Alexander the Great

CHAPTER 14 SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME

A city was dancing on the waves.

Timber had been floated down from the mountain forests and transformed over the summer into a fleet of open boats and thirty-oared triaconters, of war galleys and troop ferries or horse ferries. They were joined by a myriad of Indian river craft, making a grand total of nearly two thousand vessels. Men in the army with sailing experience were recruited as crew. They assembled on the Hydaspes at the new garrison towns of Nicaea and Bucephala, where an artificial harbor had been created. Their destination was the southern sea into which the Indus poured its iced waters from the Himalayas.

It was the autumn of 326; the monsoons had done their worst and the sun had reappeared. The multitude of sails and oars and rigging made for a brilliant spectacle. But this was no armada prepared for war. Its task was simply to transport Alexander’s men and animals. The seers presided over the customary sacrifices for a lucky voyage, but, to make assurance doubly sure, insisted that they include in their devotions the Hydaspes.

It was about now that Alexander’s wife, Rhoxane, gave birth to a son, but he was either stillborn or died within the first few days of life. The king buried him and offered sacrifices. A few months had passed between marriage and pregnancy, but the king had at least demonstrated his capacity, if not his enthusiasm. A little later he gave his father-in-law, Oxyartes, the satrapy of Parapanisadae, from which we may deduce that the marriage was at least a public relations success.

Just before dawn on a day in early November, the king stood in the prow of his own ship and poured libations from a golden bowl to the river god, to Heracles, and to his “spiritual” father Zeus Ammon; also to Poseidon, to Amphitrite, and to the Nereids. A trumpet sounded and the fleet put out.

The loyal but unimaginative Nearchus was appointed admiral. He had previously served as satrap of Lycia and Pamphilia. He was somewhat overshadowed by Alexander’s helmsman, a Greek from Aegina called Onesicritus, who had constant access to the king while he was aboard, and used his influence to undermine Nearchus. Arrian notes drily: “One of the falsities in Onesicritus’s history of Alexander is that he gives himself the title of ‘admiral,’ when in fact he was simply a helmsman.”

Arrian evokes the scene of the departure:

The noise of the simultaneous rowing by so many ships was like nothing else. The coxswains shouted the “in…out” command for every stroke and the oarsmen raised a cheer each time they struck the churning water in unison. The river banks, often higher than the ships, funnelled and amplified the noise, which ricocheted from bank to bank. Here and there wooded hollows on either side acted as echo-chambers, beating the sound back from their empty spaces. The horses visible on the transports caused amazement to the barbarians watching the spectacle, as horses had never been seen on ships before in India.

All went well to start with. The king was in no great hurry and after a few days’ sail everyone camped on the banks for a brief rest before continuing downstream. But at the confluence of the Hydaspes and another great river, the Acesines, the gods forgot the generous burnt offerings and hit out at the Macedonians. As well as making a tremendous din, the meeting of the waters created powerful eddies. Broad-beamed boats were spun violently around and Alexander took his clothes off in case he had to swim for his life. However, no harm was done, Arrian observes, “except to the nerves of those on board.”

War galleys, being long, thin, and low, came off much worse.

They did not ride so high over the seething rapids, and those with two ranks of oars could not keep the bottom one clear of the water. When the whirlpools swung them broadside on, their oars collided with each other, and many ships were damaged. Two ran against each other and sank. Many of those sailing in them perished.

This was an entirely unexpected setback, but Alexander made the best of things. He moored the fleet on the right-hand bank where there was shelter from the current and damage could be repaired.

—

THE ARMY WAS IN good condition again. Substantial reinforcements had arrived during the journey back from the Hyphasis—nearly six thousand cavalry from Greece and Thrace; seven thousand Greek mercenary infantry raised by his treasurer in Asia, Harpalus; and 23,000 infantry raised from Greek allies in Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. It was now so tempting for men from all over the Mediterranean to follow Alexander’s star, and make a fortune, that there was no need to recruit obstinate and contrary Macedonians. From Babylon came much needed medical supplies and 25,000 suits of armor inlaid with silver and gold. The equipment problem had been solved.

The fleet carried the hypaspist infantry, the royal cavalry squadron from the Companions, the invaluable archers and Agrianians, and (probably, although they are not mentioned) the baggage train and siege equipment. The remainder—in fact, the majority of the army—was divided in two. Craterus was to lead some of the cavalry and infantry along the river’s right bank. Hephaestion was to advance down the other with the largest and strongest part of the army, including some two hundred elephants that various rajahs had presented to Alexander. The two generals were on bad terms and the fact the Hydaspes was never less than two and a quarter miles wide will have come as a relief to both of them.

On one occasion around this time, they actually drew swords and came to blows. Friends appeared and began to join in the disturbance. Alexander rode up and gave Hephaestion, who was evidently more in the wrong, a furious dressing-down. He told him he was mad or stupid if he didn’t realize that without his, the king’s, favor he was nothing. Later in private he sharply rebuked Craterus.

Finally, he imposed a public reconciliation. He said: “By Zeus Ammon and all the other gods, these are the two men I love most in the world. But if ever I hear of them quarrelling again, I will kill them both—or at the very least the one who started the quarrel.” The king’s outburst shocked them into obedience and neither man ever again did or said anything, even as a joke, to offend the other.

—

ALEXANDER’S BODY WAS A palimpsest of scars. He exulted in hand-to-hand combat and regarded wounds as a professional hazard. It was now that he received the last and most dangerous of them and it is very remarkable that he recovered from it.

His army faced one more hard-fought campaign before finding the sea, despite grumbling from the rank and file. The Hydaspes joined the Acesines, which then ran through the territory of the Oxydracae and the Malli; these were hostile tribes who would have to be overcome if the Indus Valley were to be completely pacified and the imperial frontier secured along the length of the great river. News came in that they were planning to obstruct the Macedonians’ passage with a horde of one hundred thousand warriors.

In response the king divided his army into separate detachments and placed them at various points around the southern borderlands of the tribal territories. To the west and east of these territories were waterless deserts. Alexander decided to attack the Malli from the north and drive them into the arms of the forces that were waiting to receive them. He, of course, led an agile assault force, consisting of hypaspists, a phalanx battalion, some light infantry, half the Companion cavalry, and the highly valued mounted archers.

To ensure the maximum surprise he led his men through an arid wasteland. After some miles they paused at a small spring for a rest and then traveled for the remainder of the day and through the night. Altogether they covered forty-five miles before emerging from the desert at dawn, to the astonishment of the tribesmen, many of whom were out in the fields and unarmed. He killed most of them without any resistance being offered. Settlements in his path, probably little more than villages with mud walls, received the same treatment. Ruthlessness and intolerance had returned. The king had lost patience.

Faced with this blitzkrieg, the Mallians abandoned their capital, and most of their armed forces holed up in a well-fortified stronghold. The king laid the place under siege. The Macedonians broke through the outer perimeter and attacked the citadel. They set up scaling ladders, but morale had been shaken by the fierceness of the defense and some of the assault team nervously hung back. The king seized a ladder, huddled under his shield, and scampered up the wall by himself. Peucestas, an old school friend who was carrying the sacred shield from Troy, came up after him. Two other Macedonians, Leonnatus and a corporal, followed Alexander and climbed up beside him.

At the top was a parapet, against which the king propped his shield. He cleared his section of the wall, shoving some of the defenders off it and dispatching others with his sword. Arrows rained down on him from nearby towers on the wall.

His men could see how exposed he was and frantically jostled one another on the same ladder, which broke under their weight. Alexander realized he could not safely stay where he was for much longer. To take the Indians by surprise and goad his Macedonians to redouble their efforts to rescue him, he decided on an absurdly rash act. Almost suicidally, he jumped off the wall, not back into the arms of the besiegers, but into the citadel itself.

He had good balance, as well as luck, and landed on his feet near an old tree, which gave some protection from attack. After he killed two Indians at close quarters, his opponents stood back and hurled spears and arrows at him.

He took many missiles on his shield, but his helmet was broken and his legs began to buckle. He was hit by an arrow, which passed right through his breastplate and into his chest, above a nipple. He staggered back and fell to his knees. Arrian writes that

the blood escaping from the wound was bubbling with the air from his lung. As long as his blood ran warm, and although he was in a bad way, Alexander continued to defend himself: but when inevitably his breathing caused a massive hemorrhage he became dizzy and faint, and fell forward over his shield. Peucestas stood astride him as he lay there, protecting him with the sacred shield from Troy, and Leonnatus took his stand on the other side: these two were now the targets, while Alexander was slipping into unconsciousness from loss of blood.

Finally, Macedonians arrived on the scene in force and captured the citadel. Fury was fed by guilt and they slaughtered every Mallian in sight—women, children, and old men.

Meanwhile the king was stretchered away on his shield. There was no surgeon on hand and urgent action was needed. It was essential to remove the arrow from the king’s chest. The head being barbed, this could only be safely done if the entry wound was enlarged. The shaft had to be sawn off first since the flights would not pass through the hole in the cuirass. One of Alexander’s leading generals, Perdiccas, cut round the wound and then carefully drew the barb out. When he did so, blood spurted and pain and shock induced nature’s anesthetic. Alexander passed out.

He was cared for where he was and when he was well enough to travel was brought to the river and boarded ship. There were fears that the indispensable leader would not survive, leaving his men in the middle of nowhere and thousands of miles from home. When Alexander heard that rumors of his death were spreading, he had two ships lashed together and a tent erected in the center of them. This allowed him to be seen in public and prove to both friend and foe that he was alive. Even so he was obliged to wave his arm before his survival was fully believed. He then proceeded downstream, keeping some distance from the rest of the fleet so that the stroke of the oars would not disrupt his sleep (which his very fragile condition still required).

The wound took more than seven days to close, but Alexander recovered with remarkable speed. The foam strongly suggests that his lung was pierced. The antiseptics of the day were weak and it is remarkable that within a few weeks the king was up and about.

We cannot doubt that his health was seriously and permanently affected. Very probably he had a splintered rib; a lung had been torn and both walls of the pleura perforated; and the intercostal muscles were lacerated. These damaged layers are all part of the breathing system and usually mobile. The process of healing, though, would knit them into stiff, ragged scar tissue. In future, with every breath he drew, Alexander would feel his wound, and every arm movement would hurt.

Senior officers in his intimate circle criticized him for taking needless risks. That was something an ordinary soldier might do, but not a commander. Alexander was irritated by these comments. Arrian offers his own convincing assessment of the king’s attitude to risk:

I would guess that Alexander’s annoyance was because he recognized the truth of the accusation and his own responsibility in incurring it. Yet the fact is that in battle he was a berserker, as addicted to glory as men are to any other overpowering passion, and he lacked the discipline to keep himself out of danger.

—

IT WAS JULY 325 and the monsoon rains had started again, blown in from the southwest. While convalescing, the king had had more ships built and he was now impatient to get going again. He intended to deal decisively with any resistance as he moved down into the Lower Indus Valley. To the east of the river lay the wide-ranging Thar Desert, most of which was covered by huge shifting sand dunes. It reached down to the sea and was impassable.

To the west, though, Indian communities still resisted the invader, but their defeat was little more than a sanguinary formality. The Macedonians applied the tactic of the bloodbath. An insurgent prince was crucified together with the holy men or Brahmins who had egged him on. Soon southern Indians were either dead or terrified.

The fleet arrived at Pattala in the Indus Delta. This was the river’s main port, but at the moment it was empty. The population had fled in terror and were only enticed back with difficulty. Hephaestion was ordered to transform the city into a military base with ship sheds and dockyards. Later, a second harbor was created farther south in the delta. While construction work was under way, Alexander explored the principal outlets leading to the Ocean. Out at sea, he sacrificed bulls to Poseidon and poured libations from a gold cup. The animals’ bodies were thrown into the water in thanksgiving, as were the cup and some gold bowls for mixing wine.

The king and his fellow Macedonians were astonished by tides, which are hardly apparent in the Mediterranean. Shocked when the ebbing water marooned their ships on mudbanks, they were mightily relieved when it returned and refloated them.

They encountered a more serious problem, as Arrian explains:

When they came to the point where the river spreads out wide, extending here to twenty-two miles at its broadest, the wind was blowing in strong from the open sea and the rowers could hardly lift their oars in the heaving water. Guided by their pilots, they ran for shelter again into a side-channel.

In due course, this southwest wind was to threaten the very survival of Alexander and his army.

—

THE NEXT STAGE OF Alexander’s journey would take him 450 miles along the barren coast of Gedrosia (today called the Makran) that led from western India to the Persian Gulf. The monsoon passed it by, rain clouds only hitting mountaintops in the interior. The land was mostly desert—red, mountainous, and as dry as an ossuary. A nineteenth-century traveler reports

chiefly a barren repetition of sun-cracked crags and ridges with parched and withered valleys intersecting them, where a trickle of salt water leaves a white and leprous streak among the faded tamarisk or the yellow stalks of last season’s grass….Here and there jagged peaks appear as if half overwhelmed by an advancing sea of sand. They are treeless and barren, and water is but rarely found at the edges of their foot-hills.

According to legend, Heracles, who appears to have visited everywhere, and the fabled Semiramis, queen of Assyria, had both tried and failed to cross Gedrosia. The king, always competitive, would be delighted to outcompete them. However, he was not suffering from a bout of overheated pothos, but rather had sound practical reasons for traveling through this unforgiving landscape. His prime motive was to inspect and if necessary strengthen the boundary of his possessions, but he also knew that traveling by sea was quicker than by land and far less arduous. The Makran could be developed as a trade route between rich and populous India and his empire’s heart, Mesopotamia. Alexander planned to establish a string of colonies along this coast and on offshore islands, which he believed would become as wealthy as the city-ports of Phoenicia. It would also be much easier than before to keep in touch with his Indian provinces and protectorates.

Alexander recognized that guiding his men through the desert would be one of his greatest challenges and he took great pains over his preparations. The Indian soldiers who had swelled his ranks were dispersed. In June, he gave Craterus command of the bulk of the army, including more than half of the phalanx, some of the archers, all soldiers from whatever unit who were unfit for service and to be sent home, and the elephants acquired during the campaign in the subcontinent. They were to march westward through the eastern satrapies and rejoin Alexander in Carmania, the province next to Persis and Persepolis.

This left the king free to undertake his Gedrosian adventure. He still commanded a sizable force—the Macedonian troops not going with Craterus, the Greek mercenaries and cavalry from the eastern satrapies. In addition, the cumbersome baggage train, under Hephaestion’s command, included all sorts of noncombatants from prostitutes to children, from traders to servants.

The most seaworthy ships in the fleet were to join in an amphibious operation. They were under orders to proceed at the same pace as the army along the littoral. The fleet would carry provisions for the troops on land, who in turn would dig wells and supply the sailors with water. They would also take water from the intermittent mountain streams that ran down to the sea and that were full at this time of year. Four months’ supply of grain was gathered and stowed in about four hundred cargo vessels. Military detachments marched west partly to reconnoiter and dig wells and partly to punish two hostile tribes, the Oreitae, who were routed, and the Arabitae, who opted for discretion and fled. The king founded another of his garrison towns, where he left Leonnatus to ensure calm after his departure.

In late August, the king began his homeward trek. He chose the height of the monsoon for his departure because he calculated that dried-up riverbeds in Gedrosia would be briefly in spate and would help water his troops. Estimates of his numbers reach as high as 120,000 or more, if the baggage train is included, and as low as a more plausible thirty thousand. The wind was still blowing from the southwest and prevented Nearchus and his ships from leaving harbor. Alexander assumed that when it changed direction they would catch up with him.

This was a grave error, for gales were permanent during the rainy season; they were to last until October. The Macedonians’ usually excellent intelligence service had let them down, probably because local people were so offended by the brutality of the campaign that they refused to give the invaders accurate information.

The ships did not come.

—

ALEXANDER WAS EVENTUALLY FORCED to accept that they would never come. He had no idea what had happened to them. Perhaps an Indian army had overwhelmed them, or perhaps they had been sunk in a storm. None of this mattered, for he had his own crisis to confront.

What was he to do now to save his army? He had three options. He could stay where he was, but the territory had been devastated and at the best of times would not have grown enough produce to feed his army. Alternatively, he could retrace his steps and go back to Patala, nearly three hundred miles away. But armies trash the land through which they pass, and his Macedonians would be unlikely to survive the march across a wasteland of their own making.

There was one final possibility—to keep calm and carry on. This was the one he chose, although he knew that he would have to use all his skill and imagination if he was to save his men. He sent out fast-riding messengers to the neighboring satrapies, ordering them to load racing camels and other pack animals with food and other necessities and deliver them urgently to the army at an agreed rendezvous.

A scouting party rode down to the sea to assess the situation on the coast. On being told it was desert, with a few fishermen “living in stifling huts put together out of shells and roofed with the backbones of whales,” the king turned inland to the Jhau tract, a territory where modest quantities of food were to be found. Some was requisitioned and sealed with the king’s seal; it was destined for the fleet, in case it had turned up, but famished soldiers broke it open and consumed the contents. Not wanting trouble, Alexander pardoned them.

From Jhau, 150 miles of sheer desert lay before the Macedonians. The scorching heat, the scalding sand, the lack of water, and the poor and minimal diet took their toll of lives. Men struggled through dunes. Arrian writes:

One factor was the depth of the sand and the temperature to which it was baked, but in most cases the animals finally died of thirst. They had to negotiate high dunes of deep loose sand, into which they sank as if they were treading in mud or—a better analogy—a fresh drift of snow.

The army marched at night, probably following a well-trodden caravan route. It only stopped when a source of water had been reached. If they had to carry on into the day, they suffered terribly from heat and thirst. Horses and mules in the baggage train were illicitly slaughtered and eaten; in these dire circumstances all the king could do was to turn a blind eye. Wagons were sabotaged because it was difficult to keep them moving through the deep sand.

According to Arrian,

All along the route men were left behind—the sick, those suffering from exhaustion, heatstroke, or crippling thirst—and there was no one to carry them or stay to look after them. The march was pressed on at all possible speed, and the concern for the general good necessarily involved the neglect of individual needs. With most of the marching at night, many simply fell asleep on the road. When they woke, those who still had the strength followed the tracks of the army in an attempt to catch up, but only a few survived: most were lost in the sand, like sailors lost overboard at sea.

Every now and again rainwater from the mountains flowed in torrents down the riverbeds without warning. On one such occasion, many women and children were drowned and the royal tent with all its contents was swept away. Whenever the men happened upon an abundant supply of water after hours of heat and thirst, their insatiable drinking often had fatal results. The king used to make camp a mile or two away from a spring or stream to prevent a stampede.

Alexander had not lost his knack for propaganda. He was as tired and thirsty as everybody else, but he insisted on leading his men on foot and from the front. He refused any special treatment. Once a party of soldiers found a dribble of water, filled a helmet, and hurried back to give it to Alexander. The king thanked them for their trouble and, with everyone watching him, poured the water into the ground.

We may pause to wonder why he did not simply pass the water to someone whose need was greater than his. However, the gesture was very well received, even if Arrian inclines to hyperbole when he reports: “The effect on the morale of the entire army was as if every man had been refreshed by a gulp of the water Alexander had poured away.”

The local guides confessed that they were lost: a sandstorm had blown away route markers and they could not distinguish one featureless dune from another. Alexander suspected that they were traveling in the wrong direction. He guessed that they needed a turn to the left and rode off with a few cavalrymen to test his hunch. It was correct. He and five others found the sea and, better still, copious fresh water that was there for the digging.

The agony had lasted sixty days, but was at last reaching its conclusion. The bedraggled and emaciated survivors entered a land of plenty where there was an abundance of grain, dates, and sheep.

—

THE GEDROSIAN EXPEDITION OF 325 had been a disaster without mitigation. Plutarch estimates that a quarter of the army’s fighting force died. “Diseases, wretched food, parching heat, and, worst of all, hunger destroyed them.” The proportion of casualties among those in the baggage train must have been even larger.

Alexander was shattered and ashamed. There would have to be a reckoning. What had gone wrong with his best-laid plans? Who was to blame for the debacle? Where was the fleet? Did the fleet even exist anymore? Why had the satraps sent no supplies? The guilty would be punished, of that there could be no doubt.

Whatever the answers to these questions, he knew that first of all he had to apologize to his men for what had happened on his watch. He did so implicitly. For seven days he loosened the bonds of discipline. In an echo of the Dionysiac revels in the Punjab, his men marched in a drunken pageant. Their route was strewn with flowers, and wine was freely available. Wagons were rigged with tents so that soldiers could ride in them and take the weight off their sore feet. New uniforms and armor were distributed.

The king himself had been under very severe strain and needed to unwind.

Alexander himself feasted continually, day and night, reclining with his companions on a dais built upon a high and conspicuous rectangular platform, the whole structure being slowly drawn along by eight horses. Innumerable wagons followed the royal table, some of them covered with purple or embroidered canopies, others shaded by the boughs of trees, which were constantly kept fresh and green; these vehicles carried the rest of Alexander’s officers, all of them crowned with flowers and drinking wine.

Before the year’s end the fate of the fleet became clear. Nearchus had set sail in late September but was forced into a harborage, where he waited for more than thirty days until the monsoon came to an end together with its implacable southwest wind. At the outset he had had to deal with disciplinary problems by dumping unruly sailors in Leonnatus’s lap in the territory of the Oreitae. Leonnatus did not complain and gave him some replacement sailors and ten days’ worth of supplies.

However, Nearchus’s journey along the Makran coast was marked by malnutrition and low morale. Provisions were scarce, although date palms were found in places. A local guide was recruited and the fleet eventually put in at a river on the shore of Carmania. Nearchus dragged the ships up onto the sand and built a double stockade and a ditch to protect them. He struck out inland with a small group to look for Alexander.

Meanwhile the king, with despair in his heart that the fleet was lost, received a report that it was safe and Nearchus was near at hand. He sent out search parties. When the admiral and his companions were found they were hardly recognizable, according to Arrian, “such was the great change in their appearance. They were long-haired, squalid, caked in brine, flesh shrivelled, pale from lack of sleep and every kind of hardship.” Alexander burst into tears at the sight. The admiral debriefed him: “Sir, your ships are safe and your men too. We have come here to bring you the news of their safety.” The king wept again. “They are here pulled up on shore…and being repaired.”

There was good news, too, from Leonnatus. After putting down a rebellion of the Oreitae, he found his way to the king by land.

However, it was beginning to be clear that the great Indian victories were slipping like quicksilver through the conqueror’s hands. He had crushed many tribes and their rulers, but it was a safe bet that the Macedonians would have their hands full elsewhere and would not soon return. Once the hurricane had passed, the defeated raised their heads and life resumed its normal course. The satrap Alexander had appointed to govern the Indus Valley was assassinated. Unrest grew in the Punjab under a young leader called Sandrocottus. He is better known today as Chandragupta, founder of the Mauryan empire, which at its height ruled over much of northern India. In future years, he was ably assisted by a king called Parvataka, who has been identified with King Porus, Alexander’s ultra-loyal paladin.

—

AT PURA, THE GEDROSIAN CAPITAL, an arts festival was staged with dance and music contests. Bagoas, the lovely eunuch, won a prize. After his performance he crossed the performance space, still in his costume and wearing his winner’s crown, and sat down next to Alexander. At the sight the soldiers applauded and shouted good-humoredly: “Give him a kiss!” For a time Alexander resisted the invitation, but at last gave way. He put his arms around Bagoas and kissed him.

This is a slight anecdote, but it demonstrates that the army’s morale had already recovered from the Makran experience. Also, although eunuchs were often unpopular because of their reputedly cruel and devious nature, Alexander’s favorite seems to have been well enough liked among the rank and file.

A famous work of art appears to confirm that the young man was still the apple of the king’s romantic eye. We learn from the comic writer Lucian, who lived in the second century A.D., of a painting by the distinguished artist Echion—Wedding of Alexander and Rhoxane. It was exhibited at the Olympic Games of 324 and was surely a royal commission. It not only celebrates the happy couple’s union, but also reminds the viewer of Alexander’s other loves.

According to Lucian’s eyewitness account, the scene was a very beautiful bedroom. Rhoxane, eyes modestly lowered, faces Alexander.

There are smiling Cupids: one is standing behind her removing the veil from her head and showing Rhoxane to her husband; another like a true servant is taking the sandal off her foot, already preparing her for bed; a third Cupid has caught hold of Alexander’s cloak and is pulling him with all his strength toward Rhoxane.

The king himself is holding out a garland to the bride and their best man and helper, Hephaestion, is there with a blazing torch in his hand. He is leaning on a very handsome young man—I think he is Hymenaeus (his name is not inscribed).

Lucian’s guess as to the identity of the youth is unconvincing. As the god of marriage, he ought to have been shown more obviously presiding over the ceremony. Also, it would have been Hymenaeus who traditionally held a torch to illumine the proceedings, not Hephaestion.

The figure is more likely to have been Bagoas, appropriately enough standing beside Alexander’s other male lover. With its honoring of masculine affection, the picture made clear that there were limits to Rhoxane’s command of her husband’s heart.

If Bagoas was still riding high at court, he was rather less popular with the Persian nobility, as soon became apparent. After the collective orgy of food and drink, the king left Carmania and entered the province of Persis. As he had done on previous visits to the area, he made a point of paying his respects at the tomb of Cyrus the Great, first of the Achaemenid Great Kings and someone whom he much admired.

The tomb was (and still is) a small stone building standing on a high, stepped platform with a pitched roof. Inside there was a gold sarcophagus containing Cyrus’s body, a couch, and a wardrobe of elaborate costumes. An inscription read:

MORTAL, I AM CYRUS SON OF CAMBYSES. I FOUNDED THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND WAS KING OF ASIA. SO DO NOT GRUDGE ME MY MONUMENT.

Alexander was deeply moved by these words, for they reminded him of the uncertainty of human affairs and the inconstancy of fortune.

On this visit he found that robbers had vandalized the tomb and thrown out the remains. He was furious. He ordered what was left of Cyrus to be put back and the contents restored or replaced. He had the tomb’s priest-guards interrogated under torture, but without result.

However, it emerged that a descendant of Cyrus himself was responsible for the theft of the grave goods and the desecration. This was Orxines, who had taken over the satrapy of Persis without permission, on his predecessor’s death in office. After Alexander’s return to Persia, he knew he would have to work hard to persuade him to endorse the usurpation. He arrived at court laden with generous presents for the king’s friends.

According to Curtius, he paid his respects to all and sundry, but refused to acknowledge Bagoas. When advised that this was unwise, he replied: “It is not the Persian custom to regard as men those who allowed themselves to be sexually used as women.” Orxines was investigated and shown to have acted corruptly in office. He had plundered temples and royal tombs, including that of Cyrus, and illegally put to death numerous Persian citizens. On Alexander’s orders, he was impaled.

Bagoas gave evidence against Orxines. The Persian was clearly guilty and, although the eunuch must have been hurt by the offensive put-down, there is no reason to suppose that he lied. His behavior in reporting what he knew to Alexander was perfectly understandable, but unlikely to please other senior Persians, who regarded him as a typically ruthless palace fixer.

—

ORXINES WAS NOT THE only guilty man. During Alexander’s lengthy stay in India, for Greeks and Macedonians the very end of topographical knowledge, many newly appointed satraps misbehaved. They enriched themselves at the expense of their subjects and they executed objectors. Even the honest men were open to charges of incompetence.

It was widely supposed that the king, having completely disappeared from view, was unlikely to return. Defeat or disease would most probably carry him off. After the Mallian episode a rumor of his death circulated, which was not so far from the truth. However, once news spread that he was back, complaints flooded in from all over the empire. It appeared that fourteen of his twenty-seven satraps were guilty of corrupt practices and had even been openly rebellious.

Wherever he looked Alexander could only see turmoil, inefficiency, and half-hidden hostility toward him. Even at home, Olympias and the king’s sister, Cleopatra, were plotting against the regent, Antipater. But first things first. The satraps who had failed to send Alexander provisions during his extremity in the desert had to face his wrath. He condemned to death in absentia Apollophanes, the Macedonian satrap of Gedrosia, unaware that he had already been killed during the Oreitiae uprising.

Two senior Persians, father and son, who were satraps respectively of Susiana and Paraetecane, were arraigned before the king. The father had brought the Macedonian army three thousand talents in place of supplies. Alexander had the money thrown to some horses. When they did not touch it, he asked: “What good are your provisions to us then?” The satrap was imprisoned and executed later, presumably after a summary trial. The king was so angry that he took a pike and ran the son through with his own hands.

The satrap of neighboring Carmania was suspected of plotting a revolt. The king concealed his feelings and spoke to him affably. But, as soon as he had studied the evidence carefully and decided on his guilt, he had him arrested. He was put to death during the recent revels.

The four generals in command of the garrison in Media faced many serious accusations. They were led by the Greek mercenary Cleander, brother of the recently dead Coenus, who had sided with the soldiers at the mutinous military assembly in India. These were the men who had put Parmenion to death on Alexander’s orders and the king owed them a sizable debt, but, Arrian writes,

this could not compensate for all the crimes they had committed. After plundering everything in the secular sphere, they had not even refrained from what was sacred: virgins and women of the highest breeding had been sexually assaulted and were bemoaning the physical abuse they had suffered.

Alexander commented that the prosecution had overlooked one charge—namely, the assumption of those on trial that he would not survive the journey to India. The defendants were found guilty and put to death. Six hundred common soldiers were executed for having been active accessories to their commanders’ crimes. Throughout his career the king had given short shrift to men who sexually abused women. For a soldier to say that he was only obeying orders was no defense.

These punishments were intended as a warning that “oppression of the ruled by the rulers is not tolerated.” This assertion of justice enjoyed widespread approval and helped reconcile the native population to the new regime. We may also assume (although there is no evidence for this) that the king was quietly pleased to have seen the end of men who knew too much about the gravest crisis of his reign. To do Alexander a great service was always risky, for it tended to arouse anxiety and irritation in him rather than gratitude.

Some governors who commanded Greek mercenaries were alarmed by the king’s severity and threatened unrest. Alexander’s suspicious mind may have feared a general revolt. He wrote to all his satraps, ordering them, as soon as they had read his letter, to disband their mercenaries instantly. They obeyed, but presumably (we are not told) maintained their security by raising troops from among the locals.

This was a very poor decision. Darius had employed numerous Greek mercenaries. After the Battle of Issus, many of them had reluctantly signed up as soldiers in Alexander’s army. Not entirely trustworthy in the front line of battle, they were often deposited as garrisons and as guards battalions who were tasked with protecting satraps in their provincial capitals.

Now large numbers of unemployed Greek soldiers roamed the empire and brigandage was rife. Something drastic had to be done to restore the rule of law. As usual, Alexander acted decisively and rapidly. His solution was to send the mercenaries home to their native cities. At the Olympic games for 324 he had a decree read out by a herald:

King Alexander to the exiles from the Greek cities. We have not been the cause of your exile, but, save for those of you who are under a curse [i.e. guilty of murder and other serious crimes], we shall be the cause of your return to your own native cities. We have written to Antipater about this to the end that if any cities are not willing to restore you, he may constrain them.

The decree referred to all Greek exiles, not only mercenaries but also men who had fallen foul of their domestic authorities for political reasons. Greek public life was bitter and quarrelsome. Losers were seldom allowed to form a loyal opposition but were expelled or put to death.

The decree killed two problems with one stone. The troublesome mercenaries would be cleared from the empire and no longer cause him and respectable citizens trouble. But also Alexander was aware that, despite the defeat of the Spartan king Agis and his allies at Megalopolis in 331, opposition to his rule was rising. The injection of political enemies into the anti-Macedonian city-states of Hellas would preoccupy their governments and discourage foreign adventures.

This was a thoughtless and malevolent policy, which in the long run was bound to backfire. A general restlessness would convert itself sooner or later into a new insurgency. It is as well not to poke a stick into a nest of hornets.

—

THE KING’S PERSONALITY WAS changing for the worse. He was acting more and more despotically, or so say the literary sources. Arrian writes that by this time he had

become more inclined to accept as wholly reliable any accusation made to him against officials, and ready to inflict severe punishment on those found guilty of even minor offenses, in the belief that the character of a petty offender was equally capable of more serious crimes.

Curtius, who had no patience with Bagoas, put the matter more strongly, observing that “his degeneration from his former self was so complete that, though earlier possessed of unassailable self-control, he followed a male whore’s judgment to give some men kingdoms and deprive others of their lives.” Some modern scholars have taken the hint and conjured up a reign of terror. The disciplining of the satraps has been presented as a paranoid clearout comparable to the totalitarian show trials of the modern age.

A fair reading, though, of the surviving accounts suggests that Bagoas was innocent and that the purge was in the main a reaction to real cases of misgovernment, corruption, and political unrest. The satraps’ failure to respond to his urgent requests for food when he and his army were in desperate straits strongly suggests malice aforethought, or at best criminal incompetence. The crackdown was ruthless but rational. The guilty men seem to have faced some sort of trial. We are told that Alexander had public support for the severe measures taken.

The signs of instability the king found on his return from India threatened to undermine his achievements and justified a firm and rapid response.

That said, it hardly comes as a surprise that a ruler with an unblemished record of military and political success over many years began to govern autocratically. One certainly senses a coarsening and a growing impatience with opposition. The king’s lifestyle had become more and more formal, elaborate, and, in a word, Persian. When Macedonian traditionalists spoke of degeneration it may be this ceremonial grandeur to which they were objecting as much as to a psychological or moral decline.

An account of Alexander’s receptions by the historian Phylarchus may have exaggerated the numbers of officials and soldiers involved, but it gives a flavor of the occasion. The king had a tent large enough to contain a hundred couches, and supported by fifty golden pillars; no doubt it had once been used by Darius. Embroidered golden canopies provided shade. Persian royal bodyguards lined the interior, dressed in purple and apple green. Also on parade were one thousand bowmen, some in fiery red uniforms and others in purple; many wore blue cloaks. And in pride of place stood five hundred Macedonian elite infantry.

In the middle of the tent was placed a golden chair, on which Alexander used to sit and conduct business, the bodyguards standing all around. Around the tent on the outside, was a troop of elephants regularly equipped, together with one thousand Macedonians in Macedonian uniform; and then ten thousand Persians, five hundred of whom wore purple fabric provided by Alexander. And though he had such a numerous entourage of friends and servants, not a single one dared to approach the king of his own accord; so great was his charisma and the awe with which they regarded him.

—

THAT MYSTERIOUS FINANCIER AND boyhood friend, Harpalus, put in an unexpected reappearance at this point. He had run away before Issus, been forgiven, and was now based in Babylon where he was responsible for the empire’s finances. Alexander used his services to purchase high-quality goods. When wintering in Bactriana and Sogdiana, he asked for a shipment of books; Harpalus knew his taste and sent him copies of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, some choral hymns, and a history of Sicily. Later, as we have seen, he supplied the king, when campaigning in India, with 25,000 suits of armor finely wrought with gold and silver.

As soon as Alexander had disappeared to the ends of the earth and his back was turned, Harpalus embarked on a fantastically expensive lifestyle. He sexually abused many local women. With exchequer funds he bought a celebrated courtesan from Athens to live with him. She was the slave of a female flute player who in turn was owned by the madam of a brothel. The contemporary historian Theopompus called her “trebly a slave and trebly a prostitute.” Harpalus pampered her with luxury gifts and when she died built a temple in her honor in Babylon and an impressive and costly tomb outside Athens. He then acquired a replacement bedfellow, whom he installed as a queen in Tarsus. He also had a brass statue of her erected in Syria.

The return of the king, victorious and vengeful, was terrible news. The conviction of Cleander and his fellow officers was even worse. Harpalus had spent time in Ecbatana and knew them well. They had committed crimes similar to his own, and perhaps he had collaborated with them. He feared for his own head and took the fateful decision to flee to Greece for a second time. He did not travel alone. He brought with him six thousand mercenaries and five thousand talents from the Babylonian exchequer, which made him a power to be reckoned with among the hard-pressed city-states.

The treasurer’s fondness for the ladies was a running joke at court and Alexander allowed the production of a farce that mocked his friend’s obsession with sex. But when messengers told the king of Harpalus’s desertion, he had them arrested for spreading false information.

The fugitive knew that the only way he could escape punishment was to foment a general uprising led by Greece’s greatest naval power, Athens. However, the city was embarrassed when he arrived on its shores and asked for asylum. Not wishing to get into trouble with Alexander, it turned him away.

So Harpalus deposited most of his force at Taenarum, Sparta’s port in southern Greece, which had become a center for unemployed and disgruntled mercenaries. He returned to Athens as a suppliant, with seven hundred talents. According to Plutarch,

Harpalus was exceptionally shrewd at assessing the character of a man who had a passion for gold. He recognized it from the expression which crossed his face and the gleam that lit up his eyes. In this case he was not deceived, for Demosthenes could not resist the bait.

Harpalus was allowed in after Demosthenes, who fell for a beautiful and fabulously expensive gold cup, went over to his side. Demosthenes was not alone, for other leading politicians also accepted hefty bribes. This soon became the talk of the town and later the guilty men were indicted for corruption and sent into exile. In the meantime, Harpalus was locked up and his money confiscated. Antipater and Olympias demanded his extradition, but, ever a slippery customer, he soon escaped to Taenarum, picked up his fleet, and sailed it to Crete.

Here the story of Harpalus came to an abrupt end. In 323 his deputy assassinated him, and took charge of his money and his mercenaries.

—

WHEN IN INDIA, ALEXANDER had encountered Brahmins, a priestly aristocratic class, and been impressed by them. They wore very few clothes and led ascetic and contemplative lives. Their opposition to the Macedonians was fierce, spiritual, and absolute, and they pressed the local rajahs to resist the invader. The king’s only riposte was to hang any of them who fell into his hands.

In fact, he admired them for the purity of their motives. They were free spirits and had no desire for anything in Alexander’s power to give. Their estrangement from the day-to-day compromises of life, their indifference to captains and kings, recalled Diogenes, the philosopher in a barrel, for whom Alexander had a wary respect.

The king of Taxila introduced him to a Brahmin called Calanus, who refused to speak to him unless he first took off his clothes and listened naked. We are not told in so many words whether the king did strip, but in light of their later friendship we must assume that he did.

Calanus joined the Macedonians and traveled with them, much to the disapproval of his fellow Brahmins, who believed he had exchanged a divine for a human master. His motive was unclear, but he never hesitated to criticize the king when the mood took him. Probably before the Gedrosia tragedy, the sage told him a parable. He threw on the ground a dry and shrunken leather hide. When he put his foot down here or there on its outer edge, the leather would rise up elsewhere, but when he trod on the center the entire hide lay flat. Calanus’s point was that Alexander should focus his authority on the heartland of his domains instead of wandering around the periphery.

At Pasargadae in Persis, Calanus, who was seventy-three years old, had suffered from a disease of the intestine for some time. He did not want to carry on as an invalid and decided that it was time to end his life. He asked for a funeral pyre to be built for him on which he intended to immolate himself. According to Plutarch, death by fire was acceptable in “Indian” (Hindu) religion. Alexander did his best to dissuade Calanus, but the Brahmin made it clear that he would find some other way of killing himself if his request was denied. So the king gave way and had Ptolemy build a pyre according to Calanus’s instructions.

Apparently, the army laid on a military cortege. Incense was placed on the pyre along with gold and silver cups and embroidered clothes. The Brahmin was too ill to walk and a horse was made ready for him, but he was incapable of riding it and was carried in a litter instead. He managed to clamber onto the pyre and gave the horse, the cups, and the costumes to members of his circle.

He addressed those present, urging them to make this a day of joy and revelry. He concluded mysteriously: “Drink deep with the king, whom I shall soon see in Babylon.”

Then he solemnly lay down and covered his head. Trumpets sounded when the pyre was lit. He stayed absolutely still as the fire enveloped and consumed him.

The king decided to take Calanus’s advice and give him a festive send-off: he invited friends and officers to a banquet, at which he proposed a drinking contest. Whoever downed the most neat wine would receive a crown worth a talent. The consequences were calamitous. The winner downed the equivalent of thirteen liters—and three days later died from the aftereffects. It is said that many other competitors also succumbed.

He believed that he came as a heaven-sent governor to all, and as a mediator for the whole world. Those whom he could not persuade to unite with him, he conquered by force of arms. He brought together into one body all men everywhere, uniting and mixing in one great loving-cup, as it were, men’s lives, their characters, their marriages, their very habits of life….Clothing and food, marriage and manner of life they should regard as common to all, being blended into one by ties of blood and children.

This assessment by Plutarch offers the unexpected portrait of Alexander as an idealist, as the fully armed secretary-general of an international peace agency. The truth is plainer. What we have here is a fine example of the work of Alexander’s propagandists.

The passage is an echo refracted from a mass wedding ceremony which the king staged on his return to Susa in the spring of 324. The Achaemenid princesses had been waiting for him there since the Battle of Issus. He had told them to learn Greek and promised that he would find suitable husbands for them. Now he was minded to honor his word.

But whom should the princesses marry? Persian aristocrats were ruled out, because their offspring might very well become pretenders to the Achaemenid throne and stimulate insurgency. The obvious answer was to find the women Macedonian spouses.

As part of his Persification policy, Alexander extended the principle of the mixed marriage to leading members of the court. He and ninety-one other Macedonians took Persian wives. A polygamist for reasons of realpolitik, as his father had been, the king married the eldest daughter of Darius and the youngest daughter of Artaxexes III. In this way he attached himself to the Achaemenid dynasty and created a veneer of continuity. Hephaestion was allocated another of Darius’s daughters, for Alexander, rather touchingly, wanted his lover’s children to be first cousins of his own.

The celebrations took place in the vast royal tent with its splendid appurtenances, specially modified for the occasion. The floor was covered with carpets of purple, scarlet, and woven gold thread. Sumptuous cloths were hung between the many golden columns, creating private spaces, inside which each bridegroom had his own couch.

A trumpet sounded to announce the official part of the ceremony. In front of 9,000 guests, chairs were set out in line for the grooms. The king took his place among them, for he had decided, in a characteristically populist touch, to take part in the mass ritual. After toasts, the brides came in and sat down beside their husbands-to-be, who took them by the hand and kissed them. After these formalities the couples withdrew to the privacy of their couches. Generous presents were given and the king paid for all the dowries.

The partying went on for five days. Both Greeks and Persians gave performances as did some Indian tribesmen. Conjurors did “wonderful” tricks; harpists played with and without voices. Flute players accompanied songs. Actors performed speeches from the tragedies, among them the famous Thessalus, now approaching the twilight of his career (he was a long-standing friend of the king and, as readers will recall, had acted for him during the Pixodarus affair).

One might suppose that a good time was had by all, but this was not the case. The Macedonians strongly objected, in private, to being forced into unwelcome unions with unknown barbarian women. This was yet another of the king’s attempts to persuade his fellow countrymen that the empire could be governed only with Persian cooperation. However hard he tried, he failed to win the argument. The fun was skin deep. (We may well wonder, although we are not told, whether the brides were any happier with their fate than their grooms.)

Alexander was well aware of his critics and sought to deflect their discontents by enriching them. He awarded golden crowns for conspicuous service in the face of the enemy (with Peucestas first in line, for saving the king at the Mallian town).

More expensively, he promised to pay off all his soldiers’ debts and invited them to register their names. Only a few complied, for there was a widespread suspicion that this was a survey to reveal who was living beyond his means or had extravagant tastes. The king denied the charge, but gave way. He had tables set up in the camp piled with gold coins and instructed his officials to pay against sight of promissory notes without taking down any names.

This gesture is said to have cost him the enormous sum of twenty thousand talents. Although the cancellation of debts was a popular gesture, it was a sign of weakness rather than strength. Morale among the troops was edgy and volatile and remained so.

Alexander’s immediate priority was to build confidence among the peoples he had defeated, preferably without losing that of his men. In the long run he expected that the sons of the mass marriages would grow up to be a new mixed-race ruling elite.

If there was to be a “unity of nations,” it was little more than a technique for governing his empire.

—

THE ARMY WAS CONTINUING to change its composition, with the Macedonian component increasingly diluted with Persians. Satraps from across the empire had brought with them the thirty thousand cadets the king had ordered in 327. Now, three years later, the Successors were old enough for military service and were to form a new and separate unit. They had been issued with Macedonian uniforms and armor and been trained in Macedonian techniques of warfare. Alexander was delighted by the progress they had made.

The Companion cavalry was strengthened in part with the recruitment of “barbarians,” and senior Persians were introduced into the high-prestige Royal Squadron. In the following year twenty thousand seasoned Persian troops were to join Alexander’s army, to be incorporated into the Companion infantry.

Arrian reports that the Macedonians “deeply resented all this and thought that Alexander was now going completely native in outlook and showing no regard for the Macedonian way of life or the very Macedonians themselves.” Their suspicions soon received justification.

In May or June 324, Alexander and his troops left Susa, ultimately for the cooler summer capital of Ecbatana. (He had caught the wandering habit of the Achaemenids.) But first the king fulfilled a pothos to see the Persian Gulf: leaving Hephaestion in charge of the infantry, he joined the fleet and sailed along the coast and up the Tigris. He removed some artificial cataracts, which the Achaemenids had installed in the river as a defense against naval attack, and founded a new Alexandria at the Tigris estuary.

The summer heat was intense, shortening tempers. Alexander disembarked at Opis, a town alongside the river, where Hephaestion was encamped with the army. Here the king called an assembly of his Macedonian troops and announced the demobilization and repatriation of all those who were unfit for service through age or disability. He offered them generous bonuses and severance pay, promising that they would be the envy of their friends and relatives at home and inspire many of their countrymen to sign up for a life of adventure.

Alexander expected a warm reception. After all, his soldiers had long been agitating for an end to the ceaseless campaigning. In fact, his audience was outraged. It was obvious, they felt, that they counted for nothing and were quite useless as a fighting force. Fit young men shouted that he should dismiss them as well. Sneering at his claim to be the son of Zeus Ammon, they suggested that he just take his father on his next campaign.

What lay behind this behavior? It is hard to say, but it suggests the contradictory emotions of a lover at the end of an affair. The veterans had had enough of military service, but could not bear rejection by their charismatic leader. Perhaps an unstated grievance was the growing number of Persians in what had been a Macedonian army.

Alexander was completely taken by surprise and lost his temper. He jumped down from the speaker’s platform, followed by his entourage, and ordered the arrest of the thirteen main troublemakers, pointing them out to the guards. He sent them off for instant execution. They were shackled and thrown into the Tigris (a traditional Persian punishment). Arrian notes: “He had become by that time quicker to take offense and the oriental obsequiousness to which he had become accustomed had greatly changed his old easy manner to his own countrymen.”

The king mounted the platform again, and we are told he gave a long speech in which he itemized the many benefits King Philip and he had conferred on their soldiers. He concluded with wounded ferocity:

And now it was in my mind to demobilize any of you no longer fit for service. They could return home to be envied and admired. But since you all wish to go, then go! Every single one of you!

He jumped down from the platform once more and disappeared into the royal quarters. Thunderstruck, the men stood rooted to the spot. They had no idea what to do or where to go.

The king sulked for three days, letting no one in to see him and taking no care of himself. It was not the first time he had applied the emotional blackmail of absence and breakdown to enforce his will and once again the trick worked.

Alexander called in Persian aristocrats in camp and began to appoint them to military commands. He gave them the title of kinsmen and the exclusive right to greet him with a kiss of friendship. Macedonian names were given to Persian military formations. When the troops learned of these developments, they could no longer contain themselves. They rushed to the royal quarters dressed only in their tunics, laid down their weapons, and started shouting and pleading to be let in. They promised to hand over those who had started the barracking. They said they would not leave until Alexander had taken pity on them.

This was what the king had been waiting for. He hurried out to meet the demonstrators. He saw how upset they were and his eyes filled with (surely crocodilian) tears. Before he could say a word, Callines, a squadron commander in the Companion cavalry, said that what really hurt the men was the king’s decision to call Persians his kinsmen and let them kiss him.

Improvising with typical presence of mind, Alexander replied: “So far as I am concerned you are all my kinsmen and that is what I will call you from now on.” To prove the pudding, Callines walked up and kissed him, and anyone else who so desired kissed him too. Then they all retrieved their weapons and happily dispersed to their tents, cheering and singing the paean, the song of victory. To cite a modern scholar, they still loved their “hero, friend, soldiers’ father [and] their threatening, angry, terrorizing, melancholy king.”

To mark the return of peace and to promote reconciliation, Alexander invited nine thousand guests to a lavish feast. After performing the usual sacrifices, he presided over the meal. He was surrounded by places reserved for Macedonians, then for Persians, and finally an outer tier for men of other nationalities.

Greek seers and Persian magi jointly led an ecumenical ceremony of libation, the pouring out of wine as an offering. Alexander prayed for harmony and fellowship between Macedonians and Persians as they ruled the empire together.

However, on the matter at issue, the king did not yield an inch. He now organized the discharges of some ten thousand veteran infantry and fifteen hundred cavalry. This time there were no protests. As promised, the redundancy terms were extremely generous. Salaries were extended beyond the time served to cover the homeward journey. Each man received a bonus of one talent.

Families were to be left in Asia to avoid trouble from relatives and wives at home, but the treasury would pay for sons to receive a good Macedonian education. They would grow up to be soldiers in the royal army and only then would they be allowed to visit the home country.

The king knew how to gild a lily: he instructed Antipater that at all cultural and athletic performances the veterans should occupy the best seats at the front and wear garlands on their heads. This was not only a highly visible compliment but also a constant reminder of Alexander’s victories.

—

ANTIPATER, WHO HAD BEEN the king’s regent in Macedonia almost from the beginning of his reign, was becoming something of a problem. This was a surprise, for he had organized a smooth transition from the assassinated Philip to the young crown prince and was utterly loyal to his new master. He had managed the quarrelsome nest of city-states in mainland Greece with tact and firmness and put down King Agis’s rebellion.

He had been almost annoyingly competent; Alexander had even been a little put out by his victory at Megalopolis. The only real problem with Antipater was, in fact, Olympias, the king’s mother. Put simply, she refused to accept the regent’s authority and wrote endless letters to her son criticizing him. Antipater had little choice but to respond in kind. He objected to her headstrong personality, her violent temper, and her insistence on having a finger in every pie. Alexander had to admit that his mother “was charging a high rent for the nine months he lodged in her womb.” On one occasion, in an implicit allusion to her, he warned his regent to keep guards about his person, for there were many plots.

But although he knew very well how demanding Olympias was, she was still his mother and he loved her. Once, Antipater wrote a long letter finding fault with her. Having read it, Alexander burst out: “Antipater doesn’t understand that one tear shed by my mother will wipe out 10,000 letters like this one.”

Olympias’s case against the regent was that he had grown too powerful. Word reached the king’s ear that he had regal aspirations. When some people praised the frugality of Antipater, who, they said, lived a plain and simple life, he responded: “On the outside Antipater is plain white, but inside he is completely purple.” But ambition is an implausible charge against a man who was seventy-six years old and approaching the end of his active career. Arrian gives him a clean bill of health: “We hear of nothing Alexander said or did which could have invited the conclusion that his affectionate regard for Antipater had in any way diminished.”

Nevertheless, the king decided it was time to intervene. Seeing that his best general, Craterus, was suffering from poor health, he instructed him to lead the demobilized veterans back to Macedonia, where he was to take over as regent. Antipater was instructed to gather Macedonian reinforcements and march them to Babylon.

The king’s plans for Antipater’s future are unknown. He could have been retired or, more probably, given a new, undemanding command. The regent advised the king that Greece was too unsettled for him to leave his post at present and the stock of Macedonia’s young fighters was running dry. He dispatched his son Cassander in his place. As for Craterus, he was held up in Cilicia partly by illness and partly by local conditions there, for the satrap had been killed in battle.

—

DID ALEXANDER REALLY WORK toward the “unity of mankind”?

Regarding the relationship between Hellenes and “barbarians,” the king was a pragmatist. So far as we can tell, he was not inspired by high-sounding ideals, apart from those hymned by Homer, but reacted to practical needs. Plutarch’s admiring judgment masks the fact that the king’s inclusive and antiracist strategies, as we would call them today, were an expression of realpolitik. In his eyes, the two “races” were not equal, or we would have heard of Macedonian females being offered as wives to Persian men, and the Macedonians would not have been given pride of place at the banquet of reconciliation. Persians may have dominated in the army, but positions of power at court remained in the hands of the victors.

Equality of esteem was no more than a pious hope in the minds of the king’s traveling philosophers–cum–public relations officers.