All that now remained was to round off the conquest by capturing the person of the defeated monarch, and to force the satraps of the eastern provinces to accept the new régime. This program offered no serious military problems, but it was bound to consume time and required patience. Many of the non-Macedonian Greeks were now sent home, after receiving generous rewards for their service, and Parmenio was left at Ecbatana, while Alexander with the best of his troops set off to pursue Darius. Hurrying on by Ragæ, a place a little to the south of the modern capital of Persia, Alexander found there that the royal fugitive had already passed through the Caspian Gates into the regions of Parthia. Bactria was still much farther to the east. The followers of Darius, with the exception of a few faithful Greek mercenaries, determined to hand over their unlucky monarch as a prisoner to the satrap of Bactria, Bessus, a kinsman of his, and to trust to his initiative to organize a national resistance more effectively than Darius.

When Alexander, after a stay of several days at Ragæ, heard that his old antagonist was a prisoner he hurried on, taking rest neither by night nor by day, and finally came up with the barbarians, who now preserved no semblance of discipline in their retreat. When Bessus and the other conspirators saw Alexander approaching, they ordered Darius, who was probably carried in a litter, to mount a horse and accompany them. When he refused, they stabbed him and rode off. He was found dying at a spring near the road, by a Macedonian soldier. By the time Alexander reached the place the end had come. All that he could do for his fallen foe was to throw his own cloak over the body and order it to be sent with befitting honor to the queen mother. The last member of the Persian monarchy, which had become a world power under Cyrus, was buried in the royal tombs at Persepolis.

IV
THE INVASION OF INDIA

The death of Darius did not delay the activity of Alexander; he was all the more stirred to pursue Bessus when it was announced that the satrap of Bactria was claiming to be the successor of Darius and had assumed the insignia of royalty. But the regions close at hand had to be pacified, so Parmenio was sent to occupy the country near the southwest coast of the Caspian Sea. Alexander himself had to retrace his steps to deal with a rebellious satrap who had previously sent in his submission.

On the march southward, the province of Drangiana was taken without resistance, but the conqueror’s stay at the capital, Prophthasia, was marked by a mysterious tragedy. It was reported to Alexander that Philotas, the son of Parmenio, was plotting against him. An assembly of the Macedonian army was summoned, and the charges laid formally before them. Philotas admitted that he had known of a plot to assassinate Alexander, but had kept it secret. This reserve was treated as treason, and Philotas was put to death by the soldiers. This semi-judicial act was followed by the murder at Alexander’s command of his faithful lieutenant, Parmenio, for which there was no excuse, as he had never been charged with complicity in the guilty knowledge of his son. But Alexander probably judged that the execution of Philotas would inaugurate a blood feud familiar to Macedonian life, and he resolved to take no chances.

The road to Bactria selected by Alexander led him through modern Afghanistan and across the Hindu Kush mountains. But first he turned to the south in order to secure Seistan and the northwestern portion of Baluchistan, known at that time as Gedrosia. The winter of 330-29 he spent in the south of Seistan among a friendly people, the Ariaspæ, to whom, on account of their hospitable reception, he granted autonomy. Among the Gedrosians, their neighbors, he set up a satrapy, with a capital at Pasa.

In the spring, the Greek army pushed on to Arachosia, almost directly south of Bactria, where the king founded another Alexandria, probably on the site of the modern Candahar. At the foot of the high range of the Hindu Kush, a complex mass of mountains which divides southern from central, eastern from western Asia, called Paropanisus, the army passed the winter, and yet another city, named after their leader, was founded somewhere to the north of Cabul, Alexandria of the Caucasus. In the early spring the difficult mountain ranges which protected Bactria were crossed, the troops suffering much from the cold and from the lack of food. They were obliged to subsist on raw meat and on herbs instead of bread. After resting the army, Alexander led them on through an arid plain to Bactria, the chief city of the satrapy. (329-28 B.C.)

Bessus, the pretender, had tried to hinder the progress of the Greeks by laying waste the country in front of them, but as soon as they drew near, his horsemen deserted him and he fled across the Oxus. Alexander lost no time in following him up. The pursuit carried him through Sogdiana, where he crossed the Oxus on the rafts, made of inflated skins, such as are still in use to-day. The river was passed at a point where it was not a mile wide, at Kilif, and from thence the road was taken to Maracanda, a town whose old name is now thinly disguised as Samarcand. Bessus was deserted by his supporters, who thought that they would be glad to secure peace by his surrender. They abandoned him, and he was found by a division of the Greek army in a walled village, and was finally sent in chains to Bactria, after Alexander had charged him with the murder of Darius, his kinsman and benefactor.

The ardor for annexing the Far Eastern division of the Persian Empire to his rule spurred Alexander on, now that the rebellion of Bessus had so unexpectedly failed. He purposed to make, not the Oxus, but the Tanais his frontier on the northeast. The resistance seemed easily overcome; the seven strongholds of the Sogdians were occupied, and on the banks of the Jaxartes, or Tanais, at a point which is the gate of communication between southwestern Asia and China, the pass over the Tian-shan mountains, Alexander set the boundary of his conquests in this direction, by founding a new city called Alexandria the Ultimate, in later days Khodjend. While he was planning his new town, the country rose in revolt, for the chieftains of Sogdiana had no mind to lose their freedom. The small Macedonian garrisons left in the strongholds a short time before were overpowered, and the city of Maracanda was being besieged. The news of the revolt had spread far and wide, and the various Scythian tribes were hurrying to join in driving out the invaders. Alexander quickly recovered the strongholds, burning five of them, but at Cyropolis there was stout resistance, and he received a wound. The inhabitants of all were removed and forcibly transplanted as citizens of the new Alexandria. (328 B.C.)

It was not possible to go to the rescue of Maracanda because of the threatening attitude of the Scythian tribes, who were preparing to descend upon Alexandria, which was only separated from them by the river Tanais. The danger of being rushed by these barbarous hordes was imminent. The new city, therefore, was made capable of resistance; in the short period of twenty days it was surrounded with walls of unburnt clay. But Alexander determined also to strike terror by aggressive action. He brought up to the banks of the river engines which threw stones and darts among the enemy and forced them to retreat from the stream. Then the Greek army crossed, and the Scythians were soon routed. The king, with his cavalry, pursued them some distance in their own territory. The heat was intense and Alexander was made dangerously ill by drinking the water along the line of march.