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[4]

At this juncture the king was resting in a seaside city called Salmus and was holding a dramatic contest in the theatre, when into the harbour there sailed the fleet which had been ordered to return by way of the Ocean and to explore the coastal waters.1 The officers came immediately into the theatre, greeted Alexander, and reported what they had done.

1 Nearchus gave an account of his joining Alexander on two occasions, once, very dramatically, in Carmania (Arrian. 6.28.5-6; Arrian Indica 33-36), and again after sailing up the Pasitigris to Susa (Arrian Indica 42). Curtius 10.1.10 and Plut. Alexander 68.2 seem to refer only to the former meeting. Neither meeting was on the coast. Salmus is not identified. Reference to the dramatic festival makes it likely that Diodorus is here referring to the reunion at Susa (Pliny Naturalis Historia 6.100, with reference to Nearchus and Onesicritus), but inserting it in the wrong place in his narrative. Pliny states that the voyage of Nearchus took six months, so the time would now be the spring of 324 B.C. B. Niese, Geschichte der griechischen und makedonischen Staaten, 1 (1893), 153, note 5, calculated the length of the voyage as about seventy-five days, which would bring the reunion rather to December of 325.

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