Ἀλεξάνδρου ἀνάβασις 6.11.7

6.11.7

καὶ μὴν ὑπὲρ τῶν ὑπερασπισάντων ἐν τῷ κινδύνῳ Ἀλεξάνδρου, Πευκέσταν μὲν γενέσθαι ξύμπαντες ὁμολογοῦσιν, ὑπὲρ Λεοννάτου δὲ οὐκέτι ξυμφέρονται οὐδὲ ὑπὲρ Ἀβρέου τοῦ διμοιρίτου. καὶ οἱ μὲν ξύλῳ πληγέντα κατὰ τοῦ κράνους Ἀλέξανδρον καὶ ἰλιγγιάσαντα πεσεῖν, αὖθις δὲ ἀναστάντα βληθῆναι βέλει διὰ τοῦ θώρακος ἐς τὸ στῆθος· Πτολεμαῖος δὲ ὁ Λάγου ταύτην μόνην τὴν πληγὴν πληγῆναι λέγει τὴν ἐς τὸ στῆθος.

Upon this some began to kill the Indians, and in the massacre spared none, neither man, woman, nor child. Others bore off the king upon his shield. His condition was very low, and they could not yet tell whether he was likely to survive. Some writers have asserted that Kritodemos, a physician of Kos, an Asklepiad by birth, extracted the weapon from the wound by making an incision where the blow had struck. Other writers, however, say that as no surgeon was present at this terrible crisis, Perdikkas, an officer of the bodyguard, at Alexander's own desire, made an incision into the wound with his sword and removed the weapon. Its removal was followed by such a copious effusion of blood that Alexander again swooned, and the swoon had the effect of staunching the flux. Many fictions also have been recorded by historians concerning this accident, and Fame, receiving them from the original inventors, has preserved them to our own day; nor will she cease to transmit the falsehoods to one generation after another except they be finally suppressed by this history. The common account, for example, is that this accident befell Alexander among the Oxydrakai, but in fact it occurred among the Malloi, an independent Indian nation. The city belonged to the Malloi, and the men who wounded Alexander were Malloi.

They had certainly agreed to combine with the Oxydrakai and give battle to the common enemy, but Alexander had thwarted this design by his sudden and rapid march through the waterless country, whereby these tribes were prevented from giving each other mutual help. To take another instance according to the common account, the last battle fought with Darius (that at which he fled, nor paused in his flight till he was seized by the soldiers of Bessos and murdered at Alexander's approach) took place at Arbela, just as the previous battle came off at Issos, and the first cavalry action at the Granikos. Now this cavalry action was really fought at the Granikos, and the next battle with Darius at Issos. But Arbela is distant from the field where Darius and Alexander had their last battle 600 stadia according to those authors who make the distance greatest, and 500 stadia according to those who make it least. But Ptolemy and Aristoboulos say that the battle took place at Gaugamela near the river Boumodos. Gaugamela, however, was not a city, but merely a good-sized village, a place of no distinction, and bearing a name which offends the ear. This seems to me the reason why Arbela, which was a city, has carried off the glory of the great battle.

But if we must perforce consider that this battle took place near Arbela, though fought at so great a distance off, then we may as well say that the sea fight at Salamis came off near the Isthmus of Corinth, and the sea-fight at Artemision in Euboia, near Aigina or Sunium.

With regard again to those who protected Alexander with their shields in his peril, all agree that Peukestas was of the number, but with respect to Leonnatos and Abreas the dimoirite, they are no longer in harmony. Some say that Alexander received a blow on his helmet from a bludgeon and fell down in an access of dizziness, and that on regaining his feet he was hit by a dart which pierced through his breastplate into his chest. But Ptolemy the son of Lagos, says that this wound in his chest was the only one he received. I take, however, the following to be the greatest error into which the historians of Alexander have fallen. Some have written that Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, along with Peukestas mounted the ladder together with Alexander; that Ptolemy held his shield over him when he was lying on the ground, and that he thence received the surname of Soter. And yet Ptolemy himself has recorded that he was not present at this conflict, but was fighting elsewhere against other barbarians, in command of a different division of the army. Let me mention these facts in digressing from my narrative that the men of after times may not regard it as a matter of indifference how these great deeds and great sufferings are reported.