Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/120

 88 HISTORY OF GREECE. sent to Athens three hundred panoplies selected from, the spoil, to be dedicated to Athene in the acropolis with this inscription — " Alexander son of Philip, and the Greeks, except the Lace- daemonians {present these offerings,) out of the spoils of the for- eigners inhabiting Asia."^ Though the vote to which Alexan- der appealed represented no existing Grecian aspiration, and granted onlj a sanction which could not be safely refused, yet he found satisfaction in clothing his own self-aggrandizing impulse under the name of a supposed Pan-hellenic purpose : which was at the same time useful, as strengthening his hold upon the Greeks, who were the only persons competent, either as officers or soldiers, to uphold the Persian empire against him. His con- quests were the extinction of genuine Hellenism, though they diffused an exterior varnish of it, and especially the Greek lan- guage, over much of the Oriental world. True Grecian interests lay more on the side of Darius than of Alexander. The battle of the Granikus, brought on by Arsites and the other satraps contrary to the advice of Meranon, was moreover 60 unskilfully fought by them, that the gallantry of their infan- try, the most formidable corps of Greeks that had ever been in the Persian service, was rendered of little use. The battle, pro- perly speaking, was foiight only by the Persian cavalry ; ^ the infantry was left to be surrounded and destroyed afterwards. No victory could be more decisive or terror-striking than that of Alexander. There remained no force in the field to oppose him. The impression made by so great a public catastrophe was enhanced by two accompanying cu'cumstances ; first, by the number of Persian grandees who perished, realizing almost the wailings of Atossa, Xerxes, and the Chorus, in the Persa; of jiEschylus,* after the battle of Salamis — next, by the chivalrous and successful prowess of Alexander himself, who, emulating the Homeric Achilles, not only rushed foremost into the melee, but ' Anian, i. 16, 10, II. " Arrian usually calls the battle of the Granikus an iTr^rofiaxla (i. 17, 10 nnd elsewhere). The battle was fought ia the Attic month Thargelion : probably liie Tim ginning of May (Plutarch, Camillus, 19). ^ ^schylus, Ters. 9.50 seqq.