Alexander the Great

by Robin Lane Fox

  Before Alexander could think of the idea for himself, Darius had sent troops up into the mountains so that they could circle unseen behind Alexander's right and descend to attack him from behind. This tactic could have been decisive, had not Alexander ordered his Agrianians and archers to drop back and stop them. By pinning down Darius's troops in the foothills, they soon forced them to retire. If the ruse on the right failed, that on the left was more promising. Alexander had stationed surprisingly few cavalry on the far left wing where the river levelled out to run into the sea, though the seashore was the one obvious point for an enemy charge. Noticing the weakness, Darius massed his own horsemen to exploit it; again Alexander realized his mistake in time and transferred his Thessalian horsemen unseen behind the lines in order to stiffen the defences. As their removal weakened his right, where the longer frontage of the Persians outstretched Alexander's line, two units of Companion cavalry were shuffled rightwards, also in secrecy behind the lines, and the Agrianians and archers returned to join them now that their work in the foothills was finished. Most interestingly, these additions were enough to give Alexander a longer battle frontage than his enemy's, despite Darius's alleged large numbers. But both armies were hemmed in by sea and hills, and Darius, especially, had kept much infantry in reserve.

  After these furtive moves in the game of military chess, Alexander had to assess his new position. He would be thankful that his swift return on the night before had trapped Darius in the narrows, but he had worries enough of his own. His left might still veer away from the beach, allowing the Persians to outflank them and gallop round his rear, and he could only trust to Parmenion to prevent this. More urgently, his centre and his right were confronted by a river with rough banks and waters swollen from the recent gale. This time, he was confined by the mountains and could not move upstream and repeat the turning manoeuvre which had worked for him at the Granicus. His cavalry might manage the slippery ground without losing impetus against the Persian archers and light infantry, but his Foot Companions were bound to find the going most troublesome. Their formation always tended to split apart on broken ground and, if the enemy could hack their way inside, short daggers and small shields would be no protection against their onslaught; the most sensible plan was to allow for this weakness and leave the main charge to Alexander's cavalry, who would ford the river ferociously, hoping to scatter the enemy on the wing opposite. If they succeeded, they would circle round and divert the hired Greek troopers in Darius's centre from harassing the floundering Foot Companions whom as, a symbol of Macedonian tyranny, they so detested. All depended, then, on the horsemen, and with horsemen morale and leadership are fundamental. They would look to their king for a lead: in a real sense, the battle of Issus was to turn on Alexander's personality.

  Plans and rearrangements take more time than historians often allow, especially in an army where messages can only be passed from one wing to the other by word of mouth, and it must have been the middle of the November afternoon before Alexander could shout his final exhortation, reminding the men in each unit of their individual past glories and calling on the commanders by name and title. 'From all sides there came the answering cry: delay no longer but charge into the foe.' At first the troops stepped slowly forwards, their alalalalai reechoing down the mountain-fringed plain, then, at a sign from their king, the cavalry on the right kicked at their horses and dashed towards the river, Alexander at their head and the Persian archers in their mind's eye. On both flanks, however, Darius's cavalry had begun to move first into a charge; the two sides collided and the battle that followed is as obscure to posterity as it no doubt was to its participants, splashing manfully through mud and spray; detailed reconstructions of an ancient battle are always a matter of faith, but four vital facts cannot be gainsaid and for once it is unlikely that Alexander's role has been overstressed by his historians. He was to matter very much indeed.

  On the right, at the foot of the mountains, Alexander's meeting with Darius's cavalry was bold, and entirely successful. The enemy archers, light infantry and heavy cavalry gave way at the first shock; there was much jostling, whereupon the Companions, pulling hard on their bits, managed to swing their horses round to the left and strike into the Persian centre where, according to royal custom, Darius had stationed his chariot. Their virtuosity was well-timed; back in the Macedonian centre, the phalanx was faltering on the brink of the river and beginning to come adrift as it tried to match the speed of the king and cavalry: ranks were breaking, the wall of sarissas was parting and Darius's hired Greeks had hurled themselves across the river into the gaps, 'challenging the phalanx's widespread reputation for invincibility'. Fighting was fierce and the Macedonian losses would have been severer had not Alexander's horsemen, wheeling into the Persian centre, cut off the hired Greeks from behind and forced them to look back to their encircled rear.

  On the seashore to the left Parmenion's brigades had held firm in the face of oriental slingers and heavy cavalry. Far from piercing a gap beside the sea, Darius's horsemen found themselves thrown back to join their centre, while the Thessalians ripped past them down the left wing, meaning to circle round and join with Alexander in the pursuit. As the winter darkness came on and cavalry fought their way towards him on both sides, the Great King realized his danger and decided to turn his chariot and flee, leaving his brother Oxathres to fend heroically for himself among the advancing Macedonian horsemen. For one vivid moment, caught in an ancient mosaic of the battle, probably based on an original painting by a contemporary, king met the eye of king, Darius urging his tossing horses to swing about. Alexander pushing through the press, intent on spearing his rival to death. This contest, at least, Darius was to win; his brother Oxathres and other Persian nobles came to brave terms with the Macedonians, and behind the protection of his Royal Relations Darius was free to rattle over the hilly ground in his chariot until the streams and gullies impeded his advance and he was forced to take to his horse. His shield and his Persian robe he abandoned in his empty chariot for Alexander to find behind him; as he made the most of his start, night's onset stayed the Macedonians and Thessalians from more pressing pursuit.

  In the battle 110,000 Persians were killed, said the historians, whereas the Macedonian dead totalled 302; their general agreement suggests that these farcical figures were derived from Callisthenes, writing up the triumph for his king's enjoyment. Ptolemy, who shared in the pursuit, even overstepped Callisthenes's limit and claimed that he had ridden across a ravine on the bodies of the Persian dead which filled it. Despite the official figures, the Macedonian infantry, split and unprotected, would surely have suffered heavily from the opposing Greeks and it is perhaps relevant that among these glamorous fibs a figure of 4,000 Macedonian wounded is also recorded, possibly nearer the painful truth. For the battle of Issus had exposed the recurrent limitations of the Foot Companions forced to march on rough terrain; victory, as never before in Greek warfare and seldom afterwards even in modern times, had been won wholly by the merits of the cavalry, outnumbered and seriously hampered by the lie of the land, yet still able to meet the Persians' right, swing left-handed and pierce the flanks of its centre. Such horsemanship would not be seen again until the Carthaginians' double charge at Cannae, when the ground was level and their Roman opponents were neither so skilled nor so heavily armoured as Darius's Orientals. Alexander's victory cannot be attributed to any notable superiority of weapons, although some if not all, of the Persian horses and riders were heavily armoured, so much so that their weight slowed their final retreat. They were beaten because they were bowled over by a charge, and then jostled off balance at close quarters; this bowling over was the result of that training, dash and high morale which make the Companions the finest cavalry in history, and for this, their commander Alexander must be held directly responsible.

  From the battlefield the Persian forces scattered to all four points of the compass, many following Darius eastwards to the safe heart of the empire, many risking th
e northerly route through Cilicia into the fastnesses of the Taurus mountains, others heading westwards for the Asia Minor coast and others, some 4,000 soldiers of fortune, rallying to Amyntas the Macedonian deserter and circling southwards to try their hand in that richest of Asian prizes, the satrapy of Egypt. For some twenty miles those with Darius were dogged by Alexander and his Companions, hoping for the prey which would tum their victory into a triumph. But with half a mile's start through unfamiliar country, the Great King had time to escape eastwards through the Amanid mountains, and eventually Alexander gave up the chase, arriving back in his camp on the verge of midnight. His failure was a grave disappointment but back on the field of victory there were prizes enough to make up for the loss of Darius's person.

  Even in his army camp, Darius had encumbered himself with riches and paraphernalia, though these were only a foretaste of what lay abandoned at his base in Damascus. The Macedonians had plundered all that was to hand, reserving the royal tent for the man who now deserved it, so that when Alexander returned at midnight, bloodstained and muddied, expressing a wish to wash off his sweat in Darius's bath, they could lead him forwards to his rightful prize, a Companion reminding him that Darius's bath was in future to be known as Alexander's. On the threshold of the royal tent, Alexander stood surprised, struck by a sight which no young man from Pella could ever have imagined to be true:

  When he saw the bowls, pitchers, tubs and caskets, all of gold, most exquisitely worked and set in a chamber which breathed a marvellous scent of incense and spices, when he passed through into a tent whose size and height were no less remarkable, whose sofas and tables were even laid for his dinner, then he looked long and hard at his Companions and remarked: 'This, it would seem, is to be a King.'

  But there is more to kingship than its treasures. Alexander was tired; he wanted his bath and dinner; he was limping from a dagger-wound in his thigh which court gossip attributed to a thrust from King Darius himself. And yet he was perturbed by the sound of ladies wailing close to where he stood, and on asking what ladies could possibly be responsible he was told that these were Darius's wife, mother and children, weeping for the king whom they believed to be dead. Promptly, Alexander sent a Companion, Leonnatus, to reassure them and to tell them, perhaps in Persian, that Darius lived, though his cloak and weapons had been captured in his chariot: Alexander would grant them royal state and the continuing rank of Queen, as it was Darius, not his family, upon whom he was making war.

  The following morning, Alexander summoned Hephaistion and went to visit his royal captives. When they entered her tent, it was said, the Queen Mother did obeisance to Hephaistion, mistaking him for Alexander as be seemed so plainly the taller of the two. Hephaistion recoiled and an attendant corrected her; she stood back, flustered at her mistake. Alexander, as with his Carian mother Ada, had the tact to cope with a lady's embarrassment: 'No mistake,' he replied, 'for he too is an Alexander.' Then, he complimented Darius's wife on her six-year-old son and confirmed the ladies' privileges, presenting them with dresses and jewellery, and giving them leave to bury any of their Persian dead; they were to live unmolested in quarters of their own, honour being paid to their beauty. Once more, Alexander had shown himself able to respect feminine nobility; his captives could have been valuable hostages, but he never used them for political bargaining, and not for nine years did he marry Darius's daughter.

  Respect for captive royalty had a long history in the ancient East, and Alexander was not the man to betray it; the Persian Queen Mother, especially, came to recognize his kindness.

  As at the Granicus, his army were shown this quality in his own inimitable way.

  Despite his wound, he went round all the other wounded and talked to them; he collected the dead and buried them magnificently with all his army arrayed in their full battle-finery; he had a word of congratulation for all whom he himself had seen distinguishing themselves particularly bravely or whose valour he heard from agreed reports: with extra presents of money, he honoured them all according to their deserts.

  That is the way to lead one's men.

  The royal tent and the royal family were not the sum of Alexander's reward. Parmenion was sent to Damascus with orders to capture the treasures; the guards surrendered him 2,600 talents of coin and 500 pounds of silver, unminted as was the Great King's practice. The coin alone equalled one year's revenue from Philip's Macedonia, and sufficed for all debts of army pay and six months' wages; 7,000 valuable pack-animals heaved it back to the main camp. Parmenion further reported that '329 female musicians, 306 different cooks, 13 pastry chefs, 70 wine waiters and 40 scent makers' had been captured. With them came two more personal prizes, the first being the precious casket in which Alexander, after much debate, decided to store his copy of the Iliad, the second the Persian lady Barsine, some thirty years old, with an attractive family history. She had been married first to Memnon's brother, then to Memnon himself, and was thus brought up to a Greek way of life. She was the daughter of the respected Persian satrap Artabazus, who was of royal blood on his mother's side, and she had taken refuge at Philip's Pella some twenty years earlier when her father was exiled from Asia Minor. Barsine met Alexander when he was a boy. 'On Parmenion's advice', wrote Aristobulus, 'Alexander attached himself to this well-mannered and beautiful noblewoman.' It was a fitting climax to what may have been a childhood friendship, and Alexander retained his first bilingual mistress for the next five years.

  This favour for Barsine was understandable, but she was only one among several women of status and varied upbringing. At Damascus, Parmenion had captured the wife and three daughters of the previous Persian king, the wife and son of Artabazus, Memnon's two other nieces, who were half Greek by birth, and Memnon's son. These bilingual families would one day stand at the centre of Alexander's plans for marriage

  among his commanders, but they mattered for the moment as a pull on their husband's loyalties, not least on Memnon's nephew and Artabazus's son, brother of Barsine, who were sharing the command of Persia's Aegean fleet.

  This collection of Persian wives and interrelated children was the first faint sign of where Alexander's future might one day lie. 'In Cilicia,' a polite Greek correspondent later wrote to him, 'men died for the sake of your kingship and for the freedom of the Greeks.' It is as well to be reminded that flatterers could still refer to Greek freedom, but the kingship was beginning to loom the larger of the two. On the banks of the Payas river, Alexander dedicated altars to Zeus, Athena and Heracles; he also ordered the first of his many commemorative cities, Alexandria-by-Issus, on the coastal site of the modem Alexandretta. The example of new cities had already been set by his father Philip, and these cities of Cilicia were to be organized as royal mints and ordered to strike Alexander's own silver coins. Their weight was to conform to the standard spread by Athens and already favoured in the area. Philip had used it too, so Macedon, the Aegean and Asia were linked for trade and army payments. Gradually, the king was moving towards a permanent empire, and an Emperor could not be content with a Greek campaign of revenge.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  On land the victory at Issus was inconclusive, not least because of Darius's escape, but at sea its effects were far more definite. The king's Greek fugitives had commandeered or burnt the hundred or so ships which had been beached for them at Tripolis, and neither ships nor Greeks would be seen in Persia's service again: the fall of western Asia and the capture of the baggage at Damascus made further shipments of coined money to the Persian admirals impossible, as only western Asia paid tribute to the king in coin and there was no route left open for Darius to despatch coined reserves to the Aegean. Above all, Alexander's Greek allies were less hesitant in providing another fleet now that he had proved himself in a battle they had expected him to lose. The Persian admirals could only look to a difficult spring ahead of them, in which they must improvise men, ships and money: their overtures to Agis, King of Sparta were poor reassurance, and his plan to recruit the fugitives fro
m Issus had a decided air of desperation.

  For Alexander victory had opened the way to the coastal cities of Phoenicia, where his policy of defeating the fleet by land could at last show results. These cities and nearby Cyprus provided the crews for the Persian fleet, but they were not a world on which he had no grip, for they had already shown a spontaneous favour for Greek culture and language among their kings and merchants, while Cypriots spoke Greek and mostly strove to be Greeks themselves; better still, it was only twelve years since both Cyprus and the leading naval city of Sidon had rebelled vigorously against their Persian masters. This memory, like several of its participants, was still alive, and without it Alexander's strategy might well have failed him. The local kings and their sailors were away in the Aegean, but Alexander could bargain with their sons and elders and once again use local hatreds in the name of liberation.

  He began with Arad, a stronghold on its own island with thirty-foot walls of stone, a small land empire and an ingenious water system in case of siege. Its king was at sea, and his son offered Alexander a golden crown of submission, the first move in a long history of favour from Macedonians. Thereupon, couriers arrived with a diplomatic letter from Darius. He was

  pained by the loss of his family and wrote as one king to another, to ask for friendship, alliance and their return. Darius was not yet in a mood for concessions, but a strange story survives that Alexander forged one of his letters and set a more arrogant version before his Companions to be sure that they would refuse it. Darius's letters to Alexander was disputed and muddled in the histories, and there is no means of verifying this unlikely story. In this first letter, said Alexander's officers, Darius promised neither reward nor ransom; others said that he offered 10,000 talents, and if Alexander suppressed anything, perhaps he may have suppressed this mention of ransom and a guarantee of land in his rear. His reported answer is agreed in its main points and must be near to its original form.