Part 4

Up to this point the march of Alexander had been through territories which the Persians had themselves acquired by conquest, and which had been long exploited by their satraps. The populations were, therefore, not inimical to the new conquerors. Indeed, as we have seen in many cases, the latter were greeted as deliverers from the heavy yoke of the Persians. On its side, the Macedonian army had been kept under strict discipline, and the lives and property of the people through whom it had passed were carefully respected. But Persepolis was really in the enemy’s country, the cradle of Persian rule, and there was no chance of reconciling its inhabitants by kind treatment. They were now to feel the brunt of real warfare. The city was given up to plunder, and the royal citadel of the Achæmenian kings was burnt down in a drunken revel. This ruthless act has been condemned, and it does appear to have been the result of a moment of excess, not planned as part of a policy of repression, for Alexander ordered the flames quenched, though he himself had cast the first firebrand that had set the costly cedar work of the palace in flames.

These various military operations lasted far into the autumn. When winter came the sorely tried and traveled Greeks took four months’ rest, and from this point begins another stage in the expedition, for Persis was regarded as sufficiently pacified to allow the bulk of the army to march into Media. Here Darius was preparing to make a last stand, but his efforts to collect a new army had the somewhat pitiful result of bringing to his standard a force of not more than 3000 horsemen and 6000 foot soldiers. As the Greeks approached, he fled before them, recognizing the hopelessness of resistance. He seemed minded to take refuge in the extreme limits of what had been his empire, the province of Bactria. Without striking a blow, Alexander occupied Ecbatana, the last of the great Persian capitals.

All that now remained was to round off the conquest by capturing the person of the defeated monarch, and to force the satraps of the eastern provinces to accept the new régime. This program offered no serious military problems, but it was bound to consume time and required patience. Many of the non-Macedonian Greeks were now sent home, after receiving generous rewards for their service, and Parmenio was left at Ecbatana, while Alexander with the best of his troops set off to pursue Darius. Hurrying on by Ragæ, a place a little to the south of the modern capital of Persia, Alexander found there that the royal fugitive had already passed through the Caspian Gates into the regions of Parthia. Bactria was still much farther to the east. The followers of Darius, with the exception of a few faithful Greek mercenaries, determined to hand over their unlucky monarch as a prisoner to the satrap of Bactria, Bessus, a kinsman of his, and to trust to his initiative to organize a national resistance more effectively than Darius.

When Alexander, after a stay of several days at Ragæ, heard that his old antagonist was a prisoner he hurried on, taking rest neither by night nor by day, and finally came up with the barbarians, who now preserved no semblance of discipline in their retreat. When Bessus and the other conspirators saw Alexander approaching, they ordered Darius, who was probably carried in a litter, to mount a horse and accompany them. When he refused, they stabbed him and rode off. He was found dying at a spring near the road, by a Macedonian soldier. By the time Alexander reached the place the end had come. All that he could do for his fallen foe was to throw his own cloak over the body and order it to be sent with befitting honor to the queen mother. The last member of the Persian monarchy, which had become a world power under Cyrus, was buried in the royal tombs at Persepolis.

IV THE INVASION OF INDIA

The death of Darius did not delay the activity of Alexander; he was all the more stirred to pursue Bessus when it was announced that the satrap of Bactria was claiming to be the successor of Darius and had assumed the insignia of royalty. But the regions close at hand had to be pacified, so Parmenio was sent to occupy the country near the southwest coast of the Caspian Sea. Alexander himself had to retrace his steps to deal with a rebellious satrap who had previously sent in his submission.

On the march southward, the province of Drangiana was taken without resistance, but the conqueror’s stay at the capital, Prophthasia, was marked by a mysterious tragedy. It was reported to Alexander that Philotas, the son of Parmenio, was plotting against him. An assembly of the Macedonian army was summoned, and the charges laid formally before them. Philotas admitted that he had known of a plot to assassinate Alexander, but had kept it secret. This reserve was treated as treason, and Philotas was put to death by the soldiers. This semi-judicial act was followed by the murder at Alexander’s command of his faithful lieutenant, Parmenio, for which there was no excuse, as he had never been charged with complicity in the guilty knowledge of his son. But Alexander probably judged that the execution of Philotas would inaugurate a blood feud familiar to Macedonian life, and he resolved to take no chances.

The road to Bactria selected by Alexander led him through modern Afghanistan and across the Hindu Kush mountains. But first he turned to the south in order to secure Seistan and the northwestern portion of Baluchistan, known at that time as Gedrosia. The winter of 330-29 he spent in the south of Seistan among a friendly people, the Ariaspæ, to whom, on account of their hospitable reception, he granted autonomy. Among the Gedrosians, their neighbors, he set up a satrapy, with a capital at Pasa.

In the spring, the Greek army pushed on to Arachosia, almost directly south of Bactria, where the king founded another Alexandria, probably on the site of the modern Candahar. At the foot of the high range of the Hindu Kush, a complex mass of mountains which divides southern from central, eastern from western Asia, called Paropanisus, the army passed the winter, and yet another city, named after their leader, was founded somewhere to the north of Cabul, Alexandria of the Caucasus. In the early spring the difficult mountain ranges which protected Bactria were crossed, the troops suffering much from the cold and from the lack of food. They were obliged to subsist on raw meat and on herbs instead of bread. After resting the army, Alexander led them on through an arid plain to Bactria, the chief city of the satrapy. (329-28 B.C.)

Bessus, the pretender, had tried to hinder the progress of the Greeks by laying waste the country in front of them, but as soon as they drew near, his horsemen deserted him and he fled across the Oxus. Alexander lost no time in following him up. The pursuit carried him through Sogdiana, where he crossed the Oxus on the rafts, made of inflated skins, such as are still in use to-day. The river was passed at a point where it was not a mile wide, at Kilif, and from thence the road was taken to Maracanda, a town whose old name is now thinly disguised as Samarcand. Bessus was deserted by his supporters, who thought that they would be glad to secure peace by his surrender. They abandoned him, and he was found by a division of the Greek army in a walled village, and was finally sent in chains to Bactria, after Alexander had charged him with the murder of Darius, his kinsman and benefactor.

The ardor for annexing the Far Eastern division of the Persian Empire to his rule spurred Alexander on, now that the rebellion of Bessus had so unexpectedly failed. He purposed to make, not the Oxus, but the Tanais his frontier on the northeast. The resistance seemed easily overcome; the seven strongholds of the Sogdians were occupied, and on the banks of the Jaxartes, or Tanais, at a point which is the gate of communication between southwestern Asia and China, the pass over the Tian-shan mountains, Alexander set the boundary of his conquests in this direction, by founding a new city called Alexandria the Ultimate, in later days Khodjend. While he was planning his new town, the country rose in revolt, for the chieftains of Sogdiana had no mind to lose their freedom. The small Macedonian garrisons left in the strongholds a short time before were overpowered, and the city of Maracanda was being besieged. The news of the revolt had spread far and wide, and the various Scythian tribes were hurrying to join in driving out the invaders. Alexander quickly recovered the strongholds, burning five of them, but at Cyropolis there was stout resistance, and he received a wound. The inhabitants of all were removed and forcibly transplanted as citizens of the new Alexandria. (328 B.C.)

It was not possible to go to the rescue of Maracanda because of the threatening attitude of the Scythian tribes, who were preparing to descend upon Alexandria, which was only separated from them by the river Tanais. The danger of being rushed by these barbarous hordes was imminent. The new city, therefore, was made capable of resistance; in the short period of twenty days it was surrounded with walls of unburnt clay. But Alexander determined also to strike terror by aggressive action. He brought up to the banks of the river engines which threw stones and darts among the enemy and forced them to retreat from the stream. Then the Greek army crossed, and the Scythians were soon routed. The king, with his cavalry, pursued them some distance in their own territory. The heat was intense and Alexander was made dangerously ill by drinking the water along the line of march.

On his recovery he had to deal with a difficult revolt in Sogdiana, again led by Spitamenes, who had figured in the previous uprising and who this time had succeeded in cutting off a detachment of Macedonian troops sent in pursuit of him. It is recounted that the fear of a disaster made such a serious impression on the conqueror that he covered the distance to Samarcand, over 150 miles, in three days. Spitamenes did not wait to try conclusions with the Greeks, but abandoned the siege, drawing off hurriedly in a westward direction, closely pursued by Alexander.

The Persian leader and his Scythian supporters were driven into the wastes across the river Sogda, and Alexander, after ravaging the province of Sogdiana, crossed into western Bactria and passed the winter at Zariaspa, one of the chief cities of that region.

While residing here, the trial of the pretender Bessus was begun. He was condemned to mutilation and to die on the cross at Ecbatana. This type of punishment was alien to Greek feeling and tradition, but it is not necessary to say that Alexander’s apologists have argued the necessity of conforming to the habits of Oriental races when they are to be ruled successfully by outsiders. Alexander himself, as he had never assimilated the best traditions of Greece, seemed ready enough to adopt Oriental customs either to heighten his own dignity in Persia or to impress the Persians that he was the legitimate successor of Darius.

The colloquial axiom, “the longest way round is the shortest way home,” can be applied to the science of government and politics, and it is more than probable that the Hellenization of Asia would have had less of the pinchbeck quality if Alexander had been trained in Sparta rather than in Macedon. In any case, we know that his abandonment of the homely traits characteristic of the relations between a Greek commander and his soldiers made him unpopular, and that, especially, the favor shown by him to the Persians who sided with him was distasteful to the Macedonians. His execution of Parmenio savored of oriental despotism, and during this winter there were open signs of discontent in the camp. (328-27 B.C.)

The winter quarters were changed to Maracanda on account of the restlessness among the natives, and in the relaxation from the strict discipline the soldiers and their leaders spent much of their time in carousing. On one occasion when Alexander and his companions were excited with wine, the king was made indignant at some slighting reference to his military exploits made by his foster-brother Clitus, who appealed to some verses of Euripides which signify that the army does the work and the general reaps the glory. Alexander in his drunken passion hurled a spear at the offender, and Clitus fell dead. The fatal issue of this drunken quarrel was followed by three days’ passionate remorse, and Alexander lay in his tent sleepless and refused food. The fact that he had murdered his intimate friend could not be glossed over even if the army were willing to exculpate their leader, by giving Clitus a post-mortem trial, or by their ascribing the act to the Dioscuri, whose festival was being celebrated at the time.

The excitable temperament of Alexander, unfortunately, cannot always be ascribed to intemperance in drink. He began to be intoxicated with the idea that he was a semi-divine being, and he undertook to act the rôle of an avenging deity, in executing a ruthless sentence of destruction on a small Greek colony in Sogdiana, where dwelt the descendants of the people of Branchidæ, who generations before had betrayed to the Persians the treasures of a temple of Apollo not far from Miletus. The act had never been forgotten, and now Alexander caused all the inhabitants of the place to be massacred, and every vestige of it to be destroyed. An action like this was alien to the spirit of free Greece, and it marks the king’s progress in Oriental despotism. It is all the more a witness to his personal degradation that the Milesian men in his own army, to whom Alexander wished to leave the decision, could not themselves agree on the fate of the Branchidæ, and hence the initiative in the massacre was due to the savage sentiments of their leader.

The pacification of Sogdiana took some time, owing to the rugged nature of the regions in the southern part of the province, but the campaign is chiefly noteworthy because it resulted in the marriage of Alexander with Roxane, the daughter of a native chieftain who had gallantly defended against the Macedonians a mountain fastness called the Sogdian Rock. It had never been noted in the career of the youthful conqueror that he was susceptible to the influence of women. Hence this sudden attachment was as unexpected as it was unpopular in the army. They disliked to have their king ally himself with an alien, and their lack of sympathy was accentuated because Alexander chose to marry his bride after the fashion of her country.

The influence of the Oriental environment was seen also in the introduction of Persian court ceremonial. The king desired to make the custom of obeisance to royalty used by the Persians applicable also to the Greeks. Callisthenes, a nephew of Aristotle, who was attached to the army as official historiographer of the campaign, earned Alexander’s resentment because he sturdily refused to adopt the Persian ceremonial in the king’s presence. He was soon afterwards charged with being involved in a plot to murder Alexander, which originated because of the resentment held against the king by the royal pages, when one of their number, Hermolaus, was flogged and reduced from his position for a breach of etiquette in a boar hunt at which Alexander was present. Callisthenes, apparently because he was an intimate friend of Hermolaus and therefore assumed to be an accomplice in the plot, was hanged.

Three years had now passed since the death of Darius; Alexander had done in the interior of Asia a work which no western conqueror has accomplished since on so large a scale. Even to-day the effective occupation by Russia of the lands once included in the Persian Empire falls short of Alexander’s achievement, because Afghanistan, included in his conquests, is still an autonomous state. It will have been already noticed that much attention had to be given while the Macedonian army was in these Far Eastern provinces, to their protection against the nomad tribes on their frontiers. These operations in Bactria and Sogdiana were a necessary part of the conquests of Persia, since these remote provinces acted as a barrier against the savage tribes of the central Asiatic steppes, who might at any time by joint action overrun the civilization of the regions south of them. The special care shown by Alexander in the construction of settlements in this region is an evidence of his desire to make them centers of civilizing influence by which the restless herdsmen might be trained to orderly methods of life. The experiment failed, but it was a brilliant vision--a vision which might have become a reality if the conqueror had lived the normal span of years.

The beating down of all opposition in the enormously extensive empire which the defeat of Darius had laid at his feet had now been accomplished. If Alexander had been a statesman and nothing else, he would have stayed his hand, because the consolidation of the territory he had overrun was a work demanding the time and the talents of the greatest genius. But Alexander had not the temper of a Roman proconsul, capable and zealous to solve large political problems. He was young enough to be influenced by the spirit of adventure, and unlike Cæsar and Napoleon, had sometimes no deeply laid scheme in his military exploits.

There was no political or military necessity summoning Alexander to the conquest of India, but there was the irresistible charm of novelty exerted by the unknown, the ambition to penetrate into regions untrodden before by any Greek, and with this feeling of the conqueror the modern world is able to sympathize. He was lured also by the legendary stories of the visits to India of the god Dionysus and the hero Herakles. The mystical, superstitious traits in Alexander’s character could easily be stimulated, as we have already seen, to emulation with the divinities of his people, and he was also glad to afford proof that he could effect a conquest attempted without success by Cyrus and Semiramis.

The actual military difficulties of the undertaking were not great, for though the Indians were brave and warlike, and though they had a well-populated land to draw from, they were not a national unity. As the Indian states were constantly at war with one another, there would be an opportunity of securing allies in the peninsula. There was no difficulty in securing recruits for the expedition, although it is true a large detachment of the army had well-understood motives for desiring to be left in Bactria; but some of the best Asiatic warriors from these regions were enrolled, 30,000 in number, and the levies with which Alexander now prepared to descend on India were certainly twice as great as those with which he had left Macedon seven years before. His army was now a great cosmopolitan community, an organism resembling the mercenary armies of the Middle Ages, in the times of the Condottieri. It was self-supporting and self-sufficient in more senses than one, for it included artisans, engineers, physicians, diviners, literary men, athletes, secretaries, clerks, musicians, as well as a host of women and slaves.

Most of the states in northern India at this time were inhabited by what is often called an Aryan stock, the descendants of a succession of waves of emigration through the northwestern hills from central Asia. They had given up their nomadic life and reached the agricultural stage. The Brahman caste system, with its asceticism, and with its power of directive guidance in the state, according to the dictates of a religious sect, already dominated the life of India, and the country as a whole was made up of small principalities and village communities with no common bond of union.

Alexander effected his entrance into this new world by marching from Nicæa (probably to be identified with Cabul) along the Cabul river and then proceeded through the now well-known Khyber Pass. For the purpose of securing his communications much time had to be spent in warfare with the brave inhabitants of the Himalaya Mountains. Many fortresses were taken, the most remarkable of these exploits being the capture of the rock of Aormas, which probably lies on the right bank of the Indus, some sixty miles above the junction of that river with the Cabul. The two tribes whose resistance gave the most trouble were the Aspasians and the Assacenes, dwelling in localities which can now be identified as being parts of Chitral in the Pangkan and Swat valleys.

This hard preliminary campaign lasted all the winter; in the spring the Indus was crossed and a three days’ march was made eastward to Taxila, a rich country, whose prince, along with lesser princes, gave a friendly welcome to the conqueror. But this friendly attitude was not taken by Porus, the ruler of the region farther south, who sent a formal defiance to Alexander, and prepared to resist the invaders by collecting an army of from thirty to forty thousand men. With this he encamped on the river Hydaspes and prepared to contest its passage. Alexander transported the boats, which he had constructed for crossing the Indus, to the Hydaspes, and took up a position on the right bank of the stream, near Jalalpur, in view of the army of Porus, who had collected a large number of elephants, a formidable obstacle to the effective use of the Greek cavalry. (326 B.C.)

In the face of an enemy so placed the transit of the river was impossible, for the edge of the stream was slimy, making an insecure footing for the soldiers, and the horses, terrified by the presence of the elephants, could not be kept in control and would certainly be lost. Besides, Porus kept a sharp eye on all the fords near his camping ground. Alexander kept the enemy busy by making various feints as if he were about to attempt to pass the stream. It was the rainy season, and the Indian soldiers and elephants were kept in battle array at the threatened points, exposed for hours to the force of the wind and rain. Porus began to think that the Greeks were afraid to force the passage, and these manœuvers were continued until he was off his guard.

Some sixteen miles below the Greek encampment, where the river made a bend, there was a wooded island which hid the right shore from observation. Taking advantage of this, and also of the fact that on his side of the river there was a thick forest, Alexander managed to bring his boats, which were made of skins, to a place opposite the island, and at the same time he marched some of his troops down the stream, leading them by a detour some distance from the bank, in order to prevent the enemy from detecting his operations. The rest of the Greeks were left at the original camping ground or were posted along the river at different points, with directions to cross and aid him at the proper moment.