Alexander

by Guy Maclean Rogers

  personally) to lead a punitive attack on the Scythians across the Jaxartes. The river crossing was

  achieved under cover of a volley of missiles launched from catapults, a first in the history of warfare.

  Once on dry land again, Alexander quickly adjusted to the encircling tactics of the nomadic

  cavalrymen, throwing together a mobile force of archers, Agrianians, light troops, and cavalry that

  prevented the Scythians from using their favorite tactic of wheeling around as they were being

  assaulted simultaneously by the rest of the cavalry. About 1,000 of the Scythians fell and 150 were

  taken prisoner; but dysentery, brought on by drinking the bad water of the region during the hot

  pursuit, prevented Alexander from pursuing and wiping out the rest. Alexander, in fact, had to be

  carried back to camp in serious danger. Aristander had been proved a true prophet, but Alexander had

  put an end to the Scythian insults.

  Scythian envoys soon appeared, blaming the whole incident on brigands. What had happened, they

  said, was not the policy of the Scythian community. Their king also expressed a willingness to carry

  out whatever instructions Alexander might give. In reality, Alexander had won a brilliant victory

  against the nomads, and their leaders now wanted to be left alone.

  Matters went far less well at Maracanda. Spitamenes broke off the siege at the approach of the

  relief force, but during his retreat was joined by 600 Dahae, the westernmost of the Sacae nomads.

  Now reinforced, Spitamenes waited for the pursuing Macedonian force to catch up to him. Once the

  Macedonians came into contact, the Scythians wheeled around and went on the offensive. The

  Scythians rode around and harassed the Macedonian infantry until the latter were forced to retreat in a

  square to the river Polytimetus (Zeravshan).

  Caranus, in command of the cavalry, attempted to cross the river to safety with his men, but failed

  to inform Andromachus. Spitamenes’ cavalry and the Scythians attacked them as they emerged from

  the river and while they were still in the water. All of these were shot down, and the few prisoners

  who were taken were quickly put to death, too.

  According to another ancient account, the Macedonians had been caught in an ambush. The

  Scythians were concealed in a wooded park and fell upon the Macedonians when they were already

  engaged. To make matters worse, at that very moment Pharnuches, the translator, was trying to

  surrender his command to the Macedonian officers sent with him, on the grounds that his job was to

  establish relations with the locals, not lead troops in battle, since he was altogether ignorant of

  military tactics.

  Pharnuches’ colleagues, Andromachus, Caranus, and Menedemus, refused to accept the command,

  in order to avoid responsibility for a personal decision not covered by Alexander’s orders. They did

  not want to incur individual blame in case of defeat and they did not want to expose themselves to the

  charge of poor leadership. While this argument was going on, the Scythians pounced, and only 40

  cavalry and 300 infantry survived.

  When Alexander received the news of this debacle, he marched an astonishing 185 miles in three

  days with half the Companion cavalry, the Guards, the Agrianes, the archers, and most of the infantry,

  looking to settle accounts with Spitamenes, who had returned to besiege Maracanda once again. When

  Alexander appeared close to the city at dawn on the fourth day, Spitamenes promptly vanished,

  leaving Alexander to take revenge on the local natives who had joined in the attack on the

  Macedonians. These were butchered.

  Alexander then spent the depth of the winter of 329–28 at Zariaspa in Bactria, where Arsaces and

  Barzanes, who had been appointed satrap of Parthia by Bessus, were brought to Alexander by

  Phrataphernes and Stasanor. Reinforcements totaling around 19,000 men also arrived, including

  infantry mercenaries and cavalry, Lycians, Syrians, and Greeks sent by Antipater.

  His force thus augmented, as soon as the weather permitted, Alexander set about a pacification

  program in the foothills along the Oxus Valley and then into Sogdiana. North of the Oxus, six military

  garrisons were established to serve as strongpoints for the occupying forces to be left behind. Then

  Alexander headed once again toward Maracanda after dividing his forces under the command of

  himself, Hephaestion, Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Coenus, and Artabazus. These commanders systematically

  crushed all opposition in Sogdiana.

  THE ROCK OF SOGDIANA

  It was during this campaigning season in the summer of 328 that Alexander and the Macedonians

  captured the Rock of Sogdiana, a sheer citadel that rose up to a height of 18,000 feet. No fewer than

  30,000 Sogdians had fled to the rock, which Arimazes was occupying as commander. Among the

  refugees were Oxyartes, his wife, and his daughter Roxane. According to the men who took part in the

  campaign, Roxane was the loveliest woman in Asia, save Darius’ wife.

  Alexander had sent Arimazes a message, urging him to surrender. Arimazes had replied with a

  question: could Alexander fly? The king was so incensed that he told his friends that by the following

  night the barbarians would believe that Macedonians indeed could fly.

  He then detailed 300 expert rock-climbers to scale the Rock of Sogdiana, promising twelve talents

  to the first man up. Although thirty men lost their lives during the ascent, the climbers finally made it

  to the very peak, above Arimazes. They signaled their success to Alexander below by waving linen

  flags. Alexander then sent his messenger back to Arimazes. Pointing out Alexander’s soldiers on the

  summit, the messenger triumphantly declared to Arimazes that, as he could now see for himself,

  Alexander’s soldiers did have wings. Arimazes promptly gave up.

  When Alexander saw Roxane among the captives, he fell in love with her immediately, we are

  told, and decided to take her in marriage. For the moment, however, the wedding had to be delayed;

  he still had business in Maracanda.

  At the end of the summer of 328, Alexander’s forces returned to Maracanda to regroup. There the

  king was visited by envoys from the European Scythians and the king of the Chorasmians. Friendship

  and alliance with the Scythians were cemented. Pharasmanes’ offer to guide Alexander if he wished

  to subdue the various peoples between the Scythians and the Black Sea, however, was put on hold;

  the king’s thoughts were occupied with India. Once India was his, Alexander replied, he would return

  to Greece and then make an expedition to the Black Sea by way of the Hellespont and the Propontis.

  At that point he would take Pharasmanes up on his offer. So, by the summer of 328 at the latest,

  Alexander was planning the conquest of India.

  THE DEATH OF CLEITUS

  Unfortunately, Maracanda proved to be an ill-fated city for Alexander and his friends. After an

  enormous hunt in the game reserve of Bazaira, during which he killed a lion with a single stroke,

  Alexander returned to Maracanda in the autumn of 328 and assigned Artabazus’ province of Bactria

  to Cleitus, who had served as a commander of the Companion cavalry since 330. Artabazus had asked

  to be relieved on the grounds of advanced age.

  Instead of sacrificing to Dionysos on the customary day, we are told that Alexander then sacrificed

  to Castor and Polydeuces, the Dioscuri. Cleitus, meanwhile
, was ordered to prepare to march the

  following day; he was then invited along to one of Alexander’s early-starting banquets.

  At the banquet heavy drinking ensued, in the course of which the topic of the Dioscuri came up in

  conversation, particularly the now common attribution of their parentage to Zeus instead of to

  Tyndareus.

  Some of the company declared that there was no comparison between the deeds of the Dioscuri and

  Alexander. During the drinking others did not refrain from making invidious comparisons with

  Herakles. Only envy deprived the living of the honors due to them from their friends, they suggested.

  At that point, Cleitus, who for some time had been aggrieved by Alexander’s adoption of a “more

  barbaric style” and by the words of Alexander’s flatterers, intervened. He said that he would not

  permit Alexander’s flatterers to show such disrespect for the divine power, or to belittle the deeds of

  heroes of old to do Alexander a favor that in fact was none. In any case, they exaggerated the nature of

  Alexander’s achievements, Cleitus opined, none of which were mere personal triumphs. On the

  contrary, those great deeds were the work of the Macedonians as a whole.

  Undeterred, some of the guests, hoping to gain favor with Alexander, brought up the subject of

  Philip, and suggested that his achievements were neither great nor marvelous.

  At this Cleitus could no longer govern his emotions. He spoke up in favor of Philip’s achievements,

  making light of Alexander and his deeds and reminding him that he, Cleitus, had saved his life during

  the cavalry battle at the Granicus River.

  “This very hand,” Cleitus cried, while raising his right hand, “saved you, O Alexander, at the

  time.”

  To this ugly and painful scenario of flattery, drunken insults, and anger, Plutarch adds even more

  explosive details. At the banquet a singer began to sing the verses of a certain Pranichus (or Pierio),

  lines written to shame and mock the generals who recently had been defeated by the barbarians. It is

  very likely that the commanders who had led the ill-fated mission to relieve Maracanda the year

  before were the subject of the singer’s ridicule.

  Among those commanders was a man named Andronicus. Almost certainly, this Andronicus was

  the husband of Lanice, Alexander’s childhood nurse. Much more importantly, we know that Lanice

  was also the sister of Cleitus. Andronicus, in other words, was Cleitus’ brother-in-law, his sister’s

  husband. Thus, Cleitus and his friends among the older Macedonian officers may have had personal,

  as well as political and cultural, reasons for reacting to the mocking verses of the singer as they now

  did.

  The older members of the party understandably were offended by Pranichus’ song and displayed

  their resentment of both poet and singer. But Alexander and those around him listened with pleasure

  and urged the singer to continue.

  Cleitus then shouted out that it was not well done for Macedonians to be insulted among barbarians

  and enemies, even if they had met misfortune, for they were better men than those who were laughing

  at them.

  Alexander replied that if Cleitus was trying to disguise cowardice as misfortune, he must be

  pleading his own case. Alexander, in other words, was asserting that the commanders at Marcanda

  had died because of their own cowardice. This barb also neatly shifted the responsibility for the

  disaster away from Alexander, who had sent the relief force out, perhaps without a clear structure of

  command, and onto the commanders themselves. Cleitus, however, heard only a painful insult to

  himself and to his family.

  To Alexander Cleitus replied,

  “Indeed, this cowardice saved your life, you who call yourself the son of the gods, when you were

  turning your back to Spithridates’ sword. And it is by the blood of these Macedonians and by their

  wounds that you have become so great that you disown your father Philip and make yourself the son of

  Ammon.”

  Alexander’s reaction was incendiary.

  “Wretched fellow,” he cried out, “do you think that you can keep on speaking of me like this, and

  cause trouble among the Macedonians, and not pay for it?”

  Cleitus replied,

  “But we do pay for it, Alexander! Just think of the rewards we get for our efforts: the dead are the

  happy ones, because they did not live to see Macedonians beaten with Median rods or begging

  Persians for an audience with our king.”

  Alexander’s friends then jumped up and began to abuse Cleitus, while the older men tried to calm

  everyone down. Alexander then turned and asked two of the guests at the banquet, Xenodochus of

  Cardia and Artemius of Colophon, “Do not the Hellenes seem to you to walk about among the

  Macedonians like demi-gods among wild animals?”

  But Cleitus refused to stand down, indeed called on Alexander to say whatever he had to say in

  front of the company or else not to invite freeborn men to dinner who spoke their minds. Better,

  Cleitus said, for Alexander to live among barbarians and slaves, who would bow down before his

  white tunic and his Persian girdle.

  At this remark, Alexander threw an apple at Cleitus and looked around for his sword. One of his

  bodyguards wisely had moved the weapon away, and others begged Alexander to be quiet. But

  Alexander leapt up, and in the Macedonian dialect shouted for the guards to turn out. Alexander’s use

  of his native tongue meant that he now considered this to be a moment of personal peril. When no one

  obeyed his order, Alexander cried out that “he had come to the same pass as Darius, when he was led

  prisoner by Bessus and his confederates, and that he had nothing now left but the name of king.”

  Alexander then ordered the trumpeter to sound (the alarm). When he refused, Alexander struck him

  with his fist. Cleitus’ friends managed to shove Cleitus out of the room, but he soon came back

  through another door. When he returned, Cleitus recited a line spoken by Peleus in Euripides’ drama

  the Andromache:

  “Alas, in Hellas what an evil government!”

  The context of the line was one in which Peleus observed that while it was the army which set up

  the victory trophy over an enemy, it was the general who received the honor.

  This apposite quotation cost Cleitus his life. For Alexander knew his Euripides just as well as

  Cleitus did. After he heard what Cleitus had said, he grabbed a pike from one of his guards, met

  Cleitus just as he was drawing aside the curtain before the door, and ran him through.

  When Alexander realized what he had done, his first reaction was to try to kill himself, because “it

  was not honorable for him to live after killing a friend in his cups.” But his guards stopped him.

  Alexander then took to his bed and lay there mourning, crying out the names of Cleitus and Lanice,

  who had nursed him when he was young. What a fine return he had given for Lanice’s nursing now

  that he was a man, he lamented. She had seen her sons die fighting for him and now, with his own

  hand, he had killed her brother. Again and again calling himself the murderer of his friends, for three

  days Alexander refused all food or drink and neglected all bodily needs.

  At last worn out, Alexander lay speechless, groaning deeply. Alarmed, his friends forced their way

  into his quarters. To what most of them said, he paid no att
ention. But Aristander reminded Alexander

  of a vision of Cleitus he recently had seen, and of an omen, assuring Alexander that these events had

  long ago been decreed by fate.

  The story was that, some days before Cleitus’ death Alexander had called Cleitus away from a

  sacrifice he was conducting to look at some fruit he, Alexander, had been brought; three of the sheep

  on whom libations preparatory to their sacrifice had been poured followed Cleitus. Aristander and

  Cleomantis, a seer from Lacedaemon, pronounced this interrupted sacrifice a bad omen for Cleitus,

  and Alexander promptly had ordered a sacrifice for Cleitus’ safety. Two days before that, Alexander

  had had a dream in which he had seen Cleitus sitting with the sons of Parmenio in black robes; all

  were dead.

  Callisthenes and the philosopher Anaxarchus were also brought in to help Alexander conquer his

  shame. Callisthenes reportedly skirted the subject to spare Alexander’s feelings. Anaxarchus, on the

  other hand, made the argument that just as Zeus had justice and law at his side, so what the king did

  was lawful and just. By these arguments, Plutarch comments, Anaxarchus relieved Alexander’s

  suffering, but made him more proud and lawless than before.

  It is hard to know how seriously to take these reports of how Aristander, Callisthenes, and

  Anaxarchus managed to help Alexander restore his own self-image after such a horrific and

  inexcusable crime. As so often, Arrian perhaps provides the most insight into the man at this low

  point. He reports that Alexander’s soothsayers suggested that the god Dionysos was angry because

  Alexander had failed to offer him sacrifice; and that when at last Alexander was persuaded by his

  friends to take food and attend in some measure to his bodily needs, he did offer the neglected

  sacrifice. Doubtless, Alexander was not unwilling to have his deed attributed to the wrath of a god.

  But, as Arrian also reports, he did not attempt to justify his crime. Rather, he simply admitted that,

  being no more than human, he had done wrong.

  Alexander’s admission of wrongdoing is indeed a historically rare example of a man in a powerful

  position admitting to making a grave mistake; and it is especially remarkable when we consider that