by F S Naiden
This eclectic display invited Alexander, already king of Babylon, to imitate the quasi-Babylonian Cyrus and become king of the Persians. Since Alexander considered Darius illegitimate, he had good reason to be crowned king. After taking a crown from the Phaselitans, he had accepted a kingdom a year, at Arwad, in Egypt, and at Babylon. At Arwad he replaced a local king, and in Egypt he replaced Darius. Sometimes he underwent a ceremony, and sometimes he took the throne without one.
Rather than become king of the Persians, Alexander ordered the priests there to maintain it and fulfill their duties, and then he quit Pasargadae, with only a little silver and gold to show for his visit.15
Why did he make these decisions? Perhaps because he had conquered only part of Cyrus’s empire. Besides, no Persians other than the guide and a few priests would see the ceremony. In Phaselis the people had been watching, and in Egypt the clergy had been watching in the City of the Sun, Memphis, and Thebes. A religious reason may have occurred to him also. If he became king of Persia while Darius was still alive, the Persians might think him impious. For them, Darius was legitimate. Pasargadae helped Alexander understand this point of view. Perhaps he thought that Darius, who was illegitimate elsewhere, remained a true king in Persia. Until Darius abdicated or died, Alexander must continue to pursue him.16
With this prospect before him, Alexander prepared the army to march north, via Persepolis, toward Ecbatana. Alexander had begun to grasp the size and complexity of Iran, and he marched with renewed urgency. Antipater sent more reinforcements, but only Greek mercenaries. Alexander’s companions would continue to age and their zeal would flag, yet his zeal would increase. It was now early spring 330, four eventful years since they landed at Abydos.17
although alexander may have decided that Darius was a true king, Darius’s commanders came to the opposite decision. The Great King had lost half the empire and all the Persian capitals other than Ecbatana.
These commanders, led by Bessus, did not act against their king forthwith. Instead they lent themselves to a new strategy of Darius’s. After meeting with his advisers, Darius decided to withdraw from Ecbatana, which he could not hold against the Macedonian siege train. He planned to lay waste to the country as he fled to the east. His own people would suffer, but the Macedonians would run out of food and water. If they tried to make long marches between wells and springs, the Persian cavalry could surround and shoot them. The king still had 3,000 good horsemen, plus Greek mercenaries. Memnon had proposed this strategy four years before, in the Anatolian campaign against the Macedonians. Darius would now follow it in Iran.18
The Persian king divided his forces, sending some troops and the baggage train eastward. Eventually he and a light force led by Bessus would join them. Until then, he would harass the invaders.
Bessus and his co-conspirators planned to take Darius prisoner and try to negotiate with Alexander. If Alexander ceased his pursuit, they would surrender Darius to the Macedonians. Otherwise, they would kill Darius. Either way, Bessus would replace him. Since Alexander held Pasargadae, Bessus could not be crowned, but his present position as satrap of Bactria made him heir apparent according to Persian custom, so he could rally support. Bessus would claim the crown that Alexander had refused.19
While Darius planned and Bessus conspired, Alexander and the Macedonians waited for the snow and ice to melt. In spite of harsh weather, Alexander and his light force moved ahead to procure food and fodder for the 500-mile trip to Ecbatana. At one point the horses could not carry the men through the snow and the storms, and Alexander dismounted and walked. Then the officers around him did, without being told. After them all the other officers in the column did. Finally everyone did. They got through. By late spring, Alexander had prepared the needed storehouses of supplies. The grain was milk-ripe and the army could move.20
Alexander hurried his men along but kept them and the horses well fed, and turned what should have been a march of several months into one of weeks. Only seven days after Darius left Ecbatana, Alexander and the companion cavalry reached the city. The tiny Persian garrison surrendered. As at Pasargadae, the Macedonians spared the Persian shrines, including a temple containing a famous statue of Apollo that had once stood in a shrine near Miletus. They also spared the rest of Ecbatana, except for seizing the ample gold and silver in the royal palace. Perhaps the landscape and the weather softened their attitude. Ecbatana lay in a valley of gardens, orchards, and forests reminiscent of northern Greece. Alexander could have some apples. Those he had eaten in Babylon had come from this and similar regions in Persia. The men got a donative. None of the companions made a record of what the gods got. Surely the gods’ emolument was ample.21
Alexander would have liked nothing better than to revictual and press on after Darius. To his dismay, he found he could not. Many of his soldiers were unwilling. None wished to kill him, as Bessus wished to kill Darius, but many had tired of fighting. Under the impact of years of war, both Alexander and Darius were losing control of their men.
Although casualties had been few, the difficult terrain in Persia had discouraged the army, and the mountains of western Iran promised more of the same. If the army went east, as Alexander wished, they would be entering territory of which they had no conception. Persian gods were mere names to them. Indeed, some of these gods were not even that. Some, like Anahita, were known by epithets. This one meant “pure”; no Greek or Macedonian knew the goddess’s name.
Alexander’s Greeks, including the valuable Thessalian cavalry, wanted to go home. In their view, he had nothing left for them to do. He had already fulfilled the Greeks’ goals of punishing Persia for invading Greece and of liberating Greek Asia Minor. Now he should release his Greek troops. He had always offered high wages and ample plunder, but beyond Ecbatana there would be few cities worth plundering. Where would he get gold and silver to pay his men?
Alexander’s Macedonians found him erratic. He prayed and sacrificed well, but recently he had distributed less largesse. He had not appointed a Macedonian as provincial governor since leaving Syria, three years before. East of Ecbatana, there would be few provinces worth governing. These troops wished to halt at Ecbatana and declare victory.
For his part, Alexander may have felt some of his troops were becoming useless. Heavy infantry were too slow to battle mountaineers, and cavalry were more useful in pursuit than in attack. He needed mounted light infantry, plus more light cavalry, and fewer foot soldiers. He also needed more engineers. Sooner or later the Macedonians would have to besiege mountain strongholds like those they had seen in the Zagros.
Only days after arriving in Ecbatana, Alexander summoned his generals to the Persian palace and adjacent paradise. There he announced several decisions that the war council would not presume to debate.22
To accommodate his homesick Greeks, Alexander dismissed them all with full pay, plus a substantial donative. When these well-paid veterans returned to their hometowns, Alexander earned a better reputation than he had ever had before. Some commonplace religious gestures showed how opinions changed. Some Boeotian veterans—from a town that had sided with Macedon against Thebes—returned to their home in Thespiae and dedicated some of their earnings to Zeus, in the form of a tripod. On it they wrote their names, and also these words:
The people of wide-wayed Thespiae sent these hoplites
To barbarous Asia to avenge their ancestors. With Alexander,
They captured the towns of the Persians.
They have erected this handsome tripod to Zeus.
To these Boeotians, Alexander was not the son of Zeus-Amon or even King Alexander. He was simply “Alexander,” just as his father had often been simply “Philip.”23
To convince Greeks and Thessalians to stay, Alexander announced that any individuals who wished to continue to fight could remain with him at higher pay than before. Many thousands accepted this offer. They became mercenaries, as opposed to the allies they had been before. Some of the Phoenician sutlers stayed with th
e army, too, but fewer than those who had accompanied the Macedonians through the Near East.
To placate the Macedonians, Alexander assigned 6,000 of them to guard the treasures at Ecbatana. This detachment included a large part of the heavy infantry and some of his best Balkan troops. In all, he gave up one-third of his best men. Most had served under Parmenio in the three big battles, or marched under him in the main body whenever Alexander rode ahead.
Parmenio was Alexander’s next target. Rather than have him help pursue Darius, Alexander assigned him command of the troops in Ecbatana. Alexander was putting the old man behind him, as he had put Antipater behind him in Europe. He also was separating Parmenio from two of his sons, Philotas, in command of the cavalry, and Nicanor, in command of the shield bearers. Both would accompany Alexander. Alexander was creating a new, young circle of companions to replace the old circle created by Philip. By centering on Alexander as an individual, not on Alexander as priest of the cult, this new circle departed from one of Philip’s ideals.
The army broke in two: the field force and the growing force of garrison troops, now many thousands, if not as large as the number he had brought to Asia. Alexander would need fewer meetings of his war council and more task forces, less solidarity and more loyalty.
Did Alexander anticipate the costs? He had divided the old from the young, the infantry from the cavalry, Parmenio from his two sons—companion from companion. His remaining men were entering a country where sacrificial animals would be hard to find. If the men got celebratory bonuses, they would have little chance to spend them. Few merchants other than the traveling Phoenicians would accept any coined money. Greek-speakers would be few, and Greek shrines would be nil.
With the approval of the council, Alexander left Ecbatana in pursuit of Darius, who was riding somewhere to the east, between Ecbatana and the Caspian Gates, a distance of some 250 miles. Alexander split his task force. He left most of the men behind, with orders to follow up, and rode ahead with some companion cavalry, a part of the phalanx, and light troops. He drove the foot soldiers until they dropped out and the horses died in the heat. In a dozen days he reached Rhagae, a caravan station of Jews and Zoroastrians (and now a suburb of Teheran) fifty miles from the Gates. Darius had already reached the Gates. He could now be heading in one of two directions, north to the Caucasus or east into Iran. To the south lay a sparsely inhabited desert.24 Whatever route Darius chose, he did not dare slow down and lay waste to the country.
Alexander rested his men, and reached the Gates a week later. Here two Persian defectors appeared with news that Bessus and other satraps had arrested Darius. Unless Alexander overtook them, the satraps and not Alexander would decide Darius’s fate.25
Alexander quickened the chase, leading picked cavalry carrying two days’ rations. He drove them for twenty-four hours, let them water their mounts, and drove them again, through the night, until they reached the place where the defectors had last seen Darius. Bessus had fled, taking Darius with him.26
One of the men Bessus had left behind, Darius’s ailing Greek interpreter, informed Alexander that Bessus would surrender Darius in exchange for silver and free passage to Bactria, his own province. Alexander spurned this offer and pressed on, riding through a desert all night and into the next day. His men drew water from wells fed by runoff from distant mountains via underground pipes. Then Alexander learned of a shortcut without any wells, and he took that. To combine speed and power, he dismounted the cavalry and put 500 of the best infantry on horseback. He left the other men to Nicanor, who took a road with water. During an all-night ride of some forty-five miles, most of the men dropped out.27
Only about sixty overtook Darius and Bessus. Amazed that Alexander had caught up with them, the more numerous enemy fled. Bessus and the other satraps, who did not want Darius left alive to make a deal with Alexander, had just enough time to stab him. Alexander arrived a few minutes later. He found Darius dead in a driverless wagon. The oxen pulling the wagon had led it down into a dale in search of water. Alexander took off his purple cloak and covered the body. He had not been willing to remove his cloak in order to become king at Pasargadae. That would have meant dressing like a nomad. He would remove it to honor a fallen enemy.
Some companions later claimed that Alexander wept beside the corpse. He might well have wept from a sense of frustration and loss. For three years he had stalked Darius across Asia at the price of several thousand Macedonian lives. Now he had finally caught him at the price of several hundred more, but it was too late. Alexander buried his dead soldiers somewhere in the wastelands east of Ecbatana.28
In spite of these losses, the companions shared some of Alexander’s sympathy for Darius. They later spread stories that Darius had uncovered the conspiracy against him, yet had forgiven the conspirators after they begged him for mercy. Then these suppliants betrayed him, a hideous offense.29
Alexander cursed Bessus’s treachery and swore to bring him to justice. Then he gave orders to bury Darius in the Persian manner, in the royal tombs at Persepolis. He did not attend himself, or order any acts of mourning. He enrolled Darius’s Greek mercenaries in his own army and gave his soldiers most of the gold and silver taken from the Persian baggage train. Corrupt officers got the rest. They would have money enough to pay the Phoenician sutlers, who provided some of what the deserts and mountains would not supply. One companion used camels to bring Egyptian sand for his gymnastic exercises. Actors, ballplayers, clowns, and concubines remained with the entourage, as well as intellectuals such as Callisthenes and the painter Philoxenus, who sketched during battles. Slaves read to their masters, concubines submitted: court life went on.30
the macedonians could expect their new quarry, Bessus, to retreat to his own province, Bactria, well to the east. Bessus could recruit more troops there, including Scythians, and as heir apparent could claim the throne.31 Alexander wished to eliminate him.
Alexander surely found Bessus a less attractive foe than Darius. Darius had more men, more territory, and much more right to be king of Persia. Alexander had protected Darius’s family and called Sisygambis his mother. He despised Bessus.
In spite of long distances and rugged terrain, he might have accomplished his task in some months. Instead it would take a year and involve a 1,000-mile detour through the deserts of the Iranian plateau and the heights of the Hindu Kush. The delays began with a decision to head north, toward the wooded valleys of Verkana, beside the Caspian Sea. Because the Persians still controlled this region, Alexander and the generals wished to seize it in order to protect lines of communication. They also wished to give the men some less arduous duty. The abundant water and Mediterranean climate of Verkana would persuade unwilling soldiers to keep fighting by letting them campaign in a place like home.32
The Macedonians invaded Verkana from several directions. Alexander directed the main body, while Craterus led a second force that marched in parallel and attacked mountaineers. Erigyius, a Greek companion with long experience, led the baggage train by a nearby lower road. Although Parmenio had stayed at Ecbatana, a hundred miles to the east, he would lead 10,000 from there into Verkana.33
The invaders met little resistance, but Alexander treated the enemy more harshly than he had earlier. While Craterus accepted surrenders, Alexander killed many men of one tribe while they fled. In a valley known for a long underground river, Alexander decided to measure the river’s length by throwing in two local men at the spot where it disappeared. He sent scouts downstream to watch the place where it reemerged. When the two men bobbed up, drowned, Alexander’s surveyors concluded that this was indeed the longest known underwater river.34
Within a month or so of summer campaigning, the Macedonians had captured the chief towns, including the capital. There they encountered Barsine’s father, Ashavazdan. This former exile in Macedon had long served Darius as an adviser. Now he wished to serve Alexander, who welcomed him for several reasons. The simplest was that, like Mazdai, he knew the Greeks and
Macedonians well. He spoke some Greek and used the Hellenized name Artabazus. Connections like this gave Alexander hope that he could find Persians of broad experience to help him rule Central Asia. Rather than enslave some tribesmen, Alexander released them. He did punish one tribe that was clever enough to steal Bucephalas in a raid. These raiders promptly returned the horse, with many propitiatory gifts, but Alexander took their leaders hostage.35
To celebrate the new successes, Alexander performed a sacrifice of the customary Macedonian kind. That pleased the army, but he did not please the companions when he split Caspian administration among a Persian who fought at Arbela, another Persian who had joined the entourage in Egypt, and a companion. Alexander further angered the companions by giving a neighboring region to the satrap who surrendered it.36
Parmenio, who had done much of the work for this campaign, returned to Ecbatana. In spite of the summer heat, Alexander marched the other way, into the desert, pursuing Bessus. The fugitive had reached Bactria, where his supporters proclaimed him king under the royal name of Artaxshasa. Persian priests gave the new king their blessing. Rumors surely reached them about Alexander’s killing priests at Persepolis.
To reach the next big settlement, at Herat, Alexander had to lead the army 500 barren miles. The heat banged down on them. Afraid of moving slowly and running out of water, Alexander burned the baggage train. When Nicanor fell sick and died during the march, Alexander did not dare stop to bury him. Instead Alexander left behind Nicanor’s brother Philotas and gave him the thousands of men needed for a parade, a sacrifice, and funeral games. Parmenio had now lost two sons, and Alexander had lost his first top commander. Philotas received the ambiguous honor of conducting a great funeral in the middle of the desert.37