Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/87

 ORIGINAL MACEDONIAN WAR SYSTEM. 55 military genius of Epaminondas ; who not only made infantry and cavalry, light-armed and heavy-armed, conspire to one scheme of operations, but also completely altered the received principles of battle-manoeuvring, by concentrating an irresistible force of attack on one point of the enemy's line, and keeping the rest of his own line more on the defensive. Besides these im- portant improvements, realized by generals in actual practice, intelligent officers like Xenophon embodied the results of their military experience in valuable published criticisms.^ Such Avere the lessons which the Macedonian Philip learnt and ap- plied to the enslavement of those Greeks, especially of the The- bans, from whom they were derived. In his youth, as a hostage at Thebes, he had probably conversed with Epaminondas, and must certainly have become familiar with the Theban military arrangements. Pie had every motive, not merely from ambition, of conquest, but even from the necessities of defence, to turn them to account : and he brought to the task military genius and aptitude of the highest ordex'. In arms, in evolutions, in engines, in regimenting, in war-office arrangements, he introduced impor- tant novelties ; bequeathing to his successors the Macedonian military system, which, with improvements by his son, lasted un- til the conquest of the country by Rome, near two centuries af- lerwards. The militar'y force of Macedonia, in the times anterior to obscure. MM. Riistow and Kochly (in their valuable work, Geschichte des Griechischen Kriegswesens, Aarau, 1852, B. ii. p. 164) have interpreted the statements in a sense to which I cannot subscribe. They think that Iphi- kratcs altered not only the arming of peltasts, but also that of hoplites ; a supposition, which I see nothing to justify. ' Besides the many scattered remarks in the Anabasis, the Cyropaedia is full of discussion and criticism on military phaenomena. It is remarkable to what an extent Xenophon had present to his mind all the exigencies of war, and the different ways of meeting them. See as an example, Cyropaed. vi. 2; ii. 1. The work on sieges, by jEneas (Poliorketica), is certainly anterior to the military improvements of Philip of Macedon : probably about the beginning of his reign. See the preface to it by Riistow and Kochly, p. 8, in their edition of Die Griechischen Kriegs-schriftsteller, Leips. 1853. In this work, allusion is made to several others, now lost, by the same author — UapaaKEvaaTiK^ {3ij3Xoc, UopiariK^ jBldXog, SrparoTrerff uri/c^, etc.