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

WHAT ALEXANDER KNEW. 219doubt that the latter is the more reasonable point of view.What the ancient world had so far learned Alexander had byheart.Why should he not, with Aristotle for a tutor ?We know comparatively little about the extent of Alexander'sinformation respecting the Persian kingdom. AsiaMinor had long been full of Greeks with whom there was constantintercourse. This portion of the Great King's dominionswas no doubt familiar to him.Beyond this point, Alexanderhad perhaps nothing but Xenophon's Anabasis and theunsatisfactory Cyroptedia to guide him. Travelers then, asin modern times, lied by authority. Gre'ek mercenaries whohad been in Persian pay might have observed but partially.The Persian history of Ctesias he may never have seen.Artabazus and Memnon, distinguished men both, had beenrefugees at the court of Pella, and could have told much.Persian ambassadors could be interrogated. How carefullythese sources of information had been used cannot be said.We know that Alexander's habit in all his campaigns was togather information with scrupulous care ;we can imagine thathe had got together a fair nucleus of facts to serve him asguide so far as the Euphrates, though the actual obstacles andenormous distances to be encountered could scarcely have beenfully comprehended, even by him. Beyond the Euphrateswas a blank or a dream.But Alexander had one peculiarly marked power. Hecould generalize from specific facts with astonishing accuracyhe could gauge the exact value in a problem of one or twoisolated facts. There is no mark of the perfect military graspso positive as the power of seeing the whole without beingmisled by the parts ; of never allowing detail to obscure themain purpose; of properly interpreting partial signs. AllAlexander's campaigns exhibit this ability in an exceptionaldegree, and it is fair to infer that from even the paucity of