Alexander the Great

It was also time to encourage his myth in a new direction. On the day before leaving Gordium he went up to the acropolis meaning to try the chariot which he had saved for his farewell; friends gathered round to watch him, but hard though he pulled, the knot round the yoke remained stubbornly tight. When no end could be found, Alexander began to lose patience, for failure would not go down well with his men. Drawing his sword, he slashed the knot in half, producing the necessary end and correctly claiming that the knot was loosed, if not untied. The aged Aristobulus, perhaps reluctant to believe in his king's petulance, later claimed that Alexander had pulled a pin out of the chariot-link and drawn the yoke out sideways through the knot, but the sword-cut has the weight of authority behind it and is preferable to an eighty-year-old historian's apology; either way, Alexander outmanoeuvred, rather than unravelled, his problem. He also managed to arouse an interest in what he had done. 'There were thunderclaps and flashes of lightning that very night', conveniently signifying that Zeus approved, so Alexander offered sacrifice to the 'gods who had sent the signs and ratified his loosing of the knot'. As a king under Zeus's protection, he then encouraged gossip and flattery to elaborate on his efforts.

As usual, they spread apace. Perhaps, according to local legend, the loosing of the knot had been co

CHAPTER ELEVEN

'According to the Magi of the East', wrote Aristotle, who had not spent his early life in Asia Minor for nothing, 'there are two first principles in the world, a good spirit and an evil spirit; the name of the one is Zeus or Ahura Mazda, of the other Hades or Ahriman.' As King Darius sat listening to the news of Alexander's past twelve months, there could be little doubt on which side of this heavenly division he would have placed his opponent. Lion-like, dressed in the lionskin cap of his ancestor Heracles, Alexander was the very symbol of lion-embodied Ahriman. 'For three thousand years, say the Magi, one spirit will rule the other: for another three thousand, they will fight and do battle until one overcomes the other and finally Ahriman passes away.' In the meantime, some of the king's fellow-Persians would sacrifice to Ahriman and privately acknowledge his regrettable abilities. For Darius III, chosen by the great god Ahura Mazda, there could be no such dalliance with the powers of darkness. In the name of the Good Spirit, who 'created earth, who created man, who created peace for men', he must repulse the advancing force of Lies, Unrighteousness and Evil, and from Susa, strike a blow for the development of the world of time.

Hope, however, was still lively, and it turned on the trusted Memnon, whom the Great King now raised to the supreme command. From his base on the island of Cos, he could sweep the Aegean with 300 warships of the empire's fleet, ma

In spring 333 Memnon set out on his new commission. He began with Chios and the main cities of Lesbos, all sworn members of Alexander's Greek alliance, where he overthrew such democratic governments as dated from the end of Philip's reign and replaced them with tyrants and garrisons, those ominous signs for the common islander that Persian repression, like their exiled men of property, was due to return. Except for Mitylene on Lesbos, which had received troops from Alexander, the cities of both islands gave up their democracies and obeyed with reluctance.

Waiting at Gordium for his reinforcements, Alexander had heard the news which he ought to have expected. Perturbed, he sent 500 talents home to Antipater and gave another 600 to the leader of the Mounted Scouts and Amphoterus brother of Craterus the Orestid, ordering them to raise a new allied Greek fleet 'according to the terms of his alliance'; the new year's tribute and the treasures captured at Sardis allowed the fleet's dismissal to be revoked so soon, but even 600 talents would only finance a fleet as large as Memnon's for a mere two months at sea. The two chosen officers are not known to have had experience of naval work, and their return to Greece with the burden of money would be hazardous by sea, slow by land. Memnon had several clear months ahead of him, and Alexander could only reflect on his prospects. Memnon, after all, had not set himself an easy ambition. Antipater had an army and garrisons; Athenians were being held hostage; many Greeks mistrusted Sparta and the promises of Persians whose past brutality could not be forgotten, all these would help to stop any general Greek uprising, and anything less would be troublesome rather than dangerous. If Alexander had not believed that he could trust some of his Greek allies to fight Persia, he would never have asked them for a second fleet; there was also an enemy problem of money. Memnon had funds from the king, but Asia Minor's tribute had been lost and as no other area paid in coined currency, its loss might restrict the Persians' plan for a mercenaries' war at sea. Memnon had already resorted to plundering and piracy, and neither would endear him to Greeks with an interest in sea trade. He might succeed locally, but Greece needed sterner tactics; there was nothing more to be done in defence except wait helplessly for the second fleet, so in June Alexander left Gordium and prepared to follow the Royal Road east, then south to the coastal towns of Cilicia to continue to capture Persian harbours.