[72] About £150.
[73] We may compare, as a somewhat similar incident in modern times, the plunder of the Chinese Emperor’s Summer Palace in Pekin in the Chinese War of 1860. Happily modern feelings forbade the massacre which accompanied the spoil of Persepolis; but the destruction of the palace was a distinct act of vengeance on the wanton aggression and the brutality of the Chinese ruler, who was personally punished by the loss of his palace, just as the Persians were punished by the destruction of their metropolis. A famous English poem, Dryden’s “Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day,” attributes the destruction of Persepolis to a drunken freak of Alexander; but there is no doubt that it was a deliberate act. Curtius speaks of it as having been proposed at a council of war, and other historians mention the unavailing resistance of Parmenio.
[74] Nine o’clock at night. The time of year seems to have been July.
[75] Maracanda is the modern Samarcand.
[76] The kingdom of Porus consisted of the eastern portion of the Punjaub. The Hydaspes is the Djalan or Jelam, sometimes called Behât.
[77] This may be reckoned to have been midsummer in the year 326 B.C. He reached Susa in the winter of 324. But the chronology of the latter part of the campaign is uncertain.
[78] Nearchus had been in command of the fleet which had taken part in Alexander’s operations in the further East, and he was now about to command it again in the expedition which was about to be made against Arabia.
[79] The funeral games would be the wars fought by his successors to determine who was the “strongest,” named as the legatee of his power. The prediction was amply fulfilled.
[80] As this child does not come into my story, a few words may be given to describe his fate. The name given to him was Heracles, Heracles being the Greek divinity with whom the Tyrian Melkarth was commonly identified. Brought up by his mother in the retirement described above, he was mentioned as a possible successor after Alexander’s death. The proposition met with no favour at the time, but eleven years later his claims were advanced by Polysperchon, one of the generals who engaged in the struggle for the fragments of Alexander’s empire. He was persuaded to leave his retirement, and, as being the only surviving child of the emperor, seemed likely to become an important person. Cassander, who had usurped the throne of Macedonia, marched against Polysperchon, who had the young prince and his mother in his camp, but found his troops unwilling to act against Alexander’s son. He proceeded to bribe Polysperchon with the offer of the government of the Peloponnese, if he would abandon the young man’s cause. Polysperchon caused him to be murdered, and Barsiné with him.
[81] “The Rabbins distinguish two classes of proselytes, viz., proselytes of righteousness, who received circumcision, and bound themselves to keep the whole Mosaic law, and to comply with all the requirements of Judaism, and proselytes of the gate, who dwelt among the Jews, and although uncircumcised, observed certain specified laws, especially the seven precepts of Noah (as the Rabbins called them), i.e., against the seven chief sins, idolatry, blasphemy against God, parricide, unchastity, theft or plundering, rebellion against rulers, and the use of ‘flesh with the blood thereof.’”