The Nature of Alexander

by Mary Renault

  If he had hoped that one harsh example would end resistance, he was wrong. He had only hardened it. This was Brahmin country, and religion increased hostility.

  A savage new campaign was more than his men had bargained for. Retreat would have been suicidal now; but as they stormed walled town after walled town, he found a loss of élan. For him there was only one answer to this—example. When they hung back from a breach, he leaped into it alone, and held it till they were shamed into pressing round him. The breach was forced, and many Indians burned themselves in their houses. Those who fled far were mopped up by Ptolemy and Hephaestion; but many took refuge in their chief city, on the site of modern Multan.

  Leading ahead with his cavalry, Alexander managed to contain a greatly superior force which intercepted him, till the phalanx arrived to complete the rout. He then invested the city. It was the last focus of resistance, so Ptolemy and Hephaestion were sent back to the base. Alexander’s second-in-command was Perdiccas, with whom he now divided his forces so as to assault the city from two sides. (Ptolemy, though absent, does not fail to point out that his hated rival was late for his assignment.) When Alexander forced a gate in the outer wall, the Mallians all fled to the inner citadel. He chased them through the streets to its walls, and ordered an immediate escalade.

  Scaling ladders were brought, but, he thought, were being set up half-heartedly. He snatched one himself, planted it against the wall, and ran straight up it, holding his shield over his head, without a look to see if anyone followed. Reaching the battlements he used the shield to shove off the men above him, clawed his way on to the wall, and cleared a space with his sword. Now three of his officers scrambled up to his help: Peucestas, Leonnatus, and Abreas, a tried hero whose exploits had been recognized with double pay. The men below, seeing them stand on the wall a mark for every missile, began crowding up the ladder. Alexander had worked his spell again, but all too potently; the overburdened ladder broke, before any could reach the top. The four remained stranded; Alexander already recognized by the enemy, “not only by the splendour of his arms but by his superhuman courage.” Their section of wall was in missile range from adjacent towers; also from below, there being a mound on the inner side. On to this mound, into the thick of the enemy, he jumped down alone.

  Arrian gives his reasons, so typical that he may have told them himself to Ptolemy or Nearchus. “He felt that by staying where he was, he would be at great risk without achieving anything fameworthy; but if he leaped down inside the wall, that in itself might scare the Indians; and if he had to be in danger he might then sell his life dearly, after doing great deeds fit to be heard of by men to come.” He did indeed scare the Indians to a distance, after killing some hand to hand; but from there they pelted him with weapons, while he had only stones to throw back. Meantime his brave companions jumped down beside him. Peucestas carried the Homeric shield from Troy, apparently his usual office though this is the first we hear of it. By the time he lifted it over Alexander, it sheltered a man at the point of death. The Mallians were big men, using powerful longbows; a three-foot arrow had gone through his corselet into his lung.

  Even then he had fought on, dragging himself erect by clutching at a tree he had been using to guard his back. The movement caused a massive haemorrhage, with pneumothorax, a collapse of the punctured lung; on which he fell senseless. “Air along with blood blew out of the wound,” says Arrian, a very good observation of the bloody bubbles seen in this injury, often fatal even without subsequent exertion. The gallant Abreas died from another “clothyard shaft” which pierced his skull.

  All this time the Macedonians were frantically clambering up on each other’s shoulders or anything they could find. From the top, they stared at the inert body with cries and wails, which changed to frenzied battle yells. Transported with fury, grief and shame, they went through the citadel like some scourge of the Apocalypse, killing everyone they found, even the children.

  Alexander, the arrow still in his lung fixed by its barb, was carried out of the battle. The cultured Curtius gives him a polished little speech, encouraging his friends to operate. Their hesitation, at least, must have been real, since the wound must be cut open to release the barb, whose withdrawal was likely to kill him on the spot. He was still pinned to his corselet. Feebly drawing his dagger, he signed with it to saw through the shaft, since the flights would not pass the hole in the cuirass. They managed this; Perdiccas later claimed that it was he who, at Alexander’s special request, opened up his side. Someone else (possibly Ptolemy!) said a doctor did it; the likeliest hero is Peucestas on the spot. The barb was tugged out; the inevitable fresh haemorrhage followed; blood loss, agony and shock induced nature’s anesthetic, and he lost consciousness again.

  When the soldiers, returning from their massacre, learned he was still alive, they stood about his tent all day and through the night, till told that he was sleeping. His amazing constitution had won, for now; but like Achilles he had paid for glory with length of days. He had almost certainly a splintered rib; certainly a torn lung, its pleura perforated through both walls; and lacerated intercostal muscles. In healing, all these damaged layers, normally mobile, would knit together with adhesions of tight, ragged scar tissue. Arrian, the only reliable source here, does not say which side it was; but with every arm movement and any hard breathing he must henceforth have felt the wound; and in three years it would kill him.

  Meantime, as in his own camp hope revived, the army at the base had had word that he was dead. A reassurance was sent, but disbelieved; the men took for granted that news so appalling would be concealed by the high command. They expected not only a general Indian rising, but, being Macedonians, an immediate internecine struggle for power. We hear nothing, however, of any rivalry being renewed between Craterus and Hephaestion; he must have been too grief-stricken to care. All this could not long be kept from Alexander; who at once decided that if nothing but his physical presence would convince the army, the army would have to see him. With a week-old unhealed wound into his lung, he had himself carried to the river, about ten miles, to make the journey by water. Going upstream, the heave of the oars must have jarred him; but in a few days he was there. Nearchus described the scene.

  As soon as the ship bearing the King began to near the camp, he ordered the awning to be furled from the stern, so that all could see him. Even then the men doubted, thinking Alexander’s corpse was being brought there; till at last, when the ship had moored [his sense of theatre had not deserted him] he raised his hand to the crowd; and they cried aloud, some holding up their hands to heaven, some towards Alexander; and uncontrollable tears were shed in their astonished joy. Some of the bodyguard brought him a litter as he was being carried off the ship; but he ordered a horse to be fetched him. And when he mounted it, and everyone saw him, the whole army clapped their hands repeatedly, and the banks and river-glades threw back the sound. Then when Alexander was near his tent he got off his horse, so that the army could see him walking. They all ran to him from every side, some touching his hands, some his knees, some his clothing; others just looked from near by and blessed him as he went; some threw garlands on him, of whatever Indian flowers were then in bloom.

  Physically it must have half-killed him; emotionally it must have been meat and drink. However, he had given them the fright of their lives; and, not unreasonably, the officers reproached him. His part was taken by a rustic Boeotian subaltern, who said in the broad speech of his people that deeds are the measure of a man. Alexander expressed his gratitude; but a more solid comfort was the unconditional surrender of all the Mallians, whether from awe of his valour or terror of his men. Their powerful neighbours, the Oxydracae, against whom he had not struck a blow, surrendered also. No doubt he gave impressive audiences, seated, to envoys unaware that he was as weak as a child and coughing blood at every effort. The relative cool of winter helped his long convalescence. He never relaxed control of the campaign. As soon as he could be moved, he continued his progr
ess down river, along the way receiving embassies from his new lands, with princely gifts of every kind from pearls to hand-reared tame tigers.

  He had also a visit from his father-in-law, Oxyartes. Some homesick troops of the Bactrian Alexandrias had tried to desert on the rumour of the King’s death; but probably the real motive was to learn if his daughter was pregnant yet. Since leaving Taxila, with one brief interval Alexander had been at war in conditions which could not have admitted of taking her along; and since his wound he would scarcely yet be ready for an active sex life. He extended Oxyartes’ satrapy to the edge of the Hindu Kush, with nominal rule over the still unsubdued lands down river. His garrisons would of course be Macedonian commanded. He could hardly have been installed much further away from court. Alexander may already have had thoughts of a second, more royal marriage.

  While convalescing at a camp somewhere below the Indus-Chenab confluence, he redisposed his forces. Despite his wound, despite—no doubt because of—warnings about a dangerous route, he was still resolved on leading the coastal march in support of Nearchus’ fleet. It offered an irresistible mix of usefulness, challenge and romance. Cyrus the Great, and Semiramis the warrior Queen of Assyria, were both said to have come to grief there, barely getting through alive. His own plans elaborately laid, he looked forward to the triumph of bringing his expedition through safe and sound. It must, however, be light and mobile; it was to be provisioned by supply columns sent after it from the base.

  There could be no question of bringing the main army with its elephants, masses of heavy transport, time-expired veterans, walking wounded, and noncombatants of every kind. Apart from the gruelling conditions, it could not be fed. It was now entrusted to Craterus, to be returned to Persia with the minimum of hardship. Once more Roxane was someone else’s charge; only the much-enduring women of the common soldiers would follow their men along the coast.

  Arrian says the whole force was rafted over to the left bank of the river—an operation which must have taken weeks—because the going that side was easier and the tribes more peaceful. This clearly points to a riverside march into Taxila, where the needed stores could be picked up before tackling the Khyber, the main road Alexander had been at such pains to make secure. Yet it has been supposed that he launched this huge, slow-moving and highly vulnerable force directly northward (away from the river) into country never traversed by his troops, uncharted, mountainous and partly desert: the trail over the Mulla and Bolan passes to Kandahar, on which, as recently as the eighteenth century, a Persian army was in desperate straits. The “land of the Arachotians,” which Arrian says Craterus traversed, is very vaguely defined and probably reached the Indus. He and his force reached their Persian rendezvous late, but in excellent fettle, testifying to a roundabout and less inhospitable route. After their departure along the river, Hephaestion remained as Alexander’s undisputed second-in-command; a rank he would hold for what was left of his life.

  The last obstacle between Alexander and the sea was the land of the lower Indus and its ancient, now shifted delta. One of the rajahs there, Musicanus, had withheld submission, but gave it when Alexander came; the next made but brief resistance; the third, Sambus of Sind, had sent homage beforehand, hoping for the destruction of Musicanus, his hated enemy. Angry and alarmed to find him spared, and incited by the local Brahmins, Sambus revolted, then took fright and fled. His family surrendered, blaming the Brahmins, whom Alexander hanged. During these operations Musicanus, breaking his treaty, rose in arms; probably his own Brahmins had proclaimed a holy war. As always after breach of faith, Alexander attacked à l’outrance; the towns were stormed, the men killed, the women enslaved. The Indians’ use of poisoned weapons embittered the war. These lands were vital to his communications for the coastal march, and he was determined to secure them. (In this he was unsuccessful.) No personal exploit of his is here recorded, though he took the field. For the first time he must have felt the loss of that inexhaustible energy he had taken for granted all his life. He was to need all that remained, in the months ahead. Of the disabled men shepherded home by Craterus, not a few must have been fitter than the King.

  The country once subdued, Hephaestion took charge of turning the chief city of Pattala into a fortified port; but no doubt he joined Alexander for his long-awaited visit to the Ocean. So, probably, did the young Bagoas, whom Alexander had not dispatched with Craterus’ convoy. A dancer who kept up his practice, he had a resilience which would stand him in good stead.

  The royal flotilla sailed down the north arm of the delta; but the monsoon had come round again, and it was met by a storm of wind. The ships were driven aground, and several wrecked; the natives had fled, and no local guides could at first be found. While they waited, a more dreadful portent than the storm occurred: the water sank away. Acquainted till then only with the landlocked seas, they were unaware that for the first time in their lives they were seeing the ebb tide. Greece being the seismic area that it is, some must have heard about the sinister withdrawal which precedes the tsunami. But after some anxious hours, the waters returned, and stayed at their former bounds. The gods had been kind, but no one had known enough to secure the stranded ships, which were badly knocked about. At length, pilots found and repairs done, Alexander put out to an offshore island, where he sacrificed to the gods whom, he said, Amnion had instructed him to honour. Then at last he emerged into open sea. Here two bulls were slaughtered and thrown in for Poseidon; and along with his libations Alexander offered the golden bowls he poured them from.

  But it was only half the event he had hoped to celebrate. This should have been the eastern ocean, and its shore the end of the world; better recompense for short breath and a chronic catch in his side. It was about the time of his birthday; he was thirty-one.

  Since it was for the sake of the seaway that Alexander had planned his march, the interests of the fleet were paramount. Greek ships avoided moving at night, even in known waters; in these, where the very stars were strange, it was unthinkable. Their inability to carry more than a few days’ stores has already been noted; hence the necessity of victualling them from land, and protecting them when they had to beach. Thus the march had to follow the coast, not seek the easiest route inland. As long as the monsoon blew, the wind would be adverse for the ships; the march must therefore start in early autumn. Though Alexander had been warned about desert conditions, his Indian experience probably caused him to expect much more relief from autumn than he would get: cooler weather, and water from mountain snow torrents, such as were still swelling the Punjab streams. He filled in the end of summer with operations against the tribes to the north of the ancient Indus mouth and on the site of its present one, in order to secure his new harbours. Over these people, the Oreitians, he left a Macedonian satrap, who had charge of a supply train for the expedition. After it had set out, there was a revolt and this man was killed. The supplies were no doubt looted; none reached Alexander, nor, till afterwards, did the explanation.

  The men of the fleet, setting out into unknown waters, were heartened to know that Nearchus, one of the King’s best friends, was being hazarded in command of them—at his own eager insistence, as he himself recorded. In the event, the fleet had by far the best of it. Their hardships were dreadful, their perils great; they got from Alexander neither the provisions he had meant to leave for them, nor the wells he had meant to dig; to survive they turned pirate, raiding the sparse hovels of palaeolithic aborigines for their wretched food; they ended the voyage sun-blackened, gaunt, salt-crusted, unrecognizable ragamuffins; but almost all survived. Nearchus had twelve healthy years ahead of him.

  Arrian writes that of all his sources, only Nearchus said that the full difficulties of the route were not known to Alexander. But Nearchus would have known best: Alexander’s co-leader, with whom he had plotted the expedition, the arrangements for food depots, watering stations, seamarks and rendezvous. And Nearchus must be right; for had Alexander foreseen the horrors awaiting him, he would not h
ave let camp followers join the march, still less the women and families of the soldiers. Nearer and further Asia must have been scattered already with the unmarked graves of these poor victims, not all of whom had even chosen their lot; many women had been carried off from fallen towns by men of alien races without a word of their native speech, whose children they had borne behind the nearest bush, dying or trudging on. But neither Bactrian frosts nor Indian fevers had taken the toll of them which was now to come.

  The army set out with a flourish. Phoenician merchants followed it, having heard rumours of spices, one of their most precious trade goods. They were rewarded at first by a wilderness of myrrh and spikenard, whose bruising by the soldiers’ feet scented the air. But it was already inhospitable land, whose thorn bushes were so savage they could drag a man from his horse. Soon it was true desert, and no food convoys had come. Alexander as arranged sent troops to look for harbours, water and forage. What they found would have helped only the still unborn science of anthropology; the coast dwellers, as Nearchus later agreed, were “more like beasts than men”; covered with hair on body as well as head, using no tools but stones, living on raw fish, drinking from brack pools dug out with their clawlike nails; quite possibly an isolated pocket of Neanderthals. When a few victuals were found inland, Alexander kept faith with the fleet, and sent down a load to the shore to be left with a seamark; but on the way, the half-starved troops of the convoy broke the seals and ate it all. Their officers reported their need; Alexander accepted it and gave no punishments. It was growing clear already that the ships must shift for themselves; he would have enough to do with those in his own charge. They had sixty days of it; the most dreadful in most of their lives.