Alexander the Great

E E Rice

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780752468389
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Weltgeschichte

King Alexander III 'the Great' of Macedon was one of the greatest military commanders the world has ever known. This book seeks to dispel some of the myths which have grown up around him and to provide an up-to-date account of his life.

TWO

DEFEAT OF
THE PERSIAN
EMPIRE

The Persian Background

Leaving aside for the moment Alexander’s original intentions in setting out for Asia, it is necessary to examine briefly the political situation he was to face there. The Persian Empire had been defeated by the combined mainland Greek forces in the Persian Wars of the early fifth century BC, but it was not destroyed. The war had crushed any hopes of Persian domination in Greece proper, but the core of the empire in Asia remained intact. The Great King of Persia, whose capital city was Persepolis, ruled over vast territories, roughly covering modern Turkey, Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Egypt, and, under looser control, Afghanistan and Pakistan as far as India. The lands were divided into administrative units called satrapies, presided over by provincial governors called satraps. It has already been noted that Greek cities had existed on the west coast of Asia Minor for centuries, and that their wish for freedom was one cause of the Persian War. After the war these cities remained under Persian control.

By virtue of her wealth and political influence, Persia had also played a role in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the last three decades of the fifth century. After that, a peace treaty negotiated between the Great King and the Greek states in 386 BC acknowledged that the Greek cities of Asia belonged to the Great King. Despite this internationally recognised treaty, an emotive cry for the ‘liberation of the Greeks of Asia Minor’ and ultimate revenge against Persia continued to be heard in fourth-century Greece, fuelled by the rhetoric of some of the most powerful orators of the day. This so-called ‘King’s Peace’ of 386 had not, however, included Macedonia among its signatories. Although we have no way of reconstructing what Philip II’s intentions were regarding Persia, it is clear that his battle cry (however cynical) of ‘freeing the Greeks’ fell on the welcoming ears of his Greek ‘allies’ in the League of Corinth, despite any private fears the mainland Greeks may have had about their Macedonian overlords. This was the situation inherited and exploited by Alexander.

Both Philip and Alexander may have been swayed in their thinking by the state of the Persian Empire in the second half of the fourth century BC. In the first half of that century, a weak Great King had been shaken by a series of satrapal revolts and by the creation of large, powerful, semi-independent satrapies which threatened centralised royal control. Moreover, the Greek cities of Asia were prone to ongoing squabbles between the aristocratic, propertied class, which tended to be pro-Persian in order to preserve the status quo and their vested interests, and the pro-democratic class, which was hostile to Persia and hoped to prosper when freed from her domination. The internal political struggles within some of these cities are well documented. It would be simplistic to claim that the Persian Empire was ‘a plum ripe for the plucking’ (if indeed that had been the original intention), but one can understand that both Philip and Alexander may have been encouraged to think that their invasions of Asia would not encounter insuperable resistance.

The Struggle against the Persian Great King Darius

After the destruction of Thebes, Alexander returned to Macedonia and made preparations for his expedition, assembling, we are told, his military commanders and discussing plans with them. (The royal council discussing matters of policy with members of the nobility was the traditional style of Macedonian government.) Diodorus alone says that Antipater and Parmenio (eminent aristocratic generals of Philip II) advised Alexander not to leave the kingdom before marrying and producing an heir. This was wise advice, given the typical struggle over the royal succession in Macedonia – as Alexander himself knew all too well – and, as we know with hindsight, might have eased the chaos which ensued after Alexander’s untimely death, but the king brushed such conservative counsel aside. He was eager for action and viewed it a disgrace for the appointed leader of the Greeks in the war and the inheritor of his father’s army to sit at home celebrating a marriage and awaiting the birth of a child. This incident, of course, illustrates Alexander’s impetuous nature, his impatience with cautious advice, and his unquestioning confidence in military success.

Various sacrifices and festivals were held before the expedition set forth. A traditional sacrifice was made to Olympian Zeus at the Macedonian national sanctuary at Dion in southern Macedonia, in the shadow of the mass of Mount Olympus, traditional home of the gods. (Exciting archaeological excavations have begun at Dion which will increase our understanding of this great sanctuary.) Games in honour of Zeus and the Muses were celebrated as well.

In the spring of 334 BC, Alexander and his army went eastward through Thrace and crossed the Hellespont, the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. The sources disagree about the size of his force: estimates of infantry range from 30,000 to 43,000, and of cavalry from 4,000 to 5,000. Various anecdotes are recorded which explicitly compare Alexander’s expedition with the Greek force in the fabled Trojan War (the probable site of Troy is not far from the southern shore of the Hellespont). He is said, among other things, to have sacrificed at the tomb of Protesilaus (the first of the Greek contingent sent to Troy to disembark and be killed), to have honoured the tombs of Trojan War heroes such as Achilles, Ajax and Priam, and to have made dedications and sacrifices at the Temple of Athena in Troy (Ilion) itself. This reverence for Homeric legend runs like a thread throughout the sources. Plutarch relates a charming anecdote that Alexander even slept with a copy of Homer’s Iliad under his pillow. More tellingly, Alexander himself is said to have been the first Macedonian to have leapt ashore in Asia, hurling his spear into the ground to signify that it was spear-won land.

The Persians sent an advance force north to meet Alexander, and the first major battle between the Persian and Macedonian armies took place in 334 BC near the Granicus river in the Troad, east of Troy. The tactics of this battle, and the ancient descriptions of it, have been endlessly debated, but Alexander managed to defeat the Persians despite having to cross the river and attack enemy troops drawn up in a favourable position on the far bank. The recorded number of Persian dead is impossibly large, and that of Macedonian dead suspiciously small, but we are told that the first twenty-five casualties of Alexander’s cavalry were honoured with bronze equestrian statues set up at the sanctuary of Zeus at Dion. Moreover, the works were commissioned from Lysippus of Sicyon, the finest sculptor of his day, whom alone Alexander trusted to depict his own image. The scale of this victory monument is unprecedented in the Greek world, and it must have been intended to rival earlier victory monuments from the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars set up at panhellenic sanctuaries like Delphi. Pointedly, Alexander also sent three hundred sets of captured Persian armour to be displayed on the Athenian acropolis with an inscription recording that it was a dedication from Alexander and the Greeks, except the Spartans (who were not members of the League of Corinth).

Alexander made no attempt to follow up his victory by finding the main Persian army, but proceeded down the western coast of Asia Minor ‘liberating’ the Greek cities there. This involved expelling the pro-Persian aristocrats and installing democratic governments in their stead. Although it has been claimed that Alexander, by these actions, displayed lofty political ideals, it is more likely that he was securing the gratitude of these anti-Persian democrats and using them as a loyal safeguard after he had moved on. His smooth progress was interrupted by resistance at the Ionian city of Miletus and the Carian city of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum), both of which had Persian garrisons but were eventually reduced after difficult sieges. He continued along the south coast of Turkey through the inhospitably mountainous region of Lycia, receiving the submission of native cities there. Part of the area could only be traversed along the shoreline, the alternative being treacherous mountain passes. Finally he reached Pisidia and the plain of Pamphylia (in the region of modern Antalya) in 334–3 BC.

At this stage, Alexander made a year-long detour inland through central Turkey to Phrygia, although he faced stiff resistance on the way from the native cities of Pisidia. His military objective is unclear, since the Persian forces were far to the east in Babylon. However, during this period one of the most famous episodes of his expedition took place when he reached the city of Gordion, capital city of Phrygia, not far from modern Ankara.

There was a legend about a poor man called Gordius, who owned a cart with a curious ‘knot’ connecting it to its yoke. Various portents concerning the yoke were interpreted as a divine manifestation from Zeus. Later, when Gordius’s son Midas arrived among the Phrygians in the same cart, they took it as the fulfilment of an oracle which had stated that a cart would bring them a king who would put an end to their civil strife. Midas was declared king, and the cart was dedicated to Zeus on the acropolis of Gordion. (The Great Tumulus excavated at Gordion may well be the tomb of King Midas, who died at the end of the eighth century BC. His skeleton and the impressive grave goods and wooden furniture are currently on display at the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara. This historical Midas may lie behind the fabled King Midas, known for his donkey’s ears and ‘golden touch’.)

A legend more relevant to Alexander said that anyone who untied the knot of the yoke was destined to rule Asia (or, in another account, the whole world).We are told that Alexander was ‘seized with a longing’ (a precise phrase in Greek which is used several times in Arrian to indicate a deep and not always rational determination on Alexander’s part) to go to the acropolis and see the cart and the knot of the yoke.

Two versions exist of what happened. The simple account is that Alexander deduced how to draw out from the cart-pole the pin which held the knot together, and so removed the pole from the yoke. The more swashbuckling story records Alexander drawing his sword and cutting through the knot, which is, of course, the basis of the modern expression ‘to cut the Gordian knot’ (i.e. to solve a problem quickly and boldly regardless of the intervening difficulties). Whatever the true account, Alexander’s entourage felt that the prophecy about the knot had been fulfilled, especially when thunder and lightning that night seemed to be a further sign from heaven. Such divine prophecies of Alexander’s predestined success play a large role in all of the ancient sources.

The army then returned south through the region of Cappadocia, and crossed the formidable Taurus Mountains of Cilicia through the pass known as the ‘Cilician Gates’ (this pass is the only route from north to south through these mountains even today, and the modern highway roughly follows the line of the ancient road). The pass was guarded by Persian troops, who fled at Alexander’s approach. The army reached the much more hospitable coastal plain of eastern Cilicia at Tarsus (later to be the birthplace of St Paul), east of modern Mersin, causing the same retreating Persians to flee to the Great King before they had time to sack it.

Alexander experienced his first illness at Tarsus, attributed eith...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chronology
• Introduction and Sources
• The Early Years
• Defeat 0f the Persian Empire
• The Frontier Beyond
• Return and Death
• Alexander’s Personality
• Epilogue: Alexander’s Legacy
• Bibliography