Here were the Illyrians, joined with the mercenary soldiers, and there he had also posted the light-armed Thracians. And by his dispositions he made his army so mobile that those who stood in the rear to prevent encirclement could nevertheless, by a turning movement, be brought round to the front. Therefore the front was not better protected than the flanks, nor the flanks than the rear.
When the army was thus arranged, he warned them, in case the enemy should make a great uproar as they sent forth their scythe-bearing chariots, to receive them in silence as they rushed upon them, and open their ranks (he had no doubt that they would pass through without doing harm, if no one opposed them) but if they sent them forth without noise, they themselves were to terrify them by shouting and with their javelins stab the frightened horses from both sides at once. Those who commanded the wings were ordered to extend them in such a way that they might neither be surrounded by standing too close together, nor yet make the rear ranks so thin as to be ineffective. The baggage with the prisoners, among whom the mother and children of Darius were guarded, he placed not far from the field of battle upon a high hill, leaving a guard of moderate size. The left wing, as at other times, was given in charge to Parmenion, the king himself took his place on the right.
Not yet had they come within spear-range, when one Bion, a deserter, with all possible speed came to Alexander, reporting that Darius had spread iron caltrops planted in the ground over which he believed that his enemy would send forth his cavalry, and that the place had been marked by a clear sign, in order that the device might be avoided by his own men. Alexander, after giving orders that the deserter should be guarded, called together his generals, and explaining what had been told, warned them to avoid the part which had been designated, and to inform the horsemen of the danger.
But when he began to encourage the army, they could not hear him, since the noise made by the two forces deafened them, but in the sight of all riding about among his generals and those who were nearest to him, he addressed them as follows: XIV. that after having traversed so many lands in the hope of the victory for which they must fight this one contest was left them. He recalled the Granicus River, the mountains of Cilicia, and Syria and Egypt, seized as they passed through, as great incentives to hope and glory. The Persians, recalled from flight, would fight only because they could not run away. It was now the third day that pallid with fear and burdened by their arms they had remained fixed in the same spot. There was no surer sign of their desperation than that they were burning their cities and their fields, thereby having admitted that whatever they had not ruined belonged to the enemy. They must not fear the merely meaningless names of unknown nations; for it had nothing to do with the result of the war who of their number were called Scythians or who Cadusians. For the very reason that they were unknown they were unrenowned; brave men were never unknown, but cowards dug out from their lurking places brought with them nothing but mere names. The Macedonians owed it to their valour that there was no place in the whole world that was unacquainted with such men.
Let them but look at the heterogeneous army of the barbarians; one had nothing but a javelin, another hurled stones from a sling, few had regular arms. Hence on their side more men stand, on our side more will fight. Nor did he demand that they should enter battle bravely unless he himself should set an example to the rest in valour; that he would fight before the foremost standards. Many scars — as so many ornaments to his body — were a warrant on his behalf; they themselves knew that he, almost alone, had no share in the common booty, but used the rewards of victory in honouring and enriching them. That these words he addressed to brave men; if there were any who were not of that kind, to them he would have said this: that they had come to a place from which they could not flee. That after traversing so many spacious lands, after so many rivers and mountains had been left in their way behind, they must make the journey to their native land and their homes by main force.
Thus the leaders, thus the nearest of the soldiers were inspired.
Darius was on his left wing, closely surrounded by a great throng of his men, the elite of his infantry and cavalry, and he had scorned the enemy’s small numbers, thinking that the extension of their wings made their battle-line weak. Then, standing aloft, as he did, in his chariot, and turning his eyes and stretching out his hands right and left to the troops who stood about him, he said: “We, a short time since lords of the lands which on one side the Ocean laves, on the other the Hellespont embraces, must now fight, not for glory, but for life, and for what you [10] value higher than life, for freedom; this day will establish or end the greatest empire any age has seen. At the Granicus, we fought against the enemy with a very small part of our strength; in Cilicia, Syria could receive us in case we were defeated, and the Tigris and the Euphrates were mighty bulwarks of [11] our realm. We have come to the place where, if we are worsted, there is no room even for flight. Everything behind us has been consumed by so long a war; the cities do not have their inhabitants, the fields have no labourers. Our wives also and our children follow this army, an easy prey for the enemy unless we oppose our bodies in defence of our dearest pledges.
“So far as my duty is concerned, I have assembled an army which this almost boundless plain can hardly contain, I have distributed men and horses, I have seen to it that so vast a multitude may not lack supplies, I have chosen a place in which our army [13] can deploy. The rest is in your power; only have courage to conquer, and scorn mere reputation, the weakest of weapons against brave men. What you have heretofore feared as valour is rashness; and when this has spent its first attack, it becomes weak, like some insects when they have ejected their sting.
Moreover these plains have betrayed their small numbers, which the mountains of Cilicia had hidden. You see their thin ranks, their extended wings, their drained centre; for those in the rear, whom he has faced outwards, are already turning their backs. They can be trampled down, by Heaven!, by the hooves of our horses, even if I send forth nothing but [15] scythe-bearing chariots. And we shall have won the war, if we win the battle. For they too have no opportunity for flight; on the one side the Euphrates, on the other the Tigris hems them in and checks them.
“Furthermore, what was before in their favour, is now changed to the opposite. Our army is easily moved and unencumbered, theirs is laden with plunder. Therefore, hampered as they are by spoils taken from us, we shall cut them to pieces, and the same thing will be the cause and the fruit of our victory. But if the name of their nation affects any one of you, let him bear in mind that the arms of the Macedonians are there, but not their bodies. For we in our turn have drained plenteous blood, and loss is always more serious in small numbers. As to Alexander, however great he may seem to the wavering and timid, he is but a single mortal, and if you have any belief in me, a rash and mad one, as yet more fortunate because of our fear of him than because of his own valour. But nothing can be lasting which is not supported by reason. Although the breeze of good luck may seem to blow, yet in the long run it is not sufficient support for rashness. Moreover, the vicissitudes of life are short and inconstant, and Fortune never shows indulgence without reserve.
Perhaps the gods have so directed the course of the fates, that the empire of the Persians, which in a successful career of 230 years they had raised to the highest pinnacle, they might smite with a mighty shock merely and not lay it low, and that they might thus remind us of human frailty which is too often forgotten amid prosperity. Not long ago we were waging an offensive war against the Greeks, now in our own lands we are resisting a war brought upon us. We in our turn are victims of Fortune’s changes; of course this empire, since we both aspire to it, is too large for one nation to occupy!
“But even if hope were lost, yet necessity ought to spur us on. We have come to our extremest danger. My mother, two daughters, Ochus, born to the hope of this empire, our nobles, that offspring of royal stock, your leaders, he holds prisoners, like so many criminals. Unless there is some help
in you, I am captive in my greater part. Rescue my flesh and blood from bonds; restore to me my dear ones, mother and children, for whom you yourselves do not refuse to die; as for my wife, I have lost her in that prison house. Believe that all these are now stretching out their arms to you, are imploring the gods of our fatherland, are demanding your aid, your pity, your loyalty, to free them from fetters, from slavery, from the dole of beggary. Or do you believe that they serve with calmness those whose rulers they disdain to be?
“I see the enemies’ line advancing; but the nearer I come to the crisis, the less content can I be with the words which I have spoken. I conjure you by the gods of our fatherland, by the eternal fire which is carried before me on altars, by the radiance of the sun whose rising is within the confines of my realm, by the immortal memory of Cyrus, who was the first to take this empire from the Medes and Lydians and brought it to Persia, save the name and nation of the Persians from utter disgrace. Onward! full of vigour and confidence, to leave to posterity the glory which you received from your ancestors. In your right hands you now carry freedom, power, hope for the future. Whoso has scorned death has escaped it; every coward it overtakes. I myself, not only because it is my country’s custom, but also that I may be seen of all, ride in a chariot, and you have my permission to imitate me whether I prove to set an example of courage or of cowardice.”
XV. Meanwhile Alexander, both in order to pass around the place of the snares pointed out by the deserter, and also to encounter Darius, who was guarding one wing, ordered his army to charge on a slant. Darius also turned his army in the same direction, having ordered Bessus to command the horsemen of the Massagetae to charge Alexander’s left wing on its flank. Darius himself had before him the scythe-bearing chariots, all of which on a given signal he poured upon the enemy. The charioteers drove on at full speed, in order to trample down greater numbers by a surprise attack. Therefore some were cut to pieces by the spears that projected far in advance of the pole, others by the scythes that pointed downward on both sides. And the Macedonians did not give ground gradually, but in scattered flight had thrown their ranks into disorder.
Mazaeus also struck them with fear in their panic by ordering his 1000 cavalry to wheel about, in order to plunder the enemy’s baggage, thinking that the prisoners also who were being guarded would break their bonds, when they saw their countrymen approaching.
This move had not escaped the notice of Parmenion, who was on the left wing; therefore he hastily sent Polydamas to the king, both to notify him of the danger and to ask what he ordered to be done.
Alexander on hearing Polydamas said: “Go, report to Parmenion, that if we win the battle, we shall not only recover our own property, but shall seize what belongs to the enemy. Therefore there is no need for him to lead off any of his forces from the battleline, but, as is worthy of me and of my father Philip, let him scorn the loss of our packs and fight valiantly.”
Meanwhile the barbarians had ransacked the baggage, and when many of the guards had been killed, the prisoners, freed from their bonds, seized whatever was at hand with which they could arm themselves, and having joined forces with the horsemen of their countrymen, fell upon the Macedonians, who were thus surrounded by a double danger.
Filled with joy, the attendants upon Sisigambis reported that Darius had won, that the enemy had been overthrown with great bloodshed, and finally had even been stripped of their baggage; for they believed that the fortune of the battle was the same everywhere, and that the victorious Persians had dispersed to pillage. Sisigambis, when the prisoners urged her to free her mind from sorrow, remained in the same attitude as before. Not a word escaped her, neither her colour nor her expression changed; she sat unmoved — fearing, I suppose, by premature rejoicing to offend Fortune — , so much so that those who looked upon her were uncertain what her inclination was.
Meanwhile Menidas, Alexander’s commander of cavalry, had come with a few squadrons to defend the baggage — whether on his own initiative or by the king’s order is uncertain — , but he could not sustain the attack of the Cadusians and Scythians; for with hardly any attempt at battle he fled back to the king, a witness to the loss of the baggage and not [13] its rescuer. Already Alexander’s resentment had changed his plan of action, and he feared with some reason that anxiety to recover their property might turn his soldiers from fighting; therefore he sent Aretes, leader of the lancers — they call them sarisophori — against the Scythians. Meanwhile the chariots, which in the neighbourhood of the leading standards had thrown the army into confusion, had charged upon the phalanx; the Macedonians with steady courage received them into the midst of their column. Their line was like a rampart; they had made a continuous row of spears together, and on both sides stabbed the flanks of the horses, as these rushed recklessly upon them. Then they began to encircle the chariots also and to hurl those who fought in them to the ground. The great overthrow of horses and charioteers had filled the field of battle; the charioteers could not control their frightened horses, which by repeated tossing of their necks had not only thrown off their yokes, but had even overturned the chariots; when wounded, they dragged along the dead, and were unable to stop through terror or to advance through weakness. Yet a few chariots-and-four made their way through to the rear, destroying those whom they met by a wretched death; for the severed limbs of men lay upon the ground, and since there was no pain while their wounds were still warm, maimed and weak though they were, some did not drop their weapons until they fell on their faces, dead from great loss of blood.
Meanwhile Aretes, having slain the leader of the Scythians who were plundering the baggage, was attacking them the more violently in their terror. Then the Bactriani came up, sent by Darius, and changed the fortune of the battle. Accordingly, many of the Macedonians were overwhelmed at the first shock, still more fled back to Alexander. Then the Persians, raising a shout such as victors are wont to utter, charged proudly upon the enemy, thinking that they had everywhere been put to flight. Alexander rebuked his frightened men, encouraged them, and single-handed gave fire to the battle, which had already slackened; and having at last restored their — courage, he bade them charge the enemy. The Persian force was weaker on the right wing; for the Bactriani had withdrawn from there to attack the baggage. Alexander therefore attacked their thinned ranks and penetrated them with great slaughter of the enemy.
But the Persians who were on the left of the wing, hoping that he could be surrounded, opposed their force to the rear of the embattled king; and caught between the two bands, he would have incurred extreme peril, had not the cavalry of the Agriani put spurs to their horses and attacked the barbarians thronging about him, and by slashing at their backs compelled them to turn and face them. Both armies were confused. Alexander had the enemy both in front and behind him. Those who were assailing him from behind were themselves hard pressed by the cavalry of the Agriani. The Bactriani, returning after plundering the enemies’ baggage, could not reform their ranks; many bands of troops at the same time, detached from the rest, were fighting wherever chance had brought them together. The two kings, whose forces were almost joined as one, had given impetus to the contest. More of the Persians were falling; the number of wounded was about equal on both sides.
Darius rode in his chariot, Alexander on horseback. Both were defended by elite troops, regardless of their lives; for if their king were lost they did not wish to be saved, nor could they be. Each man thought it glorious to meet death before the eyes of his king. Yet those experienced the greatest danger whom their men were most resolutely defending; for every man was seeking for himself the glory of slaying a king.
Now, whether it was an optical illusion or a reality, those who were around Alexander believed that they saw a little above the king’s head an eagle quietly flying, not terrified by the clash of arms, not by the groans of the dying, and for a long time it appeared around Alexander’s horse, seeming rather to float in the air than to fly. Certain it is that the seer Aristander,
clad in a white robe and displaying a laurel wreath in his right hand, kept pointing out a bird to the soldiers, who were intent upon fighting, as a sure omen of victory. As a result, immense eagerness and confidence roused to battle those who shortly before were in terror, and especially so after Darius’ charioteer, who sat in front of the king himself and guided his horses, was run through by a spear. And neither the Persians nor the Macedonians had any [29] doubt that the king himself had been slain. Therefore the courtiers and guards of Darius with mournful wailing and a medley of shouts and groans threw into confusion almost the entire line of those who were still fighting on equal terms. And the left wing had abandoned the chariot for headlong flight, and the close ranks on the right received it into the midst of their array.
[30] It is said that Darius, drawn scimitar in hand, hesitated whether to avoid the disgrace of flight by an honourable death; but standing as he was high in his chariot, he blushed to abandon the battle-line of his subjects, who were not yet all leaving the field, and while he wavered between hope and despair, the Persians gradually gave ground and opened their ranks. Alexander, having changed his horse — for he had tired out several — was stabbing at the faces of those who stood their ground, the backs of those who fled. And already it had ceased to be a battle and become a massacre, when Darius also turned his chariot to flee. The victor was close upon the backs of the fugitives, but the cloud of dust which rose to the sky had made it impossible to see; therefore they wandered as if in the darkness of night, ever and anon coming together at the sound of a familiar voice or in response to a signal. Yet they made out the noise of the reins by which the horses which drew the chariot were constantly lashed; these were the only traces of the fleeing king that they had.
Delphi Complete Works of Quintus Curtius Rufus Page 16