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The passage of the Hellespont; the forcing of the Granicus; the winter spent in a political organization of conquered Asia Minor; the march of the right wing and centre of the army along the Syrian Mediterranean coast; the engineering difficulties overcome at the siege of Tyre; the storming of Gaza; the isolation of Persia from Greece; the absolute exclusion of her navy from the Mediterranean; the check on all her attempts at intriguing with or bribing Athenians or Spartans, heretofore so often resorted to with success; the submission of Egypt; another winter spent in the political organization of that venerable country; the convergence of the whole army from the Black and Red Seas toward the nitre-covered plains of Mesopotamia in the ensuing spring; the passage of the Euphrates fringed with its weeping-willows at the broken bridge of Thapsacus; the crossing of the Tigris; the nocturnal reconnaissance before the great and memorable battle of Arbela; the oblique movement on the field; the piercing of the enemy's centre a manoeuvre destined to be repeated many centuries subsequently at Austerlitz; the energetic pursuit of the Persian monarch; these are exploits not surpassed by any soldier of later times.
Ancient times involuntarily rush back upon us, recalling the youthful Conqueror of Macedon, who, radiant with the triple glories of the Granicus, of Issus, and of Arbela, vanquished Porus at the Hydaspes, and paused in his career, with a sigh, not far from the banks of the Sutlej. He was wont, and justly, to attribute his Asiatic triumphs to his faithful Macedonians.
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