The Conquests of Alexander

The Macedonian Conquests of Alexander the Great occurred at the End of the First Greek Golden Age, about 50 years after the *Peloponnesian Wars*. It was fought by the armies of Macedon and the Hellenic League, led by King Alexander III Spouki.

### Balkan Wars

The Macedonian Conquests began with Alexander's father, *Philip II Spouki*. During the aftermath of the *Second Peloponnesian Wars*, Philip began preparing for a conquest of Greece. Philip took advantage of the fractured Greek nations, and used their distrust for each other to subdue them into a *United Hellenic League* at *Corinth*, which would have Macedon as its leaders. Upon conquering all but the *Spartans*, Philip returned to *Pella*, the Macedonian capital, and was consequentially assassinated by *Phantomist* insurgents. Alexander ascended to the throne and swiftly quashed the uprising, threatening to decimate any Grecian city that should find it advantageous to rebel against him. During the chaos *Thrace*, *Moesia*, and *Dardania* rebelled against the Macedonians. Alexander raised an army of 32,000 Greeks and Macedonians and went to quell the rebellion in the frontier, expanding Macedonian influence to the *Danube river*.

### Asian Wars

Following the return to order in Europe, Alexander re-ignited the plans from Philip to liberate the Greeks of Asia, an expedition which would turn into the Conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. Alexander assembled his best Generals, *Ptolemy Archiereus*, *Antipater Gaztonos*, *Seleucus Anitho*, *Cassander Gaztonos*, *Lysimachus Fnkie*, *Hephaestion Strykos*, and *Antigonus Galonos* to devise a plan. He placed Antipater as the regent of Macedonia and laid out to them all a personal army. Ptolemy, Hephaestion, and Seleucus would follow Alexander, Cassander would lead another contingent with Antgonus and Lysimachus. Cassander would lead the army along the coast, and Alexander would strike into *Mesopotamia*, they would meet up at *Babylonia*. The two armies would cross the *Hellespont* in 334 BCE. Alexander would first meet with Persian forces in *Troy*, he sent Cassander further south to liberate *Aeolia* and *Ionia* while he fought the Persians. The Second Battle of Troy was a decisive victory for Alexander, knocking the Persians back to the *Granicus* *river*, where after a light siege, Alexander also won with help from the local Thracian cavalry in the area. As Cassander finished liberating the Ionian coast, he joined up again with Alexander as the Macedonians swept from west to east, splitting off briefly to liberate the *Pontic* coast, but joining back up with Alexander shortly before the *Battle of Issus*, where the Persians were pushed out of *Anatolia*, and forced to retreat back to Babylonia. Allowing for Cassander to continue down to the *Phoenician* coast, and for the main forces of the Macedonians to head towards *Assyria*. Alexander saw resistance at *Nineveh* by the Persian garrison, and as a result leveled the city, moving on to Babylon, where he would sit in siege for 6 months. Meanwhile Cassander was hailed as liberator in *Tripoli*, *Byblos*, and *Tyre*, receiving supplies and volunteers from the Phoenicians as the moved throughout the land. These supplies would prove useful as he entered *Judea*, which firmly resisted the Macedonians, and held Cassander in siege for two months before they would surrender, and allow Cassander to pass on to *Egypt*, where he would be again treated as a hero. Cassander joined up with alexander 5 months into the 6 month *Siege of Babylon*, which would end after the head of the Babylonian garrison would see the size of the army before him, and surrender. Alexander would spare the city from the fate of Nineveh, and the two armies would move into Persia.

### March into Persia

After this point, there were no more lands to liberate, Persia would not side with the Macedonians like Phoenicia or Egypt would, and so Cassander would join with Alexander permanently. By this point the Persian Shah, *Darius III*, was on the retreat after his defeat at Issus, and was forming a counterattack at the ancient Median capital of *Ecbatana*, Alexander decided it would be better to winter in Elam, rather than in the mountains, as he did in 333 in the *Anti-Taurus Range*. Cassander and Alexander would spend 332 drilling their army and admitting new recruits from Phoenicia and Egypt, as Darius spent his time building the defenses of Ecbatana. In the spring of 332, Alexander would begin the 10 year long process of conquering Persia. Starting off towards Media, he split Cassander to circle through the Caspian coast, joining him in the siege later. When he reached Ecbatana, Alexander set a double of Cassander and made his army camp thinner, as to appear that the whole Macedonian army was outside. He began by digging a system of trenches, and adjacent, a string of walls on the outer rim, trapping the Persians from fleeing. while constructing the siege weaponry, Cassander made his way back to Ecbatana, arriving on the second day of Alexander storming the walls, catching Darius entirely off guard. During the night after the 7th day of assailment, Darius fled towards *Persepolis*, and the city surrendered thereafter - it had been 8 months. Following the capture of Ecbatana Alexander had little time to reach further into Persia before the winter set in, and ordered the armies to capture Persepolis before the snow came. There was no seige or battle, and Alexander and his six generals would winter in the *Palace of Xerxes*.

### Mutiny at the Indus

After the capture of the Persian capital of Persepolis, King Darius fled to the hinterlands, where Alexander and Cassander would chase him down - eventually cornering him at the S*traights of Hormuz*, capturing the king for transport to Pella, and thereafter naming the straits to '*the Darian Gates*'. With his plan finished, Alexander pushed further passed Persia, reaching the Indus River. Planning to cross it and conquer India, the ever victorious conqueror was stopped by his army, tired of the endless campaigning, and his general Ptolemy would the demands of the now mutinous army to the king. Ptolemy later wrote in his book the *History of the Campaigns of Alexander*, "And being given these demands from the lout *Apollodorus of Thebes*, I came to relay the message to my lord, and relayed the following to the King of the Macedons, 'The Men demand to be taken home, they mourn the time they have spent away, for it has been 7 years on campaign, and here they are at the Edge of the World - they are frightened that they will fall off it. We your loyal soldiers, your Myrmidons, seek rest and retirement. We cannot cross the river.' Alexander flew into a tempest of emotions, rage, sorrow, and reflection". He went to the camp of the united army, which they had named *Opis*, and gave a speech to his men which went as follows:

```
Macedonians, my speech will not be aimed at stopping your urge to return home; as
far as I am concerned you may go where you like. But I want you to realize on
departing what I have done for you, and what you have done for me. Let me begin,
as is right, with my father Philip. He found you wandering about without
resources, many of you clothed in sheepskins and pasturing small flocks in the
mountains, defending them with difficulty against the Illyrians, Moesians and
neighboring Thracians. He gave you cloaks to wear instead of sheepskins, brought
you down from the mountains to the plains, and made you a match in war for the
neighboring barbarians, owing your safety to your own bravery and no longer to
reliance on your mountain strongholds. He made you city dwellers and civilized
you with good laws and customs. Those barbarians who used to harrass you and
plunder your property, he made you their leaders instead of their slaves and
subjects. He annexed much of Thrace to Macedonia, seized the most favorable
coastal towns and opened up the country to commerce, and enabled you to exploit
your mines undisturbed. He made you governors of the Thessalians, before whom you
used to die of fright, humbled the Phocians and so opened a broad and easy path
into Greece in place of a narrow and difficult one. The Athenians and Thebans,
who were permanently poised to attack Macedonia, he so humbled (and I was now
helping him in this task) that instead of you paying tribute to the Athenians and
being under the sway of the Thebans, they now in turn had to seek their safety from
us. He marched into the Peloponnese and settled matters there too. He was appointed
commander-in-chief of all Greece for the campaign against the Persians, but
preferred to assign the credit to all the Macedonians rather than just to himself.
Such were the achievements of my father on your behalf; as you can see for
yourselves, they are great, and yet small in comparison with my own. I inherited
from my father a few gold and silver cups, and less than 60 talents in the
treasury; Philip had debts amounting to 500 talents, and I raised a loan of a
further 800. I started from a country that could barely sustain you and immediately
opened up the Hellespont for you, although the Persians then held the mastery of the
sea. I defeated in a cavalry engagement the satraps of Darius and annexed to your
rule the whole of Ionia and Aeolis, both Phrygias and Lydia, and took Miletus by
storm. All the rest came over to our side spontaneously, and I made them yours for
you to enjoy. All the wealth of Egypt and Cyrene, which I won without a fight, are
now yours, Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia are your possession, Babylonia and
Bactria and Elam belong to you, you own the wealth of Lydia, the treasures of Persia,
the riches of India, and the outer ocean. You are satraps, you are generals, you are
captains. As for me, what do I have left from all these labors?
Merely this purple cloak and a diadem.

```

### Death of Alexander

After the conquests of Persia, Alexander had taken persian wives, associated with persian nobles, and began adopting their customs, much to the dismay of the Macedonians - they saw this as a betrayal and the Persification of their lands and people, the exact thing which they were fighting against. The army referred to this new Alexander as *Satrap Alexandros Reditous.* This perceived slight was one of the central reasons behind the *Opis Mutiny*. Upon his return to Babylon, Alexander held a spectacular party for every soldier - by this point numbering 20,000, eight years since departing from Greece. During this party, Alexander - a well known reveler and partaker of drinks - died of alcohol poisoning and Antipater, regent of Macedon would rule in place of Alexander's two-years old son Achilleus thereafter. In the aftermath of the great conqueror's death, his generals would begin to consolidate their own power and claim sections of his empire for themselves. Ptolemy Exochotis would take Egypt and Cyrene, Antipater Gaztonos and his son Cassander would rule over Macedon and Greece, Seleucus would rule over Babylonia and Persia, Lysimachus Fnkie would reign over Thrace and Illyria, and Antigonus Galonos would govern Anatolia and the Caucuses. Peaceful relations between the former friends would end upon the Tomb of Alexander.