• “They
recalled that at the start of his reign Darius had issued orders for the shape
of the scabbard of the Persian scimitar to be altered to the shape used by the
Greeks, and that the Chaldeans had immediately interpreted this as meaning that
rule over the Persians would pass to those people whose arms Darius had copied.
“
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 3.3.6
• “For his
part Alexander responded much like this: ‘His majesty Alexander to Darius:
Greetings. The Darius whose name you have assumed wrought much destruction upon
the Greek inhabitants of the Hellespontine coast and upon the Greek colonies of
Ionia, and the crossed the sea with a mighty army, bringing the war to
Macedonia and Greece. On another occasion Xerxes, a member of the same family,
came with his savage barbarian troops, and even when beaten in a naval engagement
he still left Mardonius in Greece so that he could destroy our cities and burn
our fields though absent himself.”
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 4.1.10
• “Mutiny was
but a step away when, unperturbed by all this, Alexander summoned a full
meeting of his generals and officers in his tent and ordered the Egyptian seers
to give their opinion. They were well aware that the annual cycle follows a
pattern of changes, that the moon is eclipsed when it passes behind the earth
or is blocked by the sun, but they did not give this explanation, which they
themselves knew, to the common soldiers. Instead, they declared that the sun
represented the Greeks and the moon the Persians, and that an eclipse of the
moon predicted disaster and slaughter for those nations.”
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 4.10.1
• “Alexander
called a meeting of his generals the next day. He told them that no city was
more hateful to the Greeks than Persepolis, the capital of the old kings of
Persia, the city from which troops without number had poured forth, from which
first Darius and then Xerxes had waged an unholy war on Europe. To appease the
spirits of their forefathers they should wipe it out, he said.”
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 5.6.1
• “One of the
latter was Thais. She too had had too much to drink, when she claimed that, if
Alexander gave the order to burn the PErsian palace, he would earn the deepest
gratitude among all the Greeks. This was what the people whose cities the
Persians ahd destroyed were expecting she said. As the drunken whore gave her
opinion on a matter of extreme importance, one or two who were themselves the
worse for drink agreed with her. the king, too, was enthusiastic rather than
acquiescent. “Why do we not avenge Greece, then and put the city to the torch?”
he asked.”
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 5. 7. 3
• “From here
he now moved into Media, where he was met by fresh reinforcement from Cilicia:
5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, both under the command of the Athenian Plato.
His foraces thus augmented. Alexander determined to pursue Darius”
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 5. 7.
• “As for
Alexander, it is generally agreed that, when sleep had brought him back to his
senses after his drunken bout, he regretted his actions and said that the
Persians would have suffered a more grievous punishment at the hands of the
Greeks had they been forced to see him on Xerxes’ throne and in his palace.”
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 5.7.11
• “In pursuit
of Bessus the Macedonians had arrived at a small town inhabited by the
Branchidae who, on the orders of Xerxes, when he was returning from Greece, had
emigrated from Miletus and settled in this spot. This was necessary because, to
please Xerxes, they had violated the temple called the Didymeon. The culture of
their forebears had not yet disappeared thought they were now bilingual and the
foreign tongue was gradually eroding their own. So it was with great joy that
they welcomed Alexander, to whom they surrendered themselves and their city.
Alexander called a meeting of the Milesians in his force, for the Milesians
bore a long-standing grudge against the Branchidae as a clan. Since they were
the people betrayed by the Branchidae, Alexander let them decide freely on
their case, asking if they preferred to remember their injury or their common
origins. But when there was a difference of opinion over this, he declared that
he would himself consider the best course of action.
When the
Branchidae met him the next day, he told them to accompany him. On reaching the
city, he himself entered through the gate with a unit of light-armed troops.
The phalanx had been ordered to surround the city walls and, when the signal
was given, to sack this city which provided refuge for traitors, killing the
inhabitants to a man. The Branchidae, who were unarmed, were butchered
throughout the city, and neither community of language nor the olive-branches
and entreaties of the suppliants could curb the savagery. Finally the
Macedonians dug down to the foundations of the city walls in order to demolish
them and leave not a single trace of the city.”
• “The gist
of the passage was that the Greeks had established a bad practice in inscribing
their trophies with only their kings’ names, for the kings’ were thus
appropriating to themselves glory that was won by the blood of others.”
Quintus
Curtius Rufus 8.1.29
• “and he
[alexander] demonstrated the strength of his contempt for the barbarians by
celebrating games in honour of Aesclepius and Athena.”
Curtius Rufus
3, 7, 3
• “he
consecrated three altars on the banks of the river Pinarus to Zeus, Hercules,
and Athena,…”
Curtius Rufus
3, 12, 27
• “About this
time there took place the traditional Isthmian games, which the whole of Greece
gathers to celebrate. At this assembly the Greeks – political trimmers by
temperament – determined that fifteen ambassadors be sent to the king to offer
him a victory-gift of a golden crown in honour of his achievements on behalf of
the security and freedom of greece.”
Curtius Rufus
4, 5, 11
• “they also
occupied Tenedos and had decided to seize Chios at the invitation of its
inhabitants.”
Curtius Rufus
4, 5, 14
• “Then
Alexander’s horses dragged him around the city while the king gloated at having
followed the example of his ancestor Achilles in punishing his enemy.”
Curtius Rufus
4,6.29
• ” Moreover,
as a reward for their exceptional loyalty to him, Alexander reimbursed the
people of Mitylene for their war expenses and also added a large area to their
territories.”
Curtius Rufus
4.8.13
• ”
Furthemore, appropriate honours were accorded the kings of Cyprus who had
defected to him from Darius and sent him a fleet during his assault on
Tyre.”
Curtius Rufus
4.8.14
•
“Amphoterus, the admiral of the fleet, was then sent to liberate Crete, most of
which was occupied by both Persian and Spartan armies”
Curtius Rufus
4.8. 15
• “He did not
want her tainting the character and civilized temperament of the Greeks with
this example of barbarian lawlessness“
• “Alexander
advanced from there to the river Tanais, where Bessus was brought to him, not
only in irons but entirely stripped of his clothes. Spitamenes held him with a
chain around his neck, a sight that afforded as much pleasure to the barbarians
as to the Macedonians.”
Curtius Rufus
7.5.36
• ” Meanwhile
a group of Macedonians had gone off to forage out of formation and were suprised
by some Barbarians who came rushing down on them from the neighbouring
mountains.”
Curtius Rufus
7.6.1
• “Menedemus
himself, riding an extremely powerful horse, had repeatedly charged at full
gallop into the barbarians’ wedge-shaped contingents, scattering them with
great carnage.”
Curtius Rufus
7.6.35
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