Alexander had not only a powerful sense of theatre; he had learned from Aristotle how the great-souled man chooses his role and lives it through. He had also a real delight in giving pleasure to others, whose sincerity is attested by many human anecdotes. It is tempting to guess that he had hopes of surpassing Xenophon’s drama. Darius had not shown himself in the light of an implacable foe who would fight while life was in him. The reunion with wife, mother and children, presided over by a gracious victor, would indeed have made one of history’s great set Alexander-pieces, to whose possibilities no one was more alive than Alexander. His determination to make such dreams come true was attended by much success. If he was disappointed of this one, fate rather than impracticability was to blame.
The Lady’s story had another aspect. Her husband become Cyrus’ vassal.
There is no moment in Alexander’s career of which it can be said with certainty that this was when he decided he need not stop short with his father’s aim of freeing the Greek cities; that he could, and would, be Great King of Persia. But the likeliest time is surely after Issus, when he saw what imperial splendours had enshrined a man of straw.
Darius fled through the night on relays of horses, with a handful of his suite. At daybreak he was joined by some 4,000 scattered fugitives. About 8,000 of his Greeks escaped home by sea. The King himself scarcely drew rein till he was across the Euphrates.
Alexander, his road swept clear before him, marched due south towards Judaea and the coastal cities of the Phoenicians. His Greek obligations were all fulfilled; he was now embarked on a war of conquest.
It is as foolish to apply anachronistic moral standards to this as it would be to condemn Hippocrates for not teaching aseptic surgery. In the long evolution of human thought (so generally in advance of human conduct) the notion that war was wrong had not yet entered the world. Socrates himself, who regarded his life work as a search for the good, said proudly at his trial, “It would be strange, Athenians, if I who stood my ground in the battle-line, facing death at my commander’s order, should desert the station where God posted me.” Aristotle warmly supported wars of Hellenizing conquest so long as “barbarians” were not treated as men. A century later, a handful of Stoics began to question war’s morality, but were little heeded. Rome’s soldier Christians went to martyrdom sooner than worship the Divine Caesar or the Eagles of their legion; not for refusing to fight. In our own generation, what has been tolerated, and even approved, by the same opinion formers who condemn Alexander, shows a discrepancy of standards so bizarre that one might suppose it is his better qualities, rather than his worse, that arouse resentment. The words of that underrated philosopher the Earl of Chesterfield are as true today as in 1748: “The things which happen in our own times, and which we see ourselves, do not surprise us near so much as things which we read of in times past though not in the least more extraordinary.”
From some camp in Mesopotamia Darius wrote to Alexander, requiring terms for the ransom of his family. His note was a general manifesto, accusing Philip as first aggressor, and Alexander for breaking an old alliance—an unwise reminder, to a man in a position of strength, of Macedonian humiliation in Xerxes’ war. He, Darius, had taken up arms against these injuries; but “the battle had gone as some god willed it.”
This almost invited Alexander to say, as he promptly did, that he held the land “by the gift of heaven.” The rest of his reply was an uncompromising challenge. He had been elected to avenge the wrong to Greece by Xerxes. Ochus had invaded the domain of his father Philip; Darius himself had procured Philip’s death, and “boasted of it in letters before all the world” (captured perhaps at Sardis?). Also, Darius was a usurper who had conspired to murder his predecessor (true or false, a suspicion natural to any king of Macedon). The royal family would be freely returned whenever he cared to come and ask in person. (The failure to blackmail him by threatening their safety makes a melancholy contrast with modern times.)
Later legends contain innumerable, and often interminable, spurious challenges of Alexander’s. The peroration of this one, probably from the royal archives, has an authentic ring.
… And in future when you send to me, send to the lord of Asia; and do not write to me what to do, but ask me, as master of all you own, for anything you need. Or I shall judge you an offender. If you claim your kingdom, take your stand and fight for it, and do not run; for I shall make my way wherever you may be.
Soon after, a force under Parmenion took the surrender of Damascus. The Governor had proposed it secretly; Parmenion, wary of treachery, would not lead his men inside, but told him to come out with his treasure under pretence of taking flight. He was followed, therefore, by a panic crowd, including the harems of the Persian nobles engaged at Issus.
These ladies, not being royal game, were not so strictly preserved. One has a role in Alexander’s legend, another in his history. Only Plutarch says that he took for himself Barsine, Memnon’s widow and Artabazus’ daughter; for the staggering reason that Parmenion—of all people!—told him she would be good for him. The dubiety of the story lies not only in this, but in the powerful motive for inventing it. No record at all exists of such a woman accompanying his march; nor of any claim by her, or her powerful kin, that she had borne him offspring. Yet twelve years after his death a boy was produced, seventeen years old, born therefore five years after Damascus, her alleged son “brought up in Pergamon”; a claimant and shortlived pawn in the succession wars, chosen probably for a physical resemblance to Alexander. That he actually did marry another Barsine must have helped both to launch and preserve the story; but no source reports any notice whatever taken by him of a child who, Roxane’s being posthumous, would have been during his lifetime his only son, by a near-royal mother. In a man who named cities after his horse and dog, this strains credulity.
A more convincing character is a Macedonian beauty, perhaps a high-class hetaira, who fell to Philotas’ lot. He found her worth impressing, and kept her entertained with his own and his family’s distinguished exploits. She listened most politely. It was to turn out, however, that he had overrated his own charm.
Alexander’s real booty from Damascus was a vast haul of treasure, the Great King’s war chest and the private coffers of the nobles, relieving him at last of all worries about financing his campaign. He also captured four Greek envoys; two from Thebes, whom he released at once, accepting their Persianizing as natural; one from Sparta, imprisoned for a time and then let go; and an elderly Athenian, son of the famous general, Iphicrates, the guest-friend of his grandparents. This last he charmed into joining his suite, where he remained for life, his ashes being sent scrupulously back to his kin in Athens.