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

212 REMARKABLE MARCH.to exist for the captain. Fortune is and should be almostuniformly of his own creation.Alexander at once started by rapid marches for Greece.His route lay through Eordaea and Elimaea in Macedon, andalong the uplands — the peaks, says Arrian — of the Pindusrange. Alexander probably selected the higher foot-hills becausealong these the rivers were smaller than in the plains.It was a choice of evils he had to make between mountainroads and unfordable rivers. In seven days he reached Pelina,on the Peneus, in Thessaly. Thence in six days heentered Boeotia. Alexander's celerity of movement in thiscase was undoubtedly supplemented by good fortune ; but thegods help those who help themselves, and the king neverfailed to put his own shoulder to the wheel. No character inhistory ever exceeded him in constant personal endeavor. Sospeedy was this march that the Thebans did not even knowof his passing Thermopylae until he reached Onchestus, fiftystades, less than six miles, northwest of their city. Eventhen his enemies continued to maintain that the son of Philipwas dead, and that Antipater commanded thearmy, or elsethe Lyncestian Alexander. For Alexander, as narrated, hadreally been wounded by a club and a stone in the last battle,and the belief in the fatal nature of these wounds was universal.If the Danube and Illyrian campaigns leave one fullof astonishment at their rapidity, energy and able management,this march of over three hundred miles, through arugged mountain country, in a fortnight, with a considerablearmy of foot and horse, the equivalent of our artillery, andno doubt some trains, worthily caps the climax.Alexander's appearance at once caused all her allies againto fall away from Thebes. Even Athens preferred to awaitevents. Thebes stood alone.