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  army had had to continually struggle to quell rebellions in these provinces

  for two years. Only the policy of adapting to local customs and accepting

  local social structures made possible the establishment of long-lasting

  peace in north-eastern Iran.133 A recently published Aramaic document

  found in Afghanistan bears the date in the 7th year of king Alexander (9

  June 324). It together with a few, harder to date documents, show the

  administration working in Bactria along the lines typical of the

  Achaemenid empire, thus pointing to continuity under Alexander rather

  than a radical change134.

  Appreciation of the military value of the inhabitants of these provinces

  is evidenced by the drafting of 30,000 Iranian youths who were not only to

  be taught the Macedonian methods of fighting but also the language and

  elements of Greek culture. This was Alexander’s successive step, after the

  recruiting of Bactrian and Sogdian horsemen, in reforming his army so as

  not have to rely so much on Greeks and Macedonians.135 The last mopping

  up operation after the Sogdian revolt was Craterus’ crushing defeat of the

  most diehard rebels commanded by Catanes and Austanes in the spring of

  327. Craterus’ corps, comprising the very best Macedonian troops,

  132 Curt., 8.4.25; Plu., Alex. , 47.7. Wilcken 1967, pp. 162-163; Schachermeyr 1973,

  p. 355; Holt 1988, pp. 67-68; O’Brien 1992, pp. 140-141; Hamilton 1999, pp. 129-

  130; Ogden 1999, p. 44; Carney 2000, pp. 106-107.

  133 Arr., An. , 4.22.3. Badian 1985, p. 456; Holt 1988, pp. 68-70; Bosworth 1995, pp.

  142-143; Hammond 1996, p. 202.

  134 Allen 2005, p. 152.

  135 Curt., 8.5.1; Plu., Alex. , 47.6. Schachermeyr 1973, pp. 360-361; Hamilton 1999,

  pp. 128-129.

  King of Asia

  285

  slaughtered 1,600 of the enemy on the battlefield. Polyperchon,Craterus’

  subordinate, also pacified a land Curtius calls Bubacene. Next Craterus’

  corps joined Alexander’s main forces which were stationed at the time in

  Bactria.136

  8. Time of intrigues and anxiety

  The Macedonian army’s long stay in Bactria and Sogdiana was marked

  not only as a time of gritty struggles against local rebels but also of an

  unprecedented level of tension and unease within Alexander’s officer

  corps and court. A contributing factor or perhaps even the main cause was

  Alexander’s policy of ‘orientalization’. This was something even

  Alexander’s closest companions found difficult to accept. The first clash

  occurred during a feast held in Maracanda in the autumn of 328.

  Alexander’s court inherited the Macedonian tradition of feasting, which

  thanks to Persian booty became even more lavish. Another incentive for

  sumptuous banquets was the generally accepted notion in the East that a

  monarch’s feast symbolised his happiness, wealth and providence (the

  extent to which the gods favoured him). Alexander’s feasts could have

  included up to 200 guests, though a more common number would have

  been from 60 to 70. The guests would have included artists and

  philosophers as well as the most trusted of Alexander’s hetairoi. One can

  assume that Alexander’s guests formed an elite circle of authority from

  where generals and satraps were appointed. The king could also sound his

  Companions over the drinks in matters likely to create rifts among the

  court elite and army. Macedonian feasts had a set routine which was

  similar to that of Greek feasts, though with some significant differences.

  Like in Greece, the guests lay on couches in a semi reclined position,

  propping themselves up with the left elbow. Like in Greece, the feast was

  composed of two parts. During the first part the meal was consumed, but

  we know virtually nothing about what would have been served. The

  second part involved the consumption of wine. A major difference

  between a Macedonian royal feast and ones organised by Greek elites is

  that the former lasted much longer, from early evening till dawn. The other

  difference, eagerly stressed by Greek authors, was the drinking of

  undiluted wine, whereas the Greeks always mixed their wine with water.

  This is partly confirmed by archaeological finds. Apart from weapons, the

  items most commonly found in the graves of Macedonian warriors are

  136 Arr., An. , 4.22.1-2 ; Curt., 8.5.2. Seibert 1985, p. 144; Bosworth 1995, pp. 139-

  141.

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  vessels for drinking wine. On the other hand, we very rarely find vessels

  for mixing wine, which were very common in Greece. Among the

  Macedonians excessive consumption of alcohol was not considered a fault

  but a virtue. Drinking to get drunk was considered normal and the sources

  record cases of people losing their lives in competitions to see who could

  drink the greatest quantity of wine. Philip II was known for his alcoholic

  excesses therefore, as in everything, Alexander tried to outdo his father in

  this respect also. There is no evidence in the sources to suggest that

  Alexander suffered from alcoholism as a disease but it is difficult not to

  associate his occasional outbursts of extremely violent behaviour and his

  eruptions of destructive anger with his systematic and excessive

  consumption of alcohol.137

  The feast at Maracanda took place towards the end of the second year

  of the toughest campaigns the Macedonian army had fought so far. The

  countless battles, skirmishes and acts of terror committed against the

  civilian population did not seem to have brought the Macedonians any

  closer to solving the situation. No doubt many in the army would have

  agreed with Plutarch in comparing the campaign to fighting the

  mythological hydra, whose severed heads continually grew back. The

  tense atmosphere among the soldiers must have been further exasperated

  by the long time they had now spent in a quite alien environment where

  communication with the locals was only possible with the help of one or

  several interpreters. The general tiredness, stress, and combat fatigue also

  affected the banqueters at Maracanda. In such circumstances the very

  negative emotions some of the hetairoi had so far kept suppressed could

  be released with an abrupt outburst by the excessive consumption of

  alcohol. One of the most distinguished and loyal of Alexander’s high-

  ranking officers, Cleitus, was enraged by Alexander’s courtiers who at the

  feast were claiming the king was greater than his father, Philip, the

  Dioscuri, whose festival they were that day celebrating, and even the hero

  Heracles. To a man of pure convictions, one who treated religious matters

  seriously, the latter comments seemed to sound too much like sacrilege.

  But what proved to be the last straw was a song sung by some third-rate

  poet by the name of Pranichus or Pierion which mocked those

  Macedonians who had recently been defeated by the Sogdians. Many felt

  outrage but only Cleitus openly protested. The king responded by claiming

  that what Cleitus had called a misfortune that had befallen the vanquished

  Macedonians was in reality cowardice. Cleitus immediately hit back by

  137 E
phippus, ap. Ath., 3.91, 10.44; Ael., VH, 12.26. Tomlinson 1970, p. 309;

  Borza 1983; O’Brien 1992, pp. 6-8; Flower 1994, pp. 107-111; Murray 1996; Rice

  1997, pp. 92-93; Spawforth 2007, pp. 85-86.

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  287

  reminding Alexander of how he had saved his life at Granicus as well as

  how he would have never got so far without those Macedonians who had

  spilled their blood for him, and in these arguments he did not fail to

  include a spiteful comment regarding the Alexander’s supposed godly

  father. On top of that, Cleitus now also angrily accused Alexander of

  increasingly absolutist tendencies, the orientalization of his court and of

  surrounding himself by barbarians because, as Cleitus claimed, he could

  no longer stand to be among free men. Incensed by these biting remarks

  and the open questioning of his policies, Alexander threw an apple at the

  speaker and next reached out for his blade, but one of his bodyguards,

  Aristonous, managed to hide it from him in time. With considerable

  civilian courage and alertness Aristonous as well as other Macedonian

  officers and soldiers present at the feast endeavoured to keep the two

  drunken antagonists apart. They begged Alexander to calm down. But the

  king rose to his feet and in Macedonian – which was a sign of great

  emotion – summoned the hypaspists guarding the doors. Next he ordered

  the trumpeter to give the signal summoning the army. When the trumpeter,

  fearing the grave consequences of such an action, ignored this order, the

  king punched him in the face and, being instantly held back by his friends,

  in an attack of hysteria cried out that he had been betrayed as Darius

  before him. At the same time Cleitus was escorted by force out of the

  banqueting hall. However, he soon returned and as provocatively as he

  could, cited Euripides’s Andromache: ‘Oh, how perverse customs are in

  Greece.’ Riled by this, Alexander grabbed a spear from one of the

  guardsmen and ran it through Cleitus. Next, with a genuine or affected

  pang of guilt, he tried to use the same spear to kill himself but was of

  course instantly restrained by his friends.138

  Experiencing deep grief after murdering his friend, Alexander spent

  the next three days lamenting in total seclusion in his tent, refusing to

  accept food or drink. His friends, wishing to pull him out of this state of

  depression, brought him the soothsayer Aristander, who reminded the king

  that there had been signs preceding Cleitus’s death and he tried to

  convince him that this was the will of the gods. They also brought him the

  peripatetic philosopher Callisthenes to try and cheer him up, but also to no

  138 Plu., Alex. , 50-51 (the best source, perhaps after Chares); Plu., mor. , 71c, 341f; Arr., An. , 4.8.1-9.2; Curt., 8.1.19-2.4; Diod., 17.kz; Cic., Tusc. , 4.79; Sen., Ep. , 83.19; Luc., DMort. , 12.3-4; Just., 12.6; It. Alex. , 90-91; Suda, s.v. metaxÚ.

  Quotation from Euripides is after Kovacs (Loeb). Wilcken 1967, pp. 166-167;

  Schachermeyr 1973, pp. 364-369; Green 1974, pp. 360-364; Goukowsky 1978, pp.

  44-45; Badian 1985, pp. 456-457; Heckel 1992, p. 275; Bosworth 1996a, pp. 98-

  103; Hamilton 1999, pp. 139, 143-144; Trittle 2003.

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  avail. The Democritic philosopher Anaxarchus of Abdera, however, had

  more success by comparing Alexander to Zeus, all of whose deeds were

  by definition lawful and just. Anaxarchus was in a sense alluding to a

  theoretical concept present in Greek thought regarding the ideal ruler,

  which flatterers could associate with Alexander. On the other hand,

  although the arguments were presented in a traditional form referring to

  Zeus, the philosopher’s thoughts were also not devoid of Iranian concepts

  regarding absolutist monarchy, something that was quite new to the Greek

  world. That such arguments proved successful says a great deal about the

  atmosphere of unrestrained flattery that must have surrounded Alexander

  at the time. Worse still, this incident indicates that Alexander considered

  himself to be someone quite exceptional who could not be subjected to

  open criticism.139 Prophets found the reason for Alexander’s fury in his

  mind being obscured by Dionysus. The king had failed to make the god a

  sacrifice that year and thus, they explained, Cleitus was murdered. There is

  no reason to doubt that most Macedonians would have quite willingly

  accepted this explanation. Now there was only the formality of trying

  Cleitus in absentia before an assembly of soldiers and officially sentencing

  him to death for treason. For the ordinary soldier a dispute between the

  king and one of the aristocratic commanders was undoubtedly of much

  less importance than Alexander’s health and safety, on which their own

  fate and eventual return home depended.140 Alexander in turn, for all the

  no doubt genuine regret shown after the death of such a loyal companion,

  was not inclined to change in any way the policy so much criticised by

  Cleitus and for which the general ultimately paid with his life. It is

  possible that the whole incident, which actually strengthened the position

  of the king with regard to his hetairoi, inclined Alexander to rely all the

  more on his Iranian subjects.141

  In the spring of 327 this stance led to another conflict between

  Alexander and his Macedonian companions. At the time, after another

  wave of capitulations among the eastern Iranian lords and Alexander’s

  marriage to the Bactrian princess Rhoxane, the king’s entourage must have

  included an unprecedented number of Iranian aristocrats and courtiers.

  Alexander made a serious effort to adapt his court to the customs practiced

  by the now prevailing majority of his subjects. No doubt he realised that

  139 Plu., Alex. , 52.1-7; Plu., mor. , 449e; Arr., An. , 4.9.3-9; Curt., 8.2.1-11.

  Goukowsky 1978, p. 46; Bosworth 1988, p. 115; Bosworth 1996a, pp. 103-106;

  Hamilton 1999, pp. 145-146.

  140 Arr., An. , 4.8.1-2, 4.9.5; Curt., 8.2.12; Diod., 17.kz. Badian 1964, pp. 197-198;

  Goukowsky 1978, pp. 45-46; Bosworth 1996a, p. 104.

  141 Arr., An. , 4.9.9. Wilcken 1967, pp. 167-168.

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  289

  he could not be the Great King to some and merely the first among equals

  to others for long. Already in Hyrcania he had given his hetairoi Persian

  robes, which they most probably used on certain ceremonial occasions. A

  groundbreaking measure was Alexander’s attempt to extend the

  proskynesis ceremony to all his subjects. The Iranians had naturally

  greeted him in such a way since at least Issus; among the first to do so

  were the captured members of Darius III’s family (see: Chapter IV.5).142

  Proskynesis was a ceremonial bow which everyone standing before the

  majesty of the king had to take. Reliefs at Persepolis show aristocrats

  bowed their heads and kissed their own hands, whereas people from the

  lower orders were expected to fall to their knees and bow their heads to the

  ground. To the Great King’s subjects and indeed throughout the Near East

  proskynesis was the universally accepted way of paying respects to the

  majesty of the monarch. Unfortunately in the Greek world such
gestures

  were reserved for the cults of deities. Many sources show that for a Greek

  the paying of respect in such a way to a Persian king would have been

  tantamount to the sacrilege of treating an ordinary mortal as a god.143 No

  doubt of all the courtly customs proskynesis was the one that marked the

  greatest difference between the Greeks and Macedonians on the one hand

  and Alexander’s Asian subjects on the other. Regardless of this, if

  Alexander wished to unite his entire court and his ruling elites according

  to the same principles, then the introduction of proskynesis was hard to

  avoid.144

  The matter was naturally of an extremely delicate nature and it was

  feared that it could become the cause of serious tensions. That is why the

  introduction of proskynesis to Greeks and Macedonians was begun in the

  spring of 327 when Alexander’s army was most probably staying in Bactra

  and some of the most traditionalist military leaders, including the very

  much respected Craterus, were absent. It was preceded by debates among

  Greek court intellectuals (Anaxarchus, Agis of Argos and Cleon of Sicily)

  who reached the conclusion that, as humanity’s benefactor, Alexander was

  no less worthy of his own cult than the Dioscuri, Dionysus or Heracles.145

  The next step was for the act of proskynesis to be performed by a small

  circle of courtiers and close friends during a small feast. So as not to be

  overly offensive to the Macedonians and Greeks, its traditional Persian

  form was specially modified in that the banqueters at first did not face

  142 Balsdon 1950, pp. 376-377; Bosworth 1996a, p. 110; Heckel 2009, p. 46.

  143 Frye 1972; Lane Fox 1973, pp. 320-322; Bosworth 1988, pp. 284-285; Briant

  1996, pp. 234-235; Chosky 2002; Spawforth 2007, pp. 102-104.

  144 Schachermeyr 1973, pp. 373-374.

  145 Arr., An. , 4.10.6-7; Curt., 8.5.5-9. Bosworth 1996a, pp. 109-111.

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  their king but the house altar. They were to drink wine from a cup,

  perform proskynesis and next exchange kisses with Alexander. Even this

 

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