's diagonal
advance, the confusion which it caused, the break in the Persian line,
and its prompt occupation by some of the best cavalry and a portion
of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the engagement. All the
rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much importance has been
assigned to Darius's flight, which was the effect rather than the cause
of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so deeply penetrated
that the person of the monarch is exposed and his near attendants begin
to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not--indeed he could not--"set
the example of flight." Hemmed in by vast masses of troops, it was not
until their falling away from him on his left flank at once exposed
him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he could extricate
himself from the melee.

No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian
monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Persians
was over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had
he died in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have surrounded
him. But, because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and
commanders, the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to
his memory the stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like
Napoleon, he yielded in the crisis of his fate to the instinct of
self-preservation. He fled from the field where he had lost his crown,
not to organize a new army, not to renew the contest, but to prolong for
a few weeks a life which had ceased to have any public value.

It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire.
The fatal blow was struck at Arbela--all the rest was but the long
death-agony. At Arbela the crown of Cyrua passed to the Macedonian;
the Fifth Monarchy came to an end. The HE-GOAT, with the notable horn
between his eyes, had come from the west to the ram which had two horns,
and had run into him with the fury of his power. He had come close to
him, and, moved with choler, had smitten the ram and broken his two
horns--there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he had
cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him--and there was none to
deliver the ram out of his hand.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The
Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia, by George Rawlinson

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***

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