person of the defeated monarch, and to force the satraps of the eastern
provinces to accept the new régime. This program offered no serious
military problems, but it was bound to consume time and required
patience. Many of the non-Macedonian Greeks were now sent home, after
receiving generous rewards for their service, and Parmenio was left
at Ecbatana, while Alexander with the best of his troops set off to
pursue Darius. Hurrying on by Ragæ, a place a little to the south of
the modern capital of Persia, Alexander found there that the royal
fugitive had already passed through the Caspian Gates into the regions
of Parthia. Bactria was still much farther to the east. The followers
of Darius, with the exception of a few faithful Greek mercenaries,
determined to hand over their unlucky monarch as a prisoner to the
satrap of Bactria, Bessus, a kinsman of his, and to trust to his
initiative to organize a national resistance more effectively than
Darius.
When Alexander, after a stay of several days at Ragæ, heard that his
old antagonist was a prisoner he hurried on, taking rest neither by
night nor by day, and finally came up with the barbarians, who now
preserved no semblance of discipline in their retreat. When Bessus and
the other conspirators saw Alexander approaching, they ordered Darius,
who was probably carried in a litter, to mount a horse and accompany
them. When he refused, they stabbed him and rode off. He was found
dying at a spring near the road, by a Macedonian soldier. By the time
Alexander reached the place the end had come. All that he could do for
his fallen foe was to throw his own cloak over the body and order it to
be sent with befitting honor to the queen mother. The last member of
the Persian monarchy, which had become a world power under Cyrus, was
buried in the royal tombs at Persepolis.
IV THE INVASION OF INDIA
The death of Darius did not delay the activity of Alexander; he was all
the more stirred to pursue Bessus when it was announced that the satrap
of Bactria was claiming to be the successor of Darius and had assumed
the insignia of royalty. But the regions close at hand had to be
pacified, so Parmenio was sent to occupy the country near the southwest
coast of the Caspian Sea. Alexander himself had to retrace his steps to
deal with a rebellious satrap who had previously sent in his submission.
On the march southward, the province of Drangiana was taken without
resistance, but the conqueror’s stay at the capital, Prophthasia, was
marked by a mysterious tragedy. It was reported to Alexander that
Philotas, the son of Parmenio, was plotting against him. An assembly of
the Macedonian army was summoned, and the charges laid formally before
them. Philotas admitted that he had known of a plot to assassinate
Alexander, but had kept it secret. This reserve was treated as treason,
and Philotas was put to death by the soldiers. This semi-judicial act
was followed by the murder at Alexander’s command of his faithful
lieutenant, Parmenio, for which there was no excuse, as he had never
been charged with complicity in the guilty knowledge of his son.
But Alexander probably judged that the execution of Philotas would
inaugurate a blood feud familiar to Macedonian life, and he resolved to
take no chances.
The road to Bactria selected by Alexander led him through modern
Afghanistan and across the Hindu Kush mountains. But first he turned to
the south in order to secure Seistan and the northwestern portion of
Baluchistan, known at that time as Gedrosia. The winter of 330-29 he
spent in the south of Seistan among a friendly people, the Ariaspæ, to
whom, on account of their hospitable reception, he granted autonomy.
Among the Gedrosians, their neighbors, he set up a satrapy, with a
capital at Pasa.
In the spring, the Greek army pushed on to Arachosia, almost directly
south of Bactria, where the king founded another Alexandria, probably
on the site of the modern Candahar. At the foot of the high range of
the Hindu Kush, a complex mass of mountains which divides southern from
central, eastern from western Asia, called Paropanisus, the army passed
the winter, and yet another city, named after their leader, was founded
somewhere to the north of Cabul, Alexandria of the Caucasus. In the
early spring the difficult mountain ranges which protected Bactria were
crossed, the troops suffering much from the cold and from the lack of
food. They were obliged to subsist on raw meat and on herbs instead of
bread. After resting the army, Alexander led them on through an arid
plain to Bactria, the chief city of the satrapy. (329-28 B.C.)
Bessus, the pretender, had tried to hinder the progress of the Greeks
by laying waste the country in front of them, but as soon as they drew
near, his horsemen deserted him and he fled across the Oxus. Alexander
lost no time in following him up. The pursuit carried him through
Sogdiana, where he crossed the Oxus on the rafts, made of inflated
skins, such as are still in use to-day. The river was passed at a point
where it was not a mile wide, at Kilif, and from thence the road was
taken to Maracanda, a town whose old name is now thinly disguised as
Samarcand. Bessus was deserted by his supporters, who thought that they
would be glad to secure peace by his surrender. They abandoned him, and
he was found by a division of the Greek army in a walled village, and
was finally sent in chains to Bactria, after Alexander had charged him
with the murder of Darius, his kinsman and benefactor.
The ardor for annexing the Far Eastern division of the Persian Empire
to his rule spurred Alexander on, now that the rebellion of Bessus had
so unexpectedly failed. He purposed to make, not the Oxus, but the
Tanais his frontier on the northeast. The resistance seemed easily
overcome; the seven strongholds of the Sogdians were occupied, and on
the banks of the Jaxartes, or Tanais, at a point which is the gate of
communication between southwestern Asia and China, the pass over the
Tian-shan mountains, Alexander set the boundary of his conquests in
this direction, by founding a new city called Alexandria the Ultimate,
in later days Khodjend. While he was planning his new town, the country
rose in revolt, for the chieftains of Sogdiana had no mind to lose
their freedom. The small Macedonian garrisons left in the strongholds
a short time before were overpowered, and the city of Maracanda was
being besieged. The news of the revolt had spread far and wide, and
the various Scythian tribes were hurrying to join in driving out the
invaders. Alexander quickly recovered the strongholds, burning five of
them, but at Cyropolis there was stout resistance, and he received a
wound. The inhabitants of all were removed and forcibly transplanted as
citizens of the new Alexandria. (328 B.C.)
It was not possible to go to the rescue of Maracanda because of the
threatening attitude of the Scythian tribes, who were preparing to
descend upon Alexandria, which was only separated from them by the
river Tanais. The danger of being rushed by these barbarous hordes was
imminent. The new city, therefore, was made capable of resistance; in
the short period of twenty days it was surrounded with walls of unburnt
clay. But Alexander determined also to strike terror by aggressive
action. He brought up to the banks of the river engines which threw
stones and darts among the enemy and forced them to retreat from the
stream. Then the Greek army crossed, and the Scythians were soon
routed. The king, with his cavalry, pursued them some distance in their
own territory. The heat was intense and Alexander was made dangerously
ill by drinking the water along the line of march.
On his recovery he had to deal with a difficult revolt in Sogdiana,
again led by Spitamenes, who had figured in the previous uprising
and who this time had succeeded in cutting off a detachment of
Macedonian troops sent in pursuit of him. It is recounted that the
fear of a disaster made such a serious impression on the conqueror
that he covered the distance to Samarcand, over 150 miles, in three
days. Spitamenes did not wait to try conclusions with the Greeks, but
abandoned the siege, drawing off hurriedly in a westward direction,
closely pursued by Alexander.
The Persian leader and his Scythian supporters were driven into the
wastes across the river Sogda, and Alexander, after ravaging the
province of Sogdiana, crossed into western Bactria and passed the
winter at Zariaspa, one of the chief cities of that region.
While residing here, the trial of the pretender Bessus was begun. He
was condemned to mutilation and to die on the cross at Ecbatana. This
type of punishment was alien to Greek feeling and tradition, but it
is not necessary to say that Alexander’s apologists have argued the
necessity of conforming to the habits of Oriental races when they are
to be ruled successfully by outsiders. Alexander himself, as he had
never assimilated the best traditions of Greece, seemed ready enough to
adopt Oriental customs either to heighten his own dignity in Persia or
to impress the Persians that he was the legitimate successor of Darius.
The colloquial axiom, “the longest way round is the shortest way home,”
can be applied to the science of government and politics, and it is
more than probable that the Hellenization of Asia would have had less
of the pinchbeck quality if Alexander had been trained in Sparta rather
than in Macedon. In any case, we know that his abandonment of the
homely traits characteristic of the relations between a Greek commander
and his soldiers made him unpopular, and that, especially, the favor
shown by him to the Persians who sided with him was distasteful to the
Macedonians. His execution of Parmenio savored of oriental despotism,
and during this winter there were open signs of discontent in the camp.
(328-27 B.C.)
The winter quarters were changed to Maracanda on account of the
restlessness among the natives, and in the relaxation from the strict
discipline the soldiers and their leaders spent much of their time
in carousing. On one occasion when Alexander and his companions were
excited with wine, the king was made indignant at some slighting
reference to his military exploits made by his foster-brother Clitus,
who appealed to some verses of Euripides which signify that the army
does the work and the general reaps the glory. Alexander in his drunken
passion hurled a spear at the offender, and Clitus fell dead. The fatal
issue of this drunken quarrel was followed by three days’ passionate
remorse, and Alexander lay in his tent sleepless and refused food. The
fact that he had murdered his intimate friend could not be glossed over
even if the army were willing to exculpate their leader, by giving
Clitus a post-mortem trial, or by their ascribing the act to the
Dioscuri, whose festival was being celebrated at the time.
The excitable temperament of Alexander, unfortunately, cannot always be
ascribed to intemperance in drink. He began to be intoxicated with the
idea that he was a semi-divine being, and he undertook to act the rôle
of an avenging deity, in executing a ruthless sentence of destruction
on a small Greek colony in Sogdiana, where dwelt the descendants of
the people of Branchidæ, who generations before had betrayed to the
Persians the treasures of a temple of Apollo not far from Miletus.
The act had never been forgotten, and now Alexander caused all the
inhabitants of the place to be massacred, and every vestige of it to be
destroyed. An action like this was alien to the spirit of free Greece,
and it marks the king’s progress in Oriental despotism. It is all the
more a witness to his personal degradation that the Milesian men in his
own army, to whom Alexander wished to leave the decision, could not
themselves agree on the fate of the Branchidæ, and hence the initiative
in the massacre was due to the savage sentiments of their leader.
The pacification of Sogdiana took some time, owing to the rugged nature
of the regions in the southern part of the province, but the campaign
is chiefly noteworthy because it resulted in the marriage of Alexander
with Roxane, the daughter of a native chieftain who had gallantly
defended against the Macedonians a mountain fastness called the Sogdian
Rock. It had never been noted in the career of the youthful conqueror
that he was susceptible to the influence of women. Hence this sudden
attachment was as unexpected as it was unpopular in the army. They
disliked to have their king ally himself with an alien, and their lack
of sympathy was accentuated because Alexander chose to marry his bride
after the fashion of her country.
The influence of the Oriental environment was seen also in the
introduction of Persian court ceremonial. The king desired to make the
custom of obeisance to royalty used by the Persians applicable also
to the Greeks. Callisthenes, a nephew of Aristotle, who was attached
to the army as official historiographer of the campaign, earned
Alexander’s resentment because he sturdily refused to adopt the Persian
ceremonial in the king’s presence. He was soon afterwards charged with
being involved in a plot to murder Alexander, which originated because
of the resentment held against the king by the royal pages, when one
of their number, Hermolaus, was flogged and reduced from his position
for a breach of etiquette in a boar hunt at which Alexander was
present. Callisthenes, apparently because he was an intimate friend of
Hermolaus and therefore assumed to be an accomplice in the plot, was
hanged.
Three years had now passed since the death of Darius; Alexander had
done in the interior of Asia a work which no western conqueror has
accomplished since on so large a scale. Even to-day the effective
occupation by Russia of the lands once included in the Persian
Empire falls short of Alexander’s achievement, because Afghanistan,
included in his conquests, is still an autonomous state. It will have
been already noticed that much attention had to be given while the
Macedonian army was in these Far Eastern provinces, to their protection
against the nomad tribes on their frontiers. These operations in
Bactria and Sogdiana were a necessary part of the conquests of Persia,
since these remote provinces acted as a barrier against the savage
tribes of the central Asiatic steppes, who might at any time by joint
action overrun the civilization of the regions south of them. The
special care shown by Alexander in the construction of settlements
in this region is an evidence of his desire to make them centers of
civilizing influence by which the restless herdsmen might be trained to
orderly methods of life. The experiment failed, but it was a brilliant
vision--a vision which might have become a reality if the conqueror had
lived the normal span of years.
The beating down of all opposition in the enormously extensive
empire which the defeat of Darius had laid at his feet had now been
accomplished. If Alexander had been a statesman and nothing else, he
would have stayed his hand, because the consolidation of the territory
he had overrun was a work demanding the time and the talents of the
greatest genius. But Alexander had not the temper of a Roman proconsul,
capable and zealous to solve large political problems. He was young
enough to be influenced by the spirit of adventure, and unlike Cæsar
and Napoleon, had sometimes no deeply laid scheme in his military
exploits.
There was no political or military necessity summoning Alexander
to the conquest of India, but there was the irresistible charm of
novelty exerted by the unknown, the ambition to penetrate into
regions untrodden before by any Greek, and with this feeling of the
conqueror the modern world is able to sympathize. He was lured also by
the legendary stories of the visits to India of the god Dionysus and
the hero Herakles. The mystical, superstitious traits in Alexander’s
character could easily be stimulated, as we have already seen, to
emulation with the divinities of his people, and he was also glad to
afford proof that he could effect a conquest attempted without success
by Cyrus and Semiramis.
The actual military difficulties of the undertaking were not great,
for though the Indians were brave and warlike, and though they had a
well-populated land to draw from, they were not a national unity. As
the Indian states were constantly at war with one another, there would
be an opportunity of securing allies in the peninsula. There was no
difficulty in securing recruits for the expedition, although it is true
a large detachment of the army had well-understood motives for desiring
to be left in Bactria; but some of the best Asiatic warriors from these
regions were enrolled, 30,000 in number, and the levies with which
Alexander now prepared to descend on India were certainly twice as
great as those with which he had left Macedon seven years before. His
army was now a great cosmopolitan community, an organism resembling the
mercenary armies of the Middle Ages, in the times of the Condottieri.
It was self-supporting and self-sufficient in more senses than one, for
it included artisans, engineers, physicians, diviners, literary men,
athletes, secretaries, clerks, musicians, as well as a host of women
and slaves.
Most of the states in northern India at this time were inhabited by
what is often called an Aryan stock, the descendants of a succession
of waves of emigration through the northwestern hills from central
Asia. They had given up their nomadic life and reached the agricultural
stage. The Brahman caste system, with its asceticism, and with its
power of directive guidance in the state, according to the dictates of
a religious sect, already dominated the life of India, and the country
as a whole was made up of small principalities and village communities
with no common bond of union.
Alexander effected his entrance into this new world by marching from
Nicæa (probably to be identified with Cabul) along the Cabul river and
then proceeded through the now well-known Khyber Pass. For the purpose
of securing his communications much time had to be spent in warfare
with the brave inhabitants of the Himalaya Mountains. Many fortresses
were taken, the most remarkable of these exploits being the capture of
the rock of Aormas, which probably lies on the right bank of the Indus,
some sixty miles above the junction of that river with the Cabul. The
two tribes whose resistance gave the most trouble were the Aspasians
and the Assacenes, dwelling in localities which can now be identified
as being parts of Chitral in the Pangkan and Swat valleys.
This hard preliminary campaign lasted all the winter; in the spring
the Indus was crossed and a three days’ march was made eastward to
Taxila, a rich country, whose prince, along with lesser princes, gave
a friendly welcome to the conqueror. But this friendly attitude was
not taken by Porus, the ruler of the region farther south, who sent a
formal defiance to Alexander, and prepared to resist the invaders by
collecting an army of from thirty to forty thousand men. With this he
encamped on the river Hydaspes and prepared to contest its passage.
Alexander transported the boats, which he had constructed for crossing
the Indus, to the Hydaspes, and took up a position on the right bank
of the stream, near Jalalpur, in view of the army of Porus, who had
collected a large number of elephants, a formidable obstacle to the
effective use of the Greek cavalry. (326 B.C.)
In the face of an enemy so placed the transit of the river was
impossible, for the edge of the stream was slimy, making an insecure
footing for the soldiers, and the horses, terrified by the presence
of the elephants, could not be kept in control and would certainly be
lost. Besides, Porus kept a sharp eye on all the fords near his camping
ground. Alexander kept the enemy busy by making various feints as if
he were about to attempt to pass the stream. It was the rainy season,
and the Indian soldiers and elephants were kept in battle array at the
threatened points, exposed for hours to the force of the wind and rain.
Porus began to think that the Greeks were afraid to force the passage,
and these manœuvers were continued until he was off his guard.
Some sixteen miles below the Greek encampment, where the river made
a bend, there was a wooded island which hid the right shore from
observation. Taking advantage of this, and also of the fact that on his
side of the river there was a thick forest, Alexander managed to bring
his boats, which were made of skins, to a place opposite the island,
and at the same time he marched some of his troops down the stream,
leading them by a detour some distance from the bank, in order to
prevent the enemy from detecting his operations. The rest of the Greeks
were left at the original camping ground or were posted along the river
at different points, with directions to cross and aid him at the proper
moment.
The actual crossing of the division under his command was done under
his own eyes. Regiments of heavy-armed men were left on the right
bank in anticipation of a possible rear attack by Abisares, prince of
Cashmir, who, it was known, had promised to assist Porus in resisting
the invading army. The passage was facilitated by the stormy weather
which prevailed during the night. The Indian outposts heard nothing,
and Alexander led the way safely past the island to the opposite shore,
where, though some difficulty was caused by mistaking an islet for the
mainland, the cavalry were disembarked and put in battle array. The
whole number of troops under Alexander’s command were 6000 hypaspists,
4000 light-armed foot, 5000 cavalry, including 1000 Scythian archers.
In the meantime the Indian outposts had ridden away to announce to
Porus what had happened and to prepare him for the news of the Greek
advance. Alexander went swiftly forward, taking with him all the
cavalry, and he soon met and defeated a detachment of 1000 Indian
horsemen and 160 chariots under the command of the son of Porus.
The Indian king himself was advancing with the bulk of his army, and he
drew up his line of battle as soon as he found a piece of sandy ground
suitable for displaying the cavalry and elephants. In front he placed
200 elephants at intervals of 100 feet, and behind them his infantry
to the number of 20,000. In the wings his cavalry were drawn up, about
4000 in all. Alexander placed the pick of his army, the hypaspists,
immediately in front of the elephants. The use of these animals in
battle was still a strange sight to the Greeks, and the Indian fighting
line seemed to them like a city wall with towers. Porus did not think
that his foes would venture to advance through the spaces left between
the elephants. He argued that the horses would be terror-stricken and
the foot would be met by the Indian foot soldiers if they tried to
attack the elephants from the side, and that they would hesitate to
move directly against them for fear of being trodden down by their
onslaught.
Exactly how the Indian infantry were armed is left uncertain. They
probably had not the solidity of the Greek phalanx and were depended
upon only to cover the work of the elephants. Alexander kept his
infantry in reserve until he was able to confuse the line of the enemy
by a cavalry attack. His cavalry he directed to spread out and attack
not only in front but on the flanks as well. This manœuver was executed
with practised precision, and neither the Indian chariots nor their
horse could withstand the furious onslaught of the Greek squadrons,
and soon retired behind the elephants with the Macedonians in close
pursuit. As the elephants wheeled round, passing through the infantry
in order to meet the Macedonians, the quick advance was blocked; the
horses could not be induced to charge. They were obliged to retire;
then Porus, on his side, vigorously attacked both the Macedonian
cavalry and the phalanx.