Alexander the Great (13 page)

Alexander sulked for two days but then tried to find a way to make this defeat appear to be a victory. He had never faced defeat before, and it was not something he dealt with easily. As he had always done before a battle or a major decision, he called his seers and prophets. For once the omens went against him, so with face-saving aplomb, Alexander bowed before the will of heaven, definitely not his men. Twelve great altars representing the twelve Olympic gods were built beside the river, and after sacrifices were made, he announced that they would be going home. His soldiers laughed and cried and, hysterical with relief, called down blessings on his head. For his part Alexander never got over his humiliation and never forgave the men who led the revolt.

The expedition ended a mere six hundred miles from its goal—the ocean, which would have been the end of the earth. Because of faulty geography and poor military intelligence, Alexander never knew this. It was probably a good thing. His dream was gone.

A
LEXANDER STARTED
home in the fall of 326. For his veterans, home was Macedonia; for Alexander it was Babylon. He never stepped on Greek soil again, nor did he ever appear to want to.

The army marched back to the Jhelum River, where a naval flotilla awaited them. These ships had been built earlier with the intent of pursuing conquest down the Ganges, but they were now to be used to carry the army home. Reinforcements arrived, along with medical supplies and clothing. Before the departure the eloquent Coenus died, giving rise to the idea that anyone who courted Alexander’s displeasure would not live long.

At this point the Jhelum was about two and a half miles wide, so the flotilla was able to travel with forty oared galleys abreast. Natives ran along the banks, and sometimes even joined the parading troops. Hephaestion was on one side of the river with the main body of troops and two hundred elephants; his archenemy, Craterus, was on the other.

The first difficulty arose with the fast current and whirlpools where the Jhelum met the Chenab River. The light galleys bobbed around like corks, and oars snapped in the current. The flagship, carrying Alexander, nearly sank, and he, who could not swim, was barely saved.

Reports came that two tribes were massing for an attack to stop the flotilla’s advance. The men were so demoralized by the news that they would have to fight again that it took all the inspiration Alexander could dredge up to get them to go into battle. Twice they refused to go up scaling ladders against an armed fortress, and Alexander was so annoyed with them that he led the way personally and shamed them into following him.

For once the soothsayer-in-residence went against Alexander and warned him that he would be injured if he continued with this assault. Alexander is supposed to have responded, “If anyone interrupted
you
while you were about your professional business, I have no doubt you would find it both tactless and annoying, correct?” The seer agreed. “Well,” continued the king, “
my
business—vital business—is the capture of this citadel; and I don’t intend to let any superstitious crackpot stand in my way.”
¹

The king proceeded to command that scaling ladders be brought up to the walls, and he went up the first one himself. He killed the first two defenders and then foolishly but daringly jumped inside the battlements: He was a perfect target for an archer. His men, following his lead, climbed the ladders in such numbers that the rungs collapsed, causing many soldiers to fall to their deaths. Alexander was temporarily cut off from the bulk of his forces. He and three of his aides fought courageously but alone. A long Indian arrow suddenly pierced Alexander’s armor and entered his chest just above his lungs.

He was carried off the field more dead than alive. Indeed, rumors spread quickly that he was dead. The arrowhead, about three inches long, was leaf-shaped and barbed, and getting it out was a very dangerous procedure. A major hemorrhage followed, and Alexander lost consciousness. He hung perilously between life and death for a week. The Indians, believing the rumors, attacked with renewed ferocity.

Even after he regained consciousness and sent a letter to his troops that he was fine and would soon be up and around, they refused to believe him. So great was his physical presence that they could not conceive of going on without him. This was later proved true when, upon his death three years later, his empire fell into shreds and infighting among his closest companions lost all that Alexander had gained.

He was going to appear in front of his troops in a litter, but it soon became apparent that the men needed to see him mounted on his horse, ready to do battle again. Even though he was still extremely weak, and the wound had still not healed, Alexander mounted his horse and rode through the ranks of soldiers, who waved and cheered and touched his clothes with almost religious fervor. He never completely recovered from this wound, and after his friends harangued him about his foolhardiness, he promised that he would be more careful in the future.

On the downside Alexander must have believed that his recovery was such a miracle that he was never to be crossed. He was now able to get away with anything, and in his own mind this rendered his concept of deification more powerful, until it became an obsession.

More battles followed as the entourage made its way down the Indus River. Some of the Indian rulers surrendered without incident; others insisted on fighting. Some casualty figures that have been given are as high as 80,000; and the actual number may be even higher.
²

Alexander failed to achieve a lasting place in Indian history and literature. He was viewed in his own time as an invader and a destroyer, not an empire-builder. This could not have been his ambition. In reality, Alexander was only a precursor of other conquerors, such as Sultan Mahmud, Tamerlane, and Nadir Shah, who were more successful in massacre and plunder than Alexander had been.
³

One story is told by Arrian that illustrates what the Indian wise men and philosophers felt about Alexander. He found the wise men in a meadow, and when they saw Alexander, they did nothing further than beat with their feet the ground on which they stood. When Alexander inquired through interpreters what this action of theirs meant, they replied: “Oh, king Alexander, each man possesses just so much of the earth as this on which we stand; and you being a man like other men, save that you are full of activity and relentless, are roaming over all this earth far from your home troubled yourself, and troubling others. But not so long hence you will die, and will possess just so much of the earth as suffices for your burial.”
⁴

In order to get the army back into home territory, Alexander decided to split the troops. The fleet would continue from the Indian Ocean into the Persian Gulf, and he would take the bulk of the army and noncombatants home though a wilderness known as the Makran. He set men to the task of planning for the victualing of the fleet, leaving supplies of food and water at outposts along their path. Why he chose the more dangerous path for the rest is uncertain. It has been suggested that he had to keep the territory subdued for the passage of supplies. The primary territory bordering on the Makran was Gedrosia, and this is where Alexander turned his army. He tried to keep as close to the shore as possible, but the terrain was still desert. Though he had advance parties digging wells so a water supply would be available, this eventually became impossible after they entered a mountainous section near the coast. The army had to detour far inland.

Lack of water now became a serious problem. The army often had to march fifty miles to find a pool of even brackish water, and then the men would jump in, armor and all. Sometimes they would die of overdrinking after being dehydrated. Heatstroke was also a possibility.

The army traveled laboriously through sand dunes, where their wagons sunk to the axles and their boots filled with grit. Their faces were constantly tormented with stinging sand and insects. Poisonous snakes and plants were all around them. A type of prickly cucumber squirted a juice that caused blindness, and some shrubs made the pack animals foam at the mouth and then die.

Sometimes too much water caused disaster also. Flash storms from the hills occasionally roared through the night darkness and carried everything away in their path. One such flash flood killed almost all the women and children, and the soldiers survived with nothing but the clothes they were wearing and their weapons.

It took the columns sixty days to traverse the Makran, and after getting lost in a blinding sandstorm, the gaunt skeletons that had been Alexander’s army emerged. This disastrous march through the desert has been compared to Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812. The losses were staggering. Perhaps 85,000 people started into the desert; only about 25,000 survived. Alexander’s horses, equipment and supplies were all lost, as were the majority of the noncombatants in the army.
⁵

Alexander needed an explanation as to why his supply trains and reinforcements, carefully planned for in advance, had not appeared on schedule. Although he had become more paranoid as time went on, in this instance he probably had good cause to wonder.

The first person to suffer the effects of Alexander’s fear and paranoia was a man named Apollophanes, who was the satrap of Gedrosia. He was killed before he could be brought before Alexander for an explanation as to why he hadn’t supplied the king adequately. From all sides now came reports of gross incompetence, insubordination, and corruption among those who had been left in power in Alexander’s absence. Reports of his demise in India had come through, and many of the men in power had decided to set up their own little kingdoms while he was gone. Such little pockets of power were hotbeds of sedition and treason, as Alexander well knew. He had to take action quickly to save not only his kingdom but his life.

Thus began a purge of the satraps. No fewer than five leaders were tried and executed in short order, so that when Alexander ordered his remaining satraps to disband their personal mercenary forces, they did so.

It was December 325 before the fleet finally appeared, intact, giving rise to great rejoicing. The troop had battled unfriendly tribesmen, survived a school of whales that seemed intent on upsetting the ships, and been forced to eat their camels, but they had it much easier than the land force. To celebrate, Alexander ordered days of athletic and musical festivals to thank the gods for the safe return of his fleet.

According to Green and other sources, after Gedrosia a change took place in Alexander—and it was not for the better. He became increasingly paranoiac and suspicious of everyone, willing to listen to whatever gossip was told him about his officials. He would punish minor offenses as if they were serious ones, often overlooking the serious ones in the process. The sources of antiquity seem to be united in the opinion that Alexander’s character had undergone very considerable degeneration. From the beginning (witness Thebes and Tyre) Alexander had been murderous when thwarted in his desires. But in this instance absolute power had corrupted absolutely, and the combined effects of unbroken victories, unparalleled wealth, absolute and unchallenged power, continual heavy physical stress, and incipient alcoholism had taken their toll. As a young man Alexander had been abstemious; now he regularly drank to excess. He had become a domineering and uncontrollable megalomaniac, and very dangerous.
⁶

But temporarily, at least, his anger and spite had run out; he suspended his purge and, when he returned to Susa, turned his attentions to other things. There was talk of other campaigns—to Carthage, Spain, Italy, and Saudi Arabia. He set his admiral, Nearchus, to work building seven hundred new war galleys. And controversially, he set about to orientalize his kingdom. He started by assimilating Persian generals into his command and creating a joint Persian-Macedonian group of administrators.

Years before Alexander had sent 30,000 Iranian boys to Macedonia to be given military training, and these boys were now back. They were young and bursting with enthusiasm, while Alexander’s staunch troops were now tired and aged. These Iranian boys created tremendous resentment among Alexander’s seasoned veterans, who believed that Alexander had been destroyed by the East. His adoption of Persian clothing and his autocratic behavior did nothing to dispel their fears.
⁷

A further irritation for the Macedonians was an attempt of Alexander’s to integrate the Persians and Macedonians in a personal way. He decided to hold a mass wedding, celebrating for five days the marriages of ninety-one of his Macedonians to highborn Persian women. He himself took two wives—the eldest daughter of Darius III and the youngest daughter of Artaxerxes III. He gave another bride to Hephaestion, because he wanted their children to be cousins. The celebration lasted five days and was colossally expensive. Alexander spared no expense. He gave the women huge dowries, furnished a bridal chamber for each couple, and had the banquet served with the guests seated on couches with silver legs.

There is no indication that any of these marriages succeeded; in fact, most of the women were summarily divorced within months of Alexander’s death. It was another experiment that failed miserably.

In the spring of 324, Alexander led an advance party down the Tigris River, obviously intending to pave the way for an invasion of Saudi Arabia. The group found many dams along the way, which were for the purpose of subverting the waters into irrigation channels. Wherever they found these, Alexander ordered them destroyed. The agricultural well-being of the area was secondary to making the river wide enough for his ships to sail southward.

Alexander went further, announcing that all the old, seasoned soldiers in the army were going to be retired and sent home to train new recruits in Macedonia. These were same troops who had revolted at the Beas River when they refused to go any farther, and now they took their retirement as an insult. Alexander saw their discontent as a challenge to his authority. He was walking around in his purple-and-white Persian robes with the royal diadem on his head, receiving
proskynesis
from his Asian subjects with no difficulty, having no one gainsay his word on anything. For his veterans to complain was too much.

Alexander ordered the most obvious demonstrators to be arrested and immediately executed. Then he went into his quarters and secluded himself for several days. Rather than capitulate to the demands this time, he removed all his Macedonians from their commands and gave those commands instead to Persians. Not only could Macedonians now be replaced by Persians; they might actually be
disciplined
by Persians. In response to this threat, the Macedonians gave in completely and begged Alexander for forgiveness, which he graciously gave, but not until extreme homage was given and a lot of groveling was done. Then a huge banquet was held to celebrate the reconciliation, and the Macedonians continued to hold high command.