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Updated: May 27, 2025
Here Cyrus was further re-enforced, making the grand total of Greeks in his army fourteen thousand. He then proceeded south to Myriandus, a Phœnician maritime town, where he parted from his fleet. Eight days’ march brought his army to Thapsacus, on the Euphrates, where he remained five days to refresh his troops.
The inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary passage of the bridge of Thapsacus.
They did the same in the West, because the inhabitants of that quarter, if left to themselves, would have passed their time in endless quarrels. The old world abounded in great cities, all of which owned the supremacy of Rome, from Gades to Thapsacus; and in modern India the most venerable places are compelled to bow before the upstart Calcutta.
A little before the end of August, Alexander crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus, a small corps of Persian cavalry under Mazaeus retiring before him.
Here his admiral, Nearchus, came to him and delighted him so with the narrative of his voyage, that he resolved himself to sail out of the mouth of Euphrates with a great fleet, with which he designed to go round by Arabia and Africa, and so by Hercules's Pillars into the Mediterranean; in order for which, he directed all sorts of vessels to be built at Thapsacus, and made great provision everywhere of seamen and pilots.
Accordingly the army resumed their forward movement, following the trend of the coast round the Gulf of Issus, and then striking southeasterly again, until some time in the summer they reached and crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus. From that point they marched down the left bank of the river, through the hilly desert of Arabia, toward the great city of Babylon.
At Thapsacus there was little difficulty in persuading the Greeks, who had no longer the sea before their eyes, to continue the march; they only stipulated for a further increase of pay, which was readily promised them by the sanguine prince, who believed himself on the point of obtaining by their aid the inexhaustible treasures of the Empire.
Other regiments of regular cavalry were less heavily armed, and there were several bodies of light-horsemen, whom Alexander's conquests in Egypt and Syria had enabled him to mount superbly. A little before the end of August, Alexander crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus, a small corps of Persian cavalry under Mazaeus retiring before him.
He built the city of Palmyra around one of the principal wells of the East, so that all the long trains of merchandise from the East were obliged to stop there, pay toll, and leave part of their wealth in the hands of Solomon's merchants. He manned the fortress Thapsacus at the chief ford of the Euphrates, and put under guard everything that passed there.
Similarly, Babylonian and Susianian productions, together with the commodities which either or both of those countries imported by sea, would find their way into Assyria up the courses of the two streams, which were navigated by vessels capable of stemming the force of the current, at least as high as Opis and Thapsacus.
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