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GREEKS, WAR and HELLENISTIC CIVILIZATION

Darius the Third, at the center in the top picture.

Alexander had inherited an efficient military machine, and he had learned lessons in good military strategy and diplomacy. Moreover, among kings he was exceptional: he could plan like a master chess player, and in battle he was bold and quick in seeing sudden shifts in advantages and disadvantages. He was perhaps foolhardy about his own safety but not toward the safety of his troops, and, because of his care and tactics, his casualties would be lighter than his enemy's.

Darius led a force three times as large as Alexander's, a force that included able horsemen and 20,000 or so Greek mercenary infantrymen, largely men who had run from Greece with Philip's defeat of their cities. Alexander defeated them in Asia Minor. Greek cities in Asia Minor began setting up democracies and opening their gates to Alexander. Awed by Alexander's success, various cities proclaimed Alexander a divinity. But Miletus and a couple of other cities resisted, and Alexander overpowered them. Alexander was always ready to punish rebellion, as he had against Thebes, but he also wished to win hearts and minds. In the fighting at Miletus he offered a pardon to Greek mercenaries and citizens holding the inner city, and, respecting the courage of the Greek mercenaries there, he offered them service in his own army. In Asia Minor his forces limited their taking of spoils mainly to armor and weapons. They took no more captives to sell as slaves, and Alexander forbade reprisals against civilians.

Cities that had been ruled by Persian satraps were now garrisoned by Macedonians and their Greek allies. These cities were allowed to run their own local affairs, with Alexander unopposed to any inclinations they had toward democracy. Where local people were accustomed to a Persian system of administration, Alexander accepted the Persian system, and he improved it by dividing what had been the powers of the local Persian governor into three different offices: civil, military and financial.

During his third year of conquest, Alexander and his army fought their way to Egypt, where his reputation preceded him. Happy to see the end of Persian rule, Egyptians welcomed him as a liberator. They had little choice, for they no longer had the cohesion nor an army that could resist him. Egypt's priesthood hailed Alexander as pharaoh -- as a king of kings. Like the pharaohs, he was hailed as a god. He became the guest of Egypt's king, staying at the king's palace in Memphis. And in Memphis, Alexander made sacrifices to Egypt's gods, including the bull god Apis.

Early in their fourth year, Alexander and his army went back to pursuing Darius. That year in October, 331, Alexander defeated Darius near a town called Gaugamela. Darius was slow in correcting weaknesses that developed in troop positions, and he was slow in taking advantage of weaknesses that had developed in the position of Alexander's army. Darius had failed to delegate enough command to subordinates, and when he thought he saw Alexander's army over-powering his army, he fled with his retinue -- the second time that he deserted men who were dying for him.

Alexander and his men went on to Babylon. The Persian governor of Babylon surrendered the city, and, with his army, Alexander entered the city in triumph. Babylon's local priesthood made a show of welcoming Alexander. Alexander in turn displayed his respects. He consulted the local priesthood on the correct worship of the Babylonian god, Marduk, and he made animal sacrifices to Marduk. He pleased the priesthood by ordering the restoration of Marduk's statue and the temples that the Persians had long before destroyed as punishment for a revolt. Men of wealth in the area, wishing to make peace with Alexander, gave him great sums of money. For Alexander's soldiers it was time for another rest, and they spent their pay on Babylon's women.

Defeating Darius III the following year, 330 BCE, Alexander considered himself as King of the Persians. He strengthened his army by bringing more Persians into his ranks, including Darius' brother as one of his companion soldiers. He married a local chieftain's daughter, Roxana, apparently more for good relations with a local ruler than for love. As king of the East he began borrowing from the pomp of the Persian throne, and those who came to see him had to prostrate themselves before him in recognition of his divinity. This was easily accepted by the Persians and other Easterners, but Alexander's Macedonian and Greek troops found it embarrassing and considered it a part of the slavishness and inferiority of Eastern people.

In the year 327, Alexander journeyed 400s miles from Bactria into the Indus valley, toward what he thought was the end of the world. There he sided with petty kingdoms that wanted him as an ally against their enemies. Alexander hoped to advance to the Ganges River and make it his eastern border, but after a march of a hundred miles his troops refused to go farther east. With his Macedonians troops, Alexander was still a leader by persuasion, as warrior-kings were traditionally. Unable to persuade them to continue, and seeing what he thought were unfavorable omens, he and his men, in September 335, began their return to Babylon. They arrived in the spring of 323, and Alexander planned to make Babylon the capital of his great empire.

Alexander hoped that commerce would help tie his empire together. He decided to exploit new commercial possibilities and to make Babylon the center of an enhanced world commerce. Already his warring had created a new demand for iron. His conquest of Persian treasury had put more money into circulation, and his conquests had broken down trade barriers. Already he had stimulated economic activity by building new ports and by founding new cities and seventy military colonies in the conquered territories. Alexander began planning for the building of docks along the Euphrates at Babylon and for the clearing and dredging of the Euphrates River to the Persian Gulf. He planned to colonize the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf. And he planned to have Arabia circumnavigated and explored.

Alexander was laying plans to extend his conquests to Sicily and Italy -- to unite more of the world under his rule. But a fortuity intervened. On June 13, 323 BCE, at the age of thirty-two, Alexander died -- possibly from malaria. He had been the greatest conqueror of all time, and he had changed the world. But the extent of this change would be determined by his former subordinates.

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