The fortunes and paths of the two kings now moved in different directions. Dareios returned to Mesopotamia, intent upon saving the heart of the empire and rebuilding his army. For this purpose, he summoned levies from the upper satrapies, which had not been called up in 333, perhaps from overconfidence that the victory would be easily won without them. Alexander meanwhile stuck doggedly to his strategy of depriving the Persian fleet of its bases and gaining control of the lands that supplied ships and rowers. For it was clear that most served Persia under compulsion and would defect once their home governments had acknowledged the power of the conqueror. Tyre proved a stubborn exception - not out of loyalty to Persia, but rather in hope of gaining true independence as a neutral state. But Alexander could not afford to leave so prominent and powerful an island city unconquered. The siege and capture of Tyre were one of the king’s greatest achievements and a monument to his determination and military brilliance. After seven months, the city succumbed to a combined attack of the infantry on the causeway, built with great effort and loss of life, and a seaborne assault on the weakest point of the walls. The king’s naval strategy was already paying dividends; for the Cypriot rulers had by now defected and joined with the other Phoenicians to blockade the Tyrian ships in their harbour, while a second flotilla carrying soldiers and battering rams gained undisputed access to the walls. The defenders repelled an attack after the initial breach was achieved, but they were soon overwhelmed and the city paid a heavy price for its defiance of Alexander (Fuller 1960: 206-16; Romane 1987).
To the south, Gaza represented the final obstacle to the Macedonian strategy. It too was captured after a two-month siege. Its garrison commander, Batis, was allegedly dragged around the city by Alexander in imitation of Achilleus’ punishment of Hektor. This has generally been dismissed as fiction, though perhaps unjustly. The form of punishment and Alexander’s personal role may well be literary invention on the part of Kleitarchos, if not of Kallisthenes of Olynthos, but there is a strong suspicion that behind this story there lurks an element of truth: Batis was doubtless subjected to cruel punishment for his opposition to Alexander (and we might add that Alexander was twice wounded in the engagement), just as later Ariamazes was crucified for his defiance.
In Egypt, the Macedonian army faced no resistance, since Persian authority in the satrapy had collapsed (Briant 2002: 861). If the populace welcomed Alexander as liberator, they did so out of hatred for Persia, which had harshly re-integrated Egypt into the Persian empire after roughly sixty years of independence under the kings of the Twenty-Eighth to Thirtieth Dynasties, and because, like the native populations of other regions, they were helpless to do otherwise. Alexander himself was recognized as the legitimate pharaoh - whether or not an official crowning took place in Memphis (Burstein 1991) - and the earthly son of Amun, both in the Nile Delta and by the high priest of the god at Siwah in the Libyan Desert. Thus Egypt began a new era of foreign rule. The pharaonic titles were accepted by Alexander, just as they were conferred by his subjects, as recognition of the irresistible conqueror and his achievement. Neither side was truly deceived, but the process reaffirmed order and the continuation of the patterns of everyday life; for Alexander, like his Persian predecessors, would reside elsewhere and govern through satraps and nomarchs. The reality was clear to both Alexander and the Egyptians, but for the Macedonians Alexander’s new role and the nature of his relationship with Amun were deeply disturbing.
The journey to the oracle of Amun at Siwah in the Libyan Desert represents a critical point not only in Alexander’s personal development but also in the king’s relationship with his men - common soldiers and officers alike. Although there is a tradition that Alexander was ‘seized by an urge’ (pothos) to visit the oracle and thus emulate his mythical ancestors, Perseus and Herakles, the journey cannot have been an impulsive act. Some have argued that the king sought divine approval for his new city on the Canopic mouth of the Nile. It is most likely that the journey was in some way connected with Alexander’s role as pharaoh, and such an interpretation finds curious support in Herodotos’ account of Kambyses. Certainly the story that the Persian king sent an army to destroy the shrine, and that this army was buried in the desert sands (Hdt. 3.26; Plutarch 26.12), is as apocryphal as the one about his killing of the Apis calf - a patent fabrication that still commands the belief of some Classical scholars. The kernel of truth is surely that Kambyses consulted the oracle once he became master of Egypt. Whatever the fate of his envoys, the Herodotean account defies credulity. But Alexander must have known that, as Pharaoh, he would be recognized as son of Amun. Whether the trip was made solely to consolidate his position in Egypt, or for a more ambitious purpose, cannot be determined. What is certain is that his men soon equated his acceptance of Amun as his divine father with a rejection of Philip (cf. Hamilton 1953). The first rumblings of discontent occurred before the army left Egypt; in the coming years, as the army made its weary progress eastwards, Alexander’s apparent repudiation of his Macedonian origins was to become a recurring cause of complaint.
The conquest of the Levantine coast and Egypt had given Dareios time to regroup. In 331 he moved his army from Babylon, keeping the Tigris River on his right and then crossing it south of Arbela, where he deposited his baggage. From here he marched north, bridging the River Lykos, and then encamped by the Boumelos (Khazir) in the vicinity of Gaugamela. As the Persian king was choosing his battlefield, Mazaios, who had once been satrap of Abarnahara (the land beyond the river), approached the Euphrates near Thapsakos with some 6,000 men. This force was far too small to prevent Alexander’s crossing and was probably intended to harass and observe the enemy, and Mazaios quickly withdrew in the direction of the Tigris. Alexander, for his part, had been informed by spies about Dareios’ location and the size of his army; at any rate, he had banished any thought of proceeding directly to Babylon, a move which would have created supply problems and allowed Dareios to position himself astride his lines of communication for a second time. Furthermore, Alexander was eager for a decisive engagement.
In 331, Dareios was not Alexander’s only worry. During his second visit to Tyre, on the return from Egypt, the king received word of unrest in Europe, where the Spartan king, Agis III, had organized a coalition and defeated Antipatros’ strategosin the Peloponnese, Korrhagos (for the background to the war see McQueen 1978). Agis was besieging Megalopolis with an army of 22,000 just as Antipatros was attempting to suppress a rebellion by Memnon, strategos of Thrace. Despite the timing, there is no good reason for suspecting that the uprisings were coordinated, or that Memnon had been in communication with Agis (pace Badian 1967). In fact, Antipatros was able to come to terms with Memnon far too quickly for the Thracian rebellion to benefit Agis. Nor can the actions of the strategos have been regarded as treasonous; for the truce allowed him to retain his position, and Alexander appears to have taken no retaliatory action against him. Freed from distractions in the north, Antipatros led his forces to Megalopolis and re-established Macedonian authority with heavy bloodshed: 3,500 Macedonians lay dead, and 5,300 of the enemy, including Agis himself. But when Alexander confronted Dareios at Gaugamela the affairs of Europe were only beginning to unravel (Borza 1971; Wirth 1971; Lock 1972; Badian 1994).
In his address to the troops, Alexander told them that they would be facing the same men they had defeated twice before in battle, but in fact the composition of the Persian army at Gaugamela was radically different and included the skilled horsemen of the eastern satrapies. And, this time, the Persians would be fighting on terrain of their own choosing. With vastly superior numbers, Dareios expected to outflank and envelop the much smaller Macedonian army, which numbered only 47,000. Furthermore, the Macedonians were confronted by scythe-chariots and elephants. But the Macedonians advanced en echelon, with the cavalry on the far right wing deployed to prevent an outflanking manoeuvre there; behind the main battalions of the pezhe-tairoi, Alexander stationed troops to guard against envelopment. By thrusting with his Companions against the Persian left, Alexander disrupted the enemy formation as the heavy infantry surged ahead to strike at the centre. But in so doing, the infantry created a gap, which the Scythian and Indian horsemen were prompt to exploit. But the barbarians rode straight to the baggage of the field camp, eager for plunder and acting as if their victory was assured. Had they struck instead at the Macedonian left, where Mazaios was putting fearsome pressure on the Thessalian cavalry under Par-menion’s command, they might have turned the tide of battle. Instead they were soon following their king in flight, struggling to escape the slaughter that emboldens the victor.
Defeat at Gaugamela left the heart of the empire and the Achaimenid capitals at the mercy of the invader. Mazaios, who had fled to Babylon, now surrendered the city and its treasures to Alexander, thus earning his own reward. The king retained him as satrap of Babylonia, though he took the precaution of installing Macedonian troops and overseers in the city. The administrative arrangements, like the ceremonial handing over of the city, were the same as those at Sardis, except that at that uncertain time Alexander was not yet ready to entrust the Iranian nobility with higher offices. In Susa, the king confirmed the Persian satrap Aboulites, who had made formal surrender after Gaugamela: but, again, native rule was fettered by military occupation as its Persian commandant, Mazaros, was replaced by the Macedonian Xenophilos (Heckel 2002).
In the closing months of 331, anxiety about Agis’ war in the Peloponnese helped to buy the Persians time. The need to await news of events in the west kept Alexander in Babylonia and Elam longer than he had planned, a delay exploited by the Persian satrap, Ariobarzanes, who occupied the so-called Persian Gates (for location and topography, Speck 2002; also MacDermot & Shippmann 1999) with an army of perhaps 25,000 (40,000 infantry and 700 horse, according to Arrian 3.18.2). But his efforts, like those of the Ouxians shortly before, proved futile. Alexander circumvented the enemy’s position and was soon reconstructing the bridge across the Araxes, which the Persians had destroyed in an effort to buy time. Perhaps the intention was to facilitate the removal or even the destruction of the city’s treasure; for the best Ariobarzanes could do was delay Alexander’s force while Parmenion took the heavier troops and the siege equipment along the more southerly wagon road to Persepolis. But no such measures were taken, and Tiridates surrendered the city and its wealth to the conqueror.
World History
