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On the evening of 21 September, the day after the eclipse, Alexander broke camp and marched beyond the Tigris through country which his guides called Aturia, transcribing its Aramaic name into Greek. His route
was the well-defined line of the Royal Road; on his right, flowed the river; on his left rose the Kurdish mountains which bordered the lands of the Medes; before him galloped his mounted scouts searching hard for the enemy. For three whole days they ranged south-east while sixty miles passed without any sign, but at dawn on 25 September they were back in a flurry, reporting that Darius's army had at last been seen on the march. Again, this was a failure in advance intelligence, as on a closer look the 'army' turned out to be a thousand horsemen who had been detailed to burn any local barns of grain. They had arrived too late to hold the Tigris, and before their firebrands caused much damage, they were routed by Alexander and his mounted lancers in a typically brisk charge. Prisoners were taken and these put the reco
In this camp, at least seven miles from the enemy, Alexander remained for the next four days, in no way distressed by lack of supplies. It was a time, no doubt, for checking horses' fitness and polishing sarissa wood and blades, but as the night of 29 September came on, he at last arrayed his army in battle order and led them off shortly before midnight, evidently meaning to surprise Darius at daybreak. He had already been observed from the hills ahead, perhaps by Mazacus and a small advance force, but he was unaware of this. Four miles from Darius's lines, Alexander surmounted the ridge which overlooks the plains to the north of the Jebel Maqlub; he looked down to the village of Gaugamela in the foreground and the Tell Gomel or 'camel's hump' beside it, from which it took its name. Here he halted his line of battle and summoned all his commanders to a sudden council of war; nothing is said to explain this, but at the very last moment the plans for attack had obviously worried him. Most of those present at the council advised him to march straight ahead, but Parmenion urged encampment and the inspection of the enemy's units and the terrain, in case of hidden obstacles such as stakes and ditches. For once, Parmenion's advice is said to have prevailed, perhaps because it was true to life; the men were ordered to encamp, keeping their order of battle.
It is not difficult to find reasons for Alexander's hesitance; it does not follow that those reasons are true. He had hoped, no doubt, to surprise his enemy at daybreak, only to see from his hill-top that they were already forewarned and lined up for battle; possibly he had never realized what overwhelming numbers Darius could put into the field. Without surprise, there was little point now in hurrying, especially as Parmenion's advice of reco
For all these reasons a halt was advisable, but nerves were perhaps a double edged weapon, a threat not only among the waiting Persians but also where the historians were later loth to admit them, inside the Macedonian army itself. The men had marched in the dark towards an enemy many times larger than any they had ever seen before, knowing that their king was risking all on the coming encounter. At one point, they are said to have been struck by such panic that Alexander had to order a halt during which they could lay down their weapons until they had recovered; the occasion was probably the night of 29 September, when Alexander did down arms, and the troops, seeing 100,000 camp fires beyond them, had every reason for terror. On the following evening, Alexander was to offer certain secret sacrifices attended by his prophet Aristander, and for the first and only known time in his life, he killed a victim in honour of Fear. This mysterious gesture may have been his propitiation of a power too much in evidence on the night before.
With a day of valuable reco
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Deep in thought, Alexander sat by torchlight, pondering his tactics for the morrow. Outside the royal tent midnight had come and gone, but not until the small hours of the morning was he ready for bed, where he soon fell asleep. Dawn broke on I October but still Alexander slept on. The morning sun grew full; the officers, it is said, began to worry, until Parmenion gave the troops their orders and gathered a group of generals to rouse Alexander from his bed. They found him relaxed and calm, ready with an answer to their rebukes: 'How can you sleep,' they are said to have asked, 'as if you had won the battle already?' 'What?' he replied with a smile, 'do you not think that this battle is already won, now that we have been spared from pursuing a Darius who bums his land and fights by retreating?'
This story may be fanciful, but Alexander would indeed have been relieved that as long pla