The resistance nevertheless was stiff; Alexander was able to take the city only with the help of
siege engines, which were used to knock down a section of the city wall. Miletos surrendered at the
last moment. Alexander spared the civilian population of the city because of the city’s heroic struggle
against the Persians during the Ionian revolt, but most of the defending force was wiped out, aside
from 300 mercenaries whom Alexander took into his service. He had learned from his experience at
the Granicus. No doubt because of the city’s strategic position and pro-Persian sympathies, a garrison
and tribute were imposed upon Miletos.
THE DEMOBILIZATION OF THE FLEET
Having proved that he could capture a coastal stronghold from land, Alexander now decided to
demobilize his own fleet, except for a small squadron used for transport. He did so for three reasons:
first, he lacked the money to pay the crews; second, he knew that his fleet was no match for the
Persians’ navy; and third, he had no wish to subject his ships or men to the risk of disaster at sea.
Armchair strategists have long debated the wisdom of this decision, which left the Persian fleet
alone to become a threat to the Greek islands, to the mainland of Greece, and to the coast of Asia
Minor. (Indeed, early in 333, Alexander would be forced to commission a new fleet to deal with the
naval threat to his rear.) But from a strategic point of view, Alexander’s decision is defensible as a
calculated risk. He could rely upon Antipater and the forces back in Macedon to make sure that the
mainland of Greece stayed quiet and at least passively loyal, whatever happened in the islands
(which would never be decisive anyway). Moreover, with respect to the immediate theater of
operations, as long as Alexander could keep the Persian fleet from resupplying itself from bases on
the coast, it would not be a threat to him as he progressed. To put it in a nutshell, Alexander planned
to defeat the superior Persian fleet by land. It was a brilliant, bold gamble, and totally characteristic
of him.
It was also consistent with what perhaps Alexander alone already had identified as the goal of the
war. From his very first battle in Asia, he was not only interested in punishing the Persians; his
objective was the eradication of Persian rule in Asia, as the inscription on the captured Persian
shields from the battle at the Granicus implied.
To achieve that goal, Alexander eventually would have to meet and defeat the Great King himself.
Before he did so, Alexander wanted to deprive Darius of the use of as many of his resources along the
Mediterranean coast as possible. Alexander demobilized his fleet and marched southward along the
coastal road of Asia Minor to bring matters to a head under circumstances that were most
advantageous to himself. Better than his critics, Alexander understood the strengths and weaknesses
of the forces at his disposal, and he was determined to win his war using his own greatest asset: the
incomparable Macedonian army.
THE APPOINTMENT OF ADA
After the subjugation of Miletos, Alexander moved south along the coast of Asia Minor to the Persian
satrapal stronghold of Halicarnassus in Caria, the birthplace of the historian Herodotus. Around 370
B.C.E., Mausolus, the Persian satrap of Caria, had made the city his capital and endowed it with many
spectacular buildings, including his own tomb, the Mausoleum. Halicarnassus was well fortified, and
the Persian fleet could resupply it from the sea. Its defense was organized by Memnon of Rhodes,
whose prescient, scorched-earth recommendation to the Persian satraps had been ignored before the
battle of the Granicus. The capture of Halicarnassus represented a significant challenge, even to a
determined and expert besieger of cities.
After apocalyptic back-and-forth struggles (described in great detail by Diodorus), the
Macedonians took most of the city, but not the virtually impregnable citadels of Salmacis and
Zephyrium; these remained in Persian hands until 332. Alexander, however, deciding to conserve his
resources for the sake of his impending confrontation with Darius, moved eastward, leaving a
garrison of 3,000 infantrymen and 200 cavalry to keep the defenders in check.
To the governorship of Caria Alexander appointed Ada, who had surrendered to him the strongly
defended nearby city of Alinda. Ada had been expelled from Halicarnassus by her brother Pixodarus,
the satrap who had offered his daughter in marriage to Alexander’s mentally deficient brother.
Alexander had reason to be well-disposed to Ada, since her surrender of Alinda had spared him the
cost of another siege. She subsequently adopted him as her son, and when the last citadels of
Halicarnassus fell into Macedonian hands, Alexander put the whole country under her control. The
appointment of a woman to the governorship of such a strategically important region in the middle of
a military campaign was unprecedented in Greco-Macedonian history.
ALEXANDER OF LYNCESTIS
From Halicarnassus, in the autumn of 334 Alexander continued his strategic southeastward swing into
the region known as Lycia, reaching the city of Phaselis by the middle of winter. At Phaselis, an agent
of Darius named Sisines, who had been captured by Parmenio on his way to contact Alexander the
Lyncestian, was brought to Alexander. Sisines apparently had been sent to promise Alexander of
Lyncestis the throne of Macedon and 1,000 talents if he succeeded in assassinating Alexander.
At the time of the assassination of Philip II, the evidence against Alexander of Lyncestis had looked
damaging, it will be recalled, but Alexander had not prosecuted him, because Alexander of Lyncestis
had been among the first to hail him as king. Later, the king had appointed him to command the
Thessalian cavalry, a key post in the Macedonian army. However, given the report he had received in
334, Alexander had little choice but to arrest the Lyncestian. Alexander of Lyncestis remained in
custody until late in 330, when he was put on trial at the time of another conspiracy against
Alexander’s life. On that occasion the last of the Lyncestian brothers did not escape execution.
FROM PHASELIS TO THE REVERSAL OF THE NAVAL POLICY
After Phaselis Alexander continued his journey along the coastal road through Pamphylia. As
Alexander marched along the narrow coastline a north wind blew waves onto the shore, inspiring his
official campaign historian, Callisthenes, to write that the sea was prostrating itself before the
conqueror. Years later, the historian would have cause to regret this flattery.
Using the city of Perge as his base of operations in the area, Alexander forced the major city of
Aspendos, which had gone back on a previous agreement with him, to hand over the horses bred there
as tribute to Darius and also to pay 100 talents. The leading men of the city were surrendered as
hostages and the city was compelled to obey the governor appointed by Alexander, to pay an annual
tribute to Macedon, and to submit to an inquiry about the ownership of land, which they were accused
of holding on to by force.
The harbor city of Side, later a center of the slave trade in Anatolia, also was occupied, and nearby
Syllium was besieged. At the beginning of spring in 333, Alexander then moved up north via
Termessus, which was attacked with the help of the Selgians, who were old enemies of the
Termessians. Sagalassus, whose soldiers were considered the best of all the fine soldiers of the
Pisidians (the fiercely independent inhabitants of the mountainous region extending from the plain of
Pamphylia to the lakes now called Burdur, Egridir, and Beysehir), was not able to withstand the
onslaught of Alexander’s heavily armed infantry, and the other Pisidian communities were either
taken by assault or surrendered.
The satrapal capital of Celaenae, with its citadel sheer on every side, was left to surrender to a
policing force led by Antigonus if reinforcements did not show up within sixty days; Alexander
himself then hurried on to Gordium, where he was reunited with Parmenio and his troops (who had
been sent ahead into central Phrygia to carry out campaigns at the time Alexander had moved into
Lycia), and joined also by a force of new levies from Macedon, including 3,000 infantry and 300
horse, 200 Thessalian horse, and 150 men from Elis. Gordium (modern Yassihüyük) was the capital
of ancient Phrygia and was situated at a strategic point where the Sangarius River was crossed by the
Persian Royal Road from the plateau of Anatolia down to the sea.
While Alexander was in Gordium, envoys from Athens arrived to request the release of the
Athenian prisoners captured at Granicus. But these were rebuffed; with the war still going on,
Alexander thought it would be dangerous to relax his severity toward anyone of Greek nationality
who had fought for the “barbarians.”
More problematic was the news that Memnon of Rhodes, who had been sent money and appointed
the commanding general of the naval campaign by Darius, had captured several cities in the northern
Aegean. Afterward, Memnon apparently planned to carry the naval war back over to the mainland of
Greece itself, specifically to the strategically located “Long Island” of Euboea, which curled around
the eastern and northern coasts of Attica and Boeotia like a giant scythe. The prospect of Memnon’s
mission alarmed the cities of Euboea and encouraged Persia’s Greek friends, notably the Spartans, to
believe there might be “a change in the political situation.”
Alexander thus was forced to reverse his naval policy in response, sending Amphoterus to the
Hellespont area and an officer named Hegelochus to free the islands captured by the Persians. In
addition, Proteas, by order of Antipater, assembled a fleet from Euboea and the Peloponnese to give
protection to the Greek coast and the islands in the not unlikely event of a Persian attack.
Once again, however, the goddess of fortune smiled upon Alexander—or perhaps some malevolent
deity took away Darius’ wits. Ignoring the advice of his Athenian adviser and general Charidemus,
Darius determined to follow the counsel of the royal Friends, and began to assemble an army, mostly
comprising mercenaries, at Babylon. From there he planned to set out in the summer to meet and crush
the Macedonian army in one large, pitched battle. Diodorus says that 400,000 infantry and not less
than 100,000 cavalry were gathered together in Babylon. This, in fact, was precisely what Alexander
wanted.
Resources, especially mercenaries, accordingly were pulled away from the vigorous prosecution
of the Persian naval war in the Aegean. Fortuitously, too, for Alexander, Memnon died, probably
during the siege of Mytilene. His death was the most serious blow Persia suffered during this period
of the war; he had been Darius’ most dynamic and imaginative commander. Without his guiding vision
and energy, the Persian naval initiative in the Aegean soon collapsed.
THE GORDIAN KNOT
While Alexander was still scrambling to meet the naval threat to Greece, he was irresistibly impelled
to visit the palace of King Gordius and his son Midas to inspect the famous wagon of Gordius and the
knot that tied its yoke. By legend this was the wagon Midas had driven into Gordium, fulfilling an
oracle given to the Phrygians that a wagon would bring them a king who would put an end to their
civil strife. The knot’s cord was made of tough cornel wood and was so cunningly tied that no one
could see where it began or ended. Anyone who could untie it, people said, would rule Asia.
Two versions exist of how Alexander dealt with the knot. In one, Alexander was just as puzzled as
everyone else, but, unwilling to walk away, he finally drew his sword and cut the knot, exclaiming, “I
have untied it.” Aristobulus, on the other hand, claims that Alexander removed the pin from the shaft
of the wagon (which held the knot together), thus pulling the yoke free. Either way a public relations
disaster was avoided, just.
Afterward there was a general feeling that the oracle had been fulfilled, and that night there was
thunder and lightning, always interpreted by the seers as a sign from the gods. The next day Alexander
sacrificed to the gods who had showed him how to undo the knot.
Now, after a brief trip to Ancyra (modern Ankara) to establish order in Galatia, Alexander made
his way through Cappadocia’s enchanted landscape of rock pillars and caves. Leaving Sabictas as
governor there, Alexander marched to the Cilician Gates, the main pass through the majestic Taurus
Mountains. Leading an assault team of guards ( hypaspistai) and the Agrianes, he literally scared the
Persian defenders out of the pass. Arsames, the Persian governor, left Tarsus, the satrapal capital of
Cilicia (and the birthplace of Paul the Apostle more than three centuries later), with alacrity at
Alexander’s advance.
Having settled matters inland to his satisfaction, in the late summer of 333 Alexander and the
Macedonians were now back near the seacoast, hoping, like Darius himself, to bring matters to a
head. For his part, by the will of Ahuramazda, Darius believed that he was about to restore order in
his empire. Alexander, on the other hand, had just received a sign from his gods that one day he would
be the ruler of Asia. Soon, Darius and Alexander would learn how their respective gods intended to
fulfill their plans.
CHAPTER 7
The Battle of Issos
DOCTOR’S ORDERS
Alexander reached Tarsus by the end of the summer of 333. Whether he was exhausted, or because of
the intense summer heat, Alexander could not resist taking a dip in the inviting waters of the Cydnus
River. Unfortunately, the waters of the Cydnus ran down directly from the snowy peaks of the nearby
Taurus Mountains and were very cold, even in summer. After his frigid swim Alexander was seized
by a convulsion, followed by a violent fever and sleeplessness.
His doctors despaired for his life, except for Philip, a native of Acarnania in northwestern Greece,
who prescribed a purgative drink. As Philip was preparing it, Parmenio handed Alexander a note that
read, “Beware of Philip, I hear that he has been bribed by Darius to poison you.”
Alexander handed the note to Philip and promptly drank the medicine. Philip read the note without
any sign of alarm and simply advised Alexander to continue to follow his instructions: if he did,
Philip told him, he would recover. The patient did as he was told and made an astonishing recovery.
Alexander subsequently honored his doctor with magnificent gifts and assigned him to the most loyal
category of friends. As for Parmenio, there is no indication that the incident damaged his relations
with Alexander or shook the king’
s confidence in him. Indeed, shortly thereafter Parmenio was
dispatched with the allied infantry, the Greek mercenaries, the Thracians, and the Thessalian cavalry
to secure and hold the other passes between Cilicia and Syria (most importantly, the Beilan pass
through the Amanus Mountains).
THE PRELUDE TO THE BATTLE OF ISSOS
Alexander himself moved south to Anchialus, a city supposedly built in one day (along with Tarsus)
by the legendary Assyrian king known to the Greeks as Sardanapalus. In Anchialus Alexander may
well have seen the famous tomb and statue of the king clapping his hands, with its cuneiform
inscription in verse below:
“Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes, built in one day Tarsus and Anchialus. You, stranger, eat,
drink, and be merry, for everything else in the life of man is not worth this.”
And “this” was understood to be the sound of a handclap. Arrian informs us that the word for “be
merry” in the inscription was a euphemism for the original Assyrian word.
It probably was around this time that a much-debated incident took place. Alexander’s boyhood
friend and treasurer, Harpalus, fled. Harpalus, it will be recalled, had been exiled with Alexander’s
other friends in the wake of the Pixodarus debacle. Now he apparently had been persuaded to flee by
an adventurer named Tauriscus. Perhaps Harpalus did not fancy Alexander’s chances of recovering
from his illness or surviving his impending encounter with Darius. Whatever his motives, he spent a
year in Greece, in the Megarid, and then returned to his position as Alexander’s treasurer in the spring
of 331. Some have hypothesized that he had committed treason, or had stolen from Alexander; but in
that case, it is hard to see how he would have been welcomed back. Others have argued that he was
on some kind of secret mission for Alexander. The entire episode is steeped in mystery.
While the Macedonians presumably speculated about the curious disappearance of Alexander’s
friend, in Babylon Darius finally had mustered his grand army. Arrian reports that Darius’ whole
force numbered 600,000 fighting men. Plutarch concurs, while Diodorus and Justin give the number as
400,000. Curtius Rufus gives the number of Greek mercenaries alone as 30,000.
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