Diodorus Siculus, Library

The Seventeenth Book of Diodorus: in Two Parts

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LXI. Dareius was a clever strategist. He took advantage of the great cloud of dust and did not withdraw to the rear like the other barbarians, but swinging in the opposite direction and covering his movement by the dust, got away safely himself and brought all his troops into villages which lay behind the Macedonian position.¹ [2] Finally all the Persians had fled, and as the Macedonians kept slaughtering the stragglers, before long the whole region in which the battle had taken place was covered with dead. [3] On the Persian side in the battle fell, cavalry and infantry together, more than ninety thousand.² About five hundred of the Macedonians were killed and there were very many wounded.³ Of the most prominent group of commanders, Hephaestion was wounded with a spear thrust in the arm; he had commanded the bodyguards.⁴ Perdiccas and Coenus, of the general's group, were also wounded, so also Menidas and others of the higher commanders.⁵

That was the outcome of the battle near Arbela.

¹ Diodorus is confused as to Dareius's movements after the battle, perhaps from a confusion of the Greater and the Lesser Zab. He placed the battle at Arbela (chap. 53.4), which lies between the two rivers. If Dareius made his escape up the valley of the Greater Zab, to the north, he would have moved into the Macedonian rear. Actually, of course, the battle took place at Gaugamela, in the plain north of the Greater Zab, and Dareius fled to the south to Arbela, escaping up the valley of the Lesser Zab (Curtius 4.16.8; Arrian 3.15.4-5). Diodorus's repeated reference to the dust cloud may be an attempt to cover what he felt to be an inherent improbability. It is true that, accidentally or intentionally, dust played a part in many ancient battles (cp. E. Echols, Classical Journal, 47 (1952), 285-288).

² This figure is given variously as 40,000 (Curtius 4.16.26) and 300,000 (Arrian 3.15.6). The writer of P. Oxyrhynchus 1798 gives a total of 53,000.

³ The Macedonian casualties are given variously as 100 (Arrian 3.15.6), 300 (Curtius 4.16.26), and 1000 foot and 200 horse (P. Oxyrhynchus 1798).

⁴ Curtius 4.16.32; Arrian 3.15.2. The meaning of this designation of Hephaestion is obscure. He did not command the footguards, the hupaspistai, for Nicanor, Parmenion's son, was still their commander in 330 (Arrian 3.21.8) and only died later in that year (Arrian 3.25.4). The small group of bodyguards proper had no commander, and it is quite uncertain when Hephaestion became a member. He is first so called in 325 (Arrian 6.28.4) and is conspicuously not so called in 328 (Arrian 4.12.6; but Arrian's usage is not consistent, cp. Arrian 4.24.10). He was presumably not a bodyguard in 330 when he and Cleitus divided Philotas's command of the Companion Cavalry. This seems to exclude the translation: "fighting first among the bodyguards."

⁵ Curtius 4.16.32. Menidas had commanded a cavalry unit on the extreme right (Arrian 3.12.3).

This text is based on the following book(s):
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.
OCLC: 24758311
ISBN: 0674994132, 0674994221, 0674994396, 0674994280, 0674994647

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