On the following day, dividing his army into two parts, he himself assaulted the wall at the head of one division, while Perdikkas led forward the other. Upon this the Indians, without waiting to receive the attack of the Macedonians, abandoned the walls and fled for refuge to the citadel. Alexander and his troops therefore burst open a small gate, and entered the city long before the others. But Perdikkas and the troops under his command entered it much later, having found it no easy work to surmount the walls. The most of them, in fact, had neglected to bring scaling ladders, for when they saw the wall left without defenders they took it for granted that the city had actually been captured. But when it became clear that the enemy was still in possession of the citadel, and that many of them were drawn up in front of it to repel attack, the Macedonians endeavoured to force their way into it, some by sapping the walls, and others by applying the scaling ladders wherever that was practicable. Alexander, thinking that the Macedonians who carried the ladders were loitering too much, snatched one from the man who carried it, placed it against the wall, and began to ascend, cowering the while under his shield. The next to follow was Peukestas, who carried the sacred shield which Alexander had taken from the temple of the Ilian Athênâ, and which he used to keep with him and have carried before him in all his battles.[163] Next to him Leonnatos, an officer of the bodyguard, ascended by the same ladder; and by a different ladder Abreas, one of those soldiers who for superior merit drew double pay[164] and allowances. The king was now near the coping of the wall, and resting his shield against it, was pushing some of the Indians within the fort, and had cleared the parapet by killing others with his sword. The hypaspists, now alarmed beyond measure for the king’s safety, pushed each other in their haste up the same ladder and broke it, so that those who were already mounting it fell down and made the ascent impracticable for others.
Alexander, while standing on the wall, was then assailed on every side from the adjacent towers, for none of the Indians had the courage to come near him. He was assailed also by men in the city, who threw darts at him from no great distance off, for it so happened that a mound of earth had been thrown up in that quarter close to the wall. Alexander was, moreover, a conspicuous object both by the splendour of his arms[165] and the astonishing audacity he displayed. He then perceived that if he remained where he was, he would be exposed to danger without being able to achieve anything noteworthy, but if he leaped down into the citadel he might perhaps by this very act paralyse the Indians with terror, and if he did not, but necessarily incurred danger, he would in that case not die ignobly, but after performing great deeds worth being remembered by the men of after times. Having so resolved, he leaped down from the wall into the citadel. Then, supporting himself against the wall, he slew with his sword some who assailed him at close quarters, and in particular the governor of the Indians, who had rushed upon him too boldly. Against another Indian whom he saw approaching, he hurled a stone to check his advance, and another he similarly repelled. If any one came within nearer reach, he again used his sword. The barbarians had then no further wish to approach him, but standing around assailed him from all quarters with whatever missiles they carried or could lay their hands on.
Chapter X.—Alexander is dangerously wounded within the citadel
At this crisis Peukestas, and Abreas the dimoirite, and after them Leonnatos, the only men who succeeded in reaching the top of the wall before the ladder broke, leaped down and began fighting in front of the king. But there Abreas fell, pierced in the forehead by an arrow. Alexander himself was also struck by one which pierced through his cuirass into his chest above the pap, so that, as Ptolemy says, air gurgled from the wound along with the blood. But sorely wounded as he was, he continued to defend himself as long as his blood was still warm. Since much blood, however, kept gushing out with every breath he drew, a dizziness and faintness seized him, and he fell where he stood in a collapse upon his shield. Peukestas then bestrode him where he fell, holding up in front of him the sacred shield which had been taken from Ilion, while Leonnatos protected him from side attacks. But both these men were severely wounded, and Alexander was now on the point of swooning away from the loss of blood. As for the Macedonians, they were at a loss how to make their way into the citadel, because those who had seen Alexander shot at upon the wall and then leap down inside it had broken down the ladders up which they were rushing in all haste, dreading lest their king, in recklessly exposing himself to danger, should come by some hurt. In their perplexity they devised various plans for ascending the wall. It was made of earth, and so some drove pegs into it, and swinging themselves up by means of these, scrambled with difficulty to the top. Others ascended by mounting one upon the other. The man who first reached the top flung himself headlong from the wall into the city, and was followed by the others. There, when they saw the king fallen prostrate, they all raised loud lamentations and outcries of grief. And now around his fallen form a desperate struggle ensued, one Macedonian after another holding his shield in front of him. In the meantime, some of the soldiers having shattered the bar by which the gate in the wall between the towers was secured, made their way into the city a few at a time, and others, when they saw that a rift was made in the gate, put their shoulders under it, and having then pushed it into the space within the wall, opened an entrance into the citadel in that quarter.
Chapter XI.—Dangerous nature of Alexander’s wound—Arrian refutes some current fictions relating to this accident
Upon this some began to kill the Indians, and in the massacre spared none, neither man, woman, nor child. Others bore off the king upon his shield. His condition was very low, and they could not yet tell whether he was likely to survive. Some writers have asserted that Kritodêmos, a physician of Kôs, an Asklêpiad by birth,[166] extracted the weapon from the wound by making an incision where the blow had struck. Other writers, however, say that as no surgeon was present at this terrible crisis, Perdikkas, an officer of the bodyguard, at Alexander’s own desire, made an incision into the wound with his sword and removed the weapon. Its removal was followed by such a copious effusion of blood that Alexander again swooned, and the swoon had the effect of staunching the flux. Many fictions also have been recorded by historians concerning this accident, and Fame, receiving them from the original inventors, has preserved them to our own day, nor will she cease to transmit the falsehoods to one generation after another except they be finally suppressed by this history.
The common account, for example, is that this accident befell Alexander among the Oxydrakai, but in fact it occurred among the Malloi an independent Indian nation. The city belonged to the Malloi, and the men who wounded Alexander were Malloi. They had certainly agreed to combine with the Oxydrakai and give battle to the common enemy, but Alexander had thwarted this design by his sudden and rapid march through the waterless country, whereby these tribes were prevented from giving each other mutual help. To take another instance, according to the common account, the last battle fought with Darius (that at which he fled, nor paused in his flight till he was seized by the soldiers of Bêssos and murdered at Alexander’s approach) took place at Arbêla, just as the previous battle came off at Issos, and the first cavalry action at the Granikos. Now this cavalry action was really fought at the Granikos, and the next battle with Darius at Issos. But Arbêla is distant from the field where Darius and Alexander had their last battle 600 stadia according to those authors who make the distance greatest, and 500 stadia according to those who make it least. But Ptolemy and Aristoboulos say that the battle took place at Gaugamêla near the river Boumodos. Gaugamêla, however, was not a city, but merely a good-sized village, a place of no distinction, and bearing a name which offends the ear. This seems to me the reason why Arbêla, which was a city, has carried off the glory of the great battle.[167] But if we must perforce consider that this battle took place near Arbêla, though fought at so great a distance off, then we may as well say that the sea fight at Salamis came off near the Isthmus of Corinth, and the sea-fight at Artemision in Euboia, near Aigina or Sunium.
With regard again to those who protected Alexander with their shields in his peril, all agree that Peukestas was of the number, but with respect to Leonnatos and Abreas the dimoirite, they are no longer in harmony. Some say that Alexander received a blow on his helmet from a bludgeon and fell down in an access of dizziness, and that on regaining his feet he was hit by a dart which pierced through his breastplate into his chest. But Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, says that this wound in his chest was the only one he received. I take, however, the following to be the greatest error into which the historians of Alexander have fallen. Some have written that Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, along with Peukestas mounted the ladder together with Alexander; that Ptolemy held his shield over him when he was lying on the ground, and that he thence received the surname of Sôtêr.[168] And yet Ptolemy himself has recorded that he was not present at this conflict, but was fighting elsewhere against other barbarians, in command of a different division of the army. Let me mention these facts in digressing from my narrative that the men of after times may not regard it as a matter of indifference how these great deeds and great sufferings are reported.
Fig. 10.—Ptolemy Sôtêr.