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The Anabasis of Alexander.

the place where they were posted was able to contain only this number in a single phalanx.^[1] He also posted 20,000 men near the mountain on their left and facing Alexander's right. Some of these troops were also in the rear of Alexander's army; for the mountain near which they were posted in one part sloped a great way back and formed a sort of bay, like a bay in the sea, and afterwards bending forwards caused the men who had been posted at the foot of it to be behind Alexander's right wing. The remaining multitude of Darius's light-armed and heavy-armed infantry was marshalled by nations to an unserviceable depth and placed behind the Grecian mercenaries and the Persian army arranged in phalanx. The whole of the army with Darius was said to number about 600,000 fighting men.^[2]

As Alexander advanced, he found that the ground spread out a little in breadth, and he accordingly brought up his horsemen, both those called Companions, and the Thessalians as well as the Macedonians, and posted them with himself on the right wing. The Peloponnesians and the rest of the allied force of Greeks he sent to

enumerates 90,000 heavy-armed, not including the cavalry. Yet Polybius tries to prove that there was not room even for the 60,000 troops mentioned by Callisthenes,

↑ "The depth of this single phalanx is not given, nor do we know the exact width of the ground which it occupied. Assuming a depth of sixteen, and one pace in breadth to each soldier, 4,000 men would stand in the breadth of a stadium of 250 paces; and therefore 80,000 men in a breadth of twenty stadia. Assuming a depth of twenty-six, 6,500 men would stand in the breadth of the stadium, and therefore 90,000 in a total breadth of 14 stadia, which is that given by Kallisthenes. Mr. Kinneir states that the breadth between Mount Amanus and the sea varies between one and a half mile and three miles."—Grote.
↑ Diodorus (xvii. 31), and Plutarch (Alex., 18), give the same number; but Justin (xi. 9) says the Persians numbered 400,000 infantry and 100,000 cavalry. It took five days for them to cross the Euphrates, over bridges of boats (Curtius, iii. 17). The money alone of the king required 600 mules and 300 camels to convey it (Curtius, iii. 8).

[1] "The depth of this single phalanx is not given, nor do we know the exact width of the ground which it occupied. Assuming a depth of sixteen, and one pace in breadth to each soldier, 4,000 men would stand in the breadth of a stadium of 250 paces; and therefore 80,000 men in a breadth of twenty stadia. Assuming a depth of twenty-six, 6,500 men would stand in the breadth of the stadium, and therefore 90,000 in a total breadth of 14 stadia, which is that given by Kallisthenes. Mr. Kinneir states that the breadth between Mount Amanus and the sea varies between one and a half mile and three miles."—Grote.

[2] Diodorus (xvii. 31), and Plutarch (Alex., 18), give the same number; but Justin (xi. 9) says the Persians numbered 400,000 infantry and 100,000 cavalry. It took five days for them to cross the Euphrates, over bridges of boats (Curtius, iii. 17). The money alone of the king required 600 mules and 300 camels to convey it (Curtius, iii. 8).

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