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Updated: May 7, 2025
It is in such traits as these that the true greatness of the soul of Alexander shines. It must be remembered that all this time he was but little more than twenty-one. He was but just of age. From his encampment on the Granicus Alexander turned to the southward, and moved along on the eastern shores of the Ægean Sea. The country generally surrendered to him without opposition.
The Granicus had been fought by his generals rashly and without mutual concert; and, though Darius himself had commanded and been beaten at Issus, that defeat might be attributed to the disadvantageous nature of the ground, where, cooped up between the mountains, the river, and the sea, the numbers of the Persians confused and clogged alike the general's skill and the soldiers' prowess, and their very strength had been made their weakness.
The opinion of my divinity assisted my arms and subdued all nations before me, from the Granicus to the Ganges. But though I called myself the son of Jupiter, and kept up the veneration that name inspired, by a courage which seemed more than human, and by the sublime magnanimity of all my behaviour, I did not forget that I was the son of Philip.
Crossing the Hellespont into Asia Minor with a small but well equipped and disciplined army, he advanced unopposed until he reached the river Granicus, where he found himself confronted with a Persian host. Upon this army he inflicted a defeat so signal as to bring at once to submission nearly the whole of Asia Minor.
Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation; if the spectator can be once persuaded, that his old acquaintance are Alexander and Caesar, that a room illuminated with candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the bank of Granicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason, or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry, may despise the circumscriptions of terrestrial nature.
Enough has been said with reference to the strategical considerations influencing the selection of the point of crossing a river. We will now proceed to speak of the passage itself. History is the best school in which to study the measures likely to insure the success of such operations. The ancients deemed the passage of the Granicus which is a small stream a wonderful exploit.
In the meantime Darius's captains having collected large forces, were encamped on the further bank of the river Granicus, and it was necessary to fight, as it were, in the gate of Asia for an entrance into it. And when Parmenio advised him not to attempt anything that day, because it was late, he told him that he should disgrace the Hellespont, should he fear the Granicus.
After the Impregnable, the frigates suffered the most, particularly the Granicus, which took a line-of-battle ship's station; and the Leander, which was much cut up by the Fish-market and other batteries, and as late as seven o'clock was obliged to carry out a hawser to the Severn, to enable her to bear her broadside upon one which annoyed her.
The ravines were in places choked with the dead bodies, and Ptolemy the son of Lagus related that in one instance he and Alexander crossed a gully on a bridge of this kind. Among the slain were Sabaces, satrap of Egypt, Bubaces, a noble of high rank, and Arsames, Rheomithres, and Atizyes, three of the commanders at the Granicus. Forty thousand prisoners were made.
On another occasion Alexander, just before he passed the river Granicus, observing the circumstance of time, which was the month Desius, reckoned unfortunate to the Macedonians from all antiquity, it made the soldiers melancholy; he immediately ordered this dangerous month to be called by the name of that which preceded it, well knowing what power and influence vain religious scruples have over little and ignorant minds.
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