He saw one when the Captain of the Bodyguard, Admetus, leaped straight into the first good breach that opened, cheering on his men, and died there. By that time Alexander’s ship had raced up in support; he ran out across his gangplank and led the party through. Meantime his ships had forced the harbour boom. The Tyrians, knowing all was lost, fled from the walls.
The Macedonians pursued them, cutting down all they could overtake. Alexander forbade them to drag anyone out of temple sanctuary. (In one temple a famous statue of Apollo, Carthaginian loot from Sicily, was found chained to its base, the god having informed some Tyrian seer in a dream that he was leaving to join Alexander.) Arrian does not give the number of the slain, but reckons the captives enslaved at 30,000, obviously the large majority even in a populous merchant port. Curtius says 6,000 armed men were killed. Both he and Diodorus say that 2,000 were crucified. These may have been corpses; the Macedonians displayed the bodies of executed criminals in this way, though without the mutilations later practised in England. Curtius, never trustworthy with atrocity stories, infers they were alive. It would be wrong to exclude this entirely, because of the red-hot sand; but on Alexander’s general record, coupled with his concern at this stage of his career for Hellenic standards, the balance of probability is against it.
At some time during the siege he had another embassy from Darius, who now offered not only the large sum of 10,000 talents for his family, but also peace terms: all Asia Minor west of the Euphrates, a treaty of alliance, and his daughter’s hand in marriage. This was the occasion of the famous bit of dialogue with Parmenion: “I’d take it, Alexander, if I were you.” “If I were you, so would I. But I’m Alexander.” His answer was that he had no need of money, nor of being offered half the land, which he already held, instead of the whole. He would marry, if he liked, Darius’ daughter with or without his leave; and if he wanted an alliance let him come and ask. Leaving him to take any steps which this reply suggested to him, Alexander marched towards Egypt.
As Wilcken has pointed out in a masterly analysis, this moment of decision by Alexander is one of history’s great proofs that individuals, not mere economic forces, can change the destinies of mankind. Had he listened to Parmenion, Greek civilization would have been more solidly established in Asia Minor but would never have touched the East; the balance of power with Persia would have remained precarious, and the emergence of a stronger king there might have reversed the defeat of Xerxes in future years.
Hephaestion, getting promotion, was now put in charge of the fleet to patrol the coast. Alexander marched south to Gaza, the last point of coastal resistance. It was held by a eunuch general, Betis, who thought its high steep site impregnable. It was not a port; but if Alexander bypassed it, Darius would be encouraged to come down in his rear. His two-month siege included raising a high earthwork to bring his engines in range. While he was up there, some bird of prey dropped a stone on his head; perhaps mistaking his helmet for a tortoise whose shell it wished to crack, like the bald head of the poet Aeschylus, who died from the similar misjudgment of an eagle. Though unharmed Alexander asked the seer Aristander to read the omen. He pronounced that Alexander would take the city, but he must watch his safety today.
On this advice he kept out of range for some time during which nothing much was happening. Then a sally in strength from the fort began to drive his men off the ring wall; on which he at once dashed to their help at the head of his troop. Soon he was nearly killed by a man who, after surrendering to him and being spared, whipped out a dagger; with his quick reflexes he dodged the blow, and struck home. Whether thinking the omen now fulfilled, or defying it, or just carried away by enthusiasm, he kept in action, till a heavy bolt from a crossbow catapult sank deep into his shoulder. His doctor pulled it out, causing a good deal of haemorrhage, and put on a field dressing which, since Alexander went straight back into the battle, soon slipped off. He fought on, pouring blood under his armour, till he fainted. The wound was serious and kept him out of action for some time, but he directed operations until the city fell.
All good historians have rejected Curtius’ story that the brave Betis was brought before him wounded, refused to bow the knee, and was thereon dragged round the city at his chariot tail. Anyone unconvinced by his constant generosity to brave enemies, in which he took some pride, may here safely trust his vanity. Achilles, before thus mistreating Hector, had personally killed him in the climactic duel of the epic. Alexander’s wound had kept him from fighting in the final assault at all; he was the last man in the world to put on such an unpleasantly inferior display. The tale is interesting as a typical piece of Athenian propaganda, written by someone who had learned of his Homeric aspirations but knew nothing of his nature at first hand, or was too “committed” to care.
In Egypt he had no campaigning, only a triumphal progress.
Hephaestion with the fleet awaited him at the Delta. The Persian satrap Mazaces, long aware of the Issus débâcle and with no adequate Persian garrison, put a good face on necessity and welcomed Alexander in. Leaving the harbour of Pelusium manned, he marched up the Nile, alongside his fleet, to Memphis.
There can be scarcely a European today not furnished with some visual image of ancient Egypt however trite. It takes an effort of imagination to conceive the pristine impact on Alexander and his men, most of whom had never seen even Athens, of this fabled civilization, a legend since their childhood, as they followed the great river which was its sustainer, arterial road and sacred way; when they reached the towering temples of Memphis, the Pyramids with sides of geometric smoothness, the still unravaged smile of the huge Sphinx. It must have changed the whole scale of their human vision.
Hailed everywhere as deliverer by the Egyptians, he was enthroned as Pharaoh, with the double crown and uraeus, the crossed sceptres of the crook and flail, symbols of the shepherd and the judge. Cartouches survive of “Horus, the strong prince, he who laid hands on the lands of the foreigners, beloved of Ammon and selected of Ra, son of Ra, Alexandros.” In respect of Egypt and its peoples, by immemorial tradition he was now a god.
He was also the King, by free choice of his subjects. His first action was to sacrifice to the bull god Apis, in the temple where Ochus had speared to death (and, it was said, ordered roast for dinner) the sacred beast which was the divine incarnation. Alexander reverenced all their gods; quite sincerely, for in the tolerant Hellenic way he identified each with some Greek god whose attributes seemed to fit. There was constant traffic between Greece and Egypt, and the priests could probably converse without interpreters.
He did not neglect the Greek world, but held ceremonial games, not only for athletes but—probably with more personal enjoyment—for the performing arts. Crowds of competitors flocked from the Greek cities. This was his first taste of real magnificence; he did not reach the palace of Persia as a raw provincial.
From Memphis he returned down river to the coast, where he had business to transact about his conquests in Asia Minor. Cruising across the Delta, he beached near Lake Mareotis. The spot looked to him just the place for a city; good harbourage, good land, good air, good access to the Nile. So keen was he to get the work begun that he walked over the site, trailing after him architects and engineers, pointing out positions for the marketplace, the temples of Greek and Egyptian gods, the sacred way. Being short of marker white, he accepted some meal from someone resourceful. Birds came to feed on it, from which the seers forecast that the city would prosper, and nourish many strangers; a prediction that Alexandria continues to fulfill. At some time in his eager progress, he must have crossed the site of his own tomb.