Soldier, Priest, and God

by F S Naiden

  As the two sides ate at Huxshiartas’s table, Alexander and Huxshiartas turned from mutual compliments to negotiations. Alexander offered autonomy to Huxshiartas and any warlords he might recruit. Macedonians would control the cities in Bactria and Sogdiana, but the warlords would control much of the countryside. Alexander promised high pay to any Iranians who joined his cavalry. Alexander summoned Eumenes, who led Huxshiartas’s lieutenants to the baggage train to marvel at the Macedonians’ store of bullion and coin. After some give-and-take, Huxshiartas accepted Alexander’s proposition. Alexander probably did not explain his plan to colonize Bactria and Sogdiana. Alexander was buying time, and Huxshiartas was buying peace.38

  To seal the agreement, Huxshiartas offered to Alexander his daughter Rauxshna (the name means “Bright Star”) as a wife. Like Clitus before him, Alexander could not afford to refuse. Rauxshna, whom the Greeks called Roxana, became his second mate.39

  As the father of the bride, Huxshiartas set marriage terms that were probably typical of the ancient Iranian countryside. The groom must be of sound mind, innocent of the crime of murder, and able to provide for his wife. He must allow the bride to remain an Iranian, which meant, among other things, that Roxana could keep her religion. The groom need not pledge to be faithful, which meant that Alexander would not have to repudiate Barsine, and could take additional wives or keep concubines.

  On the day of the ceremony, Alexander repaired to a room in Huxshiartas’s citadel. Roxana entered separately, in a veil. Macedonian and Iranian witnesses to the nuptials gathered around. The room smelled of smoke from a sacred plant, perhaps soma, used in rituals for Anahita and the Iranian sacred fire. At Huxshiartas’s bidding, bride and groom came forward and took their seats at a table. Then Roxana unveiled herself, but custom required that Alexander look at her through a mirror standing on the table. The mirror symbolized light from the sacred fire of Iranian cult, and a candelabra symbolized the fire. Perhaps Alexander did not understand that aspect of the ceremony, but he liked the apples on the table, and the pomegranates. No book was read, and no priest was necessary.40

  At the end of the ceremony, the couple received a round, flat loaf of bread. Iranians believed that whoever took bread first would be more loyal.41 Confronted with this domestic version of the Gordian knot, Alexander halved the loaf with his sword. Then the two of them took bread simultaneously.42

  After the ceremony, victors and vanquished celebrated. Food and drink flowed down to the Macedonian army encamped below the citadel. The mountain climbers spent their reward money on luxuries provided by the Phoenician sutlers.

  Philip would have approved. Just as he had married the Scythian Meda, Alexander had now married an Iranian. Whether Roxana and Barsine were better-looking than Philip’s wives, as some companions thought, they were more fecund. In 327, Barsine had given birth to a son, Heracles, and a few years later Roxana gave birth to Alexander IV. Of the thousands of women in the baggage train, these two were the best treated and the safest, but not among those closest to their partners. Alexander often left his baggage, and his wives, far behind him.43

  Alexander now had an Iranian wife and an Iranian ally. He was already using some Iranian cavalry, and even a few Iranian bodyguards, and he now recruited thousands more Iranians from warlords who chose to cooperate rather than resist or flee. The Macedonians could leave Central Asia in peace, rather than in discord. Alexander had accomplished all this not as king of Persia, ruler of the four corners, or pharaoh, but as the son-in-law of a warlord.44

  in the spring of 327 Alexander decided to change social formalities in his court. He wanted to unify his followers, many of whom were now Iranians. He did not tell his companions to act or dress like Iranians, still less speak Persian, but he did want the Macedonians to acknowledge him in the same way Persians did. That was the Persian custom Greeks called proskynesis.45

  Proskynesis let Persians acknowledge their betters. When ordinary Persians greeted notables, they bowed. When notables greeted the king, they bowed low. Commoners and foreigners went farther, or lower, and prostrated themselves. Macedonians and Greeks thought of prostration as a gesture of worship, but Persians regarded it simply as a form of address. It had no religious meaning. When foreigners came to the court of the Persian kings, they used this form of address, too. The Greek exile Themistocles had prostrated himself before the Great King—an ironic gesture, considering that he had destroyed the king’s navy a few years before.46

  At one of Alexander’s nightly dinner parties, some Iranian guests prostrated themselves while approaching him, as usual, and then some Greeks did, too. He rewarded each one with a kiss. Then he slyly suggested his Macedonians do the same. Craterus, who had helped Alexander kill Philotas, ignored the request, as did Coenus, and Alexander did not presume to rebuke these two leading companions. When Parmenio’s sometime ally Polyperchon mocked those doing it, Alexander rose, strode across the room, and rolled the reclining Polyperchon from his couch and onto the ground. That, he said, was doing as the king wished. Alexander returned to his dais, and Polyperchon rose and returned to his couch. The other generals merely watched. Alexander received more prostrating Persians and Greeks that evening, and some less prominent Macedonians prostrated themselves, too, but none of the generals did. They thought the incident closed. Alexander had insulted them and they had politely but successfully rebuffed him. Polyperchon went on to high commands.47

  The generals, however, had set an unwitting example to two other groups at court, the pages and the Greek intellectuals. Both were indispensable to Alexander and his army, and both were becoming disaffected.48

  Over many generations, Macedonian pages had conspired against unsuccessful or unpopular kings, including Alexander himself two years before. They bore arms and learned to use them in preparation for future careers as army officers. Unlike most companions, they could approach the king at any time. In their eyes, the king was no god, any more than any master is a hero to his valet.

  The pages had no important leader within their own ranks. They needed guidance from some mature man of consequence, such as Callisthenes, the chief intellectual at court. Besides being the historian of the expedition, he was their instructor.

  In the role of instructor, Callisthenes succeeded his great-uncle Aristotle, who had instructed Alexander, Ptolemy, Nearchus, and other leading companions. Callisthenes had a far less congenial task. The number of pages had grown to about a hundred, and the Greek ambience of the court in Macedon had evaporated as the army moved east and Alexander dealt with more Iranian leaders, Phoenician sutlers, and sundry foreign priests. Callisthenes had publicly declaimed portions of his official (but Homeric) “History of the Deeds of Alexander,” only to meet with ridicule from men such as Philotas and Clitus. They denied that any miracle had saved the army as it was marching along the beach near the Ladder in southern Anatolia. They also rejected the Greek oracles that Callisthenes said recognized Alexander as son of Zeus, not just Amon.49

  The night when Alexander introduced proskynesis, Callisthenes, of all people, objected more boldly than any of the generals. As other Greeks prostrated themselves and went away with a kiss, Callisthenes came forward to receive his kiss without prostrating himself. Alexander averted his face, like an offended deity, and Callisthenes said aloud, “I go away the poorer for a kiss.” Callisthenes’s reaction was somewhat hypocritical. In describing how favorable winds saved the army at the Ladder, he said the waves fell and did obeisance to Alexander. The elements could worship Alexander, but Callisthenes would not.50

  The pages added the insult to Callisthenes to their growing list of complaints: the death of Philotas, the assassination of Parmenio, the murder of Clitus, Alexander’s failure to bury the dead, and his marriage to the barbarian. Must their teacher prostrate himself, treating Alexander as though he was a Persian god?

  And one more thing: where were they going? Alexander had not said. Rumors circulated of an invasion of India. The pages had no reason to beli
eve the campaign in India would be any easier than the one in Central Asia.

  On a royal hunt some weeks later, a page named Hermolaus killed a boar that the king wished to take. The king whipped him and took away his horse. Alexander had insulted the wrong page: Hermolaus’s father had been an officer in the companion cavalry for as long as Alexander had been king. Hermolaus did not speak to his father, but he plotted with his lover, another page, to kill Alexander. Soon more pages joined the conspiracy. They planned to replace the king with the only available royal prince, Alexander’s half-brother. They settled on a night when they would all be on duty in the king’s quarters and could easily kill him in in his sleep. Alexander stayed up all night drinking, something they did not expect, and foiled their plan. The next morning an informant told a sleepy Alexander about the conspiracy.51

  Since the Syrian prophetess who slept in his quarters had told him to spend that night drinking, Alexander thanked her for saving his life. Now he had to deal with those who had tried to kill him. That would require a meeting of the companions.52

  Alexander summoned a select group that avowed their loyalty to him. Reassured, he summoned another, larger group, which put the pages on trial. Hermolaus spoke frankly, even without being tortured, and his father was so surprised that he tried to put his hand over his young son’s mouth. Explaining his motives, Hermolaus cited the deaths of Parmenio, Philotas, and Clitus, and said that the Macedonians were no longer companions but slaves. He absurdly accused Alexander of being king of the Iranians instead of the Macedonians. He plausibly accused Alexander of insulting Zeus by calling himself a god. Other defendants testified in the same vein.53

  Although the companions agreed with some of what the defendants said, they did not wish to encourage plots against Alexander. As for the rumored campaign in India, they believed it could make them richer than ever. They decided to execute Hermolaus and the other defendants. Like Philotas, Hermolaus and the others were stoned to death.54

  The generals thought the conspiracy laid to rest, but Alexander wished to prosecute one more conspirator. He called another meeting and accused Callisthenes of provoking the conspiracy of the pages.55

  Alexander had no evidence against Callisthenes, whom the pages had not implicated, but when Callisthenes spoke in his own defense, he inadvertently strengthened the case against him. He said that Alexander should rule not by compulsion but according to the custom of the Macedonians. In the mouth of a soldier or even a general, this remark would be unobjectionable, but coming from Callisthenes it was provocative. The word for “custom,” nomos, could also mean “law.” Callisthenes insinuated that Alexander ruled unlawfully, like a tyrant. Callisthenes added that neither the Macedonians nor the Greeks should worship Alexander as a god. Many had thought as much, but no one had dared to say so in public.56

  The council could not reach a verdict in the case of Callisthenes. At least two members, Ptolemy and Aristobulus, blamed him for encouraging the pages’ plot, and Ptolemy thought Callisthenes should be executed. The majority agreed that Callisthenes was guilty but did not think the council should punish a Greek civilian, as opposed to a companion or a soldier. They recommended that Alexander jail Callisthenes and dispatch him to Greece for trial before a panel of Greek delegates. That would show that the companions respected the law.

  Alexander complied and jailed Callisthenes, but delayed sending him back, and treated him poorly enough that some months later he died in captivity. So perished the only man on the expedition who knew Homer better than Alexander did.57

  That same spring someone more important than Callisthenes died. The companion Erigyius had fought under Parmenio at Issus and beside Craterus at Arbela. He killed the rebel Shatibrzana face-to-face and wisely warned Alexander to accept the omens against crossing the Syr Darya into Scythia. But the campaign in Central Asia weakened Erigyius, as it had so many others, and he died of illness. Year by year, Alexander was losing far more good men to the rigors of campaigning than he could ever put on trial, assassinate, or betray. Erigyius received an honorable burial, but no honor given to the dead could banish this thought from the minds of the living.58

  Alexander left the lands of the Iranians without ever having become their king and without worshipping the gods of the region. These two departures from his practice in Egypt and Babylon inspired Iranian resistance. At the same time, his neglect of Macedonian rites had lowered his own troops’ morale. Alexander’s new enterprise, India, would show whether he learned from the mistakes he made in Central Asia.59

  in late spring 327, the main body of the army retraced its route through Bactria and Sogdiana and reached the former camp at Alexandria in the Caucasus. After suppressing resistance in nearby mountains, Craterus and Polyperchon soon joined them. After months of rumors, the council of war was preparing an Indian invasion plan.

  The first order of business, as always, was securing supplies. The army was now larger and harder to feed than ever. Although no Macedonian reinforcements arrived after Susa, some 45,000 new troops had arrived since the expedition started, along with a comparable number of Iranians. Even after sending some 10,000 troops home to Greece and Macedon and leaving many thousands in garrisons, especially in Central Asia, Alexander led at least 100,000. Only the Macedonians, barely a fifth of the total, could be counted on to tolerate short rations. With so many to feed, the generals could not afford to travel through India’s ample mountains and deserts. They must head for the Indus River.60

  The best Greek authority on India, Scylax, had led a small force of Persian explorers down the Indus around 500 BC.61 He reached the Indus by way of the Kabul River, a tributary flowing through the Khyber Pass. After sailing downstream, he returned to the Near East by hugging the coast of Pakistan and Iran. Scylax showed that the Khyber Pass was a suitable invasion route, and also reported that another pass into India, the Bolan, lay too far south. Scylax and the other authorities agreed that little land lay east of the Indus. The only important area was the Punjab, Persian for “the land of five rivers,” all of them Indus tributaries in the northwest.

  Who ruled India? Scylax reported a number of kingdoms, and so did Sasigupta, an Indian who had joined Alexander after fighting for the Persians at Arbela. Scylax said nothing about India’s Brahmins, Buddhists, and Jains. Unless he mistook India’s caste of warriors, the Kshatriyas, for kings, he said nothing about the caste system. Sasigupta—and lessons learned from experience—would have to explain these complications.62

  The soldiers of India were no question mark. At the battle of Arbela, Indian troops had been among the last to leave the field. Indian mahouts rode the elephants deployed by Darius. After these formidable soldiers returned home, India became effectively independent. The Macedonians would find no Persian officials willing to surrender, no settlements like Kurkath, and no merchants speaking Aramaic or anything like it.63

  Several Greek writers said that Cyrus the Great wanted to invade India but never did, and that Semiramis, an Assyrian queen, tried to invade but only temporarily succeeded. To learn more about Semiramis, the Macedonians consulted the Babylonians in the entourage, but the Babylonians reported there was no ruler named Semiramis. They knew of a few important Assyrian queens, even one with a similar name, but none of them had invaded India.64

  Only Heracles and Dionysus had ever invaded India successfully. Why should merely mortal Macedonians try to match this feat? To reach the end of the world? The end of the world was the one thing the Macedonians felt sure they would find beyond the Indus. This notion derived not only from Scylax but also from better-known writers, such as Herodotus. A similar notion appeared in Homer, who supposed that an ocean stream encircled the world. China did not exist for Homer, any more than the Western Hemisphere did, and so the stream ran just east of India and then swept round it to the south.

  Alexander had more than predatory reasons for invading India. He was curious, just as he had been about underwater rivers south of Caucasus or about the temple of M
elkart in Tyre. He had already collected many oddities and sent them to Aristotle—cotton and rice as well as naphtha from Mesopotamia, and enough animals, dead or alive, to help fill fifty volumes on Asian fauna compiled by Aristotle’s assistants. He had just sent home information about elephants.65

  Lithograph of the Khyber Pass by James Rattray, 1848.

  Photograph: Paul Fearn, Alamy Stock Photographs.

  Alexander wanted Indian subjects, not just specimens, yet he was partial to subjects who were specimens. These Indians promised to be remarkable specimens. One Greek writer, Ctesias, who had heard tales of India while at the Persian royal court, said that Indian tigers had three rows of teeth and goads in their tails.66

  Alexander and the generals decided to funnel their forces into the Khyber Pass. Hephaestion and Perdiccas would lead the main body from town to town, gathering supplies, leaving garrisons and colonists behind them. Alexander would lead a smaller, partly Iranian strike force to clear the highlands of hostile tribes. Craterus would follow with the siege train and infantry regiments recruited from rugged parts of Macedon.67

  Not long after Hephaestion descended toward the Khyber Pass and began the 200-mile march to the Indus, Alexander turned toward gorges and heights that offered a diet of mulberries and cold water sometimes flavored by junipers carried down torrents of runoff. The first people he encountered retreated into the mountains.