IS IT NOT PASSING BRAVE TO BE A KING
AND RIDE IN TRIUMPH THROUGH PERSEPOLIS?
—CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
A few days east of Susa, Alexander and his army left the warm plains of Mesopotamia and entered the snow-covered mountains of Persia. These highlands were occupied by a people known as the Uxians, whose king, Madates, was a cousin of Darius. Although related to the royal family, they were a people apart who granted passage through their lands only to those who paid their price. Every Great King since Cyrus had given gold to the Uxian brigands to allow his men to travel the narrow gorges that were the only practical road between Susa and Persepolis. It was a bitter humiliation for the king of Persia to pay tribute to bandits, but given the inaccessible nature of the mountains no army had ever been able to subdue them or drive them out.
Messengers from the Uxians came to Alexander at his camp in the foothills and greeted the king with respect. They welcomed him to their land and—lacking loyalty to any but their own—had no objection to his passing through the mountains to attack Persepolis. But there was the small matter of the tribute payment. They would let his army cross in peace as long as he paid the same toll as the Great King. Alexander must have been a study in self-control at this moment, for he smiled and bid them to wait for him in the mountain pass, where they would receive his payment.
Darius and his predecessors may have given in to these highland bandits, but Alexander was not about to start his march into Persia by submitting to blackmail. He intended to teach the Uxians a lesson they would never forget. The king took several thousand of his best troops and led them through a narrow backcountry trail into the mountains accompanied by guides from Susa. There he found a number of Uxian villages nestled in the high valleys. One by one, he fell on them in the night and killed everyone he could find, many of them still in their beds. He took what little goods they had, mostly fine horses and sheep, but his real object was terror.
As he moved toward the pass where the Uxian warriors were guarding the main road, he sent his trusted lieutenant Craterus with a brigade of crack mountain troops into the peaks above them, knowing this is where the natives would retreat when he struck. The Uxians trusted the inaccessible terrain of their mountain home to protect them from enemies, but they had never dealt with men from the highlands of Macedonia and Thrace. These soldiers had grown up in mountains as rough as those they found themselves in now and felt perfectly at home scrabbling over rocks and ledges where wild goats were at home.
Alexander suddenly swept up from below toward the Uxians guarding the pass, so surprising them with his speed that they fled into the surrounding hills—only to find Craterus and his men waiting for them there. Many were killed outright by sword and spear, while others were thrown off the rocks to their deaths. A few escaped to spread the news of the unstoppable new king and his ferocious army. Alexander was right behind them with his men, destroying village after village as they made their way through the highlands. Their king Madates was so distraught that he sent messengers by a secret path to Susa to plead with the mother of Darius, his own mother-in-law’s sister, to intervene with Alexander and save his people. Sisyngambris was reluctant to get involved in military affairs, but for the sake of family she consented and sent a letter to Alexander begging him to spare the Uxians from destruction. The king was probably still feeling guilty about the misunderstanding with Sisyngambris over weaving cloth, so he gave in to her plea and pardoned Madates and all those Uxians who would surrender. He left their remaining villages intact with the provision that they would now pay to him as tribute one hundred horses each year along with five times that many transport animals and thirty thousand sheep. In mere days, Alexander and his men had done what the Persian Empire was unable to accomplish in two hundred years.
The Macedonians continued their march eastward ever deeper into the frozen mountains separating them from Persepolis. The direct route into Persia lay through a high pass called the Persian Gates, a narrow gap surrounded by impassable cliffs on all sides. The only other option was a long detour to the south, but this would take many extra days of travel. Alexander knew from scouts that the local Persian satrap, Ariobarzanes, was waiting for him with a considerable force guarding the Gates, but he didn’t believe their numbers would be significant. Still, they had the advantage of terrain and would be difficult to dislodge. Ariobarzanes was an experienced war leader who had fought against Alexander at Gaugamela and was still loyal to Darius—but more to the point, he was still loyal to Persia. He was determined to prevent the invaders from moving into his homeland.
Alexander considered the situation and once again made an unexpected move. He decided to split his forces, sending most of the army the long way around with Parmenion to approach Persepolis from the south. It may be true that the king was looking for an excuse to once again operate independently from the old general, but his main concern was reaching Persepolis before the Persians were able to remove the treasury. The only way he could do this was to push rapidly with a minimal force through the heavily protected Persian Gates. Ariobarzanes clearly expected him to turn his whole army south when he heard the pass was guarded, thereby buying time for the defense or at least the evacuation of the capital. Knowing this, Alexander did just the opposite and gave up the advantage of his superior numbers for a risky attack. It was not a plan any reasonable general would have attempted, but, once again, Alexander was not a reasonable general.
With only a few thousand Macedonian and Thracian mountain troops, Alexander set off at a breakneck pace up the valley leading to the Persian Gates. The approach was through a steep defile with cliffs rising on both sides. The king could see in the distance that Ariobarzanes had built a wall across the gap leading over the pass. There were a great many Persian soldiers manning the wall, but Alexander believed his men could overcome them and moved into formation into the narrowest part of the valley just before the wall.
Suddenly, there was a thunderous crash from the ridges above as boulders came crashing down onto his tightly packed men. Missiles launched from catapults in the hills above, javelins thrown by Persian soldiers, and arrows from thousands of archers fell like rain on the Macedonians as they tried to clamber up the snow-covered cliffs to get at the defenders. But the cliffs were so precipitous they kept sliding back on top of their own companions, all while hundreds of their fellow soldiers were dying around them. Alexander had led his men into a perfect trap. Ariobarzanes allegedly had forty thousand men guarding the pass, but even if there were a quarter of this number, no enemy—not even Alexander—could hope to take the Persian Gates in a direct assault. The king ordered his soldiers to raise their shields above their heads in a protective tortoise formation, but men still kept falling under the massive stones from above. Alexander at last had no choice but to order a retreat, leaving the bodies of many of his best soldiers lying broken in the narrow gorge before the wall.
Alexander was not accustomed to defeat and the shame bore heavily on him. The reckless overconfidence that had served him so well in the past had cost the lives of hundreds of his bravest men. He considered calling on Aristander the prophet to ask the gods if he had somehow offended them, but decided that it was more important at the moment to inspire confidence in his discouraged men. To lose a battle was hard enough for them, but to be forced to abandon the broken corpses of their friends was unthinkable. The dearest duty for any soldier was to bury a fallen comrade so that he might journey on to the underworld. Alexander knew that Ariobarzanes would probably permit him to retrieve the dead under a flag of truce, but the humiliation would be too much to bear. He decided to leave the bodies behind and follow Parmenion around the long southern route to Persepolis—or somehow find a way to outflank the Persians holding the Gates.
The Macedonians had managed to capture a few prisoners during the assault and Alexander ordered them brought before him. Under threat of the most horrific tortures imaginable, he asked them if there was any way around the Persian Gates. All shook their heads, but there was one man among them who spoke Greek. He was a native of Lycia in southern Asia Minor who years before had been captured and exiled to this distant corner of Persia. He labored in the local mountains as a shepherd and had been drafted by Ariobarzanes to help defend the pass. He told Alexander that there was a rocky trail that led behind the Gates, but it was a narrow backcountry track suitable only for summer travel by a few sheep, not by an army of thousands. Alexander looked him in the eye with what must have been a terrifying intensity and asked him again if there was any way his soldiers could make it through this secret path. The Lycian repeated that it was simply impossible.
It was now that Alexander remembered a prophesy he had heard when he was still a boy. At some point when he was dreaming of war against the Great King, he had sent to Delphi to ask if he would ever conquer Persia. The messengers returned from the oracle with word that he would be led into Persia by a wolf. He had forgotten this curious response for years, but with this man from Lycia before him it began to make sense. The Greek word for “wolf” was lykos, practically the same as Lykios, a Lycian. In Alexander’s mind this could not be a coincidence. He told the prisoner that his entire army would be following him over the sheep trail that very night. The man begged Alexander to be reasonable. Men in full battle armor would never make it through the path and would certainly blame him for their failure. The king replied that whatever a shepherd could do for his flock, the army of Alexander could accomplish for the sake of eternal glory.
The king left Craterus behind with most of the infantry and all of the cavalry. He was under orders to light as many fires as if the whole army were still camped before the pass, then wait for a trumpet signal to charge the wall. Alexander then ordered the rest of his men to load provisions for three days into their packs and prepare for the toughest climb of their lives. With a whispered prayer to the gods, the king and thousands of his soldiers set off in the night single file up the trail.
The path was covered in snow so deep that the men sunk repeatedly up to their chests as if they had fallen in holes. Their friends who tried to pull them out of the drifts fell in themselves. Hidden ravines and deep gorges were everywhere, while thick pines blotted out the stars on all sides. The wind was bitterly cold and whipped the frozen branches against the faces of the miserable soldiers. But Alexander had ordered his men to move over the mountain in absolute silence, so there were none of the usual complaints of cold and weary soldiers on the march. Hour after hour they struggled through impossible conditions over unknown trails in complete darkness, trusting their lives to a single Lycian shepherd and their king, who believed in a childhood prophesy.
At last, as the new day was beginning, they reached the summit of the trail well above the Persian Gates. Here Alexander ordered his exhausted men to rest and eat while he conferred with his officers. His plan was to split his forces yet again, sending a sizable detachment under Ptolemy directly down the mountainside to strike at the side of the wall at the right moment. With the rest of the men, Alexander continued down the trail to the back of the pass, a passage that was scarcely less difficult than the climb to the summit. When he reached the main road behind the Gates, he surprised a Persian guard unit stationed there, killing them all except for a few who fled down the mountain.
Night had fallen again as Alexander put his men into formation and advanced against the Persians. He ordered a trumpet blast that carried to Craterus at the far side of the Gates as a signal to begin the attack from his end. At the same time, Ptolemy and his men hit the Persians from the side after their own hike down the steep mountain. It was now Ariobarzanes who was caught in a trap. Some of his men tried to make a stand while others tried to flee, but Alexander’s surprise was so complete that almost all were slaughtered. Only the satrap himself and a handful of his men managed to escape by horse into the hills. It was one of the most horrendous battles imaginable, fought in darkness in a narrow, snow-covered pass. Thousands of Persians died in defense of their native land, hacked down by bone-tired but determined Macedonian and Thracian warriors who had made an impossible trek over the mountains in the depths of winter. The frozen corpses of the men who had died in the earlier battle before the wall were at last given funeral rites. The Lycian shepherd who had led them was rewarded lavishly by Alexander and warmly praised by the men whose lives he had held in his hands. The Persian Gates had fallen and the road to Persepolis now lay open before them.
It was now a race to reach the capital before the Persians could set up an effective defense or evacuate the treasury to the north. Alexander had already sent Philotas ahead to bridge the Araxes River on the way to the city. He had also just received a letter from Tiridates, the royal treasurer at Persepolis, who was probably a eunuch, informing the king that he would hand over the town and treasury to Alexander if he could arrive quickly. But it was essential that the Macedonians beat Ariobarzanes and his men to the city or they would surely fight for control of the capital. Tiridates was obviously hoping for the same sort of preferred treatment that important officials who had willingly given over their cities had received from the king in the past.
The Macedonians rushed at full speed down from the Zagros Mountains toward Persepolis, but when they were almost at the city they saw something that caused Alexander to pause in spite of his haste. Before him on the road was a procession of eight hundred elderly men and women bearing branches of supplication. They were a hideous and pitiable sight as each one of them had been mutilated. Some lacked hands, others feet, some were without ears or noses. To add to the shock, they all cried out to the king in Greek. Their spokesman explained that they had been carried away to this place many years before by an earlier Persian king as punishment for deeds in their homeland. They formed a colony of Greek exiles on the doorstep of the Persian capital to serve as a visible reminder for those passing by of the price of disloyalty to the Great King. Many of the refugees were craftsmen, so that their Persian masters had spared those limbs necessary for their particular work, but all were disfigured.
Alexander was so moved by the story of these aged and broken souls that tears ran down his face. He promised that he would do everything he could to help them return home to Greece. The exiles thanked him and asked if instead they might stay where they were. In Greece, they explained, they would be scattered into small groups and treated as objects of scorn. But here in Persia, they were a community with a common bond of misfortune who all looked out for one another. All they asked from Alexander was help in taking care of themselves. The king gladly agreed and ordered all be given enough money to see them comfortably through the rest of their lives, along with clothing, oxen, sheep, and bushels of wheat. He exempted them from taxes and gave strict orders to the officials ruling the region to treat them with the greatest respect.
Persepolis lay in a broad plain ringed by distant mountains at the heart of the Persian homeland. There were other capitals—Susa, Babylon, Ecbatana—but these were conquered cities that had been taken over during wars of expansion. Persepolis, on the other hand, was the soul of the empire. Here was the place the Great King and his nobles came to remember what they had accomplished over two centuries. In the days of the young Cyrus the Great, the Persians were a minor subject people, a band of highland warriors who had swept in from the lands to the north to live on the edge of civilization. They were fierce fighters and men of honor, but they were little more than country cousins to the Medes, who ruled them, and nothing but barbarians to the ancient cultures of the Fertile Crescent. They had no written language and no skill in building great monuments. But then in the course of a single lifetime they had conquered the Medes and spread into Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and central Asia. No empire in history had accomplished such a wondrous achievement. At Persepolis, where once the Persian clans had gathered in tents, they built a magnificent city using the talents of the civilized peoples they ruled. Here they stored the tribute and treasure collected from distant provinces to fund their armies and administer their empire. The first Great King Darius was the earliest architect of Persepolis, declaring on a wall inscription at the site:
I AM DARIUS, THE GREAT KING, KING OF KINGS,
KING OF NATIONS, KING ON THIS WIDE EARTH,
SON OF HYSTASPES, THE ACHAEMENID.
KING DARIUS PROCLAIMS: ON THIS PLATFORM WHERE
THIS FORTRESS HAS BEEN BUILT, NO FORTRESS HAS
BEEN BUILT BEFORE. BY THE FAVOR OF AHURAMAZDA,
I BUILT THIS FORTRESS AS AHURAMAZDA AND ALL THE
GODS WITH HIM WILLED IT. I BUILT IT, COMPLETED IT,
MADE IT BEAUTIFUL AND SECURE,
EXACTLY AS I DETERMINED.
Alexander and the army of Macedonia approached this great city at the end of January, almost four years after they had left Europe and crossed into Asia. By rapid marches over impossible terrain, tenacity in battle, and sheer determination, they had beaten Ariobarzanes at the Persian Gates and reached the walls of Persepolis unopposed. The turncoat treasurer Tiridates kept his word and opened the gates to the king. But unlike at Babylon, there were no welcoming crowds lining the streets. The citizens of the city hid in their homes praying to their gods, fearing for good reason the worst at the hands of this young king from the edge of the world.
The city that Alexander entered was not like Babylon in its ancient, vibrant grandeur or even like Susa with its magnificent palace complex and rich heritage of Elamite culture. Persepolis was a new city, monumental in the truest sense, a stately sermon in stone proclaiming the awesome power of the Persian Empire. The large palace complex was located on a rock terrace rising above the plain and was approached by a broad double stairway guarded by statues of giant bulls to ward off evil, a borrowing from earlier Mesopotamian iconography. Climbing onto the terrace, the visitor would see the audience hall on a platform with magnificent relief carvings of Persian soldiers and subject nations approaching the royal throne. Petitioners to the Great King passed beautifully detailed carvings of nobles in their chariots and imperial guards on one side. On the other side were Arabs leading camels and Indians bearing gifts, along with suppliant Parthians, Bactrians, Egyptians, Scythians, Greeks, Syrians, Babylonians, Lydians, Elamites, Medes, and others. Everyone who was granted the honor of an audience with the Great King would have to climb past these testimonials of Persian might.
Near the audience hall was another immense gathering space with one hundred columns, as well as the large and well-guarded treasury constructed of deceptively plain mud bricks. The palaces built by the first Darius and his son Xerxes were on the southern side of the terrace. That of Darius was Egyptian-inspired, small and compact, lined with walls polished to such a finish that it was known as the Hall of Mirrors. The palace of Xerxes occupied the highest part of the complex and was much grander than the structure of his father. Dozens of small chambers filled the back of the building, probably containing the harem of the king. Here the many wives and concubines of the Great King lived in splendid isolation. These ladies of the court were Persian nobility or the daughters of subject princes pledged as symbols of fealty to the empire. As a king had to be absolutely sure of the paternity of his sons, the women were guarded night and day by eunuchs.
The palace complex of Persepolis was an administrative and diplomatic center, a residence of the Great King and his entourage, a treasure house, and a ceremonial site of great importance. It was probably here that the Persian New Year ceremony was celebrated annually on the spring equinox, when gifts were given and the king confirmed as the earthly representative of the great god Ahuramazda. The majority of the population lived outside the grounds of the palace in the surrounding city. These were government officials, businessmen, and merchants who owned luxurious homes furnished with beautiful works of art. The people of Persepolis were the elite of the Persian world and had profited greatly from the tribute pouring into the capital for two hundred years.
Alexander had been generous with his army during the campaign, ensuring they were well paid when possible and given an ample share of booty along the way. But now as the men entered Persepolis, they were restless. They saw all around them riches beyond measure and knew that the private homes they passed held incredible wealth. They were, however, a disciplined lot and restrained themselves so as not to anger Alexander. Nevertheless, the king knew that even the self-control of his soldiers had its limits. Armies in the ancient world firmly believed it was their natural right to pillage any city they conquered. After all, they put their lives on the line fighting for king and country. Glory was all well and good for princes and nobles, but they longed for tangible treasure to spend while they were still young enough to enjoy it and gold to buy that farm they had always had their eye on back home. As for captive women, in the minds of the soldiers they were nothing more than the spoils of war and were to be treated as such.
Alexander had made the situation at Persepolis even more volatile by his depiction of the capital city as the ultimate goal of their campaign. The king roused his men to continue the march through deserts and mountains to Persepolis to seek revenge, calling it the most hated city in Asia. By the time the army actually reached the Persian capital, they were so embittered toward the town as the symbol of all that was evil in the world that they had no eye for the beauty of palaces or any interest in building good relations with the natives for the sake of Alexander’s new empire. They wanted to seize everything of value for themselves and watch the rest burn.
After Alexander had taken possession of the royal terrace overlooking the town, he felt he could no longer constrain his men. Rather than have a riot on his hands, he gave his army free rein to sack the great city of Persepolis, sparing only the palace complex forhimself. His army had plundered cities before from Thebes to Gaza, but this was the first time he allowed a town that had peacefully surrendered to be ravaged. It was a radical change in his policy toward conquered peoples and not at all conducive to building trust among his subjects. It was also a dangerous precedent to allow such license to an army, but the king believed the alternative was more perilous.
All that day and throughout the night the soldiers ran wild through the streets of Persepolis in an orgy of ferocious greed rarely equaled in history. The Macedonians burst into every private house and killed the men inside, then took turns raping the women and girls. When they wearied of this, they bound their captives to sell into slavery. At the same time, they stripped the homes of anything remotely valuable, even fighting among themselves for the best objects. Some hacked the limbs from golden statues when they found they could not carry away the heavy objects whole. Not a few of the men were killed by their comrades quarrelling over fine purple cloth or silver jewelry. Some even had their hands cut off by men they had long fought beside as they tried to grab a bit more treasure for themselves. A few of the Persian households tried to fight back, but it was no use. The bravest among the citizens saw what was coming and set their own houses on fire with themselves and their families inside before the Macedonians could break down the doors. Others put on their finest clothing and threw their wives and children from the roofs to their deaths in the streets below, then followed themselves. Finally, after a full day and night of horror for the people of the capital, Alexander ordered his men to cease from looting the city and stop the killing. But by then, there was little left to steal and few lives left to spare. Persepolis was a smoking ruin filled with the dead, an indescribable scene of horror as naked widows and orphans were led away in the winter cold to the slave markets. Alexander at last had his revenge against the Great King’s empire, but the Persians would never forget what he had done.
While his men were still ravaging the city, Alexander walked through the palace taking an inventory of his new possessions. The first thing he noticed was a statue of Xerxes that had been carelessly overturned by some of his men. This was the Persian king who had invaded Greece early in the previous century, slaughtered the Spartans at Thermopylae, and burned Athens to the ground. And yet, Alexander knew that Xerxes had many admirable qualities, not least of which was a gift for building the magnificent palace around him. He stopped in front of the toppled statue and spoke to it as if it were alive, asking if he should set it up on its pedestal again even though he had done such harm to Greece. He pondered the problem for a long time in silence as his friends stood near, then walked away.
The king next entered the throne room and approached the seat of the Great King, a grandiose piece of furniture on a raised platform covered by a golden canopy. The pages had apparently already placed a footstool of appropriate height before the throne in anticipation of Alexander’s entrance, for the ancient sources don’t mention his feet dangling above the floor as they did in Susa. It was a moving moment for Alexander and all those present. Here at last the king fulfilled his dream of sitting on the throne of the Great King at Persepolis. For four years he had fought his way across the Persian Empire defeating armies and sacking cities to earn this right. Demaratus of Corinth, his old family friend, burst into tears at the sight. He declared that he pitied those Greeks who had died before they could see Alexander seated on the throne of Darius.
From the palace Alexander moved to the treasury, where he gazed in awe at the tribute collected by the Great Kings of Persia for two centuries. The royal treasury at Susa had held an unbelievable store of gold and silver, but the abundance of wealth contained in this simple mud-brick building at Persepolis made the coffers at Susa look small by comparison. There was row after row of boxes filled with gold coins collected from all the nations of the empire. Alexander thought it best to remove the money from Persepolis and so ordered it transported to the treasury at Susa. But the load was so immense that the Macedonian quartermasters had to send for thousands of mules and camels from Mesopotamia to bear the treasure.
Alexander also visited the royal center at Pasargadae just a few miles to the east of Persepolis. This was the place where Cyrus won his final victory over the Medes, prompting the first Great King of Persia to build a palace there. This was also the holy site where each new Persian king was crowned. Each man who would lead the empire entered the sanctuary there and laid aside his own cloak, taking up instead the garment that Cyrus had once worn. The coronation rituals seemed strange to outsiders, but the new king first ate a fig cake, then chewed on turpentine wood, and finally drank a cup of sour milk. It is likely that each king began his reign in this way to remember that in spite of golden palaces and the comforts of civilization, most important, he was the leader of a highland tribe of warriors nourished on simple and sometimes bitter fare.
Alexander appropriated the treasury at Pasargadae to add to the caravan heading for Susa, but he was even more interested in visiting the tomb of Cyrus. It was a small, rectangular stone structure at the top of a platform of stairs. A garden surrounded the tomb tended by a permanent staff of priests. The door to the tomb was narrow and small, so that even a short man like Alexander had difficulty squeezing through the single opening. Inside was a golden sarcophagus containing the body of Cyrus. Beside it was a couch covered with a Babylonian tapestry and surrounded by purple carpets over the cold stone floor. Next to the couch were laid out Median trousers and royal robes, along with a table holding swords and jewelry. The hereditary family of priests who tended the tomb received daily a sheep and grain for their own needs, along with a horse each month to offer as a sacrifice to the spirit of Cyrus. On the outside of the door was an inscription in Persian cuneiform that the priest interpreted for Alexander:
MORTAL MAN, I AM CYRUS, SON OF CAMBYSES,
FOUNDER OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND KING OF ASIA.
DO NOT BEGRUDGE ME THIS SMALL MONUMENT.
Alexander was deeply moved by his visit to the tomb of Cyrus and commanded that the wishes of the first Great King be forever honored. The priests were to continue in perpetuity the royal ceremonies due to Cyrus and the tomb was to remain inviolate.
It may have been the stench of the burned city or shame at having allowed his soldiers to rampage through Persepolis that soon moved Alexander to leave the city for a trip to the Persian countryside. He knew Darius and the remnants of the Persian army were in Media waiting to see what he would do next, but he was in no hurry to chase them across Asia just yet. After four years of campaigning, he felt his men needed a rest. The winter snows still covered the mountains to the north and the king knew there would be many difficult marches ahead, even if many of the soldiers thought the campaign was over and they were soon returning home. It seemed best to let his army regain their strength in Persepolis and perhaps their appetite for battle before beginning the campaign once again in the spring.
But the restless nature of Alexander did not abide remaining long in any one place. There were reports of primitive tribes in the hills that refused to acknowledge his sovereignty, but this was little more than an excuse to explore more of Persia on his own. Leaving his army behind, he took with him his closest companions and a small force of only a thousand cavalry and light-armed infantry into the rugged mountains. The weather was horrible and the paths were covered with snow and ice. As they climbed into the highlands, the men began to feel as if they had reached the end of the world. There were no farms or houses, no people or animals, only endless sky and fading light. There was something strange and disturbing about these mountains even for men who had been raised in the highlands of Macedonia. At last a group of soldiers dared to approach Alexander and begged him to turn back.
Instead of berating his frightened men, the king jumped down from his horse and pressed ahead up the trail by himself over snow and slippery patches of ice. He took a pick and broke up the ice covering the path as he made his way forward. All his men watched and were filled with shame. First his friends joined him in blazing the trail, then his officers, and finally the rest of the soldiers. They slowly made their way through the forest and over the mountains until at last they saw traces of human civilization once again. The bands of herdsmen who lived in these inaccessible hills did not expect to see outsiders in the middle of winter and certainly were unprepared for a small army to descend upon their valley. Many of the tribesmen killed their own people to spare them from the invaders, and fled themselves higher into the mountains.
The Macedonians then moved even deeper into the highlands to the isolated land of a people known as the Mardi, a tribe left over from another age. They lived in caves in the mountains and fed their families on sheep and wild animals. Their women were as tough as the men, wearing tunics that barely covered their thighs and binding their bushy hair with slings. When the need arose, the women would pull off the slings and fight alongside the men with devastating effect. To Alexander, it was as if the trek from Persepolis had become a grand hunting expedition with humans as prey instead of beasts. There were few spoils aside from a handful of scrawny sheep, but nonetheless the hapless Mardi were tracked down and killed for the amusement of the king and his men. On their return to the city after thirty days in the wild, Alexander celebrated the excursion by giving each of those who had accompanied him gifts to remember their month traversing the mountains of Persia.
It was a fine Greek tradition to blame women for the foolish deeds of men. Helen was the face that launched a thousand ships full of warriors to fight and die before the walls of Troy. Pandora allowed evil into the world when she opened her forbidden jar (box is a mistranslation). Likewise at Persepolis that spring, it was an Athenian prostitute who would enter history as the woman who led Alexander to destroy the palace of the Great King.
As the story is told by Plutarch and other ancient authors, there was a drunken party one night not long after Alexander returned from his expedition into the mountains. Wine flowed freely as always at Macedonian banquets, so that soon all the king’s friends and guests were roaring drunk. Alexander’s old friend Ptolemy was there along with his mistress, Thaïs, whom he would later marry and father three children with. She was not a common harlot and camp follower but a woman known to the Athenians as a hetaira—a beautiful, educated, and charming female who shared the bed of her sponsor but also served as his confidante and advisor. Such women did well in Greek society and often ended up as lifetime partners of their lovers. Thaïs, as an Athenian, knew the history of the Persian conflict better than most of the Macedonian soldiers around her and took this moment of revelry to make an impassioned speech to Alexander and his friends. It was a fine reward, she proclaimed, after wandering over Asia, to dine in luxury in the splendid palace of Xerxes. But it would be a so much sweeter pleasure to set fire to the house of the man who had burned down her own city. Thaïs was a moving speaker, so that applause and cheers erupted from the whole crowd and echoed through the hall. Everyone began to urge the king to lead the way in starting a blaze. Alexander eagerly agreed and grabbed the nearest torch. He himself first set afire the cedar columns and rafters of the building, then all the others ran through the halls with firebrands. Soon the whole complex was a raging inferno that lit up the plain of Persepolis. But even as the king watched the great palace of Xerxes burn, he began to regret his hasty action. He tried to put the fire out, but it was much too late. By morning, there was nothing left but scorched pillars and ashes.
This is one tradition handed down through ancient documents, but there is a darker and more sinister tale found in the historian Arrian, often our best source for the life of Alexander. What makes Arrian so believable in this instance is that he normally has a quite positive view of the Macedonian king, but he passes over the events of this night as rapidly as possible with outright condemnation of Alexander’s actions. He states that the king planned all along to burn the palace and that even Parmenion tried to discourage him from such a drastic deed. The old general argued that it was foolish to destroy his own property and that the people of Asia would see him as just a rampaging conqueror with no real interest in building an empire. But in Arrian’s version, Alexander counters that he wants revenge for all the evils the Persians had done to the Greek world.
Discovering the truth about what happened that night is next to impossible when the ancient sources disagree. What can be said with certainty is that the palace burned to the ground before Alexander left the city. Archaeologists found a thick layer of ash throughout the remains, but no precious gold or treasures, indicating the valuables had been deliberately removed beforehand—again suggesting premeditation. If Arrian is right and Alexander burned down the palace on purpose, was revenge a sufficient reason? Perhaps, if it were an act of propaganda designed to bolster his support in Greece, especially Athens. But the king had shown surprisingly little interest in what the Greeks thought of his war since he left the Aegean coast. It may be instead that the primary audience was the Persians in an effort to show them that the old days were finished and that Alexander was now Great King. In this scenario, the burning was meant to discourage further resistance before he resumed his campaign against Darius. And yet, after slaughtering the population of Persepolis, did the Persians really harbor any doubts that opposing Alexander was dangerous and ultimately futile? In the end, we simply cannot know whether or not the king deliberately burned down the palace of Xerxes. But we can be sure that most of the ancient historians who wrote of the episode were deeply uncomfortable with Alexander’s actions and preferred to blame the events of that night on too much wine and the silken tongue of a woman.
The game now was to capture the king. Darius had spent the winter at the Median capital of Ecbatana, almost four hundred miles north of Persepolis, waiting to see what Alexander would do next. The Persian ruler had gathered an impressive army of perhaps ten thousand soldiers, including his loyal Greek mercenaries. He knew he did not have enough men to face the Macedonians in open battle, but he planned to withdraw east across the mountains into Bactria, burning the fields as he went. Since the area had few reliable crops to begin with, this devastation would make it difficult for Alexander to feed his army while pursuing him. Once in Bactria, he would lead a rear-guard effort to retake the empire. Given the sheer size and rugged terrain of the lands from the Caspian Sea to the Indus River, it was a reasonable plan. Darius could hold off the Macedonians for years in the mountains and valleys of the Hindu Kush, all the while wearing down Alexander and diverting his attention and resources from potential problems elsewhere in his new realm.
Alexander understood the strategy of Darius quite well and appreciated the threat it posed to his rule. He also knew that in a very real sense he could not be Great King in the eyes of Asia until Darius had abdicated or was dead. It was therefore essential that he overtake Darius before he could escape into Bactria. As he explained to his officers and men, the war against Persia could not be finished until the shah, as the Persians called their king, was mat, or finished. The endgame had to be shah mat, a Persian phrase that would evolve in time into checkmate.
As soon as most of the snow had melted between Persepolis and Ecbatana, Alexander readied his army for a lightning march up the eastern side of the Zagros Mountains. He once again appointed a Persian as local satrap, this time a noble named Phrasaortes, but also left behind a strong Macedonian garrison at Persepolis under the command of a trusted officer. Alexander then set out with his men across the edge of the great desert of the central Persian highlands toward Ecbatana. He pushed his men over twenty miles a day past parched hills and scattered oases in an attempt to reach the doorstep of Darius before the Persian king could flee. After almost two weeks at this blistering pace, Alexander heard that Darius had decided to make a stand at Ecbatana as the Persian had been joined by reinforcements from Scythia and tribesmen from near the Caspian Sea. This was just what Alexander was hoping for. He separated the supply train to follow at a slower pace while he and the army moved even faster toward the north. But just a few days later he received an updated report that the Persian reinforcements had not in fact arrived, prompting Darius to change his plan from fight to flight. The Persian leader had sent ahead his harem and supply wagons to a pass called the Caspian Gates in the mountains east of Rhagae (Tehran) leading to Bactria. Three days out of Ecbatana, a Persian noble named Bisthanes arrived at the camp of Alexander. This man was the only son of the previous Great King, Artaxerxes III, who had escaped the bloody purge engineered by the scheming eunuch Bagoas that had led to the ascension of Darius. He had no love for the Persian king and had decided, along with many others, to take his chances with Alexander. Bisthanes reported that Darius had now fled the Median capital and was on his way to the Caspian Gates. He also had in his wagons enough gold to pay his men and hire local warriors for years to come.
Alexander was now becoming seriously worried. If Darius made it over the mountains with his soldiers and treasure he could carry on the war indefinitely. It was therefore essential that Alexander move even faster with a rapid force. But in spite of the hurry and indeed using it as an excuse, he seized the moment to make a radical change in his command staff. First he announced that he was sending the cavalry units from Thessaly back home to Greece. These men had served bravely as the contribution of their nation to the war effort against Persia. They would all depart in honor with a large bonus and would be escorted back to the Mediterranean to be carried by ship to the Aegean. Once home they could rejoin their families and live out their lives in peace and prosperity. On the other hand, if any of them wished to sign on to his army as paid volunteers rather than subject soldiers, he would welcome them with an even larger bonus. Most of the Thessalians jumped at the chance to remain and were transferred to a new commanding officer.
It is no mere coincidence that the reassigned Thessalian cavalry were the backbone of Parmenion’s support in the army. They had fought with him for years and were stubbornly loyal to the old general. In removing them from Parmenion’s command, Alexander was cutting off his father’s oldest friend from his power base among the soldiers. The king then called Parmenion to his tent and informed him that he was sending him to Ecbatana to guard the treasury and keep an eye on Harpalus, who would now be running Alexander’s finances from the Median capital. It was an important position, Alexander assured Parmenion, and besides, at over seventy years of age, the heroic general deserved a rest from chasing fugitive Persians across the mountains. In time, he would certainly call on the general to join him in the east.
Parmenion realized exactly what Alexander was doing. The king had slowly whittled away his supporters and family members from positions of power during the campaign, leaving one here as satrap and another there as garrison chief. Now the only significant players left from his faction were himself and his two sons. Finally, in one quick stroke with no time to debate the issue, the king had severed Parmenion from his soldiers and cashiered the old man to guard duty away from the army. Parmenion had served his purpose and was to be set aside like an aged horse put out to pasture. There was no point in arguing as Alexander was leaving immediately to pursue Darius. The son of Philip had yearned for years to be his own man and silence forever the voice of his father whispering in his ear through the lips of Parmenion. In the last few years the king had gained confidence in his own innate leadership skills and grown in experience leading an army. Now, he hoped, the great battles were over and much of the empire conquered; Alexander didn’t need Parmenion anymore.
Alexander set out from Ecbatana after Darius with a strong but fast-moving force of cavalry and infantry. He was so eager to overtake the Persians that many of his men fell behind as he rushed across the arid highlands on the way to the Caspian Gates. The horses were pushed so hard that they began to die. They reached Rhagae in only eleven days and at last saw the towering Elburz Mountains rising before them. But there was no time to stop as they raced eastward, only to find that Darius had passed through the Caspian Gates several days ahead of them. Alexander camped at the pass that night, sending a battalion forward to prepare supply caches as he had heard the lands beyond were even more desolate.
While he was still in camp, a Babylonian named Bagisthanes came to him along with Antibelus, one of the sons of Mazaeus, his own satrap at Babylon. They had just left Darius and brought valuable information to Alexander. Bessus, the satrap of Bactria and kinsmen of Darius, had arrested the Persian king with the support of another eastern satrap named Barsaentes and were fleeing with him, unharmed at present, as a captive in a wagon. Alexander had been fearing something like this might happen. A coup in the Persian ranks only complicated his goal of capturing the king and ending the war. If Bessus killed Darius and took the throne, that would drag out the fight, especially as the satrap was a skilled warrior and general who had the loyalty of the Bactrians and other eastern provinces.
Alexander’s response was to strip down his troops even more and pursue Bessus with a smaller, faster force of horsemen and picked infantry. He didn’t even wait for the supply caches to be readied, but set off from the Caspian Gates with orders that the remainder of his soldiers were to follow as fast as they could. He traveled all night and stopped only at noon when his men and horses were exhausted. He had reached the camp where Darius had been arrested. Then he discovered from Persians remaining behind that Bessus had assumed the title of Great King with the support of the Bactrian cavalry. Some Persian troops remained loyal to Darius and refused to follow Bessus, including the Greek mercenaries who had set off into the mountains to try to make their way home. The plan of Bessus was that if the Macedonians ceased their pursuit, to strike a deal with Alexander and surrender Darius to him in exchange for favorable terms. But if the Macedonians continued to pursue them, they would retreat into the mountains and stage a guerrilla campaign against Alexander, forming a Persian government in exile in the highlands of Bactria.
The Macedonians were some of the toughest soldiers in the world, but by this point in the chase they were spent. Still, Alexander pushed them on through the night and into the next day. He reached the camp where the Persians had stayed just the previous day, but they were still well ahead of him. He asked the local inhabitants if there was any shortcut through the desert by which he could overtake Bessus. There was, but it was a waterless route traveled only rarely by camel caravans. Alexander then dismounted five hundred weary cavalry and put his most fit infantry on their horses, setting off into the night at full speed. With this small force he covered almost fifty miles in the darkness and at last saw the Persians in the distance at dawn.
Most of the Persians fled in panic when they saw the Macedonians closing in, though they must have far outnumbered Alexander’s men. A few attempted to delay the approaching enemy by turning back and fighting, but they were swept aside. For a short time, Bessus continued to haul Darius in the wagon behind him, but he soon realized that he would never be able to stay ahead of his pursuers. With Alexander practically on top of him, the satrap rushed to the wagon and stabbed Darius with a spear, leaving him for dead. He also killed two loyal slaves accompanying the king and wounded the horses pulling him. Then with his Bactrian cavalry, Bessus fled east into the mountains.
The scene was a confusion of men, horses, and carts racing in all directions with the Macedonians close behind. The cart bearing Darius no longer had a driver, so the injured horses wandered off the road in pain and confusion, finding their way to a small oasis in a nearby valley. Alexander immediately sent search parties into the hills to find Darius. And so it was that a weary young Macedonian soldier named Polystratus came upon the cart as he stopped to collect water in his helmet. He saw the wounded horses and wondered why anyone would be so cruel to helpless animals. Then he heard groans from inside and pushed aside the curtains to find the two dead slaves and the bloody form of Darius, barely alive.
Later traditions make much of the final scene in the life of the king. In some versions, Alexander himself is there to bid Darius farewell and to weep at the death of his adversary. In these stories, Darius commits his family and kingdom into the care of Alexander and then breathes his last. In other stories, Darius adresses Polystratus in broken Greek, asking him to give his blessing to his king and thank him for being such a noble opponent. But the truth, as far as it can be known, is simpler and sadder. Darius saw Polystratus enter the wagon and kneel beside him. He motioned for water, which the young man gave to him from his own helmet. Then—with only a single enemy soldier in attendance in a barren desert valley—the Great King of Persia closed his eyes and died.