Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/17

 Speed of movement, urgency in pursuit, were his two marked peculiarities; but to these he added a marvellous quickness to perceive at the moment whatever the moment admitted. On this account he will ever be named among the greatest generals of antiquity, although he was never matched against troops at all to compare to his own, nor against any experienced leader.

Without for a moment undervaluing his high military qualities, we must not put out of sight the pre-eminent army which his able father had bequeathed to him. The western world had never before seen such an organization. A reader of Greek accustomed to Thucydides, Xenophon, and Demosthenes finds it hard to translate the new Greek phrases made necessary in King Philip's army. The elaborateness of modern times seems to come upon us suddenly. We find Guards, Horse-Guards, Foot-Guards, the King's own Body-Guard, the Vanguard, the King's Horse, the Cavalry, Equestrian Tetrarchies, the Agema (which may seem to be the Gros, whether of an army or of each brigade), the Horse Darters, the Lancers, the Horse Archers, the Archers, the Forerunners (or Scouts?), besides all the Infantry common in Greece; and an apparatus for sieges, such as the old Assyrians and Egyptians display to us in sculpture and painting. The history of the transmission of this art is curious. We have no reason for supposing that the Persians ever used its higher mechanism, but the Phœnicians carried the knowledge of it to Carthage. The Carthaginians practised it elaborately in some of their Sicilian wars, and from them Dionysius of Syracuse learned it. Philip II. of Macedon is said to have imported it into Greece from Dionysius; but his temperament was adverse to the use of force where bribery could effect his object. To him is imputed the saying, that he deemed no fortress to be impregnable if an ass laden with gold could climb up to the gate. He must have incorporated with his army sappers and miners, and men furnished with engines and ladders, skilled also in ex tempore construction; for in his son's campaigns these agencies come forth whenever they are wanted. It is quite unexplained how in his rapid marches through mountainous countries (as Caubul) he could carry with him huge machines that rained arrows on an enemy from a distance farther than a human arm could send them. The speed with which his engineers make bridges to cross rivers, even the great river Indus, takes one quite by surprise. Long skill and training is here presupposed. Under Alexander's successors the engines of siege attain a magnitude and importance previously unparalleled. Philip disciplined every class of troops to its own work, and from Thrace and Thessaly had men and horses beyond any previous Greek potentate. Greece had been accustomed to admire Spartan discipline; but Spartan troops were nearly all of one kind, heavy infantry. They had scarcely any cavalry, and, with all their solid armour, were unable to stand against arrows, or even against slingers and darters. Before walls or ditches they were helpless. Yet Agesilaus had not found the Persians formidable. He never encountered such clouds of arrows as Mardonius showered on the Spartans at Platæa; hence in general the Greeks feared Greek mercenaries fighting on the side of Persia far more than they feared Persians. Every Macedonian captain knew so well the superiority of a Macedonian army, that they counted on victory if only they could meet the foe in the field, whether a Philip, a Parmenio, or an Antipater was to be the general. This must be remembered in estimating Alexander's victories.

Plutarch, desirous of exalting Alexander, makes much of his boyish utterances, among which is one of jealousy against his father for too great success. "Why, boys," said he, "my father will leave nothing to conquer." Everything which is told of him by his panegryists points to the same intense egotism. To be a conqueror greater than his father, and to be a fighter equal to Achilles, and if possible to be celebrated by a poet as noble as Homer, was his ardent and constant aspiration. Alexander himself told 