Aria (330 BC)
Alexander moved back across the Alborz into Parthia and advanced eastwards to the borders of Aria. At Susia (=Tus) he met the satrap Satibarzanes (d.330 BC), who submitted and was confirmed in office, ruling from the capital Artacoana (near modern Herat). He was to cooperate with a Macedonian officer Anaxippus commanding a unit of forty mounted javelin men; Alexander was not expecting serious trouble here.
Hearing the news that Bessus had laid claim to the Achaemenid throne, Alexander marched west along the foothills of the Kopet Dag massif with the intention of invading Bactria from the west. Almost as soon as he left Susia, revolt erupted behind him. Satibarzanes murdered the small force of Anaxippus and declared Aria’s loyalty to Artaxerxes IV.
Leaving Craterus to bring up the bulk of the army, Alexander took a contingent and hurried back to Artacoana. Satibarzanes fled to Bactria with two thousand cavalry, leaving his people to defend a wooded hill citadel near the capital. The Macedonians started a fire, forcing their surrender. With Aria back in his hands again, Alexander appointed another Persian nobleman Arsaces as satrap.
Drangian and Arachosia (330 BC)
After his experience with Satibarzanes, Alexander decided to deal with the other regicide, Barsentes, the satrap of Drangiana and Arachosia. Alexander marched south to Phrada, the capital of Drangiana (=Sistan); Barsentes fled to India.
While the Macedonians were in Phrada, a soldier named Dimnus and others including a royal bodyguard Demetrius (d.330 BC) were plotting to kill Alexander. The conspiracy was revealed when Dimnus tried to recruit his lover Nicomachus, but he confided in his brother Cebalinus who in turn asked Philotas to inform the king. When nothing happened Cebalinus persuaded a royal page Metron to smuggle him into Alexander’s presence so that he could tell the story.
Dimnus killed himself (or was killed) when the guards came for him, and the other conspirators were arrested. Philotas protesting his innocence was tried before an assembly of six thousand Macedonians. He was found guilty of treason and executed. By Macedonian law all the male relatives of a man convicted of treason shared the sentence of death. Alexander’s emissaries, outstripping the news of Philotas’ execution, killed Parmenion and read the king’s orders to his troops. At this time, too, Alexander of Lyncestis, Antipater’s son in law, arrested in 333 BC as a pretender, was brought before the assembly, tried, found guilty and condemned to death.
Alexander now surrounded himself with his friends or relatives: Hephaestion (c.356-324 BC) who was made the chiliarch (second-in-command), Craterus, Black Cleitus (c.375-328 BC), Perdiccas (d.320 BC) and Coenus (d.326 BC) between them shared what Parmenion and Philotas had once controlled. Philotas’ position as commander of the Companion cavalry was split between Black Cleitus and Hephaestion; Demetrius was replaced by Ptolemy (84; r.304-283 BC).
To commemorate the failure of the plot Alexander renamed the capital Prophthasia (‘Anticipation’). He resumed his march south and then eastward along the fringe of the Dashti Margo (‘Desert of Death’). On the way he encountered the Ariaspians, a people that Cyrus called ‘Benefactors’ (euergetae) for the aid they gave to him in the 530s BC; now they provisioned Alexander over the winter of 330/29 BC. He then followed the Helmand Valley eastward in the direction of Arachosia. Near modern Kandahar he founded Alexandria Arachosia.
While in Ariaspia news came that Satibarzanes had joined with Arsaces and fostered another rebellion in Aria. Rather than interrupt his pursuit of Bessus, Alexander sent Erigyius, Caranus (d.329 BC), Phrataphernes and Artabazus to deal with it. By spring 329 BC the joint force had ended the revolt. Erigyius killed Satibarzanes in single combat. Alexander sent one of his Companions, Stasanor of Cyprus, to replace Arsaces as satrap of Aria. Stasanor had to fight for over a year before he finally captured Arsaces.
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