FOOTNOTES
[28] [Curtius is obviously speaking of the Babylon of his own day (the early part of the first century A.D.), and assuming, no doubt correctly, that the venerable city had not greatly changed since the time of Alexander. The reader will recall the tales of Babylon quoted from Herodotus in our first volume.]
[29] [Grote values this at £11,500,000 which amounts to about $55,000,000. Reckoned as Æginetan talents the sum would be far greater. Grote says it would seem incredible were it not that the treasures of Persepolis were found far greater.]
[30] [This sum, which Grote reckons at £27,600,000 or $138,000,000, need not be considered impossible, viewing the extent and the extortion of Persian despotism; the soldiers were paid by the provinces that contributed them; the servants of the government had no salaries in cash from above; and the royal disbursements for necessary expenses were accordingly small. Grote notes that when Nadia-Shah took Delhi in 1739, he found a treasure stated as £32,000,000—even more than Alexander’s loot. A pride, too, was taken in vast hoards of precious metal by the oriental despots. Prof. Bury[d] notes how the sudden circulation of such an amount would “perturb the markets of the world.”]
[31] [Later he was brought forth and Alexander had his nose and ears cut off. Mutilation was abhorrent to the Greeks, and even Arrian[e] (IV, 7) rebukes his hero for this atrocity. Bessus was then turned over to the Medes and Persians who, according to Diodorus,[f] XVII, 9,“after they had put him to all manner of torments, and used him with all the despite and disgrace imaginable, cut his body into small pieces and hurled every part here and there away out of their slings.” Plutarch,[g] however, says that two straight trees were bent together, and one of Bessus’ legs fastened to each so that when they were released and sprang apart, his body was torn asunder.]
