CHAPTER LIV. THE FALL OF PERSIA

THE ENTRY INTO BABYLON DESCRIBED BY QUINTUS CURTIUS

As Alexander was continuing his march towards Babylon, Mazæus (who had fled thither from the battle) came with his children that were at the age of maturity, and surrendered himself and the town to the king. His submission was very acceptable to the king, by reason that the siege of so strong a place must of necessity have been tedious. Besides this, his quality and bravery were very considerable, and he had but lately distinguished himself in the last great action, and his example might be a great inducement to others to imitate him. The king therefore received him and his children very graciously; however, he formed his army, which he led in person, into a square, and commanded them to enter the town in that order, as if they had been going to an engagement.

In Babylon the walls were filled with Babylonians who flocked thither, eager to behold their new sovereign; but the greatest part went out to meet him. Among these were Bagophanes, governor of the castle and the keeper of the king’s treasure, who was unwilling to be outdone in zeal by Mazæus. The road he had strewed all over with flowers and garlands, and was adorned on each side with silver altars, which were filled, not only with frankincense, but all manner of perfumes. He was followed by the presents he designed for the king, viz., droves of cattle and horses, with lions and leopards in strong cages for that purpose. These were followed by the Magi singing hymns after the manner of the country. After these came the Chaldeans, and not only the Babylonian prophets, but also the musicians with their respective instruments. These were closed by the Babylonian cavalry, whose rich clothing and furniture, for themselves and their horses, denoted luxury rather than magnificence.

The king commanded the multitude of townspeople to follow in the rear of his foot, and being encompassed by his guards, entered the city in a chariot, and repaired to the palace. The next day he took a view of Darius’ furniture, and all his treasure. The beauty and antiquity of the place attracted not only Alexander’s eyes, but likewise those of all that beheld it.

“The king resided longer here,” Curtius continues, “than he had done anywhere; nor could any place be more destructive of discipline. Nothing can be more corrupt than the manners of this city,[28] nor better provided with all the requisites to stir up and promote all sorts of debauchery and lewdness: for parents and husbands suffer their children and wives to prostitute themselves to their guests, if they are but paid for the crime. The kings and noblemen of Persia take great delight in licentious entertainments: and the Babylonians are very much addicted to wine, and the consequences of drunkenness. The women, in the beginning of their feasts, are modestly clad; then after some time, they lay aside their upper garment, and violate their modesty by degrees; at last (without offence be it spoken) they fling away even their lower apparel: nor is this the infamous practice of the courtesans only, but likewise of the matrons and their daughters, who look upon this vile prostitution of their bodies as an act of complaisance.

“It is reasonable to think, that that victorious army, which had conquered Asia, having wallowed thirty-four days in all kinds of lewdness and debauchery, would have found itself much weakened, for any following engagements, if an enemy had presented itself; but that the damage might be less sensible, it was from time to time as it were renewed with fresh recruits, for Amyntas, the son of Andromenes, brought from Antipater 6000 Macedonian foot, and 500 horse of the same nation; and with these 600 Thracian horse, and 3500 foot of that country. There came also from Peloponnesus 4000 mercenary foot, and 380 horse. The said Amyntas likewise brought him 50 young gentlemen of the nobility of Macedonia, to serve as guards of his person.”

The king having appointed Agathon governor of the castle of Babylon, assigning him seven hundred Macedonians and three hundred mercenaries for that purpose, left the government of the territory and city to Menes and Apollodorus, allotting them a garrison of two thousand foot, and one thousand talents, commanding both to make new levies to recruit the army. He gave to Mazæus who came over to him, the superintendency of Babylon, and ordered Bagophanes, who had surrendered the castle to him, to follow him. He gave the government of Armenia to Mithrenes, who had yielded up Sardis. Out of the money found in Babylon, he ordered every Macedonian trooper six hundred denarii [about £20 or $100], and five hundred to every foreign trooper, and to every foot soldier two hundred.

Alexander having settled things after this manner, marched into the country called Satrapene.

As the king was on his march to Susa, Abulites, who was governor of that province, sent his son to meet him on the road, and assure him he was ready to surrender the town. It is uncertain whether he did this of his own accord, or by Darius’ order, thereby to amuse Alexander with the booty. Having entered the town, Alexander took out of the treasury a prodigious sum, viz., fifty thousand talents of silver, not coined, but in the wedge and bar.[29] Several kings had been a long time heaping up these vast treasures, as they thought, for their children, and posterity, but one single hour put them all into the hands of a foreign prince.

He then seated himself in the regal throne, which, being much too high for his stature, his feet could not reach the ground; one of his pages therefore brought a table and set it under his feet. Hereupon one of Darius’ eunuchs sighed, which the king observing, enquired into the cause of his grief. Then the eunuch told him, “That Darius was used to eat upon that table; and that he could not behold, without shedding tears, the table, which was consecrated to his master’s use, applied in a manner so insulting and contemptuous.” At these words, the king began to be ashamed to violate the gods of hospitality, and commanded it to be taken away: but Philotas entreated him by no means to do so, but on the contrary to take it as a good omen, that that table, off of which his enemy used to eat, was now become his footstool.

[Sidenote: [330 B.C.]]

Alexander designing now to pass into Persia, gave the government, of Susa to Archelaus, leaving him a garrison of three thousand men; Xenophilus had the charge of the castle, having with him for garrison the superannuated Macedonians. The care of the treasury was committed to Callicrates, and the lieutenancy of the county of Susa was restored to Abulites. Darius’ mother and children were likewise left here.

Alexander having passed the river with nine thousand foot, the Agrianes, mercenary Greeks, and three thousand Thracians, came into the country of the Uxians; it borders upon the territory of Susa, and extends itself as far as the frontier of Persia. He afterwards united the Uxian nation to the government of Susa; then having divided his army with Parmenion, he commanded him to march through the flat country, while he, with the light-armed forces, took his way along the mountains, which run in a perpetual ridge into Persia.

AT THE BORDER OF PERSIA

Having ravaged all this country, he arrived the third day on the borders of Persia, and on the fifth he entered the straits Pylæ Susidæ. Ariobarzanes, with twenty-five thousand foot, had taken possession of these rocks, which were on all sides steep and craggy, on the tops whereof the barbarians kept themselves, being there out of the cast of the darts. Here they remained quiet on purpose, and seemed to be afraid till the army was advanced within the narrowest part of the straits; but when they perceived them to continue their march, as it were in contempt of them, they rolled down stones of a prodigious bigness upon them, which rebounding often from the lower rocks, fell with the greater force, and not only crushed single persons, but even whole companies.

They likewise plied their slings and bows from all parts; even this did not seem a hardship to these brave men, save that they were forced to perish unrevenged, like beasts taken in a pitfall: upon this, their anger turning into rage, they caught hold of the rocks, and helping one another up, did all they could to get to the enemy; but the parts they laid hold on giving way to the strength of so many hands, fell upon those that loosened them. In these sad circumstances they could neither stand still nor go forward, nor protect themselves with their bucklers, by reason of the great size of the stones the barbarians pushed upon them. The king was not only grieved, but ashamed he had so rashly brought his army into these straits. Till this day he had been invincible, having never attempted anything in vain. He had entered the straits of Cilicia without damage, and had opened himself a new way by sea into Pamphylia; but here that happiness which had always attended him, seemed to be at a stand, and there was no other remedy but to return the same way he came. Having therefore given the signal for a retreat, he commanded the soldiers to march in close order, and to join their bucklers over their heads, and so retire out of these straits, after they had advanced thirty furlongs within them.

A SHEPHERD GUIDE

The king, at his return from the straits, having pitched his camp in a plain open ground, not only held a council on the present juncture of affairs, but also was so superstitious as to consult the prophets concerning what was the most advisable to be done: but what, in such a case, could Aristander (who was then in greatest esteem) pretend to foretell? Laying aside therefore the unseasonable sacrifices, he gave orders to bring to him such men as were well acquainted with the country; these men told him of a way through Media, which was safe and open, but the king was ashamed to leave his soldiers unburied, for there was no custom more religiously observed amongst the Macedonians, than that of burying their dead: he therefore commanded the prisoners he had lately taken to be brought before him; among these, there was one who was skilled in both the Greek and Persian languages; this man told him, it was in vain for him to think of leading his army into Persia, over the tops of the mountains; that the narrow ways lay all among woods, and were hardly passable to single persons; that he had been a shepherd, and knew all those byways perfectly well: and that he had been twice taken prisoner; once by the Persians in Lycia, and now by himself.

This answer put the king in mind of the oracle that had told him, “a Lycian should be his guide into Persia;” having therefore made him large promises, suitable to the present necessity, and the prisoner’s condition, he ordered him “to be armed after the Macedonian manner, and in the name of fortune to lead the way.” Then having committed the guard of the camp to Craterus, with the foot which he commanded, and the forces under Meleager, and a thousand horse archers, he ordered him “to observe the same form of encampment, and to keep a great many fires, that the barbarians might by that think the king was there in person; but if he found Ariobarzanes got intelligence of his march through the winding narrow ways, and thereupon made detachments to oppose his passage; that then Craterus should use his utmost efforts to terrify him, and oblige him to keep his troops together to oppose the present danger; but if he (the king) deceived the enemy, and gained the wood, that then, upon the alarm among the enemies endeavouring to pursue the king, he should boldly enter the straits they had been repulsed in the day before, since he might be sure they were undefended, and the enemy turned upon himself.”

At the third watch, he broke up in great silence, without so much as the signal from the trumpet, and followed his guide towards the narrow way. Every light-armed soldier had orders to carry with him three days’ provision. But besides the steepness of the rocks, and the slipperiness of the stone that often deceived their feet, the driven snow very much incommoded them; for it sometimes swallowed them up as if they had fallen into pits; and when their fellow-soldiers endeavoured to help them out, they themselves were pulled down into the same pits. Moreover, the night, and unknown country, besides the uncertainty whether the guide was faithful or not, very much increased their fear: for if he deceived the guards, and made his escape, they were liable to be taken like wild beasts: so that the king’s and their safety depended on the fidelity and life of one prisoner. At length they gained the top of the mountain.

Having there refreshed his men both with food and sleep, at the second watch he continued his march, without any great difficulty. However, by reason of the declivity of the mountains towards the plain, there was a great gulf (occasioned by the meeting of several torrents that had worn away the earth) which stopped their further progress. Besides, the branches of the trees were so entangled one within the other, and joined so close, that it opposed their passage like a thick hedge. This cast them into the utmost despair, and they had much ado, to retain their tears: the darkness of the night also increased their terror, for if any stars appeared, they were intercepted by the close contexture of the boughs. The very use of their ears was also taken away; for the wind was high, and by blowing against the interfering branches of the trees, its noise was greatly increased. At last, the long-expected light lessened the terrors which the night had enhanced; for by fetching a small compass, they avoided the gulf: and now every one began to be a guide to himself. Having therefore gained the top of a hill, from whence they could discover the enemy’s out-guards, they resolutely showed themselves at the back of the enemy, who mistrusted no such thing. Those few who dared engage, were killed; and the groans of those that were dying, together with the dismal appearance of those that fled to their main body, struck such a terror amongst them, that they took to their heels without so much as trying their fortune.

The noise having reached Craterus’ camp, he presently advanced to take possession of those straits where they had been baffled the day before. At the same time, Philotas with Polysperchon, Amyntas, and Cœnus, who had been ordered to march another way, gave a fresh surprise to the barbarians, who were now surrounded on all sides by the Macedonians; notwithstanding which, they behaved themselves gallantly. Oftentimes despair is the cause of hope: for naked as they were, they closed in with those that were armed, and by the bulk of their bodies, brought them down to the ground, and then stuck several of them with their own weapons. However, Ariobarzanes with forty horse, and about five thousand foot, broke through the Macedonian army (a great many falling on both sides) and endeavoured to possess himself of Persepolis, the chief city of the country. But being denied entrance by the garrison, and the enemy pursuing him closely, he renewed the fight, and was slain with all his men. By this time Craterus marching with the utmost expedition, also joined the king.

The king fortified his camp in the same place where he had defeated the enemy: for notwithstanding that he had gained a complete victory, yet the large and deep ditches in many places retarded his march, and so he thought it more advisable to proceed leisurely; not suspecting so much any attempt from the barbarians, as the treachery of the ground.

In his march he received letters from Tiridates (keeper of the royal treasure at Persepolis) notifying him, “that upon advice of his approach, the inhabitants would have rifled the treasury; wherefore he desired him to hasten his march, and come and take possession of it; that the way was safe, although the river Araxes ran across.” No other virtue of Alexander’s is so admirable as his expedition in all actions. Leaving therefore his foot behind, he marched all night with his cavalry, notwithstanding their late fatigues, and arrived by break of day at the Araxes. There were several villages in the neighbourhood, which having pillaged and demolished, he made a bridge of the materials.

THE RELEASED CAPTIVES; SACKING PERSEPOLIS

The king was not far from Persepolis, when so sad a spectacle presented itself to his eyes, as can hardly be paralleled in history. It consisted of four thousand Greek captives, whom the Persians had mangled after a miserable manner. For some had their feet cut off, others their hands and ears, and all their bodies were burnt with barbarous characters, and thus reserved for the cruel diversion of their inhuman enemies; who now finding themselves under foreign subjection, did not oppose their desire to go out and meet Alexander. They resembled some strange figures more than men, being only distinguishable as such by their voice. They drew more tears from their spectators, than they shed themselves; for in so great a variety of calamities, notwithstanding they were all sufferers, yet their punishment was so diversified, that it was a difficult matter to determine which of them was most miserable. But when they cried out, that at last Jupiter the revenger of Greece had opened his eyes, all the beholders were so moved with compassion, that they thought their sufferings their own. Alexander having dried his eyes (for he could not forbear weeping at so sad an object) bade them “have a good heart,” and assured them, “they should see their native country, and their wives again.”

Some few accepted, but the remainder were overcome by a long habit, which is stronger than nature; they agreed therefore “to desire the king to assign them some place for their habitation”; and chose a hundred out of their body, to prefer their petition. Alexander, thinking they would ask what he himself intended for them, told them, he had “ordered every one of them a horse, and a thousand denarii [£34 or $170]; and that when they should come to Greece, he would so provide for them that (except for the calamities they had experienced in their captivity) none should be happier than they.” At these words, they fell to weeping, and being dejected, could neither look up, nor speak; which made the king inquire into the cause of their sadness. Then Euthymon made an answer suitable to what he had said to his companions. Hereupon the king, moved with their misfortune and resolution, ordered three thousand denarii [£102 or $510] to be distributed to every one of them, besides ten suits of clothes, with cattle, sheep, and such a quantity of corn, as was sufficient to cultivate the land that was assigned them.

The next day, having called together all his generals, he represented to them, “that no city had been more mischievous to the Greeks than this seat of the ancient kings of Persia: from hence came all those vast armies: from hence Darius first, and then Xerxes, made their impious wars upon Europe: it was therefore necessary to raze it, to appease the Manes of their ancestors.” The inhabitants had abandoned it, and were fled some one way, and some another; so that the king led the phalanx into it without further delay. He had before this made himself master of many towns of regal wealth and magnificence, some by force, and some by composition, but the riches of this exceeded all the rest. Hither the Persians had brought all their substance; gold and silver lay here in heaps: of clothes there was a prodigious quantity; the furniture of the houses seemed not only designed for use, but for luxury and ostentation. This gave occasion to the conquerors to fight among themselves, each taking for an enemy his companion that had got the richest spoils: and as they could not carry off all they found, they were now no longer employed in taking, but in picking and choosing.

They tore the royal garments, every one being willing to have his share of them: with axes they cut in pieces vessels of exquisite art; in fine, nothing was left untouched, nor carried away entire; the images of gold and silver were broken in pieces, according as every one could lay hold on them. Avarice did not only rage here, but cruelty likewise; for being loaded with gold and silver, they would not be troubled to guard their prisoners, but inhumanly killed them, and now barbarously murdered those they had at first shown mercy to in hopes of gain. This occasioned a great many to give themselves over to a voluntary death, so that putting on their richest apparel, they cast themselves headlong from the walls, with their wives and children; some set fire to their houses (which they thought the enemy would do) and perished, with their families, in the flames. At last the king gave orders, not to injure the persons of the women, nor meddle with their apparel.

CURTIUS TELLS OF THE ENORMOUS LOOT

The immense treasures taken here exceeded all belief: but we must either doubt of all the rest, or believe that in the exchequer of this place was found 120,000 talents,[30] which the king, designing for the use of the war, caused “horses and camels to be brought from Susa to Babylon, to carry it off for that purpose.” This sum was afterwards increased, by taking Pasargada, wherein were found six thousand talents. Cyrus had built this city; and Gobares, who was governor thereof, surrendered it to Alexander.

The king made Nicarthides governor of the castle of Persepolis, leaving with him a garrison of three thousand Macedonians; he also continued Tiridates (who had delivered up the treasure) in the same honours he had enjoyed under Darius.

Alexander left here the greatest part of his army, with the baggage, under the command of Parmenion and Craterus; and taking with him a thousand horse, and part of the light-armed foot, penetrated farther into the country of Persia about the beginning of winter. On his way he was very much incommoded with storms of rain, and tempests that seemed intolerable; notwithstanding which, he pursued his intended progress. He was now in a country covered over with snow and ice: the sad view of the place, and the impassable wastes and solitudes, struck the tired soldier with horror; he now began to think he was at the end of the world. They beheld with astonishment the frightful solitudes, which had not the least signs of human culture; they therefore required him to return, “before the very light and heavens failed them.” The king forebore chastising them in the amazement they were in, but leaping from his horse, marched on foot before them through the snow and ice. They were ashamed not to follow him; therefore first his friends, then the captains, and at last the soldiers marched after him.

The king was the first that with a pickaxe broke the ice, and made himself a passage; then the rest imitated his example. At length, having made their way through woods almost impassable, they began to discover here and there some tokens that the place was inhabited, as also flocks of sheep wandering up and down. The inhabitants lived in cottages, and thought themselves sufficiently secured by the impracticableness of the country. At the sight of the enemy, they presently killed those who could not follow them, and fled to the remotest mountains, which were covered with snow; but after some conferences with the prisoners, their fright abated, and they surrendered themselves to the king, who was no way severe to them.

CURTIUS DESCRIBES AN ORGY AND THE BURNING OF PERSEPOLIS

Alexander having ravaged the country of Persia, and reduced several towns under his obedience, came at last into the country of the Mardians, who were a warlike nation, and very different from the rest of the Persians in their manner of living. “They dig themselves caves in the mountains,” says Curtius, “where they dwell, feeding on their flocks, or wild beasts. The women are not of a softer nature than the men; they have bushy hair, and their garments hardly reach their knees. They bind their forehead with a sling, which serves them both for ornament and weapon.” However, the same torrent of fortune bore down this nation, as it had done the rest; so that on the thirteenth day after he departed from Persepolis, he returned thither again.

Then he made presents to his friends, and to the rest according to their respective merit, distributing amongst them almost all that had been taken in the town.

But the excellent endowments of his mind, that noble disposition whereby he surpassed all kings, that manly constancy in surmounting dangers, that unparalleled celerity in undertaking and executing the greatest designs, his inviolable faith to those who submitted to him, his wonderful clemency towards the prisoners, and his temperance in allowable and usual pleasures, were all sullied by his excessive love of wine: for notwithstanding his enemy and rival, for the empire was at this very instant making the greatest preparations to renew the war, and the late conquered nations were yet uneasy under his new government, yet he would spend the day-time in revelling and feasting; to which entertainments the women were also admitted; not such whom it was a crime to violate, but such as were common, and whose conversation was a disgrace to a man in arms. One of these, whose name was Thais, being heated with wine, told him, he could not do anything that would more oblige all the Greeks, than if he burnt the palace of the kings of Persia; that they expected this by way of reprisal for those towns of theirs the barbarians had destroyed. This drunken harlot had no sooner spoken her opinion in a matter of so great a consequence, but presently some of the company (who were also loaded with wine) applauded the proposal: and the king not only heard it with patience, but, eager to put it in execution, said:

“Why do we not revenge Greece? Why do we delay setting fire to the town?” They were all heated with wine, and in that drunken condition immediately rose to burn that city they had spared when armed. The king showed them the example, and was the first that set fire to the palace, after which his guests, servants, and concubines did the same. There being a great deal of cedar in this noble structure, it presently took fire, and communicated the flames. The army, which was encamped not far from the town, perceived the conflagration, and imagining it to be casual, ran to help to quench it; but being come to the entrance of the palace, and seeing the king himself carrying fresh flambeaux to increase the fire, they flung down the water they had brought, and fed the flames with dry materials.

This was the end of the noblest city of the East, from whence so many nations received their laws; which had been the birthplace of so many kings; formerly the chief terror of Greece; had fitted out a fleet of a thousand sail of ships, and sent out armies, which, like an inundation, almost covered all Europe, had laid bridges over the sea, and hollowed mountains to make the sea a passage; and in so long a time as has elapsed since its destruction, never was rebuilt: for the Macedonian kings made choice of other towns for their residence, which are now in the possession of the Parthians. The ruin of this city was so complete, that were it not for the river Araxes, we should hardly know where it stood. This river ran at no great distance from the walls of this town, which (as the neighbouring inhabitants rather conjecture than certainly know) was situate about twenty furlongs from it.

The Macedonians were ashamed so famous a city should be destroyed by their king in a drunken humour. They therefore made a serious matter of it, and persuaded themselves, “it was expedient it should be consumed this way.” But as for Alexander, as soon as rest had restored him to himself, it is certain he repented of what he had done; and he said, the Persians “would have made more ample satisfaction to Greece had they been necessitated to behold him sitting in Xerxes’ throne in his royal city.”

The next day he ordered thirty talents to be given to the Lycian who had been his guide into Persia. From hence he passed into the country of Media, where he was met by new recruits from Cilicia. They consisted of five thousand foot, and one thousand horse, both the one and the other were under the command of Plato the Athenian. Having received this reinforcement, he resolved to pursue Darius.[b]

THE NEW MEANING OF THE CONQUEST

From this time (330 B.C.) forward to the close of Alexander’s life, a period of about seven years, his time was spent in conquering the eastern half of the Persian empire, together with various independent tribes lying beyond its extreme boundary. But neither Greece, nor Asia Minor, nor any of his previous western acquisitions, was he ever destined to see again.

Now in regard to the history of Greece, the first portion of Alexander’s Asiatic campaigns (from his crossing the Hellespont to the conquest of Persia, a period of four years, March 334 B.C. to March 330 B.C.), though not of direct bearing, is yet of material importance. Having in his first year completed the subjugation of the Hellenic world, he had by these subsequent campaigns absorbed it as a small fraction into the vast Persian empire, renovated under his imperial sceptre. He had accomplished a result substantially the same as would have been brought about if the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, destined, a century and half before, to incorporate Greece with the Persian monarchy, had succeeded instead of failing. Towards the kings of Macedonia alone, the subjugation of Greece would never have become complete, so long as she could receive help from the native Persian kings, who were perfectly adequate as a countervailing and tutelary force, had they known how to play their game. But all hope for Greece from without was extinguished, when Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis became subject to the same ruler as Pella and Amphipolis--and that ruler too, the ablest general, and most insatiate aggressor, of his age, to whose name was attached the prestige of success almost superhuman. Still, against even this overwhelming power, some of the bravest of the Greeks at home tried to achieve their liberation with the sword: we shall see presently how sadly the attempt miscarried.

But though the first four years of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition, in which he conquered the western half of the Persian empire, had thus an important effect on the condition and destinies of the Grecian cities, his last seven years, on which we are now about to enter, employed chiefly in conquering the eastern half, scarcely touched these cities in any way. The stupendous marches to the rivers Jaxartes, Indus, and Hyphasis, which carried his victorious armies over so wide a space of Central Asia, not only added nothing to his power over the Greeks, but even withdrew him from all dealings with them, and placed him almost beyond their cognisance. To the historian of Greece, therefore, these latter campaigns can hardly be regarded as included within the range of his subject. They deserve to be told as examples of military skill and energy, and as illustrating the character of the most illustrious general of antiquity--one who, though not a Greek, had become the master of all Greeks.

THE PURSUIT OF DARIUS

About six or seven months had elapsed from the battle of Arbela to the time when Alexander prepared to quit his most recent conquest--Persia proper. During all this time, Darius had remained at Ecbatana, the chief city of Media, clinging to the hope, that Alexander, when possessed of the three southern capitals and the best part of the Persian empire, might have reached the point of satiation, and might leave him unmolested in the more barren East. As soon as he learned that Alexander was in movement towards him, he sent forward his harem and his baggage to Hyrcania, on the southeastern border of the Caspian Sea. Himself, with the small force around him, followed in the same direction, carrying off the treasure in the city, 7000 talents [£1,400,000 or $7,000,000] in amount, and passed through the Caspian Gates into the territory of Parthyene. His only chance was to escape to Bactria at the eastern extremity of the empire, ruining the country in his way for the purpose of retarding pursuers. But this chance diminished every day, from desertion among his few followers, and angry disgust among many who remained.

Eight days after Darius had quitted Ecbatana, Alexander entered it. How many days had been occupied in his march from Persepolis, we cannot say: in itself a long march, it had been further prolonged, partly by necessity of subduing the intervening mountaineers called Parætacene, partly by rumours exaggerating the Persian force at Ecbatana, and inducing him to advance with precaution and regular array. Possessed of Ecbatana, the last capital stronghold of the Persian kings and their ordinary residence during the summer months, he halted to rest his troops, and establish a new base of operations for his future proceedings eastward. He made Ecbatana his principal depot; depositing in the citadel, under the care of Harpalus as treasurer, with a garrison of six thousand or seven thousand Macedonians, the accumulated treasures of his past conquests, out of Susa and Persepolis; amounting we are told, to the enormous sum of 180,000 talents [£36,000,000 sterling $180,000,000]. Parmenion was invested with the chief command of this important post, and of the military force left in Media; of which territory Oxodates, a Persian who had been imprisoned at Susa by Darius, was named satrap.

At Ecbatana, Alexander was joined by a fresh force of six thousand Grecian mercenaries, who had marched from Cilicia into the interior, probably crossing the Euphrates and Tigris at the same points as Alexander himself had crossed. Hence he was enabled the better to dismiss his Thessalian cavalry, with other Greeks who had been serving during his four years of Asiatic war, and who now wished to go home. He distributed among them the sum of two thousand talents [£400,000 or $2,000,000] in addition to their full pay, and gave them the price of their horses, which they sold before departure. The operations which he was now about to commence against the eastern territories of Persia were not against regular armies, but against flying corps and distinct native tribes, relying for defence chiefly on the difficulties which mountains, deserts, privation, or mere distance, would throw in the way of an assailant. For these purposes he required an increased number of light troops, and was obliged to impose even upon his heavy-armed cavalry the most rapid and fatiguing marches, such as none but his Macedonian companions would have been contented to execute; moreover he was called upon to act less with large masses, and more with small and broken divisions. He now therefore for the first time established a regular taxis, or division of horse-bowmen.

Remaining at Ecbatana no longer than was sufficient for these new arrangements, Alexander recommenced his pursuit of Darius. He hoped to get before Darius to the Caspian Gates, at the northeastern extremity of Media; by which gates was understood a mountain pass, or rather a road of many hours’ march, including several difficult passes stretching eastward along the southern side of the great range of Taurus towards Parthia. He marched to Rhagæ, about fifty miles north of the Caspian Gates; which town he reached in eleven days, by exertions so severe that many men as well as horses were disabled on the road. But in spite of all speed, he learned that Darius had already passed through the Caspian Gates. After five days of halt at Rhagæ, indispensable for his army, Alexander passed them also. A day’s march on the other side of them, he was joined by two eminent Persians, Bagistanes and Antibelus, who informed him that Darius was already dethroned and in imminent danger of losing his life.

The conspirators by whom this had been done were: Bessus, satrap of Bactria; Barsaentes, satrap of Drangiana and Arachosia; and Nabarzanes, general of the regal guards. The small force of Darius having been thinned by daily desertion, most of those who remained were the contingents of the still unconquered territories, Bactria, Arachosia, and Drangiana, under the orders of their respective satraps. The Grecian mercenaries, fifteen hundred in number, and Artabazus, with a band under his special command, adhered inflexibly to Darius, but the soldiers of Eastern Asia followed their own satraps. Bessus and his colleagues intended to make their peace with Alexander by surrendering Darius, should Alexander pursue so vigorously as to leave them no hope of escape; but if they could obtain time to reach Bactria and Sogdiana, they resolved to organise an energetic resistance, under their own joint command, for the defence of those eastern provinces--the most warlike population of the empire. Under the desperate circumstances of the case, this plan was perhaps the least unpromising that could be proposed. The chance of resisting Alexander, small as it was at the best, became absolutely nothing under the command of Darius, who had twice set the example of flight from the field of battle, betraying both his friends and his empire, even when surrounded by the full force of Persia. For brave and energetic Persians, unless they were prepared at once to submit to the invader, there was no choice but to set aside Darius; nor does it appear that the conspirators intended at first anything worse. At a village called Thara in Parthia, they bound him in chains of gold, placed him in a covered chariot surrounded by the Bactrian troops, and thus carried him onward, retreating as fast as they could; Bessus assuming the command. Artabazus, with the Grecian mercenaries, too feeble to prevent the proceeding, quitted the army in disgust, and sought refuge among the mountains of the Tapyri bordering on Hyrcania towards the Caspian Sea.

On hearing this intelligence, Alexander strained every nerve to overtake the fugitives and get possession of the person of Darius. At the head of his companion cavalry, his light horse, and a body of infantry picked out for their strength and activity, he put himself in instant march, with nothing but arms and two days’ provisions for each man; leaving Craterus to bring on the main body by easier journeys. A forced march of two nights and one day, interrupted only by a short midday repose (it was now the month of July), brought him at daybreak to the Persian camp which his informant, Bagistanes, had quitted. But Bessus and his troops were already beyond it, having made considerable advance in their flight; upon which Alexander, notwithstanding the exhaustion both of men and horses, pushed on with increased speed through all the night to the ensuing day at noon. He there found himself in the village where Bessus had encamped on the preceding day. Yet learning from deserters that his enemies had resolved to hasten their retreat by night marches, he despaired of overtaking them unless he could find some shorter road. He was informed that there was another shorter, but leading through a waterless desert. Setting out by this road with his cavalry, he got over no less than forty-five miles during the night, so as to come on Bessus by complete surprise.

The Persians, marching in disorder without arms, and having no expectation of an enemy, were so panic-stricken at the sudden appearance of their indefatigable conqueror, that they dispersed and fled without any attempt to resist. In this critical moment, Bessus and Barsaentes urged Darius to leave his chariot, mount his horse, and accompany them in their flight. But he refused to comply. They were determined however that he should not fall alive into the hands of Alexander, whereby his name would have been employed against them, and would have materially lessened their chance of defending the eastern provinces; they were moreover incensed by his refusal, and had contracted a feeling of hatred and contempt to which they were glad to give effect. Casting their javelins at him, they left him mortally wounded, and then pursued their flight. His chariot, not distinguished by any visible mark, nor known even to the Persian soldiers themselves, was for some time not detected by the pursuers. At length a Macedonian soldier named Polystratus found him expiring, and is said to have received his last words; wherein he expressed thanks to Alexander for the kind treatment of his captive female relatives, and satisfaction that the Persian throne, lost to himself, was about to pass to so generous a conqueror. It is at least certain that he never lived to see Alexander himself.

Alexander had made the prodigious and indefatigable marches of the last four days, not without destruction to many men and horses, for the express purpose of taking Darius alive. It would have been a gratification to his vanity to exhibit the Great King as a helpless captive, rescued from his own servants by the sword of his enemy, and spared to occupy some subordinate command as a token of ostentatious indulgence. Moreover, apart from such feelings, it would have been a point of real advantage to seize the person of Darius, by means of whose name Alexander would have been enabled to stifle all further resistance in the extensive and imperfectly known regions eastward of the Caspian Gates. The satraps of these regions had now gone thither with their hands free, to kindle as much Asiatic sentiment and levy as large a force as they could, against the Macedonian conqueror; who was obliged to follow them, if he wished to complete the subjugation of the empire. We can understand therefore that Alexander was deeply mortified in deriving no result from this ruinously fatiguing march, and can the better explain that savage wrath which we shall hereafter find him manifesting against the satrap Bessus.

Alexander caused the body of Darius to be buried, with full pomp and ceremonial, in the regal sepulchres of Persis. The last days of this unfortunate prince have been described with almost tragic pathos by historians; and there are few subjects in history better calculated to excite such a feeling, if we regard simply the magnitude of his fall, from the highest pitch of power and splendour to defeat, degradation, and assassination. But an impartial review will not allow us to forget that the main cause of such ruin was his own blindness--his long apathy after the battle of Issus, and abandonment of Tyre and Gaza, in the fond hope of repurchasing queens whom he had himself exposed to captivity--lastly, what is still less pardonable, his personal cowardice in both the two decisive battles deliberately brought about by himself. If we follow his conduct throughout the struggle, we shall find little of that which renders a defeated prince either respectable or interesting. Those who had the greatest reason to denounce and despise him, were his friends and countrymen, whom he possessed ample means of defending, yet threw those means away. On the other hand, no one had better grounds for indulgence towards him than his conqueror; for whom he had kept unused the countless treasures of the three capitals, and for whom he had lightened in every way the difficulties of a conquest, in itself hardly less than impracticable.

The recent forced march, undertaken by Alexander for the purpose of securing Darius as a captive, had been distressing in the extreme to his soldiers, who required a certain period of repose and compensation. This was granted to them at the town of Hecatompylos in Parthia, where the whole army was again united. Alexander now began to feel and act manifestly as successor of Darius on the Persian throne; to disdain the comparative simplicity of Macedonian habits, and to assume the pomp, the ostentatious apparatus of luxuries, and even the dress, of a Persian king.

To many of Alexander’s soldiers, the conquest of Persia appeared to be consummated and the war finished, by the death of Darius. They were reluctant to exchange the repose and enjoyments of Hecatompylos for fresh fatigues; but Alexander, assembling the select regiments, addressed to them an emphatic appeal which revived the ardour of all. His first march was across one of the passes into Hyrcania, the region bordering the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea. Here he found no resistance. Alexander undertook an expedition into the mountains of the Mardi, and reduced the remnant of the half-destroyed tribes to sue for peace.

After repose and festivity at Zeudracarta, the chief town of Hyrcania, Alexander marched eastward with his united army through Parthia into Aria. A few days enabled him to crush the Arians. He then marched southward into the territory of the Drangi, or Drangiana (the modern Seistan), where he found no resistance.

CONSPIRACIES AGAINST ALEXANDER

In the chief town of Drangiana occurred the revolting tragedy, of which Philotas was the first victim, and his father Parmenion the second. Parmenion, now seventy years of age, and therefore little qualified for the fatigue inseparable from the invasion of the eastern satrapies, had been left in the important post of commanding the great depot and treasure at Ecbatana. His long military experience, and confidential position even under Philip, rendered him the second person in the Macedonian army, next to Alexander himself. His three sons were all soldiers. The youngest of them, Hector, had been accidentally drowned in the Nile, while in the suite of Alexander in Egypt; the second, Nicanor, had commanded the hypaspists or light infantry, but had died of illness, fortunately for himself, a short time before; the eldest, Philotas, occupied the high rank of general of the companion cavalry, in daily communication with Alexander, from whom he received personal orders.

A revelation came to Philotas, that a soldier named Dimnus had made boast to Nicomachus, his intimate friend or beloved person, under vows of secrecy, of an intended conspiracy against Alexander, inviting him to become an accomplice. Nicomachus, at first struck with abhorrence, at length simulated compliance, asked who were the accomplices of Dimnus, and received intimation of a few names; all of which he presently communicated to his brother Cebalinus, for the purpose of being divulged. Cebalinus told the facts to Philotas, entreating him to mention them to Alexander. But Philotas, though every day in communication with the king, neglected to do this for two days; upon which Cebalinus began to suspect him of connivance, and caused the revelation to be made to Alexander through one of the pages named Metron. Dimnus was immediately arrested, but ran himself through with his sword, and expired without making any declaration.

Of this conspiracy, real or pretended, everything rested on the testimony of Nicomachus. Alexander indignantly sent for Philotas, demanding why he had omitted for two days to communicate what he had heard. Philotas replied that the source from which it came was too contemptible to deserve notice--that it would have been ridiculous to attach importance to the simple declarations of such a youth as Nicomachus, recounting the foolish boasts addressed to him by a lover. Alexander received, or affected to receive, the explanation, gave his hand to Philotas, invited him to supper, and talked to him with his usual familiarity.

But it soon appeared that advantage was to be taken of this incident for the disgrace and ruin of Philotas, whose free-spoken criticisms on the pretended divine paternity--coupled with boasts, that he and his father Parmenion had been chief agents in the conquest of Asia--had neither been forgotten nor forgiven.

Some of the generals around Alexander, especially Craterus the first suborner of Antigone, fomented these suspicions from jealousy of the great ascendency of Parmenion and his family. There was not a tittle of evidence against him, except the fact that the deposition had been made known to him, and that he had seen Alexander twice without communicating it. Upon this single fact, however, Craterus and the other enemies of Philotas worked so effectually as to inflame the suspicions and the pre-existing ill-will of Alexander into fierce rancour. He resolved on the disgrace, torture, and death of Philotas--and on the death of Parmenion besides.

To accomplish this, however, against the two highest officers in the Macedonian service, one of them enjoying a separate and distant command, required management. Alexander was obliged to carry the feelings of the soldiers along with him, and to obtain a condemnation from the army, according to an ancient Macedonian custom, in regard to capital crimes, though, as it seems, not uniformly practised. He not only kept the resolution secret, but is even said to have invited Philotas to supper with the other officers, conversing with him just as usual. In the middle of the night, Philotas was arrested while asleep in his bed, put in chains, and clothed in an ignoble garb. A military assembly was convened at daybreak, before which Alexander appeared with the chief officers in his confidence. Addressing the soldiers in a vehement tone of mingled sorrow and anger, he proclaimed to them that his life had just been providentially rescued from a dangerous conspiracy organised by two men hitherto trusted as his best friends--Philotas and Parmenion--through the intended agency of a soldier named Dimnus, who had slain himself when arrested. The dead body of Dimnus was then exhibited to the meeting, while Nicomachus and Cebalinus were brought forward to tell their story. A letter from Parmenion to his sons Philotas and Nicanor, found among the papers seized on the arrest, was read to the meeting. Its terms were altogether vague and unmeaning; but Alexander chose to construe them as it suited his purpose.

We may easily conceive the impression produced upon these assembled soldiers by such denunciations from Alexander himself--revelations of his own personal danger, and reproaches against treacherous friends. Amyntas, and even Cœnus, the brother-in-law of Philotas, were yet more unmeasured in their invectives against the accused. They, as well as the other officers with whom the arrest had been concerted, set the example of violent manifestation against him, and ardent sympathy with the king’s danger. Philotas was heard in his defence, which, though strenuously denying the charge, is said to have been feeble. It was indeed sure to be so, coming from one seized thus suddenly, and overwhelmed with disadvantages; while a degree of courage, absolutely heroic, would have been required for any one else to rise and presume to criticise the proofs. The royal pages began the cry, echoed by all around, that they would with their own hands tear the parricide in pieces.

It would have been fortunate for Philotas if their wrath had been sufficiently ungovernable to instigate the execution of such a sentence on the spot. But this did not suit the purpose of his enemies. Aware that he had been condemned upon the regal word, with nothing better than the faintest negative ground of suspicion, they determined to extort from him a confession such as would justify their own purposes, not only against him, but against his father Parmenion--whom there was as yet nothing to implicate. Accordingly, during the ensuing night, Philotas was put to the torture. Hephæstion, Craterus, and Cœnus--the last of the three being brother-in-law of Philotas--themselves superintended the ministers of physical suffering. Alexander himself, too, was at hand, but concealed by a curtain. It is said that Philotas manifested little firmness under torture, and that Alexander, an unseen witness, indulged in sneers against the cowardice of one who had fought by his side in so many battles. All who stood by were enemies, and likely to describe the conduct of Philotas in such manner as to justify their own hatred. The tortures inflicted, cruel in the extreme and long continued, wrung from him at last a confession, implicating his father along with himself. He was put to death; and at the same time, all those whose names had been indicated by Nicomachus, were slain also--apparently by being stoned, without preliminary torture. Philotas had serving in the army a numerous kindred, all of whom were struck with consternation at the news of his being tortured. It was the Macedonian law that all kinsmen of a man guilty of treason were doomed to death along with him. Accordingly, some of these men slew themselves, others fled from the camp, seeking refuge wherever they could. Such was the terror and tumult in the camp, that Alexander was obliged to proclaim a suspension of this sanguinary law for the occasion.

It now remained to kill Parmenion, who could not be safely left alive after the atrocities used towards Philotas; and to kill him, moreover, before he could have time to hear of them, since he was not only the oldest, most respected, and most influential of all Macedonian officers, but also in separate command of the great depot at Ecbatana. Alexander summoned to his presence one of the companions named Polydamas; a particular friend, comrade, or _aide-de-camp_, of Parmenion. Every friend of Philotas felt at this moment that his life hung by a thread; so that Polydamas entered the king’s presence in extreme terror, as he was ordered to bring with him his two younger brothers. Alexander addressed him, denouncing Parmenion as a traitor, and intimating that Polydamas would be required to carry a swift and confidential message to Ecbatana, ordering his execution. Polydamas was selected as the attached friend of Parmenion, and therefore as best calculated to deceive him. Two letters were placed in his hands, addressed to Parmenion; one from Alexander himself, conveying ostensibly military communications and orders; the other, signed with the seal-ring of the deceased Philotas, and purporting to be addressed by the son to the father. Together with these, Polydamas received the real and important despatch, addressed by Alexander to Cleander and Menidas, the officers immediately subordinate to Parmenion at Ecbatana; proclaiming Parmenion guilty of high treason, and directing them to kill him at once. Large rewards were offered to Polydamas if he performed this commission with success, while his two brothers were retained as hostages against scruples or compunction. He promised even more than was demanded--too happy to purchase this reprieve from what had seemed impending death. Furnished with native guides and with swift dromedaries, he struck by the straightest road across the desert of Khorasan, and arrived at Ecbatana on the eleventh day--a distance usually requiring more than thirty days to traverse. Entering the camp by night, without the knowledge of Parmenion, he delivered his despatch to Cleander, with whom he concerted measures. On the morrow he was admitted to Parmenion, while walking in his garden with Cleander and the other officers marked out by Alexander’s order as his executioners. Polydamas ran to embrace his old friend, and was heartily welcomed by the unsuspecting veteran, to whom he presented the letters professedly coming from Alexander and Philotas. While Parmenion was absorbed in perusal, he was suddenly assailed by a mortal stab from the hand and sword of Cleander. Other wounds were heaped upon him as he fell, by the remaining officers--the last even after life had departed.

The soldiers in Ecbatana, on hearing of this bloody deed, burst into furious mutiny, surrounded the garden wall, and threatened to break in for the purpose of avenging their general, unless Polydamas and the other murderers should be delivered to them. But Cleander, admitting a few of the ringleaders, exhibited to them Alexander’s written orders, to which the soldiers yielded, not without murmurs of reluctance and indignation. Most of them dispersed, yet a few remained, entreating permission to bury Parmenion’s body. Even this was long refused by Cleander, from dread of the king’s displeasure. At last, however, thinking it prudent to comply in part, he cut off the head, delivering to them the trunk alone for burial. The head was sent to Alexander.

Among the many tragical deeds recounted throughout the course of this history, there is none more revolting than the fate of these two generals. Alexander, violent in all his impulses, displayed on this occasion a personal rancour worthy of his ferocious mother Olympias, exasperated rather than softened by the magnitude of past services. When we see the greatest officers of the Macedonian army directing in person, and under the eye of Alexander, the laceration and burning of the naked body of their colleague Philotas, and assassinating with their own hands the veteran Parmenion, we feel how much we have passed out of the region of Greek civic feeling into that of the more savage Illyrian warrior, partially orientalised. It is not surprising to read, that Antipater, viceroy of Macedonia, who had shared with Parmenion the favour and confidence of Philip as well as of Alexander, should tremble when informed of such proceedings, and cast about for a refuge against the like possibilities to himself. Many other officers were alike alarmed and disgusted with the transactions. Hence Alexander, opening and examining the letters sent home from his army to Macedonia, detected such strong expressions of indignation, that he thought it prudent to transfer many pronounced malcontents into a division by themselves, parting them off from the remaining army. Instead of appointing any substitute for Philotas in the command of the companion cavalry, he cast that body into two divisions, nominating Hephæstion to the command of one, and Clitus to that of the other.

CAPTURE OF BESSUS

[Sidenote: [330-329 B.C.]]

The autumn and winter (330-329 B.C.) were spent by Alexander in reducing Drangiana, Gedrosia, Arachosia, and the Paropamisadæ, the modern Seistan, Afghanistan, and the western part of Kabul, lying between Ghazna on the north, Kandahar or Kelar on the south, and Furrah in the west. He experienced no combined resistance, but his troops suffered severely from cold and privation. Near the southern termination of one of the passes of the Hindu-Kush (apparently northeast of the town of Kabul) he founded a new city, called Alexandria ad Caucasum, where he planted seven thousand old soldiers, Macedonians, and others as colonists. Towards the close of winter he crossed over the mighty range of the Hindu-Kush; a march of fifteen days through regions of snow, and fraught with hardship to his army. On reaching the north side of these mountains, he found himself in Bactria.

The Bactrian leader Bessus, who had assumed the title of king, could muster no more than a small force, with which he laid waste the country, and then retired across the river Oxus into Sogdiana, destroying all the boats. Alexander overran Bactria with scarcely any resistance; the chief places, Bactra (Balkh) and Aornus, surrendering to him on the first demonstration of attack. Having named Artabazus satrap of Bactria, and placed Archelaus with a garrison in Aornus, he marched northward towards the river Oxus, the boundary between Bactria and Sogdiana. It was a march of extreme hardship; reaching for two or three days across a sandy desert destitute of water, and under very hot weather. The Oxus, six furlongs in breadth, deep, and rapid, was the most formidable river that the Macedonians had yet seen. Alexander transported his army across it on the tent-skins inflated and stuffed with straw. It seems surprising that Bessus did not avail himself of this favourable opportunity for resisting a passage in itself so difficult; he had however been abandoned by his Bactrian cavalry at the moment when he quitted their territory. Some of his companions, Spitamenes and others, terrified at the news that Alexander had crossed the Oxus, were anxious to make their own peace by betraying their leader. They sent a proposition to this effect; upon which Ptolemy with a light division was sent forward by Alexander, and was enabled, by extreme celerity of movements, to surprise and seize Bessus in a village. Alexander ordered that he should be held in chains, naked, and with a collar round his neck, at the side of the road along which the army were marching. On reaching the spot, Alexander stopped his chariot, and sternly demanded from Bessus, on what pretence he had first arrested, and afterwards slain, his king and benefactor Darius. Bessus replied, that he had not done this single-handed; others were concerned in it along with him, to procure for themselves lenient treatment from Alexander. The king said no more, but ordered Bessus to be scourged, and then sent back as prisoner to Bactra.[31]

In his onward march, Alexander approached a small town, inhabited by the Branchidæ; descendants of those Branchidæ near Miletus on the coast of Ionia, who had administered the great temple and oracle of Apollo on Cape Posidium, and who had yielded up the treasures of that temple to the Persian king Xerxes, 150 years before. This surrender had brought upon them so much odium, that when the dominion of Xerxes was overthrown on the coast, they retired with him into the interior of Asia. Delighted to find themselves once more in commerce with Greeks, they poured forth to meet and welcome the army, tendering all that they possessed. Alexander, when he heard who they were and what was their parentage, gave orders to massacre the entire population--men, women, and children. They were slain without arms or attempt at resistance, resorting to nothing but prayers and suppliant manifestations. Alexander next commanded the walls to be levelled, and the sacred groves cut down, so that no habitable site might remain, nor anything except solitude and sterility. Such was the revenge taken upon these unhappy victims for the deeds of their ancestors in the fourth or fifth generation before. Alexander doubtless considered himself to be executing the wrath of Apollo against an accursed race who had robbed the temple of the god. The Macedonian expedition had been proclaimed to be undertaken originally for the purpose of revenging upon the contemporary Persians the ancient wrongs done to Greece by Xerxes; so that Alexander would follow out the same sentiment in revenging upon the contemporary Branchidæ the acts of their ancestors--yet more guilty than Xerxes, in his belief. The massacre of this unfortunate population was in fact an example of human sacrifice on the largest scale, offered to the gods by the religious impulses of Alexander, and worthy to be compared to that of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, when he sacrificed three thousand Grecian prisoners on the field of Himera, where his grandfather Hamilcar had been slain seventy years before.

LIMIT OF ALEXANDER’S PROGRESS NORTHWARD

[Sidenote: [329-327 B.C.]]

Alexander then continued his onward progress, first to Maracanda (Samarcand), the chief town of Sogdiana--next to the river Jaxartes, which he and his companions, in their imperfect geographical notions, believed to be the Tanaïs, the boundary between Asia and Europe. In his march, he left garrisons in various towns, but experienced no resistance, though detached bodies of the natives hovered on his flanks.

Here, on the river Jaxartes, Alexander projected the foundation of a new city to bear his name; intended as a protection against incursions from the Scythian nomads on the other side of the river. He planted in it some Macedonian veterans and Grecian mercenaries, together with volunteer settlers from the natives around. An army of Scythian nomads, showing themselves on the other side of the river, piqued his vanity to cross over and attack them. Carrying over a division of his army on inflated skins, he defeated them with little difficulty, pursuing them briskly into the desert. But the weather was intensely hot, and the army suffered much from thirst; while the little water to be found was so bad, that it brought upon Alexander a diarrhœa which endangered his life. This chase of a few miles on the right bank of the Jaxartes (seemingly in the present Khanat of Khokand), marked the utmost limit of Alexander’s progress northward.

Shortly afterwards, a Macedonian detachment, unskilfully conducted, was destroyed in Sogdiana by Spitamenes and the Scythians: a rare misfortune, which Alexander avenged by overrunning the region near the river Polytimetus (the Kohik), and putting to the sword the inhabitants of all the towns which he took. He then recrossed the Oxus, to rest during the extreme season of winter at Zariaspa in Bactria, from whence his communications with the West and with Macedonia were more easy, and where he received various reinforcements of Greek troops.

Alexander, distributing his army into five divisions, traversed the country and put down all resistance, while he also took measures for establishing several military posts, or new towns, in convenient places. After some time the whole army was reunited at the chief place of Sogdiana, Maracanda, where some halt and repose was given.

ALEXANDER MURDERS HIS FRIEND

[Sidenote: [327 B.C.]]

During this halt at Maracanda (Samarcand), 328-327 B.C., the memorable banquet occurred wherein Alexander murdered Clitus. Clitus had saved his life at the battle of the Granicus, by cutting off the sword arm of the Persian Spithridates, when already uplifted to strike him from behind. Since the death of Philotas, the important function of general of the companion cavalry had been divided between Hephæstion and Clitus. Moreover, the family of Clitus had been attached to Philip, by ties so ancient, that his sister, Lanice, had been selected as the nurse of Alexander himself when a child. Two of her sons had already perished in the Asiatic battles. If, therefore, there were any man who stood high in the service, or was privileged to speak his mind freely to Alexander, it was Clitus.

In this banquet at Maracanda, when wine, according to the Macedonian habit, had been abundantly drunk, and when Alexander, Clitus, and most of the other guests were already nearly intoxicated, enthusiasts or flatterers heaped immoderate eulogies upon the king’s previous achievements. They exalted him above all the most venerated legendary heroes; they proclaimed that his superhuman deeds proved his divine paternity, and that he had earned an apotheosis like Hercules, which nothing but envy could withhold from him even during his life. Alexander himself joined in these boasts, and even took credit for the later victories of the reign of his father, whose abilities and glory he depreciated. To the old Macedonian officers, such an insult cast on the memory of Philip was deeply offensive. But among them all, none had been more indignant than Clitus, with the growing insolence of Alexander--his assumed filiation from Zeus Ammon, which put aside Philip as unworthy--his preference for Persian attendants, who granted or refused admittance to his person--his extending to Macedonian soldiers the contemptuous treatment habitually endured by Asiatics, and even allowing them to be scourged by Persian hands and Persian rods. The pride of a Macedonian general in the stupendous successes of the last five years, was effaced by his mortification, when he saw that they tended only to merge his countrymen amidst a crowd of servile Asiatics, and to inflame the prince with high-flown aspirations transmitted from Xerxes or Ochus. But whatever might be the internal thoughts of Macedonian officers, they held their peace before Alexander, whose formidable character and exorbitant self-estimation would tolerate no criticism.

At the banquet of Maracanda, this long-suppressed repugnance found an issue, accidental, indeed, and unpremeditated, but for that very reason all the more violent and unmeasured. The wine, which made Alexander more boastful, and his flatterers fulsome to excess, overpowered altogether the reserve of Clitus. He rebuked the impiety of those who degraded the ancient heroes in order to make a pedestal for Alexander. He protested against the injustice of disparaging the exalted and legitimate fame of Philip, whose achievements he loudly extolled, pronouncing them to be equal, and even superior, to those of his son. For the exploits of Alexander, splendid as they were, had been accomplished, not by himself alone, but by that unconquerable Macedonian force which he had found ready made to his hands; whereas those of Philip had been his own--since he had found Macedonia prostrate and disorganised, and had to create for himself both soldiers and a military system. The great instruments of Alexander’s victories had been Philip’s old soldiers, whom he now despised, and among them Parmenion, whom he had put to death.

Remarks such as these, poured forth in the coarse language of a half-intoxicated Macedonian veteran, provoked loud contradiction from many, and gave poignant offence to Alexander; who now for the first time heard the open outburst of disapprobation, before concealed and known to him only by surmise. But wrath and contradiction, both from him and from others, only made Clitus more reckless in the outpouring of his own feelings, now discharged with delight after having been so long pent up. He passed from the old Macedonian soldiers to himself individually. Stretching forth his right hand towards Alexander, he exclaimed, “Recollect that you owe your life to me; this hand preserved you at the Granicus. Listen to the outspoken language of truth, or else abstain from asking freemen to supper, and confine yourself to the society of barbaric slaves.” All these reproaches stung Alexander to the quick. But nothing was so intolerable to him as the respectful sympathy for Parmenion, which brought to his memory one of the blackest deeds of his life--and the reminiscence of his preservation at the Granicus, which lowered him into the position of a debtor towards the very censor under whose reproof he was now smarting.

At length wrath and intoxication together drove him into uncontrollable fury. He started from his couch, and felt for his dagger to spring at Clitus; but the dagger had been put out of reach by one of his attendants. In a loud voice and with the Macedonian word of command, he summoned the bodyguards and ordered the trumpeter to sound an alarm. But no one obeyed so grave an order, given in his condition of drunkenness. His principal officers, Ptolemy, Perdiccas, and others, clung round him, held his arms and body, and besought him to abstain from violence; others at the same time tried to silence Clitus and hurry him out of the hall, which had now become a scene of tumult and consternation. But Clitus was not in a humour to confess himself in the wrong by retiring; while Alexander, furious at the opposition now, for the first time, offered to his will, exclaimed that his officers held him in chains as Bessus had held Darius, and left him nothing but the name of a king. Though anxious to restrain his movements, they doubtless did not dare to employ much physical force; so that his great personal strength, and continued efforts, presently set him free. He then snatched a pike from one of the soldiers, rushed upon Clitus, and thrust him through on the spot, exclaiming, “Go now to Philip and Parmenion.”

REMORSE OF ALEXANDER

No sooner was the deed perpetrated than the feelings of Alexander underwent an entire revolution. The spectacle of Clitus, a bleeding corpse on the floor--the marks of stupefaction and horror evident in all the spectators, and the reaction from a furious impulse instantaneously satiated--plunged him at once into the opposite extreme of remorse and self-condemnation. Hastening out of the hall, and retiring to bed, he passed three days in an agony of distress, without food or drink. He burst into tears and multiplied exclamations on his own mad act; he dwelt upon the names of Clitus and Lanice with the debt of gratitude which he owed to each, and denounced himself as unworthy to live after having requited such services with a foul murder. His friends at length prevailed on him to take food, and return to activity. All joined in trying to restore his self-satisfaction. The Macedonian army passed a public vote that Clitus had been justly slain, and that his body should remain unburied; which afforded opportunity to Alexander to reverse the vote, and to direct that it should be buried by his own order. The prophets comforted him by the assurance that his murderous impulse had arisen, not from his own natural mind, but from a maddening perversion intentionally brought on by the god Dionysus, to avenge the omission of a sacrifice due to him on the day of the banquet, but withheld. Lastly, the Greek sophist or philosopher, Anaxarchus of Abdera, revived Alexander’s spirits by well-timed flattery, treating his sensibility as nothing better than generous weakness; reminding him that in his exalted position of conqueror and Great King, he was entitled to prescribe what was right and just, instead of submitting himself to laws dictated from without. Callisthenes the philosopher was also summoned, along with Anaxarchus, to the king’s presence, for the same purpose of offering consolatory reflections. But he is said to have adopted a tone of discourse altogether different, and to have given offence rather than satisfaction to Alexander.

To such remedial influences, and probably still more to the absolute necessity for action, Alexander’s remorse at length yielded. Like the other emotions of his fiery soul, it was violent and overpowering while it lasted. But it cannot be shown to have left any durable trace on his character, nor any effects justifying the unbounded admiration of Arrian; who has little but blame to bestow on the murdered Clitus, while he expresses the strongest sympathy for the mental suffering of the murderer.

After ten days, Alexander again put his army in motion, to complete the subjugation of Sogdiana. He found no enemy capable of meeting him in pitched battle; yet Spitamenes, with the Sogdians and some Scythian allies, raised much hostility of detail, which it cost another year to put down. Alexander underwent the greatest fatigue and hardships in his marches through the mountainous parts of this wide, rugged, and poorly supplied country, with rocky positions, strong by nature, which his enemies sought to defend. One of these fastnesses, held by a native chief named Sisymithres, seemed almost unattackable, and was indeed taken rather by intimidation than by actual force. The Scythians, after a partial success over a small Macedonian detachment, were at length so thoroughly beaten and overawed, that they slew Spitamenes, and sent his head to the conqueror as a propitiatory offering.

After a short rest at Nautaca during the extreme winter, Alexander resumed operations, by attacking a strong post called the Sogdian Rock, whither a large number of fugitives had assembled, with an ample supply of provision. It was a precipice supposed to be inexpugnable; and would seemingly have proved so, in spite of the energy and abilities of Alexander, had not the occupants altogether neglected their guard, and yielded at the mere sight of a handful of Macedonians who had scrambled up the precipice. Among the captives taken by Alexander on this rock, were the wife and family of the Bactrian chief Oxyartes; one of whose daughters, named Roxane, so captivated Alexander by her beauty that he resolved to make her his wife. He then passed out of Sogdiana into the neighbouring territory Parætacene, where there was another inexpugnable site called the Rock of Chorienes, which he was also fortunate enough to reduce.

From hence Alexander went to Bactra. Sending Craterus with a division to put the last hand to the reduction of Parætacene, he himself remained at Bactra, preparing for his expedition across the Hindu Kush to the conquest of India. As a security for tranquillity of Bactria and Sogdiana during his absence, he levied thirty thousand young soldiers from those countries to accompany him.

It was at Bactra that Alexander celebrated his marriage with the captive Roxane, in the spring of 327 B.C. Amidst the repose and festivities connected with that event, the oriental temper which he was acquiring displayed itself more forcibly than ever. He could no longer be satisfied without obtaining prostration, or worship, from Greeks and Macedonians as well as from Persians; a public and unanimous recognition of his divine origin and superhuman dignity. Some Greeks and Macedonians had already rendered to him this homage. Nevertheless to the greater number, in spite of their extreme deference and admiration for him, it was repugnant and degrading. Even the imperious Alexander shrank from issuing public and formal orders on such a subject; but a manœuvre was concerted, with his privity, by the Persians and certain compliant Greek sophists or philosophers, for the purpose of carrying the point by surprise.

During a banquet at Bactra, the philosopher Anaxarchus, addressing the assembly in a prepared harangue, extolled Alexander’s exploits as greatly surpassing those of Dionysus and Hercules. He proclaimed that Alexander had already done more than enough to establish a title to divine honours from the Macedonians; who, he said, would assuredly worship Alexander after his death, and ought in justice to worship him during his life, forthwith.

This harangue was applauded, and similar sentiments were enforced, by others favourable to the plan; who proceeded to set the example of immediate compliance, and were themselves the first to tender worship. Most of the Macedonian officers sat unmoved, disgusted at the speech. But though disgusted, they said nothing. To reply to a speech doubtless well-turned and flowing, required some powers of oratory; moreover, it was well known that whoever dared to reply stood marked out for the antipathy of Alexander. The fate of Clitus, who had arraigned the same sentiments in the banqueting hall of Maracanda, was fresh in the recollection of every one. The repugnance which many felt, but none ventured to express, at length found an organ in Callisthenes of Olynthus.

This philosopher, whose melancholy fate imparts a peculiar interest to his name, was nephew of Aristotle, and had enjoyed through his uncle an early acquaintance with Alexander during the boyhood of the latter. At the recommendation of Aristotle, Callisthenes had accompanied Alexander in his Asiatic expedition.

On occasion of the demonstration incited by Anaxarchus at the banquet, Callisthenes had been invited by Hephæstion to join in the worship intended to be proposed towards Alexander; and Hephæstion afterwards alleged, that he had promised to comply. But his actual conduct affords reasonable ground for believing that he made no such promise; for he not only thought it his duty to refuse the act of worship, but also to state publicly his reasons for disapproving it; the more so, as he perceived that most of the Macedonians present felt like himself. He contended that the distinction between gods and men was one which could not be confounded without impiety and wrong. Alexander had amply earned--as a man, a general, and a king--the highest honours compatible with humanity; but to exalt him into a god would be both an injury to him and an offence to the gods. Anaxarchus, he said, was the last person from whom such a proposition ought to come, because he was one of those whose only title to Alexander’s society was founded upon his capacity to give instructive and wholesome counsel.

Callisthenes spoke out what numbers of his hearers felt. The speech was so warmly applauded by the Macedonians present, especially the older officers, that Alexander thought it prudent to forbid all further discussion upon this delicate subject. Presently the Persians present, according to Asiatic custom, approached him and performed their prostration; after which Alexander pledged, in successive goblets of wine, those Greeks and Macedonians with whom he had held previous concert. To each of them the goblet was handed, and each, after drinking to answer the pledge, approached the king, made his prostration, and then received a salute. Lastly, Alexander sent the pledge to Callisthenes, who, after drinking like the rest, approached him for the purpose of receiving the salute but without any prostration. Of this omission Alexander was expressly informed by one of the companions; upon which he declined to admit Callisthenes to a salute. The latter retired, observing, “Then I shall go away, worse off than others as far as the salute goes.”

Callisthenes certainly would have done well to withdraw earlier (if indeed he could have withdrawn without offence) from the camp of Alexander, in which no lettered Greek could now associate without abnegating his freedom of speech and sentiment, and emulating the servility of Anaxarchus. But being present, as Callisthenes was, in the hall at Bactra when the proposition of Anaxarchus was made, and when silence would have been assent--his protest against it was both seasonable and dignified for being fraught with danger to himself.

Callisthenes knew that danger well, and was quickly enabled to recognise it in the altered demeanour of Alexander towards him. He was, from that day, a marked man in two senses: first, to Alexander himself, as well as to the rival sophists and all promoters of the intended deification--for hatred, and for getting up some accusatory pretence such as might serve to ruin him; next, to the more free-spirited Macedonians, indignant witnesses of Alexander’s increased insolence, and admirers of the courageous Greek who had protested against the motion of Anaxarchus. By such men he was doubtless much extolled; which praises aggravated his danger, as they were sure to be reported to Alexander. The pretext for his ruin was not long wanting.

CONSPIRACY OF THE ROYAL PAGES

Among those who admired and sought the conversation of Callisthenes, was Hermolaus, one of the royal pages--the band, selected from noble Macedonian families, who did duty about the person of the king. It had happened that this young man, one of Alexander’s companions in the chase, on seeing a wild boar rushing up to attack the king, darted his javelin, and slew the animal. Alexander, angry to be anticipated in killing the boar, ordered Hermolaus to be scourged before all the other pages and deprived him of his horse. Thus humiliated and outraged--for an act not merely innocent, but the omission of which, if Alexander had sustained any injury from the boar, might have been held punishable--Hermolaus became resolutely bent on revenge. He enlisted in the project his intimate friend Sostratus, with several others among the pages; and it was agreed among them to kill Alexander in his chamber, on the first night when they were all on guard together. The appointed night arrived, without any divulgation of their secret; yet the scheme was frustrated by the accident, that Alexander continued till daybreak drinking with his officers, and never retired to bed. On the morrow, one of the conspirators, becoming alarmed or repentant, divulged the scheme to his friend Charicles, with the names of those concerned. Eurylochus, brother to Charicles, apprised by him of what he had heard, immediately informed Ptolemy, through whom it was conveyed to Alexander. By Alexander’s order, the persons indicated were arrested and put to the torture; under which they confessed that they had themselves conspired to kill him, but named no other accomplices, and even denied that anyone else was privy to the scheme. In this denial they persisted, though extreme suffering was applied to extort the revelation of new names. They were then brought up and arraigned as conspirators before the assembled Macedonian soldiers. There the confession was repeated. It is even said that Hermolaus, in repeating it, boasted of the enterprise as both legitimate and glorious; denouncing the tyranny and cruelty of Alexander as having become insupportable to a freeman. Whether such boast was actually made or not, the persons brought up were pronounced guilty, and stoned to death forthwith by the soldiers.

The pages thus executed were young men of good Macedonian families, for whose condemnation accordingly Alexander had thought it necessary to invoke--what he was sure of obtaining against any one--the sentence of the soldiers. To satisfy his hatred against Callisthenes--not a Macedonian, but only a Greek citizen, one of the remnants of the subverted city of Olynthus--no such formality was required. In his case, therefore, as in that of Philotas before, it was necessary to pick up matter of suspicious tendency from his reported remarks and conversations. He was alleged to have addressed dangerous and inflammatory language to the pages, holding up Alexander to odium, instigating them to conspiracy, and pointing out Athens as a place of refuge; he was moreover well known to have been often in conversation with Hermolaus. For a man of the violent temper and omnipotent authority of Alexander, such indications were quite sufficient as grounds of action against one whom he hated.

On this occasion, we have the state of Alexander’s mind disclosed by himself, in one of the references to his letters given by Plutarch. Writing to Craterus and to others immediately afterwards, Alexander distinctly stated that the pages throughout all their torture had deposed against no one but themselves. Nevertheless, in another letter addressed to Antipater in Macedonia, he used these expressions: “The pages were stoned to death by the Macedonians; but I myself shall punish the sophist, as well as those who sent him out here, and those who harbour in their cities conspirators against me.” The sophist Callisthenes had been sent out by Aristotle, who is here designated; and probably the Athenians after him. Fortunately for Aristotle, he was not at Bactra, but at Athens. That he could have had any concern in the conspiracy of the pages, was impossible. In this savage outburst of menace against his absent preceptor, Alexander discloses the real state of feeling which prompted him to the destruction of Callisthenes--hatred towards that spirit of citizenship and free speech, which Callisthenes not only cherished, in common with Aristotle and most other literary Greeks, but had courageously manifested in his protest against the motion for worshipping a mortal.

Callisthenes was first put to the torture and then hanged. His tragical fate excited a profound sentiment of sympathy and indignation among the philosophers of antiquity.

The halts of Alexander were formidable to friends and companions; his marches, to the unconquered natives whom he chose to treat as enemies.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[28] [Curtius is obviously speaking of the Babylon of his own day (the early part of the first century A.D.), and assuming, no doubt correctly, that the venerable city had not greatly changed since the time of Alexander. The reader will recall the tales of Babylon quoted from Herodotus in our first volume.]

[29] [Grote values this at £11,500,000 which amounts to about $55,000,000. Reckoned as Æginetan talents the sum would be far greater. Grote says it would seem incredible were it not that the treasures of Persepolis were found far greater.]

[30] [This sum, which Grote reckons at £27,600,000 or $138,000,000, need not be considered impossible, viewing the extent and the extortion of Persian despotism; the soldiers were paid by the provinces that contributed them; the servants of the government had no salaries in cash from above; and the royal disbursements for necessary expenses were accordingly small. Grote notes that when Nadia-Shah took Delhi in 1739, he found a treasure stated as £32,000,000--even more than Alexander’s loot. A pride, too, was taken in vast hoards of precious metal by the oriental despots. Prof. Bury[d] notes how the sudden circulation of such an amount would “perturb the markets of the world.”]

[31] [Later he was brought forth and Alexander had his nose and ears cut off. Mutilation was abhorrent to the Greeks, and even Arrian[e] (IV, 7) rebukes his hero for this atrocity. Bessus was then turned over to the Medes and Persians who, according to Diodorus,[f] XVII, 9,“after they had put him to all manner of torments, and used him with all the despite and disgrace imaginable, cut his body into small pieces and hurled every part here and there away out of their slings.” Plutarch,[g] however, says that two straight trees were bent together, and one of Bessus’ legs fastened to each so that when they were released and sprang apart, his body was torn asunder.]