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[3] On the Persian side in the battle fell, cavalry and infantry together, more than ninety thousand.1 About five hundred of the Macedonians were killed and there were very many wounded.2 Of the most prominent group of commanders, Hephaestion was wounded with a spear thrust in the arm; he had commanded the bodyguards.3 Perdiccas and Coenus, of the general's group, were also wounded, so also Menidas and others of the higher commanders.4

That was the outcome of the battle near Arbela.

1 This figure is given variously as 40,000 (Curtius 4.16.26) and 300,000 (Arrian. 3.15.6). The writer of P. Oxyrhynchus 1798 gives a total of 53,000.

2 The Macedonian casualties are given variously as 100 (Arrian. 3.15.6), 300 (Curtius 4.16.26), and 1000 foot and 200 horse (P. Oxyrhynchus 1798).

3 Curtius 4.16.32; Arrian. 3.15.2. The meaning of this designation of Hephaestion is obscure. He did not command the footguards, the ὑπασπισταί, for Nicanor, Parmenion's son, was still their commander in 330 (Arrian. 3.21.8) and only died later in that year (Arrian. 3.25.4). The small group of bodyguards proper had no commander, and it is quite uncertain when Hephaestion became a member. He is first so called in 325 (Arrian. 6.28.4) and is conspicuously not so called in 328 (Arrian. 4.12.6; but Arrian's usage is not consistent, cp. Arrian. 4.24.10). He was presumably not a bodyguard in 330 when he and Cleitus divided Philotas's command of the Companion Cavalry. This seems to exclude the translation: "fighting first among the bodyguards."

4 Curtius 4.16.32. Menidas had commanded a cavalry unit on the extreme right (Arrian. 3.12.3).

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