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“Men are apt to think”: Thucydides, 7.69.2.
3: RESISTANCE
“do not envision the consequences”: Polybius, Histories 11.2.4–6.
“The challenge of education”: cited in Craig Mullaney, The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education (New York: Penguin, 2009), p. 365.
Aristotle had taught him: Aristotle, Politics 4.1296a.
“soft underbelly”: Richard M. Langworth, The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), p. 109.
The roar echoed: Curtius 3.10.1–2; Diodorus Siculus 17.33.4.
“in three battles”: Curtius 4.1.35.
“I would accept”: Plutarch, Life of Alexander 29.8.
land made for ambushes: Livy, History of Rome 22.4.1.
The sources hint at a debate in the Carthaginian high command: Dexter Hoyos, “Maharbal’s Bon Mot: Authenticity and Survival,” Classical Quarterly n.s. 50.2 (2000): 610–14.
“that his army could not drive or carry it all off”: Polybius, Histories 3.86.10, Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.
“in a country abounding in all kinds of produce”: Polybius, Histories 3.87.1, Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.
“inexhaustible supplies of provisions and men”: Polybius, Histories 3.89.9. Loeb translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html.
“to send aid to their allies” Plutarch, Fabius 2.5., Loeb translation, (vol. 3, 1916), http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Fabius_Maximus*.html.
“He therefore made up his mind”: Plutarch, Fabius 5.3, Loeb translation, (vol. 3, 1916), http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Fabius_Maximus*.html.
“Hannibal’s manservant”: literally, “Hannibal’s paedagogus,” a Greek slave who served as a young Roman noble’s attendant.
“art of Punic fraud”: Florus, Epitome 1.22.13.
best stratagems: Plutarch, Life of Pompey 63.1.
“wars are not won by evacuations”: Winston Churchill, Speech to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940, http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Dunkirk.html.
going against an army without a leader: Suetonius, Julius Caesar 34.2.
“not through lenience”: Suetonius, Julius Caesar 69.
“et devotissimi . . . et fortissimi”: Suetonius, Julius Caesar 68.1.
“the most potent thing in war is the unexpected”: Appian, Civil Wars 53.
“There can be no peace for us until Caesar’s head is brought in”: Caesar, Civil War 3.19.
“Caesar’s good fortune”: Appian, Civil Wars 2.57.
animals and not men: Appian, Civil Wars 2.61.
wrote to his famous father-in-law: Cicero, Letters to Friends 9.9.2–3.
“fortune . . . produces great changes”: Caesar, Civil War 3.68.
“Imperator!”: Caesar, Civil War 3.71.
“Today the enemy would have won”: Plutarch, Caesar 39; cf. Appian, Civil Wars 2.62. Translated by Rex Warner: Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Republic, rev. edn. Trans. Rex Warner, rev. Robin Seager, preface by Christopher Pelling, London: Penguin Books, 2005, p. 294.
In private: Appian, Civil Wars 2.64.
In public: Caesar, Civil War 3.73.
faith in its father—himself: Dio Cassius, Roman History 41.27.
“War is a harsh teacher”: Thucydides 3.82.2.
4: CLASH
“For a short time the battle became a hand-to-hand fight”: Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 3.14.3.
“the air . . . with the groans of the fallen”: Diodorus Siculus 17.60.4.
There was none of the usual spear throwing: Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 3.15.2.
“a strange and terrifying appearance”: Polybius, Histories 3.114.
might as well have handed themselves over to his men in chains: Livy, History of Rome 22.49.3.
“slaughter rather than battle”: Livy, History of Rome 22.48.6.
so many Roman dead: the most credible ancient casualty figures are found in Livy, History of Rome 22.49.13–18, but they don’t quite jibe with the total number of Roman soldiers in the usually reliable Polybius, Histories 3.113.
Caesar’s drunken and bloated men: Appian, Civil Wars 2.64.
“disciplined and desperate men”: Appian, Civil Wars 2.64, trans. Loeb, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0232%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D66.
“the most prudent calculation”: Appian, Civil Wars 2.64, trans. Loeb, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0232%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D66.
“more reserved”: Tacitus, Histories 2.38.
At last, Pompey gave in: Caesar, Civil War 3.86; Appian, Civil Wars 2.10.67; Plutarch, Life of Pompey 67.4–5; Polyaenus, Stratagems of War 8.23.14.
like a ship’s captain surrendering the rudder: Lucan, Pharsalia, 7.126–128.
they had to keep moving: Caesar, Civil War 3.85.
“Hope”: Thucydides 5.102.
The battle probably took place: the exact location of the battle is uncertain. Here, I follow the arguments of C.B.R. Pelling, “Pharsalus,” Historia 22 (1973), 249–59, and John D. Morgan, “Palaepharsalus—the Battle and the Town,” American Journal of Archaeology 87 (1983), 23–54.
One source reports that Caesar told his soldiers: Plutarch, Life of Pompey 68.4.
“Let us be ready in our hearts”: Caesar, Civil War 3.85.
“the crisis of the chiefs”: Lucan, Pharsalia 7.242–43.
included the weight of groans: Lucan, Pharsalia 7.571–73.
“its wings deployed across the entire plain”: Lucan, Pharsalia 7.506.
Archers and slingers: Cassius Dio 41.60.1–2.
melting in the heat: Lucan, Pharsalia 7.511–13.
“No circumstance contributed more”: Frontinus, Stratagems 2.22.
“They wanted this”: Asinius Pollio as cited by Suetonius, Julius Caesar 30.4.
The results of Pharsalus: Caesar, Civil War 3.99; Appian, Civil Wars 2.82, who cites the now lost history of Asinius Pollio, an eyewitness who fought at Pharsalus for Caesar.
5: CLOSING THE NET
he didn’t want Darius’s corpse: Justin 3.3.
a speech that touched on three themes: Plutarch, Life of Alexander 47.1–3, claims to be paraphrasing a letter to Antipater in which Alexander describes what he actually said.
he grossly underestimated the distance: Quintus Curtius 6.3.16.
Mago: Livy, History of Rome 28.46.7, 14; 29.4–5; 30.18–20. Mago had dreamed of glory, but today his only share of immortality may come via an egg sauce. The city of Mahón on Minorca claims to be the place where mayonnaise began—and Mahon also prides itself on being named after Mago. But the city’s etymology is debated, and other places too insist that they invented mayonnaise.
“of that sort worn only by Knights, and only by the first among them”: Livy, History of Rome 23.12.2.
“Now I understand the fate of Carthage!”: Livy, History of Rome 27.51.12.
“for themselves and their native soil”: Polybius, Histories 3.118.5.
“Truly the gods have not given”: Livy, History of Rome 22.51.4.
“It is widely believed that the day’s delay”: Livy, History of Rome 22.51.4.
all the way back to men who lived through the Second Punic War: Michael P. Fronda, Between Rome and Carthage: Southern Italy during the Second Punic War (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 42, n. 106, citing Hans Beck and U. Walter, eds. Die frühen römischen Historiker, vol. 1. (Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2001), 4 F13–14.
“neither the Carthaginians nor their enemies”: Livy, History of Rome 21.12.1.
Sulla, he said, did not know his political ABC’s: Suetonius, Julius Caesar 77.
“Fortis fortuna adiuvat”: Terence, Phormio 203.
“I cannot but mourn his
fate,”: Cicero, Letters to Atticus 11.6.5.
“I demanded, I borrowed”: Cassius Dio, Roman History 42.49–50.
simple arithmetic: Cassius Dio, Roman History 42.49.
“citizens”: Suetonius, Julius Caesar 70; Plutarch, Life of Caesar 51.2; Appian, Civil Wars 2.13.92–94; Cassius Dio, Roman History 52–54.
He is said to have rid himself of the ringleaders: Cassius Dio, Roman History 42.55.2.
“guilt-stained”: The African War 44.
“Should I take a stand in arms”: The African War 45.
“I don’t call you commander-in-chief”: The African War 45.
He considered Caesar a tyrant: Plutarch, Cato the Younger 72.2, may have invented Cato’s speech, but it rings true.
“O Cato, I begrudge you”: Plutarch, Cato the Younger 72.2.
“Each for his cause can vouch a judge supreme”: Lucan, Pharsalia 1.127–28, translated by Sir Edward Ridley. Pharsalia. M. Annaeus Lucanus. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1905), http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0134%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D33.
“Aren’t you ashamed to hand me over to these little boys?”: Plutarch, Life of Caesar 56.2.
6: KNOWING WHEN TO STOP
“various blessings and especially”: Arrian, Anabasis 7.11.8.9, modified from the translation by P. A. Brunt, Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, Books V–VII (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1983, p. 241.
“Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace”: Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1987), p. 331.
“Alexander was always insatiable”: Aristoboulos as cited in Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 7.19.6, and Strabo, Geography 16.1.11, cf. Arrian Indica 9.11.
“The great horn is broken”: Book of Daniel 8:8.
“The music must always play”: W. H. Auden, “September 1, 1939.”
“the unmentionable odor of death”: W. H. Auden, “September 1, 1939.”
“to the strongest”: Arrian, Anabasis 7.26.3, Diodorus Siculus 17.117.4, cf. 18.1.4; Quintus Curtius 10.5.5, Justin 12.15.8.
“great funeral games”: Diodorus Siculus 17.117.4.
“not small hopes but great hopes”: Polybius, Histories 15.2.3.
“look after other matters”: Polybius, Histories 15.5.2.
“amazed” . . . “felt an urge”: Polybius, Histories 15.5.8.
“struck by the enemy’s confidence”: Livy, History of Rome 30.29.4.
“seek peace while his army was intact”: Livy, History of Rome 30.29.5.
Polybius says that Hannibal was admirable at Zama: Polybius, Histories 15.15.3.
rather be the first man there: Plutarch, Life of Caesar 11.3–4.
“the tranquility of Italy”: Caesar, Civil War 3.57.
“The Republic,” he once said, “is nothing”: Suetonius, Julius Caesar 77.1.
“You too, my son?”: Suetonius, Julius Caesar 82.2.
fifty pitched battles in which he claimed to have killed 1,192,000 people: Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.91–92.
Caesar had no right to lord it over people: Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger 66.2.
CONCLUSION
“The brave have the whole earth for their sepulcher”: Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 2.43.3.
one of his subordinates trembled: the reference is to Cassander, Plutarch, Life of Alexander 74.6.
Hannibal’s “leadership, bravery, and ability in the field:” Polybius, Histories 11.19, the source of all citations in this paragraph. All translations in this paragraph are modified versions of W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library translation, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/42*.html.
Scipio came to Ephesus: Livy, History of Rome 35.14.5–11; Plutarch, Life of Flaminius 21.3.
“Punic wit”: Livy, History of Rome 35.14.11.
“said that he had seen many doddering old men”: Cicero, On the Orator 2.75.
INDEX
Abydos, 41
Achilles, 22, 240
Actium, Battle of (31 B.C.), 229
Adriatic Sea, 96, 97
Caesar’s crossing of, 98–99, 246
Aegae, 233
Aeneas, 27
Afghanistan, 17
Afghanistan War, 16
Afranius, Lucius, 95, 96, 132, 136
African Americans, Hannibal and, 18
“African War, The,” 182
agility, 188, 189
of Alexander, 10, 30, 76, 115, 141, 144, 149, 172, 191, 238, 248
of Caesar, 10, 30, 38, 45, 95, 103, 139, 141, 144, 147, 191, 245
of Hannibal, 10, 30, 34, 89, 129, 141, 144, 191
Ai Khanum, 198
Alesia, 172
Alexander II, King of Macedon, 154
Alexander III “the Great,” King of Macedon, xv, 90, 189, 244
agility of, 10, 30, 76, 115, 141, 144, 149, 172, 191, 238, 248
ambition of, 6, 22, 162, 235, 238, 240, 248
Arabian invasion planned by, 202–3, 204, 240
army of, see Macedonian army
audacity of, 1, 5, 9, 30, 76, 81, 115, 141–42, 144, 172, 202, 235, 238–39, 248
branding of, 13, 22, 44, 116, 231, 235, 248
conspiracy fears of, 154
counterinsurgency tactics used by, 10, 17, 157, 172
Darius pursued by, 150
Darius’s family captured by, 79–80
Darius’s peace offers to, 81–82
death of, 204–5
Divine Providence and, 14, 73, 95, 105, 235, 238, 239, 248
divinity claimed by, 13, 116, 233, 240–41
early military experience of, 22, 42, 51, 237
executions ordered by, 154–55
as field commander, 1, 3–4, 30, 49, 79, 81, 115, 118, 159, 238, 248
funeral procession of, 233
governance as boring to, 7–8, 10, 197–99, 202, 230–31, 238, 240, 249
Greek allies released by, 152
Greek mercenaries massacred by, 43, 53
after Indian invasion, 193–94, 197–207
Indian Ocean fleet of, 161–63, 202
judgment of, 7–8, 30–31, 65, 79, 105, 111, 113, 115, 141, 144–45, 238, 239
as “king of Asia,” 83, 148, 150, 152, 153–54, 199, 230, 238
leadership of, 8–9, 144, 162, 231, 238
legacy of, 17–18, 196, 230–31
lessons learned by, 104–5, 162, 202
long-term thinking by, 12
military inventiveness of, 42, 157, 172
as military strategist, 4, 11–12, 30, 31–34, 76, 105, 118, 162, 191, 239, 248
navies as underappreciated by, 7, 10, 29, 33–34, 68–69, 71–72, 81, 95, 104, 162, 191, 202, 239
Persian customs and dress adopted by, 13, 153, 155, 240
pitched battle as goal of, 108, 238
political skill of, 32, 155, 239
as political strategist, 40–43, 215
reasons for going to war, 13, 21–23, 40–41, 64
self-confidence of, 79
siegecraft of, 238
soldiers well-treated by, 52–53
as statesman, 3–4
surprise as tactic of, 12, 76, 149, 159
tactical mastery of, 42, 49, 113, 159, 239, 248
terror as tactic of, 12–13, 43, 53, 80, 144, 161, 235, 239, 248
vanity of, 19, 247
wounds sustained by, 9, 79, 157–58, 205
Alexander III “the Great,” King of Macedon, Persian conquest of, 4, 5, 19, 20–23, 39, 40–43, 94, 104
in Anatolia, 1, 5, 20–21, 40–41, 42, 48–52, 67, 69, 90, 98, 106
attack phase of, 48–52
clash phase of, see Gaugamela, Battle of
closing the net in, 146, 148–63, 188–92, 236, 239
Far Eastern campaign in, 146, 153–54, 156–63, 191, 230, 240, 248
Granicus River battle, 1, 48–52, 69, 134
Halicarnassus siege, 67, 72, 104
Iranian c
ampaign in, 148–49, 191, 239
Issus battle, 70, 74–80, 81, 109, 239
map, xx–xxi
money and supplies for, 23, 42, 48, 69, 79–80, 191
reinforcements for, 75
resistance phase of, 67, 69–83
and threat of rebellion by Greek city-states, 40, 41, 42–43, 70, 74, 80, 82
Alexander IV, King of Macedon, 206
Alexandria, Egypt:
Alexander’s tomb in, 233
Caesar in, 10, 17, 178–79, 246
Algerian War (1954–1962), 16
Alps:
Hannibal’s crossing of, 4, 5, 19, 20–21, 53–54, 84, 142, 242
Hasdrubal’s crossing of, 167
Amanus Gates, 75–76
Amanus Mountains, 75, 76
Ambhi, Indian king, 158
ambition, 6–7
of Alexander, 6, 22, 162, 235, 238, 240, 248
of Caesar, 7, 27, 235, 248
of Hannibal, 6–7, 235, 248
Ammon, Shrine of, 233
Anatolia:
Alexander’s campaign in, 1, 5, 20–21, 40–41, 42, 48–52, 67, 69, 72–74, 90, 98, 106
after Alexander’s death, 207
Hannibal in, 220
Macedonian advanced force in, 40, 49, 98, 245
Persian naval bases in, 67, 72, 104
revolt and unrest in, 33
Anticato (Caesar), 226
Antigonus “the One-Eyed,” 81, 90, 106, 207
Antioch, 179, 198
Antiochus III, Seleucid emperor, 220
Antipater, governor of Judaea, 179
Antipater, governor of Macedon, xv, 151–52, 201
Antony, Mark (Marcus Antonius), xviii, 98, 99, 101, 136, 228–29, 234
Apama, 200
Apennine Mountains, 61, 84, 90, 142, 242
appeasement, 26
Apulia (Puglia), 88, 120, 122
Arabia, Alexander’s planned invasion of, 202–3, 204, 240
Arachosia, 151, 156
Arbela (Irbil), 119
Archimedes, 165
Aria (Herat), 151, 156
Ariminium (Rimini), 60, 85
Aristotle, 30
Arno River, 84, 85
Arretium (Arezzo), 85
Arses, King of Persia, 33
Artabazus, 49
Artaxerxes III, King of Persia, 33, 49
Assyria, 109, 112
Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 234–35
Athenian navy, 33–34, 41
Athens:
in Peloponnesian War, 16
Persian conquest of, 82, 149