Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

BRA SIDAS. 95his right, but at the proper moment the men in ambush debouchedfrom hiding- and fell upon Euryloehus' rear. Soeffective was this diversion, that although the right of Euryloehus'army won a decided success, it became compromisedby the defeat of the left, and Demosthenes scored a victory.The siege of Syracuse also furnishes us numerous lessonsfor which there is no space, as well as two of the best maximsknown to the science of war ": The most certain means ofconquering is to fall unexpectedly on your enemy ; " and," No greater damage can be inflicted on the enemy than bypressing him there where you have become certainhe dreadsit the most." There is space to do no more than instance amarch and a battle of Brasidas, in illustration of what wasbest in the warfare of that century.Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, together with some revoltedThracian cities and Sparta, had joined in a treaty againstAthens, which city had long held the supremacy in the north.The march of Brasidas through Thessaly to join Perdiccas inMacedonia (b. c. 424) gives proof of a man with the moralelement singularly and beautifully developed. Brasidas hadnone of the narrowness of the Spartan. He was not onlya clear-headed soldier, but he was a clean man, who accomplishedhis tasks as openly and honorably as he fought hisway bravely. The population of Thessaly was allied to Athensand inimical to Sparta. Brasidas must march throughThessaly to reach Macedonia. At the head of his four thousandmen he made a series of forced marches with such rapidityand skill that he forestalled opposition. Before the jjeopleof any one section had met and determined to oppose him,Brasidas would have already passed by their land ; and whenhe was once arrested on the march by armed resistance at adefile through which he must pass, he persuaded his would-beadversaries that his mission was peaceful and advantageous