Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/124

 92 lIl&TOnY OF GREECE. four hundred sail of Phenician and Cyprian ships of war with well-trained seamen, was approaching. This naval force, which a few weeks earlier would have pre< vented Alexander from crossing into Asia, now afforded the only hope of arresting the rapidity and ease of his conquests. What steps had been taken by the Persian officers since the defeat at the Granikus, we do not hear. Many of them had fled, along with Memnon, to Miletus ; ^ and they were probably disposed, under the present desperate circumstances, to accept the com- mand of Memnon as their only hope of safety, though they had despised his counsel on the day of the battle. Whether the towns in Memnon's principality of Atarneus had attempted any resistance against the Macedonians, we do not know. His inter- ests however were so closely identified with those of Persia, that he had sent up his wife and children as hostages, to induce Da- rius to entrust him with the supreme conduct of the war. Or- ders to this effect were presently sent down by that prince ; ^ but at the first arrival of the fleet, it seems not to have been under the command of Memnon, who was however probably on board. It came too late to aid in the defence of Miletus. Three days before its arrival, Nikanor the Macedonian admiral, with his fleet of one hundred and sixty ships, had occupied the island of Lads, which commanded the harbor of that city. Alexander found the outer portion of Miletus evacuated, and took it without resistance. He was making preparations to besiege the inner city, and had already transported 4000 troops across to the island of Lade, when the powerful Persian fleet came in sight, but found itself excluded from Miletus, and obliged to take moorings under the neighboring promontory of Mykale. Unwilling to abandon without a battle the command of the sea, Parmenio ad- vised Alexander to fight this fleet, offering himself to share the hazard aboard. But Alexander disapproved the proposition, af- firming that his fleet was inferior not less in skill than in num- bers ; that the high training of the Macedonians would tell for notliing on shipboard ; and that a naval defeat would be the sig- nal for insurrection in Greece. Besides debating such pi'uden-
 * Diodor. xvii. 22. * Diodon xvii. 23.