Alexander the Great (10 page)

Tyre was another matter entirely. Though he was greeted hospitably enough, Alexander sensed much ambivalence in the ambassadors who came to talk to him. It became clear quickly that they would talk and bow but had no intention of submitting to his rule. When he offered to come into the city and make offerings to their god, Melkart (Melqart), during a local festival, they refused politely, telling him that they were maintaining their neutrality, that permitting him this royal prerogative would be tantamount to accepting his rule, and that until the war was over, neither Macedonian nor Persian could enter their city.

The fortress of Tyre was actually two cities—one on the mainland and one on an adjacent island. Alexander lacked the naval strength to attack the mainland directly, so he and his engineers conceived a grand plan. They would build a causeway, or mole, to carry his army across the half-mile strip of water. This was a mammoth project, but Alexander never shirked from mammoth projects. His officers and men, on the other hand, were totally opposed to the project as madness.

They viewed the deep channel with trepidation and felt that their commander was asking too much. Alexander sent a final envoy into the city, asking for an alliance. The Tyrians took this as a sign of weakness, killed the envoys, and tossed their bodies over the walls. This convinced any doubters in Alexander’s army, and the project began.

Before the siege was over, according to Josephus (a Jewish writer of the early first century), Alexander wrote to the high priest in Jerusalem, “requesting him to send him assistance and supply his army with provisions.” Meanwhile, not only Alexander’s own troops, but all able-bodied men from the surrounding towns and villages found themselves drafted into a vast emergency labor force, estimated at “many tens of thousands.”
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As the causeway came within striking distance of the mainland fortress, the Tyrians barraged Alexander’s Macedonians with catapulted missiles of every description.}

Once the causeway was completed, Alexander moved his siege catapults and battering rams to the city walls. Many of the cities in the area, deciding that they would throw in their lot with Alexander, sent ships, so that eventually he had a fleet of about one hundred. Now he planned a full-fledged attack, from land (by way of his mole) and sea. While his phalanxes pressed on land, his fleet battered from the sea. Alexander moved up his huge 150-foot siege towers, and boarding gangways were made ready. A breach was found in the walls, and Alexander’s army poured into the city. The Tyrians fought back fiercely, utilizing a new weapon: They filled huge metal bowls with sand and gravel; heated them to white-hot, producing what might be described as an ancient form of napalm; and then proceeded to dump these bowls on any hapless soldiers who came within range. The sand sifted inside the victim’s armor and shirt, burning the flesh terribly. Alexander’s men were forced to retreat.

The six-month siege was not working. Though Alexander debated abandoning it, giving up was not in accord with his personality. He set his battering rams against the fortress in earnest, until finally he found a weak spot. He sent his elite troops into the breach, and after hours of fighting, the city fell at last. Alexander’s soldiers tore into the city and became butchers, killing and looting with abandon. Alexander had given the order that only those inhabitants seeking sanctuary in the temples were to be spared.

Seven thousand Tyrians died in this orgy of destruction, but the citizens of Sidon, though their city was a traditional enemy of Tyre, managed to smuggle some 15,000 Tyrians to safety. The remaining survivors, about 30,000, were sold into slavery. Two thousand men of military age were crucified. It was the Jewish prophet Zachariah who many years before had composed this epitaph: “Burden of the Lord’s doom, where falls it now? …This is Tyre, how strong a fortress she has built, what gold and silver she has amassed, till they were as common as clay, as mire in the streets! Ay, but the Lord means to dispossess her; cast into the sea, all that wealth of hers, and herself burnt to the ground!”
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In this way Alexander disposed of an entire city, punishing its people severely for their resistance and warning any others who stood in his way that his wrath was great for those who opposed him and his rule.

After the destruction of Tyre, most cities along the coast between there and Egypt hastened to capitulate to Alexander. The exception was Gaza, on the route into Egypt, which was defended by stout walls and was considered to be impregnable. Hephaestion was in command of the fleet off the coast, and Alexander approached the city by land with the bulk of the army. The catapults were put to work, but when the siege towers were brought toward the walls, they sank in the sand. Alexander was wounded in the shoulder by an arrow that completely pierced his corselet. He was carried off the field, only half conscious.

To take the city Alexander was forced to build a huge mound of earth all around it that would give his siege towers the height necessary to breach the walls. During the fighting, Alexander had his leg broken by an artillery stone. Perhaps the problem inherent in taking Gaza, plus his two wounds, put him in a worse temper than usual, because he ordered that the defenders of the city were to be killed and all women and children sold into slavery. The defender of the city, a huge eunuch named Batis, he had lashed by the ankles behind a chariot and dragged to death around the walls of Gaza, an idea he must have gotten from
The Iliad
.
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From Gaza, Alexander marched into Egypt. The Egyptians had suffered particularly under Persian rule, since the Persians considered the country one big breadbasket for their consumption. They welcomed him with open arms and placed him on the throne of the pharaohs, giving him the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, and he simultaneously became the pharaoh, the incarnation of Ra and Osiris. Finally he had achieved godhood.

Unfortunately, at this point Alexander began to lose touch with his Macedonian core. The Macedonians were willing to put up with a lot, but they were far from sure about this deification. For his part Alexander seemed to scorn their opinion, pressing forward, this time to Siwah, where he was given his propitious prophecy. Since Siwah was some three hundred miles across desert, Alexander clearly had an intense desire to hear what the prophet had to say. As has been noted previously, he was not disappointed. He cleared up the matter of his divine origins and was given the go-ahead to build his city of Alexandria. From this point on Alexander always worshipped Ammon Zeus, so whatever epiphany he had made a lasting impression on him.

Before he got back out of the desert, Alexander had completely blocked out in his mind the plans for his new city. He set to work immediately, marking off the walls and the locations of certain buildings, including a temple to Isis, to ensure that this city would be a testament to his greatness. This he accomplished, as the city of Alexandria was a spectacular sight for many years to come.

Alexander was deeply impressed with Egypt. He left the running of the country mainly in Egyptian hands; this was a good psychological move. The tax flow came into his pockets, but the administrators were Egyptians, a fact that deflected criticism from him personally.

Once the brief hiatus in Egypt was over, Alexander had to get back to the business at hand, which was to defeat Darius once and for all. After Darius had fled from the field at Issus, he took refuge in a town called Arbela (now Irbil, Iraq). The second and final battle between Darius and Alexander, in which Darius personally led his army, was the Battle of Gaugamela in northern Assyria near the Tigris River, considered to be one of the most decisive battles in history. In the autumn of 331 BC, this battle devastated the entire Persian Empire, and all the wealth of Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis was opened up to Alexander.

The army that Darius brought into the field at Gaugamela was much larger than any he had deployed so far. When Alexander saw the size of the encampment, he was alarmed, knowing that only superior tactics would enable him to succeed against such an overwhelming number of soldiers. To this end he stayed up all night before the battle and invented a tactical plan that would be imitated centuries later by Napoleon. His plan would draw the Persian cavalry units from the middle to be engaged by his own flank guards; then he would attack the weakened middle.
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The flat plain of Gaugamela was much more advantageous to the Persian forces and their scythed chariots than either the riverbanks of Granicus or the hilly area of Issus had been. There were times in the course of the struggle when it appeared that Darius would win. Early in the day a fierce thunderstorm with lightning had filled Alexander’s army with fear. The lightning gave the appearance of fire, and the troops panicked. Alexander quickly ordered them to stop and rest until they had recovered their confidence.

By the end of the day, the main bodies of both armies were close together and the two kings were urging their men on to more effort. Darius was in his chariot and Alexander was on horseback. Both of them had a small number of guards who had no regard for their own lives, but were intent only on protecting their own king. While doing this, both groups hoped for the glory of killing the opposing king.

Darius’s charioteer was run through by a spear, and both sides believed it was the king who had been killed. His army started a mournful wailing along with wild shouts and groans, and foolishly abandoned the king’s chariot. Darius tried to avoid a cowardly flight by courting an honorable death, and he was ashamed to leave his troops. The Persian army gradually broke ranks and the battle turned into a massacre. Darius once again turned his chariot and fled the field.
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Alexander was greeted with open arms in Babylon, and Darius was still in flight. Babylon was the first step in making Alexander the richest man in the world, because the huge Persian treasury was now open to be plundered. For his part, Alexander rewarded the Babylonians with a restoration of their temples and obeisance to their gods, which endeared him to the populace.

Alexander relaxed in Babylon for five weeks, taking in the sights. The walls were twelve miles in circumference, and the sacred ziggurat rose 270 feet into the air. Alexander took up residence in one of the two imposing palaces, which had six hundred rooms with four main reception areas. Around the palace buildings were the famous hanging gardens. Alexander’s men took their comfort in the company of beautiful prostitutes whose ranks had been swelled by highborn women anxious to get in on the entertainment. Alexander paid his men for the first time in many months, from the Persian treasury. It was easy to forget that the war was still not over: Darius was still at large.

From Babylon, Alexander moved on to the next royal city, Susa. This city also lacked nothing in magnificence.

Susa had been built by the most talented craftsmen and goldsmiths who could be found in the Persian empire. The walls were covered with carvings, gold work, precious woods, and enamels. Purple embroidery, some of it 190 years old, but still fresh as new, adorned the walls and the bedchamber of the king. Next to his bed was his own personal treasury, with wealth unimagined even by Alexander—who ordered 3,000 talents, six times the annual income of Athens, to be sent back to Greece to help deal with the Spartan revolt.
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Learning that Darius had taken refuge in Hamadan (in present-day Iran), Alexander set out in pursuit. He received word that Darius had been deposed and taken prisoner. The resistance was led by a Persian named Bessus, who went so far as to have himself declared king of kings. Darius was chained in an old covered wagon and moved along with Bessus’s men. Obviously Bessus intended to use Darius as a bargaining tool if Alexander overcame them. To head off Bessus’s troops, Alexander led a mad dash across fifty miles of desert in the middle of the night. He did get ahead of them, and they scattered in two directions. Since Alexander had no idea which group had Darius, his troops were set the task of scouring the area looking for him.

The end of Darius was pathetic. Green describes it:

Bessus had set up a rival government, and Alexander now had to act as if he were Darius’s chosen successor. He gave the impression that Darius had named him his successor before dying and had asked Alexander to avenge his death. This was the height of irony, as Alexander had hounded Darius to his death, but assuming the role of Darius’s avenger did not seem to bother him. He took the battle to Bessus, but the usurper managed to escape, and Alexander gave up pursuit for the time being.