Читать книгу The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great - John Watson McCrindle - Страница 13

Fig. 3.—Seal of Darius.

Alexander, having remained at Tyre until his preparations were completed, started from that city after midsummer in the year 331 B.C. On crossing the Euphrates at the fords of Thapsakos, he learned where Darius was, and at once accelerated his march to find him. He passed the Tigris, which had been left unguarded, and advancing southward for a few days, came in sight of the Persian host, which he found already drawn up in line prepared for action. It is said that Parmeniôn, alarmed by the immense array of the hostile ranks, came at a late hour to the king’s tent and proposed a night attack, and that Alexander’s answer was that it would be a base thing to steal a victory. His forces amounted only to 40,000 infantry and 7000 horse, yet he was so confident of success that on the morning of the decisive day his sleep was deeper and longer than usual.

In its main features, the battle that followed was but a repetition of the day of Issos. Alexander again commanded the right wing and Parmeniôn the left. Again Darius posted himself in the centre of his line, and again the Greek mercenaries confronted the Macedonian phalanx. Again Alexander, at the head of the Companion cavalry, made havoc of the troops which guarded the royal standard; and again Darius, terror-struck at his near approach, ignominiously fled from the field. His flight gave once more the signal of defeat, and that too, as at Issos, just at the time when his cavalry on the right had made the position of Parmeniôn most critical.[9] Alexander was recalled from the pursuit of Darius, whom he was eagerly bent on capturing, by a messenger sent by Parmeniôn pressing for instant aid. He at once turned back. On his way he met the Persian and Parthian cavalry and the Indian troops now in full retreat. A combat close and hot followed. The fugitives were for the most part killed, but sold their lives dearly. On returning to the field Alexander found that his left wing was no longer in distress, but putting the enemy to rout, and he therefore started once more in pursuit of Darius. The fugitive escaped, however, to Ekbatana, the capital in former days of the Median kings.

Accounts differ as to the numbers that were killed in this battle. Arrian says, absurdly enough, that 300,000 of the Persians were slain, and a greater number taken prisoners. Diodôros reduces the amount to 90,000, and Curtius to 40,000. The loss again on Alexander’s side is reckoned by Arrian at 100, by Curtius at 300, and by Diodôros at 500.[10]

Alexander pursued the fugitive troops as far as Arbêla—the place which has given its name to the battle, though it was sixty miles distant from the field whereon it was fought. Here he found the baggage of Darius, and having enriched himself with its spoils, he advanced southward to Babylon. This great capital, which once gave law to all the nations of the East, had under the rule of the Achaimenids gradually declined both in wealth and importance. Its inhabitants, like the Egyptians, detested their Persian masters, who oppressed them and persecuted their religion. They issued therefore from their gates in a joyful procession to welcome the victor and present him with gifts. His first acts on entering the city were well calculated to make a favourable impression on their minds. He ordered the temple of Belus to be rebuilt, honoured that deity with a public sacrifice according to the Chaldaean ritual, and restored to his priests the immense revenues with which they had been endowed by the Assyrian kings.[11]

Alexander thus found himself the master of a more spacious empire than any the world had yet seen. No king or conqueror had ever before stood on such a giddy pinnacle of power. As he had made his way to this supreme height before he had yet reached those years or experienced those vicissitudes of fortune which have a sobering effect on the mind, it is not surprising that, as in the case of Napoleon, whose genius was at many points in close touch with his own, and who, at a like early age, had amazed the world with his deeds of arms, unbounded success tended to deteriorate his character. He is found henceforth becoming more arrogant and despotic, more suspicious, and avid of flattery, while less tolerant of advice or remonstrance, and less capable of controlling the violence of his passions. The simple style of living in which he had been brought up seemed no longer to please him, and he began to assume all the pomp and splendour with which an oriental despot loves to surround himself,[12] an innovation in his habits which deeply mortified the pride of the Macedonians. It may be urged in his defence that he may have made the change less from any real inclination than from the politic motive of conciliating his new subjects by conforming to their tastes and habits.

Before leaving Babylon he settled the affairs of Assyria and its dependencies in accordance with a principle on which he generally acted, committing the civil administration to a native ruler, but leaving the command of the forces and the collection of the revenue in the hands of Macedonian officers. He then marched eastward, and in twenty days reached Sousa, the favourite capital of the Persian kings. Rich as Babylon was, its treasures were as nothing compared with those which had been here accumulated. The sums contained in the treasury amounted to 40,000 talents of uncoined gold and silver, and 9000 talents of coined gold, and there was other booty besides of immense value, including the spoils which Xerxes had carried off from Greece—the recovery of which gratified beyond measure the patriotic feelings of the army.

From Sousa Alexander took the road to Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Persians, a rich and splendid city lying to the south-east of Sousa, in the beautiful vale of Persis which was fertilised by the streams descending from Mount Zagros, the Mêdos, and the Araxês.[13] On his route he passed through the hill-country of the Ouxians, which like that of the Pisidians, was occupied by warlike and predatory tribes. These mountaineers were nominally subject to Persia, but they nevertheless at one of their defiles exacted toll even from the Great King himself whenever he passed through their country in going between his two capitals. They beset this defile with the whole of their effective force to levy the customary tribute from Alexander, who payed them what he called their dues in the form of a crushing defeat.[14] He then plundered their villages, and, having received their submission, pressed forward by way of the formidable pass called the Persian Gates.[15] Here the satrap Ariobarzanes, at the head of more than 40,000 men, tried but in vain to arrest his progress. Alexander, with his usual skill and courage forced the position, and meeting with no further resistance reached Persepolis, where no defence was attempted. He not only permitted his soldiers to plunder this ancient capital, but, if we may believe the story, with which Dryden’s Ode has made us familiar, set fire with his own hands in a drunken revel to the royal palace, a structure of supreme magnificence, as its ruins, which are still to be seen, attest. It is more probable, however, that he burned it from motives of policy, partly to show the Persians how absolutely he was now their master, and partly to avenge Greece for the destruction of her temples by Xerxes. In the royal treasury he found the vast sum of 120,000 talents, which falls little short of thirty million pounds of our money. As it was now mid-winter he here gave his army some respite from their toils. He gave himself, however, no rest, but led a detachment to Pasargadai, the primitive seat of the Achaimenids, which contained an august monument, the tomb of Cyrus, which still exists, and a rich treasury which he plundered.[16] He next assailed the Mardians, and marching over ice and snow, reduced their mountain fastnesses and compelled their submission.

In the spring of 330 B.C. he resumed the pursuit of Darius, who was still at Ekbatana making vain efforts to raise another army. The fallen monarch, on hearing that the enemy was again moving against him and had reached Media, fled eastward hoping to find protection and safety in the far remote province of Baktria, of which his kinsman Bessos was the satrap. The capital which he had left was the summer residence of the Persian kings, and was noted for the enormous strength of its citadel. Alexander therefore ordered Parmeniôn to transport thither, as to a place of peculiar security, the treasures which had been seized at the other capitals, and to confide their custody to a strong guard of Macedonian soldiers.[17] This done, he set out with a light detachment of troops in the hope of overtaking the fugitive king before he passed through the Kaspian Gates. At Rhagai, which was a day’s rapid march from that pass, he learned that Darius had escaped beyond it, and he therefore halted for five days to recruit his troops. On renewing the pursuit and reaching the open country beyond the gates, he learned that the Persian officers who were escorting their sovereign had conspired against him and deprived him of his liberty. Greatly fearing now lest the traitors had some deadlier purpose in view, he made incredible exertions to overtake them, and he came up with them on the fourth day—but all too late. The conspirators, among whom was Bessos, finding that the pursuit was gaining upon them, mortally wounded the hapless king, who breathed his last before Alexander reached him. “Such,” says Arrian, “was the end of Darius, who as a warrior was singularly remiss and injudicious. In other respects his character is blameless, either because he was just by nature, or because he had no opportunity of displaying the contrary, as his accession and the Macedonian invasion were simultaneous. It was not in his power, therefore, to oppress his subjects, as his danger was greater than theirs. His reign was one unbroken series of disasters, and he was at last treacherously assassinated by his most intimate connections. At his death he was about fifty years old.” Alexander sent his body into Persia with orders that it should be buried with all due honours in the royal sepulchre. Bessos escaped into his own satrapy where he assumed the upright tiara, the distinguishing emblem of Persian royalty, and took the name of Artaxerxes.

Alexander now halted at Hekatompylos,[18] a place which received this Greek name from its being the centre where many roads met, and which became in after times the capital of the Parthian kings. Being joined here by the rest of his army, he prepared to invade Hyrkania, from which he was separated by the chain of mountains now called the Elburz. As the passes were beset by robber-tribes, he divided his army into three bodies. The most numerous division crossed the mountains under his own command by the shortest and most difficult roads. Krateros made a circuit to the left through the country of the Tapeirians (Taburistan), while the third division under Erigyios took the royal road which led westward from Hekatompylos to Zadrakarta.[19] The divisions on emerging from the defiles united, and encamped near the last named place, which was the Hyrkanian capital. Hither came to Alexander with three of his sons the aged Artabazos, accompanied by the Tapeirian satrap and by deputies from the Greek mercenaries of Darius. Artabazos was received with distinguished honour, both because of his high rank and the fidelity he had shown to Darius, whom he had accompanied in his flight. The satrap was confirmed in his government, but the deputies were sternly told that as the mercenaries had violated the duty which they owed to their country, they must submit themselves unreservedly to the judgment of the king. Alexander then attacked the Mardians who inhabited the lofty mountains to the north-west of the Kaspian Gates. They submitted after a slight resistance, and were ordered to obey the Tapeirian satrap.

Alexander’s next object was to crush Bessos and possess himself of all the eastern provinces as far as the borders of India. He therefore marched eastward towards Baktria, and having traversed the northern part of Parthia, reached Sousia, a city of Areia (now Sous, near Meshed, the present capital of Khorasan). Satibarzanes, the satrap of that province, and one of the conspirators against Darius, met him here, and having tendered his submission, was confirmed in his government, and dismissed with an escort of Macedonian horsemen to his capital, Artakoana. Alexander then resumed his march towards Baktria, but was arrested on the way by receiving word that Satibarzanes had revolted in favour of Bessos, armed the Areians, and slain his Macedonian escort. He therefore at once altered his route, and by the promptitude of his appearance confounded the plans of the satrap, who fled and was deserted by most of his troops. Artakoana was captured by Krateros after a short siege. This city stood in a plain of exceptional fertility at a point where all the roads from the north to the south, and from the west to the east, united, and Alexander, discerning the incomparable advantages of its position, whether for war or commerce, founded in its neighbourhood a new city in which he planted a Macedonian colony. He called it Alexandreia, and as it still exists as Herat, it will be seen how well grounded was its founder’s belief in the strategetical and commercial importance of its site.

Alexander, after suppressing this revolt, instead of resuming his march to Baktria, moved forward to Prophthasia (now Furrah), the capital of Drangiana (Seistan), of which Barsaentes, another of the accomplices in the murder of Darius, was satrap. This traitor was seized and executed. Here an event occurred which has left a dark stain on the character of Alexander. He was led to suspect that a conspiracy had been formed against his life by some of his principal officers, and among others by the son of Parmeniôn, Philôtas, who held the most coveted post in the army, that of commander of the Companion Cavalry. It is certain that he was not an accomplice in the plot; but as he had been informed of its existence, and failed to give the king any warning of his danger, he was accused before the Macedonian army and condemned to death. He confessed under torture that his father, Parmeniôn, had formed a design against the king’s life, and that he had himself joined the recent plot, lest his father, who was now an old man, might, before the plot was ripe, be snatched away by death from his command at Ekbatana, which placed the vast treasures deposited there at his disposal. This confession, wrung by torture when its agonies became insupportable, and obviously framed to meet the wishes of the questioners, was no proof of the guilt either of the father or the son. Parmeniôn was, nevertheless, on this worthless evidence condemned to death, and Alexander, whom he had so faithfully served, took care that the sentence should be executed before the news of his son’s death, which he might seek to avenge, could reach his ears. Many other Macedonians were also at this time tried and put to death. Alexander’s confidence in his friends was thus much shaken; and instead of entrusting as formerly the command of the Companion Cavalry to one individual, he divided that body into two regiments, giving the command of one to Kleitos, and of the other to Hêphaistiôn.

From Prophthasia he proceeded southwards into the fertile plains along the Etymander (R. Helmund), then inhabited by a peaceful tribe called the Ariaspians, who had received from Cyrus the title of Euergetai—that is, benefactors, because they had assisted him at a time when he had been reduced to great straits. Alexander spent two months in their dominions, probably awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Ekbatana. During this interval Dêmetrios, a member of the king’s bodyguard, was arrested on suspicion of his having been implicated with Philôtas in the recent plot, and his office was bestowed on Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, for whom this promotion opened the way to a royal destiny. Alexander before resuming his march appointed a governor over the Euergetai, but rewarded their hospitality by augmenting their territory and confirming them in the enjoyment of their political privileges.

He left this country about mid-winter, and ascending the valley of the Etymander penetrated into Arachosia, a province which stretched eastward to the Indus. As he advanced northward by Kandahar the snow lay deep on the ground, and the soldiers suffered severely both from hunger and cold. About this time he heard that the Areians had again revolted at the instigation of Satibarzanes, who had entered their province at the head of 2000 horse, and he immediately sent a detachment under Erigyios to quell the insurgents. Continuing meanwhile his own advance, he arrived at the foot of the colossal mountain-barrier, the chain of Paropanisos, which separates Kabul from Baktria. Here in a commanding position, near the village of Charikar, which stands in the rich and beautiful valley of Koh-Daman, he founded yet another Alexandreia (called by way of distinction Alexandreia of the Paropamisadai, or Alexandria apud Caucasum), and planted it with Macedonian colonists. According to Strabo he wintered in this neighbourhood, but Arrian leads us to suppose that he departed as soon as he had founded the city. He crossed the mountains, as some think, by the Bamiân Pass, the most western of the four routes which give access from the Koh-Daman to the regions of the Upper Oxus. It is likelier, however, that he ascended by the more direct route along the course of the Panjshir river. The army again suffered on the way from the severity of the cold, and still more from the scarcity of provisions. According to Aristoboulos nothing grew on these hills but terebinth trees and the herb called silphium, on which the flocks and herds of the mountaineers pastured. This march, which terminated at Adrapsa, occupied fifteen days.

The Macedonians had now reached a fertile country; but as Bessos had ordered it to be ravaged, they found a wide barrier of desolation opposed to their further advance. The barrier was interposed in vain. Alexander resolutely pressed forward, and Bessos and his associates fled at his approach, and, crossing the Oxus, retired into Sogdiana. Aornos and Baktra, the two principal cities of the Baktrian satrapy, surrendered without resistance, and the satrapy itself was soon afterwards reduced. At Baktra Erigyios, who had succeeded in quelling the Areian revolt, rejoined the army. Alexander having appointed Artabazos satrap of his new conquest, marched to the Oxus in pursuit of Bessos, and came upon that river at the point where Kijil now stands. There it was about three-quarters of a mile in breadth, and the current was found to be both deep and rapid. The passage, which occupied five days, was made on floats, supported by skins stuffed with straw, and rendered watertight. The army had no sooner gained the right bank than messengers arrived from two of the leading adherents of Bessos—Spitamenes, the satrap of Sogdiana, and Dataphernes—promising to surrender Bessos, who was already their prisoner, if Alexander would send a small force to their support. The king assented, and sent Ptolemy forward to receive the traitor from their hands. They gave him up, and he was conducted with a rope round his neck into the presence of the king, who ordered him to be scourged and then conveyed to Zariaspa (which some identify with Baktra), there to await his final doom.

The army next marched forward to Marakanda, now Samarkand, then merely the capital of the Sogdian satrapy, but destined to be in aftertimes the capital of the vast empire founded by Timour. It stood in the valley of the Polytimêtos (R. Kohik), a region of such exuberant fertility and beauty that it figures in Persian poetry as one of the four paradises of the world. Alexander remained for some time in this pleasant neighbourhood to remount his cavalry and otherwise recruit his forces. He then advanced to the river Jaxartes, which formed the boundary between the Persian empire and the barbarous Skythian tribes, and which the Greeks confounded with the Tanais or Don. The country was protected against the inroads of these warlike tribes by a line of fortified towns, of which the largest and strongest, Cyropolis, had been founded, as its name imports, by Cyrus. Alexander captured all these fortresses and manned them with small Macedonian garrisons; and to curb the Skythians still more effectually, founded on the banks of the Jaxartes, near where Khojent now stands, still another Alexandreia, which the Greeks for distinction’s sake called Eschatê, or “the Extreme.” In the midst of this undertaking, he was interrupted by the sudden outbreak of a widespread rebellion instigated by Spitamenes and his confederates. Taking immediate and energetic steps for its suppression, he in a few days recovered the seven towns; and then crossing the Jaxartes, defeated the Skythians, who with a view to aid the insurgents had mustered in great force on its right bank. After this victory he received tidings of the first serious disaster that had befallen his arms. He had sent a large force to operate against Spitamenes, who was at the time besieging the Macedonian garrison which held Marakanda. On learning that this force was approaching, the rebel chief retired down the Polytimêtos to Bokhara, and thence to the vast desert which stretches from Sogd to the Sea of Aral. Here he was joined by a large body of Skythian horsemen, and thus reinforced turned upon his pursuers, drove them back from the edge of the desert, which they had just entered, into the valley whence they had emerged, and there, amid the woody ravines of the Polytimetos, cut them to pieces almost to a man. Encouraged by this success, he returned to Marakanda and renewed the siege of its citadel, but on learning that Alexander was rapidly returning from the Jaxartes, he retraced his steps towards the desert, and reached it before the enemy overtook him. The course of the pursuit led Alexander to the scene of the late disaster. His first care was to bury the slain, and he then avenged their death by ravaging with fire and sword, in all its length and breadth, the lovely valley of the Polytimetos. He showed no mercy, but slaughtered all who fell into his hands, soldier and citizen alike. This is certainly, as Thirlwall remarks, one of the acts of his life for which it is most difficult to find an excuse.

As the year (329 B.C.) was now drawing to a close, he recrossed the Oxus and returned to Zariaspa (Baktra?), where he spent the winter. Sentence was here pronounced upon Bessos, who was mutilated and then sent to Ekbatana for execution. Alexander’s European forces, as the narrative has shown, were constantly undergoing diminution, not only by losses in the field, but also by his leaving Macedonian veterans to garrison important strongholds, or to form the nucleus of the population of the cities he founded. He therefore from time to time sent requisitions for recruits to Macedonia and Greece, and as these were adequately met the fighting quality of his troops was always maintained at the same high level. During his stay at Baktra a great number of such recruits arrived, and filled up the large gap which the late disaster had made in his ranks. There came thither also ambassadors from the King of the Skythians, bringing presents and the offer of a marriage alliance, which was declined. The King of the Khorasmians, moreover, whose dominions, according to his own account, bordered on the land of the Kolchians and the Amazons, came in person and offered his services to Alexander should he wish to subdue the nations to the north and west of the Kaspian Sea. Alexander, however, being now anxious to enter India, declined his offers for the present.

The accounts of his next two campaigns are confused, and not always mutually consistent. According to Curtius, when he moved from Zariaspa, he crossed the river Ochos (now the Aksou), and came to a city called Marginia, probably the Marginan of our times. Arrian, however, makes no mention of this expedition. The Baktrians were still imperfectly subjugated, and the Sogdians, notwithstanding the severe chastisement they had received, were again up in arms against his authority. He therefore left Krateros to deal with the former, while he marched in person against Marakanda. On his way thither he performed another of his marvellous achievements, the capture of a fortress perched on the summit of a steep, lofty, and strongly fortified rock, held by a powerful garrison, and deemed to be impregnable. He captured it, nevertheless. Within this stronghold Oxyartes, a Baktrian chief, had for safety deposited his wife and daughters. Roxana, the eldest daughter, was, next to the wife of Darius, the most beautiful of all Asiatic women, and Alexander was so captivated with her charms that he did not hesitate to make her his wife.

Spitamenes, meanwhile, assisted by the Massagetai, one of the Skythian tribes that ranged over the Khorasmian desert, made a devastating irruption into Baktria, and though he was in the end repulsed by Krateros, escaped into the desert beyond the reach of pursuit. Fearing he might renew his attack in some other quarter, Alexander hastened to Marakanda to settle the province and provide for its security against future hostile incursions. To this end he directed a number of new towns to be founded and planted with Macedonian, Greek, and native colonists. In the course of this expedition he came to the Royal Park at Bazaria (perhaps Bokhara), and while hunting within its precincts killed a lion of extraordinary size with his own hand.

On his return to Marakanda a tragic incident occurred—his murder of Kleitos, from whom he had received some provocation in the course of a drunken revel. As he was tenderly attached to Kleitos, who was the brother of his nurse, and had saved his life at the Granîkos, his remorse for this frenzied deed knew no bounds at the time, and gave him many bitter moments in his after life.

His next expedition led him towards the western frontier of the province, where he reduced the district called Xenippa, which lay on the skirts of the Noura mountains—a range that runs from east to west about ten miles north of Bokhara. As Spitamenes was supposed to be in the desert not far off, he left Koinos in that part of the country with orders to capture that audacious rebel, while he himself withdrew to Nautaka, where he intended to pass the winter. This place was situated in a fertile oasis between Samarkand and the Oxus, and must have occupied the site of Kurshee or Kesh, noted afterwards as the birthplace of Timour. Spitamenes, meanwhile, attacked Koinos, but was defeated after a severe struggle, and driven back into the desert. His Skythian confederates, fearing their own country might be invaded, cut off his head and sent it to Alexander; and so perished the most active, bold, and persevering antagonist that he had as yet encountered in Asia, one of the few who resolutely and to the last scorned to bend his neck to a foreign yoke.

With the first return of spring (B.C. 327) he moved from his winter quarters to invade the Paraitakai, who, as their name indicates, inhabited a mountainous district, and were, some think, a branch of the widespread Takka tribe, the name of which appears in Taxila, which designated a great capital it possessed in India. In the country of the Paraitakai, which lay to the east of Baktria and Sogdiana, there was another great rock fortress, which, like the Sogdian, was deemed impregnable. It was the main stronghold of a chief called Khorienês, who, after holding out for some time, was persuaded by Oxyartes to cast himself on the generosity of the great conqueror, a quality of which he had himself a very satisfactory experience. Khoriênes therefore surrendered, and was rewarded by being confirmed in his government. Alexander after this success proceeded to Baktra in order to make preparation for his expedition into India, but left Krateros to reduce such of the tribes as still held out for independence. At Baktra another tragedy was enacted. The court pages, at the instigation of one of their number, called Hermolaos, who had been subjected to some degrading punishment, conspired against the king, who narrowly escaped assassination. The pages, who all belonged to families of high rank, were tortured to extract confessions of their guilt, and were then stoned to death by the Macedonians. The confessions indicated, it is said, that Kallisthenes, a literary man attached to the court who had been permitted, on the recommendation of his kinsman Aristotle, to accompany the expedition, not only knew of the existence of the plot, but had encouraged the pages to persist in their design. He had rendered himself obnoxious to the king by the freedom with which he expressed his opinions and by his opposition to the Persian fashions introduced into the court, and his doom was sealed. Accounts differ as to the time and mode of his death. According to Ptolemy he was tortured and then crucified, but Aristoboulos and Chares agree in stating that he was carried about in chains and died at last of disease in India.

The summer had set in when Alexander set out from Baktra on his Indian expedition. He crossed the chain of Paropamisos in ten days, and halted at the Alexandreia which he had founded at their base to settle the affairs of that city and the surrounding district. The narrative of his campaigns, from the time he left this place till he led his army into Karmania, after its disastrous march through the burning sands of the Gedrosian desert, is given in full detail in the translations which form the body of this work. His march, which on his emerging from the desert lay through the beautiful and fertile province of Karmania, resembled a festive procession, and the licence in which he permitted his soldiers to indulge was meant no less to obliterate the memory of their terrible sufferings in the desert than to celebrate according to Bacchic fashion and example the conquest of India.

In Karmania, Alexander received intelligence that Philip, who had been left in command of all the country west of the Indus had been slain in a mutiny by the Greek mercenaries under his command, but that the Macedonian troops had quelled the mutiny and put the assassins to death. He did not at the time appoint any successor to Philip, but empowered Eudêmos and Taxiles to take temporary charge of the affairs of the satrapy. Before he left Karmania he was rejoined by Krateros who brought in safety the division of the army which he had led from the Indus by way of Arachôsia, Drangiana, and the Karmanian desert. Nearchos also visited his camp, which at the time was a five days’ journey distant from the sea, and communicated the welcome news that the fleet had arrived in safety at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The admiral was instructed to continue the voyage by sailing up the Gulf to the mouth of the Tigris, while Hephaistiôn was put in command of the main army with orders to proceed to Sousa along the maritime parts of Persis and Sousiana. The king himself with a small division took the upper road which led to that capital through Pasargadai and Persepolis. In Persis things had not gone well in his absence. The satrap whom he had appointed was dead, and his office had been usurped by Orxines, a Persian of great wealth and high rank, against whom many acts of violence and oppression were charged. He found also that the tomb of Cyrus had been desecrated and plundered, and this outrage excited his violent indignation, since he looked upon that conqueror as the founder of the vast empire which was now his own. He could not discover the perpetrators, but had to content himself with ordering the violated sepulchre to be properly restored. On reaching Persepolis he investigated the charges against Orxines, and finding them proved, put him to death, and gave his satrapy to Peukestas, one of the commanders of his bodyguard.

In Persis the health of Kalanos, the Indian gymnosophist, who, at Alexander’s request, had abjured the ascetic life and followed him from India, began to fail, and, as he chose rather to die than suffer the infirmities of age, he announced that it was his intention to burn himself. The king attempted to dissuade him, but finding that he was inexorably bent on self-destruction, ordered a funeral pyre to be prepared for him, and all the arrangements connected with his cremation to be superintended by Ptolemy. On the day appointed the devotee ascended the pyre and perished in its flames, exhibiting throughout a serene fortitude and self-possession which greatly astonished the Macedonians who attended in throngs to witness this strange spectacle. Strabo makes Pasargadai to be the scene of this incident, but Diodôros, Sousa, and with more probability, since we know that Nearchos was an eye-witness of the burning.

Alexander reached Sousa in the beginning of the year 324 B.C., and remained there for a considerable time, regulating the affairs of his new dominions. One of his great objects was to fuse together as far as was practicable his European with his Asiatic subjects; and to this end he assigned to some eighty of his generals Asiatic wives, giving with each an ample dowry. He took himself a second wife, Barsinê, called sometimes Stateira, the eldest daughter of Darius, and, it is said, also a third, Parysatis, the daughter of Ochos, one of the predecessors of Darius. About 10,000 Macedonians followed the example of their superiors, and all who did so received presents from their royal master. Carrying out this object in another form, he enrolled a large number of Asiatics among his European troops. These new schemes were so bitterly resented by the better class of his Macedonian veterans that they rose against him in a mutiny which he had no little difficulty in quelling. About 10,000 of these veterans were dismissed, and they returned to Europe under the command of Krateros. Towards the close of the year he went to Ekbatana, and there he lost his chief favourite Hêphaistiôn, who succumbed to an attack of fever. His grief at this bereavement knew no bounds, and showed itself in acts which seem copied from those wherewith Achilles demonstrated his passionate sense of the loss of his beloved Patroklos. From Ekbatana he marched back towards Babylon, and was met on the way by ambassadors from all parts of the known world, who came to do homage to the greatest of all kings and conquerors, and also by a deputation of Chaldaean priests who warned him of danger if at that time he should enter Babylon. He entered it nevertheless, though with gloomy forebodings, early in the spring of 323 B.C. As this city was the best point of communication between the eastern and western parts of his dominions, he had selected it to be the capital of his vast empire, and accordingly took measures immediately on his return for the improvement of its internal condition, for the drainage of the swampy lands in its neighbourhood which rendered its climate unhealthy, and also for removing obstacles to the safe and easy navigation of the great river by which it communicated with the sea.

His ambition being still, however, unsated, he meditated fresh conquests, which, if effected, would have made him master of the world from the shores of the Atlantic to the Eastern Ocean. But his end was now drawing near. The climate of Babylon was malarious, and as his spirits were depressed both by his loss of Hêphaistiôn and by superstitious fears, he was less able to withstand its malignant influences. He caught a fever, and having aggravated its virulence by indulging in convivial excesses, was cut off in June 323 B.C. at the age of thirty-three, and after he had reigned for nearly thirteen years. “So passed from the earth,” says Bishop Thirlwall, “one of the greatest of her sons: great above most for what he was in himself, and not, as many who have borne the title, for what was given him to effect. Great, not merely in the vast compass and the persevering ardour of his ambition ... but in the course which his ambition took, in the collateral aims which ennobled and purified it, so that it almost grew into one with the highest of which man is capable, the desire of knowledge and the love of good. In a word, great as one of the benefactors of his kind.... It may be truly asserted that his was the first of the great monarchies founded in Asia that opened a prospect of progressive improvement, and not of continual degradation, to its subjects: it was the first that contained any element of moral and intellectual progress.” This estimate, high as it is, appears to be just and sober, and to hold a due balance between the extravagant eulogiums and the damnatory criticisms of other writers such as Mitford, Williams, and Droysen on the one hand, and Niebuhr, Sainte-Croix, and Grote on the other, who all alike allowed their ethical and political proclivities to bias their judgment.

Fig. 4.—Alexander the Great.

Alexander was dignified both in his appearance and in his demeanour. He was not above the ordinary height, but his frame was well built and extremely muscular. “He was very handsome in person,” says Arrian, “devoted to exertion, of an active mind and a most heroic courage, tenacious of honour, ever ready to meet dangers, indifferent to the pleasures of the body, and strictly observant of his religious duties.” Plutarch tells us that the statues of Alexander which most resembled him were those of Lysippos, who alone had his permission to represent him in marble, and who best hit off the turn of his head, which leaned a little to one side.[20] He adds that he was of a fair complexion, with a tinge of red in his face and upon his breast, and that his breath and whole person were so fragrant that they perfumed his under garments. In another passage, describing Alexander’s habits, the same author says that he was very temperate in eating, and that he was not so much addicted to wine as he was thought to be. What gave rise to this opinion was his practice of spending a great deal of time at table. The time, however, was passed rather in talking than drinking, every cup introducing some long discussion. Besides, he never sat long at table except when he had abundance of leisure. There was always a magnificence at his table, and the expense rose with his fortune till it came to the fixed sum of 10,000 drachms for each entertainment. As in his dying moments he had given orders that his body should be conveyed to Ammôn in the Libyan oasis, it was embalmed, and after more than two years had been spent in making preparations for its removal, it was conveyed with vast pomp in a car of wondrous magnificence to Egypt, where it was entombed first at Memphis, and afterwards, by the authority of Ptolemy,[21] at Alexandreia, the greatest of all the cities which he had founded and called after his name.

Alexander was so prematurely cut off, and was besides so much occupied before his death with organising fresh expeditions, both maritime and military, that he had no time to improve or complete the measures which he had initiated for promoting the fusion and securing the permanent unification of the multifarious races comprised in his empire. Had he been vouchsafed a longer term of life, it seems probable that he would have succeeded in welding so firmly together all the parts of his dominions that centuries might have elapsed before they became again disintegrated; but the dissensions which speedily broke out between his great captains, originating in their ambition to rule with independent authority, shattered his empire and embroiled it in wars which lasted for nearly half a century.

Soon after his death Perdikkas, to whom in his last moments he had given his signet-ring, was appointed to conduct the government on behalf of the royal family, which was held to consist of Arrhidaios, the king’s half-brother, a man of weak intellect and character, and Queen Roxana, who a few months after her husband’s death gave birth to a son who received the name of Alexander Aigos. The satrapies were then divided among the leading generals. Perdikkas soon began to use his position for the furtherance of his own selfish designs, and having secured the support of Eumenês, attempted to crush his colleagues and assume all power to himself. He marched first into Egypt against Ptolemy, but on the banks of the Nile he was defeated and slain in a mutiny of his own men 321 B.C. Tidings soon afterwards reached the army that Krateros had been defeated and slain in fighting against Eumenês while marching to assist Ptolemy. The office of regent was upon this offered to Ptolemy, who declined its acceptance, as he held that the satrapies should become independent kingdoms. The army then conferred that office, along with the tutelage of the royal family, on Antipater of Macedonia, who had crossed over into Asia to oppose Perdikkas. A new partition of the provinces, which did not differ much from the former, was then made at a place in Upper Syria called Triparadeisos. Under this arrangement Ptolemy held Egypt; Lysimachos, Thrace; Antigonos, Phrygia or Central Asia Minor; Seleukos, Babylon; Antigenes, Sousiana; Peukestas, Persia; Peithôn, son of Krateros, Media; Nearchos, Pamphylia and Lycia; Arrhidaios, Hellespontine Phrygia; Antipater and Polysperchon, Macedonia and Greece. Eumenês still held the satrapy at first assigned to him—that of Kappadokia, Paphlagonia, and Pontos—and was now the leader of those who had been the adherents of Perdikkas. He was supported by Alketas, the brother of Perdikkas, Peukestas, Attalos, Antigenes, and by the influence of Olympias, the mother of Alexander. Besides Perdikkas and Krateros, two other great generals had by this time disappeared from the scene—Meleager, who had been cut off by Perdikkas, and Leonnatos, who had been slain in the Lamian war.

Antigonos was appointed by Antipater to conduct the war against Eumenês, and after many fluctuations of fortune at last captured him and put him to death. This happened early in the year 316 B.C. The fortunes of Alexander’s empire were then left at the disposal of five men—Antigonos, Lysimachos, Ptolemy, Seleukos, and Kassander, the son of Antipater, who had died in the year 319 B.C. The ambition and ever-increasing power of Antigonos soon led his colleagues to form a coalition against him, and a long series of hostilities followed. In the end Antigonos and his son Dêmêtrios, surnamed Poliorkêtês, were defeated by the confederates in the battle of Ipsos in 301 B.C. Antigonos fell on the field of battle, and the greater part of his dominions fell to the share of Seleukos, whose cavalry and elephants had been chiefly instrumental in winning the victory. He received as his reward a great part of Asia Minor as well as the whole of Syria from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean. Ptolemy obtained Phoenicia and Hollow Syria, but these provinces afterwards gave rise to frequent wars between succeeding kings of Egypt and Syria. A war in later times broke out between Seleukos and Lysimachos, in which the latter was slain in 281 B.C. His kingdom of Thrace was afterwards merged in that of Macedonia. Thus the empire of Alexander, after a period of incessant wars continued for upwards of forty years, was divided between the powerful monarchs of Macedonia, Egypt, and Syria.

Fig. 5.—Diodotos.

Fig. 6.—Antiochos the Great.

The successors of Seleukos were unable to retain hold of their remote eastern dependencies. About the middle of the third century B.C. Theodotos or Diodotos, the governor of Baktra, revolted from his grandson Antiochos II. and made Baktra an independent kingdom. Not long afterwards Aśôka, the grandson of Chandragupta, as we learn from one of his own inscriptions,[22] sent missionaries to the kings of the West to proclaim to them and to their subjects the doctrines of Buddhism. The kings named in the inscription are Antiyoka (Antiochos II., king of Syria), Turamaya (Ptolemy III., Euergetes, king of Egypt), Antigona (Antigonas Gonatas, king of Macedonia), Maga (Magas, king of Kyrênê). About the year 212 B.C. Antiochos III., surnamed the Great, marched eastward to recover Parthia and Baktria which had both revolted from the second Antiochos. He was, however, unable, even after a war which lasted for some years, to effect the subjugation of these kingdoms, and accordingly concluded a treaty with them in which he recognised their independence. With the assistance of the Baktrian sovereign Euthydêmos, who founded the greatness of the Baktrian monarchy, he made an expedition into India, where he renewed the alliance with that country which had been formed in the days of Sandrokottos. From Sophagasenos,[23] the chief of the Indian kings, he obtained a large supply of elephants, and then returned to Syria by the route through Arachôsia in the year 205 B.C.