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[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.1

1 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.

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