All Alexander's Women

by Robbert Bosschart

  What followed would have been a top story in any military history, if the details had been better preserved. But what we do know is that when, in the fall of 302 BC, the envoys of Lysimachos and Amastris finally found Seleukos in his eastern dominions near India, action was immediate. Seleukos took with him 480 war elephants (his frontier settlement with the Indian king Chandragupta had just added 500 of those beasts to his armory), 100 scythed chariots, 12,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry. So began a daunting journey of some 2,000 miles over mountains and deserts, to join Lysimachos in Asia Minor. He arrived just in time before the winter closed the mountain passes of Armenia and Anatolia, and settled his troops with those of his allies in Herakleia.

  From there, the joint force of 64,000 foot and 15,000 horse set out in the spring of 301 to attack, and finally rout, Antigonos with his 70,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry at Ipsos. Seleukos’ elephants would turn out to be the key of their triumph. In the aftermath of this titanic clash there is no doubt that Lysimachos, who had provided the heart of the coalition army plus its protected staging area in Herakleia, and had been the commander-in-chief at the final battle, now was the leading man among Alexander’s Successors; a powerful king efficiently backed up by a brilliant queen of imperial descent. But Lysimachos and Amastris could and did not intend to reestablish Alexander’s empire; if only because Seleukos and Ptolemy were solidly entrenched in their portions of the realm.

  And there was worse to come: Antigonos’ son Demetrios had not only escaped from Ipsos alive, with a sizeable part of his forces, but was determined to continue attacking Lysimachos. The conflict was fought out on the Mediterranean front, so Seleukos, who had to return to his inland dominions, could not give his allies much help. Demetrios’ assaults came with such surprising ferocity, that Lysimachos was forced to upgrade his alliance with Ptolemy. In 300 BC, Lysimachos willy-nilly married Ptolemy’s daughter Arsinoe.

  Amastris, true to style, again refused to play second fiddle to another wife. She withdrew to her city Amastris where she continued to act as a queen in her own right, until her tragic death in 284 BC. Anyway, for nearly 40 years after Alexander’s death Amastris had shown herself able to maintain her royal status and to wield real power - an astonishing success for a Persian wife during the Successor Wars. Sisygambis’ teachings on kingship at the Old Palace of Susa had not been lost.

  • 7 •

  SECRET KEEPERS OF

  THE EMPIRE: THE KING’S EYE

  Artasyras (c. 450-400? BC), satrap of Hyrcania, was a relative of Artaxerxes II. His family had been held in high esteem by the throne ever since his like-named forebear had been the principal counsellor of Darius the Great. Usually, Artasyras is only mentioned as overlord of Hyrcania, a coastal zone of the Caspian Sea. But Plutarch –citing Ktesias– reveals he also held the much more powerful office of the King’s Eye. In other words: he was the head of the secret service of the Persian empire.

  Ktesias, writing about the battle of Kunaxa and the death of Cyrus the Younger, simply assumed that everybody knew –which in his days must have been true– that Artasyras led the empire’s spy service:

  “When Cyrus was now dead, Artasyras, the King’s Eye, passed by on horseback, and having observed the eunuchs lamenting, he asked the most trusty of them, “Who is this, Pariskas, whom you sit here deploring?” He replied, “Do not you see, o Artasyras, that it is my master, Cyrus?” Then Artasyras wondering, bade the eunuch keep the dead body safe. And going in all haste to Artaxerxes, who was in great suffering with his thirst and his wound, he with much joy assured him that he had seen Cyrus dead.”

  Immediately after the battle of Cunaxa, Artaxerxes II tied him even closer to the Royal House: he married Artasyras’ son Orontes to his eldest daughter Rodogune. And Artasyras’ territorial sway over Hyrcania was broadened by making Orontes satrap of neighbouring Armenia.

  This kinship-stratagem to reinforce the loyalty bonds of the secret service chief to the High King underscores the peculiar marriage policy of the Achaemenid rulers. They did not use their daughters for diplomacy by pairing them off to foreign kings, but for domestic ‘insurance’. They married them out to the Persian nobles who headed the most powerful offices at Court, or governed the key satrapies.

  For the same reason –loyalty based on family ties– the High Kings often appointed their most direct relatives to such offices. These two factors together explain why so many royal ladies were married to half-brothers, uncles or cousins. (This also makes it quite plausible that Artaxerxes II, in the last part of his long reign, would apply the same policy to Artasyras’ successor in the office of the King’s Eye. That is, to name his own nephew Arshama to the post, and to give him another royal princess for wife: Rodogune’s much younger sister Sisygambis.)

  The King’s Eye and the secret service he directed had a long history, of which the classical Greek authors offer only a few glimpses. In 472 BC Aischylos was the first writer to mention them in his Persai (978 ff.). He made the chorus ask the defeated Xerxes if he had left behind in Greece, among his slain officers, also “his own devoted Alpistos, the King’s Eye, who oversaw Persians by the tens of thousands.”

  Later, Herodotos revealed that this secret service had been set up even before the Persians: about 650 BC by the first king of the Medes, whom he calls Deiokes. It was his solution to the problem of obtaining the correct information for ruling justly, Herodotos says in Book I, 100:

  “After he had established his capital at Ekbatana, his spies were busy watching and listening in every corner of his dominions. And if they heard of any oppressive act, he summoned the guilty one and gave him the punishment befitting his offense.”

  Xenofon, in Oeconomicus IV 8, confirms that the Persian High King often travelled about to inspect his empire personally, but also received “reports from his trusted agents on territories that he himself did not see.” In reality, this refers both to a secret service, and to the office of roving inspectors who travel throughout the realm, to control if the governors are not neglecting their duties. This latter function is revealed indirectly in an extant letter sent by Darius the Great to one of his most trusted vassals, Gadatas:

  “I hear that you are obedient to my commands, but not to all. In so far as you cultivate my land by transplanting the gardens of Beyond the Eufrates to the territories of Lower Asia, let me praise you with public notice; and because of these things, a great gratitude is held for you in the House of the King. But <…> you exacted tribute from the gardeners of the temples of my gods, and ordered them to cultivate the profane land, being ignorant of the intent of my ancestors to the gods who have spoken all the truth to the Persians.”

  When Darius writes “I hear” in a public document, he evidently means that he has got this information from one of his ‘ears’. That is, he received an official report about an infringement by Gadatas on standing orders about the inviolability of temple properties. Gadatas has committed the error of not upholding the policy of religious tolerance and respect for old temple privileges, dictated by Cyrus and his successors.

  Within an empire of extreme ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity, the High Kings had to rely heavily on their ‘Eyes and Ears’ to maintain their overriding policy decisions. Xenofon explains more about this efficient network of spies and informers in Book 8, 6, 16 of his Cyropaedia:

  “We have noticed that this regulation is still in force, whether it was instituted by Cyrus –as is said–, or not: year by year, a man makes the circuit of the provinces with an army, to help any satrap who may need help, to humble any one who may be growing rebellious, and to adjust matters if any one is careless about seeing the taxes paid or protecting the inhabitants, or to see that the land is kept under cultivation, or if any one is neglectful of anything else he has been ordered to attend to.

  But if he cannot set it right, it is his business to report it to the king. When the king hears of it, he takes measures in regard to the offender. And among those on who they report, often th
e rumor goes out that ‘the king’s brother is coming’, or ‘the king’s Eye’. Though sometimes they do not put in an appearance at all, for each of them turns back, wherever he may be, when the king commands.”

  They were also mentioned in the comedies of Aristofanes that amused Alexander so much. Aristofanes just poked fun with that court title of ‘the King’s Eye’. In his comedy Acharnians, first staged 425 BC, he put an Eye on the stage. The actor must have worn a mask that was painted with one big eye, earning Aristofanes more laughs from the public. Aristotle however, who taught Alexander as a boy, certainly did not take the Persian secret service for a joke. This is evident from an admiring remark in his work On the Cosmos (398 a-b):

  “The pomp of Cambyses, Xerxes and Darius was ordered on a grand scale and touched the heights of majesty and magnificence. The king himself, they say, lived in Susa or Ekbatana, invisible to all, in a marvellous palace [...]. Outside the palace, the leaders and most eminent men were drawn up in order, some [...] called ‘guards’ and the ‘listening-watch’, so that the king himself [...] might see everything and hear everything.”

  In the surviving documents of the Achaemenid empire – where few would dare to write about the feared informers – no direct reference to the King’s Eye has yet been found. But there is a mention of his underlings, the ‘ears’ of the High King, in the Aramaic papyrus C 27.9 from Elephantine island near Assuan in Egypt, dating to the Persian occupation. In this text, the expression gwshky represents the Old Persian word gaushaka: eavesdropper. (This can also be traced to Middle Persian gosag, spy; and to the modern Persian and Arabic jasus, equally meaning spy.)

  It dovetails neatly with an observation that had been made already in 1877 by professor Keiper. He drew attention to the parallel function and position of Mithra – the Persian god of covenant—and the Persian High King: both were Judges, overseers of kingdoms, and both had spies who acted as their ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’.

  In the Avesta, Mithra is called “Master of Ten Thousand spies”: Baevare Spathano. Mithra “cannot be deceived,” thanks to his spaso (=spies) who are repeatedly identified as his Eyes. So the title ‘Eye’ of the king would be Spathaka (=the one who sees), from the root spas, related to Latin specio (and to modern-day “spy”).

  The High Kings Artaxerxes II and III consistently used their gold, sending secret agents to buy up leading politicians like the Athenian demagogue Demosthenes, to keep their opponents at each other’s throats. Given this frequent interference of Persian agents in the internal affairs of Greece, there can be no doubt that Alexander was perfectly aware of the activities of the Achaemenid secret service. In a famous letter to Darius III, written after the battle of Issos, he states: “My father was killed by assassins whom, as you openly boasted in your letters, you yourself hired to commit the crime”. These letters, it is implied, were documents found at the royal quarters Darius had abandoned when fleeing from the battlefield.

  As the assassins of Philip were Makedonians, their payment must have been transferred by secret agents. (Possibly they used the offices of Demosthenes, who made the mistake of announcing this regicide even before messengers could have arrived in Athens to confirm it).

  After the conquest of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, Alexander went to great lengths to be seen as the successor, not the destroyer, of the Achaemenid throne. He maintained all the formal institutions of the Persian empire and most of its administrative organisations. Even military units close to the High King, like the Persian doryforoi (a combination of bodyguards and General Staff officers), were not superseded by their equivalent Makedonian officers, but continued to exist side by side.

  This makes it a near certainty that Alexander also maintained the Persian intelligence organisation and its chief, the King’s Eye, at his service. The highest ranking of these doryforoi was prince Oxyatres, the other son of the Persian queen-mother Sisygambis. However, after Alexander’s death everything changed. The Spathaka disappeared from view with the demise of the Achaemenid empire during the Successor Wars.

  But as soon as the Persians recovered their independence, the King’s Eye returned with a vengeance. The Greco-Roman writers of that day had no doubt which office was meant. Filostratos of Athens (170-247 AD) speaks of a Parthian satrap who swiftly reported anything happening to the king, and terms him “a sort of Eye of the King, I imagine”. He also refers to “the Ears of the King” as secret informers.

  The Persian secret service directed by the Eye of the King became even more essential under the next, highly centralised dynasty, the Sassanids. A document survives in which the grand vizier of Ardasher rebuts a protest by a local ruler who said: “The King of Kings has appointed informers and spies over the people of the lands, and the subject people are afraid of this.”

  The answer proclaims: “This should not cause any fear at all in virtuous and sound people, for the King’s Eye and the informers … report with sincerity. If you are a worthy soul and obedient, then so much the better when they inform the king of this, as his kindness to you will increase. And the King of Kings has written on this in detail in his Testament, that the king’s ignorance or lack of information on people’s conditions is a main source of corruption…”

  In other words, under the Sassanids the King’s Eye continued reporting on how the authorities discharged their duties. No doubt, the Spathaka always was one of the highest ranking men in the Persian empire. This reinforces the indications that, more often than not, the office was held by close relatives of the High King. Evidently, they had more powers than the satraps.

  They were so effective that when Athens had its own little empire in the 5th century Delian League, it copied the institution by appointing high officials with the title of “Episkopos.” The coincidences are remarkable. Both the King’s Eye and the Episkopos are answerable only to the highest authority. They supervise the local rulers, take responsibility for taxation, and in case of troubles, they form a direct link to the central government. Their name may be similar as well. Epi-skopos (literally: “he who looks around,” or overseer) is a Greek translation of Spathaka that remains close to the sound and meaning of the original Persian title.

  It is rather ironic that today’s church bishops owe their title –the Greek, and later Roman word (e)piscop(us), garbled into ‘bishop’– to a Persian spy master.

  • 8 •

  THE DEATH OF HEFAISTION

  In October 324 BC, Alexander had accompanied Hefaistion to Ekbatana. They were organising a Games festival, when Hefaistion went down with fever. It seemed a perfectly normal case. Modern-day doctors have deduced from the symptoms, recorded by several historians, that it must have been a typhoid infection. Hefaistion was a strong man, usually in good health, so everybody –Alexander included– assumed he was healing when, after a week, the fevers began to abate.

  That night, Alexander, instead of staying at his friend’s bedside as he had been doing during most of the week, left the palace. He went next morning to the festival to hand out the prizes at the Boy’s Games. But he was not the only one to leave Hefaistion alone. The Greek doctor, one Glaukias, also disappeared from the palace that night (later, he said he had gone to the theatre). When Hefaistion’s condition worsened next morning, he was nowhere to be found.

  The time the servants lost looking around for the doctor also meant they were late in sending a warning to Alexander. He crossed the city on horseback at breakneck speed, but even so arrived too late. In the bedroom of the palace he found his soul mate dead. Glaukias was finally brought in, could not give any coherent explanation, and was executed out of hand. That was a serious error of judgement, which confirms that sorrow had driven Alexander out of his mind.

  He should have had Glaukias thoroughly interrogated. If it were true that he had left the palace to go to a theatre, that was an unpardonable error in a doctor. But there also is the suspicious fact of such a sudden worsening in Hefaistion’s condition, that he died in the short time elapsed between a warni
ng sent out, and Alexander crossing Ekbatana, not a big city. Such a lightning speed development in a ‘normal’ illness of a strong man might very well mean that he took a wrong medicine – or poison.

  If Glaukias had remained at the palace, he could and should have prohibited his patient to take the breakfast –a boiled chicken and a bottle of wine, the servants reported– that accelerated the fatal disease. Modern day doctors say that, with the knowledge a medical man of Glaukias’ standing had, he should have ordered his patient not to eat anything, but only to drink clean water.

  Once the fever symptoms had become unequivocally those of a typhoid case, which he certainly would have recognised, Glaukias should have prohibited the palace servants to bring him any food. He did not, and that was either out of malpractice, or on purpose. For the breakfast erased all trace of the medicine (or poison) administered. Many sources note that poisoning was suspected.

  Hefaistion had made many enemies among the Makedonians and Greeks in the course of his ascent to the top. Frictions with Krateros during the Indian campaign had even pushed them into a hand-to-hand combat, with their troops ready to come to the aid of their respective leaders. Alexander himself had to ride up to separate them. Plutarch says the king openly reproached Hefaistion, calling him “a madman if he did not realise that without Alexander he would be nothing” – but that he chided Krateros in private. This was not a man to be dishonoured before the Makedonian troops. After that, Alexander kept them consistently on separate missions.