The Anabasis of Alexander (The History of the Wars and Conquests of Alexander the Great)
". . . whoever I may be, this I know about myself, that there is no need for me to assert my name, for it is not unknown to men; nor is it needful for me to say what my native land and family are, or if I have held any public office in my own country. But this I do assert, that this historical work is and has been from my youth up, in place of native land, family, and public offices to me; and for this reason I do not deem myself unworthy to rank among the first authors in the Greek language, if Alexander indeed is among the first in arms."
(Arrian, Anabasis, I, xii.)
from the PREFACE:
In the following Translation I have tried to give as literal a rendering of the Greek text as I could without transgressing the idioms of our own language. My theory of the duty of a Translator is, to give the ipsissima verba of his Author as nearly as possible, and not put into his mouth words which he never used, under the mistaken notion of improving his diction or his way of stating his case. It is a comparatively easy thing to give a paraphrase of a foreign work, presenting the general drift of the original; but no one, unless he has himself tried it, can understand the difficulty of translating a classical Author correctly without omission or mutilation.
In the Commentary which I have compiled, continual reference has been made to the other extant authorities on the history of Alexander, such as Diodorus, Plutarch, Curtius, Justin, and Aelian; so that I think I may safely assert that, taking the Translation and the Notes together, the book forms a complete history of Alexander’s reign. Much geographical and other material has also been gathered from Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and Ammianus; and the allusions to the places which are also mentioned in the Old Testament are given from the Hebrew.
CONTENTS
Book I
Early years of Alexander’s reign (336–334 B.C.), Alexander’s sack of Thebes in 335 and the battle of the Granicus in summer 334 B.C.
Book II
The campaign and battle of Issus (333 B.C.) and the sieges of Tyre and Gaza (332 B.C.). The defeat of King Darius of Persia and how Alexander treated Darius’s family after his death. The trial of the Gordian Knot.
Book III
Alexander in Egypt, his visit to the oracle of Zeus-Ammon at Siwah (winter 332/331 B.C.), before turning to the battle of Gaugamela and defeat of Darius III (331 B.C.). Alexander’s pursuit of Darius through northern Iran, the revolt of the pretender Bessus, and the deaths of Philotas and Parmenion (331-329 B.C.).
Book IV
The long Sogdian campaign of 329-327 B.C. against Bessus, Spitamenes, and Oxyartes, and the early stages of the campaigns in the Punjab (327-326 B.C.). Arrian collects many of the most notorious stories tending to Alexander’s discredit in a single apologetic digression (the killing of Cleitus, the proskynesis affair, the pages’ conspiracy and the death of Callisthenes).
Book V
The Indian campaign of 326 B.C., Alexander’s arrival at Nysa, the battle with Porus at the Hydaspes river, and the decision at the Hyphasis not to push on further into India.
Book VI
The journey down the Indus to the Indian Ocean (326-325 B.C.), the increasingly brutal violence inflicted on the local inhabitants by the Macedonians en route (notably at the Malli town), and the crossing of the Gedrosian Desert (325-324 B.C.).
Book VII
The events of Alexander’s final year, the Susa marriages, the Opis mutiny, the multiple predictions and omens of Alexander’s own death, the death of Hephaestion, and Alexander’s own death (324-323 B.C.). Speculation about how Alexander died, and whether it was by poisoning or something else.
