The Anabasis of Alexander/Book VI/Chapter XI
CHAPTER XI.
Alexander Wounded.
Hereupon some of them began to kill the Indians, all of whom they slew, sparing not even a woman or child. Others carried off the king, who was lying in a faint condition, upon his shield ; and they could not yet tell whether he was likely to survive. Some authors have stated that Critodemus, a physician of Cos, an Asclepiad by birth[1] made an incision into the injured part and drew the weapon out of the wound. Other authors say that as there was no physician present at the critical moment, Perdiccas, the confidential body-guard, at Alexander's bidding, made an incision with his sword into the wounded part and removed the weapon. On its removal there was such a copious effusion of blood that Alexander swooned again; and the effect of the swoon was, that the effusion of blood was stanched.[2] Many other things concerning this catastrophe have been recorded by the historians; and Rumour having received the statements as they were given by the first falsifiers of the facts, still preserves them even to our times, nor will she desist from handing the falsehoods on to others also in regular succession, unless a stop is put to it by this history.[3] For example, the common account is, that this calamity befell Alexander among the Oxydracians; whereas, it really occurred among the Mallians, an independent tribe of Indians; the city belonged to the Mallians,[4] and the men who wounded him were Mallians. These people, indeed, had resolved to join their forces with the Oxydracians and then to make a desperate struggle; but he forestalled them by marching against them through the waterless country, before any aid could reach them from the Oxydracians, or they could render any help to the latter. Moreover, the common account is, that the last battle fought with Darius was near Arbela, at which battle he fled and did not desist from flight until he was arrested by Bessus and put to death at Alexander's approach; just as the battle before this was at Issus, and the first cavalry battle near the Granicus. The cavalry battle did really take place near the Granicus, and the next battle with Darius near Issus; but those authors who make Arbela most distant say that it is 600[5] stades distant from the place where the last battle between Alexander and Darius was fought, while those who make it least distant, say that it is 500 stades off. Moreover, Ptolemy and Aristobulus say that the battle was fought at Gaugamela near the river Bumodus. But as Gaugamela was not a city, but only a large village, the place is not celebrated, nor is the name pleasing to the ear; hence, it seems to me, that Arbela, being a city, has carried off the glory of the great battle. But if it is necessary to consider that this engagement took place near Arbela, being in reality so far distant from it, then it is allowable to say that the sea-battle fought at Salainis occurred near the isthmus[6] of the Corinthians, and that fought at Artemisium, in Euboea, occurred near Aegina or Sunium. Moreover, in regard to those who covered Alexander with their shields in his peril, all agree that Peucestas did so; but they no longer agree in regard to Leonnatus or Abreas, the soldier in receipt of double pay for his distinguished services. Some say that Alexander, having received a blow on the head with a piece of wood, fell down in a fit of dizziness; and that having risen again he was wounded with a dart through the corselet in the chest. But Ptolemy, son of Lagus, says that he received only this wound in the chest. However, in my opinion, the greatest error made by those who have written the history of Alexander is the following. There are some who have recorded[7] that Ptolemy, son of Lagus, in company with Peucestas, mounted the ladder with Alexander; that Ptolemy held his shield over him when he lay wounded, and that he was called Soter (the preserver) on that account.[8] And yet Ptolemy himself has recorded that he was not even present at this engagement, but was fighting battles against other barbarians at the head of another army. Let me mention these facts as a digression from the main narrative, so that the correct account of such great deeds and calamities may not be a matter of indifference to men of the future.[9]
- ↑ Curtius (ix. 22) calls the physician Critobulus. Near the oity of Cos stood the Asclepieum, or temple of Asolepius, to whom the island was sacred, and from whom the chief family, the Asclepiadae, claimed descent. Curtius says:— Igitur patefaoto latius vulnere, et spiculo evolso, ingens vis sanguinis manare coepit, linquique animo rex, et caligine oculis offusa, veluti moribundus extendi.
- ↑ Cf. Plutarch (Alex. 63); Diodorus (xvii. 98, 99); Curtius (ix. 18-23); Justin (xii. 9).
- ↑ As to Fame, or Rumour, see Homer (Iliad, ii. 93; Odyss. xxiv. 412); Hesiod (Works and Days, 758-762); Vergil (Aeneid, iv. 173-190); Ovid (Met. xii. 39-63); Statius (Theb. ii. 426).
- ↑ Curtius (ix. 18) says it was the town of the Oxydracians.
- ↑ Nearly 70 miles.
- ↑ Isthmus is from the same root as ιέναι, to go, and thus means a passage. Pindar (Isthmia, iv. 34) calls it the "bridge of the sea."
- ↑ We learn from Curtius (ix. 21) that the authors who stated that Ptolemy was present in this battle were Clitarchus and Timagenes. From the history of the former, who was a contemporary of Alexander, Curtius mainly drew the materials for his history of Alexander.
- ↑ Ptolemy received this appellation from the Rhodians whom he relieved from the assaults of Demetrius. The grateful Rhodians paid him divine honours as their preserver, and he was henceforward known as Ptolemy Soter. B.C. 304. See Pausanias, i. 8, 6.
- ↑ The word αταλαιπωρος is used in a similar way by Thucydides, i. 20, 4.