Alexander the Great (7 page)

After this encounter Alexander went further than worship of and sacrifice to Zeus. He decided that Zeus had copulated directly with his mother—a common occurrence between gods and humans—and entered her womb. Henceforth he sometimes referred to his father, Philip III, as my “so-called father.” Ammon Zeus was his real father, he implied. It is likely that this fatherhood by Ammon Zeus was not just propaganda but something he sincerely believed.

Nonetheless, it is uncertain whether Alexander considered himself a god. He was encouraged to do so by his world conquest. In later times the Romans’ recognition of Alexander as divine fit in with their own deification of emperors. From Claudius on, Roman emperors, notably Nero, Caligula, and Caracalla (all tyrants in their own right), considered themselves divine and emulated Alexander in dress and ceremony.

After Alexander had defeated Darius and assumed the throne of Persia as a direct heir, in recognition of the Persian ruler’s divinity, he adopted both the Persian custom of wearing a diadem and the act of
proskynesis
, whereby everyone had to approach the king groveling on hands and knees to kiss his feet. (See the story of Esther in the Old Testament of the Bible.) Most of the Macedonians in his army refused to make
proskynesis
to him as a god; therefore, in deference to their Greek sensibilities, Alexander did not mandate this ceremony for his army, but he expected his Persian subjects to observe it.

Alexander could be said to have assumed divinity in the East, but was cautious about doing so in the West. Demosthenes, the Greek orator who had no love for the royal Macedonians, said Alexander could be a god for all he cared, as long as he left Athens alone. After his death Alexander was widely recognized as divine. During his lifetime he was careful about proclaiming categorically that he was a god, but he probably thought that he was one.

Very few portraits of Alexander have survived the ages. We have a few coins with his image, the famous picture of Alexander on Bucephalus, and some physical descriptions of him. He was fair-skinned yet ruddy; he had an agreeable odor yet was hot and fiery; he was short yet not that short. One ridiculous story is told about his height when he met King Porus in India. Porus agreed to fight a duel with Alexander because he knew that he could win. The story gives Porus’s height at five cubits, Alexander’s at not even three. In translation, with a Latin cubit roughly eighteen inches, this would have meant that Porus was seven and a half feet tall and Alexander a mere four feet six inches tall. More than likely he was about the height of Napoleon, or about five feet six inches.

Aelian remarks, “They say that Alexander, son of Philip, enjoyed natural good looks, with curly, fair hair, but they add that there was something in his appearance that aroused fear.”
¹⁷

Alexander assumed his father’s throne at the age of twenty and immediately began a life of conquest. His career took him to Persia and ultimately to India, where he was stopped. His death in Babylon in 323 BC occurred after several successive days and nights of drinking, but by this time his health was marginal. His death has been attributed to any number of sources—acute alcoholism, malaria, typhoid, and poisoning. He had been suffering from a fever for three or four days, yet he continued with his routine of giving orders to his men and making his usual sacrifices to the gods. Diodorus Siculus gives one account of his actual death:

The main story about poisoning comes from Quintus Curtius Rufus. He states that the king had been dead for six days, lying in a coffin. Everybody was involved in forming a new government. When his friends finally found time to attend the corpse, they saw that there had been no decomposition of the body. In the heat of Mesopotamia, this was completely unheard of. A golden sarcophagus was filled with perfumes and his body was taken to Memphis by Ptolemy, who had received the power of Egypt. Some time later, the coffin was transferred to Alexandria.

The man who gained the most from Alexander’s death was Antipater, who usurped the power in Macedon and Greece afterward. Alexander himself believed that Antipater had regal aspirations and was conceited enough to claim that any honors Alexander bestowed on him were nothing more than his due. One of Antipater’s sons was an attendant to the king; another was Cassander, who ultimately murdered Olympias, Roxane, and Roxane’s newborn child.
¹⁹

The conqueror of the world was dead at the age of thirty-three.

P
HILIP
I I of Macedon had left to his son Alexander the most powerful army that had been seen in Europe and western Asia before the rise of Roman military might in the second century BC. He also left Alexander a lot of enemies. It was by no means certain that the Macedonians in general or the army in particular would accept Alexander’s rule. He was, after all, only twenty, and many others in the court believed that they had more experience and as much right to rule as he did. Macedonia did not have a strict right of primogeniture or succession, and Philip himself had not made himself clear regarding his preferred heir. Philip’s death had set off a wave of rebellion, not only in the Greek city-states but also in the far reaches of Macedonia itself.

In addition Darius was certain that Alexander was planning a march into Asia, as he was continuing his father’s war plans. Darius further complicated the matter by sending envoys to the various cities with large bags of gold for the purpose of bribing any and all who could be bribed to cause trouble for Alexander and prevent him from holding together the tenuous Greek alliance.

Alexander did not immediately kill his small half-brother or Amyntas, who was married to Alexander’s sister and a likely contender for the throne. With his father’s body barely cold, these murders would have been too risky for his reputation.

The most apparent hostility came first from Athens. There Demosthenes, who had been spewing venom against Philip for years, now turned his anger against Alexander. He believed that the best way to topple Alexander was to make an alliance with those who backed the widow, Cleopatra, and her young son, Caranus. He proposed this to Attalus, the man who had set in motion the events that led to Philip’s death; and to Parmenion, Philip’s primary general, who had no love for Alexander. Demosthenes’ comment to them showed the extent of his hatred but little knowledge of Alexander, whom he derided as “a stripling, a mere booby.”
¹

While all these troubles were brewing, Alexander decided that a strong display of power was needed. Any backing down would be seen as weakness. He rode south from the Macedonian capital of Pella into Thessaly. He found the pass at Mount Olympus strongly fortified, and he could not get through. While the Thessalonians were trying to decide what to do, Alexander ordered his men to cut steps in the side of the mountain; he crossed the mountains and was behind the opposing army before they knew what had happened. At this point they chose to negotiate rather than fight, gave Alexander a large contingent of cavalry, and agreed to pay taxes.
²

All Alexander asked of the various sections of Greece was that they acknowledge him as
hegemon
, or leader. He made peace with Parmenion, his father’s old general, and with his brother-in-law, Amyntas—both of whom did a complete about-face and came back to Alexander’s side. He called a meeting of the Hellenic League at Corinth, with representatives from all the cities and provinces “invited” to attend. From all over the peninsula support poured in, except from Sparta. Alexander ignored the Spartans for the time being, since he was attempting to give the impression that he was acting according to constitutional procedure. He gave the Greek city-states the outward semblance of autonomy, which he believed would satisfy them. Alexander was elected captain-general of all their forces to lead the war against Persia. In addition each city-state was required to supply a certain number of soldiers and finance them as well.

After the conference was over, Alexander received the congratulations of all involved, but he decided to pay a visit to Diogenes, the famous cynic who traipsed around looking for an honest man and went home at night to a large clay tub, in which he lived. Green tells the story:

Diogenes wanted nothing to do with the world; Alexander wanted to conquer it. The two men died on the same day: Alexander at thirty-three, Diogenes at ninety.

That winter of 336–35 BC was spent in preparations for the Asian war, but Alexander knew that he had to have peace at home before he could safely go abroad. He needed the financial support of Greece until he was able to secure the immense treasure of Darius. One characteristic that made Alexander an outstanding commander was his ability to “read” his enemy’s mind. He demonstrated this in several battles, in Thrace, against the Triballians (nomadic people who opposed him on the shores of the Danube), and against the Illyrians.

In the case of the Triballians, he sent his archers and slingers out, apparently alone, and kept his phalanx and cavalry under cover. The Triballians came out, thinking they were opposed only by arrows and rocks. Alexander brought his superior force from hiding and cut down 3,000 natives in one charge. Very shortly the remaining Triballians came out of hiding and wanted peace and alliances with such a great warrior.

Against the Illyrians, Alexander miscalculated and found his army cut off from his supplies and relief column. According to Green:

Alexander ended this battle with a “Trojan horse” stratagem. He ordered his men to march away, leading the Illyrians to believe that they had left for good. He waited and sent back a reconnaissance party, which discovered that the barbarians had left their camp completely unguarded. He then marched back and, under cover of darkness, massacred the entire camp.

These various defeats and slaughters should have warned the rest of the Greek peninsula of Alexander’s seriousness and that opposing him was futile. It didn’t happen that way, however. The first rebellion broke out in Thebes. Darius had been channeling money into Greece, spreading it around where it would do the most good, and Alexander had yet to establish total domination.

Alexander heard that the rebellion was being backed by Demosthenes with arms and gold, and debated marching against Athens. Cooler heads in Athens did not want a direct clash with the Macedonian leader; and with Sparta refusing to join Alexander, the entire peninsula was ready to explode. Alexander realized that the time for diplomacy and kid gloves had passed, and he was going to have to make an object lesson of someone: It fell to the Thebans to be that example.

The first thing Alexander did was send word to Pella, his capital, that he was returning. He sent a coded message for his mother, telling her to arrange the immediate deaths of his brother-in-law, Amyntas, and Cleopatra’s baby son. Olympias went one better and killed not only Caranus but also Philip’s daughter by Cleopatra. She then forced Cleopatra to hang herself. Amyntas fled to Asia Minor (and offered his services to Darius); he later was killed there.

Alexander then moved toward Thebes. For some foolish reason, Demosthenes had told the Thebans that Alexander had been killed. They felt fairly secure with this news, and when they heard that a Macedonian army was approaching commanded by Alexander himself, they panicked. He really did not want to waste his time and efforts on pacifying Greeks, so if they had met him halfway, he probably would have let the entire rebellion go. However, the Thebans were stubborn to a fault: They had passed a unanimous resolution that they would fight to gain full political freedom from Macedonia.

Alexander felt he was within his constitutional rights to coerce Thebes, since its rebellion was technically against the Hellenic League, whose captain-general he was. Alexander offered amnesty in exchange for their handing over the ringleaders of the revolt. Rather than accept his deal the Thebans defied the idea, and called Alexander a tyrant for good measure. Diodorus tells us that Alexander “decided to destroy the city utterly and by this act of terror take the heart out of anyone else who might venture to rise against him.”
⁵

The siege engines were brought up, and the city walls were penetrated. The citizens lost heart and attempted to flee. Alexander’s veterans poured into Thebes, and savage street fighting quickly degenerated into wholesale slaughter. The houses were ransacked, the temples destroyed and plundered. By nightfall 6,000 Thebans had been killed and about 30,000 taken prisoner, later to be sold as slaves to augment the Macedonian treasury for the impending war against Darius. The city of legend and history where Oedipus had ruled was blotted from the face of the earth.
^{6
Alexander might have been better served in the long run if he had spared Thebes and brought about a genuine alliance with the Greek city-states. They were shocked at first, but after the initial shock wore off, their hatred for Alexander became implacable. They pretended to be his friends because it was militarily necessary, but their obsequious behavior masked their true feelings. They continued to get gifts from Darius to fund their sabotage of Alexander—as he must have known would happen. The peninsula remained quiet for the moment, and Alexander must have felt that the time to advance into Persia was at hand.}

At this point Alexander’s advisers thought he should marry and beget an heir. He refused on the grounds that he had no time to dally with a matrimonial alliance. He had never been too interested in women anyway, so his lack of time did not create any hardship for him, except that it calls into question his judgment. To leave a major decision about an heir in abeyance while he marched into the great unknown was evidence of his irresponsibility. He was more interested in conquest, apparently, than in a dynasty. Perhaps his age also had something to do with this decision. After all, what twenty-year-old believes that he will die young?

According to Green, Alexander was the first general in antiquity to have a publicity and propaganda department. To supply this official record, Alexander hired Aristotle’s nephew Callisthenes to be the official historian. This turned out to be a mixed blessing—Callisthenes had known Alexander since they were boys, but he had a familiarity that irritated Alexander. His job was to make a chronicle of the king’s exploits that would read well back in Greece.
⁷

Alexander inherited an army that was well trained, but a country that was heavily in debt. Even with the vast resources and wealth of Macedonia, according to Plutarch, “Philip’s financial resources were depleted, and he was also encumbered with a debt of 200 talents, according to Onesicritus’ history.”
^{8
He intended to finance his adventure with money and gold taken from the Persians.}

The numbers of Alexander’s army vary from author to author. Plutarch says that the army had 3,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, but the numbers could have been as high as 43,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Diodorus Siculus tells us, “In terms of infantry, there were 12,000 Macedonians, 7,000 allies, and 5,000 mercenaries. These were all under the command of Parmenion. The Odrysians, Triballians, and Illyrians accompanying him numbered 7,000 and there were a thousand archers and so-called Agrianes, so that the infantry totalled 32,000. Cavalry numbers were as follows: 1,800 Macedonians;…1,800 Thessalians;…from the rest of Greece a total of 600;…and 900 Thracian guides…. This made a total of 4,500 cavalry [actually 5,100].”
^{9
Only about 10 percent of the entire army were heavily armed and armored cavalry. In contrast the Roman army at its height usually commanded 98 percent infantry, but the Romans had to guard a frontier that needed two million men to staff. They could not afford a large contingent of cavalry—that would require too many horses, and too much training.}