Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (25 page)

21 On the liberal attitude of Epaminondas of allowing some allied Peloponnesian

states to maintain their oligarchies, and his preference not to create either garrisons

or a formal league of pro-Theban democratic allies, see John Buckler and Hans Beck
,

Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century bc
(Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2008), 137–39.

22 Tearless battle: Plutarch
Agesilaus
33.3–5. For the course of Spartan history, its

steady decline after the liberation of the Messenian helots, and defections among the

perioikoi
and helots, see Cartledge,
Agesilaos
, 384–85, 395–431.

23 See Xenophon
Hellenica
7.5.27; Diodorus 15.88.4.

24 While destruction of the Spartan acropolis or the Spartan army would have been

advantageous to Thebes, it would probably only have accelerated a process well un-

der way: started at Leuctra, enhanced by the invasions of Laconia and Mantineia, and

capped by the defeat of the Spartan army again at Mantineia.

116 Hanson

25 There is great controversy over the degree of Theban involvement in both the

creation of Mantineia and Megalopolis (though not Messene), involving both conflicts

in our ancient sources and archaeological examination of the remains of the fortifica-

tions. See Hanson,
Soul of Battle
, 424–25, n. 3; and especially J. Roy, “Arcadia and Boeotia

in Peloponnesian Affairs, 370–362 B.C.,”
Historia
20, nos. 5–6 (4th Quarter, 1971), 569–99.

26 On the contemporary evocation of Iraq as Sicily, and Thucydides, see Victor Han-

son,
A War Like None Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War

(New York: Random House, 2005), 324, n. 1.

27 Thucydides on the fault for the disaster on Sicily: “this failed not so much through

a miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as through a fault in

the senders in not taking the best measures afterwards to assist those who had gone

out, but choosing rather to occupy themselves with private squabbles for the leader-

ship of the people, by which they not only paralyzed operations in the field, but also

first introduced civil discord at home” (Crawley translation); Pericles’ rebuke of the

Athenians for their fickle support of the war: “I am the same man and do not alter,

it is you who change, since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for

misfortune to repent of it” (2.61.2).

28 On the influence of the Pythagoreans at Thebes and on Epaminondas in particu-

lar: Nepos
Epaminondas
15.2.2; Diodorus 15.39.2; Plutarch
Pelopidas
5.3; Xenophon
Ag-

esilaus
25 (internal opposition to the aggressive plans of Pelopidas and Epaminondas).

And see Nancy H. Demand,
Thebes in the Fifth Century: Heracles Resurgent
(London:

Routledge, 1982), 70–76, 132–35. It was the judgment of the historian Ephoros that the

hegemony of Thebes was largely due to the careers of Epaminondas and Pelopidas

(Diodorus 15.79.2, 15.88.4) and passed with their deaths. On the purported ties between

“neocons” and President George W. Bush, see in general Jacob Heilbrunn,
They Knew

They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons
(New York: Doubleday, 2008).

29 We should remember the supposed inscription on the statue of Epaminondas set

up at Thebes that ended with “And all of Greece became independent and free” (Pausa-

nias 9.15.6). There is an entire corpus of ancient passages attesting to the achievements,

both moral and military, of Epaminondas, and the relationship of Theban hegemony

to his singular leadership: e.g., Aelian
Varia Historia
12.3; Nepos
Epaminondas
15.10.3;

Plutarch
Moralia
194C; Strabo 9.2.2. For a review of the results of Epaminondas’s inva-

sions in the Peloponnese, see Hanson,
Soul of Battle
, 105–20. Controversy exists over Ep-

aminondas’s ultimate aims, which may well have been pan-Hellenic and transcended

just Theban interests. See George L. Cawkwell, “Epaminondas and Thebes,”
The Clas-

sical Quarterly
, n.s. 22, no. 2 (November 1972): 254–78.

30 See the assessment of Buckler (
Theban Hegemony
, 227) on the campaigns of Epa-

minondas: “Even after Mantineia, Epameinondas and Pelopidas left Thebes the leading

power in Greece, raised their homeland to heights which it had never before attained

and would never see after them; and the history of the Theban hegemony is in no small

measure the story of Epameinondas and Pelopidas.”

The Doctrine of Preemptive War
117

5. Alexander the Great, Nation Building, and the

Creation and Maintenance of Empire

Ian Worthington

Alexander the Great (356–23 bc) fought strategically brilliant

battles and laid sieges against numerically superior foes to estab-

lish one of the greatest geographic empires of antiquity, from Greece

in the west to what the Greeks called India (modern Pakistan) in the

east. When he died he was ready to undertake an invasion of Arabia,

and plausibly after that he would have moved against Carthage. He

created his empire in a little over a decade, invading Asia in 334 and dy-

ing in Babylon in 323. Not even the Romans, who boasted the largest

empire of antiquity, could attribute their empire to just one man, and it

took centuries to reach the extent it did before it fell. Alexander’s cam-

paigns also facilitated the spread of Greek culture in the areas through

which he and his army marched, and they opened new trading avenues

and possibilities between West and East, which forever changed rela-

tions between Greece and Asia.

This chapter shows how Alexander established his empire, discusses

the problems he faced in ruling a large, multicultural subject popu-

lation, and examines the approaches and strategies he took to what

might be called nation building. In doing so, it allows us also to praise

and critique his actions. Alexander’s experiences in Asia arguably can

inform present makers of modern strategy and shed light on contem-

porary problems in this or any culturally different region of the world.

At the same time, the argument can be made that Alexander’s failings

(sometimes his fault, at other times not) show how little the modern

world learns from, or even ignores, the past.

u

Alexander succeeded to the Macedonian throne on the assassination

of his father, Philip II, in 336. He had already proved himself on the

battlefield. In 340, when he was sixteen, his father appointed him regent

of Macedon, and during his tenure of power Alexander successfully

marched against and defeated the Maedians on the upper Strymon

River. Philip was impressed, for two years later, in 338, he gave his son

the command of the Macedonian left flank, and of the Companion

Cavalry,
no less, at the Battle of Chaeronea. This was the battle by

which the Greeks lost their autonomy and in the following year be-

came members of the so-called League of Corinth, which was headed

by the Macedonian king and used to enforce Macedonian hegemony. In

fierce fighting at Chaeronea, Alexander distinguished himself by help-

ing to annihilate the famous 300-strong Theban Sacred Band.

When Alexander became king, he immediately had to deal with a

number of problems, not least a revolt of the Greeks from Macedonian

rule, which he easily ended. Afterward he revived his father’s League

of Corinth, and with it his plan for a pan-Hellenic invasion of Asia

to punish the Persians for the suffering of the Greeks, especially the

Athenians, in the Greco-Persian Wars and to liberate the Greek cities of

Asia Minor. However, it was not until the spring of 334 that Alexander

led an army of some 48,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, supported by

a fleet of 120 warships, from Greece to Asia. Before landing, the story

goes, he threw a spear into Asian soil to indicate he regarded all of Asia

as his spear-won territory.1

In three major battles against far numerically superior Persian

armies (at the Granicus River in 334, Issus in 333, and Gaugamela in 331),

Alexander defeated the Persians. He did so thanks to a better trained

army, inherited from his father Philip II, than the Persian one, and by

a combination of strategic brilliance, daring, and luck.2 Darius III, the

Great King, had not been present at Granicus (the Persian side was

commanded by Arsites, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia), but he

fought Alexander at Issus and Gaugamela, and on both occasions Alex-

ander, the heart of his strategy being to kill or capture him, had forced

him off the battlefield. The demoralizing effect this had on the Persian

Alexander the Great and Empire 119

troops had turned the tide of battle in favor of Alexander both times.

Also demoralizing, and taking place before both Issus and Gaugamela,

must have been Alexander’s visit to Gordium (close to the modern An-

kara) in 333. Here was the wagon dedicated by Midas, son of Gordius,

who allegedly left Macedon and became king of Gordium. The wagon

was famous for the knot made of cornel wood on its yoke, and the

accompanying prophecy that whoever untied it would rule Asia. Need-

less to say, the king undid it, either by slashing it with his sword or by

unraveling it.3 His visit to Gordium, then, was political: to show every-

one he was the next ruler of Asia.

In between Granicus and Issus, Alexander had marched down the

coastline of Asia Minor and Syria, in some cases receiving the immedi-

ate surrender of the cities, in other cases having to besiege them (his

most famous sieges are probably at Halicarnassus, Tyre, and Gaza). In

332 he had entered Egypt, where the satrap, Mazaces, immediately sur-

rendered the capital, Memphis, and hence all Egypt to him. Mazaces

had no choice, for the Egyptians were tired of Persian rule and wel-

comed the Macedonian army as liberators; if Mazaces had resisted, the

Egyptians would have risen up against him. While in Egypt, Alexander

made his famous trek to consult the Oracle of Zeus Ammon at the

Siwah oasis in the Libyan Desert to obtain confirmation that he was

the son of Zeus.4 His pretensions would, however, lead to his undoing

later (see below).

Alexander’s success at Gaugamela meant that the Persian Empire

was to all intents and purposes no more. It would not be long before

its more important and wealthier royal capitals were in Macedonian

hands. These included Babylon, Ecbatana, Susa, and finally Persepo-

lis, home of the palace of Darius and Xerxes, the “most hated city in

Asia.”5 Shortly before the Macedonian army left Persepolis in spring

330, the palace burned to the ground. Whether this was accidental or

deliberate is not known with certainty, but the symbolism of its burn-

ing, as with the Gordian knot, was exploited: the peoples of the Persian

Empire no longer would pay homage to the Great King but to Alexan-

der as Lord of Asia.

The burning of Persepolis meant, in effect, that the original aims of

the invasion of Asia—punishment of the Persians and freeing of the

120 Worthington

Greek cities of Asia Minor—had been achieved, and the men in the army

evidently thought they would now be going home.6 But Alexander did

not turn westward. He needed to hunt down Darius once and for al ,

and so set off after him. He caught up with him at Hecatompylus, only

to find him dead and that Bessus, satrap of Bactria, one of the men who

had deposed Darius and had had a hand in his murder, had proclaimed

himself Great King as Artaxerxes V. Again Alexander’s men expected

their king to give orders to start the long march home,7 and again they

were disappointed, as Alexander gave orders to pursue Bessus.

Although the army had wanted to return home at Persepolis and at

Hecatompylus, Alexander was right to see the need to depose Bessus in

order to maintain stability in his new Asian empire. Nevertheless, the

Macedonian invasion had entered a different phase, one of conquest for

the sake of conquest. Also different was how Alexander treated those

people who defied him as he marched eastward, with mass slaughter

and even genocide becoming something of a norm.

Bessus was quickly joined by Satibarzanes, satrap of Areia, and

Bactrian chieftains such as Oxyartes (the father of Roxane) and Spita-

manes, who commanded substantial numbers of men, and especially

first class cavalry. To counter this threat, Alexander invaded Bactria and

Sogdiana. The speed with which he moved caused these leaders to fall

back beyond the Oxus, and not long after Alexander crossed this river,

Oxyartes and Spitamanes betrayed Bessus to Alexander, who ordered

his execution. Again, the removal of one leader meant nothing, for

Spitamenes came to the fore, and the Macedonians were now faced

with fierce guerrilla warfare in this different and hostile part of Central