Alexander the Great

by Philip Freeman

  From Thebes, Alexander and his men marched home to Macedonia. It was now late autumn and there was much to be done before his army could cross to Asia in the spring. The king reluctantly recalled Parmenion from Asia Minor to be his second in command on the expedition as the price of the old general’s support. Philip’s other elder statesman, Antipater, was made regent in Macedonia to rule in the king’s place and keep the Greeks in line while he was at war across the Aegean. Both men advised Alexander to marry and produce an heir before he departed for what could be a very long and dangerous campaign. It was sound advice and in accord with Macedonian tradition, but the king had no interest in domestic life. He was only twenty-one and, with the confidence of youth, believed he had more than enough time to worry about family matters in the future. He also had no patience to wait for a wife to become pregnant and bear a son. Marriage would mean delaying the Asian expedition for at least another year, which was unthinkable to Alexander.

  To entertain his troops and ready them for the upcoming war, the king held athletic contests and festivals at Dion beneath the snows of Mount Olympus. A decade earlier Alexander had tamed Bucephalas at this holy site. Now, the mighty stallion still at his side, he hosted games of every kind for his men and presented splendid prizes to the winners. For nine days he sacrificed lavishly to Zeus, father of the gods, and to the nine muses who would inspire bards to sing of great deeds to come. An enormous tent was erected to hold a hundred dining couches for Alexander’s guests. The whole army dined like kings for days and drank wine every night like true Macedonian warriors on the eve of battle. They would need all the courage they could muster—before them lay the awesome power of the Persian Empire.

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  ASIA

  THUS SAYS THE LORD TO HIS ANOINTED, TO

  CYRUS, WHOSE RIGHT HAND I HAVE GRASPED,

  TO SUBDUE THE NATIONS BEFORE HIM AND STRIP

  KINGS OF THEIR ROBES, TO OPEN CITY DOORS

  BEFORE HIM—AND THE GATES SHALL NOT BE SHUT.

  —THE PROPHET ISAIAH

  There was once a king named Astyages who ruled over the Medes in the mountains east of Mesopotamia. One night he had a dream that his daughter Mandane would someday give birth to a son who would rule all of Asia. Fearing he would lose his throne, he gave her in marriage to a man from the insignificant province of Persia to the south. But after Mandane had been married for a year and was pregnant, Astyages had another dream in which he saw vines spreading from her womb to cover all the lands of his empire and beyond. He consulted the wise Magi, who interpreted the dream and told him the baby would one day become a mighty king in his place. Thus Astyages decided to slay the child as soon as it was born. When the baby, named Cyrus, was delivered, the king gave him to a servant with orders to take the child away and kill it. This servant in turn gave the baby to a kindly cowherd, who secretly raised him as his own. Although his surroundings were humble, young Cyrus showed the qualities of royalty from an early age and was in time brought before the suspicious king. After discovering the truth, Astyages again consulted the Magi, who now told him he had nothing to fear from Cyrus. Nevertheless, when the prince had grown to manhood, he led a revolt of his father’s people against his Median grandfather and became the first Great King of the Persian Empire.

  This is the heroic legend told by Herodotus, but the true story of Cyrus and the creation of the Persian Empire is even more remarkable. Starting from the Persian highlands near Persepolis in what is now southern Iran, Cyrus conquered Media by 549, then the kingdom of the Lydians in Asia Minor three years later when their wealthy king, Croesus, underestimated the Persian ruler. The empire of Babylon was next in 539, followed by much of central Asia.

  Cambyses, the eldest son of Cyrus, ascended to the throne in 530 at the death of his father and soon added Egypt to the empire. After the untimely death of Cambyses in 522, Darius I seized the throne in a bloody struggle. He gained the Indus Valley for Persia, but his adventures in Europe were less successful. His crossing of the Danube and invasion of Scythia were only nominal victories, while the rout of his army at Marathon near Athens in 490 was a clear defeat. Though the Greeks looked back on Marathon as the greatest battle the world had ever known, to the Persians it was at worst a minor setback. Xerxes, the son of Darius and grandson of Cyrus, invaded Greece again in 480. The celebrated Spartan defense at Thermopylae is not worthy of mention in surviving Persian records, nor is the destruction of Athens the same year. However, the Persians’ defeat at Plataea near Thebes the next year put an end to Persian dreams of conquering Greece. After the death of Xerxes in 465, the borders of the Persian Empire remained largely unchanged, though there were frequent internal revolts put down by every Great King until Darius III took the throne in 336, the same year Alexander became king of Macedonia.

  The policies of the Persian Empire begun under Cyrus continued for almost two centuries. Local inhabitants were left in peace to live and worship as they pleased so long as they paid their taxes and caused no trouble. However, if there was rebellion against the Great King’s rule, retribution was swift and harsh. Egypt and Babylon in particular suffered after their people rose up against Persia. Cities were burned, rebels massacred, and onerous tribute imposed. And although the Persians had no interest in spreading their religious beliefs to the provinces, most of their rulers had little genuine respect for or understanding of the spiritual practices of their subject people. Time and again the Great Kings punished uprisings by destroying local temples and profaning sacred symbols, only increasing the bitter resentment of the natives.

  The Persians themselves were polytheists who believed in many gods, as did almost every culture in the ancient world aside from the Jews. Like the Greeks, Celts, and peoples of northern India—to whom the Persians were particularly close in culture and language—the countrymen of the Great King saw the world as ruled by many divine powers. But the Persians also viewed the cosmos as a battleground between the forces of light and darkness. At the head of their pantheon was Ahuramazda, known as the Wise Lord, who created the world and embodied all goodness. Opposing him was Ahriman, a powerful spirit bent on evil and leading humans astray. The great Persian religious teacher Zoroaster, who lived centuries before Alexander, taught that all must choose whom they would follow, but that at the end of time Ahriman would be defeated by the Wise Lord. There were other deities as well, such as Anahita, the mother goddess, Mithra, protector of justice, and Atar, son of Ahuramazda and guardian of his sacred fire. The worship of all these gods and many others was carried out by the ancient priestly caste known as the Magi. They sacrificed and chanted hymns to the gods, as well as foretold the future and read in the stars the signs of things yet to be. Wherever the Persians went in their conquests, the Magi followed, not as missionaries but as religious practitioners for the Persian elite. Let the Egyptians worship jackal-headed deities and the Greeks pray to Athena—it was Ahuramazda and his fellow gods who had granted the Persians dominion over the earth.

  This vast empire of the Persians—over two thousand miles from end to end—was divided into provinces, each ruled by a satrap, a governor directly responsible to the Great King. Communications were maintained by an efficient road system crossed by royal couriers, who, according to Herodotus, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor dark of night hinder from the swift completion of their appointed course.” Like the Macedonians, the Persians were a warrior race from the mountains who learned the arts of civilization from the ancient kingdoms they conquered. Although they prided themselves on their simple education—“to ride horses, to shoot the bow, to speak the truth”—they were in fact quite receptive to outside influences and adapted many cultural elements from their subjects. While written Persian was used primarily for monumental carvings, beginning in the time of Darius I, everyday court records were documented by scribes in Elamite, Babylonian, or Aramaic. From the earlier empires of Mesopotamia, the Persians learned art, engineering, and the magnificent architecture of their palaces. But their own un
ique contribution to history was the gathering of dozens of nations into the first truly international empire. From the cataracts of the Nile and the shores of the Aegean to the steppes of central Asia and the valley of the Indus, the Great King ruled the largest and mightiest kingdom the world had ever known.

  In the early spring of 334, Alexander at last began his war against Persia. He left General Antipater behind as regent in charge of Macedonia and Greece. His mother Olympias was surely at Pella that day to bid her son farewell. She had schemed and sacrificed for years so that he could pursue his destiny. Now, as he rode across the plains of Macedonia with snow still covering Mount Olympus to the south, Alexander could not have known that he would never see his mother or home again.

  Alexander had precious little money to pay his troops. The Macedonian treasury was almost bare and the Greeks, parsimonious in the best of times, had been reluctant to contribute financially to what they believed was Alexander’s folly. The only good the citizens of Athens and the rest of Greece saw arising from the invasion was the imminent destruction of the Macedonian army at the hands of the Persians. They worried little about their fellow countrymen as there were few Greek troops among Alexander’s army. In fact, there were far more Greek soldiers serving as mercenaries in the Persian army than marching under Alexander’s banner. But Greek or Macedonian, the king would not be able to feed his soldiers for long unless he could quickly make the expedition profitable.

  Ancient sources say the Macedonian army numbered almost fifty thousand men, including the few thousand soldiers Parmenion already had in Asia waiting for Alexander. Whatever the number, the Macedonian forces were vastly outnumbered by the men available to the Persians. At the core of Alexander’s army were the hardened Macedonian foot soldiers who had fought for years with Philip and followed his son to the Danube and back. In addition, there were key auxiliary troops from allied tribes in the Balkans, especially the fearless warriors of Thrace. The rest were cavalry from Macedonia and Thessaly, mounted scouts and archers from Thrace, and the few professional soldiers from Greece that Alexander could afford to hire. A support squad of reluctant Greek sailors followed the army along the coast. In addition, there were Philip’s superb corps of engineers, a staff of secretaries to handle the king’s correspondence, physicians, mapmakers, scientists, and the official campaign historian, Callisthenes, nephew of Aristotle and chief propaganda officer for the expedition.

  Alexander’s march from Pella took his army past Amphipolis and over the Strymon River along the north Aegean coast. It was the same road Alexander had followed the previous year on the way to the Danube. But now, instead of turning north, Alexander pressed eastward over the marshes along the mouth of the Hebros River and down to the Gallipoli peninsula across the narrow strait of the Hellespont from Asia. At the town of Elaeus opposite Troy, Alexander offered sacrifice for the last time in Europe at the tomb of the hero Protesilaus, the first Greek to reach Asian soil—and the first to die—at the start of the Trojan War. Beneath the elms of the sacred grove, Alexander prayed that the gods would show him favor. He had good reason to worry. A large Persian fleet was active in the Aegean and knew of the young king’s plans. If they had wished, they could have easily prevented Alexander’s crossing. But the Persians decided to let the king and his Macedonians land freely in Asia before they made their move. Rather than blocking his advance across the strait with their navy, they intended to draw him into the interior, where they could destroy his army with their superior forces.

  When the Great King Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont on his way to invade Greece in the previous century, he had ordered the construction of pontoon bridges across the strait to speed the passage of his enormous army—but a storm arose and destroyed the bridges before he could cross. The Persian king therefore ordered the Hellespont to be whipped with three hundred lashes and a pair of shackles thrown into its waters before he began construction of new bridges. Alexander knew this story and was determined that his own crossing would be more propitious. While Parmenion supervised the ferrying of the Macedonian army using warships and cargo boats, Alexander decided to leave the main body of the army and cross from Elaeus, steering the vessel himself to the middle of the Hellespont. There he sacrificed a bull to the sea god Poseidon and poured a drink offering from a golden bowl into the water. Then he guided the ship toward Troy to the place Homer said the Greeks had come ashore a thousand years earlier. As the coast drew near, Alexander took his spear and cast it with all his might onto the beach, claiming Asia for himself as spear-won from the gods. Then he leapt ashore before the boat had even reached land and waded through the surf onto Persian territory.

  Alexander’s first act in Asia was to sacrifice to Zeus, the patron of safe arrivals, as well as Athena and his own ancestor Hercules. He was always scrupulous in religious ceremonies, but even more so now that he was surrounded by a mythological landscape straight from his childhood stories. Here was the very beach where the Greeks had made camp. Just beyond was the wide battlefield where Hector and his Trojans had stood against the invaders in the ten-year war for the honor of Helen, whose beauty had launched a thousand ships to bring her home. And there, rising above the plain, was the citadel of Troy itself—not the town it was in former days, to be sure, but still looming large in Alexander’s imagination. His hero Achilles, greatest warrior of the Greeks, had fought and died beneath those walls, preferring a short life of undying glory to peaceful old age surrounded by family and friends.

  The Troy Alexander visited was only the latest in a series of towns at the site stretching back almost three thousand years. Over the centuries, the settlement had been sacked and burned several times, only to be rebuilt ever higher on top of the ruins. The town that Alexander entered was nothing more than a small village with a temple to Athena attended by a few local priests eager for the occasional tourist. The Spartan admiral Mindarus had visited there many years before, as had the Great King Xerxes on his way to Greece, but the arrival of the Macedonian leader and his entourage was the most memorable event at Troy for decades.

  Alexander first sacrificed at the temple of Athena, dedicating his own armor at her altar. In place of his breastplate and shield, he took from the temple arms said to have been left there since the Trojan War. His favorite soldiers would proudly bear these weapons before him in battles across Asia, including a shield that would one day save his life in India. Alexander next visited the tombs of the warriors who had died fighting to capture or save the town. Most moving was the moment when he poured libations at the tomb of his boyhood hero and ancestor Achilles. Then, along with his companions, including Hephaestion, Alexander stripped off his clothes and oiled his naked body like an athlete. In honor of Achilles, Alexander and his friends then raced around the tomb and crowned it with garlands. Finally, he sacrificed to the spirit of the Trojan king Priam, who had been slain seeking sanctuary at the altar of Zeus, contrary to all sacred custom. Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, had carried out this shameful deed, prompting the young king to beseech the shade of the Trojan leader not to vent his anger on his Macedonian descendant.

  As the priests led him on a final tour of the broken remains of the city, they asked if he wished to see the lyre of Paris before he departed. The young king, however, disdained Paris the Trojan prince as a coward drawn more to beautiful women than fame in battle: “I care little for that harp,” he said, “but would gladly see the lyre of Achilles on which he sang the glorious deeds of famous men.” Alexander’s greatest regret, he lamented, was that he had no Homer to celebrate his own glory.

  From Troy, Alexander moved north twenty miles along the Hellespont to the small town of Arisbe, where his main force was waiting for him after crossing the strait. The next day they marched a short distance to the village of Percote, just a few miles from the large and prosperous city of Lampsacus guarding the northern entrance to the Hellespont. Lampsacus had been a wealthy ally of Athens during the Peloponnesian War in the previous century and was well k
nown for its gold coinage. Being desperately short of money, Alexander needed the riches of the town and the prestige of freeing it from Persian control. Unfortunately for the Macedonian leader, the citizens of Lampsacus had no desire to be liberated. Like many Greek towns under Persian rule, they enjoyed relative freedom and prosperity with a minimum of interference from the Great King. The good people of Lampsacus had certainly heard of Alexander’s dealings with cities in Greece and especially his destruction of Thebes. They had little reason to trust him and even less motivation to trade the easy yoke of Persia for the potentially heavy burden of Macedonian rule. Alexander fumed, but he had no time to waste besieging a city. Even more than money, Alexander needed victory. He had to defeat the Persians in battle soon to establish his credibility as a general. Once he did, the Greek cities of Asia Minor would begin to open their gates to him, as well as their treasuries, out of fear and self-interest. Stories say that the philosopher Anaximenes, a scholar in Alexander’s entourage who happened to be from Lampsacus, begged the general to spare his hometown even though it favored the Persians. This served to enhance Alexander’s reputation for mercy, but he surely would have burned the city to the ground if he had had the time.

  Alexander was a master of propaganda in war. He ordered his soldiers not to loot nearby farms and villages since it would be foolish to destroy what would soon be their own. This was a proven policy to build goodwill among the inhabitants of hostile territory, but Alexander cleverly added that they should take special care not to damage the estates belonging to the Greek-born Persian general Memnon of Rhodes. The king knew that word would quickly spread back to the Persian satraps that Memnon’s property was being treated with respect—as if the general were secretly supporting the Macedonians. It was an inspired stroke of psychological warfare that would soon bear fruit.