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The Relatives now pressed in a solid body about the two fallen men1; at first they rained their javelins on Alexander, and then closing went all out to slay the king.

1 That is, Spithridates and Rhosaces. This incident is variously reported. In Plut. Alexander 16.4-5, Rhosaces and Spithridates attacked Alexander simultaneously; the king killed the former, while the latter cracked his helmet and was run through by Cleitus's spear. In Plut. De Fortuna aut Virtute Alexandri 1.1.326f, the antagonists are Spithridates and Mithridates. In Arrian. 1.15.7-8, Mithridates is Dareius's son-in-law. Alexander dismounted him with his lance. Rhosaces cracked Alexander's helmet but was overborne by the king, while it was Spithridates whose arm was severed by Cleitus. The text of Diodorus here might allow one to suppose that Alexander also was thrown to the ground, and a figure appearing in two of the reliefs of the Alexander Sarcophagus in Constantinople, with cracked helmet and broken spear, has been thought to be Alexander at the Battle of the Granicus, but this is all very uncertain.

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