trademark procedures of striking rapidly, finishing the job quickly (within forty days), and then
founding cities at strategic points within his newly conquered possessions.
Alexander and his court then began to make their way to Babylon. On his way he was greeted by
embassies from Libya and from the Bruttians, Lucanians, and Etruscans in Italy. Carthage also sent a
delegation. Others came from the Ethiopians, the European Scythians, the Celts, and the Iberians.
The peoples of the western Mediterranean had especially pressing reasons to seek Alexander’s
favor. This was true of the Carthaginians, in particular; the assistance they had promised Tyre during
the siege of that city years earlier must have seemed in retrospect an embarrassing and potentially
fatal mistake. The Indians had been annihilated, Alexander was back, and Carthage lay along the route
of Alexander’s planned conquest of the western Mediterranean. He never forgot anyone who crossed
him. His forgiveness extended only to old friends and, like most gifts, could be redeemed just once.
After that, Alexander’s response invariably was lethal. The Carthaginians had every reason for
concern.
Later, after Alexander entered the city of Babylon, Greek delegations came to him to offer him the
victor’s crowns and to congratulate him on his many victories, especially those in India. In fact, so
many deputations appeared that Alexander had to make a list of them and arrange a schedule of
audiences.
First, in order of the importance of their sanctuaries, the king heard those ambassadors who came
on matters concerning religion—yet another indication of Alexander’s priorities. Alexander dealt
with the Eleians, then the Ammonians, next the Delphians, then the Corinthians, the Epidaurians, and
the rest.
Second, he saw those who brought gifts. Third, he received those who had disputes with their
neighbors. Fourth came those who had problems concerning themselves alone. Finally, we are told,
he listened to those who wished to present arguments against receiving exiles back.
Only this last group of embassies presented serious political or potential military problems. From
Diodorus, we know that Alexander, by a letter read at the Olympic Games in early August 324, had
announced the restoration of exiles throughout the Greek world (except the Thebans) and the
restoration of the exiles’ confiscated property. His motive appears to have been a mixture of desire
for glory, as he himself claimed, as well as political gain, for the returned exiles naturally would
become his partisans in their cities. The only exceptions, besides the one for Thebes, applied to
exiles judged guilty of sacrilege or, possibly, murder. Antipater had been ordered to enforce the
decree.
Nevertheless, the beginning of the return of these exiles had caused unrest in many cities, and
nearly war with the city of Athens, whose settlers on the island of Samos would be replaced by
returning Samians if the decree were enforced.
The embassies that came to Alexander in Babylon about the Exiles’ Decree were there, however,
only to discuss how it affected their own cities or situations, not to debate the constitutionality of the
decree itself. Alexander’s publication of the decree clearly indicates that he no longer saw himself
merely as the leader ( hegemon) of a pan-Hellenic league (the League of Corinth) that was
theoretically a body of autonomous equals, as his father, Philip, had intended the alliance to be seen.
That idea had died long ago, after the murder of Darius. Alexander was now the king of all Asia—and
of Hellas too, in effect, although this was not stated openly. The publication of the Exiles’ Decree
was really a taste of the power Alexander now felt confident enough to exercise throughout his
empire.
To the envoys who approached him the king now paid honors. He also gave to them the statues,
images, and other votive offerings that Xerxes had removed from Greece, including the bronze statues
of the so-called Athenian tyrant slayers, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and the Celcaean Artemis
(which were returned to Athens). Harmodius and Aristogeiton, as we have seen, were wrongly
believed by many Athenians to have slain the last of the Athenian tyrants during the late sixth century
and thus to have laid the foundations for the development of the Athenian democracy. The irony of the
return of these statues of two heroes of the Athenian democracy by a Macedonian king, who now was
the ruler not only of Persia but of Greece as well, cannot have been lost upon the Athenians.
Aristus and Asclepiades declare that a certain small city in central Italy also sent envoys to
Alexander at this time. When Alexander discerned the orderliness of the envoys and their diligence
and freedom and learned about their constitutions, he prophesied something of their future greatness.
Or, alternatively and somewhat more ominously, it was also reported that, as part of his future plans
of conquest, Alexander intended to make for Sicily and the Iapygian coast, being rather distressed
already at the extension of Rome’s fame.
PROPHETS’ BEST GUESSES
Before Alexander received all these embassies, however, there were suggestions that the king should
look after his own well-being. After Alexander crossed the Tigris, but before he had even entered
Babylon, priests of Bel came to him and advised him to halt his advance to Babylon. They had an
oracle from their god, they claimed, that his approach to Babylon at the time would lead to disaster.
Alexander replied to the priests with a line from a now lost play of Euripides: “Prophets are best
who make the best guess.”
Hearing this, the priests urged him at least not to look toward the west, nor to lead his army
westward, but rather to wheel his force and lead it eastward.
Alexander, however, suspected that the priests were less concerned with his health than with their
own self-interest. Xerxes, it was alleged, had razed the temple of Bel, and Alexander intended to
rebuild it on a larger scale. But the Babylonian “contractors” had pursued the rebuilding languidly,
and Alexander proposed to complete the work. The priests, Alexander perhaps believed, were
worried that he would compel them to subsidize the reconstruction of the temple from their own
surplus revenues.
Despite his suspicions concerning the priests’ motives, Alexander nevertheless attempted to avoid
entering the city from the west. But this proved to be too difficult for the army. Because of swampy
land and pools around the other approaches, Alexander with the army finally entered the city from the
west after all.
PREPARATIONS IN BABYLON
In Babylon the most important item on Alexander’s agenda was the detailed preparation for the next
campaign. Nearchus, with his fleet, already had been summoned up the Euphrates to Babylon. Two
Phoenician quinqueremes (in which the upper and middle oars were rowed by two men, the lower by
one man), three quadriremes, twelve triremes, and thirty thirty-oared galleys also had been
disassembled on the Phoenician coast, brought overland to Thapsacus, and sailed down the
Euphrates.
But Alexander was having a new flotilla built as well, using the cypresses of Babylonia. To
accommodate this enormous fleet of 1,000 warships, the harbor of Babylon was being dredged. At the
/> same time, Miccalus of the city of Clazomenae was sent to Phoenicia and Syria with 500 talents with
which to hire or purchase men familiar with the sea.
These naval preparations were to be directed against the Arabs, ostensibly because they alone of
the barbarians had sent no delegation or done anything complimentary to pay honor to Alexander. But
the wealth of the country was also an incentive, particularly its cassia, its frankincense and myrrh, and
its cinnamon and nard. Alexander also had heard that Arabia had harbors everywhere suitable for his
fleet, which also might provide sites for prosperous new cities.
Finally, Alexander had heard that the Arabs worshipped only two gods, Uranus and Dionysos.
Since he had achieved even more famous deeds than Dionysos, Alexander did not think it
inappropriate to provide the Arabs with a third god for their small pantheon: himself. But in truth, of
course, as Arrian understood, Alexander simply was insatiate for further conquest.
In assessing Alexander’s plan to conquer Arabia, some historians have supposed that, after the
march across Gedrosia and the death of Hephaestion, Alexander really had no purpose left and that
there was nothing left worth doing, as far as Alexander was concerned.
But planning the invasion of Arabia was not the activity of a man in the depths of despair. There is
no evidence that Alexander had lost his mind, that his mental capacities had deteriorated in any way,
or that he had lost his desire to go on by 324/3.
What is incredible and indisputable is rather that after all of the battles he already had fought; after
all the miles he and the Macedonians had marched together; the drunken brawls; the wounds; the
deaths of Philotas, Parmenio, Cleitus, Bucephalas; the mutinies; Gedrosia; and the loss of his best
friend, Alexander’s fundamental desire to conquer was undiminished and unchanged. But he had
always conquered to live, and there was no end in sight.
If the plan were mad, it had ever been thus, and Alexander now approached the next phase of his
grand plan with the same care that he had devoted to the conquest of the Persian empire and India.
FINAL TOUCHES
The gigantic fleet was put together and exploratory expeditions to the islands of Icarus (Falaika) and
Tylos (Bahrain) were made by the famous pilots Archias and Androsthenes. Androsthenes in fact
ended up sailing around a part of the Arabian Peninsula. A third shipmaster, Hieron of Soli, was
instructed to go even farther, circling the entire peninsula as far as Heröopolis on the Red Sea; but he
turned back, reporting that the peninsula was of tremendous size, nearly as big as India, and that a
great headland ran far out into the ocean.
But even the conquest of Arabia was only stage one of the larger enterprise. Alexander also
commissioned Herakleides of Argos to explore the shores of the Caspian in furtherance of
Alexander’s wider goal of linking his eastern conquests to his European empire.
While the great fleet was assembling, Alexander also busied himself and his men clearing the
canals of the Euphrates and founding the last of his Alexandrias after sailing down the Pallacopas (a
canal leading off from the Euphrates) to the Arabian lakes. This city lay in what is now Kuwait and
was populated by Greek mercenaries, volunteers, and superannuated or unfit veterans.
Back in Babylon, the fleet was exercising constantly, with frequent rowing races and trials of skill
for the helmsmen. The land invasion force was also mustering. Peucestas had brought 20,000 troops
from Persia, including the Cossaeans (conquered just the year before) and Tapurians. Philoxenus had
brought an army from Caria. Menander led troops from Lydia, and Menidas came with his cavalry.
The Persians, with whom Alexander intended to rule over his empire in harmony and fellowship,
now were enrolled in various Macedonian brigades, so that the Macedonian line of infantry soldiers
consisted of a Macedonian leader and two of his countrymen, twelve Persians, and then another
Macedonian. Thus the Macedonians lined up first, second, and last in a line, with twelve Persians in
between. These infantry lines provided the momentum behind the three ranks of pikemen at the front of
the phalanx. Alexander had successfully incorporated Persians into the traditional Macedonian
infantry brigades.
All was in readiness. More delegations from Greece then presented themselves, wearing
ceremonial crowns. These delegates solemnly approached Alexander and adorned him with gold
crowns, as if they had come as sacred ambassadors to honor a god. Whether they (or their cities)
signified by the wearing of such crowns that they actually believed Alexander to be a god (as he
clearly was conceived of in some Greek cities by 323) is a vexed, and perhaps unanswerable,
question. In Sparta, apparently in response to Alexander’s own order that the Greeks should vote on
declaring him to be divine, the Spartans passed a decree saying, “Since Alexander wishes to be a
god, let him be a god.” More seriously, we know that in Athens the politician Demades certainly had
proposed a decree declaring Alexander a god. Whatever the envoys or the Athenians believed about
Alexander, or whatever the king thought about himself, however, the end was not far off.
CHAPTER 29
Death in Babylon
THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION
By late spring of 323, Alexander was back in Babylon, receiving delegates from the Libyans and the
Carthaginians. A massive armada had been built for his Arabian campaign, and a formidable land
army of mixed Macedonian and Persian infantry had been mustered.
After his planned conquest of Arabia, Alexander had his eye trained on the western Mediterranean.
The shores of the Caspian and the Black Sea also had been designated for exploration. The purpose of
these exploratory missions was to lay the foundation for further military campaigns, leading to the
eventual unification of Alexander’s Asian and European empires.
Although Alexander had been wounded in battle eight times, had lost his best friend, and was
drinking heavily, his appetite for conquest had only been whetted by his already unprecedented
victories. Lawrence of Arabia was shattered by the revelation that he enjoyed giving and receiving
pain. The inner citadel of Alexander’s self-esteem was never punctured by the wounds he either dealt
out or received. Alexander was not a broken man in the spring of 323. The real question was whether
he was only a man, either in his own eyes or in others’.
Then, only a few days before the conquest of the rest of the known world was to begin, the god
died.
Alexander’s death, just as some Greek cities were about to accord him divine honors, is every bit
as controversial as his life. That was probably to be expected. Alexander never gave himself or
anyone else any rest while he was alive. Why should we have expected him to have gone gentle into
that good night—or to have left us with a clear understanding of what, or who, finally conquered a
man who could not be killed on any field of battle? Of course, Alexander’s death, like Mozart’s, is
steeped in mystery, and the ancient sources are in irrevocable disagreement about its causes.
Moreover, it almost inevitably attracted to it the charge that Alexander had been poisoned, not by
some jealous Macedonian Salieri, but by the greatest philosopher in Western
history, none other than
his old tutor, Aristotle. For many, the appeal of a murder mystery in which the West’s greatest
conqueror was done in by its greatest philosopher has proved to be irresistible. But does it have any
support from the evidence?
THE STORY OF THE FEVER
One tradition about Alexander’s death was based upon the so-called Royal Diaries, in which his
royal secretary, Eumenes of Cardia, and Diodotus of Erythrae supposedly recorded Alexander’s daily
activities. After Alexander’s death the Royal Diaries were made public to document the course of the
fever that reportedly killed him.
The story of the fever began as follows. Alexander gave a splendid banquet in honor of his Cretan
friend Nearchus, the admiral of his fleet. After the banquet Alexander took a bath with the intention of
going to bed. But a man named Medius from Larissa invited the king to come to his house to join
another party, and there was drinking all through the next day. Alexander began to feel feverish while
he was still at Medius’ party.
On the eighteenth of the Macedonian month of Daisios (late May), according to the diaries,
Alexander slept in a bathing room because of his fever. After taking a bath the next day the king
moved to his bedchamber, where he spent the day playing dice with Medius. When it was late,
Alexander took another bath, performed sacrifices to the gods, and ate a little, but remained feverish
through the night. On the twentieth he bathed again, made his customary sacrifice, and, lying down on
the floor of the bathing room, listened to Nearchus tell the story of his voyage and the great sea.
On the twenty-first of Daisios, Alexander spent the day in the same way, but was more inflamed
and at night was grievously ill. The following day his fever was also very high. By the side of the
bath the king nevertheless conversed with his officers about vacant posts in the army, and how they
might be filled by experienced men.
On the twenty-fourth Alexander’s fever was violent and he had to be carried to perform his
sacrifices. He ordered his greatest officers to wait in the court of the palace (probably the palace of
Nebuchadnezzar) and the commanders of brigades and companies to spend the night outside. The next
Alexander Page 33