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that it was through Lydia. This would imply that the Macedonians chose
the main road to the south east from Zeleia to the Macestus river valley,
thence via Thyateira and the Hermus river valley to Sardis. Such a route is
c. 270 km long and therefore the march would have lasted until the end of
May 334. Sardis, the capital of the former Kingdom of Lydia, was in
26 Diod., 16.21.6; Arr., An. , 1.16.3-7; Plu., Alex. , 16.15-18; Just., 11.6; It. Alex. , 23; Curt., 3.1.9; P.Hamb. 652. Hanson 1999, p. 130.
27 Plu., Alex. , 16.19; Fragmentum Sabbaiticum, FGrH, 151 F1.1; Ps.-Callisth., 1.28; Syll. 3 252. Carney 2000, p. 86.
28 Arr., An. , 1.17.1. Heckel 1992, pp. 355-357. Coins: Debord 2000.
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Persian times a large, multi-ethnic city. Most of the population, however,
were Lydians and in the second half of the 4th century Lydian social elites
were intensively influenced by Hellenic culture, as is apparent in the city’s
artwork from the late Achaemenid period. The city’s other inhabitants
included Greeks, Carians, Babylonians, Iranians and other people bearing
Asianic names. The populace worshipped both local and Iranian gods
Ahura Mazda and Anahita. At Hierokome, situated in the rural district of
Sardis, there was a temple of Anahita run by magi right up to Roman times.
In Persian times and immediately after Alexander’s conquest Sardis
maintained a certain degree of autonomy which allowed it to have
independent diplomatic relations with Miletus, but it had not yet acquired
the status of a Greek polis, which was to come in the Hellenistic period.
Sardis was significant as the seat of the satrap of the Sparda (the territory
of the former Kingdom of Lydia), who frequently also governed Ionia.
Being linked by the Royal Road with Susa, Sardis was also the
unquestioned centre of Persian authority in the whole of Asia Minor. The
garrison at the Sardis citadel was directly subordinate to the Great King as
was the keeper of the local royal treasury. For Alexander the capture of
this treasury was of prime importance for, despite the victory at the
Granicus, his finances were in a critical condition. According to both
literary sources and archaeological findings the citadel at Sardis, where the
treasury must have been located, was virtually impossible to capture
without a long, drawn-out siege.29
Yet this did not happen. Before Alexander reached the city, he was met
by the commander of the Sardis garrison, Mithrenes, accompanied by the
city’s most influential citizens, who surrendered to the Macedonian king
the acropolis and treasury. Our sources do not explain why it happened
this way, but we can certainly not conclude that this was a spontaneous
gesture. Later examples of great cities surrendering without resistance
during Alexander’s campaign – Babylon or Susa – show a certain
procedure. The surrendering commander always greeted the victor some
distance away form the city and showed his respect. Such was the
established custom not only in Achaemenid times but at least since the
time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Failure to surrender to the approaching
army outside the city was a sign of hostile intentions. Once this greeting
ceremony was completed, the official victor formally entered the city as its
new master. Although the sources do not always mention this directly, the
29 Diod., 17.21.7. Magie 1950, pp. 797-799; Seibert 1985, pp. 35-37; Bosworth
1988, pp. 44-45; Briant 1993, pp. 18-19; Briant 1996, pp. 722-725; Hornblower
1994, pp. 214-217; Debord 1999, pp. 432-433; Sartre 2003, p. 16. Dusinberre 2003
is a monograph of Sardis in Achaemenid period.
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127
formal capitulation of great and powerful cities was normally preceded by
secret negotiations to establish the terms and conditions of surrender, not
least compensation to the availing commander of the surrendering fortress.
That is what must have happened before the surrender of Sardis and
Mithrenes had a lot to bargain with; in return for capitulation he
guaranteed for himself a position in Alexander’s closest circle as the first
Iranian, indeed first Asian to be so honoured. After the Battle of Issus
Alexander sent him on a mission to Darius III’s captured family and later
appointed him satrap of Armenia. Mithrenes’ defection was no less
significant from Alexander’s point of view, for it started an immensely
important process, never fully understood or accepted by contemporary
Greeks and Macedonians: the winning over of what P. Briant calls ‘the
ethnoclass ruling the Achaemenid empire’ or, more simply put, the Iranian
aristocracy. With time, after battles personally lost by Darius III himself,
many Iranians would follow in Mithrenes’ footsteps. However, according
to Curtius Rufus, who frequently was well informed about the mood on
the Persian side at given times, the commandant of the Sardis citadel was
initially seen as a traitor among his compatriots. Having been greeted by
Mithrenes, Alexander set up camp 20 stades (c. 4 km) from Sardis and
instructed Amyntas the son of Andromenes to occupy the Sardis citadel.
Only then did he himself formally enter the city. In Sardis Alexander
resolved to build a temple to the Olympian Zeus. Interpreting as a sign
from the said deity a thunderclap that struck a spot where the palace of the
Lydian kings had once stood, Alexander decided to have the temple built
there. To the local population the thunderbolt had a symbolic meaning
suggesting that Alexander was the continuator of the ancient Lydian
dynasty that Cyrus the Great had overthrown over two centuries earlier.
Continuing Achaemenid administrative solutions, Alexander divided
authority over Sardis between three officials: Asander, the son of Philotas,
became the satrap of Lydia; Nicias was entrusted with the collection of
taxes and Alexander’s Companion ( hetairos) Pausanias was given
command of the garrison, which was to include a contingent from Argos.
Soon afterwards Alexander occupied part of the Aegean coast and islands,
which he added to Asander’s satrapy, though most probably as a separate
hyparchy (administrative unit) governed by the Macedonian Philoxenus.
This way the administrative structure from before the 5th-century Persian
wars was restored. Alexander instructed Calas and Alexander of Lyncestis,
who commanded the Peloponnesian contingent, to confiscate Memnon’s
estates situated in what was now Calas’s satrapy. This was an ostentatious
measure taken against one of the Great King’s fiercest generals, but no
mass confiscations of the property of Iranian aristocrats in this region
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followed. In later times many of their descendants belonged to social elites
of the poleis of Asia Minor. In Achaemenid times these Iranian aristocrats
had held land in royal territories but after 334 their estates were gradually
incorporated into the poleis rural territories ( chorai). The process almost
certainly began during Alexander’s reign. The earliest extant documentary
evidence is a decree of the city of Amyzon
in Caria issued in 321/320.
Both this decree, passed on the initiative of the satrap Asander, and later
actions by the Seleucids incorporating aristocratic property into the chorai
of poleis show that the monarchy was the main driving force behind the
process of transforming the administrative structure of Asia Minor. We do
not know what was meant in Arrian’s statement that Alexander had
allowed the Lydians keep their freedom as the satrap’s authority and the
level of tributes remained the same.30
Having made the essential administrative decisions, Alexander headed
for Ephesus, which lay on an offshoot of the Royal Road. In a story
written much later by Pausanias, sometime after a hunting excursion
during that four-day march Alexander fell asleep and in his dreams he saw
the goddess Nemesis, who showed him where to rebuild Smyrna.
Although this is a well established story, later officially commemorated on
coins issued in Smyrna, unfortunately one cannot dismiss the possibility
that like many stories of historical or mythological figures founding cities
this one was invented in Roman times.31 Ephesus, historically the second
most important Ionian city after Miletus, had always been of considerable
interest to the Persian authorities. They surrounded the city with care,
especially the temple of Artemis, and under Tiberius the Ephesians were
still referring to the city’s right to asylum granted by the Persians. The
degree of respect to what was after all a pagan goddess accorded by the
Persian Zoroastrian state is apparent in the fact that at the turn of the 4th
century the satrap Tissaphernes issued coins with her image. The city also
had an Iranian colony and even centuries later the temple servant
( neokoros) of the Artemision was also called megabyzus, a word derived
from the Persian name Bagabuxša meaning “satisfying or serving the
god.”32
News of the Persian defeat provoked in Ephesus the second revolution
within three years. Greek mercenaries of the small garrison of Ephesus
30 Curt., 3.12.7; Arr., An. , 1.17; Diod., 17.21.7; Plu., Alex. , 17.1; It. Alex. , 24. Lane Fox 1973, pp. 140-141; Robert 1983, pp. 97-118; Briant 1985; Briant 1993; Heckel
1992, pp. 176-178, 385; Debord 1999, pp. 159-160, 185. On surrendering cities see
below chapter V.4.
31 Paus., 7.5.2. Debord 1999, p. 435.
32 Boyce, Grenet 1989, p. 206; Briant 1996, pp. 721-722; Shabazi 2003, pp. 7-14.
From Abydus to Alexandria
129
commandeered two triremes and escaped from the city, taking with them
Amyntas the son of Antioch, who was a Macedonian aristocrat opposed to
Alexander’s rule. Alexander entered Ephesus accompanied by the
previously expelled supporters of Macedonia and personally ended
oligarchic rule, establishing or rather re-establishing in its place a
democracy. No longer fearful of the oligarchs a crowd dragged their
leaders: Syrphax, his son Pelagon and his nephews, from the temple and
stoned them to death. But once the leaders were killed Alexander forbade
further retributions and, according to Arrian, the wisdom of this decision
earned him great popularity among the populace. A considerable part of
Alexander’s actions in Ephesus focused on the Temple of Artemis – the
goddess who according to legend had failed to save the Artemisium from
fire because she was preoccupied with assisting Olympias in labour.
Alexander now laid offerings to the goddess and arranged a military
parade. He also extended the asylum area around the temple to one stade
(c. 180 m) – we do not know the size of the original asylum area. This was
an important privilege, and Ephesus would have to wait another 300 years
for it to be further extended. Moreover, Alexander decided that the tribute
from the city due to him should be deposited in the temple’s treasury. The
Artemisium lay within the city’s boundaries and, as the division of church
and state was unknown in Antiquity, the temple’s treasury was actually
administered by the city; therefore Ephesus was paying itself tribute.
Strabo records an anecdote about an offer by Alexander to rebuild the
Artemisium from his royal funds which was rejected by the proud
Ephesians, who wanted for themselves the glory of rebuilding the temple.
Yet so as not to offend the monarch they explained that it was not befitting
for deity to build a temple for another deity. Although anecdotal nature of
this account does not necessarily undermine its historical veracity, it is
highly unlikely that something like that could have happened during
Alexander’s first and only visit to Ephesus. Firstly, the current state of his
finances would have prohibited him from making such an offer. Secondly,
the Greeks’ attitude to religion was much too serious for them to have
proclaimed this young Macedonian ruler a god as early as in 334.
Nevertheless this story does illustrate Alexander’s consistent interest in
Artemis of Ephesus, for whom he was willing to give donations even
when royal revenues were at their lowest.33 Whilst in Ionia Alexander
must have also made a very generous donation for the construction of a
33 Arr., An. , 1.17.10-18.2; Str., 14.1.22-23. Bosworth 1980, pp. 132-133; Higgins
1980, pp. 132-134; Badian 1996, pp. 24-25; Nawotka 2003a, pp. 23-24, 29.
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temple to the goddess Athena Polias in the city of Priene as it is recorded
in an inscription on the temple to this day.34
Arrian writes that while Alexander was in Ephesus emissaries came
from Magnesia and Tralles to surrender their cities to him. The king
accepted their capitulation and provided these Greek cities military
protection by sending there Parmenion with a force of 5,000 infantry (half
of whom were Macedonian and the other half mercenaries) as well as 200
hetairoi. He sent another force under the command of Alcimachus to the
cities of Ionia and Aeolis with instructions: ‘He ordered the oligarchies
everywhere to be overthrown and democracies to be established; he
restored its own laws to each city and remitted the tribute they used to pay
to the barbarians.’ In Caria somewhat later that year Alexander said that
he had started the war with Persia in order to liberate the Greek cities.
These two simple remarks quoted in the sources have aroused a major
historical debate regarding Alexander’s attitude towards the Greek cities
of Asia Minor. Stances in this debate are between two extreme views. One
claims that Alexander genuinely restored freedom to the poleis of Asia
Minor and invited them to join the League of Corinth. The opposite view
claims that actually nothing changed: tributes continued to be extracted
even if under a different guise and that the pro-Persian cliques called
oligarchies were merely replaced by pro-Macedonian cliques forming
puppet regimes called ‘democracies’. If nothing had indeed changed, then
the decisions made by Alexander at Ephesus would have only been for
propaganda purposes.35
Historical debate has allowed us to establish that in all probability,
unlike certain island states, the poleis of
Asia Minor never became
members of the League of Corinth. The sources do not mention anything
like this happening, whereas for Alexander the League was never such an
important political tool as to make it necessary for him to recruit so many
new members. Other controversies, however, remain. Perhaps a way out of
this academic deadlock would be to look at the liberation issue from the
point of view of the Greeks in Asia Minor and on the basis of their
concepts of sovereignty and freedom. To the 4th-century Greeks a free
polis was one which had its own laws, controlled its rural territories, could
decide on the settlement or expulsion of foreigners, had its own foreign
policy and made independent financial decisions, including ones
concerning taxes. The most important of these criteria was the first, which
34 IPriene, 156. Heisserer 1980, pp. 143-144, 156-158.
35 Arr., An. , 1.18.2; Diod., 17.24.1. Detailed discussion of the issue of freedom of
Greeks in Asia Minor with reference to all extant sources: Nawotka 2003a. Now
see also Mileta 2008, pp. 21-40. Here I provide a summary and conclusions.
From Abydus to Alexandria
131
the Greeks called autonomia though today we would call it sovereignty
rather than ‘autonomy’. A free polis could belong to a military alliance
and pay contributions to a common cause. However, the imposition of a
duty to pay tributes was contrary to their concept of sovereignty. In the 4th
century a view emerged and became predominant from the 330s onwards
that democracy was the typical system of government for a free polis.
Therefore not only tyranny (which is obvious) but also oligarchy was
considered incompatible with what they believed to be the natural
constitution of a free Greek state.
One of the visible – and therefore important to modern scholars –
aspects of ancient Greek democracy was the transparency of government,
namely the freedom to express views and a tendency to publish the results
of public debates, i.e. the decrees of the council and people. Oligarchies