Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
weary of marches and expeditions, and at last went on so far as to
censure and speak ill of him. All which at first he bore very
patiently, saying, it became a king well to do good to others, and
be evil spoken of. Meantime, on the smallest occasions that
called for a show of kindness to his friends, there was every
indication on his part of tenderness and respect. Hearing
Peucestes was bitten by a bear, he wrote to him, that he took it
unkindly he should send others notice of it, and not make him
acquainted with it; "But now," said he, "since it is so, let me
know how you do, and whether any of your companions forsook you
when you were in danger, that I may punish them." He sent
Hephaestion, who was absent about some business, word how while
they were fighting for their diversion with an ichneumon, Craterus
was by chance run through both thighs with Perdiccas's javelin.
And upon Peucestes's recovery from a fit of sickness, he sent a
letter of thanks to his physician Alexippus. When Craterus was
ill, he saw a vision in his sleep, after which he offered
sacrifices for his health, and bade him to do so likewise. He
wrote also to Pausanias, the physician, who was about to purge
Craterus with hellebore, partly out of an anxious concern for him,
and partly to give him a caution how he used that medicine. He
was so tender of his friends' reputation that he imprisoned
Ephialtes and Cissus, who brought him the first news of Harpalus's
flight and withdrawal from his service, as if they had falsely
accused him. When he sent the old and infirm soldiers home,
Eurylochus, a citizen of Aegae, got his name enrolled among the
sick, though he ailed nothing, which being discovered, he
confessed he was in love with a young woman named Telesippa, and
wanted to go along with her to the seaside. Alexander inquired to
whom the woman belonged, and being told she was a free courtesan,
"I will assist you," said he to Eurylochus, "in your amour, if
your mistress be to be gained either by presents or persuasions;
but we must use no other means, because she is free-born."
It is surprising to consider upon what slight occasions he would
write letters to serve his friends. As when he wrote one in which
he gave order to search for a youth that belonged to Seleucus, who
was run away into Cilicia; and in another, thanked and commended
Peucestes for apprehending Nicon, a servant of Craterus; and in
one to Megabyzus, concerning a slave that had taken sanctuary in a
temple, gave direction that he should not meddle with him while he
was there, but if he could entice him out by fair means, then he
gave him leave to seize him. It is reported of him that when he
first sat in judgment upon capital causes, he would lay his hand
upon one of his ears while the accuser spoke, to keep it free and
unprejudiced in behalf of the party accused. But afterwards such
a multitude of accusations were brought before him, and so many
proved true, that he lost his tenderness of heart, and gave credit
to those also that were false; and especially when anybody spoke
ill of him, he would be transported out of his reason, and show
himself cruel and inexorable, valuing his glory and reputation
beyond his life or kingdom.
He now, as we said, set forth to seek Darius, expecting he should
be put to the hazard of another battle, but heard he was taken and
secured by Bessus, upon which news he sent home the Thessalians,
and gave them a largess of two thousand talents over and above the
pay that was due to them. This long and painful pursuit of
Darius, for in eleven days he marched thirty-three hundred
furlongs, harassed his soldiers so that most of them were ready to
give it up, chiefly for want of water. While they were in this
distress, it happened that some Macedonians who had fetched water
in skins upon their mules from a river they had found out, came
about noon to the place where Alexander was, and seeing him almost
choked with thirst, presently filled a helmet and offered it him.
He asked them to whom they were carrying the water; they told him
to their children, adding, that if his life were but saved, it was
no matter for them, they should be able well enough to repair that
loss, though they all perished. Then he took the helmet into his
hands, and looking round about, when he saw all those who were
near him stretching their heads out and looking, earnestly after
the drink, he returned it again with thanks without tasting a drop
of it, "For," said he, "if I alone should drink, the rest will be
out of heart." The soldiers no sooner took notice of his
temperance and magnanimity upon this occasion, but they one and
all cried out to him to lead them forward boldly, and began
whipping on their horses. For whilst they had such a king, they
said they defied both weariness and thirst, and looked upon
themselves to be little less than immortal. But though they were
all equally cheerful and willing, yet not above threescore horse
were able, it is said, to keep up, and to fall in with Alexander
upon the enemy's camp, where they rode over abundance of gold and
silver that lay scattered about, and passing by a great many
chariots full of women that wandered here and there for want of
drivers, they endeavored to overtake the first of those that fled,
in hopes to meet with Darius among them. And at last, after much
trouble, they found him lying in a chariot, wounded all over with
darts, just at the point of death. However, he desired they would
give him some drink, and when he had drunk a little cold water, he
told Polystratus, who gave it him, that it had become the last
extremity of his ill fortune, to receive benefits and not be able
to return them. "But Alexander," said he, "whose kindness to my
mother, my wife, and my children I hope the gods will recompense,
will doubtless thank you for your humanity to me. Tell him,
therefore, in token of my acknowledgment, I give him this right
hand," with which words he took hold of Polystratus's hand and
died. When Alexander came up to them, he showed manifest tokens
of sorrow, and taking off his own cloak, threw it upon the body to
cover it. And sometime afterwards, when Bessus was taken, he
ordered him to be torn in pieces in this manner. They fastened
him to a couple of trees which were bound down so as to meet, and
then being let loose, with a great force returned to their places,
each of them carrying that part of the body along with it that was
tied to it. Darius's body was laid in state, and sent to his
mother with pomp suitable to his quality. His brother Exathres,
Alexander received into the number of his intimate friends.
And now with the flower of his army he marched into Hyrcania,
where he saw a large bay of an open sea, apparently not much less
than the Euxine, with water, however, sweeter than that of other
seas, but could learn nothing of certainty concerning it, further
than that in all probability it seemed to him to be an arm
issuing from the lake of Maeotis. However, the naturalists were
better informed of the truth, and had given an account of it many
years before Alexander's expedition; that of four gulfs which out
of the main sea enter into the continent, this, known
indifferently as the Caspian and as the Hyrcanian sea, is the most
northern. Here the barbarians, unexpectedly meeting with those
who led Bucephalas, took them prisoners, and carried the horse
away with them, at which Alexander was so much vexed, that he sent
a herald to let them know he would put them all to the sword,
men, women, and children, without mercy, if they did not restore
him. But on their doing so, and at the same time surrendering
their cities into his hands, he not only treated them kindly, but
also paid a ramsom for his horse to those who took him.
From hence he marched into Parthia, where not having much to do,
he first put on the barbaric dress, perhaps with the view of
making the work of civilizing them the easier, as nothing gains
more upon men than a conformity to their fashions and customs. Or
it may have been as a first trial, whether the Macedonians might
be brought to adore him, as the Persians did their kings, by
accustoming them by little and little to bear with the alteration
of his rule and course of life in other things. However, he
followed not the Median fashion, which was altogether foreign and
uncouth, and adopted neither the trousers nor the sleeved vest,
nor the tiara for the head, but taking a middle way between the
Persian mode and the Macedonian, so contrived his habit that it
was not so flaunting as the one, and yet more pompous and
magnificent than the other. At first he wore this habit only when
he conversed with the barbarians, or within doors, among his
intimate friends and companions, but afterwards he appeared in it
abroad, when he rode out, and at public audiences, a sight which
the Macedonians beheld with grief; but they so respected his other
virtues and good qualities, that they felt it reasonable in some
things to gratify his fancies and his passion of glory, in pursuit
of which he hazarded himself so far, that, besides his other
adventures, he had but lately been wounded in the leg by an arrow,
which had so shattered the shank-bone that splinters were taken
out. And on another occasion he received a violent blow with a
stone upon the nape of the neck, which dimmed his sight for a good
while afterwards. And yet all this could not hinder him from
exposing himself freely to any dangers, insomuch that he passed
the river Orexartes, which he took to be the Tanais, and putting
the Scythians to flight, followed them above a hundred furlongs,
though suffering all the time from a diarrhea.
Here many affirm that the Amazon came to give him a visit. So
Clitarchus, Polyclitus, Onesicritus, Antigenes, and Ister, tell
us. But Aristobulus and Chares, who held the office of reporter
of requests, Ptolemy and Anticlides, Philon the Theban, Philip of
Theangela, Hecataeus the Eretrian, Philip the Chalcidian, and
Duris the Samian, say it is wholly a fiction. And truly Alexander
himself seems to confirm the latter statement, for in a letter in
which he gives Antipater an account of all that happened, he tells
him that the king of Scythia offered him his daughter in marriage,
but makes no mention at all of the Amazon. And many years after,
when Onesicritus read this story in his fourth book to Lysimachus,
who then reigned, the king laughed quietly and asked, "Where could
I have been at that time?"
But it signifies little to Alexander whether this be credited or
no. Certain it is, that apprehending the Macedonians would be
weary of pursuing the war, he left the greater part of them in
their quarters; and having with him in Hyrcania the choice of his
men only, amounting to twenty thousand foot, and three thousand
horse, he spoke to them to this effect: That hitherto the
barbarians had seen them no otherwise than as it were in a dream,
and if they should think of returning when they had only alarmed
Asia, and not conquered it, their enemies would set upon them as
upon so many women. However, he told them he would keep none of
them with him against their will, they might go if they pleased;
he should merely enter his protest, that when on his way to make
the Macedonians the masters of the world, he was left alone with a
few friends and volunteers. This is almost word for word, as he
wrote in a letter to Antipater, where he adds, that when he had
thus spoken to them, they all cried out, they would go along with
him whithersoever it was his pleasure to lead them. After
succeeding with these, it was no hard matter for him to bring over
the multitude, which easily followed the example of their betters.