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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.
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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.
King of Asia
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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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