THE LAST EXPEDITION
After the departure of Craterus, Alexander set out for Ecbatana. The state of the treasure, and the country, which had been so long in such hands as those of Cleander and Sitalces, demanded his attention. It was also a point where he might collect information, and concert measures, with regard to the regions which bounded his dominions on the north along the coasts of the Caspian Sea, concerning which his knowledge was hitherto very imperfect. But no doubt one of his main objects was to gratify the Medians by a residence of some months in their splendid capital, one of the proudest cities of the ancient world, where his Persian predecessors had been used to hold their court during a part of the year. Alexander’s presence was everywhere felt as a blessing. In his progress through Media he viewed the pastures celebrated—it seems, under the name of the Nisæan plain—for the number and excellence of the horses bred in them. The number had amounted to 150,000; but, through a series of depredations, which mark the disordered state of the province, it had been reduced by nearly two-thirds. Here he was met by Atropates, the satrap of the northwest part of Media, who, it seems, entertained him with a masquerade of a hundred women, mounted, and equipped with hatchets and short bucklers, according to the popular notion of the Amazons. Such is Arrian’s conjecture. The fact, whatever it may have been, gave rise to a story, that Alexander here received an embassy from the queen of the Amazons, and promised to pay her a visit. There were several other objects on this road to attract his attention in a leisurely march: a Bœotian colony planted by Xerxes, which still retained a partial use of the Greek language, and the garden and monuments of Baghistane, which tradition ascribed to Semiramis.
At Ecbatana, after he had despatched the most important business which awaited him there, he solemnised the autumnal festival of Dionysus with extraordinary magnificence. The city was crowded with strangers, who came to witness the spectacle; and three thousand artists are said to have been assembled from Greece, to bear a part in it. The satrap Atropates feasted the whole army; and the Macedonian officers seem to have vied with each other in courtly arts. They put proclamations into the mouths of the heralds, breathing, it is said, a strain of flattery, such as had scarcely been heard by the Persian kings. One of these, which was preserved as a specimen of insolent servility, but is more remarkable as an indication of Alexander’s sentiments, was made by Gorgus, the master of the armoury, who presented him with a crown worth three thousand gold pieces, and undertook to furnish ten thousand complete suits of armour, and as many missiles of every sort proper for the attack of a town, whenever he should lay siege to Athens.