WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.

Such was the general nature of the disposition, which Alexander made of his army. But we have in Arrian the details of the position of each brigade and regiment; and as we know that these details were taken from the journals of Macedonian generals, it is interesting to examine them, and to read the names and stations of King Alexander's generals and colonels in this, the greatest of his battles.

The eight regiments of the royal horse-guards formed the right of Alexander's line. Their colonels were Cleitus (whose regiment was on the extreme right, the post of peculiar danger, Glaucias, Ariston, Sopolis, Heracleides, Demetrias, Meleager, and Hegelochus. Philotas was general of the whole division. Then came the Shield-bearing infantry: Nicanor was their general. Then came the phalanx in six brigades. Coenus's brigade was on the right, and nearest to the Shield-bearers; next to this stood the brigade of Perdiccas, then Meleager's, then Polyperchon's; and then the brigade of Amynias, but which was now commanded by Simmias, as Amynias had been sent to Macedonia to levy recruits.

Then came the infantry of the left wing, under the command of Craterus. Next to Craterus's infantry were placed the cavalry regiments of the allies, with Eriguius for their general. The Thessalian cavalry, commanded by Philippus, were next, and held the extreme left of the whole army. The whole left wing was entrusted to the command of Parmenio, who had round his person the Phalian regiment of cavalry, which was the strongest and best of all the Thessalian horse regiments.

The center of the second line was occupied by a body of phalanx gite infantry, formed of companies which were drafted for this purpose from each of the brigades of their phalanx. The officers in command of this corps were ordered to be ready to face about, if the enemy should succeed in gaining the rear of the army. On the right of this reserve of infantry, in the second line, and behind the royal horse-guards, Alexander placed half the Agrian light-armed infantry under Attalus, and with them Brison's body of Macedonian archers and Oleander's regiment of foot.

He also placed in this part of his army Menida's squadron of cavalry, and Artes's and Ariston's light horse. Menidas was ordered to watch if the enemy's cavalry tried to turn their flank, and, if they did so, to charge them before they wheeled completely round, and take them in flank themselves. A similar force was arranged on the left of the second line for the same purpose.

The Thracian infantry of Stitalces were placed there, and Cosranus's regiment of the cavalry of the Greek allies, and Agathon's troops of the Odrysian irregular horse. The extreme left of the second line in this quarter was held bv Andromachus's cavalry.

A division of the Thracian infantry was left in guard of the camp. In advance of the right wing and center was scattered a number of light-armed troops, of javelin-men and bow-men, with the intention of warding off the charge of the armed chariots.

Conspicuous by the brilliancy of his armor, and by the chosen band of officers who were round his person, Alexander took his own station, as his custom was, in the right wing, at the head of his cavalry and when all tlie arrangements for the battle were complete, and his generals were fully instructed how to act in each probable emergency, he began to lead his men toward the enemy.

It was ever his custom to expose his life freely in battle, and to emulate the personal prowess of his great ancestor, Achilles.

Perhaps, in the bold enterprise of conquering Persia, it was politic for Alexander to raise his army's daring to the utmost by the example of his own heroic valor; and, in his subsequent campaigns, the love of excitement, of "the raptures of the strife," may have made him, like Murat, continue from choice a custom which he commenced from duty.

But he never suffered the ardor of a soldier to make him lose the coolness of the general, and at Arbela, in particular, he showed that he could act up to his favorite Homeric maxim.