Quintus Curtius Rufus
Παράθεση:
Alexander also summoned the delegates of
the League of Corinth in order to have himself declared its Hegemon and, when
he had obtained their support for his expedition against Persia, he returned to
Macedonia (Diod. 17.4.9) The government of Persia had undergone a number of
changes since Philip II first organized the Greek crusade against the East.
The History
of Alexander – Penguin Classics, Translation by John Yardley, page 20
Παράθεση:
“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)
Παράθεση:
“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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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. 8)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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.”
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
“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)
Παράθεση:
he consecrated three altars on the banks of
the river Pinarus to Zeus, Hercules, and Athena,…”
(Curtius
Rufus 3, 12, 27)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
they also occupied Tenedos and had decided
to seize Chios at the invitation of its inhabitants.
(Curtius
Rufus 4, 5, 14)
Παράθεση:
“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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
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)
Παράθεση:
“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)
Παράθεση:
Besides the Macedonians there are many
present who, I think, will
more easily understand what I shall say if
I use the same language which you have employed, for no other reason, I
suppose, than in order that you speech might be understood by the greater
number
(Curtius
6.9.35)
2. Titus
Livius
Παράθεση:“
Aetolians,
Acarnanians, Macedonians, men of the SAME language
(T. Livius
XXXI,29, 15)
Παράθεση:
General Paulus of Rome surrounded by the
ten Commissioners took his official seat surrounded by the whole crowds of
Macedonians…Paulus announced in Latin the decisions of
the Senate, as well as his own, made by the advice of his council. This
announcement was translated into Greek and repeated by Gnaeus
Octavius the Praetor-for he too was present.”
(T.
Livius,XLV)
Παράθεση:
As for the Argives, apart from their belief
that the Macedonian kings were descended from them, most of them were also
attached to Philip by individual ties of hospitality and close personal
friendships.”
(T. Livius,
32.22)
3. Cicero
Παράθεση:
“For if all the wars which we have carried
on against the Greeks are to be despised, then let the triumph of Marcus Curius
over king Pyrrhus be derided; and that of Titus Flamininus over Philip; and
that of Marcus Fulvius over the Aetolians; and that of Lucius Paullus over king
Perses; and that of Quintus Metellus over the false Philip; and that of Lucius
Mummius over the Corinthians. But, if all these wars were of the greatest
importance, and if our victories in them were most acceptable, then why are the
Asiatic nations and that Asiatic enemy despised by you? But, from our records
of ancient deeds; I see that the Roman people carried on a most important war
with Antiochus; the conqueror in which war, Lucius Scipio, who had already
gained great glory when acting in conjunction with his brother Publius, assumed
the same honour himself by taking a surname from Asia, as his brother did, who,
having subdued Africa, paraded his conquest by the assumption of the name of
Africanus. [32] And in that war the renown of your ancestor Marcus Cato was
very conspicuous; but he, if he was, as I make no doubt that he was, a man of
the same character as I see that you are, would never have gone to that war, if
he had thought that it was only going to be a war against women. Nor would the
senate have prevailed on Publius Africanus to go as lieutenant to his brother,
when he himself; a little while before, having forced Hannibal out of Italy,
having driven him out of Africa, and having crushed the power of Carthage, had
delivered the republic from the greatest dangers, if that war had not been
considered an important and formidable war.”
[Orations of
Cicero]
4. Julius
Caesar
Παράθεση:
“Caesar judged that he must drop everything
else and pursue Pompey where he had betaken himself after his flight, so that
he should not be able to gather more forces and renew, and he advanced daily as
far as he could go with the cavalry and ordered a legion to follow shorter
stages. An edict had been published in Pompey’s name that all the younger men
in the province [Macedonia], both Greeks and Roman citizens, should assemble to
take an oath.”
Caesar, Civil War 111.102.3
5. Velleius
Paterculus
Παράθεση:
In this period, sixty-five years before the
founding of Rome, Carthage was established by the Tyrian Elissa, by some
authors called Dido. 5 About this time also Caranus, a man of royal race,
eleventh in descent from Hercules, set out from Argos and seized the kingship
of Macedonia. From him Alexander the Great was descended in the seventeenth
generation, and could boast that, on his mother’s side, he was descended from
Achilles, and, on his father’s side, from Hercules.”
[Velleius
Paterculus: “The Roman History” Book I, 5]
6. Marcus
Junianus Justinus
Παράθεση:
Caranus also came to Emathia with a large
band of Greeks, being instructed by an oracle to seek a home in Macedonia.
Hero, following a herd of goats running from a downpour, he seized the city of
Edessa, the inhabitants being taken unawares because of heavy rain and dense
fog. Remembering the oracle’s command to follow the
lead of goats in his quest for ar empire, Caranus established the city as his
capital, and thereafter he made it a solemn observance, wheresoever
he took his army, to keep those same goats before his standards in order in
have as leaders in his exploits the animals which he had had with him to found
the kingdom. He gave the city of Edessa the name Aegaeae and its people the
name Aegeads in memory of this service
M.Justinus’ epitome of Pompeius Trogus’ Universal History 7.1
Παράθεση:
Next he directed the army towards Thebes
intending to show the same mercy if he met with similar contrition. But the
Thebans resorted to arms rather than entreaties or appeals, and so after their
defeat they were subjected to all the terrible punishments associated with a
humiliating capitulation. When the destruction of the city was being discussed
in council, the Phocians, the Plataeans, the Thespians and the Orchomenians,
Alexander’s allies who now shared his victory, recalled
the devastation of their own cities and the ruthlessness of the Thebans,
reproaching them also with their past as well as their present support
of Persia against the independence of Greece. This, they said, had made Thebes
an abomination to all the Greek peoples, which was obvious from the fact that
the Greeks had one and all taken a solemn oath to destroy the city once the
Persians were defeated, Then also added the tales of earlier Theban wickedness
– the material with which they had filled all their plays – in order to foment
hatred against them not only for their treachery in the present but also for
their infamies in the past.
M.Justinus’ epitome of Pompeius Trogus’ Universal History 11.3.6
7. Aelian
Παράθεση:
When Hephaestion died at Ecbatana (in 324)
Alexander placed his weapons upon the funeral pyre, with gold and silver for
the dead man, and a robe-which last, among the Persians is a symbol of great
honor. He shore off his own hair, as in Homeric grief, and behaved like the
Achilles of Homer. Indeed he acted more violently and passionately than the
latter, for he caused the towers and strongholds of Ecbatana to be demolished
all round. As long as he only dedicated his own hair, he was behaving, I think,
like a Greek; but when he laid hands on the very walls, Alexander was already
showing his grief in foreign fashion. Even in his clothing he departed from
ordinary custom, and gave himself up to his mood, his love, and his tears.
Varia
Historia, vii, 8.
Παράθεση:
Perdiccas the Macedonian who accompanied
Alexander on his expedition was apparently so courageous that he once went
alone into a cave where a lioness had her lair. He did not catch the lioness,
but he emerged carrying her cubs. Perdiccas won admiration for this feat. Not
only Greeks, but barbarians as well, are convinced that the lioness is an
animal of great bravery and very difficult to contend with.
12.37(39)
8. Pliny the
Elder
Such, at all events, were the opinions
generally entertained in the reign of Alexander the Great, at a time when
Greece was at the height of her glory, and the most powerful country in the
world.
Pliny, Natural History, chapter 12
9. Tacitus
[6.41] At this same time the Clitae, a
tribe subject to the Cappadocian Archelaus, retreated to the heights of Mount
Taurus, because they were compelled in Roman fashion to render an account of
their revenue and submit to tribute. There they defended themselves by means of
the nature of the country against the king’s unwarlike troops, till Marcus
Trebellius, whom Vitellius, the governor of Syria, sent as his lieutenant with
four thousand legionaries and some picked auxiliaries, surrounded with his
lines two hills occupied by the barbarians, the lesser of which was named
Cadra, the other Davara. Those who dared to sally out, he reduced to surrender
by the sword, the rest by drought. Tiridates meanwhile, with the consent of the
Parthians, received the submission of Nicephorium, Anthemusias and the other
cities, which having been founded by Macedonians, claim Greek names, also of
the Parthian towns Halus and Artemita. There was a rivalry of joy among the
inhabitants who detested Artabanus, bred as he had been among the Scythians,
for his cruelty, and hoped to find in Tiridates a kindly spirit from his Roman
training.
Tacitus, The
Annals of Imperial Rome Chapter 8, pg. 221
