The Anabasis of Alexander/Book III/Chapter II

by Arrian

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CHAPTER II.

Foundation of Alexandria.—Events in the Aegean.

The following story is told, which seems to me not worthy of belief^[1]:—that Alexander himself wished to leave behind for the builders the marks for the boundaries of the fortification, but that there was nothing at hand with which to make a furrow in the ground. One of the builders^[2] hit upon the plan of collecting in vessels the barley which the soldiers were carrying, and throwing it upon the ground where the king led the way; and thus the circle of the fortification which he was making^[3] for the city was completely marked out. The soothsayers, and especially Aristander the Telmissian, who was said already to have given many other true predictions, pondering this, told Alexander that the city would become prosperous in every respect, but especially in regard to the fruits of the earth.

At this time Hegelochus^[4] sailed to Egypt and informed Alexander that the Tenedians had revolted from the Persians and attached themselves to him; because they had gone over to the Persians against their own wish. He also said that the democracy of Chios were introducing Alexander's adherents in spite of those who held the city, being established in it by Autophradates and Pharnabazus. The latter commander had been caught there and kept as a prisoner, as was also the despot Aristonicus, a Methymnaean,^[5] who sailed into the harbour of Chios with five piratical vessels, fitted with one and a half banks of oars, not knowing that the harbour was in the hands of Alexander's adherents, but being misled by those who kept the bars of the harbour, because forsooth the fleet of Pharnabazus was moored in it. All the pirates were there massacred by the Chians; and Hegelochus brought to Alexander, as prisoners Aristonicus, Apollonides the Chian, Phisinus, Megareus, and all the others who had taken part in the revolt of Chios to the Persians, and who at that time were holding the government of the island by force. He also announced that he had deprived Chares^[6] of the possession of Mitylene, that he had brought over the other cities in Lesbos by a voluntary agreement, and that he had sent Amphoterus to Cos with sixty ships, for the Coans themselves invited him to their island. He said that he himself had sailed to Cos and found it already in the hands of Amphoterus. Hegelochus brought all the prisoners with him except Pharnabazus, who had eluded his guards at Cos and got away by stealth. Alexander sent the despots who had been brought from the cities back to their fellow-citizens, to be treated as they pleased; but Apollonides and his Chian partisans he sent under a strict guard to Elephantinē, an Egyptian city.^[7]

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1. Cf. Strabo (xvii. 1); Plutarch (Alex., 26); Diodorus (xvii. 52); Curtius (iv. 33); Ammianus (xxii. 16).
2. We find from Valerius Maximus (i. 4) and Ammianus, I.c., that his name was Dinocrates.
3. Krüger substitutes ὲπενόει for ὲποίει, comparing iv. 1, 3, and 4, 1 infra.
4. See Arrian, ii. 2 supra.
5. Methymna was, next to Mitylene, the most important city in Lesbos.
6. Chares was an Athenian who had been one of the generals at the fatal battle of Chaeronea. Curtius (iv. 24) says that he consented to evacuate Mitylene with his force of 2,000 men on condition of a free departure.
7. On an island in the Nile, of the same name, opposite Syene. It served as the southern frontier garrison station.