head of the skirmishing cavalry, the Paeonians, and one regiment of infantry; and in front of these he had placed Ptolemy, son of Philip, in command of the squadron of Socrates, which body of men indeed on that day happened to have the lead of all the cavalry force. He himself led the right wing with sounding of trumpets, and the men raising the war-cry to Enyalius.[1] He entered the ford, keeping his line always extended obliquely in the direction in which the stream flowed, in order that the Persians might not fall upon him on the flank as he was emerging from the water, but that he might, as far as practicable,[2] encounter them with his phalanx.
CHAPTER XV.
Description of the Battle of the Granicus.
The Persians began the contest by hurling missiles from above in the direction where the men of Amyntas and Socrates were the first to reach the bank; some of them casting javelins into the river from their commanding position on the bank, and others stepping down along the flatter parts of it to the very edge of the water. Then ensued a violent struggle on the part of the cavalry, on the one side to emerge from the river, and on the other to prevent the landing. Prom the Persians there was a terrible discharge of darts; but the Macedonians fought with spears. The Macedonians, being far inferior
- ↑ This is an Homeric name for Mars the war-god. In Homer Ares is the Trojan and Enyalius the Grecian war-god. Hence they are mentioned as difiterent in Aristophanes (Pax, 457). See Paley's note on Homer (vvi. 166). As to the practice of shouting the war-cry to Mars before battle, see Xenophon (Anab., i. 8, 18; v. 2, 14). The Scholiast on Thucydides (i. 50) says that the Greeks used to sing two paeans, one to Mars before battle, another to Apollo after it.
- ↑ ώς άνυστόν=ώς δυνατόν Cf. Arrian, iv. 12, 6; Xenophon (Anab., i, 8, 11; Res. Laced., i. 3).
