The Nature of Alexander

by Mary Renault

  This almost invited Alexander to say, as he promptly did, that he held the land “by the gift of heaven.” The rest of his reply was an uncompromising challenge. He had been elected to avenge the wrong to Greece by Xerxes. Ochus had invaded the domain of his father Philip; Darius himself had procured Philip’s death, and “boasted of it in letters before all the world” (captured perhaps at Sardis?). Also, Darius was a usurper who had conspired to murder his predecessor (true or false, a suspicion natural to any king of Macedon). The royal family would be freely returned whenever he cared to come and ask in person. (The failure to blackmail him by threatening their safety makes a melancholy contrast with modern times.)

  Later legends contain innumerable, and often interminable, spurious challenges of Alexander’s. The peroration of this one, probably from the royal archives, has an authentic ring.

  … And in future when you send to me, send to the lord of Asia; and do not write to me what to do, but ask me, as master of all you own, for anything you need. Or I shall judge you an offender. If you claim your kingdom, take your stand and fight for it, and do not run; for I shall make my way wherever you may be.

  Soon after, a force under Parmenion took the surrender of Damascus. The Governor had proposed it secretly; Parmenion, wary of treachery, would not lead his men inside, but told him to come out with his treasure under pretence of taking flight. He was followed, therefore, by a panic crowd, including the harems of the Persian nobles engaged at Issus.

  These ladies, not being royal game, were not so strictly preserved. One has a role in Alexander’s legend, another in his history. Only Plutarch says that he took for himself Barsine, Memnon’s widow and Artabazus’ daughter; for the staggering reason that Parmenion—of all people!—told him she would be good for him. The dubiety of the story lies not only in this, but in the powerful motive for inventing it. No record at all exists of such a woman accompanying his march; nor of any claim by her, or her powerful kin, that she had borne him offspring. Yet twelve years after his death a boy was produced, seventeen years old, born therefore five years after Damascus, her alleged son “brought up in Pergamon”; a claimant and shortlived pawn in the succession wars, chosen probably for a physical resemblance to Alexander. That he actually did marry another Barsine must have helped both to launch and preserve the story; but no source reports any notice whatever taken by him of a child who, Roxane’s being posthumous, would have been during his lifetime his only son, by a near-royal mother. In a man who named cities after his horse and dog, this strains credulity.

  A more convincing character is a Macedonian beauty, perhaps a high-class hetaira, who fell to Philotas’ lot. He found her worth impressing, and kept her entertained with his own and his family’s distinguished exploits. She listened most politely. It was to turn out, however, that he had overrated his own charm.

  Alexander’s real booty from Damascus was a vast haul of treasure, the Great King’s war chest and the private coffers of the nobles, relieving him at last of all worries about financing his campaign. He also captured four Greek envoys; two from Thebes, whom he released at once, accepting their Persianizing as natural; one from Sparta, imprisoned for a time and then let go; and an elderly Athenian, son of the famous general, Iphicrates, the guest-friend of his grandparents. This last he charmed into joining his suite, where he remained for life, his ashes being sent scrupulously back to his kin in Athens.

  Sidon gladly opened its gates, turning out a pro-Persian governor. This had an interesting sequel: Hephaestion’s first independent mission. Before its conquest by Persia some generations back, Sidon had been a monarchy. Alexander directed Hephaestion to choose a king.

  It was a graceful mark of honour, implying that Hephaestion himself was worthy of the office, if he could have been spared; but Alexander was realistic about such missions, and this called for both integrity and skill. Hephaestion was at once surrounded with sycophancy and intrigue. His own host, a leading citizen, perhaps fearful of hostile factions, declined with the excuse that he was not of the royal blood. At this, Hephaestion asked if any actual scion of the line survived; to get the unexpected reply that one did, but, born into peasant poverty, he was working as a daily gardener. Hephaestion took up his references and found them excellent; too tactful to intrude on him at his lowly job, he sent him emissaries with a royal robe in which he could arrive with dignity. They found him busy with the watering. The Sidonians, astounded by this choice of the one candidate who could not have produced a bribe, settled down to it pretty well. The carefulness of his own honour, and his friend’s, which such a choice implies, along with its success, tell us much about Hephaestion.

  King Abdalonymus remained a good worker, respectable and honest. It is pleasant to record an instance of human gratitude. After Hephaestion’s death, while his grandiose memorials stood unfinished because Alexander too was gone, and jealous rivals were paring to the bone—as Ptolemy surely did—this brilliant officer’s record, Abdalonymus was designing his own sarcophagus. A fine Hellenistic frieze of tinted marble shows a battle scene, with Alexander in heroic action. But the central figure, a handsome cavalryman hewing down a Persian foe, is generally accepted as Hephaestion’s one surviving likeness.

  From Sidon Alexander marched on southward towards the formidable obstacle of Tyre. This massive Phoenician fortress port was an island, separated by a deep channel from the shore. It had its own large merchant and war fleet, and a harbour open to Persian ships. On his approach it sent him envoys, offering to be at his orders. He tested them by asking to perform a state sacrifice at the temple of Melkart, the Tyrian Heracles. This brought a refusal to open their gates to Macedonians, with a claim that they would shut out Persians too, an undertaking they were unlikely to honour once he had passed by.

  Alexander called a war council, aware of the huge task ahead. If they left Tyre two-faced in their rear, he said, the Persians could use it as an invasion base against Greece, where Sparta was now in open revolt against his Regent Antipater, and Athens awaiting her chance. Ahead lay Egypt, a rich objective, eager to receive him; the brutality and sacrilege of Ochus’ reconquest had never been forgiven there. The coast once secured, and all Asia this side of Euphrates in their power, they could march for Babylon.

  This realistic assessment convinced his staff. He made a last attempt to avoid such a costly siege, by sending envoys with an ultimatum. The Tyrians, violating the immemorial sanctity of heralds, brought them out on the walls for him to view their murder, and threw their bodies in the sea. After this, Alexander announced that he had had a dream, in which Heracles stood on the Tyrian walls, with hand outstretched to lead him into the city.

  These walls, made of dressed and mortared stone, were 150 feet high on the landward side. Stratagem and surprise were out; he settled down at once to business, and began to run a mole out from the mainland.

  Out of missile range, the first stretch went quickly. He stood over the work, giving out prizes for zeal. But the channel deepened, the fill took more stones and time; they came into bowshot of the walls; Tyrian ships now had draught to approach and harry them. He had two moving towers built, mounted with catapults, armoured with hide and with a hide screen stretched between them. Dragged along as the work advanced, it could shelter the carriers till at the last moment they dashed out to tip their loads. When the wind was high, the Tyrians launched a blazing fireship, its tall yards hung with cauldrons of flaming pitch. The towers burned out, their crews leaping off or perishing inside. Alexander ordered new towers, and went off to Sidon to raise a war fleet.

  This took a couple of weeks, during which he discharged his restless energy in a ten-day expedition to subdue the neighbouring tribes. With him, for company, went the now elderly Lysimachus, the obscure Macedonian gentleman who had beguiled his childhood with tales from Homer. When he went scouting in the hills, Lysimachus begged to come along, recalling this old game and declaring himself no older than his exemplar Phoenix, Achilles’ guardian. Plutarch continue
s,

  But when, leaving their horses, they began to walk into the hills, the rest of the soldiers went a good way ahead, so that night approaching and the enemy near, Alexander lingered behind so long, to hearten and help the lagging tired old man, that before he knew it he was left in the rear a long way from his soldiers, with a small company, on a bitter night in the dark, and in a very bad place; till seeing many scattered fires of the enemy some way off, and trusting to his swiftness … he ran straight to one of the nearest fires, and killing with his dagger two of the barbarians who sat by it, snatched up a burning brand, and returned with it to his own people. They at once made a great fire, which so scared the enemy that most of them fled, and those who attacked them were soon routed; and thus they rested securely for what was left of the night.

  After this tribute to friendship he went back to Sidon, where 120 Cypriot ships awaited him; the island rulers had thrown off the Persian yoke and joined his cause. In all he raised about 200 sail; and led them over to the attack. His own flagship took the post of danger nearest the city walls. But the Tyrians, startled by his numbers, merely closed their harbour with a boom of ships, as he had done himself at Miletus. He could not tempt them out.

  His operations were now enormous, using engineers from Cyprus and the whole Phoenician littoral, besides the expert Greeks he had brought along. He mounted catapults on shipboard, and began to bombard the walls with heavy stones. The Tyrians cast rocks into the sea to obstruct the ships. Doggedly he had the rocks fished for and hauled up. For this his ships had to anchor; the Tyrians sent armoured ships to cut their cables. He brought up support ships. The enemy sent divers to cut the cables under water. He replaced the cables with anchor chains. At length the channel allowed his ships alongside the walls, which the mole was also nearing.

  The inventive Tyrians, men in advance of their time, produced their most modern weapon. They heated sand red hot, and projected it at the foremost Macedonians. Diodorus says, “It sifted down under their corselets and their clothes, searing the flesh with intense heat … they screamed entreaties like men under torture, and none could help them, but with the excruciating pain they went mad and died.” Many threw themselves in the sea. Unaware that it was to become a commonplace of civilized warfare, Alexander considered it an atrocity. In view of his fondness for leading the van, only chance must have saved him from being flayed alive himself.

  Half a year had passed in these labours. In the end it was by ships, supported from the mole though this ran short of the walls, that Tyre was stormed. Master now of the landward channel, he could bring round his assault craft under the weaker seaward walls. His torsion catapults could hurl heavy stones and crack ashlar masonry; the bow type were giant versions of the medieval crossbow, their pointed bronze bolts could pierce armour. His landing craft bore portable towers, a feature of his siege train which carted them in sections. On the day of the final assault he boarded a tower himself. One may picture a broad-beamed galley, with two or three oar banks to give it speed, the weird top-heavy-looking structure amidships crowned with armed men behind the glittering figure of Alexander who directed the pilot here and there on the lookout for a breach; the gangway lolling like a giant tongue, ready to be stuck out when one appeared. Meantime he watched, says Arrian, for brave deeds deserving of honour.

  He saw one when the Captain of the Bodyguard, Admetus, leaped straight into the first good breach that opened, cheering on his men, and died there. By that time Alexander’s ship had raced up in support; he ran out across his gangplank and led the party through. Meantime his ships had forced the harbour boom. The Tyrians, knowing all was lost, fled from the walls.

  The Macedonians pursued them, cutting down all they could overtake. Alexander forbade them to drag anyone out of temple sanctuary. (In one temple a famous statue of Apollo, Carthaginian loot from Sicily, was found chained to its base, the god having informed some Tyrian seer in a dream that he was leaving to join Alexander.) Arrian does not give the number of the slain, but reckons the captives enslaved at 30,000, obviously the large majority even in a populous merchant port. Curtius says 6,000 armed men were killed. Both he and Diodorus say that 2,000 were crucified. These may have been corpses; the Macedonians displayed the bodies of executed criminals in this way, though without the mutilations later practised in England. Curtius, never trustworthy with atrocity stories, infers they were alive. It would be wrong to exclude this entirely, because of the red-hot sand; but on Alexander’s general record, coupled with his concern at this stage of his career for Hellenic standards, the balance of probability is against it.

  At some time during the siege he had another embassy from Darius, who now offered not only the large sum of 10,000 talents for his family, but also peace terms: all Asia Minor west of the Euphrates, a treaty of alliance, and his daughter’s hand in marriage. This was the occasion of the famous bit of dialogue with Parmenion: “I’d take it, Alexander, if I were you.” “If I were you, so would I. But I’m Alexander.” His answer was that he had no need of money, nor of being offered half the land, which he already held, instead of the whole. He would marry, if he liked, Darius’ daughter with or without his leave; and if he wanted an alliance let him come and ask. Leaving him to take any steps which this reply suggested to him, Alexander marched towards Egypt.

  As Wilcken has pointed out in a masterly analysis, this moment of decision by Alexander is one of history’s great proofs that individuals, not mere economic forces, can change the destinies of mankind. Had he listened to Parmenion, Greek civilization would have been more solidly established in Asia Minor but would never have touched the East; the balance of power with Persia would have remained precarious, and the emergence of a stronger king there might have reversed the defeat of Xerxes in future years.

  Hephaestion, getting promotion, was now put in charge of the fleet to patrol the coast. Alexander marched south to Gaza, the last point of coastal resistance. It was held by a eunuch general, Betis, who thought its high steep site impregnable. It was not a port; but if Alexander bypassed it, Darius would be encouraged to come down in his rear. His two-month siege included raising a high earthwork to bring his engines in range. While he was up there, some bird of prey dropped a stone on his head; perhaps mistaking his helmet for a tortoise whose shell it wished to crack, like the bald head of the poet Aeschylus, who died from the similar misjudgment of an eagle. Though unharmed Alexander asked the seer Aristander to read the omen. He pronounced that Alexander would take the city, but he must watch his safety today.

  On this advice he kept out of range for some time during which nothing much was happening. Then a sally in strength from the fort began to drive his men off the ring wall; on which he at once dashed to their help at the head of his troop. Soon he was nearly killed by a man who, after surrendering to him and being spared, whipped out a dagger; with his quick reflexes he dodged the blow, and struck home. Whether thinking the omen now fulfilled, or defying it, or just carried away by enthusiasm, he kept in action, till a heavy bolt from a crossbow catapult sank deep into his shoulder. His doctor pulled it out, causing a good deal of haemorrhage, and put on a field dressing which, since Alexander went straight back into the battle, soon slipped off. He fought on, pouring blood under his armour, till he fainted. The wound was serious and kept him out of action for some time, but he directed operations until the city fell.

  All good historians have rejected Curtius’ story that the brave Betis was brought before him wounded, refused to bow the knee, and was thereon dragged round the city at his chariot tail. Anyone unconvinced by his constant generosity to brave enemies, in which he took some pride, may here safely trust his vanity. Achilles, before thus mistreating Hector, had personally killed him in the climactic duel of the epic. Alexander’s wound had kept him from fighting in the final assault at all; he was the last man in the world to put on such an unpleasantly inferior display. The tale is interesting as a typical piece of Athenian propaganda, written by someone who had learned of h
is Homeric aspirations but knew nothing of his nature at first hand, or was too “committed” to care.

  In Egypt he had no campaigning, only a triumphal progress.

  Hephaestion with the fleet awaited him at the Delta. The Persian satrap Mazaces, long aware of the Issus débâcle and with no adequate Persian garrison, put a good face on necessity and welcomed Alexander in. Leaving the harbour of Pelusium manned, he marched up the Nile, alongside his fleet, to Memphis.

  There can be scarcely a European today not furnished with some visual image of ancient Egypt however trite. It takes an effort of imagination to conceive the pristine impact on Alexander and his men, most of whom had never seen even Athens, of this fabled civilization, a legend since their childhood, as they followed the great river which was its sustainer, arterial road and sacred way; when they reached the towering temples of Memphis, the Pyramids with sides of geometric smoothness, the still unravaged smile of the huge Sphinx. It must have changed the whole scale of their human vision.

  Hailed everywhere as deliverer by the Egyptians, he was enthroned as Pharaoh, with the double crown and uraeus, the crossed sceptres of the crook and flail, symbols of the shepherd and the judge. Cartouches survive of “Horus, the strong prince, he who laid hands on the lands of the foreigners, beloved of Ammon and selected of Ra, son of Ra, Alexandros.” In respect of Egypt and its peoples, by immemorial tradition he was now a god.

  He was also the King, by free choice of his subjects. His first action was to sacrifice to the bull god Apis, in the temple where Ochus had speared to death (and, it was said, ordered roast for dinner) the sacred beast which was the divine incarnation. Alexander reverenced all their gods; quite sincerely, for in the tolerant Hellenic way he identified each with some Greek god whose attributes seemed to fit. There was constant traffic between Greece and Egypt, and the priests could probably converse without interpreters.