Alan M. Fildes & Joann Fletcher
Alexander III of Macedon (356-323 bc), better known
to history as 'Alexander the Great', spent several
months in Egypt as part of his on-going campaign against
the mighty Persian Empire of Darius III. After conquering
Persia's naval bases all along the coastline of Asia
Minor and Syria-Palestine, Alexander marched south
into Egypt where he remained for some six months.
Although generally regarded as little more than an
eccentric diversion, Alexander's Egyptian sojourn
was essential to his future plans. He needed a strong
coastal base for both strategic and commercial purposes,
from which he could not only communicate across the
Mediterranean but which could also handle the highly
lucrative sea-borne trade network he wanted to divert
from Phoenicia. With naval reinforcements following
his progress down the coast, his Macedonian army covered
the hazardous 130 mile distance in only a week to
reach the heavily fortified coastal town of Pelusium
in late October 332 bc.
With his reputation going before him, Alexander was
met by Egypt's Persian governor Mazaces. With no armed
forces and with no likelihood of any assistance following
the defeated Darius' swift departure back east to
Persia, Mazaces simply handed over the treasury's
800 talents and "all the royal furniture". In return
he was kept on as part of the new administration together
with the new governor Cleomenes, who was made responsible
for finance and created the royal mint around 331
bce. Cleomenes was a hard-headed, unscrupulous businessman
who quickly amassed a personal fortune of 8,000 talents
during his career as governor. Yet he remained loyal
to Alexander with whom he kept up a regular correspondence,
sending him such delicacies as smoked quail by the
thousand.
After installing a garrison at the key defensive site
of Pelusium, Alexander then ordered his fleet to sail
south up the Nile to the traditional capital Memphis
(Ineb-hedj) at the apex of the Delta where he himself
would arrive by land at the head of his troops. Passing
by the ancient religious site of Heliopolis (Iunu)
with its vast white temples and obelisks, Egypt made
an enormous impression on both the Macedonian troops
and their 24 year old leader. Brought up with his
formidable mother Olympias' tales of Egyptian gods,
the religiously-minded Alexander must have been completely
dumbstruck in a land so steeped in ritual, where priests
held enormous power wielded inside temples not built
to human scale. Passing by the great pyramids of Giza,
still gleaming in their shining white limestone, he
finally reached Memphis to a genuinely rapturous reception.
Greek travellers had actually been visiting Egypt
for centuries, many of them setting up trading colonies
or acting as mercenaries. Others such as the histroian
Herodotus and philosopher Plato came to study a culture
they regarded with awe as the cradle of civilisation,
their knowledge almost certainly part of Alexander's
education. Yet for almost 200 years Egypt had been
occupied by Persia who had incorporated it into the
growing empire, and assuming the Egyptian crown by
right of conquest the Persian king had ruled in absentia
through a satrap, exploiting its vast grain reserves
and taxing its people. The Persians showed relatively
little respect for the ancient traditions and were
deeply unpopular, and the Egyptians' had rebelled
so often parts of the country remained virtually independent.
Alexander was therefore hailed as Saviour and Liberator,
and as the people's choice and legitimate heir he
was offered the double crown of the Two Lands. Anointed
as pharaoh in Memphis on 14 November 332 bce, the
culmination of his coronation was the climactic moment
when the high priest named him 'son of the gods' according
to traditions dating back almost 3,000 years. This
title deeply affected him, and Olympias' references
to him being the son of Zeus must have filled his
mind; indeed, there were even scenes of the king of
the gods Amun ('Zeus') impregnating selected queens
with the heir to the throne! In a world where the
gods were perceived as living entities and were considered
a part of everyday life, Alexander must now have began
to believe in his own divinity as a fact rather than
a simple exercise of propaganda.
Always a devout man who began each day with sacrifices
to the gods, Alexander had no difficulty worshipping
the Egyptian deities. Equating their gods with his
own, he worshipped the Egyptian Amun as a form of
Zeus. At the Memphite necropolis of Sakkara the new
pharaoh offered sacrifices to the Apis bull, cult
animal of the creator god Ptah, followed by Greek-style
games and literary contests in which performers from
all over the Greek world took part in a multi-cultural
extravaganza. These kind of events mark the beginnings
of Hellenism in their blending of Greek practices
and local traditions, and Egypt and Greece would successfully
co-exist for the next 3 centuries.
Ever keen to discuss philosophy which the Greeks believed
to have originated in Egypt, Alexander attended lectures
given by the Egyptian philosopher Psammon. Wholeheartedly
agreeing with his teaching that "all men are ruled
by god, because in every case that element which imposes
itself and achieves mastery is divine", Alexander
also drew on his own experiences when he added that
whilst god is indeed the father of all mankind, "it
is the noblest and best whom he makes his own" (Plutarch).
In the two months he resided as 'living god' in the
royal palace at Memphis, studying Egyptian laws and
customs at first hand, he gave orders for the restoration
of the Egyptians' religious centres, including the
great southern temples of Luxor and Karnak, where
he appears in the company of the Egyptian gods wearing
traditional Egyptian regalia including the rams horns
of Amun as worn by his pharaonic predecessors including
Amenhotep III. Alexander's image was replicated all
over Egypt in both monumental statuary and delicate
relief, together his with his Greek name translated
into hieroglyphs enclosed by the royal cartouche:
"Horus, the strong ruler, he who seizes the lands
of the foreigners, beloved of Amun and the chosen
one of Ra - meryamun setepenra Aleksandros".
He then left Memphis in January 331 bce and sailed
down the western branch of the Nile to inspect the
Greek trading colony of Naucratis. Its land-bound
position offered no scope for development, so Alexander
pressed on toward the coast to reach the Egyptian
fort of Rhakotis referred to by both Herodotus and
Thucydides, close to Lake Mareotis where a narrow
ridge divides its waters from the sea. Consulting
Homer he had arrived on the coast at a site mentioned
in the Odyssey: "Out of the sea where it breaks on
the shores of Egypt rises an island from the waters:
the name men give it is Pharos" (Odyssey IV.354-355).
Noting that Homer was a clever city planner as well
as a great poet, Alexander observed the deep waters
of its well-sheltered, natural harbour and an uncanny
similarity to the impressive location of Tyre. As
Arrian says "he was immediately struck by the excellence
of the site, and convinced that if a city were built
upon it, it would certainly prosper. Such was his
enthusiasm that he could not wait to begin the work
and himself designed the general layout of the town,
indicating the position of the market place and the
temples and which gods they should serve, the gods
of Greece and Egypt, and the exact limits of the defences".
Working with the architect Deinocrates of Rhodes,
the stonemason Numenios and a technical adviser named
Hyponomos, Alexander also planned the site of the
royal palace and even worked out a complex system
of underground drains and sewers.
In Alexander's haste there were no immediate means
of marking out the ground until it was suggested they
use barley flour from the soldiers' rations. This
they sprinkled on the ground as the king led the way
along his imagined roads and avenues, laid out in
the form of a Macedonian military cloak (chlamys)
as his architects trailed along behind. When a great
flock of birds descended and ate all traces of his
new city, Alexander's initial fears were allayed by
his soothsayer Aristander who pronounced that the
city would flourish, producing abundant resources
which would nourish its people.
Whilst planning his gateway into the Meditarranean,
Alexander also received the welcome news that Cyprus,
Rhodes and Phoenicia and the Aegean islands of Tenedos,
Lesbos, Kos and Chios had all come over to his side.
As their former pro-Persian leaders were delivered
to him for judgement, Alexander despatched them south
to the Greek garrison at Aswan, accompanied by Callisthenes
whom Alexander sent southward to investigate Aristotle's
theory that the annual Nile flood was a result of
rains to the south.
Having selected the optimum location for Alexandria,
the king then set out west along the coastal road
to Paraetonium (Mersa Matruh) in late January 331
bce. Leaving the main body of the army in Egypt, his
military escort included his friends and Companions
together with local guides, and as they advanced 200
miles along the coast toward Libya they received envoys
from the Greek colony of Cyrene offering their allegiance,
together with lavish gifts including 300 horses and
a golden crown.
Alexander then turned south to follow the ancient
caravan route through the Northern Sahara, which connected
the Mediterranean coastline to central Africa via
the all-important network of oases. The major oasis
at Siwa was also home to the world renowned Oracle
of the god Amun (the Libyan form of Ammon) described
in Herodotus' Histories (II.31-32) which Alexander,
like many other famous men before him, intended to
consult.
After only a few days crossing the sands, the party
ran out of water and were only saved by a sudden violent
rainstorm, interpreted by the expedition historian
Callisthenes as divine intervention. Their sojourn
was then interrupted by one of the regular terrifying
sandstorms sweeping up from the south to obliterate
any recognisable landmarks, and with the track indistinguishable
from desert and the landscape featurless as far as
the eye could see, the guides employed for the journey
were soon lost. Mindful that hostile Persian forces
of Cambyses had been obliterated in exactly the same
circumstances in their attempts to reach Siwa two
centuries before, his companions had been unable to
disuade Alexander from undertaking the perilous journey.
"Fortune, by giving in to him on every occasion, had
made his resolve unshakable and so he was able to
overcome not only his enemies, but even places and
seasons of the year" says Plutarch. And indeed, disaster
was once again averted when two black ravens miraculously
appeared, Alexander exhorting his colleagues to follow
them as they must have been sent by the gods to guide
them. Callisthenes records that the ravens limited
their flight to accommodate the party, even cawing
loudly if their charges deviated from the correct
path. Ptolemy says that their guides took the form
of two snakes, and whilst unsure which, Arrian confesses
that "I have no doubt whatever that he had divine
assistance of some kind".
And so the myth of Alexander had begun, and gained
momentum as tales spread of his supernatural powers
which could summon divine guardians at will. It was
also becoming increasingly plausible to those around
him that he might even be that he claimed to be, the
son of god himself. His divinity would be confirmed
once and for all by consulting the Oracle, his need
for self-validation explaining the risks he had taken
on the perilous desert march.
As the exhausted men entered Siwa, their eyes would
have been filled with the beauty of its lush, fertile
oasis. Shady groves of palms and fruit trees bordered
waters which gushed forth in abundance from subterranean
springs and here in the mystical surroundings of the
Spring of the Sun they refreshed themselves. With
no prior knowledge of their arrival, immense curiosity
and excitement must have greeted the Greek soldiers
emerging weary from the desert, at their head the
first pharoah ever to complete the dangerous journey.
Anxious to visit the Oracle as soon as possible, Alexander
then went immediately to the temple of Amun, its location
on the high rock outcrop of Aghurmi deeply impressing
him. Plutarch says that according to his sources,
Alexander was met by the Siwan high priest who greeted
him with the words "O, paidion", "Oh, my son", but
mispronounced the Greek as "O, pai dios" meaning "Oh,
son of god", much to Alexander's delight and amazement.
The small number of his party waited in the temple
forecourt, and after the high priest announced to
all present that the god was content, they could proceed
with their questions. One of the Macedonians asked
the Oracle whether they might give their king divine
honours, to which the reply came "This would please
Ammon". Then in his capacity as pharaoh and high priest
of all the gods, Alexander was led into to the heavily-scented
darkness of the inner sanctuary to put his questions
personally to the god himself.
When he finally emerged into the daylight, he was
met by his friends anxious to know exactly what had
transpired. Alexander would only say he had been given
'the answer his heart desired'. That the main subject
discussed had been the nature of his divine paternity
seems the most likely, since he was adamant that the
only other person he would tell these 'secret prophecies'
to would be his mother, and as he told Olympias in
a letter this would only be face to face on his return
to Macedonia. Plutarch states that Alexander also
asked if his father Philip II's murder had been avenged,
whereupon "the high priest asked him to choose his
words more carefully, for his father was not a mortal".
He may also have sought divine approval for his new
Egyptian city, whose viability as a trading centre
would also have been confirmed by his checking the
age-old caravan routes to the Mediterranean which
passed through Siwa.
Whatever his questions had been, Alexander was sufficiently
satisfied with the answers to present magnificent
offerings to the Oracle, and over the remaining eight
years of his life would send frequent gifts to its
priests, together with more questions. Always eager
to receive its answers, Alexander, with his unshakable
faith in oracles, would also act on their advice,
whether it suited his purpose or not.
According to his general and biographer Ptolemy, Alexander
then returned to Memphis along the direct route via
the Qattara Depression. On arrival he made sacrifices
to Zeus-Amun, held a great parade of troops and received
500 Greek mercenaries and 400 Thessalian cavalry sent
from his regent Antipater back in Macedonia.
He then made final arrangements for the governing
of the Egypt in his absence. Arrian says that Alexander
had been deeply impressed by Egypt "and the general
strength of the country, but the fact this had been
greater than he expected, induced him to divide the
control of it between a number of his officers, as
too unsafe to put it all in the hands of one man".
Following Aristotle's advice that a king must hold
an even balance between all parties he therefore appointed
a combination of Egyptians, Macedonians and Persians
to rule Egypt along traditional lines.
Alexander left Egypt in the spring (mid-April) of
331 bce a changed man. Although he would never return
alive to see the city he had founded, it would eventually
be his final resting place when his embalmed body
was returned there for burial only 10 years later.
Based on a forthcoming Fildes & Fletcher publication
later this year - watch this space!