The Anabasis of Alexander or, The history of the wars and conquests of Alexander the Great
but the rest fled to the Macedonian guard and the royal shield-bearing
troops. Now, when Alexander saw that his own men were in flight, and
that the Thebans had broken their ranks in pursuit, he attacked them
with his phalanx drawn up in proper order, and drove them back within
the gates. The Thebans fled in such a panic that being driven into
the city through the gates they had not time to shut them; for the
Macedonians, who were close behind the fugitives, rushed with them
within the fortifications, inasmuch as the walls were destitute of
defenders on account of the numerous pickets in front of them. When the
Macedonians had entered the Cadmea, some of them marched out of it,
in company with those who held the fortress, into the other part of
the city opposite the temple of Amphion,[80] but others crossing along
the walls, which were now in the possession of those who had rushed in
together with the fugitives, advanced with a run into the market-place.
Those of the Thebans who had been drawn up opposite the temple of
Amphion stood their ground for a short time; but when the Macedonians
under the command of Alexander were seen to be pressing hard upon
them in various directions, their cavalry rushed through the city
and sallied forth into the plain, and their infantry fled for safety
as each man found it possible. Then indeed the Thebans, no longer
defending themselves, were slain, not so much by the Macedonians as by
the Phocians, Plataeans and other Boeotians,[81] who by indiscriminate
slaughter vented their rage against them. Some were even attacked in
the houses, having there turned to defend themselves from the enemy,
and others were slain as they were supplicating the protection of the
gods in the temples; not even the women and children being spared.[82]
CHAPTER IX.
DESTRUCTION OF THEBES.
This was felt by the Greeks to be a general calamity for it struck
the rest of the Greeks with no less consternation than it did those
who had themselves taken part in the struggle, both on account of the
magnitude of the captured city and the celerity of the action, the
result of which was in the highest degree contrary to the expectation
both of the sufferers and the perpetrators. For the disasters which
befell the Athenians in relation to Sicily,[83] though in regard to
the number of those who perished they brought no less misfortune to
the city, yet, because their army was destroyed far away from their
own land, being composed for the most part rather of auxiliary troops
than of native Athenians, and because their city itself was left to
them intact, so that afterwards they held their own in war even for a
long time, though fighting against the Lacedaemonians and their allies,
as well as the Great King; these disasters, I say, neither produced
in the persons who were themselves involved in the calamity an equal
sensation of the misfortune, nor did they cause the other Greeks a
similar consternation at the catastrophe. Again, the defeat sustained
by the Athenians at Aegospotami[84] was a naval one, and the city
received no other humiliation than the demolition of the Long Walls,
the surrender of most of her ships, and the loss of supremacy. However,
they still retained their hereditary form of government, and not long
after recovered their former power to such a degree as not only to
build up the Long Walls but to recover the rule of the sea[85] and in
their turn to preserve from extreme danger those very Lacedaemonians
then so formidable to them, who had come and almost obliterated their
city. Moreover, the defeat of the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra and
Mantinea filled them with consternation rather by the unexpectedness
of the disaster than because of the number of those who perished.[86]
And the attack made by the Boeotians and Arcadians under Epaminondas
upon the city of Sparta, even this terrified both the Lacedaemonians
themselves and those who participated with them in the transactions at
that time,[87] rather by the novelty of the sight than by the reality
of the danger. The capture of the city of the Plataeans was not a great
calamity, by reason of the small number of those who were taken in it;
most of the citizens having long before escaped to Athens.[88] Again,
the capture of Melus and Scione simply related to insular States, and
rather brought disgrace to those who perpetrated the outrages than
produced great surprise among the Grecian community as[89] a whole.
But the Thebans having effected their revolt suddenly and without any
previous consideration, the capture of the city being brought about
in so short a time and without difficulty on the part of the captors,
the slaughter, being great, as was natural, from its being made by men
of the same race who were glutting their revenge on them for ancient
injuries, the complete enslavement of a city which excelled among those
in Greece at that time both in power and warlike reputation, all this
was attributed not without probability to the avenging wrath of the
deity. It seemed as if the Thebans had after a long time suffered this
punishment for their betrayal of the Greeks in the Median war,[90] for
their seizure of the city of Plataeae during the truce, and for their
complete enslavement of it, as well as for the un-Hellenic slaughter
of the men who had surrendered to the Lacedaemonians, which had been
committed at the instigation of the Thebans; and for the devastation
of the territory in which the Greeks had stood in battle-array against
the Medes and had repelled danger from Greece; lastly, because by
their vote they had tried to ruin the Athenians when a motion was
brought forward among the allies of the Lacedaemonians for the
enslavement of Athens.[91] Moreover it was reported that before the
disaster many portents were sent from the deity, which indeed at the
time were treated with neglect, but afterwards when men called them
to remembrance they were compelled to consider that the events which
occurred had been long before prognosticated.[92]
The settlement of Theban affairs was entrusted by Alexander to the
allies who had taken part in the action. They resolved to occupy the
Cadmea with a garrison; to raze the city to the ground; to distribute
among themselves all the territory, except what was dedicated to the
gods; and to sell into slavery the women and children, and as many of
the males as survived, except those who were priests or priestesses,
and those who were bound to Philip or Alexander by the ties of
hospitality or had been public agents of the Macedonians. It is said
that Alexander preserved the house and the descendants of Pindar the
poet, out of respect for his memory.[93] In addition to these things,
the allies decreed that Orchomenus[94] and Plataeae should be rebuilt
and fortified.
CHAPTER X.
ALEXANDER’S DEALINGS WITH ATHENS.
As soon as news of the calamity which had befallen the Thebans reached
the other Greeks, the Arcadians, who had set out from their own
land for the purpose of giving aid to the Thebans, passed sentence
of death on those who had instigated them to render aid. The Eleans
also received back their exiles from banishment, because they were
Alexander’s adherents; and the Aetolians, each tribe for itself,
sent embassies to him, begging to receive pardon, because they also
had attempted to effect a revolution, on the receipt of the report
which had been spread by the Thebans. The Athenians also, who, at the
time when some of the Thebans, escaping from the carnage, arrived at
Athens, were engaged in celebrating the Great Mysteries,[95] abandoned
the sacred rites in great consternation, and carried their goods and
chattels from the rural districts into the city. The people came
together in public assembly, and, on the motion of Demades, elected
from all the citizens ten ambassadors, men whom they knew to be
Alexander’s special adherents, and sent them to signify to him, though
somewhat unseasonably, that the Athenian people rejoiced at his safe
return from the land of the Illyrians and Triballians, and at the
punishment which he had inflicted upon the Thebans for their rebellion.
In regard to other matters he gave the embassy a courteous reply, but
wrote a letter to the people demanding the surrender of Demosthenes and
Lycurgus, as well as that of Hyperides, Polyeuctus, Chares, Charidemus,
Ephialtes, Diotimus, and Moerocles;[96] alleging that these men were
the cause of the disaster which befell the city at Chaeronea, and the
authors of the subsequent offensive proceedings after Philip’s death,
both against himself and his father.[97] He also declared that they
had instigated the Thebans to revolt no less than had those of the
Thebans themselves who favoured a revolution. The Athenians, however,
did not surrender the men, but sent another embassy to Alexander,[98]
entreating him to remit his wrath against the persons whom he had
demanded. The king did remit his wrath against them, either out of
respect for the city of Athens, or from an earnest desire to start on
the expedition into Asia, not wishing to leave behind him among the
Greeks any cause for distrust. However, he ordered Charidemus alone of
the men whom he had demanded as prisoners and who had not been given
up, to go into banishment. Charidemus therefore went as an exile to
King Darius in Asia.[99]
CHAPTER XI.
ALEXANDER CROSSES THE HELLESPONT AND VISITS TROY.
Having settled these affairs, he returned into Macedonia. He then
offered to the Olympian Zeus the sacrifice which had been instituted
by Archelaüs,[100] and had been customary up to that time; and he
celebrated the public contest of the Olympic games at Aegae.[101] It is
said that he also held a public contest in honour of the Muses. At this
time it was reported that the statue of Orpheus, son of Oeagrus the
Thracian, which was in Pieris,[102] sweated incessantly.[103] Various
were the explanations of this prodigy given by the soothsayers; but
Aristander,[104] a man of Telmissus, a soothsayer, bade Alexander take
courage; for he said it was evident from this that there would be much
labour for the epic and lyric poets, and for the writers of odes, to
compose and sing about Alexander and his achievements.
(B.C. 334.) At the beginning of the spring he marched towards the
Hellespont, entrusting the affairs of Macedonia and Greece to
Antipater. He led not much above 30,000 infantry together with
light-armed troops and archers, and more than 5,000 cavalry.[105]
His march was past the lake Cercinitis,[106] towards Amphipolis and
the mouths of the river Strymon. Having crossed this river he passed
by the Pangaean mountain,[107] along the road leading to Abdera and
Maronea, Grecian cities built on the coast. Thence he arrived at the
river Hebrus,[108] and easily crossed it. Thence he proceeded through
Paetica to the river Melas, having crossed which he arrived at Sestus,
in twenty days altogether from the time of his starting from home. When
he came to Elaeūs he offered sacrifice to Protesilaus upon the tomb of
that hero, both for other reasons and because Protesilaus seemed to
have been the first of the Greeks who took part with Agamemnon in the
expedition to Ilium to disembark in Asia. The design of this sacrifice
was, that his disembarking in Asia might be more fortunate than that of
Protesilaus had been.[109] He then committed to Parmenio the duty of
conveying the cavalry and the greater part of the infantry from Sestus
to Abydus; and they were transported in 160 triremes, besides many
trading vessels.[110] The prevailing account is, that Alexander started
from Elaeūs and put into the Port of Achaeans,[111] that with his own
hand he steered the general’s ship across, and that when he was about