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The Anabasis of Alexander.

soon as the men to whom the duty had been assigned set fire to the pyre, Nearchus says the trumpets sounded, in accordance with Alexander's order, and the whole army raised the war-cry as it was in the habit of shouting when advancing to battle. The elephants also chimed in with their shrill and warlike cry, in honour of Calanus. Authors upon whom reliance may be placed, have recorded these and such-like things, facts of great import to those who are desirous of learning how steadfast and imrdovable a thing the human mind is in regard to what it wishes to accomplish.


CHAPTER IV.

Marriages between Macedonians and Persians.

At this time Alexander sent Atropates away to his own viceroyalty,[1] after advancing to Susa; where he arrested Abulites and his son Oxathres, and, put them to death on the ground that they were governing the Susians badly.[2] Many outrages upon temples, tombs, and the subjects themselves had been committed by those who were ruling the countries conquered by Alexander in war; because the king's expedition into India had taken a long time, and it was not thought credible that he would ever return in safety from so many nations possessing so many elephants, going to his destruction beyond the Indus, Hydaspes, Acesines, and Hyphasis.[3] The calamities that befell him among the Gadrosians were still greater inducements to those acting as viceroys in this region to be free from apprehension of his return to his dominions.


  1. Media. See vi. 29 supra.
  2. Oxathres wag killed by Alexander himself with a sarissa, or long Macedonian pike. See Plutarch (Alex. 68), who calls him Oxyartes.
  3. For this use of φθείρομαι, cf. Aristophanes (Plutus, 610); Alciphron, i. 13, 3; with Bergler's note.