CONDITION AND POWER OF THK ARMY. 75 Though Alexander has been allowed to land in Asia unop- posed, an army was already assembled under the Persian satraps within a few days' march ofAbydos. Since the reconquest of Egypt and Phenicia, about eight or nine years before, by the Persian king Ochus, the power of that empire had been restored to a point equal to any anterior epoch since the repulse of Xer- xes from Greece. The Persian successes in Egypt had been achieved mainly by the arms of Greek mercenaries, imder the conduct and through the craft of the Rhodian general Mentor ; who, being seconded by the preponderant influence of the eunuch Bagoas, confidential minister of Ochus, obtained not only ample presents, but also the appointment of military commander on the Hellespont and the Asiatic seaboard.* He procured the recall of his brother Memnon, who with his brother-in-law Artabazus had been obliged to leave Asia from unsuccessful revolt against the Persians, and had found shelter with Philip.^ He fai'ther subdued, by force or by fraud, various Greek and Asiatic chief- tains on the Asiatic coast ; among them, the distinguished Her meias, friend of Aristotle, and master of the strong post of Atar neus.' These successes of Mentor seem to have occurred about 343 B. c. He, and his brother Memnon after him, upheld vig- orously the authority of the Persian king in the regions near the Hellespont. It was probably by them that troops Avere sent across the strait both to rescue the besieged town of Perinthus from Philip, and to act against that prince in other parts of oiTOf, 01) Je TTpoarjKOVTog ovdiv Toig "EAAT^crtv, uaZ' ov6e (iapfiupov evrevdev o'&ev Ka?ibv eItvecv, uX?.^ oXi'&pov Ma/ceJovof, o&ev ov6' uvi^puTzochv OTTOvdaluv ov6ev tjv TrpoTepov npiaa-^ai. Compare this with the exclamations of the Macedonian soldiers (called Argyraspides) against theirdistinguished chief Eumenes, calling him Xepfjo- vrjaiTTig 6?^E'&pog (Plutarch, Eumenes, 18). ' Sec, in referrence to these incidents, my last preceding volume, Vol. XI. Ch. xc. p. 441 set].
- Diodor. xvi. 52 ; Curtius, vi. 4, 25 ; vi. 5, 2. Curtius mentions also IMa-
napis, another Persian exile, who had fled from Ochus to Philip. ' Diodor. xvi. 52. About the strength of the fortress of Athens, see Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 2, II ; Diodor. xiii. 64. It had been held in defiance of the Persians, even before the time of Hermeias — Isokrates. Compare also Isokiates, Or. iv. (Panegyr.) s. 167.
