Soldier, Priest, and God

by F S Naiden

  Cyrus wore several crowns. When dealing with Iranians, he wore the crown of Anshan. When dealing with Babylonians, he wore the Babylonian crown. When dealing with the Jews, he wore no local crown at all. He knew they were sensitive on this point. Whereas the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and driven the Hebrews into exile, Cyrus let them return and rebuild the temple.20

  Cyrus died in 530, fighting in Central Asia, and so the task of conquering Egypt fell to his son, Cambyses. Cambyses was the first man to rule all of Egypt as well as the Fertile Crescent. He governed Egypt as pharaoh, Mesopotamia as king of Babylon, and the rest under the Mesopotamian title King of the Lands. From Cambyses, the Persian Empire went downhill to the present usurper, the so-called Darius, who had titles, yes, but was not king of Babylon, and who had recovered Egypt only two years earlier.21

  Alexander was not the first European to admire Cyrus but disparage subsequent Persian rulers. For centuries, Greek intellectuals had maintained a sort of fan club for Cyrus. Xenophon wrote that Cyrus was pious, abstemious, and attentive to the needs of his soldiers rather than to his own—all good qualities for a leader of companions. Xenophon’s Cyrus was a diviner, like Alexander and all Macedonian kings. The Cyrus of Herodotus was another kind of Greek fantasy, a mountaineer who lived simply and warned the Persians against the temptations of life in Babylon and other low-lying metropoles. This image must have appealed to the Macedonian soldiery. In any war against Persia, the Macedonians would be the rustics—the mountaineers with stronger limbs and simpler and healthier diets than an army of lowlanders.22

  Alexander proposed not so much to conquer and absorb the Persian Empire as to take it apart and reassemble it. At the level of operations and tactics, Alexander had the advantage of an army of companions. At the level of strategy, he had the advantage of audacity.

  during the winter of 335–34, Alexander held council meetings to form a plan to attack the Persians. At these meetings the king and his companions transacted both military and political business in an atmosphere established by offerings to Zeus, who was the god of public business as well as of companionship. Participants were on their best behavior. Violence was unthinkable; the companions, writing their memoirs years later, attributed violence at meetings only to gatherings of the followers of Darius.23

  The council met often. Before big battles, a large group might gather several times. On campaign, a small group gathered every morning to discuss the line of march. Years later, when some of the companions were writing, they recorded only the most exciting meetings, such as those before battles, or courts-martial, or special sacrifices. Yet meetings covered all sorts of business, from the line of march and the king’s health to diplomacy and strategy.24

  As always, the king’s heralds issued a summons to those invited. All stood until Alexander bade them sit. He spoke first and presented the day’s business. Then he asked the formulaic question “What does it please you to do?” As custom provided, the first ones to reply were the senior councilors. On one occasion, Antipater and Parmenio removed their headgear (another custom) and asked why the king should make plans to go to Asia before securing his position in Europe. He needed to marry and get an heir, in case the next rumor of his death in battle proved true.25

  Alexander refused. After a debate, Parmenio, Antipater, and their supporters gave way. Because of the solemn atmosphere imparted by Zeus and tradition, disagreements like this did not lead to a break. Councilors never even voted. They reached consensus, even if they had to pretend to.26

  Alexander’s secretary, a Greek companion named Eumenes, told the council about the cost of the Persian invasion in talents, the biblical weight of silver widely used as a standard of value. Alexander would have to meet a payroll of about 45,000 soldiers costing about 225 talents a month.27

  Now add the cost of the necessary ships and crews. Crossing the Hellespont would take sixty ships, plus some merchant vessels. Alexander would also have to pay for a battle fleet of comparable size. Cost per ship, including maintenance of each vessel as well as maintenance and wages for the crew: a little over a talent per month. Although the Greek allies might pay some of these costs, Alexander had to pay the entire cost of building vessels. Few if any shipwrights would be slaves. Alexander must pay them, too.28

  Now the arithmetic: a base of 225 talents a month for the 45,000 soldiers, and up to 300 for ships, plus the cost of fodder and everything from horse hair to spear points. The grand total might be 7,000 to 10,000 talents a year. This sum was eighty or a hundred times what Athens spent to build the fleet that defeated the Persians in 480. It far exceeded Philip’s annual revenue. On top of that, Alexander had inherited Philip’s considerable debts and reduced his own revenue by exempting Macedonians from taxation. That gesture had won him the support of his soldiers, but now it made paying them harder. To make matters even worse, Alexander had already borrowed money from the companions, and so he would have to repay these loans as well as pay their salaries.29

  Paying the religious costs of the invasion would be a solemn matter of honor. Besides providing sacrifices on behalf of his army, Alexander would have to provide accompanying rewards for his companions. He would have to provide sacrifices on behalf of conquered populations, too. Whatever the local god, Alexander would have to build or rebuild shrines and dedicate costly statues, altars, and the like. He would have to make some costly promises to suppliants. Then he would have to keep his word.

  These practical and religious requirements dictated the invaders’ itinerary. In the words of the bank robber Willie Sutton, they must go where the money was: the great shrines and the cities around them. Once they got there, Alexander must make sacrifices and dispense largesse as well as seize assets, and so the cycle of high costs, temple visits, and more high costs would begin anew. Worship and finance were intertwined.

  Once the council made plans, Alexander sacrificed to Zeus at Dium, the chief Macedonian shrine, and gave his men a feast. He wanted a portent or two, and his father’s diviner, Aristander, found one for him. Out in the countryside, a wooden statue of Orpheus, a poet but also an epic adventurer, had begun to ooze sap as though it were a living tree. That, Aristander said, showed that Alexander’s deeds would inspire another Orpheus.30

  After the feast, Alexander led his men from Dium to the frontier, at Abdera, on the coastal road to Asia. Parmenio came from Anatolia to join Alexander and together they marshaled the army.

  Parmenio knew the army better than Alexander did. In the course of a long career, he had led a campaign in Illyria, gone to Athens as a diplomat, and suppressed a pro-Athenian rebellion against Macedon on Euboea. Besides being experienced, he was ruthless. Although Attalus had married his daughter, Parmenio ordered Attalus’s death. Wherever Alexander looked, he would see Parmenio or Parmenio’s sons and in-laws, a number of whom were high commanders.

  And everywhere Alexander looked, he would see officers trained by Philip. In the Macedonian infantry, there was an officer for every seven men. (Only the Spartan army had as many officers, and it was far smaller. The Persian army had fewer officers.)31 Macedonians would command most allied troops.

  Alexander mustered the officers and men of his strike force, which would serve as the right wing of the army in big battles and sometimes operate independently. Parmenio’s oldest son, Philotas, headed the most important unit, the 1,800 lancers of the companion cavalry. Another son, Nicanor, commanded the second-most-important unit, the 3,000 shield bearers, a post he had held since before Chaeronea. Third came hundreds of javelin throwers from the mountains in the upper valley of Macedon’s chief river, the Strymon. In battle, they formed a screen for the Macedonians. They served under a commander appointed by their own king, a longtime friend to Philip.32

  Alexander also selected hundreds of archers from the Greek islands. The best-equipped, the Cretan archers, served under their own commanders. Fewest in number, but first in the line of march, were hundreds of scouts, from Thrac
e in the Balkans.

  Parmenio’s larger but somewhat less select force centered on the 9,000 foot companions of the heavy infantry known as the phalanx. Half came from the Macedonian highlands. Coenus, one of the best regimental commanders, was Parmenio’s son-in-law. Parmenio also received the 1,800 Thessalian cavalry lent to Alexander because he was general of the Thessalians. Parmenio had fewer javelin men and archers than Alexander, but he did have the services of hundreds of Greek cavalry and 7,000 Greek infantry useful as reserves or garrisons. These men employed more slaves than Macedonian or Balkan troops, and consumed that much more food and water.33

  Thousands of noncombatants such as boatmen, artillerists, and surgeons marched mostly with Parmenio. The army would need boatmen as soon as it reached the Hellespont, and artillery for fortified cities. It would need surgeons from start to finish. Each life counted, especially each Macedonian life. A medical corps was cheaper than replacing companions.

  Parmenio also marshaled hundreds of wagons and many hundreds of teamsters, not to mention thousands of mules. To keep the baggage train from being miles longer than it was already, the quartermasters struck a balance between making animals carry food and fodder and relying on comestibles kept in storehouses en route. For now, the army would carry several days’ worth of comestibles, amounting to more than a ton. Storehouses would supply the rest. Once the army left friendly territory, storehouses would be harder to come by. The mules would have to work harder, and the army would have to work harder, too, sending foragers far and wide.34

  One day a week, the mules would insist on resting. The behavior of the men was harder to predict. If the omens and offerings proved unsatisfactory, they would not advance, just as they would not fight at forbidden times. These human factors were Alexander’s responsibility. As priest, he would decide which omens were propitious. As king, he could adjust the forbidden times in the calendar. One was the month of Daisios, the Macedonian harvest time, only weeks away. They must cross soon. If they did not reach Asia in spring, while the grain was milk-ripe, they would face shortages that no miracle of logistics could cover.35 Finally, Alexander needed to leave behind a prestigious commander with enough troops to control Macedon, Greece, and the Balkans. He allotted half of the Macedonian cavalry and heavy infantry, plus other personnel ranging from artillerists to surgeons, to Antipater. Alexander had no choice but to assign this task to the oldest of all Philip’s associates, just as an American vice president who succeeds an assassinated president must stick with senior members of his predecessor’s cabinet.36

  Like Parmenio, Antipater had won battles before Alexander was born, and Alexander grew up watching Antipater serve as Philip’s replacement on occasions such as the Pythian Games at Delphi. Now Antipater as well as Parmenio would command more troops than those assigned to Alexander’s strike force. Antipater would also serve as regent in Macedon, in charge of Alexander’s relatives. In spite of—or because of—the responsibilities he gave Antipater, Alexander did not quite trust him. Antipater, he said, was white on the outside, but royal purple on the inside. Alexander’s mother, Olympias, regarded Antipater as a covert usurper. For his part, Antipater regarded Olympias as a nuisance.37

  On the eve of the army’s departure, Parmenio built a shrine to Zeus, the patron of companions. He gave the customary offerings to Zeus and added offerings to Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, asking for good luck on the forthcoming expedition. Macedonians and Greeks regarded the voyage of Jason and his men as the supreme example of a long, successful journey. Jason, a mere youth, led Heracles, Orpheus, and other heroes on a search for the Golden Fleece, a treasure kept under guard by the family of the sun god at the far end of the Black Sea. With Medea’s help they stole it, and Jason and most of the others returned safely.38

  Jason’s were the first companions to worship Zeus, preceding the companions of the Trojan War by a generation. Like Macedonian companions, the Argonauts made a sacrificial pledge to serve their leader and cooperate with one another. Like Alexander, Jason promised pelf and glory, or, failing that, honorable burial.39

  We do not know whether Alexander attended this ceremony. He could not have welcomed the tacit comparison between himself and Jason, a novice soldier who led by consensus yet was honored as a hero. Nor could he have liked seeing Parmenio take the religious lead.

  Parmenio and his fellow worshippers made an elaborate inaugural sacrifice at the shrine. Perhaps they swore a vow, promising some gift to Zeus and Jason if the expedition prospered. Many of them did not keep it. Like Alexander, they would never return home.

  the army now began a two-week march to the Hellespont. When they arrived they camped at Sestos, the usual place of embarkation for Asia. Behind them rose the cliffs of Europe, where crops grew on the heights. Before them stretched the Dardanelles and Anatolia, all beaches and marshy flats. Although Anatolia lay close to Macedon, it was in some respects less well known than some faraway lands such as Phoenicia or Egypt. Europe seemed solid, small, and easy to view at a glance, Anatolia vast but tenuous.

  To get supplies, and also bullion, the army should head for the nearest Persian provincial capital, Dascylium, about seventy-five miles southeast. From there they could take a local road eastward and merge with a main road lined with wells and storehouses. It was broad and well maintained until it reached the Cilician Gates, a pass leading to the rest of Asia through the Antitaurus Mountains.40

  If they wanted more gold than Dascylium offered, they should sail south and head inland, via Ephesus, a rich town, and then Sardis, a provincial capital that was the richest in Anatolia. Xenophon and 10,000 fellow mercenaries had followed this route. After passing Sardis, they had gone up the valley to Celaenae, another store of wealth, and then due east, toward the Cilician Gates.

  Meeting with his generals, Alexander opposed targeting Dascylium, and he also opposed heading south, into the valley. Rather than take a town or valley, he wished to defeat the enemy in battle as soon as possible. He could offer an obvious military reason. The previous year Parmenio had fought unsuccessfully against the Persians. Cyzicus, a Greek port city in this region, had rebelled, and Parmenio tried to capitalize on the rebellion. Parmenio and 10,000 troops set out from Abydos, near Troy, and moved south, only to be attacked by Memnon of Rhodes, a mercenary serving as the local Persian commander. Memnon captured Cyzicus and then drove Parmenio back to Abydos. If the Macedonians did not defeat Memnon, their reputation for prowess would suffer. They must inaugurate their campaign with a victory over Memnon and the Anatolian satraps fighting alongside him.41

  The generals agreed, only to hear Alexander announce a plan that seemed to contradict the first one. Rather than cross the strait, land at Abydos, and then march against the Persians, Alexander wished to loiter while he performed religious duties. First he would perform water-crossing rites at the Hellespont, and then he and an escort would leave the army at Abydos and go to Troy, which lay well to the south. He wanted to worship at the shrine of his ancestor Achilles, a gesture that would increase his own prestige. The rest of the army must stay at Abydos and wait for him. Once he returned, the reunited army would march out and draw the enemy into a fight.

  On military grounds, the council might object to this diversion, but because it was religious, Alexander could insist on it. The councilors could not tell him that rites before crossing a body of water were normal but rites in honor of an ancestor such as Achilles were not.

  Parmenio and the main body left from the port at Sestos, but Alexander left from a nearby spot, the tomb of Protesilaus, one of many heroes buried along the waterway. Protesilaus had been the first Greek killed at Troy, falling when he stepped ashore from his boat. Honoring him would please the Greeks in the army, and stepping ashore without mishap would show them that Alexander did not mean to be defeated. After honoring Protesilaus, Alexander sailed out into the strait, pausing to sacrifice a bull to Poseidon and to pour libations to the sea nymphs. Then he joined the rest of the fleet and crossed to As
ia.

  Their destination, near Abydos, lay several miles downstream. The dozens of boats all had to travel some way against the current, then swerve into it and float into the middle of the channel. When they reached the shore, Alexander leapt out first and threw his spear into the sand, claiming all the lands of the Persian Empire. Zeus and the heroes would give it to him—provided that he took it. Then he erected altars and prayed to Zeus, Athena, and Heracles, his favorite trio of gods, to convince enemies everywhere to accept him as king.42

  With this piece of showmanship, Alexander turned the invasion into a world war. Zeus, the king, and the companions would take on all of civilization (or as much as the Macedonians were aware of). Civilization would resist, but how well and how long would depend on the attitude of more gods—Amon, Marduk, and many others. If these gods turned out to be allies or alter egos of Zeus, the companions would prevail in the struggle. Civilization would be theirs to rule.43

  Alexander proceeded to Troy with some cavalry. Described by Homer as a city, Troy was merely a village, with supposedly ancient shrines and bric-a-brac. The visitors put a garland on Achilles’s tomb and borrowed some heroic weapons from the shrine of Athena for use in battle against the Persians (offered the lyre of Paris, Alexander rejected it). In spite of his debts, Alexander promised to build Athena a better shrine, and found a new city besides.

  Alexander also went to a household altar of Zeus and spoke to the ghost of Priam, king of Troy during the Achaean attack. Achilles’s son, Alexander’s ancestor, had killed Priam while the old man was supplicating at what was supposedly the same altar. Alexander begged Priam for forgiveness.44

  Even more than the rituals performed at the Hellespont, the pilgrimage to Troy set the terms for the peculiar war Alexander had envisioned. To him and to all Greeks and Macedonians—one might almost say, to all literate Europeans—Troy symbolized Asia. They thought of Troy as one of Asia’s greatest cities, like Babylon or Susa. When Alexander’s ancestor Achilles and the other Achaean heroes attacked Troy, the Trojans supposedly appealed to Babylon and Susa for help. In defeating Troy, the Achaeans had defeated the rest of Asia, too. Under Alexander, Greek-speaking invaders would do it again.45