Alexander

by Guy Maclean Rogers

  Alexander easily could have pleaded that both he and his friend had drunk too much wine and that

  Cleitus had provoked him—which was true.

  But, to his credit, Alexander made no excuses for his crime. Even if he had not taken responsibility

  for the disaster at the river Polytimetus, Alexander took his full share of the blame for the murder of

  the man who had saved his own life.

  What could not be avoided either by sophistry or repentance, however, was the public revelation

  of the trouble in the Macedonian camp that had led to the crime. At the fatal dinner party, simmering

  tensions between the older generation of Macedonian soldiers and their younger counterparts,

  including many of Alexander’s closest friends, finally boiled over into public brawling and violence.

  After his sense of self-esteem was restored, Alexander undoubtedly recognized that there was deeply

  felt opposition both to his personal beliefs and to his policy of orientalizing. Within a year that

  opposition would give rise to another conspiracy against his life.

  CHAPTER 16

  The End of the Revolts

  THE BURIAL OF CLEITUS

  Those who opposed Alexander’s policies might have rallied around Cleitus’ murder. But no such

  thing occurred. Indeed, the Macedonians formally declared that Cleitus’ death had been justified and

  even would have refused him burial had not Alexander himself ordered it to be done. Ordinary

  Macedonians saw Cleitus’ death as the unfortunate outcome of a drunken brawl, one of the all-too-

  predictable results of the ritual drinking parties frequently celebrated by the Macedonian nobles.

  Amyntas, the son of Nicolaus, was appointed to replace Cleitus as governor of Bactria. The

  Macedonian soldiers marched onward. There was campaigning to be done and, on the whole, the

  Macedonians were better fighters than drinkers. Or, at least, campaigning resulted in more casualties

  among their enemies than among their friends. Alexander and the Macedonians therefore turned their

  attention toward those who had been responsible for the massacre at the Polytimetus.

  THE DEATH OF SPITAMENES

  While Alexander and the Macedonians drank themselves senseless in Maracanda, Spitamenes and the

  Massagetae had had some successes in the north, capturing one of Alexander’s garrisons and

  besieging Zariaspa (Balkh). A few of the Companion cavalry, eighty mercenary cavalry, and some of

  the royal pages who had been left at Zariaspa attacked Spitamenes, stripping him and his forces of

  their booty, but they were ambushed on their way back from the punitive raid. Seven Companions and

  sixty mercenaries lost their lives. Aristonicus the harpist also died there, “with more courage than a

  harpist might have.”

  Craterus was sent out to track down the Massagetae and, in a fierce engagement, 150 of the

  Scythians were killed before the survivors fled into the desert.

  With two battalions of the Macedonian phalanx, four hundred Companion cavalry, the mounted

  javelin men, and the Bactrians and Sogdians attached to Amyntas, the commander Coenus was

  ordered to winter in Sogdiana, to protect the region, and to try to ambush Spitamenes. Gathering up an

  additional force of poverty-stricken Scythian horsemen from around Gabae (on the border of

  Sogdiana and the land of the Massagetae), Spitamenes attacked Coenus but was decisively defeated,

  losing 800 cavalry. Most of the surviving Sogdians and Bactrians with Spitamenes then surrendered

  to Coenus.

  Alexander himself had marched on southward to Nautaca (probably Karshi in modern Uzbekistan),

  about halfway between Maracanda and the Rock of Sogdiana, where the army was rested during the

  winter of 328/7. Sisimithres, the local ruler, had established his forces in a strong defensive position,

  blocking the defile that gave access to the plains. The Macedonians built a causeway across the defile

  at its narrowest point using trees and rocks, and when they brought up their siege towers and engines,

  Sisimithres and his followers gave up. Alexander sacrificed to Athena Nike (Victory) and restored

  Sisimithres to his rule of the area. While Alexander was engaged with mopping up the remaining

  rebels in the area, Philip, the brother of Lysimachus, died; so too did Alexander’s old friend Erigyius.

  When Alexander returned to his camp both men were given magnificent funerals. Erigyius’ grave was

  a long way away from his native Mytilene.

  As for Spitamenes, his wife, grown tired of a life on the run, decided to take matters into her own

  hands. After Spitamenes attended a banquet, he was carried into his room half asleep, torpid from

  excessive drinking and eating. As soon as his wife saw that he was sound asleep, she drew the sword

  she had hidden under her clothes and cut off Spitamenes’ head. She then handed over to a slave her

  ex-husband’s head.

  With the slave in attendance, Spitamenes’ wife, her clothes still drenched in blood, then went to the

  Macedonian camp. She sent a message to Alexander saying that there was a matter about which he

  should hear from her own lips. Alexander immediately had her escorted in.

  Seeing her spattered with blood, Alexander had assumed that she wanted to complain about some

  kind of assault. He told her to state what she wanted; she asked only that the slave, whom she had told

  to stand in the doorway, now be brought in. The slave, we are told, had aroused some suspicion

  because he seemed to have something concealed under his clothes. When the guards searched him, he

  showed them what he was hiding: Spitamenes’ head. Pallor, however, had disfigured Spitamenes’

  features so that a firm identification was not possible.

  Arrian tells a different but no less chilling version of the story. Putting self-interest ahead of

  loyalty, the Massagetae themselves cut off Spitamenes’ head and sent it to Alexander. They hoped by

  this act to keep Alexander away from them.

  CLEANING UP

  Dataphernes, the other ringleader of the rebellion, was imprisoned by the Dahae, who surrendered

  him and themselves to Alexander. By mid-winter Stasanor and Phrataphernes returned to Nautaca,

  having successfully suppressed the rebels in Parthia and Areia. Phrataphernes was sent to the

  Mardians and Tapurians with orders to bring back the satrap Autophradates, who had been sent for by

  Alexander but had ignored the summons. Stasanor was dispatched to the Drangians as governor, and

  Atropates was sent along to Media as satrap to replace Oxydates since Alexander believed that

  Oxydates was willfully neglecting his duty. Stamenes also was sent back to Babylon since Mazaeus

  was reported to have died. Sopolis, Epokillos, and Menidas were ordered to return to Macedon, to

  bring back a new force.

  These measures are worth noting in detail for two reasons. First, they imply that Alexander now

  believed that the revolts in Bactria and Sogdiana had been snuffed out after two years of fighting.

  They also signify, already in the winter of 327, Alexander’s insistence that governors do their jobs as

  ordered. After his return from India, Alexander replaced or executed more governors, whom he

  accused of maladministration, and this period has been called a reign of terror. But, in fact, there was

  no such discrete phase. Alexander was never willing to put up with insubordination or administrative

  incompetence, and he was making that clear by 327.

  To keep the restive indig
enes of Bactria and Sogdiana quiet, Alexander established a large

  garrison under the satrap Amyntas, who was given 10,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry to keep the

  peace. The king also incorporated natives into his own cavalry and in 327 gave orders for 30,000

  native youths, the so-called epigoni, or successors, to be taught Greek and to be trained to use

  Macedonian weapons for eventual service in a native phalanx. The establishment of this indigenous

  levy shows that by the spring of 327 at the latest Alexander was planning to incorporate “barbarian”

  troops into his army for future use. He was no mere military adventurer, interested only in fleecing

  Asia, as he often has been portrayed. Even in 327, Alexander was planning for the future conquest of

  the rest of Asia and Europe, and he meant to do it with mixed levies of European and Asian troops.

  THE MARRIAGE TO ROXANE

  Now that military matters had been resolved for the time being, it was the moment, just before he

  embarked upon his invasion of India, for Alexander to settle affairs of the heart. In the spring of 327,

  in his twenty-ninth year and thousands of miles from home, Alexander married Roxane, the beautiful

  daughter of the Bactrian nobleman Oxyartes. Oxyartes and his daughter, it will be recalled, had been

  taken captive after the fall of the Rock of Sogdiana in 328.

  The ceremony was performed in Macedonian style. Bread, the sacred symbol of betrothal among

  the Macedonians, was brought in and then cut with a sword. Alexander and his new Asian father-in-

  law then tasted bread from the same loaf.

  Historians have rightly pointed out the political advantages of this marriage for Alexander: his new

  father-in-law was an important and powerful ally in a restive area of his empire. To violate his

  daughter would have been out of the question and would not have been consistent with Alexander’s

  general attitude toward women. A marriage to the daughter of an Asian noble also might have been

  intended as a signal to both Macedonians and Asians, in the wake of the murder of Cleitus, that

  Alexander had no intention of backing away from his policy of orientalizing, even on a personal level.

  As always, Alexander led by example. But the purely political or pragmatic explanation for

  Alexander’s first marriage is not persuasive.

  Alexander certainly could have married any Macedonian, Greek, or Persian woman (or women) he

  had met before or after 336. Marriage to any one or more of these women might have brought greater

  political benefits at times when Alexander’s prospects were far less secure. And yet he had chosen

  not to marry any of the many noblewomen he had encountered from Greece to Bactria.

  Nor can it be maintained that Alexander did not marry until it was politically necessary because he

  was not attracted to women. Since 332 he had kept a mistress, Barsine (the daughter of Artabazus and

  the ex-wife of Memnon), by whom he now had a son, Herakles. He also had retained the services of

  Darius’ harem after the Persian king’s death. Although Alexander probably had sexual relationships

  with men, it is a myth that he was not sexually attracted to women as well. Clearly he was. The

  question is why, given all of his opportunities, Alexander chose to make Roxane his first wife.

  Moreover, Alexander’s first wife was a foreigner, and a “barbarian” (though possessed with a

  dignity “rare” among the barbarians). Such a marriage was bound to provoke grumbling, and it did. In

  response, Alexander was careful to point out to the grumblers that Achilles himself had shared his

  bed with a captive, Briseis. The simple explanation here is most convincing: this was a love match;

  Roxane in fact had caught Alexander’s eye when she was performing in some kind of dance at a

  banquet. Since he would not, and could not, simply take her, he decided to marry her. There is also no

  doubt that the marriage was consummated, for they had a son, Alexander IV, whose name indicates

  that Alexander intended him to be his heir and the inheritor of his empire.

  In the future, Alexander would marry more foreign women, using their native marriage ceremony.

  Moreover, he would make it worth the while of his friends to do so in turn. A true son of Zeus could

  break the molds, even if those around him could not understand why—or did not want to. But that

  particular mold would be broken only four years later, when the king returned to Persia. First,

  however, Alexander prepared to take his new bride on what promised to be one of the most exotic but

  dangerous honeymoons in nuptial history: the conquest of India.

  CHAPTER 17

  One Kiss the Poorer

  THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

  Alexander now spent two months in winter quarters, presumably enjoying the pleasures of married

  life (328/7). During this hiatus, Alexander and his officers probably put together the detailed plans for

  the invasion of India. Once these plans had been fleshed out in the late spring of 327, Alexander led

  his forces into the region called Gazaba. On the third day out the army was caught in a lightning storm

  followed by a torrential cloudburst that showered them with hail. Finally the men broke ranks and

  wandered about aimlessly through the woods. The storm, we are told, claimed the lives of 2,000

  soldiers and camp followers.

  Sisimithres brought pack animals and 2,000 camels plus sheep and herds of cattle to help relieve

  the army. After giving him a public commendation, Alexander ravaged the land of the Sacae and gave

  30,000 head of cattle to Sisimithres in recompense for saving the army.

  After defeating the only rebels left in Pareitacene, Alexander headed south toward Bactra.

  Craterus’ forces too made for Bactra after subduing some local rebels. In the spring of 327 Bactra

  was to be the assembly point for the Macedonian invasion of India.

  PROSKYNESIS

  In Bactra, Alexander attempted to introduce the custom of proskynesis, or prostration, to his court. In

  Persia, the act of what the Greeks called proskynesis might involve bowing forward and blowing a

  kiss from the tip of the fingers (as depicted on a Persian treasury relief), or it might entail actually

  prostrating oneself before the king. Prostration of either kind was understood in Persia as a

  fundamentally social and secular gesture, performed by all social inferiors to their social superiors

  right up to the king.

  In the Greek tradition, proskynesis was usually done by individuals who were standing up with

  their arms raised to the sky and their palms forward. Sometimes, however, prostration was performed

  kneeling. Among the Greeks, however, proskynesis was understood as a sacred act, only to be

  performed before gods (or their images).

  It is not clear that all Greeks understood the social and secular significance of the Persian practice

  of prostration. Some Greek authors, such as the early fifth-century Athenian tragedian Aeschylus,

  seem to have believed that the Persian form of prostration was an act of worship. Later writers

  clearly understood it as a social custom—which nevertheless evoked feelings of disgust and

  superiority among Greeks. Indeed, Alexander’s teacher Aristotle regarded the Persian form of

  prostration as a specifically barbarian act.

  There also was a strong imperative in Greece against performing the act in front of another man,

  even a king. When Spartan ambassadors visited the court of the fifth-century Persian king Xerx
es, for

  instance, and were being pressured to prostrate themselves (in the Persian style) before the king, they

  replied that it was not their custom to prostrate themselves before any human. Greek authors such as

  Xenophon regarded the Persian form of prostration as inconsistent with the freedom of a citizen.

  With this background in mind, we now can turn to the two versions of what happened when

  Alexander attempted to introduce prostration in the late spring of 327. The first version involves a

  private drinking party, at which, Alexander’s chamberlain Chares records,

  after he [Alexander] had drunk, [he] passed the cup to one of his friends, who took it and rose so

  as to face the shrine of the household; next he drank in his turn, then made obeisance to

  Alexander, kissed him and resumed his place on the couch. All the guests did the same in

  succession, until the cup came to Callisthenes. The king was talking to Hephaestion and paying

  no attention to Callisthenes and the philosopher, after he had drunk, came forward to kiss him. At

  this Demetrius, whose surname was Pheido, called out, “Sire, do not kiss him; he is the only one

  who has not made obeisance to you.” Alexander therefore refused to kiss him, and Callisthenes

  exclaimed in a loud voice, “Very well then, I shall go away the poorer by a kiss.”

  To this basic account Arrian adds the important detail that Alexander had passed the cup first to

  those with whom an agreement about the act of prostration had been reached ahead of the party.

  Hephaestion later claimed that Callisthenes had been among those who had promised to perform

  prostration, but that the historian had reneged on his agreement at the party.

  Whether Callisthenes went back on his word or not, clearly the introduction of prostration at this

  private symposium was orchestrated in advance, although perhaps not everyone was informed about

  what was to take place. The introduction of prostration was a kind of trial balloon, popped by an

  overly observant diner.

  The plot of the second version depends entirely on prostration being planned in advance. It had

  been agreed by Alexander with the sophists and the Persian and Median noblemen that the subject of

  prostration should be broached at another drinking party. Anaxarchus began the discussion. He