Book 7

1.1. The soldiers had judged that Philotas, his guilt still fresh in its traces, was justly delivered to execution; yet once the man they had hated was no more, their resentment turned to pity.

1.2. They were moved also by the young man's renown, and by the old age and bereavement of his father.

1.3. Parmenion had been the first to open Asia to the king; the sharer of all his dangers, he had always held one wing in the line of battle; he had been Philip's friend before all others, and so loyal to Alexander himself that when there was need to kill Attalus the king would use no other agent than him.

1.4. The recollection of these things passed through the army, and seditious murmurs were carried back to the king. He, in truth not greatly disturbed and prudent enough, judging that the faults of leisure are dispelled by occupation, issued an edict that all should present themselves in the forecourt of the royal quarters.

1.5. When he saw them gathered in great numbers, he came forward to an assembly. Without doubt by prior arrangement, Atarrhias began to demand that Alexander the Lyncestian, who long before Philotas had wished to kill the king, should be brought forth.

1.6. Denounced by two informers, as we have said above, he had now been kept in chains for a third year. It was established beyond doubt that this same man had conspired with Pausanias in the murder of Philip as well; but because he had been the first to hail Alexander as king, he had been spared the penalty rather than the charge.

1.7. At that time too the entreaties of Antipater, his father-in-law, delayed the king's just anger. But now the festering grief broke out afresh: for the care of present peril revived the memory of the old danger.

1.8. So Alexander was led out from confinement and ordered to speak; and although he had rehearsed his defence for three whole years, yet, hesitating and trembling, he brought out only a few of the words he had composed, and at last not his memory only but his very mind failed him.

1.9. No one doubted that his trembling was the sign of a guilty conscience and not a failure of memory. And so those who were standing nearest, while he still struggled against his forgetfulness, ran him through with their lances.

1.10. When his body had been carried away, the king ordered Amyntas and Simmias to be brought in; for Polemon, the youngest of the brothers, on learning that Philotas was being tortured, had fled.

1.11. These had been the dearest of all the friends of Philotas, advanced to great and honourable charges chiefly by his support; and the king remembered that they had been won over to himself by Philotas with the utmost zeal, nor did he doubt that they too had shared in this last design.

1.12. So he complained that they had long been suspect to him because of his mother's letters, in which he had been warned to guard his life against these men; but that, reluctantly believing the worse, he had now, overcome by manifest proofs, ordered them put in chains.

1.13. For on the day before the crime of Philotas was uncovered, it could not be doubted that they had been with him in secret. And their brother, who had fled when the inquiry into Philotas was being made, had himself disclosed by his flight the cause of it.

1.14. Lately, contrary to their custom, on the pretext of duty, when the rest had been removed to a distance, they had attached themselves to his side with no plausible reason; and he, wondering why they were not performing such service in their turn, and alarmed by their very agitation, had withdrawn briskly to the armour-bearers who were following close behind.

1.15. To this was added the fact that, when Antiphanes, the secretary of the cavalry, had ordered Amyntas, on the day before the crime of Philotas was detected, to give from his own horses, as the custom was, to those who had lost theirs, Amyntas had answered arrogantly that, unless Antiphanes desisted from his purpose, he would soon learn who he himself was.

1.16. Now the violence of his tongue and the rashness of the words which they had hurled against the king himself were nothing else than the mark and witness of a guilty mind. If these things were true, they had deserved the same fate as Philotas; if false, he himself required them to refute them.

1.17. Antiphanes was then brought forward and gave evidence about the horses not handed over and the arrogant threats added besides.

1.18. Then Amyntas, leave to speak being granted, said: "If it matters nothing to the king, I ask that, while I speak, I may be freed from my chains." The king ordered both to be loosed; and when Amyntas asked that the dress of an armour-bearer also be restored to him, he ordered a lance to be given him.

1.19. When he had grasped it in his left hand, avoiding the spot where the body of Alexander the Lyncestian had a little before lain, he said: "Whatever end awaits us, O king, we confess that we shall owe a happy one to you, and lay a sadder one to the account of fortune.

1.20. We plead our case without prejudice, our bodies and minds free; you have even restored the dress in which we are accustomed to attend you. Our case we are able to plead; our fortune we shall cease to fear.

1.21. And I beg you to permit me to defend first that which was charged against me last. We, O king, are not conscious to ourselves of any speech uttered against your majesty. I would say that you long ago overcame envy, were there not danger that you might believe other things, said more spitefully, to be excused by a flattering oration.

1.22. But even if some harsher word of your soldier — whether failing and weary on the march, or in peril in the line of battle, or sick in his tent and tending his wounds — has reached your ears, we had earned, by our brave deeds, that you should prefer to charge such words to our circumstances rather than to our minds.

1.23. When anything grievous befalls us, we are all guilty: we raise hostile hands against our own bodies, which surely we do not hate; if parents or children meet us, they are both ungrateful and hateful in our sight. On the other hand, when we are honoured with gifts, when we return laden with rewards, who can endure us?

1.24. Who can restrain that eagerness of spirit? Neither the indignation nor the joy of soldiers is moderate: we are swept by impulse into every passion. We blame and praise, we pity and grow angry, just as the present emotion has moved us: now we long to march to India and the Ocean, now the memory of wives and children and country meets us.

1.25. But these thoughts, these voices of men talking together, the signal given by the trumpet ends: each of us runs to his own ranks, and whatever wrath has been conceived in the tent is poured out upon the heads of the enemy.

1.26. Would that Philotas too had sinned within the bounds of words! And so I will return to that for which we are accused. So far am I from denying the friendship which we had with Philotas, that I confess we even sought it, and reaped great profit from it.

1.27. Or do you wonder that the son of Parmenion, whom you wished to be next to yourself, surpassing in dignity almost all your friends, was courted by us?

1.28. You yourself, by Hercules, if you wish to hear the truth, O king, are the cause of this peril to us. For who else brought it about that those who wished to please you ran to Philotas? Handed on by him, we rose to this degree of your friendship: he it was, in your presence, whose favour we might seek and whose anger we might fear.

1.29. If we did not swear almost in your very words, yet we all, you leading the way, swore that we would hold the same men for enemies and friends as you held. Bound by this oath of loyalty, were we then to turn away from the man whom you set above all?

1.30. Therefore, if this is a crime, you have few innocent men — nay, by Hercules, none. For all wished to be the friends of Philotas, but only as many as wished it could not be so. And so, if you do not separate friends from accomplices, neither will you separate from his friends those who only wished to be the same.

1.31. What sign of a guilty conscience, then, is brought forward? As I suppose, because on the day before he spoke with us familiarly and without witnesses. But I could not clear myself, had I on that day changed anything from my old life and manner. Now, indeed, if on that day too, which is held suspect, we did as on all other days, custom will wash away the charge.

1.32. But we did not give horses to Antiphanes, and that on the day before Philotas was exposed. Here my business is with Antiphanes. If he wishes to make us suspect because we did not give him horses on that day, he himself, because he demanded them, will not be able to clear himself.

1.33. For the charge hangs in doubt between the man who keeps and the man who demands, except that the case of him who does not surrender his own is better than that of him who asks for another's.

1.34. Moreover, O king, I had ten horses; of these Antiphanes had already distributed eight to those who had lost their own, and I myself had but two; and when that most arrogant man — most unjust, certainly — wished to take these away as well, I was forced to keep them, unless I were willing to serve on foot.

1.35. Nor do I deny that I spoke with the spirit of a free man to that most cowardly fellow, who usurped this one right of warfare, that he might distribute other men's horses to those about to fight. For to such a pass of misfortune has it come, that I must excuse my words at once to Alexander and to Antiphanes!

1.36. But, by Hercules, my mother wrote to you about us as your enemies. Would that she had been more prudently anxious for her son, and had not, with a troubled mind, conjured up empty phantoms as well! Why does she not add the cause of her fear? Why does she not at last point out her authority? By what deed or word of ours was she moved to write you so alarming a letter?

1.37. O wretched is my condition, since perhaps it is no less dangerous to keep silent than to speak! But however the matter is to turn out, I would rather that my defence displease you than my cause. And you will recognize what I am about to say: for you remember that, when you were sending me to bring soldiers from Macedonia, you said that many sound young men were being hidden in the house of your mother.

1.38. You charged me, therefore, to look to no one but you, and to bring to you those who shirked military service. This indeed I did, and I carried out your command more freely than was expedient for me.

1.39. Gorgias and Hecataeus and Gorgidas, whose good service you make use of, I brought from there. What, then, is more unjust than that I, who, if I had not obeyed you, was justly bound to suffer punishment, should now perish because I obeyed? For your mother has no other cause for persecuting us than that we set your advantage before a woman's favour.

1.40. Six thousand Macedonian foot and six hundred horse I brought; and part of these would not have followed me, had I been willing to indulge those who shirked service. It follows, then, that, since she is angry with us on this account, you should pacify your mother, you who exposed us to her anger."

2.1. While Amyntas was thus pleading, those who had pursued his brother Polemon, of whom we spoke before, as he fled, came up by chance, bringing him back in chains. The hostile assembly could scarcely be restrained from at once hurling stones at him, after their manner.

2.2. But he, quite undismayed, said: "I plead nothing for myself, only that my flight be not charged against the innocence of my brothers. If this cannot be defended, let it be my crime. Their case is the better for this very reason, that I, because I fled, am held suspect."

2.3. When he had spoken thus, the whole assembly assented; then tears began to flow from all, their feelings so suddenly turned to the opposite, that the very thing which had most offended now told in his favour.

2.4. He was a youth in the first bloom of age, just coming to manhood, whom a panic not his own had carried off amid the cavalry thrown into confusion by the torture of Philotas. Deserted by his companions and hesitating between the plan of returning and that of flight, he had been seized by those who had pursued him.

2.5. Then he began to weep and to beat his face, grieving not for his own lot, but for his brothers, who were in peril because of him.

2.6. And by now he had moved the king too, not the assembly only; but one man alone was implacable — his brother, who, gazing on him with a terrible countenance, cried out: "Then, madman, you should have wept, when you were setting spurs to your horse — deserter of your brothers and companion of deserters!

2.7. Wretch, whither and from what were you fleeing? You have brought it about that I, a man on trial for his life, must use the words of an accuser." Polemon confessed that he had sinned more grievously against his brothers than against himself. Then indeed they restrained neither their tears nor the shouts by which a multitude declares its sympathies. With one voice, uttered by common consent, they begged him to spare innocent and brave men. The friends too, an opening for mercy being given, rose and, weeping, entreated the king.

2.8. He, when silence was made, said: "I too, by my own sentence, acquit Amyntas and his brothers. But as for you, young men, I would rather you forgot my kindness than remembered your peril. Return to favour with me in the same good faith with which I myself return to you.

2.9. Had I not sifted what was laid against you, you might have suspected something of dissimulation in me: it is better to be cleared than to be suspected. Reflect that no one can be acquitted unless he has pleaded his cause.

2.10. You, Amyntas, forgive your brother. This will be, even to me, a simple pledge of your reconciled mind."

2.11. Then, the assembly dismissed, he ordered Polydamas to be summoned. He was by far the most esteemed of Parmenion's men, and accustomed to stand next at his side in the line of battle.

2.12. And although he had come into the royal quarters trusting in his innocence, yet, when he was ordered to produce his brothers, who were very young and unknown to the king on account of their age, his confidence turned into anxiety and he began to tremble, weighing more often the things that might harm him than those by which he might escape.

2.13. Already the armour-bearers to whom it had been commanded had brought them forward, when the king ordered Polydamas, bloodless with fear, to come nearer; and, when all had been removed, he said: "By the crime of Parmenion we have all alike been assailed, but most of all you and I, whom he deceived under the show of friendship.

2.14. To pursue and punish him — see how greatly I trust your loyalty — I have determined to use you as my agent. Your brothers shall be hostages while you carry this out.

2.15. Set out for Media, and carry to my prefects letters written in my own hand. There is need of speed, that you may outstrip the swiftness of rumour. I wish you to arrive there by night, and on the next day to execute what shall be written.

2.16. To Parmenion too you shall carry letters, one from me, the other written in the name of Philotas. The seal of his ring is in my power. If the father believes it stamped by his son, when he sees you, he will fear nothing."

2.17. Polydamas, freed from so great a fear, promised his service even more earnestly than was required; and, commended and loaded with promises, he laid aside the garment he wore and put on Arabian dress.

2.18. Two Arabs, whose wives and children meanwhile were hostages with the king as a bond of good faith, were given him as companions. Through regions desert by reason of drought they came on camels, on the eleventh day, to the place he had appointed.

2.19. And before his own arrival was announced, Polydamas again took up the Macedonian dress and at the fourth watch came to the tent of Cleander — who was a royal commander there.

2.20. Then, having delivered the letters, they arranged to come to Parmenion at first light. And already he had brought the king's letters to the others too, and already they were about to come to him, when they announced to Parmenion that Polydamas had arrived.

2.21. While he was rejoicing at the arrival of his friend, and at the same time eager to learn what the king was doing — for after a long interval he had received no letter from him — he ordered Polydamas to be sought out.

2.22. The lodgings of that region have great recesses, made pleasant with groves planted by hand: these were especially the delight of kings and satraps.

2.23. Parmenion was walking in the grove, in the midst of the commanders who had been ordered by the king's letters to kill him. They had appointed as the time for doing the deed the moment when Parmenion should begin to read the letters delivered by Polydamas.

2.24. When Polydamas, coming from afar, was seen by Parmenion with a look that presented the appearance of joy, Parmenion ran to embrace him; and, the mutual greeting made, Polydamas handed him the letter written by the king.

2.25. Parmenion, breaking the seal of the letter, asked what the king was doing. The other answered that he would learn from the letter itself.

2.26. When Parmenion had read it, he said: "The king is preparing an expedition against the Arachosians. A tireless man, and never resting! But it is time, now that so great glory has been won, that he spare himself for his own safety."

2.27. Then he began to read with joy — as could be marked from his face — the other letter written in the name of Philotas; whereupon Cleander pierced his side with his sword, then struck his throat, and the rest ran him through even when he was already lifeless.

2.28. And the armour-bearers who had stood at the first approach to the grove, when the slaughter became known, the cause of which was unknown, came into the camp and roused the soldiers with the tumultuous report.

2.29. They, in arms, gathered at the grove in which the murder had been done, and threatened, unless Polydamas and the rest who shared the same guilt were given up, to overthrow the wall set round the grove and to make atonement to their leader with the blood of all.

2.30. Cleander ordered the chief men among them to be admitted, and read out to the soldiers the king's letters, in which were contained the plots of Parmenion against the king and his prayers that they should avenge him.

2.31. So, when the king's wish was known, not indeed their indignation, but yet the sedition, was suppressed. The greater number slipping away, a few remained who begged that at least they might be allowed to bury the body themselves.

2.32. This was long refused through Cleander's fear lest he offend the king. Then, as they begged more insistently, judging that the cause of consternation must be removed, he allowed the headless trunk to be buried; the head was sent to the king.

2.33. Such was the end of Parmenion, a man renowned in war and in peace. Many things he had done with success without the king; the king without him had done nothing of great moment. He satisfied a most fortunate king who measured all things by the standard of his own fortune. At seventy years of age he discharged the duties of a young commander, and often even those of a common soldier: keen in counsel, vigorous in action, dear to the chief men, more acceptable to the common soldiers.

2.34. Whether these qualities urged him to a desire for the throne, or only made him suspect, may be doubted; for whether Philotas, overcome by his last tortures, spoke truth — things that could not be proved by deeds — or whether he sought an end of his torments by falsehoods, was doubted even while the matter was fresh, when it might more easily have been made clear.

2.35. Alexander, judging that those whom he had learned to have freely lamented the death of Parmenion must be separated from the rest of the army, set them apart into a single cohort, and gave them as commander Leonidas, who had himself once been joined to Parmenion by intimate friendship.

2.36. They were nearly the same men whom the king had otherwise held in disfavour. For when he wished to test the temper of his soldiers, he advised that whoever had written letters to his people in Macedonia should hand them, with confidence, to those whom he himself was sending, who would faithfully deliver them. Each had written frankly to his own kin what he felt: to some the service was a burden, to most it was not unwelcome.

2.37. Thus the letters both of those who gave thanks and of those who complained were intercepted. And those who happened to have complained in their letters of weariness of toil he ordered to encamp apart from the rest in this cohort, for the sake of ignominy — meaning to use their bravery in war, and to remove their freedom of tongue from credulous ears. This counsel, rash perhaps — for the bravest of the young men were stung by the affront — the king's good fortune, like all else, turned to good.

2.38. Nothing was readier for war than they: their valour was spurred both by the desire to wipe out the disgrace and by the fact that brave deeds could not lie hidden in so small a number.

3.1. These matters thus settled, Alexander, having appointed Arsames satrap of the Drangae, ordered the march to be proclaimed against the Arimaspi, whom they were already then calling, with a changed name, the Euergetae, ever since they had aided with shelter and supplies the army of Cyrus, afflicted by cold and want of food.

3.2. It was the fifth day since he had come into that region. He learned that Satibarzanes, who had revolted to Bessus, had again broken into the country of the Arii with a band of horsemen. So he sent against him Caranus and Erigyius with Artabazus and Andronicus: six thousand Greek foot and six hundred horse followed them.

3.3. He himself in sixty days set in order the nation of the Euergetae, presenting them with a great sum of money for their notable loyalty to Cyrus.

3.4. Then, leaving Amedines — he had been a secretary of Darius — to govern them, he subdued the Arachosians, whose region reaches to the Pontic sea. There the army which had been under Parmenion met him. There were six thousand Macedonians, two hundred nobles, and five thousand Greeks with six hundred horse — without doubt the strength of all the king's forces.

3.5. Menon was given to the Arachosians as commander, four thousand foot and six hundred horse being left as a garrison. The king himself entered, with his army, the territory of a nation not well known even to its neighbours, since they cultivated no mutual intercourse by trade.

3.6. They are called the Parapanisadae, a rustic race of men, the most uncivilized among the barbarians.

3.7. The harshness of their land had hardened the natures of the men as well. They look in great part toward the icy axis of the north; they are joined on the west to the Bactrians; their southern region slopes down to the Indian sea.

3.8. They build their huts of unbaked brick, and, because the land is barren of timber even on the bare ridge of the mountain, they use the same brickwork right up to the topmost peak of their buildings.

3.9. But the structure, broader at the bottom, is gradually, as the work rises, drawn into a narrower compass, and at last comes together in the manner most like the keel of a ship.

3.10. There, an opening being left at the top, they admit light. Vines and trees, if any have been able to endure in so great a rigour of the soil, they bury deep: in winter, dug under, they lie hidden; when, the snow scattered, the ground begins to open, they are restored to the sky and the sun.

3.11. But so deep do the snows press upon the earth, bound by frost and almost perpetual rigour, that not even the track of a bird or any wild beast appears. A dim shade of the sky, rather than light, like to night, presses on the land, so that scarcely can the things that are near be seen.

3.12. In this solitude, then, stripped of all human cultivation, the army endured whatever of hardship can be borne: want, cold, weariness, despair.

3.13. The unaccustomed and excessive rigour killed many; it burned the feet of many, the eyes of most. Above all it was deadly to the exhausted: for in the very frost their failing bodies sank down, and when these had ceased to move, the force of the cold so bound them fast that they could not strain to rise again.

3.14. The numbed men were roused by their comrades, and there was no other remedy than to force them to walk: then at last, the vital heat being stirred, some vigour returned to their limbs.

3.15. Those who were able to reach the huts of the barbarians were quickly restored. But so thick was the gloom that nothing but smoke showed where the buildings were.

3.16. The natives, who had never before seen a stranger in their lands, when they suddenly caught sight of armed men, were paralysed with fear and brought out whatever was in their huts, begging that their own persons be spared.

3.17. The king went round the column on foot, raising some of the fallen and supporting others, when they could hardly keep up, with the help of his own body. Now at the foremost standards, now in the middle, now in the rearmost part of the column, he was present, multiplying his own toil along the march.

3.18. At last they came to more cultivated regions, and the army was revived by an abundant supply of provisions; and at the same time those who had not been able to keep up came into that camp.

3.19. From there the column advanced to Mount Caucasus, whose ridge divides Asia with an unbroken chain: on this side it looks toward the sea that washes Cilicia, on that toward the Caspian gulf and the river Araxes and the famous deserts of the Scythian region.

3.20. Taurus, a mountain of the second magnitude, joins itself to Caucasus: rising from Cappadocia, it passes by Cilicia and is linked to the mountains of Armenia.

3.21. Thus the ridges, cohering among themselves as if in a continuous series, have an unbroken back, from which almost all the rivers of Asia descend, some into the Red, some into the Caspian, some into the Hyrcanian and the Pontic sea.

3.22. In a space of seventeen days the army crossed the Caucasus. A rock upon it embraces ten stades in circuit and rises four in height; on this, antiquity has handed down, Prometheus was bound.

3.23. A site was chosen for founding a city at the foot of the mountain. To seven thousand of the subdued nations, and besides to those soldiers whose service the king had ceased to use, it was permitted to settle in the new city. This too the inhabitants called Alexandria.

4.1. But Bessus, terrified by the speed of Alexander, having duly performed sacrifice to the gods of his country, as is the custom with those nations, was taking counsel of the war with his friends and the commanders of his forces amid the feasting.

4.2. Heavy with wine, they began to extol their own strength and to despise now the rashness, now the small numbers, of the enemy.

4.3. Bessus above all, fierce in words and arrogant with the kingdom won by crime, and scarcely master of his mind, began to say that the fame of the enemy had grown through the sloth of Darius.

4.4. For he had met them in the narrowest passes of Cilicia, when by falling back he might have drawn his unwary foes into places safe by their natural situation — so many rivers thrown in their way, so many fastnesses of the mountains, among which the enemy, once caught, would have had no chance of flight, let alone of resistance.

4.5. His own plan was to withdraw into the country of the Sogdiani: he would set the river Oxus like a wall against the enemy, while strong reinforcements gathered from the neighbouring peoples.

4.6. There would come, he said, the Chorasmii and the Dahae and the Sacae and the Indians and the Scythians who dwell beyond the river Tanais: of whom none was so lowly that his shoulders could not reach the head of a Macedonian soldier.

4.7. The drunken men cried out together that this was the one wholesome opinion: and Bessus ordered the wine to be passed round more liberally, meaning to finish off Alexander over the table.

4.8. There was at that banquet Gobares, a Mede by nation, but famed for the magic art — if indeed it is an art, and not the mockery of every empty fellow — more by profession than by knowledge, but otherwise temperate and upright.

4.9. When he had begun by saying that he knew it more useful for a servant to obey an order than to offer counsel, since the same fate awaits those who obey as awaits the rest, but those who advise incur a peril of their own, Bessus bade him speak without fear, and even handed him the cup that he held in his hand.

4.10. Taking it, Gobares said: "The nature of mortals can be called perverse and ill-disposed on this account also, that each man is duller in his own affairs than in another's.

4.11. The counsels of those who advise themselves are troubled. Fear stands in the way, sometimes desire, sometimes a natural love of the things you have devised: for arrogance does not befall you. You have at any rate found by experience that you deem whatever you yourself discover either the only or the best course.

4.12. You bear a great burden upon your head, the royal emblem: this must either be borne with moderation, or — which I abhor — it will fall upon you.

4.13. There is need of counsel, not of impulse." Then he added what was commonly used among the Bactrians, that a timid dog barks more fiercely than it bites, and that the deepest rivers glide with the least sound. These things I have inserted, that whatever prudence could exist among barbarians might be recorded.

4.14. By these words he had held his hearers in suspense. Then he disclosed counsel more useful to Bessus than welcome. "In the forecourt of your palace," he said, "stands a most swift king: he will move his army before you move that table.

4.15. Now you would summon an army from the Tanais and set rivers against arms. As though, by the way you mean to flee, the enemy cannot follow! The road is common to both, and safer for the victor. Though you may think fear a swift thing, yet hope is swifter.

4.16. Why do you not rather seize the favour of the stronger and surrender yourself, since, however it falls out, you, by surrendering, will have a better fortune than as an enemy?

4.17. You hold a kingdom not your own, that you may the more easily lose it. You might perhaps begin to be a just king, when he himself, who can both give you a kingdom and snatch it away, has made you so.

4.18. You have faithful counsel, which it is needless to pursue at greater length. A noble horse is governed even by the shadow of the whip; a sluggish one cannot be roused even by the spur."

4.19. Bessus, fierce both by nature and from much wine, blazed up so far that he could scarcely be restrained by his friends from killing him — for he had even drawn his scimitar. Certainly he sprang up from the banquet, in no way master of his mind. Gobares, slipping away amid the tumult, deserted to Alexander.

4.20. Bessus had eight thousand Bactrians under arms. These, as long as they had believed that the Macedonians, on account of the inclemency of the sky, would make for India rather, had obediently done his bidding: but after it was learned that Alexander was approaching, they slipped away, each to his own village, and left Bessus.

4.21. He, with a band of dependants who had not changed their allegiance, having crossed the river Oxus and burned the boats by which he had crossed, lest the enemy use the same, was gathering new forces among the Sogdiani.

4.22. Alexander had indeed crossed the Caucasus, as has been said above; but for want of grain it had come almost to the point of famine.

4.23. They anointed their limbs with oil pressed from sesame, just as with olive oil; but of this oil each jar was valued at two hundred and forty denarii, honey at three hundred and ninety, wine at three hundred: of wheat there was nothing, or very little, to be found.

4.24. Siri the barbarians called the pits which they conceal so cleverly that none but those who dug them can find them: in these the corn lay stored.

4.25. For want of these the soldiers were sustained on river fish and herbs. And now these very foods had failed, when they were ordered to slay the pack-animals on which they carried their burdens: on the flesh of these, until they reached the Bactrians, they prolonged their lives.

4.26. The nature of the Bactrian land is manifold and varied. In one part many a tree and vine nourishes abundant and mild fruits; rich soil is watered by frequent springs; the gentler parts are sown with grain, the rest yield pasture for herds.

4.27. Then a great part of the same land is held by barren sands: parched with squalid drought, the region nourishes neither man nor crop. But when winds blow from the Pontic sea, they sweep together whatever sand lies on the plains; and when this is heaped up, it has from afar the appearance of great hills, and all the traces of the former path are lost.

4.28. And so those who cross the plains watch the stars by night, like sailors, and by their course direct their way: and the shade of night is almost brighter than the daylight.

4.29. Therefore by day the region is trackless, because they find no track to follow, and the brightness of the stars is hidden by the gloom. Moreover, if that wind which rises from the sea catches any, it buries them in the sand.

4.30. But where the land is gentler, a great multitude of men and horses is bred. And so the Bactrians had made up thirty thousand horse.

4.31. Bactra itself, the capital of that region, is situated beneath Mount Parapanisus. The river Bactrus passes by its walls. This gave its name to the city and the region.

4.32. While the king was keeping his quarters there, the revolt of the Peloponnesians and the Spartans was announced from Greece — for they had not yet been defeated when those set out who were to announce the beginnings of that uprising — and another present terror was brought, that the Scythians who dwell beyond the river Tanais were coming to bring aid to Bessus. At the same time, what Caranus and Erigyius had done among the nation of the Arii was reported. A battle had been joined between the Macedonians and the Arii.

4.33. The deserter Satibarzanes commanded the barbarians; and when he saw the fight standing sluggish on both sides, with equal forces, he rode up to the foremost ranks, and, his helmet removed, when those who were hurling weapons had been checked, he challenged to combat any who wished to fight man to man: he would have his head bare in the contest.

4.34. Erigyius could not endure the ferocity of the barbarian commander — a man heavy in years, indeed, but to be ranked behind none of the young men in strength of mind and body. He, his helmet removed and showing his grey hairs, said: "The day has come on which I shall show, either by victory or by a most honourable death, what manner of friends and soldiers Alexander has."

4.35. And, saying no more, he drove his horse against the enemy. You would have thought it commanded that both lines should hold back their weapons: they certainly withdrew at once, leaving a free space, intent on the issue not of the commanders only, but also of their own fortune — for they would follow the outcome of another's peril.

4.36. The barbarian first hurled his spear; Erigyius avoided it by a slight inclination of his head, and himself, spurring on his horse, fixed his levelled pike so deep in the middle of the barbarian's throat that it stood out through the back of his neck.

4.37. Thrown headlong from his horse, the barbarian still fought on. But Erigyius, drawing the spear from the wound, drove it again into his face. Satibarzanes, clasping it with his hand, aided the enemy's blow, that he might perish the sooner.

4.38. And the barbarians, their leader lost — whom they had followed more from necessity than of their own will — then, not unmindful of the favours of Alexander, handed over their arms to Erigyius.

4.39. The king, glad indeed at this, and in no way easy concerning the Spartans, yet bore their revolt with great spirit, saying that they had not dared to lay bare their designs until they learned that he himself had reached the borders of India.

4.40. He himself moved his forces in pursuit of Bessus; and Erigyius met him, bearing before him the head of the barbarian, the rich spoil of war.

5.1. So, the region of the Bactrians being handed over to Artabazus, he left the baggage and the impedimenta there with a garrison; and he himself, with a light column, entered the desert places of the Sogdiani, leading the army by a night march.

5.2. The want of water, as has been said before, kindled thirst by despair sooner than by the desire of drinking. Through four hundred stades not even a little moisture appears.

5.3. The heat of the summer sun sets the sands aflame; and when these begin to burn, everything is scorched as if by a continuous conflagration.

5.4. Then a mist, stirred up by the excessive heat of the earth, hides the light, and the appearance of the plains is no other than that of a vast and deep sea.

5.5. The night march seemed bearable, because the bodies were relieved by the dew and the morning cool. But when, with the very light, the heat rises, drought absorbs all natural moisture: mouths and inner parts are burned deep within.

5.6. And so first their spirits, then their bodies, began to fail: it irked them both to halt and to advance.

5.7. A few, warned by those acquainted with the region, had prepared water: this for a little while checked their thirst, then, as the heat increased, the longing for moisture was kindled again. So whatever there was of wine and oil was poured into them; and so sweet was the drinking that they had no fear of thirst to come.

5.8. Then, heavy with the moisture greedily swallowed, they could neither carry their arms nor advance; and those whose water had failed seemed more fortunate, since these very men were forced to bring up by vomiting the liquid they had poured in without measure.

5.9. The friends, gathered round the king in his anxiety at so great evils, begged him to remember that the greatness of his own spirit was the one remedy for the failing army.

5.10. Meanwhile, of those who had gone ahead to take a place for the camp, two came up, carrying water in skins, that they might bring relief to their sons, who, they well knew, were in that same column and bearing their thirst ill.

5.11. When they had fallen in with the king, one of them, unbinding his skin, filled the vessel he carried with it and held it out to the king. He took it; and, asking for whom he was carrying the water, learned that he was bringing it to his sons.

5.12. Then, returning the cup full, just as it had been offered, he said: "I cannot bear to drink alone, nor can I divide so small a quantity among all: run, you, and give to your children what you brought for their sake."

5.13. At last he himself reached the river Oxus, about the first hour of evening. But a great part of the army had not been able to keep up; he ordered fires to be lit on a high mountain, so that those who were following with difficulty might know that they were not far from the camp;

5.14. and those who were of the front of the column he ordered, when they had been promptly refreshed with food and drink, to fill some skins, others vessels — whatever water could be carried in — and to bring help to their fellows.

5.15. But those who had drunk too intemperately, their breath stopped, died; and the number of these was much greater than he had ever lost in any battle.

5.16. But he himself, still clad in his breastplate, refreshed neither with food nor with drink, halted where the army was coming up, nor did he withdraw to tend his body until the whole column had passed by; and that whole night he spent, with great agitation of spirit, in unbroken watches.

5.17. Nor was he more cheerful on the next day, because he had neither boats nor could a bridge be raised, the land round the river being bare and most barren of timber. So he took the one plan that necessity offered: he distributed as many skins as possible, stuffed with chaff.

5.18. Lying upon these, they swam across the river, and those who had crossed first stood on guard while the rest came over. In this way, on the sixth day at last, he set the whole army on the farther bank.

5.19. And now he had resolved to go forward in pursuit of Bessus, when he learned of what had happened among the Sogdiani. Spitamenes was, of all his friends, honoured with special favour by Bessus;

5.20. but a faithless mind can be softened by no kindness — though in him this could now seem less hateful, since nothing seemed unholy against Bessus, the murderer of his own king. A specious pretext was held out for the deed, the avenging of Darius; but it was the fortune, not the crime, of Bessus that Spitamenes hated.

5.21. For when he learned that the divine Alexander had crossed the Oxus, he took into the partnership of his projected enterprise Dataphernes and Catanes, in whom Bessus placed the greatest trust. They assented more readily than they were asked; and, taking eight of the bravest young men, they devised the following stratagem.

5.22. Spitamenes went to Bessus and, the witnesses removed, said that he had learned that Dataphernes and Catanes were plotting against him, intending to hand him over alive to Alexander: that they had been forestalled by himself and were held in chains.

5.23. Bessus, bound by so great a service, as he believed, partly gave thanks, partly, eager to inflict punishment, ordered them to be brought in.

5.24. They, their hands bound by their own consent, were dragged in by the partners in the plan; and Bessus, gazing on them with a savage countenance, rose, meaning to lay hands on them. But they, the pretence dropped, surrounded him, and bound him as he struggled in vain, having torn from his head the emblem of royalty and rent the robe which he had put on from the spoils of the slain king.

5.25. He confessed that the gods, the avengers of his crime, were at hand, and added that they were not unjust to Darius, whom they thus avenged, but propitious to Alexander, whose victory even his enemies had always aided.

5.26. Whether the multitude would have avenged Bessus is uncertain, had not those who had bound him, falsely claiming that they had done it by the order of Alexander, terrified the still wavering minds. Placing him on a horse, they led him off to hand over to Alexander.

5.27. Meanwhile the king, choosing about nine hundred men for whom discharge was due, gave to each horseman two talents, to each foot-soldier three thousand denarii, and, charging them to beget children, sent them home. To the rest thanks were given, because they promised to lend their effort to the remainder of the war.

5.28. While he was pursuing Bessus, he had come to a little town. Its inhabitants were the Branchidae: long ago, by order of Xerxes, when he was returning from Greece, they had crossed over from Miletus and settled in that abode, because they had violated, to gratify Xerxes, the temple which is called Didymeon.

5.29. Their ancestral manners had not yet died out, but already they were bilingual, gradually degenerating from their native tongue to a foreign one. With great joy, then, they received the king, surrendering both their city and themselves. He ordered the Milesians who were serving under him to be summoned.

5.30. The Milesians cherished an old hatred against the race of the Branchidae. So, the betrayers being given up, he allowed them free decision concerning the Branchidae, whether they preferred to remember the injury or the common origin.

5.31. Then, as their opinions varied, he declared that he himself would consider what was best to be done. On the next day, when the Branchidae came to meet him, he ordered them to go forward with him; and when they had come to the city, he himself with a light-armed band entered the gate:

5.32. the phalanx was ordered to surround the walls of the town and, at a given signal, to plunder the city — the harbour of traitors — and to cut them down to a man.

5.33. They, unarmed, were slaughtered everywhere; and neither the fellowship of language nor the suppliants' veils, prayers and entreaties could check the cruelty. At last, that they might cast down the walls, they laboured at the foundations from the very bottom, that no trace of the city should remain.

5.34. The groves too and the sacred woods they not only cut down, but even tore up by the roots, so that a vast solitude and barren soil, the very roots burned out, should be left.

5.35. If these things had been devised against the very authors of the treason, it would have seemed a just vengeance, not cruelty; but as it was, the descendants paid the penalty for the guilt of their forefathers — descendants who had never even seen Miletus, and so could not have betrayed it to Xerxes.

5.36. From there he advanced to the river Tanais. There Bessus was brought to him, not bound only, but even stripped of every covering of the body. Spitamenes held him by a chain inserted in his neck — a spectacle pleasing alike to barbarians and Macedonians.

5.37. Then Spitamenes said: "Both you and Darius, my kings, have I avenged, in bringing the murderer of his own lord captive in the very manner of which he himself set the example. Let Darius open his eyes to this spectacle!

5.38. Let him rise from the dead — he who was unworthy of such a fate, and is worthy of this consolation!" Alexander, having greatly praised Spitamenes, turned to Bessus and said: "The madness of what wild beast seized your mind, that you bore first to bind, then to kill, a king who had deserved most well of you?

5.39. But you paid yourself the wages of this parricide with the false name of king." The other, not daring to excuse the deed, said that he had usurped the title of king that he might hand over his nation to Alexander; for, if he had held back, another would have seized the kingdom.

5.40. And Alexander ordered Oxathres, the brother of Darius, whom he kept among his bodyguards, to come nearer, and Bessus to be handed over to him, that, fastened to a cross, with his ears and nose mutilated, the barbarians should pierce him with arrows and keep his body, so that not even the birds might touch it.

5.41. Oxathres promised that the rest should be his care; he added that the birds could be kept off by none other than Catanes, wishing to display his surpassing skill: for he struck his marks with so unerring an aim that he could even bring down birds.

5.42. Now perhaps, through the common use of archery, this art may seem less wonderful; but then it was a great marvel to the beholders, and a great honour to Catanes.

5.43. Then gifts were given to all who had brought Bessus in. But his punishment the king deferred, that he might be put to death in the very place where he had killed Darius.

6.1. Meanwhile the Macedonians, who had gone out to seek forage in a disordered column, were overpowered by the barbarians, who ran down from the nearest mountains; and more were taken than killed:

6.2. and the barbarians, driving their captives before them, withdrew again to the mountain. There were twenty thousand of these brigands: they joined battle with slings and arrows.

6.3. While the king was besieging them, fighting among the foremost, he was struck by an arrow, which, fixed in the middle of his leg, left its point behind.

6.4. The Macedonians, grieving and dismayed, were carrying him back to the camp; but his withdrawal from the line did not escape the barbarians either — for from the high mountain they had watched it all.

6.5. So on the next day they sent envoys to the king. He at once ordered them to be admitted, and, the bandages loosed, hiding the greatness of the wound, showed his leg to the barbarians.

6.6. When they were bidden to sit, they affirmed that the Macedonians had not been more grieved than they themselves at the news of his wound: that, had they found its author, they would have given him up; for it was only the sacrilegious who fought against gods.

6.7. But, overcome by his wound, they surrendered their nation in good faith. The king, his pledge given and the captives recovered, received the nation into surrender.

6.8. The camp being then moved, he was borne in a military litter. To take this up, each horseman and footman vied for himself: the horsemen, with whom the king was accustomed to enter battle, judged that this was their proper office; the footmen, on the contrary, since they were themselves wont to carry their wounded comrades, complained that their proper duty was being snatched from them at the very time when it was the king who must be carried.

6.9. The king, in so great a contest between both parties, judging that the choice would be hard for himself and grievous to those passed over, ordered them to carry him in turn.

6.10. From here, on the fourth day, they came to the city of Maracanda. A wall of seventy stades surrounds the city; the citadel is encircled by another wall. Leaving a thousand men as a garrison of the city, he ravaged and burned the nearest villages.

6.11. Then envoys of the Abian Scythians came up, a free people ever since the death of Cyrus, but ready then to do his bidding. They were known to be the most just of the barbarians: they abstained from arms unless provoked, and by a moderate and equal exercise of liberty had made the lowly equal to the chief men.

6.12. Having addressed these kindly, he sent to those Scythians who dwell in Europe a certain Derdas, one of his friends, to warn them not to cross the river Tanais without the king's command. To the same man it was given in charge to observe the lie of the land and to visit also those Scythians who dwell beyond the Bosphorus.

6.13. He had chosen, for founding a city, a site above the bank of the Tanais, as a bulwark both of the peoples already wholly subdued and of those he had next resolved to approach; but the announced revolt of the Sogdiani, which drew in the Bactrians too, made him defer his plan.

6.14. There were seven thousand horsemen, whose authority the rest followed. Alexander, in no doubt that by the agency of Spitamenes and Catanes, by whom Bessus had been handed over to him, those who had made the disturbance could be brought back into his power, ordered them to be summoned.

6.15. But they, themselves the authors of the revolt to whose suppression they were being called, had spread the rumour that the Bactrian horsemen had all been summoned by the king to be killed, and that this order had been given to themselves, yet they had not borne to carry it out, lest they commit an unpardonable crime against their countrymen: that they could not endure the savagery of Alexander any more than the parricide of Bessus. So, those already of their own accord stirred by the fear of punishment they roused to arms without difficulty.

6.16. Alexander, learning of the revolt of the deserters, ordered Craterus to besiege Cyropolis; he himself took another city of the same region by storm, and, the signal being given for all the grown men to be killed, the rest fell as plunder to the victor. The city was destroyed, that the others might be held in check by the example of its disaster.

6.17. The Memaceni, a strong people, had resolved to bear a siege not only as more honourable, but also as safer. To soften their obstinacy the king sent ahead fifty horsemen, to show his clemency toward those who surrendered, and at the same time his inexorable temper toward those who were conquered.

6.18. They replied that they doubted neither the good faith nor the clemency of the king, and bade the horsemen encamp outside the fortifications of the city: then, having received them hospitably and let them grow heavy with feasting and sleep, they attacked them in the dead of night and killed them.

6.19. Alexander, moved no more than was fitting, surrounded the city — better fortified than to be taken at the first assault. So he set Meleager and Perdiccas to the siege: he himself went on to Craterus, who was besieging Cyropolis, as has been said.

6.20. He had resolved to spare a city founded by Cyrus: for he admired no king of those nations more than this one and Semiramis, whom he believed to have shone forth far above the rest by greatness of spirit and renown of deeds.

6.21. But the obstinacy of the townsmen kindled his wrath: and so he ordered the captured city to be plundered. When it had been destroyed, he returned, justly hostile to the Memaceni, to Meleager and Perdiccas.

6.22. But no other city bore the siege more bravely: for both the readiest of the soldiers fell, and the king himself came to the utmost peril. For his neck was struck by a stone so that, his eyes overspread with darkness, he collapsed, not even master of his mind: the army at any rate groaned as if he had already been snatched away.

6.23. But, unconquered against the things that terrify others, before his wound was healed he pressed the siege more keenly, his anger spurring on his natural swiftness. So the walls, undermined by a tunnel, laid bare a great breach, through which he burst in; and as victor he ordered the city to be destroyed.

6.24. From here he sent Menedemus with three thousand foot and eight hundred horse to the city of Maracanda. The deserter Spitamenes, the Macedonian garrison having been driven out, had shut himself within the walls of that city, the townsmen not greatly approving the design of revolt; yet they seemed to follow it, because they could not prevent it.

6.25. Meanwhile Alexander returned to the river Tanais, and surrounded with a wall as much ground as he had occupied with his camp: the wall of the city was sixty stades. This city too he ordered to be called Alexandria.

6.26. The work was finished with such speed that on the seventeenth day after the fortifications had been raised, the buildings of the city too were completed. There had been a great rivalry among the soldiers themselves, that each should be first to show his own task — for it had been divided up.

6.27. As inhabitants of the new city were given the captives, whom he freed, their price being repaid to their masters: their descendants even now, through so long an age, have not, among them, lost the memory of Alexander.

7.1. But the king of the Scythians, whose dominion then lay beyond the Tanais, believing that the city which the Macedonians had founded on the bank of the river had been set upon his own neck, sent his brother, Carthasis by name, with a great band of horsemen, to raze it and to drive the Macedonian forces far from the river.

7.2. The Tanais divides the Bactrians from the Scythians whom they call European; the same boundary flows between Asia and Europe.

7.3. But the Scythian race, situated not far from Thrace, turns from the east toward the north; and it is not, as some have believed, a neighbour of the Sarmatians, but a part of them.

7.4. Then in a straight line it inhabits the upland lying beyond the Ister, and skirts the farthest part of Asia, where Bactra is. They dwell in the parts nearer to the north: beyond, deep forests and vast solitudes succeed. Again, the parts that look toward the Tanais and Bactra are not unlike the first in human cultivation.

7.5. As Alexander was about to wage an unforeseen war with this nation, while the enemy rode up and down in his sight, still sick from his wound, and especially failing in voice, which both scanty food and the pain of his neck had impaired, he ordered his friends to be called into council.

7.6. It was not the enemy that alarmed him, but the unfavourableness of the time: the Bactrians had revolted, the Scythians were even provoking him, while he himself could not stand on the ground, nor ride a horse, nor instruct nor exhort his men.

7.7. Entangled in a twofold peril, blaming even the gods, he complained that he lay inactive, he whose swiftness no one before had been able to escape: that his own men scarcely believed his illness was not feigned.

7.8. And so he who, after the defeat of Darius, had ceased to consult soothsayers and seers, relapsing again into superstition, the mockery of human minds, ordered Aristander, to whom he had committed his credulity, to explore the issue of affairs by sacrifices. It was the custom of the soothsayers to examine the entrails apart from the king and to report what was portended.

7.9. Meanwhile the king, while the issue of hidden matters was being explored from the entrails of victims, on purpose bade his friends sit nearer to himself, lest by the straining of his voice he should break open the still-weak scar. Hephaestion and Craterus and Erigyius had been admitted into the tent with the guards.

7.10. "The crisis," he said, "has overtaken me at a time better for the enemy than for me: but necessity comes before reason, especially in war, in which it is rarely granted to choose one's time.

7.11. The Bactrians have revolted, on whose necks we stand, and they test, by another's combat, how much spirit there is in us. The fortune of it is not doubtful: if we let go the Scythians, who of their own accord bring arms against us, we shall return, despised, to those who have revolted:

7.12. but if we cross the Tanais and show, by the destruction and blood of the Scythians, that we are everywhere unconquered, who will doubt to obey us, the conquerors even of Europe?

7.13. He is deceived who measures the bounds of our glory by the space we are about to cross. One river flows between: if we cross it, we carry our arms into Europe.

7.14. And of how great worth is it, while we subdue Asia, to set up trophies in another world, as it were, and to join suddenly, by a single victory, things which nature seems to have sundered by so great an interval?

7.15. But, by Hercules, if we delay a little, the Scythians will cling to our backs. Are we the only ones who can swim across rivers? Many of the things by which we have conquered hitherto will recoil upon ourselves.

7.16. The fortune of war teaches its art to the conquered too. We lately set the example of crossing a river with skins: that the Scythians may not know how to imitate this, the Bactrians will teach them.

7.17. Besides, only one army of this nation has yet come; the rest are awaited. So by avoiding war we shall feed it, and shall be forced to receive what we are able to inflict.

7.18. The reasoning of my plan is plain: but whether the Macedonians will allow me to use my own judgment, I doubt, because, ever since I received this wound, I have neither ridden a horse nor gone on foot.

7.19. But if you are willing to follow me, I am strong, my friends. There is strength enough to endure these things: or, if the end of my life is now at hand, in what work, after all, could I better be extinguished?"

7.20. These things he had said in a still broken and failing voice, scarcely heard by those nearest, when all began to dissuade the king from so headlong a plan;

7.21. Erigyius most of all, who, gaining nothing at all by his authority over the king's obstinate mind, tried to strike into it superstition, of which the king was not master, by saying that the gods too opposed the plan, and that great peril was shown,

7.22. should he cross the river. As Erigyius was entering the king's tent, Aristander had met him, signifying that the entrails had been unfavourable: these things, learned from the seer, Erigyius was reporting.

7.23. When this had been brought up, Alexander, confounded not only by anger but also by shame, because the superstition he had concealed was being uncovered, ordered Aristander to be summoned.

7.24. When he came, gazing at him, he said: "I charged you to make sacrifice not as a king, but privately and in secret: why have you declared what it portended to another rather than to me? Erigyius has learned my secrets and hidden things by your betrayal — a man who, by Hercules, I am sure makes use of the entrails as an interpreter of his own fear.

7.25. But to you, who are wise, I declare, as plainly as I can: tell me yourself what you learned from them, that you may not be able to deny that you said what you said."

7.26. He stood bloodless and like one stunned, his voice suppressed by fear; and at last, that same fear urging him on, lest he keep the king waiting, he said: "I foretold that a crisis of great toil, but not without fruit, was at hand: nor does my art so much disturb me as your good will toward me.

7.27. I see the weakness of your health, and I know how much depends on you alone: I fear that you may not be able to bear up against the present fortune."

7.28. The king bade him trust in his own good fortune: he said that the gods, as at other times, granted him glory.

7.29. As he then took counsel with the same men as to how they should cross the river, Aristander came up, affirming that he had never seen more favourable entrails, certainly far different from the former ones: that then the causes of anxiety had appeared, but now the sacrifice had turned out wholly excellent.

7.30. But the things that were reported soon after had laid a blot upon the unbroken good fortune of his affairs.

7.31. He had sent Menedemus, as has been said above, to besiege Spitamenes, the author of the Bactrian revolt. He, learning of the enemy's approach, lest he be shut within the walls of the city, and at the same time trusting that he could be caught where he knew he would come, lay hidden in ambush.

7.32. A wooded road was fit for concealing the ambush: there he hid the Dahae. Their horses carry two armed men each, of whom one suddenly leaps down, in turn, and throws into confusion the order of a cavalry battle.

7.33. The speed of the men matches the swiftness of the horses. These, ordered by Spitamenes to surround the pass, he displayed to the enemy at once on the flanks, in front, and in the rear.

7.34. Menedemus, hemmed in on every side, not even equal in numbers, yet long resisted, crying out that nothing else remained to men deceived by the treachery of the place than the consolation of an honourable death by the slaughter of the enemy.

7.35. A powerful horse bore him, on which, often dashing into the wedges of the barbarians with loosened rein, he had routed them with great carnage.

7.36. But when all aimed at him alone, bloodless from many wounds, he exhorted a certain Hypsicles, one of his friends, to mount his horse and snatch himself away in flight. While he was doing this, his life failed, and his body slid from the horse to the ground.

7.37. Hypsicles could indeed have escaped, but, his friend lost, he resolved to die. His one care was that he should not die unavenged: and so, spurring on his horse, he hurled himself into the midst of the enemy, and, a memorable fight delivered, was overwhelmed with weapons.

7.38. When those who survived the slaughter saw this, they seized a mound a little higher than the rest: Spitamenes besieged them, meaning to reduce them to surrender by hunger.

7.39. There fell in that battle two thousand foot and three hundred horse. This disaster Alexander concealed by a clever device, threatening death to those who had come from the battle, if they spread abroad what had happened.

8.1. But when he could no longer bear a countenance at odds with his mind, he withdrew into a tent, set on purpose above the bank of the river.

8.2. There, without witnesses, weighing each resolve of his mind, he drew out the night in watches, often raising the skins of the tent, that he might catch sight of the enemy's fires, from which he could conjecture how great a multitude of men there was.

8.3. And now the dawn was approaching, when, clad in his breastplate, he came forth to the soldiers — then for the first time since the wound lately received.

8.4. So great was the veneration of the king among them, that his presence easily drove out the thought of the peril at which they had shuddered.

8.5. Glad, then, and with tears flowing for joy, they hailed him, and, fierce now, demanded the war they had before refused.

8.6. He announced that he would carry the cavalry and the phalanx across on rafts, and ordered the more lightly armed to swim across upon skins.

8.7. Neither did the matter require, nor could the king for his health say, more. But with such eagerness of the soldiers were the rafts joined that within three days as many as twelve thousand were made ready.

8.8. And now they had prepared everything for the crossing, when twenty envoys of the Scythians, riding through the camp on horses after the manner of their nation, bade it be announced to the king that they wished to bring him a message.

8.9. Admitted into the tent and bidden to sit, they fixed their eyes on the king's face: I believe because, to those who measure the spirit by the size of the body, his modest stature seemed by no means equal to his fame.

8.10. The Scythians, however, have not, like the other barbarians, a rude and uncultivated sense: some of them are said even to be capable of wisdom, as much as a nation always under arms can grasp.

8.11. Thus, what they are recorded to have spoken before the king may perhaps be at variance with our manners, and with orators who have been allotted both times and talents more refined. But, though their speech may be despised, yet our good faith ought not: we will set forth, uncorrupted, however it has been handed down.

8.12. So we have received that the eldest of them spoke thus: "If the gods had willed the build of your body to be equal to the greed of your spirit, the world would not contain you: with one hand you would touch the East, with the other the West, and, having attained this, you would wish to know where the splendour of so great a divinity was hidden. Even as it is, you covet what you cannot hold.

8.13. From Europe you make for Asia, from Asia you cross into Europe: then, if you should overcome the whole human race, you will have to wage war with forests and snows and rivers and wild beasts.

8.14. What? Do you not know that great trees grow long, and are torn up in a single hour? He is a fool who looks at their fruits and does not measure their height. Take care, lest, while you strive to reach the top, you fall down with the very branches you have grasped.

8.15. The lion too has sometimes been the food of the smallest birds, and rust consumes iron. There is nothing so firm that it is not in peril even from the weak.

8.16. What have we to do with you? Never have we touched your land. Is it not permitted to us, living in the vast forests, to be ignorant of who you are and whence you come? We can neither serve any man nor do we desire to rule.

8.17. Gifts have been given to us, that you may not be ignorant of the Scythian nation: a yoke of oxen and a plough, an arrow, a spear, a bowl. These we use both with our friends and against our enemies.

8.18. Corn, won by the labour of oxen, we give to our friends; with the bowl we pour libations of wine to the gods together with them; with the arrow we attack our enemies from afar, with the spear at close quarters. Thus we conquered the king of Syria, and afterward of the Persians and Medes, and the road lay open to us as far as Egypt.

8.19. But you, who boast that you come to pursue robbers, are the robber of all the nations you have reached. You seized Lydia, you occupied Syria, you hold Persia, you have the Bactrians in your power, you made for India: now you even stretch out greedy and insatiable hands toward our flocks.

8.20. What need have you of riches, which compel you to hunger? You are the first of all men to acquire hunger from satiety, so that, the more you have, the more keenly you crave what you have not.

8.21. Does it not occur to you how long you stick about Bactra? While you subdue those people, the Sogdiani have begun to make war. War is born to you from victory. For, however greater and braver you may be than any man, yet no one wishes to endure a foreign master.

8.22. Only cross the Tanais: you will learn how widely they spread, yet you will never overtake the Scythians. Our poverty will be swifter than your army, which carries the plunder of so many nations. Again, when you believe us far off, you will see us in your camp. For with the same swiftness we both pursue and flee.

8.23. The solitudes of the Scythians, I hear, are mocked even in Greek proverbs: but we seek deserts and lands empty of human cultivation, rather than cities and rich fields.

8.24. Therefore hold your fortune with a firm grip: it is slippery, and cannot be held against its will. The salutary counsel that follows shows itself better than the present moment. Put a bridle upon your good fortune: more easily will you govern it.

8.25. Our people say that Fortune is without feet, having only hands and wings: when she holds out her hands, grasp her wings too.

8.26. In short, if you are a god, you ought to bestow benefits upon mortals, not to snatch away their own: but if you are a man, reflect that you are always what you are. It is foolish to remember those things on account of which you forget yourself.

8.27. Those on whom you have not made war you may use as good friends.

8.28. For friendship between equals is most firm, and those seem equals who have not made trial of each other's strength. Beware of believing that those you have conquered are your friends: between master and slave there is no friendship; even in peace the rights of war are still preserved.

8.29. Do not believe that the Scythians ratify a bond by swearing: by keeping faith they swear. That caution belongs to the Greeks, who seal their compacts and call the gods to witness: we place religion in good faith itself. Those who do not revere men deceive the gods. Nor have you need of a friend of whose good will you are in doubt.

8.30. For the rest, you shall have us as guardians of both Asia and Europe: we touch Bactra, but for the Tanais dividing it; beyond the Tanais we dwell as far as Thrace; and Macedonia, rumour says, is joined to Thrace. Consider whether you wish us, the neighbours of your empire, to be your enemies or your friends." So spoke the barbarian.

9.1. In answer the king replied that he would make use both of his own fortune and of their counsels: for he would follow both the fortune in which he trusted, and the counsel of those advising him to do nothing rashly and over-boldly.

9.2. And, the envoys dismissed, he placed the army on the rafts prepared. On the prows he had stationed shield-bearers, ordered to crouch upon their knees, that they might be the safer against the blows of arrows.

9.3. Behind these stood those who were to work the engines, surrounded by armed men both on each side and in front. The rest, who had taken their stand behind the engines, protected the rowers — unprotected by a corslet — with a tortoise-roof of shields.

9.4. The same order was preserved also on those rafts which carried the cavalry. The greater part dragged the swimming horses by reins from the stern. But those whom the skins stuffed with chaff bore across were protected by the rafts set in front.

9.5. The king himself, with picked men, was first to cast off his raft, and ordered it steered to the bank. The Scythians set the ranks of their cavalry, drawn up against him, on the very edge of the bank, so that the rafts could not even be brought to land.

9.6. But, besides this sight of the army stationed on the banks, a great terror had seized the men as they sailed: for the steersmen could not control their course, since they were driven aslant by the current; and the soldiers, swaying and anxious lest they be thrown off, had thrown into disorder the work of the sailors.

9.7. Not even their weapons could they manage to hurl with effort, since the care to stand without danger was prior to that of attacking the enemy. The engines were their salvation, by which, against men packed close and rashly exposing themselves, the missiles were discharged not in vain.

9.8. The barbarians too poured a great mass of arrows upon the rafts, and scarcely was there any shield that was not pierced by several points at once.

9.9. And now the rafts were being brought to land, when the shield-bearing line rose up and, with sure aim — since their effort was now unimpeded — hurled their spears from the rafts. And when they saw the horses terrified and recoiling, eager, with mutual encouragement, they began to leap down to land and to press hard upon the confused enemy.

9.10. Then the squadrons of cavalry, which had their bridled horses, broke through the line of the barbarians. Meanwhile the rest, sheltered by the body of those fighting, made themselves ready for battle.

9.11. The king himself supplied by firmness of spirit what was lacking of vigour to his still sick body. The voice of one exhorting could not be heard, the scar of his neck not yet well closed; but all saw him fighting.

9.12. And so they themselves discharged the office of commanders, and, encouraging one another, began to rush upon the enemy, heedless of their own safety.

9.13. Then indeed the barbarians could endure neither the faces, nor the arms, nor the shout of the enemy, and all, with loosened reins — for it was a cavalry line — took to flight. These the king, although he could not bear the strain on his weak body, yet persisted in pursuing for eighty stades.

9.14. And now, his strength leaving him, he charged his men to cling to the backs of the fleeing as long as any of the daylight remained: he himself, his spirit's strength too exhausted, withdrew into the camp and there halted.

9.15. They had now passed beyond the boundaries of Father Liber, the monuments of which were stones set at frequent intervals and tall trees whose trunks the ivy had entwined.

9.16. But anger carried the Macedonians farther: indeed about the middle of the night they returned to the camp, many of the enemy being killed, more taken, and they drove off eighteen hundred horses. There fell of the Macedonians sixty horse, about a hundred foot, and a thousand were wounded.

9.17. This expedition subdued, by the fame of so timely a victory, the greater part of Asia, which was falling away. They had believed the Scythians unconquered: now that these were broken, they confessed that no nation would be a match for the arms of the Macedonians. And so the Sacae sent envoys, to promise that their nation would do his bidding:

9.18. they had been moved no more by the king's valour than by his clemency toward the conquered Scythians. For he had sent back all the captives without ransom, to give proof that his contest with the fiercest of nations had been over courage, not over anger.

9.19. So, the envoys of the Sacae being kindly received, he gave them as companion Euxenippus, still quite a youth, endeared to him by the bloom of his age, who, though he equalled Hephaestion in beauty of body, was not at all his equal in a charm scarcely manly.

9.20. He himself, having ordered Craterus to follow with the greater part of the army by moderate marches, went on to the city of Maracanda. From there Spitamenes, learning of his approach, had fled to Bactra.

9.21. And so in four days the king, having measured a long stretch of road, arrived at the place where, under the command of Menedemus, he had lost two thousand foot and three hundred horse. He ordered the bones of these to be covered with a mound, and offered funeral rites after the manner of his country.

9.22. Now Craterus, ordered to follow with the phalanx, had reached the king: and so, that all who had revolted might be alike crushed by the disaster of war, he divided his forces, and ordered the fields to be burned and the grown men killed.

10.1. The Sogdian region is for the greater part desert: vast solitudes cover nearly eight hundred stades in breadth.

10.2. There is a great extent of level country, through which flows a river — the inhabitants call it the Polytimetus. The banks force it, a torrent, into a narrow channel; then a cavern receives it and snatches it underground.

10.3. The sign of its hidden course is the sound of the flowing water, although the very soil, beneath which so great a river flows, does not ooze even with a little moisture.

10.4. Of the Sogdian captives, thirty of the noblest, of surpassing strength of body, had been brought to the king: when they learned through an interpreter that they were being dragged to execution by the king's order, they began to sing a song in the manner of men rejoicing, and to display a certain joy of spirit by dancing and a wantonly free movement of the body.

10.5. The king, marvelling at so great a greatness of spirit in meeting death, ordered them recalled, asking the cause of so unbounded a joy, when they had execution before their eyes.

10.6. They replied that, if they were being put to death by another, they would die in sadness; but now, restored to their forefathers by so great a king, the conqueror of all nations, an honourable death — such as brave men would seek even by their own prayer —

10.7. they were celebrating with songs after their custom and with joy. The king, marvelling at so great a greatness of spirit, said: "I ask whether you are willing to live, not as enemies to me, by whose kindness you are to live?"

10.8. They answered that they had never been enemies to him, but, provoked by war, had been enemies to a foe: that, if anyone had preferred to try them by kindness rather than by injury, they would have striven not to be outdone in good service.

10.9. And to him asking by what pledge they would bind their faith, they said that the life they received would be the pledge: they would give it back whenever he should demand it. Nor did they fail their promise. For those who were sent home held their countrymen to their faith; four, kept among the bodyguards, yielded to no Macedonian in affection toward the king.

10.10. In Sogdiana, leaving Peucolaus with three thousand foot — for he needed no larger garrison — he came to Bactra. From there he ordered Bessus to be led to Ecbatana, to pay with his life the penalty for the murdered Darius.

10.11. About the same days Ptolemy and Melanidas brought four thousand foot and a thousand horse to serve for pay.

10.12. Asander too came from Lycia with an equal number of foot and five hundred horse. As many followed Asclepiodorus from Syria. Antipater had sent eight thousand Greeks, among whom were six hundred horse.

10.13. So, his army increased, he advanced to set in order what had been thrown into confusion by the revolt; and, the authors of the disturbance being killed, on the fourth day he came to the river Oxus. This, because it carries mud, is always turbid and unwholesome to drink.

10.14. And so the soldiers had begun to dig wells, nor yet, though the earth was dug out deep, did water appear. At last a spring was seen in the very tent of the king: and because they had noticed it late, they pretended that it had sprung up suddenly; and the king himself wished it to be believed that it had been a gift of a god.

10.15. Then, the rivers Ochus and Oxus being crossed, he came to the city of Margiana. Round it a site was chosen for the founding of six towns, two facing south, four looking east: they stood apart from one another by moderate distances, that mutual aid should not have to be sought from afar.

10.16. All these are situated on high hills. Then, like the bridles of subdued peoples, but now forgetful of their own origin, they serve those over whom they once ruled.

11.1. And the king had now pacified all else. There was one rock which Ariamazes the Sogdian held with thirty thousand armed men, food having first been heaped up, such as would suffice so great a multitude even for two years.

11.2. The rock rises thirty stades in height, and embraces in circuit a hundred and fifty: on every side sheer and abrupt, it is approached by a very narrow path.

11.3. In the middle of its height it has a cave, whose mouth is narrow and dark: then little by little the inner parts open out, and the farthest even have deep recesses. Springs flow through nearly the whole cave, from which the gathered waters send forth a river down the slopes of the mountain.

11.4. The king, having surveyed the difficulty of the place, had resolved to depart from it: then a longing entered his mind to wear down nature too.

11.5. Yet before he tried the fortune of a siege, he sent Cophes — he was the son of Artabazus — to the barbarians, to urge them to surrender the rock. Ariamazes, trusting in his position, answered many things arrogantly, and at last asked whether Alexander could also fly.

11.6. When these things were announced to the king, they so kindled his spirit that, summoning those with whom he was accustomed to take counsel, he set forth the insolence of the barbarian who mocked them because they had no wings: but he himself, he said, would bring it about the next night that the barbarian should believe the Macedonians could fly even.

11.7. "Bring to me," he said, "three hundred of the nimblest young men from each of your several forces, men who at home have been accustomed to drive flocks over tracks and rocks almost impassable."

11.8. They briskly brought men outstanding both in lightness of body and in ardour of spirit. Gazing on them, the king said: "With you, O young men, and my equals, I have surmounted the fortifications of cities unconquered before me; I have measured the ridges of mountains buried in perpetual snow; I have entered the narrows of Cilicia; in India I have endured the force of cold without weariness. I have given you proofs of myself, and I have proofs of you.

11.9. The rock which you see has one approach, which the barbarians guard; the rest they neglect: there are no watches save those that look toward our camp.

11.10. You will find a way, if you cleverly search out the approaches that lead to the summit. There is nothing set by nature so high that valour cannot strain up to it. By attempting what others have despaired of, we hold Asia in our power.

11.11. Climb to the summit: when you have taken it, you will give me a signal with white banners; I, bringing up my forces, will turn the enemy from you upon ourselves.

11.12. The reward shall be, to him who first seizes the top, ten talents; he who comes next after him shall receive one less; and the same proportion shall be kept down to ten men. But I am sure that you look not so much to my generosity as to my will."

11.13. With such spirit did they hear the king that they seemed already to have taken the top: and, dismissed, they made ready iron wedges to drive among the rocks, and strong ropes.

11.14. The king, having ridden round the rock, ordered them, at the second watch, where the approach seemed least harsh and steep — and might it turn out well! — to set out. They, having taken food for two days, armed with swords and spears only, began to climb up.

11.15. And at first they advanced on foot: then, when they came to the steep parts, some, grasping the projecting rocks with their hands, raised themselves; others got up by throwing on nooses of rope; some, driving wedges among the rocks, set under them steps on which to stand.

11.16. The day they spent between fear and toil. Having struggled up over rough places, harder remained, and the height of the rock seemed to grow. Pitiable indeed was the sight, when those whom an unsteady footing had betrayed were rolled down from the precipice: soon the example of another's fall showed each what he himself must endure.

11.17. Through these difficulties, nevertheless, they struggled up to the summit of the mountain, all worn out by the weariness of unbroken toil, some maimed in part of their limbs; and both night and sleep together overcame them.

11.18. Their bodies stretched here and there on trackless and rough crags, forgetful of the impending peril, they rested till daylight: and at last, roused as if from deep slumber, searching out the hidden valleys lying beneath them, ignorant in what part of the rock so great a force of the enemy was hidden, they noticed smoke rolling up from a cave below themselves.

11.19. From this they understood that there was the lurking-place of the enemy. So they set up on their spears the signal that had been agreed; and out of the whole number they recognized that thirty-two had perished in the ascent.

11.20. The king, anxious not so much from desire of gaining the place as for the fate of those whom he had sent into so manifest a peril, halted, gazing all day at the summit of the mountain: only at night, when the darkness had taken away the sight of his eyes, did he withdraw to tend his body.

11.21. On the next day, the light not yet clear enough, he was the first to catch sight of the banners, the signal of the captured summit. But, lest his eyes deceive him, the changeableness of the sky compelled him to doubt — now the gleam of light shining between, now hidden. But when a clearer light appeared in the sky, his doubt was removed:

11.22. and, having summoned Cophes, through whom he had sounded the minds of the barbarians, he sent him to them, to advise that now at least they should take a wiser counsel; but if, trusting in their position, they persisted, he ordered to be shown, in their rear, those who had taken the summit.

11.23. Cophes, admitted, began to urge Ariamazes to hand over the rock, since he would gain the king's favour, if he did not compel a man undertaking such great enterprises to stick at the siege of a single rock. The other, speaking more fiercely and more arrogantly than before, bade Cophes depart:

11.24. but he, taking the barbarian by the hand, asked him to come out with him beyond the cave. This obtained, he showed him the young men on the summit, and, mocking, not undeservedly, his arrogance, said that Alexander's soldiers had wings.

11.25. And now from the camp of the Macedonians the blare of the standards and the shout of the whole army were heard. This thing, like most in war, empty and vain, drew the barbarians to surrender: for, seized with fear, they could not reckon the small number of those who were in their rear.

11.26. And so they hastily called back Cophes — for he had left them in their panic — and sent with him thirty chief men, to hand over the rock and to bargain that they might depart unharmed.

11.27. He, although he feared lest, the small number of the young men being seen, the barbarians should hurl them down, yet, both trusting in his own fortune and angered at the arrogance of Ariamazes, answered that he would accept no terms of surrender.

11.28. Ariamazes, his cause more desperate than desperately lost, came down with his kinsmen and the noblest of his nation into the camp: all of whom, after he had had them scourged, he ordered to be fastened to crosses at the very foot of the rock.

11.29. The multitude of those who had surrendered, together with the money taken, was given as a gift to the inhabitants of the new cities; and Artabazus was left in charge of the rock and of the region adjoining it.