I am not quite certain about that. While I don't dispute the Macedonian soldiers were not unmotivated by the thought of plunder and "booty", as many soldiers must have been in ancient times, I don't think we should dismiss that the Macedonians were not as patriotically motivated as the other Greeks. It appears Alexander appealed to multiple motives in his speeches to his troops, at times for patriotism, at times for plunder and booty, at times for dominion and power, and at times for sheer pride.amyntoros wrote:
As for one's country being behind the army, well I'm not sure if that mattered too much to the Macedonians. To the Greeks with the army, maybe, because of the way the campaign was promoted. But I suspect that for the Macedonians it was more about the "booty".
Interesting question.
Best regards,
None of these are necessarily contradictory.
If you believe the torching of Persepolis was a generally applauded act by the Macedonians, or that the slaughter of the Branchidae really did occur, you can almost get the sense from these passages that the Macedonians took an almost rabidly enthusiastic relish in it. We can probably even go back to see Philip's campaign at Phocis and the crown-wearing Apollo-serving Macedonians to see that they could be appealed to on a level other than strictly booty. I think personal honour had a lot to do with it as well, for such a militaristic society, it must have been inconceivable, for the nobility at least, to be left behind.
In most of the literature I have read about military campaigns in my ventures as an armchair general, one theme usually stands out. The most successful armies of any era, and their leaders, usually manage to capture the morale and spirit of their troops to some ideal or cause that causes them to transcend what is a basically inherently evil and undesirable task, the killing of your fellow man and all the barbarities that war causes and getting maimed or killed yourself. It may be patriotism, it may be to avenge an injustice, it may be religious, it may even be to protect an ideal (human rights for instance). Even in campaigns against larger and more powerful armies, morale has the effect, as Napoleon famously said, of "As three is to the one" against materiel and other factors in battle. Booty and plunder, outside of short plundering expeditions, doesn't usually do it as far as going on an extended and long-standing campaign and even then, some of the campaigns are usually submerged under broader strategic objectives, to destroy or adversely affect your enemies ability to wage war; or as a subtext to the larger objective, such as the Muslim border raids agains the Byzantines in the 8th and 9th century, because they were "infidels".
I am sure the motivations were a combination of different things. Patriotism, booty and personal honour must have been the lions share though, and not necessarily in that order.