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Over six thousand Thebans perished, more than thirty thousand were captured, and the amount of property plundered was unbelievable.1

The king gave burial to the Macedonian dead, more than five hundred in number, and then calling a meeting of the representatives of the Greeks put before the common council the question what should be done with the city of the Thebans. [2] When the discussion was opened, certain men who were hostile to the Thebans began to recommend that they should be visited with the direst penalties, and they pointed out that they had taken the side of the barbarians against the Greeks. For in the time of Xerxes they had actually joined forces with the Persians and campaigned against Greece, and alone of the Greeks were honoured as benefactors by the Persian kings, so that the ambassadors of the Thebans were seated on thrones set in front of the kings. [3] They related many other details of similar tenor and so aroused the feelings of the council against the Thebans that it was finally voted to raze the city, to sell the captives, to outlaw the Theban exiles from all Greece, and to allow no Greek to offer shelter to a Theban. [4] The king, in accordance with the decree of the council, destroyed the city, and so presented possible rebels among the Greeks with a terrible warning. By selling off the prisoners he realized a sum of four hundred and forty talents of silver.2

1 The figures of the Theban losses are not elsewhere reported, and W. W. Tarn (Cambridge Ancient History, 6.356) regarded the second as conventional, referring to the figure given by Arrian. 2.24.5 after the capture of Tyre; but in that case Diodorus (chap. 46.4) gives 13,000. Diodorus (with Justin) omits the picturesque story of Timocleia, which would not have interested Arrian. It is given by Plut. Alexander 12.

2 The same figure appears in a fragment of Cleitarchus (Athenaeus 4.148d-f; Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 137, F 1), but applying to the total wealth found in the city. This would be a rate of 88 drachmae a head for 30,000 slaves. Tarn suggests 8000, which would make the average price 330 drachmae, but there is no real evidence for the price of slaves at this time (W. L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (1955), 28). Plut. Alexander 11.2 and Arrian. 1.9.10 report that Alexander spared the house of Pindar.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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  • Cross-references to this page (1):
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), THEBAE
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    • Plutarch, Alexander, 12
    • Plutarch, Alexander, 11.2
    • Arrian, Anabasis, 1.9.10
    • Arrian, Anabasis, 2.24.5
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