victims, massacre or slavery were the universal alternatives. These were enslaved.
On the Ister shore, Alexander sacrificed to Zeus the Preserver, to Heracles, and to the spirit of the river for graciously granting them passage. Having got everyone back across without a single drowning, he sat down to await results. Soon respectful embassies arrived from the tribes along the river. Their reception must have gone on for some time; for the last arrivals were Celts, from some distant settlement near the Adriatic. Men whom even the Macedonians thought very tall, they towered over the rumoured conqueror they had come to placate. Either from vanity or curiosity, he asked them what thing on earth they dreaded most. They feared nothing, they said, unless that the sky should fall on them. Amused by this gasconading brag (one he never made for himself) he sent them home with a pact of friendship.
Still in the north, he got news that the formidable Illyrians had risen; and that an intermediate tribe, the Antariates, planned to fall on him as he marched to meet the danger. At this the young Lambarus, still at hand with the pick of his Thracian warriors, told him to forget the Antariates at any rate; they were worth nothing as fighters, he would invade them himself and keep them occupied. Moved as always by a spontaneous act of friendship, Alexander loaded him with gifts of honour, and promised to join them in kinship with the hand of Cynna, one of his bastard sisters. They never met again; Lambarus, after a devastating performance of his mission, went home, fell ill and died. Whether or not Cynna shared her brother’s grief, the Agriani remained the most loyal of his auxiliaries.
Making haste over now familiar ground he reached the Illyrian frontier ranges. Cleitus, the Illyrians’ chief warlord, held the hill town of Pelium and the heights commanding it. The troops outside fled at sight of the Macedonians, leaving behind the freshly killed bodies of nine victims just sacrificed for victory—three black rams, three boys and three girls. (No wonder Alexander did not care to dwell on his Illyrian exile.) He invested the town; just avoided being encircled by a large relieving force; led out a troop to rescue Philotas, who was commanding a guard over the draught animals; but after doing so was himself dangerously trapped in a narrow pass between hills and river. This situation he met with sheer bravura. He had guessed from the Illyrians’ earlier flight that his name had run before him—in those parts he had been known for years—and he threw what troops he had into a polished display of aggressive drill. Their expertise and unknown intentions so dismayed the tribesmen that they started falling back. He ordered his men to yell and beat on their shields. The enemy abandoned their vantage points and bolted for the fort.
Still in difficult country, and harassed as he crossed a river, he got his archers firing from midstream, and set up his light catapults—a very smart operation, since they were taken apart for mule transport. His men were extricated in a fighting withdrawal, never once presenting their defenceless backs. Shortly after, taking advantage of the Illyrians’ indiscipline, which he must have known well, he put on a night attack and routed them out of the town. The west was settled; but he was to have no respite. A still more serious danger now threatened from the south.
Word of the risings had spread. The new King of Macedon, after a brief appearance at Corinth, had vanished into the wilds whence no news came. After no long delay, Demosthenes emerged and, contacting Darius and his leading satraps, offered, if they would finance him, tokeep Alexander tied down in Greece. The Greek cities of Asia were tacitly written off to bondage; Demosthenes’ democratic principles were strictly parochial. So eagerly did Darius respond that his account rolls, when captured later in Sardis, showed disbursements to his ally of 300
On the Ister shore, Alexander sacrificed to Zeus the Preserver, to Heracles, and to the spirit of the river for graciously granting them passage. Having got everyone back across without a single drowning, he sat down to await results. Soon respectful embassies arrived from the tribes along the river. Their reception must have gone on for some time; for the last arrivals were Celts, from some distant settlement near the Adriatic. Men whom even the Macedonians thought very tall, they towered over the rumoured conqueror they had come to placate. Either from vanity or curiosity, he asked them what thing on earth they dreaded most. They feared nothing, they said, unless that the sky should fall on them. Amused by this gasconading brag (one he never made for himself) he sent them home with a pact of friendship.
Still in the north, he got news that the formidable Illyrians had risen; and that an intermediate tribe, the Antariates, planned to fall on him as he marched to meet the danger. At this the young Lambarus, still at hand with the pick of his Thracian warriors, told him to forget the Antariates at any rate; they were worth nothing as fighters, he would invade them himself and keep them occupied. Moved as always by a spontaneous act of friendship, Alexander loaded him with gifts of honour, and promised to join them in kinship with the hand of Cynna, one of his bastard sisters. They never met again; Lambarus, after a devastating performance of his mission, went home, fell ill and died. Whether or not Cynna shared her brother’s grief, the Agriani remained the most loyal of his auxiliaries.
Making haste over now familiar ground he reached the Illyrian frontier ranges. Cleitus, the Illyrians’ chief warlord, held the hill town of Pelium and the heights commanding it. The troops outside fled at sight of the Macedonians, leaving behind the freshly killed bodies of nine victims just sacrificed for victory—three black rams, three boys and three girls. (No wonder Alexander did not care to dwell on his Illyrian exile.) He invested the town; just avoided being encircled by a large relieving force; led out a troop to rescue Philotas, who was commanding a guard over the draught animals; but after doing so was himself dangerously trapped in a narrow pass between hills and river. This situation he met with sheer bravura. He had guessed from the Illyrians’ earlier flight that his name had run before him—in those parts he had been known for years—and he threw what troops he had into a polished display of aggressive drill. Their expertise and unknown intentions so dismayed the tribesmen that they started falling back. He ordered his men to yell and beat on their shields. The enemy abandoned their vantage points and bolted for the fort.
Still in difficult country, and harassed as he crossed a river, he got his archers firing from midstream, and set up his light catapults—a very smart operation, since they were taken apart for mule transport. His men were extricated in a fighting withdrawal, never once presenting their defenceless backs. Shortly after, taking advantage of the Illyrians’ indiscipline, which he must have known well, he put on a night attack and routed them out of the town. The west was settled; but he was to have no respite. A still more serious danger now threatened from the south.
Word of the risings had spread. The new King of Macedon, after a brief appearance at Corinth, had vanished into the wilds whence no news came. After no long delay, Demosthenes emerged and, contacting Darius and his leading satraps, offered, if they would finance him, tokeep Alexander tied down in Greece. The Greek cities of Asia were tacitly written off to bondage; Demosthenes’ democratic principles were strictly parochial. So eagerly did Darius respond that his account rolls, when captured later in Sardis, showed disbursements to his ally of 300
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