THE PURSUIT OF DARIUS
About six or seven months had elapsed from the battle of Arbela to the time when Alexander prepared to quit his most recent conquest—Persia proper. During all this time, Darius had remained at Ecbatana, the chief city of Media, clinging to the hope, that Alexander, when possessed of the three southern capitals and the best part of the Persian empire, might have reached the point of satiation, and might leave him unmolested in the more barren East. As soon as he learned that Alexander was in movement towards him, he sent forward his harem and his baggage to Hyrcania, on the southeastern border of the Caspian Sea. Himself, with the small force around him, followed in the same direction, carrying off the treasure in the city, 7000 talents [£1,400,000 or $7,000,000] in amount, and passed through the Caspian Gates into the territory of Parthyene. His only chance was to escape to Bactria at the eastern extremity of the empire, ruining the country in his way for the purpose of retarding pursuers. But this chance diminished every day, from desertion among his few followers, and angry disgust among many who remained.
Eight days after Darius had quitted Ecbatana, Alexander entered it. How many days had been occupied in his march from Persepolis, we cannot say: in itself a long march, it had been further prolonged, partly by necessity of subduing the intervening mountaineers called Parætacene, partly by rumours exaggerating the Persian force at Ecbatana, and inducing him to advance with precaution and regular array. Possessed of Ecbatana, the last capital stronghold of the Persian kings and their ordinary residence during the summer months, he halted to rest his troops, and establish a new base of operations for his future proceedings eastward. He made Ecbatana his principal depot; depositing in the citadel, under the care of Harpalus as treasurer, with a garrison of six thousand or seven thousand Macedonians, the accumulated treasures of his past conquests, out of Susa and Persepolis; amounting we are told, to the enormous sum of 180,000 talents [£36,000,000 sterling $180,000,000]. Parmenion was invested with the chief command of this important post, and of the military force left in Media; of which territory Oxodates, a Persian who had been imprisoned at Susa by Darius, was named satrap.
At Ecbatana, Alexander was joined by a fresh force of six thousand Grecian mercenaries, who had marched from Cilicia into the interior, probably crossing the Euphrates and Tigris at the same points as Alexander himself had crossed. Hence he was enabled the better to dismiss his Thessalian cavalry, with other Greeks who had been serving during his four years of Asiatic war, and who now wished to go home. He distributed among them the sum of two thousand talents [£400,000 or $2,000,000] in addition to their full pay, and gave them the price of their horses, which they sold before departure. The operations which he was now about to commence against the eastern territories of Persia were not against regular armies, but against flying corps and distinct native tribes, relying for defence chiefly on the difficulties which mountains, deserts, privation, or mere distance, would throw in the way of an assailant. For these purposes he required an increased number of light troops, and was obliged to impose even upon his heavy-armed cavalry the most rapid and fatiguing marches, such as none but his Macedonian companions would have been contented to execute; moreover he was called upon to act less with large masses, and more with small and broken divisions. He now therefore for the first time established a regular taxis, or division of horse-bowmen.
Remaining at Ecbatana no longer than was sufficient for these new arrangements, Alexander recommenced his pursuit of Darius. He hoped to get before Darius to the Caspian Gates, at the northeastern extremity of Media; by which gates was understood a mountain pass, or rather a road of many hours’ march, including several difficult passes stretching eastward along the southern side of the great range of Taurus towards Parthia. He marched to Rhagæ, about fifty miles north of the Caspian Gates; which town he reached in eleven days, by exertions so severe that many men as well as horses were disabled on the road. But in spite of all speed, he learned that Darius had already passed through the Caspian Gates. After five days of halt at Rhagæ, indispensable for his army, Alexander passed them also. A day’s march on the other side of them, he was joined by two eminent Persians, Bagistanes and Antibelus, who informed him that Darius was already dethroned and in imminent danger of losing his life.
The conspirators by whom this had been done were: Bessus, satrap of Bactria; Barsaentes, satrap of Drangiana and Arachosia; and Nabarzanes, general of the regal guards. The small force of Darius having been thinned by daily desertion, most of those who remained were the contingents of the still unconquered territories, Bactria, Arachosia, and Drangiana, under the orders of their respective satraps. The Grecian mercenaries, fifteen hundred in number, and Artabazus, with a band under his special command, adhered inflexibly to Darius, but the soldiers of Eastern Asia followed their own satraps. Bessus and his colleagues intended to make their peace with Alexander by surrendering Darius, should Alexander pursue so vigorously as to leave them no hope of escape; but if they could obtain time to reach Bactria and Sogdiana, they resolved to organise an energetic resistance, under their own joint command, for the defence of those eastern provinces—the most warlike population of the empire. Under the desperate circumstances of the case, this plan was perhaps the least unpromising that could be proposed. The chance of resisting Alexander, small as it was at the best, became absolutely nothing under the command of Darius, who had twice set the example of flight from the field of battle, betraying both his friends and his empire, even when surrounded by the full force of Persia. For brave and energetic Persians, unless they were prepared at once to submit to the invader, there was no choice but to set aside Darius; nor does it appear that the conspirators intended at first anything worse. At a village called Thara in Parthia, they bound him in chains of gold, placed him in a covered chariot surrounded by the Bactrian troops, and thus carried him onward, retreating as fast as they could; Bessus assuming the command. Artabazus, with the Grecian mercenaries, too feeble to prevent the proceeding, quitted the army in disgust, and sought refuge among the mountains of the Tapyri bordering on Hyrcania towards the Caspian Sea.
On hearing this intelligence, Alexander strained every nerve to overtake the fugitives and get possession of the person of Darius. At the head of his companion cavalry, his light horse, and a body of infantry picked out for their strength and activity, he put himself in instant march, with nothing but arms and two days’ provisions for each man; leaving Craterus to bring on the main body by easier journeys. A forced march of two nights and one day, interrupted only by a short midday repose (it was now the month of July), brought him at daybreak to the Persian camp which his informant, Bagistanes, had quitted. But Bessus and his troops were already beyond it, having made considerable advance in their flight; upon which Alexander, notwithstanding the exhaustion both of men and horses, pushed on with increased speed through all the night to the ensuing day at noon. He there found himself in the village where Bessus had encamped on the preceding day. Yet learning from deserters that his enemies had resolved to hasten their retreat by night marches, he despaired of overtaking them unless he could find some shorter road. He was informed that there was another shorter, but leading through a waterless desert. Setting out by this road with his cavalry, he got over no less than forty-five miles during the night, so as to come on Bessus by complete surprise.
The Persians, marching in disorder without arms, and having no expectation of an enemy, were so panic-stricken at the sudden appearance of their indefatigable conqueror, that they dispersed and fled without any attempt to resist. In this critical moment, Bessus and Barsaentes urged Darius to leave his chariot, mount his horse, and accompany them in their flight. But he refused to comply. They were determined however that he should not fall alive into the hands of Alexander, whereby his name would have been employed against them, and would have materially lessened their chance of defending the eastern provinces; they were moreover incensed by his refusal, and had contracted a feeling of hatred and contempt to which they were glad to give effect. Casting their javelins at him, they left him mortally wounded, and then pursued their flight. His chariot, not distinguished by any visible mark, nor known even to the Persian soldiers themselves, was for some time not detected by the pursuers. At length a Macedonian soldier named Polystratus found him expiring, and is said to have received his last words; wherein he expressed thanks to Alexander for the kind treatment of his captive female relatives, and satisfaction that the Persian throne, lost to himself, was about to pass to so generous a conqueror. It is at least certain that he never lived to see Alexander himself.
Alexander had made the prodigious and indefatigable marches of the last four days, not without destruction to many men and horses, for the express purpose of taking Darius alive. It would have been a gratification to his vanity to exhibit the Great King as a helpless captive, rescued from his own servants by the sword of his enemy, and spared to occupy some subordinate command as a token of ostentatious indulgence. Moreover, apart from such feelings, it would have been a point of real advantage to seize the person of Darius, by means of whose name Alexander would have been enabled to stifle all further resistance in the extensive and imperfectly known regions eastward of the Caspian Gates. The satraps of these regions had now gone thither with their hands free, to kindle as much Asiatic sentiment and levy as large a force as they could, against the Macedonian conqueror; who was obliged to follow them, if he wished to complete the subjugation of the empire. We can understand therefore that Alexander was deeply mortified in deriving no result from this ruinously fatiguing march, and can the better explain that savage wrath which we shall hereafter find him manifesting against the satrap Bessus.
Head-dresses, Ancient Persia
(After Bardon)
Alexander caused the body of Darius to be buried, with full pomp and ceremonial, in the regal sepulchres of Persis. The last days of this unfortunate prince have been described with almost tragic pathos by historians; and there are few subjects in history better calculated to excite such a feeling, if we regard simply the magnitude of his fall, from the highest pitch of power and splendour to defeat, degradation, and assassination. But an impartial review will not allow us to forget that the main cause of such ruin was his own blindness—his long apathy after the battle of Issus, and abandonment of Tyre and Gaza, in the fond hope of repurchasing queens whom he had himself exposed to captivity—lastly, what is still less pardonable, his personal cowardice in both the two decisive battles deliberately brought about by himself. If we follow his conduct throughout the struggle, we shall find little of that which renders a defeated prince either respectable or interesting. Those who had the greatest reason to denounce and despise him, were his friends and countrymen, whom he possessed ample means of defending, yet threw those means away. On the other hand, no one had better grounds for indulgence towards him than his conqueror; for whom he had kept unused the countless treasures of the three capitals, and for whom he had lightened in every way the difficulties of a conquest, in itself hardly less than impracticable.
The recent forced march, undertaken by Alexander for the purpose of securing Darius as a captive, had been distressing in the extreme to his soldiers, who required a certain period of repose and compensation. This was granted to them at the town of Hecatompylos in Parthia, where the whole army was again united. Alexander now began to feel and act manifestly as successor of Darius on the Persian throne; to disdain the comparative simplicity of Macedonian habits, and to assume the pomp, the ostentatious apparatus of luxuries, and even the dress, of a Persian king.
To many of Alexander’s soldiers, the conquest of Persia appeared to be consummated and the war finished, by the death of Darius. They were reluctant to exchange the repose and enjoyments of Hecatompylos for fresh fatigues; but Alexander, assembling the select regiments, addressed to them an emphatic appeal which revived the ardour of all. His first march was across one of the passes into Hyrcania, the region bordering the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea. Here he found no resistance. Alexander undertook an expedition into the mountains of the Mardi, and reduced the remnant of the half-destroyed tribes to sue for peace.
After repose and festivity at Zeudracarta, the chief town of Hyrcania, Alexander marched eastward with his united army through Parthia into Aria. A few days enabled him to crush the Arians. He then marched southward into the territory of the Drangi, or Drangiana (the modern Seistan), where he found no resistance.