Chapter III: Administrative Matters
Alexander returning to Babylon
From the outset of his great eastern adventure,
Alexander strived to reconcile oriental cultures with his own Hellenic culture. During his campaigns, he catered to the local customs. In Egypt he had himself declared the son of Ammon at Siwa, thus legitimizing his claim as Pharaoh. His attempts to capture, rather than kill the Persian Shah
Darios III was a part of a calculated plan to legitimize his conquest as the rightful heir to the
Cyrus The Great. Throughout his time in the east, he adopted Persian court customs, including proselytization, much to the disdain of his Makedonian brethren. Ignoring their misgivings, he married the daughter of a Baktrian noble,
Roxana, as a necessary step towards pacifying the mountainous province. He even went so far as to begin training a crack force of 30,000 Persian and Aramaean youths in the traditional Makedonian phalanx style of warfare. His goal was clear; to have one unified empire with one unified noble and soldier class, a fusion of eastern and Hellenic cultures.
Yet at some point the wheels were bound to come off on this grand vision, and Alexander was bound to face pushback. This manifested itself most notably much earlier, when
Kleitos The Black drunkenly lashed out at him, only to be run through by a spear by Alexander himself. Yet it did not fully manifest itself in the rank and file until Alexander reached Opis, where they first encountered the Persian phalangites who they suspected, not without reason, were being trained to replace them. In the intervening years, the companion cavalry and many of the phalangites had been continuously supplemented with Asiatic soldiers (as diverse as Persians, Baktrians, Sogdians, Arachosians, Zarangians, Arians, and Parthians) to recoup losses. To the Makedonians, it appeared as if Alexander had forgotten where he had come from, and was turning his backs on those who helped him conquer the world in favor of those whom he had conquered.
These grievances boiled over into open mutiny when Alexander reached Opis in July of 324 BCE. Alexander, believing to be generous, announced once more (for he had by this time rendezvoused with Krateros) that those veterans most deserving would be honorably allowed to return home and retire in luxury in their homeland. To this, he was greeted with an outpouring of anger and frustration, as the soldiers believed finally the time had come where they were to be replaced by those they had conquered. Alexander was hardly allowed to begin his address before he was drowned out by complaints and cries of betrayal, to which he responded with a fiery condemnation, at one point daring any soldier to come forward and provide scars of more battle wounds than he, and announced the discharge of
all of the Makedonian soldiers before storming off to his tent.
It was not long before the soldiers caved. Alexander had made necessary preparations in case his men remained obstinate in their opposition, prepping his Asiatic officers on plans for a conflict should one arise, but after a few days of tension, his men begged for forgiveness. Readily granting such a request, Alexander proclaimed everyone, both Makedonian, Persian, and all other cultures in his vast empire, his kinsmen. Those veterans deemed worthy of the honor, 10,000 in all, were discharged along with
Krateros and
Polyperchon to return to Makedon.
Antipatros, currently residing as regent in Makedon, was ordered to return to Babylon with an equal number of soldiers to replace the discharged veterans. The next night, Makedonian and Persian, Arachosian and Sogdian, Baktrian and Median, celebrated with a massive feast. For at least the remainder of his life, Alexander had conquered the divide between the Hellenic and Asiatic cultures
Continuing his tour of his empire, Alexander next visited Ekbatana, where
Harpalos had fled, taking the imperial treasury there along with him. It was here that Alexander’s best friend and lover,
Hephaestion, fell deathly ill. Alexander despaired for his life, spending many anxious nights at his bedside, preparing to reconcile himself with the very real possibility of the former’s untimely death. He summoned the best physicians present in and around Ekbatana, hoping to save his lover. Perhaps their combined expertise was enough, for it was not long before Hephaestion fully recovered, much to Alexander’s joyful relief. [1]
After a brief interruption, where Alexander sent
Ptolemy to subdue the Coessians making trouble along the road between Ekbatana and Susa, he at last arrived in Babylon by the end of the year (324 BCE). He had many architectural projects in store for his newly settled upon capital, including the construction of a massive dockyard and the rebuilding of the temple of Belus, the latter not very well endearing to the Chaldean priests who relied on the old temple for revenue (some even endeavored to threaten him with an omen promising death should he enter Babylon, which he dismissed out of hand).[2]
In addition, Alexander began preparing for his next military endeavor; the conquest of Arabia. He wished to directly control the lucrative frankincense and myrrh trade routes that originated from here, eliminating the Arabian middlemen. Nearchos’s fleet, which had by this point sailed up the Euphrates and into Babylon, was to be supplemented by a Phoenician fleet being towed to Babylon from the Mediterranean and vastly enlarged, was to sail around the Arabian Peninsula, mapping the sea route for future trade. This was, in many ways, to be an extension of Alexander’s previous exploration of the Indus and his reasons for sending Nearchos along the coast from its mouth to the Persian Gulf, which was also meant to be used for further expansion of sea trade routes between India and the rest of his empire
For this purpose, he brought together various contingents from across his empire to Babylon.
Peukestas arrived with 20,000 Persians, Coessians, and Tapurians, and was soon followed by
Philoxenos from Karia,[/FONT] [FONT="]and
Menandros and
Menidas from Lydia. The Arabian campaign was the first campaign that was to be conducted fully with both complete Asiatic and Makedonian units working in tandem. Each Asiatic unit was commanded by a Makedonian, who also had a number of Greek speaking Asiatic subordinates to ensure orders were not lost in translation.
The rest of 323 and most of 322 BCE was spent drilling new recruits and preparing the logistics of the invasion. This was a daunting task, for, having learned from his ill prepared invasion of India and the debacle that was his march through the Gedrosian desert, Alexander endeavored to leave no stone unturned. He spent much of his time travelling between Babylon and Egypt, meticulously organizing the logistics of the operation. He only paused briefly, on two occasions, to celebrate the birth first of his son
Alexander IV to his Baktrian wife
Roxana in August, and then the following month of a daughter,
Olympias, to his Persian wife,
Stateira[3]. The future of his kingdom, provided he live long enough to see his son grow to adulthood, finally appeared a promising one for Alexander.
[
1] This would be our second POD. In OTL, Hephaestion died suddenly and unexpectedly upon reaching Ekbatana. This was to cause Alexander much grief, and he vowed to build a huge funeral pyre in Babylon to his friend and lover. Here he hangs on and eventually survives his illness.
[2] This omen is a relatively unimportant footnote in this timeline, where Alexander does not die a few months after re-entering the city as he did OTL.
[3] IOTL, Stateira was also pregnant at the time of Alexander’s death. Perdikkas, who of course had become acting regent for the soon to be born Alexander IV, and Roxana both endeavored to quickly have her murdered before she could give birth, lest it be another son and undermine both of their positions. ITTL, she lives to give birth to a daughter.