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[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.1 Although he had been charged as satrap2 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.

1 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.

2 Harpalus was not actually a satrap, but director general of the royal treasury.

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