LV. THE CONQUEST OF INDIA
After the conquest of the Bactrian satrapy, there remained only one province of the Persian empire into which Alexander had not yet carried his arms. Already, indeed, before he crossed the Paropamisus, he had made himself master of a great part of the country which the Persians called India, and perhaps had very nearly reached the utmost limits within which the authority of the Great King was acknowledged in the latter years of the monarchy. But the power of the first Darius had certainly been extended much farther eastward. At the battle of Arbela the Greeks for the first time saw elephants, which they heard had been brought from the banks of the Indus. To Alexander and his companions India appeared from a distance as a new world, of indefinite extent, and abounding in wonders and riches. Even without any other inducement, he must eagerly have desired to explore and subdue it.
The king of Taxila [or Takshasila] had offered his alliance to Alexander, and sought aid from him against a powerful neighbour; and thus Alexander ascertained that the state of things in this part of India was highly favourable to his projected invasion. Through some revolutions, no record of which has been preserved, a great part of it had in Alexander’s time fallen under the dominion of three princes, Taxiles and two who were kinsmen and bore the name of Porus. The most powerful of these was the immediate neighbour of Taxiles; his territories lay to the east of the Hydaspes. It was against him that the king of Taxila sought to strengthen himself by an alliance with the Macedonian conqueror.
[Sidenote: [327-326 B.C.]]
Alexander marched into India at the head of 120,000 foot and 15,000 horse. We must suppose that at least 70,000 of these were Asiatic troops. The summer of 327 had scarcely begun, when he crossed the mountains and advanced to the banks of the Cophen, the river formed by the confluence of the Kabul river with the Panjshir, a larger stream, which meets it from the northwest. Here, in conformity to his summons, he was met by Taxiles, and by several chiefs from the country west of the Indus, bringing presents, such as were accounted the most honourable; and as he expressed a wish for elephants, they promised all they possessed, which however amounted to no more than five-and-twenty.
Alexander now divided his forces. He sent Hephæstion and Perdiccas, with a strong division, accompanied by the Indian chiefs, down the vale of the Cophen to the Indus, to prepare a bridge for the passage of the army, while he himself directed his march into the mountains north of the Cophen, and included between it and the Indus. Here lay the territories of three warlike tribes--the Aspasians or Hippasians, Guræans, and Assacenians. The operations of this campaign, which occupied the rest of the year, do not require to be related here with all the military details. He ascended the rugged vale of the Choes; and gathered a vast booty, including forty thousand captives, and between three and four hundred thousand head of cattle, from which he selected some of the finest to be sent into Macedonia. He then, with some difficulty, effected the passage of the deep and rapid Guræus, and entered the territory of the Assacenians. Alexander accepted the surrender of Massaga, the capital, on the condition that the mercenaries should join his army. But they discovered a degree of patriotism which he had not looked for. They were so averse from the thought of turning their arms against their countrymen, that, having marched out, and encamped on a hill by themselves, they meditated making their escape in the night. Alexander was apprised of their design, and, though they had not begun to execute it, with less generosity than might have been expected from him, even if mercy was out of the question, surrounded the hill with his troops, and cut them all to pieces. Then, holding the capitulation to have been broken, he stormed the defenceless city, where the chief’s mother and daughter fell into his hands.
The inhabitants of Bazira fled to a place of refuge, which was deemed impregnable, and soon became crowded with fugitives from all parts of the country. This was a hill fort on the right bank of the Indus, not far above its junction with the Cophen. Its Indian name seems to have been slightly distorted by the Greeks, according to their usual practice, into that of Aornus, which answered to its extraordinary height, as above the flight of a bird. It was precipitous on all sides, and accessible only by a single path cut in the rock, though in one direction it was connected with a range of hills. But its summit was an extensive plain of fruitful soil, partly clothed with wood, and containing copious springs. The traditions of the country concerning its insurmountable strength seem to have given occasion to the fable, which spread through the Macedonian camp, that Hercules himself had assailed it without success. Alexander did not need this inducement to excite him to the undertaking. It had been a principle, to which he owed most of his conquests, to show that he was not to be deterred by any natural difficulties; and he resolved to make the Aornus his own.
He had not long arrived at it, before he received information of a rugged and difficult track that led up to the top of a hill, separated by a hollow of no great depth, though of considerable width, from the rock. By this path he sent Ptolemy, with a body of light troops, who reached the summit before he was noticed by the garrison, and immediately, as he had been ordered, threw up an entrenchment, and by a fire-signal announced his success to the camp below. The Indians attempted in vain to dislodge him from his position: and the next day Alexander, by a hard struggle, notwithstanding their vigorous resistance, joined him there with the rest of the army. He now availed himself of his superior numbers, and began to carry a mound across the hollow. He took part in the work with his own hands, and the whole army, animated by his example and exhortations, prosecuted it with restless assiduity. But the Indians, astonished at the intrepidity with which a handful of men had seized this vantage-ground, and alarmed by the progress of the work, began to despair of resistance, and to meditate flight. But while they were stealing out of the place, Alexander scaled the deserted wall with a part of his guard, entered the fortress, and chased the fugitives with great slaughter into the plains below. The capture of the rock which had baffled the assaults of Hercules was celebrated with solemn sacrifices, and supplied a fresh theme for the eloquence of Agis and Anaxarchus.
It was in the course of the campaign in the highlands between the Cophen and the Indus, and, it seems, in the territory of the Guræans, that the Macedonians were struck with some appearances in the productions of the soil, and the manners of the natives, and probably also by the sound of some names which reminded them of the legends of Dionysus, whose fabulous conquests were now so often mentioned by Alexander’s flatterers, for the purpose of exalting the living hero, whom they proposed to deify, above the god. And so we read that Alexander came to a city called Nysa, which boasted of Dionysus as its founder, and, as evidence of the fact, showed the ivy and laurel which he had planted--a sight new to the Macedonians, since they had left their native land. Alexander, Arrian observes, was gratified by their story, and wished it to be believed that he was then treading in the steps of Dionysus; for he hoped that the Macedonians, roused by emulation, would be the more willing to bear the fatigues of the expedition in which he purposed to pass the utmost distance that had been reached by the divine conqueror. If we may depend on this observation, it would prove that he had not yet thought of any limit to his own progress, within the farthest bounds of the eastern world.
It cannot have been later than March 326 when he crossed the Indus, probably a little above its junction with the Cophen. He celebrated his arrival on the eastern bank by a solemn sacrifice, and soon after met Taxiles, who had come out, with his army and his elephants, to greet him, and conduct him to his capital, with professions of the most entire devotion. It seems to have been during his stay at Taxila, that Alexander was first enabled to gratify his curiosity concerning the doctrines and practices of the Indian ascetics. He had already witnessed something similar at Corinth, where he found Diogenes living in habits of simplicity not unworthy of the Eastern gymnosophists--as the Greeks called the sages who exposed themselves almost naked to the inclemency of the Indian sky. He is reported to have said that, had he not been Alexander, he would have been Diogenes. The independence of a man who had nothing to ask of his royal visitor but that he would not stand between him and the sun, struck him as only less desirable than the conquest of the world; and he conceived a like admiration for the Indian quietists, who manifested a kindred spirit. He was desirous of carrying away with him some of the Indian sophists as companions of Anaxarchus.
After solemn sacrifices and games, Alexander resumed his march. He was informed that Porus had collected his forces on the left bank of the Hydaspes, to defend the passage; and he therefore sent Cœnus back to the Indus, with orders to have the vessels in which the army had crossed sawed each into two or three pieces, and transported to the Hydaspes. He left all his invalids at Taxila, and strengthened his army with five thousand Indians, who were commanded by Taxiles in person. Having arrived on the right bank of the Hydaspes, he beheld the whole army of Porus, with between two hundred and three hundred elephants, drawn up on the other side.
To distract the attention of Porus, he divided his army into several columns, with which he made frequent excursions in various directions, as if uncertain where he should attempt a passage.
THE WAR WITH PORUS
At the distance of a day’s march above the camp, at a bend of the river towards the west, where the projecting right bank was covered with wood, an island, also thickly wooded, parted the stream. This was the spot which Alexander fixed upon for his attempt. He ordered the vessels brought in pieces from the Indus to be carried to it--the shelter of the wood enabled the workmen to put them together again unobserved. Skins also were provided to be stuffed with straw. Night after night he sallied forth with his cavalry, as noisily as possible, and pushed up or down the river, as if to attempt a passage. Porus at first drew out his elephants, and moved towards the quarter from which the clamour proceeded. But when the feint had been often repeated, he ceased to attend to it, and did not stir his elephants for any noise that he might hear on the other side.
Alexander himself set out with the flower of his Macedonian cavalry, and the Bactrian, Sogdian, and Scythian auxiliaries, in all about five thousand, and a select division of heavy and light infantry, which included the hypaspists and the brigades of Clitus and Cœnus. He directed his march at a sufficient distance from the river to be concealed from the enemy’s view, and about sunset arrived over against the island. During the night a violent fall of rain, accompanied by a terrible thunderstorm, a little impeded the labours of the men; but the noise also served to drown the clatter of the axes and hammers, and all the din of preparation, which might otherwise have reached the post on the opposite bank.
With the return of light the rain had ceased, and the storm was hushed: and the troops were immediately embarked. The king himself, with Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, the founder of the Syrian dynasty, went on board a small galley, with a part of the hypaspists. The woody island concealed their movements, until, having passed it, they were within a short distance of the left bank. Then first they were perceived by the Indians stationed there; who immediately rode off at full speed to carry the tidings. Porus was not of a spirit to be so easily overpowered. His first thought, when he received the intelligence, was that there might still be time to come up with the enemy, before they had completed their landing; and he immediately sent one of his sons, with two thousand cavalry, and 120 chariots, towards the place. Alexander charged with all his cavalry. The Indians scarcely waited for the shock of this greatly superior force. Four hundred of them were slain, and among them the prince himself.
Even this disaster did not bow the courage of Porus; leaving a part of his elephants to check Craterus, he advanced to the decisive conflict, with two hundred of them, the whole of his cavalry (about four thousand), three hundred chariots, and the bulk of his thirty thousand men.
Alexander, when he came in sight of the enemy, made his cavalry halt, to allow time for the infantry to come up, and recover breath, after their long and quick march, while he himself, observing the disposition of the hostile army, decided on his plan of attack. He posted himself, as usual, in the right wing, with the main body of the cavalry; but stationed Cœnus, with two squadrons, on the left. With his wonted sagacity he anticipated that an attack on the enemy’s left wing would draw out the cavalry on the right to protect it; and he ordered Cœnus in this case to fall on their rear. The horse-bowmen were first ordered to advance, and threw the enemy into some disorder by a shower of arrows. Alexander then led up the rest of his cavalry to the charge. The Indian cavalry of the right wing was brought up to the relief of their left, and was at the same time taken in the rear by Cœnus, and charged by Alexander in front. The whole body, in disorder, sought shelter in the line of the elephants, and the Macedonian phalanx then advanced to take advantage of the confusion, and to support their cavalry. Yet the shock of the huge animals, as long as they were under control, made havoc even in the ranks of the phalanx, and afforded time for the Indian cavalry to rally. But when they were driven in by a second charge of the Macedonian horse, and the engagement was crowded within a narrower space, the elephants, pressed on all sides, began to grow unmanageable; many lost their drivers, and, maddened by wounds, turned their fury indiscriminately against friend and foe. The phalanx then opened a large space for them and eluded their onset, while the light troops plied them with their missiles, or mutilated their trunks, and drove them back upon their own ranks, where, as long as their strength lasted, they spread havoc and confusion. At length, when many of them were killed, and the rest, spent with wounds and toil, ceased to be formidable, Alexander ordered another general charge of horse and foot; and the Indians, routed at all points, betook themselves to flight. By this time Craterus, and the divisions on the right bank, had effected their passage; and engaging in the pursuit with all the vigour of fresh troops, made dreadful slaughter among the fugitives.
The number of the slain on the side of the Indians amounted, according to the more moderate account in Diodorus, to about twelve thousand. Among them were two other sons of Porus, and the greater part of his principal officers. Nine thousand prisoners were taken, and eighty elephants. The loss of the Macedonians is estimated, as usual, at only a few hundreds.
Porus himself, mounted on an elephant, had both directed the movements of his forces, and gallantly taken part in the action. He had received a wound in his shoulder--his body was protected by a corselet of curious workmanship, which was proof against all missiles--yet, unlike Darius, as long as any of his troops kept their ground he would not retire from the field. When, however, he saw all dispersed, he too turned his elephant for flight. He was a conspicuous object, and easily overtaken. All he would ask of Alexander, was to be treated as a king; and when Alexander observed that this was no more than a king must do for his own sake, and bade him make some request for himself, his reply was still that all was included in this. His expectations could scarcely have equalled the conqueror’s munificence. He was not only reinstated in his royal dignity, but received a large addition of territory. Yet it was certainly not pure magnanimity, or admiration for his character, that determined Alexander to this proceeding. He was conscious that his forces were not sufficient to enable him to displace the native princes east of the Indus, and to annex their territories, in the form of a satrapy, to his empire. Hence the generosity he had shown to Taxiles. But Taxiles himself might have become formidable without a rival; and the only way to secure the Macedonian ascendency in the Punjab, was to trim the balance of power.
Alexander, after he had buried his slain, and solemnised his victory with his usual magnificence, allowed the main body of his army a month’s rest, perhaps in the capital of Porus. The continuance of the rains was probably the chief motive for this delay. But before he quitted the scene of his triumph, he founded two cities near the Hydaspes--one, which he named Nicæa, near the field of battle, the other near the place where he had crossed the river; this he named Bucephala, after his gallant steed, which had sunk either under fatigue or wounds in the hour of victory.
THE EASTERN LIMIT
Before he resumed his march eastward, Alexander ordered a great quantity of ship timber to be felled in the forests on the upper course of the Hydaspes, which abound in fir and cedar, and floated down the stream to his new cities, and a fleet to be built for the navigation of the Indus. Alexander, on his march up the river Hydraotes, received or extorted the submission of some other smaller tribes. As he approached Sangala, he found the Cathæans strongly entrenched on an insulated hill near the city, behind a triple barrier of wagons. A bloody carnage ensued; for the besieged made a vigorous resistance, and more than twelve hundred of the besiegers, including several general officers, were wounded. In revenge seventeen thousand of the barbarians were massacred; seventy thousand were made prisoners. Alexander then continued his march towards the southeast and arrived on the banks of the Hyphasis, or rather of the stream formed by the junction of the Hyphasis (Bias) with the Hesidrus (Sutlej).
Here he had at length reached the fated term of his progress towards the east. Alexander had, no doubt, long been undeceived as to the narrow limits which, according to the geography of his day, he had at first assigned to India, and to the eastern side of the earth. The ocean, which he had once imagined to be separated by no very vast tract from the banks of the Indus, had receded, as he advanced, to an immeasurable distance. He had discovered that, beyond the Hyphasis, a desert more extensive than any he had yet crossed parted the plains of the Five Streams from the region watered by the tributaries of the Ganges, a river mightier than the Indus: that the country east of the Ganges was the seat of a great monarchy, far more powerful than that of Porus, the land of the Gangarides and Prasians, whose king could bring into the field two hundred thousand foot, twenty thousand horse, and several thousands of elephants. That this information rather served to inflame Alexander’s curiosity and ambition than to deter him, could scarcely be doubted by any one who has fully entered into his character, even if it had not been expressly stated by the ancients.
But the accounts which kindled his ardour, plunged the Macedonians into sullen dejection, which at length broke out into open murmurs. It is possible that, if they had seen any distinct and certain goal before them, they would not have shrunk from the dangers and difficulties of a last enterprise, however arduous. But to set out from a region which had once appeared to them as the verge of the habitable world on a new series of conquests, to which they could foresee no termination, was enough to appal the most adventurous spirits.[32] Their thoughts began to revert with uncontrollable force to their homes in the distant west, as they had reason to fear that they were on the point of being torn from them forever. For even of those who might escape the manifold dangers of a fresh campaign, how many might be doomed to sit down as colonists, and to spend the rest of their lives in that strange land! India was a still more hopeless place of exile than Bactria and Sogdiana, where the Greeks, who had been planted by violence, were only detained by terror. The wish to return became universal, and was soon transformed into a firm resolution not to proceed.
It is difficult to guess how far the arguments by which Alexander endeavoured to overcome the repugnance of his troops, and to animate them with his own spirit, resembled any of those which are attributed to him by Arrian and Curtius. The threat which Curtius puts into his mouth, that, if the Macedonians would not follow him, he would throw himself on his Bactrian and Scythian auxiliaries and make the expedition with them alone, most likely misrepresents the tone which he assumed. But it may easily be supposed that he expressed his wishes, and urged the army to compliance, with passionate eloquence. Not only, however, the feelings of the troops, but the judgment of his officers was adverse to the proposed enterprise; and Cœnus, in a speech which has either been better written or more faithfully reported than the king’s, exhorted him to abandon his design. Alexander retired to his tent in displeasure.
The next day he again assembled the army, and made another attempt to overpower their reluctance, declaring that he would force no Macedonian to accompany him; he was sure that there would be volunteers enough among them for his purpose; the rest might return home and say that they had left their king in the midst of his enemies. But even this appeal produced no effect. For three days he kept within his tent, where not even his chief officers were admitted to his presence, waiting for a change in the disposition of the men. But the stillness which prevailed in the camp convinced him, more strongly than words could have done, that their determination was fixed. He then felt that it was time to yield--not perhaps without some pride in the reflection that there was not a man in the army who was capable of his own contempt for difficulties and dangers. He had however gone too far, it seems, to recede without some other pretext. The sacrifices easily supplied one. When they were found unpropitious to the passage of the river, he called his council and declared his resolution to retreat.
It was received with tears of joy and grateful shouts by the army. Before he quitted the Hyphasis, he ordered twelve colossal altars to be built on its banks, and dedicated to the gods who had led him thus far victorious; then, after a solemn sacrifice and games, he began to retrace his steps. On the Acesines he found the city, which Hephæstion had been ordered to build, ready to receive a colony; and there he left the disabled mercenaries, and as many natives of the neighbouring districts, as were willing to settle there.
The fleet on the Hydaspes was now nearly ready, but the two new cities had suffered so much from the rains that the army was for some time employed in restoring them. In the meanwhile, Alexander made his final arrangement of the affairs of the northern Punjab, by which Porus gained a fresh addition of territory, so that his dominions included, it is said, seven nations and above two thousand cities, with, it seems, a title which established his superiority over all the chiefs east of the Indus.
THE MARCH TO THE WEST
[Sidenote: [326-325 B.C.]]
The fleet, which was probably for the most part collected from the natives, numbered, according to Ptolemy, nearly two thousand vessels of various kinds, including eighty galleys of war. The command of the whole fleet was entrusted to Nearchus. Alexander divided his forces into four corps. The main body, with about two hundred elephants, was to advance along the eastern bank under the command of Hephæstion. Craterus was to lead a smaller division of infantry and cavalry on the opposite side of the river. Philippus, with the troops of his satrapy, was ordered to take a circuitous route towards the point where the two other generals were to wait for the fleet, in which the king himself was to embark with the hypaspists, the bowmen, and a division of his horse-guard--in all, eight thousand men. On the morning of the embarkation, Alexander himself, under the direction of his soothsayers, offered the libations and prayers which were deemed fittest to propitiate the powers of the Indian streams, Hydaspes and the impetuous Acesines, which was soon to join it, and the mighty Indus, which was afterwards to receive their united waters. Among the gods of the west, Hercules and Ammon were invoked with especial devotion; then, at the sound of the trumpet, the fleet began to drop down the river.
It was a spectacle such as the bosom of the Hydaspes had never before witnessed, nor has it since. Its high banks were crowded with the natives, who flocked from all quarters with eager curiosity to gaze, and accompanied the armament in its progress to some distance before they could be satiated with the sight of the stately galleys, the horses, the men, the mighty mass of vessels gliding down in unbroken order; and as the adjacent woods rang with the signals of the boatswains, the measured shouts of the rowers, and the plash of numberless oars, keeping time with perfect exactness, the Indians too testified their delight in strains of their national music.
Alexander, as he proceeded, landed his troops wherever he found a display of force necessary to extort submission from the neighbouring tribes, though it was with reluctance that he spent any time in these incursions; he was anxious, as soon as possible, to reach the frontiers of the Malli, a warlike race, from whom he expected a vigorous resistance, and whom he therefore wished to surprise before they had completed their preparations and had been joined by their allies, particularly their southern neighbours the Oxydracæ or Sudracæ. In five days he arrived at the second place of rendezvous, the confluence of the Hydaspes and the Acesines. His Indian pilots had warned him of the danger which the fleet would have to encounter at this point; yet it did not escape. The united rivers were at that time pent into a narrow space, where their conflicting waters roared and chafed in eddies and waves. Several of the long galleys lost a great part of their oars, and were much shattered; two were dashed against each other, and entirely wrecked, and many of the crews perished. According to some accounts, Alexander himself at one time thought his own galley so much in danger, that he was on the point of jumping overboard. As the stream widened, and spent its violence, a headland on the right bank afforded shelter to the fleet.
While it was undergoing the necessary repairs, Alexander made an expedition inland against the Sibas, or Sivaites, so called undoubtedly from the Indian deity, who was the chief object of their worship. On his return to the fleet, he was rejoined by his three generals, and immediately made his dispositions for the subjugation of the Malli.
There can be little doubt that the name of this people has been preserved in that of the modern city of Multan. The united forces of the Malli and the Sudracæ are estimated in the accounts of Diodorus and Curtius, on the most moderate calculation, at eighty thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and seven hundred chariots; and from the manner in which they are coupled together, we are led to presume that in this respect there was no inequality between them. But the two races were composed of widely different elements: for the name of the one appears to have been derived from that of the Sudra caste; and it is certain that the Brahmans were predominant in the other. As it was on the side of the desert that they might be expected to feel most secure, Alexander resolved to strike across it himself with one division of his army, into the heart of their country, while two other corps traversed it in other directions, to intercept the retreat of those whom he might drive before him.[b]
It was with a wonderful ease and enthusiasm that Alexander and his troops captured citadel after citadel and routed horde after horde, slaying ruthlessly those who fought and those who fled. But it is not with equal ease and enthusiasm that the modern reader peruses a catalogue of victories so long as to grow monotonous. We therefore omit the accounts of the various successes of the Macedonians, and hasten to the picturesque climax before the chief Mallian city as told by Arrian.[a]
THE BRAVE MALLIANS
[Sidenote: [325 B.C.]]
When the defendants were unable to endure the violence of his assault they retired into the castle. Alexander with his forces, having burst open one of the gates of the city, entered, and took possession thereof, a long time before the rest. Perdiccas and his party no sooner mounted the walls (for many of them had not yet recovered their ladders) than they perceived the city taken, because the walls were left defenceless.
However, the besieged, entering the castle, and being resolutely bent to hold it, some of the Macedonians endeavoured to undermine the walls, others to scale them, and accordingly busied themselves in fixing their ladders, wherever they could, with design to storm the place. But Alexander, not brooking their slow proceedings, snatched a ladder out of the hands of one of the soldiers, and applying it to the wall, immediately mounted, having guarded his body with his shield. Peucestas followed his steps, bearing the consecrated shield, which Alexander had taken from the temple of the Trojan Pallas, and had ordered to be borne before him in all his battles; after him, Leonnatus ascended by the same ladder, and Abreas (one who received a double stipend, on account of former services) by another. And now Alexander, having gained the top of the battlements, and fixed his shield for defence, drove some of the defendants headlong down into the castle, and slew others with his sword, clearing the place where he stood.
But the royal targeteers being solicitous and endeavouring to ascend in too great numbers, broke the ladders, and thereby not only fell down themselves, but hindered others from mounting. Alexander, in the meantime, stood as a mark for all the Indians, who were in the adjacent towers, for none of them durst venture to come so near him as to fight hand to hand; and those within the castle also cast their darts at him, but at some distance (for the Indians had thrown up a rampart there within the wall, where they stood, and they easily perceived who he was, both by the brightness of his armour, and the greatness of his courage). However, he resolved, rather than to continue exposed in that station, where nothing was to be done worthy notice, to cast himself directly into the castle, imagining that such an action would strike a terror into the besieged, or at least it would add greatly to his glory, and if he died there, he should gain the admiration and applause of posterity; upon which he immediately leaped down into the castle, where, fixing himself against the wall, some of the enemy who rushed forwards upon him he slew with his sword, and among the rest, the Indian general. Others, as they advanced towards him, he smote with stones, and beat them back; but upon their second, and higher approach, he slew them also with his sword, so that the barbarians durst now no more attempt to come within his reach, but gathering about him, at some distance, threw their darts, and such other weapons, at him, as they had, or could find, from that station.
Peucestas, Abreas, and Leonnatus were the only three persons of the whole Macedonian army who mounted the castle wall before the ladders broke, and they leaped down on the inside and valiantly fought to save their king. Abreas was wounded in the face with an arrow, and fell down dead. Alexander’s breastplate was pierced through with an arrow, whereby he received a wound in the breast, which Ptolemy says, was so dangerous that, by the vast effusion of blood, his life was despaired of: nevertheless, so long as he was hot, he retained his innate courage, and defended himself valiantly; but the blood streaming from him, and his spirits sinking, he was seized with a dizziness in his head, and a chillness throughout his limbs, whereupon he fell forward upon his shield. Peucestas then, with the sacred shield of Pallas, stood by the king, and protected him from the enemies’ darts on the one side, as did Leonnatus on the other; but they were also sore wounded, and Alexander was very nigh losing his blood and life together.
The Macedonians without were in the utmost anxiety to decide how they should ascend the walls, and get to the inside of the castle, fearing lest their king, who had rashly exposed himself by scaling the walls, and leaping down among the enemy, should be in danger; and their ladders being broken, they used all their skill to contrive other ways to mount: whereupon some of them drove large iron pins into the wall (which was built with brick), and taking hold of those, hoisted themselves up with great difficulty; others mounted upon the shoulders of their companions, and so gained the top; however, he who ascended first leaped down on the other side, and saw the king lying prostrate; and afterward, others following, with dreadful shouts and lamentations, a sharp battle ensued, they endeavouring with all their might to save their king, by covering him with their shields. In the meanwhile, others having torn off the bars, and forced open a gate between two towers, made way for their companions to enter, and a part of the wall giving way to the violent shocks of some others, opened a new passage into the castle.
ALEXANDER’S SEVERE WOUND AND THE ARMY’S GRIEF
A mighty slaughter of the Indians then ensued, every individual found being cut off, and not so much as the women or children spared. The Macedonians then turned their thoughts on their king, whom they bore away upon his shield, not knowing whether he would die or live. Some authors relate that Critodemus, a physician of Cos, laid open his wound and drew out the arrow; others, that Perdiccas performed that task, no physician being present and the case urgent: for Alexander commanded that the wound should be opened, though with a sword, and the dart drawn out of his body. However, he lost abundance of blood in the operation, and again fainted away.
While the king lay there, to wait for the healing of his wound, news was carried to the camp, from whence he set out on that expedition, that he was dead; upon which a sudden cry run throughout the camp, as the report spread from one to another: and when they came a little to themselves, and began to set bounds to their grief, they were strangely perplexed, and in great doubt, who should be chosen to head the army (for many seemed to have equal pretence to that dignity, by their merit, not only in Alexander’s opinion, but also in that of the Macedonians), and how they should be led safe into their own country, being surrounded with so many fierce and warlike nations; some whereof, whom they had not yet visited, would, in all probability, fight stoutly for their liberty, and others, whom they had, would revolt, when they were freed from the fear of Alexander. Besides, when they begun to consider how many vast rivers were between them and their country, which they were in no ways able to pass over, they were almost driven to despair; and indeed everything seemed terrible to them, when they wanted their king: and even when the former accounts were contradicted, and news came of his being still alive, the messenger could hardly find credit, for they had before heard that there were but small hopes of his life--nay, when letters arrived signifying that he would return to the camp in a short while, the news seemed incredible to many, for they supposed that the letters had been no more than a contrivance of his bodyguards and the generals of his army.
When Alexander came to the knowledge of this, he began to fear that an insurrection might happen, for which reason, as soon as his health would admit, he ordered himself to be conveyed to the banks of the river Hydraotes, and from thence, down the stream, to the camp, which was nigh the confluence of the Hydraotes and Acesines, where Hephæstion had the command of the army, and Nearchus of the navy. When the ship, which had the king on board, approached in view of the camp, he ordered the cover of his royal pavilion to be hoisted upon the poop thereof, to be seen by the whole army. But neither yet did many believe him to be alive, thinking the ship was bringing his dead body, until at last he drew near the shore, and stretched out his right hand to the multitude.
Then a loud shout was raised for joy, some holding up their hands to heaven, others to their king; and many, who despaired of his life, melting into tears, by such a sudden and unexpected joy. And when, upon his coming on shore, they brought the bed or litter, whereon he had been carried before, he refused it, and ordered his horse to be made ready, which having mounted, he again received the joyful acclamations of the whole army; the banks and neighbouring woods, echoing with the sound. When he approached his tent, he leaped from his horse, and showed himself also to his army on foot, to give them the greater certainty of his health. Then arose a general emulation among them, and they strove which should approach nighest to him, and some were ambitious to touch his hands, others, his knees, others aspired no nigher than his garment; and some were even satisfied with the sight of him, and with wishing him health and happiness; some brought garlands, and others, flowers such as the country produced to strew in his way; and when some of his friends reproved him for exposing himself to such dangers for the army, and told him, it was not the business of a general, but of a common soldier, Nearchus tells us he took their reproofs ill, and the reason why he was offended at the liberty they used, seems to be, because their reproofs were just, and he was conscious he deserved them. However, his fortitude in battle, and his thirst after glory, hurried him so far, that he could not contain himself, nor keep out of the midst of danger.[e]
While Alexander was convalescent from his grievous wound, such of the Malli and Sudracæ as remained alive sent ambassadors and made submission with what tattered pride they could muster. They were banqueted and then attached to the satrapy of Philippus, and a thousand of their best troops required to follow Alexander down the river. At the juncture of the Acesines with the Indus he bade Philippus build a city. His father-in-law Oxyartes, bringing news of the misconduct of Tyriaspes the satrap of Paropamisus, was given the satrapy for his own. Craterus was sent westward into Carmania with the bulk of the land-forces. The opulent princedom of Musicanus submitted gracefully, but later revolted, and Musicanus was hanged upon a cross as an example. The prince of Pattala surrendered without struggle and Alexander sailed on to the ocean. Here the Macedonians first saw a real oceanic tide, and many of their vessels, after being stranded, were later shattered by the swift reflux of that coast, till the frightened troops as Quintus Curtius says “neither dared trust themselves on the land, nor remain on board,” and there followed the usual result of panic, for as old John Digby in 1747 quaintly translated Curtius “in all tumultuary assemblies, haste is of pernicious consequence.”
[Sidenote: [325-324 B.C.]]
Nearchus, the admiral, was now left to conduct the fleet from the Indus to the Tigris by way of the Persian Gulf, a marvellous feat of seafaring in that early day. Alexander about August moved westward by land, soon striking the desert of Gedrosia, where the horrors of the march deserve fuller description.[a]
THE DESERT MARCH
He himself then marched forward to Pura, the capital city of the Gedrosi, where he arrived the sixtieth day, after his departure from the country of the Oritæ. Many of the writers of Alexander’s life tell us that all the hardships which his army endured in his expedition through Asia were not to be compared with those they underwent in that march. And Nearchus assures us that though he could not possibly be ignorant of the difficulties they must struggle with in such a country, yet nevertheless he was resolved to go forwards.
He tells us the inhabitants informed him that no general was ever able to conduct an army safe through these deserts; that Semiramis entering them with great numbers of men in her flight from India, carried no more than twenty through out of her whole army: and that Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, who also attempted to invade India, but miscarried, lost the greatest part of his forces in those dangerous wastes, himself and seven of his followers only escaping; that these stories being told to Alexander were so far from damping his resolutions that he was thereupon the rather excited to attempt to conduct his army through these parts, where both Cyrus and Semiramis had failed of success, to show that no country was impassable to such soldiers, led on by such a general.
For these reasons, as also that he might be nigh the seacoast to provide necessaries for his fleet, he chose to return that way. However, the heats were so vehement and their want of water so much, that many of his men and most of their beasts of burden died--some by being smothered in the deep scorching sands, but the greatest part of thirst; for they found many little tumuli or hillocks of sand which they were obliged to ascend, and where no firm footing could be had, but they sank deep into it, as they would into clay or new-fallen snow; and their horses and mules were no less harassed and wearied out by the excessive heats and intolerable fatigues of such a march than the men. The great distance of their resting-places was one occasion of the army’s hardship, for their want of water caused them oftentimes to continue their march much farther than otherwise they would. Then the length of the march, with the excessive heats and raging thirsts they endured, despatched many of them.
The soldiers then began to slay many beasts of burden for their own use; for when provisions failed they consulted together, and killed both horses and mules, and ate their flesh, and afterwards excused themselves, by pretending that they died of heat or thirst, and there was none who took the pains to inquire thoroughly into the affair: even Alexander himself, it is said, was not ignorant of it; but as their necessities pleaded in their behalf, he deemed it prudence rather to conceal his knowledge thereof, than to seem to authorise it, by suffering the guilty persons to escape punishment. And now, to such straits were they reduced, that neither the sick, nor those who were weary with travel, could be drawn any further, partly for want of beasts, and partly for want of carriages--which the soldiers themselves, because they could not easily drag them through the sands, broke in pieces. Many also broke their wagons, before they began this march, through fear that they should be forced to leave the shorter and nearer path, and take that which was farther about, only because it was more convenient for carriages.
On this account, many were left behind--some by reason of sickness--some of heat and weariness, and others of thirst; and none took care, either to restore them to health again, or to help them forwards; for the army moved apace, and the whole was so much in danger that they were obliged to neglect the care of particular persons. If any chanced to fall asleep, by reason of the vast fatigues of a hard night’s march, when they awaked, if they had strength they followed the army by the track of their footsteps, though few of them ever came up with it, the far greatest part sinking into the sands, like sailors into the ocean, and so perishing.
Another accident also happened, which equally affected man and beast; for the Gedrosian country, like the Indies, is subject to rains while the Etesian winds blow; but these rains fall not in the plains, but among the mountains, where the clouds, not reaching their tops, are, as it were, pent up by the winds and dissolved into showers. When the army therefore, encamped nigh a small brook, for the sake of the water, the same, about the second watch of the night (being swelled with sudden rains, which none of them perceived), poured down such a dreadful inundation, that many women and children, who followed the camp, with the royal furniture, and the baggage mules, which were left alive, were swept away. Nay, so furious was the deluge, that the soldiers were hardly able to save themselves, many of them losing their arms, and some few their lives; many also, who had long endured the utmost extremities of heat and thirst, finding plenty of water, at their first coming here, drank to excess, and died. And hence it was, that Alexander would never, after that time, suffer them to encamp near a torrent, but at the distance of twenty furlongs, at least, to hinder his men from rushing too violently forwards, and drinking too large draughts, to their own destruction; he also took care, that those who came first should not run into the water with their feet, and thereby render it unwholesome to the rest of the army.
While the army laboured under the most dreadful inconveniences of heat and thirst in this desert, Alexander performed one gallant act, which we can by no means pass over in silence, though some authors affirm it was not done here, but in the desert of Paropamisus. As the forces continued their march through these sands, which reflected the burning rays of the sun upon them, it was necessary that they should send out parties daily to seek for water; the king, though ready to faint away with thirst, marched on foot, at the head of his troops, that his officers and soldiers (as is usual in such cases) might the more patiently endure those hardships which their general shared in common with them. In the meanwhile, some light-armed soldiers, who were despatched to search for water, found a small quantity, not far from the army, in the channel of a brook, almost dried up, but it was very muddy; however, they drew it up, and bringing it in a shield, presented it to the king, as a choice gift.
He received it, and returning due thanks to those who brought it, poured it immediately upon the ground, in presence of the army. This action of his encouraged the soldiers, as much as if every man had drunk a share of that water which he refused to taste; and his extraordinary self-denial is no less praiseworthy, than the noble example he showed of a wise and consummate general.
Another accident happened here, which, if it had not been speedily remedied, might have occasioned the loss of the whole army; for the sands being moved to and fro, by the winds, and all the surface reduced to a level, their guides themselves were at a loss how to conduct the army any further: for no sign of any track appeared to point out the path; nor was there so much as a tree, nor a shrub, nor any certain hillock, to be seen to direct them. Besides, they were unacquainted with the manner of observing the motions of the sun by day, and the stars by night, to regulate their march, as mariners at sea to their course by the two Bears, the Phœnicians by the Lesser, but most other nations by the Greater. In this difficulty, Alexander was forced to proceed as chance directed him. However, he ordered his army to turn to the left, and himself, with a few choice horse, went before to point out the road; but their horses, quite spent with heat, were most of them left behind--insomuch, that only he, with five of his followers, passed through the sands, to the seashore, safe on horseback. However, on their arrival there, they dug nigh the coast, and found plenty of water, sweet, and clear; whereupon he ordered the army thither, and, after that travelled seven days along the seacoast, and always found plenty of water. Then, his guides assuring him they knew the way again, they left the sea, and led the army into the inland parts again.[e]
EXCESSES AND CRUELTIES DESCRIBED BY CURTIUS
By these means the army came at last upon the frontiers of the Gedrosians, whose territory was very fruitful. Here he stayed some time to refresh his harassed troops; in the interim he received letters from Leonnatus, importing “that he had fought and overcome eight thousand foot, and five hundred horse of the Oritæ.” Craterus likewise sent him advice “that he had seized and put into custody Ozines and Zariaspes, two noblemen of Persia, who were contriving a rebellion.” The king afterwards appointed Siburtius governor of that province, in the room of Memnon, who was lately dead, and then marched into Carmania. Aspastes had the government of this nation, and was suspected to aim at innovations during the king’s abode in India; but as he came to meet the king, his majesty thought fit to dissemble his resentment, and kept him in the same station till he could get a clearer information of the crimes he was accused of.
The governor of India having sent him by this time (according to his orders) a great number of horses and draught cattle out of the respective countries subject to his empire, he remounted, and gave fresh equipages to those who wanted. He also restored their arms to their former splendour, for they were not now far from Persia, which was not only in a profound peace, but vastly rich.
As therefore he not only rivalled the glory Bacchus had gained by the conquest of these countries, but also his fame, he resolved (his mind being elevated above mortal grandeur) to imitate him in his manner of triumph, though it be uncertain whether it was at first intended by Bacchus as a triumph, or only the sport and pastime of the drunken crew. Hereupon he caused all the streets through which he was to pass to be strewed with flowers and garlands, and large vessels and cups filled with wine to be placed before the doors of the houses. Then he ordered wagons to be made of a sufficient largeness to contain a great many, which were adorned like tents, some with white coverings, and some with precious furniture.
The king’s friends and the royal band went first, wearing on their heads chaplets made of variety of flowers, in some places the flutes and hautboys were heard, in others the harmonious sound of the harp and lute; all the army followed, eating and drinking after a dissolute manner, everyone setting off his wagon according to his ability, their arms (which were extraordinarily fine) hanging round about the same. The king, with the companions of his debauchery, was carried in a magnificent chariot laden with gold cups, and other large vessels of the same metal. After this manner did this army of bacchanals march for seven days together, a noble as well as certain prey to those they had conquered, if they had had but courage enough to fall upon them in this drunken condition: nay, it had been an easy matter for a thousand men (provided they were but sober) to have made themselves masters of this riotous army, in the midst of its triumph, as it lay plunged in the surfeits and excesses of a seven days’ debauch; but fortune, that sets the price and credit of things, turned this military scandal into glory. The then present age and posterity since have with reason admired, how they could, in that drunken condition, with safety pass through nations hardly yet sufficiently subdued; but the barbarians interpreted the rankest temerity imaginable for a well-grounded assurance. However, all this pomp and splendour had the executioner at its heels, for the satrap Aspastes, of whom we before made mention, was ordered to be put to death. Thus we see that luxury is no obstacle to cruelty, nor cruelty to luxury.
About this time Cleander and Sitalces, with Agathon and Heracon (who had killed Parmenion by the king’s orders), came to him, having with them five thousand foot and one thousand horse; but they were followed by their accusers out of the respective provinces of which they had had the prefecture; and indeed it was impossible for them to atone for so many enormous crimes which they had committed, though they had been instruments in an execution altogether grateful to the king; for they were not contented to pillage the public, but even plundered the temples, and left the virgins and chief matrons to bewail the violation of their honour. In fine, by their avarice and lust, they had rendered the very name of the Macedonians odious to the barbarians; but Cleander’s fury exceeded all the rest, for he was not contented to defile a noble virgin, but gave her afterwards to his slave for a concubine.
The major part of Alexander’s friends did not so much regard the grievousness of the crimes that were now publicly laid to their charge, as the memory of Parmenion, who had been killed by their hands, which perhaps might secretly plead for them in the king’s breast; and they were overjoyed to see those ministers of his anger experience the dire effects of it themselves, and “that no power that is injuriously acquired can be of long duration.”
The king having heard their accusation, said “that their adversaries had forgot one thing, and the greatest of all their crimes, which was their despairing of his safety; for they would never have dared to be guilty of such villainies, if they had either hoped or believed he should have returned safe from India.” He therefore committed them to custody, and ordered “six hundred soldiers who had been the instruments of their cruelty to be put to death.” The same days also the authors of the Persian revolt (whom Craterus had brought along with him) were executed.[f]
Still cruelty, in the most odious sense of the word, wanton injustice, was always foreign to his nature; nor have we any proof that his temper had become in other respects harsher, or less even, than before his Indian expedition.
THE RETURN OF NEARCHUS
In the meanwhile he was in painful uncertainty, and was giving way more and more to gloomy thoughts, as to the fate of Nearchus and the fleet. They were at length dispelled by tidings that Nearchus had landed on the coast of Carmania, within a few days’ march of the camp. The bearer of the news was the governor of the maritime district in which the event had occurred. Some of the men belonging to the fleet, in an excursion up the country, had fallen in with one of Alexander’s soldiers, and learned from him that the king was encamped only five days’ march from the sea; by him Nearchus was brought to the governor, who hastened to the camp with the joyful tidings. Alexander sent party after party with means of conveyance for Nearchus. Some of his messengers proceeded but a short distance, and returned without intelligence. Others went further, but lost the road. He began to suspect that he had been deceived, and ordered the governor to be arrested. Meanwhile Nearchus had hauled up his vessels on shore, and had fortified a naval camp, where he left the greater part of his men, and set out, with Archias, his second in command, and five or six companions, to seek the king. On their way they met one of the parties which had been sent with horses and carriages in search of them. But so great was the change made in their appearance by the hardships of the voyage, that, even when they inquired the road to the camp, they were not recognised by their countrymen, until, on the suggestion of Archias, they made themselves known. Some now hastened to inform Alexander of their approach. When he heard of the smallness of their number, he concluded that the fleet was lost, and that they were the only survivors. But their arrival cleared up all mistakes, and diffused universal joy.
The details of the voyage would be foreign to our purpose. Nearchus had been forced to begin it, before the winds had become favourable, by the hostility of the Indians at Pattala; and though he waited four-and-twenty days on the Arabite coast, he afterwards lost three of his vessels in the adverse monsoon. On the coast of Oritis he met Leonnatus, who, after Alexander’s departure, had been obliged to defend himself against the combined forces of the natives and their allies. He had gained a great victory with the loss of few men; the satrap Apollophanes was among the slain. From Leonnatus, according to the king’s orders, Nearchus received a supply of corn sufficient for ten days, and exchanged some of his least active sailors for better men from the camp; but it does not appear that he lighted upon any of the magazines destined by Alexander for his use. After manifold hardships and perils, from the monsters of the deep, the barrenness of the coast, the hostility of the barbarians, and from the timidity and despondency of his own crews, he at length, with the aid of a Gedrosian pilot, reached the mouth of the Persian Gulf. When they came in sight of Arabia, Onesicritus--with what view is not perfectly clear--urged the admiral to strike across, and steer to the south. Nearchus however prudently refused to deviate from the king’s instructions, and finally landed near the mouth of the river Anamis (Ibrahim), not far to the east of the isle of Ormuz.[b]
Now Alexander, having conceived vast designs, had resolved after he had conquered all the eastern coast, to pass out of Syria into Africa, being very much incensed against the Carthaginians, and from thence marching through the deserts of Numidia, to direct his course towards Cadiz; for it was generally reported that Hercules had there planted his pillars. From hence he proposed to march through Spain, which the Greeks call Iberia, from the river Iberus; and having passed the Alps to come to the coast of Italy, from whence it was but a short cut to Epirus. He therefore gave orders to his governors in Mesopotamia “to cut down timber in Mount Libanus, and convey it to Thapsacus, a town in Syria, where it was to be employed to build large vessels, which were afterwards to be conducted to Babylon. The kings of Cyprus were also commanded to supply them with copper, hemp and sails.”
While he was doing these things he received letters from the kings Porus and Taxiles, to acquaint him with the death of Abisares by sickness, and that Philip his lieutenant was dead of his wounds; as also that the persons concerned in that action had been punished. Hereupon he substituted Eudœmon (who was commander of the Thracians) in the room of Philip, and gave Abisares’ kingdom to his son. From thence he came to Pasargada, which is a city of Persia, and whose satrap’s name was Orxines, who in nobility and riches far exceeded all the barbarians; he derived his pedigree from Cyrus, formerly king of Persia; his predecessors had left him a great deal of wealth, which he had very much increased by the long enjoyment of his authority. This nobleman came to meet the king, with all sorts of presents, as well for himself as for his friends; he had with him whole studs of horses ready broke, chariots adorned with gold and silver, rich furniture, jewels, gold plate to a great value, purple garments, and four thousand talents of coined silver. However, this excessive liberality proved the cause of his death; for having presented all the king’s friends with gifts far beyond their expectation, he took no notice of Bagoas the eunuch, who had endeared Alexander to him by his abominable compliance; and being informed by some who wished him well, that he was very much in Alexander’s favour, he made answer, “that he honoured the king’s friends, but not his eunuchs, it not being the custom of the Persians.” The eunuch was no sooner acquainted with this answer, than he employed all the power and interest he had so shamefully procured himself to ruin this innocent nobleman.
It happened that Alexander caused Cyrus’ tomb to be opened, in order to pay his ashes the funeral rites; and whereas he believed it to be full of gold and silver, according to the general opinion of the Persians, there was nothing found in it but a rotten buckler, two Scythian bows and a scimitar. However, the king placed a crown of gold upon his coffin, and covered it with the cloak he used to wear himself, and seemed to wonder “that so great a prince, who abounded in riches, was not more sumptuously interred than if he had been a private person.” Hereupon Bagoas, who stood next to the king, turning to him said: “What wonder is it to find the royal tombs empty, when the satrap’s houses are not able to contain the treasures they have taken from thence? As for my own part, I must confess, I never saw this tomb before, but I remember I have heard Darius say that there were three thousand talents buried with Cyrus. From hence proceeds Orxines’ liberality to you, that what he knew he could not keep with impunity might produce him your favour, when he presented you with it.”
Having thus stirred up the king’s anger, those whom Bagoas had entrusted with the same affair came in, so that he on one side, and the suborned witnesses on the other so possessed the king’s ears, that Orxines found himself in chains before he had the least suspicion of his being accused. This vile eunuch was not satisfied with the death of this innocent prince, but had the impudence to strike him as he was going to be executed; whereupon Orxines looking at him said: “I had heard indeed, that formerly women reigned in Asia, but it is altogether new, that a eunuch should be a king.” This was the end of the chiefest nobleman of Persia, who was not only innocent, but had likewise been profusely liberal to the king.[33] At that time Phradates was put to death, being suspected to aim at the regal dignity. “Now,” says Curtius, “Alexander began to be too apt to give credit to false informations; from whence it is plain that prosperity is able to change the best nature, it being a rarity to find anyone sufficiently cautious against good fortune. Thus he who a little before could not find in his heart to condemn Lyncestes Alexander, though accused by two witnesses; and who had suffered several prisoners of a mean condition to be acquitted, even contrary to his own inclination, only because they seemed innocent to the rest, and had restored kingdoms to his conquered enemies, at last so degenerated from himself as even against his own sentiment to bestow kingdoms on some at the pleasure of an infamous catimite, and deprive others of their lives.”
Much about the same time he received letters from Cœnus concerning the transactions in Europe and Asia, whilst he was subduing India--viz., that Zopirio his governor of Thrace, in his expedition against the Getæ, had been surprised with a sudden storm, and perished therein with the whole army; and that Sceuthes being informed thereof had solicited the Odrysians his countrymen to revolt, whereby Thrace was almost lost, and Greece itself in danger; for Alexander having punished the insolence of some of the satraps (who during his wars in India, had exercised all manner of crimes in their respective provinces) had thereby terrified others, who being guilty of the same foul practices, expected to be rewarded after the same manner, and therefore took refuge with the mercenary troops, designing to make use of their hands in their defence, if they were called to execution; others, getting together what money they could, fled. The king being advised hereof, despatched letters to all the governors throughout Asia, whereby they were commanded upon sight to disband all the foreign troops within their respective provinces.
Harpalus was one of these offenders; Alexander had always a great confidence in him, because he had upon his account formerly been banished by Philip, and therefore when Mazæus died, he conferred upon him the satrapship of Babylon, and the guard of the treasures. This man having, by the extravagance of his crimes, lost all the confidence he had in the king’s favour, took five thousand talents out of the treasury, and having hired six thousand mercenaries, returned into Europe. He had for a considerable time followed the bent of his lust and luxury, so that despairing of the king’s mercy, he began to look about for foreign means to secure himself against his anger; and as he had all along cultivated the friendship of the Athenians--whose power was no way contemptible, and whose authority he knew was very great with the other Greeks, as well as their private hatred to the Macedonians--he flattered those of his party that, as soon as the Athenians should be informed of his arrival, and behold the troops and treasure he brought with him, they would immediately join their arms and counsels to his; for he thought that by the means of wicked instruments whose avarice set everything to sale, he might by presents and bribes compass his ends with an ignorant and wavering people.
The king being informed of these things, was equally incensed against Harpalus and the Athenians, and immediately ordered a fleet to be got ready, resolving to repair immediately to Athens; but while he was taken up with these thoughts he received letters of advice that Harpalus had indeed entered Athens, and by large sums gained the chief citizens; notwithstanding which, in an assembly of the people, he had been commanded to leave the town, whereupon he retired to the Greek soldiers, who seized him, and that he was afterwards treacherously killed by a certain traveller.[34] Being pleased with this account, he laid aside his thoughts of passing into Europe; however, he ordered all the cities of Greece to receive their respective exiles, excepting such who had defiled their hands with the blood of their fellow-citizens.
The Greeks not daring to disobey his commands (although they looked upon them as a beginning of the subversion of their laws), not only recalled them, but also restored to them all their effects that were in being. The Athenians were the only people who on this occasion asserted both their own and the public liberty; for, looking upon it as an insupportable grievance (as not being used to monarchical government, but to their own laws and customs of their country), they forbade the exiles entering their territories, being resolved to suffer anything rather than grant admittance to those former dregs of their own town, and now the refuse of the places of their exile.[f]
FOOTNOTES
[32] [“Their very horses’ hoofs were worn away by their continual marches,” says Diodorus[d] xvii.]
[33] [Arrian[e] says, however, that Orxines was proved clearly guilty of defacing and plundering the tomb of Cyrus and of other acts of sacrilege.]
[34] For a fuller account of the affairs of Harpalus and the exile decree, see Chapter LVIII.
LVI. THE END OF ALEXANDER
HIS PROJECTS
Alexander might now be said to have returned into the heart of his dominions; since the Indus, the Jaxartes, and the Nile, had become Macedonian rivers. It was a question at that time of great importance to the whole civilised world, what were the plans now floating in the imagination of the youthful conqueror, if not yet reduced to a settled purpose.
It was believed by many that he designed to circumnavigate Arabia to the head of the Red Sea, and afterwards Africa; then, entering the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules, to spread the terror of his arms along its western shores, and finally to explore the northern extremity of the Lake Mæotis, and, if possible, discover a passage into the Caspian Sea. These reports were not altogether without a visible foundation. They seem to have arisen out of the simple fact that Alexander, on his return from India, prepared to equip a fleet on the Euphrates, and sent orders to Phœnicia for vessels to be built there and transported to Thapsacus; thence to fall down the river to Babylon, where a harbour was to be formed, capable of containing one thousand galleys of war.
That a great armament therefore was to be collected, for some operations which were to begin in the Persian Gulf, was sufficiently certain; and Alexander also gave proofs that his views were directed toward Arabia, for he sent three expeditions to survey its coasts: first, a vessel under the command of Archias, the companion of Nearchus, who, however, did not even venture to cross over to the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, but stopped short at one of the islands. Androsthenes, who was afterwards sent out with another vessel, did a little more--he sailed for a short distance along the coast. The boldest of the adventurers was a Cilician, named Hiero, who advanced much farther in the same direction; but his courage and perseverance were at length overcome by the vast range of the coast, which exceeded all his expectations, and on his return he reported that Arabia was nearly as large as India. Yet it would seem, from Arrian’s account, that even he had not doubled the cape seen by Nearchus.
It can hardly be supposed that Alexander had resolved to attempt the conquest of Arabia, while he was conscious that he knew so little about the nature and extent of the country, especially as the information which he might obtain as to the interior cannot have been encouraging. But it is not the less probable that discovery and conquest in this quarter were the objects which, henceforth to his death, chiefly occupied his thoughts; for the spirit of discovery was here stimulated by a clear prospect of great advantages to be derived from a maritime communication between Egypt and India. To ascertain whether it was possible to open one, and to secure it, if not by conquests at least by colonies planted on the Arabian coast, was a design certainly suited to Alexander’s genius, and worthy of his ambition; and this appears to have been the first destination of the new armament. On any other projects which he may have entertained, it would be still more idle to speculate.
For some time after his return, his attention was engrossed by different cares. From every side he continued to receive fresh complaints of the excesses committed by his satraps and other officers, during his absence, and fresh proofs that many of them aimed at establishing an independent authority. The indignation of the people was especially provoked by the spoliation of the sacred buildings. It is probable, that in almost every case such outrages on the national feelings proceeded from the reckless cupidity of the Macedonians, though the native governors may have abused their powers as grossly in other matters. Not unfrequently perhaps they had connived at the misconduct of the Macedonian officers under their command, we may suspect to have been the case with Orxines and Polymachus. So Abulites, the satrap of Susa, and his son Oxathres, were put to death, it is said, for neglect of duty--it would seem too hastily, for Alexander ran Oxathres through the body with his own sarissa; but it was the Macedonian Heracon who had plundered the temple at Susa. Such proceedings may have been the main cause of an insurrection which had broken out in Media, but was suppressed by the satrap Atropates, who brought its author, a Median named Baryaxes, and several of his partisans, to Pasargadæ, where they suffered death. Baryaxes had assumed the erect cidaris, and the title of king of the Medes and Persians, a step to which he was probably encouraged by the popular discontent which had been excited by the extortion and insolence of the strangers.
But such precautions as these were barely sufficient to maintain tranquillity for the present; much more was needed for the future. All that he had observed since his return appears to have strengthened his previous conviction that his empire, to be permanent, must be established on a new basis. And at Susa he began a series of measures, tending, in their remote consequences, to unite the conquerors with the conquered, so as to form a new people out of both, and, in their immediate effects, to raise a new force, independent alike of Macedonian and of Persian prejudices, and entirely subservient to his ends. The first of these measures was a great festival, in which he at the same time celebrated his own nuptials with Statira, the eldest daughter of Darius (who now, it seems, took the name of Arsinoe) and those of his principal officers with Persian and Median ladies of the noblest families. We find an intimation that some address was needed, before the preliminaries could be arranged; and this, from the known temper and views of the Macedonian generals we can easily believe. The king’s example had no doubt the greatest weight in overcoming the aversion which they must have felt to such an alliance. The liberality with which he portioned their brides out of his treasure also had its effect; and their pride was flattered by the condescension with which he placed them on a level with himself in the ceremony.
THE MARRIAGE OF GREECE WITH PERSIA
Hephæstion received the hand of Drypetis, Statira’s sister; it was Alexander’s express wish that his friend’s children should be related to his own. Craterus was wedded to Amastris, a niece of Darius; Perdiccas to a daughter of the satrap Atropates; Ptolemy and Eumenes, to two daughters of Artabazus. For Nearchus, Alexander chose the daughter of Mentor by Barsine, a mark of distinguished favour, since he himself had admitted the mother to his bed, and already had a son by her, on whom he had bestowed the name of Heracles, and who afterwards became a competitor for the throne. To Seleucus he gave a daughter of the Bactrian chief Spitamenes. These are the only names recorded by Arrian, but the whole number of the officers who followed the king’s example amounted to nearly a hundred. It was not less important for his object that above ten thousand of the private Macedonians had either already formed a connection, or were now induced to enter into one, with Asiatic women. To render it solemn and binding, a list was taken of their names, and a marriage portion was granted to each.
The wealth of Asia and the arts of Greece were combined to adorn the spectacle with a splendour and beauty worthy of the occasion. A gorgeous pavilion was erected, probably on a plain near the city, capable of containing not only the bridal party but the guests whom the king had invited to the banquet. It was supported by pillars sixty feet high, glittering with gold, silver, and precious stones, and was hung and spread with the richest tissues. Ninety-two chambers, magnificently furnished, were annexed to the building: and an outer court appears to have been enclosed by a partition, likewise hung with costly tapestry, for the reception of the ten thousand newly-married soldiers, each of whom received a golden vessel for his libation; and of the strangers who had been drawn by business or curiosity to the court. In the foreground without, tables were spread for the rest of the immense multitude. The nuptials were solemnised according to Persian usage. A separate seat was assigned to each pair: all were ranged in a semicircle, to the right and left of the royal throne. When the last libation had been announced by a flourish of trumpets to the multitude without, the brides entered the banquet hall, and took their places. The king first gave his hand to Statira, and saluted her as his consort; and his example was followed by the rest. This, it seems, completed the nuptial ceremony. The festivities lasted five days, which were filled up with a variety of entertainments; among the rest, musical and dramatic performances of Greek artists, and feats of Indian jugglers. Alexander’s subjects from all parts of the empire vied with each other in the magnificence of their offerings to the king, and the value of the crowns which he received on this occasion is said to have amounted to fifteen thousand talents [£3,000,000 or $15,000,000].
The nuptial festival was a concession gained from the Macedonians in favour of the ancient masters of Asia. Notwithstanding the king’s liberality and condescension, murmurs were excited by the preference which had been given to the Persian ceremonial. Alexander now endeavoured to conciliate them by another act of royal munificence, and by the distribution of rewards to those who had distinguished themselves in the late expeditions. He declared his intention to pay the debts of every Macedonian in the army; and directed that all who wished to share his bounty should give in their names to be registered. The offer was at first very coldly received, and awakened a suspicion, which indicated an unsound state of feeling, though it arose in part from a reproving conscience, and might also be considered as occasioned by the incredible amount of the proffered donative. It was generally believed that the king’s object was chiefly to gain information as to the state of their private affairs, and, from the debts which they had contracted, to form a judgment which could not fail to be often unfavourable on the habits and character of each. Few therefore presented themselves to enter their names.
Alexander, as soon as he discovered the cause of this general backwardness, reproved them for their unworthy distrust, with the remark that it was no more fit that subjects should suspect their king of falsehood, than that he should practise it; and immediately ordered tables to be set in the camp, with heaps of gold, where each might receive the amount of his debts without registering his name. This generous confidence removed all doubts; men of all ranks flocked in with their claims, and the secrecy was felt as a greater favour than the relief.
The sum expended on this largess is said to have been no less than twenty thousand talents. Other rewards were conferred on a great number of persons in proportion to their rank and services. But the popularity which the king gained by these measures was soon to be subjected to a hard trial. For it was not long after that the satraps, who had the charge of the Asiatic youth, selected some years before to be taught the Greek language, and to be trained to war according to the Macedonian system, came to Susa, with a body of thirty thousand young soldiers formed in these schools, equipped and armed in the Macedonian fashion. Alexander himself was delighted with their fine persons and martial bearing, and with the manner in which they executed their manœuvres, and immediately proceeded to incorporate them with his army. The infantry, it seems, was for the present kept distinct from the Macedonian troops; but the cavalry, which was drawn from Bactria and Sogdiana, and other eastern provinces, was admitted into the same ranks with the flower of the Macedonian nobility. A fifth division of horse was formed to receive them; and, at the same time, several of the young Asiatic nobles were enrolled in the escort, a body hitherto selected from the first families of Macedonia.
These changes roused the jealousy and resentment of the old troops, in a much higher degree than any of the king’s previous acts. His adoption of the dress and usages of the conquered people had displeased them, because it indicated a purpose which they disliked; the late alliances created perhaps still greater discontent, because they still more clearly and directly tended to the same point. But the new organisation of the army was more than a tendency--it was not a mere indication, but the first step in the execution of the purpose which had alarmed them; it was a beginning of destruction to all the privileges they most valued. Alexander, it was plain, wished to be considered only as their sovereign, no longer as their countryman.
The murmurs of the camp probably did not escape his notice, and may have induced him to set out the earlier from Susa, on a march which, by the new occupation it afforded, would perhaps make the army forget its supposed grievances. He therefore ordered Hephæstion to lead the main body down to the coast, while he himself embarked on board the fleet.[b]
THE MUTINY
When he arrived at Opis, he called his forces together, and issued a declaration, that “all of them, who by age, infirmity, or loss of limbs, found themselves unable to undergo the fatigues of war, should be freely discharged, and at full liberty to return home. But whoever were inclined to stay with him, should taste so largely of his royal bounty as to become the envy of those who tarried at home, and excite other Macedonians freely to share their toils and dangers with them.”
This declaration was made by Alexander with a design to please the Macedonians, but it had a contrary effect; for they interpreting it as if they were despised, or deemed useless in any further warlike enterprise, were vehemently enraged, and took that discourse as levelled against them, which was designed for the army in general. Howbeit, upon this occasion, all their former complaints were renewed--namely, his compliance with the Persians in their habit; his allowing the Macedonian habit to be worn by youths who were barbarians, and styling them their successors; and his admission of strange horse into the auxiliary forces; wherefore they were no longer able to contain themselves, but all of them entreated to be absolved from their military oath. Nay, some proceeded so far as to insult him, by telling him that he and his father Ammon, might, for the future, join their forces and wage war against their enemies. Alexander no sooner heard these words (for he was now much more subject to wrath than heretofore) but leaping instantly from his seat where his captains surrounded him, he commanded the chief of those who endeavoured to excite the multitude to sedition, to be seized, and pointed with his hand to his targeteers, to show them whom they should seize. These were thirteen in number, all whom he commanded immediately to be put to death; whereat, while the rest stood amazed, and kept silence, he again mounted his tribunal, and spoke to this effect.
“Far be it from me, O my Macedonians, to endeavour to divert you from your desires of returning home (you having a free liberty to go whenever you think convenient), but I will, that you understand before your departure, how much you are changed from what once you were. And first to begin, as I ought, with my father Philip: he received you into his protection, a poor, wandering, and unsettled people; many of you clothed with skins, and feeding small flocks of sheep, upon the mountains, which yet you could not keep without continual skirmishes with the Illyrians, Triballi, and Thracians, your neighbours, in which you were often unsuccessful. For shepherds’ coats of skins, my father arrayed you in the choicest garments; from the barren mountains, he led you down into the fruitful plains, and instructed you in military discipline, so that you had no more occasion to place your safety in rough and inaccessible mountains, but in your own valour.
“He gave you cities to dwell in, and excellent laws and statutes to be governed by. He gained you also the sovereignty over those barbarians who, aforetime, continually harassed and insulted you, and from a state of slavery, made you free. He added a great part of Thrace to Macedonia, and by reducing the towns upon the seacoast, set open the gate to commerce. He it was that subdued the Thessalians, who were formerly so terrible to you, and made them your servants; and having overcome the Phocians, opened a wide and convenient entrance for you into Greece, instead of one narrow and difficult. The Athenians and Thebans, who had joined in confederacy against you, he so humbled (myself being present to assist him) that whereas we were, before that time, tributaries to the former, and slaves to the latter, on the contrary, now, both these cities are under our protection. He entered Peloponnesus, and composing matters there, was constituted general of all the Grecian forces, in the intended expedition against the Persians, and thereby acquired, not only glory to himself, but also to the Macedonian name and nation.
“Those were my father’s bounties to you--great ones indeed, if considered by themselves, but small if compared with mine. For when I succeeded to my father’s kingdom I found some golden and silver cups indeed, but scarce sixty talents in his treasury, though I was charged with a debt of his, of five hundred. However, not discouraged by this, I contracted a fresh debt of eight hundred talents. I marched out of Macedonia, which was scarce able to sustain you, and led you safe over the Hellespont, though the Persians then held the sovereignty of the sea. Then having beaten Darius’ generals in battle, I thereby added Ionia, Æolis, both Phrygias, and Lydia, to the Macedonian empire. I afterwards took Miletus by assault, and received the voluntary homage of many other people and nations, who submitted themselves, and consented to become tributaries. The treasures of Egypt and Cyrene, which we obtained without blows, helped to fill your coffers; Cœle-Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, are in your possession. Babylon, Bactria, and Susa, are in your power. The wealth of Lydia, the treasure of Persia, the riches of India, and the ocean, are yours. You are constituted deputies of provinces. You are made captains, princes, and generals of armies.
“What, I beseech you, have I reserved to myself, for all the toils I have undergone, except this purple robe and diadem? I have withheld nothing from you; neither can any mortal show a treasure in my custody, besides what is either yours or preserved for your use. I have no private desires to gratify, that I should hoard up wealth on that account, for I observe the same diet with yourselves, and am satisfied with the same portion of rest. Nay, I have been contented with coarser food than many among you, who live deliciously; and I have often watched for you, that you might sleep in ease and safety.
“Some may, perhaps, insinuate that all these were acquired by your own toils and dangers, in which I, your general, bore no part; but who dares affirm that he has run greater hazards for me, than I have for him?
“See, which of you has received wounds, let him open his bosom and show the scars, and I will show mine, for there is none of the forepart of my body free; nor is there any kind of weapon which is either thrust forwards by hand, or darted, the marks whereof are not plainly to be traced upon this breast of mine; for I have been wounded with swords in close fight, and with darts and arrows at a distance; besides, I have been beat to the ground with stones from the enemies’ engines; and notwithstanding I have suffered so much for your sakes, by stones, and clubs, and swords, and missive weapons, yet have I led you victorious through all lands, over all seas, rivers, hills, and plain countries. I solemnised your nuptials with my own, that your children might claim affinity with mine.
“The debts of my whole army I freely discharged, without examining too strictly how they were contracted; and notwithstanding the vast stipends you then received, you made no small advantage of the plunder of such cities as you took by storm. Add to this, that I bestowed crowns of gold on many of you, as eternal monuments of your valour, and my esteem for you; and whoever chanced to fall in battle, valiantly fighting, he, over and above the glory which he then acquired by death, was usually honoured with a sumptuous monument. Nay, brazen statues are erected, as testimonies of the valour of some of them in Macedonia, and honours decreed their parents, with a full immunity from all public taxes and impositions; for none of you, fighting under my banner, had ever any occasion to turn his back upon an enemy.
“And now I had determined to release such of you as are unable any longer to endure the fatigues of war, and send you home, so laden with honours and rewards that your countrymen and fellow citizens should deem you, above measure, fortunate and happy. But since ye are all one mind, and since the same notion of returning has possessed all of you, go all, and report at home that your king Alexander, who had subdued the Persians, Medes, Bactrians, and Sacæ; who had tamed the Uxii, Arachoti, and Drangæ; who had reduced the Parthians, Chorasmians, and Hyrcanians, and penetrated as far as the Caspian Sea; who had forced his way over Mount Caucasus, and through the Caspian Straits; who had passed the rivers Oxus, and Tanaïs, and Indus (which last was never passed before, unless by Bacchus); who had ferried over the rivers Hydaspes, Acesines, and Hydraotes; and had also led you beyond the Hyphasis, if you had not refused to follow him; who entered the ocean by both the mouths of the river Indus, and afterwards, marching through the barren and sandy country of the Gedrosi (where none ever carried an army safe before) subdued the Carmanians and Oritæ; who lastly, having conveyed his fleet from the coasts of India, to the Persian Sea, brought you safe and victorious to Susa--tell your countrymen, I say, that after all these great and glorious acts, done for you, you have forsaken him, departed from him, and left him in the hands and under the care of the barbarians, whom he had conquered. When you shall have told all these things, your glory among men, and the notion of your piety towards the gods, will receive a mighty betterment.”
Having thus spoke, he leaped suddenly from his seat, and retiring into the palace, neither put on his royal robes, nor admitted any of his friends to see him that day, nor the next; and on the third having called the Persian nobility round him, he distributed the command of the several troops among them, and as many of them as he had made his relations, he suffered to kiss him. But the Macedonians, moved with their king’s speech, stood before the tribunal, like people astonished, and kept a profound silence; nor did one of their number offer to accompany the king when he retired to his palace, except his friends and bodyguards, who surrounded him. However, many stood still before the tribunal, and refused to depart, though they neither knew what they should do, nor say, there.
But when they came to understand what he had bestowed upon the Medes and Persians--namely, the several commands of the army; and that the barbarians were distributed into several ranks and orders; that the Persian agema was to be called by a Macedonian name; and the troops of auxiliary foot, and others, to be made up of Persians; that the companions, and all the royal cohort of horse, were to consist of Persians; and that the regiment of Persians was to be nominated the royal regiment--they were no longer able to contain themselves, but running straight, in a body, to the palace, they laid down their arms before the gate, as a sign of submission and repentance: then standing without, they begged to be admitted into the king’s presence, promising that they would deliver up the authors of the late tumult, and those who had stirred them to sedition; and withal protesting that they would never stir from his gate, day nor night, unless they could move him to take compassion upon them.
When Alexander came to understand this, he immediately came forth to them, and perceiving them humble and dejected, was so much moved with their sorrow and lamentation, that he wept, and stood some time, as though he would have spoke; but they remained in the same suppliant posture. However, at last, Callines, belonging to the auxiliary troop of horse, a man of much esteem, as well for his age as the command he bore, spoke to this effect:
“Thy Macedonians, O king, are grieved and discontented, because thou hast made some of the Persians thy relations, honoured them with the title of thy kindred, and sufferest them to kiss thee; when, at the same time, they are excluded.” Then Alexander interrupting him, replied, “I now make you all my kindred, and shall, henceforth, style you so.” With that Callines stepped forward and kissed him, and such others, as pleased, followed his example. Whereupon they again took up their arms, and with shouts of joy, and songs, returned to the camp. After this, he sacrificed to the gods, according to the custom of his country, and prepared a royal banquet, which he graced with his presence, where the Macedonians were placed nearest his person; next these the Persians, and then those of all other nations, according to their dignity, or the post they held in the army.
Then the king, and all his guests, drank out of the same cup; the Grecian augurs, as well as the Persian magi, pronouncing their decrees, wishing prosperity to the king and the army, and praying for eternal concord and unanimity between the Macedonians and Persians, for the common benefit of both nations. Nine thousand guests are said to have been present at this entertainment, who all drank out of the same cup, and all joined in the same songs, for the peace and safety of the army.
Then such of the Macedonians as were unable to follow the army, by reason of age, or loss of limbs, were freely discharged, to the number of about ten thousand, who were not only paid their full stipends, according to the time they had served, but each had a talent [£200 or $1000] given him to defray the expenses of his journey. Those among them who had married Asiatic wives, and had children by them, were ordered to leave their sons behind, lest they should be the cause of a sedition in Macedonia, if both the sons and their mothers were sent together. However, he took care to instruct them in the Macedonian manners, and to teach them their military discipline, that so, when they arrived at manhood, he might bring them home, and deliver them, thus accomplished, to their parents.
These uncertain and precarious things he promised them at their departure; but he added one sure and undoubted mark of his good will towards them, by appointing Craterus (whom he found ever faithful to him, and whom he loved as his life) to be their captain, to conduct them safe into their own country; wherefore, wishing them all health and happiness, and weeping to behold them weep, he dismissed them, ordering Craterus, when he had finished his task of conducting them safe home, to take upon him the government of Macedonia, Thrace, and Thessaly, and preside over the liberties of Greece. He moreover ordered Antipater to come to him, and bring with him other Macedonians, young and vigorous, instead of those who were dismissed. He dispatched Polysperchon away with Craterus, and gave him the next command under him, for fear any accident should happen to Craterus by the way (he being somewhat indisposed at his setting forward) and they should be destitute of a leader.
It was said that Alexander, overcome with the calumnies wherewith his mother had loaded Antipater, was willing to remove him from Macedonia. But perhaps this call of Antipater was not designed for his disgrace; but rather to prevent any mischief arising from their quarrels, which he might not be able to compose. Many letters had been carried to the king, wherein Antipater accused Olympias of arrogance, cruelty, and meddling with what did not become the mother of Alexander; insomuch, that the king is said to have complained, that he was forced to pay her very dear for the ten months she carried him in her womb. Olympias, on the other hand, exclaimed against Antipater, as insolent, by reason of the command he bore, and the people’s obedience to him; that he began to be altogether unmindful from whence he received his authority, and judged himself fit for the sovereignty over Macedonia, and all Greece, where he ought only to act as deputy.
Thus was the king continually wearied out with these complaints insomuch, that at last he began to incline to the opinion of those who were for disgracing Antipater, as one who was more to be feared than the other, if the report were just. However, he neither by word nor action, gave the least intimation that his affections were any way estranged.[c]
THE LAST EXPEDITION
After the departure of Craterus, Alexander set out for Ecbatana. The state of the treasure, and the country, which had been so long in such hands as those of Cleander and Sitalces, demanded his attention. It was also a point where he might collect information, and concert measures, with regard to the regions which bounded his dominions on the north along the coasts of the Caspian Sea, concerning which his knowledge was hitherto very imperfect. But no doubt one of his main objects was to gratify the Medians by a residence of some months in their splendid capital, one of the proudest cities of the ancient world, where his Persian predecessors had been used to hold their court during a part of the year. Alexander’s presence was everywhere felt as a blessing. In his progress through Media he viewed the pastures celebrated--it seems, under the name of the Nisæan plain--for the number and excellence of the horses bred in them. The number had amounted to 150,000; but, through a series of depredations, which mark the disordered state of the province, it had been reduced by nearly two-thirds. Here he was met by Atropates, the satrap of the northwest part of Media, who, it seems, entertained him with a masquerade of a hundred women, mounted, and equipped with hatchets and short bucklers, according to the popular notion of the Amazons. Such is Arrian’s conjecture. The fact, whatever it may have been, gave rise to a story, that Alexander here received an embassy from the queen of the Amazons, and promised to pay her a visit. There were several other objects on this road to attract his attention in a leisurely march: a Bœotian colony planted by Xerxes, which still retained a partial use of the Greek language, and the garden and monuments of Baghistane, which tradition ascribed to Semiramis.
At Ecbatana, after he had despatched the most important business which awaited him there, he solemnised the autumnal festival of Dionysus with extraordinary magnificence. The city was crowded with strangers, who came to witness the spectacle; and three thousand artists are said to have been assembled from Greece, to bear a part in it. The satrap Atropates feasted the whole army; and the Macedonian officers seem to have vied with each other in courtly arts. They put proclamations into the mouths of the heralds, breathing, it is said, a strain of flattery, such as had scarcely been heard by the Persian kings. One of these, which was preserved as a specimen of insolent servility, but is more remarkable as an indication of Alexander’s sentiments, was made by Gorgus, the master of the armoury, who presented him with a crown worth three thousand gold pieces, and undertook to furnish ten thousand complete suits of armour, and as many missiles of every sort proper for the attack of a town, whenever he should lay siege to Athens.
GRIEF FOR HEPHÆSTION
[Sidenote: [324 B.C.]]
Among the theatrical exhibitions there was one which, through the singularity of the subject, has been in part preserved from the oblivion, in which the rest, with numberless better things, have been lost. It was a little drama of the satirical class, entitled Agen, the work, as was generally believed, of one Python, possibly the Byzantian, Philip’s secretary; but there was also a singular report, that it was written by Alexander himself. If he did not even suggest the subject, or any of the scenes, the passages which have been preserved were certainly designed to gratify his feelings. They allude to the flight of Harpalus, who is mentioned both by his own name, and by a nickname significant of his most notorious vice; to the monument which he had erected at Babylon in honour of Pythionice, and to the largess of corn by which he had obtained the Athenian franchise. The wretched state of Athens, as if it needed such benefactions, is described in a tone of bitter sarcasm, which passes into that of earnest hostility, when one of the speakers observes, that the corn was Glycera’s, but might perhaps prove a fatal pledge of friendship to those who had received it. There can be no doubt that in these words the poet meant to speak Alexander’s mind.
But the festival was interrupted by an event, which Alexander felt as the greatest calamity of his life. Hephæstion had been attacked some days before by a fever, which at first did not show any alarming symptoms. Trusting to his youth and strong constitution, he had, it appears, neglected the directions of his physician, and by his imprudence so inflamed the disease, that it carried him suddenly off. It was a day which was to have been devoted to the gymnastic exercises of the boys. Alexander was witnessing a footrace, when a message was brought to him that Hephæstion was worse. He instantly hurried to his friend’s bedside, but before he arrived Hephæstion had expired.
Alexander’s grief, though not embittered by self-reproach, was passionate and violent, as that which he showed at the death of Clitus. There is no evidence that Hephæstion possessed any qualities that deserved the preference with which Alexander distinguished him: and indeed there are intimations that, even in Alexander’s judgment, his chief merit was the devotion and obsequiousness with which he requited his master’s partiality. Perhaps if the attachment had been more considerately formed, the loss would have been less keenly felt. After the first transports of anguish had subsided, Alexander sought consolation in the extravagant honours which he paid to his departed favourite, and in the vain semblance of grief, which he forced all persons and things around him to put on.
We may refuse, with Arrian, to believe that he was so barbarous and frantic, as to put the innocent physician to death, and to pull down the temple of Æsculapius, if there was one, at Ecbatana. But there is no reason why we should question Plutarch’s statement, that he ordered the horses and mules to be shorn, and the town walls to be dismantled of their battlements.[35] These were probably among the customary signs of a general mourning on the death of the Persian kings: and it is certain that he directed one to be observed throughout his Asiatic dominions. He also commanded that, as was usual on the same occasions, the sacred fire should be quenched in all the Persian sanctuaries until the funeral was over. For this, preparations were made on a scale of more than royal magnificence. He ordered Perdiccas to convey the corpse to Babylon, where a pile was to be built at the expense of ten thousand talents [£2,000,000 or $10,000,000], and funeral games were to be celebrated with a splendour never before witnessed: for which purpose all the artists assembled at Ecbatana were to repair to the capital. The courtiers, especially those who might be suspected to entertain very different feelings, endeavoured to prove their sympathy with the king by extraordinary tokens of veneration for the departed favourite. Eumenes, who had lately had a violent quarrel with him, which was only composed by the royal authority, dexterously set the example, and dedicated himself and his arms to the deceased; perhaps anticipating Alexander’s wish, that Hephæstion should receive sacred honours. He was anxious that this should be done under the sanction of religious authority, and therefore sent to consult the oracle of Ammon on the question, whether Hephæstion should be worshipped as a hero or a god. In the meanwhile, it is said, he ordered the sound of music to cease in the camp. The division of the cavalry which had been commanded by Hephæstion, was to retain his name, and the officer to whom it was committed was to be regarded only as his lieutenant.
These fantastic cares, however, served but to cherish his melancholy, and his officers endeavoured to divert him by some fitter occupation, which might draw him from Ecbatana, where he was constantly reminded of his bereavement. He at length began to rouse himself, and complied with their wishes. An object opportunely presented itself, which called him again into action, and in the manner most suited to the present temper of his soul. The Kossæans, who inhabited the highlands on the confines of Media and Persia, were still unsubdued; and, relying on their mountain strongholds, continued from time to time to make predatory inroads on their neighbours. Though it was now the depth of winter, Alexander set out to punish and quell them. He divided his forces into two columns, and gave the command of one to Ptolemy. The obstacles opposed by the country and the season were such as he was used to overcome: the barbarians could do little to bar his progress. They were hunted like wild beasts into their lairs, and every man taken capable of bearing arms was put to the sword. It was a sacrifice to the shade of Hephæstion, in which Alexander might see another resemblance to Achilles. He then crossed the mountains, and, coming down upon the Tigris, took the direct road to Babylon.
TO BABYLON
[Sidenote: [324-323 B.C.]]
At the distance of some days’ march from the city, he was met by presages of impending calamity. A deputation of the Chaldean priests came to the camp, and requested a private audience, in which they informed him that their god Belus had revealed to them that some danger threatened him, if he should at that time enter Babylon. Alexander is said to have replied with a verse of Euripides, expressing disbelief in divination. But it is certain that the warning sank deep into his mind. The state of his feelings was apt for gloomy forebodings: and there was a strange harmony between the words of the Chaldeans, and an intimation which he had lately received from a Greek soothsayer, named Peithagoras.
Still the priests found that they could not induce the king to give up his intention of visiting the capital of his empire, where many important affairs were to be transacted, and embassies from remote parts of the world were awaiting his arrival. They then urged him at least not to enter the city by the eastern gate, so as to have his face turned towards the dark west. This mysterious advice struck Alexander’s fancy; he altered the course of his march, and proceeded some distance along the bank of the Euphrates. But he then found that the lakes and morasses formed by the inundations of the river to the west of Babylon would prove an insurmountable obstacle. He was still reluctant to neglect the warning of the Chaldeans, but yet not now indisposed to listen to Anaxarchus, and the other philosophical Greeks about him, who treated the occult science, and especially its Babylonian professors, with contempt. There was however another motive for distrust, a suspicion that his priestly counsellors were less concerned about his safety than their own. Alexander, before he left Babylon, had ordered the great temple, which Xerxes had demolished, to be rebuilt under the superintendence of the priests. The revenues which had been assigned by the Assyrian kings, for the maintenance of the temple-worship, were also managed by the priests, and, while the temple lay in ruins, had been applied by them to their own use. They knew that Alexander’s presence would soon put an end to such abuses.
Thus then he at length entered Babylon, not without a secret misgiving, by the ominous quarter.[36] The Great City had probably never before witnessed so stirring a scene as was exhibited by the crowds now assembled for various purposes within its walls. Nearchus had brought in the fleet from Opis: the vessels transported over land from Phœnicia had come down from Thapsacus: the harbour was in progress, and other ships were on the stocks in the arsenals of Babylon itself. Another crowd of workmen and artists were busied with Hephæstion’s funeral pile, and with the preparations for his obsequies. And never before had Alexander’s imperial greatness been so conspicuously displayed as in the embassies from foreign states, which were now in attendance at his court.[37] It seems indeed that there was a disposition among some of his historians to exaggerate the number and variety of those embassies. We must perhaps pass over as doubtful those which are said to have come--surprising the Macedonians and the Greeks by the novelty and strangeness of their names and garb--from the European Scythians, from Celtic and Iberian tribes, from Ethiopia, from Carthage, from Libya, and from at least three of the Italian nations, the Bruttians, Lucanians, and Tyrrhenians.
The object of the Italian embassies is not mentioned: those of the Bruttians and Lucanians may be easily accounted for, since, only six or seven years before, the conqueror’s kinsman and namesake, Alexander of Epirus, had perished in war with them. We are prepared to accept the testimony that they were met at Babylon by envoys from Rome, and though the scene may appear to us so memorable as to have afforded temptation for fiction, the fact was recorded before the greatness of the Roman name could have suggested the thought. Strabo mentions an occasion which might have led to this embassy. Alexander--we know not precisely when--had sent remonstrances to the Romans on account of injuries which his subjects had suffered from the pirates of Antium, which was subject to Rome. Alexander would probably have been satisfied with such a supremacy in Italy as he had acquired in Greece: that no general confederacy would have been formed against him by the Italian states: and Rome, single-handed, could not long have withstood such an army as he could have brought against her, backed by the forces and treasure of Greece, Asia, and Africa.
Among the embassies were several from Greek cities. He gave precedence according to the dignity of their temples. So Elis took the lead, and was followed by Delphi and Corinth: but the shrine of Ammon was recognised as second to Olympia. The Epidaurians received an offering for their god, though Alexander added the remark, that Æsculapius might have treated him better, than to suffer him to lose his dearest friend.
The honours designed for Hephæstion continued to share his earnest attention with graver business. The funeral pile was at length completed, and was a marvel of splendour, such as the gorgeous East had never beheld. A part of the wall of Babylon, to the length of about a mile, was thrown down to furnish materials for the basement, and the shell of the building. It was a square tower, and each side, at least at the foot, measured a stade in breadth: the height was about two hundred feet, divided into thirty stories, roofed with the trunks of palm trees. The whole of the outside was covered with groups of colossal figures, and other ornaments, all of gold, ivory, and other precious materials, and it was surmounted by statues of sirens, so contrived as to emit a plaintive melody. All who courted the king’s favour contributed their offerings to the work, or to the obsequies. As to the magnificence of the concluding ceremony, of the funeral games and banquet, nothing more need be said than that it corresponded to the richness of this astonishing work of art, which was raised at an expense about ten times exceeding that of the Parthenon, merely to be devoured by the flames.
Alexander was not of a character to continue long brooding over melancholy thoughts.[38] He appears now to have resumed his great plans with his wonted energy. It was about this time, that he sent out three expeditions to explore the coast of Arabia. He was impressed with the belief, that the Caspian Sea was connected by some outlet at its northern extremity with the ocean which girded the earth, and perhaps hoped that a passage might be found through this channel to the coast of India. With this view he sent Heraclides, with a party of shipwrights, to the shores of the Caspian, to build a fleet, which might survey its coasts, and ascertain its limits. In the meanwhile, he undertook an excursion from Babylon on the Euphrates, to inspect the canal called the Pallacopas, which branched from it to the southwest. He then sailed down the Pallacopas into the lakes which received its waters, and examined the channels by which they were connected with each other. On a part of the shore his eye was struck by a point, which seemed to him well adapted for the site of a city, and he ordered one to be built there, which he afterwards peopled with a colony of Greek mercenaries. The circuit was large, and the passages so intricate, that he was once separated for some time from the main body of the squadron. On his return through this maze of waters, an accident occurred, trifling in itself, but sufficiently ominous, it seems, to revive the uneasy feelings with which he had entered Babylon, and which had subsided when he saw himself once more out of it, and the prediction of the Chaldeans apparently belied. As the royal galley, which Alexander steered himself, passed over the lake, a sudden gust of wind carried away his causia into the water, and lodged the light diadem which circled it on one of the reeds that grew out of a tomb. One of the sailors immediately swam off to recover it, and, to keep it dry, placed it on his own head. Alexander rewarded him with a talent, but at the same time ordered him to be flogged, for the thoughtlessness with which he had assumed the ensign of royalty. The diviners, it is said, took the matter more seriously, and advised the king to avert the omen by the infliction of death on the offender.
On his return he found all the preparations for his intended expedition nearly complete. Fresh troops had arrived from the western provinces, and Peucestas had brought an army of twenty thousand Persians, and a body of mountaineers from the Kossæan and Tapurian highlands. The Persians Alexander incorporated with his Macedonian infantry; so as in every file of sixteen to combine twelve Persians, armed with bows or javelins, with four heavy-armed Macedonians. And now the envoys whom he had sent to the oracle of Ammon returned with the answer, that Hephæstion was to be worshipped as a hero. This was probably as much as Alexander had desired. He immediately proceeded to give effect to the injunction, and sent orders to his satrap Cleomenes, to erect two temples to the new hero, one in Alexandria, the other on the isle of Pharos.
Fresh envoys had also arrived from Greece--from what states we are not informed--to render him the divine honours which he had demanded. They came crowned, according to the custom of persons sent on a sacred mission to a temple, offered golden crowns to him, and saluted him with the title of a god. But, Arrian observes with emphatic simplicity, he was now not far from his end. It seemed to be announced by another sinister omen. The king had been busied with the enrolment of the newly-arrived troops, in council with his officers, who were seated on each side of the throne. Feeling thirst, he withdrew to refresh himself; the council rose for a time, and none were left in the hall but the attendant eunuchs. Before he returned, a man entered the apartment, mounted the steps of the throne, and seated himself on it. The slaves had probably been kept motionless by amazement, when they should have prevented him: but when the deed was done, the etiquette of the Persian court forbade them to lay their hands on one who occupied the seat of royalty, and they rent their clothes and beat their breasts in helpless consternation. The man was examined, and put to the torture, by Alexander’s orders, who suspected a treasonable design. According to some accounts, he was a Messenian, named Dionysius, who had been a long time in prison, and had just made his escape. We may infer, that he was out of his senses. He could give no explanation of his act, but that it had come into his mind. Hence it seemed the more manifest to the soothsayers, that it must be viewed as a sign of impending evil. Alexander himself probably so considered it, and it was the more alarming, as it followed so many others. That he was haunted by his gloomy forebodings, and superstitious fancies, to the degree which Plutarch describes, is hardly credible, unless he was already unconsciously affected by the disorder which proved fatal to him: as on the other hand it seems probable that its secret germs may have been cherished by the dejected state of his spirits.
From the presence of the disease, before its symptoms had become manifest, we may perhaps best explain the behaviour which Plutarch attributes to him in the interview which he had with Antipater’s son, Cassander, shortly before his death; a scene which appears to have been attended with very important consequences. Alexander confronted Cassander with Antipater’s accusers: and when Cassander treated their charges as groundless calumnies, sternly interrupted him, and asked whether men who had suffered no wrong would have travelled so far to prefer a calumnious charge. Cassander pleaded, that the greater the distance from the scene of the alleged injury, the safer was the calumny. But the king indignantly replied that Cassander showed how well he had studied Aristotle’s sophistry, by which every argument might be turned two opposite ways, but that it should avail nothing, if the complaints proved to be in any degree well-founded. So far indeed we only see a proof that Alexander retained the full vigour of his mind and character. Plutarch however adds, what is more difficult to believe, that because Cassander, at his first audience, could not keep his countenance at the sight of the Persian ceremonial, which was entirely new to him, Alexander seized him by the hair, and dashed his head against the wall. This may be a gross exaggeration; but that Cassander’s reception was so harsh and violent as to leave an indelible impression of fear and hatred on his soul, is confirmed, as strongly as such a fact can be, by his subsequent conduct.
LAST ILLNESS
The preparations for the projected campaign were now so far advanced, that Alexander celebrated a solemn sacrifice for its success. He at the same time entertained his principal officers at a banquet, and continued drinking with them to a late hour of the evening. As he was retiring to rest, he was invited by Medius--who it seems had of late been admitted to an intimacy with him something like Hephæstion’s--to a revel, which was to be followed by a fresh drinking-bout. He complied, and the greater part of the night seems to have been thus spent. The next evening he again banqueted at the house of Medius, and again the carousal was prolonged.
It was at the close of this banquet, after he had refreshed himself with a bath, that he felt the symptoms of fever so strongly as to be induced to sleep there. The grasp of death was on him, though his robust frame yielded only after a hard struggle to the gradual prevalence of the malady.
We have a minute and seemingly complete account of his last illness, in an official diary which Arrian transcribed. Nevertheless various reports, which it does not sanction, were current in ancient times, and one of them, which ascribed his death to gross intemperance, has always been very generally believed. Another, which has been as generally rejected, attributed it to a dose of poison,[39] contrived by Aristotle, conveyed by Cassander, and administered by Iollas, another of Antipater’s sons, who filled the office of cup-bearer to the king. As this report was undoubtedly invented by Cassander’s enemies, so the other may have been first circulated by him and his partisans. It represents Alexander as having drained an enormous cup, a bowl of Hercules, as it was called, and as having instantly sunk as from a sudden blow. This incident certainly would not have appeared on the face of the journal; but neither does it seem quite consistent with Alexander’s habits, who, according to Aristobulus, drank chiefly for the sake of prolonging conversation, nor with other details which have been preserved concerning the banquet. If he had been in his usual state of health, the debauch described in the journal would probably have produced no effect on him. It may however both have hastened the outbreak of the fever, and have rendered it fatal. Aristobulus related another fact, which the journal passed over in silence; that in a paroxysm of the fever, the patient quenched his thirst with a large draught of wine.[b]
THE DEATH-BED OF ALEXANDER
On the morning of the first of June Alexander awoke very ill. The varied emotions of the last few days, with the rapid succession of banquets, had made him only too susceptible to illness, and the fever took strong hold on him. He had to be carried in his bed to the altar for the morning sacrifice which he was wont to offer daily. He then lay on a couch in the great hall, receiving his generals and giving them the necessary orders for the start: the army was to set out on the fourth of June; the fleet, with which he was going in person, on the following day. He was then carried on his couch to the Euphrates, got into a ship and crossed to the gardens on the farther side, where he took a bath and passed the night shivering with chill. After the bath and sacrifice the next morning, he went into his private apartment and lay on a couch there all day. Medius was there and tried to cheer him by conversation. The king commanded the leaders to appear before him next morning, and having taken a little supper he went to bed.
The fever increased, his condition grew worse, and he passed the whole night without sleep. After the bath and sacrifice next morning Nearchus and the other leaders of the fleet were admitted; the king informed them that their departure must be postponed for a day on account of his illness, but that he hoped to be sufficiently recovered by that time to embark on the sixth. He remained in the bathroom; Nearchus was commanded to sit by his bed and tell him of his voyage. Alexander listened with great pleasure, rejoicing that he too should presently experience similar perils. Meanwhile his condition changed for the worse, the fever was higher every night. Nevertheless on the morning of the fourth of June he called the officers of the fleet together after the bath and morning sacrifice, and commanded them to have everything in readiness for his reception and for the sailing of the fleet on the sixth. After the evening bath the fever set in more violently than ever, the king’s strength diminished visibly, and a night of sleepless torment ensued.
Next morning he was carried in a high fever to the great reservoir and offered sacrifice with difficulty; he then gave audience to the officers, issued some orders concerning the sailing of the fleet, discussed the appointments to certain posts with his generals, and left the selections of the officers to be promoted, to them, with the admonition to make a strict examination. The sixth came, the king was prostrated by sickness, nevertheless he had himself carried to the altar, offered sacrifices and prayers, and gave orders for the departure of the fleet to be postponed. A melancholy night followed, and the next morning the king was hardly able to offer sacrifice. He commanded the generals to assemble in the anteroom of the palace and the captains and officers to keep together in the courtyard. He had himself carried back from the gardens to the palace. He grew weaker every moment; when the leaders were admitted he recognised them but was not able to speak. The fever continued through the night, and through the following day and night the king lay speechless.
The impression produced by the king’s illness in both the army and the city was beyond description; the Macedonians thronged round the palace, they begged to see their king, they feared that he was dead already and that his death was kept secret; they did not cease their lamentations, threats, and entreaties until the doors were opened to them. Then they filed past their king’s bed, and Alexander raised his head slightly, gave his hand to each and looked his silent farewell to his veterans. On the following day (it was the tenth of June) Pithon, Peucestas, Seleucus, and others went to the temple of Serapis and inquired of the god whether the king would be better if he were carried into his temple and prayed to him. The answer was “Bring him not, if he remains where he is he will soon be better.” And on the day after, towards the evening of the eleventh of June, Alexander died.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[35] Droysen[d] rejects these reports with the utmost contempt; perhaps forgetting what Herodotus (IX, 24) relates of the mourning for Masistius, in which the Persians shaved themselves, and the horses, and the beasts of burden: a precedent, which at least proves that there is nothing absurd or incredible in Plutarch’s account; if it does not render it certain that the same marks of grief were a necessary part of the general mourning ordered by Alexander.
[36] That Alexander’s return to Babylon took place early in 323, may now be considered as sufficiently certain.
[37] [Niebuhr[f] compares this period with Napoleon’s stay in Dresden before he made his fatal march to Moscow. He was similarly surrounded by embassies in crowds.]
[38] [Here again, Droysen’s[d] picture of Alexander’s dejection: “With Hephæstion his youth had sunk into the grave: and, though scarcely beyond the threshold of manhood, he began fast to grow old,” seems violently overcharged.]
[39] [Niebuhr[f] thinks that Alexander could hardly have been poisoned as the poisons of that day always acted within twenty-four hours. This is, however, by no means certain. Aratus, the hero of the Achæan League, died of slow poisoning, according to the high authority of Polybius.]
LVII. VARIOUS ESTIMATES OF ALEXANDER
Now that we have compassed the so great deeds of a life so short, it is inevitable that the sum total of the man’s varied activity should be reckoned up into a brief statement of the value of his career to civilisation. The sums arrived at in Alexander’s case have been as various as the minds that have made them up. A brief collection of them is full of contrast and illumination.[a]
HIS VICES AND VIRTUES (ARRIAN)
His body was beautiful, and well proportion’d; his Mind brisk and Active; his Courage wonderful. He was strong enough to undergo Hardships, and willing to meet Dangers; ever ambitious of Glory, and a strict observer of Religious Duties. As to those Pleasures which regarded the Body, he shewed himself indifferent; as to the Desires of the Mind, insatiable. In his Counsels he was sharp-sighted, and cunning; and pierc’d deep into doubtful Matters, by the Force of his natural Sagacity. In marshalling, arming, and governing an Army, he was thoroughly skill’d; and famous for exciting his Soldiers with Courage, and animating them with Hopes of Success, as also in dispelling their private Fears, by his own Example of Magnanimity. He always enter’d upon desperate Attempts with the utmost Resolution and Vigour, and was ever diligent in taking any Advantage of his Enemies’ Delay, and falling upon him unawares. He was a most strict observer of his Treaties; notwithstanding which he was never taken at a Disadvantage, by any Craft or Perfidy of his Enemies. He was sparing in his Expenses, for his own Private Pleasures, but in the distribution of his Bounty to his Friends, Liberal and Magnificent.
If anything can be laid to Alexander’s Charge, as committed in the heat and violence of Wrath, or if he may be said to have imitated the Barbarian Pride a little too much, and bore himself too haughtily, I cannot think them such vast Crimes; and especially when one calmly considers his green Years, and uninterrupted Series of Success, it will appear no great Wonder if Court Sycophants, who always flatter Princes to their Detriment, sometimes led him away. But this must be said, in his behalf, that all Antiquity has not produced an Example of such sincere Repentance, in a King, as he has shewed us. I cannot condemn Alexander for endeavouring to draw his Subjects into the Belief of his Divine Original, because ’tis reasonable to imagine he intended no more by it, than to procure the greater Authority among his Soldiers. Neither was he less famous than Minos, or Æacus, or Rhadamanthus, who, all of them challeng’d Kindred with Jove; and none of the ancients condemn’d them for it; nor were his glorious Actions any way inferior to those of Theseus, or Ion, tho’ the former claim’d Neptune, and the latter Apollo, for his Father. His assuming and wearing the Persian Habit, seems to have been done with a political View, that he might appear not altogether to despise the Barbarians, and that he might also have some Curb to the Arrogance and Insolence of his Macedonians. And for this Cause, I am of Opinion, he plac’d the Persian Melophori among his Macedonian Troops, and Squadrons of Horse, and allow’d them the same share of Honour. Long Banquets, and deep Drinking, Aristobulus assures us, were none of his Delights; neither did he prepare Entertainments for the sake of the Wine (which he did not greatly love, and seldom drank much of) but to Rub up a mutual Amity among his Friends.
Whoever therefore attempts to condemn, or calumniate Alexander, does not so much ground his Accusation upon those Acts of his, which really deserve Reproof, but gathers all his Actions as into one huge Mass, and forms his Judgment thereupon: But let any Man consider seriously who he was, what Success he always had, and to what a pitch of Glory he arrived; who, without Controversy, reigned King of both Continents, and whose Name has spread through all Parts of the habitable World; and he will easily conclude, that in comparison of his great and laudable Acts, his Vices and Failings are few and trifling, and which, in so prodigious a Run of Prosperity, if they could be avoided, (considering his Repentance and Abhorrence of them afterwards) may easily be overlooked, and are not of Weight sufficient to cast a Shade upon his Reign.
I am persuaded there was no Nation, City, nor People then in being whither his Name did not reach, for which Reason, whatever Origin he might boast of or claim to himself, there seems to me to have been some Divine Hand presiding both over his Birth and Actions, insomuch, that no mortal upon Earth either excel’d or equal’d him.[b]
HIS FAVOUR WITH FORTUNE (ÆLIANUS)
Commendable and renowned be the actes of Alexander which he dyd at Granicus and Issus. His foughten field at Arbeles, the taking of Darius, the subduing of the Persians to the Macedonians, the conquering of al Asia, the bringyng of the Indians under his owne dominion, etc. Lawdible be his feats of armes donne at Tyrus, and Oxydacris: But what meane we to comprehend in a skantlyng of lynes the puisaunce of so incomparable a Prince? let it be as some envyous varlets and backbiting tonges woulde have it, that the prosperous successe of his adventures is to be attributed to Fortune, what of that? yet is he notable and praiseworthy notwithstanding, insomuch as his fortune never fainted nor fayled, and in that hee was lulled in the lappe of so loving a Lady that she never withdrew her favour from him.[c]
IF ALEXANDER HAD ATTEMPTED ROME (LIVY)
[When the historian of Rome, old Livy, was writing of the comparatively obscure general, Papirius Cursor, the fact that he was contemporary with Alexander and would have had to meet him had he come against Italy, led Livy to breathe so Roman a defiance to the world-conqueror that we must needs quote it here, preferably in the old-fashioned garb of the anonymous translation of 1686.]
Without doubt in that Age, which yielded as great plenty of gallant Captains as any, there was not a Person on whom the State of Rome did more rely and depend, insomuch, as some Writers have concluded, that he [Papirius Cursor] would have been an equal match to the Great Alexander, if after the Conquest of Asia, he had bent his Arms against Europe.
Now although from the beginning of this Work it may sufficiently appear, that I have sought nothing less than Digressions from the just order and series of the Story; nor have at all endeavored, by extravagant Varieties, to garnish it, or with pleasant Sallies to divert the Reader and refresh myself; yet happening upon the mention of so great a King, and so renowned a Captain, I could not but be moved to disclose and set down those thoughts which have oft occur’d to my mind, and inquire a little, What event would probably have succeeded to the Roman Affairs, had they happened to have been engaged with this Illustrious Conqueror. As the Roman State bore up against other Kings and Nations, so it might have prov’d to him also Invincible. To begin with ballancing the Commanders one against another, I do not deny but Alexander was an excellent Leader, but that which enhanc’d his Fame, was, That he was a sole and Soveraign Commander; a young Man, his Sails always full blown with prosperous Gales, and one who dyed before ever he had labored under any of the frowns of Fortune. For to omit other glorious Princes and renowned Captains, illustrious Examples of the uncertainty of Humane Grandeur: What was it that exposed Cyrus (whom the Greeks so highly magnifie) or our great Pompey of late, to the turning Wheel of Fortune, but only this, That they lived long? On the other side, Let us take a review of the Roman Commanders, I mean not through all Ages, but such as being Consuls or Dictators about those times, Alexander must have engaged with, if he had spread his Ensigns this way; there were M. Valerius Corvinus, C. Marcius Rutilus, C. Sulpicius, T. Manlius Torquatus, Q. Publilius Philo, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, the two Decii, L. Volumnius, Manlius Curius, besides abundance of prodigious Warriors that succeeded afterwards; if he had first set upon the Carthaginians, (as he was resolv’d to have done, if he had not been prevented by Death) and so had arriv’d in Italy when well stricken in years. Each one of these was master of as good Parts and natural Abilities, as Alexander, and had the advantage of being train’d up in an incomparable Military Discipline, which having been delivered from hand to hand ever since the foundation of their City, was now by continual Precepts arriv’d to the perfection of an Art. And whereas, Alexander often hazarded his Person, and underwent all Military toils and dangers (which was one thing that not a little added to his Glory:) can it be thought, that if Manlius Torquatus, or Valerius Corvinus, had chanc’d to meet him at the head of his Troops, either of them would not have prov’d a Match for him, who were both of them famous for stout Soldiers before ever they had Commands? Would the Decii, that rush’d with devoted Bodies into the midst of the Enemy, have been afraid of him? Would Papirius Cursor, that mighty Man both for strength of Body and gallantry of Mind, have declined to cope with him? Was it likely that a single young Gentleman should out-wit or manage his Affairs with greater prudence than that Senate which he only, whoever he was, had a right Idea of, that said, “It consisted altogether of Kings”?
Here, forsooth, was the danger, lest he should more advantagiously choose his Ground to Encamp on, provide Victuals more carefully, prevent Surprizes and Stratagems more warily, know better when to venture a Battel, range his Army more Soldier-like, or strengthen it with Reserves and Recruits, better than any of those whom I have named knew how to do: Alas! in all these matters, he would have confess’d he had not to deal with a Darius, over whom, being attended with a vast Train of Women and Eunuchs, softened with wearing gold and Purple, and clogg’d with the superfluous Furniture of his luxurious Fortune, he did indeed obtain an unbloody Victory, meeting rather with a Booty than an Enemy, and had only this to boast of, That he durst handsomely contemn such an abundance of Vanity.
He would have had another kind of prospect in Italy than in India, through which he march’d at his ease with a drunken Army, Feasting and Revelling all the way: But here he must have met with the thick woody Forrest, and almost unpassable Streights of Apulia; the lofty Mountains of Lucania, and fresh Tokens of a late Defeat that happen’d to his own Name and Family, where his Uncle Alexander, King of the Epirotes, was hewn to pieces.
We speak hitherto of Alexander, not yet debauch’d with excess of good Fortune, wherein never any Man had less command of himself than he: But if we consider him in his new Habit, and that new Nature, (if I may call it so) which he took up after he had a while been flush’d with Victories, we may avow he would have come into Italy, more like a Darius than an Alexander, and brought with him a bastard Army, altogether degenerated from the Macedonian courage and manners, into the debauches and effeminacies of the Persians. I am asham’d, in so great a Monarch as he was, to relate his proud humors of changing so oft his Garb; his excessive vain-glory, in expecting that Men should adore him by casting themselves prostrate at his feet, when-ever they approached him; his barbarous Cruelties and Butcheries of his nearest Friends amongst his Cups and Banquets, and that ridiculous Vanity of forging a Divine Pedigree, and boasting himself the Son of Jupiter. Nay more, since his Drunkenness and Greediness of wine, his savage Passions and cholerick Phrensies did every day increase (I report nothing but what all Authors agree in), shall we not think that his Abilities, as a General, must quickly have decayed and been wonderfully impaired?
But here perhaps was the danger (which some little trifling Greeks who would cry up the glory even of the Parthians, to depress the Roman name, are often wont to alledge) That the People of Rome would never have been able to endure the very Majesty and dread of Alexanders Name (whom indeed I am apt to think they then scarce ever heard of:) Let us conceit as magnificently as may be of this Prince, yet still it will be but the Grandeur of one Man, acquir’d in little more than twelve Years continued Felicity; and whereas some extol it highly on his Account, That the Romans, though never worsted in any War, have yet been defeated in divers Battels, whereas Fortune was never wanting to Alexander in any one encounter, they do not consider that they are comparing the Exploits of one particular Man, and he too but a Youth, with the atchievements of a People that have now been involv’d in Wars eight hundred years.
You ought rather to compare Man with Man, Captain with Captain, than the Fortune of one with the other. How many Roman Generals may I name, that never suffer’d a Repulse in their days? We can run over whole Pages in the Annals of our Magistrates, full of Consuls and Dictators, whose Success as well as Virtue, was such, as they never gave the Common-wealth so much as one days grief or discontentment. And that which makes them yet to be more admired than Alexander, or any other King in the World; some of them held their Office of Dictator not above ten or twenty days, and none the Consulship beyond a year: Their Levies were often obstructed by the Tribunes of the Commons, so that they set forth too late; and sometimes for holding the Court for Elections, they were sent for home too soon: In the hurry of Affairs the Year was apt to be wheel’d about, and then they must leave all to new Instruments; now the rashness, another time the dishonesty of a Colleague, was either a great hindrance to their Success, or perhaps occasion’d a mischief. Many times they succeeded after the defeat of their Predecessors, or receiv’d a raw and undisciplin’d Army: From all which inconveniences Kings are not only free, but absolute Masters both of their Enterprizes, and the times and means they will take to accomplish them, leading all things by their Councils, and not following them. Had therefore this unconquered Alexander been engaged against these unconquered Captains, he would have hazarded all those past pleasures of Fortunes favor; nay, in this the danger would have been greater, that the Macedonians had but one Alexander, and he not only obnoxious to many Casualties, but voluntarily exposing himself to frequent Dangers. But the Romans had many that were Alexanders equals, both for Glory and the grandeur of their Atchievements, each of whom, might according to his peculiar Fate, either live or dye, without at all endangering the Publick.
It remains now to ballance the Forces on each side, and that neither in respect of numbers, quality of the Soldiers, or the multitude of their Allies and Auxiliaries. There were numbered of Romans in the Surveys taken by the Censors of that Age, two hundred and fifty thousand Polls; and therefore in all the revolts of the Latines, they were able to levy Ten Legions, and that too almost wholly in the City; and frequently in those times, four or five distinct Armies were kept on foot at once, which maintained Wars in Etruria, in Umbria, with the Gauls (Confederates with the Enemy) in Samnium and in Lucania: On the other side, he must have cross’d the Sea, having of old Macedonian Bands not above Thirty thousand Foot, and four thousand Horse, and those most of them Thessalians; for this was the total of his Force when he appeared most formidable. If he should have added to these, Persians, Indians, or others out of his new Conquests, they would but more encumber rather than assist him. Then the Romans had Supplies at hand to reinforce them presently from home upon any accident; whereas Alexander (as it happened afterwards to Annibal), Warring in a remote foreign Country, his Army would have mouldered away apace, and could not readily have Recruits. The Macedonians had for their Arms, a Shield and a Spear like a Pike; the Romans, a large Target that skreen’d almost the whole Body, and a Javelin, a Weapon not a little more serviceable than the Spear, both to strike and push with, near hand, and also to be lanced at a distance. The Soldiers of each side were wont to stand firm, and keep their Ranks; the Macedonian Phalanx was immovable and uniform; but the Roman Battalions more distinct, and consisting of several Divisions, more ready to separate and close again upon any occasion.
A Patriotic Estimate of Rome’s Greatness
To speak now of labour and travel, What Soldier is comparable to the Roman? Who better able to hold out and endure all the fatigues of War? Alexander, worsted in one Battel, had been utterly undone: But what Power could have broken the Roman courage, whom neither the shameful disgrace at Caudium nor the fatal defeat at Cannæ, could in the least daunt or dispirit? Undoubtedly Alexander, although his first attempt should have prov’d prosperous, would often here have missed his Persians and his Indians; he would have wish’d to have been dealing again with the soft and cowardly Nations of Asia and confest, That before he only fought with Women, as King Alexander of Epirus is reported to have said, when he had here received his Death wound, reflecting upon those easie Occurents of War, which this young Prince (his Nephew) met with in Asia, in respect to those difficulties he himself had to struggle with in Italy.
And truly, when I consider that the Engagements at Sea between the Romans and Carthaginians in the first Punick War, took up no less than four and twenty years’ space, I am inclinable to conjecture, that the whole age of Alexander would not have been enough to have finish’d a War with either a one of those States. And since by antient Leagues they were then at Amity and in Alliance with each other, ’tis probable an equal apprehension of danger might have united them against the common Enemy: And what less could he then expect but to have been utterly overwhelm’d and crush’d by the joint Arms of two the most potent Republicks in the World? The Romans, though not indeed in the days of Alexander, or when the Macedonian Power was at heighth, have yet since try’d the courage of the Macedonians, under the conduct of Antiochus, Philip, and Perses, and came off not only without loss, but even without any danger or hazard.
It may seem a proud word, but without arrogance it is spoken, Let there be no Civil Wars amongst us; never can we be distressed by any Enemy, Horse or Foot; never in set Battel, never in plain equal ground, or places disadvantagious, outdone in Courage or Resolution. The Soldier I confess in heavy Armour, may be apprehensive of the Enemies Cavalry in a Champion Country, or be incommoded with Arrows shot from a distance, or embarrass’d in unpassable Woods, or Quarters, where provisions cannot be brought to them; but still let there be a thousand Armies greater and stronger than that of Alexander and his Macedonians, so long as we hold together, and continue that love of Peace, and prudent care of civil Concord, wherein we live at this day, we are able, and ever shall be, to rout and put them all to flight.[d]
HIS INVINCIBILITY (GROTE)
[Against Livy’s confidence in the Roman bulwark must be placed Grote’s trust in Alexander’s genius.]
Exalted to this prodigious grandeur, Alexander was at the time of his death little more than thirty-two years old--the age at which a citizen of Athens was growing into important commands; ten years less than the age for a consul at Rome; two years younger than the age at which Timur first acquired the crown, and began his foreign conquests. His extraordinary bodily powers were unabated; he had acquired a large stock of military experience; and what was still more important, his appetite for further conquest was as voracious, and his readiness to purchase it at the largest cost of toil or danger, as complete, as it had been when he first crossed the Hellespont. Great as his past career had been, his future achievements, with such increased means and experience, were likely to be yet greater. His ambition would have been satisfied with nothing less than the conquest of the whole habitable world as then known; and if his life had been prolonged, he would probably have accomplished it. Nowhere (so far as our knowledge reaches) did there reside any military power capable of making head against him; nor were his soldiers, when he commanded them, daunted or baffled by any extremity of cold, heat, or fatigue.
The patriotic feelings of Livy dispose him to maintain that Alexander, had he invaded Italy would have failed and perished like his relative, Alexander of Epirus. But this conclusion cannot be accepted. If we grant the courage and discipline of the Roman infantry to have been equal to the best infantry of Alexander’s army, the same cannot be said of the Roman cavalry as compared with the Macedonian companions. Still less is it likely that a Roman consul, annually changed, would have been found a match for Alexander in military genius and combinations; nor, even if personally equal, would he have possessed the same variety of troops and arms, each effective in its separate way, and all conspiring to one common purpose; nor the same unbounded influence over their minds in stimulating them to full effort. I do not think that even the Romans could have successfully resisted Alexander the Great; though it is certain that he never throughout all his long marches encountered such enemies as they, nor even such as Samnites and Lucanians--combining courage, patriotism, discipline, with effective arms both for defence and for close combat.
Among all the qualities which go to constitute the highest military excellence, either as a general or as a soldier, none was wanting in the character of Alexander. Together with his own chivalrous courage--sometimes indeed both excessive and unseasonable, so as to form the only military defect which can be fairly imputed to him--we trace in all his operations the most careful dispositions taken beforehand, vigilant precaution in guarding against possible reverse, and abundant resource in adapting himself to new contingencies. Amidst constant success, these precautionary combinations were never discontinued. His achievements are the earliest recorded evidence of scientific military organisation on a large scale, and of its overwhelming effects. Alexander overawes the imagination more than any other personage of antiquity, by the matchless development of all that constitutes effective force--as an individual warrior, and as organiser and leader of armed masses; not merely the blind impetuosity ascribed by Homer to Ares, but also the intelligent, methodised, and all-subduing compression which he personifies in Athene. But all his great qualities were fit for use only against enemies; in which category indeed were numbered all mankind, known and unknown, except those who chose to submit to him. In his Indian campaigns, amidst tribes of utter strangers, we perceive that not only those who stand on their defence, but also those who abandon their property and flee to the mountains, are alike pursued and slaughtered.
Apart from the transcendent merits of Alexander as a soldier and a general, some authors give him credit for grand and beneficent views on the subject of imperial government, and for intentions highly favourable to the improvement of mankind. I see no ground for adopting this opinion. As far as we can venture to anticipate what would have been Alexander’s future, we see nothing in prospect except years of ever-repeated aggression and conquest, not to be concluded until he had traversed and subjugated all the inhabited globe. The acquisition of universal dominion--conceived not metaphorically, but literally, and conceived with greater facility in consequence of the imperfect geographical knowledge of the time--was the master passion of his soul.
The Persian empire was a miscellaneous aggregate, with no strong feeling of nationality. The Macedonian conqueror who seized its throne was still more indifferent to national sentiment. He was neither Macedonian nor Greek. Though the absence of this prejudice has sometimes been counted to him as a virtue, it only made room, in my opinion, for prejudices yet worse. The substitute for it was an exorbitant personality and self-estimation, manifested even in his earliest years, and inflamed by extraordinary success into the belief in divine parentage; which, while setting him above the idea of communion with any special nationality, made him conceive all mankind as subjects under one common sceptre to be wielded by himself. To this universal empire the Persian king made the nearest approach, according to the opinions then prevalent. Accordingly Alexander, when victorious, accepted the position and pretensions of the overthrown Persian court as approaching most nearly to his full due. He became more Persian than either Macedonian or Greek. While himself adopting, as far as he could safely venture, the personal habits of the Persian court, he took studied pains to transform his Macedonian officers into Persian grandees, encouraging and even forcing intermarriages with Persian women according to Persian rites. At the time of Alexander’s death, there was comprised, in his written orders given to Craterus, a plan for the wholesale transportation of inhabitants both out of Europe into Asia, and out of Asia into Europe, in order to fuse these populations into one by multiplying intermarriages and intercourse. Such reciprocal translation of peoples would have been felt as eminently odious, and could not have been accomplished without coercive authority. It is rash to speculate upon unexecuted purposes; but, as far as we can judge, such compulsory mingling of the different races promises nothing favourable to the happiness of any of them, though it might serve as an imposing novelty and memento of imperial omnipotence.
In respect of intelligence and combining genius, Alexander was Hellenic to the full; in respect of disposition and purpose, no one could be less Hellenic. Instead of hellenizing Asia, he was tending to asiatise Macedonia and Hellas. His temper and character, as modified by a few years of conquest, rendered him quite unfit to follow the course recommended by Aristotle towards the Greeks--quite as unfit as any of the Persian kings, or as the French Emperor Napoleon, to endure that partial frustration, compromise, and smart from free criticism, which is inseparable from the position of a limited chief.[e]
Cox[f] in his General History of Greece sees a degeneration already set in foreshadowing his future, had he lived, and agrees with Grote[e] as to his asiatising tendency. “It may almost be said that the results which he had achieved were precisely those which would have followed if Xerxes had been the conqueror at Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale.”
HIS MEANNESS (MÉNARD AND ROLLIN)
“So ended he,” says Ménard, “whom they call Alexander the Great. Let the name stand; but he owed his greatness not to his personal qualities, to his own efforts, or to his genius, but, as Plutarch admitted, to Fortune. Never was there an example of a prosperity so infallible and so little deserved. But Fame is feminine; she measures merit by success. Alexander created a school; his personality encumbers history and usurps an enormous space. The decadence of Greece and the Roman decadence are filled up with pastiches and caricatures of him; even in modern times he has remained the type and the ideal of all warrior tyrants down to Louis XIV and Napoleon.
“The literature that makes his fame is for the most part of poor stuff. The Greeks of the imperial epoch, in order to console themselves for the grandeur of Rome, did their best to inflate the glory of Alexander. This theatrical hero is worth more to the rhetorician than a legislator like Solon or a statesman like Pericles. Men of letters of all countries and times have been overwhelmed by him and found in him the god of monarchic idolatry. Thanks are due to Rollin for having made some reservations. He who lived in the sunlight of royalty was not afraid to say that it was a poor compliment for a king to be compared to Alexander, ‘the least estimable of Plutarch’s great men.’ We hardly read Rollin nowadays and his judgments have little authority; they say that he lacked the power of historic criticism. Perhaps he did, but he had a right conscience, which is worth still more. He made history a school of moral instruction, and it is thus that later generations are formed strong and sane. Our grandfathers, who learned their history from Rollin, achieved the French Revolution.”[g]
It is interesting to refer directly to the pages of Rollin alluded to by Ménard. Rollin divides Alexander’s life into two distinct halves, the former all beautiful and brilliant; the latter in hideous contrast. We quote from his resumé of the latter and uglier half.[a]
His uninterrupted felicity, that never experienced adverse fortune, intoxicated and changed him to such a degree, that he no longer appeared the same man; and I do not remember that ever the poison of prosperity had a more sudden or more forcible effect than upon him.
Was ever enterprise more wild and extravagant, than that of crossing the sandy deserts of Libya; of exposing his army to the danger of perishing with thirst and fatigue; of interrupting the course of his victories, and giving his enemy time to raise a new army, merely for the sake of marching so far, in order to get himself named the son of Jupiter Ammon; and purchase, at so dear a rate, a title which could only render him contemptible?
It appears to me that to the battle of Issus and the siege of Tyre inclusive, it cannot be denied, but that Alexander was a great warrior and an illustrious general. But I much doubt, whether, during these his first exploits, he ought to be set above his father; whose actions, though not so dazzling, are however as much applauded by good judges, and those of the military profession. Philip, at his accession to the throne, found all things unsettled. He himself was obliged to lay the foundations of his own fortune, and was not supported by the least foreign assistance. He alone raised himself to the power and grandeur to which he afterwards attained. He was obliged to train up, not only his soldiers, but his officers; to instruct them in all the military exercises; to inure them to the fatigues of war; and to his care and abilities alone, Macedonia owed the rise of the celebrated phalanx, that is, of the best troops the world had then ever seen, and to which Alexander owed all his conquests. How many obstacles stood in Philip’s way before he could possess himself of the power which Athens, Sparta, and Thebes had successively exercised over Greece! The Greeks, who were the bravest people in the universe, would not acknowledge him for their chief, till he acquired that title by wading through seas of blood, and by gaining numberless conquests over them. Thus we see, that the way was prepared for Alexander’s executing his great design; the plan whereof, and most excellent instructions relative to it, had been laid down for him by his father. Now, will it not appear a much easier task to subdue Asia with Grecian armies, than to subject the Greeks who had so often triumphed over Asia?
It must be confessed, that the actions of this prince diffuse a splendour that dazzles and astonishes the imagination, which is ever fond of the great and marvellous. His enthusiastic courage raises and transports all who read his history, as it transported himself. But ought we to give the name of bravery and valour to a boldness that is equally blind, rash, and impetuous; a boldness void of all rule, that will never listen to the voice of reason, and has no other guide than a senseless ardour for false glory, and a wild desire of distinguishing itself at any price? This character suits only a military robber, who has no attendants; whose own life is alone exposed; and who, for that reason, may be employed in some desperate action; but the case is far otherwise with regard to a king, who owes his life to all his army and his whole kingdom. True valour is not desirous of displaying itself, is no ways anxious about its own reputation, but is solely intent on preserving the army.
Do any of these characteristics suit Alexander? When we peruse his history and follow him to sieges and battles, we are perpetually alarmed for his safety, and that of his army; and conclude every moment that they are upon the point of being destroyed. Here we see a rapid flood, which is going to draw in and swallow up this conqueror: there we behold a craggy rock, which he climbs, and perceives round him soldiers, either transfixed by the enemy’s darts, or thrown headlong by huge stones from precipices. We tremble when we perceive in a battle the axe just ready to cleave his head; and much more when we behold him alone in a fortress, whither his rashness had drawn him, exposed to all the javelins of the enemy. Alexander was ever persuaded, that miracles would be wrought in his favour, than which nothing could be more unreasonable, as Plutarch observes; miracles do not always happen; and the gods at last are weary of guiding and preserving rash mortals, who abuse the assistance they afford them.
Alexander seems possessed of such qualities only as are of the second rank, I mean those of war, and these are all extravagant; are carried to the rashest and most odious excess, and to the extremes of folly and fury; whilst his kingdom is left a prey to the rapine and exactions of Antipater; and all the conquered provinces abandoned to the insatiable avarice of the governors, who carried their oppressions so far, that Alexander was forced to put them to death.
Nor do his soldiers appear to be better regulated; for these, having plundered the wealth of the East, after the prince had given them the highest marks of his beneficence, grew so licentious, so disorderly, so debauched and abandoned to vices of every kind, that he was forced to pay their debts by a largess of £1,500,000.
What strange men were these! how depraved their school! how pernicious the fruit of their victories![h]
HIS EVIL INFLUENCE (NIEBUHR)
Alexander is for the East, what Charlemagne is for the West; and, next to Rustam, he is the chief hero of the Persian fairy tales and romances. To us also he is a man of extraordinary importance, inasmuch as he gave a new appearance to the whole world. He began what will now be completed, in spite of all obstacles--the dominion of Europe over Asia; he was the first that led the victorious Europeans to the East. Asia had played its part in history, and was destined to become the slave of Europe. He has also become the national hero of the Greeks, although he was as foreign to them as Napoleon was to the French, notwithstanding that he traced his family to the mythical heroes of Greece.
But his personal character will appear to us in a different light. Many a rhetorician, even in antiquity, formed a correct judgment of him. Who does not know the story of the pirate, who was condemned to death by Alexander, and, on being brought before him, said, that there was no difference between them! The Orientals still call him, “Alexander the robber.” I will not judge of him from this point of view, for the whole history of the world turns upon war and conquest; I speak only of his personal character. But, without agreeing with the declamations which have so often been made about him, I unhesitatingly declare, that I have formed a very unfavourable opinion of him. When I behold a young man, who, in his twentieth year, ascends the throne, after having conspired against his father--who then displays in his policy a cruelty like that of the house of the Medici in the sixteenth century, like Cosmo de Medici and his two sons--who not only sacrifices his step-mother to Olympias, but causes the innocent infant of the unhappy Cleopatra, as well as several other near relatives, to be murdered (we do not know their names, as Arrian skilfully evades mentioning them)--who despatched all that knew anything of his complicity, as well as those who had previously offended him--such a young man is condemned for all time to come.
Plutarch shows a foolish and unfounded partiality towards him, and such was universally the case among the Greeks. His drunkenness cannot be denied, and with it they excuse his murders, as, for example, that of Clitus; and, in order poetically to complete the indescribable folly committed by later Greeks, they compare him with Dionysus. But his drunkenness does not account for all he did. He caused the most innocent and most faithful servant, the best general of his father, to be maliciously assassinated in a truly oriental manner; the man had been frank and open, and knew that Alexander was what he was through him. The murder of his friend Clitus, who told him the truth, was a fearful act. I do not comprehend how persons can excuse Alexander by saying, that he was an unusually great man; if he was so, was he not then responsible for his unusually great powers? All his actions, which are praised as generous, are of a theatrical nature and mere ostentation. His friendship for Aristotle did not save Callisthenes. His attachment to Hephæstion was not friendship, but a disgrace. His generosity towards the captive Persian princesses is nothing extraordinary; if it be not ostentation, it is something quite natural, and of everyday occurrence; but it is mere ostentation.
It must, indeed, be acknowledged that Alexander is a most remarkable phenomenon; but the praise bestowed on him can apply only to his great intelligence and his talents. He was altogether an extraordinary man, with the vision of a prophet, a power for which Napoleon also was greatly distinguished; when he came to a place, he immediately perceived its capability and its destination; he had the eye which makes the practical man. If we had no other example of the keenness of his judgment, the fact that he built Alexandria would alone furnish sufficient evidence; he discovered the point which was destined, for fifteen hundred years, to form the link between Egypt, Europe, and Asia. It is impossible not to concede to him the praise of a great general. Nay, a most competent judge, Hannibal, declared him to be the greatest general. It must not, however, be forgotten, that he had most excellent instruments--distinguished generals, and a splendid army. If he had had to create his army, his undertaking would not have succeeded so well. Parmenion, Philotas, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus were all distinguished captains, all proceeded from the school of his father, and had acquired great reputation even under him; and, if we except the single Eumenes, we may assert, that no great commander was trained under Alexander. In like manner, King Frederick II inherited an army already trained by his father; and most of his generals had served in the army before his time.
Alexander undertook the Asiatic expedition as a true adventurer. He himself adopted the most contemptible pomp of eastern despotism, and took pleasure in the vanities and follies of the Persians; the Orientals, who were accustomed to prostrate themselves before him, were his darlings. He forgot the respect due to his old soldiers, and demanded of them, who were free men, the prostration of the Persians.
His worthless friend Hephæstion died; and Alexander celebrated his burial in a manner which showed utter senselessness and absurdity, in his prodigality and in his perpetration of oriental horrors. In order to offer to the deceased a worthy sacrifice, he undertook an expedition against a free people of mountaineers, and extirpated the whole nation; and according to a truly eastern fashion, he slaughtered all the prisoners in honour of his deceased friend. All that is related of this period is disgraceful; insensible to all that is good, and dissatisfied with himself, he abandoned himself more and more to frightful drunkenness. He offered prizes for the best drinkers, and an ἀγὼν πολυποσίας ended with some thirty persons drinking themselves to death: a proceeding which we can contemplate only with the most complete disgust.
Perhaps no man has personally exercised a greater historical influence than Alexander; this cannot be questioned. But what influence he exercised, and whether it was beneficial, is a question on which opinions are divided. In regard to Greece, his conquests were altogether injurious. Through him the Greek nation was, as it were, seized with consumption, for he reduced its numbers immensely. A vast number of recruits must have gone from Greece and Macedonia to India and Upper Asia, whom he forever withdrew from their country by assigning to them settlements in those countries. It lay in the nature of things, that Greece should be lost, and should fall into a state of complete weakness, when a new wealthy and military state arose by the side of it. Even the good which arose from the establishment of this Macedonio-Asiatic empire, was injurious to Greece. Commerce was transferred to Alexandria; and Athens ceased to be spoken of as a commercial city. Alexander’s influence upon the nearer and remoter parts of conquered Asia was different in different countries. Upon Egypt it was beneficial, for that country was evidently better off under the Ptolemies than it had been under the Persians. The first three Macedonian kings of Egypt were excellent princes, and raised the country to a degree of prosperity, which it never enjoyed either before or after: and that period was sufficient for such a country to heal its ancient wounds.
Alexander’s contemporaries among the Greeks were not mistaken as to the influence which he exercised. He died detested and cursed by Greece and Macedonia. If he had lived longer, he would perhaps himself have seen the downfall of the structure he had reared. He could not be otherwise than active and stirring, and he could not have gone on without bringing ruin upon himself. His intention was not to hellenise Asia, but to make Greece Persian; hence if he had longer remained in Asia, we should have seen the formation of a Græco-Persico-Macedonian empire. As he wanted to arm the Greeks and Macedonians in the Persian fashion, those nations would afterwards probably have revolted and put him to death. The only means by which Greece might have been saved, and have recovered its liberty, would have been, if Alexander had passed through the natural course of his life, and had fallen with the glory of his exploits.[i]
HIS MOTIVES (DROYSEN)
[Bishop Thirlwall[k] sees great benefits from Alexander’s conquests, but doubts if they were all intentional with him, or largely the accidents of his success. Droysen feels no doubt as to the presence of sharply definite motives and large policies in Alexander’s mind.]
“That the soul of this king was built on a scale that surpassed human measure,” Polybius says, “is an opinion in which all agree.” His strength of will, his wide vision, his intellectual pre-eminence are proved by his deeds and the strict, the rigid, logic of their consistency. What his desire was, and what his conception of his work (a fair judge will wish no other measure), this is something one can approximately learn only from such parts of his work as he was allowed to realise. Alexander was versed in the highest culture and knowledge of his time; he would have cherished no meaner opinion of a king’s calling than the “master of those who know.” But for him, unlike his great teacher, the thought of what monarchy was and the “monarch’s duty as watchman” did not logically lead to the necessity of treating barbarians like animals and plants. Nor would it have been his opinion that his Macedonians had been trained to arms from his father’s time in order that they might be, in the philosopher’s language, “masters over those who were fitly slaves”; still less that first his father, and then he himself, had forced the Greeks into the Corinthian federation, that they might plunder defenceless Asia, squeeze it dry with their exquisite selfishness and their shameless intrigues.
He had dealt Asia a terrible blow. He would remember the spear of his ancestor Achilles. He would recognise that the grace of the true spear of royalty lay in its power to heal the wounds it made. With the annihilation of the old kingdom, with the death of Darius, he became heir to the empire over unnumbered peoples who had been governed till then as slaves. A labour it was, worthy of a king indeed, to free them so far as they could understand or learn of freedom, to preserve and further them in whatever they enjoyed of laudable and sound, to respect and spare them in whatever was sacred in their eyes and whatever was their very own. He must know how to propitiate, how to win them, that they too may be made to share the burden of the empire which is gradually to unite them with the Greek world. Such a monarchy could permit no mention of conquerors and conquered when once the victory was won; it must wipe out from men’s memory the distinction between Greek and barbarian.
There lay on this road difficulties immeasurable--much that was arbitrary, much that was violent, unnatural--they seemed to make the undertaking impossible. But him they did not stop nor perplex; they only heightened the vehemence of his will, and stiffened the rigid and conscious assurance of his dealings. The work which he had undertaken in the exaltation of youth possessed him; gathering like an avalanche it swept him on; ruin, devastation, fields of dead, marked his progress; with the world that he conquered, there came a change over his army, over his surroundings, over the man himself. He passed on like a tempest, he saw only his aim, and in that his justification.
The majority misunderstood and disapproved of what the king did or left undone. While Alexander tried all means to win the conquered and make them forget their conquerors in the Macedonians, many of his followers in their insolence and their selfishness calmly claimed the conquerors’ ruthless right of violence. While Alexander received with the same graciousness the genuflexions of Persian magnates and the congratulatory missions with which Greece honoured him, accepting alike the worship which the orientals considered they owed him, and the military acclamations of his phalanxes, they would have liked to see themselves as the equal of their king, and everything else far below them in the dust of humility. And while they themselves yielded to all the luxuriousness and licentiousness of Asiatic life, so far as the camp and the vicinity of their openly disapproving king permitted--yielded with no other object besides the gratification of appetites run mad--they took it ill of their king that he wore the Median dress and affected the Persian court functions, wherein the millions of Asia recognised and worshipped him as their god and king.[l]
HIS EFFECT ON FEDERALISATION (PÖHLMANN)
[Every one admits that the lack of unity among the Greek towns was the cause of evils innumerable, and that some form of federation was vitally needed. Many have felt that Alexander furnished the needed unifaction by his centralised empire; but Pöhlmann is of contrary mind.]
Droysen’s peculiar way of seeing history has led him greatly to overrate the blessings of the new federal régime. It is true that in Hellas, under the old party names of aristocrat and democrat, the hostile interests of rich and poor were engaged in a pitiless and passionate struggle, and, if we consider the decomposition that was killing the life of communities, a monarchy would appear to be exactly what was needed to exercise a levelling and reconciliatory influence. But a kingdom of this national character, whose first aim would be to satisfy the most vital interests of the nation and create a true internal peace--such a kingdom was not at all the ideal of the Macedonian monarchy. So far from standing superior to party warfare, the monarchy supported itself by favouring the particular interests of that party which came over to the Macedonian camp. The immense emigration produced by the consequent oppression of those who belonged to the opposition, is proof enough that the new order did not produce a citizenship of inner peace, but, on the contrary, gave new food to the differences from which the communities suffered. So far as the policy of Philip was concerned, the object of the bond was attained when it brought the power of the Greek people into its own service; and even if the war against Persia had its national and Hellenic side, yet so early an authority as Polybius rightly and soberly judged that the Macedonian king was chiefly acting in the matter to satisfy a personal end. It is an illusion of Droysen’s to imagine that this subjection of Greece to a policy which was, by its nature, bound to serve dynastic and personal interests, at the same time secured to the Greeks a common national policy.
The consolidation of the new world power was a consequence of Alexander’s irresistible and victorious progress through the heart of the Persian kingdom. His policy was to bring about a new “Hellenistic” régime which should lead to a peaceful blending of Greek and barbarian, and the object was to be gained by putting the oriental and the Græco-Macedonian elements on an equality in army and administration--setting Asiatics, for example, as satraps beside European military governors and treasury officers. He triumphed over opposition, which he encountered chiefly in the army.
This policy was certainly an inevitable consequence of his undertaking and of the conditions which were necessary to its success; but need he have so exaggerated it as to make a complete return to the traditions of oriental despotism? This is a question we do not find so easy to answer in the affirmative, as Droysen does, for he sees nothing but “prejudice” in the resistance which Alexander’s claims to apotheosis and genuflexion encountered in the old Macedonian spirit and the Greek love of freedom.
As Ranke rightly declared, it meant a complete break with their entire national history that the Greeks as well should be subjected to the sway of an authority which was no other than that against which they had warred for centuries. Certainly the “city” had outlived its time as the final political unit. The needs of the day called for “an ascent from the city constitution to state constitutions,” in which the cities themselves would enjoy only a communal independence. But then they must, to use Droysen’s own words, “find in the universal bond their right and their safeguard.” And this safeguard could be offered by no orientalising despotism.[n]
HIS HERITAGE (HEGEL)
Alexander had the good fortune to die at the proper time--i.e., it may be called good fortune, but it is rather a necessity. That he may stand before the eyes of posterity as a youth, an early death must hurry him away. Achilles begins the Greek world, and his antitype Alexander concludes it: and these youths not only supply a picture of the fairest kind in their own persons, but at the same time afford a complete and perfect type of Hellenic existence. Alexander finished his work and completed his ideal; and thus bequeathed to the world one of the noblest and most brilliant of visions, which our poor reflections only serve to obscure. For the great world-historical form of Alexander, the modern standard applied by recent historical “Philistines”--that of virtue or morality--will by no means suffice. And if it be alleged in depreciation of his merit, that he had no successor, and left behind no dynasty, we may remark that the Greek kingdoms that arose in Asia after him are his dynasty. The Græco-Bactrian kingdom lasted for two centuries. Thence the Greeks came into connection with India, and even with China. The Greek dominion spread itself over northern India. Other Greek kingdoms arose in Asia Minor, in Armenia, in Syria, and Babylonia. But Egypt especially, among the kingdoms of the successors of Alexander, became a great centre of science and art; for a great number of its architectural works belong to the time of the Ptolemies, as has been made out from the deciphered inscriptions. Alexandria became the chief centre of commerce--the point of union for Eastern manners and tradition with Western civilisation. Besides these, the Macedonian kingdom, that of Thrace, stretching beyond the Danube, that of Illyria, and that of Epirus, flourished under the sway of Greek princes.[m]
ALEXANDER’S TRUE GLORY (WHEELER)
If a man’s life-work is to be judged only by what he erects into formal organisation, then we must pronounce the career of Alexander a failure, and more than a failure. He had dismantled what he found, and built nothing sure in its place. His dream of fusing the East and the West had been fulfilled and embodied in no visible institution, no form of government or law, of state or church. Greece, Egypt, and the Orient were still in government asunder.
No wonder that historians have written the story of Greece--among them great names like Niebuhr and Grote--and seen nothing more in the career of Alexander than a brilliant disturbance of the world’s order, an enthronement of militarism, an annihilation of Greek liberty, and an undoing of Greece in all that makes her life of interest to the world. It is another thing that their blindness could see in Alexander himself only a mad opportunist and greedy conqueror, whose life, had it been spared, could have wrought no more than further conquest; for Alexander was of all things an idealist, and they who have not read that in the story of his life, may as well not have read it at all. Grote and Demosthenes are, each in his way, types of historians and statesmen who have spent their strength in deploring the waste of goodly seed-corn scattered on the fields, their eyes turned towards the former harvest, not the next. The old maxims, the old creeds, and the good old times are reasserted, defended, and bewailed long after they have passed to their larger fruitage in the unfolding of a larger life.
When Alexander’s career began, the culture of the world, fixed in two main types, the feminine and the masculine, if we may broadly characterise them so, was still centralised and located, on the one hand in the wealth and settled industrial life of the Mesopotamian and the Egyptian river valleys, on the other in the free energy of the old Greek city communities. When his career ended, the barrier separating these domains had been broken down, never to be raised again.
Man as a base line for measuring the universe, man as a source of governing power, arose in Greece; it was Greece that shaped the law of beauty from which came the arts of form, the law of speculative truth from which by ordered observations came the sciences, and the law of liberty from which came the democratic state. This was what the old Greece held in keeping for the world. Alexander was the strong wind that scattered the seed; again, he was the willing hand of the sower.
The story of Alexander has become a story of death. He died, himself, before his time. With his life he brought the old Greece to its end; with his death, the state he had founded. But they all three, Alexander, Greece, the Grand Empire, each after its sort, set forth, as history judges men and things, the inner value of the saying, “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone.”[o]
LVIII. GREECE DURING THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER
The great conqueror is so much more of a cosmopolitan than a Greek that it has been possible and advisable to trace his career as a unit almost without alluding to the little territory his father had been so anxious to acquire and appease. But Greece, never quiet, was not stagnant during the absence of Alexander; and before taking up the tangle of the successors of Alexander, it will be well to glance at the activities of the Grecians and their futile restiveness.[a]
The springs of that policy among the Grecian republics, which produced war against Alexander in Greece itself while he was prosecuting the war of the Grecian confederacy against Persia--nowhere declared by ancient writers, but seeming rather studiously involved in mist by some of them--may nevertheless, by a careful examination of information remaining, in a great degree be traced.
Nothing in ancient history remains more fully ascertained than that, under the Macedonian supremacy, the Grecian republics enjoyed, not only more liberty and independency than under the Athenian or Lacedæmonian supremacy, but, as far as appears, all that could be consistent with the connection of all as one people. Nor did it rest there; Demosthenes, in the Athenian assembly, reviled the Macedonian monarchs, the allies of his commonwealth, the heads of the Grecian confederacy, in a manner that in modern times would be reckoned highly indecent towards an enemy; and he avowed and even boasted of treasonable practices against the general confederacy, of which his commonwealth was a member. “I,” he said, “excited Lacedæmon against Alexander: I procured the revolt against him in Thessaly and Perrhæbia.” In fact the government of Athens, described, as we have formerly seen, by Xenophon and Isocrates as in their time verging towards anarchy, is largely shown, in the extant works of following orators, and especially in the celebrated contest between Æschines and Demosthenes, to have been still advancing in corruption and degradation. During the whole time that Alexander was in Asia, the struggle of parties was violent--one, under Demosthenes, with the support of Persia, contended ably and indefatigably for the mastery of Athens and of Greece; the other, after Isocrates, looking to Phocion as their leader, desired peace under the established supremacy of Macedonia, and above all things dreaded the ascendency of Demosthenes and his associates.
[Sidenote: [333-331 B.C.]]
Of the domestic politics of Lacedæmon information rarely comes to us but through transactions with other states. Agis, the reigning king of the Proclidean family, whom we have seen already active in enmity to Macedonia, appears to have been a man of character to suit the purposes of Demosthenes. Possibly he was not much grieved, nor perhaps was Demosthenes, at the death of Memnon. Had Memnon lived, either could have been but second of the Greeks of the party; which could no way maintain itself but through the patronage of Persia. By Memnon’s death indeed great advantages were lost, and a contest of far less hope for the party altogether remained. But in that contest Demosthenes reckoned, by his talents and his extensive political communication, to hold the first importance among the Greeks, while Agis reckoned himself effectually first, by his regal dignity and the old eminence of the Lacedæmonian state; both trusting that they should still not fail of support from Persia. Till the battle of Issus the hopes of both might reasonably run high; and evidently they were not abandoned on the adverse event of that battle.
Looking to facts acknowledged by all, we find the half-ruined state of Lacedæmon never ceasing to avow a political opposition, at length growing into open hostility to the confederacy of republics, constitutionally established under the lead of Macedonia; as constitutionally, it appears, as ever before under the lead of Lacedæmon, Athens, or Thebes. In Athens itself an opposition to the Macedonian interest was always openly maintained. Negotiation was carried on by Lacedæmon among the other republics with avowed hostile purpose, and adverse intrigue from Athens appears to have been no secret. Against this open political hostility no interference of force has been even pretended to have been used; and, in all appearance, hardly so much opposition of influence as honest prudence might require. Negligence, inertness, short-sightedness, may seem, with more reason, to be imputed; yet they never have been imputed to Antipater, to whom the government of Macedonia and the protection of the Macedonian party in Greece were committed. While then the Macedonian supremacy, if not remissly, was liberally exercised, the party interests in every Grecian state, the inveterate hatred everywhere of fellow-citizens to fellow-citizens, and the generally active and restless temper of the Grecian people afforded ground for that league against the confederacy of the Greek nations acknowledging the lead of Macedonia, which Demosthenes and Agis succeeded in forming.
CONFEDERACY AGAINST MACEDONIA
[Sidenote: [331-330 B.C.]]
It is beyond question that Persian gold, imputed by all writers, greatly promoted the Persian interest. It appears to have been after the disastrous battle of Arbela, when the Persian monarch’s hope even of personal safety depended on opportunity to raise new enemies to Alexander, that he found means to make remittances to Greece. Æschines, uncontradicted by Demosthenes, stated before the assembled Athenian people, as a matter publicly known and not to be gainsaid, that a present to them of three hundred talents (about sixty thousand pounds) was offered in the name of the king of Persia. The prevalence of Phocion’s party however at the time sufficed to procure a refusal of the disgraceful offer.
But in Peloponnesus the Persian party, under the lead of the king of Lacedæmon, for whom there was no difficulty in taking subsidies from the Persian court, obtained superiority. Argos and Messenia were inveterately hostile to Lacedæmon, and were indeed neither by bribes nor threats to be gained. But all Elis, all Arcadia, except Megalopolis, and all Achaia, one small town only refusing, renounced the confederacy under the lead of Macedonia, and joined Lacedæmon in war, equally against Macedonia and all Grecian republics which might adhere to the confederacy. Beyond the peninsula the opposite politics generally prevailed; though in Athens Phocion’s party could do no more than maintain nominal adherence to engagement, and a real neutrality; the weight of the party of Demosthenes sufficing to prevent any exertion against the Lacedæmonian league.
That league however was not of such extent that it could be hoped, with the civic troops only of the several states, to support war against the general confederacy under the lead of Macedonia; and those states were not of wealth to maintain any considerable number of those, called mercenaries, ready to engage with any party. Nevertheless mercenary troops were engaged for that league, to the number, if the contemporary orator Dinarchus should be trusted, of ten thousand--Persia supplying the means, as Æschines, still uncontradicted by Demosthenes, affirms; and another source is hardly to be imagined. With such preparation and such support Agis ventured to commence offensive war. A small force of the opposing Peloponnesian states was overborne and destroyed or dispersed; siege was laid to the only adverse Arcadian city, Megalopolis, and its fall was expected daily.
Alexander was then in pursuit of Darius. Accounts of him received in Greece of course would vary: some reported him in the extreme north of Asia; others in India. Meanwhile revolt in Thessaly and Perrhæbia, excited by the able intrigues of Demosthenes, and, according to Diodorus,[c] also in Thrace, distressed Antipater; while it was a most imperious duty upon him, as vicegerent of the head of the Grecian confederacy, to protect the members of that confederacy, apparently the most numerous part of the nation, against the domestic enemy, supported by the great foreign enemy who threatened them.
WAR IN GREECE
Accounts remaining, both of the circumstances of the Macedonian kingdom at the time, and of following events, are very defective. But it appears indicated that no Macedonian force, that could be spared for war southward, would enable Antipater to meet Agis; and it was long before he could excite the republican Greeks, adverse to the Lacedæmonian and Persian interest, however dreading its prevalence, to assemble in arms in sufficient numbers. His success however in quelling the disturbances in Thessaly and Thrace, encouraging the zeal of that portion of the Greek nation which dreaded republican empire, whether democratical under Demosthenes or oligarchical under Agis, enabled him at length to raise superior numbers.
Megalopolis had resisted beyond expectation. Antipater, entering Peloponnesus to relieve that place, was met by Agis. A sanguinary battle ensued. The Lacedæmonians are said to have fought with all the obstinacy which their ancient institutions required, and which their ancient fame was adapted to inspire. But they were overborne: Agis, fighting at their head, with the spirit of a hero rather, apparently, than with the skill of a general, received a wound which disabled him, so that it was necessary to carry him out of the field. His troops, unable to resist superior numbers, directed by superior skill, took to flight. Diodorus relates that, pressed by the pursuing enemy, he peremptorily commanded his attendants to save themselves, and leave him with his arms; and that, disabled as he was, refusing quarter and threatening all who approached him, he fought till he was killed.
The conduct of the victor then was what became the delegate of the elected superintendent and protector of the liberties of Greece. The Lacedæmonian government, feeling its inability to maintain the war in which it was engaged, and the principal instigator being no more, sent a deputation to Antipater to treat for peace. Antipater, as deputy of the captain-general and vicegerent of the Greek nation, took nothing further upon himself than to summon a congress of the several republics to Corinth, to which he referred the Lacedæmonian ministers. There matters were much debated and various opinions declared. The decision at last, in the historian’s succinct account, appears not what might best become the wisdom and dignity of a nation accustomed to appreciate its ascertained privileges, or what ought to be such. Unable to agree upon a measure to afford precedent for future times, the resource was to decree that the Lacedæmonian state, submitting itself to the mercy of their great and magnanimous captain-general, should send fifty principal Spartans into Macedonia, as hostages to insure obedience to his decision. We owe to Curtius the additional probable information that the assembly set a fine of 120 talents [about £24,000 or $120,000] upon the Eleans and Achæans, to compensate to the Megalopolitans the damages done in the hostile operations against them.
It seems likely the Lacedæmonians rejoiced in a sentence which, in so great a degree, secured them against the usual virulence of party animosity among the Greeks, and the result of which they had reason to hope would be liberal and mild. It does not appear that anything more was required than to acknowledge error in hostile opposition to the general council of the nation, and to send, thus late, the Lacedæmonian contingent of troops for maintaining the Grecian empire, already acquired, in Asia.[b]
This blow riveted the chains forged at Chæronea, which however were still destined to be burst by more than one gallant struggle, though never to be finally shaken off. Alexander, when he heard of Antipater’s success, is said to have spoken contemptuously of “the battle of mice,” which his lieutenant had been fighting, while he had been slaughtering myriads, and overrunning kingdoms; and while the event continued unknown, it did not in the slightest degree interfere with his operations. Yet Antipater’s victory was perhaps not much less hardly won than either of his own over Darius. But from the distance at which he now stood, Greece and Macedonia began to appear very diminutive objects. His little kingdom was now chiefly valuable to him as a nursery of soldiers; and the most important advantage which he reaped from the establishment of his power in Greece, was that it insured a constant succession of recruits for his army.
AFFAIRS AT ATHENS
It is rather surprising that when Agis--encouraged by the great distance which separated Alexander from Europe, by perhaps exaggerated rumours of the dangers that threatened him in Asia, and by the disasters which had befallen the Macedonian arms at home--ventured on his ill-fated struggle Athens remained neutral. It was afterward made a ground of accusation against Demosthenes, that he had taken no advantage of this occasion to display the hostility which he always professed towards Alexander. The event proves that he took the most prudent course; but his motives must remain doubtful. He was perhaps restrained, not by his opinion of the hopelessness of the attempt, but by the disposition to peace, which he found prevailing at home, whether the effect of fear or of jealousy, or of any other cause. Had the people been ready to embark in the contest, an orator probably would not have been wanting to animate them to it. But Demosthenes may still have given secret encouragement and assistance to the Peloponnesian confederates, and may have alluded to this, when, according to his adversary’s report, he boasted that the league was his work. The issue of that struggle, and the news which arrived soon after, of the great victory by which Alexander had decided the fate of the Persian monarchy at Gaugamela [Arbela], must have crushed all hope at Athens, except one, which might have been suggested by domestic experience, that the conqueror’s boundless ambition might still lead him into some enterprise beyond his strength.
DEMOSTHENES AND ÆSCHINES
There was however a party there, which did not dissemble the interest it felt in the success of the Macedonian arms. Before the battle of Issus, when Alexander was commonly believed to be in great danger, and Demosthenes was assured by his correspondents that he could not escape destruction, Æschines says, that he was himself continually taunted by his rival, who exultingly displayed the letters that conveyed the joyful tidings, with the dejection he betrayed at the prospect of the disaster which threatened his friends. Æschines was the active leader of the macedonising party: all his hopes of a final triumph over his political adversaries were grounded on the Macedonian ascendency. But Phocion, though his motives were very different, added all the weight of his influence to the same side. His sentiments were so well known, that Alexander himself treated him as a highly honoured friend; addressed letters to him from Asia, with a salutation which he used to no one else except Antipater, and repeatedly pressed him to accept magnificent presents. Phocion indeed constantly rejected them; and when Alexander wrote that their friendship must cease if he persisted to decline all his offers, was only moved to intercede in behalf of some prisoners, whose liberty he immediately obtained.
[Sidenote: [337-325 B.C.]]
The disaster of Chæronea (337 B.C.) had held out a signal to the enemies of Demosthenes at Athens, to unite their efforts against him. He had been assailed in the period following that event until Philip’s death, by every kind of legal engine that could be brought to bear upon him; by prosecutions of the most various form and colour. All these experiments had failed; the people had honoured him with more signal proofs of its confidence than he had ever before received: he had never taken a more active part, or exercised a more powerful sway, in public affairs. Yet it seems that after the Macedonian arms had completely triumphed, both in Asia and in Greece, Æschines thought the opportunity favourable for another attempt of the same nature. This trial, the most celebrated of ancient pleadings, the most memorable event in the history of eloquence throughout all past ages, deserves mention here, chiefly for the light it throws on the character and temper of the Athenian tribunals, at a time when the people is supposed to have been verging towards utter degeneracy, so as to be hardly any longer an object of historical interest--a time, it must be remembered, when the rest of Greece was quailing beneath the yoke of the stranger, and his will, dictated to the so-called national congress at Corinth, was sovereign and irresistible.
The occasion of this prosecution arose out of two offices with which Demosthenes had been entrusted, in the year, it seems, after that of the battle of Chæronea. He had been appointed by his tribe to superintend the repairs which, according to a decree proposed by himself, the city walls were to undergo, the work being equally distributed among the ten tribes. At the same time he filled another post--the treasurership of the theoric fund, which involved a large share in the general control and direction of the finances. In both offices he had made a liberal contribution out of his own property to the service of the state. On this ground, but more especially as a mark of approbation for his public conduct on all occasions, a decree was passed, on the motion of his friend Ctesiphon, that he should be presented with a golden crown. For this decree Æschines had indicted Ctesiphon as having broken the law in three points: first, because it was illegal to crown a magistrate before he had rendered an account of his office; next, because it was forbidden to proclaim such an honour, when bestowed by the people, in any other place than the assembly-ground in the Pnyx, but particularly to proclaim it, as Ctesiphon had proposed; and, lastly, because the reason assigned in the decree, so far as related to the public conduct of Demosthenes, was false, inasmuch as he had not deserved any reward. The question at issue was, in substance, whether Demosthenes had been a good or a bad citizen. Hence the prosecutor, after a short discussion of the dry legal arguments, enters, as on his main subject, into a full review of the public and private life of Demosthenes; and Demosthenes, whose interest it was to divert attention from the points of law, which were not his strong ground, can scarcely find room for them in his defence of his own policy and proceedings, which, with bitter attacks on his adversary, occupies almost the whole of his speech.
His boast is that throughout his political career he had kept one object steadily in view: to strengthen Athens within and without, and to preserve her independence, particularly against the power and the arts of Philip. He owned that he had failed; but it was after he had done all that one man in his situation--a citizen of a commonwealth--could do. He had failed in a cause in which defeat was more glorious than victory in any other, in a struggle not less worthy of Athens than those in which her heroic citizens in past ages had earned their fame. In a word, the whole oration breathes the spirit of that high philosophy which, whether learned in the schools or from life, has consoled the noblest of our kind in prisons, and on scaffolds, and under every persecution of adverse fortune, but in the tone necessary to impress a mixed multitude with a like feeling, and to elevate it for a while into a sphere above its own. The effect it produced on that most susceptible audience can be but faintly conceived. The result was that Æschines not only lost his cause, but did not even obtain a fifth part of the votes, and consequently, according to law, incurred a small penalty. But he seems to have felt it insupportable to remain at the scene of his defeat, where he must have lived silent and obscure. He quitted Athens, and crossed over to Asia, with the view it is said of seeking protection from Alexander, through whose aid alone he could now hope to triumph over his adversaries.
When this prospect vanished, he retired to Rhodes, where he opened a school of oratory, which produced a long series of voluble sophists, and is considered as the origin of a new style of eloquence, technically called the Asiatic, which stood in a relation to the Attic not unlike that of the composite capital to the Ionic volute, and was destined to prevail in the East wherever the Greek language was spoken, down to the fall of the Roman Empire. He died at Samos, about nine years after Alexander, having survived both his great antagonist and his friend Phocion.
DEIFICATION OF ALEXANDER; THE GOLD OF HARPALUS
[Sidenote: [325-324 B.C.]]
In the course of the year preceding Alexander’s death, the stillness and obscurity of Athenian history were broken, partly by the new measures adopted by the conqueror on his return from India with respect to Greece, and partly by the adventures of Harpalus.
Alexander’s claim of divine honours could not be viewed in Greece with the same feelings which it had excited among the victorious Macedonians. To the people bowed down by irresistible necessity under a foreign yoke, it was not a point of great moment under what form or title the conqueror, in the plenitude of his power, chose to remind them of their subjection. They might consider the demand as a wanton insult; but it was in no other sense an injury. There might not be many base enough to recommend it, but there were perhaps still fewer so unwise as to think it a fit ground for resistance. It involved no surrender of religious faith, even in those who were firmly attached to the popular creed; and the ridicule for which it afforded so fair a mark was, with most, sufficient revenge for its insolence. The Spartan answer to the king’s envoys was perhaps the best: “If Alexander will be a god, let him.” At Athens there was something more of debate on the question; yet it hardly seems that opinions were seriously divided on it. It was opposed by a young orator, named Pytheas. It was observed by the more practical statesmen, that he was not yet of an age to give advice on matters of such importance. He replied that he was older than Alexander, whom they proposed to make a god. Lycurgus appears to have spoken, with the severity suited to his character, of “the new god, from whose temple none could depart without need of purification.” But it does not follow that he wished to see the demand rejected. At least Demades and Demosthenes were agreed on the main point, and their language, as far as it is reported, seems to have been very similar. Demades warned the people not to lose earth while they contested the possession of heaven; and Demosthenes advised them not to contend with Alexander about celestial honours. The assembly acquiesced in the king’s demand.[40]
But the order relating to the return of the exiles awakened very much stronger feelings, partly of fear, and partly of indignation. It appears that Alexander, before he set out on his expedition, when it was his object to conciliate the Greeks, had engaged by solemn compact with the national congress at Corinth--perhaps only confirming one before made by Philip--not to interfere with the existing institutions of any Greek state, but to preserve them inviolate. The tendency of Alexander’s new measure was to effect a revolution, wherever Macedonian influence was not yet completely predominant, throughout Greece. Nicanor, a Stagirite, had been sent down by Alexander to publish his decree during the games at Olympia. There were some thousands of the exiles and their friends collected there, who listened to the proclamation with joy. It was in the form of a letter addressed to them in a style of imperial brevity: “King Alexander to the exiles from the Greek cities. We were not the author of your exile, but we will restore you to your homes, all but those who are under a curse [for sacrilege or murder]. And we have written to Antipater on the subject, that he may compel those cities which are unwilling to receive you.”
Great alarm ensued at Athens among those who had reason to dread the execution of the decree. The people would not comply with it, but still did not venture openly to reject it. A middle course was taken, by which time at least was gained. An embassy was sent to Alexander, to deprecate his interference; and at Babylon the Athenian envoys met those of several other Greek states, who had come on the same business. In the meanwhile there prevailed at home not only great anxiety about the issue of the embassy, but fears for the immediate safety of the city.
[Sidenote: [324-323 B.C.]]
Such was the state of affairs at Athens, when the appearance of Harpalus gave rise to fresh perplexity and uneasiness. The precise time when he arrived on the coast of Attica is difficult to ascertain. But it seems most probable that it was after the return of Demosthenes from Olympia. Harpalus, as we have seen, carried away some five thousand talents, and had collected about six thousand mercenaries. He must therefore have crossed the Ægean with a little squadron; and it is probable that the rumour of his approach reached Athens at least some days before him. He had reason to hope for a favourable reception. He came with his Athenian mistress, for whose sake he had conferred a substantial benefit on her native city; and he had already gained at least one friend there, on whose influence he may have founded great expectations: Charicles, Phocion’s son-in-law, who had descended so low as to undertake the erection of the monument in honour of Pythionice, and had received thirty talents by way of reimbursement. He might calculate still more confidently on the force of the temptation which his treasure and his troops held out to the people, if they were already disposed to risk an open quarrel with Alexander, and on the ample means of corruption he possessed. These hopes were disappointed, and at first he certainly met with a total repulse. It seems most probable--though our authors leave this doubtful--that his squadron was not permitted to enter Piræus. We know that a debate took place on his first arrival, that Demosthenes advised the people not to receive him, and that Philocles, the general in command at Munychia, was ordered to prevent his entrance. Philocles indeed appears afterwards to have disobeyed this order; but it is probable that he did not immediately allow Harpalus to land. The fullest account we have of the proceedings of Harpalus on his first appearance in the roads of Munychia, is contained in the few words of Diodorus; that, “finding no one to listen to him, he left his mercenaries at Tænarus, and with a part of his treasure came himself to implore the protection of the people.” The sum which he brought with him was a little more than 750 talents: enough certainly to buy the greater part of the venal orators; and many yielded to the temptation.
Whether Demosthenes was one of those who accepted a bribe from Harpalus, has been a disputed point from his own day to ours. It will appear from the following narrative that the evidence cannot be considered as quite conclusive on either side; all that can be proved in his favour is that, the more fully the facts of the case are stated, the more glaring are the absurdities and contradictions involved in the suppositions of his guilt, while the few facts which tend that way may be very easily reconciled with the supposition of his innocence.
The part which he took in the public debates on the affair, is known from good authority--mostly from that of his contemporaries and accusers. It is universally admitted that he was one of those who at the first opposed the reception of Harpalus. After the return of Harpalus to Athens, when he had gained over several of the orators to his side, envoys came from several quarters--from Antipater, from Olympias, and it seems also from Philoxenus, a Macedonian, who filled a high office in Asia Minor--to require that he should be given up. Demosthenes and Phocion both resisted this demand; and Demosthenes carried a decree, by which it was directed, that the treasure should be lodged in the citadel, to be restored to Alexander, and he himself was empowered to receive it. Its amount was declared by Harpalus himself; but, out of the 750 talents no more than 308 remained in his possession. It was clear that nearly 450 had found their way into other hands. Demosthenes now caused another decree to be passed, by which the Areopagus was directed to investigate the case, and he proposed that instead of the ordinary penalty--tenfold the amount of the bribe--capital punishment should be inflicted on the offenders. A very rigid inquiry was instituted; the houses of all suspected persons--with the single exception of one who had been just married--were searched: the Areopagus made its report against several, and among them was Demosthenes himself. He was the first who was brought to trial, was found guilty, and condemned to pay fifty talents. Being unable to raise this sum, he was thrown into prison, but soon after made his escape and went into exile.
One point is indisputably clear: that Demosthenes, whether bribed or not, did not change sides. Harpalus, notwithstanding the efforts of Demosthenes and Phocion in his behalf, was committed to prison, to await Alexander’s pleasure. He however made his escape, returned to Tænarus, and thence crossed over with his troops, and the rest of his treasure, to Crete. Here he was assassinated by Thimbron, one of his confidential officers. His steward fled to Rhodes, where he was seized by order of Philoxenus, and forced to disclose the names of those who had accepted bribes from his master. The list was sent to Athens, and the name of Demosthenes--though Philoxenus is said to have been his personal enemy--did not appear in it.
It is a question, which the meagre accounts that have been preserved leave in great obscurity, whether any preparations for war had actually been made at Athens before Alexander’s death. It can hardly be supposed that any such measures were taken until the envoys who had been sent to remonstrate with him returned from Babylon; and the interval between their return and the arrival of the news of his death, cannot have been very long. Yet that in this interval at least something was done with a view to a war which was believed to be impending, may be regarded as nearly certain. For it was at this time that a division of the mercenaries who had been disbanded by the satraps, in compliance with Alexander’s orders, was brought over to Europe by the Athenian Leosthenes. Leosthenes himself had been for a time in Alexander’s service, and though still young, had gained a high reputation: but it seems that he had quitted it in disgust, and had already returned to Athens, and that he went over to Asia, to collect as many as he could of the disbanded troops, whom he landed at Cape Tænarus. It can hardly be supposed that he did this without some ulterior object; and his connection with Hyperides--the chief of the anti-Macedonian party after Demosthenes had withdrawn--and his subsequent proceedings, scarcely leave room to doubt that the object was to have a force in readiness to resist Antipater, if he should attempt to enforce Alexander’s edict.
When the news of Alexander’s death reached Athens, Phocion and Demades professed to disbelieve the report. Demades bade the people not to listen to it: such a corpse would long before have filled the world with its odour. Phocion desired them to have patience; and when many voices asseverated the truth of the report, replied, “If he is dead to-day, he will still be dead to-morrow, and the next day, so that we may deliberate at our leisure, and the more securely.” But their remonstrances were disregarded. The council of Five Hundred held a meeting with closed doors; and Leosthenes was commissioned immediately to engage the troops at Tænarus, about eight thousand men, but secretly, and in his own name, that Antipater might not suspect the purpose, and that the people might have the more time for other preparations. Confirmation of the fact was received shortly after from the mouth of eye-witnesses, who had been present at Babylon when it took place.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[40] [We insert here a defence of Alexander’s act from the pen of his chief biographer, Droysen:[d] “Neither sacred history nor dogma were grounded on the firm basis of doctrinal writings, revealed once for all as of divine origin; for religious things there was no other rule or form than the experience and opinion of men as it was and developed itself in life, also perhaps the instructions of the oracles and the many interpretations of signs. If the oracle of Zeus Ammon, although ridiculed, in the end still designated the king as Zeus’ son; if Alexander, sprung of the race of Hercules and Achilles, had conquered and reorganised a world; if in reality he had accomplished greater things than Hercules and Dionysus; if the long established enlightening of minds disaccustomed to the deepest religious wants had left from the honour and feasts of the gods only the diversions, the outer ceremonies, and the calendar;--then one can realise that for Greece, the thoughts of divine honour and deification of man did not lie too far off. Alexander was only the first to claim for himself that which after him the most miserable princes and the most infamous men could justly receive from Hellenes and Greeks, above all from Athenians.” The apotheosis of Alexander must then be regarded as a move not altogether due to vanity, and of political rather than religious or personal meaning.]