Into the Land of Bones. Frank L. Holt
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When the Bactrians learned that Alexander had crossed the Hindu Kush, that Satibarzanes was dead, and that Bessus planned to retreat north across the Oxus and abandon Bactria to the invaders, most of the native horsemen simply slipped away to their homes.42 It could not have been a substantial band that followed Bessus to Sogdiana. At Bactra, Alexander considered these facts and decided to forge ahead as quickly as possible to finish Bessus before the assassin could redress his losses. Acting, of course, as the rightful King of Kings, Alexander appointed Artabazus—the Persian just back from the victory against Satibarzanes—to be the satrap of Bactria.43 The message was clear: join Alexander’s cause, like Artabazus, and receive all the perquisites of the old Persian Empire; or live as outlaws, like Satibarzanes and Bessus, and endure the righteous punishments of the civilized world. No one could be neutral.
The march from Bactra to the Oxus River crossed a harsh stretch of desert that would again test the resilience of the Greek and Macedonian army.44 The invaders had nearly frozen and starved just a few weeks earlier in the mountains, and now during high summer they had to hike through nearly fifty miles of searing wastes where Anahita’s water could not sustain them. Local informants advised Alexander to travel only at night, both to escape the worst temperatures and to navigate the desert by the stars. To keep the journey down to two nights, the king lightened the army’s load by leaving its baggage at Bactra in the care of Artabazus. Still, it was a disaster. The sand glowed with heat, mirages danced, and the dry air sucked every drop of moisture from the mouths of the suffering men. Water bags emptied too soon, and discipline failed. Soldiers gorged themselves on stores of oil and wine, only to vomit away what they had foolishly drunk. With growing numbers of men dehydrated or already dead, Alexander pressed forward to the Oxus River and lit signal fires to guide and encourage the troops. Relays of water bearers went back into the desert to assist the weakest stragglers. Unfortunately, many drank so excessively that they had “choking fits” and died. Alexander reportedly waited by the trail, without refreshing himself, to welcome each survivor as he staggered into camp. The political battle to win over the Bactrian people was going well, but the land itself was literally killing the Greeks and Macedonians.
The next obstacle was the Oxus River, the longest and largest in central Asia. As today it defines much of the northern border of Afghanistan, in antiquity it separated Bactria proper from Sogdiana. The region of Sogdiana stretched north to the Jaxartes River (modern Syr Darya); it was attached administratively to Bactria as an extension of the province (satrapy). At his crossing point, Alexander measured the river’s width at about three-quarters of a mile. Scholars have long disputed the exact location. In antiquity, the key crossings were located at Kerki, Kilif, Kampyr-Tepe, and Termez. Kerki was probably too far west for Alexander’s purposes. Of the remaining possibilities, the importance of Termez in later history (it became a key Islamic trading center) has swayed many to settle upon it. Legends do link Alexander to the founding of Termez, but such associations carry no decisive weight in that part of the world. Termez is certainly a reasonable guess, now with its Friendship Bridge (at times an Orwellian misnomer), but Kampyr-Tepe and Kilif cannot be ruled out as the spot where Alexander first encountered and crossed the Oxus. In fact, Kampyr-Tepe is the only crossing site where pottery has been found that is contemporary with Alexander’s reign. The challenge would have been the same at any locale.45 Bessus had burned all the boats, and the powerful current made it impossible to set pilings in the deep riverbed. In any case, no wood could be found with which to construct a makeshift bridge. The only solution was the age-old practice of fashioning flotation devices by stuffing straw into leather tent covers and water skins. By stitching them tightly, these maintained enough buoyancy to float swimmers lying upon them across the river. The whole operation took five or six days.46
During this time, Alexander received fresh intelligence about Bessus’s situation. The warlord had not fulfilled his promise to oppose the invaders at the “wall of the Oxus.” In fact, with each leg of Alexander’s relentless pursuit, Bessus found himself more alone. The man claiming to be Artaxerxes V experienced (ironically and perhaps justly) the same plight as Darius after Gaugamela: he fled, unable to mount a fight, and lost the last of his fretful lieutenants. Word of Alexander’s kindness to Gobares, the man who had defected after opposing Bessus’s speech at Bactra, encouraged other rebels to slip away to the oncoming army. It was easy, under the circumstances, to favor for the moment Alexander’s claim to the Persian realm over that of the retreating Bessus. Warlords tend to pledge allegiance as the occasion warrants, whatever the alleged religious and political crimes of the enemy. This remains Lesson One today: “There are no immutable loyalties or alliances in Afghanistan, whatever ethnic or religious umbrella they may be formed under and however fervent the oaths that seal them.”47 Bessus betrayed Darius, and others revealed themselves willing to betray Bessus in turn.
Alexander could afford, therefore, to send part of his army back home. Some old and unfit Macedonians received their formal discharges on the banks of the Oxus. They would not have been dragged across the desert from Bactra if Alexander had not believed they might be needed to fight Bessus; clearly, the military situation had changed and the king could be charitable. An additional contingent of Greek mercenaries from Thessaly also went home, but they were apparently fired. They may have been held responsible for breaking discipline during the recent desert march and for grumbling about the hardships. Anticipating an arrest instead of a battle, Alexander resumed his march into Sogdiana with almost a thousand fewer men.48
Then something strange occurred—if we may believe some of the ancient sources.49 As the invading Greeks and Macedonians approached a town, its inhabitants surrendered in great celebration. They spoke a degenerated form of Greek and claimed to be the descendants of the Branchidae, a Greek clan that had been deported from Miletus (in western Asia Minor) by the Persian king Xerxes in 479 B.C.E. They happily welcomed Alexander within the walls of their town, expecting nothing like the so-called liberation they were about to receive. On this sesquicentennial of their exile, the Branchidae learned just how long their fellow Greeks could hold a grudge. Alexander’s army decided that the Branchidae were traitors living under the protective custody of the Persians, to whom they had once betrayed a famous temple in Miletus. The Branchidae remained, therefore, enemies rather than friends, criminals rather than compatriots. Alexander and his soldiers plundered the town and butchered every single person. No mercy was shown to the defenseless citizens, not even those begging as suppliants. The massacre was complete. Next, in a spasm of rage reminiscent of the Romans at Carthage, the invaders destroyed every vestige of the town and even leveled the surrounding woods and sacred groves. The stumps themselves were pulled up and their broken roots burned out of the ground. What roused such passions we cannot know. Perhaps Alexander’s army needed a bloody catharsis after its recent travails; perhaps the men were spoiling for a fight against anyone in their path; perhaps the king wished to play to the home crowd in Greece after acting so much lately as a legitimate king of Persia. Whatever the reason or reasons, the first atrocity had occurred in a campaign that would soon become a breeding ground for senseless brutality.
Having executed these traitors to the Greek cause, Alexander’s attention turned back to the treason of Bessus. A message arrived that three prominent rebels (Spitamenes, Dataphernes, and Catanes) had locked Bessus in chains somewhere in the neighborhood of modern Kitab in Uzbekistan. Having stripped their former leader of all his regalia, the warlords wished to surrender the captive to King Alexander for punishment. Two versions exist of the transfer to Alexander’s custody. In one, Spitamenes personally delivered the prisoner bound and naked, led around by a collar and chain. Spitamenes made a little speech on the occasion, professing his loyalty to the memory of Darius, for which Alexander praised him.50 In the other version, the hero is Ptolemy. This account certainly derives from Ptolemy’s own memoirs, written when he became the king of Egypt at the outset of the Hellenistic age.51 Ptolemy could not resist the opportunity to elaborate at great length—indeed, exaggerate—his role in bringing Bessus to justice. When Alexander learned of Bessus’s arrest, the king assigned Ptolemy the mission of riding ahead with a picked force of five thousand men to secure the prisoner. This was Ptolemy’s first high-profile command, and he wished to make the most of it. Better to describe himself as the key figure, rather than give that honor to Spitamenes, whose daughter later married the general