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Arrlan’s Anabasis of Alexander and Indica
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General SummaryThe subjection of the Greek city-states by Philip of Macedonia was only the first stage of a comprehensive scheme of conquest which that ambitious monarch entertained. At a Panhellenic council held at Corinth shortly after the battle of Chæronea, Philip announced his resolve to free the Greek cities of Asia and to lead an army against Persia in retaliation for the expedition of Xerxes, a century and a half before. Fate, however, had destined that this gigantic task should be achieved by another and even greater man. The murder of Philip in the summer of 336 B. C. placed his young son Alexander on the throne of Macedonia. After two years spent in quelling revolts in Thrace and Greece, Alexander was ready to begin his marvelous career as the conqueror of the East. For the history of his conquests we are fortunate in possessing the work of Arrian, one of the most authentic and accurate of Greek historical compositions. Though Arrian wrote in the second century of our era, he used the best of contemporary records in compiling his narrative. The chief sources upon which he relied were the lives of Alexander by Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals, and by Aristobulus, who also served under the Macedonian monarch. Arrian’s admirable biography is ample compensation for the loss of these two works.
Historical SummaryIn the spring of 334 B. C., Alexander crossed the Hellespont and invaded Asia Minor. We are told that when his army reached the site of Troy, Alexander delayed the advance to visit the citadel of Ilium and to place a garland upon the tomb of fleet-footed Achilles. The defeat of the Persian satraps at the river Granicus cleared out of Alexander’s way the only force which was to oppose his progress in Asia Minor. Within a year from the crossing of the Hellespont, all Asia Minor lay at the conqueror’s feet. Early in 333 B. C., Alexander advanced to Gordium, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia.
Chapter XIII
Exploits of Alexander the Great1
52. The Gordian Knot1
When Alexander arrived at Gordium, he was seized with an ardent desire to go up into the citadel, which contained the palace of Gordius and his son Midas. He was also desirous of seeing the wagon of Gordius and the cord of the yoke of this wagon. . . . The following saying was current, that whosoever could loosen the cord of the yoke of this wagon was destined to gain the rule of Asia. The cord was made of cornel bark, and neither end nor beginning to it could be seen.
It is said by some that when Alexander could find out no way to loosen the cord and yet was unwilling to allow it to remain unloosened, lest this should exercise some disturbing influence upon the multitude, he struck it with his sword. He then cut it through and said that it had been loosened. But Aristobulus says that he pulled out the pin of the wagon-pole, which was a wooden peg driven right through it, holding the cord together. Having done this, he drew out the yoke from the wagon-pole. How Alexander performed the feat in connection with this cord, I cannot affirm with confidence. At any rate both he and his troops departed from the wagon as if the oracular prediction concerning the loosening of the cord had been fulfilled.
Moreover, that very night, the thunder and lightning were signs of its fulfillment; and for this reason Alexander offered sacrifice on the following day to the gods who had revealed the signs and the way to loosen the cord.
1 , translated by E. J. Chinock. London, 1893. George Bell and Sons.
1 Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, ii, 3.
Chicago: E. J. Chinock, trans., Arrlan’s Anabasis of Alexander and Indica in Readings in Early European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1926), 139–140. Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=HCC83ALBJQG9NQ2.
MLA: . Arrlan’s Anabasis of Alexander and Indica, translted by E. J. Chinock, in Readings in Early European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, Ginn and Company, 1926, pp. 139–140. Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=HCC83ALBJQG9NQ2.
Harvard: (trans.), Arrlan’s Anabasis of Alexander and Indica. cited in 1926, Readings in Early European History, ed. , Ginn and Company, Boston, pp.139–140. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=HCC83ALBJQG9NQ2.
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