west of the Euphrates, and could with complete security turn his arms
eastward to bring his contest with Persia to a final issue. Darius, on
the other hand, who, in the interval between his defeat and the fall
of Tyre, had twice sent an embassy to the Conqueror to sue for peace
and the ransom of his family, on terms which, though most tempting, had
been haughtily refused, was mustering all his forces to encounter the
storm of war which would sooner or later burst from the clouds that hung
ominously on his western horizon. The army he now raised was far stronger
numerically than that with which he had fought at Issos, and, as it was
drawn chiefly from the east, consisted of the best troops in his empire.
He led it from Babylon across the Tigris, and marching northward along
the eastern bank of that river, reached the plains of northern Assyria,
which afforded ample space for the evolutions of his numerous cavalry.
Here he encamped on a wide plain between the Tigris and the mountains of
Kurdistan, near a village called Gaugamela.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.—SEAL OF DARIUS.]
Alexander, having remained at Tyre until his preparations were completed,
started from that city after midsummer in the year 331 B.C. On crossing
the Euphrates at the fords of Thapsakos, he learned where Darius was, and
at once accelerated his march to find him. He passed the Tigris, which
had been left unguarded, and advancing southward for a few days, came
in sight of the Persian host, which he found already drawn up in line
prepared for action. It is said that Parmeniôn, alarmed by the immense
array of the hostile ranks, came at a late hour to the king’s tent and
proposed a night attack, and that Alexander’s answer was that it would
be a base thing to steal a victory. His forces amounted only to 40,000
infantry and 7000 horse, yet he was so confident of success that on the
morning of the decisive day his sleep was deeper and longer than usual.
In its main features, the battle that followed was but a repetition of
the day of Issos. Alexander again commanded the right wing and Parmeniôn
the left. Again Darius posted himself in the centre of his line, and
again the Greek mercenaries confronted the Macedonian phalanx. Again
Alexander, at the head of the Companion cavalry, made havoc of the troops
which guarded the royal standard; and again Darius, terror-struck at his
near approach, ignominiously fled from the field. His flight gave once
more the signal of defeat, and that too, as at Issos, just at the time
when his cavalry on the right had made the position of Parmeniôn most
critical.[9] Alexander was recalled from the pursuit of Darius, whom he
was eagerly bent on capturing, by a messenger sent by Parmeniôn pressing
for instant aid. He at once turned back. On his way he met the Persian
and Parthian cavalry and the Indian troops now in full retreat. A combat
close and hot followed. The fugitives were for the most part killed, but
sold their lives dearly. On returning to the field Alexander found that
his left wing was no longer in distress, but putting the enemy to rout,
and he therefore started once more in pursuit of Darius. The fugitive
escaped, however, to Ekbatana, the capital in former days of the Median
kings.
Accounts differ as to the numbers that were killed in this battle. Arrian
says, absurdly enough, that 300,000 of the Persians were slain, and a
greater number taken prisoners. Diodôros reduces the amount to 90,000,
and Curtius to 40,000. The loss again on Alexander’s side is reckoned by
Arrian at 100, by Curtius at 300, and by Diodôros at 500.[10]
Alexander pursued the fugitive troops as far as Arbêla—the place which
has given its name to the battle, though it was sixty miles distant from
the field whereon it was fought. Here he found the baggage of Darius,
and having enriched himself with its spoils, he advanced southward to
Babylon. This great capital, which once gave law to all the nations of
the East, had under the rule of the Achaimenids gradually declined both
in wealth and importance. Its inhabitants, like the Egyptians, detested
their Persian masters, who oppressed them and persecuted their religion.
They issued therefore from their gates in a joyful procession to welcome
the victor and present him with gifts. His first acts on entering the
city were well calculated to make a favourable impression on their minds.
He ordered the temple of Belus to be rebuilt, honoured that deity with
a public sacrifice according to the Chaldaean ritual, and restored to
his priests the immense revenues with which they had been endowed by the
Assyrian kings.[11]
Alexander thus found himself the master of a more spacious empire than
any the world had yet seen. No king or conqueror had ever before stood
on such a giddy pinnacle of power. As he had made his way to this
supreme height before he had yet reached those years or experienced those
vicissitudes of fortune which have a sobering effect on the mind, it is
not surprising that, as in the case of Napoleon, whose genius was at
many points in close touch with his own, and who, at a like early age,
had amazed the world with his deeds of arms, unbounded success tended
to deteriorate his character. He is found henceforth becoming more
arrogant and despotic, more suspicious, and avid of flattery, while less
tolerant of advice or remonstrance, and less capable of controlling the
violence of his passions. The simple style of living in which he had been
brought up seemed no longer to please him, and he began to assume all
the pomp and splendour with which an oriental despot loves to surround
himself,[12] an innovation in his habits which deeply mortified the pride
of the Macedonians. It may be urged in his defence that he may have made
the change less from any real inclination than from the politic motive of
conciliating his new subjects by conforming to their tastes and habits.
Before leaving Babylon he settled the affairs of Assyria and its
dependencies in accordance with a principle on which he generally acted,
committing the civil administration to a native ruler, but leaving the
command of the forces and the collection of the revenue in the hands of
Macedonian officers. He then marched eastward, and in twenty days reached
Sousa, the favourite capital of the Persian kings. Rich as Babylon was,
its treasures were as nothing compared with those which had been here
accumulated. The sums contained in the treasury amounted to 40,000
talents of uncoined gold and silver, and 9000 talents of coined gold,
and there was other booty besides of immense value, including the spoils
which Xerxes had carried off from Greece—the recovery of which gratified
beyond measure the patriotic feelings of the army.
From Sousa Alexander took the road to Persepolis, the ancient capital of
the Persians, a rich and splendid city lying to the south-east of Sousa,
in the beautiful vale of Persis which was fertilised by the streams
descending from Mount Zagros, the Mêdos, and the Araxês.[13] On his
route he passed through the hill-country of the Ouxians, which like that
of the Pisidians, was occupied by warlike and predatory tribes. These
mountaineers were nominally subject to Persia, but they nevertheless
at one of their defiles exacted toll even from the Great King himself
whenever he passed through their country in going between his two
capitals. They beset this defile with the whole of their effective force
to levy the customary tribute from Alexander, who payed them what he
called their dues in the form of a crushing defeat.[14] He then plundered
their villages, and, having received their submission, pressed forward by
way of the formidable pass called the Persian Gates.[15] Here the satrap
Ariobarzanes, at the head of more than 40,000 men, tried but in vain to
arrest his progress. Alexander, with his usual skill and courage forced
the position, and meeting with no further resistance reached Persepolis,
where no defence was attempted. He not only permitted his soldiers to
plunder this ancient capital, but, if we may believe the story, with
which Dryden’s Ode has made us familiar, set fire with his own hands in a
drunken revel to the royal palace, a structure of supreme magnificence,
as its ruins, which are still to be seen, attest. It is more probable,
however, that he burned it from motives of policy, partly to show the
Persians how absolutely he was now their master, and partly to avenge
Greece for the destruction of her temples by Xerxes. In the royal
treasury he found the vast sum of 120,000 talents, which falls little
short of thirty million pounds of our money. As it was now mid-winter
he here gave his army some respite from their toils. He gave himself,
however, no rest, but led a detachment to Pasargadai, the primitive seat
of the Achaimenids, which contained an august monument, the tomb of
Cyrus, which still exists, and a rich treasury which he plundered.[16] He
next assailed the Mardians, and marching over ice and snow, reduced their
mountain fastnesses and compelled their submission.
In the spring of 330 B.C. he resumed the pursuit of Darius, who was
still at Ekbatana making vain efforts to raise another army. The fallen
monarch, on hearing that the enemy was again moving against him and had
reached Media, fled eastward hoping to find protection and safety in
the far remote province of Baktria, of which his kinsman Bessos was the
satrap. The capital which he had left was the summer residence of the
Persian kings, and was noted for the enormous strength of its citadel.
Alexander therefore ordered Parmeniôn to transport thither, as to a place
of peculiar security, the treasures which had been seized at the other
capitals, and to confide their custody to a strong guard of Macedonian
soldiers.[17] This done, he set out with a light detachment of troops
in the hope of overtaking the fugitive king before he passed through
the Kaspian Gates. At Rhagai, which was a day’s rapid march from that
pass, he learned that Darius had escaped beyond it, and he therefore
halted for five days to recruit his troops. On renewing the pursuit and
reaching the open country beyond the gates, he learned that the Persian
officers who were escorting their sovereign had conspired against him
and deprived him of his liberty. Greatly fearing now lest the traitors
had some deadlier purpose in view, he made incredible exertions to
overtake them, and he came up with them on the fourth day—but all too
late. The conspirators, among whom was Bessos, finding that the pursuit
was gaining upon them, mortally wounded the hapless king, who breathed
his last before Alexander reached him. “Such,” says Arrian, “was the end
of Darius, who as a warrior was singularly remiss and injudicious. In
other respects his character is blameless, either because he was just
by nature, or because he had no opportunity of displaying the contrary,
as his accession and the Macedonian invasion were simultaneous. It was
not in his power, therefore, to oppress his subjects, as his danger was
greater than theirs. His reign was one unbroken series of disasters,
and he was at last treacherously assassinated by his most intimate
connections. At his death he was about fifty years old.” Alexander sent
his body into Persia with orders that it should be buried with all due
honours in the royal sepulchre. Bessos escaped into his own satrapy
where he assumed the upright tiara, the distinguishing emblem of Persian
royalty, and took the name of Artaxerxes.
Alexander now halted at Hekatompylos,[18] a place which received this
Greek name from its being the centre where many roads met, and which
became in after times the capital of the Parthian kings. Being joined
here by the rest of his army, he prepared to invade Hyrkania, from which
he was separated by the chain of mountains now called the Elburz. As
the passes were beset by robber-tribes, he divided his army into three
bodies. The most numerous division crossed the mountains under his
own command by the shortest and most difficult roads. Krateros made a
circuit to the left through the country of the Tapeirians (Taburistan),
while the third division under Erigyios took the royal road which led
westward from Hekatompylos to Zadrakarta.[19] The divisions on emerging
from the defiles united, and encamped near the last named place, which
was the Hyrkanian capital. Hither came to Alexander with three of his
sons the aged Artabazos, accompanied by the Tapeirian satrap and by
deputies from the Greek mercenaries of Darius. Artabazos was received
with distinguished honour, both because of his high rank and the fidelity
he had shown to Darius, whom he had accompanied in his flight. The satrap
was confirmed in his government, but the deputies were sternly told
that as the mercenaries had violated the duty which they owed to their
country, they must submit themselves unreservedly to the judgment of
the king. Alexander then attacked the Mardians who inhabited the lofty
mountains to the north-west of the Kaspian Gates. They submitted after a
slight resistance, and were ordered to obey the Tapeirian satrap.
Alexander’s next object was to crush Bessos and possess himself of all
the eastern provinces as far as the borders of India. He therefore
marched eastward towards Baktria, and having traversed the northern part
of Parthia, reached Sousia, a city of Areia (now Sous, near Meshed, the
present capital of Khorasan). Satibarzanes, the satrap of that province,
and one of the conspirators against Darius, met him here, and having
tendered his submission, was confirmed in his government, and dismissed
with an escort of Macedonian horsemen to his capital, Artakoana.
Alexander then resumed his march towards Baktria, but was arrested on the
way by receiving word that Satibarzanes had revolted in favour of Bessos,
armed the Areians, and slain his Macedonian escort. He therefore at once
altered his route, and by the promptitude of his appearance confounded
the plans of the satrap, who fled and was deserted by most of his troops.
Artakoana was captured by Krateros after a short siege. This city stood
in a plain of exceptional fertility at a point where all the roads
from the north to the south, and from the west to the east, united,
and Alexander, discerning the incomparable advantages of its position,
whether for war or commerce, founded in its neighbourhood a new city
in which he planted a Macedonian colony. He called it Alexandreia, and
as it still exists as Herat, it will be seen how well grounded was its
founder’s belief in the strategetical and commercial importance of its
site.
Alexander, after suppressing this revolt, instead of resuming his march
to Baktria, moved forward to Prophthasia (now Furrah), the capital of
Drangiana (Seistan), of which Barsaentes, another of the accomplices in
the murder of Darius, was satrap. This traitor was seized and executed.
Here an event occurred which has left a dark stain on the character
of Alexander. He was led to suspect that a conspiracy had been formed
against his life by some of his principal officers, and among others by
the son of Parmeniôn, Philôtas, who held the most coveted post in the
army, that of commander of the Companion Cavalry. It is certain that he
was not an accomplice in the plot; but as he had been informed of its
existence, and failed to give the king any warning of his danger, he was
accused before the Macedonian army and condemned to death. He confessed
under torture that his father, Parmeniôn, had formed a design against
the king’s life, and that he had himself joined the recent plot, lest
his father, who was now an old man, might, before the plot was ripe, be
snatched away by death from his command at Ekbatana, which placed the
vast treasures deposited there at his disposal. This confession, wrung
by torture when its agonies became insupportable, and obviously framed
to meet the wishes of the questioners, was no proof of the guilt either
of the father or the son. Parmeniôn was, nevertheless, on this worthless
evidence condemned to death, and Alexander, whom he had so faithfully
served, took care that the sentence should be executed before the news
of his son’s death, which he might seek to avenge, could reach his ears.
Many other Macedonians were also at this time tried and put to death.
Alexander’s confidence in his friends was thus much shaken; and instead
of entrusting as formerly the command of the Companion Cavalry to one
individual, he divided that body into two regiments, giving the command
of one to Kleitos, and of the other to Hêphaistiôn.
From Prophthasia he proceeded southwards into the fertile plains along
the Etymander (R. Helmund), then inhabited by a peaceful tribe called the
Ariaspians, who had received from Cyrus the title of _Euergetai_—that is,
benefactors, because they had assisted him at a time when he had been
reduced to great straits. Alexander spent two months in their dominions,
probably awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Ekbatana. During
this interval Dêmetrios, a member of the king’s bodyguard, was arrested
on suspicion of his having been implicated with Philôtas in the recent
plot, and his office was bestowed on Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, for
whom this promotion opened the way to a royal destiny. Alexander before
resuming his march appointed a governor over the Euergetai, but rewarded
their hospitality by augmenting their territory and confirming them in
the enjoyment of their political privileges.
He left this country about mid-winter, and ascending the valley of the
Etymander penetrated into Arachosia, a province which stretched eastward
to the Indus. As he advanced northward by Kandahar the snow lay deep
on the ground, and the soldiers suffered severely both from hunger and
cold. About this time he heard that the Areians had again revolted at the
instigation of Satibarzanes, who had entered their province at the head
of 2000 horse, and he immediately sent a detachment under Erigyios to
quell the insurgents. Continuing meanwhile his own advance, he arrived
at the foot of the colossal mountain-barrier, the chain of Paropanisos,
which separates Kabul from Baktria. Here in a commanding position,
near the village of Charikar, which stands in the rich and beautiful
valley of Koh-Daman, he founded yet another Alexandreia (called by way
of distinction Alexandreia of the Paropamisadai, or Alexandria apud
Caucasum), and planted it with Macedonian colonists. According to Strabo
he wintered in this neighbourhood, but Arrian leads us to suppose that he
departed as soon as he had founded the city. He crossed the mountains,
as some think, by the Bamiân Pass, the most western of the four routes
which give access from the Koh-Daman to the regions of the Upper Oxus.
It is likelier, however, that he ascended by the more direct route along
the course of the Panjshir river. The army again suffered on the way from
the severity of the cold, and still more from the scarcity of provisions.
According to Aristoboulos nothing grew on these hills but terebinth
trees and the herb called silphium, on which the flocks and herds of the
mountaineers pastured. This march, which terminated at Adrapsa, occupied
fifteen days.
The Macedonians had now reached a fertile country; but as Bessos had
ordered it to be ravaged, they found a wide barrier of desolation opposed
to their further advance. The barrier was interposed in vain. Alexander
resolutely pressed forward, and Bessos and his associates fled at his
approach, and, crossing the Oxus, retired into Sogdiana. Aornos and
Baktra, the two principal cities of the Baktrian satrapy, surrendered
without resistance, and the satrapy itself was soon afterwards reduced.
At Baktra Erigyios, who had succeeded in quelling the Areian revolt,
rejoined the army. Alexander having appointed Artabazos satrap of his
new conquest, marched to the Oxus in pursuit of Bessos, and came upon
that river at the point where Kijil now stands. There it was about
three-quarters of a mile in breadth, and the current was found to be
both deep and rapid. The passage, which occupied five days, was made on
floats, supported by skins stuffed with straw, and rendered watertight.
The army had no sooner gained the right bank than messengers arrived
from two of the leading adherents of Bessos—Spitamenes, the satrap of
Sogdiana, and Dataphernes—promising to surrender Bessos, who was already
their prisoner, if Alexander would send a small force to their support.
The king assented, and sent Ptolemy forward to receive the traitor from
their hands. They gave him up, and he was conducted with a rope round his
neck into the presence of the king, who ordered him to be scourged and
then conveyed to Zariaspa (which some identify with Baktra), there to
await his final doom.
The army next marched forward to Marakanda, now Samarkand, then merely
the capital of the Sogdian satrapy, but destined to be in aftertimes
the capital of the vast empire founded by Timour. It stood in the
valley of the Polytimêtos (R. Kohik), a region of such exuberant
fertility and beauty that it figures in Persian poetry as one of the
four paradises of the world. Alexander remained for some time in this
pleasant neighbourhood to remount his cavalry and otherwise recruit
his forces. He then advanced to the river Jaxartes, which formed the
boundary between the Persian empire and the barbarous Skythian tribes,
and which the Greeks confounded with the Tanais or Don. The country
was protected against the inroads of these warlike tribes by a line of
fortified towns, of which the largest and strongest, Cyropolis, had
been founded, as its name imports, by Cyrus. Alexander captured all
these fortresses and manned them with small Macedonian garrisons; and to
curb the Skythians still more effectually, founded on the banks of the
Jaxartes, near where Khojent now stands, still another Alexandreia, which
the Greeks for distinction’s sake called _Eschatê_, or “the Extreme.” In
the midst of this undertaking, he was interrupted by the sudden outbreak
of a widespread rebellion instigated by Spitamenes and his confederates.
Taking immediate and energetic steps for its suppression, he in a few
days recovered the seven towns; and then crossing the Jaxartes, defeated
the Skythians, who with a view to aid the insurgents had mustered in
great force on its right bank. After this victory he received tidings of
the first serious disaster that had befallen his arms. He had sent a
large force to operate against Spitamenes, who was at the time besieging
the Macedonian garrison which held Marakanda. On learning that this
force was approaching, the rebel chief retired down the Polytimêtos to
Bokhara, and thence to the vast desert which stretches from Sogd to the
Sea of Aral. Here he was joined by a large body of Skythian horsemen, and
thus reinforced turned upon his pursuers, drove them back from the edge
of the desert, which they had just entered, into the valley whence they
had emerged, and there, amid the woody ravines of the Polytimetos, cut
them to pieces almost to a man. Encouraged by this success, he returned
to Marakanda and renewed the siege of its citadel, but on learning that
Alexander was rapidly returning from the Jaxartes, he retraced his steps
towards the desert, and reached it before the enemy overtook him. The
course of the pursuit led Alexander to the scene of the late disaster.
His first care was to bury the slain, and he then avenged their death by
ravaging with fire and sword, in all its length and breadth, the lovely
valley of the Polytimetos. He showed no mercy, but slaughtered all who
fell into his hands, soldier and citizen alike. This is certainly, as
Thirlwall remarks, one of the acts of his life for which it is most
difficult to find an excuse.