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

282 WHAT HAD BEEN GAINED.paign are never dwelt upon by the ancient historians. Neitheris credit given for overcoming the unusual labors of suchcampaigni-ng, nor are these deemed an excuse for delay orfailure.In a certain sense Alexander's success had not been sosplendid as to overawe the Greek opposition at home. Itmust not be supposed that tongues wagged any less noisilytwo thousand years ago than they do to-day. To be sure hehad captured all the coast cities of Asia Minor as the resultof his victory at the Granicus, but there were many whoalleged that Memnon, whose ability was weU recognized, hadonly permitted this apparent gain so that he himself mightmore securely occupy the islands of the JEgeaxi in force, andmake ready to cut Alexander off from his base by invadingMacedon. Then indeed, said Alexander's oi)ponents, hewould soon show the Macedonians how slender had been theirhold on all this territory. And it was openly prophesied inAthens that Alexander woidd not dare advance further inland.Nor were these arguments without a substratum ofreason. Memnon was capable, and the one man who was so,of giving Alexander a vast amount of trouble ; aud no oneas yet appreciated the full extent of Alexander's resourcesand ability. This was natural enough.But Alexander's jDolitical nous was no less strong than hismilitary sense. As we have seen, he gave back their freedomand old laws to all the Greek cities he had captured or whichhad surrendered to him. This meant not that he had merelystepped into the shoes of the Persian king ; not that thesecities had but exchanged one tyrant for another ; they hadmade so substantial a gain — and they recognized the fact—that Alexander could rely almost certainly on their remainingfaithful to the end to him who had dealt thus generouslyby them. And it will be noticed that the king had already