These troops retired to a small
rising ground, and begged for quarter. Alexander, however, furiously
attacked them by riding up to them by himself, in front of his men.
He lost his horse, which was killed by a sword-thrust, and it is said
that more of the Macedonians perished in that fight, and that more
wounds were given and received, than in all the rest of the battle, as
they were attacking desperate men accustomed to war.
The Persians are said to have lost twenty thousand infantry, and two
thousand five hundred cavalry. In the army of Alexander, Aristobulus
states the total loss to have been thirty-four men, nine of whom were
foot soldiers. Alexander ordered that each of these men should have
his statue made in bronze by Lysippus; and wishing to make the Greeks
generally partakers of his victory, he sent the Athenians three
hundred captured shields, and on the other spoils placed the following
vainglorious inscription:[408] "Alexander, the son of Philip, and the
Greeks, all but the Lacedaemonians, won these spoils from the
barbarians of Asia." As for the golden drinking-cups, purple hangings,
and other plunder of that sort, he sent it nearly all to his mother,
reserving only a few things for himself.
XVII. This victory wrought a great change in Alexander's position.
Several of the neighbouring states came and made their submission to
him, and even Sardis itself, the chief town in Lydia, and the main
station of the Persians in Asia Minor, submitted without a blow.
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