Darius sent out his scythed chariots to soften up the enemy front. Contrary to what Aeschines has said, these terrible things could not be defeated by just stepping aside as they passed. The phalangites tried to do this, but the Persians had changed their tactics: instead of coming on in scattered fashion, the chariots formed a flying wedge too wide to avoid. The chariots were met by a storm of missiles, but most of them got through.
That was when the Macedonians suffered a further surprise: the Persians had modified the axles so the drivers could trigger a spring that extended the iron blades sideward. Hundreds of men were cut down at mid-body. Though I was some distance from all this, for the rest of my days I will remember the screams of the Macedonians. Later, just after the battle, I saw the place where the scythed chariots had rolled through: for a distance of hundreds of yards, there was nothing but lopped extremities and their dying remainders. So suddenly were these men killed that some of their severed legs were left upright in the mud, still standing in the straight rows of the phalanx.
What stopped the chariots at last was the simple accumulation of dead bodies. The torrents of blood pouring on the ground destroyed the footing of the horses, while piles of armored corpses slowed the vehicles down. In time the Macedonian javelins and arrows did their work, and the last chariot was brought down. But never let it be said that this was easy work!
As all this went on, small groups of Persians and even individuals were showing their courage by running out onto the field, challenging the Macedonians. More often than not, if a phalangite or hypaspist was foolish enough to meet them, the Persians won these duels. Yet each of these private victories was really a defeat, for when these impetuous Persians rushed out they opened gaps in their lines. Here, as at Marathon, Plataea, Issus and a hundred other battles, the Persians failed to understand the most important principle of modern war: to stay together, to keep the line, even at the cost of appearing cowardly.
Arridaeus was never fazed by minor reverses. Since I had trespassed on his hiding place, it seemed that further precautions were taken against discovery of his secret. Unlike the rest of the Macedonians, who wore Phrygian or Boeotian helmets that left the face exposed, Arridaeus’s head was encased in an old-style Corinthian helmet, with a visor. The horsehair mane of his helmet had also been stripped off, to make him less conspicuous. Finally, the system of signals he used to command the troops was altered: instead of sending riders to communicate with the trumpeters, which risked attracting attention, the trumpeters were stationed right next to Arridaeus.
The time came when the idiot’s unerring eye detected a significant weakness in the Persian line. The order was given, the trumpets sounded, and Alexander rode out at the apex of a cavalry wedge. He was, this time, dressed not in Achilles’ panoply but the standard gold-fringed cape of Macedonian royalty, with a mailed corselet underneath that he had stripped from the corpse of a Persian noble at Issus. But whatever he wore, we all would have recognized that distinctive half-crouch in which he rode, his shoulders squared to the enemy, spear cocked far forward.
Arridaeus was right again: the light infantry in the King’s path was too thin to stop him. Some among the enemy were riden down; the others fled, opening up a gap in the enemy front. The gap was shallow, with thousands upon thousands of reserves drawn up beyond it. Yet, unaccountably, the Persian allies did not come up to plug the hole. Instead, they stayed rooted in their spots. They wouldn’t fight.
More than anything Darius failed to do, it was this hesitation that lost the battle for the Persians. Fearless and terrible, Alexander tore through rank after rank of mostly unarmored troops, burying himself in the midst of the enemy. His voice, guttural and strange, could be heard back in among the hypaspists:
“Kill me! Who among you will kill me?”
True to their pattern, the Asians wanted nothing to do with this mad, lethal apparition. Men ran from him in any direction they could, disrupting the entire Persian left wing. When Alexander made his turn to make for Darius, half the Great King’s army had lapsed into frenzied, disorganized retreat.
There was heroism on the other end of the Macedonian line, too. The Parthian and Medan cavalry were bearing down hard on Parmenion. Outnumbered, his line began to crumble under the pressure. By his sheer determination, Parmenion willed his men to stand their ground, digging their pikes into the earth as the Thessalian horsemen charged to their rescue. It was a superb defense against overwhelming odds, and the old man accomplished it without Alexander’s help. By that, I mean there was no headlong dash by the king’s Companions to save Parmenion’s skin. Anyone who had been there would know this is a fable-that front was miles long, strewn with obstacles like the wreckage of destroyed chariots and bodies and rampaging elephants! No, Alexander’s rhapsodes cannot have it both ways, cannot make him the hero of the right wing and the left. If you leave this trial knowing anything for certain, it must be this: Parmenion earned the victory at Gaugamela every bit as much as Alexander did.
The King’s only object was a final showdown with Darius. He found him waiting in the center, standing tall and defiant in his chariot. Having long since lost his thrusting spear, Alexander held his sword aloft, making straight for the Great King. Darius was ready for him, his throwing arm cocked with a javelin.
“Wait for me, brother!” shouted Alexander, tears in his eyes.
“Come to me dear boy!” answered hooded Darius.
But before they could clash for the last time, the Great King’s charioteer turned his horses around and fled. This was not at Darius’s order. On the contrary, Darius could very clearly be heard protesting, thrashing his driver with his flail. I don’t know if Darius had taken haoma that day, but it seems the charioteer had. All the witnesses told of the devastated expressions on the faces of both kings as the distance increased between them. Although they perhaps had different reasons, each was disappointed at having been cheated of their final embrace.
My opponent has already expounded on the consequences of Gaugamela, and I will not dwell of those now. What is most relevant here is that Alexander was stunned at this victory. He fought as a man liberated from any thought of tomorrow, and when Darius was carried away, he was suddenly confronted by a universe of decisions. The empire of the Great King was finished. What would replace it was then largely in Alexander’s hands. Yet how could a man with no purchase on the shape of his own future contemplate the dispensation of a continent?
When in doubt, Alexander made gifts. Along with the usual tithes to the major sanctuaries, he decided it was his obligation to honor anyone when had done anything brave in the last 150 years. Descendants of the fallen at Marathon got sacks of Persian cash; he sent pledges to rebuild the city of Plataea for its service against Xerxes. He honored even obscure figures, such as Phayllus of Croton, who had defied his countrymen to send a trireme to fight at Salamis. I don’t know how this was perceived here, but it all seemed presumptuous to me. In this way Alexander sought to attach his name not only to his own victories, but to any victory-as if he had invented valor!
The departure of Darius’s court had again left a swath of fancy detritus in its wake. Unique among these was Bagoas, the court eunuch Aeschines has spent so much of his precious breath railing against. That Bagoas sacrificed his balls is about the only true thing my opponent has said about him. Even on that score, I wonder how Aeschines comes by the extraordinary fact that Bagoas kept his dried testicles in a locket, or that they were the size of chick peas! Why not the size of olives, Aeschines? Or lentils? For my part, I have no idea to which kind of garnish Bagoas’s balls might best be compared. Unlike Aeschines, I will not testify about matters I know nothing about.