[6]

The Road to Issus

AT the outset of his campaign, how far ahead had Alexander planned, and how clear-cut were the policies which he envisaged? This is a perennially debated point, to which there can be no final answer. At one time it was fashionable to credit him with ‘firm long-range intentions and sweeping general policies’; now it is more commonly accepted that ‘he almost certainly had no idea how far he would go or what the end would be’.¹ But the Persian Empire, as he well knew, was a vast conglomeration, stretching from the Red Sea to the Caspian, from the Hellespont to beyond the Hindu Kush. Whatever else Alexander had in mind he must have intended to defeat (if not to replace) Darius; and this alone, granted the resources at the Great King's disposal, was liable to prove a gigantic undertaking. Perhaps the simple truth of the matter (to quote his most percipient critic once more) is that ‘like other men with full faith in their individual star, he was ready to follow it wherever it should lead‘.²

This would also account for his flexible attitude towards administration, racial problems, political systems, and military strategy. A man whose one overriding belief is in his own destiny will not be doctrinaire in other matters. All else must be subservient to that one glittering goal. The true obsessional conqueror tends, paradoxically, towards indiscriminate opportunism tempered with propaganda, a phenomenon which Alexander's career amply illustrates. Nothing, in fact, offers a clearer demonstration of his attitude, as we shall see, than the way in which he proceeded to deal with the Greek cities in Asia Minor.

The Hellenic League had been created, in the last resort, as a bulwark against subversive behaviour by the city-states of the mainland. There democracy was the danger, and Antipater in Europe had a free hand to deal with it by imposing tyrants, oligarchiesand garrisons. In Asia Minor, on the other hand — conveniently for Alexander — Darius' Greek appointees tended, more often than not, to be oligarchs. This suited Callisthenes' Panhellenic propaganda-line very well indeed. Ostensibly at least, Alexander was pursuing a liberation policy; besides, it was vital that he should not have trouble along his ever-lengthening lines of communication. So in this context (though assuredly for no idealistic motives) his European policy had to be reversed: he overthrew oligarchies or tyrannies and set up democracies in their place. He seems to have had no ideological convictions whatsoever (apart from a determination to shape the world in his own image), and in fact always underestimated those who did. Any instrument that would serve his one compelling ambition he used without scruple.

After the battle Alexander appointed Calas — who already had experience of the area — as governor of Hellespontine Phrygia in Arsites' place. He also offered a general amnesty to those who had fled and taken refuge in the hills. What this meant, in effect, was that the old system continued as before, except that Phrygia had a Macedonian satrap rather than a Persian one: Alexander even instructed Calas ‘to maintain the taxes at the same level as before’. Zeleia was occupied, and Alexander took no sanctions against its inhabitants, affecting to believe that it was only through coercion that they had fought on the Persian side. Collaboration, in fact, was to be made more attractive than resistance. Parmenio marched on Dascylium (Eskili) and took it without difficulty, since the Persian garrison had fled before he got there.³

Alexander lost no time in getting rid of the league forces which accompanied him — another ironic gloss on his role as leader of a Panhellenic crusade. Philip, son of Menelaus, who commanded the allied cavalry, had been killed at the Granicus. The king now appointed Alexander of Lyncestis in his place, and left not only the cavalry but all the league troops, except the Argives, to police Phrygia under Calas' command. News now came in that the shattered remnants of the Persian army, Memnon among them, had retreated down the coast to Miletus, and Alexander promptly marched south in pursuit of them.⁴ He did not, however, take the coast road himself, but went south through Mysia. His initial destination was Sardis, capital of the Lydian satrapy, ‘bulwark of the barbarian dominion on the seacoast’, and a city of great strategic importance, standing as it did at the head of the Royal Road to Susa.

While he was still some nine miles off, the Persian governor of Sardis, Mithrines, accompanied by a group of leading citizens, came out to meet him. Mithrines offered to surrender not only Sardis itself, but also its acropolis and the treasure stored there.Alexander's victory at the Granicus was beginning to pay off in a gratifyingly literal way.⁵ The Macedonian army pitched camp on the River Hermus, a little less than three miles outside the city-walls. Alexander, perhaps suspecting a trap, kept Mithrines with him, and sent an advance party to receive the surrender of the garrison. Everything went off smoothly, and Alexander proceeded to make his arrangements for the administration of Lydia: they repay study.⁶

To govern the satrapy in Spithridates' stead he chose Parmenio's brother Asander: an honour, on the face of it, but the fewer of the old marshal's relatives Alexander had around him, we may surmise, the happier he would feel. As commandant of the fortress he appointed Pausanias, one of his Companions, and gave him as garrison troops the sole remaining allied Greek detachment, that of the Argives. Another slate was thus wiped clean. He also created a separate department to collect taxes and tribute: its first chief finance officer was a Macedonian named Nicias. Lydia's riches were proverbial, and Alexander had no intention of concentrating too much power in too few hands. The other occasions on which he made such an appointment were in Egypt and Babylon: both, it may be noted, provinces of great wealth, and both garrisoned with a military commander in addition to a civilian satrap. In all cases, it is clear, the finance officer was directly responsible to the king, by-passing his fellow-administrators.

Alexander's motives can scarcely be in doubt. He may have wanted to improve financial administration, both for his own benefit and that of his new subjects; but his prime aim, as Griffith points out, was ‘to check and limit the powers of the satrap by removing from him the control of the revenues of his province’. Again, Alexander left existing institutions alone as far as possible; he did not, for instance, use the local mint to strike his own currency, a practice which only began — for propaganda motives in the first instance — when he reached Tarsus. He also permitted the citizens of Sardis, and of Lydia in general, ‘to observe the old customs of their country, and gave them their freedom’. This was not in fact as munificent as it sounds. The Persians themselves had always, as a matter of policy, left their subjects free to run their own internal administration. There was no need for the Lydians to bring their old constitution out of mothballs, because they had never stopped using it; and by ‘freedom’ Alexander meant no more than a guarantee against enslavement — a by no means unlikely fate otherwise, as Parmenio's occupation of Grynium (see above, p. 138) had shown. Once again, the king had done no more than ratify the status quo — though this did not stop him taking credit for it.

From Sardis Alexander now advanced to Ephesus — another key communication-centre between Persia and the West — covering the seventy miles' journey in just under four days. At the news of his approach, the city's mercenary garrison fled, taking with them the Macedonian renegade, Amyntas, son of Antiochus. Clearly Alexander's treatment of Memnon's troops at the Granicus had received wide publicity. Two years before (336) Ephesus had been taken by Parmenio, and on that occasion its citizens went so far as to institute a quasi-cult of Philip in the temple of Artemis (see above, p. 98). But about the time that Alexander had launched his invasion, Persian sympathizers in the city had, with Memnon's support, driven out the pro-Macedonian ‘democracy’, and pulled down Philip's statue. It was Memnon's garrison which now so hurriedly evacuated the citadel. Not for the first or last time in their chequered history, the Ephesians had unwisely chosen the wrong side.

Alexander, naturally, lost no time in restoring the democrats; and until the king put an end to it (not too soon, one suspects) they carried out a joyous pogrom of their political opponents. But enough was enough, and after a while Alexander called a halt to such reprisals, which, we are told, earned him great popularity in the city. Even so, his offer (provided he got the credit for it) to restore the temple of Artemis — burnt down, symbolically enough, on the night of his birth, and never properly restored — was met with a polite refusal.⁷

The famous painter Apelles was in Ephesus at the time, and Alexander commissioned a portrait from him. His first attempt showed the king astride Bucephalas, and sounds depressingly like something by David or Ingres at their worst. Alexander was not at all pleased with it, and said so. Apelles thereupon had Bucephalas fetched to the studio and placed by the picture. When the live horse neighed at its painted likeness, Apelles remarked: ‘You see, O King, the horse is really a far better judge of art than you are.’ This (whatever it may tell us about fourth-century aesthetic values) was a very shrewd cut. Alexander prided himself, erroneously, on his artistic expertise. On one occasion, while he was holding forth during a sitting, Apelles quietly suggested that he try some other topic of conversation, because the young apprentices grinding the colours were all laughing at him. But over this portrait the king was adamant, and Apelles had no option but to try again. The final version showed Alexander as Zeus, wielding a thunderbolt — a fancy which led the sculptor Lysippus to make some sharp comments on Apelles' lack of taste. But in art designed primarily as propaganda, aesthetic considerations tend to go by the board. The king preened himself, and Apelles collected a fat fee.⁸ Already, it is clear, the idea of self-deification (if only as a political instrument) was very much in Alexander's mind.

While he was still in Ephesus, ambassadors came from Magnesia and Tralles, offering their submission. Word had gone round that here at least — whatever he might do at home — the Macedonian invader looked kindly on democracies. Popular factions in the Greek cities, ever on the look-out for a promising point d'appui, were not slow to take the hint. Hitherto Alexander may have been feeling his way as regards the administration of conquered territories: now the solution stared him in the face. Two large divisions, under Parmenio and Alcimachus, were sent off to accept the surrender of cities in Ionia, Lydia, and the Aeolid. Before they left Sardis, both commanders were carefully briefed. Oligarchic juntas were to be removed from office, and ‘democratic’ governments set up in their place. Local laws and customs were to be left untouched. Lastly, the tribute which each city had paid the Persians was to be remitted.

These terms sound, on the face of it, generous enough; but all they really meant was that one lot of puppet rulers was replaced by another. Moreover, despite the acquisition of Sardis' treasure (most of which, in all likelihood, had at once been dissipated on making up arrears of pay) Alexander was still very short of ready cash. To forego tribute at this stage was a quixotic gesture he could ill afford. But to call it something else cost nothing. What it seems he did, in fact, was to insist on all ‘liberated’ Greek cities joining the Hellenic League. Once they had done this they became, under the terms of the league charter, liable for cash ‘contributions’ (syntaxeis) to the Panhellenic war-effort in lieu of providing men and ships.⁹ The sums involved, we may be sure, differed very little from what they had previously paid the Persians by way of tribute. But the euphemism of a ‘contribution’ did not carry the same unpleasant associations; and the whole scheme, with its implication of a united Greek front, must have made splendid propaganda for home consumption.

Parmenio and Alcimachus carried out their mission with great success. In city after city — as with Ephesus, as throughout Greek history — the popular party was ready and eager to gain political control with outside assistance, and to carry out a ruthless purge of its opponents in the process. (Alexander, meanwhile, spent most of his time in Ephesus, presumably dealing with problems of administration; though he did make a trip to Smyrna which had far-reaching results after his death. The old city had been destroyed by Alyattes in c. 624, and abandoned ever since except for a few squatters. While out hunting on Mt Pagus, Alexander, with his superb natural eye for terrain, found a first-class site for a new city, some two and a half miles south of the old one: built in due course by Antigonus, this city became the New Smyrna of the Hellenistic era.) Another item on Parmenio's brief was, seemingly, to strengthen Ionian coastal defences against possible attacks by the Persian fleet. Clazomenae was linked with the mainland by means of a permanent causeway, and an abortive attempt made to dig a canal through the nearby Mimas peninsula.¹⁰

Such precautions, as events now showed, were by no means idle. The Great King's squadrons had been sighted off Caria, sailing north, clearly to join the forces — mercenaries and others — now holding Miletus. Earlier, the commandant of the Milesian garrison, thinking his position hopeless, had sent Alexander a letter offering to surrender the city. Now he abruptly changed his mind.¹¹ The king had to act fast. The league fleet was at once dispatched from Ephesus;¹² if it reached Miletus before the Persians, the harbour could be held and the town saved. Parmenio and Alcimachus were recalled; even so Alexander seems to have marched with what troops he had — over 15,000 were already on garrison duties or detached, not counting casualties¹³ — before his second-in-command got back.

Yet he found time, en route, to deal with the problems of Priene: a garrison was imposed, and syntaxeis assessed. This, again, reveals Alexander's real attitude to the Greek cities. Priene, we may presume, had resisted liberation. Here, too, the king managed to get what had been denied him at Ephesus: the right of dedicating a great temple. The shrine of Athens was still under construction: Alexander made a generous donation to its building costs, and his reward was the inscription which may still be seen in the British Museum: ‘King Alexander set up this temple to Athena Polias.’ He generally got his own way in the end. It is revealing that, at a time when he had so many more pressing matters on his mind, he nevertheless found leisure to erase the memory of this minor personal rebuff.¹⁴

Nicanor, the commander of the Greek fleet, brought his squadrons to anchor by the off-shore island of Lade three days before the Persians arrived. He had only 160 ships to their reputed 400, but his defensive position was superb. Alexander himself also reached Miletus in good time, and fortified Lade with a strong garrison. The Persians were thus forced to anchor off-shore under Mt Mycale. This left them in an exposed position, and cut off from supplies of fresh water, since Alexander posted Philotas at theMaeander estuary to prevent their forage parties landing. He had already captured the outer city, and was now preparing to assault the acropolis.

At this point Parmenio and Alcimachus joined him, and a council of war was held. Parmenio advised risking a naval engagement, even though they were heavily outnumbered. A victory, he argued, would bring them great prestige, while a defeat (since the Persians held so commanding a position at sea) would make very little difference: they had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Alexander opposed this view strongly. Their own crews, he pointed out, were still half-trained (the cities of the league must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel when they chose them); and — a revealing admission — a defeat at this point might well trigger off a general revolt of the Greek states. So much for the Panhellenic crusade. Alexander's main fear, we need scarcely doubt, was that the league fleet might actually desert him if the chance presented itself.

Meanwhile the governor of Miletus sent a representative to his headquarters, offering to ‘grant free use of their harbours, and free entry within their walls, to Alexander and the Persians alike’, if he would raise the siege. In other words, Miletus was to be made an open city. Alexander turned this proposal down flat, and began his assault. While the league fleet blockaded the harbour-mouth, to prevent any assistance reaching the defenders from their Persian allies, the king's siege-engines battered away at the city-walls. The defences were breached, and the Macedonians surged through. Some of the garrison, including 300 mercenaries, escaped to a small island; the rest surrendered. Alexander, in accordance with his new policy, treated all Milesian citizens mercifully, though any foreigners who fell into his hands were sold as slaves. The Greek mercenaries he offered to spare (‘moved to pity by their courage and loyalty,’ we are told) on condition that they entered his service. They were, it is clear, part of Memnon's original force; but this time Alexander's supposed deference to the league seems to have been overborne by immediate military requirements.

Nor was there any repetition of the looting and wholesale massacre that had accompanied the destruction of Thebes. Some soldiers who profaned a temple of Demeter were said to have been miraculously blinded. If Alexander did not invent this rumour, he doubtless gave it wide publicity as a deterrent to future offenders. He also went out of his way to emphasize the fact (which local opinion could be forgiven for finding a trifle far-fetched) that this was an ethnic war, a crusade of revenge for the wrongs done to the Greeks by Darius the Great and his son Xerxes. On being shown the statues of those numerous athletes who had won glory for their city at the Pythian and Olympian Games, his only comment was: ‘And where were the men with bodies like these when the barbarians were besieging your city?’ Miletus had been captured by the Persians in 494, at the close of the Ionian Revolt; this was not, we may guess, a fact of which its inhabitants cared to be reminded in such terms.¹⁵

For a while the Great King's fleet continued to ride off Mycale, in the hope of provoking an engagement. But apart from some minor skirmishes, their attempts came to nothing; and since they were still cut off from all shore supplies, they found themselves in a virtual state of siege. Finally they gave up, weighed anchor, and sailed away southward to Halicarnassus (Bodrum), where the Persians were establishing a fresh line of defence. But the threat which they represented had not been destroyed. It is in this context that we must view the momentous decision which Alexander now took: to disband his own fleet and stake everything on a land-based campaign. The Athenian detachment, plus one or two other vessels, was retained to serve as a transport-flotilla — and to providehostages. Alexander also kept his squadrons in the Hellespont. (Six months later they were back on operational service in the Aegean.) But the bulk of the league's naval contingents were now paid off and sent back home.¹⁶

Various explanations have been advanced for this move. The Greek fleet was inferior, both in numbers and skill (this seems to have been undoubtedly true). Alexander could not afford to keep it on, since it cost him at least 100 talents a month. The Macedonians would fight better if they knew their retreat was cut off. Lastly, Alexander had a new strategy which would render a fleet otiose: he planned to capture all Persian and Phoenician ports from the landward side, thus making it impossible for enemy squadrons to operate in his rear. Nevertheless, he was taking an enormous calculated risk. To put this Persian fleet out of action effectively would mean winning every major harbour from the Hellespont to Egypt, from Cilicia to Tyre. Meanwhile, Darius' squadrons were still at liberty to raid the Greek mainland, cut Alexander's lines of communication, and stir up trouble generally from one end of the Aegean to the other. (Most of these things in due course they did.) With 400 Phoenician warships at large, a Persian-backed Greek revolt was by no means impossible; and if it succeeded, Alexander's chances against Darius would not look at all rosy.

The truth of the matter seems to have been that Alexander distrusted his Greek allies so profoundly — and with good reason — that he ‘preferred to risk the collapse of his campaign in a spate of rebellion rather than entrust its safety to a Greek fleet’.¹⁷ He was also banking, again with good reason, on the chronic inability of the mainland city-states to take concerted action of any sort, even to secure their own freedom. But for a time, as we shall see, it was touch and go.

After the fall of Miletus, the surviving Persian forces had withdrawn south to Halicarnassus in Caria — a large, well-fortified stronghold, with a first-class harbour, and every facility for withstanding a prolonged siege.¹⁸ Memnon — who now had a score of his own to settle with Alexander — had already written to Darius, begging for the supreme military command. To forestall the slanders of his enemies at court, he sent his wife and children to Susa as hostages. The Great King granted his request, appointing him ‘controller of lower Asia and commander of the fleet’.

Until two years previously, Halicarnassus had been ruled by a local Carian dynasty, which owed allegiance to Persia. It was the last representative of this family, Pixodarus, with whom the young Alexander had made an abortive attempt to ally himself bymarriage (see above, p. 99). When the scheme fell through, Pixodarus wisely made his peace with the Great King, and married off his daughter to a Persian nobleman, Orontobates. Now Pixodarus was dead, and Orontobates held Halicarnassus as the Great King'sdirect representative. Pixodarus himself had originally seized power by an act of usurpation. The legitimate ruler was in fact his elder sister, Queen Ada; and Ada still held Alinda, the strongest fortress in all Caria. These facts were well-known to Alexander, and at once suggested his next move. The Carians had had a Persian administration thrust upon them; nothing would please them more than to see their own dynasty restored. Here was a case where Alexander could offer genuine liberation, and achieve his own ends at the same time.

When he left Miletus, therefore, instead of marching south by the coast road he made a detour over the mountains to Alinda: perhaps he was already in contact with the exiled queen. At all events, she came out to meet him, and voluntarily surrendered her stronghold. In return for her support, Alexander promised to re-establish her on the throne once Halicarnassus had been taken. He also, in due course, since she had a personal grudge against Orontobates, assigned her and her troops the task of besieging the acropolis. The two of them seem to have got on famously. Alexander addressed the middle-aged queen as ‘Mother’, while she was for ever sending him little presents of cakes and sweetmeats from her own kitchens. Finally she adopted him as her son and official successor.

It is all very touching; but at the same time it once more reveals Alexander's political shrewdness and foresight. Alliance with the opposition — whether Greek or barbarian, popular or reactionary — was a standby that seldom failed him. What this adoption meant was that he had the right, after Ada's death, to impose a viceroy of his own on Caria; and in due course he did so. The local regime had simply been required to transfer its allegiance from the Great King to himself. All Alexander's administrative arrangements in Asia Minor follow the same basic pattern. He might talk of a Panhellenic crusade against Persian rule, but he took over Persian institutions — including satraps and client-kingdoms — virtually intact.¹⁹ The only differences were that Persian satraps had been replaced by Macedonians, the tribute was called a ‘contribution’, and ultimate authority now resided, not with the Great King, but with Alexander himself.

The Carians, however, merely saw that this Macedonian adventurer had come to deliver them from the Persians, and to restore their rightful queen. When the news of Alexander's adoption became known, ‘straightway all the cities sent missions and presented the king with gold crowns and promised to cooperate with him in everything’.²⁰ Alexander had already sent on his siege-equipment by sea, perhaps to Iasus: time was pressing. He now bade farewell to Ada, and marched south-west, over the Latmusrange, by way of Labranda and Euromus.²¹ The towns through which he passed welcomed him with open arms, though his role as an adoptive Carian must have been a trifle embarrassing when he came to any predominantly Greek settlement. On such occasions he took care to emphasize that ‘the freedom of the Greeks was the object for which he had taken it upon himself to war against the Persians’.²²

He reached the coast at Iasus, where again he was well received: this port had seemingly already given a friendly reception to his transport squadron. At all events, when the citizens petitioned him for the restoration of certain territorial fishing-grounds they had lost under the Persian regime, their request was at once granted.²³ At Iasus, too, Alexander met a local celebrity, a schoolboy who had won the devoted affection of a dolphin. According to one account, the king afterwards ‘made the boy head of the priesthood ofPoseidon at Babylon, interpreting the dolphin's affection as a sign of the deity's favour’.²⁴ There was a strong streak of superstition about Alexander, and he certainly now, if ever, needed luck at sea.

From Iasus he took the coast road through Bargylia, and thus approached Halicarnassus from the north-east, pitching camp about half a mile outside the Mylasa Gate.²⁵ A scouting party, sent forward to reconnoitre, was met by a volley of missiles from the walls. Memnon's troops then made a sudden sortie, timing their attack so well that they were back through the city-gates before anyone realized what was going on. It was not a happy omen; and the more Alexander studied Halicarnassus' defences, the less he liked what he saw. It is possible that he had made contact with a pro-Macedonian group inside the city.²⁶ If so, the intelligence thus obtained must have been discouraging. Memnon had several thousand Greek mercenaries with him (including two Athenian commanders,Ephialtes and Thrasybulus, whose surrender Alexander had demanded after the destruction of Thebes). The stores and magazines were full, and Memnon's defence equipment included siege artillery.

On the landward side of the fortress rose huge crenellated walls, with guard-towers at regular intervals, protected by a moat forty-five feet wide and over twenty in depth. There were no fewer than three fortified citadels, which could — and did — hold out long after the city itself had fallen. One stood on the ancient acropolis, at the north-west bastion. The other two — the fortress of Salmacis, at the southernmost tip of the promontory, and the so-called ‘King's Castle’, on the tiny offshore island of Arconnesus — commanded the harbour entrance. This harbour was further protected by the Great King's fleet, which now rode at anchor there.

Since Alexander had disbanded his own squadrons, he could not enforce a blockade from the seaward side. Thus Halicarnassus was not liable to run short of supplies, let alone be starved into surrender. Alexander himself, on the other hand, for the first time since landing in Asia Minor, found himself up against a serious provisioning problem. Hellespontine Phrygia had been harvesting when his troops came through; a fertile region, it was also watered by three major rivers, including the Granicus and the Scamander(which alone, according to General Sir Frederick Maurice, had sufficed to water Xerxes' host in 480). Similar conditions prevailed on the march south as far as Miletus: rich arable land, and ample watering from the Greater Maeander. Even so, Curtius tells us, the Macedonians made such locust depredations that a return journey along the same route would have been impossible. Now they were encamped on the rocky Bodrum peninsula (a notoriously barren region) at the tail-end of the dry season. The nearest source of water — probably inadequate for their needs — was twenty miles away. Food, water and forage all probably had to be brought in from Miletus — a two or three days' journey.²⁷

The king's one hope, clearly, was to take Halicarnassus by direct assault. But here he faced another difficulty: his siege-equipment had not arrived. Persian squadrons were patrolling the coast, and Alexander's transport-vessels had so far failed to elude them. His original plan had been to land this heavy gear at Myndus, a small port ten miles west of Halicarnassus. He had made contact with the usual opposition party, whose leaders assured him that if he brought his forces there on a certain night the gates would be opened, and the city placed in his hands. But — as so often with such arrangements — something went wrong. Alexander arrived at midnight, only to find the gates shut and the walls bristling with defenders. Nevertheless, he set his infantry to undermine one of the guard-towers. During this operation heavy naval reinforcements arrived from Halicarnassus, and the Macedonians were forced to retreat. Treachery or careless talk had led Alexander straight into a prepared trap.

For some days, deprived of a harbour at which to land his siege-train, Alexander made fruitless attempts to breach the city's defences without it. But at last the transport squadron got through, presumably beaching in some deserted cove along the coast of the Ceramic Gulf. From that moment the siege was on in earnest. Under cover of sheds or mantlets, Alexander's men filled in one section of the moat. He then brought up his mobile towers to bombard the defenders with stones and other missiles, while battering-rams were swung at the walls, and sappers undermined the guard-towers. By these methods he contrived to breach Halicarnassus' fortifications, and the phalanx went storming in over the rubble. But this time they had met their match. Memnon's mercenaries were equally well trained, and had the further advantage of heavy covering fire from catapults set up on the walls. Several such assaults were made, and all, after a tremendous struggle, driven back. During the night, while builders worked in relays to mask the gaps with demilune curtain-walls, Memnon sent out a commando force to burn Alexander's towers and engines. Another desperate battle ensued. Finally the Persians were forced to retreat — but not before some three hundred Macedonians had been severely wounded.

Alexander now moved his siege-train against the northern side of the city. Relentless pounding by rams and artillery at length brought down two towers and the intervening curtain-wall, and Alexander decided to attempt a night-attack.²⁸ This operation proved an expensive failure, largely because the Macedonians found their way blocked by an inner curtain-wall. They managed to extricate themselves, but next morning Alexander was forced to ask Memnon for a truce so that he could recover his dead.

The commanders of the garrison — Memnon, Orontobates, and the two Athenians, Ephialtes and Thrasybulus — now held a council of war. Ephialtes, a man of great personal strength and courage, insisted that if Halicarnassus was to be saved they must take the offensive themselves. Memnon, reasonably enough, agreed. Between them they worked out a highly ingenious operation, which came very close indeed to success. From the mercenaries in the garrison they selected 2,000 men, the pick of their troops. These they divided into two commando forces. The first group, armed with torches and pitch-buckets, sallied out from behind the curtain-wall at dawn, and set fire to Alexander's siege-equipment, ‘causing a great conflagration to flare up at once’. The king, as Memnon had anticipated, brought up his infantry battalions to deal with this threat, and detailed other troops for fire-fighting operations. Once the phalanx was engaged, Memnon's second mercenary force charged out from the main city-gate nearby — ‘the last place,’ saysArrian, ‘that the Macedonians looked for a sally’ — and took them in flank and rear. At the same time Memnon brought a new piece of siege-equipment into play: a wooden tower 150 feet high, every platform bristling with artillery and javelin-men. While Ephialtesled the attack below, laying about him with murderous energy, a shower of missiles rained down on the phalanx from above.

Memnon, who had been watching the progress of this engagement with close attention, now threw in his Persian infantry reserves. Alexander, on the face of it, had as good as lost the battle: hemmed in on all sides, he could do nothing but fight a desperate last-ditch action. He was saved, finally, by his reserve battalion of veterans, men who had campaigned with Philip but were now exempt from combat duty. Roused by the chaotic struggle they had been forced to witness, they decided to show these unlicked youngsters how a battle should really be fought. Shields locked, spearline bristling, they now moved into the fray, a solid, unbreakable line. The psychological effect on Ephialtes and his men was considerable. Just as they thought victory within their grasp, they found themselves faced with the prospect of fighting a second action. They wavered; the Macedonians pressed home their advantage; and by a great stroke of luck Ephialtes himself was killed.

In a matter of minutes the whole Persian assault-group crumbled, and began a stampede back to the city. There was savage hand-to-hand fighting by the curtain-wall, while so many men crowded on to the bridge crossing the moat that it collapsed. The defenders inside the city-gate panicked, and — in their eagerness to stop the Macedonians forcing an entry — shut out considerable numbers of their own men.²⁹ Some were trampled to death in the rush; the rest died by the spears of their Macedonian pursuers. By now night was falling, and Alexander had the retreat sounded: in the circumstances he was lucky to have scraped a victory at all. The Macedonians withdrew to their camp: Alexander knew when not to press his luck.

But the defenders, too, had had enough. Their casualties, especially during that final sortie, had been immense. The city-walls were seriously breached in a number of places. That night Memnon and Orontobates decided to pull out. Their best surviving troops they left behind to garrison the harbour-fortresses. The remainder of the defence force, together with all easily removable stores and equipment, they evacuated by sea to Cos. (Presumably — though no ancient source records this — a large proportion of the civilian population went with them.) Before leaving, they set fire to the armouries, to the great wooden tower that contained their siege artillery, and to houses abutting on the walls. A strong wind was blowing — the autumn meltemi that still scours Bodrum — and the blaze rapidly spread.

Alexander saw it, but was helpless. Nor — a telling comment on his total lack of naval power — could he do a thing to stop the evacuation. He had no fleet of his own worth mentioning, and in any case the strong-points at the harbour mouth were still in Persian hands. He and his troops were forced to stand and watch, by the lurid glare of the conflagration, while Memnon shipped out all the personnel, stores and equipment he could cram aboard. At dawn the Macedonians entered the still-burning city. They had strict orders to treat all civilians with respect, and to rescue any cut off by the fire. Halicarnassus was, after all, the capital of Alexander's ally and adoptive mother Queen Ada. The tradition that he razed the city to the ground, as he had done in the case of Thebes, is, for this very reason, highly improbable. At most, his sappers may have done some emergency demolition-work to prevent the fire spreading further. He surveyed the fortresses still in enemy hands, saw how impregnable they were, and wisely decided to leave them alone: Salmacis he surrounded with a high wall and a ditch, but there was nothing he could do about the island stronghold of Arconnesus.³⁰ He had gained his main objective, and it had cost him dear. Now he must move on.

Queen Ada duly became satrap of Caria, though little can have remained of her once-proud capital save walls and smoking rubble. Alexander left her a force of 3,000 mercenaries and 200 cavalry under Ptolemy, their task being to mop up any remaining pockets of Persian resistance in the area. (These operations, including the reduction of the garrison fortresses in Halicarnassus itself, took them a full year.) All newly-married men were now sent home on winter leave, an act which won the king much popularity.Cleander and Coenus, who went with them as escorting officers, were instructed to collect fresh reinforcements from Macedonia and the Peloponnese.³¹ These two men were brothers; Cleander, moreover, was Parmenio's son-in-law. Alexander had already got rid of the old marshal's brother Asander by appointing him satrap of Lydia: no Macedonian baron could resist promotion.

The expeditionary force was now divided into two separate commands — one reason probably being to ease the supply-problem during a winter campaign. Parmenio, with the Thessalian cavalry, the allied contingents, and the baggage-train — including Alexander's heavy siege equipment — was to march back north as far as Sardis, and from here conduct a campaign against the tribes of the central Anatolian plateau. The king himself, meanwhile, would advance eastward into Lycia and Pamphylia, ‘to establish control of the coast and so immobilize the enemy's fleet’. Having done this, he would take his column up through the Pisidian hinterland, and rejoin Parmenio early the following spring, at Gordium. This was also to be the rendezvous for the troops coming back off leave.³²

So the two commanders parted, each, perhaps, glad to be rid of the other's uneasy company for a while. Alexander marched south-east from Halicarnassus,³³ skirting the eastern shore of Lake Köyejiz, and by-passing the coastal strongholds of Caunus andCnidos, which were still in Persian hands (they later fell to Ptolemy). He crossed the Dalaman River, captured a town — still unidentified — called Hyparna, and reached the coast at Telmessus. This town fell to him without any trouble; both Nearchus the Cretanand Aristander, his personal seer, had friends there. One of these met Nearchus, and asked how he could best help him. Nearchus sent a group of dancing-girls and their slave-attendants up into the acropolis, as a present for the Persian garrison-commander. They had daggers hidden in their flutes, and small shields in their baskets. After dinner, when the wine had circulated freely, they proceeded to massacre their hosts, and the acropolis fell without further trouble.³⁴ For his part in this ruse Nearchus was afterwards rewarded with the satrapy of Lycia and Pamphylia.

From Telmessus Alexander advanced to the Xanthus River, where he received the submission of some thirty towns and villages. Meanwhile, however, he had completely lost touch with Parmenio's division: a great rampart of mountains, now rapidly becoming snowbound, lay between them. He therefore struck north, up one of the passes which circumvent the Xanthus gorges, with the object of breaking through to the trunk road linking Phrygia with the coast. Here, between mountain snows and hostile tribesmen, he bogged down, still short of his objective. Envoys from Phaselis and other towns in eastern Lycia now arrived, ‘bringing him a gold crown and offers of friendship’:³⁵ they also must have told him of the easier route to the north which he eventually followed, by way of Sagalassus and Celaenae.

Alexander weighed up the odds, and decided to let his communications go hang for the time being. He marched back to the coast (no one but a lunatic would have attempted the direct route across the mountains in mid winter), and here, at Xanthus, an incident took place which convinced him that the risk he was taking was justified. As the result of some subterranean upheaval, a spring near the city boiled up like a geyser, spewing forth a bronze tablet inscribed with ancient symbols — perhaps some long-lost ex-voto offering. For any diviner with his wits about him, this must have come as a godsend. Aristander duly interpreted the mysterious inscription: it said (and who was to contradict him?) that ‘the empire of the Persians would one day be destroyed by the Greeks and come to an end’. Much encouraged, Alexander set off again, in an easterly direction this time, by the coast road as far as Phoenice (Finike), and thence across the Chelidonian peninsula to Phaselis.³⁶

The only land-route between Phaselis and Side began with a stretch which presented no difficulty to peasants on mule-back, but would make hard going for an army on the march. This was the pass over Mt Climax, a narrow, precipitous track rising from theKemer Chay through high-walled limestone defiles, and emerging on the Pamphylian plain south of Beldibi. Alexander, remembering the device he had employed to negotiate Mt Ossa (see above, p. 116), now set his Thracian pioneers to work, cutting steps and widening the gorge.³⁷

It was during his short stay in Phaselis that Alexander first got news from Parmenio (the old general seems to have had better intelligence than his master concerning the routes of the central Anatolian plateau). A small detachment arrived, bringing with them a Persian prisoner named Sisines. This man had a circumstantial and disquieting story about Alexander of Lyncestis, at present serving under Parmenio as commander of the Thracian cavalry (see above, p. 184). According to Sisines, the Lyncestian had sent a letter to Darius, offering his services to Persia. The Great King had written back promising him 1,000 gold talents and full support in a bid for the Macedonian throne if he would assassinate Alexander. Sisines himself had been chosen to act as confidential intermediary. But (he now told the king) he had been picked up by Parmenio's guards before he could accomplish his mission, and to save his own life had confessed the truth under interrogation.³⁸ This was a matter for the king himself to decide.

Sisines' report left Alexander (as it may indeed leave the modern historian) in something of a quandary. Was he to believe it or not? Olympias, it would seem, had been warning him about the Lyncestian in recent letters — or so he later alleged. While the latter's alleged claim on the throne was, as we have seen, flimsy in the extreme, that would not necessarily stop Darius from encouraging his ambitions. With Amyntas son of Perdiccas dead, the lure of power might look very enticing. Another possibility was that the whole story had been fabricated by Persian agents, to foster suspicion and dissension in the Macedonian High Command. On the other hand, Alexander can hardly have helped wondering why Parmenio, of all people, was being so suddenly solicitous on his behalf; and one possible explanation instantly suggests itself.

At the outset of the expedition Alexander had made the Lyncestian commander of the Thracian horse. Now the Thracians served under Parmenio, so that this was one appointment in his own corps which Pausanias did not dictate, and to which he almost certainly took strong exception. He treated the Thracians and Thessalians more or less as his own Companion Cavalry (see above, p. 159) — a potentially dangerous set-up which Alexander was determined to neutralize. The appointment of the Lyncestian can be seen as a first step towards this goal. Nor was it the only one. Until the Granicus, the Thessalians were under Calas, Parmenio's own nominee, who had served with him on the advance expedition. After the battle, however, Alexander, with admirable speed, removed him from this command and made him satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia — a promotion to which he could scarcely object. The vacant Thessalian command was filled by one of Alexander's own lieutenants, Philip, son of Menelaus — a move which undercut Parmenio's authority still further.

The old general, then, had an excellent reason for wanting to get rid of the Lyncestian; and the latter's out-kingdom background (coupled with the execution of his two brothers, ostensibly for treason), suggested one obvious way in which this end could be attained. If Parmenio fabricated a convincing story designed to prove that Alexander of Lyncestis was a traitor, some of the mud was bound to stick — enough, in the long run, as things turned out, to secure his execution (see below, pp. 345 ff.). It might even be true that Sisines had been sent to approach him, as a potential renegade, but without his knowledge. The Persian would not be overfussy about the story he told Alexander if the alternative was a knife in his back. Besides, what chance had Alexander, away in Phaselis, of investigating such a case thoroughly? With any luck he might order the Lyncestian's immediate execution — and indeed, if he had followed the advice his staff now gave him, that is precisely what would have happened.

The king was clearly made suspicious and nervous by such a circumstantial story. At the same time he had no intention of sacrificing a good officer without making very careful inquiries into the case. He therefore adopted a compromise solution. One of his staff officers, Amphoterus, accompanied Sisines back to Parmenio, with instructions that the Lyncestian was to be held under close arrest pending further investigations. Any designs Parmenio might have on that vacant cavalry command the king forestalled by giving it to one of his own oldest and most trusted friends, Erigyius of Mytilene.^a

Meanwhile the Thracians had cleared a fair trail over Mt Climax. Alexander now sent the main body of the army toiling in column up the gorge, while he himself, accompanied by a small escort, made his way along the shore. This passage was only negotiable with a strong north wind blowing; at other times the sea came rolling in under the headland, where a narrow path wound its way among rocks and shingle to the beach on the farther side. For some while now there had been heavy southerly gales, which made this short cut impossible. However, Alexander decided to trust his luck. According to Callisthenes and others, the wind veered round to the north at the appropriate moment, so that the king and his party negotiated the passage without trouble.

Callisthenes, naturally enough, made the most of this in his official dispatches. The change of wind was attributed to divine intervention: the very sea had recognized Alexander's royal presence, and had withdrawn as an act of obeisance (proskynesis).³⁹ It is, in fact, possible that this miraculous wind-change did not occur at all, but was mere fictional propaganda. Alexander said nothing about it in his dispatches; but then it was not the sort of embellishment that would appeal to Antipater. Besides, if Strabo's version of the incident be the true one (which seems likely) it was a case for censorship rather than propaganda. According to him, Alexander ‘set out before the waves had receded; and the result was that all day long his soldiers marched in water submerged to their navels’.⁴⁰

Once past Mt Climax, the army emerged into the rich and beautiful Pamphylian plain — the modern Turkish Riviera — a well-watered crescent some sixty miles long by eighteen deep, in splendid isolation between the sea and a high enclosing rampart of mountains. This marked the eastward limit of Alexander's foray along the coast. From Side as far as Cilicia stretched a wild, rugged, uninhabited region, without harbours or adequate land-communications. No military intervention was needed here.⁴¹ However, as Alexander advanced through this plain towards Perga, his rearguard was attacked by a horde of Pisidian brigands. These marauders had established themselves on a strong rock-fortress in the foothills, whence they made regular incursions into the lowlands, terrorizing the farmers and robbing travellers. Their sudden descent caused havoc in Alexander's baggage-train. The Macedonians suffered heavy casualties; their assailants got away with numerous captives and pack-animals.

This time, however, the Pisidians had picked the wrong man to meddle with. Coldly furious, Alexander held up his advance while he laid siege to their rocky stronghold. For two days they held out against his assaults. Then, when it became clear that he would never give up until the rock was in his hands, the young men among them resorted to desperate measures. Ignoring their elders' advice to surrender, about six hundred of them burnt their families alive in their houses to prevent them being taken prisoner, and themselves slipped through Alexander's lines to the mountains under cover of darkness.⁴²

The king had more than one reason for smoking out this robbers' nest. Now that he had secured the coast as far east as Pamphylia, his main concern was to strike inland and link up with Parmenio once more. He seems not yet to have learnt of the comparatively easy route north to Gordium, through Sagalassus and Celaenae; as a result he was still attempting to force his way north-west over the passes, to link up with the Cibyra highway. This rock-fortress — convincingly identified by Dame Freya Stark asChandir — lay on his direct route thither. Nor, we may surmise, were the inhabitants of Phaselis or the Pamphylian littoral in any hurry to tell him about the shorter route. They saw this Macedonian army as a providential instrument for clearing out hostile mountain strongholds on their behalf; so far it had done so in the most obliging manner. If Alexander was set on thrusting up the Cibyra road, they would do even better. When this road left the coast it ran through a gorge overlooked by the powerful city of Termessus. To force this defile, Alexander would have to deal with the Termessians — something the coastal townships had notably failed to do on their own account.

Before the king struck into the interior, however, he had to complete his settlement of the coastal littoral. Perga surrendered without fuss, and the Macedonians pushed on towards Aspendus. Outside the city they were met by a deputation, offering submission, but asking at the same time to be spared the indignity of a garrison. Alexander — who had been well briefed on Aspendus' resources, and was by now running short of cavalry mounts as well as cash — agreed not to garrison the city; but he exacted a steep price for the privilege. The Aspendians were to turn over to him all the horses they bred for Darius in their famous stud-farms, and, on top of this, to ‘contribute fifty talents towards the men's pay’. Wealthy the Aspendians may have been, but this was sheer extortion. The envoys, however, had no choice in the matter. They accepted Alexander's terms, and returned home. The king marched on to the important port of Side, where he left a garrison. He then turned back north-west through the mountains to Syllium, an isolated fortress held by mercenaries. This looked a tough proposition, and was off his direct line of march. Alexander therefore decided to by-pass it.

This decision was partly caused by news from Aspendus. The citizens, hearing his outrageous terms, had repudiated the treaty made in their name. When Alexander's commissariat party arrived to collect horses and ‘contributions’, they found the gates barred against them. Aspendus stood on a hill overlooking the Eurymedon, with a walled suburb down by the river itself. The citizens now evacuated this lower quarter, shut themselves in the citadel, and hoped against hope that the king would be too busy elsewhere to come back and deal with them himself. Unfortunately for them, he was not. He needed money and horses, and had every intention of getting both. All too soon, the Aspendians saw Alexander and his troops bivouacked in the empty lower town. At this their nerve failed them, and they sent down a herald, asking permission to surrender on the terms previously agreed.

But Alexander had no intention of letting them off so lightly. The horses, he said, they were to supply as before. Their already exorbitant ‘contribution’, on the other hand, was now doubled, and in addition they had to pay an annual sum as tribute — not, be it noted, to the league, but to Macedonia. Aspendus was placed under direct satrapal control, a step which almost certainly included the imposition of a garrison. All leading citizens were to be surrendered as hostages. Lastly, the king ordered a public inquiry concerning land Aspendus was accused of filching from her neighbours: small doubt what the commission's findings would be.⁴³ The case of Aspendus exposes, with harsh clarity, Alexander's fundamental objectives in Asia Minor. So long as he received willing cooperation, the pretence of a Panhellenic crusade could be kept up. But any resistance, the least opposition to his will, met with instant and savage reprisals. Sois mon frère ou je te tue: Alexander's conduct has since become a grim cliché, an anti-revolutionary joke. But it was no joke for those who, like the Aspendians, happened to become its victims.

His business on the coast thus satisfactorily concluded, with fresh mounts for his cavalry and a few weeks' pay in hand, Alexander returned to Perga. From here he struck inland towards Termessus. His route lay through a narrow gorge, and the Termessians held the cliffs on either side of it — a well-nigh impregnable position. But Alexander, now as always, showed himself a shrewd judge of ‘barbarian’ psychology. He made no attempt to force the pass; instead, he ordered his men to pitch camp for the night. As he had anticipated, the Termessians, observing this, withdrew their main force to the town nearby, leaving only a small detachment guarding the defile. A quick commando raid soon dealt with these sentries. Alexander thereupon advanced through the gorge — only to find his way barred once more by the commanding citadel of Termessus itself, 3,000 feet above sea-level. Nothing would help here but a prolonged siege, the one thing he was at all costs anxious to avoid.

At this moment, providentially, envoys reached him from Selga, a mountain town lying to the north of Aspendus. The Selgians were fine fighting men, and hostile to Termessus: they offered Alexander their friendship and support. They also told him — a piece of vital information which he had hitherto lacked — about the easier alternative route through central Anatolia. He promptly abandoned Termessus, and marched back, under Selgian guidance, striking north through Kirkgöz and Dösheme towards LakeBurdur.⁴⁴ The last real opposition he encountered in this region was at Sagalassus. Here he had to fight that most tricky of all engagements, an uphill attack against an entrenched position — and without cavalry support, since the ground was too steep and rough. But Macedonian training and discipline proved their worth here, and after a fierce struggle Sagalassus fell.

Alexander, having taken time to mop up a few minor hill forts, now pressed on over the plateau, through regions ‘where waters flow naked through sandy landscapes, and villages are screened in poplars, and few tracks wind among stones’.⁴⁵ Skirting Lake Burdur, with its desolate salt-flats, he came in five days to Celaenae. This city lay at the head-waters of two rivers, the Maeander and the Marsyas. The latter had its source in a great limestone cavern, and streams came tumbling down through the rocks to the plain beyond. Cyrus had had a palace here, and a great park full of wild animals. To the Macedonians, weary after their long march, it must have been a welcome sight: lush and green, an oasis in the barren Anatolian wilderness.

But its position also made it of great strategical importance. Celaenae lay at the junction of the main roads crossing the plateau — south to Pamphylia, by the route Alexander had followed; west to the Hermus and Maeander valleys; north to Gordium. The two latter itineraries formed a section of the Persian Royal Road: Xerxes had passed through Celaenae on his march to Sardis. Before Alexander moved on, Celaenae had to be made secure. Through this narrow ‘corridor’, with unsubdued tribes to the north and south, would run his only true lines of communication between the Middle East and Ionia.

The city possessed a high, strongly fortified acropolis, which Alexander knew better than to assault. On his approach, the inhabitants abandoned the lower town, and prepared to defend this citadel. The king sent a herald, threatening all manner of savage reprisals if they did not surrender. They thereupon took the herald on a conducted tour of the defences, and informed him that Alexander did not, apparently, appreciate what he was up against. The herald came back with the news that the fortress was impregnable, and its occupants ready to fight to the death. Alexander did nothing dramatic; he merely sealed the acropolis off from the outside world, and waited. Ten days sufficed to shake the defenders' confidence, mostly on account of inadequate provisions.

At this stage they made a proposition to Alexander. If no relief force arrived from Darius within the next two months, they would surrender. Alexander accepted this offer: time was precious, and he had little alternative. Nevertheless it was a dangerous gamble. He therefore left behind in Celaenae one of his very best generals, Antigonus of Elimiotis, known as ‘One-Eyed’, who afterwards became a monarch in his own right. He gave Antigonus 1,500 troops, all he could spare, to guard his lines of communication, and appointed him satrap of Central Phrygia (this despite the fact that Darius' nominee was still holding out on the acropolis). A messenger was dispatched west to Parmenio, confirming the rendezvous in Gordium. Then Alexander set out thither himself, marching north by the Royal Road.⁴⁶

He and his men covered the 130-mile journey without further incident, reaching Gordium early in March 333. The last stages of his journey followed the Sangarius River, looping northward past the tombs of long-dead Phrygian kings; and the great Assyriangateway through which he and his Macedonians passed into Gordium itself had been old when Midas reigned. There was no opposition: the city surrendered of its own accord. Here in due course^b he was joined by Parmenio's corps, together with the troops who had been sent home on leave for the winter. They brought him welcome reinforcements — 3,000 Macedonian infantrymen, 500 cavalry, 150 volunteers from Elis. But the general situation in Greece and the Aegean, as his returning officers now reported it, was clearly disastrous, far worse than anything he could have feared; and once again the man responsible was Alexander's most dangerous opponent, that resourceful and elusive mercenary commander, Memnon of Rhodes.

After his masterly but unavailing defence of Halicarnassus, Memnon had been confirmed by Darius as commander-in-chief over all Persian forces in Asia Minor. The Great King now authorized him — better late than never — to implement the strategy he had proposed before the Granicus: that of carrying the war over into Macedonia and Greece. The Persian (or, more accurately, Phoenician) fleet was already at his disposal; Darius furnished him, in addition, with funds substantial enough to raise a professional mercenary army. This Memnon duly did — which may partially account for the shortage of volunteers that Cleander encountered in the Peloponnese.

With a strong amphibious force at his disposal, Memnon systematically set about reducing the islands of the eastern Aegean: an essential first step in any campaign directed against the Greek mainland. Cos and Samos had already come over to him, andChios soon followed suit. It is possible that he also won back Miletus and Priene; he badly needed a base on the Ionians coast. Certainly he did not face a violent or entrenched opposition. Alexander had scarcely endeared himself to the Greek cities on his march south: many of them must have regarded Memnon as a more genuine liberator, if only because he was himself a Greek. The rest probably saw nothing to choose between one occupying force and another. While the Rhodian general moved on north from Chios toLesbos, his agents were busy in Greece itself, handing out the Great King's gold to prospective supporters, and promising them that Memnon would soon descend on Euboea, with a large army and a fleet of 300 vessels.

This was indeed an enticing prospect. In Athens, military preparations went ahead day and night: no less than 400 triremes were now in commission. Many other Greek states, Sparta included, were ready to rise in revolt the moment Memnon gave the word. Their enthusiasm knew no bounds when, after a fierce struggle, the vital port of Mytilene fell to him. On receipt of this news, nearly all the islands in the Cyclades sent missions offering their allegiance.⁴⁷ It looked very much as though the promised invasion of Euboea and the mainland would soon become reality.

Alexander was thus faced with a crucial decision. If he went on, he might well lose the Hellespont, perhaps even Macedonia itself: Greece stood on the very brink of general revolt. But if he turned back, the odds against his carrying the Persian crusadethrough to a successful conclusion would lengthen immeasurably. Quite apart from the psychological loss of face involved, it was unlikely that either Darius or Memnon would fail to exploit such a reprieve. While Memnon undid all Alexander's work in Asia Minor, the Great King would have leisure to build and train a really formidable defence force. Worse still, Macedonia remained perilously near bankruptcy, and so far very little of Darius' fabled wealth had found its way into Alexander's hands. It was now, while the young king was still debating this problem, that the famous episode of the Gordian Knot took place. Like many men faced with a seemingly impossible choice, Alexander was ready to stake everything on a divine portent: now, if ever, was the moment for the voice from heaven.

In Gordium, by the temple of Zeus Basileus, he found what he sought. This was an ancient waggon — supposedly dedicated by Gordius' son Midas when he became King of Phrygia — which still stood, a much-revered relic, on the acropolis. It had one very odd feature: its yoke was fastened to the pole with numerous thongs of cornel-bark, in a complex multiple knot of the kind known by sailors as a Turk's-head. An ancient oracle had foretold that anyone who contrived to loose this knot would become lord of allAsia.^c This was a challenge which Alexander found irresistible. Indeed, to leave Gordium without attempting the Gordian Knot was out of the question. Hostile propaganda would not be slow to suggest that he had doubts about the eventual outcome of his crusade.

So when he and his attendants made their way up to the acropolis, a large crowd of Phrygians and Macedonians followed him, impelled by something more than mere casual curiosity. The atmosphere was taut and expectant; many of the king's courtiers were alarmed by his rash self-assurance, and, on the face of it, with good reason. One characteristic of a Turk's-head knot is that it leaves no loose ends visible. For a long while Alexander struggled with this labyrinthine tangle, but to little effect. At last he gave up, ‘at a loss how to proceed’. A failure would have been the worst possible propaganda: something drastic had to be done. Aristobulus says that Alexander drew out the dowel-peg which ran through pole and yoke, thus releasing the thongs. This sounds like ex post factorationalization. According to our other sources (far more in character psychologically) Alexander, exclaiming ‘What difference does it make how I loose it?’^d drew his sword and slashed through the tangle at a single stroke, thus revealing the ends carefully tucked away inside.

That night there came thunder and lightning, which Alexander and the seers took to mean that Zeus approved the king's action (it could, of course, equally well have signified divine wrath).⁴⁸ In any case, Alexander's mind was now made up. He would continue his campaign, whatever the cost. Amphoterus was appointed admiral of the squadrons guarding the Hellespont, while Hegelochus took command of the land-forces based on Abydos. Alexander gave them 500 talents to raise a fresh fleet from the Greek allies (a singularly thankless task) and sent 600 more to Antipater for garrison pay and home defence. Such makeshift arrangements hint all too clearly at his expanding ambitions. He was now prepared, if need be, to sacrifice Macedonia altogether in pursuit of the greater goal. He had never taken the office of captain-general very seriously, except as a temporary convenience, and it paled into insignificance beside the prospect of becoming lord of Asia. At the moment his homeland must have seemed very small and far away.

The latest intelligence reports confirmed that Darius was still in Susa, but had begun to assemble a large army. Alexander could not afford to waste time. Almost immediately after the cutting of the Gordian Knot, he and his troops took to the road again (May 333). Before they left, a singularly ill-timed embassy arrived from Athens, begging the king to release those Athenian prisoners captured at the Granicus, and now held in Macedonia. The request was refused. When circumstances proved more favourable, Alexandertold the envoys, with grim ambiguity, they might approach him again (see below, p. 279).⁴⁹

From Gordium he marched north-east to Ancyra (Ankara), on the borders of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. The Paphlagonians sent him an embassy, offering submission and asking him, in return, not to invade their country. Since the last thing Alexander wanted at this point was a mountain campaign in the north, he readily agreed. He also exempted them from tribute (which they had not paid the Persians anyway); as a face-saving gesture, he informed them that they were now responsible to Calas, the new satrap ofPhrygia, a formality which neither side can have taken very seriously. He also received the ‘surrender’ of all Cappadocia west of the River Halys, and ‘a good deal of the far side’. Here he did not even impose a Macedonian administration, but appointed a local baron, Sabictas, to govern the area on his behalf — the first attested instance of a practice on which he was afterwards to rely more and more. In this case (as so often) it did not work out well. The natives were getting wise to Alexander's methods: they met him with bland promises of cooperation, and then raised hell the moment he had moved on. A year later (see below, p. 264) Antigonus the One-Eyed was obliged to fight at least three major battles in the area to keep Alexander's lines of communication open.

While he was still in Ancyra, the king received one more than welcome piece of news: shortly after the siege of Miletus, Memnon had fallen sick and died. He was the only first-class general Darius possessed in Asia Minor, and his disappearance from the scene was an extraordinary piece of luck for Alexander. The threatened invasion of Greece had depended entirely on the Rhodian's skill and initiative. With his death the whole project might well collapse overnight. At the same time (mid July) reports came in that Darius had at last moved from Susa to Babylon, and was busy preparing the Imperial Army for active service. By now, however, Alexander had a fairly shrewd idea of the leisurely way in which the Great King went about such matters, and saw no reason to alter his original strategy.⁵⁰ From Ancyra he would march south through the Cilician Gates to Tarsus, and thence down the coast by way of Tyre and Sidon to Egypt. Only when all the main ports of the Eastern Mediterranean were in his hands, and the Phoenician fleet thus eliminated as an active threat, did he intend to tackle Darius.

After Memnon's death the command of his expeditionary force passed to two Persian noblemen: his nephew by marriage, Pharnabazus, and Autophradates. They began by garrisoning Mytilene with 2,000 mercenaries, and imposing a heavy fine on the citizens to pay for their maintenance. Then the two new commanders separated. While Autophradates went on with the campaign among the Aegean islands, Pharnabazus took a strong mercenary force by sea to Lycia, with the clear aim of winning back Alexander's conquests along the coast. But this very promising strategy was soon cut short by Darius, who knew as well as Alexander that Memnon's invasion plans had appreciably less chance of success without Memnon himself to direct operations. He therefore summoned a meeting of his privy council and put the problem before them. Should he still attempt to carry the war into Europe? Or would it be better to force a direct trial of strength with the Macedonian army?

The general reaction among his Persian councillors was that Darius should bring Alexander to battle. They also emphasized that it would boost the troops' morale if he led them in person. This view was opposed, with more force than tact, by the Athenian captain Charidemus (see above, p. 150). He pointed out, quite rightly, that it would be lunacy for Darius to stake his throne on such a gamble. The Great King should remain at Susa, in charge of the war effort as a whole, while a professional general dealt with Alexander. When asked how many men would be necessary for this operation, Charidemus put the figure at 100,000 — provided one-third of them were Greek mercenaries. He also hinted, in pretty broad terms, that he was more than ready to assume supreme command himself. It is all very like Memnon before the Granicus; no Greek seems to have been capable of stifling his contempt for the Persian soldier's fighting abilities, even to carry a point in conference.

Darius' councillors, as might have been predicted, reacted sharply to this slur. Charidemus, they hinted, only wanted the command so that he could the more easily betray them to the Macedonians. At this point Charidemus, fatally for himself, lost his temper: as a mercenary he was more vulnerable than most to such allegations. The meeting degenerated into a shouting match. Some of his remarks about Iranian cowardice and incompetence so incensed Darius (who could speak Greek fluently) that he ‘seized him by the girdle according to the custom of the Persians’ and ordered his instant execution. As he was dragged away, Charidemus cried out that Darius would pay for this unjust punishment with the loss of his throne and kingdom.

Once Darius' temper had cooled, he bitterly regretted having killed his best surviving general, and ordered Charidemus to be given special funeral rites. But this hardly solved the problem of Memnon's replacement. In the end he was forced to admit that no suitable candidate could be found. As a result, the European invasion was now officially abandoned in favour of a direct confrontation with Alexander: this decision arguably changed the entire outcome of the war. Pharnabazus found himself officially confirmed as Memnon's successor; but the empty nature of this honour was made plain by the simultaneous recall of all his mercenaries, whom Darius badly needed to stiffen the Persian infantry line. Pharnabazus, making the best of a bad job, rejoined Autophradates with his reduced forces, and together they continued their naval operations. While ten triremes under Datames were detached to raid the Cyclades, the remainder sailed north and captured Tenedos. The Macedonians had still failed to raise an adequate fleet, and there was little opposition. One of Antipater's naval patrols did manage to destroy Datames' squadron off Siphnos; but this minor success could not conceal the fact that the Persians now virtually controlled the entire Aegean.⁵¹

While Darius awaited his reinforcements in Babylon, Alexander was thrusting south across the rocky, volcanic uplands of Cappadocia, under a burning August sun. For some seventy-five miles, water and provisions were virtually unobtainable: as on other similar occasions, over comparable distances, Alexander seems to have force-marched his men on iron rations and the bare minimum of water. Between them and the coastal plain stretched the great rampart of the Taurus mountains. The only pass was a deep, twisting canyon, overshadowed by high crags. At one point some long-dead king had set his engineers to hack a narrow cut through from gorge to gorge, thus saving a vast detour. This grim defile was known as the Cilician Gates. Until a modern highway was blasted through it, there was barely room for two laden camels to pass abreast. A single regiment, with archers to provide enfilading fire, could hold off an army by the simple expedient of rolling rocks down on them. The defile was also crossed at several points by gulleys and mountain water-courses.

Alexander, understandably, anticipated trouble at the Gates; but there was no other feasible route. He was saved a good deal of trouble — unintentionally — by Arsames, the Persian governor of Cilicia. Arsames had been one of the commanders at theGranicus, and was also present when Memnon proposed his scorched-earth policy. The disaster which followed its rejection had made a deep impression on him. Arsames is a striking instance of that too-common phenomenon, the second-rate commander who gets one idea into his head, and keeps it there. Unfortunately, what would have been admirable strategy at the Granicus was sheer disaster in Cilicia.

The Gates provided him with a defence-line of unparalleled strength. If he had brought up all his troops, and staked everything on holding the pass, Alexander would have had no option but to retreat. Instead, bent on imitating Memnon's strategy and avoiding a head-on collision, Arsames left only a small force at the Gates, and devoted much time and energy to laying waste the Cilician Plain in their rear. This can hardly have inspired his advance guard to make a heroic last stand, in the manner of Leonidas atThermopylae. Indeed, they very soon began to suspect that Arsames had deliberately abandoned them; so when Alexander launched a night-attack on their positions, they took to their heels and ran for it. At dawn, the Thracians went ahead to flush any possible ambushes, while archers climbed the ridge to give them covering fire. Then the entire Macedonian army advanced through the Gates, four abreast, and down into the plain. Alexander himself said afterwards that he never had a more amazing piece of luck in his entire career.

He now heard reports that Arsames was evacuating Tarsus. In accordance with his chosen policy, the Persian intended to loot the city of its treasure, and then burn it down. Alexander at once sent Parmenio on ahead with the cavalry and the light-armed troops. Arsames, learning of his approach, took off in some haste, leaving both city and treasure intact. Darius was on the march from Babylon, and the satrap now made his way eastward to join him.⁵²

Alexander entered Tarsus on 3 September 333, sweating, hot and exhausted after a rapid forced march from the foothills of the Taurus. In late summer the Cilician Plain, ringed on three sides by mountains, becomes a torrid oven. Through the city itself ran the River Cydnus (Tersus-Tchai), clear, fast-flowing, and ice-cold with melted mountain snows. When he reached its banks, the young king dismounted, stripped off his clothes, and plunged in. Almost immediately he suffered an attack of cramp so severe that those watching took it for some sort of convulsion. His aides rushed into the water and pulled him out half-conscious, ashen-white and chilled to the bone. Before he took his bathe he seems to have been suffering from some kind of bronchial infection, which now quickly turned into acute pneumonia.

For days he lay helpless, with a raging fever. His physicians were so pessimistic about his chances of recovery that they refused to treat him, in case they should be accused of negligence — or, worse, of murder. (They had some reason for their alarm: the Great King was now proclaiming publicly that he would give a 1,000-talent reward to any man who slew Alexander.) One doctor only, Philip of Acarnania, offered to treat him. This was Alexander's confidential physician, whom he had known since childhood. There were certain quick-acting drugs, Philip told him, but they involved an element of risk. The king, his mind running feverishly on Darius' advance, raised no objection. He knew enough about pharmacology himself to realize that Philip's medicine might just achieve the desired result. Then, after the dose had been made up, a note was brought to Alexander from Parmenio — again, as in the case of Alexander of Lyncestis, that odd and ambivalent solicitude — warning him that Philip had been bribed by the Great King: the purge he administered would be strong poison.

Alexander handed this letter to Philip, picked up his medicine, and drank it while Philip was still reading. The physician, with considerable sang-froid, merely remarked that if Alexander followed his advice he would make a good recovery. But it was touch and go. The purge had an immediate and violent effect: the king's voice failed, he began to have great difficulty breathing, and presently lapsed into a semi-coma. Philip massaged him, and applied a series of hot fomentations. Alexander's tough constitution pulled him through the crisis, and the drug did the rest. Presently his fever dropped, and after three days he had sufficiently recovered to show himself to his anxious troops. One cannot help wondering how matters would have turned out — both for him and for Parmenio— had he heeded the old marshal's warning.⁵³

In the event, Parmenio was kept fully occupied during the king's convalescence. Alexander sent him, with the allied infantry, the Greek mercenaries, and the Thracian and Thessalian horse, to report on Darius' movements and to block the passes. Parmenio swept round the Gulf of Alexandretta, and captured the little harbour-town of Issus, which he made his advance base. There were two passes, and two only, by which Darius could bring his army into Cilicia. Parmenio proceeded to reconnoitre them both. First he struck south along the coast, with the mountains on his left flank. He crossed two rivers, the Deli and the Payas, and occupied a narrow defile known today as the Pillar of Jonah. About fifteen miles farther on lay the Syrian Gates (Beilan pass), through which a road ran by way of the Orontes Valley to Thapsacus on the Euphrates. When he reached the Gates, Parmenio learnt that Darius had crossed the Euphrates by means of a pontoon bridge, and was now advancing towards the coast. On receipt of this news, he left a scouting party to watch the Syrian Gates, stationed his main holding force at the Pillar of Jonah, and then hurried back north to secure the Great King's other possible entrypoint. This was the Bahçe pass — known in antiquity as the Amanic Gates — which traverses the mountain ranges due east of Tarsus, and now carries the railway line between Konia and Aleppo.^e Here, as at the Syrian Gates, he mopped up a few enemy outposts and established his own: probably in Castabala, close by the entrance to the pass.

Alexander, realizing from Parmenio's reports that the situation was not as urgent as he had feared, spent another week or two convalescing in Tarsus. Even so, he was far from idle. For the first time, he took over a major mint, and used it to strike his own coins — a highly significant innovation. Until he crossed the Taurus, he could still claim to be ‘liberating the Greeks’. But from Cilicia onwards he came as a conqueror. If he wanted Syrians or Phoenicians to acknowledge his overlordship, he had to build up an authority similar to that wielded by the Great King himself. The imposition of a new coinage was an obvious step in this process.⁵⁴ Old issues were called in, melted down, and restruck with Alexander's name and type: what began at Tarsus was very soon copied by mints on Cyprus and all down the Phoenician coast. Some old-type coins continued to exist alongside the new ones; but Alexander undoubtedly achieved his main object — to get himself ‘recognized as the master in all parts of his new territory’. He also had a convenient centre from which to pay the army.

It was now, too, that Harpalus, his treasurer and quartermaster general, supposedly defected — though the evidence⁵⁵ is ambiguous, and Harpalus may, in fact, have been on a secret mission to watch the political situation in Greece, with defection as his cover-story. All we are told is that he was ‘persuaded’ to leave Alexander by a ‘bad man’, Tauriscus. The two men travelled to Greece together, but then parted company, Harpalus remaining in the Megarid, while Tauriscus went on to southern Italy, where he joinedan expedition led by Alexander of Epirus,^f and was subsequently killed. The whole affair remains shrouded in mystery and propaganda. Whatever Harpalus was up to in Greece did not prevent his subsequent reinstatement (see below, p. 281): he is by far the most enigmatic of Alexander's entourage, and we have by no means heard the last of him.

The news from Parmenio meant that there was time to make at least a perfunctory show of ‘subjugating’ Cilicia. Alexander first visited Anchialus, a day's march west of Tarsus. Here he was shown what purported to be the tomb of Sardanapalus(Assurbanipal), with a relief of the king in the act of snapping his fingers. Underneath was an inscription which (or so the guides told him) read ‘Sardanapalus … built Tarsus and Anchialus in one day. Eat, drink, copulate! The rest is not worth that.’ This story the king sent back to Aristotle, who said of it that the epitaph might just as well have been written on the tomb of a bull.⁵⁶ From Anchialus Alexander advanced to nearby Soli, where the inhabitants proved a good deal less cooperative. As a result they were forced to accept a garrison, and found themselves fined 200 talents for their ‘pro-Persian attitude’. The king had to spend a week dealing with Cilician guerrilla forces in the nearby hills, which is unlikely to have improved his temper.⁵⁷ But when he got back to Soli he found excellent news awaiting him. Ptolemy, Asander, and Queen Ada (see above, pp. 193 ff.) had at last defeated Orontobates at Halicarnassus, Cos had been recaptured, and the entire Carian coast was now in Macedonian hands.

Alexander was more concerned over events in the West than he liked to admit, and his relief found expression, as so often, in an outburst of official festivities. (His enthusiasm might have been a little dampened had he known that within a month or twoMiletus, Halicarnassus and most of the islands would be Persian-occupied once more.) There were lavish sacrifices to Asclepius, the god of healing, in gratitude for the king's recovery. There were public games, and a relay race, and a torchlight tattoo, and literary competitions. These celebrations concluded, Alexander made his way back from Soli to Tarsus. Philotas and the cavalry were sent ahead as far as the Pyramus River, on the west side of the Gulf of Alexandretta. The king himself followed with the Royal Squadronand the infantry. He seems to have been much concerned to win support from the Cilician towns en route, but this did not noticeably delay his advance.

At Castabala Parmenio met him with the latest news. Darius had pitched camp at Sochi, somewhere east of the Syrian Gates (Beilan pass) in the open plain. It looked as though he meant to stay there: the terrain was admirable for large-scale cavalry manoeuvres. His presence had much impressed the local cities, which were all turning pro-Persian once more. Parmenio urged Alexander to marshal his forces at Issus, and wait for Darius there. In so narrow a space, between the mountains and the sea, there was less danger of the Macedonians being outflanked. Curtius, who tells this story, does not mention one other obvious argument, which must surely have been uppermost in Parmenio's mind: from Issus Alexander could anticipate Darius whichever pass he chose to come through. Nevertheless, Alexander seems to have convinced himself that if Darius moved at all, it would be by way of the Syrian Gates. Perhaps the Persians had deliberately ‘leaked’ false information, which Alexander's intelligence section picked up and treated as genuine.

At all events, the king did not wait at Issus. He left his sick and wounded there — which shows that he believed the place safe from attack — and force-marched the rest of the army south through the Pillar of Jonah to Myriandrus. Here he pitched camp, opposite the pass, and waited for an enemy who never came.⁵⁸ This, clearly, was just the move that Darius had been hoping he would make. The Great King had already rendered his own task-force lighter and more mobile by sending the baggage-train, all non-combatants, and the bulk of his treasure under guard to Damascus. While Alexander was held up at Myriandrus by a violent thunderstorm (a very lame excuse, this: the Macedonian army afterwards marched mile after mile through Indian monsoon rains) Darius set out north on a lightning dash for the Amanic Gates.^g

Macedonians   1 Agrianians   2 Macedonian Archers   3 Companion Cavalry   4 Paeonian Light Horse   5 Lancers   6 Hypaspists   7 Phalanx Coenus   8 Phalanx Perdiccas   9 Phalanx Craterus 10 Phalanx Meleager 11 Phalanx Ptolemy 12 Phalanx Amyntas 13 Cretan Archers 14 Thracian Javelin-men 15 Thessalian Cavalry 16 Allied Greek Cavalry 17 Group of Agrianians 18 Squadron of Light Horse 19 Greek Mercenaries

Persians a Cavalry under Nabarzanes b Cardaces c Archers d Greek Mercenaries e Darius and Bodyguard f Asiatic Levies g Detachment

Having got through the pass unobserved and unopposed, Darius swooped down from Castabala on Issus, where he captured most of Alexander's hospital-cases. Their hands were cut off and seared with pitch; they were then taken on a tour of the Persian units, turned loose, and told to report what they had seen to Alexander (Xerxes had done much the same with a group of Greek spies caught in his camp during the Persian Wars). From Issus the Great King advanced as far as the Pinarus River — probably the Payasrather than the Deli⁵⁹ — and took up a defensive position on its northern bank. He now lay in Alexander's rear, squarely across his lines of communication, and could thus force him to fight a reversed-front engagement.

Alexander had been caught in an almost perfect trap. South of him lay the potentially hostile cities of Phoenicia. If he retreated through the Syrian Gates, and struck north along the route Darius had taken, the Great King would have ample warning of his approach, and could close the Bahçe Pass against him. There was nothing for it but to fight, and in highly unfavourable circumstances. For the Persians, a drawn battle would be as good as a victory. As Tarn says, they ‘only had to hold the line, and Alexander'scareer was ended’. Nor did he have much choice of tactics: it was a frontal assault or nothing. Darius' army had to be squarely defeated, and the sooner the better. His own Macedonians had marched over seventy miles in two days, and at the end of this marathon effort torrential rains had washed them out of their tents. They were sodden, exhausted, and resentful. Yet somehow Alexander's outrageous optimism — well conveyed in the rousing address he now gave them — proved infectious. When he finished his speech with a reference to Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, they cheered wildly.

It was now after midday, and Alexander (who knew, long before Napoleon, that an army marches on its stomach) saw to it that his troops had a good hot meal. He then sent on a small force of cavalry and mounted archers to reconnoitre. When darkness fell, he marched his whole army as far as the Jonah pass, and by midnight had established himself in a commanding position on the heights overlooking it, from where he could see Darius' camp-fires twinkling far and wide across the plain. While his troops snatched a few hours' rest, Alexander himself went up the mountain and made sacrifice by torchlight to the tutelary deities of the region. Next morning, if ever, he was going to need their aid. Before leaving Myriandrus he had also driven a four-horse chariot into the sea as an offering to Poseidon — perhaps in hope of averting any untimely intervention by Darius' Phoenician fleet.⁶⁰

At dawn the Macedonian army began its descent towards Issus. It took Alexander three miles to get clear of the Jonah pass, after which he had to march another nine before reaching the Pinarus River. The line of the mountains was irregular, with numerous outlying spurs and ridges. The plain, nevertheless, slowly widened as he went on, like a very narrow isosceles triangle. By the time the Macedonians had reached a point about 1,000 yards from the river, there was a front of over three miles in which to manoeuvre. Even if the phalanx was driven back into the apex of the wedge, at least it would not be outflanked. Alexander began this march in column of route; then, as the ground opened out before him, he deployed battalion after battalion of the infantry into line, keeping his left flank close by the shore (Parmenio had strict instructions never to lose contact with the sea) and pushing his right up into the foothills.

When all the line-regiments had been brought up, Alexander began to feed in the cavalry squadrons. Most of these, Thessalians included — Parmenio, for the moment, had to make do with the Greek allies — he massed on the right wing, this being where he originally assumed that Darius would deliver his main attack. Scouts had reported enemy troop concentrations up in the hills; these Alexander took to be part of a general encircling movement directed at his right flank and rear. But it was very hard to be certain just what Darius had in mind, since he had cleverly thrown a large screen of cavalry and light-armed troops forward across the river to mask his dispositions.

As usual, the Persians' great weakness lay in their infantry. Darius' Asiatic levies were worse than useless against the Macedonian phalanx; he sensibly lumped them together in the rear as reserves and camp-guards. To make up his front line (see plan, p. 225) was something of a problem. In the very centre he placed his Royal Bodyguard, a crack Iranian corps 2,000 strong, whose spear-butts were decorated with golden quinces. He himself, as tradition required, was stationed immediately behind them, in his great ornamental chariot. Flanking the Bodyguard on either side were Darius' indispensable Greek mercenaries: 30,000 of them, according to our sources, though this figure is generally regarded as an exaggeration. Finally, on the wings, came two divisions of light-armedPersian infantry, the so-called ‘Cardaces’: Iranian youths who were undergoing, or had just completed, their military training.^h As a further defence, he had built palisades of sharpened stakes at any point where the river-bank was dangerously low (they must have been very hard to anchor in that damp, shifting gravel).

By the time Darius had moved all his infantry units into battle formation it was mid afternoon, and the Macedonians were getting uncomfortably close. Not that Alexander showed any impatience. He led his troops forward at a very leisurely pace, with frequent halts to check their dressing and observe enemy movements. Darius' intentions were still far from clear. Then, abruptly, the Persian cavalry squadrons that had been acting as a screen were signalled back across the river, and dispatched to their final battle-stations. At this point Darius' intentions became very clear indeed, and Alexander had to carry out a quick last-minute reorganization of his own line, since instead of massing the Iranian cavalry opposite Alexander's right, where it had been expected, the Great King was moving all his best squadrons down to the seashore, against Parmenio.

Alexander at once sent the Thessalians back across to his left, as reinforcements, ordering them to ride behind the phalanx so that their movements would remain unobserved. Reports now came in that the Persian forces up on the ridge had occupied a projecting spur of the mountain, and were actually behind the Macedonian right wing. Alexander sent a mixed force of light-armed troops to deal with them, though he himself (for whatever reason) was still far more concerned by the possibility of a frontal outflanking movement. He pushed forward his cavalry patrols, and brought across two squadrons from the centre to strengthen his right wing. The Persians in the hills, however, made no attempt to fight, and a quick commando assault soon routed them. Alexander left 300 cavalry to watch their movements, but recalled the archers and Agrianians as extra protection for his flank.

So the Macedonian army, now deployed on a three-mile front, continued its steady advance. Alexander rode up and down the line, checking his more impetuous troops with a quick, characteristic gesture of the hand, anxious that they should not be out of breath when they joined battle. Almost within bowshot, he halted once again, in the hope that the Persians might charge. They did not. There was some grumbling among Alexander's staff officers about the Great King's lack of spirit. In fact, of course, Darius had a first-class defensive position, and — very reasonably — was not in the least inclined to abandon it. At this point Alexander saw that any further delay would be useless. It was already late afternoon. After a final inspection he led on once more, slowly at first, in close formation, until they came within range of the Persian archers. These now loosed off a tremendous volley, ‘such a shower of missiles that they collided with one another in the air’. Then a trumpet rang out, and Alexander, at the head of the Companions, charged across the river, scattering Darius' archers and driving them back among the light-armed Persian infantry. It was a magnificently successful assault: the battle on the right wing was won in the first few moments.

In the centre, things did not go nearly so well. Here the phalanx had great difficulty in getting across the river at all. They found themselves confronted by a steep bank, some five feet high in places, and all overgrown with brambles — not to mention the Persian stake-palisades. Macedonian infantrymen were soon locked in a bloody hand-to-hand struggle with equally tough, equally professional Greek mercenaries, who on this occasion were fighting for something more than their pay. For a while neither side could advance more than a few feet. Then came the inevitable aftermath of Alexander's headlong charge: a dangerous gap opened up on the right flank of the phalanx. This was too good a chance to miss. A spearhead of mercenaries drove a deep wedge into the Macedonian line: during the desperate fighting that followed, Ptolemy, son of Seleucus, and some 120 Macedonian officers lost their lives.

Meanwhile Alexander, having rolled up the Persian left wing, now swung his wedge of cavalry inward against the rear files of the mercenaries and the Royal Bodyguard. If the Persians at the Granicus had aimed at killing Alexander, Alexander now, with even more certainty, strained every nerve to kill or capture Darius. The Great King offered the best — perhaps the only — focal point for any future resistance involving all the provinces of the empire. His loss would cripple the Persian cause. Besides, the vast majority of his subjects cared little who ruled them so long as their own local interests were left intact.⁶¹ The man who toppled Darius should have little trouble in winning general recognition as his successor.

The moment he located the Great King's chariot, Alexander charged straight for it, and every Macedonian warrior that day shared his ambition. The defence was equally heroic: Darius certainly knew how to command loyalty among the Iranian barons.Oxathres, his brother, leading the Royal Household Cavalry, fought desperately to protect him. Dying men and horses lay piled in wild confusion. Alexander received a wound in the thigh — from Darius himself, or so it was claimed. If this is true, it shows how close he came to attaining his objective.ⁱ The horses of Darius' chariot, covered with wounds and terrified by the corpses lying all about them, plunged and reared, half berserk. For a moment there was a real danger that they might carry the Great King headlong through Alexander's lines. Darius, abandoning royal protocol in this emergency, grabbed the reins with his own hands. A second, lighter chariot was somehow found and brought up. Darius, seeing himself in imminent danger of capture, scrambled into it and fled the field.

At the very moment of his departure, Alexander received an urgent appeal from the phalanx, still bogged down beneath the river-bank, and now in desperate straits. Nor were things much better on the left wing, where Parmenio's Thessalians had been having a hard time of it against the Persian heavy cavalry under Nabarzanes, and were still barely holding their own. With both centre and left thus seriously threatened, Alexander had no option but to postpone his pursuit of the Great King. He must have been in a fury of frustration; nevertheless he acted promptly and with crushing effectiveness. He swung his whole right wing round in a wedge against the mercenaries' flank, and drove them out of the river with heavy casualties. When Nabarzanes' cavalrymen saw their own centre being cut to pieces, and heard of the Great King's flight, they wheeled their horses about and followed him. The retreat soon became a rout.

Unutterable chaos ensued. Nabarzanes' men were encumbered by their heavy scale-armour, and the Thessalians harried them relentlessly. The Persian foot-levies, who had played no serious part in the battle, were already flying for their lives towards the safety of the mountains. Many were ridden down by their own cavalry, and the horsemen themselves, hard-pressed from the rear, and jostling together as they approached the defiles, offered an easy target to Alexander's archers. Ptolemy reported afterwards that he and his squadron rode across one deep water-course over the piled-up bodies of the dead.

As soon as Alexander saw that the phalanx and the Thessalians were out of danger, he and his Companions set off on a headlong chase after Darius. But everything was against them. It was now between five and six o'clock of a November evening, and already dusk had begun to fall. The Great King had over half a mile's start on them. Worse, the route he had taken — probably the mountain track to Dörtyol and Hassa — was now jammed with the disorganized remnants of the Persian Imperial Army.⁶² Despite these hazards, the pursuers kept going for some twenty-five miles. Only when darkness had fallen did Alexander give up and turn back. Despite everything, he did not reach camp empty-handed. Darius had very soon abandoned his chariot, and fled over the mountains on horseback, stripping off his royal mantle and all other insignia by which he might be recognized. These, together with his shield and bow, Alexander found and kept as battle-trophies.

Meanwhile the Macedonians had overrun Darius' base-camp, and found it a looters' paradise. Every tent was chock-a-block with vessels of gold and silver, with jewelled swords and inlaid furniture and priceless tapestries. Even though the main baggage-train and treasure had been sent to Damascus, the victors still collected no less than 3,000 talents in gold, a fantastic haul. The ladies of the Persian court — who, according to custom, had accompanied Darius on his campaign — were stripped of their valuables and severely manhandled by Alexander's troops. Only the Great King's pavilion, together with his immediate family, were kept untouched, under strict guard. These, by right of conquest, belonged to Alexander himself.

Alexander got back to camp about midnight, dusty and exhausted after his breakneck ride. When he had bathed (in the Great King's tub) and changed (into one of the Great King's robes, which must have been a great deal too large for him) he entered Darius' huge pavilion, and found it ablaze with torches. On the tables the royal gold plate had been set out, and a celebratory banquet was in preparation. As he stretched himself out on a luxurious couch, Alexander turned to his dining-companions and said, with that ambiguous irony which marks so many of his recorded utterances: ‘So this, it would seem, is to be a king.’

Just as he was settling down to dinner there came the sound of wailing and lamentation from a nearby tent. Alexander dispatched an attendant to find out what all the uproar was about. It appeared that one of the Persian court eunuchs, having seen the Great King's chariot and royal insignia, had jumped to the conclusion that he was dead; and now Darius' mother, wife and children were mourning for him. Alexander hastened to clear up this unfortunate misunderstanding. His first thought was to employ Mithrines on this errand, he being a Persian. It was, however, pointed out to him that the sight of a traitor (Mithrines had surrendered Sardis [see above, p. 184] and was now collaborating with the Macedonians) might upset the ladies still further. He therefore sent Leonnatus, aGentleman of the Bodyguard who was also his close personal friend.

As Leonnatus and his guards appeared at the entrance of the queen mother's tent, her attendants ran inside screaming. All the captive women, they at once assumed, were to be butchered, and this was the execution squad. When Leonnatus, somewhat embarrassed, went inside, Darius' wife and mother both flung themselves at his feet, and begged permission to bury their lord's body before dying themselves. Leonnatus told them, through an interpreter, that they had nothing to fear. Darius was not dead; Alexander, moreover, had not fought against him out of personal enmity, but ‘had made legitimate war for the sovereignty of Asia’. They were to retain all the titles, ceremonial, and insignia befitting their royal status, and would receive whatever allowances they had been granted by Darius himself. As Tarn well observes, ‘later writers never tired of embroidering the theme of Alexander's treatment of these ladies; their praise of what he did throws a dry light on what he was expected to do.’⁶³

On the other hand it is unlikely that this generous treatment was dictated by wholly altruistic motives. Alexander had learnt a good deal from Aristotle about Persian customs and religion. He would have known that in the Achaemenid royal house succession to the throne depended very largely on establishing a claim through the distaff side⁶⁴ — one reason why the queen mother was so powerful a figure in Persian dynastic politics. No wonder he treated Darius' family well: they offered him a unique chance, when the time came, to legitimize his position as a usurper. The compassion he showed them was not only laudable, but politic. When he returned to camp after his long ride, he said to one of his companions: ‘Let us go and wash off the sweat of battle in the bath of Darius’ — only to be reminded that the bath now belonged not to Darius, but to him. The same applied, a fortiori, to these extremely valuable hostages.

Issus was a great victory, but by no means a decisive one. It had enabled Alexander to extricate himself from a highly dangerous position. It brought in welcome spoils, and had excellent propaganda value. But more than 10,000 mercenaries had got away, in good order, to form the Greek nucleus of another Persian army; the Eastern provinces, such as Bactria, were still intact; and — most important of all — so long as Darius himself remained at large, there was no question of the war being over.