Soldier, Priest, and God

by F S Naiden

  By associating himself with Achilles, who had fought so famously to protect and avenge his own companions, Alexander assured his Macedonians that he would protect them, even placing their lives ahead of his own. By taking arms from Athena, he assured them that he and they would prevail and that Athena would be of help in this region in particular. So far so good, but emulating Achilles also implied that, like Achilles, Alexander would die young, and that the Asian territory he captured would eventually belong to the companions, not to him. Since Greeks worshipped Achilles as a hero, Alexander was implying that his own men and others would worship him, too, but after his death.

  By promising to build a new city and shrine at Troy, Alexander defined for the companions his notion of ruling Asia. If a city had declined, Alexander and the companions should restore it. Above all, they should restore shrines and worship in them, honoring the gods’ altars and the rights of suppliants. They should never think that the ghosts of the dead were unobservant or powerless. Ancient kings such as Priam were still alive, if only as wraiths, and conquerors needed not only to respect them but also to regard them as models.

  When Parmenio worshipped Zeus and Jason at Abdera, a few weeks before, the old general sent altogether different messages. Parmenio said nothing at all to the people of Asia. He addressed himself only to the god, the hero, and the companions—three parties that the companions knew from their own cult of Zeus. Rather than offer them victory, as Alexander did by invoking Athena, Parmenio offered them solidarity. Rather than the prospect of empire, he held out hope of a successful adventure. In Parmenio’s mental map, Troy, Babylon, and Susa were not especially important. In Alexander’s map, these places and Egypt were all-important.

  Parmenio and Alexander might have objected to each other’s religious choices. If Alexander imagined Zeus with Achilles, and Parmenio imagined the same god with Jason, both men could not be perfectly right, even if they had the best of intentions toward Zeus, the heroes, and each other.

  The Macedonian expedition into Asia had begun twice. First Parmenio and the army set out from Abdera, at the frontier of Philip’s kingdom, and they assembled as though they were embarking on an argosy. Next, Alexander and his entourage set out from Troy, on the frontier of Asia, as though he and they were men of a different stamp, Iliadic warriors. A united army carried within it a seed of conflict and division.

  why did alexander separate himself from Parmenio at this juncture? One ancient story about Alexander’s youth suggests that the young king regarded fathers and father figures as burdens rather than parents or companions. In this fanciful tale from ancient Armenia, Olympias is Alexander’s mother, but his father is Nectanebo, an Egyptian exile known to the Macedonians as a priest. As in the Hebrew story at the end of Chapter 1, Alexander does not know the truth about his parentage.46

  Alexander asked Nectanebo, “May all the signs of the Zodiac be recognized, as you have said?” When the Egyptian nodded, Alexander said, “I wish to see them.”

   “Come with me out into the plain tonight, and you shall see them, if the sky is clear,” Nectanebo answered. Alexander agreed, but said, “Let me ask you another question. Tell me how you will die.”

   Nectanebo answered, “I shall perish at the hands of my own son,” as an Egyptian oracle had foretold.

   Once night fell and the moon had risen, and the signs of the Zodiac were visible, they went outside the city. Nectanebo lifted up his eyes and said to the boy, “Observe how gloomy Saturn is, and how Ares looks like blood, and Venus is joyful, and Nabu, Marduk’s scribe, is favorable, and how bright Marduk is.” While the eyes of Nectanebo were fixed on the signs, and both of them were walking along together, Alexander pushed Nectanebo and cast him into a pit. After he had fallen, Nectanebo said, “What were you thinking, my son Alexander, when you stretched out your hand against me and cast me into this pit?”

   Alexander answered, “Sir, you are a fool who does not know what is on earth, yet investigates the sky. I also blame you for being ignorant, for you said that you would die at the hands of your son. You did not know that you would die by my hands.”

   “I did say that,” Nectanebo replied, “and I have not lied.”

   “Am I your son?” Alexander asked.

   Nectanebo told Alexander how he had impersonated the god Amon, gone into Olympias, and begotten him. When he had finished, his soul departed from him and he died.

   Alexander was afraid to leave the body in the pit for animals to devour, so he put it over his shoulders and took it back with him, and buried it in the Egyptian way, but in secret.

  The Egyptian burial Alexander gives his father points to the origin of this story, which was Egyptian. From Egypt the story traveled to other Near Eastern lands, thanks to its being part of the Alexander Romance. The Romance was popular everywhere, but each version of it, and each story derived from it, catered to local or regional taste. The Hebrew story at the end of Chapter 1 compared Alexander to Moses, and this story mentioned two Mesopotamian gods, Nabu and Marduk, both identified as stars.

  Yet both stories told a symbolic truth about the Macedonian invasion. Just as the Hebrew story captured the fabulous or monstrous aspect of the enterprise, this one captured the vulnerability of the invaders. Egypt had the power to define Alexander, and Mesopotamia, with its gods among the stars, had the power to help or hurt him. The invaders were mighty, but the invaded were not helpless.

  3

  The S-Curve

  alexander’s trip to Troy cost the Macedonians about a week they might have spent advancing on the Persians. Instead the Persians had time to prepare, and after Alexander returned they had more, for the army’s long columns made slow progress on the coastal road. The Macedonians would have been glad to take the first big town on the way, Lampsacus, but had to veer away from it to avoid crossing a swift-flowing river. Alexander sent messengers there for food and help, but the Lampsacenes replied with an act of supplication. They begged to refuse, and Alexander was in no position to object to this perverse request. As the army approached the next town, Parium, mountains blocked the way, and they had to turn inland. The third town, Priapus, gave food and aid.1

  Then the army entered a valley that stretched from the coast into the mountains. This, Callisthenes told the companions, was the plain of Adrastus, named after a supplicating Trojan prince killed by Agamemnon. The first shrine to Nemesis, a goddess of revenge, had been built here. A few miles ahead lay another Trojan landmark, the tomb of another Memnon, a general who died at the hands of Achilles in the Trojan War. This Memnon arrived from Susa, one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, even if he was not a Persian. Farther up the coast, Parmenio’s hero, Jason, awaited the Macedonians. Jason had built the temple of Apollo at Cyzicus.2

  The rear of the column had just entered the plain when the scouts approached the Granicus, the first of several rivers on the way to Dascylium. There were few fords and no nearby bridge, and the riverbanks were mostly too steep for horses, especially the small animals the Macedonians rode. For an army on the other side, the river offered a stout defensive position. Persian cavalry lined the opposite bank.

  commanding the cavalry, and all the Persian forces in the region, was the Memnon who had defeated Parmenio. After serving Darius in Egypt, Memnon had received command of all Persian forces in Anatolia, and the defeat of Parmenio had justified the king’s confidence in him. The Persian satraps—one in Dascylium and three more in adjoining territories—reluctantly cooperated with this Greek mercenary.

  The Route of the Expedition Through Anatolia, 334–333 BC.

  Ancient World Mapping Center.

  Several days before the Macedonians arrived at the Granicus, Memnon marshaled his troops at Zeleia, on another of the rivers between the Macedonians and Dascylium. At first he had planned to wait there and let the Macedonians come to him. Zeleia stood beside the only local bridge big enough for an army to cross. Alexander would find it hard to get around or over the bridge, and M
emnon would find it easy to receive reinforcements. If the Macedonians somehow got past Zeleia, the Persians could burn the ripening fields and orchards, and empty the granaries. The invaders would eventually starve.3 They could not extricate themselves. The mountains and the coastal marshes prevented that.

  Memnon had taken a Macedonian or two captive in the fighting against Parmenio, and so he knew that the month of Daisios would soon begin and then the Macedonians would not fight. Zeus expected them to worship him instead (and bring in spring crops). This delay would keep them from battling their way to Dascylium and getting supplies there.4

  Memnon called a council of war that all four of the Persian Anatolian satraps attended. When they heard his plan to avoid battle and burn the fields, they objected. The satrap Arshita, who ruled the town of Dascylium and the country to the east, regarded Alexander as a dangerous regional rival. Spitadatha, the satrap of the lands to the south, including some Greek cities, was a member of the Persian royal family and fielded a personal guard of forty of King Darius’s cavalry. He regarded Alexander as both a rival and a parvenu. The other two satraps had traveled from eastern Anatolia. They objected because they were unfamiliar with Greek and especially Macedonian military prowess. Memnon remonstrated, but they replied that his kind of war would be dishonorable. The Persians must advance and fight. Ahura Mazda, their chief god, expected it.5

  Memnon, the Rhodian mercenary, lost the debate with the cowboys from the high plains of Asia, and not without cause. Unlike the Europeans, the Persians put armor on some of their horses, an innovation, and some riders wore chain mail superior to any Greek or Macedonian armor. The Persians also fielded horse archers using a compound bow better than what the Greeks had. Persian cavalry did not fight in formation, as the Macedonians and Thessalians did, but they surpassed them in skill and athleticism. They could swarm around European armies consisting mainly of infantry and decimate them. (The satraps conceded their own infantry were inferior, and so they employed thousands of Greek mercenary foot soldiers as well as infantry officers such as Memnon. The Persians had no “foot companions,” just cavalry somewhat like the mounted companions.)6

  Memnon and his forces now took up positions on the side of the Granicus opposite the Macedonians. Marshes made the lower part of the river impassible, and the upper part, beyond the confluence of the Granicus and the main tributary, the Koca Çay, was too rugged for most troops, so they stayed in between. Throughout this mile-long stretch, banks up to five yards high would impede the enemy. Perhaps the banks were partly wooded. Today many scrub oaks grow there. The water was deeper than the two to four feet now typical in the springtime. There must have been a ford or two, for there is a very shallow one now, about two miles from the modern shoreline. If the Macedonians crossed, the Persians would attack the advancing column. Memnon knew his enemies fought in formation. He would catch them before they had a chance to assemble.7

  The Macedonians had not reached the river until late afternoon, but they were ready to fight, and Alexander proposed to cross, no matter how steep the banks. He wanted his battle, and he wanted to maintain momentum. The councilors demurred. Every foot companion would need to disassemble his pike and carry the two pieces over his shoulder as he crossed the river. Even if the horses could all swim, the men could not. Supposing the troops did cross, they would fall out of line, and the Persians would be waiting.8

  No, Alexander replied. He had obtained the blessing of Achilles and they must fight. To wait would be dishonorable.

  Parmenio and others disagreed. Alexander suggested that they cross as early as possible the next day, and all agreed.

  Some councilors reported that Macedonians were objecting to fighting during Daisios, which would begin the next day. Speaking as king, Alexander declared that he had postponed the start of Daisios. The calendar needed adjusting, he explained, for it was out of sync with the sun and moon. To this tergiversation the council did not object. The heavenly bodies were his province, not theirs.9

  That night Alexander said his prayers. He would do it before crossing any river, but especially a river guarded by enemies. Zeus was a likely god to invoke on this occasion, and so was Athena, who for Alexander was a goddess of victory. Callisthenes may have suggested a prayer to the spirit of the captured Trojan Adrastus, or to Nemesis, the spirit of revenge, or to the Homeric Memnon, slain by Achilles.10

  A prayer of this sort resembled a legal brief. Zeus, Alexander would explain, must favor the Macedonians over the satraps, just as he had favored Agamemnon and Achilles over the Trojans. The local ghosts of the dead should submit to Macedonian force majeure. The river Granicus should also cooperate. Other local rivers had submitted to the king’s ancestor Achilles.

  The choice of god dictated the offering that should accompany the prayer. An Olympian received a slaughtered animal and some grain tossed on the altar, if there was one. A spirit drank blood from a slaughtered animal poured into the ground. The river received an animal slaughtered beside the water. The king decided who got what. The Macedonians did not have a liturgy. They had only a tradition that the king must adapt day by day.

  These religious customs informed the coming battle. They imparted respect for the terrain, a sense of mission, and an awareness of the vagaries of combat. European and North American soldiers fighting in this region today bring along anthropologists and psychologists. Alexander sought out the gods who were already there.

  the next morning Alexander led his strike force—scouts, companion cavalry, quick-marching shield bearers, and some light troops—across the river at a ford the Persians neglected to defend. Parmenio and the main body crossed after them. As the sun rose over the field beside the river, the parts of Philip’s war machine moved at a speed that may not have surprised Memnon but surely surprised many of the Persians. The Persians now confronted a battle line of about 40,000 extending east of the riverbank.11

  Both armies were trapped. To the north lay the marsh; to the south, broken ground only scouts and other light troops could cross. To the west ran the mostly unfordable Granicus. To the east lay the only bridge, at Zeleia.

  Parmenio, with heavy troops on the left, would hold the enemy fast, and Alexander, with the strike force on the right, would probe for weaknesses. The Greek troops lined up behind the phalanx. The troops stationed in the middle could switch from one commander to the other, depending on circumstances. The Macedonian artillery and the myriad mules would wait in the rear.

  The Persians fought in two lines. Iranian cavalry stood in front, with Arshama and Spitadatha against Alexander, and other Iranians against Parmenio. The Greek mercenary infantry waited in back. The Persian commanders, like many other Near Eastern generals, assumed that the cavalry would attack and disperse any enemy riders, and then do the same to the enemy infantry. The Persians’ own infantry—their best-organized soldiers, the Greek mercenaries—would do nothing more than mop up. The Persian baggage train waited miles away, at Zeleia.

  The gods naturally attended, as they did all battles. Soldiers thought the gods would appear out of nowhere, terrifying enemies. More often the gods were spectators, like the herdsmen who roamed the hills as they would on any other day, or leaned on their crooks to watch. They knew the Persians as the owners of a few local estates and as avid hunters. They knew Troy as a market town, and they associated the Macedonians with Parmenio.12

  Almost all of Alexander’s battles began with Alexander, and so did this one. After ordering the companion cavalry forward, he rode at the front, conspicuous for the two plumes on his helmet. Beside him rode Clitus, his nurse’s brother, who commanded a company of the companions known as the king’s own, and Philotas. Like their men, who were fanning out behind them, they carried no shields and no body armor besides helmets and cuirasses. They depended on cohesiveness, a quality that came partly from the horses. The best horse, the leader of the herd, led the way. That was Bucephalas, Alexander’s mount. Other bold horses ran just behind him. Those belonged to Clitus, Phi
lotas, and the other top officers. Then came the less intrepid animals, following along. The enlisted men rode those. At the back corners of the formation, outstanding mounts kept the herd together. Lower-ranking officers rode those. The horses were companions, too, guided by instinct. The Thessalian cavalry controlled by Parmenio operated the same way.13

  Although the horses trotted and did not gallop, the shield bearers could not keep up. The heavy infantry, beginning with Perdiccas, could not keep up with the shield bearers, and so the army advanced in echelon. Once the antagonists drew near, two engagements began.

  Alexander and the companions brushed aside the inferior cavalry of the satrap Arshita, and this force fled toward Dascylium. Alexander now re-formed his men and turned toward the next satrap, Spitadatha of Ionia. These Persians fought harder. Their leaders led from the front, no less than Alexander did. Again and again they strove to kill him. One struck Alexander in the head with a scimitar, cutting off one of the two plumes, but Alexander’s helmet deflected the blow. Spitadatha himself raised his scimitar to hit Alexander from behind, but Clitus, still beside his king, swung his own sword, shaped like a curved meat cleaver, and cut off Spitadatha’s arm at the shoulder. In this sector of the battle, Spitadatha’s death proved decisive. His very best men dispersed, and so did the rest of his troops.14

  A second engagement pitted the Thessalians, stationed at the far end of the line, against the Bactrians, who attacked, circling and shooting arrows. Since the Macedonian phalanx stood nearby, in the middle of the battlefield, the Bactrians lacked room to maneuver. The Thessalians carried shields, unlike Macedonian cavalry, and withstood the barrage. Eventually they made contact and began the work of stabbing the Bactrians and their mounts. Once the Bactrians fell to the ground, the Thessalians dispatched them, for the Bactrians lacked helmets. The satrap Mithrobouzanes was killed, and the Bactrians retreated, following their standards.15