Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, also known as Alexander III or
Alexander of Macedonia
Encyclopaedia Britannica
born 356 bc, Pella, Macedonia
died June 13, 323 bc, Babylon
Life
He was born in 356 bc at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II
and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus). From age 13 to 16
he was taught by Aristotle, who inspired him with an interest in
philosophy, medicine, and scientific investigation; but he was later to
advance beyond his teacher’s narrow precept that non-Greeks should be
treated as slaves. Left in charge of Macedonia in 340 during Philip’s
attack on Byzantium, Alexander defeated the Maedi, a Thracian people;
two years later he commanded the left wing at the Battle of Chaeronea,
in which Philip defeated the allied Greek states, and displayed personal
courage in breaking the Sacred Band of Thebes. A year later Philip
divorced Olympias; and, after a quarrel at a feast held to celebrate his
father’s new marriage, Alexander and his mother fled to Epirus, and
Alexander later went to Illyria. Shortly afterward, father and son were
reconciled and Alexander returned; but his position as heir was
jeopardized.
In 336, however, on Philip’s
assassination, Alexander, acclaimed by the army, succeeded without
opposition. He at once executed the princes of Lyncestis, alleged to be
behind Philip’s murder, along with all possible rivals and the whole of
the faction opposed to him. He then marched south, recovered a wavering
Thessaly, and at an assembly of the Greek League at Corinth was
appointed generalissimo for the forthcoming invasion of Asia, already
planned and initiated by Philip. Returning to Macedonia by way of Delphi
(where the Pythian priestess acclaimed him “invincible”), he advanced
into Thrace in spring 335 and, after forcing the Shipka Pass and
crushing the Triballi, crossed the Danube to disperse the Getae; turning
west, he then defeated and shattered a coalition of Illyrians who had
invaded Macedonia. Meanwhile, a rumour of his death had precipitated a
revolt of Theban democrats; other Greek states favoured Thebes, and the
Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, voted help. In 14 days Alexander
marched 240 miles from Pelion (near modern Korçë, Albania) in Illyria to
Thebes. When the Thebans refused to surrender, he made an entry and
razed their city to the ground, sparing only temples and Pindar’s house;
6,000 were killed and all survivors sold into slavery. The other Greek
states were cowed by this severity, and Alexander could afford to treat
Athens leniently. Macedonian garrisons were left in Corinth, Chalcis,
and the Cadmea (the citadel of Thebes).
Life » Beginnings of the Persian expedition
From his accession Alexander had set his mind on the Persian
expedition. He had grown up to the idea. Moreover, he needed the wealth
of Persia if he was to maintain the army built by Philip and pay off the
500 talents he owed. The exploits of the Ten Thousand, Greek soldiers of
fortune, and of Agesilaus of Sparta, in successfully campaigning in
Persian territory had revealed the vulnerability of the Persian Empire.
With a good cavalry force Alexander could expect to defeat any Persian
army. In spring 334 he crossed the Dardanelles, leaving Antipater, who
had already faithfully served his father, as his deputy in Europe with
over 13,000 men; he himself commanded about 30,000 foot and over 5,000
cavalry, of whom nearly 14,000 were Macedonians and about 7,000 allies
sent by the Greek League. This army was to prove remarkable for its
balanced combination of arms. Much work fell on the lightarmed Cretan
and Macedonian archers, Thracians, and the Agrianian javelin men. But in
pitched battle the striking force was the cavalry, and the core of the
army, should the issue still remain undecided after the cavalry charge,
was the infantry phalanx, 9,000 strong, armed with 13-foot spears and
shields, and the 3,000 men of the royal battalions, the hypaspists.
Alexander’s second in command was Parmenio, who had secured a foothold
in Asia Minor during Philip’s lifetime; many of his family and
supporters were entrenched in positions of responsibility. The army was
accompanied by surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court
officials, and historians; from the outset Alexander seems to have
envisaged an unlimited operation.
After visiting Ilium (Troy), a romantic
gesture inspired by Homer, he confronted his first Persian army, led by
three satraps, at the Granicus (modern Kocabaş) River, near the Sea of
Marmara (May/June 334). The Persian plan to tempt Alexander across the
river and kill him in the melee almost succeeded; but the Persian line
broke, and Alexander’s victory was complete. Darius’ Greek mercenaries
were largely massacred, but 2,000 survivors were sent back to Macedonia
in chains. This victory exposed western Asia Minor to the Macedonians,
and most cities hastened to open their gates. The tyrants were expelled
and (in contrast to Macedonian policy in Greece) democracies were
installed. Alexander thus underlined his Panhellenic policy, already
symbolized in the sending of 300 panoplies (sets of armour) taken at the
Granicus as an offering dedicated to Athena at Athens by “Alexander son
of Philip and the Greeks (except the Spartans) from the barbarians who
inhabit Asia.” (This formula, cited by the Greek historian Arrian in his
history of Alexander’s campaigns, is noteworthy for its omission of any
reference to Macedonia.) But the cities remained de facto under
Alexander, and his appointment of Calas as satrap of Hellespontine
Phrygia reflected his claim to succeed the Great King of Persia. When
Miletus, encouraged by the proximity of the Persian fleet, resisted,
Alexander took it by assault; but, refusing a naval battle, he disbanded
his own costly navy and announced that he would “defeat the Persian
fleet on land,” by occupying the coastal cities. In Caria, Halicarnassus
resisted and was stormed; but Ada, the widow and sister of the satrap
Idrieus, adopted Alexander as her son and, after expelling her brother
Pixodarus, Alexander restored her to her satrapy. Some parts of Caria
held out, however, until 332.
Life » Asia Minor and the Battle of Issus
In winter 334–333 Alexander conquered western Asia Minor, subduing
the hill tribes of Lycia and Pisidia; and in spring 333 he advanced
along the coastal road to Perga, passing the cliffs of Mt. Climax,
thanks to a fortunate change of wind. The fall in the level of the sea
was interpreted as a mark of divine favour by Alexander’s flatterers,
including the historian Callisthenes. At Gordium in Phrygia, tradition
records his cutting of the Gordian knot, which could only be loosed by
the man who was to rule Asia; but this story may be apocryphal or at
least distorted. At this point Alexander benefitted from the sudden
death of Memnon, the competent Greek commander of the Persian fleet.
From Gordium he pushed on to Ancyra (modern Ankara) and thence south
through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Boğazi); a fever
held him up for a time in Cilicia. Meanwhile, Darius with his Grand Army
had advanced northward on the eastern side of Mt. Amanus. Intelligence
on both sides was faulty, and Alexander was already encamped by
Myriandrus (near modern Iskenderun, Turkey) when he learned that Darius
was astride his line of communications at Issus, north of Alexander’s
position (autumn 333). Turning, Alexander found Darius drawn up along
the Pinarus River. In the battle that followed, Alexander won a decisive
victory. The struggle turned into a Persian rout and Darius fled,
leaving his family in Alexander’s hands; the women were treated with
chivalrous care.
Life » Conquest of the Mediterranean coast and Egypt
From Issus Alexander marched south into Syria and Phoenicia, his
object being to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases and so to
destroy it as an effective fighting force. The Phoenician cities
Marathus and Aradus came over quietly, and Parmenio was sent ahead to
secure Damascus and its rich booty, including Darius’ war chest. In
reply to a letter from Darius offering peace, Alexander replied
arrogantly, recapitulating the historic wrongs of Greece and demanding
unconditional surrender to himself as lord of Asia. After taking Byblos
(modern Jubayl) and Sidon (Arabic Ṣaydā), he met with a check at Tyre,
where he was refused entry into the island city. He thereupon prepared
to use all methods of siegecraft to take it, but the Tyrians resisted,
holding out for seven months. In the meantime (winter 333–332) the
Persians had counterattacked by land in Asia Minor—where they were
defeated by Antigonus, the satrap of Greater Phrygia—and by sea,
recapturing a number of cities and islands.
While the siege of Tyre was in
progress, Darius sent a new offer: he would pay a huge ransom of 10,000
talents for his family and cede all his lands west of the Euphrates. “I
would accept,” Parmenio is reported to have said, “were I Alexander”; “I
too,” was the famous retort, “were I Parmenio.” The storming of Tyre in
July 332 was Alexander’s greatest military achievement; it was attended
with great carnage and the sale of the women and children into slavery.
Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition
until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted
him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a
sortie. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to
visit Jerusalem.
In November 332 he reached Egypt. The
people welcomed him as their deliverer, and the Persian satrap Mazaces
wisely surrendered. At Memphis Alexander sacrificed to Apis, the Greek
term for Hapi, the sacred Egyptian bull, and was crowned with the
traditional double crown of the pharaohs; the native priests were
placated and their religion encouraged. He spent the winter organizing
Egypt, where he employed Egyptian governors, keeping the army under a
separate Macedonian command. He founded the city of Alexandria near the
western arm of the Nile on a fine site between the sea and Lake Mareotis,
protected by the island of Pharos, and had it laid out by the Rhodian
architect Deinocrates. He is also said to have sent an expedition to
discover the causes of the flooding of the Nile. From Alexandria he
marched along the coast to Paraetonium and from there inland to visit
the celebrated oracle of the god Amon (at Sīwah); the difficult journey
was later embroidered with flattering legends. On his reaching the
oracle in its oasis, the priest gave him the traditional salutation of a
pharaoh, as son of Amon; Alexander consulted the god on the success of
his expedition but revealed the reply to no one. Later the incident was
to contribute to the story that he was the son of Zeus and, thus, to his
“deification.” In spring 331 he returned to Tyre, appointed a Macedonian
satrap for Syria, and prepared to advance into Mesopotamia. His conquest
of Egypt had completed his control of the whole eastern Mediterranean
coast.
In July 331 Alexander was at Thapsacus
on the Euphrates. Instead of taking the direct route down the river to
Babylon, he made across northern Mesopotamia toward the Tigris, and
Darius, learning of this move from an advance force sent under Mazaeus
to the Euphrates crossing, marched up the Tigris to oppose him. The
decisive battle of the war was fought on October 31, on the plain of
Gaugamela between Nineveh and Arbela. Alexander pursued the defeated
Persian forces for 35 miles to Arbela, but Darius escaped with his
Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries into Media.
Alexander now occupied Babylon, city
and province; Mazaeus, who surrendered it, was confirmed as satrap in
conjunction with a Macedonian troop commander, and quite exceptionally
was granted the right to coin. As in Egypt, the local priesthood was
encouraged. Susa, the capital, also surrendered, releasing huge
treasures amounting to 50,000 gold talents; here Alexander established
Darius’ family in comfort. Crushing the mountain tribe of the Ouxians,
he now pressed on over the Zagros range into Persia proper and,
successfully turning the Pass of the Persian Gates, held by the satrap
Ariobarzanes, he entered Persepolis and Pasargadae. At Persepolis he
ceremonially burned down the palace of Xerxes, as a symbol that the
Panhellenic war of revenge was at an end; for such seems the probable
significance of an act that tradition later explained as a drunken
frolic inspired by Thaïs, an Athenian courtesan. In spring 330 Alexander
marched north into Media and occupied its capital Ecbatana. The
Thessalians and Greek allies were sent home; henceforward he was waging
a purely personal war.
As Mazaeus’ appointment indicated,
Alexander’s views on the empire were changing. He had come to envisage a
joint ruling people consisting of Macedonians and Persians, and this
served to augment the misunderstanding that now arose between him and
his people. Before continuing his pursuit of Darius, who had retreated
into Bactria, he assembled all the Persian treasure and entrusted it to
Harpalus, who was to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer. Parmenio
was also left behind in Media to control communications; the presence of
this older man had perhaps become irksome.
In midsummer 330 Alexander set out for
the eastern provinces at a high speed via Rhagae (modern Rayy, near
Tehrān) and the Caspian Gates, where he learned that Bessus, the satrap
of Bactria, had deposed Darius. After a skirmish near modern Shāhrūd,
the usurper had Darius stabbed and left him to die. Alexander sent his
body for burial with due honours in the royal tombs at Persepolis.
Life » Campaign eastward, to Central Asia
Darius’ death left no obstacle to Alexander’s claim to be Great
King, and a Rhodian inscription of this year (330) calls him “lord of
Asia”—i.e., of the Persian Empire; soon afterward his Asian coins carry
the title of king. Crossing the Elburz Mountains to the Caspian, he
seized Zadracarta in Hyrcania and received the submission of a group of
satraps and Persian notables, some of whom he confirmed in their
offices; in a diversion westward, perhaps to modern Āmol, he reduced the
Mardi, a mountain people who inhabited the Elburz Mountains. He also
accepted the surrender of Darius’ Greek mercenaries. His advance
eastward was now rapid. In Aria he reduced Satibarzanes, who had offered
submission only to revolt, and he founded Alexandria of the Arians
(modern Herāt). At Phrada in Drangiana (either near modern Nad-e ʿAli in
Seistan or farther north at Farah), he at last took steps to destroy
Parmenio and his family. Philotas, Parmenio’s son, commander of the
elite Companion cavalry, was implicated in an alleged plot against
Alexander’s life, condemned by the army, and executed; and a secret
message was sent to Cleander, Parmenio’s second in command, who
obediently assassinated him. This ruthless action excited widespread
horror but strengthened Alexander’s position relative to his critics and
those whom he regarded as his father’s men. All Parmenio’s adherents
were now eliminated and men close to Alexander promoted. The Companion
cavalry was reorganized in two sections, each containing four squadrons
(now known as hipparchies); one group was commanded by Alexander’s
oldest friend, Hephaestion, the other by Cleitus, an older man. From
Phrada, Alexander pressed on during the winter of 330–329 up the valley
of the Helmand River, through Arachosia, and over the mountains past the
site of modern Kābul into the country of the Paropamisadae, where he
founded Alexandria by the Caucasus.
Bessus was now in Bactria raising a
national revolt in the eastern satrapies with the usurped title of Great
King. Crossing the Hindu Kush northward over the Khawak Pass (11,650
feet), Alexander brought his army, despite food shortages, to Drapsaca
(sometimes identified with modern Banu [Andarab], probably farther north
at Qunduz); outflanked, Bessus fled beyond the Oxus (modern Amu Darya),
and Alexander, marching west to Bactra-Zariaspa (modern Balkh [Wazirabad]
in Afghanistan), appointed loyal satraps in Bactria and Aria. Crossing
the Oxus, he sent his general Ptolemy in pursuit of Bessus, who had
meanwhile been overthrown by the Sogdian Spitamenes. Bessus was
captured, flogged, and sent to Bactra, where he was later mutilated
after the Persian manner (losing his nose and ears); in due course he
was publicly executed at Ecbatana.
From Maracanda (modern Samarkand)
Alexander advanced by way of Cyropolis to the Jaxartes (modern Syrdarya),
the boundary of the Persian Empire. There he broke the opposition of the
Scythian nomads by his use of catapults and, after defeating them in a
battle on the north bank of the river, pursued them into the interior.
On the site of modern Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes, he founded a
city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had
raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai, a
people of the Śaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of
328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his
campaigns. Later in the same year he attacked Oxyartes and the remaining
barons who held out in the hills of Paraetacene (modern Tadzhikistan);
volunteers seized the crag on which Oxyartes had his stronghold, and
among the captives was his daughter, Roxana. In reconciliation Alexander
married her, and the rest of his opponents were either won over or
crushed.
An incident that occurred at Maracanda
widened the breach between Alexander and many of his Macedonians. He
murdered Cleitus, one of his most trusted commanders, in a drunken
quarrel; but his excessive display of remorse led the army to pass a
decree convicting Cleitus posthumously of treason. The event marked a
step in Alexander’s progress toward Eastern absolutism, and this growing
attitude found its outward expression in his use of Persian royal dress.
Shortly afterward, at Bactra, he attempted to impose the Persian court
ceremonial, involving prostration (proskynesis), on the Greeks and
Macedonians too; but to them this custom, habitual for Persians entering
the king’s presence, implied an act of worship and was intolerable
before a man. Even Callisthenes, historian and nephew of Aristotle,
whose ostentatious flattery had perhaps encouraged Alexander to see
himself in the role of a god, refused to abase himself. Macedonian
laughter caused the experiment to founder, and Alexander abandoned it.
Shortly afterward, however, Callisthenes was held to be privy to a
conspiracy among the royal pages and was executed (or died in prison;
accounts vary); resentment of this action alienated sympathy from
Alexander within the Peripatetic school of philosophers, with which
Callisthenes had close connections.
Life » Invasion of India
In early summer 327 Alexander left Bactria with a reinforced army
under a reorganized command. If Plutarch’s figure of 120,000 men has any
reality, however, it must include all kinds of auxiliary services,
together with muleteers, camel drivers, medical corps, peddlers,
entertainers, women, and children; the fighting strength perhaps stood
at about 35,000. Recrossing the Hindu Kush, probably by Bamian and the
Ghorband Valley, Alexander divided his forces. Half the army with the
baggage under Hephaestion and Perdiccas, both cavalry commanders, was
sent through the Khyber Pass, while he himself led the rest, together
with his siege train, through the hills to the north. His advance
through Swāt and Gandhāra was marked by the storming of the almost
impregnable pinnacle of Aornos, the modern Pir-Sar, a few miles west of
the Indus and north of the Buner River, an impressive feat of siegecraft.
In spring 326, crossing the Indus near Attock, Alexander entered Taxila,
whose ruler, Taxiles, furnished elephants and troops in return for aid
against his rival Porus, who ruled the lands between the Hydaspes
(modern Jhelum) and the Acesines (modern Chenāb). In June Alexander
fought his last great battle on the left bank of the Hydaspes. He
founded two cities there, Alexandria Nicaea (to celebrate his victory)
and Bucephala (named after his horse Bucephalus, which died there); and
Porus became his ally.
How much Alexander knew of India beyond
the Hyphasis (probably the modern Beas) is uncertain; there is no
conclusive proof that he had heard of the Ganges. But he was anxious to
press on farther, and he had advanced to the Hyphasis when his army
mutinied, refusing to go farther in the tropical rain; they were weary
in body and spirit, and Coenus, one of Alexander’s four chief marshals,
acted as their spokesman. On finding the army adamant, Alexander agreed
to turn back.
On the Hyphasis he erected 12 altars to
the 12 Olympian gods, and on the Hydaspes he built a fleet of 800 to
1,000 ships. Leaving Porus, he then proceeded down the river and into
the Indus, with half his forces on shipboard and half marching in three
columns down the two banks. The fleet was commanded by Nearchus, and
Alexander’s own captain was Onesicritus; both later wrote accounts of
the campaign. The march was attended with much fighting and heavy,
pitiless slaughter; at the storming of one town of the Malli near the
Hydraotes (Ravi) River, Alexander received a severe wound which left him
weakened.
On reaching Patala, located at the head
of the Indus delta, he built a harbour and docks and explored both arms
of the Indus, which probably then ran into the Rann of Kutch. He planned
to lead part of his forces back by land, while the rest in perhaps 100
to 150 ships under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan with naval
experience, made a voyage of exploration along the Persian Gulf. Local
opposition led Nearchus to set sail in September (325), and he was held
up for three weeks until he could pick up the northeast monsoon in late
October. In September Alexander too set out along the coast through
Gedrosia (modern Baluchistan), but he was soon compelled by mountainous
country to turn inland, thus failing in his project to establish food
depots for the fleet. Craterus, a high-ranking officer, already had been
sent off with the baggage and siege train, the elephants, and the sick
and wounded, together with three battalions of the phalanx, by way of
the Mulla Pass, Quetta, and Kandahar into the Helmand Valley; from there
he was to march through Drangiana to rejoin the main army on the Amanis
(modern Minab) River in Carmania. Alexander’s march through Gedrosia
proved disastrous; waterless desert and shortage of food and fuel caused
great suffering, and many, especially women and children, perished in a
sudden monsoon flood while encamped in a wadi. At length, at the Amanis,
he was rejoined by Nearchus and the fleet, which also had suffered
losses.
Life » Consolidation of the empire
Alexander now proceeded farther with the policy of replacing senior
officials and executing defaulting governors on which he had already
embarked before leaving India. Between 326 and 324 over a third of his
satraps were superseded and six were put to death, including the Persian
satraps of Persis, Susiana, Carmania, and Paraetacene; three generals in
Media, including Cleander, the brother of Coenus (who had died a little
earlier), were accused of extortion and summoned to Carmania, where they
were arrested, tried, and executed. How far the rigour that from now
onward Alexander displayed against his governors represents exemplary
punishment for gross maladministration during his absence and how far
the elimination of men he had come to distrust (as in the case of
Philotas and Parmenio) is debatable; but the ancient sources generally
favourable to him comment adversely on his severity.
In spring 324 he was back in Susa,
capital of Elam and administrative centre of the Persian Empire; the
story of his journey through Carmania in a drunken revel, dressed as
Dionysus, is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal. He found that his
treasurer, Harpalus, evidently fearing punishment for peculation, had
absconded with 6,000 mercenaries and 5,000 talents to Greece; arrested
in Athens, he escaped and later was murdered in Crete. At Susa Alexander
held a feast to celebrate the seizure of the Persian Empire, at which,
in furtherance of his policy of fusing Macedonians and Persians into one
master race, he and 80 of his officers took Persian wives; he and
Hephaestion married Darius’ daughters Barsine (also called Stateira) and
Drypetis, respectively, and 10,000 of his soldiers with native wives
were given generous dowries.
This policy of racial fusion brought
increasing friction to Alexander’s relations with his Macedonians, who
had no sympathy for his changed concept of the empire. His determination
to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the
administration of the provinces was bitterly resented. This discontent
was now fanned by the arrival of 30,000 native youths who had received a
Macedonian military training and by the introduction of Orientals from
Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, and other parts of the empire into the
Companion cavalry; whether Orientals had previously served with the
Companions is uncertain, but if so they must have formed separate
squadrons. In addition, Persian nobles had been accepted into the royal
cavalry bodyguard. Peucestas, the new governor of Persis, gave this
policy full support to flatter Alexander; but most Macedonians saw it as
a threat to their own privileged position.
The issue came to a head at Opis (324),
when Alexander’s decision to send home Macedonian veterans under
Craterus was interpreted as a move toward transferring the seat of power
to Asia. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard;
but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians
instead, the opposition broke down. An emotional scene of reconciliation
was followed by a vast banquet with 9,000 guests to celebrate the ending
of the misunderstanding and the partnership in government of Macedonians
and Persians—but not, as has been argued, the incorporation of all the
subject peoples as partners in the commonwealth. Ten thousand veterans
were now sent back to Macedonia with gifts, and the crisis was
surmounted.
In summer 324 Alexander attempted to
solve another problem, that of the wandering mercenaries, of whom there
were thousands in Asia and Greece, many of them political exiles from
their own cities. A decree brought by Nicanor to Europe and proclaimed
at Olympia (September 324) required the Greek cities of the Greek League
to receive back all exiles and their families (except the Thebans), a
measure that implied some modification of the oligarchic regimes
maintained in the Greek cities by Alexander’s governor Antipater.
Alexander now planned to recall Antipater and supersede him by Craterus;
but he was to die before this could be done.
In autumn 324 Hephaestion died in
Ecbatana, and Alexander indulged in extravagant mourning for his closest
friend; he was given a royal funeral in Babylon with a pyre costing
10,000 talents. His post of chiliarch (grand vizier) was left unfilled.
It was probably in connection with a general order now sent out to the
Greeks to honour Hephaestion as a hero that Alexander linked the demand
that he himself should be accorded divine honours. For a long time his
mind had dwelt on ideas of godhead. Greek thought drew no very decided
line of demarcation between god and man, for legend offered more than
one example of men who, by their achievements, acquired divine status.
Alexander had on several occasions encouraged favourable comparison of
his own accomplishments with those of Dionysus or Heracles. He now seems
to have become convinced of the reality of his own divinity and to have
required its acceptance by others. There is no reason to assume that his
demand had any political background (divine status gave its possessor no
particular rights in a Greek city); it was rather a symptom of growing
megalomania and emotional instability. The cities perforce complied, but
often ironically: the Spartan decree read, “Since Alexander wishes to be
a god, let him be a god.”
In the winter of 324 Alexander carried
out a savage punitive expedition against the Cossaeans in the hills of
Luristan. The following spring at Babylon he received complimentary
embassies from the Libyans and from the Bruttians, Etruscans, and
Lucanians of Italy; but the story that embassies also came from more
distant peoples, such as Carthaginians, Celts, Iberians, and even
Romans, is a later invention. Representatives of the cities of Greece
also came, garlanded as befitted Alexander’s divine status. Following up
Nearchus’ voyage, he now founded an Alexandria at the mouth of the
Tigris and made plans to develop sea communications with India, for
which an expedition along the Arabian coast was to be a preliminary. He
also dispatched Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e.,
Caspian) Sea. Suddenly, in Babylon, while busy with plans to improve the
irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf,
Alexander was taken ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout; 10
days later, on June 13, 323, he died in his 33rd year; he had reigned
for 12 years and eight months. His body, diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy,
the later king, was eventually placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria.
Both in Egypt and elsewhere in the Greek cities he received divine
honours.
No heir had been appointed to the
throne, and his generals adopted Philip II’s half-witted illegitimate
son, Philip Arrhidaeus, and Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxana,
Alexander IV, as kings, sharing out the satrapies among themselves,
after much bargaining. The empire could hardly survive Alexander’s death
as a unit. Both kings were murdered, Arrhidaeus in 317 and Alexander in
310/309. The provinces became independent kingdoms, and the generals,
following Antigonus’ lead in 306, took the title of king.
Evaluation
Of Alexander’s plans little reliable information survives. The
far-reaching schemes for the conquest of the western Mediterranean and
the setting up of a universal monarchy, recorded by Diodorus, a
1st-century Greek historian, are probably based on a later forgery; if
not, they were at once jettisoned by his successors and the army. Had he
lived, he would no doubt have completed the conquest of Asia Minor,
where Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Armenia still maintained an effective
independence. But in his later years Alexander’s aims seem to have been
directed toward exploration, in particular of Arabia and the Caspian.
In the organization of his empire,
Alexander had been content in many spheres to improvise and adapt what
he found. His financial policy is an exception; though the details
cannot be wholly recovered, it is clear that he set up a central
organization with collectors perhaps independent of the local satraps.
That this proved a failure was partly due to weaknesses in the character
of Harpalus, his chief treasurer. But the establishment of a new coinage
with a silver standard based on that of Athens in place of the old
bimetallic system current both in Macedonia and in Persia helped trade
everywhere and, combined with the release of vast amounts of bullion
from the Persian treasuries, gave a much-needed fillip to the economy of
the whole Mediterranean area.
Alexander’s foundation of new
cities—Plutarch speaks of over 70—initiated a new chapter in Greek
expansion. No doubt many of the colonists, by no means volunteers,
deserted these cities, and marriages with native women led to some
dilution of Greek ways; but the Greek (rather than Macedonian) influence
remained strong in most of them, and since the process was carried
further by Alexander’s Seleucid successors, the spread of Hellenic
thought and customs over much of Asia as far as Bactria and India was
one of the more striking effects of Alexander’s conquests.
His plans for racial fusion, on the
other hand, were a failure. The Iranian satraps were perhaps not
efficient, for out of 18, ten were removed or executed—with what justice
it is no longer possible to say. But, more important, the Macedonians,
leaders and men alike, rejected the idea, and in the later Seleucid
Empire the Greek and Macedonian element was to be clearly dominant.
How far Alexander would have succeeded
in the difficult task of coordinating his vast dominions, had he lived,
is hard to determine. The only link between the many units that went to
make up an empire more disparate than that of the Habsburgs, and far
larger, was his own person; and his death came before he could tackle
this problem.
What had so far held it all together
was his own dynamic personality. He combined an iron will and ability to
drive himself and his men to the utmost with a supple and flexible mind;
he knew when to draw back and change his policy, though he did this
reluctantly. He was imaginative and not without romantic impulses;
figures like Achilles, Heracles, and Dionysus were often in his mind,
and the salutation at the oracle of Amon clearly influenced his thoughts
and ambitions ever afterward. He was swift in anger, and under the
strain of his long campaigns this side of his character grew more
pronounced. Ruthless and self-willed, he had increasing recourse to
terror, showing no hesitation in eliminating men whom he had ceased to
trust, either with or without the pretense of a fair trial. Years after
his death, Cassander, son of Antipater, a regent of the Macedonian
Empire under Alexander, could not pass his statue at Delphi without
shuddering. Yet he maintained the loyalty of his men, who followed him
to the Hyphasis without complaining and continued to believe in him
throughout all hardships. Only when his whim would have taken them still
farther into unknown India did he fail to get his way.
As a general Alexander is among the
greatest the world has known. He showed unusual versatility both in the
combination of different arms and in adapting his tactics to the
challenge of enemies who commanded novel forms of warfare—the Śaka
nomads, the Indian hill tribes, or Porus with his elephants. His
strategy was skillful and imaginative, and he knew how to exploit the
chances that arise in every battle and may be decisive for victory or
defeat; he also drew the last advantage from victory by relentless
pursuit. His use of cavalry was so effective that he rarely had to fall
back upon his infantry to deliver the crushing blow.
Alexander’s short reign marks a
decisive moment in the history of Europe and Asia. His expedition and
his own personal interest in scientific investigation brought many
advances in the knowledge of geography and natural history. His career
led to the moving of the great centres of civilization eastward and
initiated the new age of the Greek territorial monarchies; it spread
Hellenism in a vast colonizing wave throughout the Middle East and
created, if not politically at least economically and culturally, a
single world stretching from Gibraltar to the Punjab, open to trade and
social intercourse and with a considerable overlay of common
civilization and the Greek koinē as a lingua franca. It is not untrue to
say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world
religion, and the long centuries of Byzantium were all in some degree
the fruits of Alexander’s achievement.
Additional Reading
The original sources for Alexander are lost; among secondary
authorities are Diodorus, book xvii; Quintus Curtius Rufus; Plutarch,
Life of Alexander; Justinus’ abridgment of Trogus; and Arrian, Anabasis
and Indica, especially in the edition titled Arrian, trans. and ed. by
P.A. Brunt, 2 vol. (1976–83), in the Loeb Classical Library.
Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Romance of Alexander the Great, trans. by
Albert Mugrdich Wolohojian (1969), is the first English translation of a
5th-century Armenian version of the Historia Alexandri Magni, which was
composed in Greek, probably in the 4th century ad, by an unknown poet
and falsely ascribed to Callisthenes. Studies of ancient sources include
Lionel Pearson, The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great (1960,
reprinted 1983); J.R. Hamilton, Plutarch: Alexander, a Commentary
(1969); N.G.L. Hammond, Three Historians of Alexander the Great: The
So-Called Vulgate Authors, Diodorus, Justin, and Curtius (1983); and
A.B. Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander: Studies in Historical
Interpretation (1988).
Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon,
356–323 bc, rev. and enlarged (1974, reissued 1991), is a complete
biography, with genealogy and an annotated bibliography. W.W. Tarn,
Alexander the Great, 2 vol. (1948, reprinted in 1 vol., 1981), surveys
ancient sources and offers a favourable portrait of Alexander. J.R.
Hamilton, Alexander the Great (1973), a historical account, treats
Alexander as an efficient politician. A.R. Burn, Alexander the Great and
the Middle East, rev. ed. (1973), is a biographical study that is both
scholarly and popular. Mary Renault, The Nature of Alexander (1975,
reissued 1983), is a popular, illustrated biography. An examination of
Alexander drawn from newer research is found in Robin Lane Fox, The
Search for Alexander (1980). A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire (1988),
a biography, is divided into a narrative of Alexander’s reign and four
thematic studies and includes an extensive bibliography. E. Badian,
Studies in Greek and Roman History (1964), a scholarly collection,
includes criticism of Alexander. Controversial issues are discussed in
G.T. Griffith (ed.), Alexander the Great: The Main Problems (1966). John
Maxwell O’Brien, Alexander the Great: The Invisible Enemy (1992),
synthesizes current scholarship and contains an extensive bibliography.
Studies of Alexander as a military
leader include J.F.C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great
(1958, reprinted 1989); E.W. Marsden, The Campaign of Gaugamela (1964);
R.D. Milns, Alexander the Great (1968); Donald W. Engels, Alexander the
Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (1978); N.G.L. Hammond,
Alexander the Great: King, Commander, and Statesman (1980); and the
appropriate chapter in John Keegan, The Mask of Command (1987). Frank L.
Holt, Alexander the Great and Bactria (1989), examines Alexander’s
impact on Central Asia. National Gallery Of Art, Washington, D.C., The
Search for Alexander (1980), is an exhibition catalog with essays on
Alexander and on Macedonian history and art.
Frank W. Walbank
