Review and

total of the

tions both of love and hatred, but devoured especially by an inextinguishable pugnacity, appetite for conquest, and thirst for establishing at all cost his superiority of force over others "Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis "—taking pride, not simply in victorious generalship and direction of the arms of soldiers, but also in the personal forwardness of an Homeric chief, the foremost to encounter both danger and hardship. To dispositions resembling those of Achilles, Alexander indeed added one attribute of a far higher order. As a general, he surpassed his age in provident and even long-sighted combinations. With all his exuberant .courage and sanguine temper, nothing was ever omitted in the way of systematic military precaution. Thus much he borrowed, though with many improvements of his own, from Grecian intelligence as applied to soldiership. But the character and dispositions, which he took with him to Asia, had the features, both striking and repulsive, of Achilles, rather than those of Agesilaus or Epaminondas.

The army, when reviewed on the Asiatic shore Macedo- after its crossing, presented a total of 30,000 infantry, in Asia. and 4500 cavalry, thus distributed :

nian army

Such seems the most trustworthy enumeration of Alexander's first invading army. There were however other accounts, the highest of which stated as much as 43,000 infantry with 4000 cavalry'. Besides these troops, also, there must have been an effective train of projectile machines and engines, for battles and sieges, which we shall soon find in operation. As to money, the military chest of Alexander, exhausted in part by profuse donatives to his Macedonian officers, was as poorly furnished as that of Napoleon Buonaparte on first entering Italy for his brilliant campaign of 1796. According to Aristobulus, he had with him only seventy talents;

1 Diodor. xvii. 17. Plutarch (Alexand. 15) says that the highest numbers which he had read of, were, -43,000 infantry with 5000 cavalry: the lowest numbers, 30,000 infantry with 4000 cavalry (assuming the correction of Sintenis, τετρακισχιλίους in place of πεντακισxiliovs, to be well founded, as it probably is—compare Plutarch, Fort. Alex. M. i. p. 327).

According to Plutarch (Fort. Al. M. p. 327), both Ptolemy and Aristobulus stated the number of infantry to be 30,000; but Ptolemy gave the cavalry as 5000, Aristobulus, as only 4000. Nevertheless Arrian-who professes to follow mainly Ptolemy and Aristobulus, whenever they agree-states the number of infantry as "not much more than 30,000; the cavalry as more than 5000 " (Exp. Al. i. 11, 4). Anaximenes alleged 43,000 infantry, with 5500 cavalry. Kallisthenes (ap. Polybium. xii. 19) stated 40,000 infantry, with 4500 cavalry. Justin (xi. 6) gives 32,000 infantry, with 4500 cavalry.

My statement in the text follows Diodorus, who stands distinguished, by recounting not merely the total, but the component items besides. In regard to the total of infantry, he agrees with Ptolemy and Aristobulus: as to cavalry, his statement is a mean between the two. ' Plutarch, Alexand. 15.

VOL. XII.

H

Chief Macedonian officers.

according to another authority, no more than the means of maintaining his army for thirty days. Nor had he even been able to bring together his auxiliaries, or complete the outfit of his army, without incurring a debt of 800 talents, in addition to that of 500 talents contracted by his father Philip'. Though Plutarch2 wonders at the smallness of the force with which Alexander contemplated the execution of such great projects, yet the fact is, that in infantry he was far above any force which the Persians had to oppose him3; not to speak of comparative discipline and organization, surpassing even that of the Grecian mercenaries, who formed the only good infantry in the Persian service; while his cavalry, though inferior as to number, was superior in quality and in the shock of close combat.

Most of the officers exercising important command in Alexander's army were native Macedonians. His intimate personal friend Hephæstion, as well as his body-guards Leonnatus and Lysimachus, were natives of Pella: Ptolemy the son of Lagus, and Pithon, were Eordians from Upper Macedonia ; Kraterus and Perdikkas, from the district of Upper Macedonia called Orestis1; Antipater with his son Kassander, Kleitus son of Drôpides, Parmenio with

'Arrian, vii. 9, 10-the speech which he puts in the mouth of Alexander himself-and Curtius, x. 2, 24.

Onesikritus stated that Alexander owed at this time a debt of 200 talents (Plutarch, Alex. 15).

› Plutarch, Fort. Alex. M. i. p. 327; Justin, xi. 6.

3 Arrian, i. 13, 4.

4 Arrian, vi. 28, 6; Arrian, Indica, 18; Justin, xv. 3-4. Porphyry (Fragm. ap. Syncellum, Frag. Histor. Græc. vol. iii. p. 695–698) speaks of Lysimachus as a Thessalian from Kranon; but this must be a mistake compare Justin, xv. 3.

CHAP. XCII.]

MACEDONIAN OFFICERS-EUMENES.

99

his two sons Philôtas and Nikanor, Seleukus, Konus, Amyntas, Philippus (these two last names were borne by more than one person), Antigonus, Neoptolemus', Meleager, Peukestes, &c., all these seem to have been native Macedonians. All or most of them had been trained to war under Philip, in whose service Parmenio and Antipater, especially, had occupied a high rank.

Alexander's

Eumenes of

Of the many Greeks in Alexander's service, we Greeks in hear of few in important station. Medius, a Thes- servicesalian from Larissa, was among his familiar com- Kardia. panions; but the ablest and most distinguished of all was Eumenes, a native of Kardia in the Thracian Chersonese. Eumenes, combining an excellent Grecian education with bodily activity and enterprise, had attracted when a young man the notice of Philip and had been appointed as his secretary. After discharging these duties for seven years until the death of Philip, he was continued by Alexander in the post of chief secretary during the whole of that king's life. He conducted most of Alexander's correspondence, and the daily record of his proceedings, which was kept under the name of the Royal Ephemerides. But though his special duties were thus of a civil character, he was not less eminent as an officer in the field. Occasionally entrusted with high military command, he received from Alexander signal recompenses and tokens of esteem. In spite of these great qualities-or perhaps in consequence of them he was the object of marked jealousy and

1

Neoptolemus belonged, like Alexander himself, to the Æakid gens (Arrian, ii. 27, 9).

Plutarch, Eumenes, c. 1; Cornelius Nepos, Eumen. c. 1.

Persian forces

Memnon

the Rho

dians.

dislike' on the part of the Macedonians,-from Hephæstion the friend, and Neoptolemus the chief armour-bearer, of Alexander, down to the principal soldiers of the phalanx. Neoptolemus despised Eumenes as an unwarlike penman. The contemptuous pride with which Macedonians had now come to look down on Greeks, is a notable characteristic of the victorious army of Alexander, as well as a new feature in history; retorting the ancient Hellenic sentiment in which Demosthenes, a few years before, had indulged towards the Macedonians2.

Though Alexander had been allowed to land in Mentor and Asia unopposed, an army was already assembled under the Persian satraps within a few days' march of Abydos. Since the reconquest of Egypt and Phenicia, about eight or nine years before, by the Persian king Ochus, the power of that empire had been restored to a point equal to any anterior epoch since the repulse of Xerxes from Greece. The Persian successes in Egypt had been achieved mainly by the arms of Greek mercenaries, under the conduct and through the craft of the Rhodian general Mentor; who, being seconded by the preponderant influence of the eunuch Bagôas, confidential minister of Ochus, obtained not only ample presents, but also the appointment of military commander on the

1 Arrian, vii. 13, 1; Plutarch, Eum. 2, 3, 8, 10.

2 Demosth. Philipp. iii. p. 119, respecting Philip-oỷ μóvov oùx “Eλληνος ὄντος, οὐδὲ προσήκοντος οὐδὲν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν, ἀλλ ̓ οὐδὲ βαρβάρου ἐντεῦθεν ὅθεν καλὸν εἰπεῖν, ἀλλ ̓ ὀλέθρου Μακεδόνος, ὅθεν οὐδ ̓ ἀνδράποδον σπουδαῖον οὐδὲν ἦν πρότερον πρίασθαι.

Compare this with the exclamations of the Macedonian soldiers (called Argyraspides) against their distinguished chief Eumenes, calling him Xeppomoirns öλepos (Plutarch, Eumenes, 18).