The Anabasis of Alexander/Book I/Chapter XI

by Arrian

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CHAPTER XI.

Alexander Crosses the Hellespont and Visits Troy.

Having settled these affairs, he returned into Macedonia. He then offered to the Olympian Zeus the sacrifice which had been instituted by Archelaus,^[1] and had been customary up to that time; and he celebrated the public contest of the Olympic games at Aegae.^[2] It is said that he also held a public contest in honour of the Muses. At this time it was reported that the statue of Orpheus, son of Oeagrus the Thracian, which was in Pieris,^[3] sweated incessantly.^[4] Various were the explanations of this prodigy given by the soothsayers; but Aristander,^[5] a man of Telmissus, a soothsayer, bade Alexander take courage; for he said it was evident from this that there would be much labour for the epic and lyric poets, and for the writers of odes, to compose and sing about Alexander and his achievements.

(B.C. 334.) At the beginning of the spring he marched towards the Hellespont, entrusting the affairs of Macedonia and Greece to Antipater. He led not much above 30,000 infantry together with light-armed troops and archers, and more than 5,000 cavalry. ^[6] His march was past the lake Cercinitis,^[7] towards Amphipolis and the mouths of the river Strymon. Having crossed this river he passed by the Pangaean mountain,^[8] along the road leading to Abdera and Maronea, Grecian cities built on the coast. Thence he arrived at the river Hebrus,^[9] and easily crossed it. Thence he proceeded through Paetica to the river Melas, having crossed which he arrived at Sestus, in twenty days altogether from the time of his starting from home. When he came to Elaēus he offered sacrifice to Protesilaus upon the tomb of that hero, both for other reasons and because Protesilaus seemed to have been the first of the Greeks who took part with Agamemnon in the expedition to Ilium to disembark in Asia. The design of this sacrifice was, that his disembarking in Asia might be more fortunate than that of Protesilaus had been.^[10] He then committed to Parmenio the duty of conveying the cavalry and the greater part of the infantry from Sestus to Abydus; and they were transported in 160 triremes, besides many trading vessels.^[11] The prevailing account is, that Alexander started from Elaeus and put into the Port of Achaeans,^[12] that with his own hand he steered the general's ship across, and that when he was about the middle of the channel of the Hellespont he sacrificed a bull to Poseidon and the Nereids, and poured forth a libation to them into the sea from a golden goblet. They say also that he was the first man to step out of the ship in full armour on the land of Asia,^[13] and that he erected altars to Zeus, the protector of people landing, to Athena, and to Heracles, at the place in Europe whence he started, and at the place in Asia where he disembarked. It is also said that he went up to Ilium and offered sacrifice to the Trojan Athena; that he setup his own panoply in the temple as a votive offering, and in exchange for it took away some of the consecrated arms which had been preserved from the time of the Trojan war. These arms were said to have been carried in front of him into the battles by the shield-bearing guards. A report also prevails that he offered sacrifice to Priam upon the altar of Zeus the household god, deprecating the wrath of Priam against the progeny of Neoptolemus, from whom Alexander himself derived his origin.

1. Archelaus was king of Macedonia from B.C. 413-399. He improved the internal arrangements of his kingdom, and patronised art and literature. He induced the tragic poets, Euripides and Agathon, as well as the epic poet Choerilus, to visit him; and treated Euripides especially with favour. He also invited Socrates, who declined the invitation.
2. Aegae, or Edessa, was the earlier capital of Macedonia, and the burial place of its kings. Philip was murdered here, B.C. 336.
3. A narrow strip of land in Macedonia, between the mouths of the Haliaomon and Penēus, the reputed home of Orpheus and the Muses.
4. Cf. Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 1284; Livy, xxii. i.
5. This man was the most noted soothsayer of his time. Telmissus was a city of Caria, celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants in divination. Cf. Arrian (Anab. i. 25, ii. 18, iii. 2, iii. 7, iii. 15, iv. 4, iv. 15); Herodotus, i. 78; and Cicero (De Divinatione, i. 41)
6. Diodorus (xvii. 17) says that there were 30,000 infantry and 4,500 cavalry. He gives the numbers in the different brigades as well as the names of the commanders. Plutarch (Life of Alexander, 15) says that the lowest numbers recorded were 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry; and the highest, 34,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry.
7. This lake is near the mouth of the Strymon. It is called Prasias by Herodotus (v. 16). Its present name is Tak-hyno.
8. This mountain is now called Pirnari. Xerxes took the same route when marching into Greece. See Herodotus, v. 16, vii; 112; Aeschylus (Persae, 494); Euripides (Rhesus, 922, 972).
9. Now called Maritza. See Theocritus, vii. 110.
10. Cf. Homer (Iliad, ii. 701); Ovid (Epistolae Heroidum, xiii. 93); Herodotus (ix. 116).
11. The Athenians supplied twenty ships of war. See Diodorus, xvii. 22.
12. A landing-place in the north-west of Troas, near Cape Sigaeum.
13. Cf. Diodorus, xvii. 17; Justin, xi. 5.