without being entirely subjugated. Setting out then from Amphipolis, he invaded the land of the people who were called independent Thracians,[1] keeping the city of Philippi and mount Orbelus on the left. Crossing the river Nessus,[2] they say he arrived at mount Haemus[3] on the tenth day. Here, along the defiles up the ascent to the mountain, he was met by .many of the traders equipped with arms, as well as by the independent Thracians, who had made preparations to check the further advance of his expedition by seizing the summit of the Haemus, along which was the route for the passage of his army. They had collected their waggons, and placed them in front of them, not only using them as a rampart from which they might defend themselves, in case they should be forced back, but also intending to let them loose upon the phalanx of the Macedonians, where the mountain was most precipitous, if they tried to ascend. They had come to the conclusion[4] that the denser the phalanx was with which the waggons rushing down came into collision, the more easily would they scatter it by the violence of their fall upon it.
But Alexander formed a plan by which he might cross the mountain with the least danger possible; and since he was resolved to run all risks, knowing that there were no means of passing elsewhere, he ordered the heavy-armed soldiers, as soon as the waggons began to rush down the declivity, to open their ranks, and directed that those whom the road was sufficiently wide to permit
- ↑ We learn from Thucydides, ii. 96, that these people were called Dii.
- ↑ The Nessus, or Nestus, is now called Mesto by the Greeks, and Karasu by the Turks.
- ↑ Now known as the Balkan. The defiles mentioned by Arrian are probably what was afterwards called Porta Trajani. Cf. Vergil (Georg., ii. 488); Horace (Carm., i. 12, 6).
- ↑ πεποιηντο:—Arrian often forms the pluperfect tense without the augment. διασκεδάσουσι:—The Attic future of this verb is διασκεδώ, Cf. Aristoph. (Birds, 1053).
