Five days of festivities and pageantry followed, during which Alexander presented golden wreaths to those who had served with distinction in India. Leonnatus and Peucestas, the men who had saved him from enemy archers in the rebel town, received these glittering tokens of honor. Nearchus, the Greek admiral who had gotten the fleet safely through a terrible voyage, also got one, in just recognition of his sufferings. Ptolemy too was garlanded with gold, an acknowledgment that the king’s old friend had in India proved himself as a combat officer. The stalwart Craterus, however, perhaps having objected too often to Alexander’s fusion program, received no wreath at this ceremony. Neither did Eumenes, whose duties in India had still been largely those of a scribe, not a soldier.
By the end of the first week of June, in the bivouacs outside Babylon, the Macedonian army was growing uneasy. Alexander had not been seen for many days after first appearing on a litter at morning sacrifices. It was unusual for the king to be absent from view for so long, especially when he was about to lead his men into action. Nevertheless, they continued to prepare their weapons and gear for the Arabian campaign.
Most of these troops fought with the long infantry lance called the sarissa, as well as with short swords and shields. At the outset of his reign, Philip, Alexander’s father, had introduced the sarissa, a strong wooden shaft perhaps eighteen feet long tipped with a two-pound metal blade, and had recruited strong young men to wield it, forging a new kind of phalanx that changed the face of battle overnight. Now Philip’s recruits were past fifty but still fighting in the front lines, thrusting their sarissaswith both hands as they advanced toward an enemy, their shields slung around their necks. The discipline gained through decades of fighting, in every terrain and tactical situation, had made these veterans unassailable to any enemy, except, as they would soon learn, one another.
Macedonian infantrymen, as seen in a tomb painting roughly contemporary with Alexander (Illustration credit 1.3)
Philip had also created an elite corps of infantry, the Hypaspists, or Shield Bearers, who carried lighter gear than the men of the phalanx and could move about more quickly. Selected for their strength, stamina, and loyalty to the king, the three thousand Shield Bearers were the first called in for difficult operations or when Alexander’s safety was threatened. They traveled up to forty miles a day over rough terrain, scaled cliffs and assaulted walls while under fire, endured desert heat and unthawed mountain passes without loss of morale. Alexander cherished these men and kept them close both on and off the battlefield. In India, where the Shield Bearers endured their greatest perils yet, he honored them by having their armor coated with silver, thus giving rise to their new unit name, the Silver Shields.
Recently, though, the bonds between the king and his veterans had come under strain. Alexander had recruited Persians and Bactrians and trained them to fight in the Macedonian style, enrolling them in even his most elite units. This offended both the pride and the prejudices of his countrymen. They had accepted, grudgingly, his use of Persians as high officials, his adoption of Persian dress and court rituals, even the marriages of the king and his top staff to Asian women. But the integration of the armed forces was a more serious matter. When Alexander announced, at an army assembly in the Persian city of Opis, that he would send ten thousand of his Macedonian troops back home and install Persians in their place, the soldiers flatly refused.
Things quickly spiraled out of control during this mutinous assembly at Opis. The men became contemptuous, sneering that the king did not need anyof them since his “father” would see him through—a mocking reference to the rumors tracing Alexander’s descent from the god Ammon. Alexander, enraged, waded into their midst, guards at his side, and picked out his most vocal opponents for summary execution. Then he retreated to his quarters and refused to admit his countrymen, receiving Persian officers instead. He took steps to replace his entirearmy, even the hallowed Silver Shields, with units recruited from Asia. He allowed his new Persian courtiers to greet him by kissing him on the mouth, an intimacy permitted by Persian kings to their favorites. He was taking his Macedonian troops at their word; he would show that he did not need anyof them.
A more serious breach had opened between king and soldiery than the earlier mutiny in India. Then, Alexander had had no choice but to yield, since there were no other armies he could draw on. But the heartland of the Persian empire now regarded Alexander as a legitimate ruler, and the Asian chiefs who had once fought for Darius were prepared to fight for him. He was no longer hostage to the army’s will, and both he and they knew it. The troops held out for three days. When they could bear the separation no longer, they went en masse to Alexander’s tent and threw down their weapons before its entrance, begging the king to take them back into favor. Like jilted lovers, they bemoaned the kisses Alexander had given his Persians, kisses no Macedonian had yet received.
This show of remorse was enough to satisfy Alexander. Coming out to greet his countrymen, he invited them to kiss him as the Persians had done. He would restore them to favor and be their leader once again. The men became ecstatic with relief and, after giving their kisses, went back to camp singing a joyous victory song. Alexander held a huge banquet to celebrate the reconciliation, and his triumph. Then he sent away the ten thousand veterans as he had planned, assigning Craterus (not coincidentally the senior officer most resistant to his policies) to lead them home. Among them were the Silver Shields, long cherished by Alexander for their prowess and loyalty, now regarded, after the mutinies at the Hyphasis River and at Opis, as troublemakers.
The men departing for Europe received a discharge bonus of a silver talent each—many years’ pay, at standard rates—while those remaining behind, perhaps six thousand infantrymen, had their salary increased to several times starting levels. The raise was an attempt to forestall further mutinies, and to compensate the troops for the indignity of serving side by side with barbarians. It was also Alexander’s way of acknowledging that his army’s mission had changed. His troops had set out twelve years earlier to fight a war; now they were being asked to maintain an empire. They had become transformed, gradually and without consultation, into a permanent military class, the human infrastructure supporting Alexander’s world-state. They could never return to sheepcotes and farms even if they wanted to, and after twelve years of conquests probably few of them did. Like mercenaries, they had sold their lives, and Alexander felt they deserved a high price.
The Macedonian infantrymen who remained at Babylon, and who now prepared for the march to Arabia, were thus a privileged lot. In addition to their high pay, and their leadership roles in the new mixed-race phalanx, they formed what their countrymen revered as the royal army, the troops serving directly under the king. Under long-standing Macedonian tradition, it was the royal army’s privilege to assemble and to make certain decisions by a kind of voice vote, including their most weighty duty, the approval of a new successor to the throne. Some must have begun to wonder, as Alexander’s disappearance stretched out to a week or longer, whether they would soon be called on to perform that solemn task.