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The Seventeenth Book of Diodorus: in Two Parts
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Now there came to Susa at this time a body of thirty thousand Persians, all very young
and selected for their bodily grace and strength.1
[2]
They had been enrolled in compliance with the king's orders
and had been under supervisors and teachers of the arts of war for as long as necessary. They
were splendidly equipped with the full Macedonian armament and encamped before the city, where
they were warmly commended by the king after demonstrating their skill and discipline in the
use of their weapons.
[3]
The Macedonians had not only mutinied
when ordered to cross the Ganges River but were frequently unruly when called into an
assembly2 and ridiculed Alexander's pretence that Ammon was his father.3 For these reasons Alexander had formed this unit from a single age-group
of the Persians which was capable of serving as a counter-balance to the Macedonian
phalanx.These were the concerns of Alexander.
[4]
Harpalus had been given the custody of
the treasury in Babylon and of the revenues which accrued to it, but as soon as the king had
carried his campaign into India, he assumed that Alexander would never come back, and gave
himself up to comfortable living.4 Although he had been charged
as satrap5 with the administration of a great country, he first
occupied himself with the abuse of women and illegitimate amours with the natives and
squandered much of the treasure under his control on incontinent pleasure. He fetched all the
long way from the Red Sea a great quantity of fish and introduced an extravagant way of life,
so that he came under general criticism.
[5]
Later, moreover, he
sent and brought from Athens the most dazzling courtesan of the day, whose name was
Pythonice.6 As long as she lived he gave her gifts worthy of a queen, and when she
died, he gave her a magnificent funeral and erected over her grave a costly monument of the
Attic type.
[6]
After that, he
brought out a second Attic courtesan named Glycera7 and kept her in
exceeding luxury, providing her with a way of life which was fantastically expensive. At the
same time, with an eye on the uncertainties of fortune, he established himself a place of
refuge by benefactions to the Athenians.When Alexander did come
back from India and put to death many of the satraps who had been charged with neglect of duty,
Harpalus became alarmed at the punishment which might befall him. He packed up five thousand
talents of silver, enrolled six thousand mercenaries, departed from Asia and sailed across to
Attica.
[7]
When no one there accepted him, he shipped his troops
off to Taenarum in Laconia, and keeping some of the money with him threw himself on the mercy
of the Athenians. Antipater and Olympias demanded his surrender, and although he had
distributed large sums of money to those persons who spoke in his favour, he was compelled to
slip away and repaired to Taenarum and his mercenaries.
[8]
Subsequently he sailed over to Crete, where he was murdered by Thibron, one of his
Friends.8 At Athens, an accounting was undertaken of the funds of
Harpalus, and Demosthenes and certain other statesmen were convicted of having accepted money
from this source.9
1 Arrian. 7.6.1; Plut. Alexander 71.1. Curtius 8.5.1 mentions the organization of this force in Bactria in 327; Plut. Alexander 47.2 places it in Hyrcania in 330.
2 The account of the mutiny at Opis is broken by Diodorus into two sections; cp. chap. 109.1 below. The full accounts are Curtius 10.2.8-4.3 Justin 12.11.5-12.7; Plut. Alexander 71.1-5; Arrian 7.8-11. "Ganges" is a slip (chap. 94).
3 Justin 12.11.6; Arrian. 7.8.3.
4 The Harpalus story was well known (Plut. Alexander 41.4; Plut. Phocion 21-22; Justin 13.5.9), but was told here, in addition to Diodorus, only by Curtius. In the loss of parts of that text only the end of the story remains (Curtius 10.2.1-3), told in a similar way to that here. The account of these events in Plut. Demosthenes 25-26, may plausibly be ascribed to Theopompus, at least in part.
5 Harpalus was not actually a satrap, but director general of the royal treasury.
6 She is mentioned by Athenaeus 13.586c, who refers to accounts of her by Theopompus and Cleitarchus.
7 Athenaeus 13.586c. The considerable evidence on these two is collected by Berve, Alexanderreich, 2, nos. 231 and 676.
8 Curtius 10.2.1-3; Book 18.19.2. The collaboration of Antipater and Olympias is odd, for they were ordinarily hostile to each other.
9 Justin 13.5.9.
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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References (18 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(4):
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), EXE´RCITUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), A´TTICA
- Smith's Bio, Ha'rpalus
- Smith's Bio, Thimbron
- Cross-references in notes from this page
(11):
- Plutarch, Alexander, 41.4
- Plutarch, Demosthenes, 25
- Plutarch, Phocion, 21
- Plutarch, Alexander, 47.2
- Plutarch, Alexander, 71.1
- Arrian, Anabasis, 7.6.1
- Arrian, Anabasis, 7.8
- Arrian, Anabasis, 7.8.3
- Curtius, Historiarum Alexandri Magni, 10.2.1
- Curtius, Historiarum Alexandri Magni, 10.2.8
- Curtius, Historiarum Alexandri Magni, 8.5.1
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(3):
- LSJ, Πυ_θιο-νίκης
- LSJ, δίδωμι
- LSJ, κατανα_λ-ίσκω
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