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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




Alexander. Frontispiece. 

Alexander Viewing the Dead Body of Darius. {Seep. 199. ) 



jin 



40305 



/9cd 



Library of Congress 

"1 wu Copies Received 
AUG 29 1900 

Copyright totry 

SECOND COPY. 

Ofctiverol tf 

ORDER DIVISION, 

SEP 5 190(1 



74132, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 


PAGE 


His Childhood and Youth 


. 1 


CHAPTER II. 




Beginning of his Reign . 


. 22 


CHAPTER III. 




The Reaction 


. 41 


CHAPTER IV. 




Crossing the Hellespont 


. 60 


CHAPTER V. 




Campaign in Asia Minor . 


. 83 


CHAPTER VI. 




Defeat of Darius . 


. 104 


CHAPTER VII. 




The Siege of Tyre . 


. 124 


CHAPTER VIII. 




Alexander in Egypt 


. 144 


CHAPTER IX. 




The Great Victory . 


. 162 


CHAPTER X. 




The Death of Darius 


. 184 


CHAPTER XI. 




Deterioration of Character . 


. 203 


CHAPTER XII. 




Alexander's End . 


. 218 



(v) 




Alexander, vi- 



Demosthenes. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Viewing the Dead Body of Darius 


Frontispiece. 


Demosthenes .... 


page vi 


Bust of Alexander the Great 


. " X 


Headpiece, Chapter I. . 


. " 1 


Relating the Tales of Homer 


facing " 8 


The Banquet of Philip of Macedon 


." 19 


Roman Triumph .... 


." 21 


Headpiece, Chapter II. 


." 22 


At the Wedding of Philip's Daughter 


facing " 26 


Announcing the Death of Philip . 


. " " 30 


Headpiece, Chapter III. 


." 41 


Map of Macedon and Greece 


. 32 and 42 


Roman War Chariots . 


page 40 


Slaughter of the Theban Soldiery . 


facing " 54 


Celebrating the Victory at Aegse . 


. " 59 


Headpiece, Chapter IV. 


." 60 


Statue of Alexander the Great 


facing " 64 


Map of the Plain of Troy . 


. . " 69 


Incident in the Siege of Troy 


. ■ .« 75 


Achilles ..... 


." 77 


The Romans in Asia 


." 82 


Headpiece, Chapter V. 


." 83 


Map of the Granicus 


. " 84 


The Macedonian Phalanx 


facing " 86 


The Battle of the Granicus . 


. " « 92 


Persian Galleys 


. " 103 



(vii) 



Vlll 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Headpiece, Chapter VI. 

Map of the Plain of Issus 

The Battle of Issus 

The Siege of Tyre 

Headpiece, Chapter VII. 

The Defences of Tyre . 

Arms and Armor 

Headpiece, Chapter VIII. 

Josephus, the Historian 

A Focus .... 

The xincient City of Alexandria 

Headpiece, Chapter IX. 

The Caltrop . . 

Alexander Inspiring his Soldiers 

Persians Defending the Pass 

Headpiece, Chapter X. 

The Passage of the Oxus 

Head of Alexander the Great 

Headpiece, Chapter XL 

Headpiece, Chapter XII. 

An Indian Army Elephant . 

Alexander's Triumphal Entry into Babylon 

The Death of Alexander the Great 



facing 



facing 



page 104 
110 
115 
123 
124 
129 
143 
144 
144 
159 
160 
162 
169 
175 
183 
184 
200 
202 
203 
218 
218 
222 
231 



facing 



fac 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Alexander the Great crowded into a brief 
career of twelve years a brilliant series of ex- 
ploits. Reaching the throne of Macedon before 
he had attained the age of twenty years, he 
met and defeated Darius III. at the river 
Granicus, and later completely routed him at 
a pass near Issus. He then besieged the city 
of Tyre, taking it after a siege of seven months. 
Then Alexander marched through Palestine to 
Egypt, where he was welcomed as a deliverer. 
After founding Alexandria he again set out to 
meet Darius. The battle was fought at Arbela, 
and the Persian hosts, more than a million 
strong, went down before the irresistible Mace- 
donian Phalanx. Then Alexander overthrew 
the Scythians ; marched into India, where he 
defeated Porus ; fought his way to the ocean, 
and then marched back to Susa and Babylon. 

Alexander was more than a conqueror, for 
he diffused the language and civilization of 
Greece; but his marvellous successes dazzled 
his judgment, and he became a slave to de- 
bauchery ; capricious, cruel and ungrateful. 
At the time of his death he was engaged in 
gigantic plans for further conquest and civil- 
ization. 

(ix) 




Alexander, x 



Alexander the Great. 




ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



CHAPTEK I. 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 

Alexander the Great died when he was quite 
young. He was but thirty-two years of age 
when he ended his career, and as he was about 
twenty when he commenced it, it was only for a 
period of twelve years that he was actually en- 
gaged in performing the work of his life. 
Napoleon was nearly three times as long on 
the great field of human action. 

Notwithstanding the briefness of Alexander's 
career, he ran through, during that short pe- 
riod, a very brilliant series of exploits, which 
were so bold, so romantic, and which led him 
into such adventures in scenes of the greatest 
magnificence and splendor, that all the world 
looked on with astonishment then, and man- 
kind have continued to read the story since, 
from age to age, with the greatest interest and 
attention. 

The secret of Alexander's success was his 



2 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

character. He possessed a certain combina- 
tion of mental and personal attractions, which 
in every age gives to those who exhibit it a 
mysterious and almost unbounded ascendency 
over all within their influence. Alexander was 
characterized by these qualites in a very remark- 
able degree. He was finely formed in person, 
and very prepossessing in his manners. He 
was active, athletic, and full of ardor and en- 
thusiasm in all that he did. At the same time, 
he was calm, collected, and considerate in 
emergencies requiring caution, and thoughtful 
and far-seeing in respect to the bearings and 
consequences of his acts. He formed strong 
attachments, was grateful for kindnesses shown 
to him, considerate in respect to the feelings 
of all who were connected with him in any 
way, faithful to his friends, and generous to- 
ward his feos. In a word, he had a noble 
character, though he devoted its energies un- 
fortunately to conquest and war. He lived, in 
fact, in an age when great personal and mental 
powers had scarcely any other field for their 
exercise than this. He entered upon his career 
with great ardor, and the position in which he 
was placed gave him the opportunity to act in 
it with prodigious effect. 

There were several circumstances combined, 
in the situation in which Alexander was placed, 
to afford him a great opportunity for the ex- 
ercise of his vast powers. His native country 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 3 

was on the confines of Europe and Asia. Now 
Europe and Asia were, in those days, as now, 
marked and distinguished by two vast masses 
of social and civilized life, widely dissimilar 
from each other. The Asiatic side was oc- 
cupied by the Persians, the Medes, and the 
Assyrians. The European side by the Greeks 
and Romans. They were separated from each 
other by the waters of the Hellespont, the 
iEgean Sea, and the Mediterranean. These 
waters constituted a sort of natural barrier, 
which kept the two races apart. The races 
formed, accordingly, two vast organizations, 
distinct and widely different from each other, 
and of course rivals and enemies. 

It is hard to say whether the Asiatic or 
European civilization was the highest. The 
two were so different that it is difficult to com- 
pare them. On the Asiatic side there was 
wealth, luxury, and splendor; on the Euro- 
pean, energy, genius, and force. On the one 
hand were vast cities, splendid palaces, and 
gardens which were the wonder of the world; 
on the other, strong citadels, military roads 
and bridges, and compact and well-defended 
towns. The Persians had enormous armies, 
perfectly provided for, with beautiful tents, 
horses elegant caparisoned, arms and muni- 
tions of war of the. finest workmanship, and 
officers magnificently dressed, and accustomed 
to a life of luxury and splendor. The Greeks 



4 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

and Romans, on the other hand, prided them- 
selves on their compact bodies of troops, in- 
ured to hardship and thoroughly disciplined. 
Their officers gloried not in luxury and parade, 
but in the courage, the steadiness, and implicit 
obedience of their troops, and in their own 
science, skill, and powers of military calcu- 
lation. Thus there was a great difference 
in the whole system of social and military 
organization in these two quarters of the 
globe. 

Now Alexander was born the heir to the 
throne of one of the Grecian kingdoms. He 
possessed, in a very remarkable degree, the 
energy, and enterprise, and military skill so 
characteristic of the Greeks and Romans. He 
organized armies, crossed the boundary be- 
tween Europe and Asia, and spent the twelve 
years of his career in a most triumphant mili- 
tary incursion into the very center and seat of 
Asiatic power, destroying the Asiatic armies, 
conquering the most splendid cities, defeating 
or taking captive the kings, and princes, and 
generals that opposed his progress. The 
whole world looked on with wonder to see 
such a course of conquest, pursued so success- 
fully by so young a man, and with so small an 
army, gaining continual victories, as it did, 
over such vast numbers of foes, and making 
conquests of such accumulated treasures of 
wealth and splendor. 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 5 

The name of Alexander's father was Philip. 
The kingdom over which he reigned was called 
Macedon. Macedon was in the northern part 
of Greece. It was a kingdom about twice as 
large as the State of Massachusetts, and one 
third as large as the State of New York. The 
name of Alexander's mother was Olympias. 
She was the daughter of the King of Epirus, 
which was a kingdom somewhat smaller than 
Macedon, and lying westward of it. 

Olympias was a woman of very strong and 
determined character. Alexander seemed to 
inherit her energy, though in his case it was 
combined with other qualities of a more attrac- 
tive character, which his mother did not pos- 
sess. 

He was, of course, as the young prince, a 
very important personage in his father's 
court. Everyone knew that at his father's 
death he would become King of Macedon, and 
he was consequently the object of a great deal 
of care and attention. As he gradually ad- 
vanced in the years of his boyhood, it was 
observed by all who knew him that he was 
endued with extraordinary qualities of mind 
and of character, which seemed to indicate, at 
a very early age, his future greatness. 

Although he was a prince, he was not 
brought up in habits of luxury and effeminacy. 
This would have been contrary to all the ideas 
which were entertained by the Greeks in those 



6 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

days. They had then no firearms, so that in 
battle the combatants could not stand quietly, 
as they can now, at a distance from the 
enemy, coolly discharging musketry or cannon. 
In ancient battles the soldiers rushed toward 
each other, and fought hand to hand, in close 
combat, with swords, or spears or other weap- 
ons requiring great personal strength, so that 
headlong bravery and muscular force were 
the qualities which generally carried the 
day. 

The duties of officers, too, on the field of 
battle, were very different then from what they 
are now. An officer now must be calm, col- 
lected, and quiet, His business is to plan, to 
calculate, to direct, and arrange. He has to 
do this sometimes, it is true, in circumstances 
of the most imminent danger, so that he must 
be a man of great self-possession and of un- 
daunted courage. But there is very little occa- 
sion for him to exert any great physical 
force. 

In ancient times, however, the great busi- 
ness of the officers, certainly in all the subor- 
dinate grades, was to lead on the men, and set 
them an example by performing themselves 
deeds in which their own great personal prowess 
was displayed. Of course it was considered 
extremely important that the child destined to 
be a general should become robust and power- 
ful in constitution from his earliest years, aod 



HIS CHILDHOC 

that he should be inured to hardship aiid fa- 
tigue. In the early part of Alexander's life this 
was the main object of attention. 

The name of the nurse who had charge of 
our hero in his infancy was Lannice. She did 
all in her power to give strength and hardi- 
hood to his constitution, while, at the same 
time, she treated him with kindness and gen- 
tleness. Alexander acquired a strong affection 
for her, and he treated her with great consider- 
ation as long as he lived. He had a governor, 
also, in his early years, named Leonnatus, 
who had the general charge of his education. 
As soon as he was old enough to learn, they 
appointed him a preceptor also, to teach him 
such branches as were generally taught to 
young princes in those days. The name of 
this preceptor was Lysimachus. 

They had then no printed books, but there 
were a few writings on parchment rolls which 
young scholars were taught to read. Some of 
these writings were treatises on philosophy, 
others were romantic histories, narrating the 
exploits of the heroes of those days — of course 
with much exaggeration and embellishment. 
There were also some poems, still more roman- 
tic than the histories, though generally on the 
same themes. The greatest productions of 
this kind were the v^ritings of Homer, an an- 
cient poet who lived and wrote four or five 
hundred years before Alexander's day. The 



A v ER THE GREAT. 

young Alexander was greatly delighted with 
Homer's tales. These tales are narrations of 
the exploits and adventures of certain great 
warriors at the siege of Troy — a siege which 
lasted ten years — and they are written with so 
much beauty and force, they contain such ad- 
mirable delineations of character, and such 
graphic and vivid descriptions of romantic 
adventures, and picturesque and striking 
scenes, that they have been admired in every 
age by all who have learned to understand the 
language in which they are written. 

Alexander could understand them very easily, 
as they were written in his mother tongue. 
He was greatly excited by the narrations them- 
selves, and pleased with the flowing smooth- 
ness of the verse in which the tales were told. 
In the latter part of his course of education he 
was placed under the charge of Aristotle, who 
was one of the most eminent philosophers of 
ancient times. Aristotle had a beautiful copy 
of Homer's poems prepared expressly for 
Alexander, taking great pains to have it trans- 
cribed with perfect correctness, and in the 
most elegant manner. Alexander carried this 
copy with him in all his campaigns. Some 
years afterward, when he was obtaining con- 
quests over the Persians, he took, among the 
spoils of one of his victories, a very beautiful 
and costly casket, which King Darius had 
used for his jewelry or for some other rich 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 9 

treasures. Alexander determined to make use 
of this box as a depository for his beautiful 
copy of Homer, and he always carried it with 
him, thus protected, in all his subsequent cam- 
paigns. Alexander was full of energy and 
spirit, but he was, at the same time, like all 
who ever become truly great, of a reflective 
and considerate turn of mind. He was very 
fond of the studies which Aristotle led him to 
pursue, although they were of a very abstruse 
and difficult character. He made great prog- 
ress in metaphysical philosophy and mathe- 
matics, by which means his powers of calcula- 
tion and his judgment were greatly improved. 
He early evinced a great degree of ambition. 
His father Philip was a powerful warrior, and 
made many conquests in various parts of 
Greece, though he did not cross into Asia. 
When news of Philip's victories came into 
Macedon, all the rest of the court would be 
filled with rejoicing and delight; but Alexan- 
der, on such occasions, looked thoughtful and 
disappointed, and complained that his father 
would conquer every country, and leave him 
nothing to do. 

At one time some ambassadors from the Per- 
sian court arrived in Macedon when Philip was 
away. These ambassadors saw Alexander, of 
course, and had opportunities to converse with 
him. They expected that he would be inter- 
ested in hearing about the splendors and 

2— Alexander 



10 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

pomp and parade of the Persian monarchy. 
They had stories to tell him about the famous 
hanging gardens, which were artificially con- 
structed in the most magnificent manner, on 
arches raised high in the air; and about a vine 
made of gold, with all sorts of precious stones 
upon it instead of fruit, which was wrought as 
an ornament over the throne on which the King 
of Persia often gave audience; of the splendid 
palaces and vast cities of the Persians ; and 
the banquets, and fetes, and magnificent enter- 
tainments and celebrations which they used to 
have there. They found, however, to their 
surprise, that Alexander was not interested in 
hearing about any of these things. He would 
always turn the conversation from them to in- 
quire about the geographical position of the 
different Persian countries, the various routes 
leading into the interior, the organization of 
the Asiatic armies, their system of military 
tactics, and, especially, the character and 
habits of Artaxerxes, the Persian king. 

The ambassadors were very much surprised 
at such evidences of maturity of mind, and of 
far-seeing and reflective powers on the part of 
the young prince. They could not help com- 
paring him with Artaxerxes. ''Alexander, " 
said they, "is great, while our king is only 
rich." The truth of the judgment which 
these ambassadors thus formed in respect to the 
qualities of the young Macedonian, compared 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 11 

with those held in highest estimation on the 
Asiatic side, was fully confirmed in the subse- 
quent stages of Alexander's career. 

In fact, this combination of a calm and cal- 
culating thonghtfulness, with the ardor and 
energy which formed the basis of his character, 
was one great secret of Alexander's success. 
The story of Bucephalus, his famous horse, 
illustrates this in a very striking manner. 
This animal was a war-horse of very spirited 
character, which had been sent as a present to 
Philip while Alexander was young. They 
took the horse out into one of the parks con- 
nected with the palace, and the king, together 
with many of his courtiers, went out to view 
him. The horse pranced about in a very furi- 
ous manner, and seemed entirely unmanagea- 
ble. No one dared to mount him. Philip, 
instead of being gratified at the present, was 
rather disposed to be displeased that they, had 
sent him an animal of so fiery and apparently 
vicious a nature that nobody dared to attempt 
to subdue him. 

In the meantime, while all the other by- 
standers were joining in the general condem- 
nation of the horse, Alexander stood quietly 
by, watching his motions, and attentively 
studying his character. He perceived that a 
part of the difficulty was caused by the agita- 
tions which the horse experienced in so strange 
and new a scene, and that he appeared, also, 



12 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

to be somewhat frightened by his own shadow, 
which happened at that time to be thrown very 
strongly and distinctly upon the ground. He 
saw other indications, also, that the high ex- 
citement which the horse felt was not vicious- 
ness, but the excess of noble and generous im- 
pulses. It was courage, ardor, and the con- 
sciousness of great nervous and muscular 
power. 

Philip had decided that the horse was use- 
less, and had given orders to have him sent 
back to Thessaly, whence he came. Alexander 
was very much concerned at the prospect of 
losing so fine an animal. He begged his father 
to allow him to make the experiment of 
mounting him. Philip at first refused, think- 
ing it very presumptuous for such a youth 
to attempt to subdue an animal so vicious 
that all his experienced horsemen and grooms 
condemned him; however, he at length 
consented. Alexander went up to the horse 
and took hold of his bridle. He patted him 
upon the neck, and soothed him with his 
voice, showing, at the same time by his 
easy and unconcerned manner, that he was 
not in the least afraid of him. A spirited 
horse knows immediately when any one ap- 
proaches him in a timid or cautious manner. 
He appears to look with contempt on such a 
master, and to determine not to submit to him. 
On the contrary, horses seem to love to yield 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 13 

obedience to man, when the individul who ex- 
acts the obedience possesses those qualities of 
coolness and courage which their instincts en- 
able them to appreciate. 

At any rate, Bucephalus was calmed and 
subdued by the presence of Alexander. He 
allowed himself to be caressed. Alexander 
turned his head in such a direction as to pre- 
vent his seeing his shadow. He quietly and 
gently laid off a sort of cloak which he wore, 
and sprang upon the horse's back. Then, in- 
stead of attempting to restrain him, and worry- 
ing and checking him by useless efforts to hold 
him in, he gave him the rein freely, and ani- 
mated and encouraged him with his voice so 
that the horse flew across the plains at the top 
of his speed, the king and the courtiers look- 
ing on, at first with fear and trembling, but 
soon afterward with feelings of the greatest 
admiration and pleasure. After the horse 
had satisfied himself with his run it was easy 
to rein him in, and Alexander returned with 
him in safety to the king. The courtiers over- 
whelmed him with their praises and congratula- 
tions. Philip commended him very highly : 
he told him that he deserved a larger kingdom 
than Macedon to govern. 

Alexander's judgment of the true character 
of the horse proved to be correct. He be- 
came very tractable and docile, yielding a 
ready submission to his master in everything, 



14 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

He would kneel upon his fore legs at Alexan- 
der's command, in order that he might mount 
more easily. Alexander retained him for a 
long time, and made him his favorite war- 
horse. A great many stories are related by 
the historians of those days of his sagacity 
and his feats ■ of war. Whenever he was 
equipped for the field with his military trap- 
pings, he seemed to be highly elated with 
pride and pleasure, and at such times he 
would not allow any one but Alexander to 
mount him. 

What became of him at last is not certainly 
known s There are two accounts of his end. 
One is, that on a certain occasion Alexander 
got carried too far into the midst of his 
enemies, on a battlefield, and that, after fight- 
ing desperately for some time, Bucephalus 
made the most extreme exertions to carry him 
away. He was severely wounded again and 
again, and though his strength was nearly 
gone, he would not stop, but pressed forward 
till he had carried his master away to a place 
of safety, and that then he dropped down ex- 
hausted, and died. It may be, however, that 
he did not actually die at this time, but slowly 
recovered ; for some historians relate that he 
lived to be thirty years old — which is quite an 
old age for a horse — and that he then died. 
Alexander caused him to be buried with great 
ceremony, and built a small city upon the spot 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15 

in honor of his memory. The name of this 
city was Bucephalia. 

Alexander's character matured rapidly, and 
he began very early to act the part of a man. 
"When he was only sixteen years of age his 
father, Philip, made him regent of Macedon 
while he was absent on a great military cam- 
paign among the other states of Greece. 
Without doubt Alexander had, in this regency, 
the counsel and aid of high officers of state of 
great experience and ability. He acted, how- 
ever, himself, in this high position, with 
great energy and with complete success ; and, 
at the same time, with all that modesty of de- 
portment, and that delicate consideration for 
the officers under him — who, though inferior 
in rank, were yet his superiors in age and ex- 
perience — which his position rendered proper, 
but which few persons so young as he would 
have manifested in circumstances so well cal- 
culated to awaken the feelings of vanity and 
elation. 

Afterward, when Alexander was about eight- 
een years old, his father took him with him 
on a campaign toward the south, during which 
Philip fought one of his great battles at 
Chseronea, in Boeotia. In the arrangements 
for this battle, Philip gave the command of 
one of the wings of the army to Alexander, 
while he reserved the other for himself. He 
felt some solicitude in giving his young son so 



16 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

important a charge, but he endeavored to guard 
against the danger of an unfortunate result by- 
putting the ablest generals on Alexander's 
side, while he reserved those on whom he could 
place less reliance for his own. Thus organ- 
ized, the army went into battle. 

Philip soon ceased to feel any solicitude for 
Alexander's part of the duty. Boy as he was, 
the young prince acted with the utmost 
bravery, coolness, and discretion. The wing 
which he commanded was victorious, and 
Philip was obliged to urge himself and the 
officers with him to greater exertions, to avoid 
being outdone by his son. In the end Philip 
was completely victorious, and the result of 
this great battle was to make his power para- 
mount and supreme over all the states of 
Greece. 

Notwithstanding, however, the extraordinary 
discretion and wisdom which characterized 
the mind of Alexander in his early years, he 
was often haughty and headstrong, and in 
cases where his pride or his resentment were 
aroused, he was sometimes found very impetu- 
ous and uncontrollable. His mother Olympias 
was of a haughty and imperious temper, and 
she quarreled with her husband, King Philip ; 
or, perhaps, it ought rather to be said that he 
quarreled with her. Each is said to have 
been unfaithful to the other, and, after a bitter 
contention, Philip repudiated his wife and 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 17 

married another lady. Among the festivities 
held on the occasion of this marriage, there 
was a great banquet, at which Alexander was 
present, and an incident occurred which strik- 
ingly illustrates the impetuosity of his char- 
acter. 

One of the guests at this banquet, in saying 
something complimentary to the new queen, 
made use of expressions which Alexander con- 
sidered as in disparagement of the character 
of his mother and of his own birth. His anger 
was immediately aroused. He threw the cup 
from which he had been drinking at the 
offender's head. Attalus, for this was his 
name, threw his cup at Alexander in return ; 
the guests at the table where they were sitting 
rose, and a scene of uproar and confusion 
ensued. 

Philip, incensed at such an interruption of 
the order and harmony of the wedding feast, 
drew his sword and rushed toward Alexander, . 
but by some accident he stumbled and fell 
upon the floor. Alexander looked upon his 
fallen father with contempt and scorn, and ex- 
claimed: "What a fine hero the states of 
Greece have to lead their armies — a man that 
cannot get across the floor without tumbling 
down." He then turned away and left the 
palace. Immediately afterward he joined his 
mother Olympias, and went away with her 
to her native country, Epirus, » where the 



18 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

mother and son remained for a time in a state 
of open quarrel with the husband and father. 

In the meantime Philip had been planning a 
great expedition into Asia. He had arranged 
the affairs of his own kingdom, and had 
formed a strong combination among the states 
of Greece, by which powerful armies had been 
raised, and he had been designated to com- 
mand them. His mind was very intently en- 
gaged in this vast enterprise. He was in the 
flower of his years, and at the height of his 
power. His own kingdom was in a very pros- 
perous and thriving condition, and his ascend- 
ency over the other kingdoms and states on the 
European side had been fully established. 
He was excited with ambition, and full of 
hope. He was proud of his son Alexander, 
and was relying upon his efficient aid in his 
schemes of conquest and aggrandizement. He 
had married a youthful and beautiful bride, and 
was surrounded by scenes of festivity, congrat- 
ulation, and rejoicing. He was looking for- 
ward to a very brilliant career, considering all 
the deeds that he had done and all the glory 
which he had acquired as only the introduction 
and prelude to the far more distinguished and 
conspicuous part which he was intending to 
perform. 

Alexander, in the meantime, ardent and im- 
petuous, and eager for glory as he was, looked 
upon the position and prospects of his father 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 21 

with some envy and jealousy. He was im- 
patert to be monarch himself. His taking 
sides so promptly with his mother in the 
domestic quarrel was partly owing to the feel- 
ing that his father was a hinderance and an 
obstacle in the way of his own greatness and 
fame. He felt within himself powers and 
capacities qualifying him to take his father's 
place, and reap for himself the harvest of 
glory and power which seemed to await the 
Grecian armies in the coming campaign. 
While his father lived, however, he could be 
only a prince; influential, accomplished, and 
popular, it is true, but still without any sub- 
stantial and independent power. He was rest- 
less and uneasy at the thought that, as his 
father was in the prime and vigor of manhood, 
many long years must elapse before he could 
emerge from this confined and subordinate 
condition. His restlessness and uneasiness 
were, however, suddenly ended by a very ex- 
traordinary occurrence, which called him, with 
scarcely an hour's notice, to take his father's 
place upon the throne. 





CHAPTER II. 

BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN* 

Alexander was suddenly called upon to suc- 
ceed his father on the Macedonian throne, in 
the most unexpected manner, and in the 
midst of scenes of the greatest excitement and 
agitation. The circumstances were these: 

Philip had felt very desirous, before setting 
out upon his great expedition into Asia, to be- 
come reconciled to Alexander and Olympias. 
He wished for Alexander's co-operation in his 
plans; and then, besides, it would be dangerous 
to go away from his own dominions with such 
a son left behind, in a state of resentment and 
hostility. 

So Philip sent kind and conciliatory mes- 
sages to Olympias and Alexander, who had 
gone, it will be recollected, to Epirus, where 
her friends resided. The brother of Olympias 
was King of Epirus. He had been at first in- 
censed at the indignity which had been put 
upon his sister by Philip's treatment of her; 
but Philip now tried to appease his anger, also, 
by friendly negotiations and messages. At 
last he arranged a marriage between this King 

22 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 23 

of Epirus and one of his own daughters, and 
this completed the reconciliation. Olympias 
and Alexander returned to Macedon, and great 
preparations were made for a very splendid 
wedding. 

Philip wished to make this wedding not 
merely the means of confirming his reconcilia- 
tion with his former wife and son, and estab- 
lishing friendly relations with the King of 
Epirus : he also prized it as an occasion for 
paying marked and honorable attention to the 
princes and great generals of the other states 
of Greece. He consequently made his prepara- 
tions on a very extended and sumptuous scale, 
and sent invitations to the influential and 
prominent men far and near. 

These great men, on the other hand, and all 
the other public authorities in the various Gre- 
cian states, sent compliments, congratulations, 
and presents to Philip, each seeming ambitious 
to contribute his share to the splendor of the 
celebration. They were not wholly disinteres- 
ted in this, it is true. As Philip had been made 
commanderin-chief of the Grecian armies which 
were about to undertake the conquest of Asia, 
and as, of course, his influence and power in all 
that related to that vast enterprise would be 
paramount and supreme ; and as all were ambi- 
tious to have a large share in the glory of that 
expedition, and to participate, as much as 
possible, in the power and in the renown 



24 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

which seemed to be at Philip's disposal, all 
were, of course, very anxious to secure his 
favor. A short time before, they were con- 
tending against him ; but now, since he had 
established his ascendency, they all eagerly 
joined in the work of magnifying it and mak- 
ing it illustrious. 

Nor could Philip justly complain of the 
hollowness and falseness of these professions 
of friendship. The compliments and favors 
which he offered to them were equally hollow 
and heartless. He wished to secure their 
favor as a means of aiding him up the steep 
path to fame and power which he was attempt- 
ing to climb. They wished for his, in order 
that he might, as he ascended himself, help 
them up with him. There was, however, the 
greatest appearance of cordial and devoted 
friendship. Some cities sent him presents of 
golden crowns, beautifully w r rought, and of 
high cost. Others dispatched embassies, ex- 
pressing their good wishes for him, and their 
confidence in the success of his plans. Athens, 
the city which was the great seat of literature 
and science in Greece, sent a poem, in which 
the history of the expedition into Persia was 
given by anticipation. In this poem Philip 
was, of course, triumphantly successful in his 
enterprise. He conducted his armies in safety 
through the most dangerous passes and defiles ; 
he fought glorious battles, gained magnificent 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 25 

victories, and possessed himself of all the 
treasures of Asiatic wealth and power. It 
ought to be stated, however, in justice to the 
poet, that, in narrating these imaginary ex- 
ploits, he had sufficient delicacy to represent 
Philip and the Persian monarch by fictitious 
names. 

The wedding was at length celebrated, in 
one of the cities of Macedon, with great pomp 
and splendor. There were games, and shows, 
and military and civic spectacles of all kinds 
to amuse the thousands of spectators that as- 
sembled to witness them. In one of these 
spectacles they had a procession of statues of 
the gods. There were twelve of these statues, 
sculptured with great art, and they were borne 
along on elevated pedestals, with censers, and 
incense, and various ceremonies of homage, 
w r hile vast multitudes of spectators lined the 
way. There was a thirteenth statue, more 
magnificent than the other twelve, which repre- 
sented Philip himself in the character of a god. 

This was not, however, so impious as it 
would at first view seem, for the gods w-hom 
the ancients worshiped were, in fact, only 
deifications of old heroes and kings who had 
lived in early times, and had acquired a repu- 
tation for supernatural powers by the fame ci 
their exploits, exaggerated in descending by 
tradition in superstitious times. The ignorant 
multitude accordingly, in those days, looked 

3— Alexander 



26 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

up to a living king with almost the same rever- 
ence and homage which they felt for their dei- 
fied heroes ; and these deified heroes furnished 
them with all the ideas they had of God. 
Making a monarch a god, therefore, was no 
very extravagant flattery. 

After the procession of the statues passed 
along, there came bodies of troops, with trum- 
pets sounding and banners flying. The 
officers rode on horses elegantly caparisoned, 
and prancing proudly. These troops escorted 
princes, ambassadors, generals, and great 
officers of state, all gorgeously decked in their 
robes, and wearing their badges and insignia. 

At length King Philip himself appeared in 
the procession. He had arranged to have a 
large space left, in the middle of which he was 
to walk. This was done in order to make his 
position the more conspicuous, and to mark 
more strongly his own high distinction above 
all the other potentates present on the occasion. 
Guards preceded and followed him, though at 
considerable distance, as has been already 
said. He was himself clothed with white 
robes, and his head was adorned with a splen- 
did crown. 

The procession was moving toward a great 
theater, where certain games and spectacles 
were to be exhibited. The statues of the gods 
were to be taken into the theater, and placed 
in conspicuous positions there, in the view of 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 27 

the assembly, and then the procession itself 
was to follow. All the statues had entered 
except that of Philip, which was just at the 
door, and Philip himself was advancing in the 
midst of the space left for him, up the avenue 
by which the theater was approached, when an 
occurrence took place by which the whole char- 
acter of the scene, the destiny of Alexander, 
and the fate of fifty nations, was suddenly and 
totally changed. It was this. An officer of 
the guards, who had his position in the pro- 
cession near the king, was seen advancing im- 
petuously toward him, through the space which 
separated him from the rest, and, before the 
spectators had time even to wonder what he 
was going to do, he stabbed him to the heart. 
Philip fell down in the street and died. 

A scene of indescribable tumult and confu- 
sion ensued. The murderer was immediately 
cut to pieces by the other guards. They 
found, however, before he was dead, that it 
was Pausanias, a man of high standing and 
influence, a general officer of the guards. He 
had had horses provided, and other assistance 
ready, to enable him to make his escape, but 
he was cut down by the guards before he could 
avail himself of them. 

An officer of state immediately hastened to 
Alexander, and announced to him his father's 
death and his own accession to the throne. An 
assembly of the leading councilors and states- 



28 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

men was called, in a hasty and tumultuous 
manner, and Alexander was proclaimed king 
with prolonged and general acclamations. 
Alexander made a speech in reply. The great 
assembly looked upon his youthful form and 
face as he arose, and listened with intense in- 
terest to hear what he had to say. He was 
between nineteeen and twenty years of age; 
but, though thus really a boy, he spoke with 
all the decision and confidence of an energetic 
man. He said that he should at once assume 
his father's position, and carry forward his 
plans. He hoped to do this so efficiently that 
everything would go directly onward, just as 
if his father had continued to live, and that 
the nation would find that the only change 
which had taken place was in the name of the 
king. 

The motive which induced Pausanias to 
murder Philip in this manner was never fully 
ascertained. There were various opinions 
about it. One was, that it was an act of pri- 
vate revenge, occasioned by some neglect or 
injury which Pausanias had received from 
Philip. Others thought that the murder was 
instigated by a party in the states of Greece, 
who were hostile to Philip, and unwilling that 
he should command the allied armies that were 
about to penetrate into Asia. Demosthenes, 
the celebrated orator, was Philip's great enemy 
among the Greeks. Many of his most power- 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 29 

ful orations were made for the purpose of 
arousing his countrymen to resist his ambi- 
tious plans and to curtail his power. These 
orations were called his Philippics, and from 
this origin has arisen the practice, which has 
prevailed every since that day, of applying 
the term philippics to denote, in general, any 
strongly denunciatory harangues. 

Now Demosthenes, it is said, who was at 
this time in Athens, announced the death of 
Philip in an Athenian assembly before it was 
possible that the news could have been con- 
veyed there. He accounted for his early pos- 
session of the intelligence by saying it was 
communicated to him by some of the gods. 
Many persons have accordingly supposed that 
the plan of assassinating Philip was devised in 
Greece; that Demosthenes was a party to it; 
that Pausanias was the agent for carrying it 
into execution; and that Demosthenes was so 
confident of the success of the plot, and exulted 
so much in this certainty, that he could not 
resist the temptation of thus anticipating its 
announcement. 

There were other persons who thought that 
the Persians had plotted and accomplished this 
murder, having induced Pausanias to execute 
the deed by the promise of great rewards. As 
Pausanias himself, however, had been in- 
stantly killed, there was no opportunity of 
gaining any information from him on the 



30 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

motives of his conduct, even if he would have 
been disposd to impart any. 

At all events, Alexander found himself sud- 
denly elevated to one of the most conspicuous 
positions in the whole political world. It was 
not simply that he succeeded to the throne of 
Macedon ; even this would have been a lofty 
position for so young a man ; but Macedon 
was a very small part of the realm over which 
Philip had extended his power. The ascend- 
ency which he had acquired over the whole 
Grecian empire, and the vast arrangements he 
had made for an incursion into Asia, made 
Alexander the object of universal interest and 
attention. The question was, whether Alex- 
ander should attempt to take his father's place 
in respect to all this general power, and under- 
take to sustain and carry on his vast projects, 
or whether he should content himself with 
ruling, in quiet, over his native country of 
Macedon. 

Most prudent persons would have advised a 
young prince, under such circumstances, to 
have decided upon the latter course. But 
Alexander had no idea of bounding his ambi- 
tion by any such limits. He resolved to 
spring at once completely into his father's 
seat, and not only to possess himself of the 
whole of the power which his father had ac- 
quired, but to commence, immediately, the 
most energetic and vigorous efforts for a great 
extension of it. 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN 31 

His first plan was to punish his father's 
murderers. He caused the circumstances of 
the case to be investigated, and the persons 
suspected of having been connected with Pau- 
sanias in the plot to be tried. Although the 
designs and motives of the murderers could 
never be fully ascertained, still several persons 
were found guilty of participating in it, and 
were condemned to death and publicly executed. 

Alexander next decided not to make any 
change in his father's appointments to the 
great offices of state, but to let all the depart- 
ments of public affairs go on in the same hands 
as before. How sagacious a line of conduct 
was this! Most ardent and enthusiastic young 
men, in the circumstances in which he was 
placed, would have been elated and vain at 
their elevation, and would have replaced the 
old and well-tried servants of the father with 
personal favorites of their own age, inexpe- 
rienced and incompetent, and as conceited as 
themselves. Alexander, however, made no 
such changes. He continued the old officers 
in command, endeavoring to have everything 
go on just as if his father had not died. 

There were two officers in particular who 
were the ministers on whom Philip had mainly 
relied. Their names were Antipater and Par- 
menio. Antipater had charge of the civil, and 
Parmenio of military affairs. Parmenio was a 
very distinguished general, He was at this 



32 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



time nearly sixty years of age. Alexander 
had great confidence in his military powers, 
and felt a strong personal attachment for him. 
Parmenio entered into the young king's serv- 




ryL 



ice with great readiness, and accompanied him 
through almost the whole of his career. It 
seemed strange to see men of such age, stand- 
ing, and experience, obeying the orders of 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 33 

Such a boy ; but there was something in the 
genius, the power, and the enthusiasm of 
Alexander's character which inspired ardor in 
all around him, and made everyone eager to 
join his standard and to aid in the execution 
of his plans. 

Macedon, as will be seen on the accompany- 
ing map, was in the northern part of the country 
occupied by the Greeks, and the most power- 
ful states of the confederacy and all the great 
and influential cities were south of it. There 
was Athens, which was magnificently built, its 
splendid citadel crowning a rocky hill in the 
center of it. It was the great seat of litera- 
ture, philosophy, and the arts, and was thus 
a center of attraction for all the civilized world. 
There was Corinth, which was distinguished 
for the gayety and pleasure which reigned 
there. All possible means of luxury and 
amusement were concentrated within its walls. 
The lovers of knowledge and of art, from all 
parts of the earth, flocked to Athens, while 
those in pursuit of pleasure, dissipation, and 
indulgence chose Corinth for their home. Cor- 
inth was beautifully situated on the isthmus, 
with prospects of the sea on either hand. It 
had been a famous city for a thousand years in 
Alexander's day. 

There was also Thebes. Thebes was far- 
ther north than Athens and Corinth. It was 
situated on an elevated plain, and had, like 



34 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

other ancient cities, a strong citadel, where 
there was at this time a Macedonian garrison, 
which Philip had placed there. Thebes was 
very wealthy and powerful. It had also been 
celebrated as the birthplace of many poets and 
philosophers, and other eminent men. Among 
these was Pindar, a very celebrated poet who 
had flourished one or two centuries before the 
time of Alexander. His descendants still lived 
in Thebes, and Alexander, some time after 
this, had occasion to confer upon them a very 
distinguished honor. 

There was Sparta also, called sometimes 
Lacedsemon. The inhabitants of this city 
were famed for their courage, hardihood, and 
physical strength, and for the energy with 
which they devoted themselves to the work of 
war. They were nearly all soldiers, and all 
the arrangements of the state and of society, 
and all the plans of education, were designed 
to promote military ambition and pride among 
the officers, and fierce and indomitable courage 
and endurance in the men. 

These cities and many others, with the states 
which were attached to them, formed a large, 
and flourishing, and very powerful community, 
extending over all that part of Greece which 
lay south of Macedon. Philip, as has been 
already said, had established his own ascend- 
ency over all this region, though it had cost 
him many perplexing negotiations and some 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 35 

hard -fought battles to do it e Alexander con- 
sidered it somewhat uncertain whether the 
people of all these states and cities would be 
disposed to transfer readily, to so youthful a 
prince as he, the high commission which his 
father, a very powerful monarch and soldier, 
had extorted from them with so much difficulty. 
What should he do in the case? Should he 
give up the expectation of it? Should he send 
ambassadors to them, presenting his claims to 
occupy his father's place? Or should he not 
act at all, but wait quietly at home in Macedon 
until they should decide the question? 

Instead of doing either of these things, 
Alexander decided on the very bold step of 
setting out himself, at the head of an army, to 
march into southern Greece, for the purpose 
of presenting in person, and, if necessary, of 
enforcing his claim to the same post of honor 
and power which had been conferred upon his 
father. Considering all the circumstances of 
the case, this was perhaps one of the boldest 
and most decided steps of Alexander's whole 
career. Many of his Macedonian advisers 
counseled him not to make such an attempt ; 
but Alexander would not listen to any such 
cautions. He collected his forces, and set 
forth at the head of them. 

Between Macedon and the southern states of 
Greece was a range of lofty and almost im- 
passable mountains. These mountains extended 



36 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

through the whole interior of the country, and 
the main route leading into southern Greece 
passed around to the eastward of them, where 
they terminated in cliffs, leaving a narrow pas- 
sage between the cliffs and the sea. This pass 
was called the Pass of Thermopylae, and it 
was considered the key to Greece. There was 
a town named Anthela near the pass, on the 
outward side. 

There was in those days a sort of general 
congress or assembly of the states of Greece, 
which was held from time to time, to decide 
questions and disputes in which the different 
states were continually getting involved with 
each other. This assembly was called the Am- 
phictyonic Council, on account, as is said, of 
its having been established by a certain king 
named Amphictyon. A meeting of this council 
was appointed to receive Alexander. It was 
to be held at Thermopylae, or, rather, at 
Anthela, which was just without the pass, and 
was the usual place at which the council as- 
sembled. This was because the pass was in 
an intermediate position between the northern 
and southern portions of Greece, and thus 
equally accessible from either. 

In proceeding to the southward, Alexander 
had first to pass through Thessaly, which was 
a very powerful state immediately south of 
Macedon. He met with some show of resist- 
ance at first, but not much. The country was 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 37 

impressed with the boldness and decision of 
character manifested in the taking of such a 
course by so young a man. Then, too, Alex- 
ander, so far as he became personally known, 
made a very favorable impression upon every 
one. His manly and athletic form, his frank 
and open manners, his spirit, his generosity, 
and a certain air of confidence, independence, 
and conscious superiority, which were com- 
bined, as they always are in the case of true 
greatness, with an unaffected and unassuming 
modesty — these and other traits, which were 
obvious to all who saw him, in the person and 
character of Alexander, made everyone his 
friend. Common men take pleasure in yield- 
ing to the influence and ascendency of one 
whose spirit they see and feel stands on a 
higher eminence and wields higher powers than 
their own. They like a leader. It is true, 
they must feel confident of his superiority ; 
but when this superiority stands out so clearly 
and distinctly marked, combined, too, with all 
the graces and attractions of youth and manly 
beauty, as it was in the case of Alexander, the 
minds of men are brought very easily and 
radidly under its sway. 

The Thessalians gave Alexander a very favor- 
able reception. They expressed a cordial 
readiness to instate him in the position which 
his father had occupied. They joined their 
forces to his, and proceeded southward toward 
the Pass of Thermopylae. 

4— Alexander 



38 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Here the great council was held. Alexander 
took his place in it as a member. Of course, 
he must have been an object of universal inter- 
est and attention. The impression which he 
made here seems to have been very favorable. 
After this assembly separated, Alexander pro- 
ceeded southward, accompanied by his own 
forces, and tended by the various princes and 
potentates of Greece, with their attendants and 
followers. The feelings of exultation and 
pleasure with which the young king defiled 
through the Pass of Thermopylae, thus at- 
tended, must have been exciting in the extreme. 

The Pass of Thermopylae was a scene 
strongly associated with ideas of military glory 
and renown. It was here that, about a hun- 
dred and fifty years before, Leonidas, a Spar- 
tan general, with only three hundred soldiers, 
had attempted to withstand the pressure of an 
immense Persian force which was at that time 
invading Greece. He was one of the kings of 
Sparta, and he had the command, not only of 
his three hundred Spartans, but also of all the 
allied forces of the Greeks that had been as- 
sembled to repel the Persian invasion. With 
the help of these allies he withstood the Per- 
sian forces or some time, and as the pass was 
so narrow between the qJdffs and the sea, he 
was enabled to resist them successfully. At 
length, however, a strong detachment from the 
immense Persian army contrived to find their 



BEGINNING OF HIS REIGN. 39 

way over the mountains and around the pass, 
so as to establish themselves in a position 
from which they could come down upon the 
small Greek army in their rear. Leonidas, 
perceiving this, ordered all his allies from the 
other states of Greece to withdraw, leaving 
himself and his three hundred countrymen 
alone in the defile. 

He did not expect to repel his enemies or to 
defend the pass. He knew that he must die, 
and all his brave followers with him, and that 
the torrent of invaders would pour down 
through the pass over their bodies. But he 
considered himself stationed there to defend 
the passage, and he would not desert his post. 
When the battle came on he was the first to 
fall. The soldiers gathered around him and 
defended his dead body as long as they could 
At length, overpowered by the immense num- 
bers of their foes, they were all killed but one 
man. He made his escape and returned to 
Sparta. A monument was erected on the spot 
with this inscription: "Go, traveler, to Sparta 
and say that we lie here, on the spot at which 
we were stationed to defend our country." 

Alexander passed through the defile. He 
advanced to the great cities south of it — to 
Athens, to Thebes, and to Corinth. Another 
great assembly of all the monarchs and poten- 
tates of Greece was convened in Corinth ; and 
here Alexander attained the object of his ambi- 



40 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



tion, in having the command of the great ex- 
pedition into Asia conferred upon him. The 
impression which he made upon those with 
whom he came into connection by his personal 
qualities must have been favorable in the ex- 
treme. That such a youthful prince should 
be selected by so powerful a confederation of 
nations as their leader in such an enterprise as 
they were about to engage in, indicates a most 
extraordinary power on his part of acquiring 
an ascendency over the minds of men, and of 
impressing all with a sense of his commanding 
superiority. Alexander returned to Macedon 
from his expedition to the southward in 
triumph, and began at once to arrange the 
affairs of his kingdom, so as to be ready to 
enter, unembarrassed, upon the great career of 
conquest which he imagined was before him. 





CHAPTEK III. 



THE REACTION. 



The country which was formerly occupied 
by Macedon and the other states of Greece is 
now Turkey in Europe. In the northern part 
of it is a vast chain of mountains called now 
the Balkan. In Alexander's day it was Mount 
Haemus. This chain forms a broad belt of 
lofty and uninhabitable land, and extends from 
the Black Sea to the Adriatic. 

A branch of this mountain range, called 
Khodope, extends southwardly from about the 
middle of its length, as may be seen by the 
map. Bhodope separated Macedonia from a 
large and powerful country, which was occu- 
pied by a somewhat rude but warlike race of 
men. This country was Thrace. Thrace was 
one great fertile basin or valley, sloping toward 
the center in every direction, so that all the 
streams from the mountains, increased by the 
rains which fell over the whole surface of the 
ground, flowed together into one river, which 
meandered through the center of the valley, 
and flowed out at last into the iEgean Sea, 

41 



42 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

The name of this river was the Hebrus. All 
this may be seen distinctly upon the map. 

The Balkan, or Mount Hsemus, as it was 
then called, formed the great northern frontier 




of Macedon and Thrace. From the summits 
of the range, looking northward the eye surveyed 
a vast extent of land, constituting one of the 
most extensive m& fertile valleys on the globe, 



THE REACTION. 43 

It was the valley of the Danube. It was in- 
habited, in those days, by rude tribes whom 
the Greeks and Romans always designated as 
barbarians. They were, at any rate, wild and 
warlike, and, as they had not the art of writ- 
ing, they have left us no records of their insti- 
tutions or their history. We know nothing of 
them, or of the other half-civilized nations 
that occupied the central parts of Europe in 
those days, except what their inveterate and 
perpetual enemies have thought fit to tell us. 
According to their story, these countries were 
filled with nations and tribes of a wild and 
half-savage character, who could be kept in 
check only by the most vigorous exertion of 
military power. 

Soon after Alexander's return into Macedon, 
he learned that there were symptoms of revolt 
among these nations. Philip had subdued 
them, and established the kind of peace which 
the Greeks and Romans were accustomed to 
enforce upon their neighbors. But now, as 
they had heard that Philip, w T ho had been so 
terrible a warrior, was no more, and that his 
son, scarcely out of his teens, had succeeded 
to the throne, they thought a suitable occasion 
had arrived to try their strength. Alexander 
made immediate arrangements for moving 
northward with his army to settle this question. 

He conducted his forces through a part of 
Thrace without meeting with any serious resist- 



44 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

ance, and approached the mountains. The 
soldiers looked upon the rugged precipices and 
lofty summits before them with awe. These 
northern mountains were the seat and throne, 
in the imaginations of the Greeks and Komans, 
of old Boreas, the hoary god of the north wind. 
They conceived of him as dwelling among 
those cold and stormy summits, and making 
excursions in winter, carrying with him his 
vast stores of frost and snow, over the south- 
ern valleys and plains. He had wings, a long 
beard, and white locks, all powdered with 
flakes of snow. Instead of feet, his body ter- 
minated in tails of serpents, which, as he flew 
along, lashed the air, writhing from under his 
robes. He was violent and impetuous in 
temper, rejoicing in the devastation of winter, 
and in all the sublime phenomena of tempests, 
cold, and snow. The Greek conception of 
Boreas made an impression upon the human 
mind that twenty centuries have not been able 
to efface. The north wind of winter is person- 
ified as Boreas to the present day in the litera- 
ture of every nation of the Western World. 

The Thracian forces had assembled in the 
defiles, with other troops from the northern 
countries, to arrest Alexander's march, and he 
had some difficulty in repelling them. They 
had got, it is said, some sort of loaded wagons 
upon the summit of an ascent, in the pass of 
the mountains, up which Alexander's forces 



THE REACTION. 45 

would have to march. These wagons were to 
be run down upon them as they ascended. 
Alexander ordered his men to advance, not- 
withstanding this danger. He directed them, 
where it was practicable, to open to one side 
and the other, and allow the descending wagon 
to pass through. When this could not be 
done, they were to fall down upon the ground 
when they saw this strange military engine 
coming, and locking their shields together over 
their heads, allow the wagon to roll on over 
them, bracing up energetically against its 
weight. Notwithstanding these precautions, 
and the prodigious muscular power with which 
they were carried into effect, some of the men 
were crushed. The great body of the army was, 
however, unharmed ; as soon as the force of 
the wagons was spent, they rushed up the 
ascent, and attacked their enemies with their 
pikes. The barbarians fled in all directions, 
terrified at the force and invulnerability of 
men whom loaded wagons, rolling over their 
bodies down a steep descent, could not kill. 

Alexander advanced from one conquest like 
this to another, moving toward the northward 
and eastward after he had crossed the moun- 
tains, until at length he approached the. 
mouths of the Danube. Here one of the great 
chieftains of the barbarian tribes had taken up 
his position, with his family and court, and a 
principal part of his army, upon an island 



46 ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 

called Pence, which may be seen upon the \nap 
at the beginning of this chapter. This island 
divided the current of the stream, and Alexan- 
der, in attempting to attack it, found that it 
would be best to endeavor to effect a landing 
upon the upper point of it. 

To make this attempt, he collected all the 
boats and vessels which he could obtain, and 
embarked his troops in them above, directing 
them to fall down with the current, and to land 
upon the island. This plan, however, did not 
succeed very well; the current was too rapid 
for the proper management of the boats. The 
shores, too, were lined with the forces of the 
enemy, who discharged showers of spears and 
arrows at the men, and pushed off the boats 
when they attempted to land. Alexander at 
length gave up the attempt, and concluded to 
leave the island, and to cross the river itself 
farther above, and thus carry the war into the 
very heart of the country. 

It is a serious undertaking to get a great 
body of men and horses across a broad and 
rapid river, when the people of the country 
have done all in their power to remove or de- 
stroy all possible means of transit, and when 
hostile bands are on the opposite bank, to em- 
barrass and impede the operations by every 
mode in their power. Alexander, however, 
advanced to the undertaking with great resolu- 
tion. To cross the Danube, especially with a 



THE REACTION. 4? 

military force, was, in those days, in the esti- 
mation of the Greeks and Romans, a very great 
exploit. The river was so distant, so broad 
and rapid, and its banks were bordered and 
defended by such ferocious foes, that to cross 
its eddying tide, and penetrate into the un- 
known and unexplored regions beyond, leaving 
the broad, and deep, and rapid stream to cut 
off the hopes of retreat, implied the possession 
of extreme self-reliance, courage, and decision. 

Alexander collected all the canoes and boats 
which he could obtain up and down the river. 
He built large rafts, attaching to them the 
skins of beasts sewed together and inflated, to 
give them buoyancy. When all was ready, 
they began the transportation of the army in 
the night, in a place where the enemy had not 
expected that the attempt would have been 
made. There were a thousand horses, with 
their riders, and four thousand foot soldiers, 
to be conveyed across. It is customary, in 
such cases, to swim the horses over, leading 
them by lines, the ends of which are held by 
men in boats. The men themselves, with all 
the arms, ammunition, and baggage, had to be 
carried over in the boats or upon the rafts. 
Before morning the whole was accomplishd. 

The army landed in a field of grain. This 
circumstance, which is casually mentioned by 
historians, and also the story of the wagons in 
the passes of Mount Hsomus, proves that these 



48 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

northern nations were not absolute barbarians 
in the sense in which that term is used at the 
present day. The arts of cultivation and of 
construction must have made some progress 
among them, at any rate ; and they proved, by 
some of their conflicts with Alexander, that 
they were well-trained and well-disciplined 
soldiers. 

The Macedonians swept down the waving 
grain with their pikes, to open a way for the 
advance of the cavalry, and early in the morn- 
ing Alexander found and attacked the army of 
his enemies, who were utterly astonished at 
finding him on their side of the river. As 
may be easily anticipated, the barbarian army 
was beaten in the battle that ensued. Their 
city was taken. The booty was taken back 
across the Danube to be distributed among 
the soldiers of the army. The neighboring 
nations and tribes were overawed and subdued 
by this exhibition of Alexander's courage and 
energy. He made satisfactory treaties with 
them all ; took hostages, where necessary, to 
secure the observance of the treaties, and then 
recrossed the Danube and set out on his return 
to Macedon. 

He found that it was time for him to return. 
The southern cities and states of Greece had 
not been unanimous in raising him to the office 
which his father had held. The Spartans and 
some others were opposed to him. The party 



THE REACTION. 49 

thus opposed were inactive and silent while 
Alexander was in their country, on his first 
visit to southern Greece ; but after his return 
they began to contemplate more decisive action, 
and afterward, when they heard of his having 
undertaken so desperate an enterprise as going 
northward with his forces, and actually cross- 
ing the Danube, they considered him as so 
completely out of the way that they grew very 
courageous, and meditated open rebellion. 

The city of Thebes did at length rebel. 
Philip had conquered this city in former 
struggles, and had left a Macedonian garrison 
there in the citadel. The name of the citadel 
was Cadmeia. The officers of the garrison, 
supposing that all was secure, left the soldiers 
in the citadel, and came themselves down to 
the city to reside. Things were in this con- 
dition when the rebellion against Alexander's 
authority broke out. They killed the officers 
who were in the city, and summoned the gar- 
rison to surrender. The garrison refused, and 
the Thebans besieged it. 

This outbreak against Alexander's authority 
was in a great measure the work of the great 
orator Demosthenes, who spared no exertions 
to arouse the southern states of Greece to re- 
sist Alexander's dominion. m He especially 
exerted all the powers of his eloquence in 
Athens in the endeavor to bring over the 
Athenians to take sides against Alexander. 



50 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

While things were in this slate — the The- 
bans having understood that Alexander had 
been killed at the north, and supposing that, 
at all events, if this report should not be true, 
he was, without doubt, still far away, involved 
in contentions with the barbarian nations, 
from which it was not to be expected that he 
could be very speedily extricated — the whole 
city was suddenly thrown into consternation 
by the report that a large Macedonian army 
was approaching from the north, with Alexan- 
der at its head, and that it was, in fact, close 
upon them. 

It was now, however, too late for the The- 
bans to repent of what they had done. They 
were far too deeply impressed with a convic- 
tion of the decision and energy of Alexander's 
character, as manifested in the whole course of 
his proceedings since he began to reign, and 
especially by his sudden reappearance among 
them so soon after this outbreak against his 
authority, to imagine that there was now any 
hope for them except in determined and suc- 
cessful resistance. They shut themselves up, 
therefore, in their city, and prepared to de- 
fend themselves to the last extremity. 

Alexander advanced, and, passing round the 
city toward the southern side, established his 
headquarters there, so as to cut off effectually 
all communication with Athens and the south- 
era cities, Be thea e^twdeci bis posts all 



THE REACTION. 51 

around the place so as to invest it entirely. 
These preparations made, he paused before he 
commenced the work of Subduing the city, to 
give the inhabitants an opportunity to submit, 
if they would, without compelling him to re- 
sort to force. The conditions, however, which 
he imposed were such that the Thebans thought 
it best to take their chance of resistance. 
They refused to surrender, and Alexander be- 
gan to prepare for the onset. 

He was very soon ready, and with his char- 
acteristic ardor and energy he determined on 
attempting to carry the city at once by assault. 
Fortified cities generally require a siege, and 
sometimes a very long siege, before they can 
be subdued. The army within, sheltered be- 
hind the parapets of the walls, and standing 
there in a position above that of their assail- 
ants, have such great advantages in the contest 
that a long time often elapses before they can 
be compelled to surrender. The besiegers 
have to invest the city on all sides to cut off 
all supplies of provisions, and then, in those 
days, they had to construct engines to make a 
breach somewhere in the walls, through which 
an assaulting party could attempt to force 
their way in. 

The time for making an assault upon a be- 
sieged city depends upon the comparative 
strength of those within and without, and 
also, still more, on the ardor and resolution of 



52 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

the besiegers. In modern warfare, an army, 
in investing a fortified place, spends ordi- 
narily a considerable time in burrowing their 
way along in trenches, half under ground, 
until they get near enough to plant their can- 
non where the balls can take effect upon some 
part of the wall. Then some time usually 
elapses before a breach is made, and the garri- 
son is sufficiently weakened to render an assault 
advisable. "When, however, the time at length 
arrives, the most bold and desperate portion 
of the army are designated to lead the attack. 
Bundles of small branches of trees are pro- 
vided to fill up ditches with, and ladders for 
mounting embankments and walls. The city, 
sometimes, seeing these preparations going on, 
and convinced that the assault will be success- 
ful, surrenders before it is made. When the 
besieged do thus surrender, they save them- 
selves avast amount of suffering, for the carry- 
ing of a city by assault is perhaps the most 
horrible scene which the passions and crimes of 
men ever offer to the view of heaven. 

It is horrible, because the soldiers, exasper- 
ated to fury by the resistance which they meet 
with, and by the awful malignity of the pas- 
sions always excited in the hour of battle, if 
they succeed, burst suddenly into the pre- 
cincts of domestic life, and find sometimes 
thousands of families — mothers, and children, 
and defenseless maidens — at the mercy of pas- 



THE REACTION. 53 

sions excited to frenzy. Soldiers, under- 
such circumstances, cannot be restrained, and 
no imagination can conceive the horrors of the 
sacking of a city, carried by assault, after a 
protracted siege. Tigers do not spring upon 
their prey with greater ferocity than man 
springs, under such circumstances, to the per- 
petration of every possible cruelty upon his 
fellow-man. After an ordinary battle upon an 
open field, the conquerors have only men, 
armed like themselves, to wreak their venge- 
ance upon. The scene is awful enough, 
however, here. But in carrying a city by 
storm, which takes place usually at an unex- 
pected time, and often in the night, the mad- 
dened and victorious assaulters suddenly burst 
into the sacred scenes of domestic peace, and 
seclusion, and love — the very worst of men, 
filled with the worst of passions, stimulated by 
the resistance they have encountered, and 
licensed by their victory to give all these pas- 
sions the fullest and most unrestricted gratifi- 
cation. To plunder, burn, destroy, and kill, 
are the lighter and more harmless of the 
crimes they perpetrate. 

Thebes was carried by assault. Alexander 
did not wait for the slow operations of a siege. 
He watched a favorable opportunity, and burst 
over and through the outer line of fortifications 
which defended the city. The attempt to do 
this was very desperate, and the loss of life 

5— Alexander 



54 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

great; but it was triumphantly successful. 
The Thebans were driven back toward the inner 
wall, and began to crowd in through the gates, 
into the city, in terrible confusion. The 
Macedonians were close upon them, and pur- 
suers and pursued, struggling together, and 
trampling upon and killing each other as they 
went, flowed in, like a boiling and raging tor- 
rent which nothing could resist, through the 
open archway. 

It was impossible to close the gates. The 
whole Macedonian force were soon in full pos- 
session of the now defenseless houses, and for 
many hours screams, and wailings, and cries 
of horror and despair testified to the awful 
atrocity of the crimes attendant on the sacking 
of a city. At length the soldiery were re- 
strained. Order was restored. The army re- 
tired to the posts assigned them, and Alexander 
began to deliberate what he should do with the 
conquered town. 

He determined to destroy it — to offer, once 
for all, a terrible example of the consequences 
of rebellion against him. The case was not 
one, he considered, of the ordinary conquest 
of a foe. The states of Greece — Thebes with 
the rest — had once solemnly conferred upon 
him the authority against which the Thebans 
had now rebelled. They were traitors, there- 
fore, in his judgment, not mere enemies, and 
he determined that the penalty should be utter 
destruction. 



THE REACTION. 55 

But, in carrying this terrible decision into 
effect, he acted in a manner so deliberate, dis- 
criminating, and cautious, as to diminish very 
much the irritation and resentment which it 
would otherwise have caused, and to give it its 
full moral effect as a measure, not of angry 
resentment, but of calm and deliberate retribu- 
tion — just and proper, according to the ideas 
of the time. In the first place, he released all 
the priests. Then, in respect to the rest of 
the population, he discriminated carefully be- 
tween those who had favored the rebellion and 
those who had been true to~ their allegiance to 
him. The latter were allowed to depart in 
safety. And if, in the case, of any family, it 
could be shown that one individual had been 
on the Macedonian side, the single instance of 
fidelity outweighed the treason of the other 
members, and the whole family was saved. 

And the officers appointed to carry out these 
provisions were liberal in the interpretation 
and application of them, so as to save as many 
as there could be any possible pretext for sav- 
ing. The descendants and family connections 
of Pindar, the celebrated poet, who has been 
already mentioned as having been born in 
Thebes, were all pardoned also, whichever side 
they may have taken in the contest. The 
truth was, that Alexander, though he had the 
sagacity to see that he was placed in circum- 
stances where prodigious moral effect in 



56 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

strengthening his position would be produced 
by an act of great severity, was swayed by so 
many generous impulses, which raised him 
above the ordinary excitements of irritation 
and revenge, that he had every desire to make 
the suffering as light, and to limit it by as 
narrow bounds, as the nature of the case would 
allow. He doubtless also had an instinctive 
feeling that the moral effect itself of so dread- 
ful a retribution as he was about to inflict upon 
the devoted city would be very much increased 
by forbearance and generosity, and by extreme 
regard for the security and protection of those 
who had shown themselves his friends. 

After all these exceptions had been made, 
and the persons to whom they applied had 
been dismissed, the rest of the population were 
sold into slavery, and then the city was utterly 
and entirely destroyed. The number thus 
sold was about thirty thousand, and six thou- 
sand had been killed in the assault and storm- 
ing of the city. Thus Thebes was made a ruin 
and a desolation, and it remained so, a monu- 
ment of Alexander's terrible energy and de- 
cision, for twenty years. 

The effect of the destruction of Thebes upon 
the other cities and states of Greece was what 
might have been expected. It came upon 
them like a thunderbolt. Although Thebes 
was the only city which had openly revolted, 
there had been strong symptoms of disaffection 



THE REACTION. 57 

in many other places. Demosthenes, who had 
been silent while Alexander was present in 
Greece, during his first visit there, had again 
been endeavoring to arouse opposition to 
Macedonian ascendency, and to concentrate 
and bring oiit into action the influences which 
were hostile to Alexander. He said in his 
speeches that Alexander was a mere boy, and 
that it was disgraceful for such cities as 
Athens, Sparta, and Thebes to submit to his 
sway. Alexander had heard of these things, 
and, as he was coming down into Greece, 
through the Straits of Thermopylae, before 
the destruction of Thebes, he said, "They 
say I am a boy. I am coming to teach them 
that I am a man." 

He did teach them that he was a man. His 
unexpected appearance, when they imagined 
him entangled among the mountains and wilds 
of unknown regions in the north ; his sudden 
investiture of Thebes; the assault; the calm 
deliberations in respect to the destiny of the 
city, and the slow, cautious, discriminating, 
but inexorable energy with which the decision 
was carried into effect, all coming in such 
rapid succession, impressed the Grecian com- 
monwealth with the conviction that the person- 
age they had to deal with was no boy in char- 
acter, whatever might be his years. All symp- 
toms of disaffection against the rule of Alex- 
ander instantly disappeared, and did not soon 
revive again. 



58 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Nor was this effect due entirely to the terror 
inspired by the retribution which had been 
visited "upon Thebes. All Greece was im- 
pressed with a new admiration for Alexander's 
character as they witnessed these events, in 
which his impetuous energy, his cool and calm 
decision, his forbearance, his magnanimity, and 
his faithfulness to his friends, were all so con- 
spicuous. His pardoning the priests, whether 
they had been for him or against him, made 
every friend of religion incline to hi$ favor. 
The same interposition in behalf of the poet's 
family and descendants spoke directly to the 
heart of every poet, orator, historian, and 
philosopher throughout the country, and ten- 
ded to make all the lovers of literature his 
friends. His magnanimity, also, in deciding 
that one single friend of his in a family should 
save that family, instead of ordaining, as a 
more short-sighted conqueror would have done, 
that a single enemy should condemn it, must 
have awakened a strong feeling of gratitude 
and regard in the hearts of all who could ap- 
preciate fidelity to friends and generosity of 
spirit. Thus, as the news of the destruction 
of Thebes, and the selling of so large a portion 
of the inhabitants into slavery, spread over the 
land, its effect was to turn over so great a part 
of "the population to a feeling of admiration of 
Alexander's character, and confidence in his 
extraordinary powers, as to leave only a small 



THE REACTION. 59 

minority disposed to take sides with the pun- 
ished rebels, or resent the destruction of the 
city. 

From Thebes Alexander proceeded to the 
southward. Deputations from the cities were 
sent to him, congratulating him on his victo- 
ries, and offering their adhesion to his cause. 
His influence and ascendency seemed firmly 




Celebrating the Victory at iEgse. 

established now in the country of the Greeks, 
and in due time he returned to Macedon, and 
celebrated at iEgse, which was at this time 
his capital, the establishment and confirmation 
of his power, by games, shows, spectacles, 
illuminations, and sacrifices to the gods, 
offered on a scale of the greatest pomp and 
magnificence. He was now ready to turn his 
thoughts toward the long-projected plan of the 
expedition into Asia. 




CHAPTEE IV. 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 



On Alexander's arrival in Macedon, he im- 
mediately began to turn his attention to the 
subject of the invasion of Asia. He was full 
of ardor and enthusiasm to carry this project 
into effect. Considering his extreme youth, 
and the captivating character of the enterprise, 
it is strange that he should have exercised so 
much deliberation and caution as his conduct 
did really evince. He had now settled every- 
thing in the most thorough manner, both within 
his dominions and among the nations on his 
borders, and. as it seemed to him, the time 
had come when he was to commence active 
preparations for the great Asiatic campaign. 

He brought the subject before his ministers 
and councilors. They, in general, concurred 
with him in opinion. There were, however, 
two who were in doubt, or rather who were, in 
fact, opposed to the plan, though they ex- 
pressed their non-concurrence in the form of 
doubts. These two persons were Antipater 
and Parmenio, the venerable officers who have 
been already mentioned as having served 

60 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 61 

Philip so faithfully, and as transferring, on 
the death of the father, their attachment and 
allegiance at once to the son. 

Antipater andParmenio represented to Alex- 
ander that if he were to go to Asia at that 
time, he would put to extreme hazard all the 
interests of Macedon. As he had no family, 
there was, of course, no direct heir to the 
crown, and, in case of any misfortune happen- 
ing by which his life should be lost, Macedon 
would become at once the prey of contending 
factions, which would immediately arise, each 
presenting its own candidate for the vacant 
throne. The sagacity and foresight which 
these statesmen evinced in these suggestions 
were abundantly confirmed in the end. Alex- 
ander did die in Asia, his vast kingdom at once 
fell into pieces, and it was desolated with in- 
ternal commotions and civil wars for a long 
period after his death. 

Parmenio and Antipater accordingly advised 
the king to postpone his expedition. They 
advised him to seek a wife among the prin- 
cesses of Greece, and then to settle down 
quietly to the duties of domestic life, and to 
the government of his kingdom for a few years ; 
then, when everything should have become 
settled and consolidated in Greece, and his 
family was established in the hearts of his 
countrymen, he could leave Macedon more 
safely. Public affairs would go on more 



62 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

steadily while he lived, and, in case of his 
death, the crown would descend, with compar- 
atively little danger of civil commotion, to his 
heir. 

But Alexander was fully decided against any 
such policy as this. He resolved to embark 
in the great expedition at once. He concluded 
to make Antipater his vicegerent in Macedon 
during his absence, and to take Parmenio with 
him into Asia. It will be remembered that 
Antipater was the statesman and Parmenio the 
general; that is, Antipater had been employed 
more by' Philip in civil, and Parmenio in 
military affairs, though in those days every- 
body who was i'n public life was more or less a 
soldier. 

Alexander left an army of ten or twelve 
thousand men with Antipater for the protec- 
tion of Macedon. He organized another army 
of about thirty -five thousand to go with him. 
This was considered a very small army for 
such avast undertaking. One or. two hundred 
years before this time, Darius, a king of 
Persia, had invaded Greece with an army of 
five hundred thousand men, and yet he had 
been defeated and driven back, and now Alex- 
ander was undertaking to retaliate with a great 
deal less than one-tenth part of the force. 

Of Alexander's army of thirty -five thousand, 
thirty thousand were foot soldiers, and about 
five thousand were horse. More than half the 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 63 

whole army was from Macedon. The remain- 
der was from the southern states of Greece. A 
large body of the horse was from Thessaly, 
which, as will be seen on the map,* was a 
country south of Macedon. It was, in fact, 
one broad expanded valley, with mountains all 
around. Torrents descended from these 
mountains, forming streams which flowed in 
currents more and more deep and slow as they 
descended into the plains, and combining at 
last into one central river, which flowed to the 
eastward, and escaped from the environage of 
mountains through a most celebrated dell called 
the Vale of Tempe. On the north of this 
valley is Clympus, and on the south the two 
twin mountains Pelion and Ossa. There was 
an ancient story of a war in Thessaly between 
the giants who were imagined to have lived 
there in very early days, and the gods. The 
giants piled Pelion upon Ossa to enable them 
to get up to heaven in their assault upon their 
celestial enemies. The fable has led to a prov- 
erb which prevails in every language in 
Europe, by which all extravagant and unheard 
of exertions to accomplish an end is said to be 
a piling of Pelion upon Ossa. 

Thessaly was famous or its horses and its 
horsemen. The slopes of the mountains fur- 
nished the best of pasturage for the rearing of 
the animals, and the plains below afforded 

* At the commencement of Chapter III. 



64 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

broad and open fields or training and exercis- 
ing the bodies of cavalry formed by means of 
them. The Thessalian horse were famous 
throughout all Greece. Bucephalus was 
reared in Thessaly. 

Alexander, as king of Macedon, possessed 
extensive estates and revenues, which were his 
own personal property, and were independent 
of the revenues of the state. Before setting 
out on his expedition, he apportioned these 
among his great officers and generals, both 
those who were to go and those who were to 
remain. He evinced great generosity in this; 
but it was, after all, the spirit of ambition, 
more than that of generosity, which led him 
to do it. The two great impulses which ani- 
mated him were the pleasure of doing great 
deeds, and the fame and glory of having done 
them. These two principles are very distinct 
in their nature, though often conjoined. They 
were paramount and supreme in Alexander's 
character, and every other human principle 
was subordinate to them. Money was to him, 
accordingly, only a means to enable him to 
accomplish these ends. His distributing his 
estates and revenues in the manner above de- 
scribed was only a judicious appropriation of 
the money to the promotion of the great ends 
he wished to attain ; it was expenditure, not 
gift. It answered admirably the end he had 
in view. His friends all looked upon him as 




Alexander, face p. 6 A 



Alexander the Great. 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 65 

extremely generous and self-sacrificing. They 
asked him what he had reserved for himself. 

4 * Hope, " said Alexander. 

At length all things were ready, and Alexan- 
der began to celebrate the religious sacrifices, 
spectacles, and shows which, in those days, 
always preceded great undertakings of this 
kind. There was a great ceremony in honor 
of Jupiter and the nine Muses, which had long 
been celebrated in Macedon as a sort of annual 
national festival. Alexander now caused great 
preparations for this festival. 

In the days of the Greeks, public worship 
and public amusement were combined in one 
and the same series of spectacles and cere- 
monies. All worship was a theatrical show, 
and almost all shows were forms of worship. 
The religious instincts of the human heart de- 
mand some sort of sympathy and aid, real or 
imaginary, from the invisible world, in great 
and solemn undertakings, and in every momen- 
tous crisis in its history. It is true that Alex- 
ander's soldiers, about to leave their homes to 
go to another quarter of the globe, and into 
scenes of danger and death from which it was 
very improbable that many of them would ever 
return, had no other celestial protection to 
look up to than the spirits of ancient heroes, 
who, they imagined, had, somehow or other, 
found their final home in a sort of heaven 
among the summits of the mountains, where 

6— Alexander 



66 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

they reigned, in some sense, over human 
affairs ; but this, small as it seems to us, was 
a great deal to them. They felt, when sacri- 
ficing to these gods, that they were invoking 
their presence and sympathy. These deities 
having been engaged in the same enterprises 
themselves, and animated with the same hopes 
and fears, the soldiers imagined that the semi- 
human divinities invoked by them would take 
an interest in their dangers, and rejoice in 
their success. 

The Muses, in honor of whom, as well as 
Jupiter, this great Macedonian festival was 
held, were nine singing and dancing maidens, 
beautiful in countenance and form, and en- 
chantingly graceful in all their movements. 
They came, the ancients imagined, from 
Thrace, in the north, and went first to Jupiter 
upon Mount Olympus, who made them god- 
desses. Afterward they went southward, and 
spread over Greece, making their residence, at 
last, in a palace upon Mount Parnassus, which 
will be found upon the map just north of the 
Gulf of Corinth and west of Boeotia. They 
were worshiped all over Greece and Italy as 
the goddesses of music- and dancing. In later 
times particular sciences and arts were assigned 
to them respectively, as history, astronomy, 
tragedy, etc., though there was no distinction 
of this kind in early days. 

The festivities in honor of Jupiter and the 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 67 

Muses were continued in Macedon nine days, 
a number corresponding with that of the danc- 
ing goddesses. Alexander made very magnifi- 
cent preparations for the celebration on this 
occasion. He had a tent made, under which, 
it is said, a hundred tables could be spread ; 
and here he entertained, day after day, an 
enormous company of princes, potentates, and 
generals. He offered sacrifices to such of the 
gods as he supposed it would please the soldiers 
to imagine that they had propitiated. Con- 
nected with these sacrifices and feastings, there 
were athletic and military spectacles and shows 
— races and wrestlings — and mock contests, 
with blunted spears. All these things encour- 
aged and quickened the ardor and animation of 
the soldiers. It aroused their ambition to 
distinguish themselves by their exploits, and 
gave them an increased and stimulated desire 
for honor and fame. Thus inspirited by new 
desires for human praise, and trusting in the 
sympathy and protection of powers which were 
all that they conceived of as divine, the army 
prepared to set forth from their native land, 
bidding it a long, and, as it proved to most of 
them, a final farewell. 

By following the course of Alexander's ex- 
pedition upon the map at the commencement 
of Chapter III., it will be seen that his route 
lay first along the northern coasts of the 
iEgean Sea. He was to pass from Europe into 



68 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Asia by crossing the Hellespont between Sestos 
and Abydos. He sent a fleet of a hundred 
and fifty galleys, of three banks of oars each, 
over the iEgean Sea, to land at Sestos, and be 
ready to transport his army across the straits. 
The army, in the meantime, marched by land. 
They had to cross the rivers which flow into 
the iEgean Sea on the northern side; but as 
these rivers were in Macedon, and no opposi- 
tion was encountered upon the banks of them, 
there was no serious difficulty in effecting the 
passage. When they reached Sestos, they 
found the fleet ready there, awaiting their 
arrival* 

It is very strikingly characteristic of the 
mingling of poetic sentiment and enthusiasm 
with calm and calculating business efficiency, 
which shone conspicuously so often in Alexan- 
der's career, that when he arrived at Sestos, 
and found that the ships were there, and the 
army safe, and that there was no enemy to 
oppose his landing on the Asiatic shore, he left 
Parmenio to conduct the transportation of the 
troops across the water, while he himself went 
away in a single galley on an excursion of 
sentiment and romantic adventure. A little 
south of the place where his army was to cross, 
there lay, on the Asiatic shore, an extended 
plain, on which were the ruins of Troy. Now 
Troy was the city which was the scene of 
Homer's poems — those poems which had ex- 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 69 

cited so much interest in the mind of Alexander 
in his early years; and he determined, instead 
of crossing the Hellespont with the main body 
of his army, to proceed southward in a single 
galley, and land, himself, on the Asiatic shore, 




on the very spot which the romantic imagina- 
tion of his youth had dwelt upon so often and 
so long. 

Troy was situated upon a plain. Homer 
describes an island off the coast, named Tene- 
dos, and a mountain near called Mount Ida. 
There was also a river called the Scamander, 



70 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

The island, the mountain, and the river re- 
main, preserving their original names to the 
present day, except that the river is now called 
the Mender ; but, although various vestiges of 
ancient ruins are found scattered about the 
plain, no spot can be identified as the site of 
the city. Some scholars have maintained that 
there probably never was such a city ; that 
Homer invented the whole, there being nothing 
real in all that he describes except the river, 
the mountain, and the island. His story is, 
however, that there was a great and powerful 
city there, with a kingdom attached to it, and 
that this city was besieged by the Greeks for 
ten years, at the end of which time it was 
taken and destroyed. 

The story of the origin of this war is sub- 
stantially this. Priam was King of Troy. 
His wife, a short time before her son was born, 
dreamed that at his birth the child turned into 
a torch and set the palace on fire. She told 
this dream to the soothsayers, and asked them 
what it meant. They said it must mean that 
her son would be the means of bringing some 
terrible calamities and disasters upon the 
family. The mother was terrified, and, to 
avert these calamities, gave the child to a slave 
as soon as it was born, and ordered him to de- 
stroy it. The slave pitied the helpless babe, 
and, not liking to destroy it with his own 
hand, carried it to Mount Ida, and left it there 
in the forests to die. 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 71 

A she bear, roaming through the woods, 
found the child, and, experiencing a feeling of 
maternal tenderness for it, she took care of it, 
and reared it as if it had been her own off- 
spring. The child was found, at last, by some 
shepherds who lived upon the mountain, and 
they adopted it as their own, robbing the 
brute mother of her charge. They named the 
boy Paris. He grew in strength and beauty, 
and gave early and extraordinary proofs of 
courage and energy, as if he had imbibed some 
of the qualities of his fierce foster mother 
with the milk she gave him. He was so re- 
markable for athletic beauty and manly cour- 
age, that he not only easily won the heart of a 
nymph of Mount Ida, named CEnone, whom 
he married, but he also attracted, the attention 
of the goddessess in the heavens. 

At length these goddesses had a dispute 
which they agreed to refer to him. The 
origin of the dispute was this. There was a 
wedding among them, and one of them, irri- 
tated at not having been invited, had a golden 
apple made, on which were engraved the 
words: " To be given to the most beautiful." 
She threw this apple into the assembly : her 
object was to make them quarrel for it. In 
fact, she was herself the goddess of discord, 
and, independently of her cause of pique in 
this case, she loved to promote disputes. It 
is in allusion to this ancient tale that any sub- 



72 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

ject of dispute, brought up unnecessarily 
among friends, is called to this day an apple 
of discord. 

Three of the goddesses claimed the apple, 
each insisting that she was more beautiful than 
the others, and this was the dispute which 
they agreed to refer to Paris. They accord- 
ingly exhibited themselves before him in the 
mountains, that he might look at them and 
decide. They did not, however, seem willing, 
either of them, to trust to an impartial deci- 
sion of the question, but each offered the judge 
a bribe to induce him to decide in her favor. 
One promised him a kingdom, another great 
fame, and the third, Venus, promised him the 
most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. 
He decided in favor of Venus ; whether because 
she was justly entitled to the decision, or 
through the influence of the bribe, the story 
does not say. 

All this time Paris remained on the moun- 
tain, a simple shepherd and herdsman, not 
knowing his relationship to the monarch who 
reigned over the city and kingdom on the plain 
below. King Priam, however, about this 
time, in some games which he was celebrating, 
offered, as a prize to the victor, the finest bull 
which could be obtained on Mount Ida. On 
making examination, Paris was found to have 
the finest bull, and the king, exercising the 
despotic power which kings in those days made 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 73 

no scruple of assuming in respect to helpless 
peasants, took it away. Paris was very indig- 
nant. It happened, however, that a short time 
afterward there was another opportunity to 
contend for the same bull, and Paris, disguis- 
ing himself as a prince, appeared in the lists, 
conquered every competitor, and bore away the 
bull again to his home in the fastnesses of the 
mountain. 

In consequence of this his appearance at 
court, the daughter of Priam, whose name was 
Cassandra, became acquainted with him, and, 
inquiring into his story, succeeded in ascer- 
taining that he was her brother, the long-lost 
child, that had been supposed to be put to 
death. King Priam was convinced by the evi- 
dence which she brought forward, and Paris 
was brought home to his father's house. 
After becoming established in his new posi- 
tion, he remembered the promise of Venus that 
he should have the most beautiful woman in 
the world for his wife, and he began, accord- 
ingly, to inquire where he could find her. 

There was in Sparta, one of the cities of 
southern Greece, a certain king Menelaus, who 
had a youthful bride named Helen, who was 
famed far and near for her beauty. Paris 
came to the conclusion that she was the most 
lovely woman in the world, and that he was 
entitled, in virtue of Venus' promise, to ob- 
tain possession of her, if he could do so by any 



74 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

means whatever. He accordingly made a jour- 
ney into Greece, visited Sparta, formed an ac- 
quaintance with Helen, persuaded her to aban- 
don her husband and her duty, and elope 
with him to Troy. 

Menelaus was indignant at this outrage. 
He called on all Greece to take up arms and 
join him in the attempt to recover his bride. 
They responded to this demand. They first 
sent to Priam, demanding that he should re- 
store Helen to her husband. Priam refused 
to do so, taking part with his son. The 
Greeks then raised* a fleet and an army, and 
came to the plains of Troy, encamped before 
the city, and persevered for ten long years in 
besieging it, when at length it was taken and 
destroyed. 

These stories relating to the origin of the 
war, however, marvelous and entertaining as 
they are, were not the points which chiefly in- 
terested the mind of Alexander. The portions 
of Homer's narratives which most excited his 
enthusiasm were those relating to the char- 
acters of the heroes who fought, on one side 
and on the other, at the siege, their various 
adventures, and the delineations of their 
motives and principles of conduct, and the 
emotions and excitements they experienced in 
the various circumstances in which they were 
placed. Homer described with great beauty 
and force the workings of ambition, of resent- 




Alexander, p. 75 



Incident in the Siege of Troy. 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 



77 



ment, of pride, of rivalry, and all those other 
impulses of the human heart which would 
excite and control the action of impetuous men 
in the circumstances in which his heroes were 
placed. 

Each one of the heroes whose history and 




Achilles. 



adventures he gives, possessed a well-marked 
and striking character, and differed in temper- 
ament and action from the rest. Achilles was 
one. He was fiery, impetuous, and impla- 
cable in character, fierce and merciless; and, 
though perfectly undaunted and fearless, en- 
tirely destitute of magnanimity. There was a 
river called the Styx, the waters of which were 
said to have the property of making any one 



78 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

invulnerable. The mother of Achilles dipped 
him into it in his infancy, holding him by the 
heel. The heel, not having been immersed, 
was the only part which could be wounded. 
Thus he was safe in battle, and was a terrible 
warrior. He, however, quarreled with his com- 
rades and withdrew from their cause on slight 
pretexts, and then became reconciled again, in- 
fluenced by equally frivolous reasons. 

Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of 
the Greek army. After a certain victory, by 
which some captives were taken, and were to 
be divided among the victors, Agamemnon was 
obliged to restore one, a noble lady, who had 
fallen to his share, and he took away the one 
that had been assigned to Achilles to replace 
her. This incensed Achilles, and he withdrew 
for a long time from the contest; and, in con- 
sequence of his absence, the Trojans gained 
great and continued victories against the 
Greeks. For a long time nothing could in- 
duce Achilles to return. 

At length, however, though he would not go 
himself, he allowed his intimate friend, whose 
name was Patroclus, to take his armor and go 
into battle. Patroclus was at first successful, 
but was soon killed by Hector, the brother of 
Paris. This aroused anger and a spirit of 
revenge in the mind of Achilles. He gave up 
his quarrel with Agamemnon and returned to 
the combat. He did not remit his exertions 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 79 

till he had slain Hector, and then he expressed 
his brutal exultation, and satisfied his revenge, 
by dragging the dead body at the wheels of 
his chariot around the walls of the city. He 
then sold the body to the distracted father for 
a ransom. 

It was such stories as these, which are 
related in the poems of Homer with great 
beauty and power, that had chiefly interested 
the mind of Alexander. The subjects inter- 
ested him ; the accounts of the contentions, the 
rivalries, the exploits of these warriors, the 
delineations of their character and springs of 
action, and the narrations of the various 
incidents and events to which such a war gave 
rise, were all calculated to captivate the im- 
agination of a young martial hero. 

Alexander accordingly resolved that his first 
landing in Asia should be at Troy. He left 
his army under the charge of Parmenio, to 
cross from Sestos to Abydos, while he himself 
set forth in a single galley to proceed to the 
southward. There was a port on the Trojan 
shore where the Greeks had been accustomed 
to disembark, and he steered his course for it. 
He had a bull on board his galley which he was 
going to offer as a sacrifice to Neptune when 
halfway from shore to shore. 

Neptune was the god of the sea. It is true 
that the Hellespont is not the open ocean, but 
it is an arm of the sea, and thus belonged 



80 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

properly to the dominions which the ancients 
assigned to the divinity of the waters. Nep- 
tune was conceived of by the ancients as a 
monarch dwelling on the seas or upon the 
coasts, and riding over the waves seated in a 
great shell, or sometimes in a chariot, drawn 
by dolphins or sea-horses. In these excur- 
sions he was attended by a train of sea-gods 
and nymphs, who, half-floating, half-swim- 
ming, followed him over the billow's. Instead 
of a scepter Neptune carried a trident. A 
trident was a sort of three-pronged harpoon, 
such as was used in those days by the fisher- 
men of the Mediterranean. It was from this 
circumstance, probably, that it was chosen as 
the badge of authority for the god of the sea. 

Alexander took the helm, and steered the 
galley with his own hands toward the Asiatic 
shore. Just before he reached the land, he 
took his place upon the prow, and threw a 
javelin at the shore as he approached it, a 
symbol of the spirit of defiance and hostility 
with which he advanced to the frontiers of the 
eastern world. He was also the first to land. 
After disembarking his company, he offered 
sacrifices to the gods, and then proceeded to 
visit the places which had been the scenes of 
the events which Homer had described. 

Homer had written five hundred years before 
the time of Alexander, and there is some doubt 
whether the ruins and the remains of cities 



CROSSING THE HELLESPONT. 81 

which our hero found there were really the 
scenes of the narratives which had interested 
him so deeply. He, however, at any rate, be- 
lieved them to be so, and he was filled with 
enthusiasm and pride as he wandered among 
them. He seems to have been most interested 
in the character of Achilles, and he said that 
he envied him his happy lot in having such a 
friend as Patroclus to help him perform his 
exploits, and such a poet as Homer to celebrate 
them. 

After completing his visit upon the plain of 
Troy, Alexander moved toward the northeast 
with the few men who had accompanied him 
in his single galley. In the meantime Par- 
menio had crossed safely, with the main body 
of the army, from Sestos to Abydos. Alexan- 
der overtook them on their march, not far from 
the place of their landing. To the northward 
of this place, on the left of the line of march 
which Alexander was taking, was the city of 
Lampsacus. 

Now a large portion of Asia Minor, although 
for the most part under the dominion of 
Persia, had been in a great measure settled by 
Greeks, and, in previous wars between the two 
nations, the various cities had been in posses- 
sion, sometimes of one power and sometimes 
of the other. In these contests the city of 
Lampsacus had incurred the high displeasure 
of the Greeks by rebelling, as they said, on 



82 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

one occasion, against them. Alexander deter- 
mined to destroy it as he passed. The inhab- 
itants were aware of this intention, and sent 
an ambassador to Alexander to implore his 
mercy. When the ambassador approached, 
Alexander, knowing his errand, uttered a 
declaration in which he bound himself by a 
solemn oath not to grant the request he was 
about to make. "I have come," said the am- 
bassador, "to implore you to destroy Lamp- 
sacus." Alexander, pleased with the readi- 
ness of tie ambassador in giving his language 
such a sudden turn, and perhaps influenced by 
his oath, spared the city. 

He was now fairly in Asia. The Persian 
forces were gathering to attack him, but so un- 
expected and sudden had been his invasion 
that they were not prepared to meet him at his 
arrival, and he advanced without opposition 
till he reached the banks of the little river 
Granicus. 





CHAPTEK V. 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOE. 

Although Alexander had landed safely on 
the Asiatic shore, the way was not yet fairly 
open for him to advance into the interior of 
the country. He was upon a sort .cf < plain, 
which was separated from the territory beyond 
by natural barriers. On the south was the 
range of lofty land called Mount Ida. From 
the northeastern slopes of this mountain there 
descended a stream which flowed north into the 
sea, thus hemming Alexander's army in. He 
must either scale the mountain or cross the 
river before he could penetrate into the interior. 

He thought it would be easiest to cross the 
river. It is very difficult to get a large body 
of horsemen and of heavy-armed soldiers, with 
all their attendants and baggage, over high 
elevations of land. This was the reason why 
the army turned to the northward after land- 
ing upon the Asiatic shore. Alexander thought 
the Granicus less of an obstacle than Mount 
Ida. It was not a large stream, and was easily 
fordable. 

It was the custom in those days, as it is 

83 



84 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

now, when armies are marching, to send for- 
ward small bodies of men in every direction to 
explore the roads, remove obstacles, and dis- 
cover sources of danger. These men are 




called, in modern times, scouts ; in Alexander's 
day, and in the Greek language, they were 
called prodromi, which means forerunners. It is 
the duty of these pioneers to send messengers 
back continually to the main body of the 
army, informing the officers of everything 
important which comes under their observa- 
tion. 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 85 

In this case, when the army was gradually 
drawing near to the river, the prodromi came 
in with the news that they had been to the 
river, and found the whole opposite shore, at 
the place of crossing, lined with Persian 
troops, collected there to dispute the passage. 
The army continued their advance, while Alex- 
ander called the leading generals around him 
to consider what was to be done. 

Parmenio recommended that they should not 
attempt to pass the river immediately. The 
Persian army consisted chiefly of cavalry. 
Now cavalry, though very terrible as an enemy 
on the field of battle by day, are peculiarly 
exposed and defenseless in an encampment by 
night. The horses are scattered, feeding or at 
rest. The arms of the men are light, and they 
are not accustomed to fighting on foot; and on 
a sudden incursion of an enemy at midnight 
into their camp, their horses and their horse- 
manship are alike useless, and they fall an easy 
prey to resolute invaders. Parmenio thought, 
therefore, that the Persians would not dare to 
remain and encamp many days in the vicinity of 
Alexander's army, and that, accordingly, if 
they waited a little, the enemy would retreat, 
and Alexander could then cross the river with- 
out incurring the danger of a battle. 

But Alexander was unwilling to adopt any 
such policy. He felt confident that his army 
was courageous and strong enough to march 



86 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

on, directly through the river, ascend the bank 
upon the other side, and force their way 
through all the opposition which the Persians 
could make. He knew, too, that if this were 
done it would create a strong sensation 
throughout the whole country, impressing 
every one with a sense of the energy and power 
of the army which he was conducting, and 
would thus tend to intimidate the enemy, and 
facilitate all future operations. But this was 
not all ; he had a more powerful motive still 
for wishing to march right on, across the river, 
and force his way through the vast bodies of 
cavalry on the opposite shore, and this was the 
pleasure of performing the exploit. 

Accordingly, as the army advanced to the 
banks, they maneuvered to form in order of 
battle, and prepared to continue their march 
as if there were no obstacle to oppose them. 
The general order of battle of the Macedonian 
army was this. There was a certain body of 
troops, armed and organized in a peculiar 
manner, called the Phalanx. This body was 
placed in the center. The men composing it 
were very heavily armed. They had shields 
upon the left arm, and they carried spears 
sixteen feet long, and pointed with iron, which 
they held firmly in their two hands, with the 
points projecting far before them. The men 
were arranged in lines, one behind the other, 
and all facing the enemy — sixteen lines, and a 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 87 

thousand in each line, or, as it is expressed in 
military phrase, a thousand in rank and six- 
teen in file, so that the phalanx contained six- 
teen thousand men. 

The spears were so long that when the men 
stood in close order, the rear ranks being 
brought up near to those before them, the 
points of the spears of eight or ten of the 
ranks projected in front, forming a bristling 
wall of points of steel, each one of which was 
held in its place by the strong arms of an 
athletic and well-trained soldier. This wall 
no force which could in those days be brought 
against it could penetrate. Men, horses, ele- 
phants, everything that attempted to rush upon 
it, rushed only to their own destruction. 
Every spear, feeling the impulse of the vigor- 
ous arms which held it, seemed to be alive, 
and darted into its enemy, when an enemy 
was at hand, as if it felt itself the fierce hos- 
tility which directed it. If the enemy re- 
mained at a distance, and threw javelins or 
darts at the phalanx, they fell harmless, 
stopped by the shields which the soldiers wore 
upon the left arm, and which were held in such 
a manner as to form a system of scales, which 
covered and protected the whole mass, and 
made the men almost invulnerable. The pha- 
lanx was thus, when only defending itself and 
in a state of rest, an army and a fortification 
all in one, and it was almost impregnable. 



88 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

But when it took an aggressive form, put itself 
in motion, and advanced to an attack, it was 
infinitely more formidable. It became then a 
terrible monster, covered with scales of brass, 
from beneath which there projected forward 
ten thousand living, darting points of iron. It 
advanced deliberately and calmly, but with a 
prodigious momentum and force. There was 
nothing human in its appearance at all. It 
was a huge animal, ferocious, dogged, stub- 
born, insensible to pain, knowing no fear, and 
bearing down with resistless and merciless 
destruction upon everything that came in its 
way. The phalanx was the center and soul of 
Alexander's army. Powerful and impregnable 
as it was, however, in ancient days, it would 
be helpless and defenseless on a modern battle 
field. Solid balls of iron, flying through the 
air with a velocity which makes them invisible, 
would tear their way through the pikes and the 
shields, and the bodies of the men who bore 
them, without even feeling the obstruction. 

The phalanx was subdivided into brigades, 
regiments, and battalions, and regularly offi- 
cered. In marching, it was separated into 
these its constituent parts, and sometimes in 
battle it acted in divisions. It was stationed 
in the center of the army on the field, and on 
the two sides of it were bodies of cavalry and 
foot soldiers, more lightly armed than the sol- 
diers of the phalanx, who could accordingly 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 89 

move with more alertness and speed, and carry 
their action readily wherever it might be called 
for. Those troops on the sides were called the 
wings. Alexander himself was accustomed to 
command one wing and Parmenio the other, 
while the phalanx crept along slowly but terri- 
bly between. 

The army, thus arranged and organized, ad- 
vanced to the river. It was a broad and shal- 
low stream. The Persians had assembled in 
vast numbers on the opposite shore. Some 
historians say there were one hundred thou- 
sand men, others say two hundred thousand, 
and others six hundred thousand. However 
this may be, there is no doubt their numbers 
were vastly superior to those of Alexander's 
army, which it will be recollected was less 
than forty thousand. There was a narrow 
plain on the opposite side of the river, next to 
the shore, and a range of hills beyond. The 
Persian cavalry covered the plain, and were 
ready to dash upon the Macedonian troops the 
moment they should emerge from the water 
and attempt to ascend the bank. 

The army, led by Alexander, descended into 
the stream, and moved on through the water. 
They encountered the onset of their enemies 
on the opposite shore. A terrible and a pro- 
tracted struggle ensued, but the coolness, cour- 
age, and strength of Alexander's army carried 
the day. The Persians were driven back, the 



90 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Greeks effected their landing, reorganized and 
formed on the shore, and the Persians, finding 
that all was lost, fled in all directions. 

Alexander himself took a conspicuous and a 
very active part in the contest. He was easily 
recognized on the field of battle by his dress, 
and by a white plume which he wore in his 
helmet. He exposed himself to the most im- 
minent danger. At one time, when desperately 
engaged with a trooji of horse, which had gal- 
loped down upon him, a Persian horseman 
aimed a blow at his head with a sword. Alex- 
ander saved his head from the blow, but it 
took off his plume and a part of his helmet. 
Alexander immediately thrust his antagonist 
through the body. At the same moment, 
another horseman, on another side, had his 
sword raised, and would have killed Alexander 
before he could have turned to defend himself, 
had no help intervened ; but just at this in- 
stant a third combatant, one of Alexander's 
friends, seeing the danger, brought down so 
terrible a blow upon the shoulder of this 
second assailant as to separate his arm from 
his body. 

Such are the stories that are told. They 
may have been literally and fully true, or they 
may have been exaggerations of circumstances 
somewhat resembling them which really oc- 
curred, or they may have been fictitious alto- 
gether. Great generals, like other great men ? 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 91 

have often the credit of many exploits which 
they never perform. It is the special busi- 
ness of poets and historians to magnify and 
embellish the actions of the great, and this art 
was understood as well in ancient days as it 
is now. We must remember, too, in reading 
the accounts of these transactions, that it is 
only the Greek side of the story that we hear. 
The Persian narratives have not come down to 
us. 

At any rate, the Persian army was defeated, 
and that, too, without the assistance of the 
phalanx. The horsemen and the light troops 
were alone engaged. The phalanx could not 
be formed, nor could it act in such a position. 
The men, on emerging from the water, had to 
climb up the banks, and rush on to the attack 
of an enemy consisting of squadrons of horse 
ready to dash at once upon them. 

The Persian army was defeated and driven 
away. Alexander did not pursue them. He 
felt that he had struck a very heavy blow. 
The news of this defeat of the Persians would 
go with the speed of the wind all over Asia 
Minor, and operate most powerfully in his 
favor. He sent home to Greece an account of 
the victory, and with the account he forwarded 
three hundred suits of armor, taken from the 
Persian horsemen killed on the field. These 
suits of armor were to be hung up in the Par- 
thenon, a great temple at Athens; the most 



92 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

conspicuous position for thera, perhaps, which 
all Europe could afford. 

The name of the Persian general who com- 
manded at the battle of the Granicus was 
Memnon. He had been opposed to the plan of 
hazarding a battle. Alexander had come to 
Asia with no provisions and no money. He 
had relied on being able to sustain his army 
by his victories. Memnon, therefore, strongly 
urged that the Persians should retreat slowly, 
carrying off all the valuable property, and de- 
stroying all that could not be removed, taking 
especial care to leave no provisions behind 
them. In this w 7 ay he thought that the army 
of Alexander would be reduced by privation 
and want, and would, in the end, fall an easy 
prey. His opinion was, however, overruled 
by the views of the other commanders, and the 
battle of the Granicus w T as the consequence. 

Alexander encamped to refresh his army and 
to take care of the wounded. He went to see 
the wounded men one by one, inquired into the 
circumstances of each case, and listened to 
each one who was able to talk, while he gave 
an account of his adventures in the battle, and 
the manner in which he received his wound. 
To be able thus to tell their story to their gen- 
eral, and to see him listening to it with inter- 
est and pleasure, filled their hearts with pride 
and joy ; and the whole army was inspired 
with the highest spirit of enthusiasm, and 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 93 

with eager desires to have another opportunity 
occur in which .they could encounter danger 
and death in the service of such a leader. It 
is in such traits as these that the true greatness 
of the soul of Alexander shines. It must be 
remembered that all this time he was but little 
more than twenty-one. He was but just of 
age. 

From his encampment on the Granicus Alex- 
ander turned to the southward, and moved 
along on the eastern shores of the iEgean Sea. 
The country generally surrendered to him 
without opposition. In fact, it was hardly 
Persian territory at all. The inhabitants were 
mainly of Greek extraction, and had been 
sometimes under Greek and sometimes under 
Persian rule. The conquest of the country 
resulted simply in a change of the executive 
officer of each province. Alexander took 
special pains to lead the people to feel that 
they had nothing to fear from him. He would 
not allow the soldiers to do any injury. He 
protected all private property. He took pos- 
session only of the citadels, and of such govern- 
mental property as he found there, and he con- 
tinued the same taxes, the same laws, and the 
same tribunals as had existed before his in- 
vasion. The cities and the provinces accord- 
ingly surrendered to him as he passed along, 
and in a very short time all the western part 
of Asia Minor submitted peacefully to his sway. 

8— Alexander 



94 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

The Darrative of this progress, as given by 
the ancient historians, is diversified by a great 
variety of adventures and incidents, which 
give great interest to the story, and strikingly 
illustrate the character of Alexander and the 
spirit of the times. In some places there 
would be a contest between the Greek and the 
Persian parties before Alexander's arrival. 
At Ephesus the animosity had been so great 
that a sort of civil war had broken out. The 
Greek party had gained the ascendency, and 
were threatening a general massacre of the 
Persian inhabitants. Alexander promptly in- 
terposed to protect them, though they were his 
enemies. The intelligence of this act of for- 
bearance and generosity spread all over the 
land, and added greatly to the influence of 
Alexander's name, and to the estimation in 
which he was held. 

It was the custom in those days for the mass 
of the common soldiers to be greatly influenced 
by what they called omens, that is, signs and 
tokens which they observed in the flight or the 
actions of birds, and other similar appearances. 
In one case, the fleet, which had come along 
the sea, accompanying the march of the army 
on land, was pent up in a harbor by a stronger 
Persian fleet outside. One of the vessels of 
the Macedonian fleet was aground. An eagle 
lighted upon the mast, and stood perched there 
for a long time, looking toward the sea. Par- 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 95 

menio said that, as the eagle looked toward 
the sea, it indicated that victory lay in that 
quarter, and he recommended that they should 
arm their ships and push boldly out to attack 
the Persians. But Alexander maintained that, 
as the eagle alighted on a ship which was 
aground, it indicated that they were to look 
for their success on the shore. The omens 
could thus almost always be interpreted any 
way, and sagacious generals only sought in 
them the means of confirming the courage and 
confidence of their soldiers, in respect to the 
plans which they adopted under the influence 
of other considerations altogether. Alexander 
knew very well that he was not a sailor, and 
had no desire to embark in contests from 
which, however they might end, he would him- 
self personally obtain no glory. 

When the winter came on, Alexander and his 
army were about three or four hundred miles 
from home; and, as he did not intend to ad- 
vance much farther until the spring should 
open, he announced to the army that all those 
persons, both officers and soldiers, who had 
been married within the year, might go home 
if they chose, and spend the winter with their 
brides, and return to the army in the spring. 
No doubt this was an admirable stroke of 
policy ; for, as the number could not be large, 
their absence could not materially weaken his 
force, and they would, of course, fill all Greece 



96 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

with tales of Alexander's energy and courage, 
and of the nobleness and generosity of his 
character. It was the most effectual way pos- 
sible of disseminating through Europe the 
most brilliant accounts of what he had already 
done. 

Besides, it must have awakened a new bond 
of sympathy and fellow-feeling between him- 
self and his soldiers, and greatly increased the 
attachment to him felt both by those who went 
and those who remained. And though Alex- 
ander must have been aware of all these advan- 
tages of the act, still no one could have thought 
of or adopted such a plan unless he was accus- 
tomed to consider and regard, in his dealings 
with others, the feelings and affections of the 
heart, and to cherish a warm sympathy for 
them. The bridegroom soldiers, full of exul- 
tation and pleasure, set forth on their return to 
Greece, in a detachment under the charge of 
three generals, themselves bridegrooms too. 

Alexander, however, had no idea of remain 
ing idle during the winter. He marched on 
from province to province, and from city to 
city, meeting with every variety of adventures. 
He went first along the southern coast, until 
at length he came to a place where a mountain 
chain, called Taurus, comes down to the sea- 
coast, where it terminates abruptly in cliffs 
and precipices, leaving only a narrow beach 
between them and the water below. This 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 97 

beach was sometimes covered and sometimes 
bare. It is true, there is very little tide in 
the Mediterranean, but the level of the water 
along the shores is altered considerably by the 
long-continued pressure exerted in one direc- 
tion or another by winds and storms. The 
water was up when Alexander reached this 
pass; still he determined to march his army 
through it. There was another way, back 
among the mountains, but Alexander seemed 
disposed to gratify the love of adventure which 
his army felt, by introducing them to a novel 
scene of danger. They accordingly defiled 
along under these cliffs, marching, as they 
say, sometimes up to the waist in water, the 
swell rolling in upon them all the time from 
the offing. 

Having at length succeeded in passing safely 
round this frowning buttress of the mountains, 
Alexander turned northward, and advanced 
into the very heart of Asia Minor. In doing 
this he had to pass over the range which he 
had come round before; and, as it was winter, 
his army were, for a time, enveloped in snows 
and storms among the wild and frightful defiles. 
They had here, in addition to the dangers and 
hardships of the way and of the season, to en- 
counter the hostility of their foes, as the tribes 
who inhabited these mountains assembled to 
dispute the passage. Alexander was victo- 
rious, and reached a valley through which there 



98 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

flows a river which has handed down its name 
to the English language and literature. This 
river was the Meander. Its beautiful wind- 
ings through verdant and fertile valleys were 
so renowned, that every stream which imitates 
its example is said to meander to the present 
day. 

During all this timeParmenio had remained 
in the western part of Asia Minor with a con- 
siderable body of the army. As the spring 
approached, Alexander sent him orders to go to 
Gordium, whither he was himself proceeding, 
and meet him there. He also directed that 
the detachment which had gone home should, 
on recrossing the Hellespont on their return, 
proceed eastward to Gordium, thus making 
that city the general rendezvous for the com- 
mencement of his next campaign. 

One reason why Alexander desired to go to 
Gordium was that he wished to untie the 
famous Gordian knot. The story of the Gor- 
dian knot was this. Gordius was a sort of 
mountain farmer. One day he was plowing, 
and an eagle came down and alighted upon his 
yoke, and remained there until he had finished 
his plowing. This was an omen, but what was 
the signification of it? Gordius did not know, 
and he accordingly went to a neighboring town 
in order to consult the prophets and sooth- 
sayers. On his way he met a damsel, who, 
like Rebecca in the days of Abraham, was 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 99 

going forth to draw water. Gordius fell into 
conversation with her, and related to her the 
occurrence which had interested him so 
strongly. The maiden advised him to go back 
and offer a sacrifice to Jupiter. Finally, she 
consented to go back with him and aid him. 
The affair ended in her becoming his wife, and 
they lived together in peace for many years 
upon their farm. 

They had a son named Midas. The father 
and mother were accustomed to go out some- 
times in their cart or wagon, drawn by the 
oxen, Midas driving. One day they were 
going into the town in this way, at a time 
when it happened that there was an assembly 
convened, which was in a state of great per- 
plexity on account of the civil dissensions and 
contests which prevailed in the country. They 
had just inquired of an oracle what they should 
do. The oracle said that "a cart would bring 
them a king, who would terminate their eternal 
broils." Just then Midas came up, driving 
the cart in which his father and mother were 
seated. The assembly thought at once that 
this must be the cart meant by the oracle, and 
they made Gordius king by acclamation. 
They took the cart and the yoke to preserve as 
sacred relics, consecrating them to Jupiter; 
and Gordius tied the yoke to the pole of the 
cart by a thong of leather, making a knot so 
close and complicated that nobody could untie 



i*t 



100 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

it again. It was called the Gordian knot. 
The oracle afterward said that whoever should 
■untie this knot should become monarch of all 
Asia. Thus far, nobody had succeeded. 

Alexander felt a great desire to see this knot 
and try what he could do. He went, accord- 
ingly, into the temple where the sacred cart 
had been deposited, and, after looking at the 
knot, and satisfying himself that the task of 
untying it was hopeless, he cut it to pieces 
with his sword. How far the circumstances 
of this whole story are true, and how far ficti- 
tious, no one can tell; the story itself, how- 
ever, as thus related, has come down from 
generation to generation, in every country of 
Europe, for two thousand years, and any ex- 
trication of oneself from a difficulty by vio- 
lent means has been called cutting the Gordian 
knot to the present day. 

At length the whole army was assembled,' 
and the king recommenced his progress. He 
went on successfully for some weeks, moving 
in a southeasterly direction, and bringing the 
whole country under his dominion, until, at 
length, when he reached Tarsus, an event oc- 
curred which nearly terminated his career. 
There were some circumstances which caused 
him to press forward with the utmost effort in 
approaching Tarsus, and, as the day was 
warm, he got very much overcome with heat 
and fatigue. In this state, he went and 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 101 

plunged suddenly into the river Cydnus to 
bathe. 

Now the Cydnus is a small stream, flowing 
by Tarsus, and it comes down from Mount 
Taurus at a short distance back from the city. 
Such streams are always very cold. Alexander 
was immediately seized with a very violent 
chill, and was taken out of the water shivering 
excessively, and, at length, fainted away. 
They thought he was dying. They bore him 
to his tent, and, as tidings of their leader's 
danger spread through the camp, the whole 
army, officers and soldiers, were thrown into 
the greatest consternation and grief. 

A violent and protracted fever came on. In 
the course of it, an incident occurred which 
strikingly illustrates the boldness and origi- 
nality of Alexander's character. The name of 
his physician was Philip. Philip had been 
preparing a particular medicine for him which, 
it seems, required some days to make ready. 
Just before it was presented, Alexander re- 
ceived a letter from Parmenio, informing him 
that he had good reason to believe that Philip 
had been bribed by the Persians to murder 
him, during his sickness, by administering 
poison in the name of medicine. He wrote, 
he said, to put him on his guard against any 
medicine which Philip might offer him. 

Alexander put the letter under his pillow, 
and communicated its contents to no one. At 



102 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

length, when the medicine was ready, Philip 
brought it in. Alexander took the cup con- 
taining it with one hand, and with the other 
he handed Philip the communication which he 
had received from Parmenio, saying: "Head 
that letter. ' ' As soon as Philip had finished 
reading it, and was ready to look up, Alexan- 
der drank off the draught in full, and laid down 
th« cup with an air of perfect confidence that 
he had nothing to fear. 

Some persons think that Alexander watched 
the countenance of his physician while he was 
reading the letter, and that he was led to take 
the medicine by his confidence in his power to 
determine the guilt or the innocence of a per- 
son thus accused by his looks. Others sup- 
pose that the act was an expression of his im- 
plicit faith in the integrity and fidelity of his 
servant, and that he intended it as testimony, 
given in a very pointed and decisive, and, at 
the same time, delicate manner, that he was 
not suspicious of his friends, or easily led to 
distrust their faithfulness. Philip was, at any 
rate, extremely gratified at the procedure, and 
Alexander recovered. 

Alexander had now traversed the whole ex- 
tent of Asia Minor, and had subdued the entire 
country to his sway. He was now advancing 
to another district, that of Syria and Palestine, 
which lies on the eastern shores of the Medi- 
terranean Sea. To enter this new territory, 



CAMPAIGN IN ASIA MINOR. 



103 



he had to pass over a narrow plain which lay 
between the mountains and the sea, at a place 
called Issus. Here he was met by the main 
body of the Persian army, and the great battle 
of Issus was fought. This battle will be the 
subject of the next chapter. 





CHAPTEE VI. 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 



Thus far Alexander had had only the lieu- 
tenants and generals of the Persian monarch to 
contend with. Darius had at first looked upon 
the invasion of his vast dominions by such a 
mere boy, as he called him, and by so small 
an army, with contempt. He sent word to 
his generals in Asia Minor to seize the young 
fool, and send him to Persia bound hand and 
foot. By the time, however, that Alexander 
had possessed himself of all Asia Minor, 
Darius began to find that, though young, he 
was no fool, and that it was not likely to be 
very easy to seize him. 

Accordingly, Darius collected an immense 
army himself, and advanced to meet the Mace- 
donians in person. Nothing could exceed the 
pomp and magnificence of his preparations. 
There were immense numbers of troops, and 
they were of all nations. There were even a 
great many Greeks among his forces, many of 
them enlisted from the Greeks of Asia Minor. 
There were some from Greece itself — merce- 
naries, as they were called ; that is, soldiers 
104 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 105 

who fought for pay, and who were willing to 
enter into any service which would pay them 
best. 

There were even some Greek officers and 
councilors in the family and court of Darius. 
One of them, named Charidemus, offended the 
king very much by the free opinion which he 
expressed of the uselessness of all his pomp 
and parade in preparing for an encounter with 
such an enemy as Alexander. "Perhaps, " 
said Charidemus, "you may not be pleased 
with my speaking to you plainly, but if I do 
not do it now, it will be too late hereafter. 
This great parade and pomp, and this enor- 
mous multitude of men, might be formidable 
to your Asiatic neighbors; but such sort of 
preparation will be of little avail against Alex- 
ander and his Greeks. Your army is resplen- 
dent with purple and gold. No one who had 
not seen it could conceive of its magnificence ; 
but it will not be of any avail against the terri- 
ble energy of the Greeks. Their minds are 
bent on something very different from idle 
show. They are intent on securing the sub- 
stantial excellence of their weapons, and on 
acquiring the discipline and the hardihood 
essential for the most efficient use of them. 
They will despise all your parade of purple 
and gold. They will not even value it as 
plunder. They glory in their ability to dis- 
pense with all the luxuries and conveniences of 



106 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

of life. They live upon the coarsest food 
At night they sleeps upon the bare ground. 
By day they are always on the march. They 
brave hunger, cold, and every species of ex- 
posure with pride and pleasure, having the 
greatest contempt for anything like softness 
and effeminacy of character. All this pomp 
and pageantry, with inefficient weapons, and 
inefficient men to wield them, will be of no 
avail against their invincible courage and 
energy ; and the best disposition that you can 
make of all your gold and silver and other 
treasures, is to send it away and procure good 
soldiers with it, if indeed gold and silver will 
procure them." 

The Greeks were habituated to energetic 
speaking as well as acting, but Charidemus did 
not sufficiently consider that the Persians 
were not accustomed to hear such plain lan- 
guage as this. Darius was very much dis- 
pleased. In his anger he condemned him to 
death. "Very well," said Charidemus, "I 
can die. But my avenger is at hand. My 
advice is good, and Alexander will soon punish 
you for not regarding it." 

Very gorgeous descriptions are give A the 
pomp and magnificence of the army of Darius, 
as he commenced his march from the Euphrates 
to the Mediterranean. The Persians worship 
the sun and fire. Over the king's tent there 
was an image of the sun in crystal, and sup- 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 107 

ported in such a manner as to be in the view 
of the whole army. They had also silver 
altars, on which they kept constantly burning 
what they called the sacred fire. These altars 
were borne by persons appointed for the pur- 
pose, who were clothed in magnificent costumes. 
Then came a long procession of priests and 
magi, who were dressed also in very splendid 
robes. They performed the services of public 
worship. Following them came a chariot con- 
secrated to the sun. It was drawn by white 
horses, and was followed by a single white 
horse of large size and noble form, which was 
a sacred animal, being called the horse of the 
sun. The equerries, that is, the attendants 
who had charge of this horse, were also all 
dressed in white, and each carried a golden 
rod in his hand. 

There were bodies of troops distinguished 
from the rest, and occupying positions of high 
honor, but these were selected and advanced 
above the others, not on account of their cour- 
age, or strength, or superior martial efficiency, 
but ho r a considerations connected with their 
birth d rank, and other aristocratic qualities. 
There was one body called the Kinsmen, who 
were the relatives of the king, or, at least, so 
considered, though*, as there were fifteen thou- 
sand of them, it would seem that the relation- 
ship could not have been, in all cases, very 
near. They were dressed with great magnifi- 



108 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

cence, and prided themselves on their rank, 
their wealth, and the splendor of their armor. 
There was also a corps called the Immortals. 
They were ten thousand in number. They 
wore a dress of gold tissue, which glittered 
with spangles and precious stones. 

These bodies of men, thus dressed, made an 
appearance more like that of a civic proces- 
sion, on an occasion of ceremony and rejoic- 
ing, than like the march of an army. The 
appearance of the king in his chariot was still 
more like an exhibition of pomp and parade. 
The carriage was very large, elaborately carved 
and gilded, and ornamented with statues and 
sculptures. Here the king sat on a very ele- 
vated seat, in sight of all. He was clothed in 
a vest of purple, striped with silver, and over 
his vest he wore a robe glittering with gold 
and precious stones. Around his waist was a 
golden girdle, from which was suspended his 
cimeter — a species of sword — the scabbard of 
which was resplendent with gems. He wore a 
tiara upon his head of very costly and elegant 
workmanship, and enriched, like the rest of 
his dress, with brilliant ornaments. The 
guards who preceded and followed him had 
pikes of silver, mounted and tipped with gold. 

It is very extraordinary that King Darius 
took his wife and all his family with him, and 
a large portion of his treasures, on this expe- 
dition against Alexander. His mother, whose 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 109 

name was Sysigambis, was in his family, and 
she and his wife came, each in her own chariot, 
immediately after the king. Then there were 
fifteen carriages filled with the children and 
their attendants, and three or four hundred 
ladies of the court, all dressed like queens. 
After the family there came a train of many 
hundreds of camels and mules, carrying the 
royal treasures. 

It was in this style that Darius set out upon 
his expedition, and he advanced by a slow 
progress toward the westward, until at length 
he approached the shores of the Mediterranean 
Sea. He left his treasures in the city of 
Damascus, where they w r ere deposited under 
the charge of a sufficient force to protect them, 
as he supposed. He then advanced to meet 
Alexander, going himself from Syria toward 
Asia Minor just at the time that Alexander was 
coming from Asia Minor into Syria. 

It will be observed by looking upon the map, 
that the chain of mountains called Mount 
Taurus extends down near to the coast, at the 
northeastern corner of the Mediterranean. 
Among these mountains there are various 
tracts of open country, through which an 
army may march to and fro, between Syria and 
Asia Minor. Now it happened that Darius, 
in going toward the west, took a more inland 
route than Alexander, *who, on coming east- 
ward, kept nearer to the sea. Alexander did 

9— Alexander 



110 



ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 



not know that Darius was so near; and as for 
Darius, he was confident that Alexander was 
retreating before him; for, as the Macedonian 




army was so small, and his own forces con- 
stituted such an innumerable host, the idea 
that Alexander would remain to brave a battle 
was, in his opinion, Entirely out of the ques- 
tion. He had, therefore, no doubt that Alex- 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. Ill 

ander was retreating. It is, of course, always 
difficult for two armies, fifty miles apart, to 
obtain correct ideas of each other's movements. 
All the ordinary intercommunications of the 
country are of course stopped, and each general 
has his scouts out, with orders to intercept all 
travelers, and to interrupt the communication 
of intelligence by every means in their power. 

In consequence of these and other circum- 
stances of a similar nature, it happened that 
Alexander and Darius actually passed each 
other, without either of them being aware of it. 
Alexander advanced into Syria by the plains of 
Issus, marked a upon the map, and a narrow 
pass beyond, called the Gates of Syria, while 
Darius went farther to the north, and arrived 
at Issus after Alexander had left it. Here 
each army learned to their astonishment that 
their enemy was in their rear. Alexander 
could not credit this report when he first heard 
it. He dispatched a galley with thirty oars 
along the shore, up the Gulf of Issus, to ascer- 
tain the truth. The galley soon came back 
and reported that, beyond the Gates of Syria, 
they saw the whole country, which w r as nearly 
level land, though gently rising from the sea, 
covered with the vast encampments of the 
Persian army. 

The king then called his generals and coun- 
cilors together, informed them of the facts, 
and made known to them his determination to 



112 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

return immediately through the Gates of Syria 
and attack the Persian army. The officers re- 
ceived the intelligence with enthusiastic expres- 
sions of joy. 

It was now near the evening. Alexander 
sent forward a strong reconnoitering party, 
ordering them to proceed cautiously, to ascend 
eminences and look far before them, to guard 
carefully against surprise, and to send back 
word immediately if they came upon any 
traces of the enemy. At the present day the 
operations of such a reconnoitering party are 
very much aided by the use of spyglasses, 
which are made now with great care expressly 
for military purposes. The instrument, how- 
ever, was not known in Alexander's day. 

When the evening came on, Alexander fol- 
lowed the reconnoitering party with the main 
body of the army. At midnight they reached 
the defile. When they were secure in the pos- 
session of it, they halted. Strong watches 
were stationed on all the surrounding heights 
to guard against any possible surprise. Alex- 
ander himself ascended one of the eminences, 
from whence he could look down upon the 
great plain beyond, which was dimly illumi- 
nated in every part by the smouldering fires of 
the Persian encampment. An encampment at 
night is a spectacle which is always grand, and 
often sublime. It must have appeared sub- 
lime to Alexander in the highest degree, on 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 113 

this occasion. To stand stealthily among these 
dark and somber mountains, with the defiles 
and passes below filled with the columns of his 
small but undaunted army, and to look on- 
ward, a few miles beyond, and see the count- 
less fires of the vast hosts which had got be- 
tween him and all hope of retreat to his native 
land ; to feel, as he must have done, that his 
fate, and that of all who were with him, de- 
pended upon the events of the day that was 
soon to dawn — to see and feel these things 
must have made this night one of the most 
exciting and solemn scenes in the conqueror's 
life. He had a soul to enjoy its excitement 
and sublimity. He gloried in it; and, as if 
he wished to add to the solemnity of the 
scene, he caused an altar to be erected, and 
offered a sacrifice, by torchlight,* to the deities 
on whose aid his soldiers imagined themselves 
most dependent for success on the morrow. 
Of course a place was selected where the lights 
of the torches would not attract the attention 
of the enemy, and sentinels were stationed at 
every advantageous point to watch the Persian 
camp for the slightest indications of movement 
or alarm. 

In the morning, at break of day, Alexander 
commenced his march down to the plain. In 
the evening, at sunset, all the valleys and de- 
files among the mountains around the plain of 
Issus were thronged with vast masses of the 



114 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Persian army, broken, disordered, and in con- 
fusion, all pressing forward to escape from the 
victorious Macedonians. They crowded all 
the roads, they choked up the mountain passes 
they trampled upon one another, they fell, ex- 
hausted with fatigue and mental agitation. 
Darius was among them, though his flight had 
been so sudden that he had left his mother, 
and his wife, and all his family behind. He 
pressed on in his chariot as far as the road 
allowed his chariot to go, and then, leaving 
everything behind, he mounted a horse and 
rode on for his life. 

Alexander and his army soon abandoned the 
pursuit, and returned to take possession of the 
Persian camp. The tents of King Darius and 
his household were inconceivably splendid, 
and were filled with gold and silver vessels, 
caskets, vases, boxes of perfumes, and every 
imaginable article of luxury and show. The 
mother and wife of Darius bewailed their hard 
fate with cries and tears, and continued all the 
evening in an agony of consternation and 
despair. 

Alexander, hearing of this, sent Leonnatus, 
his former teacher, a man of years and gravity, 
to quiet their fears and comfort them, so far 
as it was possible to comfort them. In addi- 
tion to their own captivity, they supposed that 
Darius was killed, and the mother was mourn- 
ing bitterly for her son, and the wife for her 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 117 

husband. Leonnatus, attended by some sol- 
diers, advanced toward the tent where these 
mourners were dwelling. The attendants at 
the door ran in and informed them that a 
body of Greeks were coming. This threw 
them into the greatest consternation. They 
anticipated violence and death, and threw 
themselves upon the ground in agony. Leon- 
natus waited some time at the door for the 
attendants to return. At length he entered the 
tent. This renewed the terrors of the women. 
They began to entreat him to spare their lives, 
at least until there should be time for them to 
see the remains of the son and husband whom 
they mourned, and to pay the last sad tribute 
to his memory. 

Leonnatus soon relieved their fears. He 
told them that he was charged by Alexander to 
say to them that Darius was alive, having made 
his escape in safety. As to themselves, Alex- 
ander assured them, he said, that they should 
not be injured ; that not only were their per- 
sons and lives to be protected, but no change 
was to be made in their condition or mode of 
life ; they should continue to be treated like 
queens. He added, moreover, that Alexander 
wished him to say that he felt no animosity 
or ill-will whatever against Darius. He was 
but technically his enemy, being only engaged 
in a generous and honorable contest with him 
for the empire of Asia. Saying these things, 



118 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Leonnatus raised the disconsolate ladies from 
the ground, and they gradually regained some 
degree of composure. 

Alexander himself went to pay a visit to the 
captive princesses the next day. He took 
with him Hephaestion. Hephaestion was 
Alexander's personal friend. The two young 
men were of the same age, and, though Alex- 
ander had the good sense to retain in power all 
the old and experienced officers which his 
father had employed, both in the court and 
army, he showed that, after all, ambition had 
not overwhelmed and stifled all the kindlier 
feelings of the heart, by his strong attachment 
to this young companion. Hephaestion was 
his confidant, his associate, his personal 
friend. He did what very few monarchs have 
done, either before or since, in securing for 
himself the pleasures of friendship, and of in- 
timate social communion with a heart kindred 
to his own, without ruining himself by com- 
mitting to a favorite powers which he was not 
qualified to wield. Alexander left the wise 
and experienced Parmenio to manage the 
camp, while he took the young and handsome 
Hephaestion to accompany him on his visit to 
the captive queens. 

"When the two friends entered the tent, the 
ladies were, from some cause, deceived, and 
mistook Hephaestion for Alexander, and ad- 
dressed him, accordingly, w r ith tokens of high 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 119 

respect and homage. One of their attendants 
immediately rectified the mistake, telling them 
that the other was Alexander. The ladies were 
at first overwhelmed with confusion, and at- 
tempted to apologize ; but the king reassured 
them at once by the easy and good-natured 
manner with which he passed over the mistake, 
saying it was no mistake at all. "It is true," 
said he, "that I am Alexander, but then he is 
Alexander too. " 

The wife of Darius was young and very 
beautiful, and they had a little son who was 
with them in the camp. It seems almost un- 
accountable that Darius should have brought 
such a helpless and defenseless charge with 
him into camps and fields of battle. But the 
truth was that he had no idea of even a battle 
with Alexander, and as to defeat, he did not 
contemplate the remotest possibility of it. 
He regarded Alexander as a mere boy — ener- 
getic and daring, it is true, and at the head of a 
desperate band of adventurers ; but he con- 
sidered his whole force as altogether too in- 
significant to make any stand against such a 
vast military power as he was bringing against 
him. He presumed that he would retreat as 
fast as possible before the Persian army came 
near him. The idea of such a boy coming 
down at break of day, from narrow defiles of 
the mountains, upon his vast encampment 
covering all the plains, ancj in twelve hours 



120 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

putting the whole mighty mass to flight, was 
what never entered his imagination at all. 
The exploit was, indeed, a very extraordinary 
one. Alexander's forces may have consisted 
of forty or fifty thousand men, and, if we may 
believe their story, there were over a hundred 
thousand Persians left dead upon the field. 
Many of these were, however, killed by the 
dreadful confusion and violence of the retreat, 
as vast bodies of horsemen, pressing through 
the defiles, rode over and trampled down the 
foot soldiers who were toiling in awful confusion 
along the way, having fled before the horsemen 
left the field. 

Alexander had heard that Darius had left the 
greater part of his royal treasures in Damascus, 
and he sent Parmenio there to seize them. 
This expedition was successful. An enor- 
mous amount of gold and silver fell into Alex- 
ander's hands. The plate was coined into 
money, and many of the treasures were sent to 
Greece. 

Darius got together a small remnant of his 
army and continued his flight. He did not 
stop until he had crossed the Euphrates. He 
then sent an ambassador to Alexander to make 
propositions for peace. He remonstated with 
him, in the communication which he made, 
for coming thus to invade his dominions, and 
urged him to withdraw and be satisfied with his 
own kingdom. He offered him any sum he 






DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 1M 

might name as a ransom for his mother, wife, 
and child, and agreed that if he would deliver 
them up to him on the payment of the ransom, 
and depart from his dominions, he would 
thenceforth regard him as an ally and a friend. 

Alexander replied by a letter, expressed in 
brief but very decided language. He said 
that the Persians had, under the ancestors of 
Darius, crossed the Hellespont, invaded Greece, 
laid waste the country, and destroyed cities and 
towns, and had thus done them incalculable in- 
jury ; and that Darius himself had been plotting 
against his (Alexander's) life, and offering re- 
wards to any one who would kill him. "I am 
acting, then," continued Alexander, "only on 
the defensive. The gods, who always favor 
the right, have given me the victory. I am 
now monarch of a large part of Asia, and your 
sovereign king. If you will admit this, and 
come to me as my subject, I will restore to you 
your mother, your wife, and your child, with- 
out any ransom. And, at any rate, whatever 
you decide in respect to these proposals, if 
you wish to communicate with me on any sub- 
ject hereafter, I shall pay no attention to what 
you send unless you address it to me as your 
king." 

One circumstance occurred at the close of 
this great victory which illustrates the mag- 
nanimity of Alexander's character, and helps 
to explain the very strong personal attachment 



122 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

which everybody within the circle of his in- 
fluence so obviously felt for him. He found a 
great number of envoys and ambassadors from 
the various states of Greece at the Persian 
court, and these persons fell into his hands 
among the other captives. Now the states and 
cities of Greece, all except Sparta and 
Thebes, which last city he had destroyed, were 
combined ostensibly in the confederation by 
which Alexander was sustained. It seems, 
however, that there was a secret enmity against 
him in Greece, and various parties had sent 
messengers and agents to the Persian court to 
aid in plots and schemes to interfere with and 
defeat Alexander's plans. The Thebans, 
scattered and disorganized as they were, had 
sent envoys in this way. Now Alexander, in 
considering what disposition he should make 
of these emissaries from his own land, decided 
to regard them all as traitors except the The- 
bans. All except the Thebans were traitors, 
he maintained, for acting secretly against him, 
while ostensibly, and by solemn covenants, 
they were his friends. 

"The case of the Thebans is very different," 
said he. "I have destroyed their city, and 
they have a right to consider me their enemy, 
and to do all they can to oppose my progress, 
and to regain their own lost existence and their 
former power. ' ' So he gave them their liberty 
and sent them away with marks of considera- 
tion and honor. 



DEFEAT OF DARIUS. 



123 



As the vast army of the Persian monarch 
had now been defeated, of course none of the 
smaller kingdoms or provinces thought of 
resisting. They yielded one after another, 




The Siege of Tyre, 
and Alexander appointed governors of his own 
to rule over them. He advanced in this man- 
ner along the eastern shores of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, meeting with no obstruction until 
he reached the great and powerful city of Tyre. 




CHAPTER VII. 



THE SIEGE OF TYKE, 



The city of Tyre stood on a small island, 
three or four miles in diameter,* on the east- 
ern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It was, 
in those days, the greatest commercial city in 
the world, and it exercised a great maritime 
power by means of its fleets and ships, w 7 hich 
traversed every part of the Mediterranean. 

Tyre had been built originally on the main- 
land ; but in some of the wars which it had tc 
encounter with the kings of Babylon in the 
East, this old city had been abandoned by the 
inhabitants, and a new one built upon an 
island not far from the shore, which could be 
more easily defended from an enemy. The 
old city had gone to ruin, and its place was 
occupied by old walls, fallen towers, stones, 
columns, arches, and other remains of the 
ancient magnificence of the place. 

The island on which the Tyre of Alexander's 
day had been built was about half a mile from 

* There are different statements in respect to the size of 
this island, varying from three to nine miles in circumfer- 
ence. 

124 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 125 

the shore. The water between was about 
eighteen feet deep, and formed a harbor for 
the vessels. The great business of the Tyrians 
was commerce. They bought and sold mer- 
chandise in all the ports of the Mediterranean 
Sea, and transported it by their merchant ves- 
sels to and fro. They had also fleets of war 
galleys, which they used to protect their in- 
terests on the high seas, and in the various 
ports which their merchant vessels visited. 
They were thus wealthy and powerful, and yet 
they lived shut up upon their little island, and 
were almost entirely independent of the main- 
land. 

The city itself, however, though contracted 
in extent on account of the small dimensions of 
the island, was very compactly built and 
strongly fortified, and it contained a vast num- 
ber of stately and magnificent edifices, which 
were filled with stores of wealth that had been 
accumulated by the mercantile enterprise and 
thrift of many generations. Extravagant 
stories are told by the historians and geogra- 
phers of those days, in respect to the scale on 
which the structures of Tyre were built. It 
was said, for instance, that the walls were one 
hundred and fifty feet high. It is true that 
the walls rose directly from the surface of the 
water, and of course a considerable part of 
their elevation was required to bring them up 
to the level of the surface of the land; and 

10 — Alexander 



126 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

then, in addition to this, they had to be car- 
ried up the whole ordinary height of a city 
wall to afford the usual protection to the edi- 
fices and dwellings within. There might have 
been some places where the walls themselves, 
or structures connected with them, were carried 
up to the elevation above named, though it is 
scarcely to be supposed that such could have 
been their ordinary dimensions. 

At any rate, Tyre was a very wealthy, mag- 
nificent, and powerful city, intent on its com- 
mercial operations, and well furnished with 
means of protecting them at sea, but feeling 
little interest and taking little part in the con- 
tentions continually arising among the rival 
powers which had possession of the land. 
Their policy was to retain their independence, 
and yet to keep on good terms with all other 
powers, so that their commercial intercourse 
with the ports of all nations might go on un- 
disturbed. 

It was, of course, a very serious question with 
Alexander, as his route lay now through Phoe- 
nicia and in the neighborhood of Tyre, what he 
should do in respect to such a port. He did 
not like to leave it behind him and proceed to 
the eastward; for, incase of any reverses hap- 
pening to him, the Tyrians would be very likely 
to act decidedly against him, and their 
power on the Mediterranean would enable them 
to act very efficiently against him on all the 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 127 

coasts of Greece and Asia Minor. On the 
other hand, it seemed a desperate undertaking 
to attack the city. He had none but land 
forces, and the island was half a mile from the 
shore. Besides its enormous walls, rising 
perpendicularly out of the water, it was de- 
fended by ships well armed and manned. It 
was not possible to surround the city and 
starve it into submission, as the inhabitants 
had wealth to buy, and ships to bring in, any 
quantity of provisions and stores by sea. 
Alexander, however, determined not to follow 
Darius toward the east, and leave such a 
stronghold as this behind him. 

The Tyrians wished to avoid a quarrel if 
it were possible. They sent complimentary 
messages to Alexander, congratulating him on 
his conquests, and disavowing all feelings of 
hostility to him. They also sent him a golden 
crown, as many of the other states of Asia had 
done, in token of their yielding a general sub- 
mission to his authority. Alexander returned 
very gracious replies, and expressed to them 
his intention of coming to Tyre for the pur- 
pose of offering sacrifices, as he said, to Her- 
cules, a god whom the Tyrians worshiped. 

The Tyrians knew that wherever Alex- 
ander went he went at the head of his 
army, and his coming into Tyre at all 
implied necessarily his taking military pos- 
session of it. They thought it might, per- 



126 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

haps, be somewhat difficult to dispossess such 
a visitor after he should once get installed in 
their castles and palaces. So they sent him 
word that it would not be in their power to 
receive him in the city itself, but that he could 
offer the sacrifice which he intended on the 
mainland, as there was a temple sacred to 
Hercules among the ruins there. 

Alexander then called a council of his offi- 
cers, and stated to them his views. He said 
that, on reflecting fully upon the subject, he 
had come to the conclusion that it was best to 
postpone pushing his expedition forward into 
the heart of Persia until he should have sub- 
dued Tyre completely, and made himself mas- 
ter of the Mediterranean Sea. He said, also, 
that he should take possession of Egypt before 
turning his arms toward the forces that Darius 
was gathering against him in the East. The 
generals of the army concurred in this opinion, 
and Alexander advanced toward Tyre. The 
Tyrians prepared for their defense. 

After examining carefully all the circum- 
stances of the case, Alexander conceived the 
very bold plan of building a broad causeway 
from the mainland to the island on which the 
city was founded, out of the ruins of old Tyre, 
and then marching his army over upon it to the 
walls of the city, where he could then plant 
his engines and make a breach. This would 
seem to be a very desperate undertaking. It 




Alexander, p. Mi* 



The Defences of Tyre. 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 131 

is true the stones remaining on the site of the 
old city afforded sufficient materials for the 
construction of the pier, but then the work 
must go on against a tremendous opposition, 
both from the walls of the city itself and from 
the Tyrian ships in the harbor. It would 
seem to be almost impossible to protect the 
men from these attacks so as to allow the oper- 
ations to proceed at all, and the difficulty and 
danger must increase very rapidly as the work 
should approach the walls of the city. But, 
notwithstanding these objections, Alexander 
determined to proceed. Tyre must be taken, 
and this was obviously the only possible mode 
of taking it. 

The soldiers advanced to undertake the work 
with great readiness. Their strong personal 
attachment to Alexander; their confidence that 
whatever he should plan and attempt would 
succeed; the novelty and boldness of this de- 
sign of reaching an island by building an isth- 
mus to it from the mainland — these and other 
similar considerations excited the ardor and 
enthusiasm of the troops to the highest degree. 

In constructing works of this kind in the 
water, the material used is sometimes stone 
and sometimes earth. So far as earth is em- 
ployed, it is necessary to resort to some means 
to prevent its spreading under the water, or 
being washed away by the dash of the waves 
at its sides. This is usually effected by 



132 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

driving what are called piles, which are long 
beams of wood, pointed at the end, and driven 
into the earth by means of powerful engines. 
Alexander sent parties of men into the moun- 
tains of Lebanon, where were vast forests of 
cedars, which were very celebrated in ancient 
times, and which are often alluded to in the 
sacred scriptures. They cut down these trees, 
and brought the stems of them to the shore, 
where they sharpened them at one end and 
drove them into the sand, in order to protect 
the sides of their embankment. Others 
brought stones from the ruins and tumbled 
them into the sea in the direction where the 
pier was to be built. It was some time before 
the work made such progress as to attract 
much attention from Tyre. At length, how- 
ever, when the people of the city saw it grad- 
ually increasing in size and advancing toward 
them, they concluded that they must engage in 
earnest in the work of arresting its progress. 

They accordingly constructed engines on the 
walls to throw heavy darts and stones over 
the water to the men upon the pier. They 
sent secretly to the tribes that inhabited the 
valleys and ravines among the mountains, to 
attack the parties at work there, and they 
landed forces from the city at some distance 
from the pier, and then marched along the 
shore, and attempted to drive away the men 
that were engaged in carrying stones from the 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 133 

ruins. They also fitted up and manned some 
galleys of large size, and brought them up near 
to the pier itself, and attacked the men who 
were at work upon it with stones, darts, 
arrows, and missiles of every description. 

But all was of no avail. The work, though 
impeded, still went on. Alexander built large 
screens of wood upon the pier, covering them 
with hides, which protected his soldiers from 
the weapons of the enemy, so that they could 
carry on their operations safely behind them. 
By these means the work advanced for some 
distance farther. As it advanced, various 
structures were erected upon it, especially 
along the sides and at the end toward the city. 
These structures consisted of great engines for 
driving piles, and machines for throwing 
stones and darts, and towers carried up to a 
great height, to enable the men to throw stones 
and heavy weapons down upon the galleys 
which might attempt to approach them. 

At length the Tyrians determined on at- 
tempting to destroy all these wooden works by 
means of what is called in modern times a^re- 
ship. They took a large galley, and filled it 
with combustibles of every kind. They loaded 
it first with light dry wood, and they poured 
pitch, and tar, and oil over all this wood to 
make it burn with fiercer flames. They satu- 
rated the sails and the cordage in the same 
manner, and laid trains of combustible mate- 



134 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

rials through all parts of the vessel, so that 
when fire should be set in one part it would 
immediately spread everywhere, and set the 
whole mass in flames at once. They towed 
this ship, on a windy day, near to the enemy's 
works, and on the side from which the wind 
was blowing. They then put it in motion 
toward the pier at a point where there was the 
greatest collection of engines and machines, 
and when they had got as near as they dared 
to go themselves, the men who were on board 
set the trains on fire, and made their escape in 
boats. The flames ran all over the vessel with 
inconceivable rapidity. The vessel itself 
drifted down upon Alexander's works, notwith- 
standing the most strenuous exertions of his 
soldiers to keep it away. The frames and 
engines, and the enormous and complicated 
machines which had been erected, took fire, 
and the whole mass was soon enveloped in a 
general conflagration. 

The men made desperate attempts to defend 
their works, but all in vain. Some were killed 
by arrows and darts, some were burned to 
death, and others, in the confusion, fell into 
the sea. Finally, the army was obliged to 
draw back, and to abandon all that was com- 
bustible in the vast construction they had 
reared to the devouring flames. 

Not long after this the sea itself came to the 
aid of the Tyrians. Thare was a storm ; and, 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 135 

as a consequence of it, a heavy swell rolled in 
from the offing, which soon undermined and 
washed away a large part of the pier. The 
effects of a heavy sea on the most massive and 
substantial structures, when they are fairly ex- 
posed to its impulse, are far greater than 
would be conceived possible by those who had 
not witnessed them. The most ponderous 
stones are removed, the strongest fastenings 
are torn asunder, and embankments the most 
compact and solid are undermined and washed 
away. The storm, in this case, destroyed in 
a few hours the work of many months, while 
the army of Alexander looked on from the 
shore witnessing its ravages in dismay. 

When the storm was over, and the first shock 
of chagrin and disappointment had passed 
from the minds of the men, Alexander pre- 
pared to resume the work with fresh vigor and 
energy. The men commenced repairing the 
pier and widening it, so as to increase its 
strength and capacity. They dragged whole 
trees to the edges of it, and sunk them, 
branches and all, to the bottom, to form a sort 
of platform there, to prevent the stones from 
sinking into the slime. They built new towers 
and engines, covering them with green hides 
to make them fireproof; and thus they were 
soon advancing again, and gradually drawing 
nearer to the city, and in a more threatening 
and formidable manner than ever. 



136 ALEXANDER THE GREAT e 

Alexander, finding that his efforts were im- 
peded very much by the ships of the Tyrians, 
determined on collecting and equipping a fleet 
of his own. This he did at Sidon, which was 
a town a short distance north of Tyre. He 
embarked on board this fleet himself, and came 
down with it into the Tyrian seas. With this 
fleet he had various success. He chained 
many of the ships together, two and two, at 
a little distance apart, covering the inclosed 
space with a platform, on which the soldiers 
could stand to fight. The men also erected 
engines on these platforms to attack the city. 
These engines were of various kinds. There 
was what they called the battering ram, which 
was a long and very heavy beam of wood, 
headed with iron or brass. This beam was 
suspended by a chain in the middle, so that it 
could be swung back and forth by the soldiers, 
its head striking against the wall each time, 
by which means the wall would sometimes be 
soon battered down. They had also machines 
for throwing great stones, or beams of wood, 
by means of the elastic force of strong bars of 
wood, or of steel, or that of twisted ropes. 
The part of the machine upon which the stone 
was placed would be drawn back by the united 
strength of many of the soldiers, and then, as 
it recovered itself when released, the stone 
would be thrown off into the air with prodig- 
ious velocity and force. 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 137 

Alexander's double galleys answered very 
well as long as the water was smooth ; but 
sometimes, when they were caught out in a 
swell, the rolling of the waves would rack and 
twist them so as to tear the platforms asunder, 
and sink the men in the sea. Thus difficul- 
ties unexpected and formidable were continu- 
ally arising. Alexander, however, persevered 
through them all. The Tyrians, finding them- 
selves pressed more and more, and seeing that 
the dangers impending became more and more 
formidable every day, at length concluded to 
send a great number of the women and chil- 
dren away to Carthage, which was a great com- 
mercial city in Africa. They were determined 
not to submit to Alexander, but to carry their 
resistance to the very last extremity. And as 
the closing scenes of a siege, especially if the 
place is at last taken by storm, are awful be- 
yond description, they wished to save their 
wives, and daughters, and helpless babes from 
having to witness them. 

In the meantime, as the siege advanced, the 
parties became more and more incensed against 
each other. They treated the captives which 
they took on either side with greater and 
greater cruelty, each thinking that they were 
only retaliating worse injuries from the other. 
The Macedonians approached nearer and 
nearer. The resources of the unhappy city 
were gradually cut off and its strength worn 



138 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

away. The engines approached nearer and 
nearer to the walls, until the battering rams 
bore directly upon them, and breaches began 
to be made. At length one great breach on the 
southern side was found to be "practicable, " 
as they call it. Alexander began to prepare 
for the final assault, and the Tyrians saw be- 
fore them the horrible prospect of being taken 
by storm. 

Still they would not submit. Submission 
would now have done but little good, though it 
might have saved some of the final horrors of 
the scene. Alexander had become greatly ex- 
asperated by the long resistance which the 
Tyrians had made. They probably could not 
now have averted destruction, but they might, 
perhaps, have prevented its coming upon them 
in so terrible a shape as the irruption of thirty 
thousand frantic and infuriated soldiers 
through the breaches in their walls to take 
their city by storm. 

The breach by which Alexander proposed to 
force his entrance was on the southern side. 
He prepared a number of ships, with plat- 
forms raised upon them in such a manner that, 
on getting near the walls, they could be let 
down, and form a sort of bridge, over which 
the men could pass to the broken fragments of 
the wall, and thence ascend through the breach 
above. 

The plan succeeded. The ships advanced 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 139 

to the proposed place of landing. The bridges 
were let down. The men crowded over them 
to the foot of the wall. They clambered up 
through the breach to the battlements above, 
although the Tyrians thronged the passage and 
made the most desperate resistance. Hun- 
dreds were killed by darts, and arrows, and 
falling stones, and their bodies tumbled into 
the sea. The others, paying no attetntion to 
their falling comrades, and drowning the hor- 
rid screams of the crushed and the dying with 
their own frantic shouts of rage and fury, 
pressed on up the broken wall till they reached 
the battlements above. The vast throng then 
rolled along upon the top of the wall till they 
came to stairways and slopes by which they 
could descend into the city, and, pouring down 
through all these avenues, they spread over the 
streets, and satiated the hatred and rage, 
which had been gathering strength for seven 
long months, in bursting into houses, and kill- 
ing and destroying all that came in their way. 
Thus the city was stormed. 

After the soldiers were weary with the work 
of slaughtering the wretched inhabitants of the 
city, they found that many still remained alive, 
and Alexander tarnished the character for gen- 
erosity and forbearance for which he had thus 
far been distinguished by the cruelty with 
which he treated them. Some were executed, 
some thrown into the sea ; and it is even said 



140 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

that two thousand were crucified along the sea- 
shore. This may mean that their bodies were 
placed upon crosses after life had been de- 
stroyed by some more humane method than 
crucifixion. At any rate, we find frequent in- 
dications from this time that prosperity and 
power were beginning to exert their usual un- 
favorable influence upon Alexander's character. 
He became haughty, imperious, and cruel. 
He lost the modesty and gentleness which 
seemed to characterize him in the earlier part 
of his life, and began to assume the moral 
character, as well as perform the exploits, of a 
military hero. 

A good illustration of this is afforded by the 
answer that he sent to Darius, about the time 
of the storming of Tyre, in reply to a second 
communication which he had received from 
him proposing terms of peace. Darius offered 
him a very large sum of money for the ransom 
of his mother, wife, and child, and agreed to 
give up to him all the country he had con- 
quered, including the whole territory west of 
the Euphrates. He also offered him his 
daughter Steitira in marriage. He recom- 
mended to him to accept these terms, and be 
content with the possessions he had already 
acquired ; that he could not expect to succeed, 
if he should try, in crossing the mighty rivers 
of the East, which were in the way of his 
march toward the Persian dominions. 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 141 

Alexander replied, that if he wished to 
marry his daughter he could do it without his 
consent ; as to the ransom, he was not in want 
of money ; in respect to Darius' offering to 
give him up all west of the Euphrates, it was 
absurd for a man to speak of giving what was 
no longer his own ; that he had crossed too many 
seas in his military expeditions, since he left 
Macedon, to feel any concern about the rivers 
that he might find in his way ; and that he 
should continue to pursue Darius wherever he 
might retreat in search of safety and protec- 
tion, and he had no fear but that he should 
find and conquer him at last. 

It was a harsh and cruel message to send to 
the unhappy monarch whom he had already so 
greatly injured. Parmenio advised him to 
accept Darius' offers. "I would," said he, 
"if I were Alexander." 

"Yes," said Alexander, "and so would I if 
I were Parmenio." 

What a reply from a youth of twenty-two to 
a venerable general of sixty, who had been so 
tried and faithful a friend, and so efficient a 
coadjutor both to his father and to himself 
for so many years. 

The siege and storming of Tyre has always 
been considered one of the greatest of Alexan- 
der's exploits. The boldness, the perseverance, 
the indomitable energy which he himself and 
all his army manifested, during the seven 

11— Alexander 



148 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

months of their Herculean toil, attracted the 
admiration of the world. And yet we find our 
feelings of sympathy for his character, and 
interest in his fate, somewhat alienated by the 
indications of pride, imperiousness, and 
cruelty which begin to appear. While he 
rises in our estimation as a military hero, he 
begins to sink somewhat as a man. 

And yet the change was not sudden. He 
bore during the siege his part in the privations 
and difficulties which the soldiers had to en- 
dure; and the dangers to which they had to be 
exposed, he was always willing to share. One 
night he was out with a party upon the moun- 
tains. Among his few immediate attendants 
was Lysimachus, one of his former teachers, 
who always loved to accompany him at such 
times. Lysimachus was advanced in life, and 
somewhat infirm, and consequently could not 
keep up with the rest in the march. Alexan- 
der remained with Lysimachus, and ordered 
the rest to go on. The road at length became 
so rugged that they had to dismount from 
their horses and walk. Finally they lost their 
way, and found themselves obliged to stop for 
the night. They had no fire. They saw, 
however, at a distance, some campfires blazing 
which belonged to the barbarian tribes against 
whom the expedition was directed. Alexander 
went to the nearest one. There were two men 
lying by it, who had been stationed to take 



THE SIEGE OF TYRE. 



143 



care of it. He advanced stealthily to them and 
killed them both, probably while they were 
asleep. He then took a brand from their fire, 
carried it back to his own encampment, where 
he made a blazing fire for himself and Lysi- 
machus, and they passed the night in comfort 
and safety. This is the story. How far we 
are to give credit to it, each reader must judge 
for himself. One thing is certain, however, 
that there are many military heroes of whom 
such stories would not be even fabricated. 





CHAPTEE VIII. 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 

After completing the subjugation of Tyre, 
Alexander commenced his march for Egypt. 
His route led him through Judea. The time 
was about three hundred years before the birth 
of Christ, and, of course, this passage of the 
great conqueror through the land of Israel 
took place between the historical periods of 
the Old Testament and of the New, so that no 
account pf it is given in the sacred volume. 

There was a Jewish writer named Josephus, 
who lived and wrote a few years after Christ, 
and, of course, more than three hundred years 
after Alexander. He wrote a history of the 
Jews, which is a very entertaining book to 
read; but he liked so much to magnify the 
importance of the events in the history of his 
country, and to embellish them with marvelous 
and supernatural incidents, that his narratives 
have not always been received with implicit 
faith. Josephus says that, as Alexander 
passed through Palestine, he went to pay a 
visit to Jerusalem. The circumstances of this 
visit, according to his account, were these. 
144 




Alexander, face p. 1UA 



Josephus, the Historian. 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 145 

The city of Tyre, before Alexander besieged 
it, as it lived entirely by commerce, and was 
surrounded by the sea, had to depend on the 
neighboring countries for a supply of food. 
The people were accordingly accustomed to 
purchase grain in Phoenicia, in Judea, and in 
Egypt, and transport it by their ships to the 
island. Alexander, in the same manner, when 
besieging the city, found that he must depend 
upon the neighboring countries for supplies of 
food ; and he accordingly sent requisitions for 
such supplies to several places, and, among 
others, to Judea. The Jews, as Josephus 
says, refused to send any such supplies, say- 
ing that it would be inconsistent with fidelity 
to Darius, under whose government they were. 

Alexander took no notice of this reply at the 
time, being occupied with the siege of Tyre; 
but, as soon as that city was taken, and he 
was ready to pass through Judea, he directed 
his march toward Jerusalem with the inten- 
tion of destroying the city. 

Now the chief magistrate at Jerusalem at this 
time, the one who had the command of the 
city, ruling it, of course, under a general re- 
sponsibility to the Persian government, was 
the high priest. His name was Jaddus. In 
the time of Christ, about three hundred years 
after this, the name of the high priest, as the 
reader will recollect, was Caiaphas. Jaddus 
and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were very 



146 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

much alarmed. They knew not what to do. 
The siege and capture of Tyre had impressed 
them all with a strong sense of Alexander's 
terrible energy and martial power, and they 
began to anticipate certain destruction. 

Jaddus caused great sacrifices to be offered 
to Almighty God, and public and solemn 
prayers were made, to implore his guidance 
and protection. The next day after these serv- 
ices, he told the people that they had nothing 
to fear. God had appeared to him in a dream, 
and directed him what to do. "We are not to 
resist the conqueror," said he, "but to go 
forth to meet him and welcome him. We are 
to strew the city with flowers, and adorn it as 
for a festive celebration. The priests are to be 
dressed in their pontifical robes and go forth, 
and the inhabitants are to follow them in a civic 
procession. In this way we are to go out to 
meet Alexander as he advances — and all will be 
well. ,, 

These directions were followed. Alexander 
was coming on with a full determination to 
destroy the city. When, however, he saw this 
procession, and came near enough to distin- 
guish the appearance and dress of the high 
priest, he stopped, seemed surprised and 
pleased, and advanced toward him with an air 
of the profoundest deference and respect. He 
seemed to pay him almost religious homage 
and adoration. Everyone was astonished. 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. * 14? 

Parmenio asked him for an explanation. 
Alexander made the following extraordinary 
statement : 

"When I was in Macedon, before setting out 
on this expedition, while I was revolving the 
subject in my mind, musing day after day on 
the means of conquering Asia, one night I had 
a remarkable dream. In my dream this very 
priest appeared before me, dressed just as he 
is now. He exhorted me to banish every fear, 
to cross the Hellespont boldly, and to push 
forward into the heart of Asia. He said that 
God would march at the head of my army, and 
give me the victory over all the Persians. I 
recognize this priest as the same person that 
appeared to me then. He has the same coun- 
tenance, the same dress, the same stature, the 
same air. It is through his encouragement 
and aid that I am here, and I am ready to wor- 
ship and adore the God whose ^service he ad- 
ministers. " 

Alexander joined the high priest in the pro- 
cession, and they returned to Jerusalem to- 
gether. There Alexander united with them 
and with the Jews of the city in the celebra- 
tion of religious rites, by offering sacrifices 
and oblations in the Jewish manner. The 
writings which are now printed together in our 
Bibles, as the Old Testament, were, in those 
days, written separately on parchment rolls, 
and kept in the temple. The priests produced 



148 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

from the rolls the one containing the prophe- 
cies of Daniel, and they read and interpreted 
some of these prophecies to Alexander, which 
they considered to have reference to him, 
though written many hundred years before. 
Alexander was, as Josephus relates, very much 
pleased at the sight of these ancient predictions, 
and the interpretation put upon them by the 
priests. He assured the Jews that they should 
be protected in the exercise of all their rights, 
and especially in their religious worship, and 
he also promised them that he would take their 
brethren who resided in Media and Babylon 
under his special charge when he should come 
into possession of those places. These Jews 
of Media and Babylon were the descendants of 
captives which had been carried away from 
their native land in former wars. 

Such is the story which Josephus relates. 
The Greek historians, on the other hand, make 
no mention of this visit to Jerusalem; and 
some persons think that it was never made, but 
that the story arose and was propagated from 
generation to generation among the Jews, 
through the influence of their desire to mag- 
nify the importance and influence of their 
worship, and that Josephus incorporated the 
account into his history without sufficiently 
verifying the facts. 

However it may be in regard to Jerusalem, 
Alexander was delayed at Gaza, which, as may 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 149 

be seen upon the map, is on the shore of the 
Mediterranean Sea. It was a place of con- 
siderable commerce and wealth, and was, at 
this time, under the command of a governor 
whom Darius had stationed there. His name 
was Betis. Betis refused to surrender the 
place. Alexander stopped to besiege it, and 
the siege delayed him two months. He was 
very much exasperated at this, both against 
Betis and against the city. 

His unieasonable anger was very much in- 
creased by a wound which he received. He 
was near a mound which his soldiers had been 
constructing near the city, to place engines 
upon for an attack upon the walls, when an 
arrow, shot from one of the engines upon the 
walls, struck him in the breast. It penetrated 
his armor, and wounded him deeply in the 
shoulder. The wound was very painful for 
some time, and the suffering which he endured 
from it only added fuel to the flame of his 
anger against the city. 

At last breaches were made in the walls, and 
the place was taken by storm. Alexander 
treated the wretched captives with extreme 
cruelty. He cut the garrison to pieces, and 
sold the inhabitants to slavery. As for Betis, 
he dealt with him in a manner almost too hor- 
rible to be described. The reader will recollect 
that Achilles, at the siege of Troy, after killing 
Hector, dragged his dead body around the 



150 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

walls of the city. Alexander, growing more 
cruel as he became more accustomed to war 
and bloodshed, had been intending to imitate 
this example so soon as he could find an enemy 
worthy of such a fate. He now determined to 
carry his plan into execution with Betis. He 
ordered him into his presence. A few years 
before, he would have rewarded him for his 
fidelity in his master's sevice; but now, grown 
selfish, hard-hearted, and revengeful, he looked 
upon him with a countenance full of vindictive 
exultation, and said : 

"You are not going to die the simple death 
that you desire. You have got the worst tor- 
ments that revenge can invent to suffer. " 

Betis did not reply, but looked upon Alex- 
ander with a calm, and composed, and unsub- 
dued air, which incensed the conqueror more 
and more. 

"Observe his dumb arrogance, " said Alex- 
ander; "but I will conquer him. I will show 
him that I can draw groans from him, if 
nothing else." 

He then ordered holes to be made through 
the heels of his unhappy captive, and, passing 
a rope through them, had the body fastened to 
a chariot, and dragged about the city till no 
life remained. 

Alexander found many rich treasures in 
Gaza. He sent a large part of them to his 
mother Olympias, whom he had left in Mace- 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 151 

don. Alexander's affection for Lis mother 
seems to have been more permanent than 
almost any other good trait in his character. 
He found, in addition to other stores of valua- 
ble merchandise, a large quantity of frankin- 
cense and myrrh. These are gums which were 
brought from Arabia, and were very costly. 
They were used chiefly in making offerings and 
in burning incense to the gods. 

When Alexander was a young man in Mace- 
don, before his father's death, he was one day 
present at the offering of sacrifices, and one of 
his teachers nnd guardians, named Leonnatus, 
who was standing by, thought he was rather 
profuse in his consumption of frankincense 
and myrrh. He was taking it up by handfuls 
and throwing it upon the fire. Leonnatus 
reproved him for this extravagance, and told 
him that when he became master of the coun- 
tries where these costly gums w 7 ere procured, 
he might be as prodigal of them as he pleased, 
but that in the meantime it would be proper 
for him to be more prudent and economical. 
Alexander remembered this reproof, and, find- 
ing vast stores of these expensive gums in 
Gaza, he sent the whole quantity to Leonnatus, 
telling him that he sent him this abundant 
supply that he might not have occasion to be 
so reserved and sparing for the future in his 
sacrifices to the gods. 

After this conquest and destruction of Gaza, 



152 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Alexander continued his march southward to 
the frontiers of Egypt. He reached these 
frontiers at the city of Pelusium. The Egyp- 
tians had been under the Persian dominion, but 
they abhorred it, and were very ready to sub- 
mit to Alexander's sway. They sent ambas- 
sadors to meet him upon the frontiers. The 
governors of the cities, as he advanced into the 
country, finding that it would be useless to re- 
sist, and warned by the terrible example of 
Thebes, Tyre, and Gaza, surrendered to him 
as fast as he summoned them. 

He went to Memphis. Memphis was a great 
and powerful city, situated in what was called 
Lower Egypt, on the Nile, just above where 
the branches which form the mouths of the 
Nile separate from the main stream. All that 
part of Egypt is flat country, having been 
formed by the deposits brought down by the 
Nile. Such land is called alluvial; it is 
always level, and, as it consists of successive 
deposits from the turbid waters of the river, 
made in the successive inundations, it forms 
always a very rich soil, deep and inexhausti- 
ble, and is, of course, extremely fertile. Egypt 
has been celebrated for its unexampled fertility 
from the earliest times. It waves with fields 
of corn and grain, and is adorned with groves 
of the most luxuriant growth and richest ver- 
dure. 

It is only, however, so far as the land is 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 153 

formed by the deposits of the Nile, that this 
scene of verdure and beauty extends. On the 
east it is bounded by ranges of barren and 
rocky hills, and on the west by vast deserts, 
consisting of moving sands, from which no 
animal or vegetable life can derive the means 
of existence. The reason of this sterility 
seems to be the absence of water. The geolog- 
ical formation of the land is such that it fur- 
nishes few springs of water, and no streams, 
and in that climate it seldom or never rains. 
If there is water, the most barren sands will 
clothe themselves with some species of vege- 
tation, which, in its decay, will form a soil 
that will nourish more and more fully each 
succeeding generation of plants. But in the 
absence of water, any surface of earth will soon 
become a barren sand. The wind will drive 
away everything imponderable, leaving only 
the heavy sands, to drift in storms, like fields 
of snow. 

Among these African daserts, however, there 
are some fertile spots. They are occasioned 
by springs which arise in little dells, and 
which saturate the ground with moisture for 
some distance around them. The water from 
these springs flows for some distance, in many 
cases, in a little stream, before it is finally lost 
and absorbed in the sands. The whole tract 
under the influence of this irrigation clothes 
itself with verdure. Trees grow up to shade 



154 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

it. It forms a spot whose beauty, absolutely 
great, is heightened by the contrast which it 
presents to the gloomy and desolate desert by 
which it is surrounded. Such a green spot in 
the desert is called an Oasis. They are the 
resort and the refuge of the traveler and the 
pilgrim, who seek shelter and repose upon 
them in their weary journeys over the trackless 
wilds. 

Nor must it be supposed that these islands 
of fertility and verdure are always small. 
Some of them are very extensive, and contain a 
considerable population. There is one called 
the Great Oasis, which consists of a chain of 
fertile tracts of about a hundred miles in 
length. Another, called the Oasis of Siwah, 
has, in modern times, a population of eight 
thousand souls. This last is situated not far 
from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea — at 
least not very far ; perhaps two or three hun- 
dred miles — and it was a very celebrated spot 
in Alexander's day. 

The cause of its celebrity was that it was the 
seat and center of the worship of a famous 
deity called Jupiter Aramon. This god was 
said to be the son of Jupiter, though there 
were all sorts of stories about his origin and 
early history. He had the form of a ram, and 
was worshiped by the people of Egypt, and 
also by the Carthaginians, and by the people 
of Northern Africa generally. His temple 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 155 

was in this oasis, and it was surrounded by a 
considerable population, which was supported, 
in a great degree, by the expenditures of the 
worshipers who came as pilgrims, or other- 
wise, to sacrifice at his shrine. 

It is said that Alexander, finding that the 
various objects of human ambition which he 
had been so rapidly attaining by his victories 
and conquests for the past few years were in- 
sufficient to satisfy him, began now to aspire 
for some supernatural honors, and he accord- 
ingly conceived the design of having himself 
declared to be the son of a god. The heroes 
of Homer were sons of the gods. Alexander 
envied them the fame and honor which this dis- 
tinction gave them in the opinion of mankind. 
He determined to visit the temple of Jupiter 
Ammon in the Oasis of Siwah, and to have the 
declaration of his divine origin made by the 
priests there. 

He proceeded, accordingly, to the mouth of 
the Nile, where he found a very eligible place, 
as he believed, for the foundation of a com- 
mercial city, and he determined to build it on 
his return. Thence he marched along the 
shores of the Mediterranean, toward the west, 
until he reached a place called Paraetonium, 
which will be found upon the map. He then 
left the seashore and marched south, striking 
at once into the desert when he left the sea. 
He was accompanied by a small detachment of 

12— Alexander 



156 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

his army as an escort, and they journeyed 
eleven days before they reached the oasis. 

They had a variety of perilous adventures in 
crossing the desert. For the first two days the 
soldiers were excited and pleased with the 
novelty and romantic grandeur of the scene. 
The desert has, in some degree, the sublimity 
of the ocean. There is the same boundless 
expanse, the same vast, unbroken curve of the 
horizon, the same tracklessness, the same soli- 
tude. There is, in addition, a certain pro- 
found and awful stillness and repose, which 
imparts to it a new element of impressiveness 
and grandeur. Its dread and solemn silence 
is far more imposing and sublime than the 
loudest thunders of the seas. 

The third day the soldiers began to be weary 
of such a march. They seemed afraid to pene- 
trate any farther into such boundless and ter- 
rible solitudes. They had been obliged to 
bring water with them in goatskins, which 
were carried by camels. The camel is the 
only beast of burden which can be employed 
upon the deserts. There is a peculiarity in 
the anatomical structure of this animal by 
which he can take in, at one time, a supply of 
water for many days. He is formed, in fact, 
for the desert. In his native state he lives in 
the oases and in the valleys. He eats the her- 
bage which grows among the rocks and hills 
that alternate with the great sandy plains in 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 157 

all these countries. In passing from one of 
his scanty pasturages to another, he has long 
journeys to make across the sands, where, 
though he can find food here and there, there 
is no water. Providence has formed him with 
a structure adapted to this exigency, and by 
means of it he becomes extremely useful to 
man. 

The soldiers of Alexander did not take a 
sufficient supply of water, and were reduced, 
at one time, to great distress. They were 
relieved, the story says, by a rain, though 
rain is extremely unusual in the deserts. 
Alexander attributed this supply to the mirac- 
ulous interposition of Heaven. They catch 
the rain, in such cases, with cloths, and after- 
ward wring out the water; though in this in- 
stance, as the historians of that day say, the 
soldiers did not wait for this tardy method of 
supply, but the whole detachment held back 
their heads and opened their mouths, to catch 
the drops of rain as they fell. 

There was another danger to which they 
were exposed in their march, more terrible 
even than the scarcity of water. It was that 
of being overwhelmed in the clouds of sand 
and dust which sometimes swept over the 
desert in gales of wind. These were called 
sand storms. The fine sand flew, in such 
cases, in driving clouds, which filled the eyes 
and stopped the breath of the traveler, and 



158 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

finally buried his body under its drifts when 
he laid down to die. A large army of fifty 
thousand men, under a former Persian king, 
had been overwhelmed and destroyed in this 
way, some years before, in some of the Egyp- 
tian deserts. Alexander's soldiers had heard * 
of this calamity, and they were threatened 
sometimes with the same fate. They, how- 
ever, at length escaped all the dangers of the 
desert, and began to approach the green and 
fertile land of the oasis. 

The change from the barren and dismal 
loneliness of the sandy plains to the groves 
and the villages, the beauty and the verdure of 
the oasis, was delightful both to Alexander 
himself and to all his men. The priests at 
the great temple of Jupiter Ammon received 
them all with marks of great distinction and 
honor. The most solemn and magnificent 
ceremonies were performed, with offerings, 
oblations, and sacrifices. The priests, after 
conferring in secret with the god in the tem- 
ple, came out with the annunciation that Alex- 
ander was indeed his son, and they paid him, 
accordingly, almost divine honors. He is sup- 
posed to have bribed them to do this by 
presents and pay. Alexander returned at 
length to Memphis, and in all his subsequent 
orders and decrees he styled himself Alexan- 
der king, son of Jupiter Ammon. 

But, though Alexander was thus willing to 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 159 

impress his ignorant soldiers with a myste- 
rious veneration for his fictitious divinity, he 
was not deceived himself on the subject; he 
sometimes even made his pretensions to the 
divine character a subject of joke. For in- 
stance, they one day brought him in too little 
fire in the focus. The focus, or fireplace 
used in Alexander's day, was a small metallic 
stand, on which the fire was built. It was 
placed wherever convenient in the tent, and the 
smoke escaped above. They had put upon the 




A Focus. 

focus too little fuel one day when they brought 
it in. Alexander asked the officer to let him 
have either some wood or some frankincense; 
they might consider him, he said, as a god or 
as a man, whichever they pleased, but he 
wished to be treated either like one or the other. 
On his return from the oasis Alexander car- 
ried forward his plan of building a city at the 
mouth of the Nile. He drew the plan, it is 
said, with his own hands. He superintended 
the constructions, and invited artisans and 



160 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

mechanics from all nations to come and reside 
in it. They accepted the invitation in great 
numbers, and the city soon became large, and 
wealthy, and powerful. It was intended as a 
commercial post, and the wisdom and sagacity 
which Alexander manifested in the selection of 
the site is shown by the fact that the city 
rose immediately to the rank of the great seat 
of trade and commerce for all those shores, 
and has continued to hold that rank now for 
twenty centuries. 

There was an island near the coast, opposite 
the citj, called the island of Pharos. They 
built a most magnificent lighthouse upon one 
extremity of this island, which was con- 
sidered, in. those days, one of the wonders of 
the world. It was said to be five hundred feet 
high. This may have been an exaggeration. 
At any rate, it was celebrated throughout the 
world in its day, and its existence and its 
greatness made an impression on the human 
mind which has not yet been effaced. Pharos 
is the name for lighthouse, in many languages, 
to the present day. 

In building the city of Alexandria, Alexan- 
der laid aside, for a time, his natural and 
proper character, and assumed a mode of 
action in strong contrast with the ordinary 
course of his life. He was, throughout most 
of his career, a destroyer. He roamed over 
the world to interrupt commerce, to break in 



ALEXANDER IN EGYPT. 161 

upon and disturb the peaceful pursuits of in- 
dustry, to batter down city walls, and burn 
dwellings, and kill men. This is the true 
vocation of a hero and a conqueror; bmt at the 
mouth of the Nile Alexaoder laid aside this 
character. He turned his energies to the work 
of planning means to do good. He con- 
structed a port; he built warehouses; he pro- 
vided accommodations and protection for mer- 
chants and artisans. The nations exchanged 
their commodities far more easily and exten- 
sively in consequence of these facilities, and 
the means of comfort and enjoyment were mul- 
tiplied and increased in thousands and thou- 
sands of huts in the great cities of Egypt, and 
in the rural districts along the banks of the 
Nile. The good, too, which he thus com- 
menced, has perpetuated itself. Alexandria 
has continued to fulfill its beneficent function 
for two thousand years. It is the only monu- 
ment of his greatness which remains. Every- 
thing else which he accomplished perished 
when he died. How much better -would it 
have been for the happiness of mankind, as 
well as for his own true fame and glory, if 
doing good had been the rule of his life instead 
of the exception. 




CHAPTEE IX. 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 

All the western part of Asia was now in 
Alexander's power. He was undisputed mas- 
ter of Asia Minor, Phoenicia, Judea, and 
Egypt. He returned from Egypt to Tyre, 
leaving governors to rule in his name in all the 
conquered provinces. The injuries which had 
been done to Tyre, during the siege and at the 
assault, were repaired, and it was again a 
wealthy, powerful, and prosperous city. Alex- 
ander rested and refreshed his army there, and 
spent some weeks in most splendid festivities 
and rejoicings. The princes and potentates 
of all the neighboring countries assembled to 
partake of his hospitality, to be entertained 
by the games, the plays, the spectacles, and the 
feastings, and to unite in swelling his court 
and doing him honor. In a word, he was the 
general center of attraction for all eyes, and the 
object of universal homage. 

All this time, however, he was very far 
from being satisfied, or feeling that his work 
was done. Darius, whom he considered his 

162 



THE GREAT VICTORY. J 63 

great enemy, was still in the field unsubdued. 
He had retreated across the Euphrates, and 
was employed in assembling a vast collection 
of forces from all the Eastern nations which 
were under his sway, to meet Alexander in the 
final contest. Alexander therefore made ar- 
rangements at Tyre for the proper government 
of the various kingdoms and provinces which 
he had already conquered, and then began to 
prepare for marching eastward with the main 
body of his army. 

During all this time th3 ladies of Darius' 
family, who had been taken captive at Issus, 
had been retrained in captivity, and made to 
accompany Alexander's army in its marches. 
Alexander refused to accede to any of the plans 
and propositions which Darius made and 
offered for the redemption of his wife and 
mother, but insisted on retaining them as his 
prisoners. He, however, treated them with 
respect and high consideration. He provided 
them with royal tents of great magnificence, 
and had them conveyed from place to place, 
when his army moved, with all the royal state 
to which they had been accustomed when in 
the court of Darius. 

It has been generally thought a proof of 
nobleness of spirit and generosity in Alexander 
that he treated his captives in this manner. 
It would seem, however, that true generosity 
would have prompted the restoration of these 



164 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

unhappy and harmless prisoners to the hus- 
band and father who mourned their separation 
from him, and their cruel sufferings with 
bitter grief. It is more probable, therefore, 
that policy, and a regard for his own aggran- 
izement, rather than compassion for the suffer- 
ing, led him to honor his captive queens. It 
was a great glory to him, in a martial point of 
view, to have such trophies of his victory in 
his train ; and, of course, the more highly he 
honored the personages, the more glorious the 
trophy appeared. Accordingly, Alexander did 
everything in his power to magnify the impor- 
tance of his royal captives, by the splendor of 
their retinue, and the pomp and pageantry 
with which he invested their movements. 

A short time after leaving Tyre, on the 
march westward, Statira, the wife of Darius, 
was taken suddenly ill and died.* The tidings 
were immediately brought to Alexander, and 
he repaired without delay to Sysigambis' tent. 
Sysigambis was the mother of Darius. She 
was in the greatest agony of grief. She was 
lying upon the floor of her tent, surrounded 
by the ladies of her court, and entirely over- 
whelmed with sorrow. Alexander did all in 
his power to calm and comfort her. 

One of the officers of Queen Statira's house- 

* It was the birth of an infant that caused her death, 
exhausted and worn down, as she doubtless was, by her 
captivity and her sorrows. 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 165 

hold* made his escape from the camp imme- 
diately after his mistress' death, and fled 
across the country to Darius, to carry him the 
heavy tidings. Darius was overwhelmed with 
affliction. The officer, however, in further 
interviews, gave him such an account of the 
kind and respectful treatment which the ladies 
had received from Alexander, during all the 
time of their captivity, as greatly to relieve 
his mind, and to afford him a high degree of 
comfort and consolation. He expressed a very 
strong sense of gratitude to Alexander for his 
generosity and kindness, and said that if his 
kingdom of Persia must be conquered, he sin- 
cerely wished that it might fall into the hands 
of such a conqueror as Alexander. 

By looking at a map it will be seen that the 
Tigris and the Euphrates are parallel streams, 
flowing through the heart of the western part of 
Asia toward the southeast, and emptying into 
the Persian Gulf. The country between these 
two rivers, which was extremely populous and 
fertile, was called Mesopotamia. Darius had 
collected an immense army here. The various 
detachments filled all the plains ofMesopotamia. 
Alexander turned his course a little northward, 
intending to pass the river Euphrates at a 
famous ancient crossing at Thapsacus, which 
may be seen upon the map. When he arrived 

* A eunuch, a sort of officer employed in Eastern na- 
tions in attendance upon ladies of high rank. 



166 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

at this place he found a small Persian army 
there. They, however, retired as he ap- 
proached. Alexander built two bridges across 
the river, and passed his army safely over. 

In the meantime, Darius, with his enormous 
host, passed across the Tigris, and moved to- 
ward the northward, along the eastern side of 
the river. He had to cross the various 
branches of the Tigris as he advanced. At 
one of them, called the Lycus, there was a 
bridge. It took the vast host which Darius 
had collected five days to pass this bridge. 

While Darius had been thus advancing to 
the northward into the latitude where he knew 
that Alexander must cross the rivers, Alexan- 
der himself, and his small but compact and 
fearless body of Grecian troops, were moving 
eastward, tovard the same region to which 
Darius' line of march was tending. Alexander 
at length reached the Tigris. He was obliged 
to ford this stream. The banks were steep 
and the current was rapid, and the men were 
in great danger of being swept away. To pre- 
vent this danger, the ranks, as they advanced, 
linked their arms together, so that each man 
might be sustained by his comrades. They 
held their shields above their heads to keep 
them from the water. Alexander waded like 
the rest, though he kept in front, and reached 
the bank before the others. Standing there, 
he indicated to the advancing column, by ges- 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 16? 

ticulation, where to land, the noise of the water 
being too great to allow his voice to be heard. 
To see him standing there, safely landed, and 
with an expression of confidence and triumph 
in his attitude and air, awakened fresh energy 
in the heart of every soldier in the columns 
which were crossing the stream. 

Notwithstanding this encouragement, how- 
ever, the passage of the troops and the landing 
on the bank produced a scene of great con- 
fusion. Many of the soldiers had tied up a 
portion of their clothes in bundles, which they 
held above their heads, together with their 
arms, as they waded along through the swift 
current of the stream. They, however, found 
it impossible to carry these bundles, but had 
to abandon them at last in order to save them- 
selves, as they staggered along through deep 
and rapid water, and over a concealed bottom 
of slippery stones. Thousands of these bun- 
dles, mingled with spears, darts, and every 
other sort of weapon that would float, were 
swept down by the current, to impede and em- 
barrass the men who were passing below. 

At length, however, the men themselves suc- 
ceeded in getting over in safety, though a 
large quantity of arms and of clothing was lost, 
There was no enemy upon the bank to oppose 
them. Darius could not, in fact, well meet 
and oppose Alexander in his attempt to cross 
the river, because he could not determine at 



168 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

what point he would probably make the at 
tempt, in season to concentrate so large an 
army to oppose him. Alexander's troops, 
being a comparatively small and compact body, 
and being accustomed to move with great 
promptness and celerity, could easily evade 
any attempt of such an unwieldy mass of forces 
to oppose his crossing at any particular point 
upon the stream. At any rate, Darius did not 
make any such attempt, and Alexander had no 
difficulties to encounter in crossing the Tigris 
other than the physical obstacles presented by 
the current of the stream. 

Darius' plan was, therefore, not to intercept 
Alexander on his march, but to choose some 
great and convenient battlefield, where he 
could collect his forces, and marshal them ad- 
vantageously, and so await an attack there. 
He knew very well that his enemy would seek 
him out, wherever he was, and, consequently, 
that he might choose his position. He found 
such a field in an extensive plain at Guaga- 
mela, not far from the city of Arbela. The 
spot has received historical immortality under 
the name of the plain of Arbela. 

Darius was several days in concentrating his 
vast armies upon this plain. He constructed 
encampments; he leveled the inequalities 
which would interfere with the movements of 
his great bodies of cavalry ; he guarded the 
approaches, too, as much as possible. There 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 169 

is a little instrument used in war called a 
caltrop.* It consists of a small ball of iron, 
with several sharp points projecting from it 
one or two inches each way. If these instru- 
ments are thrown upon the ground at random, 
one of the points must necessarily be upward, 




The Caltrop. 

and the horses that tread upon them are lamed 
and disabled at once. Darius caused caltrops 
to be scattered in the grass and along the roads, 
wherever the army of Alexander would be 
likely to approach his troops on the field of 
battle. 

Alexander, having crossed the river, en- 
camped for a day or two on the banks, to rest 

* It receives its name from a kind of thistle called the 
caltrop. 

13— Alexander 



170 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

and refresh, and to rearrange his army. While 
here, the soldiers were one night thrown into 
consternation by an eclipse of the moon. 
Whenever an eclipse of the moon takes place, 
it is, of course, when the moon is full, so that 
the eclipse is always a sudden, and, among 
an ignorant people, an unexpected waning of 
the orb in the height of its splendor; and as 
such people know not the cause of the pheno- 
menon, they are often extremely terrified. 
Alexander's soldiers were thrown into conster- 
nation by the eclipse. They considered it the 
manifestation of the displeasure of heaven at 
their presumptuous daring in crossing such 
rivers, and penetrating to such a distance to 
invade the territories of another king. 

In fact, the men were predisposed to fear. 
Having wandered to avast distance from home, 
having passed over such mountains and deserts, 
and now, at last, having crossed a deep and 
dangerous river, and thrown themselves into 
the immediate vicinity of a foe ten times as 
numerous as themselves, it was natural that 
they should feel some misgivings. And when, 
at night, impressed with the sense of solemnity 
which night always imparts to strange and 
novel scenes, they looked up to the bright 
round moon, pleased with the expression of 
cheerfulness and companionship which beams 
always in her light, to find her suddenly wan- 
ing, changing her form, withdrawing her 



THE GREAT VICTORY. J 71 

bright beams, and looking down upon them 
with a lurid and murky light, it was not sur- 
prising that they felt an emotion of terror. 
In fact, there is always an element of terror in 
the emotion excited by looking upon an eclipse, 
which an instinctive feeling of the heart in- 
spires. It invests the spectacle with a solemn 
grandeur. It holds the spectator, however 
cultivated and refined, in silence while he 
gazes at it. It mingles with a scientific ap- 
preciation of the vastness of the movements 
and magnitudes by which the effect is pro- 
duced, and while the one occupies the intellect, 
the other impresses the soul. The mind that 
has lost, through its philosophy, the power of 
feeling this emotion of awe in such scenes, 
has sunk, not risen. Its possessor has made 
himself inferior, not superior, to the rest of 
his species, by having paralyzed one of his 
susceptibilities of pleasure. To him an eclipse 
is only curious and wonderful ; to others it is 
sublime. 

The soldiers of Alexander were extremely 
terrified. A great panic spread throughout 
the encampment. Alexander himself, instead 
of attempting to allay their fears by reasoning, 
or treating them as of no importance, im- 
mediately gave the subject his most serious 
attention. He called together the soothsayers, 
and directed them to consult together, and let 
him know what this great phenomenon porten- 



172 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

ded. This mere committing of the subject to 
the attention of the soothsayers had a great 
effect among all the soldiers of the army. It 
calmed them. It changed their agitation and 
terror into a feeling of suspense, in awaiting 
the answer of the soothsayers, which was far 
less painful and dangerous; and at length, 
when the answer came, it allayed their anxiety 
and fear altogether. The soothsayers said 
that the sun was on Alexander's side, and the 
moon on that of the Persians, and that this 
sudden w r aning of her light foreshadowed the 
defeat and destruction which the Persians were 
about to undergo. The army wej-e satisfied 
with this decision, and were inspired with new 
confidence and ardor. It is often idle to at- 
tempt to oppose ignorance and absurdity by 
such feeble instruments as truth and reason, 
and the wisest managers of mankind have gen- 
erally been most successful when their plan has 
been to counteract one folly by means of the 
influence of another. 

Alexander's army consisted of about fifty 
thousand men, with the phalanx in the center. 
This army moved along down the eastern bank 
of the Tigris, the scouts pressing forward as 
far as possible in every direction in front of 
the main army, in order to get intelligence of 
the foe. It is in this way that two great 
armies feel after each other, as it were, like 
insects creeping over the ground, exploring the 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 1?3 

way before them with their antennae. At 
length, after three days' advance, the scouts 
came in with intelligence of the enemy. Alex- 
ander pressed forward with a detachment of his 
army to meet them. They proved to be, how- 
ever, not the main body of Darius' army, but 
only a single corps of a thousand men, in ad- 
vance of the rest. They retreated as Alexander 
approached. He, however, succeeded in cap- 
turing some horsemen, who gave the informa- 
tion that Darius had assembled his vast forces 
on the plain of Arbela, and was waiting there 
in readiness to give his advancing enemy 
battle. 

Alexander halted his troops. He formed an 
encampment, and made arrangements for de- 
positing his baggage there. He refreshed the 
men, examined and repaired their arms, and 
the made arrangements for battle. These opera- 
tions consumed several days. At the end of 
that time, early one morning, long before day, 
the camp was in motion, and the columns, 
armed and equipped for immediate contest, 
moved forward. 

They expected to have reached the camp of 
Darius at daybreak, but the distance was 
greater than they had supposed. At length, 
however, the Macedonians, in their march, 
came upon the brow of a range of hills, from 
which they looked down upon numberless and 
endless lines of infantry and cavalry, and 



174 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

ranges after ranges of tents, which filled the 
plain. Here the army paused while Alexander 
examined the field, studying for a long time, 
and with great attention, the numbers and dis- 
position of the enemy. They were four miles 
distant still, but the murmuring sounds of their 
voices and movements came to the ears of the 
Macedonians through the calm autumnal air. 

Alexander called the leading officers together, 
and held a consultation on the question whether 
to march down and attack the Persians on the 
plain that night, or to wait till the next day. 
Parmenio was in favor of a night attack, in 
order to surprise the enemy by coming upon 
them at an unexpected time. But Alexander 
said no. He was sure of victory. He had 
got his enemies all before him ; they were fully 
in his power. He would, therefore, take no 
advantage, but would attack them fairly and in 
open day. Alexander had fifty thousand men ; 
the Persians were variously estimated between 
five hundred thousand and a million. There 
is something sublime in the idea of such a 
pause, made by the Macedonian phalanx and 
its wings, on the slopes of the hills, suspend- 
ing its attack upon ten times its number, to 
give the mighty mass of their enemies the 
chances of a fair and equal contest. 

Alexander made congratulatory addresses to 
his soldiers on the occasion of their having 
now at last before them, what they had so long 




Alexander Inspiring His Soldiers. 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 177 

toiled and labored to attain, the whole concen- 
trated force of the Persian empire. They 
were now going to contend, not for single pro- 
vinces and kingdoms, as heretofore, but for 
general empire; and the victory which they 
were about to achieve would place them on the 
summit of human glory. In all that he said 
on the subject, the unquestionable certainty of 
victory was assumed. 

Alexander completed his arrangements, and 
then retired to rest. He went to sleep — at 
least he appeared to do so. Early in the 
morning Parmenio arose, summoned the men 
to their posts, and arranged everything for the 
march. He then went to Alexander's tent. 
Alexander was still asleep. He awoke him, 
and told him that all was ready. Parmenio 
expressed surprise at his sleeping so quietly at 
a time when such vast issues were at stake. 
"You seem as calm," said he, "as if you had 
had the battle and gained the victory." 

"I have done so," said Alexander. "I con- 
sider the whole work done when we have gained 
access to Darius and his forces, and find him 
ready to give us battle." 

Alexander soon appeared at the head of his 
troops. Of course this day was one of the 
most important ones of his life, and one of the 
historians of the time has preserved an account 
of his dress as he went into battle. He wore 
a short tunic, girt close around him, and over 



178 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

it a linen breastplate, strongly quilted. The 
belt by which the tunic was held was embossed 
with figures of beautiful workmanship. This 
belt was a present to him from some of the 
people of the conquered countries through 
which he had passed, and it was very much 
admired. He had a helmet upon his head, of 
polished steel, with a neck piece, also of steel, 
ornamented with precious stones. His hel- 
met was surmounted with a white plume. His 
sword, which was a present to him from the 
King of Cyprus, was very light and slender, 
and of the most perfect temper. He carried, 
also, a shield and a lance, made in the best 
possible manner for use, not for display. 
Thus his dress corresponded with the character 
of his action. It was simple, compact, and 
whatever of value it possessed consisted in 
those substantial excellences which would give 
the bearer the greatest efficiency on the field of 
battle. 

The Persians were accustomed to make use 
of elephants in their wars. They also had 
chariots, with scythes placed at the axles, 
which they were accustomed to drive among 
their enemies and mow them down. Alexan- 
der resorted to none of these contrivances. 
There was the phalanx — the terrible phalanx — 
advancing irresistibly either in one body or in 
detachments, with columns of infantry and fly- 
ing troops of horsemen on the wings. Alexan- 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 179 

der relied simply on the strength, the courage, 
the energy, and the calm and steady, but re- 
sistless ardor of his men, arranging them in 
simple combinations, and leading them forward 
directly to their work. 

The Macedonians cut their way through the 
mighty mass of their enemies with irresistible 
force. The elephants turned and fled. The 
foot soldiers seized the horses of some of the 
scythe-armed chariots and cut the traces. In 
respect to others, they opened to the right and 
left and let them pass through, when they were 
easily captured by the men in the rear. In 
the meantime the phalanx pressed on, enjoying 
a great advantage in the level nature of the 
ground. The Persian troops were broken in 
upon and driven away wherever they were 
attacked. In a word, before night the whole 
mighty mass was scattering everywhere in 
confusion, except some hundreds of thousands 
left trampled upon and dead, or else writhing 
upon the ground, and groaning in their dying 
agonies. Darius himself fled. Alexander 
pursued him with a troop of horse as far as 
Arbela, which had been Darius' headquarters, 
and where he had deposited immense treasures. 
Darius had gone through and escaped when 
Alexander arrived at Arbela, but the city and 
the treasures fell into Alexander's hands. 

Although Alexander had been so completely 
victorious over his enemies on the day of bat- 



180 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

tie, and had maintained his ground against 
them with such invincible power, he was, 
nevertheless, a few days afterward, driven en- 
tirely off the field, and completely away from 
the region where the battle had been fought. 
What the living men, standing erect in arms, 
and full of martial vigor, could not do, was 
easily and effectually accomplished by their 
dead bodies corrupting on the plain. The 
corpses of three hundred thousand men, and an 
equal bulk of the bodies of elephants and 
horses, was too enormous a mass to be buried. 
It had to be abandoned; and the horrible 
effluvia and pestilence which it emitted drove 
all the inhabitants of the country away. Alex- 
ander marched his troops rapidly off the 
ground, leaving, as the direct result of the 
battle, a wide extent of country depopulated 
and desolate, with this vast mass of putrefac- 
tion and pestilence reigning in awful silence 
and solitude in the midst of it. 

Alexander went to Babylon. The governor 
of the city prepared to receive him as a con- 
queror. The pople came out in throngs to 
meet him, and all the avenues of approach were 
crowded with spectators. All the city walls, 
too, were covered with men and women, as- 
sembled to witness the scene. As for Alexan- 
der himself, he was filled with pride and pleas- 
ure at thus arriving at the full accomplishment 
of his earliest and long-cherished dreams of 
glory. 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 181 

The great storehouse of the royal treasures 
of Persia was at Susa, a strong city east of 
Babylon. Susa was the winter residence of 
the Persian kings, as Ecbatana, further north, 
among the mountains, was their summer resi- 
dence. There was a magnificent palace and a 
very strong citadel at Susa, and the treasures 
were kept in the citadel. It is said that in 
times of peace the Persian monarchs had been 
accustomed to collect coin, melt it down, and 
cast the gold in earthen jars. The jars were 
afterward broken off from the gold, leaving the 
bullion in the form of the interior of the jars. 
An enormous amount of gold and silver, and of 
other treasures, had been this collected. Alex- 
ander was aware of this depository before he 
advanced to meet Darius, and, on the day of 
the battle of Arbela, as soon as the victory was 
decided, he sent an officer from the very field 
to summon Susa to surrender. They obeyed 
the summons, and Alexander, soon after his 
great public entrance into Babylon, marched to 
Susa, and took possession of the vast stores of 
wealth accumulated there. The amount was 
enormous, both in quantity and value, and the 
seizing of it was a very magnificent act of 
plunder. In fact, it is probable that Alexan- 
der's slaughter of the Persian army at Arbela, 
and subsequent spoliation of Susa, constitute, 
taken together, the most gigantic case of mur- 
der and robbery which was ever committed by 



182 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

man ; so that, in performing these deeds, the 
great hero attained at last to the glory of hav- 
ing perpetrated the grandest and most impos- 
ing of all human crimes. That these deeds 
were really crimes there can be no doubt, when 
we consider that Alexander did not pretend to 
have any other motive in this invasion than 
love of conquest, which is, in other words, 
love of violence and plunder. They are only 
technically shielded from being called crimes 
by the fact that the earth has no laws and no 
tribunals high enough to condemn such enor- 
mous burglaries as that of one quarter of the 
globe breaking violently and murderously in 
upon and robbing the other. 

Besides the treasures, Alexander found also 
at Susa a number of trophies which had been 
brought by Xerxes from Greece ; for Xerxes 
had invaded Greece some hundred years before 
Alexander's day, and had brought to Susa the 
spoils and the trophies of his victories. Alex- 
ander sent them all back to Greece again. 

From Susa the conqueror moved on to Per- 
sepolis, the great Persian capital. On his 
march he had to pass through a defile of the 
mountains. The mountaineers had been ac- 
customed to exact tribute here of all who 
passed, having a sort of right, derived from 
ancient usage, to the payment of a toll. They 
sent to Alexander when they heard that he was 
approaching, and informed him that he could 



THE GREAT VICTORY. 183 

not pass with his army without paying the 
customary toll. Alexander sent back word 
that he would meet them at the pass, and give 
them their due. 

They understood this, and prepared to de- 
fend the pass. Some Persian troops joined 
them. They built walls and barricades across 
the narrow passages. They collected great 
stones on the brinks of precipices, and on the 
declivities of the mountains, to roll down upon 
the heads of their enemies. By these and 
every other means they attempted to stop Alex- 
ander's passage. But he had contrived to send 
detachments around by circuitous and precipi- 
tous paths, which even the mountaineers had 
deemed impracticable, and thus attack his 
enemies suddenly and unexpectedly from above 
their own positions. As usual, his plan suc- 
ceeded. The mountaineers were driven away, 
and the conqueror advanced toward the great 
Persian capital. 





CHAPTEE X. 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 



Alexander's march from Susa to Persepolis 
was less a march than a triumphal progress. 
He felt the pride and elation so naturally re- 
sulting from success very strongly. The 
moderation and forbearance which had charac- 
terized him in his earlier years gradually dis- 
appeared as he became great and powerful. 
He was intoxicated with his success. He be- 
came haughty, vain, capricious, and cruel. 
As he approached Persepolis, he conceived the 
idea that, as this city was the capital and 
center of the Persian monarchy, and, as such, 
the point from which had emanated all the 
Persian hostility to Greece, he owed it some 
signal retribution. Accordingly, although the 
inhabitants made no opposition to his entrance, 
he marched in with the phalanx formed, and 
gave the soldiers liberty to kill and plunder as 
they pleased. 

There was another very striking instance of 
the capricious recklessness now beginning to 
appear in Alexander's character, which oc- 
curred soon after he had taken possession of 

184 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 185 

Persepolis. He was giving a great banquet to 
Lis friends, the officers of the army, and to 
Persians of distinction among those who had 
submitted to him. There was, among other 
women at this banquet, a very beautiful and 
accomplished female named Thais. Alexander 
made her his favorite and companion, though 
she was not his wife. Thais did all in her 
power to captivate and please Alexander during 
the feast by her vivacity, her wit, her adroit 
attentions to him, and the display of her 
charms, and at length, when he himself, as 
well as the other guests, were excited with 
wine, she asked him to allow her to have the 
pleasure of going herself and setting fire, with 
her own hands, to the great palace of the Per- 
sian kings in the city. Thai3 was a native of 
Attica in Greece, a kingdom of which Athens 
was the capital. Xerxes, who had built the 
great palace of Persepolis, had formerly in- 
vaded Greece and had burned Athens, and now 
Thais desired to burn his palace in Persepolis, 
to gratify her revenge, by making, of its con- 
flagration, an evening spectacle to entertain the 
Macedonian party after their supper. Alex- 
ander agreed to the proposal, and the whole 
company moved forward. Taking the torches 
from the banqueting halls, they sallied forth, 
alarming the city with their ahouts, and with 
the flashing of the lights they bore. The plan 
of Thais was carried fully into effect, every 

14— Alexander 



186 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

half-intoxicated guest assisting, by putting fire 
to the immense pile wherever they could get 
access to it. They performed the barbarous 
deed with shouts of vengeance and exultation. 

There is, however, something very solemn 
and awful in a great conflagration at night, 
and very few incendiaries can gaze upon the 
fury of the lurid and frightful flames which 
they have caused to ascend without some mis- 
givings and some remorse. Alexander was 
sobered by the grand and sublime, but terrible 
spectacle. He was awed by it. He repented. 
He ordered the fire to be extinguished; but it 
was too late. The palace was destroyed, and 
one new blot, which has never since been 
effaced, w r as cast upon Alexander's character 
and fame. 

And yet, notwithstanding these increasing 
proofs of pride and cruelty, which were begin- 
ning to be developed, Alexander still preserved 
some of the early traits of character which had 
made him so great a favorite in the commence- 
ment of his career. He loved his mother, and 
sent her presents continually from the treasures 
which were falling all the time into his posses- 
sion. She was a woman of a proud, imperious, 
and ungovernable character, and she made 
Antipater, whom Alexander had left in com- 
mand in Macedon, infinite trouble. She 
wanted to exercise the powers of government 
herself, and was continually urging this. 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 187 

Alexander would not comply with these wishes, 
but he paid her personally every attention in 
his power, and bore all her invectives and re- 
proaches with great patience and good humor. 
At one time he received a long letter from An- 
tipater, full of complaints against her; but 
Alexander, after reading it, said that they were 
heavy charges it was true, but that a single 
one of his mother's tears would outweigh ten 
thousand such accusations. 

Olympias used to write very frequently to 
Alexander, and in these letters she would 
criticize and discuss his proceedings, and make 
comments upon the characters and actions of 
his generals. Alexander kept these letters 
very secret, never showing them to any one. 
One day, however, when he was reading one 
of these letters, Hephsestion, the personal 
friend and companion who has been already 
several times mentioned, came up, half-play- 
fully, and began to look over his shoulder. 
. Alexander went on, allowing him to read, and 
then, when the letter was finished he took the 
signet ring from his finger and pressed it upon 
Hephsestion's lips, a signal for silence and 
secrecy. 

Alexander was very kind to Sysigambis, the 
mother of Darius, and also to Darius' children. 
He would not give these unhappy captives 
their liberty, but in every other respect he 
treated them with the greatest possible kind- 



188 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

ness and consideration. He called Sysigarabis 
mother, loaded her with presents — presents, 
it is true, which he had plundered from her 
son, but to which it was considered, in those 
days, that he had acquired a just and perfect 
title. "When he reached Susa, he established 
Sysigambis and the children there in great 
state. This had been their usual residence in 
most seasons of the year, when not at Perse- 
polis, so that here they were, as it were, at 
home. Ecbatana* was, as has been already 
mentioned, further north, among the moun- 
tains. After the battle of Arbela, while Alex- 
ander marched to Babylon and to Susa, Darius 
had fled to Ecbatana, and was now there, his 
family being thus at one of the royal palaces 
under the command of the conqueror, and he 
himself independent, but insecure, in the other. 
Ho had with him about forty thousand men, 
who still remained faithful to his fallen for- 
tunes. Among these were several thousand 
Greeks, whom he had collected in Asia Minor 
and other Grecian countries, and whom he had 
attached to his service by means of pay. 

He called the officers of his army together, 
and explained to them the determination that 
he had come to in respect to his future move- 
ments. "A large part of those," said he, 
"who formerly served as officers of my govern- 
ment, have abandoned me in my adversity, and 
* The modern Ispahan. 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 189 

gone over to Alexander's side. They have 
surrendered to him the towns, and citadels, 
and provinces which I intrusted to their 
fidelity. You alone remain faithful and true. 
As for myself, I might yield to the conqueror, 
and have him assign to me some province or 
kingdom to govern as his subordinate; but I 
will never submit to such a degradation. I 
can die in the struggle, but never will yield. 
I will wear no crown which another puts upon 
my brow, nor give up my right to reign over 
the empire of my ancestors till I give up my 
life. If you agree with me in this determina- 
tion, let us act energetically upon it. We 
have it in our power to terminate the injuries 
we are suffering, or else to avenge them. ,, 

The army responded most cordially to this 
appeal. They were ready, they said, to follow 
him wherever he should lead. All this ap- 
parent enthusiasm, however, was very delusive 
and unsubstantial. A general named Bessus, 
combining with some other officers in the 
army, conceived the plan of seizing Darius and 
making him a prisoner, and then taking com- 
mand of the army himself. If Alexander 
should pursue him, and be likely to overtake 
and conquer him he, then thought that by giv- 
ing up Darius as a prisoner he could stipulate 
for liberty and safety, and perhaps great re- 
wards, both for himself and for those who 
acted with him. If, on the other hand, they 



190 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

should succeed in increasing their own forces 
bo as to make head against Alexander, and 
finally to drive him away, then Bessus was to 
usurp the throne, and dispose of Darius by 
assassinating him, or imprisoning him for life 
in some remote and solitary castle. 

Bessus communicated his plans, very cau- 
tiously at first, to the leading officers of the 
army. The Greek soldiers were not included 
in the plot. They, however, heard and saw 
enough to lead them to suspect what was in 
preparation. They warned Darius, and 
urged him to rely upon them more than 
he had done ; to make them his bodyguard, 
and to pitch his tent in their part of the en- 
campment. But Darius declined these pro- 
posals. He would not, he said, distrust and 
abandon his countrymen, who were his natural 
protectors, and put himself in the hands of 
strangers. He would not betray and desert 
his friends in anticipation of their deserting 
and betraying him. 

In the meantime, as Alexander advanced to- 
ward Ecbatana, Darius and his forces retreated 
from it toward the eastward, through the great 
tract [oi country lying south of the Caspian 
Sea. There is a mountainous region here, 
with a defile traversing it, through which it 
would be necessary for Darius to pass. This 
defile was called the Caspian Gates, * the name 

* Pylm CaspicB qu the map, which means th§ Caspian 
Gates. 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 191 

referring to rocks on each side. The march- 
ing of an army through a narrow and danger- 
ous defile like this always causes detention and 
delay, and Alexander hastened forward in 
hopes to overtake Darius before he should 
reach it. He advanced with such speed that 
only the strongest and most robust of his army 
could keep up. Thousands, worn out with 
exertion and toil, were left behind, and many 
of the horses sank down by the roadside, ex- 
hausted with heat and fatigue, to die. Alex- 
ander pressed desperately on with all who were 
able to follow. 

It was all in vain, however ; it was too late 
when he arrived at the pass. Darius had gone 
through with all his army. Alexander stopped 
to rest his men, and to allow time for those 
behind to come up. He then went on for a 
couple of days, when he encamped, in order to 
send out foraging parties — that is to say, small 
detachments, dispatched to explore the sur- 
rounding country in search of grain and other 
food for the horses. Food for the horses of an 
atmy being too bulky to be transported far, 
has to be collected day by day from the neigh- 
borhood of the line of march. 

While halting for these foraging parties to 
return, a Persian nobleman came into the 
camp, and informed Alexander that Darius 
and the forces accompanying him were en- 
camped about two days' march in advance, but 



192 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

that Bessus was in command — the conspiracy 
having been successful, and Darius having 
been deposed and made a prisoner. The 
Greeks, who had adhered to their fidelity, find- 
ing that all the army were combined against 
them, and that they were not strong enought to 
resist, had abandoned the Persian camp, and 
had retired to the mountains where they were 
awaiting the result. 

Alexander determined to set forward imme- 
diately in pursuit of Bessus and his prisoner. 
He did not wait for the return of the foraging 
parties. He selected the ablest and most 
active, both of foot soldiers and horsemen, 
ordered them to take two days' provisions, 
and then set forth with them that very even- 
ing. The party pressed on all that night, and 
the next day till noon. They halted till even- 
ing, and then set forth again. Very early the 
next morning they arrived at the encampment 
which the Persian nobleman had described. 
They found the remains of the campfires, and 
all the marks usually left upon a spot which 
has been used as the bivouac of an army. The 
army itself, however, was gone. 

The pursuers were now too much fatigued to 
go any further without rest. Alexander re- 
mained here, accordingly, through the day, to 
give his men and his horses refreshment and 
repose. That night they set forward again, 
and the next day at noon they arrived at 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS, 193 

another encampment of the Persians, which 
they had left scarcely twenty-four hours before. 
The officers of Alexander's army were excited 
and animated in the highest degree, as they 
found themselves thus drawing so near to the 
great object of their pursuit. They were ready 
for any exertions, any privation and fatigue, 
any measures, however extraordinary, to ac- 
complish their end. 

Alexander inquired of the inhabitants of the 
place whether there were not some shorter road 
than the one along which the enemy were 
moving. There was one crossroad, but it led 
through a desolate and desert tract of land, 
destitute of water. In the march of an army, 
as the men are always heavily loaded with 
arms and provisions, and water cannot be 
carried, it is always considered essential to 
choose routes which will furnish supplies of 
water by the way. Alexander, however, dis- 
regarded this consideration here, and prepared 
at once to push into the crossroad with a 
small detachment. He had been now two years 
advancing from Macedon into the heart of Asia, 
always in quest of Darius as his great opponent 
and enemy. He had conquered his armies, 
taken his cities, plundered his palaces, and 
made himself master of his whole realm. Still 
so long as Darius himself remained at liberty 
and in the field, no victories could be con- 
sidebed as complete. To capture Darius him- 



194 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

self would be the last and crowning act of his 
conquest. He had now been pursuing him for 
eighteen hundred miles, advancing slowly from 
province to province, and from kingdom to 
kingdom. During all this time the strength 
of his flying foe had been wasting away. His 
armies had been broken up, his courage and 
hope had gradually failed, while the animation 
and hope of the pursuer had been gathering 
fresh and increasing strength from his suc- 
cesses, and were excited to wild enthusiasm 
now, as the hour for the final consummation of 
all his desires seemed to be drawing nigh. 

Guides were ordered to be furnished by the 
inhabitants, to show the detachment the way 
across the solitary and desert country. The 
detachment was to consist of horsemen entirely, 
that they might advance with the utmost 
celerity. To get as efficient a corps as possi- 
ble, Alexander dismounted five hundred of the 
cavalry, and gave their horses to five hundred 
men — officers and others — selected for their 
strength and courage from among the foot sol- 
diers. All were ambitious of being designated 
for this service. Besides the honor of being 
so selected, there was an intense excitement, 
as usual toward the close of a chase, to arrive 
at the end. 

This body of horsemen were ready to set out 
in the evening. Alexander took the command, 
and, following the guides, they trotted off in 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 195 

the direction which the guides indicated. 
They traveled all night. When the day 
dawned, they saw, from an elevation to which 
they had attained, the body of the Persian 
troops moving at a short distance before them, 
foot soldiers, chariots, and horsemen pressing 
on together in great confusion and disorder. 

As soon as Bessus and his company found 
that their pursuers were close upon them, 
they attempted at first to hurry forward, in 
the vain hope of still effecting their escape. 
Darius was in a chariot. They urged this 
chariot on, but it moved heavily. Then they 
concluded to abandon it, and they called upon 
Darius to mount a horse and ride off with 
them, leaving the rest of the army and baggage 
to its fate. But Darius refused. He said he 
would rather trust himself in the hands of 
Alexander than in those of such traitors as 
they. Bendered desperate by their situation, 
and exasperated by this reply, Bessus and his 
confederates thrust their spears into Darius' 
body, as he sat in his chariot, and then gal- 
loped away. They divided into different 
parties, each taking a different road. Their 
object in doing this was to increase their 
chances of escape by confusing Alexander in 
his plans for pursuing them. Alexander 
pressed on toward the ground which the enemy 
were abandoning, and sent off separate detach- 
ments after the various divisions of the flying 
army. 



196 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

In the meantime Darius remained in his 
chariot wounded and bleeding. He was worn 
out and exhausted, both in body and mind, by 
his complicated sufferings and sorrows. His 
kingdom lost; his family in captivity; his be- 
loved wife in the grave, where the sorrows and 
sufferings of separation from her husband had 
borne her; his cities sacked; his palaces and 
treasures plundered; and now he himself, in 
the last hour of his extremity, abandoned and 
betrayed by all in whom he had placed his 
confidence and trust, his heart sunk within 
him in despair. At such a time the soul turns 
from traitorous friends to an open foe with 
something like a feeling of confidence and at- 
tachment. Darius' exasperation against Bessus 
was so intense that his hostility to Alexander 
became a species of friendship in comparison. 
He felt that Alexander was a sovereign like 
himself, and would have some sympathy and 
fellow-feeling for a sovereign's misfortunes. 
He thought, too, of his mother, his wife, and 
his children, and the kindness with which 
Alexander had treated them went to his heart 
He lay there, accordingly, faint and bleeding 
in his chariot, and looking for the coming of 
Alexander as for that of a protector and friend, 
the only one to whom he could now look for 
any relief in the extremity of his distress. 

The Macedonians searched about in various 
places, thinking it possible that in the sudden 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 197 

dispersion of the enemy Dariu3 might have 
been left behind. At last the chariot in which 
he was lying was found. Darius was in it, 
pierced with spears. The floor of the chariot 
was covered with blood. They raised him a 
little, and he spoke. He called for water. 

Men wounded and dying on the field of battle 
are tormented always with an insatiable and 
intolerable thirst, the manifestations of which 
constitute one of the greatest horrors of the 
scene. They cry piteously to all who pass to 
bring them water, or else to kill them. They 
crawl along the ground to get at the canteens 
of their dead companions, in hopes to find, 
remaining in them, some drops to drink ; and 
if there is a little brook meandering through 
the battlefield, its bed gets filled and choked up 
with the bodies of those who crawled there, in 
their agony, to quench their horrible thirst, 
and die. Darius was suffering this thirst. It 
bore down and silenced, for the time, every 
other suffering, so that his first cry, when his 
enemies came around him with shouts of exul- 
tation, was not for his life, not for mercy, not 
for relief from the pain and anguish of his 
wounds — he begged them to give him some 
water. 

He spoke through an interpreter. The in- 
terpreter was a Persian prisoner whom the 
Macedonian army had taken some time before, 
and who had learned the Greek language in 



198 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

the Macedonian camp. Anticipating some oc- 
casion for his services, they had brought him 
with them now, and it was through him that 
Darius called for water. A Macedonian sol- 
dier went immediately to get some. Others 
hurried away in search of Alexander, to bring 
him to the spot where the great object of his 
hostility, and of his long and protracted pursuit, 
was dying. 

Darius received the drink. He then said 
that he was extremely glad that they had an 
interpreter with them, who could understand 
him, and bear his message to Alexander. He 
had been afraid that he should have had to die 
without being able to communicate what he 
had to say. "Tell Alexander,'" said he, then, 
"that I feel under the strongest obligations to 
him, which I can now never repay, for his 
kindness to my wife, my mother, and my 
children. He not only spared their lives, but 
treated them with the greatest consideration 
and care, and did all in his power to make 
them happy. The last feeling in my heart is 
gratitude to him for these favors. I hope now 
that he will go on prosperously, and finish his 
conquests as triumphantly as he has begun 
them. ' ' He would have made one last request, 
he added, if he had thought it necessary, and 
that was, that Alexander would pursue the 
traitor Bessus, and avenge the murder he had 
committed; but he was sure that Alexander 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 199 

would do this of his own accord, as the p^tiish- 
ment of such treachery was an object ol com- 
mon interest for every king. 

Darius then took Polystratus, the Mace- 
donian who had brought him the water, by the 
hand, saying: "Give Alexander thy hand as I 
now give thee mine; it is the pledge of my 
gratitude and affection. ' ' 

Darius was too weak to say much more. 
They gathered around him, endeavoring to 
sustain his strength until Alexander should 
arrive ; but it was all in vain. He sank grad- 
ually, and soon ceased to breathe. Alexander 
came up a few minutes after all was over. He 
i at first shocked at the spectacle before 
and then overwhelmed with grief. He 
bitterly. Some compunctions of con- 
may have visited his heart at seeing 
thus before him the ruin he had made. Da- 
rius had never injured him or done him any 
wrong, and yet here he lay, hunted to death 
by a persevering and relentless hostility, for 
which his conqueror had no excuse but his 
innate love of dominion over his fellow-men. 
Alexander spread his own military cloak over 
the dead body. He immediately made ar- 
rangements for having the body embalmed, and 
then sent it to Susa, for Sysigambis, in a very 
costly coffiD, and with a procession of royal 
magnificence. He sent it to her that she 
might have the satisfaction of seeing it de- 



200 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

posited in the tombs of the Persian kings. 
What a present! The killer of a son sending 
the dead body, in a splendid coffin, to the 
mother, as a token of respectful regard ! 

Alexander pressed on to the northward and 
eastward in pursuit of Bessus, who had soon 
collected the scattered remains of his army, 
and was doing his utmost to get into a posture 
of defense. He did not, however, overtake him 
till he had crossed the Oxus, a large river flow- 
ing to the northward and westward into the Cas- 
pian Sea. He had great difficulty in crossing 
this river, as it was too deep to be forded, and 
the banks and bottom were so sandy and yield- 
ing that he could not make the foundations of 
bridges stand. He accordingly made floats and 
rafts, which were supported by skins made 
buoyant by inflation, or by being stuffed with 
straw and hay. After getting his army, which 
had been in the meantime greatly reinforced 
and strengthened, across this river, he moved 
on. The generals under Bessus, finding all 
hope of escape failing them, resolved on be- 
traying him as he had betrayed his com- 
mander. They sent word to Alexander that if 
he would send forward a small force where 
they should indicate, they would give up 
Bessus to his hands. Alexander did so, in- 
trusting the command to an officer named 
Ptolemy. Ptolemy found Bessus in a small 
walled town whither he had fled for refuge, 




Alexander , face p. XOU 



15— Alexander 



The Passage of the Ox us. 



THE DEATH OF DARIUS. 201 

and easily took him prisoner. He sent back 
word to Alexander that Bessus was at his dis- 
posal, and asked for orders. The answer was: 
"Put a rope around his neck and send him to 
me." 

When the wretched prisoner was brought 
into Alexander's presence, Alexander demanded 
of him how he could have been so base as to 
have seized, bound, and at last murdered his 
kinsman and benefactor. It is a curious in- 
stance in proof of the permanence and stability 
of the great characteristics of human nature, 
through all the changes of civilization and 
lapses of time, that Bessus gave the same 
answer that wrongdoers almost always give 
when brought to account for their wrongs. He 
laid the fault upon his accomplices and friends. 
It was not his act, it was theirs. 

Alexander ordered him to be publicly 
scourged; then he caused his face to be muti- 
lated in a manner customary in those days, 
when a tyrant wished to stamp upon his victim 
a perpetual mark of infamy. In this condi- 
tion, and with a mind in an agony of suspense 
and fear at the thought of worse tortures which 
he knew were to come, Alexander sent him as 
a second present to Sysigambis, to be dealt 
with, at Susa, as her revenge might direct. 
She inflicted upon him the most extreme tor- 
tures, and finally, when satiated with the 
pleasure of seeing him suffer, the story is that 



202 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

they chose four very elastic trees, growing at 
a little ^distance from each other, and bent 
down the tops of them toward the central point 
between them. They fastened the exhausted 
and dying Bessus to these trees, one limb of 
his body to each, and then releasing the stems 
from their confinement, they flew upward, 
tearing the body asunder, each holding its own 
dissevered portion, as if in triumph, far over 
the heads of the multitude assembled to wit- 
ness the spectacle. 




CHAPTER XI. 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER, 



Alexander was now twenty -six years of age. 
He had accomplished fully the great objects 
which had been the aim of his ambition. 
Darius was dead, and he was himself the un- 
disputed master of all western Asia. His 
wealth was almost boundless. His power was 
supreme over what was, in his view, the whole 
known world. But, during the process of ris- 
ing to this ascendency, his character was sadly 
changed. He lost the simplicity, the temper- 
ance, the moderation, and the sense of justice 
which characterized his early years. He 
adopted the dress and the luxurious manners 
of the Persians. He lived in the palaces of 
the Persian kings, imitating all their state and 
splendor. He became very fond of convivial 
entertainments and of wine, and often drank 
to excess. He provided himself a seraglio of 
three hundred and sixty young females, in 
whose company he spent his time, giving him- 
self up to every form of effeminacy and dissi- 
pation. In a word, he was no longer the same 

203 



204 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

man. The decision, the energy of character, 
the steady pursuit of great ends by prudence, 
forethought, patient effort, and self-denial, all 
disappeared ; nothing now seemed to interest 
him but banquets, carousals, parties of pleas- 
ure, and whole days and nights spent in dissi- 
pation and vice. 

This state of things was a great cause of 
mortification and chagrin to the officers of his 
army. Many of them were older than him- 
self, and better able to resist these temptations 
to luxury, effeminacy, and vice. They there- 
fore remained firm in their original simplicity 
and integrity, and after some respectful but 
ineffectual remonstrances, they stood aloof, 
alienated from their commander in heart, and 
condemning very strongly, among themselves, 
his wickedness and folly. 

(On the other hand, many of the younger 
officers followed Alexander's example, and be- 
came as vain, as irregular, and as fond of 
vicious indulgence as he. But then, though 
they joined him in his pleasures, there was no 
strong bond of union between him and them. 
The tie which binds mere companions in pleas- 
ure together is always very slight and frail. 
Thus Alexander gradually lost the confidence 
and affection of his old friends, and gained no 
new ones. His officers either disapproved his 
conduct, sjxd were distant and cold, or else 
joined him in his dissipation and vice, without 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER. 205 

feeling any real respect for his character, or 
being bound to him by any principle of fidelity. 

Parmenio and his son Philotas were, respec- 
tively, striking examples of these two kinds of 
character. Parmenio was an old general, now 
considerably advanced in life. He had served, 
as has already been stated, under Philip, 
Alexander's father, and had acquired great ex- 
perience and great fame before Alexander suc- 
ceeded to the throne. During the whole of 
Alexander's career Parmenio had been his 
principal lieutenant-general, and he had 
always placed his greatest reliance upon him 
in all trying emergencies. He was cool, calm, 
intrepid, sagacious. He held Alexander back 
from many rash enterprises, and was the effi- 
cient means of his accomplishing most of his 
plans. It is the custom among all nations to 
give kings the glory of all that is effected by 
their generals and officers; and the writers of 
those days would, of course, in narrating the 
exploits of the Macedonian army, exaggerate 
the share which Alexander had in their per- 
formances, and underrate those of Parmenio. 
But in modern times, many impartial readers, 
in reviewing calmly these events, think that 
there is reason to doubt whether Alexander, if 
he had set out on his great expedition without 
Parmenio, would have succeeded at all. 

Philotas was the son of Parmenio, but he 
was of a very different character. The differ- 



206 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

ence was one which is very often, in all ages 
of the world, to be observed between those who 
inherit greatness and those who acquire it for 
themselves. We see the same analogy reign- 
ing at the present day, when the sons of the 
wealthy, who are born to fortune, substitute 
pride, and arrogance, and vicious self-indul- 
gence, and waste for the modesty, and pru- 
dence, and virtue of their sires, by means of 
which the fortune was acquired. Philotas was 
proud, boastful, extravagant, and addicted, 
like Alexander his master, to every species of 
indulgence and dissipation. He was univer- 
sally hated. His father, out of patience with 
his haughty airs, his boastings, and his pomp 
and parade, advised him, one day, to "make 
himself less." But Parmenio's prudent ad- 
vice to his son was thrown away. Philotas 
spoke of himself as Alexander's great reliance. 
"What would Philip have been or have done," 
said he, "without my father Parmenio? and 
what would Alexander have been, or have done, 
without me?" These things were reported to 
Alexander, and thus the mind of each was filled 
with suspicion, fear, and hatred toward the 
other. 

Courts and camps are always the scenes of 
conspiracy and treason, and Alexander was 
continually hearing of conspiracies and plots 
formed against him. The strong sentiment of 
love and devotion with which he inspired all 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER. 207 

around him at the commencement of his career, 
was now gone, and his generals and officers 
were continually planning schemes to depose 
him from the power which he seemed no longer 
to have the energy to wield ; or, at least, Alex- 
ander was continually suspecting that such 
plans were formed, and he was kept in a con- 
tinual state of uneasiness and anxiety in dis- 
covering and punishing them. 

At last a conspiracy occurred in which Phi- 
lotas was implicated. Alexander was informed 
one day that a plot had been formed to depose 
and destroy him ; that Philotas had been made 
acquainted with it by a friend of Alexander's, 
in order that he might make it known to the 
king; that he had neglected to do so, thus 
making it probable that he was himself in 
league with the conspirators. Alexander was 
informed that th9 leader and originator of this 
conspiracy was one of his generals named 
Dymnus. 

He immediately sent an officer to Dymnus to 
summon him into his presence. Dymnus ap- 
peared to be struck with consternation at this 
summons. Instead of obeying it, he drew his 
sword, thrust it into his own heart, and fell 
dead upon the ground. 

Alexander then sent for Philotas, and asked 
him if it was indeed true that he had been in- 
formed of this conspiracy, and had neglected 
to make it known. 



208 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Philotas replied that he had been told that 
such a plot was formed, but that he did not 
believe it; that such stories were continually 
invented by the malice of evil-disposed men, 
and that he had not considered the report 
which came to his ears as worthy of any atten- 
tion. He was, however, now convinced, by 
the terror which Dymnus had manifested, and 
by his suicide, that all was true, and he asked 
Alexander's pardon for not having taken imme- 
diate measures for communicating promptly 
the information he had received. 

Alexander gave him his hand, said that he 
was convinced that he was innocent, and had 
acted as he did from disbelief in the existence 
of the conspiracy, and not from any guilty 
participation in it. So Philotas went away to 
his tent. 

Alexander, however, did not drop the subject 
here. He called a council of his ablest and 
best friends and advisers, consisting of the 
principal officers of his army, and laid the 
facts before them. They came to a different 
conclusion from his in respect to the guilt of 
Philotas. They believed him implicated in 
the crime, and demanded his trial. Trial in 
such a case, in those days, meant putting the 
accused to the torture, with a view of forcing 
him to confess his guilt. 

Alexander yielded to this proposal. Per- 
haps he had secretly instigated it. The ad- 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER. 209 

visers of kings and conquerors, in such cir- 
cumstances as this, generally have the sagacity 
to discover what advice will be agreeable. At 
all events, Alexander followed the advice of his 
counselors, and made arrangements for arrest- 
ing Philotas on that very evening. 

These circumstances occurred at a time when 
the army was preparing for a march, the 
various generals lodging in tents pitched for 
the purpose. Alexander placed extra guards 
in various parts of the encampment, as if to 
impress the whole army with a sense of the 
importance and solemnity of the occasion. He 
then sent officers to the tent of Philotas, late 
at night, to arrest him. The officers found 
their unhappy victim asleep. They awoke 
him, and made known their errand. Philotas 
arose, and obeyed the summons, dejected and 
distressed, aware, apparently, that his de- 
struction was impending. 

The next morning Alexander called together 
a large assembly, consisting of the principal 
and most important portions of the army, to 
the number of several thousands. They came 
together with an air of impressive solemnity, 
expecting, from the preliminary preparations, 
that business of very solemn moment was to 
come before them, though they knew not what 
it was. 

These impressions of awe and solemnity 
were very much increased by the spectacle 



210 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

which first met the eyes of the assembly after 
they were convened. This spectacle was that 
of the dead body of Dymnus, bloody and 
ghastly, which Alexander ordered to be brought 
in and exposed to view. The death of Dymnus 
had been kept a secret, so that the appearance 
of his body was an unexpected as well as a 
shocking sight. When the first feeling of sur- 
prise and wonder had a little subsided, Alex- 
ander explained to the assembly the nature of 
the conspiracy, and the circumstances con- 
nected with the self-execution of one of the 
guilty participators in it. The spectacle of 
the body, and the statement of the king, pro- 
duced a scene of great and universal excitement 
in the assembly, and this excitement was 
raised to the highest pitch by the announce- 
ment which Alexander now made, that he had 
reason to believe that Philotas and his father 
Parmenio, officers who had enjoyed his highest 
favor, and in whom he had placed the most 
unbounded confidence, were the authors and 
originators of the whole design. 

He then ordered Philotas to be brought in. 
He came guarded as a criminal, with his hands 
tied behind him, and his head covered with a 
coarse cloth. He was in a state of great dejec- 
tion and despondency. It is true that he was 
brought forward for trial, but he knew very 
well that trial meant torture, and that there 
was no hope for him as to the result, Alex- 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER. 211 

ander said that he would leave the accused to 
be dealt with by the assembly, and withdrew. 

The authorities of the army, who now had 
the proud and domineering spirit which had 
so long excited their hatred and envy com- 
pletely in their power, listened for a time to 
what Philotas had to say in his own justifica- 
tion. He showed that there was no evidence 
whatever against him, and appealed to their 
sense of justice not to condemn him on mere 
vague surmises. In reply, they decided to 
put him to the torture. There was no evi- 
dence, it was true, and they wished, accord- 
ingly, to supply its place by his own confes- 
sion, extorted by pain. Of course, his most 
inveterate and implacable enemies were ap- 
pointed to conduct the operation. They put 
Philotas upon the rack. The rack is an in- 
strument of wheels and pulleys, into which 
the victim is placed, and his limbs and ten- 
dons are stretched by it in a manner which 
produces most excruciating pain. 

Philotas bore the beginning of his torture 
with great resolution and fortitude. He made 
no complaint, he uttered no cry : this was the 
signal to his executioners to increase the ten- 
sion and the agony. Of course, in such a 
trial as this, there was no question of guilt or 
innocence at issue. The only question was, 
which could stand out the longest, his enemies 
in witnessing horrible sufferings, or he himself 



212 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

in enduring them. In this contest the un- 
happy Philotas was vanquished at last. He 
begged them to release him from the rack, say- 
ing he would confess whatever they required, 
on condition of being allowed to die in peace. 

They accordingly released him, and, in an- 
swer to their questions, he confessed that he 
himself and his father were involved in the 
plot. He said yes to various other inquiries 
relating to the circumstances of the conspiracy, 
and to the guilt of various individuals whom 
those that managed the torture had suspected, 
or who, at any rate, they wished to have con- 
demned. The answers of Philotas to all these 
questions were written down, and he was him- 
self sentenced to be stoned. The sentence was 
put in execution without any delay. 

During all this time Parmenio was in Media, 
in command of a very important part of Alex- 
ander's army. It was decreed that he must 
die ; but some careful management was neces- 
sary to secure his execution while he was at so 
great a distance, and at the head of so great a 
force. The affair had to be conducted with 
great secrecy as well a3 dispatch. The plan 
adopted was as follows : 

There was a certain man, named Polydamas, 
who was regarded as Parmenio's particular 
friend. Polydamas was commissioned to go 
to Media and see the execution performed. 
He was selected, because it was supposed that 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER. 213 

if any enemy, or a stranger, had been sent, 
Parmenio would have received him with sus- 
picion, or at least with caution, and kept him- 
self on his guard. They gave Polydamas 
several letters to Parmenio, as if from his 
friends, and to one of them thoy attached the 
seal of his son Philotas, the more completely 
to deceive the unhappy father. Polydamas 
was eleven days on his journey into Media. 
He had letters to Oleander, the governor of the 
province of Media, which contained the king's 
warrant for Parmenio's execution. He ar- 
rived at the house of Oleander in the night. 
He delivered his letters, and they together 
concerted the plans for carrying the execution 
into effect. 

After having taken all the precautions neces- 
sary, Polydamas went, with many attendants 
accompanying him, to the quarters of Parme- 
nio. The old general, for he was at this time 
eighty years of age, was walking in his 
grounds. Polydamas being admitted, ran up 
to accost him, with great appearance of cor- 
diality and friendship. He delivered to him 
his letters, and Parmenio read them. He 
seemed much pleased with their contents, 
especially with the one which had been written 
in the name of his son. He had no means of 
detecting the imposture, for it was very cus- 
tomary in those days for letters to be written 
by secretaries, and to be authenticated solely 
by the seal. 



2H ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Parmenio was much pleased to get good 
tidings from Alexander, and from his son, and 
began conversing upon the contents of the 
letters, when Polydamas, watching his oppor- 
tunity, drew forth a dagger which he had con- 
cealed upon his person, and plunged it into 
Parmenio's side. He drew it forth imme- 
diately and struck it at his throat. The at- 
tendants rushed on at this signal, and thrust 
their swords again and again into the fallen 
body until it ceased to breathe. 

The death of Parmenio and of his son in 
this violent manner, when, too, there was so 
little evidence of their guilt, made a very gen- 
eral and a very unfavorable impression in re- 
spect to Alexander; and not long afterward 
another case occurred, in some respects still 
more painful, as it evinced still more strik- 
ingly that the mind of Alexander, which had 
been in his earlier days filled with such noble 
and lofty sentiments of justice and generosity, 
was gradually getting to be under the supreme 
dominion of selfish and ungovernable passions: 
it was the case of Clitus. 

Clitus was a very celebrated general of Alex- 
ander's army, and a great favorite with the 
king. He had, in fact, on one occasion saved 
Alexander's life. It was at the battle of the 
Granicus. Alexander had exposed himself in 
the thickest of the combat, and was surrounded 
by enemies. The sword of one of them was 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER. 215 

actually raised over his head, and would have 
fallen and killed him on the spot, if Clitus 
had not rushed forward and cut the man down 
just at the instant when he was about striking 
the blow. Such acts of fidelity and courage as 
this had given Alexander great confidence in 
Clitus. It happened, shortly after the death 
of Parmenio, that the governor of one of the 
most important provinces of the empire re- 
signed his post. Alexander appointed Clitus 
to fill the vacancy. 

The evening before his departure to take 
charge of his government, Alexander invited 
him to a banquet, made, partly at least, in 
honor of his elevation. Clitus and the other 
guests assembled. They drank wine, as 
usual, with great freedom. Alexander became 
excited, and began to speak, as he was now 
often accustomed to do, boastingly of his own 
exploits, and to disparage those of his father 
Philip in comparison. 

Men half-intoxicated are very prone to 
quarrel, and not the less so for being excellent 
friends when sober. Clitus had served under 
Philip. He was now an old man, and, like 
other old men, was very tenacious of the glory 
that belonged to the exploits of his youth. He 
was very restless and uneasy at hearing Alex- 
ander claim for himself the merit of his father 
Philip's victory at Chaeronea, and began to 
murmur something to thoae who sat next to 

16— Alexander 



216 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

him about kings claiming and getting a great 
deal of glory which did not belong to them. 

Alexander asked what it was that Clitus said. 
No one replied. Clitus, however, went on talk- 
ing, speaking more and more audibly as he be- 
came gradually more and more excited. He 
praised the character of Philip, and applauded 
his military exploits, saying that they were far 
superior to any of the enterprises of their day. 
The different parties at the table took up the 
subject, and began to dispute, the old men 
taking the part of Philip and former days, and 
the younger defending Alexander. Clitus be- 
came more and more excited. He praised 
Parmenio, who had been Philip's greatest 
general, and began to impugn the justice of 
his late condemnation and death. 

Alexander retorted, and Clitus, rising from 
his seat, and losing now all self-command, re- 
proached him with severe and bitter words. 
"Here is the hand," said he, extending his 
arm, "that saved your life at the battle of the 
Granicus, and the fate of Parmenio shows what 
sort of gratitude and what rewards faithful 
servants are to expect at your hands." Alex- 
ander, burning with rage, commanded Clitus 
to leave the table. Clitus obeyed, saying, as 
he moved away, "He is right not to bear free- 
born men at his table who can only tell him 
the truth. He is right. It is fitting for him 
to pass his life among barbarians and slaves, 



DETERIORATION OF CHARACTER. 217 

who will be proud to pay their adoration to 
his Persian girdle and his splendid robe. " 

Alexander seized a javelin to hurl at Clitus' 
head. The guests rose in confusion, and with 
many outcries pressed around him. Some 
seized Alexander's arm, some began to hurry 
Clitus out of the room, and some were engaged 
in loudly criminating and threatening each 
other. They got Clitus out of the apartment, 
but as soon as he was in the hall he broke 
away from them, returned by another door, 
and began to renew his insults to Alexander. 
The king hurled his javelin and struck Clitus 
down, saying, at the same time, "Go, then, 
and join Philip and Parmenio. " The com- 
pany rushed to the rescue of the unhappy man^ 
but it was too late. He died almost imme- 
diately. 

Alexander, as soon as he came to himself, 
was overwhelmed with remorse and despair. 
He mourned bitterly, for many days, the death 
of his long-tried and faithful friend, and exe- 
crated the intoxication and passion, on his 
part, which had caused it. He could not, 
however, restore Clitus to life, nor remove 
from his own character the indelible stains 
which such deeds necessarily fixed upon it. 




CHAPTEE XII. 



ALEXANDER S END, 



After the events narrated in the last chap- 
ter, Alexander continued, for two or three 
years, his expeditions and conquests in Asia, 
and in the course of them he met with a great 
variety of adventures which cannot be here 
particularly described. He penetrated into 
India as far as the banks of the Indus, and, 
not content with this, was preparing to cross 
the Indus and go on to the Ganges. His sol- 
diers, however, resisted this design. They were 
alarmed at the stories which they heard of the 
Indian armies, with elephants bearing castles 
upon their backs, and soldiers armed with 
strange and unheard-of weapons. These rumors 
and the natural desire of the soldiers not to go 
away any further from their native land, pro- 
duced almost a mutiny in the army. At 
length, Alexander, learning how strong and 
how extensive the spirit of insubordination was 
becoming, summoned his officers to his own 
tent, and then ordering the whole army to 
gather around, he went out to meet them. 

218 




Alexander, fact p. X)8 



An Indian Army Elephant. 



ALEXANDER'S END. 219 

He made an address to them, in which he 
recounted all their past exploits, praised the 
courage and perseverance which they had 
shown thus far, and endeavored to animate 
them with a desire to proceed. They listened 
in silence, and no one attempted to reply. 
This solemn pause was followed by marks of 
great agitation throughout the assembly. 
The army loved their commander, notwith- 
standing his faults and failings. They were 
extremely unwilling to make any resistance to 
his authority ; but they had lost that extreme 
and unbounded confidence in his energy and 
virtue which made them ready, in the former 
part of his career, to press forward into any 
difficulties and dangers whatever, where he led 
the way. 

At last one of the army approached the king, 
and addressed him somewhat as follows : 

"We are not changed, sir, in our affection 
for you. We still have, and shall always re- 
tain, the same zeal and the same fidelity. We 
are ready to follow you at the hazard of our 
lives, and to march wherever you may lead us. 
Still we must ask you, most respectfully, to 
consider the circumstances in which we are 
placed. We have done all for you that it was 
possible for man to do. We have crossed seas 
and land. We have marched to the end of the 
world, and you are now meditating the con- 
quest of another, by going in search of new 



220 ALEXANDER THE GREAt. 

Indias, unknown to the Indians themselves. 
Such a thought may be worthy of your courage 
and resolution, but it surpasses ours, and our 
strength still more. Look at these ghastly 
faces, and these bodies covered with wounds 
and scars. Kemember how numerous we w r ere 
when first we set out with you, and see how 
few of us remain. The few who have escaped 
so many toils and dangers have neither courage 
nor strength to follow you any further. They 
all long to revisit their country and their 
homes, and to enjoy, for the remainder of 
their lives, the fruits of all their toils. For- 
give them these desires, so natural to man." 

The expression of these sentiments confirmed 
and strengthened them in the minds of all the 
soldiers. Alexander was greatly troubled and 
distressed. A disaffection in a small part of 
an army may be put down by decisive meas- 
ures; but when the determination to resist is 
universal, it is useless for any commander, 
however imperious and absolute in temper, to 
attempt to withstand it. Alexander, however, 
was extremely unwilling to yield. He re- 
mained two days shut up in his tent, the prey 
to disappointment and chagrin. 

The result, however, was, that he abandoned 
plans of further conquest, and turned his steps 
again toward the west. He met with various 
adventures as he went on, and incurred many 
dangers, often in a rash and foolish manner, 



ALEXANDER'S END. 2gl 

and for no good end. At one time, while at- 
tacking a small town, he seized a scaling ladder 
and mounted with the troops. In doing this, 
however, he put himself forward so rashly and 
inconsiderately that his ladder was broken, 
and while the rest retreated he was left alone 
upon the wall, whence he descended into the 
town, and was immediately surrounded by 
enemies. His friends raised their ladders 
again, and pressed on desperately to find and 
rescue him. Some gathered around him and 
defended him, while others contrived to open 
a small gate, by which the rest of the army 
gained admission. By this means Alexander 
was saved; though, when they brought him 
out of the city, there was an arrow three feet 
long, which could not be extracted, sticking 
into his side through his coat of mail. 

The surgeons first very carefully cut off the 
wooden shaft of the arrow, and then, enlarging 
the wound by incisions, they drew out the 
barbed point. The soldiers were indignant 
that Alexander should expose his person in 
such a foolhardy way, only to endanger him- 
self, and to compel them to rush into danger to 
rescue him. The wound very nearly proved 
fatal. The loss of blood was attended with 
extreme exhaustion ; still, in the course of a 
few weeks he recovered. 

Alexander's habits of intoxication and 
vicious excess of all kinds were, in the mean 4 



222 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

time, continually increasing. He not only in- 
dulged in such excesses himself, but he encour- 
aged them in others. He would offer prizes 
at his banquets to those who would drink the 
most. On one of these occasions, the man 
who conquered drank, it is said, eighteen or 
twenty pints of wine, after which he lingered 
in misery for three days, and then died; and 
more than forty others, present at the same 
entertainment, died in consequence of their 
excesses. 

Alexander returned toward Babylon. His 
friend Hephaestion was with him, sharing 
with him everywhere in all the vicious indul- 
gences to which he had become so prone. 
Alexander gradually separated himself more 
and more from his old Macedonian friends, 
and linked himself more and more closely with 
Persian associates. He married Statira, the 
oldest daughter of Darius, and gave the young- 
est daughter to Hephaestion. He encouraged 
similar marriages between Macedonian officers 
and Persian maidens, as far as he could. In 
a word, he seemed intent in merging, in every 
way, his original character and habits of 
action in the effeminacy, luxury, and vice of 
the Eastern world, which he had at first so 
looked down upon and despised. 

Alexander's entrance into Babylon, on his 
return from his Indian campaigns, was a scene 
of great magnificence and splendor. Ambas- 



ALEXANDER'S END. 223 

sadors and princes had assembled there from 
almost all the nations of the earth to receive 
and welcome him, and the most ample prepa- 
rations were made for processions, shows, 
parades, and spectacles to do him honor. The 
whole country was in a state of extreme excite- 
ment, and the most expensive preparations 
were made to give him a reception worthy of 
one who was the conqueror and monarch of 
the world, and the son of a god. 

When Alexander approached the city, how- 
ever, he was met by a deputation of Chaldean 
astrologers. The astrologers were a class of 
philosophers who pretended, in those days, to 
foretell human events by means of the motions 
of the stars. The motions of the stars were 
studied very closely in early times, and in 
those Eastern countries, by the shepherds, who 
had often to remain in the open air, through 
the summer nights, to watch their flocks. 
These shepherds observed that nearly all the 
stars were fixed in relation to each other, that 
is, although they rose successively in the east, 
and, passing over, set in the west, they did 
not change in relation to each other. There 
were, however, a few that wandered about 
among the rest in an irregular and unaccount- 
able manner. They called these stars the 
wanderers — that is, in their language, the 
planets — and they watched their mysterious 
movements with great interest and awe. They 



224 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

naturally imagined that these changes had 
some connection with human affairs, and they 
endeavored to prognosticate from them the 
events, whether prosperous or adverse, which 
were to befall mankind. Whenever a comet 
or an eclipse appeared, they thought it por- 
tended some terrible calamity. The study of 
the motions and appearances of the stars, with 
a view to foretell the course of human affairs, 
was the science of astrology. 

The astrologers came, in a very solemn and 
imposing procession, to meet Alexander on his 
march. They informed him that they had 
found indubitable evidence in the stars that, if 
he came into Babylon, he would hazard his 
life. They accordingly begged him not to ap- 
proach any nearer, but to choose some other 
city for his capital. Alexander was very much 
perplexed by this announcement. His mind, 
weakened by effeminacy and dissipation, was 
very susceptible to superstitious fears. It 
was not merely by the debilitating influence of 
vicious indulgence on the nervous constitution 
that this effect was produced. It was, in part, 
the moral influence of conscious guilt. Guilt 
makes men afraid. It not only increases the 
power of real dangers, but predisposes the 
mind to all sorts of imaginary fears. 

Alexander was very much troubled at this 
announcement of the astrologers. He sus- 
pended his march, and began anxiously to 



ALEXANDER'S END. 225 

consider what to do. At length the Greek 
philosophers came to him and reasoned with 
him on the subject, persuading him that the 
science of astrology was not worthy of any 
belief. The Greeks had no faith in astrology. 
They foretold future events by the flight of 
birds, or by the appearances presented in the 
dissection of beasts offered in sacrifice ! 

At length, however, Alexander's fears were 
so far allayed that he concluded to enter the 
city. He advanced, accordingly, with his 
whole army, and made his entry under cir- 
cumstances of the greatest possible parade and 
splendor. As soon, however, as the excite- 
ment of the first few days had passed away, 
his mind relapsed again, and he became anx- 
ious, troubled, and unhappy. 

Hephsestion, his great personal friend and 
companion, had died while he was on the 
march toward Babylon. He was brought to 
the grave by diseases produced by dissipation 
and vice. Alexander was very much moved by 
his death. It threw him at once into a fit of 
despondency and gloom. It was some time 
before he could at all overcome the melancholy 
reflections and forebodings which this event 
produced. He determined that, as soon as he 
arrived in Babylon, he would do all possible 
honor to Hephaestion's memory by a magnifi- 
cent funeral. 

He accordingly now sent orders tc %U the 



226 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

cities and kingdoms around, and collected a 
vast sum for this purpose. He had a part of 
the city wall pulled down to furnish a site for 
a monumental edifice. This edifice was con- 
structed of an enormous size and most elabo- 
rate architecture. It was ornamented with long 
rows of prows of ships 5 taken by Alexander in 
his victories, and by statues, and columns, and 
sculptures, and gilded ornaments of every 
kind. There were images of sirens on the en- 
tablatures near the roof, which, by means of a 
mechanism concealed within, were made to 
sing dirges and mournful songs. The expense 
of this edifice, and of the games, shows, and 
spectacles connected with its consecration, is 
said by the historians of the day to have been 
a sum which, on calculation, is found equal to 
about ten millions of dollars. 

There were, however, some limits still to 
Alexander's extravagance and folly. There 
was a mountain in Greece, Mount Athos, 
which a certain projector said could be carved 
and fashioned into the form of a man — prob- 
ably in a recumbent posture. There was a city 
on one of the declivities of the mountain, and a 
small river, issuing from springs in the 
ground, came down on the other side. The 
artist who conceived of this prodigious piece 
of sculpture said that he would so shape the 
figure that the city should be in one of its 
hands, and the river should flow out from the 
other. 



ALEXANDER'S END. 227 

Alexander listened to this proposal. The 
name Mount Athos recalled to his mind the 
attempt of Xerxes, a former Persian king, who 
had attempted to cut a road through the rocks 
upon apart of Mount Athos, in the invasion of 
Greece. He did not succeed, but left the un- 
finished work a lasting memorial both of the 
attempt and the failure. Alexander concluded 
at length that he would not attempt such a 
sculpture. "Mount Athos," said he, "is 
already the monument of one king's folly ; I 
will not make it that of another." 

As soon as the excitement connected with 
the funeral obsequies of Hephsestion were 
over, Alexander's mind relapsed again into a 
state of gloomy melancholy. This depression, 
caused, as it was, by previous dissipation and 
vice, seemed to admit of no remedy or relief 
but in new excesses. The traces, however, of 
his former energy so far remained that he 
began to form magnificent plans for the im- 
provement of Babylon. He commenced the 
execution of some of these plans. His time 
was spent, in short, in strange alternations : 
resolution and energy in forming vast plans 
one day, and utter abandonment to all the ex- 
cesses of dissipation and vice the next. It 
was a mournful spectacle to see his former 
greatness of soul still struggling on, though 
more and more faintly, as it became gradually 
overborne by the resistless inroads of intern- 

17— Alexander 



228 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

perance and sin. The scene was at length 
suddenly terminated in the following man- 
ner: 

On one occasion, after he had spent a whole 
night in drinking and carousing, the guests, 
when the usual time arrived for separating, 
proposed that, instead of this, they should 
begin anew, and commence a second banquet 
at the end of the first. Alexander, half-intox- 
icated already, entered warmly into this pro- 
posal. They assembled, accordingly, in a 
very short time. There were twenty present 
at this new feast. Alexander, to show how 
far he was from having exhausted his powers 
of drinking, began to pledge each one of the 
company individually. Then he drank to 
them all together. There was a very large 
cup, called the bowl of Hercules, which he now 
called for, and, after having filled it to the 
brim, he drank it off to the health of one of 
the company present, a Macedonian named 
Proteas. This feat being received by the 
company with great applause, he ordered the 
great bowl to be filled again, and drank it off 
as before. 

The work was now done. His faculties and 
his strength soon failed him, and he sank 
down to the floor. They bore him away to his 
palace. A violent fever intervened, which the 
physicians did all in their power to allay. As 
soon as his leason returned a little, Alexander 



ALEXANDER'S END. 229 

aroused himself from his lethargy, and tried 
to persuade himself that he should recover. 
He began to issue orders in regard to the 
army, and to his ships, as if such a turning of 
his mind to the thoughts of power and empire 
would help bring him back from the brink of 
the grave toward which he had been so ob- 
viously tending. He was determined, in fact, 
that he would not die. 

He soon found, however, notwithstanding 
his efforts to be vigorous and resolute, that 
his strength was fast ebbing away. The vital 
powers had received a fatal wound, and he 
soon felt that they could sustain themselves but 
little longer. He came to the conclusion that 
he must die. He drew his signet ring off 
from his finger; it was a token that he felt 
that all was over. He handed the ring to one 
of his friends who stood by his bedside. 
"When I am gone," said he, "take my body 
to the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, and inter it 
there." 

The generals who were around him advanced 
to his bedside, and one after another kissed 
his hand. Their old affection for him revived 
as they saw him about to take leave of them 
forever. They asked him to whom he wished 
to leave his empire. "To the most worthy," 
said he. He meant, doubtless, by this 
evasion, that he was too weak and exhausted 
to think of such affairs. He knew, probably, 



230 ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 

that it was useless for him to attempt to con- 
trol the government of his empire after his 
death. He said, in fact, that he foresaw that 
the decision of such questions would give rise 
to some strange funeral games after his de- 
cease. Soon after this he died. 

The palaces of Babylon were immediately 
filled with cries of mourning at the death of 
the prince, followed by bitter and intermina- 
ble disputes about the succession. It had not 
been the aim of Alexander's life to establish 
firm and well-settled governments in the coun- 
tries that he conquered, to encourage order, 
and peace, and industry among men, and to in- 
troduce system and regularity in human affairs, 
so as to leave the world in a better condition 
than he found it. In this respect his course of 
conduct presents a strong contrast wi-th that of 
Washington. It was Washington's aim to t 
mature and perfect organizations which would 
move on prosperously of themselves, without 
him; and he was continually withdrawing his 
hand from action and control in public affairs, 
taking a higher pleasure in the independent 
working of the institutions which he had 
formed and protected than in exercising, him- 
self, a high personal power. Alexander, on 
the other hand, was all his life intent solely on 
enlarging and strengthening his own personal 
power. He was all in all. He wished to 
make himself so. He never thought of the 



ALEXANDER'S END. 233 

welfare of the countries which he had subjected 
to his sway, or did anything to guard against 
the anarchy and civil wars which he knew full 
well would break out at once over all his vast 
dominions, as soon as his power came to an 
end* 

The result was as might have been foreseen. 
The whole vast field of his conquests became, 
for many long and weary years after Alexan- 
der's death, the prey to the most ferocious and 
protracted civil wars. Each general and 
governor seized the power which Alexander's 
death left in his hands, and endeavored to de- 
fend himself in the possession of it against the 
others. Thus the devastation and misery 
which the making of these conquests brought 
upon Europe and Asia were continued for 
many years, during the slow and terrible pro- 
cess of their return to their original condition. 

In the exigency of the moment, however, at 
Alexander's death, the generals who were in 
his court at the time assembled forthwith, and 
made an attempt to appoint some one to take 
the immediate command. They spent a week 
in stormy debates on this subject. Alexander 
had left no legitimate heir, and he had de- 
clined, when on his deathbed, as we have 
already seen, to appoint a successor. Among 
his wives — if, indeed, they may be called 
wives — there was one named Roxana, who had 
a son not long after his death. This son was 



234 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

ultimately named his successor; but, in the 
meantime, a certain relative named Aridseus 
was chosen by the generals to assume the com- 
mand. The selection of Aridseus was a sort 
of compromise. He had no talents or capacity 
whatever, and was chosen by the rest on that 
very account, each one thinking that if such 
an imbecile as Aridseus was nominally the 
king, he could himself manage to get posses- 
sion of the real power. Aridseus accepted the 
appointment, but he was never able to make 
himself king in anything but the name. 

In the meantime, as the tidings of Alexan- 
der's death spread over the empire, it pro- 
duced very various effects, according to the 
personal feelings in respect to Alexander en- 
tertained by the various personages and powers 
to which the intelligence came. Some, who 
had admired his greatness, and the splendor 
of his exploits, without having themselves ex- 
perienced the bitter fruits of them, mourned 
and lamented his death. Others, whose for- 
tunes had been ruined, and whose friends and 
relatives had been destroyed, in the course, or 
in the sequel of his victories, rejoiced that he 
who had been such a scourge and curse to 
others, had himself sunk, at last, under the 
just judgment of heaven. 

We should have expected that Sysigambis, 
the bereaved and widowed mother of Darius, 
would have been among those who would have 



ALEXANDER'S END. 235 

exulted most highly at the conqueror's death; 
but history tells us that, instead of this, she 
mourned over it with a protracted and incon- 
solable grief. Alexander had been, in . fact, 
though the implacable enemy of her son, a 
faithful and generous friend to her. He had 
treated her, at all times, with the utmost re- 
spect and consideration, had supplied all her 
wants, and ministered, in every way, to her 
comfort and happiness. She had gradually 
learned to think of him and to love him as a 
son; he, in fact, always called her mother; 
and when she learned that he was gone, she 
felt as if her last earthly protector was gone. 
Her life had been one continued scene of afflic- 
tion and sorrow, and this last blow brought 
her to her end. She pined away, perpetually 
restless and distressed. She lost all desire for 
i'cod, and refused, like others who are suffer- 
ing great mental anguish, to take the suste- 
nance which her friends and attendants offered 
and urged upon her. At length she died. 
They said she starved herself to death ; but it 
was, probably, grief and despair at being thus 
left, in her declining years, so hopelessly 
friendless and alone, and not hunger, that 
destroyed her. 

In striking contrast to this mournful scene 
of sorrow in the palace of Sysigambis, there 
was an exhibition of the most wild and tumul- 
tuous joy in the streets, and in all the public 



236 ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 

places of resort in the city of Athens, when 
the tidings of the death of the great Macedo- 
nian king arrived there. The Athenian com- 
monwealth, as well as all the other states of 
Southern Greece, had submitted very reluct- 
antly to the Macedonian supremacy. They 
had resisted Philip, and they had resisted 
Alexander. Their opposition had been at last 
suppressed and silenced by Alexander's terri- 
ble vengeance upon Thebes, but it never was 
really subdued. Demosthenes, the orator, 
who had exerted so powerful an influence 
against tho Macedonian kings, had been sent 
into banishment, and all outward expressions 
of discontent were restrained. The discontent 
and hostility existed still, however, as inveter- 
ate as ever, and was ready to break out anew, 
with redoubled violence, the moment that the 
terrible energy of Alexander himself was no 
longer to be feared. 

When, therefore, the rumor arrived at 
Athens — for at first it was a mere rumor — that 
Alexander was dead in Babylon, the whole 
city was thrown into a state of the most tu- 
multuous joy. The citizens assembled in the 
public places, and congratulated and har- 
angued each other with expressions of the great- 
est exultation. They were for proclaiming 
their independence and declaring war against 
Macedon on the spot. Some of the older and 
more sagacious of their counselors were, how- 



ALEXANDER'S END. 237 

ever, more composed arid calm. They recom- 
mended a little delay, in order to see whether 
the news was really true. Phocion, in partic- 
ular, who was one of the prominent statesmen 
of the city, endeavored to quiet the excitement 
of the people. "Do not let us be so precipi- 
tate, " said he. "There is time enough. If 
Alexander is really dead to-day, he will be 
dead to-morrow, and the next day, so that 
there will be time enough for us to act with 
deliberation and discretion." 

Just and true as this view of the subject was, 
there was too much of rebuke and satire in it to 
have much influence with those to whom it was 
addressed. The people were resolved on war. 
They sent commissioners into all the states 
of the Peloponnesus to organize a league, 
offensive and defensive, against Macedon. 
They recalled Demosthenes from his banish- 
ment, and adopted all the necessary military 
measures for establishing and maintaining 
their freedom. The consequences of all this 
would doubtless have been very serious, if the 
rumor of Alexander's death had proved false; 
but, fortunately for Demosthenes and the 
Athenians, it was soon abundantly confirmed. 

The return of Demosthenes to the city was 
like the triumphal entry of a conqueror. At 
the time of his recall he was at the island of 
iEgina, which is about forty miles southwest 
of Athens, in one of the . gulfs of the iEgean 



238 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Sea. They sent a public galley to receive 
him, and to bring him to the land. It was a 
galley of three banks of oars, and was fitted up 
in a style to do honor to a public guest. Athens 
is situated some distance back from the sea, 
and has a small port, called the Piraeus, at the 
shore — a long, straight avenue leading from 
the port to the city. The galley by which 
Demosthenes was conveyed landed at the 
Piraeus. All the civil and religious author- 
ities of the city went down to the port, in a 
grand procession, to receive and welcome the 
exile on his arrival, and a large portion of the 
population followed in the train, to witness 
the spectacle, and to swell by their acclama- 
tions the general expression of joy. 

In the meantime, the preparations for Alex- 
ander's funeral had been going on, upon a 
great scale of magnificence and splendor. It 
was two years before they were complete. The 
body had been given, first, to be embalmed, 
according to the Egyptian and Chaldean art, 
and then had been placed in a sort of sarco- 
phagus, in which it was to be conveyed to its 
long home. Alexander, it will be remembered 
had given directions that it should be taken to 
the temple of Jupiter Ammon, in the Egyptian 
oasis, where he had been pronounced the son 
of a god. It would seem incredible that such 
a mind as his could really admit such an 
absurd superstition as the story of his divine 



ALEXANDER'S END. 239 

origin, and we must therefore suppose that he 
gave this direction in order that the place of 
his interment might confirm the idea of his 
superhuman nature in the general opinion of 
mankind. At all events, such were his orders, 
and the authorities who were left in power at 
Babylon after his death, prepared to execute 
them. 

It was a long journey. To convey a body, 
by a regular funeral procession, formed as 
soon after the death as the arrangements could 
be made, from Babylon to the eastern frontiers 
of Egypt, a distance of a thousand miles, was 
perhaps as grand a plan of interment as was 
ever formed. It has something like a parallel 
in the removal of Napoleon's body from St. 
Helena to Paris, though this was not really an 
interment, but a transfer. Alexander's was a 
simple burial procession, going from the 
palace where he died to the proper cemetery — 
a march of a thousand miles, it is true, but all 
within his own dominions. The greatness of 
it resulted simply from the magnitude of the 
scale on which everything pertaining to the 
mighty here was performed, for it was nothing 
but a simple passage from the dwelling to the 
burial ground, on his own estates, after all. 

A very large and elaborately constructed 
carriage was built to convey the body. The 
accounts of the richness and splendor of this 
vehicle are almost incredible. The spokes 



240 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

and naves of the wheels were overlaid with 
gold, and the extremities of the axles, where 
they appeared outside at the centers of the 
wheels, were adorned with massive golden 
ornaments. The wheels and axletrees were so 
large, and so far apart, that there was sup- 
ported upon them a platform or floor for the 
carriage twelve feet wide and eighteen feet 
long. Upon this platform there was erected a 
magnificent pavilion, supported by Ionic 
columns, and profusely ornamented, both with- 
in and without, with purple and gold. The 
interior constituted an apartment, more or less 
open at the sides, and resplendent within with 
gems and precious stones. The space of twelve 
feet by eighteen forms a chamber of no incon- 
siderable size, and there was thus ample room 
for what was required within. There was a 
throne, raised some steps, and placed back 
upon the platform, profusely carved and gilded. 
It was empty ; but crowns, representing the 
various nations over whom Alexander had 
reigned, were hung upon it. At the foot of 
the throne was the coffin, made, it is said, of 
solid gold, and containing, besides the body, 
a large quantity of the most costly spices and 
aromatic perfumes, which filled the air with 
their odor. The arms which Alexander wore 
were laid out in view, also, between the coffin 
and the throne. 

On the four sides of the carriage were basso 



ALEXANDER'S END. 241 

relievos, that is, sculptured figures raised from 
a surface, representing Alexander himself, 
with various military concomitants. There 
were Macedonian columns, and Persian squad- 
rons, and elephants of India, and troops of 
horse, and various other emblems of the de- 
parted hero's greatness and power. Around 
the pavilion, too, there was a fringe or net- 
work of golden lace, to the pendents of which 
were attached bells, which tolled continually, 
with a mournful sound, as the carriage moved 
among. A long column of mules, sixty-four 
in number, arranged in sets of four, drew this 
ponderous car. These mules were all selected 
for their great size and strength, and were 
splendidly caparisoned. They had collars and 
harnesses mounted with gold, and enriched 
with precious stones. 

Before the procession set out from Babylon, 
an army of pioneers and workmen went for- 
ward to repair the roads, strengthen the 
bridges, and remove the obstacles along the 
whole line of route over which the train was to 
pass. At length, when all was ready, the 
solemn procession began to move, and passed 
out through the gates of Babylon. No pen 
can describe the enormous throngs of specta- 
tors that assembled to witness its departure, 
and that gathered along the route, as it passed 
slowly on from city to city, in its long and 
weary way. 



242 ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

Notwithstanding all tins pomp and parade, 
however, the body never reached its intended 
destination. Ptolemy, the officer to whom 
Egypt fell in the division of Alexander's em- 
pire, came forth with a grand escort of troops 
to meet the funeral procession as it came into 
Egypt. He preferred, for some reason or 
other, that the body should be interred in the 
city of Alexandria. It was accordingly de- 
posited there, and a great monument was 
erected over the spot. This monument is said 
to have remained standing for fifteen hundred 
years, but all vestiges of it have now disap- 
peared. The city of Alexandria itself, how- 
ever, is the conqueror's real monument; the 
greatest and best, pernaps, that any conqueror 
ever left behind him. It is a monument, too, 
that time will not destroy ; its position and 
character, as Alexander foresaw, by bringing 
it a continued renovation, secure its per- 
petuity. 

Alexander earned well the name and reputa- 
tion of The Great. He was truly great in all 
those powers and capacities which can elevate 
one man above his fellows. We cannot help 
applauding the extraordinary energy of his 
genius, though we condemn the selfish and 
cruel ends to which his life was devoted. 



ALTEMUS* 



Young People's Library. 



Price, 50 Cents Each. 



ROBINSON CRUSOE : His Life and Strange Surprising 
Adventures. With 70 beautiful illustrations by Walter 
Paget. Arranged for young readers. 

"There exists no work, either of instruction or entertainment, 
which has been more generally read, and universally admired." 
— Walter Scott. 

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With 42 
illustrations by John Tenniel. 

" This is Carroll's immortal story." — Athen<zum. 
" The most delightful of children's stories. Elegant and deli- 
cious nonsense." — Saturday Review. 

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT 
ALICE FOUND THERE. (A companion to Alice in 
Wonderland.) With 50 illustrations by John Tenniel. 

" Not a whit inferior to its predecessor in grand extravagance of 
imagination, and delicious allegorical nonsense." — Quarterly 
Review. 

BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. With 50 full-page 
and text illustrations. 

Pilgrim's Progress is the most popular story book in the 
world.. With the exception of the Bible it has been translated into 
more languages than any other book ever printed. 

A CHILD'S STORY OF THE BIBLE. With 72 full-page 
illustrations. 

Tells in simple language and in a form fitted for the hands of 
the younger members of the Christian flock, the tale of God's 
dealings whh his Chosen People under the Old Dispensation, 
with its foreshadowings of the coming of that Messiah who was 
to make all mankind one fold under one Shepherd. 



ALTEMUS YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



A CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. With 49 illustrations. 

God has implanted in the infant' s heart a desire to hear of Jesus, 
and children are early attracted and sweetly riveted by the won- 
derful Story of the Master from the Manger to the Throne. 

In this little book we have brought together from Scripture every 
incident, expression and description within the verge of their com- 
prehension, in the effort to weave them into a memorial garland of 
their Saviour. 

THE FABLES OF JESOF. Compiled from the best ac- 
cepted sources. With 62 illustrations. 

The fables of ^Esop are among the very earliest compositions of 
this kind, and probably have never been surpassed for point and 
brevity, as well as for the practical good sense they display. In 
their grotesque grace, in their quaint humor, in their trust in the 
simpler virtues, in their insight into the cruder vices, in their inno- 
cence of the fact of sex, ./Esop's Fables are as little children— and 
for that reason will ever find a home in the heaven of little chil- 
dren's souls. 

THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, or the Adventures of 
a Shipwrecked Family on an Uninhabited Island. With 
50 illustrations. 

A remarkable tale of adventure that will interest the boys and 
girls. The father of the family tells the tale and the vicissitudes 
through which he and his wife and children pass, the wonderful 
discoveries they make, and the dangers they encounter. It is a 
standard work of adventure that has the favor of all who have 
read it. 

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY 
OF AMERICA. With 70 illustrations. 

It is the duty of every American lad to know the story of Chris- 
topher Columbus. In this book is depicted the story of his life 
and struggles ; of his persistent solicitations at the courts of Eu- 
rope, and his contemptuous receptions by the learned Geographical 
Councils, until his final employment by Queen Isabella. Records 
the day -by-day journeyings while he was pursuing' his aim and his 
perilous way over the shoreless ocean, until he "gave to Spain a 
New World." Shows his progress through Spain on the occasion 
of his first return, when he was received with rapturous demon- 
strations and more than regal homage. His displacement by the 



ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE* S LIBRARY. 



Odjeas, Ovandos and Bobadilas ; his-last return in chains, and the 
story of his death in poverty and neglect. 

THE STORY OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 
IN AFRICA. With 80 illustrations. 

Records the adventures, privations, sufferings, trials, dangers 
and discoveries in developing the "Dark Continent," from the 
early days of Bruce and Mungo Park down to Livingstone and 
Stanley and the heroes of our own times. 

The reader becomes carried away by conflicting emotions ot 
wonder and sympathy, and feels compelled to pursue the story, 
which he cannot lay down. No present can be more acceptable 
than such a volume as this, where courage, intrepidity, resource 
and devotion are so pleasantly mingled. It is very fully illustra- 
ted with pictures worthy of the book. 

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS INTO SOME REMOTE RE- 
GIONS OF THE WORLD. With 50 illustrations. 
In description, even of the most common-place things, his power 
is often perfectly marvellous. Macaulay says of Swift: " Under 
a plain garb and ungainly deportment were concealed some of the 
choicest gifts that ever have been bestowed on any of the children 
of men — rare powers of observation, brilliant art, grotesque inven- 
tion, humor of the mo^t austere flavor, yet exquisitely delicious, 
eloquence singularly pure, manly and perspicuous." 

MOTHER GOOSE'S RHYMES, JINGLES AND FAIRY 
TALES. With 300 illustrations. 

"In this edition an excellent choice has been made from the 
standard fiction of the little ones. The abundant pictures are well- 
drawn and graceful, the effect frequently striking and always deco- 
rative . " — Critic. 

"Only to see the book is to wish to give it to every child one 
knows. ' ' — Queen. 

LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. Compiled from authoritative sources. With 
portraits of the Presidents ; and also of the unsuccessful 
candidates for the office; as well as the ablest of the 
Cabinet officers. 

This book should be in every home and school library. It tells, 
in an impartial way, the story of the political history of the United 
States, from the first Constitutional convention to the last Presi- 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



dential nominations, it is just the book for intelligent boys, and it 
will help to make them intelligent and patriotic citizens. 

THE STORY OF ADVENTURE IN THE FROZEN 
SEA. With 70 illustrations. Compiled from authorized 
sources. 

We here have brought together the records of the attempts to 
reach the North Pole. Our object being to recall the stories of the 
. early voyagers, and to narrate the recent efforts of gallant adven- 
turers of various nationalities to cross the " unknown and inacces- 
ible " threshold ; and to show how much can be accomplished by 
indomitable pluck and steady perseverance. Portraits and numer- 
ous illustrations help the narration. 

ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY. By the Rev. 
J. G. Wood. With 80 illustrations. 

Wood's Natural History needs no commendation. Its author 
has done more than any other writer to popularize the study. His 
work is known and admired overall the civilized world. The sales 
of his works in England and America have been enormous. The 
illustrations in this edition are entirely new, striking and life-like. 

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles 
Dickens. With 50 illustrations. 

Dickens grew tired of listening to his children memorizing the 
old fashioned twaddle that went under the name of English his- 
tory. He thereupon wrote a book, in his own peculiarly happy 
style, primarily for the educational advantage of his own children, 
but was prevailed upon to publish the work, and make its use gen- 
eral. Its success was instantaneous and abiding. 

>BLACK BEAUTY; The Autobiography of a Horse. By 
Anna Sewell. With 50 illustrations. 

This NEW illustrated edition is sure to command attention. 
Wherever children are, whether boys or girls, there this Autobiog- 
raphy should be. It inculcates habits of kindness to all members 
of the animal creation. The literary merit of the book is excellent. 

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. With 
50 illustrations. Contains the most favorably known of 
the stories. 

The text is somewhat abridged and edited for the young. It 
/->rms an excellent introduction to those immortal tales which have 
helped so long to keep th> weary world young. 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES. By Hans Christian An- 
dersen. With 77 illustrations. 

The spirit of high moral teaching, and the delicacy of sentiment, 
feeling and expression that pervade these tales make these won- 
derful creations not only attractive to the young, but equally accept- 
able to those of mature years, who are able to understand their 
real significance and appreciate the depth of their meaning. 

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. With 50 illustrations. 

These tales of the Brothers Grimm have carried their names into 
every household of the civilized world. 

The Tales are a wonderful collection, as interesting, from a lit- 
erary point of view, as they are delightful as stories. 

GRANDFATHER'S CHAIR; A History for Youth. By 
Nathaniel Hawthorne. With 60 illustrations. 

The story of America from the landing of the Puritans to the 
acknowledgment without reserve of the Independence of the 
United States, told with all the elegance, simplicity, grace, clear- 
ness and force for which Hawthorne is conspicuously noted. 

FLOWER FABLES. By Louisa May Alcott. With colored 
and plain illustrations. 

A series of very interesting fairy tales by the most charming of 
American story-tellers. 

AUNT MARTHA'S CORNER CUPBOARD. By Mary 
and Elizabeth Kirby. With 60 illustrations. 

Stories about Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Rice and Chinaware, and 
other accessories of the well-kept Cupboard. A book full of in- 
terest for all the girls and many of the boys. 

WATER-BABIES; A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. By 
Charles Kingsley. With 94 illustrations. 

" Come read me my riddle, each good little man ; 
If you cannot read it, no grown-up folk can." 

BATTLES OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. By 

Prescott Holmes. With 70 illustrations. 

A graphic and full history of the Rebellion of the American Col- 
onies from the yoke and oppression of England, with the causes 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



that led thereto, and including an account of the second war with 
Great Britain, and the War with Mexico. 

BATTLES OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION. By 
Prescott Holmes. With 80 illustrations. 

A correct and impartial account of the greatest civil war in the 
annals of history. Both of these histories of American wars rre 
a necessary part of the education of all intelligent American boys 
and girls. 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH 
SPAIN. By Prescott Holmes. With 89 illustrations. 

This history of our war with Spain, in 1898, presents in a plain, 
easy style the splendid achievements of our army and navy, and 
the prominent figures that came into the public view during that 
period. Its glowing descriptions, wealth of anecdote, accuracy < f 
statement and profusion of illustration make it a most desirable 
gift book for young readers. 

HEROES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. By 
Hartwell James. With 65 illustrations. 

The story of our navy is one of the most brilliant pages in the 
world's history. The sketches and exploits contained in this vol- 
ume cover our entire naval history from the days of the honest, 
rough sailors cf Revolutionary times, with their cutlassts and 
boarding pikes, to the brief war of 1898, when our superbly ap- 
pointed warships destroyed Spain's proud cruisers by the merci- 
less accuracy of their fire. 

MILITARY HEROES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
By Hartwell James. With 97 illustrations. 

In this volume the brave lives and heroic deeds of our military 
heroes, from Paul Revere to Lawton, are told in the most captiva- 
ting manner. The material for the work has been gathered from 
the North and the South alike. The volume presents all the im- 
portant facts in a manner enabling the young people of our united 
and prosperous land to easily become familiar with the command- 
ing figures that have arisen in our military history. 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; or Life Among the Lowly. By 
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. With 90 illustrations. 



ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



The unfailing interest in the famous old story suggested the need 
of an edition specially prepared for young readers, and elaborately 
illustrated. This edition completely fills that want. 

SEA KINGS AND NAVAL HEROES. By Hartwell 
James. With 50 illustrations. 

The most famous sea battles of the world with sketches of the 
lives, enterprises and achievements of men who have become fam- 
ous in naval history. They are stories of brave lives in times of 
trial aad danger, charmingly told for young people. 

POOR BOYS' CHANCES. By John Habberton. With 
50 illustrations. 

There is a fascination about the writings of the author of 
" Helen's Babies," from which none can escape. In this charm- 
ing volume, Mr. Habberton tells the boys of America how they 
can attain the highest positions in the land, without the struggles 
and privations endured by poor boys who rose to eminence and 
fame in former times. 

ROMULUS, the Founder of Rome. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 49 illustrations. 

In a plain and connected narrative, the author tells the stories 
of the founder of Rome and his great ancestor, ^Eneas. These 
are of necessity somewhat legendary in character, but are pre- 
sented precisely as they have come down to us from ancient times. 
They are prefaced by an account of the life and inventions of Cad- 
mus, the " Father of the Alphabet," as he is often called. 

CYRUS THE GREAT, the Founder of the Persian Empire. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 40 illustrations. 

For nineteen hundred years, the story of the founder of the an- 
cient Persian empire has been read by every generation of man- 
kind. The story of the life and actions of Cyrus, as told by the 
author, presents vivid pictures of the magnificence of a monarchy 
that rose about five hundred years before the Christian era, and 
rolled on in undisturbed magnitude and glory for many centuries. 

ADVENTURES IN TOYLAND. By Edith King Hull. 
With 70 illustrations by Alice B. Woodward. 

The sayings and doings of the dwellers in toyland, related by 
one of them to a dear little girl. It is a delightful book for chil- 
dren, and admirably illustrated. 



N 



8 ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

DARIUS THE GREAT, King of the Medes and Persians. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 34 illustrations. 

No great exploits marked the career of this monarch, who was 
at one time the absolute sovereign of nearly one-half of the world. 
He reached his high position by a stratagem, and left behind him 
no strong impressions of personal character, yet, the history of his 
life and reign should be read along with those of Cyrus, Caesar, 
Hannibal and Alexander. 

XERXES THE GREAT, King of Persia. By Jacob Ab- 
bott. With 39 illustrations. 

For ages the name of Xerxes has been associated in the minds 
of men with the idea of the highest attainable human magnificence 
and grandeur. He was the sovereign of the ancient Persian em- 
pire at the height of its prosperity and power. The invasion of 
Greece by the Persian hordes, the battle of Thermopylae, the burn- 
ing of Athens, and the defeat of the Persian galleys at Salamis are 
chapters of thrilling interest. 

THE ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE. By Miss 
Mulock, author of John Halifax, Gentleman, etc. With 
18 illustrations. 

One of the best of Miss Murlock's charming stories for children. 
All the situations are amusing and are sure to please youthful 
readers. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT, King of Macedon. By 
Jacob Abbott. With 51 illustrations. 

Born heir to the throne of Macedon, a country on the confines 
of Europe and Asia, Alexander crowded into a brief career of 
twelve years a brilliant series of exploits. The readers of to-day 
will find pleasure and profit in the history of Alexander the Great, 
a potentate before whom ambassadors and princes from nearly all 
the nations of the earth bowed in humility. 

PYRRHUS, King of Epirus. By Jacob Abbott. With 45 

illustrations. 

The story of Pyrrhus is one of the ancient narratives which has 
been told and retold for many centuries in the literature, eloquence 
and poetry of all civilized nations. While possessed of extraordi- 
nary ability as a military leader, Pyrrhus actually accomplished 
nothing, but did mischief on a gigantic scale. He was naturally 



ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'^ LIBRARY. 



of a noble and generous spirit, but only succeded in perpetrating 
crimes against the peace and welfare of mankind. 

HANNIBAL, the Carthaginian. By Jacob Abbott. With 
37 illustrations. 

Hannibal's distinction as a warrior was gained during the des- 
perate contests between Rome and Carthage, known as the Punic 
wars. Entering the scene when his country was engaged in peace- 
ful traffic with the various countries of the known world, he turned 
its energies into military aggression, conquest and war, becoming 
himself one of the greatest military heroes the world has ever 
known. 

MIXED PICKLES. By Mrs. E. M. Field. With 31 illus- 
trations by T. Pym. 

A remarkably entertaining story for young people. The reader 
is introduced to a charming little girl whose mishaps while trying 
to do good are very appropriately termed " Mixed Pickles." 

JULIUS CAESAR, the Roman Conqueror. By Jacob Ab- 
bott. With 44 illustrations. 

The life and actions of Julius Caesar embrace a period in Roman 
history beginning with the civil wars of Marius and Sylla and end- 
ing with the tragic death of Caesar Imperator. The work is an 
accurate historical account of the life and times of one of the great 
military figures in history, in fact, it is history itself, and as such is 
especially commended to the readers of the present generation. 

ALFRED THE GREAT, of England. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 40 illustrations. 

In a certain sense, Alfred appears in history as the founder of 
the British monarchy : his predecessors having governed more like 
savage chieftains than English kings. The work has a special 
value for young readers, for the character of Alfred was that of an 
honest, conscientious and far-seeing statesman. The romantic 
story of Godwin furnishes the concluding chapter of the volume. 

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 43 illustrations. 

The life and times of William of Normandy have always been a 
fruitful theme for the historian. War and pillage and conquest 
were at least a part of the everyday business of men in both Eng- 



Id ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

land and France : and the story of William as told by the author 
of this volume makes some of the most fascinating pages in his- 
tory. It is especially delightful to young readers. 

HERNANDO CORTEZ, the Conqueror of Mexico. By 
Jacob Abbott. With 30 illustrations. 

In this volume the author gives vivid pictures of the wild and 
adventurous career of Cortez and his companions in the conquest 
of Mexico. Many good motives were united with those of ques- 
tionable character, in the prosecution of his enterprise, but in 
those days it was a matter of national ambition to enlarge the 
boundaries of nations and to extend their commerce at any cost. 
The career of Cortez is one of absorbing interest. 

THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE. By Miss Mulock. With 
24 illustrations. 

The author styles it "A Parable for Old and Young." It is in her 
happiest vein and delightfully interesting, especially to youthful 
readers. 

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. By Jacob Abbott. With 
45 illustrations. 

The story of Mary Stuart holds a prominent place in the present 
series of historical narrations. It has had many tellings, for the 
melancholy story of the unfortunate queen has always held a high 
place in the estimation of successive generations of readers. Her 
story is full of romance and pathos, and the reader is carried along 
by conflicting emotions of wonder and sympathy. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH, of England. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 49 illustrations. 

In strong contrast to the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, is that 
of Elizabeth, Queen of England. They were cousins, yet im- 
placable foes. Elizabeth's reign was in many ways a glorious one, 
and her successes gained her the applause of the world. The 
stirring tales of Drake, Hawkins and other famous mariners of 
her time have been incorporated into the story of Elizabeth's life 
and reign. 

KING CHARLES THE FIRST, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 41 illustrations. 

The well-known figures in the stormy reign of Charles I. are 
brought forward in this narrative of his life and times. It is his- 
tory told in the most fascinating manner, and embraces the early 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. II 

life of Charles ; the court of James I. ; struggles between Charles 
and the Parliament ; the Civil war ; the trial and execution of the 
king. The narrative is impartial and holds the attention of the 
reader. 

KING CHARLES THE SECOND, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 38 illustrations. 

Beginning with his infancy, the life of the " Merry Monarch " 
is related in the author's inimitable style. His reign was signal- 
ized by many disastrous events, besides those that related to his 
personal troubles and embarrassments. There were unfortunate 
wars ; naval defeats ; dangerous and disgraceful plots and con- 
spiracies. Trobule sat very lightly on the shoulders of Charles II., 
however, and the cares of state were easily forgotten in the society 
of his court and dogs. 

THE SLEEPY KING. By Aubrey Hopwood and Seymour 
Hicks. With 77 illustrations by Maud Trelawney. 

A charmingly-told Fairy Tale, full of delight and entertain- 
ment. The illustrations are original and striking, adding greatly 
to the interest of the text. 

MARIA ANTOINETTE, Queen of France. By John S. C. 
Abbott. With 42 illustrations. 

The tragedy of Maria Antoinette is one of the most mournful in 
the history of the world. " Her beauty dazzled the whole king- 
dom," says Lamartine. Her lofty and unbending spirit under 
unspeakable indignities and atrocities, enlists and holds the sympa- 
thies of the readers of to-day, as it has donr; in the past. 

MADAME ROLAND, A Heroine of the French Revux^. ) 
By Jacob Abbott. With 42 illustrations. 

The French Revolution developed few, if any characters more 
worthy of notice than that of Madame Roland. The absence of 
playmates, in her youth, inspired her with an insatiate thirst for 
knowledge, and books became her constant companions in every 
unoccupied hour. She fell a martyr to the tyrants of the French 
Revolution, but left behind her a career full of instruction that 
never fails to impress itself upon the reader. 

JOSEPHINE, Empress of France. By Jacob Abbott. With 
40 illustrations. 



"9$ ao 



12 ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

Maria Antoinette beheld the dawn of the French Revolution ; 
Madame Roland perished under the lurid glare of its high noon ; 
Josephine saw it fade into darkness. She has been called the 
" Star of Napoleon ; " and it is certain that she added luster to 
his brilliance, and that her persuasive influence was often exerted 
to win a friend or disarm an adversary. The lives of the Empress 
Josephine, of Maria Antoinette, and of Madame Roland are 
especially commended to young lady readers. 

TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. By Charles and Mary 
Lamb. With 80 illustrations. 

The text is somewhat abridged and edited for young people, but 
a clear and definite outline of each play is presented. Such episodes 
or incidental sketches of character as are not absolutely necessary 
to the development of the tales are omitted, while the many moral 
lessons that lie in Shakespeare's plays and make them valuable in 
the training of the young are retained. The b">ok is winning, help- 
ful and an effectual guide to the " inner shrine " of the great 
dramatist. 

MAKERS OF AMERICA. By Hartwell James. With 75 
illustrations. 

This volume contains attractive and suggestive sketches of the 
lives and deeds of men who illustrated some special phase in the 
political, religious or social life of our country, from its settlement 
to the close of the eighteenth century. It affords an opportunity 
for young readers to become easily familiar with these characters 
and their historical relations to the building of our Republic. An 
01 cue discovery of America prefaces the work. 

A WONDER BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. By 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. With 50 illustrations. 

In this volume the genius of Hawthorne has shaped anew 
wonder tales that have been hallowed by an antiquity of two or 
three thousand years. Seeming " never to have been made " they 
are legitimate subjects for every age to clothe with its own fancy 
as to manners and sentiment, and its own views of morality. The 
volume has a charm for old and young alike, for the author has 
not thought it necessary to " write downward " in order to meet 
the comprehension of children. 



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