Alexander the Great

The last and only certain word went to Alexander himself. Before he left Farah he decided to rename it Prophthasia, a puzzle only until the name is translated. For Prophthasia is the Greek for Anticipation: here, then, is how Alexander saw himself, not as a judge with certain evidence, but as a king who had struck others before they could strike him first. The justice or injustice of Philotas's plot will never be known precisely, any more than Alexander had waited to know it precisely himself. But for the first time in history a conspiracy had been put on the map; its survivor had acted fast and as the Wind of Seistan at last began to drop, it was time for him to consider how best to advance his anticipation elsewhere.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Within days of his anticipation, Alexander set out on a march of exemplary daring. His aim was to capture Bessus and his Bactrian province, not to humble any latent mutineers: to this end, he abandoned the Iranian provinces behind him, though Satibarzanes was still uncaptured, and prepared for such cold and starvation as could never have been risked unless the men and the officers were believed to be trustworthy. Common morale and personal example would alone bring them through: neither army nor leader disappointed.

In late September 330, he left Farah and followed the regular desert road eastwards towards Kandahar and the outlying hills of the Hindu Kush range; Cleitus's 6,000 men joined him within a month, so he was leading more than 40,000 men into country where supplies could not be moved by wagon, where pack animals would find the going treacherous and where the oncoming winter would hinder him from living off the land. For the past two months, his army had been short of food and thus it was no surprise when Alexander favoured a tribe on the borders of Seistan, 'personally observing that they did not govern themselves like other barbarians in the area but claimed to use justice like the Greeks'. These fair-minded people were the Arimaspoi or Benefactors who had rescued Cyrus and his Persian army from starvation two hundred years earlier: by origin, they had been nomadic Scythians who perhaps had wrecked the early city-culture of Seistan, but on their second appearance in history, food as much as political theory caused Cyrus's self-styled heir to give them money and whatever lands they wanted. They were to be governed by Darius's former secretary.

Nearer to Kandahar, the desert landscape breaks into comparative lushness round the middle course of the Helmand river. The province, called Arachosia, was known to the Persians as the well-watered land, a name which Alexander's staff transcribed into Greek: besides its fertility it also commands the narrow corridor between the peaks which stretch north-cast to i

The men and their pack-animals were less fortunate. News arrived, unpleasantly, that Satibarzanes had indeed returned to the tribesmen round Herat and begun to raise another revolt among the Iranians of Parthia and Aria. Alexander must have regretted his initial trust in him, as he was now threatened in his rear by a valuable source of support for Bessus, who had given the rebel help and horsemen from his base at Balkh. Short of troops, he could only detach a mere 6,000 troops to protect Herat's garrison; the main army of at most 32,000 were ordered to continue their long hard course up the Helmand valley, menaced by winter, famine and rebellions ahead and behind them. Their numbers had hardly sunk so low before. They are unlikely to have followed the line of the modern road from Kandahar to Kabul, the 320-mile stretch which was to be made so famous to Victorian Englishmen of the 1880s by the relief march of General Roberts; native guides and the old Persian road kept them on the rougher and more mountainous ground to the east and must have brought them up by the long-used road through Gardez, later a Greek city, and so briefly on to the shoulders which descend on their eastern slope to the valleys of the Punjab. It was here that they met with a tribe which the Persians knew as Indians, a loose description of an outlying people from the plains of West Pakistan, but as food was very scarce there was no time to waste on these first indications of a world beyond. The winter skies hung morosely over thick-lying snow and the more the soldiers climbed the more they were distressed by the thi

But the march was not a wanton struggle against nature. By moving in winter, Alexander had surprised the mountain tribes and as British armies were to discover, snow and ice were far preferable to ambush by natives who knew and cared for the surrounding hills. There was also the likelihood of catching Bessus unawares. Safe beyond the Hindu Kush, he might expect to be left alone or at least not invaded until late summer; meanwhile, when the snow had melted, he could ride due west to Herat through the passes he had closed and join Satibarzanes in the revolt which had even spread to Parthia, a grave threat. Then if Alexander came down into Bactria his communications with the west could be cut and he could be isolated in the hot nomadic satrapies along the river Oxus. Foolishly, but understandably, Bessus made no attempt to block the Hindu Kush's northern passes so early in the year. He did not believe that his enemy would brave them, but with Alexander, nothing was safely incredible: his anticipation was not confined to members of Parmenion's family, and so as soon as possible he attempted the mountain-barrier.