The Sieges of Alexander the Great

by Stephen English

  Chapter 7

  India and the Journey to Babylon: 327–323

  In the spring of 327, after a brief yet busy two-month winter stay in Nautaca, Alexander set off south for Bactra where he paused, leaving behind three taxeis of pezhetairoi with Craterus in command to complete the reduction of the region, before continuing south to rendezvous with Alexander in India. It is apparent that Alexander had been contemplating an Indian campaign for some time, at least since summer the previous year, and almost certainly long before that.202 Alexander’s constant desire, or more likely need, for exploration, discovery and conquest meant that he could never have refused the opportunity that India presented.

  The army that marched out of Bactria with Alexander was around 50,000 strong, hardly more than had fought at Gaugamela. The relative proportion of the Macedonian contingent had been reduced, however, as there had been no documented reinforcements from Macedonia for almost four years, and the strain was starting to show. We do know of a large influx of reinforcements from Greece, but these had been left behind in Bactria and Sogdiana (apparently reluctantly given their future rebellions and attempts to get home) to ensure that there were no further difficulties in that region. The organization of the army had also changed in order to make it more mobile and able to respond to changing circumstances: the pezhetairoi had all but abandoned the sarissa; its use is not recorded again in the sources (interestingly, apart from a few minor occasions, the only time we know positively that the sarissa was used was at Gaugamela). The prodromoi had also been merged with the Companion Cavalry, probably a sign of seriously reduced numbers. This is also a likely proof that they were Macedonian in origin, rather than Balkan, as is sometimes assumed. Orientals also started to be introduced into the ranks of the Companion Cavalry for the first time, again indicating declining numbers of Macedonians available to Alexander. A new officer class had also emerged in Sogdiana, partly through the constant desire to remove ‘Philip’s men’ from the command structure and replace them with his own. This policy had seen the removal of men like Parmenio, Philotas and Cleitus. The new officer cadre consisted of Alexander’s childhood friends, men he believed he could trust intimately: the likes of Hephaestion, Ptolemy and Perdiccas.203

  Ten days march south from Bactra took the army back across the Hindu Kush Mountains and into Parapamisadae. From there they advanced down the Cophen River Valley (now called the Kabul River Valley) towards the plains of the Indus and the satrapy of Bajaur.204 After what we can only assume would have been a difficult and time consuming crossing of the Hindu Kush, given the narrow passes and the baggage train that the army carried, Alexander divided the army into two columns, as had become the general policy. The first column was commanded by Hephaestion and Perdiccas, and consisted of three taxeis of heavy infantry (those of Gorgias, Cleitus the White and Meleager), half the Companion Cavalry and all of the mercenary cavalry, a total of around 6–7,000 men.205 This column was instructed to secure the main road into India, no simple task. The remainder of the army, commanded by Alexander, marched into the mountainous terrain north of the Kabul River, the regions of Bajaur and Swat, continuing the brutal campaign that he had started in Sogdiana; Alexander’s desire to punish the natives had evidently not yet been sated.206 This is also likely an indication that Alexander did not have the same geographical distinction between Bactria, Sogdiana and India that we do today. He may have seen these people as being essentially the same as those he had been campaigning against previously and in need of subjugation.

  At first glance this campaign looks punitive and brutal, but it was vital in order to protect his lines of supply and communication down the Kabul River Valley from the central Persian satrapies. Alexander saw all of the inhabitants of the region as his subjects, given his status as the Great King, and any resistance was a direct challenge to his rule, and any challenge was increasingly met with bloody and brutal repression.207 Alexander’s campaign to the north of the Kabul River began with an assault on an anonymous local town. The inhabitants had retired to their mountain stronghold and had made ready to resist Alexander. Why they chose resistance we do not know, but the previous Persian presence in this region was probably very mild and they would have been almost entirely autonomous before the arrival of the Macedonians. In the initial assault against the fortification, Alexander was slightly wounded by an arrow to the shoulder. This, coupled with his desire to make an example of them, led directly to a massacre of the defenders, something that was becoming all too familiar as Alexander met increased resistance with absolute repression.208 There is little doubt that this act was a deliberate policy designed to terrify the native population into submission in much the same way as the Mongols were to do during their conquest of Central Asia. Curtius tells us that even before the city fell, Alexander had instructed the troops to take no prisoners. The sack, and the violence that accompanied it, had the immediate impact of the neighbouring city of Andaca surrendering immediately without incident, the inhabitants being spared the horror experienced by their neighbours.

  From Andaca, Alexander marched east into the Kunar Valley. By this time his reputation for savagery and brutality was preceding him; in every town he encountered in that valley the inhabitants fled into the mountains before he arrived. The abandoned towns and cities that he encountered were occupied and then almost completely destroyed, causing thousands of people to become refugees. Alexander’s army also had constant need for supplies, resulting in these natives being made homeless and with neither the means of supporting themselves nor stores of crops that remained un-looted.

  As a furtherance of his policy of militarizing the region that he began before crossing the Hindu Kush, Alexander founded another city in a strategically important location; this is a direct copy of the policy conducted in Sogdiana that had both caused the revolt, and helped to suppress it.209 The fact that this policy had already begun in Sogdiana, with the result that the region became increasingly volatile and unstable, meant that it had to be extended to keep the region under any semblance of control. Alexander had started along a path that he could not stop until the region was properly suppressed.

  Massaga

  After almost two years of continuous mountain campaigning against enemies conducting guerrilla warfare in Bactria and Sogdiana, Alexander had become adept in dealing with these tactics. From the Kunar Valley, he marched into the Bajaur region where he left Coenus with a detachment to besiege the city of Beira. The Aspasians in this region offered little more than an inconvenience to the Macedonians, and they did not delay there for long. The Assacenians of Swat were a different matter, however.

  The king of the Assaceni in the Lower Swat valley, named Assacanus (although Curtius tells us that he had died shortly before Alexander’s arrival and they were now ruled by his mother, Cleophis), commanded a substantial force of some 30,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, which was further strengthened by a significant group of Indian mercenaries, perhaps 7,000 strong.210 Alexander’s reputation as a commander of unparalleled ability was also preceding him, as Assacanus evidently realized that, despite having an army that was roughly equivalent to Alexander’s (although much larger than the advanced force Alexander was currently commanding), they were not of the quality to defeat the Macedonians in open battle. Assacanus, therefore, decided that his best chance of victory was to retire to a number of local strongholds, the most important of which was Massaga, located in the region of the Katgala Pass.

  Massaga was yet another formidable natural defensive position, bordered by a fast flowing river with sheer banks to the west preventing any approach, and by steep cliffs to the south. Curtius describes the fortress location as:211

  A barricade of beetling crags, at the foot of which lie caves and chasms hollowed to a great depth over a long period of time. Where these terminate, a ditch of massive proportions forms a barrier.

  These mud brick walls were further reinforced by a wooden superstructure. The city itself was protected by massive wall
s over 7km long, their lower sections made of stone, the upper of unbaked brick bound together by pebbles. Alexander arrived outside of the city with a relatively small force and perhaps felt it too small to directly and successfully assault the city. Either way, he drew up in position on the flat ground some distance from the fortress. Arrian tells us that the intention was to draw the enemy out onto ground of Alexander’s choosing and therefore avoid the necessity of a time-consuming and costly siege:212

  It was clear to Alexander that the fight would take place close to the town; he determined, therefore, to draw the enemy on, in order to ensure that, if they were repulsed – as he was certain they would be – they would not have a short and easy way of retreat within the protection of their walls.

  This tactic is one that is frequently repeated during Alexander’s career, both in sieges and especially set-piece battles, that of luring the enemy onto ground of his choosing, and can be considered to be another one of Alexander’s hallmark tactics. The tactic, in this instance, was a little more complex than usual. Alexander apparently set up his troops on the flat ground mentioned above at a distance of perhaps 0.5–1km from the city. The tactic worked admirably, and the Indians were lured onto the plain. They initially had not realized the relative lack of size of the Macedonian force when they had refused the set-piece battle by withdrawing to their fortress, an error they were attempting to rectify before any other Macedonian troops made an appearance. Arrian also implies that finances were short for Assacanus, and the need to pay the 7,000 Indian mercenaries for the duration of their service would have been expensive. These financial considerations were a potentially significant factor in the decision to sally forth from the safety of the walls.

  The Indians began to emerge from the city and started to set up on the plain before its gates. Once Alexander was sure they were indeed sallying out in force, he ordered his troops to withdraw:213

  To a piece of high ground rather less than a mile from the position he had originally intended to take up. This apparent sign of defeat put fresh fire into the enemy.

  As noted by Arrian, the withdrawal was entirely misunderstood by the less disciplined Indians; they took it as a sign of defeat, that the Macedonians were fleeing before them. The Indians, apparently before properly forming up, charged towards the Macedonians in their new more defensive position on high ground. The distance they would have had to cross, perhaps 2km, most of the way in a disordered run, would have left them both tired and utterly disorganized when they finally reached the Macedonian ranks. This is highly reminiscent of the tactic used by both Miltiades at Marathon and Philip at Chaeronaea of feigning retreat only to turn around, reform and strike a disorganized enemy when they were most vulnerable.

  Macedonian discipline again proved the decisive factor; when the Indians were within missile range, Alexander ordered the troops to stop and about face and ordered the archers to engage the enemy whist forming up the heavy infantry who immediately began to march in close order down the hill towards the enemy. This siege is one of the few instances where we see Alexander positioned with the heavy infantry, rather than with a cavalry unit. The Indians apparently could not stop their headlong charge in time and they ran straight into the ordered ranks of the Macedonian heavy infantry. The result was all too predictable: there was a brief and bloody struggle during which the Indians turned and fled back to their city, probably with even greater alacrity than that shown in advancing upon the Macedonians in the first instance. The only recorded losses were 200 Indians, not many at all when we consider the size of their force at 39,000. The psychological impact was of far greater importance than the actual loss of manpower, however. They had seen first hand the discipline and fighting quality of the Macedonians, and they would have been concerned to say the least.

  Alexander continued to march his troops, maintaining their close order, until he was as close to the walls as he could get. Alexander now faced a difficult and challenging siege, and was initially at a loss for what to do as the caverns at the foot of the walls prevented a direct assault:214

  Alexander surveyed the fortifications, uncertain how to proceed; for the caverns could be filled only with earth, and only by filling them could siege engines be brought up to the walls.

  While investigating the defences, Alexander strayed too close and was hit in the leg or ankle by an arrow shot from the walls. Curtius tells us that he tore the barb from the wound and, without even bandaging the wound, completed his reconnaissance of the walls. Arrian has no delay at all between Alexander’s survey of the defences, the wound to his leg and the commencement of the siege, but there was simply no way that Alexander could have begun the siege that quickly. Arrian has siege towers and catapults appear from nowhere and begin the bombardment immediately. Curtius has a nine-day delay as Alexander demolished the buildings that had spilled out of the city as its population grew. The rubble that came from these buildings, coupled with a number of massive tree trunks, was thrown into the caverns that were effectively acting as a moat around the fortress.215 This delay in filling in the moat was an essential for Alexander; his baggage train would have been some distance behind this small advance column, and without it he would have been reduced to using scaling ladders that could be easily manufactured on site. The siege train arrived with consummate timing, however. Just as the caverns had been filled to a point that the ground was effectively level, Alexander brought up his towers and catapults and began the siege proper.

  The defenders were not experienced in modern siege techniques, or in modern technology, as Curtius tells us:216

  Particularly terrifying for the people with no experience of such contrivances were the moveable towers and, since the huge structures relied on no observable means of propulsion, the townspeople believed they were driven by divine power. They also claimed that the Macedonians wall-fighting pikes and the heavy spears hurled from the engines were not weapons such as mortals used.

  The fortifications, however formidable, were not up to the standards of fourth century siege warfare, which had been redefined by Alexander and his stone-throwing catapults. A breach was quickly forced in the defensive circuit, and the Macedonians immediately attempted to make a breakthrough. The defenders offered stout resistance, however, and the hypaspists who formed the assault group were driven back. On the second day after the breach was made, Alexander brought forward a siege tower and packed it with missile troops who laid down a suppressing fire against the defenders in an attempt to keep them from the walls and the breach to allow the hypaspists time to gain entry. Again the Macedonians were driven back by the now-increasingly-desperate defenders. On the third day the towers were again brought forward and a bridge thrown over the breach. ‘Over this he led his Guards, the unit which, by the same tactic, had helped him to the capture of Tyre.’217 At this point even Arrian recognizes Alexander using the same tactics, even using the same units to achieve them, as he had done in previous sieges (Alexander was ever the great recycler of successful tactics). The construction of the tower’s bridge was flawed, however, and coupled with the hypaspists being too keen to get across, the bridge collapsed. Those who survived the fall found themselves the subject of a rain of arrows and other missiles from the defenders on the walls, whilst others sortied from the walls to slaughter those who were wounded and could not escape. Alexander ordered forward some troops to recover the injured as soon as he could, but many lives were lost before the rescue column arrived.

  The following day the same tactic was repeated with another tower and another bridge, this time with far greater success. The Indian mercenary troops that were fighting in the front lines acquitted themselves admirably whilst their commander lived. But when he was killed by a missile shot from a catapult, their bravery disintegrated. At the death of their commander, the Indian mercenaries sued for peace and were allowed to join Alexander’s army. It would appear, however, that the desertion was nothing more than a ruse by the Indians. We are told that they intended to join
Alexander in the short term to survive the immediate danger of the siege, but then to slip away quietly during the night, not wishing to take up arms against their fellow Indians. Before they could enact their plan, however, Alexander had their camp surrounded the following night and gave the order that they were to be massacred to a man before they had any chance of enacting their plan. Diodorus attributes gross treachery to Alexander, claiming that they were attacked and slaughtered without justification. This was undoubtedly one of Alexander’s worst atrocities.218

  Probably after the defection of the Indians, the defenders abandoned the outer walls and retired to the citadel, but their position was now desperate and they had no option but to offer their surrender. It is interesting to note that there is no mention of the thousands of other native troops noted earlier in the narratives of the siege. They sent a deputation of leading citizens to Alexander to ask for terms, and Alexander, rather surprisingly given recent events, accepted. Curtius tells us:219

  The queen came with a group of ladies of noble birth who made libations from golden bowls. The queen herself placed her little son at Alexander’s knees, and from him gained not only a pardon but also the restitution of her former status, for she retained the title of queen.

  He goes on to imply that Alexander was enamoured of the queen’s beauty, and that this was why the city was spared the horror that the Macedonians had visited upon so many others in recent years. He also notes that the queen subsequently bore a son she named Alexander ‘whoever his father was’.

  Massaga was not, in reality, a huge city and certainly not as difficult to assault as Tyre or the Sogdian Rock had been – but it was certainly no push over. Alexander demonstrated both his tactical awareness and a realization of the weakness of his position (that he possessed no siege engines, for example). By not immediately assaulting the city he showed that he was not blinded by the myth of his own invincibility. Luring the defenders onto flat ground outside of the city was a clever ruse and could easily have worked, but he was not able to reach the city before the fleeing attackers had all reached safety; if his heavy infantry had been less disciplined and broken their close order to give a headlong chase, as they followed the routing Indians, he may well have done. He also demonstrated during this siege that, yet again, natural barriers were simply obstacles that were there to be overcome. The treatment of the defenders after their submission is interesting; he was probably trying to demonstrate that those who willingly surrendered to his rule received generous treatment, especially after the excesses of the recent campaign.