Historical Tales Volume X Part 20

The temple of Apollo at Delphi had long been held so inviolate that it became a rich reservoir of treasures, gathered throughout the centuries.

Croesus, the rich king of Lydia, sent thither the overflow of his wealth, and hundreds of others paid liberally for the promises of the priestess, until the treasures of Delphi became a by-word in Greece.

This vast wealth was felt to be safe. The G.o.d would protect his own.

Men's voices were deep with awe when they told how the wrath of Apollo had overthrown the Persian robbers who sought to rifle his holy fane.

And yet the time came when a horde of bandit Greeks made the temple their prey and the hand of the G.o.d was not lifted in its defence, nor did outraged Greece rise to punish the sacrilegious robbers. This is the tale that we have next to tell, that of the so-called Sacred War, with all it meant to Greece.

There was a great Greek council, centuries old, called the Amphictyonic. It met twice every year, usually for religious purposes, rarely for political. But in the time we have now reached this Amphictyonic Council ventured to meddle in politics, and made mischief of the direst character. Its first political act was to fine Sparta five hundred talents for seizing the citadel of Thebes in times of peace. The fine was to be doubled if not paid within a certain time. But as Sparta sneered at the fine, and neither paid it nor its double, the action of the council proved of little avail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BED OF THE RIVER KLADEOS.]

This was of small importance; it was to the next act of the council that the mischief was due. The people of the small state of Phocis, adjoining Delphi, had been accused of cultivating a part of the Cirrhaean plain, which was consecrated to Apollo. This charge, like the former, was brought by Thebes, and the Amphictyonic Council, having fined Sparta, now, under Theban influence, laid a fine on the Phocians so heavy that it was far beyond their means of payment. But Sparta had not paid; why should they? The sentence troubled them little.

At the next meeting of the council severer measures were taken. Sparta was strong; Phocis weak. It was resolved to seize all its territory and consecrate it to Apollo. This unjust sentence roused the Phocians. A bold citizen, Philomelus by name, told them that they must now face war or ruin. The district of Delphi had once been theirs, and had been taken from them wrongfully. "Let us a.s.sert our lost rights and seize the temple," he said. "The Thebans want it; let us antic.i.p.ate them and take back our own."

His words took fire. A strong force was raised, the town and temple were attacked, and both, being practically undefended, were quickly captured.

Phocis had regained her own, for Delphi had been taken from her during an older "Sacred War."

Philomelus now announced that the temple and its oracles would not be meddled with. Its treasures would be safe. Visitors would be free to come and go. He would give any security that Greece required that the wealth of Apollo should be safe and all go on as before. But he fortified the town, and invited mercenary soldiers till he had an army of five thousand men. As for the priestess of Apollo, from whose lips the oracles came, he demanded that she should continue to be inspired as before, and should give an oracle in his favor. The priestess refused; whereupon he seized her and sought to drag her to the holy tripod on which she was accustomed to sit. The woman, scared by his violence, cried out, "You may do what you choose!"

Philomelus at once proclaimed this as an oracle in his favor, and published it widely. And it is interesting to learn that many of the superst.i.tious Greeks took his word for it. He certainly took the word of the priestess,--for he did what he chose.

War at once began. Many of the Greek states rose at the call of the condemned Amphictyonic Council. The Phocians were in imminent peril.

They were far from strong enough for the war they had invoked. Mercenary troops--"soldiers of fortune"--must be hired; and to hire them money must be had. The citizens of Delphi had already been taxed; the Phocian treasury was empty; where was money to be obtained?

Philomelus settled this question by _borrowing_, with great reluctance, a sum from the temple treasures,--to be paid back as soon as possible.

But as the war went on and more money was needed, he borrowed again and again,--now without reluctance. And the practice of robbery once started, he not only paid his troops, but enriched his friends and adorned his wife from Apollo's h.o.a.rded wealth.

By this means Philomelus got together an army of ten thousand men,--reckless, dissolute characters, the impious sc.u.m of Greece, for no pious Greek would enlist in such a cause. The war was ferocious. The allies put their prisoners to death. Philomelus followed their example.

This was a losing game, and both sides gave it up. At length Philomelus and his army were caught in an awkward position, the army was dispersed, and he driven to the verge of a precipice, where he must choose between captivity or death. He chose the latter and leaped from the beetling crags.

The Thebans and their allies foolishly believed that with the death of Philomelus the war was at an end, and marched for their homes.

Onomarchus, another Phocian leader, took the opportunity thus afforded to gather the scattered army together again, seized the temple once more, and stood in defiance of all his foes.

In addition to gold and silver, the treasury contained many gifts in bra.s.s and iron. The precious metals were melted and converted into money; of the baser metals arms were made. Onomarchus went farther than Philomelus; he not only paid his troops with the treasure, but bribed the leaders of Grecian states, and thus gained powerful friends. He was soon successfully at war, drove back his foes, and pressed his conquests till he had captured Thermopylae and invaded Thessaly.

Here the Phocians came into contact with a foe dangerous to themselves and to all Greece. This foe was the celebrated Philip of Macedonia, a famous soldier who was to play a leading part in the subsequent game. He had long been paving the way to the conquest of Greece, and the Sacred War gave him just the opportunity he wanted.

Macedonia lay north of Greece. Its people were not Greeks, nor like Greeks in their customs. They lived in the country, not in cities, and had little or none of the culture of Greece. But they were the stuff from which good soldiers are made. Hitherto this country had been hardly thought of as an element in the Grecian problem. Its kings were despots who had been kept busy with their foes at home. But now a king had arisen of wider views and larger mould. Philip had spent his youth in Thebes, where he had learned the art of war under Epaminondas. On coming to the throne he quickly proved himself a great soldier and a keen and cunning politician. By dint of war and trickery he rapidly spread his dominions until all his home foes were subdued, Macedonia was greatly extended, and Thessaly, the most northern state of Greece, was overrun.

Therefore the invasion of Thessaly by the Phocians brought them into contact with the Macedonians. At first Onomarchus was successful. He won two battles and drove Philip back to his native state. But another large army was quickly in the field, and this time the army of Onomarchus was utterly beaten and himself slain. As for Philip, although he probably cared not an iota for the Delphian G.o.d, he shrewdly professed to be on a crusade against the impious Phocians, and drowned all his prisoners as guilty of sacrilege.

A third leader, Phayllus by name, now took command of the Phocians, and the temple of Apollo was rifled still more freely than before. The splendid gifts of King Croesus had not yet been touched. They were held too precious to be meddled with. But Phayllus did not hesitate to turn these into money. One hundred and seventeen ingots of gold and three hundred and sixty golden goblets went to the melting-pot, and with them a golden statue three cubits high and a lion of the same precious metal. And what added to the horror of pious Greece was that much of the proceeds of these precious treasures was lavished on favorites. The necklaces of Helen and Eriphyle were given to dissolute women, and a woman flute-player received a silver cup and a golden wreath from the temple h.o.a.rd.

All this gave Philip of Macedonia the desired pretence. He marched against the Phocians, who held Thermopylae, while keeping his Athenian enemies quiet by lies and bribes. The leader of the Phocian garrison, finding that no aid came from the Athenian fleet, surrendered to Philip, and that astute monarch won what he had long schemed for, the Pa.s.s of Thermopylae, the Key of Greece.

The Sacred War was at an end, and with it virtually the independence of Greece. Phocis was in the hands of Philip, who professed more than ever to be the defender and guardian of Apollo. All the towns in Phocis were broken up into villages, and the inhabitants were ordered to be fined ten talents annually till they had paid back all they had stolen from the temple. Philip gave back the temple to the Delphians, and was himself voted into membership in the Amphictyonic a.s.sembly in place of the discarded Phocians. And all this took place while a treaty of peace tied the hands of the Greeks. The Sacred War had served as a splendid pretext to carry out the ambitious plans of the Macedonian king.

We have now a long story to tell in a few words. Another people, the Locrians, had also made an invasion on Delphian territory. The Amphictyonic Council called on Philip to punish them, He at once marched southward, but, instead of meddling with the Locrians, seized and fortified a town in Phocis. At once Athens, full of alarm, declared war, and Philip was as quick to declare war in return. Both sides sought the support of Thebes, and Athens gained it. In August, 338 B.C., the Grecian and Macedonian armies met and fought a decisive battle near Chaeronea, a Boeotian town. In this great contest Alexander the Great took part.

It was a hotly-contested fight, but in the end Philip triumphed, and Greece was lost. Thebes was forced to yield. Athens, to regain the prisoners held by Philip, acknowledged him to be the head of Greece. All the other states did the same except Sparta, which defied him. He ravaged Laconia, but left the city untouched.

Two years afterwards Philip, lord and master of Greece, was a.s.sa.s.sinated at the marriage feast of his daughter. His son Alexander succeeded him.

Here seemed an opportunity for Greece to regain her freedom. This untried young man could surely not retain what his able father had won.

Demosthenes, the celebrated orator, stirred up Athens to revolt. Thebes sprang to arms and attacked the Macedonian garrison in the citadel.

They did not know the man with whom they had to deal. Alexander came upon Thebes like an avalanche, took it by a.s.sault, and sold into slavery all the inhabitants not slain in the a.s.sault. The city was razed to the ground. This terrible example dismayed the rest of Greece.

Submission--with the exception of that of Sparta--was universal. The independence of Greece was at an end. More than two thousand years were to pa.s.s before that country would again be free.

_ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND DARIUS._

In the citadel of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure.

Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the G.o.ds and chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted and entangled that it seemed as if the fingers of the G.o.ds themselves must have tied it, so intricate was it and so impossible, seemingly, to untie.

An oracle had declared that the man who should untie this famous knot would become lord and monarch of all Asia. As may well be imagined, many ambitious men sought to perform the task, but all in vain. The Gordian knot remained tied and Asia unconquered in the year 333 B.C., when Alexander of Macedon, who the year before had invaded Asia, and so far had swept all before him, entered Gordium with his victorious army. As may be surmised, it was not long before he sought the citadel to view this ancient relic, which contained within itself the promise of what he had set out to accomplish. Numbers followed him, Phrygians and Macedonians, curious to see if the subtle knot would yield to his conquering hand, the Macedonians with hope, the Phrygians with doubt.

While the mult.i.tude stood in silent and curious expectation, Alexander closely examined the knot, looking in vain for some beginning or end to its complexity. The thing perplexed him. Was he who had never yet failed in any undertaking to be baffled by this piece of rope, this twisted obstacle in the way of success? At length, with that angry impatience which was a leading element in his character, he drew his sword, and with one vigorous stroke severed the cord in two.

At once a shout went up. The problem was solved; the knot was severed; the genius of Alexander had led him to the only means. He had made good his t.i.tle to the empire of Asia, and was hailed as predestined conqueror by his admiring followers. That night came a storm of thunder and lightning which confirmed the belief, the superst.i.tious Macedonians taking it as the testimony of the G.o.ds that the oracle was fulfilled.

Had there been no Gordian knot and no oracle, Alexander would probably have become lord of the empire of Asia all the same, and this not only because he was the best general of his time and one of the best generals of all time, but for two other excellent reasons. One was that his father, Philip, had bequeathed to him the best army of the age. The Greeks had proved, nearly two centuries before, that their military organization and skill were far superior to those of the Persians.

During the interval there had been no progress in the army of Persia, while Epaminondas had greatly improved the military art in Greece, and Philip of Macedon, his pupil, had made of the Macedonian army a fighting machine such as the world had never before known. This was the army which, with still further improvements, Alexander was leading into Asia to meet the mult.i.tudinous but poorly armed and disciplined Persian host.

The second reason was that Alexander, while the best captain of his age, had opposed to him the worst. It was the misfortune of Persia that a new king, Darius Codomannus by name, had just come to the throne, and was to prove himself utterly incapable of leading an army, unless it was to lead it in flight. It was not only Alexander's great ability, but his marvellous good fortune, which led to his immense success.

The Persians had had a good general in Asia Minor,--Memnon, a Greek of the island of Rhodes. But just at this time this able leader died, and Darius took the command on himself. He could hardly have selected a man from his ranks who would not have made a better commander-in-chief.

Gathering a vast army from his wide-spread dominions, a host six hundred thousand strong, the Persian king marched to meet his foe. He brought with him an enormous weight of baggage, there being enough gold and silver alone to load six hundred mules and three hundred camels; and so confident was he of success that he also brought his mother, wife, and children, and his whole harem, that they might witness his triumph over the insolent Macedonian.

Darius took no steps to guard any of the pa.s.ses of Asia Minor. Why should he seek to keep back this foe, who was marching blindly to his fate? But instead of waiting for Alexander on the plain, where he could have made use of his vast force, he marched into the defile of Issus, where there was only a mile and a half of open ground between the mountains and the sea, and where his vanguard alone could be brought into action. In this defile the two armies met, the fighting part of each being, through the folly of the Persian king, not greatly different in numbers.

The blunder of Darius was soon made fatal by his abject cowardice. The Macedonians having made a sudden a.s.sault on the Persian left wing, it gave way and fled. Darius, who was in his chariot in the centre, seeing himself in danger from this flight, suddenly lost his over-confidence, and in a panic of terror turned his chariot and fled with wild haste from the field. When he reached ground over which the chariot could not pa.s.s, he mounted hastily on horseback, flung from him his bow, shield, and royal mantle, and rode in mortal terror away, not having given a single order or made the slightest effort to rally his flying troops.

Darius had been sole commander. His flight left the great army without a leader. Not a man remained who could give a general order. Those who saw him flying were infected with his terror and turned to flee also. The vast host in the rear trampled one another down in their wild haste to get beyond the enemy's reach. The Macedonians must have looked on in amazement. The battle--or what ought to have been a battle--was over before it had fairly begun. The Persian right wing, in which was a body of Greeks, made a hard fight; but these Greeks, on finding that the king had fled, marched in good order away. The Persian cavalry, also, fought bravely until they heard that the king had disappeared, when they also turned to fly. Never had so great a host been so quickly routed, and all through the cowardice of a man who was better fitted by nature to turn a spit than to command an army.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.]

But Alexander was not the man to let his enemy escape unscathed. His pursuit was vigorous. The slaughter of the fugitives was frightful.

Thousands were trodden to death in the narrow and broken pa.s.s. The camp and the family of Darius were taken, together with a great treasure in coin. The slain in all numbered more than one hundred thousand.

The panic flight of Darius and his utter lack of ability did more than lose him a battle: it lost him an empire. Never was there a battle with more complete and great results. During the next two years Alexander went to work to conquer western Persia. Most of the cities yielded to him. Tyre resisted, and was taken and destroyed. Gaza, another strong city, was captured and its defenders slain. These two cities, which it took nine months to capture, gave Alexander the hardest fighting he ever had. He marched from Gaza to Egypt, which fell without resistance into his hands, and where he built the great city of Alexandria, the only existing memento of his name and deeds. Thence he marched to the Euphrates, wondering where Darius was and what he meant to do. Nearly two years had pa.s.sed since the battle of Issus, and the kingly poltroon had apparently contented himself with writing letters begging Alexander to restore his family. But Alexander knew too well what a treasure he held to consent. If Darius would acknowledge him as his lord and master he could have back his wife and children, but not otherwise.

Finding that all this was useless, Darius began to collect another army.

He now got together a vaster host than before. It was said to contain one million infantry, forty thousand cavalry, and two hundred chariots, each of which had a projecting pole with a sharp point, while three sword-blades stood out from the yoke on either side, and scythes projected from the naves of the wheels. Darius probably expected to mow down the Macedonians in swaths with these formidable implements of war.

The army which Alexander marched against this mighty host consisted of forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. It looked like the extreme of foolhardiness, like a pigmy advancing against a giant; yet Darius commanded one army, Alexander the other, and Issus had not been forgotten.