On this occasion, we have the state of Alexander’s mind disclosed by himself, in one of the references to his letters given by Plutarch. Writing to Craterus and to others immediately afterwards, Alexander distinctly stated that the pages throughout all their torture had deposed against no one but themselves. Nevertheless, in another letter addressed to Antipater in Macedonia, he used these expressions: “The pages were stoned to death by the Macedonians; but I myself shall punish the sophist, as well as those who sent him out here, and those who harbour in their cities conspirators against me.” The sophist Callisthenes had been sent out by Aristotle, who is here designated; and probably the Athenians after him. Fortunately for Aristotle, he was not at Bactra, but at Athens. That he could have had any concern in the conspiracy of the pages, was impossible. In this savage outburst of menace against his absent preceptor, Alexander discloses the real state of feeling which prompted him to the destruction of Callisthenes—hatred towards that spirit of citizenship and free speech, which Callisthenes not only cherished, in common with Aristotle and most other literary Greeks, but had courageously manifested in his protest against the motion for worshipping a mortal.
Callisthenes was first put to the torture and then hanged. His tragical fate excited a profound sentiment of sympathy and indignation among the philosophers of antiquity.
The halts of Alexander were formidable to friends and companions; his marches, to the unconquered natives whom he chose to treat as enemies.[c]
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.]