Alexander’s path took him from Carian Halicarnassus to Lycia and Pamphylia. At about the Lycian-Pamphylian border a strange natural phenomenon occurred that allowed Alexander and those with him to enjoy a freak dry passage along the coastline. This was greeted by his supporters as a portent and a recognition of Alexander’s divinity (the sea “doing obeisance” to the great man). It was the first believable suggestion that special religious status could be claimed for Alexander.
In early 333 Alexander moved through Pisidia, where the nearly impregnable mountain city of Termessus, a remarkably well-preserved site 21 miles northwest of the modern Antalya, managed to hold out (even Alexander’s early years in Asia were not an uninterrupted success story). Morale and self-esteem had to be satisfied with the taking of Sagalassus and some minor places. Thus, it was high time for a piece of propaganda and political theatre, especially since the Aegean he had left behind him was not altogether quiet. A Persian counteroffensive was achieving some notable reconquests (but eventually troop drafts were required by Darius for the campaign that finally took shape at Issus, and the Aegean war shriveled to nothing).
Alexander found his opportunity for propaganda some distance farther north in the Anatolian interior at Gordium, the old capital of the Phrygian kings (themselves, as stated, ultimately of Macedonian origin). There occurred the famous episode of the “cutting of the Gordian knot.” The old prophecy was that whoever unloosed the knot or fastening of an ancient chariot would rule Asia. Alexander cut it instead—or perhaps pulled out the pole pin, as one tradition insisted. Either way, he solved the problem by abolishing it.
The visits to Pisidia and Phrygia had been a huge detour, evidently designed to show that Alexander had conquered Anatolia. That statement raises problems of definition; conquest was a relative term when there were large tracts of Anatolia, such as Cappadocia, that Alexander had scarcely touched, not to mention the mixed achievement at Pisidia.
A more-obvious way of achieving conquest was to defeat the king in open battle. The time had come to face Darius, whose army was already in Cilicia. In fact, Darius got ahead of Alexander, occupying (after a protracted delay) a position to the north of the Macedonians. The numerical advantage at the ensuing Battle of Issus, fought toward the end of 333, was heavily with the Persians, but they were awkwardly squeezed between the sea and the foothills of a mountain range close by. Alexander’s Companion cavalry punched a hole in the Persian infantry, making straight for Darius himself, who took flight. The Persian mercenaries were routed by the Macedonian phalanx. After the battle, Darius’s wife and mother both fell into Alexander’s hands. In an exchange of letters Alexander grandly offered that Darius could have them back—“mother, wife, children, whatever you like”—if he recognized his own claim to be lord of Asia and addressed him as such for the future. Darius, of course, refused the offer.
Alexander did not immediately follow Darius eastward; instead he continued southward in the direction of Phoenicia and eventually Egypt. The Phoenician cities of Byblos and Sidon submitted willingly, but Tyre was a major obstacle. Its walls were not finally breached until summer 332, after various contrivances had been tried, including a huge and elaborate siege mole. The siege of Gaza occupied much of the autumn; when the city at last surrendered, Alexander dishonoured the corpse of Batis, its commander, in the way that Achilles in the Iliad had treated the corpse of Hector. Alexander’s imitation of Homeric heroes had its less-attractive side.
This was the part of the world in which the Jews might have encountered Alexander. No doubt there was some contact, but virtually all the available evidence is unreliable and romantic or even fabricated to give substance to later Jewish claims to political privileges. Alexander’s effect on the Jews was indirect, but no less important for that: he surrounded them with a Greek-speaking world. Alexander in Egypt
Egypt was taken without a struggle, an indication of the dislike the subject population felt toward Persia. (Even though Egypt had been reconquered by Persia hardly more than a decade before, it is possible that there had been yet another revolt since 343.) Alexander’s period in Egypt was marked by two major events, the founding of Alexandria and the visit to the oracle of the god Amon at Sīwah in the Western Desert. Although the sources disagree about which event came first, the foundation probably preceded the visit to the oracle.
The new city of Alexandria, the first as well as the most famous and successful of many new Alexandrias, was formed by joining a number of Egyptian villages (April 331). Alexander supervised the religious ceremonies of foundation, including Greek-style athletic and musical games (an indication of his intentions to Hellenize those foundations, at least as far as their cultural life was concerned); he thought that the site was an excellent one and hoped for its commercial prosperity. It is quite certain, from an inscription, that early Hellenistic Alexandria possessed a civic council; that and other self-governing institutions such as an assembly probably go back to Alexander’s time. Not all Alexander’s foundations were run on the liberal model, though some were inaugurated with similar symbolic gestures in the direction of Hellenism. One hears of “satraps and generals of the newly founded cities,” a phrase that does not imply much self-government. No doubt some of Alexander’s “new foundations” were little more than military camps, and one should assume that in all the far eastern Alexandrias the native population was forced to perform menial or agricultural tasks.
The oracle of Amon at Sīwah, to which Alexander now made a pilgrimage, was already well known in the Greek world. Pindar had equated Amon with Zeus; the oracle had been consulted by Croesus in the 6th century and Lysander in the 5th; and there was a sanctuary to Amon at Athens in the first half of the 4th. Alexander had a pothos, or yearning, to visit Amon (the word pothos is often used by the sources to describe his motives and is appropriately suggestive of far horizons, even if it does not reflect a usage of Alexander’s own). He wanted to find out more about his own divinity, the implication being that he already had an inkling of it. He was told what he wanted to hear; more than that (some sources offer a great deal more) was probably speculation to fill a gap. To the Persian Gates
Alexander then crossed Phoenicia again to meet Darius for the second and last time in the open field at Gaugamela (between Nineveh and Arbela) at the beginning of October 331. The tactic was to be the usual one—a leftward charge by Alexander from the right wing toward the centre, while Parmenio held the left wing firm. Parmenio seems, however, to have encountered unusual difficulties and had to summon help from Alexander, who was already in victorious pursuit of Darius. The mechanics of this “summons” are not clear, and the story may be a fabrication intended to discredit Parmenio. Alexander and his troops won the battle, sealing the fate of the Persian empire, but Darius managed to escape. Alexander then moved to Babylon, where in another gesture of conciliation toward the Iranian ruling class he reappointed Mazaeus as satrap, with Macedonians to supervise the garrison and the finances.
That kind of gesture has been much discussed; it can be both overinterpreted and unduly minimized. Ideas that Alexander, then or ever, planned to forge a harmony between nations at a mystical level have no solid basis in the evidence. There is nothing odd, however, in supposing that his intentions toward Persians like Mazaeus (or Abulites, confirmed in the Susa satrapy about the same time) were positive. Also, the idea of such “fusion” was not entirely new. Greeks such as Xenophon earlier in the century had by their writings and actions anticipated Alexander’s policy of fusion, and the cooperation of Cyrus and Lysander was just the most-famous example of mutual understanding between Persian and Greek. Nor is it convincing to interpret Alexander’s policy of integrating army and satrapy as a repressive device. Macedonians like Peucestas (appointed satrap of Persia) learned Persian and were rewarded for it, and Hephaestion’s position of favour with Alexander is largely to be explained by his support of Alexander’s Orientalizing policies. Admittedly, after leaving Iranian territories, Alexander returned to employing Macedonians as, for instance, in the Indus lands, but even there one finds native appointees like the Indian king Porus. Military integration—the use of Iranian horse-javelin men—is first firmly attested soon after the Battle of Gaugamela. This is to be explained in purely military terms: the Companion cavalry on their own were not entirely suited to the more-disorganized warfare lying ahead against the fierce opponents waiting to the east and north of Iran proper.