Alexander the great

 

Alexendar the great

Alexendar the great Birth

ALEXANDER WAS BORN ON THE SIXTH DAY OF THE MONTH CALLED HEKATOMBAION, THOUGH THE MACEDONIANS CALL IT LOÖS. ON THE SAME DAY THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS AT EPHESUS BURNED TO THE GROUND. —PLUTARCH

Alexander, son of Philip, was born in the year of the 106th Olympic games, during the leadership of Elpines at Athens, in the third year of the rule of Artaxerxes III, Great King of Persia—or by our reckoning July of the year 356 B.C. Every Greek state had its own calendar based on local festivals. In Athens, the new year had just begun with the rising of the first new moon after the summer solstice and the sacrifice of a hundred animals to the gods. Hundreds of miles north in Macedonia the month bore a different name, but the coastal plains still baked in the summer heat. In winter, when the Athenians enjoyed a mild Mediterranean climate, the Macedonians shivered against the north wind.

The homeland of Alexander lay cut off from Greece by the mountain wall of Olympus and surrounding peaks. Indeed, most Greeks were quite happy with the separation since they considered the Macedonians little more than barbarians. The mountains and plains of the Macedonian north were as foreign to the cultured Greeks of the south as the steppes of Scythia or the dark forests of the Celts.

Viewed from above, the land of Macedonia is a great bowl tipping into the Aegean Sea. On its south, west, and north are towering mountains drained by rivers flowing through plains rich in grains and pasturage. Mount Olympus, almost ten thousand feet in height, dominates the view of the south. To the west and north are mountains almost as high, stretching like a horseshoe from Olympus to beyond the Axios River. To the east the great three-fingered peninsula of Chalcidice reaches into the sea.

But ancient Macedonia was surrounded by more than just difficult mountains. The famed horse warriors of Thessaly to the south cut off Philip’s kingdom from Greece, while to the west the powerful tribes of Illyria were a constant threat. From the north the Paeonians and Agrianians staged devastating raids from the highlands they shared with mountain lions, bears, and wild auroch cattle. To the east along the road to Byzantium beyond the Strymon River was the savage land of Thrace, where tattooed warriors crafted intricate gold jewelry and regarded plundering as the only honorable means of living.

Macedonia itself was divided into two vastly different regions. The mountains of the south, west, and north were the traditional home of fiercely independent pastoralists whose lives revolved around the sheep and goats they raised for meat, milk, and wool. During the summer the highland Macedonians grazed their flocks in the mountain pastures high above the plains, but in the cold winter months they were forced to bring their animals down to the coastal lowlands. In this area lived the Macedonian farmers, who raised crops and tended vineyards. Thus the highlanders by necessity had learned to live alongside their lowland cousins for part of the year, giving them a share of their flocks and fertilizing their fields with animal manure in payment.

But it was the mountain Macedonians—from the upland regions of Pelagonia, Lyncestis, Orestis, Elimiotis, and Pieria around Mount Olympus—who for countless generations had fought against the wolves, bears, and human predators that threatened their flocks. Their whole life was a constant war to keep their animals alive in a harsh and rugged land. For the highlanders, the tribe was everything and everything depended in turn on the bravery, cunning, and diplomacy of their chiefs. If Illyrian raiders stole a tribe’s best rams by night, the chief immediately led his men in a counterstrike to seize the animals and mercilessly kill the thieves. If lowland farmers threatened to withdraw age-old privileges of winter pasturage, the highland chief would invite them to a splendid feast, flatter them endlessly with tales of their grandfather’s generosity, and shamelessly bribe their leaders with promises of fat ewes and warm woolen cloaks. The highland lords were kings of the Macedonian world. The Greeks far to the south might talk of democracy and debate laws in their assemblies, but in the cold northern mountains the Macedonians had for ages lived and died at the word of their chiefs.

The plains of Macedonia were rich in barley and wheat, but the highlands held the resources most coveted by the Greeks. Cities such as Athens had long ago stripped their own hills of timber as their populations grew, but the mountains of Macedonia were still covered with towering forests of pine and oak needed for ships of war and trade. Beneath these forests, especially in the eastern Macedonian mountains, were iron, silver, and gold.

Though the pastoral Macedonians of the mountains differed from the lowland farmers in many ways, they shared a common language that defined them as a single people—and separated them from the Greeks to the south. The Macedonian tongue was so far removed from the Greek of Athens or Sparta that it may as well have been a different language entirely. Years after his birth, when Alexander was in central Asia, he grew so angry at a drinking party one night that he switched from his usual Greek speech to yell at his guards in Macedonian. Later still his soldiers mocked an officer on trial for addressing them in Greek rather than the normal Macedonian of the ranks. Macedonians were known for their odd words and strange pronunciation—they could never quite get Greek sounds right even when they tried. Though their kings bore ancient Greek names, the Macedonian people called Philip Bilippos instead of the normal Greek Philippos. This only served to make them an object of further scorn to their pretentious critics in the Athenian assembly. Language, as well as politics, culture, and so much else, reinforced the opinion of the Greeks that the Macedonians were a separate people, barbarians from beyond Olympus, no matter how hard their kings might try to behave like Greeks. And to most Macedonians, this was just fine. They saw the Greeks as feeble, effeminate, selfimportant snobs who had long since squandered whatever manliness and courage they had possessed when they had driven back the Persian invaders more than a century earlier. The Macedonian nobility might study Greek philosophy and recite the poetry of Homer, but the common Macedonian soldier was proud not to be Greek.

Alexander was born into a family that traced its royal roots back to the great hero Hercules—at least that was the story the family told visitors to its court. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, who journeyed to Macedonia a century before Alexander and collected every scrap of gossip he could find on the kingdom, the Macedonian royal family began when a Greek refugee named Perdiccas arrived from Argos in southern Greece. A descendant of Temenus of the family of Hercules, Perdiccas was banished from Argos along with his two older brothers. The brothers eventually made their way north to Macedonia. In the mountains of the west they found refuge with a local chieftain and his kindly wife. Times were hard for everyone, so young Perdiccas and his brothers labored as simple farmhands to earn their keep. One day the wife noticed that the loaves she baked every day for Perdiccas grew to twice the size of the others. When she told her husband, the chieftain feared this was an ill omen and ordered the brothers to depart at once. The brothers demanded their wages, but the flustered chief shouted that all they would receive was the ray of sunlight shining into the room. The two older brothers were ready to fight, but young Perdiccas took his knife and calmly traced the outline of the sunbeam on the dirt floor and said they would accept the chief’s offer. He then gathered the sunlight three times onto his tattered garment and left with his brothers. The chief soon realized Perdiccas had performed some sort of magic spell that threatened his own rule and sent warriors to kill the brothers. But a nearby river miraculously rose, cutting off the soldiers and allowing Perdiccas and his brothers to escape to the hills of Pieria north of Mount Olympus. There at a place known as the Gardens of Midas, where young Alexander would one day be tutored by Aristotle, the brothers from Argos established a kingdom that in time spread down from the highlands to the rich farmland along the coast.

This story was told to Herodotus six generations after Perdiccas by King Alexander I, the direct ancestor of Alexander the Great. The elder Alexander began his rule during the Persian Wars against Greece during the early fifth century and, after the victories of Athens and Sparta against Persia, was eager to connect his royal family to the winning side. Thus the foundation story of Macedonia should be taken with a large grain of salt, though it is possible to see a glimmer of history beneath the fairy tale. The divine Greek origins of the Macedonian royal family are fanciful, but the gradual spread of a local highland tribe from the hills near Mount Olympus to the coastal plains beyond the city of Vergina is quite plausible. The takeover of nearby winter grazing lands by a warlike tribe from the highlands would have provided a strong nucleus for a future Macedonian kingdom.

Alexander I was a master diplomat who played all sides against one another to expand his kingdom. He was a faithful subject of the Persian Empire when it suited him and a Greek patriot when the Great King turned his back. After Alexander was assassinated—a frequent event in Macedonian royal history—his son Perdiccas II continued his father’s policies of international intrigue during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Perdiccas changed sides so many times during the conflict that the Macedonians couldn’t keep track of who they were backing during any given year.

Perdiccas was murdered by his illegitimate son Archelaus who—amid the swirl of treachery, violence, and vicious love triangles, heterosexual and homosexual, that were part of everyday life in the Macedonian court—took the throne and began an intensive program of Hellenization. Earlier kings had long encouraged Greek culture among the nobility, but Archelaus made it a top priority. Though the common people scoffed and continued to live as they had for centuries, the Macedonian court under the new king became a center for Greek artists and scholars. Among the many intellectuals wooed to the palace with lavish gifts was the Athenian playwright Euripides, who visited in his waning years and wrote the Bacchae there—a wild tale of sex, murder, and insanity that surely owes its inspiration to life among the Macedonian nobility.

One day when Alexander was about twelve years old, he made a friend who would follow him all the way to India. That this friend was a horse named Bucephalas is the most charming quality of a story that has long been one of the most famous and revealing in Alexander’s extraordinary life.

Aristotle was an inspired teacher. Just as Socrates had taught Plato and Plato in turn had instructed Aristotle, now the philosopher from Stagira would show Alexander the wonders of the universe. With his skinny legs, small eyes, persistent lisp, outrageous clothing, and gaudy rings, Aristotle must have made a laughable impression on the Macedonian prince, but when the man spoke, Alexander knew he was in the presence of genius. Unlike Plato, who valued theory and speculation above all else, Aristotle was a practical man. He was passionately curious about how things worked and was as likely to be found knee-deep in a swamp collecting tadpoles for dissection as in a library studying the art of poetics. In an age before specialization, Aristotle studied and wrote about everything. He practically invented logic and deduced that the universe must have been created by an all-powerful prime mover who, however, took no interest in his handiwork. Aristotle was the first great experimental scientist, with physics, astronomy, biology, embryology, meteorology, and much more in his realm of expertise. He knew from observation and experimentation that the earth was a sphere and that whales were mammals, not fish. He pioneered the study of ethics and argued that the greatest virtues come from moderation. He declared that man was a political animal—that is, a creature who finds his true home in the polis or city. No person could lead a meaningful life isolated from others, he declared, for a life without friends would not be worth living. But he also believed, as did almost everyone at his time, that slavery was a natural state of affairs and that men by nature were superior to women. He also held that people of barbarian nations were inferior to Greeks and should be treated as such.

Alexander must have studied all these ideas and more under Aristotle, but the subjects that seemed to have interested him the most were medicine, science, and poetry. Aristotle learned the healing arts from his own father and passed the knowledge on to Alexander. As a general on the field of battle in later years, Alexander was known personally to treat wounds and prescribe medicines for his men. He also collected specimens of plants to send back to his teacher and mapped out the world with a precision previously unknown. He loved reading, especially Homer’s Iliad, which he revered as a handbook of war. Aristotle edited a volume of the poem for him that he carried on his campaigns in a special box. At night, Alexander placed it reverently under his pillow—along with a very sharp dagger.

Alexendar the great in Greece.

The man who murdered Philip was named Pausanias, from a noble family in the Macedonian mountain district of Orestis. He had been welcomed to the court of Philip as a royal page and soon found favor in the king’s eyes because of his beauty. But as adolescence gave way to full manhood, Philip lost interest in his young lover and turned his attention to another youthful courtier, also named Pausanias. The first Pausanias was beside himself with jealousy and launched a smear campaign against his rival, whispering to everyone who would listen that the king’s new bedmate was a womanly hermaphrodite and shameless slut who would give his body to anyone. The second Pausanias, however, was a brave soldier and a man of honor who could not bear such slander. Soon afterward, when he and Philip were fighting on the front lines in one of the countless battles against the Illyrians, young Pausanias deliberately threw himself into the thick of the bloody fight to prove his courage and manliness at the cost of his own life.

Unfortunately for the first Pausanias, his dead competitor was a friend of Attalus, one of Philip’s best generals and a leader of the advance force assigned to cross into Asia Minor to prepare the way for the king’s invasion of Persia. Attalus, as mentioned, was also the uncle of Philip’s recent bride, Cleopatra, and a powerful supporter of the king among the Macedonian nobility. When Attalus heard that his young friend Pausanias had sacrificed his life to prove his honor because of the rumors spread by the first Pausanias, he devised a suitably Macedonian revenge to punish the slanderer.

Attalus invited the surviving Pausanias to dinner, entertaining the young man royally with food and drink. Macedonians normally added water to their wine at banquets, but Attalus kept refilling Pausanias’ goblet with unmixed wine until he passed out on the dinner couch. Attalus then sodomized the young man and invited all the dinner guests to do likewise. When they were finished, he handed Pausanias over to his mule drivers to be gang-raped in the stables by the lowliest servants in his household.

When Pausanias recovered his senses the next day, he found that he was now an object of ridicule at the court. He rushed to Philip demanding justice against Attalus, but the king hesitated. He was genuinely disgusted by his general’s shameless behavior, but he had to consider the larger picture. Attalus was crucial to his plans for the Persian invasion and a key supporter whose family and friends in Macedonia might turn on the king if he punished the general. Therefore Philip put off the irate Pausanias with promises of future justice. In the meantime, he tried to soothe the young man’s anger with splendid gifts and a post of honor among his bodyguard.

But Pausanias was not so easily mollified. He went about his duties and tried to ignore the laughter behind his back, all the while watching as Attalus received the king’s favor and was sent across the Aegean. The new bodyguard sought solace by attending lectures of the visiting Greek sophist Hermocrates. One day, when Hermocrates was discussing fame, Pausanias asked the philosopher how one might best achieve undying glory. Hermocrates replied that the surest way was to kill a famous man. That was all that Pausanias needed. His tormentor Attalus was beyond reach in Asia, but Philip, his former lover and the man who denied him justice, was close at hand.

On the morning of the royal wedding of Alexander of Epirus and Philip’s daughter Cleopatra, Pausanias was ready. He had planned his escape with three sympathetic friends who were also members of the king’s bodyguard. A horse would be waiting in the trees just outside the theater. Thus when Pausanias slipped his dagger between Philip’s ribs and watched the king fall to the ground, he had every reason to expect he could flee to safety. The Athenians, in spite of their promises, would surely welcome the man who had slain their hated enemy. All of Greece would rise and proclaim his name, shrines would be built, and perhaps a golden statue would be dedicated at Delphi in his honor. He would truly live forever in the memory of all who loved freedom and justice.

Pausanias was therefore surprised when things immediately began to go horribly wrong. His three friends, instead of helping him escape, lunged after him with swords drawn as he fled the theater. He had almost made it to his waiting horse when his foot became tangled in a vine and he fell to the ground. His pursuers were on him in an instant and quickly slew the bewildered Pausanias. He died beneath the trees at Vergina before he could speak a word. His body was hung on a cross like that of a slave so that all might gaze on him in shame.

It is no surprise that historians from ancient times to the present have looked at the assassination of Philip and imagined various conspiracies that reach far beyond the simple vengeance of a wronged lover. Suspicion has centered primarily on Olympias, the mother of Alexander, rather than on Alexander himself, though many would grant that the king’s son had ample motive and opportunity. Philip was soon leaving for his campaign against Persia and had no plans to include his son in the glory the expedition would surely win. Alexander would serve at home as regent, perhaps for years, while Philip increased in power and won the riches of Asia by his sword.

The reported actions of Olympias before and after the murder lend credence to the idea that she was involved in Philip’s death. She had been urging her brother to declare war on Philip ever since her divorce, only to see her disgrace overlooked when Philip offered the king of Epirus a royal princess as his bride. Some say she then lent young Pausanias a sympathetic ear as he complained of his gross mistreatment at the hands of Attalus. It was absolutely unthinkable, she assured him, that such injustice could go unpunished. When Pausanias revealed his plans to her, the story goes, she encouraged him and even provided the horse for his escape. After his death, stories circulated that she placed a golden crown on his head while he still hung on the cross. When his body was taken down a few days later, she allegedly cremated it over the remains of her husband and later erected a tomb for Pausanias next to that of Philip.

Which, if any, of these reports are true is unknown, but we can be certain that in the months after Philip’s death Olympias struck against her enemies like a viper. When Alexander was away, she forced Philip’s young bride, Cleopatra, to commit suicide after forcing her to watch as her infant daughter was roasted alive. Alexander was reportedly shocked by his mother’s behavior, but he did not punish her.

As for Alexander, we will never know if he was involved in Philip’s assassination or if he had knowledge of the plot and did nothing to stop it. Plutarch records a story that Pausanias came to him after his vile abuse at the hands of Attalus seeking sympathy and advice. Alexander listened to his complaints, but instead of offering assistance he merely quoted a passage from Euripides: “The giver of the bride, the groom, and the bride.”

This cryptic line from the Medea in which a wronged wife plots revenge against her husband, his new bride, and the bride’s father would have been taken by Pausanias as a suggestion to do away with Attalus, Philip, and Cleopatra. However, this episode, as so many in the aftermath of Philip’s death, may well have been invented after the fact. What we can be certain of is that, guilty or not, Alexander had everything to gain from his father’s murder.

Alexander performed the duties of a faithful son and buried Philip with all royal honors in a grand tomb at Vergina. Philip’s body was first placed on a pyre then cremated according to custom in front of the whole Macedonian army. When the fire had died down, attendants gathered Philip’s bones, washed them in wine, then wrapped them in a royal purple robe. The remains were placed in a stunning golden chest decorated on top with a sixteen-point star, along the sides with intricate blue glass rosettes, and on the bottom with the carved feet of a lion. This chest in turn was placed inside a stone sarcophagus in a magnificent tomb along with silver drinking vessels, armor, weapons, a golden wreath fit for Zeus himself, and many other priceless objects worthy of a Macedonian king. Above the entrance to the tomb was a colorful painting of a hunting scene, one of Philip’s favorite activities. Finally, in front of the tomb Alexander ordered the construction of a small shrine for the worship of his father as a divine hero. In death Philip had at last achieved what he had sought in life—a place among the gods.

No sooner was Philip buried than Alexander began the fight to secure his throne. One of his first supporters was another Alexander, from Lyncestis in the western mountains of Macedonia. He enthusiastically hailed Alexander as king even before Philip’s body was cold and accompanied the prince into the palace, though this deed may have been motivated by self-preservation more than genuine affection. The two brothers of Alexander of Lyncestis were soon executed for suspicion of involvement in Philip’s murder and it is quite possible that their sibling wanted to distance himself from their actions in a very public way.

But the new king’s most important early ally was wily old Antipater, one of Philip’s top generals. He had faithfully served Philip’s brother Perdiccas, then Philip, and now he saw his future dependent on securing the kingship for Alexander. He knew the key to Macedonian power was the army, so he accompanied the young man to an assembly of the troops. If Alexander could win their backing the throne would be his, but it would not be easy. Many of the soldiers were weary from serving in Philip’s endless wars far from their homes and families. Quite a few saw the murder of Philip as a convenient excuse to cancel the Persian campaign and return to their farms. All the men knew that Alexander would soon be challenged by the Greeks to the south and barbarians to the north, meaning months if not years of fighting if they gave him their loyalty. But in this crucial moment Alexander rose to the occasion. His years of rhetorical study under the best Greek masters and his almost supernatural ability to inspire men shone forth as he wept with them over the death of their matchless general, his beloved father. He called on them to put fear aside and remember who they were—the greatest army the world had ever seen. Nothing was impossible for them. If they would but follow him he would lead them to riches and glory beyond their dreams. It must have been an incredible speech. These hardened veterans who longed for nothing more than home and hearth cheered their young king with all their hearts and promised to follow him wherever he might lead. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Alexander also promised to repeal all taxes for Macedonians.

Now that he had the backing of the army, his next step was to win over or eliminate any potential rivals among the Macedonian nobility. Chief among these was Attalus, who along with Parmenion was still in Asia Minor preparing the way for the invasion of Persia. The two generals had crossed to Asia in the spring, just a few months before Philip’s murder, and had advanced with ten thousand troops along the coast as far as Ephesus before being driven back by Memnon, the Persian general who had once been a refugee in the Macedonian court. When they heard the news of Philip’s death, the two old warriors realized that young Alexander could not hope to hold the throne without their support. Attalus, who had recently married Parmenion’s daughter, held the loyalty of many Macedonian noble families, second only to Parmenion. Though Parmenion was cautious, Attalus immediately began making plans to overthrow Alexander. He even contacted Demosthenes and his party at Athens to gauge their loyalty to the new king and was not surprised to find they were eager to throw off the Macedonian yoke.

But Alexander was no novice at politics. Having been raised in the rough and tumble world of the Macedonian palace, he knew how to forge unexpected alliances and quietly do away with his enemies. Alexander realized that he needed the support and experience of most of Philip’s old generals if he was to rule his father’s empire and move against Persia. It was simply a matter of discerning who was willing to betray whom and at what price. Since Attalus had publicly insulted Alexander just a few months before at Philip’s wedding banquet and as he was the uncle of the bride who had replaced his mother and forced him into exile, there was never any question about which general’s head would be on the chopping block. Alexander sent his loyal friend Hecataeus to the Macedonian camp across the Aegean with orders to reach an understanding with Parmenion and see that Attalus never returned home.

Parmenion, never anyone’s fool, realized that advancement for himself and his extensive family lay with supporting Alexander. If that meant Attalus would have to be sacrificed, a son-in-law could always be replaced. Soon Attalus was dead, but the price Parmenion had extracted was high. In return for his backing, he would be second only to Alexander himself in the upcoming campaign against Persia. Moreover, his kinsmen would fill almost every key post in Alexander’s army. It was a bitter pill to swallow for a young man who yearned to purge the Macedonian forces of his father’s old cronies. He desperately wanted to come out from under the shadow of Philip and be his own man. But Alexander was a realist and recognized that, at least for now, he needed Parmenion.

Alexander did not forget his boyhood friends who had been exiled by Philip after the Pixodarus affair. He sent for Ptolemy, Nearchus, Harpalus, and Erigyius to join him as he faced the struggles ahead. He knew he would need them in the days and years to come. And with one glaring exception, they would serve him loyally in his war against Persia.

Alexander’s next task was to subdue the rising rebellion among the Greek cities. Although they had sworn to support Philip and his heirs, the Greeks jumped at the chance to regain their independence. Macedonian garrisons were driven away, alliances forged, and secret messages sent to the Persians seeking gold to fund the uprising. No one was willing to recognize Alexander as the leader of the Hellenic league his father had founded. The Thessalians and Thebans turned on Alexander, the Spartans saw their chance to regain hegemony in southern Greece, and the Athenians, led by Demosthenes, declared a day of public thanksgiving and awarded a posthumous crown to Philip’s assassin. Demosthenes even stopped mourning for his beloved daughter who had died just a few days earlier. He wasted no time in portraying Alexander to the assembly as a young fool playing the king on his father’s throne.

With affairs still unsettled in Macedonia, most new leaders would have stayed home and consolidated their hold on their native land instead of striking out against powerful enemies beyond their borders. But Alexander was not a typical king. He immediately left Pella with his army and headed south toward Thessaly. The Thessalian rebels had blocked the only road through the Vale of Tempe just south of Mount Olympus and forced the Macedonians to a halt. Instead of a suicidal charge against this well-protected position, Alexander set his engineer corps to work building a winding path on the far side of Mount Ossa overlooking the sea. Before the Thessalians knew what was happening, Alexander and his troops had outflanked them. With Macedonian swords at their throats, the towns of Thessaly swiftly recognized Alexander as their leader in his father’s place. They also agreed to pay taxes to the king and, most important, to join their superb cavalry to his army as auxiliaries.

Before the ink was dry on the treaty with Thessaly, Alexander was moving south to Thermopylae, where he convened the Amphictyonic Council and accepted the loyalty of the cities of central Greece. Thebes was next, surrounded by walls that had repelled invaders for centuries. The Thebans had chafed under Philip’s rule and more than any other Greek city had both the will and the manpower to stop his impudent son from taking on his father’s mantle. The men of the town had been preparing for the battle they knew lay months ahead after Alexander had secured his position to the north—but they were shocked a few days later when they awoke to find thousands of Macedonian troops in full battle gear surrounding their town. The Thebans now realized this boy king was no pampered prince but an ambitious warlord and clever strategist who marched his troops faster and harder than anyone had believed possible. Alexander stared at them from across his lines and the Thebans blinked. They knew they were not ready—at least not yet—to stand up to the Macedonians and so they surrendered and accepted Alexander as their sovereign. The Macedonian garrison was restored to the fortress on the edge of town, while Alexander continued his march south.

When a horseman rode into Attica the next day proclaiming the submission of Thebes, the Athenians fell into a panic. Citizens in the countryside rushed into town seeking protection away from their isolated farms. No one had expected a Macedonian assault so soon and therefore the Athenians had neglected to repair the city walls. As the men tried to shore up the ramparts, they dispatched an embassy to Alexander to buy time. Among the envoys was a sheepish Demosthenes, who had every reason to believe the young king would not think well of his recent harsh words or his secret dealings with the Persian king. He was in such a panic that he turned back at the outskirts of Athens and went home to hide. But, like his father, Alexander wanted the Athenian navy intact for his invasion of Persia more than he wanted to see the Acropolis in flames. He therefore received the envoys kindly and assured them the Athenians had nothing to fear.

Athens breathed a sigh of relief when Alexander and his army bypassed their city and instead headed south across the isthmus to the Peloponnesian peninsula. There Alexander summoned the League of Corinth to meet with him under the watchful eye of the Macedonian army. The nervous delegates quickly affirmed him as leader for life of all the Greeks. Next, in a colorful ploy worthy of the Athenian stage, Alexander brought before the delegates a messenger claiming to be from the Greek city of Ephesus on the western coast of Asia Minor. This impassioned actor pleaded with the representatives of free Greece to liberate his beleaguered city from the rule of the tyrannical Persian king. On cue, the league members rose in applause and vowed to help their oppressed countrymen across the sea. They then appointed Alexander as general plenipotentiary in command of the renewed Panhellenic expedition against Persia.

Alexander immediately presented the delegates a complete list of men, money, and supplies they were to contribute to the upcoming campaign. The Athenians were obligated to make their fleet available to Alexander along with sailors and provisions. Other cities were required to provide soldiers and goods as the king saw fit. Conspicuous in their absence were the Spartans, who as usual had stayed home and refused to participate in the war. But Alexander, with a sufferance he would later regret, contented himself with appointing proMacedonian regimes in the cities around Sparta’s mountainous borders. Like his father, he found the stubborn Spartans useful as proof of the voluntary nature of his alliance. If they caused trouble, he believed he could easily deal with them.

With the formalities of the meeting complete, statesmen and scholars crowded around Alexander competing with one another to offer their congratulations to the young king. He accepted their enthusiastic if insincere praise with the good grace of a born politician, but he searched the crowd in vain for the one man he had most hoped to meet. This was Diogenes the Cynic, a philosopher in exile from the Greek colony of Sinope on the shores of the Black Sea. He had been banished from his home for defacing currency and had spent most of his life abroad in Athens and Corinth. Diogenes believed in living out his philosophical beliefs, usually to the amusement and disgust of others. He and his scruffy band of followers held that life should be conducted in accordance with nature to the point of performing bodily functions in public like dogs (hence the term cynic, from the Greek word for dog). His asceticism was sincere, however, and he actively worked to entice others to reject the conventions of society. At the time, he was living in a large jar on the outskirts of Corinth. Alexander went looking for him and found him there enjoying the beautiful day wearing only a loincloth. The king stood by waiting for recognition, but the philosopher only gazed at him with mild contempt. Alexander, in some discomfort, at last asked if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes replied that yes, indeed, he could move out of the way since he was blocking the sun. Alexander’s friends mocked the old philosopher as a fool and madman, but the young king wistfully responded: “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

On the way home, Alexander made a detour through the mountains of central Greece to the sacred site of Delphi beneath Mount Parnassus. Like so many kings before him, he wished to consult the oracle regarding his upcoming military campaign. Unfortunately, he was informed that the priestess who spoke for Apollo was in seclusion and as a matter of religious principle was not available that day, even for the ruler of all Greece. Alexander promptly marched into her lodgings and began dragging her forcibly into the shrine. This grossly sacrilegious act had its intended effect, however, when the priestess cried out: “You are invincible!” This was all Alexander wanted to hear. He donated a modest amount for the upkeep of the temple, then gathered his troops and marched north to Macedonia.

There was no time for Alexander to rest when he reached Pella. It was already late spring and the barbarians on his borders were raiding deep into Macedonian territory. The Greeks to the south were subdued for the moment, but the tribes to the north of his homeland threatened to destroy his kingdom as well as his dreams of a Persian invasion. If he did not establish control over the Balkans he could never hope to cross into Asia. He would have to teach the rebellious tribes a singular lesson. His father Philip had fought many skirmishes to the north, but Alexander planned a full-scale invasion of the lands along the Danube River.

The young king undertook such a bold campaign for two reasons. First and foremost, his borders had to be secured before he could move against Persia. He had no idea how long the fighting in the east might last—years, perhaps—and he would not be able to return to Macedonia before he was finished. Alexander had to make such an impression on the Balkan tribes that they would not trouble his kingdom even if he was far away. The second reason for the northern campaign was that it would be excellent training for the Persian war. He and his army would climb mountains, cross rivers, face unknown perils, and overcome all manner of fearsome enemies together. His men would learn that they could trust him with their lives.

Alexander and his troops left Amphipolis and marched east into Thrace along the Aegean coast. He crossed the river Nestos just west of the Greek city of Abdera, once home to the philosopher Democritus, who had first proposed that all matter was composed of indestructible particles called atoms. Alexander knew his theories well, but there was no time to visit the city as he turned his army north into the high mountains and made his way through alpine valleys to the garrison town of Philippopolis at the head of the Hebros River valley. His father had established the outpost several years earlier as a frontier post to defend the northern approaches to his kingdom. It was inhabited by two thousand Greek, Macedonian, and Thracian settlers who were as rough and wild as the land around them. Visitors had given it the nickname Poneropolis (“Crook Town”) and counted themselves lucky to escape with their lives.

Alexander almost certainly recruited some of these outlaws into his ranks as he headed toward the great wall of Mount Haemus stretching across the northern horizon. As hazardous as Philippopolis might be, it was still Macedonian territory. But among the peaks of Mount Haemus were the Triballi, some of the fiercest warriors in Europe. Somewhere in a narrow defile through these peaks, perhaps at the modern Shipka Pass, Alexander’s scouts came upon the Triballi warriors. They had occupied the only crossing point of the mountains for a hundred miles and blockaded it with carts. Alexander came forward and studied the situation. The approach to the pass was steep and wide enough for only a few dozen men abreast. The Triballi had a tremendous advantage as they held the high ground, but Alexander saw an even greater danger. The mountain tribesmen had positioned the carts so that they could be sent crashing down the path into his soldiers to crush the men and break his line. It was Alexander’s first great test of command—and he faced it with an ingenious daring that would become the hallmark of his generalship.

He ordered his men to advance up the trail in standard formation, but to be ready at a moment’s notice to open the line to let through any carts that came crashing toward them. If that was not possible, they were to fall to the ground and link shields in front to form a ramp so that the speeding carts would roll onto the shields at full speed and fly up over them. The men were terrified they would be ground to a pulp beneath the carts, but they advanced nonetheless. As soon as the first vehicles came hurtling down the path, some of the well-trained Macedonians moved to the side to allow them through while others locked shields and braced themselves for impact. The carts reached the line and hit the shield wall with tremendous force, but they sailed over the men and crashed to pieces on impact. Alexander meanwhile moved to the left with his best men and advanced up the pass while his archers launched a volley at the astonished but undeterred Triballi. The tribesmen were brave, but they were poorly armed and badly organized. As Alexander and his men reached the head of the pass, the Triballi cast aside their weapons and ran down the northern side of the mountain as fast as they could. Over a thousand warriors were slain and large amounts of treasure seized, while many of their women and children were captured for the slave markets. They, along with the booty, were sent back to the Aegean coast as a sign to all that this was a king who could lead his army to victory.

From the top of the pass, Alexander gazed over forests and rolling hills into the Danube valley below. His army marched down from the mountains and soon arrived at a small river called the Lyginus, three days away from the Danube. The Triballi king Syrmus had heard of Alexander’s advance and sent many of the women and children of his tribe to safety on a large island called Peuce (“pine tree”) in the middle of the Danube. Allied tribes had already gathered there and were soon joined by Syrmus himself, reasoning that his person was too valuable to risk in battle. But the mass of the Triballi warriors cleverly moved around behind Alexander as he left the Lyginus River and took up a defensive position in a thickly wooded grove. In such a location, they were safe from massed assault by Alexander’s infantry or cavalry. They intended to make the Macedonian king abandon his military advantage of a disciplined line of troops and fight them man-to-man amid the rocks and trees in true barbarian style.

When Alexander’s scouts reported that most of the Triballi were now behind him, he did not hesitate to turn his army around and return to the Lyginus. When he arrived, he saw immediately what the Triballi wanted but had no intention of falling into their trap. He lined up his infantry in deep formation with their long sarissa spears aimed square at the woods in front of them. Then he ordered Parmenion’s son Philotas to lead the cavalry wing on the right while the rest of the horsemen formed up on the left. Alexander himself took position in the front ranks at the center of the infantry. The Triballi expected a charge, but instead the king sent his archers and slingers forward to provoke the Triballi into leaving their wooded shelter. Soon the Triballi warriors were so indignant that they were being picked off by auxiliaries that their tempers got the better of them and they rushed out onto the open ground in front of Alexander’s lines screaming for blood. It was then that the king put his plan into action and sent both his infantry and cavalry forward. The spearmen skewered the Triballi at close quarters while the horsemen moved in from the sides. The Triballi, like so many sheep, were herded into such a tight mass that the Macedonian cavalry used their horses as weapons as much as their javelins, pushing the tribesmen down and trampling them beneath their hooves. The brave but foolish Triballi at last broke and ran back into the woods, but only a handful escaped in the approaching darkness. Three thousand barbarian warriors perished defending their homeland that day, while Ptolemy reports that only about fifty Macedonians died in the battle.

Three days later Alexander was standing beside the Danube River. Since the Greek poet Hesiod in the eighth century B.C. the Mediterranean world had known that the distant Danube—which the Greeks called by the Thracian name Ister— was one of the great rivers of the world. To the Greeks, it was a mysterious waterway arising somewhere in the Alps and descending through dark forests and the lands of savage tribes to the Black Sea. Among those nations who lived along its banks were Celts, Germans, Dacians, Scythians, and Thracians, including the Getae on the northern bank opposite Alexander. As a keen student of the Greek historian Herodotus, Alexander knew that the Getae were unusual in the ancient world for their belief in a single god and the happy immortality of the soul. To these tribesmen, a slain warrior did not descend into a dismal Greek underworld as a pale shade but went to live with the divine Salmoxis, master of thunder and lightning. Every five years they would toss a victim chosen by lot onto the spear points of their soldiers to take messages to their god. If the man died quickly, the sacrifice was considered a success—but if he did not perish in a timely manner they would chose another victim in his place.

The Greeks had long traded with the tribes of the Danube valley for grain, fur, and slaves. Over a century earlier, the barbarians of these northern lands had even seen a mighty southern army on their borders. Darius, the Great King of Persia, had led his forces to the Danube and crossed the river on a lengthy pontoon bridge to fight the Scythians above the Black Sea. Now young Alexander stood by the same river and considered the scene before him. The Triballi and their allies occupied a fortified island with steep banks in the middle of the wide river. On the northern banks were the warriors of the Getae, many thousands strong, taunting the Macedonian soldiers they knew could never reach them. Some of Alexander’s supply ships had arrived at his camp having sailed up from the Black Sea coast, but they were not enough to carry an army. It seemed as if Alexander could go no farther.

It was then that Alexander was seized with a longing, a pothos, in Greek, to cross the river into lands no Macedonian had ever trod. Darius had led a Persian army north of the Danube—why not Alexander? To cross the river was something even his father, Philip, had never dreamed of. Such a daring adventure would inspire his army for the campaign against Persia and make a suitable impression on the troublesome Greeks. But how could he move his army to the other side? There were not enough boats to transport them or time to build a bridge, and it was much too far to swim.

Fortunately for the king, he had read the story of Xenophon and the ten thousand Greek mercenaries who had fought in Mesopotamia seventy years earlier. Faced with a similar predicament on the Euphrates River, Xenophon devised an ingenious solution: “The soldiers took their tent covers and filled them with hay, then folded the edges together and sewed them so that the water could not dampen the stuffing. On these they crossed the river.”

Alexander’s men were dubious, but they trusted their king and began to sew. With the addition of the few ships from Macedonia and the confiscation of every dugout canoe they could find, over five thousand infantry and cavalry set off across the river that night.

The Macedonian army reached the northern bank of the river safely and rested in a tall wheat field until daybreak. Alexander then ordered his men to advance silently toward the Getae camp. He placed his infantry in front with their spears turned sideways to smooth down the grain for those following behind. When they emerged onto untilled ground in front of the Getae camp,Alexander led the cavalry on the right wing while Nicanor, another son of Parmenion, commanded the infantry. The Getae were caught completely off guard. They were amazed that Alexander had crossed the Danube in one night without even building a bridge, as their ancestors said the Great King of Persia had once done. They now faced a solid wall of Macedonian spears advancing toward them while the enemy cavalry struck them from the side. They soon broke and ran to their nearest town, a short way up the river, but Alexander was on their heels all the way. The Getae then packed as many of their women and children as they could carry on horses and rode for the endless grasslands to the north. Alexander reached the settlement and looted everything of value—surely including much fine Thracian gold work—and burned the town to the ground.

After sending the booty back across the river, Alexander conducted what would become a regular ritual on his Persian expedition. He sacrificed to Zeus the Soter (“savior”—the same Greek word Christians would later use for Christ), to his ancestor Hercules, and to the local god personifying the Danube, who had allowed him safe passage across his waters. He had no desire to chase the Getae refugees farther because his point had been made. Word would quickly spread from the Alps to the Crimea that the new Macedonian king was not to be trifled with. His northern border secure, Alexander returned the same day to his camp on the southern bank of the Danube.

Once Alexander was back at his camp, Syrmus, king of the Triballi, sent ambassadors to him to sue for peace. We don’t know the exact terms, but they must have included a contingent of soldiers for Alexander’s army because ancient sources tell us that the Triballi troops marched with Alexander into Asia. Records show at least one of these Thracian warriors from the Danube settled permanently in a town the Macedonian king would establish on the banks of the Oxus River in central Asia. Other embassies arrived at this time from local tribes seeking peace, but the most memorable visit was from a tribe of Celts. Over the years Alexander would receive many notable delegations, but this early encounter on the Danube proved to be one of the most remarkable in the king’s career.

The Celts had long lived in Gaul and Germany near the Alps, where they herded cattle, collected heads from fallen enemies, and gained an impressive reputation as some of the toughest warriors in the world. Just a few generations before Alexander they had begun to move out of their forest homeland into Britain, Ireland, northern Italy, and the upper valley of the Danube. Alexander’s friend Ptolemy, who was present at the meeting, records that this group of Celts arrived after a long journey from a settlement near the Adriatic Sea. He was most impressed by their height, as they stood at least a head above the Macedonians, but he also says they swaggered into camp as if Alexander should be the one honored by their visit. They came seeking friendship with the king and to exchange pledges of peace. The Macedonian king received them warmly and with great curiosity as his teacher Aristotle had frequently mentioned them in his lectures on virtue. Aristotle had taught that bravery in a man was an admirable quality, but that an excess of boldness was undesirable. As an example of such behavior, he had put forward the Celts, who would allegedly attack the waves of the ocean itself. As Alexander shared a drink with his visitors, he asked them what they most feared, hoping they would say him. But the leader of the Celtic embassy looked squarely into the eyes of the king and replied that they feared nothing—except, he said with a laugh, that the sky might fall on their heads. But for the sake of diplomacy he did add that they valued the friendship of a man like Alexander more than anything. After the Celts had left his camp to begin their long march home, Alexander turned to Ptolemy and declared that the Celts were unbelievable braggarts.

From the Danube, Alexander struck southwest over the mountains toward the highlands ruled by Langarus, king of the Agrianians. Alexander had known Langarus for years and planned to let his men rest in the territory of his old friend before returning to Macedonia. His army had marched hundreds of miles and fought several difficult battles in just a few weeks, so their proud general was pleased to grant his soldiers a respite. He spent the first few days renewing ties with Langarus and recruiting some of his best warriors into his army, tough mountain troops who would become a key element of his forces in Asia. It was one of the earliest instances of Alexander integrating non-Greek or nonMacedonian soldiers into his ranks—a farsighted policy that would nonetheless cause endless troubles between the king and his officers during the Persian campaign.

But there was to be no rest for the weary. A messenger soon rode into camp bearing the news that the Illyrians were in revolt, led by Cleitus, son of Bardylis, the old adversary of Philip. Glaucias, king of the Taulantians on the Adriatic coast, had joined Cleitus as had the Autariatae tribe to the north. This was devastating news for Alexander since an alliance of hostile Illyrian tribes could delay his invasion of Asia and even threaten the survival of his kingdom. The Illyrians were not as well organized as the Macedonians, but they were brave and numerous.

Alexander knew he had to act at once even though his men were exhausted. He quickly gathered intelligence about the uprising and discovered that the Autariatae, who were previously unknown to him, were the least of his threats. Langarus dismissed them as a minor tribe and offered to lead some of his own Agrianians against them while Alexander handled Cleitus. The Macedonian king was so grateful that he promised Langarus his half sister Cyna in marriage when he returned. This popular daughter of Philip and his early wife Audata had been married to one of the alleged conspirators against Philip, but with this first husband now exterminated Cyna was once again a pawn in the endless game of royal marriage alliances.

Langarus would die before he could claim his bride, but at the time he was so grateful at the prospect of joining the Macedonian royal family that he followed Alexander’s orders with enthusiasm and devastated the Autariatae. By then Alexander was already deep into Illyrian territory near the walled town of Pellium, headquarters of Cleitus. Alexander had raced to the town to prevent Glaucias and his Taulantians from joining up with Cleitus. The Macedonians arrived so suddenly that they interrupted a gruesome sacrifice in progress outside the walls. Alexander’s men were no strangers to blood and gore, but they were sickened to see the remains of three black rams, three young boys, and three girls on the altars of the local god. Human sacrifice was rare in the Mediterranean world, but it was still practiced in the mountains and forests of Europe.

More disturbing to Alexander was the perilous situation in which he now found himself. Pellium was heavily fortified and could be taken only by a lengthy siege, while the hills around the town were held by the Illyrians. To make matters worse, he received news that the army of Glaucias had just arrived in the valley. The Macedonians had managed to pen Cleitus inside the walls of the town, but if they made any move against the soldiers in the valley surrounding them, the men in the town would surely rush out and attack them from behind. On the other hand, if they stormed the walls of Pellium, Glaucias would pounce on them. Alexander had already sent Philotas with a cavalry contingent to forage for supplies at nearby farms, but he had been forced to rescue them personally when they were caught by nightfall. It was an impossible situation for Alexander. He couldn’t take the town nor could he attack the surrounding enemy. His escape was now cut off and his food was running low. Cleitus and Glaucias must have been delighted to trap the young Macedonian king in such a dangerous position. All they had to do was close the vise to crush Alexander once and for all.

But now Alexander once again showed his genius for unconventional warfare. The king knew he was outnumbered and had no chance of escape or taking the city. Faced by this hopeless predicament, he decided to put on a parade.

Early in the morning the Illyrians in the surrounding hills saw the king draw up his infantry into tight formation over a hundred lines deep. Each Macedonian foot soldier held his eighteen-foot sarissa before him. They had been ordered to move in complete silence, so that on signal each raised his spear to the sky without a sound. To those watching it was as if a forest had suddenly sprung from the field in front of the town. With incredible precision borne from endless practice, the infantry swung their sarissas to the front as one, then to the right, then the left. At Alexander’s command they marched straight ahead without a word, then wheeled to each side in perfect formation.

The Illyrians were fascinated by this display. They themselves fought in the old way, with reckless bravery their only rule. But these Macedonians moved together like a machine, with such beauty it was a wonder to behold. The enemy practically cheered as Alexander’s men moved briskly toward their lines, then practiced intricate patterns, concluding with a wedge-shaped phalanx aimed straight ahead. It was then that the Macedonians, at Alexander’s signal, struck their shields against their spears and raised a battle cry that would have woken the dead. The Illyrians were so completely caught off guard by this brilliant piece of psychological warfare that they ran away in terror, clearing the way for Alexander’s army to escape.

It was, nonetheless, a hard-fought march out of the valley. The Illyrians quickly recovered their senses and struck back against the Macedonians. They blocked their escape on a small hill along the road until Alexander sent his cavalry to drive them away. The Macedonians had no sooner arrived at the river crossing at the end of the valley when they saw thousands of Illyrian warriors heading down from the hills toward the ford. Alexander lined up his archers in midriver to cover his retreating men as best they could, then ordered his artillery to set up quickly on the far side of the river and aim their catapults at the approaching horsemen from maximum range. The missiles hit the first of the horsemen from such a distance that Glaucias and his cavalry ground to a halt. They had heard of catapults in siege warfare, but few before Alexander had used them against the enemy on the field of battle. This unconventional maneuver, sprung from the young king’s imagination at a desperate moment, bought enough time for the rest of the Macedonian army to make it across the river to safety without losing a single man.

If Alexander had been any other general, he would have thanked the gods for his miraculous escape and retreated back to Macedonia as swiftly as possible. But the king was not one to withdraw from a fight without victory. Three days later, when Cleitus and Glaucias were confident that the Macedonians were far away, Alexander quietly moved back across the river under cover of darkness. Ascout had told him the enemy were deployed just as he suspected—no defensive walls, no trenches, and no sentries—believing they had seen the last of the Macedonians. Alexander and his men moved into the Illyrian camp and killed the first of the enemy as they slept, then attacked the panic-stricken barbarians with such swiftness that they threw aside their weapons and ran from the city, the survivors escaping into the mountains. Cleitus set fire to the town and fled with Glaucias and his Taulantians, never to be heard from again.

Just when Alexander dared to hope that he could at last begin his invasion of Asia, news arrived from the south that the Greek states had once again risen against him. Since he had been campaigning for weeks beyond the borders of civilization, it seemed the perfect opportunity for the disgruntled cities of Greece to rebel. As they reasoned, an inexperienced boy just short of his twenty-first birthday could not prevail against the barbaric tribes of the north. Even if Alexander was still alive, his long absence had given the Greeks plenty of time to seethe in discontent. And as usual, the Persians were on hand with plenty of gold to pay off the Greeks and thwart any Macedonian plans for an Asian campaign.

The Athenian orator Demosthenes was once again at the fore in stirring up trouble for Alexander. That summer he climbed to the speaker’s platform at the Athenian assembly and declared that Alexander and the entire Macedonian army had been annihilated by the Triballi on the Danube. He even produced a supposed veteran of the battle wrapped in bloody bandages who declared that he himself had seen Alexander fall. The Athenians rose to cheer the rebirth of Greek independence. News spread quickly throughout the land that the young tyrant was dead, for as Arrian wisely observes, “As often happens in such cases when there are no certain facts, people believe the truth to be whatever it is they most desire.”

No Greek city was more anxious to rebel than Thebes. Only three years earlier the Thebans had watched in horror as their army had been crushed by Philip and Alexander at Chaeronea. Then they had twice endured the humiliation of surrender and the posting of a Macedonian garrison on the Cadmeia citadel overlooking their town. Thebes, the fabled city of Oedipus and conqueror of Sparta, had been reduced to a provincial outpost of the Macedonian empire. It was too much for the citizens to bear. Although they had lost many of their best men at Chaeronea, they were still a proud people with an ancient military tradition. According to myths passed down from their ancestors, they had sprung from dragon’s teeth sown in the earth. They were now determined to prove they could still bite.

The spark that lit the flames of rebellion came when a small group of Theban exiles driven out several years earlier by Philip snuck back into town with the aim of inciting an uprising. The Macedonian garrison at Thebes had become so confident in its invulnerability that the men had taken regularly to wandering the streets of Thebes beyond the protected walls of the Cadmeia, no doubt in search of wine and women. One night the exiles ambushed two of these soldiers, Amyntas and Timolaus, and brazenly killed them. The murderers then came before the Theban assembly and boasted of their deed, urging the citizens of their town to join them by evoking that most cherished of Greek ideals: eleutheria—freedom.

The Thebans enthusiastically took up the call and rushed to the Cadmeia. The stronghold was an oval-shaped hill on the southern end of the town fast against the city wall. There was no way for the citizens to storm the fortress, but they could isolate the Macedonian defenders. They quickly dug trenches and built palisades to deny the occupiers supplies and reinforcements, then the assembly sent messages to friendly Greek cities asking for help. Horsemen sped to Arcadia, Argos, and Elis, all in the distant Peloponnese. Unfortunately for the Thebans, their history of belligerence had made bitter enemies of their neighboring states. Even the Peloponnesians were not eager to lend a hand. Only the Arcadians sent reinforcements, but these made camp thirty miles away near Corinth to wait on events. The messengers had no better luck at Athens, where Demosthenes—in typical fashion—led a rousing vote in support of the brave Theban rebels, then did nothing.

Meanwhile at Thebes, the commander of the Macedonian garrison watched from the Cadmeia as the townspeople built double siege walls completely around him. They even constructed palisades beyond the southern walls of the town to prevent escape. The commander ordered his soldiers to make what preparations they could, but without reinforcements there was little they could do except wait.

Alexander, however, had not been idle. As soon as he had heard of the uprising at Thebes, he struck camp in Illyria and began racing south. By themselves the Thebans were a powerful force, but if they were allowed to join with the Peloponnesian infantry and the Athenian navy—all backed by Persia— they could create a formidable alliance. So, with no time to waste, he marched his men from Pellium day and night with little rest along the impossible mountain trails of central Greece until at last they emerged onto the plains of western Thessaly. From there they advanced south through the pass at Thermopylae and across Boeotia to the outskirts of Thebes. At almost twenty miles a day through some of the most grueling terrain in Europe, it was asingular achievement. And since in ancient times a rapid army could outpace the news of its approach, the Macedonians arrived at the gates of Thebes before the rebels even knew they were on the way.

What happened next depends on which Greek historian you believe. Our two primary sources for the assault on Thebes—Arrian and Diodorus—paint two equally compelling pictures of Alexander’s actions at the town. They agree on the basic facts, but the motives that drove the king and the degree to which he sanctioned what would become a watershed event in Greek history couldn’t be more different in their accounts.

Both authors describe how Alexander made camp near the northern end of the city walls to give the Thebans time to reconsider their revolt. The king did not want a war if it could be prevented—not because he loved Thebes, but because every day he spent in Greece only diminished his chances for success in Asia. If possible, Alexander would have preferred the Thebans surrender and be forgiven. If they had done so, he probably would have been content with the execution or exile of a few ringleaders and promises of better behavior in the future from the rest. But the Thebans would have none of it. Their assembly approved a unanimous resolution declaring they would fight.

Alexander had thousands of Macedonian and allied soldiers surrounding Thebes including, as Arrian emphasizes, contingents from Plataea, Orchomenus, and Thespiae—three nearby cities that had suffered severely at the hands of the Theban army in the past. These soldiers had grown up with stories of their towns burned, their territory confiscated, and their mothers violated by vicious Theban soldiers. Alexander may have wanted peace, but many who joined him at Thebes yearned for revenge.

As the hours passed, Alexander waited for a sign of submission from Thebes. Instead the citizens rushed out of the gates with their cavalry and a sizeable force of light-armed troops to surprise the Macedonians. The move succeeded because Alexander was not expecting the outnumbered Thebans to attack him first. They managed to kill a few of his advance guards before fleeing back behind the city walls. With his frustration mounting, the next day Alexander moved his camp south of the city near the road to Athens. This location was also closer to his troops blockaded within the Cadmeia. He sent another herald to the walls to announce that he was still willing to forgive the Thebans even though they had killed some of his men. No doubt hoping to divide the citizens, he proclaimed that any citizen of the town who wished could surrender to him and join in the peace that was his gift to all Greeks. Instead the Thebans began to shout from their towers that anyone in Alexander’s army who wished to join them and the Great King in fleeing from the tyranny of Alexander was welcome inside the city.

Arrian omits this episode and blames what happened next on one of Alexander’s officers, but Diodorus records a version that in many ways is more believable. He says that something inside Alexander snapped when he heard the Thebans call him a tyrant, especially as they invoked the Great King of Persia as a liberator of Greece. Alexander knew from reading Plato’s Republic that tyranny was the basest form of government, even more disreputable in the eyes of that aristocratic philosopher than democracy. The king flew into a towering rage and declared he would make an example of Thebes. As Diodorus says, “He decided to utterly destroy the city. By this deliberate act of terror, he hoped to take the heart out of anyone who might rise against him in the future.” With this goal firmly in mind, Alexander called in his engineers to prepare siege engines and laid his plans to wipe Thebes off the map of Greece.

But according to Arrian, what happened was the fault of a captain of the guard named Perdiccas. This officer was one of Alexander’s most loyal followers and hailed from a noble family in the Macedonian highlands of Orestis. He had fought bravely with Alexander in Illyria and in the future would become one of the most important Macedonian leaders, but now he was simply an eager young soldier who wanted to impress his king. Perdiccas was camped close to the enemy palisades on the southeast of the city. He saw an opportunity to rush the gate with his troops and did so without consulting Alexander. Before anyone knew what was happening, Perdiccas and his men were inside the walls with another Macedonian battalion close behind them. At that point Alexander had no choice but to commit his army to an assault that had already begun.

Whichever version of the story is true, the fight for Thebes was brutal. The king ordered the Agrianians and the archers from Crete inside the palisade, but kept his infantry in reserve. The impetuous Perdiccas meanwhile had rushed deep into the city and had been grievously wounded. His troops dragged him to safety and the doctors saved his life with difficulty, but his men continued the attack near the temple of Hercules just below the Cadmeia. There they surrounded a large contingent of Thebans, believing they had the citizens trapped, but with a shout the soldiers of Thebes turned on the invaders. Alexander’s men were caught off guard and panicked in the unfamiliar streets, so that almost seventy of his archers were slain within minutes.

Alexander watched as the frightened auxiliaries rushed out of the city. He knew he had to do something fast. He lined up his veteran Macedonians and with their deadly sarissa formation attacked the pursuing Thebans. It was now the turn of the Thebans to panic as they faced those fearsome spears. They ran back to the gates of the city in such a disorganized mob that the last ones through forgot to bar the gates. Alexander burst into Thebes and his men spread throughout the town.

Like the fall of any city in war, the result was uncommon bravery mixed with butchery and horror. In the narrow streets of Thebes, the sounds of screams and clashing metal filled the air. Some of Alexander’s men made it to the Cadmeia and freed the Macedonian soldiers trapped inside, but most fought house by house through the town. The Thebans urged one another to resist with all their might, remembering the fate that awaited their families if they failed. Alexander marveled at the spirit of the citizens as they stood their ground, but he was still determined to make them pay dearly for their betrayal. Arrian says it was the fellow Greeks from cities near Thebes who slaughtered the women and children without mercy, but the Macedonians surely killed their share. Houses were plundered, wives and daughters raped, old men were slain in their beds, and even citizens who had sought refuge in the temples were cut down as they clasped the altars of the gods.

Over six thousand Thebans perished that day, while at least thirty thousand captives were taken. It was a holocaust unlike anything the Greek world had ever seen. Other cities had been sacked in war, but never before had one of the great towns of Greece fallen so suddenly and so completely. It was as if the old stories of the sack of Troy had come to life.

Alexander made a pretext of letting the League of Corinth decide what was to be done with the ruins of Thebes, but it was only a show. The declaration that the city would be razed, the lands surrounding the town distributed to allies, and the Theban survivors sold into slavery was a foregone conclusion. The vast amount of money generated at the slave auctions went directly to the Macedonian treasury. The only citizens Alexander spared were the priests and priestesses, those who had shown unwavering friendship to Macedonia, and— since Alexander had a particular appreciation for Greek verse—the descendants of the Theban poet Pindar.

One story of Alexander’s mercy in the midst of such horror may have a basis in fact, given as he was to acts of kindness to women. According to Plutarch, when a band of Thracian marauders broke into a large Theban house during the battle, they met a young widow named Timocleia, known throughout the town for her piety. While his soldiers plundered her property, their leader raped her, then asked if she had any hidden treasure. She confessed that, yes, she did have riches hidden in her garden. The Thracian captain followed her to a well in which she told him she had cast her valuables at the beginning of the siege. As the greedy man bent over the open well, Timocleia came up behind him and pushed him in. She then threw heavy stones on the trapped man until he was crushed. When the rest of the Thracians discovered what had happened, they bound her and led her to Alexander to be punished. The captive woman appeared before the king with a calm demeanor and surprising dignity. Alexander asked her who she was and she boldly replied that she was the wife of the Theban commander who had fought his father at the battle of Chaeronea. Alexander was so impressed by Timocleia that he let her depart the town in freedom along with her children.

When the news of the destruction of Thebes spread throughout Greece, the cities that had risen against Alexander rushed to explain that they had always, in fact, been on his side. The Arcadians who had sent a contingent of soldiers as far as Corinth voted to execute the leaders who had instigated the action. Other towns sent embassies to Alexander begging his forgiveness and assuring him of their undying loyalty to Macedonia. All of Greece suddenly remembered that they had never really cared for Thebes. Indeed, hadn’t the Thebans supported the hated Persians during the great war for Greek survival in the previous century? Certainly they deserved whatever evils had befallen them.

Like Philip, Alexander had heard it all before and knew how to play his part in this tiresome drama. He graciously forgave the Greeks and promised he would take no vengeance on them—with the exception of Athens. When the first messengers from Thebes arrived in Attica, the Athenians were celebrating the mysteries of the goddess Demeter at the nearby town of Eleusis. The goddess guaranteed that the warm sun and fruits of the earth would return again after the coming winter, but to the Athenians it must have seemed as if darkness were about to descend forever. They had not actually sent troops in support of Thebes, but how many times could they expect Alexander to forgive them for plotting against him? They abandoned the religious festival at once and streamed back into the walls of Athens with all the possessions they could carry. This time surely the king would unleash his Macedonians on them and destroy their city once and for all.

The aged Athenian statesmen Demades proposed that the Athenians send an embassy to Alexander congratulating him on his safe return from the barbarian lands of the north and his magnificent victory over Thebes. This the assembly did immediately, but Alexander sent them back to Athens with a message that he was willing to overlook their disloyalty only if they would send to his camp ten of his longtime enemies, including the chief troublemaker Demosthenes. To the conservative party leader Phocion, this seemed perfectly reasonable. He was a respected military veteran who had once been a student of Plato’s. He also detested Demosthenes and would be thrilled to see his longtime adversary crucified by the Macedonians. He rose before the assembly and called on his fellow citizens to remember the story of the Athenian heroes Leos and Hyacinthus, who had sacrificed their own willing daughters to save the state when it faced destruction. Turning to Demosthenes, he declared that these mere girls had gladly gone to their deaths to save their city—wouldn’t any true Athenian patriot do likewise?

In spite of Phocion, the supporters of Demosthenes still controlled the assembly and threw the old general off the platform. Demosthenes then climbed the stone steps and addressed his fellow citizens in a carefully prepared speech. It was not without reason that he was considered the best orator of the age. By the end of his address, he had won the crowd to his side. Demades, heavily bribed by Demosthenes’ party, then proposed that they send a second embassy to Alexander begging him to reconsider and spare the Athenian leaders. Since the king still needed the Athenian navy for his Persian invasion, this time Alexander relented with the condition that they surrender only the general Charidemus to him. This was a clever ploy, since he was not a native-born Athenian and could be safely sacrificed by all parties. Charidemus knew which way the wind was blowing and immediately sailed off to join the Persians. Honor satisfied, Alexander agreed to leave the Athenians in peace.

From Thebes, Alexander and his men marched home to Macedonia. It was now late autumn and there was much to be done before his army could cross to Asia in the spring. The king reluctantly recalled Parmenion from Asia Minor to be his second in command on the expedition as the price of the old general’s support. Philip’s other elder statesman, Antipater, was made regent in Macedonia to rule in the king’s place and keep the Greeks in line while he was at war across the Aegean. Both men advised Alexander to marry and produce an heir before he departed for what could be a very long and dangerous campaign. It was sound advice and in accord with Macedonian tradition, but the king had no interest in domestic life. He was only twenty-one and, with the confidence of youth, believed he had more than enough time to worry about family matters in the future. He also had no patience to wait for a wife to become pregnant and bear a son. Marriage would mean delaying the Asian expedition for at least another year, which was unthinkable to Alexander.

To entertain his troops and ready them for the upcoming war, the king held athletic contests and festivals at Dion beneath the snows of Mount Olympus. A decade earlier Alexander had tamed Bucephalas at this holy site. Now, the mighty stallion still at his side, he hosted games of every kind for his men and presented splendid prizes to the winners. For nine days he sacrificed lavishly to Zeus, father of the gods, and to the nine muses who would inspire bards to sing of great deeds to come. An enormous tent was erected to hold a hundred dining couches for Alexander’s guests. The whole army dined like kings for days and drank wine every night like true Macedonian warriors on the eve of battle. They would need all the courage they could muster—before them lay the awesome power of the Persian Empire.

Alexendar the great In Asia

THUS SAYS THE LORD TO HIS ANOINTED, TO CYRUS, WHOSE RIGHT HAND I HAVE GRASPED, TO SUBDUE THE NATIONS BEFORE HIM AND STRIP KINGS OF THEIR ROBES, TO OPEN CITY DOORS BEFORE HIM—AND THE GATES SHALL NOT BE SHUT.

There was once a king named Astyages who ruled over the Medes in the mountains east of Mesopotamia. One night he had a dream that his daughter Mandane would someday give birth to a son who would rule all of Asia. Fearing he would lose his throne, he gave her in marriage to a man from the insignificant province of Persia to the south. But after Mandane had been married for a year and was pregnant, Astyages had another dream in which he saw vines spreading from her womb to cover all the lands of his empire and beyond. He consulted the wise Magi, who interpreted the dream and told him the baby would one day become a mighty king in his place. Thus Astyages decided to slay the child as soon as it was born. When the baby, named Cyrus, was delivered, the king gave him to a servant with orders to take the child away and kill it. This servant in turn gave the baby to a kindly cowherd, who secretly raised him as his own. Although his surroundings were humble, young Cyrus showed the qualities of royalty from an early age and was in time brought before the suspicious king. After discovering the truth, Astyages again consulted the Magi, who now told him he had nothing to fear from Cyrus. Nevertheless, when the prince had grown to manhood, he led a revolt of his father’s people against his Median grandfather and became the first Great King of the Persian Empire.

This is the heroic legend told by Herodotus, but the true story of Cyrus and the creation of the Persian Empire is even more remarkable. Starting from the Persian highlands near Persepolis in what is now southern Iran, Cyrus conquered Media by 549, then the kingdom of the Lydians in Asia Minor three years later when their wealthy king, Croesus, underestimated the Persian ruler. The empire of Babylon was next in 539, followed by much of central Asia.

Cambyses, the eldest son of Cyrus, ascended to the throne in 530 at the death of his father and soon added Egypt to the empire. After the untimely death of Cambyses in 522, Darius I seized the throne in a bloody struggle. He gained the Indus Valley for Persia, but his adventures in Europe were less successful. His crossing of the Danube and invasion of Scythia were only nominal victories, while the rout of his army at Marathon near Athens in 490 was a clear defeat. Though the Greeks looked back on Marathon as the greatest battle the world had ever known, to the Persians it was at worst a minor setback. Xerxes, the son of Darius and grandson of Cyrus, invaded Greece again in 480. The celebrated Spartan defense at Thermopylae is not worthy of mention in surviving Persian records, nor is the destruction of Athens the same year. However, the Persians’ defeat at Plataea near Thebes the next year put an end to Persian dreams of conquering Greece. After the death of Xerxes in 465, the borders of the Persian Empire remained largely unchanged, though there were frequent internal revolts put down by every Great King until Darius III took the throne in 336, the same year Alexander became king of Macedonia.

The policies of the Persian Empire begun under Cyrus continued for almost two centuries. Local inhabitants were left in peace to live and worship as they pleased so long as they paid their taxes and caused no trouble. However, if there was rebellion against the Great King’s rule, retribution was swift and harsh. Egypt and Babylon in particular suffered after their people rose up against Persia. Cities were burned, rebels massacred, and onerous tribute imposed. And although the Persians had no interest in spreading their religious beliefs to the provinces, most of their rulers had little genuine respect for or understanding of the spiritual practices of their subject people. Time and again the Great Kings punished uprisings by destroying local temples and profaning sacred symbols, only increasing the bitter resentment of the natives.

The Persians themselves were polytheists who believed in many gods, as did almost every culture in the ancient world aside from the Jews. Like the Greeks, Celts, and peoples of northern India—to whom the Persians were particularly close in culture and language—the countrymen of the Great King saw the world as ruled by many divine powers. But the Persians also viewed the cosmos as a battleground between the forces of light and darkness. At the head of their pantheon was Ahuramazda, known as the Wise Lord, who created the world and embodied all goodness. Opposing him was Ahriman, a powerful spirit bent on evil and leading humans astray. The great Persian religious teacher Zoroaster, who lived centuries before Alexander, taught that all must choose whom they would follow, but that at the end of time Ahriman would be defeated by the Wise Lord. There were other deities as well, such as Anahita, the mother goddess, Mithra, protector of justice, and Atar, son of Ahuramazda and guardian of his sacred fire. The worship of all these gods and many others was carried out by the ancient priestly caste known as the Magi. They sacrificed and chanted hymns to the gods, as well as foretold the future and read in the stars the signs of things yet to be. Wherever the Persians went in their conquests, the Magi followed, not as missionaries but as religious practitioners for the Persian elite. Let the Egyptians worship jackal-headed deities and the Greeks pray to Athena —it was Ahuramazda and his fellow gods who had granted the Persians dominion over the earth.

This vast empire of the Persians—over two thousand miles from end to end— was divided into provinces, each ruled by a satrap, a governor directly responsible to the Great King. Communications were maintained by an efficient road system crossed by royal couriers, who, according to Herodotus, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor dark of night hinder from the swift completion of their appointed course.” Like the Macedonians, the Persians were a warrior race from the mountains who learned the arts of civilization from the ancient kingdoms they conquered. Although they prided themselves on their simple education—“to ride horses, to shoot the bow, to speak the truth”—they were in fact quite receptive to outside influences and adapted many cultural elements from their subjects. While written Persian was used primarily for monumental carvings, beginning in the time of Darius I, everyday court records were documented by scribes in Elamite, Babylonian, or Aramaic. From the earlier empires of Mesopotamia, the Persians learned art, engineering, and the magnificent architecture of their palaces. But their own unique contribution to history was the gathering of dozens of nations into the first truly international empire. From the cataracts of the Nile and the shores of the Aegean to the steppes of central Asia and the valley of the Indus, the Great King ruled the largest and mightiest kingdom the world had ever known.

In the early spring of 334, Alexander at last began his war against Persia. He left General Antipater behind as regent in charge of Macedonia and Greece. His mother Olympias was surely at Pella that day to bid her son farewell. She had schemed and sacrificed for years so that he could pursue his destiny. Now, as he rode across the plains of Macedonia with snow still covering Mount Olympus to the south, Alexander could not have known that he would never see his mother or home again.

Alexander had precious little money to pay his troops. The Macedonian treasury was almost bare and the Greeks, parsimonious in the best of times, had been reluctant to contribute financially to what they believed was Alexander’s folly. The only good the citizens of Athens and the rest of Greece saw arising from the invasion was the imminent destruction of the Macedonian army at the hands of the Persians. They worried little about their fellow countrymen as there were few Greek troops among Alexander’s army. In fact, there were far more Greek soldiers serving as mercenaries in the Persian army than marching under Alexander’s banner. But Greek or Macedonian, the king would not be able to feed his soldiers for long unless he could quickly make the expedition profitable.

Ancient sources say the Macedonian army numbered almost fifty thousand men, including the few thousand soldiers Parmenion already had in Asia waiting for Alexander. Whatever the number, the Macedonian forces were vastly outnumbered by the men available to the Persians. At the core of Alexander’s army were the hardened Macedonian foot soldiers who had fought for years with Philip and followed his son to the Danube and back. In addition, there were key auxiliary troops from allied tribes in the Balkans, especially the fearless warriors of Thrace. The rest were cavalry from Macedonia and Thessaly, mounted scouts and archers from Thrace, and the few professional soldiers from Greece that Alexander could afford to hire. A support squad of reluctant Greek sailors followed the army along the coast. In addition, there were Philip’s superb corps of engineers, a staff of secretaries to handle the king’s correspondence, physicians, mapmakers, scientists, and the official campaign historian, Callisthenes, nephew of Aristotle and chief propaganda officer for the expedition.

Alexander’s march from Pella took his army past Amphipolis and over the Strymon River along the north Aegean coast. It was the same road Alexander had followed the previous year on the way to the Danube. But now, instead of turning north, Alexander pressed eastward over the marshes along the mouth of the Hebros River and down to the Gallipoli peninsula across the narrow strait of the Hellespont from Asia. At the town of Elaeus opposite Troy, Alexander offered sacrifice for the last time in Europe at the tomb of the hero Protesilaus, the first Greek to reach Asian soil—and the first to die—at the start of the Trojan War. Beneath the elms of the sacred grove, Alexander prayed that the gods would show him favor. He had good reason to worry. A large Persian fleet was active in the Aegean and knew of the young king’s plans. If they had wished, they could have easily prevented Alexander’s crossing. But the Persians decided to let the king and his Macedonians land freely in Asia before they made their move. Rather than blocking his advance across the strait with their navy, they intended to draw him into the interior, where they could destroy his army with their superior forces.

When the Great King Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont on his way to invade Greece in the previous century, he had ordered the construction of pontoon bridges across the strait to speed the passage of his enormous army—but a storm arose and destroyed the bridges before he could cross. The Persian king therefore ordered the Hellespont to be whipped with three hundred lashes and a pair of shackles thrown into its waters before he began construction of new bridges. Alexander knew this story and was determined that his own crossing would be more propitious. While Parmenion supervised the ferrying of the Macedonian army using warships and cargo boats, Alexander decided to leave the main body of the army and cross from Elaeus, steering the vessel himself to the middle of the Hellespont. There he sacrificed a bull to the sea god Poseidon and poured a drink offering from a golden bowl into the water. Then he guided the ship toward Troy to the place Homer said the Greeks had come ashore a thousand years earlier. As the coast drew near, Alexander took his spear and cast it with all his might onto the beach, claiming Asia for himself as spear-won from the gods. Then he leapt ashore before the boat had even reached land and waded through the surf onto Persian territory.

Alexander’s first act in Asia was to sacrifice to Zeus, the patron of safe arrivals, as well as Athena and his own ancestor Hercules. He was always scrupulous in religious ceremonies, but even more so now that he was surrounded by a mythological landscape straight from his childhood stories. Here was the very beach where the Greeks had made camp. Just beyond was the wide battlefield where Hector and his Trojans had stood against the invaders in the ten-year war for the honor of Helen, whose beauty had launched a thousand ships to bring her home. And there, rising above the plain, was the citadel of Troy itself—not the town it was in former days, to be sure, but still looming large in Alexander’s imagination. His hero Achilles, greatest warrior of the Greeks, had fought and died beneath those walls, preferring a short life of undying glory to peaceful old age surrounded by family and friends.

The Troy Alexander visited was only the latest in a series of towns at the site stretching back almost three thousand years. Over the centuries, the settlement had been sacked and burned several times, only to be rebuilt ever higher on top of the ruins. The town that Alexander entered was nothing more than a small village with a temple to Athena attended by a few local priests eager for the occasional tourist. The Spartan admiral Mindarus had visited there many years before, as had the Great King Xerxes on his way to Greece, but the arrival of the Macedonian leader and his entourage was the most memorable event at Troy for decades.

Alexander first sacrificed at the temple of Athena, dedicating his own armor at her altar. In place of his breastplate and shield, he took from the temple arms said to have been left there since the Trojan War. His favorite soldiers would proudly bear these weapons before him in battles across Asia, including a shield that would one day save his life in India. Alexander next visited the tombs of the warriors who had died fighting to capture or save the town. Most moving was the moment when he poured libations at the tomb of his boyhood hero and ancestor Achilles. Then, along with his companions, including Hephaestion, Alexander stripped off his clothes and oiled his naked body like an athlete. In honor of Achilles, Alexander and his friends then raced around the tomb and crowned it with garlands. Finally, he sacrificed to the spirit of the Trojan king Priam, who had been slain seeking sanctuary at the altar of Zeus, contrary to all sacred custom. Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, had carried out this shameful deed, prompting the young king to beseech the shade of the Trojan leader not to vent his anger on his Macedonian descendant.

As the priests led him on a final tour of the broken remains of the city, they asked if he wished to see the lyre of Paris before he departed. The young king, however, disdained Paris the Trojan prince as a coward drawn more to beautiful women than fame in battle: “I care little for that harp,” he said, “but would gladly see the lyre of Achilles on which he sang the glorious deeds of famous men.” Alexander’s greatest regret, he lamented, was that he had no Homer to celebrate his own glory.

From Troy, Alexander moved north twenty miles along the Hellespont to the small town of Arisbe, where his main force was waiting for him after crossing the strait. The next day they marched a short distance to the village of Percote, just a few miles from the large and prosperous city of Lampsacus guarding the northern entrance to the Hellespont. Lampsacus had been a wealthy ally of Athens during the Peloponnesian War in the previous century and was well known for its gold coinage. Being desperately short of money, Alexander needed the riches of the town and the prestige of freeing it from Persian control. Unfortunately for the Macedonian leader, the citizens of Lampsacus had no desire to be liberated. Like many Greek towns under Persian rule, they enjoyed relative freedom and prosperity with a minimum of interference from the Great King. The good people of Lampsacus had certainly heard of Alexander’s dealings with cities in Greece and especially his destruction of Thebes. They had little reason to trust him and even less motivation to trade the easy yoke of Persia for the potentially heavy burden of Macedonian rule. Alexander fumed, but he had no time to waste besieging a city. Even more than money, Alexander needed victory. He had to defeat the Persians in battle soon to establish his credibility as a general. Once he did, the Greek cities of Asia Minor would begin to open their gates to him, as well as their treasuries, out of fear and self-interest. Stories say that the philosopher Anaximenes, a scholar in Alexander’s entourage who happened to be from Lampsacus, begged the general to spare his hometown even though it favored the Persians. This served to enhance Alexander’s reputation for mercy, but he surely would have burned the city to the ground if he had had the time.

Alexander was a master of propaganda in war. He ordered his soldiers not to loot nearby farms and villages since it would be foolish to destroy what would soon be their own. This was a proven policy to build goodwill among the inhabitants of hostile territory, but Alexander cleverly added that they should take special care not to damage the estates belonging to the Greek-born Persian general Memnon of Rhodes. The king knew that word would quickly spread back to the Persian satraps that Memnon’s property was being treated with respect—as if the general were secretly supporting the Macedonians. It was an inspired stroke of psychological warfare that would soon bear fruit.

From near Lampsacus, Alexander moved his forces two days’ march east to the town of Hermoton, then on to the small town of Priapus, named for an unusually lustful son of the god Dionysus. Scouts reported to Alexander that the citizens of Priapus were willing to surrender the town to him, allowing the grateful king his first opportunity to liberate a Greek city, however insignificant it might be.

But as pleased as Alexander was finally to portray himself in dispatches back across the Aegean as a liberator of the Greeks, his overriding concern was more practical—where were the Persians? At that moment, they were much closer than he realized. The Persian governors and generals of Asia Minor were encamped only twenty miles away across the Granicus River at the town of Zeleia. With them were thousands of troops, including cavalry from distant Bactria and thousands of Greek mercenaries. While the Macedonian army moved toward the Granicus, the Persians were holding a council of war to decide what to do about Alexander.

Arsites, the satrap of the Hellespont region, presided at the meeting along with Spithridates, who ruled over nearby Lydia and the Greek cities of the Aegean coast. The satrap Arsames was there as well from Cilicia on the southern seaboard of Asia Minor. These leaders and their generals were all pledged to defend the realm of the Great King with their lives. And if honor were not enough motivation, they knew their wealth was derived from the land they held in the areas under their governance. If Alexander won, they would lose everything.

Also present was Memnon of Rhodes, perhaps the best general in the Persian army. He had defeated the advance forces under Parmenion the year before and driven them back to the Hellespont to wait for their king. When it was at last his turn to voice his opinion at the council, he rose and declared that the best way to defeat the Macedonians was to destroy all the crops in the region, empty the towns, and launch an expedition to take the war to Macedonia itself. With no fodder for his horses or food for his men, Alexander would be forced to withdraw from Asia in defeat to defend his own home. In addition, Memnon warned, the Macedonian infantry was far superior in skill if not numbers to its Persian counterparts. If the foot soldiers of Macedonia with their long sarissa spears came up against the Persians, the troops of the Great King would lose. As the Greek general surely reminded them, he had spent time in exile at the court of Philip and knew firsthand the power of the Macedonian army.

Memnon’s advice was sound and, if taken, would have almost guaranteed that the world would never have heard of Alexander the Great—but the Persian leaders would have none of it. Who did Memnon think he was to advise the noblemen of the Persian Empire to turn and run from an untried boy-king who had invaded their land? They would never allow their own fields and houses to be burned before the Macedonian army as if they were peasants shaking in their boots. They suspected that Memnon wanted to delay the war so that the Great King, who favored him, would appoint him as commander in their place. There must have been questions as well about why Alexander had ordered his men not to harm Memnon’s estates. But in the end it was their sense of honor and dignity that would not allow them to take Memnon’s counsel seriously. They were warriors from the highlands of Persia, the heirs of Cyrus, conquerors of the world—and they would fight.

The Granicus River rises in the mountains beyond Troy and flows north across the coastal plain into the sea. It is a small river fed by spring rains, but its banks are steep and difficult to climb. Here at this ancient crossroads on a late afternoon in May, Alexander finally saw the Persians. His scouts reported their cavalry was drawn up on the far bank with their infantry behind, an unusual positioning of forces but effective given the situation. If Alexander’s men engaged the Persian army here, they would have to cross the river unprotected, then struggle up the far banks as the mounted soldiers of the enemy struck at them from higher ground. The deadly sarissa formation of the Macedonians would be useless as they tried to climb from the riverbed to the open ground beyond. The Persians had deliberately chosen a field of battle that would yield nothing to the strength of the Macedonian infantry but would instead give themselves every advantage. They had set a trap for Alexander and were daring him to walk into it.

Alexander surveyed the situation with his keen eye for terrain and could not help but appreciate the Persian plan. A more cautious general might have sought a better location to cross the river or withdrawn south along the Aegean coast. But Alexander prided himself on his swiftness and daring—which was, of course, exactly what the Persians were counting on. They were betting the brash young king could not resist the bait.

As with the siege at Thebes, we have two versions of what happened next. One tradition from the historian Diodorus says that Alexander made camp for the night and prepared for an assault the next morning. But the other, from Arrian, says that he drew up his troops facing the river even though there were only a few hours of daylight left. In the latter version, old general Parmenion urged Alexander to remain on the near side of the river until the next day, when the army could be organized more effectively for what would be a grueling fight. A military setback at this point of the campaign, he warned, would be a disaster. In this account Alexander dismissed the general’s hesitation and said he would be ashamed if, after crossing the wide Hellespont, he were stopped by a petty stream. A delay, he declared, would only make the Persians think he was afraid of them. Arrian describes a similar dialogue between Parmenion and Alexander four other times during the expedition, always on the eve of battle, so that the reader begins to suspect that the veteran commander is being used as a foil to highlight Alexander’s boldness. But whether the Macedonians made camp or began the attack that evening makes little difference. Alexander had decided to fight the Persians there at the Granicus and risk everything on a single roll of the dice.

Facing thousands of Persian cavalry and at least an equal number of infantry across the river, Alexander arranged his troops in a standard battlefield formation with horsemen on the wings and foot soldiers in the center. He placed Parmenion in command of the Thracian and Thessalian cavalry on the left, while he himself mounted one of his battle horses and rode to the right. Philotas and his cavalry units were stationed near him with the archers and wild Agrianian spearmen from Thrace. Among the many other officers in the line were Nicanor, another son of Parmenion; Craterus, who would become one of Alexander’s most trusted commanders; and Black Cleitus, friend of his father, Philip, and brother of his childhood nurse. The king of Macedonia himself was unmistakable in his splendid armor as he walked beside his horse among the men, cajoling and encouraging them. The Persians had spotted Alexander as well and moved their best cavalry squadrons opposite to strike him down.

After both sides were set, they stood facing each other unmoving and in silence for several long minutes as if taking a deep breath before the battle began. Neither side wanted to be the first to move, but finally Alexander jumped up on his horse and moved the right wing forward into the river with the sounding of trumpets and a mighty cry to Ares, god of war.

Alexander flew across the river and up the banks so fast that the Persian horsemen couldn’t hit him, but many of his companions were pinned down in the water as arrows rained on them from above. Parmenion moved in from the left and the infantry pushed forward into the Granicus, holding their long spears as best they could. The Macedonian strategy was to outflank the Persian cavalry using its two wings, but plans soon gave way to bloody chaos as horses and men on both sides became so tightly packed they were barely able to move. The first Macedonians to reach the Persians on the far side of the river were badly outnumbered and cut down. Memnon and his grown sons were at the forefront of the Persian lines slaughtering as many of Alexander’s men as they could reach. As more men climbed over bodies to the opposite side, they put up a ferocious fight surrounded by Persian cavalry, who stabbed them with javelins. Alexander saw what was happening and in a frenzy led his closest men into the thick of battle. Gradually the Macedonians gained a foothold on the far side of the river as Alexander’s cavalry used their lances from horseback against the shorter javelins of the Persians.

A fierce struggle raged around Alexander as the Persians tried to kill him and end the war with one blow. The king’s lance was broken in the fight, but when he called on his groomsman for another he was told the young man’s lance had snapped in two. Surrounded and unarmed, his old companion Demaratus of Corinth, veteran of wars in distant Sicily and the man who some say years earlier had bought Bucephalas for the brash prince, rushed forward and gave him his own weapon. Alexander took courage from his friend and rushed back into the fray, charging a Persian noble named Mithridates and stabbing him in the face. The death of this son-in-law of the Great King distracted Alexander from the approach of another Persian nobleman, Rhoesaces, who rode at the king and struck him so hard on his head with his sword that his helmet split in two. The king was stunned by the blow, but managed to knock Rhoesaces onto the ground and skewer him with his lance. Even as he struck, the satrap Spithridates now charged Alexander from behind and raised his sword to strike a death blow when suddenly Black Cleitus threw himself at the Persian lord and cut off his arm cleanly at the shoulder. Alexander may have been frustrated at the number of Philip’s old officers in his ranks, but he owed his life that day to the courage and skill of Cleitus.

In every battle there is a turning point when both sides realize by unspoken consent that one will be the victor and the other lucky to escape with their lives. It was now that the Persians knew they could not hold back the Macedonians and so began to retreat. Their center then collapsed and they began to flee in panic from the Granicus. Over a thousand Persian horsemen were slain, among them nobles, satraps, and relatives of the Great King.

But Alexander was not yet finished as he quickly surrounded the Greek mercenaries who had been held in reserve by the Persians at the rear of the battle. These men knew they had lost, but as professional soldiers and by the accepted practice of the day they expected to pay a ransom and be allowed to depart. Alexander instead ordered his men to slaughter them, sparing only a few to work for the rest of their short lives as slaves in the mines of Macedonia. They would be a lesson to other Greeks who might side with the Persians against him.

Alexander visited his wounded and examined their injuries himself, offering advice to the camp doctors based on his studies with Aristotle. For the dozens of Macedonians who had fallen, he ordered burials with honor at the battle site while their families back in Macedonia were granted special privileges. For the noblemen among his dead he ordered bronze statues erected at Dion beneath Mount Olympus to be carved by Lysippus, the greatest sculptor of the day. He was generous to the enemy dead as well, allowing the Greek mercenaries to be buried so that they might journey with the boatman Charon across the river of the dead. He shipped all the fine drinking cups, purple robes, and other luxury goods he had captured from the Persians to his mother. Finally he sent three hundred sets of Persian armor to Athens to be set up as trophies on the Acropolis. He ordered an inscription carved beside them for all visitors to read:

ALEXANDER SON OF PHILIP AND ALL THE GREEKS— EXCEPT THE SPARTANS—SENT THESE SPOILS FROM THE BARBARIANS IN ASIA.

Alexander was not without a biting sense of humor. He wanted everyone in Greece to know that his Panhellenic crusade against the Persians was proceeding splendidly with the support of all the Greeks—except the Spartans.

The elation that Alexander felt after his first victory was soon replaced with the mundane necessity of governing his newly acquired territory. He appointed his cavalry commander Calas as satrap of the Hellespont region in place of the Persian Arsites, who in shame had committed suicide after the battle at the Granicus. This apparently minor administrative decision on Alexander’s part in fact had monumental consequences for the future. In appointing Calas as satrap, the king was making use of a Persian title and keeping in place the Persian structure of government. This continuity became even more clear when Alexander announced that the cities of northwest Asia Minor would continue to pay taxes in the same manner and at the same rates as they had under the Great King.

Local nobles who had fled to the hills at Alexander’s approach now returned to their estates and were pardoned. Charges were apparently brought against the town of Zeleia, which had hosted the illfated Persian conference a few days earlier and served as the military headquarters against the Macedonians. However, Alexander forgave the town in an act of calculated mercy. His campaign was still young and he wanted the cities ahead of him to know he was a generous man—a prudent move since it would encourage citizens to surrender knowing they would not be condemned for their previous Persian sympathies. Alexander then sent Parmenion to take over Dascylion, the Persian capital of the area. It was a prosperous Greek town long accustomed to serving the resident Persians. With the Macedonians now in charge, the mechanisms of rule—and presumably the numerous scribes, tax collectors, and other civil servants— would remain in place under Alexander. The new king knew better than to disrupt a smoothly functioning administration. He needed money to fund his campaign, be it through taxes or tribute payments, and the longtime employees at the satrapal palace were highly skilled at fleecing the local sheep.

Life on the campaign, in spite of the brutalities of war, must have been enjoyable for the young king. He would rise every morning and begin the day by sacrificing to the gods. This was his religious duty as king of Macedonia, but Alexander seems to have been quite sincere in his devotion, especially to Athena and his distant ancestors Zeus and Hercules. After his duties at the altar, he would sit down to breakfast. If the army was not breaking camp, he would spend the day organizing military affairs, answering correspondence, administering justice, or, if there was time, hunting with his friends. He loved to read and would snatch spare moments from the day to read from Greek works by the historians Herodotus and Xenophon, the dramatists Sophocles and Euripides, or poets, especially his beloved Homer.

On the march he would often stop and practice archery or mounting and dismounting from a moving chariot. Whether on the move or based in a town, he would finish the day with a bath or an anointing with oil and scraping in the Greek manner. While he was removing the day’s dirt, he would inquire what the cooks and bakers had prepared for the evening meal. He loved unusual fruits and fresh fish, so that travel along the sea coast was a special treat. His suppers were always magnificent, with Alexander and his friends reclining on couches to dine as any civilized person would. He always made sure his companions received enough to eat and personally dished out delicacies to everyone else at the table first so that often he was left with nothing.

He was fond of drinking wine in abundant quantities, in the Macedonian fashion, but at least at this stage of his life he was not given to drunken binges. He had many virtues, but like most rulers he loved flattery and would often boast of his own deeds like a common soldier. His companions would sometimes compete with one another to compliment the king, causing the more reticent among them to grow uncomfortable lest they fall behind the others in praise. It was for Alexander a tragic flaw, or hamartia, a Greek word meaning to miss the mark when shooting an arrow (Christians would later use the same word to mean “sin”). Love of praise was a pardonable fault of Alexander’s that in time would grow to be a serious problem.

From the Granicus, Alexander marched south along ancient pathways through the mountains to the city of Sardis. This inland capital of the prosperous land of Lydia was a key city of the Persian Empire and the end point of the royal road that stretched well over a thousand miles to Susa in Mesopotamia. The fortified citadel of the town towered hundreds of feet above the valley of the Hermus River, which ran just north of the city down to the Aegean Sea. The fortress was considered unbreachable by all who had visited the site and was surely a major cause of concern to Alexander as he approached the town.

The Lydians were not Greeks but descendants of early settlers in Asia Minor. They still spoke a language related to that of the Hittites, who had ruled the land a thousand years earlier, but the people of Sardis were accustomed to Greek visitors and ways. Their territory was rich in gold and horses, a powerful kingdom long desired by many conquerors. The Lydians were so wealthy and creative that they were the first nation to mint coins. In the sixth century the last native king, Croesus, had amassed such power that he longed to spread Lydian rule beyond his borders. He was a great supporter of Greek oracles, so that when he contemplated attacking the rising kingdom of Persia under Cyrus, he sent messengers to Delphi to seek the advice of Apollo. After making lavish donations to the oracle, he asked if he should invade Persia. The priestess, possessed by the god, uttered a typically cryptic response: “If Croesus sends a great army against Persia, a mighty empire will fall.”

Croesus was elated at this proclamation and prepared for war. What he didn’t realize was that it was his own empire that would fall. Through the creative use of camels to terrify the Lydian cavalry, Cyrus took Sardis and became ruler of Asia Minor. After a close brush with being burned alive on a giant pyre as a sacrifice to the gods, Croesus became a trusted advisor to Cyrus, and Sardis became the most important Persian city in the west.

Alexander had no camels and no clear idea how to take Sardis other than a long siege he could ill afford. Every day he spent starving the city into submission was a drain on his still limited resources and also gave Darius more time to raise a powerful army against him. It was therefore a tremendous relief to Alexander when Mithrenes, the Persian commander of the city’s citadel, met him several miles outside of Sardis and surrendered the town to him without a fight. Why Mithrenes would do this is something of a puzzle. He may not have been able to hold the surrounding countryside against Alexander’s army, but he could have resisted the Macedonians from the safety of the fortress for months. Whatever the reason, Alexander warmly welcomed Mithrenes and allowed him to retain his previous rank. The Persian commander was to follow the king’s retinue throughout the campaign in Asia Minor, but rather than an honor, this may have been a sign of Alexander’s mistrust of a man who would betray his lord so easily.

The city of Sardis now belonged to Alexander, including, to his delight, a treasury full of Lydian gold. The money would not last forever, but it allowed the king to proceed with the war knowing he could finally pay his men. The rank and file soldiers were equally thrilled since after weeks of marching and fighting they at last had a few coins in their pockets. From his camp outside of town Alexander declared that all the Lydians were now free and would be allowed to follow their ancient customs. This was a pleasant but meaningless gesture since the Persians had always allowed the inhabitants of their empire to follow ancestral customs. As for freedom, it was true only in the sense that the Lydians were now liberated from the Persian into the Macedonian Empire. As long as the citizens of Sardis paid their taxes and did as they were told, they could consider themselves as free as they liked. Alexander then entered the city as a conqueror and climbed to the top of the citadel, where the view across the wide valley of the Hermus was magnificent. The king examined the defenses of the hill and thanked the gods yet again that he didn’t have to lay siege to such a towering fortress. Then a summer storm suddenly broke loose from the heavens with peals of thunder and sheets of rain. The king had been contemplating the construction of a temple to his ancestor Zeus at the top of the citadel, but now he was certain he should do so.

Alexander appointed a Macedonian named Pausanias as the new commander of the citadel and charged Nicias, a Greek, with the assessment and collection of taxes for the region. Asander, who may have been Parmenion’s brother, was chosen as satrap of Lydia and was left enough cavalry and light infantry to maintain order. The king sent most of the Greek troops who had followed him from Macedonia back to garrison the region around Troy while he stationed the Greeks from the allied town of Argos on the citadel of Sardis with Pausanias.

These seemingly minor dispositions open an important window into Alexander’s mind at this stage of the campaign. He had successfully won his first battle and had now taken a key city of the Persian Empire. He felt he could dispense with most of the Greek troops in his army and cast aside the facade that this was a campaign of Panhellenic liberation. From now on, it was a Macedonian war of conquest. The Greeks would still have their uses, of course, but Alexander no longer wanted to share his glory with them. He was also anxious to begin paring away as many kinsmen and supporters of Parmenion as possible from his command staff, beginning with Asander. He continued to need Parmenion’s support, but little by little he would begin to wear away the old man’s power as his own grew. Finally, the number of different officials Alexander left behind to govern his growing empire shows a keen recognition of the dangers of concentrated power. As the Persians had before him, the king knew that competition between officials was the surest check on unfettered ambition. Asander would be satrap, but Nicias would control the purse strings while Pausanias commanded the high ground. None of these men had reason to trust each other—which was exactly the point. Alexander could continue his march knowing that no one man would dominate the rich and powerful province of Lydia.

Alexander’s next stop was the coastal city of Ephesus, a four-day journey from Sardis. The town had been founded by Ionian Greeks centuries earlier, but had fallen under the rule of Croesus of Lydia and then to Persian control. The Ionians were the same branch of Greeks as the Athenians, though the Ephesians did not always support their kindred in war. To the Persians, who saw little difference between the various Hellenic tribes and dialects, all Greeks were lumped together as Ionians, or Yauna, in the Persian language. The city of Ephesus was best known for its famous temple of Artemis, the virgin goddess of hunting, which had reportedly burned down the night Alexander was born and was still being rebuilt. “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians,” later generations would chant, and the citizens of Alexander’s time could not have agreed more.

The backers of democracy at Ephesus had opened the gates to Parmenion two years earlier, even setting up a statue of Philip at the temple. But Memnon had retaken the city and restored the ruling aristocracy that supported Persia. Now the democrats returned from exile seeking vengeance. They launched a pogrom against the aristocrats and murdered anyone they could find who didn’t share their political convictions, including those who had torn down Philip’s statue. One oligarch named Syrphax was dragged from the temple along with his nephews and publicly stoned to death. Alexander had little sympathy with the aristocracy and allowed the bloodshed to continue for a few days, but eventually even he felt things were going too far. He knew that soon the violence would descend into general mayhem and personal grudges that had nothing to do with politics. He halted the vendetta and, to help distract the Ephesians from infighting, he offered to donate his own money to help rebuild the temple of Artemis and restore the lucrative tourist trade. Surprisingly, the citizens declined, though this refusal may have been orchestrated by Alexander to spare himself an enormous expense. Still, the king ordered that all city taxes previously paid to the Persians would henceforth be directed to rebuilding the great temple. To entertain and intimidate the restive citizens, Alexander then staged a grand parade and battle drill through the streets of the city with his troops in full battle dress.

Representatives from the nearby towns of Magnesia and Tralles soon arrived to surrender their cities to Alexander. The king graciously accepted and sent Parmenion with a large force of cavalry and infantry to make sure they meant it. He also dispatched troops to other Greek towns on the coast to drive out Persian garrisons, overthrow aristocratic rulers, and proclaim democracy and freedom for all. Now that they were free cities, they would not be subject to distasteful tax payments to the Great King in distant Persepolis. Instead, as liberated Greeks, they would be permitted to make hefty contributions to the Macedonian cause.

The famous painter Apelles was resident in Ephesus when Alexander arrived and the king could not resist commissioning a portrait of himself astride Bucephalas. The king had seen Apelles’ work before, including the painting of his own father, Philip, and had great expectations for a matchless work. However, when the painting was finished, Alexander was not impressed. Apelles then brought it over to show Bucephalas, who neighed in apparent approval. The bold artist then told Alexander that his horse had better taste than he did. But the king, who had studied artistic theory with Aristotle and fancied himself a connoisseur of fine paintings, demanded that Apelles try again. This time Apelles played to Alexander’s vanity and showed him as Zeus wielding a thunderbolt. He even used a secret varnish formula to give the portrait a striking tone. The king was pleased with this very un-Greek style of portraiture and gave Apelles a large bag of gold as payment.

While Parmenion was away, Alexander took the rest of the army and left Ephesus for the key city of Miletus thirty miles to the south. On the way he stopped at the small Ionian Greek town of Priene at the mouth of the Meander River. The river was notable for its wandering course (hence our modern term meander) and in time it would silt up the entire bay between Priene and Miletus. Alexander wanted to visit the newly completed temple to Athena in Priene, designed by Pythius himself, architect of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. At Priene, Alexander donated enough money so that, unlike at Ephesus, he was named patron of the new temple. The dedicatory inscription in Greek, which survives to this day, is one of the few pieces of contemporary evidence we possess naming the Macedonian king: BAΣIΛEYΣ AΛEΞANΔPOΣ ANEυHKE TON NAON AυHNAIHI ΠOΛIAΔIKing Alexander dedicated this temple to Athena, Protector of the City

Alexander rarely missed a chance to combine his genuine devotion to the gods with useful propaganda.

Parmenion and his forces rejoined Alexander at Miletus. It was an ancient settlement dating back to the days of the Trojan War and had been a major naval center for centuries. It was now the city’s ability to shelter the Persian fleet that most concerned Alexander. The Great King had four hundred ships, primarily from Cyprus and Egypt, operating in the eastern Mediterranean, as opposed to his own, untried fleet, less than half that size, drawn from various Greek cities of questionable loyalty. If the Persians were allowed to use Miletus as a naval base, they could hamper his advance and strike against him anywhere in the Aegean.

The commander of the garrison at Miletus had sent a message to Alexander offering surrender, but when he heard the Persian fleet was near at hand he reneged on his offer and barred the city gates to the Macedonians. Alexander then ordered his small fleet to race for Miletus to prevent the Persians from seizing the harbor and nearby islands. The Greek navy arrived in time to set up base on the island of Lade just offshore while the tardy Persians were forced to anchor in an unfavorable location ten miles to the north. Alexander ferried several thousand Thracians and other mercenaries to Lade to help hold the island against any Persian attack.

It was now Parmenion who urged boldness against the Persian fleet. He advised the king that a naval attack by the Greek ships could succeed, especially as he had seen an eagle, a favored bird of Zeus, perching on the stern of one of the ships. It would be a great victory if they could win, the general claimed, but only a minor defeat if they lost. Alexander, however, was uncharacteristically cautious. He had little experience with naval warfare and less trust in Greek sailors. He countered that it was foolish to engage a much larger fleet with his inexperienced navy. He would have to place Macedonian marines on each ship to fight the Persians at sea, a frightening prospect to men from the mountains of his homeland. Moreover, a defeat would indeed be serious and give the Greek cities courage to rise up against him. Finally, the eagle Parmenion saw was facing the land, not the sea, so that Zeus clearly wanted him to wage war on solid ground.

When Alexander’s engineering corps arrived at Miletus, the king put them to work knocking down the city walls. It was the first opportunity his engineers had during the campaign to prove they could work miracles. Soon there was a hole wide enough in the defenses to send the Macedonian army through into the city. Alexander’s men swarmed through the town, killing all the defenders they could find, and headed for the harbor. There the Greek fleet had moved in to blockade the Persians from landing reinforcements. The Persian soldiers in the city, made up largely of several hundred Greek mercenaries hired by Memnon, were pushed to the sea, where many climbed onto their concave shields and paddled to a small island in the harbor to make a final stand. They had heard of the fate of their comrades at the Granicus and were determined to sell their lives dearly. But Alexander sailed to the island himself and told the mercenaries that he admired their bravery and loyalty. He offered them mercy on the condition that they join his army. Given the circumstances, they had little choice but to accept. The citizens of the city who had survived the assault were likewise spared the horrors of enslavement and allowed to remain in the town, undoubtedly after paying a large indemnity for their resistance.

The Persian navy continued to harass the Macedonians even after the fall of Miletus. Each day they would sail from their base and draw up before the harbor, trying to tempt Alexander into a fight at sea. But fume as he might, the king remained firm in his plan to avoid a naval battle. Instead he sent Parmenion’s son Philotas to the coast near the Persian anchorage to prevent them from collecting fresh water. In frustration, they sailed to the nearby island of Samos for supplies and then struck at Miletus again. Five Persian ships managed to slip into the inner harbor, hoping to catch Alexander unprepared, but the king quickly gathered whatever troops were at hand and launched ten ships to strike back. The Persians had convinced themselves that the Macedonians were afraid to face them on the water, so they were surprised to see Alexander at the helm of a force twice their size sailing toward them in the harbor. They turned and rowed for their lives, but not before Alexander captured one of their ships.

In spite of his modest naval victory, Alexander now made a momentous decision that was to determine his course for the rest of the war—he ordered his fleet to disband. Ancient and modern historians have long argued about why he did this, but the reasons given by the historian Arrian seem plausible, namely that he did not have enough money to support a navy and even if he did, his fleet was no match for the Persians. One might add that he found the Greek sailors untrustworthy and far more trouble than they were worth. But decommissioning his navy meant that he had no choice but to defeat the Persian fleet by land. The only way he could do this was to deny them a safe harbor anywhere in the Mediterranean. In effect, Alexander was committing himself and the Macedonian army to seizing the entire coast from Troy to Egypt. Until he could accomplish this, he was leaving himself vulnerable to Persian naval strikes against Asia Minor, Greece, and even Macedonia. But to conquer the entire eastern Mediterranean was an astonishingly ambitious plan. Most of Alexander’s officers and soldiers had probably assumed they would limit their campaign to the shores of the Aegean Sea, but one suspects that the young king had planned from the beginning to drive his army all the way to the pyramids if not to the heart of Persia and beyond.

Word soon reached Alexander that the Great King had overruled the objections of his nobles and at last appointed Memnon as commander of the Persian army and fleet in the war against the Macedonians. The price of this appointment was that Memnon had to send his wife, Barsine, and his children to the court of Darius as hostages. The new commander then moved his forces to the coastal city of Halicarnassus, south of Miletus. It was an astute decision on Memnon’s part as this southernmost of the major Greek towns in Asia Minor had one of the finest harbors on the Aegean coast and was surrounded by formidable walls.

Halicarnassus was in the mountainous land of Caria, inhabited by a people of non-Greek origin related in language to the Lydians. The Dorian Greeks, relatives of the Spartans, had settled along the coast centuries earlier and founded outposts such as Halicarnassus. In later times, the Greek towns of Caria became Ionian in culture and produced such famous figures as the historian Herodotus, a native of Halicarnassus. Greeks and Carians lived amicably side by side, but the rulers were a native dynasty known as the Hecatomnids. As in Macedonia, the nobles embraced Greek culture while the vast majority of the people carried on the ways of their ancestors, even in the Hellenized cities. To the proud Carians, a father was ted and a mother en, not patēr and mētēr as among the Greeks. Ancient pastoralism was the foundation of the economy and it was practiced largely from isolated hilltop villages scattered throughout the land. But in spite of royal initiatives to promote Hellenic culture, the Carians remained loyal to their kings and queens even while they ignored their attempts to spread Greek ways.

Caria had fallen under Persian control in the late sixth century as had the rest of Asia Minor, but the royal family continued to rule in the name of the Great King. Most famous of these monarchs was Mausolus, who, following a custom Carian royalty shared with Egyptian pharaohs and Persian kings, had married his sister. He then moved the Carian capital from the inland town of Mylasa to Halicarnassus. He had briefly joined a revolt of the satraps of Asia Minor in the 360s, but was soon forgiven and spent the remainder of his reign increasing Carian power in the region while remaining loyal to Persia. His crowning achievement was the construction of the famous Mausoleum, named after himself, that was to serve as his tomb and a monument to his rule. It was indeed a wonder of the world, soaring almost 150 feet and topped by a pyramid. It was elaborately decorated with splendid Ionic columns and sculptures of lions, Amazons, and centaurs.

When Mausolus died and was buried as a cult hero in his magnificent tomb, royal power passed in time to Pixodarus, with whom the impulsive Alexander had tried to arrange a marriage alliance several years earlier. Pixodarus had seized power from his sister, Ada, and soon married his daughter to a Persian nobleman named Orontobates, who took over rule of Caria at the recent death of Pixodarus. The resourceful Ada, however, still held the mountain fortress of Alinda just fifty miles away. The Carians chafed under the rule of a foreign overlord and longed to see Ada on the throne once again. It was a situation that Alexander could exploit to his own advantage.

On the march from Miletus to Halicarnassus, the Macedonians captured several smaller towns along the way, presumably including the sacred oracle of Apollo at Didyma. It seems unlikely that Alexander could have resisted the opportunity to visit this hilltop site overlooking the sea, as it had been one of the greatest prophetic centers in the Greek world before the Persian king Darius I destroyed it at the beginning of the fifth century. Darius deported the ruling priesthood, known as the Branchidae, to central Asia even though they had collaborated with the Persians, to protect them from retribution by their Greek neighbors. Alexander would have known of their fate and the rituals once conducted at the temple. As at Delphi, a consecrated prophetess conveyed the will of the god to mortals. At Didyma she first bathed, then entered the shrine to hear the questions put forth by petitioners. She sat on an axle suspended over a sacred spring, dipping her foot into the water before she answered. It must have saddened the king that the voice of Apollo had grown silent at this holy place, and he may have given orders to reestablish the oracle.

At the seaside town of Iasus, Alexander met a delegation of officials who welcomed him and anxiously petitioned him to restore the fishing rights they had lost under the Persians. Such prosaic matters may have seemed to some beneath the concern of the king, but Alexander knew that the support of local leaders was crucial to his enterprise and gladly granted their request. There he also met a young boy who had tamed a friendly dolphin. The king was so impressed by the lad and his talent with sea creatures that he afterward named him as chief priest of the god Poseidon at Babylon.

As he approached the border of Caria, Alexander was met on the road by the former queen, Ada. The Macedonian ruler had never shown much interest in members of the opposite sex his own age, but had always gotten on well with older women. Ada welcomed Alexander to Caria and proceeded to work out a deal with him. Alexander needed someone he could trust to rule the land once he had taken Halicarnassus and moved on. Ada was loved and respected by her people, who saw her as the legitimate ruler of Caria rather than the Persian usurper Orontobates. She would throw her support behind Alexander in return for the throne. In addition, she would formally adopt Alexander as her own son, thus giving him legitimacy as overlord in the eyes of the Carians. He would not be invading their country as just another foreigner bent on conquest, but as a liberator restoring his mother, their beloved queen, to her rightful place. Alexander was charmed by Ada, but also saw the practical benefits to her proposal and readily agreed. The Carian reaction was indeed favorable as delegations from towns throughout the land began to arrive at Alexander’s camp bearing golden crowns and promises of cooperation. Ada herself was soon sending her new son delicacies from her own kitchen.

But as sympathetic as Ada and the Carian country people might be to Alexander’s cause, Halicarnassus was going to be very hard to conquer. When the Macedonians arrived at the city, Alexander looked down in dismay from the surrounding hills at the Persian fortifications. The fleet headquarters at the entrance to the harbor was cut off from land attack, while heavy walls encircled the entire city, including two fortresses on opposite sides of the town. Since he had dismissed his fleet, Alexander could not prevent supplies or reinforcements from reaching Halicarnassus by sea. The only way to take the town was to find a way through the walls.

Halicarnassus was in the mountainous land of Caria, inhabited by a people of non-Greek origin related in language to the Lydians. The Dorian Greeks, relatives of the Spartans, had settled along the coast centuries earlier and founded outposts such as Halicarnassus. In later times, the Greek towns of Caria became Ionian in culture and produced such famous figures as the historian Herodotus, a native of Halicarnassus. Greeks and Carians lived amicably side by side, but the rulers were a native dynasty known as the Hecatomnids. As in Macedonia, the nobles embraced Greek culture while the vast majority of the people carried on the ways of their ancestors, even in the Hellenized cities. To the proud Carians, a father was ted and a mother en, not patēr and mētēr as among the Greeks. Ancient pastoralism was the foundation of the economy and it was practiced largely from isolated hilltop villages scattered throughout the land. But in spite of royal initiatives to promote Hellenic culture, the Carians remained loyal to their kings and queens even while they ignored their attempts to spread Greek ways.

Caria had fallen under Persian control in the late sixth century as had the rest of Asia Minor, but the royal family continued to rule in the name of the Great King. Most famous of these monarchs was Mausolus, who, following a custom Carian royalty shared with Egyptian pharaohs and Persian kings, had married his sister. He then moved the Carian capital from the inland town of Mylasa to Halicarnassus. He had briefly joined a revolt of the satraps of Asia Minor in the 360s, but was soon forgiven and spent the remainder of his reign increasing Carian power in the region while remaining loyal to Persia. His crowning achievement was the construction of the famous Mausoleum, named after himself, that was to serve as his tomb and a monument to his rule. It was indeed a wonder of the world, soaring almost 150 feet and topped by a pyramid. It was elaborately decorated with splendid Ionic columns and sculptures of lions, Amazons, and centaurs.

When Mausolus died and was buried as a cult hero in his magnificent tomb, royal power passed in time to Pixodarus, with whom the impulsive Alexander had tried to arrange a marriage alliance several years earlier. Pixodarus had seized power from his sister, Ada, and soon married his daughter to a Persian nobleman named Orontobates, who took over rule of Caria at the recent death of Pixodarus. The resourceful Ada, however, still held the mountain fortress of Alinda just fifty miles away. The Carians chafed under the rule of a foreign overlord and longed to see Ada on the throne once again. It was a situation that Alexander could exploit to his own advantage.

On the march from Miletus to Halicarnassus, the Macedonians captured several smaller towns along the way, presumably including the sacred oracle of Apollo at Didyma. It seems unlikely that Alexander could have resisted the opportunity to visit this hilltop site overlooking the sea, as it had been one of the greatest prophetic centers in the Greek world before the Persian king Darius I destroyed it at the beginning of the fifth century. Darius deported the ruling priesthood, known as the Branchidae, to central Asia even though they had collaborated with the Persians, to protect them from retribution by their Greek neighbors. Alexander would have known of their fate and the rituals once conducted at the temple. As at Delphi, a consecrated prophetess conveyed the will of the god to mortals. At Didyma she first bathed, then entered the shrine to hear the questions put forth by petitioners. She sat on an axle suspended over a sacred spring, dipping her foot into the water before she answered. It must have saddened the king that the voice of Apollo had grown silent at this holy place, and he may have given orders to reestablish the oracle.

At the seaside town of Iasus, Alexander met a delegation of officials who welcomed him and anxiously petitioned him to restore the fishing rights they had lost under the Persians. Such prosaic matters may have seemed to some beneath the concern of the king, but Alexander knew that the support of local leaders was crucial to his enterprise and gladly granted their request. There he also met a young boy who had tamed a friendly dolphin. The king was so impressed by the lad and his talent with sea creatures that he afterward named him as chief priest of the god Poseidon at Babylon.

As he approached the border of Caria, Alexander was met on the road by the former queen, Ada. The Macedonian ruler had never shown much interest in members of the opposite sex his own age, but had always gotten on well with older women. Ada welcomed Alexander to Caria and proceeded to work out a deal with him. Alexander needed someone he could trust to rule the land once he had taken Halicarnassus and moved on. Ada was loved and respected by her people, who saw her as the legitimate ruler of Caria rather than the Persian usurper Orontobates. She would throw her support behind Alexander in return for the throne. In addition, she would formally adopt Alexander as her own son, thus giving him legitimacy as overlord in the eyes of the Carians. He would not be invading their country as just another foreigner bent on conquest, but as a liberator restoring his mother, their beloved queen, to her rightful place. Alexander was charmed by Ada, but also saw the practical benefits to her proposal and readily agreed. The Carian reaction was indeed favorable as delegations from towns throughout the land began to arrive at Alexander’s camp bearing golden crowns and promises of cooperation. Ada herself was soon sending her new son delicacies from her own kitchen.

But as sympathetic as Ada and the Carian country people might be to Alexander’s cause, Halicarnassus was going to be very hard to conquer. When the Macedonians arrived at the city, Alexander looked down in dismay from the surrounding hills at the Persian fortifications. The fleet headquarters at the entrance to the harbor was cut off from land attack, while heavy walls encircled the entire city, including two fortresses on opposite sides of the town. Since he had dismissed his fleet, Alexander could not prevent supplies or reinforcements from reaching Halicarnassus by sea. The only way to take the town was to find a way through the walls.

On the first day of the siege, some of Memnon’s troops burst through the northeast gate and struck at Alexander’s surprised troops. They were easily driven back within the walls, but it was just the start of what would be a long series of hit-and-run forays by the Persian forces to throw the Macedonians off balance. Alexander then ordered his troops to begin filling in the trenches the defenders had dug around the city. Days went by as the Macedonians tried to secure the moats, but were repeatedly driven back by troops on the walls. Alexander tried sheltering his men with movable sheds to keep off rocks and arrows, but the rain of projectiles from above was still too much. In frustration, he led a diversionary attack on the Persian-held city of Myndus ten miles to the west, hoping to draw away some of Memnon’s troops from Halicarnassus. Here he faced the same difficulties even after his engineers dug a tunnel under the wall to collapse it from below. When Memnon’s reinforcements arrived, they were able to link up with the defenders of Myndus and drive the Macedonians away in defeat.

Returning to Halicarnassus, Alexander redoubled his efforts at taking the wall and brought up a huge tower on wheels to shower the defenders with missiles while a battering ram pounded the stones beneath them. In response, the Persian troops made a night raid to burn down the tower, but were caught just in time by Macedonian guards, who roused their comrades to action. The Persians lost almost two hundred men that night while only sixteen of Alexander’s men fell, but three hundred Macedonians were badly wounded during a chaotic battle in darkness.

The stalemate dragged on as summer turned to autumn and the fierce heat of the Carian coast began to wane. Still Alexander was no closer to taking Halicarnassus than he had been when he first arrived. His men were frustrated as well. One night two drunken Macedonian soldiers on guard duty decided they had had enough. With wine to give them courage and insults to each other’s manhood, they armed themselves and rushed one of the city gates in a foolhardy bid for glory. A few defenders met them and were slain by the Macedonians. This brought out more troops from both sides until there was a full-fledged battle outside the gates. Dozens were killed on both sides as the Macedonians almost stormed the walls, but by dawn defenders and attackers alike were forced to retreat.

Alexander decided he had to take the city soon or withdraw before winter set in. Over the next few days the king himself led a series of attacks against the walls, causing a great deal of damage, only to be met by defenders equally determined to drive the Macedonians back. Alexander was losing too many officers and men with each assault, but the Persians were losing more. At last Memnon decided that his troops could no longer hold the entire city. He ordered his men to set fire to the town. Leaving garrisons at the city’s fortresses, Memnon and the fleet then sailed that night to the nearby island of Cos, out of Alexander’s reach.

The Macedonian king was at last victorious in his most grueling battle yet. Now he controlled the entire Aegean coast of Asia Minor from the Hellespont to Caria. He spared the lives of the people of Halicarnassus, but finished what the Persians began and burned their city to the ground. Concerning the fate of the thousands of men, women, and children left homeless as winter was descending, our sources are silent. Alexander placed Ada on the throne of Caria as his satrap in the smoldering ruins of the city and stationed enough troops nearby to drive out the last of the Persians from their citadels. But even in the midst of celebrating, the king knew that just across the narrow strait on the island of Cos, the Persians were waiting. Their navy was intact and they had thousands of troops at their disposal. Memnon had lost Halicarnassus, but Alexander’s most capable foe was far from defeated.

Many of Alexander’s soldiers were newly married and had left their young brides behind when they departed Macedonia the previous spring. Now that the campaign season was over and all the Greek coast of Asia Minor was in Alexander’s hands, the king sent these recent grooms home to spend the winter with their wives and sow the seeds for a new generation of Macedonian warriors. In the spring, they would rejoin the army to continue the war against Persia. It was a popular decision with the men and a great boost for morale. The furloughs were also a clever propaganda ploy since the men could give eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s victories against the Persians and build support back home. To lead the men, Alexander sent Coenus and Meleager, both newlyweds themselves. Meleager was a loyal officer from the Macedonian highlands who had served Alexander on the Danube and at the Granicus. Coenus had also fought bravely for the king, but his new bride was a sister of Philotas, making him the son-in-law of Parmenion. It is no surprise that Alexander wanted to be rid of as many of Parmenion’s family as possible, at least for the winter. At the same time he sent Cleander, brother of Coenus, to the Peloponnese in southern Greece to recruit mercenaries from the neighbors of Sparta. Apart from their marital duties, Meleager and Coenus were ordered to recruit new soldiers in Macedonia during their short stay and bring them back to Asia in the spring. Parmenion himself was dispatched with most of the cavalry north to Sardis with orders to rendezvous at Gordium in the Phrygian highlands of central Asia Minor in a few months. Splitting the army not only freed Alexander from Parmenion’s unwanted advice but reduced the amount of food and fodder needed from any one region.

Conventional wisdom in the ancient world said that wars were never fought in winter. Alexander, however, was not one to follow tradition. With his lean and hardened army, he set off from Halicarnassus into the wild highlands of Lycia along the southern coast of Asia Minor just as the leaves were falling from the trees. It was a bold move, but without Parmenion around to tell him why he was being a fool, Alexander was at last free to do as he pleased. His objective was to conquer the region, especially key naval bases on the coast, while the Persians were unprepared. But aside from military objectives, Alexander was seeking the glory that comes from taking an unexpected risk—and winning.

Bundled against the increasing cold, Alexander’s army marched through the mountains and along the coast almost a hundred miles to the port of Telmessus, home of the king’s favorite soothsayer, Aristander. According to one story, Nearchus, the childhood companion of Alexander, had a friend in the Persiancontrolled town who suggested a ruse to take the citadel without a fight. With his friend’s help, Nearchus smuggled a troop of dancing girls into a dinner party for the Great King’s soldiers. After dinner and entertainment, when all the soldiers had drunk far more wine than was wise, the girls pulled daggers from their baskets and massacred the garrison. Whether or not the story is true, Alexander was able to take the citadel of Telmessus without a fight and gain control over a key port on the southern coast.

From Telmessus the army marched over the rugged mountains to the Xanthus River and down to the city of the same name on the coast. There representatives from over thirty Lycian towns, including the key port of Phaselis, met the king and offered their submission. Near the Xanthus, Alexander found a sacred spring that conveniently spewed forth a bronze tablet engraved with ancient letters. It was probably the seer Aristander who read the inscription and claimed it said that one day the empire of the Persians would be destroyed by the Greeks. Alexander was encouraged by this prophecy as he struggled over snow-covered passes to eastern Lycia.

Alexander and his men finally arrived at the port of Phaselis, founded by Greeks three centuries before. The path north from the town was more fit for goatherds than an army of thousands, so the king sent his Thracian soldiers to carve a road over the pass and down into the plain of Pamphylia. He allowed the remainder of the army a few days’ rest and enjoyed the local wine himself. One night, after a typically raucous Macedonian drinking party, he led his friends into the town square, where they found a statue to the late local poet Theodectes, a friend of Aristotle’s during the philosopher’s years in Athens. Alexander must have heard his teacher speak favorably of the man, for the king and his companions crowned his statue with many garlands.

While at Phaselis, Alexander received a disturbing report from Parmenion. The general’s message said that the leader of the Thessalian cavalry on his staff, Alexander of Lyncestis, was conspiring with the Great King to murder Alexander. Parmenion had captured a Persian agent, Sisines, on the way to Phrygia who under torture had confessed that Darius was offering the supposed conspirator a king’s ransom in gold and his full support in seizing the Macedonian throne in return for his cooperation. Alexander of Lyncestis was already a suspect character to some as his brothers had been executed for plotting the murder of Philip. Only the fact that he had been the first to hail Alexander as king and accompany him as a guard into the palace had saved his life. In addition, Alexander’s mother, Olympias, had been warning her son to beware of Alexander of Lyncestis for months, whether because she had been receiving her own reports questioning his loyalty or because she simply didn’t like the man. Her son, however, was accustomed to frequent, unsolicited advice from his mother. He would later complain that she charged a very high rent for nine months in her womb.

The charges placed the king in a difficult position. He knew the other Alexander as a brave and capable officer, having appointed him commander of the important Thessalian cavalry after he had made the former leader, Calas, satrap of the Hellespont region. Alexander of Lyncestis was also the son-in-law of Antipater, whom the king had left as regent of Macedonia during the campaign. He immediately called a council of his closest friends to seek their advice, but they agreed with Parmenion that such a man should be eliminated. They also reminded Alexander that while he was still besieging Halicarnassus, a swallow had flitted about his head during a nap and chattered until he awoke. Aristander the seer had interpreted this as an omen that someone close to the king would soon plot against his life. But Alexander was deeply suspicious of the charges. Parmenion would love to remove the king’s appointee from his staff and replace him with his own choice. What better way than to accuse a man from a traitorous family of conspiracy? In addition, Alexander had met Sisines a few years before, when he had arrived at Pella as a secret messenger from Egypt trying to persuade his father to support a rebellion against Persia. He was a shady character of dubious integrity, moving between kings and kingdoms, serving whoever paid him the most. As for Aristander and the bird, even Alexander didn’t believe everything the old soothsayer prophesied.

Still, it would not be prudent to risk a knife in the back when he arrived in Phrygia, so Alexander sent a trusted envoy undercover to Parmenion dressed as a mountain tribesman. The mission was so delicate that the king did not commit his orders to writing but instructed the herald to memorize them—a precaution against his capture by Persian agents. The herald instructed Parmenion to detain Alexander of Lyncestis, but not to execute him. The king himself would investigate the charges of conspiracy quietly in due time. Alexander then appointed his old friend Erigyius to fill the vacant position as head of the Thessalian cavalry to forestall Parmenion from selecting one of his relatives for the post.

When the Thracian road builders had finished their work, Alexander gathered the rest of his army and marched north from Phaselis over the pass at Mount Climax, then down to the narrow trail along the sea. It was a tricky path during the storms of winter as the south wind would frequently send waves surging over the shore. The historian Arrian, drawing on the official account of Callisthenes, reports that the north wind began to drive the water back just as Alexander arrived. It was thereafter claimed that the gods had miraculously vanquished the waves to allow the Macedonians safe passage. Diodorus, however, using a more sober account perhaps written by a weary soldier in the ranks, says that the army marched all day long in freezing water up to their waists.

Somewhere in this region, while his men were strung out in a long column, Alexander was attacked by a local tribe known as the Marmares. They killed many of his rear guard and captured others, seizing as well many of the pack animals with their crucial supplies. The Marmares retreated to a mountaintop fortress called the Rock, confident that they were safe from attack. The natives failed to realize that Alexander was unlike any foe they had ever faced and was especially dangerous when he was angry. In a prelude to assaults the king would make against towering citadels in the Hindu Kush, Alexander launched a fullscale assault on the mountain. Within two days it became clear to the natives that they had no hope of resisting the Macedonians, but neither would they surrender their families and their freedom to the invaders. The elders of the tribe urged the warriors to kill their wives and children themselves rather than allow them to fall into slavery and abuse at the hands of the enemy. The young men agreed and so retired to their homes for a final feast before the slaughter began. When the time came, however, a few could not carry out the deed with their own hands and so set fire to their houses instead, burning their families alive. Unencumbered by women and children, the warriors of the Marmares then slipped through the Macedonian lines that night and fled into the mountains.

With this gruesome scene behind them, Alexander and his army at last marched into Pamphylia, a beautiful plain stretching some fifty miles along the shore and surrounded by mountains. The largest city in the area was Perge, famous for its temple to Artemis centered around a cult object that was probably a large meteorite. The citizens spoke an archaic form of Greek that sounded quite odd to Alexander’s ears, but they surrendered peacefully. Down the road a day’s march was the hilltop town of Aspendus, supposedly settled by colonists from Argos in Greece but loyal to the Persians, who had long used it as a base. The town was famous for the wealth it had built on the salt and olive oil trades. A delegation of city elders met the king and offered to submit to his authority if only he would not station a garrison of his troops in their town. Alexander agreed on the condition that they give him all the horses they bred for the Great King in their lush meadows and donate an outrageous sum to pay his army. This was blackmail, but the citizens of Aspendus had little choice but to consent.

Alexander then moved on to Side, the easternmost town in Pamphylia, posting a garrison before he doubled back to Aspendus to collect his money and horses. But in the short time he had been away, the people of Aspendus had found their courage and now shut the gates of the city in his face, fleeing to their acropolis. The lower town was surrounded by a short wall that the Macedonians easily stormed, but the fortified upper city was on a steep hill bordered on one side by a river. The army made themselves at home in the houses of the lower town and waited since Alexander badly needed both the money and horses. A shrewd judge of human nature, he was betting the people of Aspendus would crack when they saw their homes occupied and their city cut off. He was soon proven right when a deputation appeared begging the king to accept their surrender on the terms to which they had previously agreed. Alexander must have smiled as he shook his head and replied that they now must not only give him the horses, but double the amount of gold agreed on before. In addition, he would be posting a large garrison in their town, taking their leading citizens as hostages, collecting an additional yearly tax, and—by the way—he would be looking closely into complaints that they had unjustly annexed land from their more cooperative neighbors along the coast. The citizens of Aspendus had learned the hard way that no one double-crossed Alexander.

With his cavalry mounted on fresh horses and gold from Aspendus loaded on his pack animals, Alexander set out toward Gordium to rendezvous with the rest of his army. The only problem was that he had little idea how to get there. He started in the wrong direction, heading west until he arrived at the fortress of Termessus commanding the pass into the mountains. The citadel, surrounded by gorges and cliffs, was occupied by highlanders who had never submitted to the Persians. For a few days the Macedonians skirmished with these brigands, but to little avail. Given enough time, Alexander could have taken Termessus, but the king did not want to get bogged down in a protracted siege. It was at this point that messengers from the nearby town of Selge arrived at his camp to make a treaty of friendship. They also pointed out that Alexander was going the wrong way. There was a much easier road that ran near their village directly through the mountains to Gordium. Swallowing his pride, the king left Termessus untouched and marched his army north into the heart of Asia Minor.

Alexander’s first stop on the road to Gordium was the town of Sagalassus in the mountainous land of Pisidia. The people were warlike and their town well fortified, but this was one location the king could not leave unconquered as it commanded an important passage to the south. On the other hand, it was the worst possible setting for a battle. The Macedonians would have to fight uphill the whole distance without cavalry support because the ground was too rough for horses.

The army spread out and charged the enemy with infantry, archers, and Thracian spearmen. It was a fierce battle in the winter cold, but at last the Pisidians began to give way as they had no armor and were suffering grievous injuries. Most of the warriors from Sagalassus escaped since the Macedonian army was too exhausted to pursue them, but at least five hundred died defending their home.

The ice was beginning to break up on the streams of the Anatolian plateau when the Macedonans at last arrived at Celaenae midway on the march to Gordium. The inhabitants of the area were known for their trade in the salt that crystallized naturally from the briny lakes of the regions. They also sat astride the main road linking Persia to the Aegean coast. It was a city Alexander absolutely had to take if he was to control his line of communication between Macedonia and all points east. The citadel of the town was formidable, especially as it was occupied by more than a thousand Carian and Greek mercenaries—but soldiers of fortune are nothing if not practical. They sent a delegation to the king offering to surrender to the Macedonians if no help arrived in two months. Alexander hated to make deals like this, but he did not want to waste weeks besieging the city. He agreed to their terms, leaving fifteen hundred troops behind to guard the city under the command of the one-eyed general Antigonus, whom the king appointed as satrap of the region. Selecting this ambitious and capable soldier to oversee a key piece of the growing Macedonian empire would in time have profound consequences.

Alexander reached Gordium in the ancient kingdom of Phrygia just as spring was beginning in the highlands of central Asia Minor. King Midas of the golden touch had once ruled this rich land, but for almost two hundred years it had been a key outpost of the Persians. Alexander hoped to meet Parmenion and the reinforcements from Macedonia at the town and was not disappointed. The crusty old general was waiting for him, as were the returning newlywed troops along with three thousand additional Macedonian infantry, three hundred cavalry, and two hundred mounted warriors from Thessaly. Trailing behind was a delegation from Athens that had journeyed all the way from Greece to ask the king for clemency on behalf of the Athenian mercenaries captured months earlier at the battle on the Granicus River. These unfortunate men had been sent to the mines of Macedonia to labor and die underground as punishment for siding with the Persians. Alexander was polite, but he informed the Athenians that regretfully he could not grant their request at this time. However, he did consent to free their countrymen when the war against Persia was complete. Since the life expectancy of mine slaves was exceedingly short, this was in fact a confirmation of their death sentence.

But the king had much more to worry about that spring than disgruntled Athenians. News arrived at Gordium that the Persian general Memnon had been busy in the Aegean while Alexander was campaigning in Asia. Memnon had taken the fleet north from Cos after his defeat at Halicarnassus and seized the island of Chios, then sailed to Lesbos, which he captured except for the chief town of Mytilene. At the same time, he was making overtures to disgruntled Greeks on the mainland, especially the Athenians and Spartans. If they would support the Great King, he would launch an invasion of Greece and Macedonia that would drive out the hated Macedonians. Most of the Greeks were enthusiastic at the prospect of Persian intervention and many sent delegations to welcome Memnon and his army. It was a scene that would have astonished their ancestors, who had laid down their lives to drive back the Persians at Marathon and Thermopylae in the previous century.

The reports from Greece were a devastating blow to Alexander. He was winning the war in Asia only to risk losing Greece and Macedonia. With the Greeks in revolt and his homeland threatened, how could Alexander continue his campaign in Asia? He would surely have to return to the west—and yet, if he did, the victories he had won against Persia would be for nothing. His dreams of conquest would vanish and he would be remembered as just another small king who had dared great deeds only to fail.

It was now that one of those fortuitous events in history occurred that changed everything. While he was besieging the town of Mytilene on Lesbos, Memnon suddenly fell ill and died. Alexander could not believe his luck when he received the news. Memnon had handed over command of the Aegean to his Persian nephew Pharnabazus on his deathbed, but the young man, though a skillful soldier, was not his uncle. He continued the war and took Mytilene, then captured the small but crucial island of Tenedos at the mouth of the Hellespont. Pharnabazus continued to plan the invasion of Greece and Macedonia, but things had changed because of the death of Memnon. The Greeks began to have second thoughts about the rebellion. More important, the Great King doubted that he could win the war in the west without his favorite general. He sent one of Memnon’s other nephews, a Greek named Thymondas, to relieve Pharnabazus of most of his army and bring the soldiers to Babylon. The campaign in the Aegean continued, but it was a halfhearted effort, biding time until Darius decided his next move.

The Great King called a meeting of his closest advisors to discuss the matter. Should he send his generals west to carry on the war with a mercenary army or should he take command himself and face Alexander in a decisive battle in Asia? Most of his advisors argued that he should lead the army in person and defeat this upstart Macedonian king once and for all with the full might of the Persian army. It would be an inspiring victory with the Great King leading his men from his war chariot on the glorious field of battle. But the experienced mercenary leader from Athens named Charidemus, who had earlier been exiled on Alexander’s orders, strongly disagreed and urged Darius not to risk everything on a single battle with the Macedonians. He advised the Great King to keep his army in reserve in Babylon while a skilled general led an army composed largely of Greek mercenaries to fight Alexander. He also strongly hinted that he himself would be willing to take on this commission.

Darius was impressed by his arguments, but his Persian councilors began to rail against Charidemus, arguing that he wanted an army only so that he could gain glory for himself and probably betray the Great King as well. Charidemus grew livid and began to berate the advisors of Darius and Persians in general as effeminate cowards who couldn’t face real men on the battlefield. Darius was so offended at this outburst that he rushed down off the throne, grabbed Charidemus by the belt, and ordered his immediate execution. As he was led away to his death, the defiant Charidemus shouted back to the Great King that he would soon see his empire fall to pieces around him. After the execution, Darius regretted that he had been so hasty in killing one of his best generals. He was haunted by dreams of Alexander and his Macedonian soldiers ever before his eyes. He sought in vain for a worthy replacement for Memnon to lead his army against the invaders, but soon decided that he would take command himself. He would gather a mighty host from the far corners of his empire and personally lead them against Alexander. It would take many months of preparation, but when the army was ready it would grind the Macedonians into dust.

Alexendar the great in Egypt

IN MY ACCOUNT OF EGYPT, I WILL GIVE A LONGER DESCRIPTION WITH MANY MORE FACTS THAN USUAL BECAUSE THIS COUNTRY HAS MORE MONUMENTS AND WONDERS THAN ANY OTHER LAND. —HERODOTUS

Almost everything Alexander knew about Egypt came from the writings of Herodotus, the Greek historian of the previous century who wrote of things he saw along the Nile during his travels, as well as recording quite a few facts and secondhand stories of a more dubious nature. Herodotus knew that the Nile valley flooded every year, depositing rich alluvial soil on the fertile fields on either side of the river, but he did not know why this happened. He reports that an earlier pharaoh discovered the original language of humanity by secluding two newborn children among mutes until they uttered their first word, which presumably would be in the tongue of our earliest ancestors (it was bekos, the Phrygian word for “bread”). Herodotus also records that the Egyptians venerated cats and frequently mummified them. He overstates the size of Nile crocodiles, but relates they can be caught by using a small pig as bait. He was fascinated by the pyramids and passes on the tale he heard from Egyptian priests on how they were built. He had a particular interest in Egyptian religion, claiming that the Greeks learned many of their sacred rituals from Egypt. He also writes of the divine origins of the great oracle of Zeus-Ammon in the distant western oasis of Siwa. Alexander had grown up hearing stories of this sacred site that the Persian king Cambyses had once tried to destroy, only to lose fifty thousand men to a sandstorm. For Alexander, Egypt must have been a land of wonder and mystery.

Egypt was such an ancient kingdom that the great pyramids of Giza were almost as old to Alexander as he is to us. Farmers had already lived on the banks of the Nile for several thousand years when, according to tradition, Menes united the kingdoms of upper (southern) and lower (northern) Egypt at the end of the fourth millennium B.C. The Old Kingdom began a few centuries later with a highly centralized government under the pharaohs. Soon the rulers of Egypt were commissioning grand monuments and establishing diplomatic ties with kingdoms in Mesopotamia and beyond. After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, there was a period of localized rule until the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom reestablished authority over the whole country. A people known as the Hyksos later seized control of the northern Nile valley, but the New Kingdom arose in the middle of the second millennium B.C. and extended its power all the way to the Euphrates River. Hatshepsut, a woman of royal blood, ruled as pharaoh during this period, as did Tutankhamun and the long-lived Rameses the Great, famous for the colossal rock-cut statues he built at Abu Simbel as well as his war against the Hittites of Asia Minor. But during the age of the Trojan War, the mysterious Sea People attacked Egypt from the north, ushering in a long period of decline and foreign incursions from Nubians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and finally the Persians.

The Great King Cambyses conquered Egypt in the late sixth century B.C. and initiated a century of ill will when he burned temples throughout the country and killed the sacred Apis bull at Memphis in a fit of anger. The Persians were thereafter seen as impious oppressors who mocked Egyptian religious traditions and bled the country dry through high taxes and grain levies. Finally, after decades of Persian rule, the Egyptians revolted and drove out the Great King’s troops. For sixty years Egypt was independent until Artaxerxes III led the Persian army into the land once more. The last native pharaoh of Egypt, Nectanebo, fled south to Nubia and a satrap was appointed to once again impose the will of the Great King.

Two years had passed since the Macedonians crossed into Asia. Alexander’s fleet had followed him down the coast of the Sinai to Pelusium, where the king found the ships anchored in the Nile. Also waiting for him was Mazaces, the recently appointed Persian ruler of Egypt. His predecessor, Sabaces, had taken most of the Great King’s army from the province to Issus a year earlier. Since Sabaces and many of his soldiers had died in battle there, Mazaces decided that discretion was the better part of valor and surrendered the entire province to Alexander without a fight. To win the favor of Alexander and, he surely hoped, save his own life, Mazaces also brought along the entire treasury and all the royal furniture he could load into carts. In one day, the Macedonian king had added a province larger and far wealthier than all of Greece to his growing empire.

But even though the Persian garrison in Egypt had surrendered to him, Alexander realized that truly possessing the land would require the utmost in tact and diplomacy. The Egyptians could well seize this moment to stage another of their revolts against the new foreign overlord. Alexander had to proceed very carefully in order to have the Egyptians accept him willingly as their ruler, but to do this he had to have the priests on his side. Alexander therefore dedicated the next few months to showing the people of the Nile valley that he not only respected their religion but was an enthusiastic supporter of the Egyptian gods.

Sending his fleet up the Nile, Alexander and his army marched through the endlessly flat plains of the Nile delta. The army moved along with the Nile on their right and the barren desert on their left. They passed fields of wheat and barley, date and fig trees, cattle and fishermen, and vast stands of papyrus used for making the most prized writing material in the ancient world. Along the way villages of farmers and local nobility welcomed the new king, although with his army beside him they had little choice. Alexander passed through the land of Goshen, where stories said the Hebrews had once settled after a famine in their homeland. He also passed the site of Avaris, where almost a thousand years earlier Rameses had built a glorious city only to have it swallowed up in time by desert sands.

After a week of traveling along the river, Alexander came to the ancient city of Heliopolis, a center for learning and priestly activities in Egypt for millennia. Here on a raised mound where the easternmost branch of the Nile met the main channel of the river was the celebrated temple of Ra, known to the Greeks as the sun god Helios. The king surely treated the priests at Heliopolis with great respect—in pointed contrast to the Persian king Cambyses, who had tried to destroy the holy site and tear down the nearby obelisks.

Across the Nile just a day’s journey south of Heliopolis was Memphis. Ever since the earliest days of the Old Kingdom, the city had been the most important religious center in lower Egypt. Even when the capital was elsewhere, pharaohs still maintained palaces at Memphis and lavishly supported the city’s priesthood and temples. In the western part of the town was the step pyramid of Saqqara, the first of these great structures built in Egypt. Just beyond Saqqara on the edge of the floodplain were miles of elaborate tombs. The city proper was also a commercial center well known to the Greek world, but it was most famous for its temple of the creator god Ptah. His earthly manifestation was the sacred Apis bull, a carefully chosen animal cared for in the courtyard of the temple. Pilgrims would come from all over Egypt to seek the blessing of the bull at Memphis. When each Apis died, it was embalmed and carried to a special burial chamber at Saqqara.

For the Great King to have killed the Apis bull in the previous century was a sacrilege beyond belief and a deed the Egyptians would never forget. It was therefore with great reverence that Alexander approached the temple of Ptah and offered copious sacrifices to the god, in deliberate contrast with the Persian ruler. The priests could not have been more pleased. And although the best ancient sources do not confirm it, it is likely that Alexander was now crowned pharaoh of Egypt. Statues of the king in Egypt soon show him dressed as lord of Upper and Lower Egypt, while inscriptions name him as beloved of Ra, son of Amun. Then, to celebrate his new status and to entertain the local population as well as his own troops, Alexander had previously arranged for the most famous athletes and musicians from Greece to meet him at Memphis. There Egyptians and Macedonians alike feasted and drank, cheered on races and wrestling contests, enjoyed comedies and tragedies onstage, and listened to choruses singing, all on a beautiful winter’s day on the banks of the Nile surrounded by the glorious monuments of Egyptian history. It must have been spectacular.

The ancient historians who wrote about Alexander’s Egyptian campaign are in disagreement about where the king went from Memphis. Some say he immediately headed north along the Nile toward the Mediterranean. But other sources claim he desired to travel south to see the ancient palaces and monuments of Upper Egypt. There are also fragmentary reports that he sent Aristotle’s nephew Callisthenes deep into Ethiopia to seek the source of the Nile. None of these accounts is implausible because Alexander was intensely curious about the lands of his empire and realms beyond. A quick dash upriver to Egyptian Thebes or even to the first cataract near Aswan would not have taken more than a few weeks. Thebes would have been especially attractive as a key center of religious life in Egypt, as well as the site of many of the grandest temples in the Nile valley. To strengthen his rule in the south of the country and establish firm ties with the priestly class there, Alexander would certainly have considered a brief journey up the Nile a wise investment of his time.

Whether Alexander traveled south or remained in Memphis during these weeks, by January he was on his way north to the sea. Along this journey, only a short day’s sail down the Nile, was the plateau of Giza just above the river to the west. There the three greatest pyramids of Egypt towered over the surrounding desert while the crouching Sphinx gazed unblinking toward the rising sun as it had for more than two thousand years. Oddly, none of the ancient sources mention Alexander visiting these famous monuments, but it is inconceivable that he would not have stopped to tour the site. A thousand years later most of the white limestone casing covering the pyramids would be stripped away for building materials, but during Alexander’s visit the monuments would still have shone brightly in the morning sun. The king would have walked up the long causeway linking the Nile to the pyramid complex, then stared in wonder at these artificial mountains, each made of several million giant stones fitted together perfectly. Herodotus said the blocks were lifted up level by level with machines, but Alexander must have doubted this explanation given the obvious weight of the massive stones. If he entered the pyramids and made his way through the narrow, claustrophobic tunnels into the interior, he would have found the burial chambers of the ancient pharaohs long ago looted by grave robbers. Once back in the fresh air, Alexander could have toured smaller pyramids and temples in the complex as well, but he would not have missed the Great Sphinx. Over fifty feet high and carved from the living rock at the site, this looming figure with a man’s head and a lion’s body has always looked as if it were about to speak. Alexander surely remembered the story of young Oedipus, who was posed a riddle by a sphinx: What has four legs when young, two when grown, and three when aged? The creature killed those who were at a loss for the answer, but Oedipus knew it was a human being, who crawled as a baby, walked on two legs when grown, and used a cane when old. The Sphinx, however, asked Alexander no questions, but continued its eternal vigil as the king made his way back to the Nile.

When Alexander’s ship neared Heliopolis, the river split into different channels that spread throughout the delta. But instead of taking the eastern branch back to Pelusium, the little fleet headed down the westernmost branch, known as the Canopic, toward the Greek trading post at Naucratis. The town was fifty miles inland from the sea, but for three centuries it had been the main point of contact between the Greek world and the land of the pharaohs. To Alexander, it was a small settlement too far from the Mediterranean for his dreams of a booming international metropolis. With Tyre destroyed, he needed a new port to serve as the center of trade not only for the Egyptian market but for the whole eastern Mediterranean. A harbor on the sea near the mouth of the Nile would be a natural emporium for crucial Egyptian grain exports, but also for the Arabian spice trade and goods flowing up the east African coast. With merchant traffic through the Gulf of Suez and down the Red Sea around Arabia, it could also serve as an end point for trade from Persia and India.

The sleepy little port of Naucratis would simply not do for such a vision. Alexander knew he needed an entirely new town at a site chosen for easy access to both the sea and the Nile, as well as a deepwater port easily defended against invaders and pirates, with a healthy climate, cool breezes, and plentiful fresh water. When he reached the mouth of the Canopic branch of the river and saw a broad limestone ridge to the west between the Mediterranean and Lake Mareotis, he knew he had found the site for his new city. It had a harbor on an isthmus approachable only from the east or west along a narrow shore. It was close enough to the mouth of the Nile to allow for easy access to the river and a steady supply of fresh water, but far enough away so that silting would not be a problem. Less than a mile offshore was the island of Pharos, a natural breakwater long known to the Greeks. That very night Alexander reportedly had a dream in which an old man appeared to him and quoted familiar lines from Homer:

Whether he truly had such a vision or not, the king was convinced the harbor across from Pharos would be perfect for his new Alexandria.

The historian Arrian says that once again a pothos or desire seized Alexander, so that he decided to lay out the pattern of the city himself. The details vary according to different sources, but most agree that he was in such a hurry to begin the work that he had no time to send for chalk to mark the boundaries of the town. Instead, a soldier with him suggested using some of the barley they had brought along. Alexander thought this was a marvelous idea and eagerly began to walk the site, grain sack in hand, outlining where he wanted the fortifications, broad streets, central market, and temples. He was especially keen that there be shrines to Egyptian gods to show his respect for local beliefs. The temple of the popular native goddess Isis would be prominent, a divinity known to the Greeks as a bringer of life to the land and humanity alike.

But suddenly Alexander and his companions watched as thousands of birds from the nearby lake descended on the site and quickly ate every grain of barley he had so carefully laid out. The king was greatly worried by the implications of such an omen. Were the gods against the founding of his city? Ever quick to turn a sign from the heavens into good news, the king’s favorite soothsayer Aristander proclaimed that the feasting birds were in fact wonderful portents, as they showed Alexander’s new city would be splendidly prosperous and nourish all the nations of the earth.

While the king was still at Alexandria, welcome news arrived from Greece. The bearer was a Macedonian named Hegelochus, co-commander of the king’s fleet in the Aegean. The admiral reported that the citizens of the strategic island of Tenedos near Troy had revolted against the Persians and forced them out. Even better, the crucial island of Chios had brought in the Macedonians to expel the Persians. There he had captured the commander of the Persian fleet, the late Memnon’s nephew Pharnabazus. The operation had gone so smoothly that one of the Greek allies of the Persians, Aristonicus of Methymna on the island of Lesbos, was captured after he sailed into the harbor at Chios thinking it was still in Persian hands. The entire island of Lesbos, the key to the northern Aegean, had then been taken by Alexander’s forces. In addition, the southern island of Cos near Halicarnassus had helped the Macedonians drive out the Persians. The entire Aegean and eastern Mediterranean now belonged to Alexander.

Hegelochus brought with him in chains Aristonicus and all the aristocratic leaders of Chios and Lesbos who had sided with the Great King, but he apologized that Pharnabazus had somehow escaped while they were docked at Cos. Nevertheless, Alexander was pleased with the cowering group of prisoners before him and quickly decided their fate. The leaders from Lesbos were sent home to be judged by their own people, who subsequently tortured and executed them. Alexander then issued a decree to the people of Chios that they were now free from the oppressive rule of Persia and were to welcome home the exiles who had fled their island. He also posted a Macedonian garrison there to oversee civic affairs just in case the citizens took their freedom too seriously. But the elders of Chios wisely knew the limits of liberty and drafted a modest constitution, promptly submitting it to Alexander for approval. The king had something special in mind for the former aristocratic rulers of Chios, who had chosen loyalty to Darius over him. So that these oligarchs would feel at home in a familiar insular setting, he exiled them to the tiny island of Elephantine in the middle of the Nile River at the extreme southern border of Egypt. There near the first cataract of the river, more than a thousand miles from home, they could spend their days observing the island’s famous Nilometer, measuring time as the river rose and fell every year for the rest of their lives.

With the city of Alexandria founded and political affairs in the Greek world in order, Alexander now conceived a powerful desire to visit the distant oasis oracle at Siwa. This remote shrine lay three hundred miles west of the Nile valley in the middle of the vast Sahara desert. It was an unlikely spot for a religious center, but one that had become increasingly well known to Greece. Legend says that both Hercules and the hero Perseus visited the site in ancient times, but it wasn’t until a century before Alexander that the Greeks became fully aware of the oracular cult at Siwa. The divinity honored there was the deity Amun, a ruling god of the Egyptian pantheon. The Greeks, who called him Ammon, naturally saw in the god a counterpart to their own Zeus and frequently referred to the oracle as that of Zeus-Ammon. It is probable that the Aegean world became aware of the cult center of this god, who was often portrayed with ram’s horns, through the Greek colony at Cyrene on the African coast west of Egypt. Caravans from the oasis would have traded at the town and brought word of the fabulous oracle of Ammon across the desert. From there, sailors spread news of the god and his power to Greece. Soon there was a temple to Ammon in Athens, while the famous poet Pindar sang his praises and set up a statue to the god in his hometown of Thebes. The oracle of Zeus-Ammon was reckoned the equal of Dodona or Delphi, though only a few made the arduous trek to the oasis itself.

Alexander’s visit to the oracle at Siwa is one of the most controversial episodes of his life. Ancient writers speculated endlessly on why he made the journey and what he learned there. The details of the trip are conflicting, incomplete, and sometimes patently invented by those historians who wrote of it. But in spite of the maddening contradictions in the sources, the simple fact remains that Alexander spent several precious weeks in the middle of a war risking his life to travel across one of the most inhospitable deserts in the world to hear the words of a god.

It is difficult for modern readers to believe that religious motivation was sufficient reason to undertake such a journey at such an inconvenient time. But for us to appreciate the nature of Alexander and the world in which he lived, we must set aside our own preconceptions, skepticism, and cynical disbelief to realize that the ancient world was an age of great mystery and magic. There were doubters, to be sure, but for most people, including Alexander, the gods were everywhere and controlled every aspect of life. The flight of a solitary bird in the air, the sound of the wind blowing through the trees, a troubling dream in the night—all could be signs from the gods. These divine forces, at special places on the earth, actually spoke to people, though not always clearly. But if one was willing to make the journey to such a site, it was possible to ask a question and hear the very words of a god in response.

Alexander had many questions, but there were three that weighed most heavily on his mind. First, would he really be able to beat Darius and conquer the lands to the east? He was pitting himself against an immense and powerful empire. No matter his talent as a general and his overflowing youthful optimism, there was a very real chance that he would fail. Second, the king wanted to know if the murderers of his father Philip had all been punished. Given that many suspected Alexander himself as the force behind the assassination, this question may seem like a smokescreen to deflect suspicion from the real culprit. But assuming that Alexander was innocent, it was vital that he find and punish anyone who had a hand in his father’s death. Not to do so would invite blood guilt that would stain his rule and bring on the wrath of heaven. The third and final question was the strangest and most audacious of all—Alexander wanted to know if Philip was really his father or if he was in fact the son of a god. His mother had told him that he was conceived by Zeus, not Philip, when the god possessed her in the form of a lightning bolt. Philip himself had dreamed that he had sealed his wife’s womb with the image of a lion, a vision the prophet Aristander interpreted as a sign that she was already pregnant with a divine child.

Could Alexander really have been so vainglorious and deluded that he actually believed he was conceived by the king of the gods? This would seem the ultimate in what the Greeks called hubris, the quality of arrogant selfimportance that was the prelude to one’s own destruction at the hands of the divine. There were many Greeks who claimed descent from the gods, however distant. In the east, from Egypt to Persia to India, rulers often proclaimed their divine parentage. Was this a coldly calculated propaganda maneuver on Alexander’s part to ease his acceptance by the people of Africa and Asia? Or could Alexander honestly have had doubts about who his father was? It is baffling for modern readers to think he truly believed he could be the son of a god, but again we have to put aside our own preconceptions and see Alexander in the context of his own world. To his subjects, soldiers, friends, and to himself, the idea of divine parentage was bold and daring, but not outrageous. This young man had already beaten the Great King in battle and conquered more land than any Greek had ever dreamed of. To his followers, if such accomplishments were not a sign of divine blood, what could be? We should therefore assume that Alexander’s question about his parentage—however strange it might be to us and whatever uses it might serve to further his political agenda—was sincere.

From Alexandria the king and a few of his closest companions headed west with camels and local guides following the sea. The easiest route to Siwa from the Nile delta was along the Mediterranean shore for more than 150 miles to the small town of Paraetonium, one of the few safe harbors on this barren coast. Waiting for him at the town was a delegation from the city of Cyrene, many days farther to the west. These ambassadors not only represented their own town but also all the communities surrounding them. They offered Alexander the traditional crown of submission and magnificent gifts, while the king in turn warmly received their allegiance and made a treaty of friendship with them.

Cyrene was the major Greek settlement in Africa, founded as a colony from the volcanic island of Thera three hundred years earlier. Most of the later settlers were hardy Dorians related to the Spartans and other tribes of southern Greece. Cyrene was a green and fertile region on the edge of the great sandy desert, with the city itself high on a hill inland from the sea. Relations with the native Africans had been difficult at first, but the colonists had in time established hegemony over the native tribes of the region. Cyrene was famous for its horses and export of the valuable but pungent plant silphium, used in seasoning and many medicines, including contraceptives. The town even stamped a stalk of silphium on its coinage. Cyrene had been ruled for centuries by a royal family that had pledged loyalty to Persia, only to be overthrown by its own citizens. The city and its region were a remote but vital center of merchant activity connecting caravan traffic across the Sahara to the Greek world. To pledge loyalty to Alexander cost them little and diverted the Macedonian king from possibly continuing his march along the African coast. But for Alexander to have even nominal control over the region was an important factor in securing the frontier of his empire to the west. Beyond Cyrene was Carthage, an aggressive power that had already run afoul of the king at Tyre. Even now, Alexander may have been laying plans for future war against Carthage and expansion into the western Mediterranean with Cyrene as a key base.

From the seaside town of Paraetonium, Alexander and his party turned south into the desert. The guides told the king that it was almost two hundred miles to Siwa through a hellish wilderness of shifting sands and fierce south winds, but Alexander was determined to make the journey. As soon as they left behind the coastal plain, the little troop of Macedonians found themselves engulfed in a landscape unlike anything they had ever seen. Arid hills without a trace of vegetation stretched across the horizon, while the deep sand they struggled through reminded them of an endless sea. The wind stirred up the sand, driving it into their eyes and covering their clothing. Not used to desert travel, the men drank their entire water supply in just a few days with no sign of an oasis to be found. To make matters worse, their guides became lost in the blowing sand. Somewhere in the middle of the endless desert that night, the king and his friends realized they were all going to die.

But then like a gift from the gods, there was suddenly a rainstorm that broke the skies above them. Elated that they had been given a new lease on life, Alexander and his men ran around the camp with their mouths open as they collected water from holes in the ground. The rain cleared the air of dust and left a wonderful freshness across the desert, also making the sand more compact and easier to walk on. But in spite of the reprieve from heaven, they were still lost. It was then that the king saw two ravens flying overhead, common enough birds in the Libyan desert. The birds circled and turned southwest, cawing to the travelers as they went. Realizing that the ravens must be heading toward an oasis, Alexander ordered his party to follow them quickly. (His companion Ptolemy, who would later write an account of their journey, claimed that instead of ravens it was snakes that led the Macedonians to safety.) They soon came to the remote Gara Oasis, known thereafter in antiquity as Alexander’s Camp. They were still far from their goal, but at least they could rest and replenish their water supply before heading onward across dry gorges and over stark gravel hills. Finally, after at least two more days, they struggled to the edge of a barren plateau and gazed down from the cliffs at the broad and unbelievably green oasis of Siwa.

Stretching fifty miles across the Sahara in a verdant valley just below sea level, Siwa was actually a series of oases and villages. The stark contrast between the barren desert and the lush pomegranate, olive, and palm trees must have been a shocking but welcome sight to Alexander and his friends. Beyond the fruit groves and springs bubbling from the ground was an arid wasteland stretching in all directions, but here at Siwa there were flocks grazing, children laughing, and a rich culture flourishing in splendid isolation. The Ammonii, as the Greeks called the inhabitants, were never a part of Egypt, although they traded with the Nile valley. All around the oases were rich deposits of salt, highly valued by the priests of Egypt for religious rituals. The natives would regularly load the salt into baskets woven from palm leaves and transport it by camel east to Memphis. (A special type of rock salt found at Siwa valued for its chemical properties was known far and wide as the salt of Ammon—thus our term ammonia.) Along with the salt the natives shipped dates, slaves, and other merchandise arriving at their settlement by caravan from far across the Sahara.

One attraction at Siwa that Alexander would have known from Herodotus was the Spring of the Sun. The pool in the center of a grove sacred to Ammon supposedly poured forth warm water at sunrise, cool water at midmorning, and cold water at noon. As the day passed and the sun sank over the sand hills to the west, the spring would warm until it started the cycle over again at the beginning of the next day. But Alexander was in too much of a hurry to play tourist. He had marched hundreds of miles across the desert to consult the oracle of Ammon, so without even changing clothes, he marched straight to the rocky citadel at the center of the oasis where the temple of the god stood above the trees. The hill also housed the ancient dwelling of the ruling family of Siwa, with walls separating the quarters of the chieftain from those of his wives, concubines, and children. Alexander apparently took no notice of the local nobility as he climbed the citadel and walked boldly into the sanctuary of the great god Ammon.

The high priest was waiting for him there. Normally an important pilgrim would have been welcomed by a chorus of native women singing hymns to the god, who was represented not by a statue as in a Greek temple but by a little golden boat with silver cups hanging from the side. The priest had scant warning the visiting king was coming and no time to organize the usual festivities, but he wanted to make a good impression on Alexander nonetheless. He apparently knew enough Greek to converse with the occasional visitor from across the sea, but his accent made him difficult to understand. As the king’s friends stood witness outside the door of the sanctuary, the priest greeted Alexander with a paternal O paidon, meaning “O my child”—but with his sibilant pronunciation he changed the last letter so that it came out O paidos. Alexander smiled at this mistake, but saw in it a sign from the god. To the king, it sounded like O pai dios, which in Greek meant “O child of Zeus.” Alexander had wanted to know who his real father was. This slip of the tongue was his first clue.

Ptolemy and the king’s other companions waited outside as Alexander walked into the temple and shut the doors. What exactly happened next is a mystery subject to endless speculation, but what we can say with certainty is that Alexander’s experience before the oracle of Zeus-Ammon changed him profoundly. All the questions and doubts that had plagued him during his short but turbulent life were put to rest. He would later write to his mother that he had heard astonishing news in the sanctuary, but would tell her the details in person when he returned to Macedonia. Since he never did return home, the ancient reports we possess are based on words the king let slip to friends in later years or on propaganda invented by early writers. Whatever the case, the sources say that Alexander first asked if the murderers of his father had been punished. The oracle, mostly through a series of nods in response to questions from the king, indicated that it was not possible to kill his true father, since his sire was not human. But the prophet continued that Alexander could put his mind to rest since the assassins of Philip had indeed all been punished. The king now had no need to ask about his paternity since the question had already been answered, so he instead posed a final query asking if he was destined to be master of all the world. To this the oracle gave a simple but profound nod of assent. It was, as the historian Arrian says, the answer his heart most desired.

Now at last Alexander knew who he was and what destiny stretched before him. He gave splendid gifts to the priest of Zeus-Ammon as thanks and departed from the citadel. Soon he would begin to call himself a son of the god whose voice he had heard at Siwa. He would even strike coins showing the characteristic ram’s horns of the deity on the sides of his own head. He was still a man who could bleed and die like any other, but from that day forward Alexander knew a spark of the divine burned inside him.

Alexander spent little time in Siwa after his visit to the oracle. Spring was fast approaching and Darius would be waiting for him somewhere in Mesopotamia.After his sojourn in the western desert, it was imperative that he return to his army at Memphis as quickly as possible. He still needed to organize the government of Egypt and settle military affairs in the province before he departed the Nile valley. Most ancient sources say he returned the way he had come, back across the desert to Paraetonium, then on to Alexandria and up the Canopic branch of the Nile to Memphis. But Alexander’s companion Ptolemy says the king chose the shortest route directly east across the desert. This was still more than three hundred miles through some of the most desolate terrain on earth. The eastern route was the very path long used by the inhabitants of Siwa to trade with the land of the pharaohs, so it is reasonable to assume Alexander recruited several locals to act as guides. The direct route was perilous, but given Alexander’s record of taking risks, it is exactly the sort of challenge he would have relished.

With a last look back at the green valley and the temple of Zeus-Ammon, the king’s camel caravan left behind the desert paradise of Siwa and struck east toward the Nile. The trail was every bit as bleak as the route Alexander had taken from the Mediterranean coast. The men passed over barren gravel flats and towering dunes, then rode beside sandstone formations that had been eroded faster at the bottom than top, making them look like giant mushrooms springing from the desert. For the first two days after leaving Siwa there was no sign of water, so that the Macedonians must have wondered if the guides were leading them astray. But soon they found a series of small oases scattered among the sand dunes. The men of Siwa would have warned them, however, to fill their water sacks to the brim at the last pool they visited as it would be more than a hundred miles before they would again see so much as a blade of grass. The little party rose the next morning and plodded on beside the camels day after day through the sun, sand, and wind. Finally, after at least a week of trudging toward the rising sun, Alexander and his companions saw the oasis of Bahariya on the horizon.

Bahariya was the main stop on the trade route between Siwa and the Nile, but it was also an important commercial center for a string of oases stretching like a great arch through the western desert. Beyond the town the ground was black from the eroded rubble of ancient mountains, but the town itself was much like Siwa, with abundant fruit trees, grapevines, and fields of wheat. There were also hot and cold springs that Alexander must have visited to wash away the layers of dirt he had collected in the wilderness. Trade was very much on the king’s mind as he traveled throughout Africa and Asia, so he surely inquired about distant cities and valuable commodities from the merchants he met at Bahariya. In later ages, archaeologists would discover a small chapel to the cult of Alexander on the edge of town along the route leading to Memphis, a sanctuary that may have been founded on the king’s stopover by natives eager to impress the visiting sovereign.

But there was no time to linger in Bahariya for worship or relaxation. His army was waiting for him, so Alexander set out again northeast over more inhospitable desert until finally he reached the fertile valley of the Nile and the city of Memphis. The grueling journey to Siwa and back had taken at least a month, but aside from the new confidence it gave Alexander in his divine birth and ability to conquer the world, it must have been a grand adventure that the young king and his friends would remember for the rest of their lives.

Back at Memphis, there was much to do but little time remaining until Alexander had to leave Egypt. He first held a festival to honor Zeus the King, whom he now regarded as his father, and celebrated more athletic games and musical festivals for his army before the business of war was to begin yet again. Antipater, ruling in his name in Macedonia, had sent an additional force of mercenaries and Thracian cavalry to meet him on his return from Siwa, but this was fewer than a thousand men, an indication that affairs in Greece were unsettled, especially with King Agis of Sparta still causing trouble from his base in the Peloponnese. Whatever the size of the Persian army waiting for him in Mesopotamia, Alexander would have to face it with the troops he now had on hand.

New embassies from the Aegean were also waiting for him on his return. One from Miletus reported that the sacred spring at Didyma near their city that had long been dry had miraculously sprung to life. The Persians had deported the priestly Branchidae family of Didyma to central Asia years ago, but the new priests and their oracle were working overtime predicting favorable news for Alexander. They asserted that he would defeat Darius in a major victory and that the Great King would soon meet his death. Sparta, they declared, would continue in its rebellion but would fail. As soon as they heard about the king’s experience in Siwa, they suddenly remembered that their oracle had foretold the very same thing, affirming that Alexander was indeed fathered by Zeus. Not to be outdone, another delegation from the nearby Ionian town of Erythrae declared that their prophetess at the temple of Athena had also foretold that Alexander was the son of Zeus. The king realized perfectly well that these new oracular pronouncements were simply different cities trying to curry his favor, but he was willing to use them to further his own ends. If they spread the news to the Greeks that he was the child of Zeus, so much the better. Perhaps the citizens of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes would then think twice before causing him any more trouble while he was busy fighting in Asia.

The final bit of business in Egypt was the appointment of military and civilian rulers over the province. It was a tricky situation since the land along the Nile was large, heavily populated, and immensely rich. Any satrap he selected to rule would have the potential to become a mighty king in his own right if he revolted. He therefore applied the same prudent measures of dividing powers that he had used at Sardis in Lydia, but on a grander scale. To keep the native Egyptians happy, he appointed two puppet rulers, Doloaspis and Petisis, to continue the ancient forms of governance along the river valley. Petisis declined this empty honor, but Doloaspis was happy to play his part. The peasant farmers of Egypt would continue to farm the same land and pay the same taxes as they had since the time of the first pharaohs, only now the revenue would go to the Macedonian treasury. Local officials were largely kept in place. One grateful Egyptian bureaucrat named Petosiris praised Alexander in a hieroglyphic inscription as the righteous “prince of Egypt” for his actions, as opposed to the oppressive and unjust Persians who came before.

Alexander split control over the regular troops he was leaving behind between two trusted Macedonian officers, one at Memphis and the other at Pelusium. An officer from northwest Greece would command the mercenaries, but he would share power with a Macedonian who would keep a close eye on him. Watching both mercenary commanders would be two overseers reporting directly to the king. Another officer would have autonomous command of the navy, protecting the mouths of the Nile with a fleet of thirty triremes. In a further division of power, the African coast west of Egypt and the Arabian regions around the Sinai peninsula were given to separate administrators, the latter to a Greek from the colony of Naucratis named Cleomenes. There were so many different men in charge of Egypt and nearby regions that Alexander was confident it would prove impossible for any one to gain control. This would later prove a mistake, but for the present it was an effective policy.

With great fanfare, Alexander, pharaoh of Egypt, left Memphis on a spring morning sailing down the Nile to Pelusium. The event was marred only by the death of one of the king’s friends, Hector, the youngest son of general Parmenion. The youth was so excited by the festivities that he jumped in one of the smaller boats and tried to race Alexander’s trireme down the river. But the craft was top heavy with men and supplies, overturning in the river with the loss of almost everyone on board. Macedonians were not known for their swimming skill, but Hector struggled valiantly in his waterlogged clothes until he at last crawled half dead onto the riverbank. There, worn out by exhaustion, he collapsed and died. The king was genuinely heartbroken at the loss of his friend, though he had little affection for the rest of Parmenion’s family. Alexander’s last, sad memory of Egypt would be the body of young Hector burning atop a funeral pyre on the banks of the Nile.

Alexendar the great and porus

OF ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE KNOWN WORLD, THE INDIANS OF ASIA LIVE FARTHEST TO THE EAST AND THE CLOSEST TO THE RISING SUN. BEYOND INDIA IS NOTHING BUT AN UNINHABITABLE DESERT OF SAND.—HERODOTUS

Alexander’s wedding to Roxane in the seventh year of the campaign was only the first of several controversial steps the king took to unite the disparate factions of his empire as he prepared to move toward the borders of India. One of the most farsighted was his decision to train thirty thousand native youths from throughout the empire as Macedonian soldiers. This plan was motivated by necessity, since Alexander knew—even if most of his officers refused to accept the fact—that the small nation of Macedonia simply could not produce enough troops to control all the lands he had conquered and hoped to conquer yet. Like the Persians before him, the king realized that he needed to draw on the manpower of the many nations under his control to secure and expand his dominion. These selected youths would be taught the Greek language, equipped as Macedonian soldiers, and trained to fight as members of his army. They would not be foreign auxiliaries, as was common enough in the ancient world, but an integral part of the new Macedonian army, including leaders at the top levels. It was a boldly innovative plan beyond anything that had been attempted in military history. Alexander took pains to assure his current troops that this action would not lessen their importance, but they did not believe him for a minute. Anyone could see that the king was planning to turn the Macedonian army from a provincial into an international force. As the soldiers grew older and the new crop of native recruits came of age, the men who had fought with him for so long would be sent home to Macedonia with a bag of gold and a pat on the back. Their sons and grandsons would also serve under Alexander, of course, but as members of an imperial army of which Macedonians were just one part. Their future commanders would as likely be from Persia, Babylon, or India as Pella. It was a bitter blow to his loyal troops, officers and common soldiers alike, who did not share Alexander’s vision of a new world empire.

But even more disturbing to many Macedonians was the immediate problem of homage before the king, a ritual known to the Greeks as proskynesis. Herodotus says that when two Persians met on the street, it was always possible to know their respective social status by watching how they greeted each other. Equals would kiss each other on the mouth, but a man of slightly lower rank would receive a kiss on the cheek from his superior. Persons of greatly inferior standing, however, would prostrate themselves on the ground before their betters. The same ritual applied to the Great King at court, though as he was superior to all others, it was expected that everyone would fall on the ground before him except a select few. Scenes from Persian art show high-ranking officials approaching the king on his throne and blowing him a kiss with their right hands, but most supplicants—and certainly all Greeks—were expected to fall on their faces before the awesome royal glory.

To Greeks and Macedonians, such degrading behavior before any king was inconceivable. Free Greeks did not bow down before kings, but only before gods. To fall prostrate on the floor before a man was the posture of a slave before his master or a worshiper before a divinity. Even in prayer, the people of the Aegean normally stood in reverence before the image of a god with no more than a slightly bowed head. The Persians did not view proskynesis to the Great King as an act of worship, but as a profound mark of reverence and submission to royal authority. The Greeks knew this, but they could never in good conscience bring themselves to perform such obeisance when they appeared before the Persian throne. One clever Theban envoy to Persepolis had once approached the Persian king and let his ring drop to the floor, then stooped to pick it up, excusing himself in his own mind that he had simply fallen to the ground to retrieve his personal property. Some Spartan visitors to the court at Susa, however, had been more obstinate. When the royal bodyguards told them to prostrate themselves, they refused. When the guards tried to push them onto the floor, they fought back, saying it was not their custom to fall down before any mortal man. Greek resistance to this Persian ceremony was deeply ingrained in the national psyche, so that many preferred to risk death rather than submit to such degradation.

But to Persians and others at the royal court, proskynesis was a normal part of protocol. From the first time they had come before Alexander, the Persians had fallen to the ground as an act of respect, in spite of the fact that the Macedonians looked upon their performance with amusement and contempt. This created an untenable situation for Alexander. His Asian subjects regularly performed proskynesis before him and refused to change their ways, while the Greeks and Macedonians treated the ritual as an impious and degrading barbarian observance. By the time Alexander was preparing for the invasion of India, he knew he had to resolve the situation. His hope was to introduce proskynesis gradually to the Macedonians, perhaps in a modified form, so that they would come to accept it as a purely ceremonial rite with no religious connotations. Alexander had no desire to be worshiped as a god by his countrymen or even enjoy the same elaborate court rituals that traditionally surrounded the Great Kings of Persia, but it was ridiculous and divisive to have half his court performing ritual obeisance before him and the other half treating it as a bad joke.

The king’s attempt to introduce proskynesis among the Greeks and Macedonians turned out to be a miserable failure, thanks largely to the court historian Callisthenes. Callisthenes hated to lose an argument and took pride in portraying himself as the defender of liberty in the face of Oriental despotism. Many among the old guard Macedonians admired his outspoken stance in favor of tradition because he spoke what was on their own minds, but the historian mistakenly believed he was untouchable. Even Aristotle had commented that his nephew was a marvelous orator, but had no common sense.

Callisthenes sealed his fate one night at a banquet when Alexander tried to introduce a form of proskynesis acceptable to his Macedonian officers and friends. The king passed a cup of wine to his nearest dining companion, who then would bow down to a small shrine of a god conveniently located just behind the king. Each guest would then receive a kiss from Alexander and return to his place on the dining couch. When it was Callisthenes’ turn, he took the wine but did not perform proskynesis to the shrine. Alexander was busy talking with Hephaestion at the moment and did not notice, but one of his friends pointed out the omission to the king. When Alexander confronted him, Callisthenes impertinently responded that he would do without a kiss.

Alexander had arranged the death of his greatest general and his son, then killed one of his most loyal friends in a fit of anger. Callisthenes was a fool if he thought the king would hesitate to punish a mere historian for such willful insubordination. But Alexander was also shrewd and knew he could play on Callisthenes’ vanity to hasten his doom. He therefore challenged him to offer an impromptu oration in praise of Macedonian valor. Callisthenes was only too happy to comply, lauding the glories of the sons of Macedonia while they applauded and threw garlands at his feet. But then, to test his skills in a timehonored fashion taught at all Greek schools of rhetoric, the king asked him to take the opposite stand and denounce Macedonian virtue. Callisthenes took the bait and responded with gusto, decrying the faults of his hosts with biting recriminations. As Alexander’s generals did not appreciate the nuances of Greek rhetorical performance, they took the criticisms at face value and grew furious at Callisthenes. Thus with one stroke, Alexander succeeded in alienating him from his most ardent supporters. Now all he had to do was wait for the right time to silence Callisthenes forever.

The opportunity soon presented itself when one of the royal pages, a dullwitted young man named Hermolaus, concocted a plan to gain eternal fame by killing Alexander. The page had earlier offended Alexander when he killed a boar during a hunt ahead of the king, earning the boy a flogging. Hermolaus was humiliated and wanted revenge. Just as Pausanius had hoped to win fame by killing Philip years earlier, Hermolaus now wanted to make his mark on history as the assassin of a famous king. When he told some of his friends of his plan, the foolish youth was quickly betrayed and arrested. Alexander knew this was just a harebrained plot by a boy who should never have been a royal page in the first place, but he saw a perfect chance to rid himself of Callisthenes. Even though Hermolaus did not implicate the historian under torture, it was no trouble to entangle Callisthenes in the plot, given that he was friendly with all the pages. Before he knew it, Callisthenes was arrested and placed in chains with no objections from the old guard Macedonians he had so recently insulted. Some sources say he was immediately hanged, others that he died months later of disease, but all agree that his career as court historian met a fatal end on the borders of India. Nevertheless he had managed to prevent Alexander from permanently introducing the ritual of proskynesis among his Macedonian followers. In the end, the king decided it was not worth the trouble.

In the late spring of the seventh year after crossing into Asia, Alexander and his army left Bactria to begin the invasion of India. He crossed the mountains to the south in ten days, much faster than his trek north two years earlier by way of the Khawak Pass. He spent several days in the Alexandria he had founded north of the Kabul valley and replaced a governor there who had ruled poorly in his absence. It is easy to see Alexander as nothing but a general and conqueror as this is how he is usually portrayed in the ancient sources, but he spent a great deal of time fretting over the administrative details of his empire. Whether he always made wise choices is debatable. He was in the habit of choosing a governor for a city or province quickly, then replacing the appointee after he built up a glaring record of mismanagement. At Alexandria-in-the-Caucasus, he chose a solid Macedonian as the new ruler of the city, but almost as an afterthought selected a Persian named Tyriespis as satrap of the region. True to form, Alexander would replace Tyriespis two years later and execute him for corruption.

While he was still in Sogdiana, Alexander had sent messengers to the closest cities in India to summon the local kings to attend him and submit to his authority. These rulers met him as he moved east through the Kabul valley and pledged their allegiance. The ruler of the important Indian city of Taxila, just beyond the Indus River, was among them. He had no more love for Macedonians than he had for the Persians, but he saw an opportunity to use Alexander to help him defeat his enemies. To prove his sincerity to the Macedonian ruler, he presented him with twenty-five battle elephants to use in the upcoming campaign.

At this point, Alexander divided his army in two and sent Hephaestion with a considerable force along the relatively easy road east across the Khyber Pass with orders to subdue rebellious tribes along the way, and most important, to reach the Indus River as quickly as possible and build a bridge, as he had at the Euphrates, for the rest of the army to cross. The Indian kings and a large squadron of engineers accompanied his best friend on this route. Alexander himself took the remainder of the army northeast into the mountains on a circuitous trek to pacify the highland tribes of the eastern Hindu Kush. As usual, the young king delighted in taking on the most difficult tasks.

The expedition through the mountains took months of trudging over narrow trails and across raging streams. If there was an inaccessible fortress that refused to surrender to the Macedonians, Alexander took it, no matter how difficult. The records of this highland campaign tell the same story repeatedly—Alexander demanded the surrender of a town, the citizens refused, the Macedonians stormed the city after a great struggle, and the inhabitants were slaughtered. But there were variations in the routine from time to time. One day early in the march Alexander was shot in the shoulder with an arrow, adding to his many wounds. At another point he and his army were ambushed by tribesmen who charged out of nowhere just as the Macedonians were making camp for the evening, forcing them to withdraw to a nearby hill. But then Alexander struck back and pushed the warriors behind their city walls, having killed many of them. These were the toughest opponents the king faced on this campaign, but after four days of assaulting their city, he forced them to surrender and spared their lives on the condition they join his army as auxiliaries. They agreed, but when they tried to sneak away that night, the suspicious Alexander waylaid and killed them, then captured their city.

As he moved east through the towering peaks and beautiful forests of the Swat valley, the king continued to seize fortresses and force the submission of local tribes. But when he arrived at the town of Bazira, he found that the soldiers and townspeople had fled to a nearby mountain called Aornus. As with the defenders at the Sogdian Rock, the natives of the region believed this refuge was a perfect defense against invaders. It was surrounded by sheer slopes several thousand feet high with only one precipitous and well-defended path to the top. On the summit was a wide plateau suitable for growing abundant grain along with plentiful wood and a perennial water supply. The local guides with Alexander said that even Hercules had been unable to take the mountain on his travels. This was just the encouragement the king needed.

Unlike the Sogdian Rock, Aornus could not be taken by climbers but only by direct assault up the impossible path along a narrow ridge. The guides were able to lead Ptolemy and some troops to a part of the mountain that they could hold against the enemy, but the position was not secure enough for a direct attack against the main fortress. Ptolemy held the post against a fierce assault while Alexander and his engineers set to work building a road to the top. They were able to fight their way near the summit, but there was a steep ravine before the final approach that blocked their progress. The king ordered his men to cut thousands of stakes to hold the soil and began to extend a large mound of packed dirt hundreds of feet across the gap under constant fire from the defenders above. It took days of torturous effort, but at last they had constructed a narrow causeway. The astonished tribesmen sued for peace and offered to surrender the next day. But once again, the enemy tried to sneak away by night, only to find Alexander waiting for them. He killed many as they fled, while others fell over the cliffs, then the king stormed the walls and took possession of the mountain at last. Alexander was tremendously proud that he had managed to conquer a place that had defeated even Hercules.

The king turned south from Aornus and continued the march toward the Indus, finding time for a wild elephant hunt along the way. But his greatest surprise during the march came when he neared the town of Nysa. The local people and even the flora seemed strangely out of place in these mountains. The Nysians placed their dead in cedar coffins in the trees—some of which Alexander accidentally set on fire—and made wine from grapes, unlike other tribes in the area. The natives met Alexander and begged him not to harm their town as they were descendants of settlers that the god Dionysus had placed there generations before. Their prolific ivy, a plant sacred to Dionysus that grew nowhere else in the mountains, was proof they were a people blessed by the god. This was just the sort of story that appealed to Alexander. They showed the king the grove of Dionysus, covered with ivy, where Alexander and his soldiers decked themselves with wreaths and sung hymns to the god of wine. Although the divinity worshiped by the people of Nysa was more likely Shiva or another Eastern deity than a misplaced Greek god, Alexander accepted the tale and treated the natives kindly, taking their presence in those remote mountains as a sign that he had now arrived at the very limits of the ancient wanderings of Dionysus. This was proof in his mind that he was nearing the edge of the earth.

When he at last came down from the high mountains and arrived at the Indus, Alexander found that Hephaestion had finished a large pontoon bridge of boats across the wide river. On the other side was India, a mythical land barely known to the Greek world. The earliest stories of India in the West were brought back by a sailor named Scylax from Caria in Asia Minor. The first Great King Darius commissioned him almost two hundred years before Alexander to explore the Indus River in preparation for a Persian takeover. Scylax sailed down the Indus to the sea and then around the Arabian peninsula to Egypt. His work survives only in scattered fragments, but the intelligence he gathered allowed Darius to add the Indus valley to the Persian Empire as the twentieth satrapy. By the time of Alexander, Persian control of the Indus was only nominal, but Alexander considered it subject to the Great King and therefore part of the domain he had to secure.

A Greek physician also from Caria named Ctesias wrote briefly about India in a history of Persia just a few years after Scylax, drawing on the mariner’s voyage and his own examination of Indian animals brought to the Persian court. His work likewise survives only in fragments, but Alexander would have read the complete accounts of both men. The king also would have been familiar with the references to India in Herodotus. The Greek historian did not visit India as he did Egypt and Babylon, so his account is limited and even more imaginative than usual. He described India as rich in gold, contributing more to the Persian treasury than any other province, but claimed the gold was dug from the ground by ants. He related that there were many nations living along the Indus who spoke different languages and had diverse customs. Some reportedly ate only raw meat, while others would never kill any animals. Herodotus also claimed that some Indians ate the bodies of their dead fathers as a sign of respect and were disgusted when they heard that Greeks cremated their dead. But the one constant thread regarding India in Herodotus and the other sources that Alexander would have read was that the country lay at the easternmost edge of the world, separated from the great encircling ocean by only a thin strip of desert. None of the ancient writers until the time of the Macedonian invasion had any idea that India extended far beyond the Indus.

Thus Alexander approached India believing that if he could conquer the valley of the Indus, his realm would reach the limits of the inhabited world. Just a short march across the desert and he would stand on the shore of the great eastern ocean. Some Greeks even believed that this sea could be glimpsed from the summit of the Hindu Kush. It must have been when the king of the Indian city of Taxila arrived at his camp in Bactria and began to speak of his country that Alexander learned just how wrong he had been. The Indian prince would have described to him the geography of the Punjab, the land of five rivers stretching like the fingers of a hand across the northern Indus valley. But then he would have told Alexander of the lengthy Ganges River flowing through a vast land beneath the Himalayan mountains down to a large gulf. Along the banks of the Ganges were ancient, powerful, and wealthy kingdoms. To the south of the Ganges was the enormous mass of the Indian peninsula stretching out into the ocean, with the fabled island of Taprobane (Ceylon or Sri Lanka) just off the southeastern coast. The king of Taxila would also have known of another immense peninsula beyond the mouth of the Ganges extending far into the southern sea toward fabulous islands where rare spices grew. It was probably also at this meeting that Alexander became the first man from the Aegean to hear about the Seres, or silk people, who lived between two great rivers in a distant land beyond the Himalayas. It must have been disorienting in the truest sense to Alexander to discover that his vision of the lands of the East was woefully inadequate. And yet, even if the edge of the world did not lie just days beyond the Indus, the idea of a whole new world of rich lands and prosperous kingdoms must have stirred his imagination and endless ambition.

Alexander and his army crossed the Indus on the bridge Hephaestion and his engineers had constructed by lashing together dozens of boats large and small and building a roadway on top. In this region of the world, where torrential monsoon rains flooded the lands each summer, permanent bridges were impracticable. After pausing to offer sacrifices and celebrate athletic contests as thanks for a safe transit of the river, they continued south to Taxila through the low hills. They were still several days away from the city when its king sent gifts of silver, cattle, sheep, and elephants to show his goodwill. The ruler of Taxila was not the same man Alexander had met earlier in Bactria but rather his son, Omphis, as the old king had recently died. The new king had shown as much as his father every sign of cooperating with the Macedonians, having supplied Hephaestion and his work crews with grain, though he surprisingly had not left his city to greet Alexander’s friend personally.

As the Macedonians drew near to Taxila, Alexander was alarmed to see an army coming out to meet him. There were thousands of Indian troops in battle formation with decorated elephants so large they looked like moving fortresses. He immediately ordered his trumpeters to sound the call to arms and sent his cavalry to the wings to prepare for the coming attack. The surprised King Omphis saw what was happening and guessed that his grand display had been misinterpreted. He ordered his army to halt and he rode forward to meet Alexander with just a few men at his side. It was a tense moment, especially as neither king could speak the other’s language, but eventually an interpreter was found and Omphis explained that he was merely greeting his new lord in the traditional Indian manner. The Indian king pledged his loyalty to Alexander and surrendered his kingdom to him. Alexander in turn gave back Taxila and the surrounding territory to Omphis.

Alexander rode into Taxila at the head of his army and inspected a major Indian city for the first time. It was a haphazard town of rough limestone and mud-brick houses lining irregular, wandering streets—more of an overgrown village than the capital of a wealthy kingdom. Still, what was lacking in architectural grandeur was made up for by the vibrancy of the people and hospitality of his host. Omphis entertained Alexander and his officers at a banquet for three days and presented the king and his companions with more gifts, including a fortune in coined silver. Alexander graciously thanked the king, but in a gesture of royal generosity returned everything to Omphis and added silver and gold vessels, Persian robes, and an astonishing amount of gold from the treasury. This prompted one of Alexander’s Macedonian companions, Meleager, to congratulate the king for having traveled all the way to India to find a man deserving of so much money. Alexander took this sarcasm poorly, but after the death of Cleitus he had learned how to restrain himself, coldly telling Meleager that jealous men only tormented themselves. What his companion failed to appreciate was that Alexander was buying loyalty, a precious commodity in a land so far from the center of his empire. He needed to secure both Taxila and its king before he could move down the Indus. If it cost him a fraction of the vast treasure he had accumulated from the Persians, so be it.

Omphis was eager to be accommodating as he was in a permanent state of war with the neighboring kingdoms, including a powerful state to his south beyond the Hydaspes River ruled by Porus, king of an Indian people known as the Paurava. The young ruler of Taxila wanted to expand the borders of his own kingdom at the expense of Porus and was happy to use the gold and army of Alexander to accomplish his goal. His prospects seemed even more promising when an envoy Alexander had sent to Porus returned to Taxila. The Macedonian king had demanded that the Indian lord pay tribute to him and meet him at the borders of his realm when he moved south. Other local rulers had submitted, but Porus replied that he would not be giving Alexander any tribute, though he would be happy to meet him at the Hydaspes with his army ready for battle.

This was a serious blow to Alexander’s plans for a quick and peaceful march through India. His intelligence network had already informed him that Porus had a large army, including more than a hundred war elephants. Alexander was confident he could beat such an adversary, but it would not be easy, especially as the monsoon had just begun. The Macedonians didn’t mind rain, but they had never experienced anything like the deluge that poured on them from the Indian sky. Adding to their misery was the unbearable heat, creating the rare and thoroughly miserable sensation of being hot and wet at the same time. Day after day the rain continued with no respite. Streets turned to rivers, fields became lakes, and thick mud covered everything. The Indians were perfectly cheerful in the rain as the monsoon was essential for their crops, but the Macedonians began to despair that they would ever be dry again. The local people assured them that the rain would stop in a few months, but Alexander could not afford to wait that long. He appointed a Macedonian as commander of a permanent military garrison at Taxila—just in case Omphis wavered, in spite of the gold—and led his very wet army to the Hydaspes River.

Alexander and his soldiers marched south over a low range of mountains for several days until they suddenly came to a pass leading down to the plain of the Hydaspes. From this gap they first saw the vast Punjab plain, an utterly flat landscape stretching south and east all the way to the Ganges River. Below they could see the Hydaspes River, almost a mile wide, fast-moving and swollen by both the monsoon and the melting snows of the Himalayas. Porus was on the far side of this flood with an army smaller than that of Alexander, but the Indian ruler knew the territory well and possessed many trained elephants that would terrify any horses that approached.

Alexander took one look at the Hydaspes and sent Coenus back to the Indus to dismantle the pontoon bridge that Hephaestion had built and bring the boats to him in pieces. Meanwhile the king made camp on the north bank of the river and considered how he might cross such a stream undetected by Porus. He had to find a spot along the river that was out of view of the southern shore. After days of searching, his scouts located a likely place several miles to the east near where a ridge of mountains approached the Hydaspes. Across from this headland was a large island in the river surrounded by several smaller islands, all covered with thick trees that hid the north shore from the troops of Porus, constantly patrolling the opposite side. Alexander realized this was the perfect location to launch his amphibious assault, but he had to make sure the Indian king didn’t know the attack would come so far to the east. To keep Porus guessing,Alexander ordered units of his army to move back and forth along the northern shore for many miles. He would shift troops to the west, then the east, then back again to his main camp. The Macedonians also built campfires along the river and made a point of being noisy as they went about their duties. The Indian troops across the Hydaspes were driven to distraction by this constant motion and eventually gave up trying to keep track of every movement of the Macedonian soldiers—just as Alexander intended. The king also ordered tons of grain from the surrounding countryside transported to his camp as if he planned to stay there until the autumn when the rain would stop and the river subside. He also announced to his troops—and to the Indian spies among them—that they would wait at least two months to move across the river. When Porus heard the report, he was unconvinced, but Alexander was not seeking to deceive the king as much as he was to keep him off balance.

When the ships were at last ready, Alexander left Craterus in charge of the main camp opposite Porus with a strong force and orders not to move unless the Indian king shifted east to the site of the upcoming crossing. Then in darkness Alexander led his toughest troops silently upriver to the embarkation point. He must have felt the heavens favored him as the normally steady showers had turned into a violent storm. The crashing of thunder and the pounding rain covered the noise made by the Macedonians as they prepared to launch the boats, though several were reportedly killed by lightning.

Thousands of troops slipped into the boats and began to paddle across the raging river and around the large island as best they could. When at last they reached land, they poured out of the landing craft ready to face Porus, only to find that in the darkness they had not reached the southern bank but one of the many smaller islands in the river. It was an absolute disaster as the storm was now breaking and the sun rising, leaving the Macedonians visible to the Indian scouts. With no time to lose, Alexander ordered his men into the deep channel separating them from the southern bank. The heavily armored soldiers were up to their necks in swift water and the cavalry horses could barely swim through the current, but at last they struggled out of the river onto land.

At this point word reached Porus that a large force of Macedonians was crossing several miles to the east, leaving the Indian king with a difficult decision. He could see that many of the enemy were still directly across from him in Alexander’s camp. Was the eastern attack a ploy to draw him away so that the western force could cross and attack him from behind, or was it in fact the main thrust of the assault, outflanking him to the east? There was no time to send out more scouts, so Porus ordered his son upriver with a chariot brigade to prevent the landing if possible or delay it if not. Then he followed with the main force of his army, leaving only a small detachment with a few elephants behind to hinder the remaining Macedonians from crossing.

Porus was a brave and capable leader, but he was in an impossible situation. Outnumbered, he now found himself facing Alexander’s superbly trained troops, who were so tired of being wet and miserable that they were ready to massacre every Indian they found. The one advantage Porus had was his elephants, who just as Alexander feared caused havoc among his cavalry and trampled his men. But by now the Macedonians had developed a defense against these creatures. Although it cost the lives of many of their countrymen, Alexander’s troops would encircle an elephant and stab it with their long sarissa spears while the archers shot out its eyes. Then the maddened and blinded beast would charge wildly, as likely at friends as foes.

Alexander surveyed the Indian battle order and decided to deploy a classic envelopment tactic to surround the enemy troops. He sent his cavalry to the left and right with orders to come up behind the Indians while the main army attacked from the front. It was a brutal battle waged savagely in mud and blood with heavy casualties on both sides. At one point, Alexander was riding Bucephalas when the old horse was struck by a spear and mortally wounded. The king was too busy to mourn, so he switched to another mount and continued the fight. When the Indian lines began to break, Craterus quickly crossed the river and came up behind to cut off the Indians’ retreat.

Only Porus continued the fight from the back of his giant elephant. Alexander so admired the man’s courage that he sent a messenger to the king begging him to surrender and be spared. Unfortunately the envoy was Omphis of Taxila, whom Porus bitterly hated and tried to kill with a spear. Then Alexander sent another messenger who at last persuaded the Indian king to lay down his arms. As the two rulers met, the elephant Porus was riding knelt down in spite of its wounds to allow the king to dismount. Alexander approached Porus and marveled at the stature of the man, more than six feet in height, as well as his regal bearing even in defeat. Alexander asked how he would like to be treated, to which Porus replied, “Like a king.” The victor allowed him to retire from the field to seek medical treatment, then gave him back his kingdom, even adding nearby lands, much to the chagrin of Omphis. The Macedonians held funeral rites for their dead, offered sacrifices, and celebrated athletic games on the banks of the Hydaspes in honor of their costly victory. Then, in memory of Bucephalas, Alexander founded a city near the site of the battle and named it for his beloved horse.

Alexander meanwhile sent a work party into the mountains to cut wood for ships. His plan was to build a great navy and sail down the Hydaspes to the Indus, then follow the river to the sea, subduing kingdoms along the way. As this grand construction project would take weeks if not months, the king announced to his men that in the meantime they would invade eastern India. His army still must have believed that the great sea lay just over the horizon, even though by now Alexander had learned the true extent of the Indian subcontinent. The problem was once again how to keep the troops moving. This was especially challenging as the monsoon was still raging as they moved into a region where the ground was so thick with snakes that the men took to sleeping in hammocks like the locals. Yet the king marched on with his loyal but increasingly disgruntled troops behind him.

The westernmost tributary of the Ganges was two hundred miles away, while the mouth of that great river system lay more than a thousand miles to the east. Still Alexander was determined to lead his army all the way to the Ganges delta, taking the rich kingdoms along its banks. His first stops were the cities near the borders of Porus, thirty-seven towns in the shadow of the Himalayan mountains. He conquered these easily enough and gave them to Porus as part of his expanded kingdom. Then he advanced to the Acesines, one of the largest and swiftest rivers of the Punjab. He loaded his troops onto their transportable boats and launched out into the stream, only to find that the current ripped many of the craft to shreds, drowning a number of his men. Afterward he moved forward to the Hydraotes River, just as broad as the Acesines but not as swift. The natives on the far bank put up only token resistance, then submitted to the Macedonians. But beyond the Hydraotes was the land of the Cathaeans, a warlike tribe with the city of Sangala as their capital. The Macedonians heard tales that the Cathaean widows were encouraged rather forcefully to burn themselves alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands, a suttee ritual reportedly initiated after one local woman poisoned her husband. These Indians placed wagons in front of their city to block the Macedonian charge and manned their walls to shower arrows and spears on the attackers. But Alexander’s men were finally able to break through the brick walls and take the city by storm, aided by Porus, who had recently arrived with a brigade of elephants.

The king of the next country along the sodden march was Sopeithes, who wisely surrendered before the Macedonians drew near to his capital. Alexander gave him back his kingdom to govern in his name, then enjoyed the hospitality of the Indian ruler for the next few days. The unusual customs of the country surely reminded Alexander of Spartan society or the ideal city laid out in Plato’s Republic. At birth, the children in the kingdom of Sopeithes were separated into two groups, the most fit and beautiful of which were carefully reared, while the rest were killed. As the survivors grew, they were placed in arranged marriages with those mates that would likely produce the finest offspring for the state. Sopeithes was also proud of the hounds raised in his land and gave Alexander more than a hundred of these animals, so fierce they were said to have tiger’s blood in their veins. To prove this to his guest, the Indian king staged a fight pitting four of the dogs against a full-grown lion. The canines were winning when Sopeithes sent a servant in to cut off the right leg of one of the dogs that had a death grip on the lion. Alexander rose up to object, but the hound did not even flinch as its leg was severed, keeping its jaws clamped on its prey even while it slowly bled to death.

By now, after weeks of fighting their way across the Punjab, the evervictorious Macedonians were starting to feel like Sopeithes’ dog. Alexander pushed them on to the kingdom of Phegeus on the Hyphasis, the last of the great rivers of the Punjab. This Indian ruler also submitted and received back his throne, much to the relief of Alexander’s soldiers, who had no desire for another battle in the rain. Alexander questioned Phegeus about the country ahead and learned there was a wide desert to the east, followed by a deep river leading to the Ganges. Beyond this was the great kingdom of the Gandaridae ruled by Xandrames, who reportedly possessed two hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and four thousand war elephants. Alexander couldn’t believe these numbers, so he sent for Porus and questioned him separately. Porus assured his new lord that the report was accurate, adding, however, that Xandrames was a lowly born son of a barber who had seized his throne through treachery and murder. This news only fired the desire of Alexander to march on and conquer lands no other Western ruler, not even the Great Kings of Persia, had dared to dream of. He reminded himself that the oracle at Delphi had said he was unbeatable and that Zeus-Ammon at Siwa had confirmed his rule over the whole world.

Alexander was so excited that he led his troops down to the banks of the Hyphasis to begin the crossing to the other side. He launched into a magnificent speech extolling the bravery of his fine Macedonians and their allies, enticing them with promises of spoils from the rich cities that lay ahead. There were armies and elephants to the east, of course, but they were nothing compared with what they had already overcome. Eight years ago, the king declared, we crossed the Hellespont together, then conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Bactria, Sogdiana, and more. We have marched ten thousand miles and accomplished the impossible. There is no limit to what men of noble spirit can accomplish. All of Asia lies within our grasp if we press on a little farther. The eastern sea is there, just beyond the horizon, waiting for us to bathe our feet in its waters. Then we can return home, knowing that our new empire is secure and rejoicing that our names will live forever. Of course, if you want to stop here, you certainly can. You may run home and tell your children that you deserted your king in a distant land. But as for myself, I will go on even if I march alone. But those who come with me to the fabulously wealthy lands ahead will be the envy of all when they return home to live like kings.

This sort of speech had always worked for Alexander before, so he waited in anticipation for the rousing cheers he knew would follow. But to his surprise, there was a complete silence as his men hung their heads, not daring even to raise their eyes to look at their king. At last Coenus, Alexander’s most senior surviving general, who had served him so faithfully as he had his father, Philip, before him, rose to speak. The old soldier spoke for the entire army when he told Alexander that they had been honored to follow him for so long amid all the toils and dangers they had faced together. But now they were exhausted and their spirits broken. So many of their friends had died, so many of those who survived bore the scars of battle. Their own clothing had worn away long ago so that now they were forced to wear Persian and Indian garments beneath their armor. They wanted to see their parents, if they were still alive, and to embrace their wives and children once more. He urged the king to return to Macedonia with them and lead back a new generation of soldiers, young men to follow him to the glorious victories that surely lay ahead. But as for themselves, they could go no farther.

Now a great cheer rose up from the army in support of Coenus as the men openly wept at the thought of going home. Alexander, however, was so furious that he dismissed the assembly and stormed off to his tent, not seeing even his closest friends for three days. He waited for his men to change their minds and come to him as they had in the past, begging him to forgive them, swearing that they would follow him to the ends of the earth—but no one came. At last the king had to accept that his dream of marching down the Ganges was dead. To save face, he held a public sacrifice to seek the counsel of heaven. After examining the entrails before them, the soothsayers wisely declared that the omens were poor for crossing the river. Alexander then stood before the army once again and declared that he would not fight the will of the gods as well as his men. They were all going home.

Before he left the Hyphasis, Alexander ordered his army to erect twelve towering altars, one for each of the Olympian gods. These were in thanksgiving to the gods for having carried him so far, but also as lasting memorials to his own accomplishments. Some stories say he also constructed an enormous fort with beds more than seven feet long and feeding troughs twice the normal sie so that future generations of Indians would think the Macedonians and their horses were giants.

With a last wistful look to the east, Alexander began the long march back to Macedonia. They were still on the northern edge of India, more than a hundred miles from the fleet being readied on the Hydaspes. After that it was a voyage of almost six hundred miles to the sea. Alexander’s plan was to conquer the remaining tribes of the Indus valley on his journey rather than return by way of Bactria. He must have used considerable charm and persuasion to convince his officers and troops that the fastest road home lay to the south. From a military point of view, it also made perfect sense to complete the conquest of western India. From the Indus delta he would send his fleet along the coast to rendezvous in Persia with the army he would be leading overland. This would close the great circle the king had begun when he left Persepolis four years earlier to chase Darius, but also give him the opportunity to establish a trade route between his provinces in India and the rest of the empire. What the troops did not know— and Alexander himself did not realize—was that some of the toughest fighting of the long campaign still lay ahead, as well as one of the most grueling desert marches in military history.

The journey back to the Hydaspes was uneventful, aside from the surrender of a few remaining Indian kings who decided that fighting was unnecessary now that the Macedonians were withdrawing. Alexander was also pleased with the arrival of a sizeable group of reinforcements who had journeyed all the way from Greece to join his army. These included thirty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry, along with wagonloads of medical supplies and twenty-five thousand sets of armor inlaid with gold and silver from his treasurer Harpalus.These were much appreciated by the men, whose original armor was falling apart. A sad note was struck by the sudden death of old Coenus. In spite of the timing, it is likely that he died of natural causes. In fact it may have been a sense of his approaching demise that had given Coenus the courage to face down Alexander at the Hyphasis.

When the army arrived back at the Hydaspes, the king was thrilled to see that the fleet was ready. There were more than a thousand ships prepared for the voyage, including large warships, horse transports, and cargo vessels. Alexander recruited the seafaring Phoenicians, Cypriots, Carians, and Egyptians in the army to serve as sailors and appointed his boyhood friend Nearchus as admiral. A few days later at dawn when everything was finally in order, Alexander sacrificed to Zeus and Hercules as well as to many other gods, including the divine powers ruling the rivers of India. He poured libations into the Hydaspes from a golden bowl, much as he had done in the middle of the Hellespont before crossing to Troy. There was not enough room on the ships for most of the army, so Alexander sent Hephaestion and Craterus to lead the rest of the men on opposite banks following the fleet. These two companions of the king had developed an intense mutual hatred and had even drawn swords on each other once, so Alexander considered it prudent to keep a river between them.

The departure was a great ceremony, with the ships moving in perfect formation down the wide stream with the sound of drums and oars striking the water. The local Indians had never seen such a spectacle and were especially impressed by the sight of horses riding in boats. The locals all came down to the banks to cheer the Macedonians and sing songs in celebration. Alexander was deeply touched by the beautiful farewell the Indians were giving him, taking it as a sign of their affection, but they were undoubtedly thrilled to see him and his army sailing away.

The first few days of the voyage south along the Hydaspes provided Alexander with a welcome opportunity to relax. With thousands of miles of marching behind him and constant life-or-death decisions to make, it was a rare luxury to sit on a ship gently drifting down a river in India. He passed some of the time listening to his old friend Aristobulus reading from a history of the expedition he was composing. The Greek writer was reciting aloud from a recent section he had composed on the battle against Porus. In his version, Alexander fought in glorious single combat with the Indian king and personally killed his elephant with a spear. The king grabbed the book and threw it into the river, saying he should toss overboard the man who wrote such nonsense as well.

After five days the Macedonian fleet came to the confluence of the Hydaspes and Acesines. Here the two wide, gently flowing rivers entered a single, narrow channel that produced swift currents and turbulent whirlpools. The sailors were accustomed to storms on the Mediterranean, but no one, least of all Alexander, had any experience running rapids. The small round ships used for transport managed well enough as they twisted and turned in the stream, but the larger warships were tossed like corks. They quickly turned sideways and ran into one another as their oars snapped off. Men that had faced barbarian warriors and trumpeting elephants with determined silence screamed in terror as they were thrown into the river, with many drowning in the roiling water. Alexander himself panicked when his flagship hit the rapids. He threw off his clothes and jumped naked into the swirling eddies even though he had never learned to swim. His friends leapt in after him and pulled him to shore, thankful they had been able to save his life. The king was so grateful to the gods for having spared him that he sacrificed to them as if he had just won a deadly battle. After a little rest he was even able to joke about the experience, boasting that he had now won a contest of strength against a river, just like his hero Achilles in the Trojan War.

After they had repaired the damaged ships, Alexander sent Nearchus ahead to the next river juncture while the king and most of the army marched overland to the realm of the Malli, one of the most feared tribes of the Punjab. These Indians had prepared for the arrival of the Macedonians by river, but in typical fashion Alexander snuck up on them from behind by crossing a waterless desert at night. He struck their first city by surprise while the few soldiers were relaxing outside the town, then stormed the walls and seized the citadel, killing all two thousand natives who had taken refuge there. Those few that had escaped to the nearby marshes were hunted down and slaughtered. A second and third city followed, with Alexander bravely—or recklessly—climbing the first ladder to reach the walls and personally leading the fight against the defenders.

The remaining Malli had all fled to the strongest of their cities to make a final stand against the invaders. Alexander arrived at the town near sunset and told his troops to rest in preparation for an assault at dawn. He divided his troops into two forces, leading the first himself and entrusting the second to his companion Perdiccas. The Indians were so terrified at the approaching army that they deserted their posts and retreated to the inner citadel of the city, leaving the outer walls unguarded. Most of the Macedonians thought they had taken the whole town as they poured through the gates only to see the natives holding a much stronger position at the central fortress. The soldiers tried to find a way into the citadel, but failed to breach the walls. Alexander soon became frustrated and grabbed a ladder himself, held his shield in front of him, and began to mount the wall. His attendant Peucestas went up behind him, carrying the sacred shield the king had taken from the temple of Athena at Troy. He was followed by two more men, Leonnatus his bodyguard—whom he had sent to console the women of Darius after the battle of Issus—and Abreas, a common soldier.

Alexander reached the top of the wall and stood there fighting off Malli defenders while his three companions scaled the ladder behind him. The rest of the soldiers below were so ashamed that they had allowed themselves to be left behind that they all clambered up the ladder at once, breaking it under their weight. This left the king and the three others who had made it to the top in a desperate struggle. Rather than remain a perfect target poised on top of the wall, Alexander decided to cast caution to the wind and jumped into the city. When the soldiers outside saw him disappear, they were horrified. Out of their sight, Alexander positioned himself with his back to a large tree and stabbed anyone who approached him. After he killed several defenders, the Malli backed away and formed a semicircle around him just out of sword range. The king then picked up stones lying on the ground and hurled them at anyone who dared to draw near. The natives countered by grabbing their own rocks and throwing them back.

At this point, the three companions who had made it to the top of the wall with Alexander saw what was happening and leapt down themselves into the fray to defend the king. Abreas was killed almost immediately by an arrow in the face. Then Alexander was struck by an arrow shot at close range that penetrated his armor and went into his chest, puncturing a lung. He continued to defend himself, but he was bleeding so profusely and struggling so hard to breathe that he collapsed onto the ground. Leonnatus took up position on one side of the king while Peucestas held the Trojan shield above him to ward off the stones and arrows that rained down on them.

The Macedonians outside the walls were meanwhile frantically trying to find a way into the citadel. Some stuck pegs into the mud bricks and climbed the wall like a mountain cliff. Others stood on the shoulders of their comrades to reach the top, while more pushed on the gate until the bar holding it finally snapped. When they at last reached Alexander, they found him in a pool of blood beneath the tree with Peucestas still standing over him. The soldiers were not an educated lot, but they knew battlefield injuries and could see that the king was critically, perhaps mortally, wounded. In their fury they turned against the Malli inside the citadel and cut down every man, woman, and child.

Alexander was carried to his nearby ship, where some sources report that Critodemus, a physician from the Greek island of Cos and a descendant of the legendary healer Asclepius, removed the arrow. Others say that no doctor was available, so that Perdiccas cut out the projectile with his knife. In either case, the king began to hemorrhage profusely when the arrow was finally removed and slipped into unconsciousness. Rumors ran through the army that Alexander was dead, so that wailing and lamentation echoed through the camp. Once again the men began to wonder who could lead them home if the king died. Deep in enemy territory as far from Macedonia as anyone could imagine, the situation seemed hopeless to the distraught soldiers. As the days passed with no word, the army fell into despair. Finally the command staff announced that the king was alive and would soon make an appearance, though most of the men thought this was a lie to cover up the fact that Alexander had already died. Then at last the curtains on the ship opened and the army watched as the motionless body of the king was carried on a litter down the ramp. He seemed dead to all who were standing on the shore, but the moment the litter reached the bank Alexander held up his hand and waved to the crowd. Shouts and cries were raised to heaven while some of the toughest fighters in the world broke down and wept like little children at the sight of their king still alive. Alexander’s officers had brought another litter to transfer him to the dock, but instead the king ordered a horse led forward. In what must have been one of the most courageous acts of his life, the still gravely injured king pushed his friends away and climbed slowly up onto his horse to reassure his men that he was fine. The army was beside itself with joy, clapping in unison and showering Alexander with the fresh flowers that were blooming all around them. Men strained to touch even the hem of his garment as he rode through the ranks. Then with the greatest of efforts, he dismounted and walked under his own power into his tent to collapse onto his bed.

Once he had regained some of his strength, his officers began to chide him that his performance on the wall was a brave but foolish act for a king. It was not the job of a commander, they said, to risk his life in such a way when there were plenty of men in the army who could do the same thing. Alexander did not know how to tell his friends that for him such actions were an essential part of being a king. Faced with such criticism, he walked out of his tent into the camp. A grizzled veteran from Boeotia in central Greece who had heard about the rebukes of Alexander’s companions approached him. The man looked the king straight in the eye and said just a few words in his rural dialect—“Alexander, brave deeds are what true men do.” The king embraced the old soldier and considered him a friend for the rest of his life.

Alexander’s often brutal campaign in India did not hinder his ongoing fascination with native religions. As early as his visit to Taxila he had gathered together Indian wise men to question them about their beliefs. The king was fortunate to visit a land with such a rich collection of religious traditions. Some aspects of Indian religion, such as belief in a multitude of gods, would have been familiar to anyone from the Mediterranean world, but many of the ideas he encountered would have been quite puzzling to Alexander.

Followers of the native Jain tradition sought to release the soul from the cycle of pain and reincarnation through the practice of asceticism. The most devout became monks who wandered naked through the land owning nothing but a small pot for washing. All Jains sought to follow the teachings of masters from the past who had achieved enlightenment. The latest had been Mahavira, a former warrior who lived along the Ganges two centuries before Alexander. Other Indians were devotees of a teacher named Siddhartha Gautama, who had lived near the Himalayas at about the same time as Mahavira. Siddhartha had been born a prince, but had abandoned his previous life when he first encountered old age, disease, and death. Underneath a bodhi tree he gained enlightenment and release from the cycle of rebirth, becoming the Buddha— literally “the one who is awake”—and devoting himself thereafter to guiding his followers along the path of escape from suffering and rebirth. There were also many religious traditions known under the collective term of Hinduism that traced their origins to the arrival of the Aryan tribes in India many centuries before. These invaders brought with them the hymns of the Vedas and many gods similar to the Persian pantheon, but their beliefs were also shaped by contact with the rich traditions of the natives they met in their new land. Hindus worshiped Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva, and many other deities, but shared with Jains and Buddhists the desire to attain release from the endless cycle of reincarnation.

To Alexander, the teachings of these spiritual masters—lumped together by the Greeks as gymnosophistai, or “naked wise men”—seemed most like those of Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher, whom Alexander had met living in his jar in Corinth ten years earlier. One story tells how Alexander met a group of these religious teachers living under the open sky in a meadow. When he approached them, they stood and beat their feet on the ground. Alexander asked them through an interpreter what this action meant and was told that each man alive holds no more earth than he stands on. They urged him to remember that even though he was busy conquering the world, one day he too would die and possess no more land than that which held his bones.

Two of the most venerated Indian religious teachers in the region were Dandamis and Calanus, who each lived quietly by themselves in the forest. Alexander sent Onesicritus—a follower of Diogenes and one of his resident philosophers on the campaign—to find and question them. Dandamis received his visitor warmly and asked about famous Greek philosophers. Onesicritus explained the teachings of Socrates, Diogenes, and Pythagoras (who also believed in reincarnation) to Dandamis, but the wise man said that although each had his good points, they seemed too concerned about following rules. When Onesicritus reached Calanus, the Indian teacher yelled at him to take off his clothes and sit naked before him or he would say nothing, even if Zeus himself sent him. Onesicritus did so and listened to his teachings, then persuaded Calanus to return with him to visit Alexander. When he arrived, the king asked him how best to govern an empire. The holy man threw an ox hide on the ground and pressed down on one edge, only to have another rise up. Then he stood in the center so that the whole hide lay flat—the lesson being that Alexander should stay close to the center of his realm and not wander about the borders. The king was so impressed by Calanus that he invited him to accompany him on the remainder of the expedition. Although the other Indian wise men disapproved of such involvement in secular affairs, Calanus accepted his invitation.

Alexander ordered even more boats constructed during his convalescence to carry his troops the remainder of the journey down to the sea. When these were ready, he once again loaded thousands of his men on board while the rest marched along the banks. The wide Acesines was joined a few days later by the Hyphasis flowing in from the east, then at last the fleet entered the Indus. At this final juncture of the rivers, the king founded another Alexandria with expectations that it would one day grow into a city known throughout the world. He constructed dockyards and laid out streets, then left behind troops to garrison the new metropolis, including many veterans from the mountains of Thrace who would live out their lives far from home on the banks of the Indus.

The army then drifted along the broad plains for several weeks in relative peace until it came at last to the kingdom of Musicanus just above the Indus delta. This local king surrendered and once again Alexander gave him back his realm to rule in his name. Things did not go so well, however, at a nearby land ruled by a king named Sambus. One of his towns was a holy center of the Brahmins, the priestly caste of India. These religious leaders urged resistance against the Macedonians and sent warriors into battle with weapons smeared with a poison derived from dried snake venom. The drug caused sharp pains, convulsions, and a horrible, lingering death. The king’s friend Ptolemy was one of the many dying from the poison when Alexander reportedly had a vision of a local plant that could counteract the drug. He plastered it on Ptolemy’s body, then ground up the rest in a drink for his friend, which cured him. Alexander continued the war against the city of the Brahmins, who had now been joined by Musicanus, sensing that the Macedonians were at a disadvantage. Alexander quickly dispelled this notion by storming the city and hanging Musicanus and the leading Brahmins as rebels.

At last the army arrived at the city of Patala, where the Indus split into two branches, both flowing through an enormous delta into the great southern sea. The king found the city deserted, but was eventually able to persuade the local inhabitants of his goodwill so that they returned from hiding in the nearby countryside. Here Alexander split his army into three parts. The first, under Craterus, would march northwest overland back to Kandahar and join Alexander in Persia. He would take with him all the elephants and the Macedonian veterans soon to be decommissioned. The second group, under Nearchus, would sail the fleet along the coast all the way to the Persian Gulf once the winds were favorable. The king himself would lead the main force of the army back to Persepolis by a southern route through the Gedrosian desert.

Though he was nearing the end of his Indian campaign, Alexander could not resist one final bit of exploration. He sailed down one branch of the Indus and anchored not far from the ocean. There the king and his men received a shock when over a period of just a few hours the sea surged many feet and damaged their ships. Alexander had never heard of tides. In the Mediterranean, the sea rose and fell each day only a few inches at best, so even educated men had no idea that along a sea coast the water could ebb and flow so rapidly. But after repairing his ships and bracing himself for the twice-daily repetition of this strange phenomenon, he continued his journey down to an island called Cilluta at the mouth of the river. From there he proceeded to another island in view of the open sea. Alexander and his men gazed in wonder at the vast ocean before them—a sight few from the Aegean world had ever beheld. But this was not enough for the king. Taking a single ship, he sailed many miles out into the ocean to see if there were any more lands to conquer. When he was finally convinced that nothing lay beyond, he sacrificed to Poseidon and cast a golden bowl into the waters in thanksgiving to the gods for having brought him to the very edge of the world.

Alexendar the great Gallery

      The  sarissa  spear  formation  used  by  Philip and  Alexander.  The  exceptionally  long  spears               prevented  attackers  from  reaching  the  Macedonian  troops.

Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods, as viewed from Dion in northern Greece. In the fields of Dion, Alexander tamed his horse Bucephalas

The Acropolis of Athens, which Alexander visited when he was eighteen years old. Athena’s great temple, the Parthenon, stands at the center.

The tomb of Philip at Vergina in northern Greece. Archaeological excavations have revealed magnificent jewelry and weapons deposited here.

The ruins of Troy, Alexander’s first stop in Asia, in modern Turkey.

The dedicatory inscription to Athena from the temple at Priene near the Turkish coast of the Aegean dating to around 330 B.C. It is one of the few surviving documents from Alexander’s lifetime that mention him by name. (The top line reads: “King Alexander.”)

              

The harbor and town of Halicarnassus, modern Bodrum in southwest Turkey. Alexander’s defeat of this key city opened Asia Minor to his army.

                 The Phoenician town of Tyre on the coast of modern Lebanon, which Alexander took                    after a brutal siege in 332 B.C. The causeway built by Alexander’s army became the isthmus still                                                               connecting the city to the mainland.

The Alexander mosaic from Pompeii. Bareheaded Alexander on the left raises his spear to strike down King Darius on his chariot with outstretched hand at the battle of Gaugamela in northern Iraq.

The pyramids of Giza.When Alexander visited Egypt in 332 B.C., these massive monuments were almost as old to him as he is to us.

The palace of Darius at Persepolis in modern Iran, capital of the Persian Empire, taken and burned by Alexander in 330 B.C.

Coin celebrating the victory of Alexander over the Indian king Porus on the Hydaspes River in 326 B.C. Alexander is riding Bucephalas to attack Porus as he retreats on his elephant.

Coin c. 300 B.C. minted by Lysimachus, one of the generals who divided the empire, showing Alexander with horns of the god Zeus-Ammon. Only twenty years after his death, Alexander was already becoming a god.