Alexander the Great

by Philip Freeman

  Later traditions make much of the final scene in the life of the king. In some versions, Alexander himself is there to bid Darius farewell and to weep at the death of his adversary. In these stories, Darius commits his family and kingdom into the care of Alexander and then breathes his last. In other stories, Darius adresses Polystratus in broken Greek, asking him to give his blessing to his king and thank him for being such a noble opponent. But the truth, as far as it can be known, is simpler and sadder. Darius saw Polystratus enter the wagon and kneel beside him. He motioned for water, which the young man gave to him from his own helmet. Then—with only a single enemy soldier in attendance in a barren desert valley—the Great King of Persia closed his eyes and died.

  8

  BACTRIA

  ALEXANDER ADVANCED NONETHELESS, WITH

  GREAT STRUGGLES, THROUGH DEEP SNOW AND

  WITH FEW SUPPLIES, BUT STILL HE PRESSED ON.

  —ARRIAN

  Alexander had never wanted it to end this way. In his mind, he saw Darius captured and coming before him still dressed in the robes of the Great King. Alexander would rise and greet the Persian leader with respect, embracing him like a brother. Darius would formally abdicate and hand over his empire to the Macedonian king. He would give Alexander his own daughter in marriage to cement the bonds between the two houses. Then he would retire in honor with his servants to some out-of-the-way corner of the world where he would live out the rest of his days under close guard.

  But now, the King of Kings was dead in the back of a common wagon, betrayed by his friends and deserted by his allies. Alexander wept as he wrapped his own cloak around Darius and ordered the body transported back to Persepolis to be buried there in the family tomb carved in the rocky hillside. As Alexander watched the caravan bearing the Persian leader leave camp and move south, he could only curse fate that things had turned out in the worst possible way. To have captured Darius would have been ideal. There would have been a smooth if forced transition of power from one king to another. To have killed Darius in battle, even in a skirmish, facing down and overcoming his foe like Achilles on the plains of Troy, would have been acceptable. The Persians respected martial strength and would have acknowledged that Alexander was the rightful ruler by victory in combat. But to have Darius rejected and murdered by his own people meant that the war would go on. Alexander had always planned to continue the march east and consolidate his territory, but now he would have to fight for it against Bessus and whoever else in Bactria, Sogdiana, or India rose up to challenge his legitimacy as Great King. What he had hoped to accomplish in a season or two of quick campaigning could now drag on for years.

  But to the Macedonian army, the death of Darius was wonderful news. They had followed Alexander thousands of miles across deserts and over mountains to destroy the Persian Empire. The largest cities of the kingdom were captured and the Great King was now dead. It was time to go home. All of them had made more money than they had ever dreamed of when they were shepherds and farmers in the hills of Macedonia. Now, after four long years in Asia, they could go back to their parents, wives, and children as heroes and wealthy men.

  The army was so excited at the prospect that rumors quickly spread through the camp that they were indeed going home. Men began to pack up their tents and load their gear onto wagons. It was as if someone had sounded a signal to begin the march. Alexander heard the noise and realized immediately what was happening. The men longed for home, but he somehow had to convince them to continue the campaign to the east. He therefore strode to the assembly grounds and called his soldiers to him. He looked out at them with pride in his heart and spoke to them as both their king and fellow soldier.

  Do you remember, he asked, all that we have gone through together the last few years? Do you remember how we beat the Triballi on the way to the Danube and how we crushed the Persians at the Granicus, then at Issus and Gaugamela? Have you stopped to think of all the lands we have conquered together? Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and all the rest. We, the army of Macedonia, a land that in my father’s day was little more than a backward kingdom on the northern rump of Greece, have done the impossible. We have conquered the world, my friends.

  But listen to me carefully—although we have accomplished miracles, everything we have done, all the blood you and our dear fallen comrades have shed, could come to nothing. Don’t you think I want to go home as well? I would love to rush back to my mother and sisters at Pella and leave this desolate land behind. But the truth is that the enemy is just waiting for us to relax our guard. Bessus now claims to be Great King and many people are willing to follow him. He is an accomplished general who commands thousands of soldiers from the lands to the east. Yes, we could go home now, but no sooner than we were settled beside our hearths back in Macedonia, we would see the armies of Bessus rising up behind us. Would you rather fight Bessus here and end this or do you want to face him when he crosses the Hellespont and ravages Macedonia? You can deal with Bessus now or later, but unless you want to see your families slaughtered in their beds by hordes of Bactrian cavalry, you had better finish it now. Come now, we’re only a few days away from Bactria. That’s nothing to men who have crossed countless rivers and snow-covered peaks. We can destroy Bessus and be home for next year’s harvest. Then, at last, we will truly be free of the Persian threat.

  It was a beautiful performance, so much more so because it was all a lie. Bactria was hundreds of miles away and Alexander knew very well that it could take years to subdue the eastern provinces. And while raids by Bessus and his men might prove a nuisance to the borders of Persia, they were no more a threat to Macedonia than were the warriors of Britain. And even now, the king was dreaming of lands beyond the borders of the Persian Empire with no plans to return home anytime soon, even if he crushed Bessus that summer. Fortunately for the king, his men were easily persuaded to continue the march for a few more weeks, especially after Alexander offered them a generous bonus to carry on. But it was a risky proposition to mislead an army. Sooner or later they would realize that their king was taking them farther and farther into the wilds of Asia with no thought of returning home. Alexander had won them over for now, but the challenge for the king would be to keep them going.

  The road to Bactria lay due east, but Alexander decided first to take a brief detour north over the mountains to the land of Hyrcania on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. The Macedonian army climbed out of the deserts and over the high Elburz Mountains towards a semi-tropical paradise full of fig trees, grapevines, and fields of grain. Hyrcania was a breadbasket of the Persian Empire, heavily populated by a number of tribes. Alexander had to establish his control here before he moved on to the eastern provinces.

  Alexander divided his forces into three groups as he marched into Hyrcania. He sent Craterus forward with one group and put another officer in charge of the main body of the army and its supply train. He himself took the light-armed soldiers and headed up the steepest road to reach Hyrcania first. While he was making camp at the crest of the mountains, a Persian noble named Nabarzanes came to him along with several other important officials and surrendered. Nabarzanes had been with Bessus at the arrest of Darius and conspired with him in the murder of the Persian king. It seems unlikely that Alexander would have allowed him to live were it not for the intervention of a remarkable young man named Bagoas. No relation to the man who had plotted the overthrow of Darius’ predecessor, this Bagoas was a handsome eunuch of great influence at court who had been a sexual favorite of the Great King. Alexander was evidently charmed by the courtier as well, for he not only spared Nabarzanes for the moment but began an affair with Bagoas that would last the rest of his life.

  When the Macedonians finally descended from the mountains and stood on the shores of the Caspian Sea, they must have stared in wonder at the vast waters stretching before them. A few merchants and soldiers from the Aegean may have traveled this way before, but the Caspian was virtually unknown to the Gre
ek world. There were stories of sea monsters in its depths and fish of strange colors, though few locals reportedly sailed on the sea. Herodotus had described it as a large inland lake, but most ancient writers believed it was an inlet of the great ocean that encircled the world. In theory, a voyager could board a boat in Hyrcania and sail west to the Atlantic or east around Asia to India. Some thought it was connected to the Black Sea, while other Greeks mistakenly believed that the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers flowed into the Caspian from central Asia. Alexander would learn in time that these rivers instead ended at the even more distant Aral Sea.

  This remote corner of Asia was a curious gathering place of many displaced nobles, refugees, and wayward souls. Artabazus appeared one day, the old friend of Philip who had sought sanctuary in Macedonia when Alexander was a boy. Alexander knew him well and welcomed him to his camp. He was just the sort of Persian the king was hoping to bring into his new empire—a respected figure who had been tenaciously loyal to Darius but now saw Alexander as the rightful heir to the throne. It also didn’t hurt that the old man’s daughter, Barsine, was still Alexander’s mistress. Envoys from the Greek mercenaries who had served Darius also met him there to inquire about terms. The king said that only unconditional surrender was acceptable, but when the fearful soldiers laid down their arms he held no grudge and enrolled them into his army at full pay. Even some Spartan ambassadors to Darius were rounded up who apparently did not know that their cause was now hopeless. They were arrested along with a delegation of roving Athenians who were still trying to convince the Persians to give them money to rebel against Alexander.

  Also in Hyrcania, one of the strangest meetings between Alexander and a visiting envoy took place—or didn’t, depending on which ancient sources one believes. The guest was a woman named Thalestris and she was the queen of the Amazons. According to Greek tradition stretching back to the days of Homer, the Amazons were a tribe of warrior women living on the northern edge of the civilized world. From time to time they had invaded the Aegean lands, fighting at Troy or even rampaging through Athens. The name a-mazon means “no breast” and supposedly derives from a legend of their removal of a single breast in order to throw a javelin unimpeded. Myth says they lived without men, allowing only occasional conjugal visits for procreation. Resulting male children were killed or sent away, while females were raised as warriors. According to Plutarch, Diodorus, and others—most of whom had serious doubts about the story—Thalestris ruled a country to the north of Hyrcania between the Black Sea and the Caspian. She had heard of the extraordinary abilities of Alexander and came to him with an escort of three hundred women warriors and a proposition. Being the bravest and most beautiful of women, she proclaimed that she wished to have a child by the king, the greatest man in the world. In contrast to his previous inclinations toward women, Alexander was supposedly enthusiastic about the idea and spent thirteen exhausting nights trying to satisfy Thalestris. Then the queen rode away to her home, convinced that she would bear a child by the king. Although there is occasional evidence of women warriors in ancient societies, the story probably reveals more about timeless male fantasies than it does about any historical event. Years later, a young companion of Alexander’s named Lysimachus, who was present with the king in Hyrcania and would rise to great power, was listening to the Amazon story as told by a writer named Onesicritus. As the historian finished the tale, Lysimachus smiled and asked, “And where was I when all this happened?”

  Whether the story has an element of truth or not, the king soon left all his guests behind and took a contingent of forces west along the coast of the Caspian to confront a tribe known as the Mardi, unrelated to the primitive tribe of the same name near Persepolis. These proud horsemen were unimpressed by the Macedonians and refused to offer tribute to Alexander. With eight thousand soldiers they held the passes leading into their lands, until the king broke through and killed many of them, driving the rest into the mountains. In retaliation, the stubborn Mardi struck back at Alexander in an unexpected way. One day while the royal pages were leading the king’s horses outside camp to graze, a group of Mardi rushed the troop and stole the finest horse they saw, which just happened to be Bucephalas. To the Mardi this was a matter of honor, counting coup on the foreign king to earn his respect and perhaps a few concessions. But they had picked the wrong man and the wrong horse. Alexander would rather have lost half his kingdom than the horse he had trained and loved since he was a boy. He sent out his soldiers into the mountains with orders to destroy the country, cutting down every precious tree in the Mardi’s territory. He also sent word to the tribesmen that unless they returned Bucephalas unharmed he would continue until their home was a wasteland, then he would hunt down and slaughter every man, woman, and child in their nation. The Mardi realized he was deadly serious and quickly sent a delegation leading Bucephalas back to the king. They included many rich gifts brought by fifty of their leading citizens to beg forgiveness of Alexander. The king ceased from devastating their country, but he kept several of the men as hostages to guarantee the good behavior of the tribe in the future.

  Alexander spent another two weeks in Hyrcania settling administrative matters, sacrificing to the gods, and holding athletic contests for his soldiers. He then led his army back across the mountains to begin the long trek to Bactria. He held to the highlands along the northern edge of this arid wilderness through the land of the Parthians, relatives of the Persians who would one day become a mighty empire in their own right. Two hundred miles and many days later he was at the city of Susia in the province of Aria. There he met the Persian satrap Satibarzanes, a veteran commander at Gaugamela, who promptly surrendered to him. This Persian nobleman informed Alexander that Bessus had reached Bactria and was gathering allies from as far away as Scythia. Bessus had taken to wearing his cap upright in the manner of the Great King and went about arrayed in royal clothing. He was also styling himself as Artaxerxes V, King of Kings, heir to Darius. It was just the sort of news Alexander did not need. Perhaps because of his haste in pursuing Bessus, Alexander quickly confirmed Satibarzanes in his old post as satrap of Aria. He also appointed his Macedonian companion Anaxippus as leader of an honor guard of forty mounted spearmen to accompany the governor back to the regional capital of Chortacana (modern Herat). The king and the army then continued their march toward Bactria.

  It may have been the news of Bessus dressing in the garb of the Great King that prompted Alexander to accelerate a policy that he had been developing for some time. Up until the conquest of Persepolis, the king had been an invader warring against a foreign empire. But now that Persia was beaten and Darius was dead, Alexander began to feel the responsibilities of the Great King resting on his own shoulders. He realized that if he were to rule the Persian Empire as its rightful lord, he could no longer simply be a Macedonian king. To have sovereignty over many nations, he would have to become the Great King not only in substance but in style as well. The Persians, Medes, and all the other peoples of the East expected their ruler to be surrounded by pomp and ceremony worthy of a mighty lord. A Macedonian chieftain could join his men around the campfire and sing bawdy songs of women and war, but the ruler of the largest empire in the world must be a man apart. On the other hand, Alexander’s power resided in his role as military leader of the Macedonian army. These officers and soldiers from the hills and plains around Mount Olympus by long tradition revered their king as war leader and would lay down their lives for him, but he was the first among equals in a body of free men. If they had a problem or complaint, they claimed the right to come to him and be heard without pretentious rituals. The men loved Alexander as they had his father before him, but he was the conquering king of Macedonia to them, not the lofty lord of Asia.

  It was therefore troubling to many in the army when they saw Alexander gradually taking on the ways of a foreign king. On the march, he was still just Alexander, as likely as a common soldier to help pull a stranded mule out of a mud hole. But when camp was made and
he was surrounded by the increasing number of Persian courtiers accompanying the campaign, he became someone else. He began to wear a purple diadem on his head just like the Great King, not a simple Macedonian fillet as he had in years past. He wore a white robe and sash in the manner of Darius, though he did draw the line at Persian trousers. For his correspondence with Greece and Macedonia, he sealed his letters with the ring he had inherited from his father, but messages to Asia were impressed with the seal he had taken from Darius. He also began to keep a royal harem of 365 concubines, one for each night of the year, from the most beautiful women of Asia. Though he had little interest in these women, he felt it was important to keep up appearances for the sake of his Persian subjects. He even began to encourage his officers to take on Persian dress, though most found this distasteful. Alexander tried to walk a thin line between living up to the expectations of his Asian subjects and preserving the old Macedonian ways for the sake of his army. It was an impossible position to maintain and one that would cause him endless problems in the years to come.

  Somewhere during the march to Bactria, Parmenion’s son Nicanor died, presumably of natural causes. He had been a loyal soldier of Alexander’s since before the battle at the Granicus, but the king was not necessarily grieved to see him pass away. With Nicanor gone, his brother Philotas was the only leading figure in the Parmenion faction still present with the army. As there was no time to stop for a proper funeral, Alexander left Philotas and a large contingent of soldiers behind in Aria to conduct the proper rites and catch up with the army as soon as possible.