I have admitted into my narrative as strictly authentic all the statements relating to Alexander and Philip which Ptolemy, son of Lagus,[11] and Aristobulus, son of Aristobulus,[12] agree in making; and from those statements which differ I have selected that which appears to me the7 more credible and at the same time the more deserving of record. Different authors have given different accounts of Alexander’s life; and there is no one about whom more have written, or more at variance with each other. But in my opinion the narratives of Ptolemy and Aristobulus are more worthy of credit than the rest; Aristobulus, because he served under king Alexander in his expedition, and Ptolemy, not only because he accompanied Alexander in his expedition, but also because he was himself a king afterwards, and falsification of facts would have been more disgraceful to him than to any other man. Moreover, they are both more worthy of credit, because they compiled their histories after Alexander’s death, when neither compulsion was used nor reward offered them to write anything different from what really occurred. Some statements made by other writers I have incorporated in my narrative, because they seemed to me worthy of mention and not altogether improbable; but I have given them merely as reports of Alexander’s proceedings. And if any man wonders why, after so many other men have written of Alexander, the compilation of this history came into my mind, after perusing[13] the narratives of all the rest, let him read this of mine, and then wonder (if he can).
THE ANABASIS OF ALEXANDER.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
Death of Philip and Accession of Alexander.—His Wars with the Thracians.
It is said that Philip died[14] when Pythodemus was archon at Athens,[15] and that his son Alexander,[16] being then [9]about twenty years of age, marched into Peloponnesus[17] as soon as he had secured the regal power. There he assembled all the Greeks who were within the limits of Peloponnesus,[18] and asked from them the supreme command of the expedition against the Persians, an office which they had already conferred upon Philip. He received the honour which he asked from all except the Lacedaemonians,[19] who replied that it was an hereditary custom of theirs, not to follow others but to lead them. The Athenians also attempted to bring about some political change; but they were so alarmed at the very approach of Alexander, that they conceded to him even more ample public honours than those which had been bestowed upon Philip.[20] He then returned into Macedonia and busied himself in preparing for the expedition into Asia.
However, at the approach of spring (B.C. 335), he marched towards Thrace, into the lands of the Triballians and Illyrians,[21] because he ascertained that these nations were meditating a change of policy; and at the same time, as they were lying on his frontier, he thought it inexpedient, when he was about to start on a campaign so far away from his own land, to leave them behind him without being entirely subjugated. Setting out then from Amphipolis, he invaded the land of the people who were called independent Thracians,[22] keeping the city of Philippi and mount Orbelus on the left. Crossing the river Nessus,[23] they say he arrived at mount Haemus[24] on the tenth day. Here, along the defiles up the ascent to the mountain, he was met by many of the traders equipped with arms, as well as by the independent Thracians, who had made preparations to check the further advance of his expedition by seizing the summit of the Haemus, along which was the route for the passage of his army. They had collected their waggons, and placed them in front of them, not only using them as a rampart from which they might defend themselves, in case they should be forced back, but also intending to let them loose upon the phalanx of the Macedonians, where the mountain was most precipitous, if they tried to ascend. They had come to the conclusion[25] that the denser the phalanx was with which the waggons rushing down came into collision, the more easily would they scatter it by the violence of their fall upon it.