EXTRA INFORMATION ON ALEXANDER'S CAMPAIGNS P.

6 AFTER GAUGAMELA 1 Darius fled from Gaugamela and Alex knew that he had to capture him to be king of Asia. He had now reached the heartland of the Persians and made himself immensely wealthy through the capture of Susa and Babylon. This enabled him to reward his men well and to fund the rest of his campaigns. 2 His men seem to have discovered petroleum on this journey and were amazed by it. They thought it was magic and poured it over a boy and set it alight to see if he would burn. He did. 3 At Susa he sat on the throne of Darius and he further showed his respect for Athens by returning to them two famous statues of theirs which the Persians had taken during the Persian Wars. 4 For some reason which is unclear, Alex's moderation deserted him at Persepolis. For some this marks the point where he allows himself to become excessive in his behaviour. After a drinking bout, urged on by a courtesan called Thais, he took part in burning down the royal palace at Persepolis, for which he is said to have felt remorseful afterwards. He was in a difficult situation here as his army probably saw themselves as a foreign conquering force whereas he wanted to be seen by the Persians as a legitimate successor to Darius. This was to be the cause of much conflict from now on. 5 By now word reached Alex that Darius was under the arrest of Bessus and a few of his other commanders. By the time Alex found him (330 BC) he had been killed by them. As the rightful successor Alex had him buried with all proper honours. (See text pp. 44-45 for Arrian's summing up of Darius's leadership). Alex married his daughter. 6 Now for Alex the major problem was his style of kingship. The Macedonians were used to the king as a "companion", first among equals but this could never be acceptable to the Persians for whom their king was a god. So Alex had to tread a careful line so as to please everyone. This was probably impossible. Here we have three central questions arising about his character: A. Was he losing self-control and becoming excessive? B. Was his style of leadership becoming "oriental"i.e. tyrannical? C. Was he becoming more arrogant and aloof from his men? All of these issues are closely bound up with one another. A few incidents seem to have highlighted them. 7 One of the causes of tension in the camp was the fact that Alex had begun to wear some elements of Persian dress. Also he now had some Persian advisers and some Greeks who were very pro-Persian (Anaxarchus). He encouraged inter-marriage of

Greeks and Persian women become more difficult.

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8 The question of excessive behaviour is mentioned by Arrian in his description of the torture and humiliation of Bessus (p.48) where he feels that Alex was imitating the Persian way of doing things and that this was not admirable any more than his adoption of Persian dress. Arrian says that all of his conquests were of no use if he did not have control over himself. (p49).