Alexander the Great Read Online Free Page B

remarkable. His tunic was purple, interwoven with white at the center, and his gold-embroidered cloak bore a gilded motif of hawks attacking each other with their beaks. From his gilded belt, which he wore in the style of a woman, he had slung his scimitar, its scabbard made of precious stone. His royal diadem, called a cidaris by the Persians, was encircled by a blue ribbon flecked with white. [Ten thousand] spearmen carrying lances chased with silver and tipped with gold followed the king’s chariot, and to the right and left he was attended by some 200 of his most noble relatives. At the end of the column came 30,000 foot-soldiers followed by 400 of the king’s horses.
    Next, at a distance of one stade [a unit of measurement equal to some 185 feet], came Sisygambis, the mother of Darius, drawn in a carriage, and in another came his wife. A troop of women attended the queens on horseback. Then came the fifteen so-called armamaxae [covered wagons] in which rode the king’s children, their nurses and a herd of eunuchs (who are not at all held in contempt by these peoples). Next came the carriages of the 360 royal concubines, these also dressed in royal finery, and behind them 600 mules and 300 camels carried the king’s money, with a guard of archers in attendance. After this column rode the wives of the king’s relatives and friends, and hordes of camp-followers and servants. At the end, to close up the rear, were the light-armed troops with their respective leaders. 4
    The Achaemenid Empire was highly centralized in that the king of kings did whatever he wanted. The Persian ruler also had a special fondness for adding fair-skinned Greek women to his boundless harem. And was also famous for parks that contained rare trees and wild animals he could hunt and slaughter—“Versailles with Panthers,” as historian James Davidson has called it. Aside from a lavish lifestyle his wants consisted only of tribute money and adding to his vast domains, which included Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and some lands farther east. Far from enforcing Iranization in the then-thriving cities of Asia Minor, the Persian emperor allowed the beginnings of Hellenization to occur there.
    The Persian Empire was largely governed by satraps, or imperial governors, who were usually Persians, and the constituent peoples were left alone to pursue their own cultures, languages, and religions. The Persian Empire falls into the category of hydraulic despotisms of antiquity. Eighty percent of the population lived on the land, drawing sustenance from rivers and irrigation systems. The empire also comprised large urban centers numbering up to a million people each. The general populace was poor and lived in mud or sun-dried brick huts. There were temples dedicated to the gods, inhabited by a priestly caste. And above all there were three huge palaces and government centers at Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis.
     
    The Persian Empire was a “soft” empire, resembling the British Empire of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The imposition of a common English culture was far beyond the capacity or even the ambition of the British Empire’s modest-size official personnel. Rulership in the British Empire varied radically. In Africa and parts of India, the British were content with “indirect rule”—leaving government largely in the hands of native chieftains and princes. Hedonism, eroticism, and self-indulgence on the part of the elite were common characteristics of such soft empires.
    The Roman Empire, in contrast, was hard-core. Only two languages—Greek in the East and Latin in the West—were recognized. Every effort was made to impose Greco-Roman culture and religion on the peoples of the Roman Empire. In spite of the failures of the communication network of the time, the Roman Empire was controlled centrally from Rome, through governors who behaved in a demanding and often rapacious manner. The imposition of the Roman lifestyle on its