CHAPTER I.

DEATH OF PHILIP AND ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER.—HIS WARS WITH THE

THRACIANS.

It is said that Philip died[14] when Pythodemus was archon at

Athens,[15] and that his son Alexander,[16] being then about twenty

years of age, marched into Peloponnesus[17] as soon as he had secured

the regal power. There he assembled all the Greeks who were within the

limits of Peloponnesus,[18] and asked from them the supreme command of

the expedition against the Persians, an office which they had already

conferred upon Philip. He received the honour which he asked from all

except the Lacedaemonians,[19] who replied that it was an hereditary

custom of theirs, not to follow others but to lead them. The Athenians

also attempted to bring about some political change; but they were

so alarmed at the very approach of Alexander, that they conceded to

him even more ample public honours than those which had been bestowed

upon Philip.[20] He then returned into Macedonia and busied himself in

preparing for the expedition into Asia.

However, at the approach of spring (B.C. 335), he marched towards

Thrace, into the lands of the Triballians and Illyrians,[21] because

he ascertained that these nations were meditating a change of policy;

and at the same time, as they were lying on his frontier, he thought

it inexpedient, when he was about to start on a campaign so far away

from his own land, to leave them behind him without being entirely

subjugated. Setting out then from Amphipolis, he invaded the land of

the people who were called independent Thracians,[22] keeping the

city of Philippi and mount Orbelus on the left. Crossing the river

Nessus,[23] they say he arrived at mount Haemus[24] on the tenth day.

Here, along the defiles up the ascent to the mountain, he was met by

many of the traders equipped with arms, as well as by the independent

Thracians, who had made preparations to check the further advance of

his expedition by seizing the summit of the Haemus, along which was the

route for the passage of his army. They had collected their waggons,

and placed them in front of them, not only using them as a rampart

from which they might defend themselves, in case they should be forced

back, but also intending to let them loose upon the phalanx of the

Macedonians, where the mountain was most precipitous, if they tried to

ascend. They had come to the conclusion[25] that the denser the phalanx

was with which the waggons rushing down came into collision, the more

easily would they scatter it by the violence of their fall upon it.

But Alexander formed a plan by which he might cross the mountain with

the least danger possible; and since he was resolved to run all risks,

knowing that there were no means of passing elsewhere, he ordered the

heavy-armed soldiers, as soon as the waggons began to rush down the

declivity, to open their ranks, and directed that those whom the road

was sufficiently wide to permit to do so should stand apart, so that

the waggons might roll through the gap; but that those who were hemmed

in on all sides should either stoop down together or even fall flat

on the ground, and lock their shields compactly together, so that the

waggons rushing down upon them, and in all probability by their very

impetus leaping over them, might pass on without injuring them. And it

turned out just as Alexander had conjectured and exhorted. For some

of the men made gaps in the phalanx, and others locked their shields

together. The waggons rolled over the shields without doing much

injury, not a single man being killed under them. Then the Macedonians

regained their courage, inasmuch as the waggons, which they had

excessively dreaded, had inflicted no damage upon them. With a loud

cry they assaulted the Thracians. Alexander ordered his archers to

march from the right wing in front of the rest of the phalanx, because

there the passage was easier, and to shoot at the Thracians where they

advanced. He himself took his own guard, the shield-bearing infantry

and the Agrianians,[26] and led them to the left. Then the archers

shot at the Thracians who sallied forward, and repulsed them; and

the phalanx, coming to close fighting, easily drove away from their

position men who were light-armed and badly equipped barbarians. The

consequence was, they no longer waited to receive Alexander marching

against them from the left, but casting away their arms they fled down

the mountain as each man best could. About 1,500 of them were killed;

but only a few were taken prisoners on account of their swiftness of

foot and acquaintance with the country. However, all the women who were

accompanying them were captured, as were also their children and all

their booty.