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The Seventeenth Book of Diodorus: in Two Parts
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Just at
that moment as the men from the city were prevailing, the tide of battle was surprisingly
reversed.1
For the oldest Macedonians, who were exempt from combat duty by virtue of their age, but who
had served with Philip on his campaigns and had been victorious in many battles
[2]
were roused by the emergency to show their valour, and, being far
superior in pride and war experience, sharply rebuked the faintheartedness of the youngsters
who wished to avoid the battle. Then they closed ranks with their shields overlapping and
confronted the foe, who thought himself already victorious.
[3]
They succeeded in slaying Ephialtes and many others, and finally forced the rest to take
refuge in the city.
[4]
Night had already fallen as the
Macedonians pushed within the walls along with their fleeing enemies, but the king ordered the
trumpeter to sound the recall and they withdrew to their camp.2
[5]
Memnon, however, assembled his generals and satraps, held a
meeting, and decided to abandon the city.3 They installed their best men in the
acropolis with sufficient provision and conveyed the rest of the army and the stores to Cos.
[6]
When Alexander at daybreak learned what had taken place he
razed the city and surrounded the citadel with a formidable wall and trench.4 A portion
of his force under certain generals he dispatched into the interior with orders to subdue the
neighbouring tribes.5These commanders,
campaigning vigorously, subdued the whole region as far as greater Phrygia, supporting their
men on the land.
[7]
Alexander, for his part, overran the littoral
as far as Cilicia, acquiring many cities and actively storming and reducing the strong points.
One of these he captured surprisingly with such a curious reversal of fortune that the account
of it cannot be omitted.6
1 Cp. Arrian. 1.22.4-6, who simply refers to Ptolemaeus with two battalions of the phalanx.
2 Arrian. 1.22.7, giving as the reason a desire to spare the citizens of Halicarnassus the horrors of a sack.
5 Arrian. 1.24.3, states only that Parmenion was sent back to Sardes with mostly non-Macedonian troops, to proceed thence into Phrygia.
6 Presumably Diodorus means to say that this story was in his source, and too interesting to be omitted. He does actually at this point omit all the other events of Alexander's Pisidian campaign including the miraculous passage of the Climax, as well as the famous story of the Gordian knot. These are told by Curtius 3.1, Justin 11.7, Plut. Alexander 17-18.2), and Arrian. 1.24.3-2.4.6. Tarn's argument (Alexander the Great, 2, 72) that these popular stories were not in Diodorus's source of the moment is untenable if his source was Trogus.
Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.
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References (10 total)
- Cross-references to this page
(1):
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CARAE
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Dinarchus, Against Demosthenes, Din. 1 33
- Cross-references in notes from this page (7):
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(1):
- LSJ, φυ^γο-μα^χέω
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