Alexander the Great

by Robin Lane Fox

  Into this tangle of civic strife and class hatred, Alexander was heading with need for a quick solution. His father's campaign was committed only to punishing the Persians on behalf of the Greeks; there had also been talk of freeing the Asian Greek cities, but punishment and freedom might mean little more than the riddance of Persian masters. The allied Greek leader was also a Macedonian conqueror: it would not be hard to stop his two positions from conflicting.

  Immediately after the Granicus, he made three revealing moves. He issued orders that Ins army should not plunder the native land; he meant to own it, therefore, like a Persian king, and so he appointed the Macedonian leader of his advance invasion as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, a continuation of an enemy title which complimented Persian government, though it may have surprised his Macedonians. As for the natives who came down from the hills to surrender, he sent them back as disinterestedly as any of his Persian predecessors. Throughout the province tribute was to be paid at the same rate as to Darius. Troy was declared free and granted a democracy, a hint of where Alexander's liberation might lead him, though as yet, no general provision was made for the Greek cities; the men of Zeleia, the Persians' headquarters, were 'excused from blame as they had been forced to take the Persian side'. Their tyrant, presumably, was to be deposed, if he had not already fled.

  Parmenion was despatched from the battlefield to take the satrapal castle of Dascylium; as its guards had deserted, that presented no problem.

  Meanwhile Alexander took the ancient route south-west across the plain to Sardis, seat of the satrap of the Lydians, whose empire had been seized by the Persians more than two hundred years ago after a defeat of their renowned king, Croesus. Quick to strike, Alexander was not the only man in a hurry. Some seven miles outside the city walls, he was met by Mithrines, commander of the Persian fortress, and the most powerful men of Sardis, who offered him their city, their fortress and its moneys. Alexander took Mithrines on to his staff as an honoured friend and allowed Sardis and the rest of Lydia 'to use the ancient laws of the Lydians and to be free'. As nothing is known of Persian government inside Sardis, except that the Lydians had been garrisoned and disarmed, it is impossible to decide what privileges this grant was meant to restore, but the Persians were famous for their provincial judges, and documents from Babylon and Egypt show how widely the 'king's law' was invoked against their subjects. In spirit, Alexander made a gesture to the Lydians' sensitivities, though his Greek crusade owed them nothing as they were not Greeks. Climbing the heights of the acropolis which still towers split in half above the tombs of the old Lydian kings in the plain below, Alexander marvelled at the strength of the Persian fortress and admired its triple wall and marble portico. Momentarily, he considered building a temple to Olympian Zeus on its summit, but thunderclaps broke from the summer sky and rain streamed down over the former palace of the Lydian kings: 'Alexander considered that this was a sign from god as to where his temple to Zeus should be built and he issued orders accordingly.' At this omen from Zeus the Thunderer, thoughts of a temple on the site of former domination gave way to a generous recognition of the Lydian kings, suppressed by the Persians for the past two hundred years, and diplomatically Alexander bad more reason to choose the latter than obedience to a shower of rain.

  As a conqueror, he meant to govern. A Companion was left to command the Persian fortress; one of Parmenion's brothers became satrap of Lydia and Ionia with a suitable force to support him. This splitting of the commands was partly in keeping with the Persians' practice and it divided the burden of work in an area that was not yet secure; as the Romans later realized, one officer could watch the other's behaviour and report it to the king. A Greek, moreover, was charged with collection of the 'tribute, contributions and offerings'. As a free city Sardis presumably paid the 'contribution', rather than imperial tribute, and the provision of a garrison of Argive Greeks was not necessarily a breach of her freedom, as enemy retaliations were likely and the city might need defence. But though Sardis profited, the rest of Lydia had only changed one master for another.

  There was no point in wasting time on further rearrangements. The fortress treasure was a very valuable addition to army funds. The next goal was Ephesus, some fifty miles south-west by Royal Road. This powerful city had welcomed Philip's advance force two years earlier, and there was every hope that it would prove friendly again. First, however, Alexander despatched all his allied Greek forces northwards to 'Memnon's country' behind him, and if this was the general Memnon's estate, he may have been hoping to catch his enemy in person. These forces were to rejoin him afterwards, as their help was valuable.

  On hearing the news of the Granicus, the hired garrison at Ephesus had fled. 'On the fourth day' Alexander reached the city, restored any exiles who had been banished on his account and set up a democracy in place of an oligarchy. This, his first contact with a Greek city since his victory, was an important moment, particularly as Ephesus illustrated civil strife in full. Two years earlier, it had been held by a pro-Persian junta; then, Philip's advance force had expelled the junta and restored democracy; a year later, the junta were back, exiling the democrats of the year before; now Alexander had tipped the balance and restored democracy decisively. Revelling in their return, the people ran riot and began to stone the families who had ruled through Persian support, fine proof of the bitterness they felt for tyrants. Alexander was man of the world enough to realize that one class is always as vindictive as its rival, and he forbade further inquisition and revenge, knowing that innocent lives would be taken in the name of democratic retribution. 'It was by what he did at Ephesus, more than anywhere else, that Alexander earned a good name at that time.'

  The news soon spread and as a result, it brought Alexander power. Two nearby cities offered their surrender, perhaps on democratic terms, and Parmenion was sent by road with enough troops to hold them to their word. Alexander was beginning to feel more confident as his influence spread, so he despatched one of his most practised Macedonian diplomats 'to the cities of Aeolia behind him and as many of the cities of Ionia as were still under barbarian rule'. His orders were justly famous: he was to 'break up the oligarchies everywhere and set up democracies instead: men were to be given their own laws and exempted from the tribute which they paid to the barbarians'. Alexander, too often remembered solely as a conqueror, was staging a careful coup.

  At a stroke, he had resolved the contradictions in his own position. Democracies did ample justice to his slogan of freedom, and by reversing the Persian's support for tyrants and gentlemen, he had released class hatred and the fervour of suppressed democrats to conquer the cities of Acolia and Ionia; he had not committed himself to similar treatment of the Greek cities further south, but he had ensured the thanks and loyalty of his new Greek governments behind and around him. There were sound precedents for his method. At Ephesus, at least, Philip's advance force had set up a democracy; in the more distant past, the Persian king Darius I had recognized the force of the Asian Greek cities' hatred for their tyrants and given them democracies after their rebellion of protest. So far from improvising, Alexander was exploiting the oldest political current in Greek Asia, and indeed the lasting ambition of most ordinary Greeks wherever they lived; only five years before, at the other end of the Greek world, the Greek cities in Sicily had been won by the Corinthian adventurer Timoleon and his similar promise of freedom through democracy, a precedent which may not have been lost on the Macedonians. Philip's valued Companion, Demaratus of Corinth, had fought for Sicily's liberation and as he had accompanied Alexander to Asia, he could have told him what democratic loyalties meant in a Greek city abroad; Alexander himself is implied to have preferred the rule of aristocrats. The coup may have been obvious, but others had ignored it, not least the Spartan invaders sixty years before, who had cynically domineered or deserted the Asian Greek cities whom they had come to free.

  'There is no greater blessing for Greeks', proclaimed the Greek city of Priene fifty years aft
er Alexander, 'than the blessing of freedom.' Such an attitude cared nothing for Asian natives, many of whom were serfs for the Greeks and their cities, but it was one which Alexander had turned most neatly to his own advantage. His announcement marked the end of an era, and was treated accordingly. Among those whom he restored, the mood was one of that jubilance peculiar to politicians who return to power beyond their expectations; many Ionian cities began to date their official calendars by a new age altogether, and thereafter, freedom would become identified with democratic rule, as if the two centuries of Persian tyrannies had been an illogical interlude. The vocabulary of politics changed, and in return, it is probable that the new governments paid Alexander, now or later in his lifetime, honours otherwise reserved for gods. This first sounding of a theme that loomed large in later years cannot yet be dated precisely. At Ephesus, perhaps soon after his visit, when Alexander asked that the rebuilt temple of Artemis should be dedicated in his own name, the citizens refused him 'because it did not befit one god to do honour to another', proof, if true, that men were already paying him worship. Again for the temple at Ephesus, the court artist Apelles painted a portrait of Alexander holding the thunderbolt of Zeus; this too suggests that Alexander 130 had been deified as a new Zeus, but the date of the painting is uncertain. Lysippus, the court sculptor, is said to have protested that a hero's spear would have been more appropriate than Zeus's thunderbolt; he was, however, Apelles's rival and prided himself on his statue of Alexander holding just such a spear. He was not a humble Ephesian, outlawed for his belief in democracy and now miraculously returned to his home town by courtesy of a twenty-two-year-old king. Alexander was not the first Greek to be honoured as a god for political favour; even his father's brief liberation of several Asian Greek cities had been repaid by high religious honours that almost amounted to worship; the exultation of the moment made it thoroughly natural, but it is proof of the cities' profound gratitude that their worship of Alexander as a god was no temporary and forced reaction. It was to persist spontaneously for more than four centuries, complete with temples, priesthood and sacred games; the rich came to value its various offices, but few oligarchs of the time would have viewed its beginnings with anything better than disgust and resentment.

  Besides guaranteeing democracy, Alexander had abolished the payment of tribute by his Greek cities, a most generous privilege which no other master had ever granted them. But like modern governments, he had enough political sense to rename the tax which he claimed to have abolished; instead of tribute, some, if not all, Greek cities were to pay a 'contribution', probably a temporary payment until he could finance his fleet, army and garrisons entirely from plunder. At Ephesus the tribute was to continue; it was to be paid to the city's goddess Artemis, whom Iranians had long identified with their water-goddess Anahita, and the revenues would presumably be used for the cost of rebuilding her splendid temple; an Iranian official was confirmed in charge of the temple funds and administration, a responsible job for which the oriental nature of the cult suited him, and in the goddess's honour, Alexander held a procession of his army in full battle order. He then left the city for Miletus, an Ionian city on the coast whose governor had promised surrender in a letter. Once over the first hills, his road wound through level hayfields, down which he moved his lighter baggage in wagons, while the machinery and heavy gear were shipped along the coast by the transport vessels in his fleet. On the way Parmenion and his troops rejoined him, and they made their way through the river valley of the Meander, receiving the surrender of small cities where they could set up democracies and ask for contributions.

  At Miletus, an Ionian city, their hopes were to be disappointed: the city was set on a jutting headland, and as soon as its garrison commander heard that help from the Persian navy was on its way, he had changed his mind about surrender. This was disturbing news as naval support could keep this powerful position open indefinitely; as so often before, Alexander's solution lay in his speed. He captured the outer city, installed his allied Greek fleet in the harbours to block anchorage by the Persians, and set-ded down to wall off the rest of the city and besiege it into submission by slow but traditional means. Three days later, the Persians' fleet appeared in force from Egypt 400 ships strong in the opinion of Alexander's officers. For the first time in Asia Alexander was outnumbered. As he now held the strong defensive position, he need only have continued to block the city's harbour from attack and go about his siege as usual; however, the sight of Persian ships, it is said, moved Parmenion once more to offer his advice; after their dialogue at the Granicus, suspicion stirs uneasily.

  Parmenion advised Alexander to attack both because he expected that the Greek fleet would win and because he was convinced by an omen from heaven: an eagle had been sitting on the shore by the stern of Alexander's ships. If they won, it would be a great help for the war as a whole: if they lost, it would not be a grave disaster as the Persians were already masters of the sea. He would go on board in person and take his share of the danger.

  Alexander, however, considered that

  Parmenion's judgement was wrong and his interpretation of the omen was improbable. It made no sense to fight with a few ships against many more, especially as the Cypriots and Phoenicians on the enemy side were a practised unit, whereas his own fleet was not fully trained: in an insecure position, he did not wish to surrender the experience and daring of his Macedonians to the barbarians. Defeat at sea would be a serious blow to the initial glory of the war, the more so as the Greeks would revolt if encouraged by news of a naval disaster.

  As for the omen, 'the eagle was indeed in his favour, but because it had been seen sitting on dry land, in his opinion it meant that by land, he would overcome the Persian fleet'.

  This refusal to fight at sea was tactically sound. It would have been foolhardy to risk a naval battle against so many ships, some of which were technically superior to Alexander's Greek fleet. They were an expert force, even if their crews were drawn from Cyprus and Phoenicia, areas where Greek culture had made its mark and revolt against Persia had been recent. It is most unlikely that the experienced Parmenion ever proposed such an indiscretion except in the pages of court history, where first Callisthenes, then Alexander's friend Ptolemy could work up his 'proposal' as a foil to their myth of Alexander. Events soon explain why they invented such a discussion; as for the eagle, bird of Zeus, it was a suitable omen for a king whom Zeus protected and it was also the symbol on the first gold coins which Alexander issued in Asia.

  At first, Miletus tried to beg neutrality, but Alexander rightly refused it, and battered his way into the streets with the help of his siege engines. Many Milesian citizens 'fell in front of Alexander and implored him as suppliants, delivering themselves and their city into his hands'; these no doubt, were ordinary men who yearned for a return to democracy. But a few Milesians fought bitterly beside the hired Greek garrison until they were forced to launch into the sea and swim or paddle their way to an offshore island for safety; these, no doubt, were the richer citizens who had domineered the city with Persian support. Even on their island, they prepared to resist heroically, until Alexander intervened and offered to spare them, 'being seized with pity for the men because they seemed to him to be noble and true'. He enrolled all 300 of them in his army, no longer branding them as traitors; unlike the hordes he had punished at the Granicus, he had made them a promise in return for their surrender, and so lived up to it, not least because a mere 300 soldiers would not be a strain on his army treasury.

  Mercenaries apart, a signal victory was being won out to sea. Like all warships in the ancient world, the Persians' men-of-war were like 'glorified racing-eights' and had so little room on board in which to store provisions that they were forced to remain in daily touch with a land base. Meals could not be cooked on the move and fresh water had to be collected by putting into a nearby river-mouth. Sharp as ever, Alexander had anticipated them and sent several units by land to beat them off. Thwarted and thirsty, th
e Persian crews sailed away to the island of Samos where they stocked with stores, perhaps with the help of its resident Athenians. On their return to Miletus, they still fared no better for water, and so gave up the struggle in the interests of their stomachs, and sailed away southwards. Having won his victory from dry land, as prophesied, Alexander took the decision which was to determine his route for the next two years; except for twenty Athenian ships who could carry his siege equipment along the coast and serve as hostages for their fellow citizens' obedience, he disbanded his entire fleet.

  Even in antiquity, the merits of this bold order were vigorously disputed and at an early date, historians who had served with Alexander felt bound to defend their king's sound sense. Hence, at the beginning of the siege, they inserted a naval dialogue with Parmenion as a preface to the fleet's dismissal. Just as on the banks of the Granicus, Parmenion had been introduced into the story in order to stress Alexander's daring and play down the cautious truth, so at Miletus he was used in reverse, stressing Alexander's safe logic and smoothing over the very real risk which he was soon to take by disbanding his allied navy.

  'He considered', wrote his officers, 'that as he now held Asia with his infantry, he no longer needed a fleet.' This does so little justice to Alexander's foresight that it can only be pious publicity; so far from not needing a fleet, let alone a Greek fleet, seven months later Alexander was forced to order his allied ships to reassemble in the face of the Persian counterattack which he must always have feared. His allied Greek fleet employed at least 32,000 men at the gigantic cost of some 160 talents a month and despite the treasures of Sardis and the hopes of tribute and contributions, he was seriously worried about his finances; his Greek allies were presumably not obliged to pay for their crews' upkeep, an imposition which was only tried later in a special case. The following spring, he could send 600 talents home to Antipater and a further 500 to finance the recruitment of his second allied navy, but this surplus may not have been ready at Miletus and anyway, tactics, as much as money, were at the root of the dismissal. Outnumbered, and unable to risk a head-on engagement against superior crews, 'Alexander thought that by capturing the coastal cities he would break up the Persian fleet, leaving them nowhere to recruit crews or use as a seaport in Asia'. In view of an ancient warship's dependence on its land base for daily supplies, Alexander had calculated this strategy shrewdly. On a lesser scale, it had worked already at Miletus and reapplied, it would eventually force the Cypriot and Phoenician ships to surrender and join his side. Friends later passed off the strategy as safe and free of risk, but it needed two years' faith and patience to succeed. During this time the Persian fleet threatened the entire Aegean, regained the use of many harbours which Alexander thought he had closed, and might, with more luck, have forced him to return to the Asian coast. It was a strategy shot through with short-term danger. Nevertheless finance and numbers made it the one sound option. Alexander, at least, had the foresight and daring to pursue it to its hazardous end.