Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander 8.10.27

8.10.27

Haec munimenta contemplantem Alexandrum consiliique incertum, quia nec cavernas nisi aggere poterat inplere nec tormenta aliter muris admovere, quidam e muro sagitta percussit:

Alexander while reconnoitring the fortifications, and unable to fix on a plan of attack, since nothing less than a vast mole, necessary for bringing up his engines to the walls, would suffice to fill up the chasms, was wounded from the ramparts by an arrow which chanced to hit him in the calf of the leg. When the barb was extracted, he called for his horse, and without having his wound so much as bandaged, continued with unabated energy to prosecute the work on hand. But when the injured limb was hanging without support, and the gradual cooling, as the blood dried, aggravated the pain, he is reported to have said that though he was called, as all knew, the son of Jupiter, he felt notwithstanding all the defects of the weak body. He did not, however, return to the camp till he had viewed every thing and ordered what he wanted to be done. Accordingly some of the soldiers began, as directed, to destroy the houses outside the city and to take from the ruins much material for raising a mole, while others cast into the hollows large trunks of trees, branches and all, together with great masses of rock. When the mole had now been raised to a level with the surface of the ground, they proceeded to erect towers ; and so zealously did the soldiers prosecute the works, that they finished them completely within nine days. These the king, before his wound had as yet closed, proceeded to inspect.