Book 1

Arrian

Translated by Thothica

1 hr 27 min

BOOK I

Preface

Wherever Ptolemy son of Lagus and Aristobulus son of Aristobulus have written the same things about Alexander son of Philip, I record them as wholly true; where their accounts differ, I have chosen the version that seemed to me the more trustworthy and at the same time the more worth telling.
Others, to be sure, have written about Alexander, and there is no one about whom the writers are more numerous or more at variance with one another. But Ptolemy and Aristobulus seemed to me the more reliable in their narrative: Aristobulus because he served on Alexander's campaigns, and Ptolemy because, besides campaigning with him, he was himself a king, so that lying would have been more shameful for him than for any other man; and both because they wrote when Alexander was already dead, when neither necessity nor the hope of reward could move them to set down anything otherwise than as it happened.
Some things recorded by others I have set down as well, where they seemed to me worth relating and not wholly incredible, but only as things said of Alexander. And whoever wonders why, after so many writers, it occurred to me too to compose this history, let him first read through all of theirs, and then come upon mine, and only then wonder.

Chapter 1

It is said that Philip died in the archonship of Pythodelus at Athens, and that Alexander, the son of Philip, then about twenty years of age, succeeded to the kingdom and at once went into the Peloponnese.
There he gathered the Greeks within the Peloponnese and asked of them the command of the expedition against the Persians, which they had already granted to Philip. He received it from all save the Lacedaemonians, who replied that it was not their ancestral custom to follow others, but rather to lead. The city of the Athenians, too, made some show of revolt.
But the Athenians, dismayed at Alexander's first approach, granted him even greater honours than they had bestowed on Philip. He then returned to Macedonia and busied himself with preparations for the crossing into Asia.
At the beginning of spring he marched towards Thrace, against the Triballians and Illyrians, since he had learned that the Illyrians and Triballians were stirring; and as they were his neighbours, it seemed unwise to leave them behind, anything less than wholly subdued, when he was setting out so far from home.
Setting out from Amphipolis, he invaded that part of Thrace held by the Thracians called independent, keeping the city of Philippi and Mount Orbelus on his left. Crossing the river Nestus, on the tenth day, they say, he reached Mount Haemus.
There, at the narrows of the ascent to the mountain, he was met by many armed traders and by the independent Thracians, who had occupied the summit of the Haemus, by which the army's passage lay, prepared to bar his advance.
They had gathered wagons and set them in front of themselves, both to use as a palisade from which to fight off the Macedonians if pressed, and intending also to launch the wagons down upon the Macedonian phalanx where the slope was steepest, as the enemy climbed. Their plan was that the more densely packed the phalanx the wagons struck as they hurtled down, the more violently they would scatter it by the force of their fall.
Alexander took thought how he might cross the mountain most safely; and since the venture seemed unavoidable, there being no other way through, he gave orders to the hoplites that, when the wagons came rushing down the slope, those for whom the breadth of the road allowed should open their ranks and let the wagons pass through;
but those who were caught in a narrow place should crouch together, or even fall to the ground, and lock their shields close, so that the wagons bearing down upon them, leaping over by their momentum, as was likely, should pass without harm. And it fell out just as Alexander had advised and foreseen.
Some opened the phalanx, and the wagons that rolled over the shields did little harm; not a man perished beneath them. Then the Macedonians, taking heart because the wagons they had most dreaded proved harmless to them, fell upon the Thracians with a shout.
Alexander ordered the archers from the right wing to advance before the rest of the phalanx, since the ground was easier there, and to shoot at the Thracians wherever they pressed forward; while he himself, taking the royal guard, the hypaspists, and the Agrianians, led on by the left.
Then the archers, shooting down the Thracians who ran out in front, checked them; and the phalanx, closing in, easily drove from the ground men who were light-armed and ill-equipped barbarians, so that they no longer stood to receive Alexander as he led on from the left, but flung away their weapons each as he could and fled down the mountain.
About fifteen hundred of them were killed, though few men were taken alive, owing to their swiftness and their knowledge of the country; but all the women who accompanied them were captured, along with the children and all the plunder.

Chapter 2

Alexander sent the booty back to the cities on the coast, handing it over to Lysanias and Philotas to dispose of. He himself crossed the summit and advanced through the Haemus into the country of the Triballians, and came to the river Lyginus, which is three days' march distant from the Ister for one travelling towards the Haemus.
Syrmus, king of the Triballians, having long before learned of Alexander's expedition, sent the women and children of the Triballians ahead to the Ister, bidding them cross the river to one of the islands in it; the island is named Peuce.
To this island too the Thracians neighbouring the Triballians had fled long before, as Alexander approached, and Syrmus himself with his people had taken refuge there. But the great mass of the Triballians fled back to the river, to the place from which Alexander had set out the day before.
When he learned of their movement, he turned back and led against the Triballians, and came upon them already encamping. Those caught drew up for battle by the wooded glen along the river. Alexander too drew up his phalanx in depth and led it on, ordering the archers and slingers to run out ahead and shoot and sling at the barbarians, in the hope of drawing them out of the glen into the open ground.
When they came within range and were struck, they rushed out against the archers, eager to come to close quarters with men who were unprotected. But Alexander, having thus drawn them out of the glen, ordered Philotas to take the cavalry from upper Macedonia and charge against their right wing, where they had advanced furthest in the sally, and stationed Heraclides and Sopolis to lead the cavalry from Bottiaea and Amphipolis against the left wing.
The phalanx of the foot, with the rest of the cavalry drawn out in front of the phalanx, he led against the centre. As long as it was a skirmish of missiles on both sides, the Triballians had the worse of it not at all; but when the dense phalanx fell upon them in force, and the cavalry charged no longer with the javelin but thrusting with the very horses, attacking now here, now there, then at last they turned and fled through the glen to the river.
Three thousand died in the flight; few were taken alive, both because there was thick woodland before the river and because nightfall robbed the Macedonians of an exact pursuit. Of the Macedonians themselves, Ptolemy says that eleven cavalry and about forty foot were killed.

Chapter 3

On the third day after the battle Alexander reached the river Ister, the greatest of the rivers of Europe, traversing the most land and shutting off the most warlike peoples—mostly Celtic, where indeed its sources rise, the last of whom are the Quadi and Marcomanni;
then a portion of the Sauromatae, the Iazyges; then the Getae, who believe themselves immortal; then the main body of the Sauromatae; then the Scythians, as far as its mouths, where it empties through five outlets into the Euxine Sea.
There he found that warships had come to him from Byzantium through the Euxine and up the river. Filling these with archers and hoplites, he sailed against the island to which the Triballians and Thracians had fled, and tried to force a landing.
But the barbarians came down to the river wherever the ships put in; and the ships were few, the force aboard them small, the greater part of the island sheer and hard to attack, and the current of the river beside it, hemmed into a narrow channel, swift and difficult to make way against.
So Alexander withdrew the ships and resolved to cross the Ister against the Getae who dwelt beyond it; for he saw many of them gathered on the bank of the Ister, to bar his crossing if he should attempt it—there were some four thousand cavalry and more than ten thousand foot—and at the same time a longing seized him to go beyond the Ister.
He himself went aboard the ships; and stuffing with chaff the leather tent-coverings under which they slept, and gathering all the dugout boats he could from the country—of which there was great abundance, since the riverside dwellers use them for fishing in the Ister, and whenever they travel to one another up the river, and many of them for piracy—he collected as many of these as possible and ferried across upon them as many of the army as could be carried in such a fashion. Those who crossed with Alexander were some fifteen hundred cavalry and four thousand foot.

Chapter 4

They crossed by night where there was a deep field of standing grain, and so the more easily reached the bank unobserved. At dawn Alexander led on through the grain, ordering the infantry to bend down the corn with their sarissas held aslant, and so advance to the uncultivated ground. The cavalry followed as long as the phalanx went on through the grain;
but when they had marched out of the tilled ground, Alexander himself led the cavalry to the right wing, and ordered Nicanor to lead the phalanx in a square.
The Getae did not withstand even the first charge of the cavalry; for Alexander's daring seemed to them past belief, that so easily, in a single night, he had crossed the Ister, the greatest of rivers, without bridging the passage; the close array of the phalanx too was fearful, and the charge of the cavalry violent.
At first they fled to their city, which lay about a parasang from the Ister; but when they saw Alexander pressing on in haste—the phalanx along the river, lest the foot be encircled anywhere by an ambush of the Getae, and the cavalry in front—the Getae abandoned even their poorly fortified city, taking up on their horses as many of the children and women as the horses could carry,
and made off as far as possible from the river into the wilderness. Alexander took the city and all the plunder the Getae had left behind. He gave the plunder to Meleager and Philip to carry back, and himself razed the city; then on the bank of the Ister he sacrificed to Zeus the Saviour, to Heracles, and to the Ister itself, because it had not proved impassable to him, and led all his men back safe to the camp that same day.
There envoys came to Alexander, both from the other independent peoples dwelling along the Ister and from Syrmus, king of the Triballians; and there came too men from the Celts settled on the Ionian Gulf—great of body the Celts, and high in their own esteem; and all declared that they had come desiring Alexander's friendship.
To all of them Alexander gave pledges and received them. He asked the Celts what among human things they most feared, expecting that his own name had reached even to the Celts and yet further, and that they would say they feared him most of all.
But the Celts' answer fell out contrary to his expectation; for, dwelling far from Alexander and inhabiting regions hard to reach, and seeing that Alexander's purpose was bent elsewhere, they said they feared that the sky might one day fall upon them, and that they had come as envoys to Alexander out of admiration, neither from fear nor for advantage. These men he named friends and made allies, and sent them back, remarking only that the Celts were braggarts.

Chapter 5

He himself advanced into the country of the Agrianians and Paeonians. There messengers reached him reporting that Cleitus, son of Bardylis, had revolted, and that Glaucias, king of the Taulantians, had joined him; some reported also that the Autariatae would attack him on the march. For these reasons he resolved to break camp in haste.
Langarus, king of the Agrianians, who even in Philip's lifetime had plainly favoured Alexander and had sent an embassy to him privately, was now present with the hypaspists, the finest and best-armed men he kept about him.
And when he learned that Alexander was inquiring about the Autariatae, who and how many they were, he said there was no need to take account of the Autariatae, for they were the least warlike of the peoples thereabouts; and he himself would invade their country, so that they might be busied about their own affairs. At Alexander's bidding he invaded them, and laid waste their land. So the Autariatae were occupied with their own concerns.
Langarus was greatly honoured by Alexander in other ways, and received the gifts esteemed greatest at the court of the king of the Macedonians; and Alexander agreed to give him his sister Cyna in marriage, when he should come to Pella.
But Langarus, on returning home, died of a sickness. Alexander, marching along the river Erigon, set out for the city of Pellium; for Cleitus had occupied it as the strongest place in the country. When Alexander came before it, he encamped by the river Eordaicus, intending on the next day to assault the wall.
But the men of Cleitus held the heights around the city, which were commanding and wooded, so as to fall upon the Macedonians from every side if they should assault the city; and Glaucias, king of the Taulantians, was not yet present with him.
Alexander then advanced upon the city; and the enemy, having sacrificed three boys, an equal number of girls, and three black rams, set out as though to receive the Macedonians at close quarters, but when they came together they abandoned the positions they held, strong though they were, so that their very sacrificial victims were found still lying there.
That day, then, having shut them up in the city and encamped by the wall, he resolved to blockade them with a wall of circumvallation. But on the next day Glaucias, king of the Taulantians, arrived with a large force. Then Alexander gave up hope of taking the city with the force at hand, since many warlike men had fled into it and many more would press upon him with Glaucias if he attacked the wall.
He sent Philotas, with such of the cavalry as he had, to escort the baggage animals from the camp for foraging. Glaucias, learning of Philotas' movement, marched out against them and occupied the hills around the plain, from which Philotas' men were to forage.
When word came to Alexander that the cavalry and baggage animals were in danger if night should overtake them, he himself, taking the hypaspists, the archers, the Agrianians, and about four hundred cavalry, hastened to their aid; the rest of the army he left by the city, lest, if the whole army withdrew, those in the city should sally out and join Glaucias' men.
Then Glaucias, perceiving Alexander's approach, abandoned the hills, and Philotas' men got safely back to camp. Yet Cleitus and Glaucias still thought they had caught Alexander in difficult ground;
for they held the commanding heights with many cavalry, many javelin-men and slingers, and no small number of hoplites, and those shut up in the city meant to press upon him as he withdrew; while the ground through which Alexander's passage lay seemed narrow and wooded, hemmed on the one side by the river, on the other by a very high mountain with cliffs beneath it, so that not even on a front of four shields could the army pass. Then Alexander drew up his army.

Chapter 6

The depth of the phalanx was one hundred and twenty; on either wing he posted two hundred cavalry, and ordered them to keep silence and to take the word of command sharply when it was given.
First he signalled the hoplites to raise their spears upright, then at a signal to bring them down to the level for the charge, and now to incline the locked spears to the right, now again to the left. He moved the phalanx itself swiftly forward and led it now to one wing, now to the other.
Having thus drawn up and rearranged many formations in a short time, he made on the left a kind of wedge of the phalanx and led it against the enemy. They had long been marvelling at the speed and the good order of his manoeuvres; and now, as Alexander's men came on, they did not stand to receive them, but abandoned the first hills.
Alexander ordered the Macedonians to raise the war-cry and to clash their spears upon their shields; and the Taulantians, still more dismayed at the shout, hurriedly led their army back towards the city.
Alexander, seeing a few of the enemy holding a hill by which his passage lay, ordered his bodyguards and the Companions about him to take up their shields, mount their horses, and ride at the hill; and on reaching it, if those who held the place stood their ground, half were to leap down from their horses and, mingling with the cavalry, fight on foot.
The enemy, seeing Alexander's advance, abandoned the hill and drew off to either side of the mountains. Then Alexander, having seized the hill with the Companions, summoned the Agrianians and the archers, some two thousand in number; and he ordered the hypaspists to cross the river, and after them the battalions of the Macedonians; and as soon as they had crossed, to deploy to the left, so that the phalanx might at once appear dense as it crossed. He himself, on guard, watched from the hill the enemy's movements.
They, seeing the force crossing, came down along the mountains to fall upon Alexander's rearmost men as they withdrew. But as they drew near, Alexander himself charged out with his men, and the phalanx raised the war-cry as if advancing through the river; and the enemy, with all bearing down upon them, gave way and fled. In that moment Alexander led the Agrianians and archers at a run towards the river, and was himself the first to cross.
When he saw the enemy pressing upon his rearmost men, he set the engines on the bank and ordered them to shoot as far as their missiles would carry, and the archers to shoot from the middle of the river, wading in as well. The men of Glaucias did not dare come within range, and the Macedonians meanwhile crossed the river in safety, so that not a man was lost in their withdrawal.
On the third day after this, Alexander, learning that Cleitus and Glaucias were ill encamped, keeping no proper watches in their lines and protected by neither palisade nor ditch, since they supposed he had withdrawn in fear, and that their line was extended to a useless length, crossed the river by night while still unobserved, taking with him the hypaspists, the Agrianians, the archers, and the battalions of Perdiccas and Coenus.
The rest of the army had been ordered to follow; but when he saw his chance to attack, he did not wait for all to come up, but launched the archers and Agrianians. Falling upon the enemy unexpectedly and in column upon their flank—where they were weakest and the charge would strike hardest—they killed some still in their beds and easily caught others as they fled, so that many were cut off there and slain, and many in the disorderly and panic-stricken retreat; and not a few were taken alive.
Alexander's men pursued as far as the mountains of the Taulantians; and those of the enemy who escaped saved themselves stripped of their arms. Cleitus, having at first fled into the city, set it on fire and made off to Glaucias among the Taulantians.

Chapter 7

Meanwhile some of the exiles who had fled from Thebes, entering the city by night at the invitation of certain men within who wished to revolt, seized and killed Amyntas and Timolaus, two of those holding the Cadmeia, who suspected nothing hostile, outside the citadel.
Coming before the assembly, they urged the Thebans to revolt from Alexander, holding out before them the fair old names of liberty, and the prospect of being rid at last of the heavy hand of the Macedonians. They carried the more conviction with the people by insisting that Alexander had died among the Illyrians;
for this report was widespread and came from many quarters—both because he had been absent no short time and because no message had come from him—so that, as is wont to happen in such cases, men, not knowing the truth, guessed at what was most to their liking.
When Alexander learned of the Thebans' doings, it seemed to him by no means a matter to neglect, since he had long held the city of the Athenians in suspicion, and reckoned the Thebans' venture no slight one, if the Lacedaemonians, long since disaffected in spirit, and certain others in the Peloponnese, and the Aetolians, who were unsteady, should join the Thebans in revolt.
Leading on past Eordaea and Elimiotis and the heights of Stymphaea and Paravaea, on the seventh day he reached Pelinna in Thessaly. Setting out thence, on the sixth day he burst into Boeotia, so that the Thebans did not learn he had passed within Thermopylae until he was at Onchestus with his whole army.
Even then those who had brought about the revolt asserted that an army had come from Macedonia under Antipater, and insisted that Alexander himself was dead, and were angry with those who reported that this very Alexander was approaching; it was, they said, another Alexander, the son of Aëropus, who had come.
Alexander, setting out from Onchestus, on the next day advanced upon the city of the Thebans by the precinct of Iolaus, where he encamped, still allowing the Thebans time, in case they should repent of their ill counsels and send an embassy to him.
But so far were they from offering any opening towards an agreement that their cavalry and no small number of light troops ran out from the city as far as the camp and skirmished against the outposts, and killed a few of the Macedonians.
Alexander sent out some of the light troops and archers to check their sally, and these easily checked them when they were already coming up to the very camp. On the next day, taking his whole army and going round towards the gates leading to Eleutherae and Attica, even then he did not come up to the walls themselves, but encamped not far from the Cadmeia, so that aid from the Macedonians might be near for those holding the Cadmeia.
For the Thebans had been blockading the Cadmeia with a double stockade, so that none from without could help those shut up within, nor could the garrison sally out and do them any harm whenever they engaged the enemy outside. Alexander—for he still wished to come to terms with the Thebans through friendship rather than through danger—lingered, encamped by the Cadmeia.
Then those of the Thebans who thought best for the common good were eager to go out to Alexander and obtain pardon for the Theban people for their revolt; but the exiles and those who had recalled them, deeming they would meet with no clemency from Alexander—some of them being moreover Boeotarchs—urged the people altogether to war. Yet not even so did Alexander assault the city.

Chapter 8

But Ptolemy son of Lagus says that Perdiccas, posted in advance to guard the camp with his own battalion, not far from the enemy's stockade, without waiting for Alexander's signal for battle, was himself the first to attack the stockade, and tearing it apart broke in upon the Theban outpost.
Following him, Amyntas son of Andromenes, because he was drawn up with Perdiccas, led on his own battalion too, when he saw Perdiccas had advanced within the stockade. Seeing this, Alexander, lest they be cut off alone and endangered by the Thebans, led on the rest of the army.
He signalled the archers and Agrianians to run within the stockade, but kept the royal guard and the hypaspists still outside. There Perdiccas, forcing his way to pass within the second stockade, was himself struck down and fell, and was carried off in a bad state to the camp, and barely recovered from his wound. His men, however, breaking in along with Alexander's archers, drove the Thebans into the hollow road leading by the Heracleium.
They followed the Thebans as far as they retreated towards the Heracleium; but when the Thebans turned again with a shout, a flight of the Macedonians ensued. Eurybotas the Cretan, the captain of the archers, fell, and about seventy of the archers themselves; the rest fled to the Macedonian royal guard and the royal hypaspists.
At this moment Alexander, seeing his own men in flight and the Thebans in their pursuit broken in array, charged them with the phalanx in close order. They drove the Thebans within the gates; and the Thebans' flight became so headlong that, thrust through the gates into the city, they could not close them in time. For along with them burst within the wall those of the Macedonians who pressed close upon the fugitives, the walls being for the most part stripped of defenders because of the many outposts.
Passing into the Cadmeia, some came out thence by the Ampheion together with those holding the Cadmeia into the rest of the city, while others, climbing the walls—now held by those who had burst in with the fugitives—ran down into the marketplace at full speed.
For a little while those of the Thebans posted at the Ampheion held their ground; but when the Macedonians, and Alexander appearing now here, now there, pressed upon them from every side, the Theban cavalry broke through the city into the plain and escaped, while the foot saved themselves each as he could.
Then in their fury—not so much the Macedonians as the Phocians and Plataeans and the other Boeotians—they slew the Thebans, who no longer defended themselves, in utter disorder: falling upon some in their houses, others who had turned to resist, others as they supplicated at the shrines, sparing neither women nor children.

Chapter 9

This calamity of a Greek city, by the greatness of the captured city and the swiftness of the event, struck both the sufferers and the doers, and no less the other Greeks than those who shared in the deed itself, with consternation.
For the disaster that befell the Athenians at Sicily, even though in the number of the dead it brought no smaller a calamity upon the city, yet because their army was destroyed far from home, and was mostly allied rather than their own, and because their city was left to them, so that afterwards they long held out in the war against the Lacedaemonians and their allies and the Great King—that disaster neither gave the sufferers themselves an equal sense of the calamity nor caused the other Greeks the like consternation at the blow.
And again the Athenian defeat at Aegospotami was a naval one, and the city, reduced to humility by nothing else than the demolition of the long walls, the surrender of most of her ships, and the loss of her empire, nevertheless preserved her ancestral form of government, and not long after recovered her former power, so as to rebuild the long walls and again command the sea, and in their turn save from the utmost dangers the very Lacedaemonians, then so fearful to them and so nearly the destroyers of their city.
The Lacedaemonians' disaster at Leuctra and Mantinea struck them by the unexpectedness of the calamity rather than by the number of the dead; and the assault upon Sparta made by the Boeotians and Arcadians under Epaminondas terrified the Lacedaemonians themselves and their associates more by the strangeness of the sight than by the exactness of the danger.
The capture of Plataea, again, by the smallness of the city and the fewness of those caught in it—since most had long before escaped to Athens—was no great calamity. And the capture of Melos and Scione brought something of an island nature, but afforded no great shock to the whole of Greece.
But for the Thebans the suddenness of their revolt, made with no calculation, and the capture coming swiftly and without toil to those who took the city, and the great slaughter—such as comes from kinsmen pursuing an ancient enmity—and the utter enslavement of a city pre-eminent at that time among the Greeks in power and in military repute, were not unreasonably referred to the wrath of heaven;
as though the Thebans were at long last paying this penalty for their betrayal of the Greeks in the Persian War, for their seizure of Plataea during a truce and the utter enslavement of its city, for the slaughter, un-Greek and brought about through the Thebans, of those who had surrendered themselves to the Lacedaemonians, and for the desolation of the very ground on which the Greeks, drawn up against the Medes, had thrust the danger from Hellas; and because the Thebans had themselves by their vote sought to destroy the Athenians, when the question of enslaving their city was proposed among the allies of the Lacedaemonians.
For even before the calamity many portents were said to have been sent from heaven, which at the time were disregarded, but which afterwards memory referred to a reckoning, as having long foreshown what was to come.
To the allies who had shared in the work, to whom Alexander entrusted the settlement of Theban affairs, it was resolved to hold the Cadmeia with a garrison, to raze the city to the ground, to apportion the land—save what was sacred—among the allies, and to enslave the children and women and whoever of the Thebans was left, except the priests and priestesses and those who were guest-friends of Philip or Alexander or proxenoi of the Macedonians.
They say too that Alexander preserved the house of the poet Pindar and Pindar's descendants, out of reverence for Pindar. Besides this, the allies resolved to restore and fortify Orchomenus and Plataea.

Chapter 10

When the Thebans' fate was reported to the other Greeks, the Arcadians, as many as had set out from home to help the Thebans, condemned to death those who had induced them to the aid; the Eleans recalled their exiles, because they were well-disposed to Alexander;
the Aetolians, sending embassies by tribes, begged to obtain pardon, because they too had made some stir in response to the Thebans' messages; and the Athenians, while the Great Mysteries were being held, when some of the Thebans arrived straight from the deed, were so dismayed that they abandoned the Mysteries and brought their goods in from the fields into the city.
The people, gathering in assembly, on the motion of Demades chose ten envoys from all the Athenians and sent them to Alexander—such men as they knew were most acceptable to him—to announce, though out of season, that the Athenian people rejoiced he had returned safe from the Illyrians and Triballians, and that he had punished the Thebans for their revolt.
He answered the embassy graciously in other respects, but wrote a letter to the people demanding the surrender of Demosthenes and Lycurgus and their party; he demanded too Hypereides, Polyeuctus, Chares, Charidemus, Ephialtes, Diotimus, and Moerocles;
for he declared these men responsible both for the disaster the city suffered at Chaeronea and for the offences committed afterwards, on Philip's death, against himself and against Philip; and he showed that they were no less responsible for the Thebans' revolt than the Thebans themselves who had risen.
The Athenians, however, did not give up the men, but sent another embassy to Alexander, begging him to remit his anger against those demanded. And Alexander relented, whether out of reverence for the city, or out of his eagerness for the expedition into Asia, not wishing to leave anything suspect among the Greeks. Charidemus alone, of those demanded and not surrendered, he ordered into exile; and Charidemus fled to Asia, to the Great King Darius.

Chapter 11

Having accomplished these things, Alexander returned to Macedonia. He offered to Olympian Zeus the sacrifice established since the time of Archelaus, and held the Olympic games at Aegae; some say he held games in honour of the Muses as well.
At this time it was reported that the statue of Orpheus, son of Oeagrus the Thracian, in Pieria sweated continuously; and the seers gave various interpretations of the portent, but Aristander, a man of Telmissus and a seer, bade Alexander take heart; for it signified that poets of epic and song, and all who busy themselves with music, would have much labour in composing and singing of Alexander and Alexander's deeds.
At the beginning of spring he marched towards the Hellespont, entrusting affairs in Macedonia and among the Greeks to Antipater, while he himself led foot, with light troops and archers, not much more than thirty thousand, and over five thousand cavalry. His march lay by the Cercinitis lake towards Amphipolis and the mouths of the river Strymon.
Crossing the Strymon, he passed Mount Pangaeum, by the road towards Abdera and Maroneia, Greek cities founded upon the sea. Thence he came to the river Hebrus and crossed it easily.
From there, through the country of the Paeti, he came to the river Melas. Crossing the Melas too, he reached Sestus, twenty days in all from his setting out from home. Coming to Elaeus, he sacrificed to Protesilaus at his tomb, because Protesilaus was thought to have been the first of the Greeks who set out with Agamemnon against Ilium to disembark in Asia; and the purpose of the sacrifice was that his own landing might be more fortunate than that of Protesilaus.
Parmenion was appointed to ferry across the greater part of the foot and the cavalry from Sestus to Abydus; and they crossed in a hundred and sixty triremes and many other round-built ships. The fuller account holds that Alexander put in from Elaeus to the Harbour of the Achaeans, that he himself steered the flagship across, and that, when he was in the middle of the passage of the Hellespont, he sacrificed a bull to Poseidon and the Nereids and poured a libation into the sea from a golden bowl.
They say too that he was the first to step ashore in arms onto the land of Asia, and that he set up altars—both where he had set out from Europe and where he had landed in Asia—to Zeus of the Landing, to Athena, and to Heracles. Going up to Ilium, he sacrificed to Athena of Ilium, dedicated his own panoply in the temple, and took down in its place some of the sacred arms still preserved from the Trojan War.
These, they say, the hypaspists carried before him into battle. It is also held that he sacrificed to Priam at the altar of Zeus of the Enclosure, deprecating the wrath of Priam against the race of Neoptolemus, which descended to himself.

Chapter 12

As he went up to Ilium, Menoetius the pilot crowned him with a golden crown, and after him Chares the Athenian, coming from Sigeium, and certain others, some Greeks, some of the country. Others say that he also crowned the tomb of Achilles, and that Hephaestion, they say, crowned the tomb of Patroclus. And Alexander, as the story goes, counted Achilles happy in having Homer as the herald of his fame to later memory.
And indeed Achilles was, not least on this account, to be counted happy by Alexander, that for Alexander himself, in contrast to his other good fortune, this one thing was wanting, nor were Alexander's deeds set forth before men in worthy fashion: no one composed them in prose, nor in verse; nor was Alexander sung in lyric, in which Hieron and Gelon and Theron and many others in no way comparable to Alexander were sung, so that Alexander's deeds are far less known than the meanest of the deeds of old;
since even the march up of the Ten Thousand with Cyrus against King Artaxerxes, and the sufferings of Clearchus and those taken with him, and their march down, which Xenophon led, are far more renowned among men, for Xenophon's sake, than Alexander and Alexander's deeds.
And yet Alexander campaigned neither under another's command, nor in flight from a Great King did he overcome those who barred his march down to the sea; but there is no other single man who displayed deeds so many or so great, in number or in magnitude, whether among Greeks or barbarians. This, I say, was my motive in setting out upon this history, not deeming myself unworthy to make Alexander's deeds plain before men.
Whoever I am that judge thus of myself, I have no need to record my name, for it is not unknown among men, nor my country, nor my family, nor whether I held any office in my own land; but this I do record, that for me these writings are, and have been from my youth, country and family and offices; and on this account I do not deem myself unworthy of the first place among writers of the Greek tongue, even as Alexander among men of arms.
From Ilium he came to Arisbe, where his whole force, having crossed the Hellespont, was encamped, and on the next day to Percote; on the day after, passing Lampsacus, he encamped by the river Practius, which, flowing from the Idaean mountains, empties into the sea between the Hellespont and the Euxine. Thence he came to Hermotus, passing the city of Colonae.
Scouts were sent ahead of the army; their commander was Amyntas son of Arrhabaeus, who had the squadron of the Companions from Apollonia, of which Socrates son of Sathon was squadron-leader, and four squadrons of the so-called scouts. On the march the city of Priapus was surrendered by its inhabitants, and he sent men under Panegorus son of Lycagoras, one of the Companions, to take it over.
The Persian commanders were Arsames, Rheomithres, Petenes, Niphates, and with them Spithridates, satrap of Lydia and Ionia, and Arsites, governor of Hellespontine Phrygia. These had encamped near the city of Zeleia with the barbarian cavalry and the Greek mercenaries.
As they deliberated about the situation, when it was reported that Alexander had crossed, Memnon the Rhodian advised them not to risk battle against the Macedonians, who far surpassed them in infantry, and with Alexander himself present, while Darius was absent; rather they should advance and lay waste the fodder, trampling it with the cavalry, and burn the crops upon the land, sparing not even the cities themselves; for Alexander would not stay in the country for lack of supplies.
But Arsites is said to have declared in the council of the Persians that he would not suffer a single house of the people under his charge to be burned; and the Persians sided with Arsites, since they had some suspicion of Memnon, that he was deliberately drawing out the war for the sake of the honour he held from the King.

Chapter 13

Meanwhile Alexander advanced upon the river Granicus with his army in order: he drew up the phalanx of the hoplites in a double line, led the cavalry on the wings, and ordered the baggage to follow behind. Hegelochus led those who were to reconnoitre the enemy in advance, having the lancer cavalry and about five hundred light troops.
Alexander was not far from the river Granicus when the scouts, riding up in haste, reported that the Persians were drawn up beyond the Granicus, posted as for battle. Then Alexander began to draw up his whole army for fighting; but Parmenion came up and spoke to Alexander thus:
“It seems to me, O King, good for the present to encamp upon the bank of the river as we are. For I do not think the enemy, being far inferior in infantry, will dare to bivouac near us, and so they will allow the army to cross the passage easily at dawn; for we shall get across before they form their array.
But as things now stand, it seems to me we shall not attempt the work without danger, since we cannot lead the army across the river on a broad front. Many parts of it, you see, are deep, and these banks, as you observe, are very high and steep in places;
so the enemy's cavalry, drawn up in a phalanx, will fall upon us as we come out in disorder and in column, where we are weakest. And the first stumble would be grievous for the present and perilous for the decision of the whole war.”
But Alexander said: “These things I know, Parmenion; yet I should be ashamed, if, having crossed the Hellespont easily, this little stream—so disparaging the Granicus by the name—should hinder us from crossing as we are.
This I count unworthy both of the glory of the Macedonians and of my own readiness in the face of danger; and I think the Persians would take heart, as being a match for the Macedonians, if they suffered nothing in the moment worthy of their fear.”

Chapter 14

Having said this, he sent Parmenion to command the left wing, while he himself went to the right. There were posted in advance, on the right, Philotas son of Parmenion, with the Companion cavalry, the archers, and the Agrianian javelin-men; Amyntas son of Arrhabaeus, with the lancer cavalry, was posted with Philotas, and the Paeonians and the squadron of Socrates.
Next to these were posted the hypaspists of the Companions, led by Nicanor son of Parmenion; then the phalanx of Perdiccas son of Orontes; then that of Coenus son of Polemocrates; then that of Craterus son of Alexander; then that of Amyntas son of Andromenes; then that commanded by Philip son of Amyntas.
On the left, first were posted the Thessalian cavalry, led by Calas son of Harpalus; next the allied cavalry, commanded by Philip son of Menelaus; next the Thracians, commanded by Agathon; and adjoining these, on foot, the phalanxes of Craterus, Meleager, and Philip, as far as the centre of the whole array.
The Persian cavalry numbered about twenty thousand, and the foreign mercenary foot a little fewer than twenty thousand. They drew up their cavalry along the river, extending it in a long line upon the bank, and the foot behind the cavalry; for the ground above the bank was commanding. Where they saw Alexander himself—for he was conspicuous by the brilliance of his arms and the awed attendance of those about him—holding the part opposite their left, there they posted the squadrons of cavalry close along the bank.
For a time the two armies, standing at the edge of the river, kept still through dread of what was to come, and there was deep silence on both sides. For the Persians waited for the Macedonians to enter the passage, meaning to fall upon them as they came out;
but Alexander leapt upon his horse, and calling on those about him to follow and to be brave men, ordered the scout cavalry and the Paeonians, with one battalion of foot, to charge into the river first, led by Amyntas son of Arrhabaeus, and before these the squadron of Socrates, led by Ptolemy son of Philip, which happened to hold the command of the whole cavalry that day.
He himself, leading the right wing, with trumpets sounding and the men raising the war-cry to Enyalius, entered the passage, keeping his line always slanting in the direction the current drew it, so that the Persians should not fall upon his flank as he came out, but that he might engage them with the phalanx as best he could.

Chapter 15

The Persians, where Amyntas and Socrates first reached the bank, themselves hurled missiles from above—some casting javelins from the bank, from the higher ground, into the river, others going down along its lower parts to the very water.
There was a pushing of cavalry, some striving to come out of the river, others to bar their coming out; a great flinging of javelins from the Persians, while the Macedonians fought with their spears. But, far outnumbered, the Macedonians fared ill in the first onset, defending themselves from insecure footing and at the same time from below, out of the river, while the Persians held the higher bank; moreover, the strongest of the Persian cavalry was posted there, and Memnon's sons, and Memnon himself with them, faced the danger.
The first of the Macedonians who closed with the Persians were cut down by them, brave men though they showed themselves, all save those who fell back towards Alexander as he drew near. For Alexander was now close at hand, leading the right wing, and was the first to charge into the Persians, where the whole mass of cavalry and the Persian leaders themselves were posted; and around him a fierce battle was joined.
Meanwhile battalion after battalion of the Macedonians crossed, now without difficulty. And the fight, though on horseback, resembled rather an infantry battle; for horses were locked with horses and men with men, the Macedonians striving to thrust the Persians wholly from the bank and force them into the plain, the Persians to bar their coming out and to push them back into the river.
From this point Alexander's men began to have the advantage, both by their general strength and skill, and because they fought with spears of cornel-wood against javelins.
There Alexander's spear was shattered in the fight; and he asked Aretes, one of the royal grooms, for another spear; but his too was broken, and he was fighting, not without distinction, with the half of his broken spear; and showing this to Alexander, he bade him ask another. Demaratus, a Corinthian, one of the Companions about him, gave Alexander his own spear.
Taking it, and seeing Mithridates, Darius' son-in-law, riding far in front of the rest and leading on with him a wedge of cavalry, Alexander rode out himself before the others, and striking Mithridates in the face with his spear, brought him down. At this moment Rhoesaces rode at Alexander and struck Alexander's head with his scimitar;
and he sheared off a piece of the helmet, but the helmet held the blow. Alexander brought this man too down, driving his spear through the breastplate into his chest. Spithridates had already raised his scimitar against Alexander from behind, when Cleitus son of Dropidas, forestalling him, struck him on the shoulder and cut off Spithridates' shoulder, scimitar and all. Meanwhile more of the cavalry, as many as could, kept coming out of the river and joining Alexander's men.

Chapter 16

And the Persians, now struck on every side in the face, both themselves and their horses, by the spears, and thrust back by the cavalry, and harmed too by the light troops mingled among the cavalry, gave way first at the point where Alexander fought in the forefront. When the centre had given way, the wings of the cavalry on either side were broken too, and then there was a headlong flight. Of the Persian cavalry about a thousand were killed.
The pursuit was not long, because Alexander turned aside against the foreign mercenaries, whose mass, where it had first been posted, remained, more from amazement at the unexpected turn than from any firm resolve. Leading the phalanx against them and ordering the cavalry to fall upon them on every side, in a short time he cut them down in the midst, so that not one escaped, save such as might lie hidden among the dead; and about two thousand were taken alive.
There fell too of the Persian leaders Niphates and Petenes, Spithridates satrap of Lydia, Mithrobuzanes governor of the Cappadocians, Mithridates Darius' son-in-law, Arbupales son of Darius son of Artaxerxes, Pharnaces brother of Darius' wife, and Omares the commander of the mercenaries. Arsites fled from the battle to Phrygia, and there died by his own hand, as the story goes, because he seemed to the Persians the cause of the defeat then suffered.
Of the Macedonians, about twenty-five of the Companions died in the first onset; and bronze statues of these stand at Dium, which Alexander ordered Lysippus to make—Lysippus, who alone was chosen to portray Alexander. Of the other cavalry over sixty fell, and of the foot about thirty.
These Alexander buried the next day with their arms and other adornment; to their parents and children he granted exemption from taxes on the land and from all other public services in person and from contributions on their property. He took great care also of the wounded, himself visiting each, examining the wounds, asking how each had been wounded, and allowing them to tell and even to boast of what they had done.
He buried too the Persian leaders; and he buried the Greek mercenaries who had died fighting on the enemy's side. But as many of these as he took prisoner he bound in fetters and sent to Macedonia to labour, because, being Greeks, they had fought against Greece on behalf of the barbarians, contrary to the common resolutions of the Greeks.
He sent also to Athens three hundred Persian panoplies as an offering to Athena on the Acropolis, and ordered this inscription to be set upon them: “Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks, except the Lacedaemonians, from the barbarians who dwell in Asia.”

Chapter 17

Having appointed Calas to be satrap of the province Arsites had governed, and having ordered the same tributes to be paid as had been paid to Darius, he bade those barbarians who came down from the mountains and surrendered themselves to depart, each to his own home.
The men of Zeleia he absolved of blame, since he judged they had served with the barbarians under compulsion; and he sent Parmenion to take over Dascylium, and Parmenion took it over, the garrison having abandoned it. He himself advanced upon Sardis;
and when he was about seventy stades from Sardis, there came to him Mithrenes, the commandant of the citadel at Sardis, and the most powerful of the Sardians, the latter surrendering the city, Mithrenes the citadel and the treasure.
Alexander himself encamped by the river Hermus, which is about twenty stades distant from Sardis; and he sent Amyntas son of Andromenes to take over the citadel of Sardis. Mithrenes he kept with him in honour, and granted to the Sardians and the other Lydians the use of their ancient Lydian laws, and left them free.
He went up himself to the citadel, where the Persian garrison had been; and the place seemed to him strong, for it was very high and sheer on every side and fenced with a triple wall. He intended to build on the citadel a temple of Olympian Zeus and to set up an altar.
As he was considering which part of the citadel was most suitable, suddenly, though it was the season, a storm arose, with violent thunder, and rain fell from heaven over the place where the palace of the Lydian kings stood; and it seemed to Alexander that he had been shown by a god where the temple of Zeus should be built, and so he gave orders.
He left as governor of the citadel of Sardis Pausanias, one of the Companions; Nicias to oversee the assessment and collection of the tributes; and Asander son of Philotas as governor of Lydia and the rest of Spithridates' province, giving him cavalry and light troops as many as seemed sufficient for the present.
Calas and Alexander son of Aëropus he sent into the country of Memnon, with the Peloponnesians and most of the other allies, except the Argives, who were left at Sardis to guard the citadel.
Meanwhile, when news of the cavalry battle was reported, the mercenaries garrisoning Ephesus fled, taking two triremes of the Ephesians, and with them Amyntas son of Antiochus, who had fled from Macedonia to escape Alexander, having suffered nothing from Alexander, but out of ill-will towards him, and disdaining himself to suffer any indignity at his hands.
On the fourth day Alexander reached Ephesus, restored the exiles who had been driven from the city on his account, dissolved the oligarchy and established a democracy; and he ordered the tributes which they paid to the barbarians to be paid instead to Artemis.
The people of Ephesus, when the fear of the oligarchs was removed, set out to kill those who had brought in Memnon, those who had plundered the temple of Artemis, those who had thrown down the statue of Philip in the temple, and those who had dug up from the marketplace the tomb of Heropythus, the liberator of the city.
Syrphax and his son Pelagon and the sons of Syrphax's brothers they dragged from the temple and stoned; but the rest Alexander forbade them to seek out further and punish, knowing that the people, if granted this, would kill some along with the guilty, and unjustly—some out of enmity, some for plunder of their goods. And if for anything else, so for what was done at Ephesus, Alexander was at that time well esteemed.

Chapter 18

Meanwhile men came to him from Magnesia and Tralles surrendering their cities; and he sent Parmenion, giving him two thousand five hundred foot of the mercenaries, about as many Macedonians, and about two hundred of the Companion cavalry. He sent Alcimachus son of Agathocles to the Aeolian cities with a force no smaller, and to all the Ionian cities that were still under the barbarians.
He ordered the oligarchies everywhere to be dissolved, democracies to be set up, the laws of each people restored to them, and the tributes remitted which they had paid to the barbarians. He himself remained at Ephesus, offered sacrifice to Artemis, and held a procession with his whole army under arms and drawn up as for battle.
On the next day, taking the rest of the foot, the archers, the Agrianians, the Thracian cavalry, and of the Companions the royal squadron and three others besides, he set out for Miletus; and the so-called outer city he took at the first assault, the garrison having abandoned it. Encamping there, he resolved to wall off the inner city.
For Hegesistratus, to whom the garrison of the Milesians had been entrusted by the King, had earlier sent letters to Alexander surrendering Miletus; but now, taking heart at the Persian army not being far off, he purposed to keep the city for the Persians. But Nicanor, leading the Greek fleet, anticipated the Persians, putting in three days before them at Miletus, and anchored with a hundred and sixty ships at the island of Lade, which lies off Miletus.
The Persian ships, arriving too late, when their commanders learned that Nicanor's men had occupied Lade first, anchored by Mount Mycale. For Alexander had occupied the island of Lade beforehand, not only with the anchorage of his ships, but also by ferrying across to it the Thracians and about four thousand of the other mercenaries. The barbarian ships were about four hundred.
Even so Parmenion urged Alexander to fight at sea, hoping that the Greeks would prevail with their fleet, and persuaded too by something of an omen, that an eagle had been seen sitting on the shore by the stern of Alexander's ships. For, he said, if they won they would gain greatly for the whole cause, and if they lost the defeat would not be of great moment, since even so the Persians held the sea; and he himself said he was willing to go aboard the ships and share the danger.
But Alexander replied that Parmenion was mistaken both in judgement and in his unreasonable interpretation of the sign; for to fight at sea with few ships against many more, with no calculation, and with his fleet untrained against the practised fleet of the Cyprians and Phoenicians, was folly;
and he would not commit the experience and daring of the Macedonians upon an unstable element to the barbarians; and if defeated at sea, the harm to the first repute of the war would be no small thing, especially as the Greeks would revolt, emboldened by the report of a naval disaster.
Putting these considerations together, he declared it untimely to fight at sea; and he interpreted the divine sign otherwise: the eagle was indeed in his favour, but because it appeared sitting on the land, it seemed to him rather to signify that he would master the Persian fleet from the land.

Chapter 19

Meanwhile Glaucippus, a man of repute in Miletus, sent to Alexander by the people and the mercenaries—to whom rather the city had been entrusted—said that the Milesians were willing to offer their walls and harbours in common to Alexander and the Persians, and asked that on these terms he raise the siege.
Alexander ordered Glaucippus to depart quickly into the city and to tell the Milesians to prepare to fight at dawn. He himself set his engines against the wall, and having thrown down a part of the walls in a short time and shaken down another, brought his army up to mount where the wall had fallen or been shaken, while the Persians from Mycale all but looked on as their friends and allies were besieged.
Meanwhile Nicanor's men, watching from Lade the advance of Alexander's troops, rowed into the harbour of the Milesians, keeping close to land, and at the mouth of the harbour, where it was narrowest, anchoring their triremes prow-on and packed close, shut off the Persian fleet from the harbour and the Milesians from any help from the Persians.
Then the Milesians and the mercenaries, the Macedonians now pressing upon them from every side, some flung themselves into the sea and, lying back upon their shields, swam across to a nameless little island lying off the city; others, embarking in skiffs and hastening to outstrip the Macedonian triremes, were caught at the mouth of the harbour by the triremes; but the greater number perished in the city itself.
Alexander, the city now in his hands, sailed himself against those who had fled to the island, ordering ladders to be carried on the prows of the triremes, so as to make the landing from the ships against the sheer sides of the island as against a wall.
But when he saw that the men on the island were ready to risk all, pity seized him for them, since they appeared noble and faithful; and he made a truce with them on condition that they should serve with him; these were Greek mercenaries, about three hundred. The Milesians themselves, as many as had not fallen in the capture of the city, he released and granted them their freedom.
The barbarians, setting out from Mycale, by day sailed against the Greek fleet, hoping to draw them into a sea-fight; but by night they anchored at Mycale, in no good position, since they were compelled to fetch water from far off, from the mouths of the river Maeander.
Alexander guarded the harbour of the Milesians with his ships, lest the barbarians force the entrance, and sent to Mycale Philotas, with the cavalry and three battalions of foot, ordering him to bar the men from the ships from landing. They, for lack of water and other supplies, being in effect besieged on their ships, sailed off to Samos. Thence, having provisioned themselves, they sailed again against Miletus;
and they drew up most of their ships in the open before the harbour, in case they might somehow lure the Macedonians out to sea, while five of them sailed into the harbour between the island of Lade and the camp, hoping to find Alexander's ships empty, since they had learned that the crews were for the most part dispersed from the ships, some for firewood, some to gather supplies, and some posted to forage.
But though part of the crews were absent, Alexander, manning ten ships from those at hand, when he saw the five Persian ships approaching, sent them in haste against them, ordering them to charge prow-on. The men in the five Persian ships, when they saw the Macedonians unexpectedly putting out against them, turned and fled from afar towards the rest of the fleet.
The ship of the Iassians was captured, crew and all, in the flight, being slow; but the other four reached their own triremes first. So the Persians sailed away from Miletus having accomplished nothing.

Chapter 20

Alexander resolved to disband his fleet, both for lack of money at the time and because he saw his own fleet was no match for the Persian, and so he was unwilling to risk any part of his force. Besides, he reckoned that, now holding Asia with his land army, he no longer needed a fleet, and that by taking the coastal cities he would dissolve the Persian fleet, since they would have nowhere to recruit their crews nor any point of Asia to make for. Thus too he interpreted the eagle, that it had signified he would master the ships from the land.
Having done this, he set out for Caria, since it was reported that no slight force of barbarians and mercenaries had gathered at Halicarnassus. Taking at the first assault all the cities between Miletus and Halicarnassus, he encamped before Halicarnassus, about five stades from the city, as for a long siege.
For the nature of the place made it strong, and wherever anything seemed wanting to its security, all this Memnon, who was present—already appointed by Darius commander of lower Asia and of the whole fleet—had long since provided; many mercenary foreign soldiers were left in the city, and many Persians too, and the triremes lay at anchor in the harbour, so that much help came from the sailors for the works of defence.
On the first day, as Alexander approached the wall by the gates leading to Mylasa, there was a sally of the men from the city and a skirmish; but Alexander's men, running out to meet them, easily checked them and shut them up in the city.
Not many days later Alexander, taking the hypaspists, the Companion cavalry, the battalions of Amyntas, Perdiccas, and Meleager of the foot, and besides these the archers and Agrianians, went round the city to the part towards Myndus, both to view the wall, in case it should be more assailable there for an assault, and at the same time in case he might seize Myndus by a sudden stroke unawares; for it would be no small advantage for the siege of Halicarnassus if Myndus became his; and there was some understanding offered him by the Myndians, if he came up by night unobserved.
He himself, according to the agreement, came up to the wall about midnight; but when nothing was yielded from within, and his engines and ladders were not at hand, since he had set out not for a siege but as for a city to be surrendered by treachery, even so he brought up the Macedonian phalanx, ordering them to undermine the wall. The Macedonians threw down one tower, but its fall did not lay the wall bare;
and the men from the city, defending themselves stoutly, and many having now come up by sea from Halicarnassus to their aid, made it impossible for Alexander to seize Myndus offhand and by a sudden stroke. So Alexander returned, having accomplished none of the things for which he had set out, and again applied himself to the siege of Halicarnassus.
First he filled in the ditch which they had dug before the city, about thirty cubits wide and fifteen deep, so that the bringing-up might be easy both of the towers, from which he meant to skirmish against the defenders of the wall, and of the other engines with which he purposed to shake down the wall.
The ditch was filled in without difficulty, and the towers were being brought up. But the men of Halicarnassus, sallying out by night to set fire to the towers and the other engines that had been brought up or were not far from being brought up, were without difficulty shut back within the walls by the Macedonian guards and by those who, roused at the work itself, came to the rescue.
There fell of them about one hundred and seventy, and Neoptolemus son of Arrhabaeus, brother of Amyntas, one of those who had deserted to Darius; of Alexander's soldiers about sixteen were killed, but the wounded were about three hundred, because, the sally being made at night, they were the less protected against wounds.

Chapter 21

Not many days later two Macedonian hoplites of Perdiccas' battalion, messing together and drinking together, each extolled himself and his own deeds greatly in talk. Then a rivalry seized them, and the wine too warmed them somewhat, so that, arming themselves, on their own account they assaulted the wall at the citadel turned most towards Mylasa, more to display their own strength than to make the contest against the enemy with danger.
Some of those in the city, seeing them, two in number and approaching the wall without calculation, ran out against them. They killed those who came near, and skirmished against those who stood off, outmatched by their numbers and by the difficulty of the ground, since the enemy's onset and skirmishing came from higher ground.
Meanwhile some others of Perdiccas' soldiers ran out to meet them, and others from Halicarnassus, and a fierce battle was joined at the wall; and those who had sallied out were again shut by the Macedonians within the gates. The city came near to being taken.
For the walls at that time were not under careful guard, and two towers and the curtain between them, fallen to the ground, would have afforded the army no difficult passage onto the wall, had it set its whole effort to the work; and the third tower, already shaken, would not have been hard to throw down by undermining. But they forestalled this by building within, in place of the fallen wall, a crescent-shaped wall of brick, easily done by many hands.
Against this Alexander brought up his engines the next day; and again there was a sally of the men from the city to set fire to the engines. Part of the wicker-screens near the wall and one of the wooden towers were burned, but the rest were guarded by the men of Philotas and Hellanicus, to whom their watch had been entrusted; and when Alexander appeared in the sally, they cast away the torches they had brought out and most of them threw down their arms and fled within the wall.
At first, indeed, by the very nature of the ground, which was commanding, they had the advantage, and skirmished against the defenders of the engines not only frontally but from the towers, which, left standing on either side of the ruined wall, allowed them to skirmish on the flank and all but in the rear against those who advanced to the wall they had built in its place.

Chapter 22

Not many days later, as Alexander again brought up his engines against the inner brick wall and was himself overseeing the work, there was a sally in full force from the city: some by the ruined wall, where Alexander himself was posted, others by the Triple Gate, where the Macedonians were not at all expecting it.
The one party flung torches at the engines and whatever else might kindle a flame and raise it high; but as Alexander's men charged stoutly upon them, and the engines from the towers hurled great stones and shot out missiles, they were without difficulty turned and fled into the city.
There was no little slaughter here, in proportion as more had run out and with greater daring. For some, coming to close quarters with the Macedonians, were killed; others perished about the fallen wall, the passage being too narrow for their numbers and the ruins of the wall affording them difficult crossing.
Against those who had run out by the Triple Gate Ptolemy, the royal bodyguard, came out, leading with him the battalion of Adaeus and Timander and some of the light troops; and these too without difficulty routed the men from the city.
It befell these also, in their withdrawal, fleeing across the narrow bridge made over the ditch, that the bridge itself was crushed by the press, and many of them, falling into the ditch, perished, some trampled by their own men, others struck from above by the Macedonians.
The greatest slaughter befell at the very gates, because the closing of the gates, fearful and made before the right moment—for they dreaded lest the Macedonians, pressing close upon the fugitives, should burst in with them—shut out many even of their own from entrance, whom the Macedonians slew at the very walls.
The city came near to being taken, had not Alexander recalled the army, still wishing to save Halicarnassus, in case something friendly should be offered by the Halicarnassians. Of the men from the city about a thousand died, and of Alexander's about forty, among them Ptolemy the bodyguard, Clearchus the captain of archers, Adaeus the chiliarch, and others of the not undistinguished Macedonians.

Chapter 23

Then the Persian commanders, Orontobates and Memnon, meeting together and judging from the circumstances that they could not hold out long under the siege—seeing part of the wall already fallen, part shaken down, and many of the soldiers either killed in the sallies or disabled by wounds—
with these things in mind, about the second watch of the night they set fire to the wooden tower which they had built to face the enemy's engines, and to the porticoes in which their missiles were stored. They threw fire also upon the houses near the wall;
and the flame caught some of these too, carried far from the porticoes and the tower, the wind also driving it that way. Of the men, some withdrew to the citadel on the island, others to Salmacis, the citadel so called.
When this was reported to Alexander by some who deserted from the work, and he himself saw the great fire, though it was about midnight that this was happening, even so he led out the Macedonians and killed those still setting fire to the city, but ordered that whoever of the Halicarnassians was found in the houses should be spared. Day was now breaking, and he saw the citadels
which the Persians and mercenaries had occupied; these he gave up trying to besiege, reckoning that the siege would cost him no little delay by the nature of the ground, and that it was of no great moment now that he had already taken the whole city.
Having buried those who had died in the night, he ordered those in charge of the engines to take them away to Tralles; and he himself razed the city to the ground, and leaving a garrison of this and the rest of Caria—three thousand mercenary foot and about two hundred cavalry, with Ptolemy as their commander—set out for Phrygia.
As satrap of all Caria he appointed Ada, daughter of Hecatomnus and wife of Hidrieus, who, being also her brother, had lived with her according to the custom of the Carians. Hidrieus, dying, entrusted affairs to her, it being established in Asia ever since Semiramis that women too should rule over men. But Pixodarus drove her from power and held affairs himself.
When Pixodarus died, Orontobates, sent by the King, held the rule of the Carians, being Pixodarus' son-in-law. Ada held Alinda alone, one of the strongest places in Caria; and when Alexander invaded Caria she came to meet him, surrendering Alinda and adopting Alexander as her son. Alexander entrusted Alinda to her and did not disdain the name of son; and when he had taken Halicarnassus and mastered the rest of Caria, he gave her the rule of the whole.

Chapter 24

There were some of the Macedonians serving with Alexander who had married shortly before the expedition; and Alexander judged that these too were not to be neglected, but sent them away from Caria to winter in Macedonia with their wives, appointing over them Ptolemy son of Seleucus, one of the royal bodyguards, and of the generals Coenus son of Polemocrates and Meleager son of Neoptolemus, because they too were among the newly wed;
with orders that, when they themselves returned and brought back those sent with them, they should levy as many cavalry and foot from the country as possible. And by this act, if by any other, Alexander won favour among the Macedonians. He sent also Cleander son of Polemocrates to the Peloponnese to gather soldiers.
Parmenion he sent to Sardis, giving him a regiment of the Companions, the Thessalian cavalry, the other allies, and the wagons to lead; and he bade him advance from Sardis into Phrygia. He himself went towards Lycia and Pamphylia, so as, by mastering the coast, to render the enemy's fleet useless.
First on the way he took at the first assault Hyparna, a strong place holding a garrison of foreign mercenaries; and the mercenaries from the citadel went out under truce. Then, invading Lycia, he won over the Telmissians by agreement, and crossing the river Xanthus took Pinara, the city of Xanthus, and Patara, which were surrendered, and about thirty other smaller towns.
Having done this, at the very height of winter he invaded the country called Milyas, which is part of greater Phrygia but at that time was reckoned with Lycia, so ordered by the Great King. There envoys of the Phaselites came concerning friendship and to crown Alexander with a golden crown; and most of the lower Lycians sent embassies treating for the same.
Alexander ordered the Phaselites and Lycians to surrender their cities to those sent for this purpose; and they were all surrendered. He himself, coming a little later to Phaselis, helped them take a strong fort built against their country by the Pisidians, from which the barbarians, setting out, did much harm to those of the Phaselites who tilled the land.

Chapter 25

While he was still about Phaselis, it was reported that Alexander son of Aëropus was plotting against him—a man who was among the Companions and at that time commanded the Thessalian cavalry. This Alexander was brother of Heromenes and Arrhabaeus, who had shared in the murder of Philip;
and at that earlier time, when he was under accusation, Alexander acquitted him, because he had come among the first of his friends to him when Philip died, and putting on his breastplate had accompanied him into the palace; and afterwards he kept him about himself in honour, sending him as general to Thrace, and when Calas the commander of the Thessalian cavalry was sent off to a satrapy, appointed him to command the Thessalian cavalry. The matter of the plot was reported thus.
Darius, when Amyntas, deserting to him, brought certain messages and letters from this Alexander, sent down to the coast Sisines, a Persian among his trusted men, ostensibly to Atizyes the satrap of Phrygia, but in truth to confer with this Alexander and to give him pledges that, if he should kill King Alexander, Darius would make him king of Macedonia and would give him, besides the kingdom, a thousand talents of gold.
But Sisines, captured by Parmenion, told Parmenion the purpose for which he had been sent; and Parmenion sent him under guard to Alexander, and Alexander learned the same from him. Gathering his friends, he laid before them the question what should be decided about Alexander.
And it seemed to the Companions that he had not formerly been well advised in entrusting the strongest of his cavalry to an untrustworthy man, and that now he should put him out of the way quickly, before he should become more acceptable to the Thessalians and make some revolt with them. Something divine too alarmed them.
For while Alexander was still besieging Halicarnassus, as he was resting at midday, a swallow flew about over his head, twittering loudly and settling now here, now there on the bed, singing more noisily than was its wont;
and he, being weary, could not be roused from sleep, but, troubled by the sound, brushed the swallow gently away with his hand; yet it was so far from flying off when struck that it settled on Alexander's very head and did not leave off until Alexander was fully awake.
Alexander, not making light of the swallow, communicated it to Aristander of Telmissus, the seer; and Aristander said it signified a plot from one of his friends, and signified too that it would be brought to light; for the swallow is a bird that lives among men and is friendly to them and more talkative than any other bird.
Putting these things together with what came from the Persian, he sent to Parmenion Amphoterus, Alexander's son and Craterus' brother. He sent with him some of the Pergaeans to guide the way; and Amphoterus, putting on local dress so as not to be recognized on the road, reached Parmenion unobserved;
and he brought no letters from Alexander—for it seemed best not to write in plain words about such a matter—but reported by word of mouth what had been enjoined upon him. And so this Alexander was arrested and kept under guard.

Chapter 26

Alexander, setting out from Phaselis, sent part of his army through the mountains to Perge, where the Thracians had made a road for him through a passage otherwise difficult and long; he himself led those about him along the sea, by the shore. This road is passable only when the winds blow from the north; if south winds prevail, it is impossible to travel along the shore.
But after south winds, strong north winds, not without the divine help—as he himself and those about him interpreted it—blew up and made the passage easy and swift. As he advanced from Perge, envoys of the Aspendians, with full powers, met him on the road, surrendering the city, but asking that he not bring in a garrison.
As to the garrison they obtained their request and departed; but he ordered them to give the army fifty talents for pay, and the horses which they reared as tribute for the King. Agreeing to hand over both the silver and the horses, they departed. Alexander went on towards Side.
The Sidetans are Cymaeans, from Cyme in Aeolis; and they tell this story of themselves: that when the first colonists sent from Cyme put in to that land and disembarked to found a city, they at once forgot the Greek tongue, and immediately uttered a barbarous speech—not that of the neighbouring barbarians, but a peculiar one of their own, never before existing; and ever since the Sidetans have spoken a barbarous tongue unlike that of their neighbours.
Leaving a garrison in Side, he advanced upon Syllium, a strong place holding a garrison of foreign mercenaries and of the native barbarians themselves. But he was unable to take Syllium by an offhand assault; and when it was reported to him on the road that the Aspendians were unwilling to perform any of the agreed terms—neither to hand over the horses to those sent, nor to count out the money—and that they had brought their goods from the country into the city, shut the gates against Alexander's men, and were repairing the walls where they had decayed, on learning this he set out against Aspendus.

Chapter 27

The greater part of Aspendus is built upon a strong and sheer height, and beside the very height the river Eurymedon flows; but they had also, around the height in the low ground, no few dwellings, with a wall, not great, thrown round them.
The wall, at once, when they learned Alexander was approaching, was abandoned by all who dwelt there, along with the houses which, built in the low ground, they did not think they could defend; and they themselves fled together to the height. When Alexander arrived with his force, passing within the deserted wall, he encamped in the houses left empty by the Aspendians.
The Aspendians, seeing Alexander himself come beyond their expectation, and the camp all around them on every side, sent envoys begging to come to terms on the same conditions as before. Alexander, seeing the place strong, and himself not prepared for a long siege, even so did not agree with them on the same terms;
but ordered them to give as hostages their most powerful men, and the horses they had before agreed upon, and a hundred talents instead of the fifty, and to obey the satrap appointed by Alexander, and to pay tribute yearly to the Macedonians, and to submit to arbitration concerning the land which, belonging to their neighbours, they were accused of holding by force. When they had conceded all this to him, he set out for Perge, and thence made for Phrygia;
his march lay past the city of Telmissus. These people are by race Pisidian barbarians, and dwell in a very lofty place, sheer on every side, and the road past the city is difficult.
For a mountain reaches down from the city as far as the road, and there breaks off in the road itself, while facing it is another mountain no less sheer; and these mountains make as it were gates upon the road, so that even a small garrison holding these mountains can make the passage impossible. And then the Telmissians, having come out in full force, held both mountains.
Seeing this, Alexander ordered the Macedonians to encamp there, just as they were, judging that the Telmissians would not remain in full force when they saw his men bivouacking, but that most of them would withdraw to the city, which was near, leaving only a guard upon the mountains. And it fell out as he had guessed; for most of them went off, but the guards remained.
Against these he at once led the archers, the battalions of the javelin-men, and such of the hoplites as were lighter-armed. They did not stand to be shot at, but abandoned the place; and Alexander, crossing the narrows, encamped near the city.

Chapter 28

There came to him envoys of the Selgians. These too are Pisidian barbarians and dwell in a great city, and are themselves warlike; but because they happened to be enemies of the Telmissians from of old, they had sent an embassy to Alexander concerning friendship. With these Alexander made a treaty, and thereafter found them faithful in all things.
Despairing of taking Telmissus in a short time, he set out for Sagalassus. This too was no small city; Pisidians inhabited it as well, and, all the Pisidians being warlike, these were thought to be the most warlike of all; and at that time they had occupied the hill before the city, which was no less strong than the wall for fighting from, and awaited the attack.
Alexander drew up the Macedonian phalanx thus: on the right wing, where he himself was posted, he had the hypaspists, and next to these the foot-companions, extending the line as far as the left, with the command of his own portion of the array assigned to each general for that day.
On the left he posted as commander Amyntas son of Arrhabaeus. There were posted in advance, on the right wing, the archers and the Agrianians; on the left, the Thracian javelin-men, led by Sitalces; for his cavalry was of no use in the difficult ground. The Telmissians, who had come to their aid, were drawn up with the Pisidians.
When Alexander's men, having attacked the mountain held by the Pisidians, were at the very steepest part of the ascent, the barbarians fell upon them in companies on either flank, where the approach was easiest for themselves and most difficult for the enemy. The archers, being neither well-armed nor having drawn near first, they routed; but the Agrianians held.
For the Macedonian phalanx was now drawing near, and before it Alexander was seen. When the battle came to close quarters, the barbarians, being unarmoured, were borne against hoplites, and, wounded on every side, fell; then they gave way.
About five hundred of them were killed; for being nimble and skilled in the ground, they withdrew without difficulty, while the Macedonians, by the weight of their arms and ignorance of the roads, were not bold in pursuit.
Alexander, keeping close to the fugitives, took their city by storm. Of his own men, Cleander the general of the archers died, and about twenty others. Alexander then led against the rest of the Pisidians; some of their forts he took by force, others he won over by agreement.

Chapter 29

Thence he went towards Phrygia, past the lake named Ascania, in which salt forms of itself, and the inhabitants use it and have no need of the sea for this purpose; and on the fifth day he reached Celaenae. At Celaenae there was a citadel, sheer on every side, held by a garrison from the satrap of Phrygia—a thousand Carians and a hundred Greek mercenaries.
These sent an embassy to Alexander, undertaking that, if help did not reach them by a day on which they agreed—naming the day—they would surrender the place. And this seemed to Alexander more profitable than to besiege a citadel altogether impossible to assail.
He left a garrison of about fifteen hundred soldiers at Celaenae. Remaining there ten days, and appointing Antigonus son of Philip satrap of Phrygia, and Balacrus son of Amyntas as general over the allies in his place, he himself set out for Gordium. He sent word to Parmenion to come there to meet him with his force; and Parmenion came with the force.
The newly wed who had been sent to Macedonia came to Gordium, and with them another army, levied afresh, which Ptolemy son of Seleucus, Coenus son of Polemocrates, and Meleager son of Neoptolemus led: three thousand Macedonian foot, about three hundred cavalry, two hundred Thessalian cavalry, and a hundred and fifty Eleans, led by Alcias the Elean.
Gordium is in Hellespontine Phrygia, and lies upon the river Sangarius; the sources of the Sangarius are in Phrygia, but it flows through the country of the Bithynian Thracians and empties into the Euxine Sea. There too an embassy of the Athenians came to Alexander, begging him to release to them the prisoners who had been taken at the river Granicus, Athenians serving with the Persians, and were then bound in Macedonia with the two thousand;
and concerning these they departed at that time unsuccessful. For it did not seem safe to Alexander, while the war against the Persian still continued, to relax anything of the fear among the Greeks who had not disdained to campaign against Greece on behalf of the barbarians; but he answered that when present affairs had gone well, then they might come as envoys concerning the same matter.