Ancient Worlds by Richard Miles

Author:Richard Miles [Miles, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780141963006
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

MAP 8

Alexander’s Conquests

Incidents such as this abound in the ancient accounts of Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire. On another occasion, while campaigning in northern Pakistan, he was determined to capture a particularly inaccessible mountain peak called Aornus, where some enemies were holed up. He proclaimed that this was no ordinary mountain refuge, but a place that the great Greek hero Heracles himself had, not once, but twice, failed to capture. Ptolemy goes on to explain that Alexander felt a ‘longing’ to outdo Heracles. After heavy fighting, two parties of 700 men climbed the highest peak at night in an almost insanely risky operation. Alexander was, of course, the first to reach the summit.

Alexander’s self-consciously heroic antics did not always sit easily with the fourth-century BC world that he inhabited. At best some of his exploits made him look like a shallow ventriloquist and, at worst, a barbaric psychopath. A case in point was his treatment of Batis, the Persian governor of Gaza, who had made the mistake of taking just a little too long to surrender the city after Alexander had put it under siege. Once Gaza had fallen Alexander had the still very much alive Batis hitched to the back of his chariot and dragged him around the walls of the city. It was, of course, an allusion to Achilles’ brutal treatment of Hector’s body outside the walls of Troy; Batis, though, was a fat eunuch who had surrendered, not a great warrior. What was intended to strengthen the association between Alexander and Achilles had descended to nothing more than brutal parody.

Alexander would not just adopt the persona of a Homeric hero. Throughout his career as conqueror of most of the known world, he would play a bewildering array of different roles: Greek liberator, Egyptian pharaoh and Persian autocrat. The essential point about him was not his commitment to, but rather his detachment from the numerous causes which he espoused. There was more to these role changes than mere ego, although that certainly played its part. Liberated from the political ideologies for which the Greeks would live and die, Alexander preferred the ‘pick and mix’ approach, adopting customs and practices that he discovered during his great march eastwards if they helped further his own ends.

The abandon with which Alexander dropped one identity and picked up another was most apparent when he arrived in Egypt, which, by this time, was the oldest living civilization on earth. The Persians had controlled Egypt for the last two centuries and were deeply unpopular because of their harsh exactions and high-handed behaviour. Alexander played on Egyptian antipathy towards Persia by once again taking on the role of liberator. He was shrewd enough to realize that he needed to win over the priesthood, which effectively ruled the country for the pharaoh. The Persians were Zoroastrians and believed other gods were demons; they had alienated the Egyptian priests by not respecting their gods and customs. And so Alexander went to Memphis, the old capital of

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