Cadmea, for he still wished rather to come to friendly terms with the Thebans than to come to a contest with them.[1] Then those of the Thebans who knew what was for the best interest of the commonwealth were eager to go out to Alexander and obtain pardon for the commonalty of Thebes for their revolt; but the exiles and those who had summoned them home kept on inciting the populace to war by every means in their power, since they despaired of obtaining for themselves any indulgence from Alexander, especially as some of them were also Boeotarchs.[2] However not even for this did Alexander assault the city.
CHAPTER VIII.
Fall of Thebes.
But Ptolemy, son of Lagus, tells us that Perdiccas, who had been posted in the advanced guard of the camp with his own brigade, and was not far from the enemy's stockade, did not wait for the signal from Alexander to commence the battle; but of his own accord was the first to assault the stockade, and, having made a breach in it, fell upon the advanced guard of the Thebans.[3]
- ↑ He sent to demand the surrender of the anti-Macedonian leaders, Phoenix and Prothytes, but offering any other Thebans who came out to him the terms agreed upon in the preceding year. See Plutarch (Life of Alexander, 11); and Diodorus, xvii. 9.
- ↑ The Boeotarchs were the chief magistrates of the Boeotian confederacy, chosen annually by the different States. The number varied from ten to twelve. At the time of the battle of Delium, in the Peloponnesian war, they were eleven in number, two of them being Thebans. See Grote, History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 296.
- ↑ Arrian says that the attack of the Macedonians upon Thebes was made by Perdiccas, without orders from Alexander; and that the capture was effected in a short time and with no labour on the part of the captors (ch. ix.). But Diodorus says that Alexander ordered and arranged the assault, that the Thebans made a brave and desperate resistance for a
