THE HUNT
The Magi taught the princes of Persia how to hunt at a very young age, and many of them pitted
themselves against nature’s most dangerous predators even after they had attained positions of power
within the empire. A relief from a stairway in Persepolis shows either a nobleman or the Persian king
himself stabbing a lion as the lion claws its hunter. After Gaugamela, however, Darius had become
the prey.
In Macedon, too, the sons of the nobility were taught to track, to corner, and then to dispatch the
wild animals that roamed the lofty heights of the kingdom. In his pursuit of Darius, Alexander showed
that he had learned his lessons well; he hunted Darius with relentless zeal, care, and swiftness. When,
at last, he had Darius cornered, however, Alexander was robbed of the satisfaction of the kill. Darius
was cruelly cut down by some of his own pack.
Deprived of his pleasure, Alexander immediately redefined the hunt itself, determining to track
down and punish his enemy’s killers. Whether he hunted men or beasts, Alexander never permitted
anyone to strike the mortal blow—at least, not without punishment—before he took his chance.
THE DEATH OF DARIUS
By the time the dust had settled at Gaugamela, Darius had fled to the Median capital of Ecbatana, one
of the royal residences of the Achaemenid Persian kings. Ecbatana had been incorporated within the
Persian realm when Cyrus the Great had defeated and captured Astyages in 550 and had long served
as the capital of the Median satrapy. Among Greeks, Ecbatana was known for its wealth and the
magnificence of its buildings; the columns in the porticoes and colonnades of the royal palace were
said to be gold-plated and even the tiles made of silver.
If reinforcements from Scythia (probably in the area of the modern Crimea) and Cadusia in northern
Media could reach him in time, Darius had steeled his nerve to face Alexander in battle yet again. But
if Alexander marched against him in Media before his nomadic and tribal allies could arrive, Darius
had determined to go farther up-country, across the Elburz Mountains into the territory of the
Parthyaeans and Hyrcania, in the area along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. The women and
the rest of his belongings were sent on ahead to the Caspian Gates, the defiles that marked the
boundary between Media and Parthyene.
Unfortunately for Darius, Alexander was quicker than the Persian king’s reinforcements. Having set
out from Persepolis in May, along the way he subdued the Paraetacae and placed Oxathres as satrap
over them. Three days’ journey away from Ecbatana Alexander was met by Bisthanes, a son of
Ochus, the previous Persian king, who informed him that Darius had fled four days before with a
treasury of 7,000 talents and a force of 3,000 cavalry and 6,000 infantry.
The chase was now truly on. To lighten his load, Alexander dismissed the Thessalian cavalry and
other allied contingents with a payment of 2,000 talents to divide among them; he took the Companion
cavalry, the advanced scouts, the mercenary cavalry, the Macedonian heavy infantry (except for the
sections detailed to guard the treasury), the Agrianes, and the archers. Parmenio was ordered to
transfer the Persian treasury to Ecbatana and to hand it over to Alexander’s boyhood friend Harpalus
for safekeeping, while Alexander pushed eastward in search of Darius. Harpalus was left in charge of
it with a guard of 6,000 Macedonians, cavalry, and a few light troops.
On the eleventh day Alexander reached Rhagae (modern Rey), but Darius already had passed
through the Caspian Gates. Alexander then rested his force for five days. After passing through the
Gates himself, Alexander learned from Bagistanes, a Babylonian nobleman, and Antibelus, one of
Mazaeus’ sons, that Darius had been seized and put under arrest by Nabarzanes, his own cavalry
commander; Bessus, satrap of Bactria; and Barsaentes, satrap of Arachotia and Drangiana.
At this point Alexander made the pursuit team lighter and quicker. Taking with him only the
Companions, the advanced scouts, and the very toughest of his light infantry, Alexander set off after
the unfortunate prisoner and his captors. Covering about 130 miles in three enervating stages, which
included two all-night marches, Alexander reached the camp from which Bagistanes had brought his
news, only to find it deserted. Darius had been taken off in a covered wagon. Bessus had assumed
power in his place and had received the royal salute from all except Artabazus and the Greek
mercenaries. Alexander’s exhausted team pressed on; at noon the next day, they reached a village
where Darius and his captors had been the day before.
Parmenio’s son Nicanor and his guards were instructed to follow Bessus and Darius by the road
they had taken. Alexander, led by local guides and accompanied by the fittest of his infantry, who
were mounted for the final pursuit, took a shortcut. Covering some fifty miles in the course of the
night, Alexander closed in on the fugitives near the city of Hecatompylus (Shahr-i Qumis).
When Alexander was close upon them, Nabarzanes and Barsaentes struck down Darius and then
fled with 600 horsemen. Darius died of his wounds before Alexander had seen him. He was around
fifty years old at the time of his death. Alexander, we are informed, gave his dead adversary, whom
he had insulted so many times while alive, a full royal funeral. Darius’ body was then sent back to
Persepolis to be buried in the royal tomb, alongside his divinely selected ancestors.
Arrian judged Darius to have been the feeblest and most incompetent of men, although in other
spheres of conduct moderate and decent. This is too harsh: Darius clearly was not a complete military
incompetent. When his empire was invaded, he led a determined and flexible, if somewhat tardy,
defense of his realm.
Unfortunately for Darius, the fates had brought him onto the stage of history at a time when a fierce
new light was blazing across the sky, scorching everything and everybody in its path who did not
warm to it, and sometimes those who did as well. Thus, although Darius deserved his final resting
place among the tombs of the great kings of Persia’s proud imperial history, as Alexander understood,
he did not merit his exact fate. Whatever Alexander believed, as Darius himself concluded about the
outcome of the battle of Issos, it was perhaps as some god willed it.
A NEW WAR OF REVENGE
After the murder of Darius, the last of the Achaemenid kings of Persia, Alexander appointed a
Parthyaean named Amminapes as satrap over the Parthyaeans and Hyrcanians and named a
Companion, Tlepolemus, to rule in association with him. Alexander had not changed his normal
practice of appointing a trusted Macedonian officer to keep an eye on a locally recruited governor.
Meanwhile, we are told, with Darius dead, all of Alexander’s soldiers were expecting to return
home. In their imaginations, they already were embracing the wives and children they had left behind
years before. The pan-Hellenic crusade was over, all of its goals achieved.
Its leader, however, had other ideas; indeed, he apparently always had. Calling an assembly of the
soldiers, Alexander pointed out to them that Nabarzanes was still occupying Hyrcania; that the
murderer Bessus was not only occupying Bactria, but was threatening the Macedonians; and that most
of
Persia’s eastern subjects or allies remained independent. The moment the Macedonians turned their
backs, all of these would be after them. How much greater would the obedience of the Persians be
when they realized that the Macedonians’ wars were righteous and that their anger was directed
against the crime of Bessus and not against the Persian race?
In other words, this was no longer a campaign of national revenge for historical injustices;
Alexander and the Macedonians were now to be Darius’ avengers, and Alexander was to be king of
all the peoples over whom Darius had ruled.
Flushed with victory, the soldiers greeted Alexander’s speech with great enthusiasm, shouting for
the king to lead them wherever he wished to go. Once Alexander had received the enthusiastic
response of his men, the allied troops from the Greek cities were praised for their services, and
promptly released from their military duties. Each cavalryman was given a talent and each
infantryman ten minas. These rewards signify that the goals of the pan-Hellenic alliance had been
achieved in Alexander’s eyes. But to those soldiers who would remain with him in the Macedonian
royal army to avenge Darius and leave none of his former lands independent, Alexander also gave a
bonus payment of three talents each.
In effect, Alexander had disbanded the pan-Hellenic army only to reenlist a large part of it to serve
under him as he pursued what was now a war of revenge and conquest. It is nevertheless doubtful that
any of the soldiers who called upon Alexander to lead them wherever he wished could have imagined
that the next phase of the campaign would last six long years and that Alexander intended to lead them
to the very ends of the earth.
THE QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS
It was during this high tide of enthusiasm for further adventures that Alexander supposedly was
visited by Thalestris (or Minythyia), the queen of the Amazons. Accompanied by 300 other women,
she had traveled for thirty-five days to meet Alexander. Her appearance and the purpose of her visit
aroused general surprise, we are informed; she was strangely dressed for a woman and she came to
have a child by the king. Alexander allegedly paused for thirteen days to oblige the queen, leaving
only when she thought she had conceived.
The story has been rejected as fiction by many modern historians, but its main features are recorded
by Diodorus, Curtius, Justin, and Plutarch. Even the usually skeptical Arrian reports that a Scythian
king offered the hand of his daughter to Alexander in marriage. Somewhere on the borders of
Hyrcania Alexander perhaps left behind a curly-haired offspring among the one-breasted warrior
women of Scythia.
FIRST MOVES
Presumably recovered from chasing Darius and being pursued by mythical queens, Alexander now
led the Macedonians after Darius’ murderers. Dividing his forces into three columns, Alexander made
his way first over the lofty peaks of Mount Elburz (about 18,550 feet), toward the Hyrcanian capital
of Zadracarta (probably modern Sari).
Along the way, Nabarzanes, Darius’ cavalry commander and one of the men responsible for
Darius’ death, Phrataphernes, satrap of Hyrcania and Parthia, and other high-ranking officers came to
Alexander and gave themselves up. Autophradates, the satrap of Tapuria, also surrendered and was
returned to his post. Artabazus, who had refused to betray Darius, also came to Alexander with his
three sons; he was treated with respect and honor. To the representatives of the Greek mercenaries,
who came to him begging for terms, Alexander replied harshly: he would make no compact with them.
Men who had fought with the barbarians against the decrees of the Greeks were guilty of grave
injustices. They were ordered to surrender, leaving themselves to Alexander’s mercy, or to take what
steps they could for their own safety. There were approximately 1,500 of these Greek mercenaries,
and Alexander sent Artabazus and Andronicus to them to inform them of their options.
Alexander then made a five-day expedition against the warlike Mardians, who were driven quickly
from their passes into their mountain strongholds. Those who surrendered were placed under the
authority of Autophradates, satrap of Tapuria.
THE ABDUCTION OF BUCEPHALAS
While Alexander was wasting the surrounding countryside, some of the inhabitants made a surprise
attack upon the royal pages who were looking after Bucephalas and made off with Alexander’s horse.
Having been tamed and won by Alexander in his famous bet with his father, Bucephalas had carried
Alexander into every one of his major battles in Asia, and when he was caparisoned he allowed no
one but Alexander to mount him. Horse and rider were literally inseparable.
After Hephaestion, and perhaps his mother, there was no living creature on earth Alexander loved
more than his Thessalian horse. Alexander was so infuriated by Bucephalas’ abduction that he
ordered every tree in the land felled. Through native interpreters he also proclaimed that if the horse
were not returned, the natives would see the countryside laid waste to the greatest extent possible,
and the inhabitants would be slaughtered to a man. As he began to carry out these threats the locals
returned Bucephalas, along with gifts; fifty men were also sent to beg for forgiveness. Later, when
Bucephalas died in India of old age and exhaustion after the battle of the Hydaspes Alexander named
a city after him.
MERCENARIES, ENVOYS, AND REBELS
to look out for their safety, waiting to give themselves up. The mercenaries who had joined Darius
before the establishment of the pan-Hellenic alliance in 337 were demobilized. Those who joined
after the congress at Corinth were merely ordered to serve Alexander at the same rate of pay.
The contrast between Alexander’s relatively lenient treatment of these mercenaries and his refusal
to accept the surrender of most of the Greek mercenaries at the Granicus is easily explained. The
battle of the Granicus took place at the beginning of the war, when the guiding principles of the pan-
Hellenic expedition were in full force. After the death of Darius, those principles had become moot,
and Alexander needed experienced troops for his new campaign. His employment of Darius’
surviving Greek mercenaries represented neither a betrayal of principle nor a sudden change of heart.
It was self-interest, pure and simple, dictated by the requirements of his new goals.
Self-interest also explains Alexander’s treatment of some Spartan and Athenian envoys to Darius
who now fell into his hands. The envoys had been dispatched before the news of Darius’ death had
reached their cities. These representatives of Alexander’s foremost Greek enemy and least
enthusiastic ally were arrested and put into custody, a prudent measure at a time when Alexander
believed that the war against the Spartans was still raging. Representatives from the small city of
Sinope, on the coast of the Black Sea (a city that was not a member of the pan-Hellenic League of
Corinth), who also had been captured on their way to Darius, were released, on the grounds that it
was not unreasonable for them to have been sent on an embassy to their own king.
These issues addressed, Alexander then returned to Zadracarta, Hyrcania’s
largest city, where he
stayed for fifteen days in August 330, sacrificing to the gods and celebrating games. For the moment it
looked as if he had gained acceptance as the new ruler both from those who had instigated (or
participated in) the murder of Darius and also from those who had refused to take part. Bessus
remained the outstanding threat to the new order. Thus Alexander moved first back into the territory of
the Parthyaeans and from there to the borders of Areia. At the city of Susia (near modern Meshed),
Satibarzanes came to Alexander and was confirmed in his office of satrap of the Areians. He was sent
back with Anaxippus, with forty mounted javelin troops.
However, just when all seemed well, some Persians arrived with a report that Bessus was wearing
his tiara upright, was dressing in royal attire, was calling himself Artaxerxes instead of Bessus, and
was proclaiming himself king of Asia. He had with him the Persians who had made their escape into
Bactria, as well as many Bactrians, and was expecting additional forces from Scythia. Alexander was
now faced with a full-fledged nationalist resistance.
ORIENTALIZING
Alexander immediately set out for Bactria with his whole force, joined now by the mercenary
cavalry, the Thessalian volunteers, and allied troops. It was at this point, according to some of the
ancient sources, that Alexander lost control of his appetites and degenerated into arrogance and
dissipation.
First, Alexander installed Asian-born ushers in his court and ordered the most distinguished
Persians to act as his guards, including Darius’ brother Oxathres. He then put on the Persian diadem
and dressed himself in the white robe, the Persian sash, and the other things except for the trousers
and the long-sleeved upper garment.
He gave cloaks with purple borders to the Companions, too, and outfitted their horses in Persian
harness. Finally, he added concubines to his retinue in the manner of Darius, in number not less than
the days of the year, and outstanding in beauty as selected from all the women of Asia. Each night
these women paraded about Alexander’s couch so that he might select the one with whom he would
lie that night.
Curtius Rufus and other ancient writers represent Alexander’s adoption of Persian dress and