Alexander the Great Failure

by John D Grainger

  The Macedonian soldiers, the rank and fi le anyway, resented it, making their

  feelings quite clear.18 They had to be conciliated, for he could not yet do without them, but this was not easy. Alexander paid off the soldiers’ debts, an action costing his treasury at least 10,000 talents.19 He also recruited 30,000 Persian youths and drilled them in the Macedonian fashion. 20 The Macedonian soldiers were paraded for those too old or disabled for further service to be discharged, but they mutinied, believing he needed them still. He called their bluff and told them to go. There was reconciliation, but he did discharge half of them, sending them home under the command of Krateros, a man they trusted.

  Krateros’ other task was to replace Antipater as regent in Macedon; Antipater

  was to join Alexander in Babylon to give an account of his viceroyalty, bringing more Macedonians with him. It is often assumed that Antipater saw this as a

  threat to his position, or even to his life; 21 the evidence for this consists mainly of Antipater’s failure to set out on the journey, but he had to wait for Krateros, who moved very slowly.

  Greece was a further problem. The gathering of mercenaries at Cape Tainaron

  was a potential diffi culty; their presence was a good reason for sending Krateros and his tough veterans home to Macedon, where they would be a standing deterrent to Macedonian enemies for a time. The mercenaries were often political exiles from their cities, and other men were exiled by civic coups, some brought about by the Macedonian conquest. Isokrates’ idea to solve this was to settle such men in conquered lands in Asia. Such settlements had to be organized by someone, that is, the king, just as Philip had been the organizer of the settlements of Philippi and Philippopolis, or Athens had organized the settlements in the Chersonese.

  This does not appear to have occurred to Alexander. Having established a few

  cities, mainly in the east, he made no further attempt to found more.22

  Instead he now ordered that all Greek exiles be allowed to return to their cities of origin, and had the announcement made at the Olympic Games in 324, where

  representatives from all Greek states were present. This would involve almost

  everyone in Greece in continual civic disputes for the foreseeable future. Some cities would accept it, but most would refuse or avoid compliance; its purpose was surely to distract and weaken the members of the league. It was the antithesis of good government. Antipater in Macedon was put in charge of enforcement;

  Krateros would have to take over the task when he got to Macedon. Neither man

  was a diplomat; it is likely that they would need to resort to force; two major Greek powers, Athens and Aitolia, refused point-blank to comply. 23

  At the same time another announcement was made, that Alexander, as

  hegemon of the league, required that the cities acknowledge him as a god. This

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  is likely to be, in effect, a request by Alexander that the cities acknowledge his achievements, and this was the only way in which it could be done. It was one

  stage beyond Philip. Alexander took it seriously, but in Greece it provoked some ridicule, at least among his enemies, but many of the cities, including Athens, did as he asked.24

  As if to emphasize the delicacy of the whole situation in Greece, Harpalos

  turned up at Athens with his stolen wealth. He was a well-connected man, a

  friend of Alexander, and a member of the old Elimaian royal family. One of his brothers, Philippos, was satrap in India; his cousin Kalas had been Alexander’s fi rst appointed satrap, in Hellespontine Phrygia. 25 Harpalos’ defection was thus a serious matter, threatening trouble in Macedon, and now in Athens. He fl ed from Alexander’s justice with 5,000 talents from the treasury, and he had 6,000 mercenaries with him. Athens had refused Alexander’s order to allow exiles to return to Samos; the city was thus threatened with Antipater’s punishment. Harpalos was

  therefore the focus of a whole group of anti-Macedonian elements – mercenaries, Athens, the former hill kingdoms of Upper Macedon. The Athenians were wary

  of becoming even more involved in Macedonian internal affairs; and Harpalos

  took his money and his mercenaries to Tainaron. He left the mercenaries there

  and returned to Athens with the money, and this time was admitted as a sup-

  plicant. The Athenians, with a cynicism fully in accord with their recent history, confi scated the money, and then let Harpalos escape from jail. 26 Clearly this was

  not the moment for Antipater to leave Macedon without a ruler.

  These measures by Alexander, crowded into a brief period of little more than

  a year, were designed to shake up entrenched special interests. Return of exiles, discharge of veterans, recruitment of Persian troops, replacement of Persian

  satraps with Macedonians, deifi cation, operated on the administration of his

  empire in all its aspects and threatened the powers of men who blocked his

  intentions. The problem was that such men had a lot of local power, and were

  very reluctant to be removed, nor did their supporters wish to see them go. This applied to Antipater, to the Athenian democratic regime, to Kleomenes in Egypt.

  It all looks like an alternative to a thoroughgoing renovation of the imperial administrative system, which would take a long time. And Alexander wanted to

  go on campaign again.

  Mortality came close in the autumn 324 when Hephaistion, his closest friend,

  died. He had been appointed chiliarchos (chief administrator) of the empire, though his abilities were not up to the job – or so his enemies said. Alexander showed extravagant grief – everything he did now tended to be extravagant

  – and indulged himself in a campaign against a tribe of obstreperous hillmen as a death offering. 27 In the spring he made preparations for a campaign against the independent and richer parts of Arabia; 28 after this he would arrive in Egypt, where Kleomenes would surely be investigated, at the very least.

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  A campaign was Alexander’s standard response to diffi culties, but it was hardly constructive. The empire was too big already, and had many problems needing

  to be tackled before more expansion was undertaken. For the king to go off on a long voyage – he intended to circumnavigate Arabia, which might take months

  – in the midst of these troubles meant that the problems would be worse when,

  or if, he turned up again.

  This behaviour pattern had been visible even at the start of his kingship, in

  336, when he had refused to marry and produce an heir in the two years before

  the start of his campaign. He was good at fi ghting, and clearly enjoyed it more than anything else, but he used it to evade responsibility. This was a failure to grow up. In many ways he was a perpetual adolescent; his superstition, impulsiveness, carelessness with money, extravagant grief over the death of Hephaistion, unwill ing ness to see that other work needed to be done, love of fi ghting, all show this. Whether he would ever have grown up is unclear; it would have needed a sur-rogate father to admonish and guide him. Antipater, coming fresh to him, might have been the man, if Alexander would listen. But neither got the chance.

  In the midst of the work of preparation for his Arabian expedition, Alexander

  became ill, and on 10 June, 323, he died. 29 Conspiracy theories surround this event: one has it that Antipater organized the assassination all the way from

  Macedon and involved half the imperial administration in the plot. These can be dismissed as the imaginings of the desk-bound historians and over-imaginative

  novelists. 30 Alexander suffered repeated wounds during his lifetime, and more than one brought him near death; he drank too much;31 he developed a fever, during which he continued to drink too much; he believed he was a god
; Babylon in high summer was hardly the healthiest place on earth; he disregarded his

  doctor’s counsel, a man he had trusted completely ten years before; he was faced with huge problems which he planned to evade by going on campaign; people

  all around him were continually demanding of his time and energy. It is hardly surprising he died. As a fi nal act of irresponsibility he is said, when asked to whom he left his kingdom, to have replied: ‘to the strongest’, and then, ‘I foresee a great funeral contest over me’.32

  These remarks may be ben trovato – Alexander is also said to have been speechless by this time – yet they do fi t well with the man’s life, and he certainly never designated a successor. He was a superb military commander, a master of

  all the detail of warfare – logistics, planning, training, fi ghting – and capable of adapting his military methods to the most unexpected situations. He successfully conducted sieges, great battles, hill campaigns, contested river crossings and even defeated the nomads of the steppe on their own territory. He was ruthless, and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

  But this was only part of his duties. As king he had to be a politician and

  administrator as well. In the fi rst he was clever and devious and determined, as

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  ruthless as in his warfare, but liable to stir up trouble rather than solve problems.

  As an administrator, despite his capability in military logistics and planning, he was a failure, relying far too much on personal persuasiveness and force. This was his father’s method, but something more was required. His legacy was thus

  exclusively his fame and his army, seductive lures for his successors, many of whom took a long time to appreciate what was missing.

  For the moment, the absence of an heir was the major concern of his men.

  The only male relative he had left was his half-brother Arrhidaios, who was

  mentally unfi t to rule. Alexander had at least one son, Herakles, by a liaison with Barsine, the widow of his old enemy Memnon of Rhodes (and daughter of

  Artabazos). The boy was no more than two or three years old in 323. 33 His offi cial wife Roxane was pregnant again, having had a miscarriage a couple of years

  before;34 he had recently married two more wives, emulating his father: Stateira, a daughter of Dareios III, and Parysatis, a daughter of Artaxerxes III Ochos, so connecting himself with the two recent Persian dynasties. Neither is ever heard of again: Roxane is said to have killed Stateira and, it is assumed, Parysatis. 35

  Beyond his son and his half-brother, Alexander’s relatives were few. He had

  a sister, Kleopatra, the widow of King Alexander of Epirus, the mother of a son and daughter, and two half-sisters, neither married: Thessalonike, daughter of Nikesipolis, and Kynane, daughter of Audata. For those intent on continuing

  the Argead royal family in ruling Macedon, therefore, there was only one male

  possibility, Arrhidaios, though he was widely seen as a half-wit. Or there was Roxane’s child, which at least would be a child of Alexander, though it could only be considered if it was male. No competent adult was available.

  It was clearly necessary for someone to secure control of the administration

  and of the army as rapidly as possible. The breakdown of the empire while

  Alexander was in India was reminiscent of the troubles Macedon went through

  before Philip, and the situation was on a continental scale this time. The solution was obviously some sort of regency. The paucity of available royalty must have suggested to more than one Macedonian noble that the kingship was available to any man who had the necessary support – as Alexander had said: ‘the strongest’, but any man who made a move to claim the throne would immediately become

  the enemy of all the rest. In the event none tried, not immediately, at least.

  Perdikkas was chiliarchos, and had possession of Alexander’s signet ring.

  This put him in control for the moment at Babylon, and after some trouble and

  negotiation he was able to install himself as regent. Arrhidaios, now renamed

  Philip, and Roxane’s baby, if it was male, would be joint kings. 36 The process mainly involved Perdikkas negotiating with Krateros and Antipater, but at one

  point the army in Babylon almost fell into a civil war. The result put off a decision about the actual kingship for years: Roxane’s son (as it proved to be) could not rule for 16 years at least, and Arrhidaios not at all.

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  For the moment, by controlling Arrhidaios, who became King Philip III,

  Perdikkas was more or less certain of his position. He eliminated Meleagros, an infantry commander who had conducted an attempted coup, and distributed

  offi ces to the senior Macedonians. Most of them were given satrapies. This ensured control of the provinces, but they were also removed from Babylon, leaving

  Perdikkas in exclusive continuing control of the kings and the administration.

  He kept with him a few trusted Macedonians, making Seleukos his second-in-

  command. 37

  The army suddenly ceased to demand to return home, for one casualty of the

  new regime was Alexander’s policy of recruiting Persians and employing Persian aristocrats in high positions. The army was given a deciding vote on Alexander’s plans and, not wishing to go on campaign again, voted to abandon them. The

  Macedonians were again supreme. Atropates continued as satrap of part of

  Media; Phrataphernes probably also lost some of his Parthian satrapy; Roxane’s father Oxyartes retained his satrapy of Paropamisadai, safely distant. Alexander’s administration in the Indus Valley had scarcely survived his departure, and

  India was in effect abandoned. All this was done with the approval of the

  Macedonian army in Babylon. Had a king made such decisions, such approval

  was not needed; for a regent it clearly was, even with only one-third of the army present. The cancellation of Alexander’s plans also involved the cancellation

  of the replacement of Antipater by Krateros, which was presumably part of

  the bargain made between the three men. All but one of the offi cers married

  to Iranian women at Susa the year before repudiated their wives; many of the

  soldiers married at the time may have done so as well.

  The news of Alexander’s death, and the confusion over the succession, brought

  two wars, in Baktria and in Greece. In Baktria a large number of the Greeks left as settlers or garrisons decided that Alexander’s death was a good moment for

  them to go home. Some had been involved in the rebellion two years before, but this was a much more formidable development. Now they were defeated again.

  The new satrap of Media, Peithon, and a Macedonian force, captured many of

  them; Perdikkas ordered them killed, to prevent Peithon recruiting them, 38 but

  some survived and returned to Baktria. Philip, the Baktrian satrap appointed by Alexander and reappointed by Perdikkas, seems to have survived the revolt. 39

  The majority of the malcontents in the east had now been removed one way

  or another, and Baktria now became a major fi eld of Greek (as compared to

  Macedonian) colonial settlement. There were already some cities in the region, founded by Alexander; the settlers developed more.

  The death of Alexander was also the death of the hegemon of the Hellenic League. In theory someone such as Antipater could have been elected, but events moved too fast. Athens produced Harpalos’ gold, and the Athenian general

  Leosthenes, who already had good contacts at the Cape Tainaron mercenary

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  camp, used the money to hire a mercenary army. Many of the men at Tainaron


  had been with Alexander, and many others there had been opposed to him;

  recruitment cannot have been difficult among the unemployed men, and

  was certainly arranged quickly. Both Athens and Aitolia had objections to the

  restoration of exiles and made an alliance.40 They were joined by others, but not by the Boiotians, still pleased at the destruction of Thebes. Sparta stayed out, and so Arkadia and Messenia were neutral. The Aitolians seized control

  of Thermopylai, and were joined there by the Athenians, who also mobilized

  their fl eet. Antipater came south, but at the fi rst meeting he was deserted by the Thessalians in his army and withdrew to stand a siege in Lamia. At one point he offered surrender, on terms, but Leosthenes insisted on surrender without terms, which would mean enslavement or execution. Antipater held out. 41 In effect the Macedonian European empire had dissolved.

  Antipater sent out appeals for help to the nearest Macedonian forces in Asia.

  The satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, Leonnatos, crossed the Hellespont with his forces; Krateros, in Kilikia, did not move until he received the news that Perdikkas was marching north from Babylon. Krateros was, it seems, concerned to maintain control of Kilikia, a key nodal point in the empire; Perdikkas’ march north was for the purpose of establishing control in Kappadokia, which would ensure better communications. Krateros was not being reluctant to support Antipater; he was

  doing his job. Leonnatos meanwhile joined with Antipater and broke the siege of Lamia, but died in the fi ghting. Leosthenes was also killed. Antipater withdrew through Thessaly to Macedon. For the moment it seemed that the Greeks had

  won their war. 42

  The Macedonian commanders had one eye on what the Greeks were doing

  and the other on the situation within the Macedonian command structure. The

  Macedonian barons began to operate as near-independent lords, making alliances among themselves. Antipater offered one daughter to Perdikkas and another to

  Krateros. This second offer was to induce Krateros to help him, but it also implied the making of an alliance in Macedonian politics; in the circumstances this could only be directed against Perdikkas. Leonnatos had received a still more tempting offer, from Olympias, of the hand of Alexander’s sister Kleopatra; he accepted but was killed soon after.43 Krateros took up Antipater’s offer and moved west, leaving a large infantry unit, the Argyraspides (Silver Shields) in Kilikia. He sent a fl eet under the command of Kleitos to the Aegean, and took his army towards the Hellespont. Kleitos’ fl eet defeated that of Athens at Amorgos in June, and then joined with Antipater’s Macedonian fl eet. Together the two fl eets met that of Athens again and overwhelmed it. 44 Krateros crossed the Hellespont to join Antipater and claim his bride, and together the two men brought their armies