I.

Introduction

Alexander the Great (356-323 bc), King of Macedon (336-323 bc), known since Roman times as “Alexander the Great”. Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon following the assassination of his father, Philip II, in the summer of 336 bc. Macedon was the kingdom located in the region known in ancient times as Macedonia, which was roughly coterminous with the modern Greek province of Macedonia, but extended also into the southern parts of the present Balkan state of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Alexander quickly developed his father’s plan for the invasion and conquest of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. His expedition began in the spring of 334 bc and continued until his death in Babylon in the summer of 323 bc. He subjugated the whole empire to Macedonian rule, and also conquered (though only temporarily) the Indus Valley region. When he died he was engaged on plans for further conquests in Arabia. Though his empire was quickly divided after his death, he had, almost by accident, brought Greek culture to the whole of the Middle East and laid the foundations for a wider common culture that characterized what is called the Hellenistic Age. This Hellenistic culture provided the basis for the imposition of Roman rule on the Greek-speaking east of Alexander’s empire (see Roman Empire); and it was the Greek common culture that later enabled Christianity to spread so quickly. See also Ancient Greece.

Our knowledge of Alexander’s reign depends on several later historians—contemporary writers survive only in fragments—with very little help from inscriptions or numismatics (see below).

II.

Parentage, Childhood, and Early Life

Philip II had several wives, all acquired for dynastic reasons. Alexander was Philip’s son by his third wife, Olympias, the daughter of the Molossian king, Neoptolemus of Epirus. His first two wives had produced no offspring; later, a fifth wife, Cleopatra, produced a son, Caranus, and a daughter, Eurydice. Olympias also had a daughter, Cleopatra. One of Philip’s mistresses, Philinna, had given birth to a half-brother of Alexander, Philip III Arrhidaeus, who suffered from a mental disability that would prevent him functioning independently as king.

Alexander’s parentage involved a complex mixture of Greek and non-Greek elements. Macedonians were regarded as barbarians (that is, non-Greeks) by the Greeks, though they made an exception of the royal family, who had since the 5th century bc been permitted to compete at the Olympian Games, partly on the grounds that they were believed to be descended from the legendary Greek hero Heracles. The Greek ancestry of the ancient Macedonians is much disputed. Certainly they spoke Greek, though with a strong regional accent that turned “Philip” into “Bilip”, but they may also have spoken a distinct Macedonian language.

Olympias’ family would have been regarded as even more barbarian by the Greeks. Nevertheless, the Molossians had an ethnic genealogy embedded in Greek legend, and Olympias and Philip first met during the celebration of the Greek Mysteries of Samothrace. Still, Olympias was also a devotee of a snake-handling cult that would have seemed bizarre in classical Athens.

Whatever the ethnic identity of the Macedonians, the royal family prided itself on its Greek culture. King Archelaus (d. 399 bc) had acted as patron of the Athenian poet Euripides, and when Alexander was 14 years old, Philip invited the leading intellectual of the day, Aristotle, to educate him. (Aristotle had been born in Stagira, in Macedonia, though he studied with Plato in Athens.) Thus Alexander acquired a love of the Greek classical poets, notably Homer and Euripides, as well as a curiosity about the world that was surely instilled by the polymathic Aristotle. It has sometimes been suggested that Aristotle “commissioned” the research carried out by Alexander’s scientists on his expedition, but Alexander’s own curiosity may have been at least as significant a motive. Aristotle also composed a treatise, “Alexander or Colonization”, addressed to his pupil after he became king.

During his schooldays Alexander acquired the horse, Bucephalas (“bull-head”), which was to travel the world with him. According to legend a particularly uncontrollable horse was brought as a gift to Philip; everyone was afraid of it, but Alexander noticed that the horse was shying at its own shadow. By turning its head into the Sun, he was quickly able to tame and mount it.

Alexander was short of stature but had a piercing gaze; it is possible that his eyes were of different colours. Most statues show him with a characteristic twist of the neck and heavenward gaze, which may be an idealization of a habit known as “ocular torticollis”, a posture of the head that compensates for the palsy of one eye. The accounts of his youth represent an intelligent, determined character with a strong sense of history and of mission. All his strong emotional attachments seem to have been homosexual (as was characteristic of many Greek aristocratic cultures where it was often institutionalized), notably to his life-long friend Hephaestion.

III.

Legacy of Philip

Philip’s reign (359-336 bc) had been momentous for the Greek world. Drawing on the wealth acquired from the gold mines of Mount Pangaeus in Thrace, to the east of Macedonia, and on the plentiful timber of Macedonia itself, Philip had created a powerful army based on the introduction of the infantry phalanx. Each member of the phalanx was armed with an enormously long pike known as a sarissa. Approximately 5.5 m (18 ft) in length, the sarissas were carried horizontally by the soldiers as they advanced in rows, maybe ten deep, so that successive rows of points confronted the enemy before they were close enough to wield their swords. Philip also developed a highly trained cavalry, and introduced the most advanced siege machines yet known in the Greek world, which were developed yet further by Alexander.

With this powerful army Philip quickly secured control of the Greek states and, following the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 bc, united them in what was called the Hellenic League or the League of Corinth. In the autumn of 337 bc plans were drawn up for an invasion of the Achaemenid Empire, but everything was thrown into turmoil by the assassination of Philip.

In the summer of 336 bc Philip had arranged a wedding between his daughter by Olympias, Cleopatra, and the king of Epirus, Alexander the Molossian. The celebrations took place at the Macedonian capital, Aegae (which can be confidently identified with modern Vergina), where several tombs of the Macedonian kings have been excavated. On the second day of the ceremonies, Philip entered the theatre flanked by his son Alexander on the one side, and his son-in-law Alexander on the other. Suddenly, a member of the bodyguard, Pausanias, rushed forward and stabbed Philip. Pausanias was quickly seized and speared by a group of nobles; but Philip had died instantly.

Pausanias’ motive was said to have been revenge for Philip’s transfer of his affections to another man. The motive hardly seems sufficient for so public an act, and both ancient and modern scholars have speculated as to whether more lay behind it—a Persian plot, or even a plot by Olympias herself. Certainly the latter had reasons for anxiety following the birth of a son to Cleopatra in the summer of 336 bc. It was said that Olympias honoured the corpse of Pausanias, exposed on a gibbet, by placing a gold crown on it, and that she poured libations there on every anniversary of the murder. Nothing can now be proved, but it was Olympias’ family who benefited, as Alexander at once inherited the throne of Macedon.

IV.

King Alexander

Alexander, barely 20 years old, quickly secured his position by eliminating the rival dynasty of the sons of Aeropus of Lyncestis. One of these, Alexander the Lyncestian, swore loyalty to the new king, but his two brothers were immediately put to death; Alexander the Lyncestian survived only until 330 bc when he was executed on suspicion of treason. Amyntas, the son of Philip’s elder brother and predecessor as king, Perdiccas III, was also soon disposed of. Amyntas was also the father of Cleopatra. In 335 bc Alexander sent orders to Olympias to dispose of Cleopatra’s son, Caranus; she went further and savagely murdered both the boy and his sister. Cleopatra also died, perhaps by her own hand.

Opposition was eliminated at home, but the Greek states responded to Philip’s death with unrest bordering on insurrection. Alexander quickly marched south and received the submission of the major states (Athens, Thebes, Megara, and the Amphictyonic League that controlled Delphi), and was acknowledged as leader of the Hellenic League before returning to conduct campaigns against the Thracians and Triballi (in modern Bulgaria), the Getae (north of the River Danube), and the Illyrians (in modern Albania). But before leaving Greece, two events occurred that seem to have impressed him deeply.

The first was his encounter with the Cynic philosopher Diogenes at Corinth. Cynics believed that it was right to live “according to nature”, showing contempt not only for wealth and social position but even for the common conveniences of daily life. Diogenes eschewed all possessions and lived, at least for a time, in a pithos (large storage jar), eating and drinking with his hands and performing all bodily functions in public. A sharper contrast between the ascetic and the all-powerful and wealthy king would be harder to imagine, and the encounter clearly “had to happen”. According to the account of Plutarch, Alexander asked Diogenes to request a favour from him, to which Diogenes replied: “You can step out of my sunlight”. Alexander was impressed. “If I were not Alexander,” he said, “I should wish to be Diogenes.” Whether such an exchange in fact took place has been questioned, (only Plutarch and the Greek historical novel, Alexander Romance, tell the story), but if the two did meet, it is very probable that Diogenes took a suitably disdainful attitude.

The second encounter took place at Delphi in November 336 bc. The oracle did not operate during the winter, but Alexander dragged the prophetess into the shrine and demanded a response. “Young man,” she gasped, “no one can resist you!” This oracle pleased the king and he gave a gift to the temple before returning home. Again, probably the story is fiction, but like the Diogenes story it sheds a vivid light on Alexander’s character and the way he was perceived by contemporaries.

Alexander’s absence in the north, however, encouraged further unrest in Greece, and the Athenian politician Demosthenes spread a rumour that the king had been killed on campaign. This led Thebes to open revolt against Macedon. Within two weeks, Alexander’s army was at the gates of Thebes. In October 335 bc, after a siege and fierce fighting, in which 6,000 Thebans were killed and 30,000 taken prisoner, the city was razed to the ground (except for the house of the poet Pindar, whom Alexander admired) and the remaining inhabitants sold into slavery. The Athenians considered resistance but realized it was futile. Greece was firmly under Macedonian control.

V.

War Against Persia

Philip’s planned campaign had probably had the limited aim of securing the freedom of the Greeks of Asia Minor from Achaemenid, or Persian, rule, to which they had been subject since the failure of the Ionian Revolt in 499 bc (see Graeco-Persian Wars). The Persian attempt to subdue mainland Greece as well, in two successive invasions in 490 and 480-479 bc, had been repulsed by the united Greek forces, but only at the cost of a brief Persian occupation of Athens during which the temples had been destroyed. Revenge for this destruction was intended to be the prime motivation for Greek participation in the campaign. But the freedom of the Greeks could not be secured without control of the hinterland. And without effective geographical barriers, that hinterland stretched all the way to the Persian capitals of Susa and Ecbatana (Hamadān) in the Zagros Mountains of present-day Iran, and Persepolis in the plain beyond. Alexander’s aim had to be the defeat of the Persian king, Darius III.

The campaign began in the spring of 334 bc. Alexander was accompanied by a force of at least 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, and he left behind a comparable infantry force, plus about 1,500 cavalry, to maintain order in Greece and Macedon. His fleet consisted of 120 warships, plus cargo vessels. Affairs in Macedon were left in the control of Antipater, a contemporary of Philip, as regent and deputy leader of the Hellenic League.

The army crossed the Hellespont (Dardanelles) 20 days after its departure. Alexander cast a spear into the soil of Asia, claiming the whole territory as “spear-won land”, and set off for Troy to sacrifice at the tombs of the Greek heroes Achilles and Ajax. He also emulated Achilles by racing his dearest friend Hephaestion around the tombs of the inseparable friends Achilles and Patroclus. It is said that when a local poet offered to write a poem about Alexander as a new Greek hero, Alexander replied: “I would rather be a Thersites in Homer than Agamemnon in your poetry.” Alexander concluded this exercise of placing his own campaign in the tradition of the greatest legendary conflict of Greeks with the east by dedicating his armour in the temple of Athena at Troy, and taking with him a set that was supposed to date from the Trojan War.

By this time the Persian army had advanced to take up a position on the eastern bank of the River Granicus. The army contained about 20,000 cavalry but was weak in infantry; the best of the latter were the Greek mercenaries. The forces were commanded by a Greek mercenary general, Memnon of Rhodes.

The Battle of the Granicus was the first of three decisive battles in which Alexander defeated the Persian forces. The details of this one are variously reported. The main sources state that the Persian army was drawn up at the top of a steep muddy bank, and that Alexander’s troops beat them back in a direct frontal assault up the slope. A perhaps more plausible report by the historian Diodorus Siculus states that the army moved downstream, crossed where the river was shallower, and outflanked the Persian army. This, according to Alexander’s biographer Arrian, was the advice of the leading general Parmenio, and it may be that the sources have tried to discredit Parmenio by attributing to Alexander a more spectacular success.

Alexander was nearly killed in the cavalry engagement, but was saved by the commander of the royal squadron, Cleitus, who severed his attacker’s arm as it descended to strike the fatal blow. At the end of the day, the Macedonians were victorious, and a number of the Persian commanders were dead. Alexander now swept down the coast and inland to Sardis, the capital of the satrapy of Lydia and the storehouse of its proverbial treasure. Macedonian officials were installed in place of the Persians. Cities further down the coast welcomed Alexander as a liberator, and his promise of “restoration of democracy” was carried out; the cities were also freed from tribute to Persia, which was however replaced by “contributions” to Alexander.

The major cities of Ephesus and Miletus were soon won over (Miletus after a short siege), and Alexander advanced into Caria. All this time Memnon was tracking him with the fleet, but the Persian army made no move and Alexander avoided engagement at sea. Shortly before reaching Caria, Alexander in fact disbanded his own fleet. At Halicarnassus, the capital of Caria, he made an alliance with the exiled queen Ada; she had been ousted by her brother, Pixodarus, and the city was in the hands of his son-in-law, a Persian named Orontobates. Alexander’s siege engines quickly brought down the walls, the army penned Memnon and Orontobates into the citadel, and soon Ada was restored.

Alexander’s army now moved fast along the southern coast of Asia Minor—where the sea was said to have drawn back to allow his army to pass along the coast below Mount Climax—and moved inland to Gordium (near modern Ankara) in Phrygia in March 333 bc. Here he undertook his famous propaganda coup of loosening the Gordian knot. This was a complex knot of cornel bark fixing a wagon to its pole, and an ancient tradition said that whoever could undo it would become ruler of Asia. Alexander loosed it in the simplest way possible by cutting it through with his sword.

The enemy, though apparently invisible, was not inactive. Memnon had reoccupied several of the Aegean islands and was planning an invasion of the Greek mainland, so that Alexander had to commission a new fleet to check him. But then Memnon died of sickness, and Darius gave up all thought of a European campaign. Instead he summoned fresh troops to Babylon for a new direct assault on the invading army.

Alexander continued eastward and arrived at Tarsus on September 3, 333 bc. Hot and tired, he dived into the River Cydnus to cool off but fell ill immediately afterwards and was laid up for several weeks. His doctor, Philip, prepared medicine for him, but a note arrived from Parmenio that Philip was intending to poison him. Alexander read the letter, handed it to Philip, and drank the medicine. Parmenio’s action is difficult to explain and may have increased Alexander’s mistrust of him.

By November Alexander had reached Issus, on the Gulf of İskenderun (Alexandretta), a narrow coastal plain between the Amanus Mountains and the sea. Alexander’s intelligence indicated that Darius’ army was advancing from the south, so he continued to press southward; but in fact the Persians went round behind the Amanus range and came down on the Macedonians from the north. At the Battle of Issus, for perhaps the only time in the campaign, Alexander was caught by surprise. He had to turn his army round to face the enemy—again, across a river. The hydrography of the plain has since changed and it is now impossible to say exactly where the battle took place.

Darius’ army has been estimated at between 300,000 and 500,000 troops, including 30,000 Greek mercenaries. The marshy nature of the plain and its numerous streams hampered the Macedonian infantry greatly and led to many casualties. The narrowness of the plain also made it difficult for the cavalry to manoeuvre, but Alexander put the Persian left to flight and then mowed down the Greek mercenary infantry in the centre; he then made straight for Darius, who, however, abandoned his chariot and fled on horseback. Some 100,000 Persian infantry were killed or captured at Issus, as well as 10,000 horsemen. Alexander took over the Persian camp, taking a bath in Darius’ tub. The Persian royal ladies, Darius’ wife and daughter, were taken captive and treated with chivalry. Alexander had won the second great battle against the Persians but he had still thousands of miles to go.

It was to be another two years before Alexander could call himself master of the Achaemenid, or Persian, Empire. Now, he continued to march south through the Levant, leaving Macedonian officials in control. But a severe delay presented itself at Tyre, where he arrived in February 332 bc. Alexander expected the ancient port to surrender, but the citizens refused and threw Alexander’s messengers over the battlements. Alexander embarked on a siege that lasted six months. It was strategically unnecessary; as it was, it became an exercise in thoroughness and terror. The central stratagem was to build a causeway from the mainland to the island on which Tyre stood, so that siege engines and artillery could be brought close to the walls; at the same time, ships that had defected from the Persian fleet bombarded the walls from the sea. The defenders fought back with ferocity, for example tipping buckets of red-hot sand over the forces scaling the walls. The city finally fell on July 30, 332 bc, and 30,000 prisoners were sold into slavery, while 2,000 of the defenders were crucified.

The rest of the Levant was quickly subdued and Alexander advanced into Egypt where he was welcomed as a liberator from Persian rule. (The last pharaoh, Nectanebo II, had fled before the Persian forces in 343 bc.) It is uncertain whether Alexander was formally crowned as pharaoh at Memphis. Soon after his arrival he set off for the oracle of the ram-god Amon at Siwa oasis (ancient name Ammonium) in the Sahara. Arrian says that Alexander wished to consult the god as to which gods he should honour to ensure success in the expedition; and it is reasonable to assume that he would also seek the oracle’s support, as was normal, for the city he planned to found on the north coast of Egypt, Alexandria. The visit to Amon, however, became a central event for the historians in which Alexander was apparently hailed as “son of Amon” (and thus of Zeus) and began to develop intimations of divinity that became more pronounced as the expedition progressed. This belief that he was the son of a god was later to lead to rifts with his soldiery, and for the historians it became one of the symptoms of the growing arrogance and pride for which many castigated him.

During the return journey from Siwa, Alexander picked the site for his new city; the official foundation of Alexandria was April 7, 331 bc. One reason for founding such a city (and Alexander founded maybe as many as 20 more in the course of his campaigns) was to provide a home for superannuated troops. But Alexandria as capital of Ptolemaic Egypt grew into one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, and a prosperous port and cultural centre.

Alexander now returned to Tyre. About this time (though some sources say it was during his earlier stay at Tyre), Darius sent letters to Alexander offering a ransom of 10,000 talents for his womenfolk, the cession of all territory west of the River Euphrates, and the hand of his daughter in marriage. But at the same time he was preparing a new army for a third campaign, summoning troops from his allies, including Bessus, the chief of Bactria, and creating a force of 200 scythed chariots.

Rejecting Darius’ overtures, Alexander crossed the Euphrates at Thapsacus (site unidentified) in the high summer of 331 bc, and a few weeks later he crossed the River Tigris at Mosul. Darius’ army was waiting for him at a place called Gaugamela (“camel-stall”) near the town of Arbela (Irbīl). The terrain offered plenty of scope for cavalry action, and Darius’ cavalry outnumbered Alexander’s by five to one. The Battle of Gaugamela took place on October 1. Parmenio had counselled a night attack as the only hope of success, but Alexander replied that he “would not steal a victory”. Instead, his tactic was a fierce charge at the Persian left while the infantry held the centre. The scythed chariots proved ineffective against the ranks of the sarissas; their drivers were impaled before they could get close, or the javelin men parted ranks to let them through. The course of the battle was confused and obscured by the dust of a desert summer. Darius’ “barbarian” allies were insufficiently disciplined and stopped to plunder, while generals Parmenio and Craterus held the left against the elite cavalry. At the end of the day Alexander was master of both the field and of the wealth in Darius’ tents. Darius, however, had escaped again.

Alexander could now regard himself as master of the empire. He made first for Babylon and then for Susa, which he reached in December 331 bc. Here he confirmed the existing satrap in his post, marking the beginning of a new policy of leaving Persian officials in charge (though Macedonian garrisons were installed). At Susa he became master of the immense wealth of Persia, as well as of Xerxes’ loot from Greece; he sent several priceless works of art back to Athens. In January he moved to Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, where he remained until May. A tremendous feast took place, at the end of which the ceremonial hall of Persepolis was set ablaze, whether as an act of policy or simply as a drunken outrage remains uncertain.

Darius was now reported to be in the region of Ecbatana, and Alexander set off in pursuit, only to learn that Darius was in retreat towards Bactria. But when Darius reached Hecatompylos, Bessus and another noble, Nabarzanes, took him prisoner, and Bessus declared himself king. When Alexander had nearly caught up with Darius, the usurpers murdered Darius and fled. It took Alexander a year to capture Bessus and Nabarzanes and send them to execution, but there was no urgency since Alexander had become ruler of Persia by right of conquest. The pursuit continued at Alexander’s own pace, leading the army deeper into the eastern regions of the empire.

At this time, as the expedition entered Central Asia, Alexander began to change his habits and manner of rule, adopting the Persian “luxury” of dress and demanding a Persian style of obeisance from his courtiers. Two conspiracies that took place now reflected the growing remoteness of the king from his court. The first was the Conspiracy of Philotas in the autumn of 330 bc. Philotas, the son of Parmenio, was given news of a plot against Alexander’s life but did not take it seriously and delayed to report it. When news reached Alexander, he convinced himself of Philotas’ complicity; he was arrested, “confessed” his guilt, but was tortured to confess still more. He was sentenced to death by stoning. Macedonian law required that the relatives of conspirators should also be executed, and accordingly a messenger was despatched to Ecbatana to kill the old general Parmenio. The whole episode has, many have concluded, more of the look of a conspiracy against Philotas than a conspiracy by Philotas, and can be regarded as the first act in a reign of terror against those who wondered about the sanity of Alexander’s ever more extravagant plans.

Alexander became intolerant of disagreement and sensitive to taunting. At a feast, Cleitus, one of his closest friends, gave him a piece of his mind about his adoption of “barbarian” ways, his demands for flattery, and his divine pretensions. Alexander, enraged, seized a spear and killed him on the spot. A little later, the court historian Callisthenes of Olynthus refused at another feast to comply with Alexander’s demand for proskynesis, the Persian ritual of blowing a kiss to signify obeisance, a refusal that was unacceptable in the society of Macedonian peers. Callisthenes was soon implicated in the second conspiracy, the Conspiracy of the Pages. When the plot was uncovered, the historian was either executed after torture, or was imprisoned in a cage where he eventually died of his sufferings. Intellectuals were particularly shocked by this persecution of one of their own; the Roman philosopher Seneca called it “Alexander’s eternal shame”. Cruelty was thus added to pride and impetuosity as the three great tyrannical vices that characterized Alexander.

VI.

Expedition to India

Alexander’s expedition to India took him beyond what was needed to control his empire. He was led into it partly by a friendly embassy from the ruler of Taxila (near modern Rawalpindi), but also by a desire to retrace the legendary progress from India of his “ancestor” the god Dionysus, and to emulate the legendary exploits of Queen Semiramis of Babylon. His scientific staff would report on flora and fauna, ethnography, and geography, in the spirit of his master Aristotle. Their information changed many received ideas. For example Aristotle had believed that India was very narrow, and that the “River of Ocean” could be seen from the Hindu Kush. Some of the information in his History of Animals is also very likely to derive from Alexander’s scientists.

The expedition departed in the spring of 327 bc. It may have included as many as 120,000 people; the Macedonian element was no more than 15,000, and the decline of Macedonian manpower was to be a problem at home in the next generation. The first conquest, of Sogdiana (or Sogdia or Sogdian) in Central Asia, whose ruler Oxyartes had taken refuge on the Sogdian Rock, culminated in the marriage of Alexander to Oxyartes’ daughter Roxana (or Roxane, died c. 311 bc), an alliance which helped to secure the Macedonians’ rear as they advanced. Presently the army came to a valley where ivy grew, and which they were therefore persuaded was Nysa, a foundation of Dionysus; it was perhaps in the region of Nuristan, in modern Afghanistan. Alexander continued his emulation of the gods by subduing the Rock of Aornus (Pir-Sar), which even Heracles (Krishna, in some local legend) had failed to conquer.

In the spring of 326 bc Alexander arrived in Taxila to a tremendous welcome. An episode of particular interest here was the encounter with a group of Indian ascetics known as the “naked philosophers”. Alexander sent his staff writer Onesicritus to interview them, a task Onesicritus described as involving three interpreters and thus “like getting water to run clear through mud”. The philosophy they purveyed to Onesicritus was not unlike the Cynic doctrine that the interviewer himself professed, and the episode, which became one of the most famous of the entire campaign, and was written up repeatedly, becomes a replay of the meeting with Diogenes, presenting a contrast of the ruler of the world with those who have and need nothing.

Across the River Indus lay a hostile kingdom ruled by Porus. The army marched through the monsoon season of June to a position on the River Hydaspes (Jhelum) opposite Porus’ army. Despite the terror aroused by Porus’ elephants, and the death of Alexander’s horse Bucephalas in the battle, the Macedonians succeeded in surrounding and defeating his army. Alexander confirmed Porus as ruler of his kingdom, but as a Macedonian vassal. Alexander was perhaps awed by his dignity, but more probably simply impatient with administrative arrangements when there was so much exploring still to be done. (Porus seceded barely a year later.)

At this point the officers and troops mutinied against Alexander’s plans to march through the whole of India. After three days waiting for them to change their mind, Alexander conceded defeat; he erected 12 altars to the gods who had accompanied him, marking the furthest point of his expedition, and prepared for the return journey down the Indus. This was not a peaceful progress as there was strong resistance from the Malli and Oxydracae (Malavas and Khshudrakas). At the Malli town, Alexander (more impetuous than ever) leapt from a scaling ladder into the city and was nearly cut down but for the protection of several officers. Resistance by tribes further south was savagely crushed.

At the mouth of the Indus the expedition divided into two. Nearchus was to take the fleet westward to the Tigris delta, while Alexander and the troops would march by land through the Gedrosian Desert to Carmania, emulating the similar march of Semiramis. This 60-day march was the biggest miscalculation of his career: the expedition lost touch with the fleet, water ran short, food was hard to find, and many desert plants proved poisonous. About 60,000 men were lost during the march.

VII.

Death and Legacy

Alexander’s arrival back in Persia brought him in touch with the political problems of his empire. Several satraps and Macedonian officials were executed. His treasurer Harpalus now fled from Babylon to Athens with 700 talents; but the Athenians were not pleased to see him, and he escaped to Crete where he was presently murdered.

Alexander’s first act on reaching Susa was to arrange a mass marriage of 92 Macedonian officers (including himself) to Persian women. He also instituted a military training programme for 30,000 Persian youths. Sir William Tarn (1948) saw these actions as evidence of a belief by Alexander in the “brotherhood of man”, but in fact they were simply measures for effective cooperation between Macedonians and Persians.

Soon thereafter, at Opis, the dismissal of 10,000 superannuated soldiers provoked a near-riot, which Alexander calmed by arranging a great feast. Craterus was then despatched to lead the veterans back to Greece and, surprisingly, to take over from Antipater as regent. But where were these men to go? Alexander attempted to solve the problem by promulgating the Exiles Decree of July-August 324 bc, which insisted on the right of return of political exiles. As Alexander was not king of Greece, he had no basis of authority to issue such an order, so he added to it a demand that all the Greek cities worship him as a god. (The demand, though not well received, became the standard mode thereafter for imposing royal authority on nominally free cities.)

Tragedy struck at Ecbatana in the summer of 324 bc when Alexander’s friend Hephaestion fell ill and died. Alexander’s grief was on a heroic scale, and a massive monument was planned. Early in 323 bc the court moved to Babylon. Several evil omens greeted Alexander on his arrival, though embassies bearing gifts from far-flung nations (perhaps including Carthage and Rome) made a better impression. On May 29 Alexander fell ill during a banquet, and died on June 10, 323 bc. Many theories have been advanced to explain his sudden death. Contemporaries naturally enough suspected poison, perhaps administered on behalf of Antipater to preclude his deposition. More likely is some ailment arising from the marshy surroundings of Babylon, or from excessive wine consumption (another vice much castigated by later philosophers), malaria, typhoid, or (the latest suggestion) pancreatitis.

Alexander’s death created enormous problems. There were no plans for a succession. The king had shown less interest in securing his empire than acquiring it. On his deathbed he had been asked: “To whom do you leave your kingdom?” and had replied, unhelpfully, “To the strongest”. His son by Roxana was born in August and was named Alexander IV; he became nominal king along with the incapable Philip III Arrhidaeus. In practice, General Perdiccas assumed command in Babylon, Antipater in Macedonia. Ptolemy (later Ptolemy I) soon made himself master of Egypt, Antigonus the “one-eyed” (later Antigonus I) took control of Asia Minor, and a few years later Seleucus (later Seleucus I) took control of the east. Twenty years of warfare ended at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 bc, in which Seleucus and his allies defeated Antigonus. Alexander’s short-lived empire was divided into three major kingdoms: Ptolemaic Egypt, the Seleucid Empire, and Macedon.

Alexander’s body was despatched to Aegae for burial, but it never arrived, for Ptolemy hijacked the catafalque and took it, first to Memphis, and then to Alexandria. Alexander’s tomb in the city he founded was visited by Roman emperors and others over the centuries, but its site is now unknown.

VIII.

Legend of Alexander

Alexander’s fame was instantaneous and many legends grew up around his campaigns. Several histories of his campaigns were written in his lifetime and soon afterwards, but all these are lost except for fragments. The earliest surviving account of his life and campaigns is the so-called Alexander Romance, a kind of historical novel in Greek, probably composed in 3rd-century bc Alexandria, and rewritten several times during antiquity in both Greek and Latin. It combines dubious history and erratic geography with detailed information about the foundation of Alexandria, as well as several legends that have made the name of Alexander endure. Prominent among the latter are his meeting with the Brahmans at Taxila (which itself was rewritten several times in Greek and translated into Latin, perhaps by St Ambrose), his encounters with fabulous races and monstrous beasts in India (also the subject of a separate work, The Letter from Alexander to Aristotle About India), and his expedition to Meroe (in modern Sudan). Later Greek versions of the Alexander Romance added the story of his expedition into the “Land of Darkness”, his search for the “Water of Life”, his descent in a diving bell, and his ascent in a flying machine.

The Alexander Romance was translated into every language of east and west (the Armenian translation is particularly important), accruing further legends in the translation to Syriac and Arabic, which became the source of the medieval Persian tradition about him. Six Hebrew versions of the Alexander Romance were made at various times. Several Greek versions of medieval and early modern times have kept his name alive in Greece. The Latin versions (of the 4th and 10th centuries ad) were translated into all the languages of Europe, from Old English and Icelandic to Russian, Middle High German, Spanish, French, and Italian. The whole of the Alexander Romance is inserted between the Apocrypha and the New Testament in the German and Dutch History Bibles of the late Middle Ages. The Alexander Romance was translated more frequently than any work except the Gospels in the Middle Ages. These factors helped to insert Alexander into the canon of Scripture and ensured the resonance of his name beyond that of a purely historical figure, even to the present day.

IX.

Sources and Historical Assessment

The most comprehensive histories surviving from antiquity are those of Diodorus Siculus (completed around 30 bc), Quintus Curtius Rufus (1st century ad), and Arrian; in addition there is a biography by Plutarch. All these based themselves on the now lost histories by contemporaries. These were very numerous and included the sober accounts by Ptolemy and Aristobulus—Arrian took these two as his main sources. Callisthenes wrote an adulatory account of the campaign that was never completed because Alexander most likely put him to death. Cleitarchus wrote a book full of wonders, and as the geographer Strabo wrote: “All those who wrote about Alexander preferred the marvellous to the true.” Chares of Mytilene, the chamberlain, was the source of many anecdotes, mainly about feasts.

Arrian’s account, which has generally been taken in modern times as the most reliable, is a sober account that makes no secret of the author’s admiration for his hero. The account of Diodorus Siculus, part of a universal history, is more uncritical. Quintus Curtius Rufus’ history emphasizes the less creditable aspects of the tradition, encapsulating the ambiguous Roman reaction to Alexander as a heroic conqueror but also an example of the tyrannical vices of luxury and pride. Plutarch’s biography uses the life as a field for the exploration of moral examples and problems.

Modern scholarship on Alexander begins with J. G. Droysen (1877), who saw each of Philip and Alexander as the Bismarck of their age, uniting the world under Hellenic leadership. A form of this view was also purveyed by F. Schachermeyr in his Indogermanen und Orient (1940; “Indo-European Aryans and the Orient”), which proposed a Nazi-influenced racial interpretation; but he repudiated this in his later work which sees Alexander as a “titanic but flawed” maker of history.

Sir William Tarn saw Alexander as an empire builder on a very different model, believing in the unity of mankind and attempting to mould the peoples of his empire in accordance with a long-term plan of civilization.

The pendulum swings to the opposite extreme in the work of Ernst Badian beginning in 1958, which sees Alexander against the model of the Nazis’ totalitarianism and interprets the reign as a tyranny culminating in a “reign of terror”. The work of A. B. Bosworth since 1970 is the equal of Badian’s in the subtlety of its historical analysis as well as its technical achievement in dealing with the difficult sources. Bosworth has developed a view of Alexander as little more than a killing-machine with no redeeming features.

More popular accounts, though both the work of accomplished scholars, are those of Peter Green (1974), which delights in all the ghoulish stories that the sources can provide, and of Robin Lane Fox (1973), who has physically retraced much of Alexander’s route and is not ashamed to admire his achievement as an explorer and tactician.

At present the scholarly view of Alexander is one in which his political and military violence take centre stage at the expense of the romance of his journeys or the magnitude of his political legacy; suspicion of imperial ambitions colours the interpretation of a conqueror. Perhaps this shows how modern scholarship, as much as the legends of earlier ages, reshapes the protean Alexander in the light of contemporary preoccupations.