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

PHILOTAS' CRIME. 443used to advice and criticism from Parmenio, from youth up ;this was no novelty. But he felt that Philotas, though alwaysbrave in battle and constant in duty, had of late grown moreand more antagonistic.Craterus, even, was not always likemindedwith the king, though a pattern of what the soldiershould be. Clitus was gi'owing daily more estranged. In thewar-councils these feelings had plainly come to the surface.All seemed to unite in desiring a cessation of conquest, a divisionof booty, a return home. Alexander stood alone with butHephaistion by his side. So far the king had won his waywith presents, without punislunent. Now, largesses had losttheir effect. Had the time come for other methods ?This spirit of criticism, if left to grow, tended to the destructionof discipline, with its thousand accompanying dangers.It is scarcely possible to imagine success in an undertakingof so gigantic and difficult a nature, so far from home,and against feuch vast odds as the one Alexander had in hand,unless the very essence of discipline could be maintained.Itwas evident that on the first outbreak of disaffection an examplemust be made. If Alexander failed to maintain anunquestioned authority, he was no longer king.Parmenio was seventy years old.His youngest son. Hector,had been drowned in the Nile in the Egyptian expedition; the second son, Nicanor, who, as worthy chief of thehypaspists, had won the good will and admiration ofall, hadrecently died. Philotas was the well-known leader of theCompanion cavalry, distinctly the most brilliant commandin the army. No family in Macedonia had earned the gratitudeofthe king in so high a degree.The crime of Philotas appears to have been that he heardrumors of a certain conspiracy to murder Alexander, originatingwith some obscure members of the royal household,who were tired of the everlasting wanderings, and thought to