The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) (35 page)

Personally I have no data from which to infer precisely what Alexander had in mind, and I do not care to make guesses; one thing, however, I feel I can say without fear of contradiction, and that is that his plans, whatever they
were, had no lack of grandeur or ambition: he would never have remained idle in the enjoyment of any of his conquests, even had he extended his empire from Asia to Europe and from Europe to the British Isles.
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On the contrary, he would have continued to seek beyond them for unknown lands, as it was ever his nature, if he had no rival, to strive to better his own best.

I have always liked the story
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of the Indian sages, some of whom Alexander chanced to come upon out of doors in a meadow, where they used to meet to discuss philosophy. On the appearance of Alexander and his army, these venerable men stamped with their feet and gave no other sign of interest. Alexander asked them through interpreters what they meant by this odd behaviour, and they replied: ‘King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth’s surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, travelling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others. Ah well! You will soon be dead, and then you will own just as much of this earth as will suffice to bury you.’ Alexander expressed his approval of these sage words; but in point of fact his conduct was always the exact opposite of what he then professed to admire. On another occasion he is said to have expressed surprise at a remark made by Diogenes of Sinope: he was marching somewhere in the Isthmus with a contingent of Guards and infantry Companions, and chancing to see Diogenes lying in the sun, he stopped and asked him if there was anything he wanted.

‘Nothing,’ replied the philosopher; ‘though I should
be grateful if you and your friends would move to one side, and not keep the sun off me.’
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One must admit, then, that Alexander was not wholly a stranger to the loftier flights of philosophy; but the fact remains that he was, to an extraordinary degree, the slave of ambition. In Taxila, once, he met some members of the Indian sect of Wise Men whose practice it is to go naked, and he so much admired their powers of endurance that the fancy took him to have one of them in his personal train.
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The oldest man among them, whose name was Dandamis (the others were his pupils), refused either to join Alexander himself or to permit any of his pupils to do so. ‘If you, my lord,’ he is said to have replied, ‘are the son of God, why – so am I. I want nothing from you, for what I have suffices. I perceive, moreover, that the men you lead get no good from their world-wide wandering over land and sea, and that of their many journeyings there is no end. I desire nothing that you can give me; I fear no exclusion from any blessings which may perhaps be yours. India, with the fruits of her soil in due season, is enough for me while I live; and when I die, I shall be rid of my poor body – my unseemly housemate.’ These words convinced Alexander that Dandamis was, in a true sense, a free man; so he made no attempt to compel him.
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On the other hand, another of these Indian teachers, a man named Calanus, did yield to Alexander’s persuasion; this man, according to Megasthenes’ account, was declared by his fellow teachers to be a slave to fleshly lusts, an accusation due, no doubt, to the fact that he chose to renounce the bliss of their own asceticism and to serve another master instead of God.
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I have mentioned this because no history of Alexander would be complete without the story of Calanus. In India Calanus had never been ill, but when he was living in Persia all strength ultimately left his body.
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In spite of his enfeebled state he refused to submit to an invalid regimen, and told Alexander that he was content to the as he was, which would be preferable to enduring the misery of being forced to alter his way of life. Alexander, at some length, tried to talk him out of his obstinacy, but to no purpose; then, convinced that if he were any further opposed he would find one means or another of making away with himself, he yielded to his request, and gave instructions for the building of a funeral pyre under the supervision of Ptolemy, son of Lagus, of the Personal Guard. Some say Calanus was escorted to the pyre by a solemn procession – horses, men, soldiers in armour, and people carrying all kinds of precious oils and spices to throw upon the flames; other accounts mention drinkingcups
of silver and gold and kingly robes. He was too ill to walk, and a horse was provided for him; but he was incapable of mounting it, and had to be carried on a litter, upon which he lay with his head wreathed with garlands in the Indian fashion, and singing Indian songs, which his countrymen declare were hymns of praise to their gods.
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The horse he was to have ridden was of the royal breed of Nesaea,
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and before he mounted the pyre he gave it to Lysimachus, one of his pupils in philosophy, and distributed among other pupils and friends the drinkingcups and draperies which Alexander had ordered to be burnt in his honour upon the pyre.

At last he mounted the pyre and with due ceremony laid himself down. All the troops were watching. Alexander could not but feel that there was a sort of indelicacy in witnessing such a spectacle – the man, after all, had been his friend; everyone else, however, felt nothing but astonishment to see Calanus give not the smallest sign of shrinking from the flames.
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We read in Nearchus’ account of this incident that at the moment the fire was kindled there was, by Alexander’s orders, an impressive salute: the bugles sounded, the troops with one accord roared out their battle-cry, and the elephants joined in with their shrill war-trumpetings.

This story and others to a similar effect have been recorded by good authorities; they are not without value to anyone who cares for evidence of the unconquerable resolution of the human spirit in carrying a chosen course of action through to the end.

About this time Alexander sent out Atropates to his province. He had himself gone on to Susa, where he had
Abulites arrested and put to death for abusing his office as governor. Abulites’ son Oxathres shared the same fate.
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In the various countries subdued by Alexander there had been a great many irregularities on the part of government officials, acts of violence against individuals, and robbing of temples and tombs. The reason is not far to seek, for Alexander had been away for a very long time in India, and nobody really felt he was ever likely to return from the innumerable hostile nations of the East – not to mention the elephants! – but would find a grave somewhere beyond the Indus, Hydaspes, Acesines, and Hyphasis. Again, the disasters in the Gedrosian desert were a further encouragement to the governors of these more westerly parts to shrug off the idea of his ever getting safely home. None the less, it must be admitted that, by all accounts, Alexander at this period had become readier to accept as wholly reliable the charges which were made to him against officials, and to inflict severe punishment even for minor offences, in the belief that the sort of attitude which allowed an official to commit some petty irregularity might also lead him to serious crime.
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Here at Susa he held wedding ceremonies for his Companions; he also took a wife himself – Barsine,
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Darius’ eldest daughter, and, according to Aristobulus, another as well, namely Parysatis, the youngest daughter of Ochus.
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He had already married Roxane, daughter of
Oxyartes of Bactria. To Hephaestion he gave Drypetis, another of Darius’ daughters and sister of his own wife Barsine, as he wanted to be uncle to Hephaestion’s children; to Craterus he gave Amastrine, daughter of Darius’ brother Oxyatres, and to Perdiccas a daughter of Atropates, governor of Media. The bride of Ptolemy (of the Guard) was Artacama, daughter of Artabazus, and Eumenes, the King’s secretary, had her sister Artonis; Nearchus was given the daughter of Barsine and Mentor, Seleucus the daughter of Spitamenes of Bactria. Similarly, the other officers – to the number of eighty all told
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– were given as brides young women of the noblest Persian and Median blood. The marriage ceremonies were in the Persian fashion: chairs were set for the bridegrooms in order of precedence, and when healths had been drunk the brides entered and sat down by their bridegrooms, who took them by the hand and kissed them. The King, who was married just as the others were, and in the same place, was the first to perform the ceremony – Alexander was always capable of putting himself on a footing of equality and comradeship with his subordinates, and everyone felt that this act of his was the best proof of his ability to do so. After the ceremony all the men took their wives home, and for every one of them Alexander provided a dowry. There proved to be over 10,000 other Macedonians who had married Asian women; Alexander had them all registered, and every man of them received a wedding gift.

This also seemed a fitting occasion to clear off the men’s debts, and Alexander ordered a detailed schedule to be
prepared, with a promise of settlement. At first only a few entered their names, suspecting that the order might be a scheme of Alexander’s for detecting the spendthrifts who had failed to make do with their army pay. Alexander was annoyed when he learned that most of the men were refusing to enter their names and concealing their possession of covenants to pay, and told them in no uncertain terms what he thought of their suspicions; a King, he declared, is in duty bound to speak nothing but the truth to his subjects, who, in their turn, have no right to suppose that he ever does otherwise. He had tables set up in the army quarters, with money on them, and instructed the clerks in charge to pay off the debts of every man who produced an I.O.U. without even registering their names. After that the troops could not but believe in Alexander’s good faith, and they were even more grateful for the concealment of their names than for having their debts paid. This gift to his men is said to have amounted to 20,000 talents.
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He also made a number of other money awards for distinguished conduct in the field, or in recognition of a man’s reputation for good service generally. A special decoration consisting of a gold crown was granted to certain officers for conspicuous bravery: the recipients were Peucestas – for saving the King’s life; Leonnatus – also for saving the King’s life, for hard service in India, for his victory in Oria, for facing and defeating in battle, with the forces left under his command, the rebellious Oreitae and their neighbours, and his satisfactory settlement of affairs in general in Oria;
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Nearchus (now also arrived
at Susa) for his voyage from India along the coasts of the Indian ocean; Onesicritus, master of the royal galley; and, finally, Hephaestion and the other members of the Personal Guard.

Here in Susa, Alexander received the various officials in charge of affairs in the newly built towns and the governors of the territories he had previously overrun. They brought with them some 30,000 young fellows, all boys of the same age, all wearing the Macedonian battle-dress and trained on Macedonian lines.
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Alexander called them his
Epigoni
– ‘inheritors’ – and it is said that their coming caused much bad feeling among the Macedonians, who felt it was an indication of his many efforts to lessen his dependence for the future upon his own countrymen. Already the sight of Alexander in Median clothes had caused them no little distress, and most of them had found the Persian marriage ceremonies by no means to their taste – even some of the actual participants had objected to the foreign form of the ceremony, in spite of the fact that they were highly honoured by being, for the occasion, on a footing of equality with the King. They resented, too, the growing orientalism of Peucestas, Governor of Persia, who, to Alexander’s evident satisfaction, had adopted the Persian language and dress, just as they resented the inclusion of foreign mounted troops in the regiments of the Companions.
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Bactrians, Sogdians, Arachotians; Zarangians, Arians, Parthians, and the so-called Euacae from Persia were all introduced into the crack Macedonian cavalry regiments, provided they had some outstanding
personal recommendation, such as good looks, or whatever it might be. Besides this, a fifth mounted regiment was formed; it did not consist entirely of oriental troops, but the total cavalry strength was increased and a certain number of foreign troops were posted to it.
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Foreign officers were also posted to the special squadron – Cophen son of Artabazus, Hydarnes and Artiboles sons of Mazaeus, Sisines and Phradasmenes sons of Phrataphernes, the satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania, Histanes son of Oxyartes and brother of Alexander’s wife Roxane, Autobares and his brother Mithrobaeus. The command over them was given to Hystaspes, a Bactrian, and the orientals were all equipped with the Macedonian spear in place of their native javelin. All this was a cause of deep resentment to the Macedonians, who could not but feel that Alexander’s whole outlook was becoming tainted with orientalism, and that he no longer cared for his own people or his own native ways.

Hephaestion now received orders to move down to the Persian Gulf with more than half the total number of infantry battalions. The fleet had already come up the Gulf to the territory near Susa, and Alexander embarked for a voyage down the Eulaeus
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to the sea. He took with him the Guards, the special squadron and a few other
Companions. He left most of his ships, including all which were in need of repair, just inside the mouth of the river, and went on with the fastest he had along the seacoast from the Eulaeus to the mouths of the Tigris; the rest of the fleet returned up the Eulaeus to the canal which joins it with the Tigris, and passed through.

The Tigris and Euphrates, as everybody knows, enclose a portion of Syria called, for that reason, Mesopotamia by the people who live there. The Tigris flows through much lower-lying country than the Euphrates; it receives the water from a number of cuts from the Euphrates and also from many tributary streams, and consequently increases in volume until, by the time it reaches the Persian Gulf, none of its water having been drawn off for purposes of irrigation, it is a river of considerable size and at no point fordable. The river, indeed, cannot be used for irrigation of the surrounding country at all; for such cuts or canals as there are, connecting it with other rivers, flow into, not from it, as the land on both banks is above the level of the stream. The Euphrates, on the contrary, runs through higher country, and throughout its course flows flush and full; consequently at many points the water is led off through cuttings, some of them permanent and a regular source of supply to the natives on either side; others are dug to provide water for the land during a temporary shortage.
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There is little rain in this part of the world, so this is a necessary procedure. For these reasons the Euphrates becomes, near its mouth, a more or less shallow swamp.