Book 3

1.1. Meanwhile Alexander, having sent Cleander with money to hire soldiers from the Peloponnese, set the affairs of Lycia and Pamphylia in order and led his army to the city of Celaenae.

1.2. Through the middle of the town in those days flowed the Marsyas, a river made famous by the fabulous songs of the Greeks.

1.3. Its spring runs out from the very summit of a mountain and falls upon the rock below with a great roar of waters; then, spreading out, it waters the surrounding fields, clear and carrying only its own current.

1.4. And so its colour, like that of a calm sea, gave occasion to the poets' fiction: for it is recorded that the nymphs, held there by love of the river, take their seat upon that rock.

1.5. So long as it flows within the walls it keeps its own name; but when it rolls out beyond the fortifications, driving its waters with greater force and volume, men call it the Lycus.

1.6. Alexander entered the city, which had been abandoned by its own people; but the citadel, into which they had fled, he set himself to besiege, sending ahead a herald to declare that, unless they surrendered, they would suffer the utmost.

1.7. They led the herald up onto a tower, lofty both by its position and by its construction, bade him observe how great the height was, and report to Alexander that he and the inhabitants did not measure the fortifications by the same estimate: they knew themselves to be impregnable, and would in the end die for their loyalty.

1.8. But when they saw that the citadel was being invested and that everything was growing more constricted for them day by day, they made a truce of sixty days, on the condition that, unless within that time Darius sent them help, they would surrender the city; and when no relief was sent from him, on the appointed day they gave themselves up to the king.

1.9. Next there arrived envoys of the Athenians, asking that the men captured at the river Granicus be restored to them. He replied that he would order not only these but all the other Greeks as well to be returned to their own people once the Persian war was finished.

1.10. But with Darius pressing upon his mind — for he had learned that Darius had not yet crossed the Euphrates — he drew together all his forces from every quarter, intending to face the crisis of so great a war with his whole strength.

1.11. It was through Phrygia that the army was led: thronged with more villages than cities, it then contained the palace of Midas, once renowned.

1.12. The city is called Gordium, past which flows the river Sangarius, set at an equal distance from the Pontic and the Cilician sea.

1.13. Between these two seas we find that the breadth of Asia is at its narrowest, the land being squeezed on either side into a slender neck. And because this isthmus clings to the mainland, yet is for the most part girdled by the waves, it gives the appearance of an island; and were it not that a thin barrier stands in the way, it would join the seas that now it divides.

1.14. Alexander, having brought the city under his control, entered the temple of Jupiter. He looked upon the chariot in which Gordius, the father of Midas, was held to have ridden, of an outfitting that was by no means different from that of cheaper carts in common use.

1.15. Remarkable was the yoke, bound by a number of knots tangled into one another and concealing their fastenings.

1.16. When the inhabitants then declared that an oracle had given out a prophecy, that whoever loosed the inextricable bond would gain possession of Asia, a desire arose in his mind to fulfil that prophecy.

1.17. Around the king stood both a crowd of Phrygians and of Macedonians, the one in suspense with expectation, the other anxious at the king's rash confidence: for since the chain of fastenings was so tightly bound that neither by reasoning nor by sight could it be discerned where the knot began or where it hid itself, in setting himself to loose it he had cast a worry over them, lest his attempt should turn into an idle omen.

1.18. He, after struggling not at all long with the hidden knots, said, "It makes no difference how they are loosed," and, cutting through all the thongs with his sword, either eluded the oracle's prophecy or fulfilled it.

1.19. Then, having resolved to fall upon Darius wherever he might be, in order to leave matters safe behind him he put Amphoterus in command of the fleet along the coast of the Hellespont, and over the land forces Hegelochus, with orders to free Lesbos, Chios, and Cos from the enemy's garrisons.

1.20. To these men five hundred talents were assigned for the conduct of the war; six hundred were sent to Antipater and those who were guarding the Greek cities; and under the treaty ships were levied from the allies to keep guard over the Hellespont.

1.21. For he had not yet learned that Memnon had departed this life — Memnon, on whom he had bent all his anxieties, well aware that everything would be plain sailing if no movement were made by him.

1.22. And now they had come to the city of Ancyra: there, after holding a muster of his forces, he entered Paphlagonia. Joined to this people were the Heneti, from whom some believe the Veneti to derive their origin.

1.23. This whole region submitted to the king; and, having given hostages, they obtained release from being compelled to pay the tribute which they had not paid even to the Persians.

1.24. Calas was set over this region, while Alexander himself, taking with him those who had recently arrived from Macedonia, made for Cappadocia.

2.1. But Darius, when the death of Memnon was reported to him, was moved no otherwise than was fitting; and, abandoning every other hope, he resolved to decide the issue himself: for he condemned everything that had been done through his generals, judging that several of them had lacked diligence, and all of them fortune.

2.2. And so, pitching camp near Babylon, in order that his men might undertake the war with the greater spirit, he set the whole of his forces before their eyes; and, having drawn around them a rampart that could contain a multitude of ten thousand men under arms, he took the count of his troops after the example of Xerxes.

2.3. From sunrise until night the columns, as they had been divided off, passed within the rampart. Then, sent out from there, they had occupied the plains of Mesopotamia, a throng of cavalry and infantry well-nigh innumerable, presenting an appearance even greater than their number. Of the Persians there were a hundred thousand, among whom the cavalry made up thirty thousand.

2.4. The Medes had ten thousand cavalry and fifty thousand infantry.

2.5. Of the Barcanians the cavalry numbered two thousand, armed with double axes and light shields very like the small round buckler; ten thousand infantry, with cavalry armed in like fashion, followed them.

2.6. The Armenians had sent forty thousand infantry, with seven thousand cavalry added. The Hyrcanians had filled out six thousand cavalry, outstanding men, as such things go among those nations, with a thousand Tapurian horsemen added.

2.7. The Derbices had armed forty thousand infantry: most carried spears tipped with bronze or iron, while some had hardened wood in the fire. These too were accompanied by two thousand cavalry from the same nation.

2.8. From the Caspian Sea had come a foot-army of eight thousand and two hundred cavalry. With them were other obscure nations: two thousand infantry, and they had provided double that number of cavalry.

2.9. To these forces were added thirty thousand Greeks engaged for pay, men of outstanding youth. For as to the Bactrians and Sogdians and Indians and the other dwellers along the Red Sea — names of peoples unknown even to the Persians — haste forbade their being summoned.

2.10. Nothing was wanting to him so little as a multitude of soldiers. Then, exceedingly delighted at the sight of all this assembled host, while his courtiers with their habitual flattery puffed up his hope, he turned to Charidemus, an Athenian skilled in war and hostile to Alexander on account of his exile — for at Alexander's bidding he had been driven out from Athens — and began to ask him whether he seemed sufficiently equipped to crush the enemy.

2.11. But Charidemus, forgetful both of his own condition and of the king's pride, said: "The truth — and perhaps you may not wish to hear it, while I, unless I speak it now, shall confess it on another occasion to no purpose.

2.12. This army of so great a display, this mass of so many nations roused from their seats and from the whole East, may be terrible to your neighbours: it gleams with purple and gold, it flashes with armour and with riches such as those who have not set them before their eyes cannot conceive in their minds.

2.13. But the Macedonian line of battle — grim indeed and unkempt — covers behind its shields and spears immovable wedges and serried strength of men. The men themselves call it a phalanx, a steadfast column of infantry: man is joined to man, arms locked with arms.

2.14. Intent upon the nod of their commander, they have learned to follow the standards and to keep their ranks: whatever is ordered, all hear and obey. To make a stand, to encircle, to dash out to the wing, to change the manner of battle — the soldiers know these things no less well than the generals.

2.15. And lest you suppose that they are held by any craving for gold and silver, that discipline of theirs has stood firm thus far with poverty as its teacher: for the weary the ground is their bed; the food they snatch while busy at their work suffices them; their hours of sleep are shorter than the night.

2.16. Will the Thessalian cavalry, then, and the Acarnanians and Aetolians, a force unconquered in war, be driven back by slings, I suppose, and by spears hardened in the fire? You have need of equal strength. In that land which bore these men your reinforcements must be sought: that silver and gold of yours, send it to hire soldiers."

2.17. Darius had a gentle and tractable disposition, had not fortune for the most part corrupted even his nature. And so, impatient of the truth, he ordered his guest and suppliant — at the very moment when he was urging what was most profitable — to be dragged off to capital punishment.

2.18. Charidemus, not forgetful of his freedom even then, said: "I have ready an avenger of my death: the very man against whom I have advised you shall exact the penalty for my counsel despised. As for you, so suddenly changed by the licence of kingship, you shall be a lesson to posterity that men, once they have given themselves over to fortune, unlearn even their own nature."

2.19. As he cried out these words, those who had been so ordered cut his throat. Then a tardy repentance stole upon the king, and, confessing that the man had spoken the truth, he ordered him to be buried.

3.1. There was one Thymondas, the son of Mentor, an energetic young man, to whom it was enjoined by the king that he should take over from Pharnabazus all the foreign soldiers, in whom he placed the greatest hope, to make use of their service in the war. To Pharnabazus himself he handed the command which he had earlier given to Memnon.

3.2. Then, anxious, beset by pressing cares, even in his sleep he was troubled by apparitions of impending events, whether it was his distress that summoned them, or the divination of a mind that forebodes the future.

3.3. The camp of Alexander seemed to him to be ablaze with a great glare of fire; and a little later Alexander seemed to be led to him in the dress and attire in which he himself had become king; then, having ridden on horseback through Babylon, he suddenly, horse and all, vanished from sight.

3.4. To these dreams the soothsayers, by their varied interpretation, had pulled his anxiety this way and that: some said that this was a happy dream for the king, in that the camp of the enemy had burned, in that he had seen Alexander, his royal robe laid aside, led to him in Persian and common attire; but others not:

3.5. for they conjectured that the camp of the Macedonians, seen ablaze, portended brilliance for Alexander; and that it was being plainly taught that his destiny was even to seize the kingdom of Asia, since Darius had been in the same attire when he was hailed as king.

3.6. Old omens too, as is usual, anxiety had called back to memory: for they recalled that Darius, at the beginning of his reign, had ordered the Persian scabbard of his scimitar to be changed into the shape that the Greeks used, and that the Chaldaeans had at once interpreted this to mean that the empire of the Persians would pass to those whose weapons he had imitated.

3.7. But Darius himself, much delighted both by the soothsayers' response, which was given out to the common people, and by the vision that had been presented to him in sleep, ordered the camp to be moved to the Euphrates.

3.8. By the ancestral custom of the Persians it is established that they begin their march only after sunrise. When the day was already bright, the signal was given from the king's tent by a trumpet: above the tent, where it could be seen by all, an image of the sun enclosed in crystal shone.

3.9. The order of the column was as follows. The fire which they themselves called sacred and eternal was carried before them on silver altars. Next the Magi sang their ancestral hymn.

3.10. The Magi were followed by three hundred and sixty-five young men clad in scarlet cloaks, equal in number to the days of the whole year: for among the Persians too the year is divided into just so many days.

3.11. Then white horses drew a chariot consecrated to Jupiter: these a horse of extraordinary size, which they called the Horse of the Sun, followed. Golden wands and white garments adorned the men who guided the horses.

3.12. Not far off were ten chariots embossed with much gold and silver.

3.13. After these followed the cavalry of twelve nations, of varied arms and customs. Nearest went those whom the Persians call the Immortals, to the number of ten thousand. The dress of barbarian opulence distinguished no others more than these: some wore golden collars, others garments interwoven with gold and sleeved tunics adorned even with gems.

3.14. At a small interval came those whom they call the Kinsmen of the king, fifteen thousand men. This throng, however, decked out almost in the manner of women, was conspicuous more for its luxury than for any becoming armour.

3.15. The column next to these was called the Spear-bearers, who were accustomed to receive the royal robe. These went before the chariot of the king, in which he rode, conspicuous on high.

3.16. Both sides of the chariot were adorned by images of the gods wrought in gold and silver: gems gleaming between distinguished the yoke, from which projected two golden images, a cubit in height, of his forefathers, the one of Ninus, the other of Belus. Between these they had consecrated a golden eagle, as though spreading its wings.

3.17. The attire of the king was conspicuous beyond everything for its luxury: into the middle of his purple tunic a white stripe was woven; his mantle, distinguished with gold, golden hawks adorned, as though they were clashing against one another with their beaks;

3.18. from a golden girdle, with which he was bound in a womanish fashion, he had hung his scimitar, the sheath of which was of a single gem.

3.19. The Persians called the royal headdress the cidaris: this a fillet of dark blue, marked off with white, encircled.

3.20. The chariot was followed by ten thousand spearmen: they bore spears adorned with silver, tipped with golden points.

3.21. To the right and left some two hundred of the noblest of his kinsmen attended the king. Their column was closed by thirty thousand infantry, whom the king's four hundred horses followed.

3.22. Then, at an interval of one stade, a chariot bore Sisigambis, the mother of Darius, and in another was his wife. A crowd of the women who attended the queens rode on horseback.

3.23. Then followed fifteen of the carriages they called harmamaxae: in these were the children of the king and those who reared them, and a band of eunuchs, by no means held cheap among those nations.

3.24. Then were borne along three hundred and sixty royal concubines, these too in regal dress and adornment. After them six hundred mules and three hundred camels carried the king's money, with an escort of archers following.

3.25. Next to this column were borne the wives of his kinsmen and friends, and bands of sutlers and camp-followers. Last of all came the light-armed troops, each with his own leaders, whose task it was to close up the column.

3.26. By contrast, if anyone looked upon the line of the Macedonians, the appearance was utterly unlike, with horses and men gleaming not with gold, not with parti-coloured garments, but with iron and bronze:

3.27. a column ready both to stand and to follow, weighed down neither by a crowd nor by baggage, intent upon their commander's nod no less than his signal.

3.28. To them both space for a camp and provisions for the army were ample. And so Alexander had no want of soldiers in the line of battle; whereas Darius, the king of so great a multitude, was reduced by the narrowness of the place in which he fought to that scantiness which he had despised in his enemy.

4.1. Meanwhile Alexander, having set Sabistamenes over Cappadocia, made for Cilicia with all his forces and had arrived in the region called the Camp of Cyrus: for there Cyrus had had his standing camp when he was leading his army against Croesus into Lydia.

4.2. That region was fifty stades distant from the approach by which we enter Cilicia: the inhabitants call the very narrow gorge the Gates, since they imitate by their natural situation the fortifications that we set up by hand.

4.3. Now Arsames, who was governor of Cilicia, reflecting on what Memnon had advised at the beginning of the war, resolved, too late, to carry out a counsel once wholesome: with fire and sword he laid Cilicia waste, so as to make a desert for the enemy; he ruined whatever could be of use, meaning to leave the soil barren and bare, since he could not protect it.

4.4. But it would have been far more profitable to seize with a strong garrison the narrows of the approach which opens Cilicia, and to hold the ridge that conveniently overhangs the route, whence he might have either kept off the enemy as he came up, or crushed him without loss to himself:

4.5. as it was, leaving a few men behind to guard the passes, he himself withdrew to the rear, the ravager of the land which he ought to have rescued from ravaging. And so those who had been left behind, thinking themselves betrayed, were unable even to bear the sight of the enemy, when even fewer men could have held the position.

4.6. For Cilicia is enclosed by a continuous ridge of harsh and precipitous mountains; and this ridge, rising from the sea, curved as though into a kind of bay and bend, runs out again with its other horn to the opposite shore.

4.7. Through this barrier, where it draws furthest inward from the sea, there are three rugged and very narrow approaches, by one of which Cilicia must be entered.

4.8. The same country, where it slopes to the sea, is level, its plain marked out by frequent streams: the Pyramus and the Cydnus, famous rivers, flow through it. The Cydnus is notable not for the extent of its waters but for their clearness: for, gliding with a gentle course from its springs, it is received upon a clean soil, and no torrents rush into it to trouble the channel of its quiet flow.

4.9. And so, unsullied and at the same time exceedingly cold — overshadowed as it is by the great loveliness of its banks — it issues into the sea everywhere like to its own springs.

4.10. Many monuments in that region, made famous in song, antiquity had eaten away: the sites of the cities Lyrnesus and Thebe were shown, and the cave of Typhon too, and the grove of Corycus, where saffron is produced, and the rest, in which nothing but the fame had endured.

4.11. Alexander entered the gorge of the ridge that is called the Gates. Having surveyed the lie of the ground, he is said never on any other occasion to have marvelled more at his own good fortune: he admitted that he could have been overwhelmed even by stones, had there been men to hurl them down upon the troops as they came up.

4.12. The path scarcely admitted four armed men abreast: the mountain's ridge overhung a road not only narrow but for the most part precipitous, with frequent streams straying across it, which trickle from the roots of the mountains.

4.13. Nevertheless he had ordered the light-armed Thracians to go ahead and search the tracks, lest a hidden enemy should burst out upon the troops as they came up. A band of archers too had occupied the ridge: they held their bows bent, warned that they were entering upon, not a march, but a battle.

4.14. In this fashion the column reached the city of Tarsus, to which at that very time the Persians were setting fire, lest the enemy should seize the wealthy town.

4.15. But Alexander, having sent Parmenio ahead with a light-armed band to check the conflagration, when he learned that the barbarians had been put to flight by the coming of his men, entered the city he had saved.

5.1. Through the middle of it flows the river Cydnus, of which a little before mention was made; and it was then summer, whose heat kindles no coast more than that of Cilicia with the vapour of the sun, and the most blazing part of the day had begun.

5.2. The king, drenched at once with dust and sweat, was invited by the water of the river to wash his body, still hot; and so, laying aside his clothing in the sight of the army — judging that it would also be a fine thing if he showed his men that he was content with a light and easily provided care of his body — he went down into the river.

5.3. Scarcely had he entered when of a sudden, in a shudder, his limbs began to stiffen; then a pallor spread over him, and from almost his whole body the vital warmth departed.

5.4. His attendants caught him in their hands, like a man at the point of death, and, not fully in possession of his senses, carried him into his tent. A great anxiety, and now almost mourning, was in the camp:

5.5. weeping, they lamented that, amid so great a rush and onset of affairs, the most renowned king of every age and memory had been snatched away and extinguished — not even in the battle line, not cast down by the enemy, but while washing his body in the water.

5.6. Darius, they said, was pressing on as victor before he had even seen his enemy. They themselves would have to retrace the same lands their victory had traversed: everything had been laid waste either by themselves or by the enemy. Going through vast wastes, even if no one chose to pursue them, they could be utterly worn down by hunger and want.

5.7. Who would give the signal to men in flight? Who would dare to take Alexander's place? Even supposing they made their way in flight to the Hellespont, who would make ready the fleet by which they might cross?

5.8. Then again their pity, turned back upon the king himself, made them lament, forgetful of themselves, that that flower of youth, that vigour of spirit, who was at once their king and their fellow-soldier, was being torn and wrenched from them.

5.9. Meanwhile his breath had begun to come more freely, and the king had raised his eyes; and, as his spirit gradually returned, he had recognised the friends standing around him; and the force of the disease seemed to be relaxed for this reason alone, that he was sensible of the greatness of his peril.

5.10. But the distress of his mind oppressed his body: for it was being reported that Darius would be in Cilicia within five days. He complained that he was being handed over bound, and that so great a victory was being snatched from his hands, and that he was being extinguished in his tent by an obscure and inglorious death.

5.11. And, having admitted both his friends and his physicians together, he said: "You see in what crisis of my affairs fortune has caught me. I seem to hear the din of the enemy's arms; and I, who of my own accord brought on the war, am now being challenged.

5.12. Darius, then, when he wrote those overweening letters, took my fortune into his reckoning; but to no purpose, if it is granted me to be treated according to my own judgement.

5.13. My circumstances do not wait for slow remedies and sluggish physicians: it is better for me to die in vigorous action than to recover late. Therefore, if there is any help, any skill in the physicians, let them know that I seek a remedy not so much for death as for war."

5.14. So headlong a rashness on his part had struck a great anxiety into all.

5.15. And so each man for himself began to entreat him not to increase his danger by haste, but to put himself in the power of his healers: not without reason, they said, were untried remedies suspect to them, when the enemy was even tempting their money against his life, from his very side.

5.16. For Darius had ordered it to be proclaimed that he would give a thousand talents to the slayer of Alexander. And so they thought that no one would even dare to try a remedy which, because of its novelty, might be suspect.

6.1. Among the noble physicians who had followed the king from Macedonia was Philip, an Acarnanian by birth, exceedingly loyal to the king: given to him in boyhood as his companion and the guardian of his health, he loved him with an extraordinary affection, not as a king only but as a foster-child.

6.2. He promised to bring not a headlong but a vigorous remedy, and to relieve so great a violence of the disease by a medicated draught.

6.3. His promise pleased no one but the man at whose peril he made it. For Alexander could endure anything more easily than delay: arms and battle-lines were before his eyes, and he reckoned that victory was placed in this — if only he could stand before the standards; and he bore it ill that very thing — that on the third day he was to take the medicine, for so the physician had foretold.

6.4. Meanwhile he received from Parmenio, the most faithful of his courtiers, a letter in which he warned him not to entrust his life to Philip: he had been bribed by Darius with a thousand talents and the hope of marriage with his sister.

6.5. The letter had struck a great anxiety into his mind, and, whatever fear or hope had presented to either side, he weighed in secret reckoning.

6.6. "Shall I persist in drinking? — so that, if poison has been given, whatever befalls may seem to have come about not even undeservedly? Shall I condemn the physician's good faith? Shall I then suffer myself to be crushed in my tent? But it is better that I should die by another's crime than by my own fear."

6.7. After long turning the matter over in different ways in his mind, he disclosed to no one what had been written, and slipped the letter, the seal of his ring pressed upon it, beneath the pillow on which he lay.

6.8. Having spent two days amid these thoughts, the day appointed by the physician dawned, and he entered with the cup in which he had dissolved the medicine.

6.9. At the sight of him Alexander, having raised his body on the couch, holding in his left hand the letter sent by Parmenio, took the cup and drank it without fear; then he ordered Philip to read the letter, and did not move his eyes from the face of the reader, thinking that he might detect some marks of guilty knowledge in his very countenance.

6.10. Philip, when he had read the letter through, showed more indignation than alarm; and, casting his cloak and the letter before the couch, said: "King, my spirit has always indeed hung upon you, but now I truly believe that it is drawn from your sacred and venerable lips.

6.11. The charge of murder which has been brought against me, your recovery will wash away: saved by me, you will have given me my life. I beg and beseech you, lay aside your fear and let the medicine be taken into your veins: relax for a little your mind, which your friends — loyal indeed, but burdensome in their officiousness — are troubling with their ill-timed anxiety." This speech made the king not only free from care but even glad and full of good hope.

6.12. And so he said: "If the gods, Philip, had granted you to test my mind in whatever way you most wished, surely you would have wished it otherwise; but in a way more certain than you have experienced you would not even have wished it:

6.13. for, although I had received this letter, yet I drank what you had mixed. And now believe that I am no less anxious for your good faith than for my own safety." Having spoken thus, he offered Philip his right hand.

6.14. But so great was the force of the medicine that what followed lent support to Parmenio's accusation: his breath, cut off, moved with difficulty. Yet Philip left nothing untried: he applied warm compresses to the body, he roused the man, now drowsy, now with food, now with the smell of wine.

6.15. And as soon as he perceived him to be in possession of his senses, he did not cease to remind him now of his mother and sisters, now of the great victory drawing near.

6.16. But when the medicine had diffused itself into his veins and health could gradually be felt throughout his whole body, first his spirit, then his body too, recovered its vigour sooner than expected: for on the third day after he had been in this state, he came into the sight of his soldiers.

6.17. Nor did the army gaze more eagerly upon the king himself than upon Philip: each man for himself, embracing his right hand, gave him thanks as though to a present god. For it is no easy thing to say — apart from the inborn reverence of that nation towards their kings — how far they had given themselves over to admiration of this king in particular, or with how great an affection they burned for him.

6.18. For in the first place he seemed to undertake nothing without divine help: for since fortune was at hand everywhere, even his rashness had passed into glory.

6.19. His youth too, scarcely ripe for such great deeds, yet abundantly equal to them, lent dignity to all his works. And the things which are usually accounted of less weight are for the most part more pleasing to the common run of soldiers: his bodily exercise among them, a dress and bearing differing little from that of a private man, a soldier's vigour:

6.20. and by these qualities, whether of natural gifts or of the arts of the mind, he had brought it about that he was at once beloved and revered.

7.1. But Darius, when the report of Alexander's adverse health reached him, hastened to the Euphrates with all the speed that so cumbrous a column could attain; and, when he had joined it by bridges, he yet took five days to bring his army across, in haste to occupy Cilicia.

7.2. By now Alexander, his bodily strength recovered, had reached the city of Soli: having gained possession of it, he exacted two hundred talents by way of fine, and placed a garrison of soldiers in the citadel.

7.3. Then, paying the vows he had undertaken for his recovery, through games and leisure, he showed with how great a confidence he despised the barbarians: for he celebrated games in honour of Aesculapius and Minerva.

7.4. As he watched, a joyful message was brought to him that the Persians had been overcome in battle by his men at Halicarnassus, and that the Myndians too and the Caunians and most of that district had been brought under his sway.

7.5. And so, the theatrical spectacle being over, he broke camp; and, having bridged the river Pyramus, he reached the city of Mallus, and thence, after a further day's march, the town of Castabalum.

7.6. There Parmenio met the king: he had sent him ahead to reconnoitre the route through the pass by which they had to penetrate to the city named Issus.

7.7. And Parmenio, having occupied its narrows and left a moderate garrison, had also taken Issus, abandoned by the barbarians. Advancing thence, and having dislodged those who held the inner parts of the mountains, he secured everything with garrisons; and, having occupied the route, as was said a little before, he came as both the author and the reporter of the same deed.

7.8. Then the king moved his forces up to Issus. There, a council having been held whether they should advance further, or wait there for the new soldiers whom it was established were on their way from Macedonia, Parmenio judged that no place was more suitable for battle.

7.9. For there, he said, the forces of the two kings would be equal in number, since the narrows would not hold a multitude: they must avoid the level ground and the plains, where they could be surrounded, where they could be crushed by a battle on two fronts. He feared lest they be overcome not by the valour of the enemy but by their own weariness: the Persians, fresh, would keep coming on in relays if they had been able to stand more at large.

7.10. The reasoning of so wholesome a counsel was readily accepted. And so he resolved to await the enemy amid the narrows of the pass.

7.11. There was in the king's army a Persian named Sisines: once sent by the satrap of Egypt to Philip, and honoured with gifts and every mark of esteem, he had exchanged his native abode for exile; then, having followed Alexander into Asia, he was counted among his trusted companions.

7.12. To this man a Cretan soldier handed a letter sealed with a ring whose device was not at all well known. Nabarzanes, a general of Darius, had sent it, and was urging Sisines to perform some deed worthy of his nobility and his character: this would be greatly to his honour with the king.

7.13. This letter Sisines, being innocent, often tried to deliver to Alexander; but, since he saw the king beset by so many cares and by the preparations for war, while he waited for a more suitable moment from time to time, he gave occasion for the suspicion that he had entered upon a wicked design.

7.14. For the letter, before it was delivered to him, had come into the hands of Alexander; and Alexander, having read it and pressed upon it the seal of the unknown ring, had ordered it to be given to Sisines, in order to test the barbarian's good faith.

7.15. And since for several days he had not approached the king, he seemed to have suppressed it out of a wicked design, and on the march was put to death by the Cretans, by the king's order without any doubt.

8.1. And now the Greek soldiers whom Thymondas had received from Pharnabazus, the chief and almost the sole hope, had reached Darius.

8.2. These strongly advised that he should withdraw and seek again the spacious plains of Mesopotamia; or, if he rejected that counsel, that he should at least divide his innumerable forces and not suffer the whole strength of his kingdom to fall beneath a single blow of fortune.

8.3. This pleased the king less than it did his courtiers: a loyalty of doubtful kind and venal for hire, they said, was bent upon treachery, and wished the forces divided for no other reason than that they themselves, having gone off in different directions, might, if any engagement took place, betray him to Alexander:

8.4. it would be far safer to surround them with the whole army and overwhelm them with weapons, that they might become a warning that treachery does not go unavenged.

8.5. But Darius, sacred and gentle as he was, declared that he would not commit so great a crime as to order his own soldiers, who had followed his good faith, to be slaughtered: who, thereafter, of foreign nations would entrust his safety to him, if he had steeped his hands in the blood of so many soldiers?

8.6. No one, he said, ought to pay with his head for a foolish counsel: for there would be none to give advice, if to have advised were dangerous. In short, they themselves were summoned daily to his council and spoke various opinions, and yet the man who had advised more prudently was not held to be of better faith.

8.7. And so he ordered the Greeks to be told that he indeed gave thanks for their goodwill, but that, if he went on to retreat, he would without doubt be handing over his kingdom to the enemy: that wars stand upon report, and that the man who withdraws is believed to be in flight.

8.8. As for prolonging the war, there was scarcely any reasoning for it: for so great a multitude, especially with winter now at hand, in a country laid waste and harassed in turn by his own men and by the enemy, the supplies would not suffice.

8.9. Nor could the forces even be divided, if the custom of their ancestors were kept, who had always offered their whole strength to the crisis of their wars.

8.10. And — by Heaven — that king, terrible before and elated by his absence into an empty confidence, since he had perceived that Darius was drawing near, had become cautious instead of rash, and had hidden himself among the narrows of the pass after the manner of ignoble wild beasts, which, on hearing the noise of passers-by, conceal themselves in the hiding-places of the woods.

8.11. Even now, too, he was deceiving his own soldiers with a pretence of illness. But Darius would no longer suffer him to decline the contest: in that very cavern into which they had fearfully retired, he would overwhelm them as they lingered.

8.12. These things were vaunted more grandly than truly. For the rest, having sent all his money and the most precious of his possessions to Damascus in Syria with a moderate garrison of soldiers, he led the remaining forces into Cilicia, his wife and mother following the column after the ancestral fashion. His daughters too, with his little son, accompanied their father.

8.13. By chance, on the same night, both Alexander reached the gorge by which Syria is approached, and Darius the place which they call the Amanian Gates.

8.14. Nor did the Persians doubt that the Macedonians, abandoning Issus, which they had taken, were in flight: for some men too, wounded and infirm, who could not keep up with the column, had been caught.

8.15. All of these, at the instigation of his courtiers, who raged with barbarian ferocity, he ordered to be led around with their hands cut off and seared, that they might take note of his forces; and, when they had seen all sufficiently, to report to their own king what they had seen.

8.16. So, having broken camp, he crossed the river Pinarus, meaning to fasten upon the rear of those who, as he believed, were in flight. But those whose hands he had cut off made their way to the camp of the Macedonians, reporting that Darius was following with the greatest speed he could.

8.17. It was scarcely believed: and so Alexander ordered scouts to be sent ahead by sea into those regions, to discover whether Darius himself was at hand, or whether some one of his commanders had presented the appearance of the whole army coming on.

8.18. But while the scouts were returning, in the distance an immense multitude was sighted. Then fires began to gleam over all the plains, and everything seemed to be ablaze as though with one continuous conflagration, since the disordered multitude, chiefly on account of the pack-animals, encamped more at large.

8.19. And so he had ordered his men to mark out their camp in that very place, glad — since he had longed for it with every vow — that the issue would be decided in those very narrows.

8.20. But, as is wont to happen when the time of the final crisis draws near, his confidence was turned into anxiety. He feared that very fortune by whose favour he had achieved things so successfully — and not without reason did he reflect, from what she had granted him, how changeable she was: one night alone remained to delay the outcome of so great a crisis.

8.21. Then again it occurred to him that the prizes were greater than the dangers; and that, just as it was doubtful whether he would conquer, so this at least was certain — that he would die honourably and with great praise.

8.22. And so he ordered the soldiers to tend their bodies, and then to be drawn up and under arms at the third watch: he himself climbed to the ridge of a high mountain, and, with many torches gleaming, after the ancestral fashion made a sacrifice to the gods who guarded the place.

8.23. And now for the third time, as had been enjoined, the soldier had received the trumpet-signal, ready at once for the march and for the battle; and, briskly ordered to advance, at the rising of the light they reached the narrows which they had resolved to occupy.

8.24. Scouts sent ahead announced that Darius was thirty stades distant. Then he ordered the column to halt; and, having himself taken up his arms, he drew up his line. To Darius the panic-stricken countrymen announced the coming of the enemy, though he could scarcely believe that those whom he was pursuing as fugitives were actually coming to meet him.

8.25. And so no slight dread was invading the spirits of all — for they were fitter for the march than for battle — and they snatched up their arms in haste. But the very haste of those running to and fro and calling their men to arms struck a greater fear into them:

8.26. some had got up onto the ridge of the mountain, to look out from there for the enemy's column; most were bridling their horses. The discordant army, intent on no single command, had thrown everything into confusion with disorderly tumult.

8.27. Darius at first resolved to occupy the ridge of the mountain with part of his forces, meaning to surround the enemy both in front and in rear, and from the sea too, by which his right wing was protected, to throw others against them, so as to press them from every side.

8.28. Besides this, he had ordered twenty thousand men, sent ahead with a band of archers, to cross the river Pinarus, which flowed between the two armies, and to throw themselves against the forces of the Macedonians: if they could not accomplish this, to fall back into the mountains and secretly encircle the enemy's rearmost ranks.

8.29. But fortune, more powerful than every plan, however wholesomely contrived, scattered his designs:

8.30. for some, out of fear, did not dare to carry out the order; others carried it out in vain, because, where the parts give way, the whole is thrown into confusion.

9.1. The line was drawn up in this manner. Nabarzanes guarded the right wing with cavalry, with about twenty thousand slingers and archers added.

9.2. In the same place was Thymondas, set over thirty thousand Greek infantry engaged for pay.

9.3. This was without doubt the strength of the army, a line equal to the Macedonian phalanx. On the left wing Aristomedes the Thessalian had twenty thousand barbarian infantry.

9.4. In the reserves he had stationed the most warlike nations. The king himself, who was to fight on the same wing, was followed by three thousand chosen cavalry, the accustomed guard of his person, and a line of infantry, forty thousand strong;

9.5. then the Hyrcanian and Median cavalry, and next to these the cavalry of the other nations, drawn up beyond them to right and left. This column, marshalled as has been said, was preceded by six thousand javelin-men and slingers.

9.6. Whatever in those narrows could be approached, the forces had filled; and the wings stood, on this side from the ridge, on that from the sea; the king's wife and mother and the other band of women they had received into the middle of the column.

9.7. Alexander stationed in front the phalanx, than which among the Macedonians there was nothing stronger. The right wing Nicanor, the son of Parmenio, guarded: next to him stood Coenus and Perdiccas and Meleager and Ptolemy and Amyntas, each the leader of his own column.

9.8. On the left, which reached to the sea, were Craterus and Parmenio, but Craterus was ordered to obey Parmenio. The cavalry were stationed on either wing: the right the Macedonians guarded, with the Thessalians joined to them, the left the Peloponnesians.

9.9. Before this line he had placed a band of slingers mingled with archers. The Thracians too and the Cretans went before the column, themselves also light-armed.

9.10. But against those who, sent ahead by Darius, had settled on the ridge of the mountain, he opposed the Agrianians, recently brought over from Thrace. To Parmenio, moreover, he had given orders to extend his column as far as he could towards the sea, so that the line might be the further from the mountains which the barbarians had occupied.

9.11. But those barbarians, daring neither to bar the way to the advancing troops nor to encircle those who had passed by, terrified chiefly at the sight of the slingers, had fled away; and this gave Alexander a safe flank for his column — the flank which he had feared might be assailed from above.

9.12. The armed men marched in thirty-two ranks: for the narrows did not allow the line to be extended more widely. Then by degrees the folds of the mountains began to relax and to open a greater space, so that not only could the infantry advance in more numerous ranks, but the cavalry too could spread out along the flanks.

10.1. Now each line was in the other's sight, but beyond the throw of a weapon, when the Persians in front raised a wild and savage shout.

10.2. It was answered too by the Macedonians, the larger army in number, echoed back by the ridges of the mountains and the vast glens: for the woods and rocks lying round about, whatever cry they receive, give it back with multiplied sound.

10.3. Alexander went before the foremost standards, again and again restraining his men with his hand, lest, anxious and over-eager, they should from excessive haste enter upon the battle with their breath spent.

10.4. And as he rode along the column, he addressed the soldiers in varied speech, as was suited to the spirit of each. The Macedonians, victors in so many wars in Europe, set out to subdue Asia and the farthest parts of the East no less under their own leadership than his, were reminded of their long-established valour:

10.5. they, the liberators of the whole world, who had once measured out the bounds of Hercules and of Father Liber, would impose the yoke not only on the Persians, but on all nations.

10.6. Bactra and the Indies would be provinces of the Macedonians. The things they now looked upon were the least of it, but everything would be opened up by victory. There would be no barren toil upon the steep crags of the Illyrians and the rocks of Thrace: the spoils of the whole East were being offered. There would be little need of the sword: the whole line, wavering through its own panic, could be driven off with the bosses of their shields.

10.7. To this he called upon his father Philip, conqueror of the Athenians; and the recent subjugation of Boeotia and the razing to the ground of its most famous city was set before their minds. Now the river Granicus, now so many cities either stormed or received into surrender, and everything that lay behind them, laid low and set beneath their very feet — these he recalled.

10.8. When he had come to the Greeks, he reminded them of the wars brought upon Greece by these nations: first the arrogance of Darius, then of Xerxes, who demanded of them water and earth, so as to leave to those who surrendered neither a draught from their springs nor their accustomed food.

10.9. By these men, he related, the temples had been ruined with destruction and fire, their cities stormed, and treaties of divine and human right violated. As for the Illyrians and Thracians, accustomed to live by plunder, he bade them look upon the enemy's line, gleaming with gold and purple, carrying booty, not arms:

10.10. let them go, men as they were, and snatch the gold from unwarlike women, and exchange the harsh ridges of their own mountains and bare tracks, stiff with perpetual frost, for the rich plains and fields of the Persians.

11.1. Now they had come within the throw of a weapon, when the Persian cavalry charged fiercely upon the enemy's left wing: for Darius desired to decide the issue in a cavalry battle, conjecturing that the phalanx was the strength of the Macedonian army. And now Alexander's right wing too was being surrounded.

11.2. When the Macedonian perceived this, having ordered two squadrons of cavalry to halt at the ridge of the mountain, he briskly transferred the rest into the centre of the battle's crisis.

11.3. Then, having withdrawn the Thessalian cavalry from the line, he ordered their commander secretly to ride round the rear of his own men and to join Parmenio, and to carry out promptly whatever he commanded.

11.4. And now those who had been sent into the centre, surrounded on every side by the Persians, defended themselves admirably; but, crowded together and as it were cohering, they could not brandish their weapons: as soon as they had been launched at the enemy, they became entangled as they met, and with a feeble and idle stroke a few fell upon the enemy, more harmlessly upon the ground. Therefore, forced to join battle hand to hand, they promptly drew their swords.

11.5. Then indeed much blood was shed: for the two lines so cohered that arms struck against arms, and they directed their sword-points at one another's faces. It was given to no timid or cowardly man then to hang back: foot set against foot, as though they were fighting singly with one another, they stood on the same spot, until by conquering they made room for themselves.

11.6. Only then did they advance a step, when they had laid the enemy low. But a fresh adversary received them, weary as they were; nor could the wounded, as they are wont to do at other times, withdraw from the line, since the enemy pressed in front, and their own men crowded behind.

11.7. Alexander discharged the duties of a soldier no less than of a general, seeking the rich glory of having killed the king: for Darius, lifted high upon his chariot, was conspicuous, a great incitement both to his own men to defend him and to the enemy to attack.

11.8. And so his brother Oxathres, when he saw Alexander pressing upon him, threw the cavalry which he commanded before the king's chariot itself. Far surpassing the rest in arms and in bodily strength, and in spirit and devotion among the very few, conspicuous in that battle above all, he laid some low as they pressed on heedlessly, turned others to flight.

11.9. But the Macedonians around the king — and they had been strengthened by mutual exhortation — burst with him into the squadron of cavalry. Then indeed the slaughter was like a great ruin. Around the chariot of Darius lay the noblest leaders, who had met a glorious death before the eyes of their king, all fallen face down, as, fighting, they had sunk down with the body turned forward to receive their wounds.

11.10. Among these Atizyes and Rheomithres and Sabaces, the satrap of Egypt, commanders of great armies, were recognised: around them was heaped a more obscure throng of infantry and cavalry. Of the Macedonians too, not indeed many, but yet the most forward, were slain: among whom Alexander's right thigh was lightly grazed by a sword-point.

11.11. And now the horses that bore Darius, pierced through with spears and maddened by pain, had begun to shake the yoke and to throw the king from his chariot, when he, fearing lest he come alive into the enemy's power, leaped down and was set upon a horse which followed for this very purpose, the insignia of his command too cast away in unseemly fashion, lest they betray his flight.

11.12. Then indeed the rest were scattered in fear, and, where the way to flight lay open to each, they burst out, throwing away the arms which a little before they had taken up for the protection of their bodies: to such a degree does panic dread even its own defences.

11.13. The cavalry sent out by Parmenio pressed upon the fugitives; and by chance flight had carried them all into that wing. But on the right the Persians were vehemently pressing the Thessalian cavalry,

11.14. and now one squadron had been trampled by the very charge, when the Thessalians, briskly wheeling their horses about, slipped away and returned again into the battle, and laid low with immense slaughter the barbarians, scattered and disordered in their confidence of victory.

11.15. The horses and likewise the cavalry of the Persians, covered over with a series of metal plates — a kind heavy with covering, which depends above all upon speed — toiled with difficulty: for in wheeling their horses about the Thessalians had caught them unawares and unavenged.

11.16. When this so successful fight was reported, Alexander, who had not before dared to pursue the barbarians, now victor on both sides, began to press upon the fugitives. No more than a thousand cavalry followed the king,

11.17. while an immense multitude of the enemy gave way: but who counts the forces either in victory or in flight? They were driven, then, by so few, like cattle; and the same fear that compelled them to flee delayed them as they fled.

11.18. But the Greeks who had stood on Darius's side, under the leadership of Amyntas — this man had been a general of Alexander, but was then a deserter — cut off from the rest, had got away with no great resemblance to fugitives. The barbarians directed their flight in far different directions:

11.19. some by the way that led straight into Persis, some by a circuit sought the hidden crags and glens of the mountains, a few the camp of Darius.

11.20. But thither too the victor had now entered — a camp rich indeed with every kind of opulence. An immense weight of gold and silver, the apparatus not of war but of luxury, the soldiers had plundered; and, when they seized more than they could carry, the roads were strewn here and there with the cheaper baggage, which avarice had despised in comparison with the better.

11.21. And now they had come to the women. The dearer their ornaments were, the more violently were they torn off: nor did force and lust spare even their bodies.

11.22. They had filled the camp with every kind of wailing and tumult, according to each one's fortune; nor was any face of evil wanting, since through all ranks and ages the cruelty and licence of the victor went roaming.

11.23. Then indeed could be seen the aspect of fortune's caprice, when those who had adorned the tent for Darius, furnished with every kind of luxury and opulence, kept those very things for Alexander, as though for an old master. For this alone the soldiers had left untouched, by a custom thus handed down, that they should receive the victor in the tent of the conquered king.

11.24. But the captive mother and wife of Darius had turned the eyes and minds of all upon themselves: the one venerable not only by her majesty but also by her age, the other not even by that lot's misfortune robbed of the beauty of her form. She had taken into her bosom her son, not yet past his sixth year, born to the hope of so great a fortune as his father had a little before lost.

11.25. But in the lap of the aged grandmother lay two grown maidens, worn out not only by their own grief but also by hers. A great throng of noble women had stood around her, their hair torn and their garments rent, forgetful of their former dignity, calling upon those who had truly once been queens and mistresses, but were now so only in name.

11.26. They themselves, forgetful of their own calamity, kept asking on which wing Darius had stood, what had been the fortune of the crisis: they denied that they were captives, if the king lived. But him, changing horses from time to time, flight had carried far away.

11.27. In the battle there fell of the Persians a hundred thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry; while on Alexander's side about four thousand five hundred were wounded; of the infantry three hundred and two in all were lost, of the cavalry a hundred and fifty were killed. At so trifling a cost stood that immense victory.

12.1. The king, wearied with too eager a pursuit of Darius, after both night was coming on and there was no hope of overtaking him, came into the camp a little before taken by his own men.

12.2. He then ordered to be invited the friends to whom he was most accustomed — for the surface of the skin alone, grazed on his thigh, did not prevent his taking part in a banquet —

12.3. when suddenly from the next tent a mournful cry, mingled with barbarian ululation and wailing, terrified the banqueters. The cohort too which was keeping watch at the king's tent, fearing lest it were the beginning of some greater commotion, had begun to arm itself.

12.4. The cause of the sudden alarm was that the mother and wife of Darius, together with the captive noblewomen, were bewailing with immense groaning and lamentation the king, whom they believed to have been killed.

12.5. For one of the captive eunuchs, who by chance had stood before their tent, had recognised in the hands of the man who was carrying it, found, the cloak which Darius — as was said a little before — had cast off lest he be betrayed by his attire; and, supposing it to have been stripped from him after he was killed, he had brought the false report of his death.

12.6. When this mistake of the women was discovered, Alexander is said to have wept at the fortune of Darius and at their devotion. And at first he had ordered Mithrenes, who had surrendered Sardis and was skilled in the Persian tongue, to go and console them:

12.7. but then, fearing lest the betrayer should renew the wrath and grief of the captives, he sent Leonnatus, one of his courtiers, with orders to indicate that they were lamenting a living man falsely. He, with a few of his guard, came to the tent in which the captives were, and ordered it to be announced that he was sent by the king.

12.8. But those who were in the vestibule, when they saw armed men, supposing that it was all over with their mistresses, ran into the tent crying out that the last hour was at hand and that men had been sent to kill the captives.

12.9. And so, as women who could neither prevent it nor dared to admit them, giving no answer, they silently awaited the victor's pleasure.

12.10. Leonnatus, after long waiting for someone to introduce him, when no one dared come forward, left his attendants in the vestibule and entered the tent. That very thing had disturbed the women, that he seemed to have burst in, not to have been admitted:

12.11. and so the mother and wife, prostrate at his feet, began to entreat that, before they were killed, he would permit them to bury the body of Darius after the ancestral fashion, and that, having performed the last office to their king, they would die without reluctance.

12.12. Leonnatus said both that Darius was alive, and that they themselves would be not only unharmed but even queens, with the apparatus of their former fortune. Then at last the mother of Darius suffered herself to be raised up.

12.13. On the next day Alexander, having buried with care the soldiers whose bodies he had found, ordered the same honour to be paid to the noblest of the Persians too, and permitted the mother of Darius to bury, after the ancestral fashion, whomever she wished.

12.14. She ordered a few, joined to her by close kinship, to be interred according to the condition of their present fortune, thinking that the apparatus of funerals, with which the Persians celebrate the last offices, would be invidious, when the victors were being cremated without costly display.

12.15. And now, the due rites being paid to the bodies of the dead, he sent ahead to the captives men to announce that he himself was coming; and, the attending throng being held back, he entered the tent with Hephaestion.

12.16. He was by far the dearest of all the king's friends: brought up together with him on equal terms, the confidant of all his secrets, no other had more freedom in admonishing him — a freedom, however, which he so used that it seemed rather granted by the king than claimed by himself. And just as he was equal to the king in age, so he surpassed him in bodily stature:

12.17. and so the queens, supposing him to be the king, did him reverence after their fashion. Then, when some of the captive eunuchs pointed out which was Alexander, Sisigambis fell at his feet, excusing her ignorance of a king never seen before. Raising her with his hand, the king said: "You have not erred, mother: for this man too is Alexander."

12.18. For my part, if he could have persevered in this self-control of spirit to the very end of his life, I should believe him to have been happier than he seemed to be when he imitated the triumph of Father Liber, traversing in victory all nations from the Hellespont to the Ocean.

12.19. Thus surely he would have conquered pride and anger, those unconquered evils; thus he would have refrained, amid his banquets, from the slaughter of his friends, and would have feared to put to death, without trial, men outstanding in war and the partners with him in subduing so many nations.

12.20. But fortune had not yet overflowed his spirit: and so, he who at its rising bore it so moderately and prudently, at the last could not contain its greatness.

12.21. At that time, indeed, he so bore himself that all the kings before him were surpassed both in self-restraint and in clemency: the royal maidens, of surpassing beauty, he treated as chastely as if they had been born of the same parent as himself;

12.22. the wife, who was also his sister, whom no woman of her age surpassed in beauty of body, he himself so far from violating that he took the greatest care lest anyone should make sport of a captive person.

12.23. He ordered all their finery to be restored to the women, and nothing of the magnificence of their former fortune was wanting to the captives except their sense of security.

12.24. And so Sisigambis said: "King, you deserve that we should pray for you those things which we once prayed for our own Darius; nor are you unworthy of it, who have surpassed so great a king not only in good fortune but also in fairness.

12.25. You indeed call me mother and queen, but I confess myself to be your handmaid. I can grasp the height of my past fortune and can bear the yoke of the present: it is your concern how far your power over us has gone, if you wish that to be attested rather by clemency than by cruelty."

12.26. The king, having bidden them be of good cheer, took the son of Darius to his neck; and the boy, not at all terrified at the sight of him then first seen, clasped his neck with his hands. Moved, then, by the steadfastness of the boy, the king, looking at Hephaestion, said: "How I could wish that Darius had drawn something from this nature!" Then he went out of the tent.

12.27. Having consecrated three altars on the bank of the river Pinarus to Jupiter and Hercules and Minerva, he made for Damascus in Syria, where the king's treasure was, having sent Parmenio ahead.

13.1. But Parmenio, when he had learned that he had outstripped Darius's satrap and discovered him, fearing lest the small number of his men be despised, resolved to summon a larger force.

13.2. But by chance he fell in with scouts sent ahead by the satrap, a Mardian by nation, who, led to Parmenio, handed over to him a letter sent to Alexander from the governor of Damascus, and added that he did not doubt that the man would hand over all the royal furniture together with the money.

13.3. Parmenio, having ordered the man to be kept under guard, opened the letter, in which it was written that Alexander should promptly send some one of his generals with a small band, to whom he might hand over what the king had left in his keeping. And so, having given him companions, he sent the Mardian back to the traitor.

13.4. The man, having slipped out of the hands of his guards, entered Damascus before daylight. This affair had disturbed the mind of Parmenio, who feared an ambush, and he did not dare to enter upon an unknown route without a guide: yet, trusting in the good fortune of his king, he ordered countrymen to be caught who might serve as guides for the route. These being quickly found, on the fourth day he came to the city, the governor now fearing that good faith had not been kept with him.

13.5. And so, as though distrusting the fortifications of the town, before sunrise he ordered the royal money — the Persians call it the gaza — to be carried out together with his most precious possessions, feigning flight, but in reality so as to offer the booty to the enemy.

13.6. Many thousands of men and women followed him as he went out of the town, a throng pitiable to all save the one to whose good faith it had been entrusted. For, that the reward of treachery might be the greater, he was preparing to expose to the enemy a booty more welcome than all the money — noble men, the wives and children of Darius's generals, and besides these the envoys of the Greek cities, whom Darius, as in a most secure stronghold, had left in the hands of the traitor.

13.7. The Persians call those who carry burdens on their shoulders gangabae: when these could not endure the violence of the storm — for a sudden squall had poured down snow, and the ground, now bound fast by the frost, was stiff — they put on the garments, marked with gold and purple, which they were carrying together with the money, no one daring to prevent them, since the king's fortune gave even to the humblest men licence against himself.

13.8. They presented, then, to Parmenio the appearance of no contemptible column: and he, with the more anxious care, having briefly exhorted his men as though for a regular battle, ordered them to set spurs to their horses and to charge upon the enemy with a fierce onset.

13.9. But those who were under the burdens, casting them aside in fear, took to flight: the armed men too, who escorted them, in the same fear began to throw away their weapons and to seek the by-paths they knew.

13.10. The governor, as though he himself were terrified, by his pretence had filled everything with panic. The royal wealth lay over all the plains — that money prepared for the immense pay of the soldiers, those trappings of so many noble men, of so many illustrious women,

13.11. golden vessels, golden bridles, tents adorned with regal magnificence, carriages too, abandoned by their owners, full of immense opulence — a sight mournful even to the plunderers, if anything had checked their avarice. For the heaped-up fortune of so many years, incredible and beyond belief, was now seen, some of it torn to pieces by the roots, some sunk in the mire: the hands of the plunderers were not equal to the plunder.

13.12. And now they had come even to those who had been the first to flee: most of the women went leading their little children. Among them were three maidens, the daughters of Ochus, who had reigned before Darius — already indeed dragged down from their paternal eminence by the change of affairs, but then with fortune more cruelly aggravating their lot.

13.13. In the same band was also the wife of the same Ochus, and the daughter of Oxathres — this man was the brother of Darius — and the wife and son of Artabazus, the chief of the courtiers: the son's name was Hystanes.

13.14. The wife too of Pharnabazus, to whom the king had given the supreme command of the maritime coast, was taken with her son; and the three daughters of Mentor, and the wife and son of the most noble general Memnon; and scarcely any household of a courtier was absent from so great a disaster.

13.15. There were Lacedaemonians and Athenians who, in violation of the good faith of their alliance, had followed the Persians: Aristogiton and Dropides and Iphicrates, among the Athenians by far the most distinguished in birth and renown; of the Lacedaemonians, Pasippus and Onomastorides with Onomas and Callicratides, these too noble at home.

13.16. The sum of the coined money was two thousand six hundred talents; the weight of the wrought silver amounted to five hundred. Besides, thirty thousand men were captured, with seven thousand beasts carrying burdens on their backs.

13.17. But the avenging gods swiftly pursued with due punishment the betrayer of so great a fortune. For one of his accomplices — out of reverence, I suppose, for the king's lot even in that misfortune — carried the head of the murdered traitor to Darius, a timely consolation to the betrayed: for he had both avenged his enemy and perceived that the memory of his majesty had not yet faded in the minds of all.