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from age to age, must have had on the mind of our young hero, 

 may more easily be conceived than described ; he sacrificed to the 

 manes of the mighty heroes whom he made his exemplar ; he 

 adorned their tombs with garlands ; and he departed with re-anima- 

 ted ambition to rival them in renown. 



Under these impressions he pursued his march, without opposition, 

 to the river Granicus, where an army, says Diodorus, of one hun- 

 dred thousand foot and ten thousand horse, commanded by the 

 Persian governors of the neighbouring provinces, lay encamped, in 

 order to dispute the passage. Arrian states the Persian force at 

 twenty thousand foot and the like number of horse ; but the Per- 

 sians, who could always bring such immense armies into the field, 

 would scarcely risk an action under the larger number of infantry 

 mentioned by Diodorus, while Arrian's account of the cavalry may 

 yet be correct, because on them their principal dependence lay. 

 The Granicus was a river exceedingly rapid, and, in some parts, 

 very deep ; the banks were steep, broken, and craggy. No posi- 

 tion, therefore, seemed to the Persian commander more eligible 

 to check the career of the invading Greeks than the station they 

 had chosen ; but this arrangement was in diametrical opposition to 

 that of an officer of far higher military experience than them all, 

 Memnon of Rhodes, whom Darius had appointed commander-in- 

 chief of the whole coast of Asia Minor, a man who well knew the 

 desperate courage of the enemy with whom they had to engage. 

 It was his decided opinion that the Persians should by no means, 

 at this early period of the contest, hazard a battle with the more 

 experienced Macedonians ; but that their numerous cavalry should 

 scour the country in every direction, laying all in desolation, that 

 the supplies of forage and provision might be wholly cut off, and 

 the invading enemy be driven to the necessity of a retreat from the 

 mere pressure of famine. In the mean time, he proposed to send 



