Alexander the Great

by Anthony Everitt

  This was a grave error, for gales were permanent during the rainy season; they were to last until October. The Macedonians’ usually excellent intelligence service had let them down, probably because local people were so offended by the brutality of the campaign that they refused to give the invaders accurate information.

  The ships did not come.

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  ALEXANDER WAS EVENTUALLY FORCED to accept that they would never come. He had no idea what had happened to them. Perhaps an Indian army had overwhelmed them, or perhaps they had been sunk in a storm. None of this mattered, for he had his own crisis to confront.

  What was he to do now to save his army? He had three options. He could stay where he was, but the territory had been devastated and at the best of times would not have grown enough produce to feed his army. Alternatively, he could retrace his steps and go back to Patala, nearly three hundred miles away. But armies trash the land through which they pass, and his Macedonians would be unlikely to survive the march across a wasteland of their own making.

  There was one final possibility—to keep calm and carry on. This was the one he chose, although he knew that he would have to use all his skill and imagination if he was to save his men. He sent out fast-riding messengers to the neighboring satrapies, ordering them to load racing camels and other pack animals with food and other necessities and deliver them urgently to the army at an agreed rendezvous.

  A scouting party rode down to the sea to assess the situation on the coast. On being told it was desert, with a few fishermen “living in stifling huts put together out of shells and roofed with the backbones of whales,” the king turned inland to the Jhau tract, a territory where modest quantities of food were to be found. Some was requisitioned and sealed with the king’s seal; it was destined for the fleet, in case it had turned up, but famished soldiers broke it open and consumed the contents. Not wanting trouble, Alexander pardoned them.

  From Jhau, 150 miles of sheer desert lay before the Macedonians. The scorching heat, the scalding sand, the lack of water, and the poor and minimal diet took their toll of lives. Men struggled through dunes. Arrian writes:

  One factor was the depth of the sand and the temperature to which it was baked, but in most cases the animals finally died of thirst. They had to negotiate high dunes of deep loose sand, into which they sank as if they were treading in mud or—a better analogy—a fresh drift of snow.

  The army marched at night, probably following a well-trodden caravan route. It only stopped when a source of water had been reached. If they had to carry on into the day, they suffered terribly from heat and thirst. Horses and mules in the baggage train were illicitly slaughtered and eaten; in these dire circumstances all the king could do was to turn a blind eye. Wagons were sabotaged because it was difficult to keep them moving through the deep sand.

  According to Arrian,

  All along the route men were left behind—the sick, those suffering from exhaustion, heatstroke, or crippling thirst—and there was no one to carry them or stay to look after them. The march was pressed on at all possible speed, and the concern for the general good necessarily involved the neglect of individual needs. With most of the marching at night, many simply fell asleep on the road. When they woke, those who still had the strength followed the tracks of the army in an attempt to catch up, but only a few survived: most were lost in the sand, like sailors lost overboard at sea.

  Every now and again rainwater from the mountains flowed in torrents down the riverbeds without warning. On one such occasion, many women and children were drowned and the royal tent with all its contents was swept away. Whenever the men happened upon an abundant supply of water after hours of heat and thirst, their insatiable drinking often had fatal results. The king used to make camp a mile or two away from a spring or stream to prevent a stampede.

  Alexander had not lost his knack for propaganda. He was as tired and thirsty as everybody else, but he insisted on leading his men on foot and from the front. He refused any special treatment. Once a party of soldiers found a dribble of water, filled a helmet, and hurried back to give it to Alexander. The king thanked them for their trouble and, with everyone watching him, poured the water into the ground.

  We may pause to wonder why he did not simply pass the water to someone whose need was greater than his. However, the gesture was very well received, even if Arrian inclines to hyperbole when he reports: “The effect on the morale of the entire army was as if every man had been refreshed by a gulp of the water Alexander had poured away.”

  The local guides confessed that they were lost: a sandstorm had blown away route markers and they could not distinguish one featureless dune from another. Alexander suspected that they were traveling in the wrong direction. He guessed that they needed a turn to the left and rode off with a few cavalrymen to test his hunch. It was correct. He and five others found the sea and, better still, copious fresh water that was there for the digging.

  The agony had lasted sixty days, but was at last reaching its conclusion. The bedraggled and emaciated survivors entered a land of plenty where there was an abundance of grain, dates, and sheep.

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  THE GEDROSIAN EXPEDITION OF 325 had been a disaster without mitigation. Plutarch estimates that a quarter of the army’s fighting force died. “Diseases, wretched food, parching heat, and, worst of all, hunger destroyed them.” The proportion of casualties among those in the baggage train must have been even larger.

  Alexander was shattered and ashamed. There would have to be a reckoning. What had gone wrong with his best-laid plans? Who was to blame for the debacle? Where was the fleet? Did the fleet even exist anymore? Why had the satraps sent no supplies? The guilty would be punished, of that there could be no doubt.

  Whatever the answers to these questions, he knew that first of all he had to apologize to his men for what had happened on his watch. He did so implicitly. For seven days he loosened the bonds of discipline. In an echo of the Dionysiac revels in the Punjab, his men marched in a drunken pageant. Their route was strewn with flowers, and wine was freely available. Wagons were rigged with tents so that soldiers could ride in them and take the weight off their sore feet. New uniforms and armor were distributed.

  The king himself had been under very severe strain and needed to unwind.

  Alexander himself feasted continually, day and night, reclining with his companions on a dais built upon a high and conspicuous rectangular platform, the whole structure being slowly drawn along by eight horses. Innumerable wagons followed the royal table, some of them covered with purple or embroidered canopies, others shaded by the boughs of trees, which were constantly kept fresh and green; these vehicles carried the rest of Alexander’s officers, all of them crowned with flowers and drinking wine.

  Before the year’s end the fate of the fleet became clear. Nearchus had set sail in late September but was forced into a harborage, where he waited for more than thirty days until the monsoon came to an end together with its implacable southwest wind. At the outset he had had to deal with disciplinary problems by dumping unruly sailors in Leonnatus’s lap in the territory of the Oreitae. Leonnatus did not complain and gave him some replacement sailors and ten days’ worth of supplies.

  However, Nearchus’s journey along the Makran coast was marked by malnutrition and low morale. Provisions were scarce, although date palms were found in places. A local guide was recruited and the fleet eventually put in at a river on the shore of Carmania. Nearchus dragged the ships up onto the sand and built a double stockade and a ditch to protect them. He struck out inland with a small group to look for Alexander.

  Meanwhile the king, with despair in his heart that the fleet was lost, received a report that it was safe and Nearchus was near at hand. He sent out search parties. When the admiral and his companions were found they were hardly recognizable, accor
ding to Arrian, “such was the great change in their appearance. They were long-haired, squalid, caked in brine, flesh shrivelled, pale from lack of sleep and every kind of hardship.” Alexander burst into tears at the sight. The admiral debriefed him: “Sir, your ships are safe and your men too. We have come here to bring you the news of their safety.” The king wept again. “They are here pulled up on shore…and being repaired.”

  There was good news, too, from Leonnatus. After putting down a rebellion of the Oreitae, he found his way to the king by land.

  However, it was beginning to be clear that the great Indian victories were slipping like quicksilver through the conqueror’s hands. He had crushed many tribes and their rulers, but it was a safe bet that the Macedonians would have their hands full elsewhere and would not soon return. Once the hurricane had passed, the defeated raised their heads and life resumed its normal course. The satrap Alexander had appointed to govern the Indus Valley was assassinated. Unrest grew in the Punjab under a young leader called Sandrocottus. He is better known today as Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryan empire, which at its height ruled over much of northern India. In future years, he was ably assisted by a king called Parvataka, who has been identified with King Porus, Alexander’s ultra-loyal paladin.

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  AT PURA, THE GEDROSIAN CAPITAL, an arts festival was staged with dance and music contests. Bagoas, the lovely eunuch, won a prize. After his performance he crossed the performance space, still in his costume and wearing his winner’s crown, and sat down next to Alexander. At the sight the soldiers applauded and shouted good-humoredly: “Give him a kiss!” For a time Alexander resisted the invitation, but at last gave way. He put his arms around Bagoas and kissed him.

  This is a slight anecdote, but it demonstrates that the army’s morale had already recovered from the Makran experience. Also, although eunuchs were often unpopular because of their reputedly cruel and devious nature, Alexander’s favorite seems to have been well enough liked among the rank and file.

  A famous work of art appears to confirm that the young man was still the apple of the king’s romantic eye. We learn from the comic writer Lucian, who lived in the second century A.D., of a painting by the distinguished artist Echion—Wedding of Alexander and Rhoxane. It was exhibited at the Olympic Games of 324 and was surely a royal commission. It not only celebrates the happy couple’s union, but also reminds the viewer of Alexander’s other loves.

  According to Lucian’s eyewitness account, the scene was a very beautiful bedroom. Rhoxane, eyes modestly lowered, faces Alexander.

  There are smiling Cupids: one is standing behind her removing the veil from her head and showing Rhoxane to her husband; another like a true servant is taking the sandal off her foot, already preparing her for bed; a third Cupid has caught hold of Alexander’s cloak and is pulling him with all his strength toward Rhoxane.

  The king himself is holding out a garland to the bride and their best man and helper, Hephaestion, is there with a blazing torch in his hand. He is leaning on a very handsome young man—I think he is Hymenaeus (his name is not inscribed).

  Lucian’s guess as to the identity of the youth is unconvincing. As the god of marriage, he ought to have been shown more obviously presiding over the ceremony. Also, it would have been Hymenaeus who traditionally held a torch to illumine the proceedings, not Hephaestion.

  The figure is more likely to have been Bagoas, appropriately enough standing beside Alexander’s other male lover. With its honoring of masculine affection, the picture made clear that there were limits to Rhoxane’s command of her husband’s heart.

  If Bagoas was still riding high at court, he was rather less popular with the Persian nobility, as soon became apparent. After the collective orgy of food and drink, the king left Carmania and entered the province of Persis. As he had done on previous visits to the area, he made a point of paying his respects at the tomb of Cyrus the Great, first of the Achaemenid Great Kings and someone whom he much admired.

  The tomb was (and still is) a small stone building standing on a high, stepped platform with a pitched roof. Inside there was a gold sarcophagus containing Cyrus’s body, a couch, and a wardrobe of elaborate costumes. An inscription read:

  MORTAL, I AM CYRUS SON OF CAMBYSES. I FOUNDED THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND WAS KING OF ASIA. SO DO NOT GRUDGE ME MY MONUMENT.

  Alexander was deeply moved by these words, for they reminded him of the uncertainty of human affairs and the inconstancy of fortune.

  On this visit he found that robbers had vandalized the tomb and thrown out the remains. He was furious. He ordered what was left of Cyrus to be put back and the contents restored or replaced. He had the tomb’s priest-guards interrogated under torture, but without result.

  However, it emerged that a descendant of Cyrus himself was responsible for the theft of the grave goods and the desecration. This was Orxines, who had taken over the satrapy of Persis without permission, on his predecessor’s death in office. After Alexander’s return to Persia, he knew he would have to work hard to persuade him to endorse the usurpation. He arrived at court laden with generous presents for the king’s friends.

  According to Curtius, he paid his respects to all and sundry, but refused to acknowledge Bagoas. When advised that this was unwise, he replied: “It is not the Persian custom to regard as men those who allowed themselves to be sexually used as women.” Orxines was investigated and shown to have acted corruptly in office. He had plundered temples and royal tombs, including that of Cyrus, and illegally put to death numerous Persian citizens. On Alexander’s orders, he was impaled.

  Bagoas gave evidence against Orxines. The Persian was clearly guilty and, although the eunuch must have been hurt by the offensive put-down, there is no reason to suppose that he lied. His behavior in reporting what he knew to Alexander was perfectly understandable, but unlikely to please other senior Persians, who regarded him as a typically ruthless palace fixer.

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  ORXINES WAS NOT THE only guilty man. During Alexander’s lengthy stay in India, for Greeks and Macedonians the very end of topographical knowledge, many newly appointed satraps misbehaved. They enriched themselves at the expense of their subjects and they executed objectors. Even the honest men were open to charges of incompetence.

  It was widely supposed that the king, having completely disappeared from view, was unlikely to return. Defeat or disease would most probably carry him off. After the Mallian episode a rumor of his death circulated, which was not so far from the truth. However, once news spread that he was back, complaints flooded in from all over the empire. It appeared that fourteen of his twenty-seven satraps were guilty of corrupt practices and had even been openly rebellious.

  Wherever he looked Alexander could only see turmoil, inefficiency, and half-hidden hostility toward him. Even at home, Olympias and the king’s sister, Cleopatra, were plotting against the regent, Antipater. But first things first. The satraps who had failed to send Alexander provisions during his extremity in the desert had to face his wrath. He condemned to death in absentia Apollophanes, the Macedonian satrap of Gedrosia, unaware that he had already been killed during the Oreitiae uprising.

  Two senior Persians, father and son, who were satraps respectively of Susiana and Paraetecane, were arraigned before the king. The father had brought the Macedonian army three thousand talents in place of supplies. Alexander had the money thrown to some horses. When they did not touch it, he asked: “What good are your provisions to us then?” The satrap was imprisoned and executed later, presumably after a summary trial. The king was so angry that he took a pike and ran the son through with his own hands.

  The satrap of neighboring Carmania was suspected of plotting a revolt. The king concealed his feelings and spoke to him affably. But, as soon as he had studied the evidence carefully and decided on his guilt, he had him arrested. He was put to death du
ring the recent revels.

  The four generals in command of the garrison in Media faced many serious accusations. They were led by the Greek mercenary Cleander, brother of the recently dead Coenus, who had sided with the soldiers at the mutinous military assembly in India. These were the men who had put Parmenion to death on Alexander’s orders and the king owed them a sizable debt, but, Arrian writes,

  this could not compensate for all the crimes they had committed. After plundering everything in the secular sphere, they had not even refrained from what was sacred: virgins and women of the highest breeding had been sexually assaulted and were bemoaning the physical abuse they had suffered.

  Alexander commented that the prosecution had overlooked one charge—namely, the assumption of those on trial that he would not survive the journey to India. The defendants were found guilty and put to death. Six hundred common soldiers were executed for having been active accessories to their commanders’ crimes. Throughout his career the king had given short shrift to men who sexually abused women. For a soldier to say that he was only obeying orders was no defense.

  These punishments were intended as a warning that “oppression of the ruled by the rulers is not tolerated.” This assertion of justice enjoyed widespread approval and helped reconcile the native population to the new regime. We may also assume (although there is no evidence for this) that the king was quietly pleased to have seen the end of men who knew too much about the gravest crisis of his reign. To do Alexander a great service was always risky, for it tended to arouse anxiety and irritation in him rather than gratitude.

  Some governors who commanded Greek mercenaries were alarmed by the king’s severity and threatened unrest. Alexander’s suspicious mind may have feared a general revolt. He wrote to all his satraps, ordering them, as soon as they had read his letter, to disband their mercenaries instantly. They obeyed, but presumably (we are not told) maintained their security by raising troops from among the locals.