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

392 PROMOTIONS.Menes, to Antipater three thousand talents to carry on thewar with the Spartans, a much needed remittance.In Susa Alexander domiciled the family of Darius, andsurrounded it with royal state.Here were received considerable reinforcements, brousfhtby Amyntas, son of Andromenes, from Macedonia. Theseare stated by Curtius to have been fifteen thousand men, includingfifty pages. Alexander found it desirable to makesome changes in his army organization. We are told that themora or battalion (two syntagmas) up to this time had beenfive hundred strong. Alexander increased it to one thousand.The chiliarch or colonel, one of the most important of officers,because commanding the unit of service, given above as ataxis of one thousand and twenty-four men, was ordered tobe chosen by certain judges ajjpointed by Alexander, whowere obliged to give their reasons for their selection, so thatevery soldier might see that the best man had been promoted.The king, like all others, had his favorites ; but beyond favoritismwas the desire to keep an army on which he couldrely. The earliest promotions numbered Adarchias for gallantryin retrieving a failing assault at Halicarnassus, Antigenes,Philotas, Amjaitas, Antigonus, Lyncestes, Theodotus,Hellanicus, each to the command of a new mora.This statementdoes not accord with what we have given of Philip'sorganization, but it shows that Alexander, under his new conditions,was compelled to make changes, to assimilate the newmaterial entering the army. It is not impossible that the oldhistorians have, in reporting the changes made, used misleadingphrases, or employed Greek rather than Macedonianterms. But the matter is not of the essence. Alexander'schanges were all of a similar and excellent kind. All distinctionsin the foreign cavalry were abolished. He doubled uphis cavalry organization by dividing each ile or squadron into