B - Alexander and his empire

Summary

Satrapal government

When he invaded Asia, Alexander was literally on new ground. There were no precedents for the administration of the territory he annexed, no system inherited from his father. From the beginning he acted not merely as a conqueror but as the proper heir of the Achaemenids. His first gesture, if one may believe the vulgate tradition (Diod. XVII.17.2; Justin XI.5.10), was to make a spear-cast into Asia and claim the land as ‘spear-won’. There is no reason to dismiss the story as apocryphal, and it is to some degree corroborated by Alexander's first administrative acts, which were simply to place his own men over the existing satrapies, preserving the Persian hierarchy of command. In Hellespontine Phrygia he appointed as satrap Calas son of Harpalus, one of the commanders of the expeditionary force of 336, and he ordered the level of tribute to remain unchanged (Arr. 1.17.1). The territory was still subject under precisely the same conditions as under the Persian administration; the ruler was merely Macedonian and not Persian, as was his governor, who retained the Persian title of office (SIG³ 302).

The centre of Persian rule in Asia Minor was Sardes, its impregnable acropolis both fortress and treasury. From earliest times, it seems, this citadel had been occupied by a garrison commander directly appointed by the king, and its garrison was quite separate from the mercenary army maintained by the satrap. The Lydian administration may indeed have been the inspiration for Xenophon's formalised picture of Persian government with its rigid distinction between satrapal and fortress commanders (Xen. Cyrop. VIII.6.1–13; Oec. 4.5–7).