garrison and surrendered, doubtless with a considerable treasure therein. The whole satrapy of Phrygia thus fell into Alexander's power, and was appointed to be administered by Kallas for his behalf, levying the same amount of tribute as had been paid before. He himself then marched, with his main force, in a southerly direction towards Sardis-the chief town of Lydia, and the main sta

Eschylus, Pers. 950 seqq.

2

Arrian, i. 17, 1, 2.

tion of the Persians in Asia Minor. The citadel of Sardis-situated on a lofty and steep rock projecting from Mount Tmolus, fortified by a triple wall with an adequate garrison-was accounted impregnable, and at any rate could hardly have been taken by anything less than a long blockade', which would have allowed time for the arrival of the fleet and the operations of Memnon. Yet such was the terror which now accompanied the Macedonian conqueror, that when he arrived within eight miles of Sardis, he met not only a deputation of the chief citizens, but also the Persian governor of the citadel, Mithrines. The town, citadel, garrison, and treasure were delivered up to him without a blow. Fortunately for Alexander, there were not in Asia any Persian governors of courage and fidelity such as had been displayed by Maskames and Boges after the repulse of Xerxes from Greece2. Alexander treated Mithrines with courtesy and honour, granted freedom to the Sardians and to the other Lydians generally, with the use of their own Lydian laws. The betrayal of Sardis by Mithrines was a signal good fortune to Alexander. On going up to the citadel, he contemplated with astonishment its prodigious strength; congratulating himself on so easy an acquisition, and giving directions to build there a temple of Olympian Zeus, on the spot where the old palace of the kings of Lydia had been situated. He named Pausanias governor of the citadel, with

1 About the almost impregnable fortifications and position of Sardis, see Polybius, vii. 15-18; Herod. i. 84. It held out for nearly two years against Antiochus III. (B.C. 216), and was taken at last only by the extreme carelessness of the defenders; even then, the citadel was still held. 2 Herodot. vii. 106, 107.