Before and After Alexander

by Richard A. Billows

  Alexander did create a new central fiscal structure for his empire, with the evident aim of ensuring that the tribute moneys would be properly accounted for and made available to fund future plans and operations. The system can hardly be considered a great success, however. To oversee his central fiscus, established at Babylon, Alexander appointed his boyhood friend Harpalus son of Machatas, from the old ruling family of Elimea. Harpalus used his position for his own enrichment, living a fantastically luxurious lifestyle and otherwise diverting the empire’s money to his own purposes. When Alexander’s return to Babylon approached, in 325, Harpalus—fearing punishment—fled taking with him the stupendous sum of five thousand talents of Alexander’s treasure. He took refuge at Athens, where he was arrested and his treasure confiscated. Eventually, the Athenians let Harpalus go, but kept the money for ostensible return to Alexander. They still had it in 323 when Alexander died, and the bulk of the sum ended up being used to fund the Athenian rebellion against Alexander’s Successors. Besides this unsuccessful central fiscal system, there is little or no evidence of Alexander creating any new administration: he was too busy continuing his conquering to give thought to such matters. And if the document purporting to contain his final plans has any truth in it, he intended to continue that way. When Alexander died, he was planning the conquest of Arabia. He supposedly then intended to march through Egypt to conquer the entire north African coast as far as the Atlantic Ocean, taking over the Carthaginian Empire; then he would cross to Europe and conquer Spain, southern France, and Italy on his way back to Macedonia. While the “last plans” document also envisaged some major and expensive building projects, including city foundations, it is clear that Alexander would not be personally overseeing any of this, any more than he oversaw the building of Alexandria in Egypt. He himself would be busy conquering, while others could see to the building projects for which he merely gave orders. Nor did Alexander indicate how anything was to be paid for, other than by coining the vast stored up treasure of the Persian Empire, which was bound to run out given the scale of Alexander’s purported projects.

  Finally, there is Alexander’s reputation as a great founder of cities to be considered. Though our sources vary in the number of cities Alexander is supposed to have founded—up to seventy or more in some accounts—they do all agree that Alexander was a great city founder. The key example giving witness to this was the great city of Alexandria in Egypt (or by Egypt as the Greeks expressed it). By the late third century, a hundred years or so after its foundation, Alexandria was already one of the greatest cities in the ancient world; and at its height it may have attained a population of over a million inhabitants, fed by the huge annual grain surplus of the Nile valley. Undoubtedly Alexander selected an outstanding site for the city he wanted named after him: at the western edge of the Nile delta, with an excellent harbor that could fairly easily be artificially improved, on a substantial spit of land between the sea and a large fresh-water lake (Lake Mareotis), it was extremely well placed to be the chief harbor of Egypt and one of the great ports of the Mediterranean Sea. And its position between two great bodies of water made it defensively very strong and easy to protect from attack. But Alexander did not build Alexandria: he merely ordered that it should be built, and left. It was in fact Ptolemy I and his son Ptolemy II who built the great city of Alexandria that became the most important commercial and cultural hub of the Hellenistic world. This is not untypical of Alexander, ordering that something should be done and leaving it to others to sort out the organization and carry out the work.

  Though various sources give Alexander credit for founding or refounding other cities in western Asia, in pretty much all cases the evidence is late and suspect: the rise of Alexander’s legend in the third century and later made cities eager to claim Alexander as founder if they could. The most reliable sources only have Alexander founding additional “cities” in inner Asia, east of the River Tigris, primarily in Bactria/Sogdia (Afghanistan) and north India (Pakistan). Closely examined, however, it is clear that the word “city” is a bit of a misnomer for most of these foundations: they were in fact just garrison colonies, settlements of veteran soldiers (especially Greek mercenaries) intended to secure Alexander’s hold on the eastern lands he had found it so hard to conquer. We hear reliably of about a dozen of these garrison colonies, each apparently having a population of around two thousand men. For shortly after Alexander’s death the men of these colonies abandoned them and gathered together into an army determined to march and fight their way back home to Greece: they had never had any desire to be settled in inner Asia. Altogether, we are told, about twenty-five thousand men gathered from these abandoned colonies, which gives us the number of about two thousand, just quoted, as the approximate average population of these dozen or so garrison settlements. On their attempted march home, they were met by a Macedonian army despatched to stop them, defeated, and forced to return to their settlements. Their descendants did flourish for nearly two hundred years as an Indo-Bactrian outpost of Hellenistic civilization. The nature of these cities, as some of them did eventually become, was revealed in the 1970s by French archaeologists excavating such a Greek city at Ai Khanoum in Afghanistan. So Alexander does perhaps deserve some credit for making possible the Greek cities of Bactria and north India and their civilization between 300 and 100 BCE. But that is a far more modest record as a city founder than he is often credited with, and in truth the process of founding Greek cities in western Asia was actually carried out by his successors Antigonus and Seleucus, and by Seleucus’ son Antiochus I.

  Alexander’s sole credible claim to fame, then, is as a warrior, a general, a conqueror. That being so, it is relevant to note again that Alexander did not create the army he led, nor invent the military system he used: he inherited both from his father Philip, who was the inventive, creative one. Moreover, Alexander enjoyed the active co-operation of officers of the highest abilities: without Antigonus and his defeat of the Persian counter-attack in Asia Minor, Antipater and his defeat of the Spartan-led rebellion in southern Greece, Parmenio and his brilliant defensive leadership on the left wing at the Battle of Gaugamela, and the numerous and varied efforts of men such as Craterus, Ptolemy, Perdiccas, and others, how successful could Alexander have been? That Alexander was able to dominate and lead these men has been laid to his credit, and to some extent deservedly so: had Alexander shown weakness, indecisiveness, or lack of ability it does seem likely that one or more of these officers would have found a way to challenge and/or control him. But it should be borne in mind that Philip had instilled a near fanatical loyalty to himself, and by extension to his sons, in the Macedonian soldiery. That is why, after Alexander’s death, the soldiery insisted on Arrhidaeus as their king, and on re-naming him Philip after his father. Macedonian officers obeyed Alexander because he was able to command their respect, but also because they had little choice but to do so. The soldiery would not have backed anyone in a rebellion against Alexander, with the possible exception of Parmenio—which is why Alexander had him murdered.

  As a general, Alexander’s reputation rests, or should rest, primarily on the battles of Gaugamela and the Hydaspes. The Granicus and Issus were very much his father’s battles, in the sense that Alexander won them using not just his father’s army and officers, but also his father’s tactics. At Gaugamela Alexander had to show considerable tactical ingenuity to achieve success, and at the Hydaspes he faced a new problem—how to confront war elephants—and found the successful solution. The withheld left wing and the reserve phalanx with orders to about-face to confront any out-flanking force attacking from behind: these were clever and effective solutions to the problem of fighting a numerically vastly superior army at Gaugamela. The extensive maneuvering Alexander employed in order to find a way to cross the River Hydaspes unopposed showed great strategic insight; and the way he had learned in advance to attack the mahouts controlling the elephants in order to render the elephants themselves uncontrollable showed effe
ctive use of military intelligence sources. In sum, there is no doubt that Alexander was an extremely daring, effective and (when needed) inventive battle general. He could adapt his battle strategy and tactics to the needs of the situation, while always operating within his father’s overall “sword and shield” strategy as described in Chapter 4.

  On the other hand, Alexander was not without weaknesses as a general and leader. His grand strategical sense may legitimately be called into question. It simply made no logical, and especially no logistical sense to extend his conquests as far as Bactria and northern India (Afghanistan and Pakistan), given that his manpower base lay in Greece and the Balkan region. It is no accident that Alexander’s Successors gave up the Indian territories within twenty years of Alexander’s death, and showed, on the whole, very limited interest in Bactria after the first twenty years. These territories were just too far from the Mediterranean to be securely held by a Mediterranean power. Parmenio had been right in advising Alexander, in 333, to limit his ambitions (in effect, that is) to Syria/Palestine and Asia Minor (and perhaps Egypt): those were the rich and populous lands that could usefully be combined with the southern Balkan region into a viable empire. Moreover, as a battle general he was, as his officers complained, too apt to behave more like a common soldier than a general, needlessly putting himself at risk in battles and at sieges (most infamously the siege of the Mallian town in India), when the expedition could hardly afford to lose their leader. Clearly Alexander hugely enjoyed the thrill of the fight, and especially of the cavalry chase: as we have seen, he was only prevented in the nick of time from carrying his cavalry chase too far at Gaugamela, and thereby losing the battle. Having no one to succeed him if he died, he should have behaved more responsibly in battle, risking himself only if/when absolutely needed. And of course, his refusal until the last few years of his life to give attention to the crucial business of producing an heir is another justified criticism of Alexander’s rulership abilities.

  On the whole, the term “the Great” seems an exaggerated assessment of Alexander’s real abilities and importance. He fulfilled his father’s plans, with his father’s army; but then went well beyond those plans in ways that, while immediately successful, made little strategic sense. He always found a way to overcome difficulties, but they were often difficulties he should have avoided in the first place. He showed no interest in organizing his conquests into a coherent, functioning empire, merely continuing the Persian system for the sake of convenience. Empire-building, as opposed to conquest, was left to his successors; and he left his successors with a massive problem of how to create a succession, and how to organize the Macedonian conquests. He was a general pure and simple, who seems to have lived for the thrill of the fight and of conquest for its own sake. Even the Prussian king Frederick the Great, the most purely military of later western rulers called “the Great,” had more to him than just military success. Why then the enormous admiration, not to say adulation of Alexander over the millennia that have passed since his death?

  5. THE LEGEND OF ALEXANDER

  Much of the passionate interest in and adulation of Alexander found in novels, films, other popular media, and even in some scholarly histories, can be explained by the romantic nature of Alexander’s exploits at such a young age (in his twenties) and his premature death at just short of thirty-three years old. It has also helped that he was capable, as we have seen, of occasional quixotic gestures that contributed to the aura of romance around him. This romantic element, within not much more than a century of his death, found its expression in a novelistic account of his life and exploits that turned him into a legendary figure, one might almost say western civilization’s first “super-hero”: I refer to the so-called Alexander Romance, attributed to Alexander’s court historian Callisthenes, and often cited as Pseudo-Callisthenes as a result. This work, originally composed in Greek, was translated/adapted into Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Arabic, old Slavonic, and various other languages, and had a wide impact, especially during the medieval period, on people’s image and estimation of Alexander. But the romanticized view of Alexander did not in fact have to wait for the creation of this outright novelistic account: many of the legendary, indeed almost mythical exploits attributed to Alexander in fact go back to stories told in supposedly sober contemporary historical accounts—contemporary to Alexander, that is.

  The process began in the first historical account of Alexander’s deeds, that of his official court historian Callisthenes. This man, nephew of the philosopher and Alexander’s old tutor Aristotle, had made a reputation as a notable and reliable historian by writing a Hellenika (an account of general Greek history) covering the years 386 to 357. As Alexander’s court historian, specifically employed to record (and amplify?) Alexander’s deeds by putting them in the best possible light, Callisthenes changed his historical approach. He was to be Alexander’s “Homer” and his history Alexander’s Iliad. From the beginning, therefore, he did not so much write sober history as the story of a hero loved by the gods. For example, when Alexander and his army passed along the coast of Pamphylia, they reached a place where the road was extremely narrow between some cliffs and the sea. According to Callisthenes, the sea receded at Alexander’s approach, paying obeisance to the great king and giving him and his army an easy passage. When Alexander, during his visit to Egypt, decided to visit the Oracle of Ammon at Siwah, an oasis in the Libyan desert, he and his entourage reportedly became lost due to a dust-laden “simoom” wind that covered the road. According to Callisthenes, ravens appeared to guide Alexander to the oasis, taking such care that they even pursued stragglers who got separated from Alexander’s party and brought them back to the group. This is the stuff of legend, not history; but Callisthenes’ efforts to legendarize Alexander were modest compared to what happened in histories and memoirs written shortly after his death.

  One of Alexander’s boyhood friends and trusted officers, Ptolemy son of Lagos, played a leading role in the “wars of the succession” and eventually founded the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt. Late in life he wrote a history of Alexander’s reign, taking care to emphasize his own achievements under Alexander; this history was used by our best surviving history of Alexander, written by the Roman era historian Arrian, who trusted Ptolemy because he was an eye-witness and later a king, who would surely not have lied. Ptolemy did indeed object to Callisthenes’ magical ravens leading Alexander to Siwah. It was in fact, he reported, speaking snakes that appeared in the desert and led Alexander to his destination. Ptolemy is usually considered one of the more sober and factual historians of Alexander. Are we really to believe in snakes that speak in human voices? The plain fact is that Ptolemy did lie in his history, making Alexander more than a man.

  Things only got more legendary from here. A historian named Onesicritus, who served in Alexander’s army and commanded a ship (or at any rate served as its steersman) in his Indus river fleet, wrote an account of Alexander. He enjoyed the patronage of Alexander’s general and successor Lysimachus, and Plutarch tells of an occasion when, at Lysimachus’ court, Onesicritus read aloud to the king a passage from the fourth book of his history. The passage recounted the visit to Alexander’s camp in Hyrcania (south of the Caspian Sea) of the queen of the Amazons, with her entourage of Amazon warriors. Reputedly she wished to mate with Alexander: the two greatest warriors in the world, male and female, would surely produce marvelous offspring. Plutarch recounts Lysimachus’ humorous response: “I wonder where I was then?” (Plutarch Alexander 46). The Amazons, let us be clear, belong to Greek mythology, not to history. Yet the legend of Alexander’s tryst with the Amazon queen lived on and became a fixed part of the Alexander story.

  One could go on, but the point is clear. From the very beginning, even during his lifetime, Alexander was magnified by those who wrote about him into a legendary, heroic figure: no tale was too tall if it was about Alexander. This was undoubtedly due in part to Alexander himself and his image cultivation. He was not satisfied to
be the son of Philip and emulate his father’s achievements: he was the descendant of Heracles and Achilles, and his achievements were to be measured on that heroic scale. When crossing the Hellespont to start his Asian campaigns, we hear that Alexander first sacrificed, on the European side, at the tomb of Protesilaus who, in the Trojan War myth, was the first Greek warrior to land on Trojan (Asian) soil. He then stood up in the prow of his vessel, the leading vessel of course, as it approached the Asian side of the Hellespont, and heroically/symbolically cast a spear into Asia. Landed in Asia, he had locals point out to him the supposed tomb of Achilles, where he sacrificed to his reputed ancestor while his lover Hephaestion sacrificed at the reputed tomb of Achilles’ lover Patroclus. The point: Alexander was the new Achilles, the hero who would defeat the forces of the Asian world. Already at this early stage Alexander had gathered around himself a coterie of literary figures, such as the poets Choerilus, Agis of Argos, and Cleon the Sicilian, who made it their business (or whose business it was?) to compare Alexander to such humans become gods in Greek mythology as Heracles, Dionysus, and the Dioscuri Castor and Polydeuces. Towards the end of his reign, the question of whether Alexander himself was a god was very much in the air, as contemporary sources attest. Historians are divided on the question whether Alexander regarded himself as a god and demanded worship, or whether it was just flatterers who proposed divine honors for him. The former view does seem to fit with Alexander’s self-image as attested in many sources. That Alexander really did demand, near the end of his reign, to be worshipped as a god is perhaps supported by a typically laconic remark attributed to a Spartan named Damis: “Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god” (Plutarch Moralia 219E). The point being that if he was a god, he should show it by displaying divine powers, such as immortality.