Macedonian casualties were light. To the twenty-five Companions who had fallen in the first assault Alexander gave special funeral honours with tax remission to their families, and had their statues cast in bronze. After the battle he went to see the wounded, Arrian says: “looking at their wounds, asking how they got them, encouraging each to tell about his deeds and even brag of them.” Glimpses like this explain the extraordinary relationship that was to evolve between him and his army in ensuing years.
He buried the Persian generals with the honours of war, and gave the dead Greek mercenaries a proper Greek funeral. To fourth-century men there was much more in this than a gesture; it was the rite of peaceful passage to the land of shades. What to modern man may seem cynical seemed to contemporaries generous and unusual; his effect on them will be better understood if this is borne in mind. Of a piece with it is his pardoning of local people who, unlike the mercenaries, had been serving the Persians under conscription.
He now marched south to Sardis, a formidable inland fortress on high rock, which surrendered without a fight. In Asia Minor he would be dealing mostly with cities where only the garrison and officials felt loyalty to Persia; these Lydians were the people of King Croesus, conquered in Cyrus’ day. The treasury of Sardis, if not quite up to Croesus’ legend, was well filled, and came just when he needed it. He built a temple to Olympian Zeus on the old site of the royal palace under the divine direction of a lightning bolt, garrisoned the acropolis, and allowed the people their traditional customs and laws. Olympian Zeus, the patron god of Macedon, is on the reverse of nearly all his silver coinage, enthroned, after Phidias’ famous statue at Olympia. The obverse has Heracles with his lion-mask hood. As the mints go east, the Zeus, carved by non-Greek craftsmen, grows increasingly vague, the Heracles more and more like Alexander.
The Greek coastal city of Ephesus opened its gates to him, disclosing a society seething with hate and vendetta. Greek oligarch collaborators had ruled it for the Persians. On the news of Alexander’s victory, these people had been lynched by the democrats, or dragged from temple sanctuary and stoned to death with their children. He restored the democracy, but strictly forbade any more reprisals, “knowing that once they got leave, the people would kill some men unjustly, from mere hate, or to get hold of their wealth, along with those who deserved it.” Arrian says his popularity soared after this decree.
He sacrificed there to Artemis (Saint Paul’s Diana of the Ephesians) and held a brilliant victory parade. Greek cities now fell to him like ripe fruit. In each he evicted pro-Persian quislings and established Greek-style democracies. This, he told them, was what he had come to do; and he may not yet have been looking further.
Fifty miles south he was in Caria, and gazed for the first time on that state so calamitous in his past. The satrap Pixodarus had been some time dead, succeeded by a kinsman devoted to Persian interests. Had Alexander’s intrigue come off, it would probably have brought him nothing but a redundant Carian wife. He got instead a Carian mother.
Pixodarus was a usurper. His predecessors had been a brother and sister, married (as in Egypt) by royal custom. On her husband’s death, Ada the wife had the right to rule alone, but had been expelled by Pixodarus. Retiring in good order, she had established herself in the strong harbour fortress of Alinda. This she now surrendered to Alexander, offering him allegiance if he restored her rights. Diplomatic courtesies soon turned to maternal adoration, indulgently and affectionately received. She cosseted and spoiled him; shocked by his plain diet, she plied him with cordon bleu till he was driven to polite excuses. Before long, she formally adopted him as her son. By now the irony may have amused him.
Unlike many men whose childhood has been mother dominated, Alexander was never drawn sexually to older women. He preferred the filial role. Later he was to assume it with much deeper involvement; and to a third such bond, seemingly the most casual and incongruous, he was to owe his life.
He marched to Miletus, a port in the usurper’s territory. Its garrison commander began to treat for surrender, got wind of seaborne reinforcements and changed his mind. Alexander’s small fleet of 160 ships slipped swiftly into the strategic harbour of Lade across the narrow strait; the Persians, forced to take second best, beached their belated 400 vessels northward up the coast.
Parmenion is said to have urged a sea fight, presumably because of the better Macedonian position. An eagle had been propitiously seen on shore at their ships’ sterns. Alexander preferred to let the Persians alone, because, he said, their ships were crewed by more experienced seamen, and a victory would give a fillip to their morale. The eagle had perched on land, pointing out where fortune lay. Finally, “he would not risk sacrificing the skill and courage of his Macedonians.” Reckless with his own life, he was never wasteful of theirs, a fact well known to them and never undervalued.
He breached and stormed the Miletus walls, his ships closing the harbour mouth against Persian aid. Some of the garrison escaped by sea, rafted with their wooden shields, to an offshore islet. He sailed after them, but, “seeing the men on the island would fight to the last, he pitied them as high-minded and faithful soldiers.” The Milesians he let go free; the mercenaries were Greek, but he hired them in his own service.
The powerful Persian fleet, denied the harbour, was still beached with all its soldiers. Warships of the ancient world could never carry stores enough to feed for long their rowers, their seamen and the troops they carried. They had constantly to put in for water and supplies; hence the importance of supporting land troops. This fleet had none. Alexander sent out Philotas to occupy the surrounding coast and virtually besiege them by cutting them off from provisions. On land they were vastly outnumbered; after one vain attempt to provoke a sea fight, their stores were exhausted and they had to go. The complete success of this minor operation suggested to Alexander’s logical mind a major long-term strategy. Why not refuse to the Persian navy all its ports of call?
“He interpreted the eagle to mean that he should conquer the ships by land.” Alexander’s impetuosity in battle went with a surprising readiness to form a long-term objective and to wait. His plan meant mastering the whole east Mediterranean seaboard before he struck inland; but it would secure both the liberated cities and his own communications. He laid a heavy stake on it by disbanding, except a couple of transports for his siege engines, all his own ships; which, despite his haul at Sardis, he could still not well afford to maintain. It would leave him cut off if he were defeated; but defeat, like fear, he presumed not to exist.
His next objective was Halicarnassus, the late Pixodarus’ capital. A commanding fortress rebuilt in later ages by Seljuks and Crusaders, it was a tougher proposition than Miletus and needed a full-scale siege. One of its two commanders was the expert Memnon. Arrian describes in detail the filling of its great moat to bring up the siege towers, the sorties from the fort to burn them, the final breach of the wall. When the city was clearly at his mercy, Alexander broke off the action and withdrew, offering a parley to discuss terms next day. He was roused at midnight to see the town in flames; Memnon and his men had fired it and a wind was spreading the blaze. He stormed inside, ordering all fire raisers caught in the act to be killed, but citizens spared. Memnon and his staff had got away.
Alexander was now master of Caria. He garrisoned its fortresses, and restored Queen Ada to the satrap’s throne.