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

PREFACE.IXwe find some material in his pages. He lived in the thirdcentury.There were numberless historians of Alexander. Very fewhave survived. Kafael Volteran quotes Clitarchus, Polycrates,Onesicritus, Antigenes Istrus, Aristobulus, Chares,Hecatseus Eritreus, Philip the Chalcidian, Duris the Samian,Ptolemy, Anticlides, Philo the Theban, Philip, Ilisangelus,Antisthenes, Meneehmus the Sicyonian, Nymphis of Ileraclea,Potamon the Mitylenaan, Sotericus Arsites, Arrian, Plutarch,Quintus Curtius. Plutarch quotes most of the above,and Callisthenes, Eratosthenes, Polyclitus, Hermippus, andSotion, beside. Most of these authors did not long survivetheir own era ; but they were known to those whose workshave remained to us, and were by them accepted or rejected,according to the credibility of each. It may be claimed thatArrian furnishes us the main body of all histories of Alexander.Other sources are, as it were, appendices. And this,because the trained military mind of Arrian enabled him todistinguish clearly between what was valuable and consistent,and what was manifestl}'^ incredible or unimportant.The early chapters, about the military art preceding Philip,come mainly from Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon.Cornelius Nepos draws a clever character, and we all knowwhat a fund of riches Plutarch lays before us, available forall purposes, if not always exact.So much for the facts.But the ancient authors rarely givemore than just the bald facts in dealing with military matters.They teU us where Alexander went and what he did,wdth sketches of character and interesting incidents ; butthey furnish no clue to the special why and wherefore whichthe soldier likes to know; or if a clue, quite frequently awrong one. What to us is clear, because the art which Alexandercreated has since been expanded by the deeds of the