As it was now winter or very early spring, he suffered his main army to enjoy a month or more of repose at or near Persepolis. But he himself, at the head of a rapidly moving division, traversed the interior of Persia proper; conquering or receiving into submission the various towns and villages.[426] The greatest resistance which he experienced was offered by the rude and warlike tribe called the Mardi; but worse than any enemy was the severity of the season and the rugged destitution of a frozen country. Neither physical difficulties, however, nor human enemies, could arrest the march of Alexander. He returned from his expedition, complete master of Persis; and in the spring, quitted that province with his whole army, to follow Darius into Media. He left only a garrison of 3000 Macedonians at Persepolis, preserving to Tiridates, who had surrendered to him the place, the title of satrap.[427]
Darius was now a fugitive, with the mere title of king, and with a simple body-guard rather than an army. On leaving Arbêla after the defeat, he had struck in an easterly direction across the mountains into Media; having only a few attendants round him, and thinking himself too happy to preserve his own life from an indefatigable pursuer.[428] He calculated that, once across these mountains, Alexander would leave him for a time unmolested, in haste to march southward for the purpose of appropriating the great and real prizes of the campaign—Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis. The last struggles of this ill-starred prince will be recounted in another chapter.
CHAPTER XCIV.
MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER, AFTER HIS WINTER-QUARTERS IN PERSIS, DOWN TO HIS DEATH AT BABYLON.
From this time forward to the close of Alexander’s life—a period of about seven years—his time was spent in conquering the eastern half of the Persian empire, together with various independent tribes lying beyond its extreme boundary. But neither Greece, nor Asia Minor, nor any of his previous western acquisitions, was he ever destined to see again.
Now, in regard to the history of Greece—the subject of these volumes—the first portion of Alexander’s Asiatic campaigns (from his crossing the Hellespont to the conquest of Persis, a period of four years, March 334 B. C., to March 330 B. C.), though not of direct bearing, is yet of material importance. Having in his first year completed the subjugation of the Hellenic world, he had by these subsequent campaigns absorbed it as a small fraction into the vast Persian empire, renovated under his imperial sceptre. He had accomplished a result substantially the same as would have been brought about if the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, destined, a century and a half before, to incorporate Greece with the Persian monarchy, had succeeded instead of failing.[429] Towards the kings of Macedonia alone, the subjugation of Greece would never have become complete, so long as she could receive help from the native Persian kings, who were perfectly adequate as a countervailing and tutelary force, had they known how to play their game. But all hope for Greece from without was extinguished, when Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis became subject to the same ruler as Pella and Amphipolis—and that ruler too, the ablest general, and most insatiate aggressor, of his age; to whose name was attached the prestige of success almost superhuman. Still, against even this overwhelming power, some of the bravest of the Greeks at home tried to achieve their liberation with the sword: we shall see presently how sadly the attempt miscarried.
But though the first four years of Alexander’s Asiatic expedition, in which he conquered the Western half of the Persian empire, had thus an important effect on the condition and destinies of the Grecian cities—his last seven years, on which we are now about to enter, employed chiefly in conquering the Eastern half, scarcely touched these cities in any way. The stupendous marches to the rivers Jaxartes, Indus, and Hyphasis, which carried his victorious arms over so wide a space of Central Asia, not only added nothing to his power over the Greeks, but even withdrew him from all dealings with them, and placed him almost beyond their cognizance. To the historian of Greece, therefore, these latter campaigns can hardly be regarded as included within the range of his subject. They deserve to be told, as examples of military skill and energy, and as illustrating the character of the most illustrious general of antiquity—one who, though not a Greek, had become the master of all Greeks. But I shall not think it necessary to recount them in any detail, like the battles of Issus and Arbêla.
About six or seven months had elapsed from the battle of Arbêla to the time when Alexander prepared to quit his most recent conquest—Persis proper. During all this time, Darius had remained at Ekbatana,[430] 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 learnt that Alexander was in movement towards him, he sent forward his harem and his baggage to Hyrkania, on the south-eastern 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= £1,610,000 in amount), and passed through the Caspian Grates into the territory of Parthyênê. His only chance was to escape to Baktria 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.[431]
Eight days after Darius had quitted Ekbatana, 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 farther prolonged, partly by the necessity of subduing the intervening mountaineers called Parætakeni,[432] partly by rumors exaggerating the Persian force at Ekbatana, and inducing him to advance with precaution and regular array. Possessed of Ekbatana—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 Ekbatana his principal depôt; depositing in the citadel, under the care of Harpalus as treasurer, with a garrison of 6000 or 7000 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 = £41,400,000 sterling.[433] Parmenio 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.[434]
At Ekbatana Alexander was joined by a fresh force of 6000 Grecian mercenaries,[435] who had marched from Kilikia 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.[436] He distributed among them the sum of 2000 talents 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.[437]