rir 



I i 



3G 



A HIHTOKY OF CAVALRY. 



[period I. 



i ! 



'■;|iii 



ill! 



Thessalian. Each corps consisted of about 1,500 men. 

 They were armed as heavy cavalry, or cataphracts, with 

 long lances and swords, the men and horses both being 

 well equipped with defensive armour. 



In addition to all his other cavalry, Alexander had 

 a corps d'elite composed of young Macedonians distin- 

 guished by their birth, courage, and address. They were 

 called his " friends." They fought around him and with 

 him. He caused Lysippus to cast in brass statues of 

 twenty-five members of this corps who were killed at the 

 battle of Granicus, and placed them in the city of Dium. 



At the battle of Granicus Alexander crossed the ford 

 at the head of the cavalry of his right wing. Arrian 

 says, " Never was there a more obstinate conflict of horse 

 known." The Persians fought chiefly with barbed jave- 

 lins, the Macedonians with spears ; Alexander, observing 

 where the Persian officers and their horse stood thickest, 

 there made his first effort. The Macedonians, well 

 disciplined, well led, and armed with lances for hand-to- 

 hand fighting, soon defeated their opponents, who seem 

 to have relied upon missile weapons, and to have awaited 

 the charge on the river bank.^ Alexander, who fought in 

 the thickest of the mSlee, had part ^f his helmet carried 

 away, and was slightly wounded, while his friend and 

 companion Clitus saved his life by cutting down Spithri- 

 dates, who was attacking him from behind. The light 

 armed foot in this passage fought among the horse, and, 

 according to Arrian, inflicted great damage upon the 

 Persians. 



In this action Alexander showed all the qualities of 

 a great cavalry commander, for after defeating the horse 

 of his enemy and driving them from the field, he did not 

 follow them any distance, but immediately faced about 

 and charged violently upon the foreign mercenaries, who 

 were still firmly holding their ground. The Macedonian 

 phalanx of heavy armed infantry attacked these mer- 

 cenaries at the same time, and as Arrian says, "the 

 whole body of horse " also charged vigorously, we must 

 assume that the cavalry of the left wing must have 



' Arrian, i. ch. xvi. 



