ensued. The best of the Persian cavalry, and Memnon, with his sons, inflicted most of the Macedonian
casualties to this point. The sacrifice of Amyntas’ men allowed the rest of the Companions, who had
successfully crossed the river, to counterattack where the Persian commanders were stationed and
where the serried ranks of Persian cavalry were thickest.
Mithridates, the son-in-law of the Persian king, led a second Persian charge, this time directed at
Alexander himself, who by now was up and out of the riverbed, on the east side of the river.
Alexander rode out to meet Mithridates and struck him in the face with his spear. The brothers
Rhoesaces and Spithridates then rode after Alexander. Rhoesaces sliced off part of Alexander’s
helmet with his scimitar, slightly wounding him; Alexander killed him with a spear thrust through his
cuirass. Spithridates now raised his scimitar, ready to strike a fatal blow at Alexander from behind.
But Cleitus, son of Dropidas, nicknamed the Black, who commanded the elite royal squadron of the
Companion cavalry, severed Spithridates’ arm at the shoulder with a single blow. The whole course
of history might have been different if Cleitus’ arm, like Cleopatra’s nose, had been a bit shorter.
As more Macedonian squadrons followed Alexander across the river, the Persian cavalry was
forced back. No less than eight Persian commanders fell fighting. So much for later Greek claims of
Asian cowardice; the Persian commanders at Granicus died bravely, defending what they themselves
had conquered and believed was theirs.
After hard fighting, however, the Persian center broke. The Macedonians then wheeled on the
Greek mercenary infantry, which had taken little part in the battle so far, owing to their position on the
higher ground at some distance behind the Persian cavalry. Ordering a combined assault by infantry
and cavalry, Alexander and the Macedonians proceeded to cut down 90 percent of the mercenaries
where they stood, perhaps after they had asked for quarter. Only about 2,000 were taken prisoner.
Some, particularly those who believe the mercenaries asked for quarter, have condemned
Alexander for this. But the Greek mercenaries who perished that day were just that: mercenaries in
the pay of the Persian king. They had taken the Great King’s Darics (Persian coins) and they knew
their job was either to kill or die on his behalf. Alexander was under no moral obligation to honor
their request, even if they made it, which is not entirely certain.
There were practical reasons, in any case, for Alexander not to spare the mercenaries. At the very
beginning of what promised to be a long and dangerous campaign, he had no guarantee that if he let
the Greek mercenaries at the Granicus go free, the Macedonians would not end up fighting them
another day. Finally, the slaughter on that spring afternoon undoubtedly was intended as a message to
other Greeks who might think about fighting for the Persian king: they could expect no mercy.
Granicus River site in modern Turkey where Alexander fought his first major battle against the Persians in the late spring of 334 B.C.E.
Author’s collection
Yet the massacre was a mistake, albeit one made by a young man in the heat of a battle during
which he very nearly lost his life. Those who took Darius’ coin thereafter would fight all the harder,
knowing they could expect no quarter. A quick learner, Alexander did not repeat this mistake.
On the Macedonian side, casualties were lighter by far. About twenty-five of the Companion
cavalry were killed in the first assault led by Amyntas. More than sixty other mounted troops lost their
lives, and about thirty infantrymen as well. Bronze statues of the twenty-five hetairoi who lost their
lives at the Granicus later were executed by Alexander’s favorite sculptor, Lysippus, and placed in
Dium in Macedonia.
AFTER THE BATTLE
As soon as the carnage was over, Alexander arranged to honor the dead, to reestablish bonds of
camaraderie with the survivors, and to send out carefully crafted messages about the progress of the
campaign to friends, foes, and various ideological fence-sitters.
By Alexander’s order, all the Macedonian dead were buried with their arms and equipment the
next day; their parents and children were “granted immunity from local taxes and all forms” of
understanding, if not his basic humanity. In the long history of warfare, far more experienced leaders,
and even states, have done far less for the families of those who have given their all. Alexander
visited the wounded, too, and listened to them elaborate upon how they had received their wounds.
He had a precocious understanding of the need of men who have experienced the trauma of combat to
release their emotions by sharing them.
Alexander also gave burial rites to the Persian commanders and the Greek mercenaries who had
died. Some scholars have argued that he thus violated the Persians’ religious beliefs. But Arrian does
not specify exactly how those rites were conducted, and it is hard to see what else Alexander could
have done. He would not have shown more sensitivity to Persian religious traditions if he had left the
bodies to rot on the field of battle. Nor could Alexander have given the Persian dead over to their
countrymen, for there were none around. Memnon and the Persian survivors of the battle had fled to
the friendly city of Miletos.
The surviving Greek prisoners were hauled back to Macedon in chains; there they were condemned
to hard labor “for contravening the resolution of the League of Corinth by fighting in a foreign army
against their countrymen.”
“THE BARBARIANS WHO DWELL IN ASIA”
As an offering to the goddess Athena, Alexander then sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armor,
inscribed “Alexander, son of Philip, and the Greeks, except the Spartans, dedicate these spoils, taken
from the barbarians who dwell in Asia.”
The armor was dedicated to Athena, the goddess of war, for the favor she had shown Alexander
and the Greeks in the battle; the spoils were sent to Athens because the Persians’ burning of the
Athenian temples in 480 had served as the primary justification for the pan-Hellenic war. It must have
given Alexander some pleasure to be able to send the Persian armor to a city that had fought against
him and his father and that was, at best, a lukewarm ally.
Because Alexander must have approved the inscription’s wording, it is also a key piece of
evidence for what he wanted people to believe about the progress of the campaign. Remarkably,
Alexander presents himself not as a king, but as the “son of Philip.” Why he did so is revealed by the
next few words: the subject of the sentence is “Alexander . . . and the Greeks.” In this context it was
in Alexander’s interest to appear not as a king, the son of a king, but as the co-dedicator of the spoils
—along with the Greeks, except for the Spartans, who had refused to join the pan-Hellenic crusade
unless they led it. Alexander wished to appear as an equal partner in an alliance with the Greeks.
As for the Spartans, their absence rankled because it undermined the official propaganda that this
was a pan-Hellenic endeavor. Precisely for that reason, after the first victory of the campaign
Alexander singled them out as non
-participants in the victory and in the dedication of the spoils.
The second part of the inscription addresses the status of the Persians, “the barbarians who dwell”
(not “rule”) in Asia. Here Alexander is not even willing to do his enemies the honor of naming them
properly; the suits of armor belonged to the “barbarians.” While the term “barbarian” in Greek
originally only meant someone who spoke a language Greeks could not understand, in 334 Alexander
did not use the term as a compliment. It was meant to delegitimize Persian rule of Asia in Greek eyes.
Also, given the fact that the Persians still controlled large parts of Asia after the battle at the
Granicus, the statement that they lived in Asia, rather than ruled there, was at best a half-truth.
This confection of propaganda, sarcasm, and contemptuous bravado was intended to be read by
Greeks in Greece as an affirmation of the campaign’s ideology and as a promise to deliver upon its
aims. Those who had chosen not to take part were being left behind.
RISKY VISIONS OF GENIUS
With the battle of the Granicus River, we begin to see why Alexander is considered a military genius.
One hallmark of such genius is vision—here, the ability to see a tactical problem and find its solution.
Arriving at the river and seeing the enemy cavalry drawn up in a strong defensive position on the
opposite bank, Alexander correctly assessed the tactical problem he faced. He needed to draw the
numerically superior Persian riders at least down to the edge of the riverbank, so as to deprive them
of what constituted the greatest threat to the Macedonian cavalry: the momentum of their charge.
The tactical solution was the pawn sacrifice of Amyntas’ assault group. Once the Persians took that
bait, Alexander and the Companions were able to counterattack and fight the Persian cavalry at close
quarters, where the superior riding skills and fighting qualities of the Macedonians gave them a
decisive advantage.
At the Granicus, Alexander ignored Parmenio’s advice because he could see what Parmenio could
not, and because he was bold enough to risk what the older man would not. Alexander took that risk
because he was not interested in outmaneuvering the Persians. Unlike Parmenio and many others, he
had not come to Asia simply to punish the Persians: he had come to rule Asia or die there. Either fate
would suit the descendant of Achilles.
CHAPTER 6
The Greek Cities of Asia Minor
LEARNING THE ARTS OF PEACE
Alexander had demonstrated his military genius and great personal courage. Now, however, the
twenty-two-year-old king suddenly had a vast territory in western Asia Minor to rule. This was a
different kind of problem from the one he had faced at the Granicus, and it demanded very different
skills. Pawn sacrifices and cavalry charges were not likely to be effective. Having barely survived
his first battle in Asia, Alexander needed a policy. How he decided to treat his new subjects helps us
to understand both his leadership style and his attitude toward the conquered peoples of his empire.
THE MISSION OF ALCIMACHUS
Immediately after the battle at the Granicus, Alexander appointed a certain Calas to the Hellespontine
satrapy previously held by Arsites, and gave him orders to maintain taxes at the same level as before.
These taxes would have applied both to Greeks and non-Greeks. To the small Greek city of Zeleia he
granted pardon, choosing to regard its collaboration with the Persians as a matter of compulsion
rather than conviction. But, on the other hand, no special privileges were given to this Greek city,
either. Parmenio then was sent to take over Dascylium, the satrapal capital.
Alexander’s next objective was the famous city of Sardis, at the foot of a fortified, precipitous hill
in the Hermos Valley. This city had been the political center of the Lydian dynasty under Croesus
before its capture by Cyrus the Great in 546, and subsequently it had become the capital of the most
important northwestern Achaemenid Persian province.
Somewhat surprisingly, Mithrines, the Persian officer in command of the inner fortress of Sardis,
and the leading men of the city surrendered the city to Alexander without a fight; Alexander left
Pausanias “in charge of the fortress.” The king then made Nikias responsible for the organization and
payment of the tribute. The governorship of Lydia was given to a Macedonian, Asander, son of
Philotas. Argive troops were left in Sardis to garrison the fortress. To Memnon’s part of the country
(in the Troad) were then sent Calas and Alexander, son of Aeropus, with the Peloponnesians and most
of the other allied troops.
Alexander thus permitted the Lydians to observe the customs of their country and gave them their
freedom—freedom to pay tribute, to house a garrison, and to enjoy the rule of a new satrap over them.
The Lydians had changed masters, not mastery.
Alexander’s next stop, Ephesos, the largest and most important Greek polis in Asia Minor and the
home of the enormous temple of Artemis, which had burned down the night of Alexander’s birth,
presented a much more complex diplomatic problem. At Parmenio’s approach with the Macedonian
advance force in 336, the popular party of this ancient Ionian city-state had risen up and overthrown
the pro-Persian tyrant in the city, admitting the Macedonians. It was after this that Philip II had
become synnaos with Artemis; that is, his supporters in the city had installed a statue of the
Macedonian king somewhere in her temple.
But Parmenio had suffered some reverses in Asia Minor in 335; the city of Ephesos was retaken by
pro-Persian forces, and the statue of Philip was destroyed. Amyntas, the son of Antiochus (a friend of
the Amyntas who had been eliminated as a pretender to the Macedonian throne early in 334), was in
charge of the mercenary garrison of Ephesos, which confronted Alexander as he approached the city.
When news of the devastation at the Granicus reached Ephesos, however, the mercenaries fled.
Upon his triumphal arrival in the city Alexander recalled everyone who had been expelled for
supporting him, stripped the governing clique of its power, and restored democratic institutions. All
dues previously paid to Persia he transferred to the temple of Artemis. The people of the city were
eager to put to death those who had called in Memnon and smashed up the statue of Philip. Syrphax
and his son Pelagon, and all his nephews, were dragged from the temple and stoned. Only
Alexander’s direct intervention halted further bloodshed.
Alexander then wanted to dedicate Artemis’ newly rebuilt temple, but the Ephesians (or the temple
administration) declined: it was inappropriate, they said, for a god to dedicate offerings to gods.
While Alexander was in Ephesos, envoys from Magnesia on the Maeander and Tralles (both on the
border of the mountainous region to the south known as Caria) came and invited Alexander into their
cities. Parmenio was sent with 2,500 allied foot soldiers, 2,500 Macedonians, and 200 Companion
cavalry to accept the offer. A similar force under the command of the Macedonian officer
Alcimachus, brother of the later-famous bodyguard and king Lysimachus, was dispatched to the
Aeolian and the Ionian cities still subject to the Persians. Throughout the country he dispossessed the
ruling factions and established popular (democratic) governments in th
eir place, allowing each
community to enjoy its own laws and customs and to discontinue payment of the taxes it previously
had paid the Persians.
At Ephesos, then, Alexander established his policy with respect to the Greek cities of Asia. It was
the arrival in Ephesos of the envoys from Magnesia and Tralles that led to the change. These cities
had freed themselves of their Persian garrisons and set up democracies. Democracy and autonomy for
Greek cities now were raised by Alexander to the level of general principles, and the Persian tribute
was abolished. The policy apparently was instituted because it was the democratic parties in the
cities (Magnesia and Tralles) that had been willing to get rid of the Persians.
Before Alcimachus’ mission, there is no indication that Alexander had democracy and autonomy in
mind for the Greeks of Asia. He had come to Asia to punish (or supplant) the Persians, not to free the
Greeks or to set up democracies. In fact, he probably had no general policy toward the Greeks of
Asia Minor at all before the campaign began in earnest. The new policy grew out of Alexander’s
appreciation of the political situation he confronted. As in warfare, where Alexander first read the
topography of the battlefield and then adjusted his tactics accordingly, so too in politics Alexander
tailored his policy measures to the lay of the political landscape.
After a sacrifice to Artemis and a splendid procession of troops, Alexander marched on to the
important Greek port of Miletos, which in 499 had been the heart of the unsuccessful revolt against
Persian rule. By the middle of the fourth century, however, Miletos’ famed opposition to its rulers
was a distant memory: the city was tightly controlled by the Persians and there were many friends of
Persia among its people. Surrounded by the sea on three sides, Miletos might have served as an
excellent base for the Persian fleet, which was more than twice the size of Alexander’s (400 warships
to 160), and whose galleys were manned by superior Cypriot and Phoenician crews. But Alexander
seized the offshore island of Lade before the Persian fleet could arrive to assist the city’s Persian
garrison.