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Updated: May 17, 2025
Darius had thrown 30,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry across the river, to check the advance of the Macedonians; whilst on the right bank were drawn up his choicest Persian troops to the number of 60,000, together with 30,000 Greek mercenaries, who formed the centre, and on whom he chiefly relied. These, it appears, were all that the breadth of the plain allowed to be drawn up in line.
It is worth while to consider at some length the peculiarities of that military system which proved itself superior to the organization of the Macedonians, and able to maintain for nearly three hundred years a doubtful contest with the otherwise irresistible Romans. We are told that the Parthians had no standing army.
For if it is not dishonorable for the race of Hercules to serve the successors of Philip and Alexander, we shall save a long voyage by delivering ourselves up to Antigonus, who, probably, is as much better than Ptolemy, as the Macedonians are better than the Egyptians; but if we think it mean to submit to those whose arms have conquered us, why should we choose him for our master, by whom we have not yet been beaten?
On reaching their provinces, the Greek soldiers, whether Spartans or Athenians, forgetting the glories of Thermopylæ and Marathon, and proud of their wider conquests under the late king, always called themselves Macedonians.
To the townspeople life and liberty were immediately granted; and it was ordered, that the Macedonians should pay a ransom of three hundred drachmas a head, deliver up their arms, and quit the country. After being ransomed for the said amount, they were transported, unarmed, to Boeotia.
Even at home, Olympias and Cleopatra had raised a faction against Antipater, and divided his government between them, Olympias seizing upon Epirus, and Cleopatra upon Macedonia. When Alexander was told of it, he said his mother had made the best choice, for the Macedonians would never endure to be ruled by a woman.
XV. Philopœmen gained so much glory by these exploits, and was so much honoured by the Greeks wherever he appeared in public, that he roused the jealousy of Flamininus, who thought that he, a consul of Rome, was worthier of respect than a mere Arcadian, while he had moreover done much more for Greece, having by one proclamation restored those liberties of which Philip and his Macedonians had deprived it.
Callisthenes presently obeyed him, retracting all he had said before, and, inveighing against the Macedonians with great freedom, added, that Philip thrived and grew powerful, chiefly by the discord of the Grecians, applying this verse to him: In civil strife e'en villains rise to fame; which so offended the Macedonians, that he was odious to them ever after.
It is strange that Philip did not try, like Hannibal, to organize his army after the Roman fashion; but we can understand it when we recollect the value which the Macedonians set upon their phalanx, often conquered, but still withal believed to be invincible.
What she said was received with such universal liking and murmurs of applause, and so seconded by the encouragement and eagerness of the company, that the king himself, persuaded to be of the party, started from his seat, and with a chaplet of flowers on his head, and a lighted torch in his hand, led them the way, while they went after him in a riotous manner, dancing and making loud cries about the place; which when the rest of the Macedonians perceived, they also in great delight ran thither with torches; for they hoped the burning and destruction of the royal palace was an argument that he looked homeward, and had no design to reside among the barbarians.
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