The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) (39 page)

Returning to Babylon Alexander found Peucestas back from Persia with 20,000 Persian troops; the force also included a considerable number of Cossaean and Tapurian fighting men, as it was generally supposed that of all Persia’s neighbours these peoples produced the best soldiers. Here too he was joined by Philoxenus with troops from Caria, by Menander from Lydia and by
Menidas with the cavalry which had been serving under his command.
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Successive delegations from Greece also presented themselves, and the delegates, wearing ceremonial wreaths, solemnly approached Alexander and placed golden chaplets on his head, as if their coming were a ritual in honour of a god. But, for all that, his end was near.
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He took this opportunity of thanking the Persian troops for their loyalty and obedience to Peucestas, and of congratulating Peucestas himself on his orderly and successful government. The Persians were then enrolled in the various Macedonian units, so that the ‘decad’ – or section – now consisted of a Macedonian leader, two of his compatriots, one of them a ‘double-pay’ man, the other a ‘tenstater’ man (so called from the pay he received, which was less than that of the ‘double-pay’ soldiers but more than that of the ordinary rank and file), twelve Persians, and, last, another Macedonian ‘ten-stater’.
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Four Macedonians, that is – the section-leader and three others on extra pay – and twelve Persians. The Macedonians wore native equipment; the Persians were armed either with bows or light javelins.

Fleet exercises were constantly held at this time. There was much rivalry between the trireme crews, besides the few quadriremes which were on the river, what with frequent rowing races and trials of skill for the ships’ masters, and prizes for the winners.

Some time before this Alexander had sent special envoys to the shrine of Ammon to inquire what honours he might with propriety pay to the dead Hephaestion. The envoys now returned with the news that Ammon permitted sacrifice to be offered him as to a ‘hero’ or demigod. Alexander was much pleased, and from that day forward saw that his friend was honoured with a hero’s rites.
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About this time he wrote a letter to Cleomenes, an official with a bad criminal record in Egypt.
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In so far as this letter showed his love for Hephaestion, a love which persisted even beyond the grave, I can find no fault with it; but there were other things in it which, I think, were highly reprehensible. The letter contained instructions for the erection of a shrine in Hephaestion’s honour in the city of Alexandria, and another on the island of Pharos, where the lighthouse is, both to be of great size and built regardless of expense.
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Cleomenes was to see to it that
the shrines were named after Hephaestion and that all mercantile contracts should bear his name. So far, so good – except that too much feeling was wasted upon matters of too little importance. It is what followed that I cannot approve. ‘If,’ the letter went on, ‘I find that everything connected with Hephaestion’s shrines in Egypt is in proper order, I will grant you free pardon for your former crimes, and henceforward you will suffer no punishment at my hands for anything you may do, however heinous.’ A remark of this kind, in a letter from a great king to the governor of a large and populous country – and a scoundrel at that – is, to my mind, shocking.
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Alexander’s end was now rapidly approaching. Another portent of what was so soon to come is mentioned by Aristobulus: while the King was engaged in incorporating in the various Macedonian units the troops which had come from Persia with Peucestas and from the coast with Philoxenus and Menander, he happened to feel thirsty, and getting up from where he was sitting moved away and left the royal throne empty. On either side of the throne stood couches with silver feet, on which his attendants had been sitting, but they had got up and gone away with the King, and only the guard of eunuchs was left standing round the throne. Now some fellow or other – some say a prisoner under open arrest
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– seeing the throne and the couches unoccupied, made his way up through the eunuchs and sat down on the throne. The eunuchs, according to some Persian custom, did not turn
him off, but began to tear their clothes and beat their breasts and faces as if something dreadful had happened. Alexander was at once told, and ordered the man to be put to the torture in an endeavour to find out if what he had done was part of a prearranged plot. However, all they could get out of him was, that he acted as he did merely upon impulse.
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This served to strengthen the seers’ forebodings of disaster.

A few days later Alexander was sitting at dinner with his friends and drinking far into the night. He had previously celebrated the customary sacrificial rites with a view to his success,
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adding certain other offerings in obedience to his seers’ advice, and had also, we are told, distributed wine and sacrificial victims among the various units and sections of the army. According to some accounts, when he wished to leave his friends at their drinking and retire to his bedroom, he happened to meet Medius, who at that time was the Companion most closely in his confidence, and Medius asked him to come and continue drinking at his own table, adding that the party would be a merry one.
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The royal Diaries
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confirm the fact that he drank with Medius after his first carouse. Then (they continue) he left
the table, bathed, and went to sleep, after which he supped with Medius and again set to drinking, continuing till late at night. Then, once more, he took a bath, ate a little, and went straight to sleep, with the fever already on him.

Next day he was carried out on his bed to perform his daily religious duties as usual, and after the ceremony lay in the men’s quarters till dark. He continued to issue orders to his officers, instructing those who were to march by land to be ready to start in three days and those who were going with himself by sea to sail one day later.
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From there he was carried on his bed to the river, and crossed in a boat to the park on the further side, where he took another bath and rested. Next day he bathed again and offered sacrifice as usual, after which he went to lie down in his room, where he chatted to Medius and gave orders for his officers to report to him early next morning. Then he took a little food, returned to his room, and lay all night in a fever. The following morning he bathed and offered sacrifice, and then issued to Nearchus and the other officers detailed instructions about the voyage, now due to start in two days’ time. Next day he bathed again, went through his regular religious duties, and was afterwards in constant fever. None the less he sent for his staff as usual and gave them further instructions on their preparations for sailing. In the evening, after another bath, his condition was grave, and the following morning he was moved to the building near the swimming-pool. He offered sacrifice, and, in spite of his increasing weakness, sent for his senior officers and repeated his orders for the expedition. The day after that he just managed to have himself carried to his place of prayer, and after the ceremony still continued, in spite of his weakness, to issue instructions to his staff. Another day passed. Now very
seriously ill, he still refused to neglect his religious duties; he gave orders, however, that his senior officers should wait in the court, and the battalion and company commanders outside his door. Then, his condition already desperate, he was moved from the park back to the palace. He recognized his officers when they entered his room but could no longer speak to them. From that moment until the end he uttered no word. That night and the following day, and for the next twenty-four hours, he remained in a high fever.

These details are all to be found in the Diaries. It is further recorded in these documents that the soldiers were passionately eager to see him; some hoped for a sight of him while he was still alive; others wished to see his body, for a report had gone round that he was already dead, and they suspected, I fancy, that his death was being concealed by his guards. But nothing could keep them from a sight of him, and the motive in almost every heart was grief and a sort of helpless bewilderment at the thought of losing their king. Lying speechless as the men filed by, he yet struggled to raise his head, and in his eyes there was a look of recognition for each individual as he passed. The Diaries say that Peitho, Attalus, Demophon, and Peucestas, together with Cleomenes, Menidas, and Seleucus,
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spent the night in the temple of Serapis
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and asked the God if it would be better for Alexander to be carried into the temple himself, in order to pray there and perhaps recover; but the God forbade it, and declared it would be better for him if he stayed where he was. The God’s command was made public, and soon afterwards Alexander died – this, after all, being the ‘better’ thing.

The accounts of both Ptolemy and Aristobulus end at this point. Other writers have added that the high officers most closely in his confidence asked him to name his successor, and that Alexander’s reply was ‘the best man’.
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There is also a story that he went on to say that he knew very well there would be funeral ‘games’ in good earnest after he was dead.

I am aware that much else has been written about Alexander’s death: for instance, that Antipater sent him some medicine which had been tampered with and that he took it, with fatal results.
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Aristotle is supposed to have made up this drug, because he was already afraid of Alexander on account of Callisthenes’ death, and Antipater’s son Cassander is said to have brought it. Some accounts declare that he brought it in a mule’s hoof,
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and that it was given Alexander by Cassander’s younger brother Iollas, who was his cup-bearer and had been hurt by him in some way shortly before his death; others state that Medius, who
was Iollas’ lover, had a hand in it, and support that view by the fact that it was Medius who invited Alexander to the drinking-party – he felt a sharp pain after draining the cup, and left the party in consequence of it.
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One writer has even had the face to declare that when he knew his death was imminent he went out with the intention of throwing himself into the Euphrates, in order to disappear without trace and make it easier for posterity to believe that one of the gods was his father and he had gone away to join them. His wife Roxane, this writer continues, happened to see him as he left the building, and stopped him, whereupon he gave a great cry and bitterly reproached her for grudging him the eternal fame of divine birth. I do not wish to appear ignorant of these stories; but stories they are – I put them down as such and do not expect them to be believed.

Alexander died in the 114th Olympiad, in the archonship of Hegesias at Athens.
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He lived, as Aristobulus tells us, thirty-two years and eight months, and reigned twelve years and eight months.
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He had great personal beauty, invincible power of endurance, and a keen intellect; he was brave and adventurous, strict in the observance of his religious duties, and hungry for fame. Most temperate in the pleasures of the body, his passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable. He had an uncanny instinct for the right course in a difficult and
complex situation, and was most happy in his deductions from observed facts. In arming and equipping troops and in his military dispositions he was always masterly. Noble indeed was his power of inspiring his men, of filling them with confidence, and, in the moment of danger, of sweeping away their fear by the spectacle of his own fearlessness. When risks had to be taken, he took them with the utmost boldness, and his ability to seize the moment for a swift blow, before his enemy had any suspicion of what was coming, was beyond praise. No cheat or liar ever caught him off his guard, and both his word and his bond were inviolable. Spending but little on his own pleasures, he poured out his money without stint for the benefit of his friends.
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Doubtless, in the passion of the moment Alexander sometimes erred; it is true he took some steps towards the pomp and arrogance of the Asiatic kings: but I, at least, cannot feel that such errors were very heinous, if the circumstances are taken fairly into consideration. For, after all, he was young; the chain of his successes was unbroken, and, like all kings, past, present, and to come, he was surrounded by courtiers who spoke to please, regardless of what evil their words might do. On the other hand, I do indeed know that Alexander, of all the monarchs of old, was the only one who had the nobility of heart to be sorry for his mistakes. Most people, if they know they have done wrong, foolishly suppose they can conceal their error by defending it, and finding a justification for it; but in my belief there is only one medicine for an evil deed, and that is for the guilty man to admit his guilt and show that he is sorry for it. Such an admission will make the consequences easier for the victim to bear, and the guilty man himself, by plainly showing his distress at
former transgressions, will find good grounds of hope for avoiding similar transgressions in the future.

Nor do I think that Alexander’s claim to a divine origin was a very serious fault – in any case, it may well have been a mere device to magnify his consequence in the eyes of his subjects.
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In point of fact I account him as great a king as Minos or Aeacus or Rhadamanthus, whose claims to be sons of Zeus were not felt by the men of old to be in any way dangerously arrogant; and the same may be said of Theseus’ claim to be the son of Poseidon and Ion’s to be son of Apollo. Surely, too, his adoption of Persian dress was, like his claim to divine birth, a matter of policy: by it he hoped to bring the Eastern nations to feel that they had a king who was not wholly a foreigner, and to indicate to his own countrymen his desire to move away from the harsh traditional arrogance of Macedonia. That was also, no doubt, the reason why he included a proportion of Persian troops (the so-called ‘Golden Apples’, for instance) in Macedonian units, and made Persian noblemen officers in his crack native regiments. As for his reputed heavy drinking, Aristobulus declares that his drinking bouts were prolonged not for their own sake – for he was never, in fact, a heavy drinker – but simply because he enjoyed the companionship of his friends.
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