The Campaigns of Alexander (Classics) (7 page)

With Thebes, on the contrary, it was a different matter: the lack of planning, the rapid movement of events which led to the revolt, the suddenness and ease with which the city fell, the slaughter, so appalling and so inevitable where men of kindred stock are paying off old scores, the complete enslavement of a city pre-eminent in Greece for power and military prestige, were, not unnaturally, all put down to the wrath of God. People felt that Thebes, at long last, had been punished for her treachery – she had paid the penalty for her betrayal of Greece in the Persian war, her capture of Plataea during the truce, the merciless enslavement of its population, and the massacre, for which she alone was responsible, of men who had surrendered not to her, but to Sparta, and the devastation of a countryside in which the united armies of Greece had driven back the Persian invader, and, lastly, for the murderous malignancy she showed towards Athens when she voted in favour of the suggestion, put forward by the Lacedaemonian confederacy, that the people of Athens should be sold into slavery.
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Everyone now declared that the
calamity had been preceded by many warning signs from heaven – signs ignored at the moment, but remembered now, long afterwards, and clearly proved by the event to have been prophetic of the coming doom.
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The allied troops who took part in the fighting were entrusted by Alexander with the final settlement of the fate of Thebes. They decided to garrison the Cadmeia, but to raze the city itself to the ground.
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All its territory but the places hallowed by religious associations was to be divided among the allies; the women, the children, and all the men who survived were to be sold into slavery – the only exceptions being priests or priestesses and such as had either personal ties with Alexander or Philip or official connexions with Macedon. It is generally believed that Alexander’s reverence for Pindar induced him to spare the poet’s house and all his living descendants. In addition to this, the allies determined to rebuild and fortify Orchomenus and Plataea.
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When the news of the Theban
débâcle
became generally known, the Arcadians who had started out in order to assist in the rising condemned to death those of their compatriots who had urged them to do so; the Eleans granted a pardon to their political exiles, simply because they were on good terms with Alexander; the various branches of the Aetolians all sent representatives to beg forgiveness on the ground that they had supported the revolt only because of the news from Thebes. In Athens the arrival of Theban refugees straight from the fighting coincided with the celebration of the Great Mysteries; the shock of the news induced the Athenians to cut short the ceremony and begin at once to get all movable property into the city from the surrounding country.
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The Assembly was convened, and on the motion of Demades ten men, all known to be on particularly friendly terms with Alexander, were sent to him to represent the city’s attitude and to assure him, somewhat unseasonably, that the Athenian people rejoiced to see him safely returned from Illyria and the Triballians, and thoroughly approved his punishment of the Thebans for their revolt. Alexander’s reply to these representations was in general friendly enough; he did, however, demand, in a letter to the Athenians, the surrender of Demosthenes and Lycurgus, and, in addition, of Hypereides, Polyeuctus, Chares, Charidemus, Ephialtes, Diotimus, and Moerocles, all of whom he held responsible for the defeat at Chaeronea and for certain errors in policy, detrimental to Philip’s interest and his own, subsequently committed upon Philip’s death.
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He declared moreover
that these men were as responsible for the rebellion as were the Thebans themselves, who had actually carried it out.
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The Athenians, instead of giving the men up, sent again to Alexander and begged him to relent – which he did, perhaps out of regard for Athens, perhaps simply because he was in a hurry to proceed with his Asian campaign and unwilling to leave behind him in Greece any cause for mistrust. He did, however, give orders that one of the men whose surrender he had unsuccessfully demanded – Charidemus – should be exiled. The sentence was carried out, and Charidemus took refuge in Asia at the court of Darius.
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Alexander now went north again to Macedonia, and offered to Olympian Zeus the form of ceremonial thanks-giving which had been in use since the time of Arche laus.
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He also celebrated the Olympian games at Aegae, and, according to some accounts, held games in honour of the Muses. During the ceremonies a report came from Pieria that the statue of Orpheus, son of Oeagrus of Thrace, had been constantly sweating, a phenomenon which was variously interpreted by the seers; one of them,
however – Aristander of Telmissus – told Alexander that he had no cause for alarm: it merely signified that the writers of odes and the epic and melic poets had hard work coming to celebrate Alexander and his exploits in verse and song.
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At the start of the next campaigning season Alexander left Antipater in charge of affairs in Macedonia and Greece, and made for the Hellespont with a force composed of not much more than 30,000 infantry, including light troops and archers, and over 5,000 cavalry.
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His route lay past lake Cercinitis, in the direction of Amphipolis and the mouth of the Strymon, which he crossed, and proceeded by way of Mount Pangaeum towards Abdera and Maroneia, two Greek settlements on the coast; continuing from there to the Hebrus, which he also crossed without difficulty, he marched through Paetica and across the river Melas to Sestus, which he reached twenty days after leaving home. At Elaeus he offered sacrifice upon the tomb of
Protesilaus, who was supposed to have been the first man of Agamemnon’s army to set foot upon the soil of Asia when the Greeks sailed against Troy. His purpose in performing the ceremony was to ensure better luck for himself than Protesilaus had.
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The task of getting the mounted troops and most of the infantry across the Hellespont from Sestus to Abydos was entrusted to Parmenio, and the crossing was carried out in 160 triremes and a large number of merchant vessels. It is generally believed that Alexander sailed from Elaeus to the Achaean harbour,
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himself at the helm of the admiral’s ship, and that half way over he slaughtered a bull as an offering to Poseidon and poured wine from a golden cup into the sea to propitiate the Nereïds. There is a further tradition that, fully armed, he was the first to leave the ship and set foot upon the soil of Asia, and that he built an altar on the spot where he left the shore of Europe and another where he landed on the other side of the strait, both of them dedicated to Zeus, the Lord of safe landings, Athena, and Heracles.
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Once ashore, he travelled inland to Troy and offered sacrifice to Athena, patron goddess of the city; here he made a gift of his armour to the temple, and took in exchange, from where they hung on the temple walls, some weapons which were still preserved from the Trojan war. These are supposed to have been carried before him by his bodyguard when he went into battle.
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He is also said to have offered sacrifice
to Priam on the altar of Zeus Herceius, to avert his anger against the family of Neoptolemus,
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whose blood still ran in his own veins.

At Troy his sailing-master, Menoetius, crowned him with gold, as did Chares the Athenian, who came from Sigeium with a number of others, either Greeks or natives. One account says that Hephaestion laid a wreath on the tomb of Patroclus; another that Alexander laid one on the tomb of Achilles, calling him a lucky man, in that he had Homer to proclaim his deeds and preserve his memory.
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And well might Alexander envy Achilles this piece of good fortune; for in his own case there was no equivalent: his one failure, the single break, as it were, in the long chain of his successes, was that he had no worthy chronicler to tell the world of his exploits.

No prose history, no epic poem was written about him; he was not celebrated even in such choral odes as preserve the name and memory of Hiero or Gelo or Thero, or many other men not in the same class as Alexander, with the result that the wonderful story of his life is less familiar today than that of the merest nonentities of the ancient world.
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Even the march of the Ten Thousand under Cyrus against Artaxerxes, the fate of Clearchus and his fellow prisoners, and the return under Xenophon’s command to the sea, are, thanks to Xenophon’s history, much
better known than the grand achievements of Alexander
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; yet, unlike Xenophon, Alexander did not hold a mere subordinate command; he was not defeated by the Persian King, or victorious only over the force which tried to stop his march to the sea. On the contrary, there has never been another man in all the world, of Greek or any other blood, who by his own hand succeeded in so many brilliant enterprises. And that is the reason why I have embarked upon the project of writing this history, in the belief that I am not unworthy to set clear before men’s eyes the story of Alexander’s life. No matter who I am that make this claim. I need not declare my name – though it is by no means unheard of in the world; I need not specify my country and family, or any official position I may have held. Rather let me say this: that this book of mine is, and has been from my youth, more precious than country and kin and public advancement – indeed, for me it
is
these things. And that is why I venture to claim the first place in Greek literature, since Alexander, about whom I write, held first place in the profession of arms.

From Troy, Alexander marched to Arisbe, where his entire force had taken up its position after crossing the Hellespont; next day he proceeded to Percote, and the day after passed Lampsacus and halted by the river Practius, which has its source in Mount Ida and flows into the sea which connects the Black Sea with the Hellespont. From there his route led past Colonae to Hermotus. On the march he had scouts ahead of the army, under the command of Amyntas, son of Arrabaeus, with the squadron of Companion cavalry from Apollonia under Socrates, son of Sathon, and four squadrons of what were known as advanced scouts. The town of Priapus, which lay on
his route, surrendered to him, and he sent a party under Panegorus, son of Lycagoras, one of his Companions, to take it over.

The Persian forces were commanded by Arsames, Rheomithres, Petines, and Niphates in association with Spithridates, the satrap of Lydia and Ionia, and Arsites, the governor of northern Phrygia. They had taken up a position near the town of Zeleia with the Persian cavalry and the Greek mercenary troops. On receiving the report that Alexander had crossed into Asia, they met to discuss the situation. Memnon of Rhodes advised against risking an engagement: the Macedonian infantry, he pointed out, was greatly superior in numbers; Alexander was present in person, while Darius was not. It would be better, therefore, to proceed at once to burn all growing crops, trample down and destroy grass and horse-feed, and even gut the towns, to prevent Alexander, by lack of supplies, from remaining in the country. Arsites, however, is said to have replied to this proposal that he would not consent to the destruction by fire of a single house belonging to any of his subjects. The other commanders supported him – no doubt because they had their suspicions of Memnon, and guessed that he was afraid of losing the position he held from Darius, if fighting started too soon.
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Alexander meanwhile was advancing in battle order upon the river Granicus. His infantry was massed in two groups, both wings protected by cavalry, while all transport had orders to follow in the rear. The reconnaissance
parties were under the command of Hegelochus, with the lancers and about 500 light troops. Just short of the river the scouts galloped back to report that the Persian army had taken battle positions on the further bank, whereupon Alexander gave all necessary orders in preparation for an engagement. Parmenio, however, was opposed to this; presenting himself before Alexander, ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘in my view our best plan in the present situation is to halt here, on this side of the river. The enemy infantry is heavily outnumbered by ours, and I do not think they will run the risk of remaining so close to us throughout the night; so if they withdraw, we can get across at dawn without opposition – indeed, we shall be over before they have a chance of getting into position to meet us. But to attempt the crossing in the present circumstances would, I think, be a grave risk. We cannot manage the crossing in line on a broad front, because in many places the river is obviously deep, the banks very high and, here and there, almost sheer. We should have to cross, therefore, in column, and in loose order at that, with the result that their massed cavalry will be upon us just as we are struggling out of the water and at the greatest possible disadvantage. A failure at the outset would be a serious thing now, and highly detrimental to our success in the long run.’

Alexander had his answer: ‘Yes, Parmenio,’ he said, ‘but I should be ashamed of myself if a little trickle of water like this’ (a very derogatory way of referring to the Granicus!) ‘were too much for us to cross without further preparation, when I had no difficulty whatever in crossing the Hellespont. Such hesitancy would be unworthy of the fighting fame of our people and of my own promptitude in the face of danger. Without doubt it would give the Persians added confidence; nothing has yet happened to
them to cause them alarm, and they would begin to think they were as good soldiers as we are.’
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Without further delay he sent Parmenio to take command of the left wing, and himself moved over to the right. Command of the right had already been given to Philotas, Parmenio’s son, with the Companion cavalry, the archers, and the Agriane spearmen; Amyntas, son of Arrabaeus, was attached to him with the lancers, the Paeonians, and Socrates’ squadron. On the left of these divisions were the Guards’ battalions, commanded by Parmenio’s son, Nicanor; next came the infantry battalions of Perdiccas, son of Orontes, of Coenus, son of Polemocrates, of Amyntas, son of Andromenes, in that order: finally the troops under Amyntas’ son, Philip. The advance position of the left wing was held by the Thessalian cavalry under Calas, son of Harpalus, and these were supported – in the following order – by the allied cavalry under Philip, son of Menelaus, and the Thracians under Agathon. Immediately on their right was infantry – the battalions of Craterus, Meleager, and Philip, extending to the centre of the army as a whole.