The World

Alexander now assumed a new title, king of Asia, but his Companions remained dubious: Philotas mockingly said that he felt sorry for the Persians since they were fighting a demi-god. An officer offered to assassinate Alexander for Philotas. Philotas discouraged him but reported nothing. Alexander next took Babylon, where he honoured the god Marduk, whom he regarded as another Zeus. He pursued Darius, first taking Susa where he admired the inscription of Hammurabi’s law code from ancient times, then Parsa where he avenged the Persian burning of the temples of Athens. Legend recounts a drunken party at which the hetaira Thaïs encouraged Alexander to pillage the royal city, legend thus typically blaming a woman for the mayhem. No doubt there was much carousing, but he needed no encouragement. Parmenion warned against the destruction, but Alexander had promised his army ‘the most hated city in Asia’. The Macedonians ransacked the palaces, raping, killing, torturing, enslaving, smashing over 600 vessels of alabaster, lapis, marble, even decapitating a Greek statue – and Alexander systemically burned the palaces.

Alexander chased Darius towards Rhagae (Teheran), where in July 330 the king’s cousin Bessus, satrap of Bactria, murdered him and declared himself king. Darius’ body was still warm when Alexander arrived. Alexander wept and had the last of the House of Cyrus buried in the family tombs.^*

The Companions may have hoped the pursuit was now over, but Alexander reorganized his entourage and set off on a year-long, 1,000-mile manhunt for Bessus, first into Helmand in Afghanistan, where he started to wear a Persian tunic and the royal tiara. In his spare moments, he cavorted with a beautiful young Persian eunuch who sang like an angel. When one of the pages informed the general Philotas of a plot to assassinate Alexander, he again did not report it, so the page went to Alexander directly. Even though Philotas had not conspired himself, Alexander launched a purge, holding a series of show trials accusing Philotas and his father Parmenion of high treason. The soldiers stoned Philotas to death, while Alexander sent hitmen to kill Parmenion. As his army marched further into Afghanistan – where Alexander founded a second Alexandria near Bagram, and another that became Kandahar (Iskandera) – he appointed Hephaistion and Cleitus as his deputies with the new title chiliarch.^*

When the snows melted, they climbed up through the Hindu Kush – Killer of Hindus – like Hercules, and chased Bessus into Bactria and Sogdiana, where he was captured by Ptolemy before being publicly executed by being tied to two bent trees and then torn apart. The Afghans resisted; Alexander slaughtered thousands, burned towns, destroyed temples and desecrated the Avesta – earning himself the title the Accursed. Though he was wounded again in skirmishes, Alexander’s amazing constitution ensured that he rapidly healed and he established tense winter quarters in Markanda (Samarkand), where his Companions demanded a return to Macedonia.

At a drunken symposium, his general Cleitus the Black, who had once saved his life, mocked his divine despotism and his lesser talents compared to his father Philip, ending by reminding him, ‘This is the hand that saved your life.’ Alexander tossed aside his goblet, threw an apple at Cleitus, then jumped up from his couch, grabbed a spear from a Bodyguard and ran at him, only to be restrained by Ptolemy and a general called Perdiccas who begged him to forgive a man who was almost family. Alexander stormed out, seized another spear from the guards and waited. When Cleitus staggered out, Alexander speared him to death. He repented for days, then returned to war.

Alexander advanced into Sogdiana (Tajikistan/Afghanistan), where a local warlord Huxshiartas defied him from his impregnable fortress, the Rock. Alexander sent his Macedonians to scale the eyrie. After its fall, Huxshiartas offered his daughter Roxane – Rauxshana, Bright Star – who became Alexander’s wife in a Persian marriage, a new affront to his Macedonian officers. He demanded they make the proskynesis, prostration, owed to a Persian king. This was a long way from the matey informality of Macedonian companionship. Outraged officers and even the court historian Callisthenes, great-nephew of Aristotle, refused to prostrate themselves, and a group of pages conspired to kill Alexander in his sleep and put his elder brother Arrhidaios on the throne. But the king stayed out all night on a drinking spree and the culprits were arrested then stoned to death.

Now in 327, Bactria and Sogdiana secured, Alexander emulated Hercules by invading ‘India’ through the Khyber Pass, bursting into the Punjab , recruiting Indian princelings as allies and receiving dissidents from local kingdoms who may have included a young Indian exile named Chandragupta.