into Anatolia, recruited Paphlagonians and Kappadokians – so much for their
submission and for their new satraps – and headed for Sardis. This was the
political centre from which western Asia Minor had been governed for three
centuries, the main route centre and the site of the treasury. Its capture would destroy the whole Macedonian governing system in Anatolia, such as it was, and contact made with Pharnabazos and the Persian fl eet, possibly with Sparta and Greece, while the Greek cities of the Aegean Coast would have again come under immediate threat. This was a major emergency.11
The Persian strategy was apparently designed to isolate at Tyre while Asia
Minor was reconquered. Egypt and southern Palestine were held, and the local
inhabitants of Palestine and the Lebanese mountains were stirred up to attack his besieging forces. Dareios gathered a new army to fi ght him, and the fl eet operated in the Aegean and Greece.
Coordination of all these was the real problem. The capture of the Phoenician
cities caused the fl eet, which was mainly composed of Phoenician ships, to break up. The ships of the captured cities joined Alexander, as did those from Cyprus. 12
In Asia Minor the satrap Antigonos proved to be a strategist of Philip’s stature.
He and Kalas joined forces, and the satrap Balakros came up from Kilikia, no
doubt on Alexander’s urging. The Persian attack came along three separate roads, the Royal Road in the centre, and roads parallel to it to the north and south; Antigonos used his interior lines of communication to defeat the Persian attacks separately. 13
The siege at Tyre was thus a central event in the general strategic development of the war. It was also a major test of the Macedonian army and its commander.
Besieging an island without command of the sea was, to say the least, diffi cult.
It was not possible to leave the city untaken behind him while the rest of the fi ghting was in the balance. The result was determined by the arrival of ships deserting from the Persian fl eet. Alexander was then able to conduct a regular siege of the island, constructing a great mole to reach it. It took six months or more, but by the time he took the city, amid hideous scenes of massacre and
destruction, the crises in Asia Minor and the Aegean were over. 14
Diplomatic exchanges accompanied all this: fi rst an exchange of letters after Issos, then an offer by Dareios to cede part of the empire, possibly from the
Euphrates to the Aegean, and the offer of 10,000 talents, ransom for Dareios’
family, captured after Issos. Alexander was now compelled to reveal his overall purpose, since Parmenion (and perhaps others of the Companions) was in
favour of acceptance. Alexander replied by claiming the kingship of the whole
empire. This may have been simply defi ance in the face of the several dangers
A L E X A N D E R T H E G R E AT F A I L U R E
78
the Macedonians faced at the time, but Alexander’s appetite had probably grown as he kept winning. 15
Dareios’ strategy had failed by the midsummer of 332, but another long siege
at Gaza delayed Alexander in the west. Most of 332 was occupied by the conquest of Syria and Palestine. At Gaza, Alexander sacked the city and the population
was treated with great cruelty. 16 He fi nally reached Egypt late in 332. Garrisons were left in north Syria and Kilikia (at Soli and near Issos)17 and others surely at Tyre and Gaza. A satrap, Menon, was appointed for Syria; when the governor of
Palestine was killed in a local revolt, Menon’s area was extended. 18
These detachments, and the casualties the army suffered at Issos, Tyre and
Gaza, plus the usual wear and tear of an army on the march, threatened to reduce the army’s size drastically. Already from Gordion Alexander had ordered up 4,000
more Macedonians, who reached him at Sidon, and 4,000 more arrived during
the siege at Tyre. 19 Most of these reinforcements came from Macedon, others from Greece. He had now given up massacring Greek mercenaries in favour of
recruiting them. He left the garrison of 4,000 men in Egypt, so when he marched out of Egypt the army was about the same size as when he fi rst met a Persian
army at the Granikos.
The army spent the winter of 332–331 in Egypt. Alexander organized its
government, fi rst being crowned as pharaoh. The Egyptians, who had always
detested Persian rule, welcomed him, but so did the Persian governor, who had
no force strong enough to resist him. Governing authority in notably wealthy
Egypt was carefully divided (as at Sardis) between a governor, a fi nancial offi cial and several military and naval commanders. This division of responsibilities
did not actually work, for the tax collector Kleomenes of Naukratis was able to dominate the whole administration by his control of fi nances. He was also clever enough to keep on Alexander’s good side, in part because he only wanted to get rich rather than to amass political power. He pushed on a project of the king’s to develop a new city at the mouth of the Nile, where Alexander personally laid out the main lines of the city; Kleomenes, however, did not make as much progress
as he claimed. Alexander also paid a visit to the Temple of Ammon at Siwah in
the desert, an experience which affected him strongly, enhancing his belief in his own abilities. 20
Dareios spent the year after Issos gathering a bigger army than before, and
in preparing a battlefi eld. To defeat Alexander’s army was to win the war, so he waited for the Macedonian attack. He sent more money to Greece, with the
intention of raising a rebellion in Alexander’s rear. It was the same strategy as before; as before, Alexander ignored it.
A rising in Greece was quite likely. Antipater, having sent at least 12,000
reinforcements to Alexander during 332, was clearly under strain. The governor of Thrace, Memnon, instigated a rising, for no known purpose; Antipater
T H E G R E AT C A M PA I G N , 3 3 4 – 3 2 5 b c
79
marched with his full force into Thrace to suppress it, for if a full-scale war developed, Macedon was in danger. He calmed Memnon with the promise that
he would remain as governor,21 which suggests it was not a rebellion by the Thracians but an internal Macedonian dispute.
Antipater’s march into Thrace triggered a declaration of war by Sparta. King
Agis III had made preliminary diplomatic contacts and recruited troops, fi nanced by money from Pharnabazos. He hired 10,000 mercenaries, some of them
survivors of Issos, mobilized Sparta’s army, and defeated a Macedonian force in the Peloponnese. Other risings, in Elis, Achaea and parts of Arkadia, followed.
These were the places which tentatively moved to assist Thebes in 335. This all took place more or less at the time Alexander was expected to meet Dareios in
battle; coordination was surely intended.
Alexander was told of this war long after his victory over Dareios at Gaugamela in October 331, so the coordination was unsuccessful, since real coordination
required that he be distracted at the time of the battle. From Dareios’ point of view, Agis’ war needed to occur before he fought Alexander; no doubt Agis did
not see it that way. Antipater was apparently not strong enough to reply to Agis at once, quite apart from the Thracian entanglement, but Agis’ success was very limited even so. Messenia and Argos were implacably hostile, Athens stayed loyal throughout, and Agis had to besiege the Arkadian city of Megalopolis. 22 This may have been a mistake, but it would have been a bigger mistake to leave a major
hostile state in arms behind him. Antipater could therefore bide his time.
Alexander marched east from Syria in September, and met Dareios’ army early
in October. The Macedonian/Greek army was outnumbered, perhaps by fi ve
to o
ne, but once again Alexander’s disciplined troops were more than a match
for the numerous but individualistic Iranian horsemen and the undisciplined
peasant recruits. He deployed his forces defensively, but used his own horsemen to attack directly at Dareios in his command chariot. It was a very close fi ght, for the Macedonian defences were breaking even as Alexander’s attack succeeded.
Dareios’ personal defeat again caused his army to break up, and this time
substantial Persian forces gave up the fi ght altogether. He had done this at a remarkably low cost to his own army. 23
Alexander was now in territory largely unknown to the Greeks, much of it
hostile in the way none of his conquests so far had been. He was welcomed
at Babylon, but it had to be garrisoned, then the Persian imperial centres at
Persepolis and Susa were occupied. Part of the palace at Persepolis was burnt
in a wild celebration, but a garrison had to be left there, and another at Susa.
These three places absorbed 10,000 men, one-fi fth of Alexander’s entire army. He received reinforcements suffi cient to keep his army up to strength, but Dareios was not fi nished, nor had the real centre of power of the empire, Media, been reached. 24 With Susa and Persepolis Alexander acquired imperial treasuries,
A L E X A N D E R T H E G R E AT F A I L U R E
80
gold, silver, precious cloths, utensils in precious metals, the loot of an empire. At Susa he acquired over 50,000 talents of gold and silver, at Persepolis over twice as much. 25 Alexander was generous with gifts, as a Macedonian king should be.
The problem of Agis, when Alexander fi nally heard about it, was dealt with by sending Antipater money to pay for mercenaries to supplement his Macedonian
forces. 26 In the spring of 330, while Alexander was at Persepolis, and long after the decisive battle in Mesopotamia, Antipater marched south into Greece with
a force said to number 40,000 soldiers. He had recruited extensively among his Balkan neighbours and the Greek mercenary markets, and had contingents from
the league cities. 27 Alexander’s fl eet, now including 600 Phoenician and Cypriot ships – mostly the same ships which had campaigned for Persia earlier – allowed him to blockade the Spartan coasts and sever communications with Crete, the
main source of Agis’ mercenaries.28
Therefore two mainly Greek armies met in battle near Megalopolis. Antipater
also had his Macedonians, to whom the credit is normally given for the victory, though without any detailed evidence. The battle was an old-style Greek hoplite encounter, nasty and bloody, with almost 10,000 killed, including Agis. This result is an indirect tribute to the military skills of Philip and Alexander, none of whose battles was anything near as sanguinary.29
Alexander had to face two more extremely costly campaigns, in Baktria and in
India. He marched to Ekbatana, the Median capital, in summer 330, and received there a reinforcement of 6,000 Greek soldiers, sent out after the defeat of Agis. He took the opportunity to reorganize his army. The contingents of the Greek cities
– the league forces – were now dismissed with thanks and a fat bonus, and invited to re-enlist as mercenaries for another fat bonus. Many elected to go home, their pay and bonuses no doubt supplemented by considerable loot. 30
Alexander, now immensely rich, could afford to employ all the mercenaries
he could fi nd, but it was the knowledge that Antipater had prevailed over Agis which allowed him to let the Greek forces go. It was a pleasant way of thanking the Greek cities for their loyalty to the league; he had already released some Athenians he had been holding prisoner. The league council had met to consider the punishment of those league members who had joined Agis, and had referred
the matter to Alexander, who was lenient. Sparta had to discharge its mercenaries and surrender 50 hostages; its losses in the fi ghting meant that it was crippled as a military power anyway for the foreseeable future, so there was little to gain by greater severity. It was not technically in rebellion, never having joined the league.
The league system had worked, both in Greece and in Asia. 31
Dareios retreated to Ekbatana after the defeat at Gaugamela. He gathered
substantial forces, but not enough to face the Macedonian army, and few reinforcements were forthcoming. When Alexander approached, he retreated eastwards,
and Alexander pursued him across northern Iran. Dareios was deserted by his
T H E G R E AT C A M PA I G N , 3 3 4 – 3 2 5 b c
81
remaining troops, except for the Greek mercenaries, and was murdered by Bessos, the satrap of Baktria, and the chiliarchos (chief administrator) Nabarzanes. 32
Alexander’s army moved forward by stages into eastern Iran, but with Dareios’
death, tensions developed among the Macedonian offi cers, some of whom
developed serious doubts as to his purpose. Since Babylon, he had taken to
wearing Persian dress; he had appointed Persians as satraps, and he had Persians advising him. Their administrative expertise and their family connections made them useful. 33 The disquiet of the Macedonians grew and emerged as plots, drunken brawls and philosophical disputes. In one plot Philotas, son of the
great general Parmenion, was marginally involved; both he and his father were
thereupon killed. A drunken argument saw Alexander murder Kleitos the Black,
who had saved his life at the Granikos. The court historian Kallisthenes insulted the king and was punished. 34
These plots, insofar as they were serious, were part of the atmosphere of
Alexander’s court, where his accession had been accompanied by the killing of
suspect men, relatives and enemies; others had been eliminated on suspicion
during the campaign.35 Alexander was alert always to possible plots, and was always prepared to kill pre-emptively: dead men don’t plot. But in eastern Iran the threat became bigger and worse.
The uncertainty at the root of the Macedonians’ mood lay in Alexander’s
inten tions, an uncertainty which was probably present in the king’s mind also.
The men who set out from Macedonia in 334 had hardly expected that four years
later they would be in eastern Iran. Alexander had no thought-out plans for the lands he conquered at any stage before the last year or so of his life. He was, like his father, no more than a grand opportunist. Appointing satraps, Macedonian
or Persian, to the old Persian administrative regions was a temporary measure.
He may have aimed simply to become a Macedonian version of the Great
King; it was what he eventually tried to be, but an empire from the Adriatic to the Indus could not be ruled from one corner, Macedon. The Persians held the
empire together by recruiting other Iranians, Medians, Baktrians, Arachosians, to assist them in governing, and had conciliated the great subordinate groups
– Phoenicians, Babylonians, Greeks – by letting them alone as long as they paid their taxes. The Macedonians could not rule the empire themselves, not even
with Greek help. Their land was too remote from the great population centres in Babylonia, Media, Egypt and Baktria, and the kingdom was too administratively
undeveloped to cope. It did not have the bureaucratic manpower, nor did its
people have the necessary skills or mindset to provide a government for the
empire.
The exuberant Macedonian invaders revelled in their new wealth, and
Alexander was extravagantly generous with his new riches. Above all, Alexander was enjoying his life as a conqueror too much to be able to attend to such
A L E X A N D E R T H E G R E AT F A I L U R E
82
mundane and routine matters as administration and government. At times he
seems to have gone campaigning to avoid such chores. He had left Macedon
without providing an heir, and had milked it of manpower to conquer Persia; in the empire he was moving from challenge to challenge without providing a real
government for it other than a temporary continuation of the old system; he even invented adventures, for he is repeatedly recorded as doing something because he strongly wished to do so.36 This careless, living-for-the-moment attitude fed the soldiers’ unease. He became angry when challenged over philosophical issues of government because he had no real philosophical basis for his actions.
The alternatives were awkward. In theory, Alexander could take the army and
his riches home, leaving Asia in chaos; or he could annex just part of the empire
– as far as the Halys River, or as far as the Euphrates, were suggestions already made; or he could take over as Great King. The fi rst was unthinkable; the second unlikely since Alexander was already in eastern Iran; the third involved keeping the army with him, recruiting Asians to replace them, or both. The Macedonian
lords no doubt preferred the last alternative, but the rank-and-fi le, who had left families at home and had taken the propaganda line that the war was one of
revenge for past Persian attacks on Greece, saw no reason not to go home.
Alexander was temporarily rescued from the problem by Bessos, who had
himself proclaimed Great King in succession to Dareios. 37 The war developed into a long series of extremely diffi cult campaigns. Bessos and his associates aimed to recover the whole Persian Empire, and he recruited a formidable force.
He was quickly outmanoeuvred, captured and killed, but the war went on under
the leadership of Spitamenes, a prominent lord in Sogdiana, north of Baktria.
He recruited help from nomads beyond the northern border, and successfully
lengthened the war for another year. He was Alexander’s most skilful enemy, and only his death ended the fi ghting. A series of minor campaigns, notably the need to capture several rock-fortresses, followed. Alexander’s marriage to Roxane,
daughter of Oxyartes, the lord of one of these fortresses, was clearly designed as a conciliatory gesture. 38
The human cost of this war was enormous. Alexander lost at least 7,000
Alexander the Great Failure Page 14
