[21] he himself advanced into Carmania. The satrap of that nation was Astaspes, who was suspected of having wished to revolt while the king was in India. When Astaspes came to meet him, Alexander dissembled his anger, and, addressing him graciously, kept him in his same rank until he could inquire into what had been reported.
[22] Then, when the governors, as had been ordered, had sent a great supply of horses and yoked draught-cattle from all the region which was under their rule, the king restored their equipment to those who [23] lacked it. Their arms also were replaced with equally handsome ones; for they were not far from Persia, [24] which was not only subdued, but also rich. Therefore, as was said before, rivalling not only the glory of Father Liber which he had carried off from those nations, but also his procession, whether that was a triumph first invented by that god or the sport of drunken revellers, he decided to imitate it, in a spirit [25] raised above the level of human greatness. To this end, he ordered the villages through which his route lay to be strewn with flowers and garlands, mixing-bowls filled with wine, and other vessels of unusual size to be placed everywhere on the thresholds of the houses, then carriages to be spread, so that each might hold many soldiers, and to be equipped like tents, some with white curtains, and others with costly tapestries.
[26] At the head marched the king’s friends and the royal troop, wreathed with chaplets made of a variety of flowers; on one side was heard the music of flute-players, on another the notes of the lyre; the army also joined the revels in vehicles adorned according to the means of each man and hung around with their most beautiful arms. The king and his companions rode in a chariot loaded down with golden [27] bowls and huge beakers of the same material. In this way the army for seven days marched in a riotous procession, an easy prey if the conquered had had any courage even against revellers; a single thousand, by Heaven!, provided they were real men and sober, could have captured in the midst of their triumph those who for seven days had been heavy with [28] drunkenness. But Fortune, who assigns renown and value to actions, turned to glory even this disgrace to an army. Both the age of that time, and afterwards posterity, regarded it as wonderful that they marched drunken through nations not wholly subdued, and that the barbarians took this rash conduct for [29] confidence. This splendid exhibition was followed by the executioner; for it was ordered that the satrap Astaspes, of whom mention was made before, should [30] be put to death; so true is it that cruelty is no obstacle whatever to luxury, nor luxury to cruelty.
CONTENTS OF BOOK X
Alexander shows severity towards corrupt governors. Nearchus and Onesicritus return and report what they have learned and heard. The undeserved execution of Orsines, satrap of Parsagada. Revolt of the Odrysae in Thrace (i).
Disturbances in Greece. The governors in Asia are ordered to disband all their foreign troops. Harpalus, whom Alexander had made satrap of Babylon, fearing that he has lost the king’s favour because of his offences, embezzles 5000 talents of the royal treasure and escapes to Europe, hoping to lead the Athenians to join him.
Alexander plans to go to Athens, but learns that Harpalus driven from Athens, has been killed in Crete. Alexander pays the debts of the soldiers, intending to send the older ones home and retain the rest. A mutiny takes place in the camp, which he quells (ii).
Alexander punishes thirteen of the mutineers. He calls an assembly of the foreign soldiers and praises them (iii).
He chooses his body-guard and his attendants from the Persians. As the ringleaders of the revolt are being taken by Persian attendants to execution, one of them remonstrates with the king.
Alexander, in a rage, gives orders to throw them all into the river, bound as they were. The army submits to this and even calls for the punishment of others, if guilty (iv).
The soldiers stand before the king’s quarters in their tunics and beg for admission; they are willing to be punished. His anger persists for two days. He then appears, and after mildly censuring their lack of discipline, declares that he is reconciled with them. He offers a splendid sacrifice and invites the leading men of the Persians and the Macedonians to a banquet. Then all the weaker soldiers are mustered out with pay for past services and a talent each for travelling expenses. He gives orders that all sons begotten from Asiatic wives be left with him. More than 10,000 veterans, led by Craterus, are discharged and sent to Greece. Antipater is directed to give them special honours and privileges. Craterus is made governor of Macedonia, and Antipater is ordered to come to Alexander with reinforcements. Because of discord between Antipater and Olympias the king is suspicious of Antipater as being too important for a prefect. After making changes in the army, Alexander comes to Celonae, a town occupied by the descendants of Boeotians driven from their homes by Xerxes. A quarrel arises between Eumenes and Hephaestion. Alexander comes to Media, celebrated for its tine horses. At Ecbatana he offers sacrifices and celebrates games, and relaxes his mind with banquets. Hephaestion is taken ill and dies. His body is taken to Babylon and given a magnificent funeral. Alexander orders mourning for Hephaestion throughout the empire, and his friends vie with him in honouring Hephaestion; he is persuaded that Hephaestion is a god and Agathocles, a Samian, falls into great danger by weeping for him as if he were dead. Alexander marches against the Cossaei, a rude and warlike nation; he subdues them within 40 days. He founds cities and marches to Babylon. Nearchus warns him not to enter the city, but he scorns the prediction of the Chaldeans, He sails on the river Pallucopas to the land of the Arabians. He founds a city, in which he settled the aged and infirm Greeks and others who wished to remain there. In spite of many unfavourable omens, he enters Babylon. He is entertained by Nearchus at a banquet, and when he was about to retire was persuaded by Médius to attend a drinking-bout. After spending the night in drinking he is taken ill and within six days his strength is exhausted. The troops insist on being admitted to see him.
On his death-bed Alexander remained in the same posture until he had saluted every man in the army. He gives his ring to Perdiccas, and directs that his body be taken to Ammon. He dies, saying that he left his kingdom “to the best man.” A summary of his good qualities and his defects. His invariable good fortune (v).
Consultation as to his successor, and the various opinions of the Macedonians (vi).
Meleager favours Alexander’s brother Arrhidaeus. Pithon names Perdiccas and Leonnatus as regents for an expected son of Roxane. Arrhidaeus with a guard of footsoldiers breaks into the kings quarters. Perdiccas and Leonnatus with their cavalry decide to leave the city (vii).
Meleager urges Arrhidaeus to kill Perdiccas. Perdiccas takes a position in the plains and afflicts Babylon with hunger. Arrhidaeus, desirous of peace, tries to quiet the disturbance (viii).
Perdiccas while he is making a lustration of the army in the Macedonian manner, by a statagem kills Meleager and about 30 other fomenters of discord (ix).
Perdiccas partitions Alexander’s empire, giving the main part to Arrhidaeus and himself, the remainder to the leaders of the Macedonian forces. Rumour that Alexander was poisoned. The king’s body is embalmed in the manner of the Egyptians and Chaldeans and taken by Ptolemy to Memphis and later to Alexandria (x).
BOOK X
I. AT about that same time Oleander and Sitalces, and Heracon with Agathon arrived, who at the king’s [2] order had killed Parmenion. 5000 infantry with 1000 horsemen followed them, but also accusers from the provinces of which they had been governors. And the service rendered by the assassination, although very pleasing to the king, could not make amends for the many crimes which they had committed. For not only had they pillaged everything secular, but they had not even withheld their hands from sacred objects, and maidens and women of high station who had suffered violation were weeping for [4] the insult to their persons. Their greed and lust had made the name of the Macedonians hateful to the [5] barbarians. Among them all, however, the mad passion of Cleander was preeminent, who after having assaulted a maiden of high birth had given her to one of h
is slaves as a concubine.
[6] Very many of Alexander’s friends had an eye, not so much to the atrocity of the crimes that were openly laid to the charge of these men, as to the memory that they had killed Parmenion, which might secretly help the accused with the king; and they rejoiced that his anger had recoiled upon the tools of his anger, and that no power gained through crime was lasting [7] for anyone. The king, having examined the case, declared that the accusers had passed over one crime, and that the greatest of all, namely, despair of his safety; for they never would have ventured on such conduct, if they had either wished him to return safely from India or had believed that he would [8] return. Therefore he bound these men in fetters, but ordered the 600 soldiers who had been the [9] instruments of their cruelty to be put to death. On the same day punishment was inflicted upon those also whom Craterus had brought in, who were responsible for the revolt of the Persians.
[10] Not long afterwards Nearchus and Onesicritus arrived, whom he had ordered to advance some distance [11] into the Ocean. They reported some things from hearsay, others which they had learned from observation: that there was an island opposite the mouth of the river, which abounded in gold, but lacked horses — these, they had learned, were bought at a talent apiece from those who ventured to bring them from the mainland — that the sea was full of [12] whales; that these, huge as great ships, floated with the course of the tide, and when frightened off by the blast of the trumpet, from following the ships, plunged under the water with a great roaring of the sea, like so many sunken vessels.
[13] As to other matters they had taken the word of the natives; that the Red Sea was so called, not from the colour of its waters, as most people believed, but [14] from a King Erythrus; that there was, not far from the mainland, an island thickly planted with palm-groves, and that in about the middle of the wood a lofty column arose, marking the grave of King Erythrus and inscribed in the characters of that [15] nation. They added that ships carrying sutlers and merchants, whose pilots had followed the report of gold, had crossed to the island, but after that had [16] never been seen by them again. The king, fired with eagerness to know more, bade them go back and coast along the shore until they brought the fleet to the mouth of the Euphrates; from there they would go up the river to Babylon.
[17] Alexander himself, having embraced infinite plans in his mind, had determined, after thoroughly subduing the entire seacoast of the Orient, to cross from Syria to Africa, being incensed against the Carthaginians, then passing through the deserts of Numidia, to direct his course to Gades — for the report had spread abroad that the pillars of Hercules were there [18] — then to visit Spain, which the Greeks called Hiberia from the river Hiberus, to approach and skirt the Alps and the seacoast of Italy, from which it is [19] only a short voyage to Epirus. With this in view he ordered the governors of Mesopotamia to cut timber on Mt. Libanus, transport it to Thapsacus, a city of Syria, and lay the keels of 700 ships; all were to be septiremes, and to be taken to Babylon. The kings of the Cypriotes were ordered to furnish copper, hemp and sails.
[20] While he was thus engaged, letters of Kings Porus and Taxiles were delivered to him, reporting that Abisares had died a natural death, and Philippus, his satrap, as the result of a wound, and that those who had wounded the latter had been punished.
[21] Accordingly, he appointed, in place of Philippus Eudaemon — he was a general of the Thracians — and gave the kingdom of Abisares to that king’s son.
[22] From there they came to Parsagada; that is a Persian race, whose satrap was Orsines, prominent among all the barbarians for high birth and wealth.
[23] He traced his descent from Cyrus, formerly king of the Persians; he had wealth, both what he had inherited from his forefathers and what he himself had amassed during long possession of sovereignty.
[24] He met the king with gifts of every kind, intending to give presents not only to Alexander but to his friends as well. Troops of tamed horses followed him and chariots adorned with silver and gold, costly furniture and splendid gems, golden vases of great weight, purple vestments, and 3000 talents of coined [25] silver. But this great generosity of the barbarian was the cause of his death. For when he had honoured all the friends of the king with gifts beyond their highest hopes, to Bagoas, a eunuch who had won the regard of Alexander through prostitution, he [26] paid no honour, and on being admonished by some that Bagoas was dear to Alexander, replied that he was honouring the friends of the king, not his harlots, and that it was not the custom of the Persians to mate with males who made females of themselves by prostitution.
[27] On hearing this, the eunuch exercised the power which he had gained by shame and disgrace against the life of an eminent and guiltless man. For he secretly supplied the most worthless fellows of that same nation with false accusations, warning them not to make them public until he himself should have [28] given the word. Meanwhile, whenever no witnesses were present, he filled the credulous ears of the king with lies, concealing the reason for his anger, in order to add greater weight to his accusations.
[29] Orsines as yet was not suspected, but nevertheless was already less esteemed; for he was secretly being incriminated without being aware of the hidden danger. And that most shameless harlot, not forgetting his deception even amid debauchery and the endurance of shame, whenever he had aroused the king’s passion for himself, charged Orsines now with avarice, sometimes even with treason.
[30] And now the calumnies were ripe for the ruin of a blameless man, and Fate was on hand, whose will is inescapable. For it chanced that Alexander ordered the tomb of Cyrus to be opened, in which his body had been laid at rest, and to which Alexander wished [31] to pay funereal honours. He had believed it to be a storehouse filled with gold and silver — for that was common rumour among the Persians — , but except the king’s mouldering shield, two Scythian bows, [32] and a scimitar he found nothing. However, having placed a crown of gold upon the coffin in which the body lay, he covered it over with the robe which he himself was accustomed to wear, expressing surprise that a king of such renown and endowed with such power had been buried no more sumptuously than [33] if he had been one of the common folk. The eunuch was at Alexander’s side; looking significantly at him, he said: “What wonder if the tombs of kings are empty, when the houses of their satraps cannot contain the gold that they have amassed from them?
[34] For my part, I had never seen the tomb before, but I learned from Darius that 3000 talents of gold were [35] buried with Cyrus. Hence that generosity to you, in order that what Orsines could not keep with safety, he might even curry favour by giving away.”
[36] He had already aroused the king’s mind to anger, when those to whom he had entrusted the same business arrived. On one side Bagoas, on the other those whom he had suborned, filled the king’s ears [37] with false charges. Before Orsines suspected that he was being accused he was delivered into bondage. Not content with the punishment of an innocent man, the eunuch laid his hand upon him as he was about to be executed. Orsines with a glance at him said: “I had heard that women once reigned in Asia; this however is something new, for a eunuch to [38] reign!” Such was the end of one of the noblest of the Persians, who was not only blameless but of [39] remarkable kindness towards the king. At the same time Phradates, suspected of aspiring to royal power, was put to death. Alexander had begun to be too hasty in inflicting prompt punishment, and also in [40] believing calumnies; so true is it that success is able to change one’s nature, and that rarely is anyone cautious enough towards his own good fortune. For this same man shortly before had not been able to bring himself to punish Lyncestes Alexander [41] though he had been charged by two witnesses, had even suffered humbler criminals to be acquitted against his desire because the rest believed them innocent, and had restored their thrones to [42] vanquished enemies; but towards the end of his life he had so degenerated from his true self, that though formerly of a mind proof against lust, at the caprice of a catamite he gave kingdoms to some and t
ook life from others.
[43] At about that same time Alexander received a letter from Coenus about what had happened in Europe and Asia while the king subdued India.
[44] Zopyrion, governor of Thrace, while making an expedition against the Getae, had been overwhelmed with his whole army by tempests and gales which [45] suddenly arose. On learning of this disaster Seuthes had forced his subjects the Odrysae to revolt. While Thrace was almost lost, Greece also did not remain unshaken by disturbances. For Alexander, by punishing the insolence of certain satraps who, while he was detained at the end of the world by war with the Indi, had practised the greatest and most disgraceful crimes against the provincials, had inspired fear in the rest. These, being guilty of like offences and fearing the same punishment for their crimes, took refuge in the protection of the mercenary soldiers, expecting by such troops as these to defend themselves if they should be demanded for punishment, or after exacting as much money as they could, sought safety in fight. After this mas known, letters mere sent to all the governors of Asia, and when these mere read, they found that they mere ordered to disband on the spot all the foreign soldiers who were serving under them.
Among these was Harpalus. Alexander, because years before Philip, just on account of the friendship between Harpalus and his son, had driven him out and Harpalus had fled the country, regarded him as one of his most faithful friends. And after the death of Mazaeus he had made him satrap of Babylon and had appointed him custodian of the royal treasures. Harpalus, then, having by his flagrant offences lost the confidence which he could have felt in the remarkable favour of the king, abstracted 5000 talents from the royal treasure, hired a band of 6000 mercenaries, and escaped to Europe. For long since, driven headlong by extravagance and his passions, and despairing of pardon from the king, he had looked about for help from others against Alexander’s anger, and had sedulously courted the Athenians, whose power and influence with the rest of the Greeks he knew, as well as their secret hatred of the Macedonians. Therefore he pointed out to his followers that the Athenians, knowing of his arrival and seeing before their eyes the forces and the money which he was bringing, would join forces and plans with them at once. For he thought that from an inexperienced and fickle people by making use of unprincipled and venal persons he could gain everything by bribes.
Delphi Complete Works of Quintus Curtius Rufus Page 41