of his soldiers; Baktrian and Sogdian deaths were at least ten and perhaps 20
times that. 39 The conquered land had to be held, because it was so disturbed and because Alexander intended to move on still further east, and could not
allow it to erupt again in his rear. A large number of Baktrian and Sogdian
soldiers were recruited to reinforce his army. Well over 30,000 men were thereby removed from their homelands and unlikely to rebel. Then Alexander left a large garrison behind, ‘10,000’ infantry and 3,500 cavalry in Sogdia. The numbers are suspiciously round, but ‘10,000’ clearly implies a large number of men. 40
A considerable number of ‘settlers’ remained, some organized in cities. The
number of cities Alexander founded has been greatly exaggerated in later sources;
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it was a mark of civic pride in later centuries to claim Alexander as founder. Of those for which he was really responsible, all except Alexandria by Egypt and
Boukephala in India were established in eastern Iran. Their basic purpose was to act as large garrisons, fortifi ed centres of government, to magnify the effects of the conquest. 41 These foundations, fortifi cations, shifting of populations, killing, and recruiting, the deaths of Dareios and Bessos, convinced most men that the
Persian Empire was not revivable. On the other hand, there is a good deal of
evidence that there were local movements aimed at escaping Macedonian rule.
Alexander marched off on a new campaign, into India. This can only be
described as escapism. The diffi culty of the Baktrian campaign, and the plots and arguments in the high command, were indications that serious work needed
to be done to order and organize his new empire. It cannot be argued that the
conquest of India was necessary. The Indus Valley had certainly been part of the Persian Empire long before, but it had been independent for some time, and the only Indian troops Alexander had faced so far had been mercenaries. 42 A few recalcitrant Persians, such as Barsaentes, the former satrap of Arachosia, had escaped into India, but they had little effect. Alexander’s motives for this invasion were pathetic: to see the place and emulate the mythical journeys of the god
Dionysos, who was ‘discovered’ to have journeyed there, and to conquer the last vestige of the defunct Akhaimenid Empire.
It was as diffi cult a campaign as Baktria, a good deal less necessary, and
even nastier. The soldiers, by now not just Macedonians and Greeks, but with
a strong Iranian and Baktrian contingent as well, faced tough and determined
opposi tion from a sequence of militant states and peoples. They fought soldiers armed with frightening new weapons, such as war elephants, scarcely met with
before. In the monsoon season they sickened, their weapons corroded, and their clothing and equipment rotted. The complete absence of any evidence of Persian authority destroyed the idea of completing the conquest of the empire. At last, at the Hyphasis River, faced by another long march and then an attack on a new empire (Magadha), even Alexander could not get the army to go on. He sulked
in his tent for several days, a tactic which had worked with the army before but which failed this time. A face-saving soothsayer got him out of the impasse, and the army turned south.43
In this ‘the army’ meant the Macedonians. They were outnumbered substan-
tially by other soldiers by this time, but it was always with the Macedonians
that the king negotiated, with the senior offi cers or with the ordinary soldiers in a public meeting. It was a military version of Macedonian society that was
conquering the Persian Empire, and it was largely for the benefi t of Macedon
that these troops believed the campaign was being conducted. It is a measure of Alexander’s failure to convince his army of the reality of empire that after eight years of marching, fi ghting and conquest, the soldiers still believed this. To them
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it was still a long raid for booty, after which they would go home rich. But with an empire to run, Alexander could not let them go home.
Alexander set the army to march down the Indus Valley to the ocean, even
though he had agreed that they were to go home. He could have returned by the
Khyber Pass, as he had arrived, or by one of the other passes into Afghanistan
– one contingent under Krateros was sent by way of Arachosia to suppress dissent there.44 To take the whole army that way might suggest defeat – which he felt he had suffered – at his own army’s hands. The result was that the men, more or
less willing to indulge him now that he had agreed to return, believing they were going home, and in complete ignorance of the distances involved, were reluctant to do any fi ghting. Alexander insisted; receiving yet another wound in a rash attack on a city his troops had been slow to assault. 45 The army, and perhaps Alexander himself, turned savage, and the Indus campaign is a foul record of
killing and destruction. 46
Alexander left garrisons of troops scattered the length of the Indus River,
supervised by two satraps and by several of the Indian kings whom he had
defeated and then made into subsidiary allies. He constructed ships to sail down the river, and more ships to sail the ocean when he reached it. A detachment
went west by sea under Nearchos; Alexander took the rest on a march along the
Gedrosian coast, presumably in ignorance of the fact that it was desert; a third detachment under Leonnatos marched by an inland route. 47
Krateros’ and Nearchos’ forces got through with relatively little diffi culty, but Alexander’s force staggered from crisis to crisis, many of the men and the camp followers dying of thirst, hunger, heat or fl ash fl oods. It was almost as though Alexander was revenging himself on his army for having defeated him. The land
groups reunited at a town later called Alexandria-in-Karmania (the present
Gulushkird), where Alexander’s group are reported to have danced and drunk
their way through the rich countryside in a drunken celebration. Alexander, as keen on drinking as most and addicted to comparisons with the gods, had no
objection to this Dionysiac frenzy. 48
The rebuff he faced from his army in India rankled. He may well have become
steadily more conscious of his own mortality, particularly after the appalling wound he suffered in India, which surely contributed to his early death. He was suspicious already by that time, thanks to the plots generated within the court.
He now found that none of the satraps of southern Iran had bothered to send
supplies to await his arrival. This may not have been their fault, though he had probably sent word for them to be provided, but he was not in the mood to
listen when he emerged from the desert. He returned to the centre of his empire suspicious of everyone, and determined to take it out on someone.
The failure of the satraps to send him supplies was as much a failure of
Alexander’s government as of the satraps personally. He had steadily avoided the
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85
more unexciting decisions such as organizing a government, reasonably enough
when the conquest of the empire was still unfi nished. But then he had vanished into India, from which emerged no doubt exaggerated stories of murder, army
revolts, massacres and life-threatening wounds received by the king. Some at least of his satraps thought he was dead, or would never return.
This was a consequence of the fact that he was a king specifi cally of Macedon.
Philip’s legacy had been an army more than anything else, a superb fi ghting
force capable of defeating any other army in the world at the time. But the
>
government of Macedon was not developed to the same sophisticated level;
the Macedonian government was essentially the king, scarcely modifi ed by the
Army-as-Assembly.49 Alexander had assumed that he could simply take over the Persian Empire from Dareios, as he had taken over Macedon from Philip, needing only to replace a few satraps. Macedon was a personal state, dependent wholly on the king, who controlled everything, judged most of the legal disputes himself, oversaw the tax collection system, and so on. The kingdom was just about big
enough to be governed in such a way by an energetic king, and Philip did not
delegate any of his powers, military or civil. Neither did Alexander, but this was because he did not trust anyone. Once or twice, as with Parmenion and Krateros, he sent a man off with part of the army, but he would never trust anyone with the administrative development of the empire. It was not possible to run the empire alone; he needed a system, a bureaucracy and dependable offi cials.
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7
The united empire, 325–319 bc
The problems facing Alexander on his return from India were those faced by
any conqueror: how to control the conquered population; how to reward his
army; how to provide just government; how to install a working administration; how to prevent outsiders exploiting his diffi culties. He also had some problems exclusively his own: how to stay alive and provide for the succession, which had now become a more than urgent matter. As if these were not enough, he planned
a series of new conquests which were liable to be more like the campaigns in
eastern Iran and India than the relative ease with which the western provinces had been conquered.
He had been absent from the centre for fi ve years when he arrived back from
India. In Baktria he had been in touch, but while in India no major royal decisions were forthcoming; and this from a man who would not delegate. Some news
had reached him from Iran, and Krateros had been sent to deal with trouble
in Arachosia, but there was more to concern him than that when he arrived
in Karmania. His fi rst concern was for supplies, which took far too long to be produced, and he began to hear rumours of misgovernment, extortion by his
satraps, and so on.
His absence and his failure to attend to internal affairs had led to the
progressive disintegration of the Persian Empire into its constituent provinces.
The satraps had been left without supervision, and had governed according to
their own requirements and purposes. They could do nothing else. The Persian
satraps used the methods of the old empire, but the Macedonians and Greeks had no such tradition or training. Confusion, at the very least, was inevitable.
The Greeks and Macedonians were suddenly surrounded by more wealth
and power than they had ever dreamed of. They had become rich, and as was
the custom in their society, they were generous in giving presents to friends
and subordinates, an extremely wasteful habit in the circumstances. With no
philosophy of public service, and no ingrained respect for, or relationship with, the people they ruled, corruption and abuse were rife. Their satrapies were
the size of Macedon: they had become the equivalent of kings. And where the
governors went, their followers went also.
In Karmania, as soon as he arrived, Alexander was told of the abuse of power
by the local satrap Astaspes. Dissembling until his troops had recovered, the
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king waited a week, then had Astaspes executed for ‘rebellion’. 1 What Astaspes had actually done was to rule his satrapy without supervision; every other satrap was in his position.
A reinforcement of 6,000 men arrived from Ekbatana, commanded by a group
of offi cers, some of whom had been involved in the killing of Parmenion and
had reaped much unpopularity. Offi cers and men were accused of a catalogue of crimes by men of the army and by Medians who had accompanied the march.
Two of the offi cers, Kleandros and Sitalkes, were executed; another, Agathon, may have been; a fourth, Herakon, was acquitted, but later convicted of similar crimes in Susiana, and executed there. Their troops were also punished, by
decimation. 2
The satrap of Susiana, Abulites, was accused of not sending Alexander supplies.
He had retained this post after surrendering to Alexander; his son Oxathres was satrap of Paraitakene next door, and Abulites had extended his power over the
Uxii, another neighbour. This conjunction suggests that the concentration of
family power was the real issue: father and son were both executed, Oxathres
reputedly by Alexander personally.3 Other Persian satraps had been appointed in Iran, several, like Abulites and Astaspes, to the satrapies they had governed previously. Perhaps originally a temporary measure to keep the area quiet while the conquest was fi nished off, Alexander’s return meant a reckoning. 4
The Persian satraps had Macedonian and Greek offi cials alongside them, one
to command the garrison, and one to take charge of fi nances. The satraps did
not like this system, which refl ected on their loyalty and probity. Some accepted it as the price of conquest and proved loyal: Phrataphernes in Parthia was one, and sent supplies to Karmania soon after Alexander arrived, convoyed by his son Pharismenes; 5 Atropates of Media was trusted to suppress the previous satrap who had been disloyal. 6 In Persis, of all sensitive places, the satrap Phrasaortes died while Alexander was in India. Orxines, a high Persian aristocrat, took over without permission: Alexander was out of touch, and there was no alternative
source of authority, but he was executed for his presumption. 7 This was clearly unjust: it was Alexander’s responsibility to provide for the unexpected death of a satrap, and Orxines may have simply been operating the Akhaimenid system.
Orxines was an enemy of Alexander’s favourite, the eunuch Bagoas, whose
intrigues certainly contributed to Alexander’s suspicions. 8
The Persian satraps who were removed were replaced by Macedonians. This
process, and execution of the Persian nobles, was a blow to Alexander’s hopes of a combined Persian-Macedonian government. But it was not just the Persians
who were delinquent; Macedonians were as liable to be disobedient and disloyal.
Alexander’s own boyhood friend, Harpalos, his treasurer, absconded to Greece
with a large sum of the money entrusted to him. 9 In Egypt, Kleomenes of Naukratis had used his position to establish control over the whole government
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89
machine, and became extremely rich as well. Alexander, perhaps unable to
remove him from a distance, and pleased that he was pushing on the construction of Alexandria, may have cooperated by making him the satrap. 10 Orxines was executed for taking emergency control of a vital satrapy; Kleomenes was
promoted for usurping authority; this was a travesty of government.
Alexander ordered the satraps to disband their own mercenary forces. 11 This would disarm potential opponents and reduce the burden on the population.
But some of the discharged soldiers became bandits, others returned to Greece, where they assembled at the great mercenary market at Cape Tainaron in Sparta, waiting to be employed. The consequences of Alexander’s order had not been
thought out.
One reason for the order might be a rebellion by a group of Greek mercenaries
in Baktria, who had believed a rumour of Alexander’s death in India. They seized Baktra, the satrapal capital, and elected one of their offi cers, an Athenian called Athenodoros, as king. They soon dissolved into quarrelling gro
ups: some wanted to return to Greece, but the election of a king suggests that others wanted an independent state. 12 South of Baktria, in Arachosia, Krateros, on his march from India with the elephants and some of the Macedonian troops, he encountered
rebel Persian offi cers, Ordanes (or Ozines) and Zariaspes. He arrested them. He brought them to Alexander at Karmania in chains; they were executed. 13
Establishing control over the governors was fairly easy; the execution of a few swiftly sorted out the rest into those who had always been loyal and those who fl ed, who were thus the disloyal ones. The army was another matter. Alexander required a large professional and effi cient army, to keep order, overawe and
punish rebels and potential rebels, and carry out further conquests. His troops were now a mixture of Greek mercenaries, Persians and Indians, and his own
Macedonians. It was the Macedonians he had to control or conciliate. They
wanted to go home, to display their wealth and their scars and boast of their
exploits. Alexander could not allow this, since if they all went home he would be left only with his former enemies in arms. The answer was a balance between the two groups. A squadron of Iranian Companions was recruited, and some were
brought into the royal squadron. 14
The ceremonial and procedures of the court became more elaborate, and
Alexander tended to wear Median costume. Behind all this was the need for
a much more elaborate governmental system than Macedon had had, but he
was accused of succumbing to Persian culture. 15 He organized a great marriage ceremony in which 100 or so of his senior Macedonian offi cers married aristocratic Persian women, an obvious attempt to unite the two military and ruling
aristocracies. Supposedly 10,000 of his men were married to the concubines
and mistresses they had acquired on their travels in an attempt to persuade the men not to go home to Macedon. He himself took two more wives (in addition
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to Roxane), daughters of Dareios III and Artaxerxes III.16
This was partly a deliberate policy of developing a source of military support alternative to the Macedonians; a counter to the phalanx, Alexander called it. 17
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