The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) (34 page)

At this point in my story I must not leave unrecorded one of the finest things Alexander ever did. Where it actually took place is uncertain: perhaps here, perhaps, as some historians have declared, in the country of the Parapamisadae some time previously.
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The army was crossing a desert of sand; the sun was already blazing down upon them, but they were struggling on under the necessity of reaching water, which was still far away. Alexander, like
everyone else, was tormented by thirst, but he was none the less marching on foot at the head of his men. It was all he could do to keep going, but he did so, and the result (as always) was that the men were the better able to endure their misery when they saw that it was equally shared. As they toiled on, a party of light infantry which had gone off looking for water found some – just a wretched little trickle collected in a shallow gully. They scooped up with difficulty what they could and hurried back, with their priceless treasure, to Alexander; then, just before they reached him, they tipped the water into a helmet and gave it to him. Alexander, with a word of thanks for the gift, took the helmet and, in full view of his troops, poured the water on the ground. So extraordinary was the effect of this action that the water wasted by Alexander was as good as a drink for every man in the army. I cannot praise this act too highly; it was a proof, if anything was, not only of his power of endurance, but also of his genius for leadership.

To add to their difficulties, the time came when the guides admitted that they no longer knew the way; all the marks, they declared, had been obliterated by the blown and drifting sand. There was nothing in the vast and featureless desert to determine what course they should take – no trees, as elsewhere, by the roadside, no hills of solid earth rising from the sand. Moreover, the guides had never practised the art of finding their direction by the stars at night and by the sun in the day-time, as sailors do – the Phoenicians setting their course by the Little Bear, the rest of us by the Great Bear.
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Alexander, accordingly, took the matter into his own hands; feeling that the route
should be more towards the left, he rode ahead with a small party of mounted men. The horses soon began to succumb to the heat, so he left most of his party behind and rode off with only five men. At last they found the sea, and scraping away the shingle on the beach came upon fresh, clear water. The whole army soon followed, and for seven days marched along the coast, getting its water from the beach. Finally the guides once more recognized their whereabouts, and a course was set for the interior again.

At the capital city of Gedrosia the troops were given a rest. Alexander, finding that Apollophanes, the governor, had failed to carry out any of his instructions, dismissed him and appointed Thoas in his place.
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Thoas subsequently died and was succeeded by Sibyrtius, who had recently been made governor of Carmania, where, on being given control of both Arachotia and Gedrosia, he was succeeded by Tlepolemus, son of Pythophanes.

Alexander was already on his way to Carmania when a report reached him of the death of Philip, governor of India: the mercenaries had hatched a plot to assassinate him, and his Macedonian guards had executed the assassins, some caught red-handed, others after subsequent arrest. Alexander accordingly sent written orders to Eudamus and Taxiles in India to take charge of the territory formerly administered by Philip until he sent out a new governor.
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After his arrival in Carmania, he was rejoined by
Craterus with the troops under his command, and the elephants. Craterus also brought Ordanes with him, under arrest for disaffection and trouble-making. A number of other officers and officials here presented themselves: Stasanor, governor of Aria and Zarangia; Pharismanes, son of Phrataphernes, governor of Parthia and Hyrcania; and the officers left with Parmenio in command of the troops in Media, Cleander, Shakes, and Heracon, with most of their men.
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Both the natives and the army had brought a number of charges against Sitalces and Cleander, alleging that they had plundered temples, disturbed ancient tombs, and committed other crimes of a violent and tyrannical nature against the people of the province. Immediately he received the report, Alexander had both officers executed, as an example to other government officials of whatever rank, who would thenceforth realize that if they were guilty of similar irregularities they would suffer the same punishment. If there was one thing more than another which conduced to orderliness and obedience among the numerous and widely separated peoples which found themselves, either by conquest or alliance, under Alexander’s sway, it was this: that under his empire no sort of oppression by local government officials was ever permitted.
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The other officer, Heracon, was cleared for the time being; but soon afterwards some people at Susa had him convicted of robbing the temple there, and he, too, was executed.

Stasanor and Phrataphernes, on learning that Alexander
was marching to Gedrosia, correctly foresaw the difficulties he would encounter in the desert, and had brought with them, in consequence, a number of draught-animals, including camels; their arrival was certainly fortunate, and the camels and mules were a most timely addition; in due proportion to their number Alexander distributed them among his forces – among the officers individually, and so many to each squadron, company, and platoon.
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Certain writers
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have told the improbable story that Alexander made a progress through Carmania in a sort of double-sized chariot, specially constructed, in which he reclined with his intimate friends, listening to the music of flutes, while the troops accompanied him making merry as on holiday and with garlands on their heads, and that the people of the country, all along the route of the procession, had provided food and every imaginable luxury for their delectation. All this is supposed to have been Alexander’s notion of imitating the Dionysiac Revels, or triumphal marches, in accordance with the legend that Dionysus, after his conquest of India, traversed the greater part of Asia with this sort of pomp and ceremony –
Thriambus
(or Triumph) was one of the titles of Dionysus, and the same word
thriambi
– triumphs – was used to describe his ceremonial procession after victories in war. There is no mention of this either in Ptolemy, son of Lagus, or in Aristobulus, or indeed in any other writer whom one might consider to give reliable evidence in such matters. In any case, there is the story; I do not
believe it – and that is all I propose to say. I do, however, put on record (on Aristobulus’ authority) that while he was in Carmania, Alexander offered sacrifice in gratitude to heaven for his conquest of India and the escape of his army from the desert of Gedrosia, and that he held a festival with public competitions in athletics and the arts. He promoted Peucestas to be a member of his Personal Guard – he had already decided to make him governor of Persia, but in view of the special service he had rendered in the battle with the Mallians, he wanted him to enjoy this mark of honour and confidence before taking over his governorship. Up to that time Alexander’s Personal Guards were seven in number: Leonnatus son of Anteas, Hephaestion son of Amyntor, Lysimachus son of Agathocles, Aristonus son of Pisaeus (all four from Pella); Perdiccas son of Orontes, from Orestis; Ptolemy son of Lagus and Peitho son of Crateuas from Eordaea. Now there was an eighth – Peucestas, the man who held his shield over Alexander’s prostrate body.

Meanwhile Nearchus had completed his voyage along the coasts of the Orians, Gedrosians, and Ichthyophagi, and arrived at the inhabited parts of the Carmanian seaboard. From there he made his way inland with a few companions and gave Alexander his report of the ocean voyage.
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Alexander sent him back to the fleet with orders to continue his voyage as far as Susia and the mouths of the Tigris. I propose to give a detailed account of his voyage from the Indus to the mouth of the Tigris in the Persian Gulf in a separate volume, basing it on Nearchus’ own story; this book, like the present one, will be a Greek
history written in Alexander’s honour. It will be a work for some future date, when I am in a proper mood, and the spirit moves me to embark upon it.
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Alexander now ordered Hephaestion to proceed to Persia with the elephants, the baggage-train, and the greater part of the army. His instructions were to take the coastal route, because it was now winter
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and he would find in the coastal regions of Persia both warm weather and an abundance of supplies. At the same time he moved forward himself with the most mobile infantry units, the Companion cavalry, and some regiments of archers, along the road to Pasargadae. Stasanor he sent home.
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Arrived at the Persian frontier, he found that Phrasaortes, the governor, had died while the Indian campaign was still going on; the reins of government were in the hands of Orxines, who had not, indeed, been regularly appointed, but considered himself, in the absence of any other governor, a proper person to serve Alexander by keeping Persian affairs running smoothly.
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At Pasargadae, Alexander was visited by Atropates, governor of Media; he brought with him a Mede named Baryaxes, whom he had arrested for wearing his cap upright in the royal fashion and proclaiming himself King of the Medes and Persians. With him, also under arrest, were his associates in the attempted
coup
. They were all executed.

Aristobulus relates that Alexander found the tomb of Cyrus, son of Cambyses, broken into and robbed, and that this act of profanation caused him much distress.
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The tomb was in the royal park at Pasargadae; a grove of various sorts of trees had been planted round it; there were streams of running water and a meadow with lush grass. The base of the monument was rectangular, built of stone slabs cut square, and on top was a roofed chamber, also built of stone, with access through a door so narrow that only one man at a time – and a little one at that – could manage, with great difficulty, painfully to squeeze himself through. Inside the chamber there was a golden coffin containing Cyrus’ body, and a great divan with feet of hammered gold, spread with covers of some thick, brightly-coloured material, with a Babylonian rug on top. Tunics and
candyes
– or Median jackets – of Babylonian workmanship were laid out on the divan, and (Aristobulus says) Median trousers, various robes dyed in amethyst, purple, and many other colours, necklaces, scimitars, and inlaid earrings of gold and precious stones. A table stood by it, and in the middle of it lay the coffin which held Cyrus’ body. Within the enclosure, by the way which led up to the tomb, a small building had been constructed for the Magi who guarded it, a duty which had been handed down from father to son ever since the time of Cyrus’ son, Cambyses.
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They had a grant from the King of a sheep a day, with an allowance of meal and wine, and one horse a month to sacrifice to Cyrus. There was an inscription on the tomb in Persian, signifying: ‘O man, I am Cyrus son of Cambyses, who founded the empire of Persia and ruled over Asia. Do not grudge me my monument.’

Alexander had always intended, after his conquest of
Persia, to visit the tomb of Cyrus; and now, when he did so, he found that all it contained except the divan and the coffin had been removed. Even the royal remains had not escaped desecration, for the thieves had taken the lid from the coffin and thrown out the body; from the coffin itself they had chipped or broken various bits in an attempt to reduce its weight sufficiently to enable them to get it away. However, they were unsuccessful and went off without it.

Aristobulus tells us that he himself received orders from Alexander to put the monument into a state of thorough repair: he was to restore to the coffin what was still preserved of the body and replace the lid; to put right all damage to the coffin itself, fit the divan with new strapping, and to replace with exact replicas of the originals every single object with which it had previously been adorned; and, finally, to do away with the door into the chamber by building it in with stone, covered by a coat of plaster, on which was to be set the royal seal. Alexander had the Magi who guarded the monument arrested and put to the torture, hoping to extort from them the names of the culprits; but even under torture they were silent, neither confessing their own guilt nor accusing anybody else; so, as they could not be convicted of any sort of complicity in the crime, Alexander released them.

He then went to the palace of the Persian kings, which on a previous occasion he had set on fire, as I have already related.
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I remarked, when I mentioned this act, that I could not commend it, and Alexander himself regretted it when he saw the place for the second time.

As for Orxines, who took charge of Persian affairs after Phrasaortes’ death, a number of damaging stories were told about him by the Persians, and he was convicted of
robbing temples and royal tombs and of illegally putting many Persians to death. He was accordingly hanged by Alexander’s agents.
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Peucestas, of Alexander’s Personal Guard, was appointed governor, in recognition of his exceptional loyalty on all occasions – and especially on the occasion of his heroic act during the fight with the Mallians, when at the risk of his own life he helped to save Alexander. Apart from this, he was also a suitable Person for the post, as he liked Oriental ways. He showed this clearly enough immediately he was appointed, being the only Macedonian to adopt the Median dress; he also learned the Persian language, and in all other ways took to living as the Persians lived. Alexander thoroughly approved of this conduct, and the Persians themselves were gratified to find that he preferred their manner of life to that of his own country.
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