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
- ↑ 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).
