February 5, 2002

The meteoric saga of Alexander the Great is familiar, yet each re-telling leaves one breathless. At sixteen he was regent of Macedonia; at eighteen he led the decisive charge at the battle of Chaeronea. At the age of thirty-two he suddenly died, having traversed an astounding twenty-five thousand miles and won an empire for which history has no true parallel.

As a general Alexander was among the greatest the world has known. His battle prowess — the amazing tactical genius which makes Granicus, Gaugamela, and the battle at the Jhelum set pieces that are closely studied in staff colleges to this day — accompanied legendary radiance and a dynamic personality. His extensive conquests and foundation of new cities — Plutarch speaks of over 70 — spread Hellenic thought and customs from Gibraltar to the Punjab. His early death, at the threshold of new victories, ended the widest conquest of ancient times.

Destined for power, Alexander inherited a fine army. Determined to complete his father Philip of Macedon’s plan of attacking the Persian empire, he schooled the Macedonian phalanx, the Companion Cavalry, and the bridge and siege-machine builders who accompanied his host into a “war machine that had few equals before the Wehrmacht”.

Alexander’s heavy infantry routinely marched at a pace of twenty miles a day under full armament. In the thrust towards the Caspian, Alexander’s army averaged thirty-six miles daily, sometimes over pitiless terrain that defies modern transport. One historical dash covered fifty-two miles without halt. Only Napoleon, Rommel and Patton (and they were motorized) have matched the speed and the genius of surprise in Alexander’s campaigns.

If the intrepid young king’s strategy was skillful and imaginative, his energy and personal courage was Homeric. A copy of The Iliad annotated by his beloved tutor Aristotle accompanied Alexander everywhere on his campaigns; he saw himself as another Achilles. He led celebrated charges against overwhelming odds and entrenched positions, and turned incipient rout into triumph. He was the first to cross racing waters and to scale glacial cliffs.

Later ages were spellbound by Alexander’s lightning reflexes, his uncanny handling of men. As Alexander outmarched, outrode, and outfought every adversary, his contemporaries called him Aniketos, “the invincible”. His second epithet,”the great”, was bestowed on him after his death. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend.

Alexander regretted the fact that no Homer would hymn his praises but he ended up a hero — as Iskander — in the very lands he conquered. Nizami eulogised him in his ten thousand line epic, the Iskandernama and Firdousi sung of his amazing exploits in his Shahnama, the “Book of Kings.”

In Muslim memory, Alexander is enshrined as a prophet-like figure. The coinage of this world conqueror generally depicted him in the guise of the horned god, Jupiter-Ammon. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, in his commentary on the Surah of the Cave, (al-Kahf) of his acclaimed English translation of the Holy Quran, identifies Alexander as Dhul-Qarnayn, the “two-horned one”.

Nineteenth century historians, specially in Germany, saw Alexander as the incarnation of the superman. Modern historians are vary of heroes but Alexander’s mesmeric leadership and incredible military feats remain endlessly fascinating. Even today — though war-makers are no longer the heroes humanity needs — biographies such as Mary Renault’s The nature of Alexander, Robin Lane Fox’s The search for Alexander, and Peter Green’s iconoclastic Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 BC are bestsellers.

Besides being the subject of scholarly modern biographies, Alexander has inspired much contemporary historical fiction. Harold Lamb, Naomi Haldane Mitchison and Judith Tarr in English, Nikos Zorba the Greek, Kazantzakis in Greek, Roger Peyrefitte in French, and Peter Bamm in German have all written popular novels about the young Macedonian king. Now Italian historian and archeologist Valerio Massimo Manfredi has been elected Man of the Year by the American Biographical Institute for Alexandros, an international blockbuster novel based on the life of Alexander the Great.

The three volumes of Manfredi’s historical fantasy have been translated into English by Iain Halliday. The first volume of this trilogy, entitled Child of a dream, re-creates the major persons and events of Alexander’s youth — his beautiful but strange mother Olympias (she loved snakes), his taming of the high-spirited, “bull-headed” stallion Bucephalus, his tutor Aristotle who inspired him with a lifelong interest in philosophy, medicine and scientific investigation. Philip of Macedon had long planned a Persian expedition; on his tragic assassination, his son Alexander dutifully proceeded with the invasion of Asia. Continuing the epic saga of Alexander the Great, The sands of Ammon, describes how, after putting down a rebellion in Greece, the young king crossed the Dardanelles into Asia Minor and began a life of astonishing military triumphs. At Gordium in modern Turkey, tradition records Alexander’s cutting of the Gordian knot, which could only be loosened by the man destined to rule Asia. A year and a half after crossing the Hellespont, Alexander’s innovative fighting tactics put the western empire of Darius at his mercy. The storming of Tyre in July 332 was the young Macedonian warrior’s greatest military victory.

In November 332, Alexander’s quest for far off lands took him to Egypt. At Memphis this irresistible “golden boy” was crowned Pharaoh with the traditional double crown of the pharaohs. He consulted the celebrated oracle of the god Ammon at the oasis of Siwah but revealed its reply to no one. He sent an expedition to discover the source of the Nile and founded the city of Alexandria.

Alexander’s conquest of Egypt completed his control of the whole eastern Mediterranean coast. Then Babylon fell to his implacable advance in October 331 BC; Persepolis a few months thereafter. At Arbela, Darius’s Grand Army was destroyed and with it the Persian Empire.

The final volume of Manfredi’s trilogy The ends of the earth, details Alexander’s invasion of ancient India from Bactria, modern Afghanistan. Half the Greek army was sent through the Khyber Pass, while the young king led the rest through the hills to the north. Alexander’s advance through Swat and Gandhara was marked by the storming of the almost impregnable pinnacle of Aornos, the modern Pir-Sar, an impressive piece of siegecraft.

In the spring of 326 BC, crossing the Indus near Attock, Alexander entered Taxila, whose ruler furnished elephants and troops in return for aid against his rival Porus, who ruled the lands between the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum) and the Acesines (modern Chenab).

In June 326 BC Alexander fought his last great battle. After this victory on the Jhelum, one of the most brilliantly conceived battlefield manoeuvres in all history, the subcontinent lay helpless before the all-conquering Macedonian. Porus became his ally and Alexander founded two cities, one to celebrate his victory and one in memory of his famous charger Bucephalus which died there.

Then, 5000 miles from home, combat-fatigued beyond endurance, Alexander’s Macedonian veterans mutinied. Their battle-scarred commanders urged Alexander to turn back, to be content with the immensity of his gains.

Alexander never forgave those who, at the last, compelled him to renounce India and the unknown wonders beyond the rising of the sun.

Ever the restless explorer, he decided to return to Macedon by a new route. He proceeded down the Indus valley, half his army on shipboard and half marching three columns deep down the two banks. On reaching the Indus delta, a fleet was sent up the Persian Gulf under Nearchus, but Alexander insisted on leading an expedition by land through the coast of Makran and the Gedrosian desert, modern Balochistan.

The victorious Greeks reached Susa, the Persian capital, in the spring of 324 BC. In autumn the death — from fever, gluttony, and drink — of the beloved Hephaestion left Alexander wildly bereft. Not long afterward, in June 323 BC, the world conqueror fell violently ill and died in Babylon; he had reigned for twelve years and eight months. His vast dominions in Africa, Asia and Europe was divided between his Macedonian generals Ptolemy, Seleucus and Cassander; his body, placed in a gold coffin, was taken by Ptolemy to Alexandria.

Legend relates that upon his death the world conqueror’s testament decreed that his body be carried through his Empire until the meaning of his open hands be understood. It was finally a humble cobbler who perceived the meaning, that Alexander left everything behind him when he left the world.

Alexander: child of a dream
ISBN 0-330-39170-4
447pp. £5.99 (In Pakistan Rs345)
Alexander: the sands of Ammon
ISBN 0-330-39171-2
494pp. £5.99 (In Pakistan Rs345)

Alexander: the ends of the earth
ISBN 0-330-39172-0
592pp. £5.99 (In Pakistan Rs345)
By Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Pan Books Ltd & Macmillan
Available in Pakistan with Paramount Books, 152/O, Block 2, PECH Society, Karachi-75400
Tel: 021-4310030. 
Email: paramount@cyber.net.pk

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