Famous and decisive battles of the world; . body of men, and here Darius de-termined to make his stand. To this end he established his campof supply at Arbela, some twenty miles east of the position whichhe had selected, and then systematically prepared the field for thecoming conflict. This was to be the third and final attempt ofPersia to crush the now dreaded conqueror. Ruin must inevi-tably await the vanquished army. If Alexander should prevail,all Persia lay at his feet. Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, the wealthycapitals, lay but a short distance to the south. On the otherhand, could Darius b
Famous and decisive battles of the world; . body of men, and here Darius de-termined to make his stand. To this end he established his campof supply at Arbela, some twenty miles east of the position whichhe had selected, and then systematically prepared the field for thecoming conflict. This was to be the third and final attempt ofPersia to crush the now dreaded conqueror. Ruin must inevi-tably await the vanquished army. If Alexander should prevail,all Persia lay at his feet. Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, the wealthycapitals, lay but a short distance to the south. On the otherhand, could Darius but gather sufficient force to overwhelm theMacedonian, there would be no further foe to dread, for with theTigris and Euphrates behind them, the army of Greece would becut off from all possibility of retreat to the seaboard, and theirfate would be annihilation. So far as number was concerned, Darius had no difficulty inbringing to his standard an army abundantly sufficient to over-whelm, outflank, surround and eventually destroy the solid. THE CHOSEN BATTLEFIELD. 79 little force of Macedon. Forty-seven thousand, all told, wasthe limit of the command, at the head of which Alexandercrossed the Euphrates ; we have it from the journals of his twodistinguished generals, Aristobulus and Ptolemy, whose recordsof the entire campaign have become the keystones of history,and against that number it was in the power of Darius to mar-shal at least ten to one. His cavalry force alone is put at fortythousand; his infantry, archers and javelin-throwers were inmyriads. Arrian says there were a million, but half that numberwould be more than Darius could handle in action. Elephantsarmed and caparisoned for war made their first appearance on abattle-field at Arbela; for, with all his numbers, Darius knewthat some device must be resorted to to break through thehitherto impenetrable wall of the phalanx, and now he believedhe had solved the problem. Two hundred war-chariots, drawnby powerful horses,
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