In the summer of 330, the Persian king Darius III Codomannus was killed by his relative Bessus, who hoped to make an end to the war against the western invaders, led by the Macedonian king Alexander. Now that he could no longer demand the extradiction of Darius, Alexander had no excuse to continue the struggle. However, Bessus' followers started to call him king, and this was something that Alexander, who claimed to be king of Persia, could not tolerate. He started to pursue Bessus, who retired to Bactria and Sogdia.
Bessus moved from Aria to Margiana and reached Bactria along the route that was later known as the Silk road. He commanded many mounted archers, a kind of warriors to which the Macedonians had not yet found an answer. The backbone of their army was the infantry. Therefore, Alexander had to make a detour, and Bessus may have thought that he was left in peace.
In the winter of 330/329, Alexander reached the Hindu Kush range, where he founded a new city, Alexandria. The mountain passes were still covered with snow when the Macedonians crossed into Bactria. Bessus was completely surprised and retired to the north, across the river Oxus (the modern Amudar'ya), and Alexander easily captured the capital of Bactria, Bactra. Neither the desert between this city and the Oxus, nor the river itself proved a great obstacle to the Macedonians.
Now, the enemy lost heart. Bessus' courtiers Spitamenes and Datames arrested their leader and handed him over to Ptolemy, Alexander's friend and future biographer. This was Spitamenes' first known action, and nobody will have expected that he was to become Alexander's most dangerous enemy in this region.
The Macedonian army proceeded through Sogdia to the river that was locally known as Jaxartes (the modern Syrdar'ya). At the beginning of July 329, Alexander founded a new city, called Alexandria Eschatê, 'the furthest Alexandria' (modern Khodzent in Tajikistan). This was to be a garrison against the nomadic tribes north of the river, the Sacae. Five years after the beginning of the war, Alexander's triumph seemed complete. The Macedonian high command must have been unpleasantly surprised when messengers arrived, telling that the Sogdians were revolting and besieging Maracanda, the capital of Sogdia. Their leader was Spitamenes.
The interesting thing about his rebellion is that the name of the chief rebel suggests a connection with the Persian religion, Zoroastrianism. Its founder, the legendary prophet Zarathustra, was also called Spitama. It is very probable that the invaders had insulted the native population that had initially supported him. One of our sources mentions that a cavalry commander named Stasanor had tried to make an end to the Zoroastrian practice of exposing the dead to dogs and vultures, and this may well have been the cause of the Sogdian revolt. Another cause may have been cattle raiding: it is impossible that the invading army did not confiscate cows - the only sin that was condemned explicitly in the Zoroastrian creed.
Spitamenes commanded an efficient army of mounted archers, and was able to roam across the steppe country. Alexander's men were a lot slower, and an easy prey for the Sogdian rebel.
On hearing the news of the revolt, Alexander decided to go to back to lift the siege of Maracanda, but he was immediately attacked in his rear by the Sacae. He was forced to return again, to deal with the nomadic tribes in the north. Meanwhile, he sent an army of Greek mercenaries to Maracanda. This corps was never heard of again, and it took some time before the Macedonians understood that Spitamenes had completely annihilated it. No one had survived to bring the news.
After a minor victory over the Sacae, Alexander had the opportunity to deal with the revolt of Spitamenes. With his elite cavalry, the Companions, he covered 290 kilometers through desert country in three days, and reached Maracanda. The siege was now over, but Spitamenes was gone. There were rumors that he had gone to the west, but nobody could give more accurate information.
Alexander had lost many men, and was unable to do something. He decided to stay in Maracanda and wait for reinforcements. This offered Spitamenes, who had found allies among the tribe of the Dahae, an opportunity to attack Bactra (winter 329/328). He created great havoc, but was finally repelled by the satrap of Bactria, Artabazus, a Persian who belonged to Alexander's most trusted courtiers.
In the spring, Alexander sent out his general Craterus to the west, to fortify the oasis Margiana. This was necessary, because this would prevent Spitamenes from attacking Alexander's rear, Aria. Craterus founded a city and fortified five other towns, all situated on defensible hills.
This meant the end of the war against Spitamenes. He needed oases like Margiana, and was now cut off from his resources. In December 328, the Macedonian commander Coenus defeated him, and when the Sogdians and Dahae heard that the Macedonian main force was approaching, they killed their leader. His head was sent to Alexander.... 1
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A diverse array of people, from farmers and pastoralists to urban dwellers, had sought refuge [from Alexander's army and the Graeco-Macedonian colonists] in cities or surrounding mountains. Alexander's columns swept through, accepting surrenders or storming hold-outs. The territory was converted to basilike, which was parcelled out to the more compliant of the Sogdians. Enslaved to these, or in larger numbers to the Graeco-Macedonian colonists who constituted the new urban elite of the area, were the Sogdians who had resisted and were captured. Local princes or 'hyparchs', such as Ariamazes, were held liable for all resistance and so were killed. This, in fact, eliminated the ancestral claims of the native aristocracy, stripped away local autonomy, and allowed Alexander to replace a 'feudal' structure based on tribes and tribal chieftans with a stricter system of control: chora—cities—satrap—king.
Alexander's inability to complete quickly such a change became painfully obvious. While these new cities were being founded, Sogdian resentment increased and Spitamenes demonstrating the futility of closing the frontier against his allies. A group of dispossessed Sogdian refugees joined with Spitamenes and his Scythian allies for an attack into Bactria proper. Because no hostilities had yet disturbed this region, a garrison in one of the Bactrian towns was easily caught by surprise and destroyed. Spitamenes dared next to raid Bactra, where a mere eighty mercenary cavalry had been left with the wounded as a garrison. Thus, at about the same moment that Artabazus the satrap had been sent north with Coenus into Scythia to capture Spitamenes, the Sogdian commander was actually carrying away booty from the satrapal capital. The irony may well have been calculated, and certainly it underscores a miscalculation on the part of Alexander.
The king's military honor was rescued in some measure by the timely arrival of Craterus. This resourceful commander was able to overtake the Scythians, and to engage at least part of their force in battle. Craterus won the engagement, though many of the enemy horsemen escaped into the desert. Bactria itself never stirred into a major rebellion, but Spitamenes had proven his ability to spread the warfare far and wide.
In the meantime, the second phase of the season's fighting came to a close and the divisions of Alexander's army made their way back again to Maracanda. While waiting for Artabazus and Hephaestion to arrive, the king met with embassies from the Scythian tribes which dwelt beyond the Massagetae and Dahae. These nomads, less likely to be directly menaced by Alexander's policies in Sogdiana, were willing to offer peaceful assurances to the king. They may have been urged to press Alexander's case upon the leaders of Spitamenes' Scythian allies, as later events might suggest....
Quite unlike the previous year, the king was determined to keep his army in Sogdiana in hopes that Spitamenes and the Scythians might be caught in battle while they were seeking out supplies. Coenus was given overall command of the Maracandan region with his strength augmented by the troops of Meleager and of Amyntas. Meanwhile, Alexander led his own contingent to Xenippa, a fertile frontier zone between Scythia and Sogdiana where numerous villages could provide the winter provisions that might attract Spitamenes' men. The king's approach alarmed the natives, including a large mass of 'refugees' who were likely to be in services with Spitamenes. Some 2500 of these reportedly fled, and then fell upon Amyntas [the new satrap] in a sudden attack. This engagement is probably the same as that described by Arrian (4. 17. 4-7), where Spitamenes was pressed by Alexander's tactics and so attacked Coenus and his colleagues near the Sogdian frontier. The Scythians and Sogdians were beaten, and most of the former escaped back into the desert. Later Spitamenes suffered the fate of other famous Sogdian leaders whose standing depended upon their latest successes or failures—he, too, was betrayed and ignobly beheaded.* ...
It was thus during the winter of 328/327 B.C. that Alexander 'recovered' from the many setbacks of the previous year and a half. What, we may ask, accounts for the apparent change in the king's fortunes? The death of Spitamenes was certainly significant, but not decisive. Conflicts between the Scythians and Alexander continued. It was rather the king's treatment of the remaining Sogdian chieftans which ameliorated the situation. Whereas Ariamazes and his kinfolk had earlier been executed by Alexander, it is notable that Oxyartes and the others were handled very differently. Even before Spitamenes was dead, Alexander had softened his stand against the rulers of these remaining 'rocks'....
Rather than punish the native 'hyparchs' who still opposed him, Alexander actually restored them to their ancestral positions. Their fortresses were not plundered by the winter-weary troops of Alexander; their families (including Spitamenes') were not exterminated; their followers were not enslaved; their lands were not parcelled out to other natives who had surrendered long ago.... 2
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