Ok, so here's a really large update to make up for the delay. 
A map of Baktria will be up soon.
Chapter V: Every Tyrant Is An Enemy To Freedom
Part V: Ptolemaios' Anabasis
While chaos reigned in the west, Ptolemaios was not idle in Susiana. It had taken him a year of planning and gathering forces, but by late summer of 422 [355 BCE], he had managed to scrape together 30,000 men and was ready to depart east. Leaving from Susa, he had two major obstacles facing him. The first were the Uxians, a fearless mountain people who had not even been conquered by the Achaemenids. They chose to pay the Uxians for safe passage through their defile, and Jason had chosen to follow the same course when he passed through the lands. The Uxians expected the same from Ptolemaios, and indeed, the Makedonian strategos assured them he would meet them for payment.
In actuality, Ptolemaios intended to put his excellent understanding of the local geography and topography gained from just about anyone who could provide him with such information, to good use. Naturally, the Uxians, satisfied with Ptolemaios' reply, expected to meet him and his army along the normal road. Instead, only a token force led by Meleagros proceeded down that route, with Ptolemaios opting to personally lead his own picked band of men overnight around difficult mountain roads behind the Uxian's and their villages. He split this force, detaching men to occupy the higher ground where he expected the Uxian's to retreat to, while he laid waste to the Uxian villages at daylight. Much to their horror, they found their defile occupied, and then discovered the high ground to be similarly filled with hostile forces. Many were killed, but a sizable portion managed to fall back into a mountain stronghold, where Ptolemaios and his men came under heavy missile fire.
Locking shields in a tortoise formation, that managed to bring the ladders and other siege engines to bear against the walls, taking the walls soon after, leading to the surrender of the fortress and subsequent surrender of all the Uxians. In one swift maneuver, Ptolemaios had managed to accomplish what the Achaemenids could never do. His campaign was off to a fantastic start.
The second great obstacle facing Ptolemaios was once more the Persian Gates, where he expected a Persian army would be awaiting him. Aside from the military obstacles this trip presented, crossing the Zagros range at the approach of winter presented its own difficulties. Ptolemaios could not afford to be held up at any one point, and a strongly defended Persian Gate would threaten the viability of the entire campaign. So instead of play into the hands of the Persian defenders, Ptolemaios chose a different, southern route. This route was as difficult, if not more difficult than, the route through the Persian Gates, Ptolemaios wagered the Persians would not be expecting him to take it, and so hoped it would lead him into the heart of Persis and across the Zagros much quicker. There was a risk that the Persian commander, Spithradates, would use this opportunity to plunge into Susiana and cut off his communications, but he gambled on him instead chasing him back into Persis where he could engage and defeat him in battle.
The gamble almost paid off. Remarkably, it was not until Ptolemaios reached Shiraz in mid-December that Spithradates became aware of what was afoot, and began racing back to Persepolis. Having a far simpler and more direct route back to the city along the main road, Spithradates managed to cross the Araxes a day prior to Ptolemaios' arrival, but did not have enough time to put together an effective defense of the city. With Ptolemaios hot on his trail, he hastily looted the treasury and made way north to Ekbatana, having barely escaped the Makedonian's clutches. The sheer amount of wealth present at Pasagardai and Persepolis however meant that Spithradates could not hope to be able to haul off anywhere near the total amount of coin and maintain a quick enough pace to avoid Ptolemaios' clutches. Thus Ptolemaios and his men still stumbled upon more wealth than they had even found in Susa, which itself had a treasury more than 6-7 times that of Athenai's annual income.
Ptolemaios could not afford to waste time reveling in the wealth and extravagance of the Persian capital however, and did not remain there long after the city's surrender, wishing to maintain the pressure on his Persian foes. This move was a questionable one, because it was now winter and his men had just endured a grueling march over snow covered mountainous terrain. The entirety of Persia was far from subjugated, and various tribes such as the Mardians were very much independent from Ptolemaios' rule. It has raised many to question what exactly his goals were in this invasion, and perhaps whether he expected subordinates left behind to attend to the matter, or if he intended to attend to it himself later on. His troops needed some convincing to carry on in the dead of winter, for the march ahead was through terrain no less arduous than what they had just went through. He compromised by giving them a month's rest, setting out in February for Ekbatana, rather than leaving early in January as he had originally intended.
Media was governed by Astyages, a Median noble who had recently wrested control of the region from its Persian satrap. Spithradates was forced to cooperate with him, and the two drew up a defense of Ekbatana. The Persian however had other plans aside from working with a rebel. He contacted Ptolemaios during his march north, and offered to betray the city to him in exchange for being appointed satrap of Media. Ptolemaios agreed, and when he arrived at Ekbatana, the gates were opened the next night. Astyages was quick to respond to the treachery, repulsing Ptolemaios from the walls only to find Spithradates men turning on him. Fearing total defeat, he fled the city through the northern gate with a small bodyguard. Astyages retreated into the northern hinterlands of Media and along the Caspian, where he regathered his strength and held back.
Ptolemaios' men, now thoroughly exhausted from almost ceaseless campaigning since they left Susa, got some much needed rest. Aside from minor campaigns to subdue the region (with all attempts at bringing Astyages to heel ultimately failing), the troops were allowed rest until July, when they departed for campaign once more alongside new Median troops provided by Spithradates to supplement their previous losses. Astyages had astutely made sure to not block the Caspian Gates, the crucial pass east that led into Baktria. He recognized that Ptolemaios had no wish to remain in Media, and instead intended on heading even further east. This was fine for Astyages, whose main concern was re-gaining control of Media. If Ptolemaios wanted to leave to take on Artashata in the mountains, he was content to let him.
Predictably then, Ptolemaios left Ekbatana with Spithradates in charge with a mandate to finally bring down Astyages. He was surprised to pass the Caspian Gates without incident, reaching Hekatompyolos in short order and soon after invaded Hyrkania, wresting Zadrakarta from the control of those loyal to Astyages. After a brief but grueling campaign, the Tarpurians were defeated and forced to surrender. The offensive was going well, but Ptolemaios' forces were ever dwindling. Reinforcements from conquered natives were trickling in at small numbers, but his total force must have still at most not numbered more than its original 30,000, and the number was likely closer to the 20-25,000. A small reinforcement of 7,500 Hellenic mercenaries he had sent for after his capture of Persepolis reached him, by way of Armenia and the Kaspian Sea, at Zadrakarta[1]. Still, he could ill afford to spare many troops for garrisoning conquered lands, many times having to instead rely almost completely on Persian renegades or troops from the newly conquered locals, and hope they would not turn against him. His men began to grumble about their hardships what still lie ahead, and even Ptolemaios must have recognized he was ill prepared for a campaign in Baktria.
Still, he kept on. He was taking a massive risk, leaving the southern route completely un-touched behind him. There were 3 passes he could have taken south; the western Shibar Pass through the Bamian Valley, the central Salang Pass, and the eastern Khawak Pass, which led through the Panshir Valley. As he would have learned from guides and scouts, the Salang Pass was virtually impassable, and the easiest route, through the Bamian Valley, was likely heavily guarded by Artashata's men. The only feasible route then would have been through the Khawak and attempting either pass in the late fall and winter months was tantamount to suicide. As one modern historian of the region puts it, “In winter, the snow line descends to six thousand feet and blocks the passes; blizzards are common, and snow falls even during summer at higher elevations”[2]. It had been a mistake for Ptolemaios to wait so long to set out, for now the southern passes through the Hindu Kush were out of the question, since he could not afford to wait until late spring when the passes could be safely attempted.
Hindu Kush
He was thus forced to take the northern route, and was surprised to find Margos[3] relatively undefended. Artashata instead preferred to defend the Baktrian interior, which was far more kind to a defender than the open plains in Margiane and Khorasmia. The route was very much a desert, and another grueling and arduous march towards Zariaspa[4], the famed city where Zoroaster had supposedly first preached his new religion, and where he is reported to have died (hence its name, which derived from the Zoroastrian fire temple, Azar-i-Asp). Ptolemaios' guides advised him to only travel by night, and all extra baggage was left behind at Margos in order to hasten the journey. To further ease the jorney, Ptolemaios traveled in a more southerly direction, keeping along the river for as long as possible before force marching his army across to the small Saripul then Baktros River.
It was now late October-early November as Ptolemaios approached Zariaspa. Although Artashata himself was not present in the city, having opted instead to gather more forces north in Sogdiana and prevent a crossing of the Oxos, the eldest son of the deceased Shahanshah Tiribazos, also named Tiribazos, was left in command of the city's defense, while his younger brother Xerxes took command of the Baktrian cavalry in the province. Ideally, Artashata would not have wanted to defend the region south of the Oxos at all, but he understood that it was necessary if he was to keep the Baktrian cavalry on his side[5]. In this way they would not be able to slip away or, even worse, join Ptolemaios.
Ptolemaios was now once more in a precarious position. He could not afford to ignore Zariaspa, yet at the same time, the city would take some time to besiege. With Xerxes and the Baktrian cavalry loose in the countryside, remaining stationary at Zariaspa was a risky businesses. After a brief but failed attempt at taking the city in one fell swoop, Ptolemaios refused to simply winter outside Zariaspa, and instead split his army, taking a picked force to snuff out and destroy Xerxes, while Meleagros remained with the rest of the men at Zariaspa conducting the siege. A high ranking noble who had surrendered him, a certain Spisamithres, was appointed satrap of Baktria (not that there was much of Baktria under Ptolemaios' control at this time) in order to showcase the rewards those who surrendered received. Yet his Baktrian foes also had the example of the still at-large Astyages as evidence that those who opposed Ptolemaios were hardly doomed to failure. Unsurprisingly then, this move did not necessarily have the desired effect.
Instead, Ptolemaios conducted a lightning military campaign, putting on display the tactical and strategic brilliance he was sometimes capable of. Spreading himself dangerously thin, he began systematically occupying all the strategic locations in the region, hemming Xerxes in and denying him crucial logistical hubs to spend the winter. Having the tables turned on him so quickly, Xerxes was forced to seek an engagement. He opted for a lightning raid of his own at the forces besieging Zariaspa. A messenger attempted to get through to the city in order to coordinate a combined assault, but after being caught by Melagros' men, divulged the plan to his officers. Ptolemaios had also learned of Xerxes ploy, and had hastily gathered his forces back together and followed him to Zariaspa. The result was the annihilation of Xerxes' force on January 17th, with many Baktrians taking flight early. Xerxes himself was killed, and now Ptolemaios could direct his full attention to taking Zariaspa over the winter.
Much to his frustration, Tiribazos defied all his attempts at taking the city. As Ptolemaios dug in for the siege, he continued to lead a picked force around Baktria, bringing to heel those tribes that refused to support him, and signing treaties with those that did. In this way he brought 2,500 Baktrian cavalry to his side, a much needed force for his chronically undermanned army. Finally, sometime in April, sensing that Artashata was not going to cross the Oxos and come to his aid, Tiribazos was ready to deal. He agreed to surrender the city as long as he remained its governor, and Ptolemaios was quick to accept. Instead of maintain his side of the deal however, the Makedonian, perhaps influenced by his advisers, promptly arrested and executed Tiribazos. Ptolemaios could not trust the man to remain loyal, and so had dispensed with him before he could cause more trouble. It was a logical move, but it showed terrible foresight. It would be much harder to force surrender among the Baktrian warlords now that Ptolemaios had shown how willing he was to renege on the deal. It was a serious miscalculation.
For the moment however, Ptolemaios was at the peak of his power and prestige. The lands south of the Oxos had been pacified, and now he could turn his attention north and finally come to blows with Artashata. He marched through the 50 miles of desert from Zariaspa to the Oxos surprisingly without incident; an advance party was sent forth to dig wells, and his main force travelled by night, with water being brought to them from the wells up ahead along the river. Ptolemaios was frustrated in his attempts to cross it however by the presence of a significant missile force led by Artashata's commander Spitamenes guarding the northern banks. As such, he could not cross quickly as he would have liked, and instead had to spend days building makeshift rafts and ships so that his army could be prepared to cross all at once so that the enemy archers would end up facing more targets approaching them than they could shoot. He employed a novel tactic, placing catapults and other artillery pieces on some of the makesthift ships to bombard Spitamenes' cavalry and force them back from the river.
Oxus River
Out of range of Spitamenes' bowmen, Ptolemaios and his men could now cross the river unmolested. Wanting to prevent the Sogdians from retreating and living on to fight another day, Ptolemaios sent a force of spearmen far ahead of his main force as bait. Surprised at what he saw as a blunder, Spitamenes pounced on the isolated detachment, surrounding and charging them. The spearmen held out valiantly however, understanding their mission. They gave Ptolemaios enough time to arrive with his own force. He hit Spitamenes from the front with archer fire and on both flanks with cavalry, shattering the Sogdian cavalry and forcing Spitamenes to flee with a much reduced force.
Pressing his advantage, Ptolemaios divided his force into five columns, one for each of the strategic valleys in the region. One column marched up to the Panj River, another through the Vakhsh, two more through Kafingern and to the Surkhan River, and Ptolemaios himself leading a detachment west to Marakanda[5]. He knew Artashata would not be able to guard against all his columns at once, and so hoped to slip by him and deliver a swift coup de' grace. It was a sound strategy, but Ptolemaios had stretched himself dangerously thin, and it backfired spectacularly. Artashata was a far superior strategist and tactician than any Ptolemaios had encountered thus far, and he pounced on the opportunity. Sending Spitamenes as a diversion to distract Ptolemaios, he himself led his cavalry force, now supplemented with Skythian tribes to the north, against Meleagros' contingent heading through Kurfingan. Completely outclassed and unprepared (to say nothing of being seriously outnumbered), Meleagros' army was annihilated in a skillfully laid ambush, with Meleagros himself killed in the fighting. Artashata made sure the news spread to the other camps; he deliberately allowed some stragglers to escape so they would arrive in the other camps with the news of their destruction, and sent Meleagros' head to Ptolemaios.
Ptolemaios, who had been dealing with what he thought was the main force under Spitamenes, now found himself in the worst possible position, with his army spread out all across Sogdiana. The entire campaign was on the verge of unravelling before his eyes, and under intense pressure, he made a fatal but understandable error. Realizing the army needed to re-unite as hastily as possible, he opted to attempt a daring forced march through enemy territory at breakneck speed to try to reach at least one of his spread out columns. Artashata had planned for just such a manuever.
Iron Gates
Following his defeat of Meleagros, Artashata had raced to rejoin Spitamenes. While everybody was under the impression he was still near Kafingern, he had was now laying in ambush at the Iron Gates[6] alongside Spitamenes. Ptolemaios, in his haste to reach his column alongside the Surkhan River before Artashata, stumbled right into the trap. A small force behind a makeshift wall blocked the road, and when Ptolemaios attempted to force a passage, he was beset on all sides by troops storming from the hillside. There are conflicting reports on when he was killed, but the general consensus seems to be it occurred early on in the fighting. Regardless of when he died, the important fact is that at some point, Ptolemaios was killed in the ambush and his men had to fight tooth and nail to extract themselves and his body from the death trap.
Now they truly found themselves in dire straits. Separated from the rest of the army, stranded in a far away and unknown land, and now without their king, the morale of the Makedonians and Hellenes in the army plummeted. They had barely escaped annihilation, but had no means of being able to escape Artashata a second time. The Baktrians in the column deserted that night, and Artashata surrounded the camp the following morning. Fearing the worst, the soldiers were surprised by his conciliatory tone; he promised them to treat them respectfully and as if they were his own soldiers if they surrendered, but threatened to slaughter them if they resisted. Unsurprisingly, the soldiers gracefully accepted. This was repeated across all the columns once word of Ptolemaios' death spread. The few contingents that chose not to surrender were harassed, hunted down, and destroyed, but most readily accepted what they saw as generous terms.
Artashata put his captives to good use. He wished to put a plug on the porous border along the Jaxartes with the Skythian nomads, and the nearest strategic town, Kyropolis, was 25 miles from the river. Too far to fit his needs. He needed a new city closer to the river to act as a defense against the Skythian nomads, and to populate that city, he settled Ptolemaios' former soldiers there. The city, named Artashatopolis[7], was surprisingly not unique in Baktria. The Persians had been known to settle rebellious Hellenes from Ionia in Baktria in the past, the furthest place away from their homeland they could place them. The most prominent among these groups were the Branchidai of Miletos, but they were far from the only Hellenes that made up a moderately sized Hellenic minority in Baktria. Knowing this at least provided some small consolation to the demoralized ex-Ptolemaian soldiers, who could take some solace in the understanding that they were not the only Hellenes in this far away land.
[1] Orontes had reached a deal with Ptolemaios prior to his invasion which had included the lending of a 2,500 Armenian cavalry and allowing the safe passage of any reinforcements through Armenian territory. Orontes accepted in order to prevent Ptolemaios from invading Armenia instead of going easy.
[1] This is actually taken directly from Into The Land of Bones, written by Frank L. Holt, a book solely dedicated to analyzing Alexander's invasion of Baktria.
[2] Later to be called Alexandria and eventually Merv.
[3] Also known as Baktra. Modern day Balkh.
[4] This was Bessus' undoing. He completely abandoned everything south of the Oxus, and instead opted to defend Sogdiana. The result however was that the Baktrian's less inclined to simply abandon their homeland, simply slipped away and returned home, leaving him chronically short on troops.
[5] Also known as Samarkand
[6] Also known as The Gates of Tamerlane
[7] I'm using the Hellenized version since I'm not versed in Iranian city naming conventions. If someone can provide the Iranian equivalent, I will happily use it.
A map of Baktria will be up soon. Chapter V: Every Tyrant Is An Enemy To Freedom
Part V: Ptolemaios' Anabasis
While chaos reigned in the west, Ptolemaios was not idle in Susiana. It had taken him a year of planning and gathering forces, but by late summer of 422 [355 BCE], he had managed to scrape together 30,000 men and was ready to depart east. Leaving from Susa, he had two major obstacles facing him. The first were the Uxians, a fearless mountain people who had not even been conquered by the Achaemenids. They chose to pay the Uxians for safe passage through their defile, and Jason had chosen to follow the same course when he passed through the lands. The Uxians expected the same from Ptolemaios, and indeed, the Makedonian strategos assured them he would meet them for payment.
In actuality, Ptolemaios intended to put his excellent understanding of the local geography and topography gained from just about anyone who could provide him with such information, to good use. Naturally, the Uxians, satisfied with Ptolemaios' reply, expected to meet him and his army along the normal road. Instead, only a token force led by Meleagros proceeded down that route, with Ptolemaios opting to personally lead his own picked band of men overnight around difficult mountain roads behind the Uxian's and their villages. He split this force, detaching men to occupy the higher ground where he expected the Uxian's to retreat to, while he laid waste to the Uxian villages at daylight. Much to their horror, they found their defile occupied, and then discovered the high ground to be similarly filled with hostile forces. Many were killed, but a sizable portion managed to fall back into a mountain stronghold, where Ptolemaios and his men came under heavy missile fire.
Locking shields in a tortoise formation, that managed to bring the ladders and other siege engines to bear against the walls, taking the walls soon after, leading to the surrender of the fortress and subsequent surrender of all the Uxians. In one swift maneuver, Ptolemaios had managed to accomplish what the Achaemenids could never do. His campaign was off to a fantastic start.
The second great obstacle facing Ptolemaios was once more the Persian Gates, where he expected a Persian army would be awaiting him. Aside from the military obstacles this trip presented, crossing the Zagros range at the approach of winter presented its own difficulties. Ptolemaios could not afford to be held up at any one point, and a strongly defended Persian Gate would threaten the viability of the entire campaign. So instead of play into the hands of the Persian defenders, Ptolemaios chose a different, southern route. This route was as difficult, if not more difficult than, the route through the Persian Gates, Ptolemaios wagered the Persians would not be expecting him to take it, and so hoped it would lead him into the heart of Persis and across the Zagros much quicker. There was a risk that the Persian commander, Spithradates, would use this opportunity to plunge into Susiana and cut off his communications, but he gambled on him instead chasing him back into Persis where he could engage and defeat him in battle.
The gamble almost paid off. Remarkably, it was not until Ptolemaios reached Shiraz in mid-December that Spithradates became aware of what was afoot, and began racing back to Persepolis. Having a far simpler and more direct route back to the city along the main road, Spithradates managed to cross the Araxes a day prior to Ptolemaios' arrival, but did not have enough time to put together an effective defense of the city. With Ptolemaios hot on his trail, he hastily looted the treasury and made way north to Ekbatana, having barely escaped the Makedonian's clutches. The sheer amount of wealth present at Pasagardai and Persepolis however meant that Spithradates could not hope to be able to haul off anywhere near the total amount of coin and maintain a quick enough pace to avoid Ptolemaios' clutches. Thus Ptolemaios and his men still stumbled upon more wealth than they had even found in Susa, which itself had a treasury more than 6-7 times that of Athenai's annual income.
Ptolemaios could not afford to waste time reveling in the wealth and extravagance of the Persian capital however, and did not remain there long after the city's surrender, wishing to maintain the pressure on his Persian foes. This move was a questionable one, because it was now winter and his men had just endured a grueling march over snow covered mountainous terrain. The entirety of Persia was far from subjugated, and various tribes such as the Mardians were very much independent from Ptolemaios' rule. It has raised many to question what exactly his goals were in this invasion, and perhaps whether he expected subordinates left behind to attend to the matter, or if he intended to attend to it himself later on. His troops needed some convincing to carry on in the dead of winter, for the march ahead was through terrain no less arduous than what they had just went through. He compromised by giving them a month's rest, setting out in February for Ekbatana, rather than leaving early in January as he had originally intended.
Media was governed by Astyages, a Median noble who had recently wrested control of the region from its Persian satrap. Spithradates was forced to cooperate with him, and the two drew up a defense of Ekbatana. The Persian however had other plans aside from working with a rebel. He contacted Ptolemaios during his march north, and offered to betray the city to him in exchange for being appointed satrap of Media. Ptolemaios agreed, and when he arrived at Ekbatana, the gates were opened the next night. Astyages was quick to respond to the treachery, repulsing Ptolemaios from the walls only to find Spithradates men turning on him. Fearing total defeat, he fled the city through the northern gate with a small bodyguard. Astyages retreated into the northern hinterlands of Media and along the Caspian, where he regathered his strength and held back.
Ptolemaios' men, now thoroughly exhausted from almost ceaseless campaigning since they left Susa, got some much needed rest. Aside from minor campaigns to subdue the region (with all attempts at bringing Astyages to heel ultimately failing), the troops were allowed rest until July, when they departed for campaign once more alongside new Median troops provided by Spithradates to supplement their previous losses. Astyages had astutely made sure to not block the Caspian Gates, the crucial pass east that led into Baktria. He recognized that Ptolemaios had no wish to remain in Media, and instead intended on heading even further east. This was fine for Astyages, whose main concern was re-gaining control of Media. If Ptolemaios wanted to leave to take on Artashata in the mountains, he was content to let him.
Predictably then, Ptolemaios left Ekbatana with Spithradates in charge with a mandate to finally bring down Astyages. He was surprised to pass the Caspian Gates without incident, reaching Hekatompyolos in short order and soon after invaded Hyrkania, wresting Zadrakarta from the control of those loyal to Astyages. After a brief but grueling campaign, the Tarpurians were defeated and forced to surrender. The offensive was going well, but Ptolemaios' forces were ever dwindling. Reinforcements from conquered natives were trickling in at small numbers, but his total force must have still at most not numbered more than its original 30,000, and the number was likely closer to the 20-25,000. A small reinforcement of 7,500 Hellenic mercenaries he had sent for after his capture of Persepolis reached him, by way of Armenia and the Kaspian Sea, at Zadrakarta[1]. Still, he could ill afford to spare many troops for garrisoning conquered lands, many times having to instead rely almost completely on Persian renegades or troops from the newly conquered locals, and hope they would not turn against him. His men began to grumble about their hardships what still lie ahead, and even Ptolemaios must have recognized he was ill prepared for a campaign in Baktria.
Still, he kept on. He was taking a massive risk, leaving the southern route completely un-touched behind him. There were 3 passes he could have taken south; the western Shibar Pass through the Bamian Valley, the central Salang Pass, and the eastern Khawak Pass, which led through the Panshir Valley. As he would have learned from guides and scouts, the Salang Pass was virtually impassable, and the easiest route, through the Bamian Valley, was likely heavily guarded by Artashata's men. The only feasible route then would have been through the Khawak and attempting either pass in the late fall and winter months was tantamount to suicide. As one modern historian of the region puts it, “In winter, the snow line descends to six thousand feet and blocks the passes; blizzards are common, and snow falls even during summer at higher elevations”[2]. It had been a mistake for Ptolemaios to wait so long to set out, for now the southern passes through the Hindu Kush were out of the question, since he could not afford to wait until late spring when the passes could be safely attempted.
Hindu Kush
He was thus forced to take the northern route, and was surprised to find Margos[3] relatively undefended. Artashata instead preferred to defend the Baktrian interior, which was far more kind to a defender than the open plains in Margiane and Khorasmia. The route was very much a desert, and another grueling and arduous march towards Zariaspa[4], the famed city where Zoroaster had supposedly first preached his new religion, and where he is reported to have died (hence its name, which derived from the Zoroastrian fire temple, Azar-i-Asp). Ptolemaios' guides advised him to only travel by night, and all extra baggage was left behind at Margos in order to hasten the journey. To further ease the jorney, Ptolemaios traveled in a more southerly direction, keeping along the river for as long as possible before force marching his army across to the small Saripul then Baktros River.
It was now late October-early November as Ptolemaios approached Zariaspa. Although Artashata himself was not present in the city, having opted instead to gather more forces north in Sogdiana and prevent a crossing of the Oxos, the eldest son of the deceased Shahanshah Tiribazos, also named Tiribazos, was left in command of the city's defense, while his younger brother Xerxes took command of the Baktrian cavalry in the province. Ideally, Artashata would not have wanted to defend the region south of the Oxos at all, but he understood that it was necessary if he was to keep the Baktrian cavalry on his side[5]. In this way they would not be able to slip away or, even worse, join Ptolemaios.
Ptolemaios was now once more in a precarious position. He could not afford to ignore Zariaspa, yet at the same time, the city would take some time to besiege. With Xerxes and the Baktrian cavalry loose in the countryside, remaining stationary at Zariaspa was a risky businesses. After a brief but failed attempt at taking the city in one fell swoop, Ptolemaios refused to simply winter outside Zariaspa, and instead split his army, taking a picked force to snuff out and destroy Xerxes, while Meleagros remained with the rest of the men at Zariaspa conducting the siege. A high ranking noble who had surrendered him, a certain Spisamithres, was appointed satrap of Baktria (not that there was much of Baktria under Ptolemaios' control at this time) in order to showcase the rewards those who surrendered received. Yet his Baktrian foes also had the example of the still at-large Astyages as evidence that those who opposed Ptolemaios were hardly doomed to failure. Unsurprisingly then, this move did not necessarily have the desired effect.
Instead, Ptolemaios conducted a lightning military campaign, putting on display the tactical and strategic brilliance he was sometimes capable of. Spreading himself dangerously thin, he began systematically occupying all the strategic locations in the region, hemming Xerxes in and denying him crucial logistical hubs to spend the winter. Having the tables turned on him so quickly, Xerxes was forced to seek an engagement. He opted for a lightning raid of his own at the forces besieging Zariaspa. A messenger attempted to get through to the city in order to coordinate a combined assault, but after being caught by Melagros' men, divulged the plan to his officers. Ptolemaios had also learned of Xerxes ploy, and had hastily gathered his forces back together and followed him to Zariaspa. The result was the annihilation of Xerxes' force on January 17th, with many Baktrians taking flight early. Xerxes himself was killed, and now Ptolemaios could direct his full attention to taking Zariaspa over the winter.
Much to his frustration, Tiribazos defied all his attempts at taking the city. As Ptolemaios dug in for the siege, he continued to lead a picked force around Baktria, bringing to heel those tribes that refused to support him, and signing treaties with those that did. In this way he brought 2,500 Baktrian cavalry to his side, a much needed force for his chronically undermanned army. Finally, sometime in April, sensing that Artashata was not going to cross the Oxos and come to his aid, Tiribazos was ready to deal. He agreed to surrender the city as long as he remained its governor, and Ptolemaios was quick to accept. Instead of maintain his side of the deal however, the Makedonian, perhaps influenced by his advisers, promptly arrested and executed Tiribazos. Ptolemaios could not trust the man to remain loyal, and so had dispensed with him before he could cause more trouble. It was a logical move, but it showed terrible foresight. It would be much harder to force surrender among the Baktrian warlords now that Ptolemaios had shown how willing he was to renege on the deal. It was a serious miscalculation.
For the moment however, Ptolemaios was at the peak of his power and prestige. The lands south of the Oxos had been pacified, and now he could turn his attention north and finally come to blows with Artashata. He marched through the 50 miles of desert from Zariaspa to the Oxos surprisingly without incident; an advance party was sent forth to dig wells, and his main force travelled by night, with water being brought to them from the wells up ahead along the river. Ptolemaios was frustrated in his attempts to cross it however by the presence of a significant missile force led by Artashata's commander Spitamenes guarding the northern banks. As such, he could not cross quickly as he would have liked, and instead had to spend days building makeshift rafts and ships so that his army could be prepared to cross all at once so that the enemy archers would end up facing more targets approaching them than they could shoot. He employed a novel tactic, placing catapults and other artillery pieces on some of the makesthift ships to bombard Spitamenes' cavalry and force them back from the river.
Oxus River
Out of range of Spitamenes' bowmen, Ptolemaios and his men could now cross the river unmolested. Wanting to prevent the Sogdians from retreating and living on to fight another day, Ptolemaios sent a force of spearmen far ahead of his main force as bait. Surprised at what he saw as a blunder, Spitamenes pounced on the isolated detachment, surrounding and charging them. The spearmen held out valiantly however, understanding their mission. They gave Ptolemaios enough time to arrive with his own force. He hit Spitamenes from the front with archer fire and on both flanks with cavalry, shattering the Sogdian cavalry and forcing Spitamenes to flee with a much reduced force.
Pressing his advantage, Ptolemaios divided his force into five columns, one for each of the strategic valleys in the region. One column marched up to the Panj River, another through the Vakhsh, two more through Kafingern and to the Surkhan River, and Ptolemaios himself leading a detachment west to Marakanda[5]. He knew Artashata would not be able to guard against all his columns at once, and so hoped to slip by him and deliver a swift coup de' grace. It was a sound strategy, but Ptolemaios had stretched himself dangerously thin, and it backfired spectacularly. Artashata was a far superior strategist and tactician than any Ptolemaios had encountered thus far, and he pounced on the opportunity. Sending Spitamenes as a diversion to distract Ptolemaios, he himself led his cavalry force, now supplemented with Skythian tribes to the north, against Meleagros' contingent heading through Kurfingan. Completely outclassed and unprepared (to say nothing of being seriously outnumbered), Meleagros' army was annihilated in a skillfully laid ambush, with Meleagros himself killed in the fighting. Artashata made sure the news spread to the other camps; he deliberately allowed some stragglers to escape so they would arrive in the other camps with the news of their destruction, and sent Meleagros' head to Ptolemaios.
Ptolemaios, who had been dealing with what he thought was the main force under Spitamenes, now found himself in the worst possible position, with his army spread out all across Sogdiana. The entire campaign was on the verge of unravelling before his eyes, and under intense pressure, he made a fatal but understandable error. Realizing the army needed to re-unite as hastily as possible, he opted to attempt a daring forced march through enemy territory at breakneck speed to try to reach at least one of his spread out columns. Artashata had planned for just such a manuever.
Iron Gates
Following his defeat of Meleagros, Artashata had raced to rejoin Spitamenes. While everybody was under the impression he was still near Kafingern, he had was now laying in ambush at the Iron Gates[6] alongside Spitamenes. Ptolemaios, in his haste to reach his column alongside the Surkhan River before Artashata, stumbled right into the trap. A small force behind a makeshift wall blocked the road, and when Ptolemaios attempted to force a passage, he was beset on all sides by troops storming from the hillside. There are conflicting reports on when he was killed, but the general consensus seems to be it occurred early on in the fighting. Regardless of when he died, the important fact is that at some point, Ptolemaios was killed in the ambush and his men had to fight tooth and nail to extract themselves and his body from the death trap.
Now they truly found themselves in dire straits. Separated from the rest of the army, stranded in a far away and unknown land, and now without their king, the morale of the Makedonians and Hellenes in the army plummeted. They had barely escaped annihilation, but had no means of being able to escape Artashata a second time. The Baktrians in the column deserted that night, and Artashata surrounded the camp the following morning. Fearing the worst, the soldiers were surprised by his conciliatory tone; he promised them to treat them respectfully and as if they were his own soldiers if they surrendered, but threatened to slaughter them if they resisted. Unsurprisingly, the soldiers gracefully accepted. This was repeated across all the columns once word of Ptolemaios' death spread. The few contingents that chose not to surrender were harassed, hunted down, and destroyed, but most readily accepted what they saw as generous terms.
Artashata put his captives to good use. He wished to put a plug on the porous border along the Jaxartes with the Skythian nomads, and the nearest strategic town, Kyropolis, was 25 miles from the river. Too far to fit his needs. He needed a new city closer to the river to act as a defense against the Skythian nomads, and to populate that city, he settled Ptolemaios' former soldiers there. The city, named Artashatopolis[7], was surprisingly not unique in Baktria. The Persians had been known to settle rebellious Hellenes from Ionia in Baktria in the past, the furthest place away from their homeland they could place them. The most prominent among these groups were the Branchidai of Miletos, but they were far from the only Hellenes that made up a moderately sized Hellenic minority in Baktria. Knowing this at least provided some small consolation to the demoralized ex-Ptolemaian soldiers, who could take some solace in the understanding that they were not the only Hellenes in this far away land.
[1] Orontes had reached a deal with Ptolemaios prior to his invasion which had included the lending of a 2,500 Armenian cavalry and allowing the safe passage of any reinforcements through Armenian territory. Orontes accepted in order to prevent Ptolemaios from invading Armenia instead of going easy.
[1] This is actually taken directly from Into The Land of Bones, written by Frank L. Holt, a book solely dedicated to analyzing Alexander's invasion of Baktria.
[2] Later to be called Alexandria and eventually Merv.
[3] Also known as Baktra. Modern day Balkh.
[4] This was Bessus' undoing. He completely abandoned everything south of the Oxus, and instead opted to defend Sogdiana. The result however was that the Baktrian's less inclined to simply abandon their homeland, simply slipped away and returned home, leaving him chronically short on troops.
[5] Also known as Samarkand
[6] Also known as The Gates of Tamerlane
[7] I'm using the Hellenized version since I'm not versed in Iranian city naming conventions. If someone can provide the Iranian equivalent, I will happily use it.
