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The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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It remains now to ballance the Forces on each side, and that neither in respect of numbers, quality of the Soldiers, or the multitude of their Allies and Auxiliaries. There were numbered of Romans in the Surveys taken by the Censors of that Age, two hundred and fifty thousand Polls; and therefore in all the revolts of the Latines, they were able to levy Ten Legions, and that too almost wholly in the City; and frequently in those times, four or five distinct Armies were kept on foot at once, which maintained Wars in Etruria, in Umbria, with the Gauls (Confederates with the Enemy) in Samnium and in Lucania: On the other side, he must have cross’d the Sea, having of old Macedonian Bands not above Thirty thousand Foot, and four thousand Horse, and those most of them Thessalians; for this was the total of his Force when he appeared most formidable. If he should have added to these, Persians, Indians, or others out of his new Conquests, they would but more encumber rather than assist him. Then the Romans had Supplies at hand to reinforce them presently from home upon any accident; whereas Alexander (as it happened afterwards to Annibal), Warring in a remote foreign Country, his Army would have mouldered away apace, and could not readily have Recruits. The Macedonians had for their Arms, a Shield and a Spear like a Pike; the Romans, a large Target that skreen’d almost the whole Body, and a Javelin, a Weapon not a little more serviceable than the Spear, both to strike and push with, near hand, and also to be lanced at a distance. The Soldiers of each side were wont to stand firm, and keep their Ranks; the Macedonian Phalanx was immovable and uniform; but the Roman Battalions more distinct, and consisting of several Divisions, more ready to separate and close again upon any occasion.
A Patriotic Estimate of Rome’s Greatness
To speak now of labour and travel, What Soldier is comparable to the Roman? Who better able to hold out and endure all the fatigues of War? Alexander, worsted in one Battel, had been utterly undone: But what Power could have broken the Roman courage, whom neither the shameful disgrace at Caudium nor the fatal defeat at Cannæ, could in the least daunt or dispirit? Undoubtedly Alexander, although his first attempt should have prov’d prosperous, would often here have missed his Persians and his Indians; he would have wish’d to have been dealing again with the soft and cowardly Nations of Asia and confest, That before he only fought with Women, as King Alexander of Epirus is reported to have said, when he had here received his Death wound, reflecting upon those easie Occurents of War, which this young Prince (his Nephew) met with in Asia, in respect to those difficulties he himself had to struggle with in Italy.
And truly, when I consider that the Engagements at Sea between the Romans and Carthaginians in the first Punick War, took up no less than four and twenty years’ space, I am inclinable to conjecture, that the whole age of Alexander would not have been enough to have finish’d a War with either a one of those States. And since by antient Leagues they were then at Amity and in Alliance with each other, ’tis probable an equal apprehension of danger might have united them against the common Enemy: And what less could he then expect but to have been utterly overwhelm’d and crush’d by the joint Arms of two the most potent Republicks in the World? The Romans, though not indeed in the days of Alexander, or when the Macedonian Power was at heighth, have yet since try’d the courage of the Macedonians, under the conduct of Antiochus, Philip, and Perses, and came off not only without loss, but even without any danger or hazard.
It may seem a proud word, but without arrogance it is spoken, Let there be no Civil Wars amongst us; never can we be distressed by any Enemy, Horse or Foot; never in set Battel, never in plain equal ground, or places disadvantagious, outdone in Courage or Resolution. The Soldier I confess in heavy Armour, may be apprehensive of the Enemies Cavalry in a Champion Country, or be incommoded with Arrows shot from a distance, or embarrass’d in unpassable Woods, or Quarters, where provisions cannot be brought to them; but still let there be a thousand Armies greater and stronger than that of Alexander and his Macedonians, so long as we hold together, and continue that love of Peace, and prudent care of civil Concord, wherein we live at this day, we are able, and ever shall be, to rout and put them all to flight.d
HIS INVINCIBILITY (GROTE)
[Against Livy’s confidence in the Roman bulwark must be placed Grote’s trust in Alexander’s genius.]
Exalted to this prodigious grandeur, Alexander was at the time of his death little more than thirty-two years old—the age at which a citizen of Athens was growing into important commands; ten years less than the age for a consul at Rome; two years younger than the age at which Timur first acquired the crown, and began his foreign conquests. His extraordinary bodily powers were unabated; he had acquired a large stock of military experience; and what was still more important, his appetite for further conquest was as voracious, and his readiness to purchase it at the largest cost of toil or danger, as complete, as it had been when he first crossed the Hellespont. Great as his past career had been, his future achievements, with such increased means and experience, were likely to be yet greater. His ambition would have been satisfied with nothing less than the conquest of the whole habitable world as then known; and if his life had been prolonged, he would probably have accomplished it. Nowhere (so far as our knowledge reaches) did there reside any military power capable of making head against him; nor were his soldiers, when he commanded them, daunted or baffled by any extremity of cold, heat, or fatigue.
The patriotic feelings of Livy dispose him to maintain that Alexander, had he invaded Italy would have failed and perished like his relative, Alexander of Epirus. But this conclusion cannot be accepted. If we grant the courage and discipline of the Roman infantry to have been equal to the best infantry of Alexander’s army, the same cannot be said of the Roman cavalry as compared with the Macedonian companions. Still less is it likely that a Roman consul, annually changed, would have been found a match for Alexander in military genius and combinations; nor, even if personally equal, would he have possessed the same variety of troops and arms, each effective in its separate way, and all conspiring to one common purpose; nor the same unbounded influence over their minds in stimulating them to full effort. I do not think that even the Romans could have successfully resisted Alexander the Great; though it is certain that he never throughout all his long marches encountered such enemies as they, nor even such as Samnites and Lucanians—combining courage, patriotism, discipline, with effective arms both for defence and for close combat.
Among all the qualities which go to constitute the highest military excellence, either as a general or as a soldier, none was wanting in the character of Alexander. Together with his own chivalrous courage—sometimes indeed both excessive and unseasonable, so as to form the only military defect which can be fairly imputed to him—we trace in all his operations the most careful dispositions taken beforehand, vigilant precaution in guarding against possible reverse, and abundant resource in adapting himself to new contingencies. Amidst constant success, these precautionary combinations were never discontinued. His achievements are the earliest recorded evidence of scientific military organisation on a large scale, and of its overwhelming effects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than any other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of all that constitutes effective force—as an individual warrior, and as organiser and leader of armed masses; not merely the blind impetuosity ascribed by Homer to Ares, but also the intelligent, methodised, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in Athene. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against enemies; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind, known and unknown, except those who chose to submit to him. In his Indian campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we perceive that not only those who stand on their defence, but also those who abandon their property and flee to the mountains, are alike pursued and slaughtered.