¹ The following abbreviations are used: Badian: Badian, E., ‘The battle of the Granicus: a new look’, Ancient Macedonia ii (Thessaloniki 1977) 271–93Google Scholar. Foss: C. Foss, ‘The battle of the Granicus: a new look’, ibid. 495–502. Fuller: Fuller, J. F. C., The Generalship of Alexander the Great (London 1958)Google Scholar. Goukowsky: Goukowsky, P., Diodore de Sicile XVII (Budé: Paris 1976)Google Scholar. Green: Green, P., Alexander the Great (London 1970)Google Scholar. Hamilton: Hamilton, J. R., Plutarch, Alexander: A Commentary (Oxford 1969)Google Scholar. Janke: Janke, A., ‘Das Schlachtfeld am Granikus’, Globus lxxxvi (1904) 129–33Google Scholar. Judeich: Judeich, W., ‘Die Schlacht am Granikos’, Klio viii (1908) 372–97Google Scholar. Kromayer—Veith: Kromayer, J. and Veith, G., Antike Schlachtfelder iv (Berlin 1929)Google Scholar. Lane Fox: Lane Fox, R., Alexander the Great (London 1973)Google Scholar. Lehmann: Lehmann, K., ‘Die Schlacht am Granikos’, Klio xi (1911) 230–44Google Scholar. Loeb B: Loeb edn of Arrian, i, by P. A. Brunt (1976). Loeb R: Loeb edn of Arrian, i–ii, by E. I. Robson (1929, 1933). Milns: Milns, R. D., Alexander the Great (London 1968)Google Scholar. Nikolitsis: Nikolitsis, N. T., The Battle of the Granicus: a source-critical study (Stockholm 1973)Google Scholar. Pearson: Pearson, L., The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great (New York 1960)Google Scholar. Tarn I: Tarn, W. W., in CAH vi (Cambridge 1927)Google Scholar. Tarn II: id., Alexander the Great ii (Cambridge 1948).

² They are of a piece with Diodorus' account of the battle at Thebes in 335 B.C., when the Thebans were portrayed as fighting a battle ‘in front of the city’ (as the Trojans did), Alexander made unsporting use of reserves and the contest was in two rounds, the first remarkable for the epic use of missiles (Diod. xvii 11.3, 12.1–2). In his imaginary battles of the Granicus and Issus the Thessalian cavalry is picked out as the bravest (xvii 21.4, 33.2), and at Thebes the fittest and best-trained men are said to be the Thebans (xvii 11.4). He provides omens for the Granicus battle to foreshadow Alexander's great victory in a cavalry battle and his prowess (xvii 17.6–7), as he had done for the fall of Thebes (xvii 10.2–5). Such vaticinia post eventum are literary devices to adorn a fictitious tale. These are all characteristics of his source in these battles, most probably Cleitarchus, who was judged to be ‘more of an orator than a historian’ and ‘notoriously undependable’ (Cic. Brut. 42, Quint, x 1.74).

³ Diodorus' account has generally been so dismissed; most recently, for instance, by Badian 272–4.

⁴ The notes which he appends seem rather to damage his case. He cites Xen., Anab. iii 4.35Google Scholar which shows how scared Persians were of being attacked at night; in that case they had reason to stay in their chosen defensive position and not to invite attack by dispersing to build a night-camp. He refers to Curt, iii 38 ‘on Persian night habits’, where we read that a peacetime march started at dawn orto sole; from this we infer that the Persians were certainly ready to fight at dawn when Alexander began to move his army across the river. What Persians did at night when facing an enemy may be seen from Arr. iii 11. 1: they stayed put, manning their defences. For criticism of Lane Fox here see Loeb B 450 f.

⁵ In his Pelican edn (508–9) Green invents not one but two engagements, which seems to compound his error. For criticism sec Badian 272 n. 5.

⁶ The expression takes its colour from the context, here ‘towards the flow’, while at i 15. i ‘up to the water’ means ‘to the water's edge’.

⁷ If one disregards the relationship between i 14.4 and 14.7 and then takes κατὰ κέρας with the Persians at 14.7, Alexander's aim was to avoid being outflanked, as in Polyaen. iv 3.16. For the contrast between κέρας and φάλαγξ see LSJ φάλαγξ 2.

⁸ From my experience in fording swift rivers, e.g. Aous, Thyamis and Alpheus, one always goes obliquely against the current, so that if one stumbles into an unexpected deep place or on a rock, one falls against the stream and can recover one's footing; but stumble downstream and you are swept away. This is not realised by Badian 288 n. 51, who has the troops going left ‘to take advantage of the current’ (as in a boat).

⁹ Loeb B in agreement with Loeb R. One would expect of rather than ᾗ for this meaning. Judeich 394 had ‘halblinks flussabwärts’.

¹⁰ Badian 277 f. discusses these topographical features but without a map or plan: I do not see the justification of his translation of Arr. i 15.4 ἐξῶσαι εἰς ἅπαν ἀπὸ τῆς ὄχθης καὶ ἐς τὸ πεδίον βιάσεσθαι, ‘push the cavalry down (my italics) from the bank into the plain’; see also ii 10.5.

¹¹ Foss 499: he sets out the evidence excellently for the ancient roads and shows them on his map, pl. 43.

¹² Earlier visitors seem to have worked from the main road west of the river of Biga, concentrating on that river and the joint river below the confluence by Cinarköprü bridge. All have noted the heavy growth on the banks, from RE vii.2 (1912) 1814 to Foss 502 (‘covered in most places with a thick layer of vegetation composed largely of planes, willows and brambles…all the way down to the riverbed’). So too with the banks of the Dimetoka river in the plain. See Foss figs 6–8 (pls 43–4) and Nikolitsis figs on 70 and 73.

¹³ A mile or so below the Cinarköprü bridge Foss 502 noted a gravel slope on the (? east) bank which gave easy egress from the river-bed to the plain: he and Badian 289 put the action of Alexander on such a gravel slope. This is unacceptable if one takes Arrian's and Plutarch's descriptions as correct for the place of Alexander's action (Arr. i 15. 1–5, Plut. 16.2–5); for they say nothing of a gravel slope or anything like it. Such gravel has been deposited by the river in flood at bends in its course.

¹⁴ The river of Dimctoka must have deposited much rubble on the edge of the plain by Dimctoka since 334 B.C.

¹⁵ Most recently Nikolitsis with an aerial photograph, and then Foss and Badian. Changes in the river systems of the alluvial plains on the Turkish coast are the rule rather than the exception (see RE xxiv [1963] 3 for changes of the Pyramus river by Mallus). On visiting our area in 1843 Kiepert thought the river of Biga had once flowed into the Ece Göl swamp, but there is a ridge between.

¹⁶ So too Plut., Alex. 16.2Google Scholar, where τήν τραχύτητα docs not mean a ‘rocky surface’, pace Badian 278.

¹⁷ χθαμαλώτερα: ‘lower’, not ‘more level’ as in Loeb R and Loeb B.

¹⁸ I have found this to be so with pack-horses; the hoof sinks in up to the fetlock usually, as is shown in Nikolitsis' photograph on p. 72. The Plataeans kept their right foot bare in order to get a firm stance on the clay (Thuc. iii 22.2, ἀσφαλείας ἕνεκα τῆς πρὸς τὸν πηλόν). In the course of the battle the pounding of the horses' hooves caused the bank to become increasingly wet and slippery (Plut., Alex. 16.5Google Scholar, ὑγρῶν καὶ περιοφαλῶν γενομένων διὰ τὸν πηλόν).

¹⁹ See Nikolitsis' photographs on pp. 70, 72 and 73.

²⁰ Judeich 384 and n. 2, magnified some small rises near the right bank into a kind of ridge. Janke 129 ff. put the highest of the rises at 3 m above the level of the bank. I walked over this area and saw only the small rises due to irrigation channel banks and cultivation. Foss 501 writes in general terms ‘a slight and rather barren rise behind the river, but no imposing elevations of any kind before the hills behind Dimetoka are reached’, and 502 ‘the plain beyond the river [a mile below Cinarköprü] offers no significant feature which would be suitable for a defensive position’.

²¹ For the Persians this was the third year of campaigning against the Macedonians, and we may be sure that Philip's and Alexander's plans were well known at the Persian court. That Darius sent forty of his ‘Kindred’, trained at his court as élite cavalrymen, and squadrons of cavalry from Hyrcania, Media, and Bactria is most understandable (Diod. xvii 19.4, 20.2, 21.1); indeed it would be very strange if he had failed to do so. That there were some Hyrcanian settlers in Lydia (Str. 629) was pointed out by Domaszewski, A., SAW Heidelberg 1925/6 1Google Scholar. Abh. 53 (so too Lane Fox 516); but this does not mean that they provided the force of ‘the Hyrcanian cavalry’—a force led by Darius' son-in-law, and no doubt as strong at least as the 2,000 Bactrians. Since Persia had great numbers of fine cavalry, Arrian's figure of 20,000 is probably correct. Her mistake was not to send a force of archers.

²² This is stated repeatedly and is clear from the nature of the fighting: in placing the Persians back ‘at some distance from the river’ Badian 280, 289 runs counter to the texts.

²³ For the route see Judeich 378 fig. 1 and Foss 497 f. That he was inland is clear from the fact that he sent a detachment to take over Parium on the coast (Arr. i 12.7); if Hermotus is a variant form of Hermaeum in Polyaen. vi 24, he was some 20 km from Lampsacus and some 7 km from Parium.

²⁴ These were probably the Agrianians.

²⁵ For the double phalanx see Arr. Tact. 28.6.

²⁶ Frag. Sabbaiticum, , FGrH 151Google Scholar F 1 (1) ἐστρατοπεδεύετο ἐπὶ τοῖς χείλεσι τοῦ Γρανίκου Diod. xvii 19.1 ἀντεστρατοπέδευσε τοῖς πολεμίοις. Arrian provides a dramatic setting for his conversation between Parmenio and Alexander by having Alexander begin to deploy his army (imperfect συνέταττεν) before Parmenio interrupts him.

²⁷ The alternative which has been suggested is a good memory for events which had happened as much as fifty years before, if Ptolemy wrote his book c 285–3 B.C (this seems most probable, despite Badian, in Gnomon xxxiii [1961] 665–6Google Scholar and Errington, R. M. in CQ xix [1969] 233 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see now Goukowsky xxvi—xxxi). But to remember detailed battle-orders, day-to-day marches, names of unit-commanders and so on through twelve years of war seems impossible, at least to judge by my own memories and those of friends about far fewer operations in 1940–45.

²⁸ Since the time of Xenophon's Anabasis Greek mercenaries on Asiatic soil were numbered in tens of thousands, fighting both for and against the Great King (see my History of Greece ² [Oxford 1967] 667). In 336 B.C. Memnon, a Greek mercenary captain, was sent by Darius to attack Cyzicus with a corps of 5,000 Greek mercenaries in Asia in 335 B.C. (Diod. xvii 7.10), and Alexander had 5,000 there at the beginning of this campaign. That Darius in the third year of the war had the need and the money to hire 20,000 Greek mercenaries is obvious.

²⁹ ὑπέρ c. acc. = ‘beyond’, not ‘above’ (as in Loeb R and B), which needs a genitive; see LSJ s.v. B 1.

³⁰ ὁπότε ἐσβήσοναι ἐς τὸν πόρον, ὡς ἐπικεισόμενοι ἐκβαίνουσι For πόρον being the channel see p. 80 above. Loeb R, ‘to fall upon them emerging from the river as soon as they should attempt the crossing’, and Loeb B, ‘to fall on them emerging from the river whenever they attempted the crossing’, are both wide of the mark.

³¹ Allowing one metre of fighting-space in the front line to each man; see Kromayer-Veith, 79 and 358, and my Studies in Greek History (Oxford 1973) 542Google Scholar for the length of the line at Chaeronea.

³² That is why the prefix προ- is used in προετάχθησαν translated incorrectly by Loeb R and better but not clearly by Loeb B: ‘in front of his right he had already posted Philotas’. In Arr. i 14.1, προετάχθησαν δὲ αὐτῷ τοῦ μὲν δεξιοῦ Φιλώτας the τοῦ μὲν δεξιοῦ in answered by τοῦ δὲ εὐωνύμου at i 14.3. The translation should be ‘Of the right (part of the line, called a κέρασ in the preceding sentence) those stationed in advance were Philotas etc…Of the left the first (i.e. leading the deployment) were the Thessalian cavalry’. The central point from which the deployment was envisaged was the brigade of Philip, which is therefore mentioned twice (i 14.2 fin. and 3 fin.), not because there were two such brigades, as Nikolitsis 23 supposed, nor through carelessness, as is generally supposed. The second mention (this time without the patronymic) avoids any possibility of misunderstanding. When the army turns into line and faces across the river, then the advanced troops designated by πρὸ τούτων at i 14.6 are in front of the line. The first mention of Craterus is due to interpolation, as Loeb B points out, and not to carelessness by Arrian, as Bosworth (n. 50) 126 has supposed; the effects of scribes and commentators in the transmission of Arrian's text are quite alarming, as the fortunes of the words ἀσθέταιροι and ἄσθιπποι have shown (see Bosworth, , CQ xxiii (1973) 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff. and Hammond, , CQ xxviii (1978) 128 ff.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ Diod. xvii 17.4 gave 1,000 for the two together, and I have split them in equal numbers; it is interesting that Alexander had at least twice as many on his Balkan campaign where he faced many more light-armed troops than he expected in Asia (Arr. i 6.6 ‘up to 2,000’).

³⁴ At this time (Arr. i 12.7) there were at least four squadrons of Lancers (also called Scouts) and one squadron of Paeonian horse. The Companion cavalry, 18,000 strong, were probably in eight squadrons as at Gaugamela (Arr. iii 11.8). These make up the thirteen squadrons with which Alexander entered the river (Plut., Alex. 16.3)Google Scholar. So Loeb. B lxxiii. The strength of the individual squadrons of Lancers (4), Paeonians (1) and Thracians (1) was probably 150, and the six squadrons made up Diodorus' total of 900 for these units (xvii 17.4)—restoring καί between δέ and πρόδρομοι with Milns, in JHS lxxxvi (1966) 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There are two confusions in Diodorus' troop-list at xvii 17.3: first it is introduced as the number after the crossing into Asia (xvii 17.1), the review being evidently in the camp at Arisbe (Arr. i 12.6), and it is concluded by the statement that this was the number who crossed with Alexander to Asia (xvii 17.5); the second confusion is that the individual figures of the cavalry add up to 600 more than his total, 4,500. Since Ptolemy in Arr. i 11.3 gives ‘not much more than 30,000 infantry and over 5,000 cavalry’ for Alexander on his way to the Hellespont, it is best to accept Diodorus' total of infantry at 32,000 infantry and the aggregate of his individual figures at 5,100 cavalry as those who crossed. There were troops already deployed in Asia, holding much of the coastal area perhaps as far as Smyrna, but these could not have been recalled for the Granicus campaign without abandoning ground already won. On the numbers see Loeb B lxix f.

³⁵ The order on the right is not absolutely certain. I take it that in each separate command the order is given from outwards, so that the Archers and Agrianians were on the right wing, Socrates' squadron was next to the block of Companion cavalry and the Hypaspists came next to the Lancers. This position of the Agrianians and Archers on the wing is what we find also at Issus and Gaugamela, and the position of Socrates' squadron as the leading squadron on that day is appropriate.

³⁶ The strength of the units in the battle-line is not seriously in doubt, and any alteration makes only a marginal difference. Some have asserted that Alexander had a second line which is never mentioned in the sources; this to accommodate, say, the 7,000 Greek allied infantry and 5,000 Greek mercenary infantry. Nothing supports this conjecture. At Issus and Gaugamela Arrian mentioned the Greek infantry in Alexander's army, and at Gaugamela he mentioned the second line in action. There is no reason to suppose that he would not have mentioned both if they had existed in the battle of the Granicus.

³⁷ At Issus, where the infantry had to scale a difficult river-bank, the line was eight men deep (Callisthenes in Plb. xii 19.6, 21.8); so too Nikolitsis 63.

³⁸ Arr. i 14.6 καί πρò τούτων. Loeb R had ‘before these’ and Loeb B more accurately ‘in advance’. See n. 32 above.

³⁹ Arr. i 15.1 brings them all to the assault together; ᾖ πρῶτοι οἰ ἀμφὶ Αμύνταν καὶ Σωκράτην πρόσεσχον τῇ ὄχθῃfirst that is as compared with Alexander and the right wing going into action. Loeb R is wrong in saying ‘the vanguard…held the river bank’; and B alters to ‘touched the bank’; but the emphasis is on πρῶτοι, ‘where the first to land on the bank were the troops of Amyntas and Socrates, there the Persians etc’. Evidently the Hypaspists came into action somewhat later, although they had entered the channel at the same time as the troops of Amyntas and Socrates (i 14.6); as we have explained, they had to move to their right and the time-delay allowed the infantry line to take up the extension. They were not part of ‘the first assault’ (i 15.2).

⁴⁰ Principally under pressure from ‘Memnon and the sons of Memnon’ who were among the Persian commanders massed at the point where they had expected Alexander to attack (i 14.4 fin., 15.3 fin.). These commanders were not with the units allotted to them in Diodorus' battle-order (xvii 19.3–4), of which it is im possible to assess the worth.

⁴¹ The remarks about physical strength and experience applied in particular to the Bodyguards (somatophylakes) and the entourage of Alexander. The Persians were variously armed, some having spears in Plut., Alex. 16.4Google Scholar.

⁴² ἐπεκβαίνοντες ἀεί τῶν ἰππέων ὄσοις προύχώρει κατὰ τὸν ποταμὸν προσεγίγνοντο τοῖς ἀμφὶ Αλέξανδρον Loeb R is loose: ‘those of the cavalry who had made good their way on the river bank kept coming up and joining the little band round Alexander'. Loeb B has ‘cavalry who had made good their way down stream kept coming up and joining the band round Alexander’. The impersonal does not imply a literal movement or a lateral one. On my interpretation they moved downstream to join Alexander, but the Greek does not say that. For my translation of κατὰ τὸν ποταμόν compare i 14.4 κατὰ τὴν ὄχθην and Xen., Anab. iv 3.23Google Scholarκατὰ τὰς . . . ὄχθασ

⁴³ While Alexander was with the right wing (i 14.7, 15.3) and faced the enemy's left wing (i 14.4), the centre of the line lay with the infantry brigades, its mid-point being between the brigade of Philip and that of Amyntas (i 14.3 fin.). It was the infantry brigades which caused the enemy centre to give way (i 16.1); so too in Polyaen. iv 3.16, ‘the phalanx's charge routed the enemy’. The right wing of the phalanx had been covered by the gallant actions of the cavalry assault groups and then of Alexander's entourage, so that as soon as the hole was punched in the enemy formation the whole infantry line attacked, the righthand brigade of Hypaspists being already in position to outflank the enemy (see FIG. 3). The part of the infantry is missed by Goukowsky 181 (‘si des fantassins macédoniens avaient tenté de franchir le Granique, ils auraient été massacrés') and Badian 292 who thinks the break-through in the centre first was ‘perhaps…one last blunder’ in Arrian's ‘catalogue of carelessness’. Arrian cannot win!

⁴⁴ For infantry helping cavalry cf. i 6.6 and in general ἂμιπποι. Agrianians were probably trained to fight against cavalry, like other Thracians (Thuc. vii 30.2). Such infantry in a close-fought cavalry action were no impediment, pace Badian 285 n. 46.

⁴⁵ The success of the Hypaspists on Alexander's left was due to the long reach of the pike driven into horse or rider from below. That the best infantry unit, the Royal Guard of the Hypaspists, was armed in set battles with the pike is clear from the actions at Chaeronea (Polyaen. iv 2.2), Pelium (Arr. i 6.2), on this occasion, and at Gaugamela (Arr. iii 14.3, the Hypaspists being next to Alexander). I am not convinced by the arguments of Markle, M. M., ‘The Macedonian sarissa, spear and related armor’, in AJA lxxxi (1977) 326 f.Google Scholar, that the Hypaspists in pitched battle were armed like hoplites with the large shield and short spear; infantry so equipped would have found it much harder than the pike-men did to drive the cavalry back up and off the river-bank.

⁴⁶ Here too the important part played by the infantry phalanx emerges. It is a characteristic of Arrian's very detailed accounts of the major battles that they describe the actions of Alexander and the units with which Alexander was concerned. This in itself is a strong indication that the accounts come finally from the King's Journal, which concentrated on the King's actions. The Thessalian cavalry and Parmenio pass unmentioned although they defeated the opposing cavalry.

⁴⁷ By our standards the number of wounded in relation to the killed was no doubt disproportionately high; protective armour was good, and javelin and sword wounds were rarely lethal.

⁴⁸ By the same token the Persian command came close to success. This has not always been realised, e.g. Tarn I 361: ‘it has often been explained since that this was not the way to hold a river-bank; but that was not their intention’. Fuller 148 f. is puzzled. He, it appears, would have put the Greek mercenary infantry on the river-bank, some cavalry on the flanks and the rest behind; but he forgets that the Persians considered themselves inferior in infantry (with justice in the event), and that his own disposition would have nullified most of the Persian cavalry. He goes further in saying that it was ‘military etiquette’—the cavalry being too proud to put the infantry in the line—which prevented his plan from being adopted by the Persians; yet they put infantry in the line at Issus and Gaugamela!

⁴⁹ To ride ahead and attack a hoplite line was foolhardy in the extreme, but it is typical of the passion in action which is portrayed in the famous mosaic. Plutarch comments on this passion in Alexander. He is not saying that the general attack on the mercenaries was due to anger on Alexander's part, as Hamilton (41) and others take it. Sympathy with the mercenaries and talk of an angry massacre are features of recent writing, but one must bear in mind the number, the quality and the confidence of the professional Greek mercenaries. They were the finest infantry in Asia and might well expect to defeat the visibly smaller numbers of Macedonian infantry. They had had no experience of Macedonian Companion cavalry, and they probably hoped to fight their way out, as Xenophon's 10,000 had done and as many were to do at Issus. Alexander had good reason to prevent their escape, since they were Darius' best troops and Macedonia's worst enemies; moreover, he regarded them as sacrilegious traitors. Dionysius had crucified Greek mercenaries in Carthaginian service, and when Philip captured the sacrilegious mercenaries of Onomarchus, he drowned them (Diod. xvi 35.6). Alexander put these mercenaries to work as state prisoners.

⁵⁰ Bosworth, A. B., ‘Errors in Arrian’, CQ xxvi (1976) 117–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. attacks Arrian's competence. I have commented on two of his points in n. 32 above; on his p. 124 (being a pursuit) in CQ xxviii (1978) 140; and note now that ἐστᾶσιν in Arr. i 16.4 is vivid for ἔστασαν like ἀποθνήσκει for ἀπέθανεν in 16.3 and ἀποπέμπει for ἀπέπεμψε 16.7, and does not indicate an unawareness in Arrian that the statues had been removed (Bosworth 173, followed by Loeb B). Critics of Arrian seem not to have appreciated his habit of mentioning a thing once and assuming his reader will take it to apply to later occasions. In this the first campaign of the actual anabasis he mentions that Alexander heard the wounded's stories, buried the Greek mercenaries, and sent hillsmen back to their properties (i 16.5–17.1); no doubt he did the same after Issus. So too Arrian used Macedonian terms here for which he later used his own terms: οἰ ὐπασπισταὶ τῶν ἐταίρων (i 14.2) which indicates that they belonged, like the pezhetairoi and asthetairoi to the companionship of the king; ἠφάλαγξ for an infantry brigade, for which later he used taxis; and σαρισσοφόρουσ resumed at i 14.6 by προδρόμουσ his usual term. These terms do not reveal a change of source, much less a doublet, as Bosworth suggests (126).

⁵¹ Neither Arrian nor any other surviving writer used for this battle the account of Callisthenes, which presumably put a better face on the affair while concealing Alexander's tactics during wartime. Arrian shows how close Alexander came to disaster.

⁵² As suggested by Memnon in Diod. xvii 18.3; reasonably enough as Artaxerxes Ochus had raised opposition to Macedon in Greece and had landed mercenaries on the European side of the Bosporus. Alexander may have studied the campaigns of Agesilaus in Asia.

⁵³ Memnon's ability as a mercenary commander was wasted; for he fought among the cavalry on the riverbank (i 15.2).