[578] Among the accusations which reached Alexander against this satrap, we are surprised to find a letter addressed to him (ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον ἐπιστολῇ) by the Greek historian Theopompus; who set forth with indignation the extravagant gifts and honors heaped by Harpalus upon his two successive mistresses—Pythionikê and Glykera; celebrated Hetæræ from Athens. These proceedings Theopompus describes as insults to Alexander (Theopompus ap. Athenæ. xiii. p. 586-595; Fragment. 277, 278 ed. Didot).
The satyric drama called Ἀγὴν, represented before Alexander at a period subsequent to the flight of Harpalus, cannot have been represented (as Athenæus states it to have been) on the banks of the Hydaspes, because Harpalus did not make his escape until he was frightened by the approach of Alexander returning from India. At the Hydaspes, Alexander was still on his outward progress; very far off, and without any idea of returning. It appears to me that the words of Athenæus respecting this drama—ἐδίδαξε Διονυσίων ὄντων ἐπὶ τοῦ Ὑδάσπου τοῦ ποταμοῦ (xiii, p. 595)—involve a mistake or misreading; and that it ought to stand ἐπὶ τοῦ Χοάσπου τοῦ ποταμοῦ. I may remark that the words Medus Hydaspes in Virgil, Georg. iv. 211, probably involve the same confusion. The Choaspes was the river, near Susa; and this drama was performed before Alexander at Susa during the Dionysia of the year 324 B. C., after Harpalus had fled. The Dionysia were in the month Elaphebolion; now Alexander did not fight Porus on the Hydaspes until the succeeding month Munychion at the earliest—and probably later. And even if we suppose (which is not probable) that he reached the Hydaspes in Elaphebolion, he would have no leisure to celebrate dramas and a Dionysiac festival, while the army of Porus was waiting for him on the opposite bank. Moreover it is no way probable that, on the remote Hydaspes, he had any actors or chorus, or means of celebrating dramas at all.
[579] Arrian, vii. 18, 2; vii. 23, 9-13.
[580] Arrian, vii. 4, 6-9. By these two marriages, Alexander thus engrafted himself upon the two lines of antecedent Persian Kings. Ochus was of the Achæmenid family, but Darius Codomannus, father of Statira, was not of that family; he began a new lineage. About the overweening regal state of Alexander, outdoing even the previous Persian kings, see Phylarchus ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 539.
[581] Chares ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 538.
[582] Arrian, vii. 6, 3. καὶ τοὺς γάμους ἐν τῷ νόμῳ τῷ Περσικῷ ποιηθέντας οὐ πρὸς θυμοῦ γενέσθαι τοῖς πολλοῖς αὐτῶν, οὐδὲ τῶν γημάντων ἐστὶν οἷς, etc.
[583] Arrian, vii. 5; Plutarch, Alexand. 70; Curtius, x. 2, 9; Diodor. xvii. 109.
[584] Diodor. xvii. 108. It must have taken some time to get together and discipline these young troops; Alexander must therefore have sent the orders from India.
[585] Arrian, vii. 6.
[586] Arrian, vii. 7.