[1]: Macedonian names for Bacchantes.
[2]: Plutarch apparently derives this verb from Θρῇσσαι (Thracian women).
[3]: Sacred to Dionysus, and carried on the heads of the celebrants.
[4]: The lawful spouse of Zeus Ammon.
[5]: 356 B.C. The day of birth has probably been moved back two or three months for the sake of the coincidence mentioned below (§ 5). Hecatombaeon corresponds nearly to July.
[6]: The preceptor of Achilles.
[7]: The talent was worth about £235, or $1,200, with four or five times the purchasing power of modern money.
[8]: Amyot, le remeit gentiment.
[9]: Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.2 p. 315.
[10]: i.e., fit for oral teaching only, and for the initiated; esoteric, as opposed to exoteric doctrines.
[11]: Cf. chapter xxvi. 1.
[12]: See chapter lxv.
[13]: In 340 B.C.
[14]: In 338 B.C.
[15]: Amyot, hors d’age et de saison. In consequence of this passion Philip had divorced Olympias.
[16]: The Medeia of Euripides, v. 289 (Kirchhoff). The context makes the verse suggest the murder of Attalus, Philip, and Cleopatra.
[17]: After his death Olympias killed Philip’s infant son, together with his mother Cleopatra, niece of Attalus, by dragging them over a bronze vessel filled with fire (Pausanias, viii. 7, 5).
[18]: In September, 335 B.C. Plutarch makes no mention of a previous expedition of Alexander into Southern Greece, immediately after Philip’s death, when he received the submission of all the Greek states except Sparta, and was made commander-in-chief of the expedition against Persia, in Philip’s place. See Arrian, Anab. i. 1.
[19]: And we are told that Alexander preserved the house of Pindar the poet, and the descendants of Pindar, out of regard for Pindar (Arrian, Anab. i. 9, 10).
[20]: According to Arrian (i. 10, 2), it was from panic fright.
[21]: See chapter li.
[22]: See chapter lxii.
[23]: This god was said to have been born of Semele, daughter of Cadmus the founder of Thebes.
[24]: For a full account of Alexander’s capture and destruction of Thebes, see Arrian, Anab. i. 8 f.
[25]: See the note on xi. 4.
[26]: In the early spring of 334 B.C.
[27]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. i. 11, 2.
[28]: Not much more than thirty thousand foot, including light-armed troops and archers, and over five thousand horse (Arrian, Anab. i. 11, 3).
[29]: See the Iliad, ix. 185-191.
[30]: Diodorus (xvii. 21, 6) says that more than ten thousand Persian footmen fell, and not less than two thousand horsemen; while over twenty thousand were taken prisoners.
[31]: According to Arrian (Anab. i. 16, 4), about twenty-five of Alexander’s companions, a select corps, fell at the first onset, and it was of these that Alexander ordered statues to be made by Lysippus.
[32]: The siege and capture of these cities occupied Alexander till the late autumn of 334 B.C.
[33]: According to Arrian (Anab. i. 26, 1 f.), there is no route along this beach except when the north wind blows. But at that time, after strong south winds, the north winds blew and rendered his passage easy and quick, not without the divine intervention, as both he and his followers interpreted.
[34]: Kook, Com. Att. Frag. iii. p. 240.
[35]: Early in 333 B.C.
[36]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. ii. 3.
[37]: So Aristobulus (Arrian, Anab. ii. 4, 7).
[38]: Cf. Herod. v. 18.
[39]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. i. 23, 8.
[40]: November, 333 B.C.
[41]: January—August, 332 B.C.
[42]: Cf. chapter v. 5.
[43]: During September and October of 332 B.C.
[44]: Cf. Curtius, Hist. Alex. iv. 6, 11 f.
[45]: Cf. chapter viii. 2.
[46]: Odyssey, iv. 354 f.
[47]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iii. 2, 1.
[48]: See Tarbell, The Form of the Chlamys, Classical Philology, 1906, p. 285.
[49]: Cf. Herod. iii. 26.
[50]: According to Ptolemy, son of Lagus, two serpents served Alexander’s army as guides to the oracle and back again. But Aristobulus, whose account is generally admitted to be correct, says that two ravens flew in front of the army and acted as Alexander’s guides (Arrian, Anab. iii 3, 5 f.).
[51]: Iliad, v. 340.
[52]: Cf. Athenaeus, pp. 250 f.
[53]: Early in 331 B.C.
[54]: Cf. Morals, pp. 334 f.
[55]: This was during the siege of Tyre, according to Arrian (Anab. ii. 25. 1).
[56]: This was but the conclusion of an arrogant letter. Cf. Arrian, Anab. ii. 25, 3.
[57]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iv. 20.
[58]: In June or July of 331 B.C.
[59]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iii. 8, 7.
[60]: September 20, 331 B.C.
[61]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iii. 10, where it is Parmenio who advises an attack at night.
[62]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iii. 15, 1, where Parmenio’s message recalls Alexander from the pursuit of Dareius.
[63]: Sometimes the term Hellenes excludes and sometimes it includes, the Macedonians. The context must decide. Cf. xlvii. 5.
[64]: Alexander’s tactics are minutely described by Arrian (Anab. iii. 14, 1-3).
[65]: Arrian makes no mention of a second appeal for aid from Parmenio.
[66]: In 479 B.C.
[67]: Cf. Herodotus, viii. 47.
[68]: This naphtha and the first whether-clause, have fallen out of the text.
[69]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iii. 16, 7. A talent’s weight was something over fifty pounds.
[70]: Arrian (Anab. iii. 18, 1f.) speaks only of a forced march through the mountains.
[71]: In Persepolis.
[72]: So Arrian, Anab. iii. 18. 11 f., where there is none of Plutarch’s romance. For this, cf. Diodorus, xvii. 72; Curtius, v. 7, 1-7.
[73]: In the spring of 330 B.C.
[74]: These details of the death of Dareius are not to be found in Arrian (Anab. iii. 21 fin.), but in Curtius (v. 13, 28) and Diodorus (xvii. 73).
[75]: In the spring of 329 B.C. Cf. Arrian, Anab. iii. 30, 5; iv. 7, 3 ff.
[76]: To Persepolis, with orders that it should be buried in the royal sepulchre (Arrian, Anab. iii. 22, 1).
[77]: In the early autumn of 330 B.C.
[78]: Prostration on the ground before a great personage, a peculiarly Persian custom.
[79]: In the late autumn of 330 B.C.
[80]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iii. 26.
[81]: During the campaign of 328 B.C., at Samarkand, in Sogdiana. Cf. Arrian, Anab. iv. 8 f.
[82]: Cf. chapter xvi. 5.
[83]: Cf. chapters xxvii. f.
[84]: Verse 683 (Kirchhoff).
[85]: Cf. chapter 50.2 f.
[86]: Olynthus, which had been destroyed by Philip in 347 B.C.
[87]: An iambic trimeter from an unknown play of Euripides (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2 p. 652).
[88]: Bacchae, 260 (Kirchhoff).
[89]: A proverb in hexameter verse, sometimes attributed to Callimachus. Cf. the Nicias, xi. 3; Morals, p. 479a.
[90]: Achilles to Hector, Iliad, xxi. 107.
[91]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. iv. 12.
[92]: The conspiracy of the pages (Arrian, Anab. iv. 13).
[93]: Cf.Arrian, Anab. iv. 14, 3 f., where other accounts still are mentioned.
[94]: The spring of 327 B.C.
[95]: Cf. chapter xxxvii. 4.
[96]: In the late spring of 327 B.C.
[97]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. v. 2, 1-3.
[98]: See Arrian, Anab. v. 9-19. It was in the spring of 326 B.C.
[99]: Six feet and three inches.
[100]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. v. 19, 4 f.
[101]: Alexander carried his conquests from the Indus to the Hyphasis (Arrian, Anab. v. 25), subduing the Punjab. It was now September, 326 B.C.
[102]: Hydaspes, Acesines, and Indus (Arrian, Anab. vi. 1).
[103]: Leonnatus, according to Arrian, Anab. vi. 10, 2.
[104]: In midsummer of 325 B.C.
[105]: It is Cilluta in Arrian (Anab. vi. 19, 3).
[106]: According to Arrian (Anab. vi. 28, 1 f), this bacchanalian procession through Carmania rests on no credible authority.
[107]: It was after his return to Persepolis that this desire seized him (Arrian, Anab. vii. 1, 1).
[108]: Early in 324 B.C.
[109]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. vi. 29, 4-8.
[110]: The self-sacrifice of Calanus is narrated by Arrian (Anab. vii. 3).
[111]: Augustus Caesar.
[112]: The chous, or pitcher, held about three quarts.
[113]: Alexander also paid the debts of all his soldiers, amounting to 20,000 talents (Arrian, Anab. vii. 5, 1-3), unless this is the donation which Plutarch has here erroneously connected with the great wedding feast. Cf. Athenaeus, xii. pp. 538 ff.
[114]: Cf. chapter xlvii. 3.
[115]: The account of the quarrel between Alexander and the Macedonians in Arrian (Anab. vii. 8Ð11) differs materially from that of Plutarch.
[116]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. vii. 12.
[117]: Arrian finds great diversity in the accounts of Alexander’s displays of grief at Hephaestion’s death (Anab. vii. 14).
[118]: According to Arrian (Anab. vii. 16, 5), the Chaldaeans besought Alexander in person to suspend his march to Babylon. It was in the spring of 323 B.C.
[119]: Other predictions of Alexander’s death are given in Arrian (Anab. vii. 18, 22, and 24).
[120]: Cf. Arrian, Anab. vii. 25.
[121]: They are given also by Arrian (Anab. vii. 25).
[122]: June 2, 323 B.C.
[123]: June 13, 323 B.C.
[124]: Arrian, Anab. vii. 28.