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  the Book of Zachariah, which was written at the end of the 4th century.

  Alexander, portrayed as the ‘he-goat’ defeating the ‘ram’ representing the

  Persian king, is also featured in another prophesy (likewise written post

  eventum) in the Book of Daniel originating from the mid 2nd century.

  Meanwhile, the day after the city’s capture Alexander paid his long

  awaited visit to the Temple of Melqart. The offering of sacrifices was

  accompanied with a military parade in full armour, a convoy of ships and a

  sports contest held near the temple. The votive offerings laid before

  Heracles/Melqart included a siege engine that had crushed the city’s walls

  and a Tyrian ship that had already once been offered to this god.

  Alexander nominated a Macedonian called Philotas (not to be confused

  with a son of Parmenion) as military commander of Tyre and the

  surrounding areas. Tyre was not completely destroyed and under

  Macedonian supervision the Phoenicians were allowed to gradually settle

  there again, but the city never regained its earlier status. It is probably that

  King Azemilcus continued to rule over the kingdom, but now as

  Alexander’s appointee. The Tyre mint continued to issue King

  Azemilcus’s coins, and by 331 it also started issuing Alexander’s coins.

  The fact that he had captured the most impregnable Persian fortress in the

  Mediterranean and thus underpinned the likelihood of his claim to the

  Achaemenid Empire may have inspired Alexander to start issuing in

  332/331 staters – gold coins, which according to Persian custom signified

  royal sovereignty. Finally, before he moved on, Alexander received a

  delegation from the League of Corinth with somewhat belated

  congratulations for his victory at Issus in the autumn of the previous

  year.128

  127 Arr., An. , 2.23-24; Curt., 4.4.10-18; Plu., Alex. , 25.1-3; Diod., 17.46;

  Fragmentum Sabbaiticum, FGrH, 151 F1.7; It. Alex. , 43. Wilcken 1967, pp. 110-111; Bosworth 1980, pp. 251-256; Heckel 1992, pp. 58-64; Hammond 1989, pp.

  132-134.

  128 Za. , 9.2-4; Da. , 8; Diod., 17.46.6, 17.48.5; Curt., 4.5.9-12; Arr., An. , 2.24.6; Just., 18.3, 19.4.1. Schachermeyr 1973, p. 218; Atkinson 1980, p. 325; Seibert

  1985, p. 82; Ashley 1998, pp. 247-249; Le Rider 2003, pp. 170-188; Heckel 2006,

  s.v. ’Philotas’ [8].

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  Chapter IV

  During the siege of Tyre, at a time unspecified by the sources,

  Alexander received another letter from Darius III, who had not been

  dissuaded by the arrogant tone of his enemy’s response at Marathus to his

  first peace proposal. Here too the various accounts given by the ancient

  authors are as incongruous as their accounts of the first diplomatic offer.

  Plutarch even states that Darius’s messengers reached Alexander during

  his second stay at Tyre in the spring of 331. However, most of the authors

  of the two major historical source traditions state that the messengers

  arrived during the siege and therefore this version is more plausible. The

  Great King’s demands were the same as before. However, he now made

  changes to what he was proposing in return: the hand of his daughter

  Stateira in marriage and a ransom of 10,000 talents (though the latter may

  have also been a repetition of his earlier offer). On top of that he was now

  agreeing to cede territory, up to the river Halys (according to Curtius,

  Diodorus and Valerius Maximus) or up to the river Euphrates (according

  to Arrian, Plutarch and Itinerarium Alexandri). The offer of ceding

  territory up to the river Euphrates seems less likely as it would have

  included regions that were still under Persian control. Moreover, this offer

  is all the more improbable as it was made at the time when Alexander was

  preoccupied with the siege of Tyre and therefore not really poised to

  conquer more territories to the east. The river Halys, on the other hand,

  marked a traditional boundary between East and West, and it had already

  been presented as such in Panhellenistic literature in Philip II’s lifetime.

  The area between the Hellespont and the Halys was the only part of the

  Achaemenid Empire that had been intensively colonised by Greeks and

  whose native elites had therefore also been to a large extent Hellenised.

  This territory the Greeks knew well enough to effectively administer and

  further colonise. If only for these reasons the acceptance of Darius’s

  second offer would have been a realisation of Macedonia’s war aims from

  the end of Philip II’s reign. That is how Parmenion saw it and said he

  would accept the offer if he were Alexander. Alexander’s response – on

  this occasion or after Darius’s third offer – was to say that he also would

  also accept the offer if he were Parmenion. This was yet another incident

  demonstrating Alexander’s maximalist attitude, as Arrian states: ‘he

  needed no money from Darius, nor a part of the country instead of the

  whole; for the money and country all belonged to him.’ Allegedly, it was

  only after receiving this second response that Darius began preparing for

  the continuation of war.129

  129 Arr., An. , 2.25.1-3; Diod., 17.39.1-2, 17.54.1; Curt., 4.5.1-8; Plu., Alex. , 29.7-8; Just., 11.12; It. Alex. , 43-44; V. Max., 6.4, ext. 3. Andreotti 1957, pp. 125-126;

  From Abydus to Alexandria

  195

  The Tyrian resistance and the sea damage to their mole had not been

  the only problems to beset the besiegers. D.W. Engels has calculated that

  in the seven months that the siege lasted the Macedonian army (excluding

  the allied fleet, which comprised over 40,000 people) consumed over

  28,000 tons of grain, which was the soldier’s basic diet. The traditional

  means of feeding an army was to commandeer food from the land it

  occupied, but that would not have been possible in the area around Tyre as

  it could have only accounted for 7 % of the above-mentioned amount. It

  was indeed primarily logistical concerns that drew Alexander’s attention

  to Palestine, which in Antiquity produced a surplus of grain. In the Persian

  era the inland part of Palestine comprised three small, native entities,

  Idumea and two autonomous statelets Samaria and Judah, living on hostile

  terms with one another but being at the same time provinces of the

  Ebirnari satrapy. The Persian governors in the more northern province of

  Samaria came from a native dynasty, represented in Alexander’s time by

  Sanballat III. The more southern state of Judah was a theocracy centred on

  the Temple in Jerusalem and its High Priest. This state did not have a local

  ruling dynasty but the Great King still always nominated a governor from

  among the native Jews. We do not know how authority was divided

  between the governor and the High Priest, especially as both of them

  issued a similar type of coin. In Alexander’s day the Persian governor in

  Judah was Yehizqiyyah and the High Priest – according to Flavius

  Josephus – was probably Jaddua II, though it may in fact have been

  Johannan. During the siege of Tyre Alexander requested these two

  Palestinian states to supply him with soldiers and provisions. According to

  Flavius Josephus, Sanballat III fulfilled these requests
and sent 8,000

  Samaritan troops to Tyre. For this the governor was rewarded with

  permission to build a temple on Mount Gerizim that could compete with

  the Temple in Jerusalem. The High Priest Jaddua, however, allegedly

  remained loyal to Darius III, which angered Alexander and portended his

  revenge after the capture of Tyre.130

  There is a romantic version of the contacts between the Macedonian

  ruler and the inhabitants of Judea originating from the Jewish oral tradition,

  recorded in two independent works – that of Flavius Josephus, general

  considered better, and the Talmud, generally considered too belletristic –

  as well as from some versions of the Alexander Romance. The essential

  Wilcken 1967, pp. 111-112; Goukowsky 1975, p. 264; Bosworth 1980, pp. 227-

  229, 256-257; Hamilton 1999, pp. 76-77.

  130 J., AJ, 11.8.2-4. Kazis 1962, pp. 4-11; Engels 1978, pp. 55-56; Eph’al 1988, pp.

  147-152; Tadmor 1994, p. 289; Briant 1996, pp. 734-735; Dandamaev 1999;

  Briant 2009, pp. 152-155.

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  Chapter IV

  element of this romantic version is victorious Alexander’s visit to

  Jerusalem with the intention of punishing the Judah for not helping him

  during the siege of Tyre. But then events unfolded in a quite unplanned

  way. When he met the High Priest, the king is said to have prostrated

  himself to honour the God Yahweh. The presence of this imagined

  element inclines some historians to doubt the credibility of the whole tale.

  But this is exaggerated scepticism: Alexander was known to have been

  curious of the world in general and of religion in particular, so a visit to a

  unique monotheistic temple would be very much in keeping with his

  personality. It is also important to stress that in the Jewish tradition

  Alexander is a decidedly positive figure, a ruler who showed respect to the

  Judaic religion and allowed the Jews to live in accordance with their faith

  and culture. Flavius Josephus writes that Alexander visited Jerusalem after

  the capture of Gaza. This, however, seems unlikely for by then Alexander

  would have been preparing to enter Egypt and organising such a major

  logistical operation would not have allowed him to take time off for any

  detours. Besides, Arrian mentions that on the eve of the siege of Gaza

  Palestine was already subjugated to the Macedonian king. This allows us

  to speculate that Alexander would have had more time to visit Jerusalem

  during the seven-month siege of Tyre as he had also had time for military

  and hunting expeditions in Mount Lebanon. It was during one of these

  hunts that Alexander found himself in grave danger; a lion would have

  attacked him if Craterus had not killed the beast in the nick of time.

  Observing this foolhardiness in which the king quite unnecessarily risked

  his life and thus also the fate of the entire expedition as well as his

  monarchy, a Spartan ambassador being held captive in the Macedonian

  camp is supposed to have ironically praised him, saying: ‘Excellent,

  Alexander, you have been fighting a lion for the realm.’131

  In Palestine, despite the initial support provided to Alexander during

  the siege of Tyre, it eventually turned out that Samaria would cause more

  trouble than Judah. Towards the end of his stay in Egypt, i.e. in the late

  summer of 331, the Samaritans rebelled. In unknown circumstances

  Andromachus, the Macedonian military commander of southern Syria and

  Palestine, was immolated by the Samaritans. Alexander naturally ordered

  the perpetrators of this deed to be punished, the city of Samaria was

  destroyed and a Macedonian colony established in its place. From then on

  131 J., AJ, 11.8.4-5; Megillat Ta’anit, 9; Ps.-Callisth., (rec. g), 2.23-24; Arr., An. , 2.25.4. Kazis 1962, pp. 4-11; Seibert 1972, pp. 103-107; Świderkówna 1996, pp.

  86-89, 121; Stoneman 1997, pp. 36-37; Hammond 1989, p. 208; Meleze-

  Modrzejewski 1995, pp. 50-55. The lion episode: Plu., Alex. , 40.4-5; FD 3.4.2.137; see Hamilton 1999, p. 107; Stewart 1993, pp. 270-277.

  From Abydus to Alexandria

  197

  Samaria was a Hellenistic city with a predominantly pagan population,

  whereas the native Samaritan population lived mainly in Shechem and on

  Mount Gerizim.132

  The Macedonian army marched from Tyre towards Egypt along the

  Mediterranean coast. They occupied coastal Palestinian cities on the way,

  some of which belonged to Tyre or Sidon. There was most probably no

  resistance. The feeding of the army during this 260-km march from Tyre

  to Gaza would not have posed a major problem as it took place in August,

  after the harvest, which in Palestine occurred in June. The fertile soils of

  Galilee, the Plain of Esdraelon (Jezreel Valley) and the costal lowlands

  could easily support the Macedonian army in the c. 11 days it took to

  reach Gaza. In some places, however, there was a shortage of drinking

  water, especially in summer when many of the streams and brooks dried

  up. One can assume that supplying the army with drinking water was one

  of the main tasks of the fleet commanded by Hephaestion, which

  Alexander had instructed to sail alongside the Macedonian land forces.

  Gaza, a former Philistine city on the border between Palestine and Sinai,

  was an important fortress which armies moving into Egypt could not avoid.

  It was also one of the destinations of caravan routes from Happy Arabia

  (Yemen) used to transport incense and other valuable items for trade in the

  Mediterranean area. Therefore control of this city gave access to lucrative

  revenues; whoever held the city could bargain with the nomadic Arab

  tribes that needed to be able to export the goods they had transported

  across the desert.133

  If Alexander had been hoping Gaza would capitulate without a fight,

  he was disappointed. Guarding this mighty fortress, built on raised ground

  overlooking a plain, was a detachment of Arab soldiers. They had

  abundant supplies of food and fresh water from natural sources. Those

  besieging the fortress, on the other hand, had to have food and drinking

  water transported to them over considerable distances. The fortress was

  commanded by Batis, whom Arrian calls a eunuch, though, as explained

  earlier, this could simply mean he was a high-ranking Persian official. In

  the extant fragments of the work of the Hellenistic historian, Hegesias,

  Batis is called a king; he is also called a king in Semitic inscription ( melek)

  on a coin reputedly issued at Gaza. It is therefore probable that he was a

  local Arab ruler whom the Great King had appointed to a high Persian

  132 Curt., 4.8.9; Chron. Euseb., 2.223. Cross 1963; Seibert 1985, p. 90; Bosworth

  1988, pp. 232-233.

  133 Za. , 9.5-8; Curt., 4.5.10. Delcor 1951, pp. 117, 120; Lane Fox 1973, p. 191;

  Engels 1978, pp. 57-58; Högemann 1985, pp. 47-49; Briant 1996, p. 736.

  198

  Chapter IV

  office and entrusted with the defence of Gaza. 134 An attempt to

  immediately capture Gaza failed, so Alexander had to prepare a siege and

  have his war engines shipped over from Phoenicia. He spent two months

  outside Gaza, probably in September and October 332, overseeing very

  o
nerous engineering works. In order to be able to use their siege engines

  the Macedonians needed to heap the hard sandy soil to build ramps leading

  up to the knoll on which the fortress stood; at the same time they also

  excavated the soil beneath the fortress’s walls. The defenders did not look

  on passively and instead organised raids on the besiegers. Alexander was

  himself wounded twice during this siege – once he was injured with an

  arrow in his shoulder and on another occasion his leg was hit with a stone.

  Once the ramp was ready the siege engines were brought up and the

  storming began. The undermined sections of the wall collapsed but,

  despite this, the defenders repelled three Macedonian assaults. Finally an

  attack conducted simultaneously from various sides broke the city’s

  defences. The first to scale the wall was Neoptolemus of the royal Aeacid

  dynasty from Epirus, and therefore a relative of Alexander’s. The

  Macedonians slaughtered the brave defenders; Hegesias mentions 4,000

  and Curtius 10,000 killed. In keeping with the customs of that age, the

  women and children were sold into slavery. Alexander had the captured

  Batis tied to his chariot and dragged around the city. With this barbaric

  deed Alexander was, in his own words, following the example of Achilles,

  who in this way defiled the corpse of Hector at Troy. Gaza was now

  settled with a new population, but it remained an important military base.

  Before his departure for Egypt, Alexander sent Amyntas back to

  Macedonia to raise yet more reinforcements, which would indicate that

  during the 332 campaign the Macedonians incurred greater losses than the

  ancient sources record.135

  6. The son of Ammon

  Egypt was that part of the Persian Empire where the rule of the

  Achaemenids was the least stabilised. Although it had already been

  conquered by Cambyses in 525, this country experienced many rebellions

  and on more than one occasion broke itself free from the Great King’s

  134 Arr., An. , 2.25.4; Curt., 4.6.7; Hegesias, FGrH, 142 F5; J., AJ, 11.8; D.H., Comp. , 18; It. Alex. , 45. Delcor 1951, p. 119; Engels 1978, pp. 58-59; Bosworth 1980, pp. 257-258; Atkinson 1980, pp. 334-336; Briant 1996, pp. 287, 945.

 

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