The History of the life and reign of Alexander the Great. Volume 2.

518 Pages·2010·16.29 MB·English

by  Curtius Rufus, Quintus.

THE
HISTORY
OF
'rI-IE LIFE AND REIGN
01<'
ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
BY
QUINTUS CURTIUS RUFUS .
•
~ran!Jlatrb from tlJe 'l!atfn.

WITH SUPPLEMENTS, NOTES, AND A MAP.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR SAMUEL BAGSTER, IN TIlE STRAND,

By James Moyes, Greville Street, Hatton Garden.

1809.

---/-.,.~.....-....
(, 17
~
71
QUINTUS ClJRTIUS"
BOO K V.
THE SUB~nSSION OF BABYLON, AND OF SUSA. TIlt.
BURNh,{G OF PERSEPOLtS. THE DEATH OF DARIUS .
•
C tI A P. I.
Darius flies into Alcdia. Alexander enters

Babylon.

IN
1. the order of tiule, here to have il1tel'­
posed transactions which mean,vhile passed, in
Greece, in Illyria, and in Thrace, under the
guidance and authority of Antipater,-would
have broken the narrative of events in Asia,
\vhich, up to the death of Darius, I deem it
more proper to exhibit \vith the sanle connec­
tion as they had in their occurrence.
Darius reached the city of Arbela about
midnight, whither a great concourse of his
friends and troops fortune had also directed in
their flight. Having convened, he addressed
them:' " I expect that Alexander ,viIl strike
VOL. II. B
Q.UINTUS CURTIU5. Book Y.
" at the provinces and cities most celebrated
" for fertility and riches. The princely spoils,
" there ,vaiting seizure, are the fixed object of
" liinl and his soldiers. Such are our circum­
" stances, that this is an advantage; for ,ve, a
" body equipped for expedition, l11ay mean­
" \vhile retire through desolated tracts. The
remote provinces of l1ly dOlniniol1s are yet
H
" untouched: thence Inlay, ,vithout difficulty,
" bring levies into the field. Let the avaricious
" invaders rifle my treasures, and glut their long
" raging appetite for gold, to be, at no distant
time, a prey to us; for experience teaches,
U
" that gorgeous suits of moveables, and trains
" of concubines an9. eunuchs, are no other than
" burdens and clogs. Alexander, dragging
" these, ,viII sink before those ,vhom he has
" overcolne" - - These seemed to all, the
suggestions of desperation, inasl11uch, as impe­
rial Babylon ,vas proposed to be abandoned to
the conqueror, ,vith Susa, and the other gems of
the empire,' which had been the motives to in­
vasion - - Darius proceeds: "In the present
" exigency, those things, ,vhich have dazzling
" names, should not be our care, but those only
''" :which can be ofessential service. 'Var strikes
" ,vith iron, not with gold; by men, and not
" by t1le soft nurslings of cities. All things
" devolve to the armed. Thus my ancestors,
Chap.t. QUINTUS CURTtUS.
" under reverses, in the infancy of the mo­
" narchy, speedily recovered their greatness."
This address inspired the adherents of Darius
,vith confidence, or, unmoved by his counsels;
they bo\~ed to his sovereignty. He entered the
borders of l\Iedia.
2. To Alexander ,vas soon afterwards sur­
rendered Arbela, replete with regal furniture
and treasures; comprising costly wardrobes and
four thousand talents: Here the valuables of
the whole army had been deposited.
Alexander suddenly broke up his camp, me­
naced ,vith contagion, caused by effluvia from
*.
the dead bodies lying in all the plains At
the beginning of his lnarch, Arabia, celebrated
for its aromatic productions, he kept bearing
to the left t. His road layover levels. The
pasturage between the Tigris and the Euphrates
is represented as so rich and luxuriant, that the
inhabitants restrain the cattle feeding, lest they
should die by a surfeit. The cause of this ferti ..
lity, is the humidity circulated through the soil
ol/l Alexander, as he had fonnerly done with respect to Damascus,
probably took possession of Arbela by a detachment, his main-body
remaining encamped near the field of battle.
t The bearing ofArabia the Happy, which was at a considerable
distance, is relevant so far as it shon s, that when Alexunder broke
up from Gaugamela for Babylon, he'moved in a direction nearly r~
trograde, crossing the Tigris.
4 QUINT"US CURTIUS. l100k P.
by subterranean streams, replenished frOln the
two rivers. Both the Tigris and Euphrates
have their source in tl1e 1110untains of Anne...
nia'*; afterwards, divided by a broad interval,
they flow on in separate channels. Their great­
est distance in the vicinity of the Arn1enian
1110untains, those ,vho ~lave measured, n1ark at
two thousand five hundred stadia. These ri ...
vel'S, then, [zohen tlley begin to intersect IHEDIA
and tIle ridges oj' the GORDJEANS t,] gradually
approxin1ate; and the farther they run, the
smaller is the space behveen them; [shutting
in, on three sides, the country which is called Jl;Ie­
t,
sopotamia 'while they are embracing its plains
they CONVERGE NEAREST t.] At length, passing
,. That these rivers commence from the same spring, we have
the testimony; as well of Moses, Gen. ii. as of Lucan, lib. iii. Strabo,
lib. xi. Boethius, Consolo lib. v. Met. 1. Sallmt, apud Senccam, nat.
lJwrst. vii. 8. But the Tigris TlOids a subterranean cburse to a con­
siderable distance from its head, when it emerges as from an ori­
ginal spring. Hence, many ancient authors, taking its reappearance
to be its first rise, assume a great distance between the sources of
the Tigris and Eupllrates.
t The name l1Iesopotamia [a p.{(TOIj et '1rOT~P.~Ij] expresses its
c€ntral relation to two rivers.
t Descriptions by ancient hi'3torians, such as the description in
the text, are often gratuitous; that is, they do not illustrate any ope­
ratian which is the subject of the history: yet, when accurate, they
are useful contributions towards an atlas on the basis of ancient dis­
coyery: but the passages within crotchets contain so many errors
adopted (rom Diodorus, that the translator would gladly expun~c
them from the pcrplex.ed page.
Chap. I. QUINTUS CURTIUS. 5
the borders of the province of Babylonia, they
fall into the Red Sea*.
Alexander, in four days, reached the walled
1. The Euphrates ~o where'touches MEDIA; nor does the Tigris,
though it may intersect a tract which had belonged to the Median
empire.
And yet a wall extending, in a remote age, across Mesopotamia,
from the two rivers, a little farther from Babylon than the 33d de­
gree of lat. was called the Median wall. See Rennell's Geography
ifHerodotus.
Q. Nor do the rivers intersect the ridges of the GORDlEANS, un­
less the portion ofTaurus Niphates called by that name be prolonged
westward beyond the Euphrates, and eastward beyond the Tigris, to
accommodate both the passage above, and th~t in vol. i. p. 41~. By
the mountains which Ptolemy and Strabo name the GordYlEan, they
mean the mountains of Armenia.
On the other hand, as far as the text imports, that the Eu­
phrates and Tigris, in the age of Aiexander, issued by separate
channels to the sea, Curtius is to be allowed credit, which fe\T
of the ancients can participate, for a correct memorial. "The
Euphrates and the Tigris," observes MtY0r Rennell, " in the
(C
" time of .Alerander, were known to have kept distinct courses
It to the sea; and the fact has been clearly established from
the history ofNearchus' voyage."
(C
The representation, in the map, of the rivers and canals in
Babylonia and the vicinity, is founded on an ANCIENT MAP pre­
served by Cellarius, which appears to belong to the age of Se­
leucus. During the short interval between the death of Alex­
ander and the transfer of tIle seat of government from Babylon
to the new city Seleucia,-the canal, marked in the map
above Babylon, which carried a derivation from the Euphrates
into the Tigris, is stated to have increased to a river: this,
.. The Persian gulf. The name Red or ErythrlEan sea, was, by
the ancients, promiscuously ~iven to the Arabian gulf, the Persian
gulf, and the ocean, which washes tlle southern coast of Asia, of
which those gulfs are arms.
VOL. II.
6 QUINTUS CURTIUS;
town
~1emlnium : Near it is a fountailY in a ca­
vern, ,vhich discharges bitunlen in great quanti..;
ties; so that it is probable, that the "wall of Ba­
bylon, a prodigious ,york, was ceme~ted with
this material.
3. As Alexander was proceeding to\vard.
Babylon, Maz~us, ,vho had fled thither afte~
the battle, came ,vith his adult offspring, and
tendered the surrender of himself and the city~
His overture ,vas gratifying: the siege of a
place so strong \vere a tedious operation: his
rank ,vas illustrious, and his bravery ackno\v­
ledged, and he had distinguished himself in the
recent action: such an exatnple nlight induce
others to subnlit. Alexander, therefore, cour­
teously received him ,vith his children. He,
with other derivations, completely dried the old channel of
the Euphrates, which is restored in the map.
At this day, there is no confluence, before the rivers reach
Koma. Parsons's Travels, p. 153. The united stream is
called the Schut-el-Arab; [the river ifthe A1Ylbs;] separating
nenr the Persian gulf, it discharges its waters by two principal
mouths.
It is probable, that all great rivers which pass th~ough level
ground to the sea, such as the Euphrates, the Nile, the Gan­
ges and the Indus, in process of time vary their respective
mouths, either by inundation, obstructions, accumulation ofsoiJ;
and other causes, or are diverted for the purposes of agriculture
and communication. Commerce C!f the Ancients. It is difficult
to follow the learned writer in supposing, that the outlet which
Strabo, Arrian, and Pliny, regarded as the mouth of the Eu­
phrat'€s, was but a canal terminating in what is now called the
Khore Abdillah. A khore is a trough formed by a stream pas..
sing through a fiat of sand.